Ladue News: Tangential Thinker

Posted: February 16, 2012

So Facebook went public last week. Now you can own a piece of the social networking website, as well as troll around on it, killing time. It was quite a success story: A bitter, self-loathing computer genius goes from creating sites to demean women to becoming one of the richest men in the world. For the record, I am basing all of my knowledge of the creation of Facebook on the movie.

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Oscar Buzz

Updated: February 02, 2012 - 4:32 pm

It’s an exciting year for Oscar: Lots of firsttime nominees and incredible performances and as always, lots of snubs. Here are the nominees in the six big categories:

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Teenage Nightmare

Posted: January 26, 2012

So something weird happened the other day. By now, you’d think I’ve learned to anticipate these little familial occurrences, but no. This came like a bolt out of the blue—I could see the words coming out of my mouth and lingering in the air like a cartoon bubble. Whiny had a birthday last week, and while on some level, I must have acknowledged what was happening, it wasn’t until I said it out loud that it hit home: I have teenagers, plural. I have teenagers.

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I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

Posted: January 19, 2012

For years, I have been at odds with my mother. I have always maintained that if you, say, inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings, you ought to feel badly about it. My mother thinks it’s feel bad. She elaborates that if you feel badly, you have a poor sense of touch. I argue that feel is a verb regardless. So it goes. Back and forth. And everybody I ask not only has a different answer, but a different explanation for that answer.

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The IT Girl

Posted: January 12, 2012

So I met Siri the other day…Who is Siri, you ask? Well frankly, if you have to ask, I am embarrassed for you. She is only the talk of the town. She is the woman of the hour. Forget Michelle Williams or Charlize Theron, Siri is Hollywood’s ‘it’ girl, and no, she’s not Tom Cruise’s daughter. She is thin and beautiful, smart and funny, and she has all the answers. Siri is the voice response component on the latest iPhone, and she is a veritable font of information. In many ways, she is the perfect woman.

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APPropos of Nothing

Updated: February 09, 2012 - 2:37 pm

I’m noticing a certain phrase sneaking into our vocabulary. It pops up in almost every conversation, regardless of the topic. You can be debating which fast food menu item is the healthiest or kvetching about a boring workout. You can be chit-chatting about the stock market or trying to remember the name of the band that sings that stupid song that’s been running through your head for a week. The response is always the same: There’s an app for that.

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Name That Loon

Posted: January 05, 2012

Another year has passed, and 2011 brought us a treasure trove of absurd and egregious celebrity incidents. As the television industry increasingly rewards shameless behavior, celebrities continue to deliver short-lived marriages, DWIs, high profile feuds and, of course, procreation.

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Banned on the Rum

Posted: December 22, 2011

It’s the final week of 2011, and I, for one, am ready to ring in 2012. Everything this year just seemed a little out of whack. Yes, the Cardinals won the World Series, but even that seemed a little hinky—as if Loki were skipping through the outfield blissfully making players drop balls. The weather was wacky, the stock market was crazy, black was white, up was down.

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Deck the Halls

Updated: December 15, 2011 - 4:16 pm

Bemoan your holiday decorating rut no more. Party planner extraordinaire and the Royal Wedding’s unexpected star, Pippa Middleton, has written a column for Party Times listing her top 10 ways to decorate a festive holiday house.

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