Okay, I know we’ve heard all the dire statistics about how fat we Americans are becoming and all of us know about the alarming obesity rates. But this story on Calorielab about Disneyland closing down the Small World Ride this January and re-engineering the boats to accommodate their increasingly girthier visitors really brings it home. Apparently, the boats literally get stuck and bottom out at certain parts of the flume and cause major backup until the ride operators have to locate the offending lardass and escort them off the ride.

Can you imagine the agony of this scenario? I mean, as it if isn’t torture enough to endure that insipid song when you’re not shipwrecked. But to actually get stuck on the ride because you are too fat and to be forced to listen to that mocking refrain dripping with irony, “It’s a small world after all…it’s a small world after all…” until forced to do the walk of shame off the bottomed out vessel past hundreds of other gridlocked tourists who are snickering at your fat ass?! Quelle horreur!

LINK (via Calorielab)

As Oct. 31 draws nearer, the collective blood pressure of hundreds of thousands of Angelenos steadily rises and adrenaline starts to pump. No, it’s not in anticipation of Halloween but something far scarier - the deadline for the Writer’s Guild contract and the dreaded strike that may soon follow. It’s the topic on everyone’s lips and furrowing even the most botoxed of brows with worry. My husband is a writer on The Ghost Whisperer and he says the atmosphere on the set is grim. A day doesn’t go by when a crew member doesn’t walk up to him and anxiously ask him about any strike news. He’s also conscious of a repressed resentment towards the writers who won’t win any PR image battles with the perception of being greedy, rich whiners who are quibbling over a few insignificant points. The writers don’t want to strike but they also want what’s fair. It doesn’t seem outrageous to want a tiny share in the profits from dvd sales or internet downloads. If everyone else is getting paid, shouldn’t the writers? There’s no other alternative other than accepting a bad deal and now that the writers have threatened to strike, they’ll have to play that final card. But the worry is: what happens when you play your final card to a much more powerful opponent with deeper pockets? What happens next? Will they negotiate or just sit tight and starve us out?

The economic fallout could be catastrophic and will trickle down far beyond the entertainment industry to other L.A. sectors like real estate, restaurants, home improvement and hotels. Everyone in Los Angeles will be negatively impacted during this strike. Luckily, we have another business to fall back on since we own a Mr. Handyman. But the phones have been dead this week and our customers seem to be holding their breath, watching and waiting for any strike news before they spend their money on home repair. It’s been so slow that we’ve had to lay off a technician. And in previous years, this has been our busiest time.

The negotiations aren’t going well and federal mediators have been called in to help facilitate the process. As the clock ticks down, there seems to be little progress and it’s all my girlfriends and I talk about lately. They worry about how they’re going to get by without a paycheck and nervously eye their savings. As Halloween approaches, flickering hope starts to fade and be replaced by grim resolution. For me and for already fire-scarred Angelenos, this will be the scariest Halloween ever.

This children’s cook book has to be the most unfortunately titled cookbook in the history of cook books. Just say it aloud and think about it for a minute. The cover art with a bowl full of brown flecks of god-knows-what doesn’t help either. Seriously, this is a real cook book and if you’re interested in Cooking with Poo(h) you can buy it at amazon.com.

LINK

KidRobot will be offering a line of Yo Gabba Gabba figurines and hoodies on Nov. 21st.

For those of you without children, Yo Gabba Gabba is a hipster kids show on Nick Jr.  featuring five monsters. The music is hipper than the typical saccharine ditties we’re used to, but I still find it annoyingly repetetive and uninspiring. I do have a love/hate relationship with the show. I love the brightly colored monsters and the freshness of the show. But I have to admit somewhat sheepishly that I’m inexplicably terrified of that green little monster Brobee. Something about that black monobrow and those nightmarishly looong arms that swing out of control wildly and scrape the floor. Every time he sings and dances I feel a panic attack coming on and I have to hastily turn the channel. But I think the hoody is cute.

Here’s a link to a very astute op-ed piece by Joel Stein in the L.A. Times who decries that Halloween has merely become an excuse for adults to dress like hookers. His solution - institute a separate Slutoween day instead! Genius.

LINK 

It should come as no surprise that t-shirts celebrating Dumbledore’s gayness are already selling like hotcakes at dumbledorepride.com , yet the unstoppable American entrepreneurial spirit never fails to amaze me.  Nothing is noteworthy or newsworthy in this country if a t-shirt can’t be made out of it. I have to admit, somewhat sheepishly, that I did not see this one coming. For a former English major used to scrutinizing subtext in literature, I can’t believe I didn’t suspect Dumbledore had, to quote Senator Larry Craig, a “wide stance”(not that there’s anything wrong with that).

In retrospect, it makes total sense. I guess I never gave Dumbledore’s sexuality much thought. If anything, I’m guilty of ageism - I generally have a mental block about senior citizens getting it on.  Although I did wonder if he and Professor McGonagall ever hiked up their robes and went at it in the room of requirement back in the day. But for the most part, he seemed asexual as a character to me. Now Hagrid, I had my suspicions about. I thought hiding his broken wand in the handle of a pink umbrella was the gayest metaphor imaginable. Even his crush on Madame Maxime, who looks like a giant in drag, didn’t sway me.  But alas, I was wrong.

I’ve always loved drugstore.com because it’s a busy mom’s best friend. Now that I’m the mom to two restless boys, gone are those lazy moments strolling through the aisles of Sephora and trying on different shades of lipgloss. If I want to buy makeup without the torture of my boys smearing makeup samples all over their faces like war paint and running amok, I have to get it online.

As I was perusing the different selections, I noticed that there was a category called “sexual well-being.” Figuring it was probably just condoms and douches and KY-Jelly, I clicked on it out of curiosity. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a huge selection of sex toys, complete with user reviews! There’s even a “Vibrator Buying Guide” dividing them into three categories with cheesy lifestyle models: Classics, Adventurous and New & Unique. But the most entertaining thing has to be reading the user reviews. Who the hell bothers to post these reviews anyhow? Of course most of them were anonymous, but still. The reviews tend to fall into two categories: disgruntled and disgusting. The disgruntled reviewers inevitably had various complaints about motors burning out from overuse and too much noise. But the happy customers usually went into way too much explicit detail about how satisfied they were with the toy. Either way, it makes for highly hilarious reading.

LINK

This morning as I was getting dressed, I pulled down my favorite pair of Joe’s Jeans (the ones that I used to live in pre-pregnancy) and paused. I hadn’t tried them on since 6 months post-partum and I couldn’t even close the top button. Well, technically I could, but not without a muffin top explosion of abdominal skin and fat spilling out over the waistband. I knew that I was risking feeling like a big, fat pig the rest of the day if I couldn’t get into them and I’d be filled with self-recriminations over that KFC dinner of original recipe chicken wings I gorged on last night. But since this is what passes for living dangerously in my suburban existence, I thought I’d give it a go. To my infinite delight and surprise, I got the jeans on with a little wiggle room to spare. Ah, what a difference 13 months makes. The only happy side effect of having an early walker is the endless cardio chasing after him involves.

To celebrate my return to semi-svelteness, I decided I needed to do some shopping for clingy clothes. My mother-in-law spends a little time with Asher on Friday mornings, so I popped down to a neighborhood boutique owned by actress Lisa Rinna called Belle Grey. The salesperson was very friendly and helpful and instead of being snooty and standoffish, she happily pulled down her favorite t-shirts, sweats and dresses for me to try on. Instead of feeling pressured, it was more of a “I work here so I know what the best stuff is and I’m cherry picking my favorites for you” kind of vibe. I bought a couple of Michael Stars t-shirts and a super cute black Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress that can be worn two ways. The first way is sexy and low cut and totally va-va-voomey. But turn it around backwards and it transforms into a classy, Audrey Hepburn inspired, Breakfast at Tiffany’s style shift that wouldn’t be inappropriately sexy for an office Christmas party. I needed a little wrap-dress 101 lesson from the salesgirl on how to tie the damn thing, but I think I finally figured it out.

It was their very last dress in size 2 and the mere fact that I was feeling celebratory about being in that size again made me interpret it as a sign from the retail therapy gods. Plus, I reasoned, who doesn’t need a little black dress in their closet? Not only is it a wardrobe staple, it’s a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress that will never go out of style. It seemed less frivolous when I thought about all the mileage I could get out of a classic dress that could be worn two ways and combined endlessly with jackets and accessories to dress it up or down.

Although it was a splurge to spend hundreds on a dress I had no immediate use for, when I saw how skinny yet shapely it made me look, I figured it was cheaper than plastic surgery. And speaking of plastic surgery, as I emerged from the dressing room, I came face to face with the proprietress and celebrity fashionista - Lisa Rinna herself. I think I let out an audible (barely, I hope) gasp when I got a good close up look at her face in the harsh, unforgiving light of day. The flattering t.v. lighting and the airbrushed magazine photos left me unprepared for a face that so obviously bore the ravages of plastic surgery. She was wearing tight yoga pants and a tank top with a tight jacket. Her figure is toned and impeccable, but her face…oh my lord, her face. It looked like a perfect doll face that had had been left behind in a house fire. Her skin was pulled tight and shiny, yet her features seemed a little, melted and less defined. As if the plastic features were deteriorating. I don’t know how else to describe it. And her lips were two giant, rubbery pieces of meat unevenly filled with collagen. I think she was striving for a lips that were beestung - not stung by the entire colony of killer African bees.

I averted my eyes quickly and pretended to fuss with my clothing selections so I wouldn’t be caught staring in open-mouthed horror. But Lisa Rinna is a personable, friendly type and she chattily asked me what I was buying and seemed genuinely interested in my choices. We chit chatted about how she was expanding into the store front next door and how excited she was about this. Luckily, she was busily dressing her window as we talked so I didn’t have to look her in the face and avoided any awkwardness at being hypnotically mesmerized by her over-inflated lips and boobs.

Aside from her questionable taste in plastic surgery though, her taste in clothing is enviable and awe inspiring. I was thoroughly impressed by the well-edited selection of clothes in her boutique and that there was such a mixture of low-end and high end items in one store. Plus, it’s walking distance from my house, which is probably dangerous. To complete my morning of shopping, I had the ultimate L.A.-ladies-who-lunch lunch - sushi and Pinkberry yogurt for desert. Actually, come to think of it, the really hardcore L.A. lunch ladies merely pretend to eat their salads after pilates. But since I lack the self-discipline that anorexia requires, I have to eat. Yet salads at lunch gives me gas pains all day. Plus, I do taekwondo instead of pilates and the list goes on and on. I guess I’ll never quite fit in with the other pampered suburban moms here, but at least I can fit into my old jeans.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. I know I am. This Michael Jackson Halloween mask is unquestionably the SCARIEST MASK EVER! Every time I look at this mask, I almost lose bladder control. Sadly, the frightening reality about this mask is that it’s probably less plastic-y than Michael’s face. For a mere $30, you can scare the sh*t out of those pesky trick-or-treaters and their parents by answering the door as the King of Pop Pedophiles. Link (via Boingboing.net)

If you really want to traumatize the neighborhood kids, make sure you pass out these very unkosher candy bars out from Vosges Haut Chocolate.

That’s right, milk chocolate mixed with crispy applewood smoked bacon bits. If loving chocolate and bacon is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. But this, this is a food atrocity of unspeakable proportions. But if this gets your mouth watering, here’s the LINK.

Aww, aren’t these cute? These dancing shoes were designed by Finnish artists Huopaliike Lahtinen and Haraldin Kenka and meant to be worn by a father and young daughter dancing together. I guess this way a fastidious father can avoid having his shoe shine all scuffed up by his daughter’s filthy Mary Jane’s during cousin Bjorn’s wedding reception.

Link