Celine Dion: A Death Threat

Emaciated singer Celine Dion must still be scrubbing the lecherous stain of Vegas from her freakishly toned body. The UK's Daily Mirror reported yesterday that Ms. Dion used 6.5 million gallons of water at her Marin County, Florida home in 2007, or enough to fill a 50-gallon bathtub every four minutes.

"Most homes in the area, which has a population of 126,000, use just 10,000 gallons a month to water the grass and clean their cars."

So Celine, I will have to kill you. Water is a commodity and you don't even shave, so how is it possible that you use so much? Don't answer. It doesn't matter because I have already put a hit out on you. For the greater good, for all mankind, and especially for my parents in Colorado where the paucity of water makes me shudder.

When a slick character with a spit-drenched Cuban and tricolored top-siders comes knocking, know that I sent him. Oh, I sent him alright.

What do the College Kids Say? PWNED?

Zachary, a smoked out Colorado University sophomore who introduced me to the term "zanibar"—and also happens to be my little brother—often trumps me in the logic department, despite the fact that he operates in a weed-induced stupor much of the time.

When we were talking on the phone earlier today—me from my increasingly familiar post on my boyfriend's couch, and him from the dormitory kitchen where he took a summer job in hopes of banging the girls who stay there for sports camps—he was watching a clip of Kobe Bryant clearing a swimming pool full of black mambo snakes.

"Dude, have you seen that video of Kobe jumping the Aston Martin yet?" I asked.

"Yeah, but that shit isn't real."

"Wha?"

"Do you really think that Nike would let him do that? Or do you think that the Lakers would let their star player, the best player in the league and the 2008 MVP risk his life for a stunt? His contract doesn't even allow him to ride a motorcycle, much less jump a moving car."

Silence. "Oh man, you are totally right!"

Blast! Outsmarted by an 18-year-old stoner—again.

Girl Equation

Gould Plated Self-Awareness

As I read Emily Gould's article, "Exposed," the lead story on the Times homepage this morning, my breakfast began its esophagus-burning procession back up my throat. It was all so familiar: the extreme exposure, the vitreous attacks and the gut-eviscerating self-doubt (which I can only assume she is feeling).

When I was twenty and a student at the University of Kansas, I wrote a candid blog about myself hosted by Lawrence.com. It was called Powder Room Confessions. Every time I posted I was pummeled by a barrage of hate mail. After four short months, my fragile ego couldn't handle it and I quit. Much like Emily, I later wrote a feature about my experience, and about the nascent blogging industry in general, for the student magazine (not quite the NYT, but still).

After finishing the article and scanning the 400-some comments, my first reaction was pity. Perhaps that isn't so. My first reaction was jealousy, as it often is when I see someone my age published in the New York Times. But after that, pity. And then a creeping feeling of schadenfreude. Watching someone else get chided in much the same manner that I did years ago was shamefully cathartic. So cathartic, in fact, that I think I am going to buy up all the tissues in Brooklyn so she has to wipe her porcelain, tear-drenched cheeks with paper towels.

But the jealousy? Yeah, totally over it.

C/O Democractic Party

The mile-wide tornado that tore through Northern Colorado earlier today was no doubt whipped up by the GOP in an attempt to instill fear before the Democratic National Convention in August. Next up: locusts.

Moldy Peach Dog Biscuits

Music artists lending their voices or songs to television commercials is as old as Madonna, and to be honest I don't even consider it "selling out." Really, was Aerosmith's aural offerings over the past two decades ever so sacred that a partnership with Dodge changed the band's already fledging rocker reputation?

So when I saw the new commercial for Atlantis resorts, set to "Anyone Else But You" by the indie twosome Moldy Peaches—better known as the song that Ellen Page and Michael Cerra cover at the end of the movie Juno—I thought it was problematic for other another reason, and that is cognitive psychology.

Flashback back to PSYCH 101. Cognitive psychology is a school of thought that emphasizes a patient's mental processes—the same paradigm that harbors Pavlovian theory. And much like Pavlov and his salivating canines, this commercial makes me think of bastard children and awkward teen sex, not giggling frivolously in a one-piece under a poolside cabana. But hey, that's just me.

**and Nick, I know this is probably a complete perversion of cognitive psych and Pavlov and those mangy, blessed mutts. I look forward to the inevitable earful.

Tom Selleck Has Nothing To Do With This Post

Upon careful consideration and a lengthy pros and cons list, I have decided to pack up shop and move to Wordpress Tumblr. Blogger is like living in black and white when everything else is in technicolor; like being on MySpace when everyone uses Facebook.

Now I just have to figure out how to pull off the ole' switcheroo. If I happen to come across any speed bumps, detours or overpasses, rest assured you will be the first to know. And in the unlikelihood of a water landing, your cushion can be used as a flotation device. Same goes for Tom Selleck's mustache.