For those moments when profundity overflows 140-character thoughts.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Investment Opportunity
Connecting capital with opportunity in the developing world takes patience and ingenuity.
I was cold but you charged me $8 for a pillow and blanket. I was hungry but you extorted $4.49 for a cracker and $3.39 for a “big chocolate cookie.” I came bearing liquid refreshment as gifts but you docked me $25 to check the small bag that carried it. I needed liquor to muffle the screeching of the baby behind me, but you charged for that, too. I paid $12.95 for the Internet since you wouldn’t allow me to pay for just the half hour I needed to voice this complaint. What’s next? $7.56 for use of the lavatory? $10.67 to rent an overhead bin? $25.55 just to breathe? $35.46 for the use of the oxygen mask in the case of emergency?
American Airlines: You Get What You Pay For. And Nothing More.
The doctor will rock you now
An emergency physician uses his gig as a punk rock singer to lighten traumatic situations.
Tied up in The Knot
Like all well-behaved American brides-to-be, I am a member of The Knot.
Reading The Knot as a bride-to-be is like when you have a headache and you google “symptom headache” and become convinced that you suffer from meningitis, multiple sclerosis and tempro mandibular joint syndrome all at the same time. If you are a bride-to-be with only a moderate level of constant and gnawing anxiety, reading The Knot as a bride-to-be makes you realize you are far less worried than a self-respecting bride ought to be.
Take today’s topic, “MY BRIDESMAIDS ARE GOING TO LOOK BETTER THAN ME!” The quandary here is that two of the bride’s BMs have 23-inch waists, the “MOH” has “dropped 10lbs, and is drop-dead sexy” and the one person the bride was counting on to look worse than her—the SOB (er, Sister of the Bride)—has dropped 20 pounds while the B2B has gained 10.
(The Knot has also introduced me to a world of useful abbreviations to refer to the various players in our wedding drama. BM = Bridesmaid. MOH = Mother of Husband. DH = Dear Husband but I get it mixed up with the baseball term on occasion and think Designated Husband. I thought I had seen MIL as a variation on MOH, but that doesn’t make sense since she is not yet your mother-in-law so I have taken to calling my future mother-in-law FMIL. Change one letter there and you have the same problem that this young woman has. Her FMIL is a MILF.)
I had not considered the possibility that my BMs, MOH/FMIL, MOB, SOB, DJ*, MC**, WC*** and DH would look better than me but now the thought has stricken me with terror. A friend assures me that I am only showing all the classic phobia signs of a blonde marrying into a family of brunettes and that I’m subconsciously overwhelmed by the solidarity of their hair color.
This would be a good question to pose to the B2Bs on The Knot: “WHAT IF I AM BLONDE AND I AM MARRYING INTO A FAMILY OF BRUNETTES? WHAT WILL I DO? PLEASE HELP.”
Just in case they’re not worried. Because they should be.
*Disc Jockey
**Master of Ceremonies
***Wedding Caterer
I am not even sure Obama’s a liberal. I call him a hedge fund Democrat.
The Unwritten Rules of Tasteless Photography
They say those who can’t do, teach. I say, those whose creative imagination is limited to taking the same picture over and over again, will charge you $800 to point a camera and snap blindly at your wedding.
Wedding photography is not the only profession that lavishes dollars on its people for their lack of talent, but according to one of my friends who is a real photographer and artiste it is one of the “10 most overpaid professions in America,” just after earning billions to rape the American economy as a financier.
It seems that people are aspiring wedding photographers just like they are aspiring writers. People think, “Oh, writing is easy—-I write emails. I write postcards when I vacation off in Atlanta. What a great way to become the next J.K. Rowling!” People think, “Oh, taking wedding pictures is easy. I use my iPhone to snap pictures of my Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie at Chili’s. No problem. What a great way to make $200 an hour!”
Now please note. I am not slamming people who have an eye for photography and take awesome pictures just to help their friends out and because they enjoy it. I think that’s wonderful. Also note: I know wedding photographers who are legitimately gifted and I am in awe of their pictures and think they can charge as much as they want to because artist should be paid for their gifts just like writers. Here is one such photographer. Last week when my fiance left me to go to the horrible city of Washington, D.C., I looked at her blog and wept sentimentally.
There are unwritten rules about wedding photography and no one ever deviates from them.
There is the “Bride Holding Bouquet Out in Front of Her To Remind Everyone It Cost Her $150 Fucking Dollars To Buy It and It Is Awesome”
There is the “Wedding Party Jumping Up Into The Air Because This is the Kind of Thing Normal Adults Do All The Time Especially When They’re Wearing High Heels And Are Risking Breaking Their Ankles To Do So” shot.
Occasionally people get creative. Here is a couple reenacting their idea of Twilight. It is sexy. Just the kind of thing you will hang on your wall when you’re 80 years old and baggy.
Here is a bride who thought it would be a great idea to be photographed in her underwear wearing plastic high heels with feathers stuck on them. …
Multiple Times.
And sometimes the photographers do CRAZY things with the editing. Like put the whole thing in black and white and just turn the rose petals a shade of red only found in the minds of people with truly vivid imaginations.
The Pros of Disputation
Imagine if Congress had to abide by the rules of high school debate.
