Every Sunday, we’re going to pick out just some cool, interesting videos and stories we’ve found over the past week. This week I’m 3000 miles from home, visiting family all over the country for the past 10 days. It’s been insane (don’t ever fly Northwest/ Delta…more on that later). I’ve met some new friends, and visited old ones. And I’ve eaten lots of food. Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to L.A. and I’ll be back on normal updating schedule (OK, OK, somewhat normal, but that is normal). Look forward for some improvements on Urbanesse in 2009. Anyway, on with the goodies:::
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Barbie Aisle by violentvisionsofsittingstill

Do you go to toy stores only to be disgusted with the fact that there’s basically the one “girl aisle” and it’s swathed in pink crap? I know I do. The Pepto aisle’s color doesn’t only make you want to vomit, though –this article says the atmosphere creates a generation of princesses. I don’t doubt it.

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Wouldn’t you hate to be this guy? A bank error in Scotland left some guy with a £100 billion overdraft. I hope the fee was still only $30.
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yay!

see more puppies

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January apparently is National Blood Donor Month. That’s fantastic, and all, but I don’t know if I’ll be giving blood. Last time I did, I fainted in front of a loooot of people…

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Ricky Gervais hates fat people. Very mean, but kinda hilarious.

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An old Saturday Night Live throwback. OK, it’s not that old, but it’s still pretty funny.

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One of Google’s inaugural execs is leaving the company. And she’s got mad cash coming to her.
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Therapy by Rick

Twanna at Funky Brown Chick gives you the skinny on how to find a therapist. Saaa-weet. It’s something I’m considering in the new year (especially since we just got better health insurance at my job lol).
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And finally, some crazy stuff was going down on New Year’s Eve programming. My friends and I were watching the ball drop on CNN, and after, we kinda kept the channel on while Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper counted down to the Central Time Zone’s celebration…colorful.

While I didn’t personally find it offensive, I’m worried some ridiculous right-wing group is going to go after her (again). But then here’s what I DID find offensive — check out the scroll on the bottom of the video. Fox News let their viewers text their New Year’s wishes into the network, for it to appear on the crawl. I guess someone decided it would be hilarious to be a racist dick.

Every Sunday, we’re going to pick out just some cool, interesting videos and stories we’ve found over the past week.

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I heart Apartment Therapy, and their artistic, creative readers. Take, for one example among many, their Small Space Solutions…

My apartment isn’t terribly small, but it’s not really large — especially when the hubbster and I might as well be 2 dudes since we live like slobs. In any case, the roundup of tips and inspiration is likely to help you in the Awesome Apartment category.

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The Wall Street Journal lists the top advertisments of 2008. While I have been more annoyed and disappointed by advertisements this year, I do have to say I am quite partial to this ball girl:

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Perhaps you haven’t seen it, but Mr. Rodgers was down with the B-Boys back in the day. God, I heart Mr. Rodgers!

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hehe…puppeh

see more puppies

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Don’t set your husband’s balls on fire.

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The U.N. is launching an investigation into the Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Just wanted to wish you all a Happy Hanukkah/ Merry Christmas/ Happy Human Light/ Festive Kwanzaa and a kick ass new year. I’ll be traveling a lot over the next week and a half (Portland, New York, and then Washington D.C) but I’ll check in sporadically.

Poor or straight up laid off, but with good spirits? Then send an e-card from my fave someecards.com. A few personal picks:

Every Sunday, we’re going to pick out just some cool, interesting videos and stories we’ve found over the past week.

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People Eating at the Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles… it’s not as boring as it sounds, but you’ve gotta have the sound on.

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A little info on how the Obama logo came to be; I kinda like the one with speech bubbles, but I could see how that could be a problem for Obama — people could say he was all talk, and likely no action.

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Greeks rioted in the street after a 15-year-old was killed by police in a scuffle. Athens is in shambles.

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George and Laura Bush did an interview for StoryCorps, a national oral history initiative, conducted by his sister Doro Bush Koch. In it, the outgoing president and the first lady touched upon the normal talking points that I would expect (Afghanistan, HIV/AIDS relief in Africa, No Child Left Behind), but the underlying messages strung through the whole thing leaves me so angry:

-Bush talks about the unconditional love he received from his father. “It is the greatest gift a father can give a child,” he said. “And it has made life to much easier in many ways, because if you have the ultimate gift of love, then the difficulties of life can be easier handled.”

- On faith playing into politics, Bush says he’s read the Bible every day since he was inaugurated in 2001, but he cautions other politicos from dragging their faith into the public arena: “…politicians should not be judgmental people based upon their faith. They should recognize — as least I have recognized I am a lowly sinner seeking redemption, and therefore have been very careful about saying accept my faith or you’re bad…”

Then, he goes on to say that the best part of being American is that we can choose to be religious or not, “and be equally American. And it doesn’t matter how you choose to worship; you’re equally American…It’s very important for any President to jealously protect, guard, and strengthen that freedom.”

Um… all of those sentiments are all well and good, but I can’t take an ounce of what he said seriously. Remember in 2004, when the Republicans using the Rovian playbook, decided to further polarize the country by basically running a national campaign on same-sex marriage? It may as well have been George Wallace in 1964, running under the banner of segregation. As we know, any issue pertaining to gay rights, polarized (and continues to polarize) families. Where’s the unconditional love for teenagers who are kicked out of their homes for being honest with thier parents by coming out? Well, it’s not in the form of shelters because federal funding has been cut off to support those places of last resort.

Better yet, where’s the governmental protection of such peoples’ basic rights? You know, like making sure people aren’t fired from their jobs because they are LGBT? How about allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military instead of allowing ex-cons to take guns and shoot at Iraqis?  How about a bill that would make sure that if someone is violated because of his sexual orientation, the offender would be  effectively punished?

Why didn’t these things happen? Because President Bush, and his conservative, Christian cronies and followers played the Bible Card. Somehow, letting people just live their lives goes against the Bible — gays can’t reproduce, so they shouldn’t be allowed to prosper in society like the rest of us. But now, in 2008, Bush will tell you that faith shouldn’t play too much of a role in the political process, and that children should have the unconditional love of their families. Too bad a lot of people who were listening to you four years ago will never show their children the unconditional love that George Senior and Babs give him.

Check out an excerpt of the interview here.

Last week I went to jury duty for the first time ever. I think there’s some sort of pandemic of jury duty summonses going around, because nearly everyone I know here in L.A. has served within the past few months.

Anyway, so I headed downtown, to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center at 7:45 a.m. last Wednesday. Of course, after getting off the train, and then having to go through a security check, I was a few minutes late, and I missed the jury duty guy’s initial schpiel about the process. We marched single file into a room and sat down with about 100 other people. Then one of the judges talked to us for a few minutes about the importance of jury duty, and because I’m such a civic dork, I got all pumped about it, even though I was dreading being picked up until that moment.

So after more procedural stuff, they called up the first panel, for a 25-day case. As they were calling the names, they called out a familiar name, and I later verified that it was Kevin Roderick from LA Observed! And even though I came equipped with my laptop, ready to work, they told us that the courthouse’s wifi and internet connections on their supplied computers for jurists was down, and wouldn’t return until mid-December.

And for some reason, there was a woman doing a gigantic jigsaw puzzle…really.

Then there was our 90-freaking-minute lunch, which was really rad. I had lunch on top of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in their rooftop garden and read an article in Wired about a facebook revolution in Egypt. (Girlie side note: I reeeeeally want to get married at the WDCH garden…).

Then I got back from lunch, only to sit around for another couple of hours and then go home. I didn’t even get called into a panel. I’ve heard that if you list your occupation as “journalist”, which I am, they won’t even call you up.

On my way out, I snapped this photo of Judge Frederick Wapner’s door…if you don’t know who his father Joe is, you probably didn’t watch a lot of television in the 1980s.