She really did have such a sad life. Ugh.

As someone who really loves the train-wrecks of the world, I really do feel sadness over this.

Not that this is a shocker, really.

OK, I'm kind of morbidly curious as to how long it will take news sites to have an obituary of her up, tipping their hand as to whether there was a pre-written one on file that just needed updating or whether they had to start from scratch. On the one hand, she was only 39. On the other hand...

To what extent was the sadness of her life the result of her decisionmaking? (Not meant as bitchy, just curious.)

I don't know the first thing about her (well, I know three things: Playmate, married elderly billionaire who died, in litigation over estate with his kids). What was so sad? The usual substance abuse, or what?

Why has Becks embraced evil? I blame NYC.

When I google "Anna Nicole Smith", one of the sponsored ads on the side reads:
Anna Nicole Smith Dies
What Caused Her to Collapse & Die?
Find out w/the Gossip Toolbar

4: Wasn't she supposedly sexually abused as a kid?

Also, Labs, you suck.

Her son died earlier this year, at just the time she was giving birth to another kid. There is a largish dispute over th paternity of the kid, with one too many people claiming it. She starred in a reality show that was about as mean-spirited as possible towards her, with (IIRC) particular emphasis on her weight. She just came across as a very public fuck-up.

I guess that if you marry an octogenarian billionaire, eventually a lawyer will marry you and kill your adult heirs. A morality tale for our times.

I got the sense that she was catapulted onto a very public, national stage without her entirely understanding how to handle it. And with only horrible people around her.

4: For that matter, how sad (overall) was she? We don't know, all we really have to go on are the shit-spatters tossed off the spinning media blades.

I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be an OD tho', Not after her son's death.

Wait, why do I suck? I lose track sometimes.

For my pleasure.

11: Yes, and also that she was (like so many of these pinup girls seem to be) someone who desperately wanted attention and love.

13: Because those homos keep sticking their cocks in your mouth.

You suck for implying that people's decisions might make them sad, Labs.

Ogged, humorless 'til the end.

I think of her as a prime example of exactly how fucked up someone (usually female) can be when her primary (perceived) asset is her sexual attractiveness. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that she was sexually abused as a kid, and I agree that she was largely surrounded by just horrible people.

I dunno, her whole public life just struck me as an example of people giving the retarded kid a lot of money to be allowed to kick him in public.

Agreed.

I think 18 is right. She came across as a (once) very pretty, very addled child who allowed people to take outrageous advantage of her.

Becks, here's one from the AP.

whole public life just struck me as an example of people giving the retarded kid a lot of money to be allowed to kick him in public

Fun while it lasts, but sometimes it gets out of hand.

Wasn't most of the money in escrow awaiting arbitration, though? I thought that was one of the reasons she went on the reality tv show---the other reasons being stupidity, attention-seeking, and bad counselling.

Jeeze, just let her rest in peace and leave it alone...

Daniel Smith died Sept. 10 in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas, just days after she gave birth to a daughter. An American medical examiner hired by the family, Cyril Wecht, said he had methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died. Low levels of the three drugs interacted to cause an accidental death, Wecht said.

Damn, but that's really sad.

I didn't realize that she was with Howard Stern.

Damn, hit the post button, before I finished. Of course it's a different Howard Stern, but there would be something weirdly fitting if she were with the radio host. He loves pinup girls and definitely gives them a ton of attention, though probably not love.

27: Holy shit. Just when the train wreck couldn't get more, you know, wrecked.

I actually think Labs' question is deep.

On one level, it seems pretty clear that her unhappiness (and really, how can you deny that events in her life were very unhappy) was largely the result of her decisions, especially her decisions about who to associate with.

On a deeper level, though, she looks like the victim of an accident. (As are us all.) Something seems to have prevented her from developing much decision making capacity. I imagine that had she not made these mistakes, she would have made some others.

Of course, her son's accidental overdose was no one's decision, and probably one of the saddest things in her life.

Something seems to have prevented her from developing much decision making capacity.

That something appears to have been alcohol and pills.

Well, and a family that doesn't sound like it was too helpful.

7: Not anymore. Thanks for the heads-up; sometimes ads have a chance to run for a bit before we can review them.

33: Whoa. Weird.

Good lord. Unfogged comments having an effect on the real world?

I was at about the right age to remember her Guess ads fairly vividly, so I image-googled for them and came up with photo retrospective, which was written a while ago and in this context seems very mean-spirited, but it does have at least one of the photos I was looking for. I'm becoming more convinced that almost nobody is psychologically healthy enough to do reality tv.

Someone in the Googleplex lurks here?

Anyone else remember the time we were talking about New Yorker cartoons, and a New Yorker cartoonist (or someone purporting to be one) showed up?

Maybe it's time to experiment again.

Why don't we start talking about open-handed billionaires who want to give us free stuff and see what happens?

Dammit.

38: Yes, though I don't remember the exact post.

36: I'm sure that there are people who are psychologically healthy enough to do reality tv. It's just that those people are probably not terribly interesting to producers. What's more important, the healthy people probably all realize what a bad idea reality tv is and don't want to participate.

That's her lawyer, BG, Howard K. Stern. Not the DJ.

38: "New Yorker cartoonist" s/b "English call girl"

There was also this. (comment 3)

I was just thinking about Lindsay Lohan and her trainwreck of a life...it's kind of repugnant that we, as a culture, pay stupid/foolish/damaged people a lot of money because we want to watch them suffer (and then, perhaps, die). And now with the unreal vindictiveness of the gossip websites, we're actually all able to help them along the path to the crash.

Really, what kind of life do people expect someone uneducated and probably stupid to have when she's in a situation where's there's a lot of drugs and exploitation? Of course, they expect her to be a trainwreck, and they want trainwrecks.

While yes, everyone should make good healthy decisions, we as a culture don't actually have to take advantage of everyone who makes stupid, unhealthy ones.

A factor--with, say, the public trashing of Lindsay Lohan or somebody--seems to be women's resentment of the whole "female homework" of body maintenance, clothing upkeep, constantly effort to be teh sexxee, etc.

So yeah, I think it's really sad that Anna Nicole Smith died so young.

I heard that some people at Google got million-dollar bonuses this past year (and bought karaoke machines, because what else would you do?). So, Googleplex reader, you know you want to hire me.

To do what? Make extra cryptic responses to search queries? Does Google need bagpipe music over the company intercom?

Make extra cryptic responses to search queries?

I so want to see "Ask w-lfs-n" as a new Google feature.

"Ask a Little Bitch"

Also, dammit, B, your latest post is so NSFW.

Yow. Indeed.

Everyone hate on the Googleplex reader, as he/she almost certainly has a better work environment than the rest of us.

Are they hiring litigators?

37: There's more of us here than you know.

The same person who told me about the big bucks bonuses claimed that these programmers were basically encouraged to live at the google campus, which doesn't sound like the best work environment to me. Nonetheless! Free lunch!

My solace is that at least I don't live in San Jose. These days that town is all the cost of San Fran, but with none of the coolness.

Eep.

So, if we have all these lurkers, can you mess with our page rank?

If the folks at Google are reading Unfogged all day, then their work environment is just like ours.

can you mess with our page rank?

Yeah, make it go down, so we don't get any more riff-raff.

Everyone hate on the Googleplex reader, as he/she almost certainly has a better work environment than the rest of us.

No fucking kidding. Have you ever been to the Google campus? It's like the Wonka factory for nerds.

My solace is that at least I don't live in San Jose.

Google isn't in San Jose. And San Jose has some nice areas.

Mountain View has some excellent sources of food.

Since Labs has taken us into th National Enquirer Zone: Has anyone ever seen a nastier looking photograph than the one of the wack astronaut lady? I've never seen that shade of brownish-yellowish-green in a news photo before.

56: And breakfast. And dinner. And laundry. And tech support that is actually helpful. And interesting tech talks. But you're right, it sucks.

Shouldn't we be formulating a plan to control Google via our lurkers? Lurkers, are you cool with that?

Oi, Google. Let's talk about you ripping off my IP by scanning my books.

Laundry? Google ponies up for laundry?

And interesting tech talks.

Yeah, but did you guys get one of the founding members of Negativland to come out and give a talk?

Google isn't in San Jose. And San Jose has some nice areas.

What's Mountain View, 10 miles away? And yeah, there's worse places than San Jose, but for what San Jose costs, it ain't worth it.

That's where I was going with 58. There's that crucial step of converting them from lurkers to minions, first, though.

My favorite thing about Google is the guy who blogged about software development practices a few months back and said, in effect, "agile development is a pointless fad; a much better development methodology is to have an unlimited budget."

It must be the case that the only googlebots or whatever they call themselves who have enough time to lurk are Page and Brin. I'm not sure I really want anything from them, except maybe to announce that they've undertaken a joint initiative with the FBI to filter out "unsafe" sites. The reaction to that I'd pay to see.

Has anyone ever seen a nastier looking photograph than the one of the wack astronaut lady?

Man, I'm digging that story. That lady is all kinds of nuts.

As far as I know. Like I said, I didn't drive to the Googleplex today (or in general, working in a satellite office).

Let's talk about you ripping off my IP by scanning my books.

Come on, slol, no one was going to read those anyway. This way, you can at least prove to your kids that the books are real, rather than waving some anachronistic paper monstrosity at them.

What's Mountain View, 10 miles away?

A little more -- but dude, culturally? that's a long ten miles.

A little more -- but dude, culturally? that's a long ten miles.

Pfft. Not from San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley, it's not.

Come on, slol, no one was going to read those anyway

Can I maybe punch you? Just, a little?

In the kidneys, of course.

Laundry? Google ponies up for laundry?

Looks more like they have laundry rooms.

Is anyone else getting the weird feeling that we're only now aware that we've been watched for a long time? Also, there are spiders under my skin.

Not from San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley, it's not

I think of Mountain View as being part of the Palo Altoplex, also including Stanford, Menlo Park, Xerox PARC, and a few other places -- culturally distinct from San Francisco, sure, but also from San Jose.

Face it, Slol, we're the last of the line. Today's young people have an attention span of about 200-500 words. It's not just Ogged.

I always thought the laundry rooms sounded kinda hazardous.

84: Yeah. And it's interesting to see how fast these kids can segue from a national tragedy to a quest for free food.

Um, missing link.

Slol, don't be a luddite.

I think of Mountain View as being part of the Palo Altoplex, also including Stanford, Menlo Park, Xerox PARC, and a few other places -- culturally distinct from San Francisco, sure, but also from San Jose.

You live in Mountain View, don't you.

WTF is wrong with San Jose? Other than the fact that the cost of housing is ridiculous. Gswift, go live someplace crappy for a few years so you can learn to appreciate California.

Not only are the classics being apocryphally dumped from libraries, but most books nowadays end up being glued into rows to slap in for interior decoration purposes in lawyers' offices, etc. They've become purely ornamental.

Sure, it may be a great place to work -- if you can make it through the ridiculous hiring process (interviews in the double digits, in some cases), and if you don't mind doing nothing once you get there (they're rumored to have been warehousing engineering talent).

Doing nothing is one of the work skills I perfected.

Mountain View and San Jose are culturally distinct. Mountain View is also distinct from Palo Alto, but working at the Googleplex is (if you make it), like working at Xerox PARC in the 70s. Which, as a techie, is nothing to sneer at.

Slol, don't be a luddite.

You are disturbing my meditation as a pebble disturbs a pond.

You live in Mountain View, don't you.

No, but I thought about it once. And I did eat Mongolian barbecue there on several occasions.

92: The former is certainly valid (in most cases); I'm not sure where you heard the latter from, because it certainly doesn't jive with anything I've seen.

They're not the only place that makes people go through umpteen interviews. Mr. B. had so many interviews with Another Big Online Corporation that I was *sure* they'd hire him, mais non. Fuckers.

Mountain View people are desperate to pass as normal, non-San-Jose people. But should we let them do that?

Bur wait -- I see our Google rank plummeting. Soon we will no longer be able to access our own archives.

So yes. Mountain View is markedly different than the place Dionne Warwick was trying to find.

¡Cien!

WTF is wrong with San Jose? Other than the fact that the cost of housing is ridiculous.

We're not all married to fat-cat government contractors, you know.

Did the Google lurkers narrow the hoohole in the Unfogged archives?

San Jose is one of those sidewalkless suburbs that are becoming metropolises without city planning. My first boyfriend was an IBM kid; we once hiked up a hill behind his house, and he pointed out where there used to be vineyards.

93: That ability is pretty obviously widespread among the commenters here.

I don't entirely believe that the Google people are people. I suspect this may be an eerie conversation between rogue AI entities. Their numbers and commenting-rate will multiply exponentially and soon all of Unfogged will be nothing but Google's daemons chattering to themselves.

The really old heart of San Jose is quite nice. Beautiful housing stock, vibrant gardens. People actually take walks and hang out on those sweet Victorian porches and wave. Children actually play in the front yards and bike up and down. Lots of good food, too. I feel like the sprawly, newer outer reaches get lame rather quickly.

I owe the discovery of Unfogged to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.

How many of y'all are in the SF bay area? I grew up in MV and now live and work in SF.

108: Live in SF, drive to not Mountain View for work.

Does "downtown" San Jose have any redeeming features? Every so often I get sent out there on business, stay at some hotel near the airport and spend all day in a tech office building. At night I take the light rail into the downtown area... and at best, I can find a couple of bars. Seems kind of lame.

but most books nowadays end up being glued into rows to slap in for interior decoration purposes in lawyers' offices

No, they're glued together to hide the bottles of Scotch.

the weird feeling that we're only now aware that we've been watched for a long time?

Yeah. Would the NSA and CIA lurkers please raise your hands?

Personally, of all the Peninsula townships, Mountain View's my favorite - I lived there during my 3rd year of law school, and vastly preferred it over campus (shudder - and no thank you I do not want to go to the 'CoHo' for 'FroYo', you psychopaths) and Menlo Park (first and second year respectively). At that point - mid to late 90's - Menlo Park still had some normal (i.e. not mega rich) folks living there, but Mountain View was vastly more interesting. Culturally much more diverse and vastly better food choices (Castro Street is a wonder). It seemed far less plasticky than the other areas.

As for San Jose, I don't understand it at all.

Does "downtown" San Jose have any redeeming features?

The Hotel De Anza.

From Anna Nicole to Google AIntellects to real estate in under 100 messages, Congratulations are in order.

no thank you I do not want to go to the 'CoHo' for 'FroYo', you psychopaths

Heh. Indeed.

Gswift, go live someplace crappy for a few years so you can learn to appreciate California.

Los Angeles born and raised. My mom is from L.A., and my Dad is from the Bay area. Spare me.

108: Work in SF, live in the East Bay. And I suspect you and I have at least one friend in common.

118: Just on general mathematical principles, or did you have someone in particular in mind?

110: There's a kick-ass pho place kinda sorta near downtown SJ. And there's Original Joe's.

110: White Lotus restaurant, the best vegan vietnamese food an omnivore will ever eat. I recommend the Spicy 'Pork' with Lemongrass.

115: I still think that we should be talking about the greenish-brownish-yellow astronaut photo. If they'd used that photo for the OJ stories he would have been convicted.

114: Not to be confused with this.

Okay, that's hilarious, as I was trying to think of something redeeming about SJ and all I could remember was this pho place downtown where I used to have lunch when I was doing this externship for a semester. Oh, delicious pho.... Good day for it, too.

'Pork'

This makes me chuckle.

119: Mr. Neutrongodeon.

If they'd used that photo for the OJ stories he would have been convicted.

Oddly, my 95 year old Sicilian grandmother is adamant that OJ is innocent. Cracks me up.

115: I find it much easier to back out the fluorescent lighting than I do the creepy hair style, to the point that I think the mug shot is actually more flattering than the stock file photo.

126. Indeed.

125: Actually, they don't scarequote the names of meats on the menu at White Lotus, which invariably sends diners back to the "absolutely no meat here" disclaimer on the front of the menu.

ditto 118, and on general mathematical principle. And yeah, I think I've been to that Vegan Vietnamese place and it was good.

Speaking of awful pix, anyone happen to have their senses assaulted by Cisco Adler nekkid pic? I clicked on out of sheer boredom and need others to tell me - are those normal for a man? My experience with boys is obviously limited but this seems wrong. Here's a link - to the link. And yes, it's very NSFW.

my 95 year old Sicilian grandmother is adamant that OJ is innocent

You should introduce her to McManus.

117: That's exactly my point. Go live in some crappy little rustbelt town for a few years, then tell me San Jose sucks.

are those normal for a man?

No.

There's also a pretty good Ethiopian place in downtown-ish San Jose.

Oh, whups, got the post reference wrong. I'm surprised no one has yet called for a Bay Area meet-up.

I've already seen it, Moira. No, it isn't normal.

Speaking of bay area fake meat, did anyone here ever eat Jing Ling's which used to be on College near Ashby, in Berkland, circa 1997-2002? The most amazing fake duck ever. Heart broken when it was replaced by a Naan N Curry, now it's something even sillier. I'd love to know if the owners started up something new.

There's been a couple in the past, although pretty small.

I'm surprised no one has yet called for a Bay Area meet-up.

I was under the impression that we had very few bay area readers, but that seems to have changed.

Go live in some crappy little rustbelt town for a few years, then tell me San Jose sucks.

Spend a bit more time in California, and soon your standards will be higher than, "better than Saginaw".

Speaking of bay area fake meat

Hee.

Yeah, apparently our three main demographic groups are now lawyers, philosophers, and people who know some guy who works at Google.

139->132.

Hey, and linguists.

138->136.

108: Bay Area here. Live in East Bay, work in an undisclosed location.

132: Must. Not. Click. OMG. Hate you for even making me think about this.

But America's favorite trainwreck has died tragically young. This is a time to mourn the tabloid reports that will go forever unwritten, not to think about a naked Cisco Adler.

anyone happen to have their senses assaulted by Cisco Adler nekkid pic? I clicked on out of sheer boredom and need others to tell me - are those normal for a man?

Jesus no. Apparently he's been letting small children swing from his testicles.

Gee whiz golly, folks, San Jose is plenty good enough for me! They got all kinds of good stuff down there.

Argh, that should have been 142->136. Someone annihilate 146.

Yeah. Would the NSA and CIA lurkers please raise your hands?

For a few months, I had an occasional reader from the CIA. Sorta freaky.

We do seem to have a surprisingly large number of linguists.

Bay Area meetup for Pacific APA!!!!11!

Bay Area meetup for Pacific APA!!!!11!

When is it?

Ah, early April.

Philosophy of Wine?

I'm in the wrong goddamn line of work.

I've never been to San Francisco before!

140: That's not what you used to think.

157: But have you ever been to you?

140: That's not what you used to think.

Yeah, sorry, imprecise. I meant that few of the commenters identified themselves as living here.

To read about the tragedy surrounding Anna Nicole and her long-time adversary, E. Pierce Marshall...link here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Dude, DiRito, that is not going to win you friends and clicks.

If I remember correctly, Karl Belser was the head of planning for San Jose or Santa Clara county in the 1950s and had all these grand ideas about building BART to the South Bay in conjunction with housing and commericial development in order to take advantage of the lower land prices and easier right of way decisions that existed just before the county's sprawling growth really took off. He was ignored, to say the least. He wrote an article about his experience, "The Making of Slurban America", which I've been meaning to read for years, but never have.

Neither Mountain View nor Redwood City are really that bad. I don't know about San Jose.

File under "I'm a horrible person": Every time I scoll past this post, I think "Notice that Labs didn't say 'We of Unfogged mourn the untimely death...'"

(Not saying that her death wasn't untimely. Just that that is a frequent construct and my mind keeps wanting to fill it in.)

In the world of bizarre brushes with celebrity, I am under the jurisdiction of* Anna Nicole Smith's brother-in-law. His wife, ANS's sister, seems to be an entirely normal, non-glamorous person.

*He's the boss of the office in which I work, though my actual boss is 1,500 miles away because I telecommute, but I am also somewhat subject to his whim, irritatingly so.

Mountain View also has Dittmer's and the Milk Pail, and several mexican markets with attached shacky restaurants—yes I would like a carnitas quesadilla, thank you—and a place that stocks questionable halal meat, including goat and calf hearts.

Palo Alto has some decent food sources, but they're all way pricey.

I register my support for a meetup on the occasion of the pacific APA.

156: IIRC, it's a "mini-conference" the day before the conference actually starts, which is basically a way of intellectualizing the drunken fraternization, I think.

people who know some guy who works at Google

I blame my high school. Also, this board seems like it has about as many female math majors as my year at university. This place would make the worst market research focus group ever.

Palo Alto has some decent food sources, but they're all way pricey.

Hunan Garden on El Camino just south of Page Mill is excellent, and it's not too terribly expensive. The sandwiches from the deli at JJ & F are, IMO, about as good as Dittmer's, and the cost is comparable too.

To the Googleplex folks: the upgrade to show subway stops and building outlines in NYC on Google Maps? Completely awesome.

Subway stops, seriously? I hadn't realized. Awesome indeed.

We love Big Brother.

That demographic summary of Unfogged completely left out the hyper-sensitive Southern gays and I, for one, am utterly offended.

The hypersensitive Southern gays don't show up here either.

Pistols at dawn!

More seriously, where on earth do they even get those numbers? Or do they just make shit up?

Best I can figure, they just make it up.

What I liked about Anna Nicole Smith was that the fatter she got, the more fuckable she was.

138: There used to be a veg. chinese place on el camino in/near MV with great veg. duck too. I forget the name though, and no idea if it's still there.

I lived int PA, MP, and MV mid-late 90's. MV was by far my favourite.

In those stats "Hypersensitive southern gays" must have been folded into either "Hispanic" or "other".

"Hypersensitive southern gays" must have been folded into either "Hispanic"

The boundary line there is pretty blurry.

¡Pistolas en el amanecer!

No thanks. My amanecer is still recovering from the last time.

(Says Babelfish, anyway.)

165: I just realised that ANS's attorney, Ron Rale, is someone I used to work with. I was also at one of his weddings. Esoteric information: He has rubber balls. I do not know this from personal experience, but from his description of cosmetic surgery following a bout of testicular cancer.

They insert rubber balls? Cosmetic reasons?

Is there no one on the neuticles beat anymore? NEUTICLES.

Get off my neuticles lawn.

Poop.

TNF,B.

Poop.

As big of a train wreck as Anna Nicole Smith was, do you ever get the feeling there might be a much, much bigger one coming?

Thanks, apo. In other news, I think we all need to read comment 46 again.

Britney's less pathetic, though, and more of a testament to the ways that trying to be your own chica can be a dead-end path. Plus her rebellion, bless her heart, is the opposite of Smith's--Smith was a social climber, Britney strikes me as proudly trailer trash.