bliss hand cream is the worst

Happy New Year! It’s freaking cold in western PA. My hands – despite constant hand cream application – are so dry. At work, I have a bottle of bliss high intensity hand cream…and I’m vowing to never use it again. In the past 20 minutes, I’ve put a generous amount on my hands three times, and my hands feel no different at all! Victoria’s Secret hand cream is so much better…and comes in much more fun scents.

This…from the NY Times???

I, along with the rest of the world, have become a huge Michael Phelps fan.  I just read this article on the NY Times website, and can’t believe how horribly it was written.  Words are missing, the article has no focus and it doesn’t really make sense.  Are they slamming NBC?  Praising NBC?  Do they like Phelps?  Who can tell from this article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/sports/olympics/17nbcphelps.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I copy and pasted the text below…in case an editor wakes up and realizes how bad it is:

By Richard Sandomir

For Michael Phelps’s Spitz-breaking gold medal, NBC’s Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines avoided the histrionics that have characterized some of their past swimming calls. They balanced emotion during the 4×100 medley relay with clearly-spoken narration and analysis, without losing lucidity.

Hicks sounded just right as he described the final moments of Jason Lezak’s freestyle lap — without a screechy interruption from Gaines.

 

 

“Just about 30 meters left for Lezak to give Phelps the greatest single performance in Olympic Games history,” Hicks said. “Lezak trying to hold off Eamon Sullivan above him. Lezak is going to break a world record, trying to stay ahead of Sullivan. And Lezak, the hero in the 400 free relay, won’t … let … Phelps … down. History in Beijing for Michael Phelps.”

Without lingering for a nanosecond on Lezak, NBC cut to an exultant Phelps, the same sequence followed by ABC Sports when Mark Spitz won his seventh gold medal in Munich 36 years ago. Spitz swam the butterfly leg, the third in the relay, just as Phelps did. But the post-race reactions differed vastly: Phelps and his teammates were united by joy, while Spitz and his teammates were subdued and seemed to lack camaraderie.

(On the medal stand, Phelps and his mates held hands; 36 years ago, Spitz and his teammates looked as if they barely knew each other.)

While ABC did not have reaction shots of Spitz’s mother, NBC kept a camera on Debbie Phelps, a consistently telegenic character at the Water Cube during her son’s races. After swooning when her son won the 100-meter butterfly by a hundredth of a second the day before, she was seen Saturday night on NBC saying “Come on, Jason” five times followed by a relieved and giddy “Yessssssssss!”

And then came the Visa ad that congratulated Phelps for his eighth gold medal. I can’t be sure if Morgan Freeman, recently in a serious car accident, was standing by, waiting for the right moment. More likely, Freeman recorded his words weeks ago, in anticipation of the victory.

“One gold medal is amazing,” Freeman said. “Two is, well, incredible. Three? Practically unbelievable. But eight? Eight gold medals? That’s, well, we need new adjectives for whatever that is.”

As the night (or Beijing morning) moved toward Phelps’s live race shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, NBC restrained its urge to over-promote his eighth race. Sure, there was hype. It couldn’t be avoided. NBC showed Phelps’s arrival at the aquatics center, played highlights set to a Queen Latifah song, cut to him in the warmup pool and did a little feature.

But NBC kept its Phelpsmania at bay. Imagine what it could have done to pump up Phelps instead of spending two and a half hours, almost without interruption, with the live women’s marathon. That race was won in a rout by Constantina Tomescu of Romania and lacked the presence, after three miles, of the American Deena Kastor. NBC then kept its focus on Dara Torres for her two silver medal-winning races.

But Phelps’s victory melted NBC’s reserve. After he won the eighth gold medal, NBC started hawking a DVD of his races. He was interviewed with his teammates by Andrea Kremer, went solo with Bob Costas, then accompanied Costas to the international broadcast center for more chat.

Phelps’s races created a nightly viewing moment that NBC could rely on to boost its enormous prime-time viewership. NBC will miss him, especially with taped track and coverage filling much of the coming week in prime-time. During Friday’s prime-time, when he swam the 100-meter butterfly final between 10 and 10:30 p.m. Eastern, NBC’s rating peaked at an 18.8. It seems a certainty that Phelps repeated the feat Saturday night for NBC.

Clarification: the road to (my) happiness

When I blogged today about my twenties being over, I hope I didn’t leave the impression that I’m unhappy. Because I’m not. I have a really good life – an awesome boyfriend of almost seven years, family, lots of friends, the world’s cutest puppy, a job, my health and so much more.

The purpose of examining where I’m at right before I reach 30 is to make sure I’m on track to remain happy. I used my career as an example to show how I got to where I’m at and if I’m happy enough where I’m at to keep going along the same route. Yes, today, I am happy with my career and how far I have brought it over the last six years. But for me to be able to answer that question the same way two, three, five, ten years from now, I think I need to consciously be aware of where I’m at and where I want to be.

Does that make sense? This was a lot of reflection for one day…

Update: Best Steak in Pittsburgh

About a month ago, I blogged about my favorite Pittsburgh steak restaurants. Well, I need to make some adjustments to that list. Two weekends ago, a bunch of us went to Ibiza to celebrate my birthday. I ordered the filet. I had this entree at least three other times and always loved it. In fact, every time I’ve ever been to Ibiza, I’ve loved it.

Except this time.

There have been warning signs that the restaurant was on a downward spiral. Gabby and her husband had a bad experience several weeks ago. And, it’s been increasingly easy to get a good reservation. But, like I said, I’ve always had great food and even better wine, so I chose it as my birthday celebration starting point.

I ordered my filet “extra rare. Cold in the center rare.” I don’t know how else to explain how I like it cooked. The waitress seemed to get it, and since I’ve had perfectly cooked (or undercooked) steak there before, I wasn’t that worried. My filet arrived – along with everyone else’s appetizers (I know it’s a tapas bar, but plan a little better, please! I sat there for a good two hours while everyone else finished their meals. Thank goodness there was good wine.) I cut into the center of the steak and was immediately disappointed. It looked almost medium. Not even medium rare. I forced myself to eat most of it though…and then started picking away at the table’s olive, cheese and meat platter.

Sometimes I will send back food when it’s not prepared correctly…but I feel really bad doing it. I shouldn’t…I’m the customer and should get what I ask for. But, our waitress seemed quite frazzled by our table – she could barely keep up with all of our various drink orders as it was.

So, I suffered in silence. And still had a great time anyway.

On a side note, Gabby’s pasta was mushy, and Brad’s meat platter was nothing special…very dry and bland. We won’t be going back there any time soon…unless it’s just for drinks because they do have fabulous wines.

My new and improved list of the favorite steak restaurants in Pittsburgh:

1. The Capital Grille – I had to send my first filet back because it came out more like medium well, but once they got it right, it was so worth the wait.
2. Mortons – Almost as good as the Capital Grille.
3. Mallorca – Even better when it’s with their Sangria.
4. Tie – Bruschetta’s and McCormick and Schmick’s
5. Mantini’s Wood-Fired Grill – I’ve only had it once, but they cooked it right, and their sides are amazing.

Restaurant Review: Cheesecake Factory

We found a way to get seated at the South Side Cheesecake Factory without waiting for two or three hours – show up right when they open.

After Friday night’s South Side bar tour, we were in the mood for lots of good food. So, Brad and I arrived to a mostly empty restaurant Saturday morning at around 11:15 am. I immediately ordered the factory nachos with spicy chicken when our waitress stopped by to get our drink orders. The diet cokes she brought had a strange taste to them, but I was on the dehydrated side, so I gulped mine down anyway.

The nachos came out rather quickly, which was nice, but I was very disappointed with them. There were tons of chips, but not nearly enough toppings for them. They need to double the amount of guacamole, sour cream and salsa that they give you…there were just too many plain chips left over at the end. The “spicy chicken” was a good addition, but its name is misleading – there was no spice to it whatsoever.

Brad went with the luau salad for his entree – mainly because it sounded somewhat healthy. He was not impressed with the salad though – it was drenched in way too much dressing , therefore defeating his healthy intentions.

I tried the new turkey pastrami reuben, and it was amazing! There was a ton of meat and the coleslaw was excellent. Brad tasted it and loved it, too. And, it came with french fries that were perfect – the were golden, cruncy on the outside, and soft on the inside and slightly salted.

The best part about our meal though was our server…I didn’t get her name, but she was nice, friendly and competent. My diet coke was refilled often, and she was really attentive. I tipped her 25% because that’s what you do when you have good service.

Overall, I’d give them 3.5 stars out of 5 – had we waited two hours for a table, I would have been really upset at the quality of the appetizer and Brad’s salad.

Apparently, girls don’t like sports?

I am so glad I didn’t watch Jeopardy! last night. It seems that Alex Trebek still lives in the dark ages and thinks that girls like to sit around and sew or bake stuff. My new work friend Nora was watching though and decided to send an email to Jeopardy’s production staff. I love voicing your opinion at times like these, so I thought I’d post her’s:

To the Production Staff of Jeopardy:

Last night I was enjoying another episode of Jeopardy until the Final
Jeopardy category. When “Heisman Trophy” popped up on the screen,
host Alex Trebek had the ignorance to make a remark implying that both
of the evening’s female contestants grimaced at the idea of a
sports-related question.

I tried to convince myself to let this comment pass as a presumptuous
and uncalled for slip-up, but when Alex returned from commercial
break, he nearly apologized, saying this category may have been
“unfair” for the women. I absolutely cannot imagine the studio
embracing these implied values. Now, I’m not a feminist by any means,
but I don’t see how society can progress from these subservient
mindsets if they’re all over our media. And the man has a daughter.
No wonder the country’s first female presidential contender had a
rough time.

I hope these ill-bred comments will force the studio to evaluate the
messages they are sending to the public.

Meetings

I hate to waste time. Well, actually it’s more accurate to say that I hate to waste time when it’s not my choice to do so.

People who schedule meetings with little purpose, or to go over things that we all have heard 16 other times annoy me to no end. How on earth am I supposed to get work done when I’m in unproductive, pointless meetings all day?

Meetings when things are accomplished, work is completed, goals and roadmaps are set – those are worth my – and your – time. When will the meeting-for-every-little-tiny-thing people I work with realize this???????

I know I’m not alone in feeling this…if you Google “unproductive meetings,” there are more than 875,000 results. I’d like to ponder this phenomenon more, but I’m late to my next meeting…

UPDATE:  The meeting I rushed to attend ended up being a duplicate of the hour long, pointless meeting I sat through this morning…

My email to NBC Sports

First, I want to thank you for your great coverage of the French Open this past weekend. I especially enjoyed, as always, the commentary by John McEnroe. However, I do have one complaint. I realize you probably didn’t anticipate the match to be over so quickly, but you should put more effort into thinking about your “filler” match choices. I think re-playing last year’s Wimbledon final featuring Nadal v Federer was a classless choice. Yes, it was a great match, but it was a Federer win, and a Federer record-breaking moment. It would have been nice to see a Nadal dominated match – as a tribute to him for not only winning yesterday, but for all he has accomplished at the French Open. To switch the coverage to last year’s Wimbledon was unfair to Nadal – it took away from his win yesterday in my mind.

Yesterday should have been totally about Nadal and the French Open. Today we can start looking forward to Wimbledon.