Like I said, you KNOW how we feel about Elmo.

Apparently, so do the rest of you, for most of you were too intimidated to attempt to caption him, lest he wreak havoc in your life as he is about to in Liv Tyler’s. Who could blame you? The creature crawled from the pit and tickled his way to the top of the heap in Hollywood, leaving a trail of drained, lifeless bodies in his wake.

Nonetheless, four brave and talented commenters have risked it all for eternal glory and imaginary swag, and from them we have chosen a winner:

Bellamama Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 12:01 am

“The Neighbors” – A Nightmare on Sesame Street!

The writing was childish and the costumes were like something out of a Saturday morning kids show! A dark comedy with too many characters, no plot, and WAY too much giggling! The only Oscar this movie will see is the Grouch!

D-

Kudos, Kevlar, and a big thumb’s-up to Bellamama for the winning caption. And what of the imaginary swag? We’ve chosen this, the Links of London Martini charm (although with a cherry I think it’s a Manhattan charm instead, but, like, whatever). I thought about choosing the cellphone charm, so you could call for help and then thought what would I do in a situation like that, and the answer was obvious: mix a very grown-up DRINK!

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A friend of mine has a daughter in her late teens who is currently traveling in Europe.  Mind you, she had never been much out of her hometown before this, and had certainly never traveled to another country. Not because they don’t have the means, they just don’t really like traveling all that much.

During the arguments discussions leading up to the decision to allow the daughter to travel such a far distance without her family, at one point the daughter accused the mother of never taking her anywhere, never letting her gain a different perspective on the world other than the one in her hometown.

At first I was taken aback by what the daughter had said, but then wondered if it did indeed have some merit.

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Trust three bored Aussies in the middle of a war zone to come up with this: an outreach program in Afghanistan consisting of co-ed skateboarding lessons. That pic is of Haroon, teaching his two-year-old sister Baher to pop an ollie while a crowd of sk8er boiz wait their turn.

From the Guardian:

Afghanistan… has the world’s highest percentage of school-age children but some of the toughest conditions. Despite progress since 2001, illiteracy is rife, beggars swarm the streets of Kabul and there are 600,000 child drug addicts. Just 1% of students make it to university.

Skateistan, as the project is called, started 18 months ago with 10 secondhand skateboards that Percovich, 34, scrounged from friends in Melbourne. It is a departure from the macho image of sport in a country where the national pastime, Buzkashi, features two teams of horsemen fighting over a calf carcass. Dog fighting and cock fighting are also popular.

Skating is non-competitive, creative and urban. The organisers hope the sport will come to define fun in the post-9/11 era, just as the bestseller The Kite Runner symbolised childhood in 1970s Kabul…

Skateistan tried to be different. It started small, offering free skateboarding classes in public spaces, with virtually no budget.

The strategy took the Australians to some unusual venues, including the Russian pool, an empty pool overlooking the city frequented by hash smokers and used for Friday night dog fights. Under Taliban rule it was used for public executions.

Sounds like the skate park near my house, actually, but that is neither here nor there. After deciding that building a skate park would be a step up from trying to take back the dogfighting arenas from the hash smokers, and rejecting working with the nonprofits in Afghanistan on competence-based grounds, they’re looking to raise the money from scratch. And we all know how well-funded the ground level of skateboarding is, don’t we?

In tangentially-related news, does anyone know why skateboarding in North America is almost exclusively male? I see plenty of girls at the skate park, sure, but they’re sitting, they’re smoking, and their waiting for their boyfriends to go so they can applaud wildly. Was I the last girl on the continent to feel welcome on a longboard?

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On Friday, Glinda, the Munchkin and the Scarecrow (my husband’s new pseudonym) went and saw Wall-E at our local cinemaplex. Being a big fan of Pixar, I had really high expectations. The first twenty minutes of the film is without dialogue, and it is superbly executed. Wall-E has been described as a “Little Tramp” archetype, and I agree. The story is a multi-level one, a love story when you come down to it, that I think works a bit better with adults than kids, actually. This is not to say I didn’t like it, but I think I liked it more than the Munchkin did. And as always, the accompanying short film “Presto” was excellent.

So far, Pixar has managed to bat .1000, and as any baseball player will tell you, that’s a very difficult thing to do.

Here are my favorite Pixar movies, each of which is ensconced in our permanent library:

Toy Story The one that started it all. The scene with the toy soldiers and the reconnaisance mission is classic, and I still cannot help but feel sad when Buzz jumps off the stairwell, even after many, many viewings.

Monsters, Inc. Line for line, one of the funniest movies ever. Billy Crystal and John Goodman are sheer magic together. I have watched this movie too many times to count, and I still laugh at each and every joke.

Finding Nemo A visually gorgeous film with a truly compelling story. The casting for the voices was sheer genius, because each actor was fabulous, from Marlon to Crush to the seagulls screeching “Mine, mine, mine!” And of course, Ellen DeGeneres giving a pitch-perfect performance as Dory.

The Incredibles Another example of great multi-level storytelling that gets better each time I watch it. But, it has enough visual pizazz to keep the kids interested, even if they may not completely “get” the message.

Ratatouille Pixar somehow manages to make you completely forget any revulsion you should feel at seeing an entire kitchen full of rats cooking a meal. I think that in itself deserves some kind of award.

Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 Famous for their short films as well as their feature-length ones, this DVD has some of the best, from Jack-Jack Attack to For the Birds. Proving that shorts can still be long on entertainment.

From the mysterious depths of the email vortisphere, via Flickr and Funnr.

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Whoo-hoo! I’m excited!

Why are you so excited, Glinda, you ask? You are dying to know, I can feel it.

I’m excited because we are having a beauty giveaway here on Teeny Manolo!

Stila is one of my very favorite brands, and for the next few weeks, we will be giving away Stila’s fantastic Lip Glaze Sticks, one winner each week. These come in the same flavors as the Lip Glazes, but are in pencil form and have lots of shimmer. Perfect for summer! And who doesn’t like free stuff?

So what do you have to do to win?

1) If you have a blog, simply link to us somewhere on your blog. Leave your link in our comment section so that we can all see it, as well as promote your blog.

2) If you don’t have a blog, well, you will have to write something really nice about us and how much you love and adore us.

Winner will be chosen by random number generator, and unfortunately, this contest is limited to people in the United States and Canada. This week’s contest will close at 12AM Pacific, July 4, 2008.

You KNOW how we feel about Elmo. Stolen from Worth1000 via AgentBedhead, this is the one-sheet for this summer’s top horror thriller:

I’m beginning to think that I should retire Mr. Mortensen, but I shall press on for the time being.

Poor Tyson, gorgeous and shiny as he is, was unable to pull out a victory last week, but had one of the best showings since Clive Owen with seventeen percent of the vote.

Now, I present to you a favorite of mine. A man who is equally as talented an actor as Viggo, and who I am looking forward to drooling over this summer on the big screen.

Yup, we’ve got the Dark Knight himself up this week.

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