Some of us think High School Musical is stoo-pid. We hate that hypocrite Hannah Montana, and you know where you can stick Camp Rock. We would rather eat glass than use stationery with any of their dumb mugs emblazoned across the front.

But hey, we still love back-to-school supplies! Thank the dark heavens for Emily Strange, Skelanimals and our new favorite: Angry Little Girls.

Thanks to these five misanthropic girls, a certain kind of kid can eat her lunch in peace, glowering in a corner while filling notebook after notebook with detailed thoughts about pushy math teachers, overbearing jocks and one very special boy in art class.

Even if you're theoretically too old for back to school shopping, it's worth looking. Something feels so right about using an Angry Little Girls (solar powered!) calculator to pay bills and balance our checkbook.

Fat behinds ruin the lines of Calvin Klein, and Dior doesn't come in plus sizes. It's time for a diet! But which one? A new one pops up every day. We help you sort them out with Fad Diet du Jour.

The catchy name: Maple Syrup Diet, Lemonade Diet, Master Cleanse

The story: Originally developed by Stanley Burroughs and popularlized in The Master Cleanser, published in 1976. Reintroduced to the world in 2005 by Peter Glickman in his much peppier and promisorily titled book Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days. The idea is that your body is full of toxins, which get stored in your fat cells, and that makes you sick. If you take some time off from ingesting new toxins, i.e. don't eat for a couple of weeks, your body can expel the built up toxins.

The scrawny celebrity dieter: Confirmed: Beyonce, Robin Quivers. Rumored: Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell, lemon-faced skeletar Renee Zellweger,

The anti-diet propaganda: "It's detox, not a diet! Oh, sure, some people also lose weight..."

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

Worn any good books lately? Want to accessorize your book report? Do you like people to think that you are well read, literate and intelligent, not to mention fashionable? Then here are the shirts for you.

Pulp Shop, launched fall '08 out of Seattle's Ballard district, is a gallery space and retail platform for unique, indie and green designers. It's not the traditional store model, but more of a pop-up location, with limited hours, complemented by an online boutique.

Linda Loundermilk and Loomstate are the most well known from the green section, and there's a handful of local designers for women: dresses by A Different Fur, multi strand semi-precious and costume jewelry from Sid Vintage and scarves by Asli Flinta. Then add more, hand made jewelery, hats, sunglasses, bags and various design oddities like Jeff Koons' Puppy Plant Sculpture or Murakami Monopoly.

For design aficionados, there's nothing quite like Dutch design. From furniture to fashion, graphic or poster art, advertising or industrial design, Limited/Unlimited: One Hundred Years of Dutch Design (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, through Oct 12) takes a look a Dutch design achievement, chronicled through the objects of daily life.

The exhibition shows similar objects side-by-side, from different design traditions, a mass produced example and a unique object: chair versus chair, iron versus iron. For those that can't make it to the Netherlands, museum curator Mienke Simon Thomas also authored Dutch Design. A Cultural History (010 Publishers, check out their design catalogue ).

As for "goed wonen." It translates to "good living." We'll take some of that, please.

Being the voracious readers that we are, we're always checking out reading lists (and no, we aren't in Oprah's book club, even though she does have some good picks now and again). That being said, we were quite thrilled with Style.com's summer reading list -- the list itself is based on fashion, although the books aren't actually about fashion.

(Because you know, if it has to do with fashion at all, it's work for us, so we totally give ourselves a pass to take any of these out to the pool and read for a couple of hours. We're working.)

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

What, you may ask, does a goat wear? To which we would reply, it depends where it's going. Are we talking business casual? Then, after we were all done laughing and things started to turn a little awkward we'd add, we're not talking about real goats, dummy.
No, we aren't. We're talking about Goats the comic strip by Jonathan Rosenberg and the subsequent line of t-shirts that it spawned.

You might be curious as to why the Sex and the City movie needs a book. It's as much about the fashions as it is about the plot, so what's there to read, right? Well, let us tell you -- a lot.

We received a copy of Sex and the City: The Movie from our friends at Harper Collins, who warned us that the book gives away the plot, so to be sure to see the movie first. This was totally true, so consider yourself warned.

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really, i.e., not jerky at all.

We were concerned about Hot Topic after seeing their latest addition, but then we realized that they still had plenty of other lines available and that most of them are pretty cool- or in the case of our featured shirt, yummy.

At the risk of sounding a little bit nutso, we definitely think there is an art to packing the ultimate beach bag. If you can pack it up with essentials and still keep it light, then you've got the knack.

Men and women alike can be sustainably stylish. Here are the must-haves:

1. The reusable bag. It doesn't have to be Anya Hindmarch's bag you see at right (which we've all seen about enough of, frankly), but re-usable bags are eco-friendly and can say a lot about you. You read? Get one at a bookstore. In fact, you probably already have one. They're called tote bags. Use them when you go to the farmer's market (or the drug store) and feel good about yourself.

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

What happens when the two DJ's going at it are Captain Britain and Captain America? Sure, they agree on great sound and fighting for justice, but can they give us something to dance to?

We only have one bathroom in our house. Luckily, I work from home and seldom shower so our time conflicts are held to a minimum. Of course, even if I wanted to spend a moment in the bathroom I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. My two small boys see to that. The idea of having quality time in there is just a dream in our house, something that only happens in songs and movies. What songs? How about Rubber Ducky? See, I know what I'm talking about.

That is why I was so excited when I saw this Biblio tub from Antonio Lupi which features a beautiful rectangular tub with clean lines and lots of space (length, I'm 6'3) built into a bookcase frame. How sweet is that?

It's amazing what you can get for $17,000 these days. A library for the bathtub. It's too rich for my pocket, but not for my dreams.



[via Scanner]

Famous cartoon artist and now fashion designer Paul Pope is launching a project for DKNY Jeans, and it doesn't involve capes or spandex. The 'hip' comic book artist -- you probably thought there weren't any -- got the call from DKNY to basically 'find a new way to do camo,' -- so that's what he did. Using natural objects like insect wings, Pope was able to come up with some really wild-looking designs.

The collection -- 2089 -- is a concoction of Paul's impression of the future, a collision of the natural world and technology playing out on graphic tees and hoodies. The year 2089 was chosen because it's 100 years after DKNY was created. The story underlying all the work has something to do with a futuristic love story of some kind. Sounds kinda cool, but I doubt anyone outside the comic book world cares.

Pope owes most of his celebrity for working with Marvel and DC Comics and especially for his work on Batman: Year 100. Other comic book artists have praised his work for its aggressive style and bold, inky lines. Frank Miller calls his style "brilliantly sloppy." Unlike the typical comic-artist stereotype, Pope is the rockstar of the nerd world and gets invited to work on lots of projects outside of spandex unitards. Last year, Paul designed the screen prints for Diesel's store windows in LA.

Superstars are always looking for cutting edge fashion accessories. Something that really sums them up as a person and shows the public what they're all about. So what's Paris Hilton's choice for this week? Why, it's a Buddhist monk, of course. Couldn't you tell that she's all about a life of quiet meditation and shunning material possessions?

Apparently, Paris turned a lot of heads last weekend when she showed up at an LA book store called The Bodhi Tree with a new Buddhist life coach. The duo spent some time together in the spiritual book store, searching for some reading material to help Paris achieve enlightenment. They purchased a book called The Path to the Painted Shaman, and then the 'monk' convince Paris to give away a huge diamond necklace that she was wearing to a stranger. Ridiculous.

I sort of felt like she had intruded on sacred ground, defiling a bookstore that's frequented by honest, soul-searching Americans. Then, I found out that the 'guru' that she had in tow was actually a Hollywood actor by the name of Maxie Santillan. You might remember him from such films as: Pirates of the Caribbean or SpongeBob SquarePants the Movie -- and now from Paris Hilton's fake spiritual journey.

[via WWTDD]