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Saturday, August 03, 2013

Teddy Bears

To begin this blog entry today, I thought that I would tell all of you a little bit of a story about my hometown.

Now, the first weekend of August in Ontario is considered to be a holiday weekend.  Though, as far as I am concerned, a civic holiday is really nothing to be excited about.  I mean, as far as I am concerned, the civic holiday (which falls on the first Monday in August) was only created to ensure that the entire province of Ontario has at least one holiday each month (similar to our "Family Day" in February).

Of course, this is how I feel about it now.  I certainly didn't feel this way when I was a child.  After all, the Civic Holiday weekend was jam-packed with all sorts of fun activities.

Back in the days when I was a kid, practically the whole town shut its doors and gathered together in various celebrations all over the place.  What exactly we celebrated, we had no idea really.  I think that maybe we were celebrating the fact that we could have a whole day of leisure.  Or, maybe we were celebrating the fact that we had an extra day to drink all the alcoholic beverages we could in one sitting.

(Or, for me as a kid, cherry and lime flavoured Kool-Aid.)

Now, some people would travel to various water parks and campgrounds that were located out of town for the long weekend, and that was fine for them.  But for those of us who decided to stay in town for the weekend, there were still lots of things to do.

Since my hometown happens to be situated next to a riverbank, it was almost a no-brainer that people would participate in water related sports.  And in my childhood, there were plenty of good times swimming, watching people speeding by in their boats, and watching the scuba divers submerge into the waters below hoping to view the remains of ships that sank decades ago.

Come to think of it, I seem to remember going down to the beach where there used to be an annual family fun day.  Hot dogs were grilled, cotton candy was spun, clowns painted your face and handed you big red balloons, and for the adults, there was bingo and live entertainment!

(Though, I'll readily admit to sneaking into a couple of the bingo games and winning enough money to buy two or three comic books as a result of it.  Let's just say that O-66 was my lucky number!)

Oh, yes...there was one more event that I seem to remember attending in my early childhood.  An event that I had some fond memories of.

In fact, it's kind of related to today's Saturday Smorgasbord post.




The event took place at Hardy Park, which can be seen up above in this photo.  As you can see, it's a nice, warm, friendly place.  A place that I would consider to be the most kid-friendly place in my hometown.

I loved Hardy Park as a child, and I still love Hardy Park as an adult.  It's a place where I always felt safe.  Where a person could sit down underneath the many trees scattered all over the place and relax without a care in the world.  Hardy Park was the best place in the world where you could forget about your adult responsibilities and just be a child.




So what better place to hold a "Teddy Bear Picnic" than Hardy Park?



Yes, teddy bears are the subject for today's blog entry, and I'm sure that almost everybody in the world has had at least one special teddy bear in their lives.

My favourite teddy bear was, at the time, larger than I was.  I won it as a prize for winning a colouring contest at a shopping mall.  It was a big brown bear that was almost four feet tall, and weighed what seemed like a ton.  Of course now that I look at him, I now outweigh him and am a good two feet taller than he is.  But I dragged that big old bear everywhere I went when I was a kid, and the teddy bear picnic was certainly no exception.

But do you know when the teddy bear became popular?

Well, would you believe that the teddy bear was introduced one hundred and eleven years ago?  And that they were named after an American president?




That president was Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, and the origin for the name came about after an incident during a bear hunting trip in Mississippi in the autumn of 1902.  Roosevelt was invited to tag along by then Governor of Mississippi Andrew H. Longino, and almost everybody on the trip had successfully shot an animal.

Well, everybody except for Roosevelt, that is.

Some members of Roosevelt's suite, led by Holt Collier managed to corner and capture an American Black Bear and tied it to a tree, ready and prepped for Roosevelt to shoot and kill.  But for whatever reason, Roosevelt couldn't bring himself to kill the majestic creature.




That event inspired the political cartoon above, drawn by Clifford Berryman, which was published in the Washington Post on November 16, 1902, which toymaker Morris Michtom was inspired by.  He and his wife created a stuffed bear toy, which they displayed in their shop window under a sign which read "Teddy's Bear".  Teddy Roosevelt had given him permission to use the name after Michtom had sent him a bear as a present.  Within weeks, everyone wanted to have a bear of their own, and the success of the bear sales were enough for Michtom to start up his own company, Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

Unbeknownst to Michtom, the teddy bear was also growing in popularity in Europe right around this time as Richard Steiff of Germany had come up with a prototype for a bear toy that was eerily similar to Michtom's design.  His design debuted at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903 (one year after the infamous incident which inspired the American design), and it was alleged that after New York City based buyer Hermann Berg ordered three thousand of the German designs to be sold in America.  For whatever reason though, the bears never made it to America, leading to the infamous urban legend that they were shipwrecked and lost at sea.

Whatever the case, by 1906, the Teddy Bear was the hottest toy of the decade, and a little over a century later, they remain one of the most widely recognized toys ever.  They are more often than not a child's first toy, they are used as mascots for several charities, and they are often given as gifts to children who are sick in the hospital and need a friend to help them battle illness...




...or as in the case with this bear, a man in his thirties who had just had his gall bladder surgically removed.

Today, teddy bears can be found in department stores, drug stores, even dollar stores.  They can be found on the shelves of hospital gift shops, and they can accompany flower arrangements.  Teddy bears can be found in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours.

And since 1997, children of all ages have been given the opportunity to build their own teddy bears, courtesy of "Build-A-Bear Workshops", and some participating Walmart Portrait Studios.

But do you know some of the most famous teddy bears of all time?

Here's a partial list of teddy bears throughout the world of pop culture.




POOKY

It's true that Garfield the cat doesn't have many friends in his life.  He steals Jon's food, treats girlfriend Arlene horribly, kicks Odie off the counter, and sends Nermal to Abu Dhabi whenever he gets the chance to.  But when you try to get in between cat and stuffed bear...well, let's just say that you might have slightly less damage done to your body than that spider that Garfield smashed with a newspaper on Monday.  Pooky is definitely Garfield's most prized possession...even more prized than a heaping portion of homemade lasagna!




PADDINGTON BEAR

Okay, so I already did an entry on Paddington Bear a couple of years ago.  I can still talk about this British bear who is dressed in a trenchcoat and hat.  I used to watch Paddington Bear all the time on television and was fascinated by the adventures that he would have in London.  Created by Michael Bond, the story was inspired by a Christmas present that he had purchased for his wife one Christmas Eve, and that gift - a lone teddy bear - inspired the book series which starred Paddington.




TEDDY RUXPIN

Okay.  The toy itself creeped me out and it really shouldn't have.  All the toy was doing was reading a children's book that was recorded onto a cassette tape.  But there was just something about the toy that gave me the heebie-jeebies.  Mind you, if you switched the tapes and placed Madonna's "Like A Virgin" or Motley Crue's "Dr. Feelgood" inside of Teddy Ruxpin's belly, it was quite the sight to see.




Sigh...the cartoon series was much better.




MR. BEAR

On the surface, Mr. Bear was a Paddington Bear wannabe.  But to Stephanie Tanner from "Full House", Mr. Bear very rarely left her side.  Mind you, there were a couple of close calls regarding Mr. Bear.  One time, Michelle hid Mr. Bear which freaked Stephanie out, and another time Comet ATE Mr. Bear, which made Stephanie cry.  But thanks to big sister D.J., Mr. Bear made it through surgery and was reunited with Stephanie once again.




BOBO

Remember the time in which Simpsons character C. Montgomery Burns was nice?  Yeah, me either.  But he did have a soft spot for a teddy bear named Bobo.  It was his oldest, prized possession that got lost one day.  When the bear reappeared and was given to Maggie Simpson to play with, it prompted Burns and Smithers to launch a series of "Mission: Impossible" attacks on the Simpson household to get Bobo back.  In the end, Burns and Bobo were reunited after Maggie had a change of heart.

But then again, Maggie did SHOOT Burns in a later episode...




PUDSEY

Many of you may not have heard the name before, but if you happen to live in the UK, this bear is associated with one of Britain's biggest telethon events ever.  The "Children in Need" telethon is held every November in the UK which raises money for children's hospitals all over the country.  It's kind of similar to the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon in that celebrities come out far and wide to support the cause.  And Pudsey, the golden bear with the bandage over his eye, has helped millions of children all over the UK smile as they recover from serious injuries and illnesses.

A similar bear is also the mascot for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

So, that's my list of teddy bears in the world of pop culture.  Can you name any more?


Friday, August 02, 2013

Get Smart

Okay, here's the deal.  Sometimes we get into a position in which we think we know more than we actually do, and when that realization comes, we find that it can smack us harder than a bitchslap on a typical episode of "The Real Housewives of Whatever The Hell County That A Bunch Of Spoiled Rotten Vamps Who Are Really Fame Hungry Gold Diggers Still Trying To Stretch Their 15 Minutes of Fame".

(Can you tell I'm NOT a fan?)

Well, as of this writing, my cheek still stings from the heavy-handed dose of reality that I was recently served, courtesy of the brass knuckles of humility.

I thought that I was fairly confident in my knowledge of electronic equipment (despite the fact that I have consistently branded myself as a couple of steps away from being completely Amish).  Granted, I am not (nor will I ever be) one of those schmucks people in those Apple commercials standing in a line outside of an Apple store for thirteen hours because they are so desperate to get an iPhone with a 25% larger touch screen than their predecessor of 2012.  However, I did know how many of them worked.  I play video games, I listen to music, I watch TV (though in fairness, running a pop culture themed blog may have a little bit to do with that).  Seriously, what could go wrong?

Well...just about everything, is all.

I may be able to find the latest Selena Gomez album for a customer (in case you're wondering, it's called "Stars Dance" and it was released last week), but do you think that I can tell people the right cord to use for charging an iPod?  Well, I'm getting better at it, but I still get flustered when I try to explain it to customers.

I can help a customer find a wall mount for their LCD television sets that they have newly purchased, but if you ask me how to hang it, the best I can suggest is a hot glue gun and lots and lots of glue sticks.

(DISCLAIMER:  Please do not use a hot glue gun to hang up a television set.  EVER.)

And, don't even get me started on cellular phones.  On a personal level, you all know that I'm not exactly the most cell phone friendly person out there.  On a purely selfish level, I hate the bloody things with the fire of Mount Vesuvius.  However, I am expected to sell them.  What you can't expect from me is how to download an app (I have no clue), how to charge them from your car (I have no clue), what kind of memory card they take (I have no clue), or how to activate them (I will literally give you the 'deer in headlights stare' if ever I am asked that).

Sigh...thank god for connection centre associates (a.k.a. Pierre, Josh, and Lukas) who have helped me get through those hard, rough, think-on-your-feet questions.  When it comes to cell phones, my think-on-my-feet gene got-up-and-went!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that confidence is good, but you should never get too cocky about what you know, because the minute that happens, you find the entire script flipped and reversed, and suddenly it's like you're standing in a public place wearing the most embarrassing tighty-whities for all to gaze upon.  It's not a good feeling.

I mean, granted, I've only been in the area a month.  I shouldn't be beating myself up over things that I don't know even though sometimes I feel like a complete idiot when I admit that I have no idea how certain electronics work.  The fact that I've gotten through the last four weeks in a new area of the store without perfecting my best Naomi Campbell impression (a.k.a. the supermodel who threw a mobile phone at one of her assistants) is a good thing.

Still, there's a part of me that feels incredibly horrible that I don't know my stuff as well as I should.  I mean, when I worked in seasonal I was also completely lost at first, but I adapted and by the end of my tenure there, I was almost comfortable being in the department alone.  But electronics is a beast of a different name, and I'm still not sure if I have the confidence within myself to continue to make a go of it.  It's not exactly a good feeling to have, but I suppose that for now, I'm doing the best I can do.  It's a very small step in what seems like the steepest staircase that I have ever climbed, but with a little more self-confidence and a LOT OF PATIENCE from my fellow co-workers, I will do my best for however long I am there for (which if you've read yesterday's entry may not be for that much longer as I really want to pursue some exciting, new, non-retail opportunities).

However, I am still completely clueless about how to explain cell phones to customers when I have never had any experience owning one (aside from a pay-as-you-go model which I almost never use in my daily life).  If only I had been born fifty years earlier, in which the only phones that existed were rotary phones and phones that happened to be disguised as dress shoes.



And yes, you read that right.  Phones disguised as dress shoes.

And what a coincidence!  Today's blog topic has to do with a man who happened to own a phone disguised as a shoe!  Not only was this guy fashion forward, but he was definitely up in the latest trends in electronics...

...which was fairly easy given that when this show was in its heyday, the major electronics were record players, AM Radios, and televisions that were as big as a hope chest.



I'm talking about Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86, also known as Don Adams, who played the role of Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86 in the long-running television series "Get Smart"

"Get Smart" was one of those rare television shows that aired on two different networks during its run.  The first four seasons of the show aired on NBC, and then for its final season was moved to CBS, where it remained on the schedule until the series finale aired on May 15, 1970.

Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the series was created at a time in which another show, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was getting rave reviews.  Talent Associates had asked Brooks and Henry to come up with an idea for a new series, but with a twist.  They were asked to do a show that was similar in content to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but with a dumbed-down version of James Bond.

Emphasis on the word "dumb".

Mel Brooks actually described the creative process of planning the "Get Smart" pilot like this...

"I was sick of looking at all those nice, sensible situation comedies.  They were such distortions of life.  If a maid ever took over my house like Hazel, I'd set her hair on fire!  I wanted to do a crazy, unreal comic strip kind of thing about something besides a family.  No one had ever done a show about an idiot before.  I decided to be the first."

Just for clarification, "Hazel" refers to a long-running sitcom that aired between 1961 and 1966.

Now, for what it was worth, Brooks and Henry certainly stayed true to their original vision despite initially getting turned down by ABC when they pitched their pilot to the network.  Would you believe that ABC actually suggested that Brooks and Henry add in a dog or Maxwell Smart's mother onto the program to give it more warmth?  No wonder the show was pitched to other networks!  I was along the lines of Brooks and Henry in thinking that "Get Smart" was never meant to be warm and fuzzy!

Though, Don Adams was hardly the only actor cast in the show.  He was the main character, yes, but he was hardly the only member of the CONTROL spy agency (where Maxwell Smart/Agent 86 was employed).  



To add some sugar into the mix, Barbara Feldon was cast as the sexy and gorgeous Agent 99, who is by far more sensible and brilliant than Maxwell Smart could ever hope to be (making his name the ultimate oxymoron).  Unfortunately, she also suffers from Princess Peach syndrome in that she is frequently thrown into the face of danger, or is kidnapped by a minion of the enemy KAOS organization, in which case Smart will use what little smarts he has to rescue her.  This relationship soon graduates from professional and personal, and by the time the show was ready to switch networks, Agent 99 and Smart tied the knot and had a child together!  Funny how life works out, isn't it?



Other members of the CONTROL organization include The Chief (Edward Platt), the grouchy, but intelligent commander-in-chief, who is a loyal ally to anybody within CONTROL, and Hymie the Robot (Richard Gautier), a robot who was once a weapon of KAOS that switched sides during his first appearance on the show, whose superhuman strength far outweighs his understanding of literal commands.

Now, who made up the agents of the evil KAOS organization?  Why, a revolving array of guest stars, of course!  Much like the 1960s "Batman" television series in which the villains were played by a variety of different actors, the bad guys in "Get Smart" were played by some up-and-coming celebrities in the world of Hollywood.  Now, many of these guest stars are now deceased (the show did air four and a half decades ago), but of the ones still living today, these stars included Shelley Berman, Carol Burnett, James Caan, Jamie Farr, Al Molinaro, Julie Newmar, Leonard Nimoy, Regis Philbin, Alex Rocco, and Larry Storch.

So, aside from a humanoid robot and a shoe phone, what other tricks does Maxwell Smart have in his arsenal?  

Well, how about the fact that Agent 86's shoe wasn't the only thing that had a telephone included within it?  You see, even though Maxwell Smart wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, he had a lot of gadgets within his reach.  Kind of reminds me of another character that Don Adams voiced some two decades after Get Smart debuted.



(I loved that show!)

Anyway, Maxwell Smart had a phone in his necktie, a phone in his alarm clock, a phone in a set of golf clubs...even a phone in his comb!  I guess you could call it a...comb phone?



He also had gadgets equipped in his own home, including a bullet-proof wall that is virtually invisible to the naked eye, a soup bowl disguised as a camera, laser guns embedded into the buttons on his suit jacket, and even a device known as the Cone of Silence...which didn't exactly work out the way that anyone really expected them to.  Methinks that Smart didn't read the manual very carefully.  Or, maybe they're just as clueless about electrical devices as I am.

And, check out that car!



Yes, for the first four seasons of the series, Maxwell Smart drove a beautiful 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Roadster.  But depending on the episode, you could also catch him driving a 1961 Ferrari (pilot episode), a Volkswagon Karmann Ghia, a Citroen 2CV, an Opel GT, and a Ford Shelby Mustang.

And even years after "Get Smart" wrapped up, the show still continued to live on.  There was a feature film release in 1980 entitled "The Nude Bomb" in which Don Adams reprised his role as Maxwell Smart.  A made-for-TV reunion movie, "Get Smart, Again!" debuted in 1989, ironically enough on the one network that rejected the original show, ABC.  And, in his later years before his death in 2005, Don Adams did voice over work in the cartoon "Pepper Ann" and several commercials for telephone service companies in character as Maxwell Smart.



And in 2008, the series was resurrected and rebooted in feature film format with Steve Carell taking on the iconic role of Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, introducing a new generation to an old classic.

Now, that's all that I have to say about "Get Smart".  Now, here's my final thoughts.

I guarantee you that I will never be as proficient in gadgetry as Maxwell Smart.  I'm more like Inspector Gadget in that regard.  But that's not to say that I am not open to learning.  I am.  I just wish that there was a way that I could just automatically know what I am doing so that things could be easier for me, and that people wouldn't be so frustrated when I try to help them but am not exactly sure of the answer.

One day I'll "get smart" about technology.  I'm just at a loss as to when that will be.


Thursday, August 01, 2013

Scissors for a Safety Net

Okay, so as promised, this is going to be a double Diary entry this week. Yesterday, I made a little bit of an impromptu diary entry on one particular type of person that I can't deal with anymore in the constant battle to keep my sanity in check. It was kind of an inspired piece, as I had no requests to honour that week, but now that I have it out there, it makes me feel glad that I found the courage to talk about it.

And courage seems to be the word for today's blog entry as well. And, for this one I have to be careful how I word this particular one. It would be easy just to write what comes out of my head unfiltered and uncensored. But that's the thing. It would be TOO easy to do, and it may cause me some serious repercussions down the road. So, my challenge for this entry is to talk about a realization that I have had about myself over the last few weeks and talking about it in such a way that doesn't unleash a can of whoop-ass onto the world.

For me...challenge accepted.

August 1, 2013



I'm sure that many of you out there have gone to the quintessential school event known as “Career Day” at some point in your lives. But, just in case you haven't, I'll refresh your memory.

I would imagine that “Career Day” varied depending on what province, state, or country you lived in, but the basic gist of it was this. You had a bunch of people crammed inside a gymnasium, hotel lobby, or shopping plaza setting up booths that corresponded with a career option. For instance, you would have a representative of the police force informing people about how they could get into a career in law enforcement, or you'd have a chef talking about how you could run your own restaurant while providing free samples of tossed salad with homemade vinaigrette. You know, things like that.

I remember being a fresh-faced teenager...



...okay, okay, I was a teenager whose face was being attacked by scourges of pimples and blackheads. You happy now?

Anyway...when I was thirteen or fourteen, I went to one of these career fairs (keeping in mind that at that age the only jobs I could get were as a paperboy or french fry chef at McDonald's), and I was absolutely blown away by the array of opportunities and career options that were available to me. I could be a firefighter, a lawyer, a doctor, or even a mechanic.

(Only I really couldn't. My childhood asthma effectively banned me from fighting fires, I would be too emotionally involved to become an effective lawyer, I hate the sight of blood, so no medical career for me, and I would likely find a way to blow up a car if I ever attempted to do any work on it.)

But you know, that's all a part of growing older. Everyone learns that they can't be good at absolutely everything in the world, so they fine-tune the skills that they do show promise in, and go ahead towards what is hopefully their dream career.

And certainly I had some rather lofty goals as a child. I was determined to make a success of myself in one way or another. Having witnessed the financial hardships that my parents have had to go through during their lifetime, I didn't want to go through that in my own adulthood. So, my thought process behind trying to settle on a career choice was to try and find a career that I could do where I would be guaranteed a high income and be able to support myself financially for the rest of my life.

But keep in mind that this was the pimply faced fourteen year old me talking. The one who didn't quite understand how the real world worked, and the one who was unaware that finding the perfect job wasn't quite as easy as he thought it would be.



The truth is that finding the right path to easy street is not an easy one for almost anyone (well, unless you happen to have a huge trust fund that matures on your twenty-fifth birthday, that is, and even then that isn't a guarantee). You have to work for success and work hard for it. Or, at least that is what I have always been told, anyway.

So, when I set forth in pursuing my ultimate career goal, I did it the same way that a lot of people did. I worked a part-time job at the local newspaper – stuffing inserts into the newspapers (but hey, at least I can always say that I worked at a newspaper for a little bit), and I took co-operative education to learn more about how the work force worked (which is an experience that I absolutely recommend for every high school student out there). And, then I went off to university like everyone else that I knew because I thought that it was the way to go (even though as we all well know that experience didn't work out as well as I had hoped it would).

And, well...we all know what my current situation is now. I work a job in retail (that I have worked for the last eight years now), while dabbling a little bit in writing a blog for the last two.

And it is here where I must make my confession.

Don't get me wrong here. The last eight years of my life have been filled with many ups and downs, but overall it has been a positive experience. I have made quite a few connections with people who I probably would not have met otherwise, and let's face it - adding eight years of working experience on a resume always looks fantastic, no matter where you work.

But eventually there comes a time where you sit back and re-evaluate everything that you have done over the last decade or so, and you think to yourself...is this it? Is this the path you want to follow for the rest of your life? Is this what you see yourself doing for the next thirty years of living?

Honestly...for me that would be a no.

It's not because I don't like what I am doing. This past year, I've had quite a few opportunities given to me, and I've been handling it to the best of my ability. It's been an absolute pleasure most days to do what I have been doing, and my patience in dealing with people has most definitely improved over the years – as anyone who has worked with me over the last eight years can definitely attest to.

But there's only so far I can steer this boat until I hit a patch of rocks off shore and I get completely stranded. And while I am not saying that I'm at that stage in my life at this point in time...I think that the longer I sit on my hands, the closer that day will come.

As much as I have had a lot of fun working retail (and no, I'm not being facetious here...the job for the most part HAS been fun due to the people that I have worked with and the regular customers that I meet and greet on a day to day basis), I know that I can't continue doing it forever. I've come to the conclusion that I've gone as far as I can go in my current job position, and that I don't think I can go any further.

So, I'm going to try and do something about it.



The thing is that I'm incredibly nervous about the idea of leaving a place that holds so much familiarity to me. For the last eight years, it's been a form of security for me. As long as I come into work, and keep doing my job, that was all that was required of me. And, for a while, it was good enough.

But then I keep thinking back to what I said at the very beginning of this blog entry. About having to watch my parents go through financial struggles, and wanting to not have to go through those same struggles myself. And that kind of makes me rethink everything about the next few years of my career.

I know that the longer that I stay in my current workplace, the less time I'm inevitably going to have to actively pursue the goals that I really want to achieve for myself. After all, I am not getting any younger. I've had some good times where I am right now, but the writing has been on the wall for some time now. In the past, I was too blind to see it, but now it's staring at me in the face like the “REDRUM” message that the main character in “The Shining” sees.

Only in my case, the message reads “WEN GNIHTEMOS YRT”.



So, as we turn the calendar to a brand new month, I flip the script in my own professional life, and I am now starting the next chapter, as frightening and scary as that may be. I'm still not one hundred per cent sure what this uncertain future will hold as I make my way through what seems to be known as my “twisted thirties” (seriously, that was the only thing I could come up with at the spur of the moment), but I do know one thing for sure. I can't continue the way that I am right now because the way that I am going right now is right towards a dead end. I still plan on keeping my current job while I pursue other avenues for the time being, but I'm just going to make it known that I am looking for other opportunities, and if one happens to come up that will benefit me for the long-term future, I won't hesitate to take it.  What I have is okay for now, but down the road...I'll need more than that.

But I just want to stress that it's nobody's fault that I feel this way. I don't blame anybody in particular, or the bad economy, or the fact that minimum wage is too low. This is just something that I have felt for some time now.  In order to better myself both physically, emotionally, and financially, I'm going to have to do something about it.  And that may mean trying something completely out of my comfort zone.



I'm doing an okay job right now handling things, and right now I feel like I'm in a safety net of sorts. But I'm at the point where the one thing I need the most is a pair of scissors to cut myself free from that safety net and pursue the opportunities that I know are waiting for me out there. The opportunities that I know that I am capable of handling now with eight years of customer service under my belt.

No matter how scared to death I am of what might await me.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Nobody's Cause

This is normally the time of the week where I would go through my list of requests and choose one to feature in what is known as the All-Request Wednesday.

But here's the problem for this week. I actually didn't get any requests for this week at all. It's okay though. I knew looking ahead into the future that I would have some weeks that would be slower than others when it came to asking for requests, so I had to come up with a back-up plan in case I had a week where I had no requests.

And, well...I figure that if I didn't have any requests to honour for today for other people, I would instead do a request for myself. So today's request comes from Matthew T. of Ontario, Canada!!!

(Yeah, that didn't sound lame or weird, did it?)

Oh well.

Truth be told, I've been trying to find the right words to use in regards to something that has been weighing on my mind for a while. I hemmed and hawwed about this particular topic because I was kind of worried that if I talked about this subject, I might end up alienating some people, or hurting other people's feelings.

It's only now that I realize that the only person whose feelings I was hurting was me. And, I think that if I talk about what it is that is on my mind, it will hopefully help clear a few things up, and it might give me a better perspective on my life, and how I handle the people who happen to pass through it. Maybe by talking about my own experiences, it might help other people who are afraid to share how they feel speak out.

So, I suppose that for this week, you're going to have back-to-back diary entries. I just hope that you all are game for it.

July 31, 2013



It isn't very often that I do a diary entry on Wednesday. Normally I would be doing this the day after. But when the request well dries up, you do what you have to do. That's not to say that I haven't given up on requests. I love hearing ideas from my readers because I really want this blog to be all about them, and I want them to have a voice in what they want to see in this space.

However, I do admit that I'm a little glad that the requests were a little slow this week because it's given me a bit of a rare opportunity.

It gives me the opportunity to be one hundred per cent brutally honest about something that has always bugged me throughout my lifetime, and I haven't had the courage or the chance to address it...

...until now.

Before I begin though, I do wish to state a little bit of a disclaimer. For any of you who are regular readers of this column, I want to stress that these thoughts likely don't apply to you. After all, I have so much love and admiration for all of you out there reading this now because it shows me that I have the possibility to truly make what I do an actual career goal one day. Your continued support and interest in this blog has made me very humble, and I really appreciate it every time you read even just one of these entries.

I just wish that in my experiences through life, I could have that same level of support, compassion, and the occasional bit of constructive criticism if needed surrounding me in my real day-to-day existence as I do here on this blog.

That's not to say that the majority of people I deal with on a day-to-day basis are evil, callous, spiteful, and cruel. That's just silly talk, and it couldn't be further from the truth. I get along with mostly everyone...well...on an level of acquaintanceship that is.

And I suppose it goes back to my feelings on friendship. You've probably heard me mention this before, but I probably take friendship more seriously than the average person does. But that's only because in my own experience, finding friends has not always come easy. I'm an expert in finding acquaintances and casual relationships, yes. But when it comes to finding people who I can share my deepest, darkest, most intimate secrets with...that's been the challenge.

And part of the reason why this has been a challenge for me is because in past experiences, I have gotten burned by people who took advantage of me, or used my friendship against me in some manner. Even now, I still find myself falling into the same traps. I would get close to someone, and they would be nice to me back long enough for me to do something for them, and then once I “outlived my usefulness”, they'd ditch me and move on to the next patsy. Mind you, this is most certainly a very frustrating experience to go through, and one that I really don't want to lather, rinse, or repeat any time soon. But, in my 32 years of living, I've gotten better with trusting people. I'm still a smidgen bit cautious, but it's a learning process that we fine tune throughout our entire lives.

But there's one type of person out there in this world that I really absolutely have no use for, and it's hard for me to admit this because not only have I had former friends who have been guilty of this, but teachers and admittedly some family members have unknowingly done this.

What am I talking about?



I'm talking about people who choose to see me as a cause, or a pet project, rather than a friend. And, forgive me for my “not quite salty enough” language here, but people like that really piss me off.

I guess my dislike of people who do this dates all the way back to first grade, where I had a teacher who basically tried to change everything about me from showing me how to hold a pencil the “right” way to making sure that I was walking on my flat feet (despite the fact that it physically caused me pain to do so at that time). And the thing is that she didn't exactly do it in a way that really helped me. She shamed me, and humiliated me in front of the whole class, and for me, that was inexcusable. A teacher should not do that with any child. I needed a teacher who would teach me what a fraction was, or what the capital of Canada was, or how to draw a picture of a porcupine. I didn't need a teacher who made me feel worthless and less of a person because she tried to shame me into doing everything that she wanted in an effort to make me seem “normal”.

Lemme get one thing straight. One, you can't put a definition of the word “normal” on one specific person. Everyone has their own idea of what normal is. And when I was in the first grade, my normal was walking on my tiptoes. So, I didn't really appreciate the fact that a TEACHER was going out of her way to change my idea of normal as if she was competing on a game show. With the way she went about it, it was like she was going to win a quarter of a million dollars for making me “normal”. It was just absolutely petty and tacky on her part.

And, it set the tone for my relationships with people to come.

Truth be told, there's always a little sliver of doubt that lingers in my mind whenever I have the chance to meet and befriend new people. I'm the first to admit that I have great difficulty finding people that I can trust because I have had so many people come into my life who have mistaken my friendship for neediness. To some people, it almost appears that I'm one of those people featured in those “Feed the Children” commercials that you might see on television. They see me as a cause, rather than a person. They see me as someone who needs saving when a lot of the times, I'm not even aware that I had anything that needed to be saved.

It's very frustrating to deal with people like that, and honestly, I'm over it.

By now, most of you know that I am single. And, admittedly, a lot of the reason why I am still single is largely due to the trust issues that I have with people. This is something that I have readily admitted to in the past, and happily, I'm finding a way to open up my heart to people once more. But that being said, I don't really like the fact that I have had to deal with people who claim that the reason why I am single is due to the fact that I have some sort of personality disorder, or some sort of brain disorder, and sending me links to various support groups for people who have autism (and yes, there have been people who have done this to me). That's not cool. Friends don't do that to people. Friends may offer constructive criticism on how to dress to impress, or friends may set you up on a blind date, or friends might have some suggestions on how to up your game in the romance department. Friends should never suggest that your lack of romance is due to a chemical imbalance, or something similar. That's just uncalled for.

Oh, and to the former friend who kept talking down to me as if I were still a child and suggesting that I had some unresolved “growing pains” holding me down....what the hell were you thinking with a comment like that? Seriously, F-you. You telling me that is incredibly rude and thoughtless, and I thought that I would have expected better from you in that regard. You're supposed to build people up, not tear them down. Oh well...lesson learned, I suppose. The hard way, mind you, but lesson learned. You tried to change me by shaming me, and making me feel worse about myself...and had I been a little bit more weaker, you might have succeeded in changing me for all the wrong reasons. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

I guess somewhere along the way, I grew tired of people who were trying to bring me down to their level. And, I grew sick of keeping friends who weren't really “friends”.

Again, I have nothing against constructive criticism. It's when people try to change me as a way to make themselves feel better that I get really upset and angry. And, that's why I wanted to write about this today. I get the impression that I have some people in my life who see me as nothing more than a cause. I feel that there are some people in this world who want to do their best to change me and sculpt me and mould me into someone else just because. The unfortunate thing (and I am sure that some of you can relate to this) is that once they succeed in their changes, they don't often stick around very long after that. And, that can be damaging to anybody's psyche.  



I hate to use the television show "Saved By The Bell" as an example, but there's one episode that I can think of that demonstrates my point.  In one episode, the gang start up a teen line where Zack tries to help a girl named Melissa.  Against the teen line rules, Zack sets up a date with Melissa only to discover that she is paraplegic and needs a wheelchair to get around.  Despite Melissa's insistence that she is getting through life just fine, Zack sees it differently.  Things come to an end at the charity wheelchair basketball game where Zack kind of embarrasses Melissa for being the only one of the group to have to be in a wheelchair.  When Melissa refuses to speak to him after that, one of Zack's friends tells him that maybe she wanted to be his friend, and not his cause.  Even Melissa told Zack that even though she couldn't do some things, she could still do more than he thought, and that he shouldn't treat her as if she were broken.  I think Zack soon learned his lesson, and things were cool between them again.

So, I guess the lesson that I have to share in this blog entry is that nobody wants to be seen as a cause. However, everyone needs a friend who will treat them as such.  I hate it when people treat me as if I am broken because I haven't had the same experiences that everyone else had, or because I have something about myself that I can't change.

Okay, rant over for today.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

July 30, 1963

It's the second last day of July, and also the last Tuesday Timeline of the month of July, so I thought that for this edition, I would spotlight a person who eventually became a huge star and whose most successful role lasted ten years. But the road in which she took to get to that point was filled with potholes, close calls, and disappointments. Nevertheless, her story is one that should be told, and this is the place where we're going to do it.

For now, let's take a look at what else happened in the world on this, the thirtieth day of July.

762 – Baghdad, Iraq is founded by caliph Al-Mansur

1502 – Explorer Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his second voyage

1608 – Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, setting the tone for relations between the French and the Iroquois for the next century

1629 – Ten thousand people are killed during an earthquake in Naples, Italy

1729 – The city of Baltimore, Maryland is founded

1871 – The Staten Island ferry Westfield suffers a boiler explosion, which kills 85 people

1916 – Actor Dick Wilson (born Riccardo DiGuglielmo) is born – he portrayed Mr. Whipple in close to five hundred commercials for Charmin

1930 – Uruguay wins the first FIFA World Cup in Montevideo

1932 – Walt Disney's “Flowers and Trees” premieres, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor

1945 – 883 people lose their lives as the USS Indianapolis is sunk by Japanese submarine I-58 during World War II

1956 - “In God We Trust” is adopted as the official motto of the United States of America

1962 – The Trans-Canada Highway is opened to the public

1965 – Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 which establishes Medicare and Medicaid

1974 – Richard Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States

1975 – The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa from a restaurant parking lot in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan – he is never seen or heard from alive again

1989 – Bull rider Lane Frost is killed in an accident at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo at the age of 25

1990 – George Steinbrenner is forced by Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner of the New York Yankees for hiring Howie Spira to “get dirt” on Dave Winfield

2006 - “Top of the Pops” airs its final episode after forty-two years

2012 – Author Maeve Binchy succumbs to a short illness in Dublin, Ireland, at the age of 72

Now for the celebrity birthdays. We have a lot of them today, so I won't waste much time. A very happy birthday to Sid Krofft, Edd Byrnes, Bud Selig, Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Anka, William Atherton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Otis Taylor, Frank Stallone, Ken Olin, Delta Burke, Anita Hill, Richard Burgi, Kate Bush, Neal McCoy, Laurence Fishburne, Alton Brown, Vivica A. Fox, Terry Crews, Simon Baker, Dean Edwards, Tom Green, Christine Taylor, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Hilary Swank, Graham Nicholls, Misty May-Treanor, Jaime Pressly, Gabrielle Christian, Sam Saunders, Coco Sumner, Hannah Cockroft, and Joey Mead.

(Whew, I'm exhausted! July 30 must be a big day for Hollywood births!)

As it so happens, today's blog subject also happens to be someone who is celebrating a birthday. And it happens to be a really big birthday at that.



She was born fifty years ago today, on July 30, 1963.

Our subject has done a lot during her entire career. She's been a friend to one and all, she attended a high school reunion, she's not a therapist but plays one on television, and she helps other famous faces find out who they think they are! Sounds like a real well-rounded woman, don't you think?

Of course, that's what has happened to her over the last twenty years. Prior to that, she struggled to be heard in an industry that could be cold and unfeeling. Regardless of which, she persevered, and after being turned down for gigs, or miscast for others, eventually received her big break in 1993 – the year before she was cast in the role that would make her one of the six highest-paid and critically acclaimed “Friends” that ever existed in the world of situation comedies.



This is the story of Lisa Valerie Kudrow, who turns fifty years old today.

She was born on July 30, 1963 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children born to a physician father and a travel agent mother. And growing up in Tarzana, California, Lisa certainly proved that she had brains. After graduating from Taft High School in 1981, Kudrow studied at Vassar College, earning her BA in Biology. Her original intent was to follow in her father's footsteps to do some research on what caused headaches, and how they could be cured. For eight years, Kudrow worked on her father's staff, actually earning a research credit for Kudrow's father's study on the comparative likelihood of left-handed individuals developing cluster headaches.

TRIVIA: Whereas some stars in Hollywood remain coy on whether or not they have had plastic surgery done, Lisa readily admits that when she was sixteen years old, she underwent a rhinoplasty in an effort to reduce the size of her nose.

Now here's the thing with Lisa. In between doing research and studying biology in school, she had a second love. She was always interested in the world of acting and drama, but wasn't exactly sure how she could break into the industry. In fact, it wasn't until her older brother introduced her to a friend of his that she began to entertain the possibility of working as an actress.

That friend? Jon Lovitz.

Acting on the suggestion of Lovitz, Lisa Kudrow tried out for and joined the cast of the improv troupe “The Groundlings” in the 1980s. She was also the only female member of the “Transformers Comedy Troupe”. And one of her first roles was in an episode of “Cheers”, where she played Emily in the 1989 episode “Two Girls for Every Boyd”.

But as Lisa Kudrow began her career in Hollywood, every single project that she had signed onto just didn't work out at all. Just take a look at some of the career prospects in which she had high hopes for, but just didn't pan out.



In 1990, she tried out for the cast of Saturday Night Live, and was a very strong contender for joining the cast for the 1990/1991 television season. But when it came down to the producers, they decided that they liked Julia “It's Pat” Sweeney just a little bit more, and Kudrow was turned down for the show.

(Although Kudrow would return to the program six years later to guest host.)

She starred in two pilots during 1989 and 1990. One was NBC's “Just Temporary”, and the other was ABC's “Close Encounters”. Unfortunately for Kudrow, neither one was picked up for a full season.

Believe it or not, Lisa Kudrow was initially cast for the role of Roz Doyle in the television series “Frasier”, which debuted in September 1993. But when Lisa felt as though she wasn't exactly working out in the role, her part was replaced by Peri Gilpin.

Also in the 1990s, Kudrow had a three episode gig on the Bob Newhart series “Bob”, which ran on CBS between 1992 and 1993. Ironically enough, Lisa Kudrow also guest-starred on the infamous “Newhart” finale, which aired in May 1990. However, that series was cancelled before any further appearances could be made.



So, after several failed attempts at making it big in Hollywood, Lisa Kudrow was beginning to get very frustrated. By the time that she had won a recurring part on the NBC sitcom “Mad About You” in 1993 as Ursula Buffay, a waitress who is so self-absorbed and self-centered that she is not very well-liked, I imagine that Lisa was worried that this gig would only last a few months like all the others.

Well, not only did this particular job help get Lisa Kudrow's name on “Maps of the Stars” all over, but it was actually this role on “Mad About You” that helped propel her onto another show that became an even bigger pop culture phenomenon than “Mad About You”.

You see, while Kudrow was filming the first season of “Mad About You”, David Crane and Marta Kauffman were in the planning stages of their own sitcom set to air on NBC.



That sitcom was “Friends”.

One of the roles on “Friends” was an eccentric type going by the name of Phoebe. Several actresses auditioned for the role of Phoebe when the show was doing their casting in early 1994. Kathy Griffin, Jane Lynch, and Megan Mullally all auditioned for the role of Phoebe, but ultimately none of them were given the part.

They were all beat out by Lisa Kudrow.

Turns out that the producers were impressed by Kudrow. They were fans of “Mad About You”, and they loved her performance as Ursula Buffay. In fact, the producers came up with an idea to tie the two shows together by making Phoebe a Buffay. By having Phoebe as Ursula's identical, but nicer twin sister, they could have a connection between two NBC shows, which they hoped would create a buzz for both shows.



It seemed to work. “Friends” became a huge hit and millions of viewers tuned in every Thursday night to catch up on the adventures of Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Ross, Joey, and Phoebe. And, Phoebe was one of those characters who stood out in a huge way. Phoebe had an interesting background. Her father abandoned her family when Phoebe was very young, claimed that her mother was a drug dealer, and she lived in extreme poverty during her childhood years. She ended up living on the streets by the time she was fifteen, and had some rather interesting experiences while struggling to survive, including getting stabbed by a police officer, making sombreros in a factory, and mugging a little boy named Ross Gellar for his comic book!

Eventually, Phoebe did get off the streets, answering a roommate ad that was posted by Monica Gellar, and the two became good friends, which set the stage for Phoebe befriending the other four friends.

Now, I don't really want to make this blog entry all about Phoebe, so I'll just post three or four highlights of Lisa Kudrow's talent on “Friends”.



(NOTE: The triplets that Phoebe are holding are not Phoebe's. She acted as a surrogate for her brother.)

As you know, “Friends” lasted a total of ten seasons on the air from 1994-2004. And, that period helped Kudrow become a huge star, and critically acclaimed actress. Throughout her time on “Friends” and beyond, Kudrow was nominated for a total of twelve Screen Actors Guild awards (winning twice in 1996 and 2000), and nine Emmy Awards (winning once in 1998).



And it was during her time on “Friends” that Lisa Kudrow began getting offered roles in movies, which she filmed in between seasons of the show. She played the ditzy Michele Weinberger in the 1997 film “Romy and Michele's High School Reunion”, she received critical acclaim for her roles in 1998's “The Opposite of Sex” and 1999's “Analyze This”, and she voiced the character of Anya the bear in “Dr. Doolittle 2”.

Mind you, not every film project that Lisa Kudrow was involved in turned to gold, and nothing she could do could give “Lucky Numbers” and “Marci X” rave reviews. But hey, at this stage in her life, I think Lisa was just happy to have constant work as an actress, and to Kudrow's credit, she worked her magic in just about everything she did.



Even after “Friends” wrapped up, Lisa still continued to get prime acting gigs. Her short-lived series “The Comeback” earned her three Primetime Emmy Award nominations despite the fact that it only aired thirteen episodes before getting canned, and her latest project, “Web Therapy”, which has aired since 2008 has gotten Kudrow noticed in the online community as well, earning her a couple of Webby Awards for her portrayal of therapist Fiona Wallace.



And, beginning in 2010, Lisa Kudrow took on what could be considered her most rewarding project yet. She started up the television series “Who Do You Think You Are”, which showed the journeys of several Hollywood stars going into their own family backgrounds and uncovering long buried secrets, reuniting with family members that they never knew existed.

One of the subjects of the television show was Kudrow herself, and in this clip from the show, she learned about the ultimate fate of her great-grandmother, who was murdered during the Holocaust.

The show aired on NBC for three seasons, ending its run in 2012. Luckily, the show was picked up by TLC for the 2013 season, and is currently airing new episodes. Once again, the series was critically acclaimed, and once again, Lisa Kudrow was recognized with award nominations for the program. Seriously, take a look at this show. It's quite an interesting show.

So, as we conclude this look back on Lisa Kudrow, we have to ask ourselves...who is Lisa Kudrow?

Well, she's a woman who was surrounded by brilliance and who is beautiful and intelligent. She's a woman who struggled at first with the entertainment industry, and yet persevered to be on one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. She's a woman who developed a film career on top of that, and thrived in many of the movies she starred in (and those that flopped, she still had fun making). She's even managed to have success in the world of reality television and online television.




That's Lisa Kudrow for you. A woman who never gave up on her dream and finally achieved it. I am honoured to wish Lisa Kudrow a happy 50th birthday.