Free Lindsay!

Lindsay Lohan was sentenced today to 90 days in jail for violating her probation. She claims, "I did the best I could," but I think she already used that excuse defending why Labor Pains premiered on cable instead of in theaters. (Watch the trailer for the movie release in Spain here! It's so much better en Español!)

So while the internet started out this morning buzzing about the Double Rainbow Dude, the pot o' gold ended up being that we're safe from the possibility of an I Know Who Killed Me sequel (I Still Know Who Killed Me, Too... Again) for at least 90 days.

And of course, violating probation is no joke, but it's worth a couple of insensitive tweets.

2007 in Review

There are mere hours before we have to retire our Hilary Duff calendar for the year, so it's a good time for me to blog poetic on 2007's best and worst...


Best Comedies of 2007
Pregnancy movies: Knocked Up and Juno, though I actually consider pregnancy movies to be of the horror genre.

Best Semi Truck vs. Fighter Jet Scene in a Movie
Live Free or Die Hard. Strangely enough, it wasn't any scene in Transformers.

Worst Timing Award

• The release of Things We Lost in the Fire just before the California wildfires began
• Lynn Spears trying to publish her book on parenting

Guilty-Pleasure Pop CDs of the Year

• Dignity by Hilary Duff
• We Are the Pipettes by The Pipettes
• Headstrong by Ashley Tisdale
  (But NOT the new album by her fellow High School Musical costar Vanessa Hudgens. Well... I'm not a fan of V-Hud's music album, at least. Her personal photo album, though, is an altogether separate matter.)

Restaurant Jingle of the Year
The Outback Steakhouse song ("Let's go Outback tonight...")
I can't get that damn song outta my head. It's based on "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" by Of Montreal, but I actually like the digeridoo'd up version better.

Worst Restaurant Name
Pastagina.
I thought this was a symptom of a really bad yeast infection, but I guess it's just a poorly named Italian joint. But did they really need to use a triangle of spaghetti as their logo?

Other restaurant names to avoid: anything ending in "-esticles," "-lamydia" or "-airy nutsack." Also anything rhyming with "Schmapplebee's."

Best Pregnancies
5. Halle Berry
4. Jennifer Lopez
3. Christina Aguilera
2. Jessica Alba
1. Jamie Lynn Spears

Jessica Alba would've topped the charts if I had posted this in early December, but I ended up waiting. Meanwhile, Jamie Lynn Spears didn't end up waiting. Good thing for this list.


Top Celebrity Jail Sentences
5. Michelle Rodriguez
4. Keifer Sutherland
3. Lindsay Lohan
2. Nicole Richie
1. Paris Hilton

Paris wins for the blazing the trail and serving all the extra days that her other debutards didn't. Turns out that Lindsay's 84-minute jail term was longer than her movie I Know Who Killed Me lasted in theaters. I guess "overcrowding" wasn't the case in those theaters.

Almost as Good as Doing "The Bartman"

D'oh! This week, everyone's favorite weirdly-complected ne'er-do-well misfit will be starring in a big summer movie, so I decided to honor the film's Friday opening with a special illustration. But then my Lindsay Lohan caricatures of her as a stripper in I Know Who Killed Me turned out too creepy, so I decided to focus on Homer and The Simpsons Movie instead.

The Hands in the Air gang as The Simpsons.
From left to right: Steve, Jenni, Jason and Chris

I actually "Simpsonized" our caricatures on my own and I hand-drew the above picture with pen and ink and then colored it on my computer, but you can get Simpsonized by using Burger King's nifty photo upload system. I think that's what Ashlee used to get her new nose and chin, but I've never actually been able to get the BK program to work.

TI(RED), BOTHE(RED) and BO(RED)

Now that Bono has saved the planet, the U2 frontman and global savior has set his tinted, visored sights on curing AIDS in Africa. And faster than you can find a copy of Zooropa in a used CD bin, Bono has figured out how to stop the epidemic. Bono's "Red" campaign brilliantly harnesses the same space-age technology that keeps U2 drummer Larry Mullins, Jr. looking exactly as he did when the band recorded their Boy album.

Armani, Converse and American Express are among the companies associated with the Red campaign, and surely you've seen The Gap's ads for the cause. As a tribute, we've created a Gap (Product) Red ad featuring Kidrobot's new, curious line of block figures designed by clubwear fashion house Heatherette that features its frequent model/scenester and world's most famous transsexual, Amanda Lepore.


While Jenni and I were bo(red), we came up with a list of other potential "red" words that could be used in The Gap's campaign to save the entire population of Africa so that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would eventually be able to adopt them.

BUGGE(RED)
SUCKE(RED)
EMBITTE(RED)
FI(RED)
INB(RED)
PLASTE(RED)
WHO(RED)
COLD-SO(RED)
DEFLOWE(RED)
WITHE(RED)
BUTTE(RED)

Strangely, most of the above words would work if Lindsay Lohan decided to pose for a Gap ad. INFER(RED)!

Cheap "Blogs of Note" Ploy

Hands in the Air is part of Google's Blogger community, and one of the ultimate Blogger honors is to be featured as one of the day's "Blogs of Note." The problem is that about 90% of the daily Blogs of Note are tech-based (a recent sampling of Blogs of Note include such dorktacular titles as "AJAX Search API Playground," "Hackosphere" and "MacUpdate Blog." Maybe they should rename Blogs of Note to "Bloggers Who Have to Pay for Sex."

As a pop culture blog, our chances seem slim for getting noticed as a Blog of Note, so in a cheap, desperate ploy, I'm publishing this nerdy post about tech help. Blogs of Note, here we come...
Hopefully, that got your attention, Blogs of Note. Sure we're not techie, but I think that after almost 8 months of rambling posts about not-so-practical stuff (i.e. Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan) we're still noteworthy. I'm just trying to give those other bloggers out there a chance. I'm sure the lonely cat lady who writes amateur poetry or the angry goth kid who keeps a diary of depression would like to get some attention every so often, too.

Spitting Images

Everyone's been told they resemble some celebrity, but most people probably wouldn't say that I could be mistaken for Eddie Murphy or Alyssa Milano. The Face Recognition demo at MyHeritage.com would claim otherwise, and the mug-matching program even suggests that I'm a dead ringer for Daisy Fuentes and Michael Caine, too. In reality, most people get me mixed up with the food delivery guy but that's another story.

A webwide sensation, the Face Recognition demo allows you to upload digital photos of yourself, and the program will scan its celebrity database to find the star you most closely resemble. The demo has people uploading photo after photo in the hopes it'll match their looks with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, but instead it's a heartless ego-reamer, matching users' pics with the likes of such mirror-crackers as Frankie Muniz or the Snapple lady.

Once, the program actually thought a wrinkle in a shirt in one of my photos resembled Winona Ryder, so now I'm uploading photos of toast in the hopes of uncovering an image of the Virgin Mary so I can cash in on all those religious nuts and/or grilled cheese lovers. To abuse the Face Recognition program even further, I've uploaded photos of some various action figures and toys to see who their celebrity twins are. None of the celebrity toys matched their real-life counterparts, but at least that Malcolm in the Middle kid didn't come up either.

Lindsay Lohan = Elisha Cuthbert. The My Scene doll version of the 24-hour party queen resembles the 24 party pooper.

Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman = Cate Blanchett. (Click each link to the see the actual Face Recognition results.)

The Rock = Lara Flynn Boyle. Fun fact: It takes 1,487 Lara Flynn Boyles lined up waist-to-waist to equal the circumference of the Rock's neck.

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy the Vampire Slayer = Keira Knightley

David Boreanaz as Angel (in vampire/ass-face form) = Eddie Murphy

Wonder Woman = Joan Crawford, (wire hangers = bad)

Wonder Woman Baby = Madonna

Saturn Girl = Lucille Ball

Superwoman = Johnny Depp

David Hasselhoff = Natalie Imbruglia, (so by the transitive property of equality, Natalie Imbruglia = Super Awesome.)

Dear Ms. Lohan

Lindsay Lohan has recently been scolded for partying too hard in an infamous letter written by the producer of Georgia Rule, a film she's currently shooting. It seems Lindsay has been showing up late to the shoots because of "exhaustion" that her producer James G. Robinson chalks up to her late-night partying. Lindz is apparently compromising the integrity of the film -- this coming from the guy who produced such classics as Juwanna Mann.

If Lindsay decides to stop partying to concentrate on acting, what will become of the Hollywood nightlife scene? We have a letter of our own that argues against Robinson's complaint.

First, read the original Lindsay complaint letter from her producer here.

Then, expand our counterpoint letter by clicking on it below.

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

Some words of advice: If you’re Lindsay Lohan, you probably shouldn’t be documenting your life in print in a diary. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with committing your memories to paper, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that most of Lindsay’s daily escapades are best forgotten. Seriously, Lindz, do you really want to relive the Wilmer Valderrama chapters? If most of your life is spent stocking your closet full of skeletons, you really don’t want to leave a trail of kibble outside to make it easy for the dogs to find your boneyard. But Lindsay loves to court trouble and she had another fling with it last week when her diary turned up missing only to reappear with two pages missing. The diary must’ve been chock full of gems, so what could’ve have been so good on those two particular pages? One can only guess, and in pure James Frey-style, I’m going to fake it and imagine what could have been in those Million Little Pieces of gossip gold that went AWOL from her diary…

Anne Frank? Never heard of her.

January 2, 2006
Partied so hard that I had an asthma attack! I haven’t been so outta breath since I found out that Aaron Carter was on the rebound. Pant. Pant. Like, my lung capacity is so much smaller since my boobs shrunk. Huff. Puff. You know what I could use right now? No, silly, besides an inhaler and a Snickers. A pregnancy test. For my friend. Not for me. For my friend. I’ll have a friend bring me a home preggers kit to me. Asthma sucks.

January 12, 2006
Partied with Kate Moss at Scores. We even jumped on stage and did some pole dances. I haven’t been so outta breath since I found out that Jared Leto was on the rebound.

January 26, 2006
You’ll never guess where I’m staying at! Bryan Adams’s mansion!!! I know! What’s he doing with a friggin’ mansion?!? I don’t really know who he is anyway, but I think he used to sing for Loverboy. I found his diary in his drawer full of plain white t-shirts. Here’s the first entry:

July 8, 1969
I got my first real six-string. Oh, at the five-and-dime.

Loverboy must suck. And this guy’s had bangs since 1969?!? Jeez! I’m gonna go take a shower and grab a cup of tea.

January 27, 2006
Bryan Adams’s house is a death trap. Watch that first step outside of his bathroom. Anyhoo, I’m back in the hospital getting 10 stitches from a little teacup mishap. Bryan keeps joking that the teacup "Cuts like a Knife." I don’t get it. Loverboy must suck. Hmm. I wonder if my friend needs another pregnancy test.