The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

I'm in the middle of conjuring up a post about arch enemies, So You Think You Can Dance and other random bits and pieces when I happened upon this (via my husband's boyfriend who cooked us a really excellent dinner last night so thanks for that, Shane).

I totally lol'ed, yes it's true.

Song For A Day - 66

Yesterday I wrote about my 1988 with The Church's Starfish. Today it's my 1999 with The Afghan Whigs'1965. We're making some heavy withdrawals at the nostalgia bank this week, I tell you.

And ohhh, the magical powers of Greg Dulli, a man whose magnetic stage presence defies the fact that he's actually a bit scary up close and in person. Before I ever saw the band the only thing I knew about them was the zine Fat Greg Dulli so I never dreamed this guy would be someone women threw their underthings at. Then my pal George took me to a show at The Palace in LA and whilst I remained fully clothed, I couldn't deny the appeal.

I'm sure many a girl's lusty fantasies revolved around the smoky, luscious, makes me feel joyful gathering of songs that is 1965. For die hard Afghan Whigs fans, as I understand it, this is the record where they started to share the suck but I find no fault. It was my first, it was my only.

"66" is the track that sent my soul into happy shivers (though I listen to "The Slide Song" more often these days). I hope you enjoy this here video of The Twilight Singers (Dulli's band with Mark Lanegan) performing it with Whigs' bassist John Curley. He even throws in a pocketful of trojans...

There's an Afghan Whigs tribute album out now. You can download My Jerusalem's festive version for free here.

Rediscovering Old Loves - Reptile

Okay, I admit my original intent was to do a post on "Hotel Womb" but the only video available wasn't worth spreading around the internets.

As a teenager in good old Plano, Texas and a young adult in good old Austin, I couldn't get enough of the fair prince Marty Willson-Piper and his compatriot, the sultry voiced Steven Kilbey.

The Church were my church and though I freely admit that I worshipped at the altar of Robert Smith, they ran a close second... well they may have competed with Echo & the Bunnymen for second, but let's face it my earnest teen dream heart was large enough to hold them all near and dear.

"Reptile" is an equally grand song from 1988's Starfish, an album I listened to on a virtual loop that first fall I lived in Austin. The ghosts of a thousand fantasies probably still haunt my old duplex on Speedway.

The lads are in their 50s now and still going strong with a near original lineup (only drummer Richard Ploog's not around anymore). I've been to every SXSW since 1989 EXCEPT the one they played. It's just as well... I probably would have missed them, anyway.

NYC Prep - It's Front Row Or Nothing

In case you missed it, because I know you're all watching this show it's really just the best thing ever and I don't know how the Gods of TV will ever surpass this gloriousness, last week teen dream Sebastian and future elephant trainer Taylor broke up and can't even be friends even though they were never really going out and it's all made up anyway.

This week finds Jessie grasping once again for fashion greatness with her new job at Charlotte Ronson. She calls her fellow applicants "pathetic" since they were seven years older than her and had the same amount of experience. I think she got the job because it would expose Charlotte Ronson to a bunch of rich New York teens... and lesser types who can buy her crappy diffusion line at JC Penney. (I had a gander the other day when I was at Mall St. Matthews and it's just as bad as it looked online. There's one wearable piece. The rest looks and feels le cheap. It is on sale these days, though. Oh, funniest part, a sales clerk was showing around a new employee and said, "This is Charlotte Robson. We've had this line for a few months.")

Anyway... for some reason unknown to anyone, PC (or PCP as I like to call Peter Carey Peterson) invites Taylor and a + 1 (she brings her old yet new again flame Cole, the only normal person on this show) to the Jill Stuart show during Fashion Week. PC and Taylor are pretending to find each other fascinating. Geez, what crazy scenario will these producers think of next?!

It's semi-hilarious, mostly cringeworthy, when PC tries to school Taylor on proper celebrity sighting etiquette. They arrive in a flurry of paparazzi to front row seats because, as PC sooo correctly says, "It's front row or nothing." Taylor bags on PC and his pretentious friend Kat for wearing their sunglasses indoors and it's true, they look like jerks even though I think she's wearing those Oliver Peoples sunglasses I totally love but won't buy because they look like crap on me.

Cue Taylor and Cole giving some snappy sartorial commentary along the lines of "I like purple" and "Purple is my school color." Those peasants from the Upper West Side sure are adorable!!

Oh look, here comes Sebastian!! I think he has a speech impediment or something... or he's drunk... because he's slurring his words when he tells us how he's going to try and have a go at Kelli now that Taylor rejected him. I kind of like Kelli as she announces she's not going to be Sebastian's backup. You go girl! People don't say that anymore, do they?

PC is still yammering on about being in the front row as we drift along to the Erin Fetherston show at Bryant Park. (Her diffusion line at Target was way better. I bought the bunny thermals because I luv bunnies.) Seb and Kelli only have fifth row. My God, they so don't rate! Anyway, who wants the dramz that would be a Kelli and PC meet up because we all know they totes hate each other.

My brain is oozing out of my head right now. Seriously. I always hear about how you have to suffer for your art. Now I understand, dear readers!!

PC tries to apologize to Kelli after the show and it's just words words bitching bitching, I sure don't think anyone's really making up here and does it matter because when this show is over these people will care even less about each other than we do.

OMG! Paris Hilton cameo!! We all know by now that she dropped out of the same prep school that PC and Jessie recently graduated from. It's called Dwight and apparently they'll let anyone in.

PC is not in the front row at Pamella Roland and he throws a really unappealing hissy fit, but everything he does is unappealing so this is okay. He is keeping in character. I bet the show runners are super proud of PC. He is their bright shining star as he calls Kat (or at least I think it's Kat, I can't tell without the sunglasses) the c-word and gives Jessie the finger. That's breeding there, boys and girls. That is the grandson of a billionaire.

We're 26 minutes in before we get our first glimpse of Camille. Who cares.

Now Jessie's working for Carmen Marc Valvo?!! How can this be? I have to admit I really like CMV even though he designs with fur and that makes me want to barf.

Are you still here? If so, thanks, because I barely am.

PC brings an entourage to the CMV after party. Jessie gets mad and tries to act like she's angry because it's tacky to bring uninvited guests to a soiree and she's worried about PC hanging out with dudes in their 20s when really she's worried that PC is actually gay and therefore not in love with her as she is in love with him. It's Shakespearean, this tragedy, and they whack us over the head with the PC On Fire theme every week to the point where now I'm actually beginning to think he's hetero.

I have started way too many sentences in this re-cap/liveblog/disaster with the letters PC.

I think they just showed Camille at some spa. Who cares.

Sebastian continues to be drunk or have marbles in his mouth or something. He's on a date with some girl who has perfect eyebrows. More words and most are unintelligible. They even give you subtitles but it still doesn't make any sense.

Taylor wanted to hug Paris Hilton when she saw her. Taylor the future philosopher just fell quite a bit in my estimation but she's 15 so whatevs. Actually, that makes it worse.

More Jessie ragging on PC with the "I love you please pay attention to me" subtext still going strong.

And mercifully it's over. Just like this post.

Bad News Monday

Bob Geldof doesn't like Mondays. Who does...

Here's a few bits and pieces that came across my desk today.

Jim Bunning not running for re-election. Possibly the Democrats only hope in winning that seat is now gone. On the flip side, the good news... no more Jim Bunning.

The NFL Commissioner has conditionally reinstated Michael Vick. He could be playing in the regular season as early as October. On the flip side, the good news... I bet there are a lot of dog lovers in the NFL.

And finally, Merce Cunningham passed away. RIP to a true dance visionary. I wonder if they'll acknowledge this on So You Think You Can Dance this week. On the flip side, the good news... I bet they're learning new movement in heaven (even if I don't believe in heaven).

I've included this Comic-Con trailer for True Blood because why the heck not. That show is juicy, no pun intended.

My goal this week... to return to regularly scheduled programming and by that I mean blog more than once in a blue moon, you knew just what I was there for.

NYC Prep Doesn't Exactly Prep You For Reality TV

Okay, I haven't been feeling well lately (always some excuse, right?) so what did I do this weekend? Caught up on the first three episodes of Bravo's new "reality" offering NYC Prep. It's no secret that I love me some Gossip Girl so even though I didn't want to watch this somewhat odious yet undeniably grossly fun exploration into the lives of rich teens in New York, I JUST COULDN'T HELP MYSELF!

The show has a sunny cast of characters, a veritable who's who in the New York teen social scene...not really.

There's dreamy Sebastian, the 16 year old lothario of East Hampton who has a wingman with whom he sends signals to by flipping his ridiculous 70s hair. He speaks French poorly and hooks up with lots of girls (between two and 16 a month!) even though he chews gum with his mouth open.

Kelli, also 16, lives in Manhattan with her 18 year old brother and no parental supervision. Oh wait, her mother and father come in from the Hamptons one night a week, which proves they really care. She wants to be a singer. She lurvs Sebastian, but he only has eyes for...

Taylor, the 15 year old pride of the Upper West Side. And she goes to... stage whisper... public school. Of course, they only mention briefly that she goes to a public school that's nicer than many privates and is one of the best in the city. Stuyvesant is a magnet that you have to test into so even though she plays the role of the dumb brunette (hrm), she actually has a brain in there despite the fact that every other sentence she utters includes the word "social status." In fact, she's a bit wily as she seems to be playing everyone including...

Camille, 17, the mini-Blair Waldorf -- down to the hairband -- who attends Nightingale-Bamford and desperately desperately wants to go to Harvard (though she's written since this proclamation that what she really meant was "the idea of Harvard").

It's all over the internets that none of these kids actually go to top tier prep schools because surely no Brearley or Spence girls would be caught dead flaunting their wealth and looking like bitches on a gauche TV show. However, we're supposed to believe with all our little hearts that these cardboard cutouts are a fine representation of what real upper echelon city kids are like. But wait... isn't that what Gossip Girl is for?

Lest you think we're stuck in bourgeoisie hell, we do have a billionaire's grandson in the form of... PC (pictured), 18, the Dwight graduate and possibly gay offspring of Blackstone Senior Chairman Peter Peterson (seriously). In fact, PC is also named Peter Peterson. Peter Carey Peterson. I think he should be called PCP, don't you? All of PC's scenes seem to be propelling us to the foregone conclusion that he likes boys and not his best friend...

Jessie. Oh Jessie. Also a recent Dwight graduate, Jessie is the future Alexis Carrington Colby of the group (although future Real Housewife of NYC is more like it). She's ambitious, snooty and mean. I so want to hate her, but these shortcomings are so obviously a desperate attempt to mask her other shortcomings... and that is putting it politely. Jessie loves PC but alas, I think those feelings need to sink with the sun never to see the light of day again because it's just not gonna happen.

Having said this, they will probably end up unhappily married spending days where he throws water bottles at her (or expensive vodka once he's of age, haha, like these kids care about the drinking age!), and she slaps him across the face. Both of these situations have occurred on the show. PC also told a girl he was going to break his beer bottle on her head if she didn't leave him alone when they were in Mexico. Such a charmer!! He's no Chuck Bass, that's for sure.

It's painful at times how obviously set up the scenes are and seeing the kids play dress up at fancy dinner parties and clubs in their mini-adult frocks and dinner jackets is pretty cringeworthy for the most part. They often sneak glances at the cameras and seem to stumble on lines.

However, I don't just watch this show for the schadenfreude... New Yorker Big Word Alert!... I watch it to hear great lines like this one in re Jessie's charity work that Camille is trying to glom onto so she can go to Harvard: "In the Operation Smile world, Jessie is the queen bee."

Omigod. Like, that is SO TRUE!!

Oh wait, there was also the time where Sebastian told Kelli, "That's what like the movies are for. The Jewish people." Why are movies for the Jewish people, you ask? Because they need something to do on Christmas, of course!!!!

Cameo of tonight's ep: Taylor Momsen... looking confused... as to why someone was filming her.

Thank God the season finale is next week.

(photo at Bravotv.com)

Songs I Somehow Never Heard - Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken

I can't believe I've let so many days pass since my last post. The excuse of moving/unpacking/shutting the door in the face of Jehovah's Witnesses (or Mormons, whatever) wearing "Jesus Christ" nametags is wearing thin.

So... I'm lying in bed at 10.23 am on this fine Tuesday watching (this is so embarrassing) Over Her Dead Body. My excuse this time is that I'm not feeling well and obviously I'm not in my right mind willingly watching something with both Lake Bell AND Eva Longoria Parker (although I do watch Desperate Housewives and have since Day 1, and oh let's face it underneath my dark cloud I am unbearably girly).

Err... so... I'm lying in bed at 10.23 am on this fine Tuesday watching the end credits of Over Her Dead Body (did you know Paul Rudd is in that movie? He's adorable!) and this Oh My Goodness I'm in a Time Machine kind of song comes on so I look it up and it's not really from the early 90s but a 2006 offering from Glaswegians Camera Obscura, who have been around since 1996, but apparently I live in a musical cave. That was a long sentence that I'm not entirely sure was grammatically correct.

"Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" is a response to the Lloyd Cole and the Commotions song "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken." Do you remember that Lloyd Cole video where he had the rose tattoo on his palm? I still think about that every now and then.

"Llloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" reminds me of The Sundays, of getting ready to go out and meet cute boys, of those rare moments of appreciating youth while still being young.

And with a sigh I change the channel...

At Least It's Not Detroit

Part 1



Part 2



Since I'm still unpacking things (books, books and a lot of shampoo for some reason) and don't have time to properly blog, I give you these snappy Cleveland tourism videos courtesy of my pal Jenni Sperandeo.

Glee Meets My Morning Jacket

Is it wrong that I think I might like this version better?

"Wordless Chorus" courtesy of The Carleton Singing Knights.

(found at My Old Kentucky Blog)

Uncovering Hidden Treasures... Not.

It's a bad sign when I start a post with a "not" joke.

The moving truck should be here any minute. Boy did we ever NOT get enough stuff packed. This weekend will consist of boxing more magazines, books, and unbelievably... clothes. (We've already packed the Pina Colada full of my apparently predominantly black wardrobe like three or four times. Really, I thought I'd started branching out into color a lot more. Guess not).

I'm turning 39 on Sunday and I realize now that as I enter the last year of my 30s I will have a lot more to contemplate than the approaching 40. I will also be wondering how I managed to accumulate so much useless "what the hell is this? Oh, an issue of Vanity Fair from 1995" crapola! That said, I still wish I had my Seventeen magazine collection from the 80s.

Sigh.

My House No Longer Smells Like Stinky Baby

Because it now smells like vinegar and paint.

The first time I saw the unbelievably frightening kitchen at our new house I laughed about how the aforementioned grody khaki colored plaid wallpaper with bizarre (and bizarrely charming) cow border looked like Tom's show shirt from 2002-03. So tonight I made him pose with it and here is the crappy phone camera result.

He is a study in neutral tones...

I don't remember the last time I was this tired. I'm so tired I can't even be cranky about the fact that the paint color I chose for the living room resembles the paint chip only in the dark... too tired to be sad about sorta destroying the half bath when I tried every method known to man to get that wallpaper off (obnoxious black stripes with a flowered border... sigh). I have now decided that there must be a God because only the Devil would invent wallpaper.

I am not too tired to write and complain, though! Never too tired for that!

I should just be grateful that we have a cute house that may not smell like stinky baby sometime in the near future (not due to actual stinky baby but because the previous owners had one of those cheap hand tufted wool rugs that was apparently shipped in camel urine). And I am very thankful.... or I will be again in the morning.

Meanwhile, The Oak Ridge Boys, sweet dudes that they are, have been Twittering their thanks to me for writing about them. How awesome is that?!

Hello... Is There Anybody In There?

When I was 13, my friend Katie and I used to do some interpretive dance to this song, acting out the lyrics. We had a pretty good routine, I think, but in retrospect that sounds kind of disturbing and could explain a few things.

I feel like every post (weekly, lately) seems to be me wondering if there's anybody out there, actually. I apologize once again, but I do think I'm sparing you by not blogging the details of packing up all my crap that once fit so neatly in this house but now feels endless.

Yesterday I backed my car into our fence. (No Asian driver jokes, please!) I hope this isn't a bad sign as we close today at 1 pm. Tom and I will become homeowners for the first time ever... buying into the American dream of mortgage payments and not living in your mother's house anymore. I feel on the verge of spastic tears at any moment but I think that might be the PMS. TMI?

In related news, I've become obsessed with HGTV and FLN.

I swear to return to regularly scheduled programming once the plaid wallpaper is down and the cow border has gone to cow heaven.

I cannot put my finger on it now...

This Might Be The Greatest Thing I've Ever Seen

(via Shane via ffffound)

Although now I hope this wasn't real (not a real cat - I'm not that insane)... and that no one got hurt.

Once again I apologize for my many days of absenteeism but a) I hope this makes up for it somewhat and b) we're closing on the house on Monday so I've been slightly crazed. I think I'm turning into a cardboard box. Why so many books?! Why?!!

Live Blogging The MTV Movie Awards... Really

9.00 pm Inexplicable opening sequence featuring host Andy Samberg injecting himself into all the great, great movies of 2008/2009 including, err, The Reader. Yes... when I think MTV Movie Awards I think heavy handed Kate Winslet Nazi vehicle.

9.03 pm Naked Andy Samberg. Not naked Justin Timberlake. JT tells Andy his penis looks like Fergie. Did he really just say that?

9.05 pm First of what is sure to be many many cutaways to R-Patz! Andy's telling the audience it's okay to fart.

9.06 pm Keyboard Kat!!!

9.07 pm AS is rapping... and it's not funny. Just look at Megan Fox. She totally agrees if her bitchface is any indicator.

9.11 pm Breakthrough Performance Female goes to Ashley Tisdale for High School Musical 3. The first, well not the first but the biggest indication that we are not watching the Oscars. Sharpay is a brunette now. Crap, I can't believe I pulled out that Sharpay ref without even having to look it up. Sigh.

9.14 & 9.20 pm Oh look there's Shia. He's not carrying anything right now. The winners for Best Fight are, unsurprisingly, Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet from Twilight. I can hear girls screeching all the way from LA. R-Patz has a giant head, doesn't he?

9.23 pm EMINEM! He's back! His hair is freshly darkened, too, just like Sharpay! I wonder what awesome misogynistic, homophobic violent lyrics he's going to drop on us tonight. I say this and I actually kind of like Eminem. Especially the green ones.

9.28 pm This Eminem thing is still going on... Miley Cyrus is rocking out... sort of. I wonder if Eminem will diss her like Radiohead did.

9.33 pm Andy Samberg and Will Ferrell are scaring me with their Bruce Springsteen and Neil Diamond impersonations as they do the "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" montage with... uh... JJ Abrams.

9.37 pm Vanessa Hudgens is showing a lot of boob and looking confused as she and Jonah Hill present Breakthrough Perfomance Male to, quelle surprise, Robert Pattinson. Why don't they just call these the MTV R-Patz Awards?

9.42 pm I can't believe this thing has only been on for 42 minutes. Life force draining away by the overwhelming force of tweenage.

9.44 pm BRUNO!! Flying in on angel wings! Holy freaking cow! Showing a whole lot of booty, Sacha Baron Cohen is dropped crotch into face onto Eminem who is NOT AMUSED and is now LEAVING THE BUILDING after using the F-WORD A LOT. That was just... mind boggling. Even more hilarious is the fact that he announces Zac Efron for Best Male Performance and Zac goes from looking confused to giving some semi-heartwarming serious speechy with his extreme side parted hair.

People on Twitter are positing that was Eminem acting. Maybe so.

9.55 pm Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are here to present Best Kiss. Sandra tells Ryan if he wants to get nominated next year he needs to start kissing some dudes. Ryan replies, "Well, I kissed you." The winners are... good lord... Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Vanessa Hudgens actually looks disappointed that she didn't win.

10.00 pm Okay, I never ever thought I'd see LeAnn Rimes singing "I jizzed in my pants." I hope it's okay that I just wrote that sentence.

10.02 pm Forest Whitaker is singing "Dick In A Box." I think the world just ended and this is the spirit me carrying on with this blog post.

10.03 pm Hayden Panettiere just said the F word... several times... and rapped. She's come a long way from Remember the Titans. She and some dude presented Best WTF Moment to Amy Poehler. She swears a lot, too, in her acceptance speech. I've been on the fence about my potty mouth but that just clinched it for me. No more of this cussing business.

10.07 pm Leighton Meester looks taller when not standing next to Blake Lively. She and Lil Wayne present Best Song in a Movie to Miley Cyrus for some Hannah Montana crap. She thanks God.

10.17 pm R-Patz, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner present some exclusive New Moon clip. I'm so tired of watching KS act tense and awkward. Doesn't she have any other expression? Oh my goodness, that wolf looks like the worst CGI I've ever seen. I bet Catherine Hardwicke is secretly smirking. Maybe even not so secretly.

10.21 pm Ben Stiller is here to win the Generation lifetime achievement thingy (read: he's here to promote Night at the Museum 2). It's a bit of a mystery as to why Zac Efron, Triumph the Comic Insult Doggie and Keifer Sutherland (who seems to have recovered from his head butting incident) are presenting it to him.

10.29 pm Okay, this Doubt Sega Genesis bit actually made me laugh. Then I heard that Kings of Leon are performing and I was instantly unamused.

10.30 pm Why do I do this to myself? Why do I do this to you?

10.31 pm I still can't believe that Rafael Nadal lost today at the French Open. The shock is wearing off, though, leaving only a dull numb sort of pain. I think I would be okay with this if Robin Soderling didn't seem like such a douche.

10.36 pm Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Kristen Stewart beat out Kate Winslet for Best Female Performance. (Tom says, "Didn't see that coming.") Yes, of course, this makes sense. Oh crud, she just thanked "my cast." Now I dislike her even more.

10.38 pm Kings of Leon are here to stink up this suckfest. How fitting. The audience looks appropriately bored. Caleb's voice sounds completely different from when they first started and yet it still makes me want to vom.

10.49 pm Jim Carrey somehow wins Best Comedic Performance. Yeah, right. We're really meant to believe a bunch of 13 year old girls picked him over James Franco? Who votes for these things, anyway?

Swearing is very in right now, apparently. I've lost count of the bleeps in tonight's telecast. Another reason to stop doing it.

I'll give it up to JC, though, for a) voice over saying they should overturn Prop 8 and b) actually saying there wouldn't be swine flu if we treated the pigs better.

10.55 pm I'm going to start screaming if I see one more commercial for this Killers concert in Indiana. However, it reminds me I need to write that Christmas song, "Are we human, or are we Prancer?"

10.57 pm Denzel Washington classes up the joint by presenting Best Movie to Twilight which was easily the worst of all the nominees. Go figure.

11.00 pm What? It's over? I can go to bed and read now? Huzzah!

11.01 pm Thanks for reading!

A Post Where I Complain... Just A Little

However, I will mitigate the complaints with some Roadside Romeo. I saw his videos at DakShin one night and haven't been the same since.

I just have to say between the dust that gets kicked up by packing and the emotional upheaval of finding remnants of one's past, tucked away in filing cabinets and hidey holes, moving really BLOWS! This is my third time in five years. We better stay at this house for a while, and I think we will. It does, after all, have a hot tub.

I also have to say that I'm in complete and utter shock watching this fourth round match between Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling at the French Open. It's almost as upsetting as finding pictures of me when I was 30 and thin!

Humf.

This Is What Happens At 2.23 AM On A Saturday Night In Crestwood

You watch Hairspray for the 900th time and post videos of a Japanese dog doing calisthenics. Or squats. Or whatever those are.

Anyway, you should be glad it's this and not the picture I just saw of a tattoo of Jesus and Satan making out. Sometimes, oftentimes, people really make me wonder.

(video found at Jonah Ray's website)

In The Last Nine Days...

I've...

Seen Star Trek. How can something that evokes nothing but heinous memories from childhood -- brothers made me watch it -- starring actors I don't care for at all, directed by a guy I thought I'd never forgive -- Cloverfield, anyone? -- be so damn good?!!

Watched Glee. God, I hope the rest of the series is even half as good. I downloaded the pilot from iTunes and I've swooned to the ending way more than once. Now you can, too.

Gone to New York for Sam Erickson's photo gallery show thingy of My Morning Jacket photos at The Morrison Hotel. Strange to see Tom on a wall but love Sam's work.

Eaten way too many of these. Unbelievable. Seriously. I worship at the altar of the Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookie. Strangely, I've never even been there. I owe it all to the fabulous Chappell Ellison who delivers them from the wilds of the Upper West Side.

Been in the same place as Janeane Garofalo, Matt Dillon and Olivia Wilde. Of course, I saw none of them.

Read a lot of books featuring vampires. The Charlaine Harris and Rachel Caine kind.

And finally... bought a house. Well, we bought a house. A house that two weeks ago I'd never even laid eyes on. Do you ever have those magic moments where things just fall into place? It's crazytime... we weren't even really looking, but I was driving home one day, saw the sign, saw the house and now we're a few weeks away from closing. I'm still baffled as to how it all happened.

Oh wait, I've also watched the season premiere of So You think You Can Dance. w00t! Although, what on earth was Nigel thinking bagging on the two men who danced together? Way to sound like a homophobe, you moron. And Step Up 2: The Streets. It's about a million times better than the first one but let's face it, the barre was set pretty low. Barre... get it? Haw haw. Sigh...

Okay, just thought I should explain where I've been and stuff. Also, my last Twitter poll - would you rather be famous for dating Lindsay Lohan or because Kid Rock wrote a song about how you two had sex? - had voters conflicted but Lindsay ruled the roost in the end as no one, apparently, wants to do it with Kid Rock. One person was interested to hear the song he'd write, though. It's not hard to imagine, really.

And now I go to sleep because tomorrow brings another trip to my current Mecca, Home Depot. There are so many faucets! How do you decide on just one?!!!

Cute Thing of the Week

"Ozzy! Ozzy! Thank you!"

Songs I Somehow Never Heard - Maps

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - New Music - More Music Videos

I've been gone a while... well, if 11 days is a while... I don't know if I even have any readers left? I wasn't off doing anything wild and exciting. In fact, I think that's why I haven't blogged. However, next week I'm going to New York to look at pictures of My Morning Jacket (because I haven't seen enough of those, right?) so maybe I'll have something mildly interesting to say about that. If you're in NYC you should check out the show. Sam Erickson has made a lot of purty images of the hubs & his compatriots.

ANYWAY... the first time I heard this Yeah Yeah Yeah's song was... err... about a month ago when they were on Saturday Night Live. They performed "Maps" as their second song and I was all like - hey, maybe I dig this band that I before tonight never cared about at all. Their A&R guy is a friend of mine and I told him I really enjoyed the musics and that's when I found that a) the song is old and b) apparently I've had my head in the sand because it was a big hit. Then it turns out that no one I know could believe I'd never heard it.

ANYWAY PT 2... okay, that was probably a boring explanation for how I discovered "Maps" but whoosh! I've been working on some fictiony things, and it's become the go-to song for getting me in the mood to delve inside the minds and hearts of 18 year old magical assassins. It's killer for sure.

Soon it's time for So You Think You Can Dance so w00t! for having something new to write about (I tried to watch Fashion Show but Isaac Mizrahi, God love him, is no Tim Gunn and Kelly Rowland... not even gonna go there). I have seen some movies lately - Adventureland (made me want to start Vladventureland the All Vampire Amusement Park, but I couldn't get any bites on that one HAW HAW HAW), Wolverine (poor Hugh Jackman, poor Taylor Kitsch, I mean, my God, I'm even going to say poor Ryan Reynolds. Velveeta to the nth degree), and Star Trek (I say "live long and prosper" to this reboot! Haw Haw again!).

Okay, back to being depressed by the season finale of House.

Twitter Polling - Barney VS The Free Credit Report.com Guy

This week the poll to the peeps was "Who would you rather spend the day at Disneyland with, Barney the Dinosaur or the Free Credit Report.com guy?"

A painful choice, for sure, but Barney took the win by nine! One person chose neither, saying, "I'd rather dig my own brains out with a spoon than spend it there with either!"

One person actually loves the Free Credit guy, which I find hard to believe, especially since I call this person a friend. The commercial where he blames his girlfriend for his current lot in life is the worst!! Personal responsibility, anyone?! Who marries someone with no idea about their financial status? He got what he deserved... especially since he's being such a douche about it!

However, answers were more along the lines of...

"Barney without a doubt. He'd get you in front of the line faster."

"Barney. No awkward interactions of 'maybe I should try to be nice to him?'"

"I'll go with Barney cuz I could definitely out run him, so he'd be easier to ditch."

"I had to youtube the FCR ads and the guy is such a loser he wouldn't be able to afford to go to Disneyland, anyway."

"I'd end up beating the FCR Guy."

So there you have it, boys and girls. This week's round of Twitter Polling is over. Play along by following me @mspark. It's all fun and games around here, yeah.