Entries from October 2007 ↓

In writing this article/entry, I wanted to find a photo of Elizabeth Wurtzel not already used by the NYTimes, which showed what I imagined to be a more dignified, grown up, partner-in-a-law-firm-ready Lizzy. This was the best I could find, but then again, it’s hard to have a non-coked-out photo when your life’s work has been built around the idea of being a coked out train wreck.

I forget where I heard it first, the news that Lizzy was going to Law School, that is. I believe it was sometime after More, Now, Again came out, sometime around the time that the atrocious film version of Prozac Nation was canned (almost forever) due to her comments about Buildings Fall Down Day, that she was numb to it, that it was an art project. I knew then when that interview, which painted her as difficult and as mentally ill as always, missing her interview appointment so that she ended up being interviewed in her hotel room in her pajamas, hit the papers, the girl would never write again…at least not a best seller.

So I was right, but not for a lack of trying. She then churned out More. Now. Again, which was critically panned, and The Bitch Rules, later renamed Radical Sanity, even later renamed The Secret of Life, which most reviewers didn’t even bother with, and the advice in which gave me some ideas which later turned out to be, at worst, seriously bad advice.

So, with an LSAT score no more than two points higher than mine, she went to Yale, the lucky bitch. She went, she took time off, she went again, she graduated. And now, according to the NYTimes, being a notorious drug addict with a mugshot that is quite easy to find if you know how to google, for a shoplifting incident she herself chronicled, with a FTW (Stands for “Fuck the World) tattoo visible in most unairbrushed, post-Prozac Nation photos, the girl who posed naked for the cover of one of her books is having difficulty finding a job in the uptight New England land once settled by Puritans who haven’t moved out since? I never would have guessed.

Looks like I will have to step in and fill the void. Quick, someone get me a drug dealer, a cigarette, and a cocktail, stat. And a typewriter or something. Yale Law School, here I come.

Kids, set your faces to stunned.

The New York Times tech blog “Bits” is reporting that Apple have decided to “back down” on premium pricing for DRM free music and sell all music — crippled or not — for the same price: 99 cents.

For the record, there is no official announcement on the Apple “Hot News” page, but they’re too busy bursting at the seams over the release date for OS X Leopard (10/26 if you care) to post it, perhaps? Or perhaps it’s just a rumor that the NYT decided to run with. I’m assuming it is, for now, the latter (unless the NYT have an insider at Apple), as Coldplay (an EMI band and therefore part of the DRM free catalogue) “enhanced” (read: DRM free) tracks are still $1.29 on iTunes as of this moment.

My only question to Apple is: what are you going to do for all the people who paid an extra thirty cents per song up through today? Don’t think that you can ignore them, Steve. Remember the iPhone price-cut fiasco problem?

The Rev. Gary Aldridge was a paster in his Alabama baptist church for fifteen years, a graduate of the uber-conservative, fundamentalist neo-con Liberty University, and former employee of Jerry Falwell. He was a 51 year old husband and father, a supporter of the evangelical movement, and apparently, a closeted fetishist.

The reverend was found wearing two wetsuits, a diving mask, several belts and other bondage gear which had been used to hogtie him, leading many in the pastor’s flock to suspect foul play.

That is, until the autopsy results came in.

Officially, the medical examiner has recorded the cause of death as “accidental mechanical asphyxia” — most likely auto-erotic asphyxiation, although that term is not used in the report, as he was found with a condom-covered dildo in his arse. Which is ashame, as sex toys such as dildos are illegal in the state of Alabama. Of course, various fundamentalist websites still contest, eventhough the autopsy shows no signs of struggle, defensive marks, or any other indicators of foul play (and in fact rules out foul play), that the Reverend, who was completely under liberal radar until now, was murdered.

Yes, and Pastor Ted was raped.

Interestingly, the toxicology report is “attached” rather than filed in as “unremarkable” like much else on the autopsy report, suggesting the pastor may or may not have had various drugs (prescription or otherwise) in his system at the time of death. Considering his age and weight, this may be completely innocuous — or not.

Not that any of that should have any bearing on anything else except that his personal effects include something which is illegal in the state of residence — perhaps not of note to prosecute him as much as much as to say, “hey look, even this pastor likes a kink in his sex life — maybe dildos don’t make baby Jesus cry after all!” But instead, the Conservatives will divorce themselves from him, the Liberals will condemn him as a hypocrite, and civil libertarians such as myself will sit there, scratch our heads like we did over Larry Craig, and say “Why does anyone care what goes on in the bedroom (or mens room, in the Senator’s case) of consenting adults?”

Link: The Rev’s Autopsy Report on TSG.

Tonight, we booked our tickets to go to England for the holidays. Of the $311 in taxes and charges added on to the super cheap $832 ($416/ea) ticket price, $202 of that was from the UK.

The Husband’s reaction was, “Damn you BROWN!”

Mine was, “And this is why socialism — even democratic socialism — sucks.”

So there we are, done in the ass by a country whose socialized medicine (which I’ve used while living there, mind you) and anti-gun laws should show the people of the US exactly why socialized medicine and anti-gun laws aren’t miracles and are Very Bad Things. And the next time you think “Yay, socialism!” remember the taxes, the sneaky, fuck-you-in-the-ass taxes you don’t even notice until you go “holy shit, that’s the manufacturer’s price?” such as UK airline passenger tax or VAT.