phamos

This morning, my husband came across a scintillating article on the widespread use of hand sanitizer by poltical candidates. Is it good hygiene, or a contemptuous disgust for the germy little people they're shaking hands with? My husband referred to it as a "Bart's People" story, which made me laugh. And then I realized that particular episode of The Simpsons will be included on the 9th season box set that comes out in December.

The Simpsons used to be one of my favorite shows, second only perhaps to Buffy. But I honestly haven't watched a new episode in about two years. I had become so disillusioned with the show that I found it upsetting to watch subpar episode after subpar episode, especially as the later episodes began to dominate the syndication special to the exclusion of seasons 6 and 7. The last episode that made me laugh at all was the "Land of the Jockeys" episode, and that was simply because of the sheer awful ridiculousness of it all.

Season 9 is really the show's last gasp at relevance. It is thoroughly uneven, with one brilliant episode ("The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"), a number of episodes with hilarious parts that peter out towards the end ("This Little Wiggy", though it's redeemed by the last minute appearance of the pyromaniac leprechaun, and "Trash of the Titans", which thoroughly wastes Steve Martin), and some real stinkers (...gonna use oil-based paint cuz the wood is piiine!). So it's not an immediate must-buy for me as the last 8 seasons have been. And that makes me sad. But it's going on my wishlist, where it will linger until someone either decides to buy it FOR me, or I break down and realize that my desire to see the Canyonero ad whenever I want overrides my dislike of the rest of that episode (the one where Krusty becomes an alterna-comic and hangs out with Janeane Garofalo -- god, that could have been so good).

Season 10 was my first year in college, and I watched it pretty much every week with everyone else on my floor in our RH's apartment. I'm looking through the episode guide now and I don't see a single good episode. The only funny line that's even popping out to me right now is from the Mark Hamill episode: "Guys and Dolls, we're just a bunch of crazy guys and dolls, oh yeah yeah yeah yeah guys and dolls..." And that's not even that funny. *sigh* At least season 11 has the Tomacco episode. Season 12 has Comic Book Guy's bootleg tape of Mr. Rogers drunk. ("What do you mean I can't take off my sweater? I'm HOT!") In season 12 there's literally only one episode I can remember at all (the one where they go to Brazil), and after that I honestly don't think I'd seen any until this year's Halloween episode, which I saw on YouTube and didn't laugh at once. Not ONCE. So sad.

There was also a clip from the Simpsons movie on a DVD we recently rented. It was very, very random and not particularly funny (Hower gets attacked by his sled dogs). I'm expecting this movie to be worse than the Dark Crystal sequel, which I'm pretty depressed about, too.

the new york magazine cover article this week is about the elite echelon of bloggers who rule the universe. well, maybe not the universe. just the web. anyway, boing boing is apparently the most linked-to blog on the web, so they refer to its creation in 2000 as a milestone in blogistory. what they leave out is that boing boing has been around much longer than that. i had a link to boing boing on my extremely bare bones geocities home page in 1996. and apparently, as far back as 1988, it was a paper zine.

but the same thing i thought about boing boing when it was just another boring website is true now that it's a scintillating blog -- it's filled with useless crap and is a total waste of time to read. there are inevitably real jewels in there, but as new york mag describes, they've got 5 bloggers just posting anything they can come up with for 12-14 hours a day. it's not as barebones and overwhelming as metafilter, but at least metafilter doesn't attempt hipness, really.

so, anyway, i'm always happy when someone finds something cool on boing boing and points me to it. that means they've done the work for me. because when i try to read the page myself, my eyes utterly glaze over.

segev has fallen asleep in front of the menus of the chappelle show season 2 DVD. so for about 45 minutes, my life has had the soundtrack of "what's the best show on tv? chappelle show! woo-hoo!" and lots of harmonica jams. but if i turn it down, or god forbid off, segev will wake up and be cranky.

and i don't remember if i posted this this morning or not, and i'm too lazy to go check. but segev and i are definitely getting married on september 2nd, the saturday of labor day weekend. wish us luck in planning this damn thing.

i got the coolest birthday present from segev! he bought me noise cancelling headphones. they're supercool. it's just your own little room of sound -- womb of sound, even. and they cancel out low end noise, like the air conditioner or airplane engines. we shall see how they work on the subway. and they come with their own spiffy little carrying case, and an ipod fits in it too. yaaaay!

the most blissful moment of the whole trip to pittsburgh? picture: driving home after the rowing trip, pitch black out, segev driving really aggressively and sneezing like crazy, me clutching my seat, terrible music playing on every radio station the whole way. suddenly, a radio station we'd never picked up before appears on the dial, playing "she's lost control". both of us just go, "oh, YEAH!" we listen to the whole song, totally psyched. segev's driving calms and his sneezing recedes. ian curtis is soothing us. after the song, the station goes to commercial, so i flip stations. on the next go-round of the dial, the station is gone as mysteriously as it came. no more signal, no more joy division, no nothing. it's as if the gods of manchester knew we needed a little relief just at that moment and smiled on us.

segev is actually looking up hints for zelda online now. this nintendo-on-the-computer thing has to stop.

flipping back now through my copy of "endless nights," in response to receiving the newest sandman tie-in earlier today...i just noticed that delight, when she's talking to killalla -- her eyes are both the same color.

huh.

i wish segev would read my sandman books. i wish segev would read the harry potters i bought for him. i wish segev would read all of the books i set out on the table for him, some of my favorite books, because i wish that segev would read something other than physics. i think too much physics is hurting his brain.

i can't sleep. segev made this teeny-weeny comment about whistle not feeling good and now i'm totally flashing back to when fidget was sick and being all paranoid that something's seriously wrong with her too. all she did was regurgitate a little bit of saliva. it's not like she's puking chunks repeatedly or anything. i just can't take kitty sickness again so soon. too much too much too much. i really am wanting pills right now. that's bad. i need to go to a meeting tomorrow, i think. i suck.

well, well, well. in my absence, simi has learned how to climb up onto the kitchen counter and into the sink. this will be problematic when segev gets home. i'm pretty easygoing about it, but it'll piss him off to no end. he's been spoiled by whistle and fidget being so well-behaved. simi has also learned how to use her claws to climb all the way up your jeans. this could also pose a problem.

i was treated to the pan-flute, muzak version of salisbury hill in the airport. yikes.

the good news for the evening is that i got the bill from the animal hospital and my balance is only 900-and-some dollars. that's in addition to the $1667 i put down when i dropped fidget off, but still considerably less than it could have been. and thanks to all the donations, including recent ones from lydia, joan yin, and my cousin katie, most of that $900+ is covered by the fidget memorial fund. thank you, all of you. even those of you who couldn't afford to give money, you've just so totally been there for me, everyone. thanks.

i have to go to the post office tomorrow and pick up fidget's ashes. i wonder if that will make it any more real.

i took a lot of crap-assed, hurried polaroids for suzanne today. i hope at least a couple of them are agent-presentable.

oh, how i wish i had kool-aid.

simi keeps trying to type. :)

segev has spent the entire day debating the efficiency of government use of tax-money with his washington-times-reading libertarian uncle. i am going. to. BED.

well i guess segev's not gonna get that t-shirt i promised him for our anniversary.

i saw it on laura kightlinger in some standup special the other day. it was just a black t-shirt with a picture of dick cheney's head and the word "DICK" under it.

do you know how hard it is to search for something online using only the command "dick t-shirt"?