The Times They Are A Changin'

I remember my first Barbie Doll. It actually wasn't even technically "Barbie" per se but rather a doll made to look like Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I had a mild obsession with the Little Mermaid as a kid and am fairly certain I watched the movie a bijillion times until the tape wore out. (sad day)






Any who, I did not play with my dolls as a normal girl would, playing dress up and sending her off on a hot date with Kenny boy. No, I chose to dress her up, stuff her in her plush white Barbie Ferrari and send her crashing down the steps and into doors and walls. So violently that her head often popped off. After which I would go dashing into the room where I could find my parents and politely ask one of them to put Ariel back together so that I could do it again. On nice days we even got the privilege of taking a cruise outside, to be launched off of the bike jumps my brother and I built in the backyard.


So maybe I took "playing with Barbie" to a bit of a different level. But I am pretty sure American Girl Doll has officially taken the cake as far as levels go when they introduced to the world Gwen Thompson, the 'Homeless' American Girl.



Are you kidding me?







Do we really need to exploit the struggling economy via a child's doll? Do we really need to exploit this sort of negative connotation towards young children that even dolls can be homeless?

With every American doll comes a book explaining their "story." In Ms. Thompson's case, her father walked out on the family and her mother lost her job, causing them to have to sleep in a car. Let's think about this for a minute. Once the young girls who own this doll (recommended age is 8) are able to read her story, they will be old enough to read but still too young to understand the world in the least bit. By reading this bio, it leaves them with the impression that, yes Daddys leave their Mommys, and if that happens you will eventually be sleeping in a car. But that's okay, that just means you are living just like Gwenny! WTF American Doll.


Wait, wait. But here is the best part. It costs $95 big ones. Talk about an oxymoron.

G20? I thought this was an arts and crafts convention?

- I really can't stand Old Navy commercials.






- As much as I enjoyed the book Where the Wild Things Are as a kid, I find the movie previews to be a bit creepy. Probably because the Wild Things remind me of gremlins - I had to post a pic of Gizmo, not of a scary gremlin, I can't bring myself to do it. They still give me the heeby-geebies.

-For the past two seasons I lost touch with Grey's Anatomy. I caught an episode here and there, enough to at least know the basics of what was going on - Izzy with cancer, Torres swinging her door the other way, McSteamy and Little Grey bow-chica-wow wowww... yada yada. Anyhow I ended up watching the season finale, almost on accident.


Wow. Amazing. I cried, I am not a crier, but I cried...by myself. What a finale. We all gushed over it all summer so I won't ramble on about it too much. But, I was wondering last night while watching the season premiere, how will they top it? How will they be able to come up with a better story line than that? I hate seeing characters killed off of shows and sometimes it ends up killing the show - R.I.P Marissa and the O.C.



I thought the premiere was pretty solid. It touched on a lot of emotions which reminded me that sometimes TV shows can be therapeutic. They can be more than just a brainless stimulant to pass the time. Some people think that television is what is decaying our minds into a pile of mush where we have no opinions of our own but rather are simply repeating what we hear.



Eh. Yes, I think television amongst the other mediums carry that potential but sometimes it is in the eye of the beholder. Is it not our responsibility to feel on our own? To watch, listen, learn on our own and form our own thoughts and opinions based on what we hear and see? Is it not our own fault if we decided to remain intelectually numb and decide to take the easy route of plagarizing somebody elses thoughts and opinions rather than forming our own? Huh....



Nonetheless, during the entire 2 hour premiere, I am pretty sure that by about the fourth time it went to commercial break I was more than ready to throw my Grandpa's very new, very nice TV out his very large bay window. Could they be any more repetitive? So, is it the shows or the commercials making us so thoughtless? I cringed everytime I saw those stupid Old Navy manicans chatting by the baggage claim. To top it off, once the one found her legs, they were wearing Uggs. Ugghhhhh. Not a fan. Not a fan one bit.


- I thought the G20 was 50 cents way of proclaiming a G-unit upgrade and he was coming to Pittsburgh to tell us about it.



Go, Go, Go Pittsburgh, it's your birthday. We gonna party like it's your birthday.

Or, maybe the G20 is an arts and crafts convention? Sign painting 1-0-1.

You decide.

It's been awhile. . .

It's been a few months since the last post so bear with me while I gather myself and get back to feeling the flow of the keyboard through my fingertips...

- I mean no disrespect when I say this but clearly Michael Jackson has decided to moonwalk his way to the grave. Or at least people have decided that for him. The news reported this morning that they are finally burying him today. Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me they have not buried that (man) yet? You mean to tell me that Ted Kennedy died two month after him and was buried almost a week before him? He died almost three, yes THREE, months ago (June 25). Is that even relatively humane to hold a body from its burial for that amount of time? It sounds a bit ignorant but I am pretty tired of hearing about the "King of Pop." He had a bit of a controversial and questionable life, but let the man Rest In Peace before California decides to tax its residents for his above ground presence. I mean, they did tax them $3.5 million for his dag-on funeral. What kind of bill will the state smack them with for his burial? I guess Cali decided to say W.S.U. (We'll Show You) by changing their I.O.U.'s to U.O.U.'s (You Owe Us).

Speaking of being tired of hearing about someone...actually I'm not even going to waste yours or my time saying anything about Brett Favre, so never mind.

I'll at least do him the favor of posting a pic of #4 during his prime.


- OK, I want to know who decided to deem swear-words as inappropriate? I understand the purpose of them - it's a strong oath. If you swear, it means you feel very strongly about what you are talking about. But, whoever said that that was a bad thing? That by tagging that curse word in a sentence, you are speaking foully? That if, at the age of five, you chant an explicative aloud during recess for every other five year old to hear, you get sent home for the day only to have a bar of soap stuck in your mouth? Isn't it just freedom of speech? Of expressing oneself and how we feel about something? I bet the same person that decided we needed two forks for dinner and have to use the small one for your salad is the same person that decided to proclaim curse words big fat no-no's.

- Our judicial system is a mess. There is absolutely no means of justifying the fact that convicted kidnapper, rapist and registered sex offender Phillip Garrido was released from prison after serving 11 of his 50 year sentence, only to kidnap and rape again, father two children, and hide it for 18 years. I have no desire to go into further discussion on this topic. It's disgusting.

- On a much happier note, tonight is the Steelers last preseason game! It's also the least week of final cuts. The roster will be trimmed from 75 to a healthy 53. Despite a handful of promising rookies, let's hope Tomlin and Co. don't pull a Leyland '92 theory of 'out with the old and in with the new'. We all see how far that got our Bucco's. Ha.

- And in local news, somebody set fire to a jungle gym at the Cliffside park in the Hill District. Really? Do people not have anything else better to do with their time? Awesome, way to go buddy.

- One last thought: the air is getting a bit cooler, especially at night. Which means (as the chipper barista at Starbucks pointed out to my excitement) scarves will become appropriate to wear again, hot apple cider will become a popular drink of choice, and amongst other things, the leaves will begin to change. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the fact that football season will be in full swing. Despite the fact that I much more prefer the warmth, I still really enjoy the changing of the seasons, especially the transition from summer to fall and then winter to spring.

I'm excited.