Category: Fun & Entertainment

Faux Pas. My Bad.

On By SarahIn Fun & Entertainment, Internet1 Comment

So, being the Internet obsessed social networker that I long to be, I made the dumbest and most frowned-upon faux pas yesterday.

I spammed my entire address book.

I’m so ashamed.

So, I found this pretty cool social networking site, and I thought I’d check it out.

Change.org

It’s like MySpace for activists. You can only look at people’s profiles if you are a member, and the stated purpose of the site is to promote your favorite non-profit organizations and network with like-minded individuals. This automatically makes the intelligence quotient slightly higher than many other networking sites, and so far it seems to be lacking the creep factor of online stalkers. I’m sure it’s not totally absent, but it doesn’t seem to be as prevalent. When I first joined MySpace, I couldn’t believe how much porn spam I received, and requests to be friends with some really creepy people.

I created an ID, and the system automatically prompts you to look for your friends from your address book. So I uploaded my address book from my Yahoo account, and pushed the button that I thought would actually search for people, but what happened was that an email was generated and sent to everyone. Yes, I didn’t read the fine print, but it was still too easy to do, if you asked me. Yes, it was a totally bone-headed and ditzy thing to do, and I take full responsibility for being a bone head and a ditz. But still, it was just too darn easy.

It emailed everybody. Mind you, I don’t regularly update this address book because I don’t really use my Yahoo account any more (too much spam!). But the address book there is HUGE, and there are people I haven’t been in touch with in years, old acquaintances who are probably not expecting to hear from me at all, and old colleagues, who, when I look at their names I say “who is that?”

If you received one of these invitations, I am truly sorry. But perhaps it’s not so bad.

The really astonishing thing is that people actually signed up for it! I have six friends in my network, including one old college friend, Pavel (whom I knew as Jim), who is now a clown and performance artist in Berlin. I was very happy to get in touch with him, actually.

I really expected to get in trouble. I thought people were going to laugh or be mad, or scold me….and I would have deserved it. But I have a network now! Perhaps people will actualy find this a useful site!

And a bunch of folks at my office now know that my personal email is silly.goose. Oh, well. I guess it’s not a bad thing when you bring more of yourself into your work life. It mixes it up a bit. I always enjoy people letting their hair down after spending eight hours a day with them wearing a suit. I enjoy learning surprising and unexpected things about people.

Cilantro (Soap) on the Side

On By SarahIn Food & Cooking, Fun & Entertainment, Opinion7 Comments

I love Mexican food. I love Thai food. Why do the chefs at these restaurants have to ruin their delicious cuisine with the Evil Weed (as my friend likes to call it)?

It’s a little request, really. Just put the little green sprigs in a bowl on the side so those who enjoy it can sprinkle it liberally to their delight.

Seriously, the stuff tastes exactly like Palmolive to me. I can’t stand the smell of it! I know I’m not alone in this. And it has been suggested to me that those of us who taste cilantro as soap are slightly (or not so slightly) allergic to it. I don’t know because I hate the stuff so much I don’t think I’ve ever ingested enough of it to find out what the reaction might be. I guess the reaction of “blech!” is enough of an allergy for me.

Really. I was shopping last night, and every brand of salsa in the grocery store included cilantro. I have to make my own (which I’m not opposed to, but who has the time?). And tonight I had a meeting after work, and I had to grab a burrito at the Mexican restaurant down the street from my church, and it was laden with cilantro! I couldn’t eat it. I wanted to cry!

I know, I’m a little melodramatic, but seriously, when I’m hungry, you don’t want to mess with me. I get really cranky!

So, this blog is my soapbox, I just told someone, and let me tell you, I don’t like eating soap, or anything that tastes like soap!

Thank God for Casa Vallarta. They make an AWESOME chile relleno burrito, and their guacamole has no cilantro. This place is mere paces from my apartment, and I eat there frequently. For those of you in the ‘hood, this restaurant has amazing Mexican home cookin’. Really, this is a very tidy little hole in the wall whose fajitas really shouldn’t be missed. They make their corn tortillas by hand every day. And they don’t cook with cilantro.

I am so totally going there tomorrow.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

On By SarahIn Fun & EntertainmentLeave a comment

Did you all know that there is to be a new series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I have found the fact that I share the name of a character in a major motion picture mildly amusing. Its kinda funny, and I tell folks that they modeled her after me, since I am the original (and Linda Hamilton is kinda hot). So what if they spell her name wrong (it should be Conner, not not Connor).

Ever since The Terminator was released in 1985, I have been teased about twice a month or so. And during the recall election here in California, I got teased a lot more. I got an obnoxious phone call at five in the morning one time. This stupid shock jock from some morning radio show back east was calling all of the Sarah Conners in California to find out whether they were voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wasn’t amused then.

I always thought that the hype would die down, that people would forget about the movie, and that I would be teased about it less and less. It’s not a big deal, really. People mean it in good fun, but I do often get “Wow! Sarah Conner! Really? Do people ever tease you about The Terminator?” (And I tell that story in my stupid monkey voice, eyes rolling). Jeez.

So, Hollywood has seen fit to milk this franchise further. I know its going to be a dumb show, but what I really hope is that it’s not a big hit that people are talking about around the water cooler at the office. That is the last thing I need.

Well, please enjoy the following video. It is the retelling of the Christ story and The Terminator by Mad TV. (Amy, I’m putting this here for you! It won’t fit on my MySpace page any more, and it is so worth watching. I hope you like it).

The perfect context for my favorite joke

On By SarahIn Fun & Entertainment1 Comment

I attended the covenant of holy union (or a commitment ceremony, or a wedding, if you prefer) yesterday of a friend of mine from work and his partner at All Saints Episcopal Church in San Francisco. It is a beautiful Craftsman style building, very unassuming from the street, and once you enter you are immediately struck by the beauty of the craftsmanship and the iconography throughout. It is a little church, the kind where you imagine all of the members know each other.

I have attended Episcopal churches a few times in my life, and having grown up Lutheran, some of the pomp and circumstance was vaguely familiar to me. I sat next to a Jewish friend who leaned over from time to time and asked me about what we should do next, and I had to tell her that I really didn’t know. She probably knew more than I did because I think she attended an Episcopal school.

The church I go to now is so much more casual than this place was, so I have to say that I didn’t know how to behave myself. Each church has its own rituals, I guess, but the Episcopals really do the pageantry. They have the intricately gold-embroidered garb, the jeweled chalice, the iconography, swinging the incense in the little brass pot with smoke everywhere, everything is fancy and highly ritualized. You have to stand and kneel and sing and say things at the right times, and its all so serious. All of us in the congregation kept looking around to see if anyone knew what came next, waiting and searching for cues.

I always get choked up a weddings, and this was no exception. I was very moved by ceremony and the sermon. And same-sex ceremonies always get me a little more because when queers get married we do so in the face adversity. Also, I learned that this was the first same-sex wedding that this church had blessed, which just adds to the significance of the event.

The whole occasion was emotional and moving, the joining of these two people indeed a sacred moment.

And I had the perfect context in which to tell my favorite joke:

Q: What did the drag queen say to the priest?A: Honey, I love your dress, but your purse is on fire.