While the California State Supreme Court waits to hear three separate lawsuits challenging Prop 8 several celebrities have come together with “Funny or Die” to create “Prop 8, The Musical.” Starring John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph/Kathleen, Allison Janney, Jack Black as Jesus and many more (does anybody else see Darryl from ‘The Office’ in the ensemble?) PLUS a special appearance by Neil Patrick Harris, the musical, while entertaining, argues that gay marriage is good for the economy. And, you know, civil rights (potato, potahto).
You end a sentence/phrase with a preposition, your AP English teacher has a heart attack. You arrange a sentence/phrase so that it doesn’t end in a preposition, you sound like an elitist douche. When given the choice, I’ll obviously go for the latter.
Anyway, seeing that Madeline (the “guest” slash obviously permanent blogger) has beat me to breaking our dry spell, I was overwhelmed with Catholic guilt. Friends, it’s not that I haven’t wanted to blog in the past few days. I really have. It’s just that I’ve been too overwhelmed with work, to the point that blogging would have caused me even more Catholic guilt. So I cut my losses.
Now that I’m home on break, I have a little more time on my hands. In light of the upcoming holiday o’ food, I’ve decided to share a random list of some things for which I am thankful. In no particular order…
1. Stovetop stuffing. And while we’re at it, the cranberry sauce that looks like the can in which it came (now I’m super paranoid about the preposition thing, dammit). We’re not exactly fancy in my family.
2. Michael Franti. I saw him for the first time back in July, and I fell further in love with him when I saw him at the 9:30 Club in DC last Wednesday. Even if you think you wouldn’t like his music, I’d encourage you to go to one of his concerts. He has an amazing ability to put on the BEST SHOW EVER. His energy is just unbelievable. It didn’t hurt that he made me laugh, made me cry, and made me chant “Barack Obama” all in the span of three hours. And perhaps most impressively, Mr. Franti makes me feel like I’m a good dancer, even when I’m sober (!!!). Take a look at my favorite song off of his newest album:
If you don’t like that song, you should probably just give up on life. You clearly don’t have a soul.
3. While we’re thinking about him, Barack Obama. And Michelle, Malia, and Sasha. Also Joe and Jill Biden.
4. That my finger didn’t entirely fall off today at the nail salon. The entire story would call for a blog post in itself, but I’ll just say that it involved a bloody electric buffer, a sadistic manicurist, and sanitation standards that would have made a cockroach shudder.
5. My ability to entertain myself. My friend Rachel thinks that I could have my own reality show because of the embarrassing shit I do in the privacy of my own space. I’m not sure I agree with her (although, hey, people do watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta), but I am grateful for this skill of mine. The other day, for instance, I caught myself singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Out loud. In a British accent. Riiiight.
6. That I’m not pregnant.
7. That I’m not morbidly obese. (I honestly think about this on a daily basis.)
8. Goat cheese, breakfast sandwiches, salsa, bourbon, etc. etc.
14. The fact that I can make this ridiculous list, because it means that all of the important stuff (health of friends, family, etc.) are already there.
I’m on a blogging rampage. Here’s the weird stuff I’ve found on Al Gore’s invention today…
Let’s talk about squirrels. Rats with fluffy tails. True story: I was once attacked my squirrels by the Vietnam Memorial in DC. They wanted our snack foods and opened our backpacks. It was terrifying. Anyway, the science wonder children at UC Davis have found the solution to their squirrel overpopulation problem– birth control for squirrels. It’s true.
“This new birth control method may potentially help control squirrels or other species, such as white tailed deer,” said Sara Krause, a doctoral student in ecology who designed the plan.
“If we can test a birth control method and find it safe and effective, there’s a possibility of it being a breakthrough method in both urban and suburban areas,” she said.
I’m sure the Christians would rather they train the squirrels about natural family planning.
On to the Big O. Nope not that kind. (Geeeeeez. Parents read this blog!) No, not Obama. (Good guess though.) I’m actually talking about Oprah. The lady’s got it going on. There are talks that O might not renew her talk show in 2011! THE HORROR. That gives us just three short years left with her. TiVO that shiz now, people. Or don’t, because it will run more in syndication than the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Oprah’s getting her own TV network. Boringly called the Oprah Winfrey Network, or hilariously and appropriately nicknamed, OWN. Oprah owns your soul. One might go so far as to say she PWNS you.
This is a good one! There was a brawl in Jerusalem today. Sadly, that alone means nothing. But the devil is in the details. IT WAS BETWEEN MONKS. (Get it? Devil in the details? Monks? Religion? Uhh…) Yes, monks. Rival monks! The Armenian monks and the Greek monks. This is better than West Side Story. Snap, snap, snap. The cops had to come break it up! Apparently these fights happen a lot. Oh, and when you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, make sure you wear your neutral gang colors. FYI the Armenians wear pink and red and the Greeks wear black. From the AP:
The brawling began during a procession of Armenian clergymen commemorating the 4th-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.
The Greeks objected to the march without one of their monks present, fearing that otherwise, the procession would subvert their own claim to the Edicule — the ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus — and give the Armenians a claim to the site.
The Armenians refused, and when they tried to march the Greek Orthodox monks blocked their way, sparking the brawl.
Illinois is hoping for a tourism bump due to Barack’s win. Really? Well alright. Walsh, I’ll see you soon.
Ohhh the Onion. Always makes me chuckle. I can totally picture this story on Fox though.
According to the AP, Ernie Chambers, a state senator from Nebraska, filed a permanent injunction against God. Why in all of God’s great goodness would he do a thing like that?
He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.”
And what do you think happened to him? Locusts, struck down by lightening, etc. The usual. Okay so God didn’t smite him, but Ernie C’s lawsuit against God was thrown out by the judge. Why? Because God doesn’t have an address, duh. Judge Marlon Park said, “Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice”
But Ernie the heretic went to law school. (But never took the bar exam.) So he had a response to that too– “Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit.” Well played, Ernie.
Apparently Ernie is a rebel in the state senate. He doesn’t go to morning prayer. If Ernie was a Catholic school girl, he’d totally be the slut that rolled her skirt.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m in grad school now and so occasionally I’ll get these safety alerts from my school about crimes that have happened in the area. Mostly the alerts scare the shit out of me and make me afraid to walk alone at night, but this one made me chuckle:
Please be advised that on Sunday, September 21, 2008 at approximately 3:30 a.m., a group of 12-15 white males and females broke into a private residence and stole a bronze bull’s head sculpture worth $25,000.
Ha ha! What is this, Ocean’s Eleven? 12-15 people?! Was this some sort of massive dare? A drinking game gone awry? An extremely ambitious ploy to get listed in the safety alert emails? Either way, it brightened my day a little. And compelled me to put my $25,000 bronze bull’s head sculpture in my vault.
Because I’m a super nerd, I like to look at Google Trends and see what the kids are Googling these days. Obviously when I saw “see you at the pole” as one of the top terms, I had to check it out. Do you know what immediately came into my head? Stripping and pole dancers. Perhaps “see you at the pole” is used as a challenge for pole dancers–like a walk off…but crazier. Maybe we’re talking about Santa and the North Pole. I don’t know.
See You At The Pole is actually a day each year when Christian students gather at the flag pole and pray before school. Ummm. What a let down.
Two million students are expected to have participated this morning in the See You At The Pole 2008.
This raises questions of the separation between church and state. While this occurs outside of school hours and is student led, should administrators be allowed to participate? Where are the lines drawn? What do you think would happen if I’ll See You At The Pole 2008 was all about devil worship?
Lots of thoughts for your Wednesday morning.
Pole dancing is way more fun to think about, right? But what do you think?
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.
This is not a joke. You, or should I write ‘U’, can now get texts from Pope Bennie 16 (which looks like an AIM screenname, don’t you think?)! This is part of World Youth Day 2008, a huge Catholic festival for people that want to hang out, be cool and “get jiggy” with his mighty papalness. This year’s festival is in Australia- on the opening morning, “G’day Pilgrims!” scrolled across the welcome screen. Haha.
How would you feel if you got a text from Benedict? There’s just something that doesn’t seem right about it. I think I would feel uncomfortable seeing it slammed in between drunk and/or inappropriate text messages from my heathen friends (LOVE YOU GUYS! And I’m just kidding, they are absolute saints). Plus, it definitely puts a whole new meaning to the idea that the Pope is a direct line to God. And the Pope has a direct line to your conscience via cell phone? I couldn’t stand all the Catholic guilt!
Besides the obvious objections to getting text messages from the freaking pope, as someone who is way into copy editing and believes that you should be consistent in your writing, the first thing that struck me was that he didn’t abbreviate ‘people’ to ‘ppl’ and spelled out the word ‘you’ after using the letter ‘u’. On top of that, I am absolutely against text abbreviations. JP II would never have done this! JP, we miss you, buddy.
So the Pope is trying to reach out to young people. That’s cool. I get it. Kind of. I always thought the church liked to kick it old school (as in, not evolve with the times), but maybe BXVI is a little too cool for school. Remember his shoes? Forget the devil, this Pope wears Prada. And sends texties.
six words to change the world. 