A Couple of Holiday Don'ts

Wow, there's so much going on. Where to start??

How about at Kansas Keepsakes, which my friend Josh told me about:

Joshua: you might get a kick out of this business that my company helped

http://kansaskeepsakes.com/

or maybe it will seem normal to you

me: holy shit

Joshua: haha

you pay $275 a head to scrapbook at this house in rural kansas for a couple days

you have to pay 30 days in advance

there are 2 beds to a room

click on "calendar"

I was about to say "we deserve a recession," because it's obvious to anyone with eyes that the scrapbooking trend is just a way to spend money on heart- and star-shaped hole punches and tell people you're "artsy" or creative or something, when in reality you're unoriginal and bored and have money to burn and no real memories to treasure. It's also really annoying when someone's showing you their scrapbook and it's two pictures on a page but with the rest of the 11x17 space filled with bric-a-brac and pre-stamped labels like "BaTh TiMe!" or, not to beat a dead horse, "Live Laugh Love." But then I clicked on the calendar, and I feel bad for the owner. Maybe it's a good idea (??), and maybe it was even successful for a time, but it doesn't look like many people are going for Kansas Keepsakes. HOLIDAY DON'T: get me a gift certificate to this place.

Next is the Beer Belly ("Stealth Beverage System") and Wine Rack ("every girls [sic] best friend!"), which I think are funny but could be major liabilities, for a number of reasons, if you actually used them.
The Beer Belly actually looks fun, and part of me wants to say the Wine Rack does, too, except it gives me pause that most of the users seem to be interested in its cup-enhancing features.

First, read the product description: Take a bottle of wine, a mixed drink or even a fifth of your favorite hard stuff to the movies, concerts, ball games, even PTA meetings. Sporting a rack that will turn heads and serving a beverage that will have guys standing in line for a sip of your secret stash!

Gross. And then some of the product's reviewers: I just bought 2 wineracks for my friends for xmas... we go to tons of concerts, games and events, so this is awesome for us... sadly, I am more well endowed, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you guys come out with a larger size ASAP... you really don't think I can smush some DDs into a medium, huh? :)

and

does anyone have "before and after" photos that they would share? I am interested in what it looks like on other body type / sizes / shapes.

Whenever I see cup-enhancing products for sale--especially when they involve pouring 25 oz. of wine into your bra--I wonder how the women wearing them deal with the days they're not wearing them. Like who do they think they're fooling? Something nice about the Wine Rack is that they've thought about at least the hour-to-hour differences and created a way to inflate the cups with air after you've consumed the wine. That's a nice touch. I guess the main HOLIDAY DON'T here is don't get caught drinking hard liquor from your bra at a PTA meeting.

Carine & Charlotte

It's rumored that Anna Wintour will get fired this holiday season. When will this economy stop making me suffer? If it turns out the new hire rumors are true the editor of French Vogue, Carine Roitfeld, will become the new editor of American Vogue. She seems really cool! In a Parisian way, but also in a fashion world way. I just found this out when I was googling images of her, but she's on Time's list of 100 Influential People of 2008. They say, "she has an innate ability to mix street culture and society, always avoiding the caricatures that can define both worlds and always recognizing the mix of both worlds as the only catalyst of energy and creativity". She also kind of looks like Iggy Pop.

French Vogue doesn't seem as focused on typical beauties and boring models. IE Charlotte Gainsbourg got a whole issue to guest-edit! The cover looks really awesome.

She's a little overly-styled, but still. I want to read this issue. I find her whole family fascinating.

joaquin joaquin joaquin!

He's getting rougher and rougher, and the stress is taking a toll on everyone around him.

Get me this for Christmas

Please!

Say what you want, but

the Obamas look like a really close, loving family. My coworker sent me these pictures after the discovery of the Flickr election night album (which you can and should see here). And then I found some more.

Above is Sasha and her dad at the Iowa State Fair.

Below is Malia and her dad in Hawaii.


Here he's stepping off the plane on Monday 11/1:


And this baby is just not sure!


Check out a tonnnn more of these at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obama-slideshow

Jar of Paperclips, Jar of Questions

It's been a while since the last Hi Fever advice column, and a lot of that has to do with the calibre of questions we've been getting. Some are unpublishable (presented here with edits for our younger readers), some aren't worth acknowledging as questions, and all are obviously made up. Actually, one might be real.

But I'm answering them anyway, because of my passion for advice. Send us something legit at hifever40@yahoo.com or jarofpaperclips@gmail.com!

Q: My boyfriend sleeps on top of monkeys. I really want him to get it down to just one monkey. What should I do?

A: The easiest way to respond to this is with stuffed animals in mind. Am I right? So, well, it sounds like you're dating a child. Replace his monkeys with pillows and see how he reacts. If he's fine, keep him around. If he can't sleep without monkeys, you need to break it off.

Q: Is broccoli safe to put up your [behind]?

A: Probably not, but if it's sterile, I guess it's ok. Check with your doctor. If you're mature enough to bring it up to him or her, you're mature enough to give broccoli a try.

Q: I need more balls in my life. Who can help me with that?

A: There are two ways you could go here: you could visit any sporting goods store, OR you could try to meet some available men. The good news is that sometimes it's easy to do both at the same time! You could take up a new sport and make some friends at the same time. Good luck!

Q: Someone said they want to give me a portugeuse omlet [sic]. What is that?

A: Have you looked it up anywhere else on the internet? I just did. I thought you made it up! I can't print this.

Q: I really want a dog, but I live in a tiny apartment. My roommates think it would be ok if i got a small dog but, it seems wrong for her to have no space to run around. What do you think?

A: Good question--it's great that your roommates are fine with it, but you've hit on something really important about the space issue. A dog could make you happy, but she or he deserves to be happy as well. And I know what doesn't make dogs happy: small, cramped apartments. And think of the money. Owning a dog at this point in your life will result in that dog effectively going to your ATM and withdrawing more of your money than you ever thought s/he could. You should wait until you move somewhere with more room.

That's it for today, everyone. Until JoP changes its name (that's another thing: suggestions? we need to do better than what's sitting on my desk), you can send your questions either to Hi Fever's address (hifever40@yahoo.com) or to us at jarofpaperclips@gmail.com.

bye! good

I've been seeing these stories for awhile and I don't know what to make of them. Joaquin Phoenix is walking away from acting to pursue his music career. Yawn. Today there are more reports of Joaquin's behavior crossing over into the the drug-addled/confused/acting weird line. He's always interested me (aka he's cute...just kidding!), but seriously he always chose interesting roles and was mostly great in them (Alexander notwithstanding). Walk the Line was enjoyable - trying to be overly dramatic in parts, and did Reese really deserve the Oscar? I liked the overall look of the film, actually now that I think of it I wonder if the creator of Mad Men got some of his ideas from this movie. The music of Johnny Cash is always good. However, on his own do I think Joaquin is going to make good music? Let's look at the facts - statistically this is just not going to work. For every J.Lo there's a Mandy Moore lurking. For every Bruce Willis, there's a Russell Crowe. What am I saying? He's probably not going to make it, but I would sure like to see him try.

A Real Con-knit-drum!

A few years ago, when I started knitting scarves, I was so enthusiastic that I threw questions about length and weight out the window and focused on knitting as many as I could with the best (not highest quality, but it usually wouldn't take much to thrill me as far as texture and color go) yarns I could find. So now that I care more about how things look, I find myself with a drawer full of scarves unfit to give away, much less wear. All made with perfectly good, expensive yarns that I'd hate to throw away.

So I was thinking: couldn't I unravel the scarves, ball up the yarn, and knit new scarves? Obviously I would have to combine some of them, because on their own they're embarrassingly short. But that'd be ugly. But then I remembered a scarf Georgia made one time with different yarns--lengthwise instead of widthwise she combined them, and it looked great! I just need to figure out how to get long-enough needles for that. Does anyone have any tips for dealing with scraps of high-quality yarn? Any tiny projects? Anything?

Tuesday Cake Wrecks!

I found another blog of specific found/observation/whatever humor: Cake Wrecks! These are all pictures of cakes baked by professionals, people who depend on this income to make a living.

This cake was served at P.Diddy's 10th anniversary celebration for Bad Boy. It looks great.

This one is just sorta depressing.

Man, turning 40 looks like it sucks!

Kermit Bale

Though some people have come to hate the name of this blog - Winnie - I found something today that is great. It's no secret I love the Muppets and Kermit the Frog. My friend, Katie, was just saying the other day how Kermit is not a name you can use on your kids anymore - when could you ever have used it on kids - but I could def see using it on a dog in my future. This morning though I found this. A website, blog page, whatever, devoted to comparing Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog. Kermit Bale. The premise is they are more alike then we think. Which after perusing the pictures - I'm convinced! I thought this might be nice for the Newsies (sp?) fan in all of us- Winnie - and the Kermit fan in all of us - me.