MamaPop™

Unleashing My Mad Men Excitement Here

You all know about Google Reader, right? It's a handy way to compile all of the sites that you read in one spot, via the sites' RSS feeds. I'm completely obsessed with mine, especially since Google keeps adding new and amazing features to it. One of my favorite features is the ability to share interesting items with people in your Gmail contacts. Your shared items are also compiled on their own webpage. Here's mine.

With the premiere of the third season of Mad Men right around the corner, more and more items are popping up about the show...and I've been sharing all of them with my Gmail contacts because I. JUST. CAN'T. WAIT. FOR. AUGUST. 16TH. DRAPER DRAPER DRAPER JOAN BOBBY SALLY GIRDLES ADVERTISING OH MY GOD I NEED SOME SCOTCH AND SOME LUCKY STRIKES AND SOME SAMMITCHES FROM THE DELI.

Have Vampires Lost Their Bite?

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly is dedicated to vampires. Basically, it looks like the gothic horror version of Tiger Beat, complete with a spread of the "20 Greatest Vampires of All Time." However, with the popularity of the sparkly vegetarian vampires of the Twilight series and the Tru Blood suckers of Bon Temps, is the blood and gore of the vampire genre getting a tad watered down? 

Neil Patrick Harris Is Going To Host the Emmys

Remember the days when Neil Patrick Harris existed only as an outlet for our mockery? The Doogie Howser days?  Those were simpler, better times, when the Coke was New and a mortgage was just a mortgage, not a collateralized debt obligation.  But then the world went to hell, and there was no one to make us laugh - except for Neil Patrick Harris, MamaPop's Official Gay Boyfriend.

When I Was a Kid We Had to Flip Tapes Over...in the Snow...Uphill...Both Ways!

The BBC invited a 13-year-old to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. Miraculously, he survived.

When getting ready to write this post, I was trying to find a picture of the Sports Walkman that my family had when I was a kid, just because I thought it was the best illustration of the idea of electronics for active people in ancient times (read: 20 years ago).

OMG Have You Guys Heard of This Show Called 'The L Word'?

While most MamaPop writers have their fingers on the pulse of what's hot on TV, I tend to fall really behind on the boob-tube pop culture. I have basic cable, which I barely watch, and for long stretches of time I will only flip between Bravo, VH1, MTV and the Food Network, as though they were the only channels in my cable package. When I finally do catch on to a popular or critically acclaimed show, it's usually well into its run and, in some cases, after it has ended entirely. Usually this is okay with me — I get to watch it on my time, and if I can't wait to find out what happens, I just watch the next episode right then. It's like delayed instant gratification.

Ugliest Tattoos: In Case the State of the World Has You Feeling Schadenfreude-Deficient

Let's face it: things right now are...not great. The situation in Iran gets more and more intense every day. The economy is still utter poo. Psychos are out in full force and heavily armed. Personally, I often find myself feeling pretty crappy about being a member of the human race. And sometimes, when I'm that kind of mood, I just really need somebody to look down on. I'm not saying it's good or healthy, but sometimes I just need help getting out of bed with the knowledge that I'm not the biggest idiot around.

Enter Ugliest Tattoos.

Make Mine a Montage

For the second time this year, a sports team in my home city, Pittsburgh, won a major championship and provided me with at least a week of sports-related good mood when the Pittsburgh Penguins brought home the Stanley Cup. Of course, the win itself was awesome and capped off a truly exciting season and getting to celebrate has been terrific. But one of the best parts of a big sports event are the montages. I. Love. Montages.

Stephenie Meyer Can't Handle the Social Media

"Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer has decided to take a break from social media. I guess she couldn't handle the MySpace.

Word on the street (and by the street, I mean the internet. Neither Stephenie Meyer nor I spend much time on actual streets with real people) is that once upon a time Ms. Meyer made great use of MySpace and spent a lot of time responding to fans.

Of course, at some point the whole Twilight went supernova. It exploded into four novels and movies and a religion.

Listen, Steph, it isn't that I don't understand social media burnout. I have learned to not even open up Facebook or Tweetdeck if I am trying to work on a deadline. Here is the thing:

I Am Drinking the Infinite Summer Kool-Aid

Move over Oprah's Book Club. Make way for Infinite Summer.

Okay, so I have posted before about my love for the works of the late David Foster Wallace before. If you don't feel like reading my sappy and likely written-while-drunk tribute, let's just say he's pretty much the wind beneath my wings and all that stuff, only we never met under a pier in Atlantic City or, like, at all, and he didn't die of cancer, but rather hung himself last summer and shattered my heart into a million pieces. Despite bearing no relation to Barbara Hershey's character from Beaches, Dave Wallace's work did compel me to want to be a writer, so you can either thank him or curse him for that.

Aaaanyway. While I have already read his magnum opus Infinite Jest three times, some people on Twitter have given me a reason to go four #4. The impetus is a phenomenon called Infinite Summer, and it's getting to be kind of a big deal. Wanna play? Well, then here's what you do.

Fanboys is the Funniest Cancer Movie You'll Rent this Summer, Maybe

When Fanboys came out last winter, it was a limited release that didn't come anywhere near me, and that was about as surprising as that one time when I got picked on in high school. But I still wanted to see it really bad because it had been in production since about 1935 or something, and was a classic road trip movie and the trailer looked really funny, so HAHAHA! Awesome! When has marketing EVER steered me wrong? Except that one time when I was a kid and wanted to try Grape Nuts because the commercials made them look crunchy and delicious, but guess what else is crunchy when you chew it? Dirt. Same flavor, it turns out. 

But back to Fanboys... (Those three dots mean there is more. You just have to click the link. See? I'm telling you ahead of time so I don't feel guilty about tricking you.)

David Lynch's Interview Project

I love David Lynch's work and the reason might scare you a little bit, but here it goes: his movies (and TV show) are one of the most accurate depictions of life I've ever seen. I don't mean that, on a day-to-day basis, dwarves regularly speak backwards to me or that my husband has the potty mouth of Frank Booth. But just in general, when I stop and look around and actually observe what's going on, things feel really weird most of the time and I think David Lynch gets that.

My Teen Witch Problem

I had hoped to keep this post under my pointy hat until Halloween, when it would be more appropriate, but I feel the need to share this particular facet of my insanity with the internet as soon as possible.

Summer Season Passes: What You Watch When There's Nothing Else to Watch

So, now all the big! season! finales! are over and the cliffhangers are hanging and in the Olden Days we would take the lack of new primetime television as a sign that it was time to take a walk OUTSIDE, or some such crazy shit. Now we just turn on our television and curse out the TiVo for recording nothing but Yo Gabba Gabba and the 40th rerun of last Friday's episode of The Soup and that one weird show about the model trains that your father-in-law figured out how to record that one time.

And then we start searching for our Summer show. You know what I mean. It's rarely a show that's actually ON in the summer, but some other show that you've never seen and is now in reruns so eh, you'll give it a try. Or some really random show on some random cable network that airs like, seven episodes a day so you get a little obsessed with it and watch it every night, episode after episode, drinking in the bounty which shall never end, mwa ha ha...until you blow through every goddamn season and episode in like, three weeks flat and it's not even the end of June.

That last kind of show? I HAS ONE.

YOOOO LET YOUR INTERNET BE GREAT!!!!!!!!!111TWELVE

 In a perfect world, Kanye West would follow MamaPop closely, fuming or laughing with us whenever we give him a hard time. In reality, we can only imagine that the image to the left is what Kanye might see if he was a loyal MamaPop reader.

Things that Make You Go, "Whoa!"

It's a holiday here in the U.S., which means that there are many grills being fired up and many beers being consumed. Besides the obvious memorializing that takes place today for all of soldiers who gave their health and/or lives in war, it's not a day for heavy thinking. Er, well, at least not for me. So, I present to you some really cool pictures.

Charm School 3 and My Super Rad Idea

I will admit upfront to being rather ignorant to the Rock of Love/Real Chance of Love/Charm School phenomena. I have precious few brain cells at this point in life and I need to preserve them for things like eating and tying my shoes. Plus, my interest in reality TV pretty much stopped around the London edition of The Real World, so these weird spin-offs of spin-offs of spin-offs of shows, featuring the dregs of reality stars, just don't grab me. Well, I'll watch a few episodes here and there, but I can't really get into them.

Anyway, I was just watching the official preview of Charm School 3 and had a sweet idea, inspired by host Ricki Lake.

Just Say Avada Kedavra To The New Harry Potter Trailer

As in DIE, new trailer. As posted here, there is a new trailer for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince that makes the story seem like a romantic gigglefest. AU CONTRAIRE!!!! "Half Blood Prince" is a wicked serious book, and for it to be publicized as a fluffy goof piece is not only disingenuous to the material, it's also completely stupid. Watch the trailer and then I'll tell you why.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE after the jump!