IF ONLY...

One of my secret, guilty pleasures is watching infomercials... the cheesier the product, the better. I love those stupid grillers, Aqua Globes and just about anything else presented in long-commercial format.

But recently, I've noticed a new product haunting the late-night infomercial circuit: The Perfect Push-Up. Now, I'm all for watching greased-up beau-hunks writhe around in the name of fitness, but c'mon! Does this product really do anything? Even if I had tons of disposable income, I wouldn't waste it on junk like this.

It's a lot like the pictures on mens' underwear boxes: guys see them an think, "Hey, if I buy this product, then I'll look like that!" I'm guessing the Perfect Push-Up operates on the same principle: nice to look at, but not much bang for your buck.

ROSEBUD...

HSM3: Part 1

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HSM3: Part 2

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WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

All my friends and family have always shamed me for being a Bank of America customer. "They charge you for everything," they all moan, wagging their fingers.

But now, my bank - one of the only banks on solid ground right now - is buying up other, failed institutions. So now, all my friends and family who just had to tell me what a financial fool I was are having their banks, mortgages and broker firms snatched up by... wait for it... Bank of America. I would rub it in their faces, but I kind of feel bad for them.

Well, kinda.

WHAT A RIP-OFF!

I'm a member of the Mt. Dew Action Network - basically, an email network for Dew lovers. We get coupons, promos and enter contests, all centered around my favorite beverage, Mt. Dew. Now, I'm a huge fan of Code Red, the cherry Mt. Dew, so imagine my excitement when I found out Weinerschnitzel started making a Cherry Fusion Mt. Dew (a regular Mt. Dew with cherry syrup added).

So I trucked on over to Der Weinerschnitzel, a plunked down $2.10 for a cup of this new Dew... only to find it tasted exactly like Code Red (which is actually better, available at stores with food I actually like, and cheaper).

WHAT'S THE 'M' FOR, ANYWAY?

MTV Networks announced it will cancel Total Request Live, after years on the air as one of the only shows still featuring music. Now, there will be only one show, FNMTV, that occasionally airs, and shows music.

Maybe I'm just getting too old, but I remember a time when the M in MTV stood for music, and that meant something.

ZIP SLOWLY

According to research, 100,000 people injure themselves on their own clothing every year.

PUSHING, AGAIN...

Mark you calendars, cause Pushing Daisies returns October 1st!

THIS CAN'T BE REAL

Mr. Rachel Zoe's hair cannot be real. Putting his dead-animal hairdo aside, I love me some Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo.

MOOSE-KNUCKLES

Love, love, love these two.

SOMEBODY HELP ME... PLEASE!

I can't get the theme from Buck Rogers out of my head! I'm trying to finish a paper for class (one of three due today), and I find myself absentmindedly humming it. Usually, when I get a song stuck in my head, I just find it in iTunes (or somewhere online), listen to it, and I'm fine. But I don't have that kind of time right now.

TOP THIS

How yummy is Preston from Bravo's Top Design? (You can read his Bravo Bio here.) There's only been three episodes (and he was in the bottom two for the first two - insert immature bottom joke here), but I've already got a serious crush. I almost don't notice what's going on in the show when he's on screen... although that may be because new host India Hicks is such a snore.

But back to Preston... that face, that smile... that body, and the clothes he puts on it. Every little thing about him screams delicious. Please to enjoy these other pictures:

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

The Panda Express on campus has a new product: Sushi. Sushi is traditionally a Japanese food. Panda Express is, as their logo states, Chinese food. I thought, maybe there was a Chinese version of Sushi, so I checked Wikipedia, and found an article disambiguating the term (here). But no, Sushi is, in fact, Japanese food... being served, in this case, by a Chinese food chain. Everything else is made in China, so why not?

CRUSH OF THE MONTH: September

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KATHY DOES IT AGAIN!

Congrats to Kathy Griffin for her second Emmy Award! In a special ceremony before Sunday's Emmy Telecast, Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List picked up its second Emmy Award for outstanding reality program.

See? Once in a while awards go to the talented people!

HOT HOLLYWOOD BLOG

More from the fabulous (still not safe for work), Hunter & Jessica.

APPLE STEPS IN IT... AGAIN

If you're a regular Mac user, or just an iTunes freak, then you know Apple came out with Version 8 of the world's most popular music player/store application.

But if you're like me: a long-time Mac user (as in the original, little, green-screen Macs), and serious iTunes user, you don't like some of the changes. Once again, Apple has gone and "improved" their product. Here are some of my issues with this update:

• The skin (a.k.a. the look of the application): One of the things I love about Macs is the way you can trick out the look of it: customized folder backgrounds, custom icons and folders, along with graphic desktops allow you to make your computer a one-of-a-kind user eperience. But now, when you're not using iTunes, it turns white. When you're in the app, it turns grey. This may seem like a minor detail, but it is throwing off the entire look of my Mac.
• Store links: It used to be you could turn these stupid things off, but now, they're on all the time. You think Apple would be happy as the #1 online retailer of music, and clawing their way to number two, behind Wal Mart among all music retail sales. But no, they need to really push the store on you. "Do you want to gift this playlist?," those little arrows ask. But if you say yes... well, we'll get to that.
• New album layouts: Enough. Stop f*cking with the interface. Or if you're going to mess with it, at least make it work. For some reason, some of the albums I have are split up, with two different place holders for the same damn album. (And no, the sorting information isn't different, I checked.) For others, iTunes decides not to show the artwork I downloaded, and just throws other artwork on top of it. I mean, work the bugs out before you force-feed a download on your customers.
• Minimizing: It used to be, when you minimized, or maximized (the little green button on the player), if automatically jumped you into iTunes. I loved that. It was a great way to jump apps (with the mouse). Now, it mini/maximizes the app in the background. Why, I'll never know. Why would you open up the information layout in a format you can't see? Apple used to be intuitive in its design, but this...?
  

And then there's the new Genius options. Apple launched a new "feature" called Genius, which is supposed to go through your playlists, and recommend items you might want to buy. It also allows you to gift individual songs, or entire playlists. Sounds interesting, right? But to do this, you need to "turn Genius on," which amounts to sending your playlists, and all the information stored in those files, to Apple. Big Brother, anyone?

They claim this information will be kept in an anonymous account, not linked to your iTunes account. But if that's the case, how do they know who to recommend the purchases to? And does Apple really need to know what other sites I'm buying my music from? Or what music I have, at all, for that matter?!

Macs have always been about freedom, and individuality, and this is a step in the wrong direction. Shame on you, Apple.

SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE, SIGNS!

From my (older) sister's neighborhood in Seattle.

OH... MY...

This video is not safe for work. (Unless you work in a place where people watch the Kelly Shoes video on a regular basis).



Thanks to Ragan Fox for the hook-up on this video. For more vids from Jessica & Hunter, go to You Tube and search for Jessica and Hunter.

HARD TIMES HIT HOME

As many of you know, we had a terrible train wreck here in the Southland. It was about 10 miles from here, where I live. Many people died in the crash, which is now being attributed to human error. And while watching the news brings a sense of horror, the phone calls have started coming in now, a couple of days later. Either someone you know is dead, or you know someone who lost a loved one. Which is crazy, when you consider that only twenty or so people died, and there are over 100,000 people in the immediate community where the train stop was located.

My heart goes out to all those who have been affected by this horrible, preventable tragedy.

THE NEW KID IN TOWN

We recently had a new market open up in town: Fresh & Easy. It is supposed to be all British and junk, but it seemed more warehouse, post-Costco economy to me. They had a decent selection of certain products, and lacked others. (I mean, how many varieties of frozen pizza does a store need? Oh, and the lemon bars from the "bakery" section rocked.) Overall, I would say it was an OK shopping experience. Nothing I need to repeat any time soon, but not totally insufferable, either.

But one thing did kind of tick me off: they had parking, at the front of the store, reserved for "mothers with children." Now, I understand handicapped parking. And I've put up with expectant mother parking (although, from what I understand, a little walking is good for women who are preggers). But this? This kind of felt like the last straw. I want special parking at the gym for gays, and special parking at my bank, because I speak English.

OK, that last bit was a tad asshole-ish. But I think we're going a little too far with this parking for mothers with children. They can walk, and avoid getting hit by cars like everybody else. It's Darwin's Law: survival of the fittest, no special help or protection. I mean, there's a reason why I made it to my age without getting hit by a car: my parents taught me to always look both ways before crossing the street.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Service Men Edition

This one is a bit of a stretch if you haven't seen WWE or Hot House Video's Private Parts, but I couldn't help but notice more than a couple of similarities between injured, former WWE Champ, John Cena and porn performer Ken Browning. And to take it a step further, Cena played a guy in the armed forces in The Marine, and Browning plays a guy in the armed forces in Private Parts.

YOU GO, BARBARA

According to Fox Noise (here), ABC news legend and producer of The View, Barbara Walters had a little talk with Survivor loser (well, all-around loser), and nut job Elisabeth Hasslebeck. After a recent episode where Hasslebeck got a little hot under the collar during a political discussion, Walters told Elisabeth to, "cool it, or start looking for a new job."

Now, I'm not a big fan of censorship of any kind, but then again, I'm not a journalism legend, or producer of a major, national TV talk show. And Hasslebeck needed to be shut up. It's not just that I disagree with her views, I don't like the way she expresses them: shouting and slapping her hands on the table, with little or no regard for the actual truth.

And she's pretty much a mouthpiece for the Republican National Committee. I've heard talking points come from the Bush White House, only to spill out of Hasslebeck's mouth the next morning. (I mean, if you're going to try to be a political force, maybe you should come up with your own talking points. Or at least paraphrase the ones you're given, so it sounds like you're capable of an original thought.)

But I guess I don't have to worry about that moron flapping her yap anymore. Baba Wawa is on the case.

WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?

At a recent rally, when asked about Sen. Clinton, Joe Biden said that, "She might have been a better pick for V.P."

I'm not a political expert, but I don't think statements like that win elections.

NOT MY BRAND OF ENTERTAINMENT

I was surprised to read positive reviews of Russell Brand's hosting job of the MTV Video Music Awards (one such review is here). I thought he did a terrible job. He was incoherent at times, and rarely, if ever funny or entertaining. Most of the positive reviews I read took little digs at the fact the show was hosted in Los Angeles. I'm sorry, but just because you couldn't hack it here doesn't mean you have to dog the city every chance you get.

But putting this Angeles-hating aside, Brand was lousy. Chelsea Handler praised his performance as the, "only rock and roll thing about the evening," noting that, "the Republican Party [Convention] rocked harder than the VMAs." She kind of has a point... the RNC played AC/DC, Heart and other rock music. The VMAs featured a partially acoustic (lame) set from the Jonas Brothers, whom Russell also took to task for their pro-virginity Promise Rings.

American Idol winner Jordin Sparks came to the defense of the squeaky-clean "rockers" later saying, "not everyone wants to be a slut." Russell promptly apologized - not a rock and roll thing to do. But then again, he was trying to win over American audiences and launch a state-side career. (Not much chance of that after his "debut" in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a film audiences stayed away from in droves.)

Well, MTV, there's alway next year!

BUM BUM BEE DUM

I didn't want to fall for another Rihanna song, but after last night's MTV Video Awards (which pretty much sucked, thank you very much Russell Brand), I fell in love with Disturbia. Score another one for the lady with the umbrella!

Here the track here:

OUCH!

The projected weekend box office tally is in, and all I can say is, OUCH! The top 12 films pulled in a paltry $51 million dollars this weekend. In The Los Angeles Times, several movie distributors put their best spin on the disaster of a weekend, saying things like, "We'll [still] turn a profit on this one." The film that distributor was talking about? Nicholas Cage's Bangkok Dangerous, which lead the weekend box office to new record low. Bangkok pulled in a pathetic $7.8 million dollars, placing at number on on the charts, but leading off the worst box office returns in five years.

Why don't they just put out more films that people want to see?

TEXAS JIHAD

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: The VP Edition

I know everyone, everywhere is dogging VP Nominee Sarah Palin, but I just had to post this one. Separated at birth: Sarah Palin and Beverly Hills: 90210's Andrea Zuckerman.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Ultimate Edition

I thought I was really rockin' the Separated At Birth thing, until I saw The Notorious Joe's version of this blog posting. You can check out his site here, and see his Separated At Birth collection here.

P.S. This was post #600, by the way.

SEPTEMBER SPAM

I seem to be getting the same amount of Spam in my Yahoo email, but so many of them repeat over and over. I mean really, if I didn't fall for the whole, your gift card is waiting thing before, I'm not going to fall for it ten times now. But here are some of the tastier ones:

Make your PC faster and more secure!
That is, by definition, impossible.

Broke as a joke? Get a free COSTCO Card with participation!
I'm not falling for this one, but I'll give some points for using the ol'skool phrase, "broke as a joke."

Feeling poor? Poor thing! Use that time to enroll in college online!
Poor in spirit? Pocket poor? Pour and drink?

Dumb and poor? Here's a simple way to make money?
What's with all the email assuming I'm dumb? Although I did giggle when I read all of these.

Drive more quality customers to your web site.
Thanks, but I like the ones I have.

REFLECTIONS ON WEEK ONE

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I started school last week. (If you're a regular reader of this blog, it might also mean you're getting enough fiber in your diet... but I digress.) I started the first week, of the first year of my Masters In Education, at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). I did my undergraduate, a decade ago, at UCLA, and this is an extremely different environment. (If you're not familiar with the way California schools are structured, there are three tiers, and I've moved from a first tier school to a second tier school, which isn't to say I've taken a step down.)

Here are some general impressions of my first week:

Hot, hot hot! No, not the student body (we'll get to that). I mean the campus. I'm not sure if it is because it is smack-dab in the middle of the San Fernando Valley (UCLA is in West Los Angeles, miles from the beach, so we got that ocean breeze), or what. But this campus is hot and muggy. Which may explain the...

Epidemic of bad skin. No, really. I have a few theories for this one, and they range from the poor air quality to the obvious age (and thus, hormone) differences (younger student body = bad skin). Or it could be that they're a bunch of potheads (marijuana does irritate the dermis, you know). But even if we put the questionable skin aside...

Where are all the hotties? The first tier schools, like Cal and UCLA, are supposed to be harder to get in to (and they are, trust me!), but that should mean the hot, dumb(er) ones go to second tier schools, like CSUN. But the reverse seems to be true, thus far: the hot kids went to UCLA, and the less-attractive ones seemed to end up here, at Northridge. (I wonder if I checked out the last tier, would I find the hidden hotties?)

It's great to be on a modern campus. UCLA is designed to look like an Eastern, Ivy League school, all bricks and European architecture. But CSUN is glass, concrete and steel - very sleek and modern. And it has all the newest technological conveniences. (High-speed internet existed back when I was in school, but wireless internet was in its infancy.) This makes for a different experience - not sure how I feel about this in the long-run. It's making me feel sorta old.

I love the material I'm covering. OK, so grammar isn't that interesting, but it's great to dive, head-on into something familiar, but with new staff and new goals. I'm looking forward to the next two years.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: The Classic Edition

I know they made this joke on The Roast of Bob Saget, but it was so funny, I just had to find these pictures and post it here.

WALMART FOR BLACK PEOPLE

While watching TV, I saw a commercial for Walmart, featuring an African American father and son barbecuing at a tailgate party. At the bottom of the site was a web address, walmart.com/ourvoice. What is that, I thought, a site for Black Walmart customers? No way, right. But it was (site here). Want a good laugh? Then get a load of the crap Walmart is shoveling on that site, just to fight the bad image they have.

Where's the site celebrating the large Latino/a population who also buy their goods? Or the site celebrating the Chinese people who make said goods at such a cheap, cheap price?

We'll just add this to the long list of reasons I won't ever shop at Walmart.

HEE HEE HEE

Immature, I know, but I do love Wienerschnitzel's slogan.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Mean Girls Edition

And now, for the Vice Presidential edition of Separated At Birth. Personally, I would have voted for McCain, had he picked the first one.

(For funny re-workings of McCain's Veep announcement, click here or here.)