Girlfriends & Signing Bonuses

My friend Ming Ming is just a wee bit obsessed with becoming a trophy wife and living a life of luxury. She believes that one good way of doing this is by marrying a pro football player because a.) She LOVES football, and b.) Most football players have dough, and Ming Ming loves the dough! She forwarded to me a very nifty link on usatoday.com that gives the salaries for all professional football, baseball, basketball, and hockey players. You can't say the girl isn't thorough in her research! I perused the listings just out of curiosity and found that the majority of high earning players actually have relatively low base salaries, but astronomical signing bonuses. The signing bonus is an interesting thing. You're pretty much given a big sum of money based on your potential and what you could possibly do for the team. Yes, I know there are other factors such as the salary cap, but if you have the potential to be a megawatt star, your signing bonuses will be awarded accordingly. That got me to thinking…

I'm a single girl, but when I do become someone's girlfriend I have the potential to be one of those megawatt stars. I've got the goods! I'm pretty (at least in my own mind), relatively intelligent, supportive, patient, love sports, know when to shut up, know when not to shut up, can cook (I can make a mean bowl of cereal), well travelled, well spoken, well mannered, and even though I occasionally bump into things, I'm pretty much the equivalent of a Heisman Trophy winner. So when some guy finally snatches me up (but only after I have conferred with my friends and negotiations with other prospects have fallen through) isn't it fitting that I get a signing bonus? I shouldn't be given a bonus just because I have all this potential to be a really super girlfriend, but also because the guy has the potential to really suck and never take me to the Super Bowl, also known as the big white wedding.

Take Michael Vick for example. He's one of the most popular QBs in the game because he's so fun to watch. He scrambles like a maniac and when he's outside the pocket, there's no telling what he's going to do. He has the potential to be one of the great QBs of the game and because of that, he received a hefty salary of $23M last season, $22M of which was a part of his signing bonus. He's got the potential, but his team sucks majorly. At the rate they're going, they won't see a Super Bowl anytime this millennium. So what does Mike get for all his hard work, patience, endurance, and sportsmanship?

A big bonus.

And that's how it should be with girlfriends! We should be given a bonus upfront as a consolation prize in the event that Dreamy McDreamy turns out to be a Grade A Loser. Wives get alimony. Girlfriends should get signing bonuses. I'm not saying that we should be given money, because then we'd be nothing but common whores. But we should be given something so that in the event we don't make it to the playoffs, we know that the time and effort we put into the relationship wasn't a total waste. Now what exactly that something should be, I really have no idea. But just off the top of my head, an endless supply of red shoes would be an excellent start.

If it doesn't make sense, don't do it

Why do people run for the train? Everyday I witness at least one person dashing for the tube like the next one doesn't come for at least another week. It's not the Mayflower! On a good day a train will come every 1-3 minutes, so why do people risk their life and limbs to get on the train that's ready to depart? A few days ago I witnessed a man on crutches hobbling/dashing for the Bakerloo line as if he was being chased by a pack of dogs. I chuckled to myself because he looked like a funny little gimp. That chuckle turned into full on laughter when he got caught in the doors just as they were closing. He screamed "BLOODY HELL!" at the top of his lungs and then had the audacity to get mad and kick the door with his one good foot. I wanted to say to him, "um, hello! You're the dumb ass that decided to run onto the train even though the loudspeaker is clearing shouting 'Mind the closing doors'." If you ask me, the door he crashed into should have been the one getting upset! I'm sure it takes its fair share of abuse everyday from people who honestly believe they are faster than a speeding bullet. And why would you be in such a hurry to get on the tube anyway? It's hot, miserable, and suffocating. Despite being underground, which means that theoretically it should be cool, it's a hot stinking mess. Rushing onto a hot train is the equivalent of someone purposefully falling off their bike so they can hurry up and start bleeding. Makes no sense!

I hurt myself. A lot.

Last night I was boiling two eggs that were going to be a very yummy addition to my Greek salad for lunch today. I leaned over to turn off the burner and like a dummy, I reached my arm directly over the boiling eggs. Two seconds later I was burned by the steam and let out a very appropriate "owwwww!" It wasn't a childlike "ow", more like a whiney "ow" a la Anna Nicole Smith. Very unsexy.

My friend Adam said, "what happened?"
"Nothing", I said. "Just got burned by some steam."
"You're always hurting yourself. Like, every day."

He proceeded to mock me and make fun of all the different ways he's heard me say "ow"over the past few weeks. Unfortunately he's right. On any given day I am guaranteed to stub my toe, run into an open drawer, bump into a door, cut myself with a knife/scissors/spoon, or my most recent antic of burning my face with a strange chemical in an attempt to exfoliate. I'm a walking catastrophe, an accidental suicide just waiting to happen. As much as I say "owwww" you would think that I hate myself and I'm hell bent on seeing my destruction. But that's not the case, I'm just a big klutz! So if for some reason I'm found shot to death outside my house, it wasn't murder; I just happened to walk into the bullets.

It's hot as hell and we're all going to die

Today I was (un)fortunate enough to experience the hottest day that London has had in over a century. Yay, lucky me!! Extreme weather, be it hot or cold, makes me a very, very miserable and unhappy person. Just 7 months ago I was living through the coldest winter that England has had in about 20 years. I read in the Financial Times that during this past winter it was colder in parts of England than it was in Moscow. Isn't Moscow in Russia? One of the coldest countries in the world? Even Napoleon and Hitler couldn't handle the Russian winters! It was so cold that there were a few times when I was walking down the street and I just started crying because I couldn't take the cold. I know, dramatic. I didn't complain too much though because it never snowed. I hate snow more than I hate pre-menstrual cramps so aside from being uncomfortably cold for about 45% of the year, I was (almost) a happy girl.

London has a reputation of being a very rainy, gray, and luke-warm kind of town. Last fall I was suffering from the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder because the sun started to set at 3pm and didn't rise again until around 7am. Have you ever heard of such? Oh yes, I was very S.A.D indeed. I got on my knees and prayed to the heavens for days of warmth and sunshine. And by get on my knees and pray, I actually mean that I bitched and complained to my friends and family back home about how much this gray ass town sucks. But apparently someone from above heard me because low and behold, summer is here and it's hot, sunny, and there has been little to no rain in the past few months. Normally this would be cause for rejoice and jubilation, but I can't get excited because now there's so much sweat running down my legs that it looks like I wet myself. And I'm not kidding either.

All of these extreme weather conditions makes me realize one thing: we're all going to die. We have tsunamis attacking poor innocent countries, hurricanes attempting to wipe entire cities off the map, and temperatures ranging from negative 15 to 100+ degrees fahrenheit. All of these things are happening within a short span of each other too, not like the good old days when grandma only saw one natural disaster in her lifetime. I've seen at least 10 and I'm not even a quarter of a century yet! Mother Nature is pissed. And I'm afraid that she's not going to stop until she repays us for all the ish we've done to her over the years. Don't worry, I'm not going to go on a preachy rant about how we need to take better care of our earth; between the ages of 7-12 I was an environmentalist so I'm fully aware that any speeches I give will go in one ear and out the other, so I'll save my breath. I just want to give you all a fair warning. I was hoping that thanks to the miracles of modern science and personal assistants I would gloriously live well into my hundreds, but it's looking more and more each day that when I walk outside on my fortieth birthday I'll freeze into a human ice sculpture, and me and the rest of world will all be little frozen menageries on display in the planet formerly known as earth.

Pope Bling Bling VXI

I read on yahoo news this morning that Pope Benedict XVI will soon be releasing a book about Jesus, so I immediately began writing a post on how everyone in the free world is snagging book deals, even tawdry hoes with bad weaves. Not that there's anything wrong with the Pope writing a book about Jesus, I'm just trying to figure out what new information he can give us about Jesus that we don't already know. There have been more books written about Jesus than Jesus, so I'm curious as to what angle he's going to take with this. But imagine my surprise (and delight) when I came across another article in the Wall Street Journal about how the pope is now donning designer duds! When I first read the headline "Does the Pope Wear Prada?" I thought, surely this must be a joke; but no my friends, it isn't. Apparently the pope has a snazzy pair of red leather Prada loafers that he wears to mass and was also photographed wearing a pair of sunglasses by the Italian design house Serengeti. To top it off, he even has a specially engraved ipod Nano! Even I don't have an engraved ipod Nano, hell I don't even own an ipod at all and I'm probably about 150 years younger than this dude! One of my co-workers thinks it's appalling and in bad taste for the pope to be wearing Prada, but I think it's fabulous! Well, at least now I do. At first I was a little put off by the idea; the elderly, ipods, and designer shoes just shouldn't mix. Ever. But on second thought, perhaps this is a reawakening for the Catholic church. Maybe at next year's Easter mass he'll come out dressed as Bishop Don Magic Juan and say, "bow down bitches! Pope B is in the hizouse!" He would say this in Latin of course. And I will now go to hell.

My feminist post

I recently read an article on MSN that talked about how women are passing or catching up to men in college areas that were once dominated by men. It felt good to read that because you would think that by 2006 there wouldn't be an issue of having too few women pursuing medicine, law, business, etc. The article mentioned that there was a 22 percent increase from a decade ago of women enrolling in graduate and professional degree programs. Women are outnumbering men on college campuses by almost 2 million and the gap keeps growing. It appears that the number of men enrolling into undergraduate degree programs is actually declining, with many of them choosing not to pursue higher education at all. Just as I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside about the progress us women have made, it was soured once I read that even with the strides we have made in the academic and professional worlds, on average we still are earning only 76 cents for every dollar that a man earns. How is this possible?

The US population is 51% female, 58% of all college students (both undergrad and graduate) are women and 54% of college graduates in 2004 were women. If you believe the statistics, women have the potential to be the stronghold of the American workforce, so it astounds me that we're still getting paid less. Never mind the fact that the first women's movement--the suffrage movement was at its peak in the late 19th and early 20th century, never mind the fact that part two of the women's rights movement took place some 40 years ago, and never mind the fact that pay discrimination is illegal and has been for a very long time, let's just look at one simple fact: we are no longer outnumbered. Doesn't it make sense that if women are outpacing men in managerial roles, if we're producing more doctors, lawyers, and scientists, and if there are millions more women than men graduating and entering the workforce that people would wake up and say, "hey, women are the majority. They are now where men were 30 years ago, and men are now where women were 20 years ago. Maybe it's time for their pay to reflect that." Makes perfectly good sense to me! Now I'm not saying that we should pay men less; thanks to Mr. Bush our economy surely wouldn't be able to handle that, however it is long overdue that women are given the same pay for the same work as their male counterparts. It is really disappointing to have to say that in this day and age. Something tells me that it's time for another revolution.

Reality TV at its worst

Last night while flipping the channels and coming across what I thought was a documentary about a dating service for the mentally challenged, I quickly realized it was actually a reality TV show. At first I thought "Aww, what a good idea. The mentally challenged need love too!" But when I realized it was a reality show, I became a little upset. Now I know I may not be the most sensitive person in the world and I've been known to throw out the word "downsy" a time or two, but exploiting those people like that is just wrong! I was so disgusted by this show that I didn't bother to watch the entire episode, but in the 5 minutes that I did watch, my roommate laughed and mocked their slowness. According to one of my co-workers who watched the show, it was done in good taste and didn't portray any of the people in a negative light, but when you have two downsy people making goo goo eyes at each other while spilling their dinner all over themselves, how is that not portraying them in a negative light?

Ordinarily, I would laugh at something like that but my mother has worked in MRDD for almost 30 years so I have a different outlook on this. When I was 5 years old I was home for a few weeks because I had chicken pox. My mom would call me everyday from work to check-up on me and she would always put one of her patients on the phone (I think his name was Bob) to say hello. Bob was retarded as hell and had no idea who he was talking to or even what he was saying, but as a 5 year old I thought Bob was great and I asked about him occasionally for years to come. I'm getting away from my original point, which is that some things just aren't suitable for reality TV. If you want to have dumb blondes running around naked on Big Bother, fine. If you want to have opportunistic hoes vying for the "love" of Flava Flav, fine. But don't be so cruel to take advantage of people who probably don't understand exactly what they've gotten themselves into. I still think the dating service is a really good idea, because unless they happen to both live in the same institution, how else are two retarded people going to find each other? But leave the cameras out of the equation. They're slow, life is already hard enough!

Ice cream, Chamillionaire, and deodorant in bulk

On Monday I got back from a much needed vacation in Prague, Czech Republic. Yes, I know I had just finished a week long vacay in Italy two days before leaving for Prague, but my Italy trip was really a test of endurance and voracity. My time in Prague was a proper vacation. My friends and I stayed in a fabulous hotel (I meant it when I said no more hostels), we ate at great restaurants, and we got hour-long Thai massages. Fabulous.

Getting the Thai massage was a first for me. I usually opt for the ever-popular Swedish massage, or when my body has taken a beating I'll get a Deep Tissue massage, but I've never had any particular interest in trying a Thai one. I've been missing out! A little Asian woman walked all over my body and proceeded to snap, crack, pop, twist, and contort my body in ways that only a privileged few ever could. It was amazing! I left there feeling relaxed, rejuvenated, and ready for more ice cream.

My friends and I ate ice cream every single day, sometimes twice a day in different forms. We were HUGE fans of the coffee with ice cream phenomenon (Starbucks needs to get on it!), and I managed to snag a Magnum bar on just about each day of our trip. I was never a big fan of ice cream until a few weeks ago, so I was in my glory because there were ice cream shops on practically every corner. That was definitely a highlight of my trip.

Another highlight was something that I found amusing, but none of my friends did. One night I went down to the lobby to pick up some maps and the front desk attendant was listening to "Ridin' Dirty" by Chamillionaire. This would have been utterly ridiculous even if I was in Detroit, but the fact that I was in an eastern European country made this all the more hilarious! When it comes to music, I've been really out of the loop since I moved over here, so I just found out who Chamillionaire was about a month ago. How can some Czech dude be up on it and I'm not?!

This trip is probably the only trip that I've taken in the past year that I've had no complaints about…well maybe just one tiny one. Czech people smelly funny. No, let me re-phrase that. Czech people f*cking stink! It was like attack of the musty minions! And the sad part is that many of these musties were funky before noon. There's no excuse for mid morning funkiness, there just isn't! I should have been armed with bottles of Degree and went running around attacking their underarms with the stuff, because my nose was on fire about 25% of the time. I was on the tram and as the wind blew into the window it also blew the mustiness of the man in front of me directly into my face. It hurt my feelings.

Aside from the funkiness, Prague is a wonderful place and I highly recommend it if you plan on traveling to eastern Europe. The best part of it all were my travel buddies. Debbie (a.k.a. Wonky Wee), the navigator who showed us just about every major part of Prague without even knowing it and also managed to eat an entire pig's knee; Tatiana, the eternal optimist and happy person that encouraged us (demanded us) to eat more and more ice cream; and Jen, the chronic picture-taker-jokster that captured our entire trip on her little camera. Ahhhhhh Prague...I couldn't have asked for a better trip or better friends.

Chicken anyone?

I was on the tube last week heading back to work after getting my brows done and a slovenly looking man sat directly across from me. Normally I wouldn't have paid him any attention because London is filled with lots of slovenly men, but this man smelled really, really good. He smelled like barbeque chicken!! He had a bag full of wings and he sat down and began to devour them one by one. Normally I think it's in bad taste to eat on public transportation--there are lots of people packed into a confined space and your delicious meal might actually be disgusting to someone else and cause them be become nauseous and vomit. But maybe that's just me. Since it was the lunch hour, I figured it was ok for him to be eating his chicken, but after a while it was really gross.

He was eating these chicken wings out of a paper bag that was falling apart. From what I could tell, the wings were just lying inside the bag, not actually inside a container. And his hands were filthy! Not filthy from the bbq sauce, but just plain ol' dirty. He had dirt packed under his finger nails and some sort of black residue all over his fingers. Yes, I was all up in his business like that! He was sucking down these chicken wings like his life depended on it. He would literally stuff an entire wing in his mouth and two seconds later pull out a completely meatless bone. I even saw him pull a piece of the paper bag out of his mouth that had gotten stuck to the chicken wing he had just eaten. A person should never be that hungry! To make it even worse, he was breathing like a crazy bull and panting and moaning like he was in the midst of making sweet love. In three minutes this man ate an entire paper bag of bbq wings and then sucked all the sauce (and black residue) off his dirty little fingers. I'll never look at a bbq wing the same.

Just asking

I've been flying quite a bit this year, and there are several things about flying that I really don't understand. I always (not by choice) fly economy and I get a little excited when it's time to get my free drink and snack. Since being in Europe I've grown accustomed to flying bootleg airlines like Easyjet and Ryan Air, so when I fly on a bonafide airline that actually gives you drinks and snacks without demanding money, it's a happy day! But why is it that when you ask for a Coke, they open a can and only give you half the coke, saving the rest of it for the next person that asks for Coke? Is it really going to cost them that much more money to give me the whole freakin' can? And why is it that the flight attendants cop an attitude when you ask for more Coke? If they would just give you the whole can in the first place, no one would ever ask for seconds (or thirds or fourths).

And why is that my seat and tray table must be in the upright position before take-off and landing? Will the plane be thrown off kilter if I'm leaning back and eating Cheddar Chex Mix off my tray? Will we crash into a grassy abyss because 25 of the 172 passengers were leaning back 3 inches further than the rest of the cabin? And why does the window cover need to be open before landing? If the pilot completely misses the runway and instead lands the plane on an alpaca farm, do I really need to see that? I'm not really a fan of flying, especially when my flight lasts for more than an hour so when I board a plane I like to lean back, close the window, and sleep until the plane lands with a thud that scares the hell out of me. No, I don't want to wait 10 minutes until we're at cruising altitude to go to sleep, and I don't want to have to wake up just as we're beginning our descent. I want to get every last minute of sleep possible because I paid good money to be relatively uncomfortable for several hours. Why do I have to get up!? If you happen to have a degree in aeronautics or you're one of those overly made-up flight attendants, please explain this to me. I'm just asking!

You know what I really don't understand? Why is it that during take-off and landing everyone must turn off their electronic equipment? If I have to turn off my camera, why doesn't the old ass man in front of me have to turn off his hearing aid? Both are electronic, so why is one acceptable and the other isn't? You won't get any reception on your phone when you're that high in the air and I'm guessing that you won't have access to the internet either, so what difference does it make? Will the plane crash and burn if little Tommy wants to play Tetris on his dad's blackberry? Newsflash: If an ipod, camera, cell phone, laptop, or vibrator has the capacity to actually bring down a plane, then it's time to build a better plane.

Paris Couture Week -- The best of the best, part deux

So I was a little premature in my posting on the couture collections. I missed Jean Paul Gaultier and Elie Saab.

Jean Paul Gaultier
It's very rare for me to actually like something that is designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. Many consider him to be an artisitic genius, but I just don't get it most of the time. These two dresses however, were standouts in his '06 couture collection.

Elie Saab

I fell in love with Elie Saab after he designed the dress the Halle Berry wore to the Oscar's when she won Best Actress for Monster's Ball. I've been following his collections since then, but there have been quite a few times when I was really disappointed in his gowns. This collection is his best in a while. The gowns below are my favorite.

I YEARN for this dress...like a drunk hoe yearns for Colt 45.

Paris Couture Week -- The best of the best

It's that time of year when all of the fashionistas rush to the City of Light for Couture Fashion Week. The shows this year contained some absolutely fabulous gowns and quite a few down right disasters. Below is a sampling of the best of the best.

Christian LaCroix
Christian LaCroix has never been a line that I've followed, it seems a bit old ladyish for someone my age, but I did find this dress to be interesting.

Christian Dior
Everyone knows that John Galliano, the Creative Director for Dior, is a plum fool. He's crazy, ostentatious, flamboyant, and completely over the top. His couture shows are a complete circus, but I always find at least of couple of gems in the madness.

Minus the face paint, crazy hat, and weird arm covering, this dress is really pretty. I could see Charlize Theron wearing this to the SAG Awards.

I know some of you will disagree with me, but I think this dress is stunning and very unique.

Once again, take away the headdress and arm armor and this dress is truly a work of art.

Chanel
The styling of this show really confused me. All of the models were wearing denim catsuits under the dresses and it took away from the over look of the pieces. This dress below is the perfect little black dress for an evening out.



Giorgio Armani
Armani never disappoints me! The gowns in this show were absolutely gorgeous. I'm sure we will be seeing some of these during the awards show season.

Valentino
Just like Givenchy, Valentino has been a little bit too old in its style for my tastes, but this couture collection (and latest line of shoes and bags) has made me change my mind on this. These gowns were amazing and if I were an A cup, I could definitely see myself wearing some of them!

This isn't a gown, but I love coats...especially this one.

This is my favorite gown from all of the Paris couture shows. Simply gorgeous.

*Sigh* All this talk of fashion makes me very depressed because I don't have millions of dollars to spend on these gowns. If you want to see more, go to style.com to see all of the shows in their entirety.

Roman Holiday (and Florence and Venice too)

I recently took a solo trip to Italy and visited the cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice. I had a great time and the posts this week will be devoted to my experiences there. It was really an amazing trip. The people of Rome our probably the most hospitable people you will find on the planet and they have the best ice cream in the world. I had ice cream every single day, sometimes twice a day. Yeah, it was that good! The history and culture of Rome made it my favorite city, but Venice was a close second. It was absolutely beautiful and interesting to see how Venetians go about their daily life basically living on a body of water. I've been to many different countries over the past year, but Italy is hands down my favorite. The hustle and bustle of Rome, the beautiful coast of Sardinia, the relaxed way of life on the Italian Riviera, and the spectacular shopping of Florence...this country has everything you could ever want. La Dolce Vita. I love it!

Me no speaky de English

My first day in Rome was a beautiful nightmare. I began my day walking to the Colosseum and exploring the ancient city. It was amazing to see buildings that were thousands of years old, and even though most of them were falling apart and unrecognizable, it was easy to still find beauty in them. I enjoyed wandering around, but it was unbearably hot! The kind of heat that makes you sit down on the sidewalk and cry, which I am not ashamed to admit that I did on a number of occasions throughout my time in the country. As I walked around the city downing bottles of water left and right, I got lost probably about a dozen times, but no matter where I was I always ended up finding some place interesting. Case in point, Piazza della Republica.





It was the middle of the night and I was trying to find my way to the Spanish Steps and I got completely lost, but ended up at this beautiful fountain. I was so entranced by it that I decided to buy myself an ice cream and sit and enjoy the scenery. A man came and sat next to and I was hoping that he wouldn't say anything to me, but because he was Italian, of course he did!

"Ciao bella! Che è il suo nome?"

The only thing that I know how to say in Italian is "Parla Inglesi" (do you speak English) so I gave him a blank stare and repeated my only known Italian phrase that I must have said at least 47 times during my vacation.

He replied, "Oh me no speaky de English. You speaka French?"

Ok, finally we're getting somewhere! My French skills are really embarrassing, but I know key phrases so I figured I would be much better off trying to muddle my way through French than trying to muddle my way through Italian. We sat on the fountain together having a "conversation" about where we were from, what we did for a living, and how we liked being in Rome. My little Italian friend's name was Mijad and he was originally from Tunisia but had been working in a pizza shop in Rome for a few years. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out all of that because like I said, my French skills are embarrassing. I was going to just politely say goodbye and walk away because the language barrier was starting to give me a headache but then he said, "Aller au diner?" A dinner invitation? Absolutely!

We walked to a nearby restaurant and all of a sudden I was regretting accepting the invite. How the heck were we going to communicate with each other for the next hour? I had already asked him the four French sentences that I knew at least two times already, and he knew just about as much English as I know Arabic, so it was really awkward sitting there with him. The waiter was kind enough to translate for us for a while, but it got kinda weird and uncomfortable so after he gave us our food he left and never came back. So me and my little Italian/Tunisian friend sat there eating dinner. Silent. For one hour. Because the only thing that I had left to say to him in French or Italian was "I am American. How much is this? Where are the toilets? Where am I?" None of those phrases were going to get me very far in this situation.

I finally had a good idea. After dinner, I decided that since we couldn't actually talk to each other that I would just point to places on the map that I wanted to see and have him take me there. My own personal tour guide! I know, a little selfish, but he seemed to be a nice guy and once I pointed to the Spanish Steps on my trusty map he was all too willing to take me there.

As we were walking to the Steps he leaned over and put his arm around me. It creeped me out, but I figured it was a small price to pay for dinner and a tour. Then he leaned over again and said "m'embrasser?" Now, my French is really rusty, but I was pretty darn sure that meant, "kiss me." Sure enough it did because a few seconds later he was leaning over to give me a kiss. I jumped away from him and said "no, I'm sorry I'm not interested." I was speaking in English because I had no idea how to say that in any other language, and I knew that he should have some idea of what I was saying because the word "no" sounds very similar in every language except Russian and Norwegian. So I repeated again "No. Not interested." He stepped back, gave me a dirty look, and said in perfect English, "Well fuck you then. Bitch!" and then he stormed off down the street. I was on the verge of getting pissed off but then I thought about the ridiculousness of this entire scenario and starting laughing out loud. Yeah. So I guess my little Italian/Tunisian friend speaky de English after all!

What would Jesus do?

On my second day in Rome, I decided to venture to Vatican City to check out the museums and the Sistine Chapel. I love art history, so that was really the only thing that I wanted to see. The Pope, St. Peter's Basilica, and everything else was really secondary. I woke up at the crack of down because I didn't want to have to wait an hour to get in so I headed down there before the museums even opened. Imagine my surprise when I got off the train and saw a line that was stretched 8 blocks, yes 8 blocks from the entrance! Police were standing around to keep the line flowing so I asked one of the security guards about how long it would take for me to get in. "At least three hours," he said, "two if you're lucky." The thought of waiting in line for anything for three hours made me sick, but you can't go to Rome and not see the Sistine Chapel, so I decided to tough it out.

Hour 1
I'm surprised at how well I'm handled things. I wasn't annoyed yet, and the sun wasn't as hot as I thought it would be. The line seemed to be moving pretty fast, it was looking like it wouldn't take as long as I was expecting!

Hour 2
It's hot. American tourists were driving me nuts. There's a tour group of about 40 Americans that kept insisting on staying together and not letting anyone "break their line" despite the fact that we wee all going to the same place and wouldn't actually get there for another couple of hours.

Hour 3
It's hot. And I ran out of water. My back was hurting and the American tour group was really, really working my nerves. Every two seconds a short little runt woman kept saying to people "excuse me, we're in a group. Could you please not cut our line." There were thousands of us in line and once we reached the 3 hour mark, the line was barely moving anyway. The runt needed to get a clue!

Hour 3.5
By this point was hot, delirious, and on the verge of tears. My back was killing me and the balls of my feet were on fire! The temperature was quickly approaching 85 degrees with 90% humidity, and old people were passing out all around me. I'm a youngin so I could take the heat, but as far as the geezers go, they really needed to pack it up and keep it moving! I got a little dizzy and disoriented so as the line moved, I moved and half the time I wasn't even paying attention to where I was going.

I unwittingly cut in front of the runt and her tour group so she says to me (like she had already said to at least 10 other people in the past 3 hours) "excuse me, we're in a group. Could you please not get in front of us?" I replied, "You know what? You're not the only group. I'm willing to bet there are at least 20 other groups in this line. We're all going to the same place, and we're going no where fast, so you need to relax. You're not the only group." So then she says "well, I know that." I replied, "well then act like you know." By this point, the heat had taken its toll on me and I had already decided a few hours back that I didn't particularly like this woman. The only reason why I hadn't said anything to her before was because they were a church group and a priest was standing next to her. I figured since she was a church lady I would cut her some slack and keep my big mouth shut. But then much to my surprise she said to me, "You're a mean person. All I'm asking is for you to move so that my group can stay together. You're rude, impolite, and inconsiderate. You need to follow the way of Jesus." Those were quite strong words coming from a church lady, so I figured that if she had the balls to say that to me, in front of the Pope's house no less, then all bets were off. I said to her, "I need to follow the way of Jesus? Well, then you need to follow the way of a salon and get that unibrow waxed and a new haircut because it's not 1981 anymore. The Mary Lou Retton look has got to go."

After the words came out of my mouth, I felt horrible! I'm prone to say ridiculous things, but this time I had crossed the line and offended a runt and a priest in front of the Pope's house while waiting to go inside the world's most famous church. True enough it wasn't the nicest thing I could have said to her, but you don't go calling someone mean, rude, impolite and inconsiderate when they're on the verge of heatstroke! That is what you call mean, rude, impolite and inconsiderate…especially when you look like vintage Mary Lou Retton with a unibrow. That's just a smack in the face!

A room for ONE please

You'll probably think this is weird, but I have a fear of all things German. With the exception of Benz, BMW and Beethoven, if it's German, you can keep it! I think this stems from me reading about the Holocaust way too early in life. When I was 6 years old I will never forget reading an issue of Time Life Magazine that was devoted to Nazi Germany. Every since then, Germany gives me the creeps and although as an adult I realize how utterly ridiculous this is, I embrace it as one of my many quirks.

For the past few weeks the world (or at least Europe) has been going crazy over this stupid World Cup. I just don't get it! Even though I briefly played soccer in high school, I don't understand the big deal about this tournament. I had the unfortunate pleasure of staying in a hostel during my vacation and one of my roommates was a soccer fanatic from Germany. As soon as I heard the accent I thought to myself "oh boy, here we go!" But he was a nice guy and gave me anti-bacterial wet wipes so I didn't hold his nationality against him. During my second night in Rome, Germany was playing in the World Cup and I guess it was a really important game, do or die. I had been walking around the city all morning and by the time I got back to my room that evening I collapsed in the bed and fell asleep instantly. At about 7pm, my German roommate burst into the room half naked wearing a black, yellow, and red speedo and draped in a German flag screaming "WE'RE GOING TO BERLIN! WE'RE GOING TO BERLIN!" It scared me out of my sleep so I jumped up frantically trying to figure out what the heck was going on, and hit my head on the top bunk in the process. I wiped the crust out of my eyes and the first thing I saw was a pale skinny boy draped in a German flag and yelling something in German that I didn't understand, all the while running towards me with a beer in both hands. My first thought? IT'S THE END OF DAYS! Needless to say, that was my last night sleeping in that particular room. Oh the joys of hostelling:-( Someone please shoot me in the face if I ever agree to stay in another hostel again!

But oh it gets worse. During my stay in Florence, I was shocked when I got off the bus and saw that my hostel was in the middle of a freakin' forest. I knew I should have run for the hills when a raccoon stopped for a catnap about 3 feet away from me, but when you're as poor as I am right now you just have to suck it up and remind yourself that at least you're in Italy and not Biloxi, Mississippi. Not that there's anything wrong with Biloxi, Mississippi, it's just not Florence. The hostel itself wasn't bad at all. It was clean, spacious, and the staff was very kind and helpful. The first night went off without a hitch, but the second night was a different story. It was blistering hot and there really is no such thing as air conditioning when it comes to hostels. Me and my 14 other roommates had to sleep with the windows and door wide open to create a draft so we didn't suffocate in our sleep. It worked fine in Rome, but at least in Rome I was in the middle of the city. In Florence, I was in a forest and when I woke up I was covered with mosquito bites. I started counting them, but once I got to 15 I stopped. I couldn't bear it, I had literally been eaten alive! I had bites in places that no mosquito should ever be. I felt violated so I did what I usually do when situations seem out of my control; I started to cry. I sat on the top bunk and cried in front of a bunch of perfect strangers.

They were all looking at me like I was crazy but once I showed them exactly why I was crying, they started to inspect their bodies as well. A girl from Hong Kong noticed that she had 7 bites on her face and she started to cry too. I still had 2 more nights of hostelling to go and I was praying that Venice would prove to be a much better experience. But of course, that would be too easy!

My hostel in Venice was in the perfect location, right on the banks of the Grand Canal just a hop and a skip away from the waterbus. The facilities were pretty good, much better than the sorry excuse for a bathroom I had in Rome. There were screens on the window so I didn't have to worry about being attacked by insects and none of my roommates were German. One of my roommates was however, fat and suffered from Sleep Apnoea. That chick snored all night long with no end in sight! There were two Dutch girls in the room and the Dutch have a tendency to be very blunt and to the point. The Dutch girls were pissed and not at all about to listen to the fat girl snore all night. Every 10 minutes they would wake her up and yell at her in Dutch. I don't know what nationality the snoring girl was, but she obviously wasn't Dutch because she really didn't understand that she was being cussed out. Once she would go back to sleep, things would be fine for a while, but then the snoring would start again, and the Dutch girls would cuss her out again. It was a vicious cycle! Lucky for me, the snoring girl only stayed for one night and on my final night in Venice I was able to sleep in peace. No Germans, no bugs, no fat girls. It was the perfect end to my Roman Holiday (and Florence and Venice too).

Why did he have to be ugly?

This statement will probably come back to haunt me, but I'm going to say it anyway. Bloggers should never post pictures of themselves on their blog--especially if they're ugly. I know, I sound really mean and a wee bit shallow, but I've never claimed to be perfect, nice, or warm and fuzzy. So there you have it!

There's a political blog that I read regularly (it's not listed in my Bloggorhea and I'll protect his identity by not naming his blog) and I think this man is brilliant. He's in his late twenties, lives in DC and sounds just dreamy. For the past few months I've been reading his blog on an almost daily basis and I subconsciously created a vision in my mind of what he looks like. He's insightful, intelligent, comical, and has a dry sarcasm that only true dorks (like me) would understand. I figured that if he had all those qualities, then he must be handsome, right? So I developed a little cyber-crush on my favorite politico; that is, until he started posting pictures of himself on his blog. All of a sudden I was brought to the sad reality that my dreamy blogger was actually an unattractive, slightly obese tub of lard with hideous clothes and a mild case of adult acne. I was disappointed because now when I read his posts, I'll be visualizing a fatty instead of a handsome debonair man like Denzel Washington or Clive Owen. Let this be a lesson that anonymous bloggers should remain just that. Anonymous!

Oh Manolo, how I love thee!

Shoe designer and artistic genius Manolo Blahnik has created a heel-less shoe made of titanium. The design of the shoe was inspired by Medieval churches and is in response to the latest trend of chunky heels and platform wedges--which the designer hates. I concur Manolo! If only I had an extra $5,700 laying around in my bank account, those babies would be mine!

(Some) Americans are loud...and obnoxious

In the 10 short months that I have been living in London, in a some ways I have become British. I drink tea almost everyday, I say things like "no worries", and I have become acutely aware of just how annoying Americans can be. When I first moved here, I would get really defensive anytime I heard people talking about Americans negatively and when I heard a group of rowdy American tourists walking around Picadilly Circus I would smile and say to myself, "ah yes, my people:-)" However, I've recently realized just how obnoxious us Americans are and now when I hear the rowdy American tourists I wince and say to myself "how embarrassing. They really need to get a clue."

Case in point, I was out shopping earlier today and I was sitting on a bench waiting for the tube. A group of young American guys were standing near me and were behaving typically.

American idiot #1
"Dude, it's f*cking hot! I don't understand why the British don't air condition the subway."

American idiot #2
"It's because they don't have the technology. They aren't as advanced as we are. We should have gone to LA."

American idiot #1
"Yeah, we should have totally gone to LA. The food here sucks and I can't understand what people are saying."

American idiot #3
"Yeah, let's go to LA next time. It rains here all the time. London sucks. "

I must admit, I'm not too happy about there not being any AC on the tube either and I've bitched about it to countless people. And yes, I've complained about the rain and lack of sunshine more times than I care to count. But what I wouldn't do is talk about how much Britain sucks when I'm surrounded by about 30 Britons and I'm a foreigner. If they were just talking amongst themselves that would be one thing. But these idiots were practically yelling at the top of their lungs like each of them were 25 feet away from each other. It was obvious that the British people were annoyed and a little offended, but being the British people that they are, they were way too polite to comment or even look in the same direction as the idiots.

Despite my post-graduate status, I'm living in a building full of American college kids. In stereotypical co-ed fashion, they're loud and drunk most of the time. Our neighborhood is quaint and quintessentially British so the closest thing we get to raucous is the crazy lady who does bird calls in the wee hours of the morning, and the cavalry of horses and canons that parades down the street once a month at about 8am. Every few months we get a string of new study abroad students that invade the neighborhood. They walk through the streets in hordes of 10 or more talking loud and most of the time the topic du jour is usually how London sucks. They sit on the porch playing their guitars at all hours of the night, and yell at each other up and down the street like they're on campus. "HEY STEVE! STEEEVE! CAN YOU PICK UP A PACK OF BEER FROM TESCO?"

Witnessing all of this hurts my heart because these loud and obnoxious idiots are enforcing just about every stereotype that Europeans have of us...we're loud, ethnocentric, have superiority complexes, and the college kids are drunk and clueless. I've had many conversations with my coworkers who say that Americans have a horrible reputation in this respect. I agree with them on some level because I've witnessed these behaviors not only in England, but in France and Italy as well. I'm not saying that you should completely change your behavior because you're in a different country, I'm just saying that you should completely change your behavior because you're in a different country.

Now before some of my fellow Americans start getting all defensive and say I'm "un-American", let me be the first to tell you that I'm not. I can't wait to get back home, being here has given me a new found appreciation for American culture, food, mindless tv, music, food, food, etc. And I'm also not saying that all Americans traveling abroad fall into the category of loud and obnoxious, because they don't. I'm basically saying that the world already has stereotypes of us, it would be lovely if tourists didn't make them even worse.

No more popping bottles of Cris

I know this is old news at this point, but Jay-Z is officially boycotting Cristal, the ridiculously over-priced champagne that has become as common in hip-hop lyrics as the words bitch and bling. The boycott stems from what Jay calls "racist statements" that were made in The Economist by the company's managing director, Frederic Rouzaud.

I think this boycott is long overdue and not because Rouzaud appears to be an idiot, but because the hip-hop community gives way too much free publicity to products and usually get nothing in return. You can't listen to rap music today without hearing at least one product being mentioned. Rather its Bentley, Cristal, Moet, Jacob the Jeweler, or even white tees, rappers are notorious name-droppers and do it to prove how much they have, and how much better than you they are because they have it.

Everyone has danced, sung and probably had a drink while listening to the song by Diddy and Busta called "Pass the Courvoisier." In 1998, sales of the cognac were at an all-time low but in 2001 when the song hit the airwaves, sales jumped 30%. The San Francisco Gate reported that it was the largest increase the 300 year-old brand had experienced since Napoleon III named it the Official Supplier of the Imperial Court. How is that for a plush increase?

Back in 2002, Nelly released "Air Force Ones" and all of a sudden everyone had to have a pair. Sales for the shoe increased sharply, but it wasn't until after the success of the song that Nelly inked a deal with Nike to release his own limited edition shoe. While he did get something out of the deal, there are countless other entertainers that don't have the business savvy to do something similar. I would argue that the majority of the hip-hop artists that name-drop these products don't own any stock in the company or receive any sort of financial remuneration for all of the free publicity that money can't buy. So my question is, why do they continue to do it?

If I were a popular entertainer and I knew that if I liked something millions of young people would go out in droves to buy it, I'd be very careful about what I say. Suppose I made a song that said "I got red shoes in my bedrooooom, I'm the sh*t cuz I got red shoes in my bedroom," you better believe that I would cut deals with every company and manufacturer that produced red shoes (which I love by the way, and I can say that freely b/c no one gives a damn about what I like and don't like). And I would even go as far as to own stock in companies that produced products specifically for bedrooms, like sheets and nightstands...just to be on the safe side. I would never let my power and influence make more money for other people than it made for me. Wise up, rappers! Realize that when you brag about your Air Force Ones, your Benzes, and all your bottles of Cris, unless you are wise, you are only contributing to the bottom line of Nike, Daimler Chrysler and Louis Roederer--not your own.