Love Story

A love story for the ages.

A4 Papercut

Not sure if most people have already seen these works, but Peter Callesen does some incredible work where he takes a single A4 piece of paper and "[explores] the relationship between two and three dimensionality." It is pretty amazing though. You can check out all the A4 works here, and to see his more complete collection, click here.

A Weekend Story

This weekend, I met up with some friends for lunch. One friend, who will remain unnamed, was carrying a medium-large sized canvas bag, with a big prescription drug logo on it – specifically, the logo for prescription Valtrex. This led to the following exchange:

Me: “Hey – your bag with the Valtrex logo – do you know what Valtrex is for?”
Friend: “Nah, it’s some drug or something.”
Me: “Yeah, a drug used to treat genital herpes…”
Friend: “What?!? No way…are you sure?”
Me: “I’m at least 95% sure. Haven’t you seen those commercials?"

[I now proceed to act out the commercial, playing assorted men and women in "interesting" relationships]

‘I have genital herpes'
'...But I don’t'
'That’s why I use Valtrex, because I want her to be as safe as possible…I thought I was safe when I wasn't having an outbreak...but I wasn't...’

Others at table: “Oh yeah! I know that commercial!”
Friend: “You’re sure?”
[I look up Valtrex on my BlackBerry]
Me: “Yep, now I’m 100% sure. The bag you are carrying advertises a drug used to treat genital herpes.”
[Long pause]
Friend: “Ohhhh man my mom uses this same bag!”

So I’m curious, because I thought it was more widely known – before reading this right now, would you have known what Valtrex was? You can answer in the poll at the top right.

Important National Issue

62% of voters in this poll thought Lindsay Lohan will live longer than Britney Spears. Although it was not an impressive sample size, I feel confident that people generally think Britney is closer to her demise. For me, though, it’s really a toss-up. Here’s how I assess the situation.

Britney is 27 years old, Lindsay 21. Now, Lindsay smokes, eats poorly, drinks like a fish, and presumably does a lot of drugs. Britney does all those things too. I think you can make the case that she possibly does less of all those things, but probably not enough to make up the 6-year gap if you assume they both live out “complete” lives. Frankly, I could see either of them in 15 years weighing an additional 20 pounds, talking on Access Hollywood about how happy they are now that they got the negative influences out of their lives, they don’t need Hollywood, they enjoy actually eating food, etc. I don’t think the likelihood of either of them reaching that point is meaningfully different.

Of course, there’s also the “sudden death” angle. This one, you have to say Britney fares a lot better on. I assume Lindsay is doing hardcore drugs (or more hardcore drugs, at least). As Steve reminded me when Martina Hingis was accused of using cocaine, “only the pretty girls get the free cocaine.” (To clarify, I don’t think Lindsay Lohan is hot, but on a relative comparison, you’d have to say she is getting more free cocaine.) Also, judging by the swarms of paparazzi around Britney’s car at all times, it seems less likely that she can sustain a high enough driving speed to get into a serious accident. Really, neither of them should be allowed to drive, just for general public safety reasons.

In conclusion, I think Lindsay wins on “regular life” but loses in “untimely death”. Is there better than a 50% chance that both live out complete lives? Since I say “yes” to that question, I ended up voting for Lindsay Lohan to live longer. It was not an easy choice, though – it required a lot of rigorous analysis.

Ashton Kutcher Is Frightened

It's okay, Ashton. Everything is going to be okay.