I finally have a celebrity crush!

For the first time in 35 years, there is finally a woman out there whose posters I want to plaster all over my bedroom walls, whose biographical trivia I want to accumulate like so many rare golden nuggets, whose live and TV appearances I want to schedule my life around (while still respecting all applicable stalker laws, of course).

There are moments in life, in some lives, in my life, when one becomes unmoored. Something or someone cuts the bond between anchor and ship, and the sailor is cast adrift. Perhaps a violent squall snaps the tether; perhaps a villain slashes it in the night; perhaps you sever it yourself in a drunken flourish of enthusiasm or at a tranquil moment of lucidity; perhaps you simply wake up one morning and find that you've drifted out to sea.

My mother has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for about 15 years, and for each of them, I could write for days about the horrors of insurance, or lack thereof, about doctors and nursing homes that forget that for every patient there is a story and that, for the family that story involves real and raw pain, and about my visceral reaction to losing my mother, over and over again, for almost my entire adult life. But the one thing that I couldn't write about was my memory of her. 

It was a tough battle for the My One Favorite Thing award this week, with some noteworthy candidates. Certainly, jilted bachelorette Melissa Rycroft, who was forced to undergo a breakup on national TV a  mere six weeks after being proposed to on national TV (live by the reality show sword, die by the sword, I guess) was a top runner-up.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

I don't know many very happy people. I know people who are content enough, I suppose. I know plenty of people who do a decent job at hiding their discontent. (As for myself, I'm probably somewhere in between those two categories, leaning toward the former).

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. - Umberto Eco

Where the fuck is my wisdom?

Seriously, wisdom was supposed to part of the deal, the salve that soothes amidst aging's unceasing, unending parade of insults and torments. I am now well into my 36th year - my hair is thinning, my back is creaking, my sex drive is waning.

Wisdom should be accumulating, dammit.

I usually hate happy endings in movies. They may be fine for movies like Rudy, but for many films, happy endings often ring false and feel like cheap cop-outs. Yet for reasons I explain in the video below, I actually enjoyed the ultra-gooey finale of Slumdog Millionaire.

Perhaps because America's economic story and outlook has become almost as depressing as the childhood of Slumdog protaganist Jamal Malik, it's somehow fitting that we allow ourselves to be gloriously deluded by inspiring, well-earned Hollywood ending bullshit.

The first time I remember seeing a Reddi-wip can was on a camping trip during a high school summer when some of my friends tried to get high by snorting the nitrous oxide gas inside it. Even back then, a 'whippit' sure looked like a stupid, only mildly effective, thing to do.

Can there be any question as to what My One Favorite Thing this week was? Could it be any more obvious?? I mean, clearly, it was Rick Warren's Invocation Speech. Duh. What a beautiful testimonial to the goodness of god, the power of prayer and the righteousness of Scripture!

I left my friend Jake's apartment on Capitol Hill at 8:45am, clutching my hard-won "silver section" inauguration ticket. Hat, gloves, long underwear, wool socks, sunglasses--perfectly equipped for five hours of 32 degrees, mostly sunny. We wound our way around the Capitol, exchanging anti-Bush witticisms with the passerby. At first, there were big, friendly signs: "Silver section -->." The signs happily directed us where we already knew we were supposed to go.

So I was watching next-day coverage of the Hudson River airplane crash on CNN today and at some point one of the anchors brings up God and says something to the effect, "And if you're not already religious, something like this may make you believe."

And it made me wonder,

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It doesn't take much for a bank to make me happy. Give me online access, a good interest rate, a bunch of branches, and I'm all good. Heck, lately I'm just thrilled when my chosen banking institutions don't implode and go boom.

So earlier this week, we discovered that several daggers - perhaps even a majority - do not believe Curb Your Enthusiasm is funny. One of my co-bloggers was perhaps the most strident of the Curb-haters, calling the show 'an atrocity' and Larry David the 'least funny on-screen performer ever given a screen on which to perform.' This made Mortimus mad, and trust me, you won't like Mortimus when he's angry (I've put the big green guy on tilt at poker several times and barely survived to tell the tale).

OK, I'm about to reveal - at no charge to you - the secret of success, in all aspects of life.

Pay close attention ... No, that's not the secret, I'm just letting you know you should pay attention because I'm about to reveal the secret.

You ready??? You sure?? Are you sitting down?? Notebook in hand???

Ok, ok, alright already, here it is (commence drum roll)....

------------->>>>>> REJECT REJECTION <<<<<<-------------

I don't think 2008 was a very good year for pop culture.

The Hollywood writers' strike seemed to have lingering effects, delaying the return of some of my favorite TV shows past the point of anticipation all the way to indifference. Probably can't blame the strike, but most of the year for movies was also generally a disaster, with the summer slate being a particular disappointment (I was even let down by The Dark Knight).

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how insufficient the typical yearly doctor physical seems for adequately diagnosing diseases, and how modern technology could be used so much more effectively. Interestingly enough, the latest Wired magazine cover story addresses this very issue with a specific focus on the battle against cancer. It's a fascinating read.

Just got done watching The Happening, written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, and felt the need to do a question column on it. Yes, they are mostly rhetorical.

1) The

2) Absolute

3) Worst

4) Major

5) Motion

6) Picture

7) In the

8) History of

9) American

10) Filmmaking

Ok, so 2008 won't go down as one of the best years in recent memory. We've had a financial collapse of historic proportions, a housing meltdown, a credit crunch, a $50 billion investment scam, a failing U.S.

Questions: The Happy Holidays Edition

1) Christmas Songs

2) Christmas Lights

3) Best gift

4) Come, Sit on My Lap

5) No, really, come sit on my lap

6) The Ball or The Parade

7) New Year's Resolution

8) Prediction Time

And because I'm out of holiday questions, a couple lingering non-thematic questions

9) Tipping

10) Pigeons