BLOW OFF song of the day: Under Your Spell by Desire

"I don't eat, I don't sleep, I do nothing but think of you. You keep me under your spell, you keep me under your spell, you keep me under your spell."
-Desire, 2009

Yes, we are jumping on the "Drive has a great soundtrack" bandwagon. Gosling forever.

is heartbreak necessary?

I used to think that getting your heartbroken builds character. Yes, it sucks, but it's a rite of passage we all have to go through, right? And then I saw Toby's responses to our BLOW OFF questionnaire yesterday and I have to admit...I was a little jealous the girl never had her heart shattered into a million little pieces. And since we happen to be members of the same book club, I can personally attest to the fact that she has a lot of character. She's smart and funny and has great decorating taste. Plus, she's super nice. I was also a little embarrassed, because when I first reached out to friends and readers to answer the questionnaire, I included my own example answers.

I've had my heart broken SEVEN times.

And that's just relationship heartbreak. The career heartbreak has happened too many times to count. I swear I'm not one of those girls that had my heartbroken a lot, because I constantly jumped from relationship to relationship. I've had a lot of dry spells. So, perhaps I need to be more picky about what counts as "heartbreak." When I was doing the math, I counted the guys that I wallowed over. You know, the guys that made me cry myself to sleep or left me with a big fat pit in my stomach that felt like it had its own heartbeat. The ones that made me breathe like an asthmatic. Back in 1997, heartbreak #1 had me listening to I Wish I Felt Nothing by the Wallflowers so much that my parents nearly staged an intervention.

I've worn all these crappy rejections like a badge, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'd be a lot better off today if they never happened. I'm sure I would be far less cynical and far more trusting. I certainly wouldn't have started this blog, but maybe instead I would have come up with something a little more upbeat and optimistic. It's possible I wouldn't be as emotionally resilient, but I cry on a regular basis, so I'm not sure how emotionally resilient that makes me to begin with. Maybe the whole "builds character" thing is just the BS we feed ourselves, because it makes dealing with disappointment a little bit easier.

What do you think, readers? Any heartbreaks you would have rather not gone through to begin with? Be honest. It's easy to say they all made you who you are today, but what if without them, you'd be an even better version of yourself?

Oh, and here's that Wallflowers song...set to the TV show Supernatural. Sorry, it's the only version I could find online. And yes, I wore Doc Martens and went through a somber phase in my teens. But I also listened to The Wallflowers, so it couldn't have been that bad.

the BLOW OFF questionnaire: meet Toby

Meet Toby, happily married for four months. Originally from Nashville, Toby now lives in LA and looks better in hats than pretty much all British people.

I hate guys who...do yoga.
I love guys who... make me laugh.
My worst break up was...when Taylor Harris dumped me in the 5th grade.
My easiest break up was...when I dumped a guy in college because he fake inhaled.
My three deal breakers are...cargo shorts, hair gel, and dudes who don't read.
I've been in love 5 times
I've had my heart broken 0 times
I've broken 2-3 hearts
My go to sad break up song is... Maggie May
My go to "fuck you" break up song is...Cock in My Pocket by the Stooges
Angelina Jolie...made the right move with Brad Pitt.
Reality TV...holds no candle to Mad Men or Breaking Bad.



Want to be featured in a BLOW OFF questionnaire post? Simply send us an email at theblowoffwtf@gmail.com with a photo and answers to the above questions.

the "sleep with me or lawyer up" BLOW OFF

In America, it's pretty much expected that married couples will eventually stop having sex. You've all seen those Whitney billboards--- half of all marriages end in sweatpants! But in France, it appears that things work a little different. If your spouse stops having sex with you...you get to sue them!

Our resident Single Asian Female (who may need to change her name. She's still Asian, just not single anymore) sent me this article about a married couple who were divorcing in France and the wife actually won a lawsuit against her husband for not having sex with her. Here's what happened. The couple got divorced after 21 years of marriage, because the wife claimed that her husband withheld sex. The divorce was granted and it was ruled the husband was solely at fault for the split. Seriously, the whole "no fault" divorce thing in Cali is so stupid. It's always someone's fault. But even after the divorce, the wife took him back to court to sue for the no sex thing. The husband blamed the lack of sex on tiredness and health problems, but apparently the judge wasn't buying it. He stated that “A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.” The wife was awarded close to the equivalent of $12,000.

I'm really into this! For starters, it kind of deconstructs that whole myth that guys want sex more than girls do. Not always the case. It also gives couples an incentive to bone. Like...the next time you're not in the mood if your husband or wife said "fuck me or pay me $12,000" wouldn't you instantly drop trow? But then again, I'm easy. I'd drop trow for $50.

Red Flag by Chanel

We love this SNL ad. Click here for the BLOW OFF's list of red flags.

to save or not to save, that is the question.

As most of you know, I got married recently. I realize referencing that fact regularly seriously messes with my street cred of writing a break up blog, but I promise you readers, I will never lose sight of that sixteen year old girl in me who can recite every word of Jewel's Pieces of Me album thanks to the stoner boy that never liked me back in high school. And by every word on that album, I do not mean that weird song Adrian about the kid who died on the canoe or something.

Anyway, the point of starting this post with wedding talk was to segue into a story about our rehearsal dinner. It was awesome. It was maybe as good as the wedding, because my dress and shoes were a lot more comfortable. But what really made it amazing (aside from the food and the company) was getting to hear our closest friends give the funniest, kindest, and most heartfelt toasts ever. We laughed, we cried, and we even had a few revelations. The biggest one for me was when one of the H bombs groomsmen recounted a conversation where the artist formerly known as boyfriend told him that "I had saved his life."

Hold up. Saved his life? I thought I'd gotten over that unhealthy female urge to "save" a guy. I thought I wasn't into guys that needed saving anymore. I thought I put that kind of behavior to rest in Y2K. I thought what made our relationship work is that we both had our shit together when we ventured into this thing. BUT then again...if I had actually saved him, that meant I had succeeded in doing what most of us ladies have attempted but failed at for years. Maybe I could be the poster girl for saving dudes. (Picture it, me dressed as the Statue of Liberty. A ton of cute emo boys at my feet with the catch phrase: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.)

After the poster girl fantasy wore off, I started to feel a little stressed out of by the savior title. Saving someone's life is a lot of pressure. And it does really short change my in-laws. After all, they GAVE him life and they kept him alive for his first eighteen years and then some. I've only been with the guy for six years. Plus, everyone says you can't change a person, so shouldn't that also mean you can't save them either?

Okay, full disclosure: I didn't actually go into this much over-analysis the night before our wedding. The toast was so touching it brought me to tears and if the H bomb wants to give me undeserved praise, who am I to deny him of that. But the truth is, I'm not his savior. The guy was perfectly capable of taking care of himself before he met me. Yes, it's accurate that I've probably encouraged him to eat better, exercise more, and drink less. But my extreme neurotic ways and rampant mood swings probably cause his blood pressure to spike and that can lead to all sorts of health risks.

Anyway, enough about me. What do you think, readers? Should we all steer clear of the savior act or does love kind of save us all in a way? And did I really just writing something that cheesy? Comment below.

Ross's Encore BLOW OFF post: Good Bye All My Children

*In honor of the last episode of All My Children airing in just 30 minutes on the west coast...we'd like to do an encore post from our wonderful contributor Ross on what the show meant to him.

Please ignore the "By Saaara" up above, I'm just the one re-posting it.

Original Post Date: April 18, 2011:

I was in 7th grade the first time I took a trip to Pine Valley. It was my second week of middle school and, after seeing me eat lunch alone for the first several days, my advisory teacher, Opal (remember that name), plopped herself down at my side and asked if I liked soap operas.

“Never watched one,” I told her. “My mom watches one. I’m not sure what it’s called, but she tapes it every day.”

Opal stood up and asked if I’d like to join her and a few other students for lunch in the classroom. With no better offers, I accepted — and my world was forever changed.

I know it seems silly to credit a soap opera for dragging me out of my shell, but it’s the truth. On that day, Opal introduced me to Agnes Nixon’s world of make believe. A world where a wife and mother can survive for four months with little food or water at the bottom of a well while her sister undergoes reconstructive surgery to look like her and take her place. A world where you can get to Manhattan, Pennsylvania, the ocean or the mountains in a commercial break. A world where one woman can be a model, actress, cosmetics tycoon, Vegas showgirl, magazine editor, author, talk show host, run a multi-million dollar electronics conglomerate, marry nine times, have three kids(two of which she didn’t know about until she was in her 40’s), be convicted of murder and acquitted more than once, and still be considered America’s sweetheart.

I know some of what was happening on All My Children wasn’t terribly appropriate for me to be watching at 11 years old (I think someone probably should have better prepared me for the rape storyline that fall), but with no friends my own age I could really relate to, the citizens of Pine Valley became my friends.

I didn’t stay in Opal’s classroom at lunch for long. I started making friends and eating lunch with them. But by the time that happened, I was hooked. Whenever I could, I’d sneak back into the classroom for 15-20 minutes of drama. Or I’d watch with my mother at home (yep — that’s the soap she watched, it turns out). It bonded us. My mom and I had been going through a bit of a rough patch — we weren’t exactly close. And while talking about the trials and tribulations of Erica Kane’s love life seems like an odd way for a mother and son to bond (I’m gay — it makes so much more sense now), it worked. It became our thing — during dinner, on the weekends… we watched every day, without fail, together until I graduated high school.

I stopped in college for a while… working your class load around a full time job, social life and Susan Lucci can get hectic, so I decided to pick up roots and leave Pine Valley for four years. By the time I graduated, I’d almost forgotten about Brooke and Hayley, Ryan and Opal (the red headed psychic/beautician/restauranteur/birth mother to Tad the Cad, not the seventh grade teacher), but my mother managed to get me hooked again when she told me there was a gay character in Pine Valley — Bianca Montgomery, daughter of Erica Kane.

What? Seriously. Erica Kane’s daughter is a lesbian? I tuned back in just in time. Bianca Montgomery came out on All My Children months after I’d come out to my own mother. My mom handled it better than Erica — Erica eventually came around, but in true soap opera fashion, after she’d attempted to force Bianca to start dating men again and pushed her to talk to a counselor about her “problem.” But the storyline was real, the acting was stellar — it was honest, it was raw, and it was daytime television at its best.

There are weeks when I cannot miss a moment of All My Children. There are weeks when I’m a passive viewer, fast-forwarding through the storylines I don’t care about. But through it all, All My Children has been a part of my life. And while I know it’s “just a TV show” and many of these actors will pop up other places, to say I’m losing a part of me is an understatement. And I am relatively certain die hard fans of One Life to Live feel the same.

As of a few weeks ago, I am testing the waters in Port Charles. I like what I see — juicy storylines, great acting. But as a long time resident of Pine Valley, it’s going to take a while for me to call this new town home. But I’m hoping.

BLOW OFF song of the day: If I Were a Boy by Beyonce

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I’d be a better man.
I’d listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he’s taken you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
-Beyonce, 2008

P.S. this video is kind of genius.

why are girls so stupid?

"Men are assholes" is maybe one of the most overused phrases uttered by us ladies, but I'm beginning to wonder...are guys assholes or are girls just really fucking stupid? I know it might be a blanket statement, but click the "like" button if you're a girl and you've done something really dumb at some point in your relationship history. I've got a whole laundry list. Gone out with the wrong guys, snooped, stalked, forgiven the wrong guys and gone out with them again, blown off the decent guys, called when it was definitely 100% still his turn to call me, played it too cool, played it un-cool, been too bitchy, been way too nice. I could go on and on.

I'm sure many of you have done at least some of the above and I'm also sure that during your bout with stupidity your girlfriends were oh so nicely telling you not to be such a dumb ass (i.e. "you're way too good for him!") But did you listen? NO. Instead, your interior monologue convinced you that your romantic conundrum was not the same as all their terrible break ups and clearly your sad bitter gfs were just projecting their negative experiences onto you and your flaky guy actually really really loves you and that's why you have to give him another chance, so what if this is the third time he's been a tool?

Anyway, since I don't feel like dredging up any of my dumb maneuvers (mainly because I've already written posts about all of them) and I don't want to exploit any of my friends, I will just exploit two famous women instead.

Adele and Jessica Biel.

We just wrote about how much we love Adele and yesterday Ad Nauseum brought an article to our attention that said Adele was back in touch with her ex-boyfriend. Getting back in touch is the gateway drug to getting back together! This is the same ex-boyfriend that inspired her two albums and the same one that sued her for royalties, because well, she owes her success to his being an asshole. Adele is all like "don't worry about me peeps, I know what I'm doing, we're just friends" (no, that's not a direct quote)...but I don't think she does know what she's doing. This is the guy that she canceled her US tour for back in 2008 so she could spend more time with him. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for putting love before career here and there-- like taking a personal day or calling in sick once in awhile to hang out with your man--- BUT NOT canceling your entire US tour. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

And Jessica Biel. Poor, poor Jessica Biel. JBiel is hot. She's my life partner's number one celebrity crush. She's got a really pretty face, ripped arms, and a perfect butt. She's not the greatest actress in the world, but she's also way less annoying and offensive than a lot of other actresses out there (I'm talking to you Anne Hathaway). So, Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake finally broke up and I think we all got the sense that it was his decision. And Jessica did all the right things to make him regret it (riding on a motorcycle with Gerard Butler for instance). And just a couple weeks ago, this picture is all over the internets:

I'm going to assume that they were hanging out and that J Biel wasn't just chasing Justin down on a bike. But this was kind of their "hey, world! We're back together" photo-op. And then just yesterday, US Weekly reported that JT was spotted going to Scarlett Ho-hannson's house for a late night booty call. Please tell me this happened because J Biel decided not to take his pasty white ass back after all. But my gut tells me that JT just can't stop stringing this poor girl along. Shit or get off the pot, JT.

I just know somewhere out there Adele and Jessica's girlfriends are so super irritated with them. How many times have they watched these bitches ball their eyes out over these dudes and now they're just gonna take them back?! They could do so much better!

Maybe we need to take more of a tough love approach when our friends are clearly making stupid romantic choices. Maybe we need to go gang initiation on their asses and just beat the shit out of them until a head injury causes them to get amnesia about the toxic ex they're secretly hoping to rekindle things with. (What? Too extreme?)

the BLOW OFF questionnaire: meet Claire

We at the BLOW OFF are sick of ourselves and want to hear more from our super awesome readers. So, we've started our newest column: the BLOW OFF questionnaire. Way less pretentious than the Proust Questionnaire and much more informative.

Our first brave reader to fill out our questionnaire is the lovely Claire. 20something. Lives in LA. Will most likely be the head of her own production company or studio by the time she's thirty.

I hate guys who...think it’s ok not to text or call… for days.
I love guys who... are silly!
My worst break up was...with my first love, of course – and we broke up twice.
My easiest break up was...with the guy who I just stopped calling.
My three deal breakers are... no job, no car, cats – am I a bad person?
I've been in love 2 times
I've had my heart broken 1 time
I've broken 0 hearts
My go to sad break up song is.....Happy by Leona Lewis
My go to "fuck you" break up song is....Cry Me A River by Justin Timberlake
Angelina Jolie...is clearly out of her damn mind.
Reality TV....is most of my life.

And no, Claire. You are not a bad person. Cats are lame. Want to answer our questionnaire? Simply copy the above, replace Claire's answers with your own, and email us at theblowoffwtf@gmail.com with a photo.



OMG. This song is so damn catchy.

the ivy league BLOW OFF

A question to all the straight dudes out there. You're on a date with a girl, it's going really well and then she tells you where she went to college: Harvard. Yale. Princeton. She's an ivy league-r. And maybe you are too. Either way, for all intents and purposes this should be a total turn on. This means the girl you're on a date with is most likely smart, ambitious, hard-working, and successful. Right? So, then why have so many of you proven to be intimidated by it?

I can't speak from experience, because I didn't go to an ivy league school (Go Bears!), but I do like to surround myself with women who did, and some of those women have found that where they went to college can kind of hinder their dating life. Guys-- even smart ones-- tend to go into panic mode over it. The first time I read about this epidemic was in the 2005 NY Times the article "What's a Modern Girl to Do" written by Maureen Dowd (we apparently haven't evolved past this whole ivy league dilemma in six years). The article references a 60 Minutes segment that interviewed two Harvard Business women about their dating life: "Men, apparently, learn early to protect their eggshell egos from high-achieving women. The girls said they hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death. 'The H-bomb,' they dubbed it. 'As soon as you say Harvard Business School . . . that's the end of the conversation,' Ani Vartanian said. 'As soon as the guys say, 'Oh, I go to Harvard Business School,' all the girls start falling into them."

This bums me out. Even though the University of California bomb doesn't do quite as much damage, I don't think my smarter ivy league peers should be punished for their achievements. I'm worried we're going to get to a point where moms will encourage their daughters to pass up Harvard for a much less threatening erection shrinking state school. Let's put a stop to this madness. Boys, Men, underachievers, it's time to tap into your overconfident side. You know, the one you channel so well during sex. The one that tells you you're too hot to fuck an ugly girl. It should also start telling you you're too smart to fuck a dumb girl. I mean, isn't that the big takeaway in Good Will Hunting? Or was the takeaway not to bother going to college at all? Whatever, it doesn't matter, here's a clip.

pop culture BLOW OFF of the day: Expectation VS Reality

Some of my friends had a very visceral reaction in their dislike of the movie 500 Days of Summer. I get where they're coming from. Zooey D's character is pretty darn annoying, what with her perfectly blue Anthropologie wardrobe and spontaneously adorable jaunts through Ikea...not to mention that perfect singing voice. Plus, she strings the perfectly sexy hipster JGL around. And then after she dumps him, is super lovey dovey with him at a wedding, and then gets engaged to some random dude right away, even though she spends the whole movie pretending she's way too evolved for love. Lame. That said, I liked the movie so much that when peeps complained about Summer's character I had to kindly remind them that the movie was not told from her point of view. But after giving it more thought, a character should still have depth and not be a distant ho-face even if the story isn't told from their perspective.

Anyway. Love it or hate it, I think most of us can relate to the below clip. How many times have we gone to a party where an ex was going to be in attendance or gotten "let's catch up" drinks with someone we've dated and hoped or wondered if the night would end up reigniting some sort of spark-- only to then have it go a completely different way. Let this be a lesson to you boys out there. Stylishly hip girls who love The Smiths and Ringo Star are fickle bitches. Luckily for JGL, he gets to rebound with Minka Kelly at the end of the movie. He learned his lesson, why date a quirky emo girl when you can have a Maxim cover girl instead?

BLOW OFF song of the day: Stay by Lisa Loeb

If you are girl and were a teenager in the 90s, then chances are you know every single word to this song. That's why this one warrants all of the lyrics, click to see them.

You say I only hear what I want to.
You say I talk so all the time so.
And I thought what I felt was simple,
and I thought that I don't belong,
and now that I am leaving,
now I know that I did something wrong 'cause I missed you.
Yeah yeah, I missed you.
And you say I only hear what I want to:
I don't listen hard,
don't pay attention to the distance that you're running
to anyone, anywhere,
I don't understand if you really care,
I'm only hearing negative: no, no, no.
So I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up,
and this woman was singing my song:
lover's in love, and the other's run away,
lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay.
Some of us hover when we weep for the other who was
dying since the day they were born.
Well, well, this is not that;
I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown.
And I thought I'd live forever, but now I'm not so sure.
You try to tell me that I'm clever,
but that won't take me anyhow, or anywhere with you.
You said that I was naive,
and I thought that I was strong.
I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave."
Oh, but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you.
Yeah, I miss you.
You said, "I caught you 'cause I want you and one day I'll let you go."
You try to give away a keeper, or keep me 'cause you know you're just
scared to lose.
And you say, "Stay."
And you say I only hear what I want to.

-Lisa Loeb, 1994

the love high, career low BLOW OFF

Someone once old me you can never have all three of the following things: a great relationship, a great apartment/house, and a great job. I didn't always believe it and for a good portion of the last year, I was lucky enough to have all three, but the tide has turned.

I've been feeling a little stalled career wise. As most of you know, I left my job a year and a half ago to pursue writing full time. The first seven or eight months were great...I was making consistent money with a much more flexible schedule than my day job allowed. Which also left me way more time to work on the BLOW OFF. And then around September of 2010...right after I got engaged...everything shifted. My relationship was at its peak, my apartment was still great and something had to go. So, for the last year, I've gotten a string of writing job BLOW OFFS.

I've gotten pretty good and not letting them get me down. It sounds cliche, but you do have to have a thick skin to work in the entertainment industry and other writers have taught me that you're always going to hear NO more than you're going to hear YES. Pity parties can only last less than 24 hours before you sit in front of a computer again and start your next pitch or script.

But it still effing sucks. My most recent rejection came the day after my wedding. I had applied to a writer's program at a studio and I had high hopes for at least making it to the interview round. I was still riding the high of getting married when I made the giant mistake of opening the mail. There was a letter from the studio. I assumed it was just one of those free screening for your consideration things that get sent out to Writer's Guild members, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened it and it was a big fat rejection letter. Within seconds, my love high was overshadowed by my career low. I wanted to cry. Luckily, the H bomb (the word I will be using for husband from now on) was there with a beer and a bad on demand movie to make me feel better.

By the time this post is up on the BLOW OFF, I'll be wrapping up my honeymoon and getting ready to come back to real life. I will no longer have "wedding planning" as an excuse to distract me from my career. I'm determined to get some good writing news by 2012. Cause if I have to hear another person tell me I don't have to worry, I have a husband to take care of me now, I'll cut a bitch.

Facebook, your boss, and the BLOW OFF

I love social networking and Facebook is my jam, but I'm nostalgic for the days when it wasn't a total minefield. You know, the early days...when your Facebook friends were actually real life friends in your peer group and not your much older co-workers or bosses. These days, one simple status update or one wrong mobile upload can create a shit storm.

So, what should you do when your boss or that co-worker you despise friend requests you? Do you just BLOW them OFF? Do you accept and then immediately block them...only to be asked days later why they don't have access to your wall? The whole blocking thing is very tricky. People notice when they've been given limited access to your profile page. But what's the alternative? Allowing higher ups to see pictures of you sporting way more cleavage than you would at work and showcasing your drunk lazy eye? It's a lose-lose situation. My Bro-in-law's philosophy was to accept the friend request, give it a few weeks, and then delete the person, but that just feels way too risky for me.

Facebook has definitively blurred the relationship lines when it comes to work colleagues. It makes it way too easy to view your employer as your friend and not what they really are...the boss of you. And trying to navigate both versions of that relationship can be exhausting.
At my old day job, I would periodically sneak out for writing meetings and play it off like I had a doctor's appointment. And just to cover my bases I would post status updates like "I hate waiting rooms" or "it sucks to be sick" only to then have five friends text me to see if everything was okay and that they read on Facebook that I was at the doctor. There was no way the work me and the real me could co-exist.

But you can't exactly deny your boss their friend request. And they can't exactly deny you if you're the one that makes that move (which is really dumb, why would you ever do that?) So...you just gotta suck it up. Your drunk pictures do not need to be posted on the internet-- no matter how fun you look. Who am I kidding, drunk pictures are the best. Below is one of my favorites of myself. Thank Jesus I'm self-employed.

BLOW OFF revenge: get famous & write an album

If I wasn't tone deaf, I would totally try to become a famous singer so I could write albums exposing ex-bfs for their crappiness. I mean, isn't that the only reason people want to become musicians? So they can fulfill that fantasy of singing a song to someone they either love or hate who's unsuspectingly sitting in the audience with their mouths agape? Let's be real here, getting famous and hugely successful is the best BLOW OFF revenge.

Anyway, here are a couple artists who did just that.

Mike Posner. One of our loyal readers brought him to our attention awhile back. While I'm not a huge fan of his "Cooler than me" song, I'm kind of into his song Red Button. It sounds a little like Justin Timberlake and I'm a sucker for someone who likes to flaunt their fame. My fave lyric is "Cause you let me go in December and I got signed in July. You must think that I don't remember. Cause now you call me all the time." Snap. Note to self: don't ever dump someone if there's a chance they might get a record deal. The other best part of this song is that it references him and his ex going back to the year 2000, but according to Posner's Wikipedia page, he was only 12 back then. So, is this song about a girl he met in 7th grade or what?

The current reigning queen of BLOW OFF music is Adele, duh! She could basically do no wrong in my book and I am totally obsessed with this video of her talking about the inspiration for the song Someone Like You. Don't fret Adele! You will find love again!! Personally, I am glad the douche she was dating broke her heart. Without him, we'd never get the album 21. Muah, douche!



What are some of your favorite all time break up albums? Comment below!

the never date a guy who...

Welcome to the first installment of our new favorite columns...never date a guy who...

For our first post, we'd like to finish that sentence with "never date a guy who was left by his wife."

According to a friend who had a couple failed relationships with guys who were ditched by their wives--- the damage to their egos is irrevocable. Think about it. As Samurai Shawn once taught us, it's better for men to assume that every woman wants them (it doesn't matter if it's true, it just matters if it helps you...like believing in Jesus.) So, if a guy gets left by the woman who at one point thought she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him...then his manhood is totally tarnished. Apparently, we're better off dating widowers, because their wives ain't coming back and they didn't leave them by choice. So, next time you go out with a guy who's gotten a divorce, wait for him to go to the bathroom and then snoop through his bookshelf to make sure he doesn't take advice from a guy named Gary Smalley.

But if not for self help books, what's a guy to do that got left by his wife and doesn't want that to negatively impact his future relationships? Be a real man, accept defeat and move on. I know, I know-- easier said than done--- especially after years of marriage, but are you gonna let that whore of an ex-wife ruin all of your future prospects too? NO. You deserve to be date-able again. Trust me, Smalley's book would have more aptly been titled "too little, too late."

Loyal readers, if you've got any "never date a guy who" or "never date a girl who" suggestions for us comment below and we'll devote an entire post to it!

BLOW OFF song of the day: King of Wishful Thinking by Go West

"If I don't listen to the talk of the town, then maybe I can fool myself. I'll get over you, I know I will. I'll pretend my ship's not sinking. And I'll tell myself I'm over you, because I'm the King of wishful thinking."

-Go West, 1990

Thanks to EW for reminding me of this song on Facebook.

the entourage BLOW OFF

It's the last season of Entourage and it's kind of hard to believe that the series finale is this weekend, because this season has SUCKED. In fact, the last two seasons have been God awful. Some of you may have never liked the show to begin with, but in the beginning it was a kind of the dude's answer to Sex and the City. It had the wish fulfillment factor, relatively entertaining storylines, higher stakes, and awesome cameos (now if you want to see a good cameo, you are way better off watching Curb Your Enthusiasm which is on fire this season.)

Here are my top ten biggest gripes with the show as of late.

10. How is it possible that Adrian Grenier has become an even worse actor than he was in the beginning? I don't know if he's just phoning it in or if it's the fact that there's really not much he can do with his character--- but for someone so attractive, he has zero charisma or sex appeal. Imagine how much better the show would be if we could recast him with a Josh Duhamel type? Vince has always been the show's weakest link, but now he's not even delivering on the hotness.

9. Which brings me to my next point. Why would the writers ever think we'd care about Vince trying to hook up with that British Vanity Fair journalist? Could any two people have less chemistry? I get the whole-- she's the one girl he can't have thing, but I wish they would have played it out with someone that didn't feel so high brow and stiff. Plus, Vince is a motherfucking movie star and his only move to win her over was to make a video of his exes talking about how great he is. I'd much rather see him get rejected by someone totally outside of the industry or to be one half of a hot celebrity couple played by a girl that can actually act. Sitting through scenes of Vince and Sasha Grey last season were beyond painful.

8. Um, wasn't it enough that we were already subjected to a storyline of Turtle trying to start a Tequila business last season? Apparently not, because this season, they've given him the exact same storyline...except now he wants to open an Italian restaurant. I don't care about Turtle's career. If I wrote the show, I'd just keep him as the comic relief or make him fall for a chubby "normal" girl now that he's gotten skinny.

7. There are never any repercussions on the show. This season would have been way more interesting if Vince was virtually black listed after his train wreck stint last season. Instead, his career has been totally unscathed. Turtle got upset in the last episode because he sold his stocks of that stupid tequila before it went public and...surprise...Vince actually kept all his stocks and bought Turtle's shares too so now they're all millionaires. Drama went on strike for more money and instead of getting fired...he got more money. Stories need conflict in order to be interesting and this show is seriously lacking in it. You can have wish fulfillment and let shit go awry at the same time.

6. Eric and Sloan's on again/off again relationship has become so tired. They ended last season engaged and when this season started they were already broken up. There's been little to no explanation about what went wrong between them. They just seem to enjoy breaking up even though they're always still secretly in love with each other. It would have been way more compelling to see Eric deal with the pitfalls of domesticity, while his friends were still toxic bachelors. At least the story of Eric hooking up with Sloan's ex-step mom has some soapy drama to it, but it's too little too late. Sloan's pregnancy "shocker" also came way too late in the season and it would have been way more ballsy and realistic if she told Eric she was planning to get an abortion.

5. The one thing I do like about this season is Ari and Dana's relationship. I love these two as a hot power couple BUT I think the show wants us to root for Ari and his wife to get back together and that's probably what will end up happening. I wish the Ari/Dana thing would have happened two seasons ago, so we could get get more mileage out of their romantic relationship VS their working relationship. Ari's wife just comes off as an uppity spoiled bitch and I have no idea why he'd want her back.

4. Aside from Dana, there are no interesting women on the show. I get that it's a show about dudes, but SATC was a show about women and there were still a lot of well developed male characters on it. Sloan is pretty, but she's got the personality of a nose hair.

3. The show isn't funny anymore. Remember the furry sex episode? Or Ari and the paintball gun? Or peyote in Joshua Tree? That shit was hilarious. There hasn't been a single outrageously funny moment this season. Even the Bobby Flay scenes have left something to be desired.

2. When you've only got about eight episodes that run twenty-two minutes, you don't really have time to waste with unnecessary storylines and plot points. But somehow an entire episode of the show still manages to go by where virtually nothing happens. Remember that super pointless suicide a few episodes ago? And what was the point of Vince's house burning down?

1. Where are all the fun industry storylines this season? What in the world compelled the creators of the show and HBO to use their final season for the much anticipated "Vince tries to get a Hallmark movie made" storyline? I know it's a stretch since Vince can't act, but why not focus their final eight episodes on award season and the cutthroat Oscar campaigning that goes on these days. How hot would it be to see Ari try to get Vince an Academy Award? Or even better, Johnny Drama?

Anyway, it's pretty hard to believe that there's actually an Entourage movie in the works. I for one will be BLOWING it OFF and not giving them a dime of my money. I would, however, watch an Ari spin off if they got a whole new set of writers and producers to make it happen.

the "it's not fun anymore" BLOW OFF

My bestie recently caught a rerun of Jenny McCarthy on Oprah where McCarthy blamed her split with Jim Carrey on the fact that their relationship "wasn't fun anymore." Bestie and I both agreed that is probably the most effing annoying reason for a break up.

Basically, it's a really nice way of saying...I was miserable. or Jim Carrey is off his fucking rocker. Any of those reasons would be more acceptable, because saying that the relationship wasn't fun anymore implies that relationships should always be fun. They're not! Relationships get really really hard. Things aren't going to be fun when say you lose your job or your house gets foreclosed on or your teenager gets knocked up or one of you gets diagnosed with cancer. We can't just bail on each other the second things get hard, peeps!

This is a new kind of McCarthyism. The kind where you just hop from relationship to relationship until the honeymoon phase wears off. Or end things before you really get to know a person. Or once you've learned all the lessons you were supposed to learn from that relationship-- which is Jenny's other reason for the demise of her relationship. Ugh. Learning lessons is just something we tell ourselves happened after a break up, because we don't want to feel like we just wasted months or years of our lives.

Anyway, Jenny was supposed to get a talk show on OWN, but her and Oprah decided to break up and part ways. According to a Harpo rep "The parties mutually agreed several months ago not to move forward with the project." But according to Jenny McCarthy? I'm guessing it just wasn't fun anymore.

pop culture BLOW OFF of the day: Waiting to Exhale's...Get your shit and get out!

I'm not sure there's ever been another "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" scene as good as this one of Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale. I still get chills every time I watch it. In case you haven't seen the 1995 movie based on Terry McMillan's novel, this scene comes after Bassett's husband tells her he's leaving her for a white woman. So, she does what any sane woman would do in her situation, she takes all his shit out of the closet and sets it on fire.

As far as I'm concerned, she deserves like ten Oscars for the below clip. I mean, the look on her face as she throws out her cigarette and walks away from the car is priceless.



I really loved this book and the movie when it came out. I know Bridesmaids will probably create an onslaught of female ensemble movies, but I for one really miss those sentimental feel good women films of the 80s and 90s that revolved around two-four female friends and their love lives. Plus, it also makes me super nostalgic for the days when Gregory Hines was still alive, Wesley Snipes wasn't in jail for tax evasion, and Whitney Houston wasn't hitting the crack pipe. So, nostalgic that I have to add the video that was the theme song for the movie.

Happy Labor Day: work sucks!

In honor of labor day, here's an old post previously titled the BLOW (Job) Off.

How many of us have either sent or received one of those sappy good bye emails when someone is leaving the company for a new gig (or in some cases they've been fired and are just pretending they're leaving for a new gig)? I am here to tell you those emails are filled with lies, lies, and more lies. And the worst part about them? When other co-workers reply to all to wish said liar well.

you know those emails:

It's been so great working with all of you. I've had some of my best memories here. I hope we can stay in touch and I'm sure we'll work together again in the future, blah blah blah.

here's what they really want to say:

I'm FINALLY getting out of this place, mo-fos! All I've ever done is fantasize about the day I would never have to see any of you again on a daily basis. I think you're all kind of lame and that's why I started applying for a new job to begin with. Some of you, I like, but many of you I've wanted to repeatedly punch in the face. Please do not call me, do not email me, and do not take me out to good bye drinks. I can now finally delete you from my facebook without feeling guilty and will no longer be subjected to your non-witty references about my status updates as a way to make small talk. If anyone replies to all, i will hunt you down and kill you. One final note, you can all suck it!!!!

xoxo

Jane Doe

P.S. I was really fired!

P.P.S. How you like me now HR?

I will personally give $100 to anyone that proves to me they sent a nasty good bye note like the one above on their last day on the job.

BLOW OFF song of the day: Don't Come Around Here No More by Tom Petty

"I don't feel you anymore. You darken my door. Whatever you're looking for. Don't come around here no more."

-Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1985

the last name BLOW OFF

I've never been the type that was against women changing their last names after they got married. There was even a time I thought there was something incredibly romantic about it. And part of me still does. But once I got engaged, I realized...as much as I want to share the rest of my life with my man, I don't want to BLOW OFF my last name to share his. I guess I have attachment issues.

I've had my last name for almost thirty-one years. Saedi. I'm used to it. I like it. It's "ideas" spelled backwards. It's a great use of alliteration with my first name. It gets mispronounced ALL the time. Technically, I even mispronounce it, because I don't give it the full Iranian inflections it deserves when I say it (it should be Saw-Eh-Dee, but I say Sy-Eee-dee). For a period of time, I even went by Sadie. It was easier than correcting people (I already have to do that all the time with my first name), plus--- Sexy Sadie by The Beatles was my theme song. I like that people can look at my last name and know that I'm middle-eastern, even if it's super inconvenient at airports. And professionally, it's the name all my writing contacts know me as. It's the name I have credits under and the name I want to see follow the words "written by". Plus, I kind of feel weird suddenly having a different last name than my parents. Like I said, I have attachment issues.

So...how does my fiance feel about that? He's totally cool with it! He's mad progressive like that! In fact, he said that if he were a chick, he wouldn't change his name either. And he wanted to make sure that I mentioned that in this post. We're on the same page on this one. And just because we'll have two different last names, it doesn't make us any less a family or a unit. Just like changing your name wouldn't make you any less of an individual. Also, just to be clear, I certainly don't look down on women who do make the name change. My mom did it. My sister did it. My friends have done it. I even understand why it's important to some guys to have their wives take their names. It's a personal choice. Like abortion.

Speaking of kids, if we have them, my fiance does want them to have his name...which I'm cool with...although I'd like my last name to make an appearance somewhere too without having to do the whole confusing hyphenation thing.

Who knows, maybe when there are children involved, I'll get the sudden urge to change my name so that school teachers don't end up thinking I'm their evil stepmother. Until then I'm choosing not to completely confuse my Facebook friends and stick to what I was born with. Losing it at this point would feel like losing an appendage.