Likes and Dislikes

This is totally random, but I have been thinking a lot lately about little things that I like and dislike. Nothing that brings me great joy or distress, but things that make me smile or cringe a little. Just everyday things that other people probably do not even notice.

Likes:

For some reason I really like the "I Can't Believe it's Not Butter" commercial with Megan Mullally. They have been running for several months. She is dancing in a supermarket aisle while singing about butter to the tune of "Turn the beat Around." I think one of the lyrics goes "turn the tub around, talkin' bout nutrition." I know, hilarious.

My "Oh snap" button. Some of you may have read a blog a few days ago about my "oh snap" button. Picture this. I am sitting alone in my house and someone on tv says something snarky or sarcastic to another person and I reach over and tap the button and Raven Symone says "Oh snap!" I'm not sure what amuses me more, her voice or when I think to myself, "well said Raven."

Tyler Perry movies. I just cannot explain it. Most of the movies have decent stories that have happy endings with good morals winning over bad behavior. I also really appreciate the faith that is on display in every movie. No one shies away from talking about God. Most movies have several scenes in the church and a whole lot of great gospel music.

Waking up five minutes before my alarm. It does not get better than this!

Jimmy Fallon's laugh. Dana recently got me watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He is a genuine laugher. He also laughs and snickers at his own jokes. As someone who also laughs at his own jokes, I can appreciate that. He is genuinely goofy.

David Letterman. I'm team Letterman.

Saturday morning Bloody Mary's. Even better when with friends or family. Margaret and I have shared many bloody mary's with the folks at Cheddars. And for those of you who are not aware, my parents have the best bloody mary recipe. Saturday morning is always good when I go home!

Dislikes:

For some reason it really irks me when people use the word "vacay." As in "I need a vacay" or "I just got back from vacay." I know we live in a busy world but is shortening the word vacation really necessary? Unlikely.

Facebook applications. I do not want to help tend your farm, sign your yearbook, start a mafia war, meet you in Treasure Isle or Bedazzle anything. Thank you for the suggestion, but I respectfully click ignore.

Not putting your cart in the cart stall when you come out of a store like Wal-Mart or Target. I know they have people out there to bring the carts in, but they are paid to bring them in from the cart stalls. You took the cart out of the store, at least take it back to the stall.

Jay Leno. Again, I'm team Letterman.

LOL. You will never see me text or email LOL. I have no beef with people that do, but I am not a fan.

I'm sure I could think of many more, and probably will just after I post this. That is why I like the edit button.

E.M.W.F.

I had a new experience this last weekend. For those of you who do not know, I lived in Las Vegas for a year. For those of you who have been to Las Vegas, you know the shows at the casinos are amazing. I have been to a few and have only good things to say. I saw Celine Dion and the Second City Improv when Sara came to visit and went to Tony and Tina's wedding when Lauren came. I saw countless bands perform at a number of casinos and enjoyed several dueling piano bars around town. That being said, I have never seen a show like the one I saw last Saturday at the Creek Nation Casino in Muskogee.

E.M.W.F stands for Extreme Midget Wrestling Federation. That's right folks, I saw Midget Wrestlers! It..........was.........awesome! It deserved every pause in the last sentence!

I went last Friday night to Boomerang Diner here in Tahlequah to get a burger to go. While waiting for my order I picked up the latest copy of The Current, which is a local monthly magazine that outlines everything going on in our area, be it music, theater or in this case, wrestling. The second page was a full page ad for the Creek Nation Casino in Muskogee. It listed several events going on over the next couple of months, but one caught my eye. I had never heard of midget wrestling, let alone the "extreme" kind, but it certainly peaked my interest. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had to go. And go I did!

The advertisement stated that the cost to get in the door was $10. It turns out that the event was free when I got there, which prompted me to quietly exclaim "jackpot!" It is turns out their was no door to the event. The wrestling match was being held under a big white tent in the parking lot out back. It reminded me of an old fashioned Southern Baptist tent revival with the exception of the drinking, smoking and cussing.

I was a little late getting to the casino, but made it in time for the first match. I was not able to take any pictures because it was a casino event. I was sitting far back enough that any pictures I could take with my cell phone would not be of any use anyway. The pictures included in this blog are from the EMWF website. These are the exact midget wrestlers that I saw on the tour.

If the midget wrestling were not enough, the sights and sounds from the entire event were well worth the twenty mile trek over to Muskogee. I was surprised at the number of women at the wrestling match. Women far out numbered the men who attended. The couple that sat in front of me seemed to be your average couple. He was sort of a want-a-be cowboy and she was your average girl next door, until she got a couple of drinks in her. Well, the beers began to course through "the girl next door" and the Oklahoma redneck that lived inside was unleashed. Her butterfly tramp stamp peaked out from below her shirt and here hot pink thong came out to say hello from above her jeans. She whipped out the Marlboro lights and began an intravenous line of Bud Light. Not five minutes later she belted out the first of many, "kick his ass Oklahoma!" Most of the midget wrestlers identified themselves with an origin of state. In one match, a midget from Oregon took on a midget from New York. Oregon played it cool and talked about how much he liked Oklahoma. New York chose to play it, uh, differently. Of course he got lots of boos, but all in the spirit of wrestling. The girl next door really seemed to like Oregon, and voiced it aloud many times over.

The midgets did a lot of trash talking. Some of it was directed at each other and some of it was directed at the audience. "I'm the sexiest piece of midget meat you'll ever see" was probably the best one directed at the audience. The midget from Texas was wrestling the midget from Arkansas and said to him, "when it's all over you're gonna be squealing like a pig." This led me to believe that he knew the movie Deliverance pertained to Arkansas, but perhaps not in which way. Regardless, the crowd was going nuts for anything the midgets said.

Midget wrestling was worth every $4 beer I drank! I saw camouflage, boots, cowboy hats, halter tops, muffin tops, tanks tops, bra straps, bandannas, thongs, beer drinking, smoking, chewing, spitting, trash talking, yelling, cussing and midgets. What else could you ask for? Oh wait, sexy midget woman who announce each round. Now that's a Saturday night!

The View from my Soapbox

I consider myself a pretty opinionated person. Most of the time I have a pretty "black and white" opinion on matters regardless of whether the matter is indeed black and white. However, most of the time I do not wield these opinions like a political pundit on Real Time with Bill Maher and rarely do I verbalize as well as someone like Julia Sugarbaker "terminating" her adversary on Designing Women. Yes, I did just reference Designing Women. I read an article on the life of Dixie Carter the other day and it got me thinking about "righting wrongs" in reference to this blog.

My mom has said to me several times over the past couple of years that she has "mellowed." This is in reference to getting "fired up" over a wrong doing or injustice, or just something small that generally ticks you off. Anytime I get fired up about something now, she says, "Don't sweat it. You'll mellow out like me one of these days." And while I certainly agree that Mom has mellowed in recent years, she can still breathe fire when she needs to. This leads me to believe that I may not yet have hit the apex on my bell curve of getting fired up.

I recently went in to Hollywood Video here in Tahlequah. As many of you may have read, Hollywood Video and its parent company, Movie Gallery, are going out of business. I think some of the Movie Gallery stores are staying open, but all of the Hollywood Video stores are closing. We have one of each in town and they are both closing. The air conditioning was out in the Hollywood Video store when I first went, so the store was closed that day. I went back a week and a half later because I noticed the doors were open and was shocked to find out that the air conditioning was still not running but people were working. It was over 90 degrees outside with humidity that made it feel hotter. Apparently the A/C was too expensive to fix, so it was not going to be. What? That is ridiculous! I decided when I got home that I would send Hollywood Video an email regarding the treatment of its employees. Below is the email I sent.

Treatment of employees

I recently visited your store location in Tahlequah, OK where I live. I know the store is going out of business, which is a terrible thing. I have worked in a store that went out of business before and I know certain concessions tend to be made when one is going out of business. The air conditioning went out at this location over a week ago. My concern is not for the customers who come in and out from the comfort of their air conditioned vehicles, but for your employees who are doing their best with a terrible situation. I know first hand that air conditioning is very expensive, especially a commercial unit. However, other options are available. Renting a refrigerated air unit might be one. In some cases you may have no where else to sell the merchandise, but your parent company, Movie Gallery has a store in town that is also going out of business. Could the merchandise there not be moved to the other location for liquidation? I understand that this is a tough time and costs for a location that is closing need to be kept to a minimum, but when it comes to the safety of your employees accommodations must be made. The team you have in your store is doing the best with the situation they have been dealt. I urge you to do something quickly, as the temperatures here have reached 91 degrees with humidity outside that makes it feel closer to 100 degrees. Please have the same allegiance to your store team that they are obviously showing to you.

This is definitely not "righting a wrong," but it did make me feel like I was taking action. It made me feel like I was not "an indecisive little bitch." Whoa, where did that come from? I was on a road trip with Erin and Dana from Vegas to L.A. a few years ago. When I continued to say "I don't care" when asked about where we should eat, go or stay, I was criticized and called "an indecisive little bitch." This has since become what we call each other when a decision is not made in a timely manner. I know, it's classy.

This is not the first time I have sent a disgruntled email to a company. I had a bad experience with Domino's when I lived in Las Vegas and sent an email to their home office while at work the next day. Erin still sends this to me every so often in an email that says "look what I found!" Below is a copy of the email I sent to Domino's.

Dirty Domino's

I was very dissatisfied with my phone service when I placed an order last night. I understand how busy a place can be. I work in retail and I also used to work in a pizza place. I actually called back to cancel the order after I was hung up on during ordering. I have long been a domino's claimer. My parents both worked nights there when they first married and my dad was still in school. I had a crib in the backroom for crying out loud! I was definitely brought up loving domino's. I know that this store is in Las Vegas/Henderson, and this city is just chock full of jerks, but a little hospitality would go a long way. Anyway, I guess the point that I am trying to get across is that if the customer service is bad enough for me to actually call back and cancel my order then something needs to be fixed. Thanks again for all the wonderful pizzas. You have not lost a customer, but gained a valuable barometer of customer service. If you would like any tips on proper phone etiquette please let me know. I obviously have a little extra time on my hands.

Obviously this email was a little more amusing than the first. I actually received a response from this one, which is more than I can say for Hollywood Video. Domino's called me about my email and offered to pay for the order I was going to place the night before. They said they would credit it to my phone number so that when I called it would automatically allow me to get the order for free. Cool huh? Of course when I called that same night nothing was "saved to my phone number." Oh well, at least I got my point across, or at the very least gave some people at Domino's a laugh.

I have been watching the series "What Would You Do?" on ABC and it has had me thinking about what I would do in different situations. In the situations above I reacted, but their have been times in the past when a situation arose that should have elicited a reaction and did not. I know we can probably all say this is true, but I would like to think that watching the show has at least made me realize that it is okay to react when you think someone is being treated unfairly. Reacting to a situation is a good thing! Eviscerating someone with your words, maybe not so much. This afternoon I had a vendor call that had previously serviced the store before B&N took over the account last year. She explained to me that the store had signed up for a 24 month listing in the white pages a year ago, and paid for the first 12 months. Now of course, as the new white pages are being distributed, they want to receive payment for the next 12 months. I explained the situation and the woman said she understood. She then told me she would be sending me a bill for the remaining balance. That led me to believe that she did not understand. We went back and forth for a minute or so. I was kind of high on a 6 Hour Energy shot I had taken earlier, so I finally said "Look, I didn't order the listing, so I'm not paying for the listing. You can send a bill, but you will get it back in the mail with a handwritten note that says I didn't order the listing, so I'm not paying for the listing." She quickly thanked me and hung up. I usually have a little more tact than that, but the 6 Hour Energy Shot had me feeling good!

So that is the view on a few things from my soapbox. You may not agree, but thanks for reading. The words of my Dirty Domino's email ring true again. "I obviously have a little extra time on my hands."

California Dreams

Did Saturday morning television ever get any better than it was in the early 90's? This is a rhetorical question of course. Everyone around my age lovingly remembers Saved By the Bell. In fact, thanks to TBS reruns, generations of kids, and kids at heart, will learn to love the show as much as we all do. I am not sure everyone holds the equally awesome but less memorable California Dreams in the same regard.

To tell you the truth, it was basically the same show, with good looking, wacky, well meaning teenagers in a coastal California town. Except these teenagers had a band called The Dreams, hence the show title. Before you start to argue, Saved By the Bell had music too, but not in every episode. Their were some memorable Saved By the Bell musical episodes. A few that come to mind are any Zack Attack episode, the caffeine pill popping episode where Hot Sundae performs, and the "brings tears to your eyes every time" prom episode when Kelly could not afford a dress and Slater and Jessie sang Almost Paradise. Those were all fantastic! However, having music in every episode was a California Dreams specialty.

The music for the show was actually really great. The actors could sing, and actually did sing all the songs in the show and on the California Dreams album. You heard me correctly. An album, or more accurately, cassette tape, was produced for this show. Without keeping you in suspense any longer, I do own the tape. In fact, it is the only tape I still own and I keep it in my car at all times. I rarely listen to it, but every now and then I get a hankering for the them song Another favorite is the "true to its title" Castles on Quicksand, the epic brother/sister ballad "If You Only Knew," and an Erin Stafford favorite "One World."

Erin and I worked together at UNLV in Las Vegas for a while. One day we got to talking about California Dreams and I mentioned that I had the cassette tape in my car. I think she thought I was joking at first, or maybe just wanted to believe I was joking and not really that big a......fan. Let's go with fan! Later that day we went to lunch at this terrible mexican food restaurant across the street called El Patio. The place was really not that good, but we seemed to go there once or twice a month. We took my car and as we pulled out of the parking lot I remembered the tape so I turned it on so Erin could here the song that would become her favorite. I know the words to all the songs on the tape, but I do not put near as much heart into singing the others as I do when I belt out the rap verse on "One World." This song, more than any other, really features all four of the original cast members on the show. Lead singers and siblings Jake and Jenny get most of the action on this one. Tiffani gets a solo verse too. However, when Tony rocks the mic with his rap, it puts a smile on my face and soul in my voice. I wish I had a camera on Erin when she saw me sing the verse you see below. Her reaction was classic! The fact that she is still my friend after she saw that is a true testament to the type of friend she is!

It's not about the white, it's about the right thing.

Sisters and brothers, soul has no color.

Everyone of us is one, underneath the sun.

We have begun telling everyone about love.

Put away that loaded gun!

Use imagination, we are one nation.

Every boy and every girl, come on everybody, we are one world.

Is it just me or could that song cure what ails our nation today? I think it could. Perhaps I should send a mixed tape to our nation's leaders. Perhaps we should have an all California Dreams all the time radio station. These are all valid questions!

Dana and I were on the phone last week and she mentioned that Jimmy Fallon had hosted a California Dreams reunion episode on his late night show. I rarely watch any late night tv, but was happy to find the clip below on hulu.com. In the clip, Jimmy gathers the entire cast of the California Dreams. This is also what inspired the blog. I could not have been happier to hear these voices sing then if I had been there myself. Please enjoy the clip. If you feel you need a copy of my California Dreams tape let me know. I will have to build a time machine to go back and find a store that still sells blank tapes, but I will see what I can do!

Oh snap!

I have no idea where the phrase "Oh snap" came from, but I am loving it! Have you heard this phrase used? I have heard it on tv, movies and in real life and it makes me smile every time I hear it. I have tried working it in to my vocabulary, but it sounds forced and frankly sophomoric. I have not given up on it though.

Oh snap

Definition: a common slang term, which can convey surprise, shock, exclamation, emphasis, insult or misfortune.

Origin: Rappers (which one does not matter)

Derivative of: "Oh no you didn't"

Apparently this phrase was popularized by Tracy Morgan on SNL. It has since been used comically by the likes of Dave Chappelle, Neil Patrick Harris, Raven Symone and B&N's own Brian Griffin. Brian uses "oh snap" or his own derivative, "snapple," as often as possible and it is hilarious! Three years ago Brian and I went to Orlando on vacation with a group of store managers. When arriving at the airport to leave I realized that my "oh snaps" were about to come to a screeching halt as we all parted ways. Fortunately the Disney store had me covered. For the low, low price of $3.99, I was able to take home a That's So Raven push button that simply stated, you guessed it, "oh snap!" Thank you Disney and thank you Raven. I have not had to live without the comic timing of that button since then.

Please enjoy this video of me pressing the "Oh Snap!" button.

Breaking News

I walked in from work today and turned on World News. I like it when I get home in time to watch this news broadcast, because most of the Tulsa news seems to revolve around someone being shot. Seriously folks, the news paints Tulsa as a pretty violent town. I guess lots of people in Tulsa belong to gangs. I have family in Tulsa and I sincerely hope that none of them feel the peer pressure to join a gang. I'm talking to you Joel! Stay strong. Okay, that was silly.

One of the stories Diane Sawyer closed with was the fact that Al and Tipper Gore are divorcing. I have no allegiance to either of them and have never been a fan of Al Gore, but I have to admit that was pretty shocking news. It is always sad to hear that a couple is divorcing, especially one that has been married for forty years. I guess I just assume you have everything worked out by then. I guess I have a lot to learn.

The story was really just a blurb, so I opened my computer and googled it. Lots of recent stories came up. I am not sure if you have noticed or not, but when google results come up they have a list of twitter comments that will stream in live if you stay on that page. One of the comments caught my eye, and then several more did. It is amazing how harsh people can be. It is also amazing how funny they can be. I would never post anything like what is listed below, but that is not to say I did not laugh when I read it. I guess I am posting it since I am repeating it on the blog, but I am going to post it anyway.

These were the tweets that caught my eye:

Divorce attorneys predict Tipper will get 40 percent of Al Gore's self-righteousness, half the Internet and a solar panel.

Al Gore and wife begin first stages of a very public divorce. Gore scheduled to present a 3 hour PowerPoint detailing what went wrong.

Al Gore also invented divorce.

Can you believe Al Gore is getting a divorce? Who is he going to marry now, the earth?

One other related story caught my eye too. It mentioned Al and Tipper and Heidi and Spencer. It announced the Gore divorce and said "this is on the heels of last weeks announcement that Heidi and Spencer Pratt are taking a break." Yeah, that's the same thing. Forty years of committed marriage and one year of a circus freak show on MTV. Is that really the angle you are taking on this story examiner.com? I think you might want to rethink that.

Regardless of what I think, I was sad to hear about the divorce. As far as Heidi and Spencer are concerned, I think their separation was more of an inevitability, not a story. How's that for an inconvenient truth?