Abstract Random

No update on the bathroom makeover yet. I'm still waiting for the new decals to arrive and I have to find a cool black and white shower curtain, of which there appear to be none in this city. I had a dream where I found the perfect b&w shower curtain: it was white with a smattering of black letters in a really nice serif on it, obviously inspired by the opening sequence of Bored to Death (which has always reminded me of this Jay-Z video). What can I say? I'm a font geek who dreams about shower curtains.

(By the way, if you haven't been watching Bored to Death, you totally should.)

So yeah, no decals or shower curtain. But this pillow I ordered from Etsy a while ago arrived in the mail today:

Yay! I don't consider myself to be overly sentimental but that pillow was just too cute to resist.

Starla likes to spend a lot of time sleeping on our cable box. Like all cats, she has been known to throw up on things we'd rather she didn't. I came home yesterday and noticed the display on the cable box was blank. Upon closer inspection it became clear that Starla had thrown up on it—not a lot, and certainly not for the first time, but apparently enough to have fried it for good.

Luckily Rogers sent a tech over almost right away so we were able to set ANTM and Pushing Daisies to record while we were out watching Religulous with Glenn. Unfortunately, when we got home and went to check our recordings we got an "unrecoverable disk error" so we are tragically ANTM-less (don't tell me who got the boot!) and unable to get the box to record anything. Looks like I'll be phoning Rogers again today.

In other household appliance news, our washing machine should finally be fixed tonight. I don't think I've ever looked forward to doing laundry as much as I am right now.

I've been watching the Olympics and have noticed a marked difference between Canadian and American commentators.

The Canadians tend to be rather generous, as if they don't want to say anything bad about anyone. For example, yesterday morning I saw some of the women's synchronized diving and the commentator was always very positive, saying crap like "they're under tremendous pressure but they really delivered on that dive" when even my untrained eye could see mistakes. (Also, the CBC should send ex-athletes on a broadcasting course before they put them on the air.)

The Americans, on the other hand, will not hesitate to point out fault. I also saw some of the American coverage of the same women's synchronized diving and the commentator was all "and you can see right there she's too far from the board/early on the twist/late with her arms/not straight on entry/etc./etc." on the replays.

And without fail, every time I turn to the French coverage there's just a bunch of people talking around a table.

On an unrelated note, today in the mail I got my feathered head band, the Ikea catalogue, and the Sephora catalogue. Now that's what I call a good mail day.

Is it just me or has The Hills become officially lame? We've always known it's been "scripted" but it's become so obviously set up and poorly acted it's embarrassing. And so very boring. And not enough Whitney. Plus the after show has seriously gone down hill, with the sole exception of Esther, who rocks.

As far as guilty pleasures are concerned, Gossip Girl has been much more fulfilling. It's not perfect (Georgina, Jenny) but it's been entertaining on the whole and has a better soundtrack (The Kills!).

And while we're on the subject of trashy television: any predictions for who will win ANTM? I'm thinking Whitney because Tyra's gotta make a statement about plus-sized girls.

Is it just me or was making the Tyra Mails on America's Next Top Model scroll across one of those LED tickers the worst idea ever? Hearing all the girls scream read them out loud together, all slow and disjointed because of the ticker, is just so very annoying: "To-mor-row you will.... meet with the... judges. Only 10... of you will... con-tin-ue on in the... hopes of becom-ing... Amer-ica's Next Top Model."

I'll admit it, I watch a lot of television. But I don't feel guilty about it because I don't actually spend all that much time watching television.

You see, the secret is to record everything on your PVR. That way you can fast forward through all the commercials and, even better, all the stupid challenges and bickering and crap you don't care about on, say, America's Next Top Model. I can get through an episode of ANTM in, like, 20 minutes.

CSI* takes maybe 35 minutes, after fast forwarding through the commercials and those useless extended lab scenes where they just play F.E.A.R. by Ian Brown and show different characters concentrating really hard while they do their forensic tests.

You should try it, it's a huge time and sanity saver. Plus you can make up fake dialog for the scenes you're speeding through.

*The Las Vegas one--not Miami, which is unwatchable at any speed.

1) Flight of the Conchords. Have you seen this show yet? Probably not because it's only playing on HBO. But you can currently watch the latest episode on the HBO site and download a podcast of the first episode (which I think was the funniest) on iTunes. It's very funny, perfect summer fare. So check it out.

2) Le Tour de France. It's a wide open race this year. Catch daily coverage on OLN.

3) David Blaine Street Magic: YouTube Edition

4) Canada's Next Top Model, which has been so much better this season. And even better now that Cori got the boot. Go Rebecca.