Not gone forever!

This will be a short one, but I just wanted to assure anyone who is still checking my blog that I have not given up the goat--I have just moved and haven't gotten the Internets at home yet. As soon as I figure out how to make those little packets of data run rapidly along some wires to and from my house, I will back!

Excuses, excuses

If you've been worried that my nearly month-long absence means I'm pulling a David Lat and abandoning my blog for greener pastures, never fear, I'm not going noplace. What's my excuse this time? Well, I'm passing over my usual "I'm lazy" in favor of the bolder option: I've been busy! Shockingly, I even have something to show for it: Mr. T&A and the T&A Kitties and I are joining the propertied class by buying a house. Consider yourself warned: In the future you can expect to see discussions of such issues as paint colors and patio furniture (if things go well) and second jobs and foreclosures (if not so much).

Contemplating which excuse to use to explain my absence has led me to reflect on what makes a good excuse. Popular culture, in its endless bounty, has recently provided us with several impressive examples:

Zidane: The French soccer star who headbutted the Italian player and got kicked out of the World Cup final says he doesn't regret it because the other guy insulted his sister and sick mother, made a comment about getting with his wife, or called him the "son of a terrorist whore," depending on who you talk to.
Discussion: The mother/sister/wife combo captures the the ultimate trifecta of unforgiveable disses, and Zidane's savvy refusal to say exactly what the insult was allows our imaginations to cavort about in a filthy mess of sexual/religious/racial possibilities. On the other hand, he screwed up a game that I understand a lot of people care a lot about. I give it an B+.

The Italian guy: Said he couldn't have provoked the head-butt by calling Zidane a terrorist because "I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means."
Discussion: Huh? There may be some kind of different-cultures-how-can-we-possibly-understand-one-another explanation for this, but that's lame--a good excuse should transcend our differences, if you will. This barely gets a C-.

Britney: In the midst of the gum-chomping, hair-not-combing, boob-flopping, mascara-clumping, maternity-hooker-clothing-sporting glory that was Britney's interview with Matt Lauer, Brit-Brit managed to explain that she drives with her baby in her lap rather than in a car seat because her family is "country."
Explanation: At first glance this might seem as inexplicable as the Italian guy's "ignorant" thing, but upon further examination you realize: No, it actually works, because you really believe it. I totally buy that Britney remembers sitting on her dad's lap as a little girl--albeit probably a 6-year-old, not an infant--and that she has ignored all the information about car seats that one might have picked up in the intervening 18 years. Also, the word "country" itself is great--it's relatively innocuous, but it invokes a rich tapestry of stereotypes about trailer trash that are reinforced by Britney's aforementioned appearance. Good job, Mrs. Federline--I give it an A-.

That's it for now, folks. Tune in next time, same bat-channel, couldn't say what bat-month.

At least I'm not blaming you

So I've been absent for, like, almost a month. I've been avoiding posting again partly out of a sense of guilt and resultant avoidance. How could I come slinking back after heartlessly neglecting T&A for so long?

But this recent post on Underneath Their Robes gave me insight into a different approach to the situation. Article III Groupie hadn't posted for many moons, and when she came back she did so by spraying a whole lotta piss & vinegar at her readers:

If you're angry at A3G for not doing more judicial gossip blogging -- A3G asks: Are you paying her to do this? No? Well, then she doesn't owe you anything. To the contrary, if you've enjoyed this blog at all between its inception and today, then you owe A3G a debt of gratitude.

Bitchy Bitcherina McBitcherton! Clearly I should never have even considered apologizing for my totally infrequent blogging; I should taunt you instead. In that vein, I just typed, "Why are you still checking my blog, when it's clear I've abandoned it? Don't you have work to do or something? Get a life, will you!" but then that seemed mean, and also not funny, and also I really want for you to check my blog, so I deleted it.

Now that we've had that talk, let's never speak of it again, shall we?

So the season finale of Veronica Mars is on on Tuesday (9 EST, UPN), and I can barely sleep with anticipation. However, if you've never watched the show before, you should probably start with the Season 1 DVD rather than just jumping in this week, since the plot is very twisty and complicated, and plus it's a whodunnit, so if you watch the end then you'll kind of spoil the whole Season 2 experience for yourself.

That is, unless you're a Neislon Ratings Family, in which case you should invite your whole town over to watch it with you. Part of the reason for my bated breath about the finale is not just because I'll find out who crashed the school bus and whether Veronica and Logan will get back together (pleasepleasepleaseplease) but also because it will bring us closer to the announcement about whether Veronica Mars will be picked up for a third season when the WB merges with UPN to form CW. It seems Veronica is at risk of becoming the next Arrested Development or Freaks and Geeks--shows that were just too pure and beautiful for this world, kind of like Beth in Little Women or the Democratic party in an election.

All hope is not lost, however--there is a dedicated and very active fan base agitating mightily for a third season, as demonstrated by this press release about how they've hired a plane to fly between L.A. and Burbank with a "Renew Veronica Mars!" banner in tow, which aaaaalmost crosses the line from "dedicated" to "nutso loony with a side of the crazies." Almost.

Needless to say, I am not part of this group--as my aforementioned monthlong hiatus shows, I'm more "lazy" than "nearly insane with activism"--but to those who are, I say: I mock because I am impressed. Godspeed to you, and may your aeroplane be the harbinger of many seasons of Veronica Mars to come.

A fake anonymity is the hobgoblin of scared bloggers

The outing and subsequent disappearance of Article III Groupie has spawned a mini-boom in blogging about the impossibility of anonymous blogging.

But enough about other people, let's talk about me! It is extremely obvious that I'm not really anonymous--probably 90% of you know who I am because I told you, I give out personal information like candy to a baby, and until recently any obnoxious self-promotional emailing I did was from my regular email address. (No more, though! T&A Lady has her own email address! Woo hoo!)

Anyhow, the real question is, Why am I fake-anonymous? The answer is that I have some vague fear that I would get fired if I wasn't. Why? I don't know really, but it seems like this has happened to other people for somewhat difficult-to-discern reasons.

Of course I would expect to get booted if I were, say, working for a Republican Senator and blogging on my work computer about prostituting myself to high-ranking Administration officials, a la Jessica Cutler, or dissing my employer by name, like this ex-Google employee.

However, what's up with, for instance, Nadine Haobsh, who tried to console herself for the uneven distrubution of vowels in her last name and the fact that she was working as a beauty editor at Ladies' Home Journal by anonyblogging about celebrity gossip and such as Jolie in NYC? Everything was going swimmingly for her, and she had even been offered another job at Seventeen Magazine, until her identity was revealed, at which point she lost both jobs in one fell swoop. Her mistake, apparently, was revealing such earth-shattering information as the fact that her boss got free stuff from Marc Jacobs. The horror!

Admittedly some bloggers, like Harold Bashman and The Union Lawyer, blog with the full knowledge of their employers. But given that I am neither brave nor my own boss, is it really feasible to ask my boss if there's a policy on blogging? What's a vaguely scared, fake-anonymous blogger to do?

Buh-bye for now

I'm going out of town, so I probably won't post anything for a week or so. Because I wouldn't want anyone to lack distractions at work, let me direct you to some of my favorite websites, for your amusement.

Gawker: It's an oldie but goodie. Here's a post from last week that sent me into a fit of uncontrollable, inappropriate giggling at work:

Not even a week after Paris Hilton officially announced the break-off of her engagement to Paris Latsis, the heiress has been spotted skanking around with Stavros Niarchos, aka Mary-Kate Olsen’s boyfriend. If our little squirrel twin goes into an anorexic tailspin because of this, we will kill Hilton with our bare hands. Bitch. [Page Six]

Heeheheeeheeeeee.

Veiled Conceit: Strangely obsessed with the New York Times wedding announcements? Then you'll love Veiled Conceit! It saves you the trouble of reading through all those pages to find the gems, and, more importantly, it reassures you that you're right to mock the wedded. Here's a fabulously snarky one from early September:

The parade of staggeringly self-important cultural elitism marches
on...

Those concerns were swept aside when she met Mr. Walter, who was devouring a translation of "The Guermantes Way," part of Proust's multivolume novel "In Search of Lost Time." As it happened, Ms. Giebel was reading "Swann's Way," the first volume in the series - but in French.

Were it not in the Paper of Record I'd be sure this were a parody. Could two sentences so perfectly capture the vain one-upmanship of the literati and not be contrived? No reference can go unchallenged in this set, and the fact that he didn't come back at her saying that he was actually reading it in Gaelic Braille is shocking. And (forgive me but someone had to say it) Proust would have hated these pompous snobs (but in French).

I don't know from Proust, but I love me some bitchiness!

Television without Pity: Summaries of TV shows that are often more amusing than the TV shows themselves. Here's part of the recap of last week's Alias:

Jennifer Garner and the Cardigan of Baby Concealage run off in an attempt at escape, but she kind of dumbly runs right into the fake ambulance and the fake EMTs all start shooting at her, like, way to keep her ALIVE, dudes. Syd runs off to the Cornfield of Convenience with fake EMTs chasing after her. Chase, chase, chase, shoot, shoot, shoot, violins, violins, violins. Yes, it's just about that interesting. Syd disturbs what looks like a flock of white doves, even though it really should be crows, which, did a band of one-armed kindergarteners write this episode or what, and whatever, this tips off the fake EMTers and they run after her and somehow she makes it to the edge of the cornfield undetected and she sneaks up on a couple of them and takes 'em out with a few shots.

The band of one-armed kindergartners thing is going to keep a grin on my face all week.

Finally, Stuff on my Cat:
Dude, when I get back I'm totally going to train T&A Kitty to let me put stuff on her. Then she'll be famous!

OK, I'm outtie. Bye!