Monday, 13 February 2012
Happy Valentines Day!
To all of you out there.....lots of love (and a tiny dose of cynicism) from all of us here at imabogan....
Saturday, 11 February 2012
RIP Whitney Houston
Before there was Britney....there was WHITNEY! She will be forever etched into the hearts and minds of anyone who lived through the 80's with a bad perm and a two-step dance shuffle with high clicks in the air. Many hours were spent in front of the mirror in my bubblegummer jeans, fluorescent crop top and side pony lip syncing to Whitney. I wanna dance wit' somebody!
R.I.P Whitney, true legend of the music game... you will be missed.
R.I.P Whitney, true legend of the music game... you will be missed.
The Biggest Loser Part 5
TBL5: Crouching Tiger, Wilting Lettuce
What a big week it has been at Camp BL. We began as we
ended, in the sheep paddock, where the red team proved that mutton bested lamb.
Back at Camp, the contestants were eating breakfast when our favourite feisty
girl Selena came back for what seemed to her like a second chance (perhaps
because that’s what it is). Hearing that her team won a two kilo weight
advantage, Michelle auditioned for a role in Glee as one of Sue Sylvester’s Cheerios before regaining composure enough
to explain that last chance training is the last chance to train before weigh
in. Another BL riddle solved. Yet again, Brenda was under the eyeball, Michelle
refusing to believe that Brenda responds to adversity by crying. ‘War, death,
tragedy, earthquake – cry. But a training session? I don’t think so,’ says BL’s
Mother Teresa. I empathise with Brenda: I know nothing satisfies me more than a
good old An Affair to Remember-style sob. Granted, for me it’s seldom
because of fitball squats and more likely a consequence of learning that
Chrissy Swan has left The Circle. But
we criers stick together, girlfriend*.
Over in the Shaggerdome, James is still chained to the
Samsonite and making his decision. Showing faith in his protégé’s development
over the past two weeks, Shannan not only discourages James to return to the
outside as a richer ‘fat bloke’, but tells him he doesn’t believe James can
lose weight on the outside. While Jamesie J claims it’s not about the money, he
proves it is by taking the cash and leaving the competition and any prospect of
a Workout World endorsement behind. The
black and white teams fell below the yellow line, and Shane and Michelle
were sent in to elimination. With Shane leaving, the fittest and funniest member of the
black team has gone: but Camp BL’s sweetheart and recently voted 'most likely to
be hit on by one of the blue team' lives to sing another love song and dedication.
BLBB extended its range this week, with the trainers being
treated to 24 hour footage of contestants sitting, rolling around on the floor,
and stuffing ham and cheese sandwiches down their faces. Taking the trainers on
a guided tour through the set of Homeland,
Hayley reveals a bunker filled with CCTV screens. Shocked by what she's seen, Bridges snuck into the cool room to steal any treats she
can find, talking about needing to trust Margie around cheese while stuffing
chocolate mousses down her hoodie.
Tricking the contestants into believing they are leaving
Camp BL for a night on the town, Shags and Shelley take them to an auditorium
where they are told that they are, in fact, the show. Seemingly forgetting that
their every move is being filmed for television, the contestants flew into a
blind panic at the prospect of public speaking. Bek read the nation’s collective
mind by declaring ‘I don’t have any talent,’ while Hamish required intensive
support from Shannan to generate any interest in his life so far. Shags then
confused Hamish by declaring that they were ‘talking like two blokes talk,’
while appearing to wear a pair of Bettina Liano jeggings. Meanwhile, Kasey took
to the stage to tell how her weight had stopped her from being able to ride her
horse, a revelation that prompted Lydia to burst into tears. Michelle revealed
for the second time that her weight stopped her from having the confidence to
sing in public, before once again singing in public. Announcing that she was
dedicating her song to everyone who had struggled with their weight, she burst
into Amazing Grace, surprising a
crowd that were ready for The Smiths’ You’re
the one for me, Fatty.
This week showed that James’ exit from the blue team has had
the unexpected consequence of shining a spotlight on his teammate, Hamish. The
undoubted star of this week’s episodes, Hamish has exposed himself (literally)
as the wettest lettuce ever to land in the BL salad bowl. This series we’ve
travelled an emotional journey with the son-of-a-Tour-de-France rider (another
photo of Dad, anyone?). We’ve watched him cry while reliving his years of
bullying; cry while running up steps; cry on the treadmill because it was
moving too fast; cry when he discovered the chocolate mousses were missing from
the cool room. His resilience was put to its strongest test during the
cross-country challenge, where he and his nemesis, Luke, were paired up in a
challenge to win a two kilogram advantage in the weigh in. When the whistle
blew, Luke set a cracking pace and took an early lead: then turned around and
jogged to the back of the field to wait for Hamish who was inexplicably
punching the ground and grunting. Wading through thick mud, Hamish struggled to
maintain his momentum as well as his dignity, with Shannan screaming “don’t
worry about your bum. Pull your pants up while you’re moving, you can do two
things at once.” Apparently moving, hoisting AND whingeing is taking multitasking
too far. Commando, peering through the soul-o-scope (reference 3), urged Graham
to pass Hamish by observing ‘he’s young, he’s weak in his head.’ Luke summed up
the situation by declaring ‘the course had twelve obstacles, but I’m dealing
with thirteen, because I’ve got Hamish’. In a moment of pure schadenfreude,
Simon declared that ‘Hamish’s frustration lifted my spirits,’ while Brenda
stood at the finish line, waiting to take Hamish aside for a quiet word about
not stealing another contestant’s gig.
Meanwhile, the women were well ahead, clambering over giant wooden
cable reels. The red team were in the lead until Lydia, hearing T-zone shout ‘climbing
over these reels is like getting on a horse,’ sprinted back and hurled herself
on a reel, screaming ‘It’s a pony!’ The afternoon belonged to Hamish, however:
confronted with a choice between becoming a man by swinging on a rope and
falling into a river or crying, Hamish took the only logical option. Moaning ‘why
can’t I just slide into the water?’ Hamish drew sympathy from his patient
trainer and teammate: Shags shoved him into the river while Luke dragged him to
the shore. With ‘I don’t want to!’ ringing in everyone’s ears, we are left to
wonder: will Graeme make it out of the mud in time to cross the line ahead of
Luke and Hamish, or will the most feeble runt of the BL litter manage to
flounce his way to the finish?
*Except when that crier is Hamish. Then all bets are off,
lettuce.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Of course she does....
Rumour has it that B.I.C. pen (that's Blue Ivy Carter to all plebeians such as us who can only dream of having a diamond encrusted baby bottle to drink from) has 6 nannies. We here at imabogan ask....why only 6? Is there a recession on over there? B.I.C. should have 365 nannies, one for every goddamn day of the year! 6 is pure laziness. 6 means Beyonce might have to do some (god forbid) mothering! Jay-Z...get out your cheque book and sign up a few more Mary Poppins because B.I.C. will be suffering from neglect is she doesn't get some more hired help PRONTO!
The Biggest Loser Part 4
TBL 4: The farmer wants a loser
We rejoin our contestants, still reeling from the drama of elimination, to watch them do what they do best: recap. With an alacrity bestowed only on Camp BL alumni, the contestants mixed their metaphors and defied the laws of physics (‘I hoped and prayed,’ gushed Bek, ‘that deep down Selena was going to come through the room’) in order to recount their experience. In the tradition of TBL editorial mentor Bruce McAveney, the contestants’ summary manages to take longer than the elimination itself. Simon told the blue and white teams that ‘if no one cast a vote, no one would be going home’. Seeking clarification of this impenetrable gobbledegook, James asked, ‘so you had the opportunity not to vote anyone out.’ Realising how enigmatic his earlier message had been, Simon helpfully decodes, saying ‘we had the opportunity not to vote anyone out.’ Seeing how inarticulate the contestants were, the editors thoughtfully cut to earlier footage of Hayley explaining that, if no one cast a vote, no one would be going home. Australians all let us rejoice, for we finally understand the complexity of TBL’s voting system.
Tragically (for so many reasons), the trainers then entered
the room: and so the recap was recapped. Eyes went big, Margie took a stand,
and the Commando copped a cushion in the six pack.
Sensing that the teams needed to regroup, the trainers took
charge. T-whiz revolutionised training in the dojang by counting in English.
Commando led the black swans on an emotional journey to explore their feelings,
drag some big ropes and crawl through mud. Then it was challenge time: Shane
managed to outwit, outplay and outlast everyone, showing endurance, poise and
strength by holding the yellow pages and whistling ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’. His
reward: THE WALK.
How I’ve waited for this to come back to TBL’s toolbag of
temptations. Poised on the edge of the big blue couch, I dared to dream: is
this the return of the birdbath of control? Will the floating gerberas of
chance again conceal the pebbles of decision? Sadly, no: gone, and replaced by
the tool boxes of fate, which must have kept the prop guys busy for all of
three minutes. Cut to Shane, who upholds TBL tradition by announcing what he is
about to do, doing it, then telling us what he has done. Returning to Camp BL,
he told the others that he had been faced with three forms of power: power over
food, power over training, power to be a tool. His choice: to bring Selena back
(yeah! See, the Timberlake/Timberland show continues…). This triggered quiet
self-reflection in Margie, in which she reconsidered her initial position and
realised she had been unfair to eliminate Selena. Then Father John exorcised
the demon causing Marlena to levitate, and I realised it was all a dream…
While Commando was learning his lines for his Aah! Bra
informercial, Shagger, T-spot and M-Briddy took their teams to the beach.
Tiffiny sucked the ‘incentiv’ out of ‘incentivise’ by promising that if the
girls ran up a massive hill ‘there’s high fives waiting for you.’ After misdiagnosing
the source of Michelle’s anxiety attacks as due to anything but her maniacal ‘encouragement,’
Ice-T declared her ‘a warrior on the inside’. Showing similar analytical
acuity, La Bridges was not prepared to accept that Brenda’s tears may have been
brought on by being forced to exfoliate her chin across Bronte Beach.
A quick shower and change, and the contestants were off to
Sydney’s Town Hall for temptation. Bek, having learned clarity from her
previous mixed metaphor, declared temptation ‘very tempting’. In taking
temptation, James revealed a sad secret from his past: he hadn’t watched any
previous TBL series and therefore didn’t realise that $30,000 isn’t just given
away, winning for his efforts a Samsonite briefcase and handcuffs. He also
underestimated the power of his trainer’s psychic gifts: Shagger urged James to
‘tell me the story, although I can see it in your eyes already’. Ryan proved
that by losing weight he gained literacy by declaring it was ‘bucketing down
outside like the mood of the blue team’. Seeing Ryzer’s simile, Shags raised
him a metaphor by announcing that James’ briefcase was ‘heavy, but was weighing
him down far more mentally.’
Cut to the kitchen, where CommandoChef waxed Calombaris by describing
the link between emotions and food. Apparently, poor nutrition leads inexorably
to uncontrollable weeping on the scales. Sensing that he was a in a safe place,
Shane revealed his own dark secret - an entirely rational fear of mesclun. MasterHot
drove his point home (sorry, I just need to reflect on that for a moment…ok,
back now) when he noted that the stainless steel bench looked just liked the
stainless steel scales. This seemed to throw Graham into confusion: does this
mean he should stand on the bench on Monday and make salad in the weigh-in room?
The next excursion was to the BL Ranch, where contestants
were told that they were to round up and pen sheep. Margie had to hold Lydia
back from sprinting towards a horse, while James, still weighed down mentally
by a gold brick, noted that ‘the dog made it look easy’. Graham, his arm in a
sling following a misunderstanding over kitchen scales, was insistent that ‘I
don’t need my arm to round up sheep.’ Each team needed to sit out a contestant,
so Ryzer, still dazed from being flung off the treadmill, stepped aside to
allow James to chase sheep with his briefcase like a deranged wool trader. Each
contestant revealed their own particular talents. Kasey declared ‘sheep are the
most dumbest animals ever’ then was roundly outsmarted by all of them. Lydia ‘the
sheep whisperer’ demonstrated that sheep really just want to be stroked and he(a)rd,
while Shane managed to pen both a sheep and Simon. Hamish, the blue team’s own Dr
Doolittle, ran away from the sheep and managed to do as little as possible. With
the battle between the black and red teams to come, we wool wait for the shear
excitement of that contest to hit our screens next week. I know I am as excited
as ewes all.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Hot Boge of the Day
HOT BOGE OF THE DAY
It's time to salute everyone's favourite '17' year old lil kitten/supermodel/recording artist/goddess....Courtney Stodden. This magestical beauty first graced our internet feeds when she married Horace from Lost. Not that exciting....except she was 16 and he was 51...oh how could he/she resist each other! They couldn't! Love knows no age! (Especially when your mum is keen to sign the court documents in Alabamba). Courtney clearly hates any kind of attention and is a shy little wallflower.....and that's why she is our Hot Boge of the Day! Not only that, her tweets exude literary fluency that only Dostoyevsky could dream of...... here's a few highlights:
»
Feeling like a midnight mermaid as I immerse my mere mysteriousness into a misty moon-kissed mouth --meow.
»
Dressed up today like a little erotic rocker as I prepare to sinuously step into a day that's filled with nothing but compelling creation...
Girlfriend is whipping us into a frenzy with her alliteration! (BTW...what is a misty moon mouth??!!!???). Oh Courtney, you speak to us...
Here's Courtney shying away from the camera.....
Amorously hanging around the house tonight in a mens milky t-shirt as it delicately drapes off of my exposed physique ;) muah!
MEOW!
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
The Biggest Loser Part 3
TBL3: The Timberlake Special
Now, some less than kind observers might suggest the TBL has become predictable, stale and mono-dimensional. I say, AJ left years ago. I also say, ye of little faith in the amazing powers of TBL to draw on popular culture to cunningly reinvent itself. The latter half of week one is testament to this show’s ability to assemble a narrative so diffuse with allegory, so ripe with allusion, so laden with the refrain of familiar song, that Ezra Pound would take a year just to annotate the tapes.
We find our hero, Shannan, clutching the letters of commitment from his four stallions. But all is not well. As in so many great country songs (yes, both of them), Shannan’s boys have cheated him. Out of 300 calories. His entirely rational response is to declare Armageddon in a training room. The boys’ expressions make it clear that this is every bit as excruciating as listening to that Areosmith song. Unlike Steve Tyler, Ryan does want to close his eyes, which unfortunately results in him being flipped off the back of the treadmill. Dr Frankenshagger is determined to rebuild his boys from the inside out; but only after he models this new commitment to training by tearing up their letters, throwing a tantie and storming out of the gym.
Over at Hornbag HQ, Dr Commando paid a visit to Alex. Some other stuff happened, but I didn’t notice.
Outside, the red team were trying to rid themselves of the painful, nagging, soul-destroying burden that they had been dragging around for so long. After Michelle let go of the harness, she unleashed the full fury of her eyeballs on Brenda. Reaching 5.8 on the Feldman scale, La Bridges honed in on that beautiful lady, telling her that she was going to make it her personal mission to be ‘bringing Brenda back’ (go ahead, be gone with it).
Then it was time for the first challenge, a test of Herculian strength drawn straight from Greek mythology: pulling ferries with a rowboat. With Alex in a moon boot, Commando took his place in the boat with his dark knights. The other trainers propped at the helm to shout encouragement, while Alex shouted, ‘we’re the oldest and the fattest, but we’ll do it’. Defying all laws of physiology, Tiffiny told her team to forget their limited upper body strength: they can win if they are ‘strong in their heart.’ M.Briddy, fresh from her Timberland turn, started furtively crumping at her team. Shagger, clearly having read one too many Nicholas Sparks novels, not only STILL believed his men could commit, but offered such observations on romantic love as ‘one bad stroke affects everyone else’. For a while, everyone rowed N’Sync (get it? It’s more JT, people!). Then Commando took charge and, like Jerry Hall spying Mick Jagger across Studio 54, decided to ‘ditch that damn Ferry.’
Needless to say, Commando single-handedly rowed himself, three men and a ferry to victory. Alex remained convinced that ‘we could have won it without Commando’ (really? I mean, REALLY?). T-bag, so proud of her ninja’s last placing, told them all that they ‘pushed themselves to exhaustion, and that’s girl power’. Stay tuned for the coming Jenny Craig cross-promo (just text ‘Mel B’ to 1800 Jenny).
Back at Camp BL, it was time for the first weigh-in. Like seasoned pros, the contestants fell all too easily into such inanities as ‘strategy’, ‘I need to be here’ and everyone’s favourite, ‘pull big numbers’. Hayley, looking into the soul-o-scope (reference 2), carefully explained that the weigh-in works by everybody getting weighed. Looking relieved now that the confusion was cleared up, Margie revealed herself to be this little blog’s own spy in the house of Bridges, having herself recorded the ever changing eyeball circumference. Having pulled big numbers and avoiding eyballagedden, the red team set about ‘bringing sexy back’ (Timberland! Yeah!). The rest of the weigh-in progressed smoothly, until Michelle let Tiffiny and the white team down by stepping on the scales to reveal, to the audible shock of her team, that her name is spelled correctly.
After all had been weighed, it was the Dojang Dyslexics against Shagger’s Commitments. Left to work out their ‘strategies’, T-zone’s Bratz dolls quickly fell apart even as Bek appealed to logic by declaring that girls like her who are, like, totes popular shouldn’t go to elimination for being, like, totes popular. While they deliberated, I prepared myself for the elimination by following the same routine that I have for the last eleven thousand BL elimination shows: a few simple pilates stretches, a herbal tisane, and shouting at the screen ‘voting off the fattest person isn’t STRATEGY, you f*ckwits!!!!’
This elimination, had a little twist: almost as much of a twist as when I Google searched the song title ‘You don’t have to go home tonight’ thinking that it was by Hart, when in fact it’s by The Triplets, which kind of ruined one of my jokes. However, in a twist almost that big, the contestants didn’t have to tell someone to go home tonight if they didn’t want to. They also didn’t have to tell them ‘I am a flower, you are the seed, we walked in the garden, we planted a tree.’ See, contestants: THAT’s persistence in the face of adversity. Anyway, some people didn’t vote, some people were pretty mean about what they perceived was Selena’s lack of motivation, and to wrap it up she’s gone. But, as has always been the case, the brutality of elimination is softened by the addition of little sad faces on the name plates. L
So, despite winning our hearts for actually turning a deaf ear to Tiffiny, Selena has left Camp BL. On a positive note, however, all eight members of the black and red teams have received invitations to join Tony Blair’s Middle East peace team in recognition of their strategic thinking.
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