Friday, September 30, 2005

LA Fires

Just a brief note to reassure friends and family, if any were wondering, that we are ok and not threatened by the wildfires that are burning up rather a large section of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in California. My town is about 40 miles away; however, as I drove around doing errands this morning, I could see a huge cloud of smoke covering most of the western horizon.

I do have family that lives much closer to the fires, specifically relatives in Canoga Park and my brother in Thousand Oaks. So far they are all fine. My brother emailed this morning and said that yesterday the air was full of ash and smoke, and he could see flames on the hills, but the fire was not close enough to his house to be a danger. Some people in his company had to evacuate their homes, but where he lives seems to be fine. He said things are a little better today, except for the air quality.

According to the latest update on cnn.com, about 1,500 people were evacuated, and three homes and a few other structures have been destroyed, along with over 20,000 acres.

Firefighters are doing a valiant job, as usual under tough conditions--it has been extremely hot (yesterday hit 100 degrees easily) and very dry, not to mention that we had the Santa Ana winds through here a couple days ago. Thankfully the winds have died down, and today is starting to cool off (still in the 90s though!!). I think they are starting to get things under control. Still, it's a little weird to go outside and see the massive smoke-cloud hanging over the sky!

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Torturous Beauty

First of all, GREAT JOB YARDLEY at the Knitting Factory last night! Don't know yet if they scored one of the nominations for the LA Music Awards, but if they didn't, well, there is something very wrong with the judges, like maybe they are deaf. LB, Stephen, Tommy, Mel--you guys sounded great! Best wishes...

Ok, so in other totally unrelated and yet somehow equally important news (to me): I got my eyebrows done the other day, and I think the lady messed up. It hurts me to say so, because this is the lady I've been going to regularly (and by "regularly" I mean, "regularly for me," which equates to about once every two months or so, instead of once every three weeks). Also, she is a very nice lady, and she always remembers things like my birthday, and asking after my sister (the cowgirl used to go to her too). She also usually gushes over the beauty of my eyebrows, which is probably not good for my ego, but is still very nice to hear.

She did not gush over them the other day, probably because she was horrified at the state I let them get into, and the fact that I, in my attempt at keeping them in some sort of shape on my own (terrible idea), had actually plucked out too much and left one of them shorter than the other. Apparently this was very bad, even though I hadn't noticed it. But I do notice that now, after getting them done, my eyebrows are kind of crooked. No one else has said anything, but I think they are just trying to be tactful.

All this brings me (finally) to my real topic of the day, which is: beauty routines. Specifically, my beauty routines. And since I have none, this ought to be a very short post, but since it's me writing it, it already isn't.

Not too long ago, I visited a Mary Kay consultant for some reason that I can't quite recall. Perhaps I have blocked it out of my mind. Anyway, we sat down at her dining room table and she said, "Ok, now tell me a little about your beauty routine," and I burst out laughing. Um, I brush my teeth every day--does that count? Well, no, apparently it doesn't. For one thing, to have a beauty routine, you kind of have to have beauty essentials, like makeup and the tools to apply it. I have very little of either. In fact, during my Mary Kay visit, the poor woman handed me a brush or something and I had to ask her what it was and how to use it.

"Um, that's for putting on eyeshadow."

"Of course! I knew that. I was just, uh, testing you. Yeah! Now what about this?"

"That's a fork."

"Oh. Right."

Ahem.

Some of these makeup tools, by the way, bear a frightening resemblance to torture devices. I went to a beauty store in the mall yesterday with a friend whose wife had asked him to pick up some tweezers, and we found, not just tweezers, but a whole tweezer section, with lots of different types. There was one particular set that contained a pair of tweezers so sharp that I nearly drew blood just touching their tips with my finger. And this is something that I am supposed to put in the vicinity of my eye!

But my "favorite" tool was this strange, surgically-silver implement that I can't quite remember the exact name of now, but which I definitely remember involved the words "extractor" and "lance." It was long and thin and looked like something the Ancient Egyptians might have used in their embalming processes, like maybe the thing they stuck up the nose of the corpse in order to yank out the brains. Again, not something that I would personally choose, on purpose, to be anywhere near the region of my face, or even my body in general.

As we looked at the sparkling array of tools, my friend observed, "Beauty hurts." I had to agree. Even though I don't have a beauty routine, I still do get my eyebrows done whenever the weather changes, and it's no picnic, unless it's a picnic under attack by a vast army of innumerable Fire Ants, each one carrying extractor lances and pointy tweezers like little daggers.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Top Five Pet Peeves

My creativity is at an all-time low (again--I have a lot of those, which I acknowledge as being logically impossible, but I don't care), so I thought I would write something completely and utterly frivolous. You know, for a change.

So without more ado, I submit to you, my gentle and oh-so-forbearing readers, the following list: The Frogg's Top Five Pet Peeves.

(Please understand that I'm not saying I only have five pet peeves. I'm saying these are the top five. Which is weird, because that's kind of like saying they are my favorite, but since pet peeves are things that bother you, it's hard to qualify any of them as one you like better than others. Hmmm. Oh well--again, I don't care.)

These are not in any particular order, because a pet peeve of mine is putting things in order (just kidding).

1) People who don't turn off their signal on the freeway, and spend 1-2 miles indicating that they are going to change lines in front of you, but then don't because they simply forgot to turn off the signal.

As a corollary to that particular pet peeve are the people who, when you finally decide they have forgotten to turn off their signal and then accelerate to speed past them, suddenly remember that they did, in fact, want to change lanes, and do so without bothering to check their mirrors or blind spots, prompting your sudden swerving into the next lane over to avoid hitting or getting hit by them, and narrowly being hit by the person in that.

2) People who tap me on the shoulder when they want to get my attention.

Do not ever do this. I'm not even going to say please. Just don't. Yes, I might bite.

3) Used books that have other people's notes in the margins, and their highlighted passages. (Especially if their highlighting or underlining didn't come out straight.)

I hated this in college: I would buy used textbooks to save some money, but when I opened them up and found that someone else had marked them, it would annoy me, making me breathe hard through my nose and press my lips together tight. Why did they underline/highlight that bit of text? I wouldn't have! Now I'm stuck with seeing this utterly unremarkable (to me) passage always brought to the forefront of my attention, by virtue of someone else's marking. Gah! Hate that.

4) When someone comes into the room where you are watching a movie and starts asking all these questions about it, that they would have known the answer to if they had just come in and watched it from the beginning, but now they expect a summary of everything that's happened and who all the characters are, while you are still watching and missing valuable pieces of plot.

(Okay, I have to confess I actually do that last one, sometimes. It's still a pet peeve when other people do it.)

And number five, which is probably one of my biggest pet peeves ever:

5) Complete disregard for cell phone etiquette.

For example: When you are driving somewhere with someone, and they get a call on their cell phone and answer it, and proceed to have this long conversation with someone who is somewhere else, even though you are right there with them in the car, and hey, you aren't being paid to be a chauffeur all of a sudden, are you? Sheesh.

And then there was the other day when I was at work, and a customer was on the phone (grr) and gesturing to me to come over and help him, only I didn't know that because he was one the phone, and I thought he was just gesturing along with his conversation. So I went and stood a little ways away from him, and then finally he catches my eye again and says (rudely), "What, are you on a break?" And oh, how I wish I had said, "Well, I wasn't, but I sure am now! See ya." (The other thing I wanted to say was, "GET OFF THE PHONE IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME, JERK" but I thought that might be too antagonistic, given that he was already mad and was also a lot bigger than me.)

Here is the frogg's tip of the day: Just because a phone rings, doesn't mean you have to answer it. Whoa. I know that is a huge revelation for some of you. But that's what VOICE MAIL is for, people. So people can LEAVE A MESSAGE and then you can CALL THEM BACK LATER at a more CONVENIENT TIME. Like, when you are not driving around with your friend who really doesn't want to get stuck listening to your half of a conversation with someone they probably don't know or care about. Or when you are not in a store where you are preparing to lay out a good bit of money for a computer and peripherals and expecting someone like me to help you out with said purchase.

*deep breath*

Okay, enough about me. What are some of your pet peeves? Here's your chance to vent them all!

(Hopefully one of yours isn't "girls who write long--way too long--lists about their pet peeves" or I'll feel sad.)

Friday, September 23, 2005

Music Lovers in Los Angeles, Read This!



Well, I don't know how many of you, my dear readers, are actually in the Los Angeles area. However, if you are, you might want to check out a great gig at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood this coming Wednesday night--my friends' band Yardley will rock the house! They have a shot at being nominated for the LA Music Awards, so we're trying to round up as many people as we can to go and cheer them on!

I'm planning on going, so maybe I'll see you there! Bring friends...I guarantee you won't be disappointed. If you want to hear samples of their music, go to yardleyband.com and check 'em out. Some cool new stuff too--"Beautiful" and "Try Me" are two of my personal favorites!

Come on, guys, what else are you going to do on a Wednesday night for only $8.00 in LA??

Here's a link to a larger image of the flier I pasted above.

Hope to run into you on the Hollywood side...

What: Yardley, showcasing for the LA Music Awards!
Where: Alterknit Lounge, The Knitting Factory, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028
When: Wednesday, September 28, 9:00pm
Cover: $8
ALL AGES WELCOME!

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Happy Life Day!

I am awfully excited because I had a rare opportunity this past weekend. I learned for the first time in my life of the existence of a rare precious gem of "comic gold" (if Pepper will excuse me for lifting her expression, which I love), in the form of a bootlegged DVD. And that DVD was...The Star Wars Holiday Special!

Aired in 1978, this show is the big embarrassment of the George Lucas empire, and believe me, it more than deserves its pride of place. I don't know when I've ever seen anything so incredibly bad (and thus hysterically funny).

Oh wait! There was this really dreadul monster movie I saw once, with partners in crime Mark and Steve. We were flipping channels on TV one night, and I will be forever grateful for the fact that we stumbled across Reptilicus, which I can only describe as Godzilla on a budget. Er, yeah. It's basically about a monster that bears a kind of resemblance to the Japanese lizard, except that instead of being electrifying and breathing fire (wait, did Godzilla breathe fire? I forget), Reptilicus...well, I'm sure this isn't what the filmmaker intended, but it looks like he vomits on people. Green cartoon slime came out of his mouth as he stomped through the towns, which looked rather like King Friday's papier-mache kingdom on "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood." Also, instead of Japan, the movie takes place in some Netherlandish location.

But no, I think the Star Wars Holiday Special is actually worse than Reptilicus. At least the monster movie had a fairly coherent story and plot outline--monster terrorizes Denmark, people try to kill it, monster spits or vomits its green slime on people, chaos ensues for awhile, the monster is vanquished, and people are happy again in their Lego-like village. I mean, that's a story we can all understand and appreciate, if not entirely relate to.

In the case of the Star Wars Holiday Special, the word "coherent" was banned from the set, apparently considered in incredibly bad taste by whoever filmed it. It begins epically, with a deep-voiced voice-over guy mentioning the characters--Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and then introducing "Chewie's family," one of which (this is where I nearly fell off the couch) was actually named--LUMPY.

Another one was Itchy. And no, I am not making any of this up.

The opening scene could take the place of Chinese water torture; it has much the same effect. The viewer finds himself in the home of Chewie's sort of endearing, but not exactly English-speaking, family. After 20 minutes of listening to Wookie-speak (which, as you all know from watching the Star Wars movies, consists solely of emitting strange, strangled growls and yells), the family becomes much less endearing and much more annoying. Subtitles might have helped, but then again, I doubt it.

During the opening, there is this one obscure and slightly disturbing (to me anyway) sequence where Chewbacca's son (or daughter--I guess Lumpy could be a girl name too), turns on some sort of holograph-machine-table-thing, and all these little people suddenly appear, dancing, kind of like fairies or something. Lumpy watches, enthralled, as the improbably-colored fairies do little gymnastic routines and make music in an effort that I am sure is meant to entertain, but, if my reaction is any gauge, actually repels the viewer (but still makes them laugh at the sheer, mind-numbing ridiculousness of the whole thing).

At some point it becomes "clear" (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) that the family is concerned because Chewie, out on some mission somewhere, has not come home in spite of the fact that a holiday is rapidly approaching. It being the future and all, "Christmas" has apparently become a bit jejeune, so that meant someone had to come up with a name for the holiday. Remember that whoever this someone was also came up with the names for Chewie's family--ahem, Lumpy, anyone? And once again we see that creativity did not abound in the scriptwriting department, as Luke assures the worried family that Chewbacca "hasn't missed a Life Day yet."

I'll never know for sure (mostly because I'm too lazy to find out), but I am fairly confident that whoever wrote this show never worked in Hollywood again ever, when it was done.

Other priceless moments include an appearance by the band Jefferson Starship inside a music box, and a very weird cartoon that introduces Boba Fett, who had my favorite line of the show: "You'll only get in the way. But if you must--come on."

Yeah, Boba Fett! You tell 'em!

I thought that perhaps the show was the result of someone (or many someones) doing too many drugs, but then I thought that people on drugs would probably have come up with something a lot more interesting. So perhaps the viewer is supposed to be taking drugs when they watch it. I for one wouldn't have minded taking something for the pain, at least.

I couldn't make it through the whole thing, I confess. But I do think it is a must-see for any Star Wars fan. In some sadistic sense, it will be worth it, I promise. (Laughter is only the best medicine til it kills you, but hey, there are worse ways to go.)

May the Force be with you--you'll need it.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Break

I will be taking a break from the frogg files for a few days. Be back soon.

Hmmm, does anyone else think the word "break" looks really weird? It does!

Anyway. Be good, and miss me.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Ack

Well, I had these grand plans of writing something very funny and witty today, but after (finally) getting off work, I feel like I've been hit by a truck, and I am not so sure I possess the ability to be even remotely humorous at the moment.

And I must say, if I hear--nay, if someone so much as mouthes--the words "4GB iPod Nano," I am going to...well, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm sure it will be something drastic.

Hmm. Is that how you spell "mouthes"? Or is it "mouths"? Oh who cares.