I am never pre-ordering another album from iTunes ever again. bb Kris's CD totally just downloaded a.) late, b.) filled with interestingly-titled songs such as "Debut Album Track 1," and "Debut Album Track 3," and c.) without the real album artwork or booklet, ARE YOU SERIOUS. I feel a Fuck iTunes post coming on.

( I need to have some ALL CAPS words with Gossip Girl now. )

I feel like I should talk about Vampire Diaries while I am at it... trying to remember what happened...

( Le Diaries du Vampire. )

It's not even close to be the worst thing about the Democratic compromises over abortion and immigration to get their HCR passed, but... selfishly, the most personally annoying thing to me is having stuff like this pop up on my daily blog trawl, about how Stupak is "smart" and will "save the future of the Democratic Party." DNW to read stupid white men posturing about how making it tougher to be a poor woman in the United States is an investment in the Democratic Party's future. Especially not after I have spent months watching the caucus gut the bill and stuff it full of goodies and loopholes for their campaign donors.

OH, PRINCIPLES. How very ~small tent~ of me.

ETA: OH! I meant to talk about this earlier, but I heard last week that one of Georgia's gubernatorial candidates signed some ridiculous letter demanding that President Obama release his birth certificate. Yeah, turns out it was Nathan Deal. My congressman. I would despair, but I do not have any despair about my surroundings (politically speaking, otherwise it's quite nice!) left. I will just be exasperated instead.

Why so schitzo, Gossip Girl? I actually loved tonight's episode. Queen Jenny vs. Queen Eric? Yes, plz! ( The only thing I hated... ) Anyway, four for you... OMG, THIS WAS BY AMANDA LASHER. I told you guys (well, I told ggconspiracy), she is the beeeest. I really like all of her episodes, plus I suspect she is the closet Dan/Blair shipper on staff. Ten zillion for you, Amanda Lasher.

And I need that T.I. cover yesterday. And I loved "Ease Off the Liquor" in the promo, so appropriate.

Okay, brb, listening to new Kris Allen and Maaaayer. Too much fun new music lately, I can't handle it. Have you guys heard the new Swell Season? Fucking guh.

Eric Braedon signing a new contract was a total Looney Tunes moment for me. I was Wile E. Coyote, and a Victorless Y&R was my roadrunner. I could practically taste it, and then the universe said DENIED. ( Oh, this show. )

Even though I usually hate law procedurals, I'm officially on board with The Good Wife. I was going to write about it, but mardia says pretty much everything I was going to say about how impressed I am with it in this post. This show has really great casting.

( The last two episodes of Gossip Girl. )

( Ugly Betty )

( Le Diaries du Vampire )

It's one thing for the government to say taxpayer $$$ can't be used to pay for abortions. I disagree, but at least I can understand that. It's entirely another thing for Congress to bar private insurance providers from paying for/towards abortions. Some people may not like it, but abortions are legal medical procedures, period. So I'm calling bullshit on this step backwards. Even with a generous assessment of the intentions behind this, it's bullshit the Democratic party had to sell out women -- the majority of their voters, by the freaking way -- to get their weaksauce HCR through the House.

Hopefully the Senate will water that shit down. Since watering stuff down is pretty much all the Senate is good for.

Added a ton of new music to my workout playlist, so I am actually psyched to hit the road. (Gotta skedaddle if I'm gonna hit the 620 milemarker before Christmas. Should hit 500 next week!)

Speaking of new music, has anyone heard the new Timbaland/Timberlake track "Carryout"? In which fast food is an extended metaphor for sexytimes? (take my order 'cause your body like a carryout) It's completely bizarre; they must've wrote it while they were hungry.

ETA: I just got in at 6:20, and it was pitch black outside, ugh. I'm also cold. I mostly have been running or walking in shorts or crops, but I am going to need to invest in some pants. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but oh my gosh, it is so hard to find exercise pants in tall/long. Whenever I talk myself into buying a pair of average pants, they end up shrinking and hellooo, highwaters. NY&Co does tall yoga pants, but they don't have pockets, and I cannot do without pockets for keys, cell, iPod, emergency money, etc. My jacket has pockets, but I don't always wear the jacket. (Whereas pants are sort of required.) Last Sunday I passed some kids selling lemonade and I wanted some sooo bad. But no pockets = no money. I NEED POCKETS. I also need them to not be, like, $30+ a pop.

It is too bad nobody from Fandom Wank is all over the latest ontd_ai meltdown(s), because it is the BSCiest stuff I have seen in fandom for awhile, what with all the secret communities, fixed elections, crazy infighting, and whiplash-giving string of mod resignations.

And to think the comm is locked down to keep the crazy out! Sry2say, but the call is coming from INSIDE the house.

I dont care about baseball at all, but watching the Yankees win the World Series is always so completely joyless and unfun.

I am so busy right now, so busy I will not even be able to watch Gossip Girl. But I just really needed to say two things about Senator Joe Lieberman saying he will filibuster the health care legislation if it includes a public option.

1. I hate that guy.

2. I think it is hilarious. Because you know, this is totally the fault of exactly the people who are in charge right now. Ned Lamont won the democratic nomination in '06, meaning the actualfax democratic voters of Connecticut did not want Lieberman to represent them in either the election or the Senate. But Lieberman won because the Republicans/White House supported him *and* because the establishment Democrats and all of their money supported him. Barack Obama even campaigned for him! (This may have been during the primary, I don't really remember, but still.)

JUST SAYING. I hope President Obama & Co. enjoy dealing with exactly the junior senator from Connecticut that they deserve.

I just don't understaaaand.

I finished the new Emma!

( Final thoughts! Of which I have lots, apparently. )

It's so annoying that in some ways I'm so impressed with this adaptation, specifically because it elevated several elements of the story I'd never really thought about into two major themes and ultimately gave me new insights into the source material. And I love that! But in a bunch of other ways it was not fantastic. So I am torn! I think if I had to choose which Emma I'd recommend to a non-Austenite, I'd still say the Gwyneth Paltrow version. Which is probably the best one, as far as movies go. But as an adaptation, I do think this one is by far the most interesting of the three I've seen. It sort of reminds me of how I feel about the 2005 P&P which is basically: flawed, but ultimately more interesting than the 1995 version. Ha, maybe I should have just wrote that.

I want to watch all of Sandy Welch's adaptations now. I'm not the biggest fan of her North & South adaptation, but I think that's more about the source material than he script. And I did like the new version of Jane Eyre more than I expected to.

Just finished logging my 10K (6.2 miles) for the Nike+ Human Race, zomg. Set a personal best, but I expect to be around 10-15 minutes above average because I walked about a third of it. My legs were basically done at 7.71K. I went in about the 10,000th best-trained runner for the race on Nike.com, so if I have a comparable time, I'm cool with that. And not pushing it too much means I feel pretty decent; my legs are a little rubbery is all. The cool thing is I am only going to keep getting stronger and faster, and next time I will be better. And the time after that, I might even be good enough to have a strategy beyond JUST KEEEEP RUUUNIIING, heh.

Now I am going to go eat something gigantic because I am ridiculously hungry.

Gossip Girl! ( Like someone as fabulous as Gina Torres could ever have spawned Vanessa Abrams. )

( Ugly Betty )

( Vampire Diaries )

I thought the new Emma was a little uneven this week, but I guess I will mostly refrain from commenting until I've seen the next part. I think it's partly that the actress who plays Jane Fairfax's delivery is so forceful that I'm having trouble reconciling it with the character. But mostly it's that so much of the direction was just plain weird.

I keep getting this annoying pain in my left leg. I don't know exactly which muscle hates me, but I'd guess it's the one(s) you use when you lift your leg forward. Even something as simple as lifting my left leg to cross my right one can be... not exactly painful, but difficult. I think maybe it's a quadricep issue, so I have been trying to strengthen them in a variety of ways. I even did ten miles total of hill-training in the past two days. (That sounds so srs-bzns athletic! Truthfully, I am the least athletic person I know.) I'm also trying to bike, emphasis on the TRY. I biked so much during my two weeks on vacation, and it was lovely. But that was an island, where it is flat. Here is the opposite of flat, and I am DONE after forty minutes trying to get up a couple of hills, it's really sad. I need to get better at standing up on the pedals to get up the toughest parts, but I'm so tall on the bike, and it is scary. Or maybe I suck at the gears? I don't know, but it's not going well.

I really, really need to not ever hear "I Gotta Feeling" ever again. I'd rather be tied to a chair and forced to listen to "Party in the USA" on repeat.

It's that time of the week again! ( Gossip Girl )

In other TV news, I *really* like the new Emma so far. ( Thoughts! )

I'm so annoyed about Ugly Betty's big premiere being delayed until next week. I went for a run, showered, made dinner, and sat down at 9:00 all ready to watch, except... there was no Ugly Betty. At first I was angry with my TiVo, but apparently it's ABC's fault. Specifically Flash Forward, Modern Family, and The Middle's faults, like I needed another reason not to watch any of those shows.

( Young and the Restless )

( The Vampire Diaries )

( Melrose Place )

( Private Practice, S3 EXPLAINED )

Like a lot of other people, I am super curious about which TV couple Ausiello's latest blind item is about.

Since I was denied new Ugly Betty, I watched some third season Dawson's Creek instead, and it's crazy how different the CW-styled teen dramas are from the WB's. It was so angsty when Pacey and Joey fell for each other. It was this incredibly wrong thing, even though they were both single, and everyone was all OH MY GOSH, WHAT WILL DAWSON SAY WHEN HE FINDS OUT? But nowadays, Blair doesn't care about Serena supposedly dating Nate in the Hamptons. Nate doesn't care about Blair dumping him for Chuck. Serena would rather Dan's walk of shame involve Blair than Georgina. Naomi doesn't care that Ethan loves Silver. Etcetera! In retrospect, Pacey and Joey's all-caps CONCERN for Dawson and Andie's feelings seems positively quaint.

It's also interesting how much more self-contained the drama is on Gossip Girl than it was on DC. Dan and La Duff meet, go out a couple times, break it off, then agree to start over... all in one episode. I feel like the same story line would have been at least a three-episode affair on a show like Dawson's Creek. On the one hand, the new shows move faster. On the other, the stuff that went down on the Creek mostly seemed more momentous. The trademark OMFG moments on GG are fun, but when those sorts of moments happened on shows like Felicity or the Creek, it usually felt like a bigger deal, and the show lingered long enough to milk more drama out of them than GG ever does.

IDK, I honestly haven't thought about this very much. DC was the WB's signature teen drama, and GG is the CW's, so I think it is worth stewing over; maybe I'll poast more later.

P.S. I totally forgot Michael Pitt was on the Creek! Oh, the hilarity.

( Gossip Girl )

I attempted to read Jacob's recap of "The Lost Boy", but he's progressed to what essentially amounts to songfic. I'm not exaggerating! He inserts lyrics and prose into his recaps at random intervals. I don't even know, you guys.

( Vampire Diaries )

And did you guys hear the fuckery about James Franco joining General Hospital?! At first I was going to be all nasty about it and say he doesn't need to "research" bad acting (disclaim: I think he's great at comedy, less so with drama), but the actualfax truth is that I'm insanely jealous he's not coming to my soap! I also find his explanation RIDICULOUS, so I'm wondering if his two months at GH is mostly about gathering footage for a mockumentary and garnering tons of publicity in the process? Unless he's some kind of insane method actor? That's my theory, anyway.

Holy crap! I just had the kind of nightmare that makes you want to get up at six o'clock on a weekend! The kind of nightmare that snaps you awake and makes you peer nervously into the inky darkness of your closet like you're seven years old again.

And it totally starred Christophrr Gorham as the human-form of a face-eating monster! Seriously, Christopher Gorham needs to stop with the creeper roles. Unless he likes being the worst thing my subconscious can conjure up? But I find it hard to believe perpetual nice-guy actors set out wanting to bend their schtick until they are waking perfectly nice girls from a dead sleep with their creeeepiness.

( Gossip Girl! )

I did not expect to enjoy Gossip Girl so much this season, but so far it has been non-stop with the rollicking GOOD TIMES.

I can't decide whether or not to take John Mayer's lameass first single seriously. I'd heard the live version months ago, and it's basically a low-key, folksy song with a vibe all wrong for a first single and lyrics like "Who says I can't get stoned?" and "I don't remember you looking any better, but then again I don't remember you!"

So I've been all like LOL SURE JOHN WHATEVS ever since he announced "Who Says" would be his first single. I figured he was having us on or that the real "Who Says" would be very different. But if this *is* a joke, he has fully committed to it.

I still don't believe it. It's a boring song, and the lyrics only reinforce the perception that he is a total douchenozzle IRL.