the best thing ever: england — the matchups!

You are ALL playing tomorrow!

Here’s the breakdown. Scroll down if you still don’t know who your player is. Although, it doesn’t really matter as long as you trust me to get it right here.

Severus Snape
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VS

Mercutio
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Then ….

Jane Eyre
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VS

David Copperfield
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Thenn ….

The Pardoner
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VS

Faramir
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Finally ….

Zaphod Beeblebrox
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VS

The Artful Dodger
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I love these matchups. They give me joy.

(Please allow the game mistress to announce the results here — even if you hear them on the news before I do, which is entirely possible. Get those speeches ready!)

Good luck and good matches, everyone!

best thing ever england: the players!

Here’s our lineup:

UPDATE: Plus player assignments from the exciting random bowl drawing!

1. The Artful Dodger, Sheila
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Nicole Vaidisova, CZE
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2. Jane Eyre, Lisa
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Serena Williams, USA
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or

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or

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(Pick the one you like best, Lisa. Putting a real-life face on Jane is too hard for me!)

3. Severus Snape, sarahk
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Nadia Petrova, RUS
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4. David Copperfield, Leslie
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Agnieszka Radwanska, POL
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No?

Okay. Maybe this one?
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5. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Cullen (No way I can type that name out every time. I simply canna do it.)
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Jie Zheng, CHN
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6. The Pardoner, Kate P.
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Tamarine Tanasugarn, THA
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7. Mercutio, Gradual Dazzle
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Elena Dementieva, RUS
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8. Faramir, Nightfly
Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Player: Venus Williams, USA
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Stay tuned for your matchups! And before anyone else says it: Yes, those Williams’ girls are tough, but they are NOT unbeatable. They aren’t! It’s anyone’s tournament!

Also: Don’t forget! The Boo-Bye Ritual is still in place. As game mistress, I insist. Nicely. This means that when your player/character loses and is out of the tournament, you must post your “Boo-Bye Speech” in the comments section. Written as your character might say it. Talk smack. (No one can out-smack sarahk, but it’s worth a try, no?) Claim victimhood. Pout. Whine. Accuse judges of taking brides. Swear revenge. Whatever. I don’t care what you talk about in your Boo-Bye Speech. It’s YOUR forum. Your last indignant stand. Make it count. This is the only other thing you have to do to be involved in this game, basically. Easy peasy.

So, that being said: Start preparing now. All but ONE of you will have to make one!

best thing ever blog game: england

It’s that time again! And I kinda almost forgot because, well, I’m just really distracted these days. But a gentle nudge came in my email yesterday from the adorable sarahk:

Please please please tell me you’re doing Best Thing Ever with Wimbledon this year. I already have Anthony Head all picked out.

(Sarahk is currently obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I totally understand. I came to that show very late, but there is one episode that is BY FAR the scariest, creepiest thing I’ve ever seen on TV.)

Anyhoo.

There WILL be a giveaway but I’m still deciding what it will be. Still mulling. It may include coffee; it may include tea; it may include some small mixed-media piece I’ve done; it may include some Caramel Almond Freakout Popcorn. These are all possibilities. It may be a combo of things. Not sure yet. But one thing I know the game will now forever include is this:

The Official Best Thing Ever CUP:

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This is the 2008 Best Thing Ever England Edition. (Out-of-focus shot courtesy of my cruppy cell phone. Stay tuned for another out-of-focus shot from a different angle. In person, it looks — well, I hesitate to use the word “better” — uhm, like a weird shiny coffee cup make by a total weirdo who needs to get a life.) And yes. It is a coffee cup. And yes. It is collaged or altered or whatever you wanna call it. I made several of these in the last dying days of Boheme when I’d lost my will to live but not my will to create. Even if only with coffee cups and scraps of paper and food coloring and glue. So this … well, it’s really a timepiece, you know? Of an era. Soon-to-be vintage. Basically, I have enough paper coffee cups of various sizes left over from Boheme to last for this project until … you know, Iran goes nuclear and KA-BLOOWEY or something. Each new game winner will receive a new cup. Each is an original work du great art. Not suitable for holding beverages. Official Best Thing Ever Cups for prominent display purposes only, of course.

All right. Down to the game. If you’re not familiar with the rules, go here.

Okay. Last year, honestly, I nearly ran myself ragged with 16 players — what with finding photos and posting match results and trying to keep on top of results with the time difference and so on. It was all a little dizzying. Huge fun, don’t get me wrong, but just dizzying.

So. This year, I’m going with 8 players only. We’ll try that. Basically, these will be the quarterfinal matchups. I’m going with the ladies’ side of the draw. The men’s seems a bit too predictable — although I could be wrong this year. Roger Federer keeps winning over and over, but this just may be sexy Spaniard Rafael Nadal’s tournament. (Fingers crossed.)

The THEME this year is different. I want to mix it up:

The Best Thing Ever England: English Literary Characters.

(Sorry, sarahk! But I’m saving a slot for you regardless, okay?)

I have 8 slots only. If you want to play, leave your name and your English Literary Character in the comments. Duplicate picks will be decided based on a first-come basis. If a comment goes into moderation for whatever reason, the same rule will apply.

All right. For the Queen! For the Cup!

The Best Thing Ever: English Literary Characters.

Ready? GO!

me, age 2

See this? This was my thing at that age. This move with my arms in the air. Apparently, I did this all the time. I was obsessive with the arm thing. While other toddlers were rockin’ their Fisher Price bubble vacuums, being useful, I was running around with my arms up in the air declaiming “I am SO BIG!” until mom or dad or random strangers agreed with me. Needy much, Trace?

So, yes, yes, little Tracey. You are SO BIG! Please calm down.

And, oh, I can see your diaper, big girl.
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please, i want this

Look at this sofa from La Maison Coloniale. I want it. I even want that statue of Hammurabi or whoever in the background. I want to lie on this sofa in my maison coloniale somewhere in jungles of Thailand and eat pad thai and look at my statue of Hammurabi or whoever.

My needs are simple really.

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the movie that saved my life last night

After renting Charlie Wilson’s Bore the other day and managing to survive it barely, only as a mere shell of a person, a mere shadow of a human being — Philip Seymour Hoffman is the ONLY reason to see that movie in my opinion — I felt suddenly wary about all movies, anywhere, everywhere. That’s what that movie did to me, in addition to sucking my precious and well-known joie de vivre out of my very marrow and eyeballs and such. At my core, I wondered if my ability to enjoy movies was gone forever, stolen by Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in a stupid blonde mushroom wig.

Oh, and then to compound matters, the next day, there was the world’s most BORING documentary about the world’s most BORING band, you know, QUEEN, that had me screaming at the talking head onscreen — who had clearly dug up Freddie Mercury’s corpse and stolen his teeth: “Shut up, shut UP with the talking and show the FREAKIN’ BAND ALREADY!”

AGGHHHHH! My precious and well-known joie de vivre! What had happened? I collapsed in a sobbing heap on the not-entirely-clean floor.

“Is there another movie in the pile over there?” I wailed at MB last night.

There was. And it, praise be, was this:

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Hitman
.

Glorious Hitman.

Glorious, gratuitously violent, based on a video game I know nothing about because I know nothing about any video games Hitman.

Because sometimes, the only thing that can restore your precious and well-known joie de vivre and make you live again is a sizzling sexy bald man with a bar-code tattoo on the base of his skull slaughtering and splattering your fellow man left and right.

Know what I mean?

Sometimes, the only thing that can restore your precious and well-known joie de vivre and make you live again is a lonely enigmatic killer in a crisp suit and a red tie who can and does wield what you can only assume is a grenade launcher in each of his nimble lonely hands.

It’s true. I’m not making this stuff up.

Sometimes, the only thing that can restore your precious and well-known joie de vivre and make you live again is an unconscionable murderous romp with a side of sympathetic whore.

I mean, what screams joie de vivre more than sympathetic whore, I ask you?

And sometimes, the only thing that can restore your precious and well-known joie de vivre and make you live again is a lonely killer and a sympathetic whore reveling in their intense but arm’s length chemistry where a date consists of dinner and murder and chastity.

I mean, what’s better than a movie that makes you fuzzy and nostalgic about your past?

Sometimes, in the end, it won’t matter to you that the smarties-that-be mostly panned a movie. Not if it restores your precious and well-known joie de vivre. They clearly have no joie de vivre that even needs restoring so how could they possibly appreciate the bloody romantic epic that is Hitman? Besides, if you refer to anyone’s opinion, you refer to your beloved Roger because he a smartie who seems unpretentious while simultaneously making you think of a delicious oatmeal cookie dunked in a cup of hot coffee. And he, your delicious oatmeal cookie, liked the movie, for the most part — although he didn’t mention that it saved his life in any way, which you understand might not happen for everybody. He liked the same things you liked about it so you feel validated and plenty smart, too. Although you sometimes wonder if you’re capable of independent thought apart from your beloved Roger. But don’t think about it now. Just because you’re not on a roll here doesn’t mean you should stop, Peaches.

So bless you, Hitman. Bless you for sheer ridiculousness. Bless you for a nonsensical plot that makes perfect sense to anyone with joie de vivre. Bless you for life-affirming violence. Bless you for oddball chemistry. Bless you for smoldering baldness and helpless whores and celibate killers. Bless you for every little part I managed to see through the queasy cage of my fingers.

Mostly, bless you for restoring my precious and well-known joie de vivre and making me live again.

Bless you, Hitman.

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a golden opportunity

For all you savvy business people. This, from the Sunday edition of the LA Times under Business Opportunities:

“Brothel. World Famous Chicken Ranch. Real $ Maker. Includes 40 ac.”

Lemme know if any of you want the phone number.

Hey, you know, 40 acres is nothing to sneeze at.

lucky girl …. no, really really lucky

To have a husband who doesn’t instantly dial a divorce lawyer when she turns to him — interrupting a peaceful squat on the couch — and starts screeching operatically, without warning, and with a right proper British accent:

Strength doesn’t lie in numbers!
Strength doesn’t lie in wealth!
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumbers …
When you wake up — WAKE UP!

It tells me all I trust I leave my heart to
All I trust becomes my own
I have confidence in confidence alone
(Oh help!)

I have confidence in confidence alonnnne …..
Besides which you see I have connn-fiii-dennnce in meeeeeee!

Clearly.

things one can’t help but notice or wonder while watching the olympic gymnastic trials

(I wrote this last night then fell asleep and forgot to post. So ….. come baaack with me, baaack in time … deeeep in the past … 15 hourrrs (ish) ago ….)

~ Bela Karolyi, that crazy Romanian gymnastics coach, is a commentator with Bob Costas, who seems to need emergency medical assistance, so palpable is his distress over sitting there with Bela. I mean, you cannot understand a thing the man says. Maybe it’s that wiry curtain of mustache trapping words and making everything mumbly-jumbly. But he’s excitable, that’s for sure. Who will be the 6 girls on the Olympic team, Bela? asks Bob. WEEL, BOBE, I HEEF TO TEEL YOU DER VILL BE 6 GEERLS ON DA TEAM! EETS HARD TO SAY WHO EET VIL BE — EETS VERY MOST DISPUTED EXCITEENG!! Bob just stares at him, brow furrowed, mouth agape. I KEEDING, BOB COSTAS!! Then Bob says, Well, there’s pretty much nothing to say after that. Hahahaha. Oh, the pain — the visible pain — of Bob’s professionalism being turned on its ear! Bela is a runaway train. I LOVE this. And Bela will be a commentator at the Olympics. Cannot WAIT. They will be The Odd Couple of the Olympics and the undercurrent of buzzing discomfort will be a joy to behold. Mark your calendars, pippa.

~ Shawn Johnson, the leader here so far, is an adorable smiling chipmunk. I want her for a pet. I want to put her in a cage with a habitrail and a hamster wheel and feed her nuts and pellets and watch her drink out of a little drinky bottle attached to the cage. She’s 4-9. She would probably fit. And, please, this is in no way insulting or dehumanizing or anything like that. That’s not the way I roll.

~ There’s a gymnast competing here named Nastia Lukin. What is UP with that? Why, in the name of holy Moses, name your child Nastia?? I get that her dad is some weirdo Russian gold medal gymnast and he’s cold and never smiles and ignores her if she doesn’t do well. But Nastia? It’s a hostile act, is what it is. Passive aggressive, Daddy-ov. What’s wrong with Natasha or Tasha or Sasha or Natalia or something else Russianesque? Nope. It’s Nastia. And her sister Grossia. And their brother Filthia.

~ All these girls are built like Kewpie dolls. Without the belly. They are tiny, thick-necked, and stumpy. They seem to be stumpier and beefier than I remember. Ya feel me, dawg? Very beefy. Carl’s Jr. Six-Dollar Burger beefy.

(Again with the drunk blogging, Trace? You have a problem. You do.)

~ Okay. I don’t understand the whole point of the Olympic trials anymore. (And yet … I continue to watch.) It goes like this: Six girls will make the team. The top two finishers in the trials are automatically on the team. (Shawn and Grossia.) The remaining four will be picked from a “training camp” held at the Karolyis’ ranch in Texas. (“Training camp”? “Karolyis’ ranch”? Uhm, what’s going on? What does that really mean?) So — what’s the point of the competition? 2/3 of the team is selected by committee. Why isn’t it just the top 6 finishers at the trials make the team? I mean, let the girls compete and let the results be the results. That’s what happens at the Olympics, right? There isn’t a committee after the fact deciding the results. Or I should say, there is RARELY a committee after the fact deciding the results, usually if there’s a controversy. (Hello, Sale and Pelletier, pairs figure skating.) I don’t get it. Someone explain why the top 6 finishers at the trials are NOT necessarily the team. Well, maybe someone had a bad competition and so the panel will consider their overall skill. THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES!! IT’S SPORTS!! AGHHHH!! Just give everyone gold medals then. Nastia gets one. Grossia, too. Filthia is AWOL, so Grossia accepts on his behalf, sobbing huge half-Russian sobs for her giant wrestler brother.

~ My new pet, Shawn Johnson, is simply amazing on the beam. She tumbles on that thing as if it’s the floor. Breathtaking! I’ve never seen anything like it. Wow. WOW. She’s astonishing. Make me proud at the Olympics, my little beefy peach, and there’s some extra pellets in it for you.

~ I heart Bob Costas and his twitching discomfort right now. This cannot be overstated. His DREAD whenever Bela opens his mouth. This is epic comedy.

~ Nastia Grossia is the only thin, balletic gymnast. She’s not a Kewpie burger, but, to compensate, her hairline is unnecessarily high. I see no potential for her to be my pet. Sorry, Grossia.

~ The competition is over now and Bela is yelling something at Bob again and I cannot write anything about it, really, because I’m laughing too hard. I’m telling you. I will watch the Olympics for no other reason but THIS. The Bob and Bela show is painfully hilarious.

YAY, OLYMPICS!! I CANNOT WAIT!!