Recently in What in the What What? Category

Who doesn't love a Rube Goldberg inspired video? This one by OK Go has quickly earned the top spot in the genre of all time (in my humble yet esteemed opinion) -- no major feat considering the previous champ was that awesome Honda commercial. Anyway, check out this video and prepare to have your mind blown. Clearly this is destined to be a YouTube classic.

Via Nerdist.

My lovely and dear friend Sly got her email hacked into, and some nefarious person sent this message out to her entire address book. If you receive it, do NOT send her money as she is NOT in London, nor does she write this poorly:

Score another one for NBC, which seems to find itself in a new PR quagmire every time I turn on the computer. Last week, it was Chris Matthews saying he forgot Obama was black, and the week -- or rather weeks -- before that it was Conan-gate (or is it Leno-gate?). Well, today comes another egregious misstep by the Peacock: a lunch special at the 30 Rock commissary which offered up fried chicken, collard greens, and black eyed peas in honor of Black History Month. I'm shocked there was no watermelon or grape soda on display too.

Questlove from The Roots snapped a picture of this ridiculousness, and soon after it hit Twitter, the sign miraculously disappeared. Since then, there have been statements from NBC and the revelation that the commissary is not in fact part of the Peacock empire. Scandal!

Found via The Wrap.

I've always wondered what would happen should I or anyone else accidentally knock over one of the many fragile wares at Crate & Barrel. Would the staff level me with a stern eye and an unforgiving scowl? Would I be forced to pony up the dough to replace the unfortunate item I had so tragically destroyed thanks to the whims of my gangly limbs? Or would I be granted clemency for my accident with nary a penalty or fee thrown my way?

The answer, as it turns out, is the latter. Now don't get excited. I didn't break any damn thing. I may be awkward, but I'm not clumsy (necessarily). A fear of shards inspires me to move deliberately and carefully around all ceramic and hyaloid items in a store. However, others aren't so thoughtful. Take, for instance, the idiot in Crate & Barrel yesterday who just breezed on through the place without any awareness of where any of his limbs might be at any given time. Well, when you play fast and loose, there can be dangerous consequences, which is why it perhaps was no surprise when a loud crash echoed mightily throughout the store (and Los Angeles in general). Everything in Crate & Barrel came to a halt as people swiveled their heads in the direction of the noise, first determining what had broken and then who the hapless offender was.

Luckily for this dude, he had only shattered a benign wine glass (as opposed to an entire shelf of ornamental vases and carafes, as I was hoping). It was only a minor accident, but merchandise had been destroyed, and surely he'd have to face the consequences. IndianJones, jash, and I waited with bated breath to see what pray tell would happen to this awful, awful man. The results: NOTHING. A lovely young Crate & Barrel worker smiled at him politely, which I suppose meant that he was off the hook because he then shrugged, made a strange face reminiscent of Charles Nelson Reilly, and then scampered out of the store as quickly as possible -- somehow managing not to ruin more inventory in the process. The saleswoman, meanwhile, fetched a broom and a pan and quickly cleaned up the mess. I must admit that the lack of passive-aggressive glares on her part was highly disappointing; however, she earns points for briefly stepping away from the scene, thus affording me a chance to snap a photo of the horrific crime scene.

And so the great Crate & Barrel Disaster of 2010 came to an end. Now we know what happens when you break a glass at Crate & Barrel. I certainly feel enlightened, and I hope you do too.

Yup, this is about right.

(Thanks to Ron, coincidentally my old boss at Late Night with Conan O'Brien, for the link)

By now, most people lurking throughout the blogosphere have seen the before & after pics of Heidi Montag's new face and body, and if you're like me, you thought the surgery didn't look soooo bad (except for that soul-draining effect it has on her eyes and persona). However, I knew I'd have to reserve final judgment until I saw Heidi's new face in motion -- far away from the beneficial aids of photoshop and airbrushing.

Well, the young starlet's face made its on-camera debut on Good Morning America today, and as feared, Heidi looked truly scary and plastic. She seemed totally devoid of any of human qualities, and what's saddest is that her face didn't look drastically different -- but just enough to destroy any semblance of charm or personality.

Of course, once you get over Heidi's new face, you then have to listen to her talk, and the answers to some of reporter Juju Chang's questions truly walk the line between hilarious and depressing. I think Heidi's insistence that she wants to send a message about "inner-beauty" is most puzzling of all. However, my favorite exchange is this:

Classic, terrible stuff. To see the whole interview, click the video above.

In some ways, you gotta admire Yale for going out on a limb and producing an entire musical admissions video with which to promote the finer elements of their storied institution. On the other hand, you also have to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Granted, this video still can't touch the pure brilliance of Appalachia State University's recruiting efforts (the benchmark for all catchy collegiate tunes), but really, who can?

Nevertheless, this video, titled "That's Why I Chose Yale," plays sort of like a forgotten number from Enchanted. I half expected Amy Adams to come swirling into frame, crooning "How doooo yoooooou knoooowwww???????" But alas, the best we get is Brian Williams, who thankfully refuses to sing his two cameo lines. As for the rest, well, it's mainly just a bunch of effete guys with very high voices exalting the many splendors of residential colleges and varied course offerings.

Personally, I like the Dartmouth's recruiting videos more, which are both conveniently located after the jump...

First my friend Meeshie surprised us with a little video with Tim Gunn. Now we have this picture of her with Bethenny Frankel, star of The Real Housewives of New York City. How she winds up with these Bravo personalities is beyond me, especially since she doesn't seem to ever know who they are. Hopefully Meeshie told Bethenny that she used to live right around the corner from Zaaaaarin Faaaaabrics, but I have a feeling that talking point was overlooked.

Nevertheless, I haven't heard the story behind this pic yet as it's hot off the presses (courtesy of Meeshie's friend Joe), but I'm sure more details will come later...

There's nothing quite like Halloween on a Saturday, especially in West Hollywood, CA, where over 500,000 people convene to show off their costumes and check out everyone else's in what usually proves to be the people watching event of the year. And as you all know, if there's anything I love, it's people watching. In 2008, I got all arts & crafty and built a Price Is Right costume that I was sure would wow the masses. It was certainly well received, but I must confess that it really didn't elicit the rapturous response I was really going for. And yes, I'm very shallow about these things. I won't mince words: I wanted attention.

This time around, I decided I'd go with a sure-fire strategy. If I wanted my costume to be a rousing success, I'd have to a) walk around in as little clothes as possible, or b) engage in some '80s nostalgia. Guess which option won out? A few trips to some thrift stores later (not to mention Michael's in Burbank and a wig shop in Hollywood), and I had all the essential items needed to make my very own Zack Morris costume. Cheap '80s nostalgia, here I come!

Warning -- somewhat NSFW. Buttocks, bare chests, and tranny areolas (not in that order) after the jump...

So about five minutes ago, I turned on my TV, and as is wont to happen, I heard the audio first for about three seconds before the video came through. Almost immediately, I recognized the distinct singsong timber of Sandra Lee's voice as she assured the viewing audience that "this couldn't be any easier because THIS is a MICROWAVE dip!" Oh lord. What horrors awaited me?

Sure enough, the image came through, and I nearly jumped back in horror as Sandra stood there in full wicked witch regalia. Crazy costumes are nothing new for this wacky lady, but it was entirely way too jarring for me to handle. Of course, a morbid fascination then overtook me, and I rewound to the top of the episode to see what horrendous Halloween treats she'd be making.

A truly disgusting image after the jump.

After the nation-wide scare that Balloon Boy gave us yesterday, many people were wishing to unleash various forms of anger on the six-year-old kid. Well, retribution came today in the form of sudden, nationally-broadcast nausea as Balloon Boy puked LIVE on The Today Show. Really, there's not much more to say about it. Just watch the video above starting at around the one minute mark.

Thanks to jash — this blog's resident Balloon Boy — for the link.

Well, it's over. Balloon Boy, a.k.a. Falcon Heene, the troublesome six-year-old who was feared to be aloft in a giant Jiffy Pop balloon high above Colorado, is safe. Turns out he was in a box in the attic the whole time. Some people may feel angry about this childhood prank gone way awry, but I personally enjoyed it all. In fact, I thought it was significantly more entertaining than about 90% of that other balloon saga, Up. That being said, we're all glad the kid is alive yada yada yada.

Nevertheless, Balloon Boy may now be over and officially logged in the footnotes of pop culture, but that doesn't mean we have to forget this bizarre story. That's right — in record time, a t-shirt has popped up on the Internet, memorializing this silly, silly day. To buy one, just follow this link to Zazzle.com. Go Falcon, Go indeed!

(Personally though, I think the design should be amended to portray simply a box).

Thanks to Lbucha for the heads up.

Cougars are all the rage right now. First they had a reality show this summer, then there was Cougar Town (which you should all watch since B-Side Blog recurring guest Sawgee is a writer on it), and now there's this clip of Meredith Vieira trying to snatch some man meat on the set of her game show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The clip is a few months old, but it's still amusing to watch the hostess have a non-menopausal hot flash in front of her innocent Navy prey.

(Of course, when it comes to cougars, nothing compares to the best one of all, captured here in all her glory)

Take a wild guess who this is from. Sadly, it appears to be our last message from her... until the next one.

OK ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH THIS SHIT!!! THESE RE"CRAPS" SUCK!!! Look I've tried to be patient with you and stick by you through good recaps and bad re"craps" but this is it!!! I JUST CAN'T STAND THIS ANYMORE!!! How can someone with so much talent be so bad at writing recaps??? I just don't know what went so wrong with you??? I mean really!!! Really!!! REALLY!!! Is this what you do now??? This is what you call writing??? Is this suppose to satisfy me??? Well let me tell you something, it doesn't ok!!! First off, The Hills was AMAZING!!! Kristin is the BEST thing that MTV could've done with The Hills!!! The whole entire time I was watching I was like Lauren who??? It was like watching a brand new show!!! Kristin brought it like a champ unlike you with this re"crap"!!! This is going to be the BEST with her on it!!! Also, you kept misspelling Kristin's name a few times throughout your re"crap"!!! Yeah, you might want to watch that!!! The Hills is the BEST SHOW EVER!!! The City was alright!!! It was so boring!!! The Hills was so good it set the bar high and when The City came on I was like whatever!!! I could barely watch it!!! It had some good moments, but for the most part boring!!! Kelly is awesome as usual!!! Roxy is from The Hills!!! She was on season three!!! She is actually Stephanie's best friend in real life!!! So the fact that Whitney didn't even say anything about Roxy on The Hills is stupid!!! It makes no sense that her and Roxy are friends now!!! I know Whitney grew up in LA and she was actually friends with a lot of the cast members of The Hills before the show but still!!! The best parts were when Olivia went off on her boss and the end when her boss made her look stupid!!! I'm still going to watch because I love The City, maybe it will get better!!! Season 1 was better!!! Also, Alli was at the party at Whitney's house!!! Also, I want to let you know that I'm done with you!!! DONE!!! Done with this website and done with you re"craps"!!! Until you recap like you used to then I'm done!!! I'm going to find somebody who takes The Hills and The City and all my shows seriously!!! Someone who appreciates them!!! Someone who does their job right!!! Someone who loves Spencer and Heidi like I do!!! For all of you that comment on this site who say I'm joking and playing games I'm not!!! I'm just a true fan of these shows and I'm a real person with real feelings and you guys don't know much you hurt them!!! Please don't hate me!!! I will never send emails again!!! I promise this will be my last one ever!!!

OFFICIAL RESPONSE: I think you have the right idea. Time to move on. Specifically, go away.

Last night I received an urgent message from my friend Lil Grans who informed me that he had just seen a woman's vagina flash on screen during So You Think You Can Dance. Since I don't watch the show (or any dancing shows really), I was without evidence; so I asked him to take a picture of the screen. He never did, but let's face it — after last week's cookie fiasco, we really couldn't expect much even if he had. Nevertheless, I knew that if Lil Grans had spotted some girl's "pocketbook," surely countless other people — perhaps even bloggers — had seen it too. Sure enough, they had. In fact, Andy Dehnart of Reality Blurred has proven to be quite the vaginal detective as he has tracked down two screen shots of the offending snatch-slip. But fear not, people in cubicles. This is totally work safe. Why? Because according to producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe, what we saw was merely "a crease in the young lady’s panties.” Hmmmm... Lady crease or va-jay-jay? I guess we'll never know. Either way, it does not leave much to the imagination. And really, who needs imagination anyway?

We all love some highbrow / lowbrow intermingling (lobster corndogs, Kobe sliders, Bravo TV), but this picture pretty much takes it to new heights. It's a Domino's delivery guy driving an Aston Martin down Lincoln Boulevard in Los Angeles. And yes, this is real. My friend at Food2 took the photo. In fact, Food2 is hosting a caption contest — well, not a contest as there are no prizes, but you know what I'm saying. To provide your own saucy caption, click here.

I can't believe I forgot to post this. One of my Twitter followers posted this to his account back on July 4th weekend. It's best read from the bottom up. There's probably a lesson to be learned here, kids...

Don't worry — he was okay.

As most of you know, I've been absolutely railroaded by pneumonia for the past two weeks, and making matters worse, the bacteria didn't really respond to the meds, thus leaving me in a rather exhausted and catatonic state for some time now. Subsequently the rate at which I can post has been severely affected (the latest Big Brother photocap literally took me two days to assemble). Rest assured, it's not for lack of desire; only lack of energy. The good news is that I'm on new, more powerful meds, and there should be new content up hopefully soon — but I'm not rushing it. Of course, I shouldn't have to explain all this. It's my blog, and I can post whatever I want whenever I want.

So imagine my utter disdain and annoyance at the entitlement that came from the following email:

basically you don't post often enough. love your posts but frustrating to check every day for new content and it's not there! especially after bb shows. i realize that you've been sick but can you please step it up for the rest of the season, please?

appreciate the effort,

deedee

from canada

Well, Deedee from Canada, consider this your dream come true. A new post! And it's all about you!

For the rest of you, thanks for your patience.

For the past few days, I've been bedridden with an intermittent fever, and being the judicious hypochondriac that I am, I decided to get it checked out today. After all, I wouldn't want to come down with the SWINE FLU. Luckily, I don't have that (YET). But I do have pneumonia. I've been ordered to rest in bed for the next week; so I fear this may put a slight damper on my posting schedule / output. Blech.

Luckily I have moral support from Sly, who just wrote me, "I had it while working on an archaeological dig in Cyprus and had to sleep sitting up, it was so bad. On the plus side, i got out of sifting duty, b/c the dust plume would have killed me."

Alas.

I must now repair to the bed. Thank you for your patience.

True insanity. I just woke up and discovered an inordinately large amount of tweets congratulating me. For what? I had no idea. But then I got to thinking — late last night, a writer from Entertainment Weekly had contacted me, telling me to keep an eye out for Julie Chen's EW blog going up today. Naturally, I immediately headed over to the site, and there it was: Julie Chen mentioning yours truly:

But first (wink), let’s talk about the elephant in the EW blog room…The Chenbot! I was horrified when my best friend from college first told me about my Big Brother nickname. But, there was a side of me that kind of also got it right away. When I played dumb and asked her to explain it...it was exactly what I expected to hear. Then I was kind of embarrassed and yet unsure how to feel or react. (Chenbot was hurt...does this mean the Chenbot has emotions!?!?!). But, when I told my agent to get some sympathy, he made a funny remark in a robot-like voice and said something like...”Oh-yeah-you-did-not-know?” And he e-mailed me a link where someone edited together all my "But firsts…" (You know who you are, Ben Mandelker!) from the live shows and I laughed my head off. I WAS the Chenbot. Each delivery was EXACTLY the same -- different hairdos, different outfits...same damn robotic delivery with precision and zero emotion. That's when I said to myself, "Can I blame em? I AM the Chenbot!" The Beatles' lyrics of "I am the Walrus" went through my head but I substituted in Chenbot.

CRAZINESS!!! I think the fourth wall has officially crumbled. Thanks for the shout-out, Julie!!

To read The Chenbot's full entry, check it out here.

And to follow me on Twitter, check out twitter.com/bsideblog

There are many things I'd expect Beyoncé to endorse. Hamburger Helper is not one of them. And so marks the most amusing Beyoncé commercial since her bizarre Directv spot.

I'm now looking forward to the inevitable Solange partnership with Past-a-Roni.

This enrages me. The lovely Liz at Food, She Thought sent a simple email to the publicist for Kogi's Taco Truck (a Korean-BBQ-on-wheels thing here in Los Angeles), and the response was absolutely outrageous. Even if everything this PR person had said was true, there's no good reason for he or she to have actually said it. Memo to publicists: when you have to do damage control for your damage control peeps, that's a bad thing.

Check out the ridiculousness here.

Great news! After shamelessly baiting Blair Underwood to follow me on Twitter, my hopes and dreams were realized! Yes, at 2:46 PM this afternoon, I received this email:

Hi, B-Side Blog.

Blair Underwood (BlairUnderwood) is now following your updates on Twitter.

SUCCESS! Thanks for following, Blair. I promise it will be worth your while! You are already the coolest person I am currently associated with, and as such I plan to backdoor brag about this to many friends for the next four to six weeks.

There's been scandal brewing in IndianJones's apartment building. First a letter went up from the manager Tatyana complaining about a bunch of irascible gay youths in the pool after hours. Then a second letter went up from Tatyana, saying that the first letter was a fake and that her name should not be used in vain. So which cold and calculating person could possibly be setting up Tatyana for the fall? Meet Suspect A: an oiled-up lass in a candy cane (!) bikini that IndianJones spotted by the pool from his window. Sure, she looks all innocent and melanoma-ready, but I'm starting to think she could be at the heart of this scandal. Take a look at the evidence:

1) She's got the motive! Clearly this woman likes her pool time. The last thing she needs is a bunch of loud gay guys ruining her peace. Besides, what if they spread their AIDS in the water? Not cool.

2) She and Tatyana are clearly enemies. It's basic girl principle: heavyset older women simply cannot be friends with younger attractive women. Tatyana most likely resents this girl for her youth and figure. The girl resents Tatyana for charging her rent and giving her nasty looks.

It's all so obvious: scare the gays off, claim the pool for herself, and let Tatyana take the blame. A perfect crime.

Or, of course, there's the other explanation: she's just a girl by the pool who has nothing to do with anything. I choose not to believe that. Either way, IndianJones got his jollies today, and that's all that really matters.

Putting the "frau" in "fraud."

Some people will do anything to get on the Real Housewives franchise — even if that includes $38 million fraud. That's the case with a Laguna Hills woman, Devon Kile, who with her husband was just busted by the authorities for engaging in one of the largest insurance scams in California history. Turns out Devon and her man, Michael Petronella, ran a shady roofing business that skimped on taxes and employee compensation. This led to an old-fashioned raid by investigators, who found amongst the jewelry and Ferraris an application for Devon to be part of The Real Housewives of Orange County.

Clearly these minor criminal activities will undermine any shot she has to be on the show, but honestly, I think she'd be perfect. What better way to rankle Vicki than by sticking a FAKE business woman into the mix? The amount of sneering and eye-rolling would be sensational (especially if Devon were forced to wear vintage prison stripes every episode). C'mon, Bravo. Do something bold: cast a lying fraud! It's like you haven't done it before.

For more information, check out the full story at KTLA.

And in other news: there's gonna be a new housewife? Won't seven be too many? Or is someone getting the ax? It better not be Lynn, the world's greatest foil to Vicki...

A few days ago, I posted a letter from IndianJones's landlady to all the tenants, complaining about a bunch of "jack ass" (sic) gays who had besieged the pool late at night and had made loud, unsettling gay noises — clearly a result of having been thrown out of local gay bar The Abbey. Well, turns out the note was NOT from the landlady, who posted the above statement.

So who in IndianJones's building is pretending to be Tatyana? And will this impostor be caught?

Developing...

Spotted in IndianJones's building this weekend: a memo from his land lady that strikes just the right balance of hilarity and offensiveness. Well done!

Feel free to discuss — but keep it mature. Juvenile behavior is unacceptable on MY blog.

"Hey Toots. My name's Joanne, and I work at Hertz. Now get me a coffee, would ya?"

Courtesy of Socialite Life

God Bless human errors. The local ABC News affiliate for Los Angeles just tweeted a weather update (http://twitter.com/abc7weather), complete with a link to the station's website. One problem: whoever runs the Twitter account accidentally linked to PORN instead. Talk about a hairy forecast (zinger!).

There's a good chance all will be deleted soon, but don't worry, I have both a screen grab AND the offending link, which is VERY NSFW (that means not safe for work).

To see where ABC News just directed its readers, click here: http://tinyurl.com/8jrgm (don't say we didn't warn you...)

UPDATE: It appears as though ABC has removed the offending tweet. Still was pretty funny though for the few hours it was up...

UPDATE 2: Franklin Avenue seems to have isolated the problem: for whatever reason, ABC accidentally dropped the "4" at the end of the tinyurl. You see, http://tinyurl.com/8jrgm4 directs to the very safe for work KABC webpage. Lose the "4," and, well, you get a whole lot of anus. The perils of a poor executed cut-and-paste...

Philadelphia viewers tuning in for an Easter service from the Vatican on Sunday came across quite the surprising programming glitch. Comcast accidentally aired a commercial for Girls Gone Wild, and according to a press release just issued by Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis, sales spiked immediately. "It seems that many of the same people interested in the Pope’s message are also interested in ours," he wrote, later adding that he was "happy to have shared an audience with the Pope."

We shall now brace for the ensuing march upon Joe's castle, replete with pitchforks and torches.

The full press release after the jump...

Over the weekend, I headed to Las Vegas to celebrate the joint 30th birthdays of IndianJones and J-Unit, and as is likely to happen in Sin City, we promptly came upon some hawt girl-on-girl action right on the strip. Needless to say, our cameras caught all of the action.

To see a few more pics, as well as the hotties who were locking lips, follow the jump...

If things look a little different around here, it's because I added a third column to the right of the page. The one sidebar was getting a bit unwieldy, and with limited premium space at the top, too much important stuff was getting shoved too far down (ie. advertising). As a result, I've bumped "Hot Posts" to the right, as well as a few other items. Over the next few days, I may be moving stuff back and forth between the columns; so enjoy the excitement as some of your favorite sidebar features migrate like a pack of Canadian geese in the winter!

Of course, the downside of adding this column is that the blog has grown to be super wide. I really didn't want to sacrifice the main content area's width because I'm a fan of large reading space and big photos. However, please tell me if the right-most sidebar is a) being cut off and b) if this new design is annoying or impeding the functionality of the site for you. According to my stats, the majority of users employs computers with resolutions large enough to accommodate the wider size; so I imagine this shouldn't be too much of a problem (and yes, stats really do track that sort of data!).

While I fool around with things (including new banners), feel free to visit my sponsors as they are what keeps this blog alive!

Thanks for your patience...

My friend Greg posted this seemingly harmless status update this weekend. Needless to say, he should be very careful when mentioning certain wholesale clubs. I think he learned his lesson.

When it comes to mashups, there are two ways to look at them: either as a cynical commentary on the generic, interchangeable state of modern music... or as art. I prefer the latter. Along those lines, this video completely blows my mind. It's a mashup of twenty-five songs, all carefully pieced together by DJ Earworm, and here's the shocking part: barring a few fleeting, awkward juxtapositions, it all works remarkably well. Who would have thunk it? Apparently DJ Earworm has been doing these large-scale mashups for a while, but this was the first I'd heard of him (not that I'm Mr. Mashup genius or anything). I'm not sure I'd actually sit and listen to the track on iTunes, but as a viral video, it's insane. I particularly enjoy the T.I. and Chris Brown interludes later in the song. See if you can pick out all the songs. If you need help, I've got a full track list after the jump.

Thanks to IndianJones (and his brother) for the heads up.

Late last night, I received a curious email. The subject merely stated "herman rosenblat. holocaust hoax book attached." Spam perhaps? However, upon opening the cyber missive, I saw that it wasn't spam. This was an actual "leak" of the controversial manuscript, Angel At The Fence, which was recently killed by publisher Penguin Group after it was revealed that the whole thing was a sham. Well, even though I didn't really care about any of the surrounding hoopla, I was still mighty excited to get my hands on such a hyped document. I mean, there it was: the entire manuscript for my eyes to feast on!

I thought about posting it, but then I realized that that would probably land me in a litigious mess (note the case of the blogger vs. Guns N Roses). Then I thought I could read through the book and post excerpts of the most noteworthy moments, but that would entail actual work, and honestly, I didn't care enough for that. Besides, I knew it wouldn't be long before Gawker would have its own copy and would be doing the same (Sure enough, about two hours later, they posted this). It just leads me to ask one question: who's been leaking this manuscript, and how many bloggers did they send it to? I mean, if I got it, many others must have as well. Granted, I like to consider myself a VERY influential blogger (ahem, "Speidi" coinage), but even so, I wouldn't necessarily think I'm high on the totem pole when it comes to literary scandals. Nevertheless, to whoever it was — whether it be one of the Rosenblats or their agent or publisher or assistant — I'd like to say thank you for legitimizing my blog that much more. Sorry I can't post the PDF, but I just don't feel like getting arrested or sued or waterboarded.

While I was at Macy's this weekend shopping for a belt, I came across this interesting mannequin display. It seems as though someone certainly got to indulge in their S&M fantasies a bit. For a moment I wasn't sure if I was in Burbank or Silver Lake. This would never fly in Real America.

Every year, half a million people descend on the West Hollywood Halloween Carnivale to drunkenly cavort and show off silly costumes. The looks range from simple and innocent to elaborate and bawdy. It's nothing short of an eyeful. And it's super fun. This year, a group of us headed down into the fray, and of course I brought my trusty camera. A large assortment of photos after the jump.

BE WARNED. There are a few pics that might not be very safe for work (partial, disturbing nudity!!!!)

While most celebrities and quasi-celebrities have been urging citizens to get out there and vote this election, along comes Trishelle (The Real World: Las Vegas, Ninja Cheerleaders) with these special words of wisdom, courtesy of her Facebook page:

Trishelle Cannatella thinks if you haven't watched the debates or know about the election and plan on voting for who your "daddy" votes for, do your country a favor and DON'T VOTE!

Well, that settles that! Thanks to Jash for pointing this out to me.

After six years of unbridled adoration, my gentle stalking of Julie Chen has reached a stunning and wonderful milestone. That's right. Tonight, I had the pleasure and joy of meeting the one and only Chenbot, thus filling the void in my Big Brother viewing experience. Julie was like the Holy Grail of Big Brother for me. I'd met all my favorite players, I'd gone to the live show, I'd freakin' tasted slop, but the one thing I had never done was meet Julie Chen, and now I can say that just short of actually going on Big Brother and winning, my BB experience is complete.

All the gory and awkward details after the jump...

Traveling Pants Shall Travel No More

Over the past week, two pairs of my shorts and my favorite pair of cargo pants have developed large, menacing holes in their pockets. I don't know exactly what brought it about (heavy keys, no doubt), but yesterday afternoon, I resolved to take my ailing garb to a tailor to get this small but inconvenient problem mended, quite literally. The plan was to go into effect yesterday, but thank goodness I waited because I would have full-on wasted my money — at least as far as my cargo pants were concerned.

C'mon, Crate & Barrel. It's 2008. Corkscrews are for ALL waiters.

I just felt the earth move under my feet, but nothing came tumbling down, thankfully. Like a good citizen, I immediately sprang from my chair (which was already swaying) and firmly ensconced myself under a door frame for a good ten seconds while everything rattled around me. Nothing fell or broke though. I didn't even lose power. Huzzah! Still, kind of scary.

This just in: it was a 5.8 5.4 magnitude quake. More info here.

Think it's fun to ride in a bike race on a highway near the Mexican border? WRONG. It's not fun, especially when a drunk driver up and runs you over. That's exactly what happened yesterday when Juan Campos of Brownsville, Texas fell asleep at his wheel and plowed into this poor mass of soon-to-be airborne bikers. Sadly, one of them died.

Check out the full story here (via LAist)

P.S. Don't drink and drive, kids.