Sunday, October 18, 2009

Balloon Boy et. al.

This is mostly address to balloon boy's family.

How DARE you use your children for financial/commercial gain. Like the Gosslins, The Lohans, The Hogans, The Culkins, The Woods, The Fannings, The Colemans, The Osmonds, The Duggars, The Jacksons...oh, never mind.

Just don't use our tax payer dollar's to get the publicity, please. It's tacky.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski is a rapist. Plain and simple.

More later. The battery in my computer is about to die.

For the love of God...

There is no such word as "irregardless." The word is "regardless." If I hear another effing school administrator say "irregardless" I am going to scream...

My Gym

I love my gym...it doesn't have great classes. The equipment is outdated and the locker room could use work.

What I love about it that it the gym-goers equivalent of the Land of Misfit Toys. There are the middle aged weekend warriors. The pudgy owner with about 30 children. The man who would be 6'7" were it not for his severe knock-knees. The wall-eyed guy who is either constantly checking out women's breasts or just concentrating on his machine. The crappy step aerobics instructor who can't count to eight. The grandma-wannabe-cougar who works out in FULL makeup. The Russian massage therapist for the Boston Bruins who teaches some sort of martial arts classes while other Russian guys (mobster/thugs) in bad suits and cheap sunglasses showing up to talk to him for 5 minutes at a time then take off. And, my favorite, an honest-to-God babooshka, with hair in a kerchief, who has to walk sideways down the stairs to watch the little kids take martial arts class. She never says a word.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Part Deux

Step 4. Get to New York. This was pretty easy thanks to the Bellets'. Mom and I stayed with them on Monday night and took the train from Mystic to NYC's Penn Station, then cabbed it to 57th West 66th street (a straight shot up 8th Ave.) After a few delays on the train we made it to ABC studios about 30 minutes before I was supposed to get there. The weather was beautiful.

Step 5. Get in line, Bub. There was already a small line forming at 57 West 66th in front of a nondescript door and the buzz from those cued up was about the upcoming quiz..."I heard that it's really hard." "Oh it is, you have to answer 30 multiple choice questions and you only have 10 minutes. I have run out of time the two previous times I took the test." "If you fail the test you don't get an interview. But they let you take the test again in a week." Now the last comment made me nervous. I had already told friends and family that I was coming to New York to audition. If I failed the quiz and didn't get an interview I'd be *really* embarrassed. Oh well. At least I gave it a shot. I chatted with the guy in front of me. He was from one of the boroughs, can't remember which, and had taken, and failed, the quiz ten times. The man behind me took the bus down from Boston to take the test, it was his first time for the test and, as it turned out, his first time in New York. (Who over the age of 30 has never been to New York??? Anyway, nice man.) During my conversations the line has grown and now extends around the block. Wow. Suddenly, "Producers" (interns with clipboards) come out to check IDs and start shepherding us inside to the waiting arms and metal detector of two of the oldest men (who can stand) on earth. The had us empty our pockets and pocketbooks before letting us into what turned out to be ABC studio's cafeteria. I was told to pick up and manila envelope from another "Producer" and grab a seat.

Step 6. Sit and wait. They packed us in like sardines into one half of the cafeteria. After about 150 people were in they shut the doors as people were already lining up for the next round of tests that were happening in 45 minutes. At each table were four number 2 pencils and SAT looking answer sheets. (I started to have flashbacks to when I took the SATs in a huge gym at a prep school near my high school.) A woman from Philadelphia sitting at my table had taken the test, and failed, 7 times and filled us in on the details. "Ok, there are 30 questions on the test and it is 10 minutes long, so don't linger too long on any one question. If you passed, they will call people by number only, the number on your envelope which you should write next to your name on the "Scantron(TM)" sheet. Then you are interviewed. If you do well in the interview they give you an orange sheet and have you interview again with a producer upstairs." She went on and on and I tuned out buck picked up snippets of other peoples conversations..."this is really hard," "the questions are really random and more difficult than what's on the show." I started to get nervous again as the cafeteria filled up. Once everyone was seated a woman with a clipboard made a few announcements about the procedures. Philadelphia woman was right about what was to happen with testing.

While the clipboard lady was describing how to fill in the bubbles on the Scantron(TM) sheet I took a good look around at the competition. I figured that given the number of people in there they probably want to interview/audition 10% of those that showed up. My competition included, cat ladies, college drop outs, some normal looking people, others that payed a little too much attention and looked nervous when being told how to fill in a bubble sheet, some smart looking people, hipsters, and a handful of people who looked like shut-ins who only came out of their respective hovels to take this test (not people persons). I looked around at my fellow test takers and thought...I'm in the top 10% here, easily and relaxed a bit.

Too many people in the pool.

fail owned pwned pictures
see more Fail Blog

What disturbs me most about this image is not the sense of claustrophobia it instills. It's that you know the moment that this picture was taken, at least three people were urinating.

Thank you failblog.org

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Me me me me me me me...okay, I'll settle for $25,000.

So I recently "auditioned" for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire down in NYC a couple of weeks ago. "How did it go?" you ask? Well, it went well. It was a multi-step process but something anyone of my readers can do and pass. I think we should flood ABC with all my friends and acquaintances to dominate the show!!! Or at least converge upon Manhattan.

Step 1. Fill out online form and select dates you are available to audition. Do it. Do it. Do it.

Step 2. Wait. After I filled out the basic form and sent the dates I was available I thought I would get a message the next day. Not, so fast. When I didn't get a message that Friday or over the weekend I thought I was too late and missed the deadline. The Monday before my Tuesday at 5PM audition I got an email from ABC telling me that my audition was for the next day and that I should be at the door of 57th West 66th Street with the attached application filled out and ready! Ack! I threw some clothes and my Mom into my Corolla and headed to my friend Elke's in Mystic (who graciously hosted us for two nights) to catch the train to NYC for my audition.

Step 3. Fill out the forms from the email sent to you with friends (and Mom), best done with beer and wine. Aside from the expected "Are you affiliated with ABC, Disney, Skype, Twitter" Yes or No check off lists are some of the "fun" getting to know *you* questions to which Meredith may refer in her friendly chat moments on the show. "What makes you unique?", "What is something you do that makes friends laugh?", "What do you want to be on the show?" "What would *you* do with a million dollars?"

Every time I read the "What would you do with a million dollars?" I had to keep stopping myself from writing "Hookers and Blow." Seriously people...what do you want me to say? "Give it all to prevent the clubbing of baby seals?" or "I want to travel to learn how to club baby seals...you know, white fur, *huge* black eyes. Mama needs a new pair of shoes! Seal fur shoes to be exact. And it would be so exciting to learn to make them myself with seals that *I* clubbed. How many people can say that??" But I filled it out with the usual "pay off bills, take friends or mom on a trip, parking tickets, pay of bad debt so I can be seen in Mexico again." Feh.

To be continued