Category Archives: blogging

back in colorado for the holidays!

So everybody, guess what? I am officially finished with my second-to-last semester of school ever. (At least, let’s hope it’s for forever.) I am also back in Colorado for the next two weeks, which feels simply wonderful. I suppose I should savor this, because from what I hear, the Real World doesn’t just hand out monthlong winter breaks. Sigh.

Now that I’m at home, I’m doing my best to not launch full-on into lounge mode quiteeee yet. This means that I exercised this morning (!!!), showered, BLOW DRIED MY HAIR, and even put on a bra. The bra might be buried under a few layers of pajamas, but it’s all about the little victories, people.

In honor of not launching into full-on lounge mode, I have decided to set a resolution for myself: I am going to (try to?) post on this here blog every day while I am at home. Hold me to it! The blog has suffered with the onset of a second year of grad school, and that’s not fair to you guys.

Speaking of the blog, I’m working on getting things a little more organized around here. Like, say, posting more regularly in general and rounding up our crew of posters in a more organized way. Details to come on that.

But enough of the housekeeping issues. (Ed Note: It took me like five minutes to think of the phrase “housekeeping issues.”) Can we talk for a minute about Tiger Woods? Because I’m at home, I have had the pleasure of watching a lil daytime teevee today, and that included a trashy show about celebrities called The Insider. On The Insider, they said that it’s been confirmed that Tiger Woods has dallied about with at least 14 mistresses. And to that I say both, “Really, Tiger? Your wife is HOT.” And also, “Can we please stop talking about this now?” I was as interested as the next guy at the beginning of all this — and if you’ve been living under a rock, check out Shan’s original post about Tigergate — but I’m a little over it now. (Though it is incredibly ironic and noteworthy that he’s just been named AP male athlete of the year.) Sure, the dude made a lot of mistakes, but I feel like we are practically stooping to his level if we continue to focus on this. It’s kind of why I didn’t want to post about the Salahis. It’s a different situation, but at a certain point we become part of the problem by feeding into this bullshit.

Tangent (as though these posts are anything but a series of tangents): I just took a break from writing to focus on Bonnie Hunt interviewing Mary Louise Parker, and Mary Louise Parker was talking about adopting a baby and I began sobbing. SHOCKER!

In non-frustrating, non-crying news, watch this video. It combines two of my favorite things: adorable children and Taylor Swift. SOLD!:

Oh my god, right? When I was at the airport last night, I thought I saw this little girl and got SUPER excited for a second. It wasn’t her.

That’s it for today, kids. See you tomorrow!

[Posted by Mallory]

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Filed under blogging, celebrities, music, pop culture, sports, TV, YouTube

the best thing i’ve seen today.

Watch this (video is blurry for the first couple of seconds):

”He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,” Biada said. ”He just ate it right there.”

That’s the best line from the news story that goes with it.

This guy has seen a lot of spy movies.

There’s not much left to say after that.  Haha.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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youtube clip of today: side hugs.

I should have posted this last week, but Thanksgiving kind of got in the way.  I present to you the Christian Side Hug rap.  This is not a joke.  I promise.

I personally have huge problems with side hugs.  They seem so insincere.  So if you hug me, make it a full frontal.  How naughty!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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Filed under blogging, humor, music, pop culture, religion, sex, weird, YouTube

the things i liked this week.

Happy Friday, readership!

Oh, hello.  Me again.  Since the real job is getting in the way of my bloggy job, I’ve condensed a week’s worth of what I liked into one fabulous Friday post.  Does that work for you?  I sure hope so!

You all know how much I love stories about sci-fi weirdos (apparently the cool way to spell it now is SyFy.  Anybody else notice that the Sci-Fi Channel changed its spelling?).  Well, here’s a good one!  Computational linguistics expert d’Armond Speers spoke only Klingon to his son for the first three years of the boy’s life.  Ummm, WHAT?  He claims it was an experiment to see if his son would learn it like any normal human language in the early developmental stages.

He just confirmed what every child already knows– you are an experiment, and your parents are trying to corrupt you and make you as uncool as possible.

Here is the best quote from the article:

As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.

Stay strong, young Speers!

Like any good yuppie bleeding-heart liberal, I have an iPhone.  We all know that there is an app for everything, but this new one is so hilarious and wonderful that I have to share it with you.  It’s totally politically nerdy, but it’s a bobble head guide to every single member of Congress.  Here is my favorite member of Congress:

Best 99 cents I’ve ever spent.  Download Bobble Rep.

Speaking of politics, lots of good stuff going on, eh? Lieberman sucks more than ever and the women’s movement took two steps back no thanks to Rep. Stupak.

I also remain perplexed as to how people can manipulate the messages of Christianity in light of healthcare reform.  To me, it seems that giving a little extra so our brothers and sisters will be able to be healthy and able to succeed in life is following that message.  Yet even the Christian right wing (like my girrrrrrl, Michele Bachman) has condemned it as communism, fascism, Marxism and any other ism you can imagine that probably doesn’t make sense.  Grrr.

Hey, speaking of Christianity– I know people are complaining about how early it’s coming, but sweet Jesus I love Christmastime.  And I love the new Gap ads!  Add being a Gap backup dancer to my bucketlist, right after being a Fanta Girl and a dancing iPod shadow.

Sigh.

In other news, Oprah is ending her show in 2011.  I’m not too upset about this.  She’s going to have her own TV station in 2011, and she’ll have 25 years of her show in syndication so I really don’t see the big deal.  They’ll still be enough of O’s wisdom to go around.

Oh, and just in time for a junky fastfood lunch:

But you know where you should really go?  Chipotle.

Okay, I think that’s it for now.  Miss me, because I miss you.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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Filed under adventures, blogging, dance, history, humor, news, pictures, politics, pop culture, random, thoughts, weird, YouTube

finally, an artist that is cool.

I’ll be honest – I hate art.  Most of it makes zero sense to me and I believe that it makes zero sense to everyone…they just want to be pseudo-intellectual by saying how “deep” and “meaningful” the art is.   Really, the artist responsible is laughing at how gullible regular people are.  Yes, laughing at you, pseudo-intellectual.  Kind of like Scientology.

I can barely think back on all the art I saw in Europe without wanting to hyperventilate.  Not because it was memorable, but because I was in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence crying because there was NO way to get out of the endless hallways.  Literally no exit for 1,930,239,048,392,080,438,920,849,302 of the SAME painting.  The painting of the SAME ugly woman with the SAME ugly, naked baby.   Gross.

renaissance-art-04

Ew.

This artist (Kevin Van Aelst) makes art that is interesting from real life things.  And I like that.

Heart-thumb

apple globe-thumb

Here’s his website.

*Sidenote:  This commentary is a knock on art, not religion.

[Posted by Shannon]

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Filed under babies, blogging, history, pictures, the arts, thoughts

we hope. we despair. we hope.

If you are fed up with federal politics and just need some new faith in government (or want to see something clever and aesthetically pleasing), read this:

E Pluribus Unum

Out of many, one.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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youtube clip of today: fun theory.

Oh huzzah, huzzah!  It’s Friday!  My heart is singing because I have been dreaming about sweatpants all day long and I can now see a light at the end of the long 9-5 tunnel.  But that has nothing to do with today’s YouTube clip of the day.  Silly me.

I love this video.  This should be unsurprising because I genuinely wish that my life was a lighthearted musical.  Things like flash mob dances and giant sing-alongs give me hope.  Sigh.  Anyway, I think these people are on to something.  There are two more videos from The Fun Theory, which is run by Volkswagen.  Das most clever!

Have a wonderful weekend, y’all!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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Filed under adventures, blogging, crushes, education, humor, pop culture, random, weird, YouTube

halloween costumes, testosterone and iphone reps.

It’s almost Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, and I am freaking out because I have absolutely no idea what I want to be.  I feel like this year needs to be particularly good, since I was so entrenched in the campaign last year I didn’t even realize it was Halloween. Somebody call the wahhhhhmbulance.

Anyway, my beloved HuffPo has posted some hilariously adorable costumes for babies.  Perhaps I’ll just take one of the ideas and adjust it a bit.  I’m thinking the WALL-E costume would be super cute in my size.  No?  Okay.  I always forget that Halloween means I’m supposed to dress skanky.

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Click here for the slideshow!

Speaking of last year’s election (Yes, yes, I KNOW that’s it’s almost been a year since the election, but this study just came out!) this news story kind of sucks for our male McCain voting readership. I have a feeling that demographic isn’t very high on this blog, but we are committed to reporting the strangest news to ALL of our readership.

According to a story from ABC news:

Republican men nationwide may have experienced a drop in testosterone levels the night Barack Obama was elected president, according to the results of a small study that found another link between testosterone and men’s moods.

But don’t worry boys, I’m sure you’ve gotten it back. I meant the testosterone.  Not the election.  Love you!

In case you’ve been living under a rock, here are some Youtube videos that you should have seen by now:

Teehee, it’s a drunk guy.  And this one:

Cleverness abounds in the Democratic party! HUZZAH!

And ONE MORE THING.  My friend over at Herding Scapegoats has been writing again.  You should probably check it out.  He is providing a rare look into the male psyche, addressing serious things like male jealousy and pooping.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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how chris cillizza fixed my day.

So I had one of those days. Well, not really one of those days. Just one of those afternoons. I had a great morning, and then I left my apartment. It was MISERABLE weather in DC today, rainy and gross lie-in-your-bed weather, and my umbrella recently broke. If I were a rational human being, I would have bought an umbrella at the CVS that is literally across the street from my apartment, but I have a problem with boring umbrellas. I hate rain, so when it rains I want to at least have a cute umbrella to make things a little more bearable. This has led to me walking around in the rain umbrella-less for the past two weeks. I managed to get to campus and do some work without getting too wet or too angry about life in general, but then the computers were behaving badly. And then I needed a bagel. And when I went outside it was raining. And I had a frustrating phone call. And then I decided to walk to J.Crew to buy a cute umbrella. And then J.Crew had no umbrellas and I told them, “FINE, I’ll just go to GAP then!” And then my button (the essential middle button, mind you) popped off of my coat and I almost burst into tears. And then I paid $24 for a new (very cute) umbrella at Anthropologie, even through I know it will break, like, tomorrow, because it’s an umbrella from Antropologie. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, PEOPLE.

It was at this point in the day (circa 4:45 p.m.) that I thought maybe I should just call it a day, go back home, maybe pop some popcorn, and hide under my covers because my heat doesn’t seem to work yet. In a feat of exceptional courage, however, I pushed through. And I went to the event I was supposed to go to at 5:15, which was with Chris Cillizza from The Fix. (Feel free to give my title a high five for punniness now.) Guys? He is great.

I don't know the context of this picture, but I like it.

This is just a guess, but I don't think that's his real body.

As I watched him talk, I was like, “Hmm, I wonder if he’ll be my best friend.” He was smart and self-deprecating and had funky glasses and talked about his baby. I was obviously a goner. And he made an interesting point about the difference between voice and bias, which was interesting. As in, it’s one thing to call out Sarah Palin for objectively being an idiot (or, to use the example he gave, to commend her for rhetorically delivering a solid speech at the RNC), but quite another to condemn every Republican action simply because it’s a Republican action. In other words, there’s a difference between having an opinion and being partisan. Not that that’s what we do here at SWTCTW, but I appreciate his point. Mr. Fix also commiserated with me about the meanness of bloggy commenters (I obviously told him about the Great Monkey Debate of 2008), so that made me like him even more.

I think what I’m trying to say is that my day got better. Thanks, Chris Cillizza!

Big college reunion this weekend, which means our SWTCTW “correspondents” from all over the country will be flooding the District with inside jokes and obnoxious dance moves. Watch out, people.

[Posted by Mallory]

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Filed under blogging, crushes, humor, politics