i’m panel of experts famous!

everyone, i’d like you to meet bettysue higgins. this spring, a friend forwarded me this article from the kennebec journal. nothing too fancy, just your garden variety article about a 54 year old secretary embezzling $166,000 from the maine trial lawyers fund. you know, the usual.

over the forthcoming weeks, more and more information would come to light regarding bettysue’s “situation”. normally, i wouldn’t  bother paying too much attention to this kind of small town scandal. but as the details regarding the case began to trickle out, things got more and more bizarre. apparently, this was not bettysue’s first foray into embezzlement, having previously hijacked funds from a both a middle school hot lunch program AND a local little league.

but that’s just the back story. here’s where things got really weird: turns out, bettysue higgins was stealing all this money so that she could level up her character in an online game called yoville (from the same jerks that have infected your facebook stream with farmville invites). bettysue may have been living in a distressed property in the middle of a foreclosure, but in yoville, she was a queen (her character’s name was actually QUEENIE. no jokes). in addition to her queening duties, she was also an active member of the YOVILLE BUSINESS LEADERS ASSOCIATION. yes folks, that is something that actually exists.

weekend pickthrough- springing forward into delirium edition.

WHERE IS THAT THIRD ARM COMING FROM!?

losing an hour is the worst. here it is, 2 am, but it feels like 1 am- except for the fact that i’m not gonna get more than 4 hours of sleep, whether i like it or not. it was opening weekend for my show (not too disastrous!), and then i decided to make lentil soup (more details on that tomorrow), and write a blog post for coupon evolution that i should have written on thursday…

tomorrow is gonna be a sleep deprived mess anyway, so i figured i’d squash out at least one more post before i lapsed into a coma. we haven’t picked through the weekend in a while, so here it is (i didn’t say i’d be squashing out a good post):

all over the place.

work. rehearse. sleep. walk dog. work. rehearse. sleep (sort of). work. rehearse. eat? does a whatchamacallit constitute a meal? work. rehearse. crack up over dog trying to eat a cheez doodle. fall asleep on couch in a delirium. work. rehearse…

holy shit i don’t remember being this tired before. i can barely sit upright on the couch, let alone figure out something coherent to write about (passes out on couch and wakes up at 3:55 am). however, i have had a few lucid moments this week on other people’s blogs. maybe you could read those and pretend you’re reading this one?

my first real post on the coupon evolution blog declared my deep love for indian food at tandoor. plus, FREE APPETIZER COUPON!

then on the flyte blog, i wrote about this one time where my favorite radio DJ disappeared, and everyone pretended like it didn’t happen. it was bizarre and infuriating.

oh, and i also wrote an original piece about my polar dipping experience & hatred of fundraising (hot girl in bikini definitely NOT ME) for the wcsh6 portland blog.

also, pretend i wrote this yesterday. meanwhile, i’ll be pretending that i know how to tap dance.

off to work! rehearse! drink! drink! drink! sleep…

librarything hates me, but i refuse to stop trying to hump on those free books.

nowadays, there’s social networking sites for literally everything (stachepassions probably being my personal favorite), so it stands to reason that there would be a number of sites dedicated to bookworm types. and there are- MANY. most notably, you’ve got your shelfari and your goodreads… and bringing up the rear, is portland’s very own librarything (who knew it was right here!). it’s a lot less pretty, and significantly clunkier than the other two to use, but what it lacks in glossy sheen, it makes up in mad crazy functionality. above and beyond a basic digital bookshelf, librarything essentially lets you search/categorize/sort down to the cellular level. basically, if you get a boner for the dewey decimal system (or enjoy engaging in some hardcore self-righteous literary snark), this shit is FOR YOU.

so, why the hell am i telling you about this?  librarything is not merely a rad place to go to bump chests about books with other bibliophiles… but they also have monthly free book giveaways in the form of a pretty awesome program they run called “early reviewers“. basically, authors and publishing houses send fat crates of their new books to librarything, and members can sign up for a chance to get them for free (under the condition that they read and review them for the site). dude, FREE BOOKS. you love free books! i love free books! and it’s not all crappy self-published bullshit-  they get some seriously TOP SHELF SHIT.

the main caveat here being that i haven’t been chosen to get one yet… but it’s free to play the book lottery, and i have high hopes that someday i will win.  perhaps a sexy complimentary blog post will finally tip the scales in my favor (ahem) (hint hint) (p.s. i’m really pulling for “the girl who would speak for the dead“)? but seriously, even if librarything never asks me to the prom, it really is an utterly fantastic website (you should go join my nancy drew discussion group right now),  and somebody is getting all those awesome free books- why not you?

if you could only read one book for the rest of your life- what would it be?

weekend pickthough- shiny and new edition.

in 2010, i had hoped that i would have both the time and the cash to give the ole website a total overhaul. well, that didn’t happen. but i did think that was time at least for a teensy little update. so voila! a shiny new pile of icons (for all the contact and social media crap you guys could ever want), and now even though it’s still a free wordrpress blog… the URL looks like a real website (broke207.wordpress.com still works too)! not entirely monumental, but at least SOMETHING. perhaps this month i will see if there is anything else worth tweaking (any suggestions?). but for now, you should probably thank me for these nice new updates by nominating me for best blog on the phoenix best of 2011 poll.

dude. TWISTER RAIN COAT. (thanks cindy!)

easily the most interesting tidbit of local news in the last 10 years. (spoiler- STRIPPER FIGHT!!!)

i’m positive that there’s a steamed clams joke in here somewhere…

chrystie over at ilovetogossip got a little lovin from local media this week! (OMG, did you know her sister is on the bachelor right now?)

i know this really hot girl who got a pair of pajama jeans from her brother for xmas, and now that’s all she ever wears. TRAGEDY.

the mysteries of the asian aging process revealed.

“I guess I need a snake lover,” he told The Daily Mail. “Or someone with multiple mongooses.”

how could it have possibly taken me this long to find out that hugh jackman has a tiny dog named PEACHES?