Sorry Diebold...

Wow – a paper trail. Who’d have thought you might ever need to audit an election...In FLORIDA!

Annoying Email Correspondence w/ Belligerent Crazy Person

If you feel so inclined, read this email strain regarding this year's Chili Champion of the Universe competition. (Reader: Please note that to date there have only been two competitions and I have won both.)

Me: I know I'll be out of the family, but I really do not want to participate at all this year. As the two-time champion, I do not feel like having to go to the trouble or expense of a preliminary round. Also, I thought my chili last year was creative and delicious. I don't know if I can, or even want to best it. Two rounds of chili equals big bucks and I'm just not flush these days. I'm temping right now and starting a new job on February 8th, so I really can't justify spending 150 to 200 bucks on two weeks worth of chili expenses.

BCP: I find your spending estimates completely exaggerated. The CCU recognizes you as only a one-time champion, and while we regard your chili as exemplary, you only did one round last year, whereas this year's champ wins two consecutively. Plus, you have preference of bracket, nobody else has that. So, I feel the reigning champion has a responsibility to defend the title. Nobody can take the first from you, but I think it's kinda pussy not to battle this year.

Me: The spending estimates are not exagerated at all. A decent chili costs at least $60 to make. Times two is $120. I live in Brooklyn by Nate and will have to take a car with my chili. With tip, that can run anywhere from $15 to $20. Times two is $30 to $40. Cost aside, I just don't want to do it. I won the first year. Period. You framed it as a competition, I entered my chili and won. For whatever reason, you do not count that as a victory and that's just plain wrong. Last year I entered and won again. If the CCU fails to recognize me as a two-time champion, then I have no interest in continuing my affiliation with it. But please, let me stress again, that I just have no interest in doing it this year. If you think that's a pussy move on my part, fine, I can live with that. I think it would be an even pussier move on my part to let you bully me into doing something that I have neither the time, money or inclination to do.

In summation - I am not competing this year. Having already won twice, I have nothing to prove and don't feel like doing it. The end.

BCP: There wasn't even a vote the first year, only Nate saying, "Beth's chili is better," so sorry, that doesn't cut it by today's CCU standards. You're a one-time winner, who's technically only won one round in her entire chili career. Your estimates are still outrageous, and i could have had you paired with nate and/or zach to reduce travel expenses.


Your 'non-interest' might make a shred of sense if it wasn't supported by "i have nothing to prove" because you have much to prove, since this year's competition features 6 new chefs, all of which are determined to kick your ass in the competition. And frankly, given your bye last year, and non-vote battle against one same-day-made chili the year before, this year's winner will have already proven more than you. Hey, all due respect to the champ, but that's the way it is. I accept your resignation. You are more than welcome to attend the tournament as spectator.

Me: The consensus among the first year judges was that my chili was superior. To assert that only Nate had an opinion in a room filled with opinionated people is utterly absurd. The fact that you cooked your chili on the same day and that there were not more competitors the first year is simply not my problem and does not negate my win. Do you also discount the first World Series because there were only 16 teams back then? Also, I maintain that my cost estimates are not at all exaggerated. Whatever. All of this is moot in that the overarching point is that I don't want to participate. If you think that as the defending champion I do in fact have something to prove, we can both be glad that I am not you.

Best of luck to all of the competitors!

BCP: You won't get the last word in here, sweetheart! We weren't diminishing your win, we were telling you what there is to prove, as you are acting quite the jaded diva who thinks she's nothing left to prove. Well, a competitor is what makes a champion. Take it from Teddy:

It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

Me: No disrespect to our twenty-sixth president, but frankly my dear - well, you know the rest. Besides, I'm more interested in Teddy's cousin, the democrat from Hyde Park who steered our country through the Depression and a little something I like to call WORLD WAR II. Regardless, like I said, I JUST DON'T WANT TO PARTICIPATE. Call me a pussy, diva, whatever. I HAVE WON TWICE. TAKE A FUCKING POLL. If you had won the inaugural competition in 2005, I have a funny feeling that you would count it as a victory, so I'm wondering why my victory is being deemed null and void here... Also, YOU AREN'T EVEN COMPETING THIS YEAR. Why? Because I humiliated you two years in a row? Feeling a little like Peter Berg at the end of the Last Seduction, are we? Listen sweet-tits - I am done with the CCU because I SIMPLY DON'T CARE ANYMORE. I'm really not sure how I can make this any clearer. Feel free to leaf through your little book of famous quotations, but please have the dignity to acknowledge that I have just uttered the last word on this, the great chili debate of 2007.

SO ANNOYING.

Already thinking about Pesach...

Well, we took back the House, so that was good. But a certain former Texas Rangers shareholder is sending at least 20,000 more US troops over to Iraq, which I obviously think sucks. As such, I have decided to turn my thoughts to the most magical time of year for Jews and Christians (well, for me at least) alike - PASSOVER! Mark your calendars everyone! The fist night of Passover is Monday, April 2nd - I can't wait. I already have kugel brains... Let's start thinking about the Four Questions:

1) Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?
2) Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?
3) Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?
4) Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?

We'll discuss the answers on April 2nd. If you're little, I'm going to hide the afikoman from you!

Let’s Take Back the House this Tuesday

Earlier this week I was riding home on the 4 train from work (I’ve been temping lately) and I overheard a conversation that really moved me for some reason. A man and a woman got on the train at Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall and stood right in front of where I was sitting. They seemed to be in their mid to late forties and mid thirties respectively. From what I gathered, the gentleman worked some sort of maintenance job for a company that had at one time occupied two buildings, but closed one down over the summer, causing layoffs and the cutting of hours based upon seniority. Initially, this change did not affect him, but recently he was cut back from five days a week to three days a week. He sounded disappointed and mentioned that it was lousy timing with the holidays approaching, but that he felt it would work out and he’d be back up to five days at some point. He wasn’t necessarily optimistic, but there was something really heartwarming in his tone that conveyed acceptance and the belief that things would get better. Listening to him made me feel sad, but oddly hopeful. And then I started crying. I reread the hilarious article in the previous post, with the hopes that it would make me laugh again, or that if anyone saw me crying they might just assume I was reading something really sad. Anyway, it prompted me to start thinking about our wounded country, how we got here and the hope that things will look a lot brighter when I wake up on November 8th.

I mean, it’s fairly obvious how we got here. Have you ever seen that movie The American President? Despite the fact that it’s not terribly good, I sort of liked it (read liked it a lot). I usually enjoy all movies with fake presidents. I especially loved Dave, but that’s not important right now. Anyway, Michael Zeta-Jones plays the Commander in Chief, who is on the receiving end of some horrible mudslinging coming from the far right. He refuses to respond to it as it has to do with his romantical life, which is personal and therefore off limits. His silence prompts one of his key staffers, played by Michael J. Fox, who will always just be APK to me, to take him to task with the following:

“People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.”

Cheesy, formulaic and trite? Definitely, but APK is nothing if not on point. Because democrats have largely been dispassionate, standing for everything and anything, which ultimately translates to nothing (with the exception of a reborn Al Gore – my favorite!), we’ve been completely alienated from our own government by conservative mustache-twisting assholes, who inexplicably have abandoned our forefathers’ doctrine of separation of church and state. And our countrymen have accepted and chosen this with open arms, simply because the conservatives are actually saying and believing in something. Their enthusiasm for their backward ideals has caused many Americans to vote for perceived morals, rather than their own self interests. The democrats are looking out for them, but they don’t even know it. But I really feel that a lot of this has changed over the last year, with people growing weary of the war in Iraq and the now more obvious hypocrisy of elected republican officials. For instance, I am extremely grateful to Congressman Foley, who is hardly a bastion of morality. I have to say, I think his highly publicized pervey behavior will really help us win back some seats.

And now that the junior Senator from Massachusetts is off the campaign trail, postponing his fledgling career in comedy, I think we should be ok.

Listen, I may sound really jaded and un-patriotic, but the truth is, I’m a huge patriot. I was adopted from Thailand where I am certain, had I remained, that I would be a prostitute leading a bleak life filled with perverted British ex-pats. But instead I got to come here and live a life filled with privilege and opportunity. I love this country and I want to feel good about it again. I just hope that my fellow countrymen don’t break my heart the way they did in 2004. I really believe that enough people, my mother included, have successfully removed their heads from their assholes at this point to vote democrat this Tuesday. But with so many Americans inexplicably lacking health insurance, who knows? I would imagine a procedure like that would be prohibitively expensive for someone who is uninsured.

But truly, I am hopeful - for myself, this country and that nice man on the subway who is just trying to get by. With any luck he’ll be back up to five days a week in the New Year.

OK, climbing off my soapbox now, but if you live in New York City and don’t know where to vote, click here.

If you email our Commander in Chief, he DEFFINITELY will not write you back.

Newell sent me this article last week. It made me laugh out loud on the subway. Several times.

The Oldest Man in the World

Benito Martínez Abrogán, believed to be the oldest man in the world, died on October 11th at the ripe old age of 126 (though no one is certain due to poor birth records in his native Haiti). Regardless, Mr. Martínez claimed that he was born in 1880, which I find to be absolutely amazing, as well as true. Just look at him - could a face like that ever lie?



Anyway, according to his obituary in the Economist, Mr. Martínez never even saw a doctor in his adopted Cuba until the age of roughly 115. Which just proves my point, things like anti-bacterial hand sanitizing gel are TOTALLY silly. We just don't need them. People have been getting by and doing amazing things FOREVER - way before anyone ever thought up crazy things like macrobiotic diets and anti-bacterial hand sanitizing gel! Also, since his "fresh" diet mainly consisted of cassava and sweet potatoes cooked in pork fat, I really think I may be on to something with my rather pork heavy diet.

So now we just need a...

TELEPORTER. Why won't these "scientists" get off their ASSES? Listen, I'd like to be invisible just as much as the next guy, but to be honest, I'm mainly interested in teleporting.

In other news, Youthlarge must be pacing the fuck out of her apartment right now because of these guys.

Invisibility Cloak Update!

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath. So here, read this.