So it’s been over a year since the last time I posted on this blog. Why?? I like writing. I like Internets. It’s not like my life has gotten significantly busier or anything — I’d say things have slowed a bit, if anything. Actually, I’ve had a significant amount of change happen since the last time I posted which would have made for great blogging material…job changes, first wedding anniversary, weight gain, weight loss, new food discoveries, moving, last season of Battlestar Galactica, other points of general mayhem and debauchery, etc. All of which would have been very interesting blogging material.

So what’s my problem then? No idea…and I’m pretty sure that even if I figured out what my problem actually is, I would bore each and every one of you to death with the details. This posting is just to say that I’m back, and I’m sorry, and I’m hoping to stay for a while.

Cheers!

~Laura

I’m just posting to apologize for my recent absence and to let you all know that I probably won’t be posting for a week or two after this…I’m getting married on Saturday, and things are starting to get pretty hectic around here!  After that, Tim and I will be spending six days in Jamaica (yay!!) so I won’t even be in the country or have Internet access at all, for that matter…  =P

I just wanted to thank everyone, including everyone from WordPress, for making my blog so popular over the past few weeks…especially since I just started blogging two weeks ago!  I don’t think I really have that many interesting things to say, but seeing how many people view my page and comment on my posts really motivates me to post.  So, thanks!

And I’ll see you all in 2 weeks…with a different name, and (hopefully!) a whole lot tanner!  =)

~Laura

So every Friday, instead of a regular post I’ll be putting up a “shameless plug” of a product I’ve tried that I really like. It has a twofold purpose — I’m lazy on Fridays and probably won’t have any good ideas otherwise, and maybe some of you can use these products yourselves!

Today’s plug is Healthy Choice’s Cafe Steamers frozen lunches. I know what you’re thinking — gross name! Heh…I’m real mature.

I had this one today called Chicken Margherita — it was a mixture of chicken, tomato, angel hair pasta, and balsamic vinegar sauce. On the box, it says that the ingredients were fresh, and I found it hard to believe — how fresh can they be?

Apparently, they can be insanely, awesomely fresh. There were like 5 whole garlic cloves in there…which might be bad for you if you’re not a big garlic person, but I was loving it. What other frozen meal do you get garlic cloves in? Crazy!

How good does that look?? Well, it really was — and it filled me up to boot. And I’m a hard person to fill up!

So in conclusion — buy this product. It’s good for you (usually between 300-350 calories for a pretty decent serving size) AND it’s delicious and fresh. What more could a hungry luncher ask for?

If you’re in the area and you’d like to purchase tix, drop me a line or write us at contact@whatsinthisjuice.com.  I promise you won’t be disappointed!

(and with a band name like What’s in This Juice?, how could I steer you wrong??)  =D

I posted this a few weeks ago, hoping that someone would respond with similar feelings about what it had to say…and I finally got a response.  If you’re too lazy to actually click the link (which I probably would be — don’t feel too bad,) this is the general gist of what I said:

I had been searching around on TheNest.com, as brides-to-be are often wont to do, and found an interesting Q&A article on handling vacation time with your job.  It basically just said that you should work late nights and weekends to make up for the time you’ll be missing, just to show everyone that you know work comes first.  Also, give out your cell number so that coworkers can contact you while you’re on vacation, and email the office halfway through the week.  It also states that “you don’t have to take all of your vacation days, but then again a Pina Colada is a terrible thing to waste.”

Here we go:  Why I Hate This Answer.

I can’t believe that we’ve actually reached a point where people actually believe that work is more important than…well, life.  If you’re one of those people to whom your career is your entire life, this article probably works out just fine for you.  Maybe you get bored on vacations.  I know a few people like that.  I’m not friends with any of them, but I know they exist.

I, however, will take my vacations.  Here’s my take on things; I go to work to make money.  If I didn’t need money, I wouldn’t be working.  I show up to work every day with the brightest face possible on, and the company reaps the benefits of my labor and pays me for it.  They also offer me benefits, which I take advantage of because I earn them every day by being a good employee. It’s a give-and-take; I don’t owe the company anything besides my time, skills, and efforts, and they don’t owe me anything besides fair pay and benefits.

I live to be a good person, and to find out what living is all about.  I’m not old enough to know — perhaps I never will — but I do know for certain that living is not all about the place where you punch the time clock.  It didn’t take me too long to figure that out.  I live for my family and friends.  I live to experience happiness, elation, shock, disappointment, sorrow, love and peace.  I live to taste Velveeta macaroni and cheese…again and again and again.

Whether the company I work for believes it or not, work is a very minimal part of my existence.  It’s the five minutes of previews that I have to sit through to get to the full-length feature film that is life.  I’ll always work as hard as I possibly can while I’m there, but only because they pay me to.  If I didn’t work hard I wouldn’t be properly earning the money and benefits they’re giving me, and that’s just wrong.

So, yes — my vacation time is mine.  I don’t need to stay at the office nights and weekends to accommodate for the time off that is rightfully mine.  I refuse to hand out my cell number so people can bug me with work problems while I’m out enjoying my family…I won’t even have my cell phone on me.  Ha.  Take that.

So when I’m out for the next two weeks — you know, getting married — you can bet I won’t be anywhere near a computer or a cell phone!  And while I’m in Jamaica on our honeymoon, I’ll be helping the person who is the newest and greatest part of my life down all the Pina Coladas we want — but not because we’re on vacation.  Just because we can.  And believe you me, if the opportunity to have a Pina Colada comes up on a workday weeknight I’ll be grabbing the bull by the horns and sucking that thing down.

But I won’t let it effect work the next day — the same way I won’t let work effect my taste for Pina Coladas.

Thank you so much for deciding to review my blog on your site!  I don’t think I have to tell you that my views jumped substantially yesterday.

For all those who are new to my blog — thanks for checking it out, and I’ll try to keep producing entertaining stuff for you to read!  If there’s anything you’d specifically like me to talk about, feel free to contact me — I’d love to hear from you!  =)

~Laura

Not bad, right? She’s a pretty attractive woman, and you can tell that she has great comic timing and is probably a really great actress.

I say “probably” because I have literally only seen her act in one kind of role every time I see her, and I’ll bet you my ’94 Mercury Tracer that you have, too. If you recognize her at all, you know what role I’m talking about. It’s the overly slutty and usually super desperate supporting woman — the best friend, the secretary, the coworker.

For those of you who don’t believe me or don’t really know what I’m talking about, here are a few quotes from two of her most popular roles. Let’s see if you recognize a common theme…

“Casey” (27 Dresses): “He asks if you want a drink. You smile and say, ‘Vodka soda.’ If you already have a drink, you down it. Then there’s some flirting, some interoffice sex, an accidental pregnancy, a shotgun wedding, and a life of bliss.” (explaining how to respond to a man’s advances)

“The only point in wearing an awful bridesmaid dress is to have a drunken groomsman rip it to shreds with his teeth!”

“Kitty” (Arrested Development): “Well, this is the last time you’ll see these!” (flashes boobs)

I understand that she’s a character actress, and that these crazy roles are part of what she does.  Character roles are fun, and are actually often more challenging than many other types of roles, believe it or not.  You have to have good comic timing and enough understanding of the role to make it a believable performance, not just a shell of a character that happens to be funny.  I know all of this.

My question to you is this; When do typecast character roles stop being good for an actor’s career?  It’s been working for her so far, that’s for sure.  But then again, take this guy:

No idea who he is?  Take another look — he’s Greg Pitts.  You may know him as the “O” Face Guy from Office Space…and that’s it!  There have been interviews with him in which he actually admits that his choice of character roles in that movie has essentially cost him his career.  He hasn’t appeared in hardly anything since then where he hasn’t played either that exact character, or something similar to it.  Don’t believe me?  Look at his role in a recent Sarah Silverman show episode!  Other victims of the Typecast Syndrome: Kelsey Grammer, Seann William Scott, and the entire cast of Seinfeld.  Most of these actors have tried to break their typecasting streak, but precious few have ever succeeded.

Some have embraced their roles and been really successful, like Jackie Chan and Chuck Norris.  When you look that those guys, though, who could blame them?  Being a hero is a cool typecasting groove to get into.  It lasts and lasts, and people love you more each time you play another one of those roles.

To me, though, the morally bankrupt, desperate slut role doesn’t really stick as a great typecast to get into.  Of course I’m no expert — but I feel that if Ms. Greer continues to take these types of roles, her career is probably going to end pretty poorly…with nothing to show for it but a career trail of mediocre characters.

So, my point is this:  Judy Greer, I like you!  I’ve heard you say in interviews that you’d like to move on to more serious roles.  Do it fast, before you become Kelsey Grammer…or the “O” Face Guy.

I hate when coworkers respond to any teeny quirk in your personality with a coffee joke, i.e. “Looks like you haven’t had your coffee yet today!” or “Maybe you should lay off the coffee!” I can’t stand when someone responds to “How was your weekend?” with “Not long enough!” I find little signs that say things like “I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either” rude and unnecessary.

The thing that confuses me most is that when I Googled the words “I hate office humor,” only six results came up. Six! Am I the only person out there who finds coffee jokes and Dilbert comics trite and annoying? I thought the movie “Office Space” proved that I was not alone with the infamous phrase “Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays!!”

It’s fitting, then, that my boss would just happen to have a giant wall completely devoted to all things office humor right in front of my cubicle. It’s a literal gold mine of officey sarcasm and Dilberty delights.

I have photographed it for your viewing pleasure. Please, you look!

See my comments on it here.

And please…if you feel this way, let me know! I know I’m not the only one. I can’t be…can I?

The part I find especially interesting, though, is why people feel the need to hide certain things about themselves. Take my list for example; here are ten things I like that I tend to hide from most people.

In no particular order:

1. lima beans

2. Dashboard Confessional

3. chick flicks

4. V8 and other forms of tomato juice

5. country music (when I’m in the mood, which is actually pretty rare)

6. One Tree Hill

7. Enrique Iglesias

8. seeing people get hurt

9. Battlestar Galactica (well, I don’t hide that so much…)

10.somewhat stale/mostly hard bread

Now, I think it’s pretty obvious why some of those things are on there — I have weird taste in food. I mean, who likes lima beans and tomato juice? Why would anyone in their right mind actually seek out stale bread? I have no idea, nor do I really know why I like them. All I know is that when I was a kid, my entire family used to dump their unwanted lima beans onto my plate and I would vacuum them up like a normal kid inhales Halloween candy. Whenever my parents have V8 in the house, it’s always gone in less than a day…and no one knows what happened to it. I also hate when soft, fresh bread gets stuck to the roof of my mouth. The solution? Only eat hard, crusty/stale bread! Or toasted. Toasted is usually better, actually.

Why would I ever tell anybody about these things? I would seem like a nerd! (Which is why, I suspect, I put Battlestar Galactica on there…I’m a girl. Other girls don’t approve of that show, to which I respond “give it a chance!”)

Other things on on there because they’re not good, and I know they’re not good. Dashboard Confessional is overly emo. The lyrics aren’t supposed to make you feel good; they are supposed to make whiny teens say “oh my gosh, I can totally relate to that!” Grownups don’t like Dashboard. Grownups also don’t like the music of Enrique Iglesias. It’s not good! It’s the musical equivalent of choosing Cheez Whiz over brie. I like to listen to it when the weather gets warm, though, because it makes me feel like I’m 15, carefree and at the beach. Go figure.

Same goes for country music. I’m not supposed to find it entertaining — people who like country music are pegged as rednecks. I’m not a redneck!

One Tree Hill and chick flicks…I guess I don’t like falling into the “typical girl” category. I don’t like the way guys talk about girl stuff, and I want to seem like one of those super cool chicks who’s extra fun for her boyfriend to hang out with. There is nothing I hate more than hearing “she made me watch one of her dumb girl movies,” or “my girlfriend watched the crappiest shows.” I don’t want to be that girl! I want to be Cameron Diaz in “There’s Something About Mary.” Admit it; you do, too.

Also, when someone gets hurt you’re not supposed to laugh. You’re supposed to be sympathetic and feel bad, like a good person should. I’m a good person, I swear! I just can’t help it, though; when a starchy businessman trips over his own tasseled loafers or a little kid plants her face into the Stop & Shop floor, I bust a gut. Call it schadenfreude or whatever else you’d like…I just find it amusing.

So I guess my guilty pleasures list shows that I am a semi-typical girl who wants to seem atypical, often enjoys bad music, likes weird food, is a little nerdy, and cares about people — but not enough to feel bad when they injure themselves, in many instances. I don’t like these qualities about myself but I just outed them — think of me what you will! …I just over analyzed that to death, didn’t I?

Distraction! Distraction! Over here!

To counter that dissertation-esque list, I now include a harmless list of ridiculously pointless pet peeves that I have. Now, forget about the whole first half of this post!

1. When restaurants only give you a thin little slice of lemon for your water — how are you supposed to squeeze it??

2. People who look at their cell phone to avoid saying “hi”

3. Pronouncing “hospital” like “huss-pital.” There’s an “o” for a reason.

4. Myspace people who try to seem quirky and original by writing their “About Me” section like this: “I can’t sit still for more than five minutes. People say I’m fun, but I think I’m crazy. I like peanut butter. Will Ferrell is my homeboy. My mom is the coolest. If you give me five minutes, I’ll give you all the time in the world. Lollipops make me happy.” It’s not original. Everybody is doing it.

5. While we’re on the subject, myspace girls who constantly write things like “Don’t hate me because I’m fabulous!” and “Don’t be jealous of me + my girlz.” Relax, nobody’s jealous of you.

6. When Fergie says “like a child misses their blanket” in that song “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Employ an editor.

7. When someone answers the question “How was your weekend?” with “Productive.”

8. That weird smell that some Pepsi bottles have under the cap. What IS that??

9. Coworkers who hum. You’re not in your kitchen.

10. Office humor-type jokes.

What about you guys? I’d love to see what YOU secretly love/can’t stand!

Aren’t you all on the edges of your seats now to know what I think about it?!?  Haha…  =P