Economic troubles have hit everyone pretty hard this year, and with Valentine's Day just around the corner, I'm sure you'll all looking for somewhere to take your sweetie that won't break the bank. Luckily, America's casual dining restaurants are here to offer you a mid-priced dinner guaranteed to put everyone in a sexy mood.
Why, you ask, would a salt-and-fat-laden, giant-'Mercan-sized portion of casual dining food-pile put anyone in a mood that even comes close to "sexy?" Because the names of the dishes and drinks at casual dining restaurants are FILTHY, y'all! If you want to get your date all hot-n-bothered this Valentine's Day, be sure to order him or her one of these top ten casual dining menu items that sound like sex acts.
What it actually is: Basically onion rings, but like, still attached to one another.
What it sounds like: A man is buried completely in rich black soil, except for his "onions" (and I guess face so he doesn't die). Said "onions" are then licked until his gentleman-parts "bloom" through the earth.
Brace yourselves: David Letterman has hired a woman to write for his show. It's all downhill from here, folks--there's gonna be nothing but period jokes, shoes and yogurt on Letterman from now on. Opening monologue? More like vagina monologue, am I right you guys?
Jill Goodwin was a writer's assistant, but now she'll be presumably having a writer's assistant of her own--as the sole lady writer in late night television today. I'm pumped for Goodwin, and glad to see even this tiny drop in the late night bucket. But I'll reiterate what I said a few weeks ago: women will remain a minority in writers' rooms unless more women start doing comedy. So do comedy, you guys.
Which is also why I'm hoping to inspire funny women with a series of leading-by-example posts featuring women who write and perform comedy. Last week it was Morgan Murphy, a writer for Jimmy Fallon, and this week, I'd like to give big-ups to Megan Ganz, a former Onion writer, stand-up comic and present writer for Important Things With Demetri Martin. I met Ganz last summer while researching my thesis (it's on lady comics, y'all) and she's brilliant. Behold:
Last night while watching the game, I let out the occasional yelp and squeal and cheer, as I am wont to do when I view sports (#geauxsaints). A dude friend of mine couldn't get enough of my outbursts. As he said: "I've never seen a girl invested in the outcome of a football game before." (With which I took issue, but that's not the point here.)
Because I don't think anyone working on the man-tastic, mostly banal, generally misogynistic advertising that aired during the game has ever seen a woman watch a sporting event, either. Masculinity was a major theme throughout the commercials, wherein men were encouraged to quit being such wussy turds and man up and BUY STUFF!
Ladies and gentlemen, contain yourselves. "Twilight: The Graphic Novel" is coming to a comic shop near you. Just like the screams that erupt whenever Robert Pattinson does anything, it was inevitable. Whether or not you're a fan you can admit this is going to be huge. You can sit back and complain about how horrible you think it is or you can view it like I do, as an opportunity. Some, possibly the majority of individuals picking up "Twilight: The Graphic Novel" have never read a comic book. For years comic companies and retailers have been constantly trying to come up with ideas to get new readers and this is their chance.
Being a comic fan myself and having read the Twilight Saga and seen both film adaptations (don't laugh) I think I'm appropriately qualified to put this list together. If you're going to buy "Twilight: The Graphic Novel" here are 10 other graphic novels I think you'd enjoy. I know asking you to buy 10 is a lot so peruse them all and purchase a few. Oh and do me a favor, don't buy them online. Find your local comic shop and buy them there. Really, they aren't as scary as you think.
10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 by Joss Whedon and friends
I would hope this one was obvious. The similarities between "BtVS" and "Twilight" aren't very specific but they're there. The love, the danger, the drama. If you're a fan of "Twilight" and never watched Buffy on TV then, by all means, Netflix that shit. Or at the very least, borrow season one from a friend and then come back to this recommendation after you've watched all seven. Joss Whedon continues his epic tale of the Slayer in comic book format that he and Dark Horse have delightfully named Season 8. Buffy has fallen for not one but TWO vampires in her time but unlike Bella, she can throw her lover into a wall if he decides to attack her. It may even turn into some awesome foreplay.
Why you'll like it: Vampires, duh! 9. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley
Anyone who thinks damsels are meant to be in distress hasn't visited the right castle. Bella and Edward may live happily ever after, staring into each other's eyes for all eternity but what happens to everyone else in the story once theirs ends? "Castle Waiting" is a look at all the minor players in the tale of Sleeping Beauty and some you've probably never heard of (The bearded nun perhaps?) following her exit with Prince Charming. It's a smart, humorous story about strong women helping others and daily life at a castle that was meant for more than just love stories.
Why you'll like it: Because you really want to know what Jessica and Angela got up to after graduation.
Does every media outlet, blogger and writer out there know something I
don't know about Valentine's Day? Is someone going to come at me with a
gun? Cut my brake lines? Slip arsenic into my High Life?
If you're single this February 14, you had better look out. Because to read most love advice surrounding this most holy of romantic days, single people are in grave, grave situations. Dire straits. Mortal danger. Single people must be helped to "survive" Valentine's Day.
And oh, woe is the singleton! Think of how painful normal days must be: every morning, I only just barely manage to roust myself out of bed, eat a meager meal of porridge and weak tea, and plod through my grossly unsatisfying, highly depressing single life. I don't know how I manage it--sheer will to survive against all odds, I guess--but somehow, someway, I crawl back into bed at night, weeping softly to myself, and live to fight another lonely day on the brink of suicide because of my single status.
But Valentine's Day! My god, the fact that us single folk don't jump off the closest available roof on, say, a sunny June 20th is shocking enough. How do we manage to wake up on February 14 and not reach for the closest unregistered handgun? How does the sheer weight of the trauma of the single life not bear down with such force that it renders us totally unable to function?
(I think you might see where I'm going with this, yes?)
Bon weekend, guys and dolls and doll-guys and guy-dolls! It's a little early for our afternoon link roundup, but I thought it might be nice for our lady links to have all day to relax in the balmy sun of your clicks. Here's what we loved in ladyblog land this week:
Now, my memory may be a bit fuzzy (what with the nineties being all of ten years ago) but I'm pretty sure television had been invented along with such wond'rous advancements as the combustible engine and indoor plumbing. So it strikes me as rather odd that Miss America would pine after her days playing kick the can on the cobblestones next to Old Man O'Malley's Fruit Stand and Mr. Adelson's Livestock and Livery Stables or whatever. She is 22 for goodness sake. She was born in 1988 and presumably lived in a home with electricity, running water and other modern day conveniences...LIKE A FUCKING NINTENDO.
Hey, before you guys start talking about date rape and just saying no, I'd like to turn this here chair around and talk from my heart with you kids for a minute. You know, jam wit' you while I wear these acid-washed jeans and high-topped sneakers. Lay some issues down. Because shit is bout 'ta get real, y'all.
Girl Scout cookies are kind of gross.
Girl Scouts are cool, and cookies are cool, but man, the combination of the two has resulted in some seriously overblown love for a mediocre snack. In American pop culture, the Girl Scout cookie has reached mythological status. Thin Mint, Tagalongs, Caramel deLites. Merely saying the words inspires awe and reverence among mass throngs of people.
Just a super quickie: I kind of want to write a Hollywood It Girl profile about this viral ad, because it is so cool. Major hat tip to Feministe for linking this awesomeness:
The worshipful celebrity profile has been a staple of magazine journalism since the dawn of glossy--heck, probably before. And while these things are always already horrible in their mere concept, some are worse than others. A 2007 Esquire profile of Angelina Jolie comes to mind. But the March 2010 issue of Vanity Fair has taken the genre to a whole new level. After reading this whirlwind profile of nine Hollywood "It Girls," though surely author Evgenia Peretz would prefer the term "ingenues," a reader could be forgiven for wondering if any of these women might be the second coming of the Virgin Herself.
Have you heard of, for example, Abbie Cornish? I haven't, but now I'm going to run out and rent all her films because clearly kittens, rainbows and unicorns look to her for inspiration:
The Cupid's-bow lips, the downy-soft cheeks, the button nose: 27-year-old Abbie Cornish has those Ivory-soap-girl features we're so familiar with, and yet hers is a face it's hard to stop staring at--testament to the intelligence, vulnerability, and sensuality she brings to her characters. Her breakthrough for American audiences came with fellow Australian Heath Ledger, as a junkie in 2006's Candy, free-falling from invincible heroin highs to soul-seizing anguish. Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss saw her fleeing the law with Ryan Phillippe's character. (Enter some real-life drama: Phillippe, then the husband of Reese Witherspoon, would soon become her boyfriend.) She may have been her loveliest in Jane Campion's Bright Star, playing John Keats's muse, the flirty and forthright Fanny Brawne.
Swoooooon! The whole thing is borderline hilarious in its unabashed hyper-fawning. Peretz, are you joking? If you are joking, this is the best joke ever. If you're not joking, I'll make it into a joke for you. Behind the cut, I've created our own Heartless Doll Vanity Fair Mad Lib so that you, too, can insert yourself into the awed gaze of VF.
The Heartless Dolls are Andrea, Kathleen, Kiala, Merritt, Nicki and a hifalutin array of notable guest contributors from around the web. We dig pop culture and ladythings.
