• Man, how awesome is Survivor Stephanie? She’s tough and she’s optimistic and she eats bird fetuses and she’s got great abs and she Dutch-braids her own hair. (Mental note: Update goals in WW notebook to read “Become Stephanie.”) I feel like if I knew her in real life I’d probably hate her because we’d both be so competitive, but I love watching her kick butt on the show. Well, “kick butt” in the sense of “trying really hard in the face of relentless defeat.” Oh, and let us never speak of the bird fetuses again, because I’m still cringing. That is my ultimate, ULTIMATE nightmare. The Snook kept laughing at my horror. I was like, “You don’t understand. The notion of a Very Small Animal being in my hand scares the bejesus out of me, so the thought of having one in my mouth…” HORROR.
• I can’t believe I didn’t mention this, but what’s up with Days changing Belles on me TWICE IN TWO WEEKS? I never even realized how much I liked the first actress, but man, Belle #2 brought it home big time. She sucked. She was a bad actress, she had no chemistry with either Philip or Shawn, and – it feels shallow to admit it but hey, I’m talking about a soap here – she was really unattractive. A total minger. Within the space of one episode my interest in that storyline dropped about 500%. I started actively rooting for Jan to complete Shawn’s brainwashing and win him over. But just as soon as I’d resigned myself to the situation… they changed her again! Belle #3 is definitely prettier and less whiny, but she’s still no Original Belle. She has sort of a pinched, anorexic look about her. Gain five pounds, Belle #3, and you could vault to the top of my Favorite Belle List! And now I’m back to hating crazy psycho Jan.
• As far as I can tell it hasn’t aired in the US yet, so you Americans simply MUST watch Operatunity when it comes on PBS. It’s a documentary shot a few years ago in England where non-professional singers vied to be chosen to perform with the English National Opera. (“Opera Idol,” if you will.) I absolutely loved it, even though I totally guessed the ultimate winners really early. I still cried when they won though. There were just all these normal people who had a gift – albeit one with not a lot of practical use today – and most of them had given up so much of their dreams along the way. The big finalé performance was on Sunday and I’ve got it taped to watch this weekend. Can’t wait…
• We’re still gamely watching each episode of Desperate Housewives, but it’s really not catching on with either me or the Snook. Every now and then we halfheartedly make a prediction about the mystery, but mostly we just don’t care. I don’t predict we’ll be TiFauxing it much longer.
• Lost, on the other hand, has us and most of Australia hooked. We actually missed the last episode (since it conflicted with Operatunity) but it seems several the Snook’s co-workers were able to burn copies for him. I’m dying to figure out who whacked Sayid when he was triangulating the signal.
• Oh, and in case you haven’t visited our house in the last month and been personally subjected to a viewing, the Snook and I are officially obsessed with Arrested Development. We’ve watched the entire Series 1 DVDs (Thank you Kel!), like, three times now. I must admit, my favorite character of all is Buster. I say “Hey, Hermano!” at least once a day. Unfortunately we’re going to have to wait til Season 2 airs here, I think. The Snook’s been nosing around on the torrent sites and apparently only the more recent episodes are available, and we don’t want to watch them out of order. Damn!

I finally managed to watch Michael Stipe’s interview on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton from Monday. He was surprisingly personable! The only bit I didn’t like was Denton’s introduction, where he went on and on about how REM didn’t seem like the stereotypical rock gods, like with the groupies and the doing drugs, and that it was so refreshing that they didn’t have any embarrassing scandals… to which everyone watching mentally thought in unison: “Except for that time Peter Buck went psycho on a flight to England.” But anyhoo, my personal highlights:

• Denton asked about the blue stripe, to which Stipe replied, “I don’t think when people go to a concert they want to see the same person they could see walking down the street. It’s just theatrics.” I was totally expecting him to say something much more vague and cosmic and stupid.
• Michael is really sentimental and spends every Christmas with his family. That just seemed like such a nice, normal thing. What a good Southern boy!
• When discussing the way the media can totally misrepresent things you do/say, Stipe mentioned that he was reading an Aussie tabloid story on “Celeb Fatties” on the plane. (Must’ve been NW, as that’s currently on the cover.) He said that of all the people shown, only one was actually fat and the rest were just caught at a bad angle. The fat one was Courtney Love, who he says has put on some pounds since she’s gotten clean and sober. He said she’s doing well and he seemed really happy for her. Denton asked what she’d think about being included in the “Celeb Fatties.” Stipe laughed. “Oh, she’d love it!”
• Denton mentioned that last year REM did the “Vote for Change” tour with several other bands. “What were you hoping to accomplish?” Stipe hesitated for a second, as if pondering the ridiculousness of such an obvious question. “We wanted George Bush the f**k out of the White House, and to vote John Kerry in.” Everyone applauded.
• At one point, Denton mentioned that the band’s been dedicating “Strange Currencies” to Michael Hutchence in all the Australian shows, and then he brought up River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain. He was trying to ask Michael why they all seemed to burn out under the weight of fame, but why hadn’t he? Michael basically said he’d never really thought about that and that it was hard for him to talk about. And then thankfully Denton changed the subject, because it seemed to really depress Michael.
• Apparently Stipe collects random crap like matchbooks and sugar packets and he’s always threatening to put a big scrapbook together. So at the end of the interview, Denton offered him a choice between a few different “Australian” items to remember us by: a cricketer’s cup (as in, the thing that protects his crotch), a crushed VB can, and an actual living funnel-web spider in a plastic terrarium. Michael seemed a bit freaked out by the spider at first, but eventually decided to be brave and pick up the box. “So is this one deadly poisonous?” Yep. “If I opened the lid, it would actually kill me dead?” Yep. “I bet some insurance guy is having a heart attack right about now.” He went with a matchbook.

Note: I totally paraphrased Michael’s statements because I’m too lazy to transcribe from the video.

Oh, but before I forget, wasn’t Australian Idol such a shocker tonight!? I can’t believe Ricki-Lee is gone. I had picked her to win. She was my second favorite after Marty (who I voted for and thus can claim to have saved this week). I really, really thought it would be Chanel. The Snook and I were cooking dinner and I was like, “Man, the hippies are having it rough! First Latham and now Chanel.” And then two minutes later the verdict was announced and immediately Amy rang – for the second time during the show – and we were both like, “Oh. My. God!” Why can’t Hayley be gone already? How much money can I afford to keep Marty in the competition? And is this thing now firmly within Anthony’s hands? And holy crap, are we going to leave before this thing is finished??

Woohoo! The weird little opera guy Daniel finally got booted on Australian Idol tonight. He seemed nice enough but I got really sick of overly theatrical style. (You’re next, Hayley!) I’m totally in the Ricki-Lee camp. She rocks! She’s Australia’s own Beyonce. Chanel and Marty are sentimental favorites, but I don’t think either of them has the star power to win it.