LMNOP

Wherein I Spread Rumors of a Ms. Frizzle Biopic

Because I was at sea all last week, I am finding it impossible to get caught up on all the pop culture news I missed.  By my estimates, it would take me about 14 hours of research to obtain, at a satisfactory level of detail, the important information I missed while away.  And people, even I do not have 14 hours of free time in my day.

I decided the best thing to do would be to flip through a week's worth of "Star Tracks" photo galleries on People.com, but without actually stopping to read the captions.  Instead, I have pulled a handful of the photos and captioned them myself, giving my best guess as to what is going on in each photo.  Here's what I appear to have missed.

First up in celebrity news: Katie Holmes aged 10 years for every day I was away.

Meanwhile, after curing cancer, Kim Kardashian took a celebratory trip down a waterslide before returning to her laboratory to solve global hunger.

Elsewhere in Hollywood, Evan Rachel Wood began filming a Ms. Frizzle biopic.

Later, Kate Hudson morphed into Jennifer Lopez and then immediately started trying to punch her way out.

All the while, the Real Housewives of New Jersey continued to exist, thus allowing the sun to keep shining and the world to keep spinning.  (Thank you, ladies.  That shining sun really made the Bahamas excellent for me.)

In other news, something apparently happened to make it OK to wear his-and-hers Ugg boots.

And Mariah Carey continued to be a completely normal human.

Finally, Beyonce misread an invitation to perform at the Sydney Opera House and instead thought she was supposed to perform in a dress that resembled the Sydney Opera House.

I don't know about you, but I feel pretty caught up.  If you can think of anything I missed, please leave me the scoop via comment.

Knowing My Karma, I Will Probably Be Reincarnated as a Famous Person's Chihuahua

Soooo apparently People has an online-only pet version, People Pets, and after scanning it for an afternoon I have come to the conclusion that it is the Internet's leading source for pictures of sad dogs.  Consider the following photos:

Exhibit A: Mickey Rourke's Sad Chihuahua

This emo chihuahua has more pain and sadness in its eyes than I ever would have thought possible for a 5-lb. almost-rodent.  I guess I could start imagining reasons a dog owned by Mickey Rourke would be sad, but let's save some time and assume that there are many.

Exhibit B: Mickey Rourke's Other Sad Chihuahua

Yeah.  There is an entire People Pets feature on Mickey Rourke's army of little dogs.  And almost all of them look miserable.

Exhibit C: This Completely-Ashamed Poodle

Yes, that is a poodle that has been dyed and groomed to look like a camel.  And yes, he is standing in front of his owner, who is wearing a style of outfit commonly favored by eccentric high school French teachers.  No, I do not have any idea what he could possibly be embarrassed by.

This poor poodle is part of a feature story on "Extreme Grooming," in which dogs are groomed to look like roosters, fish, buffaloes, and even peacocks.  Sad dog faces all around in that photo gallery.

Exhibit D: Mariah Carey's Puppy

Whenever I see pictures of Mariah Carey and her Jack Russell, she is a.) holding him in her arms, and b.) wearing completely insane boots of some kind or another.  However sorry I feel about the fact that he never gets to walk anywhere, I am even more sympathetic about the boots.  If this puppy is anything like Pancake, I suspect that big crazy boots are a huge temptation for him to look at--like big, moving stuffie toys with fringe--and I seriously doubt Mariah lets him loose on those things.  (On a related note, you should see Pancake go to town on an Ugg boot.  It is a crazy sight.  He thinks he is attacking an animal.)

Exhibit E: Yet Another Sad Chihuahua Belonging to Mickey Rourke

Actually, this might be one of the same chihuahuas as above.  But regardless, it looks like it is about to step out into oncoming traffic.

But They Looked So Happy!

It's Not Just Any Uterus--It's the Uterus of a '90s Child Star!

Yep, Jodie Sweetin is pregnant and TMZ has the sonogram pic to prove it:

It's hard being D-list!  All the A-list starlets can get by just showing their boring external private regions to the cameras, but when you're not as famous you have to up the ante sometimes to get attention.  Like, by showing them the actual inside of your body.  And by selling that first exploitative photo of your child when he/she's at the ripe age of, oh, negative six months old.

The Official Slowest Celebrity News Day Ever

People.com's top headlines:

Yep, that's your news for today.  Paris and Nicole are friends!  LC and Heidi are not!  And that's not all--People.com also has the scoop on prosthetic bellies and YouTube clips you saw three weeks ago!

Please, someone OD or something--I'm dying of boredom here.

Star Tracks: Terrifying Edition

I enjoy clicking through People.com's Star Tracks photo gallery each day to see what the stars are up to, but today was a little much.  First there was this picture of Victoria Beckham, which will haunt me in my dreams forever--

--and now it will haunt you, too!  People's caption read, "Beckham steals the title of Sporty Spice as she throws the first pitch."  Well, despite the Dodgers jacket, I think Sporty's title is safe.  Scary might want to watch her back, though.

A few clicks later I was treated to this lovely photo of Rosie O'Donnell looking like the photo negative of Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit:

Seriously:

Thank you, People.com, for helping my book my next 18,000 nightmares.

Cathy Addison-Weemer Says: "At Least She Picked a Good Show"

Story that People led with on their website today:

Story that People should have followed that up with:

Great File Photo Choices in History

Forget vegetarianism, Ruben--why did you become fuchsia?

(Source: Us Weekly blog)

Things I Thought While Looking at People Today

1. In order to be truly accurate, this picture showing how Nicole Richie co-opted Mary Kate Olsen's look should also have a smaller oval inset inside M-K's picture showing the homeless person she stole it from first.

2. David Hasselhoff's exposed neck and chest skin in this picture reminds me of the FedEx logo and how it has that secret subliminal arrow.  You see it, right?  It's pointing down.

3. Judging from Lindsay's dress and Rumor's jacket, gluing macaroni onto something and spray painting it gold is not just for homemade Christmas ornaments anymore.

4. I recall this being the exact posture we were supposed to adapt at Catholic middle school dances.  Way to leave room for the Holy Spirit, ladies!

5. With all that seems to be going on behind her involving her children, husband, and a couple of farm animals, I can't imagine what is going on in the other direction that Heidi Klum felt compelled to photograph.

6. Well, Madonna, if you're trying to convince us that you want to really get involved and save the children of Malawi, you have certainly chosen the perfect outfit to do it in.  Nothing says, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to help this developing country" like a spotless white pantsuit.

I Do Love the BBC's "Global Diplomacy Boo-Boos" Series

Granted, US Weekly isn't exactly known for being a beacon of taste and class, but lately their new blog layout has lent to some  headlines that are tacky even for them.  If you're not up to speed on their website redesign, there are two main components to the site: the "US Weekly Online" main page with their magazine content and feature-y type stuff, and their "This Minute" blog , which is a sub-site of the main page and is updated several times a day.  As a way of linking the two sites and feeding traffic into the relatively new blog, the main page also spotlights the three newest posts over on the blog with a small picture, blurb, and the words "Get the Scoop!" written in pink and linked to the related post.  Nothing too crazy about that.  However, things start to get tacky in the execution--there have been some grim stories in the celebrity world over the past week, and something about the cheerful pink "Get the Scoop!" text just doesn't go well with, say, death:

Tasteful.  It also works well with suicide:

Awkward much?  And sometimes it's just downright confusing:

Huh?  However, I must admit that in the depths of my soul I kind of wish more of the mainstream media would use this format--it's just so delightfully earnest, so blithely unaware of things like context and appropriateness.  Wouldn't this information about international tensions, nuclear weapons and general global queasiness and distrust . . .

. . . Be a lot easier to swallow if it were presented like this:

Actually, now that I've done it all up like that, I guess it kind of just looks like Fox News.  (Ooh, journalism zinger!)