About Halloweenish Annie

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The Mouth Trap
(The Real World, Oct. 11)

Shirk Attack!
(The Real World, Oct. 4)

Marissa's So-Called Life
(The O.C., Sept. 29)

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Features

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

I'll be out of town for nine days. Where? A bad photograph of the most ridiculous commercial currently on television is your clue:

Most people would find the Olive Garden's Never-Ending Pasta Bowl disgusting because OG is an evil corporation whose food isn't that good. I find it disgusting because I know, deep down, that my chain-restaurant standards are low enough that I would secretly really enjoy sitting in an Olive Garden eating plates of sub-par pasta until I gained seven pounds... just to make sure I got the most out of the deal.

My cheeky subject is a reference to both this site and my current obsession with Fiona Apple's new album, Extraordinary Machine. I'm not sure if this is cause for alarm, but it's gotten to the point where I don't even want to fall asleep in the early morning because it means I'll have to stop listening until early afternoon. (That sentence would have flowed much more nicely if I kept normal sleeping hours, but alas...)

I sometimes have trouble letting albums really sink in. I consider that an album has "sunk in" when I can have it on in the background of anything I'm doing and whichever song happens to be on will just makes sense. This is hard to do with brand-new (or new to me) albums. Sometimes I only like a few songs and they're all over the place in the playlist so I have to track forward all the time. This makes me all jittery and impatient and less fun than my usual really really fun. Impatience is not an issue with Machine. Each time I hear every single song, I can't believe how good it is.

Hmmm. Other albums that have struck me as good all-purpose background music...

Porrtishead, Dummy
Beck, Sea Change
Midnight Movies, Midnight Movies
Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Massive Attack, Mezzanine
Air, Talkie Walkie and Royksopp, Melody A.M., with the right mood
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
ELO, Time (nerd alert)
10,000 Maniacs, MTV Unplugged
Cranberries, Everybody Else is Doing It So Why Can't We?
Aimee Mann's songs on the Magnolia soundtrack
Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord
title albums of Boston, Blind Faith, The Cars
...and other obvious ones like Dark Side, Abbey Road, OK Computer, etc.

I am usually only a true fan of someone/a band if I revere one of their entire albums in this way, song for song. The weird thing is, I was never a Fiona Apple fan until hype started brewing a few months ago for her new album. I was in high school when she made that arguably slutty/anorexic "Criminal" video, and frankly I found her annoying. I had no idea about any of her other songs, especially the ones on her 1999 album, When the Pawn... until I downloaded them a month ago. They're absolutely beautiful. The last song, "I Know," is perfect and reminds me of a Sarah McLachlan song I used to use to try and fall asleep in high school. I was going to say "nerd alert" again, but whatever. I still think she's cool.

I feel like this is turning into a plea for my parents to buy Fiona's new CD (and her second one) because I like turning them onto music they normally wouldn't buy. (See Beck and Flaming Lips, above.) I guess this entire rant would be best suited to a personal e-mail. Too late.

To compensate, here's a photo I took of the Bleecker Street Marc Jacobs store's window display:

I'm not sure if they're making fun of the huge wooden bead necklace trend or not here. It would be so hilarious if they were. I'm too lazy/don't care enough to find out if the MJ fall line actually offers the necklaces for sale, but I personally hope it's a joke and that they don't. How great would it be if people kept approaching the saleswomen and asking to buy that necklace in the window and got laughed at hysterically after being told the beads were only part of an over-the-top, nightmarish window display.

Thoughts on whether or not the necklaces are a joke, or which albums fall into the "revered" category for you, are welcome. As a song I had to sing in 2nd grade chorus went, "I like music... Any kind of music... Any kind of music... I love." What a loserish, redundant song. So send me more download ideas. Kristian, this means you. Thanks.

Loving: Eclipse gum, Polar Ice variety
Hating: overpriced grape tomatoes that seem to have wrinkled overnight

BTW, I am really striking out on the autumnal banners.

Last week, I got a haircut at The Beach on Christopher Street. I am so cool! I live in the West Village!

Anyway, my illustrious stylist Thom ran across the street during my appointment to get these cheesy, bready "puffs" he kept talking about. "It's like bread... and oil... and spices... oh, and obviously cheese!" he kept sputtering. Obviously. Curious as all hell but also in shock that there existed a trend in snacking of which I was not yet aware, I just glared at him and asked what he was talking about. It was a combination of shame and intense interest. I must have had an "Enlighten me. Now. I'm hungry." death stare going on because when I looked up, he was gone.

We have a cute relationship like that. Last time, I bought him a peanut butter-chocolate bar from the Polka Dot Cake Studio after he opined, mid-foil, that there was nothing in the world better than a Reese's. Until I discovered this bar, I might have agreed with him (as evidenced by my favorite poster), but I couldn't let him go on living in a massive delusion and so delivered a bar to him promptly. His bringning me a cheesy puff must have been payback for that.

The puffs came from Pai Pao, across the street from the salon. Here's a pic from inside:

Thom declared the puff ''this year's Magnolia cupcake" and I already agree. Plus, the store staff doesn't try to intimidate you with What the fuck are you doing in our bakery? looks, so that's a perk. The puffs are small in stature so it's like you're eating less; plus, you get to feel like a giant. Wait, I already feel like a giant. Hmm. Then, a really thin and beautiful giant, with amazing hair, who's stuffing fried cheese into her mouth because it's suddenly trendy. Hooray.

Five puffs cost only $3.50. You could make them a meal, unless you're really hungry, a big pig, or me. Here's a cross-section of the NY Cheddar. It looks sort of disgusting, which is why I don't get how it can be so good. Then again, a big platter of nacho soup (when there aren't any more chips and the main course has yet to arrive) looks really gross, too, and clearly it's amazing.

I was eating my puffs on the Christopher Street pier, and within eyeshot was this incredibly lame photo shoot:

What was this for? My guess is the J. Crew catalogue or some high-society magazine. WASP Weekly, perhaps. I still don't get why they wanted the Hoboken skyline in the background or why they couldn't have waited for a sunny day. I was intrigued by what sort of fake food could have been in their picnic basket, but I didn't have the courage to ask. Models are so much cooler than me!

Loving: 99-cent 2-liters of Coke Zero
Hating: entire Thai food lunch special that I just knocked onto the floor

Maybe this will teach me to check the TWOP message board before wasting time taking a photo of my TV screen and, if that wasn't lame enough, making the extra effort to point out different components of the shot in magenta font.

This is from last night's LOST, which is not supposed to be written out that way, but I insist. I am loving this show so much more than last season. The early-computer-era props are really doing it for me. I can't stand the people who see something as ingenius as the past two episodes and immediately start complaining about how it sucks that we don't know what the numbers mean yet, or why the guy in the hatch injects himself with chemicals, or how he could exist in two different worlds at seemingly the same time. I love this shit. I dig not knowing. Get a life. Actually, their response to that would probably be that their lives are already so packed with other concerns than TV that they really need to find out now what's going on in LOST. They'd be all "you get a life." And I'd be all, "I don't want to. TV is enough." This is exactly how the conversation would go!!!

I need some sleep. Anyway, I thought I was the keenest LOST viewer that ever lived because I noticed the logo emblazoned on the shark-like creature's underbelly when it swam by during the show. What an idiot. Five seconds after I created this image, it occurred to me that I might look like a big tool for acting like I'm all that online. Of course, on the second page of discussion board comments for the ep, someone brought up the logo on the shark. So my image won't turn out to be as mindblowing as I'd hoped. I suck. Just not enough to hold back from posting the picture anyway. Whee.

Okay. So that's over. But where did I get the idea that "looking like a big tool for acting like I'm all that online" was something I could possibly avoid? That trend's been going strong on DR for over a year now and isn't about to let up.

Just noticed that everything I've written since falsely quitting the website has been about TV. I'm not ashamed of this, nor am I ashamed to suggest that this season of America's Next Top Model is already the best yet. It's actually relatively believable this time around. And the word "fierce" was used only twice tonight instead of its usual requisite 28 times per week, so this does... bode well.

Currently hating: expired butter
Currently loving: near-rectangular red seedless grapes