killer found in chandra levy case - about time

So 8 years after Chandra Levy went missing, police in Washington D.C. finally think they have the guy who killed her. And, no, it's not Gary Condit. Although, admit it, even YOU thought that he either had someone put a hit out on her or perhaps did it himself, to keep Levy quiet from spreading news of their affair.

Nope. Nothing of the sort.

The suspected killer is Ingmar Guandique, a now 27-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who was in jail for attacking 2 women in the same park in 2002.

Okay, so the guy attacks 2 women in the same park a year after Chandra is missing. Around the same time a jogger stumbles upon bones and a skull that are Levy's. Police at that time DON'T question Guandique about the Levy case, but instead brush it under the rug?? All the while Condit has sat guilty as can be, losing his political career? Not fair.

From the AP story cited below:

"One of his victims in the park attacks, Halle Shilling, told The Washington Post that new prosecutors and detectives apologized to her because prior investigators had never interviewed her in the Levy case.

"They said they were so sorry it took so long to talk to me," Shilling said. "They really want to get to the bottom of this, and they are not going to sleep well until they get a conviction.""

So let me get this straight. A girl gets attacked in the SAME PARK where Chandra Levy was last seen jogging and no one interviews her about the Levy Case? Even AFTER Levy's remains were found? Then the cops give the "sorry it took so long to talk to me" line. This is police work at its WORST. This was NOT a cold case. Not even lukewarm.

Condit deserves ONE BIG, GIANT, WET APOLOGY. Affairs and infidelity aside, a man does NOT deserve to be seen as a murderer when police had the right guy under their noses all along.

I'll start: Mr. Condit, I am very sorry that all these years I had you pegged as Chandra's killer. Shame on me.

Okay, now it's your turn.

Read the full story here.

farewell, klsx!

Today at 5:00 PM PT, LA's FM Talk station KLSX will be flipping over to a new music format.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cbs-radio-amp-2311999-jack-format

Am I surprised? No, not really. Am I sad? Yeah. I'm a bit nostalgic when it comes to that station. After all, it's where I met my husband. And - in turn - most of the friends who are in my life today. Without that job, my life would be a lot different than it is now. And for that I am grateful.

Twelve years ago I had a show on KLSX with a co-host named J.D. It was my first talk radio job in Los Angeles (I was previously with Mitch Albom in Detroit), and it was an exciting time for me. I had just moved to LA and was knocking around to a lot of auditions, comedy open mics, and hosting gigs at the Ice House - while temping by day - to try to make ends meet until my big "break" arrived.

I won't get into all of the minutiae here, but our show was cancelled when the station was sold to CBS and Tom Leykis came aboard. I rode out my contract overnights in the 1am to 3am slot (LOVED IT!) and got my first taste of what it was like to lose a job in radio. I was heartbroken. I especially loved my overnight gig. It was quiet, no one else around, and I had this great cast of characters who listened to my show each night. Perhaps my favorite part of coming to work each night was my board op, "James The Engineer." He was the Yang to my Yin. The Type B to my Type A. His voice was as deep as they come, and he LOVED to play funk music. We jammed every night and truly loved what we were doing.

After the station changed programming hands, I never quite got into it. It became a misogynistic gathering place for every gross guy in town. Titty humor. Fart jokes. And rarely a stitch of what I'd call thought-provoking radio. I always felt that they could have found a happy medium between AM Talk Radio and the brand of talk they were peddling. There is a middle ground for hip and smart people who just want to get a little news with a little humor every day. But they never quite mastered that. I'm not saying that's why it failed. But it obviously wasn't drawing the numbers it should have been drawing and I blame that on the "Tom Leykis" mentality and those who promoted it. They needed to take a lesson from people like John & Ken on KFI. Masters of talk. They are the perfect example of a show that can "do" talk radio without being stiff, conservative and stodgy. They rile up the masses better than anyone. I am truly a fan.

All of that aside, as I listened to the Adam Carolla show this morning, I got a bit sad. KLSX was where I started out here in LA. And it's yet another chapter closed. Will I be listening to "Amp Radio?" Most likely not. I'm a Jack, KLOS and KFI fan myself. But I wish it luck in this rocky land of radio in 2009.

And to Howard Stern I say "THANK YOU!" For if it wasn't for your movie premiere back in 1997 - and J.D. and I introducing Slash's Blues Ball - I wouldn't be Lisa Goich-Andreadis today.

Farewell.

breast photos!

(now that I've got your attention!)

I - like most women living in the United States - have issues with my breasts. We're innundated with photos (especially here in LA) of perfectly symmetrical, full, perky, picture-perfect boobies on a daily basis. You can't help but compare yours to these and feel slightly inferior that yours don't measure up (no pun intended). Teenage girls are getting breast implants before they even turn 18 because they think that their breasts aren't perfect enough. Or at least as perfect as Lindsey Lohan's looked in that New Yorker / Marilyn Monroe shoot. Or Paris Hilton's in her infamous sex tape.

It's been awhile since I've been in a locker room or seen any breasts that weren't mine. So at my age I've had nothing to compare mine to. Except these ubiquitous pictures that leave me with one foot in Victoria's Secret and one foot on the doorstep of Dr. Rey.

Anyway, last night after seeing a nude photo of Naomi Watts on Perez Hilton - I was astounded at how great she looked. She had a baby in December, had a little pooch on her belly - but over all, she looked amazing. And her breasts were PERFECT. Many of these pre-pubescent losers on the message boards commented about how "gross" she looked, how her c-section scars were showing, how her belly was bloated, how her boobs were ugly. I, on the other hand, thought, "Geez, I've never even HAD a baby, and I look worse than this!" So I started searching for boobs. Don't ask me why, I just started thinking that perhaps I needed to spruce mine up or - at the very least - buy a push-up bra!

I ended up stumbling upon this website that all of you ladies (and men!) might want to take a look at. Real women, real breasts, real post-pregnancy bellies, real butts and thighs. Of course, in the back of my mind I am saying, "Oh, these photos must be the unattractive 1% of the world who CERTAINLY aren't the women who I come in contact with every day!" But maybe not. Maybe I'm normal after all. And all the photos that make it into the media - and all of the celebrities who parade themselves on the nude beaches of San Tropez - are NOT the norm.

http://www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php

You be the judge. But while you're at it, don't judge YOURSELF too harshly. You might be more normal than you think.

a new earth

Okay, I love Oprah. I TiVo her show every day. I don't normally buy things from her FAVORITE THINGS list, nor do I tend to read books that she recommends. Because of the nature of my job, I receive hundreds of books from publishers a year and read those since I'm reviewing them for the shows that I produce. There isn't a lot of time left over for "pleasure reading."

But for some reason, I fell for it this time. I was walking down the aisle at Target (hear the angels singing?!?!? I always hear them when I walk through the doors of Target!), and there it was...an entire display of copies of A NEW EARTH. Right there in giant letters, "AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE." Well! I have felt that my life has been lacking in purpose as of late, so I picked up a copy and put it in my basket. It was a paperback, and only $11, after all, so what did I have to lose, really?

I brought the book home and started to read. I got about 5 pages in and realized that I didn't comprehend one thing that I had just read. So I went back and re-read the passages again. Nope. Still nothing. CHRIST! I must be in trouble! I must be in need of Eckhart Tolle if I can't even ABSORB what the guy is trying to say!

So I did what every Oprah devotee would do at this point. I immediately thought it must be "me" that was lacking in some sort of intelligence or understanding or vision. Because Oprah couldn't be steering me wrong. Right?!? I went to Oprah's website to check out the message boards to see if anyone else was having the problems that I was having. Sure enough...there it was. A post echoing my own words "Is Anyone Else Having Trouble Understanding This Book?" (Or something of that nature). So I clicked on the post hoping to find 400 people that were up against the same emotional roadblocks that I was feeling. Well, aside from the woman who posted the question - and maybe 2 or 3 others - it was a plethora of suggestions on "how to understand" what Tolle has to say. Yep, that's right. How to understand what you're reading.

Now I don't know about you, but if I need someone to tell me "how" to read a book, I don't think it's a book worth reading. The suggestions didn't stop there. "Let the words flow through you!" "Don't TRY to understand it, just let it understand YOU!" WHAT?!?!? Who are these people? What Kool-Aid did they drink to get to this point?

So, angry, I posted an entry of my own. I pointed out that I don't think that this book is well-written, I don't think the guy is a guru, I am a bit concerned that everyone is blindly following someone because Oprah tells them to! Again, I LOVE OPRAH! But that doesn't mean that just because she says something is so, that it IS THAT WAY!

I have laid my book at my bedside and might try to pick it up again one day when I am feeling more "enlightened." Meanwhile, I will be reading CELEBUTANTES by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Hopper. I'll let the Botox enlighten me.

Anyone else having problems reading Tolle's book?? If so, please leave me a comment here!

rich people's soap

True confession. I love going to rich people's houses and using their hand soap. There. I said it. Every one of my friends who has money always has really great soap in their bathrooms. It's not that I can't afford the same soap that they use, it just never feels them same in my dingy old bathroom as it does in theirs. It smells better. It looks better (for some reason their soap never gets that crusty stuff on the nozzle, and the bottle looks pristine even when it's nearly empty).

Maybe I'll just need a nicer house. Or nicer bathroom. Then I, too, can enjoy really great hand soap in the comfort of my own home!

new year's resolutions 2007

Okay, so I just realized that I haven't entered anything in my darned blog in MONTHS! And wasn't that my New Year's resolution last year? To religiously write in my blog every day?? Let's face it, though, how do people find TIME to write in their blogs every day? And for that matter, what could I possibly have to say that was interesting enough to post in my blog every day? Perhaps that will be my resolution: Lead a more interesting life so that I have interesting things to write about every day.

Hmmmm...not bad.

Let me work on that...

de agony of da-feet

How many pairs of shoes is too many pairs of shoes?

Yesterday, I was researching something for work when I stumbled upon - okay, I purposely took a break and went to - my favorite online shoe website, Zappos.com. I saw the CUTEST platform shoes that...well...I just HAD to have. Heck, they were only $35 and they were WAY adorable. Flowered platform soles. Tan to match either jeans or my white pants for the summer. Just high enough to make me taller. But just as I clicked on the "purchase" button, I had a sudden pang of "do I really NEED these shoes, or do I just WANT these shoes?" Tough call. Easy to justify the latter, but I thought I should be a big girl and sit on this for a day. If the urge was still strong this morning, I was going to buy these shoes, darn it!

So last night I decided to figure out how many shoes I actually owned. Stacked neatly in my closet are piles of shoe boxes. 25 on the floor. Not bad...I only have 25 pairs of shoes! Why that's nothing for a working woman in 2006! But then I remembered...wait...I have more under the bed. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. 31 Pairs of shoes. Oops...and about 20 pairs in California (for those of you who don't know, I work in Michigan, but my home is California). So let's call it 51 pairs of shoes. Still not a crime. Not a sin. No Imelda Marcos am I.

I mean, every pair of shoes I have, I actually NEED, right? Some are for winter, some are for summer, some are for dress-up, some are for jogging (even though I haven't actually BEEN jogging since the ninth grade). And what about the rain boots!?!? I really needed those rain boots! What if I'm stuck in a storm somewhere and - well - have to prepare sandbags during a hurricane! I need those cute, flowered rainboots!

And let's face it, half of my shoes are from Payless. Who can pass up the B.O.G.O. (buy one get one half off) offer that every summer brings? Not I! So it's not like I've spent millions on my 51 pairs of shoes. I have been frugal in the past. What's an extra $35 added to the mix?

What to do...what to do...what to do...

Afterall, as the website says, they're a "stylish platform slide that's perfect for the warm weather." They have a "lightly padded footbed" and "gorgeous floral detailing along the heel and base." How can I pass up gorgeous floral detailing along the heel and base?!?!? I would be doing the entire shoe industry an injustice if I chose to do so!

So I sit here at my computer this morning, staring at the shoes online, ready to spend the $35 bucks to get these shoes. I need a sign. I need divine intervention. WWPD?*

*What would Paris do?