Room 647: Paranormal State

I love ghost stories but not enough to actually witness anything. You hear me, ghosts! I have read all about Resurrection Mary, the Bell Witch and the Brown Lady. I’ve even lived in a haunted house. Or so I’ve been told. I didn’t witness anything. (However, I would not use the hall that went by the attic door. Ghost related? Maybe. But I think it may have more to do with my friend Amy and I exploring the attic and pretending an axe murderer lived up there. Oh, kids and their childish games!) Really, only the series of community theatre actors that rented rooms in the house “witnessed” things. And by witness, I mean, heard footsteps in the upstairs hallway. One night when I was seventeen, I came home to find all the lights on in every room. I turned them all out and sat down to watch TV. Then Theresa, an actress/tenant, called and said “Mandy, are you home? I couldn’t stay there by myself.” She would also sleep with a knife under her pillow. Not that the knife would do much to a ghost. Or an attic-dwelling axe murderer for that matter. (Side note: Theresa was the first person I ever met who had fake breasts. In fact, she was so proud when she got them that she demanded that I feel them. That was my brief stint with lesbianism.)

And this brings us to Paranormal State on A&E. This is one of the few ghosty investigation shows (like the aptly named Ghost Hunters!). PS is centered around a guy named Ryan who, because of some childhood ghostiness, is obsessed with the paranormal. He formed the Paranormal Research Society at Penn State with some spooky-lovin’ friends. Ryan is earnest. His voice over introduction is so fabulously dramatic: “We are students. We are seekers. And sometimes, we are warriors.” Awesome.

So the PRS goes and interviews people who are having ghosty problems. They often bring in a medium named Chip (!) to give some insight. He’s also dramatic. His assessment usually ends with revealing that someone died there and they are not happy. The team then has “Dead Time” when they and all their electronic toys are monitoring the house. “Dead Time”, according to Ryan’s earnest voice over, is the time when paranormal activity is most prevalent. Say 3am to 4am. Usually the time when I have to get up and go to the bathroom. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one wandering around at that time.

So what happens during “Dead Time”? Well, there’s a lot of infrared camera work and a whole lot of “Oh my God! Did you see that?” (No, we didn’t. You were too busy shaking the camera.) But if you’re lucky, you might hear some demonic voices on a tape recorder or if you’re really lucky, a possession!

The house is then blessed. And then we get a postscript that the family members are now OK and haven’t had another encounter. And then Ryan has a closing earnest voice over where he earnestly unveils what he “learned” from this week’s case. Earnestly.

Boo!

Amenities of Room 647: Attic-less Suite. Special Dead Time wakeup call. Complimentary Room Cleansing.

Room 1303: The F Word

More specifically, Gordon Ramsey’s The F Word. (He means “Food”; wash out your brain!) The F Word is my new obsession. And I should know by now not to watch even one minute of a new BBC America show because I’ll be hooked. (I haven’t done an in depth analysis yet so I don’t know whether it’s the accents or I’m easily entertained.)

So a little background. Very little because I don’t much about Gordon Ramsey except that he’s English, a chef, a former footballer or rugby-er, and he yells at people. And I’m not 100% on the sport thing. Besides The F Word, he has a show called Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares that is also addictive. This is where he goes to run down restaurants and kicks everyone in the ass and makes the restaurant fab. There’s always one employee of the restaurant who tells the camera that Ramsey can go fuck himself. That employee either ends up crying or quitting. The criers always thank Gordon at the end. The quitters are just bleeped a lot.

So. The F Word. I never had any desire to watch any Gordon Ramsey show but I caught the credit sequence. It’s Ramsey walking down a brightly lit hip restaurant corridor in a suit which he takes off in slow motion and dons his chef coat. This is all done to the tune: The F Word’s here and the F Word’s there. Laa la lalalala. That’s what did it. I watched the entire hour. I was just thankful it wasn’t a marathon day…

The main story of The F Word is that 50 guests come to his restaurant and he replaces his staff with 4 amateur chefs. They prepare an app, an entrée and a dessert. With each course, Jean Baptiste, the maitre d’, comes back and tells Ramsey and the amateurs how many of the 50 guests are paying for that course. Ideally, they want all 50 to pay up. After the dessert course, they add up the “pays” and that’s their score. And I guess (and I say “guess” because I haven’t been watching from the beginning and I’m watching out of sequence) that the highest “scorers” get supreme bragging rights at the end of the season.

And in between the courses and Ramsey yelling at the amateurs, there’s some fun food stuff: like teaching various East Enders how to cook for friends, feeding his pigs beer to give them a better flavor, testing Cliff Richard’s wine palette, and asking some Brit foodie to guess which animal’s testicles he’s eating.

Need I say more? Laaa la lalalala…

Amenities of Room 1303: Expletive laden hotel directory. Complimentary chef coat. Mini bar filled with Cliff Richard Cabernet.

Room 693: The Four Twitter Agreements

1. Be impeccable with your tweet.
2. Don’t take any tweet personally.
3. Don’t make any assumptions about tweets.
4. Do the best tweet you can.

You were put on Twitter to be happy and have fun.

Amenities of Room 693: Radio tuned to the Mash-up station. The Holy Bible in 140 characters or less.

Room 1274: I Am a Metal Pig

I cannot remember the origins of this but one day at work I asked everyone what their Chinese Astrology animal is. You know, being born in the Year of the Rat, etc. My co-workers would either look at me quizzically or say "I'm an Ox!". Well, it goes even beyond that: apparently, besides the animal, each year has an element as well. Earth, Water, Wood and Metal. Hence, Metal Pig. (Contrary to some Facebookers belief, it does not mean I'm into Megadeth and I'm messy. Oh, yes. The words "Metal" and "Pig" found their way into my Facebook status. I love statuses. Where else can you say you watched a Lakers game with Voldemort?) Now, I won't go into what Metal Pig means (besides being awesome!) but it brings up in me another obsession: books/websites about astrology/personality types. I'm not obsessed in the sense that I take stock in it or live my life by what some random stranger "says" is me, but I do have love for reading my type/animal/sign/archetype and going "huh."

Besides Sagittarian Metal Pig, I'm also a Comfort Seeking Nine with a One Wing ("The Dreamer") and I won't go into my Archetypes because, well, that's personal (Fun Fact! Everyone has twelve archetypes and four that everyone has are The Child, The Victim, The Saboteur and The Prostitute. The whole world is one-twelfth whore!). I'm now looking into what my Star Wars sign is (I'm guessing I'm a Han Solo with a shade of Jawa) and which of my Seven Dwarfs is the most dominant. Right now, it's Sleepy.

Amenities of Room 1274: Constellation mapped ceiling. Extra storage space for all personalities. Comfort bedding for the comfort seeking.

Room 785: Valentine's Day

I guess I'm just now able to talk about it.

I ate movie theatre refreshment stand cheese pizza while wearing 3-D glasses...alone. Then I went to Ross and bought three non-practical bras and a basket for my magazines.

There is so much wrong with those last two sentences. Who goes to Ross for sexy bras? I guess I have a wee bit of a commitment issue if I can't part with more than $6 for a turquoise push-up. I have to confess, though, that I love them. But I am a little disappointed that I didn't search for matching panties. Never underestimate the power of a matching bra and panties. I find that the older I get the more I want to be matchy in my lingerie choices. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't have to be so matchy that the bra & panties match and/or compliment the outer garments. Because that's not sophisticated and sexy; that's obsessive compulsive.

Oh, and I concluded the holiday by hand-washing those bras and hanging them to dry.

Amenities of Room 785: Complimentary white robe that goes with the complimentary white slippers. That does not match the drapes.

Room 989: Planet Hollywood

Yes, they are still around.

I saw one a few months ago when I was in NYC. I don't need to see anymore. You see, I used to work at the PH in Chicago. In fact: I was Planet Hollywood. I was hired as host and then became a host trainer, then a server and then a server trainer and I also worked in the office on Sundays. I wore hideously busy shirts and vests and said "Welcome to Planet Hollywood. Are you here for dinner, drinks or just looking around?" (Side note: that was not the official greeting. I adopted it from my fellow host that I went on two dates with because he didn't want to admit that he was gay even though he was living in a city with an area called Boys Town.) During my two year stint on Wells Street, I served lots of Chicken Crunch (you know, chicken fingers breaded with Captain Crunch cereal. Sounds weird or yummy? It's both!), saw way too many prom dresses, went out drinking after almost every shift, held women back from touching Mel Gibson, served Michael Dorn AKA Lt. Worf from Next Generation, witnessed for the first time someone doing cocaine, made the mistake of being roommates with that someone, saw Charlie Sheen's brother in his underwear... in my home, learned all the lyrics to What a Man by Salt-n-Pepa, witnessed a server spit into a customer's coke, heard the Fugees for the first time, won $90 on the Kentucky Derby, flashed a surveillance camera, had money stolen, had one of my guests vomit daiquiri on the Terminator 2 statue, was named Host of the Quarter, served too many Bulls, Bears, Cubs & White Sox to mention, learned that Scottie Pippen was known as No Tippin' Pippen, and had to answer the phone with the hello "Thank you for calling Planet Hollywood, your answer to all your gift certificate and holiday party needs. This is Mandy. How may I help you?"

Yep. I'm done.

Amenities of Room 989: Unlimited refills of ice. Celebrity Hand Print wall feature. In room entertainment includes All Stallone, All the Time.

Room 630: 10,000 Steps

Yes, I watched Oprah's Best Life Week last week. I love that shit.

For those of you not in the know (i.e. women under 25 and men), Oprah had a thyroid condition which in turn inspired her to have a series of "master classes" on how to live your best life. (She kept saying "Put yourself on your To Do list!" But weirdly, she did not say it on Friday which was the Sex 101 episode. I think she missed an opportunity there.) Monday was an interview with her and also her trainer Bob Greene about how she gained a bunch of weight back (Hello Thyroid!). Tuesday was Dr. Oz. He told me to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup (way ahead of you!), know your resting heart rate (way behind you!) and sleep. Oh, and walk 10,000 steps a day. So of course, I had to get out the pedometer. Yes, I own one. It was given to me as part of a work conference welcome packet. (Hey, it was better than the weird smelling plastic bottle we got the year before. Can water really be made to be unappetizing? Yes, in that bottle.) I clipped the pedometer to my belt and went about my day. I walked 7443 steps. So I'm guessing that I got about a B on that exam. I'm fine with that. I don't need to march in place at my desk for eight hours. I'm not an overachiever.

Wednesday was all about Spirituality. The panel was some spiritual lady who has an Oprah & Friends show on satellite radio, one of The Secret guys and some priest from Pasadena. He hasn't written a book so I'm not sure how he got on Oprah's radar. Anyway, I tried to really tune into what they were saying but every time they showed The Secret guy, I couldn't help but think he looked like Predator. Kind of hurled my spirituality out the window.

Thursday was Suze Orman. I have to admit that I've seen her show on CNBC. The SNL parody is pretty dead on. She says things like "OK Boyfriend, show me the money!" and "Girlfriend, what do you want to buy?" And people call in to ask her if they can afford to buy things. For instance, maybe some "Girlfriend!" wants a Gucci bag at nine hundred crazy-ass dollars. Suze asks for her numbers and Girlfriend! starts with her take home each month, then her mortgage and then she says "And in credit card debt, I have..." And Suze says "DENIED!" And she will deny you every time if you have one cent credit card debt. But time after time, people try to get her permission and each time they are DENIED! I ask the TV, "Haven't you seen this show?" And seriously, you're an adult. Do you need a shoulder-padded TV host's permission to buy something? If you are severely jonsin' for that Gucci bag, buy it and suffer the consequences. Think for yourself!

Now if you'll excuse me, I must await further life instructions from Oprah...

Amenities of Room 630: Amenities tailored according to Debt to Credit Ratio. Plus a complimentary basket of fiber and omega-3 fatty acids.