Katdish.net

I have some fairly strong opinions about any number of subjects, and I’m pretty stubborn about most of them. But I’m also completely okay with people expressing opinions I don’t agree with, however wrong they may be.

Oh, I’m kidding…sort of. Not really.

What I have noticed is that there are a whole lot of people who have become so polarized in their belief systems that they become irrationally enraged about the littlest things. They become offended by the mere fact that anyone would have the audacity to think differently from them, and that’s a shame.

Katy Hudson

When former gospel singer Katy Hudson changed her name to Katy Perry and released the song “I Kissed a Girl (and I liked it)” she was well on her way to becoming a superstar and media darling. The more outrageous she became, the further away she seemed to be drifting from her Christian upbringing, the brighter her star seemed to shine.

Katy Perry

But recently she crossed the line. She committed an egregious sin. She dared to star in this video:

Girl power? Empowerment of women? A message that the affection of a man does not define who a woman is or can be? Well, yes. That’s all great. But to use actual female marines and the military as a metaphor for those messages? Katy, what were you thinking???

From the New York Daily News Music and Arts:

Activist Naomi Wolf says Katy Perry’s latest music video is “propaganda for the Marines,” and is even calling for a boycott of the bubblegum pop star’s music.

Wolf, best known for her book, “The Beauty Myth,” wasn’t buying it.

On Sunday, the famed feminist posted this on Facebook:

“I really want to find out if she was paid by them for making it . . . it is truly shameful. I would suggest a boycott of this singer whom I really liked — if you are as offended at this glorification of violence as I am.”

Um, what? Which part of that video glorified violence? How is showing marines in basic training a glorification of violence? Maybe Ms. Wolf’s problem with Perry isn’t that she featured marines in her video, but that said marines weren’t committing violence against women and children. Something tells me she’d be a-okay with that, but what do I know?

The article continues:

Public relations expert Glenn Selig, who founded The Publicity Agency, told Fox News he thinks Wolf’s call for a boycott will backfire.

“In her efforts to boycott the video, Naomi Wolf has brought more attention to it,” he said. “Without her comments, most people would clearly have seen the military simply as a metaphor and not as an attempt by Katy Perry to glamorize the military or war.

“It’s hard to believe that Naomi Wolf’s view of the video will resonate with the public at large, because most people will view her comments as completely absurd and a ridiculous attempt to make a big deal out of nothing.”

Yeah…what he said.

I, for one, will not boycott Katy Perry for appearing in a video which shows the men and women of the military in a positive light, nor did I boycott her for donning a blue hair, wearing a cupcake bra and singing about kissing girls. She’s an artist. She has the right to express herself and her work just as I have the right to like or not like her or the message.

A boycott? (rolls eyes)

Lighten up, Naomi.

Chrysler building image courtesy of photobucket.com

I like having satellite radio in my car. There’s so much variety. I can listen to almost any type of music, listen to talk radio shows not available in my town and even listen to national news: Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc. (Okay, that’s a lie. I never watch or listen to MSNBC. Way too annoying.)

But what I don’t like about listening to the news on satellite radio are the commercials. The commercials on TV are bad enough. As I type this, I’ve got that jingle in my head: “The Vil-lages! America’s friendliest hometown! The Vil-lages!” And now, so do you. You’re welcome.

I can’t even listen to my favorite news station with my kids in the car because every other commercial is an ad for erectile dysfunction. On a positive note, at least radio commercials don’t have some couple sitting in side-by-side matching bathtubs holding hands on the beach. What’s up with that? (Oh, boy. Can’t wait to see my spam filter after this post.) But I digress…

Last week I heard an ad for something called a “virtual office”. Based on what they said in the ad, I knew I had to check out their website. Because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But sure enough, I heard correctly:

You can pay people to set up an elaborate hoax so that potential clients think you work in a fancy office building:

Including the Chrysler Building and Rockerfeller Center in New York City, The Century Plaza Towers in Los Angeles, and some fancy building I’ve never heard of in Miami Beach.

Here’s a brief description of the services offered:

• An XYZ Virtual Office gives you an enhanced business image, complete flexibility and support without the overhead.
• A great address – choose from 1100 locations worldwide
• Your mail forwarded or saved for you to collect
• A local telephone number with scripted call answering, screening and forwarding
• Your messages passed on by phone, SMS, email or via secure online portal
• On-site admin support, for everything from photocopying to travel bookings
• All the benefits of a full-service office without the overhead
• Complimentary XYZ businessworld Gold membership giving you unlimited access to our network of 1100 business lounges and cafés across the globe. Great for when you’re traveling on business, in the UK or abroad

I don’t who I find more repugnant. The company selling the fake addresses, the people who feel the need to use the service, or the clientele who would give preferential treatment to a firm who has a fancy shmancy office location.

You know what? I think I find them all equally repugnant. Unless I’m missing something here. Am I?

I don’t know about you, but if I were doing business with a firm and found out they were using a virtual office service, I would feel deceived. I would also wonder what percentage of my bill was going towards this elaborate hoax. It’s cheating. It’s deceptive. You’ve just lost all credibility with me. Because you’re trying to pretend you’re something that you’re not. Don’t try to impress me with smoke and mirrors. Make a better widget, or dazzle me with your creativity, or your wicked-awesome accounting skills. Whatever. Be better at what you do than your competitor. But don’t start our business relationship with a lie.

Besides, aren’t there enough pretentious assholes in the world? Do we really need to encourage that behavior?

Sincerely yours,

katdish
President and CEO
katdish.net
worldwide headquarters
a red couch somewhere in suburbia

Oh, and for those of you who don’t have that jingle in your head, here ya go:

Sorry/you’re welcome.

What would a week of favorites be without a good katrant? It’s hard to pick a favorite, I love me a good katrant. This was just the first one I stumbled upon…

I don’t know what it is about grocery shopping that turns me into a grumpy ho, but I dislike everything about it–the meal planning, the list making, the coupon clipping (HA!–As if)–I’m already stressed out and I haven’t even left my house yet! Now, with most chores I find unappealing, I find that once I stop procrastinating and just do them, they’re really not so bad after all.

Grocery shopping? Not so much…

My disdain for the grocery store is well documented. In my post I do not heart grocery shopping, I took you along as I trudged through the aisles of the local Kroger, where you met the beloved Pornographic Cheese Buttler. You then shared in my outrage at the removal of said PCB in Say it ain’t so, Kro! Say it ain’t so!

Is it any big surprise that the same local grocery store would be the object of my latest incessant rant?

Back in March of this year, Billy Coffey wrote a post called Grocery store goodness where he describes the latest phenomenon encouraging excellent customer service: the “Ring bell if you received excellent customer service” bell.

In a nutshell, here’s the concept at my store:

• There’s a bell with a sign at each register.
• If your cashier gives you excellent customer service, you ring the bell.
• Upon hearing the bell, the entire staff of store stops what they’re doing and applauds for the cashier a-la Pavlov’s dog.

In his typical style, Billy ends the story with an important life lesson on the importance of doing good not for the sake of recognition, but simply to give of yourself without expecting anything in return. And while I could also go this route, I figured he already covered it, so I’m just gonna gripe. You’re welcome.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m all about appreciating good customer service. Especially since it seems so rare these days. I’m not one of those people who are rude to store employees because I’m having a bad day. I worked retail back in the stone ages when the customer really was always right. Believe me, I’ve smiled and bit a hole through my tongue more times than I care to remember rather than telling some jerk with a superiority complex who talks down to a sales associate what I really thought of them. I get it. I go out of my way to be nice to people who often have jobs I suspect they would rather not have.

But this bell crap? Not a fan. Now, if they had an option for bad customer service I might be more inclined to participate in the celebration of the good service.

For example:

Cashier carries on conversation with bagger about how many hours the manager screwed him out of this week without acknowledging the customer whose groceries he is ringing up…

Ding!

Employees park grocery carts in the covered walkway of the shopping center instead of in the designated shopping cart area inside the store, forcing customers to push their grocery laden carts in front of the store where all the thru traffic is. For some reason, this only happens when it is raining.

Ding!

Customer seeks assistance checking out groceries from one of the five cashiers standing around the customer service desk and is told, “The self-service lines are open.”

DING!

Store management removes the Pornographic Cheese Buttler display from the store and ruins any remote possibility of me having fun at the grocery store…

DING! DING! DING!

Enough with all the positivie reinforcement stuff already if you’re not going to acknowledge and correct all the things that make grocery shopping an unpleasant experience. And bring PCB back. His public awaits…

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Did you see this?

Let’s put aside for a moment that MSNBC dares to call itself a news station when they chose five liberals to cover a historic national election. Nevermind that they acted like a group of giggly school children instead of a seasoned, respected group of unbiased folks who are supposed to report the news. One could make the argument that Fox News Channel is dominated by conservative views and CNN is dominated by their liberal counterparts. But in defense of both networks, they had representatives from both the democratic and republican points of view. They differentiated between opinion and fact. Which is exactly what they should do.

I suppose NBC decided they had nothing to lose, since Comcast has bought the network and is fixing to clean house, but as annoying as all of this is to me, what really bothers me is the blatent disrespect Matthews has for anyone who doesn’t share his political views.

Regardless of his personal feelings for Congresswoman Bachmann, she is a seated member of the Congress of the United States of America. Furthermore, she is a human being. Whatever happened to good manners? Respect for the office? I don’t always agree with the decisions or even the rhetoric of elected officials on either side of the aisle, but that doesn’t give me permission to attempt to publicly humiliate those I don’t agree with. You can’t knowingly set out to steal someone else’s dignity without losing some of your own.

As to his denial of the “tingly leg” comment — He never said that, huh?

Okay, thrill…not tingle. I stand corrected. Yes, Mr. Matthews. You are completely objective.

I long for the days when rude behavior was frowned upon rather than celebrated…

“I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.”
~ Gus McCrae, Lonesome Dove

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Do you know what I was going to call this post?

Why I hate writers.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I’m in a really pissy mood right now and I’m not sure why. Two years ago, I would have done what any normal person would do. I would yell at my kids or eat a half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream, or turn on the Wii and box a few rounds. Heck, I may have done all of these things simultaneously.

But I’m not normal anymore.

I’m a writer.

I can sit here and say, “Well, I’m not really comfortable calling myself a writer. After all, I have no plans to ever have anything I write published into a book. Clearly, I’m not invested enough into the craft to call myself a writer, yada, yada.” (Unless, of course some publishing type happens to be reading this and wants to offer me an obscene amount of money to write my memoir. Please validate my existence!)

Whatever. Here I sit banging away at the keyboard, searching the depths of my soul as to why it is I’m so angry. I’m actually sitting here wondering if I should take a spiritual approach to writing about my anger, or if I should just go with my standard “katrant”. This is why I hate writing. Because everything becomes potential material. I’m always writing. Whether it’s in a notebook, on the computer or in my head. It won’t stop! Why won’t it stop?

Back to my original statement:

Why I hate writers.

Good writers and bad writers. All of you. I blame you all.

Good writers: I blame you because when I read your work I feel inferior. You force me to study the craft so that my writing can be better. This is an investment in time and energy. I don’t feel like investing right now. I just want to do what I feel like doing. But you make me look bad if I do that. Thanks for nothing.

Bad writers: I blame you because when I read your self indulgent, flowery-worded diatribes it gives me a false sense of confidence. You make me think I’m actually better than I am with your badness. Truth is, I still suck, just not as much as you do.

Okay…

Not really. I don’t hate writers. I love writers – all writers. I love writing – good and bad. All writing encourages me to write better. It’s just so darned frustrating sometimes.

I think I’ll eat some ice cream…

Carry on…

EDITOR’S NOTE: It occurred to me after writing this post that upon reading it, approximately 96% of people reading who consider themselves writers would wonder (if even for the briefest period of time) if I was referring to them when I mentioned “bad writers”. That’s another thing I hate about writing. It tends to do a number on your self esteem. Not to worry. I’m actually NOT talking about 96% of you.

And now you’re wondering if you’re in the 4%.

See what I mean?

I don’t know what it is about grocery shopping that turns me into a grumpy ho, but I dislike everything about it–the meal planning, the list making, the coupon clipping (HA!–As if)–I’m already stressed out and I haven’t even left my house yet! Now, with most chores I find unappealing, I find that once I stop procrastinating and just do them, they’re really not so bad after all.

Grocery shopping? Not so much…

My disdain for the grocery store is well documented. In my post I do not heart grocery shopping, I took you along as I trudged through the aisles of the local Kroger, where you met the beloved Pornographic Cheese Buttler. You then shared in my outrage at the removal of said PCB in Say it ain’t so, Kro! Say it ain’t so!

Is it any big surprise that the same local grocery store would be the object of my latest incessant rant?

Back in March of this year, Billy Coffey wrote a post called Grocery store goodness where he describes the latest phenomenon encouraging excellent customer service: the “Ring bell if you received excellent customer service” bell. 

In a nutshell, here’s the concept at my store: 

• There’s a bell with a sign at each register.
• If your cashier gives you excellent customer service, you ring the bell. 
• Upon hearing the bell, the entire staff of store stops what they’re doing and applauds for the cashier a-la Pavlov’s dog. 

In his typical style, Billy ends the story with an important life lesson on the importance of doing good not for the sake of recognition, but simply to give of yourself without expecting anything in return. And while I could also go this route, I figured he already covered it, so I’m just gonna gripe. You’re welcome.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m all about appreciating good customer service. Especially since it seems so rare these days. I’m not one of those people who are rude to store employees because I’m having a bad day. I worked retail back in the stone ages when the customer really was always right. Believe me, I’ve smiled and bit a hole through my tongue more times than I care to remember rather than telling some jerk with a superiority complex who talks down to a sales associate what I really thought of them. I get it. I go out of my way to be nice to people who often have jobs I suspect they would rather not have.

But this bell crap? Not a fan. Now, if they had an option for bad customer service I might be more inclined to participate in the celebration of the good service. 

For example:

Cashier carries on conversation with bagger about how many hours the manager screwed him out of this week without acknowledging the customer whose groceries he is ringing up…

Ding!

Employees park grocery carts in the covered walkway of the shopping center instead of in the designated shopping cart area inside the store, forcing customers to push their grocery laden carts in front of the store where all the thru traffic is. For some reason, this only happens when it is raining.

Ding!

Customer seeks assistance checking out groceries from one of the five cashiers standing around the customer service desk and is told, “The self-service lines are open.”

DING!

Store management removes the Pornographic Cheese Buttler display from the store and ruins any remote possibility of me having fun at the grocery store…

DING! DING! DING!

Enough with all the positivie reinforcement stuff already if you’re not going to acknowledge and correct all the things that make grocery shopping an unpleasant experience. And bring PCB back. His public awaits…

Here we are at Katdishionary Part 7. Who knew I could stretch this series out into such a never-ending fountain of blog fodder? Well, I did, actually. Because I dig made up words. In case you missed the first six installments, you can find them here:

The Katdish Dictionary Part One
Katdishionary Part Two
Katdishionary Part Three
Katdishionary Part Four
Katdishionary Part Five
Katdishionary Part Six

And now, on with the Katdishionary:

As you know, I love the twitter! Oh sure, it abounds with annoying “social media experts” and spambots who try to ruin everyone else’s fun, but I don’t follow those types. I mostly only follow cool, real, live people who actually interact with one another. If I were one to make words beginning with “tw”, I would say it’s “twitterrific”! But I’m not. So I won’t. Anyway, today’s group of words are all from buddies on twitter. And by “buddies” I mean they are in my column labeled “Buddies”. Are you in this column? Don’t know do ya? Okay, if I talk to you on a regular basis, you are.

Skymalladocious (pronounced sky-mall-a-doe-shush)

Definition: A term used to describe one of my epic Sky Mall posts as being “docious”. I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. Not exactly sure. Perhaps Mr. Young will comment and either confirm or deny this.

Origin: Glynn Young of Faith, Fiction and Friends used this term when tweeting my post,
Backyard Oasis courtesy of the Sky Mall, Part One. Incidentally, this was the first of three in the series. If you haven’t read them, you might want to check them out. They’re skymalladocious! Or so I’ve been told…

Katrant (pronounced kat-rant)

Definition: A term used to describe my state of mind when I rant incessantly. What makes me rant incessantly? Martha Stewart, rude anonymous comments, the girl scouts, Halloween costumes, collectibles, Petsmart, Christian retail, The Giving Tree, prosperity gospel, pajama-grams, Ricky Martin keychains, exploiting the homeless, pizza, and the prayer cross, just to name a few.

I have issues, people!

(Incidentally, if you care to read any of my incessant ranting posts, just search “incessant ranting”, because I’m not going to link all of them. I don’t have that kind of time.)

Origin: Heather from The Extraordinary Ordinary whist expressing her anticipation of the next rant, or “katrant” as she called it.

Connectinator (pronounced con-nek-ti-na-tor)

Definition: Someone who connects people or groups of people to new people or new groups of people. Sort of like a Connector as described in Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, only more intense, obsessive and adorably annoying.

Origin: Stephanie Wetzel of The Red Clay Diaries juxtiposing my description of her as a “connector” on twitter. Here’s a play by play of the action:

AHEM >RT @brandonacox: Tell me one person, on Twitter, you consider a “connector.” (however you define that)

@redclaydiaries @katdish Thank u for the connector compliment! Of course if I’m a connector, then you’re the Connectinator.

So there you have it.

This concludes today’s installment of the Katdishionary. Although I do have a bonus acronym for those of who love a challenge. The first person who correctly identifies the following acronym may choose one of the following three options:

Option One: A guest post here on Hey Look a Chicken
Option Two: A guest post written by me for your blog
Option Three: None of the above. You can simply feel superior to everyone else as you bask in your cleverness.

And the mystery acronym of the day is…

IMGNAHS

The judges decisions are final. Please, no wagering, and Billy Coffey is not eligible. My blog. My rules.

Until next time, use your words. Even the made up ones. Especially those.