Over-Looked, Over-Played, Over-Rated, Under Appreciated, and more

I’ve been thinking about starting a new series of blog posts entitled one or more of the following: Over-Looked, Over-Played, Over-Rated, Under Appreciated, among others.

In regards to this chain of posts I invite and encourage you to write your opinion about what you read. If you do not, I will continue to write nonsense that might seem bias, one-sided, or completely incorrect. If you feel different, tell me. And don’t just say, “You’re wrong, Shelby.” Tell me why I’m wrong, give me examples, etc. etc. Like a book report. If you feel the same, fantastic. Help improve our newfound friendship and my blog by again, posting examples, etc. etc.

What should you expect to read about?

Hmmm….

Lambert

Over-Looked: The Taint (Per the suggestion of Corey)

Over-Played: Owl City “Fireflies”

Over-Rated: Adam Lambert (Sorry Mom)

Under Appreciated: Being 25 and living with your parents

I can come up with a 100 more of these easily, so just stay tuned.

Pee Question

I’m amazed at the stuff I come up with when I’m bored…

Dear Shelby,

I have always had a problem using public restrooms. Do you have any advice to scare away this fear?

-“Still Holding It In”, Leicester, Massachusetts

Hello Friend,

Ever since I was in Elementary school till about two years ago I was also afraid of public restrooms. I’m not sure what my overwhelming fear was – Someone walking in on me with my undies around my ankles, having someone hear my steady pee stream, the thought of all the other butt cheeks that have sat on that toilet seat? Well, actually it was probably a mixture of all three of those things.

It wasn’t until I saw the MythBusters episode # 39,  where Adam and Jaime tested whether food was still edible after picking it up off the floor in less than five seconds that I lost my fear of public toilets. I know, I know what you’re thinking – “What does that have anything to do with peeing in public”?

Well, part of the experiment was that Adam and Jaime tested the amount of bacteria on food if dropped in different areas of your house. Out of all of the different areas around your house that you could accidently drop a piece of food, the toilet seat proved to be the cleanest.

Now I’m not telling you that you should go around rubbing your PB&J on your toilet seat and licking it off. That’s disgusting and I can’t believe you would even think of doing that.

If you cannot do your business in a public restroom because you’re “Shy,” well just remember the chances of you seeing anyone again from that bathroom is slim.

It would be cool to pee at one of these places!!

But at least you’re not peeing here:

Beads

In September I embarked on a new venture in my life, Adult Sex Toy Parties. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember my “I Have No Life” post when I announced my new career. Since I began consulting men and women on ways to improve their sex life, I have heard some interesting stories.

One fun toy that I show at my parties is a set of jelly anal beads. Now if you have been to one of my parties or are knowledgeable about the proper use of such beads you would know to insert and remove the beads one by one, and not like a lawnmower!

So you would understand me being in hysterics when I saw this post:

FAIL

Happy Belated Groundhog Day!

Yesterday was Groundhog Day! For the few of you who are not sure what this day really represents… It’s a bunch of nonsense. In the 1700’s people thought that a groundhog can make an executive decision whether winter will be 7-ish weeks long or 14.

Punxsutawney Jerk

Basically this critter comes out of it’s burrow and if it doesn’t see it’s shadow, winter will soon end. If the thing crawls out and it’s shadow is staring back at him, he’ll run back into his ditch and winter will continue for another 6-weeks.

Why would we let some Gerbil determine whether we will receive 6 more weeks of winter or not? Shouldn’t we decide? Yea, forget Mother Nature. You’re doing it wrong… bitch.

Or how about this, if Punxsutawney Phil makes the decision based on seeing his shadow or not, how about we just get rid of his shadow? Right?!

We just have to remove the stitches like Peter Pan did.

Time Machine

My boss sent me an email yesterday to make me smile, but instead I laughed hysterically.

From: Boss

To: Shelby

Sent: Monday 2/1/10 4:34 PM

Subject: Back In Time

 Enjoy!

Help Wanted Classified Ad

 

From: Shelby

To: Boss

Sent: Monday 2/1/10 4:35PM

Subject: RE: Back In Time

WTF?!?!

This is not a joke…?!

 

From: Shelby

To: Boss

Sent: Monday 2/1/10 4:35PM

Subject: RE: Back In Time

 Wait….

 

From: Shelby

To: Boss

Sent: Monday 2/1/10 4:35PM

Subject: RE: Back In Time

“I have only done this once before”?!?!

 

This classified advertisement is just wrong. I mean, why won’t this individual supply his future counterpart with weapons? How rude. I would be reluctant to remain at my job if they said I had to supply my own computer paper, which is a necessity in an office environment.

Also, is this individual attempting to show some kind of background experience with “I have only done this once before”?

I want proof.

Get the Polaroid.

Don’t Fnck with a Vegetable Mandolin

The vegetable mandolin that I received from my aunt and uncle for Christmas has it in for me I swear. It wants me dead and I’m not sure what I did to deserve the threats. Maybe it is possessed. My white and green vegetable mandolin/salad spinner may have caused the earthquake in Haiti, Hayden Panettiere to become a redhead, and Maria Sharapova to wear that awful peacock thing. What an evil, wicked kitchen appliance.

January 1, 2010 – Happy New Year! Now you have only  1 and 7/8ths thumbs.

That Friday evening Corey and I were making delicious burgers and salad. I was excited to use my Carefree Kitchen Premier Slice-N-Spin Salad Spinner for the second time. I enjoy having caramelized onions with my burgers and salad so I chopped off ¼ of a red onion and began to slice it on the mandolin. I even thought to myself “I should probably use the guard thing,” but nope I didn’t because it wouldn’t have fit correctly on it because the onion was now shaped like a triangle. I was being really careful not to push down all the way so I wouldn’t cuuutttt…….!

I looked down at my thumb and there was a clean slice. Well, I should say a new flat spot now where thumb once was. It took a few milliseconds, but then came the blood, and a lot of it. I didn’t yell, I didn’t scream, I just looked at my hand, which was now full of blood, and looked at Corey and said, “Uh, I just cut my thumb really bad,” and walked into the bathroom.

This is my thumb when it was wrapped in the Tegaderm

By really bad I mean I lost so much blood I felt a wee bit lightheaded. After about a half roll of paper towels and keeping my arm over my head for over an hour the bleeding slowed a little bit. Corey was able to wrap my thumb with a bunch of cotton balls and gauze. Five minutes later, it bled through. It wasn’t until Mom this cool clear breathable bandage stuff called Tegaderm on my thumb that was so tight that blood didn’t have any where to go, so it just sat there. I’m posting a picture so you can see. Sorry if you have a weak stomach.

I should have gone to the hospital that night and got stitches. I was told that if you get a bad cut and see “hamburger” you should get stitches. Well, I saw hamburger, but it was late and I didn’t have the money to visit an emergency room. The next morning the Tegederm started leaking so I went to the walk-in clinic, the new one next to Stop & Shop in Wallingford. Nice place, not nice people. The doctor came into my room and obviously saw what was wrong with me since I still had my hand over my head to slow the bleeding. She asked what happened and began to undo the bandage. I told her that it was a bad idea and “Shouldn’t I go over to the sink?” “No it’s fine.” Until my thumb spit blood on her doctor’s coat. I laughed and said I told you so.

Thumbs up on Day 2!

Never laugh at or be mean to a doctor who already seems grumpy and who is about to fix your cut thumb. She had to press this foam stuff on it that helped the wound create a blood clot, but she had to “apply A LOT of pressure to it.” She made me cry.

The only good thing about cutting your thumb this bad, is that you get to give everyone thumbs up all the time! High-fives are overrated.

It’s now January 22, and I’m still not fully healed. Still hurts, but is healing nicely.

Thumb after 22 days!

He Did, I Do, Droid Does – Happy Holidays

Well Happy Holidays everyone. Or Happy Christmahanukwanza and Happy New Year… almost.

What did you get for the holidays?

These were a few of my favorite things in order of Awesome to Awesomest.

1. Money to put towards my new computer (story being saved for another post.)

2. New Weezer CD “Raditude” – Listened to it 4 times last night, it’s really good! My first Weezer album.. Awe.

3. Food processor

4. Salad spinner with a mandolin veggie slicer on it! I used it for the first time last night and works great even though it was made in China.

5. Epson Fax machine, copier, printer combo machine that prints high quality photos and can be used wirelessly… Yes! It has WIFI! (From Corey <3)

6. Motorola Droid (From Corey <3!!) How awesome is that!? I opened this and had tears in my eyes.

The Droid is pretty much amazing. I’ve only had it for a few days and there is still so much to learn. For instance, I just found out yesterday that when you get a text message the screen doesn’t light up, instead there is a tiny green light in the upper right hand corner of the screen that blinks. It also does that if you receive any other notification (email, etc.)I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.

The Droid does so much that it doesn’t even come with an instruction manual. If you ask for one, Verizon will direct you to their online tutorial that only briefly goes over some of the features.

The only things that I dislike about the Droid thus far are that there is no zoom on the camera or video camera, the market place doesn’t have as many applications as the iPhone/iPod App Store (I miss my Wholefoods and Epicurious applications)  and I haven’t quite figured out an easy way to select an area within a text that you just typed – For instance in a text message after you realize you spell something wrong and you go back to fix it, if you press and hold the area a new “Edit Text” screen pops up giving you a bunch of options. I miss the iPhone popup window that helps you select an area within the text with ease.

Other than those things, so far, I love it. I’m spoiled.

I dislike Credit Card companies.

First blog of today will be about my lovely experience with My Credit Card Company/Bank. First off… I’m mad at you, (company name deleted for privacy.)

I have several accounts with my bank, some personal, some business related. And although I don’t have a lot of money in any of my accounts (mostly because I just had to buy another computer, story saved for another blog post), you would think that being a customer for 9 years they would try to help a sista out. Well, I guessed wrong.

I called yesterday hoping I could lower my interest rate on my credit card because it’s obscene (19.99%) and the nice lady, Amy, said I could apply for a new one through my bank over the phone. How convenient! My understanding is that when you submit an application for a credit card it does a hard credit check which will affect your credit score. I asked her about it, and she had no information for me. Alright, Whatever. “I’ve submitted it. Call tomorrow to find out the status of your application.” “Sure Amy, I will. Thanks.”

Well I called today and Ilene said that I wasn’t approved, but couldn’t tell me why and that she’d had to transfer me to another department to find out the reason(s). She patched me through to Jonathan who told me it was because I already have I credit card through the bank. Supposedly you are no longer allowed to have more than one credit card with them. Then why the hell didn’t Amy tell me that yesterday!? So to submit another application I have to pay off and close out my other credit card, but they cannot confirm whether or not I’ll be approved for a new one. Really Jonathan?

So I pretty much told them that I understand that the banks and credit card companies are getting a lot of shit right now from the government, etc., etc., but they should really be more lenient with the rules with customers who have been with them for a long time and who have several accounts. I also told them that I may or may not be pulling my account with them because of this.

Now, I’m not trying to be like the lady who vlogged on YouTube about BofA raising her interest rate to 30%. Even though I did see on the news last night that she received a letter from them lowing her interest rate down to 16% or something after the video was posted. I just wanted to rant and prepare anyone who is trying to save some money out there…

Good luck.

I’m sorry…

I apologize I haven’t written a blog in a few weeks (Since November 16th!) but I have a little bit of time today to bang a few out so be ready for some venting and some praising.

-Shelby

Friday the Thirteenth

So if you have ever read my blog you would know how much I love to share conversations my boss and I have.

The most recent email conversation – On Friday the 13th.

Shelby: – Thought you might enjoy this:
Subject: FW: Friday the 13th: Your Luck Is About to Change

If Friday the 13th is unlucky, then 2009 has been an unusually unlucky year. But your luck is about to change. Today is the last of three Friday the 13ths you’ll have to endure this year. The other two were in February and March. Such a rare triple-threat occurs only once every 11 years.

The origin of the link between bad luck and Friday the 13th is murky. The whole thing might date to Biblical times (the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus). By the Middle Ages, both Friday and the number 13 were considered bearers of bad fortune. In modern times, the superstition permeates society.

Here are five of our favorite Friday-the-13th facts:
1. Fear of Friday the 13th – one of the most popular myths in science – is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

2. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor and some airline terminals omit Gate 13.

3. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

4. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. “It was bad luck,” Twain later told the friend. “They only had food for 12.” Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

5. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number – 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.

Pythagorean legacy
Meanwhile the belief that numbers are connected to life and physical things – called numerology – has a long history.

“You can trace it all the way from the followers of Pythagoras, whose maxim to describe the universe was ‘all is number,’” says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist and author of “The Equation That Couldn’t Be Solved” (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Thinkers who studied under the famous Greek mathematician combined numbers in different ways to explain everything around them, Livio said.
In modern times, numerology has become a type of para-science, much like the meaningless predictions of astrology, scientists say.

“People are subconsciously drawn towards specific numbers, because they know that they need the experiences, attributes or lessons associated with them, that are contained within their potential,” says professional numerologist Sonia Ducie. “Numerology can ‘make sense’ of an individual’s life (health, career, relationships, situations and issues) by recognizing which number cycle they are in, and by giving them clarity.”

Boss: Interesting!

Shelby: Do you have Paraskavedekatriaphobia?

Boss: Nah… I have arachibutyrophobia.

*I looked that up online.. Fear of getting peanut butter stuck on the roof of your mouth.*

Shelby: LOL I had to look that up. Do you really?

Boss: No… I thought it was weird though. Zemmiphobia is my real issue.

*I looked that one up too.. Fear of naked mole rats*

Shelby: WTF? hahahhahahhaa

Boss:

Shelby: AH!!!! That IS FRIGHTENING!

Boss: I know!!!

Shelby: Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

Boss: Ok, the irony is that “fear of long words” is in itself an insanely long word. The poor person who has it is going to FREAK OUT each time they have to tell someone what it is that they are afraid of.