ok, so i must be the last person to finally watch juno. and i have to say, i’m having a hard time understanding what all the fuss is about. seriously, a flick about a pregnant 16-year-old girl is the feel-good movie of 2007?

sure, juno was a decent little film, but a nomination for best picture? i guess the academy was trying to up it’s cred by going all sundance on us.

yeah, diablo cody, i applaud you for getting off the pole and having a real career (now you won’t end up on rock of love 3). however, after viewing this film twice in two days, i think there’s big enough holes in that screenplay to drive a surburban through.

first, pregnancy is serious business. but diablo has managed to make being pregnant seem hip and cool and completely without consequences. girl has sex, girl gets pregnant, girl has baby, girl gives baby up for adoption, and they all lived happily every after.

here’s how it really goes down: girl has sex, girl gets STD, gets pregnant, parents freak out, girl gets kicked out of house/runs away, mean kids at school tease girl unmercifully/girl drops out, boy wants nothing at all to do with girl ever again, girl has serious complications with pregnancy due to being so young which result in premature birth. yeah, that’s how it REALLY happens.

second, there’s the dialogue. i’m sorry but real 16-year-olds do not talk like this. they’re just not that smart. plus, some of the dialogue was a little moldy. my old roommate used to say homeskillet, and that was in 1994.

third, jason bateman’s character was just plain old creepy, and i’ve liked him ever since he played the fat kid in stand by me. j/k. he was the fat kid in goonies. no, really, i think jason bateman and jerry o’connell are really the same person. i mean, have you ever seen them together? i didn’t think so.

i’ve heard some parents saying, “oh, i think everyone who has kids should let them see this movie. it would keep *my* kid from having sex.” pleeez.

you want to scare your kids, have them watch kids. this movie made me want to swear off sex and i was already married.

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you know when you go to your company picnic, and you take a lot of pictures of your co-workers drinking beer and doing silly stuff to make asses of themselves?

and you are saving the pictures to think up a really funny story?

and then your co-worker steals the pictures off your slide account and writes a post so funny that it almost makes you wet your pants?

god, i hate that. i’m shocked…and stunned… and very disappointed…mostly because i’m pissed that i didn’t think of it first.

plus, i’m really glad no one got pictures of me passed out on the picnic table. you never would have believed alcohol wasn’t involved.

well played, hanni. well played.

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make mine a mctoast.

there’s pretty much only a few rules to dining in paris. order what they recommend, and eat what they bring you. special orders are not appreciated and sending food back is a no-no.  i followed these rules and was rewarded with some of the most tasty and interesting food on the trip.

this was lunch at the eiffel tower.

i think they served me the travel gnome. he was delicious.

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then they served his brother for dessert.

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this was lunch near the basilique du sacre coeur (basilica of the sacred heart). i ordered from the pre fixe menu and had this for an appetizer:

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and this was the main course. it’s called tartiflette au reblochon, which is really just a fancy name for french hash. it totally rocked.

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but then my inner american got the better or me. our last night we went to a large brasserie. they had a huge menu (too many choices) and i got greedy and ordered what was advertised as a filet, cooked medium. apparently, something was lost in transation.

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they speak english at Humor-Blogs.com

they shoot horses, don’t they? and apparently they eat them too.

remember those finicky diners in venice? i’m pretty sure the chef went out the back door and brought them back a little something from this place.

apparently eating horse is big business. here’s another one, this time in paris.

we took quite a few group tours while we were in europe, which included prepaid meals.  i went into the whole trip with the attitude of “when in rome, or paris, or where ever, blah, blah, blah…” so i was up for anything.

for our first lunch in venice we were served spaghetti with clams as a first course, and some kind of fish as the main dish. (foreshadowing – i ate fish everyday twice a day, the entire time we were there, and there’s a good reason why.)

you would have thought that the restaurant was serving a bunch of 5 year olds who had just been told they were having piping hot monkey brains and deep-fried bugs on a stick. 

you are not in america. this is not burger king. you cannot have it your way. PLUS, this meal has been prearranged and PAID for by the tour. i was embarrassed at the unprecedented level of whining coming from a bunch of 30 and 40 year old “adults” and i use that term loosely.

WTF people?! eat some of the local cuisine. if you don’t like it, there’s a crap load of bread on the table. but no, suddenly, everyone had “special dietary needs” and two people actually had the balls to order steak and veal… which may or may not have actually been steak…or veal. more on that later.

lunch was actually quite good and i was proud of myself for eating it, because i’m pretty sure mine was one of the few entrees that the entire kitchen didn’t take turns spitting into.

true, i’m not accustomed to having my lunch look like something that washed up in the galveston surf, but it was pretty tasty. plus nothing a bottle or two of red wine couldn’t help.

and here was the best fish of the trip. simple, lightly dusted with flour, and pan fried. delicious.

so, the moral of this story is, don’t insult the locals by being a giant tool. nobody likes a high-maintenance tourist.

Humor-Blogs.com will let you order it on the side.

almighty diesel,

why hast thou forsaken me?

i hast done as thou hast commanded. why am i still not worthy of thy grace?

i hast no other humor-blogs before me.

i hast not taken thy name in vain.

i hast linketh prominently to humor-blogs and i hast created a naughty blinking JPG to tricketh wayward lurkers into coming to thy site.

i do not covet any other blogs.

and yet, you smite me.

my blog is bestowed clicks from all my efforts, yet they showeth not on humor-blogs. verily, indeed, clicks have disappeared from one day to the next.

i didst rend my clothes and gird myself with sackcloth, but to no avail. what sins have i commited against thou?

diesel giveth and diesel taketh away. i await a sign from you, almighty one.

i remain your most humble servant. yours in humor, amen.

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this is what was waiting for us when we got home.

the fact that the kids spent several hours working on this really brought a tear to my eye. especially when i realized that my own children don’t know how to spell my name correctly.

lee, out.

i seem to have completely fallen off the face of the earth over at humor-blogs. please help a sister out and click, click, click. i promise, i’ll be funnier. really, i will.
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i’m blogging by blackberry so I’ll be brief.

today we went sightseeing in venice. we were taken to a place where the jewish merchants used live and sell their wares. our guide told us the place was called the ghetto. “what?” I said. “that word is pretty derogatory.” our guide explained that the word originally meant a factory of some sort and was pronounced with a soft g like jetto. then the germans came and effed it all up with their hard g and you know the rest.

anyway, so I’ve decided I’m going to pull a randall (a la clerks 2). I’m taking ghetto back for the jews. ghetto for life, oy vey .

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no, i’m not talking about the classic 1970s woman’s lib book by erica jong, which coined the term, “zipless eff.” i’m talking about the terror-inducing, debilitating, completely irrational, white-knuckle fear i experience every time i have to get on a plane.

generally, i avoid all instances where i would have to fly. for example, over xmas break we DROVE from houston to orlando – in one day.

being that there’s no way to drive to paris, i’m pretty much screwed. so i have basically two options. be a complete basket case for about 10 hours. or, self medicate to the point of unconsciousness. i’m going to choose the latter.

when i was younger, i always used to throw down some drinks in the airport bar before boarding and passing out on the plane. but that would always leave me feeling very dehydrated and hung over. then a few years ago, i was complaining about flying to a doctor friend of mine. 

“oh, no, no, no.” he said. “come see me and i will give you something that will change your life.” he prescribed me xanax.

hooray for highly additive, narcotic, prescription drugs! i call them my happy flying pills, and they are awesome. there’s a reason why celebs have to go to rehab for abusing them and it’s because they are too much of a good thing.

so anyway, i have my small stash which i’m taking for the trip. our flight leaves in a few hours. i’ll take a few right as we board and while everyone is settling in, i’ll start silently repeating my calming, peaceful mantra: the pilot wants to live too…the pilot wants to live too.

i should be asleep before we leave the ground.

see you on the other side.

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