Despondent

I’m not surprised, but I’m so sad that NBC canceled Life. I actually haven’t been able to watch the finale, because then that would make it really over for me. I really enjoyed the partnership of Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi, and wish them all the best personally and professionally.

Damn you, NBC.

If those bastards cancel Chuck, heads will roll.

At last, an upside

There are few bright sides to getting unengaged after having been engaged for six months. Luckily, I have found one. I am probably the foremost unmarried, unengaged local expert on New York/North Jersey weddings, not counting people who work in the wedding industry. I spent six months reluctantly planning a wedding (which would have kicked so much ass anyway), making innumerable phone calls, sending out a googleplex emails, and reading a brazillion web sites and blogs. All of this led to the creation of a pretty fantastic spreadsheet which, several months after my broken engagement, I was able to fish out of my Google Docs trash and place in a more benign, but also rarely-visited folder.
At work, I seem to get a lot of questions regarding weddings, wedding web sites, venues, costs, vendors, etc. These people have no reason to know that I know this stuff, but somehow they always ask the questions when I’m around. If I were more self-centered, I’d think it was some sort of retribution (why, universe??? I recycle), but I tend to think it’s just their good luck.
So I DO know the going rate for a wedding band (no less than $4500 for a good 4-piece band), the busiest month for weddings in NJ (October), and how much you can expect to pay for a sit down country club reception during prime wedding season (Friday: ~$125; Saturday night: ~$145). I know where on the reference shelves to find that book about wedding venues in the area, since we all remembered seeing it but nobody could recall the title. I know which Manhattan bridal boutiques engage in ridiculous markups, and which are relatively honest (because, let’s face it, the same dress should not cost $200 more at another store).
I just hung out the other day with a friend who unfortunately needed to get a divorce after a brief marriage. I know that this is a really rough time for her right now, and as bad as it was for me last year, I can’t help but thank my lucky stars that my ill-advised engagement did not culminate in marriage.

Do you want me, D.C?

Because I’ve just learned that there are TWO (count ’em) Nando’s in Washington, D.C., and the thought alone has me rechecking the current job openings at the Library of Congress.

Well shoot

I’m home sick, and as is my wont when I have free time and the weather’s crappy, I’ve been roaming around the Internet. Since I called out of work, I don’t want to be posting on Facebook or Twitter, even though, realistically, sneezing and coughing shouldn’t mean that I can’t type, right? But better not to do anything that could be misinterpreted later. So here’s the article that I would have posted on Facebook if I was posting there today.

Here’s a Gawker article about how very screwed John Edwards is. Like a lot of people, I really thought that he might have had a chance to do something great for this country, and was really disappointed at how badly he messed things up. What is it with these politicians who cannot keep it in their freaking pants long enough to make good on the myriad promises that they’ve made to us? Why do they believe that they won’t get caught? Didn’t anybody learn anything from Gary Hart?

Now, though, instead of just losing all credibility with pretty much everybody and seeing his political career die a really ugly public death, he also has to be concerned that he’s being accused of fraud for payouts made to Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom he had the affair. What a dummy. Hunter received over $100,000 from the Edwards campaign for videos that look like what my 13 yo nephew could do with a camera and iMovie. Once again, The National Enquirer was there with the story before any of the big boys deigned
to report it.

Blah blah blah…Ginger

I hadn’t heard anybody gossiping like fishwives lately, so I turned on Sunday Night Baseball. I enjoy the broadcasts because Joe Morgan and Jon Miller are totally in love with one another, and there’s nothing more satisfying than watching a couple’s love deepen. The addition of Steve Phillips ups the hotness factor by infinity, and the more he talks, the less we have to hear Joe. Their tangents are usually irrelevant and not interesting besides, but every now and then they reveal something so intensely personal about a player, coach, or other baseball staffer that you wonder why anybody still talks to them.