Can I just say one little thing about Oprah, Firefox?

Stop crashing, willya? Twice in under 30 seconds, must be a new record for you. First I'm told it's crashing because I have the latest version (with the bugs yet to be worked out), then I'm told I need the latest one to stop the crashing.

Guess what? Hasn't stopped.

Oh well. It's still not anywhere near as bad as the dark days of CompuServe and dialup. (Youtube was the only video player that worked for us, and god, uploading a photo... I actually uploaded a video when we had dialup. Took a few tries, but I did it.)

Anyways, I said this when I first saw this incredibly! shocking! story! on the incredibly! shitty! show! "Inside Edition" (on before Jeopardy), and what is a blog for but what you say or don't say, because you're too polite and your mom told you to be nice, they're family.

Yeah, it was about Oprah's shocking! weight gain and how ashamed she was and blah blah blah. And the next cover of her magazine. (Never watched her show.)



When I first saw that flash on the screen, I couldn't tell which one was the "fat" Oprah. No, really.

That's my main point. My secondary point is she looks fine at 200 lbs. I can't comment on her health, only her looks. And she looks great.

There is this awful picture of me at my 16th birthday looking really fat (especially in the face, which is especially red), so I know from experience how it can look good and how it can't. I probably weigh more now, but I like what my face looks like (at least in the mirror, and when I smile at little children, they don't start screaming) and I wish my mom would get rid of that damned picture. I mean, Baskin Robbins didn't even get us the right cake!

I think Oprah should listen to me, a little nobody, and just stop this. Work on being healthy, like we all should, and not on the number on the scale. ETA: And she is doing that! But I bet that won't stop her from coming out with her abs bared when she loses some multiple of 5 pounds in the coming year.

Oh god, speaking of diets, some of the latest ads are kind of creeping me out. One shows hunger as a monster that you can beat with their product and the phrasing is so borderline eating disorder, it illustrates everything wrong with diets, especially those advertised on TV. Though I was proud, I guess, of SlimFast's latest, which showed a woman a teensy bit bigger than the women in the other diet ads. Especially Special K's latest terrible offering, where the Mom (in a huge puffy coat that makes everyone look fat) is compared to a snowman by her awful child and runs off to her Special K cabinet.

Speaking of weight loss, I've lost at least 15 pounds in 6 months, and I don't know how. I see my endocrinologist every six months, so I trust his scale a bit more than my OB's, since I see him every month. (Makes no sense, I know, but if something were happening, it would continue happening and show up at the endo's. And it did.)

It was so silly. I was like, "That sounds lower than last time. Is it?" The nurse said yes, and my mom was all "High five!" Sadly, I left her hanging. She said women were supposed to celebrate weight loss and I pointed out that I couldn't celebrate when I didn't even know what I'd even done.

To wrap this up, I've only seen one thing about this (not my miraculous weight loss, Oprah!) and in the entire thing, the author never says she looks good. Though apparently there are health concerns. I check Jezebel daily, and knew there'd be something. And while I agree with everything said, I still expected at least a body positive comment. Perhaps at least one commenter will deliver.

If not, I may have to put on my trust Anonymous hat and comment again. (Just commented for the first time today and I've been reading since some time this summer.) But I doubt I'll have to.

I know somebody else out there feels the same way I do.

Oprah looks great and has looked great every time I've seen her and will probably continue to look great until she dies, which won't be for a long, long time.

ETA: I am tempted to disclose my weight, except I don't remember it. I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to weight. Like Oprah's current weight? Had to look it up. But I can tell you that at Open House at my third elementary school, in second grade, I called the teacher "Mom" or possibly "Mommy" and nobody heard, or if they did, they never said anything.

I also vividly remember the one rude comment about my looks the first time I posted a picture of myself on a message board. (I was compared to Pat of SNL fame.) I have incredibly thin skin.

ETA yet again: Kate Harding said it better, with less asides. (And she's talked to Oprah!) I saw either the Memphis or County mayor in a Memphis Home Depot once, and I totally bashed NBC right to a local NBC anchorman's face while waiting for my English class. We were in another room, watching a movie. My teacher was so cool, we were tardy, it was unexcused, but nothing ever came of it. And I talked to a guy who'd been on the teevee! Also, also, my mom totally met the two main Memphis detectives from A&E's the First 48 at the Rick Springfield concert at the fair this fall. They know my dad, and they've been on cable! Kate Harding is also a coherent blogger, which explains why she has commenters and I talk to myself, only to be embarrassed by something on this later. (I will be important enough to be embarrassed by the blog I started to jot down my experiences in a psych ward, dammit!)


And yes, a commenter did say Oprah looked great now on the first page of comments. Perhaps Dodai thought it went without saying?

The Weekly World News staff was killed by batboy.

That's the only logical reason for it to fold.

Not what the so-called serious media claims. (Circulation dropping.)

I hope the website stays up.

I've only read a couple issues, and I loved them!

One was in 7th grade, in first period, my friend had one and we passed it back and forth most of the class.

I've managed to buy one myself.

I still have it under the bed.

I know it's considered the most reliable news source out there, but I swear there is a disclaimer in the magazine that says it is satirical and not real.

Doesn't make its passing less sad.

The Devil Wears Prada

The other book I got Saturday. It cost a bit more (fifty cents!), but it was worth it. And unlike The Skin I'm In, I'm keeping it.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger is a great, funny book that did not disappoint me in any way.

I'd checked out The Nanny Diaries and Citizen Girl from the local library last fall, and I was so disappointed in them. They sucked. They were told in first person, present tense, something that I notice if I don't like the book I'm reading. (Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen and everything by Sophie Kinsella are examples of ones I do like that way, because of great characters and a good story.)

They were also incredibly pretentious, at least to me. Why? The employers in both books were not named, save for an 'X'. That annoyed the shit out of me. It's a fictional novel! FICTION! NOT REAL. No one gives a damn what their names are, you're not 'protecting' anybody! Make something up, dammit. I gave Nanny Diaries too many pages, and gave up on Citizen Girl much, much quicker when I discovered it was the same thing.

But I'm sure others like them - one's being made into a movie, someone must like it. Who knows? I may give them another try one day.

I was worried The Devil Wears Prada would be the same thing. If it was, it would go to the Crisis Center with The Skin I'm In, but for different reasons.

It wasn't. It was told in first person, but in the past tense. The main character was likable, and her boss had a name, as did the (fictional) magazine she worked for. Everyone had a name, except for her friend's many boyfriends, but they were not X's and for that, I am thankful. Johnny Depp made an appearance at a party! He didn't say anything to Andrea, the main character, but he was there. I doubt he'll be in the movie.

Andrea Sachs gets a job the November after graduating from Brown as Miranda Priestly's junior personal assistant. She's told that if she can make it a year, she can get almost any job in the publishing world she wants. (The New Yorker, in her case.)

It's incredibly funny and sad, but it's a great book.

Miranda does nothing for herself, and expects her assistants to practically read her mind 30 minutes before she asks them to something. Her favorite thing to do is to send them or some other peon on a wild goose chase getting everything just so, and then changing her mind. She also expects the impossible - that her assistant Emily can get her a private chartered flight at midnight on Saturday because the weather interfered with her original flight. She can't, of course, and the airline had already booked her with their first flight out the next morning. When Miranda discovered that she would not be flying until the morning, she was still pissed. Her flight was going to leave at 6:50, but another woman had a flight to New York leaving at 6:35, I think on a different airline!, but she had to get out first. She got it, of course, and the best part to the beleaguered assistant - it got in 8 minutes later than the original!

She also expected Andrea to be there at the time on the itinerary, not 30 minutes later because her flight was delayed and she had to go through customs. Reality matters not to her.

Two mind-reading tasks that were especially bitchy - find a dresser at an antique store in 'the '70s'. She didn't give a cross road or even tell Andrea what side of the park she meant. When Andy asked her, she told her she'd given her the address, she's so forgetful. The address was on 68th!

She also told her that she wanted reservations at an Asian fusion restaurant that had been reviewed in yesterday's paper. "That's all." Andrea called every single New York newspaper and none had done a review on an Asian restaurant that met Miranda's standards. When she asked for clarification (something you never do), she was told that she'd been told 6 times that it was the Post.

The New York Post had nothing. When she asked again, she was told that she'd been told a dozen times that it was the Washington Post, could she be any stupider?

I was surprised she lasted as long she did. They were never allowed to leave the office unattended in case she called or someone called and she was there and had to take the call.

There is something I worried about - that what Emily (the senior assistant) was saying was true, that you don't get to the top of the world by being nice. That is true, but Miranda was a lazy, lying bitch who abused everyone who did everything for her. She may have been a creative genius, but that didn't mean she should treat everyone like shit, though she could because she's Miranda fuckin' Priestly.

While she was in the office, everyone was expected to dress like a super model - down to uncomfortable shoes. But Andrea was expected to make many Starbucks or other errands on foot. She got chewed out for wearing comfortable shoes by her boss.

Luckily for her, there were clothes provided for free when they were 'out of season' (hadn't even hit the stores yet) along with foot-killing shoes and fashionable purses. When the movie came out, there was an article in the M section about the movie and how she was working at a fashion magazine, she should dress appropriately. Reading this and remembering that made me want to barf. The writer had based it solely on the movie, not the book.

Andrea only got the job in the first place because she'd just had a bout of dysentery and weighed 115 pounds on 5'10 frame. Along with her desire to work in journalism. And she was promised that a year in Runway hell was the same as 5 years as a peon at a less prestigious publication. So she wanted to learn the fashion ropes.

The stress of the job prevented her from eating most of the time, so she never regained her pre-illness weight. She was the only one 'brave' enough to eat the soup in the cafeteria. The soup chef refused to make any soup low fat, low carb, low anything. Loaded with calories, but the stress prevented her from becoming a 'cow'. Everyone else ate salads, if anything, and complained about their weight.

Miranda ate as well, and one lunch time pissed me off. Andy had to rush around to get her 'usual' food and took too long. (Since she was the junior assistant, she had to run errands. She used the errands as a chance to smoke, talk to her boyfriend, and give away Starbucks drinks on the building's dime. She could charge everything to them - even the two daily taxi rides. She was not a native New Yorker and had no idea where the building was at first and then she had to wear fancy clothes and killer heels, so it was better to ride in a cab. And it was expected by the company!)

So she rushed to get back, and place it just so on Miranda's desk. Miranda came back to the office and got incredibly pissy. Why? In the time between yelling at Andy and coming back to the office, she'd already eaten and Andrea should have known that, even though she didn't bother to tell her.

When her coworker got sick (mono - highly contagious), Miranda had to talk to the doctor before she'd believe it - and she insisted mono wasn't a 'real' disease.

The book is perfectly funny, and I wish it was longer.

I want to rent the movie next time we do that to see how it compares. For one thing - the casting is wrong, judging by the shot on the back of my copy. Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway have healthy bodies. I don't think Meryl's a size 0.

I'll see how it matches up and report back. Expect something long and bitchy if it doesn't, and something short and sweet if it does.

A side note - I have no idea what magazine the author is mocking, or who she's mocking. I know some of the designer's names, but that's about it.

I think my sister would like it, but she said, before I could finish the sentence - "Never gonna read it."

"I'm gonna make a book called Never Gonna Read It, dedicated to you and it'll be all about how to be a super-duper genius success."

"Never gonna read it."

She pisses me off sometimes - I know she's not a reader, but she does have two favorite series - Gossip Girl and the A List. She begged me to give the first GG a try, and I did. I hated it, but at least I tried.

She never bothers.

I'm currently rereading Alas, Babylon. I had to read it in 9th grade, and made my homebound teacher mad because after a slow, "I-hate-this-tripe" start, I raced through it. Whoops. I'm always doing that. That really sucked in 10th grade when we read 1984, because we read along with an audio CD that was so slow.

I'm awaiting a Devil Wears Prada-type book about MAD. Good Days and Mad by Dick DeBartolo isn't cutting it anymore. (As I don't have it.)

I hate myself for this.

I want to watch this show, I can't help it. I have his book, No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem, and I've actually read it a couple times and liked it each time, whether I liked country music or not.

Hopefully the next time it comes on, I'll be outside, asleep, somewhere else, or watching something else. If it's on opposite a show I know I like, too bad. Or, good.

I won't watch it.

I'm watching a FOX show right now - they said Berkeley Breathed would be on, and I'm half-listening, maybe he'll be on soon - they're talking about a 30 year old murder. But I read about that, so it has little to do with commercials.

Grounded For Life was on for an hour today, and Sabrina was on for two today, and every other commercial break was for the Sound of Music.

Since they started their commercial campaign, I've wanted to watch it - we have the video. But I couldn't find it in the study with the other VHSs yesterday and gah, we used to watch it all the time, the commercial was sucking me in, but I didn't want to watch a movie without a pause button and with commercials.

And then I realized that Becky liked Julie Andrews - only in the Princess Diaries movies, of course.

And since she's out of town - ssh! - I went in her room and looked for her collection of DVDs and tapes. And there it was! There's a sticky note on it right now telling me to put it back in her room.

I was going to watch it this afternoon around 4pm - almost 3 hours long - so I could watch AMW -I just saw him on TV and said, "Hi Opus!" - but a phone conversation with my mom convinced me that my time would be better spent napping. I didn't wake up until 7:30. And, d'oh, when I was sleepy and worried that they'd be snowed in and not back in time, I called my Dad and asked him to pick up my levoxyl before Tuesday. My last one is Monday, and it's the thyroid hormone. There are others I could call, and they will be back, but he said he'd pick it up. It's only $3, but I'm sure he'll give me the receipt so Mom can pay him $1.50. He has to pay half our medical bills, so mom started sending him all of our receipts for prescriptions and doctor's visits. He claimed he already did at the December disposition, but at best, he picked up one prescription every few months when Mom had no money or time, and I needed this medicine. But he has 30 days to pay half the bills, and mom's not pushing him to pay sooner. Luckily, he said he'd do it Monday morning. He's also bringing over Easter baskets for Becky and me tomorrow.

I told him not to ring the doorbell, because I'd get jumped on if I was asleep and the dogs were in. And I don't plan on opening the door when he shows up -I'll just hide until he goes.

Look, I called him and asked him and he said yes and it was very civil. I just didn't say, "I love you" back. I did thank him.

Back to commmercials, am I the only one who dislikes the Memphishelpwanted.com radio ads? I cannot stand the voices of the woman or the man in them - same two people every time. "Long name, amazing results." I knnow they have it in other areas, I first heard it at Alabama's Gulf Shore as tallahasseehelpwanted.com A google search takes you to regionalhelpwanted.com.

Anyways, hate the voices.

And I don't like the David Duchovny Purina ad where he's voicing thoughts of puppies in shelters. Or the ASPCA 'give us money or this puppy will die' ad. Only because they make me cry.

And the Proavctive acne commercials on radio or tv, ugh! More annoying than any zit I ever had. My sister has bad acne, she hates some of the pictures of her on here because she didn't cover her acne up that day, or she'd taken it off. I tell her, "Acne doesn't hide your beautiful bone structure, it does not make you less pretty!" But it does to her. I'll never understand, though, so I should leave her alone.

Two more ad areas - pop ups online. Yuck. And then there are talking ads on lyrics websites, I'm listening to a song and looking for its lyrics when I hear David Bowie ask me if I want an iPod Nano.


And then in print... so many ads for churches or one full page ad put out by a business this weekend about Easter. Not about sales, this ad put out by a business was purely religious.

But, this is the South, so you're religious by default.

Other print ads I hate - Mad's ads. Not the ads, as much as where they're placed. If there's a pull-out poster, it would be nice if it had ads on the opposite sides, so you could pull it out. But it often doesn't. That's not fair.

And the magazines Becky reads... half the articles are ads or endorsements for something, and then the rest is ads filled with skinny girls. Next to an article telling you to feel good about your body shape.

Mad Magazine #476 April 2007

And what was, according to the address label on my March issue, my last issue of Mad forever! April 2007 was so far into the future, it didn't matter. But in February, I sent off the subscription card for 2 years for $40. And when the bill came, my mom paid it.

But! The issue's white cover, instead of a cartoon or silly note, said this is your last issue!

I had a doctor appointment on the same day my new Mad shows up. Is that fate or what? When we got there, I was restless and worried about having to pay the cover price for the next issue ($3.99 Cheap!), since subscriptions don't kick in for a month, if I recall, which is why you resubscribe months before.

Mom said she'd paid for a Mad subscription, but if it was for the classic series or the regular, she wasn't sure. I checked her logbook, she wrote down Mad Classics! So I said, "That's it, I'm calling them to find out what's what."

What's what is that she wrote down the wrong thing, my subscription won't expire until April 2009, which is like so far into the future it's not worth thinking about. (I'll renew it for two more years at my birthday or Christmas in 2008.)

Onto the magazine!


(I took this picture because last time I tried the scanner, it didn't work, and scanned images are huge, and Becky's fixed our camera so pictures are taken at a smaller, easier to upload size.)

I read the entire issue, even the parodies of Entourage and the Amazing Race, even though I've never seen either show.

I loved the Boratz dolls, the rejected Army recruiting posters, the fascinating music factoids, and Ted Rall's 7 Periods Closer to Death, which is about high school.

The last one was really good, but sad. It talked about how teenagers have to get up at 6am to get to high school (or middle school), and to get the hours of sleep teenagers need, they have to go to bed around 9pm. But teenager's bodies aren't wired for early to bed, early to rise.

So the logical solution is to let high schools start at 9am, instead of 7. But they won't do it. Like the cartoon said, schools are babysitters, and parents don't want their kids at home in the morning without them.

In our district, all the high schools and at least one middle school start at 7am. On the dot, you have to be in your first period at 7. It used to be 7:15, but they changed it two years ago, along with all the school start times, so we have schools starting at 7 and ending at 2, starting at 8 and ending at 3, and starting at 9 and ending at 4. The last category is for a local elementary school and a local middle school.

The reason our times are staggered? Too many students, not enough buses.


As for the cover, I only knew about the fight through the Daily Show and Colbert Report. The page on the feud... meh. The cover... well, I can't believe they got away with her nipples.

Mad #474

February 2007 - came in the mail today, and I just finished reading it.

The cover is aone of Britney Spear's recent crotch shots, with Alfred 'covering' the spot, just like the caption says.

The issue is great.

The only articles I skipped are the ones I always skip - the parody of the inspiring animal story and the 'do-it-yourself' apology. I rarely have the patience for the latter, what can I say.

The funniest art of the issue - Tom Cheney's 'Practical Uses for the Diet Coke/Menthos Formula'.

The political article - 'War Cliches: Completing the Sentences' written by Jeff Kruss and perfectly illustrated by Mort Drucker - is amazing, as usual. My favorite is the one "We grieve for the families of those who lost their lives in the war... ...though we aren't above smearing them if they start to protest too loudy."


And Jaffee's fold-in is so funny! The question is "Who's been manipulating pages in despicable ways for far too long?"

The answer is bound to put a grin on your face.


I also bought a Mad at an antique store today, issue #249, September 1984 - The Gremlins cover. Could have sworn they were dedicating an issue to Wickett, but no.

Woman's World Magazine

This magazine is a waste of money and paper. It only costs a dollar forty-nine, but it's chockfull of inspirational stories, cute kids, delicious recipes, relationship help, and diets. Lots of diets. On and off the advertisements.

My mom buys this from time to time, I always look through it, wondering what insipid thing they're saying this month.

The January 9, 2007 issue takes the cake.

Anyone with a brain that reads this issue from cover to cover will come to the conclusion that any diet besides one consisting of less food and more physical activity is a joke. However, I don't see that happening.

The main cover story shouts, "FAT? TIRED? RUNDOWN? Lose 18 pounds in 11 days! Release the toxins that cause 'chemical fat'! Get slim and energized!"

This 'article' runs on pages 20 and 21.

The problem is, on page 25, there is a decent article on how mothers can pass eating disorders onto their daughters. It's about rejecting the 'you're never too thin' for a healthy body image. One circle says "Did you know? Overweight doesn't mean unhealthy! One study showed that overweight people who are active are healthier than thin ones who are sedentary!"

The box at the bottom on safe dieting includes this gem: "Lose two pounds or less a week - more than that is muscle loss."

So, er, what's going on with the main part of this week's issue? 18 pounds dropped in less than 2 weeks! Now, doesn't this imply that the fad diets are unhealthy and dangerous, if they work at all beyond the time you're on it?

I'm reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf right now.

I definitely see what she was talking about. There's also an 'article' called 'Erase years from your skin!' Because age is a horrible thing, and while we can't stop ourselves from getting older, at least not yet, we can at least look younger. The older women that get plastic surgery, they look fake, they're wearing some sort of mask, can they really smile?

None of the diets profiled in magazines like this work. Not permanently, and not for everybody. And they never will, that will stop an industry, we can't have that. Same with 'anti-aging' creams and treatments. We'll always get wrinkles and gray hairs, and we'll always shell out big bucks to fix them because age is terrible, there's something wrong with you if you look your age.