Once you go Woolly, you never go back...

An unscrupulous co-worker recently introduced me to the ludicrously addictive canceled television series Veronica Mars.

Oh my gosh, she's so cute! She's so Nancy Drew! She's so hardcore! Kristen Bell can fake cry like nobody's business! That Logan... so dastardly, so kind of homely, but so oddly hubba hubba. Who killed Lilly? OMG, HE killed Lilly! That's good. I hated him! Keith Mars is, like, the best dad in the world. Back Up makes me want to buy a pit bull. My high school experience was just like Veronica's, but without the PI stuff, the high drama, the rich friends, the hot boyfriends, the great wardrobe, the perfect hair, the proximity to tropical beaches, and the convertible. Basically I was a misunderstood, outsider smart chick. I was blonde. My Wallace was an Italian boy who was also good at basketball. And my principal hated me. Ummm... yeah, that kind of wraps up the similarities. But still...

So, I mainlined Season One in a matter of days, but my co-worker/dealer connection ended there. Season One ends with VM opening the door to her apartment after the worst night of her life, busting a huge smile, and saying, "I was hoping it was you...." Who? Logan? Wallace? Eli? Please not icky Duncan!! Obviously, to quell my VM DTs, I had to get me a Season Two fix ASAP.

I'm a big fan of buying local, but I have to admit that even though just about everything points to me renting local when it comes to DVDs, I've always been sucked into the convenience of Ye Olde Blockbuster. And today was no different. It was pouring rain, and I knew that Blockbuster was a good zip-in/zip-out option. And so I hit the Big Blue Box renter after work to pick up my drug of choice.

But no dice! While Blockbuster had a whole wall full of Losts and Sopranos, there was not a VM to be had. So I bit the bullet and hopped in the ol' jalopy and drove over to the store that I should have gone to in the first place: Wild and Woolly Video on Bardstown Road.

This experience at W&W has clinched the deal. Inconvenience aside, everything else about W&W is so far superior to Blockbuster that I can't believe it took me this long to convert. The bitch is the lack of parking, and on a day like today it was a rather miserable walk in the rain to get there.

First of all, the collection at W&W has to rival the collections at some of the best DVD stores in the country. It's massive, expertly catalogued, and wildly diverse. It never crossed my mind that they wouldn't have my VM; I was only worried that it might be checked out.

Recently, I've once again become a big fan of TV. And watching TV on DVD is the way to go. The second, and probably biggest, selling point for W&W is that, unlike Blockbuster who rents TV DVDs by the individual DVD, at W&W when you rent a TV DVD, you get the whole season for one price. At Blockbuster, it would have cost me around $24 to rent the 6 DVDs for Veronica Mars' Season Two. At Wild and Woolly, I got the whole shebang for a mere $4.65!

But wait! That's not all...

Wednesday night is "Ladies' Night" and all ladies get their DVDs rent one, get one free. So I got a whopping SEVEN DVDs (and the promise of a week that's going to turn my eyeballs square) for just under $5. You can't beat that with a stick, my friends.

So, open the door, Veronica. I'm just warning you, if it's Duncan you've been hoping for, I may just skip it. After all, I only spent $5.

Louisville: Many Green Miles

Prevention Magazine has released its list of the 100 most walkable cities in the US. While Louisville didn't make the top 100, it was cited as #3 on the list of "greatest number of parks per square mile."

Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show 2008: Bitches, man! Bitches.*

There is a place where dapper gentlemen dressed in suits and ties stand around and talk openly about their bitches. And it isn’t the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel. The 2008 Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show featured thousands of dogs from May 15-18 at the Kentucky Fair and Expo Center.

Of course, I went expecting to be transported to the Mayflower (yes) Dog Show from the 2000 Christopher Guest movie, Best in Show. And while the Kentuckiana Show lacks the pomp and spectacle of the show in the movie, for the most part the movie was dead on. There were the strung-out Parker Posey types and the flamboyant Michael McKeans. The second judging group I caught was the terrier group, so I couldn’t get “God Loves a Terrier” out of my head. But, truth be told, the show just wasn’t as fun or funny without Fred Willard’s commentating.

Some observations:

There’s a lot of dog-butt touching going on at dog shows. Apparently the appearance of a dog’s tail is of great significance in judging a dog, so the handlers spend a lot of brushing, stroking, and tweaking dog butt. It can be obscene and strangely intimate. At times I had to avert my eyes.

For a small dog, the tail does double-duty and serves as a handle. In order to place the dog on the judging table, handlers lift the dog by the neck and tail. I assume that this is to prevent squishing the dog’s fur. I know that it is okay lift a cat by the scruff of its neck, but it still makes me uncomfortable to watch. Likewise this means of lifting the dog.

Yes, those over-groomed poodles with the Cher hair and the hip pom-poms fair well at dog shows. I watched a white standard poodle won the Non-Working group (as she—Lord, I hope it was a “she” dog—walked by the “Non-Working" sign in the ring, my inner bitch said, “Non-Working? No shit.”). I cannot begin to describe the archness of this dog’s ugliness. Not only was she shaved to her grey-ish skin over most of her body, but her face appeared botoxed. And yet, the crowd loved her.

Dog shows smell like dogs. I don't know why this should have surprised me. I guess I assumed that with all the grooming and blow-drying and whatnot, they'd somehow wash the dog stink away. But I guess when you have hundreds of dogs under the same roof pooing and peeing, you're pretty much stuck with the dog stink. I just hope that the next expo booked in the hall isn't a flower show.

The 2007 Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show was named the 2007 Show of the Year by the AKC, so I guess what we have going on here is good stuff. In this dog show newbie's opinion, though, the show seemed slow and a bit anti-climatic. One way to perk things up a little (besides hiring Fred Willard) would be to mic the judging; that way in addition to the shameless poking and proding, viewers could be treated to choice comments like, "This bitch has a nice butt."

*Big love to anyone who recognizes the title as a quote from the endlessly quotable movie Say Anything.