sometimes you just need a good laugh

every so often i remember all of the web sites that i've bookmarked as "favorites". i feel as though i abandon them from time to time *sigh* and i really shouldn't. it probably hurts their feelings, knowing that i neglect them so.

before i start in on a big post today, i'd like for you all to take a little time and head over to mcsweeney's for some pop-song correspondences. spread the love, kids.

Say It Ain't So!

This is sooo not cool.

The Year of Magical Thinking

I just finished Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, about the year of her daughter's illness following the death of her husband. It was an incredibly moving work and I'm not sure I've ever read any such account of a tragic time in a person's life that was so without self-pity. It was honest, bare bones "this is what I wanted to know and couldn't find the answers to." The style of the book is unmistakeable. I don't claim to be a Didion expert, but from the excerpts of her other works and articles I've read, the writing is fluid and conversational without losing any integrity. She's well-researched, but references to medical texts and such aren't boring, they're weighty and interesting.

I can't pretend to know what Didion must have felt after being in a relationship with someone for 40 years and losing them suddenly, but I do remember my grandmother going through much of the same experiences when my grandfather passed away suddenly from a heart attack. From an outsider's point of view, Didion couldn't have written an account that made it easier for another person to feel her exact emotions.

And if you're into this whole reading thing, but aren't so hip to braving the hot 100s outside and hitting the library, check out booksfree.com. It's like Netflix but for books. Nice.

...

Oh, and Carl Monday fans, Unfair Park had some more library masturbation shake-down fun today. Check it out here.

what happened to andre?

i was working on my project runway post this morning but got sidetracked by the wave of sedation that passed over me, so now that merritt got the ball rolling...
personally, i'm of the frame of mind that it won't be some crazy "OMG, (s)he went after them with a pair of pinking shears!!" kind of drama that will get someone booted (though wouldn't that be fun...), but rather plain-jane cheating. it could be sabotage, it could be stealing other designs/ideas. who knows. but if guadalupe didn't get booted for drugs with behavior like this:



no one ever will.

i'm just waiting for michael kors to get back from his holiday and kick vera "i make gorgeous wedding gowns but have hideous taste otherwise" wang to the curb so that he can regulate properly. yes, nina. i'm a tad disappointed in you as well. it's time to step it up.

my favorites: alison, michael, and keith / bradley. sadly there's not a great designer in the bunch (uli is constantly making the same dress in different colors/lengths). yet.

...
eventually i will figure out my opinion on touching from a distance, the ian curtis bio written by his widow and let you know, but for now i'm going to be disappointed in them both. unfortunately i'm too wrapped up in rule by secrecy to think of much else these days (make sure you have an encycopedia and/or wikipedia handy when you decide to tackle the book yourselves).

Oh, Harry...or is it Hairy?

Naked and riding a horse, eh? Check it out here.
Now if only the play wasn't about blinding horses.


Andrea, aka Wee Demon, brings up an interesting point on a totally unrelated subject:
While watching Mallrats on WE last night, AG noticed that instead of the usual discussion of Brodie (Jason Lee) getting dumped because he farted while Rene (Shannen Doherty) was, shall we say, orally servicing him, the channel overdubbed it to say that he puked during servicing. Office-wide it has been agreed upon that releasing a bit of gas is far less disgusting an action that retching all over someone's back. But we get a little crazy over here. Apparently, the chicks over at Women's Entertainment find vomit less offensive than wind. Wha? Discuss.

Tim Gunn won't leave me alone.

Since Wednesday's broadcast of Project Runway, I can't seem to stop considering who did what that is so heinous it's going to get them ousted from the show next week. Like, we're talking, not eliminated, but kicked off. Is someone caught doing drugs? Did someone sabotage a garment? Did glam mom Laura show someone her bonch? The possibilities are endless. And it's so stupid that someone would sacrifice such a major opportunity for what I'm sure will be something totally worthless. Which brings me to why I love PR and other shows of its ilk: Contestants receive the opportunity to better their careers, make their life dreams come true. It's not just "here, live in this house and haven an orgy and get drunk and we'll film it and everyone's gonna get bitch-slapped at some point." It's about a true goal that isn't entirely financial. That, and I love classy reality TV.

Also, if you haven't watched this week's inaugural episode of 30 Days' second season, you should. It's amazing. A gun-toting minutman bunks with an illegal immigrant family for a month. Of the five folks I know that watched it, all ended up at some point in various stages of tear production. Males and females. Morgan Spurlock is my hero.

Rock Star Update

I've been keeping tabs on the Dallas contestants on Rock Star: Supernova over at Unfair Park. Check out the most recent as promised earlier.

Oh, and concerning Solitary? I couldn't have said it better, J. Long live Mark and Taralee.

you asked for it...

first the rant:
so solitary is over. and the one person i DID NOT want to win, of course, wins. number 7 can suck it. for those of you who didn't see the show (it was on fox reality, so us cable subscribers were out of luck), they took nine people, put them in these little "pods", and gave them physical, psychological, and intellectual challenges -- the person who lasted the longest would win $50,000. the experiments (like laying on a bed of nails, counting marbles in the dark, and holding their breath underwater in an attempt to reveal a hidden speech they have to memorize, and gorging themselves to the point of vomiting after starving for days) lasted for hours, until one by one they would hit the red button to quit, not knowing how they're comparing to each other. their only communication is with a computer named VAL who doesn't tell them squat, so everyone went pretty loopy over the course of the show. entertaining. i was sad to see a few of them go, like florin, pamela, and taralee, and i did get a certain amount of joy when annoying danielle got sent home (fight club my ass), but i was really pulling for mark, the great number 5. he did so well, and with a great amount of dignity, and he really deserved to win. all the while, number 7 (i don't care to remember his name) cruelly "took" everything from everyone, smack talked, danced around like an arrogant little prick, and just overall annoyed the hell out of me. ugg. i will however watch the reunion show next week, hoping against all hope that he will reappear as a beaten man whose wife and children left him because they saw what a bastard he truly is. keep your fingers crossed.

and now for the happiest news:
brian, my nice coworker who hasn't made queso or popcorn in a while(???) completed his mission of tracking down one of my favoritest games of all time, blockout. really it's a new version, but it's almost identical to the old game, and i'm bout it. best of all -- there's a pause function, so i've been working on the same game since this morning. yay! trust me, you'll love it.

O, Carl Monday!

This investigative reporter might be a little out of control, but dammit, he's looking out for the community!


You know you love him, so here's all you ever wanted to know about Carl Monday, reporter with the best name ever, as well as his own blog. (Thanks to Jesse and Noah for the links.)

Later today, you'll have a link to my Rock Star: Supernova update. And hopefully, Jen will let us peeps know how she feels about the winner of Fox Reality's Solitary. Hopefully. Because it's powerful stuff. (I heart Number 5.)

Sweet! And to think I didn't really care for Mr. Jennings...

So how is this for awesome? On the day that we debut our anti-Alex blog, I see that Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings has gone public with his ill will as well, according to an AP story reposted by Yahoo! News.

My favorite parts?

"Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can't get the mustache right, by the way)."

and

"We regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek's robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a `cyborg,' not a `robot.'"

Gonna have to keep an eye out over at www.ken-jennings.com

damn the man

i hate him. hate him. really. his contract must be up or something, because the old alex, the one i thought i knew, would never behave like this.
he should have never shaved off the mustache. it was like he killed a part of his soul.

you know who else i hate? sara from hell's kitchen. yup.

Damn straight I did.

The people of the world need to see just how evil the host of TV's Jeopardy! really is. Of course, we love the show far too much to let that keep us from watching, so we'll use this as an update on Trebek's daily transgressions...as well as a place to express whatever else we're loving or hating in the world of pop culture.

Jen, tell our lovely readers why you hatin'...

merritt said to do it.