The Exportation of Sand

Iraq is a country that is 10 parts sand to 1 part water. That's a lot of sand. (Hence, my term "sand lands".) But regardless of the amount of sand there, it's apparently not good enough for the American military, which is why we are sending MORE sand to Iraq. Wait. What now?

Correct. According to The New York Times, the US military is building a bunch of blast walls all over Iraq. That's likely because it's rather blast-y there. But according to a one Maj. Gen. Phillip E. McGhee, "...you look to see that based on the specs that we have for blast walls, it takes a particular grain and quality of sand. That sand is not in Iraq, so you have to bring the sand in."

Now, look, that may or may not be true. I have no idea. The guy says that it's true, so I guess that it's supposed to be. But when I continually hear the cases of contractor fraud that goes on in Iraq and the gazillions of dollars that are wasted because of said fraud, I have to admit that I'm a little skeptical that the type of sand that is over there just isn't sufficient. Again, I'm not saying that it's a big sham. I'm just saying that it's all a little suspicious. I mean, seriously. With all of the technology and stuff that we know how to do, are you telling me that there isn't a way to make a blast wall up to the specifications that we need it to be by using some of the resources that are already there? I can't imagine that there isn't a cheaper way to do this.

I'd like to know who it is that's selling them all of this sand. I have ten bucks that says whoever the contractor is, whoever the seller of the sand is, whoever is connected to this procedure, whoever it is will be found to be somehow connected to some Senator somewhere. Think about it! We're buying SAND so it can be shipped to IRAQ! Next up? Buying ice cubes to ship them to Antarctica.

And since I'm really tired right now, that's about all I have to say about that. (If I could only be this concise all the time.)

Golden Globes Fashion 2010

So, the Golden Globes were last night. For those of you unfamiliar with the Golden Globes, they're sort of like the drunken trial run of the Oscars. Apparently, the Golden Globes have been around since 1944, but it wasn't until the advent of the Internet that we all had to pretend like they meant something and that people gave a crap about them. And as I enjoy doing with all other meaningless award shows, I will be taking this opportunity (yes, the opportunity to type) to survey the fashion that was worn and mock it thoroughly. Though I will admit, this will be a little bit harder for me to do than it is with other shows because, well, I really like a lot of the folks in my "Needs Improvement" category. Sometimes it's difficult to mock those you like. Not impossible, by any means. For God's sake, there's always room for mockery.

I'd also like to take a moment to point out that I myself am far from a fashion monger. Fashion mongrel is probably more like it. What do I know about fashion? Very little. But what do I know about humor? Quite a bit, actually. And the two, independent of each other, can co-exist here in this blog post quite peacefully.

First up is my beloved Drew Barrymore. I adore Drew. It is her choice of gowns which I almost always do not adore. As you can see in the photo below, Drew appears to have had some sort of unfortunate mishap in which a giant Brillo pad became lodged on the side of her gown. Behold!

Anna Paquin showed up with an odd choice in footwear. (It looks like perhaps she's going to an after party where there will be some sort of clogging going on? Hard to tell.) And if the dress is any indication, she'll be changing her name to Anna Sequin shortly after the ceremony.

Here's Tina Fey standing in the rain, holding an umbrella and wearing some sort of extremely flared chain mail gown. It's unfortunate that she had to actually wear the gown, as it would have doubled nicely should someone else have needed another umbrella.

Nicole Kidman gave out the first award of the evening. Now if we could only get Nicole Kidman to eat the first sandwich of any evening, I think it would be a step in the right direction. Is she getting ready for her next role as a coat rack? When did she become so ridiculously skinny?

Did you see Diane Kruger? Did you see the luscious Lauren Graham? Did you see how both of their dresses appear to have come from the very same My Little Pony Colors collection? Behold!

(Oh, that just killed me to write. I love Lauren Graham. Could she be any hotter? Hard to say. Hard to say.) But speaking of folks who seemed to go through the same tailor, Carey Mulligan, Vera Farmiga and Lea Michele must have carpooled to the black, weirdly ruffley, award show gown store. Behold!

You know what else those three have in common? I haven't heard of a one of them. The only reason I know Vera Farmiga (and I still didn't know her name) was because I saw that boring Up In The Air movie she was in. If it hadn't been for that and the fact that I managed to not nod off during the scenes that she was in, I'd have no clue as to who she was.

And finally, uh, Mariah Carey showed up and brought, um, a few, uh, friends with her. Behold!

Good Lord, madam. Is that...are those...necessary? She looks like a linebacker. A linebacker with breasts the size of watermelons, that is. (She sure as heck did not look like that in the movie "Precious". She gave one heck of a performance (a performance that had not one thing to do with an unnaturally large bosom) in that show, I'll tell you that.)