Laura Zigman: “Then, as Laura’s Animal Husbandry disappeared, replaced by lots and lots of other more chick-litty books, Laura was only occasionally included in the chick-lit round ups. Laura never knew how to feel about this — that is, part of her was hurt that she wasn’t included when other lists of chick lit writers were named since she felt she was kind of at the forefront of the genre and felt left out. But another part of her was relieved that she wasn’t included because most of the articles about chick lit were very negative, so maybe the fact that she wasn’t mentioned was a good thing.”

Ed never refers to himself in the third person and certainly doesn’t whine when he’s forgotten. You see, this is not the reason why Ed writes.

BBC: “Pop star Madonna has said she ‘wants to be like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and John Lennon.’ The 48-year-old made the statement on US radio station Sirius – but added she wanted to ‘stay alive.'”

San Francisco Chronicle: “The United States and Britain ranked as the worst places to be a child among 21 wealthy nations, according to a report by UNICEF released Wednesday. The Netherlands was the best, it said, followed by Sweden and Denmark….Some of the wealthier countries’ lower rankings were a result of less spending on social programs and ‘dog eat dog’ competition in jobs that led to adults spending less time with their children and heightened alienation among peers, one of the report’s authors, Jonathan Bradshaw, said at a televised news conference in London.”

A Netflix employee: “After working at Netflix for a while, it starts to get boring and it really brings your emotion down since there’s not many interactions with your fellow coworkers, like for me, sometimes I feel really shitty after shipping for about three and a half hours and that’s why I try to do many talking, walking during our breaks. We can talk during shipping cause our manager don’t mind and we can talk very, very little during rental return cause we need to concentrate on inspecting the DVDs at a fast pace.”

In my continuing obsession with furniture store commercials, where I am now convinced the best TV commercial cheese can be found, I have discovered that Norton Furniture has a MySpace page and that the creepy proprietor offers free bread to his customers when they walk into his store. The man’s name is Marc Brown and, according to Cleveland Scene, Brown has “an uncanny ability to remember customers’ names and what they bought.” With Brown’s voice, it’s doubtful he’ll ever have to hire a collection agency.

And Overstated does some digging on Flea Market Montgomery. Apparently, the man’s name is Sammy Stephens and there’s even an “It’s Just Like a Minimall” remix contest in the works. Sammy Stephens also appeared on Ellen.

And here’s some blue-screen footage for Adobe Premiere enthusiasts. This guy interviewed Sammy Stephens on the phone, where Stephens claims “they’re dancing to it in the clubs.”

[UPDATE: Here’s a pretty good Flea Market remix.]