Screw the beer, lets take some shots!

Lately I've been trying to learn more about what's going on in the world, not only for my own personal growth, but also so that I can contribute more to my conversations with AC Slater than things like, "I hate that {political figure} his face looks like someone beat it with an ugly stick" (heehee). So between my daily checking of facebook-hotmail-blogs-repeat, I decided to attempt to educate myself on worldly reports. My source? CNN.com. My results? Well, they ranged from a variety of what to expect on the upcoming Jon and Kate episodes (Kate's going camping and Jon's making pizza!), who's taking MJ's kids to Disney Land this week, what doctor is being sued by MJ's estate this week, what type of med's were found in MJ's estate this week, what kind of deodorant was found on MJ's dresser this week, etc. etc.

Really? That's all you got CNN? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there real things going on aside from what's going on in reality tv? I couldn't tell if I was looking at CNN or TMZ, the only difference was TMZ talks a little more about Lindsey Lohan- but just a little.

I'm quite disgusted but at least I have some excuse as to why I prefer to read about what celebrity has crossed the line or why I'm saddened to hear which celebrity break-ups happened this week (will Jennifer Anistan ever find love?) I'm simply a product of my environment. It's not my fault the world news is centered around what kind of beer the president drinks as opposed to the new healthcare bill.

Which brings me to my next point. Beer Summit? Seriously? Are you freaking kidding me Obama? This reminds me of back to my days as a youth when the teacher would ask us things like how would you solve a problem with your friends and we would reply with something like "I'd give them a cupcake and we would play in my sprinkler and be friends again." But I'm not going to criticize, because although he said he was "surprised the media went crazy with this," the president played them like a game of Wii and instead of getting buried under criticism for calling the police force STUPID, he instead had the nation playing guessing games as to which type of alcohol he would order during happy hour. Well played sir, well played.

And I don't think it was a half bad idea, I guess it was a nice way to show the world when you do have problems, you can all sit peaceably and talk your problems out rather than taking things to the next level (although I'm pretty sure the people at AA would disagree that alcohol is the solution). But the thing to avoid a lame one-beer meeting would have been to watch your words in the first place. Have you learned nothing from the last president? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on, uhh, well, strategery.

And another thing! I seem to recall a certain someone who on their presidential campaign trail declared their love for small American businesses. Why then, did you not use your choice of beer to promote this instead of choosing a beer THAT IS A MAJOR CORPORATION AND WAS BOUGHT OUT BY A FOREIGN COMPANY?? (yeah, Budweiser was bought out by a Belgium company, I googled it!). Why not Goose Island, a Chicago beer? Or Half Acre, which I believe is brewed somewhere along Lincoln Ave. Sorry for being so tough, but that's what you get when you try to cover up a mistake by throwing a party- here at cis4connie you get what's coming to you.

Don't even get me started on Biden. Non-Alcoholic beer? Way to show our foreign enemies that we have no spine. When North Korea comes knocking at our door with nuclear missiles, we can know it was Biden's pansy-ass choice of a non-alcoholic beverage that tipped them off that our government is now weak. Why not just order an apple-tini? At least you get some bang for your buck.

I'm going to stop here because I'm typing really hard on the keys and my blood is pumping. Maybe this is why CNN only reports on non-reality reality, real news is too much strain on the heart.

This week's blog is brought to you by the letter C

This week's been rather calm, partly to the fact that I got to work from home yesterday (yay!) but here's something I've been meaning to write for a while to hold you over until something more absurd comes along. Also, one of my "fans" (aka friend who I force to read my blog) was confused about my name. Just to clarify, Cis4Connie means C is for Connie, as in the infamous song from Sesame Street C is for Cookie, sung by the talented Cookie Monster.

Anywho...

So I started Twitter (http://twitter.com/cis4connie) last week because I figured it would be easier to use the "follower" tool instead of typing celebrity names in my google search engine all the time when I'm bored. Added bonus: if IT is in fact looking at my search history which I am always paranoid they do, they will no longer see me typing things in like "Miley Cyrus twitter." My feelings about twitter? It kinda feels like I'm talking to myself. At least with my wonderful blog I can pretend that hundreds of millions of people are reading my thoughts and snorting coffee out their noses (please comment if you do by the way, I'd love to know you exist!) but with twitter- you have an actual count of who's following you, and mine has yet to reach 20 =/

But I was able to follow my favorite author Jen Lancaster, and the next day I checked my account to see that she was following me back! Astonished, I was glad to think that she had the good sense to follow me and dare I say read my blog? But sadly, I looked at her site and realized she follows everyone who follows her- all 10,000+. But that didn't stop me from dismissing my friends and letting them know I've upgraded to much cooler, published colleagues and no longer needed their friendship (humble's my middle name btw).

My wonderful friend, whose blog name will be Aurora (why? because that's the name of Sleeping Beauty and she is the only person who is as lazy and addicted to sleep as I am) has intelligently decided to piggy back off of this fame. She has decided to become my biographer and will some day soon write my life story. Here now is her first set of Q&A, complete with my response.

Cis4Connie, where do you find inspiration for your cleverly assembled rants?

-I find my inspiration in the miniscule things in life that normal people would simply dismiss. I tend to drag them out and exaggerate upon them, so a simple thing like tripping on a CTA subway step could lead into a conspiracy theory as to how the city is plotting my death.

Do you find that you writing improves with the level of frustration of a given topic?
-Absolutely. If I didn't have a genuine, passionate hate for things like the Starbucks cashier, 90s bands, and Jon Gosselin I don't think my blogs would be quite as interesting as I like to think they are.

How did you achieve such a high level of recognition in so short a time and what advice would you give to those new bloggers just starting out?
-Well my secret to success is this: force your friends to follow and read your blog. This can be done as a sneak attack over enchiladas and margaritas at dinner, or through constant nagging via facebook. Personally, I like to bribe my less eager friends by taking a favor they desperately need and refusing to help until I see their little face under the "followers" section.
The more eager they are, the quicker you'll see their face pop up.

And a blueberry scone, please

In my few years on earth so far I've managed to accomplish several things. I've successfully completed 16 years of schooling, graduated with a degree, and have even managed to land 2 successful big-kid jobs since then. All of my challenges in life are met with endurance and stride, and yet for the life of me I cannot competently order from the Starbucks menu.

I HATE the Starbucks rush hour experience. I hate it more than going to the doctor. At least at the doctor its usually uncrowded, and they tell you what to do. "Sign this, give me this, stand on this, open your mouth, stick out your arm, ok go home." And all this happens in the span of 9 hours (even though its never crowded) so you have time to think out your next move.

Starbucks on the other hand is much, much different. Today was the "buy coffee, get a free pastry" coupon day, which created a morning line out the door. I hate standing in line but even more so at Starbucks because the entire time I have to sit there and rehearse what I'm going to say. The problem is, I don't know the lingo. I only recently learned what "skinny" means and I am years away from getting anything with "half" in it. And to this day I am still plagued as to whether I should say drink or frappucino, or hot frappucino when I'm ordering a fancy sugar drink. So in my broken Starbucks language, today's order of choice was a white chocolate mocha frappucino hot, venti, mmm with whipped cream, but can I have skim milk? But you can't say that or else the crowd of patrons will throw you out with the day old scones. Ordering from Starbucks is a lot like twitter- you have to say it in 140 characters or less, and if you go over you're cut off. Also, yes I know the irony of asking for skim milk when I've read the calorie contents of the whipped cream online, it's kinda like ordering a big mac with extra large fries, and a diet coke. But it was a special coupon day so I figure if I'm breaking the diet might as well do it right.

So I'm standing in line trying to cut down "white chocolate mocha frappucino hot, venti, ummm whipped cream with skim milk" when the line is moving at a rapid pace. I've yet to read those marketing books on how Starbucks is such a successful business model, but I hope they have the secrets on how the hell they move the line so quickly so they can share it with turtle paced establishments, like the DMV or any place I try to go in a hurry so I don't have to pay 9 quarters in parking. There were at least 15-20 people ahead of me and my whole experience lasted about 5 minutes from line standing to order taking to stealing a handful of straws and running past the order taker so she wouldn't see (charge me $5 for coffee? I take all your straws).

Where was I? Oh yeah. So I'm standing in line trying to recite my order, but the line moves so fast that in nearly seconds I am in front of the order taker- better known as the "special needs order taker for the Starbucks challenged" who stands on the same side as you do in order to send your order via her headset. Every time I go there she looks at me with this kind, yet patronizing look that says, "woowww, you made it all the way to work today by yourself? good job! now what do you want in your sippy cup today?" and I always go into shock. I stammered- "uhhh, hotwhitefrappumochadrinkhotwhipventihotthing....hot." And she kindly translates. Phew, she speaks first year Starbucks. But that doesn't free me from having to repeat my order to the cashier, who looks at me with less sympathy and more "why don't you try dunkin donuts, I hear they're the coffee of the (dumb) people." Why do I suffer this ungodly humiliation every once in a while, not only to see the faces of terror but also to break my diet? For one reason and one reason only:



hotwhitefrappumochadrinkhotwhipventihotthing....hot= nectar of the GODS.

What's in a name?

With all the outpouring objections for the name change of the old Sears Tower, I started to contemplate whether this change should really be met with resistance or acceptance. Now I of all Chicagoans am the last to accept change. I hate whenever channel 9 gets a new name (remember the WB? I almost cried when they did the montage of all its past shows and the frog tipped his hat for the last time) or an area code changes (I used to represent the 312 yo) or even when famous radio hosts are cast aside (Dick Beyondee- telling you kids not to drink and drive). But one thing we must remember is that with change comes new promise. Promise that buildings will not stand vacant, property taxes will (hopefully) be paid, renovations will actually get done, and the overall economic status of the city will flourish. For those of you who don't believe me, and don't care whether or not the city gets its taxes paid (which you should- because that's a lot of pot holes filled up), then consider this: Sears left US, we didn't get rid of them. They chose to leave the greatest city, much like other sentimentally important companies have come and gone before. Did they go bankrupt? Was it not their fault? No. While they may not have been able to keep up with the large rent to go with the largest building, they could have stayed in the city to maintain some solidarity- yet they chose the lackluster suburb of Hoffman Estates. BLEECHHH. So feel no remorse and shed no tears for Sears Roebuck & Co.- they chose to leave just like others have before.

Take the infamous Marshall Fields- known for its glorious Frango chocoalates and their Christmas story windows. Still to this day my dad tells me of how he got to go to the employee Christmas party after hours in the store with my grandmother where he would sip hot chocolate and watch with young eyes as the store tree would tower over him, lighting up not only the branches, but the hearts of its hard working employees (it's ok to grab the kleenex). I still am getting used to the name Macy's and have only just started to shed my cheap, New York, dirty street perceptions of its name, no doubt with the help from its good advertising campaigns. But if you're more hard headed than me and slow to resist acceptance that Field's is gone- know this: Target directly led to its demise. Blasphemy you say? Here's the paper trail:
1800s ish- Field creates stores in Chicago and dominates the city
1930-Field's becomes a public company (read as: the world owns it)
1982-Field's is no longer public and bought by British American Tobacco (yuck-Brits)
2000-Dayton-Hudson corporation (now known as TARGET CORPORATION) acquires Field's and tries to push its retail discounted items on the store. This fails miserably and leads to its demise
2004-Target finishes killing Field's and sells it to May Co., which sells it to Federated Dept. Store, which turns it into Macys.

So if you're still clutching onto those forest green shopping bags with the fancy cursive lettering, remember that your favorite local Target is in part to blame.

Another example: Wrigley Field. Now, let me just reiterate that I hate the Sox and I think they stink. But just because their field got bought by a brand name doesn't necessarily take the love out of the park. Wheerree do you think the name Wrigley came from? Duh. Wrigley Field Co., another Chicago company. But few people know that when the park was created it was originally called Weeghman Park, then Cubs Park (which sounds a lot less comercial than Wrigley once you know the history, right?). I can imagine my grandparents reading the paper saying, who the Jesus is this Wrigley fellow and why the blazes does he have to change Cubs Park? Jesus Mary and Joseph, get me a drink. But today Wrigley Field is a warm and cuddly a name as your first pet. And I'll bet the same thing will happen if this whole Ricket's deal goes through and they ever consider changing the name.

My point? Places are bought, names change, life goes on. Am I suggesting you embrace Willis Tower with all your might? Heck, no. They need to be toughened up if they're going to make it in this awesome city- give 'em hell, by all means. All I'm saying is that while tradition is a main ingredient of what makes my city so great- a rose by any other name is still Chicago.

=D

A quick prayer before I go

Dear Lord-

Please help me restrain from punching, stabbing, screaming, pushing, or acting out any other verb that may get me arrested as I head home today. I've used 9,298 kleenexes in the 8 hours I've been at work with little complaint. I am extrememly irritable and would like to get home quickly and effortlessly, if it is your will.

Amen.

Ps- would it be too much to ask for a seat so I don't have to drip over a fellow passenger? Thanks =)