catherine's pita

friday, january 28, 2000
more on krazy alan keyes: i did not realize that he jumped into a "portable" mosh pit that was travelling with michael moore, the guy whose documentary "roger and me" featured him repeatedly trying to get into the office of the CEO of GM. on wednesday he was denied entrance to the new york stock exchange, where security officers were not amused at the prospect of moore using the trading floor to shoot a video with rage against the machine. apparently moore is a fan; one of their songs was playing when keyes flung himself on top of his supporters. that picture is going on my desktop.

new york is helping its welfare recipients find work...as psychic friends.

hey, chocofreaks: do you know the difference between caramello and rolo?

let it be known that yuppie slayer is the man. finally, black and white links! hooray for stylesheets!

thursday, january 27, 2000
alan keyes is a stage-diving fool.

go read some of todd's poems.

to clarify: my problem with the colors is not that i want to change the background color of my sidebar. i like red-red-pink. i just want to change the link colors within that one cell. i've tried to do that, but the changes are not showing up, presumably b/c the link colors i set at the top apply throughout for some ridiculous reason. when i remove them and try to set link colors for each individual cell, they revert to preset yucky dark blue and purple. *sigh* thanks to those who wrote, but i'm still stuck. if you can solve this problem for me i will put your link at the very top of my links list and then you'll be rich and famous. don't make me come up with a new color scheme!!

wednesday, january 26, 2000
so, here i am, nicely "settled in" at my new job. i have a pink iMac (yay!) and an office i share with an absentee researcher, a window with a view a la "rear window" that lets me observe countless office workers in the building across the street plus a tiny slice of the hudson river, a dark-wood desk with a fledgling plant trying to grow roots, a wall of messy bookshelves with a few interesting titles, even. goodbye cubicle! i'm never going back!

i bet you're getting a little more interested in who you're going to vote for, right? here's another candidate selector. this time i got al gore, with 65% of my vote. disappointingly, the site does not bother to link to any outside sites that might provide more information to its i-readers, some of whom might need to examine their beliefs more closely. a friend of a friend was shocked to discover she's actually a republican!

i am *trying* to change the colors on the sidebar. i am incompetent. if you know html, won't you please look at my code and tell me how to fix it? think of it as doing your duty for webkind.

monday, january 24, 2000
my last day of freedom. and i'm updating the damn pita. all right, quickly, we have news (via western homes) of an upcoming yo la tengo album with pretty cover art called "and then nothing turned itself inside out," which contains a song called "the crying of lot g," and you should all go read "the crying of lot 49," too. speaking of nothing, i have been listening virtually nonstop to modest mouse's "building nothing out of something." i bought it because i was pretty sure i would love it and i was not disappointed, to say the least.

i saw this movie review finder linked somewhere else a while back, but i just found it again.

interesting story in the times about the new york city subway system. apparently they're thinking of taking the tracking system (basically nonexistent) into the twentieth century. and a beastie boy lyric explained: "the taking of pelham one two three" is a movie in which a subway train (originating at pelham station, departure time 1:23) is hijacked. fun fun fun. and that's all i've got.

thursday, january 20, 2000
do you like the new look? i created it while waiting around (all day! with no food in the house!) to see whether my new employer would match my counteroffer, and they did, almost. yay! a successful salary negotiation and an estimate of only seven late nights per month makes me happy. now i just need to get me some cool clothes...

find out what people are asking jeeves. (outhouse manufacturers. what is GOP, anyway? can you send vitamins to england?) oh so funny, and it reloads every 30 seconds automatically. [via monosyllabic]

wednesday, january 19, 2000
sleater-kinney has a new album coming out (already!) and i will run right out and buy it without question. it contains a song called "milkshake 'n' honey," though it's not clear whether that's a dig at the beck song of the almost-same name. probably not, i guess. i myself am thrilled at having played and won the ticketmaster game of getting up at 10 in the morning to order by internet (unavailable at the venue!) for a whopping total of ninety-four dollars for two tix. should be a nice valentine's day worshiping the man from the first mezzanine of radio city music hall. sorry, randi, you lose!

so i was finally offered the job at this fashion magazine. i'm probably going to take it. i might think this other mag but the timing's off, and i wasn't all that impressed. they only asked me one question! i can't get over that.

today i found out that sonia gipson is married! and pregnant! who, you ask? that loud, religious smart girl in my high school who never had a boyfriend that i can remember. weird. you too can have this kind of incredulous discovery if you check out highschoolalumni.com, which doesn't ask you for money to post your bio like the obviously clueless classmates.com.

is this a cure for pain? nine people are in Orchestra Morphine, which is going on tour to play the songs of the late Mark Sandman, who died of a heart attack suffered while performing. i loved morphine and am not sure about this endeavor, but the remaining band members seem to have all the best intentions. the new album (with sandman) is out feb. 1.

this explains a lot: incompetent people have no idea they're incompetent, and in fact tend to grossly overestimate their performance. meanwhile competent people tend to underestimate theirs. scientific proof that ignorance is bliss.

monday, january 17, 2000
no whining today, just links. i think i might stop the job-update thing because it's starting to get annoying. (whoops, was that whining?)

today's all about interactivity: first, find out what kind of dog you are. (i'm a bassett hound, which suits me just fine.) then see if you're driving the right kind of car for your personality. (takes 24 hours for some reason.) and finally, test your gaydar: do you know the difference between straight-up homosexuals and iffy eurotrash? (i do not.) thanks to randi and medley for these links.

friday, january 14, 2000
buenos tardes, amigos! ween has a new album coming out. if you're wondering what else is coming up, check out one guy's list. he also has a music-centered page much like that of mr. western homes, from whence this link came.

today at GQ i learned that there are some very kooky people who go underground in order to receive massive amounts of radon in the hope that it will cure what ails them.

axl speaks! (and wears abercrombie & fitch?!)

for those of you who intone solemnly, "how are you doing?" or "what's going on?" when what you really mean is "tell me about your job search," i'd appreciate it if you'd use words to that effect. otherwise i'm tempted to answer "i'm great" or "not much," the usual stock answers. a simple "yo, you employed?" will do, and i'll certainly prattle on all about it. after all, i might be more inclined to tell you about the movie i just saw and loved or talk about the first-of-the-season snow when you ask what's up. i realize i might be being a bit oversensitive here but hey, cut me some slack. i'm unemployed.

so...for those of you still paying attention: they thought i did a good tryout at the post, but i couldn't stand the thought of never having another free weekend and took myself out of the running. i told him i'd be happy to pick up shifts on a freelance basis, though, so i can still make some dough... i'm expecting a job offer from this one fashion magazine any day now, after a conversation with the copy chief in which she conveyed that she wanted to hire me. i think there's a bunch of human resources stuff that has to happen though. i want them to pay me a lot of money... i did a one-day turn at GQ today, after taking a test last week for a full-time position. the woman has only just started looking at people, she said, so i imagine it could be weeks before i hear anything. strangely enough, yesterday i got an out-of-the-blue phone call from the person they need to replace, who is going to need a no. 2 copy person in her new position at... oprah's mag, which is apparently going to be called O. i want them to pay me a lot of money too... oh yeah, and i had an interview yesterday for a spot at abcnews.com, which could be cool. and that concludes this report.

tuesday, january 11, 2000
what's coming up in movies: some not bad stuff, looks like, including a documentary on the sex pistols and a restored version of hitchcock's rear window.

i'm pretty sure i'm not getting the job at the post. perhaps it's a matter of practice, but i just cannot come up with the necessary "postian" snappy/crappy headlines. here's an example. my headline: "merger nets fonda $20 million in stocks". post headline: "jane fonda now an estranger in paradi$e". so i suck. whatever. i have an interview at abcnews.com on wednesday, a thursday of freelancing at GQ (which also has a full-time spot open), and so it goes.

this is kinda weird: sleater-kinney's carrie brownstein and helium's mary timony appear in a commercial for priceline.com in which they play the backup band for william shatner. i have not yet seen this, but hopefully it's so dumb it's cool.

monday, january 10, 2000
i have no links today. only two more days of tryout at the post, and the relief with which i look forward to its end makes me think perhaps this is not the job for me. although i found out today that another person quit and thus my chances of getting hired have doubled. if that means i don't have to work weekends i might be a little more psyched at the prospect...a girl from cosmo got the jane job i didn't want, so now there'll be a job at cosmo open that i also don't want...are you noticing a pattern here?

quickly, cause i'm at "work": here's a beck interview.

david bowie opens his own online bank.

thursday, january 6, 2000
i can't resist: the onion's av club hails the least essential albums of the 90s, with ridiculous, hilarious subcategories. go, it's funny.

you can get a free subscription to icon magazine here.

make a poem out of these words, or enter any url you wish. pita as poetry. i love it. [via calamondin]

pitchfork weighs in a little late with their top ten of 99, convincing me anew that i need "69 love songs," comparing it to david foster wallace's "infinite jest" and calling it a "fractal of love."

a newsday columnist takes a look at the upcoming year in media. [yeah, i got it from mediagossip]

wednesday, january 5, 2000
greedy hollywood bastards are making two sequels to "the blair witch project." there will actually be scripts for these, though, so maybe they will be good. it could really go either way, i think.

i am responsible for the following headline, which inexplicably did not appear in the post's online edition: "Putin puttin' pressure on Chechnya." i think i'm getting the hang of it now.

thirteen things everyone with email should know. mom, this means you.

it seems fox is going after buffy the vampire slayer fan sites. copyrighted material, blah blah blah. how retarded is this? don't those dunderheads realize it's free publicity?

belle & sebastian are releasing a box set...and working on a new album.

i wonder if it'll work: a no-nonsense web protest against the casting of jennifer love hewitt as audrey hepburn in an ABC biopic. she really is a twit.

monday, january 3, 2000
you will no doubt want to check out the "first annual" village voice film critics' poll if your parents raised you right.

i might start putting my job-search updates here in order to spare myself the task of repeating to multiple people my progress. so: this afternoon i went to a fashion magazine to interview with the managing editor only to be told that she was no longer with the magazine, that she had in fact been let go THAT VERY MORNING. damn this vile business. tomorrow i return for day three of my tryout at the post, home of ridiculous headlines like "Putin bootin' Yeltsin's discredited daughter". i have yet to come up with a winner like that one, but i'm hoping tomorrow's the day.

saturday, january 1, 2000
BURN, BABY, BURN! this one's going out to rhyne, whitney, john, kim, and my bestest friend who's moving to california, leanne, because we sat in the sad carcass of leanne's home for almost the whole day today, laughing and sniffing and calling 911. there could be an argument that it was all my fault, because i was the one who suggested the fire in the first place, then kept insisting on more logs throughout the evening of limited debauchery. *sigh* the house didn't quite burn to the ground, but there's a huge hole in the floor/ceiling, there are pieces of wall and broken furniture everywhere, and leanne's bedroom is a sopping wet bathmat. poor rhyne (who just moved in) has to find somewhere else to live, and goddamn, all her shit! the firefighters lived up to the image of jovial camaraderie i had in me from my retired-firefighter stepfather, which was good. but let's not forget about the pile of rubble outside, where the four pairs of pants i had when i arrived in d.c. must now be. i never did find them, but thank god for old navy and thirteen-dollar pants, and the pain-erasing effects of laughter. guess what song played at the restaurant where we ate dinner? yep, "burning down the house." we did learn a few things though: 1. if you see a whole lot of smoke filling a room, you should probably call the fire department. 2. you should also hide your drugs. you might need them later. 3. babies are #1, especially fake black ones. 4. there are no street people in the womb. 5. diarrhea. i love you all.

so happy 2000. my new year's resolution is to give a fuck. pretty good, eh?