Live Q&As

Steady! Yes, Gene Weingarten's chat is going on simultaneously. We warned him that our chatters will chatbomb his chatters. So feel free to dip into his chat, submit a question that celebrates our chat's superiority, and then come right back here!

I chat on Wednesdays, usually. Please come by tomorrow. We might not be your real family, but we will love you just the same.

Correct.

But the dress in the trailer better not be her Girl On Fire gown, for real.

Monica came up with Pippa's bum / Kate's uterus. She is the resident Anglophile, and covered the royal wedding. Tebowing was just in the ether, I think. Achenbach helped us craft the "Hunting the God particle" side of the item.

In the car on NPR, we heard a British company advertising a recreated Titanic voyage launching from London to New York this spring.  Someone needs to get on this. Also, perhaps one of you would like to ask Dan about his non-ironic love of James Cameron's "Titanic."

It is an epic romance whose scope and visual effects have not yet been matched. And it will be re-released in 3D in April. I'll never let go.

You saw Charlie Sheen speak of his Tiger Blood, and yet you still ask why tigers are out? (See also: Tiger Moms, Tiger Wives).

We never purposefully make The List easier or harder. Our goal is only to make it fun. We've heard from several people this year who thought that it was more get-able this year. Maybe y'all are just learning. And, of course, one person's "easy" is going to be another person's inscrutable.

I have a Malinois. They are indeed fearsomely intelligent. She may be typing this now.

Michael Buble is Harry Connick Jr. Lite.

The only good thing to come out of Michael Buble is Michael Buble Being Stalked by a Velociraptor.

We decided not to include anything about Penn State, for taste reasons. Although we were chided by some readers for our "tasteless" item "Natalee Holloway / Natalie Wood."

It's a fine line between being tasteless and just taste-questionable. We try to err on the side of taste-questionable.

It had everything to do with the Navy Seal Team. That, and the fact that we were generally sick of seeing pocket dogs riding around in purses wearing rhinestone collars. We're predicting a rise and resurgance of the Big Dog.

I lost several friends over the 2012 List. One is a publicist (OUT) and one started a line of snakeskin (OUT) handbags. I also have friends who've bought in Bloomingdale (OUT) and who are unabashed wonks (OUT). I will die alone.

There's no way I can possibly answer this question the way I want to and not get fired.

Though I cannot read Dan's brain, I can say that the way he cannot answer this question is identicle to the way I cannot answer this question, in a similarly fireable way.

There have been co-productions of The List in the bast, especially back in its earlier days, when it was speared by Nina Hyde. Check out all the archives, here. Having two pairs of eyes means that we can cover each other's cultural deficiencies and talk each other out of bad ideas. Sometimes we talk each other out of good ideas. Sometimes we talk each other into bad ideas. Sometimes we are our own bad idea.

We have never had a List-related fight. I did, however, have a dream last week that Dan broke into my apartment in the middle of the night, gently shook me awake, and said, "Monica, it's time to work on The List."

That's what happens when one chases Ambien with Jack Daniels.

It's like Fleet Street here. Remember, please pop in on Gene and tell his chatters how better it is over here.

I would have completely supported this Out, in the great tradition of "random," "awkward," and "epic fail" as overused cultural terms.

My Buffalo Bills found that particular particle a couple weeks ago. If the Bills can find it, the Steelers can find it.

You'd trust the Internet to solve the world's big problems? The only thing the Internet can agree on is what day Caturday is.

(Caturday is every day.)

We beg for assistance from our smartest friends every year. We then crush the dreams of said friends when they suggest items that we summarily dismiss. If you think you can handle such disappointments, then we welcome your assistance. Keep in touch by following Monica and Dan on Twitter, or through the Style Tumblr.

We thought about having a Dragon item this year, both because it's the Year Of, and because "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" came out in English just now.

Alas, we had a Dragon Tattoo item -last- year. Sometimes we're too IN for our own good.

Tastes like Quinoa.

I think the chat portal can't handle two Genes chatting at once -- especially because between the two of them they have three Pultizers, whereas between Monica and me we have three mini bundt cakes from Corner Bakery.

Another way of saying that is that between the four of us, we have three Pulitzers.

Well, yes. But by that logic, we would have to put Lindsey Lohan in every year, too, until someone stepped in and saved that girl from herself.

Also, Emma Stone is the new Lohan, but is Emma Stone already OUT? "The Help" was a bit much...

Case in point: 1984's List. Sorry 'bout that. Monica and I were less than 2 years old at the time...

It's possible that we should consider some List rule, whereby a person that appears on the OUT side of a List more than two times is, in fact, IN. I Mean, if we keep talking about them...

We're not quite sure what this means, but okay!

It's okay. Financially supporting your local library through fines is a very IN thing to do.

I don't even remember doing this. Have I just been wandering into random ice cream parlors and muttering at things?

Monica is impossible to hate. It is only possible to envy her, in an adoring way. (Awwwww...)

Our relationship is based on mutual admiration and bundt cakes.

Off the top of my head, "Class warfare / Drone warfare" didn't make it. I'd wanted to do something about Beyonce's firstborn, but we decided against it. We also wanted to work "Homeland" into the List somehow. Also canned for various reasons: Ann Taylor / Talbot's, Sex addiction / Power addiction, QR codes / Geolocation, Mustard oil / Pumpkin seed oil, Dropbox / SugarSync, Family reunification videos / Dog reunification videos.

If either of us had fought passionately for any of those, I think the other would have conceded. It's the ones that we're meh* on that usually end up on the chopping block.

* Meh is a very OUT word.

He's overexposed, genitally, in "Shame" of course. He's only got one movie slated to open this year, so he might dodge the bullet. P.S. I am stunned that we're not getting more noise from outraged fans of Gosling, Adele and Ovechkin. Where are you guys? Chatting with Gene & Gene?

Gene and Gene don't care about Ryan Gosling, let me tell you.

No, but this contraption is now very, very IN. Warp speed, pizza, into my stomach.

If he behaves himself, are you really going to be paying attention to his Tweets?

Hmm. What ugly cars do you speak of? We had a jettisoned item about cars: Pimped-out cars / Murdered-out cars.

I wonder if the chatter is speaking of the boxes-on-wheels that litter DC's neighborhoods this year. Those, and -- has anyone else noticed a preponderance of pumpkin-colered vehicles? Orange car paint. It's everywhere.

Don't let them be the boss of you. You are the one with opposable thumbs.

Monica.

Play me like a harmonica.

Fin.

Dan, please report to human resources.

Snap.

No idea what this means, so I'll take the opportunity to share that we really wished we could have a rhyming item this year, but ultimately gave up. We tried to make Putin / Gluten work for a really long time.

My biggest regret on this one is calling Michael Caine OUT. That was foolish I think. As some commenters have suggested, Michael Caine will never be OUT. Although Christopher Plummer is definitely INner, so we're not entirely wrong. I have no regrets before 2010, though, because those Lists were crafted by others.

Sometimes it's hard to tell how on- or off-base we were until later in the year, when there's a little hindsight and perspective. Plenty of the goslings were upset because of our inclusion of their hero, Ryan, on the Out list. Still, I'll stand by it -- I'm willing to bet that RG mania will have simmered by August or September.

I see what you're doing that.

In my mind, the Iowa Caucus couldn't be more OUT. So. Sick. Of this presidential campaign. But you should read the Post's coverage of it!

Ditto. Onto New Hampshire.

BLITZ.

I have tasked Ellen McCarthy, who writes our wedding column, with digging up the answer to this question. Unless you were asking because you were planning to send us some. In that case, Monica prefers tulips and Dan prefers lilac. (Dan, coincidentally, is wearing a lilac-colored sweater).  Both would prefer bundt cakes.

Addendum: Ellen says that flowers in "bright, clashing colors" are IN, and quotes Aphrodite's Wedding:

"Try grouping together corals, peaches and oranges."

Thank you.

As a funny Twitter acquaintance tweeted recently: If the Mayas could foresee the future, there'd be Mayans.

Please reconstruct this as a limerick, or that poetic form that Gene is always using. Can someone go ask him what that is? "Dactyl" might be involved.

Higgledy piggledy

Dan Z and Monica

Have drafted a list

For what's cool and what's queer.

Tired and weary they

Hipster-ironically

Now vow to not mention

The List til next year.

Dan, I am going to take this in place of your beat poem, and cancel the HR call.

The Jack Dawson School for Sleeping Above Your Class.