Real Tomato Ketchup, Eddie?

Folks, this is huge. Great American Ball Park has chosen an exclusive ketchup, and omgHelmetSundae could not be more proud that this versatile and essential condiment is getting its due.

Ketchup + exclusive = Finally!

Congrats to Red Gold Premium Quality Ketchup. Your blend of tomato concentrate and high fructose corn syrup has wowed the suits and the fans. I stripe my hotdog in Red Gold Premium red to that!

What's more, this condiment story gives a shout-out to my hometown:

"The tomato processing company has a corporate headquarters in Orestes, Ind., located about 150 miles northwest of Cincinnati and midway between Marion and Anderson."

Yeah y'all, Marion makin' the news by proxy!

omgHelmetSundae has been silently demanding (and by silently I mean not writing about it at all) that the Reds take a stand on this condiment issue for some time. Now that that's settled it's time for the Reds to step up and declare sprinkles the official helmet sundae topping of GABP.

Castellini? Griffey? BP? Dunn, you look like you've eaten a helmet sundae or two. Thoughts on sprinkles?

Thanks A Lot Mother Nature!

Sure there's a tree on that car, but the real highlight is you can see my petunias and vegetable planter!


Shattered glass.

Usually I call this spot on the street the "money spot" because it's right outside my apartment. But it sure wasn't the money spot this morning when this tree landed on it.

Normally I like storms but last night's was scary - I don't want to say I was hiding under the covers but I may have been, umm... consoling the cats who were under there.

There were some harrowing tales of survival in my building at work today, too. We had only partial power all day (which was fine with me, no overhead florescents = awesome), but apparently the elevators were down at one point.

Omg! The elevators were down! Dear sweet Jesus!

Fortunately it was back to life by the time I got there. And it's a damn good thing because I work on the 10th floor!

So I'm on the elevator this morning and this poor girl is talking to one of her colleagues saying, "Oh my god. I can't believe the power went out. I spent all day getting stem cells out of mice yesterday... 16 mice... 32 femurs... 10 hours."

Then she'd shake her head. I'm not sure the process by which you get stem cells out of a mouse femur, but it seems to take a long time.

Thanks a lot Mother Nature! First this poor unsuspecting Saab gets crushed by a tree, then it's possible that this chick's stem cells unfroze or melted or coagulated or whatever happens to stem cells when the power goes out. That's just great!

TGIF!

Not a very good photo, but whatever.

In celebration of the Tall Drink of Water's new job - and because he had a gift card from cashing in his National City points (fancy!) - we went to Morton's tonight to clink our glasses and eat steak.

I very rarely eat steak, and when I do it's usually at Jeff Ruby's or the Precinct for a special occasion. So now all steak I eat is judged against a Jeff Ruby's steak. And let me tell you, none of them come close.

So, my official review: Tonight's dinner was nice, but it was no Precinct.

The highlight for me was seeing a dude pouring A-1 onto his steak. Gasp!!! But I felt the same way... my steak could have totally used some A-1.

Afterwards we checked out the Cincinnati t-shirt fest at the square. I was able to secure another Cincinnati Transit Shirt from Wire & Twine . It's my fave shirt ever. And the designer is fierce.

Tonight At 11 - New Shoes!

I was strolling around DSW tonight when I saw a suit-clad Kit Andrews walking down the open-toed heels aisle. She's tall! And much prettier in person. I feel bad about calling Skeletor now. But for real, HD is not doing her any favors. Her skin is not nearly as thin and stretched as it looks on the nightly news.

Of course I rushed over to the Tall Drink of Water and was all, "Omg! Kit Andrews is here and she's crazy tall. Walk by her so we can size up her up for my blog."

Then I think I kinda shoved him.

So we mosey over to the heels pretending like we're not on a mission to get into her aisle and I touch some fabulous open-toed silver beauties (they didn't have my size) and as we're getting closer TDW starts arguing it's not her.

"Dude, it's her," I tell him.

"Dude, I don't think that's her. She's way prettier than Kit Andrews."

"You're right. Maybe it's not her. No wait. It's totally her."

So we're walking down her aisle and right at that moment she gets up from trying on shoes and says into her cell phone, "Were you trying to reach me?"

We get passed and I ask TDW, "Did you get that? How tall is she?" And he says he didn't really notice because he was sizing up her voice instead of her height and concludes, "It's her. I can tell by her voice."

"Ugh! I already knew it was her! You were supposed to be seeing how tall she is! Is she taller than you?!"

"Hell no."

"What do you think, 6 feet in the heels?"

"Yeah. Probably."

So anyway, sorry Kit about calling you Skeletor all these years. You're an attractive woman in person. My bad.

Then we walked over to Old Navy where I bought a dress that TDW described as "totally unflattering" and "tarp-like."

Also, I still haven't done laundry.

Clotheslined

You know that point when you haven't done laundry in so long that you're wearing underwear you haven't worn in 2 years and probably should have thrown away anyway?

Well, I passed that point a month ago.

I haven't done laundry in months. Months. I don't even remember what clothes I have anymore. I've bought new underwear and wore them all already. Un-prewashed.

I'm a day away from having to wear suits to work. By Saturday I'll be wearing bridesmaids dresses. Next time a friend tells you "Oh, you can wear it again" what she means is you can wear it when you haven't done laundry in months and don't have anything else clean.

I'll be lookin' goooood grocery shopping in this.

I shared this laundry sitch with a friend/colleague who warned me, "You'll know when I haven't done laundry. My clothes get progressively nicer. I'll be going commando in my old prom dress."

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

I can be ridiculously sentimental sometimes. So yeah, I got a little misty watching this movie trailer. More about the film here.

And more about the man here, via Frank Rich Kelly's excellent eulogy.

That reminds me, my subscription to Modern Drunkard, the funniest (and I'd also argue possibly the best) magazine in the world is either lapsed (right, like they're gonna remind me to renew) or they're face down in a ditch somewhere and can't get the next issue out.

I suspect Hunter was a subscriber.

Comic Sans, Grape Stems & Hollywood Diets

Random excerpts from chats and emails this week:

• She hasn't eaten solid food in 2 weeks. She's on this diet where all she consumes is water and a special "tea" made of fresh lime juice and cayanne pepper.

• I have to tell you about single life. Well, I guess that wouldn't take long - it's boring.

• Judith, I've known you for 20 years, you've been a great influence on my life, blah, blah, blah. But I'm gonna have to let you go. Your font choice SUX. p.s. Gina said so.

• That would have sucked almost as much as getting "Bret" tattooed on the back of your neck.

• They were good friends, when they weren't drunk and beating the crap out of each other.

• Stamford--which kind of feels like a weird, east coast version of Dayton, OH. Even the mall is still kinda 80s. (Hello, carpet and glass elevators.)

• There were some seriously skanked up chicks. Like super tight tube dresses and stripper heels. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. And I saw some very disturbing/weird dancing as I walked past Cock and Bull. Cock and Bull!

• I have a hard time believing that it was a mistake eating that chocolate chip wheelie ice cream sandwich.

• My sources tell me that, during my absence, a certain web-bloggin', habit-quittin', ice-cream-lovin' web content research person was "borrowing" my cubicle and that this person happened to be snacking on the aformentioned healthy snack. I'm making no accusations; I'm just sayin'.

• The most eventful thing was taking a hike in Ault Park, and somehow getting off the trail and ending up in no man's land on Red Bank Road!

• I bet she totally bites your ponytail.

A million dollars to anyone who can guess the writer of each.

What Do You Do For Fun?

Tuesday morning a colleague who doesn't know me asked me what I do for fun.

It was disorienting. And I had no answer for him.

Then he asked me what my goals are.

Umm... Again, no answer.

I have a very boring life, I later told another colleague, to which she replied, "You do have goals! You want Paul to get someone pregnant, preferably a Latina woman, so you can have a baby part-time."

She's so right. Not only do I have lofty goals, but for fun I concoct elaborate schemes to reach these goals.