kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk

Mmm, Autumn
Fall is in the air, my friends. First up in the mini-parade of autumnal linkage is the You Grow Girl Wild-Apple Taste-Off. Bust out the woolly sweaters and mulled cider, 'cause it's harvest time. In fact, the entire Autumn 2000 issue of YGG is fantastic. (Take a few minutes to check out an older special report: Can "Cool It Now" save a dying plant? Snicker if you want, but I recommend that you not underestimate the power of New Edition.)

And of course, no discussion of fun fall stuff would be complete without a mention of Katie's mouth-wateringly gorgeous jejune re-design. It makes me want to go pick pumpkins and bake apples and collect red & orange & gold leaves and iron them between sheets of wax paper to hang in the window.
Sunday, October 1, 2000 01:09 p.m.

The Origins of PocketPig
At last, the true story behind the origin of the marvelous & charming pocketpig! And you must check out the little pikachu ripoff that inspired Sabrina. So, so cute.
Sunday, October 1, 2000 01:08 p.m.

Hee Hee.

Here's what my stats have to say right now: "An average of 0.3 per cent of the daily visitors arrive before 00:08. Based on the number of visitors 1 to your site so far today, your site could have a total of 330 pageviews (+/-330)." Math is funny.
Sunday, October 1, 2000 12:18 a.m.

The Freaky Coincidence of The Buffy Log
Ok. So once upon a time (like, maybe a month or so ago), I was poking around girlhero and I saw a link to the very fun and named-for-easy-remembering Buffy Log. And I thought, "Hmm. That'd make a good link at kerplink. I dig these team blogs, and I dig Buffy." So the url went into my big, dorky Word document where I keep potential links for kerplink, but I didn't do anything with it because the last time any Team Buffy member had updated the log was back in May.

Some time passes, the season premiere draws near, and still, nothing. Then! Tonight, I get home from a lovely evening of fine dining & boisterous conversation and check my stats before going to bed, only to find that the very same girlhero who I've been pondering linking to has linked to me! It's just like that O. Henry story! Except for the part where we sell stuff to buy each other some presents using the things that we sold to buy the presents with.

I know that this is probably boring to most people who aren't me, and that it's the kind of in-crowd bloggers' community cutesiness that drives people to severe crankiness and to hurl accusations of wanksomeness in the general direction of bloggers who endlessly refer to one another in their entries. To which I can only say: eh. I'll get back to the fascinating links & short n' sassy entries next week. Now, I'm basking in the glow of my own tiny comedy of errors.
Saturday, September 30, 2000 11:40 p.m.

The Annals of Culture Shock, Part 2
In Which I am Shocked, Shocked by Campus Fauna

I went to a college where squirrels were so abundant as to nearly form a part of the student body. They were large and aggressive about getting bleeding-heart students to give them food. During my senior year, a peregrine falcon took up residence outside the dorm in which my best friend lived. From September to May, almost every time I walked by the tree where it made its home, I could hear the unmistakeable crunch of bones and cartilage as Perry (my nickname for the bird) chowed down on some hapless squirrel or pigeon.

However.

None of these undergraduate experiences prepared me for the very formal black squirrels and exceedingly fat pigeons of the University of Toronto. The squirrels took me aback so much that the first time I saw them, I literally jumped back in surprise. They look like little secret agents of scavenging. Their sleek black coats give them a sinister, debonair look that makes me actually want to give them food. Somebody, stop me!

And the pigeons! Sweet fancy Moses, Torontonians, what have you been feeding them? They appear to have cross-bred with pot-bellied pigs. Some of them can't even fly, so weighted down are they with their massive bellies. They're like some master race of incredibly stupid, filthy birds, bred for hugeness. And really, what's the point of having a master race of a species like that? Maybe they should import some peregrine falcons to campus. I hear they do quite well in urban settings.
Friday, September 29, 2000 05:51 p.m.

Hip-Hop Exhibit Not Hip Enough?
I'd say it's not a low hipness factor that dissatisfied the exhibit-goers quoted in this article, but the exhibit's necessarily somewhat narrow focus.

It would be nearly impossible to mount an exhibit about rap that would satisfy every fan, every musicologist, every artist in the field. The press throws around words like "rap" and "hip-hop" as though they were blanket terms that could sum up the entire genre. Exhibits like the one at the Brooklyn Museum of Art are powerful reminders of how diverse and fast-paced and geography-specific the genre is.
Thursday, September 28, 2000 11:16 a.m.

Fairy Tales, as Grimm Intended
Now this is more like it - recaps of the original stories of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Pinocchio, and the Little Mermaid, including all the gore, tragic love, and nastiness that Disney has sanitized out of them. Give me some compelling horror over neatly compartmentalized happy endings any day. Well, most days.
Thursday, September 28, 2000 11:08 a.m.

Oscar Wilde Quote Generator
I know it's dorky to like things like this as much as I do. They don't really add anything to one's web experience, and are sort of empty calories, content-wise. But I'm powerless to resist.
Thursday, September 28, 2000 11:06 a.m.

It's All About the Exclamation Points, Baby!

Today, I'm feeling very emphatic and drama-queenish. Maybe it's the massive cup of coffee I had with dinner. It could also be the giddiness brought on by the knowledge that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't want to do today. I was entirely willful and selfish all day long, and I'm all aglow with satisfaction. Oh, except for when I vacuumed the suite this morning. But other than that, I was a creature of vice. In a goody-goody kind of way. Oh, nevermind. Long story short: I had a good day.

On with the links! They're over-endowed with exuberant punctuation! Enjoy!
Wednesday, September 27, 2000 10:13 p.m.

Swingin' Chicks of the 60s!
Stolen from gmtPlus9. Wow. This is so thorough - from Nico to Catherine Deneuve to Barbara Eden to Ursula Andress. Please excuse me while I wipe the Drool of Glamour Envy from my face.
Wednesday, September 27, 2000 10:11 p.m.

Relatively Uninteresting Headline Yields Hot Celebrity Gossip Musings!
This one's for hellsbelle: Rob "Metal Up Your Ass" Halford owns legal rights to the phrase "metal god." How 'bout that?

Another interesting, if tangential bit brought up here - Charlize Theron & Stephan "pukeboy" Jenkins might be breaking up. Mr. Showbiz hints that she's involved with an older gentleman on the set of "So You Wanna Be a Rock Star". IMDB reveals that Anthony Stewart Head is in the cast of this movie (IMDB refers to it as Untitled Stephen Herek Project). I don't know. The item at Mr. Showbiz refers to the mystery man as "a sizzling elder in the acting community." That doesn't quite sound like Mr. Head to me. Still - Charlize & Giles?! Hubba hubba.
Wednesday, September 27, 2000 10:09 p.m.

Personality Compatibility Test Madness!
Time for the obligatory (yet fun) bandwagon jump. The Spark has this personality test up, and the fun bit is that once you've done it, you give the system the email addresses of folks you know to find out how compatible you are with them. It's a pared-down Myers-Briggs test, and I always find myself wanting to answer "none of the above" on those. So I don't really agree with their assessment of me (they think I'm an Artist. Whatever.), but it's still a cute little exercise in time suckage.

And now, for the frivolous & revealing results: According to The Spark, I'm a shocking 100% compatible with Tom Ewing (and Jack Saturn, whoever he may be), 89% compatible with Nanette, and 96% compatible with her guy, Aaron. I'm also 81% compatible with the lovely Matt. My Ryan Schreiber compatability quotient is a whopping 45%. I have no idea what that means, since I don't really follow the Pitchfork crew's work, but Tom asked for the stats, so I'm obliging him. We are 100% compatible, after all, so I can deny him nothing.
Wednesday, September 27, 2000 10:08 p.m.

Buffy Spoilers Galore
Oh. My. God. Reading these spoilers make me wish I didn't have class tonight and that I had access to a TV. I was a litle (ok, a lot) excited about tonight's season premiere of Buffy, but now I'm delirious with anticipation.

To read the spoilers, click and drag over the white spaces at the end of the diary entry.
Tuesday, September 26, 2000 11:54 a.m.

98 Degrees Gettin' Nastaaaay
Oh, this is too funny. 98 Degrees, hunky-yet-average boyband extraordinaire, have pulled a naughty song from their new album. Band member Jeff describes the song as "a real career-killer", which begs the question, why did they record it in the first place? You know bootlegs of it are going to be downloaded all over the place, as their older fans will want to squeal over lyrics like "let's do it by the fridge."

My generous guess is that they recorded it prior to Nick Lachey's highly publicized chaste relationship with Jessica Simpson. However, the cynic within can't help thinking that they recorded "Can I Touch You There?" and then leaked the information that they were pulling it from the album just to remind people that they're, y'know, guys, with, uh, urges.
Tuesday, September 26, 2000 10:16 a.m.

Banned Books Week Information Central
Yes, it's Banned Books Week. The ALA brings you all the news you want & need, including a link to a list of the 100 most frequently banned or challenged books of the 1990s. I'm off to go read some Madeleine L'Engle now.
Monday, September 25, 2000 12:51 p.m.

Blueberries for Sal Cover Art
While we're on the subject of books, I may as well take a moment to be extra-self-referential. Here it is: the cover of the book that was the inspiration for this blog's name.
Monday, September 25, 2000 12:48 p.m.

Human League Tribute Album
Lots and lots of Merritt-ania here. Why didn't I think of that? Of course Future Bible Heroes should cover "Don't You Want Me"! Scrumptious-sounding. Via starry vs the baddies. In fact, the entire March Records site is full of treats for your auditory canal, so even if a Human League tribute album makes you feel nauseous, there are plenty of other reasons to visit the main url.
Monday, September 25, 2000 12:46 p.m.

The SAG Strike
Pamie sets forth all the stuff you probably have not heard about the SAG strike. This is a much, much bigger deal than I'd originally thought. And here's me, boo-hooing over disrupted big-budget film schedules, while Joe and Jane Commercial Actors are being screwed over, big time, by the Advertising Man. Damn. I'm just going to go wipe the egg off my face over here in the corner.
Monday, September 25, 2000 12:45 p.m.