snow day

It was a freezing and snow day today here in YYC, so it was a perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with my PVR. I watched 6 hours of Boardwalk Empire and now I have a strong desire to smoke, drink illegal whiskey, wear a flapper dress and date a gangster in a 3-piece suit and bowler hat.

I have two episodes left and while it took awhile for me to get into it, I am definitely wondering how it will all end. I especially enjoyed when "Chalky" took matters into his own hands and (semi-spoiler alert) strangled that dude.

Chalky of course is also known as Omar from The Wire. Man do I miss that show. I was trying to think of my favourite character .... the obvious ones would be Stringer Bell or McNulty. But I think I liked them all. Omar, all the kids (Randy in particular), Snoop, Chris, Prezbo, Greggs, Herc, Wallace (who is now on Parenthood ... of which every episode makes me cry), Bubbles, Daniels, Marlo, Buk, etc. Nothing else on tv like it. It makes me sad that I've seen every episode. Definitely not a guilty pleasure.

50/50

So two weeks ago HC went on a date with the aforementioned internet ghost. It was a second date and they went to the hockey game. Whilst at said game they bought some 50/50 tickets and they made a deal that if they won, they would book a trip to Vegas the next day. I guess this is standard deal that he makes at every hockey game with his friends. It's a great idea especially because you never expect it to actually happen. And of course it didn't - they did not win the 50/50 draw. But it was still a good date, and sometimes that's a victory in itself.

Flash forward to Friday night. HC and SS are at the hockey game. Dude is there as well with some of his friends, sitting in a corporate box somewhere. They are BBMing and HC is trying to make plans to meet up after the game for a drink. There is some witty banter back and forth and then radio silence. As the relationship is new, she thinks the worst. I go to meet the girls at the Rose and Crown after the game for a bevvie or two. We chat up a few young men. HC meets a guy. Let's call him "Doug." He scans her BB bar code (more on that new twist in dating in another post), and asks her to go for a drink the next day. She says yes, cause who knows what is going on with the other guy. So as we leave she gets a BBM from first guy, wondering where she ended up. Turns out, he disappeared because he and his friends actually won the 50/50. The four of them split $28,000 and immediately booked a trip to Vegas. They left at 7:30 on Saturday morning for 3 days.

Crazy right?

low lights and a wipe

We were lucky this week to have a professional in our midst whilst watching The Bachelor. AH's sister was in town from TO and as she is a make up artist she was able to provide us with inside insight into the great mystery of Michelle's black eye. Her prognosis: FAKE.

Here is how Stacy H came to this (not so) shocking conclusion:

• Exhibit 1: A black eye is ugly. When you wake up with a zit, you cover it up. Same principle with a black eye. Cover that shit up.
• Exhibit 2: A black eye usually comes with some swelling and/or puffiness. When Michelle "woke up" she had colour, but no puff.
• Exhibit 3: A black eye is often accompanied by burst blood vessels in the eye and it eventually turns yellow and green. None of this occurred. In fact, by the time of her "special day" came around, the black eye was miraculously gone. Side note ... since when did they start referring to one-on-one dates as their "special day"? Barf.
• Exhibit 4: As a "hair dresser," Michelle has no doubt worked with makeup artists and knows the tricks of the trade. Stacy's conclusion is that Michelle used a purple matte lipstick to fashion her black eye. And so concludes this episode of CSI: Bachelor.

Now that we've solved that mystery, onto date #1. Chantal was HC's early favourite, but she's quickly falling off her list for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, the following:

• She was overly concerned about mascara running down her face during their underwater "date." Really?
• When Brad congratulated her on doing a great job underwater, she replied "it's because I've got you." I think the appropriate response to that comment is gag me with a spoon.
• Once they moved into the tent to continue their awkward making out, she thanked god for making it rain. Honey, I'm fairly certain god has more important things than determining the appropriate weather for your date.

Despite the appearance of my favourite silver fox Dr. Drew, the group date was not all that exciting. The only interesting part of the "therapy session" was when Brad said that he wanted to find out if one, or all, were compatible with him. He wants to be compatible with all of them? Since when did The Bachelor turn into Big Love? I know it's ridiculous that he's dating 15 women at the same time, but there's already a reality dating show about polygamy. It's called Sister Wives. Good for him for not giving the dentist the rose though. She seemed drunk and because she has nothing interesting to say (although none of them really do), she just created drama, to no effect.

Speaking of drama, at this point in the evening we took a break (as often occurs, see last week's google session) to discuss whether or not to forward new contact info to an old flame after you have broken up. Remember this guy? Well now that AZ is moving back to YYC, he is sending her random real estate emails and really wants her new contact information. She sees no reason to provide him with it. Nor do I ... clean breaks are good. For example, I recently got a new Blackberry and there is a certain "gentleman" with whom I have a history that has never ended particularly well, and I chose not to send him my new number ... Impressive, non?

I don't have a lot to say about Michelle's date except that we all agreed that she seemed to be taking a page from Kate Hudson's playbook in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. She had this whole fake narcissism thing going on. She freaked out just to get his sympathy and then was composed enough to non-chalantly give him a kiss halfway down where there happened to be a camera. She's a nutjob for sure. But would the show be interesting if she had been sent home in the first few weeks? Probably not. Especially because ABC has taken pains to edit out any of Brad's personality. Either that or he could possibly be the dullest man alive. Plus he talks so damn slowly.

At any rate, it was refreshing to watch the show this week with a neophyte. The rest of us had taken for granted that this is a show worth watching. Having a rookie is a reminder that in reality, the conversations are dull, the drama is contrived, and there are no winners. Well unless of course you count becoming a D-list celebrity and having HC and I follow you on twitter as "winning."

PS - The title of this post comes courtesy of our rookie makeup artist, referring to Emily, aka NASCAR Barbie. The consensus is that she is a pretty girl, but overly made up. She should definitely take Stacy's advice who so wisely stated that she could use "some low lights and a wipe."

PPS - I apologize for the excessive use of quotation marks in my Bachelor recaps ... it just seems so appropriate seeing as nothing is actually real.

PPS - I also apologize for all the links to previous posts. I guess it just goes to show that I've been talking about the same thing and the same people for a year now. Yowza.

cheap politics

So I've mentioned my disdain for Harper, (here and here) but thanks to his latest attack ads, it's crossing over into absolute hatred.

This ad is ridiculous and wrong on so many levels. Last time I checked, a coalition government is completely legal, not at all shady, and part of our parliamentary democracy. Harper is trying to scare the uneducated amongst us and I think it's completely wrong. Jeffrey Simpson's article in yesterday's Globe and Mail says it much more eloquently than I can, and Ignatieff may have his faults, but coming back to Canada to become an elected official is not one of them. Attacking his motives is cheap politics and I can't believe I live in a country where our prime minister thinks this type of mud slinging is completely acceptable.

I could go on but I won't. Mainly because watching this ad makes me want to throw my computer out the window and my new job doesn't pay me enough to buy a new one.

safety first pt. 2

I'm starting to get a bit concerned about my choice of new job. In training on Tuesday we went over the bomb threat checklist. The memo begins with "Bomb threats should never be treated lightly. The following guidelines will assist to minimize confusion ...."

For reals. And so I say again, what the hell have I gotten myself into?

daddy issues

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to put all of our comments from last night's Bachelor into a cohesive story line, mainly because our viewing party was interrupted by some fierce googling of HC's latest date as well as some intimate discussions about whether or not a woman's cervix is fixed in place. Please note that the two discussions were not necessarily related.

But even if these conversations were very off-topic they were still much more stimulating than the conversations that Brad had with the ladies. Plus, no one died in our stories. Seriously, why do all the women feel the need to tell Brad about their sob stories as soon as he says hello? It's a bit much, non? And I wonder what Brad's "therapist" would say about the fact that all the women who go on the Bachelor all seem have some sort of daddy issues - an absent father (dentist), a dead one (Chantal, Ashley) or a fatherless child (Emily)?

On to the big events of the evening ...

• We figure the only reason Seal is on the show is because he has like 7 kids at home and is sick and tired of Heidi Klum getting to leave all the time to host project runway or strut her stuff in Victoria's Secret fashion shows. Sadly this was the only option available to him.

• As to AH's big question of the night: "What exactly does Brad's tattoo mean?" Tim had a very concise response: "That he's a douche."

• As we were watching the action film "date" we had two main questions. 1) Did they all go shopping at the same tacky-lululemon-knock-off store? and 2) Do other people watching this think this is a cool idea? Obviously we cringe and question why we watch the show, but do others think, "Hey, this is awesome, I wish I could film a fake action movie that no one will ever see? But no one ever takes me on dates like this. My life sucks."

• HC was trying to recount a funny story about a night we had in Panorama over the holidays, but it was really one of those stories where you had to be there. As she put it, "that story crashed just like Ricky's plane." Harsh but true.

• We still don't know who half the "ladies" are ... name and occupation is insufficient. We need more contextual information. For example it should say Britt, 25, food writer, made out excessively with Brad on the bed during useless blood drive public service announcement. Lisa, 24, wore ruby red shoes on night one, hair is too long, but for some reason it works. Or Lindsay, 25, thank god I have red hair, otherwise no one would remember me.

• Also from now on Christie shall be known as Christie I. Even though we have no other friends named Christie, we will start using the letter I as an homage to our favourite show which always seems to have two Ashleys.

And just in case you were wondering, we never did find any juicy information about HC's date ... according to the interweb, dude is a ghost.

safety first

So as previously mentioned I recently started a new job. Here is some sample training material from said new job:

"An inexperienced float plane passenger attempting to assist the pilot to dock is exposed to extreme danger from the rotating propeller."

Hmm. Not sure what I've gotten myself into ....

love in an elevator

So I started a new job last week. Great new role with lots of learning opportunities and potential new career paths. But even better than that, it has presented me with a whole new dating pool. The office has an internal facebook-type directory and so as I'm not very busy yet, I spent the better part of my morning intranet stalking a hot guy I saw on the elevator. He got off on the 3rd floor (my office is on the 5th), and so using the vast internal resources provided, I was able to figure out his name, what he does, his phone number, and his approximate age. He's a bit on the young side, but definitely older than Tag. I don't know that our jobs will interact at all, but I definitely need to figure out how to have more meetings on the 3rd floor!

that was tender, but I still think she's boring

... that gem of a line comes from Christie, speaking about Brad's second one-on-one date with whatever her name was with the side bun and pretty necklace. Two other comments about that date: 1) His spit take reaction to her "I don't date much comment," was very out of place. His concerns about her being cautious were a bit much, non? Just because you're contractually obligated to be a man-whore Brad, doesn't mean this girl has to be a hussy. 2) Why do the "ladies" always thank Brad so much for the date? He does not come up with these dates. There is obviously a team of ridiculous people at ABC who sit around coming up with stupid idea after stupid idea. He is not spoiling you - ABC and Neil Lane are. And Train? Really? You can't even dance (fast or slow) to their music. This of course brought up a side conversation about musicians appearing on TV shows. Remember when bands used to play at the Peach Pit or the Bait Shop? They were kind of cool and on the up swing. The opposite is true when they make an appearance on the Bachelor. Definitely a sign of desperation or on their way out.

Sorry, back to the topic at hand. As for date number one with the dentist, none of us enjoyed her tutu (on a side note, anyone have thoughts about the revival of ballet and its influence on fashion?) as the drop waist and colour did not work, and a good 10 minutes was spent discussing what was wrong with her eyebrows - the consensus was that they were overplucked, too far apart, and so as a result might even be tattooed on. She had a good sob story about a distant, addictive father (although not sure it can compare to the dead NASCAR driver/orphan daughter story that Emily has), but we were distracted by her excessive hand talking and the background music that consisted of 3 notes over and over again. ABC must have blown its music budget on Seal's upcoming episode.

Once again, the girls try to get time with Brad and ask him stupid questions about his greatest fear. To which he answered, being alone. Really? That's your greatest fear? What about spiders? Or venomous snakes? Or flash floods? Why can't these people every have a normal conversation? Why does it always have to be about their "walls" or "layers?" Where are the discussions about politics, religion and sports?

At the cocktail party Brad stated that he was looking forward to a light-hearted, drama-free evening. Whoever wrote that script for him needs to be fired. He's been on the show before, we know he knows what's about to go down. The gig is up ABC. These girls are not best friends and Brad knows it! And so yes, Michelle has become the villain. Justly so, as she is definitely on the first train to crazytown. Melissa also deserved to go home. She was weird, lied about eating (4 pieces of pizza, really? it looked like she hadn't had a sandwich in weeks), and had a horrible Tori Spelling boob job. And yes, that is my second 90210 reference of the nights. But I will say that at 32 she was the oldest of the bunch. Brad is 38. Why couldn't they offer up some more age appropriate women? Does he really think he's going to find love with a 24 year old pharmaceutical rep? And do we really? No. Yet we continue to watch.

age is just a number

So I have a friend. Let's call her "AZ." She met a guy on NYE at a classy bar called Bud's. Let's call him "Tag." Not sure who disclosed their age first, but he said 28 and she said 31. Perfectly acceptable. Problem is, she is a scant 2 months younger than I am, which actually makes her 34. And as you do in these modern times, I googled him (we knew his first name and his current place of employment), and thanks to a previous career as a player in the WHL, he has an interweb presence: hockey stats are quite thorough - dude was born in 1984. For those of you keeping score, this makes him 26. So while 8 years is not an obscene age difference, it's a bit more significant than just 3 years. That said, nothing scandalous or untoward happened. Innocent flirting is all. Which is good, seeing as he probably still lives at home, and his parents might not appreciate him bringing home a cougar. I'm kidding. We know he doesn't live at home. Or at least we think we do ...

give the guy a break

I don't have much to say about the first episode of Brad Womack's return to the Bachelor, except that I did appreciate that change up from "most dramatic season ever" to "most controversial season ever," (although it's surprising ABC didn't call it "contractually obligated to pick someone this time around"). While watching, the girls and I concurred that the dresses were worse than ever, all the "ladies" seemed to use the same curling iron, and why were there no ages along with their "career descriptions." If you go by the number of times she said like, the girl who got the first impression rose is definitely a teenager.

The whole "I've been in therapy and I'm a new man" theme was all a bit too much. I appreciate that they are trying to show that he has changed, but why did he need to? Dude had every right to not pick either Jenny or DeAnna if he wasn't feeling it - it's called free will. It's not like all the other relationships on the show have worked out ... people break up. Just not in ABC's world I guess. And why is DeAnna so bitter? Last time I checked she's engaged to a guy she met thanks to being dumped by Brad. And it feels like she's been on every season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette over the last 3 years. Get over yourself.

And finally, I can't believe it took them this long to get Seal to agree to use "Kiss From A Rose." Heidi must be a fan ...