Op/Ed
Now Playing: Cake
For the first time, I may be published in the paper. I wrote a response to this letter to the editor published on Thursday.

Flag-rant Foul

Many in this diverse community think it's inappropriate for area residents of Mexican origin to display their country's flag and celebrate their holidays.

Maybe they're right. But while we're at it, let's get rid of ALL the superfluous flags we've got waving around.

Blowing outside my apartment complex are several sheets of red, white and blue material, but the stars and stripes they are not. They read "Welcome" and "Now Leasing." I've never heard of those countries, but I hope those Welcomians next door don't play their music too loud.

And at the McDonald's on the corner of Summit and Center Streets in Elgin, President Ronald McDonald has the nerve to fly his golden-arched banner just beneath Old Glory. That's a little suspicious to me: Does he expect our troops to intervene when the
Hamburglar comes calling? And do we have to honor McHolidays, such as 39-cent Cheeseburger Day?

Possibly the biggest disgrace of all is at Chicago's Wrigley Field. There are flags all over that place, with names of faraway places like Braves and Mets! And worst of all, the Cubs flag is almost never flown
at the top.

Who's to say which flags are the most offensive? So let's just put a windsock in it.

If I were magical queen of the universe...*
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: Counting Crows
...when you'd get your hair cut at a salon, they'd take a digital picture and put a short description written by the hairdresser in a computer database, so that the next time you went back, if you wanted the exact same haircut again, they could do it without you having to try to describe it to someone else who didn't exactly graduate from the Harvard school of communication.

...construction in residential buildings wouldn't start until after noon.

...belts would be taboo. I figure the reason every company in America is making ladies shirts so short is so that a woman can show off a belt. This creates the unsightly problem (in some cases) of belly overflow. Get rid of the belts and lengthen the shirts.

...the vacuum cleaner would play songs or blow bubbles instead of droning out that mechanical hum (which, in mine's case anyway, is right on pitch as an E, and yes, I did test this theory with a tuner).

...the government would lift the tax on alcohol and instead apply it to something that really drains society, like the Oprah Book Club, Everybody Loves Raymond dvds, or John Mayer.

...guys named Brian would just go ahead and change the name to Brain because that's always how I type it anyway. And because Brain was a funny character on Inspector Gadget who was probably supposed to be Brian, and they just made a typo in the script. Detroit would be Detriot, and prescription would be perscription.

...more songs would be about monkeys.

...public school systems would start teaching classes on ATM and self-checkout usage, because I'm sick of getting behind folks who just can't seem to figure it out in any expedient manner. Hey, it's the same drill every time: same options, same buttons to push. How do these people work for a living?

* "Magical queen of the universe" borrowed from the very funny comedic stylings of Ryan Arey, and would be better performed in a cape.

Bouncing off the Walls
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Pete Yorn
The last time this happened, I was ten years old. I was in fourth grade, and, always the late bloomer, had just come down with chicken pox. That was the last time I was sick enough to miss an entire week of anything. Until now.

Thursday morning I woke up with that dizzy feeling you get when you jump out of bed too fast. Except instead of lasting for a few swirling seconds, it lingered for minutes. And the dizziness didn't go away until I lay back down. So that's what I did.

And for the next couple of days, that's all I could do... cautiously change positions between lying down, half-lying down, and sitting with my head perfectly still. I staggered around like I was drunk and slept most of the day.

And, while streaming in and out of consciousness, I watched a LOT of tv. And much of it was very bad. For instance, I watched hours of the Game Show Network. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Two episodes of Family Feud, every day. The first one was Richard Dawson-era Feud, and if you aren't familiar, he's the guy who kisses all the ladies on the lips. And I noticed that some of the female contestants were really, really ready for the kiss too. Like when it was their turn to introduce themselves, they did the whole shebang in a half-puckered motion. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

Then came an episode of Match Game: 74, from the year, you guessed it, 1974. And it got me thinking: television programming really isn't that much different these days. Match Game pretty much showcases the American Idol formula to success, with less Barry Manilow. Each is a colorful, elaborate production: MG an assemblage of orange carpet, plaid jackets and (my favorite) contestant platforms that spin and roll out onto a brightly lit soundstage. AI has the same type of thing, in a more modern-friendly blue stage lights, dapper-but-goofy-enough-to-be-likable host, B-list celebrities. So we traded Mad-Lib puns for teeny bopper Pop.

I went to the doctor. Before you could spell "prescription," he was able to determine that I had a sinus infection and some mouthful of a name virus in my ears that was screwing with my equilibrium. I was given a week's sentence of doing nothing. In fact, he wrote on my paper that I should "drink plenty of fluids" and "no sudden head movements." This made me feel as though I should wear a bicycle helmet everywhere I went. Which, as it turns out, was pretty much nowhere anyway.

The older you get, the quicker you tend to run to the doctor about something, I think. The older you get, these illogical thoughts creep in your head like "I've never been dizzy all the time before, and I've never had a brain tumor before; therefore, this must be a brain tumor."

Oh well, the Medicine Man's fluid-filled, no-head-turning, antibiotic, decongestant, anti-motion sickness drug combination must be working. Because today I think I can downgrade "dizzy" to feeling something more like that hazy, floating feeling you have after you've been swimming all day.

Soon, I'll be at 100 percent. And I'll have that euphoric feeling of finally being well again, like the way Mario is invincible for a few flashing seconds after he gets blasted by a goon. And it's a good thing. Because I am totally out of sick days.

Capitalism at its finest
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: Red Hot Chili Peppers
I did some good, old-fashioned yard saling yesterday. Circled prospects in the classified ads, windows rolled down, sleeves rolled up and went looking for a bargain.

What I found was basically a bunch of junk. Yard sales are not for those of us who sleep in til noon. You could estimate that close to 75% of everything these people even put out is just plain old crap that no one would want anyway. And so by the time the sale is almost over, probably 23% of the buyable stuff has been snatched up by the early birds. So that leaves 2%, which is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Quite frankly, I was a little appalled at the kind of stuff these people were hopeful that someone else would come along and pay money for. Here are some tips for having (in my opinion) a successful garage sale.

First of all, if you stole the item from somewhere, or obviously got it free as some sort of promotional item, it probably won't sell. I don't want your collection of Carnival Cruise glassware. Ditto Camel playing cards, pieces-missing Happy Meal toys and Readers' Digest condensed books.

Next, about those VHS tapes. Only going to sell if it's a Disney movie or some nostalgic collector type of thing. What's that you say? You have two copies of Independence Day on VHS? Never going to happen. Also, if you're going to sell porn, that's cool, but put it up high where the kiddies can't reach. And hope they can't read the "XXX movies" written on the box. (Yeah, we saw this.)

A note on toys and souvenirs: If the toy has visible bite marks, eeew. No one wants that any more than someone wants to borrow your chewed-up pen. Also, someone went to a lot of trouble to bring that ashtray back from Las Vegas for you. Why you wanna sell it for a quarter? And that cactus wearing sunglasses from Arizona? Sheesh, you should be grateful!

I helped my friend find some decent things, a cup shaped like a pirate (who kinda looks like Sam Adams and the parrot is the handle) handmade my someone named Kelly, who signed the bottom. And also a rocking horse some child had given a haircut (tail and mane were barely a rope crew cut)... both one dollar.

The closest thing I came to buying was going to be a gift. It was "SOB" handsomely cut out of wood. I was going to give it to my boss. Not because he is an SOB, but because I was going to hand it to him backwards and tell him I got it because it says "boss".

Finally! I have goals!
Mood:  cheeky
Now Playing: Mos Def
It's amazing how much time you can waste online without even really trying. I've succumbed to the whole blogging thing, Facebook, MySpace, etc. And, now, possibly the most addicting, or at least most thought-provoking site of them all.

Forty-three things is this site where you type in goals you have in life or in the near future. It then tells you how many other members have the same goal, and you can make comments, give advice or update how each of those things are progressing. You can also set it to e-mail you reminders to do those things in anywhere from a day to a year from now.

So far I only have 17, but I'll eventually work up to all 43. You can also list places you want to visit.

Maybe this is all I want out of life.