My family used to go down to Florida every December to visit my snow-bird grandparents. We would stay at a hotel near their retirement village and spend our days swimming in their (un-heated) swimming pool with all the other grandkids while the old folks sat in the shade playing Bridge.

And that is where I had my first encounter with Huaraches. They were the trendiest and most-worn sandal on the pool deck. All the grandparents were wearing ‘em.

How they became the biggest trend for Spring shoes for the under 75 crowd, I’ll never know. Fashion is always surprising me.

They look really comfortable, but cute? I think not.

But whether I like it or not, this shoe is leaving Boca and making its way into the closets of fashionistas nationwide.

So I have to know:

Huaraches: Love Em or Hate Em?

The Super Bowl is only a week away. Yes, one week.

One week until buffalo wing/pizza/guacamole heaven. One week until the biggest sporting event of the year. One week until the big halftime show. Are you ready for some football?

If you’re like many of the ladies out there, you don’t know many of the facts about the upcoming “big game” and you may not even care, but what better way to impress those sports lovin’ hotties at the Super Bowl party? And isn’t everything more fun when you know what’s going on and have someone to root for?

So without further ado, here is a basic Super Bowl XLIII 101.

The Teams

The game pits the top team in the NFC (National Football Conference), the Arizona Cardinals, against the top team in the AFC (American Football Conference), the Pittsburgh Steelers

The Arizona Cardinals:

-This is the first time in team history that the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. With 61 years under their belt, they have held the second longest championship drought in American sports.

-The Cardinals made it into the wild card round of the playoffs with a 9-7 record and shocked footballs fans everywhere when they won all 3 of their playoff games, despite being underdogs in each game. They are only the second 9-7 team in history to make it to the Super Bowl. Read More »

I love bagels and when guys nibble on my ear, but you don’t see me announcing that on my license plate.

Check out more hilarious license plates at Jalopnik.

If you’re from Ohio, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Florida, Indiana and Colorado, today’s the day to get your sh*t together and register to vote.

Virginia voters have definitely heard to the call to get up and out, as many registration booths have been “overwhelmed” by the amount of people trying to insure their say in this election.  According to the Los Angeles Times;

“Virginia has logged more than 300,000 new voters since the year began. The state does not record party affiliation, but it says that 41% of the new registrants are under the age of 25, and an additional 20% are between the ages of 25 and 34.

The influx of young voters, a core part of Obama’s voting coalition, is an encouraging sign for the Democratic nominee in a state that has not picked a Democrat for president in more than 40 years .”

It’s always encouraging when young people put down their ipods and blackberrys and decide to take responsibility for a nation they’ll soon be controlling, and it’s even more encouraging that a Democratic candidate unlike any other is the one that gets them fired up.

No matter what party you affiliate yourself with, it’s got to make you happy that someone has finally (seemingly) lit the fire under the ass of America’s youth.

I’ll be honest: I’m a bitch. I have no problem telling it like it is, talking about someone behind his/her back or telling secrets about people I hate. This is why people fight to stay on my good side.

Which is why people are so surprised when they find out about my passion for animals. I cry when those commercials for animal shelters come on the TV, I have to look away from movies or TV shows when an animal gets injured and I wanted to personally kill Michael Vick when it was discovered he was running that evil dog fighting ring.

It is weird, I know, but I can’t help but feel for creatures who don’t have a voice to defend themselves. Yes, even if they have the teeth or claws to do so.

Like sharks. (Yes, I am being completely serious!) Sharks are most often thought of as predators, but lately off the coast of Florida they have become victims. In the past year more and more sharks have been found murdered in the water. There is no excuse for harming another life – especially an innocent one – and it is up to us to protect every creature on this planet.

Please take a moment to sign the attached petition and protect the sharks and our planet’s wildlife.

You gotta love Japanese culture. They always find a way to surprise you with their little quirks and pleasantries.

I mean, in America, the stereotypical retiree will move down to Florida to spend their time lounging by the pool in a gated community or playing a few holes on the golf course. Lame. In Japan, adult films for senior citizens, aka “elderly porn” is growing into quite the profitable franchise, according to porn producing giant Ruby Productions.

While America’s economy is declining, many entertainment venues (including golf courses) are taking a hit. In Japan, at least one retiree is cashing in on the entertainment biz. Shigeo Tokuda, 73, is the Ron Jeremy of elderly porn.

CNN correspondent Kyung Lah describes Tokuda as “the star of his movies in every way, romancing his co-stars, no matter their age, no matter their needs.” And apparently, his films are no-holds-barred, much like anything Jenna Jameson has appeared in. Read More »

Once upon a time, I lived in a very small apartment with my significant other. The price was right, the location ideal to school and the complex, if not especially fancy, was at least fairly clean and had a tennis court.

For all that we liked about it, this apartment had one major drawback, which we discovered with some surprise the first night we moved in: The walls were paper thin.

After carting what seemed like thousands of boxes, a big screen TV and a king sized bed up a few flights of stairs in the heat of the Florida summer, the last thing on our minds was making love.

Not so for our neighbors, who started having sex so loudly that I could hear it in the shower at about six o’clock in the afternoon.

At about nine, my boyfriend and I had given up all pretense of affording our new neighbors their modesty and had our ears fully to the wall, listening intently as they changed position, talked dirty, even spanked each other.

Usually, I would get some perverse amusement from a scene such as this, but it only made me feel, well, sad. I didn’t know if the couple next door had been moving all day like we had, but they obviously had the energy for a marathon lovemaking session. I thought with some embarrassment that the time we had spent listening to the rabbits on the other side of our wall, not unpacking or resting, could have just as easily been spent having sex. Not crazy end of the world sex in which our neighbors were engaging, but sex nonetheless. Read More »

Bye-bye Hillary… As more and more news outlets and political insiders come out in support of Senator Barack Obama as the democratic presidential nominee, pressure is mounting for Clinton to drop out so that the democratic party can turn their focus onto defeating McCain—whom many are calling Bush III.

This week’s Economist led with an article entitled “Almost there: Barack Obama deserves the nomination. It is not yet clear whether he deserves the presidency”. The article went on to state:

“As The Economist went to press, Mrs Clinton was publicly still promising to keep on fighting right the way to the Denver convention. That remains her right. But it is hard to see what she, her party or her country can gain from the struggle.”

The New York Times—who had endorsed Senator Clinton– posted a rather scathing editorial in which all but call upon her to drop out, stating that while it is her right to continue the fight,

“Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones.” Read More »

So they are going to France. I really hope that in this episode that there is some action. Funny, violent, I don’t care. And I don’t care if it comes from the girls, from French bystanders – just give me something to care about in this hour.

I tune in and the three girls are outside; Seezinz says something about “there’s no way you’re coming into the house already in love with Flav.” Yeah, that’s what I’ve BEEN saying. Seezinz thinks that Black is cocky because she says that she doesn’t have to fight for Flav’s time – but really, she’s just telling the truth. Flav thinks that she’s smokin hot.

Now they’re on a yacht. Cool, fight on the yacht, please. Anything so that I don’t have to watch Flav hook up. Sinceer didn’t wear bathing suit bottoms on the boat; I’m glad that she didn’t jump in bottomless. After water time, Flav asks the girls if he made the right decision about eliminating Thing 2. Please don’t bring her back.

I got a phone call and missed out on how they went from T2 talk on the boat to a soiree. I also can’t believe that I spelled soiree right on the first try. Read More »

So you’ve finished your first year of college! You’re relieved, excited, and filled with pride (hopefully) at your academic accomplishment. You say goodbye to your friends at school, and make the journey home.

For me, that journey home was pretty long: 1330.45 miles, if we’re being exact. And after two weeks at home, and that initial joyful reunion with my friends from high school, I am suffering from a major case of reverse homesickness.

During my first semester of school, all I wanted to do was go back to Florida, transfer to a school where academics are often neglected for tanning and water sports, despite the fact that I had come to Boston to get away from such a scenario. Nonetheless, I was ready to throw in the towel and head back home.

Second semester, however, I really began to find my footing at school, and I had a wonderful time. I did well in all my classes, fell into a groove that enabled me to balance my academic goals with some semblance of a social life, and participated in our school’s spring musical. My last night in Boston was the night of our cast party, which was not short on the debauchery or tearful goodbyes.

Suffice it to say, when I arrived home, I was feeling a little morose. I wasn’t going to see anyone from Boston until September! And now, as a couple weeks have passed and it’s getting stiflingly hot here, I miss Boston and my school friends like nobody’s business. I’ve even come to miss the simplicity of my tiny freshman double, the greasy food at our dining hall, even the drunken frat boys screaming outside my window at 3 in the morning on a Thursday night…I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

So, partly for my sanity, and partly for yours, I’m come up with a few ways to avoid, or at least diminish, that reverse homesickness. Read More »