Wicked Attitude

So me and the man have been doing this whole Paul McKenna stuff on TLC’s “I Can Make You Thin.”  One of the things he said was to throw out or not eat foods that don’t inspire you.  You don’t realize how much you settle for mediocre foods that are cold, unappealing or just there.  We got Taco Bell last night and I think it’s safe to say we won’t go back.  I got original tacos and some of the shredded “cheese” on top fell off so I ate it on its own.  It didn’t even taste like cheese and the texture resembled no cheese I’d ever eaten.  I would love to see what the actual ingredients are in this crap.   Then I got to the side order of nachos.  Just plain nacho chips and that cheesesque dipping sauce.  After 2 chips I retched on them.  If cardboard were able to be squeezed for its oil and you took a perfectly good tortilla chip and fried it in the cardboard oil, you’d have the nachos I was served (and promptly threw away) last night.

There’s a reason the urban legend of Taco Bell exists.  They don’t seem to care that their food no longer has flavor or the flavor it does have tastes like scrap.  Just like Pizza Hut.  Think back to the old school Pizza Hut, you know when you and the family used to go in and they’d bring you those delicious pizzas with the puffy mozzarella on top.  The inside of Pizza Hut’s used to smell heavenly and you knew you’d get a good reliable pizza every time.  (Remember Priazzo’s?  Mmmm)  Now, it doesn’t even resemble that.  It tastes very commercial and manufactured.  We haven’t gotten Pizza Hut in years because the quality has gone so downhill from Pizza Hut of old.  So it’s no wonder these two giants of mass producing mediocre eats have teamed up to sell their stuff from the same drive thru window. 

What’s cuter than baby chicks?  A Toy Fox Terrier pup who loves chicks!  Click the cute pic to see the video.  Happy Friday!

I have noticed an increasing problem with the Travel Channel.  Lack of new TRAVEL shows.  Now I don’t know if anyone’s clued them in but just because poker shows take place in Vegas doesn’t mean it counts as a travel show.  At what point are you showing me anything but a bunch of schmucks around a table?  That does not inspire me to see “Sin City.”  And I understand food is a part of cultures of other places you travel to but I’m a little tired of gross out shows by dorky chefs who are willing to eat anything for our “viewing pleasure.”  Eating a duck embryo with feathers, beak and feet intact does not inspire me to want to travel to Korea.  Matter of fact, these gross out culinary shows scare me away from some of these places.

The reruns on here of actual travel shows are ridiculous.  Now Girl Meets Hawaii is one of my favorite shows and I love Samantha Brown.  But when they rerun those shows, this info is now 8 years old.  Some of these places don’t even exist anymore.  I have seen the same Hawaii specials year after year and you MIGHT get a new one thrown in every other year if you’re lucky.  Even the Passport to Europe shows are all reruns, I have yet to see a new one.  Are they edging Samantha Brown out of the Travel Channel family?  Is that why she’s doing Champion sunroom commercials now?  I just don’t understand why a channel that is supposed to inspire its viewers to travel was off to such a great start and is now stuck in rerun hell or chooses to promote chef hosted shows as their new breed of programming.  For the past 3 days, every time I’ve checked the Travel Channel that Bizarre Foods show has been on.  Well, I don’t care to see what vermin, insect or animal body part this dude chokes down with a smile on his face.  The phrase “if you don’t like it, don’t watch it” would probably be spoken by fans of the show to me right now.  Well, the problem is that type of show has a very niche audience and so many of us are not watching the Travel Channel as a whole to avoid these types of shows, we may just never tune back in.

Travel Channel…give your core audience who loved your programming a reason to tune back in.  Just like MTV, you need to check the name of your tv channel and go back to what should be pretty obvious roots.

Okay, I’ve watched The Biggest Loser on and off since the first season.  Does anyone else see the transformation of Bob Harper from decent to flaming douche bag?  I mean I used to really cringe whenever I saw Jillian but now I prefer her to him.  He has been a real primadonna when it comes to the weigh ins and whenever they don’t go the way he thinks they should, he deserts his team and walks out like they’re all pieces of trash.  It just seems to me like he’s gone out of his way to change his image from Mr. Nice Guy when this started to Mr. Hard Ass this and last season.  He’s become completely annoying to the point I just tune out when he’s on. 

I also understand they’re there to show how much weight can be lost in the smallest amount of time but it’s so unrealistic.  I would rather see a show that teaches you what you can do in an hour or maximum 2 hour workouts and the kind of weight loss you can achieve with that.  I don’t know many people who have 4, 5 or 6 hours a day to workout.  I think I saw somewhere that the follow up special of season 1 people only had 2 or 3 people participate and only one of them actually maintained their weight loss.  Another gained back almost 10 lbs with isn’t bad considering the circumstances I guess.  Then the 3rd person gained back all they lost after they left the ranch.  I’m all for shows that inspire you to lose weight but I just want to see something that works into people’s busy schedules and is realistic.  (Oh and no bitchy trainers please)

Okay so anyone whose seen Demi Moore’s appearance on David Letterman Monday night probably came away with the “ewww” factor when she claimed that she was recently in Austria detoxifying via “leech therapy.”  Now Inside Edition is talking about it as though it was a real news story.

Uh…I know I cannot be the only person who watches the new show “Pop Fiction” on E! in which celebrities make up news stories hoping that the paparazzi/gossip outlets will run the story as truth.  You know, the mastermind behind this brilliant show happens to be none other than Demi Moore’s husband, Ashton Kutcher.  Leech therapy my butt.  (No thanks)  So yeah, if you want to see the latest pranks pulled on the press, tune in Sunday night at 10:30pmEST to see their latest coup.  I’d be willing to bet it has something to do with a hot brunette and some creepy crawlies!

What’s happens when you have a wife whose had a hysterectomy and her husband who want to have a child?  Adoption?  Surrogate?  How about let him carry it?  Well that’s just what this Oregon couple did.  The husband is transgender and chose to keep his reproductive rights and as a result, he got pregnant and their baby girl is due in July.  You can only imagine the scrutinity, lack of support and discrimination this poor couple have suffered when all they wanted to do is bring a child into this world no matter how unconventional the means.  While this is certainly not typical, its a true testament to love and how one couple decided to buck the system and restraints put on by our society to do what is best for them as a family.

To read about this fascinating story, click here.

Not just lyrics from a Stray Cats song anymore thanks to “plus size” model and contender for Miss England, Chloe Marshall.  At 5′10″ and 175 lbs Marshall is redefining beauty and getting lots of positive press for entering the Miss England beauty pagaent.  Of course she grew up with the same narrow minded, idiotic fat comments that many endure when they’re bigger than their classmates but it’s Marshall having the last laugh.  She was a C cup by age 13 and began embracing her curves when her mom told her she was beautiful at any size, which are good words to live by.  So good luck to you Chloe, you’re beautiful and thank God an average sized gal is showing them how it’s done!

Small soapbox rant:  Society is too hung up on making sure that overweight and obese people are shamed when it’s none of their friggin’ business what someone else’s weight is.  If you don’t like what you see, don’t look.  Unlike second hand smoke, you’re not going to catch heart disease by sitting next to a fat person.  So grow up already and recognize that until someone can get fit and healthy that they are people and deserve to be told how handsome/beautiful they are.  I’ve seen plenty of thin, ugly people and don’t feel I have the right to yell “cracked any mirrors lately muttley?!”  The world is crappy enough on its own without people being intentionally cruel to one another, let’s remember that before we judge on looks alone.

So the hubby gets a new car and tells me an interesting tale as we’re out cruising in the new ride.  The car salesman, actually a very nice guy who didn’t dick him over I’m happy to report, reminds him to get his garage door opener because a lot of people forget that item when cleaning out the old car.  He said he did and said he bet he’d seen all kinds of things forgotten in cars.  So he proceeds to tell him the things he’s found.

Some dude calls and says he forgot his garage door opener and could he check for it.  So he goes out and decides he’s going to go through the rest of the car just in case he forgot anything else.  So he opens the glove compartment and finds a loaded gun.  Sure, I can see how the garage door opener takes precedence over your loaded weapon.  Oh no, that wasn’t the worst one.

The cleaning people come to him as they’re prepping a trade in for resale and say there’s a problem with the car.  He asks what the problem is.

“There’s ashes in it,” they respond.
“What like cigarette ashes?  So what?” he responded.
“Come here,” they replied as they took him to the car.

In the trunk were two boxes with plastic bags inside with the names of mortuaries on them and the names of the cremated deceased enclosed!!!  So he calls the house of the people and the wife answers and he explains what they found in the trunk.  She puts the phone to her chest and yells “Danny you forgot Uncle George and Aunt Belinda in the trunk!” 

Can’t make this crap up people!

We were having our taxes done by “our people” a few weeks ago and it took 2 hours to finish.  I couldn’t help but harken back to the days of when I could phone in my 1040EZ to the IRS for my couple bucks back.  Then when I’d get my return it would be on stupid, frivolous stuff like music, dinners out and stuff so insignificant I can’t recall them now. 

Fast forward…me, 33 years old and see my hefty tax return in our bank account and instead of thinking about the new hair band CD I might buy or if I could take my friends around all weekend cruising (an inexpensive undertaking back in the early 90’s as gas was a mere $1.00 or less per gallon compared to today’s price of $3.49), I now found myself saying we need to reimburse our savings account for the new mattress we just bought, the hot water tank needs replaced and we need to update our wills so we’ll need to save money back for that. 

I should be depressed about it but I’m happy.  I’m glad that the water heater will be replaced soon because frankly after 12 years it looks like it’s going to corrode away.  The mattress–well, every night I get in bed I hear the hubby say “God I love this bed” and that is worth the $1000 we paid for the eurotop, foam encased coils.  Redoing the wills to include things we’ve purchased since the last one will give us peace of mind and that’s worth it as well.   As you get older, the mundane, everyday things that bring you joy over the long term really do outweigh those things that made you happy for a few days or weeks that you can’t even recall years later.  I remember the first time we adjusted our exemptions and withholdings so we could get a bigger tax return, we were probably about $15,000 in debt total and paying minimum payments and were about to add an even bigger debt…a house.  When we got our tax refund amount and saw it could pay off 1/3 of our debt, thank God we woke up and said it would be stupid to compound our debt so we called off the whole house deal and stayed put in our condo.  We took the minimum payments on what we paid off and applied them to other credit cards until we were down to zilch.  5 years ago we refinanced when the rates were 4.99% to a fixed instead of the variable rate we needed at the time to afford the place.  We still live in that condo and for 2 people with no kids, there’s nothing wrong with living there.  (Except the clodhopper neighbor) 

Sure we could have a place where we have no neighbors attached but then we’d have yard work, snow removal, triple the utilities, 2-3x the amount of house to clean and at least double our mortgage payment.  Staying put allows us to go to Hawaii every year, we own land there and have a nice savings cushion.  Peace of mind means much more to me than being married to a standard we could scrape by on and it all started with a tax return.

I don’t care what time of year it is, I’m always in the mood for hot chocolate.  The more chocolatey the better.  Well I also love the smell of gourmet flavored coffee but I HATE coffee.  (Coffee drinkers, I beg of you, have a mint after your cups o’ joe in the morning.  You may not think you have bad breath but trust me…you do!  No one is telling you because they don’t want to be rude!)  A delightful mix of the two is me and the hubby’s favorite treat and for the cost of 2 cups of coffee slung by a college kid, you can have 24 mugs of this treat.  (I’m sorry, unless you’re doing some kind of foam art, you’re not a barista, you’re a kid filling up a cup)

Get Nestle or Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, a can of Ghirardelli’s Chocolate Hazelnut Hot Chocolate and real mini marshmallows.  Add one packet of the hot chocolate, one spoonful of the hazelnut hot chocolate, add water or milk (we use water) and top with the marshmallows and heat to your liking.  For a little extra creamy kick, you can get regular fat or light Cool Whip to mix in as well (fat free doesn’t cut it) and it is WONDERFUL.  It may not be the lowest calorie thing in the world but you can easily cut the calories by using diet hot chocolate, lite cool whip and few marshmallows.

I suppose as the summer months approach, you could make the concoction, let it cool down in the fridge and crush it in the blender with ice for an iced hot chocolate treat.  Mmm!