Back-To-Drool! Was That Lame and Immature? Oh Well.

FFFFNNNAAAARGHHHHHHHH.
That's the noise I make when I am livid. Really, it is. Ask anyone.
If I see one more commercial about "BACK TO SCHOOL! BACK TO SCHOOL! BACK TO SCHOOL! PARENTS, IF YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT YOUR CHILDRENS' EDUCATION, BUY THEM OUR PRODUCT! DO IT RIGHT NOW!" I will eat my head.
When did the world decide it was okay to push Back To School down our throats in early-slash-mid-August?
Look, I KNOW I have to go back to school. I REALIZE that all good things must come to an end and eventually my carousing in the sun will have to give way to napping in chemistry class. But do I really need to be reminded of it every thirty seconds?
Don't get me wrong, I like school okay. I am not exactly Hermione Granger, but I'm at least awake and lucid for a fair portion of my classes (strike the napping-in-chem comment from the record, Your Honor).
STILL.
Every two-bit company in North America is using the inevitable commencement of school to hawk their shitty, two-bit product. "Kids, start back 2 (why always the infuriating number-as-word? STOP INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE, COMMERCIAL!) school in STYLE, with our backpack/cellphone/notebook. And all we ask for in return is $39.95! And your parents' credit card number! And your SOUL!"
Basically, it's been like this.
"Hey, want to start off the new year in STYLE? Well, swing by our store and buy the new TEAKETTLES! Studies show that families with teakettles are 78% more likely to have their children go to Ivy League schools than families without teakettles! So run, don't walk, to pick one of these back-to-school beauties up for yourself!"

So very necessary.
"Hey, kids, guess what? A NEW SCHOOL YEAR IS STARTING! And I bet you're sick of your old, run-of-the-mill pirate hats, right? Cool kids wear the new and improved SUPER-SAUCY SCHOOL YEAR PIRATE HATS! The new pirate hats now come in three new styles guaranteed to fit your head in a sleek, chic and studious way, so c'mon down and check it out! Start the year off sassy with the new pirate hat."

"I know what you're thinking. Why should I buy oranges right now? Well, we at the Orange Corporation will tell you why. We're running a special deal on BACK-TO-SCHOOL ORANGES™! Oranges will boost your little tyke's brain for his or her return to school. Seriously, buy our BACK-TO-SCHOOL ORANGES™ today. Go. Now. Right away.

"Your kid is probably smarter already, just from looking at a PICTURE of the BACK-TO-SCHOOL ORANGE™.

"The only back-to-school commercial (and I'm actually not even sure it IS back-to-school, which makes me love it all the more) that hasn't made me want to hurt someone is this one.

I mean, come on. Kids in backpacks dancing SHOULD annoy me, but "We Want the Funk" by Parliament is playing. It's okay by me. In fact, it makes me laugh so hard I nearly unseat myself every time it comes on TV (Yup, I'm THAT dynamite. Don't be too jealous).
By the way, I could have discovered a new continent, hiked the Himalayas and grown a full beard in the time it took to upload that video, so please enjoy the dancing children and Parliament. In fact, please watch it more than once, so I feel like I've gotten my money's worth.

Anyway, back to my point. If you are a commercial for jeans or cars or cellphones or what-have-you, just SAY THAT. Don't do all this "Fall is here! School is starting! WHOOPEEE! Now buy me!" shit. I am, while perhaps not MENSA-level in the brainpower department, not stupid enough to fall for your transparent schemes. In fact, it for some reason brings to mind an old Mitch Hedberg quote which I heard whilst suffering through the five-decades-long act of a misguided stand-up comedian who thought it would be awesome to retell EVERY JOKE MITCH HEDBERG EVER TOLD in a fist-eatingly dull monotone. “I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad a turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastromi,.Some one needs to tell the turkey, man, just be yourself."- Mitch Hedberg.
It's not like I'm totally DREADING the new school year, but the constant barrage of reminders makes me feel kind of panicky and boxed-in, kind of like on Sunday night when you've done no work and you have mounds of things due tomorrow morning and you've chosen to spend your evening inhaling empty and completely unnecessary calories, talking on the phone about nothing, watching TiVoed Top Chef episodes and wishing you could trade your crappy sorbet for smoked scallops in truffle sauce.
It's just a stressy, fidgety feeling that hangs just out of reach at the back of your mind like a particularly annoying mosquito you can't quite swat. "Only a week to go! Have you shopped yet? Are you prepared? Are you ready? Do you have your stuff yet? Do you? DO YOU? DO YOU?" And the incessant commercials really only exacerbate that general on-edge nerviness. Keep in mind that I am not a person who deals well with pressure- the night before a big paper is due, you are most likely to find me running in circles in my room screaming and drinking caffeinated beverages and drafting mental plans to escape to Uruguay, far, far away from papers and responsibilities. I'm trying to get my mind off the nerves by looking at amusing pictures such as this one (heh. Animals are funny) but it's not working.
You know what, I'm going to get my inner Crazy Mumbling Lady on the Street Who Throws Wine Bottles on and say that it is all the GOVERNMENT'S fault that back-to-schoolsiness is being forced upon us. Can we all be in agreement that it is the government's fault? Thank you.

In other news, I am totally coveting this little mod coat from Popgloss for back-to-...Oh God, now I'M doing it! FALL, I meant. I'm coveting it for FALL. I know mustard yellow flatters nobody, but isn't it sort of adorable? These earrings would put me nicely in touch with my inner vineyard-owning, wine-tasting gutter lush. I also have a deep, infinite, passionate, Mr. Darcy-and-Elizabeth-Bennett-style love for these pumps. Oh sweet God. They make me want to be a better woman. I think they would look so great under sheer or opaque tights, and even though I tend to shy away from backless in fall I would completely make a grand exception (that is, if some kind fairy godmother were to get totally high and decide she needed to buy these for me). Oooh, in spite of my annoyance with BTS merchandising I must say fall is one of my favorite style seasons. I'll probably do a post about my fall wish list soon (so think of this as the preliminaries, if you will), and I am fairly excited to go FALL shopping. Just fall. Not the dreaded BTS-word. Or perhaps...AUTUMN shopping. Does that have a nicer ring to it? I think it does.

THE MOVIE, MUSIC, TV & BOOK CORNER- So I have a problem. I have a deep, long-running loathing of the show called The Hills. Surely you know it. Cat-fighting, club-hopping bitches bond over boys and rip each other apart over rumors. I mean, really, I hate this show. I think the world would be a better place if it didn't exist. And I know what you're thinking- "If you don't like The Hills, just STEER CLEAR OF IT. Christ." But it's not that easy. I'll be on the treadmill or reading a magazine and info about The Hills will just plant itself into my brain in a way that info about World War I never did, and before you know it I know exactly who Audrina Partridge is and who she lives with and who she's dating. It's embarrassing for me, a professed Hills-hater; I'll be ranting about the annoyingness of this show, and whomever I'm talking to will mention mildly that I seem to know an awful lot about it for someone who hates it so much. And I'm left to turn purple, mutter something under my breath, and slink away in shame like a...shamed slinky. Do you see my paradox? It's not like I'm saying people shouldn't WATCH The Hills if they're so inclined- I am hardly a map of good TV taste myself (I have seen every episode of Saved By The Bell ever made, as well as Full House, and I'm a sucker for that gloriously, painfully tacky "is-this-what-our-country's-youth-is-coming-to" show My Super Sweet 16. And I have been known on more than one occasion to sit through a made-for-TV Lifetime special starring Nancy McKeon). And I know if I REALLY didn't want to know about the show, I could stay as far away as possible. But our damn culture makes it so hard to remain cool, aloof and ignorant about bad TV! Damn you, pop culture! So, to sum up...The Hills sucks, and I'm a hypocrite.
Being the world's biggest Jane Austen fan, I decided to swallow my misgivings (i.e. Anne Hathaway annoys the crap out of me, and she looks like she'd be really smug and obnoxious if you met her in person) and go see Becoming Jane. My verdict? Ehhh. It's not that Hathaway was awful- she actually wasn't half bad-but the whole thing was sort of...I don't know. Succinct, aren't I? Basically, I don't claim to be an expert on Jane Austen's life, and I have no problem with cutening up history to sell movie tickets, but it all felt a little fake and fluffy. I didn't hate it, though (in fact, at times I really liked it), and I am now predictably in love with James McAvoy. They did have good chemistry, even if the whole thing felt a little bit farce-like. When I got home from the movie, craving more Austenization, I watched the original version of Pride and Prejudice, with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Awesome.
Being a literary scholar of extreme proportions, I am reading a little-known tome called Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader, which I (sadly enough) recieved as a Christmas gift. It is kind of curiously compelling. Do you know the origin of boxer shorts? Well, I do. And it is juicy.

Ooh, and I just read a little book called Back Talk, by our own ALEX RICHARDS! SQUEEE! It was great, and I was flipping out over the coolness of the fact that SOMEONE WHOSE BLOG I READ WROTE IT! Happy days indeed. Everyone read it, you won't be sorry. And I'm not just saying that because there's a good chance A.R. will read this- it's a really cute, funny, well-written book and the author doesn't condescend to you the way teen-lit authors usually do. Plus, quotes from Heathers!

In music news, I just discovered Carole King. Why did nobody tell me how great she was before?

SIGHTINGS- I finally saw someone walking around in a House Of Holland tee. It was the "Cause Me Pain, Hedi Slimane" one. Oh, and by the way? The new "Cum Again, Christopher Kane" shirt? Naughty! And kind of gross, actually. But mostly, naughty! And I also saw a girl prancing around in the sparkly blue equivalent of Maya's inexplicably amazing pink glittery shoes (I don't know if they were actually the same shoes- they didn't have the rockin' bow that Maya's do, but they were still le sex). What is it with you girls and your amazing footwear? I'm wearing straw flip-flops with a hole in the bottom right now. They're embellished with koalas eating bamboo. Seriously. This is why I'm hot.

CURRENT ATTIRE- The aforementioned straw koala flip-flops, funky graffiti-printed Smack boy shorts, soft, comfy white V-neck tee. The sort of thing you can only wear with a coffee and muffin in the bliss of solitude.

Oh, I almost forgot! I didn't announce the winners of my Bratz caption contest in my last post, so after careful deliberation, here goes...

What is this Brat thinking?
In 1st place is the fabulous Dilemma, with "Note to self-must remember to fill Valtrex perscription ASAPZ. These crabs are so itchy! Bee Tee Double-U, what is this femininininsm? Is that itchy too?"
AWESOME. Dilemma, as a prize for your supercalifragilistic wit you will win the following mention of how rockin' and hilarious you are. I know it's a lame prize but we at the Emma Corporation are cheap. If I was craftsy I could send you some funky Etsy jewelry like Ambika does, but...I am not craftsy. Sorry. But really, people, Dilemma's blog is frighteningly well-written, hysterically amusing and she basically never does a bad post. So check it out if you haven't already.
In 2nd place is the lovely Mrs. Fashion, with " " Yep, that's right. She's not thinking anything.
At. All.
Her brain is empty.
Have I won?
Why yes, Mrs. Fashion, you have, because I laughed out loud reading this. By the way, those are quotation marks with nothing in them, as in to indicate that the Brat's mind is blank. But you all probably got that.
In 3d place is the brilliant AmyLiz with "Oooh, furry zebra print purple patent clogs falling from the sky? A giant blue and pink teddy bear to complete my lovely lovenest? Oh, no, a..." *CLONK as a large safe smashes her flat on the sidewalk*
Brill. Check out her blog, people, it's muy cool.
BONUS- Maddy's "This is my pensive face." Simple, yet hilarious.
By the way, you are all so farking funny that it was INCREDIBLY difficult to select just a few winners. Stop being so witty, you b!tches! No, don't, really. Me likey humor.

до свидания, забавные люди
(I'll leave you to figure out what that means in Russian)