This evening I was going about my nightly routine of ironing my work clothes for the next day, and began thinking out loud about how much I hate ironing. I never get the creases right, it takes forever, and is generally a giant pain. I remarked out loud that if I ever became fabulously wealthy, I really wouldn't want much out of life. But I would want someone to iron my damn shirts and such. And maybe someone to make some custom shoes for my chubby little feet. And a room full of armadillos running about at all times. Basically that would be it. I love cooking, and would miss that. I'd especially miss trips to the grocery store, as I have a perverse love of clipping coupons and going to the supermarket each week (it's like a treasure hunt!). And I wouldn't know a designer purse if it hit me upside the head. I wouldn't make a very good rich person.
"Yeah," said Mark. "You'd make a shitty Hilton."
I think that's one of the greatest compliments I've ever heard.
Robyn
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Adorable Adventures in Customer Service
How much do I freakin' love the Japanese?
This is a country that believes so strongly in the power of cute, that even the most mundane facets of daily office life are infused with cuddly, Awwwwww-inspiring imagery. To whit: I received a parcel of media clips from our partner organization in Japan yesterday. The media clips were totally inconsequential compared to the logo of the shipping company that sent the package:
Are you kidding me? Being the curious sort, I immediately Googled "Japanese delivery cat logo," and the website for the Yamato delivery company popped up. It's slogan: "We carry your cargo with the same passion and care as the mothercat carrying its kitten." That's it. I'm totally sending this to Cute Overload.
Thinking corporate branding can get no more precious, I checked my e-mail this morning, and found a delivery confirmation for a CD that I ordered from an independent online retail company. I almost disregarded it, as I do most confirmation e-mails after checking the details, and then I caught the fine print:
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, January 16th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh...
I don't think I can continue working today. I'm gonna go prance in a meadow with bunny rabbits, or some crap like that.
Robyn
Monday, January 14, 2008
A Fine Berfday Present Indeed
So I spent my 27th yesterday a bit under the weather. It's a bummer being sick on your birthday, but since celebrations took place Friday and Saturday, and will continue with lunches today and tomorrow, it's not such a big deal. Besides, it gave me an excuse to plop on the couch and watch the Cowboys gets their hindquarters handed to them by the Giants (whose own hindquarters I hope very much to be handed back to them in turn next week by the Packers, but that's looking ahead). Seeing Romo weep a bit (again) was a fine birthday surprise, but this video really warmed the cockles of my black heart:
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Best Damn Christmas Album Period
Admittedly, I'm a girl of quirky tastes. Not out of any deliberate effort on my part (that would just make me annoying), but it's just the way I'm wired up. Maybe it has something to do with the four-year-old neighbor dropping me on my head as an infant, I dunno. Nonetheless, I've usually been able to find someone out there who will back me up on most things. I basically formed my clique of friends in junior high based soley on whether they thought Mystery Science Theater was the best TV show ever made. True, people of this mindset were not numerous, nor were they really in the highest stratosphere of the middle school pecking order, but we were a merry band of geeks, and it seemed to work out okay.
But I have never been able to get one person to back me up on what is, to me, the best damn Christmas album ever recorded. The Sheps being a multi-culti family, we get our Jew on each year for Chanukah and then goy it up like nobody's business on Christmas. Nine crazy nights, thank you, and we like it that way. So we're extremely emotionally invested in our choice of Christmas music. Elvis gets a lot of play, as does the Ramsey Lewis Trio. But bar none, the album with the most heavy rotation is John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together.
Now, I know that mine is a generation that delights in irony, and resurrecting the icons of our youth for kicks (Transformers: The Movie? Already done, and done better, in 1986). But this is no hipster, winking devotion of mine to the Muppets album. True, as a kid I liked hearing the funny voices sing the standards. But I swear on all that is holy, there are some original songs on there that will break your heart. Beautiful stuff -- that just happens to be sung by Muppets. Sadly, folks just can't seem to get past this.
And that's too bad, because "The Christmas Wish" as sung by Kermit the Frog, is a sweet song that's inclusive without being pandering and would solve all kinds of problems if more people listened to it. And "It's in Every One of Us" is so lovely that my mom actually wants it played at her funeral. Which is a little weird, but that's the kind of emotion this stuff provokes. You just have to, you know, forget that it's being sung by cartoon characters, which can be a bit difficult on the first listen (especially since Fozzie Bear has a surprisingly booming baritone), but trust me, you will get past it.
You know what, don't listen to me. Buy the damn thing. I think I found it on CD for like, 9 bucks, in the bargain bin. Of course, you really want the vinyl, as it has at least 2 extra songs on it, and has that lovely popping sound that only records can make that sounds so bloody good when you're curled up on a winter's night, sitting by the newly decorated tree with the jacked-up ornaments, getting sloshed with Mom and Dad on SoCo and cranberry, talking about how Terrell Owens eats his own shit....::sniff:: I love the holidays...
But I have never been able to get one person to back me up on what is, to me, the best damn Christmas album ever recorded. The Sheps being a multi-culti family, we get our Jew on each year for Chanukah and then goy it up like nobody's business on Christmas. Nine crazy nights, thank you, and we like it that way. So we're extremely emotionally invested in our choice of Christmas music. Elvis gets a lot of play, as does the Ramsey Lewis Trio. But bar none, the album with the most heavy rotation is John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together.
Now, I know that mine is a generation that delights in irony, and resurrecting the icons of our youth for kicks (Transformers: The Movie? Already done, and done better, in 1986). But this is no hipster, winking devotion of mine to the Muppets album. True, as a kid I liked hearing the funny voices sing the standards. But I swear on all that is holy, there are some original songs on there that will break your heart. Beautiful stuff -- that just happens to be sung by Muppets. Sadly, folks just can't seem to get past this.
And that's too bad, because "The Christmas Wish" as sung by Kermit the Frog, is a sweet song that's inclusive without being pandering and would solve all kinds of problems if more people listened to it. And "It's in Every One of Us" is so lovely that my mom actually wants it played at her funeral. Which is a little weird, but that's the kind of emotion this stuff provokes. You just have to, you know, forget that it's being sung by cartoon characters, which can be a bit difficult on the first listen (especially since Fozzie Bear has a surprisingly booming baritone), but trust me, you will get past it.
You know what, don't listen to me. Buy the damn thing. I think I found it on CD for like, 9 bucks, in the bargain bin. Of course, you really want the vinyl, as it has at least 2 extra songs on it, and has that lovely popping sound that only records can make that sounds so bloody good when you're curled up on a winter's night, sitting by the newly decorated tree with the jacked-up ornaments, getting sloshed with Mom and Dad on SoCo and cranberry, talking about how Terrell Owens eats his own shit....::sniff:: I love the holidays...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Memo to the Philadelphia Eagles
Dear Philadelphia Eagles:
I know it's been a turbulent season so far, but I learned two mindblowing things today that could help turn things around.
The first thing I learned is that a standard professional football field is really 100 yards long, not 80! So when you get to your opponents 20 yard line, you actually have to keep going for it to really make a difference! I know, right?!? That's how you get those awesome 6 point things called touchdowns. Now we know! Don't worry if you forget. The next time you wander aimlessly into the red zone (that's those last 20 yards. Crazy!), I'll remind you by yelling really really loud at the TV for you to keep going.
The other thing I learned is that a regulation length football game is a whopping 60 minutes of play time. Not, as previously thought, 55 minutes of dicking around before you actually have to start doing something. I know that makes things a little tougher, but now that we have that cleared up, I imagine you'll score a lot more points!
I hope that helps a little. And remember, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2006 on a 10-6 record, so it's all good! And I don't want to get rid of Donovan. Like millions of other deluded women, I love my abuser.
Gotta go, guys! Love and kisses,
Robyn
I know it's been a turbulent season so far, but I learned two mindblowing things today that could help turn things around.
The first thing I learned is that a standard professional football field is really 100 yards long, not 80! So when you get to your opponents 20 yard line, you actually have to keep going for it to really make a difference! I know, right?!? That's how you get those awesome 6 point things called touchdowns. Now we know! Don't worry if you forget. The next time you wander aimlessly into the red zone (that's those last 20 yards. Crazy!), I'll remind you by yelling really really loud at the TV for you to keep going.
The other thing I learned is that a regulation length football game is a whopping 60 minutes of play time. Not, as previously thought, 55 minutes of dicking around before you actually have to start doing something. I know that makes things a little tougher, but now that we have that cleared up, I imagine you'll score a lot more points!
I hope that helps a little. And remember, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2006 on a 10-6 record, so it's all good! And I don't want to get rid of Donovan. Like millions of other deluded women, I love my abuser.
Gotta go, guys! Love and kisses,
Robyn
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Support Your Local Rockstar Classmate (and Bring Galoshes)
I think it's fair to say that I've settled in nice and cozylike to the new PR gig at RESULTS. At the very least, I'm assuming they have confidence in my abilities based on the fact that my workload shot up like a mother after Congress got into session. The professional highlight of the past six weeks was the coordination of a press conference call with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. True, it was just a conference call, and Mr. Yunus was about 200 miles away in NYC at the time, but I still think I'm moving up in the world.
Not content to keep my public relations activities confined to business hours, I've devoted a fair amount of free time this past week to drumming up support for Council Rock homeboy turned indie-rock-superstar-to-be Shwa Losben, who played Iota in Arlington last night. Shwa's a nice boy from Holland, Pa. who did an impressive turn at American University and then made the rather ballsy decision to become a full-time singer-songwriter. And durned if he isn't brilliant at it. He's toured fairly constantly for about three years now, built a nice following in DC, and moved himself up to NYC last year. Last night, I assembled a modest crew and had a proper night out at the Shwa show, staying out until the outrageous hour of 1:45 a.m.
The only lowlight of the evening was the fact that I seemed to be one of the only clubgoers who got caught in a torrential downpour walking from the car to the venue -- so my bedraggled, soaked, mascara-smeared entrance among the nicely coiffed and attired hip young things of Northern Virginia was somewhat less than dignified. Happily, everybody's friends at a Shwa show, so nobody seemed to mind the soggy midget in their midst. I'll get the poised and elegant thing down one of these days. Just not anytime soon.
Robyn
Saturday, September 8, 2007
New York Day Trip
I really ought to have written about this last week, when it was all fresh and new, but I still think a few items from our First Anniversary/Labor Day Sunday trip to NYC bear mentioning.
Despite the fact that I lived at the junction of Little Italy and Chinatown for my last semester at NYU, I never explored Chinatown as thoroughly as I did last week. Chinatown wasn't necessarily on our itinerary, but we found ourselves heading there after an ill-fated trip to the shiny Nintendo store in Rock Center did not yield the kind of quality import games that Mark was looking for. A knowledgable staffer clued us in to J&L on Elizabeth Street. While the name of the store itself is a knock-off of the eminent J&R electronic store near City Hall, the wares on store there are most definitely the real, crazy-Asian article. If one is so inclined to score strange, Japanese games not found in Best Buy, it's the place to go. I picked up Sing Star 80s for myself. Rockin'.
We next went on a quest for soup-filled steamed dumplings, like what we saw on No Reservations on the Travel Channel. We figured the best thing to do would be to ask the dudes at J&L, who helpfully steered us to Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street. It's a bit hectic (we had to sit with some very nice strangers), but the soup dumplings are indeed, as the J&L guy said, "retarded good." Plus, Mark got a shrimp and rice cake entree and I got a ginormous, magically delicious plateful of fried oysters, and we walked out of there for under $40. Chinatown is good.
Then it was on to the previously uncharted world of Red Hook, Brooklyn on another quest to find a legendary bar that serves moonshine, lets you play with the in-house bulldogs, and (if you choose) grill your own meat on some open grills in the backyard. For this adventure, we were joined by a friend of ours known as the Koz. Koz was born and bred in Brooklyn, and yet he didn't know this area either. I felt like Marco freakin' Polo. We discovered that Red Hook is quite lovely, and we weren't even fazed by the sudden appearance of the BQE, which slightly altered our route. We found our destination, and found a slight, but friendly crowd, who offered moral encouragement as I schooled my two gentleman companions on how to down a double shot of moonshine. Granted, I had never had moonshine, so didn't really know first-hand how to down it myself, but I managed to gulp it down and maintain my dignity, and even received a salute from a local at the end of the bar. The bulldogs, sadly, were not in attendence, but it was quickly clear that neighborhood dogs were more than welcome. Suitably buzzed, we trundled off back to Manhattan for Afghan food before clambering back on to good old NJ Transit back to home base in Richboro.
So it's not the freshest news, but I think there were some PSAs that sorely needed to be delivered to the general population. If you're jonesing for some dumplings and moonshine in NYC, don't say you don't know where to go.
Robyn
Despite the fact that I lived at the junction of Little Italy and Chinatown for my last semester at NYU, I never explored Chinatown as thoroughly as I did last week. Chinatown wasn't necessarily on our itinerary, but we found ourselves heading there after an ill-fated trip to the shiny Nintendo store in Rock Center did not yield the kind of quality import games that Mark was looking for. A knowledgable staffer clued us in to J&L on Elizabeth Street. While the name of the store itself is a knock-off of the eminent J&R electronic store near City Hall, the wares on store there are most definitely the real, crazy-Asian article. If one is so inclined to score strange, Japanese games not found in Best Buy, it's the place to go. I picked up Sing Star 80s for myself. Rockin'.
We next went on a quest for soup-filled steamed dumplings, like what we saw on No Reservations on the Travel Channel. We figured the best thing to do would be to ask the dudes at J&L, who helpfully steered us to Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street. It's a bit hectic (we had to sit with some very nice strangers), but the soup dumplings are indeed, as the J&L guy said, "retarded good." Plus, Mark got a shrimp and rice cake entree and I got a ginormous, magically delicious plateful of fried oysters, and we walked out of there for under $40. Chinatown is good.
Then it was on to the previously uncharted world of Red Hook, Brooklyn on another quest to find a legendary bar that serves moonshine, lets you play with the in-house bulldogs, and (if you choose) grill your own meat on some open grills in the backyard. For this adventure, we were joined by a friend of ours known as the Koz. Koz was born and bred in Brooklyn, and yet he didn't know this area either. I felt like Marco freakin' Polo. We discovered that Red Hook is quite lovely, and we weren't even fazed by the sudden appearance of the BQE, which slightly altered our route. We found our destination, and found a slight, but friendly crowd, who offered moral encouragement as I schooled my two gentleman companions on how to down a double shot of moonshine. Granted, I had never had moonshine, so didn't really know first-hand how to down it myself, but I managed to gulp it down and maintain my dignity, and even received a salute from a local at the end of the bar. The bulldogs, sadly, were not in attendence, but it was quickly clear that neighborhood dogs were more than welcome. Suitably buzzed, we trundled off back to Manhattan for Afghan food before clambering back on to good old NJ Transit back to home base in Richboro.
So it's not the freshest news, but I think there were some PSAs that sorely needed to be delivered to the general population. If you're jonesing for some dumplings and moonshine in NYC, don't say you don't know where to go.
Robyn
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