Nerds!

I have been a fan of Nerds for a very, very long time. One of my first experiences of financial and gastronomical independence from my parents came during an Odyssey of the Mind competition in the 5th grade, when I bought approximately 5 boxes of Nerds and ate them in the space of a few hours. Ahhh, freedom! Nerds were also the first Valentine's Day gifts I got from a boy. Ahhh, young love, how you resemble candy!

ln recent years, however, my Nerds consumption has dropped precipitously. Soon after college I got several cavities, and an enterprising dental hygienist identified my slow but steady consumption of sugary candy as the likely culprit. For the sake of my health-care budget (and, admittedly, the size of my butt), I instituted a policy, to which I have been fairly good about sticking, to eat candy only when I go to the movies and during road trips. I didn't intend to cut out Nerds in particular, but due to the lack of Nerds vendors at the gas stations along many major highways and the fact that Nerds are disruptive during movies (shaking the candies out of the box makes a sound like maracas, dontcha know), that has been the effect.

Last night, however, a dear friend gave me two boxes of Nerds as a gift. And what a gift! (Gifts, of course, are another exception to my general candy moratorium). In honor of this occasion, I would like to share with you a haiku* dedicated to Nerds:

Bright sugar crystals--
What joy you bring to my mouth!
And holes to my teeth.


*Edited to add: Thanks to St. Scobie's Mock Whisky for the haiku idea.

This post is like a box of chocolates

This week has been one of those times when I worry that I've gone dumb. Not Helen Keller dumb, like can't talk. More like Forrest Gump dumb, like not thinking good and anything I do right is just luck. It's been the kind of week in which I expect any day could be the day when when my boss comes into my office, sits down, sighs, and says in a kindly but firm voice, "T&A Lady, I think you know why I'm here. It's nothing personal, but we've finally figured out you're a fraud. Please leave quietly." In that spirit, this post has no overall message, but is composed of random thoughts. Here goes:

Lindsay Lohan looks pretty good lately! The brown hair is a huge improvement over the nasty blonde, and she seems to have gotten at least in the same general vicinity as some food. (Observation borrowed from Go Fug Yourself).

What is going on with Article III Groupie, a.k.a. David Lat? I haven't heard anything about him/her at all since the Great Outing of Mid-November 2005. I sort of imagine that he's cowering under a desk somewhere, unable to reconcile his overachiever upright citizen lawyer self with her overachiever fabulous blogger self. Tough break, sweets. Good luck.

Mariah Carey has her assistant hold a straw to her lips so she doesn't have to pick up a glass herself (breaking news courtesy of A Socialite's Life). Interesting. I can't even imagine that that would save much energy. If I had a personal assistant, I would definitely have her take out the trash, and maybe drive me around and stuff, but I really don't think I'd get into the whole feeding-me-fluids-like-an-infant thing. It's a little too close to ass-wiping, if you know what I mean. Although if I keep it up with this dumb thing, I might have to consider it.

And that is all I've got. For reals, nothing left to say. Going to bed now. Wish me luck on the whole brain-function thing, will you?

Sayonara, Sydney. Hellooooooooo, Veronica!

So Jennifer Garner's show Alias is no more. Normally I would try not to talk smack about the recently cancelled, but I figure J.Ga can take it, what with the new baby, the future Senator husband, and the escalating movie career.

So, lemme tell you: it's about time, because Alias long ago got on the one-way Greyhound to Sucksville. It didn't have to be like this, because the show started off awesome. In season 1, Sydney appeared to be a normal grad student with a nice roommate and a cute fiance, BUT she was really a superspy in a supersecret spy group called SD-6 which she originally thought was a branch of the CIA, but when its creepy director had her fiance killed, Sydney discovered it was really evil, so she became a double agent for the CIA and got a hot hot hot handler who was forbidden to her because, you know, double agent, so they could only meet in dark alleys and not look straight at each other, which was even hotter, oh and also Sydney's only other ally in the whole double agent thing was her cold, estranged father. Omigod, just writing that started me on an Alias Season 1 nostalgia spiral. A moment of silence, please.


Thanks. Anyway, in the intervening years, there have been numerous signs saying Next Stop: Sucksville. Here are just a few [SPOILER ALERT, I mean not technically because these happened years ago, but if you intend to watch the DVDs and want to be surprised, these would be spoilers]: Sydney's roommate was killed by her own evil clone, and then the evil clone was killed, but then wait! she was alive again and then got killed again, like, 3 times. It turned out Sydney's long-dead mother wasn't really dead, and she was evil, but then maybe she wasn't, but then Sydney's father killed her, but then we found out that wait! she was actually alive (the person who was shot? Another clone, duh.) Sydney disappeared for 2 years and everyone thought she was dead, but then she came back (brainwashed into being an assassin and then brainwashed herself to forget, natch). A 15th century Michelangelo type made a prophesy that Sydney was going to bring about the end of the world, or something, but then . . . actually, not sure what happened with that. Also his followers harvested Sydney's eggs. And built a huge red ball, which exploded. And some clocks. Now Sydney's second fiance seems to be dead, but who the hell knows, and essentially the whole thing is about as internally consistent as Vice President Cheney's explanations for the Iraq war.

But am I one to dwell on the negative? Well, apparently, yes. But in this case, only for two excessively long paragraphs, because I have found something to fill the empty hole that Alias left in my soul. (Actually, Alias didn't originally create the hole, Buffy did . . . but that's a whole nother issue for another day.) And that is . . . drumroll . . . Veronica Mars!

Never heard of it? Get thee to Netflix, dudes, and thank me later. Veronica is a high-school student in an economically stratified California town who moonlights as a sleuth, solving little mysteries like "who is Meg's secret admirer" and big ones like "who murdered my best friend." Veronica is involved in one of the best love triangles in recent TV memory; she's dating the distant but dependable (or is he?) Duncan, the brother of said murdered best friend, even though she belongs with the more volatile, passionate Logan, Duncan's best friend, who Veronica thinks is an ass. Ahhh, young love! The show also has great writing, great acting, and great casting (meaning they hire lots of people who used to be on Buffy).

So, out with the sucky, in with the awesome. All in all, I am not displeased. However, if any evil clones start showing up on Veronica, I am going to need a beer and that Buffy box set.

Baby Bennifer news: Not weird!!!!

I know what you've been thinking: "Where the hell has T&A Lady been? Surely she didn't yet again retreat to her bomb shelter after another TomKat press release convinced her that the End Times were here?"

Well, in a shocking turn of events, you're only half-right. Bunker, of course; TomKat, shockingly, no!! The only thing that Tom Cruise has gotten up to this week is getting Katie an illegal sonogram machine as an engagement present, all the better to perform frequent, medically unnecessary and potentially unhealthy scans of his alien Scientology demon spawn. Pretty standard, really.

No, the bizarre news this week involves another celebrity pairing: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, who got married earlier this year. Last week they announced the birth of their first child, a girl named Violet.

And. Um. That's it! They got married, and then had a baby. They did not give the child the name of a fruit, a 1950s physics textbook, or a cartoon superhero who moonlights as a porn star.* Jennifer did not throw Ben out of the house and look into the possibility of divorce, as Britney did shortly after giving birth. The whole operation appears to be very normal and even . . . nice. I am beside myself with shock. Please wake me when the world rights itself again.

*In case I am being annoyingly cryptic and you don't want to click, I'm referring to: Apple Martin, daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin; Audio Science Clayton, the offspring of Shannyn Sossamon; and Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf Lee and/or Moxie CrimeFighter Gillette, which, omigod, the poor children.