Okay, so even though I am an adult and got the cable and Internet arranged, the Comcast guy doesn’t come until tomorrow, so I’ve been practically weeping at every Olympic reference in the news because I still don’t have a working TV, dammit. Today, however, I remembered that I have very little to do, plus a working computer, plus access to the Internet. And MSNBC has video. At least for swimming, I’m feeling a little caught up. The commie Olympic folks won’t let people post videos on YouTube, but if you didn’t see the men’s 400 free relay, find a way to watch it immediately. I may have sobbed while watching the boys celebrate. Here’s Michael Phelps celebrating in a slightly terrifying way:
Nice work, Michael. Equally nice work in the 800 free relay, and everything else you’ve swam and won. I’ve gotten plenty of flack on this blog for making fun of the way certain European monkey athletes look, but I’d just like to see a little less of Michael Phelp’s fucked up teeth (which are on an amazing body, and he is an amazing athlete, calm down, Etienne) and a little more of Mr. Lochte. Just saying:
Mmm, now what was I talking about? Ah, right Olympics. Go America!
Has anyone else heard about the exciting new beverage called Tru Blood that is supposed to LOOK LIKE BLOOD? Yeah, don’t trip over each other running to 7-Eleven. I first saw a billboard for the stuff this past weekend when I was in the dirty Jerz (if you can manage a good guido/blood joke, you win my eternal respect), then I kinda forgot about it until now. Because I am an excellent, respectable blogger and a legitimate news source (and the only news source for people like my sister), I did some research. First, I stumbled upon this brilliant commercial:
Ah, see, now you totally want to drink it. No?
Then I took a look at the beverage’s website. For starters, to enter it I had to write in the day I “turned.” At first I was confused, and thought maybe this was alcoholic blood and I had to enter my birth date because that is the most legitimate way to determine if a person is of age. Then I looked again. The date I “turned.” What the fuck? I haven’t even read those Twilight books, so I’m not into the vampire shit. (Although my friend Alaina does do a HI-larious Dracula impression.) But, like I said, I’m a respectable blogger, so I played along. I think I turned on July 5 of Century IV. Cool.
On the site, I am told that Tru Blood is “All Flavor. No Bite.” It is “a synthetic blood nourishment beverage.” Hmm. Somehow, I’m still not convinced. BUT there is a quiz to see what “type” I am! I’m a sucker (pun intended?) for quizzes, so I tried it out:
Q: How many times per night do you get the urge?
A: Um. Er. Twice a night?
Q: Who is your taste?
A: Ha ha, you can choose a regular size guy or a huge dude. My roommate loves huge dudes. For me, it’s the normal-sized dude.
Q: How do you spend your free time?
A: Home alone? No, I practically lived in a commune all of last year. Theater? Uhhh, no. Playing sports? Is breaking hearts and taking names a sport? Oh Jesus, I’m sorry. Partying? If partying means drinking heavily and then only talking to your closest friends, then yes.
Woo, I’m type AB, “the cerebral architect.” Apparently that means I’m claustrophobic but also mingle well with most other types. Heh, I do love strangers. Just FYI, the other “types” are O, which is hearty and satisfying; A, which is light and delicate; B, which is aggressive and energizing.
There’s also store, where you used to be able to buy things like a Tru Blood onesie or “ladies boy briefs.” Unfortunately, they are sold out.
Best part: the disclaimer at the bottom: “Synthetic blood products contain varied cellular content than actual blood. Please consult a Tru Blood Cellular Specialist for specific nutritional information.”
That sentence doesn’t even make sense. And I’d really like to contact a Tru Blood Cellular Specialist, but they don’t give me a number.
And yes, just maybe, this is all a huge marketing ploy for the new HBO series True Blood, but if they ever do come out with a drink, you know I’ll be the first dutiful researcher to buy it.
It seems that every so often, Kathleen or I get busy with exciting things going on in our real lives, and then we write a post apologizing for our embarrassing lack of blogging. I clearly just took a little hiatus myself, so let’s get you updated on my life, shall we?
The reason I’ve been more or less out of commission the past few days is that I made a huge, grown-up move to Washington DC. Hooray for me! I’m so mature that I even ordered our cable and Internet and bought (and put together!) my own bed. Chuckle all you want, but these things are huge for me. We didn’t have to do that stuff at my college. (Side story about the bed: I ordered it from Craigslist from this stranger boy, and arranged for it to be dropped off the next morning, while I was alone in my apartment. I told my mother this plan, and she immediately freaked out and assumed that I would be raped and murdered by said stranger boy. So naturally, I Facebooked him to see if I could gauge his rapist tendencies. Turns out, we sort of have a mutual friend, and also, he’s a professional lacrosse player. He didn’t rape or murder me, and now I get to sleep where a professional athlete once slept. Take that, Mom.)
Aside from slowly becoming a huge fake adult for the past few days, I’ve also been up in New York/New Jersey visiting some of my best friends from college. I hadn’t seen any of them all summer, and I was insanely excited to be reunited. The weekend did not disappoint.
For starters, I got to see the Counting Crows live, which made me giddy because they are my favorite band and I’d only seen them once before. Katie and I maybe had a little too much cheap wine before the concert, and we maybe forgot to eat dinner, and Katie maaaybe slept through Maroon 5, who opened, but it was still wonderful. I don’t care if Adam Duritz is old and kind of unattractive; he has dreadlocks and I’d like to marry him.
The rest of the weekend was filled with straight-up college-style debauchery, just as we hoped. There was drinking, excessive eating, obnoxious dancing, and enough stories to fill several books. Here are some highlights (and I truly wish I didn’t have to censor these, but if I’m ever going to change the world, people have to think I’m respectable):
Katie’s poor boyfriend having to meet all FOUR of Katie’s parents at once. It was so fun to watch. Katie’s dad and stepmom were coming home to meet the boy (whom we will call “DJ”), so Katie’s mom decided that she would come over with her own boyfriend and add to the awkwardness. I must say, DJ performed quite well.
DJ telling me I look like Karen from Californication. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS MEANS TO ME?! She is my idol, and I don’t know that any compliment will ever again make me as happy as that one did.
The fact that Madeline and I actually won two out of three pong games to win the only portion of Beer Olympics that we actually paid attention for. Have I mentioned that I’m TERRIBLE at pong?
The end of my vegetarianism. Did I not totally predict this shit? The offending meats were breakfast sausage and pepperoni, obviously.
Making friends with all of our NYC cab drivers. We met the greatest people! One man, Ram Lama, was a sherpa in Everest who worked as the head sherpa on like a million expeditions. I’ve never understood why sherpas don’t get more credit. We freak the fuck out when some American white dude climbs Everest, but sherpas climb it regularly. Without oxygen. While carrying all of the American white dudes’ crap. It’s amazing. We also met a Pakistani cab driver who essentially said that because I dressed like a whore, I could never be a Muslim. (And, for the record, I was not really dressed like a whore. My dress just happened to be, er, a little short.) I proceeded to get in a bit of a religious debate with this driver while my friends laughed from the backseat.
Exciting things that did NOT happen this weekend: I didn’t get to ride in the Cash Cab. Sigh. Maybe next time.
Kathleen just sent me an article about a prostitution ring that offered the sexual services of up to 50 women and children. And this was in Denver.
Now, aside from the occasional murder, Denver seems to be a relatively safe place for its size. And even though there is a strip club called Shotgun Willies about three minutes from my house in an otherwise normal, residential area, Denver is not exactly the first city that comes to mind when you think of prostitution. Even Sonny Jackson, a Denver police spokesman, said: “We don’t have a lot of prostitution of this nature in Denver.” Then again, exactly what cities do come to mind when you think about child prostitution?
What surprises me most about this story is that Hong Tang, the alleged madam (pictured above), was running this prostitution service out of her “suburban Denver home.” I’d really like to think that if my neighbor was running some sort of massive prostitution ring, I would realize that it was going on and totally get her busted and be a hero. But who knows. Those neighbors must feel kind of silly. Or maybe they knew about it all along, and got discounts.
Thank god for free wireless Internet. I’m sitting here at the lovely Denver International Airport, and I can still creep around on my own blog! Woo!
I’m here to confess something: I’m a shameless overpacker. Obviously my massive, hideous, bane-of-my-existence maroon suitcase was overweight by ten pounds. Instead of just letting it slide, the airport dude suggested that I take some stuff out and put it in a clear plastic bag. Which seemed like a good idea, until I realized that it meant I had to carry said clear plastic bag with me for the next five hours. Along with my other two carry-ons. People are already judging me; I can tell. Luckily I put a really cute pair of shoes in the plastic bag, so even if strangers hate me for breaking the rules and being a worthless girl, they’ll at least think I have good taste.
As I’ve said before, I really do love the Olympics. (Kathleen does too.) It’s one of those things that you can’t help but anticipate, even if you’re not a die-hard Olympic fan (which I surely am not). It’s like the Superbowl, or Christmas: whether or not you really care about the event, and even if the event is sort of a letdown because you don’t follow football or your relatives are crazy, it’s still great to look forward to it and then eat lots of appropriately themed foods.
In honor of my excitement for the Opening Ceremonies this Friday, I have proposed a Beer Olympics with my nearest and dearest New Jersey friends. We’ll see if it actually works out. I’ve always wanted to participate in some sort of drinking Olympics, and until now, I’d never gotten the chance. Then again, things like that always sound good in theory, and then are kind of miserable in practice (read: case races). But I digress.
What I wanted to tell you is that things like this MSN slideshow make me even more excited for the Olympics. I mean, who doesn’t get all jazzed about pictures like this:
But then I read articles like Sally Jenkins’ “Partners in Grime” (WashPo), and I get all depressed. In the article, she first talks about the terrible pollution in Beijing, which is so bad that some athletes have even had to drop out of the Games:
Athletes are threatening to skip the Opening Ceremonies because they’re afraid the environment of the host city will sicken them or compromise their medal chances, and distance runner Haile Gebrselassie dropped out of the marathon because the fumes are too heavy for him to run that distance.
How awful is that? Can you imagine waiting FOUR YEARS for your Olympic shot and then not getting to compete because of the polluted air? I would not be happy.
On top of the International Olympic Committee’s disregard for the health of its athletes, it appears the Olympics are just one big money-making scheme, just like everything else in this world. And I guess if I thought about it, I knew that, but it’s so much more fun to pretend that it’s still all about the love of the game (which, hopefully it still is for most of the athletes). Here’s Jenkins’ take:
So what is this Olympics really about? It’s about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China’s 1.3 billion consumers, the world’s third-largest economy. Understand this: The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate “partners,” without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC’s bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle. Without them, and their designs on the China market, Beijing probably would not have won the right to host the Summer Games.
Plus, there are all sorts of human rights violations going on, with people being jailed unnecessarily and generally treated like crap so that Beijing can “look good” for the Olympics. (And this NY Times article unearths a pretty sad truth: that literal walls are being put up to block homes and shops that aren’t deemed appropriate for Olympic visitors to see.) Depressing, right? It’s upsetting that an event which was supposed to be about a pretty pure thing has become more about politics and business, and has often led to a good amount of protests and violence.
My dog (pictured above, looking saucy) is definitely not a skinny bitch. Well, actually, he’s pretty damn skinny, but he’s not what you might call a “light eater.” For some time now, I’ve been meaning to start regularly posting about the random shit that Copper eats, because man, it’s impressive. In the past, he has eaten half of a huge nutella/white chocolate cake, a jar of honey, a bag of Chex Mix, brownies that were in a Tupperware, a can of Hansen’s soda, a bag of Snickers (wrappers included), a container of rat poison, etc. etc. As you can see, he’s not particularly discriminating in his culinary choices.
Today, Copper ate an entire loaf of banana bread. That we were giving to our friend who has cancer. NICE ONE, Copper.
Walsh, our Chicago-based correspondent, sent us this excellent six-word headline from the Discovery Channel online:
“Tree Shrew Lives on Nature-Brewed Beer.”
Um, awesome! Basically, this one plant in West Malaysia produces a nectar that smells like beer and has a 3.8% alcohol content. A bunch of animals like to toss back a few at nature’s bar, but the tree shrew is the real frat dog in this rainforest:
The researchers conducted video surveillance of visitors to the plant and determined that many species bellied up to the bar-like scene, particularly at night, when the number of visits more than doubled. Nocturnal imbibers included the gray tree rat, the Malayan wood rat, the chestnut rat, the slow loris and the pentailed tree shrew.
The latter two animals spent far more time than the others did moving up and down the palm flowers and licking off the available nectar and pollen. The shrews stayed an average of 138 minutes per night, while the lorises fed for an average of 86 minutes each night.
But don’t worry, the tree shrew isn’t going sob to you about how much he misses his ex-girlfriend or vom in the cab. According to the author of the article about this crazy critter, Frank Wiens, “The [shrews] show no obvious signs of drunkenness when observed from only 9.8 feet away away.” Better than I can say for myself.
six words to change the world. 
