Thanks to everyone who’s sending us good wishes to weather the storm. Yes, we’re staying home. I think it’ll be okay. Worst-case scenario, in my mind, is my neighbor’s palm tree falling onto the roof of my garage. Or something flying into our patio doors and breaking them, but we cleared all debris from yard, so it should be okay.

I’ve been posting on Twitter, if anyone’s interested. But, basically, all my Twitter posts summed up would say “Nothing’s happening yet, and we’re chilling and eating a bunch of food while we wait.”

I would tell y’all the story of what happened at my dad’s house during Hurricane Alicia, in 1983, but I’m too sugared up to type it legibly right now…

I will give y’all a link that Glark posted, though:
Prankster in a costume provides levity during a Hurricane Ike news report.

I’ll report back here after the storm. Y’all have a good weekend, okay?

From Ashley: “The Website is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude”, which is a video about an IT guy dealing with a sales dude

If you hated Showgirls (or if you liked it), it can be redeemed for you through this puppet satire, Showtoys.

Halston boots I would like to own.

From Mike: snippets of the best Superman comic I’ve ever seen. Anybody know where to find the book in real life?

Here is a Web site where you can buy techno music. And I did.

This chick’s David Bowie costume is awesome.

Dogs are funny when you put humiliating costumes on them and they totally like it, because they have no dignity, and thus they transcend dignity and become almost Christlike in their oblivious cuteness.

From Ashley: The New Republic interprets Barrack Obama through his writing. I was surprised to find them compare Obama to Henry James, with whom I am lately semi-obsessed.

Also from Ashley: The NY Times profiles Rush Limbaugh and almost makes me pity him, but then, not. Which is what they’re good at doing, I’ve noticed: Showing you the hate-able-ness, then showing a little that’s empathy-worthy, then coming on full strength with more evidence of hate-ability. Love it.

From Marq: This artist makes plastic bags into inflatable animals that only appear when the subway rolls under the grates that they’re tied to.

Christina Ricca Cat disapproves.

Benny Bennassi feat. The Bravery

Weird-ass Benny Benassi remix of “California Dreamin'”.

I found the two above when trying to find my favorite Bravery song for you guys and for my friend Brie, and then finally I found my favorite Bravery song, but only in one of those homemade videos that people make (inexplicably to me) with anime characters. Why do people make those? Someone please explain.

Whoa. There is a web site dedicated to making anime music videos, and they hold contests and everything.

From Mike: Italian Spiderman.

Meta links!

This post I wrote in 2005 has become a repository for complaints by and about Kroger employees, as you will note in its comments.

It replaces, in my heart, this post I wrote in 2004 that became a touchstone for people searching for the Mervyn’s online survey.

The most-read post of the past two months is the one about my cats having sex on my bed. I wanted to find the most-read posts ever, but my stats won’t tell me that.

Here are the web searches that most often lead people to my site:
“topless bar“
“dress patterns”
“reggie aqui gay“
“boobsquad gwen“
“jehovas witness”
“kroger sucks“
“women of telemundo“
“is reggie aqui gay”
“gwen bitter asian men”
“hairstyles for fat women“
“emo acronym“
“club adventure”
“reggie aqui gay?”
“blt party”

I don’t mind when people criticize my blog, but it bothers me a little when they misread it.

Dear SmugWatch Dude:
I do not do yoga. Please be less assumptive in your smugness watchdogging.
Thank you.

Project Runway‘s Jay is super candid, and that’s why I love him.

If you don’t know who Julia Allison is, it’ll be hard for me to explain this, but I’ll try. She’s a Star editor and supposed dating columnist, yeah, and a person Jakob Lodowick dated, and someone they can’t stop ridiculing on Gawker. But mainly she’s a woman who blogs about herself constantly (with photos). So… someone brilliant wrote a blog about her blog.

Dr. Bukkake gives facials. As far as we can tell, this is not a joke. If you don’t get the joke, that’s probably for the best. (What can I say? I’m not very ladylike.)

This woman does pretty things.

subcategorized linkelodeon, with tangents, form of: Asperger’s Syndrome!

As mentioned before, every time I see a fictional character who I suspect suffers from Aspergers (whether the person portraying that character realizes it or not), I google [character’s name] + “aspergers” to see if anyone else thought so, too.

Last week we watched the best-of-Chris-Farley ep of SNL, and it occurred to me that Chris’s talk show interviewer character has AS. Here’s a transcript of one of those skits. So, I thought maybe Chris was unwittingly imitating someone with Aspergers when he played that popular character. So I googled.

Instead, I found out that Dan Ackroyd was diagnosed with AS as a teenager.

“People Speculated to Have Been Autistic.” Is this my Asperger’s obsession? No. My boyfriend says mine is pulling dandelions, because it takes effort for me to pass one without removing it from the ground, preferably with root intact. I say, “That’s not Asperger’s — that’s a valuable service to the community.” *

My Aspie son’s current obsession: found numbers. Meaning numbers he “finds” on digital clocks and license plates. He talks to me about that for a good fifteen minutes per week. I just listen, and sometimes ask wry questions, but I don’t try to discourage him. I don’t think there’s any wrong with an obsession that hurts no one.

Shirley Dent says “Don’t diagnose fictional characters.” Oops. Sorry, Shirley. No, wait — apology retracted. I’ll diagnose whichever characters I want. I’ll look for stories in which people (autistics, lesbians, latinos, bulimics, cutters, Kinsey Temperament Sorter Margaret Thatchers, crochet enthusiasts, inverted narcissists, and even people just like me) might exist as whatever I need them to be. Including the protagonists, the heroes, and the most empathetic characters in the story.

Let a person pay his $15 for a book and then diagnose (empathize, mis-identify, fantasize) away. Because people are compelled to do this whether they’ve studied revisionist literary criticism or not. Readers need to be able to identify with mainstream fictional characters. Isn’t that one of the basic reasons that art exists?(Personally, I don’t see Austen’s Darcy as an Aspie. But, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if someone wrote a really awesome book in which my son was the romantic hero of the century? Of course.)

Aspergers and Xena, Warrior Princess and Albert Einstein and Jar Jar Binks. And sex.

* I was gonna put in a disclaimer, clarifying for new readers that this was a joke because I’ve never been diagnosed with AS, but that my son has. FYI. But then I thought, “Why?”

1. Zadie Smith cohosted a short story contest. Eight hundred and fifty people entered. Then, Ms. Smith informed the entrants that none of their stories were good enough to win. Ouchies.

No, I didn’t enter, because I didn’t hear about the contest until now. But if I’d entered, I would be walking around with a drink in my hand right now, telling people, “Zadie Smith doesn’t care for my writing.” Too bad I didn’t enter, then. Next year I will.

2. I kind of suspect this is a publicity stunt, or kind of hope it is, for the sake of everyone involved: One of Gawker’s former editors “secretly” hooked up with another one of Gawker’s editors, and one of the two apparently kept a “secret” blog about the relationship. And so the other of the two went ahead and wrote a big old essay about it for Page 6 mag, telling everyone in the world who didn’t already know.

3. Related subject, on the internets and in my mind: A long time ago, Tracie Egan wrote an essay about trying to get her rape fantasy fulfilled. I was interested to find out what would happen, so read eagerly. But then, it turned into a sad story about thwarted hopes, all the way around.

All three preceding links via Gawker, which is my painful weekday addiction.

4. Ashton Kutcher at your middle school dance.

5. The Barbie Tarot, via Pop Culture Junk Mail.

6. This is old, but still true: Roast Beef and Ray discuss McDonald’s vs Starbucks.

7. I keep seeing this Star Wars cook book at Urban Outfitters and wanting it, even though the recipes themselves aren’t that exciting. The pictures are funny, though.

8. Another old thing. We saw this SNL rerun Digital Short the other night, and can’t stop thinking about it: People Getting Punched Just Before Eating. You have to watch a commercial first, sorry. That’s the price of legal content viewing. Also, please view with sound on, as the song is half the magic.

1. How to Make an Earbud Cord Caddy. I showed this to my boyfriend and he was like, “We could make those and sell them!” and I was like, “No, too sweatshop for too little money.” But it would be fun to make one, if I had an I-Pod.

2. Do you need a Burt Reynolds purse? I think you might.

3. So this nature writer finds out that a very prolific, best-selling romance novelist plagiarized from his article about black-footed ferrets. And he writes a pretty funny, good-sport piece about it.
Meanwhile, on the site of the initial plagiarism discovery, readers are scanning the novelist’s other books and finding plagiarism galore.

4. The AV Club ranks on progressive rock album covers. I knew, before even looking, that a Yes album would be included.

5. Sometimes I love the NPR program This American Life, and sometimes I don’t. Often, listening to the stories in my van, I can’t help tearing up a little. I loved the story of the evangelically raised student who took on a demon at his university.

On the other hand, I hated the story about the girl who got a heart transplant thanks to a boy who’d been murdered by gang members. That one literally made me sob, I was so upset by the self-centeredness of some of its characters. I remember sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot, waiting for the story to end, and then waiting to get hold of myself, it upset me so much. But don’t get me wrong — it’s totally worth hearing.

Tom Cruise promotes Scientology in a scary way, in a video that is apparently exclusive to Gawker right now. (Remind me to post later about my varied experiences with cult members.)

I didn’t want to let this happen again, but I’m addicted to American Gladiators. And so are my kids. After only two episodes, too. My favorite Gladiatrix so far is Crush, because she has awesome hair.

Pretty Indian wedding dresses! If I were to wear one for my own wedding, it’d be this one. Not that I’m trying to appopriate anyone’s culture. I’m just saying — I want a fancy pink dress, and that’s the best one I’ve seen so far.

I know this chick who took a class on lampworking, and then started her own little side business making and selling glass beads. She’s doing really well at it, and I’ve been meaning to tell y’all that I admire her. She thought up an idea, then just went for it. You know?

My favorite site that I can’t read.

Remember how I told y’all, a while back, a few thousand times, that I had a novel coming out in Spring of 2008? Well, I just found out that it’s been pushed back for a second time, to January 2009.

What does this mean to you? It means that, by the time Houston, We Have a Problema is actually available for sale, you’ll feel like you already read it two years before.

However, it does not mean that I won’t be there, January 2009, nagging you to buy it. In the mean time, I just have to update all the tiny places on my blog that now mention the wrong date… Here I go… Doo de doo…

In other book news: I’m pretty sure my first kids’ book, Growing Up with Tamales, is still coming out in May 2008. I mean, I hope it is. It’s at the printer now, they tell me.

There. Now you have renewed reason to be envious of my life, which is the glamorous life of a published author.

Special Linkelodeon Single-Link Feature

My new favorite site is LOLSecretz. It’s a cross between Post Secret (which I have always suspected is mostly faked) and LOL Cats.

Sample:
I UZED 2 B SO INTO U.

I like the way the best submissions parody the Post Secret style — the single shocking sentence, or the one-sentence layout and second-sentence twist. It’s like LOL Cats, but nine thousand times more nuanced and hilarious.

Yes, it’s a sickness, I know. Yes, I fear the day that someone catches my boyfriend and I speaking LOLSpeak to each other. We don’t even do it ironically anymore.

Me: We R going 2 lunchez now?
Tad: Yes, I can haz rice 4 us.
Stranger passerby: What the hell is wrong with you two? Are you not grown adults? Why are you talking like that?
Me and Tad: O noes!!!!!1!!!1!!

Never do your job well.

If you do your job well (quickly, correctly, efficiently, with minimum complaining), then you will be rewarded with extra work. People will start stacking crap on your desk with little Post-Its that say, at first, “Rhonda: Can you please process this cog today so I don’t have to do the extra widget report on it? Thanks!! :)”

Then, they’ll stack stuff on your desk with Post-Its that say “Rhonda: Need today please thx.”

Then, they’ll stack stuff on your chair with Post-Its that say, “TODAY.”

No one will ever say, “Man, Rhonda sure processes those cogs quickly. Remember, before she came here, how we used to have cogs stacked up all over the place, waiting to be processed, necessitating extra widget reports and late fees? I’m glad Rhonda works with us. She’s awesome.”

But people will say, “Man, Rhonda sure has been acting bitchy lately. What’s up her butt? Oh, hey, are you going by her desk? Can you put these cogs on her chair? They’re not due ’til next month, but she may as well get them to me before I go on vacation.”

So don’t do your job well. Do just enough to get by, and surf the Web all day, like everyone else. You’ll be happier.

Tucker Carlson has a violent brush with gayness, and Gawker commenters put it into perspective.

An artist’s rendering of Britney Spears endorsing Photoshop in a Can.

M. Giant discusses The Man with the Yellow Hat’s incompetent monkey parenting.

I very much love reading the Houston Chronicle online since they opened comments on each article. Chronicle readers get so awesomely passionate, whether second-guessing Dear Abby or weighing in on those slutty, slutty women who have sex with people they meet online. (Where is the study about men having sex on the first date? Why, in the year 2007, would we still care more about women’s promiscuity than men’s? Someone ask UT researchers for me.)

Did y’all hear that Maggie Gyllenhaal is taking over Katie Holmes’ role in the next Batman movie? Check out what she says about how she’ll set herself apart — how she won’t be “some generic lady in a dress.” Normally, when tabloids report that one celebrity dissed another, it’s completely exaggerated. But I did think this quote was kind of cold blooded. In an awesome way.

I never really understood the stereotypical gay man’s obsession with old film stars… but these pictures and anecdotes are making me a believer. Either that, or they’re making me a lesbian. Maureen O’Hara = beautiful. Hedy Lamarr = hot and surprisingly brilliant. Gene Tierney = dang, girl! Slow down with all that smoldering!

The Museum of Bad Art.

Jet plane earrings.
Cherry earrings.
Toast earrings.
Crayon box earrings.
And one very interesting money box.

This Onion article supposed to be satirical. And, in general, I prefer Banana Republic’s and Ann Taylor Loft’s “classic” style to that of the Gap. But, in my mind, this is how all men should think about their clothes, and this is how classic and variable all clothing should be:
This Gap Sweater is Fucking Awesome.

Over at The Atlantic, B.R. Myers points out a bunch of emperors who aren’t wearing clothes. (This is a big old article about books. Only read it if you are hardcore into books, like I am. Oh, and you have to be hardcore into literary bitch-slapping, too.)

Pop-cult worlds collide as the captain of Serenity goes back to OLTL. Do you know what I’m talking about? Did I just out myself as a geek/loser on two fronts at once?

I heard there was gonna be something called a Maker Faire in Austin this October. I got all excited, thinking it was like a craft fair for hipsters. (With, you know, the ghostly, sad-faced felt animals and appliques and prints that hipster craftsters are always making.) I thought we could go there this fall instead of going to the Ren Fest, which never changes. But then I scoped the web site and saw that this Maker Faire appears to be more about recycling/reducing/reusing, and science. And… bleh. Anybody been to the one in San Francisco? How was it?

There’s this site called BookTour where you can look up your fave authors and see if/when they’ll be reading at a place near you. I’m telling you this because my editor asked me and her other authors to please register on it. I don’t have any readings listed yet, because I’m lazy and bad. But when I do have some readings to report, they will be there. Also, I think my fellow author/blogger Rob might have some stuff on there, so you can scope him out and then tell him he owes me kickbacks for sending you to see him.

The classic mother-daughter talk, simplified.

In case you don’t read Gawker or any other site where authors get ridiculed, I’m here to link you to old (yet fascinating) drama.
1. Pulitzer-prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler sent an email to his grad students, explaining (in extreme personal detail) the facts surrounding his wife leaving him. The email got leaked.
2. Robert Olen Butler got upset with Gawker for putting his email online.
3. Robert Olen Butler explains himself, in even greater detail.
As always, the comments are scathing. Only click those if you’re hardcore into scathing, literary, super-wrecky trainwrecks.