a few random observations.

today was the longest day i've had in a long time. and no tv, either! i know, it's truly a travesty to be kept active and out of the house for so long. how will i ever get in shape on my hawaii chair now?

anyway, i went to the duke game tonight, where a slew of fans were wearing green t-shirts related to some environmental thing on-campus. too bad duke played their worst first half this season, so of course the green shirts were to blame. as students threw mounds of their shirts onto the court at halftime, the staff picked them up and started taking them out. then, just as quickly as they were discarded, other people swooped in all vulture-like on the t-shirt wielders, nabbing themselves new, if slightly used, green t-shirts. awesome. i love that the FREE FOOD (!!!) gut instinct is alive and well.

then on the way home, after the radio station played the zz top song that is on guitar hero in the bighouse blues round (i couldn't tell you the actual name of the song, sorry), they played blinded by the light. i have always thought the lyrics said:

blinded by the light
wrapped up like douche
and a runner in the night

but apparently i am quite wrong. that pretty much sums up my day.

awesome.

p.s. weekend cliffhanger: i may be forced to snowshoe this weekend in the wilds of wisconsin. and when i was told to bring "boots" for the activity, apparently my banana republic 3-inchers don't count. hmph. anyway, if this outdoor humiliation actually takes place, i'll be sure to share. like i said... awesome.

(hypothetical) humiliation at home.

so... if the following took place in your life, what would you find the most humiliating?

1. solidifying my social isolation by coming home and challenging a stranger on the internets to a game of guitar hero (seriously, who's even home this time of day?)...
2. losing said game and taking out my frustration by playing a rather raucous version of "when you were young" by the killers...
3. getting caught going crazy on the whammy by a construction guy swinging outside of my living room window (in my defense, we're on the third story)...
4. all the while wearing leggings as pants.
   

i know, i know. the killers, what was i thinking? they are SO 2006.

stuck in the middle of school bureaucracy.

which is as awesome as it sounds. so to entertain myself during the portion of the meeting that is irrelevant (only the first 40 minutes of a 45 minute meeting), i've discovered how i'm going to finally burn off my baby fat. plus the stuff accrued on top of that over the last nine years or so.



it will certainly look awesome in between my tony little gazelle...


... and exercise slide:

and the only reason i mentioned i was in a meeting in the first place is because i have no idea what the audio is like on this video. which (tangentially) made me realize how semi-irrelevant youtube must be for deaf people. anyway, the images were enough for me to immortalize here.

because that is how big my ego is looming these days. larger than life, bsb style.

update: my favorite line is definitely "that feels great on my ahhhhhhhh...bs!"

fire sale of the century.

so i thought that getting a season's worth of veronica mars for $30 was awesome (especially when i tried to track down the third season this weekend and discovered the MSRP was $60. seriously, who would pay that? i ♥ logan echolls and all, but that's OTT even for me).

too bad now amazon has all three seasons for $21 or less. so if you like well-written, funny, poignant tv and aren't 100% lame, here's a great way to spend about 45 hours of your life:

season 1 ($16.99)

season 2 ($20.99)

season 3 ($19.99)

that works out to about $1.29 per hour of pure, wondrous entertainment. honestly, season 3 is mildly questionable, but i guarantee the first two seasons are must-haves. you will definitely not regret spending that much time watching tv and alienating your loved ones in the process.

not that i'm biased or anything.

(do it)

this just popped up on my computer.

only substitute "cats" with tv shows and "37,000" with 23.

source

i said, unbeknownst to you!

wow. i'm on dvr-delay re: celebrity rehab, so i'm just watching the wildly (unintentionally) entertaining intro scene of last thursday's episode.

for those that haven't seen it (or refuse to), the gist is that daniel baldwin accuses jeff conaway of bringing drugs into the rehab facility, "unbeknowst" to the latter. in response, jeff gets crazy angry and shouts something along the lines of, i didn't smuggle them in! i would have taken all of the drugs if i had them in my pants!

that is the best defense i've ever heard.

oh, kenickie.

(from his brief but action-packed stint on celebrity fit club)

update: 2nd best quote from this epi = you're wheeling away from me?!?!?

the bane of my existence lumbers on.

so it's bad when every time i have to do an assignment for my strategic modeling class (which, btw, is before every lecture), i instead spend the time trying to figure out how to withdraw from the class, right?

just checking.

meanwhile, i won't insult your intelligence with the ole you-know-you-watch-too-much-tv-when-you-watch-tv-shows-about-tv-
shows joke, but i ♥ the soup. seriously. joel mentioned that he has interns to watch the "crap" he doesn't like to watch.

honestly, HOW GREAT WOULD I BE AT THAT JOB? i do like, 88% of the work already for free.

(the missing 12% is due to the lack of bravo access)

are you an indie-yuppie?

so apparently i'm about three years delayed on the adoption curve, but in light of our recent household acquisition below, i thought the following was appropriate. here's a quiz, originally published in the NY Post in May 2005:

The "Indie-Yuppie" Quiz: Add 1 for every “yes” answer. Your score will tell you your "Indie-Yuppie" status.

1. Do you own a “vintage” T-shirt purchased at Urban Outfitters?
2. Have you been “on the list” at a rock show at least once in the past month?
3. Are your white iPod earbuds a source of pride?
4. Do you know what “grime” is?
5. Have you ever done a Web search to find the name of a song used in a VW ad?
6. Do you have a Gmail account?
7. Did “Garden State” speak to you as no other film ever has?
8. Do you own at least one white belt?
9. Do you have a fully articulated stance on Bright Eyes?
10. Do you regularly read Paste, the NME, and/or The New Yorker?
11. Do you have a TiVo?
12. If yes, do you have a season pass to one or more of the following: “The O.C.,” “Best Week Ever,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Britney & Kevin: Chaotic”?
13. Have you ever paid more than $50 for one pair of jeans?
14. Do you have a blog?
15. Are you confused as to whether or not it’s OK to like Coldplay?

Score!

0-5: Borderline. You have yet to realize that even hipsters enjoy that Kelly Clarkson single.

5-10: On the verge, although you really, truly hate the Arcade Fire.

10-15: The epitome of indie-yuppiedom - but we won’t tell anyone about your trust fund.

it's rather dated, but it still bears the ring of truth. for the record, m and i score an 11 between the two of us.

and just to clarify, indie-yuppies are a breed distinct from hipsters:


although if you know m at all, he comes pretty friggin close.

farewell, giant dust bunnies.

m's mom graciously gifted us with a dyson (upgrade!) after mistakenly giving away our $39.95 dirt devil to her cleaning lady (i wasn't kidding when i said upgrade).

so of course like the brand whores we are, we opted to buy the target-branded version of the dc07. i know, i know. though it could be worse if we had bought it at urban outfitters or something.


anyway, the two big wins to this vacuum (besides the fact that our embarrassingly large dust bunnies are now chillin together in the canister):

1. m wants to vacuum A LOT in order to use his new toy. i ♥ novelty factor, especially when it forces someone who doesn't feel any natural inclination towards cleaning to clean.
2. the next piece of our yuppie lifestyle jigsaw puzzle has fallen neatly into place, in addition to the granite countertops, west elm furniture and wine rack we added this fall.

next stop, wardrobes consisting solely of cashmere and $200 jeans.

insert thousand words cliche {here}.

i was going to snark about being a waste of creativity but instead will just point out that if your chest is really that hairy, then won't your bare arms look stupid? i'm just saying.

but don't think that i didn't lol about this for a good 15 minutes.

the smell of marshmallows and promises is in the air.

they'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'reback
they'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'reback
they'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'reback
they'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'reback
they'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'rebackthey'reback

this is from a highly credible source. jon, i still love you (and your sharpei puppies) 15 years after the fact (are they still around?)! this, even though your only fucking solo across four albums was on a song called Happy Birthday. no worries, i know you'll be able to resurrect that angelic voice and complementary rad dancing skills to bounce back from your purgatory in real estate development in no time. sing, baby, sing to me!

(if you would like to join me in attempting to score tickets to the inevitable reunion tour, please let me know. i promise not to punk out and forget to get tix, a la my grand plans for the so you think you can dance tour)

i'm getting into the game about 47 years too late.

the golden age of marketing seems pretty awesome - mai tais at business dinners, super glam offices on madison ave and the ability to say pretty much anything to sell a product.

what the hell am i talking about?


if you won't watch it for the super stylized sets, on-point costume design or insight into the history of branding, then just know they visit a strip club in the first episode.

it's the best thing on tv that no one is watching. and probably the classiest thing on my dvr.

(lucky you, AMC is showing an encore presentation of the first season on sunday nights/monday mornings @ 12 a.m.)

the jane austen-beer goggle effect.

while i generally like the actors listed below, i definitely like like them after i see them in jane austen films. is that weird?

exhibit a:

vs.

exhibit b:

vs.

exhibit c:

vs.

the one exception is darcy, who is like-likable, regardless.

&

i think there's also a tolkien corollary to my jane austen theory:

vs.

or maybe it's just the good lighting, i don't know.

just how cold is it today?

almost cold enough for me to wear this in public:


i know, you're jealous. and also wondering how i'm going to negotiate the logistics of wearing it with my other new headgear. i am also currently pondering this quandary.

anyway, it is seriously fucking freezing outside.

right now, m has "never been so exasperated".

all because our internet connection and cable box just died simultaneously.

(no but really, it was a scary four minutes as we waited to see if we had fallen victim to some bizarre cable-based apocalypse. we even began to make entertainment contingency plans like watching a billion episodes of veronica mars on dvd. yes, again.)

time warner, we're giving you the finger right... now.

for the narcoleptic in you.

and by you, i mean ME. it even includes neckwear (!).

this is why asians rule.

the current bane of my existence.

not dropping a course about strategic modeling is just about the poorest decision i've made thus far in 2008.

i should have known to abort the mission the day we diagrammed causal feedback loops and stock-and-flow diagrams of the coke industry in the 1980s.

(that is, as in blow, and not as in the bane of pepsi's existence)

it reminds me of the summer i took pre-college courses at yale and signed up for astronomy because i thought i would learn all of the constellations besides orion's belt. imagine the slap to my face when the prof busted out some hardcore physics.

fucking parsecs and white dwarfs. (i am) SO LAME.

four words that should never (EVER) be cobbled together.

hello.

kitty.

keychain.

massager.yes, it's that kind.

seriously, keychain?!?!?

apparently i live with a (malfunctioning) baker.

so i felt like eating some chocolate cake tonight that was made by somebody else. good thing i have a live-in boyfriend and the foresight to buy trader joe's chocolate lava cakes, the directions for which literally state:

preheat oven to 400 degrees. remove all packaging. place frozen cake on baking sheet. bake for 15-17 minutes. remove from oven. devour.

i thought it was pretty self-explanatory, particularly because you pretty much JUST HAVE TO PUT THE CAKE IN THE OVEN. however, questions regarding the "baking" process tonight included:

• where are the pans?
• how do i turn on the oven?
• i think i set the timer for 15 hours. how can you tell?
• where are the hot pads? (me: what the fuck are hot pads?) hot pads are a thing! so wait, we don't have hot pads? ...balls.

(i tuned out and finished watching veronica mars at this point)

anyway, the cakes turned out amazingly well, despite the trials and tribulations of PUTTING THEM IN THE OVEN AND TURNING THE OVEN ON.

awesome.

just in case you thought YOU watched too much tv.

so apparently someone around here decided that after returning for two days of class - on the heels of five weeks of winter break - the clearly overtaxed mbas needed a three day weekend. they have such faith in us, i think.

anyway, that demanding academic calendar, along with the Great Winter Storm of '08 that yielded exactly zero inches of snow (forcing all durham yuppies to haul ass to whole foods in order to stock up on all-natural, organic survival supplies) means i did absolutely NOTHING over the past two days.

so what does that literally translate into?

i watched THIRTY-EIGHT episodes of veronica mars.

go ahead, mock me. i'm still the ambitious go-getter i once was. i plan on finishing all 44 episodes i have in hand before i go back to class tomorrow.

and you thought you were lame.

p.s. [inappropriate crush] + [favorite tv show] = my mind, blown.

breaking news - hurry up and PANIC (!).

that is the picture attached to cnn.com's current leading story.

and in totally unrelated news, i randomly thought of these for the first time since... well 2004, apparently:

sometimes i wish i had a dog.

but then i hear about how dudley knows how to get underneath the bed (above), yet requires manual extraction to get out:

I just have to get him to lie on his side then I rotate him out. He's a big pain about it though.

as with other assorted animals and babies, maybe i'll just continue to relish the "cool (read: awkward) aunt" role.

you are cordially invited to my bean fest.

i would have guessed that "dinner party" and "cheap bastard" were kind of mutually exclusive, but the existence of good deal with dave lieberman has proven me wrong. i haven't seen dave hanging out on the tv schedule lately, but apparently it's one of the few shows the food network has recorded in hd.

(btw, thank you, time warner, for proffering the dog whisperer in hd so i can see the gingivitis of demon chihuahuas, but remaining so staunchly committed to excluding non-hd bravo)

so the first episode of good deal that i watched featured a three-course dinner party based entirely on canned beans. i mean, they are only 64 cents a can. and that's right, you too can make vanilla and cannellini bean ice cream and (proudly) serve it to your friends, courtesy of this recipe.


yummy. but cheapness aside, would you seriously want to attend a dinner party where you're ingesting bean course after bean course? maybe my gi tract is wimpy, but i'm pretty sure i couldn't (physically) handle it.

ok, so that epi ends and so what's up next for dave and his lucky friends? that's right, an episode called yesterday's bread. he is now feeding his guests a dinner party menu based entirely on resurrecting stale bread. i'm not sure whether i would be less offended by an invitation to this party or the bean fest.

how does this guy still manage to entice his friends to come over and eat his (cheap ass) food?


oh right. because he looks like that.

i'd like to see guy fieri try to get away with shit like this.

remember when uncle jesse made a music video?

neither did i, until this morning.



the 90s are way more hilarious than i remember.

oh boy.

i realized that i may have to resort to watching tv shows i normally abhor through a lens of irony. appropriately enough, i started doing that in college when i was trying to stave off senioritis. it was during that momentous era that i began to watch (read: plan my class schedule and actual life around) people's court, maury, cheaters, ex-treme dating and 7th heaven. this also probably explains why i kept getting pangs to apply to lincoln tech and consolidate my settlement payments into one lump sum.

anyway, first up on the ironic dvr agenda is semi-homemade with sandra lee. i don't know why i didn't start this sooner since sandy should just be deigned the tv queen of unintentional humor already. this pretty much encapsulates why i love/hate her:



i'm clearly not the first one to get on this little bandwagon o' win. current favorite comment:

Does she not realize that to the rest of us, a party actually means guests. Not a pitcher of hootch, a foot long hot dog, a squeeze bottle of mayo and a video camera. -- Ubi

gotta run. 90210 is on.

collapsed in a wretched heap.

surprisingly, the title has little to do with the disease that has paralyzed me in a proverbial full nelson for the past four weeks.

[btw, i am convinced that student health centers are literally the last place you ever want to go to cure something. during my appointment, the doctor poked me in the (face) cheeks and forehead, asked me if they hurt, and then seemed disappointed when i told him that i thought the whole point of a skull was to protect me from being hurt by pokes like that. at the conclusion of our session, he threw a scrip into my hand, mumbled something about antibiotics and yeast infections that totally caught me off guard (tmi, apologies) and then told me i was done. didn't mention what was wrong or what the meds were for. pretty sweet.]

so anyway.


if you want to truly empathize with what's really bothering me these days, you'll read conan's strike diary.

(don't front like you didn't know where this was all heading from the very beginning)

what are you doing this weekend?

courtesy of ew.com:

Bring-It-On-Athon
Watch Kirsten Dunst in the original Bring It On at 7 p.m. on Friday, immediately followed by Bring It On Again at 9 p.m. Rest up, because come 4 p.m. on Saturday, you'll be tuning in to watch Bring It On, Bring It On Again at 6 p.m., followed by Bring It On: All Or Nothing from 8 to 10 p.m.. Get siked, because Friday and Saturday? That was just a warm-up for Sunday. On Sunday, watch Bring it On Again again, at 4 p.m., Bring It On: All or Nothing at 6 p.m., and the premiere of Bring It On: In It To Win It, at 8 p.m. Hoo-rah! If reading all that made you gouge your eyes out, then you were not adequately prepared for a Bring-It-On-Athon.

remember sparky?

"I am a choreographer. That's what I do. You are cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded."

as if i even needed another reason to look forward to the weekend.

is that chocolate or poop?

if i was 378% cooler, smarter, and nerdily cuter with better comedic timing, someone could mistake me for tina fey, the current object of my girlcrush.



and white. i would probably have to be white, too, in order for that to happen. i do rock the ironically emo plastic frames though.

anyway, amy poehler is also pretty much awesome. which is why april 25th can't come fast enough.

i am a food ignoramus.

because when i saw this on the shelf and read the label aloud...
i thought of this instead:

(former dc mayor, reelected after a drug conviction)

but apparently there are other kinds out there, including this guy:

(AR congressman)

and of course these:

(are they berries? are they nuts?)

plus this label, which teaches the mathematics behind marionberries:

(apple + marionberry + tea = brambleberry?)

anyway, here are marionberries in all their naked glory:

that's right, turns out it's epicurean code for blackberry.

the new assault = UPGRADE.

the ending is SO grood.



WOW. and no, that's not a typo.

(shoutout to lvdp in nd)

this just seems... off.

an excerpt from an email re: fire drills, written by the building managers at school:

If you have a disability which prohibits you from using the stairs, please let [us] know so that special arrangements can be made to remove you from the building.

i don't know. maybe i'm just being sensitive.

meanwhile, i just heard "reverend of rip" and "hebrew hammer" used in the same commentary. american gladiators is SO AWESOME.

the hip hop macarena.

you know a song is about to die when it gets a segment on American Morning.



i love when cnn tries to be street.

my ego just inflated by about a billion degrees.

i'm pretty sure writing a blog and expecting someone else to read it is among the most narcissistic things i've ever done, along with asking my friends to hold up mirrors around me so that i can constantly look at myself while simultaneously telling me how freaking awesome i am.

anyway, so imagine my delight when i notice that readership spikes overnight. wow, i tell myself, people must really ♥ my inane pop culture references. or constant ongoing fodder about what i'm watching on tv.

but just kidding, it's (obviously) not me. i pretty much owe it all to being included in this:

Crushing on Michael Cera

it's really just the virtuous cycle that is ♥-ing michael cera. i post about my (inappropriate) crush, which in turn gets linked to, driving new traffic to the blog, which then inspires me to write again about my (still inappropriate) crush. amazing.

clearly, he and i have a special connection. sort of just like this, i think:



if michael cera was a baseball player, i would balk him. fo sho.

can i buy a subscription to sky mall?

i seriously ♥ this publication. the only thing that beats this for entertainment on airplanes (especially to asia at the patience-filled age of six) is watching the airplane tracker on the map move 0.9 millimeters every 43 minutes. anyway, where else can you find:

poop freeze...

($14.95)

a net to corral your kid and other debris...

($89.99 which is great because i definitely wouldn't have bought it at $90)

a travel pillow that will guarantee a row all to yourself while simultaneously using up your carry-on quota...

($29.95)

gollum & smeagol bookends...

($195)

the "furminator"... (?)

($34.95)

the slanket (psp not included)...

($49.99)

in all honesty, i would totally rock the slanket, particularly in class. and don't judge me - i think they try to freeze off my raging senioritis. you know, poop freeze-style.

(shout out to my sav-y friend, md)

you should really watch this.

i think celebrity rehab with dr. drew is my new favorite show. just watched the first episode and it was 147% compelling. plus, the next new episode on thursday will showcase everyone going through detox. simultaneously. amazing (!). at this point, i like it even more than american gladiators because it is just that solid.

jesus, i watch A LOT of tv.

it has been suggested that i should maybe look into rehabilitating my tv addiction. but then i kicked that person in the shins and they miraculously took it back. go figure.

anyway, here is your gratuitous dr. drew shot:

you're welcome.

there are two things i like about dance war.

1. the show is trying to revive the whole boyband/singing plus choreography/coordinated outfits/pheromone-induced movement that defined my childhood. and teenage years too. and college, if i'm being totally honest. i wonder if drew lachey gets nostalgic/jealous/stabby.
2. thank GOD for dvr, so that i can fast forward through the human interest stories and other random commentary. carrie and bruno without len is like letting a rabid dog off the chain. seriously. and then hosing it down with lots of mystic tan.
   

i have to admit that i particularly enjoyed the glittery tiger on some guy's t-shirt (right at home underneath a leather vest, clearly) and the public humiliation that is getting picked last for what is essentially a dance kickball team. it made me a little nostalgic.

other random thought - the girls are all in high heels, while the dudes are in a mix of sneakers and boots. that reminds me of the time i went to a male strip club in philly. i was a little taken aback by the combat shoes all of the strippers - gentleman dancers? striptease technicians? - were sporting; it never occurred to me that a stiletto has no true male counterpart.

this of course, was overshadowed by witnessing one of the dancers (who wore the equivalent of tighty whities + tube sock) backflip onto the stage, hobble over to the fortunate woman seated in the lapdance chair via his HANDS and then proceed to hump her face upside down. no really, that actually happened.

but the true pinnacle of the evening was the (awkward) epiphany i experienced when i recognized one of the strippers. because he moonlighted as my HAIRDRESSER during the daytime.

and i thought he was serious when he told me i could be a hair model. alas.

my new hobby.

in light of the ongoing writers' strike, i've had to increasingly rely on the world wide web for supplemental entertainment. and i do realize this is only the billionth time i've talked about it, so no, i'm not (read: completely) traumatized. lately, i've been watching a random mix of cover songs, like this:



and this:



and this:

and yes, that IS tony lucca of mmc/keri russell ex fame. i personally preferred marc, though. he is the bad dancer in this:

anyway, after seeing the following, i'm pretty sure that this guy and i were bff in previous life:



they should definitely bring back both shows RIGHT NOW. talk about low-hanging fruit.

icydk II.

so that's why there's always pee all over the seat. those people are way more nimble than i could ever hope to be. and that's just in the bathroom alone.

can i learn this in yoga?