We may know Diane Neal as tough gal ADA Casey Novak on Law & Order: SVU, but there are plenty of things we don’t know about her real life. What are her hobbies? What kind of ice cream does she like? Does she like her margaritas with or without salt? Does she even like margaritas? We can’t trust imdb for answers to questions like these so we have to resort to other sources. According to wikipedia, http://dianeneal.hostbus.com/ is “the biggest and BEST Diane Neal website on the ‘net!” I bet they can provide us with the vital information we seek - the site is both “Diane Neal Tested” and “Mother (Colleen) Approved! (Hi Diane’s Mom!)”

I just learned that Diane believes Dick Cheney is dead. Did you know that? Neither did I! But here it is on the site, actual emails from Diane herself!

PS Dick Cheney is actually dead. Marcus and I think they’ve been “weekend at Bernieing” him for years. Whenever he’s shown he usually never speaks and is wearing a giant baseball hat and sunglasses. Coincidence? I think not.

First of all, I’m glad most of you agree about Cheney. And yes, I’m suggesting that’s he’s been dead for quite a while now. I think 4 years, Marcus thinks 2. Roughly. The only problem with our theory is the “shooting his friend in the face” episode. Perhaps it was a ruse by the Bush administration to throw off the public from his obvious corpsishness? We can only speculate. But I wouldn’t put it past them.

It all makes so much sense!

The Q&A section is my favorite though, especially this question from Katie. She passionately asks the question that we’ve all been wondering.

I read once that you liked the dog whisperer. That was quite possibly the oddest thing
I’d heard that day, and it stuck in my mind. Whenever do you have time to sit and watch the dog whisperer?! Who HAS TIME to watch the dog whisperer?! Do you MAKE time for the dog whisperer?

I TiVo the dog whisperer. Marcus and I love him AND we just got his book. As I’m typing this RIGHT NOW my dog, Ted, is sitting on my lap and consistently nudging the keyboard for attention. This is one of the many reasons that I NEED Caesar Milan. Also, Annie Potts who was on our show a few time (she’s kick ass, by the way) is good buddies with Caesar and would humor me with crazy stories about him. It makes me feel slightly connected to him. Weird, I know.

Yes, who has the time?! Katie doesn’t! I know I don’t! How can Diane Neal of all people?! Thank goodness for TiVo. And thank you Diane for properly capitalizing TiVo.

Yes, I’ve been watching Law & Order. Writer’s strike be damned, they have “a stockpile of scripts” saved up and ready to go. I hope you’re ready too because it’s either L&O or the new American Gladiators.

While opening up a new brokerage account:

Part of me wanted to see what would happen if I selected either of these options, but I tend to lose all sense of adventure when money is involved.

Oh wait…

p.s. I still love you twitterrific.

Random things too tiny, and possibly too stupid, for individual posts

Movies I’ve watched in the past 8 days in 5 words. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - Sexploitation! I really watched that? No Country for Old Men - Amazing, go see it. Now. Eastern Promises - Also awesome, avoid bath houses. Host - Koreans are lovable, tasty people. La Dolce Vita - Seven nights, Hedonism. Poor Rome.

This spinning beach ball of death is funny. It comes from Took my hands off your eyes too soon, at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea. Say what you will about contemporary art, but this gets a thumbs up in my book. It’s not worth a trip to the west side or anything, but if you happen to be in the area.

Snickerdoodles. Shortening or butter? Joy of Cooking is a butter recipe (is this because I have the new edition?) but I suppose I’ll have to try it both ways before declaring a winner.

I’ve been a recluse all weekend — I spent Saturday night listening to Lauryn Hill and making a new wordpress theme for the ol’ blog. It’s based on a recent photo and is supposed to be as minimalist as I can get away. No search, calendar, blogroll, shared items, widgets, etc. It should still feel a little like kubrick anyway.

And lastly, I’m going on a road trip from NYC to Austin mid-December. Are there any must-see attractions in any of PA, VA, MD, TN, AL, AR that I should know about?

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - If you are in Sudan it is a ‘missed call’. In Ethiopia it is a ‘miskin’ or a ‘pitiful’ call. In other parts of Africa it is a case of ‘flashing’, ‘beeping’ or in French-speaking areas ‘bipage’.

– Reuters

This was one of many insane things I noticed while in Nigeria last year. I can’t tell you how many conversations were interrupted by incessant phone calls. I’d ask my cousins why they weren’t picking up and the response was always “oh, he’s just trying to flash me.” It’s kind of funny really — from my understanding it’s put such a strain on the cell networks that MTN at least provides a free WAP push “this person is trying to get you to call them.”

Love kushal as much as I do? Here’s a guide to keeping tabs on his comings and goings:

1. Subscribe to his blog. He usually blogs about the things he’s working on or doing. For instance, now I know he might be found at an Apple store.
2. Follow him on dodgeball. Chances are, he frequents the same bars.
3. Follow him on twitter. He doesn’t seem to update much, but he might!
4. Send him calendar invites while he’s asleep (After 1 seems to be a good bet). Since he accepts/declines invites first thing in the morning, the SMS alert from calendar will let you know when he’s up.

This nursing home cat story is getting out of hand. Aren’t we all glazing over the obvious explanation here? Isn’t it equally likely that “Oscar” is some sort of murderous feline, hell bent on ridding the planet of the human menace?

A zombie attack can strike quickly and without warning. A single infection can turn into a full blown epidemic in a matter of days. I hope the zombie infection simulator clears any doubt you might have about this. For added readiness, I recommend the zombie survival guide.

dolapo just got back from watching 28 weeks later. He thought the gore, pacing and score were enough to make up for the plot oddities. He was entertained throughout–though he’s pretending it had a better ending.

I know I’m late on this but I finally reached the tipping point after catching an accelerated glimpse of the ad fast forwarding through commercials¹. The ad was for the gap’s boyfriend trouser thing. Confession time… I’m a sucker for women in men’s clothing. I can’t get enough of it². I fear that this is all going to change when it becomes ubiquitous. Sad.

As it stands, the only thing I like about the gap is that one Kanye West lyric³. That and the cheap socks. Okay, and Banana Republic.

1. I was watching Scrubs if you really must know.
2. Don’t hate me.
3. “I’m the gap like banana republic and old navy” in reference to his ability to get Freeway and Mos Def on the same song.

note: spoiler free

I have no idea what the actual running time is, but The Good Shepherd certainly felt like the longest movie I’ve seen in a while. Maybe it’s not actually 17 hours long - I’m not an expert in these things, but I think it feels that way because:

1. Robert De Niro has been in a few Martin Scorsese movies and he thinks he can do the slow-paced thing well.
2. The back-and-forth in time storytelling screwed with my internal clock.
3. It’s actually 17 hours long.

Five hours into the movie I begged it to stop, and it looked back at me and said “Fuck you, I can do this for days.” At 7 hours I start to think about other things:

1. Matt Damon is fresh out of college and meets a young Angelina Jolie. At no point during the movie does she look younger than 35. It’s annoying.
2. I saw this at a DLP theater and it was gorgeous - distractingly so. I caught myself thinking about this a few times.
3. Was the Live Free or Die Hard “trailer” actually just random shots of explosions pieced together? I think it was.

None of this is to say that I disliked the movie, I thought it was good. There were lots of stylish shots and both the spy and family stories were believable and captivating. I hope to see more from Rob (we go waaaay back), but can we have em a little shorter?