Josh Groban was in the building today and I didn’t get to shake his hand.

And I’m pissed.

Not that you can shake hands now in this Swine Flu era.  Not that shaking his hand and meeting him is really a life-altering thing.

But yet, I’m pissed.

People who didn’t even know who he is got to meet him. Take their picture with him. Talk to him. Laugh with him. Stare at him and then ask the guy next to him, “Who’s this kid?”

So pissed.

It doesn’t matter that people are dying of some flu named after Porky, that people are out of a job and can’t put food on their table, or that some guy just changed senate parties. No, none of that matters, because I didn’t get to meet Josh Groban.

Boo-fricking-hoo. Waaaahhh, waaahhh, waaahhh.

And the worst part was I knew that he was coming. But I didn’t think I was invited to meet him. I had hijacked a celeb interview before, and have gotten dirty looks since…

But I’m still pissed.

People are surprised when I say I am a fan. Most times I am met with glazed eyes and a “who?” look of boredom. I am not quite a Grobanite. (does knowing he has a dog named Sweeney and that he dated Mad Men’s January Jones make me a Grobanite?) But I’m not a fair-weather fan either. I like his music. I like his evolution. I like him as an artist.

And yes, I’m still pissed that I didn’t get to meet him.

I’m pissed, pissed, pissed.

And then, being me, I decided to analyze why I am pissed (anyone who knows me knows that a therapist exists inside my head when it really should exist outside it). I can’t figure out if I’m pissed because other people I know got to meet him, or pissed at myself for not going down there and making someone take a picture. Or am I pissed because I didn’t get a picture so I could plaster it on Facebook to all my neigh-sayers in high school and say, “See, I get to meet with important people and you don’t…nah-nah-nah”. Oh geez. I’ve reverted back to high school…Again. Someone please stop me.

What is it about celebrities that makes them so…well, worth the bad moods if you missed your chance to meet them? They are normal people, just like us. They just have cooler jobs and a better bank account. Every time I meet someone famous (which is not a lot, I might add), I’m always amazed at how down-to-earth they seem. How they don’t have that “larger-than-life” persona they exhibit on the screen. And how normal and accessible they feel. Maybe I just haven’t met those REALLY BIG celebrities that have entourages and people telling you whether you’re allowed to shake their hand or not. But seriously, meeting Josh Groban wouldn’t have changed my life. Unless we were to fall madly in love with each other from love at first sight (hey, it could happen), there is no way meeting him would have been anything other than a bragging right on Facebook.

But yet, I’m still pissed.

And, let’s be honest, Josh Groban is not the President. If I missed shaking the President’s hand, I’d be crying instead of being pissed. But there is something about meeting a celebrity, something about meeting someone whose career you either wish you had or who you just enjoy listening to, it’s that initial meeting and handshake that sets up such optimism for your own failed attempts. Like meeting Josh Groban would have put me in a good mood all day for no apparent reason. Although, isn’t it apparent? The only reason I wanted to meet Josh Groban was to tell him I liked his music and get a picture to post on Facebook with the caption, “Me and Josh Groban, hanging out”. Geez. I need help.

Ugh. I’m just so pissed I blew it with Josh Groban.

Malcolm Gladwell has this great book out there called, “Outliers”, that tells us people are successful because they practice a hella lot. I’d love to read this book, but my local library is out of it…yet again…(why does the library only carry 1 book per branch of popular books?! It’s so annoying…) And since I vowed not to buy any more books this year, I have to resort to people’s blogs telling me what the book says. Ultimately, it tells us that the successful people in life have practiced twelve million times more than you have to be successful. And that most people fail because they don’t want to practice. So I’m thinking that by the next time Josh comes around to the station, not only will the library have a copy of “Outliers” in stock, but I will have practiced my stalking skills twelve billion times over, and maybe, just maybe, I will be able to snap a picture.

And not be so pissed.

(No, this isn’t Josh Groban. But it is Tim Gunn. Nah-nah-nah.)

This is my Aunt’s take on what the picture would’ve looked like!

I have just spent the last half hour reading blogs from Google Reader with every intention of writing a witty yet blog of substance…and I’ve come up with zero. zilch. nothing interesting happened today. I bought a lamp. Very exciting. I went on an exceptionally long walk with Ollie today in the sun because it was 60 degrees. Which was awesome. Broke out the old USC sweatshirt. Actually brought my phone along this time and took pictures. And yes, I know it’s a picture of his butt, but he wouldn’t turn around, turns out Paduckah boy is a prima donna. So that was my interesting day. Taking Ollie for a walk, trying to take a picture of him in the sun with my phone, only to end up with a picture of his butt. He’s so my dog.

I'm too good for the camera. I stick my tail up at you.

And I know I should really start to learn this wordpress.org website setup thing…since I have a domain name and such, but I haven’t had the attention span lately. Blame the weather. I blame the weather. When you need something to blame, blame the weather (sounds like a song…)

And I have had many discussions lately about social media and how, at this very moment, not a lot of people around me know what’s going on or care. Hell, I have no idea what’s going on and I am supposed to be the geekiest chick in my realm. I have no idea why anyone would want to follow me on Twitter, because I am not that interesting. Sometimes I am, when the brilliance hits me, but usually, rather boring. I get if you’re a celebrity, and exploiting that celebrity, or you want to get more business, and you’re self-promoting…but for all us living day-by-day, doing the life, liberty and trying to keep a dollar thing, do you really want to know that at this exact moment I am scooping up dog poop from the sidewalk? Me thinks not.

But I get the need for social media, and the business I am working in right now does not (which is surprising, since I work for The Media). People want to feel connected 24/7. I get that. The world I live in from 9-5, however, does not. So how do you convince the naysayers to hop on the bandwagon? To start tweeting before it’s too late? To get a freaking facebook profile already??   One answer: you don’t. You learn everything you can about the “new medium” before anyone else, then sell yourself on the proverbial  black market (aka ask for a raise) because you are so smart and knowledgeable and they cannot bear to lose an asset like you…..I can dream….but even I feel behind, and I just feel like if I don’t learn this stuff now, when it hits big, and becomes mainstream, and replaces email and the like, I better have my shit together. Otherwise I am going to be working for an 18 year old who pops gum in my face…which ironically is probably what I look like to my counterparts now. Oh, geez. The circle of social media is a bitch.

So I guess my non-exciting day has brought on this quandary: In the social media of life, does being connected 24/7 make us more connected or discombobulated? What I mean is, in a world where we are starting to define ourselves in 140 characters or less, does that make us more succinct or does it make us void of substance? Is creativity born in 140 characters, or is it lost in it?

Ollie’s giving me the evil “what the hell are you doing with that silver thing on your lap? I’m bored. Entertain me.” Touche.

Why did you make me come back here?! I wanna go back to the country!

Ok. Superbowl commercials. Yuck. Actual Superbowl game…most excellent and entertaining. The Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet was hilarious for about 5 minutes, but hilarious nonetheless.  My favorite commercials were the following:

Because it’s a digital masterpiece:

Because it’s frat boy humor, and isn’t that what
the Superbowl’s all about?

more about “Doritos SuperBowl Commercial 2009 Ad …“, posted with vodpod

Because there is nothing I love more than horses
and unrequited love stories:

What would you do if you saw a train wreck approaching and yelled for people to get out of the way, but they ignored you?  That you just could see the future and all the misery it holds, and the train wreck that will become your reality, and yet, no one does a thing???

Today, this is my predicament. (figuratively…not literally)

In the category of “Are you fraking kidding me?!”…I just watched the ABC7 6pm news while he dug himself another society hole…he is so disillusioned it’s almost hilarious…quoting Dr. King and saying things like, “I’m just like everyone else…getting laid off from my job…and I expect no one to feel sorry for me…” yada, yada, yada. Are you kidding me? You didn’t get laid off from your job, you got IMPEACHED! Ugh. I don’t really like talking politics (which I learned from my bartending days…politics and religion are pretty much off limits in the bar area)…but his response to his impeachment was so hilarious and stupid that I just had to write something. I just don’t understand why he thinks he is in the right. He is so addament that he is wronged it almost makes you feel sorry for him…almost. and then, during the live interview, just when you think he is finished…he spots the only child in the crowd and, of course, has to plead his case of how he loves the children of Illinois, and if it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have healthcare and food on the table and, by the way, did you know he was the son of an immigrant? And the only thing he’s ever done is to work and fight for the Illinoisian people?? And that he will fight, fight fight to prove his innocence? yada, yada, yada…ugh.

Just do me a favor and recede into the hole you’ve dug for yourself…and disappear forever. And please…don’t write a book. We’ve already written you off.

Ugh. I hate politics.

Yesterday I was reading blogs and watching news reports on identity theft and thought, hmm…it’s been a while since I’ve googled myself to see what info is out there…so I googled, and in doing so, I found out that there was way too much information floating around cyberspace including addresses where I used to live in LA, phone numbers that I don’t remember giving out, and just way too much personal stuff. Granted, I am all for the transparency and love the Internet, but I just thought maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be sharing all the details of my life with the Internet. I’d leave the sharing to real life.

So I’m updating all my social networking sites, you know the ones, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, and I decided that I didn’t really want to be defined by my relationship status. I mean, cool, if you are the one who checks up on past loves to see if they are married or not, and fine if you are a singleton who likes to tell people she is perpetually single and loathing it. I am neither one of these people, so I thought, what harm will it do deleting this…this minuet detail of my life (the most uninteresting part of my life, I might add)…well let me tell you! I must be one popular lady because the flurry of emails I received today was dumbfounding. People stopped me in the hall today at work to ask who I was dating, where’d we meet, what’s he like…I guess I was more popular in facebook life than I thought!

And it got me thinking…with so much transparency on the web and people knowing everything about everyone…where you can become a celebrity because of one You Tube video, where you can follow people around on Twitter 24/7…in a world that is increasingly knowing more about you than you know about yourself, and where you are judged on your current status… what’s left to learn about someone?

So if you are REALLY that interested in my life (you flatter me…I’m not even that interested in this part of my life!), here’s the facts:

Yes, I deleted my relationship status on facebook, and Yes, I am still single. Yes, most times I love this status…and Yes, sometimes I hate it. Yes, I eventually want to spend my life with someone, and Yes, I’ll probably want kids. But NO, I am not defined by my facebook relationship status. And neither should you be.

This is what being American feels like. Today. Seeing so many voters taking part. It’s insane. It’s beautiful. It’s history. Some day my kids will ask me where I was. I should be at Grant Park, but I hate crowds. And public transit. And massive amounts of people. Plus I didn’t have the golden ticket. So whatever.

I’m here, texting my sister who’s in a bar in DeLand (NoManLand) Florida, waiting for the Florida projection…talking online to a couple friends via Facebook, and staring at the TV screen where ABC is doing a great job of coverage. They have this crazy touchscreen board where Charlie Gibson touches a state, and it zooms into counties, and then he touches it again, and it gets all the stats of the state, down to black versus latinos, versus first time voters versus people making over $200,000. I love technology. It’s insane.

And I’m in awe. Even sitting watching election coverage, walking the dog for the nighttime walk, the air is filled with excitement, filled with this energy of extreme hope of a new tomorrow. Whatever the outcome, at least, for right now, for this night only, people care about this election, which means they care about democracy, which means they care about America. And that is a powerful thing.

It doesn’t matter who you voted for, who you’re rooting for, and who you hope to win. It’s the fact that you voted. You participated. You showed up and took matters into your own hands. And that deserves more than a free tall burnt cup of coffee from Starbucks. That deserves admiration. That deserves a pat on the back (even if its just you patting yourself on the back). That deserves a deep breath and a swell of American pride. Tonight, Americans finally showed up…and I can’t help but feel optimistic.

Here’s to optimisim. Here’s to a new tomorrow. Here’s to America.

I had to share this with everyone, because it is so true! Granted it came from Bill Gates, but still…I especially like number 3…but I still don’t think I make enough!

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

I worked a publicity shoot today with Jeremy Piven, who was in town for the annual Piven Theatre gala at Rockit Bar and Grill… And I learned a few things (with commentary in parenthesis):

1) I am still jaded, because I was neither impressed nor speechless when I talked to him… And its not that I dislike Piven; in fact, I think he is brilliant as Ari Gold in Entourage (although I think the series is past its prime)…and I think he was severely underrated in “Smokin’ Aces”…plus I loved “Cupid”…I have just found that my “star struck” gene is still lying dormant from working in LA and just realizing, yet again, that Hollywood celebrities are all the same…human beings.

(Piven had just had lunch with the Mayor, was tired as hell, and barely found time for us (albeit he did do it!), so what was supposed to be about a 40-minute shoot ended up being 15 minutes).

2) No matter how much you prepare, the reality is, something will change.
(All morning I was writing the scripts for him to say, then was told he would be improvising, so I never brought the scripts…turns out, he needed keywords.)

3) There is a lot of a “hurry up and wait” philosophy in TV…and in life.
(Arrival time: 2pm…shoot time 5pm…shoot done 5:15pm…home at 8:30…)

4) Cameramen are the most patient people in the world…must learn from that.
(With all the extra time and setting up shots and lugging equipment around, they didn’t complain once…not once! Granted, I know they are getting paid overtime, but still…)

5) No matter how much you know you are right, there will always be someone in the room with a higher status than you who will tell you you are wrong.

6) Nobody is going to pat you on the back in life…you must take a moment to breathe and take it all in, and realize you did a good job…and then you must move on.

7) The world is a very small place…especially if you grew up in the North Shore of Chicago.
(The assistant to Joyce Piven was there, and it turns out, she went to New Trier (a neighboring high school to mine), and lived in Glencoe (a neighboring suburb where I grew up)…we kept throwing out names at each other and realized we knew the same people…just made me realize that even in the midst of all this “Hollywood in Chicago” hoopla, the world really is just a six-degrees of separation circle.)

It never hurts to ask.
(I really wanted to edit the spot, but wasn’t sure if my boss wanted me to, so I took a chance and asked, and now I get to edit a national spot of Jeremy Piven! WAHOO!)

Excuse me while I Mastercard-ize the event:

Parking for publicity shoot: $26
Overtime for camera crew: $500*
Life lessons from Ari Gold…priceless.

*I have no idea what their overtime was, nor do I care, because I didn’t pay for it.

I know I have been MIA for a bit, but I have watched some great stuff and commented on a whole lot…offline (hey, my computer has been fritzy lately, so uploading has been a savior). But I thought I’d drop a funny story that could only happen to me on a Saturday night…

So I’ve spent most of the day watching the Crosstown Classic and the My Boys DVD I bought my sister for a present but am watching first because I love the series…and I have one episode to go, but before I could finish, Ollie had to go for a walk, so off we went (more on this AMAZING harness that I got for him…let’s just say I am walking him now, and not the other way around!)…

So we’re on this walk around my block, and now that the temp is nice, there are people about. Yes, there are still sketchy-mcsketchersons (I do live on the outskirts of sketchville), but there are always those few that could be a catch…so I’m always on the lookout (meaning I at the very least have my hair combed). Anyway, I spot this cutie with a black lab and I’m checking him out as he crosses the street, and he sees me and smiles, and I’m all, “Hi”. And he’s all, “Hey”…and our dogs do their sniffing hellos, and we part ways. And I’m smiling cause there is always something about saying hello to cute boys that makes me smile, and Ollie does his business, and I turn around to head back home. By this point, Mr. Black Lab is halfway down the sidewalk in front of me, and I’m all catching the vibe of meeting new people, esp. cute ones with dogs…So Mr. Black Lab meets up with these other guys at the end of the sidewalk, and I’m like, hm, they must be like roommates or something (you know those stories we make up about people we’ve never met).  And his friends are cute too. And rather good dressers…with great shoes…

Yes, you probably guessed the ending. As we’re within inches of each other, Mr. Black Lab grabs Mr. Tight Jeans’ ass and they kiss. And I have no problem with this, except, well, for the fact that I thought he was straight…I should’ve known from Mr. Black Lab’s jeans…they fit a little too well…

Which brings the grand total for this week:

Stefi’s Gay-dar: 0        Either Gay or Married: 5