Check out today's Penny Arcade.

Speaking of celebrity sightings and ill-advised public art, the building in which I'm working today has a weirdly pointless exhibition in the lobby/mall area along those same lines. It's called "Celebrity Specs", and it's being sponsored by the Prevention of Blindness Society as part of their ongoing mission to raise awareness of blindness and blindness-related issues (e.g. "going blind would be bad"; "perhaps we should spend money to prevent people from going blind"; "Ray Charles was a pretty cool dude"; etc).

The installation consists of a bunch of cubicle-wall-style panels holding autographed celebrity headshots with sunglasses attached. I guess we're supposed to assume the sunglasses at one point belonged to their associated celebrities. Among the luminaries featured: Scott Biao (sic); Artie "Thank God Farley Died" Lange; and third understudy for the position of America's Sweetheart, Tea Leoni.

I don't mean to make fun of the blind (my behavior during viewings of America's Next Top Model notwithstanding). But I'm having a hard time understanding this exhibit. I guess they're going to auction off the sunglasses, but come on -- do we really think an important celebrity like, uh... let's see... Dick Vitale! Do we really think Dick Vitale is going to give up his famous signature shades, which I have never seen him wearing? Of course not. He probably just got some intern to go drop ten bucks at Rite Aid, throw the purchase in an envelope with a headshot from the stack, and email ESPN's accounting department about a $500 charitable donation.

The dividers are obnoxiously in my way when I want to leave the building to get some lunch, though. I hate celebrities; I also hate things that keep me from having lunch. So maybe the exhibit is really a highly conceptual statement on celebrities' inevitable lack of awareness -- blindness, if you will -- toward the negative effects their existence has on society, despite their best intentions. Maybe.

But I still think I'm missing something. Isn't one of the hallmarks of great art its ability to inspire an emotional response? If it is, then I don't truly understand the piece. Because a few hundred feet below me, more likely than not, exists a trace amount of Judge Judy's DNA. And that thought terrifies me for reasons I can't even begin to fathom.

well, last night was disappointing. i really thought the libertines sucked. i have no idea how they've gotten such an incredible amount of buzz. i swear to god, if you put a black, shaggy wig on me, make me lose 30 pounds, dress me in skinny black pants, dangle a cigarette out of my mouth, and teach me to play three chords on my guitar, the british music press would annoint me the Next Big Thing.

on the other hand, a band i do think was deserving of its earlier buzz, franz ferdinand, is officially a group of LOSERS: they're appearing in the next harry potter movie as a rock band made up of a bunch of witches called the wyrd sisters. in the movie, "harry potter and the goblet of fire" (which is my favorite thus far in the series) they'll be doing a gig at the hogwarts yule ball.

if you know me at all, you know that there are certain things i cannot handle. one of the most obvious is my problem with embarrassing situations on television; for example, i could not, repeat, NOT, watch the debates on tv sober. there is ample evidence of this. physically, i couldn't do it. watching the debates sober meant that i might have to see kerry make some utterly terrible gaffe, or start speaking french, or get beatdown by bush, and then i would see this terrible occurence and have to process it while in the throes of sobriety, and it would just be too much for my brain to handle, and my head would explode. however, while drunk, i can handle almost anything (or at least i think i can, which might explain why i talk shit to large men or attempt to dance while intoxicated). alcohol totally smoothed the process so that my neurons didn't combust when kerry did some stupid stuff.

i also cannot handle socially embarrassing scenes on tv shows. for example, had i witnessed the tucker carlson/jon stewart flak the other day, i probably would have run out of the room crying, with my shirt pulled around my face in order to hide it all from my eyes, even though i think tucker carlson is an ass and i would have been rejoicing in the exchange. it's even worse, if possible, with sitcoms, even though i know in my head that these are, you know, fictional characters, and they're not actually being humiliated on nationwide tv in front of millions of people. i literally moan and hide my face behind pillows when ryan and marissa are in a compromising situation, or when one girl gets such a bitchy ass-thrashing by another girl on america's next top model that all you can do is sit there, shame-faced along with her. well, that actually happened, and that girl actually did get humiliated in front of millions of people, but damn, it's some good tv.

anyway, it's well-documented that i can't handle fictional embarrassing situations that occur amongst actors on television. but if there's one thing i deal with even more poorly than these humiliations-via-catheter-ray it's the real-life situations where i meet famousish people. which occurs more often than you might suspect.

susan reminded me of my affliction when she forwarded me this cute encounter between a blogger and a dude from "lost" at the airport. she actually comes off quite well compared to certain interactions i've had. let me list a few: