Me Gusta, No Me Gusta Part-o Dos

No Me Gusta: Not Knowing Where My Money Is
The husband and I bank with Wachovia. Or should I say we banked with Wachovia? Am I still banking with Wachovia? The sign says Wachovia, but when we performed a balance transfer from our Wachovia card to a card with a lower interest rate, the woman on the phone said, "Oh - you mean you'd like to transfer funds from your Bank of America card to your Discover card." "Umm ... no - we hate Bank of America. We're with Wachovia. That's the card number we just gave you." "Well, yes, but Wachovia has been bought by Bank of America." "Oh crap - I don't want to go back to banking with them! They were AWFUL!!!" Fast forward to the following morning, at which time I saw a piece on the Today Show about how Citibank has actually bought Wachovia. "Uh ... wait a minute. The woman on the phone yesterday said Discover was making their check out to Bank of America. Should they have made it out to Citibank? I am so confused." Not as confused as I was about to get. Later that afternoon, I saw another piece online talking about how some other corporation had bought up Wachovia and several other failing banks and it was now in the top three biggest banking corporations, alongside Citibank and Bank of America. Okay, hold on. Where is my money??? Honestly, I have no idea. All I know is that the balance transfer went through just fine, my paycheck gets direct deposited right on schedule, and my checks to pay the bills are clearing with no problem. As Shakespeare would say, "What's in a name? A Wachovia by any other name is still FDIC insured ... I think."

Me Gusta: Katamari Damacy
What's not to love about this video game? The ridiculously bad Engrish subtitles. The awesome music. The hilarious song lyrics. The adorableness of your avatar. As the Prince of the Universe, not only can you wear a giraffe on your head, and save the red pandas, but you can carry around entire cities, nay, even continents in your quest to help your impulsive father, the King of the Universe, recreate what he has destroyed in a fit of anger. The game is simple, really. You start out with a small ball, which you roll around in order to collect objects by rolling over them to get them to stick to said ball. Some levels require you to reach a certain diameter in a certain time limit. Others require you to pick up a certain dollar's worth of items or a certain number of a specific object. All of them are really crazy, completely random, and totally awesome. My husband and I have seriously considered purchasing a PS2 if for no other reason than to play this game. The main thing holding us back: We would never turn it off, and our children would starve.

No Me Gusta: Election Campaigning
Was it me, or were campaign ads particularly awful this year? "He's too young!" "Well, he's too old!" "She's too pretty!" "Who the heck is Joe Biden, anyway?" "I'm a Maverick, looking out for Joe the Plumber!" "I'd like to take a page from the Kennedys' book and pull a Marilyn Monroe on Joe the Plumber ASAP." "Barack Obama isn't even a US citizen!" "You can't prove that, and I'm really going to help my case by absolutely refusing to let anyone see my birth certificate until after the election, at which time you'll hopefully have forgotten all about it. Besides, John McCain had cancer 20 years ago! We all know how common it is to get random cancer back after 20 years of remission! Why don't you just vote for plastic Sarah Palin?" "Are you insinuating I'm too dumb to lead America when - I mean, if - John McCain croaks? I'm not dumb, I just - I mean to say, America is like a pot pie, and without you plumbers as peas and you teachers and soldiers as the meat and potatoes we'd just not be anything to stand and fight against the forces of evil against this glorious country! I have the most excellent structure in my sentences, you know? Go Alaska Tech Women's Hockey!" Oy vey. On and on and on it went. I thought it would never end. It wasn't bad enough that the presidential ads were awful - the local representatives' all looked like they'd been put together in a high school design class, and none of them really talked about anything of importance. "He's actually from NY, so why should he be a representative in VA?" "Well, I'd make a better representative than him. All he's ever voted in favor of is to erect a crappy statue on Capitol Hill." Even allergy medications were going at it full steam. "Claritin takes a long time to kick in. Zyrtec works two whole hours faster than all the other leading brands." "Oh yeah? Well Zyrtec isn't telling you that you'll spend those two hours asleep because it causes drowsiness and Claritin doesn't!" Ugh. Never have I looked forward to an election more, not for the historicity of the event or because I was super eager to vote for a candidate I loved, but because I wanted nothing more than to stop those crazy ads.

Me Gusta: The Year After an Election
No campaign ads. No slander. The new guy is getting to know the ropes, so he isn't really making big decisions to screw up my life (yet). The old guy is making appearances on SNL and Conan and deciding which university he'll give the commencement speech at this year. It's so quiet. And did I mention there are no campaign ads? Ah, what a glorious year.

Me Gusta No Me Gusta Part-o Uno

Taking a page from MJ's book, I've decided to put together a Me Gusta, No Me Gusta List for those of you who care to know what me gustas and what me doesn't gusta. Over the course of the next week or so, I will make several entries telling you about some things I like and some things of which I am not a big fan. Without further ado, I bring you today's portion ...

Me Gusta: The Funeral by Band of Horses
Ever since this song first apeared on my radar in the Ford Edge ads last year, it's been a veritable love affair. (The irony of a car commercial featuring a song that is about death and whose actual music video revolves around a car crash is inescapable.) I had a great time trying to figure out what the song was, too, with no lyrics to Google and nothing but an insanely catchy guitar riff to go by, but I eventually worked my search engine magic and came out successful. The main guitar line of this song is, without a doubt, one of the catchiest you'll ever hear. I'd just gotten it out of my head from those Ford ads a few months ago, and then CSI started using it for their Season 9 premiere marketing. Looks like it's hear (bad pun intended) to stay.

No Me Gusta: The Ocean
It's up to no good, I tell you. Thousands of pounds of pressure. Trillions of gallons of undrinkable water. Sharks. Jellyfish. Fire coral. Shipwrecks. Barricuda. How could Quint, Captain Smith, or Coral stand a chance? Look, but don't touch. I love the beach, but I am terrified of the ocean. I don't typically go out past my knees, and even then, I often end up screaming and yelping as I bound back up the shore, "Something touched my leg!!!"