Paper or Plastic?

Fountain of Spoof

2010-08-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm feeling old and dried up like a prune. Partly it's my own fault for spending time at the pool, the summer nesting spot of teenagers looking nubile and a little bit pimply.

During the course of the rest of the year, I barely come in contact with teens: I have no idea what they do or where they live September to May. I guess they spend a lot of time at Abercrombie & Fitch or at the movie theater, either watching vampire flicks (girls) or action-thriller-fart films (boys). I''m assuming they also go to school and have part-time jobs in shops I can never afford to shop at.

Obviously I was a teenager at one time, in a proterozoic period in a distant galaxy, before the invention of cell phones. Talking of which, according to a recent study, if I want to be more like a teen, I shouldn't be using my phone for voice calls; instead, I should be pounding the teensy keys like a texting automaton, preferably blindfolded.

In an effort to avoid the onslaught of middle age, I've identified several changes I can make to my life to give me the appearance of being young and vibrant:

1. Drink Arnold Palmer Half and Half Iced Tea: don't mistake this for a lesser Red Bull - this 23 oz of iced tea/lemonade is like an elixir of youth, or at least I think so. Teen girls in the know knock this back like it's crack cocaine.

2. Slather up with Proactiv: yup, if I use products for spotty teenage skin, I can transform my increasingly creased dermis into skin like a spotty teenager. Again, fountain of youth stuff, right?

3. Refuse to watch anything on television. Screw the cinema-screen-surround-sound-home-theater experience, that's for oldsters. From now on, I'm only gonna watch viral videos on my blinged-out cellie.

4. Talk in Lady Gaga lyrics. I swear, I recently overheard a young buck at the snack bar chatting to the lady behind the counter using only Ke$ha and Lady Gaga songs. I am not joking about this. Snack bar chick replied in monosyllables, so I couldn't be sure if she was quoting Timbaland or just stupid.

5. stop using punctuation and capital letters thats just for people born before the internet and im all about social networking so there

6. Supersize my Facebook friends list. See 5 above for fuller explanation. It's actually better to know more people through Facebook than to actually, well, know those people in real life.

7. Wear Silly Bandz in an ironic way.

8. Buy a twin bed and pretend I live at home with my parents. I'll even make my husband pretend he's my boyfriend and have him sneak in the house to share my bed. He'll have to leave early in the morning before my "parents" catch him. As a trainee teenager, I know that I'll have to adjust my definition of "early morning" to mean around 10 AM.

That's my shortlist for now. If all goes well, I'll be starting twelfth grade in a week or two and I'll find out what teens do in the winter months.

The Drive from Planet OBX

2010-08-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Each summer, I've felt inadequate when people ask what we're doing and it doesn't involve the Outer Banks. For some reason, around the nation's capital, there are two socially acceptable places to go to the beach: the Cape and North Carolina.

I'll state for the record that people who vacay on the Cape, don't mean the one in South Africa; instead, they're referring to the area around Cape Cod, including Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and another less fancy island that I forget the name of for now. A stint on the Cape involves a lot of money (usually old, but new hedge fund wealth is accepted in these recessionary times), extended family named "Preston" and "Buffy" and madras pants, none of which I'm in possession of.

Anyway, moving down the social scale a few notches, the Outer Banks is the other check box on the beach-bound survey of summer. This summer, the family and I packed a bathing suit and an iPod and headed south of the border to the Outer Banks.

To be fair, North Carolina is perfectly nice. There's nothing dreadful about it - beaches are sandy, skies are generally blue, rental houses are decorated in lighthouse and shell motifs . . . it's the journey that's the problem. Starting at the Virginia/North Carolina border, traffic trickled like molasses to its destination. It took several hours to reach the bridge optimistically linking the Outer Banks with the North Carolina mainland. Driving - and I use that word loosely because it implies speed - up Route 12 to Duck, a jogger in 90 degree heat overtook us. The only solace I could find in this slow-moving, single lane pilgrimage was that it perfectly replicated the Hamptons in summer experience, but at half the price.

According to the Wright Brothers Memorial, it took Orville and Wilbur nine days to travel from Dayton, OH to Kitty Hawk - they had a plane to haul and no Wright Brothers Memorial Bridge to travel across - but I'm sure it seemed quicker than my journey last week.

The Day the Earth Shuddered

2010-07-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Back at the pool again today, this time with only the senior water aerobics workout to keep me company. Those ladies sure do know how to cover up their torsos.

For those unaccustomed to water aerobics, it mainly involves bouncing up and down in the water while the instructor plays bad eighties music and leads the group. Aside from the bouncing, there's really not much more to it aside from a few arm movements and the occasional leg kick. We're not talking an Olympic sport here.

All was fine and dandy and I was keeping snippy comments to myself until time for the "dry land" portion of class. Well, let me tell you, those ladies might look trim from the clavicle up, but everything below is a little gelatinous. I backed away, determined not to look back, but a sudden burst of Bruce Springsteen and I whipped around, only to see the ladies doing sit ups with their legs straight up in the air.

I was treated to a vision of water aerobics seniors from the undercarriage side. It's a bit like the ocean floor - not something that sees the light of day and definitely not for the faint of heart. I raced off, ready to throw myself at the mercy of a Diet Coke and Nutty Buddy.

More Itching than a Bikini Filled with Ants

2010-07-11T18:04:00.001-07:00

After slouching off for a few months, I'm back - and in a bikini. Before you shriek in horror (well, go ahead), I should add that it's July and the pool's open. Since I'm at my watery gulag from dawn 'til chlorine clouds my contacts, I've had plenty of time to observe the teen generation and I'm here to report on my findings, gonzo style.

First, it seems that we are in the midst of a severe fabric shortage. The teen girls at the pool have been reduced to wearing triangles held together with string, so when they shimmy down the steps to the pool area, it's like watching a puppy prizefight in a handkerchief.

But the good news is that the girl teens do not need to get their swimsuits wet. Apparently, string bikinis are exclusively worn when hanging out at the snack bar, sipping bottled water, or when sunbathing on loungers, far, far from the splash of the pool.

There's an exception to this sartorial axiom: when freshly graduated senior boys show up to play water polo, teen girls hit the water, faster than a BP oil spill. I snarkily observed this phenomenon the other day - the teen bikini chicks had been prostrate on the loungers like sun-dried tomatoes for several hours with only their cell phones for shade, when the boy posse shows up, their board shorts stuffed full of testosterone.

No sooner had the board shorts jumped in the pool, than the girls suddenly realized there was a pleasant pool filled with water 30 feet away. Wow! And did that game of water polo look fun!

Naturally, lots of splashing occurred. Fun, eh? I soon noticed that the girls were clustered around one guy - the best player, perhaps? - wearing Aviators and spiking up his hair between plays. Not long after I noticed, his Lady Gaga girlfriend noticed. She idles over, installs herself on the side near the goal and emits laser beam death rays in the general area of the water polo game.

At that point, I had to leave. There was a snack bar emergency and I needed to swallow a Diet Coke and ice cream, but later, I saw Aviator boy and Lady Gaga drive off from the pool in a Much Better Car Than Mine. It was just like "Thelma and Louise."

I don't quite know what happened to the teen bikini chicks, but I'll be sure to report back. I've got many more pool days before the final curtain comes down on Fun at the Pool, Redux.

Boy, that was a really short iPad focus group

2010-01-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to pretend to review the non-existent iPad that I'm holding, but I have to register my surprise at Apple's naming faux pas. Seriously, did they not conduct any focus group testing? Perhaps there are no women who work at Apple?

If you did a quickfire word association game in a roomful of women between the ages of 18 and 50, you'd find out pretty soon that the iPad is a feminine hygiene product with a touch screen. I'm not the first to point this out . . . yesterday, iTampax was a Twittering trending topic, plus there's already a plethora of jokes and spoof ads online at Apple's expense.

I just finished reading David Ogilvy's "Confessions of an Advertising Man" and a point he discussed is particularly apt in this instance:

"Perhaps the most important operation agencies are ever called upon to perform is to prepare a campaign for a new product which (sic) has not yet emerged from the laboratory. . .
. . . As I write I am engaged in just such an operation. It has taken more than a hundred scientists two years to find out how to make the product in question; I have been given thirty days to create its personality and plan its launching. . .
. . . It they would just invest half as much in the creative work of launching new products as they invest in the technical work of developing them, they would see fewer of their conceptions abort."

This kind of reminds me of the Chevy Nova (in Spanish = doesn't go) and the Ford Penis, I mean Pinto, (in Brazilian Portuguese slang = small penis) . . . but at least these names worked in one culture. The trouble with the iPad is that it fails at the first hurdle. Will it be an iFlop?

So long egreetings, I barely cared for you

2010-01-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

It's come to my attention that my mailbox is no longer filled with those slightly underwhelming egreetings I used to receive back in the early part of the new millennium.

Not that I mind. I found those missives via email link slightly disappointing. Nothing says, "I nearly forgot your birthday" or "I can't be bothered to write with a pen" like a hasty ecard.

There's a singular tepidness of feeling when you send something that's really just clip art and a few data fields. And on my part, the sentiment is reciprocated with a cursory click, skim, delete, often without clicking on the actual link to the card.

I'll come clean - I've sent ecards. I like to think that my selection was usually superior to most, speed-chosen witty cartoons from the New Yorker expressing slight disengagement.

But of late, I've noticed the decline of the ecard. They are going the way of the free t-shirts you got when an old-line organization first launched their websites [the t-shirts inevitably featured their crusty old logo with ".com" in Courier].

Struck by a last-minute greeting emergency recently, I found many of my old go-to websites no longer helpfully offer the service of a branded card. I also observed - gasp! - some sites are starting to charge for customized artwork.

And when I send an ecard, there's the added anxiety that my greeting will be the subject of suspicion, filed under "phishing," "spam" or "the sort of email that falls between blanket group emails and forwarded jokes."

The ecard's had a short life. It began at MIT, created by Judith Donath in 1994 as "the Electric Postcard." The project launched December 1994, and a year later, about three-quarters of a million cards had been sent; six months after, it was close to 1.7 million. During the 1995-96 Christmas season, there were days when over 19,000 cards were sent.

Fast forward to modern times, and according to the Greeting Card Association "Worldwide, an estimated 500 million e-cards are sent each year."

Here's what Donath says about the project in her thesis:

"The most significant function of the postcard, and the reason, I believe, for the great popularity of The Electric Postcard, is that they allow people to keep in touch without having to actually say anything.

A notable thing about postcards is how trite the messages often are: ``The weather is great. Wish you were here.'' A letter like that would be ludicrous, even rude. Yet the main point of a postcard is its subtext: I'm thinking of you, just checking in, making the rounds remotely."

[my bold for emphasis]

Egreetings left the lab in 1995 when E-cards.com was launched (the code was open source), and graduated to solids in October 1999, when Excite@Home bought the web site Blue Mountain Arts for $780M. On September 13, 2001, Excite@Home sold BlueMountain.com to American Greetings for $35M, three weeks before it filed for bankruptcy and the sound of "pop" could be heard coming from the dot com bubble.

BlueMountain.com is still around, making it "easy and fun to stay in touch with all the special people" in my life with one easy subscription. Unfortunately, I'm looking to "occasionally touch base with acquaintances," so I don't think it's the service for me.

Donath reflects that, "The Electric Postcard lets the user send a piece of the Web as a personal statement . . . the postcards make the information space into a source for personal expression."

So what does that say about me, the lethargic egreeter? I've moved on, the information space has shifted and I'm expressing myself in other ways. Nah, just a bad correspondent.

C'mon . . . meta me

2010-01-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

About 10 years ago, I was at a design conference in Aspen (harsh, I know), when Razorfish-founder-turned-candy-designer Craig Kanarick gave a presentation on digital design. He wore a gold lurex jacket and strode around the stage telling the less digitally savvy audience how digitally savvy Razorfish was. To be fair, he made a lot more sense than architects Zaha Hadid and Hani Rashid, who were also on the schedule. They showed impenetrable sketches of buildings they designed using a computer, which only a computer could occupy.

One thing Kanarick said has really stuck with me. It's really simple, but really true. Back in 1999, Kanarick, with his bleached hair and flashy jacket, said that Razorfish's guiding principle was simply, "anything that can be digital, will be."

At the time, my reaction was, sure it's easy to say that. Photos, music, film, documents, everything could be digital. I got it. Flip open the scanner, or type into a computer and put it on the web. But I think he was getting at more than the process of taking analog information and making it digital. I think he was talking about anything, I mean anything, being digital.

In the decade since, I have become a digital commodity.

By this I mean, I obviously exist in a flesh-and-blood way, but I increasingly exist in a digital hyper-reality. Through social networking sites I've become an online persona, a digital nexus of old friends and contemporary connections, overlaid by a web of familial linkages. Socially connected me represents past, present, and potential future.

With Second Life, I'm my avatar, whoever I want to be. I can live in a tower of crystals, half medieval castle, half Greek forum; I can have red hair, wear sexy pirate clothes and shop for a pair of wings. Now that's better than a real life trip to the grocery store, now isn't it?

To data mining companies, I'm a pattern of data points. If I were 20 years younger, and texting as fast as my hormones were racing, I'd be Text Me, a collection of messages, reduced to diminutive shorthand. LOL. WTF.

So what's the logical conclusion? Where does it all end? At what point does the psychic apparatus resist the urge to exist in external data form? Will we tire of the technology? Will we want to reclaim some of our internal life? Will privacy become our most valued asset?

Who knows? I'm blogging about this, sending links to Facebook and Twitter, and hoping that someone will read this because, "In the construction of Immortal Fame you need first of all a cosmic shamelessness."*

*Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality

This Goes to 11?

2010-01-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

The latest unemployment figures from the Department of Labor are due Friday (Jan. 8), and here's hoping the rate stays under 11 percent.

Chances are, it's likely, given that the last two months were down (10.2 percent in October and 10 percent in November). But if you live in some places, it already goes to 11. In November, Michigan again recorded the highest unemployment rate at 14.7 percent, with Rhode Island (12.7 percent), California, Nevada, and South Carolina (all 12.3 percent) nipping at its heels. And Florida's not far behind the pack at 11.5 percent.

So when was unemployment last over 10 percent? The early 1980s (hitting highs in November and December 1982) - fast times for joblessness, eh?

Just in case Friday's figures are worse than expected (and if they are, watch out for the double dip recession), here's a list of goodies we could relive from 1982:

January 17:
"Cold Sunday" in the United States sees temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.

February
Late Night with David Letterman debuts (hey, not all bad)

March 5:
John Belushi found dead in Bungalow 3 of Chateau Marmont

April:
Falklands War begins: Argentina vs. United Kingdom

May:
The Hacienda, Manchester, UK club, dubbed "the most famous club in the world" by Newsweek, opened its doors

June:
Graceland opens to the public

July:
Lawn Chair Larry flies over California in a homemade flying machine: patio chair + helium balloons; strangely reminiscent of 2009's Balloon Boy; oh, but wait, that was a hoax - Larry was real

August:
Eye of the Tiger (Survivor) and Fame (Irene Cara) are big hits . . . compact discs first produced

September:
Grace Kelly dies

November:
Mr. Maverick (John McCain) first elected to US House of Representatives; end of the early 1980s recession

December:
TIME's Man of the Year: the personal computer

Funny old world.

Here's hoping that we can relive the recovery of 1982-83, but this time without the Survivor soundtrack.

Melrose: a Place forever in my heart

2009-09-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

Here's my type-n-gripe: Is nothing sacred? Nothing unworthy of a do-over? Can sleeping dogs ever lie? Can Amanda Woodward ever drive off into the sunset without looking back?

If you weren't ever a Melrose Place Classic aficionado, then perhaps you aren't perturbed by the miscreants at the CW who have tried to recreate the immortal, beloved, Melrose Place. But I was, and I am.

In the nineties, Melrose was the rightful ruler of Monday nights, full of saucy, crazy, good-looking people in SoCal doing saucy, crazy things. The craziest of all was Dr. Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross), who managed to survive death and insanity to plot revenge on her romantic rival Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton), herself certifiable. Each week, a showcase of rivalry, manipulation, infidelity, rage, dishonesty and lust would roil across the screen . . . all ruled over by advertising agency queen bee Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear), wearing skirts so short you could see through to the next commercial break.*

Melrose was the brainchild of Sir Aaron Spelling, and it took place during the heady, pre-reality TV days when actors acted and sets visibly wobbled when touched. It was shiny and exciting, full of people better looking than the ones we knew in real life.

The characters for the most part worked in aspirational occupations - fashion, advertising, photography, medicine - and lived in a place a whole lot nicer than our own. They dressed the part, and looked the part. They weren't like us.

They lived in places that looked nice - garden apartments, beachfront properties - and drove fast cars on empty highways.

Now the CW has revisited the past and I'm not quite ready to rewind. If you've ever gone back to the childhood house you grew up in, and found that the cliche is true - really, it's a lot smaller than it seemed when you were growing up - then you'll find Melrose doesn't stand the test of a remake.

Melrose was set in a pre-texting, pre-internet, pre-iPhone age. Target was barely a corner shop in Minnesota when it first aired. Only the seriously deluded would drive a fuel-efficient car, and health care reform never entered Dr. Mancini's brain.

Melrose belongs in the nineties . . . let it rule the decade in peace.

* For a fuller plot synopsis, see IMDB

WTF? culturally correct language

2009-08-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

It looks like it's taken me six months to find my login and password for my blog account, which is only partly true. Actually, I've been meaning to write, it's just I've run out of ideas faster than cash in the Cash for Clunkers program. (I thought I'd throw it in as a topical aside.) I did forget my login and password . . . although my browser helpfully reminded me as soon as I tried to sign in tonight.

Anyway, this extended explanation of my six months of silence is just padding. I've only got one observation and it involves popstar Pink. For some reason, I was listening to the local radio station in the car, and a Pink song was playing - "Just Like a Pill." Obviously, I wouldn't ever choose to listen to a Pink song, but I'm not so opposed to Pink that I'd bother taking my hand off the steering wheel to stop her playing on the radio.

So, I'm driving along, listening to the chorus and there's a blank bit. This happens a few times in the song, so I realize, it's intentional and the word rhymes with "witch." Which leads me on to my point. The "b-word" is a big deal stateside, but doesn't really raise much of an eyebrow on the other side of the Atlantic. It's not a compliment, but it's not likely to be scrubbed from lyrics.

Crap, on the other hand, would land you in the crap, so to speak.
Funny old world eh?

Don't Mess with the Emanuel (or "Why the Chief of Staff is the Zohan")

2009-03-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

So it's not news that White House Chief of Staff Rahm-bo is a man of many f***ing talents, as he himself would say. But I recently watched the Adam Sandler cinematic showcase, "(You) Don't Mess with the Zohan" and realized that Rahm is the Zohan.

Just in case you haven't seen Zohan, here's a quick synopsis: Zohan (played by Sandler) is the finest counter-terrorist Israel has: he's mean, fast, fatal, lithe and sexy. He can even grill a burger with his manparts.

But Zohan yearns to be a hairdresser. He wants to fulfill his dream of snipping locks and creating styles from the Paul Mitchell model book of the 1980s. He leaves Israel and moves to New York, where he pursues his dream, becomes a "hairdresser with benefits" and falls in love with a Palestinian girl. Needless to say, much hilarity ensues, including a memorable scene where Zohan extinguishes a three-alarm blaze using hummus and an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Now . . . on to Rahm-han. Rahm's just your average foul-mouthed, butt-kicking, proud Jew from Chicago who earned a reputation in Congress as a pit bull before becoming chair of the Dee-Triple-Cee, and finally, Chief of Staff in the Obama administration.

But like Zohan, Rahm's got a sensitive side: Rahm's a ballet dancer. A serious ballet student, he was offered a scholarship to the Joffrey's ballet school in Chicago, but turned it down to go to Sarah Lawrence.

The similarities don't end there. I don't know about grilling with his manparts, but Rahm's certainly seen the blade of a meat cutting machine. While working a high school job at Arby's, he severely cut the middle finger of his right hand, leading to part of it being amputated.

Like Zohan, Rahm has helped Israel in times of trouble. During the first Gulf War in 1991, Zohan, I mean Rahm, worked in Gallilee, fixin' trucks for the Israeli Army.

And best of all, like Zohan, the Chief of Staff is a hit with the ladies. Just type in "Rahm Emanuel is sexy" in Google and away you go - enough hits to make Adam Sandler weep.

All these similarities got me thinking about the Emanuel Brothers. Are they real, or are they from a reality show on steroids? Clearly, Rahm is the Zohan. And brother Ari is played by Jeremy Piven on Entourage. What's the other one? Ezekiel the Bioethicist? I wonder who plays him in real life?

I just love that rug

2009-01-23T08:07:00.000-08:00

The quote comes from former President Bill Clinton, a surprise declaration upon entering the Oval Office during a White House lunch January 7, 2009. President Bush invited all three surviving presidents (Carter, Bush 41, Bill), plus then President-elect Obama for a little lunch. Who knows what they talked about ("wide-ranging" according to Perino), but Bill at least could hold his own about interior design.

For the record, the rug is a pale yellow sunbeam design, which Bush brought with him from Texas, and which, by now, should be back in Texas.

I, however, upon reading the quote and looking at the photo thought, gee, he deed-n't . What rug? Who's wearing a rug? Maybe I've been watching too many news items about Blagojevich, but I thought Bill was talking about a male rug.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a rug, but I prefer the guy who's bald and proud, particularly if he's involved in the higher offices of government. Talk about transparency.

Naturally, my mind wandered to the issue of Bald Presidents. I quickly whipped out my spill-friendly plastic place mat with all the pictures of the presidents helpfully lined up. (This, by the way, is an excellent place setting for dinner parties. Not only is it a conversation starter - who's your favorite president? etc. - but its waterproof surface is ideal for drunken guests who might knock over their drinks.)

Back to the place mat: Eisenhower looks a little thin on top, but I wouldn't call him bald, per se, but you have to go back to John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) and John Adams (1797-1801) before you get a follicle-free pate. On the flip side, Andrew Jackson (1829-1837 has enough on top to challenge Don King in the ring; Chester Arthur (1881-1885) puts the mutton in mutton chop sideburns; and Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) has a beard that enters a room several minutes before he does.

According to my fine academic study of my place mat, recent presidents are all non-bald. How's that for a glass ceiling?

4:30 Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

I know that more than enough will be written about today's historic inauguration, about President Obama, the First Lady and their adorable daughters. I wasn't there on the Mall, on the steps of the Capitol, on the parade route, at one of the balls, but I was on the sofa.

First off, I woke up this morning at around 4:30 AM. I didn't mean to. I just did. I couldn't sleep, so I got up, trod in cold cat sick (gee, thanks Mr. Bojangles), and sat and watched local TV here in DC. I watched the lines at Metro stations, the lines to get into the parking lots at the end of the Metro rail system, the lines at the security checkpoints for the Mall. As soon as they were allowed on to the Mall, people ran, they hightailed to get a good spot. It may sound dopey, but it was uplifting to see people, bundled up, in the pre-dawn hours, breaking into a gallop in an effort to witness something that they wouldn't miss for the world.

There were people who'd driven over night to be there, some who'd spent practically a day or so just traveling by train or car. Some were alone, some with a dozen family members.

I spent some time channel surfing, and without exception, all the news anchors looked freezing, even in front of those scorching TV lights. They seemed genuinely shocked that they'd had trouble getting to work at 4 AM, which let's face it, under normal circumstances, they'd find a breeze.

While I was watching in the dark, the street lit up with the headlights of a neighbor's car - they were setting off for the Mall.

At 4:30 this morning, it seemed like everyone in the world was up and making their way to the Mall. My journey was to the sofa, with cat sick along the way.

Hold a Gun to My Head, I'll Get Creative

2009-01-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

Anyone who works in a creative field or uses creative services is familiar with the Eleventh Hour Syndrome. Given a creative brief, it's not until two weeks have passed, the presentation to the client is due tomorrow and the printer's out of ink that anything remotely creative happens. For some reason, time and resources hinder, not nurture, execution.

Who thought the same principle would apply to the US auto industry? The Big Three, not known for nimbly adapting to the marketplace (unless you count selling the same truck for thirty years as adapting to the marketplace), have finally shown up ten minutes before the deadline with some good ideas.

This month's Detroit North American Industry Auto Show seems to contain enough good ideas that one might actually stick and make it into production before the bridge loans are due. Clearly, innovation isn't the sole prerogative of the Big Three, it's just such a surprise because since the oil crisis of the 1970s, it's only been in the past three years that the light finally went on in the creative department.

I hope they can catch FedEx.

Walking Back to Happiness

2009-01-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

DC is literally giddy. The city is beside itself with excitement, filled with anticipation and an underlying sense that something historic will happen on January 20.

For a start, the First Family-elect is in town, ensconced at the Hay-Adams Hotel, attending school, shutting down streets and chowing down at Ben's Chili Bowl.

Whenever I meet anyone these days, they greet me with, "Are you going to the Inauguration?". We twitter about who's going, who's got tickets, who's got access. Everyone is planning elaborate ways to get into the city. Inauguration day is a test of your initiative.

Virginians face a roadblock of no bridge access. Recommended alternative: walk.

People heading in from Maryland might be better off, but only if most of the population stays home that day: traffic on the roads into DC is usually a parking lot on non-inaugural days.

Bus and Metro have piled on extra services, but still the message is: walk. It might take a couple of hours, but you'll get there.

Of course, many welcome the test. After all, President-elect Obama's road to the White House was hardly an easy ride, so why should we just cruise down to the Mall? We are happy to walk. Every step that's taken will be one away from the current administration and a step toward what many hope is a new era for America.

As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

The Dog Days of An Administration

2009-01-11T16:05:00.001-08:00

Oh, it's so interesting to witness the last days of an administration, the hours before a new president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania, and the guy on the way out mustn't forget to pack his toothbrush.

Signs of the clock ticking down are all around town. Maybe it's just me, but the White House landscaping looks a little shabbier these days. On the Metro in the morning, you see GOP career appointees traveling to work with a mixture of resignation (literally) and sadness, feeling as though they have not been invited to the social event of the season that everyone's talking about. "Something will turn up, I just have to wait a bit," is how they greet one another.

Washington has become a city-wide revolving door, with every car with a Texas license plate heading out west, past the Beltway, back into the hinterland. The Washington Post relegates reporting on the President's activities to the nosebleed section of the paper. It seems like recent coverage of the death of India, Bush family cat of 18 years, was the only time the President made the front page in the last few months. Suddenly, POTUS 43 is not on the guest list. The cheesy tourist gift shops are crammed with Obama-belia. Bush? Sorry, no Bush here.

There's No Smoke Without Smoke

2009-01-09T17:59:00.000-08:00

I went to the mall the other day, and spent a perfectly lovely afternoon idly watching consumer spending slip into oblivion.

After a few hours of trawling the retail walkways of capitalism past, I began to feel sorry for all those stores acting as if the economy hadn't thudded to a stop like an Aunt Annie's pretzel dropped from the roof of the mall to the floor of the food court.

But if things were bad for the shop owners, they were exponentially worse for the slightly obscure retailers you find hawking their wares on those carts cluttering the mall avenues. You know, the ones parked in the areas between the real shops, selling face cream you've never heard of, or pushing violent kick boxing video workouts designed to make you tough and fit. This particular afternoon, I noticed a deathly sales pallor at the moccasins cart - the one that sells only fluffy moccasin products - and at the cute-but-overpriced children's sweater cart. Maybe the market for snuggly footware will bounce right back soon, but somehow, it didn't seem that way when I was at the mall.

Most alarming, though, was the smokeless cigarette stand. Activity over there had been all-but-extinguished, but somehow, I feel that it wasn't just the recession to blame. An imitation smoking product? Hmm. Whose smart marketing idea was that?

Unsurprisingly, the product is aimed at smokers. It's designed for smokers who really, really need to hold something in their nicotine-stained fingers when they want to smoke but can't. The video playing at the moribund mall cart showed a man in a restaurant being asked, in full view of a "no smoking" sign, to put out his cigarette. He took offense momentarily. And then he pointed to his cigarette . . . the smokeless cigarette.

The product is basically a stick of stainless steel that emits a smoke-like vapor. A little red light on the end completes the illusion. It reminds me of something you'd find in an old-fashioned magic shop. Yikes! He's on fire! Oh no, not really. It's a trick cigarette. Ha, ha. I was fooled.

The funny thing is, the video promoted how "cool" it was to smoke . . . it showed movie stars from the forties and fifties, sucking away, all film noir. Really? It's cool to pretend to suck on a fake cigarette? Kids at my elementary school used to do that with pens, and it wasn't really cool back then. In fact, the pens often leaked, and the cool kid pretending to smoke a pen ended up with an inky stain around their mouth.

Maybe the smokeless cigarette is really an anti-smoking subterfuge: if you think this looks stupid, try the real thing. Totally stupid.

Obama Republicans

2008-03-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

I had coffee with a friend recently. She's a Republican. I asked what she thought about McCain and she made a face. I asked her about Hillary and she made a worse face. Then she asked me about Obama. And before I answered, she said, "Actually, I'm impressed with him. I like him."

It's funny - I had this experience a few weeks ago, way back before Super Tuesday, and now, with Tuesday's upcoming primaries in Texas and Ohio, it seems so prescient. I read that some Texas Republicans were planning to vote for Obama. First, it's an open primary, so they can. Some are voting for Obama. Some are voting to Stop Hillary, figuring that McCain's got the nomination, so they might as well use their vote to stop her.

It's interesting how these things work. Look at Arnold Schwartzenegger - who'd have thought he'd become Governor of one of the most important states in the US? He got the opportunity because of a special election prompted by the recall of Governor Gray Davis. If he'd been through the regular primary process, he probably wouldn't have made the party cut. Instead, California now has a unique sort of GOP Governor, one who is married to a Kennedy, was a former body builder, and seems to defy party affiliation. Go figure.

Maybe in voting for Obama, Texas Republicans will deliver something just as intriguing.

Cramer's Gold Nuggets

2008-01-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

Jim's mad mouth said it, so it must be true: the economy's shrinking like a popped balloon, the fed doesn't care and the president is looking the other way. This morning Jim Cramer said it quite succinctly, "We're in a recession!" Just in case you needed any more emphasis, he added an exclamation point!

Well, according to the wisdom of Jim, who has studied previous bear markets like there's no tomorrow (which there might not be in the case of several overexposed regional banks), only two sectors are going to be perky this year: ag and gold.

And gold is certainly sparkling on the exchanges: today gold was trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $907.40 per ounce; yesterday it hit a record high of $914.10. By the time you read this, gold might be running in the Michigan primary on a platform of "shininess for all."

Cloned sheep-cow hybrids and soybean seeds with two heads aside, it's quite a quaint idea that gold is special, now ain't it? It sort of reminds me of our pioneer days. The US stock market is going to hell in a hand basket, but guess what? There's a pretty, shiny element that we'll pay handsomely for. It might make our eyes sparkle and our pockets jingle, but what is gold exactly?

Perhaps gold is the secret ingredient in Coke? Does it make dandruff shampoo? Does it serve juicy hamburgers and crispy fries? Can gold make our computers work faster? At that price, gold must surely make our vehicles purr along at 65 miles to the gallon, no?

No. Gold is still a mineral that comes from the earth. Unlike Alan Greenspan's reputation, it won't tarnish over time and it won't crumble. It's malleable, but dense (with a specific gravity of 19.3). And 1oz of gold could be stretched out to more than 50 miles. Cool eh? Sure, it's cool, but it doesn't do a whole lot. Gold sounds like a luxury I can't afford. I prefer investments that do stuff, companies that make things, organizations that provide services. Stuff I understand.

So Jim, thanks for the wise words, but I think I'm going to pass on the gold tip and go back to the grasslands of Monsanto to sit this recession out.

My Encounter with Tom Waits

2008-01-12T18:48:00.001-08:00

Last week I was standing chatting to a friend, whose two-year-old daughter was milling around her legs in an effort to prevent grown-up chatter, when just as we sailed past the one-minute mark in our conversation, I heard the most awful, discordant growling. It was pitched low and throaty, and my visceral instinct immediately told me that an animal was in pain. I looked around. I looked at my friend. I looked again.

She smiled. And looked down. Apparently the source of the agonizing sound was emanating from her daughter. "Is she all right?" I asked, thinking that her daughter was either about to vomit or need emergency treatment. "Oh yes," my friend proudly declared, "she likes to sing."

That was singing? Are you kidding? Seriously, dirty old drunks falling over and cursing in the gutter sound better than this two-year-old. I thought the child was in pain, and if she wasn't, I certainly was.

My friend added that she and her daughter just love to go to "mini music class with mommy and me." I think I was so stumped at this point I just managed to smile in a concerned way (concerned for the other class participants). Really, is there a nice way to point out that her daughter sounds like Tom Waits? Not that there's anything wrong with Tom Waits - but it's very disconcerting to hear his version of Old MacDonald coming out of the elfin body of a two-year-old. Just very wrong.

This Season's Color: Recession Red

2008-01-12T18:28:00.000-08:00

This week has not been good for me, especially yesterday, when two of my recent stock purchases (MCD and AMX) made financial headlines . . . for all the wrong reasons. Really, it's a bad day on Wall Street when the Golden Arches and the Gold card are well, not the gold standard.

Of course, it's no surprise that the stock market had the worst kickoff to the year since 1932. The credit crunch came for a visit in August and hasn't left town since, economic growth has been spattering along, and lately the dollar's been doing as badly as Bill Richardson in the primaries.

2008 sure is looking shaky like a Polaroid picture. From all accounts, well relying exclusively on the lipstick index (sales are poised to rise by 38% in 2008), this year is not going to be golden. If I were going to pick a color for this season's color, it would have to be Recession Red.

I forgot what I was going to write: short thoughts on dementia

2007-09-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

We all know that we don't stay young and spritely forever - insert LA/plastic surgery joke here - but it's a constant reminder of what's coming down the pike when you have old parents. My father now suffers from dementia, which is probably something I wished he suffered from during my teen years, and he can't be left alone. My mother is quite understanding of the fact that he doesn't remember whether he got dressed. Sometimes he dresses himself at nighttime after he has put on his pajamas, which means he looks quite beefy, if overheated, in bed.

Other times, my father cannot remember what he did a few minutes ago, so consequently if you pay a visit home, you'll be offered a cup of coffee, receive it, and then two minutes later when you are sipping a steaming cup of java, be treated to my father asking politely if you'd like some coffee.

My sister - she seemingly suffering dementia about my father's dementia - recently took my parents on an overseas trip. They had a glorious time, visiting lakes and hills, enjoying cow milking demonstrations and other bucolic pursuits; really it was a month's worth of fun packed into week. When they got home, my dad commented that a week wasn't long enough. Five minutes later he came by the hallway and saw the suitcases from their vacation and inquired whether he was going on a trip. It's like deja vu all over again.

The Sound of House Prices Crashing All Around

2007-08-26T14:13:00.001-07:00

Hey, hey. I just took at trip to the edge of suburban sprawl - you know, the sort of place that was home to working farms half a dozen years ago - and was prompted to write about the current suburban passion for "for sale" signs. Yeah, yeah, you say, house prices slipping is nothing new. But today, on a hot Sunday in late August, game day for open houses, there was a distinct chill in the air.

I drove out on one of those new toll roads, the sort with exits to nowhere. Some of the road signs were in place, but covered up because the communities they were intended to exit to, weren't quite there. Really, there was no there, there.

Along the speedy highway were a number of "Be kind to turtles" signs, yellow diamonds with pictograms of kindly turtles meandering across the landscape, the message being that you should stop if you saw a baby turtle crossing the street. This would be fine in another setting, say a dirt road with a 25-mile-an-hour speed limit, but considering the speed on this six-lane highway was 65 miles per hour, stopping to let a turtle go would seem positively reckless. I wondered if the developers just put in the signs to create a sense of place, the thought being that really, it was a suburban Eden if only you could look past the big box stores and the gas stations.

As well as turtle signs I saw realtors signs - "home MUST be sold today!" - for places with pseudo names like "Belmont Crossing" or "Vista Landing." And strangely enough, these landscapes filled with hardiplank homes were hardly occupied. I never saw a soul. If you ask me, there just aren't enough people to fill these houses.

Of course, the mortgage loan mess was bound to happen as soon as those ingenious interest-only and exotic ARMS passed their honeymoon period. And naturally, we can point to all those mortgage risk assessment departments that seemed to take a vacation in the late 1990s until this August - why were they lending money to people who couldn't afford the repayments? - , but let me be honest: I think that we have just reached saturation point. Quite simply, there are too many new homes for the people who can legitimately afford them.

We've reached the end of the road as far as luxury upgrades and over-the-top custom finishes. I know I can't bear to see another chip of granite, a sumputous bathroom the size of a football pitch or a cathedral ceiling that puts a cathedral to shame: I just want to live somewhere I can afford, where the rooms aren't built for giants and I can commute to and from without GPS. Come on America, let's live where there's life, and let's leave the turtles alone.

Bitchin' by the Pool

2007-08-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

It's scorchin' and I'm bitchin'. This time I'm going to complain about the pool. Since summer days are here, I have occasion to spend a few moments ringside at our local pool, where, dear readers, I have made two important observations:

water aerobics performed by old ladies is not pretty
gangs of Mothers of Small Children (MSC) are quite unbearable

First, I'll just share with you the sight I was treated to at 10 AM today: a dozen or so women of senior years, clad in nothing but swimsuits and sun visors, were lying on their backs, with their legs in the air, opening and closing their legs like geriatric scissors. It was like some strange AARP porno movie. The music that wafted up from the speakers at this moment was Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy, Breaky Heart." It was enough to make me drop my Diet Coke and run for the shelter of the kiddie pool.

Which leads me to my second observation: MSCs en masse are enough to send me to water aerobics. This morning they terrorized anyone without a small child into giving up all available seating and making way for their strollers. In their wake, they left a trail of Goldfish and raisins.

As a breed, the MSCs are focused on their neighborhood, schools and golf. Sadly, this leaves little time for their children, who are forced into dumping pool furniture into the water to gain enough attention to receive more raisins.

While I was poolside, I overheard some conversational gems that really ought to make it into a screenplay one day:

"I've got a cousin called Bubba and two more called Buddy."

"I heard it's only $100 thousand to join Congressional, but my husband thinks it's ridiculous to drive that far when we're two seconds away from the golf club here."

Boy, I wonder what Billy Ray Cyrus would say about that.

Shambo Says Shalom

2007-08-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

In the past few days, I've been reading about the recent recurrence of foot and mouth disease in the UK. For those not familar, it's a contagious disease that makes those with cloven feet foam at the mouth, blister and sometimes die. In 2001, an outbreak cost the UK millions of pounds, postposted the general election and caused general madness among farmers.

Needless to say, the recent outbreak is cause for widespread alarm and fingerpointing. The British Authorities are investigating the source of the outbreak, but they should save their time because I have a conspiracy theory: it's Shambo's revenge. Who is Shambo? A dead cow, but not just any old dead cow. Shambo was a sacred Welsh bull, revered by the Hindus of Skanda Vale, near Llanpumsaint, Wales. No, really, I'm not making this up. There's a Hindu community in rural Wales and their bovine was sacrified in the name of TB.

The saga began in April when Shambo tested positive for TB. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said Shambo must die. The case went to the High Court that declared Shambo could live. Then the Welsh Assembly Government appealed and the Court of Appeals upheld DEFRA's original plan to make mincemeat of Shambo.

On July 27, after a little tug-of-war with the condemned Friesen, Shambo was put to death by lethal injection. It turns out Shambo really did have TB, but I think the last word belongs to one of Skanda Vale's monks quoted in the Guardian:

"Today they broke into the temple to take away a cargo to kill but they cannot kill Shambo. They will simply add to the drama of his life cycle and he will come back again."

Coincidence? I think not. Foot and mouth diesease is just the drama of Shambo. I think this is a lesson to us all: what goes around comes around. No bull.

Lindsay Liquored Again

2007-07-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's past being news now, but Lindsay Lohan has relapsed and been arrested on a DUI charge (along with possession of cocaine and driving on a suspended license). Last night, at around 1 AM she decided to try some drag racing on the mean streets of Santa Monica: actually, she was trying to chase after a car driven by the mother of Linds' former assistant (who had quit hours earlier).

Police found Linds was an eensy bit sloshed, that natty alcohol-measuring ankle bracelet thingy not quite doing its Promises job.

Of course, the police invite her back to their place for an after-hours get together, where they find the cocaine. Her mugshot isn't too bad until you realize she looks like a cross between Sharon Stone and the Calamity Jane character on HBO masterpiece "Deadwood."

Poor Linds, whatever way you look at it, it's not good to look like you've aged twenty years when you just turned 21. Youth, eh? Wasted on the young.

California with all the Fixin's

2007-07-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

You can file this under "Only in California" or "It's all a load of boll*cks" but it's true: California hopes to make it manadatory for pets in the Wackiest State in the Union, to get snipped starting April 1, 2008. It's no April fool, if you're a kitty with a uterus or a dog with all your boy parts, watch out: someone out there wants you.

There's a bill currently making its way through the California legislature that would force pet owners to neuter their pets or face a $500 fine. The June vote in the Assembly almost didn't make it, except for the help of - wait for it - Bob Barker. And at this point, I'm reduced (in tears of laughter, because frankly, it's too hilarious not to) to quoting the San Diego Union Tribune:

The legislation cleared the Assembly without a vote to spare, and was rescued only with the help of celebrity animal-lover Bob Barker, who made calls pleading with wavering Democrats on the same night he retired from the game show “The Price is Right.”

OK, there's a serious note here (it's a million dollar problem, with 800,000 cats and dogs dropped off at shelters every year), but really, there's got to be more to "fix" in California than unneutered pets.

Those Ungovernable Bad Boys

2007-07-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Ooops, I slipped again. It's been a week and I've written not a drop. It wasn't for lack of trying either - I've just been distracted by hot weather, online shopping and not-a-lot going on in the world.

Anyway, today's news is that:

The Bad Boy of Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen, proposed to his new girlfriend of 20 minutes, Brooke Mueller, on a beach in Costa Rica with a diamond as big as the budget deficit. The rock is reportedly worth $500K, enough to buy a few therapy sessions to discover why you still aren't quite over your ex-wife.

But let's not be too jaded, at least someone's gonna try to govern the ungovernable, which is more than can be said about today's other bad boy: Pakistan.

In a document titled, "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West," security analysts in Washington came to the conclusion that the US is under threat of attack by groups on the Afghan-Pakistan border. On the same day the report was leaked, John Kringen, who heads the CIA's analysis directorate, testified that:

"They seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan."

Pakistan, you bad boy. What's it gonna take to whip you into shape? Denise Richards?

Small and Smaller

2007-07-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that Christina Aguilera and Nicole Ritchie are both pregnant - not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. It's just that both ladies are the size of a third-grader and I cannot fathom how they will actually carry a baby. It's a question of physics: in the same way I wonder how Dolly Parton and other generously endowed ladies don't topple over from being top-heavy, I am perplexed about how someone who's a size 0 can find room inside for another snack, let alone a full-term baby. Is there actually any space in there?

Brown Runoff

2007-07-01T17:36:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I've waited so long to write this, but I have, and boy, it's good.

As reported by John Solomon in the
Washington Post, Republican hopeful, Massachusetts Governor and this year's most famous Mormon, Mitt Romney, apparently is a dog lover of a different breed.

The Post quotes a profile in the Boston Globe that describes how, in 1983, Mitt took the whole family on a trip from Boston to Ontario. Having packed up the car, the Romneys find they just can't squeeze their beloved Irish setter, Seamus, inside the vehicle. No problem. There's room on the roof.

So, Seamus was installed on the roof for the 12-hour trip. But Seamus was naturally terrified at being hurled along the highway toward the Great White North, and this terror, naturally, made its way down through Seamus's digestive tract. At this point, I've got to rely on the Washington Post's understatement of events:

"When Romney's eldest son, Tagg, and his four brothers complained about the brown runoff down the back windshield, their father quietly pulled the car over, borrowed a gas station hose and sprayed down both the dog and the kennel before returning to the road."

First off, Tagg? Is that really what passes for a first name these days? Second, brown runoff? And can you imagine what other motorists thought of the spectacle? A carful of boys, a dog in its kennel strapped to the roof, and a flotsam of dog diarrhea making its way up to the border. Boy, I'm glad the Romney family didn't own a St. Bernard.

See you in Iowa!

Summer vacay essay assignment: Shakespeare's "Clinton"

2007-06-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, summer hols are here and once you've been to the pool five straight days in a row and hit the Dairy Queen twice in one day, it's time to think figuratively about cracking open the school books and contemplating next semester.

To help the summer slip by, I've devised an ingenious summer project: Shakespeare's "Clinton."

If you've been reading carefully, you'll have noted that I'm reading Terry McAuliffe's What a Party! and it's been quite an inspiration, let me tell you. For starters, it dawned on me that I should have had a driveway repaving business at age 14, but quite aside from Mac's entrepreneurship, I realized that there really just hasn't been enough love for Bill lately.

Bill truly was a great - yet deeply flawed - president, and we should give him his due. Bill is tragic, but heroic. A leading man and his own villain. Larger than life, but the embodiment of the common man. A man of Shakespearean caliber. Bill is a title hero worthy of puffy shirts and Elizabethan collars.

Sadly, the bard is long dead, but staring down the long barrel of summer break, I'm sure we can come up with something.

So here it is: the Trixie Sanchez William Jefferson Shakespeare Playwriting Competition.

Outline for play:
-Bill is the main protagonist
- Story arc must incorporate all of the following: humble beginnings, rises to great heights, falls from grace due to human flaws, conspiracy of enemies, rescued by the Deus Ex Machina of untouchable opinion polls, plays golf, loves junk food
- Other characters as desired (but Janet Reno would be good since it might involve a Will Ferrell revival performance)
- Exit, pursued by bear

Deadline: August 19 - Bill's birthday

Prize: a catfish lunch at Doe's in Little Rock, AK. The restaurant quite righly proclaims that it was "recognized by the Catfish Institute in 1998 for a superior job preparing farm-raised catfish."

Hey, who can argue with well-prepared catfish? Get out your notebooks and start writing.

Soul of the Party

2007-06-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

OK, I know this will come as a surprise to some, but recently I've been called upon to attend a few children's parties. And it hasn't escaped my notice that while they claim to be "parties," there's no booze, no dancing and no making out.

Instead, there's usually a scene of over-enthusiastic parents behaving in a way no sane adult should. At the last one I attended, the parents were dressed in swim suits (remember, parents in their forties aren't pretty when skimpily clad - no hard bodies and string bikinis here) and had a tug-o'-war with a bunch of preschoolers. The parents "lost" and fell in the pool. Hilarious, right? Let me tell you, it would have been more hilarious with a glass of Jack Daniels in my hand.

At another, the mother dressed up as Dorothy, performed songs from the Wizard of Oz that she'd been rehearsing for several weeks, and hired day laborers to create a yellow brick path leading up to the party venue.

Children really only attend parties for two things: the cake and the goodie bag. But rather than stand by the front door for ten minutes and hand out a goodie bag and slice of takeout birthday cake, the hosting parents go through two hours of breathless entertainment - or worst still pay hundreds of dollars to children's party performers* - to make sure their offspring has a good time.

And yet, is it really worth it? I think the current trend in excessive kiddie parties really took off in the 80s. Has it paid off? Are today's college students better equipped to party? Do they know how to tailgate like there's no tomorrow? Are they socially superior, entertainmentally evolved, organizationally unchallenged?

The jury's out, but until I get a Jack Daniels, there's no way I'm going to another party where I'm the tallest person in the room.

*Please don't get me started on what a scandalous waste of money it is to pay for children's party entertainers. Untalented-yet-bouncy people sing repetitious songs, make sock puppets dance or strum the guitar for grossly unreasonable sums.

Janet Reno, where are you?

2007-06-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I spent a quiet moment thinking about Janet Reno, which is not suprising since I'm reading Terry McAuliffe's book "What a Party" (boy, what a Kool Aid salesman, but I say that in the nicest possible way, really), and what a loss she is to late night television.

I loved Will Ferrell's brilliant impersonation of her every Saturday on SNL - robotic, slightly butch and dressed in a vivid shade of polyester blue. Nothing comes close these days, with the possible exception of Bobby Lee's rendition of Kim Jong Il.

Janet, Janet, Janet - what made you so tall, so seemingly near-sighted, and so shapeless? There's not been an Attorney General like her since.

So Janet, if you're out there, please consider a reprise in the role of Attorney General - surely Alberto Gonzales isn't long for the job, and we know Will Ferrell's just itching to get back into those old blue dresses.