This is great news from the SPCA. Taylor Licare, a Texan youth, spent her summer operating lemonade stands. Last week, she presented the SPCA with a check for her earnings — $600.00.
Someone give this kid a few gold stars.
If you’d like to donate the proceeds from your lemonade stand, give the SPCA a shout.
And God bless the Texas heat for once!
(photo from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150262606808978&set=a.424963808977.210060.12876978977&type=1&theater)
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Lunch with an astronaut would have only been better in space. Continue reading
I would like to:
I really think there needs to be a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode for the Superbowl Halftime show. Who wants to help? Come on. I know a lot of you are Tom Servos in disguise.
“Wait…did Christina…no way!”
“I think they’re setting a new world record for most people on a football field doing the Running Man at once.”
“Slash is probably taking the Silkwood shower of a lifetime in all that cash he just made from his duet with Fergie.”
“It’s all downhill after Janet’s nippling, I guess.”
Russell even texted: “Fergie is pitchier than week one of of American Idol,” and, “You’d think they could have hired a decent sound guy if they had ten less dancing robots.”
For me, the real magic was more about the Black Eyed Peas’ wardrobe. That getup was like an Austrian techno Tron and Beyond the Thunderdome mash-up. I thought we buried all that with Tupac’s “California Love” video. Guess not.
by Russell...duh.
Regardless, Fergie is totally hot. I don’t care if she pees in her pants on stage. I don’t care if she likes to hit the bottle. I don’t care if she can’t sing. I don’t even care if she wears Tina Turner’s leftovers from 1984. That girl is completely-on-fire-superhero-good-looking, BUT watching her with Slash was painful on a variety of levels. I felt like I was being subjected to Glee and sports bar karaoke at the same time, except…with Slash, who seemed like he was trying hard not to acknowledge that he was sharing a stage with Fergie. She needs to write Christina Aguilera a thank-you note for running interference by (a) forgetting the words to the national anthem and (b) wearing that awful wig.
There is something kind of WOW about watching the Black Eyed Peas yell, “MAZEL TOV!” It makes my brain cringe. They must be surrounded by an army of yes men these days, kinda like when Madonna decided to play guitar and rap, but worse.
Luckily, for those of us who found the halftime show a little too Olympicky and Thunderdome-y, the BEPs staged a second performance. Sweet:
That really was the sound of a zillion people chanting, “FERGIE, FERGIE, FERGIE, FERGIE!!! ” Ah, the sound of our free democracy! All of that and Jim Carey, too. Dessert is served, ladies.
All joking aside, I was seriously offended by Michael Douglas’s intro. And, man, I like Michael Douglas. Superbowl filmmakers, how dare you exploit images of women’s suffrage and Martin Luther King, Jr., soundbites from landmark American speeches, the space shuttle, immigrants tipping their hats to the Statue of Liberty, Iwo Jima, 9/11, etc., and sum it all up with:
“And tonight here we are, united, to see their journey…”
Football is American, yes — in an apple pie way, not in a people-freaking-died-for-this way. The analogy is absurd and grossly inappropriate. The journey of two teams might be a fantastic, amazing story worthy of passing down amongst generations. However, the extreme sacrifice of America’s history-making radicals and patriots, scientists and blue collar workers, is NOT an appetizer to your chip-and-dip party. So, up yours with that one, Superbowl.
Harumph.
Thank god there were at least dancing robots. A good robot can always unruffle even the most furrowed of feathers. I don’t know what they were doing with the Peas, but I’m sure Tom Servo will be able to shed some light.
This morning’s world news: Egypt continues tripping all over itself in dangerous crisis. Over twenty people die in a Columbian coal mine explosion. An army of heavily gunned men in the Congo rape over 60 men, women, and children — again. Ryan Murphy of Glee (and Nip/Tuck, Running with Scissors, Popular) and Nathan Followill from Kings of Leon piss all over each other’s egos.
Get over yourselves. There's important stuff happening elsewhere.
(Oh, brother.)
Although it’s comically petty in contrast, I’m relieved to live in a part of the world where fighting words between titty babies would even be considered news.
In case you don’t know, Kings of Leon is a mediocre band popular with the generation behind mine. It’s that sort of safe, middle-of-the-road fare I don’t mind my kid loading onto her iPod. Outside of that, their music is real suburban mouth-breather fodder.
You probably most remember Kings of Leon from the bird poop incident last year in which the band walked off stage three songs into their set. It was “the venue’s fault,” they said. Fortunately for fans of both opening bands, neither The Postelles nor The Stills felt the need to make any sissy escapes. (Hey, even Justin Bieber kept going after he broke his arm onstage, for chrissakes.)
Moving on.
In the opposite corner…Ryan Murphy, creator of Glee!
As with Kings of Leon, I’ve tried to give Glee a fair shot. My mom and kid love this show, but I can’t get into it to save my life. It’s exactly like watching Barney, except instead of a purple dinosaur, there’s a high school Spanish teacher and an even bigger dosage of political correctness.
Enter controversy: Murphy wanted to use Kings of Leon’s song “Use Somebody,” a track I can’t seem to duck to save my life. Luckily, Kings refused to allow their music to be sung on Glee. Maybe the band realized that bringing the two together would’ve created some kind of black hole of banality? Whatever the case, it’s turned into a pretty hilarious media spectacle between the egos of a pot and a kettle, and I love what Brett Warner has to say about it all:
Dear Mr. Followill,
I’d like to think you’re above this, sir — but then again, you play the drums in the most disgustingly safe, inoffensive “rock” group of my generation.
Not to be outdone by:
Dear Mr. Murphy,
[...] Just remember — you gave Julian McMahon breast cancer, so enjoy the current creative success while it lasts.
(Read Warner’s entire witty editorial here, as well as his open letters to both offending parties.)
Now, let’s get back to Egypt. And Columbia. And the Congo.
Oh, it was pretty bad the first time around, but seeing this outfit again on poor two-year-old Mia from TLC’s “Toddler’s and Tiaras” this evening sealed the deal for me. I don’t ever need to see another metallic Gaultier cone bra for the duration of my life.
Yeah.
Two things:
Off to boil my eyeballs now.
Aw, c’mon.
Lil Wayne has nearly eleven million Facebook fans. Barack is beating him by two million. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who’s more of an astrophysicist than a rapper or a politician, has slightly more than twenty-six thousand Facebook “likers”. There’s a math problem in here somewhere, folks. Maybe the solution falls between logging off and rediscovering what matters in the tangible world.
On a similar note, if anybody’s got a “Many who like George Bush, Jr., like ‘the Superbowl Shuffle’ ” screencap, I need to have that printed on a t-shirt immediately.
Last night, my eleven year-old daughter frantically yelled, “Mom! MOM! Did you see what just happened on the MTV Video Music Awards?! MOOOOOOOM!!!”
In case you were also in the back of your house arranging bookshelves like I was, YouTube captured the moment (marker :42; it’s disabled here, but clicking the link enables you to open in a different window.):
Yeah, pretty unbelievable. I had to see it twice. Then I felt really awful for Taylor Swift — something I never thought I’d say after she tortured me inadvertently through my daughter’s stereo speakers for the past year.
The drama was a total letdown for tween Bella since the incident involved three of her favorite music peeps. At their impressionable ages, pre-teens haven’t mastered the complexities of media relationships and tend to get caught up in the moment, unable to separate the artist from his/her humanity. (At least, that’s what happened to me when I first saw the weirdness that was David Bowie shaking his butt on camera in unison with Mick Jagger for [shiver] “Dancing in the Street.” )
“Bella, I know you like Kanye’s music, and that’s still cool. He’s got bad manners is all. We just won’t invite him over for dinner.” I could tell my kid was just itching to punish Kanye by deleting his entire catalog on her iTunes library.
I won’t tell Bella about the other Kanye video shot moments later backstage as he was being kicked out of the award show, though:
Yes, that is correct. He was yelling for MTV to “give a black man a chance” because he has “the number one record right now.” My god, how many chances does Kanye need for MTV to give him? Isn’t it, like, his channel already? Give a black man a chance? Here’s a short list of black men who were never given chances by MTV, cough, cough, cough: Ed Lover, Fab Five Freddy, Prince, Michael Jackson, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Seal, and Kanye Friggin’ West. I said “short list” because I had to leave off about a million black men for the sake of word count. Kanye has apparently discovered a vacuum in time, and I wish he’d crawl out of that.
My kid is Kanye’s consumer. She’s also Taylor and Beyonce’s consumer. When Kanye hops on stage and flips out like some sort of black-music messiah, who does he think is listening to his point? People his age? Underground black artists the world has yet to discover because of evil MTV? Christ, no. His fan base is who’s observing Kanye’s crazy hour: kids with cable and internet access and iTunes allowance money. He’s not preaching to the ghetto, but he is alienating himself from the people who buy his music. His PR rep must have a continuous stream of panic attacks to go along with that immeasurable job security.
Taylor Swift is a pop artist. She’s the ultimate white girl. So what? As a parent, it’s nearly impossible to find modern music for your child to listen to that doesn’t include heavy sexual overtones and primitive language skills. Even with a Cosby Show rap artist like Kanye, I have to compromise my parental skepticism in exchange for giving my kid music she’s chosen for herself. It’s irritating to constantly tell your kid “no” when all the other children seem to be listening to straight out gangsta rap and songs about getting blowjobs at a club, drinking booze, and overt materialism — all using terms that make me feel like an antique, running to Urban Dictionary right and left. The culture needs to check itself. For that one reason alone, I appreciate sweet, little Taylor Swift.
Ugh. Kanye? Pleez.
He paused, sniffed the air. “Yeah, I do.”
“It seems to be coming from over here, but [sniff, sniff, sniff] I can’t find it.”
I think we had this conversation about five trillion times before finally solving the Great Cat Pee Mystery. After spending months crawling around like a bloodhound, nose to the carpet, on hands and knees, I hoped for some kind of urinary revelation, but…nothing. Each morning, Eddie the smug cat pee bandit hopped on my side of the bed ready for breakfast, half-gloating, “You’ll never figure it out, will you, mortal?“
Eddie underestimated my sleuthing abilities, though.
One morning, still kinda dreamy, I laid in bed listening to the birds and the chimes and my bedside rock fountain. Then He appeared. From past experience, I knew I could ignore his empty food dish notifications by pretending to still be asleep. Besides, I wasn’t quite yet ready to abandon those birds and the fountain and the rest of it just yet.
Kitty whiskers brushed the tip of my nose. Is she still asleep?
Sneaky paws backed quietly away from my side of the bed. Oh, she’s totally asleep. Alright, then.
Back to the birds and the chimes and the fountain…wait. Why did the fountain make that weird noise? I opened my eyes — slit-format mode, like a mummy right before it jumps to life and chokes its grave robbers. That’s when I saw the little bastard.
Perched on the edge of the fountain’s concrete basin, Eddie straddled the largest rocks and peed straight into the pool below. As if that wasn’t enough, when he finished contaminating my bedside zen-frastructure, Eduardo carefully maneuvered in a circular sidestep to the other side of the fountain where he cleaned his little cat pecker with the spigot.
Dismounting his cat bidet, Eddie paused to violently shake each paw — obviously irritated they’d gotten slightly wet. Then, unbelievably, he looked back toward me: Wait, did she wake up?
Crap, she’s awake.
I jumped out of bed, shocked and a little amazed.
An hour later, the rocks were soaking in a bleach concoction. I realized I’d not only solved the Great Cat Pee Mystery, but also the Great Absence of Urine Clumps in the Litter Pan Mystery, as well as the Great Lack of Evaporation in the Fountain Mystery. It was a three-for-one.
Looking back, I figure he was only trying to pee like a man – a French man in knickers, at that.
This concludes my tale, but remember: Beware of Cat Pee Fountain.
(Bom, bom, bom!)
