Yet another frickin' blog!

Today marks the launch of my second(!) personal blog, the more niche-oriented Headline Punchline.

Simple concept, endless possibilities: Take a real headline, make a stab at a punchline. Also, the format begs for reader input, so comment away with your own punchlines! Check it out and bookmark it, won't you? (And hell, click on an ad or two while you're at it.)

I suppose this is what happens when you surround yourself with "Saturday Night Live's" Weekend Update, The Onion, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" for so many years (some more than others).

Happi New Old Year

On Friday, I took this admittedly awful cell phone picture of a Friendly's Restaurant marquee near the Yonkers entrance to the Sprain Brook Parkway. If you can't make it out, it reads "HAPPI NEW YEAR."

I'm willing to forgive the misspelling -- after all, vowels are "sometimes Y" for a reason -- but there's no excuse having that message still up there on March 5. I mean, even CHINESE New Year was 18 days ago.

Note to AP: If you announce that you're ignoring Paris Hilton, you're kind of defeating the purpose

Despite the irony, I appreciate the effort.

Full transcript of my interview with Isaac Mizrahi

(Photo by Lia Chang/Lia Chang Photography)
If you want to know how the fashion icon feels about Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Mr. Blackwell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tim Gunn, Ralph Lauren, Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump, Joan Rivers, Ryan Seacrest, Martha Stewart, Howard Stern, my style and/or himself, click here.

What's your preference: A concussion or mono?

As an actor, which would you prefer to do take after take after take during filming?

- Allow someone to remove a pillow while your head is on it, sending your head slamming into a wall and risking brain damage.

- Allow someone to spit a pretzel into your hand, potentially passing along a communicable malady.

Need help deciding? Consider the following Continental Airlines ad:

I'd probably opt for the wet snack in my hand (at the 24-second mark), but I'd bring a vat of Purel with me to the set. The only problem with this decision: The guy whose head hits the wall (at the 17-second mark) gets a better angle on camera.

Bob Woodruff is the man

I couldn't tear myself away from the TV last night as I watched footage of ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff make his impressive 13-month recovery from a bomb injury that ripped off part of his skull while he was covering the Iraq war.

What makes the entire special so moving is that only part of it focuses on Woodruff's amazing recovery. The second half of the special is dedicated to America's treatment of injured soldiers — some of whom weren't as fortunate as Woodruff — and the widening gaps between the opinions of the Defense Department and the injured.

Example: The Department of Defense reports about 23,000 nonfatal battlefield casualties among about 1.5 million soldiers who have reported to Iraq and Afghanistan, but according to Woodruff, an internal document states that over 200,000 of these soldiers have sought medical care.

When Woodruff approached Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson with these figures -- including some 73,000 reports of mental disorders and about 61,000 nervous system diseases -- Nicholson began his response with “A lot of them come in for dental problems."

Think Progress has video of that awkward exchange here.

Last I checked, the worst root canal isn't quite comparable to Traumatic Brain Injury.

Anyway, the show is gripping. If you have 40 minutes, I highly recommend watching the entire ABC News special here.

Blogging: For love and money

Weavers,

I won't ask this often, but you'll also notice that I've added some Google Ads to this blog. (I know, I know. I finally caved.) But the ad layouts are pretty seamless and it's pretty simple for you to help on your end. Click on the ads and I'll find yet even more incentive to blog about the ridiculous and the mundane. Clicking on the sponsored ads that are generated by the Google Search box in the right margin should also send me a few pennies in the process.

If you love something I just wrote or wrote long ago, or hated something I just wrote or wrote long ago, click on an ad when you visit. Make a habit of it, if you'd like.

Blogging can be lucrative, but I'll start small.

I can see clearly now, the Cloud ... is here

As you frequent Basketweavers might notice, I've modified the lower-right of the sidebar to include a beautiful new Label Cloud to showcase this blog's topic archive.

It's superior to the old version for many reasons. Not only is it alphabetized, but it's simultaneously color-coded and size-dependent to indicate blog topic frequency. In other words, the more aquamarine and larger a topic is, the more frequently it's appeared on this blog; less frequent topics appear smaller and more off-white.

And because the Label Cloud takes up less space than the default Blogger version, I've cut back on the number of blog posts per page from 75 to 30 -- and still every topic title fits. So I'm passing the (time) savings (it takes to view the blog) onto you, loyal reader.

Thanks to Phydeaux for creating such a user-friendly Label Cloud widget. You rule.

(And yes, I've blogged a lot about blogging this last week. My apologies. I'll return to discussing the universalities and transcendentalism of "Ghostbusters" in the weeks to come.)

Sorority wannabes shocked -- SHOCKED -- that looks matter to shallow people

I'm not saying what happened here is right -- it's not -- but it's not national news that some young women are not welcome in certain sorority chapters because they don't fit a certain look. Yet CNN and ABC News are all over the story as if this were a recent or unusual trend. Did we learn nothing from all those '80s and '90s teen movies, people?

That's like my complaining that I was picked dead last in gym classes because people thought I looked like a poor athlete at the time. (I mean, I was, but that's besides the point.) The key difference: I didn't demand an apology from those people, and if I did, it wouldn't mean much in the end.

This just in: Lots of people are mean and superficial.

Paging Friedrich Nietzsche: If God is dead, would it make sense that His alleged remains would be confirmed by a mistake-prone film director?

I'm not really saying James Cameron is right or wrong (well, I'm leaning toward one) -- and I admire his quest for truth -- but I think it's funny that so much credibility is being bestowed on a man whose most famous movie is jam-packed with historical inaccuracies.

Isaac Mizrahi tells me he feared death when his car crashed, takes 'the fifth' on Ryan Seacrest, and thinks I'm 'cute'

I had a blast talking with fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi this weekend for Suburbarazzi. I also got a lot of interesting exclusive material from him in our 10-minute sit-down interview, including what might be the first published account of a car crash that shattered his hip and led him to say, "I thought we were finished."

Here's part one of four of my interview for Suburbarazzi. Coming up later this week, I'll reveal his answers to the following questions:

•Why didn't you do the Oscar red-carpet analysis this year?
•Who's your favorite fashion icon in Hollywood now?
•Does the umbrella go with Britney Spears' bald head?
•You've been on both shows, but gun to your head: Is “Ugly Betty” or “Sex And The City” better?
•What’s wrong and what's right with my style?
•What do you think of the following celebrities: Tim Gunn, Ralph Lauren, Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Trump, Joan Rivers, Ryan Seacrest, Martha Stewart, Howard Stern and Isaac Mizrahi?
•If you happen to like the outfit of anyone who comes up to you on line today, will they get the Johansson Treatment?

Blogging about blogging is so meta

A few days ago, I published a post to mention that Varsity Basketweaving was becoming a member of the BlogBurst network, which -- if I must be honest -- was only because the verification process for inclusion required me to embed the BlogBurst link in a way the network could recognize it. I'm not usually in the business of promoting, so if it seemed a little weird, it was.

But in truth, it is a nifty little network that drops Varsity Basketweaving onto the Web site of news publications and other high-profile subscribers. And when I filled out my profile for BlogBurst, it asked for a blog logo. While I didn't have one at the time, I thought it would be a fun project to attempt on my imitation PhotoShop software.

So, after a few drafts, here's what I came up with:


Constructive criticism is welcome.

Support Our Troops: The Show-Don't-Tell version

No matter what your stance on the Iraq war -- or any war -- this is a short, powerful ABC News video that features a lot of selfless people, including veteran Bert Brady. (I promise it's more moving than depressing.)

Regardless of your personal timeline for American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, let's hope all of them get home safely.

BlogBurst-ing with flavor

Varsity Basketweaving is about to become a part of the BlogBurst network of awesomeness. Ooh, Fancy!

Yet another danger to drunks everywhere

While sober (I promise), I realized while traveling on a New Jersey Transit train this weekend that northbound drunkards lacking tickets might have a tough time telling ticket collectors which stop they're going to.

Ticket-taker: "Tickets. Tickets, please, sir."
Drunkard: "Uhhhh?"
TT: "What stop are you going to, sir?"
D: "Nworrrk, Penn Station."
TT: "I'm sorry, do you mean Newark Penn Station? Or New York Penn Station?"
D: "I said — hic! — NOOWYERK PENN STATION!"
TT: (shrugs, looks both ways) "That'll be $150."
D: (handing him wallet) "Here you go, mom."