This Is It

This is a little sad, but I do believe it's time for me to stop pretending. The days of the life and times of kit blog have come to an end. I suppose there's always the chance I'll pick back up here one day in the future, but right now it just doesn't feel like it.

I'm still writing at my food blog, of course. But for whatever reason, I've just gotten tired of the whole capturing-random-thoughts thing.

So that's it. Goodbye!

From the Sports Guy

(This pretty much sums up my train of thought as I watched The Gauntlet last night. Except for the part about AC Slater. I think that's just a gratuitous SBTB mention.)

Q: For most of my life, the greatest athlete I had ever seen was A.C. Slater, but now I am pretty positive it is Alton Williams from the "The Gauntlet." Have you seen him? When I watch, I feel like an 8-year-old thinking Magic Johnson can do anything again. If Alton ends up losing somehow, I won't have anything to believe in anymore.-- Shaun Tygart, Salem, Ore.

SG: Quite simply, Alton is lifting us all to a higher place. There's nothing much more to say. He's the modern-day Jim Thorpe. Other than host T.J. Lavin saying the sentence, "That was a very challenging challenge," Alton's heroics have been the highlight of the season so far.
But here's my question: Why hasn't some name nonfiction writer spent a season with all of these MTV crazy people for a sweeping opus about celebrity and fame in the 21st century? I mean, this is a cottage industry at this point -- you have all of these unemployed rejects making enough money to survive in Los Angeles, partying all of the time, being treated like real celebs, hooking up with one another and getting into various forms of trouble. And that's basically their life. It's a life in which it's totally OK to scream at another person, throw that person's suitcase of clothes in a swimming pool, go dancing six nights a week and compete in challenges when you're wearing a thong and transferring body paint by rubbing it from your body onto someone else's body. Am I the only one who finds this interesting? What are their goals? What do their families think? How did they get to this point? At what age does someone like Mark (who's legitimately in his mid-30s) say to himself, "Maybe I should think about doing something else?" Do they keep coming on these shows because they like being quasicelebrities, or because they can't think of anything else to do for a living? Don't we need someone like Malcolm Gladwell to make sense of everything here?

In Case You Were Wondering

I haven't abandoned this blog completely. Only partially.

The truth is, even without much of a job, it's hard to keep up with three blogs. Lately, most of my effort is going to the food blog, and that's probably how it's going to stay, at least for a while.

I'm sorry if I'm disappointing any of the five of you...

Timewasters for the Self-Involved

The perfect game for narcissists: the My Heritage facial recognition web site. Upload a photo of yourself, and the software analyzes your facial structure, comparing it to the facial structures of thousands of celebrities.

Self-involved as I am, I tried two different pictures of me. Apparently I either look most like Julia Roberts, or like Mariah Carey (and I don't look anything like either). The only person who showed up during both tries was Janet Leigh (though Chelsea Clinton popped up in one, and Hillary in the other. Neither comforted me.)

Cooper is, apparently, a little more androgynous. I ran two pictures of him, as well, cropped from the same larger photographs as the two pics of me. The first photo, the older one, matched him to Patrick Stewart and Hilary Swank. I suppose she's sort of manly looking. Patrick Stewart showed up in his second photo scan, too...so did Gene Hackman. And Kirsten Dunst. Of course.

I could spend hours with this.

Funniest Part of Our Trip to NYC

Erin and I went to New York for the day yesterday, so she could do some thesis research and we could eat and shop.

Funniest moment of the entire day - by far - was the minute that she and I both realized, simultaneously, that all of the art in one room at the MOMA had been underwritten by Stavros.

I'm 30.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAY (December 22). You are honored this year for being what many consider to be the rock of their group. You don't mind that others depend on you, because inwardly, you know you're strong enough to share. Financial rewards come in April. Romance blossoms when you're open and vulnerable in February. Scorpio and Cancer make sweet partners. Your lucky numbers are: 3, 28, 5, 44 and 20.

Yeah, financial rewards in April.

The Egg People

Last summer, Cooper and I bought ourselves a housewarming gift (we like to give ourselves presents): a painting called the Drinknapper. The artist is the wife of Cooper's hair stylist (yes, stylist) and the painting is extremely cool. It shows two "egg people" embroiled in some drama involving a martini. The colors are bright - turquoise, pink, green - and it is definitely the centerpiece of our kitchen. I love it.

Last night, Cooper got his hair cut. When he got home, he showed me this web site. Apparently it's pretty old - I know for a fact that some of those pictures have been sold, as we tried to buy one of them - but it is still cool. In person, though, totally cooler. The big paintings are REALLY big and when you see them in a restaurant or bar (we've been to two shows) they're sort of subtly dominant. They are so big that you can't help but notice them, but the colors and texture (they're VERY smooth and the lines are crisp) keep them from feeling overbearing or imposing.

Plus, the artist is super, super nice. Which is just icing, really.