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Features

Live blogging the Olympics

You've heard it all before...

Alert level: Cuddly

Blogs are so, like, stupid.

iCan't believe iHave one.

Misery loves danish

Subway: drink fresh

Can you believe I only know three people who have blogs? Lame.

Ask Why Not
Insomnia Haiku
Your Treat

  Annie Barrett is a writer living in New York City. Annie Barrett. Annie Barrett is probably insane. Annie Barrett doesn't care. TH

Yes, that's me on the right. Get it? I'm as committed as an Olympian, and I also never fall.

Last night's figure skating long program competition in Torino was the biggest night of the Olympics, even though Survivor and Dancing With the Stars were also on. What was a girl to do? Watch the Olympics from 2-5 a.m. when NBC helpfully replays the primetime events.

The entire thing -- during which I proceed to fall in love with roughly all of the skaters... no not joking -- is way too long to post here, so here are some excerpts:

2:09 a.m. Silvia's waiting for her scores now. It was a little insensitive for someone to say "The scores really don't matter, but here they are." I'm not sure who that commentator was, but it was probably the one named Dick.

2:28 You expect me to believe 246 Olympic hopefuls work at Home Depot? Nice try.

3:25 "Joannie is a beautiful skater who doesn't always believe in herself." That sounds like how you'd introduce two friends who don't know each other at a party. "This is Annie. Annie is a world-class eater who doesn't always hold out for dessert."

4:09 F***! Sasha Cohen fell. This is horrible! F***! She did it again. I'm devastated. "This'll be a fight to be on the podium now." Ugh. So she won't win the gold medal. All the more reason for her to join the cast of The O.C. next season as Seth Cohen's long-lost twin sister. They'll meet at college and kind of fall for each other but then realize the only reason they like each other is because like all people, they're secretly in love with themselves and they just happen to share a lot of the same DNA!

Read more.

Oh, Heidi Klum. Tonight she said one of her designers' Barbie outfits was "selling like bagels" on eBay or something. She's so cute! I've been meaning to do an official DR expose on why I love Heidi so much more than Tyra, but this mistake is a prime example of why this is true. After Tim Gunn corrected her and said the word in that saying was "hotcakes," she was all unapologetic and said "How would I know that? I'm German!"

Just realized after typing that at 12:30 a.m. that I seem to be "accidentally" watching the Project Runway reunion special for the second time tonight. I'm supposed to be working on other stuff. Damn you, Bravo! Get some more shows so you don't have to play them all two hours apart. And damn you, Annie for continuing to not bother to change the channel. Or turn the freaking TV off! Who am I kidding.

Quick rundown of things I love about Heidi:

--The way she says "HELLO!" whenever she walks into the room on her show. At first I wondred how many takes they had to do of her saying this at a time, but now I think she's just naturally that wacky. My partner-in-Heidi-loving and I have been trying to imitate her "HELLO!" for weeks now (we greet each other on the phone with it. we're cool.) and we still can't get it quite right, wtih that special German-accent staccato. She's an original!

--The way she says "Byeee" to the designers when she's done talking to them. Again, it's inimitable. (Are we sensing a trend here? Here's a shortcut to this post: Annie Barrett loves the way Heidi Klum talks.

Okay, I'm already sick of my list. Next season maybe I'll live blog the shows so I can just point out various things Heidi says that are funny. You're so excited.

No O.C. tomorrow night so Friday's wrap-up will cover the women's figure skating long program instead. That should be fun. Still... can the Olympics be over already? I've been wasting so much time lately sitting there watching late-night coverage and wondering why I suddenly care so much about people I'll never see again. I guess it's the equivalent of me going out to a cool club or party and finding it generally useless to talk to new people. Watching the Olympics at 4 a.m. is just the ultra-Anntisocial way to go about it.

I can't ever make too much fun of American Apparel's blatantly nasty and gape-provoking ad campaigns because I sort of like their clothes. I mean, not this particular outfit to my right (I wouldn't put a green Loop Terry Bra with orange Hooters Shorts, despite putting ugly camo with neon pink for my "About Annie" photo) but I do really like their stretchy headbands and t-shirts. That's right -- you wouldn't know it from any of their ads, but in addition to articles of clothing that boast direct interaction with crotches and breasts, American Apparel also sells shirts. Take it from me -- I have one!

Like, I get it. American Apparel really wants to hammer it home how great of a relationshp they have with the Mexican women they employ in a "non-sweatshop" setting in "vertically integrated" Los Angeles. Apparently the capitalist vs. poor laborer relationship within the company is thriving to the point where the employees randomly feel like abandoning duty on the Ringer Tube Top assembly line and jumping in front of the camera in their undies for some impromptu modeling.

That's awesome for them, really. But seriously? This ad? Is not hot. Click to enlarge it, but don't say I didn't warn you that the enlargement is HUGE and calls direct attention to AA's really clever placement of the letter "C." Awww, that's adorable. Because the poor little 13-year-old lying spread-eagle on a dirty futon in AA's brothel/warehouse is really just a big C-word beeyotch. That's really funny, not to mention sensitve and appropriate!!! Great job, American Apparel. DR gives you a big WAY TO GO in todos los colores.

Let's not forgot DR's other hard-hitting assessment of Miguel's ad last summer. Or maybe we should.

My mom called me frantically Monday night to let me know that the cast of Dancing with the Stars was on Larry King Live. She thought it'd be good for me to keep up on any and all TV-related evidence of these cretins further invading American homes so I remain well-informed to write my very important column on Thursdays. I reluctantly pressed "record" on my DVR while promising to watch it later.

I made it through about five minutes of this complete dreck a few hours ago and my brain has yet to fully regenerate (Hence: why I'm writing about this! See? It's all connected.) I don't know if it was Lisa Rinna in general, or George Hamilton's eerie ability to resemble a dark-skinned black man, or the fact that I truly see no other explanation for Stacy Kiebler's blank, programmed reactions to everything than that she is an honest-to-god experimental robot conceived by the same people behind the movie "Simone"... but the combination of these characters with Larry King, who clearly hates all of them even more than he hates his usual guests, was just too much. So that's that. Thanks, Dee!

Just received word from my friend on IM that "ha....this japanese figure skater totally dropped the ball" so I am really excited to watch that in the morning. Yessssss. I love it when they fall. I'm a horrible person. But you already knew that.

I'll just get this out of the way.

I DON'T GET THIS AD!!!

And now for the season premiere of "Dream On!" It's Annie Barrett's new series that covers the insipid little world of obnoxious Internet ads, starring diminishingreturns dot net and featuring Annie's stuffed Heffalump. (He'll only make occasional guest appearances.) First up: an ad that truly boggles the mind. Really gets those noggin juices going.

Who clicks on these? People who are reminded by the phrase "$100 FREE!" that for $100 free they could buy some perfectly fine illegal marijuana rather easily? And pretty much avoid your crappy ad box and everything it's associated with?! DREAM ON, anonymous company. And my answer to your question is "No." Pot smoking is for total burnouts and Winter Olympians.

The greatest thing I did today was discover a new salad dressing (not for salad, but so I have something in which to dip my Corner Bakery croutons) called Braswell's Creamy Vidalia Onion Dressing. It... is... incredible.

The best part about that paragraph is that what I just said is exactly why people started to hate typical bloggers. (Why did I just say "started to"? They still hate us.) These people's defense to "Why do you hate bloggers?" would be something non-witty, like "Oh yeah, like I'd really want to hear about someone's mundane daily details. I don't care if you ate canned soup straight from the big silver pot." (I also did that today! I am such a cute and quirky blogger, you guys. Check me out!)

But I have neither excuse nor apology for throwing in some random tidbit about salad dressing, because I don't need one. When I really think about it -- like really pound the idea of the dressing and maybe even some of the residue left over from the dressing itself that just encrusted itself to my mouth -- it's really cool that this great find makes me supremely happy. [In the voice of Valerie Cherish:] "Well? I'm going with it!"

I adore the word "noggin."

My neighbors are making amateur porn again. More on that later.

So. Later!

Here's what I thought of last night's episode of The O.C. Tell your friends, suitemates, lovers, and would-be Valentines to hit that up.

The best part about this Craigslist listing about a pink denim couch is the parenthetical phrase "sort of stonewashed."

...Such as reading what I write! As if I needed another reason to love Madonna: last night, during her performance of "Hung Up" at the Grammys, she wore the exact type of outfit (some sort of cargo leotard featuring a corset and possibly a bulletproof vest) that she wears in her second Confessions on a Dance Floor video, "Sorry," which premiered at AOL Music hours later on the same night.

Just watch the video. "Hung Up" was amazing in its own right, I but already think "Sorry" is even better. The woman's a creative genius, and I'm sick of people not really getting this at all... or maybe they do get it but they refuse to admit it in hopes of keeping up their streed cred. These people need to get over themselves.

(Now I'm just going to talk about the video. If you didn't just watch it like I convincingly demanded, please move on to the next cool page on your bookmarks bar.)

Presumably after walking out of the nightclub from "Hung Up," Madonna and her gal pals decide to hop into some random van... except it's not random! It's driven by the awesome fat lady who danced in the train during "Hung Up"! She's a recurring character! The ladies ditch their guys and go cruising for new ones, all of whom they pick up off the street and proceed to torture with sensuous lip-syncing and Madonna's sinewy, evil, platform-booted legs.

Interspersed among the more plot-driven scenes are cuts to Madonna by herself against a neon-dotted background that looks exactly like my absolute favorite 1980s toy, the Lite-Brite. My favorite parts of these: the one where Madonna slowly feels down the curves of a hypothetical person (presumably "His Humps") and when she flicks her thumb against the bottom edge of her top teeth -- you know, just to do it. Why not?

[Crash!] Now we're at the part of the video where Madonna's decided to face off in some sort of deathmatch cage fight. Fans/onlookers/possible villains are crawling up the chain-link fences like scary insects at high speed. It's incredible. And right at what I think sounds like a "crash," or the turning point in the song (2:43) at which things mildly slow down and Madonna gets to take a breather and speak foreign languages again, in the video she and the women just stare down the men in the cage, like "Just try and fuck with us. Really, try it." Look at her fucking outfit. Look at any of her outits lately. It's a gas, gas, gas.

Holy crap. She's writhing all over the floor, pulling her leg over her head and performing scissor kicks... and literally fighting each of the guys off with her ridiculous dance moves! Without ever actually touching a male dancer, she just kicked the shit out of maybe 15 of them.

What makes the kung fu shit-kicking sequence even more enjoyable is that it all starts right after she says "Forgive me" directly into the camera while removing an apparently cumbersome white sparkly jacket. In the single, she speaks three "Forgive mes," but in the video only the last one gets mouth time. It's a welcome dramatic difference.

Suddenly there's a random person roller skating through the cage, and... poof! Everyone's in a roller rink, line dancing. It's like what they do in the disco in Boogie Nights, when Roller Girl is actually on roller skates. Because she's Roller Girl. Get it? The best parts of this scene are when Madonna swings through the guy's legs at the beginning and does a sweeping disco point (left), and the fact that during this scene and the cage fight, she's wearing volleyball-esque knee pads!

At one point during the roller-rink sequence when she's getting spun around by a partner, you get the impression that it is at this exact point (right) that Madonna has gone completely insane. But seriously, who cares? The entire endeavor is hilarious.

The final shots of the colorful boom box hanging out alone on the street and Madonna's silhouette dancing against the Lite-Brite background should provide a good starting point for the video for "Jump." I can see her actually making a video for all 13 songs on the album and releasing them as a collector's DVD. The songs would obviously all blend into each other like they do on the CD, though it's unclear to me whether she'd then rearrange the videos to show in the original album order or leave them in the order the videos were released. I'm betting the latter, with all new between-songs transitions. Either way, something like that would be huge for music videos as a genre. Or maybe just for Madonna.

Hmm. As an aside, you'd have to be an obsessive fiend to appreciate this (Dr. K I'm talking to you) but I really like the cut between shots of her posing-then-singing. The exact seconds in the song are from 0:59 to 1:00, in between the words "care" and "of." Posing! Now, singing! Yesssss.

What do you think? Do I need to get a more interesting life? Because I'm kind of liking this one.

Awwww. Thanks to the people who wrote me e-mails and comments about The O.C. column. That was most unexpected! I will continue to write episode recaps on this site, even though no one has ever heard of it or is likely to ever find it. But that's okay. Google searches such as "The O.C. gold medal ribbon" or "I love that Seth Cohen is a pothead now" can be very effective in drawing traffic.

I would write about last week's episode more, but to be honest I was under the influence of two beers and a severe dose of Tylenol PM at the time and the only thing that stuck with me was the part about ice cream. In a delirious, hunger-induced fit of madness, I seem to have deleted the episode.

Things I remember happening:

--Julie had storylines involving Hot Pockets and grits. The insistence on her character turning into blatant white trash is getting a little out of control and/or offensive to actual white trash. Who would probably not be watching the show, or realize they should be offended even if they were watching. Silly trailer park dwellers! So I guess it doesn't matter.

--The Seth on Drugs bit was a little overdone, especially the part at the beginning where he's prowling the pier for his daily fix. I can see a junkie doing that, but Seth in his nerd-chic Harbor School outfit? Come on. Saving grace: The bag he ended up buying contained an absolutely ridiculous amount of weed. I was salivating from my bed, even though weed doesn't even taste that good. Good one, props department!

--Too much time elapsed between Seth getting high and Seth and Summer completing their screening of Save the Last Dance for Seth to still be stoned enough to be completely wowed-out by the movie. His ensuing obsession with the plain blue screen ("It's so deep... like water" or something... this is a freaking blog and we don't do direct quotes at DR.) was over-the-top, too. He'd have to be 70 pounds or a complete idiot to behave like that. (He's arguably both.) Saving grace: The idea of someone totally appreciating the nuances and greatness of a movie like that is pretty hilarious and definitely a side effect of marijuana.

--Even better, the best reference to Seth's new habit was an indirect one: When Ryan and Marissa retired to the poolhouse with their Thai takeout, the ever-clueless Marissa complained, "Seth ate all of our dumplings." Hahahaha.

Okay, so I guess I could write about the episode. Too bad all I had to say about it focused on pot and food. I'll do better next week.

Speaking of me being a big loser, I actually received confirmation via my life partner - my Time Warner DVR device - that I'm not just a generic big loser, but I am the biggest loser. Check it out: late last night, I decided I should record Wednesday night's Grammy Awards in order to stay up on pop culture and catch the Madonna/Gorillaz collaboration.

But, ROADBLOCK!

In addition to reminding me that "Yes, you complete tool, you wanted to tape a show about fat people losing weight, and not even the serial version but a freaking special edition of this craptastic show"... the very title of said show served to inform me that "Hey, Annie, there you have it. You are The Biggest Loser to ever own and operate a DVR."

Saving grace: the CNN thing in the corner is like a bonus reference to The O.C.!

If you'll excuse me, I have to go eat ten pounds of turkey bacon and then work out for three hours on an elliptical trainer. NOTE TO "BIGGEST LOSER" CONTESTANTS: Guess how normal people lose weight? They stop eating ten pounds of turkey bacon. There, I said it. Good luck.

So, do you think Johnny Harper is really dead?

Apologies in advance: I don't get to write about The O.C. anymore (I've moved on to covering a far more ridiculous show), so I'm gonna do it right here. Instead of covering the entire episode, I'll just be focusing on something really small (annoying, even!) and apply it to my own life because HELLO! It's what I do. I'm cool.

Last night on The O.C., Marissa and her on-again/off-again sister Kaitlin were chillin' out by the pier, because that's what all cool girls do in Newport Beach mid-morning, and Kaitlin told some long-winded story -- that was actually a lot like this sentence -- about how when they were younger, Marissa could never decide on which flavor of ice cream to order at Baskin Robbins.

I was immediately intrigued, for many reasons. 1) These two actresses probably haven't even eaten ice cream since they were around six. 2) That's a really funny product placement, even if it's only a Mention. And 3) Baskin Robbins was my favorite ice cream store when I was younger, and the more things on TV that can relate to Annie Barrett's Own Life, the better! Also 4) Baskin Robbins made the Clown Cones I've written about before. You remember, right? (I'm basically talking to myself here, so yes, Annie, I totally remember that! It was such an awesome entry.)

Anyway, the story 14 year-old Kaitlin told was funny because I can totally picture someone as annoying as Marissa wanting to sample all 31 of the flavors before making her final decision. Imagine my shock and awe when I realized that Kaitlin was actually describing my life! See, Kaitlin, who bragged that she always got Gold Medal Ribbon because she "knew" that she "loved it," is like my friend Kara, who in the hundreds of times we must have gone to Baskin Robbins NEVER ordered anything except Gold Medal Ribbon. She knew about it from day one, even before I'd ever been to the store with her. It was like she'd claimed that territory as part of her America. I'd always be a little jealous, becuase I too liked GMR. She was right -- it never disappointed. It was just something you could count on, like running water or Ryan Atwood.

So Kara would choose Gold Medal Ribbon. They'd give it to her and she'd stand there all smug, totally happy with her decision. Smart as a whip, that Kara. Such conviction at such a young age. Meanwhile, I'd be sweating (literally... I wasn't even fat, but I did sweat a lot as a preteen) while touring the rest of the flavors. If I got Gold Medal Ribbon, I'd be a copycat, but if I got something I didn't like as much, I'd hate Kara and myself for the rest of that day. Sometimes I went with rainbow sherbet or a Clown Cone or even this other flavor they had called World Class Chocolate that always always always sat right on top of GMR. It was brutal. Sure, I liked World Class Chocolate, but I never once got to order GMR if Kara was there because I thought she'd get mad at me. Why didn't I just order it first, or pretend like I didin't remember that it was her favorite flavor? Nah, she'd be onto me in a second. Smart as a whip, like I said.

Wow, Annie, another killer graphic.

What the F is the point of this? It's right here: I hate Marissa. And now I'm LIKE Marissa. It follows that I now hate myself. Great! Time for this week's Query Chart, or what people searched online that made them find this site.

Yesssss. larry king's chili and i hate oprah are welcome additions to the list, which 100% of the time includes the query "butt crack." I am an amazing writer and a prominent thinker of my time.

Speaking of phrases like "of my time," how absolutely offensive is it that in this year's Survivor, they broke up the women and men into older and younger groups? One of the women, Cirie, was like "I thought I was young!" while the graphic below her name said she belonged to the OLDER WOMEN group. Yikes. I also think producers planted that fish in the rocks so Tina could find it, bring it back to camp, be seen as even more of a threat, and get BOOTED!

The Office was really good last night, too.

But I don't really like TV.

I chose this month's "user photo" because it looks like I'm about to say something bitchy.