Ramblings of the Mildly Insane

Now that I realize there’s really no such thing as a “natural” celebrity, I may just need to stop trying to emulate them and start Photoshopping myself whenever I don’t like my photos.

Of course, right now I can’t claim to have the same type of Photoshop skillz as those who cater to the stars. *sigh* (But, I can sure try.)

For an eye-opening look at this strange reality, visit iWANEX STUDIO and do the following:

1. Click on Portfolio
2. Click on a thumbnail image
3. Hover over the larger image that pops up.
4. Bonus: hover over Penelope Cruz’s photo back and forth really fast to see her hips and boobs grow.
5. Another Bonus: hover over Beyonce’s photo back and forth really fast to see her love handles and calf-fat magically disappear.
6. Bonus that the girls will hate me for: Click on Justin Timberlake’s photo and hover.

Hattip to Heather Burns for turning me onto this entertaining, yet deeply saddening, website.

Every so often, you’ll come across a fug you need to scroll to view. As you gingerly nudge the cursor down the page, you silently think to yourself, “this isn’t so bad. I wonder why they’ve put her among the other fuggers.” And then BAM — it hits you like a steaming pile of fug.

Will these celebrities ever learn? These women have eyes like a starving hyena; no error will escape their gaze no matter how small or insignificant.

Looks like MTV finally ran out of United States landmarks to exploit for their show and have moved the act down to Australia. To my Aussie friends, you have my sympathies. To the cast, please don’t make us look like dumb Americans. Please.

Well, while boarding the slow bus as usually, I just figured out that Robin Thicke is the son of Alan Thicke (Growing Pains anyone?) and it has put a completely new spin on how I view this musician.

Yes, he’s gorgeous, but now every time I see his face, I see Alan Thicke and that’s just creepy on so many levels. It’s like having the occasional obscene thought about some very close male relative. I shudder just to think about it. Oh, God, why? WHY? WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE THIS WAY?!?

At this point, I’m wondering why Robin Thicke couldn’t have looked like his mother (who I don’t know from any cheesy family friendly programs)?

I swear, they even have the same haircut. Sort of. And it just creeps me out so much. Why couldn’t he have just stayed with the long hair hippy look? He still looked pretty fly.

Okay, I’m done rambling for the night. I’m off to bed.

It’s not often that I watch Oprah (I do love her magazine and am a faithful subscriber), but yesterday, I made it a point to watch because there was a special episode with the creators and some speakers from The Secret Movie.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the full episode and am praying someone will release it on YouTube so I can grab it before the copyright police find it.

In case you already didn’t know about The Secret, it’s about the Law of Attraction — the most powerful law there is. What you focus your attention/thoughts/feelings on will dictate your choices and actions, which will lead you to your focus. Basically, what you spend most of your time thinking about is what you’ll attract (whether you want it or not).

The DVD is inspirational and you don’t have buy it in order to see the Secret either (some people were griping about actually having to spend the money). You can watch, or download, it on YouTube.

The internet seems eerily quiet today.

I wonder if everyone is at the game, buying Doritos or perched on their sofas counting down the hours?

(Slightly off topic — did you know they have a blog? Someone needs to tell them about paragraphs, though.)

I feel like a little punk for owning up to this, but I just finished watching a show on HBO called Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me. It reminded me how wonderful it is to be a unique individual.

Listening to each of the children explain why they don’t like to be teased nearly brought tears to my eyes. I had almost forgotten that kids can sometimes be cruel to one another (and it is my firm belief that no child should ever feel pain). But each child, in their own special way, had something amazingly profound to share.

There was one child in particular that made me realize something very important - there is always something good no matter how bad the situation is. He is blind, but when faced with such adversity, he looked on the bright side.

“One good thing about being blind is that I can read in the dark.”

When he said that and opened his book to read in bed, I had to chuckle. By the time the credits began rolling, I was suddenly inspired to look at the world as though my eyes were that of a child. They have such a lovely way of looking at things.

(By the way, the title has significant meaning as I’m currently sporting some afropuffs. )

So, for about 24 hours this weekend, the insanity was offline. Needless to say, it was a hectic 24 hours as I decided to move some ultra important sites to a different hosting provider (the insanity, however, is staying right where it is for now).

Did I ever mention that moving hosts is like moving house? A pain in the ass. At least it is when you have a large site to move (not so much for the smaller websites). But it’s finally done and I’m ready for a vacation.

Since I really can’t take a vacation right now, I plan to do the next best thing and go on a book binge. Once I finish a few of the projects I currently have on my plate (one which was delayed due to the down time), I plan to spend the month of August relaxing and releasing free WordPress themes.

My August reading list includes:

• Dear Zoe, by Philip Beard. I had to get this book as soon as I saw The Lovely Bones mentioned in a review. I fell in love with The Lovely Bones (though it did drag on in places); it touched my heart so deeply it became an instant favourite. I’m hoping that Dear Zoe, doesn’t disappoint. It looks fairly short, about 200 pages, so it should only take me a couple days to complete.
• The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. This book is on the list because I absolutely want to see the movie and I have some weird thing about reading books before I see the movie. It gives me a sense of deja vu while I’m in the theatre. Since it’s another relatively short book, it’s fully possible to complete it before the movie leaves the theatres.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Okay, I really don’t know what I was thinking when I picked up this book, but it just caught my eye. The author is a Nobel Prize winner for literature, that means it has to be good, right? After scanning the first few pages, something tells me it would help greatly if I knew Spanish or at least how to roll my R’s properly. (I know what you’re thinking, but the book’s in English. A lot, if not all, of the surnames are of latin origin though.)

  Hmmm, just discovered that this book has also been added to the Oprah Book Club reading list, and so far, I’ve not been disappointed with any of the books I’ve read from the list. That means this book should be a real treat.

So as not to bore you, dear blog visitors, I only plan to post the reviews on my book review blog, but I may come back here and post a quick update to let you know which ones I liked and recommend.

I’m curious to see what others are reading this summer, if anything, so don’t hesitate to leave me a little note or drop me an e-mail with a suggestion.

I’m probably the only person in the world who hasn’t heard of Robin Thicke, so I Googled him.

Of course, his official website came up at the top of the listings. I turned my volume way down and braced myself to be bombarded with music…instead, I was greeted with beautiful silence. Nevermind. It seems I didn’t have the patience to wait for his intro to finish loading and immediately clicked the “Photos” link which explains why I was greeted by silence. Still nice not to have music on every page though.

Yes, glorious silence. I was able to click around, sample songs I actually wanted to hear (though, ladies, I would advise against watching his video if you’re offended by a camera sitting on the ground watching some girl in a bikini bounce around and ‘drop it like it’s hot’.)

Calling all music professionals, don’t assume we’ll like whichever music you set to play automatically upon arrival to your site. Don’t assume we all have our volume set to an ideal level while cruising the internet. Don’t assume that because your ass is plastered on a bazillion CD covers that we should wait nineteen hours for your music to finish loading so we can actually see the rest of your website.

That is all.

I don’t know whether to cry or throw up.

This week’s episode of Smallville is over, but that’s not what made me sick - the huge AOL logos splashed everywhere are.

Has no one informed the people at The WB that AOL sucks? If not, here’s a memo: AOL sucks.

Please stop trying to resuscitate AOL; just let it die its slow and agonizing death in peace.

Please.