May 7, 2008 | Friends, My Soapbox, Other Bloggers, TV

How great is it to turn on The Today Show* and see your friends on there?

Kristen, Jill, Mir and Heather all did great jobs.

I enjoyed the segment even if Kathie Lee Gifford is pretty much a tool and obviously hasn’t spent much time reading blogs. Did she actually say she was afraid of the computer?

She is worried about Dooce exposing her child to people, yet I know what Kathie Lee’s kids names are and what they look like too. What is the difference between talking about your personal life on a blog or talking about your personal life on a morning talk show. Oh, right. People are still reading blogs on a regular basis.

Photo used with permission from Mir.

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* Fine, you caught me, I never would have just turned on The Today Show by myself. I find it mind-numbing, but I got the tweet from Kristen that they were airing the segment this morning and so I set up my DVR.

May 6, 2008 | My Soapbox

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, because I wasn’t sure if 1) the subject matter was appropriate for my blog or 2) that any of you would care or know what I was talking about.

Anyway, you know that Nike ad? That one where the guy says “My Better is Better Than Your Better“?

That great song in the background is “List of Demands (Reparations)” by Saul Williams.

I am a fan of Saul Williams (not including his cover of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” which blows) and particularly “List of Demands”. Seriously, it is one of my favorite songs. Maybe one of my favorite tracks ever.

Here is my question to Nike: Are you trying to say that the government owes descendants of slaves money? That is a pretty hard core line for Nike to be taking.

This may be the most inappropriate use of a great song in an advertising campaign since Royal Caribbean Cruise lines used Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life” too sell cruises. I now cannot separate Royal Caribbean and heroin abuse in my mind.

This has been bothering me for weeks. I started to do some research and it isn’t just me that noticed.

It is a great song and the upbeat vibe fits the ad campaign perfectly but wow Nike. Reparations? During a war and a recession?

Am I overreacting? Am I underreacting? Is underreacting even a word? Discuss.

December 5, 2007 | My Soapbox

I am sick to death of Brad Pitt.

I think it is lovely that he is trying to rebuild New Orleans. I think it is fantastic he is trying to adopt the entire third world. I think he is a really good actor.I think he is super hot.

That being said - I’m sick of hearing about him. I can’t even buy groceries without seeing his face on every single tabloid in the store.

Can we all just take a break from Brangelina? Let’s talk about something else. Or someone else. There are other people trying to save the world too.

Aren’t there?

Please tell me there are other people helping out the less fortunate. It can’t just be the pretty people.

October 22, 2007 | My Soapbox, Open Letters

I posted this a while back on DC Metro Moms Blog but since I am still mad at Spirit Airlines I thought I would publish it here too.

I mean, it is either this, or I can tell you the story about how Ian barfed in my hand (again) yesterday.

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Dear Spirit Airlines,

I don’t even know enough bad words to properly express how I feel about your customer service.* Honestly. Why even bother having a customer service phone number if you are unable to even deal with something as simple as seat assignments?

Also, what kind of airline makes someone pay extra money for checking one bag?

I have just added you to a growing list of airlines that have pissed me off this year. You are right behind U.S. Air and American Airlines when it comes to terrible customer service and airlines I will go out of my way not to fly.

Is customer service dead in the airline industry? If I can’t pre-board with my children, and I can’t sit with them and there are rules against unaccompanied minors, then who is going to care for them? Is babysitting included in the $264 I paid for each of their tickets? I mean if checking ONE MEASLY BAG isn’t included, what is?

Attention all other airlines: I have been traveling quite a bit. Who wants my money? I can fly out of Reagan National or Dulles. All I want is a little bit of help when I need it.

I’m not just talking trash either. I was shopping with Devra today and she had to return something at Nordstrom. The people we so nice! They took care of her exchange and went out of their way to make sure she was happy and got what she wanted. You can be sure I will be shopping in their store again.

So, Spirit, why can’t your customer service representatives be helpful? Do you honestly pay some one $7 - $10 per hour just to say they are sorry and that they can’t do anything for me?

I don’t know about the rest of the people out there that fly, but I am getting sick of the crappy treatment I am getting from the airlines.

And I am not afraid to write about it.

Suck it

Love

Sincerely,

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah

* And believe you me. I know a lot of bad words.

August 25, 2007 | My Soapbox

I’m driving the kids to beach this week and I went to the dollar store to try to find them some toys for the beach and some crap to keep them occupied on the five or six hour drive.

Believe it or not, I went to three dollar stores on Friday, thus tripling the amount of dollar stores I have ever entered in one 24 hour period. I was looking for flippers and snorkels for the kids. Another kid had a pair of flippers at the pool last week and The Squad went nuts.

After this pilgrimage to three local stores full of junk, I have a couple of questions in regards to dollar stores.

1) Why do all dollar stores smell like B.O.?

2) Why don’t any of the stores have flippers?

3) Why do you have Christmas decorations up in August? It’s a million degrees outside. Doesn’t it make more sense to sell pool stuff?

4) How can a dollar store survive in every single strip mall in Northern Virginia?

5) Why do I even bother going into dollar stores? I never find anything good, and now I am too paranoid to buy any cheap toys for the kids, since everything has already been recalled.

August 7, 2007 | My Soapbox

I’m not trying to make this a political blog, but I read something in The Washington Post yesterday that made me angry.

First the back story: My neighbor that I really like (the one who I told about BlogHer) knew that I went going to a blogging convention in Chicago and so she was excited when she saw this article in the paper.

Is that the one you went to? It says mostly white males.

No, mine was almost all women. Can I see the article?

It was the Yearly Kos Bloggers Convention. Yes, I understand that The Daily Kos is huge and I understand that it is mostly progressive political bloggers, so it make sense that the candidates would be interested in this venue, but seven of the eight Democratic presidential candidates were there.

SEVEN OUT OF EIGHT.

You can’t see it in the online article, but in the paper paper there are pictures of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barak Obama and Dennis Kuchinich speaking at the conference.

BlogHer got Elizabeth Edwards.

No offense to Mrs. Edwards, but seven of the eight Democratic candidates had no trouble showing up to Chicago the first weekend in August, but only one week earlier not one candidate (Democrat OR Republican) came to the girl blogging conference.

Again, I understand that The Daily Kos has more pull than me. I understand that it was an appropriate venue for these people. I know that there were twice as many people there. I get all of that. But what I don’t get is this - why couldn’t one of them have made the time. Hillary is a woman. Barak Obama has an office in Chicago.

I don’t know. Maybe I am just being a cry baby. Maybe I am overestimating the influence of women bloggers, but I don’t think so.

What do you think?

July 10, 2007 | My Soapbox

Dear U.S. Airways,

Can I just ask what you were thinking when you sat me in an aisle all by myslef and then you sat each one of my three year olds in their own rows with complete strangers? When I bought my tickets I clearly filled out the part of the form that indicated that Ian and Claudia were children.

Sure, I want to sit by my kids, but even more than that… what about the other passengers? Do you think two random business men want to sit by Claudia and hear her freak out when the flight attendant doesn’t know what she means when she asks for “girl food”? Does that couple flying to their honeymoon have crayons and barbies in their backpack? If not, Claudia might freak out.

When I got to the counter and explained that I was not sitting with my three year old children, you could have at least displayed some sympathy. I was shocked that nobody seemed to have a problem with three year old children sitting by themselves.

The guy at the first check in told me they could take care of my problem at the gate, the “lady” at the gate said they could take care of it on the plane. The flight attendant in the front of the airplane told me that I should just stand in the aisle and try to trade with people. The flight attendant in the back of the airplane told me to just put them in the seats that they were assigned until everyone had boarded.

That is when I asked my kids who wanted to sit by two strangers.

Then Ian began howling.

I told Ian he was allowed to keep screaming until somebody sat us all together.

Then a flight attendant (and this guy wasn’t even working. He was just trying to fly home.) found seats for me. It wasn’t that hard.

So, U.S. Air - what I want to know is what happened to customer service? And also what kind of jacked up airline lets parents traveling with young children preboard, but doesn’t bother seating them together?

Don’t worry. If you want to talk about it some more I’ll be calling you later.

Love,

Suck it,

Sincerely,

Sarah and the Goon Squad

February 5, 2007 | My Soapbox, Sports

Well, if it hasn’t changed back yet, you may have noticed that I was rooting for The Colts last night. (Karen must have a lot of free time.) I guess it should be acknowledged that I wasn’t rooting for Indianapolis nearly as much as I was rooting for Tony Dungy. (Yes, he is wearing Bucs stuff in this picture. It’s my blog and I can put up whatever pictures I want.)

I am really glad that he was able to win the Super Bowl as a coach. I really think he is a good guy. (Sure, I could have done with out the whole it can be done the Lord’s way comment.*)

Either way it was a pretty good game. At least the first half was good. All the fumbling made it exciting.

The commercials pretty much sucked. Have I mentioned that Carlos Mencia isn’t funny? I addition to not being funny, why does Bud Light think that it is okay for him to be a racist just because he was born in Honduras?

Speaking of Bud Light making bad decisions - the commercial where everyone was slapping the crap out of each other seems like a good way to get kids into violence.

Oh - the lovely Mommybloggers are featuring me this week, so go read where cool people are saying nice things about me. Speaking of the Mommybloggers, I have to go write an essay for them. Apparently, if they honor you, they also assign you homework.

 
* As Devra put it so eloquently in an e-mail - …if I want to get me some religion, I most likely will not choose to do so at the Superbowl. I wonder how the non-Christians who are on the Colts felt about his comments. Even (her husband) the agnostic, was irritated, so it just wasn’t me being a cranky Jew.” )

January 30, 2007 | My Soapbox

What kind of American throws a baby shower on Super Bowl Sunday?

(No offense, Allison, but Super Bowl Sunday???)

Do you think there will be beer and chicken wings?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m going to the shower. It is at 1:00 and the game doesn’t start until 6:00. Do you think it would be rude to wear a jersey and facepaint?

January 20, 2007 | My Soapbox, PSA, Proof of My Immaturity

I know I have a lot of male readers so I wanted to help you guys out.

If your wife/girlfriend/significant other gets a hair cut, and you don’t say anything about it, she is going to think you hate it. As in, ‘if you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ Especially if her hair is a completely different color or considerably shorter. It might actually be better to say you liked it the old way better, but she still looks nice than nothing at all. Or she might be silently freaking out until she starts crying for what would appear to be no reason. Even if you liked her new hair the whole time.
Not that I would ever do anything like that. I’m just sayin’.

This might save you some grief in the future.

You are welcome.