So for those who don't know:  Barack Obama gave the graduation speech at my alma mater on Sunday - and I WAS THERE!  This is an experience that will potentially get *cooler* with time, especially if he wins!  Go Barack!

Also, I wanted to make a mix tape to honor Sen. Obama. . . when I realized that he has no listed campaign songs.

What's up with that?

I want to solicit your suggestions for what should go on this mix tape.  Songs I want to put on for sure:

- A Change Would Do You Good - Sheryl Crow
- You Sexy Thing - Hot Hot Heat
- Well Respected Man - The Kinks
- Going the Distance - Cake (why has no one used this on a campaign???)
- Stop Children What's that Sound - CSNY

Note:  I am making a mix tape for Barack Obama, and ignoring the one I planned to make for my girlfriend.  Does this make me a bad person?

My review of Sideways:

So here's a movie that's pretty much trying to surprise you into caring about self-absorbed people whose only interests are in wine and golf and, intermittently, sex. I get the whole "look! mediocrity is beautiful in itself!" thing - it's been done to death in suburban coming-of-age stories (American Beauty, Ghost World, etc). Now that I think of it, this was just a suburban coming-of-age story that happens to be about a middle aged dude in wine country. The horny, manipulative best friend, the perils of falling for a girl, the wacky farce that leads up to a happy ending. . . these are all the hallmarks of, say, a Seth Rogen flick - except Seth Rogen is more fun. Only Sandra Oh was entertaining to watch, because she didn't spend the entire movie trying to make us notice how brilliant her acting was. To use a metaphor the characters might appreciate: This movie was trying to come across as some fancy foreign import, but it was just Two Buck Chuck with a nicer label.

I've been doing nothing important since I got home except watching this over and over and giggling:

He's cleaning your screen!

Aaaaaand. . . now my car is entirely iced in. Happy almost birthday to me.

Aaaaand. . . I'm back! I just got a Macbook, and it's very cute. . . even if the screen is smaller than the old one, and the speakers aren't as good as the old one, and the whole thing cost $300 more than the old one. . . but such is the life of a mac user.

There's an odd buzzing under the keyboard, and I checked, it's not the Serial ATA problem that some macs are having. . . my model number is different. Anyone have any other guesses, or will I have to pretend to like the hipsters at the Apple store?

This does mean that my chances of ever finishing Nanowrimo are basically shot. . . but after a great conversation with gabolange late last night, I'm inspired to keep going, wrimo or no wrimo. And huzzah for visiting! Hope you got home okay!

My review of the new CW show Reaper:

Oh Kevin Smith. . . you're so genuine, and geeky, and you so know how to reference all our favorite pop culture moments to humorous effect. Buffy, Ghostbusters, James Bond. . . it was all in there. And it's definitely a lovable ploy - boy's parents sell his soul to the devil, he in turn has to send evil souls back to hell. It's like Buffy meets Dead Like Me meets Clerks (the protagonist and his buddy are slackers living at home and working at a kind of Home Depot).

Some moments were outstandingly funny: After trying to ask out a girl, our hero asks his buddy to punch him in the face. Instead, the friend pats him on the back with the most perfect timing. . .I was laughing out loud through the first five minutes.

But then the flaws started to show.

1) The show needs a bigger effects budget. It's a little painful when you can practically see the strings jerk as a guy flies across the soundstage. Ew.

2) I just saw a phrase used to describe the flaws in another new scifi show, "Journeyman" - the reviewer said it "lacked a natural science fiction logic." I think the same is true here. The hero has ample logic to push him into his first soul-sucking mission - an endangered elementary school, his mother's immortal soul, superpowers handed to him by the devil. . . yet he ends up going after the bad guy largely cause he has nothing better to do. He has every reason to keep his night job secret, yet arbitrarily decides to tell two buddies, and leave out their hot female friends (because they're girls? so there can be a tearful reveal later in the season?) - the classic hero-discovers-powers stages of grief are missing - maybe because we've been so inundated with hero culture that it's assumed that we know what happens next. We can skip ahead to the celebratory ham.

Oh well, they've got a while to go yet - I'm holding out hope that the solid writing will win out over evil. Cause it's a damn cute show.

p.s. I'm currently watching Cane. My review? 10pm is waaay too late for this much talking. Seriously.

New game! bloodstones gave me the letter E, and I have to come up with my top ten songs that start with that letter. It combines alphabetizing and music - two of my favorite things!

1. Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - The Blues Brothers
2. Educated Guess - Ani Difranco
3. Emaline - Ben Folds
4. Everything Reminds me of Her - Elliott Smith
5. Each Coming Night - Iron and Wine
6. Evaporated - Ben Folds
7. Evolve - Ani Difranco
8. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
9. Enjoy the Silence - Tori Amos Live Cover
10. Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes - Beck

I really don't have a lot of songs that start with E. . . I could have put down "End of the Summer" by Dar Williams, but I honestly like the lyrics to that song better than the song itself. . .

Pirates are the new witches? Or pirates are the new Renfair?

You decide!

So some of you have heard me rant and rave about a show from my childhood - and nobody seems to believe it ever existed. . . The show is "Long Ago and Far Away" - and it pretty much involved James Earl Jones introducing animated fairy tales. It was the best show ever. And this was its opening sequence:

PBS is just so cool

I was kind of fairy tale obsessed as a kid, now that I think of it:

Fairy Tale Theater with Shelley Duvall

Grimm's Fairy Tales from Old School Nickelodeon

Anybody else remember these?

I never really got bit by the high fantasy bug, gave up on scifi after I couldn't find any female-centric storylines I liked. . . but damn did I love fairy tales and myths.

I can't help but wonder why, amid all the Harry Potter insanity, there aren't more kids shows about traditional magic - Not just the Fairly Oddparents, but moody, creepy, mildly trippy shows like the ones I remember so well. . . *sigh*

So sometimes, when they don't give me enough to do at work, I make up games to play while I wait for things to download. . . one of my favorite games is this:

Take all 50 states. Come up with a song for each state. The rules are these:

All pop songs (no "traditional" songs, unless you can identify at least one artist who has recorded it).
Lyrics must mention/describe the state OR a major city/landmark (can't just be a song title).
No Sufjan Stevens. He doesn't count.
No "we hit every state!" songs - ex: "Rhode Island is Famous For You" counts ONLY for Rhode Island, because that's the point of the song.
No counting songs twice. (ex: "Carolina in my Mind" can only count for ONE Carolina)
May count songs that take place in multiple states, if one location is "pivotal" to the song.

If you want to see my VERY incomplete list from this morning, here it is:

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Post with your own additions! I'd prefer if you've actually *heard* the song, and it'd be even better if you *liked* the song. . . I'm convinced this can be done!

How wrong is it that I saw this and my first thought was "I HAVE TO GO"?

More than Hanson, more than 98 Degrees, more than No Doubt, The Spice Girls defined middle school for me. God I wish I was kidding. There were some serious fights in the girls' dorm at my gifted and talented camp over which Spice Girl each of us was. I think I was always Scary Spice, but mostly cause of the hair.

Even so, I was pretty skeptical back then about how much the Spice Girls represented "girl power" - certainly they represented "girl purchasing power" (damn, those Spice Girls lollipops at The Icing were expensive - and tasty). But in comparison to a song like "Slave 4 U" or even songs like "The Boy Is Mine" - the message *was* kind of empowering. At least the Spice Girls seemed to value friendship over stuff like boyfriends and sex. I always imagined that they had lives kind of like mine, except with a private jet and a better wardrobe. Instead of leaving pez dispensers on the porch of her really big crush, Scary Spice would leave him a motorcycle. And then she'd run away and giggle with her friends, and jet off to Tokyo (instead of the 7-11 down the block). These girls were cool, but in the dorkiest way possible. It's that combination of cheesy and sexy that made them totally appealing to me when I was 12, and it's totally what makes me think I would turn into a screaming idiot if I could finagle my way into one of these shows.

And I have to wonder, would everyone there be 22 - or can the Spice Girls ever hope to recapture the innocence of the mid-nineties in a new audience of preteen girls?

This clip is probably the best thing to ever happen to me. I have now seen it more than 3 times, and it never gets old.

I have nothing else of nearly that caliber to report to you all.

Thank you, and good night.

Why American Media Grosses Me Out

Interesting, no? Betcha didn't think an advertisement could cram 10 pounds of disgusting into a 5 pound bag.

No, but seriously. What IS the story with Axe? Their ads are impeccably produced, and often really funny. Even my superfeminist self thinks it's funny to watch a geeky guy spray himself with Axe and then get tackled by 20 women. Or spray himself with Axe and get hit on by his girlfriend's mother. And I suppose the implication of that earlier, much tamer, ad campaign is exactly the same as this one: Using Axe will make otherwise reasonable women throw themselves at you. As is the implication of, I would venture to say, the ad campaign of every single scent product ever made in the history of the world. Perfumes, body sprays, deodorant, soap, cologne. . . the message is "Put this on and you WILL have sex." And what's so wrong about that, anyway?

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For those of you who don't watch Good Morning America as avidly as I do. . . tonight is a "blue moon" - which means that it's the second full moon in one calendar month.

Shiny.

Yesterday, while driving on Comm Ave, a nerf football came out of nowhere and ATTACKED MY CAR.

Also, nights like this (when it's 9:30pm, on a very warm, very sleepy Friday evening). . . I wish it was Battlestar. And when I say I wish it was Battlestar, I wish it was Battlestar in the Grotto, with everyone yelling at the screen and shushing people. How am I going to wait until NEXT year? What kind of crack are they on, anyway?

WATCH THIS

I have ranted about eHarmony so many times I can't even count any more. This commercial totally made me want to sign up for chemistry.com. . .

Also, Heroes is going all Gattaca on us - and it's making me love it all the more.

My review of this event last night:

More than anything, guys, it made me miss college. When "Rest In Peace" came on, I had this distinct flashback to A.W. singing in his very best southern drawl in the shower (and in the hallway, and in the grotto, and in his room). There was a preshow, which included a montage of Riley scenes set to "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls. wordchick, you have to see it to believe it. I missed the night Conversations with Dead People aired and foxholeatheist and I stole a prefrosh named Cecily (Not even joking - THAT WAS HER NAME!) so she could catch up at 4am. Even though I started watching in high school, I don't think I realized how much Buffy defined my college experience until I watched this episode for the first time *ever* away from school.

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Even so, I kept thinking about how much better Alpha Delt would do it (and DID do it). Sweet was a puppet, not a live person. Their Giles lacked Gilesy charisma. Their post-show trivia contest was random, and their "class protector award" pretty much went to this one girl because she and her friends were cute. We'd do it better. Yes, that's a challenge.

Also, I now have a question for Joss when he comes to campus next month. (Next month! AAAH!)

This is where I'm going tonight:

It even sold out...

I'm freakishly excited, and I need advice on which of my *many* prom-like outfits I should wear (thank you ADPhi for providing me with too many reasons to dress up in formalwear):

- Purple ACTUAL prom dress
- Long black skirt with sexy black top of some kind (because it would be similar to Willow's actual homecoming dress - which sparked one of the best scenes in the whole show: "it's just the formalwear!")
- Outrageous blue satin prom dress - bought for something like $14 at Garment District

(It'll probably be the last one, just because I'm concerned that if this show is anything like Rocky, I don't want to ruin my dress during "they got the mustard out!")

But input is appreciated!

Watching "How I Met Your Mother" should not make me this happy.

I hate sitcoms about young attractive people who are supposed to be "just like me" if I was hot and lived in New York and had oodles of time and money to spend on embarrassing flings with my ex gym teacher's daughter. Or whatever. The point is that I hate comedy that relies on situation over dialog, or that spends 22 minutes building to a 10 second joke that I knew was coming in scene one. Except that How I Met Your Mother, on its really good days, is nothing like that. The funny parts of the show are actually funny, and not just pumped up with a laugh track.

It's so clear that the people writing the show and acting in it genuinely think that what they're doing is funny - and that, I think, is what makes it so appealing. Oh, and also, Neil Patrick Harris is absolutely incredible. And his falsetto on "Not While I'm Around" from Sweeny Todd will have you thinking of him in a whole new way. Look it up on YouTube, kids.

Your results:
You are Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 90% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 75% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 65% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 60% Inara Serra (Companion) 60% River (Stowaway) 55% Wash (Ship Pilot) 40% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 25% Alliance 20% A Reaver (Cannibal) 10%

Medicine and physical healing are your game, but wooing women isn't a strong suit.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...


sweet! i get to hook up with kaylee!