At some point during the week (I think Thursday night), the mountains finally got a dusting of snow simply because they were tall and the clouds, well, they were low.



The rest of the state? Tender box. Mountains? Were pretty until about noon.

*~*~*~*~*

Confession: one of my not-so-secret guilty pleasures is watching the Miss America pagent. Women sculpted into a image of beauty that went out with "Dynasty?" Women who are eight years younger than me but have fake-baked and botoxed themselves into 40-year-old faces? Women parading around with toupee-taped butts and vaseline smiles? Women with bad fashion sense performing seventh-rate talents in the name of scholarship money or a shot at reality television? I had to call Gwyneth and get her over here for an evening of crowns and cocktails.



You'll note we had crowns, cocktails and coordinating UNM Lobos sweatshirts. We are awesome like that. You'll also notice that I didn't have my arm stretched out, which meant Adam had come downstairs to join in the snark.

Due to Tivo mishaps, we didn't get the first forty-five minutes of the program and came in when they were introducing Miss Florida. Highlights of the broadcast:

• Adam noticed that Miss District of Columbia, Miss Texas and Miss Alabama all had the same Michael Jackson circa Bad nose.
  
• Gwyneth made the point that outside of Miss Arkansas and possibly Miss Flordia, there had to be some rib removal going on for the bathing suit competition.
• Adam expressed his continued distaste for spray-on orangeness of the contestants.
• We agreed that Miss Pennsylvania somehow got her wardrobe mixed up with porn star Miss PennsylPaina's AVN award wardrobe, right down to the stripper shoes.
• Adam called Miss Oklahoma and Miss Virginia for the final five for their belly-baring evening gowns. He totally biffed it on Miss Texas.
• Repeatedly replayed moments included Miss Texas' reaction to not making the top five; Miss Pennsylvania tripping on her stripper gown and Miss Alabama's mortifying ballet performance.
• At one point, Gwyneth and I figured out how we could clone James Denton, which is scary because given one boring Saturday afternoon and the right conditions, we actually could.
  
• We agreed that Miss Oklahoma credited her success to Frizz Ease and disposable contacts.
  
• On the CMT website, the contestants offered fashion tips. A lot of the girls seemed to have an unnatural obsession with belts. Lots of talk about...belts. Which prompted a Mommie Dearest reference that didn't quite work.
• Best Flub of the Evening came early: Miss Maine's pronunciation as "elemen-tary."
  
• And again, Adam totally called it on the eventual winner. "Miss Oklahoma's got the biggest boobs."
  

That last one took a little doing. The Tivo glitched again and we had to scramble on the web to find out who won. "Totally called it," Adam said as he went upstairs. "Biggest boobs always win."

Evolutionary theory in a nutshell.