"He's only famous because of his Dad"

So this one is going to take a bit of backstory. It's also very likely only going to make sense to me, but it amuses me too much not to share.

A few years ago I read a message board called Fametracker. It was this awesome mix of intelligent, snarky people talking about movies and Hollywood. Well, like most things on the Internet, it soon devolved into pettiness and overreactions, so the mods decided to shut it down. In the last few hours of the board's existence, things pretty much imploded. This resulted in a bunch of random threads being started in the Hollywood forum, basically making fun of all the dumb things people would post about celebrities. One thread was on Jesus.

Now, I still feel terrible for how funny I thought that thread was. It was terribly sacrilegious and really just wrong. But man, you guys. I still laugh when I think about it a good three years later.

The best post? "Jesus: Leave him alone, he's 33. Forever," which was a play on JLo's publicist's age-related excuse whenever her client did something stupid. Again, probably not as funny to anyone else, but I just found a list of some of the best posts. Now I can relive the crazy any time I want.

"You have Van Gogh's ear for music. "

The music in the UK and Europe is quite funny. Either you constantly hear the cheesiest earworms from the states or you get inundated with bad Euro-Pop. In any case, here are a couple of the songs that I cannot get out of my head, due to the fact that every store or restaurant I've entered in the past two weeks has been playing them. I've sort of grown fond of these tunes, probably by the sheer amount of listens they've gotten. For your pleasure:

Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis



Apologize, One Republic



By the way, if you ever find yourself missing dance songs from the early 2000s, just go to a club in London. You'll quickly get your fix of Let's Get It Started.

This Spud's for You

There are some ugly foods out there. Would you want to eat this? That my friends is the classic English dish, Toad in the Hole, and, on second thought, don't answer that because I know some of you diehard carnivores would enjoy it.

But that kind of proves my next point. Sometimes the ugliest foods are actually the best. The sweet potato is kind of unnatractive. Like all root veggies, it has the unnatractive dirt spots and sometimes the roots still attached, which frankly remind me of hair. Gross. But the sweet potato is one of my top 5 foods.

Similarly this is a mess, but it is likely the type of mess that after I tasted it, I would want to eat the whole pile of chocolatey goodness.

I guess that old adage, don't judge a book by its cover is true for food too. But there's no way I'm putting this 'spotted dick' English dish in my mouth. Funny name or no, it just looks disgusting.

"When the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."

Donna: [terrified] A satellite is gonna crush into the Earth?
Ed and Larry: Yes!
Donna: Why are you laughing?
Ed: We thought it was funny...

Somewhere in the fictionalized world of President Matt Santos, Donna is freaking out.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

So while trolling Amazon I stumbled upon Neil Gaiman's blog. Though I haven't actually read any of his books (though American Gods has been on my list forever), I did recently see Stardust and loved it. His blog is also awesome.

One particular post discusses the many different trailers that came out for Stardust:

"I saw one trailer that didn't seem to be about anything, but still left you feeling like you'd seen (and not enjoyed) the whole movie, which wasn't any movie that had ever been made. There was even a trailer that gave the impression that this was a film all about Tristan's quest to discover the riddle of his birth, which he solved by becoming a sky-pirate."

In similar vein, here are two trailer interpretations of the classics Mary Poppins and The Shining. Both are quite amusing.

Also, while we're on the topic, netflix Stardust! It's awesome. Robert De Niro is a gay pirate and the male lead gets really hot halfway through the movie. Plus they manage to make Claire Danes not annoying! That alone is worth the price of admission.

"Don't get stuck with the rutabaga. Not real festive."

One of the downsides to moving is not being able to locate all one's stuff easily. Boxes boxes everywhere!

Every year on Christmas Eve I watch a couple of Christmas specials I remember from my childhood. Unfortunately I have misplaced the video they're on.

Behold the wonder of the Internet. I found the Adventures in Wonderland Christmas special on YouTube! Here's part one, part two and part three. It's campy, kooky fun. (That's what the quote is from if you're wondering. It's a Wonderland tradition to hang vegetables...sounds like a very Natalie tradition to me!)

Alas I couldn't find the Under the Umbrella Tree special, but I did find a fan community on the internet... I can't decide if that's awesome or just sad. Oh well. I can recite it all from memory anyway.

And, by far, the most important thing was to find Claymation Christmas, which is now waiting on top of the one VCR we have left. Whee! Egg nog, cookies, and ice skating hippos...doesn't get much better than that.

Happy Christmas all!

I could handle the ghetto car, but 12 kids???

Anybody remember MASH? No, not the one with Hawkeye (though how awesome is Alan Alda? Very awesome.) I'm talking about the game you play with the little paper foldy thing. You give five names of guys you know (or girls' names depending on your gender/preference), five colors, five car types, five different numbers, five locations, and five jobs. Then you do the foldy thing and you suddenly know your future. Or something like that. I mean I'm not planning on living in Peoria while driving a green Dodge Dart married to the guy in my third grade class who picked his nose, but it was still always a good time and an excellent way to figure out who was crushing on who. I've long since forgotten how to make the paper thing, but now you can play online. Eric Bana's wife will be very unhappy when she hears he's moving to the Italian Riviera with me. Maybe the nose picker is still available?

"Shoes! If not now, when?"

Man did Miss Piggy ever have it right. I like shoes (understatement of the year...) I've never felt such kinship with a character in a novel as when Becky Bloomwood confessed her secret that sometimes she takes all her shoes out, lines them up on her bed, and photographs them. Her explanation is that she has all sorts of pictures of people she doesn't like, why shouldn't she have pictures of things she does? Makes perfect sense. Shoes in their best form are art.

That said, I have the tendency to only actually wear a few pairs in my closet. These are usually my cute, but not spectacular mary janes, my practical black flat boots, or my snazzy purple tennis shoes. [Aside: Sometime last year, I was looking through a catalog and they listed a pair of shoes as "snazzy tennies." I don't know why it made me laugh so hard, but it cracked mom up too. Something about that combination...]

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Anyway, I have a lot of other fabulous shoes that I should be wearing. It's just...I walk a lot. To the point where even my comfortable shoes are all kind of starting to hurt. So I have a mission to find a replacement pair of black flats. They probably won't be spectacular, but that's ok. I'm sure I'll find a few other pairs when I'm shopping that are just crying out to be displayed proudly on my shelves, like the Rembrandt-esque pieces they are. And maybe at some point I'll even wear them.

"Sorry. I have to stay home and wash my hair."

Have a holiday party you want to avoid? Here's an excuse generator. It's fabulous. Check it out just for a laugh!

Did you hear Miss Cleo's in jail?

I will be the first one to tell you that horoscopes are a load of hogwash. If they had any truth to them whatsoever, I would have found true love years ago and would have been promoted 14 times in a career I do not have. And yet every time I get one of my beloved magazines, I scan the zodiac for Taurus and read about things that won't happen. Or might. They're usually just vague enough that you can't tell. Well, if you're tired of reading the trite "you will have a good month if you love yourself, blah blah blah," check out biorhythms (needs Java). It's a whole new way to not predict anything whatsoever. Supposedly I'm having an unhealthy day tomorrow. Hmmm...maybe it does know something about my new dark kitkat obsession?

"Dwight, you ignorant slut!"

Because I'm in London, I haven't been watching TV. Even before I left I was really only into The Office. So the writer's strike shouldn't be affecting me much. But I love The Office and thus have been acquiring episodes by all means possible. Let me tell you, it isn't nearly as funny when your copy only has every other sentence of dialogue. Even so, the strike is affecting my Saturday morning ritual. So I have been fulfilling my need for awkward and awesome humor by reading the various cast members' blogs. These people are great in real life too!

Check them out:

Mindy Ephron (Kelly) (Full disclosure: I totally got the idea for this blog from Mindy's.)
Jenna Fischer (Pam)
BJ Novak (Ryan)
Angela Kinsey (Angela)

I'm pretty sure Creed Bratton (Creed), Kate Flannery (Meredith), Paul Lieberstein (Toby), and Craig Robinson (Darryl) are all on MySpace too.