January 1, 2011: Katy Perry unmasked! The first day of the rest of the year! Mailbag!

So, today twitter was all, well, atwitter with talk of Katy Perry.  It seems her husband, Russell Brand, snapped a picture of his wife as she waking up, then posted it on his twitter account.  Soon after – no doubt at angry wifey's behest – the unflattering photo was removed.  But too late!  The first-thing-in-the-morning snap of Katy (who is apparently is NEVER photographed without make-up) was out there and making the internet rounds.  Opinion on the photo is decidedly mixed.

For my part, I think she looks just fine.  But you decide.

Check her out – Katy Perry in her unglammed-up glory…

Okay, granted, she has looked better but still, I think there's a lot to be said for natural beauty.

So what did you all do today?  I celebrated the new year by feeling generally unwell, emailing practically everyone I know, watching a The Next Iron Chef marathon, reading the first 160 pages of The Girl Who Played with Fire (which I'm enjoying a lot more than the first book in the Millennium Trilogy), and making some slow-braised short ribs with creamy parsnip mash.  Also checked out the first two episodes of a new anime series (well, new for me anyway), Baccano! The first episode easily gets the award for The Most Confusing Opener in Anime History, but the pieces begin to fall into place in episode two.  So far, I like what I've seen.  I would've checked it out a lot sooner if not for the truly horrendous English-language trailer Funimation put out.  And, speaking of terrible decisions involving English-language dubs, blog regular yumenoko informs me that VIZ has elected to dub rather than subtitle the big screen version of Gantz.  Hopefully, the DVD will offer up a Japanese language option as I'm really looking forward to checking this one out.  Of course, I was really looking forward to checking out Assault Girls and, well, that didn't exactly pan out.

Thanks to everyone who helped decipher mom's rabbit recipe.  Special thanks to winners Chy Clayton, fiannafritz, and Alexander of Houston.

Some mailbag:

cat4444 writes: "Who's Volker proposing to?"

Answer: Brody.  Who else?

2cats writes: "Fate. Every time I use that word a very curious audio/visual mnemonic pops up. Thanks to Stargate, I always think of the scene where Nem asks Daniel Jackson, "What fate Omaroca?""

Answer: Oooooh.  I always thought the line was "What fate Almond Roca?".

Patricia Lee writes: "Oh My… I just noticed the picture behind James Robbins of Ming Na and it shows her as "aged"… does that mean we will be seeing someone dreams or a flash forward?"

Answer: Hmm.  I wonder…

Tammy Dixon writes: "Love the pictures, Mr. M.! Why do we have to wait until April!!!!!!!!!?"

Answer: Do we?  I haven't heard anything about when those last ten episodes will air.

Blaishon writes: "On another note, have you thought about finding an alternate method to count the viewers?"

Answer: Alas, I'm not the one doing the counting.  I would love to find an alternate method.

steph writes: "Do you have any resolutions for the new year?"

Answer: Yes.  I'm going to be less patient and more confrontational in 2011.

LoneThread writes: "I know downloads are what killed the show, I had a look on the most popular torrent sites and found out that in total each episode was downloaded by over 4 million people. And this is just from a small fraction of torrent sites."

Answer: Them's a heck of a lot of downloads.

hal ehlrich writes: "Also I thought that you were going to have some sort of major news last week. Any idea when that may be coming and could you possibly let us know what it may be about?"

Answer: It's about the future of the franchise and, alas, I've yet to receive news of any developments.  Heading into the office on Tuesday to watch the Day 1 Mix of The Hunt, so I may learn something then.  Or not.

Matthias writes: "I think, if you would talking with the angry fans respectfully, they would listen."

Answer: Actually, I have invited their criticism in the past and had a respectful dialogue with them on this blog – something they ultimately chose to abandon in favor of petty insults.  So, tried that.  Didn't work out.

Annie from Freemantle writes: "Who's Mel?"

Answer: See previous question.

Sue Jackson writes: "I can't help notice the doggie diapers.  Does Jelly wear those? Is she having accidents? How is she recovering?"

Answer: She was having accidents in the house due to her inability to squat so, yes, those diapers were for her.  Fortunately, she's been much better since the back surgery, squatting with gay abandon and saving her bathroom breaks for the backyard.