what i am thankful for in 2009

-Empire State of Mind
-Lady Gaga
-The Office wedding episode
-that I didn't throw up during Avatar
-Google Reader
-Not getting swine flu
-that there are free shows to go to every night of the week in NYC (much love to whiplash, punch up your life, big terrific, kabin, and assssscat)
-OBAMA (Even if he's not everything he promised us, i'm still grateful for him)
-tina fey (my own personal obama)
-that I am still not sick of Fidelity or Paper Planes
-Caracas, Veniero's, Minka, and Momofuku Milk Bar
-having my own apartment
-that this is still around:

-Where the Wild Things Are
-Modern Family
-rekindling the yowser bond
-that I can still wear a tiara twice a year (AT LEAST)
-my amazing mom, family, and the best friends a girl could have (from harvard, hunter, comedy and beyond)

What a year! Congrats, guys-- We did it!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 2K10!

Reflecting on the '00s

It's weird to me that blogs and magazines are looking back on the last ten years as a decade because for me, the last ten years are pretty much my entire life. I mean, I don't think I was much of a real person until I was 13. But here are my favorite memories from the last ten years:

Best TV of the '00s: Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The OC, The West Wing, 30 Rock

Best movies of the '00s: Wet Hot American Summer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko (Yeah, okay, so I have the movie taste of a college dorm room... Sue me.)

Best books of the '00s: Empire Falls by Richard Russo, The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, Atonement by Ian McEwan, He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

Worst people of the '00s: George W. Bush, Tyra Banks

Least favorite fashion statements of the '00s: Uggs, Crocs, Croc Uggs, tights as pants, leggings as pants, bare legs as pants

Best songs of the '00s: Fidelity by Regina Spektor, Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars, Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, Paper Planes by M.I.A

Best inventions of the '00s: Facebook, Google Reader, iPhones

Best online videos of the '00s: cat wall, Brenda Dickson, money money, Old Greg

My personal greatest accomplishments of the '00s: Getting into Hunter, graduating high school, getting into Harvard, writing a thesis, leading CityStep, graduating college, getting employed, going after the things I wanted HARD (foolishly hard most of the time)

My favorite memories of the '00s: birthday lunches with mom, Yura, Starbucks club, my 16th birthday party, discovering the UCB theater, Grease, prom, sweet 16s, sitting on our rock, FemSex, CityStep, Children of Eden, F Unit, DK3 New Years-es, starting Laughterbirth, first kisses, Club Med, springtimes, Brick, Fete, Tasti, iced coffee and bubble tea

Who I was at the beginning of the '00s: a gooey mess of an 8th grader covered in tears and insecurity, who regularly went home to play Neopets, obsess over fake MTV band 2gether and read Buffy fan fiction

Who I am at the end of the '00s: a college graduate, an Associate Manager, still kind of a gooey mess

Holiday movies!

My favorite holiday movies in no particular order:
Elf
Scrooged
A Muppet Christmas Carol
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original one, not the Jim Carrey one)

Anyone want to have a movie snuggle session? I have Elf tivo-ed and all three muppet christmas specials on vhs (courtesy of kara :))

is it a meat organ?

speechless

I'mma Let You Finish = brill.

taylor in wonderland

Was anyone else really put off by the VMAs? I was so uncomfortable. I don't know why. Okay, I know some of the reasons why.

But first, some backstory. I guess when you've been at college for 4 years, you forget that you're somewhat cut off from the outside world. I mean, I'm never really cut off from the outside world (b/c I am uncontrollably obsessed with pop culture), but if it doesn't happen in my Google Reader, then it doesn't always get through to me. And what with the whole micro-fame have-it-your-way nature of today's pop culture, it means I can have a database of information on who in the HRDC has made out with whom and which UCB performers have appeared in what commercials without knowing a thing about what's going on in Sudan or what the names of the characters in Twilight are (i know, i know, it's Bella and Edward... some of that shit makes it through). But then I came back from college. And suddenly I had cable TV again. And interacted with my 15-year-old cousin who listens to Z100 and weirdly enough, knows all the words to Third Eye Blind's "Jumper." (Apparently it's in the movie Yes Man...?)

When I was growing up, I used to watch awards shows like it was my job. But recently, I turned on the MTV movie awards and realized I didn't know who anybody was. So I turned it off. But yesterday at the VMAs, I knew who everybody was. I just didn't want to know who anybody was. It was a display of everything that's weird and fucked up about our culture.


The whole Taylor Swift-Kanye thing is perfect because Taylor Swift seemed like the only normal teenager-y thing about that night. Even though Taylor Swift is fucking gorgeous and it's bizarre that her hit song is about how she's a big nerd, she was the quintessential outcast in that show. She was like Dorothy in Oz or Alice in Wonderland getting led into a magical fairyland of crazy surreal shit. But instead of the Cheshire cat and the Wicked Witch, there's just like Gagas and Pinks flying from the ceiling and Russell Brand screaming and Kanyes stealing things from her and everyone is just bleeding and naked and shiny and horrifying. It was even just perfect how that whole story started and ended the night with the first and last awards. Beyonce is the Queen of Hearts but instead of cutting off Taylor Swift's head, she let her thank her younger brother's junior high school for letting her use their premises to shoot her adorable little music video.

It all just seemed so unscripted and bizarre with everyone just ranting and crazy. This is what Twitter and Facebook and reality television have done to our culture. Joe Wilson can just yell at Obama and Kanye can just take Taylor Swift's award because everyone assumes that everyone cares what they have to say about everything. We have no grace or dignity anymore. We can't keep our mouths shut ever. We just choose to one-up each other with how grossly exposed and open we can all be. Even the fact that I am fucking blogging in response to this should send myself a red flag for hypocrisy or post-irony or something, but it doesn't.

I'm withdrawing into my cocoon again, which isn't even that much of a cocoon because I consume more pop culture than most people I know and then surround myself with other people who consume that much pop culture so that I don't feel bad about myself (did I say pop culture? I meant alcohol j/klolz!). But seriously... there are 12-year-olds growing up on this shit. Someone save them. Someone save the Taylor Swifts of this world. They don't need this.

p.s. this is for ryder b/c i know if i had just said this to him instead of writing it down, he would have said "You should write a blog about it."

get it right or pay the price!

For reasons unclear to me, I started looking through the imdb profiles of the cast of Salute Your Shorts. Here's what I discovered (besides the fact that I am a weird person who enjoys learning trivia about actors from old Nickelodeon shows):

Donkeylips (Michael Bower) is the guy who took Monica to prom in the prom video ep of Friends.

Telly (Venus DeMilo) is one of the graduation rappers in Ghost World.

Budnick (Danny Cooksey) played the voice of Milo on Pepper Ann.

p.s. Doesn't Ug look like Justin Kirk aka Andy from Weeds/Prior from Angels in America? I never realized this before.

belated

Okay, I know I haven't written in a while... at first because i started neglecting my blog to twitter and then because i started neglecting the internet altogether (or at least the parts of it that didn't fit into my google reader). But here I am. 23 years old and still trying to call jokestore to trade in this life for one that's less of a joke.

"a soundtrack that was like a psychic probe into every good mix tape that killed you inside"- BUST magazine on the Donnie Darko soundtrack

the trouble with glee

I was so set to like Glee. Just like I was so set to like Mamma Mia and Rock of Ages. But they all suffered from the same problem: You can't be ironic and genuine at the same time. And when you try to convince your audience to like something un-ironically that everyone knows is, for all intents and purposes, terrible, you just end up forcing people to sit through crap.

Glee wants to be a lot of things: dark comedy like Weeds, commercially appealing like High School Musical, campy like John Waters, and a heartfelt embrace of the outsider like Ugly Betty. But in trying to appeal to teenyboppers, they lost any comedic edge they had going for them. The pilot felt more like Bring it On than Election. Is it really possible to be both?

What Glee should be is the original John Waters Hairspray. A good compromise that's network friendly but still hilarious would be the Harvey Feirstein Broadway update. But what it ends up being is the overproduced Zac Efron-vehicle devoid of any element of camp or irony. The problem is that over-the-top farcical comedy always has to make a choice between real, human moments and subverting those moments for comedic effect. Take Arrested Development. Any time it allowed you to feel for its characters, it quickly yanked the rug out from under you by reminding you that that kiss you wanted to happen was between cousins or between a man and a retarded woman. That's what makes it funny.

Maybe Glee will be the surprise hit of the fall. I'm willing to give it a shot, especially to see Kristin Chenoweth stop by in episode 4. But I'm hoping that they ditch some of the gloss in favor of the black comedy. Those moments were where I liked the pilot best and I'd be thrilled to see them pull this off.

vote for my mommy!

My mom entered this instructable contest with this great DIY Mother's Day gift. vote for her! voting closes on Sunday!!!!

Obsession timeline

I was thinking today of my general fandom and thought it might be useful to plot it out in terms of time. So here's a list of things I was obsessed with (not just things I liked, things I was like weirdly OBSESSED with). Maybe one day I will make a graphical representation of it (or more likely, ask Yoko to do it for me, jk jk). Also, I can't remember exactly when some of these things fell, so maybe my mom will correct me (look for mom-ments below). Also, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you somehow managed to not know what a big nerd I am, you may not want to read this... sigh, this is probably a huge mistake.

1986-1987 breast milk
1988-1990 silky objects, Heart, Bert
1991-1994 I don't remember. Was I even a real person then?

1994-1997 The Disney Channel (mostly Mickey Mouse Club, Adventures in Wonderland, and Kids Incorporated), Babysitter's Club books, Ghostwriter, wearing a pen around my neck and pretending I was Harriet the Spy
1994-2006 hoarding large stashes of Japanese candy
1995-1997 All That
1996-1999 Weird Al, Spice Girls, Hard Candy nail polish
1996-2006 cutting pictures out of magazines, showtunes
1996-2003 Friends
1997-1999 Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, Tyson Beckford (okay, this is really weird, but when i was like a LITTLE GIRL, i really liked big black guys. and then suddenly, that just reversed itself and i started liking really dorky skinny white guys. and that has continued to this day. explain that to me.)
1998-2002 Jelly Roll pens
1998-2003 Rent
1999-2001 2gether (specifically Jason "QT" McKnight, RIP)
1998-2001 Neopets

1999-2002 Snood
2001-2005 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seth Green
2001-present 80s music
2002-2006 Jimmy Fallon
2003-2006 The OC, Adam Brody
2003-present UCB Theater, Minesweeper

i love this picture

whoever took this should be very proud of themselves.
c/o NYTimes

i watch a lot of television

As I've started to consider the possibility of working in television, I made myself watch a ton of new TV shows and luckily, there have been a lot of great shows. Here's the new stuff I've been watching in the past six months or so.

9. Parks and Recreation, NBC- Should be better, but right now, it's way too derivative of The Office. They need more UCB guest stars.

8. In the Motherhood, ABC- Thank God for Jessica St. Clair getting her network break. She was in the first improv show I ever saw (Commedia Dell High School, when I was 15) and I've loved her ever since. The show could definitely be better what with the talent they've assembled, but I'll give it a couple more eps before I give up on it. Also, this show has an interracial relationship without making a BFD about it. Do you know how crazy rare that is on TV? Also, skinny Horatio Sanz, yay!
7. Cupid, ABC- Cute. And I adore Sarah Paulson, even if she plays the same character in everything.
6. Dollhouse, FOX- I honestly have no idea what's going on in this show, but it takes me a long time to give up on a Joss Whedon-created show.



5. Better Off Ted, ABC- This show is too smart for its own good, to the point where it's more clever than laugh-out-loud funny. Also, Portia DiRossi, like Sarah Paulson, always plays the same character in everything, but DAMN she is great at it.
4. United States of Tara, Showtime: This show was a little gimmick-y at first, but it has heart. The two kids are charming and each character has their own really captivating story. Also, speaking of people who play the same thing in everything, John Corbett could really think about moving beyond his Don't-worry-about-cheating-on-me/your-big-fat-Greek-family/your-multiple-personalities.-I'm-the-patient-boyfriend/fiancee/husband.-Aren't-I-lovable? character.
3. Delocated, Adult Swim (Cartoon Network),: The second best show you're probably not watching. If only it were more than six episodes of 15 minutes each.
2. Eastbound and Down, HBO: I don't really see how this show is going to continue for more than one season, but Danny McBride is hilarious.

1. Party Down, Starz: Definitely the best show you're not watching. I know what you're thinking-- Starz?? But this show has an amazing cast of actors who normally steal a scene or two in a Judd Apatow movie (Jane Lynch, Ken Marino, Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, and the always lovable Martin Starr). Witty writing, great ensemble work, and what comedies today often forget about: Pathos. Not since the first season of The Office have I found myself caring about comedic characters without feeling manipulated.

So there you have it. If you haven't watched these, every one of these shows is either on On-Demand or available online, so check them out.

my springtime mix

Even though I have already broken out the flip flops twice and seen three different Mister Softee trucks so far in 2009, and despite the fact that, weirdly enough, it snowed yesterday, today officially feels like the first day of spring, when you can hope for 50-plus-degree weather from here on in (with perhaps a couple of exceptions). In honor of that, my springtime mix:

That's Not My Name, by the Ting Tings
Fidelity, by Regina Spektor

Just Like Heaven, by the Cure
Girls and Boys in Love, by the Rumble Strips
New Spell, by Cryptacize
Hair, from the Revival Cast Recording
You Don't Know Me, by Ben Folds f. Regina Spektor
Love You Madly, by Cake
Modern Love, by David Bowie
Don't Get Me Wrong, covered by Lily Allen
Elevator Love Letter, by Stars
What Makes You Happy, by Liz Phair
Adrenaline, by Emma Pollock

Springtime has honestly always been the cure to all ailments for me. Spring has endless memories of walking home through Central Park and sitting in the Eliot courtyard and midnight walks, Tasti and bubble tea and Pinkberry and so much iced coffee that I have to pee pretty much constantly. And watching Adventureland just makes me want to be outside in the sunshine listening to the Cure all day long. So even though I am clearly a dorky twee 16-year-old as soon as it hits 55 degrees, I don't care because dear lord, it is SPRING!!!!

More John Hodgman awesomeness

Exactly how and when did New York become “a city that never sleeps,” and hasn’t this had a negative impact on its health?

— Posted by Jim Moskowitz

Answer:

Kander and Ebb wrote that line for Liza Minnelli to sing in the movie “New York, New York,” because the lyric “the city full of hatefully ambitious people who are destroying themselves” didn’t fit; and also, at that point, Liza Minnelli had been awake for 11 days.

Answers from the Daily Show Resident Expert

John Hodgman knows the Hallelujah guy!

You used to live on the Upper West Side. When you moved to Brooklyn, why didn’t you take the Hallelujah man with you?
— Posted by Andrew Pinkowitz

John Hodgman's response:

The 80-year-old man who walks down the street screaming “HALLELUJAH” for hours on end is not the sort of person you can force to do anything he doesn’t want to. Needless to say, he has his own agenda.

when you have something to say that doesn't fit on twitter

"A cynical, hyperarticulate guy who’s kind of nerdy? Handsome in an offbeat way? Grows on you over time? What can I tell you, I have a type."
-Creator of The O.C. and Gossip Girl, Josh Schwartz

Keep putting 'em on TV and I'll keep watching them.

indie romantic comedies are my greatest weakness

There are very few things they could have added to this movie trailer to make me want to see it more. It is like someone took a formula of everything I love in a movie and made it. Whether that will actually lead to a good movie remains to be seen. But on a purely formulaic level, I AM SMITTEN. SMITTEN, I TELL YOU. It's like Michel Gondry and John Hughes had a baby together, a baby that sings Hall & Oates. I want to curl up with this movie and spoon. I call little spoon.

You all know how I feel about growing up.

This might be the most depressing cartoon I've seen in a while:

How can you ever feel sad when you look at this picture?

i tweet therefore i am

You know when you were in like 7th grade and everyone had those ridiculous UFO pants or a frosh in college and everyone had Uggs and you were like "WTF those defy all logic. they're ugly, they look ridiculous, they're expensive, blah blah blah." And you could think of 100 reasons not to get them, but slowly as they became less and less cool, you were like 'Well, maybe I'll just try them on' and then those emeffing uggs were so emeffing comfortable that you could not take off your feet. And when your mom sent you a pair of Croc-Uggs in the mail, combining the two worst shoes of all time, you and your friends laughed and you brought them around as a novelty of how silly your mom is, but you didn't just want to carry the shoes around, so you wore them (you know, ironically.) At first, just to the dining hall, but soon, when you were running late for class, you thought "Well, I'll just slip them on. How bad can it be?" And suddenly, you notice they're on your feet all the time. To job interviews, meeting your boyfriend's parents, funerals, etc. And suddenly, you're Croc-Ugg girl. Neither of those shoes are even popular anymore, but you're still wearing your hideous shoes because once you put them on, you suddenly understood why everybody loved them so much.

Well, folks, I finally broke down and joined Twitter. And I feel about as guilty about it as I possibly could. Just saying the word "tweet" makes me feel lame. And even though I know that Jimmy Fallon and Michael Ian Black are having private up-to-the-minute conversations with me, and even though I know that I could just write short things on my blog to the exact same effect, and even though there really isn't anyone on my twitter who I don't already have on my google reader/blogroll/e-mail list/see on a regular basis, I just can't help myself. And by golly, are those croc-uggs comfortable.

Follow me at twitter.com/misstrionics.

random post-college thought of the day

It's really hard living in a world where people haven't obsessively watched the same YouTube videos as you. Why does everyone look at me strange when I say, "mmm creamy" or "I want to meet that dad" or "That was acting, thank you"? And then you have to be like "Guys, you have to see this video" and then you show it to them and they're like "That was weird." And then you feel worse and can never say those weird things again. And then, they make you watch a video of a cat sneezing or something and you're like, "That's not the same thing. I can't obsessively make that adorable sneezing sound over and over every time I hear something remotely similar to it." And they're like "Yeah, but how cute is this cat?" What's up with that amiright?

Do you ever sit at your computer and think about exercising so much that you're convinced you've done some and then realize an hour and a half later that you're still just sitting in a chair trying to decide which free yoga video to do?

Hot tub time machine? This sounds amazing.

From Vulture:

John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson have joined the cast of Hot Tub Time Machine, with Vulture buddy Clark Duke in negotiations to do the same. The movie revolves around a group of friends who return to a lodge where they partied in their youth, only to be shipped back to the year 1987 upon entering the titular hot-tub-time-machine hybrid. [HR]

Funny cast? Check
Time travel? Check
The '80s? Check
John Cusack in a hot tub? (Wait, is he still hot? Medium...) Super check!

I will be seeing this movie.

since when are mid-season replacement shows good?

There are way more good new TV shows on than there was in September. I'm actually already really into Dollhouse, Eastbound and Down, and United States of Tara. We'll see if any of them last, although I believe Tara's already been picked up for a second season.


Does anyone watch United States of Tara besides me? I'm kind of in love with Nate Corddry in it (lilbro of Rob and Studio60 regular). Adorkable.

what I liked (but mostly hated) about the Oscars

So I'm no Barry (who likes stuff) or Rachel (who hates stuff), but I did like/hate some stuff about the Oscars. It follows:

:)
-"The reader. I didn't see the reader." This was some neo-futurist crazy avant garde shit, but I loved it.
-Anne Hathaway singing
-that Pineapple Express montage where they laughed at The Reader and showed so many clips from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (the second best romantic comedy of the year after Wall-E)
-Jen Aniston & Jack Black sounding/looking bitter when they presented
-Sean Penn winning and his acceptance speech
-those little kids from Slumdog
-T. Feyzles as usual
-the commercial with Nora's dad
-John Legend singing the Wall-E song
-Ben Stiller as Jwa Feen, so good.
-whenever Japanese people accepted anything and said "Sank you." Adorable! Everyone watching with me was making fun of them for not knowing English, but I can't wait til they win a Japanese award and then they're all like "Ummmm arigato?" and all the Japanese people laugh at them. Oh, their day will come. Mark my words.

:(
-Ugggggghhhh it was so effing boring.
-how they cut from Aniston to Angelina TWICE. unnecessary.
-Beyonce
-that whole stupid musical thing with Zefron and Amanda Blaahhhhhfried
-Hugh Jackman is not funny
-how they had five past winners come out and as Rachel W. described it to me, "suck on the nominees' ****ies" (fun game of the day: guess which word goes in there) So unnecessary. Just show clips from the freakin' movies.
-no M.I.A. b/c she too busy having a bebe
-Did I mention how boring it was?
-how they felt the need to be like "Maybe young people will come if we invite Robert Pattinson and Hannah Montana." Those people do not need to be there. Instead of pandering to little kids, why don't you just make it not suck so the rest of us will watch it? Huh? Is that too much to ask?

hopin' that you'll stick around

Even though this idea has been done to death by everyone from Paul Simon to They Might Be Giants, this may be my favorite Flight of the Conchords song/video clip of all time. From the Michel Gondry direction (lovin' those giant instruments) to the meta "Who organized all my ex-girlfriends into a choir and got them to sing?" to the melancholy lilt of that repeated line "Carol Brown just took a bus out of town...", it's all pretty stupendous. After kind of a mediocre first part of the season, it's nice to see FotC hit a high note again. This has just the right mix of pathos, quirkiness, and genuine hilarity (along with a song that's actually catchy yet complex) that made the first season worth watching.

depressing realization of the day

I'm pretty sure 90% of the guys I've had crushes on look like at least one of the guys from The Lonely Island.

making it past valentine's day and rounding the bend towards springtime

the feminist blogosphere is so anti-He's Just Not That Into You and I am having trouble reconciling my feminist beliefs with my love of the book/movie/philosophy/lifestyle. for all its sexism and essentialism and heteronormativity and the general lameness i feel every time i proclaim my love for it, it's still em-freakin-powering, and it still changed my life.

something less dorky:
i had a lovely weekend with lovely people and re-acquainted myself with the great outdoors. within the span of a couple of hours, i lay in the snow and stared at hundreds of stars, drove by a dead deer and sat near a blazing fire in the fireplace. This was too much for my city brain to handle and it quickly exploded. I am now dead.

:(

not having a good day... I never want to work in customer service. People yell at you for no reason.

What's getting me through the day:
-tracy morgan tonight
-he's just not that into you with the girls
-skiing/cooking/lounging in woodstock this weekend
-no work on monday!!!

I'm a sucker for this ish.

This article is kind of brilliant. The Observer's description of L'Homme Fatale fits in perfectly with my Spiderman/Seth Cohen theory of nerdy boys getting really hot girls nowadays and suddenly turning from self-deprecating to cocky. I have met so many of these LHFs and I'm happy that there's apparently even the slightest bit of backlash against it because now maybe there will be a return to authenticity in flirtation (jk that's never happened).

I should explain that the subject line refers to both me being a sucker for this type of guy and his oh-so-sensitive delivery as well as me being a sucker for pseudo-sociological blog posts and articles, especially ones about dating, relationships, or new types of guys & chicks AND especially ones that coin new terms ESPECIALLY when they're portmanteaus (which this one is not, but I'm just bringing this to people's attention in case they happen upon this kind of article and want to point them out to me).

nostalgia

Taking a sick day off work means an immediate trip back to the olden days. Maybe it's my mom bringing me chicken soup in bed or the fact that I watched a marathon of The OC on Soapnet or that my iTunes on random happened on "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, which was like my 10th grade anthem (judging myself as we speak). Either way, I'm suddenly nostalgic for a time when all problems could be solved with an iced coffee from that place next to Falafel Express or the walk home through Central Park.

this is the story...

A brief history of me watching the Real World:
The first Real World I watched was Las Vegas (season 12). I was babysitting and heard that a girl from Hunter (Irulan) was on it. This was a salacious season. I believe the first eppy had hot tub makeouts. (Don't worry-- I had already put the kid to bed.) After that, I looooooved Real World San Diego (season 14): I had an enormous crush on Randy, and Frankie alone (who was dying and extremely afraid of boats) made the show worth watching. Then, i tried to watch Austin, but I think I got bored... shortly after which I left for college and no longer had cable access.

The new Real World (Brooklyn, season 21) consists of:
1) a transgender woman
2) an Iraq war vet trying to be a singer-songwriter
3) a gay dolphin trainer
4) a black beauty queen
5) a Mormon who everybody thinks is gay
6) a guy voted best abs in the Northeast
7) a girl who previously identified as a lesbian but now has a boyfriend
8) a white hip hop dancer (who frequently takes classes at Broadway Dance)

This is honestly the best Real World cast in a looooong time. They've gone beyond filling niches or just choosing the 7 hottest people and found extremely interesting people who have a lot to teach each other. But at some point between when I stopped watching and now, they made the show an hour, which feels uber-long. The other problem is that because there's not a structured format where every week is different (like in many competition reality shows), I feel like they just edit together all different parts of their living together and pretend it happened sequentially. So the episodes feel a little all over the place. Anyways, I really do want to stick with this season... besides the fact that the cast is great, there's the added bonus of them being in NYC and stopping by places I've been.

comftastic-looking

Is it weird that I really want these extremely long socks? I don't even like wearing socks all that much but they look cute for dancing around the house...

afternoon thoughts

You know when you're a kid and you hear adults make reference to things like "balancing your checkbook," "doing your taxes" and "having an orgasm"? And you're like, 'Well, that sounds like something I might do when I'm older, but for the time being, I have no idea what you're talking about.' Well, the time is looming when I think I'm going to have to do my taxes. And whenever something like this comes up (e.g. getting health insurance, paying off my student loans), where the grown-up thing is to just figure out what to do and do it and the childish thing is to pretend you're still 15 and let deadlines pass causing massive catastrophic problems I can't possibly foresee, I usually choose the latter. I feel like I've heard that April 15 is the deadline somewhere... can someone do them for me? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm having a very CalvinandHobbesian moment right now. Gosh, can't wait for the mom-ments on this post.

On a completely different note, Revolutionary Road proves that even Titanic-size love doesn't last. It's probably better that Leo drowned before his whole life went to shit.

There was a time when I followed pop music like it was my job.

I know the TRL finale was a while ago (sometime in late November to be less than exact), but I just got around to reading this great blog post from Idolator about what TRL meant. I really can remember rushing home after 7th grade to watch TRL. I didn't particularly like Carson Daly, but I liked pop music and I was always excited to see who'd be guesting and who'd come in at #1. I also remember I had closed captioning on my TV at the time (for God knows what reason; I was a weird little kid), so I learned every word to songs like Kid Rock's "Cowboy" and Destiny's Child's "Bug a Boo." I still know a large chunk of these lyrics. All of my attention was rapt from 3:30-5-- This was before I even had my own computer in my room, so I was staring straight at the TV, reading lyrics, idolizing pop stars. Nowadays, if I end up liking a pop song, it's usually because the artist was on SNL or So You Think You Can Dance? but it's not as easily trace-able and I tend to learn about what songs are popular long after they would've come and gone on the TRL charts.

nitpicking an otherwise interesting (but flawed) article

I got a belated chance to read the Tina Fey article in Vanity Fair. It focused almost entirely on the way she looks... shocking considering there are like 95 Annie Liebowitz photographs of her, all dolled up.

Weird part on Fey meeting Palin backstage at SNL:
'“She asked me where my daughter was,” Fey says. (Alice had been there earlier at the rehearsal, pointing at the monitor showing Palin and thinking it was somehow her mommy, even though Mommy was with her.)'

Is it just me or does that sound kind of condescending to Fey's daughter, as if Maureen Dowd thinks she's an idiot for mistaking Palin for Fey. This is a little girl (a 3-year-old) who's grown up watching her mom on TV. I am sure she has been in a scenario where she has been with her mother while Fey has also been on the TV screen. Is it really that shocking that she would see an image of a woman who looks remarkably like her mother on TV and think it was her?

Notable Quotable of the day

"In the finale, Ted tries to make it rain... and not in the cool way."
-Nick Banker, on why "How I Met Your Mother" is a chick show