Friday, June 30, 2006

ouch-a-chaka oucha oucha ouch-a-chaka

How, exactly, does one do this?

Thursday, June 29, 2006

hang on...they found WHAT?

is this for real?

scientists may have found noah's ark

I found it through fark.com, but it seems to really be the good morning america website, but...for reals? whoa. huh.

also, hi mel! welcome to the world of rererererererere. congratulations on being our first non-us comment :-)

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

have you had your daily serving of cheese?

this should hold you for about a week. maybe two. and since I'll be working all the concerts and movies on the green this summer, I'll be hearing it at *least* twice every weekend. woo!

Monday, June 26, 2006

because we haven't had a random comic in awhile

omg don't let it be neville or ginny...

JKR is a cruel person. Don't taunt us like this! askdfghlkjsfl;prhjtbbth

Sunday, June 25, 2006

actually



This is Britney from late last week. After all the backlash post-Matt Lauer, she decided to dye her hair f*ck-you black. It would be an improvement if she'd only a) chosen dark brown instead, and b) still remembered to wash/brush her hair on a regular basis.

In an attempt to put this blog back on track, though, I, too, am SUPERPSYCHED for CEDARPOINT OMG, so I think we need to start plannin' and reservin' and stuff. Wasn't there a Fairfield Inn by Marriott around the park someplace? I like staying at those because they have such nice complimentary breakfasts. Most important meal of the day, dontcha know.

For the prosecution....

I present this:







I rest my case.

And, Matt, in case you didn't notice, she doesn't like you. Or any of the rest of us for that matter. Check out the poem on her website if you haven't already.

By the way, where are we staying at CEDAR POINT!
ST

evidence for the defense

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Exhibit C:

you know, I remember seeing this years ago when I didn't know who half these people were.


okay, springsteen on conan seems to be gone (siiiiigh), but this is what comes up if you search youtube for "bruce" and "conan," and it's ALMOST as good (and by "good" I mean "funny, but a little more 'funny painful' than 'funny ha ha'")...btw, can anyone identify the dude in the "I'm made for a better world" t-shirt? I have no clue who he is or why he was deemed worthy of sharing a set with paul reiser AND heavy D. I mean, HONestly...


**update -- the conan video DOES work! for some reason it kept skipping to the "share this video" screen and I couldn't skip backwards or forwards in the video, but let the whole thing load and it should play just fine. and yes, kat, I agree -- WOO. I have a new goal in life: to play in a 30-member band, including a full brass section and jimmy fallon on spoons. (rowr.)

WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW

...before NBC makes YouTube take it down:



AWESOME. Jimmy Fallon on spoons? Thomas Haden Church on random percussion? All of the Max Weinberg 7 + Conan in the mix? I can't get over it. SO MUCH FUN.

I don't care what you girls say

Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson (hello, AdSense) are both still hot.

Note that I did not say they dress well.

I did not say they were intelligent.

I did not say they can sing.

I did not say they have taste.

I did not say they have style.

I did not say their hair bears any resemblance to actual hair.

I did not deny that they are white trash.

I did not suggest in any way that they have any decision-making skills whatsoever.

But nevertheless, their hotness remains. And for this, I salute them.

n.b. to ^kat^: A few ill-chosen Kodak moments does not an unhot woman make. Or need I remind you of some pictures I have of a certain someone posing in furry boots? Or balancing a fake cockroach on her nose? If you like, I could post those photos on the blog -- or better yet, www.hotornot.com -- and we could let the masses decide....

PS to ST: Sorry, no birthday ideas coming to mind.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

EMERGENCY HELP!

So guess who forgot to get her mother a birthday present.....Any suggestions for a kick-ass present I can get between 5pm today and 1pm tomorrow?

Also--this shizzle thing is lost on me. What's it supposed to do?

And why can Catherine McPhee read minds because was bulimic? I'm feeling behind the times....
st

Friday, June 23, 2006

lessee if this works.

so apparently the html shizzle which I'm about to paste into this post will let you translate our blog into...well, "izzle" seems to be as good a term for it as any. but for the record, it has been well-documented in this very blog that I am unversed in the ways of html, so I deny any responsibility for this post if it comes out all wonky.

fo' shizzle.

here we go...


Tranzliate this Shiznit to Jive!

Click the Spinn'n Rim Beotch!

www.myYearbook.com -- Created by 2 high school students to kick myspace's ass

Add the Tranzizzle-ata' to Your Site!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

did you guys see?

American Idol runner up Katharine McPhee can read minds!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Concert review

All in all, it was an excellent concert evening. I was a little lonely, having gotten the cold shoulder from all my supposed music-loving friends, but it was still totally worth the trip up to Hartford to see Carbon Leaf.

The show was in the Webster Underground, which (as Erica can attest) is kind of a sucky venue, both in terms of size and in terms of ability to attract a crowd. However, the sound system was pretty good, and whoever was choosing the interstitial music gets my thumbs up as well (Stephen Kellogg AND Jump, Little Children! Who'da thought?). Audience-wise, there were probably 100 or so of the hardcore faithful present, and the club was just small enough that that made it feel somewhat fullish even though there was still a fair amount of elbow room to go around.

At any rate, the boys did not take the small crowd as an excuse to put on a half-assed show... no, no, this show was definitely one of the full-assed variety. Good, solid mix of songs from the two latest albums (including "What About Everything?," which I believe was one of ^kat^'s picks from the last album), with a few older and a few brand-spankin'-new cuts from the upcoming album (September, methinks?) thrown in for good measure.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10. Definitely worth the $16 ticket-at-the-door price (and even also worth the additional $15 I spent at the bar and the $10 I spent buying the one studio album of theirs I didn't have yet).

SPECIAL BONUS REVIEW: JON MCLAUGHLIN

So, the opener for Carbon Leaf was a guy named Jon McLaughlin and his nameless backup band. At first, I thought they were just a high school band that the Underground had scrounged up somewhere, because the guitarist looked like he was approximately 9 years old. But no, they were a real band, as I soon found out.

JM follows in a long and fortunate tradition of "openers who actually turned out to be really, really good in their own right." This tradition includes Carbon Leaf themselves (whom I believe we saw open for... was it Great Big Sea?) as well as Stephen Kellogg (Kat -- was it Robbie Schaefer we saw him open for?). Jon himself is an (enormous) (throbbing) pianist, which gave the overall band a vaguely Ben Foldsish feel, but with a little more guitar rock sound mixed in than BF has.

As Erica and I discussed at the SK6ers show a week or two ago, I think that there is a certain quality that some bands just have and some never figure out. That is the ability to make a song "pop"... i.e. arrange it and perform it so the sounds play well together and have interesting dynamics and form cool counterpoints and so forth, rather than just forming kind of a mishmash. I think a lot of opening bands, cover bands, bar bands, etc., are of the mishmashy sort, but JM was definitely of the popping variety. They played for almost an hour and there wasn't a dud in the bunch. (This includes their one cover, "Message in a Bottle," which they played just a bit uptempo and which I actually liked better than the original.)

At any rate, they got my highest seal of approval for an opening band: The faith CD purchase. Unfortunately, this had to be online, as they had packed up and headed out by the time I got to the merch table after Carbon Leaf, so I can't offer you a review of that yet. However, I will be sure to do so in 10-14 days when it arrives. Note: It already gets a couple points in my book because the title is "Songs I Wrote and Later Recorded," which I think is a great album name. And almost certainly truthful!

FYI: I think they are based in the general Indiana-Illinois area, and I believe their website (jonmclaughlinmusic.com) listed them as playing in Chicago at various points. So, I highly recommend ^kat^ check them out if she ever has some spare time. The rest of you I will be dragging along to their next CT show, never you fear.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10 on the general scale, 10 out of 10 on the "holy crap, the opening band didn't suck and in fact was quite good" scale.

SUPER-SECRET MEGA BONUS THIRD AND FINAL REVIEW OF THE NIGHT

Unfortunately, this is more of a negative review. Jessica Simpson is on the latest cover of Maxim, which initially made me very happy. However, said happiness was short-lived, as the article/pictorial seems to be following Maxim's recent disturbing trend of putting all the good stuff on the cover, and not really offering much beyond that (in terms of added hotness) on the inside.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10 on the general scale, 2 out of 10 on the dashed-hopes scale, and 9 out of 10 on the "heck, it's still Jessica Simpson, and crappy pictorial or not, she can feel free to have my babies anytime, and hopefully our IQs will average out and said babies will be at least vaguely intelligent, as in maybe not Yale material but presumably able to differentiate chicken from tuna" scale.

I believe it is now time for bed. Away I go!

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Notable News

Matt--that was pretty lame until the little green blurb came up and then it got my approval. Here's my attempt at amusing you all:

So in an effort to find my transgendered childhood friend, I found this news article, which, unfortunately, I was unable to open, but it certainly piqued my interest:

Dominatrix Ava Taurel drowns in Mexico

Monday, June 19, 2006

It's been a while...

... since I've posted anything on here. And yet, I have nothing to say. Unless you really like hearing about neural correlates of working memory, mental imagery, and/or the top-down modulation of posterior perceptual regions by signals originating in prefrontal cortex.

So, here's an Ocular Trauma for you:




Side note: Carbon Leaf concert tomorrow! w00t!

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Can we say awesome!

Check this out folks! The first female presiding bishop in the Episcopal Church! That's hot,
d

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/75383_76165_ENG_HTM.htm

Friday, June 16, 2006

yo erica!

Did you see this? Vindication!

why is no one else worried?

am I the only person weirded out by this?

horrible, horrible fashion trend is back...and this time it's personal

I mean...it's just...WTF??? did we NOT spend the last 15 years destroying old photographs and laughing at middle-aged moms and otherwise trying to forget that we all once wore these and thought we looked stylin' when in fact we were wearing jeans that, for pete's sake, looked AWFUL on everyone???!1 I laughed when they said leg warmers were back, and I thought they were kidding when the old-school velcro reebok high-tops briefly came back into style, but...TAPERED JEANS?? with ZIPPERS AT THE BOTTOM???1?

I'm too old for this.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

neat-o!

Ok, geniuses (geniii?)--if any of you can tell me how this works, I'd really appreciate it. It's pretty darn nifty, though.

edited to add: Check this out if you haven't seen it already. It's pretty amusing, despite all those mentions of the "h"-word. I feel bad that a famous guy like Seth MacFarlane couldn't book a sweeter commencement gig than this.

Monday, June 12, 2006

wow!

This is really freaking cool.

It's hard to look at it without moving your eyes, though, but try--it's SO worth it.

edited to add: This, too, is pretty awesome:

ugh.

we've probably all seen the website with the photo montage, but this one morphs them all together to create a scary, scary video. *shudder* watch this one with the lights on, kids...

Best. Show. Ever.

OK, maybe not literally, but it was definitely the best concert I have attended in the last year or so. Ericat13 and I just returned from an excellent live performance by Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers at the Acoustic Cafe in Bridgeport (and lived to tell about it!). It was touch-and-go for a while -- apparently people get these things called "reservations" when they want to go see a show -- but we managed to slip in at the last possible second and got, we think, the last 2 seats remaining.

Highlights of the show included (Erica will have to help me out if I forget any):

1) A random yet hilarious midshow bridge consisting of merely a background beat, Anchorman [and some other, but mostly Anchorman] quotes, and countoffs. So it sounded something like: "Milk was a bad choice... 2! 3! 4! [pause; new band member steps up to mike] I love scotch! Scotchy scotch scotch! ...2! 3! 4!"

2) An ass-kicking kazoo solo by SK himself.

3) A nice little a cappella rendering of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which SK6ers will apparently perform soon at Fenway Park.

4a) A reenactment of a middle-school dance, complete with the requisite arm-length sway dance, carried out with help from female front-row audience draftees.

4b) At the end of said middle-school dance, a chorus of "If you can't dance in your underpants, then you do not stand a chance" followed by one band member stripping to his boxers and doing something resembling a breakdance on the stage. WAIT! I just found video of a similar performance online! Let me see if this works:



5) A pleasant second encore played acoustically standing in the middle of the crowd.

6a) A FREAKING AMAZING THIRD ENCORE of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing...

6b) complete with "the lift" at the end of the song to finish off the show.

You know, every once in a while I doubt my taste... I think... "Gee, after I invited people to join me at a concert to see an artist they've never really heard before... what if it sucks?"

But it didn't. It was awesome. And thus, by proxy, I am also awesome.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Mine is pretty sad



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Sorry, Central Time Zone... you don't get much love from me. And Mountain Time Zone... to be honest, I don't really think you actually exist. I'm pretty sure that California is actually directly west of Texas, and when I fly cross-country, the plane just circles for a couple of hours in between the two in order to make me think you exist.

My country map is even simpler: U.S. and Canada. And I think my parents might have taken me to Bermuda or Jamaica or something when I was an infant... fat lot of good it did me.

Am I a bad Yalie for not really being that into travel?

my turn! my turn!




It would probably just be easier to list the countries I've visited: Canada, U.S. (duh), the Bahamas (are they a separate country? I don't even know), Belize, Ireland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Senegal, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Mauritius, South Korea, Japan.

And Erica--you drove through Kentucky! I think you're allowed to add it to your map. :D

edited to add: sorry about the wonky sizing. but if we talk enough, we'll have this thing shoved down far enough in no time that it won't interfere with the links to the right anymore.

you know, I've been meaning to do this for ages.

I've just never gotten around to checking off the states I've visited, but now I have it in visual form. fyi, "visited" for me means "left the airport," otherwise my list would include a plethora of midwestern states. (^k^, does the cincinnati airport count as kentucky?)

make your own map! you can also make a map of the countries you've visited, and mine is depressingly empty (sure, there are random splotches in africa and the south pacific thanks to YGC, but europe, asia and central and south america are pretty much bare) or else I would've posted it too.


Thursday, June 08, 2006

more tshirts I want

from nataliedee.com:



and my favorite:

will someone call me in 2059 to make sure I'm alive?

morbid, but interesting...I get to live to be 78. thanks, 88-year-old grandpa!

it was only a matter of time before someone thought of doing this.

I don't know if any of you have been following this -- I've only caught a couple of entries myself -- but slate.com is blogging along with the bible and I think it's an excellent idea.

in other news, I am happy that it's already thursday, but unhappy that the recent rain has triggered a bout of allergy-induced ickiness. yuck.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

I think this merits a "wtf??"

uh, mayor (and gubernatorial candidate) destefano has a blog. I think.

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1461


it's just...I mean, he SWEARS he's the mayor, and I found it via a new haven independent online newspaper, but...does he know what the blog's title means or why it's funny? I just...huh. I won't take a position either way on whether this really is the mayor, but it IS a fairly clever name. hm.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

brilliant book swap idea!

So Kat suggested a book swap, and I concur. You know what would be even more fun though--we could choose who we wanted to send a book of ours to (like pulling names out of a hat or a secret santa or something) and then choose a book we think they'd like. What do you all think?

this is, like, probably the worst music video ever.

It at least gives David Hasselhoff a run for his money...
click me!

Summer Reading Recommendation

Dear friends,

I highly, highly, highly recommend Nick Hornby's new book, Long Way Down, and commend it to your summer reading list. It was so hysterical! I was laughing out loud on the beach. Get thee to the bookstore!
SocialTrinity

Monday, June 05, 2006

ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Alias, if you are out there somewhere, you'd better listen up and listen good. I am GLAD you just ended. There. I said it. I am tired of you jerking me around, playing with my heart. You have now eaten over 60 of my precious hours on this planet. Each time I acquire one of your seasons, I think, "This will be the last one. Finally, last season's enormous cliffhanger will be resolved. At long last, you will mercifully tie up some plotlines and answer my questions. After all this, I will have my life back so that I can establish myself as a cognitive neuroscientist of note while simultaneously pursuing my many interests in the artistic realm. I will be a whole man again."

But NOOOOO. That would be just too darn easy, wouldn't it? EVERY FREAKING TIME, I think it's over, and it's not. I think someone's dead, they're still alive. I finally figure out that someone is a bad guy... oh wait! Just kidding! They're a good guy! No... bad guy! But now they're good again but now their motivation to be good is gone so they've gone back to bad and oh no please let it stop....

At the end of Seasons 1 and 2, I kind of knew what was coming. That was fine. I knew I was in for three seasons, at least. But then at the end of Season 3, you just had to go and throw another damn monkey wrench in the works, didn't you?! But, again, fine. Whatever. No biggie. I could see the end in sight. Season 4 starts, kind of boring at first, and I'm like, "OK, that's cool. Clearly you're almost out of ideas for the big plotline, so you'll just be kind of dull for the first half of the season, and then you'll wrap pretty much everything up at the end of the season for May sweeps, and then Season 5 will be you just kind of limping along until the series ends and I won't have to watch it." And I was mostly right. Boring first half of season, then mid-season comes along, and all of a sudden... interesting again! Here's the plotline I was hoping to see wrapped up! Oh, look, everything's coming to a dramatic climax! For crying out loud, THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END! I mean, come on! What else can you do with a series after you do THAT story? Nothing, right? Wrong! So you save the world (I expected that), all the prophecies came true, blah blah blah... and I'm like, doctor of philosophy degree, here I come!

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

AWWWW, COME ON!

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO AND DO THAT?

JKPPGLGK;L'ADSJ'FLKDASKJPBF'MKGSD;L'DGA;LKSKFD;SAFK DS;ALLJGKDS;AKF DSA;FKDSA;FKDSA;LFKDL;ASKG L;DSA'JGTA ;LMKLADSFJ KFD;LASKF;LDSKAq!q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(sound of head hitting keyboard)

(silence)

(then, gentle sobbing)

(longer silence)

Fine.

One more season.

But just remember... you were cancelled. I saw it on the news. You're over. After Season 5, no more. You have aired your last episode. Alias is no more.

So I will watch your little Season 5 like the good little puppety monkey boy that I am. After all, what's another 15 hours of my life pissed away?

But let me tell you one thing: THAT HAD BETTER BE IT.

No spinoffs.

No opportunities for movie tie-ins.

No ambiguous endings.

I demand closure. YOU WILL NOT GIVE ME ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER, YOU HEAR ME?! NO MORE CLIFFHANGERS! CLOSURE!!!!!!!

OK? You got that? Just so we're clear.

All right. Now, I am going to go procure Season 5, and meanwhile I will try to get some work done.

That is all.

End transmission.

well, shucks.

I don't generally advocate links to Fox News websites, but...

An actual snake on an actual plane. Motherf*cker.

HELP!!!!!!!!

Okay friends--I am charging you with finding a mission for my life, becuase I hate it. Not in the I-hate-my-life-and-want-to-throw-in-the-towel kindof way, more in the I-request-a-newer-model kind of way. I am totally ready toconcede grad school is not going to get me anywhere and try something totallydifferent. But what? What on earth is a student with a master's degree in theology and an undergrad major in English to do when she wants to make a majorcareer turn? I am qualified for nothing!
Now, here are my requirements for a job:

1. New climate: I want to move. A lot. Preferably somewhere people would wantto visit me (i.e. Florida, California, New Orleans, etc.)

2. New job climate: Nothing in religion. At all. I am tired of being seriousall the time. Right now all I do is study dying people and people who will dieand what it means to die or experience some sort of massive trauma and it is tiring! It is time for something fun! Or at least different. Dream jobsinclude but are not limited to: an editing gig, barista at starbuck's (thoughnot totally preferable), something in journalism, any job in the world where Ican work for Disney, anything in television or film preferably leading to mysuccess as an A-list star. Don't like suits but would give them a shot! Am open to all suggestions! Kat: Talk to me about entertainment law! Part of the problem is that I feel like I can'treally think out of the box. I don't know what's out there! Any thoughts? Any suggestions? Any idea how to get an income? Preferably one that will make me the next president of the United States or a Nobel prize winner but incomes that allow me to pay off my studentloans are also preferable!

PS. I am making a motion for a trip to Disney World during Gay Day for one of our amusement park ramblings! Opinions on this?

Sunday, June 04, 2006

if "stuff on my cat" is odd, this is FREAKING WEIRD.

hey, kids -- now you can make your very own cat clothes! (cat plotting your untimely demise not included.)

is it just me, or do the poor cat-models (which comes from the latin for "misshapen -- but kind of cat-shaped, if you look hard enough -- ball of clay") look drugged?

Thursday, June 01, 2006

awesome.

found this on the intarweb and can't get over it: