... Me again!

Hey, you ... The one that still looks here! Yes! You.

The blog can be found right here, now hosted at its own domain and now with 32.6 percent more awesome.

girlofwords.com -- On air. Online. On demand.

Moving sale. Nothing must go!

I'm breaking up with Blogger for a while. I'm hoping much like my friend Jim, a change in scenery brings about a change in will because right now, I've got no will.

Visit us here:

On air. Online. On demand.

If I forgot you on my blogroll, holla. I'll throw it up there. :)

You've missed a lot. I've missed a lot. And that's my fault.

So it's NOT just cleverly hidden state workers

Sorry to pick on you again, state employees. You're my favorite target because both my mother and my sister are state employees. They get to stay home when the weather gets bad and they have three months in the summer to watch "Maury" reruns and go to the pool while I spend another 50 hours a week winning bread. They also have an undetermined number of holidays they get off from work. Who knew this state honored the spotted owl? I didn't.

"You are NOT the father."

Again?!

So, today, I learned on CNN.com that about one-third of us sleep at work.

Survey: One-third of workers catching zzz's on job

I'm in the two-thirds that don't. Mostly because I've never figured out exactly how to pull it off and still keep my job. I can admit to times, though, where I've lost 15 minutes just spacing out. Maybe that's sleeping. But I know that at least twice in the past year, I've put my head in my hands to look DOWN at a piece of paper that I needed and *poof* ... there just went 30 minutes.

Maybe it's because I have a woobie. And a heater. And when I get a woobie and a heater, it's a bad combination. I'm wearing the woobie. I have the heater on. I bet I could lose 30 minutes right ... now ...

Two separate, yet equal, things that have just pissed me right off so far today

Lemme ask you something ... And be honest. I could be crazy, here.

Does this offend you?

That's a picture of a sign from an advertising campaign by Sheetz, which is a Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain.

Crispy frickin' chicken!

Pretty harmless, right? Maybe even a little funny?

Not according to one guy. And as we all know, ONE guy is enough to ruin even the best party.

Frickin' ads catch more than attention

OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't like Sheetz.

I freaking LOVE it.

If the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would allow me to enter into marriage with Sheetz, it easily would become my second husband. Any man who entertains dating me is made aware, up front, that they're No. 2 in my heart to Sheetz. And God help him if we don't stop at Sheetz if we pass one along the way on a road trip. Deal breaker. It's over. You're out.

I've actually go so far as to map out routes BASED on where you can find ... a Sheetz.

As Sweet Ann pointed out this morning, when one of our friends on the Groundhog Day trip got sick from her Sheetz sandwich, I actually said, "If I ever got sick from something I ate at Sheetz, I'd apologize to Sheetz for being weak."

But, really, that's not the point here. The point?

Let me use this to set it up and drive it home.

It's too close to a certain four-letter-word that Sherri and Michael Sucec used to use before they were saved, a word that commonly means having sex. When the Sucecs noticed the Sheetz billboard in Derry Twp., they called and wrote their complaints to Sheetz.

"If we have any sanity left in the United States of America, this is totally unacceptable," Michael Sucec told the Derry Twp. supervisors Tuesday night, speaking with the Bible on his podium. He appealed to the supervisors' sensibilities, hoping they would help remove the billboard.

No, Michael. If we have any sanity left in the United States of America, people like you will SHUT YOUR FRICKIN' MOUTH. If we have any sanity left in the United States, we stop throwing hissy fits every time something doesn't fall within the neat packaging our moral compass fits inside.

It isn't like you've got a naked chick covering herself in wing sauce to get you to eat this sandwich, people. It isn't like they used the mother of all curse words that starts with an F. It isn't like they're making sweet, passionate love to a piece of breaded poultry. No wang was harmed, or seen, in the making of his ad.

Really, Michael? Everything that's wrong morally in this world and you're taking umbrage with "frickin'"?

You don't like the billboard? Ignore it. Accept it for the temporary medium it is. In fact, Michael, you've totally done exactly what marketing geniuses at Sheetz would hope -- by you BITCHING and WHINING like a vadge, you got your name in the paper. Congratulations. You also helped Sheetz get people into their stores to see what the big frickin' deal is.

And, as my hero Paul Harvey would say, Page Two:

I have a giant, crippling fear of public marriage proposals. I mean, even thinking about it to write this blog is causing hives to break out on my right arm. I wish I was kidding about this, because hives are amazingly unsexy.

I didn't know this little factoid, but apparently on Leap Day (which for those of you playing along at home, is today) women have the right to ask their special dude to marry them.

Why in God's name you need a "special" day to make this happen is beyond me. Maybe it's because I don't think like a typical woman. I think that if I was in love with someone enough that I wanted to marry them, in my low-key way I'd be like, "Hey, I just saw that 'Ghostbusters' is on at 8 and 'Ghostbusters II' is on at 10! Badass!! You know what else would be awesome? If you'd marry me."

I don't think I'd ever get to that point, though. Most men I know are so protective of that kind of moment that I wouldn't want to take it from them. And besides, to beat a trendy new adage into the ground, if I was dating a man for a long, extended period of time and he hadn't addressed it, I'd be willing to believe that he's "just not that into me."

Some people aren't into marriage, and I'm 100 percent in favor of that. Clearly, I'm no example of "how-to" when it comes to the marriage department. Some of the happiest, most functional couples I know have been together years and years and never got married. I can't say I'll ever get married again. That doesn't mean that I won't fall in love and spend the rest of my life with someone -- it means that I'll never again feel the need to take it to that "formalization" step.

But this girl ... oof. She not only felt the need to drive it to that step, but do it in a really, really public manner.

Hey, Sean: Will You Marry Me?

You don't get much more public than the New York Daily News with its circulation well over a million. And you don't get much more public than a followup appearance on "The Today Show."

Which, for your viewing pleasure, by the way:



Am I the only person who senses his visible, rampant discomfort? He's so uncomfortable it's like he's sitting with a hot metal poker going straight in the back door. He may as well have worn a sandwich board that said, "I had no choice but to say yes."

She's oblivious to his suffering right now. This was at 7:45 a.m. I can guarantee now, almost three hours later, she's well aware of it.

To use a phrase I use often, "This will not end well."

Why would you put someone through this? I'm for creative proposals and all, but not in front of millions of people. I guess I'm a traditionalist in that I think that's a really private moment.

I'm really mad at this woman. Not good form, Marina. Not good form at all.

I know, I'm woefully behind.

Here's a basic rundown ... Things have been crazy and I haven't had much time to even catch my breath lately.

When I was in Philadelphia last week, Ang reminded me that I provided her a much-needed break during some harsh work days. It's been stuck in my head since.

You put these things out here and you never really know if anybody's reading it and then someone sends a message like Patty, or asks like Jim or says they miss it like Angie did.

So, I promise here to make a more concerted effort. I even put it in my planner for tomorrow because I'm an uber-geek and I live for planning.

Thank you if you've stuck with me ... those of you who are closest to me know I'm going through a lot of changes right now and it's both really fun and exiting and really overwhelming at the same time. :)

So, I'll get some pics ready and resume my regular schedule tomorrow.

This one's for you, PattyO!

Yes, I'm alive! I'm doing pretty well, actually. It's just been an incredibly busy start to February. With Punxsutawney, my birthday, friends, family, fun, work, boys and another half-month of traveling, I hadn't thought much about it lately.

But I will develop some sort of update in the next couple of days. I'm at my parents' house right now just trying to get a show together before 2 p.m.! I'm a slacker. Big time.

You're pretty good for a quadraped

We're hours away from Phil Fest '08.

Expect pics and stories from Gobbler's Knob, the ISDA and Denny's Beer Barrel Pub!!

Maybe even ... live team updates.

Why I love my office No. 2,132

Amber: "My sister's been banned from every Kroger store in the country for life."

Kimberly: "Oh, I gotta hear this story."

The only movie I want to see

Big Ern.

Jesus.

Perfect.

Oh ... it's ON.

It has been decided this will be turned into a drinking game tonight with stakes of epic proportion. More later in a live report.

Nicole's here!! Nicole's here!!

While Nicole gets herself ready to go have lunch with a friend of hers, I thought I'd drop a quick update. I've got a pretty busy day coming up in preparation for tonight's party but I'm blissfully sitting here with some quiet time to write, which just doesn't happen as often as I'd like.


Nicole got here a little early last night and flew right into a mysterious chemical leak (or something). They're all calling it blue, but I'm telling you, it was orange. And it tasted like maple syrup. So for the last half of Friday, I was breathing in sweet stuff and my mouth tasted like Vermont.

(Insert all sorts of inappropriate commentary in three ... two ... one ...)

Anyway, we got ourselves to the sto' where we bought ourselves cupcake making materials (in bachelorette-party approved molds ... fill in the details yourself), snacks and for me, enough diet Mountain Dew to fuel me for the next week. We did really well in the store until we realized that oof ... nobody thought to get eggs. Or oil.

... or a brownie pan.

Which we discovered during our traditional trip to Los Agaves. See, we call each other Taco and Nacho and it's the last place we ate at before she moved to San Diego so there was no way we could have kicked off this weekend anywhere else.

And with Los Agaves comes ... a pitcher of frosty, tasty goodness. And for those of you who have never been to Los Agaves, their margaritas are probably illegal in several states, including this one. Holy. Lord.

Los Agaves also brings us our first quotable moment of the weekend ...

"What? Am I speaking ... ... ... ... ... Russian?"
-- Nicole, on how confused the waiter was taking our order and realizing that if she HAD been speaking in Spanish, things may have gone more smoothly

I have a feeling that one's gonna stick around for a while just because of all of the irony involved.

After we finished at Los Agaves (and we'd already made the liquor store run at this point where I was happy to see that for the first time in a while they didn't greet me by name!) we headed to get the brownie pan and came back here where we commenced to bake all sorts of cupcake and brownie goodness.

We pulled up a little TalkRadioX and listened to The Live Test Show so Nicole could get an official shoutout and when it ended, we flipped around the Music Choice channels. Eventually, her 3,000 mile trip and my week caught up with me.

I remember taking a phone call at 2:30 in the morning but I was so beyond tired I know that I probably made no sense at all except I do remember insisting that I was NOT too sleepy to talk. And then I was doing so good at faking it until I heard the voice on the other end say, "I totally changed that story halfway through and you didn't notice."

And "I so did" wasn't believable at this point.

Sigh. I'm laughing to myself right now at my stubborn insistence that I was awake enough to answer the phone, much less communicate. And when I got a text message after 4 saying "OK ... bed time" and I responded, I got "You're not supposed to be up ... much less answer!"

Cute. :)

OK ... time to get this party rolling. Updates forthcoming.

Why I love my office No. 321

Reporter (on phone): Does anybody know where the gun show is this weekend?

Me (flexing my biceps): YEAH!! Right HERE!!

A little all-encompassing radio update (with shout-outs!)

So, it occurred to me that it's been a while since I really got everybody up to speed on the current broadcasting schedule of the company (and I use that term loosely) I've started called "Second Team Productions."

The name "Second Team Productions" came to me in a dream. I think it came about from a time that I joked that our team (me, Paige, Ed, Jeff ... even all of the support we get from Steve, Foobs, my family, etc.) might not be your starters, but we'd be a great backup squad.

Hence ... Second Team Productions.

Anyway, we're really busy lately. And I don't even mean in that, "I'm not interested in working on Friday so I have to look busy" kind of way!

Happy Hour on TalkRadioX (live at 2 p.m. Sunday, replay at 5 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. Tuesday) has actually started to gain some steam and I couldn't be happier. I'm working (read: harassing them through MySpace) on getting the listeners from The Show That Never Ends (8 p.m. Sunday) to tune in a little earlier because I think they'd totally be impressed with how different and great the setup is over at TalkRadioX compared to the things we deal with at NowLive. It's just a first-class operation from start to finish and I'm so lucky to be surrounded by such talented and fun people.

Lest I be called a "shameless self-promoter," here's some promotional love to my people. These are the shows you should be checking out religiously on TalkRadioX:

* The Radio Dan Show (8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 p.m. Sunday) -- Radio Dan and Intern Jessica. It's movies, TV, entertainment and all of it entertaining. I love these guys. I could listen for hours. I do, actually.

* The Live Test Show ... YAYYY! (9 p.m. Monday through Friday) -- Hosted by Antubert with Tyler Hollywood. All sorts of fun going on in that hour! Plus, it's inevitable that Cory and Mr. Justin are going to show up at some point to rain Skittles.

* B-Dub at Night (10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, midnight Friday) -- A little show that I may or may not be the executive producer of ... But definitely interesting, controversial and, well, it has porn stars. You'll just have to check it out.

* Ground Zero Radio (6 p.m. Saturday) -- eWrestling, a little of this and that, hosted by resident badass Tyler Hollywood. I still don't know what eWrestling is. I'm waiting for that explanation.

* Steppin' to the Bad Side (11 p.m. Saturday) -- more Tyler Hollywood badassness. I would encourage you to stick around for the 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. hour. Seriously. Yes. I just said "2 a.m. to 3 a.m. hour."

* Steppin' to the Bad Side Power Hour (11 p.m. Monday through Thursday) -- seriously, Tyler, you got nothin' else to do?! You're cutting into my trash TV time with all of this! ::laughs::

Over on BlogTalkRadio, our friends at SportFellas are about to launch SportFellas Radio. The day and time are forthcoming, but you won't want to miss it. It's going to be a great roundtable on sports, pop culture and anything else that comes around. I'm one of the roundtable co-hosts as the resident chick in the cheap seats. That and I'm probably the only person who can talk NHL and has a penchant for minor league sporting events.

So, really ... that's why I'm not sleeping much these days once you throw in the graphic production side of Second Team. I'm always listening and learning, writing, designing, thinking of new ideas, reading reading reading, bouncing ideas off those more awesome than we are. It's an ever-evolving process.

How awesome is this, though? Paige, because she's the most awesome badass in the world, gave me an external hard drive for Christmas that has almost any kind of sound effect I could ever want, so you'll have to wait to see when they make appearances. And to that, I have to ask her, "Who shit on the coats?"

But, you know, I don't think I'd trade the insomnia in for anything. I'm actually having what could be described as the time of my life right now with all of this insanity. :)

A little modification ...

The final version of the front of the shirt now sweeping western Pennsylvania:


Yeah, that's a little NBA logo of Donnie Iris. I'm on Team Donnie. Are you?

(You've got about an hour to decide ... I gotta order these things before it gets too late!!)

The latest obsession

This also is dedicated to my friend Mil, who's been seeing some stress at her job on top of quitting smoking. A lethal combination! My suggestion to her was rather than smoking, or knocking over a 7-Eleven, she should buy a potato gun.

I really, really want a potato gun.

I've read several sites that show you how you can make them, but the thought of exploding PVC pipe (coupled with my really fabulous karma) could result in an undesired outcome.

And I think I'd boil the potatoes to make sure they didn't hurt so much when they hit something. And I also think a potato that explodes on impact with a car windshield is infinitely funny.

But check out this guy's vids ... It's worth it. Especially if you're not doing anything. And keep in mind my birthday is Feb. 11, and because I'm hard to shop for, I'm just telling you right now that I really want a potato gun.

T-shirt design is just one more service I offer ...

For Edwin and Co.'s annual Pittsburgh Pub Crawl, because he was looking to outgun Furman this year on the shirt design:

(The shirts are navy blue. This is the front ...)



(This is the back of the shirt. Note the Wagon Queen Family Truckster!!)

And now that that project's out of the way, the sweatshop of Second Team Productions is taking orders. :)

*Yawn*

Today I am feeling ...

I envy that snail. It looks so happy. It's sleeping. What's not to be happy about?

OK. It's not funny anymore.

... I might kill myself at my desk.

Phone rings. Call from my company's "kitchen."

Me: Hello?

Caller: Hey, Jac-K. It's (ad sales girl). I'm here in the kitchen and the can opener just broke. I was wondering if you guys had one upstairs.

Me: I ... In the ... What? ... I don't know.

Note to my friends and fans: I've decided I will NOT be answering my phone for the rest of the day. I just don't have it in me.

... Just when I thought it coudn't get better

Voicemail left while I was at lunch:

"Hi, Jacque. This is Rosey from (insert contractor here). I was calling to get a list of every business in West Virginia. If you could give me a call back, I would appreciate it. My number is 757-XXXX."

Now it's just getting out of control ...

It's just one more service I offer ...

Phone rings at my desk. Deceptively, it's "in-house." I answer it, figuring I'm safe.

Me: Hello?

(Silence)

Me: Hellooo?

(Silence -- I decide to look at the phone. It was a sneaky transfer. Note to self: Peeved at girl who transferred the call. OK, I'm over it.)

Me: (Insert Standard Professional Phone Greeting here)

Caller: Yeah, this is John Q. Bigdeal from Awesome Enterprises. I was wondering ... I'm looking at your paper here, can you give me the number to (insert state agency here).

Me: I'm sorry, what?

Caller: Can you give me the number to (insert state agency here)?

Me: You just want their phone number?

Caller: Yeah.

Me: (Screaming on the inside -- enter 'Sweet as Pie' voice) Hang on just a second and I'll look that up for you.

(Insert 1.5 seconds for Google search and click-thru.)

Me: It's 558-XXXX.

Caller: That's a state number?

Me: Yes. 558 is the state's exchange.

Caller: (Laughing, because clearly, he brought his clever trousers today) How 'bout that. Thanks. *click*

(I start hitting my head off my desk. To my dismay, I'm still conscious.)