Nothing quite prepared us.

OK, we have tried for the past 30 minutes to approach this one in many different ways, none to our complete satisfaction. So, we're just going to give you the ingredients in the order we received them and let you attempt to try to put it together for yourself.

1. A link entitled "GROUND ZERO" found at the bottom of the menu on the left at the Preppygram Web site.
2. Preppygrams, a professional singing telegram company serving the New York Metro area since 1980.
3. 2. The Preppygram costume list, like SpongeBob or the Grim Reaper, should you order and send a Preppygram.

No, we're not even satisfied with this presentation of the above information, but we think once you experience it for yourself, you'll forget we even exist.

Good night.

Our sexy neighbors to the north.

Faithful reader and recent traveler Frank of omg blog helpfully points out that tonight is the premiere of Canada's Next Top Model and reminds us that we can probably get the episodes via Bittorrent, which, though we use Bittorrent ALL THE TIME for music (j/k, feds), would never have occurred to us. So, thanks, Frank. In a way.

Anyway, while the episodes are seemingly kind of important, if only because they're hosted by our favorite sultry Cylon, Tricia Helfer, what's more important (as also pointed out by Frank) is that each contestant is required to keep a blog. Let us repeat: each contestant is required to keep a blog. Meaning, right now, we are completely, totally, utterly, absolutely consumed by the post-hypothetical idea of Jade having to have kept a blog. Sure, it would have probably been nearly as lunaticky as her myspace page (which we've linked once before and cannot bear to link again), but it definitely would have been more on topic. Like, just imagine having had a sort of actor's commentary on the now legendary Cover Girl commercial. This whole blog thing just goes to show how much Canada has its shit together. Tyra, you need to work it out, girl. (Oh, and can you also include a man as a contestant in the next cycle? Thanx, doll.)

In that order.

They called it Xanadu.

What's more magical than an amusement park? Easy. A defunct amusement park. Which is what this site has to offer. In a sort of defunct way. Better, at least for us because of our Florida roots and because we like actual information, is this page: Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions, which has tons of information about such wonderful former attractions as Splendid China, Xanadu, and, a personal childhood favorite, Miami's Planet Ocean, an attraction so seemingly obscure that we'd swear it existed only in our mind if not for the photo below (it's ice, by the way, and, yes, we touched it, yo.)...



Oh, and here are myriad more related links, in case you're really into this crap.

Adios, hermano.

Sola lágrima.

(By the by, obviously we used an English-to-Spanish translation site for the above hilarity. What you see is the "FREE Translation." How much for the "Human Translation" (whatever that means)?



Sola lágrima, indeed.)

Lost, without you.

Yes, it's Wednesday. No, there will not be a new episode of Lost on tonight. Which isn't really that unusual, but it's still plenty depressing, especially knowing that the season is actually over. In the meantime, here's the Lost Wikipedia page, which is surprisingly well organized and comprehensive. And, best of all, it will take you until September to get through the whole thing, so, you know, by the time you're done it will almost be time to find out how Ms. Klugh's hatred of children is tied to the missing arm of Dr. Marvin Candle. You know, the guy from the orientation video? The first orientation video. No, not the one from the Pearl. The one from the Swan. Where Desmond was. The guy who was in a boat race around the world? No, we don't know if he only has four toes, but, yes, there will be six Lost action figures released this fall, and, yes, the first one is Charlie. The one from Driveshaft? With the heroin problem? No, not Boone. Charlie. Boone's dead. Like his stepsister, Shannon. Who he was in love with. Like Sayid.

14.

Because we don't care about baby Shiloh or its parents, and everyone else is still drunk from the holiday, we're going to get a bit self-referential right now. Hope you don't mind.

Last October, as four of you are probably aware, we posted about two girls named Lynx and Lamb Gaede, also known as the Olsen Twins of the White Nationalist Movement. After said post, we created a series of posts called "Just White, Just Right," for which we asked readers to email their personal experiences with the two little racist girls. The first "email" we "received" was from a "girl" named "Sarah Flannel." See, we just used all those quotes to illustrate that we made up these "Just White, Just Right" emails. Why would we need to point out such a seemingly obvious fact? Well, because apparently Web enthusiasts investigating the two little girls are occasionally directed to this site, and, specifically, to this first "Just Right, Just White" post. And they leave comments. Quite recently we received a comment that begins...

Yes, the grammar was totally apalling, but I don't think that the letter was fabricated - I know plenty of fourteen-year-olds who would write like that. They just get lazy when they're typing on the net, and they don't care to go back and correct stuff. Hell, even people my age do that too, sometimes, and they're meant to be finishing off high school. YAY, Bad Grammar Pride. Not.

So, yes, people believe that a 14-year-old named Sarah Flannel actually wrote to us to recount her Lynx and Lamb encounter. Which is why we're pointing this out to you. There are 22 other comments at this post for your enjoyment, and several more of them contemplating the veracity of young "Miss Flannel"'s "email" (when they're not arguing the nationality of the Internet, of course), sometimes with worse grammar than the terrible grammar we fabricated. It's all terribly amusing. And terribly sad. Though we are kind of proud that we proved at least a few people would a.) accept that anyone, no matter what age, would honestly spell "weird," "deirw" and b.) believe a person named An'gell actually exists.

Oh, and don't worry, none of these commentors ever reads another post on this site (clearly), so we're not jeopardizing any future possibilities.

Memorial day.

We just had to pop in to wish someone a happy birthday. So, happy 43rd birthday, Lisa Whelchel. We greatly look forward to your Coffee Talk recap of the day's festivities. Hopefully Clancy behaved!

Enjoy.

Memorialations.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, lovers! We're staying safe in our city (with the sailors, bien sûr!), so if you see a small drunk person clutching an Otto Tootsi Plohound bag and stumbling down Fifth Avenue, give a kiss.

Joe E. Tata!

Your video clip of the day.

Pizza Chinese Hut.

Here's a glorious Web site that's been around forever and that we've just found (naturally) called Not Fooling Anybody, which chronicles storefronts that are, well, not fooling anybody. Seriously, this is brills, guys.

Right.

Here are the 50 greatest conservative rock songs of all time as decided by the National Review. This is all almost intentionally funny until you see what the guy who wrote the article looks like...



Obviously he's serious, which makes this article, which presumably was a means for the National Review to up its already questionable "cool" quotient, wholly anti-successful. Which, once again, National Review, is extremely non-intentionally funny.

Quiver.

Q: How do you know we've truly hit bottom?

A: When we start posting links to stories about a fat six-year-old Russian boy.

To be fair, any article that contains this line...

Just sitting down in Dzhambulat Khatokhov's house sucks you straight into his empty world. "There is not a single piece of furniture that he has not broken," his mother, Nelya, laments as I perch on a stool barely held together by a quiver of nails.

...is worth a peek, no?

To be covered.

We were just turned on to a fantastic, musically inclined blog called My Old Kentucky Blog, at which the most recent posts feature numerous cover versions of a singular song. For instance, today's track is "Hallelujah," and there are about 4,683 versions (mercifully excepting the Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen versions) for your enjoyment. Past picks include Neutral Milk Hotel's lovely "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" and Joy Division's loveless "Love Will Tear Us Apart," covered here by a very young 10,000 Maniacs. (We'll never forgive you for not signing our shirt, Merchant.) Go!

Game, set. Love.

We may bring you week-old news
We may help you take a snooze
We may force you to be sick
Our ass you may soon kick
We may make you take a knife
As a way to take your life
But you can't say it's not true
That we never looked out for you.

Oh, Canada.

We stand on guard for thee.

Answers.

And, no, of course we didn't not watch the Lost finale. Here's what we learned:

1.) If you begin the season with a terrible wig...



...you apparently must end the season with a terrible wig.



2.) Desmond looks almost attractive with short hair.
3.) There's a giant hungry parrot on the island, and it knows who's hoarding the food.
4.) New mom Claire and her enormous 3-day-old baby apparently still aren't important enough for shelter.
5.) If you let the numbers on the timer get to 00:00, everything goes flying, except planes.
6.) We still loathe Michael and hope his boat explodes, Walt or no Walt.
7.) Taylor Hicks caused our DVR to stop recording from 10:08 p.m. to 10:11 p.m., so we hope he explodes, too.

That's it, right? Oh, and we were going to provide photos for each of the above, but everyone in the fucking world is trying to look at screencaps of last night's episode right now. This post is late crappy enough as it is.

Truth in advertising.

According to the iTunes page for the American Idol: Season 5 Encores cd, Mandisa is at least two women.

America, America, this is you.

Just remember, birth country, you picked this. Now you have to buy its records.



However, we will admit that the American Idol finale show was a bit more exciting than we assumed it would be. What with guest stars like a voiceless Meat Loaf and a voiceless Dionne Warwick, and the return of Kevin Covais, and the surprisingly gayish lead singer of Live, and the don't-you-dare-talk-to-me-Ryan-Seacrest Prince, and the turkey cowboy performance, and the largest-ever Mandisa—we were mildly entertained! But, and you probably know what we're about to say, easily the best, and, by "best," we mean "most thoroughly uncomfortable and creepy and downright terrifying," moment of the evening was when a previous auditionee with delusions of being the next Clay Aiken was dragged out to si...well...why not relive that moment one more time. If you haven't seen this, please do not think we are hyperbolizing. This clip is scarier than being chased by 10 of Elliott Yamin's moms. Yes, it's that scary. Enjoy!

Marooned.

Sorry! The NB is closed today. We're busy making Walted milkshakes, Hurley fries and Jingerbread cookies for tonight's Lost finale. No, it shouldn't be a whole-day activity, but you try cooking with 18 screaming members of the Soul Patrol outside your window. Ugh. Anyway, ta ta.

More critic.

Our newest and most German reader, Juergen, sends us a link (via the well written Bomb the System) to the unfortunately named Criticker. Criticker allows you to rate movies and lets you know which other critics and "critics" your taste is most closely aligned with. Cool! We're ranking 10 films right now...

Please hold.

Please hold.

Please hold.

Oh, now it's asking us to rank more because 10 isn't enough. Jesus. Listen, Criticker, we don't have all day to spend ranking fucking films just to be told we have, god forbid, the same taste as Richard Roeper. You know, what's probably happening is that we like so many clearly excellent films that we're out of every critic's league. We've always suspected that.

Iraq my brains.

Oh, CNN, quit taking the news so seriously!

Cut.

Here's a link to Augusten Burroughs's Web site, at which, if you click on "Film/TV," you can eventually watch the latest trailer for the oft-delayed movie version of his great Running with Scissors. Apparently it's been kept from release until this fall in order to generate 2007 Oscar buzz. Based on a viewing of this trailer, wethinks there may be other reasons, one big one in particular.

Creator of the most memorable quote of our unmemorable 30 years, dead.

R.I.P. Lloyd "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" Bentsen.



(Please forgive this moment of nostaligiac sentimentality. It will not happen again.)

Your video clip of the day.

X-cuse me?

1.) Ew.

2.) Bah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Holy cow.

OK. Let us make something clear. Even though we occasionally take breaks from posting on this stupid blog, we do expect you, our faithful readers, to keep us in the loop when something miraculous occurs. Meaning, why weren't we alerted sooner that Geri Halliwell's new baby is named Bluebell Madonna?

911.

After 1,263 episodes of pure, unadulterated torture, American Idol comes to a close this week. Which is why we're showing you this site now: it's called Dialidol.com, and it features software you can download to speed dial your favorite contestant. So, get your phones ready to cast your vote for either, um, Taylor Hicks or, er, Katharine McPhee. Wait. What's that sound? Oh, right! It's the sound of one hand clapping while the other hand loads the gun. For, no matter who "wins," as per usual, we all, every single one of us, lose. And, as Yoanna House once said, you have to lose before you can be free.

Tell us something we don't know!

We just received this shocking comment (and on our November 2005 post about the Double Trouble twins, to boot!) and wanted to share:

Boy. You're really funny. And by that, I mean this is a pretty stupid blog.

Here's the thing, Anonymous. You can't just drop in here unannounced, read a few posts and instantly decide this blog is "pretty stupid." No, you have to have been around here for a week or two to really understand how stupid this blog is. It's more than "pretty stupid. This blog is hands-down completely fucking stupid. Any of our two regular readers will tell you that. But they'd be allowed to because they're loyal to us. They know the amount of stupidity that flows from this site on a usually daily basis. You? You're just an angry little girl with too much time on her hands. Sheesh. We bet your name is Madison or Jamie or Shandi and that you pretend to be anorexic but clearly you binge eat because everyone can see how not skinny you are. In fact, they'd probably say you're pretty fat. And they'd be able to say that because one can make such judgments based on appearance. But one cannot call someone or something "pretty stupid" without a thorough investigation. So, Hannah, we suggest you sit down, put your pint-sized self-inflicted razor-cut hand on your mouse and really research just how utterly stupid this blog is. Because we think you'll be "pretty surprised."

Dream deferred.

Here is a collection of historic soundbytes in MP3 format. You can now conveniently listen to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" proclamation, the official announcement of JFK's death, and, of most historical significance, the Life Alert woman's cry for help.



Addendum:
Oh, just for fun, a page of consumer complaints against Life Alert.

0 Sydneys.

Oh. Yeah. Alias ends tonight at 9pm. Talk about overstaying your welcome! Well, we will miss Globey, Pterry, Chairy and Conky screaming anytime someone says "Rambaldi."

You created a monster.

In our completely lazy search for all things crap, we came across this song, surely a low point in Dolly Parton's songwriting career. It's called "Drinkin'stein," and it's from the 1985 classic Rhinestone, surely a low point in Dolly Parton's acting career. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how masochistic you are), it's sung by Sylvester Stallone in a scene in which he blames his problems on beer, surely a low point in beer's existence career. Thank you suh much, Record Robot.

Fantazyland.

We've already found where we'll be spending our 40th birthday in 10 years. Enjoy! (Try not to look at these photos over and over all day long. Just try.)

What talent.

We had to post this link to Lisa Whelchel's journal entry from May 12, 2006. It details her trip to NYC participate in interviews about the DVD release of The Facts of Life. Honestly, we can't highlight it for you because the entire thing is priceless. OK, maybe the part where she uses "Soledad" and "snail mail" in the same sentence is th...no...it's all good. Just read it.

Status report.

Yes, the NB is currently out of commission and will be for the rest of the week, at least. No, there's nothing to worry about. Yes, the military did seize all the interns and sent them back to their respective principalities. No, we are not paying any attention to the subpoena. Yes, we did answer the door at 7 a.m. this morning. No, we don't usually do something like that. Yes, were dreaming about "Lost." No, we didn't think Walt was at the door. Yes, we kind of did. No, it wasn't (see above). Yes, we're tired. No, we didn't not watch "America's Next Top Model." Yes, we'd like to congratulate Danielle on winning. No, we're not sad that Jade was ultimately eliminated. Yes, we'll forget about all this by noon. No, we don't own a Dolly Parton throw. Yes, we do.

Thanks for the Smoky Mountain Memories.

May 15 = 30.

OK.

Here's the thing.

First of all, we detest quitters. Let's get that out of the way.

Second of all, we clearly were planning to create 30 posts about something to do with the number 30. We would show you our list of sites yet to be posted about in case you don't believe us. They would have included this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, etc.

Ergo, we feel terrible, TERRIBLE, about giving up halfway, but we have to. You see, this whole 30/30 business came about because your NB editor is turning 30 on Monday, May 15. He wanted to mark the occasion by creating six posts having to do with 30 each day of the business week preceding the "big day," a momentous way to say goodbye to youth forever. However, Mrs. Nature had her own way of making sure youth would be remembered by giving your NB editor a dastardly case of the most youthful of afflictions, strep throat.

Yes, we have strep throat and we want to die. Well, actually we want to get better because we're going to Tennessee for the 30th birthday, and strep throat was not invited.

So, please accept our sincerest apologies for not completing the task at hand. Actually, you're probably thrilled this whole charade is over, but we are programmed to feel guilt when we let someone down. And, as you may know, we hate quitters. But, being as it is nearly impossible for us to complete the simple task of swallowing, coming up with 16 more posts about 30 in the next two days is a mathematical conundrum we're not presently fit to compute.

Please enjoy today, tomorrow, your weekend, next Monday and next Tuesday. In lieu of gifts, please make a donation in the NB's name to a charity of your choice, specifically this one.

Take care, and we'll be sure to say hello to...



...for you.

Streppin' out,
The NB

14/30.

What's the official version of the familiar "Thirty Days Hath September..." mnemonic rhyme? Click here to not find out! (Oh, don't look so disappointed. You didn't care. You're just waiting for this whole "30" thing to end. Well, we're halfway there, so suck it up. SUCK IT UP!)

13/30.

You mathematicians think you're so fancy with your Rule 30. But tell us this: how's anyone supposed to do a crossword without clues?

12/30.

Charles Stahler is today's NB hero. Well, as much of a hero as a vegetarian can be. He provides those who do not like to cook with ways to have 30 different vegetarian meals, one for each day of the month. Some of our favorite suggestions? That's easy.

1. Seek out groups that have potluck dinners and bring juice. Brilliant!
2. Organize your own potluck. Provide juice. Brilliant!
3. Number 6, which we have to reproduce in its entirety: Attend vegetarian and animal rights activities, and get invited to a friend's home for a vegetarian dinner. TOTALLY brilliant and, better, we now understand why anyone would attend such meetings.
4. The rest are basically take-out suggestions, like "Order non-meat dish from Chinese restaurant," "Order non-meat dish from Indonesian restaurant," etc.

And, obviously, these helpful suggestions can be applied to non-vegetarian diets. Why, we're right now organizing a "Filet Mignon, Macaroni and Cheese and Red Velvet Cake" potluck. We'll be providing ice. Just let us know where to bring it.

11/30.

[Setting: Big open field]

[We pan right and see the 30 Helens]

Announcer: 30 Helens agree...

30 Helens: [in unison] This Web page with the transcripts of the "30 Helens Agree" sketches from the first season of The Kids in the Hall is generally useless.

[The Helens all nod in agreement]

Helen Roritor: Still, it must be said that I did chuckle once or twice.

Helen Bryant: More like once.

[The Helens continue to nod]

Announcer: 30 Helens agree this Web page with the transcripts of the "30 Helens Agree" sketches from the first season of The Kids in the Hall is generally useless.