Weight Maven

Have you seen the Nike commercial with Maria Sharapova? It’s really pretty funny…it’s got Sharapova heading off to Flushing Meadows for a match at the US Open while everyone around her sings “I feel pretty” from West Side Story.

I’m familiar with the movie version, and thought that Nike had really wimped out by replacing the word “gay” in their commercial, but it turns out that in the stage version of the lyrics, Maria does sing “I feel pretty and witty and bright!” (to rhyme with “tonight”) rather than “I feel pretty and witty and gay!” (to rhyme with “today”).

That said, given that I just saw the commercial at 9AM or so (and the US Open is clearly an all-day event), “today” would probably have been more grammatically correct than “tonight.” Nike may not want (or need) to go the Orbitz route and feature gay couples kissing, but geez, I’m not sure they need to bend over backwards to avoid it either.

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It was worth going thru the three hours of Emmy awards (on Tivo, thankfully) to get the two minutes of “award show banter” between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as they presented the award for best reality show.

God, are they funny!

If you missed it, Crooks and Liars has the video.

Update, 1PM: YouTube has Conan O’Brien’s opening number, which is well worth a watch. FWIW, I tend to agree that the very beginning of the montage was insensitive given yesterday’s morning’s events. I suspect a little more editing could have made it less of a cringe while keeping the (very good) Lost bit.

Update, 1:20PM: Oh, and one more thing while I’m at it. The New York Times writes the following about Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ acceptance speech for best comedic actress:

There should be an annual award for most glaring omission in an acceptance speech. This year, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who won for leading actress in a sitcom, the “New Adventures of Old Christine,” won the amnesia award hands down, wracking her brain onstage to remember whom she had forgotten to thank, while the camera panned to her husband. It took several beats, and whispers from the audience, to jog her memory.

I wasn’t watching too many of the acceptance speeches (thanks again TiVo), but I did catch this one. IMO, she did not forget her husband. She was either trying to remember someone related to the show and had a brain fart (while the camera on Brad Hall made it seem like that’s who she was trying to think of) or she was actually going for the joke. I think the former.

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I haven’t been online for a while, as my brother and his family were in town for a long weekend to do the touristy thing. My niece and nephew stayed with me, which gave them lots of quality time with the cats.

Here, Lexi is seeing if Angel fits into the cat condo she made out of a cardboard box. She had wanted to hold the cat all weekend, and this was the chance she was waiting for!

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I’ve been on a sabbatical of sorts (our company calls it renewal leave) since the beginning of the month. Today, I received these flowers from my co-workers, with a cute note about how they hope I’m having fun while they are “slaving” away.

What’s really amusing is that there is a heart-shaped helium balloon tied to the handle with I Love You written on it.

Gee guys, I didn’t know how much you really cared :).

But the timing was actually great, as I was itching to take some more photos. This gave me a great subject to experiment with some macro shots. See more on my Flickr page.

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Okay, it’s taking me a while to catch up with my feeds, but I was tickled to see Mike Lee’s recent reposting of Duff Goldman as “Uncle Tosso” on his Flickr feed.

I’m a Food TV junkie, and just recently watched Duff compete on a cake challenge show featuring sports cakes. He flubbed on that show, but with that personality, it’s no surprise that they gave him his own show, Ace of Cakes. What a hoot!

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