You're having a perfectly normal day and you think that maybe, just maybe, the world might turn out okay.

Then you come across these girls and you are left speechless, the only word able to escape your lips is a resigned fuck.

The gals adorning today's column with gleeful racism are Lamb and Lynx Gaede, fraternal sisters that make up the American duo act Prussian Blue. It's hard to describe the genre of music these two fall under. I mean, what do you call the type of music pre-teen girls might sing at a Hitler Youth rally? Oh, right: white nationalist folk/bubblegum pop. An underrepresented category, to be sure.

If you are really interested in hearing them sing, you can certainly find them on YouTube or at what passes for their official site (CSS and XHTML haven't filtered down to the white supremacist movement yet, apparently). But please, don't bother. Imagine any 12 year old girl singing (badly, off key, and with her sister slightly off tempo) about Rudolf Hess and maintaining a pure, white bloodline, and you get the picture.

*shudder*

I wish I could blame The South for this, god how I wish I could blame The South. Alas, they were raised on a ranch in California and have a step-daddy who registered the swastika as a cattle brand (and also wears it as a trendy belt-buckle). And of course, of course, they were home-schooled, as if anyone had any doubt about that being the case. White supremacist and anarchist militiamen never send their kids to public school--they might be fed disinformation or accidentally talk to one of them "colored folk". Normal people have to work for a living and send their kids off to school so that someone else has to deal with them. Supremacist and militants teach important life lessons like keeping the ammo dry by storing it in the refrigerator and the glory of the blue-eyed Christian Jesus.

It's a shame, really. The girls are kinda cute, in a "I'd have sex with them when they were old enough just to lie to them afterwards about having a black immigrant father and Jewish Holocaust-surviving mother" sort of way. But that's probably just me.

The past week or two I've found myself in a bit of a writing drought, at least with respect to blogging. I think that's because I've been working on another creative endeavor in my free time and my brain can only apply creativity to one project at a time--everything else suffers. Maybe my brain computes solely in binary. It would explain why I dream of Cheerios all the time.

In lieu of any original content today here at WITFITS, I offer unto you a bevy of links pertaining to one thing we can't seem to get enough of: celebrities. We can't get enough of them, of course, because they are all crazy. And crazy people make us feel good about ourselves. Enjoy.

• Ask the Answer Bitch: E! Online's Leslie Gornstein answers your questions about Hollywood, celebrities, and just about anything related to the biz. Aside from the somewhat distracting purple highlighting (of seemingly less-than-important details), this info column is pretty interesting and amusing.
• Fametracker: Billing itself as "The Farmer's Almanac of Celebrity Worth", Fametracker has a variety of sections in which one can piss away the hours. Of note, however, are "Hey! It's that guy!" and "Celebrity vs. Thing". The former is an alphabetical listing of actors and actresses who you can never recognize by name but invariably cause you to exclaim, "Hey! It's that guy!" when you see them in something. Each name links to a short bio and commentary. Notable example: Clint Howard, who has appeared in most of his brother, Ron Howard's, movies and played the creepy kid-with-an-adult-voice, Balok, in the original Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Manuever". The latter, "Celebrity vs. Thing", is a series of point/counter-point arguments to determine a celebrity's worth as compared to a common, everyday object. After cases for/against each celebrity/thing are presented a verdict is delivered. Notable example: Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Air Fresheners. I won't spoil the results, but it certainly surprised me.
• The Superficial: A "celebrity gossip site" the content of which tends to either pertain to celebrities behaving badly (or strangely) or posts about a particular female celeb looking hot. The posts follow a tried-and-true formula consisting of a quick summary, a quote or two (and possible links), a handful of relevant photographs, and then a closing one or two sentence stinger that's either a commentary on on the star or a penis joke. It's not Shakespeare, but I do like this guy's short, concise wit. Plus the "stating the obvious" post titles ("Jessica Simpson regrets stuff", "Jack White and Karen Elson had sex", ... ) let you know exactly what you are in for. One of my favorite entries concerns Britney Spears:
  

  "Britney was out and about in Malibu over the past couple days, and these pics document her doing what she does best - being terrified. She looks less terrified in the second photo, and more like someone put a dress on a potato. I'm not sure whether I should feel sorry for her or slap some butter and gravy on her."

  
  
• IDontLikeYouInThatWay: This would be the domain name for the book about my life, but I digress. IDLYITW is very similar to The Superficial (to the extent that one is likely a knockoff of the other, or they are both knockoffs of a third site). A recent post about Julia Stiles reads:
  

  "They say this is Julia Stiles on the cover of next month's issue of Marie Claire. I'll take their word for it, because her name is on the cover and it kinda looks like her, but I'm still not sure. I don't see any black guys."

  
  
• The Hater: A pop culture column in The Onion's A.V. Club section, penned by Amelie Gillette, is funny and well-written. As with any good pop culture columnist, she comes off as sarcastic and slightly acerbic. I particularly like her occasional stop/start columns where she tells you what you should stop caring about (MySpace, for instance) and what you should instead start caring about (YouTube).
  

Today I found myself reading Lawrence Lessig's Wikipedia entry. For those that may not be familiar with the name, Mr. Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and is known for his advocacy of reducing legal restrictions on copyright and trademark, among other things (and yes, that was simply culled from the first paragraph of his entry). Now, knowing that I am a relatively intelligent individual who has a vested interest in technology and the ramifications of legislation thereupon, one might surmise that this post would be a thoughtful discourse on my personal opinions regarding said topics, highlighting Mr. Lessig's involvement and public stance on such matters.

In actuality, I just noticed that Larry has some long-ass fingers.

I mean, just look at that pinky, it's like a second index finger. Granted, I may be a bit biased here. I have somewhat small hands; a girl in high school told me I had "premie-hands", like those of someone who was born premature, which I was not. So, perhaps it is a bit of jealousy bubbling to the surface. I will never be able to palm a basketball, excel at sleight-of-hand, play a major 7th chord on piano, or pursue a career in hand-jiving. It seriously hampers the effectiveness of my "jazz-hands" as well (and forget about me ever doing more than 1d6 with a Shocking Grasp spell... heh heh... D&D joke... anyone? Anyone?). The only possible advantage I've found so far is that my somewhat small hands make other parts of my body look big by comparison.

I'll leave you to decided what that may mean.

My apologies to Mr. Lessig, I didn't mean to take out my personal pain on you. I hope we can still be friends, though I'll have to decline any offers to shake hands or high-five. You understand, I'm sure.

Some of you may want to blog on a regular basis but find it hard to come up with something to write about when you sit down in front of the PC. Sure, you had a great idea for a post when you were at work, but several hours (or days) later, you haven't the faintest idea what that Pulitzer Bloggie winning entry might have been. Personally, I don't have this problem, because I have the "Unofficial, Unendorsed, Totally Unauthorized WHAT WOULD KATO BLOG? Deluxe Topic Spinner!" but I know some of you are not so lucky and that's where Ta-Da List comes in.

Ta-Da List is pretty much the epitome of bare-bones simplicity in a web application. It is nothing more than a persistent online "to do" list that one can use to keep track of, well, what needs to be done. In a few clicks you can create lists, delete lists, add items, remove items, and check off what you have accomplished. To use it you simply sign up for an account (which is easy and painless) which not only assures that you are the only one that can view/edit your lists, but also provides you with any easy domain to point your browser to in order to access them (for instance, I have witfits.tadalist.com).

So how does this tool tie in to blogging? Well, I have been using Ta Da List for many months now to keep track of what I would like to post about on WITFITS. I routinely come up with ideas for posts when I don't have the time or the energy at the moment to develop them into full-fledged pieces. When I think of something, or often when I come across a noteworthy URL, I will bring up my Ta-Da List and create a new entry under a list called "Post Ideas" that includes a brief reminder of what I want to talk about and a link if appropriate. In my daily life I am rarely too far from a PC, making this very easy method for keeping track of my ideas, much better than, say, jotting them down in a text file or on a piece of paper, either of which I could forget to take with me or lose. Originally I would start new draft posts in Blogger--one for each idea--but I found the method somewhat cumbersome and if I went on to post something else in the meantime the drafts would often get lost in my list of posts.

This method is most helpful, I think, for bloggers who want to maintain a regular posting schedule (though I think it would be useful to most bloggers in general). It allows me to keep track of subjects/items I might want to touch upon when I have more time and affords me the ability to holster some posts for a "slow day" when I might not otherwise have something to comment on. It also helps me vary the content of WITFITS (to an extent) by allowing me to see what alternatives I have in the way of stories so that I don't necessarily have, for example, three days worth of YouTube video links. With a list, I can instead spread that content out over a week or two, if it suits me to do so.

I haven't tried any other online "to do" lists, so I can't speak to whether or not a better application exists, but I definitely recommend at least giving Ta-Da List a try for its simplicity and ease of use.

It's Monday and you all know how I abhor doing anything productive on Mondays, including coming up with a (semi) witty post. Fortunately, the Intelligent Designer foresaw this inevitability and gave unto us YouTube. Without further ado, here's a little gem featuring the character Corky from ABC's Life Goes On (1989-1993) dancing to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power". Yea, I don't fucking know either.

He also apparently has some kind of Christian Band, Forever Friends, featuring the two queerest guitar players I think I've ever seen. Seriously, check out their performance, it's so bad it hurts my feelings. I just rewatched it and noticed that, if you pay attention at the very beginning, you can hear someone (badly) cue up their accompanying music. I don't think those guitar players are even playing. It hurts so much.

On a related note, a very good friend of mine who I've known for about a decade revealed to me a couple of years ago that she once did a theater show with Chris Burke, the actor who played Corky (not to be confused with Houston Astros 2nd Baseman Chris Burke or Scottish Professional Footballer Chris Burke, both of which, as far as I know, only have 46 chromosomes). I told her that I was disappointed in her: that's the kind of story she should have told within minutes of us meeting each other. You don't save that kind of tidbit for a rainy day, you lay that card on the table from the get go. It's not fair to me or anyone else not to know that story.

I just heard a guy yelling to his dog whom he was talking for a walk. I swear he was yelling: "Eggs! Eggs, get over here!" Maybe it's just me, but that seems like an odd name for a dog. Of course maybe he just really loves eggs.

And not because it's not being held by an international tribunal, no, nothing so politically astute as that. No, the reason the trial is a sham is because the person they have in custody clearly isn't Saddam. How do I know? Because I just saw the real Saddam Hussein a few blocks away from my apartment. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

Granted, it does seem kind of strange that Saddam Hussein would be hiding out in Northeastern Ohio, but who would look there, right? And yea, it did seem funny to me that he would be driving around in a '92 Toyota Corolla, but hey, maybe that's how he rolls. He was working the aviator sunglasses pretty hard, but, you know, Baghdad fashion is invariably 15-20 years behind our own, so I won't fault him. He did go a little overboard with the Just For Men on the old whiskers, but I imagine if I were hiding out I'd still want to look good for the ladies, especially the non-veiled ones (Allah forbid).

Actually, come to think of it, he didn't seem to be chanting "Death to Israel! Death to America!" but I had my radio on so I can't be sure. And, he wasn't like, you know, gassing Kurds as far as I could tell, but he could have had one or two in the back seat for all I know.

Whatever, I'm still pretty sure it was him. He was last seen in the vicinity of Burger King. What can I say, motherfucker loves Whoppers.

When it comes to sketching out ideas (for instance, design notes for a work or personal project) I often find myself in a quandary over the medium on which it should be written. As a die hard techie who has been working with word-processors since the tender age of eight (WordStar anyone?), it seems only logical that I would immediately turn to the digital world of electronic bits to meet my writing needs. Yet, as enamored as I am with the warm fuzzy glow of technology, I find strange comfort in the quaint trappings of last century's flora-based media. The idea of storing information via pigment on a weave of cellulose fibers seems almost barbaric, yet something primal draws me to it.

The debate almost certainly boils down to facility versus tactility. I would be hard pressed to find any way in which writing my design notes (or what not) on a computer would be inferior to doing so in a spiral bound notebook. I can type considerably faster than I can write, changes and additional notes are easy to make, and readability is almost a non-issue (especially when compared to my chicken-scratch handwriting). But there is something that lures me away from the keyboard and over to a trusty notebook when it comes down to plotting out my next task. I can only surmise that it is the tactile experience that keeps me scratching away laboriously at the page, waiting for my hand to catch up to my brain, smudging ink in my haste, when I could have done the same task in half the time with better results on a PC. That and my desire not to be tethered to the computer for the rest of my life. I do my best thinking not when I'm sitting in a chair staring at a screen, but when I'm up and about, pacing the apartment, laying in bed, or exercising at the gym.

Am I alone in clinging to this vestige of pre personal computer life? Should I just up and buy a goddamned laptop already? Should I stop doodling little smiley faces and pictures of stick figures having sex in the margins of my notes? Or should pull a 180 and become a hipster carrying a moleskine journal everywhere I go?

Oh well, I guess someday my hand-written notes may be worth something, at least. Who wouldn't pay big bucks on eBay for my random musings, or my designs for a car horn that would have different sounds to express different states of urgency?

In addition to leftover impromptu sanitary toilet seat covers, I am occasionally greeted in the work stall by odd marks on the plastic. These are most certainly scuff marks left from someone's shoe, but I can't for the life of me think of why or how they would be there. Is someone standing on the seat to peak over into the next stall? Playing a quick game of hackie-sack with a ball made of toilet paper? Crawling down from the ductwork after knocking out the guards and stealing their clothes to infiltrate the inner sanctum?

It's all very baffling. And yet, part of me--the part that fears what really goes on inside public restrooms--doesn't want to know, no matter how puzzling it is.

To all the moms out there, WITFITS would like to wish you a Happy Mother's Day. In honor of this special day, let's all watch Mr. T rap about how you should treat your mother right:



Also, to all the mothers out there who are no longer with us... we miss you.

I don't know who this guy is. I don't know where he is from. I don't know why he chose that particular outfit. But this guy, this guy who looks like Dick from High Fidelity, is my hero of the day.

Oh, I haven't said why, or what the hell I'm talking about, have I? Watch this video clip of "Evolution of Dance" courtesy of YouTube. He dances his way from Elvis to Jay-Z, which I found amusing as hell.



This is the kind of thing I needed to be doing in high school and college. Just listen to the screaming ladies in the audience. So much tail, so little time.