Sarah Santucci

Amazing.

[via Mediabistro]

I’m not even that big a fan, per se, of chicken. But that hasn’t prevented me from going completely buck wild in promoting and brainstorming ideas for the one, the only inaugural Northern Virginia Chicken Bowl, 2009. Well, also because I like parties, and there will be beers and stuff.

This Saturday, dozens of people will gather at my friends Jeff and Diane’s house to partake in a blind taste test of all the best chicken joints in the area: Super Chicken, Ell Pollo Rico, The Chicken Place, Crisp ‘n’ Juicy, Carribean Grill, and Super Pollo. (I wonder if Super Chicken and Super Pollo know that they have the same name….)

We will eat chicken, drink beers, enjoy the anticipated 84 degree weather, and, being a Junky Jeffa Production, some of the following may or may not happen:

• Broken bones (2:1, since I am attending)
• Keg stands gone awry (4:1)
• Drinking out of the thirty rubber chickens we ordered for the occasion (definite)
• Inappropriate “cock” puns (3:1)
• Rubber chicken violations (5:1)
• Mass food poisoning followed by a “Family Guy” style puke-a-thon (1000:1, hopefully)
• Good times (definite)

Bok bok bok…

This weekend, I came to a very important realization. Ok, several. Here they are, in order:

1) Since moving to Virginia, my feeble claims that I am “just a social smoker!” are not even remotely plausible anymore. Back in the Shire, they might have been shaky. But now, they’re just plain bollocks. I mean, come on.

2) The problem definitely seems to start and end with the fact that SMOKING IS TOTALLY AWESOME.

This has, of course, led to the realization that I need to quit like, yesterday. Because:

1) That shiz is getting expensive.

2) They’re going to ban it anyway, starting this fall, I think.

3) I spend many Sundays having hacking contests with my cat. Except for the fact that she’s hacking up gobs of fur she’s meticulously collected from her butt area with her tongue, and I’m hacking up sputum tinged lung bits. And the fact that it is difficult to distinguish which of us is more disgusting is getting a little too disturbing. (Chloe: Hey, I’ll bet my butt fur is cleaner than your lungs, Smoky.)

4) No seriously, that shiz is getting expensive. What, is there a new tax on awesomeness that no one told me about?

Ok, so for the sake of sanity, I’m going to start the quitting process by eliminating all mid-week smoking. Friday and Saturday evenings are still on the table, but only if I am with people. I’ll see how this goes then see if I can’t try and cut them out altogether after a while. If I can get past, you know, my urge to be so impossibly cool.

I’m not gonna lie, I love these parents that are putting their kids’ most hilariously embarassing naked-toddler-in-the-bathtub-pictures out there for all the world to see. I still remember my own naked-toddler-in-the-bathtub picture, and I’m glad it’s currently buried somewhere in my parents’ basement rather than on the Internet. Here’s hoping growing up online prepares these kids for all that wondrous future embarrassment. Embarrassment is good for you; builds character. Take it from the girl who peed her pants in the fourth grade.

Not to mention, considering studies are showing that 12 percent of 12 YEAR OLDS have had sex (with a quarter of those having had four or more partners) (!!!!!!), I think anything we can do to hinder that–well, good on ya, parents.

Therefore I present to you, the best video ever. Let’s face it people, any kid can go to the dentist and get all drugged out on pain meds. This kid had to work on these absurdly awesome moves. Let’s all do a slow clap at how cool he is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch this again and collapse into giggles imagining his mom firing up the computer when he brings a date over for the first time ten years from now.

I do love Seth Rogen, so I tuned into SNL for the first time in a few episodes this weekend, and one sketch in particular got my attention:

I am ashamed to admit that I’ve been guilty of this very thing. My ex and I had a RIDICULOUS voice we used to address each other: The Monkey Voice.

What can I say? We liked Monkeys. I used to have an entire treasure trove of monkey paraphernalia as a matter of fact. Observe:

I am embarrassed enough for us all.

The only reason this photo exists is that one day I came home from work to discover he’d laid out all of my monkey trinkets into a big disturbing shrine. Let’s just not discuss it further.

But really, there are so many phone voices people use. Here are just a few off the top of my head:

The “I Didn’t Just Wake Up, Because Obviously it’s 130 in the Afternoon” voice (usually employed when my mother calls on Sundays).

The “Professional” voice (used for phone interviews and chats with a client, boss, or some other important person you’d like to impress).

The “Voicemail” voice (does anyone actually talk the way they do when they record their outgoing voicemail messages? I generally sound like an adult phone line operator in mine, something my friends keep pointing out to the point where my latest one sounds squeaky and absurd because I was trying so hard to not sound like a 900 number that I overcompensated).

The “I’m Sick” voice (used when calling in sick to work–I have not needed to whip this one out since college, because I honestly have not faked a sick day since then, but every single person reading this totally knows what I’m talking about, because you are all pathetic slackers).

The “Casual” voice (used when someone calls you that you really want to call you but you don’t want them to know that you really wanted them to call you–a new love interest, perhaps, or a potential employer calling about your interview, etc).

What are some others?

Fall down, go boom.

This has been a rather busy weekend; I find myself exhausted before midnight for the first time in a while, I tend to keep Dracula hours, but tonight I can’t wait to crawl into bed. I figured, however, that a quick recap was in order.

1) Friday night I had a blind date that went well, if you don’t count the fact that I ate it hard on my way into the restaurant. On my way to sit down I went lurching wildly into one of the high-top tables, which I then almost took down with me in my fruitless gravity resistance efforts. I basically was clinging to this table and scrambling my legs back under me as the date, waitstaff, and other patrons looked on in horror. In terms of embarassment it probably falls somewhere between Brittany Murphy falling down the stars in “Clueless” and Grape Stomp Lady. I realize in retrospect I could have come off awesomely if I’d just stayed down there and pretended I was doing a “Family Guy” homage (ssssss, aaaaah!):

2) I was running around from minute one on Saturday, collecting a friend at the airport at 8am and then spending the next few hours gossiping, shopping, getting ready for that night’s big bachelorette party and riding around in the glorious weather with the top down–which prompted the world’s biggest redneck to lean out the window of his T-bird at a stop light and drawl at us, “there ain’t nothin’ in the world like a rag top…” Aside from being right, this guy was like a cross between Jeff Foxworthy and Rod Beck:

Rag tops are good, y'all. As are pornstaches.

This was all capped off with a big night of bachelorette craziness, in which I ended up at a bar I haven’t been to since I was 19 21, talking to a guy who was actually born in 1988 and resisting the urge to just pat him on the head and question how it is he has facial hair and is able to legally drink alcohol.

3) Tried to get into the city to see cherry blossoms today, as it was another day of glorious weather. We faced obstacles at every turn, including but not limited to:

• Remembering that the car was parked at Sara’s house.
• Facing epic levels of “Old Ladies Who Are No Longer Able to Recover After a Late Night on the Town” laziness
• Tourists and Traffic that rivaled the Obamabration
• Surly Rite Aid cashiers and a Diet Coke shortag

So we didn’t end up making it in. But we did drive around aimlessly for a really long time with the top down, and visit two convenience stores and a McDonald’s drive thru for sustenance. But to satisfy anyone with blossom lust (which, in this neck of the woods at this time of year, is everyone), here’s a picture with us crudely pasted in–ignore the drinks in our hands, not like we were actually on Bourbon Street in that pic. Ahem.

So, a busy weekend. And now that I’ve wasted an hour I could have been sleeping on this blog post, I am definitely off to bed.