No, not irrelevant

My friend Jacque: "Is Gossip Girl irrelevant now that you actually live there?"
Me: "Ha! Absolutely not!"




From the last episode: "We don't need tickets. I'm Chuck Bass."

Best "I'm Chuck Bass" ever, agreed with Daily Intel recap- maybe even better than the actual show.

"With sounds of rocks on the coast"

It's late, I just finished up Season 2 of Prison Break...I don't think I can do 2 more. I just want to watch the final movie and see Scofield and Sara together. OK.

But I'm of course creeped out by T-Bag's inevitable next escape and kill, not to mention dumb Panamanian officials, so to calm myself I am turning to V. Carlton..."Home" a particular favorite.

I really love living steps away from the water right now. It's basically my childhood revisited. I immensely miss that house, even though it was too small for our family. "No room for a desk in your room," says my mom. I'm not victimizing myself, I'm just nostalgic.

Since I'm fast running out of creative juice and battery juice, take what you will with that, the lyrics I'm pasting and video embedding. A lot of music tries to be vague for artistic interpretive purposes, and while I will argue for its place, I appreciate the straightforward too.

I saw her in concert 2 years ago and she is even more amazing live (absolutely she nailed that piano solo at the end).




HOME
Some people live in a house on the hill
And wish they were some place else
There's nobody there
When the evening is still
Secrets with no one to tell

Some I have known have a ship where they sleep with sounds of rocks on the coast
They sail over oceans five fathoms deep
But can't find what they want the most

Even now when I'm alone
I've always known with you
I am home

Some live in towns
Cardboard shack on concrete
All bluster and bustling life
They search for the color you can never quite see
Cause it's all white on white

Even now when I'm alone
I've always known with you
I am home

For me it's a glance and the smile on your face the touch of your hands,
And an honest embrace
For where I lay it's you I keep,
This changing world I fall asleep
With you all I know is I'm coming home,
Coming home

Remember when I had a fling with Wentworth Miller?

Yeah. Spring term 2007. Bleak minus the many hottub running, music video making nights with Brook and Em .... and Prison Break marathon with some other fellow addicts.

I haven't been as addicted to a show since Alias. No, not even Gossip Girl.

But I left before the end of Season 1. So I hadn't even seen the characters break out!

It has left me hanging for 3 years.

Now I'm watching it on Netflix Movie Viewer, and all is well again.

As you were...

I have a couple dates lined up.

With my favorite date, my mom.

Circa 1980, singing to Robbie Redford. Isn't she cute?

My sweet mom AND dad picked me up from LAX yesterday, and the drive back down home was really fast... while my dad wasn't counting off the minutes to the next freeway landmark seeing how fast we were making it and talking about I-405 horror stories (he's super German sometimes, even though he's not).
Oh to be back on the huge CA freeways on which you can go over 100 KPH (the New Zealand standard, about 60 MPH), wow.

I saw a billboard for Date Night. Two of my favorite comedy actors EVER. This has a lot of hype to live up to... My mom high-fived me in the backseat.

Tina Fey on Letterman. Love her.

Then, I brought up that I was excited to watch General Conference (impressive language lineup by the way, gooo Mormons).
My mom was cruising the Amtrak with little sister Kathy on the northern East Coast this past week for college visits, so she hadn't seen it either. High five again.

And when I got home, while I was giving my fam some Neverland mementos, they were pausing some Tivo'ed Project Runway. My dad, the architect, has watched it with acute concentration from Season 1. It's really darling.

Don't worry, they've saved the entire current season for me. I have sorely MISSED Tim Gunn!

Make it work ;)

Plus none is the best number!

I don't know why I feel preempted to tell you to hang tight! a blog redesign is in the works! My previous template malfunctioned!...

but alas, here I am, in stark white 'Minima,' telling you.

(Amazing what self-restraint and also obligation I feel on this medium, despite it originally being my place to vent some more negative thoughts and ideas.)

Transitioning...


I need to get into Ugly Betty. I tried to one time, but it made me dizzy with all the sets constantly looking like pop-art, like an even more tricked out version of the spaceship in Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century ... (but maybe that was the time I was semi-addicted to narcotics. OK.)

Does anyone else remember this?! By far, my favorite Disney Channel Original Movie...



ALSO: "The Galaxy is Ours" from the Zequel ... YOU ARE WELCOME.


Anyway, Tara posted the following clip, and I think it is fabulously empowering and fit for yet another Monday. Cheers!

On not looking like a hot fruitcake mess

I have a sore throat and will probably be up all night judging by the considerable consumption of spearmint tea I have downed, and many trips to the loo I have already taken.

Good thing they post the new Project Runway episode to Lifetime.com in the wee hours of Saturday morning (confessional alert! hehe)

Saturday mornings usually consist of my favorite Pilates class with this darling lady, but I may have to take a raincheck.

I hope you all are doing well. I decided today that while my birthday breaks up the monotony, September on a whole is pretty dismal. October is infinitely more exciting. And not to mention I have a genius idea for a Halloween costume...want to hear more??


And a chat with my engaged friend Kristine from a few days ago still has me giggling. She is set to get married next August, and she was sending me links to color swatches for her wedding...

With regards to the color of the dress in the top left, I said something along the lines of "I am not so keen on peach, but really liking the fuschias [like this]."

She assured me there would be no peach:

"I want people looking sexy at my wedding, not scrumptious."

Ahh, I miss you Teen! I wish we could take a late-night drive right now for limeades. Or go snowboarding on a whim ;)

And I just realized it's your birthday 10/10!!! Happy day, my dear.

I can't wait for your wedding!!! xoxo

Like a Malawian baby or a poodle

Every Monday at 8 PM, I can be found grinning ear to ear with glee gawking at Gossip Girl.
(If I am eating my weight in Diego's chicken nachos, I will be squealing too).

However, even though episode 1 filled the void, I was skeptical.

But episode 2? DELICIOUS. I laughed so hard at Chuck's quote I actually, upon request, verbally repeated it back to my roommate who was in and out.

(“For people like us, a college degree is just an accessory, like a Malawian baby or a poodle.” - It got it's own +1 here)

Episode 3:...MEH. Sotheby's auctions and money is getting boring. Back to the drama, please!!

Episode 4: Lizzie McGuire Goes to College. Over it. The best part was again, Chuck Bass's quote along the lines of "NYU men don't wear shoes, they wear sandals."

CANNOT wait for Episode 5, when Georgina is back to liven things up. Pardon my French, but vicarious bitching never felt so RIGHT.

Also, sometimes I pretend like I'm a cool pseudo-hipster (you know the ones that subsist solely on coffee, cigarettes, and crack) but really, I do love love love the music they play and compulsively download it as soon as I find out what it is.

Phoenix? LOVE. Try this and this.

That is all.

You thought my obsession was waning

But you thought wrong.

I cannot help my Sesame Street kick...because could MOBAMA get any more awesome?

I don't recall Barbara or Hillary on in my SS days...Lame.



Laughed my head off at Big Bird's statements starting at 1:20 ... what a goon!


And don't worry, NY Mag has a Michelle Obama Look-Book that they've updated since Election Night. Yes, I've looked through all the pictures...can you say cardigan-envy?!?

Sesame Street Mad Men

I do not kid on this one...



Why weren't they this clever circa 20 years ago??

Another Sesame memory:

When I was little I was afraid of our pool vacuum cleaner...

(you know, the contraption that rolls around the bottom and attaches to the side via a tube?)...

...so I called it OSCAR and shrieked whenever it came near.


I lived on the beach until I was 11, so never mind that before the pool, I had most likely been swimming with stingrays, sharks and other little Pacific Ocean critters...

Most likely with Al, my childhood partner in crime...

Just about the cutest thing.

The last time math was fun was when my middle school algebra teacher did a "NEAR...FAR" Grover imitation (with hands flailing- he was hysterical) to better explain the concept of positive and negative numbers.

What's your favorite Sesame Street memory?

Conflict-free diamonds are a girl's best friend

I highly recommend watching this ABC 4-part fictionalized documentary that looks at the diamond industry politically and culturally...from the war zone to the show room.

I loved the movie Blood Diamond for shedding light on this issue, thus I really enjoyed Diamonds for taking on a whole new (and more complicated) storyline and cast of characters that all revolve around the business, deception and cruelty of 'conflict' diamonds.




It's well-thought out, with plotline not limited to Sierra Leone or even Africa, but more realistically connected to many other parts of the world.

Plus, you can watch the 4 episodes for free...
Go to Abc.com and click on "Free Episodes" at the top
(Click HERE for the first episode.)


Denmont, the main diamond company depicted in 'Diamonds,' presumably refers to the real company De Beers: the overarching antagonist in Blood Diamond as well.

After looking on the World Diamond Council and UN Websites, as well as Wikipedia (here and here), my burning, perhaps trite (and probably unanswerable) question remains of why advertising (as it appears) has created such a high demand for diamonds in Western culture.

Forget governments, forget rebel groups...are we really just buying into a grand marketing scheme with ugly, unseen colonialist implications?

Or perhaps Hollywood is blowing this issue out of proportion: In 2003, George W. Bush passed the Clean Diamonds Trade Act (click on "US Legislation) and the WDC alleges that conflict diamond trade has been reduced from 4% to 1% of the total diamond trade.

Hmm.

Maybe you have an answer or an explanation?
Or perhaps you have read a well-researched book that further brings this issue to light?
Please share your thoughts!