The Progress Bar Unicorn Chaser

Uniformed Letter Carrier with Child in Mailbag
Image by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

It’s Wednesday. Is it ever Wednesday. It’s that Wednesday, in fact, when you’re invited to a fabulous cocktail and catering showcase in a swanky hotel and you get there and the staff says Sorry, it’s not in this hotel, it’s in that hotel, and you go to that hotel and wander around, peeping in the ballrooms and concluding (on very little evidence, it must be admitted, except the Board of Trade cards left on one of the tables) that it looks like no balls were had that day, not even those of the cute bellboy, because you were running a bit late and besides, still weren’t entirely convinced you was in the right hotel, and when you ask the staff they say you were worried for good reason because the event is not, in fact, in that hotel, but in still a third one if it’s anywhere, and now you’ve got a 15-minute walk ahead of you in your flowered sandals which are very pretty but definitely more akin to a cheese wire between your toes than one is or should ever become used to, and so you go halfway to the third hotel, decide you’re hungry and your feet hurt, and stop for a #14 with beef and a diet coke.

THAT Wednesday.

That Wednesday when your computer scan renders the system so unstable that you conclude that it, itself, is a threat, and you delete it.

That Wednesday when you’re 48 hours behind on something that isn’t even due yet and you’re already two days late with it.

That Wednesday when the office is full of people having meetings at the back and guys doing construction at the front, and, very definitely, the smell of dairy products gone bad ages ago, perhaps when Elvis was last in the building, and now lying, forgotten, in a dark corner where they are becoming progressively more expensive cheese products by the day.

That Wednesday when, if you open the door to get some fresh air, the crackies chat you up.

That Wednesday when you think THIS would be a good post.

That Wednesday when you fantasize about winning the lottery and opening this:

The Progress Bar, loading in progress

The Progress Bar, loading in progress. I'll take the seat closest the whiskey

Ahhhh, that’s more like it. And so, in the name of progress, we present my inaugural link roundup at the ol’ raincoaster blog, a new tradition which is destined to continue at least until Google has seen the error of its ways and reversed The Soundtrack for Losers Situation. Yes, this is what I get paid for, three times a week.

Mean Disney Girls just a bunch of drama queens (raincoaster)
The Beatles, Captured! (Lolebrity)
Rihanna is disoriented, hideous (Ayyyy)
Reznorvision coming soon to your screens? (AgentBedhead)
The Face of Kotex! (BusyBeeBlogger)
Some people will do ANYTHING to impress Sandra Bullock’s castoffs (CeleBitchy)
Spot the cyborgs among us! (CelebrityCosmeticSurgery)
Violent repeat felon seeks custodianship of Lindsay Lohan (CelebDirtyLaundry)
Michael Bolton, it is FAR too late for respect! (CelebritySmack)
Gaga a Go-Go (CityRag)
Naomi Campbell’s feet are HUGE (CojoStyle)
Yes, everyone but me DOES have a book deal (DailyStab)
Macaroni Rascals (DListed)
A foursome isn’t just for golfing and bridge? (EvilBeet)
Sly, stylin’ (GabbyBabble)
Brigitte Nielson is looking younger (GoFugYourself)
Get your Bieber Babies! (HaveUHeard)
Michael Bolton is the Rodney Dangerfield of show pony has-beens (INeedMyFix)
Catching up with Bristol Palin’s favorite show (IBBB)
Oh holy Jeebus, even Hilary Duff has a book deal (JustJared)
This will be some actress’s lowest career point (MovieLine)
Baby Buble (PerezHilton)
B from the block (PinkIsTheNewBlog)
Backney! (PoorBritney)
The Mysteries of Minnelli (PopBytes)
Jon’s got a Ham in his pants (SeriouslyOMG)

And special bonus links:

What we have here is a failure to communicate: Comments vs no comments; the eternal argument

Bukowski: the worst hangover: (warning, this is NSF Peace of Mind)

Harry Potter and the Homework of Vengeance: A GOOD story about spammers

And I’m selling this link service, so if you run a gossip blog, jump on this bandwagon now by leaving me a comment. When I have five subscribing blogs, the price will go up. That’s what you call high-pressure tactics. I read it on JohnChow.com. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with an imaginary bartender.

Mean Disney Girls

Lindsay Lohan confessions of a teenage drama queen

Lindsay Lohan confessions of a teenage drama queen

Well, now that Ariel has nearly completed her downfall and is drying up in rehab (yet again), I think the time is right for a little flashback to when it all started to go wrong. Once upon a time it was cokeups and muscleheads, alive, alive-o, and now it’s nothing but orange jumpsuits, enforced Yanni listening sessions and yoga, and the smell of cheap regret.

Those? Those were the days, my friend.

Hump Day Unicorn Chaser: A Little Bit Remixed

The Monkees (album)
Image via Wikipedia

Has it been that kind of a week for you, too? If it has (and it seems to have been for everyone) then you’ll probably enjoy this really quite shockingly awesome remix of the classic Monkees tune “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.” It’s not a visually stunning video, the way the Bleat cover of “She Hangs Out” is, so you can carry on websurfing or reading Playboy for the articles or checking my blog for tentacles or whatever it was you were doing before while it plays happily in the background. Soon you will be feeling clean and fresh from the top of your swollen, strangely Protean cranium down to the very tip of your loathesome tentacles, at least if you’re anything like me.

Oh, by the way, I have it on excellent authority that this Wednesday was not only Welfare Wednesday (also known around these parts as Mardi Gras) but it was also a Full moon, a Harvest Moon, the Autumnal Equinox, and Mercury in Retrograde And We All Know What That Means, Don’t We?

So here, have some soothing beats for your ears and your soul.

Brian Atene: Staying Gold

Brian Atene contemporary

Brian Atene didn't turn out so bad after all

Someday I’ll go through and edit all my old Brian Atene posts (I used to be THE source for Brian Atene information online, having once gotten a shout-out from Atene himself on a video), but that day is not today.

For today, I was awoken at about 6am after falling asleep at 4, and awoken in my least favorite way at that: by someone else’s cat galloping across my face and, specifically, over my eyelid, with its claws out, a fact which anyone nearby can determine by looking at the five long scratch marks on my face right now. They’re extra-super-visible because of the glossy antibiotic cream I’ve spread over them in a layer thick enough to double as an air bag, in case of car crash. And as yesterday I was awoken at 6am by galloping cats as well, after falling asleep again at 4 like any decent, normal, non-cat-owning person, this does not take me to my happy place. It takes me to that place where I can stare at people, listening intently to what they’re saying to me, and actually comprehend not one syllable; nay, not even so much as to be able to identify the language except after careful reverse-thought-engineering.

“Well, it was Doug who was talking to me, and Doug only speaks English, therefore it must have been English!” I think with a great deal of relief once I finally work it out. “Now, I wonder what in hell he was talking about?”

But enough about me (can you ever get enough?). It’s time to talk about Brian Atene, Superman Vodka, Trigger, Google, AOL, and me (again).

Longtime readers of the ol’ raincoaster blog will be familiar with our longtime Ateniac status, dating all the way back since 2006, when the vintage Good Day Mister Kubrick audition tape hit the internet, and hit it hard. I’ve posted his more contemporary videos on this blog and virtually any other blog I could get my hands on even so much as the comments section. So far, so what, right? You either love Atene or you identify with him so strongly you can’t stand the sight of him because all those things about yourself that you’d change if you were a better, stronger, richer, younger person? He is all about those things, three cheers and pass the Nembutal.

And, about once every two years, he signs in to YouTube, finds a camel’s-back-breaking-straw comment and deletes all his videos, leaving me with vast holes in whatever of my blogs I’ve put them into, obviously. BUT I’M SO OVER THAT. Anyway, the one with the shout-out to me is no more, and has not been re-uploaded to the new account.

Cognitive dissociative moment (been having a lot of those recently). Change of subject, slightly.

So I’m looking at the stats for my professional website, raincoaster media, and it appears the blog has suddenly gone from a respectable 100 daily hits to 350, all courtesy of this post on, yes, Brian Atene on the subjects of personal, thespianal, and alcoholic marketing, which outranks every other Brian Atene post on Earth except the one on BoingBoing, even though there are about a dozen Atene posts on THIS blog, as opposed to a simple two on that one. Referrers? I can see three clicks from an AOL search for “Brian Atene” but nothing else. No Google, no Yahoo, nothing else shows up on the referrers. Are people pulling this out of thin air, or is it a hidden link of some sort?Why this post? And why now?

Did he marry a Kardashian today? Get a tv show? Carry a full hot water bottle onto an airplane?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

For now, we have this. We have, instead of The Atene Button, Atene Talks Trigger.

Avatars of Feminine Power: Bad Role Models

Endora was the shizznit and don't you even TRY to say different or I'll turn you into a newt. A special-needs newt

Endora was the shizznit and don't you even TRY to say different or I'll turn you into a newt. A special-needs newt

One of an ongoing series featuring Angie Dickinson, Suzanne Pleshette, Catherine Deneuve, Catwoman, Britney Spears, Mylene Farmer, Vanessa Paradis, an Iraqi police woman in training, Rembrandt’s Pallas Athena, Barbie, and now, Endora from Bewitched.

I always wanted to grow up to be her, and I think I may have finally succeeded. Now to get my hands on that wardrobe!

Pucci Galore!

What I like about her is…seriously, everything. I even dyed my hair red for a couple of years! She takes no prisoners, takes no shit, takes names and kicks ass, and she was right: her daughter married a total dork. Derwood was a feeb. I’m sorry, all you Derwoods or Darvins or Dickwads or Whatevers out there, but you’re just not good enough and it would be cruel to let you go through life in a fog of self-delusion, correct?

Endora would NEVER stoop to psychoactives. Other than Martinis, of course

Endora would NEVER stoop to psychoactives. Other than Martinis, of course

Do you know the Sedona Method? Its aim is to give insecure, dweebish people a feeling of accomplishment. Regardless of whether or not they have, in fact, accomplished anything.

You can see why Endora and I would have a problem with that, yes? [clue for Derwoods: say Yes]

So, from Endora I have taken my vociferous contempt for the inferior, my belief that if one is magical enough one can get away with anything, and my taste for earrings of true splendiferositude.

Endora enjoys Champagne mainly on the plane over Spain

Endora enjoys Champagne mainly on the plane over Spain

Endora and me: can we help it if we're fabulous?

Endora and me: can we help it if we're fabulous?