Not serving the High Life

The dy-no-mite ms. wobs and I had a date night on Thursday evening. We headed into the city for... bowling. We don't go bowling too often, namely because ms.wobs convincingly kicks my ass most of the time, but it seemed like a good idea for this evening (I did win one game, thanks to Lady Margarita).

However, the bowling alley we went to... I dunno. It was the Lucky Strike down at Gallery Place. Now I have nothing against fine or trendy establishments. I enjoy a good meal at a nice restaurant, and I can dig on the trendy bar with the impressive martini menu. But "posh" and "bowling alley" should not be uttered in the same breath. Yet there we were.

First, it appears to be cosmic bowling all the time in there, so the lanes are a black-lit dim, with a video projection screen over the pins (this was very annoying, as it obscured the lane markings which I desperately need to make a decent roll). The seating area around the lanes had a low table with two couches. Couches, people. And they were relatively comfortable. On the table was a freaking candle.

What's more, there's something highly discordant about being able to get a well-poured, top-shelf manhattan delivered to your lane while you're bowling. I don't begrudge the liquor - the tasty margarita which ms. wobs slurped down did inebriate her enough to assure victory in game 2 (ok - it was only by a sliver) - but it's strange. And having goat cheese pastries and coconut prawn shrimp that actually taste good while you bowl? I'm sorry, but a bowling alley should serve greasy fries and jalapeño poppers. And the rest of their menu was pretty good as well. It shouldn't be that way. It really shouldn't.

No rotund, mustachioed guys with a scowl named Earl disinfecting shoes. Nary a Polish-American social club in sight. Not even a gang of college hipsters swilling PBR and occasionally sneaking out to smoke rolled Drum cigarette. Nope, this was bowling for the young and beautiful crowd (where, of course, ms. wobs and I blended in perfectly). Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of fun, but I think for our next ten pin experience, we'll seek out something a little more downscale.

My class resentment bubbleth over

We all have our upwardly-mobile, middle-class professional friends who like to wallow in working-class chic (some of us may even be those people), but thank god I don't know anyone like this:

Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.

Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike.

[...]

Mr. Kremen estimated his net worth at $10 million. That puts him firmly in the top half of 1 percent among Americans, according to wealth data from the Federal Reserve, but barely in the top echelons in affluent towns like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. So he logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up.

“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” Mr. Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here.

On the one hand, I'll give them credit for maintaining a solid work ethic, unlike some of the Georgetown trust-fund set I've run across. On the other hand, ahem...

$10 MILLION IS PLENTY OF MONEY! YOU'RE NOT FUCKING POOR, SO STOP YOUR FUCKING WHINING!

I feel better now.

We do not as of yet know if they will be midgets

Nothing will cheer up your jailbird pal like hiring her dopplegangers to party with you on your 21st birthday ("soberly," of course). I'm sure someone will find that hee-fuckin'-larious.

Flotsam and Jetsam: Rich, Famous, & Dumb edition

I haven't done any digging through the celebrity compost pile in some time, not so much because there hasn't been weird stuff, but because I like to think that you and I have a much more sophisticated standard for what consitutes truly "weird stuff." Well, today's slop bucket delivered in spades.

• What is it with celebrities and little people? Now we have Lindsay Lohan hanging out with the world's premier little Britney impersonator?
• Speaking of Lindsay Lohan, who's already pretty fame-damaged at the tender age of twenty, I imagine being named Maxim's hottest woman is only going to accelerate her tendencies towards self-immolation. And to the dingbats at Maxim - really?
• Ever wonder what it would be like to have an on-line chat with Bruce Willis? No? There's a reason for that.
  
• And to top it all off, we have the Hoff:

  While he says that Hasselhoff can be charming and kind, [British journalist Piers] Morgan claims he’s also insecure about his status since his star has fallen from his glory days. “His ego is massive, there’s no other word for it,” according to Morgan. “Barely a day’s filming goes by when he doesn’t allude to 'Baywatch' and 'Knight Rider' being ‘the biggest TV shows ever’ or to the ‘nine million albums I’ve sold in Germany.”

  The Hoff can make a case for "Baywatch," but "Knight Rider?" C'mon!
  

What Jane Austen hath wrought

I'm at a loss to describe how appalled I am about the coverage of the Queen's visit to D.C., breathlessly recounted in the WaPo. The coverage reads like a bad romance novel, with dreary descriptions of pointless protocol and charmingly staged vignettes of "everyday life" at the White House:

President Bush welcomed the queen with a royal faux pas about her age, suggesting she had witnessed American independence in 1776. Expressing admiration for her long friendship with the United States, Bush noted that Elizabeth had dined with 10 presidents and had "helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 . . ." He quickly caught and corrected his mistake, "in 1976."

Her Majesty did not appear to be amused.

Laughter rippled across the South Lawn, but the queen, who celebrated her 81st birthday last month, shot Bush a look that he sheepishly acknowledged "only a mother could give a child."

It wasn't his only comeuppance of the day.

Laura Bush acknowledged she and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had tag-teamed Bush to coax him into white tie for the White House's most formal dinner of his presidency.

"Dr. Rice and I took it upon ourselves to talk him into it, because we thought if we were ever going to have a white-tie event, this would be the one," Mrs. Bush told reporters.

For fuck's sake. Getting disciplined by his "mother?" Being "tag-teamed" by Laura and Condi? Barbara Cartland couldn't pack any more innuendo in there.

And someone please explain to me again why everyone has to walk on eggshells around this woman?

The case against an American aristocracy

Exhibit B: still at Paris Hilton's 26th birthday party, but surprisingly, only tangentially related to Hilton herself:

Oil heir, noted wordsmith, and parachute enthusiast Brandon Davis made Paris Hilton cry at her 26th birthday party, and drove Courtney Love and Paula Abdul to flee the premises.

Things were going well at Hilton’s dinner party at L.A.’s Prime Grill until 10 p.m. rolled around and Davis started acting up.

"He was hurling flowers at Paula Abdul," a guest tells the New York Daily News. "Then he began bombing her with Styrofoam flower-holders. He was shouting, 'Lick my [BLEEP], Paula!' He started mocking her ancestry by speaking gibberish in an Arabic accent.

Abdul, who was supposed to sing "Happy Birthday," made an early exit.

Davis then turned on Love.

"He lifted her up so that she was straddling his waist," says a witness. "Her Chanel dress was riding up. Brandon was saying, 'I want to squirt on you.' He was humping Courtney in front of her daughter, Frances Bean. When he put her down, Courtney grabbed Frances and they marched out of the restaurant through the kitchen."

Behold our betters. They deserve every penny they have.

The case against an American aristocracy

Exhibit A, Paris Hilton's 26th birthday party:

After downing TY KU liquor and bottles of Dom Perignon, guests reported seeing Hilton play with a monkey while a band of midgets led a pack of goats around the room.