03.22.06
Posted in rants, life, celebrity, fame, guilt, katie holmes, mission impossible 3, movies, nbc11, p51 mustang, scientology, south park, terry semel, tom cruise, yahoo at 9:37 pm by admin
As a Yahoo! employee, I feel almost obligated to blog about the experience of having Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes here at the campus yesterday. All of my comments are purely my own opinion, and obviously don’t reflect the opinions of Yahoo!, any of my fellow Yahoos, or the Church of Scientology.
First, let me ‘fess up to something. I’m a total celebriwhore. If you don’t know what this word means, let me try to sum it up. A celebriwhore is someone who is interested in seeing a person solely for the sake of their fame. In terms of a celebrity like Tom Cruise, I can understand why someone might want to see him because he’s a good actor.
The truth is, I think I’ve only seen one of his movies in its entirety, War of the Worlds, and I really didn’t think it was even that good. No, I have not seen Top Gun. I walked out of Eyes Wide Shut. I don’t really understand why he wants the truth and Jack Nicholson tells him he can’t handle it. I don’t even know what movie that is.
That certainly didn’t stop me from going to sneak a peek at the circus.
Armed with my digital camera and telephoto lens, I got into the line that was stretching around the campus outside of our cafeteria, URL’s, and waited for about 30 minutes to get my spot in a very limited seating space. Little did I know that we would be waiting much longer.
My co-worker Jenny and I took our seats in the cafeteria, which was completely full of people. We were seated conveniently behind a giant gray pole that was directly blocking the stage, so some shifting would be necessary to actually be able to directly see the presentation without having to watch the giant projection screen.
While I snapped test photos to figure out the correct exposure settings for my camera, this endless loop of song clips played, cleverly featuring songs taken from Cruise’s movies. I would have to say that after hearing 30 seconds of Take My Breath Away no less than 72 times, I was a bit worn out. The presentation was supposed to start at 10:30. As 10:45 arrived, and then 11:00, something wasn’t right.
This perky lady (who was either one of Tom’s people or a Yahoo! person — I’m not sure) came out and said something to the effect of, “I know, I’m not Tom Cruise. [laughing to herself] Tom is *SO* cool that he flew his own small plane here, and he’s delayed by the weather! But he should be here shortly!”
At that point, a large crowd of people decided to walk out. After more waiting, our CEO Terry Semel came out to nervously explain the situation and keep us amused while we waited. We watched a dramatic 9-minute montage of Tom’s movies that was supposed to be what was playing when he made his entrance, and Mr. Semel continued to get messages in his earpiece about Tom’s status and whereabouts.
Everyone was excited when Tom finally arrived, in aviator glasses and all. Rather than trying to remember the event enough to give a play-by-play, let me share a few of the highlights:
- Tom flew a P51 Mustang WWII-era bomber plane into San Jose airport.
- He brought Katie Holmes with him. She is at least 13 months pregnant and looked like she was ready to burst. Had Tom flown commercially with her, he would have arrived on time.
- There was no mention of Scientology or South Park.
- Even in his women’s jeans, Tom did not set off my gaydar in the slightest.
- He jokingly stood on top of his chair to make fun of the controversy over his behavior on Oprah.
- He arm-wrestled Terry Semel in response to a (pre-submitted) question about which of them is more athletic.
- He presented the trailer for Mission Impossible 3, and two clips from the movie.
- After the event, Tom and Katie were escorted on a tour of the Yahoo! campus. They stayed on campus for several hours, actually.
NBC11 in San Francisco decided to use some of the photos I took during the event. You can see their write-up on the story, complete with my photos, here.
The only word I can use to describe how I felt after the event is: filthy.
Honestly, I couldn’t wash the stink off. It wasn’t because of anything Tom said or did. I felt slimy for taking pictures of the guy just because he’s a celebrity. I think I’ve discovered why I can’t live in L.A. When the entire thing was over, I felt incredibly drained. Tom was very polite, and seemed like a good guy overall, but the fuss that was made over his visit made me a little sick to my stomach. I guess the concept of “celebrity” is just so deeply burned into our collective American conscience that there’s not escaping the excitement of it.
Perhaps I learned an important lesson about the utter absurdity of fame: That several hundred very smart people could be turned into drooling zombies over the prospect of seeing a celebrity talk about his career.
You can see the original versions of the photos I took here, and photos taken by other Yahoos here.
UPDATE: Thanks to one of my favorite blogs, Defamer, for linking to my photo! [Link: Tom Cruise Goes Yahoo]
Tags: celebrity, fame, guilt, katie holmes, life, mission impossible 3, movies, nbc11, p51 mustang, scientology, south park, terry semel, tom cruise, yahoo
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03.20.06
Posted in shopping, new york, gadgets, iPod, rant, subway at 11:24 pm by admin
One habit I brought with me from the East Coast involves walking around in public places with my iPod, Shure E3c earbuds inserted deep into my ears, listening to music or podcasts while I go about my business.
In New York City, this was really nothing strange. One out of every three people on the bus, subway, or street would be plugged into an entertainment device of some sort. I think it may be a side effect of New Yorkers’ notorious anti-social mentality. It is a city, after all, where you’re advised not to look anyone in the eye on the subway.
I discovered early in my iPod-listening days that walking around constantly plugged in also can have its dangers. For instance, you can’t hear someone approaching you from behind, or (in my case) the subway zooming up along the track beside the platform that you’re walking dangerously close to. Feeling the train graze my elbow when I didn’t even hear it coming woke me up to the danger very quickly.
Now that I’m in California, the iPod-walk takes on a whole new meaning. I now plug myself into music even while I’m shopping at Target. While everyone else is listening to screaming children, arguing couples, and other generally annoying people, I’m enjoying the Pet Shop Boys.
People seem quite puzzled by my behavior, though. They walk up to me and start asking if I need help, or asking me other various questions, and I have to slowly remove my earbuds and ask them to repeat the question. Usually it’s something completely irrelevant, boring, or obnoxious, and I just go back to listening to my music.
For those of you who haven’t experienced this yet, try it! You’ll be shocked at how much more tolerable a trip to Fry’s is when you can’t hear it.
Tags: iPod, new york, rant, shopping, subway
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Posted in politics, introspective, anniversary, bush, house, impeachment, iraq, senate, war at 11:05 pm by admin
Today is the first day of the fourth year of the illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq.
I’m not going to belabor the point with a tirade about the missing weapons of mass destruction, the lack of body armor, the skewed intelligence, the unfounded WWII comparisons by Donald Rumsfeld, and the emerging civil war that looms like an elephant in the middle of the room that the current administration is simply choosing to ignore and/or deny publicly.
Instead, I’d like to reflect for a moment on where I was when the bombs first dropped in Iraq.
Back in 2003, I was still working for MetLife, and spending my lunch break as I did every single day — with a trip to the local shopping mall for lunch at Steak Escape. When the “shock and awe” campaign began, I was sitting in my car in the mall parking lot listening to New Jersey 101.5, which was playing a news feed from one of the major news networks.
The funny thing is that, for as vehemently against the war as I am now, I remember wondering what kind of danger the troops would be in and whether these “chemical and biological” weapons would be used against our soldiers. I don’t think I ever believed that war was the “last resort” for our government, but I trusted that they knew something we didn’t about what was going on over there.
Now, three years later, I’m far more politically engaged, and I keep better track of what’s going on in the world on a daily basis. I know that we were either deliberately misled by our leaders, or they acted on shoddy intelligence. At this point I don’t think that really matters. What does matter is that thousands of people are dead or have been maimed mamed because of a stupid decision, whatever the motivation was.
And someone is eventually going to have to pay for it.
Whether the Democrats regain control of the House and Senate and impeach our bastard President, or God forbid, “the smoking gun comes in the form of a mushroom cloud” created by a terrorist who detonates a suitcase nuke in a major city, or social services are completely eliminated from the government of the future due to budgetary constraints, or whether the consequences of our government’s actions take another less predictable form — karma always prevails.
Destruction begets destruction. We need to ask ourselves, what does the world owe us now?
Tags: anniversary, bush, house, impeachment, iraq, politics, senate, war
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03.17.06
Posted in quickies, friends, gmail, humor, spam at 1:25 am by admin
A lot of the spam that ends up in my G-mail mailbox comes from people with the coolest names. They all work at The Ultimate Online Pharmaceutical. So far today, I’ve made friends with:
- Sycamore M. Quintessences
- Bowditch R. Decreed
- Marshmallows R. Santiango (my #1 choice for a drag name!)
- Isolates P. Thins
It’s so nice to have friends.
Tags: friends, gmail, humor, quickies, spam
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03.14.06
Posted in rants, rant, quickies, people, rudeness at 7:59 pm by admin
If you’re standing with your “posse” in front of the doors that allow people to enter and exit the building, and you don’t move when people try to pass through –
If you’re standing in the stairwell gossiping with a co-worker, blocking people from going up and down the stairs –
If you stand in front of both microwaves while cooking your leftovers, completely unphased by the radiation, making it difficult for someone to get by you who is clearly waiting to heat his or her lunch in the unused microwave in front of you –
Then you, my friend, are a human obstacle. Get the hell out of the way so that people can move back and forth in these areas that are clearly designated for moving.
Oh, and try not to act so surprised and offended when people are walking through your group and pushing around you to get to where they need to be.
Tags: people, rant, rants, rudeness
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Posted in rants, yahoo, rant, people, rudeness, food, dirty, gluttony, gross, nasty, onion rings, stealing, theft, unsanitary, urls at 1:29 am by admin
Today, I bring you a tale of horror from URL’s, the Yahoo! cafeteria.
Since I am attempting to eat more healthy things throughout the day, I decided to treat myself to an overpriced $3.25 chopped chicken breast at the grill at URL’s.
Mind you, it wasn’t exactly lunchtime, as it was 2:25, and the cafeteria was on the verge of closing. Because of this, the chef working at the grill was taking every spare moment he possibly could to clean up his workspace and take things to the back when necessary.
There was only one other person in front of me in line — we’ll call him “Tom” — who was waiting for the chef to finish cooking a chicken breast for him as well. Tom was standing there waiting patiently for his chicken to finish cooking, and while he was waiting, the chef had to step away for a minute.
And that’s when it happened.
Just after the chef was out of sight, Tom shamelessly reached his grubby little hand right into the onion ring vat under the sneeze guard, and grabbed an onion ring and ate it! I was absolutely stunned, and Tom didn’t even notice that anyone had seen him, nor did he bother to look around to make certain that his crime had not been witnessed.
There are people like Tom all over the place. There’s the lady who grabs a handful of cashews and eats them from the giant self-serve container at the grocery store. There’s the guy who takes a piece of candy from the self-serve candy and eats it like it’s his for the taking. There’s the woman who picks things out of the salad bar and eats them while she’s making her salad, all the while knowing that the clerk can’t charge her for salad that’s already in her stomach.
I’m still shocked that he had the nerve to do this right in front of me, for two very succinct reasons:
- It’s nasty and unsanitary. Why should anyone else get onion rings that his fingers may have touched?
- It’s STEALING.
I was too aghast to say anything to “Tom” and so I just let him walk away with his chopped chicken breast, like nothing had happened. The only thing that gave me the tiniest bit of satisfaction was knowing that I’m not so enchanted by fried foods that I can’t resist grabbing them when they don’t belong to me, like a dog or cat jumping onto the table to snatch a bite from your dinnerplate when you step away for a moment.
I, sir, am not an animal.
Tags: dirty, food, gluttony, gross, nasty, onion rings, people, rant, rudeness, stealing, theft, unsanitary, urls, yahoo, yahoo!
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03.07.06
Posted in life, friends, miscellaneous stuff, drama, linus, mary j. blige, work at 8:06 am by admin
Oh, drama.
Mary J. Blige wants no more of it. I, in contrast, assert that the idea of being drama-free may in fact be misguided, and quite frankly a little bit stupid. Honestly, what is this “drama” that so many people claim to be free of in their online personal ads?
In order to answer this perplexing question, I have to gather some of the more dramatic incidents in my life that have occurred over the past few months. So, it’s time to make a list!
- Running out of gas on the freeway.
- Working tons and tons of hours trying to complete a really complicated project for work to meet a really important deadline
- Having my bicycle stolen from the garage
- Linus, my kitten, jumping off the balcony and nearly killing himself
- Ending a 5-year relationship and moving across the country
- Being abandoned by someone I was dating on New Year’s Eve
Wow! That’s a lot of drama. But for some reason, when I look back at that list, I don’t really see those things as drama. They’re just things that have happened to me. So, how does that list translate into drama? I think I’ve found the key. Drama isn’t perpetuated by the things that happen to you, but how you deal with them.
Certain people claim to have the ability to avoid drama, but it seems to me that this is just a bad attempt at abstinence. Running away from life experiences to avoid dealing with them is just plain stupid. The secret to not being overwhelmed by drama is knowing how to handle it, and take it in controlled doses.
I’m not always good at that, but I’m working on it. Some of my friends might say that I thrive on drama, and maybe I do, but that’s because I don’t want my life to be boring. Would people watch Desperate Housewives if nothing interesting happened on the show? How can I be interested in my own life if nothing ever happens in it? I realize that there are no ratings at stake, and that I need to be careful not to blur the fantasy/reality line, but there is a lot to be said for a little variety.
Drama is created when you get involved with people who are … different. Drama is created when you take risks. Drama is created when you do something outside the norm. To the dismay of many of my friends and acquaintances, that pretty much is a textbook definition of my life, and there really isn’t any escaping it. Even if there was, I doubt I would ever even try.
As long as I can keep my head on straight, and I remember to reflect on rather than obsesss about the things that happen to me, I suppose there’s no harm in having a maneagable dose of drama in my life.
I like hanging out with the crazy people. I thrive on having a challenging job. Linus enjoys taking death-defying leaps from the balcony, and it certainly makes for a good story to tell. Having my bike stolen sucks, but there has to be a lesson to be learned from it.
So I say, bring it on.
Tags: drama, friends, life, linus, mary j. blige, work
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03.05.06
Posted in hotornot, online, gay, dating, AIM, fetish, fetishes, romance at 3:52 am by admin
Tags: AIM, dating, fetish, fetishes, gay, hotornot, online, romance
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