Emma's New BFF.

Pepsi has a new CEO. Indra Nooyi doesn't know it yet, but she has been entered into the 6th Annual Emma Grimshaw Letter Writing Contest - just as soon as I locate her address in Greenwich, CT. According to whitepages.com, I have to pay about $40 for that information, which is definitely not happening, but it is beyond necessary that I send off a missive informing her of the positive impact Diet Pepsi has had on my life and how it should be marketed much more heavily than regular Pepsi. If anyone has any suggestions for how I can casually drop by her house to congratulate her and extol the virtues of said carbonated beverage without looking completely psychotic, I am all ears.


I have no idea why there's a mouth in there, but I'm entranced.

In other news, I have been spending the last few days working on a Weenie Enema Investigative Report entitled "Dov'e Sette Magnifico?" which, in my trademark pidgin Italian means, where are the Magificent Seven? No, not Ernest Borgnine cowboy goodness, but the most badass group of human beings ever assembled outside of the set of SVU.

Now, if only their voices didn't sound like 7-year-olds.

Shannon Miller.

I had a girl crush on Shannon Miller when I was six and I told my mom and she chuckled and said, "You don't know what that is," and I said, "I want to make out with her, but I would NEVER do anything down there," and my mom smiled nervously and suggested I write her a letter. Guess who has an autographed picture now?

So Shannon was supposed to be the leader of the Magnificent Seven, but she blew her floor routine and went a little nutty. She didn't stink up the place; she ended up getting decent marks on the balance beam and bars, and was okay on the vault, and she ended up getting a gold medal for the balance beam in the all-around. Still, I have always maintained that Dominque Moceanu would have taken it home if she hadn't slipped. The end.

Dov'e?
Like all gymnasts who basically retire at the age of 20, Shannon went through puberty and was totally unrecognizable by 1998. It's freaky.

No word on how her voice sounds now.
She got married to an eye doctor in 1999, and they separated in 2004 and had a really nasty divorce, which ended a few months ago. He claimed she cheated on him with a married professional athlete. Hmmm.

I have no proof. Don't sue me.

Dominique Moceanu.

What a little snare drum. Heart.

I was always pretty sure that Shannon Miller hated Dominique Moceanu for stealing her thunder, but I think it was just jealousy. Dominique could BRING IT. She could feed off of an audience like nothing else; her decision to perform her floor routine to Devil Went Down to Georgia in the middle of rabid Hotlanta was nothing short of genius. She is tinier than my cat.

Dov'e?

Somehow, this nut is still competing. She must be about 25 by now, and she just had her petition to compete in Nationals denied. I would let her compete until the end of time, even if her body more closely resembled FDR's circa 1940 than her overly developed scary 8-pack body of yesteryear. And she's engaged to this guy who used to be on the Ohio State Gymnastics Team. Not much of a surprise there.

That is the coolest picture I have ever seen. Except for that one with the mouth in the ear. And the Marcia Gay Harden dog.

Dominique Dawes.

My father called her "the black Dominque," which is kind of unfair, because no one was calling Dominique Moceanu "the dwarf Romanian Dominique." I digress. Dominique had the best floor routine ever in '96. The only thing that would have made it better was if she had decided to do her tumbling passes to Journey to the Island from Jurassic Park. I will be bringing up that delightful movie again in a moment.

Dov'e?

She looks EXACTLY the same. She has somehow emerged from a time warp ala Sophia Loren. Or maybe she figured out a way to get through puberty before the Olympics.

Dominique hasn't done anything too crazy. She was in Grease on Broadway, which I'm really sorry I didn't catch because that's definitely better than Joey FatOne in Rent, and she appeared in music videos for Prince and Missy Elliott, but not the Spice Girls. Admittedly, I think the Spice Girls unofficially broke up while she was still competing, but there was definitely a spot in the Say You'll Be There video with her name on it.

Dear childhood, come back.

Kerri Strug.

It kind of sucks that no one's going to remember her for anything but endangering the permanent health of her ankle and lunging off a vault onto it when it was, like, hanging by a ligament. Besides bearing an uncanny resemblance to Joe Mazzello (my Jurassic Park reference), she was kicking major ass up until that point and probably would have ended up with a medal on floor. But alas, all she did was guest star on 90210, unfortunately not during the critically acclaimed Brenda years.

Kerri's the one in the blue shirt.

Dov'e?

Does anyone else think she looks like that painting in Ghostbusters 2?

Heh.
Kerri is actually doing some pretty badass shizzle. She went to Stanford and was an elementary school teacher, and then she moved to Washington and has been working for the government in the Justice Department of all things. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, she put in a cameo on Strong Medicine. People kill me.

Amanda Borden.

Those are the sickest leg muscles ever.

I didn't like Amanda Borden, specifically because she wasn't one of the previous four. She gave off bitchy vibes and she looks like this woman who worked with my mom who didn't like me because I had to use her bathroom at 7 in the morning. I apologized, but she always fixed this stare on me whenever she saw me that said, "You can't control your bowels." Well, I was 10. Sorry. And my dad is a 50-year-old repeat offender who has lost control in some of the most amazing ways/places imaginable. So maybe you should look at my dad instead.

Dov'e?

Well...she doesn't look as mean. In fact, she looks like my old chum Nadia, who met her fiancee in a discotech in Firenze. Fact.
She went to Arizona State and got a degree in early childhood education or something, so I suspect that means she's probably teaching a bunch of doe-eyed young things who have no idea that she was that bitchy girl with the overly muscular legs.

Jaycie Phelps.

I didn't like her either. She did this weird floor routine where she pretended to get hit by a car. It made no sense and she flailed around for a good 90 seconds or so with music that sounded like brakes screeching. Shiver.

Dov'e?

She got married to Olympic gymnast Brett McClure, who was the only member of the US team in 2004 with a receding hairline. There were some HOT people on that team.

Blaine Wilson <3.

Amy Chow.

I have no recollection of anything she did. She certainly didn't compete in every event, and she wasn't a badass like the Dominiques and Disemboweled Ankle Strug. Apparently she won the silver on the bars. No. Idea.

Dov'e?

I don't know what it is with gymnasts and Stanford, but she's at their med school right now studying to be a pediatrician or...some other doctor. I would never recognize any of these people on the street, which is kind of sad, because I doubt there are that many blog investigative reports targeting their existence at this point. Dramatic sigh.

I told DB Bogangles that I was doing a blog entry about the Magnificent Seven and she got excited because she thought I was talking about the movie, and subsequently became "depressed like a manic wolf." Direct quote. So I made a promise (because I'm awesome like that) to insert a picture of Yul Brynner at the end of this.