stacy b-log

Friends and family back home have asked my opinion of Arizona's new immigration law, Senate Bill 1070. Having grown up in Louisiana, I know from odd politics: The very first time I got to exercise my right to vote, I had the privilege of choosing between a Klansman and a felon.*

If you listen to the wailing on both sides, you would think that SB1070 was written by a blood-thirsty lynch mob of cross-burning Klansmen chasing after a meth-fueled gang of gun-running, home-invading felons. As with anything extruded by the legislative process, the issue is a bit more complex.

So as a former Louisiana voter, a retired "journalist" and a registered lobbyist with the state of Arizona, here's my take on Arizona's "tough stance on immigration reform" or SB on SB 1070, if you will.

Continue reading "SB on SB1070" »

Posted by stacy at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Woke up last week and felt like it was going to be a lucky day. Bought a lottery scratcher ticket and won a few bucks, knowing - just KNOWING - that our numbers would hit later on that night and all our dreams would come true.

At 5:30 PM I got the call: "You entered a drawing in January at the movie theater, and we'd like to congratulate you on being a finalist for the Grand Prize. As a finalist, you can choose from five fabulous vacation getaways. Please call to claim your finalist prize and learn more about the upcoming Grand Prize $100,000 drawing."

I called back...

Continue reading "You're Not in Luck: I Hate Time Shares" »

Posted by stacy at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The American Academy of Pediatrics has decided that hot dogs should be re-engineered to eliminate their inherent design flaws.

They are not talking about re-engineering the ingredients - MSM (Mechanically Separated Meat aka lips and assholes, snouts and tails), fats (trans, partially hydrogenated, lard) binders (cereals, soy, gluten) and preservatives like sodium nitrite and sodium erythorbate. They are talking about its fundamental essence of hot-dogness.

These are people who should have better things to do with their time and our public discourse, like REASSURE YOU THAT YOUR KID'S RUNNY NOSE IS NOT THE FIRST SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE. Instead, they just want to take all the fun out of food for the rest of us.

"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, it would be a hot dog," says statement author Gary Smith, (avowed hot-dog hater) and director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "No parents can watch all of their kids 100% of the time. The best way to protect kids is to design these risks out of existence."

Design these risks out of existence? Are you kidding me? Who do these weenies think they are?

We have enough engineered foods without going after my favorite low-rent meat product. If you really want to tackle a serious societal ill, go after SPAM, and I'm not talking about potted meat. Come to think of it, SPAM too is inherently dangerous: It can be weaponized when hurled at Gary Smith's head! Sadly, projectile SPAM isn't guaranteed to knock some sense into him, and that, my friends, is a design flaw.

Read on... it gets worse, or just stop here and join us for protest hot dogs today at the Roosevelt.

Continue reading "Lips and A**holes" »

Posted by stacy at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If you tuned in to read my thoughts of peace and goodwill on Thanksgiving or perhaps enjoy a welcome "attitude of gratitude" from me, please skip to the next item in this blog because you'll likely be offended by this screed, which was sparked after I listened to "national recording artist" Demi Lovato obliterate the National Anthem before the Dallas Cowboys game.

Continue reading "Unholy Badness: Why Demi Lovato shouldn't sing the National Anthem" »

Posted by stacy at 02:35 PM | Permalink

I hate LinkedIn - the essential social networking site for working professionals...

Granted, I don't hate it as much as I hate the New England Hatriots and their coach Bill Belicheater, but I definitely hate LinkedIn more than I hate Harleys.

LinkedIn bills itself as the "busy person's" Facebook or MySpace - it's for people who do important things, like make money and broker deals. Mainly, it just annoys the hell out of me. Initially I signed up for it because I kept getting pinged by colleagues who used it, and I'd get emails saying, "Invitation to Connect on LinkedIn." So I accepted the first invitation... then the second... then the third and then I realized it wasn't so much an invitation to connect as it was an invitation to receive a ton of LinkedIn-generated, unsolicited email from people I already contact regularly - as well as a ton of unsolicited email from people I DON'T REALLY WANT TO TALK TO.

I got an "invitation to connect" from some guy who used to read my newspaper column in COLLEGE. I don't even know this guy - and even better, I DIDN'T even know this guy 15 years ago: IF I WASN'T YOUR FRIEND THEN, WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND NOW??? Or is this some kind of trophy hunt: You want to list me as your "friend" so you can show all your other "friends" that your "friend" is the former Stacy Feducia - the chic that wrote the buttcrack column back at Texas A&M? Are you serious? Graduate, dude!

I hate LinkedIn because I'm a salesperson. I make unsolicited contacts through my job all the time, letting people know I have a solution for problems they didn't know they had. It's a tough enough job without the knowledge that these poor souls are now being "invited to connect" by every other jackass in the universe with a cool widget to sell. Thanks, assholes!

LinkedIn is supposed to make my life easier by helping me "Find People and Knowledge I Need to Help Me Achieve My Goals." Well here are my goals - Tell me, LinkedIn, how can you help?

Continue reading "WHY I HATE LINKEDIN" »

Posted by stacy at 08:11 AM | Permalink

My definition of "sports:" Athletic competitions between individuals or teams where the winner is determined by previously agreed upon rules and objective criteria.

There are winners. There are losers. The clock, the finish line, the knock-out punch, the yardstick, the checkered flag, the scorecard: These objective criteria determine who goes on, who goes home - or in the case of the Olympics this week: Who gets the gold and the glory (or the silver and salutations or the bronze and a nice trip to the pawn shop).

By my criteria, many of the most popular Olympic events fail to qualify as actual sports though they are, undoubtedly, athletic endeavors: Gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and its diabolical twin, synchronized diving, regular diving, dressage... I mean, really - DRESSAGE? ... and of course, rhythmic gymnastics. And even though it's not in the Olympics, it is still my favorite punching bag: Cheerleading = Not A Sport ... though I'm sure the cheerleading stage moms are doing their best to garner their pastime a place in the five-ringed medal count. (And I will likely hear from them, but guess what, Wanda Holloway, the comment function is conveniently broken!)

Sport / Not A Sport - This is all you need to know to be the judge: IF THE OUTCOME OF A CONTEST IS DEPENDENT ON WHETHER THE EAST GERMAN JUDGE IS HAVING HER PERIOD, THE CONTEST IS NOT A SPORT; IT'S A PAGEANT

If you're not pissed yet, keep reading... you will be (but you also might learn something if you pay attention).

Continue reading "Sport / Not A Sport: You Be The Judge" »

Posted by stacy at 08:02 AM | Permalink

For once in my life, I can be succinct:

I hate Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots - the one that dresses like a homeless person ON PURPOSE (hoodie sweatshirt, cut off at the sleeves). He's the one that blames the NFL after he was caught videotaping opponents and found by the NFL to be CHEATING. He's a dirty, rotten, arrogant bastard who clearly has a small man complex because he motivates himself and his team by pretending that everyone is out to get him and hates him.

Well, he's right on that second part. And so to be succinct, I have created the following simile:
Bill Belichick is ruining football the way that George W. Bush is ruining our country. As my husband says, "It's called economies of scale." Rot in hell, Bill Belichick. Go Colts!

Posted by stacy at 09:47 PM | Permalink

So you wanna build a custom home... in Scottsdale... at the end of the frothiest real estate bubble... EVER.

You've bought the land - a pretty patch of 1.13 acres that backs up to an ocean of prickly pear, turpentine bush and saguaro cactus known as the Tonto National Forest. Your brother-in-law / architect-to-the-stars drew the most outstanding plans in the universe: 3,300 square feet of unsheathed cool, including a fireman's pole from the upstairs closet to the garage. And yes, it adhered to code... along with the bookcase-cum-secret door that leads to the media cave that has another secret door that leads to the pantry (with wine cooler) so you can get snacks and not miss the movie. And did I mention the wrap-around porch -12 feet deep - with the disappearing glass wall that has an unobstructed view of Four Peaks.

Oh, and no one can ever build behind you because it's a National Forest.

This has been your dream and your all-consuming project for the past five years... until you wake up one morning to discover you're living in your own reality show, lovingly titled: BUILD ME A HOUSE, CRACKSMOKERS!

Continue reading "So You Wanna Build a Custom Home" »

Posted by stacy at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My sweet husband bought me a Bluetooth headset yesterday. I hope to return it to the store tomorrow, as I am relieved I did not throw it out the car window today.

HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME???

It's not that I don't appreciate advances in communication, or that I wasn't moved by his heartfelt longing to save his fellow motorists from the physical trauma and extensive body work derived from my swerving attempts to talk on my cell phone while shifting the MINI into third. Brings a whole nother dimension to its nickname: The Menacing MINI.

ARE YOU THERE? I CAN'T HEAR YOU? IS THIS THING ON? HELLO?

Know this, fellow Luddites: Had my husband not given me this Bluetooth as a gift, I would have placed it beneath my 18-inch sub-dubs and backed up... and then rolled forward... and then backed up... and then rolled forward... and then scooped up what was left of the damned thing and deposited it at the base of Coolidge's favorite tree to await a yellow christening by the smartest dog in the universe.

I don't hate the Bluetooth because I hate technology. Rather, I hate technology that is supposed to make my life simpler but instead makes me feel like a dumbass. The gloves come off here... Don't say you weren't warned.

Continue reading "Stacy Bertinelli: Enemy of Technology" »

Posted by stacy at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello, my name is Stacy... and I watch American Idol.

It's not something I'm proud to admit - it's easier, in fact, to confess that my favorite South Park episode of all time is 'Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset,' but after what I witnessed on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I've decided to come clean... in part, for what American Idol has revealed to me about myself...

BEWARE: I'M ABOUT TO SAY SOME POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE THINGS BELOW THE FOLD, SO DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU WANT TO MAINTAIN YOUR FOND FEELINGS FOR ME

Continue reading "Stacy's American Idol Blog, aka The Apocalypse is Nigh" »

Posted by stacy at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

FWAAAAP!!! POTATO POTATO POTATO POTATO! brupppp.... brupppp....

To the average redneck, these are the sounds of angels on high. To me, they are the farts of overly expensive and pathetically useless pipes. I hate Harley-Davidsons. I hate choppers. I hate faux-Harleys and RUB bikes. To put it bluntly, I hate Biketoberfest.

PUH-ta PUH-ta PUH-ta ta ta ta ta... FWAPP!! FWAP! potato potato potato

For the past five days, my sweet husband Patrick and I have been embedded in Daytona Beach, Florida - the World Center of Racing, the Birthplace of Spring Break, and right now, the highest concentration of redneck chrome in the known universe. As you may know, Patrick is racing motorcycles this weekend - and a lot of you, whom I refer to lovingly as "THE REST OF US" probably think a bike is a bike is a bike. Two wheels is two wheels? Right?

FWAAPP! BWWWAAAH... BWWWWAAAAH... burrrrgle burrrgle burrrrgle burrgle...

Wrong. At 2 o'clock in the morning when they're revving their ridiculously underpowered engines outside your window, THEY ARE MENACES TO SOCIETY. Yesterday, we left the comfy confines of the timeshare for the ... charming ... and LOCALLY OWNED Aqua Terrace Motel. It was really a cute place, if you have a good sense of humor about these things. If it were in Scottsdale and were renovated, it would be the ultra-hip Valley Ho. But it's in Daytona during Biketoberfest - and if you don't already know how I feel about Biketoberfest, read on...

Continue reading "WHY I HATE HARLEYS, CHOPPERS, CRUISERS & THEIR ILK" »

Posted by stacy at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)