Thursday, January 29, 2004

I've spent most of the morning reading the recaps of The Surreal Life over at TWOP. I really need to start tuning in to that show. For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Surreal Life, it's basically a reality show where they throw together a bunch of C-List has-beens (the previous season featured Vince Neil, the kid from Webster, Corey Feldman, a third-rate Pamela Anderson knock-off and some other losers I can't remember; this season it's Tammy Faye Bakker, Vanilla Ice, some Baywatch bimbo, Ponch from CHiPs, Ron Jeremy and other assorted "celebrities"), set them up in a house for two weeks, and give them assignments where they have to work together, like baking brownies for their neighbors, putting on plays for children, working at a diner for a day, and other odd jobs. It sounds just bad enough to warrant regular viewing--I'll have to check the local listings to see when it's on.

The Surreal Life recaps got me thinking--who would be in my version of The Surreal Life? If I followed the show's format, it'd be a half-dozen or so people who once had significance in my life, but have since vanished in the mists of time. This is who I came up with:

Trent--my sophomore year boyfriend and the first guy I was ever "in love" with (I use the term loosely in his case). He was a total pothead drunk who cheated on me, lied his ass off and stole money from me to buy weed. A real winner, that one. He's probably in jail now or dead in a pool of his own vomit, but for the sake of the show, let's say he's alive and on parole.

Rachel--my best friend in 8th grade who I never saw again after the last day of school. She was really into running and was on the cross-country team. I have no idea of her whereabouts now, but I'm sure she's not in jail or dead. Although, I haven't seen her in 16 years, so anything's possible.

Paula--obnoxious, scary behemoth of a girl from my bus stop in junior high. She was obsessed with Kirk Cameron and used to tell me that I was going to hell because I wasn't "saved" and--more importantly--because I didn't attend her podunk church. She would then invite me to go to Sunday services with her (which I declined). She'd be a good one to have on the show. Come to think of it, she and Rachel totally hated each other, so that would create some inevitable conflict that would be good for ratings. I'm starting to think like a reality show producer!

Melody--a girl from high school that I loathed. She was an evil, angry, bitter shell of a human being, and this was at age 15. I shudder to think of what she's like now. Thankfully, I only had to deal with her my freshman year. The first day of sophomore year, when I found out that she wouldn't be returning to my high school, I practically got down on my knees and belted out "Amazing Grace." Lordy, I despised her.

Dick--(yep, that was really his name)--my former micro-managing, denture-wearing, sexist, fascist boss from the insurance company. Melody would totally eat him for breakfast! (He should be so lucky).

My neighbor from Sherman Drive--a nice older lady who lived next door with her preacher husband. She'd be like the Tammy Faye of the group, except she'd have better fashion sense and a lot less makeup.

My elementary school principal--just for good measure, and because I can't think of anyone else to round out the cast.

I think Andie's Surreal Life would go something like this:

The setting is a remote farmhouse in rural Indiana. The group is to live together in the house with no phone, no television, no internet--nothing to entertain themselves except each other--and a massive stockpile of booze. I will be monitoring their actions from my control room in an undisclosed location several miles away. From there I will occasionally assign them random tasks like cleaning roadkill from the highway and shoveling cow dung. Mostly, though, I'll just sit back and watch them all slowly go insane.

Day 1: Melody immediately throws herself at Trent, who shrinks away in horror--having correctly assessed that there is not enough alcohol in the house to get him drunk enough to even kiss her. He then locks himself in the bathroom with the bong he smuggled in his pants and a bottle of Wild Turkey. Meanwhile, Preacher's Wife drinks tea and reads her Bible. Paula asks her if she's been "saved." Rachel tells Paula to shut the fuck up, then goes out for a jog. Paula whines that she's missing her Growing Pains re-runs and then heads off to her room to cry. Dick cracks open a Schlitz, shaking his head and muttering something about "sending these uppity womenfolk back to the kitchen." He tries to bond with the other elderly white male, The Principal, but he's hard of hearing and just smiles and remarks "Is that so?" after everything Dick says.

Holy shit, I'm pretty good at this.

Day 5: Melody is huddled on the front porch, chain-smoking Winstons and hugging herself as she rocks herself back and forth like Rain Man. She is despondant over her unrequited lust for Trent. She's in luck, though, because Trent suddenly wanders out on the porch, plunks himself down next to her and, with tears in his eyes, announces that he's smoked the last of his stash. Seeing her chance, Melody springs to life and eagerly tells him that she'll find a way to scare up some more weed for him, if he'll agree to do her a little favor....Inside the house, The Principal naps on the couch as Preacher's Wife and Rachel sit at the kitchen table, pounding shots of Jaeger and laughing at Paula, who's in the corner reading through back issues of Tiger Beat. Paula tells them that they're both going to hell. Preacher's Wife sweetly calls Paula over and asks her if she's familiar with the "judge not lest ye be judged" passage in the Bible, then sucker-punches her. Paula runs away crying and Preacher's Wife and Rachel just laugh and laugh.

Day 7: Dick is upstairs in his room, plotting. He's dissatisfied with Trent's performance at the dung shoveling project that he oversaw yesterday, and is planning to petition the rest of the cast to have Trent's slacker ass "voted off," like on Survivor. Melody soon catches wind of this and leaves her new loverboy Trent to go stomping up to Dick's room to give him the what-for. (The what-for? Did I just type that?) "Listen you ugly toothless bastard," she spits, grabbing him by the tie, "leave my man alone!" She turns on her heel and Dick, still reeling from the stench of her breath, removes a small flask from his suit pocket. His hands shake as he unscrews the lid and takes a swig. (Okay, that's overly dramatic, but this is a reality show. We want uncomfortable, unnecessary drama).

Day 10: Trent is unsure how to get rid of Melody, who has blackmailed him into being her sex slave and still hasn't come through with the ganja. He goes to The Principal for advice, and ends up spilling his guts about his childhood, his self-esteem issues, and his small penis. The Principal looks up from his newspaper. "Is that so?" he says. Trent is so moved, he bursts into tears. "You're the only one who understands me man," he tells The Principal, who just smiles and nods.

Day 14: The footage is in the can, and the cast packs up and prepares to leave. Paula goes back to handing out religious pamphlets on the street and stalking Kirk Cameron; Dick and The Principal look for a place together (having finally forged an alliance during the last few days); Preacher's Wife goes home to her husband; Rachel goes back to, uh, whatever she was doing before; Melody tricks Trent into accompanying her back to the trailer park.

One year later...Andie's Surreal Life is a hit, and Preacher's Wife now has her own afternoon talk show, a la Sharon Osbourne. One of her frequent guests is Rachel, who has just released her own line of running shoes. Dick and The Principal are still living together--a Felix and Oscar for the 21st Century; Kirk Cameron issues a restraining order against Paula; Trent's back in the slammer (his probation officer watched the show and saw him blazing up, right on TV). He has finally found love with his new cellmate, Juan. As for Melody, nine months after the show, she gives birth to a baby girl she names Butch, the product of her unholy union with Trent. The kid runs away from home before the age of 5.

Wow. I can't believe I just spent two hours coming up with all that.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

I just heard the greatest news on the radio...

...Rod Stewart is coming to Minneapolis on April 16th!!! Tix on sale Saturday!!! I know he is considered grossly uncool, but I don't give a rat's. I'll never apologize for my Rod love. He was, is and will always be The Man. This will be my seventh time seeing him. Yep, seventh.

1st--1989, at Deer Creek (in Noblesville, IN)
2nd--1993, Deer Creek
3rd--1996 at Market Square Arena (R.I.P) in Indy
4th--1998, Deer Creek (10th row!)
5th--1999 at a crappy free concert (bad seats and it rained) at Military Park in Indy.
6th--2001, Deer Creek--3rd row!! During the song "Angel" (a little-known Jimi Hendrix tune Rod covered in the early '70s) Rod was scanning the crowd, looking (I guess) to see if anyone recognized the song he was singing. His eyes landed on me and he saw that I was singing along, and he gave me a nod and sort of bowed. I nearly fainted. That was a rather eventful show, come to think of it. At one point, someone chucked a pair of weird-looking undies at his feet, and Rod and his backup singers had fun surreptitiously kicking it around the stage until Rod--in the middle of a song--snatched it up and tossed it offstage without skipping a beat. And during the encore, these two Evil Yuppie Bitches in the row in front of me got into a fight and one of them threw a beer at the other one, missed by a country mile, and splattered it all over me. I was like, thanks, Evil Yuppie Bitches. But it was still an amazing night.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Link day!

First up is bookcrossing. It's a sort of serendipitous book club that you can join for free. The idea is to read, tag, and then "release" books "into the wild" (i.e. in a coffee shop or someplace else where a random book lover is likely to find it). You can print out "tags" on the website that you use to mark the book with a registration number and information about the bookcrossing website. The lucky person who finds the book can then go to the website and enter the book registration number (so that the person who released it knows where it went), and then read the book and (hopefully) release it into the wild again! I'm a member (my id is kittencat), and since joining last year I've registered 8 books and released 2 into the wild (still waiting to see who "caught" them). It's a fun way to pass along books that you don't want anymore, and there's even a section on places that books were recently released--you can look up your town and see if there are any current releases out in the wild, so you can go "hunting" for them. Can you tell I am way into this? :-)

The Institute of Official Cheer is awesome! Check out the fascinating Story of Bread, peruse the Big Little Books, and marvel at my favorite--a pictorial on a failed clothing line for men called the Dorcus Collection. And if you're brave enough, take a look at The Grooviest Motel in Wisconsin. I confess--I tried to look, but the hideous decor made my eyes all hurty.

I am hopelessly addicted to rathergood.com, because nothing's more fun than rock star kittens! Josh and I nearly pissed ourselves one time laughing at this site. Well, I nearly pissed myself laughing at it. Josh was laughing at me laughing at it. There may have been drugs involved.

Finally, did you know that Corey "Sunglasses At Night" Hart has an official website? Well, he does. It appears not to have been updated since 2002, but it does have a detailed bio, disc- and videography. Cool!









Monday, January 26, 2004

Oops, a friend just emailed me to say that Michael Douglas thanked Catherine Zeta-Jones at the very end of his speech--he said something like "This award means nothing if you can't share it with anyone; Catherine--I share this with you." Whatever, though. He still didn't kiss her when he went up to the stage, and she still looked pissed during the pre-show festivities.

I'm sticking by my story.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Okay, this week has been too hectic and stressful. This is why my posts have consisted of crap pulled off other sites on the internet. Maybe next week I will feel up to discussing everything that went on, but for now I don't, so here comes some more crap out of a dream journal that I've been keeping sporadically for the past year or so.

The funny thing about this is, once I write down these dreams, I completely forget about them. It makes reading past entries more interesting, I guess.

Entry dated 1-23-03

This was another multi-faceted dream, but the part I remember involved George Clooney. I was back working at Travelers (ugh). I recognized a few Travelers people, like (name of past co-worker). Anyway, all of us grunts were working in this big main area, on this long table, doing some grunt paperwork. Periodically, one of the bigwigs would come into the room and there would be a lot of commotion; people talking, looking busy, etc. Turns out that George Clooney was one of the bigwigs. And he was HOT in person. Every time he came in, I made a point to make some suggestive comment to him (I wish I could remember them--they were good!) I don't remember if he ever acknowledged me or even heard me, but I really wanted him to notice me. (At the same time, I didn't want to be too obvious). Some fat guy heard something I said to George, and was acting all shocked about it. I just kind of blew him off, thinking to myself: "Dude, it's George fucking Clooney! Of course I'm going to come onto him!" But alas, George and I never did end up making a connection that time. Now that I think about it, he probably would have made a good insurance salesman. The only sexy insurance salesman in the world.

Entry dated 1-24-03 (a year ago today! woah).

I remember sketches of this one--most of all I just remember the feelings I was having.

(Name of former boss) was there and I was hanging out with her and her family. There was a lot going on, and she seemed distracted. Anyway, a ghost kept appearing to me. It was a really hideous, disturbing sight (some fucked-up looking lady, her face covered in blood. Someone referred to her as "Bloody Mary"). Anyway, I was the only one that could see her, and the more I told everyone about these "visions," the more I freaked them out. Towards the end, I was thinking that maybe I was crazy. The ghost was definitely targeting me and tormenting me, and following me from room to room in this house. I was terrified, and woke up all sweaty.

Entry dated 2-20-03

I was either a.) a 17-year old girl, or b.) playing one in a movie. I was a brunette and looked like a young Jennifer Connelly. Harrison Ford was either my dad or my stepdad, and I had a younger sister (just a few years younger). I suddenly realized that I was in love with my dad/stepdad (ewwww! But it was Harrison Ford). Anyway, he and I had one or two trysts, and it was VERY exciting, very dirty, and I was totally lusting after him--my dad/stepdad, whatever he was--and he was trying to put the brakes on it and we were both trying to hide what was going on from my mom (who I think was Jessica Lange) and the rest of the family. Then, it was weird because I was suddenly at a mall in Tulsa, shopping with Eileen (my real life oldest sister), and looking for things that she and I bought when I was 15 and staying with her. We went to Claire's (or a store like it) where I bought that black hat, and I was gushing over everything and telling Eileen how I still wore/used all the earrings, accessories that I had back then. (!) I remember the whole time wanting to return back to my step-father/lover Harrison Ford, but I couldn't tell anyone--I had to be sly about it. I never got to go back to him, though.

Entry dated 4-16-03

I was working at a strip club. Like in the other dreams, (?) it was daylight out, but very dim and musty in the club. It was my turn to get on one of the little stages (more like just some small wooden platforms) and dance. I decided at the last minute to dress up, though--and started going through all the teddys, negligees, and feather boas that were in this little closet. There were also a bunch of silk scarves hanging up, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them. I was also going through these stockings, trying to find some that fit (most of them were way too big). When I finally got ready to go dance, the music on the jukebox had already stopped, and most of the crowd had already gone to another section of the club (on the other side of the wall that was behind me). Someone said that Robin Williams had shown up there, and everyone was all excited and they went over to see him. There was only this table of two people, a woman and (I think) a man. I was going to try to dance for them and get money from them, but the prospect seemed pretty grim--they didn't act very interested.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

I am always full of appetite. Then, it is fine.

Holy shit. I think I've just stumbled upon something brilliant. Check this out. The simplicity is profound. This may have changed my life forever.

I'll post more later--my brain needs to recover.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

I'm back to report that my inner 14-year-old is alive and well and...horny. I've just been over at trust the process. Click on the photo of the red shirt. Holy shit. I mean, I don't even have to have hot nasty sex with him. I'd sell the gold out of my mother's mouth if I could just get close enough to, like, bite him on the elbow or something.

They don't make 'em like that anymore.
It's Link Day! Here are some good ones to entertain and enlighten:

The official website of my first love.

Courtesey of Marcus...sing along!

I've posted these links before, but since my earlier entries were obliterated: here's disgruntled housewife (fabulous) and not without my handbag . When you're done perusing her handbags and coasters, check out the bad baby names.

And finally....in Mr. Cranky's world, every movie sucks.

Enjoy! I may be back later.



Thursday, January 15, 2004

Okay, I screwed that one up pretty bad. But the link still works! If you click on that thing below, it will take you to blog girls, a website for girls who blog. (duh) I think the idea is that my blog listing will be on the site at one point, if the people at the site are okay with me screwing up the link that badly. Go check it out, anyway. There's cool stuff there. http://blog.gerl.org
I'm still pissed about those archives biting the dust. My posts on Sweater Guy, sex bracelets, etc.? Gone. All gone.

Oh well, fuck it.

I am wearing a dangerously see-through black lace blouse today. It's not because I'm trying to hook up with anyone at work; it's because I got dressed in the dark this morning and didn't realize how sheer this top is. Thank God I'm wearing a fairly modest bra underneath, 'cause you can see from here to Nebraska. Good thing the boss man's in Milwaukee this week. He's missing out on my breasts, poor guy.

We just got a whole buttload of Sharpies delivered from Office Depot today. I got a whole pack of rainbow Sharpies, one in every color! Yay! Sharpies make me happy. I'll have to think of some creative uses for them--I can't let all these pretty colors go to waste.

Good God, it's a slow day.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Oops! Here all this time I thought that my archives were being saved and neatly filed in the links to the right, when all along I had it set for No Archive. So all the posts that aren't on this page went bye-bye. Off into the internet stratosphere somewhere, never to be seen again.

I changed the settings, so from now on my posts should be archived. If not, I will have to hurt someone.

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Okay, I'll stop ragging on Britney for a while.

I've decided that Tuesday will be link day. Email me your favorite weird or interesting links and I'll post them here if I like them. Here are some that I've recently come across:

Sea Monkeys! I had those. Then they died and started smelling, so my mom flushed 'em.

Bad movie links: check out Bad Movie Night or, for more in-depth reviews, go to Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension

Bob Dylan lyrics (some of them are in Japanese! Cool!) If you're unfamiliar with his work, read some of his lyrics and see why he was dubbed "the poet of a generation." One of the best songs ever written has to be "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go."

Vegetarian recipes and info

Monday, January 12, 2004

You know, I've been thinking about the differences between Generation X (mine) and the new one, which the media has apparently dubbed Generation Y. I believe that everything about the aforementioned age groups can be summed up in the background and songs of two of the biggest pop culture icons of their respective generations: Madonna and Britney Spears. Now, aside from swapping spit at an awards show and Madonna becoming a disappointing musical whore who hasn't recorded anything worthwhile since "Justify My Love" in 1990, the two have less in common than the casual observer may realize. Let's take a look at the evidence, shall we?

Madonna--pays her dues as a dancer and starving artist in New York; fucks and claws her way to the top.
Britney--lands a recording deal through a stint on The Mickey Mouse Club.

Madonna--recorded "Like A Virgin," tongue firmly in cheek, knowing she's not fooling anyone.
Britney--records "Oops! I Did It Again" without an ounce of irony, swears she's a virgin, fools no one but herself.

Madonna--her contemporaries included Deborah Harry and Annie Lennox.
Britney--her contemporaries include Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson.

Madonna--implant-free.
Britney--"But guys, these aren't implants! I don't know where they came from, but they're real. See?"

Madonna--accused of sending the Women's Movement back to the '50s.
Britney--really does send the Women's Movement back to the '50s.

Madonna--married Sean Penn, star of The Falcon and the Snowman, Dead Man Walking; director of The Crossing Guard and The Pledge.
Britney--married, uh, some dude.

Madonna--fucked Warren Beatty, star of Splendor in the Grass and Reds.
Britney--fucked Colin Farrell, star of, um--S.W.A.T., is it?

Madonna--probably fucked Prince.
Britney--definitely fucked Justin Timberlake of The Mickey Mouse Club and N'Sync.

Madonna--"I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, fine."
Britney--"But they're really not implants. See? Look!"

I rest my case.


Why do some people talking on cell phones feel the need to yell in my ear? I just got a call from some jackoff, and it was like a scene from that show on Comedy Central (shit, the name escapes me now) where that British guy is walking around in the park, screaming into an oversized cell phone. I literally had to hold the phone two feet away from my ear, or suffer acute hearing loss.

I was reading Wing Chun's journal on hissyfit. Her topic was Dumb Ass Things I Did As A Kid. It inspired me to write something similar (or, let's be honest--totally rip off her idea). So, without further ado, here are some dumb things I did as a wee one.

Age 5, circa 1978: Let's break stuff!

We had just moved to Indianapolis, and the old people who had the house before us had all this shit laying around the yard that they didn't take with them. One of the things they left was an assortment of empty terra cotta flower pots, which lay in a pile against the side of the detached garage. I was outside playing with Ridley (my next door neighbor and frequent partner-in-crime), one day and decided it would be fun to smash the flower pots against the side of the garage. Ridley was skeptical, so I had to convince him by picking up one of the pots and hurling it against the side of the garage, where it shattered into several pieces. Ridley thought this was hilarious, so we spent the next hour or so smashing each pot against the side of the garage, giggling hysterically all the while. When I went inside for the day, my mother asked me what I had been doing. I answered "breaking jars" (she thought I said "breaking Jaws"--I had a little trouble with my r's back then), and since I was a weird kid anyway, she just sort of laughed and forgot about it. When she discovered what I had actually done, she was plenty pissed, but didn't punish me, I guess because she didn't feel strongly enough about the pots one way or another. I think in parenting, this is called "picking your battles."

Age 5, circa 1978: Little Digger

One day I got the bright idea, all on my own, of building a see-saw in the backyard. I grabbed some of the discarded two-by-fours that were behind the garage (again, junk left over from the previous owners). I then used one of the boards to begin digging up the backyard, right underneath one of the apple trees. (I don't know how digging a hole would have helped me to build a see-saw, then again--I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer). I think it had recently rained, so the ground was all soft and mushy, making my task a bit easier (and messier, as it turned out). I'd been at it for a while when my mom spied me from the back window and came running outside to see what the hell was going on. She was a tad upset, and she put a halt to my excavation project by hauling my ass inside and locking me in my bedroom for the rest of the day. She must've calmed down, because she let me off the hook later by telling me that if I cleaned up all the wood from the yard, she wouldn't tell my father when he got home from work. Shortly after that incident I got a brand new swing set in the backyard. I guess my mom got smart and realized that I needed a distraction to curb my destructive tendencies.

Age 11, 1985: Crank Yankin'

Ridley and I were watching TV one day and came across a live telethon for the public television station. We decided to call in a few contributions. I actually have the calls on an old audiotape somewhere (I had the foresight to record our antics for posterity--they'll probably be unearthed years from now, and cited as another telling example of my early deliquency). Here are a few calls that I remember (from playing the tape repeatedly):

Volunteer: WTIU, may I take your pledge?
Me: I pledge allegiance, to the flag--
Volunteer: click!
Me: (astonished) She hung up on me!


Volunteer: WTIU, may I take your pledge?
Ridley: I wanna talk to Big Bird!
Volunteer: (under the impression that she has a very young child on the line) Big Bird isn't here, honey--is your mom or dad there that I could talk to?
Ridley: My mommy's on the tinkle and my da--my daddy's at work.
Volunteer: click!
Ridley: (astonished) She hung up on me!


Volunteer: WTIU, may I take your pledge?
Ridley: I wanna talk to Big--
Me: (whispering furiously) No! Say Ernie this time!
Ridley: --I wanna talk to Ernie.
Volunteer: click!
Me: I told you to say Ernie!

And it went on and on. Unfortunately, as we were too dim to realize, we were making long distance calls to Bloomington (where WTIU was headquartered--I guess we didn't think anything of having to dial 10 numbers instead of 7), so when the phone bill came, my parents freaked. I was grounded from using the phone and had to pay the phone bill with my allowance, and I got a big talk about how wrong it was for Ridley and me to crank call a public television station, which relies on funds from the public (duh), and waste their time just because we were bored. I wasn't that sorry for having done it, I was just sorry for getting caught.

I could probably recall more of these little anecdotes if I hadn't killed so many brain cells in the years that followed.

Friday, January 09, 2004

More odd stuff from Barnes and Noble...

I was there last night and noticed that they had one of my favorite books on display: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon. I was surprised, because it's not as well known as some of his other works (he also wrote the excellent Wonder Boys, which was later made into a movie starring Michael Douglas, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction). On closer inspection, however, I saw that they had The Mysteries of Pittsburgh out as part of a display of mystery novels. Now, despite the title, TMOP is not a mystery novel. In fact, it is SO not a mystery novel that I'm actually embarassed for the genius at Barnes and Noble who decided to include it in the display. How hard is it to read the blurb on the back of the book (or the synopsis at amazon) or...shit, they're a bookstore---how could they not know this? It's pretty damn pathetic.

Thursday, January 08, 2004

I'm in a complaining kind of mood, so excuse me while I rant.

I hate TV. It sucks. I can't believe how low it's sunk. And I'm not even talking about the obvious examples of suckocity, like reality TV shows a la American Idol, Survivor, ad nauseum. I'm thinking in particular of the one channel that I used to enjoy--VH-1. I mean, okay, in the old days it sucked. They played shite like Michael Bolton and stand-up 'comedy' from Rosie O'Donnell. But sometime in the mid-90's it got cool. I loved Pop-Up Video and even the back-to-back eps of Behind the Music. I even liked the one about K.C. & the Sunshine Band. And shows like Storytellers were often watchable; sort of an Unplugged for people who don't listen to hip-hop. They still didn't play too many music videos, but it didn't matter a whole lot, since popular music blows. But turn on VH-1 lately and it's like the E! Channel for people who occasionally read books. It's all stupid shows about how rich Sharon Osbourne is, or Driven: Kelly Clarkson (puh-leeze!) or an exclusive peek into the private life of P. Diddy. If you don't believe me, check out the website. And if you're so inclined, drop them an email and ask them why they suck now.

And here's an idea, email me too at beadchick73@yahoo.com
It would be interesting to see how many people are reading this. Someday I'll put up one of those counter thingies, but only when I have more than like, five readers. I don't want to depress myself.

Monday, January 05, 2004

I noticed something interesting about the banner at the top of my blog. Whatever I write about in my entries, a link will appear to advertise one of my subjects--even stuff that I've just mentioned in passing (I'm guessing that they scan the blog for keywords, and link to whatever they find). I've seen stuff so far advertising links to Russell Crowe and Yoga Teacher training, which is funny. I've decided to do a little experiment with some random subjects....

See if they link to these: ostriches, cable-knit sweaters, Pauly Shore.

It is unbelievably ball-shrinking cold in the Twin Cities, and it's supposedly the third warmest winter in history (!) The temperature is currently something insane like 5 below zero with windchill at 29 below. I always thought I'd do fine in a cold climate, but temperatures this extreme are making me seriously consider moving someplace really tropical with no seasons, like Hawaii or the Virgin Islands.

Friday, January 02, 2004

So I'm thinking about becoming a yoga instructor. I've been looking up info on the web about it--apparently, to be eligible to enroll in an instructor certification program, you need to have some serious yoga classes already under your belt (picky bastards!) I took once-a-week hatha yoga classes off and on from 1996-1998, and have since practiced it sporadically at home. I'm guessing that this doesn't make me a serious yoga student, so I've decided to enroll in some classes at a yoga school in Minneapolis. I'm going to a free class this Sunday to learn about the institute, and to get some general information. I'm thinking that if I were to embark on an exciting and rewarding career as a yoga instructor, it would a.) be good for me healthwise, since I'd be practicing yoga daily; b.) promote good mental health and keep my mind centered, which in turn would benefit my writing; c.) provide me with a marketable skill and flexible work hours that in turn would enable me to support myself and my writing career.

It's brilliant! I can't believe I didn't think of this before!