Here in Katie’s Head

If any of you ever decide to make and sell anything, advertise it to me.

I am a sucker. I take TV ads very personally. When the girl on my screen tells her roommate to eat some Activia so she can be “regular” again after midterms, I fall for it.

“Midterms were last week! And they did mess up my Holy Poop Schedule! Surely this commercial was made just for me! I will buy lots and lots of Activia! Thanks, Dannon!”

And it was on sale at the grocery store, too. Clearly, Activia and I are meant to be.

Over in the cereal aisle, I spent far too long contemplating the various Raisin Brans. Because “Raisin Bran” isn’t trademarkable, every cereal company has its own Raisin Bran.

One promised me two whole scoops of raisins, but another promised that I would lose 10 pounds. I didn’t read the fine print, but losing 10 pounds by eating some cereal sounds pretty awesome to me.

Then I got a new Britta pitcher (at first, I was just going to get a new filter cartridge) because it was fancier than my old one — higher capacity, more narrow and a digital display to tell me when to change the filter.

So I’m now on day two of my Activia-enhanced life, and I’ve had a bowl of Raisin Bran. The peach flavored Activia is a little weird. It must be the magic bacteria. My Raisin Bran doesn’t seem to have as many raisins as the two-scoops brand. And I spilled water all over the place with my stupid new pitcher. I’ve been suckered again.

Oh, and that Diet Coke I keep saying I’ll quit drinking soon? Dillons raised the price of 12-packs, so I was prepared to finally quit. But the Walgreens down the street was selling 4 12-packs for $10. How could I turn that down?

Put up a sign, broadcast an ad, send me a flyer in the mail. I am a sucker and I will buy anything.

Posted: 6:50 pm · Category: Consumerism · Comments: 3

After a series of very, very bad cheap haircuts, I started cutting my own hair during my sophomore year of high school. If I was going to have a shitty haircut, I might as well save the cash, right?

I was never any good at it. I peaked my senior year. Then when I was living on campus, I no longer had my perfect mirror arrangement, and it wasn’t pretty. By that point, I was dyeing my hair, too. I wasn’t any good at that either.

After my sophomore year in college, I came to my senses. I asked Mom to get me an appointment with her hair stylist, Cha Cha.

My mom loves Cha Cha, and Cha Cha loves my mom. And if my mom loves someone that much, there’s a good reason.

So Cha Cha bleached out two years of dark red dye, dyed me back to my natural color and gave me a proper haircut. It was the hair equivalent of those pet rescue shows on Animal Planet.

So for the past year an a half, I have faithfully kept the scissors far away from my head. And when the temptation comes back, I make another appointment with Cha Cha. She truly understands my hair’s Special Needs. And she gives me free Diet Coke.

After toying around with the idea of growing it all out, I had her take off a few inches this week. And I’ve already booked her to do my hair before my wedding next year.

But I’m moving to Spokane after graduation, and I’m afraid Cha Cha won’t want to come with me, and I know I can’t replace her. I need someone better than the “I finally passed the state certification test on the eleventh try!” weirdos at the chain haircut factories without going to Jonathan Antin extremes.

Mom asked, “Why don’t you just ask other people where they get their hair cut?”

Because, Mom, I need something more sophisticated than that.

I need an epinions for hair stylists. Badly.

Posted: 12:21 am · Category: Flair · Comments: None

What a stud.

via The Damn News

Posted: 5:57 pm · Category: Quinton · Comments: None

These are all the things I know about car maintenance:

1. When the car is dirty, drive it through the automatic drive-through car wash.
2. When the sticker in the corner of the windshield says it’s time, drive it to the oil change shop.
3. Don’t run out of gas.
4. If you wax the car (optional), clean it really well first.
5. When it makes scary noises or the check engine light comes on, call Dad and then take it to the shop.
6. If the tire’s flat, call Dad. Don’t drive anywhere until he fixes it. Fixing it usually involves an air compressor and a pressure gauge, but I’ve only used those on a bike tire.
7. If the turn signal lights in the dashboard are acting weird, one of the turn lights is probably burnt out. Call Dad.

I think I’m probably capable of handling all the basic stuff myself. The reason I haven’t learned it all already? Every once and a while, I do something really stupid.

And while doing something really stupid in the kitchen (my usual screw-up zone) usually only results in a burn that will heal in a couple weeks, doing something really stupid on a car could, uh, ruin the engine or something. And I hear that engines are expensive.

So I leave the car stuff to people who probably won’t do something really stupid.

But since I won’t have Dad within reach after I graduate, I’m trying to get better at this stuff.

Today I refilled the washer fluid by myself. Well, kinda.

I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do anything really stupid.

Posted: 3:12 pm · Category: Cars · Tags: being stupid, Cars, washer fluid · Comments: 2

I was listening to All Things Considered on the way home from work on Friday (because somehow, no matter how early or late I leave the newsroom, All Things Considered is airing). The segment was about “word fugitives,” the totally stupid term some lady invented to describe yet-unnamed concepts (in fact, the term word fugitive is a word fugitive in itself, which is dorkily meta).

For example:

Reader Allan Crossman, of Oakland, Calif., asked: “I’m looking for a term that describes the momentary confusion experienced by everyone in the vicinity when a cell phone rings and no one is sure if it is his/hers or not.”

Wallraff say that with ring tones, “you’d think that that would be history even by now. But no, people still experience ‘pandephonium.’” Or is it ringchronicity, ringxiety — or even fauxcellarm?

Yeah, whatever. I was annoyed that rather than coming up with words that have true utility, people were wasting time coming up with really dorky words for things that obviously don’t merit naming, or else they would already have been given a name.

But just now, I realized that I have a word fugitive of my own, a concept that desperately needs a name. I need to know what to call it when I honestly, truly plan to spend my day doing homework, but then a new batch of Nexflix discs arrive in my mailbox, and I watch movies all day instead of working.

Oh wait, that’s called weekend.

So I prove my point. Word fugitives = lame.

Posted: 12:01 am · Category: Radio, Rants · Comments: 4

For some reason (probably the badpoetry.net domain name, rather than the badness of my circa-7th-grade poetry), today I received an email alerting me to the approaching deadline of the 2006 Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest.

My time is already spread far too thin to find time to write an entry. But it sounds pretty cool, if you’re into silly poetry. Please enter. Let me know if you do.

Posted: 10:47 pm · Category: Silly Things, Writing · Tags: bad poetry · Comments: None

I saw a guy driving down my street in a power chair yesterday.

I hope I’m not crazy like that when I’m old and fat.

I’ll still wheel around my mansion in a Rascal, but my loving children and/or servants will have to make sure I stay out of traffic.

In other news, I still haven’t won the lottery. Any one want to place bets on how soon it’ll be before they start selling Powerball tickets online? I can’t win if I never buy tickets, but standing in line behind other stupid gamblers really kills the illusion that I might actually win.

Posted: 2:46 pm · Category: Elaborate Fantasies · Tags: lottery, powerball, rascal scooters · Comments: None