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.