Monday, May 14, 2001
The weirdness of the Sedaris family.
His sister: "When called forth to the styling table, Amy said, "I want to look like someone has beaten me up really, really bad." The story of how Dad is so obsessed with his daughters looking gorgeous that one shows up wearing a fat suit to freak him out. Funny but downright spooky to read about.

His brother:"The physical pain had passed, but it bothered Paul that his face was "all lopsided and shit for the fucking holidays." That said, he retreated to the bathroom with my sister Amy's makeup kit and returned to the table with two black eyes, the second drawn on with mascara. This seemed to please him, and he wore his matching bruises for the rest of the evening."

The neighbors: "A french neighbor told me he'd recently attended a party where the drunkenguests pooled their money and offered it as a reward to the first person who could defecate on a chicken."

Mother's Day. Just read it. It's bad.

His relationship: "Movie characters might chase one another through the fog or race down the stairs of burning buildings, but that's for beginners. Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings. I wanted to say something to this effect, but my hand puppets were back home in their drawer."

Monday, May 14, 2001
I relate to this all too well.
As far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds of nice guys (not precisely related to that Buffy rant below, btw): the ones that are actually nice and the self-proclaimed ones. The latter, unfortunately, are more troublesome and off somehow to deal with. This is why.

"You never know if a Nice Guy really likes you for who you are, or if he has glommed onto you out of desperation because you actually payed some kind of attention to him." (And you have no idea HOW many times this has happened to me. I swear, there are a lot of guys out there that will fall for you immediately only because you're not ugly and you didn't spit in their face upon meeting them. They take politeness to mean true love, and it's scary.)
"Nice Guys go overboard. They bring roses to a "let's get together for coffee" date. They try to buy her affections with presents and fancy things. They think they know about romance, but their timing is all wrong, and they either come-on too strong, too hard and too fast, OR, they are so shy and unassertive, that they hang around pretending to be "friends", in the hope that somehow, someway, they will get the courage up to ask her out for a "date".

Monday, May 14, 2001
Gee, WHAT a surprise.
Shannen's a bitch and is off a show again. Will Aaron EVER learn?

Monday, May 14, 2001
What would you do if ''Big Brother'' made you famous?
(Nothing. Big Brother doesn't make you famous. Duh.)
"Describe your perfect day.
''Sitting in a house with strangers, day after day, and waiting to be voted out.''

Monday, May 14, 2001
Survivor 2 Rerun Drinking Game!
"Any time Kel shows up on screen, take a shot of Jack Daniels, throw beef jerky at the screen and yell "Jerky Boy".
Whenever you see a commercial product placement, take one shot of Jack and bow down in the direction of Madison Avenue while saying the following prayer: "Dear (insert name of you personal Higher Power, if the player is an atheist invoke the name of "Mark Burnett"), we thank you every day for the constant onslaught of commercial messages you bring us on the airwaves every day. Our minuscule little lives would be rendered useless if we were not here to watch and hear every single word you have to say to extol the virtues of every day products we all need to survive this world you have created. Thank you again for Ron Popiel and the English guy who is in all those infomercials they show at 4:00am."
Any time Colby's Fuzzy Elmer Fudd hat shows up - either with him or someone else wearing it - you must down a mug and say "Shhhhhhh I'm hunting wabbits".
If a sponsored item appears in an episode, all players must taste it and immediately shun it as being the work of the corporate Satan and vow never to partake of it again."

Monday, May 14, 2001
Protesting cliffhangers

Monday, May 14, 2001
The Trouble with Titles
Hard, ain't it hard, when Jennifer Lopez and Tommy Lee Jones have already taken your title ideas for their movies.

Monday, May 14, 2001
Mr. Glick's Neighborhood
This is hysterical. You've got to see the picture and read what this guy does with his house. What a neighbor.

Sunday, May 13, 2001
RIP, DNA: A Douglas Adams tribute
"Something to ponder: the warm, witty, talented and humane Douglas Adams has been taken far before his time, and yet, Jennifer Lopez still lives and gets another 15 minutes of fame. I'm not sure even Deep Thought could answer that mystery."

"This is not an obituary; there'll be time enough for them. It is not a tribute, not a considered assessment of a brilliant life, not a eulogy. It is a keening lament, written too soon to be balanced, too soon to be carefully thought through. Douglas, you cannot be dead.
It must be part of the joke. It must be some other Douglas Adams. This is too ridiculous to be true. I must still be asleep."

At least he'd just finished the movie script for Hitchhiker's..

I'm not bothering to write my own memorial type stuff, as the above linked one and the one above this are really well done. I just figured I'd link to a few sites on the man and his work that might interest people.
The Hitchhiker's works online, a purity test, some quotes, and how to write like the master.
"Something is not DNA unless there is something strange about the content. DNA doesn't just write boy meets girl stories. DNA writes boy meets intergalactic bug bladder beast that insists on eating his favorite girl stories."

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Bitter about Riley there much, Joss?
The creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer sounds kinda pissy that most people didn't really take to the new boyfriend he gave her last year.

"What went right and what went wrong?" Whedon asks, repeating the question. "I love Marc and I loved Riley as a character. Some people responded to him and some people didn't. Basically, it came down to two things. One, there was nobody getting over Buffy and Angel (David Boreanaz). Just nobody. Two, because I'd seen the tortured Romeo and Juliet, `This is the wrong guy, he's going to make me miserable' romance, I wanted to see Buffy have a nice relationship with a nice guy. America doesn't want to see that. America doesn't give a rat's ass about a nice relationship with a nice guy. So it became instead a scenario where people thought, `Oh, she has a nice guy. She's going to walk over him and not get that she's not getting it.' I think those were the problems. I think Marc really came into his own on the show, particularly this last season. I really like the way he performed what he was doing. What I loved about him was his Gary Cooper kind of quality. But Gary Cooper can't live in the Buffyverse."

Joss, here's what your real problems with Riley were:
1. You set up Buffy and Angel to be this true love, eternal love, soul mates who can't be together couple. This will win you viewer loyalty like nothing else, as you can see on soaps across the nation. However, this means that when you split them up and try to put her with a "nice guy" who's normal, it's just not going to get the same amount of feelings and loyalty. You can't make them stop wanting Angel back when they're not that impressed with his replacement AND don't think he's supposed to be her match made in heaven (or er, wherever) because she already has one. Nice guy relationships are a lot more commonplace, and people are more intrigued by those soul mate things because that doesn't happen much in real life. I don't know if it's necessarily all the fault of America because "nobody likes nice guys," because I don't think that's the case. In real life (which this ISN'T), most people will wake up and realize that they're more desireable. But on this show, I don't necessarily think it works so well (see paragraph after the next one).

An example of the soul mate thing is the Brenda/Sonny/Jax triangle on General Hospital a few years back. Sonny's the hot mobster soulmate guy who eventually left Brenda at the altar because he was afraid he'd get her killed. So she goes and marries Jax, the nice millionaire fella. Now it's not like she didn't love Jax, or know that he's less likely to get her inadvertently killed or something, but it was pretty obvious that on some level she was faking it and making do. She was trying to do the healthy relationship right thing, but she couldn't generate the same amount of feelings for Jax as she did for Sonny. Ditto this case.

I honestly think that Buffy can't be with a "normal" guy who can't really relate to her fighting evil. Riley was involved in the fight and had all that Initiative crap going on, which was a nice try, but it somehow just wasn't working. She reminds me of a similar fictional character, Anita Blake, who's surrounded by people who use magic, vampires, wereanimals, serial killers, and other nasty creatures all the time. She barely relates to any of her "normal" friends in the series, how could she possibly hook up with a normal guy? It's ironic how the one "normal"-seeming guy she falls for in the series turns out to be an alpha werewolf. (And indeed, she is currently hooked up with said werewolf and a hot vampire. Yes, at the same time. Long story.) How could someone who deals in death all day relate to someone who doesn't?

2. I actually thought Riley was cute. He is more my type than Angel actually (not that Angel isn't hot in his own way though). But in all honesty, a lot of the time he was kinda whiny and boring. I don't think that had much to do with the nice guy thing, but it really bugged me how he was SO insecure about having a girlfriend who could beat him up and how he was going nuts wanting her attention and her to rely on HIM while her mother may be dying and she's trying to be strong for Dawn, etc. I kept thinking he was turning into a real jerk. I pitied him for the post-Angel position he was in, she doesn't love him, etc., but damn, storming off in a hissyfit to join the military, flirting with vamp bites, etc.- this was just not mature behavior here. It was after awhile downright silly and unimpressive. Buffy needs someone who isn't going to pull such shit because he doesn't relate to what's going on with her and wants to be the macho man. She needs better, and no, I don't think better was Riley. I suspect a lot of the people who want Buffy and Spike to hook up want her with someone who's stronger, darker and relates to her problems once again, even besides the English punk hottie appeal. Not that I think they should get together (sorry, I like Spike too, but it would be way way out of character for Buffy), but they make more sense than Buffy and Riley did.

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Make Yourself Uglier By Trying To Look More Beautiful

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Emotional blood sport
A non-fan of reality shows has written his own play about them.
"I consider it to be an emotional blood sport. It puts groups of participants in artificial conditions expressly designed to bring out the worst in them, designed to induce them to form relationships with each other and get hurt in those relationships through the structure of the game. They're in a situation that makes some bonds of friendship inevitable, because they're in each other's constant company and are sharing in common being in a strange new environment. It's inevitable that some of them will form friendships, take them seriously, and in doing so then be devastated by betrayal. And this is what the producers are packaging for entertainment."

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Making the Band bites the dust
I never watched this show, nor did I want to, nor do I care about boy bands- but this writeup is hilarious.
"We were shown -- almost gleefully -- that the fix was in,and were never meant to believe otherwise. We were given all the evidence we'd ever need to condemn boy bands as artificial, callow marketing shills. When three of the five members displayed an almost surreal inability to sing, Making the Band cheerfully showed how studio "sweetening" transformed them into Mario Lanza. When the time came for press ops and photo shoots, we saw each member assigned a "stylist", whose job it was to create that member's image. Voila! Clean-cut Valley kid Jacob is suddenly Edgy Guy, with dreadlocks, goatee, and a pair of blue jeans straight from a threshing machine. Presto Change-o! Groggy, talentless Trevor is now The Soulful One, sporting oversize aviator glasses and looking like an underfed Lenny Kravitz. Why the full disclosure? Why would any manager reveal, in no uncertain terms, a band's complete lack of participation in their own careers?
Vowing to rise again, the vaguely-reptilian mogul followed a familiar tactic, assembling five pleasant-looking young men, all of whom could shuffle on cue and look dreamy on command. There would be just one catch this time: with O-Town, everyone would know who the real talent was. By showing the group's assembly, training, and rollout on national TV, it would be clear that Pearlman, not the band, was the creative force at work. He would decide the group's final lineup. He would pick the songs. He would decide how "street" each member should look. And when the band members got uppity or out of line, he would smack them down in front of the whole audience. This would be his final revenge against 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys. By showing how utterly irrelevant the group's members actually were, Pearlman would accomplish the one-two punch of shaming his former charges while establishing himself as a genius -- a Malcolm McLaren for the new century."

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Here's another reality show for ya
Cheaters, in which "viewers are treated to an unfiltered look at the dirty business of private investigation." Oooh, investigating privates...

Sunday, May 13, 2001
"Back from the Outback."
The above one and this one recap where they've been mediawhoring lately.
"KEL, falsely accused of stealing beef jerky, has been approached by several beef jerky companies about doing ads. ''I'm actually going to be making money off Jerri's lies,'' he said. ''I find that the sweetest revenge.''
MITCHELL recorded his own version of ''I Will Survive'' and dressed up in white tie and tails to shoot a music video in Times Square. Amazingly, no one beat him up."

Speaking of Kel, he sure is a bitter little stuck on himself whiner, isn't he?
"Mitchell in one of his early interviews, when asked how he would vote, said, "I will vote off the person who is a physical weakness, followed by the person who is a personal threat." And his first vote was for Marilyn," (Huh? Was not. Didn't you watch that episode?) "because she was hurting us in the challenges, and then his next vote was for me. I can only assume he saw me as a physical threat."
GLEASON (asked about wild animals): Well, to be honest, they cleared out most of them.... but they left one very dangerous, vicious animal there: Blue bikini. I'm very upset with the Australian wildlife commission.
SportsHollywood: Who wins in a fight to the death in the outback - you, Alicia, Colby or the Crocodile Hunter?
GLEASON: Are you kidding? First, I'll take that damn immumity challenge necklace and wrap it around Alicia's neck. And then I'd do suflex on Colby, then see if he can make a word with more than four syllables. Then I'd do a clothesline drop on the Croc Hunter. Then, of course, the cowboy resurfaces with fierce determination in his eyes. Eventually it comes down to the Keelster having a meltdown on the Colster. Kelster wins!!!"
How many sponsorship offers have you gotten from beef jerkey companies?
GLEASON: So many I had to get an agent."

And then there's the Rosie show, where she allows Debb to spout off on the usual some more and get a car. I'm surprised that Rosie is sympathetic to her, as I'd figure she'd be the first one to go "Ewwwww!" at the idea.
"Calling him "the Tom Cruise of the Outback," O'Donnell then brought Colby Donaldson out and showered him with praise and gifted him with a Harley Davidson motorcycle. When Tina Wesson came out shortly after, she asked, "Does this mean I'm off the hook?" Donaldson laughed and then said, "No." A few minutes, and several touches on his leg from Tina later, Donaldson changed his mind." Hey. Now I don't think that's quite fair for Rosie to play the gift fairy like that and get Tina off the hook. They made a deal here already, and it's not like she can't afford to pay up.

Speaking of "probably off the hook," here's an update on the Colby's coral scandal.

And this is damn funny: Tina found out that an EW staffer wound up with her name in the Survivor poll and wasn't happy about it, so she kept calling and leaving him goofy messages.

Sunday, May 13, 2001
There may be a possible Celebrity Survivor
As well as announcing that all finales will be broadcast live (gack, more cheesiness), Burnett wants to "see some celebrities suffer." However, he's going to do a couple more regular versions before that. Supposedly a celebrity version would be about two weeks instead of the usual, no idea why that is.

Now I can see this being both a good thing and a bad thing: good as in I'd be amused to see how celebrities manage without makeup and how they'd do challenges without their personal trainers, bad as in they already don't eat, so who cares if they starve? And really bad as in celebrities are already loaded and just don't have the motivation to go after a million bucks the way that us poor noncelebrity shmoes do. They'd probably have to play for charity just like in every other game show, but how backbitey and mean are you going to get when you're playing to get money for someone else, and not yourself (especially when to you a million is pocket change)?

Sunday, May 13, 2001
In which Survivor 1 cast members rip on the Season 2 ones.
The "Kangaroo Court" members here, at least the male ones, sound pretty sexist. All the men go for Colby and whine about the outcome, half claim they'd win if they played again. Yeah, RIGHT. Sean claims that Keith is far more likeable than 80 percent of the people he was stuck with, but I liked what Kelly said best: "I was kind of surprised, because the odds of the best erson winning are slim to nil. At the final vote, there's a lot of ego involved, and people like a Sean or a Greg can't handle losing to someone better than them. Sean flat out told me to my face that he could not stand losing to a 22-year-old female."

Gwennie's Corner has some well written work, including this related rant: "If you were to ask me what is the BEST part of Survivor II being over, I’d have to say that maybe we’ll finally get a break from all the annoying, pathetic, petty jealous comments of Survivor I contestants about those who participated in Survivor II. We have heard Rudy, Jenna, Sean, Joel, Susan, Kelly, and Richard (to name a few off the top of my head) ALL partake in using every single last second of their “fifteen minutes” to lambaste the Survivor II gang.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it up to HERE with Richard Hatch and his arrogance. I’m not a big Tina Wesson fan, but I am SO glad that Richard must have mis-guessed at least several times about predicting who would win. Because of course, who else COULD win except someone following in his footsteps of ruthless manipulation. (Ironically, I personally find Tina Wesson very similar to Richard Hatch in that regard.) Richard: you ARE the weakest link; have a seat.
In the Survivor II “Back to the Outback” special on May 10th, we got to hear Rudy call the Barramundi’s dumb for building the shelter in the river bed. While admittedly it might not have been the wisest move in the world, why did we have to hear Rudy go on about it? It’s not like Survivor I contestants didn’t do stupid things. We got to hear Jenna say that Elisabeth annoyed the hell out of her. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, and to make matters worse, Jenna complained about Elisabeth’s crying. Excuse me, but who cried more in Survivor I than JENNA?
We have heard Joel say he would have eaten Colby up. Oh give me a break. You wish you could have made the final Four, let alone the final two, Joel. If memory serves me right, you couldn’t even “handle” the WOMEN of Survivor I!"

And finally, some of the Survivor 1 cast look really stupid on Weakest Link: "The six former contestants introduce themselves just as anybody else - with their names, ages, and pre-Survivor occupations (none said "former game show contestant," which pretty much is an occupation for some of them now).
Rich is the strongest link and Ramona the weakest. But, that doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to voting. Host Anne Robinson asks, "Who still has sand in their ears?" As had been leaked when the story first came out about this edition of the show, Rich was the unanimous choice (he voted for Sue). When Robinson asks Joel why he wanted to get rid of Rich, Joel responds, "Doesn't everyone?" She moves on to Sue who says she's tired of playing games with him.
They blow almost every question - it really is quite pathetic. Joel does manage to answer the question asking for the 15th letter of the alphabet, but it takes a while as he stands there and counts to himself all the way through the alphabet. Yeesh. As Robinson says at the end of the round, the brain power is astonishing."

Sunday, May 13, 2001
Official Survivor merchandise
And here's how the gang's likely to do in marketing potential.

Saturday, May 12, 2001
Star Wars Redesigned by the Famous Designers
This is just cool. I love the new Bug version of the snowwalker monsters (whatever they're called).

Saturday, May 12, 2001
Why Tom Cruise is so sue-happy
I could give less of a damn if Tom Cruise is gay or not, incidentally, though it is funny how he foams at the mouth at the idea (hence this link). But shoot, as far as I know nobody has yet to come up with any real proof that he's engaged in homosexual activity (unlike um, Kevin Spacey. After reading Fametracker and the mounds of evidence I concede that he's a closet case. But I still don't care what his persuasion is either. Or Ricky Martin. Or pretty much anybody I wouldn't want to date, which is why I think Jeff Varner is a flaming straight who just thinks it's fun to act gay. Yes, I'm serious, and possibly deluded.). And until they do, I just find it ridiculous that this crap keeps on coming up because he's good looking and short (or whatever their logic is, I have no idea), with no other real evidence. (Do I believe the porn star thing? Oh, yeah, RIGHT.). When you've got Spaceyesque evidence, then I'll concede. Until then, it just looks silly.

"Tom Cruise sues the way Robert Downey Jr. violates his parole. Downey can't pass up a snort and Cruise can't resist a tort. He's litigated several times to stop rumors that he is impotent, sterile, or (worst of all) gay.
The answer is that, for many gay people, the code of candor still does not apply. The military is the most obvious institution where silence equals survival, but there are major areas of civilian life where homosexuality is a profound liability. The closet is alive and well in every profession where masculinity is a tool of the trade. As masculinity becomes a hot-button issue, the anxiety over sexuality intensifies, especially for actors who specialize in "man's man" roles.
But imagine if Russell Crowe cultivated a similar persona. Would he still be believable as the millennial version of a man's man? This is the heart of Cruise's suit: The implication that he is gay could destroy his credibility in action films. It's a nasty claim, but the essence of libel is a false statement that hurts someone's ability to make a living, and it can be argued that no one wants to see a top gun draw like a bottom; certainly not the men who gravitate to movies like Mission: Impossible. The action genre is one of the last bastions of what Ehrenstein calls "the cordon sanitaire" between straights and gays. It's a line that can't be crossed without raising the fear of pollution that attends all homophobia. How can any real man identify with a goddamn pansy?"

Sounds like Tom agrees with that assessment. "Cruise, one of the top box-office earners of all time, alleges that Slater's article, which the suit calls "fraudulent" and "malicious," could hurt his reputation with moviegoers since he is "dependent upon worldwide public acceptance of his films," according to the suit: "Losing the respect and enthusiasm of a substantial segment of the movie-going public would cost Cruise very substantial sums."
The lawsuit states that Cruise "is not a homosexual" and that while the star of Mission: Impossible "believes in the right of others to follow their own sexual preference, vast numbers of the public throughout the world do not share that view and, believing that he had a homosexual affair and did so during his marriage, they will be less inclined to patronize Cruise's films, particularly since he tends to play parts calling for heterosexual romance and action adventure."

Quoting something similar from Fametracker about Kevin again (page 2, an "Atlanta Greg."): "I believe that the thing people are forgetting is that this is most likely a simple matter of *money*.
Let's face it, you make a movie, and depending on your name (and reputation), people spend money to go see it. The more who spend to go see it, the more you make, and then you can command a higher price on the next film you're offered. While many movie goers are in urban areas, many *more* are in SUBurban areas, where there is much less of a tolerance for "known" gay actors.
In Atlanta, the huge gay community might flock to see Spacey in a movie, because they think he *is* gay. In the suburbs of Atlanta however, the Baptists would boycott the movie if they *knew* he was gay. There are more Baptists down here, than gays, and bored Baptists = money at the theater."

Update: I was going to link to the article mentioned in this weblog, but the more I read, the more creeped out and annoyed I got with the guy's relating of people's movie homophobia stuff to why gay marriage is so awful for heterosexuals. Instead, I'll just let you read the commentary on it and quote this bit: "The ticket-sales part has to do with fantasy-life discrimination; the marriage part is real-world discrimination. The former is inevitable and the latter is unacceptable."

And I was very amused by this rant on celebs who proclaim heteroness: "We get it, OK? We understand that playing gay is truly an incredible trial for you. We understand that every day, you go to work, close your eyes, and think of England. We understand that your careers will be forever ruined by this. We understand that you think that the public is so stupid that they will forever and always conflate the actor with the role, and assume that if you play gay, you are gay. Now stow it already!
But whenever the two of you play a scene together, the only thing that can be clearly seen is the strident subtext: WE HATE THIS! WE HATE PLAYING THIS SCENE! We're not gay! We're really REALLY not gay! Look how not-gay we are! It is not possible for people to view your scenes without the filter of your not-gayness hanging over them like a cloud."

Saturday, May 12, 2001
And you thought it couldn't get worse than the Clinton scandal
I'm normally not a viewer of West Wing, but lately I've been watching Buffy/Angel on tape at someone who watches it's house. And oh my lord, is the situation over there totally, totally bad.

"The creator of NBC's "The West Wing," has created a situation in his fictional White House that makes the once out-of-control Whitewater investigation look like a weekend rafting trip.
The president of the United States (Martin Sheen), who ran for office and won even while concealing his multiple sclerosis from his closest advisers, is finally coming clean.
His admission may come too late: The White House counsel (Oliver Platt) seems convinced that the president has broken laws, and it looks as if everyone in the West Wing can expect to be testifying before a congressional committee someday soon.
Meanwhile, it's not entirely clear whether the president's condition makes him fit to hold office, much less consider running for a second term. And while I have great respect for Sorkin's seat-of-the-pants ingenuity, I'm not sure he hasn't written himself into a corner this time."

Now, can you BELIEVE how Sorkin came up with this? This is the kinda plot most people think out ages in advance- sci-fi shows are good at that- yet he came up with this HUGE thing on the spur of the moment!

"Sorkin probably wasn't thinking this far ahead when he first decided to give Sheen's character MS.
Talking with reporters in January 2000, on the morning after the president's condition was first mentioned on "The West Wing," Sorkin said, "I honestly can't remember" how MS entered the picture.
"I think I wrote it four episodes ago, and it all started because I wanted the president to be in bed watching a soap opera. . .and I had to figure out how he got there," he said. "I didn't want it to just be the flu. "It wasn't there because I wanted to explore MS, or medicine. It's there because it happened in that episode, and now it's part of the show's bible, and we'll live with it."

That is lame. That is really, really lame.

"Do we really need to relive a potential impeachment story line? It would have been almost too art-imitates-life with a Democratic president, but now it just seems like an unnecessary and dated nightmare." However, I don't much like this guy's suggestion of having a reverse situation like we've got right now (joy, Republicans in charge even in fictional TV too? Must we?).

On a more humorous note, a guy in the CA Assembly took the death of a character so seriously that he adjourned a session in her memory and praised her as a great American for her service to the country. Um, yeah. Someone still can't tell the difference between real life and a blinky box. Who voted for HIM?
"Although unorthodox, Shelley says that the members of the assembly appreciated the gesture.
"At first everyone was stunned, but then they were rolling in the aisles." And no wonder there!

Saturday, May 12, 2001
Roadkill as art
YUCKA YUCKA YUCKA YUCKA YUCKA.

Can't say I like the trend of using the nastier substances as artwork, and smell and appearance are sure one of them. But perhaps I'm feeling sensitive because a guy showed me his very artistic photo of a roadkill rabbit last week. *shudder* I pondered sending him the above link, but then thought that might encourage him to show more roadkill art.

Saturday, May 12, 2001
I don't think I'd want to interview Dubya.
"He directed his frenetic energy into playing with the wooden coasters on the desk and occasionally popping a grape in his mouth. A couple of times he started going down bromide lane, and I tried to stop him. Bush dismissed my efforts by holding up one index finger, as if to say, Do not interrupt the president of the United States. It worked; I let him go on and on about CO2 and tax cuts."

Saturday, May 12, 2001
Oh, brother. The trauma, the trauma.
"A Brooklyn teen is suing a Flatbush parochial school and an ex-teacher for $22.5 million, charging the teacher punished him by forcing him to cross-dress.
Caleb Guerrier, 19, says that on the teacher's orders, six students at the Excelsior Seventh Day Adventist School grabbed him, threw him to the ground and dressed him in a wig, bra, skirt and high heels.
Caleb, who was 13 at the time, said he was so traumatized by the incident, he couldn't finish high school."

1. That was incredibly asshole of the teacher. Kick his ass.
2. Nice timing to pick to do that sorta thing on a barely teenager.
3. That said, what the hell is this kid thinking by claiming he was so traumatized he couldn't finish high school? Yes, that's bad, but that didn't prevent you from either (a) transferring to another high school (b) beg Mom to do some homeschooling or independent study (unless neither of these was an option, I don't know), or (c), taking the GED. Even if options a and b don't exist in Flatbush, you can always bloody study up and take a GED. There's various ways to finish your education if you want to, and unless this kid has a lot more problems than are mentioned in this article (has dyslexia or something that requires more teacher aid- and even then, isn't the school district supposed to do something about that?), I don't see how one event could totally prevent you from getting the qualifications of someone who knows what they needed to know to get out of high school.

Saturday, May 12, 2001
This girl drives like I do.
I don't have my license. I'm not sure if I'll EVER get my license. Mainly, because I drive like this girl: "Bachoo was driving the car when it suddenly popped up on a curb and veered into the front window.
She was planning to take her driver's test today.
"I smashed on the accelerator instead of the brake," said Bachoo, whose mother was sitting in the passenger seat."

Here's how an 11-year-old drives. In a high speed car chase, no less.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Who-the-fuck-ever is clearly deranged.
Future Silly Glyph Boy Mark 2 is so clearly not over Ms. J. Ho, as you probably already guessed from his Valentine's Day announcement of their breakup. But you know, making sure something like THIS gets into print is just sad. Really, really sad. And makes your lawbreaking, namechanging, song-stealing, Millionaire-question-missing ass look even more pathetic than ever.

"She'll always be someone that I love. All she's gotta do is think -- she doesn't even need to pick up the phone -- and I'll be able to feel her," he says. "Even in her darkest hour, if she's in a building and there's a fire and somebody's gotta run in and there's a 99 percent, 100 percent chance that they'll die, I'll run in there after her."

Not that that's not romantic and all, and not like I don't understand taking awhile to get over someone, but dammit man, she dumped your ass for some dancer (who presumeably hasn't gotten into trouble with the law yet). She no longer cares about this stuff with you. This will not score you any points with her to make it sound like you've got a psychic bond. You may feel this way, but it does you no good whatsoever to let it out in public. It'll only tick her off after awhile. Trust me on this one, the best thing you can do is lie through your teeth and claim you're over her already and find some other skank with ass to screw, then maybe she'll feel like calling on occasion.

Wow. I'm so harsh. What bug flew up my ass tonight? (Then again, these two are on my Generally Loathesome Celebs list, so what would you expect, I guess.)

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Ship your computer-idiot relatives to Silicon Pines!
Did I mention my parents are AOL users?

"Sadly, technology is advancing at such a dramatic rate that many millions, of all ages, will never truly be able to understand it, putting an undue burden on those friends and family members who must explain it to them. But unless the loved one is suffering from a truly debilitative affliction, such as Reinstallzheimers, the decision to commit is entirely personal. You must ask yourself, "How frustrated am I that my parent/sibling/spouse is unable to open an email attachment?" "How much of my time should be taken up explaining how RAM is different from hard drive memory?" "How many times can I bear to hear my dad say, 'Hey, can I replace the motherboard with a fatherboard? Ha ha ha!'"
There are not nearly enough ACFs in the world to accommodate all the technologically challenged. For example, there are currently 860,000 beds available in ACFs, but there are 29 million AOL users.
Until very recently, you had to be 18 or older to legally commit a family member. However, the now famous British court case Frazier vs. Frazier and Frazier has cleared the way for minors to commit their parents. In that case, 15-year-old Bradley Frazier of Leicester had his 37-year-old parents committed to an ACF in Bournemouth after a judge ruled Ian and Janet Frazier were a "danger to themselves and the community." According to court records, Bradley told his parents about the ILoveYou virus and warned them not to click attachments, then the next day his parents received an ILoveYou email and clicked on the attachment because, they explained, "it came from someone we know."
However, only a facility's Licensed Techcare Professionals (LTPs) should perform computational or technological tasks such as installing programs or saving email attachments. And LTPs should NEVER answer residents' questions because studies have shown that answering user questions inevitably makes things worse. Instead, residents should simply have things done for them, relieving them of the pressure to "learn" or "improve."
CAN A RESIDENT EVER GET OUT? No."

Here's more: "Even though we don't expect them to do anything, I like our residents to feel a sense of accomplishment, so if I'm installing a new program, I let them participate. For instance, when the program is done loading, there will be a screen that says 'Installation successful. Click OK to continue'. I could do that myself, but instead I'll turn to the resident and say,'So, what do you think we should do here?'"
Six times out of 10, the resident will say, "Click 'OK'?"Gregg then lets them click the OK button. "You should see their faces light up."

Thursday, May 10, 2001
The plots of Star Wars 2 and 3
"Jar Jar makes a very brief appearance in the film. I wish I could have given him a large role in Episode 2, but there is nothing for him to do in Episode 2." THANK THE GODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Thief of Time comes out
(This is the book below that my ex was whining about having spoiled, btw.) Discworld rocks. That site and this give lovely introductions to the series.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Playing with the monster
That, this, and this crack me up. It's all so cute!

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Most Roman Catholic priests are gay! Surprise!
Ah, the irony.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Spam and degree mills
The above article puports to look at what happens when you want to buy spam products, but doesn't really. This is what struck me, on degree mills: "I have been in education for 40 years and I tell you, all the universities do this," he said. "They just don't talk about it."

I've mentioned Gene Weingarten before here, and this article on his trying to get a fake degree cracks me up greatly. He wanted to do a story on how he got one, but his boss says he must ID himself as a reporter and say he plans to write a story. So he sends the degree mill lady this LOOOOOOOOONG made up bio of himself, and in the bottom of the eighth (LONG paragraph) out of nine he has this:

"Clocks, as you are seeing here, are very complicated, like this letter which is roundabouts trying to tell you I write for the Washington Post, which is a big newspaper in Washington, and I am going to write about you so be careful, but that is a whole nother story too!"

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Design Your Own Powerpuff Girl

Thursday, May 10, 2001
The First Twins: A Gossip Site
Reporting on the partying aspects of the Bush twins.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
All he needs is Rapunzel
Story of a man who lives in a tower.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Leave the pregnant gov alone!
Doesn't all of this just smack of trying to get the woman out of office? How can you in good conscience object to someone who's supposed to be on bed rest IN THE HOSPITAL holding a phone meeting? What assholes! This is so wrong.

"Secretary of State William F. Galvin - who would become acting governor if Swift cannot conduct her duties, and may run against her next year - questioned the legality of running the meeting via speakerphone, and urged the administration to convene the meeting in her room at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Swift is getting doctor-ordered bed rest there until her twins are born.
At the meeting, some governor's councilors agreed and said Galvin should fill in for Swift at the meeting.
''I have a difficulty with the way this meeting is being held,'' said Councilor Edward O'Brien, an Easthampton Democrat. ''This is not a duly constitutional meeting.''
The council, made up entirely of Democrats, voted 5-3 to seek a ruling from the state's highest court about whether Swift can run future meetings from afar.
''It's definitely politically motivated,'' said John Brockelman, executive director of the state Republican Party. ''Every CEO in the country conducts meetings via conference calls. The Governor's Council certainly continues to live up to their reputation as colonial relics."

Update: In which everyone, fearing for their political careers, changes their tune. "Chagrined Democrats - worried that attacks on pregnant Acting Governor Jane Swift made them look like bullies - fell silent yesterday or distanced themselves from a legal challenge to Swift's ability to run the state from her hospital bed.
''I disassociate myself from any Democrat looking to make political capital at the governor's expense,'' said former party chairman Steve Grossman, a candidate for governor next year. ''I not only think it's a political mistake, I think it's an outrageous and misguided effort to question her capacity to govern and to make political hay that can only backfire.''

"Stung by criticism that they are sexist and unreasonable, members of the Governor's Council are floating a plan to accommodate Acting Governor Jane Swift's desire to tend to council business from her hospital bed.
The proposal does not directly address the thorny constitutional question of whether the governor must be physically present to conduct a council meeting."

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Sad news about sperm banks and spoiler whining.
1. I'm so shocked that according to Dan, most sperm banks won't take single women. What the heck were they invented for if not that???

2. Oh for crying out loud. Some people will just whine and whine about ANY detail of the plot of something and complain that it's a spoiler. (My ex got all upset at me yesterday for mentioning that a book he wants to read features a particular character. "I wanted to be COMPLETELY surprised." Geez, why? Said character shows up on page 3. Big damn deal!) Look, if you don't want to know ANYTHING about something, then don't read anything mentioning that book. If you see BJD mentioned in a column, then STOP READING or shut up and deal with the consequences. Besides, come on, look at what movie this is. I'm on Dan's side.

"Excuse me, WBSTM, but it's a well known FACT that Bridget Jones's Diary is a film about a young woman and the two men--both prominently featured in the film's adverts--chasing her around central London. In my brief comments on the film, I didn't indicate which man Bridget got. Even if there were only one man, and I had "given it away," only a dolt would sit through a movie like BJD and not expect the girl to get the guy in the end. The girl always gets the guy at the end of a romantic comedy, you dope, except when the guy gets the girl. Gee, I hope I'm not ruining the movie by revealing that the young Miss Jones doesn't die of leukemia in the final reel, nor are her arms severed in a wheat thresher, nor does she perish when her plane is shot down by the Peruvian Air Force working in concert with the CIA. Cripes."

Thursday, May 10, 2001
How to hold a BDSM wedding
Man, this just sounds so weird to me. Particularly the slave bit, which doesn't seem too marriage-y to me.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
The musings of a Southern Jewish chick.
I like her writing style already.

"WHY WOULD A nice Jewish girl scream, "Oh, sweet Jesus," when she comes?
Because there's no escaping Jesus in the South.
Being a Jewish Southerner is an obscure identity; it has put me at odds with myself. And yet it is a strangely harmonious experience, too. Southern belles and Jewish American Princesses both have great nails and a love-hate relationship with hairdressers. A JAP-belle is a hybrid of Monica Lewinsky and Scarlett O'Hara if the costume changes don't kill me, the conflicting mythos will. Between the redneck foreplay jokes and Jewish blow-job jokes, my scrambled psyche doesn't know whether to redecorate or indulge in arson.
The combination of Jewish and Southern is lethal particularly for the woman living it. Both belles and JAPs are classic hysterics. That's the payoff and the curse of my dual heritage. Scarlett chucking the vase at Rhett and the Jewish princess having a neurotic episode are female archetypes. With our flushed cheeks and incoherent ranting, we are out of control and therefore good in bed."

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Woman loses custody of kids for going to church too much.
Custody was given to her husband, who was acquitted of kiddie sex. Oy. (Yes, I know he was acquitted, but I worry anyway.)

Thursday, May 10, 2001
The advent of the contraceptive patch

Thursday, May 10, 2001
Ain't No Way To Go
(Why do I now have "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" going through my head?) Database of articles on deaths, akin to Darwin.

Thursday, May 10, 2001
"Comfy" couch made of old Mac CPU's
So sue me, ever since my ex made a bookcase out of Macs I find this stuff funny.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Interviewing the two Houstons: Porn Star/Porn Czar
(This is for you folks who were searching for ben-wa balls the other day. Heck, I don't even know what those ARE, and I mentioned them here? Weird.)

I've mentioned the Mormon virgin Paula before, and this ostensibly compares interviews between her and a porn star. The porn star's interview is much shorter and features pretty much gang bangs, while the other is long and deadly serious.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Practical time travel
"At that stage our descendants might be capable of manipulating entire stars or black holes, and creating something like a wormhole, but it's not the sort of thing that's going to be done in a hundred years or even a thousand years - unless there's another way of doing it. This is of course always the excitement in a scientific topic: have we overlooked something? And given that we know time is elastic, that time can be manipulated, some way of traveling into the past seems to be possible. So is there a much easier method that we've overlooked? The great hope for building a time machine in the foreseeable future is that that is the case, that something involving maybe weird aspects of quantum physics is going to do it for us, some other type of physical process that we haven't yet discovered - but it's going to have to have gravitation in there somewhere."

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
What part of delete didn't you understand?
More tales of the Davis IT staff (see comics weblog for more).

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
So much for charitable love
Two similarly-named organizations are duking it out because their names are confusing. What are the names? Love Thy Neighbor and Love Your Neighbor. As someone else has been saying lately, for sweet fuck's sake!

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Why do girls need instruction manuals on how to be girls?
"Advice books of every vintage seek the mysterious alchemy that will turn loneliness into self-actualization. Being single is fine as long as you act like a character from a Truman Capote novel -- especially while alone.
If you're not seeing anyone, writes Tuttle, "date yourself." Do this by eating over the sink by candlelight, treating yourself to a new outfit, "gently caressing your hand or thigh at the movies." (Oooh, eating over the sink by candlelight, how NONromantic....And feeling yourself up in public? That's kinda icky sounding.)
"Buy yourself a diamond, Rowley and Rosenzweig murmur, learn how to gamble, slip a few bills to the hostess at a popular restaurant if you don't have a reservation.
"Jesus," my boyfriend says, scanning a pert volume from the top of the heap, "you'd go broke doing all this stuff."

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
A sad but touching article about post-prostate surgery
I know, not the best topic. But well done, even if it's sad.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
If I dig a hole through the earth from here,
Apparently if you live here, you end up drowning in the ocean instead of in China.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Junkie Dating
"If your picture does not clearly show trackmarks, you will might not be selected. If you do not hear from us within 10 business days, we OD'd."

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
In which Micro$oft gouges customers yet again. Gack.
"Microsoft may be changing its licensing practices, potentially compelling large companies to pay up every three years to continue using a piece of software."

Oh for crying out fucking loud. You know that means they'll be installing detonation software ASAP. But shoot, if 95 still works, why the hell should I give it up to reinstall and scrap my whole system? I don't think so.

See, even Becky hates Micro$oft finally. "Sixteen-year-old high school sophomore Becky Atherton, believed to be the last remaining American who did not hate Microsoft, announced today that she was "tired of being different" and would now hate Microsoft just like everyone else.
But then Atherton, who described herself as deeply religious, said she was visited by her minister. "He explained that you can hate something without knowing a lot about it, and that sometimes you just have to take it on faith," she recalled." (Hmm, sounds like a lot of deeply religious folks these days. *sigh*)

Go Linux.

Then again, maybe not? "Chastened Linux executives pledged to stop their "crazy dreaming" and disband their efforts after an executive from Microsoft proclaimed Linux was doomed, and openly questioned whether the free, rival operating system should exist.
"If we don't have Microsoft's blessing, then what's the point?" said a shaky Larry Augustin, CEO of VA Linux."

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Babies with the genes of three parents
Complicated and interesting.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Tips on how to become a game designer
I'm in a game design club (albeit I have no time to even go to meetings most of the time, sigh), so this is pretty cool.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
The Asian Prince
Oh. My. God.

Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Oh god, they brought back chastity belts.
Not to force on those horny teenagers, but as a sign of "committment." Geeeeeeeeeeez. If my husband trusted me so little that he wanted me to wear a chastity belt, I think I'd smack him. How obnoxious.

"Vendors say sales are climbing among those in committed relationships.
Paul Tooker, the owner of Access Denied in Lindenhurst, New York, says most of his sales of men's belts for $440 and women's belts for $375 are to couples who want to demonstrate their fidelity. People have started giving their partners a key to their chastity belt as a sign of devotion, not unlike a wedding ring.
"Generally we aren't selling to the person who wants to wear a chastity belt for two hours on a Saturday night, but to people in little towns in Iowa or Tennessee who want to wear them for weeks at a time as a sign of affection," Tooker says.
Tooker, who runs the Internet business with his wife, Brigitta, won't give exact sales figures but estimates he has sold several hundred chastity belts over the past year, mostly to couples.
Wearers can bathe and perform normal bodily functions in them comfortably." Well, I'd certainly hope. That's what sounded gross to me about the female versions of the past. If they covered that hole up, what the heck did women on their periods do? (No, I've never seen an old-fashioned one).

On perhaps a similar weird topic, here's a couple with their owncontrol issues. I don't think I'd want my husband able to move my body around on his own. The wifey-poo doesn't sound that excited about it, if you get my drift- "Apart from the novelty and excitement, she does not want her husband to be "linked up to another woman".- and the last line of the article is "provided he does not fall out with his wife." Makes you wonder what the author noticed during interviews, huh?

Even more lovely, here's Leash Your Lady.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
More on the Evan Chan mystery
And more sites listed.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Test Your Book's Oprah Quotient
See how likely your book is to be picked by Oprah.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Vapid magazine
Oh, this is so good.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Yada yada fucking community is everywhere.
Y'all have no idea of how sick I am of hearing the C-word. Sick, sick, sick I tell ya. It's bloody everywhere. God forbid you do something and offend "the community." And they slap the label on everything to give the impression that everyone in that "community" thinks the same. But it's limited in a sense. There's no white "community" that all does the same thing, but the "black community" all think alike?

"Real communities in the traditional sense may be struggling to survive, but community, the word, is booming, cheerfully riding any modifier that waddles its way, as in these recent sightings: "the eco-design community," "the S&M community," "the creative community," "the transplant community," "the hockey community," "the legal community," "the criminal community," and, from the nonplace where this kind of thinking seems to be the default drive, "the online community," "the networked community," and "the virtual community."
But most of the world's users tend to fall into three, uh, categories: First, minorities, like gays, blacks, and Jews, who may or may not have a cohesive group identity but who, by virtue of their contrast to the majority, have the most natural claim to being at least a community in name. Second, people who share an interest or occupation ("the advertising community," "the cultural community") who aren't a community by the usual standards but apparently feel girded by the label. And finally, anyone who wants to invoke some form of social consensus, no matter how imaginary. (As Elaine does in a Seinfeld episode: Worried what people will think if they discover she dumped a man after he had a stroke, she frets, "I'll be ostracized by the community!" Jerry: "Community? There's a community? All this time, I've been living in a community. I had no idea.")"

Saturday, May 5, 2001
I always knew orthodontists were evil.
I had enough tooth trouble as a kid (basically I'm one of those who are genetically prone to cavities when I don't eat much sugar, had a gap tooth, had two retainers, blah blah), but managed to get out of getting braces for a slight overbite- at least by that point in the teen years my parents no longer cared (we all got burned out on teeth crap in grade school) and I threw a big shit fit at the idea. But my god, this sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

"He was one of the earliest early-treatment fans, and, at that time, when a youngster of just about any age "walked through the door, they got braces," he recalls, admitting that part of his enthusiasm was based on a desire to retain more patients. Over the years, he has become convinced that much of early treatment doesn't make sense. "Kids [in early treatment] tend to stay in orthodontic devices longer, which can create burnout for the patient and is more costly for the parent," he says."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Please tell me they're kidding with this.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
It FIGURES.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Boy, does this sound like dreck on a stick.
"Although Randall has changed the names of various key characters from Mitchell's novel, the correspondence is thuddingly obvious, from "Garlic," the valet known as "Pork" in "Gone With the Wind," to "Mealy Mouth," a decidedly less saintly portrayal of Mitchell's self-sacrificing Melanie Wilkes. In Randall's recasting of the earlier book, Cynara pines for the love Mammy lavished on Scarlett (known only as "Other" in "The Wind Done Gone"), but ultimately gains possession of both Rhett ("R.") and Tara ("Tata" -- yes, it's really that unimaginative)."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
The "I can eat glass in a foreign language" project
"The Project is based on the idea that people in a foreign country have an irresistable urge to try to say something in the indigenous tongue. In most cases, however, the best a person can do is "Where is the bathroom?" a phrase that marks them as a tourist. But, if one says "I can eat glass, it doesn't hurt me," you will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Freddy gets an F
"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Colby came in SECOND?! The Survivor mini-weblog
The aforementioned caption is what I found on the front page of Survivor Sucks post-episode, which shocked me greatly. Indeed, it seems like all the emphasis is going to go on Colby and NOT Tina this time around. Some say he was stupid, some say he was sweet to do that. But that's the hook for the articles I've found. I'm not bothering to link to any of them though. I'll just link to the other ones with the choice dialogue.

TeeVee sums up the ever-dragging, CONSTANT "reflection" final episode nicely: "Like CBS, cruelest of networks, which spent the first hour of the final Survivor episode in a deadly boring series of flashback montages, alternated with pulse-pounding video of the final three contestant carving idols, meditating, painting their idols, hiking while lost in thought, and tossing their well-decorated idols into a rushing river while muttering something nonsensical about "giving something back to the land." The outback keeps you alive for 43 days, and the best you can do is toss a crappy, hastily-carved idol down its gullet? Remind me to never invite you over to my house!
After that, it was only a matter of time. And what a long time it was. An hour of reflection, of pointless questions from the Survivor jury... and of a bizarre jump between December 2000 in Australia and May 2001 in Los Angeles. In order to keep the winner a secret, the votes weren't counted back in the outback. Fair enough. But when the scene shifted to the live ceremony to unveil the winner, we got to see all our favorite castaways, clean-shaven, made up, cheeks flush as a result of a more-than-Keith's-rice diet... and wearing the same clothes they left the outback with."

"All that reflection and contemplation made me want to scream: OK, I get the point! Your sojourn in the Australian wilderness was a life-altering experience. Can we get on with the voting, please?
In a way, I couldn't help marveling at the chutzpah that must have gone into crafting a two-hour TV show out of a story that could have been told in five minutes.
If memory serves, it took less time to telecast the first walk on the moon in '69 than it did to get to the last segment of "Survivor" and Tina Wesson's victory in the final vote tally.
Most of the show seemed to consist of Tina, Keith and Colby wandering around and talking, either to each other or to the camera.
Every time they took a step, they felt compelled to explain what it meant and how they felt about it.
Then there was the packing scene - thrill-packed video of Colby and Tina burning brush and buckling their satchels. What a load of hoo-hah!
And what was that idol-carving exercise? I thought this show was about survival, not arts and crafts.
At least the castaways should have been able to keep their creations as souvenirs. When host Jeff Probst ordered them to toss them in the river, I personally felt gypped, and I have no stake whatsoever in this thing.
I don't begrudge CBS for keeping the lid on the final votes until last night, but the way they rebuilt the Tribal Council set to recreate the scene from the last council was disorienting, not to mention hokey."

1. Speaking as a design student, if I'd spent all day making something and was told to promptly chuck it in the river, I would have strongly objected in Alicia-finger-wagging style. That is MY souvenir, and it is NOT getting chucked out. Nuh-uh, baby.

2. Jesus H. Christ, this episode was NOT a reflecting pool! Reflect, reflect, make an idol and reflect, chuck your idol and reflect, reflect, reflect, gloat over kicking out Keith and being the final two then reflect some more, vote, then wait five fucking months, then have Jeff tell you on that disturbing stage set that you had more time to reflect? STOP IT ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!

3. Not that I don't understand why they did it (though THINK about it- the show editors knew who the fuck won because they filmed everyone's votes, and they had to have selectively picked 4 out of 7 to show there. Secrecy MY ASS.), but how bad did it look to abandon the cast there while Jeff flew off ("little while", again MY ASS), then have the fakeo "nighttime LIVE" ride of Jeff Revere, then the fake set with orchestra and same clothing? It looked terrible.

This is just funny: "A year ago, who would believe that "Survivor" would represent the high road in reality television? But it's true -- next to the riotously trashy sexcapades of Mandy and Billy and Ytossie and Taheed, Jerri's flirtatious efforts to win Colby's loyalty with her feminine wiles seemed as quaint and restrained as something out of Merchant-Ivory."

And so's this: "And Michael. It's nice to see that he's still the chosen one (at least in his own mind). You may still think you can walk on water, but you damn sure know you can't sleep in fire."

"Deceive, but don't lie. Don't present a helicopter landing at CBS Studios in the dark of night as a "live'' shot, when at that moment the sun was in fact still shining in Los Angeles.
Ultimately, it was the way the final vote came out that bothered me: 4-3, with the winning vote revealed on the seventh ballot pulled out of that wooden vessel by host Jeff Probst.
How dramatic. How convenient.
"I was glad it came down to a 4-3 vote,'' ousted contestant Rodger Bingham said.
Like it would be any other way.
Later it was said only a handful of producers had seen the tally, which contradicted the "sealed'' comment. Of course the producers are going to look; that's their job.
Probst called the CBS studio set up before a live audience a "surreal yet still authentic 'Survivor' world.''
No, Jeff: It looked like the network picked up much of the set from an old "Star Trek'' lot. I was waiting for Colby to pick up a Styrofoam boulder and hurl it over his head at a marauding alien."

"Rethink the challenges. "Survivor 2" contestants were clearly hip to some of Burnett's favorites, from the eating of bugs and other creepy-crawlies to the "fallen comrades" quiz that's been featured in both finales, for which Tina, in particular, seems to have studied hard."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Survivor Pundit
One of the more amusing things about Survivor being everywhere is that every media outlet needs to come up with a ton of stories on the topic for four months. Suffice it to say, after awhile it gets kinda hard. Heck, after awhile you even see article genres cropping up (see below). To help the beleagured media out, here's Survivor Pundit, supplying you with the quotes and info you need to BS your way through an article.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Survivor Survival Guide
Written kinda late for the topic, but what the hell, this article advises the non-watchers of the show as to how to figure out what everyone else is talking about.

I used to be one of these people, actually, and had no idea what they were talking about until everyone at work started watching it. I started reading Salon's recaps and started figuring it all out.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
Another Survivor article filler: Awards!
One of the most fun Survivor article topics is handing out awards in a snarky tone to the contestants. It's fun! In the above link, the infamous Richard gives some short awards, and there's also a Survivor 1-2 comparison award article. My favorite for snarkiness though is this one:

"The Dubya Award. To Nick Brown, because what America needs is another Ivy League loafer.
The "Dingos Ate My Rice" Award. To the entire Barramundi tribe, for acting surprised when they almost ran out of rice. So who ate it, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?
The Pot vs. Kettle Award. "Not only do you intimidate the hell out of the women around here, but also the men," meek, demure Jerri said to shy, retiring Alicia Calaway.
The Who Says Cowboys Aren't Gentlemen Award. To Colby Donaldson, for the unceremonious way he dumped Jerri over a wall during their obstacle-course run, as America cheered.
The "Blazing Saddles" Award. To Colby, who treated viewers to a graphic description of his gastrointestinal distress after he dined around a campfire with a bunch of Aussie cowboys. Given the amount of screen time the Survivors spent on describing their trips to the Outback bathroom, you would have thought the ever-opportunistic Burnett would have lined up Charmin as a sponsor."

Saturday, May 5, 2001
A new Survivor story angle: The food and/or lack thereof
Here's the new method of stretching it when trying to write a new angle on a Survivor story.

The Sacramento Bee food editor in the above link tries it by first ripping on Keith (a common element of these stories), discusses food strategy (i.e. how to avoid doing the cooking), followed by a lot of commentary on rice and some rice recipes.

Having not read the Bee before coming up with this idea (yes, really), my coworker wrote up this one, which discusses the nutrition problems of eating nothing but rice and how they were all being slipped vitamin supplements. Here's a similar one to that.

Perhaps the worst one is this "Central Texas Survivor" one, in which they discuss the er, fine dining off the Texan land. My god, it's ludicrous.

Saturday, May 5, 2001
And finally, some funny Survivor pictures
My favorites: Jerribal, The Jerri Menace, The Wizard of the Outback, Uncle Keith's Rice, A Simple Plan, and Clueless.