Attention Celebrities....

Hey you...celebrity...yeah...you...the dude on TV and the bimbo on the glossy cover.

Who do you think you are? Just because you are famous and have photographers following your every move, do you think that qualifies you to tell everyone else what to do and how to think?

Having a forum doesn't make you a spokes person for "common people" who don't have access to the media by passing your own personal choices and ideas off as theirs.

Having a forum doesn't give you the authority to speak for anyone.

NO one has elected you spokesperson for the world.

And no one has asked you to dictate to them how you think they should vote.

Achieving celebrity does not give you an automatic Ph.D. in Political Science.

Face it, most of you barely got out of high school. Your grasp on finance is so poor you need to employ 'business managers' to handle your money, and it's often years before you figure out you've been embezzled from. And most of you can't even spell "embezzled."

Most of you cannot form a coherent thought without having someone else write it for you.

Therefore you are NOT a noted expert in politics, economics, international relations, or the military. You, my good sir, are no Tim Russert, and you, dear lady, are not Condoleeza Rice.

Attempting to sway a vote the way YOU feel it should be swayed based on your own personal beliefs by using your celebrity is downright wrong. You purposely mislead impressionable people who may be starstruck or lazy or both.

You fail to remember that you are little more than a musician, or an actor, or a model. Not a great thinker.

Try to remember that next time you have access to a media outlet and make a fool of yourself trying to discuss global warming or some other Hollywood cause du jour. And try to exercise something called RESPONSIBILITY. If you don't know what that is, ask your assistant to look it up on dictionary.Com for you.

...and speaking of cause du jours....whats the matter, Hollywood? Has the red AIDS ribbon lost favor with you? Does it clash with your fancy award show garb? Or is it not vogue to care about AIDS victims anymore?

I'm embarrassed to admit that I live in the same country with irresponsible, self serving attention whores like you. Give me a forum, and I will say as much, because like you, I have just as much right to speak MY mind as you do.

I Love The 80s

Ok, as if I have readers (haha!! Katy and RubyAnn, you better be reading this!) I've decided to add a "regular" feature of bloggy goodness to My Wckd Wckd Ways...

I LOVE THE 80s!

That's right...I am a proud 80s girl!!

So I've decided that I would start making posts about the 80s...music, movies, tv, and me!


So, todays topic...what I like to call The Holy Trinity of Totaly 80s movies....

Thats right....

Sixteen Candles
Breakfast Club
Pretty In Pink

The thread that joins them together?

Why, none other than the 80s movie "it" girl...Molly Ringwald, who stars in all three.

Now, I have NO idea how Molly became the girl that the boys all wanted and the girls all wanted to be like, but somehow, she did.

I know I used to try to get my little 80s bob to look like a brunette version of her hair from Breakfast Club all the time...and wear mauve Clinique lip gloss like the shade she wore in that movie as well.

Why? I don't know. Maybe it was so Judd Nelson would want me too? (not that I ever found him attractive...well...maybe a little in St Elmos Fire...I was more into Andrew McCarthy back then)

Anytime I'm flipping channels and see one of these movies on, I have to stop and watch , no matter how far into the movie. So many memories are tied up in them...both happy and sad. But regardless, it makes me happy to remember those times.

Even when I hear one of the songs from those movies, I smile. Like tonite, I was driving to the diner for dinner and Simple Mind's "Don't You Forget About Me" came on. A smile instantly came to my lips.

Perhaps I'm overly sentimental about them, but these are the movies of my youth, part of the environment that molded me into the dynamic person I hope I am today.

And that's why I love the 80s :)

The Big Mac

No, not the McDonald's sandwich...the computer.

I read Greta Van Susteren's blog on Foxnews.com with fair regularity as it can be both funny and informative. So imagine my surprise this morning when I found a plea for help from Greta.

She couldn't open a PDF file. And wouldn't you know it...the ONE thing I DO know how to do is open a pdf! I even know what program to use to open it with! Amazing, I know, but true! So I was eager to share my singular grain of knowledge with Greta and her readers. Of course, just about everyone knew you needed Adobe to open the file with, but for one shining moment, I knew something about computers!

Like me, Greta uses a Mac. I'm new to the world of Mac and entered it with trepidation.

How silly of me.

My troubles started back in early summer, when a strong lightening storm passed over my neigborhood while I was at work. As luck would have it, a bolt of lightening decided to make contact wiht the earth outside my home, rendering 3 televisions, the sprinkler system, alarm system, garage door opener and my 4 year old laptop useless.

I wasn't too broken up, to be honest. The laptop's time had come. I was desperately trying to make it hang on until the end of the year so that I could save up to get a new one. One of the tv's time had come too. And I had already gotten its replacement but had been too lazy to carry it up the stairs, so it survived the strike.

I did my research on a new laptop, and had settled on a $1400 HP with a kickin' 17" screen and all sort of bells and whistles...and Windows Vista.

Now, EVERYTHING at BestBuy came preloaded with Windows Vista. So, knowing that it was only a matter of time before I had to upgrade to Windows Vista, I bought the laptop in good faith. I got it home, hooked it up, hooked up the new modem with the wireless router and...nothing. After 2 and a half hours on the phone with Verizon tech support, it was determined that my modem "had issues with Vista". So I packed the modem up, and headed back to BestBuy the next night, exchanged it for a new modem I was assured didn't have issues with Vista, and tried it again. Still nothing. This time I tried the tech support line for HP. After an hour and a half on the phone with a lovely gentleman located somewhere in India, I still had no connection to the internet. I decided to return the laptop to Best Buy. Sure, the picture on the computer was beautiful, crisp and clear, but what good was it to me if I couldn't get online? It was little more than a $1400 game of Mah Jong. At BestBuy, the geek at GeekSquad had to test the computer before they would give you a full refund (meaning they wouldn't charge you a 15% restocking fee). Well, even the geek couldn't get it to connect, and determined that Vista had compatability issues with the Norton antivirus that was also preloaded on the computer.

Up to this point, all I knew about a computer was how to push the button and turn it on. Now I can discuss compatability issues rather coherently.

As I dejectedly lugged my shiny new laptop to the customer service counter for my full refund, a man waiting in line for hte Geek Squad whispered to me: "Pssst...get a Mac".

The same words my coworkers had been saying to me thru my ordeal.

So, it was with great fear that I entered the Apple store in my local mall. Timidly, I walked around the table with the laptops on it, skillfully dodging Yuppies monopolizing salesmen and running children hell bent on beating the adult to the open computer. I read the product descriptions on Macbook and MacBook Pro a like, and after several visits and conversations with sales staff, I settled on the MacBook Pro, which proved to be more difficult to procure at my local store than I had thought. I was finally able to get a staffer at a different Apple store to hold one for me, and was soon nervously pushing the power button on my sleek new machine.

The initial butterflies were all for nothing. I can safely say that my MacBook Pro is the easiest foray into computing that I have ever had! I can only hope Greta Van Susteren feels the same way :)

Christmas in July....Sort of...

So autumn is upon us...well...on the calendar, anyway.

Today in New York, the mercury hit the mid 80s and tomorrow is expected to be near 90. In New York. At the end of September.

That I've been picking up odds and ends for the new Christmas tree I have to get this year isn't the unusual thing...doing it while wearing flip flops is.

My mind is at the beach when it should be on planning the intricate Dept 56 village I construct each season. I should be slowly stocking up on tacky wax and ground Styrofoam snow. Instead, I want to be outside in the warm sun and not inside the florescent lit Michael's.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the extension of summer~the warm breezes rustling thru the turning leaves while the sun warms you to the soul. It's just that it makes it more difficult for me to concentrate on the important upcoming events.

How can I pick out a Halloween pumpkin when I'm longing to be by the sea?

I think I've hit upon the perfect solution though...move to the beach!

Now...to find a job that'll pay me to sit with my feet in the sand and a margarita in my hand...

I'm Single, Not Desperate

It's no secret I'm single. Sadly Single. Woefully single. Single. Single. Single.

Single like Sally on the old Dick Van Dyke show.

With one exception.

Sally was desperate, so much so that she put up with Herman Glimshire...and his mother.

I, on the other hand, am pretty particular. I don't want to be with someone just to be with someone. I want to be with someone because I WANT to be with him.

Does that make any sense?

Of course, that doesn't mean that others don't think I should be with someone...ANYONE...just to be with someone. I don't want a profile on Match.com so that I can find some other person desperately seeking a partner and finding someone suitable to settle with. I don't want to settle. Ever.

Over the weekend I went with my parents to a local diner for lunch. Being frequent visitors to the diner, we know the staff, including the owner, who sat down with us to chat. Naturally, it was during this time that my father "remembered" his boss's wife telling him she'd 'found' someone nice for me. I didn't even know I'd commissioned her to look. My father took great delight in telling us about this...this....window washer. A self employed window washer who was also several years my junior. My parents and the diner owner took great delight, heartily laughing at my expense, while I voiced my objections at the entire situation. A window washer? I am a professional, I protested, red-faced, and therefore seeking an intellectual equal!

I acted insulted, but in reality, I was angry and hurt...and embarrassed. It made me feel like I was some sort of failure, so great a failure that someone thought "Hey! Here's a single fella who's actually breathing! He'd be perfect for Lisa!"

Why do people insist on having to try to 'set up' single people? Why is it so difficult to comprehend that maybe single people are happy being, well, single?

If I wanted to be married, goodness knows I could have been married to any number of men. But, much like the ugly step sisters and the glass slipper, I didn't find the fit comfortable.

I had a philosophy class ages ago in college, and while I don't remember exactly who's philosophy it was, I do remember the theory: The search for true love was the search for ones "other half". Back at the beginning of time, man was a being with two half's: male and female. One day, man angered the gods who decided that man had to suffer and split the two parts in half, setting them down on opposite sides of the world, and forcing them to search for their one true love, their other half.

Perhaps my "other half" has the same terrible sense of direction that I have and is as hopelessly lost as I am.

In any event, I'll wait for him. The law of averages tells me we'll eventually cross paths. And when we do, we'll know...and we'll find our way together.

Squeezing the Juice

Simon and Garfunkle once asked "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

A profound question, even by the standards of that day. A time when an athlete so swift of foot and sure of swing was held up on a pedestal, lauded like the gods of Olympus. They wrote songs about men like Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, a man of mythic proportions.

Fast forward half a century, and one Orenthal James Simpson, a hall of fame football player, who made us all know that Hertz was "the superstar in rent a car," sits in a courtroom facing double murder charges while a nation watches, transfixed, hanging on every word of testimony.

What a difference 50 years makes.

OJ Simpson, once the darling of pro football, is now a media pariah. The poster boy for how bad things really can get. Even though he was found not guilty of the murders of his ex wife and a friend of hers, the stigma still remains. No one wants to touch the man most Americans feel killed two people.

Perhaps its simple human nature~if they accuse you of something, then there must be some sort of merit to the accusations or they wouldn't have charged you in the first place, right? Or maybe he was acquitted because, while guilty, the prosecution was unable to piece together a coherent case for the jury. In any event, the fact that remains: he got off.

In the 14 years that have followed, OJ has been in and out of the news, losing a civil judgment to the father of the young man he was accused of killing and for some sort of assault in Florida.

And now, he is once again in trouble, and everyone who was involved in the murder case seems to be weighing in on the cable news channels, joining in chorus with show hosts, chirping about how maybe this time justice will finally be done.

But...wasn't justice done already? The man was found not guilty by a jury of his peers. THAT is what our justice system is about. Inasmuch as we may believe that someone committed a crime, when push comes to shove, it is up to that jury to weigh the evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense and determine which side is telling the truth. Whether we like it or not, the jury found that the evidence presented to it did NOT prove beyond a reasonable doubt that OJ Simpson murdered two people in cold blood on that warm June night so many years ago. And whether we like it or not, that acquittal cannot be "corrected" in any way with this new trial that he will be facing for robbery charges. This is a new case, with new circumstances, new evidence, and perhaps most importantly, a new prosecution team and new jurors. He should not be found guilty because he "got away with murder that time." He should be found guilty because the evidence presented proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the crime, and for no other reason than that.

I Am...The Wckd Queen...

...or, so I'm told.

Welcome to my blog. It's just a sampling of my ideas and observations. Just don't expect anything too profound and you won't be too disappointed :)