July 04, 2008
Crate and Barrel, You Shouldn't Be the Model
Does every Crate and Barrel have horrible customer service or is that just what you get when you visit the store in Clarendon?
I've been in the Clarendon store for up to 30 minutes - during non-busy times too - without a salesperson so much as saying, "Hello." Last night, one actually looked at me and walked the other direction. No, I wasn't sporting a suit and tie; I was merely dressed in athletic clothes. Even so, I've dropped about a grand in that store over the last year, and I won't be dropping any more, even if I desperately need some really cool lamps and bedroom furniture.
Posted by fool at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)July 03, 2008
Fashion Gurus
The other day, I was walking on the mall (the one with all the monuments, not the one where you buy stuff and try the orange chicken at Panda Express). I spotted a father and son, who were clearly Amish. The father looked like a shorter Abraham Lincoln. The son looked like a shorter version of the father. He was particularly interested in watching the various softball games that were taking place. Seeing the Amish boy and his father left me with but one question: Do you think Amish people buy their clothes at Nordstrom, or do they try to save some money by waiting for the merchandise to hit Nordstrom Rack?
Posted by fool at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)June 29, 2008
Adventures in Vegas - The 2008 Edition: Volume II
Picture it, the Orleans Casino Poker Room, a Saturday night. Papa Fool and I are at the same table playing Omaha hi/low split, a very fun but often contentious game. About thirty minutes after we’re playing, a Phil Donahue look-a-like sits at our table. He’s carrying about fifty more pounds around his belly than Phil Donahue does, but otherwise looks the same.
When he sits down, the dealer asks, “Do you want to wait for the button or do you want a hand?”
Donahue says to deal him in. On the next hand, the dealer forgets. Donahue looks at the dealer and exclaims, “Why didn’t you deal me in?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the dealer responds. “I forgot!”
“Is it just because I’m a fat fuck?” Donahue replies in a very funny manner.
It should go without saying that Papa Fool and I are instant fans. The three of us sit side-by-side-by-side the rest of the evening and talk and joke the entire time.
Fast forward about an hour. I have the best hand. I turn my cards over one by one to reveal my monster! The last card I flip over is my best card. Although I did not intentionally “slow roll” my opponent – a guy in his early 30s – it sure appears that way. (In truth, I didn’t know which cards were which when I was turning them over. I was just being lazy.)
My opponent did not appreciate what he interpreted as a sleazy way to reveal my winning hand.
Three hands later, he exacts his revenge. After I reveal the second-best low hand, he turns over three of his four cards. It looks like we’ll tie for low. But then he flips over the fourth card. That card beats me. Papa Fool overhears him telling his friend, “I don’t usually do that, but he did it to me, so I wanted to get him back.”
A few hands later, Mr. Young-30-Year-Old and I are heads up in a pot. We raise and re-raise and re-raise each other several times. He finally exclaims, “I think we’ve got the same hand so I’m not going to raise anymore. I'll just call.” We both turn over the same full house and split the pot.
He seems particularly proud of his predicting-abilities.
He exclaims, “At first, I found raising each other really fun, but then I got bored with it.”
“Oh, really?" I reply. "That’s exactly how I felt when I fucked your mother.”
Mr. Donahue bursts out laughing.
So does Papa Fool.
Papa Fool and I cash out and enjoy a great dinner with Brother Fool at Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris Hotel and Casino. We did not invite Mr. 30-Year-Old. We should have invited Mr. Donahue.
Posted by fool at 12:17 PM | Comments (3)June 27, 2008
Maybe Nobody Has Ever Suggested it to Her...
Picture it, the supermarket, the woman in front of me at the checkout line is buying a few items, including two bottles of wine. The friendly cashier says, “May I see some i.d. please, Miss? You know, to verify that you are old enough to purchase these bottles of wine!”
The woman looks amused.
The cashier continues. “I know you’re probably 22, but I need to check to be certain.”
The woman giggles. “I wish I were 22. I’m a lot older than that. I’m actually 27.”
The cashier says, “Well, you look a lot younger.”
“Yeah, I get carded all the time when I buy cigarettes.”
“Well," the Thinking Fool says, "maybe you shouldn’t smoke.”
Posted by fool at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)June 26, 2008
Adventures in Vegas - The 2008 Edition: Volume I
On Night One of the 2008 Great Vegas Adventure, Papa Fool and I were finally ready to retire to our room after dicking around in our hotel’s casino for a few hours. We arrived at the elevator bank just in time to board one of the elevators with four other people.
And my oh my, weren’t they lucky!
Papa Fool immediately darted to the back of the elevator while I stood to the side. I started messing around with the calculator on my phone, trying to figure out odds in a particular game. (It is moments like these that make me wish there were a little Asian blood in the Fool family.)
Three of the four other people on the elevator pushed buttons for floors below ours.
About three seconds after the elevator started its climb, I heard the sound of wind being broken. It wasn’t a juicy fart, i.e. the kind that would leave you wondering whether its owner drew a little mud, but it certainly was loud enough for everyone to hear.
And guess what! I had a sneaky suspicion I knew who dealt it.
I tried to keep my composure, so I kept playing with my phone. But after the first person got off the elevator, I couldn’t help it. I just started cracking up (the type of silent laugh where there’s no sound, but everyone clearly knows you’re laughing because the top of your body looks like it's undergoing an epileptic fit). And I continued to laugh when the second random person got off and also when the third random person got off.
But then I laughed even harder when it was just the fourth random passenger, Papa Fool, and me.
Fourth Random Passenger: Did you guys hear that!?! I think that lady who just got off farted!
Papa Fool: I think you’re right.
Seconds later, Papa Fool and I got off on our floor.
Thinking Fool: I assume that was you.
Papa Fool: Of course.
And that, my friends, is the type of experience that would make Martha Stewart proud.
June 24, 2008
Playing (Unfortunately) at a Theater Near You...
The Happening
The Gist: New Yorkers start committing suicide in droves for no apparent reason. Then people in Philadelphia start offing themselves too. All of a sudden, everyone’s thinking, “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!” And by “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do,” I mean a lot of people think terrorists have released massive chemicals in the air causing people to go Hunter S. Thompson on themselves. Well, guess what, folks; survey says, “BUZZ!” No, it turns out, that once brilliant writer-director-producer-turned-awful-writer-director-producer M. Night Shyamalan explains these mysterious deaths as coming from, hold on to your nuts, vaginal lips, or whatever you hold on to when you’re gearing up for an idiotic surprise… TREES! Yes indeed, M. Night wrote his movie in a way that has the trees banding together and releasing a chemical in the air that results in people wanting to kill themselves. I’ll tell you what made me want to kill myself; watching this awful movie.
What Would Have Made this Movie Better: This is an R-rated movie; the trailers made a huge deal out of that fact because it’s M. Night’s first. Since we’ve already got the R rating, why not let Marky Mark screw someone on screen, preferably not his wife, who was as annoying as a rabbit on the subway hell-bent on sniffing your private parts, but someone nonetheless. I mean, seriously, women, am I right or wrong here? If you know you’re going to die from some mysterious natural disaster and Marky Mark happens to be loitering nearby, don’t you ask him to play Cowboys and Indians with you, with him assuming the role of a horse and you that of a cowgirl? Also, maybe it would have helped the movie if M. Night had tweaked the script a little. And by tweaking the script a little, I mean he should have picked it up, walked it over to a fireplace, and threw it on a burning starter log (and considered jumping on that log himself). Short of that, he should have created at least one character with whom the audience could connect. But, no, to the contrary, there was not a single soul in this movie whom I cared about. NOT ONE! John Leguizamo is a hell of an actor, and for some baffling reason, decided to accept a role in this film. Early on in the movie, he’s all distressed because he thinks his wife might be dead. He goes back to find her, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that he’s going to die in his attempt. (Oh sorry, for that spoiler, but if you see this film after reading this review, you’ve got more mental problems than Colin Ferguson, John Hinckley, Jr., and Roseanne Barr combined.) He leaves his single-digit-year-old daughter with Mark Wahlberg and Wahlberg’s C-note wife in case he doesn’t make it. Usually such a scene would cause some sort of somber reaction in you, right? Well, as someone who proudly admits to having shed a tear while watching The Notebook, I can assure you that I didn’t care if Leguizamo, his wife, his daughter, Wahlberg, Wahlberg’s wife, or anyone in this film, for that matter, died. There was NO emotional connection with ANYONE. You felt less for these characters than Terry Schiavo’s husband did for her.
Who Should See This: I saw The Sixth Sense very reluctantly and ended up LOVING it! Then I saw Unbreakable and didn’t love it, but definitely liked it. Then I watched Signs and walked away thinking I had been sodomized by an angry rhinoceros. (People often cite Signs as being some clever film. It was about as clever as trimming your pubic hair in the shape of the pope. Oh wait, that might actually be kind of clever, so scrap that. It was about as clever as most celebrity game show panelists these days.) Then I went to see The Village, and thought, “What the hell has happened to this writer-director-producer? His last two movies have sucked more than Helen Keller in the director’s cut of The Miracle Worker. (By the way, my ass that chick said “Wawa.” She made a couple goofy sounds that the so-called “Miracle Worker” interpreted in a way that made the “Miracle Worker” look great. Trust me, if the “Miracle Worker” had been a shady prosecutor instead of some teacher, she would have convinced the world that Helen Keller’s brother was touching her. In other words, Helen Keller said whatever the “Miracle Worker” said she said. Plus, I’m pretty sure the “Miracle Worker” was touching Keller’s cooch.) Then The Lady in the Water came out, and I thought, “Well, I guess I should give him another shot. His first two movies were at least super clever and he’s got to bounce back, right?” But then, after every critic seemed to indicate that having explosive diarrhea for eight days would be more fun than watching Lady in the Water, I decided to skip that one. Well, I should have decided to skip The Happening too because there wasn’t a single redeeming quality about it. Not one. It was an absolute abortion from start to finish.
The Verdict: Absolutely awful. M. Night, I’m done, buddy. F
June 18, 2008
The NBA Finals are Over: Celtics 131, Lakers 92
Do you think the Lakers even tried last night?
Posted by fool at 12:01 AM | Comments (4)June 17, 2008
And the Gentleman from Mississippi Inquired, "How do you know that?"
Today or tomorrow, if you happen to bump into former Senator Trent Lott, I suggest saying, “Senator, my, my, you look like you’ve probably got a little corn in your poop today.” If you do that, Lott will undoubtedly look at you dumbfounded, wondering how the hell you could tell that just by looking at him. And you will think, “I know this because I read the Thinking Fool, who just happened to spy Lott eating some corn during lunch on Monday.” Needless to say, the CIA would love to have an intelligence-gatherer like me.
Posted by fool at 12:00 AM | Comments (6)June 16, 2008
Marvelous Monday Musings...
Tiger Woods makes watching golf so much fun. (No, that’s not an oxymoron.) The PGA, on the other hand, or whoever determines the scoring rules for the U.S. Open is foolish. Unlike most tournaments (at least with which I’m familiar), when two golfers are tied at the end of the fourth round of the U.S. Open, those golfers do not proceed to play sudden death right there and then. To the contrary, they play an entire 18-hole round the next day, i.e. Monday. For those of us with jobs, that doesn’t work out so well. It is also a little anti-climatic. If you’re lucky enough to be able to watch today’s 18-hole playoff between Tiger and Rocco Mediate, whom one NBC commentator described as someone who “looks more like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool,” lucky you.
There is never a good time for someone whom you like to die, but June 2008 seems like a particularly bad time for Tim Russert to pass away. His son, wife, father, and friends have my sympathy. Russert’s wisdom and insight will be missed this political season.
Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows how much I adore and love Papa Fool. I wish I could have spent Father’s Day with him. Fortunately, I get to join him and Brother Fool in Vegas next weekend. Having great parents really makes a difference in life. I am beyond blessed in that regard. Happy Father’s Day, Papa Fool.
Posted by fool at 12:18 AM | Comments (6)June 12, 2008
Playing at a Theater Near You...
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Gist: A television actress tells her song-writing boyfriend that she wants to end their relationship. He tries to get her to change her mind by, get this, showing her his tallywhacker, but that doesn’t make her want to take him back. Shocker, I know. Because he’s so sad, he decides to take a trip to Hawaii. However, when he arrives, as Snagglepuss might say, “Heavens to mergatroid! The ex-girlfriend and new boyfriend are here! And they’re staying at the same hotel even!” (Who doesn’t love Snagglepuss? He was a great cartoon character.) Long story short, the boy starts liking another girl, who happens to work at the hotel where he is staying, and at the end of the day, the question becomes, “Will the penis-flashing man want to get back together with Sarah Marshall or choose the Hawaii Honey instead?”
What Would Have Made this Movie Better: I can’t really pinpoint anything. It was definitely funny in parts. I laughed out loud several times. But, it was missing something that makes a comedy simultaneously funny and a great movie. Oh, but obviously if the director was going to treat us to some random dick shots, he could have given us a few more glances of Sarah Marshall and the Hawaiian Honey.
Who Should See This: If you want a fun comedy, take a look. If you don’t like comedies, maybe it’s time for you to think about planning your funeral. We don’t need a bunch of sourpusses running around this planet, especially with the global warming and all.
The Verdict: B
The Strangers
The Gist: A young couple–not so young that seeing naked pictures of them would cause the government to start indicting people; I’m talking late 20s here–plans to spend the night at a house out in the country. When they arrive in the middle of the night, we realize that the wedding which they just attended left them upset with each other. Turns out Monsieur Boy asked Mademoiselle Girl to marry him, and she said, “Dude, I really love you, but I can’t commit to just one pecker in the cooch at this point in my life.” That line of dialogue got cut someplace in the editing process, and obviously would have made the film better, but there’s only so much you can squeeze in a limited space. Just ask Shaq’s wife. Then some random-ass chick knocked on the door looking for some girl, and even after they told her no such person lives at that residence, the random-ass chick decided to stay and loiter around the premises. She and two others proceed to stay on the property and decide to play a little game of “Let’s terrorize the hell out of these helpless human beings.” (Used to be a really popular game in Iraq under the Saddam regime-slightly different rules, but still the same thrills.)
What Would Have Made this Movie Better: It had some incredibly scary parts, and I felt my heart beating faster than Barbaro’s right before they put him down, but it was a little boring at times and just didn’t completely click.
Who Should See This: If you like movies that scare you, venture to the theater and strap yourself in; it’s not a perfect ride, but still worth the price of a ticket.
The Verdict: B-
