Douche Awards

There is a tan truck in front of my condo building that is parked in two spots. It doesn't appear to be an accident since he does this daily. And believe-you-me, it's not because he's worried about the condition of his prized position. The Adam Sandler "Piece of Shit Car" song comes to mind.
Anyway, when I finally get around to creating my Douche Award business cards, he is going to be the first person to receive it. But today's topic isn't about the tan truck, it's about those cards. If I were to add this guy's picture to my Douche Award cards, would that be copyright infringment?

Our Family

We lost Gracie a few months ago. She rapidly lost weight and struggled for three weeks with Liver Disease before we did what was humane and right. But it was not easy.
We suffered as she became a figment of our imagination - showing up for a fraction of a second in the bedroom or on her favorite chair.
Our favorite "Gracie Songs" were started and halted in mid-sentence.
Her much-loved toys lied untouched.
It was especially hard to see her in the face of her brother.The two of them looked so much alike that we would sometimes mistake him for her. He stood as a testimony to her in his appearance and the toys that couldn't be boxed up and donated. He was still with us. He still needed our affection. And he was hurting as much as we were.
We wanted to give Georgie time to mourn but as the weeks passed, it became more and more evident that he was miserable. He would roam the house at night, looking for his sister and making the most heart-wrenching meowing noises that a cat-parent could hear.
I started to toy with the idea of getting him a friend but Logic was steadfast in his belief that if we did it too soon it would be like replacing Gracie. I agreed but watched my remaining cat slide deeper and deeper into despair.
I tried to give Logic some space - I didn't want him to feel forced into the idea, but whenever the topic came up I was eager to express my concern for George. It wasn't until two weeks ago that Logic came around.
We were coming home from work and could hear George's guttural moaning from downstairs. As we opened the door, he made a run for it. Luckily, we live in a building without outside access to our unit so George only made it as far as the hallway, but it was heart-breaking to see our favorite little guy be so desperate to get away.
Two days later (I'd been preparing for this and had done quite a bit of research), we went to my favorite shelter and picked up a new friend for our George. It has taken a week of integration - following guidelines in many different books and from our Vet - but today we left the boys unsupervised and free to roam the entire house together.
Since picking up Mobey last week, George has been a little hesitant, which is to be expected. We have made every effort to show him that Mobey isn't replacing him and have tried to give him the space to cope with this new bundle of energy. But even in the rare moments of discontent when Mobey gets a little too close or moves a little too quickly, we haven't heard any guttural moaning or heart-wrenching meows. George is quickly warming up to his new friend.
And even though Logic had to stop himself mid-sentence while singing his favorite "Gracie Song" yesterday, we are now on the slow road to recovery.
Thanks Mobey.

Oscar Predictions, 2009

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire *

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler *

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married *
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger -The Dark Knight *
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler *

BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire *

Here are the rest of the nominees – but I can’t claim to have the slightest clue on who will win in these categories.


BEST FOREIGN FILM
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Class (France)
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Austria)
Waltz With Bashir (Israel)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Eric Roth and Robin Swicord - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button;
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt
Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
David Hare - The Reader
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Courtney Hunt - Frozen River
Mike Leigh - Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonagh - In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter - WALL-E
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E
BEST ART DIRECTION
Changeling
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Changeling
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
BEST SOUND MIXING
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted
BEST SOUND EDITING
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - Alexandre Desplat
Defiance - James Newton Howard
Milk - Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire - AR Rahman
WALL-E - Thomas Newman
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Down To Earth from WALL-E - Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire - AR Rahman and Gulzar
O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire - AR Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam
BEST COSTUME
Australia
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters At The End Of The World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water
BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT):
The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness - From The Balcony Of Room 306
BEST FILM EDITING
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
BEST MAKE-UP
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory - Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Auf Der Strecke (On the Line)
Manon On The Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

My Heart Swells With Pride

We are so fortunate to have such a loving, classy couple representing our country. What an amazing moment in history!

SNL Parodies - Will Farrell

New York Times Article by Timothy Egan

"
Timothy Egan - A New York Times Blog
January 7, 2009, 10:00 pm
Hibernation Blues

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — A few days into the new year, I stood outside the house and stared into the darkness of a deep winter night at this far western edge of America – defiant on a bone-chilling eve.

It felt lonely and hypnotic here on the Olympic Peninsula, where a jut of land the size of Massachusetts holds an immensity of snow, surrounded on three sides by unknowable depths of gunmetal-gray salt water.

At this northern location, at a latitude equal to Newfoundland, it’s hard not to feel the seasonal blues in all their smothering inevitability. Because there were no big-city lights on the horizon, and clouds veiled a thin moon, the darkness had a particularly strong grip.

I wanted to get inside by the fire, to drink something strong, to eat something sweet, to find a bear’s den of deep sleep. If you live in the north, in places where the sun is an unreliable companion for many months, you can’t escape the urge to hide and hoard in winter.

But this year, I’ve decided to fight lethargy with logic, to welcome the new president, the babies just born, to see something other than closure, dormancy and loss in the annual dark season.

It’s tough, and perhaps absurd, to battle biological imperative. I crave light, pruning high up in the trees around my house to open more patches of sky, keeping the strings of Christmas luminescence hanging into January’s bleakness, checking the daily sunset tables for those few jumps of the clock that will hold back the curtain of night until 4:35 p.m., instead of 4:33.

Friends suffer from that dreaded affliction, Seasonal Affective Disorder, the aptly named SAD. They park themselves next to south-facing windows by day, and full spectrum, 10,000 lux light boxes by night. They escape to the desert or the beach to the south. Still, for most of us, some variant of depression brought by the prevailing gloom of short days cannot be kept at bay.

Rage is another reaction. In Spokane, where six feet of snow has fallen in the last three weeks, a man was just arrested for shooting at a snow plow operator (no injuries, he missed), and mental health clinics say they are getting twice the number of calls they usually get.

“Man is the only animal that blushes,” Mark Twain famously said. “Or needs to.” We stand out in another way, as well: we can’t hibernate, unlike many of our fellow animals. Creatures that are capable of slowing their metabolic rates and lowering their body temperatures can close the whole shebang down for a few months, living off stored body reserves through the long winter.

Sad to say, we can’t generate heat from fat. The only way to get warmer during a season of sloth is to be active.

As a country, we’ve been through a long winter – endless, in some regards. Our departing president told us to shop in a time of war, to spend what we didn’t have, to act as if sacrifice was no longer a national character trait.

During that long winter, when everything was supposed to be sunshine, we bought homes we could not afford. We invested in funds that could not sustain themselves. We made hits out of television shows in which we watched other people lose weight – virtual virtue.

Our leaders fostered a certain amnesia about our history, trying to get us to forget that we don’t torture, that we don’t hold people without trial, that we were founded by rebels demanding basic human dignity.

That winter will soon be gone, leaving us with a terrible toll. The federal deficit is now projected to be $1.2 trillion this year, even without a stimulus package. New jobless numbers on Friday will make us shudder. It will take years to sort the mess and lift the gloom.

And then there is fresh war in a place of ancient hatreds. What else could winter bring?

But even with a reckoning at home and the killings overseas, I’ve chosen to embrace the few ticks of extra daylight coming on every day, in that Washington and this Washington. Action is generating heat, as it should, following the laws of nature for animals that can’t hibernate.

When the world is muffled, at its darkest, there lies possibility, if only for a sunless day.

* Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
* Privacy Policy
* NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

"

Dr. Baldasty

"I do not want you to accept these stereotypes [of race, gender, and sexuality]; rather, I want you to be as outraged about them as I am. By identifying them, we learn the nature of the problem we confront in changing the media. By identifying them, we can sensitize others to the problem as well."

The Bracket

That's right folks, it's time for another season of The Bachelor. And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I continue to watch. Every season pisses me off and every season ends in heartbreak but I manage to pick myself back up and get excited for the next go-around.
After the first episode, some friends and I choose who we think he's going to pick, but we don't stop there. No, we make a bracket and predict which moves he'll make every step of the way.
Here's what my list looks like:

WEEK TWO
Shannon
Megan
Naomi
Lauren
Nikki
Kari
Raquel
Stephanie
Melissa
Molly
Jillian
Erica

WEEK THREE
Megan
Naomi
Lauren
Nikki
Raquel
Stephanie
Melissa
Molly
Jillian

WEEK FOUR
Naomi
Lauren
Raquel
Stephanie
Melissa
Molly

WEEK FIVE
Naomi
Lauren
Stephanie
Melissa

WEEK SIX
Naomi
Stephanie
Melissa

WEEK SEVEN
Naomi
Melissa

WEEK EIGHT - The Final Rose
Melissa


Wish me luck! Oh yeah, and Jason too. ;)

Template Issues

Is this too difficult to read?
I was having so much fun with pimpmyprofile yesterday but can't decide if this is functional or not.

Ty Wenger for Redbook

A good marriage is a bit like a pet boa constrictor: either you feed it every day or bad things happen.