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?

© 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.

This just in:  the internets are full of PERVS!

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.

1. Venison (I grew up in Alaska!)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (a staple)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (won’t do it again, though)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (probs my fave sweet)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (does a martini count?)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (you simply must try it at Quinn’s)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk (cheese!)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (I don’t even know what that is)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare? (is there a difference between hare and rabbit?)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

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.

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.

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.

I have a feeling it may have something to do the The Stranger/SLOG escapade. Granted, that was close to two years ago, and while I’m over the episode and consequences themselves, I still feel violated by the vulnerability that post, and a subsequent one by Erica C. Barnett, exposed me to. My Myspace profile was public at the time. Someone found me on The Stranger’s profile and posted a link in the comments. Suddenly I was being called a “self-entitled hipster” with “nice bangs and dyed black hair, fatty.” So here I was, with both my ethics (rightly so) and my physical appearance being called into question, yet nowhere was my writing being discussed. That was what I expected and even welcomed from the experience, but instead I got immature anonymous insults posted to a story that was really only 60% true. Do I want to do that again? Do I want to flay myself open for all the (internet) world to see? On the flipside, what point does a private blog make? I’d like to open up discussion and discourse, I welcome constructive crticism, etc, and it’s difficult to do so with hidden words.

I was talking to Bess the other day about how I hide in shame behind the Keenan Bowen name, and she scoffed.  ”Work that shit to your advantage,” she said.  My passion for writing about music has waned to almost obscurity, but I still like putting words to paper (so to speak). So, the rebirth of slick: noblackink.com. 

Welcome! 

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.