I miss you, miss you.

Things I really miss:

1. Pet Nets:

Looked like this:

And when used properly, looked like this:

 

These were so amazing, and a large part of my childhood. It always hung above my bed, I always enjoyed re-arranging the stuffed animals. Lately, as I’ve gotten more into having my own apartment and decorating it – I’ve been thinking about a way to use a Pet Net, without it actually  being a Pet Net. Like – I don’t want to look 7 by having a bunch of furry things smiling down from the corner of my room. But – it’s a good idea… to store stuff in the upper corner of a room.

2. Loveline

 

In the late nineties – as a new teenager – I loved to sneak and watch Loveline. At that point, the radio show that started on Los Angeles airwaves in 1983, was running live on MTV. I could really care less about the hosts, Dr. Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla, it was all about the “sexy” phone calls - guys with three-inch extremities and girls with mysterious rashes.

As a late teen, after Loveline went from MTV back to radio, my weeknight 10 pm – 12 am hours were spent painting away my teenage angst and listening to strangers broadcasting their relationship and bodily issues. My interest did not lay so much in the callers, but in the hosts (though Adam is a total asshole, he was quite hilarious). The interactions between Drew and Adam and their callers were so funny and entertaining! I was such a hard-core fan, I even bought Dr. Drew’s book, Cracked.

Now, Adam has left, to take Howard Stern’s place in a nation-wide morning broadcast. Dr. Drew still hosts Loveline, with Stryker, though I haven’t listened in a few years.

Done!

The trash strike is over! Finally, after 26 days, Teamsters Union and Waste Management Inc. settled. Oakland mayor, Ron Dellums (love him!), made a ballsy move and within the same day, a contract!

Holler.

Bye-bye trash from Fourth of July!

Search Term & Update!!!

HELLO! Welcome reader who searched the term: “really really raunchy women” and found my blog.

Also!

1. Check out the royalties of my Printmaking Class.
2. I cannot believe LinLoh got arrested, again. I love pop culture and I have been reading Perez like it’s my job.
3. I need a job. Anyone? Anyone?
4. Ben and Jerry’s new Cinnamon Buns ice cream is amazing.

Endorsement

I am hereby officially endorsing Barack Obama for President.

I love hope and I love peace and I love equality and I love America. Therefore, my vote goes to Obama.

thoughts on thoughts

For some reason, I thought it a good idea to watch United 93, the (realistic) movie about United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

 

I had heard the movie, which was released to theaters in April of 2006, was good and by good, I mean tasteful. The director, Paul Greengrass, had asked for and received approval from all family members of the 40 passengers killed that day before he began making the movie. I suppose the film serves as a rememberance, and as a tribute.

What I really liked about the film was that it displayed the clear lack of communication in our country’s governmental bodies…  both intra- and outer-organizational. By that, I mean that there were so many mistakes with transfering the needed information to the people who make decisions. This occured within organizations, like within the FAA, and with organizations communicating with eachother: the Marine Corp with the White House, the FAA with the Marine Corp, ATC Centers with the FAA. Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about business and organizational analysis lately, so that struck me.

I don’t know why I ever do things to make myself think more, because it seems that’s all I’ve been doing lately – thinking way too much about everything. So, this just adds to it. My fellow movie-watchers and I all needed to decompress afterwards by sharing our 9/11 stories, talking about how scary the world is, and how easy everything seemed before September of 2001. I’m not sure if things were actually easier, or I was just able to hide from the frightening aspects of society. Probably the latter.

My hope for humanity is back.

Kent Couch is traveling to Idaho on a lawn chair. His plastic throne is strapped to an array of colorful balloons. He is flying through a few states equipped with a GPS device, a two-way radio, a camcorder and his cell phone.

So amazing!

Can’t wait…

for this.

Rank.

The garbage in my city (and surrounding towns) has not been picked up for going on three weeks. There has been a lock out of 500 garbage truck drivers since July 2, as Waste Management and Teamsters Union continue talks to preserve the contract that expired last month.

While my liberal self is all for Unions (and I encourage a strike until the contract is renewed) things are getting mighty stinky in these parts. The neighbor’s three week old dirty diapers greet me everytime I walk into my apartment, and it is not pleasant.  It has really got me thinking about the luxuries (like waste disposal, roads, sanitation) that I take for granted.

There is also this new thing that East Bay is ALL about, and that is composting. There are these “Green Bins” that the city has really encouraged it’s residents to use to dispose of not only yard clippings, but food scraps.

Now, as you can imagine, some really raunchy things start to happen after old fruit, meat and bread sits for three weeks in a plastic container in the sun. I have fully supported attempts to go green by ridding plastic bags and bottles out of cities… but urban composting… I just don’t know. I think one of the things about living in a city is that you don’t share the lifestyle of those in the country… like, you cannot ride your horse to the grocery store, you cannot get somewhere without passing through 45 million stop lights, and you cannot compost.

Rotting food in parking lots doesn’t just produce nasty smells, but it attracts maggots, flies and rats. It just ain’t right.

Buh-bye, Jane.

Jane Magazine will be shutting it’s doors… a.k.a. they will be no more, and neither will their Web site.

Jane, launched ten years ago, touted this feminist-y thing, but, basically totally sucked (see Bitch Magazine’s “Ten Things to Hate about Jane” article). I’m not sad to see them go. Any magazine that says it’s got a feminist message and has Britney Spears on the cover has problems… Jane’s message was corrupt in every sense of the word.  

All I can thank Jane for is a brief dream I once had: as a pre-teen caught up in the struggle that was living in rural Missouri, Jane Magazine inspired my best friend and I to some day start our own (better) magazine. This led to years of interest in media and journalism, especially critique and policy. Jane basically got me thinking about what is wrong with the world, and how I could create a message.

I’m not really a huge fan of Bitch either, but this article, by Bitch’s Editor, is really interesting.

Women and the news.

I have to admit that I am not Katie Couric’s biggest fan. I never really watched the Today Show and I don’t really watch the CBS Evening News. But I need to help a sista’ out.

Last year, Couric made the move from co-hosting NBC’s The Today Show, to singly hosting CBS’s Evening News. It was a widely reported transition, as Couric became the first woman to host such an important news broadcast… journalists like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather succeeded her.

Ever since Couric’s Evening News take-over, eyes have been on her success at anchoring the important program. And basically, she’s been seen as a failure. Report after report show that the CBS news is rated third, behind rival networks NBC and ABC.

OF COURSE, this is all Couric’s fault… her lack of hard news experience, her inability to manage a news team, and I believe, underneath it all, her woman-ness.

I mean, yes, Couric’s ratings are worse than Rather or Cronkite’s ever were… BUT – let’s not forget, even with those male hosts, CBS News was still rated third. AND – yes, CBS remains third, with dismal ratings, BUT- I bet if anyone would look at the ratings for NBC and ABC’s new broadcasts, they would be lower than ever as well. This is a symptom of the rise of 24-hour news channels and the Internet. Let’s not blame everything on Katie Couric. It’s not a coincidence that she’s a woman and taking all the heat for the fall of Evening News. Shit.