- rivers cuomo makes a terrible song and then wants people to remix it for him, THIS IS WHY I STOPPED LISTENING TO MUSIC*

- auto tune the news, I wonder if this is funny or whether it breaks the white people ironically rapping rule

* actually that is true, which is sad to think about

 It is snowing a lot, I was going to go see "Tales of Hoffman" at the theater and see some friends but instead I am thinking about whether I could take the caricatures from this article and draw bodies on them with their hands flashing gang signs, and then transfer the whole thing onto black velvet and hang it in my living room.

Man I am really sad about missing "Tales of Hoffman" (sorry friends but you are not mechanical dolls and evil ghosts that encourage people to sing themselves to death, unless there is something about you I do not know).

There is too much to enjoy in this site to fully list, so I'll just give you the link: Love Systems. 

I will tell you that if you pay $1500, you too can enjoy "an R-rated love life!"

All right, readers: how does one best find an apartment in the DC area ( and by DC area, I mean DC and Alexandria/Arlington)? My lease is up soon-ish and I have to find a studio and/or find a roommate. Nothing too expensive, as I want to save money in case I need to flee DC for greener pastures. I've tried Craigslist but instead of getting normal posts, I keep getting ad after ad for the same few apartment complexes. No, I do not need a Zen rock garden on the roof, so stop telling me you have one, apartment hawker!

Damn you, Obama, and your inspirational message that draws young professionals to DC and also raises house prices! Damn you to hell!

I have a sartorial question for my dear readers. The job I have now has a rather relaxed dress code, as it is intended for students, and before holding that position I was a student, and before that I worked in an office where everyone was encouraged to dress casually (I was instructed to dress down for my second interview and came in wearing a cotton layering t-shirt and khakis, and I was still a bit overdressed). So it has been some time since I have bought work clothing that wasn't specifically meant for a job interview.]

Now I can't wear jeans to work at my prospective job. Where should I go to get decent work clothes? I like skirts and tights better than I do pants, as I have stubby little legs, and I absolutely refuse to wear khakis. Also, will I be thrown out of my job for being a hussy if I wear colored tights? Or knee boots? Or brightly colored shoes? On my job interview, regular sneakers and khakis seemed to be popular, but that seems to be the worst possible combination, in terms of being unflattering on me without really being comfortable. Well, sneakers are comfortable, but people were wearing white sneakers! I can't wear white sneakers if I'm not in a gym! It's against my personal beliefs.

Some of you may know that I have recently acquired a cat. One of the things I was most dreading about having a pet was having to feed it. Not the act of feeding per se--I may be lazy, but I am not quite that lazy--but the act of feeding a cat wet food. Wet food looks and smells like it just came out of a human orifice. The cat likes it, but I hate it.

Today I went to Petco and bought the almost-yuppiest cat food I could buy, Wellness cat food. (There were more expensive brands but they probably contained meat from gazelles or rare breeds of buffalo.) I opened it up tonight and... oooh. It smelled so good, I was almost tempted to eat it myself. The food also was thoroughly mashed so that it did not appear pre-digested. 

I have no idea whether the stuff actually prolongs a cat's life. My family's cats have lived a good 16 years on a diet of cheap canned food, cheap kibble, turkey breast, canned tuna, and table scraps. For all I know, my cat may actually prefer Fancy Feast and I am torturing her taste buds. However, I like the expensive brand and am perfectly willing to pay the price if it means that I do not have to have Fancy Feast stinking up my kitchen.

There is a development near my house that is advertising houses for $600,000. These are the classic NoVa almost-townhouses--crammed together, big garage on the lower floor, a patio and a patch of green in the front. The houses are arranged in a circle and back onto a common area with a ridiculous gazebo in the middle.

Now, let's think about the monetary issues here. For $600,000 you could buy yourself a nice big spread out in the country, with a big lawn with lots of trees, space for your kids to run around, and absolutely no neighbors as far as the eye can see. Or you could move into the city. Sure, you might have to share a wall with your neighbors, and you'd have less space, but you'd be right next to transportation, and could have lots of fun things to do right outside your door. If you're buying in DC, it might cost a bit more, but if you're already putting yourself in hock to the tune of $600,000 you might as well go whole hog, right?

We've established these two options. Then there is option number 3, which is to pay $600,000 for a house that doesn't even have a yard to itself, and is so close to other houses that every time you change clothes you'll have to drop the blinds, out of common courtesy to your neighbors (and to avoid ending up on somebody's nekkid pics site). These houses are aimed at families, but if you want your kids to have room to play, they can either do it in the common area or down in the convenient ditch, complete with large, kid-friendly water pipe and stray construction equipment. Some of the better-situated houses have views of my neighborhood or of a little strip of trees. The others have views of a fence that runs round the back of a half-empty strip mall.

Every time I pass by this housing development I am living in an area where the goal of life is to buy an overpriced townhouse with a view of a strip mall fence. Every time I think about this, it blows my mind (almost literally--I can feel my brain shrinking away from the sides of my skull, resulting in a headache). I wouldn't say I'm not materialistic myself, but if you're going to set yourself a life goal that's so plain stupid, go try to cross the Atlantic by tying balloons to a patio chair, or make the world's biggest sculpture made of Gummi Bears. Don't waste your money on buying a super-overpriced townhouse!

As the inaugural post for my Dreamwidth journal, I'll throw this one open to the readers. I'd really like to start eating better, but of course there is a catch. I need recipes that are suitable for one or two servings at most (I tend to "reward" myself with extra bits of what I cook, and before I know it the whole meal is gone). I also need more recipes that emphasize vegetables as a meal instead of a side--I'm tired of the meat/bland veg/starch combo. Also, no iceberg lettuce. That stuff is the devil.

My poor body is expanding like the suburbs, help me out.