Nothing Left To Do Now Except Turn Thirty

Cancel the Super Bowl halftime show, take off the sequin glove;
Prevent the weird little monkey from bubbling out his love
Silence the discos and with muted MTV
Bring on the Dateline Tributes and bloviating MSNBC.

Millennium generation, the last vestiges of our youth officially died today. In memoriam, let Filipino prisoners express the words that fail us.



You know it's where Jacko would have wanted to go to jail.

This Shark You Swallow Whole

I spent two weeks in Berlin recently, a town known for being full of coke-addled artists. I'd read that the cocaine was so prevalent, it's even in their Red Bull, which seems redundant. But in speaking to Berliners, the lack of cocaine was one of the first things they'd mention about their city. "Here in Berlin, we like to make the party all night," one man told me, adding almost wistfully, "Americans think it is the cocaine that makes us do this, but I have never seen it just out at a club." He paused to take a bite of his falafel, washed down with Red Bull, then asked,"You like to dance?"

Happily, BBC has turned up the source of the cocaine:

Mexico cocaine 'hidden in sharks'

This makes me awfully nervous about all of those Haribo sharks I bought.

Helllooooooooo

I missed you all, too. In the last few months, I got into grad school, narrowly avoided becoming a swine flu vector, gave birth to a metaphoric career baby, and divided my time between three different hemispheres. Traveling so much makes me appreciate home that much more when I get back; I get a little teary (or possibly just blearly, after 9-12 hours on a plane, it's impossible to tell the difference) when the customs people say (and they always do), "Welcome back home to the USA!"

The feeling wanes pretty quickly:


[Tip o' the Goo to Ani]

Maybe They Can Order Some Prefab Economies

Evidently, the meeting of the G-20 also involved a trip to the Sears Portrait Gallery.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

I'll bet Weng Weng is excited.

Greetings to Our New Adorable Overlords

Welcome to the world, new cloudy leopard cubs!!!

At long last, something to fill the void left by the panda cam having become uninteresting. Stupid baby panda cub that grew up. You're not the size of a stick of butter anymore, and you're not nearly as cute anymore, are you Butterstick*?

I also appreciate that this new zoo cub species seems to be even more incapable of perpetuating its species than the pandas, increasing its cuteness exponentially.

[The cubs] were taken immediately from their gorgeous mother before she could do them harm, or do them in, placed in an incubator set at 88 degrees and fed salt water from baby bottles.

Awww, separating progeny from parent because they might get eaten. I bet Michelle Obama had the same problem.


*I still love you best, 'Stick, even if you are eating the National Zoo out of house and home.

Seems Like a Prolonged Excuse to Mope

For some years now, the Object has been trying to get me to move to Portland. He talks about how green it is, how great the music scene is,and how much generally cooler the peoples there are, as determined by the disaffected nature of its youth, and the griminess of its hipsters scum, a layer of filth that we in DC can only aspire to.

And then I read that Portland is the Unhappiest City in America.

Portland was tops among a study of 50 of the largest metro areas that looked at a variety of factors, including the rates of depression, suicide, divorce, crime and unemployment, as well as the weather and the amount of green space.

So, the Object wants me to quit my job and move to a place where I'll really never get a job (it's not really known as an international city), get depressed because it rains all the time and there's no green space, break up with him and turn to a life of crime, eventually committing suicide. I wonder if he's trying to tell me something?

I'll take it with a grain of salt. The Object is not 100% clear on how women work. Not long ago, we were talking about a fundraiser for ovarian cancer. He asked me, "How do you know that I donated? Maybe I don't support healthy boobies!"