rrrrrrruffles have rrrrridges

1982. (photo at right also from my favorite site ever)

this came out about a week ago, but here's the afi top 100 films list. "citizen kane" #1 again, "the godfather" #2. again. for the record, i am more of a "godfather" person than a "citizen kane" person. i've seen "the godfather" probably 50 times. i even turned down a night out on the town on friday night because it came on tv, and i immediately got sucked into it. my parents and i tend to quote it all the time, either because we're discussing the movie, or just in regular life. there's the standard quotes that everyone does ("leave the gun, take the cannolis," "i am enzo! THE BAKER!" etc). my dad often says, "i want inquiries made," which makes me laugh. my mom likes to say, "that's a true story." (and then she'll add, "that's my family, kay, that's not me.") i think it's fun to say, "bada beep, bada bap, bada boop." and i know my friend rachel likes, "monday, tuesday, thursday, wednesday, sunday, saturday..." ahhhhh. it's just so good. i also feel proud of the fact that i can pretty much figure out what they're saying to each other in italian. especially in the infamous "louis in the bronx" restaurant scene. okay, i'm a dork, moving on...

and these chicks came out with their own top 100. i shouldn't call them "these chicks;" they are in fact the alliance of women's film journalists.

i never could do this...now maybe i'll try to learn.

oh, please be true, please please please please be true!!!

mine is Godfrey the Indecisive Gnome of Dewsbury.

can't wait for the new wes movie!

another day, another white stripes interview...

speaking of the white stripes, i seem to be all about "conquest" now. i certainly am digging this album...and that song is crazy! i think it belongs in a quentin tarantino flick.

bob

saw bob last night, show #18. it was wonderful, of course! AND HE PLAYED GUITAR FOR THE FIRST 5 SONGS!!!! oh, how i missed that man on the gee-tar. highlights: "my back pages," which i don't think i've ever seen live (i'd really have to check, though, but it's definitely a rare one). "spirit on the water" was wonderful, and i totally had a moment with "nettie moore." i don't listen to that song a whole lot, but his phrasing was phenomenal during that song. we were in the 15th row, but i had bincoulars so i just stared at his face all close-up during that song. ahhhhh. "it ain't me, babe" and "it's alright, ma..." had totally new arrangements and they were great. which is just what bob does. we were talking about the different phases of bob live...the bluegrass phase, the rockabilly phase...now we're in full-on blues phase. with a fiddle. :)

i love my bob. it was a beautiful day, and a beautiful night, hanging with my two best girls and my favorite fella. :) oh yeah, "summer days," which ususally is a "meh" moment for me because he plays it at practically every show, was really, really good last night. i was really shakin' what my mama gave me like crazy during that one.

one thing that i love about bob shows is audience reaction to certain lines. it's great that people applaud amazing lines of a song instead of just a whole song. i also like the whole "spirit on the water" exchange that goes on now:

bob: "you think i'm over the hill?"

us: NOOOOO!!!

bob: "think i'm past my prime?"

us: NOOOOOO!!!

bob: "let me see what you got."

the ladies: WOOOOOOO!

bob: "we could have a whompin' good time."

the ladies: "WWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

the ladies still love bob. hell, i wouldn't kick him out of bed. (sorry, chris)

are you all rocking out to "icky thump" today?

well, are you? i sure am. i'm really digging "little cream soda." a LOT. i also dig actual cream soda a lot...anyway, the whole thing is great. being 1/2 scottish ("the good half," as my scottish mom says), i like that "st. andrews" song. i think my mom would even like that song. i like "rag and bone," too. and "catch hell blues!!!!" oh yes. and "effect and cause." that is one catchy diddy, kind of reminds me of their version of "rated x." damn, i love it all. but i just listened to "effect and cause" 3 times in a row, so...there you go. oh, how i love the white stripes!!

but i don't know if i like this.

i really like this, though!

that is all. except for i want to say that "i'm slowly turning into you" is awesome, too.

good morning, starshine!

i have the weirdest sleeping habits ever. i am exactly like my mother and grandmother, in that they were both famous for waking up at insane hours, like 4 a.m., and just being totally raring to go with very little sleep. last night i fell asleep at midnight and woke up before 5 and i'm totally fine, not tired at all. some nights, i can't sleep at all. i have gone to work on 2 hours of sleep more than once. i don't mind waking up early on the weekends, though. it's nice to enjoy the sunrise and the quiet morning. halfway through the day, though, i'll probably crash out for a while.

i don't think this qualifies as insomnia, although sometimes the not sleeping thing starts to get to me. once, i was up for 3 days when i was around 21 years old. i just could NOT sleep, and i was crazy exhausted. i will never forget it, i was out of my mind. what turned me around was i went to lunch with 2 friends at an italian restaurant and we drank an insane amount of wine and i went home and passed out for like 14 hours. i think my mom thought i was dead, i remember she kept checking on me.

johnny cash radio.

behold: the philly taco.

bob dylan art.

food of japan.

mug shots of people with crazy hair.

the book inscriptions project.

the police: a fragile truce. hope they stay together long enough for me to see them next month...

you can watch the entire PBS series "an american family" on youtube! i've only ever seen one or two episodes before, so this little discovery made me very happy.

what is "an american family," you may ask?

i love godzilla!

kitchen of tomorrow!!!

worst board game ever.

crazy old cat food labels.

Lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam

yes, i'm talking about spam again. how odd! today was art on the avenue, which is an annual street fair-type thing. it was okay. the past few years i have sold jewelry at this thing because i lived right on "the avenue", so this year it was nice to just walk around and hang out. the highlight of the day was the spam-mobile, where they gave out little spam recipe books, spam magnets, and, yes, free samples of spam. i wasn't going to partake, but the guy in the spam-mobile convinced me. he actually said, "don't fear the spam!!!" so really, what could i do? i said to him, "but i don't like spam!!" in my best monty python voice, and he just stared blankly at me. either he had no idea what i was talking about, or he hears that 200 times a day and just can't take it anymore. not sure which. at any rate, it was only a teeny piece, and it was made on a george foreman grill. and it wasn't bad!

my mom used to make spam all the time. spam and eggs, spamburgers, you name it. she'd chop it up and put it in salads, she'd fry it in a pan, make a mean grilled cheese and spam sammich, she'd make generic egg mcmuffins with it. didn't moms of the 70's give a hoot about nutrition?! i mean, come on, now. check out the ingredients of spam:

Chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added.
Salt (for binding, flavor, and firmness)
Water (to help in mixing)
Sugar (for flavor)
Sodium Nitrite (for color and as a preservative)

eww. now read these haikus about the ingredients of spam.

did you realize there's a spam museum?

and finally, of course...

STOP eating my soup!!!

aaaaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!!!

passive agressive notes.

wooo, let's all get gastric bypass surgery!!!

(on a sort of related note, i have lost 13 lbs in 4 weeks on weight watchers. this shit really works!!)

oh, no. no no no no no.

this sopranos finale just won't die. it's so awesome. chris and i watched part of "the blue comet" and then parts of "made in america" after a long night of drinking last night, because we couldn't seem to agree on if butchie was completely cool with what went down with phil, or what. as much as people try to say that tony was shot...i just don't know. it's totally possible, and was filmed and edited in such a way that it would make sense...sort of. and it's what i was initially convinced of. the only thing missing is motive. who would order the hit, and why? there are no clues supporting that...at least none that i picked up on. i think the theory that david chase whacked the audience makes more sense. the same line people are connecting to the shooting theory ("you don't even know what hits you" or whatever it is, with tony and bobby in the boat) could be attributed to the end of the show. none of us knew what hit us. bam. but what's with all this talk of the alternate endings? the guy who plays agent harris said that he saw one of the other endings where member's only guy definitely advances on tony. and peter bogdonovich (who plays melfi's shrink) says he filmed a scene for the final episode where he was comforting a "bereaved" dr. melfi. but there were probably just several scenarios filmed so no one would know what to make of any of it, and nothing could leak out because know one really knew. well, steve perry knew. isn't he special.

and THAT is the last time i will talk about "the sopranos." probably.

WOW.

check this kid out!!!

be like the squirrel, girl...be like the squirrel.

i know i said i wasn't going to talk about the sopranos anymore...but i guess you're just gonna have to deal with it. just 2 links, then i will move on.

tony is dead...??

watch the sopranos ending with any song you want, if you think they could've done better than that journey song.

hot chicks with douchebags.

pigs anonymous.

do animals have emotions? my cat does, i'm sure of it. although all chicks probably say their cat has emotions, and is unusually intuitive, and all that crap.

spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spamity SPAM!

cube news 1.

my crazy roommate. not MINE, personally...some other guy's.

my boyfriend looks nothing like my dad. NOTHING.

i'm pretty amped about seeing the police next month.

"i don't like spam!!!!!"

mine was The Insatiable One-Armed Monkey-Eating Coat Monster.

database of movies spoofed in mad magazine.

ahhhh, childhood...

stream icky thump!

dig it!
(p.s. awwwwww!)

and then watch this video of bob dylan shopping! (courtesy of malls of america)

we are so cool.

"i went ahead and ordered some for the table."

those are very odd and random last words. and i'm not saying they were tony's literal last words (were they? who knows!!), but the last words for us to hear from him. i love it.


i also think it's funny that i mentioned that we were having a thunderstorm, and i was praying that the cable didn't go out during the episode. and everyone on earth thought their cable went out. heh.

this is my last sopranos post, i promise. i'm just getting such a kick out of all the dissection of this final scene, and how genius people think it is, or how livid and betrayed people are feeling by it. if the final scene wasn't so ambiguous, no one would be talking about it as much as they are.

and i will forever associate this crappy journey song with "sopranos." perhaps now i won't groan or change the station when i hear this song come on...i'll think of this amazing show.

i've had that damn journey song in my head all morning!

and now i'm pretty sure he didn't get shot at all. after much discussion with chris and much reading of message boards and articles, i think it's just over. the whole end scene was to mess with us, and to illustrate that everyone looks shady in tony's eyes. he constantly looks over his shoulder, wondering if this guy's gonna hit him, or that guy. grey jacket guy doesn't come out of the bathroom and kill tony; no way. we just don't know. we will never know. but for now, all is well in the soprano family (and Family). AJ is now involved with the family (working for little carmine), meadow's gonna be a lawyer for the mob, carmella will continue to have long crazy nails and a benz and build her little houses. as this article states, our glimpse into their lives is over.

but wait...am i wrong?

sorry to get all geeky fangirl on everybody. i just think i am gonna have a hard time letting go of this show. it's been 7 years!! i was devastated at the end of "six feet under;" i cried for like an hour. but this ending is way, WAY better. surely more artistic and mind-effing.

now that i've had time to recover from the shock, it was just wonderful and perfect. this was probably the most brilliant show on tv.

(i also think that paulie and that cat should have a sitcom.)

okay, i just re-watched the last scene like 3 times

okay, did tony get shot? wow. there has never been an episode where there was NO music over the ending credits, and why else would it end so abruptly like that? just black, silence, nothing. and in the last episode, they flashed back to tony and bobby in the boat (which actually happened several episodes prior), talking about getting shot, how it's just sudden and abrupt and you don't know what hit you ("you're there and then you're not" or something to that effect---which is exactly how bobby died). the end credits music was always completely tied in to what what going on, and the music was at times obscure and always chosen with care. maybe he got shot in the back of the head, by that guy who was sitting at the counter, looked at tony TWICE, went to the bathroom, and then came out and shot him as tony looked up to see meadow coming through the door (although that is very "godfather..." was the gun taped behind one of those old toilets with the chain thing?)...

maybe he got shot by that dude at the jukebox...was he reaching for a quarter, or his gun? or just putting his hand in his pocket?

but then again, who would want/need to whack tony? how would anyone know he was there? he made the peace with the brooklyn family...everything was even steven. there would be no specific reason for that to happen.

the lyrics to "don't stop believin" matched up to what was going on in the scene..."just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world" (cue carmella), "just a city boy" (tony), "streetlight" (we see a streetlight when meadow runs across the street to the diner), and the last line is "don't stop..." BLACK. not even fade to black...just sudden black. why??? it's not possible that it was for no good reason. everything on this show had DAMN good reason.

see, this is exactly what david chase wants. i KNOW we're not supposed to know, and people are going to be talking about this and watching it over and over to try to figure it out. but there's just no way. at first i was pissed off at this episode. now i'm realizing that it's pretty brilliant. so, either hey, life goes on, carm and the kids are all doing good, tony made it out of that scary situation alive and well, he's still evil, whatever...or he died in his onion rings.

Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

now. look at those last 2 lines. watching this scene, we questioned every single person that came into that diner. every one had potential to kill tony. we didn't trust any of them. and that's what it's like to be tony. so maybe he lived. he just lived, kept on going. maybe the sudden black and silence meant nothing.

my head hurts. i'm going to bed.

p.s. i freaking HATE journey.

don't stop believin'

i think i need a few days to process what i just saw...wow. did tony get shot when the screen went to black, his last vision is meadow coming through the door toward him?! or is everything fine...this evil sociopath, that we were forced to turn on this season with his killing of chrissy and being totally happy about it, comes out just fine in the end? he's got his family, he's got his onion rings, it's all good! and there is no justice. is he pondering that even if he does live, what does he have to look forward to? just look at uncle junior. the scene with phil getting clipped and then run over with his grandbabies locked in the SUV, crushing his head and causing that guy to vomit was pretty good. and the very last scene was very, very good, in that we were tricked into thinking a million tragic things could possibly happen...as this guy just wrote:

"Nondescript Baseball Cap Guy will forever be drinking coffee in that booth. Gray-Jacket Mook’s permanently in the bathroom. The hip-hop gangstas will always be standing at the jukebox. Nobody’s whacking anybody.

And our loving family, because you had to see Sunday night, finally, that that’s what they are, will forever be ordering the All-American burger special with homemade ice cream for dessert, after Meadow’s parking problems proved just to be ineptitude, and not the horrible coincidence that would leave her either the only survivor, or the only victim of final, horrible carnage."

and might i add that it was pretty funny to me that a.j., poor depressed, suicidal, misunderstood, suddenly sensitive a.j., with his super-strong convictions about the state of world affairs and feeling an intense desire to combat terror, decides that he'd be just as happy working at a movie studio as a gofer with a new BMW, banging a model who's a junior in high school. a.j., you are such a douchebag.

nothing was resolved at all. nothing. which i can appreciate, i really can. life doesn't get wrapped up with a neat little bow, and neither did this show. silvio's in a coma, there is a trial pending, uncle junior is a complete mess in a mental institution, paulie's still paulie, the ghost of christufa may or may not be in that cat. and the show has always led us to believe one thing was happening, and then we were thrown a curveball. this episode was no different.

wow. just wow. i don't know what to say. except that everyone was expecting a shocking ending, and we sure got it.

the longest week of our lives is almost over

in a mere 2 hours, the sopranos finale airs. what will happen?!? will tony, live, die, flip, go to prison? will meadow get whacked, or raped or something awful like that? will a.j. get whacked (which would be a blessing, i mean let's be honest) or become an extremist to wipe out terrorists? is paulie playing both sides of the fence? is silvio gonna make it? have we really seen the last of dr. melfi? will the feds show up at the safehouse during a possible bloody battle between the two families, and snatch up a wounded but alive tony and put him into witness protection? what will happen to carmella? marone!

p.s.there's a thunderstorm brewing right now. if the cable goes out i will seriously have a mental breakdown.

white stripes assault on planet earth continues!

baby bumps are the new black.

for the record, i do not have the leaked album. i am waiting for the real thing.

but these people heard the album, and had lots to say about it.

jack gets his irish on.

...and gets his priest on.

...and tricks 15-year old girls into singing son house lyrics. love it.

eww. i hate john mayer.

i wonder who will open at the wilmington show...

(it's not gonna be these guys, though.)

i also wonder if jack and meg like flip wilson? i bet they do.

muah-hahahahaha!!

ha, she was screaming. i love it.

robert rodriguez' 10-minute cooking school.

sopranos bada bing italian food trivia! i got 9 out of 11. woo! on a related note, i don't know how i'm going to go on after sunday's final episode. it's gonna be crazy, and then i'm gonna be sad. :( last week's episode was just insane. my poor silvio!!! and bobby bacala!!! *sigh* i don't even want to venture a guess as to how this will all end...but one thought is that phil's will order the killing of either one or all of tony's family, and i think paulie's a rat and tries to take out tony, but tony prevails. paulie's been very disgrunteled lately...why doesn't phil want to take him out?! he IS a captain, you know. maybe tony shoulda whacked paulie on the boat a few weeks ago. i think maybe silvio lives. i mean, why didn't they just kill him off if he wasn't going to live? who knows...and something has gotta happen with melfi and elliott...i can't believe he told that entire dinner party who melfi's star client was...and she has just told him WAAAY too much in her sessions. last week just can NOT be the last we've seen of melfi...the story has to come full circle. oh man, i SO CAN'T WAIT for sunday!!! i've be re-watching them on A&E as well, and the other night was the BEST episode, when chrissy and paulie get lost in the pine barrens chasing after the russian, and paulie loses his shoe...so great. when they find that abandoned van to seek shelter in, and they find a fast food bag on the floor with condiment packets..."mmmmm! mix the ketchup and the relish!!" ha. sidenote: this is actually the first episode of "the sopranos" that i ever saw, in a nashville hotel room in may 2001. me and my friend katharine were there for a big 3-day music festival, partying it up, and she was like, "we have to watch 'sopranos!'" so we did, and i couldn't believe how awesome it was. i got hbo immediately and rented the seasons that i missed. i watched season 1 in ONE WEEKEND. i was obsessed immediately. that was a great first episode to see.

p.s. mondo croquet.

the sunshine bores the daylights out of me

that there is my favorite line on "exile on main street." which is the best stones album ever. i was listening to it on the way home from work today. i'm sure there are better lines than that on the album, but i like the buildup leading up to that line. starts everything off right.

chris told me that the other day paul harvey said that mick jagger used to be a really, really good singer in the traditional sense, and was in this boy band-type group. then, he bit off the tip of his tongue somehow and that caused him to develop the style of singing that we all know and love. i don't know...i've been into the stones for a LONG TIME and i've never heard that story before...but i googled it and it seems to be true. hmm. what's more unbelievable to me is that chris was listening to paul harvey...

so, let's see, what else...i've lost 8 lbs so far on weight watchers!! woooooooo! it really isn't that hard, to be honest. i'm not really eating less than i did before, i'm just eating better. and i've lost these 8 lbs. all while drinking pretty much the same amount of beer that i normally do. i just sacrifice my food points for beer points. does that make me an alcoholic? i'm thinking no. i just have my priorities in check. okay, maybe that statement makes me an alcoholic.

cat cam!

print this out and keep this handy for the next telemarketer call you get.

here is your daily white stripes update.

rawk!

check out me and my friend kristin in the summer of 1992. YEAH! that was our "young ones"-esque "PISS OFF!" stance. this was taken in a photobooth in indiana where we hung out together for 10 days. we went to james dean's grave (where i left a lipstick kiss on the headstone, and this old lady who worked at the museum who i think was his great aunt or something told us that "jimmy would've loved our individuality." !!!!!!!), saw guns n' roses, metallica, and faith no more from the 9th row or something like that at the hoosier dome (the show we saw was right after some crazy gn'r riot--which made our mothers very nervous-- and right before james hetfield burned his arm off in a pyrotechnic accident. also notable: mike patton crawled towards me on the stage, singing at me and staring at me with a psychotic look in his eye. i will never forget it. roddy bottum also noticed us, because we were so close and the only punk rock chicks there. and i swore that duff gave me a "look," but that might've been wishful thinking).

we also drank booze out of a shampoo bottle because i was afraid to take a real bottle of liquor with me on the plane. i was only 19, and dumb. i snuck it from my dad's liquor cabinet. mmmmm...vodka with a hint of pantene...nothing like it. i specifically remember that it was pantene, because that's the shampoo jimmy page used, according to miss pamela. i was so silly. actually, i still use pantene...

i spilled a ginormous soda all over the place in a mcdonald's, and spilled an entire glass of milk all over her little sister's homework. i was a hot mess, apparantly. let's see, what else did we do...i discovered that the pizza hut breadsticks in indiana are different than the ones in pennsylvania. we unsuccessfully tried to find someone with pot, we drank her mom's southern comfort out of the bottle while watching horror movies (i think one of them was "trilogy of terror"), and saw "wayne's world" in the $1 theater twice. i remember buying sonic youth's "dirty" there, and beastie boys "check your head." i also bought a "live at CBGB's" record, a dress from the 40's, and a cool burgundy jaquard robe that can only really be described as some swanky fellow of yore's smoking jacket. wow, i miss that robe...i also remember watching the "90120" episode where brenda finds out that kelly and dylan were bangin' while she was in paris. why do i remember stuff like that?

we also went to king's island in cincinnati to meet up with this guy who i was writing to for over a year, and secretly in love with but never met before. you see, we were all pen pals. yes, it's true. seeing the guy made me totally insane because he was cool as hell and hotter than his pictures, and i cried on the way home. after we met, our regular weekly letters turned into bi-weekly "if only we lived closer..." letters. then we would, like, paint pictures for each other and send them, talk on the phone a lot, etc...he would write songs for me and record them, and we'd make each other meaningful mix tapes. eventually, a year later, he came to visit me when i got my first apartment and all hell broke loose. in a good way. then he cheated on me and broke my heart. in a bad way. but whatever, it was fun and it makes for a good story.

wow, what great memories crammed into those 10 little days. when she dropped me off at the airport when it was time for me to go home, we both cried. we were the best of friends, and then we lost touch. then we found each other again, and then we had some sort of squabble and i told her off in a not-very nice email. :( and now we're back in touch, thanks to the wonders of the internet. awwww, i love you, ravy gravy!!! :)

work is fun.

in case you didn't know...i kinda like the white stripes.

order your nme with limited edition white stripes vinyl here. you know i did.

...and you can order "icky thump" on vinyl here. you have to wait until it is released, though. no pre-order. booooo!

and since we're speaking of the white stripes...

...still speaking of the white stripes... (this vinyl upholstered in the couches thing is just so friggin' cool!)

this has nothing whatsoever to do with the white stripes.

nor does this.

or this.

where to send the hate mail (like, "hahahahaha!!! i hope someone stabs you in the yard with a shiv.")

Paris Hilton #9818783

Century Regional Detention Facility

11705 S. Alameda Street

Lynwood, CA 90262

it's funny 'cause it's true

these are real towns in PA, not too far from where i live. (via neatorama)

summer rules and my friends do, too!