The Trouble With Talk Like a Pirate Day

I like pirates. I do not like pirates as much as I like stealthy ninjas, but pirates use the word "plunder" liberally. I enjoy talking about booty. (Booty!) I used to enjoy today's holiday, Talk Like a Pirate Day, the celebration of the pirate vocabulary and cadence.

But now? I think it's just too commercial.

Talk Like a Pirate Day got its start in 1995, way before blogs blew every annoying trend out of proportion and we relied on Dave Barry to operate in that capacity. In 2002, Barry wrote about the Cap'n Slappy an' Ol' Chumbucket and their holiday. It caught on, and it was fun to talk about my friends' booty. More than I already did.

But just like Christmas, things got out of hand. Now the creators of TLaPD are cashing in on their success. They've released books. You can download ringtones. At some point today, your mom has called you to ask how you "Arrrr," then cracked up.

Next thing you know, there will be a touching cartoon special about how the lessons of Talk Like a Pirate Day should be honored all year long. We should always pronounce our Rs, which is an especially important lesson for Boston. We should always eat citrus to avoid being called scurvy dogs. It's all too much.

I just want to be left alone to honor Talk Like a Pirate Day without ringtones, books, or costumes. It's what my pirate forefathers would want.

Bad Blogger

Oh hello, readers. How are you? I've been remiss in writing here, I know. But I spend most of my days blogging on Boston Daily, so if you're looking for me, that's where I am. I'd write here more, but I don't have much else going on. I get up, write stuff, then go home. Right now I've got some time, so I figured I'd drop in and give you some random thoughts.

Update: Jesus Sing-A-Long
Knock on wood, all's been quite on the neighbor front. A friend of mine pointed out to me this weekend that it was Rosh Hashanah last week, and maybe they were celebrating. But I think there was a Jesus or two in the songs, so it's probably not a Jewish thing. Whatever, at least it's quiet now.

In other frustrating apartment news, I motivated myself to go to the laundromat before the approximately eight hours of The Biggest Loser comes on, but when I attempted to leave my building, I saw that the pull handle on the lock was stuck in the out position. I tried to wiggle it, but it didn't move. I pulled on the door, and found I was locked in my building. Of course, the on-call maintenance guy said he can't fix the lock until tomorrow. Instead of risking being locked out, I'm just going to stink until I get to a laundromat next weekend.

Britney Spears
Okay, her performance at the VMAs was awful. But I would kill a puppy to be "fat" like Britney Spears is "fat." If I ever have a daughter, she's not going to see a TV or read a newspaper until she's in college.

Britney Spears is not fucking fat. Not to get all weepy about it.

Casinos
I feel like I'm always up in arms about this. A casino is not a cure-all. While Massachusetts can probably handle mega-casinos better than the already densely populated Ocean State, I personally still don't like them.

Lincoln Chafee
He's not a Republican anymore!

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he has left the Republican Party because the national GOP has drifted too far from him on critical issues, including the war in Iraq, the economy and the environment.

"It's not my party anymore," Chafee, who represented Rhode Island from 1999 until 2007, told The Providence Journal in an article published Saturday.

Awesome.

This is terrifying
There really are two Americas, folks. Here is a book on why women should wait to have sex until they're married. (Guess what? It involves "Satan's Big Fat Sex Lie." And the horrifying idea that one's parents should be brought into one's sex life.) Where is the edition that encourages men to wait?

Red Sox
AIIIIIEEEE!

That is all.

Come On World Hear the Song That They're Singing

I was a little tired when I got home tonight and felt like nesting. I baked some lovely pumpkin bread and called my brother to see how he likes his new job. As I spoke to the family, I heard a loud booming bass sound coming through the walls.

On Labor Day weekend, a couple move into the previously vacant apartment next door to me, and when I saw them moving in I heard one person playing a banjo through their open front door. I slammed my door to let them know I didn't enjoy loud music at all hours, and so far they've only had small jam sessions. This new noise was loud, with a woman singing a kind of folk song.

I got up to check on my bread, and heard the music more clearly through the kitchen, and thought I was hearing a Negro spiritual or something. There was a loud guitar and what sounded like a group of people singing. I figured they had their stereo up loud and decided to let it ride until 9.

At 9:15, I'd eaten a considerable amount of pumpkin bread and the music was still clearly audible through my walls. Sick of being passive-aggressive, I went next door and pounded on the neighbor's door.

As I stood waiting for someone to answer my loud and impatient knock, I heard more clearly what was happening. At least four people were in the neighbor's apartment singing a song about Jesus. Loudly. I waited for a while, but I was chilling in my hallways in my gross pajamas and decided to go back inside since the Lord apparently does not care about pissed off neighbors banging on the door.

Of course, once I sat back down to watch History Detectives somebody opened the door. After a minute, I heard doors opening and closing and the music stopped. I don't know if another neighbor complained or if some of the band had to go home. Someone is still singing, but I think once I turn on my fan for some white noise I can ignore them. But while Jesus may love them, I am going to be mightily angry if this keeps up. I'm going to go look for apartments in a fallout shelter now.

EDIT: Just as I pressed publish, someone broke out a harmonica. Oh hell no.

Oh Jesus Christ

For fuck's sake.

Seriously? Are we still making jokes about Hillary Clinton being a man-hating bitch? Really?

The Hillary Nutcracker, which sells for $19.95, is quickly becoming the most Hill-arious joke of the campaign trail.

The 8-inch plastic figure captures Sen. Clinton in all her walnut-crunching glory, with steel-lined legs (“stainlesssteel thighs!”) that can pulverize even the hardest shells.

Well, okay then. I'm going to go listen to my Sublime albums and put on my Doc Martens, since it's apparently still the '90s. Maybe I'm overreacting, but until somebody makes a Mitt Romney package of condoms for multiple wives or a John McCain paddle for little jerks I'm going to be kind of sore about this.

[via the Daily Intelligencer]

Men Behaving Badly

Living on a bus line isn't easy. For the past few weeks, I'd gotten in the routine of taking a bus that brings me to the Orange Line and into work, but with the new schedules the T started running this week, I've been taking a bus that brings me the Green Line at Lechmere. While the ride is a little slower, I always get a seat and can space out for a while.

This morning found me getting to work insanely early through some flux of the time-space continuum, so my Green Line train was unusually empty. At Park Street, a man got on the train and sat next to me. He then unfurled his Metro onto my lap, and leaned forward to read.

My purse was on my lap, but it was still annoying to have this guy gazing in the direction of my crotch. I started wiggling my leg to give him the hint that he was in my personal space. No dice. I rolled my eyes and gave a death stare so fierce the male nurse across from me who seemed quite nice was afraid. Nothing.

Instead of just waiting the guy out or talking to him (I was pre-coffee and therefore not verbal at this point) I too leaned forward and started reading his Metro over his shoulder. I got a few paragraphs into a piece about the Patriots before he caught the hint and maneuvered the paper away from me. But by the time I got off the train, the paper had wiggled back onto my thigh.

You know what's nice about a newspaper? You can fold it in half to make it easier to read. It doesn't have to be spread wide open and take up three seats. So keep your papers off my freakin' lap, people, or else I'll whack you with my bag as I get off the train.

Pigeon Hobo

My little brother went to Baltimore a month ago with his friends on vacation, and was startled to watch one of Baltimore's hobos picking pigeons up off the street and stuffing them in a bag. Lucky for us, he had a video camera with him and taped the act as it happened. Behold, Pigeon Hobo.



Whoa.

The Confusing Business of Life

I'm never quite sure if I make a good feminist or not. I rail against pro-lifers, I make sure I vote in every election, and I believe that women should be equal to men. Ellen Goodman's editorial in the Globe has me questioning the voracity of my feminism on a Friday before a long weekend because I liked a movie I saw this summer. This couldn't have waited until Tuesday?

Goodman's editorial doesn't seem to have a big point, but I think she's perturbed by the reinforcement of gender stereotypes at the movies and in bookstores this summer.

The remarkable thing is that the best-selling book [The Dangerous Book for Boys] and the number-one movie [Knocked Up and/or Superbad] are out there offering the most opposite and fanciful revised images of boyness since the culture became obsessed with the "boy crisis," the "boy trouble," and assorted imaginary "wars against boys."

I didn't have an entirely positive reaction to The Dangerous Book for Boys, either. A friend emailed me after seeing the book on the Today show, recommending I buy it for a boy I babysit. After reading the synopsis, I got a little angry. Why shouldn't the boy's sisters learn how to tie knots or make paper airplanes? If the authors had titled the book The Dangerous Book for Kids, I probably would have bought it, but the entire book implies that these hobbies are for boys exclusively. The idea that girls shouldn't like Latin or want to know about important historical battles put me off enough where I bought the boy a different gift.

But my take on Judd Apatow's movies is the opposite of Goodman's. I haven't seen Superbad yet, but feminist blogs like Jezebel loved the movie. I did see Knocked Up, and I liked it. Was the movie vulgar? Of course it was. Yet underneath the veneer of vulgarity there is emotion that saves the movie from being There's Something About Mary. Seth Rogen's character tries (albeit in a misguided way) to impress Katherine Heigl's young professional character. Rogen's character also promises to be a part of the child's life, and changes from a stoner to a corporate sellout to provide for the baby. Aww.

The moral messiness of Apatow's male characters is what I like about his movies. Women's comedies have hapless women like Bridget Jones who spend the majority of their waking hours jumping through hoops to attract and keep a man. In their own foolish way, Apatow's geeky high schoolers and stoner layabouts are going through the same thing, but they use booze for underage girls instead of makeup and heels to do it.

I may not agree with Goodman on frat boy comedies, but she and I can team up to torch a crate of The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls when that shipment comes in. Stage faints and "fairy flower parties"? Fuck that. If you need me, I'll be teaching little girls how to hog-tie their younger siblings.

Adventures in Klutziness

I am not a very athletic person. Yes, I work out regularly, but I do that to keep my ass from growing to the size where it will knock over the Pru. But when it comes to activities that require coordination or grace, I am not very good.

I thought I could handle some boogie boarding at the beach on Sunday. Annette and Amy P. came down to the fine state of Rhode Island to partake in the glory that is Narragansett Town Beach. After hearing that the surf would be two to four feet high, I grabbed the boogie boards from my Mom's basement. We got to the beach and watched as the surf pounded the shore.

"Awesome," Annette said, shedding her clothes to head for the water.

Amy and I took the boards out first. Annette stood by and coached Amy in how to use the boards as I tried to get the hang of mine again. The last time I used the boards was at least three years ago when I brought the kids down for a beach day, and I'd gotten rusty. When I finally caught a wave, I rode it but tipped my nose down, shooting a heavy spray of salt water into my sinuses. Undeterred, I took the board back out into the growing surf.

A wave came at me that I thought I could handle, but I noticed I'd kind of timed it wrong. Instead of just bobbing over the crest of the wave, I paddled for it. I caught the wave and soared toward the beach. On my high-speed journey to land, I rolled or tipped the board and threw myself into the crashing foam.

I couldn't find which direction was up for a few seconds, until-- SMACK. My right cheekbone hit the sandy bottom of the ocean. I held my breath until I could get my feet below me again and stood up in the relatively shallow water.

Amy and Annette laughed at me until they saw how freaked out I was. "Am I okay? Did I lose any teeth?" I asked them. (In my defense, I'm without health insurance right now, so I was making sure I wasn't looking at a huge dental bill.)

"No, you've got all your teeth," Annette said. "And a fat lip."

"And you're probably going to have a shiner on your face too."

Shaken, I brought my board back to our towels and then slowly waded back into the crashing surf. Between waves I stuck my head into the cool water to keep the swelling down. As you can see, it didn't help too much.

Hawtt.

I sat around, thinking of excuses for the huge shiner I figured would bloom on my face at any moment.

"I just wouldn't listen," I suggested.

"Fucking sharks, man," Annette added.

"There's the classic 'what do you mean what's wrong with my face?' line," Amy P. said.

Luckily, I haven't needed to formulate any excuses. My face looked much better on Sunday night.

Beach hair and a semi-shiner. Why am I single?

Nobody's noticed my injury unless I've pointed it out to them, which negates all the cool excuses my friends and I developed. So I am pointing it out here to warn you that if you are thrown from any board to put your arms over your head to protect your face. That way, you won't have to explain how you got that bruise on your face and spraying liquid all over your bathroom because you lip is still kind of swollen.

Anyone Want a Burger?

At work today we had some hamburgers and beer for lunch. After the employees feasted on the delicious meaty and/or veggie burgers, we found ourselves with eleven leftover burgers.

"What do we do with these burgers?" asked one coworker.

"Maybe bring them to the post office?" Someone else replied.

"It would be nice if the Pine Street in were near here." Someone added.

Determined to unload the burgers on hungry people who could appreciate them and not unload them into a garbage can, my coworker Feifer and I decided to leave the office and try to peddle nine (a couple people took burgers on our way out) burgers on the public at large.


"Free burgers!"

As we stepped out of the office, a crowd of four people stopped as we announced our free burgers. They were initially suspicious of a couple of giggly people with an unmarked sack of hamburgers, but hunger won out.

"I haven't eaten breakfast yet," one of the women told us as she grabbed a burger.



We walked down Mass Ave., calling for people to liberate our burgers. One tourist came out of one of the Christian Science Center buildings and told us in broken English that she was on her way to buy a burger anyway, and thanked us. A man in a Yankees hat turned us down, but smiled and said, "You guys are nice."

After a while, we were down to one burger. "This is going to be hard," Feifer said, "because if you come up to me with a collection of something I like and offer it to me, I'll probably accept it. But if you said 'Do you want this particular item?', I probably wouldn't take it."

It turned out he was right, and despite our loud calls to the tourists around us, we returned to our office with one lonely hamburger in a big plastic bag. Luckily, one of our coworkers took it and all the hamburgers found a loving stomach today.

Called It!

Ten months ago to the day, I wrote this post. In it, I placed this image of Mitt Romney:


With the following prediction:

He's totally using this image in his presidential campaign.

Lo and behold:

Bundled up against the chill winds of liberal Massachusetts, Mitt stood tall.

Holla Back!

So I'm apparently late to the party on this clip, but it's still fucking hilarious. Thanks to TravelGirl for the link.



Be careful how you roll on the MV this weekend, peeps. Because there's nothing harder than a New England gangsta.

Don't Care How, I Want it Now

Hey Jessica Simpson, we know you aren't the smartest woman on the planet, what with all the dumping Nick Lachey for that guy from Jackass and the chicken-or-tuna debate you had with yourself, but this is way beyond your usual level of stupid:

JESSICA SIMPSON plans to adopt a child from a Mexican orphanage she has been visiting since she was a teenager. . . .

The 27-year-old tells Self magazine, "My father was a minister, so growing up we'd go on a missionary trip every summer. The first time I went to that orphanage I was 16. I remember holding this baby who was found in a dumpster. I wanted to adopt him right then and there. I was like, 'Dad can I have him for my birthday, please?'"

Are you kidding with that shit? A human child is not a goddamn pony, Jessica. An orphanage is not a pound where you can just grab a kitten and make your parents take care of it.

Between Jessica Simpson's grab-and-go method of adoption and Madonna's borderline baby thefts, it's a wonder any foreign countries let Americans adopt their children anymore. Which is a shame since there are many parents who give adoption a great deal of thought into adopting kids from abroad.

Daily

If you've seen the latest issue of Boston magazine (which you all did, right?!), you may have wondered why I was so intermittently posting to this blog since I wrote all of 500 words in the August issue. At last, you can see why.

As you can see on the sidebar (points to the right) or at Universal Hub, there's a new link to a site called Boston Daily. Boston just relaunched its website yesterday, and the blog to go with it, which will be my primary writing territory. Cool, huh?

So if you need me, I'll be over there for the most part (though I'll still be posting here). Add BD to your blogroll, if you'd be so kind. It will help you live a better life. Or, at least you'll get reliably updated content there.

It's Monday. Do You Know Where Your Civil Liberties Are?

No, you don't, because over the weekend they were further eroded by a new law that expands the domestic wiretapping program. All the fun of the old wiretapping with none of the pesky judicial interference or justifiable reasons!

First, the law requires telecommunications companies to make their facilities available for government wiretaps, and it grants them immunity from lawsuits for complying. Under the old program, such companies participated only voluntarily -- and some were sued for allegedly violating their customers' privacy.
Second, Bush has said his original surveillance program was restricted to calls and e-mails involving a suspected terrorist, but the new law has no such limit.

Okay, so that sounds bad. Surely there is someone responsible in charge of deciding who can be wiretapped?

As a check against abuse, the law requires Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, to design procedures for the program and to submit them for review by a secret national security court that normally approves warrant applications for intelligence-related wiretapping on US soil.

Well, Alberto Gonzales is such a bastion of justice and truth that this plan can't possibly be abused. Even though there's a provision that allows dirt found about American citizens to be kept if it could be evidence of a crime.

If you need me, I'll be deleting old incriminating emails and learning how to use a carrier pigeon to keep my messages private.

We're Doing a Special for Dateline NBC. . .

Now, if we could talk about me for a minute. . .

My love for Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC (that's the name on his birth certificate) grows exponentially with every episode in which he appears. Last night, CHfDNBC took the night off from nabbing pedophiles and identity thieves to nab i-Jackers, the hip name for people who steal iPods.

Through some ingenious plan, NBC laid boxed iPods in various areas around the country with a bogus CD that sent personal information to Dateline's producers, who then corralled the thieves/unsuspecting recipients of the iPods into describing why they would do such a thing. Most of the iPods were stolen by teenagers (hey, pedophiles, there's your new in!) who were immediately repentant when confronted with Hansen's brand of scolding disbelief.

The only reason I can fathom for Hansen not getting the shit kicked out of him by some angry pedophile or iPod theif is that brand of fatherly anger. His voice conveys, "I am both disgusted by you and disappointed in you" which is a pretty paralyzing combination. I am not a pedophile nor an identity thief nor an iPod stealer, and I feel bad about everything I've ever done wrong in my life when Hansen gets going. His poor kids.

Now they need a special where a pedophile carrying a stolen iPod and a fistful of stolen credit cards with thousands of dollars if receipts shows up. That is what they in the business call PAYDIRT.

For those of you who aren't in the know, here is infamous Naked Guy. Enjoy.

MyFreakout

Aw crap. A moral quandary.

Despite my refreshingly unpretentious exterior, I do engage in some pretentious behavior. While I don't buy trendy bags that announce my green proclivities, I don't shop at Wal-Mart on various principles ranging from their sexual discrimination to their destruction of many local stores I once loved. I still shop at Target despite the fact that they sometimes don't fill birth control prescriptions because they do support some causes I think are good.

However, news of Rupert Murdoch's purchase of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal (holy fucking shit, goodbye journalism!) has me thinking. Somehow, it didn't register with me that MySpace-- my favorite workplace downtime activity and means of stalking people I went to high school with to see if they got fat-- is owned by News Corp until now.

Since I was disturbed by this knowledge, I talked to my socially conscious indie-band friend Chris about his thoughts on the subject. What follows is our comment conversation via Rupert Murdoch's pedophile paradise:

Me: Chris, I have a question. MySpace is owned by News Corp. Why do we use this? Is it like watching the Simpsons, and we have to take the good with the bad?

Chris: I've been thinking that everyone should switch to Facebook. Fuck Rupert Murdoch. I hope MySpace tanks and he has to sell five yachts to cover his debt.

Me: Sigh. But I have just built up my empire of minions on this site and have resisted facebook for so long. I guess revolution is always inconvenient.

Chris: Baby steps, Derjue; baby steps.

1.) Create Facebook profile
2.) Tell others about said profile
3.) When feasible, delete MySpace account

I think I'm going to do that myself, actually. Seriously, the only thing better about MySpace anymore is the fact that everyone uses it. But the more people that try Facebook, the more popular it'll be.

Now I just have to get the thirty- and forty-something folks I convinced to join MySpace over to Facebook. The revolution will not be bulletined, friends.

Shameless

Whoo!

Hey kids. I'm still recuperating from my birthday festivities, but if you're jonesing for a fix, pick up the latest issue of Boston magazine. It's the Best of Boston issue, and I've got a couple non-Best items in the front of the issue. And my name's on the masthead!

. . . Nope. Still not old.

Things

Thing one: I am so very tired.

Thing two: What did Buddy Cianci do first after getting out of home confinement early on Friday? Went to Federal Hill for a three hour lunch. Told you.

Thing three: I did not see Buddy Cianci at Waterfire, though he was present. My friends and I decided that he should have been put on a gondola and floated through Waterplace Park like the local hero he is. And I was wrong-- he rocked a bald head on Saturday.

Thing four: Thanks to The Big Man Upstairs for a great beach day on Saturday and dry weather for the Police show tonight.

Thing five: The Police were awesome. I have no voice left and I thought I was going to pass out from heatstroke. I suffer for rock.

Thing six: However awesome the Police are, I wish they'd stop jumping around on stage like they did in the '80s. It's awkward and something they're not anymore. It's like when my Mom says "bling."

Thing seven: Bedtime now.

Rocky Point Awesomeness

Check this out. Thank God for MySpace, where I found this awesome piece of cinema.

You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park.

Trailer here.

All you Rhode Islanders know what I'm talking about. Fuck. Yeah.

No New Tale to Tell, Twenty-Six Years on the Way to Hell

Aww, you shouldn't have!

Well, tomorrow's my birthday. I cling to my mid-twenties with bleeding fingernails, to be cruelly shoved into the abyss of my late-twenties next year. Instead of trying to round up all my friends into a bar they wouldn't be in if I didn't make them, drinking too much, seeing my ex on the train, then vomiting profusely upon arriving home (last year's celebrations), this year I'm going to the fine state of Rhode Island to celebrate with A. (Call me, Buddy! Get on yer best toupee! Drinks are on us!)

When I go through a hard time, I often think that maybe a future me is encouraging myself to get through it because shit gets better eventually. While I do get really down about life sometimes, I'd say I'm fairly optimistic. At this time last year I'd just been dumped, I was beginning to realize I lived in a shithole, I was totally broke in a scary way, and I knew I needed a new job. One year later I'm... well, still single but pretty okay with that, I live in an apartment that's great, I'm broke in a less scary way, and I have the job I thought it would take me years of freelancing to get. Last night my girls and I went to dinner, and I realized my friend Colleen was celebrating her one-year wedding anniversary this weekend.

"Holy shit," A said, "where did that year go?"

"Well," I replied, "I was miserable for about six months of it, so I guess that's where it went for me."

But I've got no complaints now. It all worked out for the best. So if you need me, I'll be drinking 'Gansett IN 'Gansett and rocking out to the Police to celebrate my good fortune.