Oh, I am so mad this morning I don't know what to throw first.

Ever since Hurricane Wilma, the Metromover has been operating in fits and starts. The service has been supplemented by buses, taking riders along the route, and dropping them off at or near the stations. I say at or near, because depending on your driver, they may cop an attitude and refuse to let you off, or not stop, or whatever. In any event, it takes a 7 minute train jaunt and turns it into a half-hour ordeal.

Except for this morning.
See, there are two stops where I can get off the Metrorail and pick up the Metromover: Brickell, which is my usual stop, and, although it takes longer, is more pleasant in that it's out in the sunshine and fresh air and I can stand up there on the platform and watch the sun dance off the turquoise* waters of Biscayne Bay.

Or I can get off at Government Center, and hop an inner loop shuttle past the courthouse and the college and end up at my same end point over on Biscayne Boulevard. I prefer not to, however, because it's a very busy stop, and there's lawyers and government workers and the connection is semi-contained.

Today, I hopped off at Brickell and I was Very Early for work. When I got downstairs, the Mover was barricaded off and we were told to take the shuttle bus. Well, crap. If there had been an announcement on the train (they are always announcing broken elevators) then I would have ridden on to Government Center, which is the next stop anyway.

Down to street level. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. I waited while no less (and no more) than THREE shuttles came for Brickell Key (the maids' shuttle, OK?). Finally, after more than half an hour's wait, a downtown shuttle came. Oh, yesh, the driver assured all of us steaming in line, this would take us to Biscayne. So I got on. And we drove and drove and drove and then I realised that the bus, it did NOT turn on my usual street. It kept going straight. And then it turned back and went to Government Center. It was now forty five minutes after I got off the train one stop south of Government Center. I could now take another shuttle bus or any of the downtown regular buses, or I could go upstairs and get on a MetroMover going on another loop, or I could walk to work.

Which is what I did. It took 15 minutes in 3" heels (on a platform wedge, by the way) over crumbling sidewalks, and I still got to the office more rapidly than the shuttle bus that was coming up behind me as I entered the building.

THE OTHER THING I'M PISSED ABOUT

The other thing I'm pissed about this morning is last night's ANTM (America's Next Top Model and what rock have you been living under not to know that?) elimination of Lisa which left that yellow-toothed, Dumbo-eared, skank Jayla around. Lisa could pose circles around that nasty ho even when drunk or hung over, and as for the rabbit-toothed, walking teen snotrag, Nicole: well, she can be sent home any second now, and I wouldn't be crying.

*If, by turquoise, you are thinking of the really dark, muddy greenish brownish stone with heavy dark spider webbing.

Last night my girl Tiffany got sent home from ANTM. This was a terrible blow to me because the week before, my other favorite, Lluvy, got sent home. Why don't they send home the chick with the Village of the Damned eyes, or the one with no lips?
This has to be the worst season yet for America's Next Top Model. Not one of those twits could read a teleprompter, and not one of them could pronounce Hermes.

Now, I'm just sayin', but if you were trying to be a top model, wouldn't you be studying things like Vogue magazine, or Harper's Bazaar? Wouldn't you? Maybe watch Style tv. Things like that.

Was it one or two weeks ago where none of the girls had a clue what haute couture was? If I were Tyra, Mr. Jay and the wonderfully over the top Miss Janice Dickenson, I would have cancelled the season at that moment and sent the whole ratty pack of them home.

And speaking of ratty, what's up with the whole look of the pack when they come in for judging? Can't one of them use a hairbrush or a little mascara? Especially that drunk girl, Brittany. She looks like she's just rolled in from a hard night and an early morning walk of shame, every single week.

Even Michael/Michelle is doing better than that. Sort of. I think that the show, having treated her to its nasty bleach blonde makeover, should at least keep her roots up for her. Or just give up on her being an ice queen and go for a jet black, Betty Page look for her. I think that would have been a little easier for her to work with.

Working with brings up the whole acting class sequence. Michael/Michelle kept saying that she'd had four years of drama. I'm beginning to think that was personal drama and not actually acting classes.

And finally, Noxema, the Cover Girl of the Week in perpetuity. She really rubs me the wrong way. I can't tell you why, whether it's the Meg Tilly brown facial lumps, or the lame ass mohawk, or the smug little way she wins every competition, but I just don't like her and I don't want her to win.

So there. If you want a better analysis, go to Television Without Pity.

Yes!!!! Tonight there is a special on what the "divas" are doing now, and tomorrow another round starts on ANTM.
That's America's Next Top Model, but I am such a ditz, that during Cycle 2, when the girls had to sell a make-up line called ANTM, all I could see (or hear in my head) was Auntie Em.

It is so not easy being blonde.

Man, if I were 30 years younger, 30 pounds lighter and about 4 inches taller, I would be all over that show like white on rice. Or not, seeing how I feel about reality shows in general, and actually being on one in particular.

But this show is my secret vice. OK, not so secret. My vice, though. Oh, yes it is. I L-U-V this show with the heat of a thousand suns. I cuddle up on the couch with a jug of plonk and a gallon drum of popcorn and I watch every minute of it. I even tell the RLA to leave the room if he's going to be scornful of my taste in trash TV.

Speaking of the heat of a thousand suns, Miss Bliss wrote something the other day that just made me spew martini on my monitor. In reference to holding hate in her heart, she said that she knew "it just makes the sweetbabyjesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."

I ask you, has a finer phrase ever been crafted?

I thought not. I am stealing that puppy so fast your head will spin around like Linda Blair's. And with a Southern accent? Honeychile, you just best be watching out.