Drama Doll

If you’re a female under the age of about thirty-five, you probably know about American Girl dolls; they each come with their own historical setting, a six-book series, multiple outfits and accessories, and the sound of about fifty million small and not-so-small girls pleading with their parents to buy them one. I was one of them, once; my mother, who was extremely pleased to see a doll with brown hair and eyes, had planned to surprise me with Samantha for Christmas, but I found the catalogue and, steeped to the brim with Laura Ingalls Wilder stories, begged for Kirsten because she was a pioneer and wore a sunbonnet. I got her that Christmas, twenty-one years ago, and still have her, along with quite a few accessory sets – bought one at a time, twice a year (birthday and Christmas). She was by far the longest-lasting and best toy I can remember having.

Mattel bought out the company about ten years ago and in addition to expanding their stable of dolls they now have modern dolls and “best friend” dolls, some of them being pushed harder than others (poor Kirsten – since her best friend Marta dies of cholera in Book 1, I don’t think she’ll be getting a shroud-wrapped companion doll any time soon). I hadn’t thought much about them for a while, but that all changed last February when, two months to the day after my daughter was born, one of their catalogues arrived in the mail. Coincidence? I like to think so. Anyway, a quick review brought me up to date – the “Girl of the Year” was named Chrissa (um … OK) and had two friend dolls named Gwen and Sonali. All of them, of course, retailing for $95 apiece. I got another catalogue a few weeks ago, which introduced their new WWI-era Jewish doll. So imagine my surprise, when noodling around on the Huffington Post instead of doing something more productive (like, say, bouncing a rubber ball off my living room for three hours) there was a piece describing the “controversial new homeless doll.” Another doll? What the hell?

Ten years on

What the world needs now is a unified field theory of post-irony in the work of Wes Anderson, Dave Eggers and John Darnielle.

It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

- posted by Mike

Celebrate Geek Pride Day Belatedly!

Yesterday, May 25, was Geek Pride Day, and I confess with shame that I was remiss in alerting us to the need to celebrate. The manifesto is as follows (via the Wikipedia entry linked above):

Rights:

1. The right to be even nerdier.
2. The right to not leave your house.
3. The right to not have a significant other and to be a virgin.
4. The right to not like football or any other sport.
5. The right to associate with other nerds.
6. The right to have few friends (or none at all).
7. The right to have all the nerdy friends that you want.
8. The right to not be “in-style.”
9. The right to be overweight and have poor eyesight.
10. The right to show off your nerdiness.
11. The right to take over the world.

Responsibilities:

1. Be a nerd, no matter what.
2. Try to be nerdier than anyone else.
3. If there is a discussion about something nerdy, you must give your opinion.
4. Save any and all nerdy things you have.
5. Do everything you can to show off your nerdy stuff as though it were a “museum of nerdiness.”
6. Don’t be a generalized nerd. You must specialize in something.
7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every nerdy book before anyone else.
8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.
9. Don’t waste your time on anything not related to nerddom.
10. Befriend any person or persons bearing any physical similarities to comic book or sci-fi figures.
11. Try to take over the world!

The Seven Deadly Sins, Politicians, and the American Electorate

The past few years have seen a rotating schedule of politicians caught in bizarre scandals relating to sex and/or money. We just had Alaskan Senator Stevens convicted of ethics violation, and a week earlier Democratic Congressman Tim Mahoney, who replaced creepy Republican Mark Foley (of the text messaging sex scandal), was caught up in his own sex scandal involving affairs and payoffs. What is with these people? I’m generally of the opinion that politicians are usually at least as smart as normal people, so why does this seem to keep happening? Part of me just wants to dope slap them, but another part of me really wants to understand what’s going on.

The Goatman Cometh

Another post which is not exactly a ghost story. . .I thought I’d introduce one of the local boogey monsters. The Goatman of Beltsville.  A fearsome melding of man and beast who has it in for necking teenagers and barking dogs, he prowls the wooded Maryland suburbs of Washington DC following a horrific (but unspecified) accident at the USDA agricultural research facilities. I’ve added a few links below where you can read in more detail, or simply do a google search for “goatman beltsville”.  

Waymark.com’s summary & map 

Goatman PDF