Happy birthday, Suri and T&A!

So Katie had Tom's illegitimate Scientologist offspring! Happy birthday, Suri!

In a coincidence . . . or is it?, tomorrow (April 19) is the one-year anniversary of my humble little blog, (read: isn't it the smartest, cleverest, prettiest blog in the whole world?). Happy birthday, T&A!

Now, I must say, at first I felt a bit peeved about the TomKitten news, because I had planned a one-year anniversary posting devoted entirely to Cruise-Holmes gossip, as a means of thanking them for providing me with such a very large amount of fodder over the last year wow there are more than I thought I think this is the last one. I had this whole vision that I would pretend that their whole relationship was staged for my benefit, and I would rank their most recent exploits in terms of their smack-talk-worthiness, like so:

• Tom Cruise's "joke" about eating the placenta: too gross to mention. (Oops!) D+
• The Scientologist silent birth, and in particular the people bringing signs encouraging aforesaid silent birth into Tom and Katie's house: Holy crap. Holy crizzap. Mind-boggling to the point that I am (ironically?) speechless. A-
• Tom's "seminars" with Katie and her family, and possibly his other children, about childbirth: This is a tough one, because it's deliciously uncomfortable New Tom Cruise, even better than his "You're glib, Matt, you're glib" incident with Matt Lauer last year. However, Katie's parents and Connor and Isabella are innocent bystanders, so that makes it kind of sad. B
• Katie's conversion to Scientology: I thought that already happened last year. Come on, publicist, new material, please! C-
• The whole pregnancy is fake: THE BEST NEWS EVER!!! A++++

So you see my conundrum: Suri's arrival makes the whole "pregnancy hoax" theory a bit harder to defend. Also, I feel a little bit bad making fun of a baby who, I'm not a gambler but I'll bet you a billion dollars on this one, is going to have enough troubles without me messing with her.

So let's just focus on the other birthday girl, shall we?* Being electronic and all, she doesn't eat cake, but I know what she would love for her birthday: a bunch of supportive comments from her e-parents!

*Brooke Shields also had her baby today. No news on whether Tom got over there to make sure she wasn't taking any drugs or making noises.

Real estate deathmatch

So I have a confession to make: the reason I've been a bad blogger lately is not because I've been working hard, or because I've been outside enjoying the weather, or even because I've been lying on the couch watching MTV and drinking a whole bottle of wine while vainly imploring the cat to write another one of those non-chart things. (That's just the reason why I haven't been working hard or enjoying the weather.)

No, I've mostly been right here, at the computer, but instead of reading about gay parents storming the White House for Easter eggs or whatever else happened this week, I've been . . . reading about real estate.

That's right! Mr. T&A and I wandered into an open house on our way back from brunch one day, and thus thought vaguely about buying a house, and thus I turned to the Internets for guidance.

Dude, let me tell you, discussions about the D.C. real estate market put celebrity gossip controversies to shame. I mean, sure it's interesting to discuss whether Gwyneth and Chris named their baby Moses because they're obnoxious self-obsessed crackpots or because they're beautiful visionaries who recognize that only their offspring will be able to save us all. But if you're looking for real passion, real feeling, what you want is a real estate debate. Nobody feels neutral about the topic. You have to pick a side:

Side 1: The real estate market is a huge mouthful of Bubblicious about to burst all over those smug yuppie gentrifiers' faces, and that will show them to fuck with the affordable attached rowhouse dreams of the deserving masses. (For instance, see Bubble Meter.)

Side 2: Homeowners are moral and wise, and shall be justly rewarded with double-digit annual appreciation and mortage-interest deductions, while all others will burn in the hellfires of eternal rental payments. (OK, so that's mostly the Real Estate section.)

You can't beat this stuff with a whole bag of Lindsay Lohans. (Yes, I regret the mental image, but it's too late now.) It's gonna take something major to snap me out of this phase. TomKitten, where are you when I need you?

Another non-chart!

I quite enjoyed my last foray into imitating Entertainment Weekly's In-5 Mintutes Ago-Out charts. The format lets you bring up topics that are floating around in your head without going to the trouble of linking them to other topics to form entire thoughts, and also to make dramatic declarations without having to defend yourself. Hence:

In: Demishton Jr.
5 Minutes ago: Brangelita
Out: TomKitten

In: Bratwurst
5 Minutes ago: Tater tots
Out: Homefries

In*: Solipsism
5 Minutes ago: Ontology
Out: Magnanimity

*The point at which I start using words whose meanings I don't know.