Out of the mouths of K Feds

You might have read about Kevin Federline's proclamations to Entertainment Weekly that he's the most underrated artist in his field, and that he used to be embarassed to buy tampons, but now that's "all past tense," and "once you make it through that, you're good."

Miraculously, those actually aren't the most earth-shattering thing Mr. Britney says in the interview (which isn't actually an interview, it's a "pop culture personality test" consisting of 11 questions, all along the lines of "The A-Team member I most relate to is ____," and none of which have wrong answers . . . or so it seemed until Kevin answered them.)

Here is the highlight of K Fed's quiz:

Q: Diaper genie or diaper champ?

A: I don't know which one we have. All
it says is genie on top.

Words fail.

Armaweddin

My wedding anxiety dreams, previously confined to your standard I-forgot-to-get-my-hair-done-and-the-caterer-didn't-show-up kind of thing, this week took a turn for the freaky. I dreamed that North Korea blew up a big nuclear bomb, and everybody in the world either died or was going to die imminently. Mr. T&A and I did not die right away, so we decided to go ahead with the wedding, since if the world is ending you might as well have a party. However, what with most people in the world being dead, very few people came to the wedding (like, 5 or so) and everyone who was there looked like a ghoul from the Thriller video--tattered clothing, skin falling off in chunks, that kind of thing--and the whole thing was very depressing.

If you're coming to our wedding, don't say I didn't warn you.

All the King's Men: A Redo

I'm a little late on this now, since the movie version of All the King's Men has been out for weeks, but as a wise man once said, "Justice delayed is justice that gets there a little bit later."

So, All the King's Men, which is a fictionalization of the reign of Huey Long, the nearly dictatorial 1930s Governor of Louisiana, is one of my favorite books. This is perhaps weird, since its kind of florrid, over-the-top Gothic prose and college-sophomore philosophizing is kind of contrary to my previously discussed tendency to get embarassed by sincerity, but I read it at an impressionable age, so as far as I'm concerned it will always be the bee's knees.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that the casting director for the new movie version had done her job by drunkenly throwing darts at a list of Prestige British Actors, and, when a couple of reasonable choices slipped in there, cheekily switching them to the wrong role. In case you have not re-read the book dozens of times since high school, I provide you with the following re-casting in order that you should re-imagine it as it should have been:

Jack Burden: Average-looking, aristocratic, arguably alcoholic newspaperman who digs up dirt on political enemies for Governor Stark, and meditates gothically on history and his unrequited love for Anne Stanton. Theirs: Jude Law. Could not be more wrong for this part if he were a tall, cold, blond British man . . oh wait. Redo: Mark Ruffolo

Adam Stanton: Tall, cold, blond, driven, accomplished surgeon with a "mouth like a clean knife wound"; childhood friend of Jack, brother of Anne. Theirs: Mark Ruffolo. WTF! Redo: Jude Law.

Anne Stanton: Beautiful, reserved, tragic aristocratic daughter of a former Governor, nearing spinsterhood, doomed never to find love because of epic failed childhood love for Jack--but wait, what's going on between her and Willie? Theirs: Kate Winslet. Too vivacious and young, not to mention British. Redo: Patricia Clarkson

Sadie Burke: Smart, tough, pockmarked, crazy-haired, jealous right hand woman to Governor Stark, in more ways than one. Theirs: Patricia "Gorgeous" Clarkson. Redo: Amy Sedaris.

Judge Irwin: Tall, handsome, good-postured, aristocratic, honorable--or is he?--judge, longtime friend of former Governor Stanton, sometime political supporter of Governor Stark, and father figure to Jack. Theirs: Anthony Hopkins. Can I get you a side of flabby with your order of slouch? Redo: Paul Newman

And finally . . .

Willie Stark: The hick, populist, charismatic, corrupt, Louisiana governor based on Huey Long. Theirs: Sean Penn. Good actor and all, but you wouldn't call him charming or charismatic, and his arms are short like a band nerd's. Redo: Bill Clinton. Mmmmmm.

When somebody remakes this again using my casting, I am going to totally demand a free ticket.

Project Foley

It seemed that Keith, the first-ever designer to get kicked off Project Runway for breaking the rules, got a crash course in crisis management before appearing on the reunion special last night. Unfortunately for him, he got it from the Republican leadership of Congress circa Mark Foley.

Keith got busted for having pattern books, which are banned by the rules of the show, or at least they're banned according to everybody but Keith. Keith was not about to concede this point. "I don't remember reading any rules against having design books"--it was Keith's version of the "Someone may have mentioned something about some dirty emails, but I averted my eyes when they showed them to me, so I don't really know what they said." I, will admit to also having tried this oldie but goodie: "Dear Police Department, Please find me innocent of this parking ticket, as I did not look at the signs by the side of the road before I parked." It might work for big-scale stuff like a failed war, but for mundane stuff kiddie-toucher-cover-ups, low-level cheaters, and illegal parkers, it just doesn't fly.

T&A Goes Sherlock

So, as you know, Mr. T&A and I got burgled the other week. While my initial thankfulness for my good fortune at having lost only stuff fairly quickly gave way to a low-level murderous rage at somebody for taking my stuff, I had ranked the possibility of the burglars getting caught up there with the chance that Suri Cruise would grow up to be well-adjusted.

Thus, at first I at first didn't notice the strange goings-on with my Netflix account. First, September 25, Netflix sent me an email saying I had returned a personal DVD. Huh, I vaguely thought, I wonder what that was? Then about a week later I noticed that we had 4 Netflixes, when we only pay for 3.

It wasn't until I got back the supposed personal DVD that I began to recognize the Netflix oddities as Possible Clues. It was a white DVD with "Debbie's Bridal Pics" written on it in purple marker, containing, what do you know, Debbie's bridal pictures.* It was not mine.

Now, I am getting married soon,** and I have spent my fair number of months being obsessed with wedding-related message boards. Thus, I know from hilariously freaky wedding pictures, and I can say with authority that Debbie's rank up there. The engagement shots in particular are exemplars of the genre: all 2 dozen of them show Mr. Debbie leaning sulkily against a weathered wall or other rugged object while while Debbie sort of humps his left leg, sticking out her left butt cheek for inspection, splaying her left hand avec ring on his chest, and turning her head around to growl at the camera in profile. We also got through most of the semi-pornographic "getting ready" shots of Debbie in her skivvies before we started to feel slightly dirty and switched to VH1.

Then, a few days later, I updated my Netflix cue and noticed that Netflix thought I had returned Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Disc 4, on September 25. In fact, this DVD was stolen in the burglary (along with the DVD player containing it), and while we had gotten a replacement copy from Netflix, we had not yet returned it.

Finally the elements started to come together. Someone returned our stolen DVD and Debbie's Bridal pics right at the same time! But, dear readers, this is where I get confused. Presumably it was the burglars, because how else would they get our Gilmore Girls? But why would they steal one of our return sleeves or envelopes? (I don't remember if any were missing.) Why would they bother to return the DVDs? Why did they return Debbie's wedding pics? Did Debbie and Mr. Debbie also get burlged, or (as I prefer to think) are Debbie and Mr. Debbie the burglars?

We ran these theories by the police, but they did not seem particularly enticed. If any of you crime-cracking people (or Netflix experts) have any ideas, please let me know!

*Yeah, I looked at a total stranger's wedding pictures that I got by accident, and now I'm making fun of them on the internet. You wanna take it outside?

**I have not mentioned the whole getting-married thing before partly in order to preserve my thin veneer of fake anonymity, and partly because I didn't want to seem like a lame-o who can't shut up about my wedding. However, now it seems relevant, plus there is really very little else going on in my brain right now. I am spending considerable time thinking about things like, "Which is a better organizing principle for seating charts, balance of talkativeness or similarity of interests?"