Legs crossed, hands folded, titled heads.
or
Two Stepfords and a moose-eating governor.
or
OMG, Cindy McCain has orange legs.
[Posted by Kathleen]
lebanon shrine honors a terrorist suspect.
I’m not even sure how to analyze this New York Times article, but I think you should read it. It’s about a shrine that was recently built in Lebanon to honor terrorist suspect Imad Mugniyah. Here’s an excerpt:
Now, [Hezbollah] has opened an exhibit in this southern town in honor of Mr. Mugniyah, who is widely accused in the West of masterminding devastating bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in the 1980s and ’90s. His stern, bearded face towers over the transformed parking lot where the exhibit is taking place, along with banners exalting him as “the leader of the two victories” — the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and the 2006 summer war with Israel.
The presentation, which opened Aug. 15, is Hezbollah’s most ambitious multimedia exhibit to date, meant to dramatize the group’s bitter conflict with Israel on the second anniversary of their latest war. Schoolchildren pour in throughout the day, absorbing the carefully honed message of heroic resistance. At night, light and laser shows illuminate the weaponry and tanks, and overflow crowds have been keeping it open until after 1 a.m.
At first glance, the exhibit could almost be taken for an outdoor children’s museum. The green entrance awning is a huge replica of Mr. Mugniyah’s signature cap, and visitors then cross a “victory bridge” made partly from artillery shells. But it soon takes on a more grisly cast.
A fake skeleton stands upright in a torn uniform and helmet beneath the legend, “The invincible Israeli soldier.” There are captured Israeli tanks jutting up from the ground at odd angles, their hatches burned and broken. As visitors crowd from one display to another, a soundtrack blares overhead, mixing the sounds of bombs and machine-gun fire with mournful operatic voices and warlike speeches.
Creepy, right?
[Posted by Mallory]
movie trailers won’t be the same.
RIP Don LaFontaine, the man with a voice that made us want to see every movie…even if we didn’t know why. LaFontaine, who was 68, lent his voice to over 5,000 movie trailers and 750,000 teevee spots in a 33 year career. Damnnnnn. I think this is a nice picture.
Here’s Don working his magic in the Geico commerical:
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under celebrities, movies, news, pop culture, random, RIP, YouTube
americans elect poodle to white house.
Well, not exactly. But even if they did, a poodle would have more experience than Sarah Palin. SNAP.
Here’s the real story. Barack and Michelle promised precious Malia and Sasha that after the election they would get a puppy. Aww! So the American Kennel Club held an election–42,000 people voted–to see what breed should be the presidential pup. And the poodle won. Apparently the Obamas have allergies (just like my family! Talk about identity politics…), so that helped narrow down the breeds to choose from. I’ve been following this story for awhile, because the Chinese Crested Hairless was one of the options. For those who know me or have read the blog before, I am the proud owner of a hairless dog. My baby boy, Dr. Seuss, is perfect. Look how cute Chinese Crested puppies are:
Yeah, you want one too. PUT BARACK OBAMA AND A CHINESE CRESTED IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Oh, and they didn’t hold an election for a pet for old Johnny. This is because he and Cindy already have–I am not making this up–24 pets. So that’s 3.4285714 pets per house?
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under animals, news, politics, random, Uncategorized
a tale of two outdoor concerts.
I love outdoor concerts. I love live music in general, and being outside listening to live music makes me feel like I’m actually sort of outdoorsy. I mean, there are bugs, and I’m sitting on the ground, right?
This Labor Day weekend, I attended two truly American outdoor concerts, and I find the juxtaposition of these concerts to be very entertaining. On Sunday night, I went to the National Symphony Orchestra’s free concert on the Capitol lawn. The Capitol was behind us, the Washington Monument was in front of us, there was a ridiculously gorgeous sunset, and generally the entire event oozed classiness. Our view basically looked like this:
Of course, the only songs I really recognized were the suites they played from movies (um Harry Potter? AMAZING.), but still, it was classy. After the concert, we even went out for some classy glasses of wine at a classy restaurant AND took a cab home. I know, I’m an adult. (As long as you disregard the fact that we tried to bring wine into the concert and failed because they legit tear apart your bag looking for booze and weapons, so we had to hide the wine in the bushes. That wasn’t so classy.)
Unfortunately, my faux-maturity came to an end last night when I attended a Jimmy Buffet concert. You heard me. Jimmy Buffet. I know you’re jealous. Going into the concert, I anticipated dancing like a hippie alongside a bunch of people who looked like my parents. I wasn’t entirely off-base on that assumption, except instead of dancing next to a bunch of middle-aged white folks, I watched in horror as police tackled them to the ground and arrested them. I have never seen so many arrests in such a short period of time, and man, those cops were brutal! It was mostly entertaining/shocking to watch all of this stuff go down, but at one point I found myself alone right as a cop took down a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt, and I nearly started crying I was so scared. My favorite fight, by far, involved two trashy women who started going at it right in front of us. One of them was holding a child and screamed “Can’t you see I have my baby here?!” right before she smacked the other woman in the face. That poor kid’s gonna have some issues.
On the whole, the Buffet concert was a hell of a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed dancing around like a sweaty maniac to all of the songs I know by heart (har har), and for a dude who’s like 112, Jimmy sure puts on a good show. (Although we think he maaay have been lip syncing some of the songs…)
I loved that everyone at the concert went all-out when it came to tailgating. We were proud of ourselves for having Margaritaville brand margarita mix, but some people brought sand, decorated their cars like sharks (fins to the left baby), had baby pools to lounge in during the tailgate, etc. One little girl even had a sign that said “I missed my first day of kindergarten to be here.” Again with the good parenting.
The costumes in general were absurd. I saw more bikini tops on people who shouldn’t have been wearing bikini tops and shirtless dudes who shouldn’t have been shirtless than I ever wanted to see, and I started to get jealous that I didn’t have a parrot on my head. My favorite costume was this younger couple that was totally decked out in pirate gear, and I told them how much I loved their outfits. Then later in the night when we needed our car jumped, THE SAME PIRATE COUPLE stopped to help us. How’s that for karma?!
While hopped up on margaritas and Jimmy Buffet, I made a startling observation: Jimmy Buffet and Joe Biden are twins who were separated at birth. (And they even have the same initials…dun dun dun.) See for yourselves:
Right?!!
Now for your at-work enjoyment, take a listen to my favorite Jimmy Buffet song (and be sure to notice Jimmy’s mustache and the delightfully literal video):
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, drinks, music, politics, the arts
omfg, gossip girl is back. xoxo.
So I quasi-live blogged the show with the hottest cast EVER, quasi-not.
Quick thoughts:
Croquet, pastels and cocktails. It’s GG. And it’s on crack–and by crack I mean the Hamptons. Thirty seconds in and these crazy kids are already getting it on! God I missed this show. Rawr. WHY WAS I NOT THAT HOT AT 16? Or 17. Or 18. Or 19…this is getting depressing. Whatever.
Oooh Dunkin’ Donuts product placement on Rufus’ tour bus. My New England trained eye could spot a DD logo anywhere.
Drama with Blair and “Chuck Basstard” about a pin. What is this? 1950? LAME.
Speaking of Chuck. I think they’ve taken this “I’m Chuck Bass” thing a little too far. Taking good characters from the first time around and putting them on steroids for all subsequent appearances is a common mistake. I like to call it the Stifler Syndrome. In the first American Pie movie, Stifler was absurd yet oddly believable. And kind of funny. I mean, he does get peed on. With each AP movie, (AP 2, American Wedding) he became a caricature of himself and utterly obnoxious. He is practically the star of American Wedding. Teevee God (aka script writers and producers) help us. I WANT OLD CHUCK BACK.
Let’s take a second to acknowledge Serena’s hair at the White Party. She looked like a goddess, for sure. But the hair was so over the top. It looked like golden snakes wound in with the Jessica Simpson and Ken Paves lovechild hair extensions. Her hair = a hot tranny mess. Despite having hair of the Medusa persuasion, Blake Lively is stunning and I want to be her. (Blake and Penn–never ever ever ever break up. Ya’ll are the new Seth and Summer/Adam and Rachel. Don’t fail us like they did.)
I have a friend who believes Blair Waldorf is his soulmate. Best of luck to you, friend, because a) she’s not real and b) this bitch is back in full force. (Is it just me or did she look like she got into a nasty brawl with a spray tan booth? Ummm Blair it was the White Party, not the Orange and White party.) And dating a British lord who pretended to be an American that went to Princeton so that people liked him for his pretentious, rich American elitist self and not his pretentious, rich British elitist self? My mind is blown. First of all, this makes me yearn for the days when Prince William was still a dreamboat (sigh). But really, GG? You’re going to give us all false hopes that this tomfoolery actually happens? And that a British Lord wants me to like him for him and not just his title? Disney already ruined me. This might break me.
As Kristen Bell’s voice familiarly closed the episode with “You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl”, I have to say, I don’t think I did love this Gossip Girl. The scripts were never good, but this was dreadful. I love me some bad teevee shows and my expectations are wayyyyyy lower than they should be, but I at least expect the dialogue to be tolerable at best.
But the clothes were amazing. And I’ll still watch next week. Mission accomplished.
On another note, I am obsessed with the song played in the opening scene. It is my new favorite summer/end of summer (wahhhhhhh) song and I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed because one half of the band, Shwayze, is Mischa Barton’s ex-bf. Remember Cisco Adler? Yup. Now he can be known for something other than looking like the younger brother of Weird Al and being the former lovah of the worst character on the OC and a Keds spokeswoman. Basically this song is the 2008 version of LFO’s “Summer Girls”. Stop judging me, jerks.
You know you love me. XOXO, Kathleen.
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under blogging, celebrities, crushes, fashion, pop culture, random, sex, TV, Uncategorized, YouTube
hello labor day, goodbye white pants.
Happy Labor Day, ya’ll! I hope you’re enjoying the three day weekend! As I was contemplating how I DO NOT have today off, I realized that I had no clue as to the real meaning and history of Labor Day (Wiki that) other than it’s the end of summer (wahhhh) and I can’t wear white until Memorial Day. Ugh. This is especially distressing to me because I have a killer pair of white pants that I didn’t get to show off this summer. Well, I tried to show them off. What happened to me was very traumatic. No, I didn’t spill anything on them. It’s even worse.
I realized that time was running out, so I brought said pants to Denver, for the D amazing NC. Saving the best for last, I waited until Thursday to wear them. So I woke up a little late on Thursday and got dressed. White pants, classy black top. I felt good. Like vintage J-Lo. My mother walks into the hotel room. She’s wearing white pants and a classy black top. A wave of panic hit me harder than when the Spice Girls broke up. It’s okay to admire your mother–it is not okay to dress like your mother. At least not when you’re 22! Am I becoming my mother?! I thought I had more time before the transformation took place! Haha. In vain she tried to tell me it would be alright, that nobody would notice. But I could already feel the judgmental eyes on me as I walked next to her on the street. I’d even mock me. I quickly changed into an inferior outfit, and the white pants were thrust back into my suitcase, untouched by the summer sun.
Yup, that’s it. I have been trying to think of some way to turn my white pants story into an allegory of sorts, but I’m afraid it’s too shallow for that. There is, perhaps, some message here. I might have better off if I had just listened to my mother and worn the white pants. Or more likely, it didn’t matter at all. 🙂 Yes, I just emoticoned. What of it?
While today is not its official end, I hope that you all had a lovely summer. It went by so fast, didn’t it?
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under family, fashion, humor, pop culture, random
maybe mccain will be the godfather.
In the past few days there have been rumors that Sarah Palin’s youngest son, Trig, was actually her grandson, and liberal bloggers like yours truly were loving it. But now the truth is out. According to the latest news from the New York Times, it looks like Trig really is Palin’s son, but that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is knocked up:
Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.
According to the McCain campaign, McCain knew about the pregnancy when he selected Palin as his VP but he had “decid[ed] that it did not disqualify the 44-year-old governor in any way.” I find it hard to believe that McCain knew about this situation and still picked Palin. Sure, it doesn’t “disqualify” her, but it sure as hell complicates things. For a hardcore Christian, morals-focused politician to have a 17-year-old pregnant daughter who clearly dallied in premarital sex — the horror! — is so not good for McCain. Which makes me think he really didn’t research this decision much, and instead just made a last-minute decision to choose Palin so that he could shake things up and look like the maverick he claims to be.
Things are looking better and better for our boy B.
[Posted by Mallory]
diamonds are a girl’s dead friend.
Everyone has their own way of grieving after a loved one has passed away, but this walks the thin line between “do what you need to do to get by” and “that’s really weird”. I’m just going to say it the bluntest way possible, because I don’t know how else to explain it. You can turn dead people’s ashes into diamonds. Yup. They’re called remembrance diamonds. If this is something you think you might be interested in, a company in Switzerland, called Algordanza, will help you out. Imagine all the awkwardness that this could prompt!
Woman 1: Those diamond earrings you’re wearing are just GORGEOUS! Did your husband buy those for your anniversary?
Woman 2: Oh no! It’s my Great Uncle Walter! He just died a few months ago.
Woman 1: Ahh, I see. So the diamonds are a family heirloom?
Woman 2: No, the diamonds are literally my Great Uncle Walter.
Woman 1: Errr…did you get the sympathy card I sent you a few months back?
And this bling does not come cheap. Reuters gives us a figure around $7,488…sometimes less, sometimes more. Eeek.
So what are people doing with these diamonds? Obviously they turn them into jewelry or keep them in a box. But one widow had a touching idea–mount the diamond into the table where her hubby used to sit at the local pub. Of course! If I’m ever turned into a diamond, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE place me at The Cellar. (If you went to Richmond, you know what I’m talking about.)
So how popular are these things?
In its first year, 2004, the company sold one diamond. These days it is creating about 60 a month, which Brimer attributes to word-of-mouth recommendations and media coverage, as Algordanza does not advertise.
I was discussing this with my manly, bearded friend Neil. Neil, who is pursuing his Masters in Marketing or something weird like that, said he could come up with a good pitch for remembrance diamonds if given some time. The world is waiting, Neil. This should be a toughie. I encourage all readers to think of witty advertising for this and to post it as a comment. Maybe someone could convince Lindsay Lohan to wear one. Or Lil’ Jon can put them in his teeth or something. That’s sure to jumpstart the trend.
As if this couldn’t get creepier, the technology to make diamonds from ashes can also be applied to make synthetic diamonds from other materials…such as hair. SICK.
Bobby Thurman — of Nelson Funeral Service in Arkansas, which offers diamonds to both burial and cremation clients — decided to have LifeGem make a diamond from combined samples of his own and his family’s hair.
“My family will cherish this diamond for generations, and I expect other families will want to do the same,” Thurman said.
I’m expect most families DO NOT want to do the same, Bobby. But whatev.
I’m sorry for the morbid six word title/subject, but I couldn’t let this go by without sharing it. And the title is kind of clever, no?
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under news, pop culture, random, Uncategorized
samantha bee stings governor sarah palin.
As much as I want to, I can’t really hate Sarah Palin–oh don’t get me wrong–this has nothing to do with the bonds of sisterhood. I absolutely ABHOR her positions on, well, everything. And her early 90s mall girl bangs. But she is so much fun to write about and make fun of that I can’t help but be slightly appreciative of her very existence. And I’m not alone. It’s like John McCain took his happy pills and threw us all a softball. And leave it up to All-Star Jon Stewart to hit it out of the park. Jon Stewart, you are my hero.
So watch this clip with Jon and Samantha Bee, a self described “Vagina-American” (HAHA!), as she oh-so-sarcastically talks about why she’ll vote for McCain. You will for sure pick up some new anatomical terminology as well. (I’m talking about lady parts. Teehee.)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Huzzah!
And here is some more Daily Show goodness, brought to my attention by Alicia, our South Korea correspondent. What a warm/appropriate welcome for the RNCers!
PS- I promise I’ll start writing about non-political stuff (aka NOT Sarah Palin) again…
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under celebrities, crushes, news, politics, pop culture, random, TV, Uncategorized, YouTube
six words to change the world. 