Finally back from my road trips for the week. They started on Sunday with a five hour trek across Missouri, through the horror of St. Louis construction traffic and back again on Monday. Then Tuesday it was off to Louisville for a meeting early Wednesday morning and back again this afternoon. Spending four and five hour stretches in a car creates a kind of interdependent depressed anxiety a lot like insomnia. The more I think about it, the slower the miles tick by. The slower they tick by, the more I want to scream, etc.

So, although it feels like Friday, it is only Wednesday...however...TOMORROW:

Yes, as a very unexpected and thrilling Christmas gift, and no doubt through some bizarre planet alignment, my brother was able to procure a Seinfeld ticket for yours truly. Aside from the cobalt blue ten-speed I received at age nine, this may be my best Christmas present EVER. I am joining my brother and his girlfriend for dinner tomorrow night at an as yet undisclosed location and then on to The Big Show. This is a very big deal for me since it starts at...

9:30 P.M.!

It might as well be at midnight, as anyone who knows me would agree. Even my brother, as I was marveling at the gift on Christmas Eve, said "The only thing is...it's a little late." But Seinfeld in Paducah is a once in a lifetime, so I am going to get crazy and may even stay up until...who knows...11! Wish me luck.

Namaste

Project Runway is Back!

Project Runway has returned from its holiday hiatus and not a moment too soon. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America have begun to rerun. This week, the designers were taken to Hershey's Times Square Superstore. They were to create a design of their choosing from only the materials that they could find in the candy store. They had no budget, two sacks, and five minutes to grab and bag their materials.

The results were amazing. The winner of this challenge, Rami, created an incredible halter dress using Twizzler pillow cases and Peppermint Patty papers. The dress was an amazing fit on his model, and the styling he chose was a great match for the fun and funkiness of the dress.

Although I tend to favor halter dresses as a rule, the design by Chris could just as easily have taken top honors this challenge. I especially liked how perfectly the Hershey's logo was woven in and out of the bodice of the piece. The only thing that didn't quite do it for me was the fit. It didn't appear curvy enough. I guess this is one of the hazards of strapless, especially when fitting runway models.

There was quite a bit of crap out there, in my humble opinion, not the least of which was this losing design by Elisa. I'll have to say that I will not miss her other worldly presence or her hand sewn craptastic designs. Her creativity was too much for her skill set, and her taste was usually ten paces behind both. The final straw was this drab brown collection of pillows [bottom left] stuck on a model hailing from the same planet as Elisa. A melted chocolate Barbarella Kiss. How in the world could the model keep a straight face with those silver pillows hanging off her elbows? Good-bye, Elisa. The rest of us are due back on Planet Earth.

One very honorable mention: although I wasn't crazy about Jillian's design, I was awestruck that she brave enough to construct a garment out of actual candy...the only contestant to do so. Check out this incredible edible dress made out of Twizzlers. Wow!

Namaste

New Year's Day is for marathons...televisions marathons. And this year was no exception. I spent the first day of 2008 watching back-to-back episodes of the Twilight Zone until my eyes bled. Except for the incessant commercials, each episode is perfect...filmed in black and white, thinly veiled slightly leftist message, neat and tidy storyline. Rod Serling smoked right there on television in front of God and everyone while setting up the moral structure of the story. I had started watching the marathon on New Year's Eve when I awoke at 12:30 p.m. after having taken a nice, three hour nap. It just doesn't get any better than that...New Year's Eve or not.


I had spent the previous day watching another marathon...which in the end amounted to my watching the first movie completely and then switching back and forth on the sequels. Planet of the Apes (1968). I embarrassingly admitted this to a friend I'd called during the 17th commercial of the first hour.

"You like that, too?" she asked. "I can never resist the Apes."

We spent a couple of moments considering this and wondering why we were both so mesmerized by the film.

(Charlton Heston in a loin cloth screaming "Keep your hands off me, you damned dirty apes!" HA! - Every time the apes would gag him during the movie, I thought how effective that image would be on a gun control poster.)

It wasn't until today that I learned that screenplay for Planet of the Apes was co-written by none other than our good friend Rod Serling. Who knew?

Namaste