Witty and funny animation – go there now!

Memo to “Survivor” Producers:
So you’re way down in the ratings this go-round. Well, that’s understandable. People are a little tiny bit distracted. But that will pass – you just fell victim to some bad timing. There’s one thing you’ve got to fix, though: find some way to make these voting blocks harder to form. With the alliances forming from Day 1, it’s too easy to predict how things will go. Remember in Survivor 1, when there was one surprising vote after another? With that factor eliminated, what you’ve got is an A&F ad stretched over 13 episodes. Nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but not enough to build a dynasty around, either. Shake up the voting process, and you’ve got a chance.

Also, now that I think about it, how about some originality in the locales? Back to the islands for S4? Yawn. Just like with the voting, you’ve got to stretch the premise if you want people to keep watching. I know you can do it. Good luck.

If you loved “Monsters Inc.” and want a little online fix, you can go to Pixar’s site and watch a bunch of their short films. (Thanks to JD for pointing this out. He has quite a cool weblog, by the way – you should go there now.)

My esteemed friend Mr. Mosey has called for a return of the days when many of my weblog posts would just be pointers to Salon articles. Well, Mosey, your wish is my command: Amy Reiter reports (scroll down a ways) that Lance Bass is interested in making “Grease 3” with his ‘N Sync bandmate Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend, Britney Something-or-Other, playing the role of Sandy and his band as the T-Birds.

Oh my sweet lord. If we didn’t have enough evidence of the need to torch the whole culture and start again, now we do. (At least my search engine hits will be getting a little goose from this post. Damn that Osama Bin Laden, anyway.)

Confession: sometimes I enjoy watching Martha Stewart. It’s like gazing into an alternate universe, a world where the pillows are always fluffed, gifts are always homemade, and everyone not only knows what chervil is, but they have it growing in their meticulously-tended gardens. I also love how since Martha lives in this world, she assumes everyone else does too.

Tonight, her idea of a “quick cook dinner” was red snapper with capers, italian green peppercorns and fennel, cooked in parchment paper, with a side dish of cous-cous with shallots, lemon zest and fresh dill.

Yeah, I’ve got that stuff on hand.

You know how great it is when you read something that articulates exactly how you are feeling, but were too worn out or played out or just not eloquent enough to write yourself?
Evil Evildoers of Evil. (via Arthur)

Purchase of the guy in front of me in the grocery checkout line: a can of “Irregular Pears.” Almost as good as the pyramid of boxes at Sam’s Club that read: “Broken Pretzel Pieces – 10 Pounds.”

Unsolicited advice
Do you have a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while? Was it because of a fight you had with them? Do you even remember what the fight was about? If you do, do you really think what you were arguing about was worth your friendship? Think about that one hard. If you are co-workers and the conflict was over something at work, let me answer that last question for you: NO. If you’re just waiting for them to make the first move, since they were wrong and you were right, get off your butt. Right now. Friends are exceedingly hard to come by, and we let them go way too easily.

That is all.

I could use some e-mail.

Feeling a little dry spell in the content part of my brain, so I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you the 2001 ‘Words Mean Things’ Strange Weblog Name Awards:

Choking on Soup
Insect Rock Destiny
Shake Jugs Not Babies
This Is Your Goldfish, Speaking
Pissed Off Wet Kitties

If you have any favorite oddly-named weblogs, please share them in the comments so we can all enjoy them.