Ahhh, Monday-morning quarterbacking. Rumors abound on the Internet today that perhaps MTV intentionally staged the Kanye rant for the publicity. (Note: I don’t think that’s true at all. In case you didn’t hear, I think Kanye’s an obnoxious alcoholic piece of shit who needs to think good and hard before he next decides to get wasted at a live televised event.)

But then it gets even weirder. RealNetworks — the company I work for, and which handles most of the advertising on this site — has a music product called Rhapsody (which FINALLY runs on the iPhone now, woot woot!). Rhapsody had purchased ad space at the VMAs long ago, to run immediately after Taylor Swift’s performance of “You Belong to Me.” The ad has a voice-over that says “This moment belongs to Taylor Swift.” In light of the voice-over and the Kanye West incident prior, there have been rumors circulating that Rhapsody was somehow involved in MTV’s “staging” of the Kanye West rant.

Apparently news of my love for Taylor Swift is so widespread at that company that a rep for the PR and marketing team actually stopped me in the hall today to let me know that the company had NOTHING to do with any rumored “staging” of the Kanye rant. I thought that was pretty funny. They were worried I’d hear the rumors and be pissed. The company also took to the RealNetworks blog today to deny any involvement: Let’s go ahead and put this rumor to rest. IF the “Kanye Incident” is part of a larger PR stunt by our friends at MTV, it’s news to us.

And I believe them, because if RealNetworks did have anything to do with my beloved Taylor Swift’s shining moment being ruined, I’m sure my badge wouldn’t have worked this morning. There’s NO WAY they would have let me in the building knowing how pissed I would have been.

The commercial in question is above.

“My job was to make people, or allow people, to be introduced to Obama, who might not have been, at the time.  I wanted him elected, and I think I did that.”

Oprah Winfrey talking to the Associated Press about how amazing she is.  You realize that we have to give credit for every success of this country to Saint Oprah for the next four years, right?

If you are ever sitting around wondering, “Does Wendie love me?” the answer is a resounding “Yes!”  And, just how much do I love you?  Uh … I watched Oprah today.  For you.  In other words, a lot.

I guess today was the season premiere of Oprah.  What made me throw away the last shred of my sanity was that today was the first of a two-part interview with the incomparable Whitney Houston.  She talked about Bobby Brown — she said he wasn’t abusive other than the time he slapped her and spit on her; it sounds like she was pretty abusive too — and their drug use.  For about seven years — it started around the time of The Bodyguard — they spent their time smoking pot laced with cocaine.  I didn’t even know this was possible, but she gave pretty good instructions on how to do it.  She went to rehab (twice).

The one thing that struck me about the entire interview is how many times she’d refer to Bobby — like, “Oh, he won’t like me saying this,” or “This will make him mad.”  W needs to stop factoring Bobby’s feelings into her choices.

Part two is tomorrow and I’m going to suffer through that too, mostly because I want to know where their daughter was while they were doing all these drugs.

When Houston sang on Good Morning America last week, she blamed her hoarse voice on Oprah.  To be honest though, Whitney’s voice was raspy throughout the entire interview.  I hope too many years of coke joints didn’t ruin her voice for good.

Hey y’all. I know everyone’s waiting for me to weigh in on this Kanye nonsense from last night. I’ll tell ya what: I heard the news (I wasn’t watching the show live), and I was fucking pissed. Taylor Swift is the little sister I adopted without her permission, and NOBODY gets to fuck with her like that. I think she handled herself perfectly, both during and after the incident, and I think Kanye West is a fucking alcoholic who should know by now that drinking prior to live, televised awards shows never results in him conducting himself appropriately. I feel sad for him; I’m sure his embarrassment today is surpassed only by his hangover. But just as I was getting all worked up about that, scouring the web for more information, I saw the news that they found the body of that missing Yale grad student, and suddenly a stupid Kanye West rant didn’t seem so important. My heart just breaks for the family and friends of that girl. It’s so unspeakably tragic.

But I suppose there was just anger in the air this weekend, as Serena Williams completely lost her shit on the tennis court at the US Open on Saturday night. The lineswoman calls a foot fault on Serena during her second serve, and Serena then appears to threaten to do something involving the tennis ball and the lineswoman’s orifices. For whatever reason, I’m loving this clip. I mean, THIS is the kind of forum where you fight back against decisions — far more appropriate than frightening poor Taylor Swift at the VMAs. And then the lineswoman goes and tattles on Serena and she basically forfeits the match. Anyway. It’s a fun clip.

I don’t want to see a bunch of, “You should have warned me!” comments.  This. Is. A. Spoiler.  Here’s a clip of the first five minutes of the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy.  It will air in its entirety on September 24th.

Jump if you want to hear the bad news.  I know it made me want to jump.  Off a building that is.

(more…)

As you probably know, I haven’t read or watched any of the Twilight series.  I do know that Twilight fans have November 20th — the premiere date for The New Moon — marked on their calendars.

This new extended trailer actually makes the movie look a bit interesting.  Should I be downloading the books to my Kindle and catching up?  It appears to be a modern-day Romeo and Juliet except with fangs.  How close am I?