Growing Up Sucks According To One Polar Bear

Awww. This is a a polar bear named Knut who lives in Germany. Of course, this is a picture of him as a cutie pie baby. A sweetheart. I wonder what he looks like as an adult?



I bet he still wishes he was a baby after looking at himself in the mirror. Not only that, but he faces eviction from his zoo since he's too big for his enclosure. Life sucks when you get older. This polar bear proves it.

If you like Lincoln, Vampires, and Zombies...

...then you'll love Illini Film Video's d! From the people who brought you University of Illinois vs A Mummy.

Corny Post About Being Thankful

A woman had been wandering around the bookstore for more than an hour, looking for books. I had helped her find different things twice, and the manager had also been looking things up for her. She came in as soon as we opened at eight.

When she finally get to the counter, I do the whole cash register rigmarole: find everything okay? have a discount card with us?"

And then: "Oh, I read this last week." Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen.

"Is it good? I don't want a page turner. I want something that I can put down."

"Uh." I turn the book over and read the back. "No, I was able to put it down."

"Good, I'm stressed and I don't need anything else keeping me on the edge of my seat."

"Christmas got you down?"

"Possible foreclosure. So I'm buying all these books." Little laugh.



I'm not going to lecture on what a bad idea it is to spend frivolously while having money problems. Instead, in that moment I was incredibly grateful:

1. I'm not in foreclosure
2. I am completely living within my means
3. I have a month's worth of expenses saved up in case I lose both my jobs
4. I don't possible have to find somewhere else to live (what a pain!)

Its so bad she's watching the news to see if they will temporarily halt foreclosures. I wished her good luck. Several times. And then stood around thinking about how despite having a retail job and low paying concierge job, I am lucky.

New playlist for winter

I generally dump all the songs I want to listen to into a playlist of between 100-200 songs, to give me variety but keep giving me the songs I want to listen to. God, I love my iPod. I haven't done this since April 2007 because I'd been working off an old list while deleting things I didn't want to listen to and adding to it. It was time for a change

This playlist is heavy on albums I haven't listened to before (i.e. the last two Of Montreal albums) and new favorites (Okkervil River). This is one of the songs I've recently loved:



(Note: I was going to post "The President's Dead by Okkervil River, but lets not tempt fate, huh.)

In Defense of Illinois Voters

Soon after Rod Blagojevich was arrested, one of the blogs I read regularly, We Love DC posted about Rod Blagojevich with this choice passage:

The blatant “pay for play” and pure escapist’s collusive fantasy, it’s hard to take in without thinking, as my friend PJ does, that Illinois no longer deserves the right to hold free elections.

WHAT? So, the voters are to blame for Rod Blagojevich's mistakes?

I was in Illinois during the reelection of Balgojevich. Voters were between a rock and a hard place. Republicans are suspect because of George Ryan's scandal, plus Judy Baar Topinka isn't a favorite. Rod Blagojevich is pretty much universally hated by this point but is he much better than Topinka? It was the hardest choice any Illinoisan had to make.

It was a common topic of conversation, simply because people were bewildered. How in the hell do you decide between someone you hate and someone else you hate? Illinoisans were stumped.

Take a look at the election Wiki entry again. Rich Whitney, Green Party candidate from Southern Illinois (both tend to fair badly in elections), received 10 percent of the vote. This is better than Ralph Nader faired in 2000. I took the easy way out and voted for him.

Moral of the story: it isn't the voters fault. There just weren't choices. Democrats were sure to nominate Rod Blagojevich, simply because he was the current governor. Judy Baar Topinka is probably one of the more respectable Republicans but couldn't escape the taint of the rest of the Republican party (Sex scandal, anyone).

Oprah Should Stay Fat

Oprah is upset that she's gained weight. She's 200 pounds. What she doesn't realize is that the only person who really cares about her weight is her. And the media. The media loves this confession and has leaped all over it.

Huffington Post has a great article about this. We love Oprah, the article says, because of her weight:

Because if anyone has a pass on the rule that says women on TV have to be skeletal, it's Oprah Winfrey. Her heft is part of her appeal. It's an oft-quoted statistic that the average American woman is size 12 or larger. O looks to be about a 16-18 at the moment. And nobody's turning her show off because of that.

You hear that? Oprah, you have bounded past the expectation that women need to be skin and bones to be on television.

We accept you the way you are. We love you at a size 12-16. Its time you do the same.

My favorite lip gloss found in an unused purse

I love Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush Lip Gloss. It all started when I got a coupon for a free tube of it. At $7 apiece, or 2/$10 its hard to justify. I mean, its fucking lip gloss. I could do without the sparkle.

This doesn't mean that I don't have tons of tubes of it lying around. I've bought way too many of them. I know at one point I had a $10 off anything in the Victoria Secret and was able to get a two for free, and that during the Semi-Annual Sale they were cheaper than usual.

I found two unopened tubes in an unused purse on Sunday. I must have put them in there for safe keeping during the move to DC and forgotten about them. And finding them was pure joy. Pure, sparkly joy.

Hey, remember the movie Outfoxed?... Or, Fox News never learns its lesson

This was posted on Wonkette, and yes, its a hilarious video of the douchebag I used to call governor. But the thing that struck me more than anything else were the words out of the Fox News person.

"Just yesterday some people might say he sounded somewhat arrogant..."

Some People? Why not say, "This douchebag is fucking arrogant in this clip." I know that quoting this "some people" sounds journalistic, but it isn't. Its your opinion. Quit acting like it isn't.

I Am Not Crazy For Vampires

I am not crazy for vampires. They are interesting, I will give you that. But they're cold. They thirst for blood. And they know fucking everything because they've been around forever. They're tiresome. Boring. Bah humbug.

I still enjoy reading about them in the series Twilight. It isn't as good as Harry Potter. But I read a lot, and not all of it is high brow. But I enjoy me a good plot every now and then.

I read Midnight Sun today, the abandoned draft, a retelling of Twilight from the vampire's point of view. After it was leaked, the author refused to have anything to do with it. This is too bad, since with a brush up it could be just as good as any of the books in the series.

To sum this all up: I enjoy it but I am not seeing the movie. I like the books but I'm not going to petition the Publisher or Author endlessly for Midnight Sun or any other book about the characters.

Except for this blog post.

Presidents to Popular Television Characters: George Washington

It takes a particular brand of nerdy to say things like, "Oh man, Teddy Roosevelt was John McClane sans Christmas party! Kicking ass and taking names! Why don't they base a movie on him?"

That wasn't a spoiler, since this is the television character edition. We begin with George Washington, Father of our Country:



Pretty awesome dude. Warm. Non-threatening rebel. The father figure we all look up to. Who could he be in teevee terms?



Pretty awesome dude. Warm. Non-threatening rebel (to the white status quo). The father figure we all look up to. George Washington only wishes he had those sweaters.

Rod Blagojevich taken into federal custody! I didn't have to check the spelling of his name!

With a lower approval rating than Bush, this is not surprising. Everyone hates this motherfucker. Is it any surprise that he was in Chicago at "home" at the time? Like he's anywhere else in the state, ever.

Who's making the decisions for the state of Illinois? Oh noes! Illinois is missing a senator and a governor!

[Huffpo]

Honeymoon continues despite the fact it hasn't started

Leave it to CNN to be silly. To suggest that Barack Obama's honeymoon could be waning before he enters office.

The article then quotes some nobody as saying that Bush has been the equivilent to a National Disaster to many people. Hell yes. Now think about the fact that Oprah cried her eyes out when he was elected. We are a nation who loves what Oprah loves.

Recognize, CNN.

Werewolves? I should have seen this coming

Bah. It's called fucking New Moon so I should have seen this one coming. But there are werewolves now and most of the book (well, at least half) doesn't involve her love, Edward. Instead, its all pining away. And her trying to kill herself.

I'm most the way through it and I've already ordered Eclipse.

There's an article in Newsweek about how vampires won't die. Their death sure isn't coming anytime soon.