i dont know what it is about my body but if we’re up writing all night it doesnt need any sleep, really, to revitalize. but if we’re drinking then we’re fucked.

i knew i wasnt going to get that many comments and i knew instapundy wouldnt bite. he sorta did but not really. not in a cool way. not in a smart way. just in a dumb boring way.

when i was younger i had heroes and idols. i had people who i thought did it right or knew something that i didnt. i was wrong. for a while i thought teachers knew something and you should respect them for even being there, but nine out of ten times i was wrong there too.

and then there were the bosses, vice presidents, and so ons who i respected in the workplace who i always gave the benefit of the doubt to, but alas, it turned out that they were fuckups like the rest of us, not particularilly perfect for the situation at hand any moreso than we were in our little world of shit.

its when i write something like “the president’s uncle just got busted for making it easy for the saudis to fund 9/11” that i realize how many courageousless conservatives i have who read my shit. and i realise that its not always in your best interest to insult your core audience but i’ll tell you whats truly not in our best interest and thats to let anyone, dem or repub be allowed number one to have access to 95% of all the banking done by the the embassies in washington dc, number two, allow the ceo of a major division of that bank to be the brother of a former president and the uncle of the sitting one, and number three play partisan games when it is something directly related to the greatest tragedy on american soil since the civil war.

but you motherfuckers dont give a fuck.

you think this is all a huge college football game.

go blue!

this shit has never been a huge college football game where you root for who your daddy rooted for because his daddy rooted for them.

this shit, if you havent “logged on” to the internet is some serious stuff, which in act one involved huge buildings (and the pentagon) being smashed into with suicide civilian airplanes; in act two bodies were being dragged through a bombed out town, prisoners were getting things shoved in their asses, psychosexual mind games were being levvied on those who we volunteered to “help, and the curtain fell with a surprise beheading.

its not like any college football game that ive ever seen. its actually like Nothing ive ever seen. and whats particularilly interesting is that even though the quarterback continues to fumble the snap theres no sign at all of him being pulled from the game even though his fuckups are costing the team one billion points a day.

but the sportswriters keep typing go blue go blue and not wtf wtf

which in reality you would never see in sportswriting, which is why its the purist of all disciplines of journalism.

political writers have an agenda, and the courageous ones are honest about it. and the way that they analyze the political day is generally to reinforce their personal beliefs. and as long as theyre honest about it, alls fine.

entertainment writers are constantly fighting to appear cutting edge, intelligent, and right. theres not a serious established entertainment writer who would give bob dylan or paul mccartney a scathing negative review, and it would be rare to see the young writer gush over the two icons. it’s predictable and useless.

sports writers are encouraged to bash the home team. theyre expected to knock the leadership and monday morning quarterback the speech given the day before by the head coach. my kingdom for a quote from drudge ever writing that bush fucked up on any speech or any big program ever.

yet the sports writer will turn his back on a pete rose, a sports writer will crack jokes about a mike tyson, and a sports writer will come right out and say shaq’s crappy free throws are killing the lakers.

but good luck trying to get a conservative to write that bush has no clue how to turn around this economy, has no clue how to get us out of this war, and has no clue how to stop this neverending trainwreck.

because they are under the delusional belief that their sorry excuse for writing

could acutally hurt

the home team.

and this idiocy is tripled when you’re talking about a blogger.

gmail swap + suburban nights + lick blog

we provided world class customer support to dot coms who did business over the web.

the coolest thing we did was support through live chat.

this weekend i was bidding on some Prince tickets at Staples so i could take my truest.

while bidding, i realized that the auction seem too good to be true. yes it was in the last row of the upper deck, but why was the guy offering free shipping? and why was it that this guy had never had anything for sale before?

so i wanted to ask eBay if it was ok for me to retract my bid for those reasons.

the biggest thing that we wanted to do at my old company was have The answer. and deliver it friendly and quickly.

did eBay’s Live Help do that? you be the judge:

Your chat session started.

Anthony L.: Welcome to eBay Live Chat! My name is Anthony L. and thank you for waiting. How may I help you?

tony: hello

Anthony L.: Hello,

tony: i dont trust an auction that im bidding on

tony: can i retract my bid for that reason?

tony: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2243758506

Anthony L.: I am very sorry, since there are only 2 hours 0 mins left, you cannot retract the bid.

Anthony L.: There must be at least 12 hours left for you to retract a bid.

tony: what happens if it’s a fake auction?

tony: can i buy insurance?

Anthony L.: That is a good question! I appreciate you for asking that and I am glad to guide you to the right place so you can get help for this although I am unable to address your concern.

Anthony L.: This situation requires the attention of a Safeharbor representative and you can send them an email using the following link:

Anthony L.: http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_inline/index.html

tony: ive seen ebay insurance before, is it for only the seller,or for the buyer too?

Anthony L.: It is intended for buyers (Buyer Protection Program).

tony: great, thank you.

Anthony L.: You’re very welcome!

tony: so if i buy these tickets and its fake, i get most of my money back right?

Anthony L.: Yes, that is usually the case.

Anthony L.: Our Safe Harbor department will be able to investigate this situation and help you further.

tony: awesome

tony: thank you for your help!

Anthony L.: You’re very welcome! Is there anything else I can help you with today?

tony: no thanks!

tony: bye

Anthony L.: You’re very welcome! Thank you for contacting eBay Live Help and you have a pleasant afternoon.

Anthony L.: It was a pleasure chatting with you. Goodbye.

You ended your chat session.

bluecad used me as a model for her layout… again + allison is taking cool pics + broken train

several years ago.

the problem is, what do you do when you want to hang out with a girl who is superclose to her best friend who is also her roommate?

in the past i told my truest that i wasnt dating two girls, i was dating one, and she needed to tell her best friend that she had to pick between me and her pal.

it was an ugly situation and i regret that it went down the way it did.

so now its interesting that i find myself in the same conundrum. (new game: every time i use a big word you need to take a shot. so, drink.)

the lovely miss montreal, in this instance, has a lovely roommate who is going through a rocky period with her beau. in order not to “rub it in the face” of the young lady, miss montreal has begun limiting the amount of time that she spends in my many mansions.

at first this hurt my ego, and made things a little more lonely for me. although i probably could have a girlfriend right now, i chose not to, but it is nice to have someone as sweet as this canadian young woman and beautiful and fun, as an overnight guest. it would be nice not to have to even consider the feelings (and possible loneliness) of another adult, like her roommate, who is exceedingly attractive and mature, but i must, even though one would think she could find a new boytoy in the snap of a finger.

so this weekend she came over, we hung, she used me, and when she was done she left me dazzled and dehydrated in a mess on my couch.

alone.

i felt good, but i was alone.

problem with dating hot babes is theyre in demand.

is it annoying? oui.

is she worth it?

oui.

so i fired up the tv, ordered a pizza and watched Best Week Ever on tivo, and then the sopranos.

and passed out on my couch before 10pm.

woke up alone at 3am and made the walk of shame upstairs to my bedroom.

and fell asleep again. only to wake up a few hours later.

alone.

again.

with nothing but strands of pom-poms littered around my front door.

as apparently clipper girl had tried to wake me up last night but i sleep like a figgin rock.

danielle + leah + it was bunnie‘s birthday this weekend and i forgot cuz i suck

it reminds you that there is plenty of room for art in television drama. it harkens back to a more simpler time when Twin Peaks was throwing curveball after curveball at the viewer tripping us out with backwards talking midgets and whispering homecoming queens.

dreams are the lies that our minds tell us at our most vulnerable, and for a show that is set around the discussions between a shrink and the head of a mob family dreams mean much much more.

last night the sopranos spun us so far into a dream sequence that at one point we didnt know if it was an entire dream episode and even though it could have been an incredibly amazing alice-in-wonderland of psychedelia and psycho-self-awarness through one of the most compelling tv characters, tony soprano, it fell flat and was neither hallucinatory or important to the plot.

it seemed like a lazy way to fill an hour during a week when the writers didnt know how to move the story along.

it was a waste of terrific artistic device: the dream as truth serum.

it was a waste of momentum that the sopranos have had over the last few episodes.

and it a waste of a great opportunity to get meadow and christopher’s fiance into a bikini.

and yet still it was the most interesting programming on television last week next to the spurs+lakers game on thursday when derek fisher changed the destinies of karl malone and gary payton with :004 left on the clock.

the college of creative studies at ucsb, where i attended college, was pretty unified against dream sequences in stories. they considered it too easy for the writer and too cheap against the reader. in a dream you never know whats true for the character and whats bullshit. they could have put tony soprano in a dress last night in his dream and it could have meant 1,000 things, none of which would have been true.

the arguement in creative studies is, if youre going to make your character reveal something in a dream, let them reveal it while awake and the consequences are much more interesting, and the effect will be more powerful.

for example, in last night’s dream episode, tony soprano recalls a former love who is no longer with us. he dreams that she is now his shrink and they have a discussion. my former teachers would have asked, “why don’t you just have his shrink role-play with tony? have him pretend that dr. mulfrey is his deceased ex-love-interest and have them talk to each other using the same lines in the dream sequence. this way conscious tony soprano is more than just a bright-eyed open-mouthed doe freaking out at the craziness happening around him and instead has the ability to break down and cry or say things to the now-dead woman that he didnt have a chance to say to her.”

instead, as jeff jarvis pointed out, there is no satisfying payoff. the plot development has been stymied with watered-down shadowplay and the audience is left scratching their heads and possibly dissapointed on an otherwise lovely sunday evening in the springtime.

no more dream sequences, sopranos, unless it involves talking fish, crossdressing mafia-men, or pole dancing from the protagonist’s mother daughter and wife at the bada-bing.

weissblog + my single mom life + oriental redneck

season finale is the promise that it was jimmy fallon’s last show.

the problem wasnt that he was gay.

the problem was that he was gay and not funny.

and he tried to rip off and replace adam sandler.

in a gay way.

but mostly it was that he wasnt funny.

there was tina fey feeding him all the best lines, and there he was fumbling over them. laughing at himself like it was funny.

it wasnt funny.

it was sad.

it was the equivalent of a dumb blonde minus the cleavage.

dumb blondes however are at least funny sometimes.

remember when jimmy fallon went through two entire seasons without being funny once?

amazing.

only colin quinn before him was as ridiculously unfunny and yet was allowed to keep the prime gig of anchor of weekend update.

pretending that there were no better people in america for that role than colin quinn or jimmy fallon.

im glad his album failed.

im glad he probably wont be guest hosting the show for at least a year

and im glad he thinks he can start a movie career.

and i cant wait to see him in a “where are they now” special in about 10 years.

tina fey should host weekend update alone next year.

and tsar needs to be a musical guest.

miss poops + xero79 + tales of ordinary madness

that sash means so much if you let it. politics. symbolism. madeup stuff. nonsense.

its that time of year again and in two weeks miss universe will be crowned. for the last few years we have been covering the miss universe competition and this year will be no exception.

i do have some tips for trump, who owns the show and should hire me as a consultant.

for starters he has to realize that he has dozens of the most beautiful women of the world at his finger tips, almost all of whom will never be out in front of the public ever again. to let these women come and go in a fortnight and only knock-out one two-hour show is a missed opportunity on a grand scale.

nobody cares about beauty pageants and less care about miss universe.

quick, name a miss universe.

and yet about six million people will watch the pagent next month, and i think more would if trump only turned it into a reality show.

the miss universe competition is over 50 years old, and yet theres not one famous winner. not one.

how can trump enjoy being part of such a forgettable and disposable operation?

why is it that we cant name even one of the winners of the hottest chick in the world contest and yet we can name survivors, real worlders, bachelor & bachelorettes, and american idols?

we remember them because we were given enough time to meet them.

even the most shallow men would have a hard time picking out the best babe out of 50 in just two hours.

so trump needs to make the miss universe into a reality game show and each week we vote off up to three hotties.

just like american idol, twice a week we get to see the women showing off their talents, just like survivor the contestants should have to do some bizzare things, and just like americas next top model tyra banks should be the host.

each week the viewers from around the world vote to oust one person. each week the fellow contestants vote collectively to oust one person. and each week the three celebrity judges vote to oust one person.

and at the end of the game, when there are two left, the world votes for a winner which ever woman gets the most votes gets one point. meanwhile the judges also vote, and the woman who gets the most votes from the judges gets a point. then the 50 miss universe contestants vote as a group… which ever woman gets the most points wins.

although the popularity of this show will also garner protests from womens groups who rightfully object to the nature of any beauty contests as objectifying women, trump should rest assured in the fact that this pageant unlike any other in the world, takes more time to evaluate far more than just the beauty of these, the hottest chicks in the world.

and like snl, every episode will have a different celebrity host and a live band playing popular music.

what would the contests be?

well, other than the obligatory swimsuit, talent, evening gown, and stupid question contests, the new miss universe pageant will include cooking, sewing, dancing, acting, bullshitting, smiling, and lingerie contests.

although the most controversial competition will probably be the cleaning contest where a motel full of spring breakers trashes a red roof inn and 40 miss universe hopefuls each have an hour to tackle a room.

on the season premiere we meet the women and take them to a tgif’s. there they are each given two bottles of wine.

the top ten women who finish their wine first and then dance for a half hour without barfing, go on to the next round and are given immunity for two rounds because everyone loves hot chicks who can hold their booze.

if lesbianism breaks out during the dance portion, oh well.

the last ten women are kicked off, but the judges can pick one to return, as can the viewers.

the winner gets to be miss universe and finally it would mean something.

accordian guy + doc searls + jeff jarvis

but i do live in LA, four metro stops away from staples center, and what i saw last was spectacular.

it was as unbelievable as the attrocities that we’ve been seeing and hearing about in the middle east.

first of all, tim duncan had no business being able to hit a fadeaway with Shaq big old stinking giant arm in his face with less than five seconds to go in the game.

that shot alone was one of the most clutch shots ive ever seen.

which by the way was preceeded by Kobe’s clutch shot that had put the lakers ahead, which forced Duncan’s heroics.

but with 0.4 seconds left in the game, for Derek Fisher to catch the inbound pass from gary payton turn around and nail that last shot perfectly is mindblowing.

and proof that every player in a Team is valuable and important and needs to be ready to be the hero of the game.

fisher, as you know, was a starter last year but was demoted once the soon-to-be hall of famer payton arrived. fisher spent most of yesterday’s game and most of this season on the bench, only to come off the bench last night to pop the most clutch shot of the season.

the shot that may just turn out to be the difference between the Lakers being world champs instead of the Spurs being world champs because now the series comes back here to Staples and if the Lakers win tomorrow then San Antone is eliminated and no one is tougher in the NBA than the defending champs and their sneaky little frenchman named Tony.

but what i was most blown away by was my neighborhood.

nobody was screaming, nobody’s car horns were sounding, nobody was spilling out into the streets.

the hollywood hills, where i live, were silent.

perhaps a plate of caviar was passed from one debutante to another, but that was it.

this blogger, however screamed twice. once when duncan sank his miracle and once when fisher reminded us that theres a reason why they call this a team sport.

“one lucky shot deserves another,” Shaq told ABC Sports minutes after dreams were crushed deep in the heart of Texas.

and despite this being the season that the Lakers were supposed to get their lift from Malone and Payton, it was Devon George and Derek Fisher who won yesterday’s game, the most important game the Lakers have won this season.

pure magic last night.

the ghosts of mj and magic and bird and all the heroes from long ago were embodied in the least likely Lakers and im sorry Tim Duncan but when you hit 21 points and pull down 22 boards and lose, then your season is over.

bring on the t-wolves!

in other news, i’ve seen many great things on metafilter, but this might be the best