About Annie

Annie Barrett website

TV commentary

Three's Company
(Britney & Kevin, May 24)

Bye-bye, Black Sheep
(The O.C., May 20)

(more)

Past updates

Apr 2005
Mar 2005
Feb 2005
Jan 2005
Dec 2004
Nov 2004
Oct 2004
Sept 2004
Aug 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004

Features

Alert level: Cuddly

Blogs are so, like, stupid.

iCan't believe iHave one.

Misery loves danish

Subway: drink fresh

Can you believe I only know three people who have blogs? Lame.

Ask Why Not
Insomnia Haiku
Your Treat

  Annie Barrett is a writer living in New York City. Annie Barrett. Annie Barrett is probably insane. Annie Barrett doesn't care. TH

Check it out - a four-page message board on an Britney Spears fan club site dedicated to bashing ME. My career has hit its pinnacle. I've never felt so alive! Just kidding. I actually think it's great, except for the part where someone suggests I'm a "fat old white lady." I mean, I'm clearly the whitest thing around. No argument there. But those other two adj.s are pretty depressing.

Still sick. But no longer drinking, so at least there's that. Just went to the hardware store to get my keys duplicated, and paid $4 for three copies of just my mailbox key. Terrific.

This post brought to you by the Worst Post of the Month contest. It's always a good idea to go out with a bang. Hello June!

It was either the drinking for six nights straight, the not-sleeping thing, or the contaminated Amtrak car to or from Philly, but I've been getting progressively sicker every day since Sunday and can't even bring myself to update my shitty website with anything more than a photo of this wondrous occasion, when the gods of my favorite domestic beer sent me a sign that even though I am almost as big of a train wreck as Britney Spears lately, they are still watching over me by occasionally directing some of their huge trucks to park right outside my door. This last time (Friday), I finally had my camera. Swoon.

Tune into the LOST season finale tonight, as I will be doing the EW.com recap. (Later update: here it is.) Wow, Annie, two writeups in two days! Yeah, I'm thinking I was their last choice, too. Am I even qualified to do this? Shhhh. Don't tell anyone I'm not a real TV critic.

P.S. I'm obsessed with my new Apple mouse. It's helping with the carpal tunnel a lot, so try it if you're like me and spend a lot of unnecessarily painful hours on the trackpad. My nerd quotient (NQ) is hitting about 179 right now.

I've about had it with the freakin' piegeons. I used to get rid of them by banging one of my 17 remote controls against my window, but now they're so used to my presence that I'm not even a threat to them anymore. Sometimes I even open the window with a flourish and let out bloodcurdling screams. They just dart their heads back and forth as if something might be a little off, but that's it. GOD!

Also filed under Things I Hate But Photograph Anyway for Shits & Giggles... DR presents this girl, her thong, and her Pooh tattoo. I hate to admit this, but I actually just spent two whole minutes debating whether the photo should be displayed to the side of the text like most of the pictures, or whether it warranted an entire column's width. She was kind of a wide load, so I went with the latter:

If you're so turned on right now and feel the urge to save this image to make it your desktop pattern, you'll notice that I named it "buttcrack_pooh.jpg." Nice. Was she being ironic?

I am really, really mean. And probably losing readers by the tens by posting this. It's something no one's supposed to see, and my partner-in-crime Kate and I had to go and capture this atrocity with the triple-zoom. But you just can't turn down the opportunity to snap a crack when one's staring right at you. About a month ago, concerned reader Dee made a post demanding to know WHY I was so obsessed with putting SEC (Someone Else's Crack, you know, instead of SEP, Someone Else's Problem) on my personal website. I believe my exact response was "Mom, we live in a society. It's just what people do."

Huh? I'm not sure what it means either. But in that spirit, DR would like to extend a Call For Buttcracks. It's sort of like a Call For Papers, which occurs in graduate school when prestigious universities hold conferences and need people to read at them. Well, this presitgious purveyor of Crack is holding firm on its SEC policy and needs people to send in their sightings. Happy hunting.

Note: I'm aware that the above photo does not contain VISIBLE Crack. But when the huge thong (and such a large portion of it!) is all up in your biznass, you really can't tell the difference. And if you call this "covered-up Crack," then I beg to differ. This is Crack! Say hello! Deal with it.

Time to go to Philly to watch Meghan Barrett graduate. Maybe I'll take a picture! I bet she'll be hammered. It'll be fun.

First of all, tell me if these earrings are as cool as I think they are right this second. That feathery turquoise thing is... a feather. Knowing me, I will wake up tomorrow and change my mind about them. How's about you do that for me, or tell me they're really cute. I don't care either way. Honesty is encouraged. For your benefit, I did not look at the camera and instead took my own photo while glued to a horribly mediocre episode of Survivor. Only the best for our readers.

Also in Weird Things I Wear news, you can tell I haven't done laundry in about three months when I end up wearing magenta socks with flowers on them that Dee sent me in a box, likely as a cute "aren't these funny?" joke. Unless it was an unfunny "aren't these cute" plea and she was serious. Either way, I find these socks rather humorous and kept laughing at them whilst writing my paper on the schizophrenic nature of Instant Messenger. Some people have requested to read this paper, so I put it online. Do not click unless you are interested. It's not for everyone. But if you're addicted to IM or once were, go for it.

Don't say I didn't warn you that reading the entire thing will be 20 to 90 minutes you will never, ever get back. Also, "bleeckerbimbo" and "parannieoia" are names I created for the paper. Do not put them on your buddy list. They will never be used again.

One of my paper-writing tactics relates to food. Actually, most of them do, but I thought I'd share one of my favorites. The PB&J-per-page is a very effective technique to use between the hours of 3-8 a.m. The way it works is: I write a page, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Sure you got that? It's one of my more complicated techniques, so read that last sentence over if you need to.) To save time, I make at least four sandwiches at once, like so. Now, even if you never eat PB&J, admit that is a tantalizing photo. Or maybe it's just me. It usually is.

I'm really cranky so this post will probably come out with a lot more venom than intended, but...

I really don't appreciate the crappy-on-all-levels labeling of my container of hummus.

I can deal with the spelling, since it's probably ethnic and I'm going to sound like an anti-foreigner anyway. But what's with the placement of "PINENUTS" (which is soooo wrong) right next to "HOMMOUS" in the same ridiculous big letters? I think all that enthusiasm wrapped up in "PINENUTS" should be taken down a few notches and redistributed. That which gives the hummus character may calmly be displayed as a nondescript, but still tasteful, "pine nuts" right under "HOMMOUS" and just above "With Olive Oil" (nice random capitalization) in a font that is appropriately sized in between the other two fonts. Wait. Wrong. First line: HOMMOUS. Second line: "with pine nuts" in medium-sized font. Third line, barely visible: "and olive oil." It'd be like a movie billboard. This way, HOMMOUS is the main event, starring ("with") pine nuts and featuring ("and") olive oil. Much better.

I also really can't handle the "SUPER SIZE!" sticker. Supersized compared to what? This was the only hummus in the store. I can tell on my own that it's a freakin' huge container of hummus -- at least three times as much as what I'll actually consume before the expiration date. So thanks a pantload, Sabra Salads.

I also don't appreciate the inconsistency:

Hello, hyphen. Glad you could show up, but you still don't belong. Have you met my friend, Mr. Space?

This post has been brought to you by a bitter grad student who's been up all night writing a paper about schizophrenia and has recently made the decision to take it all out on poor packagers of food who are just trying to make it in America.

Sorry, but my argument stands. (If in fact there is one to be located above. I'm too tired to scroll up now.) It's not that I'm that dedicated to the cause of grammar and proper copyediting. It's more that I really, really love pine nuts. Over and out.

(Oh, and I totally can't tell who you are if you read this site. Unless you check from somewhere obvious, like the Boston College computer lab or Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago. Hi Brig! To imply otherwise as a fear tactic was mean of me. I probably subconsciously wanted to decrease DR's traffic so that the goal of 10,000 took longer to achieve. I'm masochistic like that. I apologize.)

Pay attention. You will be tested.

The kind of organ which the telephone duplicates, replaces, or protects may itself be subject to multiple displacements (psychoanalysis has argued convincingly for the symbolic exchangeability of anus and ear, for instance).

When we are seeking the essence of "tree," we have to beome aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees.

Ooh, wait, this one's a doozy:

We ordinarily take "that which is" to be whatever is in being. For the "is" is asserted of what is in being. But now everything has turned about. Insight does not name any discerning examination [Einsicht] into what is in being that we conduct for ourselves; insight [Einblick] as in-flashing [Einblitz] is the disclosing coming-to-pass of the constellation of the turning within the coming to presence of Being itself, and that within the epoch of Enframing. That which is, is in no way that which is in being. For the "it is" and the "is" are accorded to what is in being only inasmuch as what is in being is appealed to in respect to its Being. In the "is," "Being" is uttered: that which "is," in the sense that it constitutes the Being of what is in being, is Being.

Haha. Did anyone get through that? Readers of DiminishingReturns.net, you've just been Punk'd! Yeah!!!

I don't have time to go into it right now but sometime soon I'm going to write something good about grad school. The above doesn't even slice the surface of the giant duality that is the simultaneous awe/appreciation and disgust/rejection involved in approaching theoretical writing like this. Occasionally, I'll read something and feel exalted, like I've just arrived at the precise point of what someone was trying to say. (The certainty usually floats away by my next regularly scheduled bihourly snack.) Other times I sit there, reading a sentence for the fifth time and trying not to count the number of times words like "epistemological," "hermeneutical," and "synecdoche" appear on a page. Then I wonder why it has to be that way when everyone knows there are easier ways to say things. Then I wonder if anyone I go to school with can tell that I still have no clue what hermeneutics are. (It's too late to ask! I'm too far gone.)

Here's a picture of a list James wrote out last year for some more loathsome examples of the "quota words" -- things that people in class sprinkle into their comments as if they need to meet a I'm A Total Academic Bastard quota. With a lot of these clowns I actually wouldn't be surprised if they didn't know what the words meant, either. At least I don't say mine out loud. If you're wondering, yes, that does say "Judith Butler," and we never gave James enough credit for the hilarity of that.

If you look really hard and can read his loopy printing, you'll also notice "hermeneutical" on there as well. It was so embarrassing -- we were sitting around shouting out words to be included on the Do Not Say list (we're really cool) and I had to just fake like I knew what it meant. You should have seen me. I probably did the overcompensatory "Oh, yeah, of course, hermeneutical..." face that just does not work on me at all. How could it? I bet they all totally knew. Damn.

You're still here? No, seriously, I already told you you've been Punk'd. Go away. This site isn't fun anymore.

In other news, maybe it is, because my secret, invisible counter is rapidly approaching 10,000 hits. I told myself I'd make it visible online when it hit 10,000. It will be shown at the bottom with some cartoon balloons because I'm that much of a jerkstore.

Keep in mind, 10,000 unique hits is not as impressive as it sounds. Those of you who check this at noon, 3, 6, 7, 10, and midnight should know that those register as seven separate hits. And that I can see you clicking and I know who you are.

OMG, did I freak anyone out just then? I might have been joking. You never know.

I'm such a creepster. I spend much more time stalking who checks my website and when and how often... than I think people must collectively spend on stalking me. It's a lot of time. No wonder I can't get ever get anything done.

Anyway, DR is going to have a 10,000 Hits party when the big day comes. It will be held in cyberspace and will feature an all-new Shitty Annie Barrett Graphic for the occasion. Bring your own bottle, mmmkay? Thanks!

The offending item:

First, these are all shitty choices. Dairy Queen can be good if it's July, you're in the Midwest, and you're resigned to being fat and happy for the next seven days. Baskin Robbins gives shoddy portions, and Coldstone Creamery employees make me want to shoot myself. It was suggested by someone I thought cared about me that I apply for a job and work there for a few weeks for research purposes, singing to the customers and shouting out my name in cheer form with key anecdotes about myself. Dude, I have a blog for that.

Yes, it would be hilarious and I might even get to write a bestselling novel about it, but who needs millions of dollars when you can have, instead, ice cream dignity and $14 an hour to watch for product placement in television? Not me, that's who! Besides, I'm still planning on getting a job at Starbucks for a few months, just long enough to pen my debut novel, Lots of Lattes. Or maybe even Latts o' Lattes. It's gonna be about, like, espresso and stuff.

Secondly, I don't appreciate the way "Rob Jefferson" has preselected Baskin Robbins for me. I remember those "Clown Cones" from Baskin Robbins. Did every store have those, or was it just the one at the Garden Market shopping center in Western Springs, IL? This was an ice cream cone with -- again -- a severely low amount of ice cream in the actual cone and (here comes the "clown" part) little florets of thick, multicolored buttercream icing dotting the cone and the ice cream itself to form a "clown face" that never looked anything like a real clown but tasted really, really sugary. Most of my naive little playmates would eat all the florets at once because they were all anyone cared about. I was all "WTF?" to such children because I preferred to eat my florets gradually, with a balanced ratio of ice cream to icing in each bite. I'd feel sorry for one part if I favored the other unfairly. The textures of both clashed so violently that it was just a tumultuous experience in general. In fact, I'd really rather not repeat it or even think about it ever again. And yet I'm writing about it. You can tell it's almost six in the morning. Maybe you can't, and I've just outed myself. Whatever. Look, I just found an article which mentions the Clown Cone. The writer seems to think the CC was a once-a-year birthday treat. Wow. Either they became too popular for that rule to hold, or the Garden Market chain's employees just got way too overzealous with all the floret fun. I'd like to bet on the latter, but again, with the shoddy portions... those employees (always the same man, woman, and teenage daughter -- it's like they slept behind the counter) didn't seem like so much fun at all. What am I talking about? Look how long this paragraph about florets is! Am I really going to post this?

Guess so. New item: You might have noticed that the pretty, springtime, sky-blue-gradient graphic of Annie looking sideways has been replaced with the old dark purple gradient. Someone brought it to my attention that the body on the blue one looked out of proportion. I hadn't noticed, because there's a tool in Photoshop that selects the background for you and deletes all of it. Apprarently this background (in the purple one) included a significant portion of my arm, which was all shadowy and therefore mistaken for dark purple.

What? Oh right, the point: The sky-blue one looked really weird and unrealistic, like I was trying really hard to make people think I have sickly-skinny arms. Roll your mouse over the image to see what I mean. Ooh! This site can be so goddamn interactive sometimes! I impress even myself.

I wrote the TV Watch for LOST on EW.com today. That's why I am awake. It's not my fault, except it really is.

Just realized the date is 05/05/05. DUDE.

I haven't updated in a week because I've sort of had to start being a grad student again. I kind of... wasn't one for about seven months with that whole "internship" thing, and it just caught up to me yesterday. Did you know that the NYU library now has COMPUTERS? Back in my day, we used the card catalog! Basically, I have seven days to finish a whole lot of crap. So don't check back here anytime soon. You'll make me feel bad.

Also, try not to read too much into the creepy bee graphic to your left. It just means that May makes me think of bees and that I'm really scared of them. Deathly afraid. I used to think the token "sideways headshot" I've been using all this time conveyed a supreme aloofness, but now I think it conveys "deathly afraid." You just have to use some imagination. Go for it. Live large!

The graphic is also fitting because everyone always tells you to stand still when a bee is close by. Yeah, right. To me, doing that is like signing your own death wish. Bees aren't that fast. I mean, neither am I, but I can change directions (perhaps incorporating those reverse pivots I never used in high school...), use weapons of tiny destruction, duck behind a sliding door. Anything's better than standing there waiting to be(e) stung. But in this graphic, the skeptical-looking Annie will never move. I'd try to do an animation of me dodging the bee but it would be a lot of work. Not to mention, you all know I was just lying and that I really don't know how to create animated graphics. So this way's good. It's like an advisory to all the little tykes who read my website not to move when a bee twice the size of your face flies right up next to you against a lovely sky-blue gradient background. There you go, kiddies! Good job! Yuenglings for everyone!

Ooh, just got a great idea for next month's graphic. Speaking of things that are twice the size of my face - I should put in a Chipotle burrito. Damn. Now the bee just seems so stupid. It's kind of alarming that it didn't seem stupid as I was making it.

DR doesn't like to stray from the important issues at hand, so (courtesy of Ms. Kate Schrinsky) here's the best news story about oversized burritos I've seen in awhile. You have to read this. As Kate said in her e-mail, "Please enjoy."

""The kid was sitting there as I'm describing this (report of a student with a suspicious package) and he's thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, they're talking about my burrito.'"

I'd be like "Oh, holy shit, they're going to confiscate my burrito and I'm not going to get to eat it."

In related Mexican-food news, I was roaming Live Journal this afternoon because despite my having not written in mine for seven months, they still e-mail me. (That's a horrible excuse. I shouldn't even have used it. I should have just admitted to rooting around that decrepit, vastly immature online terrain, stalking people and their various fetish communities. It's not, like, the worst thing someone could do. But it's kind of close.) Anyway, look what I found. The best part is that the comments sections say "_ people want Taco Bell" instead of just "_ comments." Love it.

Does anyone watch House, Tuesday nights on Fox? I'm drawn to it because I love when smart people act like condescending assholes for sport. Catch it if you can and tell me why every woman in America seems to be infatuated with Dr. House (Hugh Laurie). I'm sort of with them, but I don't really understand why. I still don't get the female attraction to Tony Soprano. Love his show; find him repulsive in every way. But a scruffy, middle-aged British man faking an American accent, playing his solitary piano, and being held up by a cane? Hotttt. Discuss.