You know you're in really deep sh*t when there's controversy over your controversy.

Lucky for the us, the controversy over James Frey's "memoirs" has finally gone transcendental. The new motto? Who cares about the truth and whether it's important or not, it's high time we concentrate on who exactly started Frey-gate, a topic that has infected and tainted the media world.

The general assumption (read: what Oprah said) is that Bill Bastone's (the investigative nerd on your right) "The Smoking Gun" first spread the news. But, now, American Muscovite Mark Ames (the sick freak on your left), the editor of Moscow's English language "The eXile," is claiming that his paper first gave the gonnorhea-like Frey bug to the public. Via the "New York Post's" Page 6, Ames sites an editorial that questioned the truth of Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" back in September 2005 -- roughly a month before "The Smoking Gun" went public.

Wow, It's like a whole new Cold War in which the weapons are words (simile! *wink*). Now it's only a matter of time before "The Smoking Gun" and the "eXile" go on Oprah, where she'll become so irate at the lies that she'll punch one of them in the face. You go girl!

http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm
http://www.exile.ru/2006-January-27/freys_fall.html

I'm so elegant.

A friend of mine sent me a bunch of photos from this summer. As I was looking through them, I realized that nearly two-thirds of them involved alcohol in some shape or form -- beer, martinis, wines, you get the idea. I further investigated my own photos and, well, I'll be damned if I'm not drinking, planning to drink, or had recently been drinking in nearly all of them.

Also, with a sober analysis, I discovered my "Blue Steel" (my most prevalent and famous look, I believe) -- the feigned sip out of the beer bottle.



I think my "Le Tigre" is the martini glass.


And my "Ferrari" is the canned malt beverage.


Predictably, I'm still working out the kinks on my "Magnum," but I think it might involve an ice luge. That's classy, I know.

South American store fronts rule.

Uruguay offered many a magical wonder to the tourist, like beautiful beaches, lovely people and perfectly chilled 40 oz's. But, clearly, owners of this centrally located boutique in touristy beach town Punta del Este did not do a whole lot of extensive planning when they came up with this tasteful name for their store:



Likewise, Argentina also offered some interesting store fronts. This one caught my eye in particular because really what better way to sell children's clothing than slapping a doo-rag on a creepy doll's head and making it ride a camel?

You can't have a troika without a third horse...bitch.

To complete the triumvirate that is my blogging spots on the internet, I've decided to create a number 3. You know, that so-called magical number. My other two are at http://blog.myspace.com/12301675 and http://marissapayne.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/. Friendster is so 2003 and MySpace blogging doesn't allow for my full caressing of your senses, which involves photos. My new plan is to downsize, so this is the fresh new option for 2006. Lucky you, neigh (get it "neigh"? oh that is RIPE!), lucky world!