Talk The Talk Or Walk The Plank

Avast, me salty dogs! In less than a fortnight you, too, can participate in International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Every year on September 19th crazy people from all over the world spend the day talking, and even dressing, like pirates. And I do mean all over the world. The official website offers pirate expressions in Swedish, German and Chinese. Since I'm about to go on vacation, I didn't want the three of you who read this blog to miss such an important event.

Visit the website and you'll learn how to Captain Hook-up using pirate pick-up lines. My personal favorite is "Yo, Ho! (Ho.)" I guess the second "ho" is implied.

So now I'm wondering what a Jewish pirate, you know, someone like Long John Silverstein, would sound like.

"Arrrrgh! Welcome aboard the Jolly Kvetcher, me heebies. We're expecting a rough crossing, so if your timbers tend to shiver, bring a little sweatah."

The Hissing of Summer Yawns

I know I ranted about that moronic movie "Snakes on a Plane" last month, but the more I read about it, the less I understand the appeal. What's up with all these gross-out movies? I've never had the need to watch a bunch of idiotic teens violate the classic "Don't Go Into the Basement" rule, only to find themselves made into sashimi by a maniac in a hockey mask wielding a set of Ginsu knives.

In "Snakes on a Plane" several characters are offed in grisly detail. Let's see, some are impaled, others lose their heads (literally), and way too many become snack food for the slithery stow-aways. And audiences are, um, eating it up.

Pass the Dramamine.

Personally, I'd rather be forced to watch hours of film strips from my 6th grade science class while stuck on a flight that's endlessly circling O'Hare during a thunderstorm.

Fly the Surly Skies

Okay, this whole new airport security mishegoss is making me very shpilkesy. First of all, I never, ever check luggage. Even when traveling to Europe for two weeks, I pack everything I need in a small roll aboard suitcase and a backpack. Granted, I don't usually take floor-length gownless evening straps or patent leather hip boots when I go abroad (those items are saved for road trips). I figure if I'm running around busy airports or schlepping through Venice on foot with bags in tow searching for my hotel, I don't think a 16-piece set of matching Louis Vuitton luggage, including a steamer trunk, is all that practical.

But now we have to pack gels and liquids in our checked luggage, so my no checking, no hassle travel plans have gone the way of free in-flight meals and extra leg room. And I know it's not all about me, and making my life easier. Trust me, I'd much rather lose my checked luggage on a flight to China and be stranded with just a toothbrush, a clean pair of underwear, and a lame Chinese phrasebook than be blown to bits in midair.

So now I'm thinking, what's next? My fear is that eventually we'll all have to fly barefoot, dressed in nothing but those drafty paper outfits saved for humiliating experiences like a trip to the OB-GYN. And that's gonna suck when I visit family in Buffalo during December.

Shop Till You, Um...Er...

I absolutely abhor shopping. It always reminds me of my mother dragging me to some farkarte department store to shop for school clothes as well as the requisite itchy, uncomfortable outfit to wear to shul during the High Holy Days. I guess I didn't get that recessive gene that allows most women to hear cute shoes calling from afar. About once a year I'll drag myself to the mall if I need something that requires trying on, but if I must shop at all, I prefer doing it online.

Apparently, Danish clothing company, Shaiware understands that it takes a lot more than cute shoes and Euro Trash chic to lure reluctant shoppers like me to their website. They're utilizing the ultimate marketing tool - porn. If you visit the Shaiwear website, you'll find much more than a few bored looking models standing around in trendy outfits. Instead, you can watch them take off each other's clothing, and then perform a well choreographed horizontal hula. (WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.)

Oh yeah, and don't forget to check out the clothes.

Let My People Show

So today we find out from the NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay area that there's a guy in El Dorado Hills, CA who saw the image of Jesus on a cooked shrimp tail. Jesus seems to be popping up all over the place.

In the mountains of southern Mexico, locals claim to have seen an image of Jesus on a rock. He's also appeared on a piece of sheet metal at a hardware store, on a fish bone in Oklahoma, on a some guy's plaster wall inside a shower, and two sisters saw his image on wall in the kitchen of their childhood home while they were in the midst of renovations.

So how come we Heebs never see images of Moses on a matzo ball or Abraham on a bagel? And what about Sarah, Leah and Rachael? Shouldn't we see at least one of them on a piece of halvah or in a bowl of stewed prunes?

And I thought we were the Chosen People.

Silent But Deadly

I just bought a Prius. It's the coolest car and has all kinds of George Jetson gadgets that I still don't know how to use. One of the things that fascinates me is the electric motor. Every time I stop the car, and sometimes when I'm moving, it switches from gas to electric mode and goes eerily silent. I can't hear myself driving, and that's really, really weird. It's sort of like I'm running errands under water.

In fact, I'm so stealthy that pedestrians don't hear me either.

So I was thinking that maybe the Prius should come with some sort of warning accessory that's not as rude as a car horn. I don't want to scare the crap out of someone when I'm in stealth mode, but I don't want to flatten them either. I'm considering a few options for my early warning system. There's always the pleasant, bucolic clang of a cow bell, or I could play "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the kazoo, or maybe turn the bass waaaay up on the sound system and blast a little Tupac. Or Carl Kasell.

A Little Schmaltz

The moon must be singing Barry Manilow tunes to my ovaries again because I've been feeling kinda schmaltzy lately. But I went into full-blown PMS mush when I read a quotation from an interview in Oprah magazine where Oprah and her best pal Gayle defend their close friendship and insist that they're not gay.

To be honest, I don't give even the tiniest bissel dreck whether Oprah is straight, gay or having a hot polyamorous relationship with a herd of goats. But when she describes the way she feels about her closest friend, I gotta admit I got more than a little verklempt.

"I understand why people think we're gay. There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it - how can you be this close without it being sexual? How else can you explain a level of intimacy where someone always loves you, always respects you, admires you? Wants the best for you in every single situation of your life. Lifts you up. Supports you. Always! That's an incredibly rare thing even between the closest of friends."

Oy, that Oprah's like buttah. Talk amongst yourselves.

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Ad?

There's a new trend in marketing that just, er, cracks me up. Eggvertising. Apparently CBS is having messages printed on more than 35 million eggs to attract viewers to their televsion shows. And who knew there were companies like EggFusion that specialize in egg coding?

Starting this fall, we won't be able to throw together a simple frittata without finding such pithy phrases as "CSI, crack the case on CBS" when we open a carton of extra large grade A eggs. And that's just what I want to see when I'm making breakfast - a reference to a really gross televison show about scraping blood samples off dead people.

Now I'm waiting for Godiva Chocolates and Motrin to place ads on tampon applicators.

Cuckoo for Sudoku

Let me just start out by saying I am not cuckoo for Sudoku. But a lot of people I know are just plain addicted to this puzzling pastime. It sort of reminds me of the Rubik's Cube craze 20 years ago. I'm told Sudoku has nothing to do with math, but it's all about numbers and logic, and to me, that's like being math's first cousin.

And I'm someone who thinks cooking (the combination of calculating complex oven temperatures while measuring using the metric system) is equivalent to cracking the launch codes for those *secret* missile silos in Nevada, so anything even remotely involving numbers is, well, not my idea of relaxation.

Plus, I barely have enough RAM in my little keppe (that's "head" for you non-Yids) to store all my PINs, passwords and account numbers now. There are too many numbers in our lives as it is. Come to think of it, every Hebrew letter has a numeric equivalent. It's amazing Moses didn't invent the compass and get our people out of the desert years earlier.

So will someone please explain to me the allure of putting a bunch of random numbers in little boxes and having them all add up to the date of your grandmother's birthday? I just don't get it.

The Sharper Image

A few months ago one of my good friends finally made the switch from the Evil Empire (Windows OS) to Mac. She bought a MacBook, Apple's latest and greatest new laptop. Finally, I thought, she'll see why the rest of us love our Macs to the point of obsession. The new MacBook has all the bells and whistles that make geeks like me go all drooly and glassy-eyed. And, like all Apple products, this laptop is one sharp-looking machine.

In fact, if you saw "The Devil Wears Prada" you may have noticed that on every desk in the too-chic-for-real-life offices of "Runway" magazine sat a sleek white iMac. The only desktop computer slender enough to wear a size zero.

But the new MacBook not only looks sharp, it feels sharp, too.

Its edges are so sharp in fact, they rival deli meat slicers, and avid Mac users are complaining to Apple about bruised wrists. Some online forums offer suggestions like sanding down the sharp edges or wearing wrist bands. Other people are trying to get refunds or (gasp) switching back to their klunky old PCs. It surprises me that a company with the design savvy to come up with the iPod Nano could overlook such a simple element of user comfort.

All-A-Merkin Girl

Thanks to my good friend and word maven Martha Barnette I now know the meaning of the word “merkin.” It’s a pubic wig.

But it gets better.

How about a hands-free merkin flashlight? Just think how convenient this would be on a camping trip when you’re looking for a place to pee.

Air Medusa

It’s time for all those so-called summer blockbuster movies to come out. And next month a much-anticipated film with obvious Oscar potential will hit the multiplex. It’s called “Snakes on a Plane.” And, as much as I wish that title were some clever metaphor, what you see is what you get.

In a nutshell, two FBI agents are escorting a protected witness from Hawaii to L.A. In order to prevent the witness from testifying, a couple of bad guys smuggle a crate full of poisonous snakes of varying sizes on to the plane and let them loose during the flight.

But what really kills me is an article in today’s LA Times that credits fans with influencing the writer and director to ratchet up the sex, violence and bad language to garner an R rating rather than a wimpy PG-13. Apparently, dailies were posted on the web and fans weighed in on the film’s progress.

The result? An additional week of shooting to add more nudity and extra blood and gore. And the script got a makeover too - a boatload of profanity to fill in the gaps in the story.

Can’t wait for the sequel - “Rats on a Train.”

Woo Hoo! Rock and (2-ply) Roll!

For those of you who can’t part with your iPod, even for a moment on the throne, here’s the perfect gadget for you. It’s called an iCarta, costs about $99 and is designed to “enhance your experience even in the smallest room.”

Personally, I like my small room experiences to be quick and productive. No musical accompaniment necessary.

Holy L-Bat!

Next month DC Comics will re-introduce its Batwoman character as a 5-foot-10 lipstick lesbian with long red hair and a form-fitting outfit that leaves no room for water weight gain.

The original Batwoman was introduced in 1956 and then killed off in 1979. The new super heroine, also known as Kathy Kane, will be a blue-blooded Gotham socialite with a past – a former romantic connection to detective Renee Montoya. Everybody knows you can’t have a lesbian character without an ex lurking around somewhere. Who else would take care of her cat when she goes on vacation?

So this is what progress looks like. We can come back from the dead and save the world, but we still can’t legally marry.

Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

I don’t want a mobile phone with a camera. I want a phone that’s used primarily to make and receive calls. Is that too much to ask? Apparently Verizon thinks so.

I went to replace my phone yesterday and found that 99% of the new models come with cameras. Look, I’m happy with my digital camera, and I don’t need a pimped out phone with a bunch of extra appliances. Even if I had the option, I wouldn’t want a phone with a blender or a coffee maker or a hair dryer. Okay, maybe a hair dryer.

And I don’t intend to check email, do a Google search or watch The Godfather on a screen that’s smaller than a packet of sugar. I just want to call other people and have other people call me. What I really need is a couple of tin cans with a virtual string.

Hey Verizon, can you hear me now?

How Very Tongue in Um, Cheek

Apparently the stodgy alter kockers of snooty Scottsdale, AZ have their Depends all in a knot about the upcoming opening there of a new restaurant, the Pink Taco. The Las Vegas-based chain’s tagline reads, “Eating out never tasted so good.” Oh my.

I guess Scottsdalians consider the premise of the new eatery in bad taste.

Eau No!

I think the whole damn fragrance industry is smoking crack. A British company has introduced a perfume that smells like Stilton cheese, and toymaker Hasbro is debuting Eau de Playdoh. Yep, you too can reek of modeling clay. Just like a four-year-old.

Okay, unless you’re looking to have a three-way with Gumby and Pokey, why the heck would you wanna smell like the arts and crafts corner of a pre-school on a rainy day?

And Eau de Stilton? What are those Brits thinking? This is a Very Stinky cheese. And what about the other four food groups? Nothing like the scent of a sizzling burger behind your ears, or maybe a hint of Bermuda onion on your wrists and the essence of mixed nuts on the back of your neck. And don’t forget about day-old fish. That’s always a crowd pleaser, especially in warm weather.

I’m just waiting for the next trend. Animal excrement.

Could Jesus Be My Relative?

The movie “The Da Vinci Code” is about to hit theaters across the country. Now there's all this additional brouhaha about the premise of the story. What if Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they started a family that still exists today?

The way I see it, stranger things have happened. Two years ago the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. And recently, my mother finally began to refer to my girlfriend of eight years as my partner rather than my friend. So you see, anything’s possible.

And this got me thinking, what if I’m related to Jesus? I, too, come from a Jewish family with an identity crisis. We celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah, Easter (the part with the candy) and Passover. We even ate pork and shellfish. But we always attended Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.

My father was born a Jew but didn’t really stick with the program. Jesus was born a Jew but didn’t really stick with the program either. It kinda makes you wonder.

Polly Wanna Gerund?

Birds can learn grammar. Okay, maybe you won’t find a bunch of crows sitting on a wire conjugating verbs, but according to a recent study,
certain starlings can distinguish between a regular birdsong “sentence” and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling.

And it took UCSD researcher Tim Gentner just one month to train the birds to make the distinctions. So why does it take most Americans years to figure out the difference between “lie” and “lay” or “who” and “whom”?

I’m the Intolerator

Dear President Bush,

Now that you’ve declared to the world that you’re The Decider, why don’t you stop being such a stubborn schmendrick and decide to learn to speak proper English?

We all know that you’re as dumb as a box of hair, but since you’re the guy leading the free world, and we have almost three more years of living under your Deciderism regime, it would be great if just once you could decide to pronounce the word “nuclear” correctly.

NOO-klee-er. See, that wasn’t so hard was it?

Sincerely,

The Mispronunciation Intolerator

P.S.
That Rumsfeld decision? Not such a good one.