State of the Blogosphere: the Highlights of Online Fashion, Lifestyle & Pop Culture for the Week Ending 3/12/06. FASHIONTRIBES FASHION BLOG

For this week's roundup of the best/coolest/fun'est stuff online, you can:

• debate the Top 50 websites
• sell your salvation online
• book your tix to the upcoming Barbie musical
• meet biodynamic winemakers from Cali & France
• check out Bai Ling's jellyfish Fug of an outfit
• pick up a tee containing code & a backstory about murder
• and wrap your mind around the scope of the business that is red carpet dress knockoffs - both in the real and virtual worlds.

- Lesley Scott

(Illustration from FotoSearch.com)

POP CULTURE CALLING Check out this recent list of the Top 50 Websites & blogs - contenders include Craigslist, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Bad Sweater Guy & the fab Go Fug Yourself chicas. Steve Johnson, newly-minted Internet Critic at the Chicago Tribune bravely waded in and gave it a shot. (To hear what he has to say about the whole kerfluflle in his own words, CLICK HERE to check out the Fashiontribes podcast interview.)

Selling your soul to the devil? Been done. Pimping it online? Passe. However, in a new twist on the Faustian bargain, an enterprising DePaul University student - and atheist - put his salvation on the eBay auction block. Blingdom of God explains that he has agreed to attend an hour of church for every ten dollars of the winning bid. In exchange for the winning bid of $504 (won by a former Christian minister) he is attending a range of churches, and then offering his critiques online.

With all this blogging, vlogging, & podcasting, we're truly in a power-to-the-people revolution. Now, Audioblog's Eric Rice reports that he's recently acquired the assets & technologies of Multiverse Records - and he's considering what happens "when you bring together the concepts of artists-making-money and podcasters-playing-music, music podcasting organizations and creative commons and free culture, combined with prototyping the music industry of tomorrow."

Maybe your avowed Luddite pals had the right idea. Apparently Going Bedouin is the next trend sweeping Silicon Valley, writes PSFK, describing the format of low-cost, highly mobile companies leading the Web 2.0 revolution who need less capital to get started, and can react with greater agility to changing conditions.

Ever wonder why the Millenials (born 1980-2000) so obsessively share all the details of their lives with the rest of the internet? In a podcast-interview on NPR's Morning Edition, one 22 year old grad student explains why he posts so much of his personal information online.

Evesdropping, like peoplewatching, is one of life's great pastimes. The pundit podcasters of Pop Goes the Culture! weigh in.

Apparently there's something to those goofy this-is-your-brain-on-drugs ads. Ypulse.com looks at everything bad that's actually bad for you: from how to get teens to stop baking in tanning beds, eating disorders a la Nicole Richie, and turning adolescents into non-smokers through graphic depictions of the harm done to the body by smoking.

Should bloggers get paid for all the drivel content we create weekly, daily...hourly? You bet. And let the super-fantastic Manolo of Manolo's Shoe Blog be an example to us all with his line of t-shirts and mugs.

Mormons & polygamists alike anxiously await Sunday's premier of HBO's Big Love says CNN.com - the Mormons because of stereotypes, and the polygamists because "they're sure the series won't accurately portray the 'boring' reality of their lives."

The show must go on. Along with other movies jumping from the screen to the stage - The Wedding Singer, The Lord of the Rings - MSNBC.com reports on the new show Barbie Live in Fairytopia based on last year's direct-to-video Barbie Fairytopia set to kick off an 80 city tour in Columbus, Ohio on April 1. In addition to an original score, the set will reportedly be decorated with 100 pounds of glitter.

Who did you think the most annoying on America's Next Top Model (you know you watched it!) USAToday's Pop Candy blogger is of the mind that it's the completely unoriginal chick with an exact copy of the Angelina Jolie tatt that says "What nourishes me destroys me."

  (Photo from SimonCreekVineyard.com)

BON APPETIT! FOOD & DRINK

Even if it's pretty, it better taste good is the edict from Ideas in Food. "Gone are the days of colorful garnishes that serve no purpose." Why? Science. It allows for precision cooking at a level not imagined a mere 50 years ago. While other missteps include putting need for speed over other considerations, it's science that will help us find the balance between the beauty, speed and taste - in a world where chefs go to astonishing lengths to woo the eye & palate, and terms like molecular gastronomy, sous vide cookery, and enzymes are commonplace in contemporary kitchens.

Speaking of Sous Vide, according to Dynamist, NYC's Department of Health looks less than fondly on this technique, handing out fines which start at $300 per "offense" and even making chefs throw out shink-wrapped food, despite the fact that no health problem has even been tied to sous vide in restaurant kitchens in New York.

If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, the way to a woman's is via...a peppermill. But not just any old peppermill, thankyou. Apartment Therapy picks the best one - not cheap, but guaranteed love at first sight.

Actually observing meatlessness for Lent? La Dolce Divas have some tasty halibut recipes to get you through to Easter in style.

And even though Valentine's Day has come & gone (thank god!), there's no time like right now to indulge in chocolate. Beauty News LA surveys the best places to get your choco-cravings on.

You really enjoyed that glass - or in my case, glasses...many - of that wine. So you know it's good, right? Wrong, warns Vinography, who points out that the only way to truly understand whether a given wine is any good is to try it many times. Why? A lil' thing called "bottle variation" which can create large differences between two seemingly identical bottles of wine.

Meet Nicolas Joly, a winemaking rebel who's been embracing biodynamic principles at his Savennieres vineyard since the early 1980s. Counter NYC made a video of his recent seminar in New York.

It must be rebel winemaker week. Fashiontribes podcast-interviewed the fabulously outspoken Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard and found out about everything from the winedrinkers foodchain to why corks suck...profoundly.

The couple that drinks together - stays together. BoingBoing.net reports on wirelessly-enabled wine glasses that let drinking buddies stay that way, regardless of whether they're even near each other geographically. When either person picks up a glass - which actually resembles a big tumbler - or puts it to their lips, an LED on the other glass glows so you know they're imbibing. Bottoms up...wherever you are.

 (Photo from DIY-HomeDecor.com)

ON THE HOME-FRONT: HOME DECOR & STYLE

Much-maligned tighty-whities get their due with the UndyRug, a 24"x20" inch rug of, well, tighty-whities. Product Dose notes that it sets the scene for you to start throwing your underwear all over the floor.

It's scary to contemplate just how much waste-packaging supermarkets generate. Artist Jason Iftakhar did just that reports Treehugger, and created a bench fashioned from old cardboard boxes.

No need to worry about knocking a vase over with Flat Flowers transparent window stickers that let you stick your bouquet out of harm's way - unearthed of course by the clever Design Sponge.

 (Photo of Bai Ling from GoFugYourself.Typepad.com)

CELEB FUG

And for a second week running, Bai Ling makes a splash in this here Blogosphere roundup, this time as a jellyfish. Either that or she is majorly bloated, at least that's the word from Go Fug Yourself.

Yes, what Joan Rivers told Howard Stern is true: she posted a profile on Match.com - via Gawker.com

Is that Ashlee Simpson drunk on MySpace? You be the judge. The Superficial.

 (Photo by Harry Vorsteher/Corbis from Time.com)

LOOKIN' GOOD: BEAUTY

Stevie Wilson of the Fashiontribes Beauty Buzz blog podcast-chats with Jo Woods, wife of Rolling Stone Ron Woods, about her new line of Organic Luxury Body Products.

A stylish woman knows never to pick her nose...from a catalog. In a recent piece in Time, author Kathy Lette makes a case for brains over (store bought) beauty - casting a gimlet eye on Botox, lipo, lip plumping injections to die for (literally), excessive face lifts and other pricey, painful practices being a little too readily embraced by the over 35 set.

As the Atkins diet slithers back into the non-sensical hole from whither it came, what's a dieter to do? Dr. Andrew Weil lists his top five fabulous foods for the year in his newsletter on Martha Stewart Living.

  (Photo collage from SecondCityStyle.com)

FASHION, FASHION, FASHION

Everything and everyone looks better in a tiara, including your iPod. PopGadget.net

From white, lace & the two together, to a mongo tote or perhaps a towering platform shoe - Second City Style's got a handy cheat-sheet guide to the big spring fashion trends.

Trying to figure your spring wardrobe out? Good thing that your timing is impeccable: so is Girlawhirl. She'll be pulling together her spring look with prints, patterns and embellishments (especially Tory Burch) creating a mix of ladylike and spectator.

Have Chloe bags lost their cool wonders The Bag Snob. Apparently, the loss of Phoebe Philo is already making itself felt in this collection that "looks like it was designed for a Jane Austin movie about starving artists."

Innovative is as innovative doesn't. Kobayashi5 ponders whether entrepreneurs like Bape's Nigo and the new, muchly hyped Greedy Genius kicks are actually innovative, or simply knockoff artists of Nike Air Force 1s and classic Pumas.

Forget the DaVinci code, hidden messages and codes can be as close as your threads if you buy them from Edoc. Josh Spear unearths a company that unites fashion, technology, music & interactive story telling. On the company's website, you enter a code found on the clothing and it opens a "rabbit hole" of a story about murder.

It's always summer someplace, especially for Brazilian Girls, the latest editorial story uploaded on fashion glossy Zoozoom. The word is bright colors, floral prints, minimalist bikinis & shell necklaces.

KID STYLE: TWO- & FOUR-LEGGED

If you were pondering what to pooch-pair with your Army-green cargo pants this spring, look no further, Private. Now you both can kick it camo style says PupStyle.com with a Camouflage Step-in Harness & Leash Set. Ten-hut!

Angelina Jolie's wee Zahara was spotted in Paris, avec Papa Pitt, and eagle-eyed BabyChic101 spotted her toting a hip looking Colors baby bottle from Sparkability.

 (Photo by Ernest von Rosen, www.amgmedia)

OSCAR RED CARPET FALLOUT

While the Oscars are suffering from the same declining-viewership fate as the recent winter Olympics, the desire to look like you might have graced the Red Carpet is running strong: $300 million a year strong reports The New York Times Style Section. Now that celebs come in all races, shapes & sizes, there is someone for everyone to relate to, and viewers are flocking to sites like edressme.com and dresses.com to pick up Oscar reproduction frocks for proms, weddings & cocktail parties.

And knockoff mania has even spilled over into the virtual world. Counterfeit Chic notes that within hours of the Academy Award red carpet telecast, fans of The Sims video game were already trading knockoffs for their avatars of Keira Knightley's aubergine Vera Wang and Reese Witherspoon's vintage Dior.

Nothing like a pesky war to put a damper on accessorization. Since the Iraq conflict, stars have been scaling back their red carpet bling says Jack and Hill, all except the fabulous Queen Latifah who showed up at the Oscars "in enough diamonds to fund a revolution."

The Jewelry Weblog felt her spirits lift & was thrilled to finally see actresses wearing some decent necklaces at this year's Oscars.

Charlize's gladiator style Stilettos: thumbs up. Same for Helena Bonham-Carter's out-there white patent round-toe platform pumps. Miss Meghan reviews what trod - literally - the Red Carpet on Oscar night.

- Lesley Scott

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