David Beckham! You just signed with L.A. Galaxy for $250 Million! What are you going to do now?

I'm going to Disneyland!

Annie Does Disney

Every year Disney comes out with another ad campaign, tweaking their image in some way, certainly in an effort to keep things "fresh." This year for the kids it's going to be something like "The Year of 1000 Dreams" or some BS like that. I'm sure that it makes good marketing sense, but if you love the place like I do then recognizing the business end of it makes it a bit "too real." Whatevs. Their latest campaign is definitely one of the better ones. Various celebs as Disney characters, lushly shot by Annie Leibovitz. There's Scarlett Johanssen as Cinderella, Mr. Posh Spice as Prince Charming. and from Wonderland, Beyonce, Lyle Lovett, and Oliver Platt as Alice, the March Hare, and the Mad Hatter, respectively. If you ask me, the one with Beckhy doesn't work so well. Though he certainly looks the part, the horse looks stuffed.

Yes, Sir! She's Moche Bebe!

So Thursday evening I was lucky to be able to have dinner with BebeMoche. Our initial plan was to try Varietal, which looked really good online. However, once we got there it just looked like one big expense-account-fueled scene. Since we were in the mood for something casual (and possibly fried) we decided to look elsewhere. A leisurely stroll later, we re-found Bombay Talkie, a place we'd said we'd wanted to try but hadn't gotten around to doing so. The food was excellent and the lower level, where we were sitting, was nearly empty. It looked like it was just going to be a pleasant, low-key evening.

Towards the tail end of our meal, two bearish-looking guys walked in and were seated next to us. One of them was the cyber-semi-celebrity, the author of ThoughtNot. ThoughtNot is a blog I used to follow from time to time. The author is this hot guy who lives a fabulous life, running a gallery, touring with his famous friend's band, and summering in Provincetown with other famous friends. I used to enjoy reading over his latest adventures, like when John Bartlett chose him as one of the models for his Fall 2006 show at Fashion Week. What's more, his blog was one of a group of friends who all blogged together. ThoughtNot was therefore written in a casually intimate manner. On one hand, I felt like I was back in high school eavesdropping on the cool kids talking about their weekend. (Yes, I've always been a geek.) On the other hand, the author was explicitly aware of the public nature of his writing, and was quite proud of his growing popularity, so there was no guilt involved. At some point, I realized that there a certain element of envy in my reading ThoughtNot. Thereafter, even though I stopped following the blog regularly, I would only drop in every couple of months. I don't know what happened, but at some point the author blocked the blog with a password. I hope that he simply grew tired of fielding silly questions from strangers and not that he was being stalked or anything creepy.

So, to return to the evening, ThoughNot and his HUGE friend sit down next to us, (I should point out that his friend was tall and lumberjacky, definitely not obese). BebeMoche, being the charming Southern Belle that she is, gracefully exchanges a few words with the Biggun and ThoughtNot. Me, being the social idiot that I am, say nothing. Clearly, however, they were enchanted by BebeMoche's charm and beauty. They spoke with her again as we left and even followed us across the street to dessert, although they pretended to ignore us once they arrived. I'm sure they were simply threatened by our rapier wit.

Anyhow, we gorged on cupcakes and then said our goodbyes. The next day I came down with, like, the most vicious cold I've had in a long time and haven't had any fun since.

Am I Well Yet?

Since what I'm coughing up looks like this:

I'd say I'm at the tail end of my nasty cold.

Good God! That's disgusting!

Here's the thing. I've noticed that gmail reads your email and suggests websites based on keywords from the text. This is somewhat disturbing, but it's not like I expected email to be private anyhow. As I see it, Google's just being up-front about it. But today I was deleting the spam and on the same page was a link to the following recipe. Now, being a food-whore, they had me at "recipe." But seriously, in what way does this qualify as a recipe? Check it out:

Title: FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
Categories: Main dish
Yield: 8 servings

1 pk Frozen french fry potatoes,
-thawed (20 oz)
2 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
2 c Sour cream
1 cn Condensed cream of chicken
-soup (10 3/4 oz)
1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
1/2 c Chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c Chopped green onion
1/2 c Finely crushed corn flakes

Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, sour
cream, and soup. Stir in SPAM, bell pepper, and green onion. Spoon
into 13x9" baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed flakes. Bake 30-40
minutes or until thoroughly heated.

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Why does the recipe even bother with splitting up the mixing of the ingredients? The only reason I can think of is that it makes it seem like you're doing some real work. Seriously, the sodium content alone is probably enough to kill you. Now, to be honest, there is a part of me that finds this recipe appealing, but that's the part of me that lives in a trailer, wears curlers and a house dress and partakes of chawin' tabacky.