It sort of freaks me out that today is leap year or "leap day," as I like to refer to it, and I have no real sense of what this day even means.

Do you?

I'm going to Google it, since I love Googling, and find out what happens on a leap year, if anything. I'm only doing this since Mike asked me "What happens if you're born on a leap year?" and I said, "Good question. I don't know."

I can't NOT know something. Problem! *red light* ERR ERR ERR!

****STANDBY****

Okay, so I Googled it and the results are IN!...as well as far less interesting than I had hoped. So, a leap year occurs once every four years in the month of February and its only purpose is to keep the calendar year in tune with the Earth's orbit around the sun.

Chillen's that are born on a leap year (the 29th) celebrate their birthday on either the 28th or March 1st, whichever day seems more appropriate based on the time of their birth.

Boo. Hiss. I was secretly hoping a leap year involved ancient Chinese folklore, but nooooo, there's a scientific explanation for everything.

Leap year sucks.

I can't wait until Cinco de Mayo--my personal favorite holiday, or should I say a real holiday where we celebrate the memory of Saint Margarita.

Okay, let's put all of this Obama/Clinton stuff behind for a moment and let's look at something much more absurd. Today, on MSNBC's website, I read an article about Ashley "The Tiz" Tisdale (from High School Music and The Suite Life of Zach & Cody...and you know you've seen both) that really gave me a good, haughty laugh--I love being amused by the utterly insane and shallow world we live in. At any rate, this is a prime example of why teenage girls have no sense of self-confidence:



By Courtney Hazlett
The Scoop
updated 10:25 p.m. CT, Wed., Feb. 27, 2008
When “High School Musical” star Ashley Tisdale’s doll was unveiled last month at the TIA Toy Fair in New York City — complete with outfits based on the 22-year-old’s music video and red-carpet looks — there was one problem. The doll hardly looks like the new Ashley; it resembles the “High School Musical” star before her nose job last November, according to some who’ve seen then doll.

“The width of the doll’s nose and the nostrils look like her nose pre-surgery,” cosmetic surgeon Dr. Patrick Abergel, who doesn’t treat the star, told In Touch Weekly.

Hopefully, Ashley’s fans won’t mind: “Ashley feels great about her new nose now that it’s finally healed,” an insider told the mag.





Um...really? Is this REALLY an actual article? Yes, yes it is. Let's break this down for a second--somebody actually looked at Ashley's doll's nose and said, "Hey, something's not right here...that's Ashley's old nose! Alert the presses!"

Here are my thoughts: a;sdlkfja;ldskfj

It's a DOLL. Its nose looks like...a NOSE. The last time I checked, the Tiz's nose wasn't some large, freakish abnormality that was so hideous and unforgettable that it could instantaneously be recognized on the face of a miniature plastic doll that was molded in her image. Unless the Tiz is a long lost cousin of Gonzo (Muppet Babies version), her old nose looked like every other nose on this planet. Regardless, her nosejob wasn't even performed to mask it's freakish-ness, since, according to the Tiz who probably knows her nose best, it was done to alleviate a deviated septum.

In reality, people should be less worried about old noses on new dolls and more worried about being pillaged and plundered by Obama-nazis. Put your magnifying glass and measuring tape away, Dr. Abergel, you have bigger issues to worry about.

PS. Don't you feel like Obama-nazis think that they're going to live in some magical land if Obama is elected President? I like to envision it like the Mickey Mouse version of Jack and the Beanstalk, appropriately titled Mickey and the Beanstalk. You know, where we swim around in chocolate pudding and take naps in jewelry boxes and munch on life-sized purple grapes that are just so succulent and juicy that we can't keep our hands off of them?

Strategically, I've given myself a few days before responding to (or blogging about) a rather irritating occurence that happened last week. After a week of sleeping on the issue, my previous, riotous response has slightly fizzled and I'm pretty much over the subject as a whole, but I still feel the need to write down my thoughts as a means of closure. So, here it goes...

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the bus on my way to work when an interview in the Red Eye newspaper really caught my eye (and for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, the Red Eye is a free, daily entertainment newspaper produced by the Chicago Tribune that features celebrity media, Chicago happenings, restaurants, and bars, and a few editorial columns contributed by various writers). However, this particular interview did not catch my eye in a good way. I'll let you read it first before I continue the story. This clipping was taken from the online Red Eye archive, click to view (sorry if it's hard to read):



Now, after reading this article I thought to myself, "What a completely ridiculous and obnoxious interview. The interview wasn't even about Josh Kelley, it was about his wife, Katherine Heigl. What a dumb fuck this Liz Crokin person is!"

Typically, I'm in support of the articles I read in the Red Eye and frequently offer up my opinion to the columnists in a positive or constuctive manner--but this time was different. So, I contacted Liz to share my "sentiment" with her:

Dear Ms. Crokin,

In reference to your article in the Monday, February 11th edition of the Red Eye, your interview with Josh Kelley was extremely ridiculous and rather offensive to Mr. Kelley. Not only were your questions completely bland and amateur, but strangely nearly all were focused on Katherine Heigl, who, for some reason, earned her fair share of the media spotlight last year. And with this article you shamelessly continued the trend. In my opinion, you're either a really bad interviewer or a HUGE Heigl fan because amid all of your out of context, Heigl-inspired questions, the one question that seemingly pertained to Josh (inspiration for his CD) was, again, twisted to evoke info about his superstar wife. Nice!

Let's face it, Josh Kelley is not a huge name in the music industry and I'm almost certain he would have LOVED it if a reporter started asking him questions about himself, his music, and/or his interests—not his wife's. Yet, you managed to follow in the footsteps of the typical/annoying paparazzo by overtly asking a respected and talented artist questions that have nothing to do with anything besides gossipy, tabloidy garbage.

As if the heading of "Hanging with Mr. Heigl" wasn't distasteful enough, you even asked him how he felt about his '99 Dodge Durango being broken into. Wow, great question--I'm sure he was elated to be robbed and even more elated for you to share the fact that he still drives a '99 Durango. Very smart.

I'm surprised he even posed with you demonstrating a "Rock on!" hand gesture instead of a "FU!" hand gesture. The latter would have been more appropriate.

Sincerely,

Ryan Sumner
Lakeview, 25

I mean, really, don't interview a musician by solely asking him questions about his even-more-famous and newsworthy superstar wife. And the heading? WOW. Offensive. By publishing this interview, Liz presents her journalist mindset to the likes of a lazy stay-at-home mom who lets her two-year-old swim in the pool unattended while she's on the couch popping bon bons, trolling through Tivo, and screaming bloody rage at the TV during Grey's Anatomy.

But it gets better. Here's what Liz wrote back to me in response to my email:

"Must've been a slow day at work!"

Yep, that's it. That's all she wrote. And that's what perturbs me the most. She didn't defend herself, she didn't defend her interview, she didn't defend anything...it was almost as if she was saying, "Hey, your work must really be slow if you're taking the time to write to me about this STUPID article I wrote (and was paid to write), sorry you took the time to read it, you moron!"

At least that's what she's saying to me in my head. Her dim-witted response only further proves that not only is she a terrible columnist and interviewer, she lacks any credibility as being serious about it and taking ownership of her material. She doesn't care about the absolute shit she submits to the Red Eye nor does she consider that Red Eye readers will probably associate her name with a consistently lackluster and poorly written column. Or, at least, I will. What an amazing Tribune employee!

And even better...she has a blog that she blatantly advertises everywhere! And it's equally as stupid, self-defaming, and masochistic as her columns. I won't even do her a favor by posting her blog address, afterall, it's a piss-poor carbon copy of PerezHilton.com where she gives us her opinion on celebrites and such...except her posts are like 2-3 sentences long--a truly great read! But c'mon, Liz, if you can write...prove it. You have yet to even try.

Long story, short: I hate that Liz Crokin, and her little blog, too.

Okay, so I'm going political again. Only because I'm annoyed. Yes, annoyed. So, let me first set the tone with this little factoid: I like Obama. I think he is an excellent candidate for the presidency, and if he wins, I'd be very eager to see what he can do for this country. However, I'm backing Hillary. I think she's an even more excellent candidate for the presidency. I think she's smarter, I think she's more experienced, I think she has better plans for our country other than the simple platform of "change." Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't have the generational vote like Obama since, seemingly, many young voters think Obama is cool, therefore he'd be a good president. I don't know if that's the case, but I will say that if Obama beats Hillary, I would gladly give him my vote. However, in the meantime, go Hillary.

Anyway, my real annoyance stems from this plagiarism deal. I'm SO incredibly disheartened and irritated with the fact that both Obama and his followers are completely blowing over the fact that, so far, two of Obama's speeches have demonstrated BLATANT plagiarism. Let me bold it to make my point even more clear: blatant plagiarism. There is no way around it. There's no lessening, there's no overlooking, there's no argument about it. His speeches were plagiarized. Not only were the exact words plagiarized, but crudely enough, the DELIVERY was plagiarized--down to the exact enunciation and dramatic pauses in between. It's truly absurd, and I imagine a little heartbreaking for the Obama crowd to see and hear. The fact of the matter is, there's video, audio, and written proof that these words were not Obama's, but in fact Deval Patrick's from his own campaign speeches that were effectively used over a year ago.

BUT, in his own defense, of course, Obama eventually addressed the situation by saying, yes, I used words from Patrick's speeches, but he's a friend of mine, and he said I could, and he endorses me, and others have done it in the past, so NO BIG DEAL.

No, no, Mr. Obama--big deal.

It's plagiarism. Plagiarism is not allowed on any publishing or legal platform ANYWHERE. Including speeches for a presidential campaign. I know, weird, right? You can't plagiarize those? You can't take someone else's words, use them as your own (and to your benefit), without any mention of borrowing these words and whom they belong to, and take credit for it? That sucks!

It does suck, but what sucks even more is:

After the fact that it was brought to the nation's attention that Obama plagiarized, all of a sudden, Patrick is credited as the rightful owner of those inspirational words and phrases. Is it due to the fact that the seriousness of Obama's overt plagiarism was brought into the national spotlight by the political media? Perhaps. Evidently though, it's NOT because Obama decided to rightfully give proper credit to Patrick for his amazing ideology from the get-go...since they were Patrick's words and all. Not Obama's, as he would have liked it to originally seem.

What's funny now is Obama's rebuttal. He is carelessly avoiding the issue (and probably strategically avoiding it since he knows exactly what he's done--wasn't he a professor and a lawyer, after all?) as well as avoiding acknowledgement of what he didn't do to make these rip-off and unoriginal speeches acceptable for him to communicate. It's as if Obama doesn't care. After all, Hillary supposedly did all kinds of questionable "copying" of other people's words and political cliches, too. BAD HILLARY! I mean, Obama DID tell the truth about his plagiarism...eventually. So move on, America. OBAMA IS GOOD!

That's offensive.

As an English major, this doesn't fly with me at all. It's downright disturbing and unfair, and quite honestly it makes my blood boil due to the simple fact that NO ONE would be given such a quick, swift "no big deal" free pass for plagiarizing. Especially Hillary.

If a student writes paper after paper for an English course and has a solid track record of doing very well on all of his papers, until one day he is desperate enough to use some text from his friend's paper. Well, he uses that text, doesn't credit his friend or whomever the text came from, turns the paper in as his own, then waits to see what happens. The next day, the teacher finds out that the student's paper was plagiarized and says, HEY, this paper is plagiarized. It cannot be turned in and you are kicked out of this class for even attempting to pass it off as your own.

The student CANNOT say, wait a minute, but my friend told me I could use his material, and sure I didn't credit him, but it's no big deal because lots of people plagiarize and I'm a really good student otherwise! Let's forget about it, shall we?

Um, no. Let's not forget about it.

That student would still fail the class, that student would still be kicked out of school, and perhaps even worse, that student's reputation is highly tarnished as being deceiving, disingenuous, and a cheater.

That's how it works, folks. That's plagiarism. Obama plagiarized. If you're going to blatantly use someone else's words as your own, then you have to give that person proper credit...not scapegoat the accusation, not overlook that it even happened, and certainly not to point the finger at your rival as a means to say, "she did it, too, and here's how!"

Obama is supposed to be the great communicator. He's supposed to bring people together through his words and ideas. He's supposed to be Mr. Morality. He's supposed to be the best President ever.

If Obama wants to be any of those things, then he needs to own up to his faults in a respectable and dignified manner. NOT in the scapegoating manner both he and his campaigners/followers are treating this very serious issue.

It is what it is. Own up.

Readers, remember...

Lose: to misplace, to be defeated

Loose: not tight, promiscuous

Example 1 (Bad)

Your favorite presidential candidate is loosing to mine! Ha ha!

Example 2 (Good)

I always seem to lose my cell phone on the nights I drink Tequila.

Example 3 (Sounds good to me)

Give Ryan Sumner your money.



Class dismissed.

So, I was perusing blogs the other day and noticed that a LOT of people are posting video blogs. You know, just them, a camera, and their thoughts all unscripted and unrehearsed...supposedly. And it's semi-interesting, although it's semi-not interesting because blogs are supposed to be in the written form, no? The only example of a legit video "blog" I can think of is when they do it on the Real World, and hardly even then because ALL reality TV is, to some extent, fake, so I don't necessarily think it's a valid example. Plus, the whole time they're in the "confessional" it's only captures them crying, making out, or being drunk. Actually, probably all three.

Seriously, retarded. Anyway, back to my original point. Video posts are sweeping Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites like crazy. It's kind of fun, but it's also kind of creepy. I mean, anyone can be watching you, looking at you, studying you...and that's an ENTIRE step beyond someone reading your inner-most personal thoughts, right?

...

I think it is.

I mean, it's one thing for you to read what I'm thinking, it's another for you to see me thinking and then verbalizing my thoughts. Why don't you just invite yourself over to my apartment and watch me load the dishwasher while singing "These Words" by Natasha Bedingfield?

When will the voyeurism stop and when will the need for me to put myself out there stop? I'm a writer, afterall, I should be writing books about other people, mostly fictional people that have no reflection on my day-to-day state of being.

RIGHT?

I don't know why I'm even talking about this, I don't have a computer that is even remotely capable of producing video. I'd have to buy a webcam and I'm SO not doing that. Weird. I'd have to get a Macbook, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but um I'm trying to stay OUT of debt, not face first in it.

I'm not sure what the point of this blog is, but just remember: video killed the radio star.

Is it just me, or is Kanye West completely self-obsessed? Like...crazy, pompously, annoyingly, unapologetically self-obsessed?

I mean, props to him for his success and all (which is owed in large part to Daft Punk, just sayin) but, wow, is he THAT good to the extent where he can demand reverence?

You can be my black JC tonight, Kanye.

Tone it down, diva.

On this cold, winter night I lay here in bed with my laptop open; slow songs play in the background and outside my window the city glows in the sky. Tonight I lay here, dispensing advice on love like a real authority...or, at the very least, like a person who's dabbled in the subject a time or two before.

But I do this only because someone anonymously asked how I deal with heartbreak. How I moved on?

Interesting question.

I don't know that I've ever moved on. Heartbreak endures, it's a feeling that remains unchanged, untouched after the dust settles. For me, it takes only a familiar song to make me flash back to a very real moment where my love life changed in an instant. I can remember how it felt, I can remember how it hurt.

Just when you think you're over it, like you're a new man and it's a new day, it takes one memory, one dream, one second to have the pain resurface in your soul all over again. All of a sudden, time hasn't turned and you haven't moved on quite as much as you originally thought.

But you know what?

Life goes on. Whether you're ready or not, you've removed yourself from a situation that you didn't or couldn't be in any longer. Or perhaps, as much as it sucks, you were removed from the situation. Either way, a part of your life stopped. But just because it stopped it doesn't mean the love, the feelings, the memories wither and die. They remain, and the dust settles.

...until it happens again, like the vicious, vicious cycle love is.

All of my ex's hold a piece of me, and I, them. I like that. In some way, it makes you stronger, bigger, and hopefully, a little wiser. In some sense, I know what I want as far as "love" goes. But I'm also not afraid to make a mistake, to take a chance and lose. Whether I find love or not, well, that remains to be unseen. In the meantime, I truly believe that the people I have loved before give me the strength and desire to love again.

And I will.

You've heard it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Well, it's true.

Just because your heart is broken, doesn't mean the beat stops, too.

Actually...

the beat goes on.

Have you ever choked on a hiccup? I just did and it seriously hurt. I don't know exactly how the mechanics of that works...but God works in mysterious ways.

I also heard that she moves in mysterious ways.

Sorry...that just came to me. I'm listening to my "Easy on the Ears" playlist on iTunes. It's got anything from Radiohead to Diana Ross. Imogen to Whitney Houston. Stuff that sits pretty in my head. Makes me sing a little.

That cozy, comfortable stuff.

I wanna run to you. Sing it, Whit.

And okay. I'm totally going to reveal myself in a big way by letting you in on a little guilty pleasure of mine.

Um...

Have you heard the song "Headlines" by the Spice Girls? I have, and I love it. I like it a lot. One time on the bus, I seriously played that song back to back atleast 5 times. I mean, I've always liked the Spice Girls...more so as people than artists (I really like Mel B, Mel C, and Emma...I think they're kind of funny and nice).

Anyway, I was telling this to my sister and she said she never really heard the song before, but saw the video for it and thought it was the dumbest thing she's ever seen...well, next to Heidi Montag's new video. I guess she didn't even hear the song because she was so lost in watching the girls strut around and pose in lingerie for three and a half endless minutes.

So, don't watch the video. But do listen to the song if you already haven't. I like it.

Ooooh...I Want To Break Free by Queen just came on. I love that song, too. Did you ever see the Pepsi(?) commercial with people working at the grocery store dancing around? I always saw the commercial at the movie theater before the movie started. It was so clever and catchy. Loved it.

I gotta find it now. Hold on. Okay, nevermind. I just watched the video for it and it wasn't as cool as I thought it was. And it was for Coke C2. Whatever that is.

But speaking of good Pepsi commercials...uh this is my all-time favorite:



I can barely watch it though without having a stroke about how much I miss the old Britney.

COME BACK.

According to the news, almost 98 million people watched the Superbowl.

...and I wasn't one of them. Take THAT, Nielsen!

And, today is Super Tuesday where I could cast my vote for either the first female or "black" presidential candidate.

...and I'm not registered to vote in the city of Chicago. Take THAT, Lady Liberty!

But seriously...I'll take this opportunity to talk a few politics with you. And SIDENOTE this is a rarity because I only talk politics with my Mom because she and I generally have the same thoughts about everything.

...um...

I really don't feel like Obama is up to par with being President. I really don't.

------------->insert cricket chirp here<---------------

Now, before you arrange for my tar and feathering in a public square...read further. I do, however, enjoy Obama. I think he is a great speaker, has great ideas, and is an all-around great person. I don't think that he is capable of running the entire country though. I am wholeheartedly unconvinced that he has the depth and experience to deal with every facet of our nations problems and challenges, like universal healthcare, education, the economy, and national security. I really don't. On the other hand, I feel like he is capable of prioritizing civil liberties and facilitating a country-wide focus on equality. He has strengths, important ones, but he's not presidential material. Not yet. He'd make an excellent Vice President.

Go Hillary.

I don't know how I stumbled upon this, but I'm glad I did.

Guidos Gone Wild: Dance-Off

Some girl with a fine sense of observation and wit challenges a couple of guidos to a dance-off. Yes...I especially love the shyer guido who has the coolest pair of jeans I've ever seen, as well as a minimalist, intermittent style of dancing...it's quite interesting.

Guidos

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