Happy New Year, Trash Pandas! I know I'm late to say that, but it's the first time we've talked in 2023, so it works. It's like when you're home for the holidays and your parents say "good morning" to you when you roll out of bed even though it's 1 pm. The past few weeks were full of crap, so let's not waste any more time, okay? I'm going in!

The GOP in OMG*

The best thing to happen so far this year is the incredible implosion of the Republican party in the House of Representatives, who simply cannot get their shit together to elect a new Speaker of the House. It's funny now, although it doesn't set a great tone for anything at all getting accomplished in federal government over the next few years. But that's a later problem. The only winner in the whole deal is Congressman-Elect and pathological liar George Santos (R, NY), who is (for now) not the biggest fuck-up in the Republican party. My heart goes out to all the families and friends who traveled to Washington DC to watch the new class of Congressmen get sworn in who have spent several days burning time-off at airport hotels like they were traveling on Southwest

*Whenever the Democrats look at each other funny, some news outlet will run a "Democrats in Disarray?!?" headline and I'm trying to workshop what the Republican version of that would be. GOP in OMG is just one idea. Others include: Republicans in Ruckus, Grand Old Pandemonium, or Republicanarchy. Honestly, I feel like the national discourse about which party is more ineffective would be completely different if this were an easier portmanteau. 

The other most delicious train wreck going into 2023 is the absolute devastation of online misogynist personality Andrew Tate, who was arrested after being dunked on repeatedly by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. The feud began with Tate bragging about how many cars he owned, and ended with each of those cars being confiscated by the Romanian government. See, this is why I'll never tweet-brag about how many canvas tote bags I have. The government can't recoup shit from me! (Except for my taxes. I do always pay my taxes.)

Beloved viral internet darling of yesteryear Rebecca Black (from the the "gotta get down on Friday" song) stepped into the mess to roast Tate for his terrible single, a topic with which she is very familiar:

New Year, New Secrets Revealed

People do a lot of different things to celebrate the dawning of a new year. It could be making resolutions, trying Dry January, eating better, or decluttering your home. For me, I like to start off the year binging the revealed Blind Items over at Crazy Days and Nights, which is where I learned the following: So, it's established that the best gossip mess of 2022 was the Don't Worry Darling press tour coming on the heels of the Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde separation, right? WELL, according to CD&N, Sudeikis only started dating Wilde originally after his schedule called for working nearer to her, and if he hadn't had to move, he could have stuck things out with his previous girlfriend... who is none other than Mrs. Prince Harry Meghan freaking Markle! What?! Talk about a crossover episode I did not see coming! 

Just imagine how different almost every gossip story of the last five years would be if that had shaken out differently. Like, if Sudeikis stayed with Markle and she never ended up with Harry, we definitely wouldn't be salivating quite so hard for Harry's upcoming book, Spare, which is seemingly being promoted by having a single sentence leaked at a time. These include: "Prince Harry lost virginity to an older woman in a field behind a bar," and "Camilla turned Harry's bedroom into dressing room," and "Prince Harry had a frostbitten penis at Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton." It's honestly astonishing that Great Britain even formed such a gigantic global empire when their gene pool was so hellbent on being messy bitches who live for drama. 

I mean:

Another fun thing I learned through reveal day at Crazy Days and Nights is that the US government hated John Lennon and would have deported him after the Beatles broke up, but instead, the CIA turned Lennon into a spy with the National Student Association so he could tattle on young people organizing against the government. I bet you didn't have "John Lennon was a narc" on your 1973 bingo card! 

The Willamette Week recently broke the story that beloved Hood River chips Juanita's can now only be sold outside of the PNW as "Juantonio's" which is upsetting to me because, why'd they have to make them boy chips?? It's true that gender is a social construct, but Juanita is a lady. Those chips are girls. 

Housing Updates

The Oregonian recently put out a great round-up of median home prices by county, as well as the most expensive residential property currently for sale in each county. The good news is that home prices are stabilizing and even falling! The—not bad, just interesting—news is that the most expensive house currently for sale in Moro county costs $420k and is an adorable 100-year-old farmhouse on over an acre. For context, here in Portland $420k can only get you a tear-down in inner-SE

Personally, I'm most interested in this $15 million home in West Linn. Sure, the columns are gauche and the furniture looks like it came from the Clinton White House, but I could really drink a daquiri in that pool. Anybody have, like, $14,999,200 I could borrow? I'll let you borrow a tote bag....

Think about it, okay? Now I gotta go talk to my cats about how Taylor Swift's cat Olivia Benson is worth $97 million whereas mine won't stop biting the shower curtain.

Stay frosty,