TOTC is always on the list, at least for 27.

more about "Hamptons Dining: Medieval Crowd Contr…", posted with vodpod

There goes the neighborhood…

Cause this needs to be shared. John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Jack Black and Neil Patrick Harris all in the same musical production? Yes please!!

more about ""Prop 8 – The Musical" starring Jack …", posted with vodpod

- suse

I’ll have Equal with my coffee, Mr. Hart

A few days ago I watched 9-to-5 with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, the always incredible Lily Tomlin, and lots of big hair.  Its a movie about getting back at the boss with some beer, pot and friendship thrown in, too.

See LOTS of big hair

Oh, and Colin Higgins who wrote Harold and Maude also wrote this one, so that’s a good precedent. I really did enjoy the movie. Fonda actually plays an endearing character in a non-annoying way, Parton feels like she’s just being herself (I heart Parton, so ‘being herself’ means good in my book), and Tomlin, well, she brings the awesomeness. But what I found interesting was at the end of the movie when the ladies take control of the office and start implementing their changes. This is the climax of the movie and some of the policies that you see go over their proverbial desk are job sharing/part-time work policies, providing a daycare center for children of employees and giving equal pay to all employees doing the same job (meaning all the ladies be getting raises). Let’s start the discussion with that last one…

Get Out of Here America

So Good Morning America is doing a whistle stop tour where they’re visiting all 50 states and commenting on the state of the nation or whatever. Anyway, they stopped in the upstate NY town where my parents grew up and where I still have family – Rome, NY. Here is part of the video (uh, I guess wordpress doesn’t let you post videos from abcnews. ugh):

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5812243

Anyway, even though I think everything they said is true (it is kind of a shithole, in all honesty), residents are understandably kind of pissed because it showed them in such a negative and white-trash-ish light.  My mom emailed me a letter that the Chairman of the Board of the Rome Chamber of Commerce (whom my grandmother taught when he was in kindergarten, fyi!) wrote to the show:

Almost as awesome as Derelict

I admit to liking fashion. Yes, even high fashion couture unwearable stuff. But not because I ever think I’d like to buy most of it or want to fill my closet with Louis Vuitton bags (I take that back, if I could get the Murakami Louis Vuitton bags (that actually have Murakami’s pictures/designs on them, not just the Cherry Line or the Multicolore line) and fill my closet, I might). I am more intrigued with the creativity and what some of those designers are able to come up with. Hence favorite challenges from Project Runway tend to be the Gristede’s-esque ones. But in the midst of all this fashion loving there are always the ridiculously bad decisions. And this months winners are the editors of Vogue India!

Somehow, Vogue India editors thought that a fashion spread using every day regular citizens to model accessories was a good idea. Now, on the base of it, this doesn’t seem so bad. We like real people in fashion spreads. But as Jossip pointed out: we usually reserve our “thanks for not using anorexic models” applause for those who don’t substitute them with “skinny because of malnourishment” persons. And on top of that you then realize that the majority of the Indian population subsists on just over $1 a day and there isn’t a single item in the spread that is under $100. Meaning that to actually own any of the items in the fashion spread the people pictured would have to save months to years to actually purchase any of them.

Just another day in India with our Burberry umbrella!

Yes, India does have a burgeoning middle class. Yes, Vogue is doing some branding. Yes, there are numbers of people in India that can afford these items. I get capitalism. But why not use ‘real’ Indians from this middle class instead of individuals who appear to be from a much more working class background. I’m not even going to go into stereotypes and appropriation here (the magazine may be Indian, but the products aren’t).

But I guess another reason I don’t actually buy ‘high fashion’ is that I just don’t understand why if you have enough money to actually purchase such items you would when there are about a bajillion other things that the money could go to and actually do some good. Sigh.

- suse

P.S. Watched the Palin speech last night. Don’t remember which reporter it was, but she was talking to delegates and remarked about how women at the convention and across the nation seemed to be having a visceral reaction (meant in a positive way) to Sarah Palin’s speech. I know I can be counted in that category, as long as barfiness is a visceral reaction.

girls kissing girls kissing girls

Right now in Santa Barbara the ‘it’ song that is currently being played on repeat here is “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry. She apparently used to live in Santa Barbara and appears to be the darling of the music people here. Though I don’t give much props to these ‘music people’ at anytime. I’m not sure what the rest of the world is doing, but it seems like there is no other new music out there, just her’s. Yay for the bubble I live in.

One might think this song could possibly be some sort of girl power experience, but really, in my opinion, it is quite a marketing ploy. This is a song written for the males of the world. It isn’t about a girl expressing her sexuality, sorry, it is about her getting drunk and making out with some girl she doesn’t know. The reason you know it is expressly written to attract the male population are the lines ‘I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it’ and ‘ It’s not what, good girls do/Not how they should behave’. Now the males listening (and now reading) think, ‘No, I don’t mind, I encourage’. And I’m sorry, good girls kiss other girls, too. Also, after hearing the song, it becomes very likely those of the male persuasion will peruse the internet to find the video. Which, by the way, is horrible.

Stealing a suggestion from Glitterati Gossip, check out Jill Sobule’s song of the of the same title for a much more emotional and realistic song. And frankly, Sobule has ridiculously better lyrics for all her songs.

But good job for Katy Perry’s marketing people, yay capitalism!

- suse

An excuse to eat at McDonald’s – and not feel guilty? Sort of.

Insane fundamentalist Christians don’t understand how capitalism functions

So apparently McDonald’s sponsored last year’s SF Gay Pride parade, and the AFA is all up in arms about it and are encouraging their members to boycott all McDonald’s chains. Why they don’t understand why a giant multi-national corporation would target a huge potential market like this, I don’t know.

The comments on the articles are the best though. I guess Chik-Fil-A will be getting more business than they ever dreamed?