I was looking for some fun stuff to do in Fort Bend County, TX (don’t ask why) and stumbled on this: 
You got a good sense of humor Fort Bend.
Fun in Fort Bend County!
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The Salad Days
Wow. It’s been a long time since I have written about the undeniable ending to the world. There are various reasons, mostly being busy writing about other things in life that are not as depressing, television, movies, Mad Men and George Clooney. OK, maybe just as depressing but without finality. Additionally, the various signals of world destruction were becoming trite to me. “Oh the weather is crazy! The world is ending! People are actually taking Michelle Bachman seriously! The world is ending! They changed the label on Tropicana Orange Juice! The world is ending!” Boooooring.
So I have watched for several months while the world ended around me, without taking much notice or making snarky comments. But something happened recently, forcing me to come out of my apathetic shell.
Cedar Creek got rid of the grilled tuna steak salad from their menu. The world is ending.
I think of myself as a salad connoisseur. I have eaten salads all over this town (Houston) and I have ranked them from best to worst on a growing list that I keep in my purse/brain. There are salads you expect to be amazing based on locale (Barnaby’s) and one’s that you know are going to be terrible, but not as terrible as you ever expected (Armadillo Palace – bacon in a salad is standard there). Long story short, I don’t consider myself an expert on much of anything, but I know a good salad when I eat one.
The tuna salad at Cedar Creek was flawless. An unflavored tuna steak grilled to your liking, with sliced pears, avocado, and mint. The only salad in town that doesn’t require the disclaimer, “But can you leave off the…” Perfection for less than 20 bucks. So you can imagine the horror I experienced when I learned the other day that it was gone. Over. Done. With no explanation.
I like Cedar Creek; it’s fine. While it’s usually filled with douchebags, it’s got enough hidden tables to escape and a good soundtrack to boot. But I love Cedar Creek for it’s grilled tuna salad. And now I have no reason to go there ever. I hope they have a Google alert on their name and they see this and return the best salad in Houston to the menu. Stat.
Sorry Snowglobes
The World Is Ending! I Was Scammed
I haven’t written in a long time, too long. I’m sorry. Honestly, I’ve been too busy to think about the inevitable destruction of the planet.
But something just happened to me that I need to share – to save the world!
Friday afternoon, I received a knock on my door. Two fellows stood before me, holding up some papers. “Hello,” said one of them, “I live up the block. You’ve probably seen my mom walking her lab sometimes.” Sure sure… although I can’t say I have, but I also don’t ay any attention to anything. According to them, they were students at UH in the Communication’s program raising money for a trip to England to intern at the BBC. Had I ever heard of the BBC? Of course, I had, I am cultured too.
We chatted for a while about what they were doing, and what they would be doing in London. I am a recent graduate of the UH Mass Com Master’s program, so I immediately wanted to help them out. They were selling magazines to raise money for their trip and if I wasn’t interested in the magazines, they could be donated to a soldier oversees. The soldier would even write me letter of thanks. Well that sounds lovely.
Sure, I’ll donate a magazine to a soldier and support a fellow Communications Cougar. I picked out two magazines, as they said I should, and as they wrote up the bill, I ran to get my check book.
“That’s 92 dollars for a two year subscription.” No one said anything about a two year subscription and $92 is crazy expensive to ask a stranger to donate to your BBC cause – but I felt like it was too late to take it back. I felt silly and cheap to say, I can’t afford that – which I can’t.They assured me I would get a call from their professor to make sure they were “doing a good job” and were “legit” before the check was cashed. I made a check out to their professor, who I had never heard of, but I don’t know all of the Comm professors.
“You should look into an intership at the TV station on campus,” I gave them my worldly Mass Comm advice as they left. They thanked me profusely for the idea and hoped to run into me again on campus. Sure.
I sort of forgot about this until just now, when I logged into my bank account to find that the check was already cashed, and there was another charge on my account from an unknown entity related to magazines. Hmm… I Googled the name on my check “Timothy Salgado” and BAM – a slew of fraud reports came up describing this very situation. Guys/girls come to door, raising money, selling magazines, end scene.
I am appalled. I am not sure if I am more shocked at myself for my complete naivety or at them for being totally awesome liars. What luck for them to connect with me saying they went to UH for Mass Comm, or could they have known this about me prior to knocking on my door? Yuk. I feel dirty and violated.
In all of my long 32 years on this planet, this is the first time something like this has happened to me. I generally think that human beings are inherently “good,” but maybe the devil really is taking over and the world is going down the tubes. Man oh man.
Keep an eye/ear out for this type of scam. I feel bad that these guys have just ruined all of my charitable giving forever.
How I’ve Been Aiding in the Destruction of Our Planet – Popcorn Factory
Delicious popcorn, in three flavors
Do you know how many Popcorn Factory catalogs I have received this month? Ten. Ten catalogs filled with delicious, popcorn related items in tins. Please take note that today is the 16th day of this month. That means that I have basically gotten a new catalog every other day, plus some.
Why am I getting so many catalogs? How much Popcorn Factory products have I been buying? Oh, none. I have never bought a tin from the Popcorn Factory. I have been sent a tin as a lovely gift for some holiday or other by my lovely husband. But never ordered one on my own.
Let me not exaggerate (much) half of the catalogs sent are addressed to my husband, so in fairness, we both have only gotten five Popcorn Factory catalogs this month. We do, however, live at the same address and my husband did send this Popcorn Factory tin to me at the same address he lives at. I assume this is a database issue on the part of the Popcorn Factory.
The point is not why I get so many catalogs or how many different types of popcorn and tin combinations you can dream of when putting together these catalogs (not too many, BTW), but why have I not stopped this? This is a total waste of paper, aiding in the destruction of our planet and I am doing nothing about it. Why?
Well, because I like popcorn… a lot. And I like to sit around (on the toilet?) reading Popcorn Factory catalogs and dream about which popcorn/cookie/gum drop holiday tower I will purchase for myself. But I will never buy myself a tin from the Popcorn Factory, so there’s the irony, so to speak.
But, keep ‘em coming guys.
This Is Just a Test
Yesterday, around noon the residents of three major counties in New Jersey got an extremely alarming text message on their Verizon phones. The message said, “CMAS Alert Civil Emergency in this area until 1:24 PM EST Take Shelter Now U.S. Govern.”
WTF? I can’t imagine getting such a text, and if I did would I be completely panicked or totally psyched that all of my dreams were finally coming true? Either way, the phone company came out quickly saying that the message was not a hoax, but a “mistake,” that was meant to be sent only as an internal test.
Oh la la, what a funny mistake to make – WRONG. Why is Verizon testing such a message internally? Does Verizon know something that we don’t know? Like the approaching alien invasion? If I was an alien leader/king, I might want to get in touch with a telecommunications company to have easy access to mass communication. Wouldn’t you?
I find is all very odd that no one is wondering why Verizon was testing this message, especially, that they were sending the text “from” the US Government. You think I’m being paranoid? OK… well you just pretend that Verizon knows nothing and go about your life of shopping online…
Two Years Ago My World Ended
Two years ago today my sister passed away, and it felt like the world had ended. This morning at 3am, when I couldn’t sleep, I had a funny memory of the thing my sister hated most in the entire world. I would very loudly sing in her face the song “Sara” by Jefferson Starship. She hated the part where they say “love me like a woman never loved me before… hurt me!…,” which I would sing in echo.
She may have tried to smack me multiple times while I sang this part over and over.
I was thinking this morning that maybe she secretly loved when I sang that to her. Who doesn’t want their kid sister singing loudly in their face while they are sleeping? Even if she did really hate it, it always eventually made her laugh.
Today I will remember her laugh and my kid-sister attempt at trying to get a good chuckle out of her. And here’s her song, in case she’s watching.
Listening to U2 & it’s 11/11/11; the world must be ending
- Achtung Baby? Well, gazuntight!
In vain of 90s bands re-releasing their classic albums, U2 decided to jump on the bandwagon and reissue Achtung Baby. I despise U2 in their current selves. Too pretentious and their music has gone completely down hill. That being said, I recall absolutely loving this album, so I thought I’d give it a listen to, as it’s been at least ten years that I heard it.
There are songs that have held the test of time, “One,” “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” and then others that are still terrible such as “Zoo Station.” What I completely forgot about was the song “Until the End of The World.” Was U2 singing about me in the future? Did U2 know that I would re-listen to this song on 11/11/11? Will U2 call it quits already!?
The answer is “no” to all of the above. But, since the world may end today.. or at least I may talk about it multiple times, here’s U2, singing about it for your Friday pleasure.
How I’ve Been Aiding in the Destruction of Our Planet – Gum!
My gum wrapper-filled desk/dining table
How much of the world’s landfills are comprised of gum? I began “chewing” on this subject (har, har) today when, in the middle of working on a presentation, I looked down to find that I had devoured almost two packs of gum in three hours. Holy crow, what is your damage, you may think of me. Well, I don’t know. I like gum. I find that I need to chew it in not so much of a relaxing way, but an obsessive-compulsive way. But is my gum obsession not just ruining my chompers but also the environment?
Well.. duh. I Googled around and found that the issue with gum wrappers is that they are composed of a variety of aluminum, none of which are prevalent enough to be salvaged in recycling. So, you just have to toss ‘em. Even if I wanted to recycle the wrappers, I cannot because I like to use them to hold the chewed piece I just took out of my mouth as I place another one in immediately following.
So how much gum is filling up our landfills? According to Answers.com, a website that I believe every word of as it is user generated and people know everything…
It Won’t Be Zombies, People
Surely you’ve noticed the influx of zombie madness that has hit the airwaves, bookstores and the silver screen. There are dozens of zombie movies right now in pre and post production (one that I found to be awesomely named Harvard Zombie Massacre – “When Harvard is overrun by the undead, America’s most brilliant minds must fend off America’s most brilliant zombies.” Zombies in letter jackets!) There are hundreds of zombie loving websites. Even the CDC has put out a “Zombie Survival Guide” that doesn’t work in Firefox, most likely due to zombie-related web programming.
I can’t say when the undead craze hit, well that’s not true I can, but not the George Romero zombie craze, which started in the 1960s. This latest zombie mania came, seemingly, out of no where, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Unlike vampires, zombies aren’t sexy or romantic. They don’t live in a tortured past – cold, out of date and often pasty looking. One of the biggest differences between the two most recent monster manias, however, is that no one seems to be worried that vampires will ever take over the world. And rightfully so. For one, you can kill a vamp pretty easy if you don’t fall for its good looks, and two, if they took over and killed us all, they would have nothing to eat, nor any pretty girls to seduce. Mass destruction is just not in their nature; it could mess up their hair.
But zombies? Zombies are dumb and oafish, stumbling around with limbs hanging off and eyeballs falling out of their sockets. Do they feed on brains or do they just want to eat our flesh? Do they represent a drone-like nature of the masses? Will they be the one’s to take over the world? Last year, when the zombie craze was in the beginning of its recent trajectory, Chuck Klosterman, my idol, wrote a mildly-interesting piece in the New York Times about how zombies are a metaphor for the world today and how we are living a zombie existence. Sure, it makes sense as I zombifily stare at my computer screen at 4am. But what do zombies have to do with the apocalypse?
Absolutely nothing. It won’t be zombies, people! They won’t be the ones to take over! I’ll tell you why – they aren’t real. That’s my only logic behind why a zombie-apocalypse will never happen. And, c’mon, admit it, you know that this is true. That being said, a brain consuming viral disease, spawned from adorable monkeys or dirty birds? Yup, this is more than likely how we will all go. A contagious disease is not far-fetched at all, and it’s relation to zombies is apparent. Diseases can, and often do, horrifically consume our bodies and minds. They are thoughtless and scary. They run rampant and there are so many of them; they just keep coming.
The good news is, if you think about the various plagues over the years, many of us will survive. The world might be a pre-Canterbury Tales mess of a place to live in, but if we’re lucky there will still be things like fires for warmth and cooking and lutes for entertainment. And while we are all rejoicing in our aliveness, dancing around a fire together to the sweet sounds of a lute… that’s when the robot/aliens will come and take over!
- While you are dancing to the lute, the alien/robots are plotting their attack!
And the contagious disease was really just a McGuffin for robot/aliens, of course.