Make your own miniature yard butts. Because apartment-dwellers deserve tackiness, too. · 7:04 PM

Most Skimworthy - the annotated list o' fall and winter movie releases. Because you just shouldn't miss the opening night of Monsters, Inc.. [also Kerplink] · 11:17 AM

"When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think 'the people of Afghanistan' think 'the Jews in the concentration camps.'" · 11:08 AM

Oh, wow. To quote one of my favorite movies, "ten years, man! Ten... yeeeears!" I haven't read the article yet, but I think it'd just make me feel the sudden weight and responsibility of my 21 years. "Back when we were all grunge..." Just wait 'till the 10th anniversary of Dookie. [via Kerplink] · 11:06 AM

Stop, take a minute, and take three shots at guessing the title of Britney Spears' new CD. Don't think too hard. I don't think she did. · 8:16 PM

It was clearly established a long time ago that I have no more indie cred, and I'm ok with that. But for some reason, I still can't play Jay-Z's "I Just Wanna Love U" without getting up to furtively close the door in private shame. · 8:15 PM

People are just so great, it makes me cry. And want to walk around hugging everyone I know, reassuring them of their awesomeness. Weird, long-stifled nesting instincts are even emerging that make me want to bake Rice Krispie Treats (do-able entirely from products lifted from the dining hall) and Cheez Nips (seriously). And for once, I'm perfectly happy to sit around in the dorm on a Saturday night, watch movies, and eat cookies. · 7:53 PM

I really don't want to talk circles around Tuesday anymore. I have little strength left for the same speculative conversations, heart-wrenching photographs, redundant news reports repeating the same scraps of information that I've already read / heard a thousand times, and the nonstop phone ringing at work because of mixups between our 1-800 number and that of the Red Cross (though the constant jangle is reassuring). I want big, revelatory news breaks, progress, reconstruction, restoration, and the unspoken OK that I can go on with the rest of my life.

Despite my overwhelming concern for and interest in national events, I need to divert. Which is why I really need to get back to the guiltless frivolity of Things I Will Make In The Future, Really - more Sock Monkeys, the Sock Elephant, some of HGTV's weird-o sock menagerie, and adorning myself with some fine sock monkey shirts, a hat, or a monkey love necklace. · 9:14 PM

When I went to Montana this summer, I met a girl who had an escape route all laid out "for when the country finally goes to shit." She and some friends, along with a former nuclear missles expert, had a small bunker reserved in Wyoming, completely stocked with food, an electric generator, and arms, in full preparation for the day when capitalism fell and global nuclear war commenced.

Well, it didn't happen like that. And it was more catastrophic, horrific, and totally unexpected than anything we ever could've imagined. But I bet she's on her way down to Wyoming right now. · 2:58 PM

I'm sorry that it took until now for me to notice that today's Business section had a big old article on the front page, snappily entitled "The New Feminist Mystique," that serves mainly to give props to Bust, Bitch, and several other fine publications. Revelatory? Not at all. But I did learn that Bust is going monthly soon, which will make it the very first magazine that I will subscribe to after graduation. And since I've made it a point to get none until then, that's quite a compliment. · 10:10 PM

I don't often feel pressured or authorized to issue fashion advice. But damn, Girl In History Class - just because you can pull your socks up to your knees doesn't mean that you should. · 8:54 PM

Guh.
(Sometimes, if you can't say anything nice, it's better to say nothing at all.)

Ahh.
("Could Bart Simpson be, in the end, the Nietzschean ideal?") · 3:50 PM