domesticated

There was a dusty cobweb hovering over my head as I watched Barbarians II in bed this morning. Yesterday, my roommates' room was open and I saw how nicely neat it was. I switched over to the Food Network and caught Nigella Bites. All of these things (even the barbarians) inspired me to clean my room. I threw out the garbage, riled up the dust, put away the clothes, vacuumed and Febreezed.

It's nice in there now, but I haven't spent much time there since this afternoon. It was the first noticeably nice day of the year. The temperature got somewhere in the 80s, and since we got to turn our clocks ahead one hour a couple weeks early this year, we were afforded an extra hour of warm day time. I really hate having to "spring forward." I'm a night-dweller by design and have never had much use for daylight hours. They're usually associated with working or going to school or running errands or other things I find tedious and unpleasant. Not like night time when I can drink beer or type blogs or go to rock shows.

After cleaning, I took a trip with my roommates to go food shopping. We went to Trader Joe's for sexy stuff (good meat, swank meals in a box, sea salt crystals in a nifty container with a built-in grinder, cold cuts), a local natural food store for tofu (them) and strong beer (me), a decidedly more ghetto supermarket for cheap canned stuff, frozen chimichangas and bulk pasta, and then Target for housewares and the like. I got a colander, AAA batteries, some to-go lunch Tupperware and aluminum foil. When we got home, we unpacked and I made myself grilled turkey breast and artichoke hearts. It was my first meal of the day, and I used too much salt.

My roommates told me about this show they were going to at a cafe around the corner, so I decided to tag along. There were three singer/songwriters playing acoustic and a band that rocked out a bit more. One female performer had an amazing voice that seemed to completely mesmerize the crowd, and the frontman of the band turned out to be an intern at my office who usually plays drums in other people's bands. He played covers of '50s/'60s pop and rock songs and did a version of "Dock of the Bay" with an older black gentleman who had a really soulful voice. A lot of fun for a Sunday night, made better by the pints of Redhook ESB.

When we got back home, it was more beer, snacking from all the food we'd bought and the Food Network. While watching Bobby Flay get in a meat loaf battle, the conversation turned to Ms. Lawson; my roommate heard she had some backlash from feminists regarding her image as a "domestic goddess." I'm all for ambitious, career-driven women. I don't think women belong in the kitchen, but I don't like the view that somehow domestic work is menial. Cooking a meal for myself or others is a hell of a lot more fulfilling than anything I accomplish at my job. Maybe I just need another job. I don't know, but Nigella's got a killer rack.



If you're wondering why things look different around here, it's because I re-did the layout. And I even made that swanky header graphic all by myself in Photoshop. It took me about two hours. And yeah, I know it's super basic looking, but that shit was hard so fuck off. I also resurrected the old "<" icons created by Strange Things' domestic bombshell/makeover artist R. who also did a lot of work on my last Magritte look and never got the credit she deserved because I'm a thoughtless person and a terrible friend who only cares about himself.

led astray

Now that LOST--which kicked major ass this week--has moved to 10pm, my entire TV-watching schedule is out of whack. I'm left to aimless surfing during the 9 o'clock hour and that has opened my eyes to a whole new world of bad television programs. Tonight, my misguided prime time idleness found me wandering to the "new" CW and its litany of schmaltzy reality programming; I was lucky enough to catch the last half-hour of The Pussy Cat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, which I guess normally airs on Tuesdays.

Since the Pussy Cat Doll brand has many forms, I wondered what exactly this new Doll would be used for. Would she be a sexy croupier at the Caeser's Palace Casino in Los Vegas? Would she be one of the dancing ladies at some Los Angeles nightclub? Or would her fate lie as window dressing/underling for ALPHA DOLL Nicole Scherzinger in the platinum-selling manufactured pop group? Clever detective work (i.e. checking out the official Web site) revealed that it is to be the latter, though I'm not sure if that means they kicked one of the other automatons out or not. Regardless, the show is the brainchild of Ken Mok, who was the genius who gave birth to America's Next Top Model, which also features scantily clad women saying mean things about one another, so it just had to be good.

And it was! By the time I tuned in, it appeared as half the Dolls-in-training were afflicted by some vigorous stomach ailment that caused the sick to vomit profusely. However, as the 18 hopefuls were set to be whittled down to nine, mere illness would not be seen as an excuse for poor performance. This shit is serious, yo. You want to be a Pussy Cat Doll. No. Maybe you didn't hear me. Do you REALLY want to be a Pussy Cat Doll?! Then get up on that stage and shake that thang girl. We don't want no pretenders here.

The show wasn't heartless though. As the rag tag group of nervous, vomiting, partially undressed females made it to the stage, they were met by their Angel of Mercy, none other than cheeseball singer-turned-plain ol' cheeseball Mark McGrath, of Sugar Ray "fame." He was greeted with giggles and melodious hellos from the girls. He regarded them kindly and reminded them of the importance of this audition. There would be cuts, and those cuts would be final. He acknowledged that some of them were ill. He's a compassionate man. "There's a doctor on-hand." Cut to doctor. "And medicine." Cut to IVs and various medical implements. "Now go get 'em." I'm paraphrasing. Then McGrath introduced ALPHA DOLL Scherzinger, who told the girls to follow their hearts and be like the mighty eagle, soaring in the sky, and never give up. Never. And she sat and joined the judges.

The girls danced and performed songs by the Pussy Cat Dolls. They were broken up into three teams of six. Finally, it was sadly time to eliminate half the contestants. It was your usual reality show elimination fare: worry, elation, sadness and relief--all jazzed up with clever editing. But then the sassy, husky-voiced Sisely was called to the fore and the emotions got very, very real. The judges praised her with the kind of tempered reassurances you'd expect, but ALPHA DOLL Scherzinger would have nothing of it.

"I love your essence," she said. "I love your rawness."

And then, finally, "I love you."

I guess I finally found something to watch on Tuesday nights.

canned frosting + face = $$$

As awesome as The Daily Show is, Jon Stewart's greatest gift to pop culture is perhaps Stephen Colbert.

This clip had me laughing so hard I nearly threw up.

twists and turns

Ever since I found the love of my life in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, you can pretty much put that word on anything and I'll want it. I love that word. I like how it's got a "y" in it that you don't really pronounce. It makes the whole thing more mythical and mysterious. I even had this board game called Labyrinth where you had to navigate this marble through a wooden maze. There were holes in the board and it was nearly impossible. I never made it to the end.

Last night I saw Pan's Labyrinth, and it was pretty much more awesome than everyone says it is. It's a mix of fantasy and harsh reality (mostly harsh reality), and if you have a problem going to a movie and having to read subtitles, you should really get over it.

I was pretty much hooked from the first shot, and that wasn't the whiskey's work either. Beforehand, my friend and I went to this bar across the street called, fittingly enough, Last Call, where we got our own dose of harsh reality. It's pretty much the final resting place for this town's many lost, drunken souls. Everyone was chatty. As soon as we walked in, everyone had a story to tell and they were eager to share it, even though we were complete strangers. I bumped into another guy from Staten Island who said he ended up here when he took "a wrong turn on the freeway." He would turn and speak with me, occasionally looking up from the lottery scratch-off games he and his girlfriend were playing. Later, this other guy rambled about how fun that particular bar was the night before. He mumbled something about a band and women, and how he was supposed to be jamming at someone's house right now. I realized it was 8:30 and wondered how everyone was already so wasted.

The final act was a dude with a fresh knot in his forehead. He talked to us about the ease of getting chicks downtown, which is easy for everyone but me apparently. I mentioned something about lines, meaning lines of people, and he instantly took it to mean lines of drugs. He told us that he'd been clean for a while, but just did a few lines of crystal meth the night before. He said he knew what his triggers were, like he couldn't be around straws. Then he confided that his first baby was due in 10 days, and he'd heard about it while firefighting. He told us that he didn't want to be a father, but was going to make good on it. When the mother called him to tell her she was pregnant, he told her that he wanted her to keep the baby. "I'm a Christian," he said. "I don't believe in abortion." It's always unsettling when you're face to face with a stereotype.