Monthly Archives: July 2013

New Kids on the Block? Oh, When Did They Move In?

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I am going to admit something pretty embarrassing, and I hope you don’t judge me too harshly for it. Here it is: I only just recently realized that Marky Mark, of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, is Mark Wahlberg. I thought I knew Mark Wahlberg pretty well, hell, I’ve seen him in his underwear! markymark

After that, I felt like there weren’t many secrets Mark was keeping from me. Little did I know that he was once a Billboard sensation of a different kind.

“How could you have missed this,” you might ask. “Do you live under a rock?” No, but I did live under a roof where we only listened to one radio station: Oldies 100. So until 1996, when I got my first Sony Dream Machine clock radio, pop music was lost on me.

For the first ten years of my life, I was completely oblivious to the music that was shaping the childhood of everyone around me. “Do I like Salt-N-Pepa? Yeah but I usually don’t need to add it to my food because my mom cooks with plenty of flavor already.” I’m sure my ignorance of pop music was embarrassing at the time, but I didn’t even know that I didn’t know it, so I didn’t mind. Once I started understanding that people were making references to things I had never heard of because I was too busy listening to The Temptations, I started to worry. It felt a little like waking up from a ten-year coma and having no idea what had happened. Except I didn’t even have a coma to blame my ignorance on, just my love of Doo-Wop and Motown.

So I’d do my best to play along by smiling, nodding, and quickly changing the subject before I could say something stupid. Even after years of playing catch up, I still haven’t fully recovered my lost knowledge of 90s pop culture. My dark secret comes back to haunt me every time a 90s classic plays at a party or bar. “This is how we do it,” rings through the air and a collective gasp of excitement and joy escapes from the crowd. Except for me. I’m thinking, “Aw, crap,” as I brace myself for four minutes of some dodgy lip-synching and wonder why the DJ couldn’t have played “Kokomo” or “The Loco-motion” instead.

RTT Blog Hop

Nothing Says Family Friendly Fun Like a Prostitute and Her Rainbow of Condoms

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If you are looking for a good movie to watch with the kids this weekend, try one of my favorites. It’s about a young girl who falls into prostitution after finding herself alone in a new city. By selling her body to the night, she and her drug addict roommate are just barely able to make ends meet. But things are looking up when she takes on a new client; all she has to do is pretend to be his girlfriend and occasionally bathe him and have sex with him in hotel dining rooms! They strike up a bond and in the final moments of the movie she discovers if he can stop treating her like a hooker and finally accept her for who she is.

Sounds good, right? The best part is, you don’t have to Netflix or Redbox it. It is probably playing on ABC Family this very moment! Right up there with Harry Potter and Toy Story is another beloved children’s classic: Pretty Woman. A movie about the luckiest prostitute in the world. And don’t forget Dirty Dancing, another ABC Family Classic, which takes place at what is essentially summer camp for adults. If summer camp is a place where your dance instructor will sleep with you for a wad of cash and where traveling doctors give botched abortions. Don’t get me wrong, I think these are fine movies…just not for an eight-year-old.

With a name like ABC Family, I had always assumed this channel was directed toward children and families. If I were a parent and asked my kid, “Hey, what are you watching down there?” and she answered “ABC Family!” I’d think, Oh okay, with a name like that it’s gotta be wholesome, never suspecting that my child was watching Julia Roberts give Richard Gere a blow job. Even if the network edits out that part, or the part where Jason Alexander forces himself on her, the movie is still always going to be about a prostitute. Which in itself is mature content. Until children’s books and Disney movies feature a strong female lead that is a hooker, I am not going to buy that this is a children’s movie.

Out of curiosity, I went to the ABC Family website to learn more about their mission and read that they “air movies that we think fit our audience’s tastes: all kinds of comedies, plus love stories, fantasies, select classics, and more.” Who is your audience that Richie Rich and Pretty Woman are on par with each other? I guess the answer is in their tagline: A New Kind of Family. The kind that wants their kids to learn about the fairytale of prostitution early on.

Idiot of the Week: The Perfect Crime

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Idiot of the Week is brought to us today by my good friend N.M., who recently had his credit card information stolen:

Someone stole my account information (he obviously didn’t realize I’m poor) two days ago, and tried to ring up a bunch of shit.   He was probably so embarrassed when the card kept getting declined (because it was already maxed out).  I hope the line behind him was long.  I pictured him fumbling through his wallet and explaining to the cashier how this never happens and he must have forgotten to pay his bill – all while nervously glancing over his shoulder at the increasingly long and angry line dying for their lattes.  Haha what a fool.  My dad even felt bad for him, and I quote, “He picked the worst person in the world to rob.”  I can think of worse people (I’ve seen Slum Dog Millionaire), but I laughed with him.

I even wrote a review for one of the places he went:

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Since this thief didn’t steal N.M.’s actual credit cards, just the numbers, I am wondering how he paid for his dinner at a restaurant like this. Did he write the numbers down on a scrap of paper and hand them to the waiter when the check came? That is usually a red flag…but hey for a 23% tip maybe I’d look the other way too.

So You’re Saying Don’t Put My Baby in the Paper Shredder?

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My sister recently had twins and while I love holding them, I am constantly scared of breaking them. I don’t know anything about babies and I worry I will do something wrong and inadvertently ruin their lives. But, I think I should give myself a little more credit. I do know the basics like don’t feed a baby hot sauce, don’t leave a baby on the changing table, and don’t stick your baby in a paper shredder.

So of course, when I see the warning label on this paper shredder I think, Duh, everybody knows that. But I sometimes forget, not everybody is as smart as me. So let’s review: when it comes to paper shredders, don’t put your hand in it, don’t put your Genie in a Bottle in it, and definitely don’t put your baby in it, especially after a fun day of playing soccer and holding balloons. If you are looking to get rid of your baby there are other less gruesome and more profitable ways to do it. Take a page out of this mom’s book and post an ad on Craig’s List. Don’t trust strangers? Neither do I. Keep it among friends and try selling your baby through Facebook like this mom. If you are a really savvy shopper, offer a bundled deal like she did — everybody likes a two-for. Don’t have a spare baby lying around? Dont worry! You don’t need a baby of your own to get in on this action. Tired of the volatility of the stock market? Double, even triple your investment in just days by getting a piece of the baby game. Buy a baby cheap like this guy, spruce it up, and then sell it for a whopping profit.

Hopefully you have realized that I am being heavily sarcastic to ridicule these despicable people – I would not want anyone to get confused and think that I condone baby trafficking or think of babies as illiquid assets. It is hard to believe that these stories are even true, but sadly they are. This is what you get when you stand in the way of birth control: people who act more like used car salesmen than proud, doting parents.