Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on December 18, 2008

I was recently asked to review a book for my site called You Lost Him At Hello by Jess McCann. At first I was all excited because I love chick lit! Then I READ the email and realized this was a relationship/self-helpy book. (*groan*) So I was originally going to say no because I’ve seen all the Sex & The City episodes. I know all there is to know about dating. That is, if I ever went on dates. 

But then I agreed because maybe I’m making some grave error and I could totally learn a thing or two from a book. And then I could pass on this wisdom to all my single ladies. And if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it. And other Beyonce lyrics. 

So I agreed. And then I got the book and all its PR materials. And then I was like “You Lost Me At The Press Release!” But I agreed to read the book and give it an honest review. Which is kind of what I’m doing. And will probably not land me any more reviews in the near future.

First, I’ll start with the bad stuff. Because whenever I have a job review they always start with the good stuff and end with the bad stuff. And then you end up walking out of the room in tears wondering why on Earth anyone would employ you with all your faults and such. 

The biggest thing I disliked about this book is that the major theme of it is that if you want to land a man, you have to play games. You always have to look your best, act your best and be a total game player. And I know I’m single and have no prospects, so maybe that is what I’m doing wrong. But if I have to do all that “waiting to call him back and pretending you’re uninterested and are too busy for him” game, I’m not interested in a finding a man. I believe you don’t have to play games to find the man of your dreams. I know plenty of people in wonderful, loving relationships that didn’t have an ounce of game play. I’m too old for games.

To be honest, I wanted to give up on this book on page 6. I didn’t. While it has its flaws, it does have some good points too. There were a few times where I read something in this book that you shouldn’t do, things that freak the shit out of dudes, and realized that I did that thing (or things) in a past relationship.

The idea of the book is to sell yourself to a potential mate. Makes complete sense. Because really, dating isn’t much different that a job interview, right? You’re trying to sell your best qualities so you get hired. Or betrothed. This is good advice for anything you do in life. And it starts with having self-confidence, which I agree with McCann,  is very important in relationships (and life in general). 

In the book, McCann talks about the SEE Factor. It’s a way to engage men in public places and get their attention and let them know you are interested. The idea is when you see a guy you like, smile, make eye contact and exude positive energy. I honestly believe this will work, if I could ever work up the nerve to test it out. I’m afraid my venture into this would result in some sort of creepy smile and stalkery staring, instead of making eye contact and giving a casual, flirty smile. 

Overall, the book gives some good tips. There are the obvious ones, the ones so many of us forget about when we start dating someone new- like not sleeping with someone on the first date or not getting hammered on a date. A lot of these things we do as women are common mistakes and can send a dude running for the hills.

Obviously a lot of the things in this book that are big no-nos are also things you learn as you experience life and mature. Things you can’t learn from books. Things you do when you’re 22, whether it be in dating or in your career or just in life in general, are a lot stupider than things you do when you’re 32. But at the time, they SEEM like good ideas. That’s what life is all about, experiencing and growing and learning from the past.

So my verdict is that the book was meh. It definitely wasn’t for me, but I probably picked up a tip or two.

But maybe you’ll like it! So if this lovely review has intrigued you and you’d like to win my copy of this book, please let me know in the comments and I’ll do a drawing and choose a winner.

(And then after you read it, we can exchange emails and talk about how we really feel about this book. Doesn’t that sound like fun?)

Category: Reviews | 30 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on December 16, 2008

So update on my car situation: I have it in my possession and it cost me less that $200. Which isn’t too bad as far as car dealers go. But is HORRIFFIC when the parts they fixed were $36. Why am I not paid $150 an hour?? I’m just as valuable!

This small sum was far less than what the guy wanted me to have done. When he called he actually said to me “where do I start?” Like I’m driving around a rusty piece of metal with no tires kept together by duct tape that is UNSAFE! UNSAFE! UNSAFE! Well, it is almost 10 years old. I currently have over 135,000 miles on my little Sentra. And it runs fine. Yes, it has problems. SHE IS OLD. But I don’t make payments to her family anymore for the right to own her outright, so I shall run her into the ground.

Apparently my brakes are shot. And I’m leaking brake fluid. And I’m going to DIIIIEEEEEE! You must fix this NOOOOOWWWWW! To the tune of $2,000. TWO THOUSAD DOLLLAAARRRSSS!

I think not, Mr. Price Raper Dealer Man. I know that work can be done cheaper ANYWHERE but the dealer. So I told him to just fix my windshield wipers and I would be on my way. Because I’m a risk taker like that. And my brother is totally going to fix my brakes this weekend. For like 10 times less.

But I reassured my car that she is not dumpy like those boys at that car shop made her feel. How dare they treat a young girl like that! I mean, she’s not even a teenager.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hate going to mechanic shops. It is like it is their goal to make you feel small and that you know nothing. Because apparently as a woman, I know nothing about cars. Even though, I can change my own headlight bulbs. And check the oil and put gas in the tank.

I don’t know a lot about cars. But I know some. I make my brother tell me what I don’t know. And I also ask Google. For instance “Google, why won’t my windshield wipers work? Yet I can hear a motor like they WANT to work?” And then Google says “because you busted them dumbass.”

I knew exactly what was wrong when I went in yesterday. I could have even bought the part at AutoZone. I just didn’t know how to install it. (Now I see why I don’t get paid $150 an hour.) (Also, if you’re a mechanic, why would you work anywhere else but a dealership? Their hourly rates are like double of other places.)

But those male mechanics always treat you like a delicate flower and assume you know nothing. And then they call you sweetie and tell you that everything thing will be fine and they’ll call you when they know what is wrong and that you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about it. It is so irritating!

Although, after I told Jimmy and his staff that I wouldn’t be doing $2,000 worth of business with them today, he basically ignored me when I came to pick up my car. So much for customer service. And again why I don’t get my car serviced at the dealer very often.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, I have a hair appointment this weekend. It was originally supposed to be Saturday, but I had to switch it to Sunday since Saturday is the day my brother is going to fix my car so I don’t DIIIIIEEEEE! Yay for the holidays and my salon being open on Sunday!

I’m currently growing my hair out a bit, but was seriously considering bangs. I did the semi-side-swept ones quite a few months back, but this time I was thinking of getting full bang-bangs. I was inspired by this post with my internet friend Darcey. Because she’s tall (not that it has anything to do with bangs, I just wanted to point out some similarities) and has a similar face shape to mine and she totally ROCKS the bangs and looks HOT! See?

(Photo courtesy of Darcey and Hair Thursday) (Darcey, if this is not OK, please let me know and I’ll take it down.)

Here is a recent photo of me and my forehead. Don’t you think it would look cute with Darcey-bangs? I also might want Darcey’s color too.

(Random tidbit, this is a photo of me and my other friend named Darcie.)

So what do you all think? I know this is a big undertaking because once you go bangs, you can’t go back. What with the growing out and all that. But I think it would be a good change. Yes?

Category: Land of Random | 47 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on December 15, 2008

Oh holy hell today was a bad day. If a day starts off as bad as mine did today, there is no recovering.

First off, I am not a morning person. Not in the least. I need a longer commute in the morning just to get my wits about me and not snap your head off. I also need coffee to help this along. A former co-worker at the 49ers would not talk to me until I had been at work for at least an hour. Because the odds of me being a normal person and not a seven-headed monster would greatly increase the longer I had been at my desk. So needless to say, if unexpected things happen to me first thing in the morning, I CANNOT DEAL WITH THEM VERY WELL. It is why I don’t put my clothes on until right before I leave for the day. I have had many mornings ruined with drippings of toothpaste or a splash of make-up. If something like that happens to me that early in the morning, I would prefer to curl up in the fetal position on the floor of the bathroom and sleep the day away.

Unfortunately, I am not ever allowed to do that.

Which brings us to this morning. Everything was going fine and I was even running a bit early, which was good because I had to lug 140 holiday cards to the mail box. I had decided to drive to work today for a whole host of reasons that don’t even matter now. Mostly it was because my wine shipment is currently sitting in some UPS warehouse and I need to pick it up!

I need to pick up my wine club wine before Wednesday, when they send it back to the wine people. Which, insert pouty sad face here. We are supposed to get like 5 inches of snow on Tuesday, so I figured Monday was the best day to attempt the pick-up.

I consulted the weather on my iPhone and knew it was going to be a bit icy. We had like a 40-degree temperature drop from Sunday night to Monday morning. All that rain and melted snow was going to freeze. But I figured that leaving at 7:45 AM would be plenty of time for the salt trucks to at least cover the main drags.

What I wasn’t expecting was MUTANT ICE. This ice was not insanely thick or anything, but it had alien properties. For one, it sealed the doors of my car closed so tight I had to put my entire weight into pulling my car door open. And no, I don’t know what I would have done had it not opened. I will tell you that curling into the fetal position on the frozen sidewalk in minus 20 degree wind chill temperatures crossed my mind!

I got the door open and went about scraping the windows. That is when the mutants had their big, belly laugh at my expense. My scraper did NOTHING to the ice. It was if these mutants had sprayed a layer of glue down over my car and then put ice on top of it. IT WAS NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

So I had nothing to do but wait until the car warmed up and started to melt it. If MUTANT ICE even melted.

I scraped as much as I could off (read: NOTHING) and figured I should un-stick the wipersbecause maybe they will help get rid of the MUTANT ICE faster. So I turned on the wipers and nothing. “Hmmm,” I thought. “I must not have gotten that one blade unstuck.”

So I went back out to unstick it and heard some loud noise. I figured it was the MUTANT ICE attacking me and quickly got back in the car. I turned on the wipers and nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I heard the motor whirring but no blades moving. I went back out and tried to make them move myself. That does not work, for your information.

Commence MELTDOWN OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

At this point, I’ve already been thawing this MUTANT ICE for damn near 30 minutes. I could finally see well enough out the windshield and I took off. It was slow going, even though I live but 11 miles from work. None of the side streets were salted and my tires spun a lot. I think those tires are still dizzy.

On my way to work, I called my mom crying because WAH! I’m going to be late! And I’m new! And I have no windshield wipers! She calmed me down and then I called my brother because he knows a little about cars. He suggested it might be a fuse (which I knew it wasn’t because the whirring, I could hear it.) Then he’s all “you busted it FOOL!” (No he didn’t really say that. He listened to me whine and continue melting down. And then sent me links to tell me what the issue probably was. Verdict? I busted it, either stripped the gears or broke something or other.)

I finally got to work, late, all cried out. I researched mechanics because I’ve not had any issues (knock on wood) with my car since moving back to Chicago. Well, no issues that my brother couldn’t fix. (Those brothers are nice to have around.) The mechanic with good reviews on Yelp said it would be more than a day because he was swamped and he’d probably have to order the part. So I went to a dealer (*shudder*) because odds are they might have the part there.

So now with the 100 million things I already had to do this week, I have to pray my car is fixed by tomorrow evening. The guy at the dealer didn’t seem shocked and was pretty sure he could have it back to me on Tuesday. So I’m hoping he’s right and doesn’t realize I was totally lying to him when I told him I had my 120,000 mile check-up done. Because I do NOT need to spend any more money at the service department of a car dealer.

On top of all this that happened, I found out that the stupid UPS place that I was rushing to get to by 6 PM before it closed is actually open until 9 PM this week. This will teach me to be lazy and NOT take public transportation. (YES, this would have ALL been avoided if I had just taken the bus and train.)

And now I will go curl up in the fetal position and go to bed, just like I’ve wanted to do since 8 AM. Well, as much curling as I can do after Jillian Michaels shredded my muscles tonight.

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, Weather dot com, Whine & Cheese | 22 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on December 14, 2008

So this afternoon I went out to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping. I also had to go out to Staples because I had to buy more envelopes. Because Kodak Gallery thought it would be genius to send me only 80 envelopes when I ordered 140 Christmas cards. Because that is new math or something. And since it is getting close to Christmas as it is, I don’t really want to wait another week for the rest of the envelopes. So I had to drop more money on these envelopes and I told Kodak Gallery to use my extra envelopes to wipe their asses or line the litter box.

(I don’t think this actually conveys how mad I am about this. In addition, Staples didn’t have the exact size envelope, so there are like 30 cards that are being sent in a bigger envelope. And I’m sure it looks stupid, but at this point I DO NOT CARE. I just want to have these cards out the door.)

So by the time I got to the grocery store, I was already irritated. Mostly because I had to put on a bra and leave the house. And also because I leave everything to do on Sundays and I get mad at myself every Sunday when I have to cram a whole weekend of stuff into a few hours. Because I don’t ever get up at a reasonable time and have quite a bit of shows to watch on my DVR.

Anyway, that was not really what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to rant about the bitch in the grocery store.

I was standing in line to check out, waiting for the idiot in front of me to unload her stuff from her cart. She seemed a bit frazzled and annoyed. I don’t know why. Maybe she didn’t get enough envelopes either. It can really mess a person up. So as she’s checking out, the cashier asks her if she would like to donate money to a food bank for those in need this holiday season. The lady gets all ranty and says “no, I’m the one that should be getting the charity, not giving to charity. Unlike the rest of these people in this store.” And then she proceeds to FULL-ON STARE AT ME! As to say “I am talking about you, bitch!”

Now I will admit, I was at a Jewel in Lincoln Park. It is a nice Jewel and most of the people who shop there are probably not hurting. But that does NOT give her the right to judge. And it also does not give this woman the right to judge ME. I mean, I didn’t even say anything about your SWEAT PANTS and you hair that hadn’t seen a brush or comb in WEEKS.

I was really put off. Part of it was the fact that she was shopping at this Jewel and had money to buy food. She probably drove to the store in a car and were taking those Stouffer’s meals home to a house with a fridge and a freezer. So you are SO MUCH BETTER OFF THAN A LOT OF PEOPLE.

The other part of it was because I live paycheck to paycheck. Yes, I just recently had a few extra ducats to buy an iPhone. But I was also just unemployed. So how dare you judge me and my cart full of generic groceries. Was it because I was wearing a down jacket? One I got on sale for like 50% off because my old one was falling apart? Was it my $30 purse from New York & Company? Was it my fake Ugg boots from Target? What was it, exactly, that told you that I was clearly not hurting for money? IN A RECESSION.

I know I judge people. I’m Full of Snark, for Pete’s sake. And maybe this is just karma’s way of teaching me a lesson to be less judgey of people. But that doesn’t make me any less pissed off. (Or make me vow to be less judgey. Let’s be realistic people.)

This year, during this holiday season, I’ve tried to help and give to people that need it. I tried to get my family to change our annual holiday gift card exchange to a donation to charity. Because none of us need anything. I gave money to the cashier when I checked out because I have $5 to give to a food bank. And I should be giving more than that and I should be giving every time I go to the grocery store, at least.

I’m not sure what the point of this post is. I was just so irritated by that woman and her outright judging of people in a grocery store because of where they shopped or what they wore or what they bought. Even though she was in the same exact store. And I’m guessing she didn’t drive up from the South side to go to the Jewel in Lincoln Park. Glass houses and stones and all that.

Appearances are just that. Had I not been so flabbergasted by her statement (and distracted by the tabloid that said the Obama election was illegal) I would have told her that out loud. And not in my head. Because we’re going through some tough economic times right now and we should all be thankful for what we have and remember that there are plenty of people out there that have it a lot worse than we do.

Category: Rants & Rants | 29 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on December 11, 2008

Because I have things to say and not enough brain power to write sentences and transitions and conclusions.

• I got home from Pittsburgh tonight. It was only a few hours later than was planned. Because as soon as my plane was set to take off for Chicago, the rain in Pittsburgh turned to freezing rain. And apparently you can fly in rain and snow, but not freezing rain. Because you can’t de-ice freezing rain.
• I don’t actually believe this. But this is what they told us as to why we took off almost 2 hours late.
• Also, it isn’t as if it never snows in Pittsburgh. So it doesn’t make sense that the de-ice man is so slow in his process he has to do it twice. I’m pretty sure today wasn’t the first time a plane ever had to be de-iced in Pittsburgh.
• The Southwest flight attendant told us that the de-icing liquid smells like syrup.
• It kind of does.
• Short people should be banned from the exit row. Especially on Southwest when it is the ONE TIME I don’t have to pay more to not have to have my kneecaps in my nostrils.
• The whole point of the exit row is EXTRA LEG ROOM. If your legs come up to my knees, you are too short to sit there. IT IS A WASTE.
• Someone on Twitter asked if short people were allowed to sit in aisle seats. The answer to that is “I don’t care where you sit if you’re short, as long as it isn’t in the exit row.”
• Bloggers did not invent writing in bulleted form. It’s been around even before there were blogs. We all do it.
• While waiting to board the plane in Pittsburgh, the gate attendant announced “Would Passenger Stuck please return to the podium? Passenger Stuck?”
• I giggled like a fucking idiot and said out loud, very Beavis and Butthead-esque, “hahahaha Passenger Stuck.”
• Thankfully the girl next to me laughed.
• I’m still laughing about it now.
• Maybe that’s why the plane was REALLY delayed. They had to get him un-stuck.
• When I landed at Midway, I proceeded to the first shop to buy Swedish Fish.
• As I was walking to baggage claim, I was eating my Swedish Fish on the moving walkway. As I stepped off the end of one, paying quite a bit of attention to the woman constantly telling me that indeed the moving walkway was now ending, I slipped and fell.
• I didn’t drop a single red fish.
• But looked behind me like CLEARLY there was a wet spot or something.
• Because I would never do something stupid like that.
• After I made it home, in rush hour traffic that was not helped by the Bears game tonight, all I wanted was to get a burrito and have a beer and watch TV.
• So I called the place by my house, my burrito lifeline, when I got home and there was NO ANSWER. I called three times. I was pissed, to say the least. So I decided to walk past the store front, just in case they were super busy and that’s why they weren’t answering. And if not, there’s a taqueria a block further.
• Thankfully my burrito place was just busy. So I walked in and ordered my burrito and was a happy, happy lady.
• Until I got home and realized that my asshat cats ate two bowls of food in two days. So as I refilled their food bowl, the entire contents of the cat food container dumped out on the floor.
• I swept it all up and put it back in the container. I’m not wasting cat food. They can eat some litter and hair with their food.
• I mean, they lick their assholes for Christ’s sake.

And now I’m going to bed because I have a busy weekend and I got my Christmas cards in the mail and I really need to get those out to all my 130-plus adoring fans this weekend. Plus I think I’m still on East Coast time.

Category: All Things Blogging, Land of Random, Travel | 24 Comments »
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