Monday, July 26, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

Next book review and more about dicks!


If there were a book for Shelly D to review, it's this one! Also, this local news clip is funny and awkward:

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Betwetter, and other things

Dear Internet,

I am about to go where I've not gone before: reviewing a book. It's been a few months since I've actually sat down to read anything besides The New Yorker (which apparently we don't get anymore or someone in our building is stealing) and books about finance. (I like to say Fih-nance, because it makes me feel elitist.) In any event, on a regular rendezvous to Border's on Sunday, I actually bought a book. Two in fact. One is a serious book by Cormac McCarthy, and the other is The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman.

Even though I'm a really big fan of stand up comedy, I never really got into Sarah Silverman. I actually had no real opinion of her, except of course thinking that I'm Fucking Matt Damon was the best thing, well maybe not as good as Dick in a Box. The best thing is actually this, after the fact:



Getting back to my original point. I was wandering around Border's in search of something that would give me brain nutrients, when The Bedwetter made me stop in my tracks. The book has gotten reasonably good reviews all around, so I figured I might as well get a copy. And I did, at 30% off. Hardcover no less. And I never buy hardcover.

Anyhow. It's actually quite good. And funny. Funnier maybe than her stand up. Especially all the stuff about dicks. There are even pictures and drawings of dicks. And an Afterword by God.

In general I have nothing relevant to say other than that I like it and it made me laugh when I was sort of bored and sad.

On a completely different note, I keep getting mustard in my nails. It's actually pretty gross, and scary since now it's moved out of happening in my drunk life and is happening in my sober life.

Shelly.

This is a crappy post.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Goobs to the Rescue. Or Not.

Dear Internet,

I'm going to come right out and say it. One of my boobs is bigger than the other. Everyone has this defect. At least that's what the internet and my doctor told me. But at this point in life, it's starting to annoy me.

For one, what the hell is wrong with humanity that one boob needs to be bigger than the other. I understand hands. I even understand feet. Incredibly, I even understand one leg being longer than the other. But boobs? Why?

Why am I so irritated by this? Well, you know I'll tell you. I went to a Divinity School Happy Hour / Cocktail Party with Mike. And because I was nervous, I, as usual, grappled with my breasts to find the right thing to say.

For those of you who don't understand this, boobs are a huge source of comfort. Big or small, dilapidated or burgeoning, they represent something altogether calming, even to the point of forgetting where one is. I think most of you can understand, actually.

In any event, as I sat dining on yet another mediocre hot dog, I sat, holding one breast only to find that is was bigger than the other. Now, granted, I knew this already. But every time I find it more annoying when I "re-discover" this fact.

Can't think of anything to do? Well, grab a goob (I didn't misspell that) and your love will continue to be fleeting. Especially when you realize, again, that one boob is bigger than the other.

It's an incredibly annoying thing for me. Especially because I have equilibrium / symmetry hang ups.

Even this pair of muppet boobs is uneven:



Please notice how the muppet's left boob (our right, for those tarts) is bigger, and the beads in her string top gravitationally swing to stage right? It's true for even non-humans.

And now, my day is totally ruined because King Solomon, lord of the giant swirly cats, just took a huge poop that ruined my thought process.

Shelly.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

We Have Great Soup: Lies About Pickles & Rice

Dear Internet,

After two weekends of fairly total debauchery, Mike and I figured it was high time to start hating on Chicago again. The latter part of April brought forth a unending flow of alcohol that led me to delirium tremens as well as many hours attempting to recall the stupid, ridiculous, and simply crazy things I had said and done to people I had just met and, God willing, probably won't meet again.

Yesterday, mostly without intention, ended up being a trifecta of crap ass. And crap ass food, which is the theme of this post.

1. Smallest Hot Dog Ever Makes Shelly an Angry Gal. The day started out well enough: we had enough toilet paper. The coffee wasn't burned by the time I mustered the willpower to get out of bed. My shower wasn't totally frigid. It had all the elements of being a decent day. But after taking the longest bus ride on the face of the planet from Hyde Park to the Loop, and we were starving, it was time to really shit things up.

As hot dogs are a very hot commodity in the Second City, Mike decided it was a good idea to check Yelp! for some suggestions. I have maintained for several months now that the jerk offs that review restaurants and bars on Yelp! are full of crap, and wouldn't know good food from an anteater, but nonetheless I went along with it because we were in some far off land of frat boys so I figured these douche bags would be able to pick out a good hottie from a bad one. Well I was wrong. Dead Wrong.

First of all, it was the smallest hot dog ever. Certainly not a Vienna Beef. Also, if you will think back to all of the hot dog pictures I've ever posted on this blog you would be destroyed when you saw this. This hot dog, although charred, was reminiscent of one of the crappy hot dogs you can get in Liberty Plaza: the ones that don't fill you up and frankly (wink wink) taste like wet cardboard. On top of its smallness, it was not coupled with a pickle spear or neon relish. Do you believe this? They used pickle chips. Where am I? I must have been in the nexus of the Chicago universe, or maybe even Des Plaines, because this was simply not right.

Beyond the pickle chip and non-neon relish, it was also proffered up with a stale bun that upon first bit splintered into a million pieces and I surrendered. What kind of surrender do you ask? Well, I didn't eat the hot dog.

The Horror. The Horror. (Make sure you read this whispering in a Marlon Brando-esque Kurtz voice. Commence eating mangoes and letting the juice drip down your arm while you earn $3 Million for showing up late.)

I didn't even take a picture I was so upset. I actually am still upset. Hence the blatant Apocalypse Now reference.



2. Bread and Sugar in Square Format is Expensive. After the hot dog debacle (I just learned how to spell this -- I was always adding a Long Island accent to the phonetics making it "de-baucle") I decided I was going to find De Stijl on vinyl.

Getting back to the point. The record store was a bust since there was no copy of De Stijl and I was too irritated to ask the owner to order it for me, what with the internet and all. I did get OK COMPUTER on vinyl, which, in the interim, will satisfy some vague need for something. Although I don't know what that something is. I fought an internal battle not to buy Icky Thump and The Chronic, only remembering later that I should have looked for Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds.

What an ass. So anyway. We went onward into the valley of frat boys and boutiques in quest of a bar. Instead of a bar I bought some awesome magnets. And then we went to some waffle house where you can order a waffle on the street through a window. Max would love it, by the way.

By now you should realize the problem: it was now close to 5:30 PM and I had not had a beer yet.

Mike, a graduate student at the acclaimed University of Chicago, doesn't know how to read a menu. He thought that the waffle itself cost $0.91. So digging around in his pockets he found $0.91 and ordered a waffle with powdered sugar. I hung out in the gutter smoking cigarettes and wondering if you can drink in public in Lincoln Park. Mike was dismayed to learn that the waffle not only did not cost $0.91, but that the sugar cost $0.91, and the waffle was actually $6.00. Total for square bread with sugar: $6.91. Not worth it.

3. It Doesn't Datter How Much You Like Pickles. Pickle and Rice Roup is Disgusting.
I learned this the hard way. Or rather, with a Polish man forcing me to get this bizarre concoction. First off, it looked like vomit. Second, it tasted exactly like what it said it would taste like: pickles and rice. Except worse because I didn't think it would be so disgusting. The reason I caved in was because there was no red borscht, which is what I was craving, so I would have probably agreed to anything at that point.

This was the culminating point of my day. From there on out it was ruined. And I still hadn't had a beer.



I should have airbrushed myself in that photo. Or at least been more Kim Kardashian-ish. Whatever that is -- I don't have much of an ass so that would be difficult.

I don't even have anything to say now because reliving that pickle soup moment has placed in me such a state of despair that all I can do is look at sketch pictures with the crayons from the Mason jar. That, or smoke crack rocks.



Shelly D.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Come on Bret.

Dear Internet,

For the past few days Max and I have been crazy for more news about Bret Michaels. Since Rock of Love, and now Celebrity Apprentice, I've been fairly enamored of Mr. Diabeetus, and now that he's had a subarachnoid aneurysm/hemorrhage, I am just sitting around wondering how my favorite B-list Celebrity Apprentice contender is going to make it through.

I'm a bit nervous. Perhaps he should lay off the bandanas for a while.

All joking aside, well at least sort of, this is a super scary thing. I wonder, and really Maxie Jean raised this, if The Donald is going to make an announcement prior to the start of this week's episode of The Apprentice? What can he say? Does he feel guilt because he went on a tirade about bandanas, how much he likes them, and if he were a rock'n'rolla he would wear one too? Imagine Donald's miraculous coif covered up by a red, pink or green bandana? It would be pretty amazing. And puffy.

Forget Cyndi Lauper and her roundabout storytelling, Curtis' uselessness, or the fact that Goldberg finally got fired after weeks of doing nothing. Please also forget the fact that I had an internal battle over who covered, Smokin' in the Boys Room (Motley Crue vs. Poison -- it was Motley Crue) on the Red Line, that I woke up with neon green relish in my hair and mustard in my fingernails (rough night, closed with Hot Dogs), and that I really can't wait for 8:00 PM CDT to come.

Donald's celebrity star player (post shoot, of course) is sitting in ICU waiting for some doctors to give him a prognosis better than Livin' for the Minute.



Keep your hands clasped in prayer and your insulin needles within reach. We're holding a Bret Michaels vigil.

Shelly D.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Want Your Salad Chopped in Brooklyn? Too Bad.



Dear Internet,

Why is it that I can go to hundreds of different places in Manhattan and get a salad exactly how I want it, chopped, but if I venture over the East River suddenly that option is off the table? Not only are the salad options severely limited outside of the most famous borough, but if you ask them to chop the salad after mixing it, you'll get a look from the saladmaker like you asked for his right arm. The other day I tried a real upscale deli place near Borough Hall in Downtown Brooklyn, and they had no idea how to chop the salad, and the guy didn't even know the difference between walnuts and almonds! I don't know why things are so skewed in the world of make-your-own-salad, but I can speculate that it's because the secret salad-chopping skills first developed thousands of years ago were closely guarded by the Illuminati and they only let saladmakers in Manhattan read the sacred text, and only after swearing a blood oath never to export the secrets outside the island.

That's all for now,

max

PS - I also just figured out how to type a cross easily on my Mac †. Totally will help when I post about Jesus.