Oh My God, This Is My Life

Post Grad.

Except I don't look like Alexis Bledel, and I haven't so completely run out of options that I've moved back to Florida. But still. There but for the grace of God...

It's Time for the Ellies!

Tonight, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) hosted its presumably swank National Magazine Awards ceremony (the aforementioned "Ellies") at Lincoln Center. For all twelve of you out there who care, you can find a full list of the winners over at the ASME site.

For those who don't care, just know that Foreign Policy magazine (this magazine does, apparently, exist) beat out Time Out New York, Mother Jones, Paste, and Los Angeles. Oh, and Field and Stream beat The New Yorker. Look, ASME. There's a difference between "Giving The New Yorker Every ASME Award Possible" and "Completely Ignoring Quality Publications Just to Break the Mold." I mean, really. Reader's Digest? That shit has not been relevant since about 1973.

Sumner Redstone Lays the Smackdown On...Everyone

I think Sumner Redstone just beat out (Not) Ben Sylverman as my favorite entertainment exec. The Hollywood Reporter gathered a bunch of quotes from him from his appearance on Larry King and some other even in LA.

The best ones are:

"CSI will beat the hell out of [Leno]."

"I'm not going to die. I'm going to live forever." (He's 86, so he just might.)

I mean, he's completely right about Leno going down. Old people (and my parents) love their CSI. But is this how you get to be a hojillionaire? That sort of confidence is almost enviable. And it's not like he's spouting off about how The Unit is going to change the ratings landscape. He's got his sure bets (Paramount will probably have a really good year), and he's not afraid to rub them in your face.

Wilco the Blog Post

I won't say I've been "anxiously" awaiting word on what the next Wilco album (coming out in late June, apparently) will be called, because I've got many anxiety-inducing things going on in my life and an album name is not really up high on that list. I will say I was "eager" to hear, though.

Well, now word is that it'll be called "Wilco (The Album)". It's clever, what with there being a track called Wilco The Song on it and all, but I'm just a teensy, tiny bit disappointed. I mean, check out the track listing (in order, according to the band's site):

Wilco The Song
Deeper Down
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
You And I
You Never Know
Country Disappeared
Solitaire
I'll Fight
Sunny Feeling
Everlasting

"Bull Black Nova" is a totally boss song name. The album name is still cool, but...eh.

Anyway, I absolutely cannot fucking wait for this to drop, if only because "You and I" is going to be the greatest song of all time. Jeff Tweedy + Feist? I don't think it gets any better than that. Oh, and when they played "Wilco The Song" on The Colbert Report, I greedily lapped it up. Late June, where are you?

On Transgenesis

I didn't particularly enjoy last Tuesday's Fringe (I thoroughly enjoyed this week's ep, though). Fringe, like all Jaybrams shows, requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. (Yes, even Felicity; they had that fucking Time Warp thing in the last season.) But there are some things that are just too goddamn out there to take. On this list you'll find transgenesis.

Transgenesis in and of itself isn't unbelievable--researchers have been doing it for a while now. Take a gene out, put one in from a different source, blah blah DNA-cakes. But actually making some sort of chimera? No. No, no, no. There is a reason these beings are mythical, people. But if you're going to go all mythical, don't just go for broke. What's wrong with starting with, like, a unicorn? That's more realistic. ("More" being a relative term, here.)

Of course, now that I've roundly dismissed the possibility of a "frankenrhino" (as Pacey called the creature in the show), I find out they're making fluorescent puppies.

I'm not really a militant animal rights activist. I eat meat. I eat meat from fast-food restaurants that probably treat their cows horribly before slaughtering them in an inhumane fashion. This is because, when you have no money, you cannot afford to buy free-range bison steaks from those guys in Union Square. You can afford one McChicken sandwich off the Dollar Value Menu.

But this just doesn't sit well with me. I know, I know, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette (or cure cancer), but...Puppies. Cloning. Can't we stick to cloning rats?

Don't shit where you eat

That's a fairly common aphorism, no?

Apparently not in Taiwan.

(Suddenly, I want some Tasti-D-Lite. Does that make me gross?)

On Eerie Similarities

So, back in October, while still in the delightful EW cocoon, I had an idea for a sort of JJ Abrams checklist. I noticed how ridiculously similar Fringe was to the rest of the Jaybrams oeuvre, pitched it, and got it. The list of similarities I came up with was pretty extensive, but of course, what with the limitations of print space, only a few categories saw the light of day. That box was my first byline in EW, so I remember it well. It looks stupid in its online form, but whatever.

Two minutes ago, I go to check out Television Without Pity (as you do). And I see...this.

I know, I know. It's not the exact same thing. TWoP's is focused on characters (and has more errors--Peter Bishop isn't actually an MIT grad, guys; his degree is fake), but...I still feel a little ripped off. It's almost like TWoP's slideshow is...Fringe...and my box is...Alias ZOMG SO META.

Anyway, I just thought I'd point that out.