Matt linked to an interview with Todd Solondz, who made the films “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Happiness.” Nothing, I repeat, nothing is as funny as my sister doing the Weiner Dog dance. She’s gonna love this.

I’m actually not a real big fan of either film. “Dollhouse” just hit way, way too close for comfort. To make matters worse, I saw it with a friend who’s a junior high teacher and he guffawed through the whole thing. I just sat there and squirmed. And don’t even get me started on “Happiness.” It’s probably the only film in my life that I’ve ever seriously considered walking out on. I believe that Solondz is a unique artist and that he’s very good at what he does, but I can’t find the humor in such a bleak universe. Other optimists are warned to watch these films at their own peril.

What the heck? When did baseball start? What’s wrong with Mike’s knee? Jeez, you leave the hemisphere for two weeks and suddenly you’re out of the loop! That said, Mets in ’01!

Gael pointed to a great site full of Saturday Night Live Transcripts. My friend Kel and I are having a lot of fun reminiscing about our favorite episodes from college. I especially liked “Tinker Bell’s Revenge” (with Claire Danes), “Celebrity Jeopardy” (I’ll take “The Rapists” for $200, Alex!), another “Celebrity Jeopardy” (the one where Marlon Brando writes “Poop”), Gwyneth Paltrow’s monologue, “Old Glory Insurance” (Are YOU protected against robot attack?), and “Star Wars Screen Tests”.

Am I on holiday, or what? I can’t help posting. I go to check my e-mail and end up reading blogs and examining my site statistics. This one is too good to pass up: I’m the #2 result when you search for “paceyporn”, second only to the site itself! I swear, I didn’t think that up on my own. Somebody actually found my site that way.

At least Chelsea’s boyfriend never pulled this crap.

Max linked to a good article about the current European culture of fear. As an American currently living across the pond, I definitely think that the “irrational fears” are worse over here than at home. Sure, Americans distrust the government, but the British distrust everybody. Back home in Indiana, the only thing I really feared was a car accident (whether from a drunk driver or hitting a deer). Here, though, we fear the trains, we fear the beef, we fear the cell phones. We have the disasters to back it up, too! Personally, my big current one is that “deep vein thrombosis,” seeing as how I’m flying to Sydney in less than two days. My doctor advised that I take half an aspirin and move around a lot, but after reading that article I think I’m going to be jogging laps up and down the aisles. (What about alcohol? Alcohol thins the blood, right? Bring on the cocktails!)

Edited 01/03/2025: Link is unfortunately dead now.