The OC stars and onscreen lovers Adam Broody and Rachel Bilson have secretly gotten engaged in real life.

so, it's another entirely crappy, wet, cold day outside in the nation's capital. looking out the window right now, i was inspired to get home early and make some hot chocolate with a bit o the alcohol tonight, instead of going out to the pinback/mates of state show at the black cat (first i have no one to go with, second, i feel the itchy beginnings of a cold, and i MUST NOT GET SICK before the marathon).

but i didn't want to make just any hot chocolate. so i searched around on the internet for some super special hot chocolate recipes. and lo and behold, the very first hot chocolate recipe that pops up on google is a whitehouse.gov recipe for hot chocolate by laura bush.

i actually think laura bush is a lovely woman, and her recipe doesn't sound bad (though not as decadent as i was hoping for; where's the real chocolate and heavy cream?). but i was intrigued by the idea of white house-sanctioned recipes, so i searched the web site for some more. here's what i found:

Smoked Shrimp with Mango Salsa
Carrot Muffins
Baked Potato Soup
Guacamole
Vegetable Soup
Cowboy Cookies

all offered by mrs. bush, and all good-sounding, though kind of bland and boring.

but the best page BY FAR was the page containing recipes from various administration officials for their favorite 4th of july foods. the page suggest that "As you celebrate Independence Day, try one of these tasty recipes or have a Bush Administration holiday party and have your guests each bring one of these dishes" (gawd, doesn't a bush administration holiday party sound like an awful lot of fun.) we have, in no particular order:

Secretary Ashcroft's "Simply BBQ"
Secretary Thompson's "Bratwurst of Liberty"
Secretary Snow's "Land of the Free Cole Slaw"
President and Laura Bush's Deviled Eggs Recipe
Secretary Evans' "Enchiladas Verde de 1776"
President and Laura Bush's Guacamole Recipe
Greg Mankiw's "Fourth of July Coq Au Vin"
Dale Haney's Yankee Doodle Dandy Ambrosia Salad

okay. the fuck? bratwurst of liberty? enchiladas verde de 1776? second, the recipes are all terrible. they include such directions as "place meat on grill and cook for a while" or "mush this together and serve with mustard, it's real good!"

and i know these terrible recipes with their terrible names aren't the faults of these particular administration officials. the idea that our public servants need to offer up some sort of recipes or proof that they know how to cook is an abomination long-held for whatever reasons, and only propogated further by the the fascists over at family circle magazine. (of course, laura bush won this stupidest of contests with 67% of the vote.)

but honestly, i don't want my high-ranking administration officials telling me what's good to cook and how to cook it. i'd rather they, you know, do their job. so next time, instead of having a recipe page from whitehouse.gov, let's see a little hard work, eh guys? like protecting caches of weapons so the terrorists don't get them?

i'm reading barry unsworth's book, the songs of the kings, right now, and it's quite good. it retells the ancient greek myth of king agamemnon's daughter, who, it is decided, must be sacrificed in order to cease the wind that is holding a large contingent of greek soldiers in the straits of aulis and thus preventing them from waging war on troy. we see much of the story through the eyes of calchas the diviner, an adviser to the king who understands the political and personal rationales and desires for the war.

i was reading the book during lunch, and found parts of the following passages rather striking.

well, my doomsday is almost upon me: the marine corps marathon takes place this sunday, october 31st.

i thought i'd put together a post of all the available information for those interested in coming to watch and cheer me (and friends) on. i understand getting up early on a sunday morning to yell at some delusional runners might not be your cup of tea, but in previous races, i have found that it makes a monumental amount of difference to see and hear your friends on the race course.

first off, my personal recommendations and ideas: if you come out, the best way to get a glimpse of me is to let me know which points you'll be watching from, and also to maybe make a sign. it'd be much easier for me to see a sign with my name on it than for you to pick me out of a sea of runners.

the race starts at 8:30 am. i believe my pace will be 9:30-10 minutes a mile. however, it could take me as long as 10 minutes to cross the start line, so adjust for that. you can get updates on my time and status sent to your cellphone via SMS here.

i think the mall is a pretty good viewing point. naomi and becca might have more and better ideas for viewing points since they ran it last year (and if you guys do, please leave them in comments), but maybe on constitution in front of the museum of natural history, between miles 11 and 12, on the righthand side of the road? (i'd guess that i'd be there around 10:30am) then you'd be able to cross the mall to get across to independence avenue, before i hit mile 15 (probably around 11am). also, any point during the 14th street bridge would be fantastic, because apparently that's where a lot of people hit the dreaded wall. a map of the whole course is here (PDF file) so you can get some idea of what i'm talking about.

anyway, the race starts at 8:30am, but i wouldn't worry about finding me at the start line. the beginning of the 14th street bridge is really where i could use some help. i estimate that i will be there around sometime around noon, maybe a bit before if i'm doing a good clip.

the marine marathon site also suggests this:

After all the marathon runners get over the starting line you have time to watch the starting of the 8K before walking across the Memorial Bridge to the Henry Bacon Drive (near the Lincoln Memorial). This is the 10-mile point. A runner's pace will dictate how quickly spectators have to get to this location. Next you can walk around the Lincoln Memorial to Independence Avenue, which is approximately mile 16. Runners will head into East Potomac Park and down along Haines Point. Spectators should return to the start/finish area by crossing the Memorial Bridge. Find a great spot along Marshall Drive or Route 110 to help your runner ascend the 110-foot elevation on their way to the Iwo Jima Monument and the finish line.

the best way to get to the race is the metro to arlington cemetery stop. more spectator information is here.

at the end of the race, people reconvene near the iwo jima memorial. a map of the finish area is here (PDF file). i can rendezvous with you all at the linkup area #1, which is A-F (A for Andrews). apparently it's still really hard to find your runners at these areas, so holding up a sign or a balloon or some sort of identifier might not be a bad idea. it would also be great if you could bring along water/gatorade so that i might replenish my sure-to-be-severely-dehydrated-ass post-race. it'd also be wonderful if you could bring along pretzels/orange slices or something to throw in my mouth during the race. sugar+ salt are good.

that's all the information i can think off. in the days to come, i guess it'd be a good idea to settle on 2 or 3 viewing points where we all know to look out for each other.

eek!

let's forget for a moment that bush and his administration let 380 TONS of majorly enormous killer bomb material (which has probably been used in most of the car bombs and attacks in iraq in the past months, and ONE POUND of which brought down the pan am lockerbie flight) get completely looted away during the war because of mismanagement, ass-hatted-ness, and general incompetence. that's just yet another fuckup in a long string of terrible decisions, lack of accountability, and total disregard for reality that the bush administration has been guilty of. i mean, blogger please. THAT's not news!

the REAL event, the total scoop that happened over the weekend that EVERYONE should be talking about is this:

Teen queen Ashlee Simpson withered through an unfortunate Milli Vanilli-like meltdown on "Saturday Night Live'' the other night when the poor punkette was caught lip-syncing to her own song!

The little sis of "Newlywed'' bubblehead Jessica Simpson, who has been criticized in the past for her flat live vocal performances, belted out her first song, "Pieces of Me,'' without a hitch.

But when Ash returned to the "SNL'' stage for her second number, the track (vocals and all!) of "Pieces of Me'' began to play again, revealing that the manufactured MTV darling had been lip-syncing the first time around as well. Oops!

As the tape ran, the mulleted songbird did an awkward jig on stage while her band bravely feigned a hard-rocking posture to the music. And after a few moments, a mortified Ashlee fled the stage!

When the cast of "SNL'' came out to bid the audience good night, guest host Jude Law tried to explain Simpson's slip-up.

"What can I say folks, live TV,'' the hunky Brit shrugged.

One blogger on Simpson's official Web site claimed to have backstage information leading up to the gaffe.

"Ashlee can't sing. She tried all day Friday, but was whining to her voice coach. They decided to leave her mike (sic) on so she could sing along to the track, but after the first line or two of the first song, (they) turned her off cause she was awful,'' wrote Barbscoop.

"So, as of the first song, all the mikes were off. Now, they had the wrong song queued up for the second song, obviously. . . . They were going to turn on Ashlee's mike so she could sing the real song, but decided not to because the band was just playing the first song. The guys were smiling cause they were simply thinking "What a (bleeping) cluster (bleep).''

what a fucking clusterfuck indeed. letting tons and tons of bomb material get away, most likely follwing in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and soldiers, ain't nothing compared to this. ashlee lied, how many died?

watch it all here. we must hold ashlee accountable!

update!: ashlee has previously HATED on lipsyncing. from a lucky magazine i/v:

LM: What are your takes on lip-synching?

AS: I'm totally against it and offended by it. I'm going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I'd never lip-synch. It's just not me.