Review of Outsourced: Wake up and smell the cardomom...

So I've been kind of lying low and not really updating due to laziness and partly due to my flea-sized attention span that makes me lose interest in events to write about five minutes after they happen. But, I've ending my hiatus out of an obligation to warn the movie-going public at large about Outsourced.

You see, I've been a movie addict since I was little and in that time, I think I've developed a sixth sense for shitty, middling scripts and movies. I know what you're going to say..."But Nina, didn't you sit through Mannequin 2 twice?" ...yes. I did, but that was different...it fell neatly into the "Guilty Pleasure" category where a crappy script and poor plot mechanics was ultimately saved by the movie's charm.

In the case of Mannequin 2, it had 80's nostalgia, a great soundtrack, and at least one member of the Brat Pack to render it good cheesy fun. Moreover, it was a story about a mannequin come to life...this movie wasn't pretending to be Citizen Kane.

Outsourced, however, is ripe with pretension. The movie is helmed by John Jeffcoat...if you can somehow get past the stupidity of his name, you can surmise within 10 minutes of watching, that he was inspired to do this rambling, insulting, cliche-driven travesty by a semester spent studying abroad in India.

The plot in a nutshell: Clueless, anal-retentive corporate jerk off (Josh Hamilton) goes to India to torment a call center into lowering their average call time to 6 minutes. He is, of course, lauded for his patience (is he the one making the calls? Dealing with the racism and moronic tech questions? Didn't think so.), and ability to understand the locals' wacky idiosyncrasies. His transformation from ugly American to enlightened man-of-the-people involves not only generously sharing his leftovers with the beggars next door but welcoming the sight of cows inside the call center, and the terrible inconvenience of having his name "Todd" mangled. You go white man!

The movie doesn't proffer even one reason why the audience should like this guy, let alone continue rooting for him while he sits there with that moronic expression of his as he stares down the horror of...gasp...POVERTY!

This movie reeks of Western paternalism. The list of things Todd finds repulsive about India just keeps going on and on and the way we, the audience, knows this is from the semi-constipated grimace on his face as he takes in the dust, the poverty, and the cows. Cows, everywhere, even in the call center!

Another running gag involves our brain dead protagonist getting his cell phone stolen and then returned by a street child. Our brave Todd goes from irritated to charmed as he realizes the child has decided to ignore the gnawing hunger in his belly, forego selling the cell phone, and intead exist solely to add a little "authentic indian poverty" to his trip. And gosh what luck, the chaste call-center Indian girl Asha has a one night stand with him in Goa while they discuss the Kamasutra! I'm sure Jeffcoat really patted himself on the back for the subtle construction of that scene.

You know when you watch something so fucking awful, you naturally assume that everyone must feel this way? And then I realized, this was all a buildup to Slumdog Millionaire hysteria and as long as you toss in enough colorful saris, bollywood songs, and poverty porn you'll have a rapt, salivating Western audience ready to confirm what they already think about the Third World.

This is what some esteemed film critics had to say:

"If Ayesha Dharker and the Kamasutra are waiting for me on the other side, outsource me up, Spock " Monsters and Critics

"This modestly budgeted, yet strikingly polished, independent film exudes such warm affection and respect for India and its people that we can reasonably wonder if a love for the country inspired the movie rather than the other way around." Film.com

"Todd decides to give in to India and embrace its foibles and beauty, the story takes off into less clichéd waters - and watch out for the Kama Sutra Suite at a hotel." JS Online

Yes, because nothing says "less clichéd" like Kama Sutra jokes in India.

In fact, the only critic with cojones had this to say:

"The clichéd humor here consists of turista diarrhea and linguistic and cultural misunderstandings along the lines of “Eat with your right hand, wipe with your left” and “What’s that cow doing in the middle of the office?” Todd’s wide-eyed yet capable replacement Puro (Asif Basra) insists Todd stay with his auntie, who quizzes him about his love life and pushes food. A street urchin keeps stealing his cell phone. Todd falls for a female employee named Asha (Ayesha Dharker). They spend a “Holiday in Goa”—her euphemism for a premarital fling—studying the Kama Sutra and generally exploiting one another and the cultures they represent."

Finally, some sanity!

This movie opened to such rave reviews for a few reasons. One, they made the main character ((or "the hero" as my mom would say), utterly nondescript in every way; from his name (can you imagine anything more boring and all-American than TODD?) to his "Hi, I'm an every-man schmuck at my corporate job, secretly dying for an exotic adventure." Of course, what foreign adventure would be complete without some sexytime with local women. Wow, it's like someone in India actually finds this guy appealing in some way. Two, they make it okay for white men (guess who make up the majority of business schools in the US) to project their Orientalist dreams onto an eager, welcoming local woman (played bravely by Ayesha Dharker.) It's the bleeding, pulsating heart of every lame study abroad fantasy. And just in case you missed the numerous watershed moments on Todd's road to Nirvana, everything is accompanied by sitar music. Everything.

Why was this movie even called Outsourced, when it was just a transparent attempt for Jeffcoat to trivialize and whitewash the whole issue? There's even this creepy boss-underling dynamic, where female lead Asha is set up to stroke Todd aka Mr. America's ego and stares back at him with childlike reverence when he throws a few compliments her way.

Todd: "I think you can do anything."
Asha: "Really?"

Yes. You can split your time sleeping with me in Goa and then get on back to your call station. And keep it under 6 minutes! .....Oh yeah, Asha, you can do ANYTHING.

Shut. It. Down.

Three Idiots Walk into a Train Station....

the start of a terrible joke? Or the first instance I actually call someone "Limp Dick" in public?

The latter I'm afraid. I'm back from my blog hiatus to add to my growing file of public imbecility...

I'm on my way to the gym and waiting for the Orange Line train at Green St, paging distractedly through a copy of the Dig ( a weekly in Boston with exactly two interesting sections). All of a sudden, three guys dressed in corporate attire sit down on the bench next to me.

Now my olfactory senses aren't the sharpest but I know alcohol when I smell it. I didn't have to puzzle very long, because the guy sitting immediately next to me leaned in close with a flask and asked me if I wanted some. I politely declined and tried to surreptitiously scoot away.

"Why not?" slurred the guy, the silver flask nearly tipping over in his hand.

I don't know ...it's 4pm? You're a stranger in a train station? My fear of back splash? Pick one.

The Corporate Tool (CT) then asked if there were any jokes in my paper. After I said no again, he seemed irritated. He took another long swig of his flask and blearily glared at me.

"You want to hear a joke?" CT demanded.

"Not really...."

"So you hear the one about anal sex?" CT asked, already beginning to laugh. His moron friends joined in. My ears started burning...I was mad. I was really fucking mad.

See, it's one thing to indulge drunks, but there was something about this whole situation that felt more like an attack. This douche and his friends chose to sit next to me and then proceed to initiate a conversation for the sole purpose of making me uncomfortable... their primitive form of entertainment. They are three guys with massive entitlement issues and I'm a girl sitting alone, so...open season right?

"What the hell makes you think I want to hear your joke?" I snapped. I'm hardly the confrontational type so I was mildly surprised at my own outburst.

The two friends stirred uneasily next to CT and laughed uncomfortably. CT was not to be outdone and sneered at me. "Maybe when you grow up a little, you'll learn what's funny..."

I pointedly ignored him as he proceeds to tell his friends how "hostile" I'm being. Then in that same drunken sing-song voice he says, "I gotta give this girl props though. Most girls would've moved away, but she's standing her ground. Hanging onto her territory."

Moe and Curly laugh raucously at this. Comedy is dead in Jamaica Plain. Finally...FINALLY the train comes. CT is now done with his flask and surveying me with a disgusting grin. "Well, I hope you learn your place and don't sit next to me on the train huh?"

My passive Gandhi genes were now in full regression and I unconsciously balled my fists. "Why? Are you going to jack me up, limp dick?" I yelled. I then walked to the train as CT stared down.
I sat down hard in the orange train seat, steaming. It was only after a few moments that I realized that Early Man and his friends had entered the next car. HA.

This kind of thing was pretty much a regular occurrence in Pittsburgh but since my time in Boston, they've been pretty rare.I'm not sure if I overreacted but in any case, I feel like I "won" this against patriarchy. I think the scene would have played out differently if I wasn't a woman...maybe even if I wasn't a minority. It was the "know your place" comment that really made me want to break his jaw.

...anyway, good fuel for the gym huh?
Quote of the day:

Party Guy 1: Hey. Partying hard, or hardly partying?
Daria: Hardly interested.
Party Guy 2: So... where you girls been all our lives?
Daria: Waiting here for you. We were born in this room, we grew up in this room and we thought we would die here, alone. But now you've arrived and our lives can truly begin.
Party Guy 2: [nudging his friend] She likes you!

-Daria

Reporting..LIVE from the Belly of the Beast!

Another "vacation" in Cupertino...spent working at Santa's Slave Pit aka Baskin Robbins.
I'm only home a couple weeks out of the year, and so I don't mind helping out my parents. My mom is in BR 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and she's in her sixties. I really think she deserves a break...but the longer I'm at the store, the more I feel myself undergoing the transformation Jack Nicholson did in The Shining. The perky voice transitioning to a low growl, the smile into a feral glare, the irresistible urge to swing an ax at the next person who speaks to me. It's not my fault though. They, the nameless, faceless, demanding throng of morons that constitute the store's customer base, do everything in their collective power to provoke me.

There is just so much degradation embedded in the customer-service industry. Why should the employees adopt this obsequious attitude when dealing with customers? We're serving them...they should be thanking us.

I find myself robotically answering questions before they're asked:
1. "No, we don't have a bathroom." Actually, there is an employee one, but after thousands of requests from angry parents demanding their diarrhetic child be allowed to use out facilities, my mom just told us to lie. Of course, after this new policy was instated, customers began suspiciously asking us where we use the restroom if there wasn't one in the store. To quell the controversy, I was forced to say we peed out back near the trash.

2. "Yes, that will make you fat."

3. "Your lousy tip keeps me from spitting in your cup."

4. "Thank you, come again."

etc. etc.

Anyway, I've identified some long-term effects of working here. For one thing, I am damn sure I never want children. Ever. Kids, when viewed through the distorting lens of Baskin Robbins appear to be crazed, sugar-addicted brats that appear relentless in their appetite for destruction, and unrepentant in the face of a weary aproned clerk.

I look at their parents, and wonder to myself if they were ever...you know..normal. Did they ever have conversations that didn't involve the numbing rotation of child-rearing tips, diaper brands, and "Ashley just finished 3rd grade!"? How do these people cope? Yesterday, a couple came in with their one daughter. She ordered a cone and the parents just sat down for over an hour and watched her slowly lick it into oblivion. The dad blearily stared at her along with the mother who was cooing loudly. Did I mention the girl was atleast 12? How exciting could this possibly be?

I'm headed back to Boston in a couple days, and frankly I'm pretty relieved. After informing my mother that I was now a member of the dating community at large, she freaked and now all her usual lectures come with the frantic subtext "Guard your carnal treasure!" ...I'm sure this news only served to expedite the final arranged-marriage showdown tentatively scheduled for sometime before my 25th bday. Be there. And bring ammo.

Quotes of the Day:

Video Man: "Eyes down. Don't smile. Indian bride never smiles. You'll ruin the bloody video. "

Dressmaker: "Don't worry, Miss Bahmra. Our designs will make even these little mosquito bites look like juicy, juicy mangos!"
--- Bend it Like Beckham

Matando el tiempo...

I'm lousy at updating this thing...and it's not even for lack of things to comment on. It's just that it's all so classified I feel like I'd need some multi-layered blog security system and a mask on to be able to "confess my sins" so to speak. I wish I could go back to the time I thought no one I knew would ever read this (as opposed to the 3 people that read it now) Anyway, read on faithful ones!...

Another friend of mine is getting married, I just received a thick invitation in the mail asking me if I wanted "chicken stuffed with squash and pecorino" or "beef tenderloin medallions stacked with crab." Would it be in poor taste to ask just what the hell pecorino is?

I thought I had a couple years before my mom starts shopping my photo around the match making sites but lately, it feels like Mom the Human Pile Driver can't wait to use every conversation to get to the bottom of the pressing issues of how I'm spending my time and how I'm going to spend my time for the next 20 years of my life according to her....

1. "Nina, are you studying enough?"
"Yes Ma."
"Are you studying right now?"
"I'm talking to you right now."
"Well, what are you going to do after you talk to me?"
"Study."

"I'm going to find a nice boy for you."
"No ma."
"Why do you say no? Don't you think I deserves a grandchild?"(A grandkid is not like a Christmas bonus. You don't just put in the time, and earn yourself the right to start demanding your offspring (who are not cute and cuddly anymore despite many attempts to infantilize them) to procreate.
(Silence. There's really no answer for this.)
"Nina..you are getting married."
"LALALALLALALALALALAA...I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!"

This is repeated about 4 times a week unless I'm lucky enough to evade my gestapo-phone sessions with a bout of laryngitis as was the case this past week. Before that, I haven't had laryngitis happen to me since high school. That was a long fucking time ago. Unfortunately, the god-sent that is losing your voice manifested during Spring Break and not during regular school time when I could have used this neat, totally legit excuse while under the punishing lash of the Socratic Method.

Speaking of school though,.... I'm becoming a huge slacker. My work ethic puts Calvin to shame. And I better fix this if I want to pass my first year. A huge culprit is Constitutional Law, which is 2 hours long and goes at a crippling pace. Really, how can a class covering such hot button topics like race, abortion, freedom of speech, etc be so dull? Fuck if I know! I think about literally everything else before I think of Con Law: youtube, when I should clean my room, Rihanna's song "Umbrella." Really.. everything. Classes end sometime in late April, so I've got roughly18 hours left....

In other news...I finally got a cool internship at PAIR (www.pairproject.org) this summer and was thrown the presidency of NLG ( I really mean this. I hadn't even decided if I was going to run for the position before the current prez told me the job was mine. I have a strong suspicion that...there might not have been ANYONE ELSE in the applicant pool but me. Just a thought. Anyway...Gulp. More on my growing paranoia that my years throwing sparsely attended fundraisers at Club Amnesty in Pittsburgh will not adequately prepare me for this new responsiblity, later perhaps.

Last thing...
I've actually gotten out of Boston the last couple of weekends (shocking, I know):
-skiing in New Hampshire (this was a lot more fun than I remember it as a kid. Maybe because this time I actually decided to wear gloves and a hat.) I did the Black Diamond! It was...AWESOME.
-NYC...hung out with rather random group of friends and checked out the Little India (aka Jackson Heights. True to form, it turned out to be several streets filled with stores selling sugar-coma inducing sweets. Diabetes here I come!)

Random Tv/Movie Note:
Movies I'm dying to see:
Harold and Kumar 2:
Batman: Return of the Dark Knight

I've slogged through 3 seasons of 24 only to have them kill off all of my favorite characters in the lamest ways possible (Nina Myers...you deserved better) and drowning me in the right-wing pro-torture ideology the writers kept throwing in there, and now I'm an avid fan of LOST. Great show...but would it kill them to throw in a minority woman apart from Sun? Poor Michelle Rodriguez got iced after like 7 episodes and now we're stuck with all the hot guys on the island vying for the affections of melanin challenged waifs Juliet and Uno-Dimensional Kate. Damn shame, that's what it is.


Quote of the Day: (Exchange between radical Minerva Mirabal and dictator of Dominican Republic Trujillo as they were dancing)

TRUJILLO: Do you agree with my political ideology?
MINERVA: Politics don't interest me.
TRUJILLO: And what if I send my subjects to conquer you?
MINERVA: And what if I conquer your subjects?

This. Means. WAR.

Yes, it's around the holidays and I was going to write about finals..and law school. But no...SCREW all that. I have one pressing issue that is going to drive me to the nut house. My lovely closet-sized room in Boston has MICE. I'm happy to say, I have very few phobias, but VERMIN running across my room makes me want to let out a high pitched girlish squeal and throw myself out the window.

I first noticed them a couple days ago, when my floor admittedly was a mess. And I saw these two brown forms squirming over some of the papers. The only possible comparison I can evoke is that scene from the movie Arachnaphobia when Jeff Daniels slowly pushes over the couch to reveal thousands of spiders crawling everywhere. Let me tell you...I nearly threw up. Then, I galvanized into action, gathering everything on the floor into a giant plastic bag. Blindly throwing items around, shaking out clothes, stabbing at my book bag furiously with a broom, suspiciously eyeing the old wooden night table I had salvaged off the street as a possible location for Mouse Headquarters. But nothing. After checking everywhere, cleaning everything, dumping the trash, and doing everything apart from tearing up the floorboards...I found nothing. They apparently LIVE in the vents. Or in the walls. Or perhaps are laying little mice babies in my closet (shudder). Seriously, I'm getting nightmares about them. I'll come back from winter break to find my desk consumed.

This is kind of a shock to me. I mean, for god's sake, I lived in Centre Avenue....where there were regularly dirty dishes stacked to the ceiling, food crumbs so embedded in the carpet that all of us just collectively learned to ignore it, and overflowing trash. Hell, 4 slobs (myself included) lived there, and I didn't see a single rodent. Then...I tripled my monthly rent and upgraded into this bougie condo with a roomate that seems to view cleaning as a stress reliever, and disease-carrying pests are all over the place like gang busters. Oh, the irony.

My roomate and I have our issues...most of them seem centered around money...which I can deal with. But after the latest terrifying appearance of our creepy mouse head honcho, Fat Louie (really, he needed a nickname), I decided to "grow a pair" (so to speak anyway) and have a chat with the roomie about this. I figured, someone who has left notes about proper bathroom mirror maintenance would be up in arms over the news of infestation. I was wrong.

"Um...there are mice in my room."

"Yeah, they always come out in winter. I'm just used to them."

"Oh."

"They're harmless."

Right, because my irrational fear of mice isn't just that they'll eat my face when I go to sleep but that they're IN MY ROOM at all...my tiny..tiny room.

It would be one thing if I lived in a palatial mansion. Hell, I'm generous, I'd concede the west wing to Fat Louie & Co., as long as I didn't have to see them. EVER. They could consume their weight in food, slowly degrade furniture, who gave a shit, as long as I could remain blissfully ignorant of their presence. But no, they have the audacity..the NERVE, to scamper out in search of grub when 1) I don't even have food! Since the first time, I purged my room of anything that could even be construed as edible. If it meant starving to death, fine. So long as they were starving right along with me. 2) Aren't mice supposed to be nocturnal? What the hell are they doing out at 6pm?

My parents would FREAK OUT. Oddly my 1L brain began thinking along the lines of "Hey, I wonder if I can sue my roomie for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress...."

Thus far, in the last couple days there have been 4 sightings....each of which prompt me into a bout of masochism where I go trolling on the internet looking for mice info. Did you guys know mice are experts at climbing vertical fucking surfaces?!
There's also this site where people detailed their mouse-related grievances. Check this, there's a guy who's actually sleeping in his car because mice crawl into his bed. Poor bastard. And what about this priceless little fear factoid:

" If you see a rat or mouse, you can be sure there are many more. Rats and mice breed fast. A mouse can have several young when she's two months old. Then, two months later, her young will breed. In the meantime, the mother will produce another litter. So you must keep working to get rid of them."

Great, and here I was chanting over and over "It's just a couple mice." According to that website...not bloody likely. They're MULTIPLYING! AAAAAAAAaaaaaah!

Ahem, so I really need to move out. But that's 5 months away at the earliest, so it appears a confrontation is imminent. It's pretty simple, it's me or them. Mousetraps, mothballs, the whole nine yards. I've heard they hate the smell of peppermint oil so you can bet I'm going to douse the room in that. Maybe mothballs soaked in peppermint oil.

Because I'm pissed. I'm done with finals and I should be celebrating...instead of charting out war strategy like it's the Battle of fucking Antietam. This has been an update from the front lines. God speed.

Quote of the Day:
Once you've rid your house of mice, can you relax the forget them? No. New mice will find you. Save your traps. Be ready to go to war with mice again.
---http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/L384.htm

This week: Life Negating Legal Memo!

13 hours working on this goddamn legal memo, and what do I have to show for it? A painful fucking migraine.

I've come to the decision that I NEVER would've hacked it as an English major; writing under deadlines, especially when it's something as stupid as this, is impossible. Here's the fun hypothetical we're operating under: "Pretend you're some hot shot attorney's office bitch...go do his grunt work for him, and churn out this 10 page legal memo, analyzing the ever loving shit out of drunk driving and public intoxication." I have these statutes BURNED INTO ME. I think I could recite them even if I were in a dead faint...which is likely to happen if I continue like this. 1 am is the cut off. Then I'm pulling the plug and collapsing..

I'm not even entirely sure I'm awake...I, true to form, have youtube open, facebook, some random astrology site, email, wikipedia. I get about 12 minutes of work done an hour.... Anyone shocked I haven't finished yet?

How the hell do people DO this on a moment's notice? Yes. I could kick myself for waiting the weekend before to do this. I knew it was a bad idea. I officially hate fictional Judy Jones and could give a damn if she gets convicted of the DUI..and as for her moron friend Sandy Swayne (I'm not making these names up by the way...) who left her drunk ass friend near a highway... SUCK IT.

Welcome to the Jungle

I've been in Boston a few weeks, living in Jamaica Plain (JP) and slowly being inducted into the 1L cult. 1L for all you innocents out there, means first year law student.... I'll dispense with some of the cliches about constant studying, the stress, etc. Frankly, it's only the first month and I'm still not really sure what the hell I'm dealing with.

Initial impressions...

Yes, I feel like I'm being transported to middle school. Giant backpack. Dining Hall (okay so I've never had that...kind of neat actually). The same 70 odd classmates in every...single..class. Lockers that I never keep stuff in anyway. AND Name CARDS. Yes, name cards. After years of bio major anonymity, going (or not) to giant science classes and keeping only the most superficial of relations with the professor....I'm being outed, name first, for the purposes of the Socratic Method.

Speaking of which, I've tried to look at it from all angles..you know, like a lawyer would, and I've come to the conclusion that the Socratic Method is barbaric. It makes every 50 minute class period like a pressurized sweat box where the only thing driving you to analyze the minutiae of each case is this paralyzing fear of being shamed in front of your peers. I'm gonna give it a couple more months before I won't even care about that anymore... But for now... well, it's keeping me on my toes.

That is, to say, this morning in Property was hellacious. The guy who teaches it is normally pretty jovial and won our undying love the first few weeks when he proceeded to crawl through the assigned cases and completely forgo the usual harbingers of the Socratic Method: the ceremonial making of the seating chart and putting out name cards. Also, he usually spends class drawing weird things on the board, going off on tangents no one gets, and making irreverent jokes about the Midwest (something we could all get behind.) We thought..we were safe. Finally, a refuge from the terror running rampant in the other classes (Contracts, I'm looking at you). Well, we were freaking wrong.
Something must've set off the Prof. because mid-way through he started getting really worked up. Maybe it was that kid who didn't bring his property book that got to him (hey, he never told us we had to!), but there was a sudden shift in the class atmosphere. The prof randomly runs around sitting next to people and grilling them about this clusterfuck of a case (don't ask me what it was about, I was too busy trying to avoid detection.) For 20 minutes, he stalked the aisles, scanning the student list and calling out people. No one was safe. This guy knew our strategies cold. Gulp. (Side note: I'm so freaking glad I kept my last name, I'm sure he took one glance at that and kept on roving.)
Point being: Property has ceased to be the slack off class. Damnit.

A brief run down of the other classes:

Civil Procedure: Boring. Boring boring boring boring. Although I manage to surreptitiously get nearly all the way through my copy of the Weekly Dig by wedging the magazine in between my casebook, behind my name plate (displayed occasionally, when I'm feeling young and reckless).

Torts: The new slack off class by default. Although, after today, I'm starting to get wary...this could be another evil ploy to catch us poor 1L's off guard.

LPS: Legal Writing, the miniseries. A frightening glimpse into the future.

Contracts: Apparently doing the required reading still doesn't guarantee you'll give the answer the Prof is looking for. Or even a comment he won't feel compelled to look simultaneously baffled and disdainful at.

Criminal Law: Murder, Intrigue, Sex, Lies, Videotape! Okay, so the class itself is pretty ho-hum (sensing a pattern here) but at least I don't cry looking at the cases.

I'm still waiting on the "Ally McBeal" side to being a lawyer to show itself. But until then, I'm just gonna have to suck it up and brave another battle in Property over some guy's porch encroaching 14 inches into his neighbor's yard. Oh the horror...the horror...

Random Quote of the Day:

Mr. O'Neill: Okay then. Jodie?

Jodie: I failed to convince my mother and father to let me have this summer off.

Mr. O'Neill: Excellent! And see, you've learned that failure isn't so bad now, is it?

Jodie: No, I've learned that my parents would rather I dropped from exhaustion than missed the opportunity to shred some congressman's incriminating phone bills.

--Daria