Nowadays, no major chain misses the opportunity to brand you when you leave the store with a nice shopping bag that identifies you, at least until you get home, as a happy customer of their empire. But what do these bags say about you?

I'm not saying there's anything fundamentally wrong with a fanny pack. It seems very practical. It's a backpack for your butt (provided you are not using the British meaning of the word fanny). However, practicality aside, I just don't see a fanny pack as a major bonus to anything, especially if you happen to be a fan, of say, Kesha. Excuse me, I mean Ke$ha. Apparently the marketing geniuses behind Ke$ha's new VIP tour disagree, and they think it's exciting enough to help entice you into paying extra to be a Ke$ha "VIP" on her new tour, as evidenced by the actual promotional email ticketmaster sent out.

Interestingly, they note that this is a "new design!" as if people weren't sufficiently excited about the old design, but of course, the concept itself wasn't the problem....

SCENE: Ke$ha Marketing Headquarters. Team Meeting.

Ke$ha Marketing Analyst: "People aren't really excited about this whole fanny pack, thing. We're getting only a 7.8 percent response rate and that's all negative."

Ke$ha Marketing Intern: "I have to agree. People are making fun of it on the blogs and talking about how disappointing it is."

Ke$ha Marketing Director: "I guess we should redesign the fanny packs, then."

Ke$ha Marketing Analyst: "That's not really what I meant--"

Ke$ha Marketing Director: "Okay folks, that's a wrap. Any other business?"

She specifically requested a gossipy roommate on her freshman housing application form

     I have a piece of sobering news for pimple-faced adolescent boys inundated with movies (porn), magazines (porn), and television shows (porn) that titillate with images of collegiate girl-on-girl action. Turns out those college girls may actually be *studying* instead of getting it on with each other. Studying something decidedly unsexy like Entomology or 19th Century Victorian Literature. At least, this is according to the New York Times, which recently published the results of a study suggesting that women with bachelor's degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school.

 We just received a special announcement from Kashi, makers of cereal, snack bars, frozen dinners and other food with a health, planet, and "lifestyle" conscious vibe. They have a new branding campaign for their "Good Friends" high fiber cereal: they are putting you on the box! Just what do they hope to accomplish? Aside from slimming that waste-line, with lots of high-fiber goodness, their new cereal box also promises to trim that white liberal guilt away in no time!

 Scientists from the University of South Florida today released a new study in the Journal of Cardiovascular Fitness with controversial findings. Among other things, it stated, "Despite the recent release of new shoes designed to help you get fit, it is actually possible to receive the benefits of exercise with ordinary shoes. In fact, our preliminary data suggests you might be able to get in shape barefoot."

We spoke with Doctor Mary Rosen who lead the team. "We were actually pretty surprised at these results. Everyone in the office has a pair of Fit-Flops, or [Reebok] easy tones and you can bounce a quarter off my ass. Seriously: a quarter. Just try it..." As Doctor Rosen started bouncing random objects in her office off her buttocks, we were interrupted by her Post Doc.

"Ah, this is Doctor Hao. She's got an even tighter ass than me, and she's 47. Seriously, 47 -- though you wouldn't know it from that ass of hers. Dr. Hao, show our guest your rear," As Dr. Hao excitedly turned around and removed her lab coat, Dr. Rosen continued. "We used to assume that derriere of hers was purely the result of her footwear, but our new data suggests her fancy shoes may have been only part of it."

Next, Dr Rosen showed me Natalia. "Natalia was in our control group. Can you believe it? These legs aren't from fancy shoes at all! We're looking to see if genetics played a part, of course, but that's for another study..."

When asked how this new data might impact daily health, exercise and gym routines, Dr Rosen laughed saying, "The gym? What for? According to this sketchers shape-ups ad, you don't need to go to the gym. And who cares about your health when you've got an ass like this?"

 The good news: They've successfully capped the oil spill. The bad news: they are only capturing, at best, 8.3% of the oil. Alright! Now here's some other fun facts you may not know about BP:

• The stock market may think BP's lost 29% of it's value, but BP has only spent about a billion dollars on gulf relief efforts so far. That's... not big money. In fact, they are prepared to pay 20 times that in spill related losses and still pay out the same dividends they did last year. My take: BP is now undervalued. I rate it a buy!
• Environmental impact study of a spill on this site was not performed because it was deemed unlikely.
• Amid this crisis, Obama is having trouble getting congress to drop special tax breaks for big oil.
• BP has had an unusually bad history of safety, recently. Really, worst in the industry. You really get the feeling that this is a company that treats safety risks as part of the cost of doing business.
• On paper Big Oil pays roughly 40-50% of their income in taxes, but they manage to shelter most of it offshore perfectly legally.
• The tragedy is not that the government was so desperate that the felt they needed to ask for James Cameron's help, but that BP turned him down! Can you believe it? I mean, he's a hollywood guy with his own fleet of deep-sea diving gizmotrons! Poor guy, will no one let him be the hero? He just want to be a hero like in his movies!
• You think this hurts the US? 1/6 of all corporate dividends come from BP in the UK.

 So apparently, lots of guys are signing off text messages to each other with "x". As in "kisses". And when I say lots, I mean almost a quarter. While I think it's nice that guys aren't afraid of a little SMS (short message snogging) with each other, it might make some of their wives jealous if they found out that their guy friends are getting more textual love than they are. Still, it makes me wonder: if fully 75% of 18-24 year old men are "Metrotextuals" and 48% saying that the kiss is commonplace among their friends, what kind of messages are they sending to each other? (Also, did T-Mobile get our permission to do this research?)

I've always known, deep in my heart, that women would be the death of me. Truth be told though, I always thought it would be one, solitary gun wielding femme fatale who simply had an taste for danger. Now I know the truth: all attractive women are dangerous. All of them. My misconception was due to art, while the truth comes by science. Thank God for science, which, truly, is unbiased, honest always has our best interests at heart. Take it from these wise researchers: Don't spend any time with attractive women: especially not alone. They are like black widows sucking at your souls!

...

mike: or you can explain your relation to her
ira: there is a limit on the size.
ira: i did 288
mike: lbs?
ira: we were hanging out before i went to chicago the first time
mike: 288 what?
ira: met at that party when i put all my eggs in one basket but only because it was my only egg.
ira: pixels.
mike: ahh...
mike: right.

...

-----

Submitted by the "ira" in this convo.

Fig A. If you thought Michelle "Bombshell" McGee looked "trashy", Let me introduce you to Mr James' Ex-Wife, Janine Lindemulder. (Occupation? You guessed it: Porn Star)

 Oh, we all feel for you, Sandra. Your husband, Jesse James, married twice before (once to a tattoo-covered porn star, Fig A), cheated on you with a girl who, like him and unlike you, was covered in tattoos. Yup. No one could have seen that coming. I mean, here's a guy who's built a reputation on being Mr I-will-build-you-a-custom car/motorcycle/whatever (with 10 times the legal exhaust (!), no less), covered in tattoos, and here you are, little miss Bullock. Sure, we saw you in Miss Congeniality. You're tough. You like to act mean. But look, dating football players in high school won't cut it. Your momma was an opera singer and your daddy was a voice coach. A voice coach. You cannot compete in this territory.

 Michelle "Bombshell" McGee was the "trashy" girl's name. She's the one who did this to you. Let's see what the media has to say:

 I finally saw Avatar. I am pleased to say I learned a lot of lessons that I'm glad are being passed on to children all over the world:

       The comparisons were inevitable. One is a sexually provocative, envelope-pushing, hit-churning, fashion-risk-taking, controversy-thriving, gay pop icon. And the other is....well, the same thing. While Gaga is clearly much newer to the fame game and has yet to demonstrate the enormous staying power of Queen Madge, they have both developed their own unique brands of cultural hysteria and fiercely loyal fanbases. Allow Chicktellectual to break it down for you.

When it comes to looking good in grad school, look no further than academichic, an awesome blog written by "Three feminist PhD candidates at a Midwest university, on a crusade against the ill-fitting polyester suit of academic yore." Yore? How about today? Man have you seen the way a typical PhD dresses? Like crap, that's how. But I digress, these PhDc's not only have a fab website (arranged with categories like "Funding" for ads, "Bibliography" instead of blog roll, etc), but they show off some truly adorable outfits on (mostly) grad-school budgets. And would we put them here if they didn't look smart and cute? Of course, with complete academic rigor, they show you how they put the outfit together and include well-photographed close-ups when necessary. This is no amateur fashion blog.

Is there feminist talk? Hells yea. As advertised. (although it is mostly in the comments).

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Amy Sohn obviously understands Park Slope.

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