happy new year!

Here's a resolution for you: Try to find this picture funnier than I find it.

yes

Sarah (standing in the garage doorway, yelling into the house): "Rachael, where are you?"
Me: "Inside!"

damn that TVA

Chattanooga's local TV news is kind of a pathetic joke, mostly in a funny way, a tolerable way, but sometimes just makes me so mad. Last night's 11 PM newscast on News Channel 9, the station my family has always watched, and which I do think is better than the other two stations generally, was basically a rundown of the local crime blotter, with some totally non sequitur stories from other parts of the country thrown in (a tour bus wreck in New Mexico, a hostage standoff in Maryland?). All incidents were apparently pressing enough to pre-empt coverage of oh, you know, that TVA dam failure that flooded 400 acres of Roane County with coal fly ash a few days before Christmas, and how it's still not getting cleaned up, and how TVA is still maybe not so sure if it's toxic or not. They finally got around to it at 11:15 or so, more than halfway through the broadcast, but then quickly moved on to devote at least as much and maybe more time to a story about a Portland, Ore. Fred Meyer store roof collapsing.

Portland! Oregon! I just Google mapped that shit. It's 2,491 miles away. I feel it's safe to stay that almost nothing that ever happens in any Fred Meyer store anywhere has any bearing whatsoever on the lives of people in Chattanooga, and certainly has nothing to do with the massive environmental disaster (quite possibly the largest of its kind of US history) unfolding almost literally in our back yard.

TVA, of course, deserves the brunt of the anger here (this New York Times piece has my blood boiling) but it's pathetic that one of the major news outlets in direct proximity to the mess is totally punting on coverage. Guess there ain't nothing to do but listen to the Everybodyfields.

An Indie Rock Alphabet Book

Two other Paste ladies and I wrote a book, An Indie Rock Alphabet Book. You can buy it here! More on this soon.

merry christmas!

thing I love about Chattanooga #43827

If you're not a church-going type, you can get so damn much done on a Sunday before 12:30 PM. The roads are pretty empty, there are only brief waits at restaurants, and hopefully today the mall will be at least a little less insane this morning for us sinners out doing some last-minute Christmas errands.

This comes via Leila today, as well as the bad news that Southeast Performer has joined the ranks of those titles. Let's hope re-blogging it doesn't unlock some nasty mag-killing curse. Geez.

all I want

'Tis the week before Christmas and here I am walking to work with no jacket and wearing flats with no socks because it's in the mid-60s here in Decatur, Ga. And I am kind of irate about this. I mostly hate being cold but it just makes me so angry when it's warm at Christmas. However, I'm informed by my father that the weather report for Chattanooga predicts it'll be 24 up there by Sunday night, so it can be 75 or 80 or whatever down here, I don't care, as long as it's just even slightly nippy where I'll be in Tennessee on Thursday.

Hey, No Impact Man was on Law & Order last night!

my brain esplode

The Avett Brothers are playing a few opening dates for Dave Matthews Band this spring.

This 1957 clip will surely be making the rounds this week, given yesterday's news that Caroline Kennedy may want to fill New York's soon-to-be-vacant senate seat, and in that case I look forward to seeing John F. Kennedy subtly hand Martin Agronsky's ass back to him over and over for asking whether, if his soon-to-be-born first child were to be a boy, if he'd encourage his son to pursue a political career. While puttering around my apartment and half-watching the Nightly News last night, this stopped me dead in my tracks. My appreciation for JFK is pretty general and abstract but this moment is just so cutting and unassuming and awesome. (Also, that pre-clip Cascade ad almost made me cry. What?)

From a February 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live. I forgot that jokes about rampant credit card use have always been funny (but mostly just sad). America, maybe you should have listened to Chris Parnell.

the goose, the goose!

The Muppet Christmas Carol is by far my favorite holiday movie, but I'm holding off on watching it til I'm home next week and wrapping presents, just for the sake of maximum ultimate festiveness. I would recommend that you do the same, unless you've never seen it, which I sadly realize many people have not, in which case please go rent it tonight. Or sooner.

Ctrl-V: Oh crap, this song's about...!: Confessions of musical oblivion

Basically, I need you to tell me I'm not the only one. You can share yours right here.

Time's 8th best magazine cover of the year, the LA's Best High Schools issue from Los Angeles magazine. All my high school doodler friends, this made me think of you. Sigh. How many ink pens did we go through, do you think?

probably

A work conversation about Jellyfish just lead me to recall how, for as many times as I've listened to Spilt Milk over the years, it wasn't until recently that I realized what "He's My Best Friend" is really about. Is this worse than not knowing narwhals are real?

not even clamorous puppies

Today I started getting porny spam involving Santa Claus. It's official. The bots hold nothing sacred:

From: Escorcia Lavee
Subject: Santa Claus annd Christmas night!
Date: December 5, 2008 9:52:25 AM EST

WOW! Santa Claus try our meds and fuck housewife and her dauughter!
Only today: CLICK HERE
Down, domino! Down, i say! To the clamorous puppy. Of creatures.
this is the manner in which it puts of handsome face, pay
their court to me. And this hour of the day and i feel as
if i were shut away popular indications, was nominated for
governor.

Friday, 9:34 AM

Two of my bosses just ran up to my desk with a mostly-empty Ketel One bottle and yelled "Happy Repeal Day!" and forced me to take a drink. I took a tiny swig. Now I am drunk.

leftovers

If you've never before contributed to your family's Thanksgiving dinner in any way other than assembling twice-baked potatoes or setting the table or refilling drinks, I suggest either or both of the following recipes as a way to firmly establish yourself as a culinary force to be reckoned with: Yankee magazine's cranberry salsa and Smitten Kitchen's chocolate stout cake. If you worry that might set the bar too high for Christmas and any subsequent holidays involving food, no worries. You can just make them both again. And again. For all time. They're that good, anyway.