I guess I'm not the only one who thought so.

"Girl, looks like you're growing a horn up there," declared Wanda as I walked into the copy room today.

"Yeah, I know. I caught Zack checking it out yesterday." He had seemed distracted when we were talking on the couch.

"What are you looking at?" I demanded. He feebly attempted denial.

"You're not making eye contact! I can tell." He crumbled under the pressure of female irrationality.

"Okay! I was looking at your zit. It's not so bad. It'll go away," he said, sweetly kissing me.

Sure, it'll go away. With a little help. And some holy water. So, as of this afternoon, I began the exorcism with a trip to the spa. As Yelena was waxing my brows, she let out a little sigh. "You've got a pimple. Are you on your period?"

"No, but I've eaten a lot of chocolate cake recently."

She chuckled. "That probably didn't do it. Don't worry, I'll clean it up for you"

She finished up the wax, and placed some towels on my face, and began applying a tremoundous amount of pressure to the zit. How was this possible? I know she's Russian and all, but she's actually rather petite. Along with the pressure was a sharp, stabbing pain. Could this also be a way of performing a frontal lobotomy? I felt the zit give way and release itself. "Oooh, this one was gonna be huge. There was a lot inside. You could hear it." She wiped it clean, and applied some ointment. "Hmmm. Thanks." So the swelling has begun to go down, and there's a bit of a scab. But I've decided to call it Pod Ziggy. Once the swelling is gone, and the scab is left, I can start calling it P.Ziggy. Heh, heh. I'm easily amused.

I have a huge zit on my foreheard right now. It looks like a horn sprouting. It's sore, and it throbs, and I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a tumor. I'm considering giving it a nickname... Pimply? Ziggy? Pod? Devil's Teat? Tiff tells me I'm overreacting, and my husband says it's no big deal, but I still find it rather alarming. I don't get zits too often, but when I do, they turn out huge, and in the oddest places. I put a little bit of charcoal mask on it, and followed it up with Tend Skin. It's been very difficult not to touch it. Luckily, I have an appointment scheduled with my aesthetician tomorrow. Hopefully, she can bring relief. If not, I may need to be exorcised or something.

Okay, now I feel like a dork. Turns out Itunes *does* carry Dntel. Under "Electronic." But I blame Itunes' rather byzantine form of categorization. Like how you can find Polyphonic Spree under "Pop", but you can't find Postal Service under "Alternative." You can find Bjork under "Alternative", but not under "Electronic". And as much as I adore U2, they still get classified as "Alternative." Weird, huh? But enough about that... thanks to Paul's help, I have tickets to the sold out Death Cab show next week! Huzzah! (I just watched Master and Commander)

What is it about Benjamin Gibbard's voice that has me so hooked? I feel like I have to listen to every album he's had anything to do with over and over again. Even though it's been hellishly hot for the past few days, I've been listening to "Blacking Out the Friction" and "I was a Kaleidoscope" nonstop. I'm even considering downloading up some All-Time Quarterback and Dntel tracks. Just blame Itunes. (except Itunes doesn't carry Dntel. D'oh!)

Thank you blogger! I now have a gmail account! Woo hoo!

Normally, I wouldn't endorse a show on the Food Network (except for Alton Brown's Good Eats, of course). But I have just learned, courtesy of this May's Vogue magazine, that my idol, Jeffrey Steingarten, is one of the judges on the new Iron Chef show, alongside Ted of the Fab Five. From his article, it appears that Steingarten is taking up the curmudgeonly baton of Kishi Asako, and telling it like it is. "No more Mr. Popularity for me." And Alton Brown is going to be the play-by-play commentator! Looks like I've figured out my plans for this weekend...

I've had an obsession with chocolate cupcakes lately. It was definitely inspired by Anne's post a little while ago that mentioned the yellow kind, with white frosting. What exactly is yellow flavored box cake? Don't get me wrong, I like it... but it's now exactly vanilla, it's not exactly butter. Hmmm. Oh well. I guess it's kind of like the blue Slurpee.

I started to lean towards chocolate cupcakes because I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen about chocolate sheet cake. The geeky host, Christopher Kimball, although he has no charisma whatsoever, has begun to grow on me. Although I'm convinced that one of the test chefs, Bridget, hates him. Today, when he stated that someone suggested using a beater from a hand mixer to ream a lemon, she blurted, "Were they drunk???" And not in the giggly joking way. But I digress. Back to the chocolate sheet cake...

You know the kind... the moist, spongy chocolate cake from your childhood with the caramelly sweet gooey frosting. Not the ultra dark and dense Scharffenberger style cake that has been in vogue as of late. I'm thinking of the kind you get from the supermarket, that you can actually eat a huge piece of. Well, I tried the recipe, and converted it to cupcakes. I wound up leaving the cupcakes in the oven a bit longer than I should have, so they were a tad drier than I would have liked, but there were actually pretty good. It was actually a pain to find dutch process cocoa... I already had Valhrona, Scharffenberger and some kind of artisan cocoa powder on hand, but none were Dutch process. After much searching at Andronico's and Whole Foods, I finally found Droste Dutch Process at Trader Joe's. There was some silly looking rain forest dutch process cocoa at Whole Foods, but I didn't trust it. I also bought some Van Houten cocoa powder, but it's unclear whether or not it's Dutch process. The tin was just too cute to pass up. Now, the recipe calls for using both cocoa powder and chocolate. I used Scharffenberger semi-sweet, (which, in comparison to other chocolates, is actually bittersweet) so it turned out a bit dark. Not bad at all, but not what I was looking for. The frosting was really good too, but also too dark fpr what I was seeking. I used Callebaut semisweet, instead of milk. In order to balance out the bitterness, I sprinkled fleur de sel on top. Sounds weird, but it actually works pretty well! I had also tried sprinkling chopped macadamias, and their saltiness is what gave me the idea. Anyways, I will try again next week with Callebaut semi sweet and milk. Ah, Callebaut. In baking chocolatey things, Scharffenberger has a nice tannic acidity that goes really well with a California Cabernet Sauvignon, and Valrhona has a nearly floral-fruity bitterness that's good with Bordeaux, but for the sweet tooth who just wants good old classic tall glass of milk to go with it, Callebaut is perfect. Which is why I will always fall back on it. Haven't yet tried El Rey. Maybe soon.

I have concluded that Best Buy is evil. Evil, I tell yah! You go in just to pick up a copy of Matrix Revolutions for your hubby, or a belated birthday present for a kindred soul, and you emerge with... well, a great deal more than you intended. This evening, I picked up the boxed set of Freaks and Geeks. As much as I espouse about Buffy (which is still my favorite show of all time, bar none) and its metaphors for the high school experience, its advancement of the feminist hero, along with its sweeping mytharc, Freaks and Geeks really breaks down the minutiae of the high school experience. You know, trying to score a fake id, the childhood friend you've outgrown, the uncomfortable silences that emerge when parents try to have "the talk" with you ("Tell her about Korea, Bob."). Now, I love the O.C., with its golden Newport sunsets, designer wardrobe, and most of all, its witty uber-geek, Seth (Xander Harris' heir apparent), but *that* wasn't really my high school experience. I doubt anyone's high school experience is like that - it's a fantasy world, although I did, technically, grow up in "the O.C.," and only a stone's throw from Newport. Sam, Neal and Bill from Freaks and Geeks are the real deal. I mean, look at these guys. You had to know them (or perhaps were them) in high school. They're not witty. They're on the AV-team. If they wear Addidas sneakers, it's not 'cause they're retro... it's 'cause their moms bought them. They spend a great deal of time arguing over whether or not Sam's crush farted, or if it was her chair cushion. But it's also surprisingly tender and affectionate, without becoming too precious. So check it out. What else are you gonna do, watch the Swan?