Chicago: customers are advised to allow extra travel time

Ha ha spam subject line: "lowly graduated cylinder"

At the wedding I went to in February, the maid of honor went on for 14 minutes (a tablemate timed her).

+5 pts if she was crying for at least 50% of those 14 min.

Ha, there will be none of that, lengthwise or crywise. I hope to get at least a few laughs, but I'm keeping it under 5min.

it would totally be awesome if you got all misty

My mouse pointer was over "misty" so it looked like you said "it would be totally awesome if you got all nasty."

Like reworked some 2 Live Crew lyrics so they were about my family?

I said that before and the joke didn't go over too well

Ha, that's why I laughed--I thought, oh man, here he goes again.

there is a difference

See this is where I wish I was truly funny so I could take it down a notch, pull out an acoustic guitar, and sing some ridic song.

but remember that the toast is not about you -- it is about your toastment (?) of your sister. i think a nice, quick, earnest speech beats a showboat. that's just me.

Now I'm hungry for toast. :(

The song'd be about her!

hey, i'm just sayin' that it doesn't need to be like a variety show, just a nice word or 20 about the people gettin' married.

OK, OK, I gotcha. What's likely going to happen is that I don't think about it until that afternoon, and then some nonsense will fall out of my mouth.

but lovingly.

Exactly! I find loving nonsense more touching than prepared genius.

My Dad's toast at our family dinner was kind of weird because he said Nick came along at a really rough spot in my life when I needed someone like him.

sarah, admit it. you were a mess. you'd be nothing without nick. NOTHING.

in fact, no woman would be anything without a man.

Basically.

I don't suppose any of you have an ING account you'd like to email me about? SOMEONE PLEASE TO EXPLAIN THIS.

Hmm... I just watched a demo on the ING site that was very easy to understand. SO NEVER MIND.

I didn't know what you were talking about anyway. :)

I am thirsty.

Hey it's Thursday!

It's a high-interest savings account via an online bank called ING.

DRINK SOME WATER!!

I am drinking water. that is good.

Waaaaaaaaatttttttteeeeeerrrrrrr.

I had some water. The filter is dead in our Brita here in the office, unfortch.

Live on the edge, drink tap water.

The tap is never cold enough, and the ice in our fridge tastes like old food smell.

i got that worm book that sarah posted from the library not too long ago! good stuff, those worms.

anyway, dan, re: your speech

i think you'll get a feel for the crowd wrt how long to talk for. at my wedding, i think no one would've cared if people had gone on all night. my dad was so teary eyed & his speech was so great. then my brother spoke & in true kris form had everyone laughing really hard which was great after the super emotional moment with my dad (no one had a dry eye!).

all i remember about my brother's speech is his closing line where he addressed leaf directly & told him, "Leaf, I want to thank you for shopping at Dilts [my last name] but remember that there are no exchanges, returns or refunds."

so you know, you could go that route.

we have an ING account, anything you'd like to know?

i only just found my way here, having forgotten all the old tricks from when ilx goes down.

i have an interview with new office temps tomorrow. yay! at 10. not so yay, but i know i have to get used to it. any tips? and is it ok that i'm going wearing black pants and a button down? i don't really have anything work-ish that's more dressy than that at the moment.

Speaking of interviews... I was not hired for the law firm job ;__;

Acutally, more :( than ;__;

It was encouraging because one of the partners said that they were "very impressed" and came to their decision "only after a great deal of consideration." They hired the other guy because he had a lot of experience in legal research.

sorry to hear that jesse, i'll send good-job vibes your way...

Check it out: http://www.iwj.org/outreach/DOLrepF.pdf This is the report that my wacky interns and I were working on last summer (doing surveys and interviews). I am credited on pg. 27.

xpost--thanks!

OK, I am sorry that this might be long, but I hope it's not boring. I am about to tell you about my night at work, not so much to bitch, but to share how mind-bendingly weird the fucking chefs can be.

There was a family at my table with a kid (though I don't like kids, he was pretty cool little blond boy of around 5--when I asked him how his dessert was, he said, "Muy bueno, gracias.) Anyway, the kid wanted noodles with butter, so I ordered a side of wide rice noodles with butter. The sous chef called me over and said, "Are you sure that's what they want? Tell them it's not wheat noodles, it's rice noodles." I had already been through this with the guest, and they said that was fine--they were familiar with the noodles as they eat there all the time. I told the sous chef that but he insisted that I go and ask them if they really wanted the rice noodles with butter.

Finally after a LOT of discussion I went back to the table to satisfy the stupid sous chef. When I returned, the sous chef had gone to the office to get the the exec chef who was on the scene with his crazy eyes on.

As soon as he saw me he launched into a blustering tirade: "They ASIAN! There is no butter in ASIAN food! You tell them I say no!" He went on to sputter, "I can cook noodle with butter, but I won't! I can, but I won't! This is inappropriate!"

At this point the whole staff is staring at me with a mixture of pity, amusement, and awe. I told the chef, OK, fine, I'll tell them no noodles with butter. But he wasn't done. He pulled out a noodle and put it on a plate and said, "You show them, say, 'this is the noodle.'" I let him know that they were regulars and had eaten that noodle before, but he insisted, "You take noodle! You show them noodle!" Now the thing is, I was wicked busy and I was working the lounge area alone and I still had to run to the back of the restaurant to pick up some silverware, but he was into a fucking litany, so I took the noodle.

So I'm walking around the restaurant carrying a single wide noodle on a plate. My co-workers kept asking me, "what are you doing with that noodle?" but I could only shake my head. I took my noodle to the table and did my best to explain that chef was insistent that they see the noodle. The man chuckled at my (very diplomatically reworked) story and said, "Wow, to think we had the audacity to order a noodle with butter on it."

I returned the noodle and got to listen to a much calmer but no less heartfelt lecture on how it is wrong to put butter on an Asian noodle.

According to long-time workers, that is how he used to be every single day until he got his meds right.

That story is funny because of how many times you said "noodle."

It was funny in real life because of the number of times everyone involved said "noodle." And the fact that it was a fiasco stemming from a noodle. Some of us are referring to it as The Great Noodle Incident of Oh-Seven.

I have a question -- did the kid know this was happening? If so, what was his reaction?

To make a long story longer....when I got done showing the guests the noodle I saw the GM looking my direction while on the phone at the front desk and I knew who was on the other end. Chef had called her up to rant about the noodle (he actually called the 2 other managers into the office to tell them too), but fortunately she realized that he was having a spell, so she offered the guests complimentary desserts.

xpost--no, the kid just knew he was getting mashed potatoes and free dessert. Which by the way he made into a really special order that I had to explain in detail to the chef.

I only ask because I used to shamefully order plain noodles with butter in restaurants when I was a kid and if this had happened to me and I knew everyone was making a huge deal about my noodles, I would have been totally scarred for life. But maybe this kid was totally well adjusted and had no emotional problems and was like "Bring on the noodles, fools."

xp - phew the kid didn't know AND got free dessert.

Case in point: one time I was in a restaurant with my parents and I was really cold, the a/c was up super high and I was shivering. No one had a sweater or anything, so they made me wear a tablecloth. It was totally humiliating. I still remember where I was sitting!

PS I'm over it now

It doesn't sound like you are.

I AM
DON'T WORRY
I NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT A SWEATER

I feel really good today, like better than I have in a while. Probably has something to do with me going home early with a headache yesterday and sleeping most of the afternoon, then sleeping really well last night too. Plus FRIDAY and I am excited about free Shoes show in Millenium Park this afternoon. John I am going to try and make it to C@nasta show tonight, Dr1ftless P0ny Club are pretty decent too so if I come I will probably be there early.

My co-workers kept asking me, "what are you doing with that noodle?" but I could only shake my head
My co-workers kept asking me, "what are you doing with that noodle?" but I could only shake my head
My co-workers kept asking me, "what are you doing with that noodle?" but I could only shake my head
My co-workers kept asking me, "what are you doing with that noodle?" but I could only shake my head

This is so great out of context.