Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Too bored to blog

It's amazing how sitting around the house for almost 3 weeks has bred nothing but boredom and laziness. Olympic level laziness. I would bring home the gold in couch potatoeing, napping, and wasting enormous, Italian mountain range amounts of time. I am a triple threat. Yo.

And this all leads me with nothing to say. I blame daytime television. And Regis. It's all his fault.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Most awesomely awesome thing I did that is also gross

Scene: Bedroom. Also known as The Den of Love and Cat Fur Repository.

Time: 10:51 p.m.

Players: One very, very tired human and one eating-disordered kitty.

Key element: Eating-disorded kitty has just consumed kibble for the 95th time today filling her bloated body to the brim and has once again settled on the very, very tired human's very, very special blankie.

Eating Disorded Kitty: hork hork hork

Very, Very Tired Human: "OH SHIT!!"

EDK: hork

VVTH: (bolts out of computer chair with super VVTH speed and grabs EDK, spins on a fucking dime and plunges EDK's head into nearby trashcan).

EDK: hork hork HOOOORRRRRRRRRK (all contents are deposited into trashcan like this was a well-rehersed ballet).

VVTH: WOO HOO!! HA HA!! FUCK YA!! (runs through house doing Rocky fist pump in air, tells boyfriend awesomely yet gross happening in bedroom, both laugh with glee).

EDK: (wobbles out of bedroom with glazed look in eyes).

VVTH: FUCK YA!! I'M AWESOME!! HA! (secretly hopes this never happens again).

And scene.

Friday, February 10, 2006

This just in...

O.K. I just got the back. The scan has been done and read. The blood drawn. The future discussed.

The doc had me sit with him in front of the imaging computer and take a look at the pictures just taken. We compared the scan from last March with the bad shadow. His face was somber, he pointed to the spot in my neck with the back of his pen and turned to me. Then he said...













IT'S NORMAL! IT'S NORMAL!

THE SCAN IS NORMAL!!!

HOLY CHRIST ON A BIKE IT WAS NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL!!!

I started to choke up with happiness and disbelief, the look of apprehension still clouding my brow, when he smiled, gently took my hand and said, "sweetheart, I want you to take a breath, go eat a cheeseburger and get on with the rest of your life."

YAY!!

He thinks the spot last year was a remnant of thyroid tissue that's slowly dying off. He can still see a tiny bit left but the spot is smaller than last year so there's NO REASON to think it's the cancer coming back. He warned me that he's not perfect, but in his opinion, IT WASN'T CANCER!! Or to quote, "I'm considering this a normal scan."

He wants me to keep following up with my thyroid doc (of course) and I'll probably have to scan again in 12 months, or if I'm lucky, just an ultrasound, but for now, NO FUCKING RADIATION!! NO SHITTY STUPID DIETS!! NO CANCER!!!

I know I'll have to deal with this shit for the rest of my life and there's a road of recovery ahead and some other shit to take care of, but for right now I'm in the fucking clouds, baby, in the fucking clouds and crying tears of joy and relief.

The last 11 months in particular have been fucking hell. Thinking I had a recurrance was devastating and stressful to say the least. I want to thank everyone who has given me support, wishes, vibes, thoughts, distractions, candles lit, all of it. To my boss - you're a fucker and you can kiss my non-cancer big white ass. HA! (I'll fill you in on that later). And most importantly, a special shout-out to my best girls, FG, Truly, Ginny, Mar, AG, and Scrubby. I am overwhelmed with honor to call these women friends and I love you all more than my luggage.

Who woulda thought I was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY NORMAL?!?

To quote one of my favorite movies, "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". Or at least it is today, so spill a little with me bitches! I am one happy mother fucker. Now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to go eat the 14 pounds of cheese I bought today and molest my boyfriend till Sunday.

Peace.

sunset

p.s. I took that pic my very own normal self. Good, no?

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Survivor Panama: Exile Island - episode 2

Episode 2 – sponsored by psychoticwhinybaby.com and Marlboro.

Idiots, psychos, and whiners, OH MY. Wow, episode two was so full of twists and turns you needed to keep your eye on the coconut or you’d miss something crucial. And ladies & gentleman, we have a new crazy asshole to watch, and it’s only the second show!

Now they can cue the snakes.

After a night of thunderous downpours all 4 tribes did their best to dry out and gather their wits. Some teams fared better than others since different amounts of time and energy were spent building shelters when they all landed on their respective beaches. (Go older women! Woot!) Why these people don’t spend half their day making decent shelter I’ll never know.

The now 15 Survivors gathered in front of Jeff Probst, all standing on a wooden circle. Our illustrious host wasted no time, gave little info and had them all turn over their circle. Danielle and Terry were the lucky ones each finding a colored buff under theirs. They were were then sent to 2 separate mats and told the news. Shockingly, a merge was already taking place!

Instead of a random reach into a rucksack, the 2 lucky leaders who found buffs were to start a good old-fashioned schoolyard picking of teams in boy-girl-boy-girl order. It was apparent that the original splitting of the Survivors by age and gender was not going to be continued. The new tribes had a mixture of everything and now would be known as Casaya wearing purple and La Mina in orange. Vivero and Bayonetta were no more which is good because I was not going to try and keep track of that shit.

Once the 2 teams had 7 members each, the odd man out, Bruce, was instructed that he would be spending the next 3 days on Exile Island alone, possibly looking for the immunity idol since no one knew if Misty had found it during her stint floundering alone. He would also be provided with clue #2 and flint to start a fire.

And to add another new element to this season of the game, even though Brue would be missing out on the next 2 challenges, and all the team dynamics that go with tribe time, he would be granted automatic immunity from the next tribal council and would fill the empty spot the next votee would leave. Interesting…

Then the exiled was shown on the island doing nothing but reading the clue and a bunch of weird Karate Kid moves and not looking for the idol, building a shelter and he broke the fricking flint! Served him right he spent 3 nights sleeping in the pouring rain with an iron pot over his stupid head in a futile attempt to keep dry. Idiot.

Back at reward challenge Jeff instructed the tribes they would be competing through an obstacle course collecting 6 giant wooden snakes along the way. Climbing shit, crawling under shit, balancing across shit, wading through shit, the usual shit. One person on each team would be responsible for carrying all 6 snakes to the end.

First tribe to finish would win a reward of fishing paraphernalia and a raft would be delivered to their beach.

This is where you could have gone to the fridge for another beer.

Both teams were neck and neck, yada yada, La Mina won. The newly formed tribe of 7 returned back to their camp, which used to be the older men’s beach, and surveyed their fishing goodies. Sally and Nick decided to take the raft out with the Hawaiin sling spear fishing thing and “practice”. Approximately 2 seconds after I said, “that bitch is gonna lose that thing” the bitch lost it, shooting the money part of the spear into 40 feet of ocean water. Idiot.

Misty tried to console the fretting frat girl by saying “it’s ok, we can make another one”. Um, yea. And just how do you ‘spect to fashion rubber tubing in the middle of the frigging jungle? The professor couldn’t get those castaways off their damn island for 3 solid years and they had stuff to make radios and golf carts! Idiot.

Casaya returns to what was the older women’s beach where Shane commenced his whinefest from the night and before, proceeds to diss the “old men” he was previously teamed with then changes his tune after formally meeting all his new tribe mates and proclaims himself finally happy. Psycho.

Both tribes went to work double-time creating alliances and making deals. Hands were quickly shook and secret teams of 4 were created on both Casaya and La Mina. This was a definite advantage to those who were in on the new pacts since each team had 7 players and the remaining 3 outside of either alliance were extremely vulnerable, especially since individual immunity was only held by Bruce who was still doing the crane on Exile Island.

It was then time for the immunity challenge and it would prove to be a tough physical challenge for all. Each team would start on a floating platform in the ocean. They’d have to grab a giant zombie head and all climb into a boat meant to sink. 5 members would pull stoppers out of holes in the boats and begin bailing water as fast as it was coming in. Meanwhile, 2 people would act as divers and try to pull the “anchor”, which was really a big, heavy wooden box, hauling the boat towards the beach.

Once the boat was close enough to tether to a hitching post, the anchor box would have to be carried to the foot of the zombie body and the head placed on top. First team to complete their zombie would be enjoying a night free of tribal council.

Before they got started Jeff asked both teams how everyone was doing starting with Casaya. Misty spoke up and said everything was great and their unity was being solidified by positive attitudes. Then Jeff turned to La Mina where the Mayor of Crazy Complainer Town, Shane, displayed a case of verbal dysentery and launched into a tirade of “honesty” that him and his tribe were all hurting and this was the worst thing he’s ever experienced. Um, yea, Shane? STFU. Whiner.

Back to the challenge…La mina got a quick lead but the divers were clearly having a hard time trying to move the anchor box. Casaya was actually drifting backwards, unable to bail out the rushing water and compensate for the heavier people in their boat. Divers on both teams were switched every few minutes since this was extremely tiring work and there was no way the 3 pack-a-dayer could hold his breath longer than 2 seconds.

Casaya was finally making up some space between them and La Mina but it was futile. Even though they tethered their boats one right after the other, La Mina was able to run their heavy box up the beach faster then their competition. One again, La Mina were the victors. They celebrated their second win in a row with high fives and big dirty grins and I'm thinking future nightmares involving those GIANT SCARY ZOMBIE THINGS. GOSH!

Before tribal council, Shane the Pain had a bizarre meltdown telling everyone that he wanted to go home and asking, demanding and begging to be voted out. He was missing his kid. He wanted a cigarette. He wanted coffee. He needed Xanax. Listen you Helter Skelter butthole. You’ve been given an opportunity that thousands upon thousands of people ask for. Suck. It. Up.

Melinda caught up with Cirie and Bobby bobbing in the surf and told them the news about Shane. Cirie’s reaction was classic. With obvious glee she says, “Heeeeey, if somebody wants to quit, let him quit”. Shane went on and on and on about it. Making people promise to vote him out, he was ready and wanting to go home.

Aras takes Shane aside and works him hard. Why? I don’t know. Then poof like a cigarette he wasn’t smoking, he changed his mind. Psycho. Then he and Aras join the rest of the tribe to tell them the news that Shane will be staying and make it perfectly clear that it will either be Cirie or Melinda voted out that night. Niiiice. Once again Shane’s diarrhea of the mouth came back and he told the whole friggen camp about the alliance of 4 and who they are. Idiot. I hope that backfires on his stupid ass.

The Survivors made their way to tribal council, lit their torches and had a seat. Probst started with psycho Shane, who blamed his behavior on dehydration and nicotine withdrawal. What. Ever. Cirie then voiced her opinions that if she’s to go home it would be unfair and awful and made it clear she would be very disappointed for failing her family.

Melinda then spoke up and admitted that she too would disappointed, hurt and pissed to be voted out. Further adding that she and Cirie . She and Cirie had performed well and anyone who talks about quitting as much as Shane did should get the boot. And she was right. But alas, the new alliance held firm, The songbird from the South has been silenced, Melinda was given her walking papers and Shane is still an idiot.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

It has begun

I have an idea. Want to torture someone you hate? And I'm talking hate because this is serious and way beyond the kind of mild revenge you enact on someone who's merely annoying and/or deserves something more along the lines of a voodoo doll with pins pushed ito strategic places than absolute revenge. I'm talking a form of agony saved for anyone who needs to be severely punished. Death-row prison inmate punished. Stupid bitch flirted with your boyfriend punished. Loads the dishwasher wrong every fucking time punished.

Make them watch Regis & Kelly every morning for a week.

I KNOW.

It's only day 2 of my week from hell and I'm ready to go out and buy a bazooka just so I can come home and launch it into the TV right through those smarmy morning show hosts faces. Who the fuck can watch this shit day in and day out must be desperate for entertainment or recently visited a "special" hospital and had many many volts of electricity zapped through their brain because I'd rather watch someone eat pig ass swinging from a helicopter while being drizzled with hot lava then listen to Reg intermittently yell every other word through a 10 minute recap of the Italian fucking sausage with pasta he ate for dinner the night before. God help me.

I just realized I might have done a piss-poor job of talking about the events I'm going through this week. I'm having another cancer scan. It requires 4 days of office visits and a host of shit to deal with. I had my first injection of a drug called Thyrogen yesterday and will have another today. Without getting all technical and boring, this drug does something magical inside my body so they can see stuff on the scan. Then I take a little pill stuffed with a little bit of radioactive material on Wednesday. I have Thursday off to contemplate my naval. Then the scan on Friday. And the doc already thinks I'm have a recurrence so this scan is a formality. Fun and FUCK.

I did this last year and while I'll freely admit it's easier than going off meds, it still sucks large sweaty donkey balls. The side effects are similar to having the flu. Feeling like I haven't slept in a week, achy, crampy, gnarly headaches. And this year you can add nausea to the list. Yay! I've spent the last 20 hours trying not to puke, unable to eat anything more than a small piece of home-made pretzel.

But at least I'm not thinking much about this stupid fucking low-iodine diet I've been on since January 30th. What is a low iodine diet you say? It's a diet where you can't eat anything with iodine in it. What has iodine in it you say? Everything. What can I eat you say? Nothing. OK, that's not exactly true but it feels true. Can't eat anything god damn fun, I'll tell you that. And it's forcing me to cook, which, I can't. So I currently have a huge batch of butternut squash soup that looks like diarrhea in the fridge and a meatloaf cake smothered with unsalted ketchup. Yum and SUCK.

In other news, work last week was a popular-crowd head cheerleader dating the quarterback car on her sixteenth birthday spoiled rotten bitch and didn't allow me to update my blog let alone read any, and after I yelled at the whole blog world too. Then my system at home took it's final shit on Friday night and I had to go buy a new one on Sunday. You look at one little picture of a foot up a chick's ass and boom, dead computer. I couldn't even get online and the Geek Squad was no help at all. So now I have a cute Compaq that won't betray my occasional foray into fetish porn. And it has digital cam card slots in the front and yours doesn't. I'm fancy.

So before I have to go and get another needle plunged into my tender arm, I leave you with a pathetic plea. Please internet, please suggest any manner of entertainment to divert my attention away from this shitty week and the ever-present feeling that I'm strapped to a carny ride that's flipping me upside down every 2 minutes after eating a greasy sausage sandwich served in a dirty ashtray. Something that doesn't involve an anorexic perky blond and a self-important old man who talks about his prostate at breakfast.

I beg of you...

Friday, February 03, 2006

Survivor Panama: Exile Island - episode 1

Cue the drums! Cue the Survivors! Cue the snakes! Wait! Cancel the snakes!

Oh wee oh wee ohhhhh....

The lush landscape is familiar but not much else. Even though this is the third visit to Panama for the infamous game of Survivor, there’s a whole new set of stakes this time around. Not like the last set of new stakes but some new new stakes. This installment of Outwit, Outlast, Outplay seems to be pushing the envelope of all three elements. The chance of drama could be high. We can only hope…

As the opening shots sweep across a small island we see a giant skull on the edge of a cliff and four boats arriving ready to deposit their passengers. 16 brand new Survivors gather with their boat mates in front of Jeff Probst and wait for the game to begin. And may I quickly add that our elusive and increasingly cranky host already appears a bit refreshed and excited for the highly antipated 12th season of Survivor.

Jeff welcomes everyone to Exile Island and explains a bit about the game and the first big twist being Exile Island itself. He tells the contestants that each week someone will be banished to the island alone, thus missing out on team unity and possible strategizing. But, there’s a catch.

An immunity idol is hidden somewhere on this particular island and if someone finds it they can use it to save themselves at any tribal council at any point in the game. And just to give us one more corkscrew to keep track of, the person who holds the immunity idol can use it after the votes are read. So, if they are the member being voted out they can save themselves and the next person with the highest number of votes is a goner.

Jeff then asked if anyone noticed any particular differences to the tribes in this game. Obviously, instead of 2 teams divided with random samplings of genders and ages the Survivors found themselves split into 4 teams of 4. They were also separted by gender and by age, which most had already figured out. The age thing brought up some discord with one group and I have to agree with the “older” women that being in your 30’s shouldn’t qualify for the “older” team although the “older” chicks are still pretty hard core so here’s a swift kick in the box for Mark Burnett. "Old" indeed.

I wasn’t super confident the younger men were up to speed about the whole different team split thing at all since they tended to look decidedly mouth-breatherish to me and Austin was not happy to be a member of a member’s only tribe. If ya know whatta mean. Like he has any chance in hell at getting ass out there. But I digress…

Anyway, after a small discussion about the tribal splits Jeff got right down to business announcing the first challenge would begin immediately. Each team would quickly choose a runner to cross Exile Island to the other side where they would find a pile of nasty skulls. Each person would have to smash a skull open where they would find an object wrapped in what looked like King Tut’s ripped up ass bandages. If you unwrapped a rock you’d have to grab another skull from the pile and start over. If you unwrapped an amulet, you were good to go.

The first 3 team representatives to make it back to the starting line with an amulet would win reward consisting of flint for their tribe to make fire. This might not seem like a big deal but since they stopped giving the tribes rice and matches and stuff and started trying to kill them, if you don’t have flint you practically don’t survive at all. Also, the losing team would have to choose one person to stay and spend the night on Exile Island alone.

This challenge wasn’t so much based on speed but luck of the skull. Terry from the older men was first to find an amulet, soon followed by Nick of the young men, then there was nothing. Minute after minute passed by. They cut back to the two women feverishly smashing open skulls and trying to get the wrapping undone to hopefully reveal an amulet. Finally, rushing footsteps could be heard and Tina emerged from the trees, winning the third piece of flint for her tribe. The young girls were SOL and had to choose someone to spend the night alone.

The young runner volunteered herself straightaway, and this is where they showed their age, no offense to the younger gals, but her mates fussed and fluttered and decided to play a game of rock/paper/scissors to make their decision. I would have just said , see ya, beotch, I ain’t spending the night alone on a friggen tropical island with snakes and shit. But hey, I’m “older”.

Misty the rocket scientist lost the rps game and spent the night not making shelter or trying to start a fire but rather pushed leaves around looking for the immunity idol since Jeff had previously mentioned that clues would be given out regarding the idol and after a short goodbye to Misty he proclaimed he’d just given her one. Um, yea, OK. Didn’t quite catch that. And she ate a huge pink worm. I’m not kidding.

Meanwhile, the tribes were arriving at their respective beaches/camps and starting to feel each other out, so to speak. They all got to work in varying levels of effort with Tina the lumberjill being the biggest work horse out of everyone. Cirie proclaimed her fear of leaves. LEAVES!

Shane confessed to going cold-turkey from a 3 pack-a-day habit and I’m pretty sure he started to morph into Vlad the Impaler right then and there. The younger guys screwed around playing baseball with sticks and rocks and the older men got right to wheeling and dealing, while the remaining young women cried over a dead turtle. And there's some praying/zen/yoga shit going on that's going to make us all sick at some point, mark my words.

On day 3 the players gathered for the first immunity challenge and Misty rejoined her tribe. This season they busted out a complicated competition right off. The teams would have to swim out to 4 bouys with a climbing wall. At the starting gun each person would have to climb the wall one at a time, jump into the water and swim to a raft. One person would have to dive down and unclip the raft from its anchor. Then each team would have to paddle back to the beach.

Once the tribes made it to the beach, they’d have to solve a giant puzzle with ropes and rings. If they wanted to, they could try and retrieve a hint to the puzzle buried in the sand. Once the ring was removed from the rope puzzle they’d have to toss it to a grappling hook that was connected to another rope and a flag. The first three teams to unfurl their flags would win immunity and a three part immunity idol consisting of 3 disgusting shrunken heads that would scare Tim Burton into his happy place.

All 4 teams made it into the water and struggled to get their rafts unclipped. The younger women began paddling first with the older men on their heels. The older women took off in third place after a little confusion where the hook was and the young lads blew chunks with Nik fumbling with the wrong end of his clip. Aras finally took over and they made up some good time. And there was A LOT of body part blurring going on. Yikes people, please wear properly fitting and supportive clothes Miss Boobalicious!

All 4 teams eventually dug up their puzzle clue but the older women had the hardest time finding it buried deep in the sand. One, two, three, and it was over. The older women just couldn’t hustle fast enough with the puzzle and would be the first tribe going to tribal council and losing a member later that night.

Back at their beach, the older women, now known as Casaya, were contemplating their team members worth. Cirie was doing some heavy campaigning with Ruth Marie and Tina was off by herself where she spoke about losing her 16 year-old son 4 months earlier in a car crash. In fact, she was slated to compete in the previous season of Survivor but her son was tragically killed a week before she was to leave. Brutal.

While she was out wandering the island, Tina came across a large fish who’d gotten stranded on a reef at low tide. She brought the meal back to her team mates and all were impressed and happy. Maybe this would be enough points to keep her safe. And she was clearly the out-doorsy woman with the skills they needed. Another point in her favor.

Night fell and the four women made their trek to tribal council and were instructed to light their torches. Jeff asked them about camp and how they were doing after the first 3 days in the jungle. Cirie admitted to having a hard time and probably belonged back on her couch at home. This is not a smart thing to say at tribal council. Melinda also admits to being in “Panamanian hell”. This is not a smart thing to say at tribal council. Jeff then asks Tina if the others were pulling their weight at camp. She says not as much as she’d like. This is NOT A SMART THING TO SAY AT TRIBAL COUNCIL.

Despite her skills, Lumberjill was strong but she was dumb. Tina, your torch has been officially snuffed. Buh bye.