Author: nell-boeschenstein

In the interest of stating something not-so-interesting, I love the movies. In a little-girl-all-I-want-to-do-is-eat-popcorn-and-stare-at-that-magic-screen-for-hours kind of way. It’s basically my favorite activity. Besides eating of course. Which means that one of the most wonderful days of my year is fast approaching. That’s right, folks, Oscar night is on the way!
Like Santa Claus…only it’s not a person and it’s not imaginary.

But before getting my hopes up that The Queen and Borat will win everything and sweep those Dream-girls under the rug, I decided it was high time to take a little trip down memory lane and pay my respects to the grueling…ahem, gorgeous … four hours that were last year’s Academy Awards. That’s when I came across this blog, the Oscar 2006 Blog which is pretty self-explanatory if you ask me, except for the fact that such a boringly-titled blog never before contained such mirth!

It’s a blow by blow from the red carpet to my future husband’s (meaning Jon Stewart’s) final bad joke. Literally, the posts are minute-by-minute—sometimes multiple times per minute. Nothing’s particularly insightful, but everything jogs the memory. For instance, who else remembers this red carpet moment besides myself and this blogger:  “Hello, Reese’s boobs: Tasteful dress you’re wearing.” In all fairness, despite all the crap she took for it, I liked that dress, but I remember the boobs, too, for what it’s worth.

Anyway, it’s things like that that made me happy and nostalgic for last year….yet chomping at the bit for this year.

I’m an animal person. Well, except for spiders and snakes and sharks and eels and bugs of all kinds and other terrifying animals. Allow me to rephrase: I am a furry animal person who also has a soft spot for turtles, dolphins, manatees, seals, and other fat, but not really hairy, animals. Give me some story on CNN about some dog that saved its blind owner from a fire and I’m in tears. In fact, just the other day, my world came temporarily crumbling down when I heard the news that the racehorse Barbaro had been put to sleep.

It’s no surprise then, that I’m a total sucker for Hallmark-like images of animals (usually furry baby animals) doing adorable things like snuggling, kissing, or curled up in Nikes. Such precious moments—and I mean “precious” in all senses of the word—are the sole purpose of Cute Overload. Sure, the site is cloying and cheesy, but it’s not trying not to be. Think: baby koala bears sitting on their mommies’ heads, a baby polar bear with its tongue sticking out, and of course, no site would truly be certified “Cute Dispenser” without plenty o’ baby panda snapshots.

I can’t say that I like this site on a regular basis, but sometimes after reading the front page of The New York Times and getting briefed on the latest bombings and tragedies, Cute Overload is a welcome respite. Lookie! There’s still innocence and bright eyes in the world! Even if I have to go to the Internet to find it.

Truth be told, there’s pretty much nothing better (in my small world) than sitting at my office desk, looking like I’m a very busy professional, when I’m actually typing things like “Discounted Marc Jacobs bags” into Google. Online shopping. I whisper the words to myself in a kind of awe. But really, have you ever tried it? It’s so fun! Sometimes, I go online shopping, put stuff in my shopping bag, and then close out of Firefox without having purchased anything. Yet, still I have experienced the thrill of the act.

The crème de la crème of online shopping is Active Endeavors. The clothes and accessories are young, fun, and they arrive magically in the mail! Oh, and well, they can get a little expensive. But that’s where the sales come in. This place has sales that rock the house…or rather, the wardrobe. For example, just last week I bought a beautiful Catherine Malandrino summer dress that was $545, but that they had marked down to $164! Doesn’t get much better than that methinks.

Peruse the virtual sale racks today and there’s plenty o’ Rebecca Taylor, Imitation of Christ, Daryl K, Nieves Lavi, Marc Jacobs, Ya-Ya, and more at half off or better. The only downside of this whole online shopping thing is that I am definitely spending more money online than I would just walking through stores in the real world. Don’t tell my dad.

At my mother’s insistence, I took French in high school. I think she thought that all proper young ladies spoke French, despite the fact that all the cool kids took Spanish. I regularly took comfort in the fact that at least I wasn’t one of those dorks stuck learning Latin. Fifteen years after the fact, I think my mother recognizes the error of her ways in not allowing me to take Spanish and thus learn to communicate with half of my fellow countrymen and women; I, on the other hand, am fully remorseful for having so heartlessly dismissed the beauty of Latin.
Latin is so delightfully nerdy sounding…and looking. While I still don’t know any, and could never converse with Marc Anthony or anything (wait…that’s J-Lo’s husband. I think I mean Mark Antony?), the Internet offers plenty of sites that have numerous indispensable phrases translated from English into Latin. The site listed above is one of my favorites.

If I were wandering around ancient Rome looking for a loo, I would print this page out before time traveling, and then get a kick out of asking locals things like “Visne saltare? Viam Latam Fungosam scio,” (“Do you want to dance? I know the Funky Broadway”) or “Vidistine nuper imagines moventes bonas?” (“Seen any good movies lately?”)

Incidentally, Latin is always a classy choice for a gravestone. I think about what will go on mine probably more than I should, and for sentimental reasons—it was my father’s favorite refrain, when I was 6 and relentlessly asking him for a pony—I think I’ll have the words “Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure” engraved on my stone. My lesson for the ages? “I can’t hear you. I have a banana in my ear.”

There’s no doubt that unless you’ve been eating Rice Krispies in a hole for the past year, you know a thing or two about the social networking site, My Space. In many ways, My Space is the sign of a pulse—a collective pulse—amongst the Me Generation. It’s ground zero for “LOL” and “WTF” and other oh-so-youthful shortcuts to conversation that the Me Generation puts to good use.

My Death Space is exactly what it says it is. It’s My Space for My Space members who have prematurely gone six feet under. The site is basically a map of the United States, dotted with little gravestone symbols, each of which link to the how and why of a My Space member’s premature death, as well as to the link to the person’s My Space page where friends have inevitably left pages of tributes. In other words, “LOL” becomes “i miss u” and “i love u.”

Because My Space is the domain of the young folk, 99.9 percent of the dead are between the ages of 15 and 25. Pictures pop up of these kids kicking it in their cars, giving peace signs, arms draped around their friends, smiling, and alive. Then you see the causes of death: 99.9 percent are “automobile accident.” A few murders, brain hemorrhages, and suicides are thrown in for the mix, but the site drives home (no morbid pun intended) the dangers of driving. Drunk driving, drag racing, sitting at a stoplight, minding their own business behind the wheel: The scenarios vary but the message is the same. Cars kill.

It’s not an easy site to visit. Breaks the heart, in fact. But I came away from it with my daily reminder of mortality…and humanity.

If you are a faithful reader of this column then you know at least two important things about yours truly: I love gossip and I love celebrities. Logic follows then that I love celebrity gossip. In the past I have devoted this meager space to some of the biggest bangs of the celebrity gossip cyberworld, most at least tangentially related to the Gawker Media empire. But let me tell you, while Gawker may have built its corner of snark with an exceptional dose of professional savvy, Gawker does not have the market cornered in this department.

And so I bring you A Socialite’s Life, one of millions, but a totally worthy gossip blog with just as much dirt and irreverence as the big guys. Better yet? The gossip and celebrity skeeve factor is completely undiluted by the “real” news that sometimes makes its way through the Gawker gates. There’s no veneer of legitimacy, but like the best of celebrity blogs, that doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of intelligence. While the headlines may not be top tier, going more for “straight to the point” as opposed to “straight to the joke,” the posts are unfailingly clever, and the writing undeniably snappy.

Take, for example, this recent post about Teri Garr’s aneurysm operation: “I know a lot of you younger types are like ‘who’s this bitch?’ And I say three words: Mr. Mom, yo. She was in a bunch of other stuff. But I will always fondly recall her as the new advertising exec for Schooner Tuna because they played that movie over and over on HBO when I was like 6 and my parents were out working and ensuring my homosexuality by making me a latch-key kid. *sob*.”

In fact, a little secret: I like the writing on this blog so much that oftentimes when writer’s block—or something like it—is plaguing me, I read through it for inspiration. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s always a good time.

New Year’s means two things for the average person: anticlimactic parties and resolutions. Since I’m not partial to parties, it means only resolutions to me and, oh, there are so many, many resolutions to make and break this New Year’s: stop calling people I think are stupid “retarded,” stop spending all my extra cash on clothes for my dog, stop objectifying midget babies and, of course, that perennial—stop eating like a pig and lose 10 pounds.

Although it happened nearly a decade ago, I am still coming to terms with the fact that after I hit 20, my metabolism slowed to a snail’s pace. The result is that I have slowly ballooned to the size of my grandmother. And that is not a good thing. Next up, I’m going to start beginning sentences with phrases like “I remember when Jackie Kennedy redecorated the White House…”

A preemptive strike against such dour circumstances, however, is in the works. I recently took the plunge and turned my browser towards the 3 Fat Chicks website—the site started in 1997 by three fat, Southern-fried sisters who decided to document their weight struggles on the Internet. The result is a phenomenon—both inspirational and informative. The sisters give the lowdown on every type of fad diet out there and provide healthy recipes, exercise tips, an online forum for their readers, links to plus-sized clothing, and God knows what else. This is why I love the Internet: I can now research just what type of diet I need to try from the peace and quiet of my couch (while gorging on wine and cheese, natch) without having to suffer the indignity of making some Weight Watchers-like excursion to the scale in front of 50 strangers. Phew.

TMZ isn’t a classy site; in fact, TMZ isn’t even a klassy site. But it really is the perfect site for your inner idiot—meaning the part of you that lives for a little schadenfreude at the expense of celebrities. Looking for the Lindsay Lohan’s Red Bull and Vodka-crazed insane Black-berry message? Check TMZ: Chances are they will have the entire transcript posted on the Internet within hours of LiLo having sent it to 100 of her best (and most trustworthy) confidantes.

TMZ (an acronym referring to the “Thirty Mile Zone” around Hollywood) is basically Reuters for celebrity gossip. All the gossip blogs link to it daily, and it’s updated with “news” stories as fast as they happen. They have reporters on the scene and those reporters are filing stories…stories like “Preggers Tori Practices on Pug” or “Brit Ditches Clothes to Celebrate Mom’s B-Day.”

TMZ’s biggest bangs, that is, the stories it’s famous for breaking, include transcripts of Mel Gibson’s infamous drunken and anti-Semitic tirade last July and footage of oil heir (and Paris Hilton cohort) Brandon Davis leaving an L.A. club and screaming obscenities about Lohan’s nether regions. Apparently, Paris and Lindsay are, as the tabs say, frenemies. At the time of this incident, their relationship was apparently more enemy than friend. Not the stuff of legend, but the stuff of Hollywood, and that’s the way I like it.

As time would have it, Chrismahanukwanzaa has rolled around again and God—in all shapes and sizes—is on everybody’s mind. Well, that is, when everyone isn’t thinking about all the loot they’re gonna get. Now, not to be a buzz kill or anything, but I thought I would take this opportunity to send a shout out to all the atheists in the ’hood; these poor peeps are probably feeling a little lost in the shuffle now that angels and Jesus-y stars are decorating every street corner. They’re the folks behind the so-called War on Christmas, but so far as I can tell, they’re losing, so it won’t hurt anybody to throw the atheists a bone: Go on over to their official website, American Atheists, and poke around. Hey, you might even learn something.

Full disclosure: As much as I might like to believe in something—anything—I just can’t seem to muster any faith in that something or anything. Yes, I am predisposed to have some sympathy for these people because, I guess, I’m one of them. That said, I’m the first to say I find the notion of organized atheism somewhat ridiculous and, by default, this here site, too: These people are as rabid as the religious freaks they are philosophically pitted against. “Atheist Pride” marches? Um, no thanks. Calling atheism “the other closet”? Errrr…I think that may be overstating things.

The interesting parts for me are the more educational—and less strident—links. There is a whole section on lawsuits, most of which revolve around the issue of separation of church and state —specifically the public school system. The site gives information on cases currently in the courts, as well as decisions that have already been handed down. Atheist or no, this is a valuable resource in my dork-ed-out worldview.