Author: BJW Woods

OK so I’ve taken hiatus from the last few Filthy Lie assignments but that’s because I’ve been busy doing a whole lot of nuthin’.

Truth be told, I spent Friday helping a friend move and then all day Saturday and most of this morning trying to combat a computer virus. My browser, no matter what URL I’d type into the address bar, was redirecting me to some funky search site and there wasn’t much I could do about it. But I finally managed to be rid of that problem with the help of AdAware and SpyBot Search & Destroy.

Now that my browser is all better, I went over to see the latest dish. The last good assignment IMHO, was this one, and of all the contributions, I have to say that this one took the cake….

Dr. Phat Tony reporting on Evil Glenn’s Fourth Celebration: Cat Steaks and Puppy Rockets galore

I had a boring weekend. Not much to tell.

Went out Friday night, got really really really wet since it rained all damned night. W ent to a luncheon on Saturday. Went to my mom’s and visited with my nephew and had a beer with my sis and her hubby. Went home and haven’t left the house since Sat. evening. Don’t care. Don’t want to do much of anything.

I did have a weird dream, though. Madonna had flown into the states, it was the day before the Oscars. She and I were in my parents’ basement (?) and had sat down to talk while I paged through some glossy magazine. Her husband, Guy, was in the other room with a captive audience. He was dressed all in black spandex and looked oddly like a Sprocket. He was showing off his new ’stick’. It was a long metal pole that had a shorter metal pole strung to the end of it, sort of like how tent poles are made, with elastic rope inside them. The end of the short part had a jump ring on it and Guy would do a little leap and a jig, fling the pole into the air and catch it and then he waved the pole toward his head and stuck his tongue out. He had a pierced tongue and the jump ring would attach to the piercing and then he would pull on the pole until the elastic rope was stretched all the way. Then he would let go of it and the ring would detatch from his tongue and he tossed the pole into the air again and then caught it (I suppose you had to be there, it’s sort of weird to try and explain). Everyone watching him was very amused, applauding and hooting. I didn’t know all these people, nor did I seem to care where they came from. Madonna pretended not to notice and I was still flipping through the magazine. I stopped on a page that had a picture of Jean-Paul Gaultier on it, and I was counting the wrinkles from the top of his head to his brow. Madonna told me she had missed me and then started to pout and her eyes got misty. She then got up and started pacing. She wouldn’t stop. We talked about the weather and then she casually pointed out that her little brother Ryan could kill a person in 25 seconds. I asked her how she knew that (why didn’t I ask her who the hell Ryan was? I didn’t know she had a brother by that name). She flinched and then said “We have to go now, the kids want to see their Grandpa.”

Other posts on this day:

“Yeah, uh…lemme get summa that mushu pork…what? Yes, and some of that flied lice, thanks. Hang on. Hey Dick, d’you want anything?”

I just got home a couple hours ago, one of my girlfriends and I went to celebrate my birthday with a belated dinner at Leeann Chin, in downtown St. Paul at the old Union Depot. They have the best Peking chicken. Beautiful place for dinner. I told her I would have been happy going to Burger King and then out for a drinkie poo or two. It’s a little fancy, a bit more pretense and linen table dressings than I require, but nonetheless delightful.

Lord help me, I’m 28 YEARS OLD! I hope my mother isn’t reading this, I’d hate to put her in a bad mood, just in time for Easter. Speaking of Easter, did anyone catch the Jesus miniseries on CBS? It was on Sunday and finished last night. I thought it was pretty good. I am usually not a fan of made for tv productions, but I was moved. I also now think Jeremy Sisto is the hottest thing next to my toaster! (he takes 2nd billing, to Craig Kilborn yum yjm.

Now I’m beat and getting ready for bed, after a long day at work. BUT FIRST!

Update

Just for a change of pace, I was reading the SkyWatch segment of my local paper this morning. (I usually only read the front, entertainment news, and local sections). I got jipped, I tell ya, and this ain’t the first time! I was happily reading about the fact that “Ursa Major is highly visible this time of year, even during the day except that in some parts of Minnesota, due to the urban light pollution and sunshine you can’t realy see it at all. At night, you can only see tail end of it…” and that’s all I got! The story said it continues on page 2B but on 2B there is only a bunch of other stuff, and ads! Damned paper! I had to go read the rest of the article online and boy, that just frosts my hide, ’cause I was trying to read the story on the bus.

It’s not a secret anymore
The lamest new product line to come out since I don’t-know-what. Proctor & Gamble has come out with three new different types of Secret anti-perspirant & deodorant. You can choose from ‘optimist’, ‘ambitious’, and ‘genuine’. I don’t know which one smells better but I would hope that if one were wearing it, others couldn’t immediately pen you as ‘being’ one or the other. None of them really fits me. I had to go check out their site to see if they had a ‘crazy ugly bitch’ or ‘the glass is half empty’ variety, but alas, I came away disappointed. Doubly so. Recently, the company had put on a Secret to Self-Esteem symposium, to encourage girls to become strong women. They talk about how healthy self-esteem helps build confidence, pride and strength, and discussed body image, healthy relationships, stress management and goal setting. Next thing they’ll talk about, I expect: ‘Manage living vicariously through your unfaithful, beer-guzzling, golf addict, secretary-bonking husband! Put on a snappy backyard bar-b-que at the last minute, just for the sake of impressing his boss and the Joneses, keeping a smile pasted to your mug all the while!’

Minnesota, home of fugitive kidnappers!
What a pleasant place live, I tell ya. This guy forced the Mall of America (or as us local yokels call it, the Mega Mall) to close down last month and lose millions of dollars worth of business, because he was leading the police on a wild goose chase. He had been eluding them since November, which is when he escaped prison, where he was being held on assault and weapons charges. In March, the cops were willing to plea-bargain his punishment down to 5 years maximum in prison if he would have turned himself in THEN. But noooo, he had to go on a wild car-stealing spree, and then kidnap that poor girl from Nebraska. Now he’s lookin’ at a very long term of anal service. Way to go Tony! Ya jerk. You got what you deserved.

Speaking of freaky Minnesotans,
I have been staying up late to catch the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. God. He is sooo damned clever and witty and adorable. I’ve been following his career since he did The Daily Show a few years back and I especially loved the commericals he did for the show and the ‘5 Questions’ that they used to have on it. In case you couldn’t already tell, I’m a big fan. I once went so far as writing him a fan letter and I even downloaded the Comedy Central screensaver of him dancing around. I think he used to also be the host of Short Attention Span Theater, which was a show that Comedy Central put out back when the channel debuted on cable tv. For the record, I do like Jon Stewart too but I don’t have cable right now (whaaaahhh) so I don’t get to see him anymore!

Would you pay $164.00 for this?
I could barely look at it. casketfurniture.com says they “have created a unique line of furniture that can be used as a casket at the time of need. Using quality woods and veneers we’ve come up with a practical solution to the high cost of caskets. Rather then spending thousands of dollars and using the casket once you can use the piece of fine casket furniture for many years to come.” […so after you use it once, you keep it and you do WHAT with your dearly departed? -bj] and “We are happy to offer free shipping to all of our North American customers.” Well, hell, if you’re gonna pull your truck up on my street and haul a damned CASKET up the sidewalk to my house, I’d BETTER not have to pay for it!

The brook stops babbling
Just got an email TODAY from Themestream, saying they will close its doors April 13. They also say that it is very unlikely that they’ll be able to pay any other creditors and contributors. Oh, by the way, you have until April 12, 2001 (TODAY!) to download your articles if you don’t have local copies.

I stopped contributing a long time ago, ’cause I felt cheated, when they changed all the topic categories on me. Did anyone notice back then, how they threatened to delete your content if you didn’t move all your articles to their new categories (which all sucked, I couldn’t possibly re-categorize my pieces any better than they already had been)! bastards.

In hopes of receiving a teeny weeny bit of service, I wrote them to indicate my wishes for the money my content earned, and perhaps to get a teeny weeny bit of customer service. Ha. I get more of a f**@ing pleasant sensation from my grumpy ass bus driver every morning at rush hour.

Here is the response I got:

=============

Due to the adverse business climate, the Themestream web service closed its doors effective April 13, 2001. The entire Themestream staff has been let go.

Additional information may be posted on the Themestream website at http://www.themestream.com/ from time to time as new information becomes available.

Please check the website to see if it provides an answer to your inquiry. If not, you may reply to mailto:mailto:answers@themestream.com. However, please do not expect an immediate reply since we no longer have a customer support staff.

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
Themestream Inc

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 20:00:01 -0500From: “day lee”

To: questions@themestream.com

Subject: re: closing down

I want my money. If there is any.Please send the check to:

12525 XX Ave. South., Apt. 6
South St. Paul MN 55075

Also, even though authors SHOULD have the common sense to protect themselves by backing up their articles prior to all of this, I think it’s crappy that you only allow them until TOMORROW to do so.

Have a nice day.

B. Woods

This is kind of a cool site: 1000journals. It’s an exhaustive look into journals that have been found by people, where the journals have been, what the people were up to and about their lives. Now, I’ve kept myself many a journal over the years, but for the past two years I have done it online. I found this to be pretty interesting, if you are the sort of person who’d enjoy reading another’s journal. Check it out.

Alright, I’m outta here, people… toodles!

Same day, different year..

Other posts on this day:

All your dumb snapshots are belong to us.

Did you notice that nearly everytime the news media have captured George W. Bush’s image–ever since the presidential campaigns–that he looks absurd? OMIGOD, I just asked the stupidest question, didn’t I? That bastard was born absurd. My new hobby is collecting these such images and post a new dumb snap of George Dubya with every entry, if that’s possible. I started yesterday, in case you didn’t already notice.

The Leonard Maltin of websites?
Blog You! is A handy reference to blogs. Found it quite useful and also an entertaining break from the day. I like how they use the Keifer Sutherland as a rating tool.

Doesn’t ANYONE remember their Shakespeare?
Tonight I was looking at Regis Philbin while he asks this woman which play was “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” from? How fucking easy could that get? “Oh, I need ta use my lifeline, Reeg, I gotta call my brother Bob. Yah, dat’s what Ah’ll do. Yah.” It was Macbeth, you stupid bitch. You just lost out on an extra $25k.

My future boyfriend?
I have found a new toy to play with while I’m at work: dack.com’s web economy bullshit generator. This guy is from Minneapolis and ‘likes to golf, cocktail, and watch movies…and in that order’. I could give two squats about golf. However, I like his lists of ’stuff that sucks’ and the ‘booze’ section is pretty useful. I happen to have his same taste in movies too, which surprises me, since most guys I know have the tendancy to go for either the really sci-fi or terribly low-brow in-your-face awful comedy, when it comes to flicks.

Okay…I have to go finish watching David Letterman and get the clothes out of the dryer now.

Happy friggin’ Easter, and all that jazz.

Same day, different year..

Other posts on this day:

• Just an outloud observation – 2003

Yeah, well I’m in debt again…whaddya gonna do, right? I mean is there anyone who isn’t a little bit in the hole?

I found out one of my girlfriends was having a birthday party a couple of weeks ago and didn’t get invited.

Oh well…I guess there was nothing to be done about it.

Truthfully, I had this urge earlier, to go crash it, and be all, “Hi, remember me? How is the party going, yeah the one you didn’t invite me to…yeah um, anyway I just came by to get get my vacuum cleaner back and the ten bucks you owe me.”

Color me bitter, I guess…

More to come later, but for now I’m hittin’ the sack.

Crap.

NBC is causing me to procrastinate. I’m sure they’d love to hear that. Dateline had me glued to the couch and then even the blasted local news. Heaven help me, I have no time tonight to be sittin’ in front of the toob.

Um yeah. Sunday was Earth Day. Happy belated Earth Day. Didn’t go out with much of a bang at my house, since it was cleaning and washing day.

Saudi Arabia banned Pokemon?, At least that’s what Conan said. He said it was because of a conspiracy to overthrow some gov’t thing. I didn’t catch all of it but damn, NBC is even interferring with my blog. Double crap.

I felt kinda sick today, from the time I got off work until about an hour ago. I’m sure it was what I ate today. That and diet Coke. I used to drink about 3 cans a day for about 6 years. Since December I have only been drinking iced tea or milk with my meals. I drink one big 16 oz cup of coffee per day plus water all day. So yesterday and today, just because I had no iced tea available, I drank two cans of diet Coke. Two on Monday, two today. I have just endured the most awful abdominal pains tonight and I’m convinced it was the Coke. That shit will give anyone instant gas problems.

Plus my stomach felt like crap too. For lunch, I usually have soup from the deli in my building or I bring a salad from home. The soup was already gone by the time I got to the store so I settled for one of these. Don’t EVER fuckin’ eat the Santa Fe Rice & Beans dish w/vegetables. I about died today. I was sure it wasn’t an appendix problem, ’cause they say the pain is on a certain side of the body, whereas this was in the middle. Plus, appendicitis is accompanied by a fever. Or so I read somewhere. I have this big book of women’s health crap that I got from the Rosie O’Donnel website (for free) so I should double check on that.

Then I get downtown tonight after work and as I’m waiting for the bus, it starts to POUR. Just buckets. So I head for the bus station shelter and dig a book out from my bag and begin to read. The next thing you know, a whole pack of loud-ass thug types comes waltzing in to throw dice, smoke weed and holler at the tops of their lungs, about what in particular? Who knows. All I know is it pissed me off that people can’t even wait for a bus in a room and have it be at a certain level of quiet. This was a TOTAL invasion. And as for the weed, do that shit at home, like the rest of us! So I had to go stand outside and get soaked. That’s when the abdominal pains came shooting in, every few minutes or so. I was sooo ready to strangle someone. Then this complete jerkface guy comes up to me, out of NOWHERE, and starts chatting me up. I was just about to go postal at that point. I ain’t tryin’ to be sociable with no damn body at no damned bus stop. fuck. the icing on my friggin’ cake. Don’t even get me started on the idiot girl on the bus with her Range Rover-sized stroller and big mouth. I’m positive she was about 17 and she was telling her girlfriends about how her high school class was playing the stock market. “We were doing it online, and with real money!” She says, with enthusiasm. Well of course you were doing it with real money, you bimbo. I can see it now: Ameritrade is now accepting Monopoly Bucks!
ok…on to business

The most Bizarre record album covers of all time. Here you’ll find “…images of strange & beautiful vinyl record sleeves from all times & places.” Two thumbs up to the creative and original categorization! I love it.

Dot com laid-off workers turning to porn for cash
High tech-blessed geeks now succumb to working for online porn industry, getting paid to digitally cover nipples for porn site home pages and other fun stuff. The LA Times says “Hustler is looking to dispossess dot-com types to beef up its Internet enterprise, a “cash cow” that will be expanded from 60 to 75 employees in the next six months.” and Larry Flynt is expecting them “to play a big role because we’ll be looking for the highest quality people”. Ah, boys, it can’t get better than this. Go after your dream techie job and go home happy every night too. Light up a smoke.

and speaking of smoke…

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire
I’m surprised this wasn’t covered on my local news station on t.v.The Minnesota group of these kids were downtown St. Paul this morning, standing on the corner in front of the Radisson Inn, holding up their big ‘TM’ sign and hollering and going “Whoooo!”. Every time cars went by. All these kids were about 16 and white, and well, not very big or scary looking. I had a hunch they wouldn’t last very long, since they were standing right across the street from the area of town where thugs and other assorted creepy individuals tend to gather, to catch a bus or to smoke a roach or fight with ‘they baby daddy’ or generally cause a commotion. A few menacing-looking young urban fellows came by and blew smoke in their faces. It was sort of funny and I couldn’t stay and observe too long because my bus had pulled up.

The Dalai Lama to visit Twin Cities,
Or so I heard. The Tibetan community here is very excited. OK Tibetan people–you can stop shouting and clapping now!

*ahem*

Unruly’ sisters force plane to land
‘Unruly’ my ass! I saw the video of these two and uh, they appeared to be beyond incorrigable. Here’s an idea! Get drunk on a plane to China and start arguing with your sister, who is just as mean-tempered as you. Real smart. China’s what–like a 10-hour flight from CA, right? That plane had to turn around HALFWAY through the trip. I’d have been pissed. The news said the other passengers were somewhat compensated with a free night’s hotel stay and a ‘glacier tour’. If I was on the flight with these bitches, I would have demanded more than that. Say buhh bye to your big modeling career dreams, chickies. Dumb fucks.

Wednesday.

Worst day at work.

Just plain crazy. Should rename that joint to “The Zoo”. Why is it that the day you are determined to stay on schedule and be extra productive, people seem to know, and take advantage of you?

I must have gotten at least six calls that I could have easily just bounced into my voice mail, to get to later, by the touch of a button, but NOOOOOO. Today is the day my phone isn’t acting right. I dialed a number for a vendor in Minneapolis and was told by a recording that “The number, xyz-xyzz has been disconnected or is not in service” Eh?  The number that the recorded chick gave me isn’t EVEN THE NUMBER I DIALED!! mmmkay. Time to stop what I’m doing for another interruption. Well, at least I got a new phone out of the deal.

Looking back, I laugh at myself ’cause it wasn’t really that bad a day, after all, it did go along pretty quickly, and that’s all that really matters.

I am sooooo sleepy even as I type this, and although I had lots planned to share tonite, I’m gonna have to hit the hay.  I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in the morning plus I haven’t packed my lunch or planned an outfit for tomorrow, either. I sure as heck am not gonna go do that now, since I’m in no condition to, so I will do that junk in the a.m.

Oh, meohmy…. It’s waaaaaay past my bedtime.

Same day, different year..

Other posts on this day:

• You are the weakest link, goodbye. – 2001

Monday has come and gone.

Dilemmas have been fretted about and resolved.

The sun has risen and set…

and I am STILL without a job that I like AND the cajones to go out and get a better one! That’s right, folks, the era of the independent but utterly squeamish and softhearted  careerwoman is here!

I’m short on the green stuff. The thing that makes the world go ’round. The paper that American dreams are based on.

This, I have figured, is what I NEED. It’s been decided, as of about a month ago, that I was going to start to get my skills noticed by coming out with an idea for a business–a plan, if you will, to do more than just toot my own horn. To find and establish my market, or at least a customer base of some kind.

Let me tell you business is TOUGH. You wanna try to get customers? Word of mouth is simply one of the best ways, in my area of business, to do just that. If you don’t have a customer base, who can testify to your product’s or service’s quality and worth, and how in the heck are you gonna be able to prove yourself? It’s very hard, because in this business, the work I’m offering to do for a fee can be done by people themselves. There’s no value added to offering a service or product that people can already do themselves.

It’s not like I can’t FIND a market, there is a market for my business, although small, and with a shell that’s tougher to crack than a tortise’s–But nonetheless, I am currently trying to tap into it. How do I know about this market? Well, there are people (small business owners, mom & pop business operators and others who, yeah, if they sat down and thought about it, they could handle doing this task, why in heck should they PAY someone to do it for them…on the flip side of that, there are still people who would rather have it done professionally and are willing to pay reasonably for that service. However, without some major moolah, I don’t know how I can pull this off. Without it, I have to do all this ‘word of mouth’ stuff until I turn blue in the face and believe me, blue is not my color. I’m an Autumn.

But I digress.  Back to where I was.

Oh, yeah. I was just saying that there were people who are in need of my services, but unfortunately, most of these people are just the sort that would put me out of business. They are the ones who go out of their way to hire someone with a ‘degree in this or that or some such thing’ and don’t even give us people (some of whom are just naturally talented, and don’t need any framed certificate adorning our walls to make us feel good about ourselves in order to succeed.

O.K. This is where I get on my soapbox and go off in another entirely different tirade.  Alright.  In the last few years, all the way up to now, even, this is a common scenario: An employer is looking for someone to fill a job involving alot of creativity, given the choice between hiring the college grad w/the degree or the high school and/or trade school grad w/NO degree but w/work experience in that field, I bet you nine times our of ten, the employer will choose the college grad. Why? They go on the pure rationale that a person w/a degree in that field is automatically expected to be the better candidate, as opposed to one without the credentials. The one that doesn’t get the interview may have a better a handle on the job. Some or even lots of experience. But no credentials.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not biasing against the person with the degree, and not to say that a degree or schooling is a waste of time, or money, even. But that just goes to show you how these days, the hiring criteria used by employers nowadays just seems to largely benefit only those that have the advantage of a higher education under their belts.

Perhaps I’m a little bit wrong. I don’t have the statistics right on hand here, but I read somewhere about all kinds of successful people, some long dead and some still around, that did not go after a secondary education, ended up being just as successful or even more so, as those who did. Unfortunately, not only did these people find themselves having to bust their asses getting to where they are now, but they faced the same questions I am asking right here.

I am only justifying the nature of this ‘rooting for the underdog’, as it were, by saying that perhaps it’s more rewarding for those of us have-nots, that do end up getting the job, because it proves that a degree is not all that necessary. Especially if the so-called ‘less qualified candidate’ in question has a good work history and no evidence of being a slacker of some sort, and can also prove their worth. Just how they can prove it, however, is another dilemma, if this continues to be a major practice in the job market today.

Somebody back me up, here, dangit! Does anyone else agree with me that now, more than ever, freelancers, self-starters, entrepeneurs, volunteers, artists, writers and creative contributers of all sorts hang in the balance, hoping for the ideal gig?

Perhaps you are a person in this same hiring trap. All because of what is being termed credentialism, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Okay, so this normally gets posted on Sunday…sorry I’m a bit late this week. I did the same thing last week too! Geez. I should just start doing it on Mondays then eh? Well, here are my WEIRDEST search requests for the week…

has two penises
No, I don’t. I have none, actually, being that I’m an anatomically full-fledged female. But there’s this guy I wrote about back a few years ago, that does.

+divorcing crack addict
There are no crack addicts here, divorced and otherwise. I did do an entry about Fantasy headlines for 2006, wherein I foresaw Michael Jackson’s marriage to a crack-addicted Macauley Culkin but apparently someone was looking for advice on how to divorce a crack addict though. I’m guessing it would be easy. Why doncha just take away Tyrone’s crack? Done like dinner.

annette benning academy
The Annette Benning Academy of Acting: We teach you how to get nominated for Oscars and lose to the same actress twice in 5 years!

I got this from Mike… 

You are… It has to be YOUR way. When it isn’t, you panic, but hold your ground. You keep your gun pointed and trigger finger ready, but you’d never really hurt anyone. Though you like being tough, feeling control, you often enjoy blending in and being part of the ordinary human race. What Pulp Fiction Character Are You?