Imagine, if you will, the over-pop-cultured scene in the movie Network*, when Peter Finch’s character exhorts his television viewers to open their windows and shout “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Now, imagine a tiny, furry Cute Overload critter stamping its little feet and opening a precious miniature window with its wee paws and squeaking out the same line.

That’s about the scale of the rant you are about to hear.

Over (roughly) the last decade, I got all assertive and shit and eliminated several things from my life. Things that the Old Doormat Becky dutifully accepted but never liked. Well, no more, buster! A sample of concepts and practices on the reject pile:

Reading Kathy cartoons. Doreen and I made that vow together. We recently agreed that it was one of the smarter things either of us have done.

Listening to broadcast radio. I would have driven into a pylon by now if I had to balance the Mark & Brian Morning Show onto the heaping pile of injustice that is my daily commute. Podcasts and my 30GB (and counting? jesus) playlist keeps me alive.

Eggplant, homefries, and pesto. I am not a picky eater but those are three tastes I finally admit I don’t like. Slimy! Mealy! Greasily sweet! And giving them up has created more room in my craw for gravy, BLTs, and Everlasting Gobstoppers.

Watching American Idol. I will not watch it, but oddly, I like hearing coworkers discuss it. Vaguely related: I never watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, but insisted that Jeffrey (my friend for whom I worked the early 90s) recount every week’s episode, bedtime-story style.

Accepting ice in my beverages.

Pretending to like wine charms. I was quaffing wine with the fine fine Violet just the other evening, and I blurted out my distaste for the homely little things. Fortunately, I did not (yet again) have to insert my foot in my mouth as a. the wine charms did not belong to V, and b. V scorns them too. Cranky synchronicity: I just found this rant (from 2002!) in the very entertaining archives of Mimi Smartypants:

I HATE WINE CHARMS. What the hell is with this hideous trend? Can you think of a more useless piece of crap that just screams “I AM A POTTERY BARN WHORE”? Frankly, not knowing which wine glass is mine has never once been a problem for me, perhaps because I tend not to put my wine glass down all that often. And if you happen to be a crazy person and this wine glass identification is an area of concern to you, there are definitely alternatives to buying an overpriced geegaw: just put a big old lipstick print on it (men, you can do this too, don’t be shy), or hawk some mucus into it, or even just take whatever wine glass is the most full. Most adults don’t backwash that much, and hell, if you’re having all that wine you know you’re going to be swapping spit with somebody later anyway, you ho-bag. Might as well get it over with.

*Back to Network. I quite like it, unlike redhead430, who deems it Most Boring Movie I’ve Ever Seen in the IMDB Message Boards. Then, I’m a sucker for 1970s American films, and adore Faye Dunaway up to the point of increasing my Kinsey scale rating for her. If she’d have me.

Photo: Habitrail space observatory, by flickrphoto by hfabulous. It rather looks like the hamster is mad as hell and pounding his little paws on the glass, no?

nablopomo 07 day 17