The Quest For The Lost Mug or I'd Need A Ladder To Reach Her

When I got home from work last night and was pulling into a parking space the lady from downstairs was on the sidewalk walking stupid dog.
I would be lying if I said that I didn’t contemplate “accidentally” gunning the engine, jumping the curb, and turning the little bastard into a nothing more than a stain.
Of course I didn’t do that and instead returned the lady’s friendly wave.
Tomorrow I’ll be meeting with the lender my realtor likes to work with to see if it’s even remotely possible for me to get a loan that I can afford to pay on the house I want to buy.
At the very least I’ll get an idea of what I can afford if it’s not possible, and will have a better idea of what to look for in terms of potential housing.
My weekend at work was largely uneventful. The only noteworthy thing that happened was the loss of my insulated company logo mug – which no longer has the company logo on it, as it wore off some time ago. It was the old logo anyway.
In any case, the mug had faithfully served all of my water holding needs for years, until that fateful day last week when I left it on the sink in the locker room when I stopped to use the facilities on my way out to my car at the end of the day.
I didn’t notice that it wasn’t in my car until Wednesday morning when I went to take it out so that I could transfer it to the loaner that I thought I was going to be using, and I forgot to look for it when I went in for training Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday morning I was looking around for it, and was checking the cabinet in the break room where people keep their mugs when someone mentioned seeing one on the sink in the locker room the day before. That’s precisely where I thought I’d left it, so I went in to check. Alas, it wasn’t there, though there was someone in the locker room who confirmed that it had been sitting there all week.
I checked with security to see if anyone had brought it to them for lost and found, but no one had.
So I sadly accepted the fact that my mug was well and truly gone.
And then grabbed one from the cabinet that didn’t have a name on it, washed it out, and claimed it as my own.
What, I was supposed to mourn for a mug?
And that was pretty much the extent of my excitement at work over the weekend.
Last night marked the season premiere of Property Ladder on TLC.
(Quick side note: remember when I did my entry about cable networks and mentioned TLC’s obsession with little people and suggested that they might end up sending the little people to Miami to get tattoos? Well, on the ads for the next episode of Miami Ink, guess what I saw? A little person getting a tattoo. Sure, it’s not someone from the actual little people show, but it’s still kind of an eerie coincidence.)
If you’ve never seen the show, it’s essentially yet another house flipping show, though it focuses primarily on people who are trying the whole house flipping thing for the first time and really have no idea what they’re doing. As a consequence, there can be some severe train wreck episodes in which you see people burying themselves in debt, marriages collapsing due to the various pressures, and quite frequently things just don’t end happily.
Quite honestly, it’s a little painful and kind of depressing to watch.
As sort of a twist, at the beginning of the show the host, a real estate expert, consults with the would-be flippers, listening to their plans and offering suggestions – and criticism – in an effort to help make sure that their budgets and schedules are realistic and to try to get them to maximize the payoff for their efforts.
Sometimes they listen to her. Most of the time they don’t. When they do, things generally work out better for them. When they don’t, well, like I said: train wrecks.
She shows up at various points in the process to see how they’re doing, and, without doing so in so may words, say, “I told you so,” as they tell her about how not taking her advice made them blow their budgets and their timelines.
Now, to be honest, the host is the primary reason I watch the show because she’s hot...yet ice cold.
Her name is Kirsten Kemp, and she is a tall cold glass of ice water. She tries to come of as warm, always hugging everyone and smiling, but she’s not fooling anyone: that is one frosty bitch.
Think Martha Stewart, only younger, and sexy, and with a kick-ass rack.
Kirsten is all passive-aggressive cocked eyebrows and barely-restrained contempt.
(I like to call her Kirsten Contempt.)
She would not look out of place with a riding crop in her hand.
Oh sure, she’s supposedly trying to help people and looking out for their best interests, but you know she doesn’t want them to listen. She wants them to fail so that she can lord it over them. If she could get away with it, she’d be wearing spiked heels and using them to grind the failed flippers’ faces into the cheap-ass laminate floors that they put in despite her insistence that high-end requires real wood.
And I have to say, she gives me real wood.
Let me tell you, I would love to have her look at me like I’m a retard when I tell her my too-aggressive asking price, or raise that eyebrow contemptuously…right before I make that ice queen melt into a puddle.
(Or file a restraining order.)
The only problem with Property Ladder is that we really don’t get to see enough of Kirsten (in more ways than one). She shows up at the beginning to give her advice, stops by somewhere in the middle to check the progress, and then comes in at the end to see how things turned out and to try one last time to talk some sense into them (and, as mentioned, say “I told you so.”).
All told, we get maybe ten minutes’ worth of Kirsten.
Still, there are other reasons to watch the show. In general, I like to see the whole “before and after” aspect of house flipping shows, and I’m interested in seeing some of the design ideas people come up with.
And though there are often train wrecks, I generally do hope that things will work out for them and I hate to see them fail, especially when they work really hard at it but just can’t seem to catch a break.
(Like the cute girl whose cabinet doors were stolen by the guy she’d hired to resurface them for her, though in the end things worked out and she actually sold her place for more than her asking price. Of course, things worked out for her, I think, just because she was so cute. I’ll bet the person who bought the place was a guy and he did it hoping that she’d go out with him. Seriously, she was a hot bartender who got most of her labor done for her by her male regulars from the bar.)
I generally don’t have that much sympathy for the people who totally and willfully ignore Mistress Kirsten’s commands…I mean, Kirsten’s advice, in part because they tend to be kind of stupid and make really, really idiotic decisions, but mostly because she’s just so hot when she’s smug and delivering well-deserved punishment, and it just makes me want her to tell me that I’m bad and that I need a spanking.
*Sigh*
They seriously need to put her in fishnets and leather.
In any case, if you’re into house flipping shows – or hot blonde pseudo-dominatrixes – you should definitely check it out. It’s on Saturdays at 8 Eastern on TLC.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll likely be posting a special Jack T. Chick-centric entry within the next couple of days, so you have that to look forward to (or to avoid).
(In the interest of fairness, I should note that I have no doubt that in real life Kirsten is a very nice and genuinely warm person, and I have no real basis for believing that the heft of a cat o’ nine tails would feel comfortable in her hand. I will say, though, that I have no doubt that she would look amazing in a corset and thigh-high boots with stiletto heels.)

What IS The Real Deal?

A while ago I started watching Flip This House on A&E.
The show focuses on realtors who buy houses, fix them up, and then sell them at a profit, all in a very short span of time.
At the time I started watching, there were three different teams that the show alternated between.
(TLC airs a similar show called Flip That House, which I also watch, though they don’t limit themselves to such a small pool of flippers.)
I soon learned that I didn’t care for two out of the three teams focused on, and started limiting myself to watching the episodes focusing on the Trademark team out of South Carolina.
Somewhere along the line I learned that this team was from the first season and were involved in a lawsuit against A&E. Apparently, they had pitched the show to A&E in the first place, but then were dumped without warning after the first season.
I’m not up on – or terribly interested in – the lawsuit, so I don’t know how that turned out, but I do know that they pitched a new show to TLC, which has been airing for the past few weeks. The new show is called The Real Deal, and basically follows the same format as Flip This House.
Now, the primary reason I watched the old show and now watch the current show is Trademark Investment Coordinator Ginger Alexander.
Is it because she’s hot? Not exactly.
In fact, I can’t tell you what it is about Ginger that I find so fascinating.
Sure, she’s reasonably attractive, has a decent rack, and often wears some really killer shoes (which the camera often focuses on), but she’s also kind of irritating in a lot of ways, what with the stupid little dog she’s always carrying around with her and that thick accent, and various other little personality quirks that just sort of bother me.
Somehow, though, in some perverse way, the things about her that irritate me actually make her seem more attractive somehow, and I find myself powerless to look away (particularly during some of the good cleavage shots).
Evidently I’m not alone in this, though, as Ginger is one of the primary points of focus on the show, with Trademark founder and owner Richard Davis being the other point of focus.
That I could do without.
In any case, I thought I’d share with you an example of a typical episode of their new show (which, as mentioned, is largely interchangeable with their old show).
One thing I have noticed about the new show, though, is that the focus seems to be on them doing some kind of “good” in the process of flipping a home. There’s always some sort of philanthropic element involved in every deal, or at least some sort of heartwarming aspect.
For example, on the last episode they renovated the concession stand by the football field at the local high school just in time for the first game of the seaon.
Anyway, here’s a typical episode.

Opening Title Sequence
This is ridiculously long and consists of Richard, who clearly loves the sound of his own voice, yammering on endlessly about who he is, what he does, how he does it, his philosophy on business, real estate, life, and sports. Note that sports is central to everything he says and does, and that pretty much everything he says is some sort of sports metaphor.
The Set Up
The team has a new project. They’ve set a ridiculously short deadline for themselves and a too-conservative budget. This will, of course, create drama.
One particular member of the team is going to be in charge of this project. He or she will be given the ball and will have to run with it with little or no help from Richard. This is his or her one chance to prove him or herself to Richard.
More often than not this team member is Ginger. She has, apparently, been getting her “one chance” to prove herself to Richard on a regular basis since the first show started back in 2004, and possibly longer than that.
The Drama (Part 1)
The team purchased the property sight unseen. Upon investigating it – generally they have to break in – they discover that they seriously underestimated the amount of time and money it will take to finish this project.
The Drama (Part 2)
Richard shows up on-site and totally undercuts the authority of, in this case, as in most others, Ginger, by vetoing some decision she had made.
Ginger fights to get her way, but will most likely defer to Richard, though she will feel that her “one chance” is being taken away from her.
The Drama (Part 1) Continued
Supplies/workers are not arriving on time. Nothing is going according to plan. The project is in danger of not being ready in time for the open house. Oh, and they didn’t bother getting any permits to do the work. Whoops!
The Conclusion
By pulling together like some sort of sporting team, they pull off a miracle and have the project ready in the nick of time. The paint is likely still wet as people walk through on the day of the open house.

And that’s pretty much how it plays out every time.
Of course, throughout it all there are some standard scenes, such as Richard spouting some sports metaphor, or talking about being a coach and equating that to running a business, and there will probably be a lot of shots of him hanging out at his kid’s baseball game, or just randomly watching kids playing basketball in a playground, or watching boys changing in a locker room – okay his obsession with watching kids play sports isn’t quite that creepy, but he really does spend a lot of time surrounding himself with sweaty young boys.
I’m just saying. An interest in sports makes for a good cover.
We’ll leave it at that.
Besides talking about sports, Richard likes to talk about himself – usually in relation to sports – and about how great he is. He also likes to talk about how humble he is.
He also makes a lot of disparaging remarks about southerners and rednecks, but does so as sort of a point of pride. Or rather, prahd.
We also get a lot of shots of Ginger’s patent leather stiletto pumps, which aren’t really ideal footwear for most job sites.
In addition to always having a Coke in her hand, Ginger always has her dog Jack with her, and we’re always treated to the camera zooming in on him running around, because everyone needs to see some stupid dog sniffing at things.
Oh, whosa good doggie? Yousa good doggie! Yes you is! Yousa good doggie! Looka the good lil puppy! Looka the good lil puppy! Yousa good lil puppy!
Every time this happens my immediate first thought is that this isn’t fucking Animal Planet. Enough with the dog already. Give us some shots of Ginger’s boobs, or at least, you know, some shots of the actual work that’s being done or something.
(The focus on the dog thing is a staple of every house flipping show I’ve ever seen. If there’s a dog, there are gratuitous fan service style zoom ins on the dog. I know, I know, I’m an evil heartless bastard because I don’t want to look at the cute little doggies.)
And as often as we hear Richard spout a sports metaphor, we hear Ginger say, “This is mah one chance to prove mahself to Richard. Ah don’t wanna let him down.”
It would be rampant, irresponsible speculation on my part to suggest that there’s something going on between Richard and Ginger and that she’s waiting for him to leave his family and is transferring all of her maternal instincts onto Jack because Richard isn’t free to give her the babies that her uterus is crying on for, and that she shows up at job sites wearing fuck me heels in front of a bunch of horny young guys in an effort to make Richard jealous, so I won’t suggest that.
Some other staples of the show are the fact that at no time does anyone ever answer a phone call.
And everyone is always late. And not just a little bit late, either.
You’ll get a scene with Ginger driving along, with Jack hanging out the window – Whosa good lil puppy? Yousa good lil puppy! – ahem, excuse me, and saying to the camera, “Ah was s’posed to meet Richard at 9 AM. Ah’m just now on mah way ta meet him. It’s 4:30 PM.”
And that’s my examination of The Real Deal and the Trademark team (Teamwork is their Trademark. Clever, no?).
Despite the fact that it generally follows the same pattern week after week, I do find the show entertaining, and of course I am not seriously suggesting that Richard has any sort of inappropriate interest in sweaty young boys. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice guy, and that he would be the first to tell you so.
Any and all fun I poke at the members of the Trademark, no matter how mean it seems, team is done affectionately.
In any case, there’s not much else going on in terms of my life, so I suppose that I’ll bring this entry to a close.