Thing of the Day: Other People

Several of my wonderful followers (bored friends whose Safari won't let them download StumbleUpon) have furiously g-chatted me inquiring as to why I haven't been blogging (hi, KR, roomates, my ginger goddess, and fratstars who drunkenly revealed that you read my blog). The truth is, as I have repeatedly told them, that life was very interesting when I was frolicking around Europe in the spring, and moderately interesting when I was eating and drinking my way through Manhattan this summer, but now that I have returned to the dirty south, considerably less blogworthy things have happened to me. Not that I haven't been having fun--daytime drinking, eating on the meal plan, costumed frat parties and going to the same 4 bars every night have kept me wonderfully content and entertained, they just provide poor content.

So, since I am doing nothing worth reporting (short of attending the Tennessee State Fair on Sunday and consuming thousands of calories of white trash, funnel cake, hush puppy, and cheese fries. It's hard being a vegetarian at southern state fairs. Also, Tennessee is the 6th fattest state in the country. Also also, this weekend's television was phenomenal. 100 OH-MY-GOD points for Mad Men. 75 I-think-I-am-really-going-to-like-this points for Bored To Death. About 25 of those because it's filmed in Park Slope (!)) I will focus on the wonderfully reportable things happening to the 6billion + people who are not me. Because sometimes its' nice to pay attention to other people. Courtesy of Twitter.

1. Marilyn Manson has swine flu. Hahahahahaha.

2. Instead of curing cancer, preventing the spread of HIV, or at least swine flu , the world has engineered a smoke-less cigarette. Said cigarette is now being given to passengers on Ryanair flights. For a fee, of course, since Ryanair flights legitimately charge passengers to go to the bathroom. My own experience with Ryanair has been limited and considerably unpleasant--8am flight from Copenhagen to Prague, meeting a friend without a Blackberry arriving from Italy, full bladder, 4 Euro charge for water--however, I think it would definitely have been augmented if I could buy smokeless cigarettes and "smoke" them aboard.....NO. Ryanair. World. Wtf. This invention might be more useless than Kindles. The whole fun of cigarettes is SMOKING them. This is like inventing a macaroni and cheese pill or something. "All the calories, none of the taste!" I think I might start a stupid inventions feature on this blog. Thus far: Kindle, smokeless cigarettes, Blackberry Bold, Katherine Heigl. Stay tuned. But speaking of Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy THIS THURSDAY (Sneak peek first five minutes)! Will I sit through an hour of you pouting and being a poor actress to watch hot doctors eye f*ck? Yes.

3. This one actually very much relates to things that are happening to people who are me. My best friend, in addition to writing an artsy and witty and wonderful blog, has published the following article in our campus lifestyles magazine. (For much less exciting but obviously food-related articles by yours truly, click here). For those non-Commodores wondering about my post Europe/New York life, do read. It's very accurate.

4. Since I have no shame about creepily reading complete strangers' blogs, this girl (a DIS Copenhagen study abroad student this semester who I have never met and probably have absolutely nothing/no-one in common with except for Dane Worthington (swoon). This chick is currently blogging for DIS, which is how I found her page, but before that she blogged about her 4 THOUSAND kilometer bike ride from Baltimore to San Francisco for 4K For Cancer. Her description of her journey is amazing--this stranger makes me want to do something considerably more productive than eating food, watching tv, and writing about it. I have been looking for a project and this has further inspired me to really do something. Reports when I actually do.

Hmm. Two of those four things were actually directly related to me. Surprise surprise. On that note,

Things I am looking forward to this week: Girl Talk AND Super Mash Brothers at Vanderbilt, birthday dinners, Girl Scout philanthropy events (little girls + cookies. EEEE), and drinking on boats.

Thing of the Day: Katherine Heigl

In case you were wondering, I was on time to everywhere I went this weekend. I started off with being on time for half-day shoe shopping and the gym Friday afternoon, followed up by being 5 minutes early to dinner at Boom in SoHo Friday evening, arrived when expected at Greenhouse (so cool!) Friday night, only made a friend wait 10 minutes for a beach date Saturday afternoon, and left early enough for brunch at Telephone Bar & Grill Sunday morning (does a goat cheese, craisin and walnut omlette sound weird to you? Because it's not. It's delicious) to make it to the 4pm showing of The Ugly Truth.

Let's talk about The Ugly Truth for a minute. For some reason, instead of seeing the well-recieved and adorably Zooey Deschanel-ed 500 Days of Summer, we decided that a good rainy Sunday afternoon film would be this movie. After walking out of the theater and feeling like I would have rather ripped my $12.50 (and while we're on that subject, $12.50 for a movie? Come on, Manhattan) into confetti and sprinkled it over passerby's heads in Union Square, I spent the ride home trying to decide exactly what I hated about it. Was it the completely predictable plot line? Yes, but I expected that. Was it the disappointing lack of (spoiler alert) sex scenes? Definitely, but the movie was rated PG-13. Was it the fact that Gerard Butler got fat? The man has put on at least 50 pounds since 300. And worst of all, in the "sex scene" they show him not glistening and sculpted but chubby, scruffy and actually sweaty. Ew.

Yes, all of these factors contributed to my utter and complete disdain for The Ugly Truth--but somewhere on the Brooklyn Bridge it hit me: it was Katherine Heigl. I am fairly certain that I hate Katherine Heigl. Hate is a strong word, but bear with me. I will admit this and only this: that she was great in My Father, The Hero and that she has nice hair. Also, she smokes cigarettes, which I like in an actress because it shows that they don't care about being a positive role model for children. Children whose primary role models are Hollywood actresses are in need of some serious history lessons and cable package canceling. Other than that, there is absolutely nothing positive about Katherine "Katie" Heigl.

Let us start with Grey's Anatomy. Izzie Stevens is undoubtedly the most annoying character on Grey's. This is saying a lot, because the vast majority (Lexie Grey, The Chief, MERIDETH, The Homophobic Guy They Fired, The New Guy Christina is Hooking Up With, The "Lesbian" (because all shows have to have a lesbian character-duh), and about 70% of the patients) of characters on Grey's are extremely annoying. But Izzie really sucks. Primary reasons: 1)She totally killed her fiance, who was one of the characters who wasn't really annoying at all and 2)(Spoiler Alert) When she was dying of cancer this season I couldn't care less (one more positive quality for KH--she looks great bald. Nicely shaped head).

Let us progress. 27 Dresses. Could have been a really cute rom-com. Definitely had cast potentials. Didn't make me want to tear my $8.00 (I saw this in Nashville, where movies are priced appropriately below the $10 mark) into bits. I actually enjoyed this movie. All of it except for Katherine Heigl. Could her character have been any more pathetic? There is no way somebody that irritating and sad would have been in the bridal party for 27 weddings because there is no way that character would have had 27 friends.

And finally. Knocked Up. Knocked Up was an excellent, excellent film. My favorite characters were Katherine Heigl's sister and her husband, played by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. I would have absolutely no issue with being Leslie Mann's character when I grow up. The scene with Leslie Mann and the bouncer--"What am I, not skanky enough for you?"--is exactly how I envision my adult life. The only small problem with this film was its lead character--Katherine Heigl. Not only did the producers have the audacity to cast her in the star role of such a quality movie but they insisted on actually showing her vagina during the birthing scene. Dilating. It was probably a stunt double or a fake, but AHHHH. Ew. After you have seen someone giving graphic movie birth, you can't even consider them hot any more. So when you add up "looks good bald" and "I saw a baby come out of you," you get Katherine Heigl's hot factor right back to zero.

Am I being too harsh? I am sure that in real life, KH is an average decent human. Her husband is pretty hot, and her clothes are okay. But as an actress, she fails. Sorry, blog-o-sphere. I know that my movie reviews here have been rather negative, so to counter it I will provide a short list of movies that I am really excited for and think will be great in no particular order: 500 Days of Summer. Taking Woodstock. Paper Heart. Alice in Wonderland (waaaaaaatch this trailer. Tim Burton is a lunatic). Funny People. The Boat That Rocked. Extract. New Moon.

Sorry about that last one. I had to.