Senator Snowe is retiring?!

I can't believe it.

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe (one of the few elected officials I legitimately respect) is retiring. She cited increased partisanship as a reason.

Both parties are pushing moderates out. This doesn't bode well for the future.

I would be so tickled pink of Senator Snowe surprised us and announced that she was running for President in 2012. The current GOP candidates are fuckwits, and she could whip the pants off of any of them.

The only person who wowed me on the red carpet

...was Glenn Close!

Damn, she looks good! Age appropriate but sexy. Meryl Streep needs to take a cue from Glenn.

Quote of the day.

Accepting evolution needn't turn you into a despairing nihilist or rob your life of purpose and meaning. It won't make you immoral, or give you the sentiments of a Stalin or Hitler. Nor need it promote atheism, for enlightened religion has always found a way to accommodate the advances of science. In fact, understanding evolution should surely deepen and enrich our appreciation of the living world and our place in it. - Jerry A. Coyne

Why don't cyclists stop for pedestrians?

Yesterday, I was driving in Santa Monica along Broadway. There's a bike lane that runs down Broadway for miles. So I try to be pretty aware of the cyclists around me.

I had 2 guys (not riding together) keeping pace with me as I was driving along (due to all the stop signs). Well, if my car is going faster than their bikes, why would they be able to keep pace with me? Hmm...because CYCLISTS DON'T FUCKING STOP AT STOP SIGNS.

Whenever you point this out to a cyclist, you just get 'boo hoo, I don't want to lose momentum.' Well, I don't want to lose momentum in my car, but I still have to stop at the motherfucking stop sign. And if you're in the 'excellent' physical condition that all cyclists purport to be in (versus the "big fatty" car drivers), regaining momentum shouldn't be a problem.

Moving on, we encountered a pedestrian waiting to cross at a crosswalk. I slowed to a stop, to make it clear that I would wait for her. Cyclist #1 BLOWS through the crosswalk, just a few feet from the woman. The woman thank goodness was paying attention. She waited to see if cyclist #2 would stop, and nope, he just rolled on through.

What's the deal, cyclists? Has your sense of entitlement made you indifferent to the next "protected class" of victimized traveler - the pedestrian?

Contacts!

I finally decided to make the jump to contact lenses.

I've always been afraid to touch my eyes. Still am. But I was sick of ALWAYS having to put glasses on. It's a real buzzkill on a night out, or on a day when you put a little extra effort into your makeup.

So I went to the optometrist yesterday and had quite a fiasco trying to put them in and take them out. As you might imagine, taking them out is WAY harder. There were definitely tears of frustration involved. But I refused to leave until I got it (sorry, optometrist man). They do feel a little weird at first, and my eyes are still adjusting, but I'm looking forward to a few of the advantages that contact lenses bring (at least for me):

- I don't have glasses covering up my makeup
- I can go out for a formal occasion and not need to have glasses on that make my outfit look more casual
- I can go on a roller coaster without taking my eyeglasses off and not being able to see anything (this is crucial, really)
- I can buy regular sunglasses and put them on over my contacts, rather than having a prescription pair of sunglasses that I have to alternate with my eyeglasses

I still like wearing glasses occasionally (who doesn't like to look smarter once in awhile?), but it's nice that now I have the option to wear contacts as well. Luckily, my optometrist had a promotion going on, so I was able to switch out my Dolce & Gabbana glasses for some fun red Guccis:

On a side note, don't you think that my $400 Dolce & Gabbana frames (yep...frames...without lenses) should be able to last more than a year without breaking? Uh, yeah...me too. Apparently the spring is broken in my leopard Dolces, and it's not something that can be replaced. Fuck that shit. I could try to go back to my old optometrist and see what's up with the warranty, but I don't want to monkey around. It's actually like $20 more for me to get new glasses from my optometrist than to just replace the lenses in my current glasses. Still...it's the principle.

THE POWER OF JESUS

Old lady crashes car into church, almost hits people in a meeting.

Thank the AARP and their unwillingness to make sure old people get driving tests.

Fugmo trend: Lace-back shirts.

I'm talking primarily about shirts that have an entire back made of lace. This is not cute for several reasons:
- It's skanky. You look topless from the back.
- You can see your underthings (if you're wearing them, anyway)
- If you're not the skinniest, you can see back fat
- If you're too skinny, you can see bones

Stop this now. ESPECIALLY DURING THE DAYTIME. I'm talking to you, skanky college kids.

Now, if your shirt has a few lace accents in the back, that is fine. Like this for example (again, for evening):

This would have been a halter top anyway, so the lace down the middle looks fine.

Weeding the p 0 r n hits out of my Google Analytics...

HEADS UP: I replaced some of the characters in this post with other characters, so it's going to look a little funny. Read up to find out why.

For the past few months, I've been taking a closer look at the keywords that are bringing people to my blog. As I've mentioned before, my posts that get the most hits tend to be on really "searchable" topics that people are looking for. So I'll see keywords pop up like:

volvo 740
long skirt fashion
American Apparel skirts
karen carpenter gay icon

I'm also getting an increasing number of people that are looking for "i see a red door blog," so that's encouraging. People are stumbling upon my blog, and then remembering the name to come look for it again, and that's great for me to hear.

But due to my posting about some other topics, I'm getting a lot of useless hits (i.e., people stumbling upon my blog after looking for p 0 rn 0 grap h1c material, based on certain keywords). Some examples (if you're a human and not a robot, try to get past the character replacement - I am trying to STOP attracting people looking for the original phrase):

sh1 r+ n0 b r @: Probably a result of my post on American Apparel.
t 0 p le $$ unb utt 0ned p@rty: Probably a result of my post on why men shouldn't wear their sh1rts unb utt 0ned.
n1ce br3 @s t impl @n ts: A result of my post on bad (ie, misshapen) br3 @ st impl @n ts.

There are a lot more variations on these, but these are just good examples. Also, the fact that I had a tag called "b 0 o b $" that pertained to b r @ shopping, br 3@ s t cancer, etc, didn't help.

To me, this traffic is useless. This is basically people searching for dirty photos online, and they're stumbling upon my blog (and likely leaving disappointed). So I am either altering or removing most of this content. Most of it is old, and it's not contributing to my search results in a meaningful way.

Anyone else have issues of crap showing up in their GA keywords?

Willpower graphed

Thanks to Hyperbole and a Half for the graph (reposted by The Dish by Andrew Sullivan).

Click to expand

How to get a seat on public transportation.

It's easy. Just do this:

The latest episode of 30 Rock is a hilarious commentary on living in a huge city. I certainly love being in a big city, but there are times when I think that people are scumbags here.

A great example is public transportation. 50% polite, normal people, 50% riff-raff. People shove past you, sit next to you with their foul odors, fight each other, play music loudly...it's just a clusterfuck of terrible manners. So Liz Lemon wises up and figures out the best way to get a little space in the big city: Be crazier than everyone else.

It's a great episode, and I'm sure it will only be available for 4-5 weeks, as they only put up 5 episodes at a time. Click on the pic to check it out.