Elusions of Grandeur, Delusions of Fame

You know what I really miss? I miss having illusions of grandeur.

That’s the great thing about being a kid. You can dream that one day, you will be the shizzle. You will manifest some hidden talent, some special skill, that will catapult you to fame and glory beyond the anticipation of the mere mortals who daily underestimate your true worth. (See e.g., Luke Skywalker).

But part of growing up is hitting the shizzle ceiling. At some point, you realize you’re not that smart, you’re not that funny, you’re not that cute, and people don’t like you that much.

What once was an unlimited universe of possibility slowly becomes a cramped bathroom stall to which you know you must be resigned, short of winning the lottery...and even then it's a shaky proposition as money can only take you so far.

Some would say that those are the ramblings of a pessimist. But I say that those are the reasonable viewpoints of a REALIST. Because, let’s face it people, the older you get, the uglier. The dumber. The less able to learn, adapt, and attract.

I had hoped one day to look like Christie Turlington. To end poverty. To influence popular culture. To be brilliant. To be able to express my innermost thoughts with the ease and skill of history’s most celebrated artists.

But now I must be content with my finite realm of mediocre abilities and limited resources.

And that, my friends, is how you know you are all grown up.

Gasp! I...can't...breathe...!

Well, chalk it up to the seven year itch. It's official. Reese and Ryan, Hollywood's cutest couple, have separated after seven years of marriage and two kiddies together.


What went wrong? Whose fault was it? Is Reese's fame and success to blame? Did Ryan really sleep with a Canadian waitress recently?

All I know is I'm unexplicably saddened. Very saddened. Sniff.

I'm baaaaaaaaack...

All last week I was in San Francisco interviewing for summer jobs at law firms.

My firms collectively put me up in a nice hotel from which I had a magnificent view of the SF Bay and particularly Alcatraz island. But the Golden Gate Bridge was too far to the right for me to see it.


All week long I met with some 40-odd lawyers, asking and answering various questions about my resume, my interest in the law, and most pointedly, my interest in their firm.

Interviewing is not for the feint of heart. It was pretty grueling to be "interrogated" for long periods of time and trying to walk that fine line between excitedness and over-excitedness, which just smacks of desperation.

Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the offers to start pouring in. That's sarcasm, for those of you who couldn't tell. I don't think I'm that attractive of a candidate since these firms have their pick of the litter and I asked more questions about "quality of life" than "quality of work."

My goal is to find a firm in which the employees work the least amount of hours, but which won't go bankrupt anytime soon either.

Ugly much?

I hate when bloggers put in video clips from YouTube, but for this one, I'm willing to make an exception.

Click here to see how the beauty industry makes normal people into bombshells and subsequently, makes a generation of normal women feel like sh_t.

Thanks to Virenda for the tip.

Playing Dumb and Dirty

I used to be ashamed to be from California, land of the celebrity-politician --Reagan, the current Govenator.

But now, having seen one of the most infuriating smear commercials for Massachusett's governorship, I have finally found a state's politician I esteem less than California's.

One of the worst ads I have ever seen on TV is run by Republican candidate, Kerry Healey, against her opponent, Democrat, Patrick Deval.

In the ad, Healey implies that her opponent would make a bad governor because he's soft on crime. Classic Republican tactic (because admittedly, most Dems are too soft on crime).

But the way Healey does it is such an insult to the viewers. She manipulates totally irrelevant data to mislead people to draw a completely nonsequitur conclusion! Argh. I hate illogical arguments. I'm foaming at the mouth just thinking about it!!!

How does Healey start her ruse? The commercial begins like a scene from Cops, a dark highway and raw footage. Then a narrator, who sounds like the same guy who announces for America's Most Wanted, says something like:

"A young Florida state trooper came up to a stranded motorist and tried to help him. The driver shot and killed the trooper and was sentenced to death. Deval Patrick was his lawyer and got his sentence reduced. Now the killer is up for parole...

A lawyer is supposed to defend his client, but do we really want someone like that for our governor?"

Whoooooah there Healey! Back it up! There are so many holes in the "logic" of this ad it can't even float in a bathtub.

First of all, why wouldn't I want a great criminal defense attorney as my governor? The fact that he's a great lawyer probably means he's smart as a whip and knows how to get the job done.

Second, just because a defense attorney does his job well defending criminals DOES NOT NECESSARILY mean he is soft on crime. The man is just doing his job. Without further knowledge, one can not know anything about Deval's real views on crime just based on the bare facts of the commercial alone. Too little information!

Third, did you feel scared that the killer is now on parole? Well, don't be. "Parole" sounds like this guy is almost going to get out, but more likely than not, this guy will rot in jail for the rest of his life. Sure he's up for "parole", but he probably won't get it, ever.

And fourth, the commercial makes a big deal about Deval getting the killer a reduced sentence. But do they mention what that sentence was reduced from? Nope. It could've been reduced from 80 years to 75. Big whoop. That would make no practical difference at all.

Bottomline is: This ad is just plain stupid! A lot of things can go wrong in a criminal investigation. There are so many mitigating circumstances that you can't make a value judgment about whether the sentence was too lenient or not just based on the few sensational details the commercial selectively chose to reveal.

The criminal could have been mentally retarded or psychotic or convicted only on circumstantial evidence, or even misidentified!!! The ad wants you to think this guy deserved to fry, but we really don't know enough about the case to make any kind of judgment on that at all!

And suggesting that Deval would be soft on crime just because he once defended this convicted cop killer is such a horrible leap of logic. Who knows how little the reduction was? Who knows what Deval really thought about all this? Even if we grant Healey the most generous assumption, that Deval really was too sympathetic to the criminal, WHO CARES? His views could've totally changed by now!!!

If you want to say that Deval is too soft on crime, you'll need more than this flimsy commercial and the authoritative voice of the "America's Most Wanted" guy.

Maybe Deval really is soft on crime. But all this commercial shows is that Kerry Healey is soft on logic, which means she's either really soft in the head, or soft on integrity!

You can watch the nauseous commercial for yourself here.

***Addendum -- I finally realized what got me so riled up about this commercial. I mean, what's the big deal since, after all, ALL political commercials are full of crappalicious spins. But usually, they spin crap and make illogical leaps about POLITICAL ISSUES, like raising taxes and cutting funding for schools. THIS commercial totally steps over the line and hits below the belt by spinning completely irrelevant, non-political crap. It's the closest thing you can get to an ad hominem attack these days, like, X-Candidate will be a bad Govenor because his eyes are green. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Yay

Today was my last day of interviews.

I'm looking forward to getting back on my regular tv schedule. Oprah, that means you.

Go Bears!

Say hello to my new hero: returning sophmore quarterback, Nate Longshore. (Aptly named as he is quite adept at throwing the pigskin a looooong way to the other shore, i.e. goal line).

Now that Cal finally has a decent quarterback, it can finally get its awesome offensive game on. But ironically, it was the usually lackluster defense that stepped up and won Cal's recent game against the Oregon Ducks. 45-24 baby!

Cal is going to DOMINATE in their upcoming games against UCLA and USC. Y'all be warned.

Don't you hate it when...

Out of 20-some job interviews, by far the most "stump-me" question I got was this:

"What accomplishment are you most proud of that isn't on your resume?"

I gave the interviewer a blank look, which lasted a good 30 seconds while I searched my mental database for a good answer. Everything that I thought was great I put on my resume! Even the fact that I love stand-up comedy and the Food Network.

That stumper of a question was put to me last week, but it wasn't until this morning I finally came up with a good answer! Doh!

A Life

What is the meaning of life?


One summer when I was five I took a very long car ride that lasted about six days. I sat in the cabin of a U-Haul truck with my dad while my mom and brother trailed behind us in the Toyota Corolla.

Throughout the trip from Baton Rouge to San Jose, I remember only feeling drowsy and sweaty the entire time. There were no conversations, no music, nothing--except the feeling of a long hazy daydream, like when you have the flu and stay home from school. I don’t even remember ever checking into a hotel room so we must have driven through the nights and took naps in the car.

But my one conscious thought that I do remember, was pondering the meaning of life. And then, when the U-Haul stopped moving and we pulled into our first gas station in San Jose, I felt like I knew. Eureka.

Children studied hard so they could go to a good college to get a good job as adults. Adults worked jobs to start families. And grandparents exist to help with (and spoil) the kids. The End.

Forever after, when I heard that the question of the meaning of life was a stumper, I felt incredulous. I had it all figured out by age 6.

But now I realize that I had gained that definition by osmosis from my parents and the popular culture of the 80's. And it isn’t true. It isn’t nearly the whole truth of the matter at all.

Though it is probably considered progress to find out you don't know what you thought you knew, I can't help but feel I'm regressing. Two more decades and who knows what other foundations will be demolished?

Everyone's a Winner!

Wow. Here I was thinking I would stump a few people with my previous quiz question, only to find out what keen spellers you all are.

You were ALL correct! The proper spelling is "playwright", but if you prefer, you can also use "playwriter."

So, first place goes to Beckett who was the first to get it correct.

Beckett gets a Big Gold Star.

Second place goes to Slackeur who gets:

A Big Silver Star.

And Alaberi gets extra credit for typing out the actual correct spelling so she gets:

The Biggest Star Ever.
(A rare pre-gastric-bypass edition)