Note to Self.

I found this stuck in my shirt pocket. It must be from weeks ago (uhhh... I mean days. Yeah, that's it. I would never febreeze a shirt more than, like...say... twenty times). A plain pink sticky note, cryptically inscribed with a note to the future me.


Ummmmmmm. Right. I really can not fathom why past me would write myself this note. What might it possibly mean? Was I reminding myself to throw away the onion refuse, or to save it up? And twelve what? Maybe I was practicing for my cameo on Sesame Street: "Today's show brought to you by the letter B and The Number 12.

I'm a mystery wrapped in an enigma smothered in nacho cheese. Mmmmmmm. Nachos.

Steaming Piles of Excrement

I can't believe it's been so long. I am the worst blogger ever. But whatever. This post is of earth shattering importance so I am sure it was worth the wait.

The movie John Tucker Must Die, totally and completely, uncategorically, with out reprise from it's intense crappiness, sucked.

Had he kept his shirt on I would have turned it off immediately. But he did not.

Shocking, I know, but the boyfriend, not pictured here, loves the teenage movies. The Mean Girls, The Hot Chick, the Bring It On (and of course, the Bring It On, Again ). We haven't yet seen Bring It On: All or Nothing as of yet but trust me; it's inevitable. Why did this movie offend the Badger so very much? Let me explain. If these movies have any redeeming value at all, it is that they are intensely bad, and they know that. The Hot Chick knows it's not an after-school special. No one learns anything. Lindsay Lohan tries to learn things in Mean Girls but we laugh at her because in real life she has chosen to be a coked-up whore which makes everything she does hilarious. She's so stupid. Also, I love to watch cheerleaders get hit by buses/cars/falling fruit/security guards.

This movie gets a "steaming pile of excrement" rating, my lowest yet. Except for Spy Kids 3, which I had to watch TWICE on a transpacific flight. It gets "two steaming piles of excrement".

Blah blah blah following the rules.

There was this really annoying post on some other blog about bicyclists and how it is ÜBER important for bicyclists to follow the traffic laws to the T. Really, I mean, no one wants cyclists to go careening around a corner at fifty miles an hour, lose control and kill a bus load of children. Oh wait, that only works with SUVs.

I understand that cyclists should follow the rules of the road. Not just because it is simple SELF-PRESERVATION, but because we all have to share the road. If I run a red light and get hit, well, that was a pretty stupid move. But if there is no one coming, really, what does it matter? Unclear to this humble bicycle peddler, but it seems to strike a nerve with the general populace. So let me let you in on a secret world: Why do bicyclists get away with not waiting until the red lights change or doing a rolling stop at a four way? Who cares? If you get hit by a bicycle, your car gets scratched and the bicyclist goes to the hospital to have his legs put into casts. So shut up car drivers. If you want to run red lights then get a bike. Your fat ass could use some exercise.

Momentary Privations, Booming Repercussions. Well, not really. I'm fine. Thanks for asking.

Today my key drive died. Damn you key drive. Damn you to hell! I never realized how much I depend on that little piece of plastic magic. My work has decided that the internet is sexy ankles and restricts us like angry imams from accessing most sites that the majority of people would find normal. They cover our network with an oppressive burquah called "Netsense". Damn you too, Netsense. Long story slightly shorter, because of said electronic modesty, the only way to access my personal email is to run an email client from my handy key drive. Which died today.

So there was no email. I also keep my browser on the key drive, so that in the case of an emergency raid my honor would remain intact. I mean, what might happen if they found that I had been visiting such indecent sites such as Google Documents, Google Calendar, Yahoo Groups or moveon.org? Horror of horrors! Yes, I am of course admitting that here and now, but what ever. If you fire me for this then I will take the whole building with me (Attn FBI: this is sarcasm. do not release the hounds.) Having my browser on my key drive also meant NO INTERNET.

Gasp. Gasping Gasp. Gasp.

What the hell did we do before the internet? REALLY? WHAT DID WE DO? The mind wobbles.

My Be-trucked Avenger

Sometimes commuting in DC really sucks. Newsflash, I know. But this morning something totally awesome happened.

I, trudging though the rain, wishing I had remembered my umbrella, had just missed my bus at the crosswalk. Had I awoken thirty seconds earlier the bus would have been my chariot, my womb, my place to read the newspaper out of the rain. But I didn't, so the bus went wooshing by with an angry hiss, splashing water. I darted across traffic, risking my life. People who drive from Maryland into the district do not like pedestrians, it seems. They do enjoy honking.

There was some problem at the traffic light far ahead that was keeping traffic to a crawl. I ran after the bus. I almost caught it, and then it picked up speed and moved further away. A greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit, I continued the dance of the late commuter. I would advance on the stalled bus, and then just when I was a few lengths away, traffic would pick up and it would proceed. I would gain, then again, my gains would be lost. Finally the bus just up and left me. So I did what any rational adult does. I stood on the sidewalk and flipped off the receding bus while humming “La Marseillaises .”

That's when my avenger showed up, driving a blue pick up truck. He yelled from the rolled down window “We gonna catch that bus! Get in!”. I complied. He had also been stuck in traffic and witnessed my unsuccessful bid to catch the errant bus. We flew down 16th Street, passing cars and running red lights. I asked him if he usually drove this fast and he said “Only when I'm tryin' to catch a bus.” Really? Does he do this often? True to his word, we passed the bus, and at the next light, I jumped out.

I got on the bus and slapped down my SmartTrip card with the passive-aggressiveness only commuters can truly attain. My every motion screamed out my anger at the bus driver. I am sure he was like totally shaking in his bus driver seat.

That guy totally kicks ass. Thanks, Jamaican-carpenter guy with the blue truck. You make DC an acceptable (and hilarious) place to live.

Man Spurned by Island, Seeks Revenge with Fast Food Breakfast

Do you know what this receipt means? Do you know what it represents? Oh, intrepid reader, you would know what it meant if you had spent the Christmas holidays in Freeport. You would know what hunger the food delivered with this receipt soothed, the fact that this cup of coffee was the best I had in a week. You might say that I am bitching about spending a holiday in paradise, and then I would punch you in the face. You deserve it, admit it.

I always assumed that Freeport was founded by pirates or smugglers, or smuggling pirates. I thought the island would have a long history of rum running and sugarcane growing and generally unsavory character, seeing as it is a free port and all. Those seem to attract the worst kind of people. Which makes for the best vacation. Wrong.

Freeport was founded in 1955, by a VIRGINIAN. Which might explain why it is almost as interesting as, oh, say Reston. His name was Wallace Groves. You can see from his picture that he never ran rum even one time in his life.

"That Mamie Eisenhower is one hot broad."

Neither did he ever wear an eyepatch or shiver the timbers. He was a real estate developer who owned all the trees on the island and needed a place for people to live while they cut down the trees, so he could ship them to Florida.

And that is why Grand Bahama Island is one of the most boring islands in the history of islands.

Back to the Burger King receipt. As Christmas was on a Monday, and Boxing Day is a holiday in the Bahamas, basically everything except the resorts closed Saturday night, not to open again for three days. Not even Burger King was open Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. It's a good thing we had bought food from the Winn-Dixie (that is not a typo. There is a freaking Winn-Dixie in Freeport. Toilet paper was $14 for a six pack. Not that I was in the market for toilet paper but it caught my eye). Otherwise we would have starved. Christmas Day we fought with the other thousand tourists on the island for one of the few seats at the only Chinese restaurant. I'd like to apologize to that teenager that I chucked over the railing, but don't cut in front of me when I need Chinese food on Christmas Day.

Golden Toilet Paper? Aisle Six. Next to the Diamond Q-Tips.

So that rainy Boxing Day morning, when we realized that the Burger King down the road had it's lights on, we knew we had received the most important Christmas gift of all: the ability to buy food at normal prices. God bless that craphole of a restaurant that still managed to serve a hot cup of coffee and some sort of sausage patty on a croissant. You truly are doing what Jesus would do. I salute you.

But to you Freeport: you are basically a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale, 80 miles to the west. And that's the best and worst thing I could possibly say about you.