Things that make me sad

1. Thierry Henry's Premiership Departure
I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I was depressed to hear that he would be leaving for Barcelona. The man was pure charisma on and off the pitch, and the English Season will be less exciting without him. As an homage, here is Henry, single-handedly shredding my boys. I remember cowering in shame as I watched this play.


2. The Demise of Punk Planet
A Chicago-based bastion of political, artistic, and journalistic integrity. Home to some of the finest writing that no one ever read. I was sad when Dan Sinker's other mag, BAIL, went under a couple of years ago, but I thought PP was his rock. It says a lot about the state of indie press when a book like this can't survive.




3. Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra in The Golden Compass
Okay, maybe this isn't her fault (it's probably the producer or director's), but Lyra is supposed to be a sassy little dirty butch tomboy. Not a Victorian princess. And anyway, do we really need another creepy child actress named "Dakota"? Seriously, Dakota Fanning is probably like, WTF.

I need more buckets.

I need more buckets.
Originally uploaded by todd.burbo.

Is there anything more satisfying than discovering a new purpose for and ordinary household object? It makes me feel like MacGyver. This breakthrough is especially nice, because when all is said and done, I just can't fit a dumpster in my apartment.

In other news, I think the sentence should be a bit longer than 2 years for tearing off someone's testicle and trying to eat it. I've heard that Liverpool girls are rough, but damn.

She is in your extended network. (They all are).

A few weeks ago, my friend Luc was telling me these great stories about meeting crazy girls from The Onion Personals. The stories were so funny, in fact, that I decided to sign up, and did so immediately.

Five minutes later, I was bored with the site and forgot completely about it.

That is, until a couple of weeks later, when I received an official Onion email, promising new matches to my profile! I clicked the link to check out these fatties, and was surprised to find that a handful of cute girls had "winked" at me on the site. One of these girls seemed particulary attractive (and possibly even smart), so I replied to her wink. Chalk one up for the internet.

I was a bit skeptical about The Onion's message system though, because it kept referring me to the "account upgrade" page on the site, which I of course refused to do. Signing up was funny; paying $100 for it, sad.

So, in a somewhat dubious move, I did a quick myspace search for the girl's name. Surprise, surprise, she popped right up. At this point, she had contacted me twice on The Onion's page, and was looking gorgeous as well, so I went for broke and sent her a myspace message.

About an hour later, I was woken up by my phone. It's Luc.

Luc: Hey, did you send a message to a girl named **** on myspace?
Me: Huh, wha-um, yeah, I think so.
Luc: (Laughing) She's a friend of mine. She just called me, asking if you were some kind of stalker.
Me: Um.
Luc: But don't worry man, I told her you were normal.
Me: Thanks Luc, goodnight.
Luc: See you tomorrow, stalker.

So yeah, after getting turned onto the damn site by Luc, the first girl I message there is an acquaintance of his. They even dated for a bit.

Fucking Chicago.