I had to ask my agent, who graduated from Princeton, because I kept making this nod and knowing wince of the eyes whenever someone said the words "Eating Club." As in: "I mean, there's no reason she didn't get the job, she was in the right eating club and everything." I even pretended to know what was going on when Couch Baron said he and Sars were in the same eating club. The only eating club I've been a member of was the Subway Club. And a Grilled Chicken Club at Whataburger.

So I asked Todd, who explained them in detail.

Luckily Couch Baron just did the same.

Sorry, Pam. I loved your recaps. I loved the pecs. I loved the one episode I saw, that was reshot anyway.

Sigh. Maybe I'm just in love with love.

scratch that. For the first time ever, there's a cat I don't like.

I've been wishing for a digital camera because mine broke and I've been wanting to do an entry on my Los Angeles. Until I get to, Kyle's entry will be the stand-in.

Looks like someone else needs to make a five-year plan. Nobody wants David's book.

Also: "In what has to be one of the most unusual auctions for a book, publishers summoned to meet Blaine by his lawyer/agent, David Vigliano, are instructed to finish or put away any food they’re eating before the magician arrives: he cannot yet eat solids."

How can one person summon up the strength to be such a spectacular asshole?

The business of me. Debating my future.

Don't fret, Dan. I got a show cancelled too.

In case you're as obsessed with Arsoa soap as I am (at a facial last month, the skin woman told me that whatever I was using was perfect and to not change it (Arsoa in the morning; Dr. Hauschka at night), I've been contacted by a company who lets you buy the soap through Paypal.

Sorry I'm being such a pimp. I don't even get any kickbacks for this. You'd think I'd score free soap, but no. I'm just letting you know that this is good soap and here's another place to get it.

I'm not a "cow person," but that doesn't mean you can't be. Behold, the latest in my inbox:

Hi Pamie!

I have a serious and shallow problem. I have thought about it and thought about it and I have concluded that you are the only one who can help me. I am getting married in seven months and 25 days. I am having 200 guests. I am poor, as I have recently graduated and have a recent-graduate type of job. In a quest for some extra income, my boss suggested this site cafepress.com which allows you to create your own line of original goods and collect commission on them. So I gathered up all of my resources and I created the best product that I knew how.

I created clothes with cows on them.

I drew the cow myself and everything! Then I sent the link to my store to everyone I know. They all said it was great! They all said, "Yes! We will purchase your cow clothes to help finance your wedding!" That was weeks ago. Today, my commission report reads as follows:
Your current commission balance is: $0.00

Isn't that terrible? I hate my friends and I am considering not feeding them at the wedding, but I digress. I began to consider advertising. I thought, "Where could my cow clothes get all the exposure that they are worth?" It came to me...I will ask Pamie to post my store link in her journal (or blog...Pamie's call)

(My fiancée Brandon said to tell you that if you don't want to, we will understand. I had him read WGAW. He LOVED it, but in retaliation I had to read one of the Old Lady mystery novels that he loves. I read, The Cat who Could Read Backwards. It meant that much to me that he read your book.)

Some quick additional reasons why I thought you would understand our plight:

1. We can recite Clue verbatim
2. We love Eddie Izzard (Dress To Kill was much better than Circle though)
3. I have your blog as the homepage on my computer at work
4. Who doesn't love a cow?
5. I will be running a book club at the YMCA starting in January. We will be covering your book!

Anyway, here it is: http://www.cafeshops.com/cowsbybrooke

And there you go. I also want to say that I feel personally proud for you and all your success. I am taking baby steps towards similar goals for myself and I am using you as a kind of blueprint (not in a stalker way though, don't worry.)

Thank you.

Best,
Brooke (and her fiancée Brandon who is watching her write this)

Y'all, they just want to get married. I know it's a weird little cow, but some of you like weird little cows. It bums me out that none of their friends bought any of the mouse pads or hats.

Not that I've bought one, either. Huh.

What do you do when you're faced with this dilemma? I get letters like this often from people asking for my help, for fund-raising and linking and all of that. Do you guys prefer if I throw them all up here on the blog, or would you want me to be choosier? How would I know if this cow is exactly the squiggle-cow you were looking for in a thong (I'd never put a cow that close to my ass, but some of you are braver than I). Do you like the blog for links like this because you can pick and choose your visits off the blog, or do you want me to do my own screening process first?

"Love Actually: Despite a title that sounds like it came out of Hugh Grant's trachea..." Omar is so funny.

What's fantastic isn't that David Blaine's about to leap from a helicopter, it's that I learned we have the same birthday! No wonder that little Aries keeps working his way into my heart. [link via Jermel here in our very own new comments feature]

Hi! I'm here! I'm here! Don't start the blog without me! I promise I'll just be in, just one more second, and I'll be right…

Sigh. Hi. Sorry. It's been kind of a crazy few weeks. It's not going to sound that exciting, but here's where I've been:

*Dealing with the reading of the show I've made you hear so much about.

*Recapping two shows.

*One show got cancelled.

*Recapping one show.

*Ten billion other activities soul-sucking life mismanagement, all of which are behind me now that I am back on the blog. Back to stay. Hi, Pam. Let's talk soon.

Incidentally, it has been exactly one month since I last left the five boroughs of New York City. And in that time, I haven't been to Staten Island. Or Queens. Or The Bronx.

I'm going away for the weekend.

APE MISBEHAVIN' -- Officer Tarzan helps track down a Canadian woman-beater from "the internet," while Jane wishes she didn't love her monkey friend so much. Clayton and Xena flirt like siblings do, and the rest of us have to wait a full fifty-four minutes for any Tarzan flesh. So not fair.

Look who jumped on the bandwagon. Maybe this means I'm one day closer to a redesign from sweet AB.

Dammit, Dave! I'm late for a meeting now because you wrote such nice things about me. I totally remember your cut finger, and I'm sorry I didn't go into Nurse Abby mode for you. And it's not the Clooney/Batman that I remember most, it's you calling Andre Braugher "Andre Bra-ha-ha-ha-ha." Always.

Dave kept me sane when I was climing the corporate walls, frantically trying to figure out how I was going to fit in. And there were many days when he was the only thing I was looking forward to. All added up, I've probably spent three full uninterrupted weeks sitting by his side, staring at trees, and I wouldn't take a single minute of it back. Not only was Dave the one who convinced me to write back to stee, he's the one who convinced me that I was able to move on past IBM, and take the scary world of comedy as a serious business.

Thanks, Dave. I miss ya.

The not-cancelled-soon-enough Coupling was so bad it made me want to weep. At least Jeff Zucker's man enough to admit the show was assy.

Lost Idols wants us to come in for an interview. Assuming we ace the camera with flying colors due to our effortless charm and wit, should stee and I go on a VH-1 show searching for Chunk? Or should we stick to only recapping reality television? How much us is too much us? And does this mean that absolutely everyone will eventually get their reality television segment? Should I save some of my Warholian minutes for something more... I don't know... lofty?

More importantly, by going on VH-1, am I stepping on Dan's turf?

Kevin Smokler (those of you old schoolers from the forum know him as Weegee) reviews WGAW in his notify. Thanks, Kevin!

So in my most recent Gilmore Girls recap, I take a quick tangent to wonder why construction people always lick their pencils before they write.

Not one, but two emails have come in today to answer my question.

From Laura:

Hey there,

You offered up this observation on your most recent Gilmore Girls recap. Those are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. My dad used to do this, too, and he always told me it was to make the line darker. He did it when marking wood, though. I did a bit of research and got this off an MIT website:

A writer to the "How & Why" column in The Boston Globe asked why so
many people, before putting pencil to paper, lick the tip? "Is there something about saliva that makes graphite flow better?"

For the answer, which was "yes," the Globe turned to Dr. Jack B. Howard, professor of chemical engineering, who said he himself licks his pencil tip at times.

"If the lead were truly graphite, then wetting it would probably not make a difference," said Dr. Howard, whose research includes work on graphite and other forms of carbon. But in pencil leads, he said, "the graphite is actually a mix of graphite and some clays," which are added to control the hardness of the lead.

"My observation is that wetting the pencil allows you to get a darker line," Dr. Howard said. "There's a softening of the material, some absorption of moisture into pore spaces that makes a mix that will rub off more easily. If it were pure graphite, there would be no pores to let the moisture in."

Is it a safe practice? Yes, said Dr. Howard, the graphite-clay mixture is "perfectly innocuous."


Just thought I'd share. I didn't see where anyone had said anything about it on the forums. Oh, and if you've never been there, www.straightdope.com has answers to all kinds of questions like that. I
love that site.

And from "Lacrosse Dude":

The tradition of pencil licking goes way back to the days before portable ink pens existed. In situations where you needed to make a permanent mark, but in a less than ideal situation (in my families case...a payroll officer for the first Canadian transcontinental railway) that would make using a nib pen and bottle ink..well, messy you used an indelible pencil. It looked much
like a regular pencil, but had no graphite (lead) in it - rather something
that was purple - but required it to be wet to write. So you had to lick the tip (or dip it in water) before it would write in a permanent fashion (which was vital for accounting of payroll).

So my relative had a purple stained tongue for a good portion of his life.

Another possibility, if you are doing fine brush work with an art brush, you will lick it to resharpen it...that is why the (mostly women) who painted the radium on the gauges for world war 2 air plains got some very interesting cancers of the mouth.

Why it stuck around to modern days is a bit of a mystery (although, only by car salesmen and tradesmen), I have never once seen an indelible pencil in my life - my father told me about them once when telling me about his grandfather.

So ends the lecture.

You guys know everything.

New Entry. I have some good news. And you can leave your comments about the entry right here! See? Comments. Ah, it's three steps removed from a forum.

The book arrived in the mail today. Thanks, Kathleen.

"This is the kind of high-fallutin' stuff I'd expect from your fancy-pants school, not mine."

Now I've got all of this white space at the bottom of my blog. I don't know what I did.

You can thank Mo's blog for showing me a comments feature that I don't hate. So now we've got comments. Please: no smilies. I can't stand them.

Saw Shattered Glass last night, and except for one incredibly schmaltzy scene, I truly enjoyed it.

Someone found my website searching for "What Does Scurvy Look Like?"

I hope someone gets a toothbrush soon. And some citrus.

And since I just lost my dinner plans and now find myself blogging at night (not as impressive as the REM song about gardening), I figure I'll just give you the rest of the Google hits to my site of recent:

4 pamie
 3   pamie.com

Obviously. Not as obvious:

 2   deep throat

Not only that, this person was so intent on deep throat stories he/she went all the way to page 15, where the link to my page was.

 2   www.pamie.com
 1   "ab" + journalcon + 2003

I always tell AB that if she's wanting me to write more about her, she has to come and visit. Although we spent about five hours on the phone the other night, and that's almost like hanging out. Stee asked me, "What did you guys talk about?"

"Oh, you know. Stuff," I answered.

"No, I mean, what did you talk about?"

"Lots of things. Why?"

"Because I honestly want to know. Why would someone talk on the phone for that long if you weren't trying to sleep with that person?"

1   "bitch magazine"
 1   "how to have sex"

Oh. Ohhhh. That one makes me sad.

 1   "michael rappaport" aspen

Who knows.

1   "the da vinci code"
 1   "we all had to pee"

Is it a song lyric? Also, wow, there are a lot of journal entries about that very situation.

 1   1067897806

Another instance of finding my website quoted verbatim.

 1   34d bra
 1   anne heche pictures private
 1   b cup bra tits
 1   big boobed girls
 1   botox yellow arm pit stains
 1   breakdancing + austin, tx
 1   cameron diaz freakishly small

Hee!

 1   dramatic female monlogues
 1   ear jaw squishy
 1   gilmore girls font
 1   girls wear little boy briefs
 1   how big are 36c breasts
 1   i married dora final episode
 1   jen weiner
 1   lorie deaf ohio teacher
 1   mary kate and ashley thong

I saw it. I saw it. I knew everyone would be jealous.

 1   matt bearden

I miss you too, Matt Bearden.

 1   meterosexual
 1   michael boogaloo shrimp chambers
 1   my face gets red how can i stop it?
 1   pam ribon
 1   pamela
 1   pamela ribon
 1   pictures of "movie stars houses"
 1   polaroid stories song list

I wonder if that was one of my old cast friends. I wish they'd stopped to say hello.

 1   right eye twitch exercise
 1   shimmy shimmy coco puff
 1   skinnier calves
 1   start sentence with the word hopefully

What's it to you?

1   trader joe's coffee bay blend
 1   twitch brain eye
 1   twitch under eye
 1   types of boobs
 1   what does scurvy looks like
 1   what happens if you just quit paying your credit card bills?

Please email me and let me know. And finally, for the Fargo fans:

 1   woodshredder

Amazon.com asked me recently to update my wish list (I guess because the holidays are coming) and I found out that someone sent me something on my wish list that I didn't get. Amazon doesn't let you track your sender, so I don't know how to get in touch with this person to thank them and tell them they need to get their money back, as I didn't get the gift. So if you sent me The Perks of Being a Wallflower, please send me an email so I can thank you.

Need to kill some time? My new Gilmore Girls recap is up.