modelland. smize, y'all

Everyone! I have the internet! Also, the first chapter of Tyra Banks' new book, Modelland, is available on the Barnes and Noble website! Read and discuss.

Crazy catladying it up

Because I am moving soon, I am sentimental. I am thinking about things I will miss about Bloomington...the super-long stoplights, the sub-par restaurants with Chicago pricing. Ahhhh. Bloomington. One of the things that I'll actually miss is that we have like a million neighborhood cats. I know all their names. They all let me pet them.

Venom: Yes, really. We called Venom "Mrs. Honcho" for a long time because she wouldn't get close enough for us to learn her name. She is sleek and gray stripey. She sits on our laps when we're on the porch. She might be a he. S/he predatored a baby bunny in front of Abby. It was scarring.

Honcho: Brother/husband to Venom. Big and dark gray. Mean to all of the other neighborhood cats. Actually kind of won't let me pet him.

Seamus: Orange. He used to hang out with us all the time, but now Honcho took over his territory.

Maxwell: Black and white. Kind of cross-eyed. Once, we rescued him from a tree. By getting his mom and telling her he was in a tree.

Baxter: Orange and white. No matter what door I open in my house, he's out there. I don't think Maxwell and Baxter are related, but it seems like they should be.

We play this game when we neighborhood walk where we compete over cat-spotting. I always win because the game makes Abby angry. Really, it's just my game. I have gotten up to nine cats on a walk before. This is a really catty place. I'll miss that.

you guys! there's a new maru video.

I made one of those talking pig videos

I was bored and made one of those videos with the cartoon characters talking in monotone voices.

shouldn't i move to ravenswood?

i have been thinking about moving to ravenswood in september so that i can have a big apartment but people are trying to talk me out of it because they say it is soooooo far and that i should move to logan square instead. but i friggy hate logan square. too many 2002 memories. you guys have all lived in ravenswood. isn't it pleasant? shouldn't i move there?

i want a giant apartment.

Art movie fake-out

So, on Friday, Abby and I went to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the new 3-D Werner Herzog documentary about the sealed and preserved Chauvet Cave in France with the drawings from tens of thousands of years ago.

At one point in the movie, he turns off all the sound equipment, so you can just look and experience and listen to your heartbeat, and then a heartbeat sound comes up, and then the music returns.

It was coming toward the end of the film, and again, the heartbeat sound came up, and the screen faded to black, and it stayed that way for maybe three minutes, which is a long time, in a movie theatre. Everyone in the audience was silent. I was thinking, "Yes, this is like the modern cave." I even thought I could hear my heartbeat. I was starting to feel really uncomfortable with it, too, and then I was like, "I love this; this is brilliant! I feel so uncomfortable! Only Werner Herzog."

Then, some intrepid audience members got up to leave, and we heard this from outside the theatre, "There was a power surge. We're working to restore the movies to the place where they were when it happened."

Which...okay, it was re-started, and the movie was still good, and the ending was about albino crocodiles (spoiler alertish), which are also pretty cool, but it was no three-minute blackout to listen to the silence. I preferred our ending.

it is the afternoon

i'm loooooonely and booooooored. somebody blog somethin. what are you literaties doing right now? i wish i had a satellite camera on each of you at all times so that i could check it and see you working at your desks or taking a nap or vandalizing your neighborhood.

hey sarah, remember when jeff was obsessed with hilary clinton and would constantly say out of the blue, "i wonder what hilary clinton is doing right now." and then you would say something like, "pantsuits shopping with chelsea."

sigh...what are you guys doing right now.

I can't stop watching this.

I'm sorry and you're welcome.

our newest member

this little fuzzy kitten, who prefers the company of his weird furry bed--or what is that thing?--to the other little fuzzy kittens, playing with each other in the distance, and who is clearly engaged in internal conversation with other kittens who aren't really there, and possibly with that furry bed thing, should be an honorary member of venom literati. he is one of us.

Four things

1. The weirdest people have Kindles. Like really old men in the waiting room at a doctor's office, or the custodian. In fact, these are the two only people I have ever seen with Kindles, and these are not the people on the commercial at all. But I do not live in a town with widely used public transportation. Probably you see Kindles all the time and they are attached to the hands of hip youths.

2. I hate when I get an email that says "I read your email," and it's an autoresponse because that person has an app that reads their emails aloud to them while they're driving. Who needs to hear email while they're driving? Is this meant to be a safety feature?

3. App idea: Sarcastic voice email reader. You could use it whenever someone you hated sent you an email instead of just while driving.

4. The Oscars are boring.

This was made for us

Look at this thing, just look at it!
Susanna and Gato can provide all of the long furs, and the rest we will have to spin!

tv stuff combined with celebrity crush stuff

I have a weird celebrity crush on Louis C.K. Recently I was watching an episode of his sitcom, "Louie," and giggling at him as he was on a date, and Abby said, "YOU want to go on a date with Louis C.K." She was right. I do. I want to go on a date with Louis C.K.

Also, I love "Dr. Katz." Here is Louis C.K. on Dr. Katz. Here's something else: I totally remember this scene from, like, 1996 or whenever, but I had no idea it was future-crush Louis C.K.

Dexter, or now I only write about TV

You guys, I hate Dexter. I know I am supposed to like it. It is about a semi-likeable serial killer. That is right up my alley. But I hate Dexter, seethingly. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

Here are some things I hate: I hate the flashbacks to his dad teaching him how to use his serial killer compulsions for good. I hate his stupid skinny sister. She is stupid. She should not be in homicide because she is too stupid to be in homicide. Keep her in vice, Chief Whateveryournameis. Oh wait too late because Dexter is using his serial killer skills for good again, to track down other serial killers and selflessly helping his sister get promoted simultaneously. And now Dexter is eating. In every single scene. A banana or a cheeseburger or a crab leg. He is eating with his stupid gross mouth with the hair around it that doesn't match his head hair. Hate. Oh, and I hate how he magically knows if someone is a bad person who deserves to die by, like, recognizing the bad part of himself in him. And! And! I hate the stupid unnecessary voiceovers. "I can't feel, but I pretend to" (not a real quote). You have already said that in a voiceover 80 billion times, Dexter! I hate you! I hate how slowly it moves. I hate everything about it.

And here is the other thing I hate: the promise that it will get better. Oh, the second season is better. You just have to get through the first season. No. I won't. I hate Dexter. And plus also too someone told me that he starts actually seeing his dead dad not in flashbacks but in real life in the future. HATE.

Doug

Did you ever think that maybe Jesus made snow all white and reflective so winter wouldn't be too depressing? Me neither.

Something I think about when I'm depressed this winter (not being the owner of a fancy lightbox like other Literati) is Doug.

Doug plays Mel's husband on Flight of the Conchords. Mostly he is silent and sits in cars waiting for Mel, the Conchords' superfan. Abby and I recently watched the first two seasons of Damages, where the actor who plays Doug is also a character...who spends a lot of time silently sitting in cars waiting for and watching people, albeit in a much more sinister way.

I like to imagine that Damages and Flight of the Conchords takes place in the same universe, and that after Doug spends his day watching Ellen Parsons walk around the city, he goes and waits for Mel outside a bar where the Conchords are playing. Occasionally during the day he'll kill somebody or plant some drugs somewhere or threaten to ruin someone's life, but he's always got Mel to pick up. One eye on Mel and Jemaine, one eye on Ellen and Katie. Poor Doug with his double life.

For some reason this makes me really happy to think about.

New diet craze

While watching Nova over the break I was overcome by a marveous entrepreneurial brainstorm. We all remember Kathy's diet craze: "No Meat, No Maize: The Incan Child Sacrifice Diet," yes? Well, check this out: "The Antarctica Diet: Eat 3000 Calories a Day and Lose Weight--Just by Maintaining Your Core Body Temperature!"

We open a spa on Antarctica. A couple of tents, a fire pit, and a ton of wool socks. Scientists eat up to 6000 calories a day there, just to maintain their weight. If we can fool a bunch of people with disposable income into coming to Antarctica for 10 days, we can feed them nothing but cupcakes and beer, and they'll still lose weight and feel like they're indulging.

Who's with me?