odds and ends

I've recently gotten a little sucked into the lonelygirl15 mystery. Bree, aka lonelygirl15, is a teenage girl with a video blog on youtube. She's pretty, smart, and funny, but that's not enough to fuel a web phenomenon. First and foremost, the videos are a little too well lit and edited (they're all shot by a webcam in her bedroom). Bree claims that her friend Daniel (her only friend it seems) is the computer genius that edits them, but often the videos contain things that it seems Daniel wouldn't really want to be posted. There's a little drama between Bree and Daniel, half of which is normal teenage stuff and half of which is kind of shrouded in mystery. Bree is homeschooled, with very strict parents, and follows some undisclosed religion (she's stated that she's not a Christian though). Anyway, all of this adds to up people all over the Internet wondering if this is "real" or a hoax of some sort. There has been lots of speculation and lots of investigating but nothing's really been proven yet. I don't know if I really care, it's entertaining so I'm going to go along for the ride.

Have you seen this Nike commercial with Maria Sharapova? I think it's hilarious. She's getting ready for a match and everyone around her is singing "I Feel Pretty" (from West Side Story) and then she gets on the court, hits her first shot with a trademark scream/yell/grunt, which shuts everyone up. I've always found it funny that yeah, she's pretty and all that, but I find her to be kind of unwatchable when she plays because of the noise. Haha. Actually I've enjoyed quite a lot of the US Open commercials this year. I also really like the Roddick vs. Pong one for American Express too.

Was at the mall this weekend and noticed that Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey are featured in New York & Company's new ads. There were a couple of huge posters of them in the store windows. And the Gap also has a bunch of actors featured in their new ads also. It seems like actors/celebrities are doing more and more print modeling...

And my requisite Emmy award reactions, a week late. Really thrilled for 24, Kiefer, the Office, and Jeremy Piven. That's really about all.