signs of the apocalypse

today i saw mario lopez on extra seamlessly transition from the kardashians' divorce to general petraeus to lindsay lohan.

 someone tell me it's going to be okay.

sports break

in honor of baseball hothead lou piniella's retirement, i wanted to post his infamous fight with rob dibble. alas, you really cannot find that video online! believe me, i tried. for at least 5 minutes. yeah, i know that page says "watch this video." well, guess what, you can't. you'll get a weather report instead.

anyway, hope that tiny photo suffices. so long, lou!

ps. here is a good description, if you care:

The Occasion: Bullnecked psycho Rob Dibble didn't care for being taken out of a 1992 game for another pitcher, especially since he thought manager Lou Piniella had been badmouthing him to the media. So he decided to squawk about it in the locker room.

The Meltdown: Unfortunately for Dibble, Piniella has never been a cerebral Joe Maddon type of manager. Instead, he waded in for a fight that degenerated into a wrestling match.

The Fallout: While the incident quickly blew over, Piniella's crack of "I'd treat you like a man, but you don't want to be treated like a man!" helped ensure a lifetime of embarrassment for everyone involved.

everybody knows

omg do you remember this movie? one of the best examples of teenage angst/alienation pretty much ever. and yes kids, i learned about leonard cohen through a christian slater movie and not my parents' record collection or a floppy-haired high school boyfriend. ooh that gravelly baritone...

i loved this movie for its nerdy premise, that an isolated new kid on the block can connect to the masses through his shortwave radio. it even made me like christian slater a little bit, although i could never understand his appeal and he was clearly way beyond his teens by this point. and oh samantha mathis, where have you gone? remember when you were the next ingenue and now you're less memorable than gretchen mol?

anyway, if you haven't checked it out in a while, it's worth watching again.

mo'lympics

i enjoy the olympics in a very unironic way. yeah, i'm pretty sure everyone is drugged up and the chinese have infants on their women's gymnastics team or whatever, but still.

anyway, i do feel conflicted every 4 years. where do my loyalties lie? (un?)fortunately, the canadian olympic team seems unable to win a medal in a single event, so i guess i'm going to go with korea. i am sure we will sit comfortably in third until all the track and field events begin. what happened to canada? we used to win a medal or two in the summer olympics. [update: korea is now behind germany in the medal count. boo...]

i find it somewhat amusing that all of my not very patriotic friends get seriously peeved when i don't cheer for the USA. there also was this ridiculous new york times article expressing incredulity over the fact that the chinese are (gasp!) uninterested in michael phelps. yeah, guess what? not everyone cares about america. deal with it.

btw, did anyone happen to read this david brooks op-ed? is he accusing americans of "whining" over katrina? why did he wait until the final sentence to state his thesis?

things i learn from the gym

no, it's not how to do sit ups properly or exercise. i think my primary motivation for joining the local y was to watch the many tv channels it offers. i know, how can i not own a tv? surprisingly, i actually don't watch it much anymore and i even cancelled my netflix subscription. that shit just piled up and made me feel bad. turns out i'd rather watch "40 year old virgin" for the nth time than the greatest works of fellini. netflix E is quite highbrow and cultured, whereas everyday E just wants to hear steve carrell talk about making egg salad sandwiches. and bags of sand. that's a good one.

anyway! a few weeks ago i watched this episode of my super sweet 16. is this show supposed to make kids feel better or worse about themselves? i can't tell and all these obnoxious kids and their enabler parents are a little much. nonetheless, when this misguided canadian girl proclaimed that she's going to have a better party than all americans (btw - would any american ever claim this? even teenage canadians have an inferiority complex. it's more canadian than our pronunciation of "regina"), of course i had to gawk at her moulin rouge-themed disaster of a party. good times.

i also recently caught an episode of american gladiators on espn classic, which reminded me of the congressional inquisition on steroid use. i needn't state the obvious, but foreal: why is this hearing even happening? just take a look at roger clemens. the dude is almost 50 and he's twice as wide as joe perry! that ain't just fat. it's so beyond obvious that it pains me to know this is what all these congressmen and women decided to prioritize. mission accomplished?