in case you're going to an airport any time soon.
4. Realized the only way all the bugs in Windows would ever get fixed is if he did it himself.
What British store has lost its royal warrant from the Duke of Edinburgh, and what can we be sure played no role in this decision?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
What I've been reading recently: magazines! 'Cause it's magazine week around the old homestead and, frankly, magazine articles are about my speed these days.
Okay, let's see what's piled up on the ultrasuede couch in front of the TV. I see there is a backup of Entertainment Weekly magazines, which is to be expected given that it comes every week.
- Vanity Fair, Warren and Annette cover: Warren and Annette talk about their life together, and I decide the notoriously close-mouthed Warren isn't that much more interesting when he's being open. I read about how much of a dork Lord Jeffrey Archer, whoremonger, is--some people need to be hauled out and slapped. Do I need to read this much about Jay Moloney, the former CAA agent/coke addict who committed suicide? The best part of the issue is the amazing--I use this term "loosely"--ads from Prada (fully dressed man standing behind scantily-clad torso of unseen woman--definitely gives you ideas about what's about to happen), DKNY (everybody dressed in skin-tight leather, woman sticking hand in man's crotch), and Bijan (Bijan painting enormously obese nude woman visible only from behind).
- Movieline, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos cover: Several attractive shots of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, whom I don't find particularly attractive but I'm heterosexual. James Woods comes out of the closet as a total jerk. Top sensuous celebrity photos of the past decade, none of which do anything for me. Top 10 silver screen kisses--they list the one from Notorious, which I admit is one of the few ones that affected me. The X-and-Y files, a standard feature on the last page in which they take two celebrities and figure out who their celebrity offspring would be, is not as good this month as usual but it's still clever. I don't remember everything about this issue, because Darin has absconded with it--which I'm sure has nothing to do with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.
- Entertainment Weekly, The Sopranos cover: Basically, how to get up to speed on The Sopranos before it returns on Jan. 16: who the characters are, who's done what to whom, how clever (and out of left field) series creator David Chase is, why women are suddenly finding long-time character actor James Gandolfini sexy, and why Gandolfini would never have been on this show had it been on a network. A whole bunch of reviews of movies released right at the end of last year--The Talented Mr. Ripley gets an A-, but the reviewer is Lisa Schwartzbaum and the only trustworthy EW movie reviewer is Owen Gleiberman, so I don't care. They are down on the new season of NYPD Blue, which I will keep in mind.
- Entertainment Weekly, Oscar Race 2000 cover: What I learned from this issue is that the finest minds working in entertainment industry analysis have no idea who's going to win the Oscar race, so you can make big bucks in Vegas this year. The review of Mr. Death, as all reviews of this movie have done, piques my interest. Matt Groening lists his Top 10 episodes of The Simpsons, and Darin and I realize we have seen all of them.
- Entertainment Weekly, Guide to 2000 cover: This just arrived today. Since Darin reads all EWs front-to-back and I just sort of flip through them, I figure it's only fair to let him at this one first, even though he's probably not done with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos yet. Flipping through it, I see that they are down on this new show City of Angels and I recall that they love Buffy, so perhaps the TV reviewers have a clue.
- Los Angeles, Real Estate cover: Mmmm...real estate porn. The ridiculous estates people are building in the LA area--if you like reading about people building 45,000 square feet homes or houses that cost $45m. and up, this is the issue for you. There is also a bit about people tearing down homes in Santa Monica and building monster mansions--welcome to the new economy, folks. I also read about the 10 best unknown areas in LA in which to live, none of which I've heard of or am moving to.
- Stanford, Building a Better Entrepreneur: Once again, no one I know is listed in the Class Notes section. Since that's the only part of the magazine I ever look at, this was the shortest magazine perusal. (Actually, the Stanford magazine is a really good magazine, especially for an alumni magazine.)
I also have a Company Store catalogue here: I can buy baby outfits and crib sheets and... I have got to get a grip.
I've put Variety on hold for a few weeks--I think it starts up again next week. Which means I'm going to have a huge pile of those to catch up on too in no time at all. Conveniently, my subscription runs out about the time Bug shows up, and that gives me an excuse not to reup for a while.
So how's this for an appreciative audience: Fernando came over this evening to have dinner with me, Darin, and Jim Jacobs, and one of the first things he says to me is, "You've broken your streak of posting every day. But there's still time to post today"
*thwap!*
Get those weird fears to me! I'm going to do a roundup soon. And boy, are you going to have to work to top some of these.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com