Hilary is a Replicant

I realized that Andy's girlfriend is a Replicant (aka Darryl Hannah from Blade Runner.)

Forever Your Girl

I read this article about Paula Abdul's attempt to get some money out of the American Idol cash cow. She would only stay if her salary $20 million a year, but then she dropped it down to $12 million. No word yet on a deal being made or if her asking price will drop even further.

Obviously both are ridiculous asking prices for today...BUT it's American Idol and I have a soft spot for Paula. She was the most lucid judge up there last season. INCREDIBLY this is true. Randy's too busy...well Randy was too busy not watching the stage that was 2 feet in front of him to give a decent comment or criticism of a performance, while Simon was too busy trying to sabotage Idol with a win for Danny Gokey. Why?? I have no idea! As argued on a Drugstore Diary message board, I was not a fan of Danny Gokey.

Which brings me to Paula. Yes, at different seasons she seems to be more "out of it" then usual, but last season she really shined as the voice of reason and one that was really aware of what the performers were going for. She may not be the most articulate judge out there (although that could also be argued in her favor - Randy has yet to drop "dawg", "for me, for you", and "that was hot!"), but I think they should give her what she wants. A season without Paula would mean that Simon & Seacrest win.

lets hear it for these two!

Back in elementary school, my musical taste could be accounted for by whatever they played the most on G105. Who knows, I still might be listening to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Linkin Park; thank goodness I had older siblings. To me their music was cooler and always made me curious about what else was out there. GrRl PoWeR was strong in the nineties and two girls I'm thankful for were Tanya Donelly and Juliana Hatfield. Sorry, Courtney Love.

I'm not necessarily talking about their solo careers here. I'm talking about their bands: Belly and The Blake Babies, respectively. For Donelly the music created a feeling; the lyrics were kind of mystical and metaphorical.For Hatfield it was more like, she had something she needed to get off her chest. I'm partial to Donelly because her voice could be sweet as well as scary and when she hit some high notes she sounded like she was from another planet. Belly's best album was probably "Star". Donelly also played in The Breeders and Throwing Muses, FYI.

That being said, I'm really into Pink's "Please Don't Leave Me" (even though the video is atrocious), and there's just something about "Boom Boom Pow" thats so stupid its good. Fergie does not embody GrRl PoWeR to me, however.

What time is it?

Advice time! Our new email address (jarofpaperclips@gmail.com) has provided an amazing opportunity to get an even larger volume of questions than ever before. So the least we can do is answer them! This one seems to carry some urgency:

dear jar of paperclips,

how do i become a better blogger? should i maybe just admit that i don't want to be a good blogger? or is that simply not true?

xo
in need in durham

Hmmm. I think I know who this is. "In need," I think what you need to do is think about what it means to be "a good blogger." Does it mean you're in charge of posting cute videos of pets? (ed. note: I think it does) Does it mean you update every day? (ed. note: nope) Does it mean you should just write when you feel like it and not worry about it? We don't begrudge you anything, so just write whatev whenev! No big deal. You're always welcome here.

Next!

Dear Jar of Paperclips,

My husband has been acting really strange lately, and I noticed some woman's name on his cell phone last week. I asked him who she was and he got angry and didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. Finally, he confessed that he'd been seeing her and left late one night, I assumed to be with her. I couldn't take it anymore and ran outside, beating him to the car, and slashed the tires with a kitchen knife. He grabbed the kitchen knife out of my hand and held it against my throat. He told me he would kill me if I tried to stop him. That was 3 days ago. I'm terrified, and I can't leave the house. What should I do??

[no signature]

Whoa. Intensity alert! My recommendation is this: find a good lawyer and press whatever charges you can (it varies state-to-state) NOW. Get a restraining order. Find a friend with a gun. Move out of that house immediately and put as much distance as you can between you and your husband. This marriage is over, in case you hadn't noticed! Next step: take some self-defense classes, preferably with a personal trainer. Spend a long time at a gym learning moves. Make a montage of the footage. After a couple of years, wait for him in his house and show off those moves! Rent Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez, for tips.

Got a question? Send it on to jarofpaperclips@gmail.com!

Big News!

Speaking of "change," we "hope" you like the results of Jar of Paperclips' editorial board meeting last night:

We are pleased to announce that longtime friend and commenter Katie Z will be contributing to the blog from now on. She's got a lot of expertise in music, the arts, celebrity news, healthy living, and pretty much everything. We're excited to have her on board!

There is also a new email address where you can send all of your advice questions: jarofpaperclips@gmail.com. We've already got one, just minutes into the address' existence, so keep 'em coming!

What?

Since when did "Cheyenne" from Reba get promoted to Gossip Girl? And as Nate's love interest?

Driving

I'm just going to say it - Obama supporters are terrible drivers. It's painful to reveal, but honestly someone's gotta set these people straight. "My morning commute" consists of 10 mins on I-40 East. If I get behind a mini-van I can pretty much guarantee a terrible start to the morning. If a woman is in the driver's seat then it's confirmed. It's true what they say - women are horrible drivers. Myself not included. But Obama drivers take the cake. Too cautious and always going about 10+ miles below the speed limit. I've thought of a few reasons why it's specific to Obama: 1) It's a wider net of drivers since he carried NC 2) I'm coming from Chapel Hill. Also, this can be applied to people with any sort of "green" or "recycle" stickers.

The People Have Spoken

...and they are not really into Roseanne!! This was a shocker to me, because I thought everyone was going to vote against Married With Children, but wow. So now it's down to two. What's going to happen next????

Barcelona: 1.5

I've been watching so many movies this summer that I should turn it into something productive...like reviews! I'll watch these so you don't have to. The variety of films lately has been off the charts, because I've basically been clicking indiscriminately around the "You might also enjoy" page on my Netflix.

So here we are at Barcelona, a film with one of the least likeable protagonists I've ever even heard of. He wasn't a bad guy, just extra-whiny and obnoxious and weak. Which might be ok if he was George Clooney or otherwise attractive at all, so we could assume he's just going through a rough patch or whatever. It would make sense then that women would like him. This guy just looks like such a weakling. Picture Andrew McCarthy's disgusting older brother, the one with a porn addiction.

The next count against Barcelona is that the two protagonists, Ted and Fred, sound exactly alike when the Spanish women they hang with address them. Confusing! But it goes with the territory, because although Ted and Fred are supposed to balance each other, foil-style, they aren't that different. Something terrible happens to one of them (the better-looking one, can't remember if it's Ted or Fred), and you don't even care. You just want the movie to be over.

Whit Stillman, the guy in charge of this thing, has an unimpressive resume. Which is not surprising. Barcelona looked ok from the description: some American guys in the early 90's spend time in Barcelona and they date some women. Sounds fine, except for the ultra-ambitious political subplot that attempts to tackle communism and the CIA and anarchist youth movements. It's just not happening, Whit! As a result of the political problems, somebody gets shot in the face and you're already yawning; the face-shooting is followed by a medical drama that is excruciating(ly boring). Finally, getting back to the other plot, some sexual tension gets resolved in a way that is literally unbelievable.

I'm already bored, just thinking about it. Sexist cliches, over-ambitious nonsensical political subplot, unsuspenseful "suspense." I guess the good parts are that the guy who gets shot in the face is a likeable character. He's ok.

Breaking!

Bernie Madoff will be serving 150 years in Butner, North Carolina! Big ups! Maybe he'll escape and come to Raleigh for some fun?

sufficient

I had forgotten how much I loved this until I saw it on TBS again last night. I only hope Sufficient TV can be this good.

Halter Romper

Last weekend I found myself at American Apparel. Normally I think "how many different styles of t-shirts do I need" and get bored, when I saw this. It's kind of like the opposite of wholesomewear clothes! And it's new and reasonably priced! Something about this just seems comfortable and appealing. I could just lounge around in it! But would I honestly wear it out?? Maybe with leggings in the wintertime? It's so versatile.

Liveblogging my day!

8:13: Leave my house. This is new for me, because usually I leave at nine, but I'm trying some productivity tricks and that includes shifting my workday from 9:30-6:30 back to 8:30-5:30.

8:25: Get the best space ever in the parking deck.

8:41: Arrive at Wake County Courthouse. Go to cashier's office to put money on our copy key, then pick up files I hid yesterday in Clerk's office with DO NOT TOUCH sign. Finish making copies of a file for Wayne's* new appeal client. A few people think I'm a clerk, which is sort of fun.

9:15: Back in my office, hitting the blogs.

9:23: Photocopying some stuff!

9:32: Bagel time! Jimmy* brings us bagels every Friday, which is really nice. Ran into Tim*, Cindy*, and Donna* upstairs in the kitchen. Cindy was pretending to be some sort of foreigner; Donna was loving it. Hope this joke doesn't last all day!

10:06: Billing stuff. Have to fix a draft I wrote last night, mail it to client. Yawn.

10:39: More billing stuff, gchat as usual. Listening to State of Shock by Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury, which is not a very good song.

11:25: Timeslips acting up, just spent the last 30 minutes looking at shower curtains and area rugs online. Can't stop thinking about my new house!! Also, my dad called, thinks I have swine flu (it's just a cold. I don't). Heading to reception to cover Donna's hour-and-a-half lunch break.

12:40: Wondering if maybe I do have swine flu after all. I just looked up the symptoms, and I have them all except for the stomach stuff and chills. Not even sure if I had a fever. I'm sure it'll be fine.

12:48: Weirdly, still not freaking out about possibility of h1n1! Maybe I have outgrown my hypochondriac ways.

1:02: Might go across the street to Morning Times and get a salad. Bagel for breakfast, mexican for dinner later = vegetables for lunch.

2:31: Had a nice lunch in the conference room with Wayne, Tim, Juanita* and Craig*, talked about some murders happening in Rocky Mount lately and about Craig's recent night out with NC's former "first kid." Tim brought down some cookies from the 5th floor. Read the paper. Talked about Bruno. Jimmy came in toward the end and discussed recent problems with his teenaged daughter.

2:49: Listening to this on repeat.

Family Man - Fleetwood Mac

3:25: Opening some files. Here's how I open files. 1) assign the client a number from our system (these two right here are 09169 and 09170). 2) punch up a card for the file, print it out. 3) affix labels as needed on the file folder, file the card. 4) physically place the papers in the file according to these categories: Contacts & Billing Info., Memos & E-mails, Correspondence, Attorney Notes, Orders, Brief, Record, Research. If it's a sensitive case or high-profile, it gets really exciting and you can add Media and/or Materials from Client. If it involves drugs, there's a Substance Treatment folder (because they almost always go into treatment to look good for the judge).

3:43: Juanita totally gets my file-folder pet peeve! Does anybody else out there hate it when all the folders in a file have tabs on one side?? You gotta mix it up!

4:16: Second-to-last task of the day: proofreading a brief for Wayne. State v. Bivens? check! NC Gen. Stat. 15A-1340.16? check!

4:36: OF COURSE one of Craig's clients would show up unannounced on a Friday afternoon. He owes us money, which of course he pays in cash. And of course he's $20 short of what he owes. I tell him not to try to handle his seatbelt ticket (which is new, which he lost the citation for) himself and he goes across the street to an ATM to get the $20. Shockingly, this is one of Craig's personal friends. Also shockingly, I suspect Donna was flirting with him and that's how she miscounted the money.

4:50: Make it to the bank just in time to make deposits for the day. I get the older Asian lady teller instead of either of the overly chatty ones. Success.

5:27: Turn in the brief for Wayne. Made one edit on an otherwise immaculate brief.

5:29: Turning off the computer, going home!

*All names have been changed!

Wholesome Wear!

If you're like me, you wonder where fundamentalists get their swimwear...I mean wholesome wear! The intro to this site, www.wholesomewear.com ("modest clothing for wearever"), says that their bathing suits "highlight the face, rather than the body"...which I seem to remember Jim Bob Duggar saying to explain his kids' bathing suits at a family picnic. I also seem to remember the Taliban.

Prices start at $71.00, which is competitive, I guess, if you were trying to decide between wholesomewear.com and J. Crew. Have you seen people wearing these?

My grandfather gave me a book several Christmases ago about modesty and how there's a new modesty movement going on (as of 1998). You can see it in the Duggar family and in that compound they raided in Texas last year, but where else? Can't you just be modest without making a big deal about it or looking dowdy? Not everything has to be sexualized; there's no shame in wearing a one-piece bathing suit. This stuff is just so very interesting to me--like Quiverfull-interesting--yet the Duggar show is pretty boring, sorry to say.

Upgrade?

I just uploaded some new stuff to flickr, which made me think about the eternal question - should I upgrade to a Pro account??? Overall I'm happy with flickr. The set-up is pleasing to the eyes and the slide show feature is great...and it doesn't seem to get as bogged down as facebook. Sometimes it can take forever to scroll through a photo album!@!@! That's valuable picture time wasted!! I love searching through people's photos, and last week I found a whole walking tour through Graceland. What a find!! It's also great for decorating your home - like Winnie finding paint colors on someone's house tour. If anyone has any other flickr albums/accounts worth knowing be sure to leave them in the comments section. I'm thinking for now that I'll hold out until the Pro account becomes free...but who knows.

Winnie and I were also talking about the flickr groups where people take pics of what they wear everyday. Some are annoying, but some can be really entertaining! It all depends on the tone of the pictures and the outfits for me. Along those lines, I'm really into this site these days. She makes thrift store shopping seem easy.

Well.

If nobody else is going to, I'm stepping up to the plate. HERE IS A NEW POST!

I just spent a week in Brooklyn with Robert (and Jake, and Corey and Andy and Caine and some of their friends). It was a great time, I eventually relaxed--or did I?--about the trash and grime everywhere, and I got to sleep in as much as I wanted. We saw and did a lot of things, including walking on the Highline, eating cupcakes, and watching fireworks from somebody's roof.

The previous weekend (6/26-28), we went to a Deer Hunter wedding in rural Pennsylvania and I got to see my best friend from France. Did you know that it's illegal to buy beer by the six-pack in Pennsylvania? And that you have to go to a special beer store to buy it by the case? We also cruised by the battleground/graveyard in Gettysburg and it was pretty depressing. Everyone's offering ghost tours and charcoal drawings of Robert E. Lee (free if you spend $85 or more).

We walked around Philadelphia for an afternoon and saw most of the main stuff there.

If I get around to it, I'll put a picture or two up here.