Lindsayism.com

Real World Cameraman Stops Being Polite And Starts Getting Creepy

I don't know why this isn't out there yet, but I guess the internet has been distracted this week. Last weekend a local news reporter in DC tried to interview bloggers standing outside the Real World house in Dupont Circle, and a Real World cameraman came out and stuck his camera in her face to block her shot. One of the bloggers got it on video and the reporter linked it from the WUSA9 site. So quiet and creepy and intimidating and weird! How rude!:

So that's what a person on The Real World has in his or her face all day every day. That guy. Creeepy.

There's Finally A Trailer For Patton Oswalt's Big Fan

One of the year's most anticipated movies, Robert Siegel's Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt, finally has a trailer. If anyone was worried (like I was) that Patton's face and voice are so fully associated with his world view that he could never play anyone but himself, we can all worry no more. SO EXCITED:



It's been getting rave reviews for months, of course, but finally: video proof that it looks sooo good. It's gonna get dark soon! (Via Vulture.)

CNN Goes To The Furry Convention, Tries To Avoid Elephant In The Room

HAHAHAHA. CNN sent a reporter to the anthrocon (furry/plushie convention) in Pittsburgh. The resulting report uses defensive language, but never comes out and says what it is the convention's leaders are trying to stop being associated with:

Speaking of furries, where is that furry documentary that's been "in progress" for four years?

Here's Hoping Your Fourth Is As Happy As This Lady's

Never Forget The Strange Clouds Of 6/26/09

Today is the one-week anniversary of The Funny Looking Clouds (And Light) Over Manhattan At Sunset. I've reviewed the (many) videos on YouTube of this event, and found my favorite. It includes not only the clouds, but two fixtures of the Lower East Side: a manic pixie dream girl who opines about the meaning of the clouds ("I love that he's celebrating...crazy trilogy of death and God is talking to us") and an old man walking around without a shirt:

When my friends and I left a bar on Allen street to investigate why everyone on the street was taking pictures of the sky and saw the clouds, we reached for our own cameras before realizing, wait, nevermind, it'll be all over the internet in an hour. And it was. I love that! We can just go through life, enjoying it, without feeling the burden of having to document every moment of collective awe. We enjoyed the clouds, and watching the people watching the clouds, and then went inside and finished our beers with total faith that we didn't have to do anything -- everyone else was on this. It's like how we've all outsourced at least a little brain space to google and wikipedia. We don't own the knowledge but we know where to find it, and we don't own pictures of the Radiohead concert or the rainbow or whatever (or have to miss out on the full experience of each because we're filming them), but we will in an hour or two. What strange times we live in, with what strange clouds!

School Begs Parents To Throw Away Teacher's Racy DVD; Internet Begs Them To Put It Online

An elementary school teacher in Elk Grove, CA sent her students home this week with a DVD she made with footage from the school year, and apparently, several seconds of her own personal porn at the end. This local news report is classic! First they tell you they can't tell you anything, then they just keep everyone talking until little details start to leak out and we all use our imaginations to come up with scenarios that are probably far worse than what was on the DVD: First off, I don't even know how you accidentally put the wrong footage on a DVD. Second: the principal LAUGHING at :59, third: this reminds me of some kind of extremely subtle parody of local news. The internet needs to see this video!

Fun-Ruiner: Connect Four Is A Solved Game

Dear People Playing Connect Four And Very Loudly Screaming Things Like "In Your FACE!" Every Time They Won A Game At The Zombie Hut On Smith Street Last Night:

My friends (wisely) held me back from saying anything at the time, but, um, you do know that the person who goes first in the very middle can always force a win, right? If you didn't already suspect something was up when you were, like, 8, it's right there on Wikipedia.

(I suggest Yahtzee! for future bar-screaming sessions, because, bonus: yelling is actually part of the game!)

(Tough) Love,
The Fun-Ruiner

Bra-Fitting Parties Are All The Rage

Unrelated Things That Were Slightly Too Long To Twitter Today:

* While researching an epic screed about how much Pinot Grigio tastes like ass, or sweat, or a combination of both, I learned that Gary Vaynerchuk got in trouble last year for saying "Pinot Grigio sucks." Scooped! Pinot Grigio of the type served in bars is a great substitute for syrup of Ipecac, though. Someone should really look into whatever it is in cheap Pinot Grigio that triggers the human gag reflex, because this is a very real thing.

* Ariel Levy is indeed the best. Ever since my friend Emily made me read Female Chauvinist Pigs I've been having embarrassing daydreams about being her protege.

* If you're bored this weekend, rent Dead Snow (the Norweigan zombie Nazi movie) on Movies On Demand for $5.99. It's worth it, I promise. It's dubbed in English, but in a way that only makes it better/sillier/campier, and it's one of those weird movies that's both intentionally bad and funny and (it seems) unintentionally bad and funny.

* If everyone who gets a bra fitting finds out that she's been wearing bras exactly two cup sizes too small for her entire adult life, why don't we all just start buying bras two cup sizes bigger and skip the tupperware parties? (I think it's this kind of logic/lack of fun that got me politely asked to stop attending a regular SATC viewing party in 2002.)

(If you think this post sounds like the work of a bored person, wait 'til you see the next one.)

I've Already Forgotten How To Blog

(Whoops, accidentally published part of the NY Mag gossip roundup HERE early this morning, using typepad as an html shortcut, and then ran off to run errands. Disregard! It's here. Where it belongs. Duh.)

Live TV Reporters And Extremely Drunk Guys Should Just Do It And Get It Over With

What I like about this the most is the way you can tell the drunk guy has been harassing this reporter long before the live report started. The reporter's fingers-in-eyes face-push is so familiar it's almost brotherly: Live TV reporters and drunk guys are the world's most entertaining natural enemies. (Via Wonkette.)

Also, Leg Wax For Some Reason.

While I ponder the cliche level (HIGH) of an essay called "Slouching Towards Target" about how everyone who got laid off last week was at Target buying cleaning and organizational supplies this morning, just because we could be, here is, in case you missed it, Jeff Goldblum's miraculous Lazarus-esqe return to life on The Colbert Report last night:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

(Dear other Brooklynites who got laid off last week: seeya at Cobble Hill Cinemas on Thursday. The collective unconscious tells me that is the next place to which we shall be uncontrollably drawn.)

Stuff, Here

Hey Videogum people (and the few people who accidentally still have this site on RSS from its more frequently-updated days.) I'm off to some museums today, but first:

• I'm filling in this week doing New York Mag's Daily Intelligencer blog's gossip monger posts. So today I know a lot of things about Megan Fox.

• Awwww! Gabe is the best.

And here's a video. This is old, but having never watched Being John Malkovich with Spike Jonze's commentary, I had not seen it. Here Spike tells the story of how a rowdy drunk extra got his SAG card and a raise after spontaneously throwing a beer can at John Malkovich:

There Will Be Stuff Here Again Soon

Lots of stuff! Starting Monday.

This Is My Best Friend!

Stephanie, aka "Stiff," is totally this week's Jauntsetter covergirl/interview. I feel like all of the reasons I love her come out in this interview. Favorite part:

"I always laugh when I pack, because in my head I remember the instructional meeting that we had before I went to London for study abroad: my college was in a small town, so they were treating us like children, like: "Bring comfortable sneakers, and roll your clothes. Models roll their clothes." And so every single time I pack for anything, I think, "This is what models do."

That is so Stiff. She is the best.

The Room Is Screening In New York March 20!

Please buy tickets and go to this. You will thank me forever!

Jauntsetter: The Only Travel Website I Read

(Hey, look, I'm blogging here instead of here or here! Weird!)

(Yes, this is totally a friend-plug, but I only plug stuff I'm truly impressed with, and this is a very cool new thing.)

The Observer today has a really positive article about Jauntsetter, the gorgeous and truly original NYC travel newsletter and blog started by my friend Dorothy McGivney. Usually I don't care for stuff that's "for women," but the site is all about Dorothy's sensibility (she's one of the coolest girls I know), and I think that comes through on the first click. Dorothy spends all day looking for travel deals out of NYC and interviewing interesting people about their travel experiences. Jauntsetter is like the Sassy of travel newsletters. (And it only comes to your inbox once a week, with no spam worries.) Anyway, sign up!

I Have Advance Word That The Backlash Starts Tomorrow

But I haven't felt this way about a movie in almost five years (Eternal Sunshine. How can it have been this long?):

I can't even watch the trailer now without crying. I'm SO wary of managing expectations, but I haven't lived in a movie for days like this in a really long time. It's like a great novel or an epic dream, it colors everything. Not to sound all Drew Barrymore, but if you approach this movie openly and as a fairy tale/parable, it will blow your mind.

It's all I can think about. Slumdog Millionaire. Cinderella meets Scarface meets wonderful.

I Have A Tumblr Too Now

I don't really know why, but it just seems like it'll be easier to keep up and also less like my real job: http://lindsayrobertson.tumblr.com

Ritalin Readings Tonight: October 6, 2008

Ritalin Readings has returned from summer hiatus with a great lineup:

Sara Schaefer (Best Week Ever)
Jack Kukoda (Comedian!)
Rachel Sklar (The Huffington Post)
Dennis DiClaudio (Comedy Central)
Brook Lundy (Some Ecards)

Ritalin Readings is hosted by Gabriel Delahaye and me and produced by Jon Friedman.

The Slipper Room
Stanton and Orchard
8pm
$5

Beat This.

I finally Googled myself on that "search Google in 2001" thing, and this was the only thing that came up for actual me and not someone else with the same name:

While it's much funnier if that was my own favorite quote (which was probably just as bad), it was actually my then-boyfriend's on the webmagazine we started in '97, which was called Firewall. The only thing I really remember about the webmagazine was an impassioned essay I wrote about Jesse Camp ('memba him?) and how he was "Famous for being famous." And I thought that was an extremely original observation. Ah, the stupidity of youth. In my defense, though, we didn't have Google then!

Also, "Frictiony"

My friend Brian just sent this to me saying "Best back to back comments ever." And I think he's right. From a thread on an otherwise serious Gothamist news post:

That made my day.

(On Videogum) Hollywood's Cleansepiracy

Uh, I noticed that three big TV comedies had jokes about someone being "on a cleanse" this week, so I gathered the video proof.

Just Too Much.

I know these happen every day, but seriously. Today, CNN?

Maybe they're trying to give us some perspective.

The Road: The Bank Commercial: Now.

(Videogum): If anyone can tell me what's going on this commercial for HSBC that aired during the news last night, please let me know.

(On Videogum) The 1-900 Crying Number

I'm obsessed with this: Was There Really A 1-900 Number For Crying?

Anyone Looking For An Apartment In Cobble Hill?

A good friend of mine has a room (with its own private bathroom) available in her spacious 2-bedroom in Cobble Hill. It's a great apartment (big kitchen, hardwood floors, great street with friendly neighbors) and awesome roommate, close to the Carroll Street F/G. If you know anyone who's interested, here's the Craig's List ad with more info.

I Stared At This Hippie Pet Costume For A Full Two Minutes

Before realizing that they were only selling pet clothes, not an extremely realistic giant dog head and body. Needless to say, I'm disappointed. It was about to be the best $12.99 I'd ever spent.

Jared Leto Reads The Paper

Just buy the USA Today, Jared. Just buy it and read the whole thing:

Also, Poetry

"This sounds grosser and more disturbing if you don’t know that cutting yourself with a razor was basically the slap bracelet of 1994."

-- Emily Gould, from the intro to a great post about DFW commenter remembrances.

Gabe Kills Me

On Videogum not really covering the election:

"the last thing anyone needs is another pop culture blogger making some casual and unearned metaphor about how John McCain is like Matt Damon in the Talented Mr. Ripley, resorting to any murderous lie to become President, if Matt Damon's face were made out of buttermilk biscuits."

Little Sally Draper Explains It All

As usual, I am way too hard on Mad Men. (This one is actually not spoilery.)

I Hate Mad Men, For Real*, Yet I Can't Look Away

The reference to The Bell Jar: I rolled my eyes at that line -- like that woman remembered a summer 9 years later and described it as "the summer they executed the Rosenbergs"? Could a summer really be so hot, and could the execution of the Rosenbergs be so inextricably linked to that heat that it would be both one of the most famous opening lines of a 20th century novel AND casual country club small talk by some ditz a year before that novel came out? This is really bothering me. (What is it about this show that causes extreme geekiness in people who are simultaneously bored to death by it?)

* Eh, compared to The Sopranos or things that are funny.

If You Want People To Read Your Tumblr (Or Any Blog, Really)

Go to your dashboard, click on "customize," click on "advanced," and uncheck this box:

To not do so is the 2008 equivalent of having a splash page.

(Oh, snap!)

Note: there's some confusion. I mean UNcheck the box so those who read the internet in RSS don't forever associate you with disappointment.

 

Sioux City Is Really, Really, Really Excited About Their New Olive Garden

Hey, I like Olive Garden. I even tried to have my birthday dinner there a few years ago only semi-ironically, but they didn't take reservations. But I think Sioux City might be a little bit too excited about their new Olive Garden. That article is guaranteed to make *anyone* feel like a food snob, though it's not any more ridiculous than the fuss New Yorkers make over Momofuku or whatever. (Via Die Actor Die)

Somebody Stayed In Tonight...

Ah, sad old abandoned Lindsayism.com, it's like when you start a new relationship and lose your own identity for a while. Every single day I save a bunch of things I read and enjoyed that I couldn't put on Videogum because they don't contain a "video element." Here are some from todayish.

* The Paparazzi Proof Tower: 2008's low-stakes version of the Titanic. (And yeah, like anyone followed by the paparazzi wants a shared pool.)

* The Face Your Manga app is big, duh. I started to do one and then thought I don't want to make my own, I want a friend to make mine and for me to make theirs. It's so fraught from both sides, it's like, real art or something! Also: why so many different kinds of mullet?

* Last night a friend visiting from San Francisco bought me a shot of this stuff: Fernet. It's very old and surely very famous, but it was new to me. I thought I would be all cool so I grabbed it out of her hand and threw it back. It tastes like 1000 aspirin dissolved in 1 ounce of Robitussin without the sweetness or point. I know this story sucks, but I've been obsessed with it all day. I was like a lemon baby for a full five minutes. I was like Laura on Little House when Mr. Edwards gave her the malaria medicine. I could go on for hours. (And I have, in internet-time.)

* Spencer Sloan never ceases to find new ways to be the best. Related: coincidentally obsessed with any and all movies based in the '80s in New York these days.

* Wine in a box: will it ever catch on for real? I buy my boxed wine at Vintage on Smith Street. Perfect for picnics and outdoor movies. (2008 bonus: you can say you're being "green" when really you're being cheap! There are so many new things like that in 2008.)

* Have you ever forced yourself to care about something because you had to, and then after a while you started actually caring? That's me with Mad Men. It's like what old grandmothers said about arranged marriages back in whenever: "You will grow to love him. The love will come." I am so deeply obsessed with Mad Men right now it's starting to taste like violence. (I started to use a crass term for "deeply obsessed with" but I just can't do it.)

* And one more of those plug-type links: Gabe's stuff makes me laugh out loud several times per day, every day, most recently late this afternoon: "Come over here and get your viewers."

Amelia Bedelia, Cake Decorator

Via Cakewrecks, that newish site on which everything is funny:

Send Texts Not Troops

I just bought this because it's $5.99 and when it comes to pajamas, I still like irony:

It's That Third Chow That Really Does It

Any time I'm feeling down, I'm going to remember that Martha Stewart had a dog named "Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow", and I'm going to smile.

(Thanks to CC Insider for reminding me today.)

The Cobble Hill Neighborhood Werewolf Patrol

Last night I was walking on Court Street near Union Street with Stephanie ("Stiff") and there were two ladies walking in front of us wearing long, flowing, huge robes with hoods (though the hoods weren't up), not unlike the robes of a monk, wizard, or witch. They were carrying flashlights, and had an air of authority about them. Okay, what is that? Did Halloween come early? Does this have something to do with that Twilight book? Is there some sort of neighborhood watch I should know about? Until more information comes in, I'm going to call them the Cobble Hill Werewolf Patrol.

Potential Titles For The Brideshead Revisited Prequel And Sequel

Prequel:

Let's Go To Brideshead For The Very First Time

or

Hey, Wanna Go To Brideshead?

Sequel:

Brideshead Re-Revisited

or

Brideshead Revisited 2: Back 2 Tha 'Head

Obvioushacker

Me: Don't you love when you need something, and you search for it on Google and it's right there waiting for you because someone else thought of it? Like earlier I needed to clean my laptop screen, and so I googled "black screen clean" and there's a site for getting a black screen so you can clean your computer! People think of everything these days.

Friend: Why didn't you just turn your computer off?

Me: (long pause) oh. my. god.

I'd like to claim this as an indicator of being online all the time, which is true, but we all know it's more about being dumb.

It Takes Exactly Fifteen Episodes To Really Get Into Mad Men

Last night I dreamed I got an email that said "Send me your resume, sweetie."

And it was from Don Draper.

The Bunny-Shaped Chicken Finger Tragedy

On the evening of May 18, 2008, I found this chicken finger in an order of chicken fingers from Rush Hour on the LES. I know it was May 18 because I moved to Brooklyn the next day:

I was excited about the chicken finger, and the next day, even though I was really hungry from packing to move and I'd already thrown away all my other food, I still didn't eat the chicken finger, even though I almost ate the chicken finger. It was a dilemma, actually, at the time, for real. I carefully moved the chicken finger from my old house to my new house, where it's sat in the freezer waiting for me to get a working camera and excitedly blog about it for three months.

When I moved into my new house, I carefully instructed my new roommate not to throw away the chicken finger, which was at the time my only contribution to the freezer.

On the evening of the move, I made an AIM custom away message that said "Gone to the store because the only food I own is a chicken finger shaped like a bunny rabbit!" I must have checked the box labeled "save for later use", because it's still an away message option.

I've shown the chicken finger to like five people who have happened to have been over when I noticed it in the freezer.

So last week I was watching Step Brothers and (spoiler alert) there's this part where they eat chicken fingers shaped like dinosaurs or whatever, which I have totally known about for as long as anyone has known about them, and it dawned on me: My bunny-shaped chicken finger was not special or accidental or a sign from god that I was unhappy in my little tiny fifth floor walkup and that this move to Brooklyn was a good thing. It was just an animal-shaped chicken finger that got mixed up with the blob-shaped chicken fingers in the chicken finger factory in Arkansas with bad labor practices or whatever, and I should have eaten it when it was still (somewhat) edible.

There is no bunny god.

But more important than its proof of a lack of bunny gods, the chicken finger and my excitement about it are proof that my friends lie to me. Lies of omission. Because it is totally obvious that that is not an accidental chicken finger. Anyway, you know who you are, friends who let me be way too excited about that chicken finger. I'm throwing it away now. I hope you're happy.

"Oh My God, Where Are All My Followers?"

Is this sad? I really don't even know anymore:

It seems like the implied panic in the streets is an indicator of something that might be a little pathetic, though it is amusing to imagine people analyzing their last twitter message (yes, "twitter message") to try and figure out why tonight's particular "Still in line for iphone" lost them half their readers.

The "Grey Poupon" Joke Is Still Killin 'Em In Salt Lake

Everything about this story is amazing, via Radar:
Motorist's Quip About Grey Poupon Met With Cocked, Black Handgun

1. I don't see what the color of the handgun has to do with anything.
2. "cocked"
3. The fact that some guy got a FELONY because Ned Flanders happened to be next to him at a light is kind of messed up. He should go on a morning show and plead his case.

But What Is The Other One Named?

Mark Lisanti's friend adopted two kittens and named one "The Internet."

Stop Being Mean And Fifty

When leaving a horrible comment about news of an anonymous death in a scene-based hangout, at least get your stupid stereotype right:

(Yeah, "fifty." The threshold goes up, okay?)

Do Not Take A Sip Of Anything Before Clicking On This

The Ten Greatest Misspelled Tattoos , By Edith Zimmerman

We should actually start using the word "Frunk" to mean "old soul with young spirit." Like, um, Drew Barrymore is so frunk!

"some people who like each other and some who don't and some who cannot tell who they do and do not like."

I've found that if it takes more than three sentences to explain something that annoyed you on the internet today, and if you feel suddenly embarrassed when you start, it's probably too "inside" (which means "dumb.")

But then Choire Sicha writes something that gives a name to your shameful frustration. He is a genius who should be In Charge. Just In Charge:

"Boy howdy, is Jessica Roy gonna be pissed when she finds out about midtown and all the stuff that happens up there!"

And the rest of it, too. I recommend following the link in the piece and reading the original thing just for the blessed joy and relief that is Choire's reaction. It's important to note that he isn't even mean to the well-intentioned but humorously misguided young lady (we were all there, after all.) He isn't even mean. Almost nobody else but him even bothers to try that anymore. It's like an amazing trick now. That's sad.

It's Not Just Lunch! Run Away!!

I just saw this ad on NY Mag. It's funny 'cause if you have strained eyes that animate things it looks like he's about to do the sex gesture:

It is so not just lunch.