Mr. Darkside

I went to the Drew Holcomb CD release party at the Hi-Tone last night. For those who haven't had the chance to see him, I'd describe his style as what would happen if David Gray took over for Kevin Kinney as frontman for Drivin' and Cryin'. It was completely packed. If I were a rock star, would I have that many friends come to celebrate in one place with me? Of course, I was there and I'm not his friend. Speaking of friends: I am completely annoyed that my friend Barb wasn't bartending the ONE time I go there expressly to see her. Well, and the band, too. That b*tch! But I did see some funny sights, such as the world's smallest girl with disproportionately wide hips playing air guitar as if her life was staked on it (a la "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"). Plus, the violin player had a serious bubble butt. I felt quite normal by comparison with those ladies...

for BB (should he read this post)

Sin City reviewed. V. funny. Why did you want to see this again?

Confessions pt. I

Ha! Not that anyone who reads this will get the Usher reference, probably. So I have some things to admit to my friends out here in the ether:

1. I'm supposed to be preparing for a review session at 1:00. Am I? NO! 2. I have a copyediting test at 3:30, and am I studying for that? NO! 3. I didn't walk the dog today cause it's raining. So, so sad for him. (Promise to do it this afternoon, Max!) Rainy days suck the life out of me. Storms, however, convince me I am part of the rest of the world---inextricably linked to life, the universe, and everything in it (HG2TG ref there). Why, then, does misty rain suck so bad?

Dude!

Researchers Say They Achieved Nuclear Fusion in Tabletop Experiment By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS April 27, 2005

What did I tell you people who didn't sign up for an NYT account? Bet you're doin' it right now!

I wish I was a little bit taller. . .

I know that's not correct grammar but you must have recognized Too Short! I just had a flash as I was driving through Midtown Memphis this afternoon, and I saw this couple of normal height, with their toddler bawling on the street. You never see couples with toddlers who aren't bawling much anymore. Whatever. My thought was this: If I had reached the height of, say, 5'7" or something, I cannot imagine being me. So much of my identity is tied up in other people's perceptions of me that if I were different physically, I feel I would therefore be different internally. That made no sense just now, but I swear it did in my head.

Lame guy excuses

"I met a guy at a bar who told me, ‘I don’t date women I meet in bars.’" —Heather, 25, Ocala, FL Dr. Glass: "He’s the biggest hypocrite! He’s acting like you’re trashy for being in a bar—when that’s exactly where he is. In a relationship, this is the kind of guy who might egg you on to drink a lot and then berate you later for getting drunk, or talk you into doing something you didn’t want to do and then say, 'I never told you to do that!'" "The most ridiculous excuse I’ve heard was that my breasts were too big." —Michelle, 38, Sleepy Hollow, NY Dr. Glass: "Sure, men have certain attractions, but they don’t have to tell you what they are and make it seem like there’s something wrong with you. This guy is vulgar and insecure." "One man told me I was ‘too nice’ for him." —Christine, 41, Paris, France Dr. Glass: "He’s trying to make you right and him wrong. He’s not actually a bad boy—he’s just trying to think of a nice way to explain that he doesn’t feel any chemistry." "The worst excuse I’ve heard is: ‘I like you, but I can do better. No sense getting your hopes up.’" —Cindy, 44, Redding, CA Dr. Glass: "That is a hateful narcissist. He thinks he’s so great that he’s doing her a favor by talking to her. Her response should have been: 'You did get my hopes up—I hope I never run into another toxic, disgusting narcissist like you.'" "He said, ‘The last time someone asked me out, it ended with her throwing a mug at my head.’" —Whitney, 28, Washington, DC Dr. Glass: "He’s giving you a big clue about himself. Some people believe that patterns repeat themselves, and he may be doing things to guarantee that. This guy apparently provokes actual violence, and you have to ask yourself what kind of person he is if women are throwing things at him." "One guy said he just didn’t feel like getting up and driving to pick me up." —Sarah, 23, Denver, CO Dr. Glass: "He’s a lazy bum who’s basically looking for a booty call—one that comes to him." "One guy said, ‘I’ve got all kinds of stuff to take care of around the house. I’ve been putting it off for weeks, and I really should get to it.’" —Ellen, 25, Hollywood, CA Dr. Glass: "This is the guy version of 'I have to wash my hair.' It comes across horribly—he means that he doesn’t think they’re a good pair, but he’s saying that his dirty laundry is more important than her." "One guy said: ‘Sorry, but you misunderstood my intentions.’" —Linda, 49, Claremore, OK Dr. Glass: "He’s making it sound like she’s wrong—blaming-the-victim syndrome. He seems to want the attention of being desired by a woman, but not the responsibility for things progressing." "He said that although I was gorgeous, we wouldn’t get along because I’m a Virgo." —Shannon, 29, Phoenix, AZ Dr. Glass: "Some people, whether you agree with them or not, live by astrology. And it’s self-fulfilling—if he thinks it won’t work out with you, he’ll find reasons to make sure it doesn’t." "A man told me had a girlfriend—but I found out later that he didn’t." —Lauren, 27, West Hills, CA Dr. Glass: "He’s trying to let you off hook gently, which makes him a gentleman in my book. He’s letting you know that it’s not about you and that he’s loyal and honorable—even though it’s to an imaginary girlfriend." "I was into this guy who said he’d like to meet me, but was too busy at work to get away." —Judith, 55, Monroe, GA Dr. Glass: "That excuse says, 'I come first, and that includes my work.' He’s so self-absorbed that he’s not even considering that she might have a job and things to do as well." "He didn’t think my lack of sports enthusiasm was a good thing." —Jeannie, 49, Southgate, MI Dr. Glass: "Some guys are so into sports that they need a mate to share the interest or one who won’t say, 'Why are you watching the game instead of being with me?' This guy has probably been there and back with women who aren’t into sports, and he’s right—it won’t work out." "He said, ‘I have to take my dog to have its anal gland expressed.’" —Amanda, 30, Shrewsbury, MA Dr. Glass: "That might be true, but he could have said, ‘My dog is sick’ or even ‘Its anal gland is giving it trouble.’ By picking a graphic, shocking way to say it, he’s testing her to see if she still likes him after he’s inappropriate. He’s a crass, vulgar guy." "‘I’ve decided to continue the affair I was having with my married girlfriend’ was his excuse." —Laura, 45, Chester, VA Dr. Glass: "He’s a sleaze-bucket who doesn’t want a commitment. Or he could be trying to paint himself in the most negative light possible to seem so unattractive that you won’t feel bad that he’s shooting you down." "A guy told me he had an appointment with an Army recruiter—at midnight." —Denice, 56, Rancho Cucamonga, CA Dr. Glass: "He’s saying he’s a macho man and his country comes first. But he’s still got an ego, because even though he doesn’t want to date you, he still wants you to see him as a good guy." "I was amused when someone said I was ‘too secure.’" —Gwen, 46, Menlo Park, CA Dr. Glass: "A man who quakes in his boots at the sign of a woman who’s successful has a lot of mother issues he hasn’t worked out. It’s a sign of emotional impotence that could be physical, too, so she may have just saved herself from a bad sex life." Caitlin Ascolese is a freelance writer in New York City who’s currently trying to come up with good excuses for two men who won’t stop calling her—no matter how many times she says she’s really busy with work. click here for link

Do the Hustle

The Kung Fu Hustle, that is! We really enjoyed this crazy "hectic & eclectic" subtitled action flick yesterday. I don't, however, feel the need to see any more kung fu movies for a while.

It's not just you

Penguins have to go through those annoying security checks, too!

Two traveling penguins from Seaworld in San Diego went through regular airport screening at Denver International Airport recently. Here, Pat and Penny are removed from their carry-on case so they can walk through the metal detector. (Pat is the good looking one)

I'm not sure I feel any safer, somehow.

Not tonight, dear, I have a headache

Pain and pleasure By Charlotte Haigh, Metro 20 April 2005 It's the oldest excuse in the book for escaping your partner's attentions. But next time you trot out the headache line when you're feeling tired or just not in the mood, spare a thought for sufferers of sexual headaches - corkers that come on around the point of orgasm. They're thought to strike about one in 100 of us at some point in our lives - and, although the cliche goes that it's women who are more likely to use the headache excuse, when it comes to the genuine article, three times more men are affected. There are other differences, too. 'For unknown reasons, headaches tend to occur during male, but not female, orgasm and female, but not male, masturbation,' says GP Dr Mark Atkinson. They usually start in your 20s and tend to come in bouts of a few weeks. Most people will only ever experience one bout but some unfortunates will be plagued by repeated episodes. Sex can cause three different types of headache, according to the International Headache Society: Type 1 is a dull ache in the neck and head that intensifies as sexual excitement increases. 'It's probably due to the muscles of the neck contracting excessively during arousal,' says Atkinson. Type 2 is a sudden, explosive headache at the point of orgasm. 'This headache is down to the contraction of some of the small blood vessels in the brain, similar to migraine, and in fact half the people with this type of headache are also migraine sufferers,' says Atkinson. 'It can last anything from a few minutes to a few hours.' Type 3 develops after orgasm and is known as a postural headache - it's thought this type may be linked to low volumes of spinal fluid from having sex in certain positions.

Uh, yeah, I think I'd be a wee bit concerned. full article here

my sweater's on backwards & inside out

Actually---just inside out. I went out that way without even knowing, and neither of my friends noticed anything. It's about to storm here, but the dog (who's afraid of storms) won't stay inside. Pay for what you get.

Price of gas? That's nothing, try buying cornflakes

THERE'S AN E-MAIL bumping around cyberspace that, because gas prices are approaching $3 per gallon, tries to put things in perspective on your next trip to the pump. In an effort to soothe your angst, the missive points out that Lipton Iced Tea costs $9.52 per gallon, and Gatorade costs $10.17 per gallon. Diet Snapple? $10.32 per gallon. Great. But what exactly does this have to do with filling a gas tank? I don't fill my tank with iced tea. Or Gatorade. I don't even fill it with Diet Snapple though I have noticed my car might be developing a Buddha belly. So, hey, you. The guy who started forwarding this stupid mass e-mail. These are items we DRINK. They do not make cars run, they make bodies run. What you should do is talk about the ludicrous prices of making bodies run, because that's what we're going to have to do because it costs too much to drive. See, last weekend, on a trip to the wine country, I witnessed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich being sold for $6.50. I repeat, SIX DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. The deli was not hand-crunching the peanuts. The deli was not growing the berries for the jelly from scratch. I don't even think the ingredients were organic, because believe me, in a place like this they would have said they were, if only to justify the absurd cost of the childhood staple. The straight-faced moxie of the deli selling the $6.50 PB&J had me slack-jawed. So I returned to work and regaled my colleagues with the horror I had witnessed. I even put it in perspective. A kid who wanted to eat that deli's peanut butter and jelly sandwich at school every lunchtime would spend $32.50 a week. That's some cash cow for the school bully. My colleagues were not impressed. One even quoted David Brent from the BBC's "The Office" by saying in a British accent, "Been there. Done that. BOUGHT THE T-SHIRT." Why? Because she'd seen a plain old grilled cheese sandwich, sans any religious icons (Shameless plug: Please read extremely interesting story about grilled cheese sandwiches and capitalism elsewhere in this section by yours truly), for a price of $7. But that wasn't even the worst of it. The topper was my pal in the photo department who went to brunch in San Francisco's Mission District last weekend. Her retinas were nearly seared by the sight of a bowl of Corn Flakes on the menu for $7.50. No fruit. Just naked Corn Flakes. SEVEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. What is the deal? Gas is one thing. Wars, other people having more oil than we do, too many people driving gas-sucking, battle-ready vehicles only to visit a Bed Bath & Beyond — things such as that tend to drive the price of gas up. But peanut butter? The natural kind has oil on the top that's impossible to ever fully blend into the crushed peanuts, but not the kind of oil that's going to make a car run. And Corn Flakes? Is there gold in them thar boxes? If a bowl costs $7.50, that makes the price of an 11-ounce boxequal to $135. That's perspective. To think people complain about the price of beer at a baseball game. If the Oakland A's want to fund a sexy new ballpark on the water's edge like the black and orange across the Bay, maybe Corn Flakes at the concession stand are the answer. Geez, just thinking about that bowl of Corn Flakes is making me so angry that I want to get in my car and drive it through a plate glass window. But I can't afford to waste the gas, and I'm pretty sure that even though I'm writing about it, my employer wouldn't allow me to expense the fuel. But I digress. Of course, the real kicker is that we're talking about relatively healthy food here. Sure, there's some fat going on in that peanut butter and cheese, but eaten in moderation, it's just fine. At least it's real food, not some super-processed patty of beef that came from 170 different cows. And that, of course, brings me to my next point. A family of four ordering off the "Dollar Menu" (aka: Trans-Fat Menu) at McDonald's can be fully sated for the price of a bowl of naked Corn Flakes. And we wonder why America is getting fat? I'm not breaking news here, but America is getting fat because America can't afford to be thin. But wait. Maybe America can. Using incredibly convoluted thinking, I have suddenly rationalized all of this insanity. The price of gas will get America out of its cars, get it moving, get it more exercise. Therefore America can calorically AFFORD to eat off the dollar menu. It's a win-win! Wait. I forgot about the $7.50 bowl of Corn Flakes. It doesn't fit anywhere in that rationalization. Oy. Pass the Pepto-Bismol. I hear it's $123.30 per gallon. You can e-mail Candace Murphy at cmurphy@angnewspapers.com or call (925) 416-4814.

http://insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_2666766

Product launch proposal

The reason this was so funny to me was because of a similar concept in the New York Times this Sunday. The jist of it is that people get a misleading positive message from the media about repairing damages to their bodies. For example, they tell you "Quit smoking now and your lungs will heal themselves!" and "Losing weight increases your chances of living longer!" But what they don't tell you is that abusing your body in the first place is the worst thing you can do, and just because you quit smoking or diet doesn't mean you won't still get lung cancer or have a heart attack before you're 60. NOW they're saying being too thin can kill you, too. My personal theory is that happy people live longer and chubby=happy. Their theory is you shouldn't be too extreme. You can read for yourself here:

Results Relative to the normal weight category (BMI 18.5 to <25), src="http://jama.ama-assn.org/math/ge.gif" alt="≥" border="0">30) was associated with 111 909 excess deaths (95% confidence interval [CI], 53 754-170 064) and underweight with 33 746 excess deaths (95% CI, 15 726-51 766). Overweight was not associated with excess mortality (–86 094 deaths; 95% CI, –161 223 to –10 966). The relative risks of mortality associated with obesity were lower . . . .

Conclusions Underweight and obesity, particularly higher levels of obesity, were associated with increased mortality relative to the normal weight category. The impact of obesity on mortality may have decreased over time, perhaps because of improvements in public health and medical care. These findings are consistent with the increases in life expectancy in the United States and the declining mortality rates from ischemic heart disease.

xxx-rated warning

I could not resist sharing this with you:

bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight? BritneySpears14: Aight. bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah. BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja. bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat. BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up. bloodninja: Me too baby. BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest. bloodninja: I cast Lvl 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman. BritneySpears14: Hey... bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl 8 Penis of the Infinite. BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it. bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty of the Beyondness. BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous. bloodninja: I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands. bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl 1,000,000. Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl 2 Druid. BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece. bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal. bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him. bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now. bloodninja: Baby?

PowerPoint is evil

No, really, it is. It is ruining my day. Why can't they have put heading capability into it like MS Word has? B*st*rds!

"Judy [Garland] was like springtime for Hitler."

This is hilarious. Check out all the Judy Garland freaks out there on IMDB. And to think I just go for movie reviews & to see "which Baldwin boy was in The Usual Suspects?" and "what TV show was Jason Bateman on when I was growing up that makes me still salivate over him?" Yeah, I'm supposed to be studying now. Whatsit to ya?

mystery solved

The saga of the wholphin. Also check out the pathetic clown story from New Orleans. Now all we need is a good photo. . . damn, we were to scared to stop & take one. I think that was before the zombie started stalking us, too.

finally, finally

I finally got my next-to-last research paper turned in! It's the end of the semester so it's crunch time right about now. I am so tired I could fall over in my chair. It got cold again, but of course I've already turned off my furnace. Don't ask---it's a thousand years old but it works. I feel like I just drift from one day to the next since my palm pilot decided to desert me. Like how I thought this party was Sat., and I was planning to go and all until I checked my calendar. Now I got nothin' to do Sat. night. The Flyer isn't updated yet (when the paper came out yesterday---what's up, people?) so it can't tell me where to go. It's a friends birthday, but I don't really want to get dragged along on an all-night party that will keep me in bed all day Sun. Call me old-fashioned if you like.

I really just don't know about people.

Did you see this story about the guy living in his girlfriend's closet? Of course you did, and I am just late hearing about it. The scary part is that these people were private investigators---what gives?

AOL spammer sentenced to a 9-year term in prison

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, was sentenced to a nine-year prison term for violating anti-Spam laws by sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails using fake addresses. Judge Thomas Horne said that because the law targeting bulk e-mail distribution is new and raises constitutional questions, it was appropriate to defer the prison time until appeals courts rule. "I do not believe a person should go to prison for a law that is invalid,'' Horne said. "There are substantial legal issues that need to be brought before the appellate court."

Now if they could just get the people sending crap to me, I'd be happy. I read somewhere that 80% of all spam is sent by 3 people.

I love this country!

SERIOUSLY, people, this is soooo worth registering for the New York Times Online if you haven't already. Which I cannot imagine you have not.

By MIREYA NAVARRO Published: April 10, 2005 MALIBU, Calif. AFTER making a fortune with his skateboard company, World Industries, Steve Rocco could have lived anywhere he wanted. He chose Paradise Cove, a woodsy neighborhood on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, where he bought a home for nearly half a million dollars and then spent more than $1 million replacing it with a Craftsman-style cottage. But Mr. Rocco's place is not exactly on millionaire's row. Paradise Cove is a mobile home park.

I mean, the photo alone is worth the time it takes to sign in and all. And while you're there, check out this review of Fever Pitch, which says it all for me: To begin with, "Fever Pitch" is a memoir, not a novel. It's about Mr. Hornby's obsession with soccer, and in particular with the London team Arsenal, virtually every match of which Mr. Hornby has attended since 1968. His version of fandom is not so much a pastime as an affliction, along the lines of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Team loyalty, he writes, "was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with." The book, which is divided into short sections labeled with game dates, has no overt plotline and simply follows the ups and downs - downs mostly - of Arsenal's fortunes and Mr. Hornby's psychic well-being, which turn out to be much the same thing. When the producers Amanda Posey (who, as it happens, was a producer of the first "Fever Pitch") and Alan Greenspan (who also was a producer of "High Fidelity") decided to try again, they approached the screenwriting team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, writers of, among other movies, "City Slickers" and "A League of Their Own."

"They didn't say it couldn't be about soccer," Mr. Ganz said in a recent telephone interview. "They just said Americanize it."

Americanize to Mr. Ganz and Mr. Mandel meant turning it into a romantic comedy - a kind of love triangle in which the male character has to choose between his girl and his obsession - and they then set about finding something for the male character to obsess about. They didn't immediately rule out soccer, Mr. Ganz said, and for a while they also considered football - American football.

Anyway, of course the film sucks and Nick Hornby will probably never have another novel made into an American film. But what do you expect when Alan Greenspan is your producer?

milking the birthday

So, I really milked the 30th birthday thing. I feel like I shouldn't be celebrating another birthday fo r years. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just stay 30 and then jump straight to 35; what's the point of allthose numbers in between, anyway? After the weekend's debauchery, at least the middle-aged version of it, I got birthday emails, cards & calls for several days---so it felt like a birth-week. Not much special went on the day of (although I think I already mentioned that, due to a stupid exam, I missed John Legend) but I went to dinner with the gang on Friday night to finalize the celebrations. I loved dinner---Nagasaki is a Japanese steakhouse that actually has Asian people working there, as opposed to Benihana, which seems to employ Hispanics exclusively. We had a lovely time (most of us) and I got to have a lot of people around who I have known for years but don't see often enough. This just in: everyone should be sitting on the nearest available porch, drinking beer and watching neighbors do yardwork. I'm gonna go follow my own advice now. Ciao.

My favorite Terry Schiavo story so far!!

Terri Schiavo Dies Of Embarrassment PINELLAS PARK, FL—Terri Schiavo, the shy woman whose self-image issues put her in a 15-year coma, died of embarrassment Thursday, the eyes of the entire world fixed upon her. "Terri, who had been extremely reserved before her debilitation, found herself trapped at the center of an epic legal battle that became the focus of the nation," said Dr. Kyle Williamson, who treated Schiavo several years ago. "The involvement of President Bush, Congress, and numerous church officials further complicated what might have been a simple right-to-die case, and made Terri's weight issues and family difficulties public knowledge. She finally succumbed to the embarrassment last week, at age 41." Specifics of Schiavo's dying breath and photos of the woman in her self-conscious 20s have been appearing in newspapers worldwide since her death.

grrr. argh.

stayed up too late. woke up late. still haven't walked the poor dogs yet. today is movie day again. i've missed the past few weeks, and i hate to rejoin the cinema-going world with Sahara, but unfortunately Kung Fu Hustle hasn't opened yet in Memphis. as usual, i will let you know, in my own pithy an insightful way, just how bad the movie was. count on me!

Sh*tty days abound

I am getting tired of all the rain. We seem to have April showers and May flowers coexisting. It's yukky.

I never told you

I should give a recap of my trip to New Orleans, at least as much as I recall of the weekend. Many of you who know me probably wonder why I didn't post on this earlier, since everyone seems to think I was going a month ago. I guess I started talking about it too early; what can I say---I'm a planner at heart. The things that will lodge in my mind for eternity are the nearly indescribable experiences, like seeing the terrifying street performer, the world's worst bronze-painted non-statue person, and of course, being stalked by a zombie. Those are the experiences you never really forget if you look for the weirdness in the world like I do. Because a friend of mine had never been there, we did one of the Brennan's restaurants, and Pat O'Brien's, and bars along Frenchman's street. That's your basic New Orleans orientation, without strip clubs and gay bars, which aren't really her thing. Of course the food was fabulous, of course we had a thoroughly entertaining time, and I re-discovered that a girls only vacation is really the best. My first time in N.O. was with a new boyfriend & therefore all romantic and shit. But my fondest memories of quick trips around the continent (Boson, Cancun, Kiawah Island come to mind) are always girl time. When you fly somewhere to visit a boy, "parting is such sweet sorrow" that it colors the entire trip retrospecitvely. That is one reason I hate long distance relationships---you can't go on any other trips, and the ones you do go on are kind of sad. Other than that it's cool not to have a boy always in your hair. Except for celibacy.

A little treat for y'all:

The meaning of relationships, for all you guys who still haven't gotten it (be sure you hover your cursor over the strip for another secret message!)

retch.

So, some friends of mine---who I met around the same time they met one another---are getting married next month. Which is weird to me, cause in that time I've dated. . . several people. And getting married just seems superfluous anyway. Or passe, at least. But what's so awful about all this is that they have created a "wedding web page" (and if you know them and pass this along to them, I promise I will kill you!) for their memories, including a very detailed account of the proposal, and a wedding countdown clock. I promised to go, but now. . . I just don't know if I can go it alone! God, my life is so hard (I keed, I keeeed!). Which reminds me, I bought myself the greatest birthday present in N'awlins---Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's keychain of quotes! I highly recommend getting one.

Funny ha-ha, not like a clown

I like their ideas down under about the abortion issue:

Here are some suggestions for concerned gentlemen prepared to put their money where their morals are: # Sign up for a backyard castration or circumcision. Advocating a return to a system that drives pregnant teenagers to coathangers would carry far more weight if male petitioners had a little personal experience. No doubt there'd be plenty of women prepared to help out with this valuable, empathy-inducing exercise. # Make male masturbation punishable by law. If a four-celled zygote is an independent being and potential life worth protecting, surely so are all those spermatozoa brutally murdered by tissue wads and shower jets. # Pull back on the publicity photographs of aborted fetuses. Pro-lifers love displaying unhappy snaps of the consequences of terminations, but it's time to balance this with some educational shots of the consequences of giving birth to unwanted kiddies. Misery, poverty, domestic violence, crime and so on. A nice big billboard of a woman haemorrhaging in an alley after a dodgy termination would also provide some vital balance in this arena. # Experience up-the-duff-ness. Once again, the argument that all women should carry all pregnancies to term would be far more persuasive if male pro-lifers showed they were prepared to go through a similar ordeal. Medical technology has yet to catch up with Junior (the film in which Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a pregnant man), but plenty of techniques are available to replicate the exhaustion, nausea, frequent need to urinate, constipation, dizziness, varicose veins, haemorrhoids, leg cramps, nosebleeds, bleeding gums, stretch marks, shortness of breath, itchy palms, swollen hands, heartburn and tender breasts associated with a normal pregnancy. Strapping 35 cans of VB to a man's midriff could replicate the average 13kg weight gain, while I understand childbirth can be simulated simply by combining a rectum and a watermelon. # Raise the sprogs. Now here's an exciting part of the pregnancy experience that concerned blokes can take on for real. Becoming the primary caregiver of children is an exhausting, expensive and thankless task (particularly if one's charges are going to include youngsters who would have been aborted due to grave health problems). But the men of the religious Right are such a caring and unhypocritical bunch. Surely they wouldn't refuse such an excellent opportunity to share the burden. In the meantime, perhaps the nation's male anti-abortion activists could track down some sex education that doesn't rely on abstinence-only principles. That way they'll make the startling discovery that the high jinks that lead to unwanted pregnancies require two people, and only one of them is a woman.

Can you believe vanity has sunk so low?

Teenagers now think: 1. Oral sex isn't sex per se; and 2. Oral sex is safe non-sex. I am so glad not to be a teenager today. We are seriously overmedicating ourselves without enough information. I am greatly concerned, as England was my fallback country if the US ever got to militant. Now I'll have to learn another language or get used to the cold in our norther neighbor. Though that's probably not far enough away. . . . and. . . Sphincter bleaching. Two words that should never appear next to one another, ever. Ick!

Long time no me!

I know you've missed me, but you remember I had the big birthday trip to New Orleans, so of course you will forgive me for being MIA. Today is finally the big day, but the thing I'm most upset about is my driver's license expiring. Replacing it is sure to be a traumatic experience, as anyone out there will certainly agree. So now I have only about a month left before exams---eek! Cannot believe how fast the semester has gone (another sign of aging). Soon it will be Beale St. Music Festival time and I will spend another weekend enjoying the bands, the sun and the roasted corn. La dolce vita! the original Pat O'Briens on Bourbon