i heard the sharks have come back to martha's vineyard

a) that shark just roared like a goddamned lion
b) exploding shark!

MY MIND. BLOWN.

"that girl" is one of...THOSE girls

What is the most life-changing book you've ever read?

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Rand said things I’d never heard before. For a young girl who had just spent 12 years at Marymount here I was reading that there was no such thing as original sin! Wow. Rand also said something I have never forgotten: “It’s not the strong people of the world who will kill you. It’s the weak ones.”
By Marlo Thomas on 05/09/2008 9:43 am

seriously? what. the. fuck? more like "free to be me and you go fuck yourself already" amiright?


fyi, this is marlo thomas, and she is going to crush you, just btw

a touch of sadness on a friday

Alex: In what will be his first job since the blockbuster "Iron Man," Robert Downey Jr. is set to star in "Sherlock Holmes," the drama that Guy Ritchie will direct for Warner Bros.
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
me: ugh guy ritchie
Alex: i know
me: he's fucking TERRIBLE
he still gets work?
Alex: robert downie jr as sherlock holmes = a++++++++
but then
guy richie ;_;
me: yeah
it's like [REDACTED] hitting on some hot chick in a bar only to find out it is a transvestite
Alex: lolol
me: that is what that description is, to me. my personal transvestite

the greatest actor of our generation

<3 <3 <3 <3

every second of the night, i live another life

i had a dream last saturday night (i went to bed at like 4 am, so maybe i should say morning) that we were all in jail. it turns out that, in dreamland, jon williams had become a cocaine kingpin. the details were sketchy to me as to what exactly the rest of us did to get involved with this--were we his buyers? were we helping him run drugs? were we dealing?--but when the fuzz caught up with jon, he ratted us all out. it was basically everyone: alex, laurel, theresa, ross, bill, richard, somehow matos, so on and so forth. so, 25th hour-style, everyone decided to go to a nightclub and get really smashed on coke and booze prior to turning ourselves in at midnight to the jailers. amazingly, i was the voice of reason in all of this, trying to convince people that perhaps showing up high and drunk for our drug-related sentencing was not a great idea considering our predicament, but no one else agreed.

i'm thinking of this because alex just posted this thing about work dreams, and i remember very clearly that one of his arguments for partying it up was that "denton will come bail [him] out anyway" (apparently the rest of us could rot in hell for all dream alex cared).

why am i having dreams referencing someone else's work? why did i have this dream at all? in what world would jon have been able to become a drug lord? also, why were we all going to the same jail? i would've preferred to go to sexy ladies prison and had sexy lady time with my sexy lady friends, thank you very much.

anderson cougar

seriously, this cat looks like anderson cooper. this kitten is not my boo!

no olympics in nazi germany part ii

so apparently berlin has installed some kind of wacky gps-driven BERLIN WALL exhibit along the site of the former symbol for basically the entire cold war and a whole lot of awful shit for the people on the eastern side of it. the reason: tourists kept coming to berlin and asking where the hell the famous wall is.

things i would not ask when visiting berlin: "where is the wall?" because, unlike the rest of the western world apparently, i remember that it was torn down. are these people thinking of china?

what the fuck is wrong with everyone?

patriotism fail

i blame keith and his dog obsession for this.

"the fall hazzard"

i've decided to spend the last half-hourish of my day today not working, but rather fucking around with the tv show name mash-up generator whatever what a catchy name they've got here. here are the funniest. post your funniest in the comments! let's all make america a little less productive (see post below).

teenage mutant ninja guy
the king of criminal intent (this is actually a movie starring christopher walken)
the muppet dad
dance fatman
fantasy strokes (ok, so this one isn't a tv show per se)
scarecrow and people
married...with bear
diagnosis: comfort
my so-called men
dukes of miami
i dream of consequences (me too, my friend. me too)
everybody loves stooges
mama's men
csi: boss?
three's couple (i did that one time and it really, really wasn't what it was cracked up to be)
my mother the beaver
what i like about company
M*A*S*H you
doogie howser, hazzard
mystery science rider (hopefully starring nic cage and sam elliot)
the king of standing
return of the man from flipper
suddenly quest
diagnosis: ghost
space hulk (!!!!!!!! seriously, i would watch space hulk)
planet of the fatman (i have watched this, on discovery health)
the price is fire
judging theater
battlestar street
wheel of no deal
i love beaver
suddenly house
amazing incredible! (this is already on spike tv's "duty free television" segment)
you bet your anatomy
touched by house

BONUS FACT: i shit you not, one of the times i hit the "mash up" button it simply presented me with "family guy." commentary or coincidence? you be the judge!

you know, i went to public school too.

i know a great bar that is friendly to your children! it's called your house! stay there!

time out kids provides the world with a handy list of bars to diligently avoid whenever possible.

UPDATE: related news from the imdb forums!

everybody wang chung tonight

i need a new job.

material hurl

when i saw this image out of the corner of my eye while packing, i said out loud to alex, that it was the worst post headline i've seen in ages. "justify my glove"! god, honestly?

so, it comes to no surprise to me that it did not come from the professional punsters at the post that came up with the other day's "genius" "andy express" on the back page (honestly for everyone -- what does that even mean? is it a pun on pony express? is pettite delivering mail?), but rather from fucking deadspin.

seriously, there is not another site in the gawker media empire -- not jezebel, not io9, not jalopnik, not fleshbot -- that i would rather read less than deadspin.

"justify my glove"! justify my go fuck yourself! justify the fact that having a penis gets you a sports writer job while i was denied one! aggggh.

(ps madonna, a-rod? please tell me this is lies.)

why do i continue to hang out with you?

My Recent Ratings, originally uploaded by WIZARDISHUNGRY.

jon, your taste is smackable.

this would be funny except there are probably people who have sex with pasta, aren't there?

i'm glad it has a yelp page, just in case i want to eat there next time i'm in la!

"the art of war" really does come in handy during important WoW message board beefs

so, maura linked to this lifehacker-commenter-voted list of 25 books that changed their lives. granted, she did specifically use the words "awful" and "geeks" in her post linking to it but i guess i just wasn't really properly prepared for what was going to be on the other side. because, wow. i am starting to wonder if i actually understand the meaning of something changing my life, because i'm not actually sure how the hobbit or dune could've possibly changed the way any person ever looked at the actual world they lived in. excerpts from list:

* ayn rand: i'm not going to even acknowledge this. you are all out of junior high, right? maybe?
* the stranger (though i'm guessing at least half of the voters called it l'etranger)/george orwell's "collected works" (which is exactly 2 things, to lifehacker's editors): you are a very unique holden caufield.
* the hobbit and it's related gaiety:
* dune: "after years of eating bland meat-and-potatoes white folks food, i now use spices more liberally!"
* harry potter: "after years of jerking off to adult actresses who are actually naked, i now jerk off to emma watson photoshops!"

my recommendation for a life-changing book, btw, is the complete adventures of curious george.

I SAID MAAAYYYBEEEE YOU'RE GONNA BE THE ONE THAT SAAAVES MEEEE

one time, i came out of life cafe (bushwick edition) and was sitting outside smoking with alex after brunch and a group of three teenage gangstas walked by loudly singing "wonderwall." like, every word of it. verses and all that! i don't even remember all that. apparently they were ahead of the curve!

what does geir hongro think?

(via fek.tumblr.com

real talk with ned raggett

how is babby formed?


should we get drugs? (it's pride week) (no homo)


can i get your sister jaime's e-mail?"


why does kevin shields say "we want hen fap" in "what you want"?

best restaurant trip ever

i just wanted to publicly thank alex blagg for being the first person to actually send drinks to our table across a restaurant. i thought that only happened in movies but hey! dreams do come true. making the poor, confused waitress tell us that the beers were from "a mr. keith gessen" was a priceless touch. a++++ would've sent a drink back from "ms. julia allison" but you were on your way out.

i know alex already thanked you but seriously that was the most awesome thing a person could've ever done. short of, like, helping us unpack when we move (hint hint everyone else).

an insomniac's missive to the writing community

there's very few things i regret in my life, despite having many, many regrettable occurrances. i have no idea how to spell occurrances -- some writer, huh? the main thing i regret is never taking advantage of the offers i received when i was very young. i could've cowritten an (admittedly destined to be terrible urban outfitters kind of thing) book. i could've worked for the voice. i could've written for many publications, actually -- i was being courted. and i never did it. why? self confidence. greed. you make more money being a desk jockey. i got a lot of attention being a desk jockey, back then (real estate firms only hire ladies that can attract clients), but it was attention in a way that had limited pressure. you know? a mistake, avoiding real pressure.

so i guess that is why people like julia allison (who cannot write) and emily gould (who is a gifted writer) annoy me. emily more so than julia, even though julia's insipid columns are in my magazine and my webpage every week. because emily is talented. she has a gift for painting a picture.

but here's the thing. remember the old writer's adage, write what you know? do you guys--the emilys, the julias, the jakobs, the keiths, the me, the everyone honestly--know what you do not know? yourselves.

you do not know yourself. you possibly can never know yourself. so write what you know. book reviews, movie reviews, thinly veiled fiction, funny stories of the subway life---but stop writing about yourself. you gotta be about 70 until you actually know yourself, for real, and even then, my handful of years working in a nursing home tells me you might not even know. write what you know. write what you know right NOW.

you have no reason to trust me. i'm an anonymous person, signing checks with names that are not mine. but seriously, i'm asking everyone to trust me. you know your city. you know your friends. you know fashion, maybe? you know other books. you know your parents. you know booze. write about what you know.

when you're 70, and you have actually learned how to know yourself, THEN write about you. at that point, you'll be old enough that certainly something interesting has happened. until then, please stop trying. it's actually not worth your time. even gifted writers will be torn apart -- and it is because you are ignoring the golden rule of writing what you know, what actually speaks to you.

and now i drain a kitty's infected ear again. glamorous.