Who Killed Anna Nicole Smith??

The foremost question on every mind these days is "Who killed Anna Nicole?" For those of you who listen to NPR, and, therefore, don't know about this important story, I would just say that you really need to get with the program and start watching the real news which you can find on the E! channel. You know who you are.

I think it is pretty clear that Anna Nicole was murdered. Accidental death? No way. Her body had developed an elephant-like tolerance for drugs and alcohol. No way would a little Valium or methadone take that girl down.

If you have ever seen an interview with her, watched her "reality show" (also on E!), or watched any of her testimony in the trial for her dead husband's money you will agree that she didn't seem like a particularly nice or coherent person. I can't imagine what spending time with her must have been like. It must have been surreal and depressing. It stands to reason that anyone who spent a lot of time around her would, therefore, have had motive to off her. What makes no sense is why they would have waited so long. I would think that any normal person who spent 15 minutes in the same room with that broad would have run screaming from the building. Or in search of a gun. But I am not sure that anyone close to her killed her. I may be the only person in America who feels kind of sorry for Howard K. Stern. He was with her for 15 years and had no other job. No person would be crazy or desperate enough to hang around that goofball for 15 years if he didn't truly care about her. As weird as that sounds.

Who are other possible suspects? Think about who has benefited from her death...

Brad and Angelina and their kids are not on the front page for the first time in about 2 years.

Paris Hilton and her bigoted comments aren't getting the ink they normally would.

A crotch shot of Britney Spears hasn't been published since Anna's death.

Lindsey Lohan has been practically invisible for the past week.

President Bush and the war in Iraq (what you NPR listeners would call "real news") are barely even mentioned on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox anymore.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have all but been been forgotten in the wake of Anna's death.

I think its clear that Paris, Britney, and Lindsey are too coked up and stupid to get Anna murdered. Can you imagine the three of them having a conversation about murdering anyone? "We should, like, kill her. That would be so hot." They would completely screw it up too. Britney would wind up dead, Paris would have sex with whatever guy they were paying to kill Anna, and Lindsey would be late and drunk for the whole event. Also Paris would make a videotape of those the three stooges conspiring which would land them all in prison. So if they tried to do the deed we would certainly have already found out about it on Access Hollywood.

Brad and Angelina might have conspired to sneak drugs into her booze (you know she died from drugs) but I think that they are too consumed with their desire to adopt every child on the African continent to make the time to have Anna killed.

President Bush is a great candidate for two reasons: (a) Anna diverts attention from the anger toward and distrust of his policies that have dominated the news for the past few years, (b) J. Howard Marshall's family is a wealthy Texas family who probably know and are friends with the Bushes. Killing Anna would be killing (literally) two birds with one stone.

But I think that Tom Cruise is probably the real culprit here. He is diabolical, controlling, and sneaky and he has just about had it with the media's conspiracy to spread nasty rumors about him, his wife, and his beloved Church of Scientology. He is rich enough to hire a ninja contract killer (like in that James Bond movie) to sneak into Anna's bedroom and drip just a little bit of untraceable poison in her mouth while she is sleeping and then sneak out undetected. Yeah, that is how it happened.

Anyway, I continue to be fascinated by her death because it's such a train wreck. Just like her life was. I don't think Tom will ever be convicted of her murder. Mainly because her family and friends are so money-hungry and crazy that the police and the media will just focus on them and never look for the "real" killer. Also Tom's contract killer would be too clever and would have too many cool gadgets to help him/her escape after the murder. The killer is probably already sequestered in a Church of Scientology Celebrity Center in the Australian outback. Never to be seen again.

For Your Consideration: Possible Names for Ron & Kathleen's Baby Girl

Now for the moment that you all (OK, maybe just Ron) have been waiting for. Drum roll. Here are the top 11 names that you and Kathleen should consider for your baby girl.

1. Bethanie
A great suggestion by Stephanie because this name is a mixture of both Elizabeth and Stephanie. I love where your head is at on this one!

2. Anna Nicole
You could pay homage to a recently deceased celebrity. However, if you name your daughter Anna Nicole you run a slight risk that your daughter will be predisposed to making many bad decisions. And possibly dropping a lot of acid.

3. Adaira
This is a Scottish name (Greek in origin) which means beauty. Aww...

4. Mirabelle
This is a French name (Latin origin) which means incredible beauty.

5. Jedi
This would be a great name if you want to name your child the Hebrew word for "Friend of God" or "Beloved by God" while also paying homage to the Star Wars trilogy. There is a good chance that if you name her Jedi she will never have any friends so be prepared for her to live at home until she is about 45 years old.

6. Isabella
Spanish for Elizabeth. I had to make another plug for the name Elizabeth even if it is in another language.

7. Lauren
A lovely name and also a high end clothing line.

8. Hailey
The great thing about this name is that none of the "young Hollywood" party crowd has sullied it yet like they have the names Paris, Lindsey, and Britney.

9. Emily
This was the most popular name for baby girls born in the U.S. in 2005. This name is SO last season.

10. Klementina
This name means merciful in Russian. Hopefully your daughter will be merciful and forgive you for bestowing upon her a name that sounds an awful lot like those delicious seedless oranges.

11. Odelina
Odelina is German for "Wealthy"? It's good to be optimistic about a child's future!

So, what do you think? Any winners here?

Tips For Winning At Trivial Pursuit

Last night Jonathan and I hung out with our fabulous friends Matt and Steph. Not an unusual Saturday night. Matt and Steph brought take out Chinese and the 90's edition of Trivial Pursuit. Steph and I challenged Matt and Jonathan to a game. We lost but only because the guys got some ridiculously easy questions toward the end of the game. Really. In any case, I thought I would share with you the secrets to winning a game of Trivial Pursuit.

1. Know the answers. It's easiest if you are very smart, you have watched and retained the plots of every movie ever made, and you have memorized the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

2. Roll the exact number you need to play for a piece of pie. I recommend loaded dice if you have some handy.

3. Try not to play the game drunk. OK, I know that will be really tough.

4. Modify the questions when it's your turn to ask questions of the other team. I like to only read the other team/players part of the question. Or find the hardest question on the card and, regardless of the color your opponent lands on, ask the hardest question.

5. When the other team/player isn't looking you should read and memorize the questions and answers on the next card in the deck.

6. Get the other team/players drunk. Add vodka to whatever they are drinking when they aren't looking. Soon they will be slurring, mumbling, and nodding off.

7. No matter what answer the other team gives to a question you should tell them that it's incorrect. If they ask to see the answer you should rip up the card and eat it before they can find out you lied.

8. Remember the old Handlin saying, "If you aren't cheating then you aren't really trying to win." The shortened version is, "If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying."

End of Liz's Chicago Trip and Return to Austin

This poster has nothing to do with today's blog post...I just think it's really funny.

I had a lovely dinner with my fabulous friends Hope and Dave last night. We went to Club Lucky in Chicago for some delicious pasta and martinis. I love Chicago nightlife. Thanks for a great time Hope and Dave!!

My flight today was on time and uneventful so now I am back in Austin. It's good to be home. Now I am watching the Broward County Medical Examiner's press conference on Anna Nicole's death. This whole situation is so sad and bizarre although maybe not all that surprising given her lifestyle. I predict a huge legal battle over her daughter and her estate. That poor baby daughter of hers just has no chance to have a normal life.

Liz's Trip To Chicago: Day 2

Well day 2 of my trip to the frozen Yukon got off to a shaky start. Hope and I walked 5 blocks from her house to the el train this morning. It was 10 degrees outside. At least there was no wind...in Chicago you have to take what you get get weather-wise. It was about 8:40 am when we arrived at the Damon el stop which is about 15 minutes from downtown. I had a 9 am appointment at my dentist (very important) so the timing should have worked out perfectly. But of course it did not work out at all.

As we walked up the steps to the el my fabulous friend Hope astutely pointed out that the throng of people descending from the el was a bad sign. No one commutes to Hope's neighborhood except maybe the grungy teenagers who work at the 400 coffee shops in the area. As soon as we got to the track we found out that a train had broken down and they had no idea when the trains would be running again. Thanks for the help CTA employees. As far as I was concerned this was a disaster of epic proportions because the only way to get downtown in 15 minutes from Bucktown is the el. Bus or cab will take you about 25 minutes.

Naturally competition for cabs in sub-freezing weather during rush hour is fierce. Fortunately it took me about 20 seconds to connect with my city-girl persona. While Hope was trying to call Yellow Cab (motto: Screw You) I noticed an empty cab about a block away. In a scene reminiscent of one of those Avis commercials that OJ did in his pre-murder years I vaulted over newspaper stands, hurdled trash cans, and tossed an old woman into traffic to secure our ride. Scruples and manners are highly over rated in the cut throat world of Chicago transportation.

Anyway, long story short I was 15 minutes late to see my dentist. But it turned out OK because they said they could see me at 3 pm. Crisis averted.

Then I had some other errands, a luncheon appointment, and a trip to Neiman's before I could rush back to Hope's fabulous apartment to check email and deal with my frostbite. On my way to run errands I got a call from my fabulous (fabulous, not to be confused with fancy) friend Ron. Ron is a huge fan of Pufatufniks. In fact he may be our only fan but he is loyal and that is really what counts. Quality not quantity is what make a great fan base.

Ron and I went to graduate school together. He had the distinction of being the only person who did less work than I did in a certain class that we won't discuss here because I don't want anyone to disbelieve Ron's claim that he is the only person to ever graduate from U of C's GSB program with a 4.5 GPA.

Ron and his fabulous wife Kathleen are expecting their second child in April. Their son Vincent (try calling him Vinnie and see what a lovely shade of red Ron turns) is so adorable. He is going to break some hearts when he grows up! Anyway, the soon-to-be-baby-Villa is a girl. Naturally I suggested to Ron that he name his sure-to-be-gorgeous-and-brilliant-daughter Elizabeth. Sadly Ron shot this idea down on the grounds that he already has both a sister and a friend (me I suppose) named Elizabeth. I guess I can understand his reluctance to populate the world with too many Elizabeths. The question is: what should Ron and Kathleen's daughter be named?

I think that for a future blog post (maybe tomorrow if I don't blog about Anna Nicole Smith instead) we should create a list of potential names for Ron and Kathleen to choose from.

If you haven't met this lovely couple you should know that they are both classy, smart, successful, extremely fabulous, very beautiful, and very well dressed. Also either one of them could drink your average rugby player under that table in less than an hour. Well Ron could, Kathleen only weighs about 80 pounds so I doubt if rugby binge drinking records have anything to fear from her. Given that vivid description of the parents what are some possible names for baby girl Villa? Stay tuned and I will list all names that make any sense at all....

Liz's Trip to Chicago: Day 1

Well once again I attempted to fly from Austin to Chicago for business. As you may recall I tried to fly to Chicago at the end of January but my flight was cancelled two days in a row at which point I threw in the towel and just reschedule for Feb 7 - 10. It was pretty inconvenient to have to cancel the trip as I had both personal and business appointments scheduled. But what can you do when Austin is completely iced over? Nothing.

My flight to Chicago was supposed to leave today (Feb 7) at 2:45 pm. I noticed when I checked-in online yesterday afternoon that my flight was maybe half full. I viewed that as a good thing from a comfort perspective. I planned to work, pack, and generally get ready to go until about 1 pm today when I had planned to leave for the airport. But, alas, it was not to be. I got a call from a far-too-cheerful American Airlines employee at 9 am this morning informing me that my 2:45 pm flight had been cancelled because of weather in Chicago. She followed this bombshell with an offer to put me on a 12:10 pm flight or a 5:45 pm flight to Chicago.

What??! That makes no sense at all. If the weather is SO awful that they have to cancel flights 6 hours in advance then how is it that a flight leaving 3 hours earlier and one leaving 3 hours later than the scheduled flight would be safe to fly?! Based upon long experience I knew that the 12:10 pm flight was the only option because when they start cancelling flights the ones leaving later are always at the most risk.

I agreed to fly at 12:10 which meant that I had to rush around and make all of my preparations in an hour. I had no time to do my hair which is now a mess. I had no time to update a couple of resumes for my clients. I am tired, frazzled, behind on my work, and generally pissed off at the liars at American Airlines. That flight wasn't cancelled because of the weather in Chicago (it's sunny and about 15 degrees here). It was cancelled because the flight wasn't full. Period. End of story.

Once again American Airlines has caused me extreme inconvenience and hassle. I don't know what is wrong with these people. It's pretty clear that they aren't running an actual airline as much as an occasional shuttle service. This is starting to feel like a visit to the Caribbean where you never know if your bus, car, flight, or boat will show up or not. Maybe the folks at American Airlines have taken up the Caribbean pastime of drinking rum punch all day.

I was originally supposed to arrive in Chicago at 5:45 pm today at which point a colleague of mine was supposed to pick me up at O'Hare for a pre-planned dinner in the far west suburbs. Since my schedule now skews earlier I had to pay $45 for a semi-retarded young man to drive me to Elgin, Illinois. This kid just didn't believe me when I told him that 450 Airport Road (my destination) was not on the same side of the street as 405 Airport Road.

He literally drove into every driveway on the other side of the road (all with odd numbered addresses) to make sure that 450 wasn't on that side of the street. We spent 15 extra minutes investigating every hotel and business on the other side of Airport Road before he finally conceded to drive across the street to #450. This is why I don't own or carry firearms. My lack of patience combined with bullets and gunpowder would land me in jail faster than you can say, "Idiotmobile".

So now I am catching up on email, blogging, and returning phone calls until our dinner at 7pm. After dinner I will pay another driver $112 to drive me downtown to Hope's condo where I am spending the night.

I was supposed to stay here until Saturday but I managed to pack a lot of appointments into my day tomorrow and I have changed my flight so I can return to Austin on Friday. I think that it is not meant for me to stay here for more than a day. My flight has been cancelled 3 times in a row, the weather is freezing, and it seems like this trip is becoming inconvenient for all concerned. Maybe it's just best if I stay home and off of airplanes for the foreseeable future.

Thought For The Day: Mistakes

Some days I honestly feel this statement applies to me. But at least I am helping society in some small way. And also I never engage in body painting. Or taking my top off in public. And both of those things certainly help society and keep me out of prison.

Why the Puppy Bowl is Better than the Superbowl

The folks at Animal Planet are a bunch of alternative programming geniuses! For those of you not familiar with it, The Puppy Bowl is four continuous hours of puppies - playing with chew toys, sniffing each others' butts and drinking water in a small enclosed area decorated like a football field. There's not a whole lot of human commentary during the 4 hour game, but it's oddly addictive. Here are my top 10 reasons why the Puppy Bowl is better than the Superbowl.

10. For the cat lovers, there is a kitty half time show - Kitties invade the football field while the puppies take a much needed nap. There's less butt sniffing, but more butt licking in this show.

9. Time-outs for puppies making doodie on the field (poor referee has to clean it up, but I don't think you'll ever see that in the NFL, although it might be fun if they did.)

8. Animal Planet provides you with a line-up of the players and even ideas of how to plan the perfect Puppy Bowl party: http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/puppybowl/puppybowl.html

7. Replays of cute puppy activities.

6. Minimal human commentary. I find most sports commentary pretty stupid and I'm happy to report that Animal Planet commentators don't try too hard to come up with stuff to say while the puppies are playing.

5. No penalties - well, no real ones anyways - the puppies are always very sweet and play by the rules.

4. Puppies watching Puppy Bowl. Sometimes the Puppies watching the Puppy Bowl on T.V. were just as fun as the puppies playing.

3. Back-to-Back showings. Animal Planet showed the Puppy Bowl twice last night and although I didn't watch the show twice - it was nice to have something to flip back to when there wasn't anything else on t.v.

2. Water Bowl Camera. A camera angle from underneath the water bowl. The puppies spent more time digging at the water than drinking it.

1. Puppies are so much cuter than un-cute football players. (Puppies may be as cute as those hot football players, but there weren't alot of them in Colts v. Bears.)

Next year, if you're looking for something to watch because there's nothing else on (besides the Superbowl) tune in to Animal Planet for some fun puppy watching.

Thought For The Day: Ambition

Maybe simply aspiring to sit on the couch all day is really the way to go....

Is Tara Connor A Space Alien?

Last night I was hanging out with my fabulous friends Whitney and Jessica. We had a great time drinking wine and discussing important newsworthy and cultural issues. Some of the key issues we discussed included universal health care, global warming, Britney's lack of underpants, Paris's lack of intelligence, and whether or not the weird guy who works at our local grocery store is merely creepy or possibly autistic. It was that kind of discussion. Anyway, one of the topics that we dissected was the saga of Miss USA, Tara Connor (or as I like to call her, Crazy Tara), and her penchant for TMI on TV.

First of all, I have to admit that if I hadn't seen Tara's tearful press conference to announce that she was going to rehab that I wouldn't have even known who Miss USA is. I have heard that no one watches the Miss America pageant anymore and if that is true I can only imagine how few people watch the Miss USA pageant. The Miss USA pageant organizers should be thanking Crazy Tara for bringing some much needed attention to their second rate pageant.

If you have been anywhere near a television over the past couple of days there is no way that you could have missed clips of Crazy Tara's interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show. The first question that came to my mind as I watched Tara disclose too much information (TMI) about her "recovery" was, "Is Tara from outer space?" Only a space alien would think that it's a good idea to reveal her cocaine use and allude to childhood sexual abuse when the interviewer was simply asking questions about her alcohol abuse. In other words, if all that you were alleged to have done was drink too much then why would you offer information about illegal drug use? What a f---ing moron.

The interview made it sound like before entering rehab Crazy Tara was a coked up drunken liar who snuck out of her posh Trump Plaza apartment every night to score drugs and have sex with random men. Apparently we are supposed to believe that a mere 30 days later Miss USA is a changed woman who now possesses life changing insights into her destructive behavior and the issues causing it. Right. I believe that story. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Apparently the lovely Ms. Connor doesn't have access the advice of a good publicist. Or even a bad publicist. Good grief. Didn't anyone ever teach her how to talk to reporters without actually answering their questions? My feeling is that the Miss USA organization has thrown her under the bus in order to protect their purported "good reputation". As if anyone thought that the organizers of beauty pageants care a whit about the well being of the young women whom they require to parade around in bikinis in order to have a shot at winning the crown and some scholarship money.

Pageant organizers have been pimping out these girls for the viewing pleasure of young men everywhere for as long as I can remember. It's a bit of a disconnect to think that a 20 year old who is enjoying all the pleasures that New York has to offer could ruin the somewhat shady reputation of an organization that sends a message that scholarship money and and low body fat are somehow connected. It seems a bit mean that they would send Crazy Tara into an interview without the common sense advice to say nothing.

So the only conclusion that I can draw is that one of two things happened:

Option #1: someone did tell Tara to say as little as possible about her problems to Matt Lauer and she ignored this sage advice because she is actually from another planet where they don't have reporters, news, tabloids, paparazzi, and TV ratings.

Option #2: Crazy Tara received no advice about how to navigate a TV interview about her personal issues and, in an effort to please the interviewer, she engaged in a ridiculous tell-all about every stupid and self destructive thing she has ever done.

Either way, Tara Connor will be haunted by this situation for the rest of her life. Unless she becomes a nun at a convent in Peru. Then, maybe everyone will forget.