More than a few people I talked to were turned off by the sexist tinge of this year's Super Bowl ads, which plays to an audience of 40% dames.  But none could encapsulate it well as firebrand Amanda Marcotte, who identified with her trademark wit :

The big theme this year was the tired sexist trope that implies not only that women rule over men with an iron pussy, [but] that we use our endless power to be screeching, emasculating harpies who hate male pleasure for the sheer fun of it.

Weirdly enough, the Focus on the Family Tim Tebow ad was the least offensive one according to our panel of distinguished experts.

Yesterday, in advance of a Super Bowl party, I found a sack full of Furbys.  Furbys, if you don't remember, were the hot toy around Christmas for all the cool kids growing up before the turn of the millennium.  You know, the kids who are entering college now.

I'm still a bit amazed/horrified by this mysterious sack of Furbys.  In part because they were sitting next to a heating pipe and some of them had melted slightly.  But mostly because I can't figure out the circumstances surrounding this mysterious event.  Nothing much has happened in my apartment over the past couple of weeks.  I think I would remember somebody saying, "Gerrit, if you see a sack of something resembling Tribbles, don't pitch 'em.  I'm making a stew."  I recall no such conversation. 

My current theory is that somebody looted a truck and stashed the contraband goods at my place while they waited for the heat to die down.

After the Super Bowl party, the Furbys all disappeared.  Perhaps the thief made off with the stolen goods and is spending the day pawning them.  Perhaps it's no coincidence that the disappearance of the Furbys coincides with the appearance of several pounds of uncooked sausages in my fridge.  Furby chop-shop?

Whoever has taken the sackful of Furbys, at least, seems to have left their calling card.  A calling card sculpted from the remains of an orange.

I have wonderful friends.  Depraved, bizarre, wonderful friends.

This popped up on the NYT site the other day.

Shocked?  Right. 

Looking at the breakdown, I'm more interested in the fact that it looks like you have to make at least $60,000 to be as well rested as the rest of the country.  Also, the gap between tired men and women is pretty large (26% vs. 33%), and means that women are all more tired than average, whether or not there were kids in the house.

The blog post also neglects to mention the survey's other findings that those who are more well rested were also more likely to answer that they felt they were "thriving" (rather than "struggling" or "suffering").

I'd write more, but now I'm sleepy.

Warning: this is probably going to be the longest post in 2log history

Abandon all plans for the weekend, ye who enter

It's no secret that the publishing industry is failing, but why? Is it simply the competition with movies? Television? Blogs? 2log?!?! Perhaps, but I believe a major factor is the disproportionate amount of time and money spent on worthless books based on Internet phenomena, showing pictures of cats, written by braindead semi-celebrities, et cetera.

Let us examine a few of these topics and titles, shall we?

Books about Cats

• Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World - I think the title says it all. Funny, I thought I was part of the world, but I don't recall being touched by any cat. Perhaps I'm repressing the memory.
• Homer’s Odyssey - No, not the greek epic poet. Not the fat yellow dude either. The memoir of a woman who adopts a blind kitten. That's right, a cute little furry defenseless blind kitten! I think it also talks with a lisp.
• You CAN Train Your Cat: Secrets of a Master Cat Trainer - To all you naysayers who claim it can't be done - this is the book for you!
• A Cat Named Squeeky - The "true story of a stray cat," some claim this is the inspiration for Oliver Twist.
• I Can Has Cheezburger - A website devoted to "lolcats". For the uninitiated, a lolcat, according to wikipedia, is "an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as 'lolspeak' or 'kitty pidgin' and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang." Two books have been published so far - I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun [sic] and How to Take Over Teh Wurld: Lolcat's Guide to World Dominashun [also sic].
• Garfield Minus Garfield - Apparently, cats are a goldmine even when they're not around. this is based on a website "dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle." To be fair, it's funnier than Garfield, but it loses all of its subversive appeal once it appears in a Jim Davis approved book. Imitators include Garfield Minus Arbuckle and Peanuts Minus Snoopy.
• Stuff on my Cat - People put stuff on their cats, then take pictures. About as funny as it sounds.

 Books about Dogs

• Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog - Later turned into the World's Worst Movie.
• A Big Little Life, by Dean Koontz - Famous author writes about the golden retriever who changed his life. Not to be confused with Stephen King's Cujo.
• Saving Cinnamon: The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy and the Desperate Mission to Bring Her Home - the story of a US soldier in Afghanistan and a stray puppy. Feel those tears welling up?
• Healing Companions: Ordinary Dogs and Their Extraordinary Power to Transform Lives - About therapy dogs. Warning: Freudian dogs always interpret dreams of burying bones in the back yard as sexual fantasies.
• Red Dog Rising - The life of a search-and-rescue bloodhound. Yes, its life is more interesting than yours.

Books about Animals that are not Cats or Dogs

Funny how a single cat or dog can hold up a whole book, but for other animals you need at least a herd.

• The Elephant Whisperer, My Life with the Herd in the African Wild- The story of how two people nurtured a herd of formerly homeless elephants (Spoiler alert! Breastfeeding was a bitch!).
• Beyond the Homestretch: What I've Learned from Saving Racehorses - The story of how the author found new homes for more than 700 retarded retired racehorses. John Hodgman has expressed interest in adapting the book into a list of 700 racehorse names.

TwitterBookSpacesterBlog Books

"What's everyone doing? Twittering? Let's publish a book of tweets! Everyone's on Facebook? let's publish a book of fake facebook profiles! Everyone's on Tumblr? Find out what it is and make a book out of it!"

• Twitter Wit - Nick Douglas, a Gawker alum, got a five-figure sum for a book of his favorite Twitter posts. can I just repeat that one more time, I'm not sure it sank in yet. Nick Douglas, a Gawker alum, got a five-figure sum for a book of his favorite Twitter posts! Not ones he wrote, ones he liked! 
• Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook - By Sarah Schmelling. Status updates for Hamlet, "Ernest Hemingway took the Are You a Real Man? Quiz", "25 random things about Herman Melville" and other stuff you skim through when it's posted by your facebook friends.
• Stuff White People Like - a humorous blog about things caucasians adore (see what I did there?).
• Shit my Dad Says - A guy who tweets his father's random obscene or insane musings (no, this was not written by Beau Biden).

Books by People Who Might Not Even Know How to Write

The following book deal getters (I wouldn't call them authors if you held a gun to my head) came up with an idea for a blog or website, then let others do most of the work by posting photos, funny correspondences, et cetera, and eventually cashed in on other people's work.

• This is Why You're Fat - A website where people post images of ridiculously convoluted and nauseating concoctions, such as deep-fried pepperoni pizza and the "Twinkie Wiener Sandwich," which consists of a Hot dog with twinkies for buns, covered in Cheese Wiz.
• Postcards From Yo Momma - A website where people post e-mails and chat transcripts from their moms, showing the world how clueless/naive/foolish they are (and to think she breastfed you until you were three!).
• Awkward Family Photos- A website where people post emotionally scarring and potentially suicide-enducing family photos in exchange for fame and fortune (just kidding, they get nothing).
• Look At This Fucking Hipster - A blog featuring photos of hipsters, which are promptly made fun of (e.g. "look at this fucking hipster!").

 Books by Faux-lebrities

Faux-lebrities are people who are not really famous, but captured the media's attention for a while and got a book deal out of it. In these cases the book often comes out long after everyone's forgotten who these people are, or ceased to care about their story.

• "Joe The Plumber" - Samuel Wurzelbacher, a punchline from 2008's presidential campaign, signed a deal to write a book, titled Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream, which will address his "ideas about American values."
• "Octomom" - Nadya "Octomom" Suleman, the unwed, unemployed, college dropout mother of 14, was reportedly "deluged with offers for book deals." It's unclear whether anything is in the works (except, perhaps, more babies).
• Sullenberger 2 book deal - Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who saved 155 people by landing USAirways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January 2009, scored a $3.2 million two-book deal. The first is a memoir that climaxes with his miraculous airplane landing and the second is a book of "inspirational" poems.
• The Governor: The Truth Behind the Political Scandal That Continues to Rock the Nation - Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed a six figure book deal following his failed attempt to sell Obama's vacated senate seat to the highest bidder. Looks like he got his money after all, plus now he doesn't have to worry about that pesky job he had.
• That book by that broad who shagged Madoff

 Books by People Who Know People

•  I Was Told There'd Be Cake - a book of essays by Sloane Crosley, "the most popular book publicist in New York" according to Gawker, but wait, there's more...
• When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother - a book of poems by Melissa Broder, Sloane Crosley's publicist. We are left to wonder who Broder's publicist is, and what book she's working on...

There are so many more titles I could list here, I could probably fill a whole book! (hint, hint)

Yup, every time I login, this is how it seems

Here's some things that are fun, but haven't merited a full post with my unusually brilliant commentary: 

• OK Cupid crunched some numbers on profile pictures, and figured out what attracts a mate for men and women.  For instance, women showing cleavage benefits them more as they age.  Unfortunately for me, they released no data on male cleavage.  Howzaguysupposedtohookupnow?!?!?!?!!?
• With the Supreme Court's continually defending corporate personhood, a corporation has gone ahead and filed to run for Congress. 
• I found a play I like!

I hear that the hog's still not allowed to come out and play (CUZ IT WAS GROUNDED!), but I hope the rest of you piggies have a day.

Now that the Oscars nominations have been announced, it's helpful to recall the plot of our last decade's Oscar winners if you watch them... in reverse.

• Slumdog Millionaire: A young man (Patel) loses money on a game show by providing three wrong answers to every question.
• No Country For Old Men: Following horrible carnage, the Angel of Life (Bardem) resurrects people with his magical cattle gun.
• The Departed: A mobster (DiCaprio) repents his life of crime by joining the police.  Martin Sheen can fly.  Scorsese loses his only Oscar. 
• Crash: A town comes together to fix a car.
• Million Dollar Baby: A boxer (Swank) returns from paralysis, but loses the respect of her boxing teacher (Eastwood).
• Lord of the Rings: A long, boring journey in which hobbits take a ring from point A to point B
• Chicago: Murderers (Zeta-Jones and Zellweger) are released from jail after prison guards tire of their ceaseless singing and dancing
• A Beautiful Mind: A mathematician (Crowe) gives up his imaginary friends before going to college
• Gladiator: A healer (Crowe) resurrects fallen warriors in front of large crowds, but his shtick loses popularity and gets him exiled

Drink recipes for this year's nominees coming soon!

Following is an excerpt from the first draft of Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address, presented exclusively here on 2log (let's hope the Huffington Post doesn't steal this one as well). See if you can identify the subtle differences between this version and the one eventually delivered by the president.

…Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will. Hell, I’ve got more Vetos than a Staten Island phonebook! (pause for laughter, applause)

You're welcome