I'm feeling a bit butch, today...

I heard about this test via Gateway Pundit, who heard about it from Crits... naturally, I had to see for myself. My blog is pretty masculine, no? But then, I've never been much of a girly girl, have I? My idea of a hot date is a car show, dinner at the steak house, followed by the next Batman movie (or some action flick with Bruce Willis, or one of equal pyrotechnic and stunt-men flair), capping the night off with a little wrestling (with a purpose, of course). I don't wear mascara or other cosmetics, I own one skirt and wear it for weddings and funerals only, don't own a curling iron or blow-dryer for my hair, and don't own a single pair of high-heeled shoes (didn't even have any before I mashed my knee). I'd rather read Louis L'Amour than one of those Oprah Book Club selections, and would prefer weekly root canal to watching an episode all the way through of "Lipstick Jungle" or "Sex in the City," even once.

Still and all, though, I'm female. I'm definitely a broad. A dame. A wench. Double-you-oh-em-ay-en. These double-Ds are definite and definitive, with notable décolletage, most warm days.

Match that, Andrew Sullivan.

I'm thinking of taking up coffee again

I quit drinking coffee more than a decade ago, when I discovered it caused muscle spasms in my jaw. But now, I'm seriously considering returning to the old habit. The reason? It just may ease some of my back problems.

Whee!


HT: JWF

Clean without soap

A little while ago, a friend and I were discussing our troubles with keeping our skin clean -- I have allergies, she has political/moral objections to most cleansers. She then told me that, when her sister and a friend asked her what she used, and she admitted she used simple bar soap to wash her face, they were, she said, horrified.

"You should never use soap on your face!"

After several more minutes of shocked discussion about how soap will dry and age a face, one of the women remarked that it might be okay to use a bar of Dove on delicate skin.

My question: wouldn't the chocolate become awfully sticky?



(Not to worry. I really do know the difference.)

One's mind should not go there on Sundays....

Because I've been fairly busy these past few days (weeks, months...), I only today came across this link run in Thursday's BotWT, on the study indicating that "bananas make baby boys."

I was of the (apparently mistaken) belief that men and women make baby boys. Bananas are a mediocre option if one wishes to still have the fun and avoid that noisy, um, end result. But I could be wrong, in which case, my brother and his wife have a lot of 'splainin' to do about why my nephews are more than a little... well, you know.

Bad package design alert

While preparing to clean up a cooking mess in my mother's kitchen the other day, I noticed a container on her counter. Said container held a roll of chemically-soaked sheets designed for cleaning glass, aptly named "Power-X Glass Wipes." (I think Mom bought them at our favorite boutique.) Somebody, however, seems to have done not so well with the design and layout of text on this canister:
I'm thinking a little judicious rearranging of the "Wipes" would save me from another fit of the giggles.

I am the nerd thy god

And this test says so.



As if I needed to take a test to find out... much less run it twice, as John Palmer did (HT his way). Of course, I'm only the second-born child of a proudly-and-pragmatically-pocket-protector-wearing, slide-rule-using retired particle physicist/astronomy-physics-math-and-computer-sciences professor – a man who took a similar (albeit more extensive) nerd test with his colleagues at a nuclear research facility a decade and more ago, and, having no knowledge of Star Trek, Star Wars, or any sci fi movies/series, still managed to come out with the highest score among nuclear physicists and engineers. They say it was the pocket protector which put him over the top.

My Pop is a god among gods of Geekdom. I am but a lowly nerdworm, by comparison.

How do you rate?

I wonder how many points one gets for prolonged celibacy? Hmmmm.

Again, with the "Springtime for Hitler"?!

I just watched the cutest little dance number over at little green footballs. There they were, all goose-stepping as a swastika, just like in The Producers, with the bad music and everything... I kept waiting for Dick Shawn to burst from the crowd, shouting, "Nein nein nein!"

Funny how these dancers at parade are calling somebody else Nazis, while it's their boys doing living in fear of their government, and their boys stiffly marching with their toes barely missing the tushies of the boys a'front of them.

How to repel a man, if you're sophisticated

Numerous bloggers (I link only a handful) over the weekend have picked up on this bit of silliness, in the London Times, by Kate Mulvey: What modern women want: a beta male. They've all noticed the same thing I did -- the poor girl seems to think that, because she is educated and financially successful, she should be considered a prize catch by all the rational men of the world, but, somehow, twoo wuv always eludes her by the second date.

She seems to think it's all the fault of those men who want a purty young thang to hang on their arms, rather than the fact that she's self-absorbed and professionally obsessed.

Katey-pie, when you learn to grow up and get over yourself, maybe an alpha male will learn to respect you, and you might be able to develop a worthwhile relationship with a good man. Or, you can settle for being a spoiled, lonely little girl in an old lady's body, for the rest of your life.

After all, science has proven* that the universe has no center; therefore you cannot be it.


*okay, "proven" is probably too strong a word... but then, I never pretended to understand the math part of astrophysics. so sue me. ;-)

Why I walk funny (with gratuitous postcard)

I had figured that it was my injuries from a decade ago. Nope. I'm a conservative. I'm just too rigid.

In reviewing the notes and comments at Althouse, though, I'm inclined to think that it might not be a bad thing to be a little rigid, in my decision-making...

Instapundit calls for a ban on cats!

Hoky smoke, Bullwinkle! First it's the puppies in the blender, and now Glenn Reynolds cries out "Ban cats!"

Will the man stop at nothing?!

Just for that, I'm posting an extra catblog, this week, since Peanut has her own response:


I am shocked! How could any man be so eeeevil as to want to ban us seriously cute li'l thangs?


I've been thinking as hard as I can, and now I have a plan.


Mom's gonna FedEx me to his place, and I'm gonna chew him up and spit him out like that big, nasty hairball I left for Mom... uh... she doesn't know about that, yet, though, so don't tell her until after I'm on the road.


Don't forget to visit Modulator's Friday Ark each week, and support the blogs of the many cats who won't be banned, by cracky!

Oh, Proofreader, Where Art Thou?

The local ABC affiliate is usually a little more on the ball than their short items' headline would indicate. As of an hour after their posting the original news items, the header still reads as follows:

Write a brief headline for this separate

I guess nobody actually reads all that the AP egests upon 'em, any more, after all. Just post it and move on, kids.

Scientific study proves the obvious (again)

A review of a 60-year study shows that men worry more than women do about penile size. Men, it seems, measure themselves against other men according to that li'l ol' pocket ruler. Women just like a man who's good-looking, confident, and considerate in bed, regardless of -- and sometimes because of (who in her right mind wants bruised kidneys and other internal damage?)-- smaller endowments.

I'm betting that, if they've done a similar study of women, they'll have found greater worry than in men, over bra size. The men won't complain about size much (if at all)... as long as they get to play with them thangs.

And I suspect there's a strong concern, in dogs, over the size and fullness of their supper dishes.

Republican dream tickets

Okay, so what if we have, on the 2008 ticket, two of the current GOP "big three" every poll and pundit has been discussing of late? And what if we approached it the same way the pop culture mags approach the union of two Hollywood stars, a la "Bennifer"? What do we get?

Rompson? Romniani? Giuliompson? Giuliomney? Thomniani? Thomney?

I dunno.

Meanwhile, I've doodled a suggested campaign button for Romney:



Use it if you want to. Just don't ask me to apologize to my German kinfolk.

Gratuitous postcard: some spring blossoms

Don't they look cheerful? All full of joy at being dressed this way?

People do the most peculiar things to their offspring, and it's been going on for the duration of humanity, I guess. Still, this is a fairly harmless way to get a kid to greet the warming of the earth.

When it comes.

We're still waiting, around here. The forecast is for possible accumulation of snow, this coming mid-week. These may be the only flowers I see, this year, if the Global Warming doesn't quit forcing the thermometer to dip to new lows...

Which makes the wheezy, sneezy part of me all happy. Happy enough to put on a flower hat and stuff myself into a bag.

6-inch heels in the garden?

Okay, so whose idea was Macy's current spring shoe sale ad?

Usually, when I watch television, it's by taping the show I want to watch, then fast-forwarding through the commercials, but last night there were two shows I really liked aired simultaneously, and, since my recording technology is 20th century, I had to watch one of the shows as it was aired... that meant seeing the commercials (fortunately, I have a "mute" button on the tv, or I'd have cried all night over my life of hardship)(or not).

So, there was this soft-focus scene of bunches of women in pretty party dresses (I think they were supposed to pass for summer shifts and the like) and wearing all sorts of different exceedingly girly shoes. There was even one shot of a foot in a sandal with stiletto heel, not too dissimilar from this one, coming down on a spade.

Uh huh.

I've done a lot of silly things in my short years as a gardener (such as bringing out my spade and my spud fork and working with them, in a rough, nail-filled garden while barefoot in blatant disregard for the risks), but I'd never be so dim as to spread manure in a pair of Manolos. And, while any girl can get dirty in a pair of Jimmy Choos, she shouldn't be heading into real dirt, unless she really doesn't give a rat's patootie about her shoes or her asters, let alone her little asterisk.

This commercial is as annoying as the one for the sleep aid with the floppy-winged luna moth and for the allergy aid with the very butch-sounding Antonio Banderas worker bee. They seem to be trying hard to sell a romantic view of their product, but all they do is demonstrate their lack of contact with greater reality.

At least the ad for another sleep aid, with Abe Lincoln and the muskrat (or is it supposed to be a beaver?), has a sense of humor about it.

But let's not get ridiculous. Get those shoes out of the garden.

Cukes dropped on Louisiana!

Mayhem came to Iberville Parish in Louisiana, Sunday, as somebody dropped a mess of cucumbers on their highway.

If only people understood the hidden dangers of a proliferation of cukes!

Celibating a fiction, or the born-again virgin

In my dissolute youth my friends and I had a gesture we used to express extreme displeasure with another person. It was a variant of the "one-fingered salute", in which the middle finger, instead of being raised, was pointed downward. We often muttered the phrase, "un-f*ck you", and if anybody asked for an explanation, we told him it meant we took back any and all consideration we had ever offered the person.

Well, apparently the abstinence crowd is offering this same courtesy to our youth, thinking it a kindness.

(Via EclectEcon) Stephen at disinterested party has the news that, apparently, you can get your virginity back, simply by adhering to a set of principles.

Say hello to secondary virginity—virtual virginity for those committed Christians who just couldn’t wait:

Secondary virginity is a decision to abstain from sexual activity, starting with today and continuing until the day you get married. It’s an opportunity to start over. Your physical virginity may be lost, but virginity is more than just a physical state. It’s an attitude, a frame of mind. It’s manifested in the way you look at yourself and others.

Secondary virginity is a time to change bad habits and heal past wounds. It allows you to clean and renew yourself prior to marriage.

How very Chomsky-ite of this band of Christians! They've changed the meaning of the word, rather than confront the real issue at hand, which is helping young people to uphold the moral principles they choose to espouse.

For years I've been telling people that, by virtue of disuse, I've gotten my virginity back. But then, I've been joking. I know the reality of action and reaction. Once surrendered, innocence can never be restored. All one can do is adapt to the change.

Although in the minds of many the terms are interchangeable, abstinence and celibacy are not the same as virginity. For that matter, even chastity is not an absolute synonym for the "v" word. Not all virgins are all that chaste. Not all celibates (unmarried persons) abstain from intimate pleasures. Each word has its clear definition, its own peculiar nature or practice.

Our language is imprecise enough already. Our moral standards are lax enough, as well. Why do people persist in muddying both?

Fox thriller addict signs in

I confess, I can't watch Fox tv's thrillers before bedtime. I tape "24" and "Prison Break", then watch them the following morning, as I'm fussing with the cats and doing my knee-flexing exercises and such. Discussing "24" I will leave to the professionals.

I couldn't help noticing that, among other things, "Prison Break" managed to tip its hat to Dominic Purcell's history, giving last night's episode the title of "John Doe". Maybe it was unintentional, maybe not. Still, I really had enjoyed Purcell's 2002 series, and I'm enjoying the new one he's in. Both had plenty of plot twists -- although, I think today's series takes more gleeful swings off its original pathway, and isn't at all science-fiction-y (more simple paranoid conspiracy theory. No. Wait. That is science fiction, then, isn't it?).

Do you suppose it was merely accidental that the villain of the series, last season, who murdered her way into the Oval Office, was a Hillary Clinton lookalike? And, now that the actress who portrayed "Madam President" is playing some annoying character in the new-ish nighttime soap, "Brothers and Sisters," over at ABC, will the replacement performer have that same quality of harpiness?

Hmmm.

And, I'm glad to see that Willliam Fichtner's character, Agent Mahone, is still walking. He's a really useful loose cannon to have in the middle of everything. To my mind, he's scarier than T-Bag.

I could be developing a crush on the writers of this show.

Creativity... what is it and where does it come from?

Over at Watermark, sb poet asks her readers to introduce themselves, offering three questions to start the ball rolling:

• What do you do that you consider creative? Is it easy, or difficult for you?
• What supports -- or undermines -- your creativity?
• If you could give a friend one piece of creative inspiration (advice, or a poem, or a painting, or a book, or whatever occurs to you) what would it be?

Those are pretty tough questions for introductory paragraphs, especially for soliciting comments -- and especially the first one. It's my understanding that blogging manners usually include not hogging the comment section, keeping your remarks brief and to the point.

Nevertheless, they're darned good questions. As somebody whose self-esteem has forever been wrapped up in how much and how well I produce creative works, and, in return, my creativity is shackled to my self-esteem, I'd have to my view of creativity is any outlet for something not rigidly mundane.

The trouble is, sometimes, the things one does for creative outlets can also serve as destructive forces.

I draw. I paint -- both watercolors and walls. I garden. I photograph. I collect and display certain otherwise useless objects (postcards, glow-in-the-dark crap, injun stuff, old books, cats, other stuff). I cook. I sew. I write.

I blog.

None of this do I see as my high art form. Somewhere deep inside me there may very well be a Rembrandt or a Whitman or whatever, but he seems to be embarrassed to be seen with me, so far. Mostly, I have the level of artistic creativity in my head that they seem to use for writing standard television sitcoms. (Hey -- it was new once!) Still, creativity is the act of letting yourself be not afraid to make your own vision of the universe sing even the smallest song for itself. I let the hounds out to bay at the moon even when there is no moon.

As one of my instructors often said, never use paint straight from the tube.

Being creative is fairly easy. It's the follow-through that kills ya.

I'm bipolar. I have a hard time finishing anything if it's not done by the time I finish one of my manic phases. Ideas I have -- I have them by the gross daily. I used to keep post-it notes and sketches all over my walls, until I saw a show where one character (a paranoid schizophrenic accused of murder) did the same, and I realized how nuts it was to do that. (Now, I keep it to only a few at a time. And, only near the bathroom mirror, for the "scare factor".)

There is such a thing as too much creativity, after all. It's that bottle of liquor on the top shelf of the parents' cabinet, the stuff that sells for more than you could earn in a week. You know it's heady, you know it tastes extraordinary, and you know, intellectually, that it should be sipped only until you get a little bit warm inside. Still, some will drink, straight from the bottle, until they can't function.

Now, I blog.

Of course, I don't post most of my inventive stuff up here -- then everybody would understand how really truly nuts I get, some days, and we can't have that, can we? In fact, I blog so that my brain doesn't take its little vacations without me and come back with those great tans it always gets. I blog to keep a regimen, to control the creative bent, to provide structure and a modicum of direction for myself.

For those who are less in need of inhibitors than I (well, that would be everybody, now, wouldn't it?), or rather, for those who could use enticement to start their genesis machines, I mostly pay attention. It's "here, read this -- you'll get a kick out of some of the ideas," or "let's go visit this park," or "let's shop at the art supplies store," or "wanna come play in my garden?" I have to start them up.

But it's funny. Most people I know have little trouble finding creative outlets, have no trouble at all coming up with ideas. Their problem is that they're afraid others will think the work is "amateurish" or "silly". My question to them is, "What's wrong with that?"

Everybody was an amateur at one time. It's the love of the art and activity which makes an amateur.

"Silly" makes the smiles for which life is worth living.

And so I blog.

Bonus postcard: who voted in our family

Just to remind folks, we -- my mother, father, and I, cast ballots this morning.

This is a representation of how some folks view us, out here in yon hinterlands: