Dear Rhett Miller,

You ruined my favorite song. RUINED IT. Singular Girl was my favorite song of 2001, a song I loved so much that I bought a tape player to play the mix tape I had it on(since you cruelly only released it on the Special Edition of Satellite Rides). Your solo version is LAME! Way too polished and LAME! I'll never forgive you for this. Not even the graciousness you displayed when I stalked you down State Street to QDoba the night you opened for Tori Amos is enough to make up for this.

It's like Syriana, but with your ex-boyfriend, and no explosions

There's nothing like a call from the State Department to liven up your life. More details(if they're allowed) after the meeting.

I feel compelled to speak briefly about this whole South Dakota fiasco. The link includes what I think my brilliant and rightly outraged friends keep overlooking-it's not about South Dakota. This may be an obvious point, and I am probably several miles behind everyone else, but the scariest part of this is candor the bill's supporters display. I quote:

Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

They were waiting for this. They're arguing internally about whether they should have waited for Stevens to retire to push the bill through. The national movement had a strategy session and decided that South Dakota was the easiest place to make this play and then got to work. It's not like they had much to dismantle either; the only abortion clinic is in Sioux Falls, and South Dakota's Planned Parenthood system is so non-existent it's lumped in with North Dakota and Minnesota(home to some truly inspiring abortion doctors).

The ACLU, NOW, NARAL, and all of us knew this was coming. We all knew it was coming. Why act so surprised? We probably could have stopped it if we'd been paying attention.

Cold Snap, Hot Findings

It's about 10 below zero at the moment, and the wind chill takes it down another 20 or 25 degrees, so I'm definitely not leaving the house. I have hit upon the way to make the time indoors bearable: Saved By the Bell is downloadable from iTunes. Amazing.

Why I Won't Let the Dream Die

I know he lost-big time-, and the resemblance isn't perfect(and the photos are blurry), but this is really why I find myself so enamored of Johnny Weir. I'm sure Johnny would enjoy riding Falcor in all of his soft, sparkling, undulating beauty.

Will the next release be "The Crimson Album?"

I spent all this time reading about men's figure skating and managed to miss this! How could I have been so blind?

Yay

Congratulations to my favorite science geek, Sara, who was just accepted into UC-Davis' Entomology PhD program. She's busy playing in Senegal at the moment, but it's nice to know that when she gets back she's headed someplace that deserves her brilliance.

The Ice Queen

Liliana can attest that I told her hours ago about my newfound love for men's figure skater and total diva extraordinaire Johnny Weir. However, I procrastinated on posting and now those bitches at Gawker have taken all the fun out of it.

I spent all morning loving this kid. They're right; who DOESN'T love a kid who would walk up to a reporter and shout, "It was a scarf, not a boa. CHINCHILLA, not feathers!"? And now it's practically ruined. Except that the video is great. That bit about Republicans? Yeah, they should be afraid. I hope he appeals to all the twinkletoes little boys in Mississippi.

He probably doesn't look like Kevin Bacon

There's a Level 3 Sex Offender in my neighborhood. If your Sex Offender classifications are rusty, that's the group most likely to re-offend. There's a Community Notification Meeting tomorrow night. I don't know if I should go or not-one the one hand, it could be fun to see people get riled up, but on the other, if he's a child molester then it's probably a waste of a good day's indignation.

Ethan tells me our neighborhood has the highest density of sex offenders in Minneapolis(and in the country, but I'm skeptical of that claim).

Happy Valentine's Day!

About Last Night

It seemed like a good idea to go out with a couple of girlfriends last night. Ethan had, on his own, asked a classmate of his to go drinking with him and enlisted another classmate to keep things from being, you know, too gay. Our separate, parallel drinking excursions led to being hit on by people not each other for the first time in many, many months. The haul was less than impressive, as I was hit on by a bad knockoff of last year's hipster. He said his band's influences were people like STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN. In the "Band Poses" section of the photo gallery here he's the dude on the far right in the top right photo. He was wearing that shirt too. And cowboy boots.

He tried to commiserate with me about how difficult it is to be an artist and sustain relationships, and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend because he was dedicating too much time to his music. He didn't even offer to buy a drink. That was what the kinesiology majors were for.

I'm still hung over. It's embarrassing, but lucky that I don't have to work.

Word of the Day

Nympholepsy: Epilepsy which is brought on by nymphs.

Thanks, sis, for the heads up on that.

I dreamt last night that Al Franken kicked me out of a meeting with all of my friends and told me to be a "Marshall Field's brand cheerleader." I don't know if I'm going to work today. Or leaving the house in the forseeable future.

Hmmm

I found this earlier, and I anxiously await more responses. Harrassing right-wing nutjobs is always a good thing, and the 7 stipulations about the specific killing of the kitten are brilliant.

Also, some actors from California have responded to the fairly funny SNL Narnia rap video. Those Magnolia cupcakes are good, but the boys from L.A. painted their own pottery, and one of them was the hottest Republican ever to be on the West Wing(sorry Ainsley), so my vote goes to "Color Me Mine."

Pervy 90s Flashback

There must be something in the air lately, because I was just thinking the other day about the television show Parker Lewis Can't Lose. I thought, "what ever happened to those guys?" Funny that I should find out about Parker Lewis himself, Corin Nemec, on the Celebrity Bulge Blog. Suddenly my innocuous memories of Parker's color block shirts, Ferris Bueller rip-off plots and his Zack Morris for single camera schtick gets a whole lot innocent.

I actually won tickets to see MC Hammer's 2 Legit 2 Quit tour from my local Fox affiliate thanks to Parker Lewis Can't Lose. I mailed in the correct answer to a show related question, and they drew my name. Let me tell you, winning tickets to MC Hammer was about the greatest thing my 10 year old brain could imagine. The thing I remember most about the show(besides the terrible acoustics), was that Jodeci was awfully sexually explicit, and that I was sad that Boys II Men had to cancel their opening slot.

My mom went with me(naturally), and we caravanned from McFarland to the Dane County Colleseum(site of the Midwest Dairy Expo and the Dane County Fair) with some kids I was in school with, including the boy I had a HUGE crush on at the time. Joey was a total delinquent, a boy who always wore his baseball cap slightly askew, and who always had the coolest Starter gear(leave me alone, it was 1992). However, my social awkwardness, coupled with my inability to dress myself, led to Joey and his friends basically ignoring me for the whole night while I tried to delude myself into thinking I was the kind of cool kid who "goes to shows and stuff," and also the kind of cool kid who "has friends who talk to her in public."

I think Joey is in prison now. Either that or he knocked up an 18 year old. It's one or the other with most of the "I was a badass at 10" crowd.

CORRECTION: Moje sestra would like me to adjust the record to show that the TWO of us answered the question together, but because I was older and more mature, I was chosen to go. Also, the question we answered was, "Who does the billboard send a message to?" and the answer was, "Mikey."

Some Advice

A wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.

I think it really speaks for itself.

1-800-Dildo

In the absence of my boyfriend, I've been buying a lot of "women's" magazines. Glamour, Marie Claire, US Weekly and the like(not so much on the Cosmo-with all apologies to Ethan's ex, and awesome writer, Jess-the fashion is too obvious, the lit-porn a pale competitor with BUST's one-handed read, and the sex tips are totally useless), and tonight I finally found the Holy Grail of women's magazine tidbits: Teledildonics. The website that comes up first is clearly just for men, but imagine it-long distance remote control vibrators. I knew there was a reason webcams and the like seemed so lame-they are! We must make this interactive internet sex technology a hit. You'll never have to worry about another weird charge on the credit card from the man's hotel bill from that business trip-you can just use the free wireless connection!

Porn

Before I get to the XXX, I just want to say Happy Anniversary to Liliana, Lauren, Christine, Eric, Fatin, Mark, and Amanda. January 11, 2005 was our first time in theNation conference room, and it seems like much longer than a year ago. You're all doing far cooler things than I am at the moment.

Also, the real work is back on, but freelance, so now I officially join the ranks of people who can say, "I'm a salesgirl/waitress/stripper at the moment, but I'm really a writer/actress/dancer." At least I have something lined up that will pay a decent wage.

And now, the pornography.

Thank you, New York Times, for leaving out all the wacky hijinks from the AVN Awards. If nothing else, this article should win an award for stating the obvious: Porn stars seem weird when they're not fucking onscreen. Also, porn awards have different criteria than the Academy. As a side note, Jenna Jameson has had work done recently that does not make her look hotter. I would have thought that someone who no longer makes new movies could stop with the collagen, but I guess I really don't understand that aspect of the adult film industry.

In celebrity sex-tape news, Colin Farrell's sex video is finally available online. No, I haven't downloaded it(like I'm going to wait 8 hours to get it-ha!), but I'm curious. It appears to have been made pre-Miami Vice bloat, so it appears to be the rare porn experience featuring a hot girl AND a hot guy. Also, it gives normal girls like me the chance to experience sex with an incredibly sexy, SUBERBLY sleazy guy without all that "which antibiotics do I need now" anxiety he would inspire in real life.

Yes, I love porn. Sometimes I ask myself, "What Would Nina Hartley Do?"(Incidentally, she's one of the most inspiring pro-sex feminists I've encountered. She has an interview in Bust's Guide to the New Girl Order that is priceless.) You have a problem with that?

Sister speak

Some new gems:

On the recent wedding of a high school friend(Class of 2002): There were more newborns at the reception than singles.

On learning Brandon Flowers' marital status and religious affiliation through Wikipedia: "Wiki" is the new "Google," bitch. Now tell me about the Hansons!

Bad Suspense Movies

I'm less excited about going to work today than usual because of a recent development at the store: I have a stalker. He's not a "leave dead flowers and menacing notes" stalker(at least not yet), but he is a "appears from out of nowhere at the exact moment my coworkers are unable to rescue me" kind of character. There should be a soundtrack that includes a burst of strings, like in horror movies. It is partly my fault too; I thought he was gay the first time I spoke to him. He just keeps showing up, his big eyes trained on me in a "what kind of lampshade would you make" stare, and tries to get me to go out with him. I'd hoped he was gone for good after a laughfest at his expense(pre-New York visit) was interrupted by his sudden reappearance-directly behind me. Offense and embarrassment weren't enough to keep him away, so I finally asked my manager for help on Friday night.

I'll probably never get to see the most cinematic moment in this entire saga: he's been "trespassed" from the store, so the next time he comes in, whether it's to buy some socks or freak me out, he'll be arrested by security. There's a part of me(a big part) that wants to see him one more time so I can watch him get hauled away against his will, maybe shouting a little bit. A few cab rides home make for a lousy denouement.

It also figures that this would all happen while Ethan is off on his interminable East Coast visit. I get to be freaked out and ALONE on top of it. Thanks a lot...

News with an entourage

I saw the news that Ted Koppel was moving to the Discovery Channel yesterday, but I smiled when I read in the Times that he's bringing NINE of his former Nightline staffers with him. As if Koppel's dedication to in depth reporting weren't clear from his planned three hour specials, this did it for me:

He said he had not even talked with any of the cable news networks about his plans after ABC. Repeating his previous description of those channels as being "in a desperate race to be first with the obvious" and tending to pay greater attention to "what is recent" rather than "what is important," Mr. Koppel said his kind of news programming would be out of place there.

Even Jon Stewart doesn't sound that biting anymore.

Ted Koppel, you're my new favorite cable news man.