Interesting Combo

I just finished reading a press release from Our Mother of Mercy Parish here in Houston, whose letterhead claims it is a Church, School... and Credit Union.

I wonder if their motto is "I bank on the Lord." That would be an awesome motto. Maybe I will make it the official motto of French-Roast.

"Do you have any credit references, Ms. Jones?"
"Only God. Will that suit you [eye roll, impatient foot tapping]?"

And this church, school and credit union is also offering zydeco dance lessons. Those Catholics are freaking out of their mind. I love them.

Praise Jesus,
MaryT

The State of the Heart and Soul

I'm officially ready to stop being sick now. These allergies are really cutting into my ability to sleep in when I wake up every morning about 6:30am with my throat on fire from sinuses that have drained throughout the night. You were interested, right? Great, I'll go on.

Last night, KoF and I went to see our friends The Umbrella Man 4 play at Next Door Gallery, which also is a kind of cheesy bar a couple doors down from Rudz. My only previous experience with the place was that it was dark, quiet and somewhat sketchy, but fine for sitting quietly and talking to peops over a drink. Last night though, the rockabilly crowd packed it in for those guys, DJ Stomparound (maybe? it included Stomp, at least...) and Jaime of Jaime and the Hellcats, who sang (and was really terrific).

The thing about the rockabilly crowd is that I look like a major outsider in their company, despite really loving the music. I don't wear enough black. I don't have a studded belt, a wallet on a chain, any tattoos, umm or really make any attempt to look like Betty Page. But let me just say that I appreciate their grooming efforts. Some of them appear to take hours.

One thing I don't appreciate however, and this is how the blog comes full circle, was that everyone in the poorly ventilated cubicle of a bar was chain smoking. The sickness is bad enough, but with all that smoke, I had to come home and deep cleanse my entire universe. I had to febreze my clothes just to put them in the hamper. Basically, I'm still coughing and am wondering at what point I'll just give up and throw my soul in the washing machine.

The thing is our dryer is really old and it's starting to shrink things and I'm not sure--smoke or not--if that's a risk I can take.

P.S. Hello chain smokers: it is 2006! I know you're all about bucking traditionalism and going ahead and getting hose seams tattooed on your legs (that was way weird), but like: smoking freaking kills. (Have you not seen what came of the Marlboro Man? Ever heard of the surgeon general?) And y'all's smoking may kill me. Cut that out!

P.P.S. It bears repeating: I hate smoking. It is so vile.

P.P.P.S. A very HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEN!

SENSEO good!

This was KoF's somewhat Captain Caveman-y comment after we received a Senseo from my sister yesterday. However, it pretty much sums up the sentiment.

Senseo: good. Coffee without froth: not so good.

Plus, the senseo is red. Let's just celebrate that now and do a little dance if you feel it is appropriate.

Hooray! I am pitching my aging, but faithful servant Mr. Coffee. Thank you, sir, for many mornings of hot, deliciousness. You are not red, however, and you will now find shelter in the shopping cart of whatever straggler picks you up off my porch.

Man, that seems kind of a mean way to say farewell. But it was that or keep company with the dog poop and rancid rancidness that is my City of Houston trash can.

Comments from my Commute Part 1

There are a few things I pass on my morning commute (if you can call six to ten minutes of casual meandering that) that I feel I must comment on, but have always had more pressing topics that boil my blood and what have you.

These items include:
-intersection/brief neighborhood of apparent brain deadness and supreme douchebaggery
-vagrants in their native habitat participating in special vagrant activities
-doggy day care.

It is the third agenda item I choose to comment on today.

WTF is with the proliferation of doggy day cares? If there's one concept that I think is completely worthless, it is doggy day care. Sure, the importance of socializing your dog with other dogs does not escape me. I am a dog owner and lover, as you know. But seriously: wtf?

First of all, most dog daycare providers in the city, like the one I pass every morning, have nothing on the premises resembling a yard or even a grassy knoll. Okay.

Second of all, there was a time I once took interest in dog day care because it seemed an interesting idea. However, what I learned was that for the most part, none of the providers even know how to properly break up a dog fight. And FYI, dogs, even well-socialized ones, fight sometimes. They can be big bruisers of dogs like my own MollyT or little crapsters that shatter your ear drums when they yelp (constantly), but most dogs, when presented with the right opportunity will fight.

Third of all, most dog daycares keep a majority of the dogs in crates all day. I'll let you just muse over that one on your own.

Fourth of all, taking your dog to day care, much like taking your child to day care does not in any way mean that you're a responsible, or even attentive owner. In fact, it possibly means that you're too much a lazy bizard to actually give your dog (and yourself) the exercise it needs and desires, not to mention the quality time with you--what a concept--it's actual owner. Having a day care-going dog does not mean your dog will not bite people. It doesn't mean your dog will be obedient and not pee in the house. It does not mean your dog will like you more. It does not mean you should ever leave a dog unattended with small children. It just means you're throwing away like a thousand dollars a month on something almost, yeah, I'll go ahead and say totally worthless.

Fifth of all, a latch key kid is one thing but a latch key puppy? Doesn't exist. Please stop confusing animals with children. I treasure my dog and love the heck out of her. I spoil her and act the fool. However, I am clear that she is in fact: a dog. I don't try to project my own emotions of depression or such as that onto her. Why? Dog. Hello. Also, to all of you that refer to your pets as furkids: please just go ahead and slap yourself repeatedly until you stop saying that. That should be a punishable offense, much like your inability to distinguish humans from animals.

Now the phone just rang (rung?) and I had to deal with someone wretched, so I think I'll finish my coffee while the comments pour in about what a hater I am. Sorry (sort of), but I just think dog day care is a big money and mind suck. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

P.S. Dogs also do not know the significance of a middle name (crazy down the street neighbor), but they do understand leashes. Please get one!

Sorry fiends

My site was down all day yesterday because all the register4less.com sites were down. I think they were enormously slow and all, but still $15. You can't buy much for $15, so I still endorse them. Enjoy Dick Cheney.

I eat this stuff UP.

I freaking live for photographs like this.


Grrr!

The Drs. Evil

Courtesy of Mr. DiP.

Who said it? Ann Coulter vs. Adolf Hitler

Take the quiz here.

ZING!

Dedicated to Erin and M!: in memory of our The Surreal Life watching days.

Oh man, this article on Yahoo! Entertainment news is the best one I've read in a long time. Why? It says SO MANY mean things.

Like this:
The Coreys would find the Coreys [Haim and Feldman] playing fictionalized versions of themselves, presumably because it would be funnier and less sad that way.

OUCH!

Take that rest of yahoo news which usually goes so far in terms of offensive as Dear Abby saying something is "for the birds." Such language!

So in conclusion, the author of The Coreys article will likely get fired, but he will surely be remembered in heaven for this one.

Things I Know (short version)

Just as I know (I learned in Venice--not the hard way, fortunately)that a free gondola ride is neither free, nor a gondola ride, I know that sore throat is never just a sore throat.

Yesterday afternoon, my throat was a bit scratchy. By this morning I woke up around 5 with a fire ravaging in my tonsils. I listerined it, per KoF's suggestions, which worked for awhile. I had to go to the dentist and while the electronic cleaner thingymajig was unpleasant, the throat part was okay.

Well, now my throat is hurtier than ever and a headache is now it's close companion. Please, please, please don't let this be strep throat. I have deadlines galore!

P.S. KoF, that scary poison ivy thing better not turn out to be emphitigo or I am going to become fully diseased.

Dang!

Is this like the hundred-years rain or what? I'm happy the drought ended. I even kind of like the lightning that exploded somewhere outside my house at 4 a.m., causing my car alarm to go off for the first time ever without the aid of my dog pawing around in the car. (Hey! It works!) But dang!

Here's the thing: I'm the boss of this blog

The set-up: I pay $15 a year for this domain--though actually an additional $12 this year because I got slightly too big for my britches (story of my life). For my $27 investment, I get quite a deal, including sole proprietorship of French-Roast.com.

I do not fool myself into thinking that this blog is of global significance or even of much significance beyond a handful of people who know me well and read it regularly to make sure I haven't harmed any midgets or poisoned any noisy teenagers. I do appreciate my readership that extends beyond this group of Houston-based fandom, but basically, not so much that I am going to cater the articulation of my own particular brand of outrage, occasionally shallow pontificating and strange amalgamation of WTF to suit someone else's agenda. I do appreciate that others who have such an agenda have their own blogs (good job, team member), but there's no reason to usurp my bandwidth in addition.

Further, though my regular readers are a mighty intellectual lot (I fancy), nothing I do inspires them to join Green Peace or become a youth camp counselor for underprivileged inner-city teens. There are like ten regular visitors--maybe--and several random unknowns a week. And this means: Bish sent an email. My boyfriend called Kroger. I mean, these are my tiny footprints on this interweb. I appreciate their efforts, but I'm not mobilizing some kind of crack commando unit. These people care about these issues anyway, but they call or write because I give occasional phone numbers or links and they'd rather act than work on a spreadsheet for the next ten minutes.

So in summary, I write what I want, when I want. Though at times my life may be totally spun out of control, as long as I pay my annual fees to register4less.com (which I am regularly tardy in doing...) I AM THE BOSS OF THIS BLOG.

P.S. Dear Abby-style confidential to poopy pants: Those that live in a house of glass should not be so eager to cast stones.

Snap Judgement

I have just decided that if you don't like or even say anything disparaging about The Sound of Music, you're a bad and evil person. Truly.

Aside from being absurdly wholesome, that movie is clearly a heavyweight in the absurdly awesome category.

I mean, it stars Mary Poppins for God's sake. Are you insane?

A: Yes.

Actually, I have now ruled out the possibility that anyone actually dislikes this movie. It would disrupt the space-time continuum and I really don't have time to re-build a flex capacitor for an infidel like that.

So there.

EDIT: See what happens to haters? From Wikipedia: Despite the enormous popularity of the movie, which at the time became the largest grossing picture of all time, noted film critic Pauline Kael blasted the film in a review in which she called the movie "The Sound Of Money." This review allegedly led to Kael's dismissal from McCall's magazine.

Is it all you hoped for?

Always fun times: google searches that led peops to my site recently. You people are f-ed up, by the way.

• my periods so I can legally kill you
  
• hippy slept in the parking space
  
• smurf gummy france
  
• shandi finnessy naked
  
• american women suck (times two!)
  
• www.french nacked woman
  
• little man in the refrigerator
  
• you're crueler than me
  
• frozen foods section t-shirt

Perhaps the creepiest part of it is that though I call these searchers out as f-ed up, after 702 posts and four years of blogging, I know exactly which posts led most of these searches to me. For the record, I do not think American women suck. I quite like a good deal of them. And yes, I am crueler than you.

Hello. My name is: Douche.

Hello, my name is Douche. You may recognize me from such places as the pleated-front pants rack at the department store.

Some of my qualities, hobbies and interests and ways you can recognize me include:

-taking up two spaces with my overpriced, luxury SUV when most of my employees are making pitiful payments to their upside down loan for a 1994 chevy cavalier

-combing my hair over

-giving people twenty years my junior high fives, much to their discomfort or inquiring of them "what's the scuttlebutt?"

-staffing my office with too-young women who I would rather have as my ASS-istants than my assistants

-applying for insurance coverage for penile-enhancement surgery

-wearing my $400 cell phone on my belt, though tacky, because it is direct evidence that I am ballin' enough to sign a 12 year contract with my phone company

-interjecting self-referential comments into conversation

-drinking diet fruit tea (this exists!)

-planning my vacation to Club Med or rather, prominently displaying my collected brochures

-bragging about my middle management job

-generally acting like Dwight and/or Michael from The Office a non-ironic amount

-lack of awareness when I lose focus and say "mea culpa" when desperately trying to pull off "my bad" (however, I am unfortunately about 40 years too old for that phrase. I may also tell you that terrorists are "the bomb," not quite grasping that one either.)

-and so much more!

See me in action daily, all over Houston or a town near you!

Pointy.

Every day I get about, oh, I don't know 700-1200 emails at work, which are primarily spam. The first ten or fifteen minutes of each work day is spent systematically deleting all of these. Many I can tell by subject line, knowing that "Hey Calendar! *&^(*&JHG!!!" is probably going to feature an authentic replica or various spellings of Cialis.

This morning, however, I got one with the subject "I am so tired of seeing all your bull shit in print." I passed it over for deletion, figuring it was legit because, you know: valid. But the spammers foiled me again!

Man, they really know how to hit you at your weak points. I mean, one day I really might be wondering how best to please my woman. And then I'll be putty in their hands.

An Exquisite Twist

So maybe this is a bit ornery of me, but I think it would be kind of hysterical if the autopsy of Zarqawi turned up proof that he had actually died of heart disease or liver failure or cancer or something like that hours before the American raid.

Oh sweet irony!

Sheepish About This One

Not to detract from my previous posts of political outrage, because I am indeed outraged politically and so forth. But, did y'all know there is now a Scary Movie 4 (FOUR)?

I mean are Americans paying attention to *anything*? Holy crap. Even The Karate Kid, which was a treasure of American film only went to III. I mean, there was also The Next Karate Kid but with apologies to fine actress Hilary Swank, I'm pretty sure that one was a piece that everyone just sort of ignored.

Few films have gone into so many sequels: Superman, Rocky, Star Wars, Star Trek. Though several of the volumes of each were fine movies indeed, I think we can all agree that it was to the detriment of their reputation overall.

I did enjoy one or two "Scary Movies," but yo. Four? Time to stop before the madness consumes you. Teens are rarely, if ever, so full of intentional bytes of glib.

Okay, we get it...

I might be alone here, but I am pretty disgusted by the constant flashing of images of the dead Iraqi Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

I get that he's dead.
I get that this was an important victory for our troops.
I get that this may mean we're one step closer to getting out of this terrible war.

BUT STOP SHOWING ME HIS DEAD BODY.

It's not just macabre; it's championing violent and retaliatory death.

I won't even go so far as to say al-Zarqawi's death was not warranted. I'm not in favor of capital punishment, but let's face it: he was a pretty freaking evil dude who went about as bad as you can go. Hitler. Ted Bundy. These are the types of peops who won't stop killing because they apparently have no human empathy.

But seriously, we are not as base as they. We still have our humanity. Let us do what we must do as a country in this time of crisis-- and that does not include human taxidermy. al-Zarqawi, no matter what GWB says, is not a trophy. He's just a man, and a dead one at that.

FMA looks a lot like FEMA...coincidence?

Those of you within shouting distance (via email) of me heard me railing against the Federal Marriage Amendment yesterday urging you to contact your senators and let your voice be heard on this issue. It's upsetting that we should have to say anything at all. Our country is in a time of crisis and we don't have the luxury of discussing issues that do not directly deal with actual problems. Not that I ever encourage discussion of engendering hate into our country's most sacred document. I do still urge you to contact your senators by phone, mail or email.

In Texas, the senators to contact are John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Below is the text of a statement by Lou Dobbs who states, more eloquently than I could, the tremendous problems with this amendment. Enjoy (long).

Dobbs: Gay marriage amendment sheer nonsense

By Lou Dobbs
CNN

Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears every Wednesday on CNN.com.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush this week urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, at a time when the United States faces some of the greatest challenges in our nation's history.

So, logically, what could possibly better ensure the prosperous and bright future of working men and women and their families than for the Senate to work on a constitutional amendment that is guaranteed to fail?

It's clear that cynical, patronizing White House political strategists are trying to rally a conservative base that they believe is more base than conservative. They're wrong on all counts.

We're fighting a war against radical Islamist terrorists with ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're drowning in debt from our growing record trade and budget deficits and we're watching our public education system fail a generation of students. Congress has yet to act on an effective solution to our illegal immigration crisis as millions of illegal aliens flood our borders every year, and our nation's borders and ports are still woefully insecure, four and a half years after the
September 11 attacks.

I believe most Americans are far more concerned about their declining real wages and the lack of real creation of quality jobs than the insulting insertion of wedge issues into the national dialogue and political agenda.

But President Bush and the Senate have decided they should take up a constitutional ban of gay marriage. Polls tell us most of us oppose gay marriage. Those same polls are also shouting to our elected representatives in Washington that we want real leadership and real solutions to real problems.

The president and the Senate's Republican leadership are now claiming that an amendment to our Constitution is necessary to save the American family. No matter how you feel about the issue, and many of us feel deeply, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is utter and complete nonsense. It's an insult to the intelligence of every voter, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

The president and the Senate are focusing on one of the few reasons that has not been proven to cause divorce. They instead should look to financial hardships, and the lack of communication about family finances. The median family income is stagnating while gasoline costs and higher interest rates are eating up the family budget.

Nor is the Senate looking at the national tragedy of out-of-wedlock births: In seven states, more than 40 percent of our children are born out of wedlock. Nationally, more than one out of three of our children are born to unmarried parents.

Both political parties love to excite and enliven their so-called "bases" by focusing on wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion, gun control, school prayer and flag burning. Both the Republicans and Democrats raise these issues to distract and divert public attention from the pressing issues that affect our way of life and our nation's future.

Are these wedge issues really how Congress should be spending its time, especially given how little time politicians spend in Washington, D.C., these days? I'd rather see our 535 elected representatives and this president use their time to combat poverty, fix our crumbling schools, secure our broken borders and ports and hold employers accountable for hiring illegal aliens. And like millions of Americans, I am desperate for a resolution to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How can we tolerate elected officials who press wedge issues when 37 million people in the United States live in poverty, one in every eight Americans? Almost 18 percent of children under the age of 18 live in poverty -- 13 million children.

Nearly 46 million people live without health insurance, about 16 percent of the population, a number that has risen by 6 million since 2000. More than one in 10 children are uninsured, and one-quarter of people with incomes below $25,000 also lack any health insurance.

College costs are skyrocketing. There's been a 40 percent jump(inflation-adjusted) in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities over the past five years, according to the College Board. The costs for brand-name prescription drugs have also increased twice as fast as the rate of inflation. In fact, over the past six years, the average rise in the price of brand-name drugs is 40 percent, according to the AARP.

But while these increases in the price of the basics make it harder for hard-working men and women to make ends meet, the president and Congress would rather drive wedge issues than work toward real solutions.

I wonder if the president's political advisers know just how ill-advised and smarmy this wedge issue looks to the millions of us who want solutions to the critical, urgent problems facing this nation. Worse, I wonder if they even care.

Is this thing on?

Oh thank God. Myspace was suffocating. I have so much to tell you friends. Updates soon.

30 Second Movie Review

If you were thinking of watching Wedding Crashers because of all the hype:

Liking Vince Vaughan is enough reason to rent this movie because he is at his fast-talking peak. However, what starts out as mildly amusing quickly deteriorates into a pair of second rate romantic-comedy cliched love stories for two guys who realize their youthful shenanigans are wearing thin (cameo by Peter Pan-like Will Farrell here). In the end, what I can tell you about this movie is that it was really long.