Another Moment of Fashion

Is it just me, or is the Canadian ski cross team trying to bring back Zubaz pants?!

If so, I 100% approve.

Wow, That is Scathing...Pt. 2

Vanity Fair's Andrew Wagner on Joanna Newsom's new album Have One On Me (which is a 3-disc album):

Does anyone really want three discs of Joanna Newsom? Have One On Me is like listening to the Pride and Prejudice book-on-tape while driving on I-94 through Indiana and Illinois with NPR's Jonathan Schwartz riding shotgun. It's long (3 discs!), sad, depressed, flat, antiquated, boring, and runs the risk of making you nod off at the wheel and die. All this against a beige backdrop flanked by decaying industrial towns. I mean, three discs?

Ice Dancing

I was wondering what it was about Meryl Davis's face that seemed funny or odd to me. In case you're wondering who that is, she's an Olympic ice dancer for the United States (I just learned that the other day...). Anyway, back to her face. Something about it seemed odd. Then it came to me: She has the face of an animated Disney princess. It just doesn't seem real.

Some concluding thoughts on ice dancing (other than the obvious "I can't believe NBC aired this event instead of the hockey game."):

Why do so many male ice dancers have such lame hair 'styles'?

And the ice dancing event of doing a folk dance routine just seems like a chance to portray ethnic stereotypes and to reduce a culture to satire.

I'll leave you with this...

Don't worry, it's ok...they're brother and sister!

If International Relations Were Handled By Me...

The Huffington Post had an article this morning about how China planned on closely watching the Barack Obama-Dalai Lama visit (I just realized that Barack Obama-Dalai Lama sounds like a great Dr. Seuss book). However, the article has been completely changed and updated because the meeting has since happened. BUT, the original article had said that China would be paying attention to how big the meeting is, how long it will be, how much attention it gets, whether it will be filmed or not, whether a statement will be released, how public it will be, whether the First Lady will attend, and so on and so on. In other words, they were coming off like a creepy, obsessed ex.

I figured Obama would meet with the Dalai Lama but do it privately, keep it low-key, and keep it off-camera to try to appease both sides (I was right...). However, before the meeting actually took place, I was hoping for this outcome:

I hope they make a huge deal out of it. Like have a stadium tour. And Neil Diamond and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play him on to the stage (playing a song they wrote especially for him) [You might be asking 'Why Neil and Bruce?' Well, because they seem to be the ones included in every big national event, that's why]. And they have the Dalai Lama on a Jumbo Tron screen while he gives his speech (and all the while, Dalai Lama mascots are using T-shirt guns to fire Dalai Lama t-shirts into the crowd). And the crowd chants his name in unison. And then the crowd hoists him on their shoulders and they parade through the streets of D.C. while cameras film it all...including aerial shots from helicopters, which show how massive the crowd is. And the crowd chants "Free Tibet! Free Tibet!" And Obama is hoisted up by the crowd too and he and the Dalai Lama are crowd surfing while holding hands and looking into each others eyes lovingly. Then they give the Dalai Lama an honorary degree from every university in the area (including the University of Phoenix and University of Maryland University College). And they also give him the key to the city. And then they replace the Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol building with a statue of the Dalai Lama holding a Tibetan flag. Yeah. That sounds about right.

A Moment of Fashion

The Norwegian men's curling team was caught wearing these pants:

There's Nor-way those pants are acceptable

Me: As if curling wasn't already dorky enough...

Eagan: They should get a penalty for wearing those.

Me: Their penalty is living life as a curler.

Alright, one more: Those pants make me want to curl up and die.

TV Posters

I really liked these clever, minimalist TV posters designed by Albert Exergian (check out his website for more):

Back in My Day...

New phrases like "Tweet Me" and "Text Me" have been added this year

...if someone said to me "Tweet me", I'd press charges.

John Mayer is an Asshole

There seems to be a disconnect between John Mayer's music/voice and his life. He's got that pussy voice and produces music suitable for dentist offices and grocery stores. But then he goes and says stuff like this (from a Playboy interview):

On his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Simpson:

That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs aren't good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me... Sexually it was crazy. That's all I'll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm... Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did you ever say, "I want to quit my life and just fuckin' snort you? If you charged me $10,000 to fuck you, I would start selling all my shit just to keep fucking you.

He also says some kinda racist stuff. Uses the n word. And when asked if black women go after him he says:

I don't think I open myself up to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I've got a Benetton heart and a fuckin' David Duke cock. I'm going to start dating separately from my dick.

(P.S. Happy Black History month!)

He also uses the word "fags".

His thoughts on porn:

It's a new synaptic pathway. You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora's box of visuals. There have probably been days when I see 300 vaginas before I got out of bed...My biggest dream is to write pornography.

Thoughts on relationships:

John: Here's what I really want to do at [age] 32: fuck a girl and then, as she's sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So she's like, "What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and you're making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit!"So she says, "I love this guy." I say, "I love this girl loving me." And then we have a problem. Because that entails instant relationship. I'm already playing house. And when I lose interest she's going to say, "Why would you do that if you didn't want to stick with me?"

Interviewer: Why do you do it?

John: Because I want to show her I'm not like every other guy. Because I hate other men. When I'm fucking you, I'm trying to fuck every man who's ever fuck you, but in the ass, so you'll say "No one's ever done that to me in bed."

I'm too sexy for my sleeves

Huh...

A crazy tidbit I picked up from a New York Times article:

A small study* conducted by the Smell and Taste Research Foundation in Chicago (using 31 participants) found that men are turned on by the smell of donuts mixed with licorice. The next-highest turn-me-on scent for men was the combination of lavender and pumpkin pie. Women are most aroused by the smell of baby powder and by the combination of Good & Plenty candy mixed with cucumber (it's a tie). Second place was a combination of Good & Plenty and banana nut bread. The smell of cherries resulted in a drop of arousal for women, as did the scent of meat cooked over charcoal.

*The study involved measuring "vaginal and penile blood flow" while the participants wore masks that emitted various food aromas.

Huh. Do those results weird anyone else out?

This study gives a whole new meaning to the name Good & Plenty...

The man who conducted the experiment said that his study did not prove that the effect of these scents are ingrained physiologically. Instead, he suggested the scents could have evoked memories for his small sample of subjects. Another researcher who is an expert on the psychology of smell (who was not involved in the study) said that the study was too limited to lead to any credible conclusions.

Tai Shan

Tai Shan is the panda that was born here in DC and lived at the National Zoo for his whole life thus far. He was returned to China the other day, as he technically belongs to China. Tai Shan and his parents are only on loan to the U.S. from China. Tai Shan has returned to China to fulfill his breeding duties. The Washington Post wrote an article on his return to China, and quite possibly had the most depressing title: "For Tai Shan, voyage to China is a trip to obscurity and sex." That sounds like the tagline of a disturbing David Lynch/Lars von Trier/Darren Aronofsky film.

If I sufficiently anthropomorphize Tai Shan (which I always do), what I took from this depressing article is that:

1. He stress-ate all the way from the U.S. to China.

"As throngs of Chinese reporters and corporate sponsors mobbed him, he calmly stared through his bamboo-filled glass cage and did what he always does: He ate. In fact, Tai Shan was so busy chewing that he barely slept during the 15.5 hour flight, officials said. He munched his way through forty pounds of bamboo, three pounds of pears, and two pounds of apples as the plane made its way through Canada and the North Atlantic. He ate over Norway, into Russia and past Kazakhstan and, finally, into China. He was still chewing on the last of his food when Nicole Meese, the panda's main keeper during his 4.5 years at the National Zoo, handed off responsibility for taking care of Tai Shan to her Chinese counterpart Wu Daifu."

2. His child-star days are over.

"His primary job will no longer be to delight tourists; it will be to breed. In the United States, Tai Shan was special, the only baby panda to survive past infancy in the nation's capital. But at the panda center in the lush mountains of south-central China, he will be just one of 150. Gone are the days of custom-made birthday cakes, waterfalls, and fans cheering his every move. Chinese officials here say that they will feel no need to make special accommodations for Tai Shan in housing, food, or language. If conditions are not to his liking, he'll have to adjust."

3. He'll be turned into a sex machine and he is forced to watch porn.

"Tai Shan won't be put into the center's breeding program right away because the success rate is higher when males are [about] 7 years old, making 2012 the ideal year. But he will start psychological training, researchers said. He'll be shown videos of pandas mating and get to hear tapes of female pandas calling for mates."