Yep. This toy pretty much sucks.

I See What You're Doing.

I need your help, guys. I'm pretty sure AlsoBeth is trying to kill me.  First, she sent me the picture above over the weekend, changing my peaceful Saturday afternoon into a riot of tears and hiding in the closet.

Now, she sends me an email with this link, with this seemingly benign comment: "a little something to brighten??? your day."

WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU??!?!?!?!  Here's a sampling of what she sent me...

Normally the scariest dolls to me are the ones that are unmanipulated; inherently scary by their very design, like that goddamned stoma doll in the middle there. BFF's big-eye dolls, her Blythe collection, scares the crap out of me. They seem like they know something.  Like maybe where the knives are kept downstairs.  However, I have to add that last one to the list of dolls that will haunt me forever. What are those teeth from?  Is this some sort of cannibal baby? 

I'm unsure as to AlsoBeth's motives for terrorizing me, but I have a theory.  I think she wants to establish Total Beth Dominance.  Maybe it's like that movie Highlander, and she'll absorb all my knowledge by destroying me.  I'll have the last laugh if that's the case... all she'll be adding to her brain arsenal is an unhealthy amount of Big Lebowski quotes and a carnival organ song playing on a constant loop in her head.

School Time

We (meaning me) like to educate here at Fonzipan. Knowledge is power.  So this post goes out to Big Bro and Sissy.

Furries:

Furbies:

Once more.

Furries:

Furbies:

This is why I'm afraid of mascots.  ALSO... why I refuse to rent costumes.

Maybe It's Her Eternally Smug Face.

Image from the Gothamist.

As salty as I usually am, it's very rare when I actually, truly dislike someone. I can usually find a redeeming feature in everyone that I meet. 

EXCEPT FOR GWYNETH PALTROW. I viscerally dislike her, from her stupid macro-biotic lifestyle to her smug sense of superiority because she lives in Britain. I hate that she tries to market herself as an accessible person, when in reality she is so far out of touch with reality she may as well be talking about how to sautee dinosaur eggs on her stupid GOOP website... and no one calls her out on this. Why does everyone, including blogs that claim to hate her, go along with her batshit crazy? Oh, of course I'll just hop on out and pick up that $2,500 bag, because you like it. Then I'll hop on my pegasus and meet you in the super-secret cloud castle that only us truly chic people know about. We can lunch on intergalactic wedge salad and gold-dusted crackers. Gluten-free... natch. MEKMEKMEKMEKMEK!

Listen, New York Magazine, don't pander to that "golly gee whillakers, we hate her because we want to BE her." All you're doing is shoving your nose up her skirt while trying to sound snarky. I don't hate Gwyneth Paltrow because she's "thin and beautiful", or because she's "smart and educated." I hate her because she openly, proudly claims that she is an overprivileged twat that does nothing for humanity, and then has the nerve to say "fuck the haters!" when people dare to critique her public website.

Ugh. She just makes me want to punch her in the kneecaps. With a baseball bat.

Then I read this on People.com. The gist is below.

Gwyneth Paltrow Saved a Life on Sept. 11

Lara Lundstrom Clarke believes her life was saved by a chance encounter with the actress on Sept. 11, 2001, according to The Morton Report.

Clarke was rushing to get to work at the Twin Towers in New York City when she jaywalked in order to get to the subway station. As she crossed 7th Avenue, a Mercedes SUV came barreling toward her.

Both Clarke and the car stopped in their tracks, and as the driver waved her across she realized it was Paltrow behind the wheel. The near-collision caused Clarke to miss her train, and by the time she got to work, the first plane had hit the World Trade Center.

When contacted by The Morton Report, Paltrow's publicist Stephen Huvane confirmed the accuracy of the incident and added that Paltrow, 38, was "deeply moved" by the story.

What an asshole. Not only are you called out for being a dick driver that almost hits pedestrians, but you have the nerve to be proud of it?

Fuck you. Fuck you and your bizarre Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake" redux of a viewpoint on life.

Now if you'll excuse me,  I have to go kick puppies and push over old people and tell people it cured cancer.

You're Only As Old As You Feel

I feel pretty fucking old.

2011 marks the 20th (!) anniversary of Lollapalooza, or Lollapallopla, as Sissy likes to call it. I remember raging against my mother for not allowing me to go in 1992, not speaking to her for days.  Yes, I was a moody, sullen grungey teenager. Big brother went, and like a good big brother, he brought me my cherished Pearl Jam tshirt.  After presenting a 10-point argument about why I should be allowed to go, and assuring her that her fears that crowd-surfing would lead to me being carried off by a group of men to be gang-raped were bat-shit crazy irrational, my mom finally relented in 1993... perhaps out of sheer exhaustion. My best friend at the time and I convinced her parents to take us (former flower children, it really wasn't all that hard). While the lineup wasn't as great as the year before, my first concert of MY chosen music style rocked, and rocked hard.

Oh, New World Music Theater in Tinley Park... I knew you well!  I slid down your impromptu lawn-seat mudslide, I moshed in you, I raged in you... all at the tender age of 14. 

I'm not 14 anymore. I'm all grown up. So's Lollapalooza.

While I was a hearty concert-goer and have attended MANY concerts since that first show, I never got a chance to go back to Lolla, until this year.  I knew it had become a Chicago institution in the past few years, but I just... eh. Hated people for a while, I guess. I avoided the Loop at all costs during the show dates, so I didn't really know what it has grown into.

What the hell happened to that crazy little traveling show?!  It's HUUUUUUUGE. 90,000 people a day, this behemoth takes up the same amount of ground space that the Taste of Chicago does. It's surprisingly well-organized. The Port-a-Potties (and y'all know how I feel about public bathrooms) were... decent... the drinks were cheapish, the stage times were well thought out.

I decided to go again this year when I saw that Deadmau5 was playing on the final day.  Normally, I consider music to be a communal experience. While I live alone and do a lot of things solo (insert your own masturbation joke here), I've never gone to a concert by myself.  Well... very few people in my life have followed me down my little House Music rabbit hole, and just about everyone wanted to avoid a steamy, smelly band of hipsters like the plague. No one wanted to go with me.  Suck it, each and every one of you. I went Sunday, and I had a blast.

Like any proper summer festival, a monsoon hit, and I got soaked, and I have suffered the loss of a truly fine pair of Converse.  I will say that one major change in a concert going experience is watching people experience life through the screen of their smartphones.  Some kids (and for the first time in my life, I really see them as KIDS) literally never put their phones in their pockets and just enjoyed the experience.

While my phone didn't make it out all that often, here's my Lollapalooza 2011 in pictures.

I may have attended alone, but I was among friends. Shared a bonding moment as soon as I walked through the gates with these guys, because of my homemade shirt and their heads. I particularly love the Chicago Mau5head.

Several people actually commented that they wanted to buy this. I feel that this vindicates my OCD tendencies.

Sunnier, smellier times watching The Cars with Friend Drew... a friend of AlsoBeth... who I am delighted to find attended ALL THREE DAYS with...

Tannisse...  the Girl Scout of Lolla '11. Hand-held fans, two shirts, 5 Hour Energy, UMBRELLA... you name it, she had it in her Mary Poppins bag. She was fucking PREPARED.

Things started looking a little ominous around 5... then the Storm of the Century, Part 1 hit. Soaked to the bone, it lasted about 40 minutes before letting up briefly, showing a truly killer rainbow.

My phone was wrapped tightly in a bag I grabbed off the ground pre-deluge in the back pocket of my soaked shorts at this particular moment, so this photo is stolen from courtesy of AshliCrowe.

Waiting for the show I had come for was fun. The creativity of Deadmau5 fans awed me.

Then, just as Deadmau5 was hitting the stage, Storm of the Century: The Sequel happened. It was fucking epic though. Pounding music, a swelling crowd, brand new, huge light show, pouring rain and swampy mudpuddles up to my ankles... I loved every minute of it. I discovered the best part of my age last night... I'm confident to be there, by myself, to not care, and just have a fucking blast.

I took about 40 seconds of film...I wanted to get something for some good shots to remember, and then to just jump around and enjoy the show, so that's where these came from.

Hard work pays off... I was CLOSE. I pretty well got to know a few guys biblically in the crowd (not a whole lot of room up front), but the guy in front of me was tall, smelled good, was cute, and was overwhelmingly polite about making sure I could see. So... you know. Forced rubbing up on him wasn't so bad. *winkwinknudgenudgeI'mACreepyOldLady*

The aftermath:

Via con dios, Converse. You lived a good life. You will be missed.

House music may not be your scene, but it was a blast. I wouldn't steer you wrong... this show was FUN. If anyone wants to come with me to the next show (indoors), let me know. I promise you a good time.

I'm an old biddy. My feet hurt, I'm exhausted, I can't hear a thing, my back was KILLING ME yesterday and I don't know HOW anyone survived all three days... but I was brought back to the better part of my reckless teenage self again: when I was open for anything. When I loved being surprised by a live act that I would normally never have come across, and got an electric thrill from being in the thick of a buzzing crowd. When I truly engaged in something, and wasn't a dried up curmudgeon with a smart-ass judgmental comment for everything.  It turns out some things from your awkward teens are worth holding on to.

In the immortal words of a Maury Povich guest, "Age ain't nothin' but a number."  Fucking poetry, man.

I Don't Care About Pedophiles... I Just Want to See the Clothes On a Grownup

 Meet the January cover girl of French Vogue, y'all!

Hot, right??

Getting a good sense of what these clothes might look like on you?

What's that? You're not?  Oh, that's because SHE'S TEN YEARS OLD. Yeah.... 10. One year older than my niece, who is just reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Who thinks that adding some variant of  "poop" and "pee" to every single line on a Mad Libs is the height of humor (she may not be wrong there).

Found this on the Daily Mail, who, I'm sure, is positively giddy over the outrage it's causing. Yes, they are incredibly sexualized photos. Yes, I am horrified that the picture just above has her in a top cut so low that I wouldn't dare wear on the sluttiest night of the year Halloween.  Yes, this is the same type of photography that gets Chris Hansen in a tizzy.

But let's put aside the whole "this is the epitome of all that's wrong in this sad, fucked up little world of ours" thing and focus on my immediate thought, since I'm neither a pedophile nor a parent:  Can I open just one goddamned magazine and see clothes on someone that has at least graduated high school?

I'm not asking for much here. Really. Fuck fat models. Screw models over 25 (HAGS! ALL OF YOU!). Right now, I'd settle for someone that at least could drive to the photo shoot themselves:

Below is 15 year old Hailee Steinfeld, Mattie Ross in last year's True Grit. Stunning portrayal of a child looking for vengeance for her father's death. Now, she's the face of Miu Miu.

13 year old Elle Fanning! Dakota's tyke sister, and also the model for Marc by Marc Jacobs' fall/winter line.

She'd be a great model, if I were looking for something to wear on my first day of freshman year. BUT I'M NOT.  I'm a grown damned woman, looking to purchase clothes that I can wear to my job, that I can work without having to enforce Child Labor Laws.

Fashion designers, magazine editors, I implore you, on behalf of women everywhere... please. PLEASE. This isn't avant garde (clearly, since you aren't the only one doing it), this isn't edgy. This is just... stupid. Cast some models who's list of craziest nights don't include "that time when mom let me stay up past 10:30 to wait for Santa."