Sara the Diseased

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Sara gets Sick

Sara moans, while laying on the couch. “I think I'm sick.”

“Stay away from me, I don't feel like getting sick this week.”

“What's the matter? Got a cold?”

“A cough, my head feels all congested and I have a headache, and I'm nauseas.”

“There is Tylenol cold in the bathroom, you should take some. Take some vitamin C and Echinacea too. It'll help.”

“Okay..” Sara mutters, pulling herself to her feet and heading to the bathroom. Can you pour me something bubbly then?”

Tabitha pours Sara a glass of ginger ale. “I hope she doesn't get us sick, I have a test next week that I need to study for, and trying to study sick sucks.”

“I have to work, and I need the money. And I'm too lazy to do any writing when I'm sick.”

Sara returns from the bathroom and heads towards the kitchen. “Woah, stay away from me! I put your glass by the couch.”

“Yes yes, I'm diseased, no one wants anything to do with me.” Sara mopes around and plops down on the couch.

“Me and Mark have big plans for Valentine's Day, I can't be hacking and sneezing for them. That'd suck.”

“Here, take some Vitamin C with me.”

Frank walks in from his room and sees Tabitha and Ann swallowing pills. “Oooh, popping pills already? Need something to take that edge off before Valentine's Day dates tonight?”

“Just Vitamin C, Sara's sick.”

“Diseased! Quick, someone spray her with Lysol!”

“I don't think spraying me with Lysol is going to heal me.”

“You never know. I'm headed out for an early dinner with a friend, you want me to pick you up some cough drops on the way back?” Frank asks, as Sara start coughing violently.

“That'd be great. Thanks Frank. See if they have the strawberry vitamin c ones. Those are yummy.”

“You got it.”

“Tabitha runs over with a Lysol wipe and wipes down the coffee table in the living room. You can at least cover your mouth if you're going to hack all over!”

“Oh relax! I don't think germs can live for long outside the body anyway, especially on a coffee table.”

“Okay okay..I just don't want to get sick.”

“I'm sure you'll be fine. I don't think I'm contagious anyway. I'm actually glad I didn't have any plans for tonight, I'm not feeling up to being romantic anyway.”

“Yeah, hard to feel sexy when you're coughing and sneezing and generally miserable.”

“That was a Friends episode once. Monica was sick and trying to get Chandler to have sex with her.”

“Yeah, I remember that episode. I just hope you two are snubbed and don't bring smelly flowers back here. They'd probably aggravate my noise.”

“Roses don't smell that much, but I can keep any flowers I get in my room if it bothers you.”

“We'll see. I'm going to lay on the couch and hopefully fall asleep watching chocolate specials on the Food Network.

“Sounds like a plan. I guess I should go get ready to go out and enjoy my Steak tonight. Woo hoo!”

Cadbury Mini Eggs

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Cadbury Mini Eggs: Solid Milk Chocolate With A Crisp Sugar Shell

“Hey guys! I got us some Cadbury Mini Eggs to celebrate with!”

“What are we celebrating?”

“That I got us some Cadbury Mini Eggs? I got us six bags. I figure we could have a race and see who finishes theirs first.”

“Great idea!”

“No. That's stupid. I'm not shoving a bag full of chocolate eggs in my mouth as fast as I can.”

“Party pooper!”

“Yeah, come on. It'll be fun!”

“No it won't. It'll be disgusting.”

“I'm going to have to agree with Tabitha. I'm not really into those eggs anyway. I prefer the big crème filled ones.”

“I'll play. What else have I got to do anyway?”

“I can't believe you bought six bags...and you're unemployed.”

“A girl can't be mopey all day long. I need my chocolate.”

“The best bet would have been to not get fired.”

Sara just glares at Tabitha.

“Whatever. Are you in Scott?”

“Chocolate, competitions, possibly getting sick? What's not to love?”

“Good. We have two extra bags..maybe we should do a little single elimination tournament?”

“You are proposing we eat a second bag afterwards? Let's just leave those to eat during the week okay?”

“Yeah, you know how Tabitha gets when there is vomit all over the place.”

“Everyone's cleaning up their own vomit. Girl's room is off limits, so if you're going to puke Sara, use their bathroom.”

“I'm not going to puke. Relax.”

“Yeah Tab, just think of the chocolate as Sara's valentine's gift to you.”

“You shouldn't feel obligated to put out though.”

“Yes she should.”

“You're right, yes you should.”

“Screw you all!” Tabitha says, and storms away.

“You guys ready? Sure you don't want in Ann?”

“I'm sure. I actually think it might be more fun watching. I'll be the judge.”

They start on Ann's signal and start shoving chocolate eggs in their mouth. They start making a colossal mess as shattered candy shells spray out of their too-full mouths to add to the mess of the crumbs of the overturned bags.

“Done!” Sara shouts, slamming her hand down on the counter.

“Rmmm! Mmhrhrm hmrm mmrrmhm!”

“I have to agree with Billy.”

“I think I'm going to be sick.”

“I scratched the roof of my mouth on a candy shell.”

“Me too. It was worth it though.”

“You're the mini-egg eating champ. Aren't you so proud?”

“I can't believe I lost to a girl.”

“Loser. You're a big loser!” Sara taunts.

“It's over Billy, you can stop eating them.”

“They're yummy though.”

Scott moans from the couch. “Urgh! I feel sick..I feel sick.”

“I thought that was part of the fun.”

“Not when I lose.”

“If Santa leaves you coal when you're bad, does the Easter Bunny leave you speckled egg vomit?”

“Gross Frank!”

“He probably leaves you rotten eggs. You get last year's batch.”

“So if you're bad, the Easter Bunny gives you salmonella?”

“And he uses lead-based paint dyes on the eggs so you get lead poisoning too.”

“Damn, the Easter Bunny can sure be a bastard!”

Upcoming Box Office Bomb

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Upcoming Bomb

“You guys have to see this horrible movie that's coming out Friday.” Billy says, emerging from his room.

“Why would I want to see it if it's so bad?”

“It's like a car crash where you just can't look away. It has Paris Hilton in it. The movie title itself proclaims her to be a 'hottie'.”

“Pretty bad marketing move on their part. Let's check this out, boot it up over there on good 'ole Sammy.”

(Sammy is the fairly outdated clunker of a computer Frank donated to the living room. It's short for Samantha.)

“The Hottie and the Nottie? Could you have a lamer movie title?”

“Christine Lakin is the 'Nottie'? She's so much hotter than Paris Hilton.”

“What's she been in?”

“I saw her in the Game Plan a couple of weeks ago. I checked her IMDB page, she's been in a couple of things here and there. Reefer Madness the Musical for instance.”

“So nothing good then? This movie looks horrible!”

“Even outside of the 'Paris Hilton is a skanky slutbag' angle, it still doesn't look good.”

“I'm not surprised I've seen no commercials for it.”

“What were they thinking casting her? I imagine she probably doesn't die horribly like in House of Wax either.”

“I'm certainly not going to watch it to find out.”

“Over/Under on how many millions this makes in the box office?”

“I'm thinking four. Max.”

“I'll take the under on that.”

“How much did Gigli make? Like six or seven? This looks even worse.”

Billy looks up the box office numbers. “It made just over six million in the US. Cost 54 million to make. Ouch...It got a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes.”

“Nine positive, 147 negative. I'm surprised nine people liked it.”

“It must be nice to have money. You can star in or make crappy movies whenever you want.”

“One day we're going to look back on this decade and cringe that Paris Hilton was even worthy of discussion.”

“One day? I think we're at that point already.”

“I agree. This movie is just a waste of energy to show on a screen. I feel bad for the people running the projectors that have to watch it. This is the kind of movie that movie critics refer to when they talk about 'paying their dues'.”

“You never know, maybe she does end up dying horribly in the end.”

“That should be in the trailer. It'd easily double their box office figures.”

More Maria Bartiromo

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Frank, Billy.

Subject: The MTA is still at it

“Did you see this article on Monday's Times? It's about the Maria Bartiromo ads I was ranting about.”

“No I didn't. Why, did they mention the blog?”

“No, shockingly it seems like they don't read it. It was talking about how most people don't really remember the message, and that they find them annoying.”

“Well, you scooped them on that. You should email the columnist a link to the entry.”

“Isn't that a little tacky?”

“So? Worst case is she ignores you. Email her from the blog email address, it's virtually anonymous then. Did they say they were going to do away with the announcements?”

“No,” Says Sara, looking up from the paper. “Looks like they added Al Roker to the mix.”

“The article wasn't even that good. It likened the spots to a previous ad campaign to have celebrities try to convince taxi riders to buckle up.”

“I heard about that one. Screw the celebrities, let me do the announcements!”

“I think I'd get tired of hearing your voice too. The article mentions Al Roker, but it doesn't mention that they also added one of the 1010wins voices, I can't remember who though. Not driving much I don't listen.”

“At least it's just on the fringe services, not the main subway lines.”

“Still annoying if you're spending any length of time in Penn or Grand Central though.”

“It says they're on a timer, but I've definitely heard it three times in a quick span, and not at all during other times.”

“The other ones were pretty loud and jarring, but the Roker one was actually too quiet. You might not even hear it.”

“Hey Ann, you going to try to do another horrendous job of photoshopping Jose Reyes onto the 7 train image?”

“No, I gave up. The problem was I couldn't find a nice 7 train image online to use. Although if your going to email that post, maybe I should make it better..”

“I said you should email it, not me. You couldn't find the logo? I'm sure there are a million of them on google images.”

“You're welcome to try to do better.”

“Intriguing challenge. Maybe I will..”

Super Bowl Sunday

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Super Bowl Sunday

After spending the day proclaiming myself the premier Giants fan in the apartment, Ann demanded that I write this post after the game. Frank's a Panther fan, Sara and Billy like the Jets, Ann calls herself a Bills fan, and Tabitha, when I demanded she pick a team, chose the Browns because she thought it was a silly name for a football team.

Action continues at the end of the fourth quarter.

“There is still one second left! Get off the field so we can finish this!”

“Why bother? Do we really need to go through the process of Eli catching a football to finalize it? He's not going to drop it and then have the Patriots recover for a touchdown, that's just stupid.”

“League rules though.”

“They've already hit Coughlin with the Gatorade, that's good enough for me.”

“Some good commercials though.”

“Hey, let's bask in the glory of the Giants championship a little before we discuss mundane advertisements.”

“The last time the Mets won the World Series, it was after the Giants won the Super Bowl.”

“Aren't you jinxing it a little bit?”

“Nah. Come to think of it, the last time the other local football team won, the Mets won the World Series also.”

“Well, maybe the Mets win and then it's the Jets turn next year?”

“That's definitely a jinx.”

“Anything in association with the Jets is a jinx.”

“I liked the Thanksgiving balloon commercial with Stewie and Underdog racing for the bottle of coke.”

“Oh fine. Let's discuss the commercials. It was a little surprising to see Charlie Brown of all people prevail though.”

“Brown never prevails. He's like the Jets.”

“Stewie is usually foiled too...and Underdog by nature is not favored to win.”

“Good point.”

“The Garmin ad where the reenacter shamefully hides the electronic device after he uses it to get there was funny. I like the catchy song too, Garmin, Garmiiin.” Sara sings.

“Somehow I don't think it'd find that forest though.”

A Geico caveman commercial comes on, where the cavemen mock the Caveman tv show.

“Did the Geico Cavemen just mock the television show?”

“They sure did. Even they know it sucked.”

“That Doritos commercial was awesome! The one where he baits the trap for the mouse.”

“And then the giant mouse leaps out of the wall and beats the crap out of him? Classic.”

“The Sales Genie commercials were pretty bad though.”

“Yeah, they lose. Worse than the Patriots.”

“I kind of enjoyed the Diet Pepsi Max with ginseng commercials. The one where they're all head-bobbing and falling asleep.”

“The best part was seeing Joe Buck falling asleep. I guess he bores even himself.”

“No no, the best part is right at the end where the guy yells 'Stop it!' at the two girls.”

“That was one of the best Super Bowls ever, but now I'm going to hit the hay. Early shift tomorrow.”

“Hit the hay? I don't think anyone actually uses that phrase anymore..unless you are headed out to a barn.”

“You should convert your room into a hay loft. That'd be pretty cool.”

“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to 'go to sleep'. Better?”

“Kind of boring, but I accept it.”

“Good, goodnight.”

“Is it too early to call in sick so I can attend the parade on Tuesday?”

“Not if you're working tomorrow..I'm sure George will accept that you somehow know you're going to get sick after your shift tomorrow already.”

“You're right. I'll wait 'till Tuesday morning, but you better remind me. George always yells at me for forgetting to call in.”

“Aren't you supposed to get someone to cover for you anyway? You could ask at your shift tomorrow..”

“Hey, you're right! I could do that..Bernice owes me a favor anyway. She'll like this better than the other thing I keep suggesting..”

“You know, one of these days your going to get sued for sexual harassment doing stuff like that.”

“All I meant was burn me a couple of DVDs from her collection. What were you thinking you sicko?”

“I'm sure that's all you meant.”

“Sexual innuendo? Me? Never!”

February

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: February

“I never did a What Do You Like About January post did I? Shoot. Oh well, there is always next year. Guess what! It's February!”

Frank groans. “Fine, but you go first.”

“Happily. I like February for Valentine's Day. I've only been dating Mark a little while, but I think it's long enough to get pampered on February 14^th.”

“The pampering is nice, but the best part about it is the chocolate. Sweet delicious chocolate. And even if you don't have a boyfriend, all the stores are selling delicious stuff.”

“Beware the Ides of February!”

“February 15^th? Is that your favorite part of February or are you just being stupid?”

“So's your face.”

“What? That doesn't even make sense.”

“So's your face always makes sense.”

“Scrubs reference high-five!” Scott and Frank high five, and then snap their fingers.

“Super Bowl! The Super Bowl is Sunday. Let's go big blue!”

“I didn't realize you were such a big Giants fan.”

“They're growing on me. Did you know that the Jets were named for the planes at neighboring LaGuardia airport and their colors come from the Hess gas station colors?”

“I didn't know that. That's a lovely history they have. Was Hess one of their original owners?”

“Yeah.”

“Back to the ides, pitchers and catchers report to spring training on February 15^th. Baseball season is getting closer!”

“Baseball high five!”

Sara and Frank slap five.

“I like February for my birthday. Quarter century this year.”

“25's a good number. I liked that age. I like Groundhogs day. It's such an unappreciated holiday.”

“Unappreciated? What's to appreciate? We make a big deal about a rodent coming out of the ground, and either bitch and moan about the cold weather, or cheer that it's almost spring. Woo Hoo.”

“I liked the movie too.”

“Fun movie. Doesn't make the holiday any better.”

“Doesn't make it any worse.”

Ann cuts in. “That's everyone! That wasn't so bad was it?”

“I liked January better.”

“I didn't do this in January.”

“Exactly!”

Political Poker

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Political Poker

“They could call it Political Poker.”

“Call what political poker?”

“Did you not see the Colbert Report last week?”

“I caught an episode or two, but I don't know what you are talking about.”

“He had on this Harvard professor, Dr. Charles Nesson, who wants to legalize and legitimize Internet poker, and poker in general. He teaches strategy and he was explaining how poker is the ultimate tool for teaching it.”

“That sounds interesting, learning strategy via poker, but how is that political poker?”

“Oh, at the end he suggested Stephen Colbert should get together all the presidential nominees for a game of poker.”

“That would be interesting. You'd be able to see how they think and plan based on the game. Intriguing. What did Colbert say?”

“He said something about Hillary already having the glasses for it. I'd love to see this, I feel like I could learn more about a candidates personality and character by watching him or her play a game of poker. Certainly more than I would learn watching any of those debates.”

“Those debates at least deal with the issues though. How would a poker game tell you how the candidates feel about the issues?”

“I'm not advocating replacing the debates, just supplementing them. However, all you hear at debates is canned speeches. They know what they're going to tell you about each issue, and it's more what you want to hear than what they believe. There are plenty of other ways to get into how a candidate feels about the issues, but poker would be better to tell you how well they can make decisions.”

“That would probably get ratings too. Especially with people our age that everyone seems to want.”

“It'd blow the debates away. It'd be perfect for Monday night, going into super Tuesday.”

“I'd be more inclined to watch, and feel more informed about voting if I saw something like that.”

“Wouldn't it be unfair to candidates that don't know how to play poker?”

“They could always learn. I don't think any of them are sharks. Their wouldn't be any huge advantage, and it wouldn't be mandatory, although you'd look like a coward if you backed down from a friendly game of cards.”

“It can't be that friendly if you're talking about basing your vote on it.”

“Better I vote by judging their character in a game rather than a coin toss or not voting at all right? Besides, what better way for people to relate to these politicians than by watching them play a simple, American game?”

“We're trusting these guys with the leadership of our nation. And it's easier to trust someone you can relate to and understand. Poker provides that.”

“It sounds like a very cool idea. I don't see it happening though.”

“Well, maybe I can use all my political clout to suggest it for the next election in 2012.”

“You don't have any political clout. Playing poker once with a guy that looked like Al Gore is not clout.”

“I'll have to get me some clout then.”