It's a bitch convincing people to like you.

Sigh. It is a strange phenomenon that the less I want to be with people, the more invitiations I get! I had two birthday parties this weekend, and in the next month I have two weddings, three more birthday parties, a dinner, a Halloween party, a play and an opera with Pseudograndma, and the Twilight extravaganza. Oh, and Thanksgiving. That's like two events a weekend. How the hell am I this popular?

Invitations like this always seem to mount up when I am feeling the most like something that one finds when you flip over a stone- pale, ugly, shell-less and blind. Perhaps my gross insecurities and crankiness are innately attractive to people? By the way, I feel positively ENORMOUS today... Lithuanian food does not sit well. I don't trust the Kugeles (don't ask me what they are either... some sort of potato nightmare).

The plus side of the weekend was that I have yet to have the post-family party debriefing with any side of the family. I have a feeling my mother is stewing in her own meditative juices though... I probably should have talked to her last night and de-fused whatever it is she inevitably has brewing inside her mind.

Regardless of impending mom-phone-doom, I enjoyed my free time last night so much that I came up with a new segment to Fonzipan... the Winehouse Watch! I am fascinated by this poor girl's road to self-destruction.. embarrassed by it? Possibly... though I don't understand how those who care about her fail to do ANYTHING to help this young woman out of what is surely a swan dive to death. My only thought is that they are hoping her early "tragic" demise will seal her in the rock annals of history and her fame will live on. I'm only too happy to oblige by tracking all I can about the junkie.

SO, on to the inaugural Winehouse Watch (and it's a doozy):

Amy Winehouse was filmed screaming that Satan was giving her drugs at the recording studio last week. She also was apparently unable to record one song before trashing her guitar. I am DYING to see this video. Until then, this picture detailing the differences between the wax figure at Madame Tussaud's and the real life image will have to do. Meth kills, people. And so does the devil.

I also had time for Netflix Roundup this weekend: the last two Wonderfalls discs (Bryan Fuller, I want you to be my best friend) and The Good Shepherd.

Perhaps my brain was a tad fried after running around at a one-year-old's birthday party, but I felt totally stupid watching The Good Shepherd. A film about the early days of the CIA directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon, The Good Shepherd is rife with amazing actors with little to do: William Hurt, Michael Gambon, Alec Baldwin, Timothy Hutton, Joe Pesci, John Turturro and several others complete a cast of characters that have screen-time of approximately 12 seconds each.

This film couldn't decide if it wanted to be a film about the destruction of a family, or a film that chronicles the shady beginnings of an institution with frightening power in the government. At two and a half hours, it tries to do both, which is too much. It feels as though there are about a hundred characters in this movie, and it is difficult to keep track of them all. Additionally, the film spans approximately twenty years and is told asequentially; none of the actors look much older in the "current" scenes, and it is difficult to know what is happening when.

The Good Shepherd could have been great- two messages that stood out were that of the danger of believing, immovably, in one's own actions as well as the dangers of being born entitled and feeling that nothing can touch you. However, these messages were lost in an over-complicated plot that took too much of my brain power to follow, leaving little room to ruminate on deeper meanings.