"Everything in moderation is ultimately where all these things lead to," said Douglas Conant, chief executive of Campbell Soup Co. "These diets become fad-like and take on lives of their own ... and typically they are not sustainable."

So Catherine, Scott and I saw Fountains of Wayne last night. For those unfamiliar with the band... well, you're missing out. They're a merciless pop juggernaut. Also, their guitarist looks a little like X-Pac.

I wouldn't say the show was quite as good musically as the last time we saw them play 9:30. Still, the performance benefitted a lot from not having a drunk redneck incessantly warbling into my ear while gesticulating wildly with his beer bottle -- a feature of their last DC performance. In fact, the demographics of the crowd had changed quite a bit over the last few months, presumably on the strength of Stacy's Mom. There were a lot of people who listen to stations named "MIX" chaperoning a lot of people who listen to stations named "HOT". On the one hand it was kind of weird, but on the other I'm now feeling a lot more comfortable about those Hillary Duff tickets I got off EBay.

Most confusing moment: opening act Leona Naess encouraging the crowd to sing along, saying "I know you can do better than those people in Virginia!" Whuh? I guess they played a VA date the night before; still, did she think the club was filled with, you know, just folks from the neighborhood? Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm thinking the number of Howard University students at the show last night was pretty close to zero.

from sara comes this nyt article: 30 is the new 21.

i really think it's true. societal norms are changing such that i don't think anyone really perceives it as strange anymore if a woman isn't married at 30, doesn't have a child by 30, is still in grad school at 30, is changing up careers at 30. i think it's awesome. why shouldn't i have 10 or more years after graduating from college to do things that are for me, that i enjoy, and that i think are in my best interest? go away, societal pressure.

of course, some can also see it as reluctance to step into a real world adult life, which may be part of it, but if we've got an ever increasing life span, why not stretch out our immaturity as well? i'm all for it!

whatever, arnold totally wants to run.

DAMMIT. i just accidentally saw what i think how it ended up on sex and the city. dammit dammit dammit. oh well. who am i kidding. i'm a spoiler whore, anyway. i may as well just go read what happened.

fountains of wayne concert last night was very good, and for once, i didn't find the crowd to be a bunch of obnoxious assholes (there were a fair amount of under 18-ers, but overall, tommy, scott and i were some of the youngest people there. who know that fow had such an old fan base?) it took them a few songs to get into it, but once they did, they really seemed to be enjoying themselves, and played a ton of old stuff. only two songs from utopia parkway (but the best two ones, denise and red dragon tattoo), a lot off of fow (including radiation vibe, hurrah), and a good amount off of welcome interstate managers. they said the 9:30 club was their favorite place to play in the country :) their banter was not to be beat, either; a fan yelled "you were robbed at the grammys!!!" and the lead singer said, "nah, fiddy was robbed." then the bassist was talking about how they met joan rivers, and this was his impression of her: "joan rivers looks like someone wearing a joan rivers mask."

sunday afternoon before the concert i went shopping at target because i was bored out of my mind (which is pretty much why i always end up shopping). i bought a couple of pairs of cheap-ass issac mizrahi shoes, which i was pleased with, but i don't know who he thinks he's kidding with his clothing line. it's a bunch of poorly-made crap that looks good on no one except the highly-styled skinny models in the commercials. you suck, issac.

saturday night i feel asleep at like 10 o' clock because i was all tuckered out. i can't even remember what i did saturday, but it probably involved sleeping in a lot, because i had gone out the night before with kriston and susan. i had a great time with them, and we ended up going to like 72 places. i met up with them at an apparently now-defunct wine bar called arbor in adams morgan (which was part of a restaurant). we got there at 6 only to find out that friday night was their last night ever! how sad, especially because i had really liked it, and i really like wine. so we took advantage of the half-priced happy-hour bottles and drank some red and i learned that in texas you say you "float" a keg instead of "tapping" it when you finish drinking it, and various other tx v. va differences. we then went to a bar called pharmacy, i think..it started getting a little fuzzy at that point. and then we went to a hooka bar! or however you spell it! and smoked apple-flavored hooka, or shishka, or however you spell it! and the guy gave us free sodas while we watched crazy arab music videos including one of a guy looking very euro-trash but driving around a busload of kids in diapers and playing with them on the beach. or maybe that was just the hooka.

then we were starving, so we made our way to ben's chili bowl, of which i had heard many fables, but i'd never eaten there. i had a half-smoke with chili, i think it was called, which is a big old sausage type thing with really good chili on top. by that point i was beat and hooka-ed out, so i hopped in a cab back to arlington. i had a nice conversation with the cabbie, got out at tommy's house, stumbled around his living room for a while as he and charles watched the simpsons dvd commentary, and then passed out shortly thereafter.

and that was my weekend in reverse! i think all my debauchery left me with a cold. icky. the only way a cold is good if it gets so bad that you can take a sick day. i will pray for that.

oh, and i would like to remind everyone of next week's oscar festivities. the ballot is in an entry somewhere below. fortuitously, in this month's instyle, there was a whole section on how to throw an oscar party, so i thought i could follow that to make it really special. it was asian-themed, and looked pretty, but really, it's just way too complicated. it was like, you need to serve ginger-glazed shredded duck and fig eggrolls with a spicy plum sauce and buy some red and black pillows and candles and perhaps some asian lanterns to string from the ceiling...i'm like, let's just order chinese and drink bud. sound good? good.