WDDD (Winnie Does Drugstore Diaries)

Meet my new favorite shampoo: Lush Squeaky Green Solid Shampoo. This shouldn't have turned out well: I was in the Lush store, where everything smelled so good but was so expensive that I lost my mind and was thinking hard about an impulse buy of $20 shower gel. Then I saw the shampoo bars, the first cheapest thing I saw, and bought two. Really, I lucked out with this one. Purchases made this way don't usually turn out well so I was pretty worried about this "solid shampoo" thing.

My hair is really fine and tends to go limp by the end of the day, so I rely heavily on volume-promoting shampoo and conditioner. AND I've been trying to shampoo less cuz I've been reading things to the effect that daily shampooing is unnatural, strips your hair, wastes money, takes time, etc. So a shampoo bar looked like a good fix.

WELL. This made my hair really shiny and fluffy (fluffy is a good thing where my hair is concerned) all day, smelled good, lathered well, and was fun to use. I can't wait to try number two! Lush solid shampoo gets an 8.9/10.0

Movies 6-8

A special Friday treat: three predictions.

#8) Twilight 2: $182 million

Again, this movie has some long drawn-out title, but I couldn’t give two shits about it so I don’t care to look it up nor type it. Last year Twilight earned $191 million in a November release. I think it will go down. Children’s stories do very well at the box office, and sequels do even better. Except when the predecessor sucks, like Twilight, the sequel’s money dwindles a bit. The first Harry Potter remains the highest-grossing of the series. People anticipated it greatly, but its lackluster quality damaged the following films.

#7) Where The Wild Things Are: $203 million

Your favorite book as a child will become a live-action movie this November. No, that is not the tagline, but it might as well be. Need they say more? Moviegoers love kids’ books. Just look at how well Twilight, Harry Potter, Shrek, and the Grinch movie did. They all finished in the top 10. Spike Jonze will direct, as he did for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Those movies are weird and slightly disturbing, just like the above book. You know this movie will be weird. I mean, the director can’t even spell his name correctly.

#6) Wolverine: $208 million

This is the all-intents-and-purposes title. Hugh Jackman plays the title role in his origin, just like Christian Bale did in the aforementioned Batman Begins. You know how well that fared. Although this movie will probably be worse than the Bale vehicle, the final X-Men grossed $245 million. That momentum plus the introduction of beloved mutants like Sabertooth and Gambit should bring the two reboots on par.

Do me a favor and...

stop saying "do tell."

e.g.: "[friend on facebook] is SO proud of her husband, he rocks!!!"

First of all, I hate this kind of vague-n-personal status update. It's lame, and at least this friend did not make a negative one, e.g. "...is really disappointed and can never trust a man again," or "...is going to the hospital :( " or "...can't stop crying." But what all of these statuses have in common is that they're fishing for comments and likes.

What pisses me off even more than the statuses themselves are these people's friends who actually fall for it! Do they not have telephones or private email accounts to share personal news? Is a facebook status really the only way they have to communicate with the world?? The responses to the "SO proud of her husband, he rocks!!!" status were as follows:

"Why? Do tel....." [sic]
"for what? Just in general? : )"

I get that this example isn't that bad, because there's nothing wrong with broadcasting an encouraging shout-out to your spouse's achievements. I know there are worse things. Believe me! But "do tell," especially when the writer doesn't care enough not to check for typos, is as bad as "what say you?" or any number of formal-sounding small-talk terms like it where the speaker almost never actually cares how you respond.

Movie Predictions

These are two of my favorite things: lists and blockbuster movies. It comes as no surprise to me that I like lists of blockbuster movies, especially highest-grossing blockbusters. I love seeing what movie’s made how much money last weekend, the one before, and the weekend of July 21, 1983. Instead of looking into the past, I will peer into the future. I do this not for me, but for YOU, Dear Reader, so you can brag to your friends that when your favorite movie earns exactly what I say that you “called that.” Please, leave a little dap for me.

Check back the next few days for the full predictions.

Should any of the following movies not appear on the list, look for replacements from these movies, in release order: Monsters vs. Aliens, Angels and Demons, Ice Age 3, Bruno, Funny People. No disrespect to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but despite its large gross thus far, it won’t make the cut. On second thought, disrespect to Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Now the list:

#10) Night at the Smithsonian: $170 million

That isn’t the title, but who cares? You know what I mean. I won’t see it, but millions of children will drag their parents to it. Ben Stiller as the straight man usually blows. But John Q. Driveway seems to enjoy him like that. How else would Meet the Fockers earn $279 million and finish fourth in 2004? Night at the Museum earned $250 million and decent reviews. The sequel should surpass it, but it won’t. I think it could flame out like Prince Caspian did a year ago making the same move to summer. The release of Up the next week might hurt it. If I had kids I could make a better guess. 

#9) Star Trek: $177 million

J.J. Abrams went behind the lens for this reboot. Films of this genre usually do well. Batman Begins and Superman Returns both earned more than $200 million. Abrams’ Cloverfield performed very well with a January release. Generally the sci-fi genre performs a little less than superheroes on-screen, especially veterans like the DC duo. The film has an early May release, giving it a jump on the summer competition.

Good Stuff

Came home to watch last night's American Idol.  Then watched Tony Kornheiser's predictions on PTI.  He's right, it is Go Time.  As in, Megan Joy has got to go.  She totally blew it all last night and I hope America will wise up and stop voting based on looks.  After her I think Anoop and Matt Giraud might be in trouble.  But I hope not for Matt's sake.  He's my fave! (this was the best quality video I could find - sorry about that!)

And I found a classic clip I used to make Lauren watch over and over again.  This clip is great on many levels.  For one - Bon Jovi week??  I think we all know what a classic songbook that is (yikes!).  Jon's Philly Soul tee is classic and his total hatred for Blake's version:  "This is a song that a lot of people don't want messed with".  What people is he talking about?  This is before the advent of Kara DioGuardi as a judge.  It was a good time.  

I've been painting and I'd like to share it with ya'll.

April Fools

Who looks like they're having the most fun?

A good post

April Fools! This isn't a good post at all. 

But if I could be serious for a moment, a word about this day. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated appeared perhaps the most famous April Fool's Day prank ever. George Plimpton wrote a piece about Sidd Finch. The article is long, yet entertaining. None of it is true. The readers responded so well that it soon became one of their most famous stories ever published. Read a little about the aftermath here. That second website has a good ranking of all-time April Fool's hoaxes. The news media often play a large role in duping and misinforming the public on April 1. 

Just like any other day. Burn!

LOL, "Smokers' Rights"

Is this another April Fools joke? [Smokers feeling abused as federal tax hike hits]

Seriously? Smokers should feel abused, so abused that they quit smoking or just put up or shut up. You don't want to pay an extra $0.62 per pack so that some kids can have health insurance? Fuck you! Here's what one aggrieved, victimized smoker had to say:

"I think it's ridiculous. ... They're picking on smokers," Egger said at the Denver store, where she bought two cartons Tuesday. "I think they're trying to run the tobacco companies out of business."

"As old as I am, I'm not going to quit smoking, regardless of what they do."

Hmm...sounds like a personal problem to me! And what's wrong with running tobacco companies out of business? Hasn't the industry had plenty of time to shape up and find new crops for all that land? Hasn't anybody seen what's happening in the world and opted for more corn or grain instead of tobacco? Don't give me that guff about NC needing the tobacco industry, either. Soybean crops are doing just fine in Eastern NC, and guess what? Soy is healthy and profitable! Tobacco is unhealthy and decreasingly profitable!

Any time somebody talks about smokers' rights I want to throw a chair across the room. Smokers' rights are not civil rights because no other minority group, besides maybe religious ones, chooses to be the thing that makes them a minority. Sorry suckers--I mean smokers!

Gmail April Fools

I'm LOLing at gmail's April Fools joke this year: Gmail Autopilot. More LOLs than last year's, anyway!