In recent days it has come to our attention that many are experiencing increasing difficulty when trying to distinguish between the newborn baby panda and Owen Wilson. In order to resolve any potential confusion, we present this handy chart. It should serve both to help you identify the subtle distinctions between the two, and to spot possible "trouble areas" that may cause confusion. Feel free to print it out and keep a copy in your wallet for quick reference.

	Baby Panda	Owen Wilson
Dairy-Related Appellation	Butterstick	Butterscotch
Girls' Opinion Of	Highly Favorable	Highly Favorable
Nose	Stupid Looking	Stupid Looking
Anal Regimen	Mother engages in prolonged licking sessions to stimulate waste elimination	Engages in prolonged licking sessions (motivation unknown)

i've finally found some info online related to my medill orientation in september:

* Fall 2005 Journalism Orientation
Monday, September 19, 2005
8:30 a.m. McCormick Tribune Center
1870 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208

Other information:
Photos: Remember we will be taking 2 photos of you upon your arrival at orientation, one for our Who's Who Directory and one for your Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) pass.

Attire: Dress casually and wear comfortable shoes!

wear comfortable shoes? what are they going to make us DO?

anyway, reading the info about the orientation made me get all fluttery on the inside, just like prepping for the first day of school in third grade. it was my first day at a new school (having just moved to the suburbs from d.c.) and, even as a nine year-old, i knew the most important fact of all: i had to dress AWESOMELY. i'm pretty sure i ended up wearing something with a pony on it that day, but this time around, i still know, as shallow as it is: you gotta dress right. in my deluded, fashion-and-appearance-obsessed head, there's a perfect outfit out there that will totally communicate to my new professors and uber-competitive (so i've heard) medill classmates that i am, without a doubt, the BEST J-SCHOOL STUDENT EVER. you know, my actual work, ideas, and reporting will not prove my worth; it'll be the cut of my jeans or the stitching on my shirt or my awesome dangly earrings. anyway, i don't know yet what i'll wear for orientation, but i have to say, i'm pretty sure it'll be TOTALLY necessary that it involve a new pair of shoes and this purse.

see? it happens all the time. phoebe also brings up another point that i wanted to make in the last enormous thread but didn't - why are men asking us to smile when, if we actually were walking around the streets, riding the buses, etc, all while having a huge grin on our face, most people would think (correctly) that we were insane?

unrelatedly, can i officially blast the staff of the nytimes fashion&style section into space yet? this article on heterosexual girl crushes is retarded. it's the equivalent of the man date article that took the blogosphere by storm a few months ago, except in this case, the phenomenon that this article discusses so breathlessly is EVEN LESS of a new trend. a "girl crush" is actually "WANTING TO BE FRIENDS WITH SOMEBODY." or, in this case: "Sometimes, though, a girl crush is so strong it makes the object of affection uneasy, killing the possibility of friendship" it is called "SINGLE WHITE FEMALE."

There are some blog posts that simply won't die. Over at BTD there's one about passive agression that has attracted an astounding (for us) 517 non-spam comments.

This site has an equivalent thread. It's got far fewer comments, but they continue to trickle in from google at a slow drip. Like the mythical Chinese water torture. The other difference: instead of bitter singles, we get Linkin Park fans. It's pretty awful.