Dagnabbit, this Haylie Duff person keeps teaching me things about cooking. It's usually bookended by shallow idiocy but the goods are there. Sort of like Cordon Bleu Barbie. This week she's, like, doing the Asian thing. The episode is called "Pho Sho," even though she readily admits she's never actually eaten the stuff.
Shut. Up!
No, you shut up!
Last weekend we tried to watch a movie -- we tried Netflix, but everything on instant that day seemed to have the production quality and narrative values of a chaste, low budget porno. Redbox and Amazon were the same. Our computer smugly told us that renting a movie from iTunes would be impossible due to our hard-drives being too full. We refused to download an illegal film not so much because of the ethical repercussions as our inability to navigate our way to virus-free streaming.
So, we did not watch a movie. Somehow, in this time of unprecedented progress in technology we have destroyed all means of watching a movie of our choice at home. In an effort to minimize our effort, we have inadvertently ridden ourselves of something more valuable than a few dollars and a little time: the freedom to choose what we watch.
Imagine, if you will, that you spent your entire life in service to a deity with the belief that if you pleased him, you would be rewarded. Perhaps you are an ancient Mayan who sacrificed a live body so that you could present their still-beating heart to your god, but still the locusts come. Or you are a Hopi in what would one day be called Arizona, dancing to bring water from the sky which never arrives to nourish your crops. Meanwhile, the Aztecs or the Navajo, who have false gods and really bad senses of style, have been blessed with zero pestilence and verdant fields of maize. WTF?
Man and Beast: A cat was blamed for a crime last week in Bryan, Texas -- along with a turtle, squirrel, and tree branch. The cat was blamed for a wreck by the drunk driver who actually caused the wreck. "Get your shit together man, it's stories like these that make people hate Texas," said the cat (undoubtedly). Allegations that this atypically organic dispute is a publicity stunt on behalf of officials to deny the existence of global warming are still under investigation.
Local Cat Crime: Much like when Cruella de Ville, that lithe and fashion-forward Disney villainess sought to skin puppies for coats, this unfortunate news item tells of the cat torturers who live in our midst. An Oakland lawyer "rescued" 93 cats and kept them in her home until police discovered that "sixteen of the cats were so sick and malnourished that they had to be put down." This woman gives a bad name to all kind, hardworking cat ladies.
