A Fashion Emergency!

Call me crazy, but I didn't think mug shots were supposed to look good.  I've never posed for one myself, but I figure a person should get a free pass in the looks department when they've been arrested and tossed in front of a camera...especially since they're probably drunk.  People have enough trouble capturing good pictures of me when I'm sober and not battling the law.

But apparently the founding fathers missed a big one when they drafted the Bill of Rights: the right to a fabulous mug shot.  Before I get into the details, I'll just say this: you know you're in for a fantastically trashy tale when the main character's name is "Tanya Ann."  And, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the events of this story took place down south in Georgia.

Tanya Ann Fowler had her mug shot taken after police arrested her for "teroristic threats and acts"...whatever that means.  Here's how that mugshot turned out:

You may not know it to look at the picture, but Tanya Ann is a woman who cares deeply about her personal appearance.  Her unflattering mug shot found it's way into a weekly publication in Commerce, Georgia called "The Bad and the Busted."  Being the fashion icon that she is, Tanya Ann was not happy.  And even a kindergartener knows that when there's an emergency, you call 911.

So that's exactly what Tanya Ann did.  Last Sunday, she dialed 911 and complained about her unsightly mug shot.  Apparently, that call was strike three.  Strikes one and two came earlier in the afternoon when Tanya Ann called 911 in search of someone to store her meager possessions after she was evicted from her "home" (I'm assuming the author of the article treats "home" and "trailer" as synonyms).

Well, Tanya Ann got her wish--a second chance on that mug shot.  The cops charged her with obstruction of a 911 operator and brought her into the station.  I'll admit, I thought that Tanya Ann's compliant about the first picture just absurd, but after seeing her second mug shot, it's clear the the first one didn't do her justice:

Amazing what a little preparation and some makeup will do, isn't it?  Just kidding, of course.  Here's the actual second mug shot:

Let's face it, on a scale of one to ten, Tanya Ann couldn't score a point if she were being compared to a lineup of the world's ugliest farm animals.  I'm not really sure how to rank this picture relative to the first mug shot...but here it goes.  On one hand, Tanya Ann's face doesn't look as creased and wrinkled in this shot.  But on the other hand, it looks like she gave her mullet some fancy groomin' in the other picture.  And what's going on with her eyes?  It looks like two photographers stood on either side of her, each telling her to look directly into the camera.  Miraculously, she obliged both requests.

This unfortunate series of events can serve as an important reminder for all the potential criminals out there.  If you've even considering the possibility of committing a criminal act, try to look your best.  Fix your hair, put on some makeup, and wear a color that complements the beige concrete block that you'll be standing in front of when the cops take your picture.  And for the love of god, direct both eyes at the same camera.

Here's a link to the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/georgia-woman-calls-911-complain-mug-shot-gets-184622953.html

The Dark Night...and Day

Some impressive streaks are coming to an end.  On the positive side, my season-long winless drought on the tennis courts finally ended this evening. My streak of futility came to a halt at the ghetto tennis capital of Minneapolis, the Read Sweatt Tennis Center..."Home of Inner City Tennis".

The name Sweatt on the sign outside isn't just a name, it's a strong indicator of the conditions inside the building.  The neighborhood doesn't seem terribly dangerous, but I do know that inner city tennis doesn't involve air conditioning.  My shirt was instantly soaked with "sweatt" before I'd even pulled my racquet out of my bag.  Luckily I love the hot weather, and we pulled off a 7-5, 6-3 win, and our team won the match-up 2-1.  The bad news is that we're already statistically eliminated from qualifying for sectionals, but a win's a win, and that hadn't happened in a long time.

That was the bad streak that ended today.  Unfortunately, I fear a good streak is also in jeopardy.  I'm approaching 150 consecutive days of blog posts, but I may have to hang up the keyboard and focus all of my writing effort on grad school essays.  With today's half-day Friday at work, I decided I'd sit down and officially start writing my first essay.  I would tackle the "easy" one that asks about career goals.  The problem is, I quickly learned that there's no such thing as an easy essay...odd that that the word easy is embedded in the word essay, huh?

Seven hundred words about myself should, in theory, be a walk in the park.  I figured I'd have a solid draft done between noon and the tennis match in the early evening.  My first rule of writing is that it's much, much easier to edit than it is to create something from scratch.  So I always just start typing crap on a blank screen and go back later to polish the big, steaming mess I'm left with.  For whatever reason, I couldn't even get the crap to come out this afternoon.  I have a bad case of mental constipation and can't seem to find the writer's laxatives anywhere. 

For the life of me, I couldn't find the right balance between concise writing and too little detail to make any relevant points.  If things even out over time like I claimed a few days ago, I wonder if tennis success breeds writing failure.  Because I would have gladly traded a win for a decent draft of an essay today.  I typed, deleted, re-typed, and re-deleted thousands of words today, but I can only describe what I'm left with via a visual metaphor:

Good thing I only have about fifteen of these things to write...and today's was the "easy" one...and the draft isn't even finished.  So it looks like blog posts are going to be fewer and much farther between until mid-October.  Depending how bad things get, I may start a new blog-free streak that rivals what I've accomplished thus far.  I'm guessing that won't help the ad revenue.  Enjoy this while you can, because the dream is almost over...

The Illegality of Stupidity

I'm not exactly sure how to react to these new laws that are intended to enforce what most people would consider common sense behavior.  They seem so incredibly unnecessary, but I guess the reality is that there a lot of stupid people out there.  And I certainly think that it makes sense to give law enforcement officials the authority to punish those people for their stupidity.

Over the past few years, many states have passed laws banning texting and driving.  I suppose if I were more motivated, I could easily look up the answer to this question...but I wonder if it's possible to avoid punishment based on the technicalities of the law.  Does the law really only ban texting, or is it general no-phone legislation?  For example, if I'm emailing behind the wheel and get pulled over, can I avoid a ticket if I can prove that I had Verizon shut off the texting capabilities on my phone long ago? 

And how tightly do these laws define "driving"?  I've been known to surf the internet while waiting at red lights. It's a strategy I strongly advocate--not only does it make productive use of a few boring, idle minutes, but I would argue that if everyone followed my lead, there would be far less road rage among the after work, stop-and-go crowd.  Using a smartphone in an unmoving vehicle is hardly dangerous.  What's the worst that happens--someone fails to notice that the light turned green and the drivers behind him start honking?

Now, Fort Lee, New Jersey is passing a law to make texting and walking illegal.  The local police chief cites twenty-three pedestrian accidents as the cause for this new law, but I think we can all point to one person who really caused this mess:



Cathy Cruz Marrero, the infamous fountain flipper, is the obvious mascot for this legal crusade.  After hilariously tumbling into a mall fountain in Pennsylvania while texting, she went on Good Morning America and other news programs, complaining about the tremendous embarrassment she suffered after the surveillance footage went viral.  She even considered filing a lawsuit against the mall security team who let the video find its way onto the internet.  Given that the person's face is unrecognizable in the video footage, one wonders why someone so afraid of public humiliation didn't simply skip the press tour and remain anonymous.  But then again, it's clear that common sense just isn't one of Marrero's strengths.  Looks like someone is fishing for an easy payday at the bottom of a fountain...

There's also the less-known but equally hilarious case of a man near Glendale, California who nearly got himself killed while focusing a bit too much on his phone.  A bear had been wandering around a California neighborhood regularly for over a month, and the man woke up and heard a helicopter overhead--a helicopter, he would later learn, that was tracking the bear as it walked near his house.

The went outside to check out the action and decided to send his boss a text, explaining that he was going to be late to work.  While typing his message, the man came dangerously close to walking into the bear.  A brilliant move, indeed, but the man survived to get himself killed another day.  Luckily, the helicopter was there to capture the footage:



With incidents like these making headlines, it's no wonder that towns are starting to pass these common sense laws.  The article that I read later posted a clarification, noting that the law does, in fact, allow officers to issue tickets for "dangerous walking," which includes, but is not limited to, texting and walking.  I'm quickly losing faith in my "officer, I was emailing, not texting!" defense...but I still wonder about the unmoving vehicle defense.

Anyway, there's clearly a better way to deal with idiots who don't pay attention to their surroundings, whether they are driving or walking.  If only there were a way to relocate all of these people in one area and just let them Charles Darwin each other out of existence.  Mount some HD cameras at all the street corners, and in a matter of weeks YouTube will be teeming with epic collisions involving drivers who were too distracted by their phones to notice that they were about to hit a pedestrian who was too engrossed in texting to get out of the way.  Throw some loose bears into this utopia of stupidity, and the rest of the world will be a safer and more entertaining place.

Here are some links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57433581-501465/texting-while-walking-banned-in-n.j-town/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57412188-1/watch-now-texting-man-ambushed-by-bear/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

The Offsight Onslaught

I spent all of yesterday and the first half of today away from the office.  That may sound like cause for celebration, but in this case nothing couldn't be further from the truth.  Outside the office doesn't mean that I wasn't working--instead, I was subjected to that cruel form of work commonly known as the offsite meeting.  Every year we have an annual conference where we meet with the other finance people who work at the manufacturing plants.  Back in the heady days of 2011, the conference was held at a fancy hotel in downtown Chicago.  This year's rendition of the conference, on the other hand, was held in a suburban Minneapolis Sheraton hotel.  Clearly we were already starting in a hole...

To be fair, not everything about offsite meetings are bad.  It can be nice to actually meet the people that you only talk to over the phone and through email all year long.  And offsite meetings normally involve free lunch, which can be an added bonus.  In a best case scenario, the meetings involve minimal interaction, allowing my mind to wander blissfully, interrupted only by the occasional iPhone check.

While a free lunch can be nice, food can also be a major problem at offsite meetings.  I haven't been bold enough to pack in my own cooler with chicken and vegetables, so my normal strategy of eating every few hours gets shot to pieces.  After I go about three hours without eating, my stomach is growling like an angry predator and my mind immoderately and fully shuts off.  By the time lunch rolls around, I'm ready to kill someone.  And when 3PM rolls around, I'm ready to kill someone else.  Meeting organizers sometime anticipate the need for a snack, but a mountain of gummy bears just can't do the work of a little  quality chicken.

This week's offsite meeting presented me with some unique logistical challenges.  The organizers somehow missed me on the pre-meeting email that instructed everyone to dress casually, so I walked in yesterday dressed business casually while the rest of the crowd was in shorts.  I intended to take full advantage of the shorts policy in today's half-day meeting, but there was one problem...and once again, it was food-related.

Knowing that I'd be returning to the office in the afternoon, I needed two servings of chicken stocked in the refrigerator.  I didn't feel like asking to borrow the Sheraton's facilities (would they allow guests to store chicken in their kitchen?), and 90 degree weather and a hot car to bad things to meat in a hurry.  I had to drive past work for an early dentist appointment first thing this morning anyway, so I figured I'd swing by and drop my food off in the refrigerator on my way.  But what would I wear?

I didn't want to walk into the office in shorts and tennis shoes.  That's too casual even for casual Friday, and I my plans for casual Wednesday have caught on about as well as my attempts to institute shirtless Tuesdays.  Even if I only planned to walk to the refrigerator and right back out to the car, I just knew today would be the day that my boss's boss's boss happened to walk by and see making a complete mockery of the dress policy. What if they got rid of casual Friday all together and I was to blame?

So I dressed business casual to drop my chicken off at work, then drove to the dentist and changed into shorts in the car before my appointment.  After, I drove to the Sheraton for the half-day offsite meeting, knowing that I'd have to change in the car once again at work to return to the office wearing business casual attire in the afternoon.  Of course, at the end of the day, I'd have to change again into gym clothes before heading to Lifetime.  The sheer logistical effort was staggering.  The food, meeting, and gym plans required more outfit changes than a Lady Gaga concert.


Even ignoring these other nuisances, I could best describe the events of the past day and half as dreadful.  I knew I was for a rough journey when I saw these scattered around the room:

Sure enough, the flipcharts spelled trouble.  Long, boring, all-day meetings are barely tolerable when I don't have to pay attention.  But flipcharts can only mean one thing: awkward, forced small-group discussions.  Since we just went through a major restructuring, the meetings were painfully repetitive--I've seen the same set of org charts flashed on a PowerPoint slide enough times that they're burned into my retinas.  And with all this change, we spent all of these small group sessions brainstorming obvious, common sense ideas about ways to deal with change, how we can get work done more efficiently, and what kind of training might be helpful.

These discussions always go the same--one overly enthusiastic person dominates the conversation (undoubtedly a former annoying child who always had his hand raised in class), while someone else volunteers to be the "recorder" and write ideas on the giant sheet of paper in hopes that she won't be asked to present the group's ideas to the larger group at the end of the brainstorm session.

Meanwhile, I stand there scowling, waging an internal battle in my mind.  On the one hand, I feel obligated to at least say something so as to not come off like a bitter, uncooperative employee.  But at the same time, the only thing I can think to add to the conversation would be to point out that he fastest way increase our efficiency would be to drop the pointless breakout sessions from the agenda.  And my focus is clearly lacking in these situations--I find myself constantly wondering if there's a single person in the room who truly finds these things valuable...

After twelve hours of this crap over the past two days, I have learned a few things.  First, it's not true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I'm still alive, but my body is weak from hunger and my mind is softer than a bowl of pudding.  Second, I've learned some invaluable lessons about how to take an hour and a half worth of content and make it fill twelve hours.  I'm impressed at the way some of my coworkers have perfected the art of the financial filibuster.  In case you ever need to pull off something like this, just bring some markers and flipcharts and throw out an obvious topic...the rest will magically fall into place.

Authentic Finger Sandwiches

As I've previously mentioned on this blog, I have fond memories of the great Wendy's thumb-in-the-chili scare of 2005.  The incident escalated into a huge win-win for just about everyone involved.  Office workers got a great story for the water cooler, and I personally benefited many times over when Wendy's offered free Frosty's for a weekend in a shameless attempt to stifle the bad publicity.  Not everyone fared so well I guess...Wendy's suffered all that aforementioned bad publicity, and the woman behind the fake thumb hoax is now banned from Wendy's for life.  (Though one could argue whether that's a punishment).  And seven years later, I benefited again when I found this low quality but still entertaining photo on the internet:

If 2005 was the year of the chili, 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the sandwich.  The first few months of the year were relatively calm before a 14 year-old took an unsettling bite of an Arby's sandwich this past May.  Ryan Hart of Jackson, Michigan bit into something rubbery and tough to chew in his roast beef sandwich.  Hart must have an unusually curious nature, because most people place their orders at Arby's fully expecting at least one rubbery bite of unknown origin.  For the sake of his peace of mind, it's too bad he was so curious...

Hart pulled the foreign object from his mouth, revealing part of a human finger that his mother estimated was about a quarter inch thick and an inch long.  Police investigated his fleshy find and learned that a worker accidentally cut off part of her finger in a meat slicer, and the rest of the world-class Arby's team continued serving food before they noticed what had happened.  The kid was prescribed some medication and had his blood tested.  A friend of the family who was present for the digity-delight swore off fast food for life, eloquently stating, "We don’t eat fast food no more."  Despite the unpleasant surprise in his meal, Ryan Hart gave his Arby's Roast Beef sandwich one partial thumb up.

Two months later, sandwiches sprung up in the news again.  Just this morning, the news covered the story of a man on a Delta Airlines plane headed from Amsterdam to Minneapolis whose in-flight turkey sandwich fought back.  While taking the second bite of his sandwich, James Tonges got poked in the top of the mouth by a needle.  (Note the irony of a man whose last name very closely resembles "tongue" getting poked in the mouth.)  You'd expect this kind of thing in coach, but the most surprising part is that Tonues was served his stabby sandwich in elite business class!

"Needles" to say, Tongues wasn't pleased with his violent meal, and he's now taking anti-HIV medication as a precaution while medical experts test the needle.  This appears to be more than just an isolated accident--a total of six needles were found in sandwiches on planes leaving Amsterdam headed for the U.S. on Sunday.  The F.B.I. is all over the case, working to determine who's behind this.  Could it be a grossly undereducated food service employee who horribly misread a turkey sandwich recipe?  Maybe it's the act of a terrorist who's trying to destroy freedom and capitalism by unraveling American's previously unwaving faith in airline food.  They really know where to hit us where it hurts...

I guess "potential stabbing" now joins "horrendous taste" and "exhorbitant price" on the list of reasons not to eat airline food.  Worse yet, when Tonges reported the incident to Delta flight attendants, they charged him a $15 extraction fee to remove the needle from his mouth.

Where do we go from here?  The simple sandwich always seemed like a safe, comfortable meal option.  I don't know about you, but I'm going to think twice before I slot anything between two slices of bread.  Between Arby's and Delta, I guess there's still a slimmer of hope that these freaky incidents remain isolated to the lowest tier of the sandwich hierarchy.  Chew carefully, my friends...

Here are some links to the stories:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/finger-arbys-sandwich_n_1524129.html
 
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/needles-found-sandwiches-delta-flights/story?id=16790585#.UAYR5vVdDam

Essay Writer's Block

You'd think after nearly 150 consecutive days of blogging, a little 250-word essay would be easier than stealing candy from a baby...though clearly less fun.  I've made a fortune--by which I mean slightly more than $100--by churning out random posts covering just about every imaginable topic.  From Pop Tart carrying cases to Iowa to taxes to weather to work to children who soil themselves at school, I've tackled every last one.  Yet when it comes time to even start brainstorming potential responses to a grad school application essay, I start sweating like a competitor at the Fat Kids' Summer Olympics and turn into this:

I'll admit, some of the essay questions seem fair: What are your short- and long-term career goals?  How will our MBA program help you achieve those goals?  Fair, perhaps, but that doesn't make them any easier to answer.  But then some questions are just absurd.  While scanning the application for one school, I found this essay question: If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 word maximum).

First, I found myself getting a little too technical.  The question says IF you could choose...so why not just respond by saying that I couldn't choose?  That would be an honest, easy, and incredibly fast way to avoid that pesky inquiry.  But an admissions panel might interpret that response as sarcastic and lazy...so back to the drawing board.

I thought more about the question, and when it comes down to it, what's so hard about writing 250 words on any topic?  I pride myself on churning out lengthy blog posts about anything--or more often that not, absolutely nothing.  I've written thousand-word essays every day for the past five months.  Heck, before I even started typing this sentence, I've already surpassed 250 words and more.

Yet when I try to think about what song might describe me, only hilarious responses come to mind.  First, there's "Pretty People" by Dexter Freebish, a song whose lyrics include:

I cannot help it that I'm so good looking
I cannot help it that I have the perfect body
You want me but you cannot have it
I'll slap your hand if you try to grab it

Other options popped into my head, too.  How about Blondie's "I Touch Myself"?  Or if they're looking or something a little more contemporary, I bet Justin Timberlake's "Bringing Sexy Back" would have an admissions panel throwing giant bags of scholarship money in my direction.  With the prospect of grad school applications on the horizon, Theory of a Deadman's "I Hate My Life" seems like an appropriate choice.  If they want a song, I might even demonstrate my ability to over-deliver and throw a whole album their way!  What better way to share my manliness than Tommy Bolin's classic 1970s album Come Taste the Man?  Well, that one might rub the admissions panel the wrong way...

As these brilliant ideas swirled in my head, I came to the conclusion that all this blogging has ruined me.  I can write page after page of ridiculous crap, yet when it comes time to put something serious on paper, my mind is blanker than the walls in my beautifully under-decorated apartment.  My genius brainstorming session generated songs that could convincingly convey a strong message of narcissism, self-loathing, or just plain creepiness.  I know very little about what it takes to get into business school, but I can tell you that those three categories are not the foundation on which one builds a successful admissions attempt. 

The guidelines with the essay question said that the song doesn't have to be well-known. So I suppose that if I were smarter, I would quickly write my own song consisting of lyrics about helping old ladies cross the street, saving African villagers from hungry lions, and rescuing endangered baby seals while solving world hunger.  Because what song could possibly do a better job of expressing who I am?

Unfortunately, here I sit, still staring at a vast sea of white space beneath each endlessly hopeless essay question.  On the bright side, if this whole back-to-school thing doesn't work out, I have a solid plan B in the works.  These past few months, I've been reading a practical and useful book that also has the unfortunate side effect of giving me violent nausea at the mere sight of its cover.

If no school will have me, then I can write my own book, which I'll title 500 Fun and Hilarious Ways to Get Rejected From the Top MBA Programs.  It promises to be a fun and easy read, and best of all, it will even appeal to readers who have no intention of attending business school.  Anyway, if you can think of song that describes me that might also portray me in a positive light to an admissions council, I'm all ears...

Makin' Bacon

I have a whole group of blog posts labeled "Random," and it's really a perfect catch-all for the weird, uncatogorizble things I end up writing about.  And this post fits the bill perfectly--what could be more random that a weekend post about the merits of bacon in all of its unusual forms?  It's an odd post, that's for sure...but why not?  I haven't mentioned bacon since the great Jack in the Box post in early March.  So I'd say this was long overdue.

Two bacon references in the news over the past few weeks got my mind wandering in the direction of this delicious topic.  First, I saw a brief clip of a restaurant in Anaheim Hills, California that was serving a different kind of burger.  Everyone knows that adding bacon to a hamburger makes it better...by simple extrapolation, a burger made entirely out of bacon is absolute perfection.  The brief clip I saw didn't mention the name of the restaurant, but I had to find out more.

A little searching revealed that the inventor of this slab of awesomeness is a restaurant called Slater's 50/50, which has locations in Anaheim, Huntington Beach, and San Diego.  The "50/50" part of the restaurant's name refers to its flagship burger, which is a half-and-half blend of ground beef and ground bacon.  That's all well and good, but a half-bacon burger was rather disappointing after the rumblings I'd heard about a 100% bacon burger.  If I had to quantify the disappointment, I'd say it was approximately 50% as exciting as the real deal.

Fortunately, my fantasies were restored after some additional searching.  During the month of July, in a meaty, celebratory nod to patriotism and freedom, Slater's is featuring a special 'Merica Burger (for those of you who don't read so good, that's short for America).  And they did just about everything they could to avoid diluting the bacon-y goodness on this one--the patty is 100% bacon and comes topped with bacon-cheddar cheese, thick-cut bacon strips, and special "bacon island" dressing.  There's also an egg and a bun involved, which seem strangely out of place.

I must say, Slater's has their act together in the bacon department.  I'm not sure how Jack in the Box gained so much attention with their milkshake, because Slater's has been slinging bacon up and down their menu for years, from appetizers to desserts.  The appetizer section offers Bacon Mac 'N Cheese, main courses include the famous 50/50 burger and turkey bacon chili, and customers can round of their meals with a bacon milkshake or a bacon brownie.

As if I needed another reason to visit California.  The 'Merica is only available during the month of July, and the real tragedy is that I passed through San Diego, Anaheim, and Huntington Beach just last month!  If only I'd known about this, I would have changed the timing of my vacation.  Looks like I have about two weeks left to make things right in the world...

My other recent bacon encounter was a far less appetizing prospect that I also heard about on TV.  A story mentioned that someone had recently invented a squeezable bacon paste.  As awful as this sounds, I still had to find out more.  Could anyone really be lazy enough to consider chewing real bacon a cumbersome chore?  But this bacon paste still has me puzzled, because the story I heard made it sound as if this stuff just hit the market.  Yet I found plenty of squeezable bacon products.  This one is a Swedish-based product in what appears to be a ketchup bottle:

And the stuff that comes out looks like it contains almost as much plastic as the bottle itself:

And this yogurt-looking tub of mystery meat doesn't exactly whet my appetite:

Despite all of my searching, I still couldn't find a single story about any new type of squeezable bacon paste that came out in the past few months.  Hoax?  Parody?  Someone's wishful, imaginative thinking?  Who knows...but the world has already witnessed similar products, and I can't say that we're better off for having seen them.  If this bacon paste does exist, I just hope it's another foreign invention.  With Slater's effort, I'm genuinely proud to be an American...and I can only assume that the Swedish population is feeling more nauseous than patriotic after Squeez Bacon.

Here are some links to stories about Slater's and the 'Merica...including a post by the "Hamblogger"...what a great name for a blog.  I'd post some links to Squeez Bacon, but no one wants to see that.

http://thehamblogger.com/2899/slaters-5050-anaheim-hills-ca/

http://eater.com/archives/2012/07/06/slaters-5050-serves-a-100-bacon-burger-tops-it-with-bacon-cheese-bacon-dressing-bacon.php