There’s nothing like ANTM to make a stressful day better. That and some rockin’ tacos. What’s in store for this episode? Cat fights? Jael being normal? Well if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s an action packed hour of models. Oh and Tyra’s pirate do-rag… Here we go!

8:04
Yay, Natasha episode! She’s a mom? Oh dear…

She’s a feline mail order bride. That explains a lot.

8:06
Looking your worst may be the best thing that ever happened to you. Like last week’s crime scene? How could they look worse?

Too bad Melrose didn’t get the “how not to dress” lesson…

8:09
Renee has lost her goodwill vibes and is bashing the plus sized contestant.

“Will there ever be a plus-sized model on the cover of Vogue?” I think the question, Renee, is will this ever be on the cover of Vogue?

Ponder that a while, hunny.

8:17
Why would Dionne be picking out clothes when she almost got the boot for it last week?

8:18
I LOVE NATASHA! I’m going to use that excuse here and at work. “No, mister boss, it’s okay, when you make up a name, you can spell it any way you want.”

8:21
Aw poor Natasha. No respect.

And Stuart? He’s speaking in complete, articulate sentences. Total mail order bride.

8:26
This photo shoot was totally Miss Jay’s idea, wasn’t it? And it’s definitely not as cool as last cycle’s celebrity couple’s shoot.

8:28
Oh man. Renee does look better as a man. People shoould listen to me more.

And Jael? Totally Sonny and Cher.

8:30
And Sarah? I totally bought a mocha from him yesterday.

8:31
Dionne needs to speak up about the clothes thing. Seriously. It would up the ratings times five.

8:32
I told you from the beginning Natasha is the best part of this show. All the girls were confused as to why she was preparing and finding out more about her character.

8:34
WHY isn’t Mr. Jay on the panel. He’s the voice of reason. I guess he’s like Tim Gunn. The show favorite who’s stuck playing counselor to blase contestants.

The Break Breakdown
Why is Tyra dishing out a lesson on how to dress. Point that retired model finger right back around, missy. Scroll down here to see some of Tyra’s finale get ups.

8:42
Tyra’s pirate do-rag is gone! A headband, sure. Maybe the bangs are finally covering up last week’s bad weave. A lesson she needs to learn, case 1 and case 2.

8:43
Nigel said what we were all thinking about Jaslene: “You look like a good looking guy.”

Which one’s the tranny?

8:49
Just give the prize to Natasha now so we can just spend the rest of the episodes watching her?

8:52
I’m tired of these girls looking like boys. You don’t see that crap in Vogue.

8:54
I don’t know who the guest judge either, but she was definitely right on in the “next” comment for Jael. Hula hoop on home soon, please.

8:55
Will it be down to the plus-sized models? I thought post-retirement Tyra would keep them until the end.

8:57
Finally Diana goes home. Sorry dear, this competition is not for you. And everyone knew that from the beginning. Amazing though, how this show can suck the life out of vivacious people.

9:00
Well Matt just walked into the room with warm, ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies. I’m amazed that I’m still sitting here after typing that. It’s been fun ANTMers, and until next week, I leave you with this:

Lately I’ve been yearning for inspiration. I can see daily life and responsibility clouding my once strong creative drive. Since I don’t have much free time to visit museums and stores, I’ve been scouring my beloved Internet for blogs of inspiration, specifically fashion and design blogs.

I’d like to feature some of my favorites, the first being The Sartorialist. It’s a Web site seeking to highlight street fashion. Featured subjects nonchalantly pose, providing a very real and cutting edge editorial feature that inspires me to adjust my thinking of clothing (and my surroundings) as art.

You can never have enough art stimulation, so if you have any suggestions or links to inspiration, send them my way: [emily at emilyatwood.com].

I figured it out. Well, perhaps MIMS did first, but he really educated me. For so long I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m so hot. It’s been really bugging me lately. But finally the answer came from a song on radio repeat, which has only now gotten through my thick skull.

This is why I’m hot.
This is why I’m hot.
This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot. (repeat times five billion).
I’m hot ’cause I’m fly. You ain’t ’cause you not.
This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot.

Oooooh! Being fly is why I’m hot and ’cause you ain’t ’cause you not! Thank you, MIMS for figuring this out for me.

And for Napoleon.

And for someone’s grandpa.

While playing outside with Cody, he caught the Frisbee in the air for the first time. Let’s hope this post-makeover episode will be just as, if not more monumental. Here we go…

8:05
Whitney gave up 9Gs to be a next top reality tv star best friend model. Obviously money well spent for a short-lived career in night club tours.

8:06
Renee’s stepping up and being a good person. And by being a good person, she’s making odd drawings of girls. With that haircut she’s kinda like the scary psycho brother from Wedding Crashers making a picture of Vince Vaughn.

8:07
This guy claims he started voguing like my brother used to say he made up walking like an Egyptian.

(Read on …)

Mallory and I lived together for our first three years of college. And even though I lived with seven other girls my last year of college and I’ve now moved back home, I still refer to Mallory as my roommate.

Me in California, she in Texas, we exchanged IMs before we officially met and discovered that not only were we in weird relationships, but we both had curly hair and the same style in music. C’mon, what are the odds? She opened the door of the dorm room, wearing that Krispy Kreme T-shirt and a huge smile. “When are y’all fixin to go to supper?” Y’all? Fixin? Supper? I knew this was the start of something great.

We really were quite the team. For three years we made arranging dorm furniture an art. Put us together, our people watching commentary was five times better than the Best Week Ever people. There’s even a vivid memory of driving to church on a warm day belting out Hanson’s (yes, you read that correctly) “Penny and Me.” Or how about that time we baked a funfetti bundt cake that didn’t come out of the pan, so we just poured frosting all over the top and grabbed some forks.

Most of those good times led to the day immortalized in this next picture. My car was full of stuff headed for storage and she was preparing to spend the summer in China. We had lived together for three years. Some could call it the end of an era! I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, but boy did I blubber. But it felt good to see that I wasn’t alone. Even after all those times she took out the garbage when it piled to the ceiling, made my bed and disregarded my messy half of the room, she had enjoyed the time we spent together too. (Yes, she did actually do those things and I still don’t know why we still don’t live together seeing as she’s the perfect roommate!)

And then there were the boys. They were our friends and foes, but quite often a topic of conversation. Remember how that one guy was a complete liar, Mal? And you took the leftover Halloween chocolate finger candy that your mom sent us, put it on a card and made it the lone middle one sticking straight up with the words “Boys Suck.” Inside you wrote about how I shouldn’t settle for scum, and also for my future reference “boys suck” is not the best combination of words to Google.

That was the year when we lived on the floor with the most desirable group of girls in the school. Boys flocked to our floor hoping to spend an ounce of time with these girls. We, however, apparently didn’t belong in the desirable group. And the two guys that we, and the majority of the girls at our school, were quite interested in … well, they walked right past the second door to the right to about the tenth one on the left. They didn’t know what they were missing, we’d say.

That third year you were an RA and I was copy editing the school paper and found a keeper of a boyfriend. Busy this, busy that, before I knew it you were friends with those two boys. All of a sudden ours was the first room they came to. One of them, perhaps the most coveted on campus, started hanging around a little more often. Before I knew it, graduation came and went. Mallory stayed there and I went back home. In the flurry, we lost touch.

Then on Wednesday I opened an envelope holding cardstock and shiny rice paper held together with a bright bow which told me Mallory is getting married to that guy. I screamed, I dialed and screamed some more. She wasn’t there, but a couple days later we chatted and it was great.

Andrew, I spent many days and months molding her, but I’m happy to say, you’ve got yourself a great future roommate.

Here we go again with the ANTM live blogging! This should be the hair episode. Who’s going to have the breakdown?

I’d be pissed if they made me look like a man, a la Jaeda:

8:04
Plus sized models don’t know how to pose to mask their rolls. Is it wrong that this seems doomed from the start?

8:05
Oooh Brittany said they could do whatever they wanted and she’d be okay with it. Can we say Jaeda? “It grows back fast”

8:06
Tyra needs to step away from the camera. Annoying. Ugh.

8:10
And now Brittany’s giving grief. But no cry session. YAWN.

8:11
Miss Jay is getting a makeover? Excitement! Much needed. He seems like the Mister while the other Jay wears the makeup of five Misses.

8:13
They transformed Natasha into Bai Ling and all of a sudden Brittany strangely looks like a Celine Dion knockoff.

8:14
What just happened: Tyra called. She and Mr. Jay made Jael get a Rosemary’s Baby after 8 hours of braiding and gluing extensions. It wasn’t elevating her to another level and it could potentially hurt her in the competition.

What really happened: Producers called. They said the episode would turn out boring because there was no crying. Go for the emotionally unstable girl whose extensions are barely hanging onto already fried and ruined hair. Say her chances are shot with the new hair, but really the ratings are down and the casting crew is being fired.

8:18
It makes her look like a skinny boggle head. Poor girl.

8:20
I’d cry too if I looked like a cheap Ronald McDonald tranny.

8:21
Again, I’m heartless, but I’m not all that surprised that Jael has a friend ODed. She seems pretty cracked out herself.

Also, all these girls freaking smoke. Ew.

8:23
Show more Natasha!

Why the double talking, Seventeen?

8:25
The puker won! See, they just encourage that crap.

8:27
Everyone says Brittany’s face is so strong, but I don’t see it. Maybe it’s got that quirky, not pretty thing that really works for some models. I’m also not convinced that she’s the most catty person they could come up with.

At this point, I don’t know who I want to win or who will actually win. There’s still no emotional connection. Somebody do something crazy!

8:32
Amazing how all these photographers just happen to have shot Tyra.

Get over it, Brittany! You have to sign a contract saying you’d get nude on command.

8:34
Do you hear what he’s saying, Diane? It’s all about how you pose, not how much you weigh. It seems like the people on this show seem to be over the plus size issue, why can’t she be?

8:36
Oh man, FourFour is going to have a field day with the Whitney comfort. Too bad I have to wait until Monday for his recaps!

8:38
The ice cream shoot was cute, but I’m wondering why the absolute need to go nude. Well, besides the need for ratings. But when they have Seventeen and Cover Girl as sponsors, perhaps they should consider their audience’s maturity level.

8:40
My guesses of who is going home? Unfortunately, it may be Felecia. Although, I don’t see Tyra kicking off mini Tyra anytime soon.

Who’s going to win? I have no clue. Jaslene? Again, I still feel as though I don’t know any of the girls. But then again, my predictions seem to put the girl in the bottom two.

Thank goodness Natasha did well. She’s going to be the main entertainment value this cycle.

8:43
For the love, Tyra! Why the wrap?! You gave all the girls good weaves, but you can’t afford your own? I’m beginning to wonder if the hair is attached.

Tyra admitted that being a model isn’t being real or a human being!

8:45
Natasha, too much? Never! Too squinty? Well, you made her hair look like a little China doll…

8:48
Cassondra! That is the worst sin of Top Model. Don’t lose your neck! And it can’t be good when all the judges are silent and are forced back trying to soak it all in.

8:50
How wide is Jaslene’s chin? Seriously, someone grab a ruler. Shouldn’t that be part of the makeover? They fixed Joanie’s snaggle tooth.

The Break Breakdown
These commercial breaks seem shorter than ever. Anyone who reads this may need to send some money over, as I may soon get carpal tunnel. Matt even noticed, “You haven’t stopped typing in the last 48 minutes.” This is true.

8:53
What is Tyra’s fascination with Whitney? No glimmer, no glam. And they say Jaslene doesn’t have personality…?

8:54
On the verge of model teardrops? What the?

8:55
I really have no idea who’s going home. Cassondra? If she does, at least she got a nice weave out of the deal instead of her sewn-on wig.

8:56
How come Renee has a mullet going on? She’s supposed to be Joanna, whose hair I adored! And almost got cut, which I’m glad didn’t happen because I have curly hair. But think about how much I’d have to like a cut to seriously consider it…

8:57
Diana needs to go home. Snoozer!

8:58
Bad choice, ANTM. But enjoy that weave, Cassondra.

8:59
Cassondra used the word “fierce.” Has it been used thus far this season? Have they banned it? That’d be sad, because that’s more of what the show needs.

March 14 = 3/14=3.14…to infinity and beyond. I don’t know why I get so excited about Pi Day, because I really don’t like math. Last week Matt made me figure out how much tax I owed on our group dinner tab. As I feebly tried to calculate numbers in my tired brain while being distracted by goodness that is TGI Friday’s Jack Daniel’s sauce, I noticed the looks of disbelief fixated in my direction. When I couldn’t spit out an answer quickly, I slid down my chair in embarrassment as I mumbled something to the tune of “at least I can correctly use there, their, they’re, your and you’re.”

But, you may be surprised to know, I love Pi Day because of of words. Specifically, these words that I stumbled across several years ago:

Oh Number PI
(Sing to “Oh Christmas Tree”)

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
Your digits are unending,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
No pattern are you sending.
You’re three point one four one five nine,
And even more if we had time,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
For circle lengths unbending.

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
You are a number very sweet,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
Your uses are so very neat.
There’s 2 Pi r and Pi r squared,
A half a circle and you’re there,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
We know that Pi’s a tasty treat.

The Pi Day song is a tasty treat indeed. So go out to Baker’s Square and celebrate with your friends! In the meantime, I’ll eat my mud pie flavored Snack Pack.

This is Cody, a.k.a. Wiggly Butt. He’s almost a year old, but he’s still acts like a confused puppy. He’s finally getting the hang of potty training, but still slips up now and then. Prone to loneliness, he will chase you down if you leave the room and whimper when you’re playing tag too well. And he doesn’t run as much as he does this hopping/galloping thing. But he’s not entirely a goof. He doesn’t tear up papers anymore (since Matt caught him in the act and scared him), and he doesn’t bite or chew up stuff (well, except for that one corner of the new couch).

We’re still working on his Frisbee skills. With the combination of the border collie/Australian shepherd breed and our the love of the plastic disc, Cody has no choice but to be the best Frisbee dog ever. We know we need to get him those doggy Frisbees, but he just improves by leaps and gallops with the regular 175 grams of hard plastic. While the skills may be sub par thus far, he loves the Frisbee. He really loves chasing after it, chewing it (which is fine, since it’s a Wham-O), growling at it and keeping it away from Matt and me.

But then there’s still the whole coordination thing he needs to work out:

But in the month he’s been in Matt’s family, I can’t imagine life without him. I love my little doofy.

Oooh another episode of ANTM. I was chowing down some Chinese food so I was a bit late. I’m going to try live blogging my comments. This live blogging thing almost makes up for the fact that I no longer live in a house with seven other ANTM addicts (and recovering Tyra bashers).

8:08
She must have learned her English on the moon.
Natasha: Ms. J says I walk like a Martian. So I think I’m doing well.

8:10
Tyra plugging herself through “friends” on her own show? No! That’s not her style…

8:11
Jael, there’s a reason everyone wants to walk perfectly and impress the judges. It’s because they want to win. What the heck are you doing here? Trying to get more play on your odd raunchy photos?

The Break Breakdown
Even though her CWTV photos make her chin look like the Grand Tetons, I think Samantha has a good chance to take it or make it as a top contender. But you never know with the quiet ones.

If you’re curious, Jay Manuel has a MySpace. Usually I try to wait until the season is over until I go looking for ANTM myspace profiles. Let’s see how long I can take it.

8:17
When will people get over the 80s kickbacks?! Overdone. C’mon Tyra, this better not be a prediction of the season.

8:20
Seriously, they don’t have boob tape?! And are Jael and Natasha related, because they’re crazies!

8:22
Okay, I don’t normally agree with what Sarah has to say, but that trophy was “redonkulous.”

8:23
Ugh, I hate that they’re having to talk about tension. Forget talking about it, pull a Jade on that. Can Lisa come back and live in the house? Like as an RA?

(Read on …)

Take a break and finger paint at Etsy. But this time, add shopping and take away mess. Sheer brilliance, I say.