quote of the moment

This might take a bit of mental digging to figure out for many of you, but it perfectly sums up how I feel right now about a great deal of issues:

"I thought there were alligators in the sewers...I mean, I was ready for alligators..."

FLA trip...quote of the visit

During our recent trip to the ancestral homeland, I got to see a whole bunch of friends, most of the ones I was expecting to see, and a few that took me by surprise. One of those, who I did not even know was living in Jax, had the quote of the trip: "My brother just broke up with his long-term girlfriend...and then got a chin implant."

food television and the quote of the week

One of my old roomates came into town this weekend. We were watching Food Network for some reason, and we had a great conversation deconstructing how the network uses concepts from pornography in their programming.

Specifically, when you watch one of their cooking shows (as opposed to their annoying reality or travel programming), they have a lot of shots focusing on melting cheese, gooey deserts, or luscious sauces. This is the standard "let's get them drooling" approach which is also employed in food magazines and ads.

In particular, we were watching Giada De Laurentiis's program Everyday Italian, and, especially since that woman can cook, the food porn shots were in full force. They had gooey, melting ricotta cheese over pasta, close up, in slow-mo...the only thing missing was the "bom-chicka-bow-wow" music.

It was not, however, only the food shots...the host was definitely the subject of a porn gaze. Giada is an attractive woman, true, but she apparently likes to work in the kitchen in very low-cut tops, and the camera knows this...a good 2/3rds of the shots were centered on her cleavage. I'm not even gonna get into the food tasting shots, because they were bordering on "if I had kids, I wouldn't let them watch this." Suffice to say, I think there's another paper in all this, pornography and attracting the male viewer to cooking.

Anyway, Giada was doing the aforementioned great looking pasta dish, and she added some chopped herb to the skillet. The resulting conversation went like this:

former roomie, sounding unnaturally alarmed: "What was that?"

me: "Parsley."

roomie: "Oh, thank God. I thought she was adding cilantro."

me: "Are you a cilantro hater?"

roomie: "I have two rules about food. I wouldn't eat human flesh unless I was pretty certain it was procured in an ethical way...and I don't like cilantro."

note on the death of Jerry Falwell

So, last night, on the way to see the Hold Steady, we were discussing the death of Jerry Falwell and that man's importance and claims. A quote will suffice:

"Damnit, if you just liked men instead of other women, all those brave heroes of 9/11 wouldn't have had to die."

it's official!

In a faculty meeting today, one of my bosses leaned over to me and whispered "You might be the meanest bastard in this department."

proudest zoo moment

Customer: Sorry, my kid spilt some milk in this wagon we rented.

Me: It's okay...definitely nothing to cry over.

And the customer GOT IT!

the period of hell is over! let the posting commence!

I'm back! Expect to see regular stuff here again. For this episode, I thought I would give some of the more memorable lines I've heard while working at the zoo.

1) me: The camera with flash works well if you want to take indoor photos, but the one without flash is good if you only will be shooting outdoors. customer: What do you mean by "outdoors?"

2) parent to 4 year old child: No, you can't have anything. You're in trouble, remember? child (after staring at parent): I'm not going to visit you when you get old.

3) parent to child grabbing his crotch: Do you have to go to the bathroom? child: My penis hurts.

4) coworker: After I buy my new station wagon, I want to drive it on dirt roads, so I'm going to West Virginia.

5) coworker: Are there any special drivers licenses for a Vespa?

more to come.

FARK headline of note in reference to groundhog's day

another repost:

And I quote, "The rodent saw his shadow: Six more weeks of winter. Bastard."

Ya gotta love groundhog's day...the most Freudian of all holidays.