What's making me happy today...

...is Pop Culture Happy Hour!
I guess it was sometime last year that I discovered Linda Holmes and her awesomely written blog, Monkey See.  (http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/)  I didn't realize that she, and a few of her selectively knowledgeable friends had started a podcast!  It's a weekly show, starring Linda, Glen Weldon, Trey Graham, and Stephen Thompson and they discuss everything pop culture and then some.  Since I have a complete aversion to popular television and I'm a BBC America snob, I sometimes don't see what America is putting out on television...on purpose.  They break it down and make it far more amusing than actually *watching* the shows.  One of their oft-discussed shows is The Bachelor Pad...which I have actually seen, but only because the gym locked the channels on the tvs, and then it was only on mute.  Unfortunately, even on mute I could hear the ear-splitting screams of a bunch of over-made up, too much product in their hair bimbos.  I could even imagine what the girls sounded like too.  They make it hilarious to the point that I enjoy the show vicariously through them, and it makes work go so much faster.  I do get strange looks when I collapse in gales of laughter on my desk (earbuds, remember?), but I think they're all just finding that to be part of my personality.  Nobody questions, don't make eye contact and keep walking.  I think it helped that I brought a tray of gummy dismembered body parts in for Halloween...just guessing.
What's not making me happy is the great variant in jean sizes throughout this great land of ours.  I find myself today wearing a pair of 15 juniors that barely hang on to my hips, but I have a pair of 13 juniors that make it look like you could bounce a quarter off my thighs.  I bought six pairs of jeans on my usual Goodwill weekend trip, all size ten.  Three of them fit.  I wish someone could explain to me how we can all agree what is supposed to be in chocolate, but nobody can come up with a standard for sizing.  I loathe fitting rooms and all that they entail, so I'd rather end up with a pair of $4 jeans that will fit in a few weeks of starvation rather than actually trying this mess on.
At any rate, I know my two whole loyal readers are now chomping at the bit to know where you can find this delightful podcast...so http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=129472378

Start at the beginning...which is the bottom...or you'll miss out on some of the best inside jokes in radio.