These guys are amazing. I could swear Jeter was looking right at me a few times. I know A-Rod was! Cheap thrills!

I do have an issue, though. And I’m sorry to have to echo a rant from my friend Maria but what’s with all of the spitting and all of the big deformed cheeks full of dip, or chaw or whatever you call it? These guys are athletes. They get paid more for one game than most of us earn in an entire year. Are we allowed to chew anything at work? If we spit and grabbed our crotches constantly we’d be fired!

If the Phillies Ibanez didn’t have a giant wad of tobacco stuffed in his face, he may have caught that fly ball instead of letting the Yankee’s bring in 2 runs. He had so much junk in his mouth he probably couldn’t see the ball. If Jason Wurth didn’t have a bunch of junk stuffed in his face, he’d be good looking. Same with gum. That Philles manager looked like an old billy goat chewing that giant gum wad like he was running out of time. Geez. It’s gross.

And when they start spitting, I literally have to fight my gag reflex. I thought my popcorn was gonna come up a few times. I stopped jumping off the couch and heading for the bathroom and just kept a barf bag close by. This is no way to enjoy baseball!

I have a couple of points here. If you’re being paid $100,00 a game, your butt can pay attention to the game. Your nicotine addiction can wait until the game is over or use a damn patch. You guys are role models. You are athletes. You are obscenely paid because of that. Act like it. If my kids grow up groping, spitting and chewing carcinogenics I’m coming after major league baseball!

Thanks barristas for ruining my childhood memories and any chance for a passing whiff of real coffee aroma coming from a coffee house as I walk by.

The Emperor is NAKED folks. Wake up and smell the coffee!

While I was travelling, I realized something. Guys are kinda dumb…well okay, I already knew that, but I gained new insight to the obvious.

I was watching the Discovery channel and learned that in nature, what attracts humans to members of the opposite sex is symmetry. Symmetry indicates good health, and the prospect for healthy and symmetrical offspring.

My sisters and I are very symmetrical. We have 2 eyes that see well and match, two boobs that match, great skin and pretty straight teeth. Chances are, we’ll have good-looking kids. And in fact, we do.

So now, take a fat, hairy, buck-toothed, near sighted, one-boobed, saggy-butt, acne-faced selfish bimbo and give her lasik, lipo, a boob job, a butt implant, veneers, laser hair removal and a chemical peel. Top it off with lip injections and you have…what???

A narcisistic Barbie who, although she may look like a human blow-up doll is actually a medically manufactured freak of nature who, if she actually reproduced, would bear a  fat, hairy, buck-toothed, near sighted, one-boobed, saggy-butt, acne-faced child.

Now, is that what you guys REALLY want?

First of all this is coming from someone who is jokingly called Amish. I have no cell phone.   No call waiting. No caller ID.

I still have dial up internet. I have to unplug my answering machine phone jack to connect my internet jack, which turns off my answering machine for days. I have an old school tv and a black and white 6 inch in the kitchen, totalling two for the entire house. The heat was not turned up past 55 all winter. I haven’t had a clothes dryer for 4 years now.

I’ve only ever owned one digital camera which I smashed, due to my inability to understand high tech cameras and have not replaced it yet. My computer was given to me 5 years ago and my brother has repaired it several times by piecing it together with trash picked parts. Windows on my computer keeps telling me my version is not valid…umm for 2 years now. My cable TV service is the bare minimum. Comcast doesn’t even offer it anymore and hasn’t for years. I called to complain when I kept loosing channels and they informed me I wasn’t paying for them anyway. The digital switch over is going to really confuse me. Most of my clothes have been handed down by the author of this blog. My cordless house phone is from the 80’s.

ps. No phones in the bathroom! That’s just gross!

joey

 (Author’s note: I know! I was driving home from the evil Apple Store. After consulting my GPS locator, I took the Garden State Parkway which scanned my EZ Pass when I realized that I am TOTALLY on the grid. Big Brother knows my every move! How did this happen to me? Back in the 60’s I was a happy hippie who just wanted to stick it to the man…Kath)

So, I (who have been an AT and T wireless customer for over 15 years and have given them enough business and money to support a small country) go to the ATT store to buy a new iPhone for a measly $200. (Yes, I have to tour old ladies all over lower Manhattan for 2 days to make $200…is it worth it???)

What do they say to me??? I’m “not eligible for an upgrade at this time” and MY iPhone will cost $500. What???? What???? WTF! I can’t even convince them that I am their best customer. Their hands are tied by the evil APPLE CORPS.

So, I wait like a fool until October when I’m “eligible” for their little gizmo and my daughter and I get out iPhones. She loves hers. I HATE mine. It is a great gadget but it is the worst phone I’ve ever had.

It has no speed dial. You can’t text photos. It has no flip, so obviously if you’re talking trash about somebody you have to be VERY careful to be sure the phone is off. My family and friends are ready to kill me because I “pocket dial” them constantly cuz when you grab the phone, you call somebody unless you constantly lock it after every use. It’s big and bulky. You can’t hold it easily in the crook of your shoulder. It’s slippery but when you add a case it makes it even bigger.

To call Liza from my old phone: Flip open, press and hold 5.

To call her from the iPhone: Press the little circle. Then slide the bar to unlock (which you CAN’T  do in NJ in the wintertime because you have gloves on and it won’t respond) Then press the phone icon on the bottom of the screen. Then select contacts. Then scroll down to the “L”. Then press Liza. Then select which of her numbers you want to call and press that. The phone will now call Liza. Oh, and do this while driving….

This is the stupidest thing ever! So I’m getting ready for work last weekend and the phone slips out of my hands in the bathroom and drops about 2 feet to the floor…face down. When I picked it up it looked like it had been shot…shattered screen. I had to go to work for a week, so I taped it up so I wouldn’t cut my fingers on the screen and did a little research.

I was told that I wasn’t “eligible for an upgrade at this time” and that it would cost me $599 to replace my phone. Some local yokel said he could fix it for $100 but it would void my Apple warranty…which doesn’t cover the glass so who cares? I gave in and went to the Apple Store to see a “Genius” (yes, that’s what they call them..I’m not even makin this up) and he “fixes” my phone…which basically means he pulls out the sim card, sticks it in a refurbished phone and charges me $200. But my warranty is still good…whatever the hell it’s good for, I don’t know.

So, here I am with my replacement iPhone. My cost since October; over $400 (not to mention the extra $30 a month they get for internet access which didn’t even work the first 3 months I had the damn thing).

So, what’s the i for in iPhone? Idiotic, immoral, inconvenient, ineffective, inflexible, insane, irrational, and irritating. I have to wait until October 2010 until I’m “eligible for an upgrade” at which time I may have to upgrade this $400 paperweight to a place where the sun don’t shine…if ya get my drift!

I have to say that the uniformed staff at the ESB were terrific! They were friendly and quick and handled the masses efficiently.

Some of us are at our best under trying circumstances and I have to give these guys credit. They must have been bored and cranky last time I was there because it was foggy and s-l-o-w.

Sorry guys..you ROCK!

So I was touring a group of kids from San Diego and we were having a great time until we came upon the Empire State Building! The building itself was fantastic…even in the fog. It’s beautiful…an art deco goddess rising through the mist. The kids loved it!

What we didn’t love  was the nasty, lazy, probably overstaffed and overpaid uniformed workforce employed by the building. Where do they find these people? “Stupid and Nasty R Us?”

Maybe they think that because they are wearing a uniform (a 1930’s red one, duh) thay they are empowered to order everyone about and refuse to answer questions or act at all human or humane.

Example: I was told to bypass any line and go directly to the window and pick up the pre-paid tickets for my group. I get to secuirty, and the grumpy old man tells me to “get in line” . I explain that I am a Tour Guide and he pretends not to hear me “get in line” (louder). I ask him a question…no answer…another question…he looks away…(like my kids, I HATE that)…The guy at the front of the line apparently understands English and allows me to take a place in front of him.

So I clear security, get my tickets, go back to the line so I can give out the tickets and clear security  again. How stupid! Maybe one of those red-uniformed geniuses thought up that system.

The rest of the guys were in idle groups of 3 or 4 gruff, Bronx-accented bullies who forced us through various roped barriers to ensure we passed through several of their evil sales goons so we would buy plastic junk they undoubtedly got a kick-back on. It was a gamut of   “Get in line”  Get away from there” “Yo, Kid, I tol youse not ta touch dat”.

Up until that point these kids actually thought New Yorkers were nice. I want to thank the staff of the Empire State Building for showing the world that New Yorkers really are a bunch of nasty a**holes, just like they thought we were.

Thanks guys.

This got me thinking about what my ideal job would be.

So, after much deliberation, I’ve decided that I would need 2 jobs, actually. The first would be: WATER TEMPERATURE TESTER in Clearwater Beach. I’d probably have to get down to the beach by 11 or so, set up all my temperature equipment, measure the actual temperature, break down all of the equipment, text my report in to the lifeguard station and National Weather Service. That would take me til at least 1PM…oh…prime tanning time…what do you know!

Then at around 4pm, I’d have to leave for my other job, which would be TAMPA BAY RESTAURANT CRITIC.  But I’d be more than that. I’d be the female Anthony Bordain (he is SO HOT!!!!!!!) of the Gulf Coast. A quirky, snarky yet loveable trash mouth who tells it like it is.

They need a restaurant critic because, as an awesome cook coming from the NY area AND an Italian family, I know good food, and they don’t have much of it down here.  Except for the Cubans…boy, they have it right!

But the pizza…appalling! Chinese food…you don’t want to know! And what’s with grits on everything? Grits is what I get in my orifices after my morning job on the beach.

Look at the phone...

Would you buy a used car from this man?

How about this one?

Or this one?

Okay…last one…how about this guy?

Grow up!

Annoying screachin morning person: Hellooooo, did I wake you?

Me: wut…who is this?(So I know where to send the hit squad.)

She: It’s Susan.

Me: Wut the hell time is it?

She: It’s 8:30.

Me: It’s Saturday, are you nuts? People are NOT allowed to wake me up on Saturday. My family has strict guidelines.

She: You are SO funny. (No, I’m not. I’m deadly serious…this is bad, real bad. She doesn’t know what can of worms she has opened up.)

Me: Call me later. (slam)

So, I couldn’t get back to sleep…yadda, yadda, etc , etc…bad mood, long day…

It’s Sunday. No one would DARE violate the holiness of a Sunday morning sleep-in….WRONG AGAIN.

My son has his sweet baby daughter call me at 8:30 IN THE MORNING !  They want to take me to breakfast. Are they insane? Who could eat in the middle of the night? (and dang, they put the kid on the phone, now I have to suppress my hateful sleep-deprived rant. )

Me: Could you put Daddy on the phone?

He: Hi Mom.

Me: Are you mad? It’s 8:30 in the @#$@%* morning….I’m asleep!

He: It’s daylight savings time. We turned the clocks ahead, It’s 9:30.

Me: Oh, excuse me…big dif…Are you MAD? It’s 9:30 in the %$^#$#* morning…I’m asleep.

So, I couldn’t go back to sleep…met the kids for pancakes and thought about Daylight Savings Time.

Do I really need to get up an hour earlier so I can get in those crops down on the south 40? Or so I can get my 14 kids out there to do the plowing before school?

And why are the crazed morning people SO happy to wake me up to remind me that I lost an hour of precious sleep? Maybe they’re organized…