Mental Floss Blog's Awesome Survey of Baby Naming Laws

More fuel for the fire that is my obsession with idiosyncratic baby naming practices:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/59277

Todos con La Roja!

A Facebook friend and world-renowned human-rights activist posted this on his page, I hope it's OK to re-post.

Go Spain!!!!

La Furia Roja (?!)

I am OBSESSED with World Cup 2010, which isn't surprising when you have a soccer playing Spanish father and grow watching futbol and toros. ;-) Although I am still learning the rules, (according to my shrink I also haven't learned The Rules) I have gone to unprecedented lengths to watch even (gasp) going to a bar to watch a sporting event. A plus is the hot players. Another plus is the unparalleled bonding opportunities with my father that this provides. Still to be determined is if it will help me to meet a single (preferably European) man (although the one I fell madly in love with quixotically likes....baseball?!?).

I never understood why people would congregate at a bar to watch a sporting event, even though I have hosted a Miss Universe watching soiree, complete with guests donning national dress (loosely interpreted). Also, I attend the best sporting event of the art world - the Venice Biennial or the art Olympics- every chance I get. Now I am participating in yet another artworld bonding/collective spectator sport: watching the heinously embarrassingly bad "reality TV" show "Work of Art" on Bravo. First, I began live tweeting, tossing back insidery snarky ironic or funny 140 character or less asides with a crew of artworld nerds such as myself. The hashtag is, as often the case, better than the thing you are tweeting about (not true of Spain trouncing Portugal today in the World Cup!!!!!!). Soon I will take it to the next level and meet a bunch of other artnerds at a bar, watch the show on a big split screen that has a crawl featuring our tweets as well as others, since we will be on our crackberries, iphones, or (Mac) laptops participating. I kid you not. It's an artworld video game, the best one since Corey Arcangel's I Shot Andy Warhol piece.

For nice re-caps of the live tweeting nerdolicious action, go here:

http://artlog.com/posts/1531-talk, here http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/06/work-of-art-on-twitter.html and here http://hyperallergic.com/7080/work-of-art-recap-tweet-digest/

If you want to laugh out loud, go to Twitter and type in #workofart (some of us spell it workoFART) or just go here http://twitter.com/#search?q=workofart.

One of the very best things about the World Cup is the announcers on Univision. The football match becomes as melodramatic as a telenovela or zarzuela. (because I know absolutely nothing about opera, but grew up with the latter, light opera?) It's never just a gol it's a GOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!! or better yet, a GOOOOOOLAAAAAAASO!!! (spelled golazo of course but pronounced with the soft s). The huge letters expand, contract, and seem to jump out of the screen. Very thrilling! And they refer to many of the goals as SABROSO as if they had just been served a delicious meal. OMAIGA! AILOBIT!

Join the fun here:

And what's not to love when the announcer says things like these (as taken from my twitter/facebook status feed):

[When a goal set up goes terribly wrong, spelled as he pronounced the word] MEESCOMUNIQUEICHON if only #univision announcer was narrating my love life....

Golaaaazoooo. Ese poema de 3 letras. GOL #univision #worldcup #awesome

When a player falls down to convince referee that there was a foul: El arbitro Le dice como a Lazaro. Levantate y anda! #worldcup #univision

Oh My G.O.D.

A friend who lives in HK turned me on to this FABULOUS store there called G.O.D. (Gods of Desire) website here:
http://www.god.com.hk/index.php

For those of you that live in NYC it's a bit like Pearl River or Muji but has some better stuff, such as their clothes & accessories. In the latter case, they are like a cheaper Shanghai Tang.

Here are some things I COVET.