How did I miss the winner of Best Animation Short say "domo arigato Mr. Roboto"? 
Hell yeah, that's how you give a speech!

Dear Readers,

Since I obviously have no life I made a new banner for the blog while watching the trainwrecktastic Paula Abdul with her Forever Your Girl jewelry on HSN.  Last year Jennifer and I watched the "show" on the phone together and could not believe our eyes.  We kept saying "I can't look away," and "omg" more than I've heard in my life, even more than while watching American Idol.  Well, that was until I flipped through the channels tonight — Paula is back and crazier than ever.  And I now have a new dream job (sorry, Anderson Cooper) — look out host chick, I want your job.  I think I'm just the chick to sit next to Paula and think of crazy adjectives to describe her crazy ass jewelry.  Trust me, it was crazy.  And Paula admitted to signing most of her autographs in the bathroom.   There's a phrase for that, Paula meet TMI, TMI meet Paula. 

Okay, so I made a new banner in Photoshop with elements from Shabby Princess and fonts I love.  I think I may have to get the Font Junkie shirt on Cafe Press.  That's me.  Anyway, I figured the blog was up for a makeover.  It still looked too generic for me, now it's fresh for spring.  Speaking of spring, is anyone else having the allergy mess I'm having?  Seriously, my eyes could not be more watery and it's making me crazy.  Let me know how the banner looks.  I like it (and I dig the pom pom trim).

I'll be live blogging the Oscars tonight, starting at 7 (or when I remember it's on, or maybe earlier if I remember that the red carpet part is on).  Just hit your Refresh button every so often and you'll get the latest Kerry drivel delivered right to your screen.  No purchase necessary.  Void where prohibited. 

EDIT: I forgot to tell y'all the diameter of this is around 3 feet.  I thought you should know the massiveness of this disco-ballesque sphere.

Every time I'm in Gordon's, I covet this rotating chandalier.   It's like a grown-up disco ball. 

Everyday Molly has 3-4 things to do for her 1st grade homework. So far this year the pictured “Unscramble the Words” has to be my fave. No, we cannot unscramble the words — we can’t make out the letters, but I’m sure one of them is a four-letter word with a Y thrown In for fun.

so, according to wordle.net, this is what the Kerry Blog is about.

While on shopping safari in Hobby Lobby, I spotted the oft heard of, but seldom seen Valentine Unicorn. As you can see, it was startled upon being photographed and I quickly retreated back to my cart.

More on how the recording came to be, but for now, here's the 1st ever ScrapFest! radio commercial airing on 94.7 the Lake on the Northshore.

http://kerryfaler.typepad.com/files/scrapfest-2-4-09-email.mp3

When I was diagnosed as BiPolar 2 (Electric Boogaloo), a year later my psychiatrist added ADD (not the hyperactivity part for obvious reasons) to my list of diagnoses.

I’ve had the hardest time trying to write a decent post for the past few days.  Several times this week I have sat down with my laptop with an idea in my head (where I keep all my best ideas), write a title, start a sentence — maybe two, and something breaks my train of thought.  Actually, “train of thought” isn’t such a great phrase for my thoughts.  Maybe a “SUV of thoughts,” maybe even a “caravan of thoughts,” but I’m fairly certain I’ve never strung together enough thoughts to constitute a “train of thoughts.”

Anyflaky, so I thought I’d walk you through the types of things that have happened while trying to blog over the past 48 or so hours.

I sit down to write about this whole ordeal with my finger, along with my laptop, cup of coffee, notepad, Sharpie pen, and phone.  I get as far as the title when the phone rings.

• Scott calls to say someone called him about a job in Angola (the country, not the prison).
• I Google “Angola” to make sure it’s in Africa
• I sing the song “Africa” by Toto to myself
• let dog out
• check Facebook because it’s been going off like crazy and comment on stuff
• back to the blog
• get some iced tea
• I decide to change my shirt, then end up putting on lipgloss, and look in one of my bags for my good earbuds that are currently missing
• phone rings, it’s my mother-in-law thanking me for her Christmas gift we had to mail because we forgot to bring it to the Christmas party
• for some reason,
• back to the blog, write exactly three words, hear Ellie bark and look outside
• check email
• check Facebook, chat with a friend for a bit, check Shondaland and look at a few popular stories (find a supercute outfit), check our bank account, check CNN
• phone rings, it’s Dana, Scott beeps in to say Angola’s not that bad blah blah blah blah
• check my email — ooooooo– Mignon Faget for Valentine’s Day.  Look at mignonfaget.com, decide they really should have made the bee earrings in silver to go with my pendant, but no one asked me.  Think about making a Valentine’s wish list, maybe earrings.
• make iced coffee
• read exactly half an article on Rolling Stone, look for measuring cup — can’t find it, realize I haven’t eaten any actual food today.
• back to the laptop, someone’s trying to talk to me on Facebook, we chat, I watch half of an episode of NCIS: New Orleans and decide I can’t stand the new actress, check the weather for tomorrow, ponder what to wear to get my stitches out Thursday, do some dishes, check my email — ooooooo — there’s a perfect Olivetti Valentine typewriter on eBay.  Now, that’s a Valentine gift!
• Oh yeah, the blog.
• Look! Something shiny.

Today’s song is “What Time Do You Call This?” by Elbow. I discovered it while watching Man Up (modern rom-com) and I love it. It kind of relates to this post in a way.

I've been waiting on the giraffe print with pink trim Volatiles to come back in stock on Zappos for months — I'm wearing them today. They are so me, aren't they?

In an effort to expose all of my guilty and not so guilty pleasures, today's Tunes You Need Tuesday features one of my favorite bands, The Pet Shop Boys.  If you're not a fan, or if you only know "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" and "West End Girls," maybe after today's post you may download some of their songs to your iPod.  I am convinced PSB are the best music to walk or work-out to and they're great to drive to as well, scrapbook to, whatever. Oh, and guess what?  I finally figured out how to embed mp3s, so now you can listen to the tunes and read and I don't have to hunt down a YouTube video of the song (although some are quite fun), so here's hoping I actually got it right. 

The Pet Shop Boys came on the scene back in 1984-85 and released their first album, Please, in 1986.  They were an instant success with "Love Comes Quickly," Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)," and "West End Girls."   I remember Please being one of the first records I had to have and I practically burned the thing up listening to it on my turntable.  It was divine and very different from a lot of the music going on in the mid-eighties, it was obviously synthesizer-based, but the lyrics were so provocative and unlike the other "dance/pop" music  out there.  Something that has always stood for me out is Neil Tennant's voice, it's almost other worldly, speech-like, and enunciated unlike any other voice in music that I'm aware of.  Chris Lowe is the other half of the PSB, he's the one in sunglasses and a hat in front of the keyboard who rarely speaks.  The PSB are the Penn & Teller of electronic music. 

I thought I'd attempt to showcase a few PSB tunes you man not be all that familiar with, the first being the cover of Willie Nelson's "Always on my Mind," I know, not immediately what comes to mind when you think of PSB.  "Always on my Mind" first appeared on the extended version of Actually and later on 1988's Introspective and rated #2 our of 50 on the list of greatest covers of all time by Britian's Daily Telegraph.  That's cool stuff. 

http://kerryfaler.typepad.com/files/08-always-on-my-mind-1.m4p

Over the years PSB have released 10 one-word titled studio albums, several compilation albums, and 4 numbered Disco albums of remixes. My hands down favorite PSB album is Behaviour.  Their fourth studio album is pretty brilliant with "This Must be the Place I Waited Years to Leave," "Jealousy," and "Being Boring."  The latter is one of the best songs I've ever listened to.  There is a website devoted to the song with 150 pages of information, lyrics, trivia, and articles written over the past 19 years since the release of Behavior.  People seriously love this song, and if I had to write a thesis (which I probably never will, since I'm allergic to college) it would be on "Being Boring."  The song is inspired by the words of Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of my man F. Scott and is about a man looking back at his life, reminiscing.  Here is "Being Boring" and some of the lyrics I love. 

http://kerryfaler.typepad.com/files/14-being-boring.m4p

Now I sit with different faces
in rented rooms and foreign places.
All the people I was kissing,
some are here and some are missing
in the nineteen-nineties.

I never dreamt that I would get to be
the creature that I always meant to be.
But I thought, in spite of dreams,
you’d be sitting somewhere here with me.

And because too much is never enough, I thought I'd share "Se a Vide E` (That's the Way Life is)," my favorite feel-good PSB song.  It's from the Bilingual album and is pure fun.   

http://kerryfaler.typepad.com/files/05-se-a-vide-e-thats-the-way-life.m4a

In case you're wondering where today's title comes from, it's a line from the song "Absolutely Fabulous."  The song has bits of lines from the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (a great show — if you haven't seen it, hit up YouTube for the outrageousness) and the two main characters say "dahling" and "sweetie" a ton, so it's the bloody Pet Shop Boys, Sweetie.  I think I'll start calling people Sweetie for no reason.  Why not?  So, go download a few PSB songs for your workout — off the top of my head I reccommend "Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend," "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give it Anymore," "Can You Forgive Her," "Yesterday When I Was Mad," and of course "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" and "Suburbia."  It's all good stuff to walk or bike to.  I once rode 16 miles on the stationary bike to the PSB and lived to tell the tale.  That's all there is to the tale, but I lived nontheless.   Anydahling, I hope you enjoyed todays tunes.  If you have a suggestion for next week, let me know.