A Particular Kind of Public Singing

A young man was walking down the street tonight with his headphones on, singing at full volume. I truly believe that he thought he was going to be discovered by a talent agent. The way good looking kids you knew in college are stopped in the coffee shop and scouted to be models.

But this guy, no dice. A bad voice, and bad tonality.

So do me a favor and keep it a little more quiet. I like music, just not your interpretation of that new R&B hit.

Something that will always be okay with me: boys who put their button up shirt on and off without unbuttoning it: see cute, cute Dominic West on The Wire (Season 1, Episode 11).

Oh, Natasha

Well, I guess even though the internet lied, it ended up being true that sweet Natasha Richardson died tragically. But, I am happy to read today that she will be an organ donor.

Taking about organ donation as a way to "live on" is tacky and lame, though. There are all manner of ads on the subway here about organ donation (eyes, the gift of sight) that kid of gross me out. Organ donation is so rad, but it is not our key to immortality.

When The Internet Lies, and I Believe It

So, last night I couldn't sleep, and I came across a blog item on Perez Hilton, the gossip blog, about how poor Natasha Richardson was in a bad skiing accident and had a very bad head injury. Sad! So, I wake up this morning, and the story has been picked up in all the British papers, as well as in some American blogs. And then around 1 PM, Time Out New York decides to run an unconfirmed quote about how she was dead, and then retracted that quote saying that it was unclear if she was dead or brain dead. The family will apparently make an announcement tomorrow, most of which will probably not be made up. I hope.

Now, I made the mistake of sharing this stuff (blogs and news web sites) in my Google Reader and saying something about it on my Twitter. But as much as I love gossip (and sharing my non-knowledge of medicine that I learn on Discovery Channel), it is so terrible to run all these unconfirmed and poorly sourced quotes all over the internet, and to run "RIP" items on widely read blogs is sort of whack. I mean, if you have to retract that someone got married or broke up or is pregnant, that stuff can be kind of funny or at least awkward.

But when people are dying, dead or on the brink of death because of a sad accident, don't run around saying that person is dead! It's craziness. I know that blogs aren't news, but this was also on Time Out's website. Oh, New Media! Why?!

And for myself, I will say that I feel like an asshole and a cynic for believing that poor, lovely Natasha couldn't possibly make it through this accident. And, more importantly, I feel like a dummy for sharing that all over the internets. But mostly, feel like a d-bag because nobody noticed that I Twittered about it. My digital footprint is like 'yea' big.

Badly Done Subtitles

Preface: Now, I am fortunate enough to be relatively fluent in French, and this gift makes it hard for me to deal with French movie subtitles, because I always feel like they are kind of wrong. Honestly, I know it's hard to create translations and subtitles that are wholly accurate.

Complaint: But on Saturday, I saw a super sad movie called Katyn, a Polish movie about this horrible mass murder of Polish intelligentsia and military officers during WWII. This was the saddest movie ever. It was crazy sad. And even though it was in Polish (I know 'please,' 'thank you,' 'okay' and 'cold beer'--'zimne piwo'), I could tell that the subtitles were terrible. It did that thing where they subtitles some written words (like on a newspaper) but no all of them. It did the thing where people talk for 45 seconds and the subtitle is "yes." It did that thing where they didn't bother to write out Christmas and instead wrote Xmas and has terrible grammatical errors (like my post).

So, seriously, if yu are going to nominate aa movie for a damn foreign film academy award, you have to have good subtitles. Waltz With Bashir had good subtitles. It can't be so hard. If you are going to make me watch the saddest thing ever, at least let me understand what is happening.

"Sexier" Dora the Explorer

Really? REALLY WORLD? Who thought that what we needed was a redesign of Dora the Explorer?

Not that I know much about this, as I don't have kids, but the existing Dora seems basically fine to me, and refreshingly not princessy (I mean, if girls want to be super girly princesses, fine for them, but there should be OPTIONS).

Wikipedia can show you more about Dora.

but now, now, she's going to be a tween. Because they want her to appeal beyond the preschool market.

As a fuddy-duddy prude, I sort of hate the idea of TV for preschoolers, but I sure don't think making Dora "more feminine" is an appropriate extension. UGH. I can't find a really good link to share, but some podcasts got mad, and riled me up. Ditto feministing.

Ok, half-baked and underinformed, but please. C'mon.

Sonograms

So, now two people I know have a sonogram image as their Facebook pic. Both are women, thanks to the fact that Bush43 wouldn't fund futuristic stem cell/man pregnancy research. I feel old and single.
Peace!

Cleanliness on TV

Exercise TV On Demand is one of my favorite ways to augment the under-used gym membership, dust collecting DVDs and Wii Fit. Jillian Michaels and the woman from Buns of Steel bring free workouts into your home, with a few commercials and some bottom-of-the-screen ads for energy drinks (but seriously? Energy drinks are a scam).

For those unfamiliar: you go to On Demand, then choose exercise TV, then scroll through the list of workouts that supposedly change each month (hint: half of them "expire" at the end of the month and then magically reappear the next month). There are far too many "Girls Next Door" workouts, and some that seem to involve Carmen Electra and a stripper pole. So...those are for the men, presumably.

Anyway, this is all delightful.

Here's what's not delightful: the woman who leads the pilates workouts always has incredibly dirty feet. Like, seriously? It's all taped. None of the camera folks or directors thought to say "hey, maybe your feet should be clean". It's not even HD! It's gross! I know, I know, you're busily teaching pilates in a gym all day. So your feet get a little dirty. But you're about to be taped so that millions of women can attempt to do pilates along with you. C'mon! Wash your damn feet!

0% Greek Yogurt

Here's the thing. Greek yogurt is strong, and delicious. I love it. My brand of choice is (like most of you, I'm sure) Fage. The regular version and the 2% version are both delicious. Completely yummy, with honey or without. The regular version is of course insanely delicious

But the nonfat kind? The 0% in the smaller container? Not delicious. Harsh tasting. Kind of...gross.

Delicious nonfat yogurt exists, for sure. Greek yogurt is generally too strong when robbed of the creaminess of the original variety. Horizon organic fat free has the same active cultures and is way more palatable, because it comes in fruit flavors which mask the harshness of plain old yogurt.

Incidentally, would you be sad to know that one cup of the regular Fage has 80% of your daily saturated fat allowance? Do you understand now why it is SO DELICIOUS?

Lip Liner that is darker than lipstick

Really? What decade are we in? Was this ever even fashionable?

Not that I am one to judge fashion, I have a hard time dressing like an adult more than two days in a row and I wear makeup maybe 20 times a year. HOWEVER, even I know that the visible lip liner outline is a look that....doesn't work.

In fairness, maybe this isn't as noticeable in person, but in HD on a giant television this poor woman on MSNBC looks ridiculous.

Duplicate posts in Feed

I love the following:
a) Google Reader
b) the Boston Red Sox
(not in that order)

Why, WHY are there 5 copies of the article with the headline "Homers spark Reds to 9-8 win over Red Sox" in my Reader?

C'mon Boston Globe. You're part of a major media conglomerate. Get it together. Don't crowd my feed. When I see that many new articles in my "Red Sox" folder on Google Reader I assume the worst. Being a Red Sox fan is hard enough without your games.

John McCain's Twitter

This guy! He lost the presidency, and now he has taken his intense bitterness to the interwebs, where he Twitters. I would normally find this adorable, but his Tweets, as they are know, are so inane, so full of the vitriolic nonsense that characterized his and Sarah Palin's campaign (In what respect, Charlie?) that it makes me want to tear out my hair. His current project is to Tweet the top ten pork barrel projects proposed in the Federal budget. First of all, I'm willing to bet that many of them are proposed by Republicans. Second of all, the lack of nuance that is the hallmark of these short, bitchy comments is absolutely why he was not asked to run this country.
Dude, get a life. Or try to see the world for the complicated place it is. This is a country where fish management is a real thing, where people work hard to keep our rivers and waters clean and safe for fish so that we can have them to eat and to function in a biodivere ecosystem. Seriously, John McCain, grow up.

Heidi was Right

I didn't get mad about it until this morning when I realized that only the title of the message in my inbox is bold, not the sender as well.
Creepy, weird, unattractive.