art for your feet

I don't think of myself as being particularly materialistic (although I'm probably kidding myself). That said, I saw an ad for Neiman Marcus featuring these shoes, and suddenly my mind started racing, thinking of all the ways I could possibly afford them or justify the cost. Because, seriously, they're just so beautiful. They're like art for your feet.

They're also $675. So, you know, no. But. *sigh*

OH MY GOD.

I have no words. Just Look.

1. 2. 3.

1. Congratulations, Jeff and Erica!

May this next step in your life together be filled with love, laughter and great sex!

2. I am beyond bummed that sowrongago has closed for business. I know you asked us not to say anything, but I'll miss your blog to bits & pieces, Brian. How else am I supposed to know that all the music I'm currently enjoying is totally overrated and all the movies I like are horrible? You're a fabulous writer and I hope you find a new outlet soon. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with sowrongago, by all means, enjoy the archives, they're fabulous.)

3. It's raining and pouring in LA today. I love the rain and all, but I think it's contributing largely to how inordinately sleepy I am today. *yawn*

What you need

I totally ripped this off from my friend Erika. Here's how it works. Go to Google and type in "(your name) needs" then post the five funniest ones.

Dinah needs a job. I don't think she's pulling her weight around here. ...Dinah needs a little bathtub, too. I really couldn't agree more, as I am clearly screwing around on my blog. And also I stink.

Dinah needs to define her relationship with Huntress. Ah yes, the Birds of Prey, featuring Dinah the Black Canary.

Dinah needs to be spayed, but that only takes one day. Ouch!! This is what happens when people name pets after tertiary characters in Alice in Wonderland.

Dinah needs to be arrested. Eek! Although I'm fairly certain this particular Dinah can be found on Guiding Light.

Dinah needs some pointers in pirranahdom. Who doesn't?

What do you need?

Judgemental, yes

By the way, did I tell you that I was featured in a Baltimore Sun article about online dating? Long story about how it came to be, but you can read it here. (If you don't want to register with the Sun to read the story, try bugmenot.com for a pseudo-login.)

If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, the highlight of my appearance in the article is an excerpt of this obnoxious, super-tart statement I made to the reporter about how my dear friend Loren and I used to sit in the tiny office we shared at the crappy movie promotion agency, and judge potential dates based on whether they "gave good email."

When I was single, one of my friends & I used to read boys' emails to each other, and decide whether or not they were dateable simply by their writing ability. Boys who wrote like they talked were dateable; boys who wrote boring/stiff/formal emails were sketchy; gross spelling or punctuation errors were not tolerated ever. If he wrote like he talked, and he was funny? He WON. Judgemental, yes, but it was a solid correlation every single time.

Of course, this all predated the whole IM-speak phenomenon, but I can't imagine either of us even considering a boy who was too lazy to spell out entire words.

(Incidentally, mAc used to write me AMAZING emails. Now, of course, they're more like, "If you're stopping by the store on the way home, we need trash sacks.")

Mix of the Month: August/September

If my lack of mixing over the summer isn't a testament to how busy we've been this summer, I don't know what is. I love getting my hands on new music, discovering new bands, mixing fabulous playlists to suit whatever flight of fancy might strike me at the particular moment. But it's been awhile, y'all. Is it possible to get musically horny after a dry spell of no new music? Because I feel like I am CLIMBING THE WALLS.

In the meantime, here's a theme-y mix I put together as part of my monthly CD swap project. This month I hosted, and since I've been so slammed with work at the office and the house, that was my theme: Show Me What You're Workin' With (Or, if you sing along to Mystikal like I do, "Show me widja widja widja".)

Originally, I'd planned on throwing together a mix of everything we listened to while working on the house, which upon closer examination was 95% 80's buttrock and 5% BEP and Madonna. (Because nothing gets your roller going like Def Leppard's greatest hits.) But then I mentioned the theme to mAc.

Me: The theme is Work. So it could be music you listen to at the office, music that gets you through a rough day, music to motivate, or songs for when you're just, like, workin' it.
Him: You could also do bands that are occupations! Like Men at Work and the Police and Firehouse.
Me: Dude. You just said Firehouse.

Naturally, I had to take the idea and run with it. The result is below.

MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK


Opportunities/Pet Shop Boys
We've Only Just Begun/The Carpenters
Life in the Factory/Drive By Truckers
Trying to Make a Living/Firehouse
The Laws Have Changed/The New Pornographers
Shrine/The Dambuilders
Every Little Thing She Does/The Police
Punk Rock Girl/The Dead Milkmen
Spitting Games/Snow Patrol
Narc/Interpol
Nothin’ but a G Thang/Dr. Dre
It’s Raining Men/Weather Girls
His N Hers/I Am The World Trade Center
Down Under/Men at Work
Nothing Better/The Postal Service
I Know What Boys Like/The Waitresses
I Just Died in Your Arms/Cutting Crew
6 Underground/Sneaker Pimps
All These Things That I've Done/The Killers

LAME

This is just a little memo to the five of you who read my blog:

I love it when I get comments on my blog. I think it's unfortunate that Blogger makes it hard for people to post them without having to go through a whole rigmarole of signing up & signing in and all that jazz, but I sure do love getting them from the people who have gone through the trouble. I love it when mAc comments, when my friends comment, when strangers with blogs of their own comment, and I love it when my mom comments. (Hi mom!)

You know what I don't love? Spam comments. As in, "You have a great blog, come check out my Britney Spears/Halloween/mortgage refinancing/penis enhancement web site!" Yeah, dude? I DON'T THINK SO.

I'm offended and frustrated by this kind of spam on so many levels. A person's email and blog are personal tools, and the community that these tools bring together is personal as well. Spamming someone's email or blog is basically the same as telemarketers calling during dinner. It's extremely intrusive. So you put your number on a "Do Not Call" list and send their lame-ass emails automatically into your junk mail folder (which, by the way, I still have to check, since the exclusive settings on Hotmail make it so that if a friend emails me with a new email address, it goes straight to my junk mail until I grant it access to my inbox).

Not only are they intrusive, but here's the thing that really kills me, the marketer: this approach can't possibly be working. I mean, come on now, there has to be a better way. Not that I'm going to use my own creativity and resources to figure out how to help some jackass who can't get a real job sell more units of some bogus vitamin that'll make you last longer in the sack. I'm just saying that it strikes me as a waste of time, money and resources for an extremely small return. Oh, and also it's STUPID.

In short, spam is LAME. This you knew, but there's more: from now on, if you want to post comments on my blog, you have to go through an extra word verification step that Blogger has set up to prevent unwanted comments from getting on my blog. Which sucks to the power of LAME, but if it keeps the spam off my blog, it works for me. If you know of a better way to keep my blog's comments open to the public and spam-free, I'm all ears.

Any comments?

How 'bout that?

I always wondered if I really was an actual Democrat and, if so, what exactly were the qualities that made that true? "If only there were a handy internet test I could take to explain it to me," I'd think. Well, my wish has come true. I now know, without a doubt, that I am a Strong Democrat, thanks to this not-at-all-overly-simplified, totally accurate Internet test. My dot on the celebrity version of this chart falls right on Hillary Clinton's head, actually. How 'bout that?

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (23% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test