DR is obviously under construction. I’m in the process of switching over to Wordpress so I don’t have to keep doing every single thing on the site manually, like a total idiot.

It will look somewhat normal soon.

Starting this week, I’ll be writing every Thursday and Friday on EW.com’s PopWatch blog. I’m also filling in this afternoon. You have to read it because the eyeball in the graphic is just too compellingly creepy. Tune in!

Here I am in Michigan, not updating DR:

Can you believe it? The sun is setting.

My hand reminds me of medieval Christian paintings, when baby Jesus or whoever the hell else was in those scenes would hold up certain fingers to boast their holiness. That wasn’t really what I was going for here.

Right now I’m in Chicago, frolicking joyfully in a wavepool of WiFi signals. I’ll mostly be staying in New Buffalo, MI for the next few weeks. Yes! Vacation!

I originally envisioned updating my blog from the beach a la Sandra Bullock in The Net, except she was conducting some sort of official business and I’d be attempting to better describe how it feels to eat a particularly sandy potato chip. (Great!)

Anyway, I thought Internet wouldn’t be a problem up there, but for this specific DR-based computer, it is. Sandra could explain why. I can’t.

Meanwhile, I’m heading up to the non-Internet area again, for two weeks. I’ll try to figure it out and update with important reports on chili con queso and the Michigan City, Indiana Steak n Shake, but can’t make any promises.

I’m aware that I suck. I should be Auf’d!

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.

Spent much of today making small changes to this site (none of which will ever be detected; awesome!) and trying to figure out why the hell the e-mail address I’d been using for the site worked about 3% of the time. There’s a new one now, called diminishingreturnsdotnet@gmail.com. I chose that name because I like long, nonsensical words and because I apparently don’t derive enough daily pleasure from Gmail as it is.

Also Google-related: (I am a Google machine! Google, check it out! Now improve my rating.) In my mostly uninteresting data-prowl through a nifty program called StatCounter, I came across this fun chart about my October 2004 archive. It’s a list of queries people made that resulted in them clicking on the link to DR in Google.

I find most of these terrific, especially “funny reindeer sweater,” “diminishing returns pizza,” and “manhattan mini storage crotch,” the latter of which is proof that at least one other person in this city was completely dumbfounded as to why an ad for rentable space needed to involve a plate of spaghetti and a crotch.

“Swishing process” was a surprise. I’m guessing this person (who lives in… Korea?!) wasn’t referring to the “mouth-swish,” a savoring process involving expertly paired food and drink with which I’m particularly obsessed. Did he want to know how to brush his teeth? Drink wine? Intriguing.

As far as I know, Pepperidge farm doesn’t make danish, but kudos to whoever decided to google that. I’m guessing he or she had “Entenmann’s,” the obvious brand, on the tip of the tongue, but it happened to come out “Pepperidge Farm.” Gross. I found most of their products dry, tasteless, and packaged in way too small of serving sizes, until they came out with the Soft Baked cookie series.

Hmm. Just Googled (again!) those cookies and found this review site. It’s called Phoood. Um, cool. Is that like Phiiish? Click on that and check out the plea from the dude who seems certain that he loves Soft Baked Snickerdoodles but can’t find them in his native France. I feel seriously horrible for this guy. He’s begging people, none of whom will ever respond to him, for “help” in acquiring the cookies. And his name is SLY! I’m dying.

The only query I have a problem with is “diminishing returns weight loss.” That’s just not right.

CL: Google!
CH: Anything Google hasn’t conquerred yet. It should, soon, because it’s a great company!

Now get back to work.

Not updating this website is addictive. I bet you didn’t know that the absence of something, literally a non-activity, could have addictive qualities. But it can. It’s not the same as being addicted to a substance or activity, like drugs or doing drugs. I don’t go around thinking about my next “fix” of “doing anything else except writing in this space” but I do sit there motionlessly (”going around” sounds a little too active for me) and think to myself “You know what I feel like doing right now? Not updating my website.” Which at least means something — that I’m thinking about the website instead of thinking about nothing — but what ends up happening has nothing to do with the website at all. Namely, that I end up doing nothing that has to do with the website and nothing that doesn’t, either. I just got lost myself too, don’t worry. You see, not updating the website means that it’s that many more days until I can remember how to form coherent sentences again. And realize when it’s time to end an atrocity of a paragraph.

Here is proof that I had a reason to keep basking in the not updating:

See? I was at the lake (Michigan, where they don’t even have computers yet), looking nasty and acting smug in front of the camera for no reason. Who am I kidding with my hand on my hip and the no-teeth smile here? It’s like I’m saying “Yeah dude, check out my lake. Made it all by myself. Whoosh! Lake.” Gross.

Yes, my shirt does say “Western Springs Recreation Girls Youth Basketball.” It’s making my chest look disfigured, but that’s probably due to the bathing suit underneath. Bet I could sell that tee to a downtown thrift store for $16, which I would promptly carry to and deposit at Chipotle.

I’ve been getting 2-3 Slurpees per day at NYC’s first-ever 7-Eleven. I now excrete sugary syrup from my pores without even trying. Whoosh! It’s lovely.

Hi everyone. It’s Diminishing Returns. The economic principle! No, just kidding, the crappy blog. Annie seems to have dropped off on me due to a lethal combination of supermarket wine and generic Nyquil, so allow me to take the reins for a bit. I’m sure Annie will post some sort of lame-ass New Year’s Resolutiions list within the next few days, so watch THIS! I’m going to preempt that bitch. Also, because she would probably be predictable and do 10, I’m going to list 11.

New Year’s Resolutions for DR:

11. Lose weight, eat right.
10. Feature one review of NYC nachos per week.
9. Focus more on The Issues!
8. Yeah right.
7. Develop better logo. This one is sooo 2004. Actually, more like 1995.
6. Stop sucking.
5. Update automatically, even if Annie is cranky and hungover. Feed Annie bruschetta in bed if that’s the case, then spew out something brilliant. Because I am brilliant. She only wishes.
4. Train vigorously for Sexiest Pathetic 20-something Soul-Searching Blog of 2005, or at least a place in the top ten.
3. The above referred to the blog itself, ME, not Annie. Who are you kidding?
2. Change name from The Anti-Blog to The Annie Blog without warning so that Annie seems extra dorky.
1. Stop being so blatantly a blog.

Contributions welcome! How do you think DR can improve?

Try to come up with something better than “Come on. Go back to the old biweekly features - they were better than this. Really.” because that requires more work and creative energy on Annie’s part and she’s stubborn, although if you pressed hard enough she might give in. Also, do not request “more pictures of hot girls!” because that ain’t happening.

(Note from Annie: Whew! I just woke up. It’s true. I try not to post pictures of myself on here too often. It gets excessive…ly hot.)

What? Annie, shutthefuckup. You know what? I (DR the blog) think my real NYR should be to take over this webspace. Yeah! Sexy, mysteriously anonymous blog trumps dowdy, identity-obvious blogger any day! Come 2005, you’ll have to answer to ME. I like this. It’s a plan.