Atlanta Blogs

Alabama writes its own punchlines

An escaped Alabama inmate charged with murder was caught this week after he traded a gun for tickets to Sunday’s NASCAR race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.


Filed under: Alabama

End of Summer Jams

The hit of the last fortnight has been Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You” (both the text-only version and the newer official version).

The hummable (if not singable) nature of the song and the amazing videos (as different as they are) got me thinking about another great tune with a stunning video: Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie. If you haven’t seen already (or it’s been a while and you want a refresher) here you go:

Petapixel posted an amazing “making of” video today that shows just how the process of creating the video came to be. Check it out:

There’s even a traveling art exhibit of the stills that make up the stop motion video OR you could own a piece of creative and buy one of the photos yourself for $250.

Anyhow, the Cee-Lo stuff (despite the completely opposite sentiment and presentation) got me thinking of Oren Lavie.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!

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Another sleazeball advising Lindsay Lohan

Sleazeball emeritus Pat O’Brien has written a creepy open letter to Lindsay Lohan:

From where we all sit, this is also a big part of your snapshot … and despite all the crazy and mostly embellished media coverage of your life’s journey, there remain a great number of people who are worried about you. I am one of them. I am also one of those alcoholics that Grace Kelly spoke of.


Filed under: Obnoxious celebrities

New Jersey…Dresses!

I can feel the slightest cool in the air in the morning, which means that this brutally hot summer is finally, finally coming to a close.  That means that I get to go shopping soon for new jersey dresses...get it?  I love jersey dresses because they're cool enough for Indian summers; throw a blazer or trench over them, wear them into the fall; add leggings or tights...tada...winter wear!  Here is a short wishlist of new jersey dresses that I'd love to add to my wardrobe.

Petit Bateau Silk Cotton Jersey Belted Dress in Japan Blue, ASOS.com $126.38

Suzi Chin Maggy Boutique Matte Jersey Blouson Dress in Baltic Multi, Nordstrom $118

 Bobi Supreme Jersey One Shoulder Dress in Wine, Revolve Clothing $48

 BCBG Max Azria Jersey Tee Dress in Olive, Saks Fifth Avenue $39.99

 Sarah Jersey Dress in Peacock, French Connection $59.99

Laundry by Shelli Segal Strong Shoulder Dress in Blue, Bloomingdale's $105

 


 

 


Gays, geeks and college football fans

Atlanta will be mighty Balkanized this weekend:

  • Chick-fil-A Kickoff football game between Louisiana State University and the University of North Carolina at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Georgia Dome.
  • The Dragon-Con convention runs from Friday through Monday and will be highlighted by the Dragon-Con Parade down Peachtree Street at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
  • In Midtown, the Loews Atlanta Hotel and Piedmont Park will be hosting Black Gay Pride events on Saturday and Sunday.

Oh, and there’s also a NASCAR race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.


Filed under: the ATL

More proof that Sarah Palin is a fraud

The everyday Jolene is a horrible tipper — when she tips.

Palin does not always treat those ordinary people well, however—it depends on who is watching. Of the many famous people who have stayed at the Hyatt in Wichita (Cher, Reba McEntire, Neil Young), Sarah Palin ranks as the all-time worst tipper: $5 for seven bags. But the bellhops had it good in Kansas, compared with the bellman at another midwestern hotel who waited up until past midnight for Palin and her entourage to check in—and then got no tip at all for 10 bags. He was stiffed again at checkout time. The same went for the maids who cleaned Palin’s rooms in both places—no tip whatsoever.

Ask Evander Holyfield what happens to people who don’t tip. He was heavyweight champion when he stiffed me at a valet parking lot in Midtown. Now he’s battling foreclosure and dressing up in drag for Taco Bell.


Filed under: Sarah Palin

sign up here for lessons on being awesome

But until the doughnut vouchers start rolling in or I start making some serious money as a dream chaser, maybe I'll just tell the pre-k teachers that I will be there for career day. I'll wear my uniform, which is rock-n-roll jeans and a tank top, and I will gladly give the kids a demonstration on the art of being awesome. We can make up songs about playground politics, brainstorm on blog posts, maybe discuss the pros and cons of mixing the personal and professional on facebook.

VENT – Krappy Karrots from Kay-Roger

This post is the real letter I sent to Kay-Roger. I'm not a happy camper right now and when momma's not happy, she tells ALL of her friends.

My vow is to keep telling people I'm not happy until Kay-Roger makes me happy. I'll let you know how long that takes.
============================================================
Kay-Roger, Atlanta Marketing Area
2175 Parklake Dr
Atlanta GA 30345

Mr. L,

I have generally enjoyed shopping at your stores. The prices are low and the selection has been good. However, I have noticed in the past 6 – 12 months that the quality of food, the selection and the customer service level has gone down. Even so, I continued to patronize the store because it was closest to my home.

Yesterday, I walked into my local Kay-Roger store in search of a 2lb bag of carrots. There were about six 2lb bags of carrots in stock and all of them were wet, slimy, old and had roots growing out of them. I went in search of the 1lb bags and found the same number of carrots but instead of slimy, they were old, dry, cracked carrots.

I asked that the produce manager be paged. After 5 minutes I was informed that he was not in. I then asked for the store manager. Five minutes later, he came over to me, I showed him the carrots and he simply looked at me with a blank stare. I explained to him that the carrots were old and decayed enough that they could make someone sick. I told him this THREE times. He continued to stare at me, not apologizing, not offering to produce another bag, not saying a word. I asked if he had any fresh carrots in the back and he brought out two 1lb bags of the old carrots. He said that he had just taken them out of the box. I told him that he should have denied the shipment.

I have visited the (__) store for the past 2 years because it is less than a mile from my house. I have also visited the (__) store (4.4 miles from my home) and the (__) Store (4.2 miles). They have the same issues as the one in my neighborhood. If I want a decent Kay-Roger shopping experience I have to travel 9.2 miles to the nearest store!

This may not seem like a long distance to you, but I am a busy mom and I don’t have time to travel in search of a Kay-Roger that carries quality food and offers good customer service. Yesterday I went to the (other) store located across the street from your store. They had fresh carrots at a cheaper price and the customer service attendant was very friendly.

I would like for someone to contact me and explain why 1) the produce is allowed to be in that condition and 2) why managers are not trained to pull questionable items off the shelves. Until I receive a response, I plan to begin visiting the Poo--blay Grocery store on (__) for my weekly shopping. I also plan on telling my circle of friends about my experience. If the Kay-Roger stores in my neighborhood cannot be comparable to the Kay-Roger stores off of (__) and (__), then I simply will go elsewhere.

Red Shoe Diaries

Once cooler temps are here, I'd love to frolic around like Dorothy in some adorable red shoes.

image via here




Red Shoe Diaries

[Items in this set]

Getting Game

The Oatmeal has me pegged and so I felt I needed to make amends.

Why did I wait for a free Internet cartoon strip series to guilt me in to buying the $1.99 version of a free game (ReMovEm) I’ve played over 12,000 times!?

As the strip posits, I had a rationalization problem. Anything that can hold my attention (or steal my attention a few minutes at a time over the past 2 years) deserves my financial support.

If you’re the Tetris-loving type, give the free version a shot and thank The Oatmeal for calling me on my own hypocrisy.

12,000 plays can't be wrong

12,000 plays can't be wrong

One Game, Two Icons

One Game, Two Icons

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Here come the nerds!

Homer Simpson: As a jock, it is my duty to give nerds a hard time

Downtown will be crawling with them this weekend for DragonCon. I forecast their ascension in this column that appeared in the AJC on 12/29/03:

Remember the Star Trek juror, the Arkansas woman who wore a Starfleet uniform during the Whitewater trial? Yes, we all had a good laugh at her expense. Little did we know that within five years she’d be among Hollywood’s prized demographic. Without warning, a confederacy of geeks has taken over the popular culture.

“The Matrix.” “X-Men.” The latest chapter in the trolls and elves trilogy. This is cinema for the “Dungeons and Dragons” set. Who put the Society for Creative Anachronism (that group you may recall from college, jousting on the lawn in medieval garb shouting “zounds” at each other as they drank from faux goblets) in charge of programming?

Once we mocked nerds. It was tradition. Now we (filmgoers, the flock mentality media) follow their lead.

Check out the passion spouted by one local man in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just before the opening of that hobbit movie: “There is a vague sense in my mind that this is the last time in my life I’m going to have this experience. Nothing else is going to generate this excitement.”

I should’ve seen this coming. On my first day as a film schooler out West, we were asked which writer or director had inspired us most. I feared my response would be sneered at as pedestrian or, even worse, domestic!

But then I heard the name James Cameron. More than once. Same with George Lucas. No Ashbys or Wilders or Peckinpahs or Hustons.

Even now, having switched coasts a second time, I can’t avoid the “other world” acolytes. An editor recently encouraged me to hook an article about police corruption to the struggle for the ring. When I displayed ignorance at his reference to Gollum, he gave me the kind of look once reserved for people who couldn’t tell you the name of the vice president.

Such sentiments were formerly restricted to online chat rooms and sci-fi conventions, a few of which I covered (we had slow news days back then). I watched people nearly trample each other in their rush to fill an auditorium where Marc “The Beastmaster” Singer was set to muse. I observed adults bid thousands of dollars on an autographed copy of Leonard Nimoy’s biography.

Little wonder I would always leave those events with unprecedented conviction that I was the coolest guy in the room.

Nerd mainstreaming was inevitable, I guess. It happened to rednecks (auto racing and wrestling have never been more popular). Are you really prepared for a pocket protector version of comic Jeff Foxworthy: You might be a dork if . . . ?

So the need for reaction is clear. It’s time someone stood up against geek chic. Back to your parents’ basement, I say.

As for everyone else, step back and reflect on the security of the schoolyard pecking order. Remember when the kid with the Star Trek Trapper Keeper was all that stood between you and the bottom social rung? Fight these otherworldly powers or, 10 years on, face the prospect of water cooler chatter about “Dungeons and Dragons 4: Back from the Maze.”


Filed under: geeks

rodents!

For the past several days, every time one of us opens the door leading to the basement, a little brown mouse scurries down from the top step, cuts right into the bathroom, and then disappears under the door into the garage. I usually chase him with whatever’s in my hand (trying to trap him with a glass or swat him with a stack of clients’ medical records), but the little brown bastard is too agile to even come close.

Yesterday, Pretty Bride decided that, since it was the one night of the week we’d both be home, it was time to take the fight to the mice. We pulled the cars out of the garage and started looking for their home, which appeared to be near a giant bag of grass seed with a corner nibbled open. Piles and piles of grass seed in the corner of the garage, mixed with stacks of mouse turds (think grains of rice, colored black).

Then I pulled back the insulation from the wall and nearly vomited at the smell:  mouse urine, mouse birthing secretions, mouse fornication residue, more mouse turds.

A fat one scurried up the wall as I was vacuuming up the turds and grass seed; I aimed the nozzle at it and frantically tried to suck its well-girthed body into the flexible chord.  Fail.  He did a u-turn and bolted back to the concrete before sliding under the door to the bathroom.

We put glue traps along all four walls of the garage, catching another baby within 5 minutes of putting them out.  Stupid baby.

I walked over to it and watched it squirm and squeak as it wrestled against the adhesive gripping its little bastard mouse feet and its little bastard mouse side.

Me:  Does that feel good, little vermin?
Mouse:  *squeak*
Me:  How do you think it feels to be trapped in an unsellable house full of you and your little fucker mouse friends, huh?
Mouse:  *squeak!*
Me:  I got glue traps all over this garage.  I’m gonna catch your momma, your papa, and all your little mouse siblings.  All y’all are going to spend the rest of your sorry, short lives on trays of glue in this hot ass garage.  Thirsty.  Hungry.  And pissing all over yourself.  You excited about the next few days?
Mouse:

This morning, I barreled downstairs to check out all the traps.

Nothing.

Just the baby from last night, lying motionless on its side in the trap next to my car.  I trudged back upstairs to get ready for work.

I was about 2 miles down the road when my phone rang.

Me:  Hello?
Pretty Bride:  Did you look at the traps?  I’m afraid to look.
Me:  Yeah.  Nothing but the baby from last night.
PB:  Do you think they’re laughing at you from their new mouse home?  I bet they are.
Me:  I don’t know… let me know next time you drive your Odyssey.
PB:  Ass.

Chic, Small Spaces

Recently, I've been looking to move into a studio intown.  They're typically cheaper, but much smaller (duh), but I think that smallness forces you to be more creative with your space.  Here are some of my favorite chic, small spaces.  Enjoy!

Ron's Studio:  image via Apartment Therapy

image via Domino Magazine


image via Elle Decor

Wordless Wednesday

Scenes from the Beck-athon

Judge for yourself:
I’d hate to be stuck with Cassandras like these if the shit ever really hits the fan.


Filed under: Glenn Beck