I have a neighbor named Zac. He's always pleasant and holds the elevator door open for me when he doesn't have to. Young, unassuming, and a generally-likable guy. Little did I know that my neighbor became one of young Hollywood's breakout stars virtually overnight. I noticed that he was on the cover of People magazine one day with this young girl I sometimes saw him hanging out with. Little did I know that my neighbor was Zac Efron. I sometimes wondered if the paparazzi would ever show up to my house, especially after the whole nude picture fiasco concerning his girlfriend came to light, but I always thought, no, I live in a quiet neighborhood, far from Hollywood. The paparazzi would never come to my house.

Until yesterday.

My boyfriend and I went to take our eight-month-old son for a walk. Typical, suburban boring stuff. Upon trying to exit the front door, approximately 8 paparazzos and 1 paparazza were blocking the front door.

What follows is the exchange:

The TelePromTer-readers and out-of-touch-hate-mongers of the mainstream media thought that they were being super-cool by discussing/bitching about the presidential candidate debates that were posted on YouTube. So since that new, interesting, and youth-vote promoting aspect of the next election has been talked to death by the talking-heads, I have found these candidate related webpages to occupy me during my early in the ante meridian down-time:

At SuperBook.com, you can go to their "Exotic Lines" section to place a bet on who will win the Democrat and Republican presidential nominations for 2008, as well as who will win the 2008 presidential election. So far, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Al Gore are favorites for the Democratic nomination betting lines. On the Republican nomination lines, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Mitt Romney are favored. Currently, Hillary Clinton is the favorite at 2-1 on the betting lines for the 2008 presidential election. Rudy Giuliani comes in second with odds at 3-1, and Barack Obama comes in third at 7-2. Somehow, despite legal impossibilities, George W. Bush (at 200-1) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (at 250-1) have managed to make it into the Super Book lines. And while winning is unlikely, you can even place a bet that Bill Maher, Michael Moore, Donald Trump, Clint Eastwood, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Rumsfeld, Laura Bush, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson will be the next United States President. Unfortunately, the Super Book website does not say what they do in the event of Floridian or Ohio-style result-skewing Election Day crimes.

Obviously, many of the people on the betting lines are not actually running for presidential office or party nominations. So if you want the real list of who the current candidates are, you can check out the equally entertaining, and more importantly, informative list of presidential candidates at Vote-Smart.org. According to Vote-Smart's Presidential Candidate list, there currently 220-something people who have announced that they are running for presidential office. I had no idea there were that many candidates! The site also has a really good Presidential Elections Resource page with information about primary dates and Electoral College votes. By the way, for California State, the Democratic and Republican primaries are on February 5th, 2008.

My Melody in a money suit photo by pengrin via Flickr.

Necro grew up in Brooklyn listening to rap and heavy metal, and took all those influences and fused them together. Like if death-metal and hip-hop had a baby after a failed abortion. And while it's so good you will want to memorize every word, don't let your girlfriend listen to it... Not unless you want a lot of explaining to do, "No baby, i'm not a psycho, Necro is, but im just a fan!"

See Necro @ The Knitting Factory 09/19/2007, it's his only California show, so let's show him why he ought to hurry back!

Photo of Necro via Necrohiphop.com