Pandas are the new Penguins.

I am OBSESSED with the Pandacam widget from the San Diego Zoo. If you've got a PC, download this shit... PC users: check out the direct cam on the San Diego Zoo website.


This picture is from this morning from the Pandacam. I feel like Pandas are rapidly uprooting kittens as my favorite things. Don't you want to steal him?


Another thing to love about Panda bears is their great names: Shi Shi, Wang Wang, Gao Gao, An An, etc.

Can never take cats like this for granted...

bless her...

Project Rubway.

I really, really love Project Runway. While I was semi-shocked and a little bummed out by the turnout of yesterday's show (Hi Chloe!), I am thrilled by the plethora of delightful articles popping up all over the interweb.

The first, and clearly my most favorite is the interviews with all of the Project Runway contestants and Jay McCarrol. As a matter of fact, skip over the other interviews with Creepy Daniel Franco, Diana Eng (words fail me), Meanie Zulema, and go straight to Jay's interview. Trust me when I say you won't be disappointed.

Second in the lineup is a pleasant but mildly non-memorable interview with Tim Gunn. He talks about how creepy Daniel really is and how Zulema was a crazy scary lady throughout her duration on the show.

And third... this is really old, but I have to put it up anyway... the most awkward moment on television this year...

Reattaching a Hem...

I have a problem with most of my jeans... they are way, way too long... and when I get them hemmed, they come back looking like crap. The hem is too perfect and it looks gross. I've tried doing it myself-- I trim away and roll the hem up and wind up looking like I sent them to the tailor- yuck. I'd heard about reattaching a hem before... mostly in passing when I bring it up with other my-jeans-are-way-too-long-sufferers. Today must be a magical day... I finally learned how to do it, albeit in a rather quick and non-fancy way.

First, try on your jeans and cuff them to about where you think you'd like them. I go by the front middle of the jean and apply the measurement the whole way around.

Next, take a measuring tape or some sort of measuring device and figure out how much extra is on that cuff... note: DO NOT INCLUDE THE ACTUAL HEM IN THIS MEASUREMENT! If you do, you'll be upset later while you pick out the tiny hidden seam with your seam ripper. I personally hate having to use a seam ripper. These jeans had a total of 2.5 inches extra.

Next, divide that measurement in half... this will be the length you want to expose when you go to the sewing machine to start hemming. So again, for me, that length turned into 1.25 inches total.

Take that measurement and go around the length of the cuff and measure it out. You should be pinning as you go since this will help stabilize the material and make sure you don't get a wonky seam. I really like using a sewing gauge for this part since it will give you exact measurements and is much easier to use than a ruler or measuring tape... That blue part moves around and you can get a perfect measurement.

Now for the sort of tricky part... you want to get as close as possible to the underside of the existing hem to sew the pieces together. If you don't when you finally get to ironing, you will be really irritated with the way it looks and will, undoubtedly have to use the seam ripper, which sucks. You should also be careful not to sew the hem down. You may be able to wedge the left side of the sewing foot into the underside of the hem area to get as close as possible. You can see I didn't do that since the left side of my stitch foot is way too big and I could get closer by laying the foot on top of the seam.

Once you sew all the way around, you have to iron this new seam down... it makes everything look proper so be sure you don't skip this step! Flip that chunk of material upwards and iron it from the inside out... this will keep you from getting a weird heat mark on the outside of the jeans.

Now try them on! Make sure you got the right length and go back and make adjustments if you want. If you have a ton of material wedged up in there and it just looks weird, feel free to cut it out. It will wind up raveling though as you wash it, so if you have access to a serger or know someone with one, ask them to serge the edges.

FIVE MOVIE MARATHONS.

Can I get a taste of your ice cream?

I get a shit ton of magazines... some are awesome and some I just read to keep up with brand and ad related stuff. One magazine in particular, Brandweek, is one I get weekly and try to stay up to date on things most other people find boring: commerical reviews, ad placement, new product launches, etc.

Imagine my delight when I saw a very plain but bright page that only said: www.greatpointedarcher.com I was thinking, "what the hell is a great pointed archer?" Apparently, it's a rat. And more importantly, it's getting a makeover. If anyone can hook me up with stickers, let me know.


And if you've been living under a rock and haven't made Subservient Chicken do something dirty, head over.

BLESS.

Yowsers.

freaks.

Courtney Love's Big Words

photo by Jeff Vespa

Main Entry: ex·pro·pri·ate
Pronunciation: ek-'sprO-prE-"At
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -at·ed; -at·ing
Etymology: Medieval Latin expropriatus, past participle of expropriare, from Latin ex- + proprius own
1 : to deprive of possession or proprietary rights
2 : to transfer (the property of another) to one's own possession

Una vez que te quise, fue por el pelo.

"Respectfully, sir -- you know we're always respectful -- in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?

President Bush answered, ""Have you ever heard of jet lag? Well, good. That answers your question."

Clearly, he's a fucking idiot.

Gross

The cat with two tongues.

A Congress of Boobies.

yes, that's brad pitt and frank gehry.

I think this may be the best Santa Barbara Craigslist posting ever... forget about the weird dude that wanted to give lady rubdowns. You want body powder? You got a dollar? Click here.

Not again...

MAKE IT STOP
MAKE IT STOP

Spring Forward, Fall Back.

Being awake this early on a Sunday does have its advantages... I think of things I always wonder about but have never heard anyone give a satisfying response to or things I forget about almost as quickly as I thought of them. For instance, why do we have daylight saving time? It really seems weird to set your clocks back an entire hour (I do like the extra hour of sleep) and then set it forward in the springtime (I hate waking up earlier)-- it's like time indecision. But after doing some nice research on one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia, I have a partial answer (the whole answer is long, convoluted, and involves too many countries and laws to mention here).
Interestingly, Ben Franklin, in a letter to some important literary types wondered why people didn't go to sleep earlier and also wake up earlier. This was a long ass time ago. Afterwards, some freak took it on himself to get a law passed that put this in effect in the UK. The British governement was opposed to the idea. Naturally, the Germans thought it was great and instituted this stupid practice during WWI. The changes and other places this spread to can be read about here, if you care.
Some people think DST is great because we conserve more energy and adjust sleep patterns to maximize the number of hours spent awake with the number of hours of daylight. I guess this increases physical activity and "productivity".
Succinctly, I think it sucks.

Aww little Cletus Cheeto Spederline is on his way out.

Bless.

A battle of epic proportions

Who loves really good bad jokes?

Q: What do you call a boomerang that
doesn't come back?

A: A stick.

Victoria Beckham

AIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!

"George Bush doesn't care about black people."

When Mike Meyers gets uncomfortable, he rubs his eye.

Thank God for Kanye West on NBC last night. Sure, he's prone to freak outs, but his two most recent media excursions-- first about sexual intolerance and now about the obvious racism that is ruling the Katrina relief effort (see above Mac friendly link)-- have been awesome... hands down. Not to say that this tragedy shouldn't be viewed without race as a filter, it's pretty obvious that if this happened in a predominately white or affluent area that the lack of real support wouldn't have happened. On top of this, why the fuck is it taking so long to help these people out? In the overall scheme of stellar responses to tragedies on the part of a nation, this rates as the worst.
Also, if you haven't heard about the Mayor of New Orleans' radio interview or Anderson Cooper's AWESOME response during another interview, check out this link to both from Wonkette, courtesy of Gawker.

Dood.

Sometimes I feel like I'm behind the times on stuff... like the other day when I watched Jurassic Park for the first time and couldn't understand why I'd never seen it before. That's right. The first one. Hadn't seen it. Ok. Anyway, when I came across these the other day, I was wondering why I hadn't heard of them before. Or even this (way better than sticking asinine bumper stickers on other people's cars, right?). Who wouldn't love to give either as a gift?