04.29.04 who wants to adopt a baby?

I never actually heard this ABC promo (thank goodness for TiVo), but it's gotten quite a bit of media coverage of late:

"Friday on '20/20'... A unique television event. Five couples, desperate to adopt, all competing for her baby. Four will lose, one will get the baby of their dreams. Who will get this baby?"

Yeah, I can see where some people might find that offensive, especially considering that the evil John Stossel promo'd it as "the ultimate reality show."

About a week ago, the divine Amy linked to a page created by a guy named Jay Maynard, featuring a detailed demonstration of how he made a TRON costume to wear at a science fiction convention. If you like photos of a guy with a huge gut wearing a skintight suit, by all means click away. Now it looks like Jay has become the newest internet superstar -- he's going to be appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" next week. In the past, kids wanted to "be like Mike" or become a rock star; will today's kids aspire to be the new Bubb Rubb, William Hung or Mahir? You get to skip all of that icky "work" and go straight to the fame.

Note to self: the word "meditative," when seen in a film description, is most likely shorthand for "boring."

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04.27.04 do you want fries with that?

I remember the last time I had a fast food hamburger: it was in 1986, and I believe it was at a Burger King. I can still recall the thin, gray-brown meat patties, oily-tasting processed cheese slices, flabby pickle slices and overly fluffy buns that constitute the classic fast-food burger, even after all these years. Have I missed them? Not one bit.

I certainly wouldn't follow Morgan Spurlock's example, and subside on nothing but McDonald's food for an entire month, as he does in his outrageously entertaining new movie, "Super Size Me." Mickey D's for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Yep, and Spurlock is a purist -- he refuses to take a multivitamin because McDonald's doesn't offer them. Ditto aspirin, after one of the three doctors supervising his bizarre regimen suggests he start taking one daily to ward off potential heart problems.

Spurlock was inspired to go on the all-McDonald's diet due to a lawsuit filed by two teenage girls who claimed the fast food chain was to blame for their obesity. A writer, director and producer who funded his documentary with the proceeds he made from creating a series for MTV, Spurlock was a lean 185 pounds when the experiment began. After extensive examinations and blood work, his physicians gave him a clean bill of health. Three weeks later, they were begging him to stop.

"Super Size Me" is more than just wacky fun, though that's what will hook audiences (Watch Spurlock throw up after downing a huge burger! Listen to his girlfriend, who happens to be a vegan chef, complain about the deterioration in their sex life since Spurlock started the Mickey D's diet! Meet Big Mac enthusiast Don Gorske, who has consumed almost 20,000 burgers since he started keeping track in 1972!). There are a number of serious interviews with experts such as Marion Nestle and ice cream heir turned nutrition activist John Robbins. Spurlock also visits schools to check out the state of school lunch programs today (not good) and, in one enlightening segment, asks young children to identify photos of various public figures (they may not know George W. Bush, but they all recognize Ronald McDonald).

If you like Michael Moore's documentaries, put "Super Size Me" on your must-see list. Like Moore, Spurlock is a likable, charismatic guy who will make you think, and keep you laughing.

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04.24.04 curves and me: it's over, baby!

Letter sent to my local Curves

For the past 14 months, I have been a member of Curves and have enjoyed the program. However, I recently learned through articles in the Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News that Gary Heavin, the founder and CEO of Curves, is a major funder of several organizations allied with the extreme anti-abortion group Operation Save America.

I took a look at OSA's web site, on which Heavin is lavishly praised, and not only do they picket abortion clinics -- they also appear at sporting events, gay rights marches, and other public events carrying gigantic photographs of bloody fetuses and distributing anti-gay propaganda. (The photos are proudly displayed on their site.) They describe Planned Parenthood as "an odious organization that kills children, spreads immorality, and has provided a safe haven for pedophiles."

Unfortunately, groups like OSA and their affiliate Carenet, to which Heavin recently pledged $1 million a year, want to do much more than prevent abortions -- they want to undermine women's availability to birth control and disrupt the relationship of trust and confidentiality between a woman and her doctor. I find this to be incompatible with the Curves message of "empowering women," and feel I can no longer patronize a business that has values so different from my own. Therefore, I would like to cancel my membership as soon as possible.

Please note that I do not believe that the owners or staff at my local Curves support the same causes that Heavin does; however, ultimately, the success of the franchise increases Heavin's wealth, and thus his ability to fund organizations that I personally find reprehensible.

At least I'll never have to hear the 50s novelty CD ever again.

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04.22.04 a tale of two bands

In this corner, we have the Dandy Warhols -- attractive, ambitious, well-adjusted (frontman Courtney Taylor remarks on the fact that none of the quartet come from broken homes).

In the other corner, we have Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre -- megalomaniacal, occasional heroin addict, product of a highly dysfunctional childhood (his father, in an interview, admits he was an alcoholic who basically abandoned his family during Anton's youth; we then learn that shortly after the piece was filmed, the man committed suicide -- on his son's birthday, no less).

The rivalry and friendship between Taylor and Newcombe is at the heart of Ondi Timoner's new documentary "DiG!," an intimate portrayal of the two bands during a seven-year period. Both of their groups are struggling to make it when we first meet them in the mid-1990s. The Dandys sign a record deal with Capitol, while Newcombe's erratic behavior causes him to miss every big break that comes his way; during an L.A. industry showcase, he punches out a band member for playing a bum note. In fact, wherever the BJM goes, onstage violence and audience melees seem to follow.

When Newcombe visits the set of the Dandys' video "Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth," he is so freaked out by the lavish production, featuring bright sets and numerous costumed dancers (and perhaps also by the lyric "I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe"), that he records an "answer single" called "Not If You Were the Last Dandy On Earth." He stalks the DWs to the CMJ college-radio convention in New York and hands out copies of his disc in front of the venue where they're playing.

As a huge Dandys fan, I was eager to see this film; I'd heard about the "feud" between the DWs and the BJM, but had never really understood what it was all about. It seems to come down to the fact that Anton Newcombe is a crazy bastard (not surprisingly, he disowns the film in a statement on his web site).

However, "DiG!" lionizes Newcombe from start to finish. From A&R people to discarded bandmates to Taylor himself, everyone proclaims him a genius. This was my first exposure to the BJM's music, and frankly, I didn't quite hear the brilliance; their music sounded kind of like shambling, post-Velvet Underground garage rock to my ears. They certainly don't have the potent hooks of Dandys compositions like "Boys Better" and "Bohemian Like You."

The DWs have yet to conquer America, but in Europe, they're huge stars, playing in front of tens of thousands of people at outdoor festivals. (Last year, they managed a perfunctory, month-long tour of smallish U.S. venues before moving on to arenas in Europe and Australia.) As for the BJM... they're still recording for indies like Tee Pee Records, which released their most recent album, ...And This Is Our Music. (Not that there's anything wrong with tiny indie labels, of course.) Newcombe may not like "DiG!," but there's no doubt it will raise his profile, and enhance his tortured-genius mystique.

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04.21.04 where's the rest of me?

Coincidence dept.: two comic strips, Doonesbury and Get Fuzzy, have freakishly similar plotlines this week about characters losing their legs while fighting in Iraq. Funny papers, indeed.

If you love topical comics, keep an eye out for these:

Marmaduke: The lovable Great Dane is sent to Iraq to work as a service dog, sniffing for bombs and guarding American compounds.

Cathy: A couple of weeks prior to their long-awaited wedding, Irving finds himself getting cold feet and decides to enlist in the Army rather than marry his neurotic fiancee.

Family Circus: Dead Grandpa welcomes newly slain soldiers to Heaven.

Beetle Bailey: What the heck are Beetle & co. still doing at Camp Swampy? Don't they know there's a war on?

Jump Start: Marcy, the nurse, tends a ward of other cartoon characters who have lost their legs in Iraq.

Lil' Abner: Al Capp comes back from the dead to take aim at those dadgum folks protestin' the war.

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04.19.04 heavy metal breakdown

Before last night, if you'd asked me to hum a few bars of a Metallica song, I could have come up with the chorus of "Enter Sandman," and that's about it. As regular readers know, I'd rather be listening to Pavement or power-pop than banging my head.

After sitting through a two and a half hour long documentary about Metallica, I could hum a few bars of... "Enter Sandman." To be honest, even after prolonged exposure, all of their music just sounds sort of loud and sludgy to me. But even though I'm still pretty clueless about their musical output, boy, do I ever know a lot about them.

"Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" is like a super-sized episode of "Behind the Music." Focusing on the making of their latest album, St. Anger, the doc (helmed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky of Brother's Keeper and Paradise Lost, not to mention Blair Witch 2) is a jaw-droppingly intimate portrait of a superstar rock band in crisis.

Filming began early in 2001. Bassist Jason Newsted has recently left the band, feeling too constrained by singer James Hetfield's insistence that he not pursue side projects. Producer Bob Rock has been tapped to play bass on the album. The band members set up a rehearsal space in San Francisco's Presidio, and start writing songs.

At the same time, the three members and Rock begin group therapy with a "performance coach" named Phil Towle, who has worked with pro athletes as well as members of Rage Against the Machine. The whole idea of a bad-ass metal band hiring a $40,000-a-month therapist, whose techniques include requiring the members to write a "Metallica mission statement" and taping up little motivational signs ("The Zone: Entering is believing!") around the studio, is pretty hilarious; as the band labors over lyrics like "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle" or crafts monster riffs, the 64-year-old Towle is always hovering in the background, usually wearing a Cosby-esque sweater.

Work on the album is interrupted for an entire year when Hetfield goes into rehab. Drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist Kirk Hammett continue the therapeutic process, leading to the movie's most surprising scene: former guitarist Dave Mustaine, who was pushed out of the band in 1983 due to his substance abuse problems, confronts Ulrich about his unresolved feelings of anger. It turns out Mustaine has been nursing a grudge for 20 years, believing that the band he formed, Megadeth, was "second best" (an onscreen title tells us that Megadeth sold 15 million albums, vs. Metallica's 90 million), and that he wishes he could "go back in time" and start over again with the band. "Everything you touch turns to gold and everything I do backfires," a visibly pained Mustaine tells Lars. "Have you thought about what I went through? Have you got any idea?" Dude, get over it; you're not exactly Pete Best.

The movie's first 90 minutes or so are brilliant, but once the focus switches to the making of St. Anger, it became very rough going for this non-fan. I hope Berlinger and Sinofsky do some cutting before the July wide release; if Peter Jackson could do it, so can you guys! Save the boring stuff for the DVD.

But at its best, "Metallica" is riveting. Just a handful of memorable moments:

• Lars Ulrich's wizened dad, who has a Gandalf-like long white beard, listens thoughtfully to one of the band's new songs and tells Lars it's no good. "I'd delete that one," he says in his heavy Danish accent.

• Post-rehab Hetfield insists that he can only work in the studio from 12-4 PM, because he needs to spend time with his family. We then cut to a shot of the heavily-tattooed frontman sitting in a folding chair, the only man in a line of young suburban mothers, watching his daughter's ballet class.

• The members finally find something to unite them -- their hatred of taping a ridiculous radio station promo, a task forced on them by their management.

• Lars heads to Christie's auction house in New York to sell some works from his collection of modern art, and watches with an approving smile as his Jean-Michel Basquiat painting goes for $5 million.

After the screening, the filmmakers, band members (including new bass player Robert Trujillo) and the omnipresent Towle gathered onstage to talk about the movie. The quartet is happy, doing well, communicating better than ever before. Hetfield earnestly endorses therapy. Trujillo cracks jokes, including a sly impersonation of his old boss, Ozzy Osbourne. Hammett, the "nice guy" caught in the power struggle between Hetfield and Ulrich, talks about how hard it was to watch the film. Towle smiles benignly. Metallica may have gone through a lot during the filming of "Some Kind of Monster," but it looks like they're enjoying a happy ending.

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04.17.04 the festival begins

I never thought that 24 hours after seeing the weird & wonderful "The Triplets of Belleville," I would be sitting in a theater watching a film that made it look like a conventional Hollywood picture by comparison. But "The Saddest Music In the World" is really something else.

When it began, I thought, "Oh, this is interesting -- the prologue is filmed in sort of a grainy, fuzzy style." It wasn't black & white; it was blue & white, and looked rather like an 8mm film blown up for the big screen, with the lens coated in Vaseline for good measure. A dapper young man, accompanied by his girlfriend, a lovely woman with huge eyes, is visiting a fortune teller who predicts a nasty future for him. He scoffs at her prophecy, and the couple leaves. As the next scene began, I realized that this wasn't just a prologue -- the entire film had been shot using this rather bizarre approach. Uh-oh.

"Saddest Music" takes place in 1933, but I've seen plenty of silent films from the '20s that are much crisper and cleaner-looking, so director Guy Maddin must not have been trying to ape the movies of that particular period. However, after the first 10 minutes or so, I got used to the film's look, and even began to enjoy it.

It's the Great Depression, and one of the few industries that's really thriving is Lady Port-Huntly's (Isabella Rossellini) Winnipeg brewery. Prohibition is still the law of the land in the U.S., but the Lady figures it's only a matter of time before her product will be legal again south of the border. To garner publicity, she decides to hold a contest to decide which country produces the world's saddest music. The prize: "25,000 Depression-era dollars." Musical groups leave their native lands for Canada, ready to vie for the reward. Among the competitors are Chester Kent (former Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney), the slick showman we met in the opening segment, a Canadian who moved to the U.S. to become a Broadway producer; his father, a World War I vet who will represent Canada; and his brother, who moved to Serbia and encountered a double tragedy -- the death of his son and the subsequent disappearance of his wife. Please note that all of this is played for laughs.

Chester and his dad have both been romantically involved with Lady Port-Huntly, who, by the way, has no legs, due to a rather unpleasant incident involving both of her ex-suitors. So there's plenty of drama even before the international competition gets underway. A loopy pair of play-by-play announcers, who reminded me of Fred Willard and Jim Piddock in "Best In Show," contributes hilarious one-liners ("No one can beat Siam when it comes to dignity, cats or twins, and now sadness!").

"Saddest Music" is actually going to get a nationwide theatrical release, and I can't even begin to imagine what people will make of it outside the hothouse world of the film festival circuit. If you're in the mood for something different and can get past Maddin's technical tomfoolery, you may find "Saddest Music" to be quite compelling, funny and wholly original.

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04.16.04 belleville rendezvous

Finally got around to seeing "The Triplets of Belleville," a mere three weeks before its release on DVD. This one was worth seeing in the theater, though -- it's outrageously inventive, quite unlike anything I've ever seen before. Sylvain Chomet has a bizarre imagination, that's for sure. Strongly recommended, partly because it has an absolutely wonderful dog character. As freaky as this movie is, Bruno really does behave like a real dog!

Wed. night we saw Garry Trudeau at City Arts and Lectures. Trudeau's public apperances are quite infrequent -- I saw him once, maybe 10 years ago, in Washington D.C. -- so this was a treat. Trudeau spoke about the evolution of the strip and his characters, and, of course, the current political scene (the current administration makes him angrier than he's ever been -- and this is a man who grew to prominence during the Nixon years!). Don't miss next week's series of strips for an explosive change in the lives of one of his main characters.

Interviewing Trudeau was Michael "won't be using Sue's name in my next book" Chabon, who was absolutely adorable -- he was so enthusiastic, leaning forward, hanging on every word out of Trudeau's mouth. It's such fun to see one of your idols in real "fan" mode.

Tonight begins the annual movie buff's endurance test that is the San Francisco International Film Festival. I tried to space things out a little more this year, so I don't exhaust myself and get sick, the way I did during last year's fest, not to mention this year's Noir Fest. Wish me luck.

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04.13.04 shattered

Remember your first DVD? How cool it was that it had all of these extra features, like deleted scenes and commentary tracks?

DVDs have gotten overstuffed. Now, when I pick up a DVD, I almost fear the amount of special features. It's like going to one of those restaurants where they serve huge portions; just looking at the plateful of food in front of me makes me feel sated before I've taken a single bite. How will I ever get through this? Like a big meal, you wind up with enough leftovers to last several days.

Well, here is a DVD with riveting extras and one of the best movies of 2003 -- and you can watch every bit of it in three hours and 15 minutes. It's "Shattered Glass," which I saw during its theatrical run last year, loved, and rented in order to listen to the commentary track. The movie tells the story of Stephen Glass, an ambitious young writer for Washington, D.C.-based political weekly The New Republic. Everyone loved Glass's fascinating stories about the political scene, from a cult that worshiped the first President Bush to an entrepreneur who manufactured "Monicondoms" during the height of Lewinsky-mania. Only one problem: the articles seemed too good to be true, and they were. Glass had made everything up.

The movie is completely absorbing, and one of the few fictional films set in a journalistic milieu that actually captures that world. One of the consultants on the film was Charles Lane, who was the editor of TNR and played a major role in bringing Glass's deceptions to light. Lane appears on the DVD's commentary track along with writer-director Billy Ray, a first-time filmmaker who is utterly self-effacing about his role in making the movie (he gives enormous amounts of credit to his director of photography and key cast member Peter Sarsgaard). For 90 minutes, you learn a tremendous amount about where fact and fiction diverge, what it's like to make a low-budget movie, and assorted bits of trivia (many of the conversations between Lane and Forbes Digital editor Kambiz Farhoor, who was the first person to discover that one of Glass's stories was a fake, are verbatim -- because Farhoor taped all the calls).

The only other extra on the DVD is a "60 Minutes" segment on Glass, so you can check out the real-life Glass and Lane. Even though I tend not to be a big deleted-scenes fan, I actually wished they had included a couple of the ones that are referred to on the commentary track. But all in all, this is a remarkably satisfying disc.

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04.09.04 iTuned

OK, so I read a little bit about the Condi Rice testimony in today's paper. I'm still doing pretty well at the media fast, though.

I read on their extremely non-informative web site that Menthol's CD is available from iTunes, so I downloaded it. It was my first iTunes purchase, but I have realized that it combines two of my favorite things: instant gratification and not having to find room in my home for another object. Sure, there's no cover art or little round disc, but I kind of enjoy the purity of paying for the music and nothing but the music. The biggest disadvantage, as far as I can determine: if you buy a CD at Amoeba, you can always sell it back to them a few months later if you get tired of it, and thus recoup some of your money. Still, I am convinced that iTunes is basically A Good Thing.

As for the album itself, it is a very catchy bit of retro-new wave. If you don't feel like spending $9.60 on the entire album, I'd recommend coughing up a couple bucks for the tracks "Danger: Rock Science" and "New Recruits." Menthol remind me a little of Laptop, who also do the new-wavey thing very well. I realize that new wave is about as unchic as power pop these days, but I for one appreciate those who are striving to bring a bit of the early 80s back to those of us who grew up wearing poufy hair and blue eyeliner or skinny ties.

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04.08.04 fast

The news has been making me depressed and edgy. As my regular readers know, I am an NPR junkie -- I keep the radio on almost all day, going from one fix to another. Forum. Talk of the Nation. Tavis Smiley. Fresh Air. Marketplace. All Things Considered. They are my constant companions.

However, in case you haven't been paying attention lately, the news is usually -- how do you say? -- bad. As much as I feel it's important to be an Informed Citizen, I'm beginning to think that too much news can promote feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. I think I'll be haunted forever by the photo of the burned bodies of the American security guards in Fallujah, especially the one where their charred corpses were being poked by young men with sticks. If you saw it, you'll know what I mean; if you didn't, consider yourself lucky. I'm sure as hell not linking to it.

So I have decided to go on a temporary news fast, which is something recommended by self-help gurus like Andrew Weil and Sarah Ban Breathnach. I set up some ground rules. No more hours of NPR, although selective listening to cute or funny human interest stories is permitted. The Nation & World section of the paper is out, but features, sports and local news are OK, as long as I skip stories about murders, fires and the Giants losing. Scanning the top headlines on the Yahoo! home page when I log in to check my e-mail is probably inevitable. "The Daily Show" must be watched no matter what because, well, it's "The Daily Show." In fact, from now on, I plan to get all of my news from TDS and Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me.

So I'm sitting here at 1 PM, desperately curious about Condi Rice's testimony before the 9/11 committee. What did she say? How is the White House spinning it? What does Dan Schorr think?

But I'm not looking -- or listening. I'm not! But I sure hope Jon Stewart will be reporting on it tonight. Otherwise, I'll have to wait until Saturday and hope Philipp Goedicke has been able to condense her testimony into a limerick.

Obviously, pulling the plug on NPR will give me lots more time to listen to music. I'm currently playing some Parasol Records samplers, which the label was kind enough to send me free of charge when I ordered a box of Shalini CDs. Has anyone out there heard of Menthol? Their song "Danger: Rock Science" totally rocks. It sounds like a Devo outtake from back when Devo were really good.

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04.07.04 randomness

I should never have added a guest book feature to this blog, because now I keep checking it obsessively and it generates so few comments. Maybe I need to be more edgy and controversial. Why can't I be as cool as Gawker?

Crap -- the Polyphonic Spree are on the bill for this summer's Lollapalooza tour. Pleeeease let them also tour on their own. I am too old, cranky and small-bladdered to attend marathon outdoor rock festivals.

Is it wrong to have mixed emotions when the Giants win because Barry Bonds homered? I mean, even if he is taking steroids, he must still be a very talented player, because otherwise everyone would be able to hit 'em like Barry if they took enough 'roids, right? Right?

I loathe George W. Bush. And Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice, and John Ashcroft, and Colin Powell. But I sort of have a soft spot for Donald Rumsfeld.

I think gas should cost more. It's wrong that a gallon of orange juice or Evian water costs twice as much as a gallon of gas.

As much as I will hate myself for doing it, I'm probably going to start watching the new season of "The Bachelor" tonight.

I had a dream about Britney Spears. She had a mouthful of tiny, sharp, pointed teeth, and was trying to bite me. Then she ran off.

It's time to walk the dog.

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04.05.04 play ball!

Follow-up: the Bridge Guy was up there for over 12 hours. The Chronicle reports that a doctor deemed him "mentally unstable" -- what a surprise.

Today is baseball's Opening Day. Two interesting facts about the Giants' ballpark:

1. Its new name is SBC Park (it used to be Pac Bell Park, but Pac Bell was swallowed up by SBC). SBC, formerly Southwestern Bell, doesn't stand for anything. It's an acronym without meaning, just like AARP. Local wags have declared that SBC stands for "some big company."

2. Beer now costs $7.75. I'm not sure what brand of beer it is, but $7.75 sounds awfully high to me. Luckily, people are allowed to bring their own plastic containers of non-alcoholic beverages to the ballpark. If you are super-cheap, uh, frugal, like I am, fill up a plastic bottle at home with water from your Brita pitcher, pop it in the freezer for a while, and it should still be nice and cold when you arrive. For a snack, bring a Clif bar. There; you're all set, at 1/8 the price of a beer!

And now, opinion: Giants, appreciate your catcher, Yorvit Torrealba! A.J. Pierzynski isn't all that! Yorvit hit a home run during yesterday's pre-season game against the A's, but he's not in today's starting lineup. Hopefully, he'll have many chances to prove himself later on.

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04.02.04 stuck

Yesterday, I drove to the Container Store in San Francisco. (Normally, I'm all for public transit, but when you can park half a block away and not have to worry about finding a place on the BART train for your enormous container-filled bags, the car just makes more sense.) It took approximately 20 minutes to drive from my home to the Mission St. parking garage.

Today, it would probably take me at least two hours. According to the invaluable PIX Page, this is what's going on right now along the I-80 corridor, as of 2:30 PM:

• Bay Bridge: WB 80 at the incline ... 2 left lanes blocked from incline to Treasure Island (Suicidal subject. He has climbed over the side and is sitting on the rail) ... Traffic is backed up to Central Avenue on WB 80. WB 580 is backed up to 980 (since 10:29 AM).
• Emeryville: WB 80 at Powell St. ... disabled vehicle. Right lane blocked ...big rig in the right lane.
• Bay Bridge: WB 80 at the toll plaza ... grass fire on the shoulder. Also a stall in the second lane from the left at the incline.

So one person can totally screw up traffic for tens of thousands of people all over the Bay Area (the San Mateo Bridge is now backed up as well, due to people trying to avoid the Bay Bridge). I feel sorry for anyone who is desperate enough to attempt suicide, but... four-plus hours of traffic stoppage? I'd hate to need an ambulance, or to get to the airport, or have to take a pregnant woman to the hospital on a day like this.

Our bridges connect us, but they also make us so vulnerable.

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04.01.04 fooled

At least NPR can be counted on to provide a good April Fool's gag every year. Ditto TeeVee.org, although theirs is really only funny if you are an obsessive Salon reader, like me.

Went to the Container Store today. It's like a paradise for people who hope to get organized. I bought $100 worth of kitchen containers. I forced myself not to peruse the other sections of the store. Today was for the kitchen, dammit! I can't let myself get sidetracked by the office or bathroom! One thing I didn't get into was the surprisingly complicated world of kitchen garbage cans. The most beautiful ones, of course, require custom garbage bags. simplehuman is the Sub-Zero of trash cans, but the specially fitted bags are a bit of a deal-breaker. On to something less lovely yet more economical, I suppose.

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All content © 2004 by Sue Trowbridge