Alex Carlos Alexes/Hillary Carlos Hillaries

Post-it left on Hillary's computer this morning:

This is just to say
that I have eaten some craisins
on the windowsill

Forgive me, but it is hot
and they are tangy
and so tart


Post-it left on Alex's computer this afternoon:

So much depends
upon

a glorious unicorn
striding

across the enchanted
wood

A sad admission

Apparently we are not the only ones to have considered the winsome possibility of dinosaur/giraffe friendship and... just maybe... love. Has this so-called "duD Lawson" been reading our minds?

We regret that this t-shirt came out before Untitled Holland/Moon Dinosaur Project has entered development; though not before its premise was conceived. However, if done correctly, the shirt's existence could make the start of a great guerrilla marketing campaign! Of course, Holland/Moon Dinosaur Project is on the back burner for awhile until Rusty Stapler gets through the production cycle, which is a shame.

Meanwhile, I am going to buy one of the shirts, because they are adorable.

Meet Virginie

This Observer article is worth a look if only because it contains the best headline I have ever seen: Teenagers feel strain of being French.

I almost didn't want to read the story because the headline was so perfect, but their opener didn't disappoint:

Virginie, 16, is tall, blonde, attractive and does well at school. But she no longer cares. 'You don't understand. There is nothing wrong with me. I just see things clearly and the world is dark. It is black,' she said last week.

In other news, the Christian Science Monitor caught my eye from a street dispenser in Philly this week, due to the following prominently displayed headline: Chinese exporters seek to shed taint.

I'm not going to touch that one.

Harry Potter and the Douchey Blowhard

In preparation for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, nytimes.com has set up a special Harry Potter section that holds every article ever written for that newspaper about the Boy Who Lived, the author who created him, and the franchise that followed.

Among these is a review of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, that appears to have been written by a Bizarro version of Andy Bernard who cheered for the Crimson rather than the Big Red:

“As Harry worries that first day about whether he can compete with the privileged children of Hogwarts alums, I found myself thinking back 30 years to my first days at Harvard, wondering how, coming from a blue-collar shipyard town and a public high school, I could ever compete with preppies from Exeter and Andover.”

Really subtle, Mike.

Rusty Stapler, P.I.

This blog came about because of a conversation we had one wintry, wintry winter-break evening during our freshman year, when we were much too far away from each other and very bored, very late at night.

It was as follows, slightly abridged:


ALEX: what are you thinking about?
HILLARY: right now?
ALEX: no, in '97
HILLARY: hm
HILLARY: well, i was 9
HILLARY: so i was probably thinking about how awesome cookies are
ALEX: god, i'm probably STILL thinking that
HILLARY: that or "when does "ahhh! real monsters!" come on?"
ALEX: what about right now?
HILLARY: i'm thinking i should get off the couch tomorrow
HILLARY: and that i need to get out of my creative slump
ALEX: me too, man
ALEX: let's write a screenplay

2:50 AM

ALEX: and we will be like matt damon and ben affleck except neither of us will be ben affleck
ALEX: because
ALEX: you know why
HILLARY: okay
HILLARY: start shooting out ideas
HILLARY: i see a dinosaur
HILLARY: go with it
ALEX: on the moon
ALEX: there's a girl
ALEX: girl loves the dinosaur
ALEX: dinosaur has a freakishly long neck, cannot kiss the girl
HILLARY: why moon?
ALEX: zero gravity; hilarious antics with a banana
HILLARY: i like it, i like it
ALEX: back to dinosaur. dinosaur has a pet giraffe, which is funny because giraffes have long necks but this dinosaur has like a REALLY FUCKING LONG NECK
ALEX: provides contrast
ALEX: as well as a sounding board for dinosaur's romantic woes
ALEX: also, the dinosaur should be sick
ALEX: its heart should be too big
ALEX: sally field should play its grandmother
HILLARY: wait...
HILLARY: i feel like i've seen this one before
ALEX: damn
ALEX: then you take it up
ALEX: pick it up at the last original point
HILLARY: so giraffe... is he like pluto to mickey in that he doesn't talk, or like donkey to shrek in that he's sassy and has romantic woes of his own?
ALEX: oooooh
ALEX: tough one!!!!
ALEX: what do you see?
HILLARY: hm

2:55 AM

HILLARY: i see more option number one
HILLARY: he's mute and cute
ALEX: thank god
ALEX: i was just going to bring up cute
HILLARY: animals these days are too sassy
ALEX: i completely agree!
ALEX: i can't see past all the sass!
ALEX: to the CHARACTER inside, you know?
HILLARY: totally!
HILLARY: and character is what's important
ALEX: also, fake legs
ALEX: the dinosaur and the giraffe should each have one, i think
HILLARY: is that dinosaur's dark secret?
HILLARY: reason he won't open his heart to girl?
HILLARY: afraid she won't see past his fake leg to the heart within the saur?
ALEX: we could MAKE it so she has a fake leg
ALEX: i know a guy, if you know what i mean
HILLARY: joey the snake?
HILLARY: i think i got that from boy meets world
HILLARY: no
HILLARY: that's joey the rat
ALEX: bertrand the newt
HILLARY: winthrop the potato
ALEX: can the giraffe's name be winthrop the potato?
HILLARY: um
ALEX: let's talk more about the girl
HILLARY: i see her with red hair
ALEX: how old is she?
ALEX: can she wear a ribbon?

3:00 AM

HILLARY: i mean, is she little?
HILLARY: if this is a romance, she has to be legal
ALEX: i know!
ALEX: that's a problem!
ALEX: but i don't want her to be sexy, i want her to be sweet
ALEX: maybe the giraffe is the girl.
HILLARY: she can be sweet!
HILLARY: wait, i thought giraffe was pet?
ALEX: forget i said that thing
ALEX: okay so she's sweet
ALEX: naive
ALEX: she doesn't live in america, clearly
ALEX: holland?
HILLARY: okay
HILLARY: but do they make redheads there?
ALEX: that is why she is an outcast!
ALEX: a sweet, simple outcast
HILLARY: okay!
HILLARY: her name is unhollandic, then
HILLARY: so that she can stand out more
ALEX: ohhh but i wanted her to be gertie
HILLARY: okay, that works
ALEX: OOOOOH
ALEX: pivotal moment
ALEX: dinosaur bellowing
ALEX: brando style
ALEX: "GERRRRRRRRRTIEEEE"
ALEX: the giraffe has LONG eyelashes
ALEX: maybe they're not on the moon so much as in a magical fairy land
HILLARY: but one where holland exists
ALEX: what's a stapler? i don't even know, i'm a baby
HILLARY: what if there was a baby stapler!
ALEX: wait a sec
ALEX: are we talking a tiny newborn stapler
HILLARY: i see a new movie
ALEX: or a stapler which staples babies together
HILLARY: "look who's talking" but with staplers

3:05 AM

HILLARY: hahahhaa.... wait, i like your second option
ALEX: can we insert "baby stapler" into existing movie titles?
ALEX: Indiana Jones and the Baby Stapler of Doom
HILLARY: "baby stapler actually"
ALEX: HAHAHAHAHAHA
HILLARY: "my big fat greek baby stapler"
HILLARY: verne troyer could star
ALEX: didn't he die?
HILLARY: oh, never mind, then
HILLARY: what other little people work in showbiz?
ALEX: oh my god i cannot have this conversation
ALEX: it's depressing
ALEX: let's go back to baby staplers
HILLARY: okay
HILLARY: which are always happy
ALEX: if you wanted to have it be similar to look who's talking
ALEX: you could have
ALEX: look who's staplin' babies!
ALEX: the answer: VAL KILMER is staplin' babies
ALEX: why?
ALEX: he's a renegade, damnit!
ALEX: julianne moore, a clever cia op even though she's a lady, is put on his case to figure out why he's always staplin' babies
ALEX: and they fall in love!
ALEX: and they have twins!
ALEX: VAL'S ULTIMATE TEST
HILLARY: i'm in love with you
ALEX: how does it end, hilly? how does it end?!

3:10 AM

HILLARY: dustin hoffman, an FBI agent with a mysterious past, approaches him with a challenge
HILLARY: he can either leave his family and continue on in baby staplin bliss, or he can stay with them and lay down his stapler forever more
HILLARY: and somehow you find out that dustin is really his father
ALEX: ooh! and and and
HILLARY: the way he left little val and his mother (sally field again) was what led val to become a stapler in the first place
ALEX: we see val's bronzed baby shoes from when val was a baby
ALEX: along with DUSTIN'S BRONZED BABY STAPLER
HILLARY: and they're fuckin stapled!!!
ALEX: it's genetic.
HILLARY: val finds out dustin's true identity and goes crazy
HILLARY: because of his lost childhood
ALEX: julianne moore meets an affable keanu reeves and is unable to marry him without asking the question, "do you... do you staple babies?"
ALEX: keanu laughs. "what a silly question!" he says
ALEX: THEN GLANCES FURTIVELY AT THE CAMERA
ALEX: fade to black?
HILLARY: i think maybe a title card comes up saying "the end"
HILLARY: then a ...
HILLARY: then "or is it?"
ALEX: I was just going to say!!
HILLARY: i think val kills himself by self-inflicted staple wounds after the dustin confrontation
HILLARY: just to go back and clarify
ALEX: ooh! a rusty stapler!
HILLARY: doesn't rusty stapler sound like a hard-boiled detective from the 40s?

3:15 AM

ALEX: i see a new movie
HILLARY: clive owen IS
HILLARY: "rusty stapler, PI".
ALEX: HAHAHAHA
ALEX: oh my god
ALEX: i have to actually wake up before noon tomorrow
ALEX: just for a change of pace
HILLARY: all right, if you insist
HILLARY: i should too
ALEX: goodnight!
ALEX: ...or is it?
HILLARY: [pause]
HILLARY: BLOODCURDLING SCREAM!!



So there you have it.