No matter what else happens, it's just not a good day when Mr. Rogers passes away....

So, Lycos now has a pop culture blog....it's a little weird, a search engine with a blog.
The goal, according to author Aaron Schatz is to

"make this blog, along with the Lycos 50 itself, a central hub to explore all the fun of the World Wide Web. I'll talk about all the different things that get searched on Lycos, from pop culture to medical fads. I'll get to share little search tidbits that don't fit in a regular column. I'll get to spread the word about all those fun, weird websites that make the Internet so much fun.

Not sure if it's achieving that yet, but hey, it's only a day old so I guess I'll give a blog a break.....

I wish I had time to ponder the spectacle that was the Grammys, but I don't...besides, Glorious Noise does a fine job - though they make no mention of how incredibly tacky it was for Nelly to do that whole fire thing in the wake of last Thursday's nightclub tragedy in Rhode Island.
Oh yeah - and they forgot to mention how annoying it was that Faith Hill kept flashing her unmentionables...honestly, she must have been freezing up there.

The Toronto Star reports that Shift magazine is going under due to money woes. This is a real shame because Shift - a Canadian-based bi-monthly - was one of the few magazines that really got the Internet from a pop culture perspective. They produced some of my favorite Internet-related pieces of the last year - from an irreverant web guide, to a very thoughtful rundown on web 'celebrities' to its ever-essential Shift list.
Sadly, there are just not too many magazines out there that cover the Internet in a way that's both informative and entertaining. Wired is, too often, insufferably boring and more-tech-than-thou. It does have some interesting articles from time to time but even its Wired vs. Tired index is getting pretty, um, tired. If anyone knows of any other good Internet mags out there, please let me know.
Speaking of Wired - I do think its daily online content is stronger than the magazine - today there was an interesting piece on how our telephone numbers may grow by two digits by 2005 due to a "number exhaust" caused by the ever-swelling growth of digits used by cell phones/faxes/pagers and - more recently - voiceover Internet protocol, or VoIP. Time to start hoarding numbers ....

The weekend was not just about knitting. On Friday Cory and I settled down for a Valentine's Day fest featuring two-and-a-half hours worth of the Gilmore Girls. (We were going to watch our new DVD of Amelie but then remembered the Gilmore Girls backlog we were accumulating; well, actually we were going to go see The Hours but then remembered how much we hate being around people on holidays .... why do people suddenly become so rude on a day like Valentine's Day?). And, as much as I love the Gilmore Girls I must say that the Feb. 3rd episode "Dear Emily and Richard" has to be the worst one I've ever seen. OK, so it actually grew on me a bit by the end of the episode but people, flashback should be used sparingly! Very sparingly! Especially when there's bad acting involved! Television Without Pity has a pretty funny, accurate recap of the episodes - and specifically what made it so problematic:

Hold on to your hats, kids, because we're going into sepia tones! I absolutely do not understand the thought process that went into the casting of young Lorelai and young Christopher, who will now be referred to as Borelai and Christophake. They're both really, really, really, really, really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y, bad actors. I mean, bad actors. Six burgers. Three with cheese -- two cheddar, one Swiss bad actors. Every line sounds like they're standing on a stage and we're at high-school dinner theater eating stringy lasagna pretending to really enjoy this production of Same Time Next Year put on by two virgins who have no idea what real pain is yet. These kids yell and shout their lines like we might not realize how young they're supposed to be. And the lines are written for grown-up Lorelai and Christopher, so they sound like all of the horribleness of Igby Goes Down with all of the bad acting of Crossroads. Loud does not mean emotion, you young actors out there. Especially when you're not on stage. I think Christophake is actually just a tiny bit Asian. Borelai has a really annoying nasal quality to her voice that gets right under your skin and makes you quiver when she talks. She's so Princess-y. Ugh! I hate it! Borelai goes through a huge song and dance about taking her sweater off and dropping it on the floor just to make sure that Emily isn't home. Where's her maid? Fired. Why? Well, it's hard to understand Borelai, and when I repeat her lines my eyes bleed, but from the best I can tell, Sophia the maid was fired because "she touched the backfire unicorn." And really, haven't we all?

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You can read the entire recap here.

This is definitely one of those times that I'm happy to be living on the West Coast - where my idea of freezing is havnig to scrape the ice off my windshield while thinking about how chic I look in my lovely woolen scarf.....speaking of which - have I mentioned knitting lately? No? Well that would be because I am on the knitting short bus...seriously...i am really bad....terrible hand-eye coordination....but I'm working on it....worked on it through the Joe Millionaire finale last night (which was worth the hour-and-a-half of filler material just to see the expression on Sarah's face when she got the 'bad news') and realized I have to concentrate on JUST knitting - no TV, no cats trying to steal my needles, no nothing else...just Zen Knitting...

i just want you all to know that variations on "Meg White Boobs" still remains the number one search engine search for this site:

just a few of the dozens of examples of searches by people wanting to ogle at the White Stripes' drummers ta-tas:

Meg-white boobs

meg white photos sexy, OR naked "the white stripes"

"Meg White" boobs

Also interesting (at least to me) Charmaine Heidek - wife of Survivor Thailand Brian Heidak, is the number two search subject here, however no one seems interested in HER boobs....

A cool thrift site via Daily Candy and, if you're feeling low....check out the Automatic Flatterer....because you're smart, you're nice and darn it, the computer likes you...

The Washington Post has a really interesting - and poignant - article on the crew currently docked at the International Space Station. The piece discusses the three-person crew's willingness to remain in space for another year if deemed necessary (because of the recent Columbia tragedy) by NASA.
What really got me, however, was the article's description of how the crew dealt with grieving for the Columbia shuttle, including this passage that contrasts American astronaut Kenneth Bowersox's emotions with those of the American astronaut who was in space at the time of 9/11:

"The crew said ground controllers had eased their schedule to allow them time to grieve. Bowersox said he had not felt the sense of isolation described by another U.S. astronaut, Frank Culbertson, who was the only American off the planet when hijacked planes were used to attack the Pentagon and bring down the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001."

(FYI: Visiting the Washington Post site and reading the entire article you might require a quick, free registration...)

ps, yes I really did vote for Eminem's "Lose Yourself" as my number one single of the year....

So, my Village Voice Pazz & Jopp ballot is now online... I don't know why it lists the Raveonettes twice but frankly I'm shocked that I'm the ONLY person who voted for that wonderful little EP...so maybe it's a good thing that it got a duplicate listing....

What can I say? It's been a hell of a week. My grandfather passed away last weekend which has meant much in the way of drama around the writegrrrl family tree as arrangements were debated and finally, blessedly, made.
And I've been semi-sick, fighting off a cold.
And Cory's been full-on sick with a lovely case of strep throat.
But we did manage to catch a most-rocking set from Sleater-Kinney on Wednesday night - it was nice to see the band in a smallish venue again - helped to restore my faith in all that is S-K.
Other than all of that I've just been spending my spare time sludging through "Lolita" (armed with both a French and and American dictionary) quite arguably one of the perviest novels of the 20th century.
As the French say: bla bla bla*

*translation: blah blah blah

Good Lord: Phil Spector held on murder charges