META: Changing it up again

A note about the blog's appearance. (I can't be bothered to make regular posts, but apparently I've got the time and ambition to monkey with the site's template. Nice.) I've removed the photos from the title bar above, because I didn't really feel like they were working. And I've added some junk to the sidebar, some of it hopefully doing a better job of accomplishing what I was trying to do with the title bar photos.

The Object of My Affection item should be fairly self-explanatory. I've recently become aware of the initial occupant of that space, Jessi Klein, via her appearances on VH1's Best Week Ever and Comedy Central's The Showbiz Show with David Spade. I promise that she's much better than either of those credits would suggest. Here, check out her 2004 Presidential Debate blog for CNN. Start from the bottom. Just like I'd like to do with her. Hey! Who wrote that? Let's keep it clean, people. Still, gotta love a gal who liveblogs TV events. I wonder if she'd watch the Oscars with me?

Then we've got a list of my current pop culture obsessions. The inaugural culprits are:

--Showcase Presents Superman, which is endlessly awesome. I get such a kick out of its boundless illogic, and the fact that Superman is portrayed as a cruel idiot, alternating between driving Lois Lane slowly insane with his twisted pranks, and crafting the most moronic and ridiculously elaborate schemes imaginable to capture petty criminals.

--The Lost DVD box set, which my buddy Lew just sent me via Amazon as a belated birthday gift (or early Christmas gift). Just don't tell him I already bought my own copy at Best Buy, and so have to exchange it. He'll never be the wiser! Unless he reads this post. Which he almost certainly will.

--Foo Fighters: In Your Honor, which is mainly there because it's the last CD I bought. It hasn't grown on me completely just yet, but I don't doubt that it will; the Foos have never let me down before. Heck, it took me a few listens to really get into American Idiot, which I now believe to be unquestionably the best album of the new millennium thus far.

--Vaughniston. First of all, I don't give a rat's ass which celebrity bones which. Have at it! Knock yourselves out! More power to you! Etc.! Just don't force me to be aware of it. And second, enough with the cutesy contractions for celebrity couples. "Bennifer." "TomKat." "Brangelina." Eat shit and die, celebrity couple contraction coiners. Damn, I'm alliterative!

And then there's the lyric of the week, which I feel I really shouldn't have to explain any further than that.

The plan is to keep these new sidebar items updated on a semi-regular basis. And, as always, we'll have to wait and see how that works out. I don't exactly have the best track record for this kind of thing. But I have a good heart. And I'm handsome as the day is long. So there.