two-twenty

you'll get nothing and like it! | alex

Or, more to the point, you'll get very little and probably feel somewhat lukewarm about it. Joanna and Ash are away in Turkey for the next two weeks, documenting some Australian youth trend involving Bacchanalia and the movie Galipoli. Yours truly is very busy with a lot of work, a change in my friendster status, and the beginning of sailing season. In other words, two-twenty is going to have to take a bit of a back seat for a couple weeks. I'll still shoot for daily or near-daily posts, but remember: he who pins his hopes on degenerate drunks is often disappointed. For the time being, a few quick hits:

• The tiny, booze-soaked hamlet of Blogovia was well represented in the paper of record this weekend: witness this ode to Wonkette, as well as a scorchingly honest appraisal of celebutante v.1.0 Plum Sykes’ recent venture into the shallow end of the literary pool, written by the incorrigible Choire Sicha.

• It is with great pleasure that I walk about the city this week and hear New Yorkers recite with almost religious fervor, “It’s only April. It’s only April.” I think, in light of last season’s rather spectacular ending, that I will refuse to take the high road and respond with a simple, “Suck that A Rod, beeyotch!” (I mean that in the nicest possible way, obvs.) For more gloating, turn to The Web Presence, who really ought to be posting very soon about last weekend's three-for-four performance by the Sox.

• The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest celebrates and rewards those dark impulses that drive Darwinian rejects to put pen to paper. The Lyttle Lytton Awards celebrates, and rewards adherents to, the old adage, “If it’s so bad that it’s good, then by all means let it be brief.” The winner of this year’s “most atrocious first line to a novel… 25 words or less”:

This is the story of your mom's life.
- R. Lambert

My favorite of the runners-up, who were each given some sort of specially named achievement award apparently related to past winners, in-jokes, or complete strangers (in this case, the recipient of the “Berman Prize”):

I know who the murderer is, Kevin blogged.
- S. Kurruk

Of course, this being an election year, a special category had to be added, wherein contestants essayed to compose the most hilariously bad opening line to a political speech imaginable (needless to say, they had some stiff competition form the pros this year). The winner:

While my opponents fellate the Satan of special interests, I go down on Reform's compassionate angel.
- Anonymous

See all the winners here.

• Joanna sends the following in from abroad: as if "dogging" weren't enough, brits now claim to be "toothing", a form of near-anonymous, no strings attached sex enabld by Bluetooth technology. This isn't your daddy's commute, this is the "who's your daddy!?" commute...

So, chew on that for a while and leave us in peace. None of you probably even check in here in person anymore, now that you're all part of the Kinja clone army...