it’s official.

November 7, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Oprah was on “30 Rock” last night.  I die.  “Sunny in Philly,” “Mad Men,” “Gossip Girl,” any of the “Rock of Love” incarnations/spin-offs, MSNBC, the Food Network, infinite “Law & Order” reruns…  The list of my infatuations is miles long, and that’s not even mentioning the shows of yore that I’m trying to catch up on:  “Deadwood,” “Dexter,” ad infinitum.  I boycotted the US version of “The Office,” but caught an ep last night and was guffawing out loud throughout the entire thing.  So now I need to go back and grab all the previous seasons.  I’m a bit sad that I’ll probably be saying goodbye to Jon Stewart sometime in the near future.

I love television.  There, I said it.  Can I blame the internet?  TVtorrents.com makes it so easy for me to grab the stuff I missed, and I feel like TV writers are maybe trying a little bit harder because they know their legacy is going to carry on way longer than previously intended?  Maybe?

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playlist.

September 16, 2008 at 4:03 pm

OMG you guys!  Dooce and I are like totally great minds thinking alike!  This morning I was listening to Man Man on my way to work and thinking about how once I have a child, none of that crap “Wheels on the Bus” stuff is finding its way into my house.  I’ve already got a ton of music I want to play for my (YOUNG!) kid, while they are still susceptible to my influence, including the Decemberists, Beirut, Kate Nash, Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Matthew Dear, the Pentangle and lots more (without even branching into the ambient sleepy-time music).  It’s all music that seems bouncy and fun (or just simply pretty) enough to keep a tiny brain entertained, yet it’s quirky and intelligent enough that we can enjoy it as a FAMILY.

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maddened.

September 16, 2008 at 11:20 am

© AMC

I’ve been trying to catch up to the Mad Men bandwagon lately.  I’m almost finished with the first season, and just two episodes in I could see why this show is so wildly successful.  It’s so smart and so earnest in how it portrays gender and societal roles in the early 60’s, and in doing so, the show almost hits the mark of satire.  The set and costume design are to-die-for, the dialogue is spot-on, and the development of each character goes incredibly deep, seemingly without even trying.

So imagine my delight when Betty Draper and Ken Cosgrove both started following me on Twitter!  I did a little digging and realized that a majority of the characters from the show, no matter how minor, have Twitter accounts that follow the plotlines to a tee.  The hub of all the imposter action is wearesterlingcooper.com, a portal that tracks the Twitter activity and also the press attributed to the movement.  Apparently an independent campaign started by people who are just huge fans of the show, and some new hybrid of fan fiction and Web 2.0, the Twitter/Mad Men phenomena is almost as captivating as the show itself:

Though the charade may appear well choreographed from the outside, in reality the effort is more haphazard, with independent fans creating characters that need to be integrated into the whole… Being a Mad Men Twitterer is akin to being in the Mafia; characters are told the identity of other characters on a need-to-know basis.

Keeping in mind that the show is focused on an advertising agency, the whole thing is so meta I just can’t even stand it.

Posted in politics, tehinternets. | 1 Comment »

disemvoweled.

September 9, 2008 at 9:04 am

No more posts about certain lady parts:

This just in:  the internets are full of PERVS!

Posted in note to self. | 3 Comments »

the omnivore’s dilemma.

September 5, 2008 at 10:50 am

A friend sent me this link, so I thought I’d give it a go.  Apparently the only thing I refuse to eat is offal (though I’ll be perfectly happy if I never eat another PB&J in my life, as well).

Rules are as follows:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The “list of 100 things that [the author thinks] every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all” is after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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gynecological twin.

September 3, 2008 at 9:36 am

In reference to this heeelarious bit from The Daily Show, my chatbox status lately has been “vagina dentata american,” with the attendant avatar being a rather convincing image of the same (NSFW).

As expected, the only reaction I’ve gotten so far has been “Eesh” and “Oof” from chat buddies of the male gender.  “I don’t like that very much,” said one, and “Vagina dentata is NEVER funny if you have a penis. Trust me on this,” from another. This is so interesting to me. OBVIOUSLY it’s a myth, folklore, legend, what have you. So what is it about the concept that frightens men so much? Are they that attached (wokka) to their penises that any mention of harm sends them running? Is it honestly a fear of castration (read: threat to their masculinity)? I can’t think of an analogous situation for women, but if you can, please share. I just don’t understand why it’s such a sore (again, wokka) subject.

Posted in politics, secks | 7 Comments »

the wackness.

August 18, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Look what happened when I got on a death machine last week just so we could get breakfast at the Tin Shed:

I was riding a fixed gear for the first time, wearing flimsy ballet flats with absolutely no traction.  The bike’s pedals were pretty smooth, too, so when I stood up at one point to try to adjust myself, my left foot slid off the pedal and shot forward in between the front fork and the wheel.  The fork did some painful damage to the top of my foot and the spokes ripped off a chunk of the skin underneath, which you see here.  It was surprisingly non-bloody, and a nice gentleman saw it happen and offered me a ride home.  Jbin cleaned it and wrapped it and I went to the doctor the next day for a tetanus shot and a more thorough cleaning. At this point the skin has completely bonded and fused back together (the human body is a marvelous thing), though underneath the healing there is still a lot of blood and bruising and there’s still some slight pain, swelling and tenderness on the metatarsals.  Hoping to be back to 100% by next week.

Posted in megalomaniac | 4 Comments »

ph*cker.

August 18, 2008 at 12:04 pm

Dooce’s post today is about “The List,” the 5-10 famous persons your sigother gives you a pass on screwing if you were ever to have the opportunity.  My friends Arturo and Lesley both have lists that they have maintained and shared (and the fact that Arturo recently removed Racheal Ray from the list to make room for PJ Harvey perfectly sums up the dichotomy that is his personality), but outside of that it’s not really something I’ve spent a lot time thinking about or adhering to for myself.

I know in the past Jake Gyllenhaal and Ron Livingston were on my list, but Ronnie’s gotten puffy recently, and I just can’t get past Jake’s whiny boy-voice.  It’s a funny thing to think about (kind of like a grown-up version of MASH), so I tried to come up with a revised version of the list this morning, but I’m not having much luck.  Christian Bale and Michael Phelps for sure (I’m totally joining Dooce on that Olympic bandwagon; there’s something about that wingspan, man), but other than that I’m drawing a blank.  Mr. Bale obviously satisifies the exotic, brooding, intelligent requirements (have you heard the man speak in his native accent?), whereas Phelps has the hot bod, but he can’t articulate to save his life and from the neck up he’s a total goofball.  I do love me a goofball, though.

Okay, I think I came up with five.  In a very particular order:

1. Christian Bale

2. Ryan Gosling

3. Clive Owen

4. Mark Ruffalo

5.  Michael Phelps

Surprisingly enough, there are no musicians on that list.  I can’t really place why that is, but perhaps it’s because I listen to music that I like, not shit that I can get all fangirl over because the lead singer is mass totes hot yet the band makes music that only a 14-year old girl could love.

But that’s a topic for another post.

Posted in secks | 2 Comments »

puerile.

July 11, 2008 at 9:48 am

A month or so ago, the blogosphere was all abuzz over this story from the New York Times magazine (see here, here, and here, for starters), revealing former Gawker editor Emily Gould to be as petty, self-absorbed/involved, and megalomaniacal as I continue to view myself, for wanting to have this, that, or any blog. I can’t quite figure out what it is that drives me. I started a Livejournal in 2003(?), which then morphed into skinscented.blogspot.com, which became sansguile.blogspot.com. I’ve barely committed to any of them, even though my mind is running fathoms per hour daily. My walks to and from work blend together in a wavering meditation of sorts. I spend a majority of my day reading The Internet, scanning blogs, watching YouTube videos, reading the news and catching up on celebrity gossip. Yet, somehow, I can’t be bothered to regurgitate any of this information, these opinions and epiphanies, the hilariously mundane sitcom shenanigans that make up my life. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in megalomaniac | 7 Comments »

vote hope?

February 21, 2008 at 11:25 am

My friend Michael just forwarded me an email from the Obama campain, alerting donators and supporters about the American Leadership Project that was announced yesterday. I’d been meaning to donate to Obama’s effort for a while, so the missive lit a fire under my ass and I did it right away. Then I read the email more closely. The disconcerting part the message was this:

The so-called “American Leadership Project” will take unlimited contributions from individuals and is organized the same way as the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Groups like this are forbidden from working primarily for the purpose of electing or defeating a candidate. Yet here we have a committee that springs up on the eve of an election, promotes a specific candidate, and has no history or apparent purpose of lobbying specific issues outside the benefit to the candidate of these communications.

Yet, in the article I linked to above, they say

Obama has been aided by an independent group, Vote Hope, which has spent more than $1 million.

On Vote Hope’s website, they state that they’re an organization of activists with histories of working toward improvement on the same issues Obama stands for, which circumvents the whole “no history or apparent purpose” thing. However, who’s to say that the ALP won’t release a statement or launch a website touting the same thing? Thus far, they have not revealed who is funding the organization, but the public could be exposed to a whole new round of side-of-the-mouth talking.

The other night, while I was gushing about Obama and the galvanizing effect he’s having on our nation, Skye said to me, “He’s still just a politician.” That statement startled me, and I actually took slight offense to it. I suppose that’s the most disingenous part of this whole election process, though: here we have this bastion of hope and change, who is single-handedly inspiring the youth vote in ways the Vote or Die and Rock the Vote campaigns could have only dreamed of, yet, at the end of the day, after all the speeches and rallies are over, it’s still just politics as usual.

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