Ah, Fox & Friends joining forces with the War on Christmas — can it get any more ludicrous?
It’s a holiday tree. It’s a christmas tree. It’s a pagan relic. It’s gaily decorated fluff. It’s a dead tree. Call it whatever you want! Jeebus, people. Are you going to tell me I can’t call it a big-ass stick with glitter?
(Episode CCLXXX: Islamic silliness.)
As long as it’s a big-ass Christian stick, you’re fine. I don’t know about the glitter, though. A stick with glitter sounds like a bit too much gaiety…
These are changes I want to make anyway. I don’t think learning to be more organized and financially responsible is something that’s going to obliterate my identity, except inasmuch as my identity is someone who doesn’t understand money and budgeting. Which is ridiculous, because I can understand basic math just fine, I get the concept, I just need practice actually doing it. And I’ve been stuck in this apartment that I could barely afford, until I couldn’t afford it anymore, only I didn’t tell anyone until it was too late. Anyway, if I were dating me I think I’d probably feel the same way. I mean, I do feel the same way. I think about getting a pet sometimes and I’m like, I can’t afford it. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now. If I judge myself too unstable to adopt a kitten, I don’t really hold it against anyone else to judge me not ready to start a family.
I’m tired, got to nap now. That was supposed to be just a heartfelt acknowledgment but then it turned into more thinking out loud. Again thanks, and encouragement to julian and gilliell. Five years from now let’s all have beers, eh?
The one way digestive system isn’t their respiration, it’s their excretion. Though i suppose in theory they could have an equivalent of a lymph system that shunts the waste from respiration to be expelled in that cavity as well.
So from the site it seems they’d have to life in an acidic Sulfer gas atmosphere at very low temperatures. Seems to fit.
In the game world non-organic naturally occurring life forms are rare (there are at least 2.5 species that are artificially made: 1 is a race of androids that outlived the extinction of their creators and for all intents and purpose are that race now, another is a race of companion androids that their creators grand equal status and the .5 one is a race that never leaves their home-world and travels via android avatar) but these guys have the only known planet of non organic life.
The second closest the setting has is a race that uses bio-silica as sense organs.
Now my real question is that in a sub zero, sulfuric acid atmosphere, would projectile weaponry as we know it still work, or would the chemistry necessitate a different sort of mechanism?
It’s a BFS with glitter.
Scooter Walker, your friendly Christian governor right next door, decided the holiday tree in Madison is really a Christmas tree. I wrote him requesting a Festivus pole of equal height be placed next to the Big Fucking Stick with glitter, but I haven’t gotten a response yet.
What do you define as ‘projectile weaponry’?
I mean, a rock can be a projectile weapon, as can a computer guided ‘smart’ missile, right? I imagine a thrown rock (or spear) is going to fly in whatever atmosphere or temperature, with maybe some variance afforded by gravity or wind resistance.
If you mean ‘projectile weaponry’ as in guns and missiles though, which I assume you do, wouldn’t it just be a matter of getting something that combusts/explodes in the atmospheric conditions you describe?
IANAE
Sounds like a wonderful plan!
And I’m off to bed now, too
*yawn*
Or, thinking further, how do we know projectile weaponry isn’t just sort of a ‘human thing’ anyways? What if instead these guys mostly had really nasty, skin dissolving, brain melting, eye-bleeding chemical weapons?
Physics and chemistry aren’t my thing, but I loves me some speculative alien biology.
In extremely cold conditions ice is pretty much just another stony substance. You could conceivably make projectiles out of ice. I don’t have any idea what kind of propellant you might use as chemical reactions get slower the colder it is.
I’m confused: Some of these comments don’t seem to have anything to do with a Christmas Tree.
Leyden is right! It is in fact a Christmas Tree. In which case, it has no place in a government building. Simple as that.
~wjs
I propose that Caines comment #651 completely refutes the notion that the world would be better off without her existence.
It’s also my birthday, so I get to assert my opinion as fact.
—-
Sally
I think you should write. You’re very good at it.
TLC, the whole point of explosives (fuel-air bombs aside) is that they don’t need an external agent to do their thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive#Chemical_composition
See, to him there are no other winter holidays, despite the fact that nearly every culture has at least one. For him, Everything must be lablled Christmas, or else it is an attack on christmas
So I’m very late, but after @kristinc asked for us to reassure Bella that she is not alone with her family in being an atheist, I started mulling over some stuff that’s been in my head for a while now, after reading lots of “Why I am an atheist” posts.
I wrote a different kind of thing: why I stopped being an atheist and how I became one again. Feel free to direct Bella to it if you like; it’s not addressed to her directly, but she may be able to see herself in the pressures I felt to be religious.
It’s over. At the end, everyone sank away in smoke, while the killed Don Giovanni reappeared and, smiling, smoked a cigarette. Dad broke out laughing and compared this to Berlusconi’s several comebacks.
*sigh* I didn’t check there either. Why do I keep underestimating Wikipedia.
Fun is, one Star Trek episode did have a silicon-based aerobic life form that tunnelled through rock by means of acid, was intelligent, and was able to communicate with Spock by means of Vulcan mind-meld.
No.
*slowly broadening toothy grin*
Beer is an abomination. :-)
Good point.
John Morales: OK, but ING didn’t even specify ‘explosives’. Just ‘projectiles’. I assume he wants something more ‘advanced’ than a bunch of sandpoop-digging octopods throwing rocks/ice at each other. But really, if you have some way to launch an object in order to cause damage, BOOM! there’s your projectile.
Is there anything that could be considered ‘elastic’ in this hypothetical atmosphere? Do the sand pooping octopods have ‘rubber bands’? Or another alternative could be something like a blowgun, relying on air pressure.
Jon Stewart was brilliant on this on last night’s Daily Show.
See “Tree Fighting Ceremony – War on Christmas”
Part 1
Part 2
You crazy Americans… It’s a christmas tree alright. Christmas is not necessarily a religious holiday. For a lot of people, it’s just being together with your family, having a tree, feeling nice.
Being angry about it being called a holiday tree is stupid. But calling it a holiday tree in the first place is not really that smart, either.
Yeah, then you chopped it down and killed it.
At the end, did the talking head say that they had a “live” tree?
As in not a cut-off dead tree?
TLC, if there’s sufficient technology to allow for androids (why not gynoids?) then I would suggest hand-held railguns. ;)
(It all boils down to storing energy and releasing it quickly)
rogerbraun:
It’s a spruce.
No, wrong.
It’s a christmas tree. You can call it that, and it would be very silly for anyone to try and tell you you can’t.
It’s also a holiday tree. The governor can call it that, and it would be silly for him to insist that you can’t call it anything else.
What you don’t get to do is dictate that it must be called a christmas tree, even by people prefer to call it a holiday tree.
What next? Shall we have a holy war over whether fizzy drinks should be called “pop” or “soda” or “coke”? (the correct answer is “pop” and if you call them anything else I get to declare a fatwah and a jihad.)
Giliell:
Pffft, do it and take the money! If you can get away with it, charge him a little more. While you’re doing it, consider it as doing a cuss word on the pulsewarmers. :D
Tethys, Happy Birthday! I hope it’s grand and the coming year brings all good things.
I see a whole bunch of Endless Thread comments are confusing people.
Here’s what happened folks: PZ keeps The Endless Thread going endlessly. TET is an all-topics-welcome, no-holds-barred thread. People commenting in reference to the previous chapter of TET can be confusing at first. See the link to the previous chapter just below the video caption.
(Episode CCLXXX: Islamic silliness.)
Boy, those guys on Fox News sure do know how to do self-righteous. As do their guests.
Holy shit, it’s christmas.
rogerbraun:
Mmm hmm. Try telling that to all the Christians who think there’s a honest “war on Christmas” because not everyone says Merry Christmas.
You moronically scold us with “Crazy Americans”* without paying attention to the context of the whole mess.
*Pharyngula is not made up of all Americans, ya know.
You’re all fucking wrong. It’s a goddamn Picea tree. I’m fucking tired of people and their War on Taxonomy with their invention of bullshit confusing common names. Where’s the taxonomist in this discussion? Nowhere. Typical.
Holy war, I just started drinking my cola and it is fine.
@chigau, “a live tree at the Doocy house …”
There is no way to call something a christmas tree that will make it clear to random other people that you aren’t christian. Calling it a holiday tree, or seasonal decorative arborage or what ever doesn’t preclude people thinking that you may be christian, but it at least informs them that you don’t expect christians to have extra importance at mid winter.
Tethys #10
I think, and fortunately I can trust her to correct me if I make an important error, that you have what she said really wrong.
I think she wasn’t saying the world would be better off without her. I think she was saying she would have been better off without the world. I made the same mistake at first, but her reply to me when I made helped me see my error (I hope).
Anyway, I don’t think we need to worry about Caine. Express empathy for some crappy stuff in the past (okay, bad adjective, but I can’t think of one that is appropriately horrific to convey the real magnitude…and that is just for what I know, which I’m sure is far from everything), sure, do that. But it sounds like what she says about her present gives us no reason to worry about her, nor even think that she might need any reassurance.
Okay, gotta go, though I’ve been procrastinating a lot today, so I might not stick this flounce…
Ragutis @16, thanks for those links. The Jon Stewart take on the whole issue was spot on.
Not did did he ridicule the self-righteousness of the Fox News anchors and reporters, he proved that they were actually wrong.
That’s right, facts were ground up, spit out, and changed beyond all recognition by Fox News. Chief Pompous Female delivered in high dudgeon a defense of the Pilgrims who came here for religious freedom, and what would they think if they now saw religious freedom so perilously on the rocks that governors were calling Christmas trees “Holiday trees” — oh the pain of it all.
So Stewart shows a historical document in which the Pilgrims outlawed Christmas, promised to fine anyone saying “Merry Christmas,” and called Christmas trees a satanic symbol.
My #18 is now going round my head to the tune of “Still Alive”*.
* Portal, not Pearl Jam**
** Yes, I know that’s just “Alive”, sheesh
ZOMG, PZ, there’s a woman who used to be a friend of mine for a number of years, but we don’t live in the same country, so we kind of drifted apart. Anyway, she used “soda” instead of “pop” (which was normal for her context, but none the less wrong). That usage would have stood out anyway, but that goofy, goofy, accent! Imagine pronouncing soda any way other than how the word is said in the Pacific Northwest of the USA? Silly, silly foreigners! Some of them even think that they have the more “authentic” version of American than we do!
But I digest – the point is when I saw you use “soda” in that generic way (even just to point out how wrong, wrong, and more wrong it is), I suddenly heard her voice saying in just that wrong way.
Lulz – I have to e-mail her again. Good thing? She also lives in the same country as Ms Crush, so it wouldn’t be too outrageous to think we might finally see each other again after 6 or 7 years…
ariamezzo @27
Thank you. I hate Christmas, and mocking it keeps me sane. Eighteen bloody days to go…
Help ! google fu fail here, there is a flowchart of some kind floating around on the net, that lists all the armorous/sexual relations listed and allowed in the Bible, does anyone know where to find it ?
From previous…
RevBDC:
I seek no such thing! You take that back this instant!!
What? Oh, that kind of “bill.” Well, that’s very different then. Never mind.
***
Dhorvath (@various):
As a middle-aged male who’s never been in a position to personally confront the issue of abortion, I should probably just STFU, but you might be interested to know I was wrestling with some of the same questions as you. I certainly agree with Crip Dyke that preemptively declaring that disabled people deserve to die is fucked up… but I’m not at all sure that’s what’s going on in women’s minds when they’re making this decision.
While it’s foolish (if not downright evil) to make preemptive judgments about the “worth” of people who don’t even exist yet (I assume there’s wide agreement here that, as you pointed out, a fetus isn’t a person), I don’t think that’s the way we view other kinds of abortion decisions. As you put it…
I think nearly everyone here would defend a woman’s decision to abort because she feels, for whatever reason, that she’s not ready to be a parent. She may weigh all sorts of factors — her age, her emotional state, her material resources (and prospects for same in the future), her own physical wellness, etc. — and it would be foolish to pretend that the additional emotional and material toll of raising and caring for a disabled child wouldn’t be part of that calculation. But concluding that “I’m not ready (or able, or even willing) to have a disabled child” is just a special case of “I’m not ready (or able, or even willing) to have a
disabledchild”… neither of which is tantamount to saying “the child I would have is not worthy of life.”FSM knows that raising even non-disabled children can be heartbreaking at times, and nearly always involves some subordination of one’s own self. The decision to become a parent (and here I do have some personal experience) invariably involves weighing the amount of heartbreak you’re willing to risk, and the amount of yourself you’re willing to give up. It is my baseline assumption (though I’m sure it’s not true in every case) that this self-evaluation is the basis for most women’s abortion decisions. I would not presume to judge them, no matter what choice they make.
All that said, I’m deeply troubled by the idea of abortions that are driven by the fear that the culture the woman lives in will be intolerant of her or her child (e.g., because of sex or race/racial mixing or physical/mental disability), but in that case, what I think is fucked up is not the woman who makes the decision but the culture that drives her to make it: Being driven to abort by fear that you or your child will be persecuted is, it seems to me, very nearly as horrible as being forced to give birth.
It’s funny…I don’t recall the collective aneurysm my state had a couple of years ago when the then Republican governor sent out this invite…
http://blogs.wpri.com/files/2011/11/Carcieri_holiday_tree_2009.jpg
I don’t remember Fox News covering the story either. Weird. I must have missed it.
Happy Birthday Tethys!!!
—–
(
What the fuck is a “Doocy”?google is my friend)—–
Think the Governor is going to buy a tree from the smug tree-farmer next year?
It’s a monkey tree
Spruce Almighty?
Master of the Yuliverse?
SallyStrange:
Forgive me if I’ve missed something essential in the process of speed-reading the last TET, but I have a bit of a bone to pick with StrangeBoyfriend: I don’t know in what particular ways your feces might be non-collocated, but why is getting your shit together a precondition for partnership?
Wouldn’t it be more partner-like if he said, “come, let us work together on getting your shit together,” rather than “yeah, call me when you’ve got that worked out.”
Your business, of course, and maybe I’d think it was a perfectly reasonable condition if I knew all the facts. But I’d be more psyched on your behalf if he were offering to help you now rather than withholding full partnership ’til after you fix yourself.
However it works out, I wish you nothing but joy….
jesus fuckin’ h. christ, what’s this world commin’ to!
the christians are really defencive. and it’s no wonder.
reason and critical thought can not be denied except by ignoramuseses.
Jeremiah 10
10:1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
10:2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
10:3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
Do they ever read the bibles they thump?
As the True News Source, Jon Stewart, pointed out, Fox News simply claimed that previous governors had called it a Christmas Tree and had invited people to a Christmas Tree Lighting event.
Wrong. False. A Lie. A fucking easily checkable lie. A lie not corrected by Fox.
Fox News, Unbalanced and Uncorrected.
Bill:
Yeah, that’s why my #651 previous incarnation. I had a cousin whose fiancé put pretty much the same conditions on her. It worked out…for a while.
There’s a lot to be said for enthusiasm in person contemplating a future life partner. Oh well, it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round, right?
insightfulape: Of course they don’t! If they did, these people would be forced to consider that maybe the bible isn’t the infallible word of nor, nor inspired by him. Can’t have that now can we, when there’s money to be fleeced so Pastor Dick can buy that spanking new “Lamborgini for the Lord.”
What’s so dreadful about cutting down a tree? It’s all plantation thinnings round these parts; they would be doomed regardless.
I like the little biology fails in the babble.
Just read some of the crap in the whole ‘kosher’ segment. Grasshoppers are described as four legged, bats are a type of bird, and I have no fucking idea what ‘four legged birds who creepeth upon the ground’ are supposed to be. Flightless gryphons, maybe?
“Whales are a type of fish” is something you wouldn’t expect from the guy who supposedly CREATED ALL OF BIOLOGY, but it’s perfectly understandable coming from a bunch of bronze-age people with very little understanding of the world around them.
Southern California Line-Steve Wynn
Crawling Misanthropic Blues-Steve Wynn
Smash Myself To Bits-Steve Wynn
I remember this episode. I wonder if they based the idea on rock boring invertebrates
____
Caine and Chigau. Thanks!
_____
Crip Dyke
Um..about that over analyzing thing? Happy happy joy joy!
____
Soda, soft drinks, and pop are all acceptable. However there is no such thing as sprite-coke, pepsi-coke, mountain dew-coke or coke-coke, and I will tease all ya’ll who abuse language in that manner.
Arrr, I really need to work, I’m so behind. If I show back up, commence slapping.
The Faux News Christians are feeling unpersecuted, so they’re trying to manufacture some form of persecution. The point that Lincoln Chaffee left the Republican Party (he’s officially an independent) has nothing to do with Faux’s complaints about him.
And if you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Manitoba you might want to invest in.
I find it hilarious that they’ve rallied around the one symbol of Christmas that is probably the most pagan of all of them. Ha!
God I get sick of the christian persecution complex. Gotta pretend to be good little martyrs, always suffering for the lord, and all that happy horseshit.
Back when I’d chat in christian chatrooms, how often would some brimstone and hellfire asshole come in, spout a bunch of bigoted horseshit, and then when even the ‘progressive’ christians decided they couldn’t stand him, say something like “Jesus said we’d be persecuted for our beliefs!” or similar?
Too many fucking times to count. Back in those days, I learned a lot about the various flavors of christian hate. Maybe someday it’d be a fun thought exercise to categorize them in my head.
Yeah, I’m gonna try to post sans typos. Will it work?
I wish that this was a Poe or a joke. But, sadly, it appears to be real. Of course, it is Texas, so part of me understands.
From the artidle:
Actually, it is a short article, so there’s the whole thing.
First comment? “I blame the co-pilot.”
We can send food and liquid via USB. Can we sent slaps? Or do we have to use email for that?
Over here, there are so few kinds of carbonated beverages that there simply isn’t any cover term for them in the entire German language (or French for that matter). If you want one, you have to be specific.
Well, actually, cutting a tree off doesn’t kill it at all. It then slowly dries to death.
Definitely, but he had to move elsewhere and isn’t available to help.
Jehovah’s Witlesses do. Consequently, they consider Christmas trees satanic.
IIRC, they don’t celebrate Christmas at all. They’ve been waging their own War on Christmas for 170 years now, fnarr fnarr.
“We’re unbalanced! That’s unfair!”
– Fox News helicopter pilot on The Simpsons shortly before the helicopter crashes.
Oho!
No, no, no. To administer slaps, thou must reach through the tubes of the Internet with thine own two hands.
Shit David, that joke almost makes me wanna start watching the simpsons again.
What do we use for lubricant?
TLC:
That’s nowhere in the Babble.
WD-40 or KY, whichever is handier.
quibblequibblequibble
Brother Ogvorbis: We do it the old fashioned way.
*NNNGGGGHHHHHHHKKKKKK* *HAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKK*…
Don’t use WD-40. That stuff turns gummy after a while. And my internet connections are slow enough already. Kentucky Jelly it is!
John Morales: Maybe I was reading a bad translation, but I explicitly remember seeing mention of ‘four legged birds which creepeth on the ground’, if not in those exact words.
It’s POSSIBLE it was originally supposed to mean something like ‘birds which dwell on the ground like four legged animals’, but I’m not so charitable to something that claims to be the infallible word of god.
Nah. I try to stay away from non-mineral natural lubricants.
Maybe the bible was magically describing that weird theropod with the wings on the back legs that was discovered a few years back?
TLC, I suspect you’re recollecting Leviticus (41-44):
Note the stated basis, i.e. ceremonial uncleanliness.
(As always when dealing with the Babble: bah)
That’d be cool if it was true Brother Ogvorbis.
IIRC though, microraptor is turning out to be less weird as more avian dinosaurs are discovered to have had flight feathers on their legs.
Anecdotally at least, the presence of domestic birds of various kinds (chickens, pigeons, canaries, etc) with feathers on their feet seems like evidence that they weren’t lost that long ago.
And in my chickens I can tell you the leg feathers are long, and arranged in two layers running down the shank and toe and pointing to the side, and look VERY similar to vestigial flight feathers. I know this is bad science, but I think it just looks too much like the fossils to discount. Somewhere on my computer is a pic demonstrating what I mean.
John Morales, I was gonna say I think it’s in leviticus but it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to quote any part of the babble by verse, even as an xtian I wasn’t very good at it.
That’s similar to what I read, but I swear the version I had mentions four legged birds which creepeth along the ground. As in, specifically birds with four legs. I think it might have been a slightly different part.
TLC:
I am fascinated by the feathered theropods and agree about the asymetric leg feathers on barnyard fowl. I was just tryong to make a joke about the idiots who cherry pick their chosen holy book and try to claim that the ignorant goatherds were aware of, say, Cretaceous fossils from China. Humour attempt fail. Again.
TLC, winged insects, not birds (Leviticus 20-23).
Back in the 70s, we used to be able to get three-legged chickens at the grocery store in Flagstaff. Evolution in action? Four legs to three to two? And then boneless?
PTI:
Heh… surely that would want to be a Diablo, right?
Brother Ogvorbis: Nah, I got the joke, it’s just that you hit on one of my ‘nerd spots’.
I love that I have birds with recessive ‘dinosaurian’ features that I can recognize from fossils, even if it’s not wing claws or rows of needle sharp teeth but just vestigial flight feathers on the legs.
Um, note that John the Baptist supposedly ate locusts and honey.
(Apparently, they don’t count. Guess he was not eating the hoppers!)
Wow. Who knew that Hoppism was predicted in the bible?
Leviticus, Chapter 11, Revised Standard Version
20 “All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you.
21 “Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth.
22 Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind.
23 Buut all other winged insects which have four feet are an abomination to you.
DrDMFM:
Right. Except that it occurs to me that if they’re contemplating a long-term partnership, collocating[1] will be an essential early step in that process and might be a nontrivial part of helping Sally get her excrement conjoined.
But of course, there may be many perfectly cromulent reasons why that’s not an option.
***
[1] This, BTW, is the word many people spell co-locating… but, counterintuitive as it may be, collocating is actually correct, as I have had reason to learn for my Day Job™.
No, this is.
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.) Leviticus 11:20 says:
All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
Thank you Chigau. That’s exactly it.
Happy birthday, Tethys!
–
insightfulape, I was just thinking this evening, as The Husband and I watched the recording of Jon Stewart’s brilliant “War on Christmas” show, that someone needs to do posters, or banners, or billboards (or even all of the above) saying, “If you insist that it’s a Christmas tree, then you are disobedient to your God. Jeremiah 10:1-4″
Mightn’t go too badly as a tee shirt, even.
Printing “Suck on that, Christards!!!” underneath it and in contrasting color and fonts would be optional, depending on just how obnoxious you are wanting to be.
–
Which means that normal insects are menu-able. Perhaps it is only the mutant insects that are abominations.
–
<checks>
chigau, you have it right. I stand corrected.
(Stupid Babble and its many translations. bah)
Well John, it probably is nothing but a translation flub of some sort…. birds which creep on the ground like four legged animals turns into ‘birds which go on all fours’.
But I’d still rather assume it’s talking about an extinct subspecies of the common Gryphon that lost the ability to fly sometime after the flood.
Think about it. Gryphons, owing to their rock-hard eggs and macropredatory habits, would be uniquely suited among all the avian mammals to become flightless. Even without the constraint of an isolated island habitat.
Brother Ogvorbis (@56):
That story gave me chills, not least because League City and Milby High School are very near my old childhood stomping grounds (Friendswood). I wasn’t as finely attuned as I am now, when I lived there, to what fuckwits many Texicans can be. Also…
Internet fucking won!!
***
Quick bits:
1. I can’t say how delighted I am to be participating in a string of quotations from The Music Man over on Greta Christina’s FB page. An underappreciated American classic (the show, I mean, though you could say the same about Greta).
2. I’m bummed to report that, after I crowed about having eaten at the restaurant of one of last night’s Chopped contestants…
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
…he cut himself (without realizing it) during the first round, got blood in his food, and was chopped because the judges couldn’t safely taste what looked like it was probably the best of the 4 dishes. 8^(
But it is the inerrent word of gods and cannot be flubbed and if we do not understand it or see a contradiction that is because our little minds are incapable of grokking gods in fullness.
Well, you gotta know the territory!
“Play me a nocturne, and let my idle hope die in it.”
I own only three or four versions of the bible and can’t always locate them on short notice but I use this* as my online looker-upper.
The last time I tried to include the link, my comment disappeared.
Trying again but tricky
http://bible.cc/
Bill, it was a cooking show, no?
(What, blood dishes are not permitted?)
It’s clearly a Festivus pole in disguise.
This is not a matter of opinion, I can prove this on an etch-a-sketch.
[meta]
Chigau, my favourite is http://www.biblegateway.com/
(All the common versions of the Babble, nice parameter inputs, nice searching features)
John:
Yes, a cooking show, but his dish was sushi, and the blood was also smudged on the plate. It was a minor cut on his palm, which I guess he didn’t feel; he didn’t realize (until too late) that the red on his hands was blood because one of the ingredients they were working with was harissa, which is about the same color.
I’d be shocked if small amounts of blood didn’t find their way into food from restaurant kitchens all the time, BTW, and I’m guessing the risk of anything bad happening is incredibly low (IANAD, but AFAIK most blood-borne diseases aren’t easily contracted from ingesting small amounts of blood), but they’re hypercautious about food safety on this show. No doubt they’re trying to model good practices for home cooks.
Bro Oggie:
Urrk! Does HTML FAIL count as an offering to Tpyos?
… harissa… and open wounds?
My skin went all wibbly at the thought of it.
If you’re outa those, I’ll take cash for merchandise!
And now, off to bed.
John Morales
Nice bible site.
I like bible.cc because when you look at a particular verse it provides about 16 different versions for instant comparison.
F-Bomberman:
If he’d actually gotten harissa in the wound, I’m quite sure he would’ve realized he’d been cut! ;^)
I think that Borkquoth is in the pantheon, but I’m not sure of the relationsips.
@TLC
I meant fire arms or some equivalent. I do suppose that if they couldn’t get combustion an automated cross bow system would have worked for them until they developed the rail gun.
Fuck Big John Leyden with a big prickly spruce cone.
I am thinking of one race that looks basically like an Octopus. Except instead of suckers each tentacle ends in a hand. To walk it props itself on 4 arms and walks and uses its fingers to creep forward.
PZ said:(What next? Shall we have a holy war over whether fizzy drinks should be called “pop” or “soda” or “coke”? (the correct answer is “pop” and if you call them anything else I get to declare a fatwah and a jihad.)
yay fizzy-based jihad, which also means I get to keep all the plunder and womens I can handle because Mardok commands it. are you calling Mardok a liar? also Mard-k demands that all pop machines be replaced with bottles of Tennessee’s finest.
I have one of them there monkey trees in my front yard. It’s about three feet tall, but someday, someday…
The word of god indeed.
Powerful, but monolingual.
But not cunning lingual. They don’t approve of that.
In other news, Harry Morgan died. :-(
craigore:
Women ain’t “plunder”, any more than men are.
(And slavery is detestable)
“cunning lingual”?
As in many other interpersonal endeavours, less is more, when skilfully applied.
(You want to push buttons, not hammer things)
That sucks. I cannot think of a single thing I’ve seen him in in which he was not good or great. He was excellent in John Wayne’s good movie.
True, but the biblical folk tend to prefer the hammer. How many dominionists or Christianists really do nuance?
No obvious reason (and a repeat link), but: Pleasure And Pain
Am I the only one who was struck by the uncanny resemblance of the Fox commentator to the picture they showed of Gov. Chaffee? Admittedly, I haven’t read all the comments, so I may not be.
“tainthammer”?
<blink>
(Synchronicity, wherefore art thou?)
San Antonio makes the news for being stupid (again):
BTW, Macy’s policy does allow for transgendered people to choose the dressing room they identify with.
Sucks to be you Natalie, christard bigot.
:(
–
No; I see it, too.
–
Holly shit! Why do people enjoy really spicy food? I don’t understand. My mouth is on fire and I can’t even finish my meal.
Starstuff,
Why do people do anything that involves intense sensations? It’s invigorating! I love spicy food, I love that sensation, it’s a good hurt.
Harry Morgan :-{
—-
Without a sign on the door, how can you tell if a change-room is a girl or a boy?
—-
StarStuff
Eat some rice!
or bread
or pasta
Drinking water doesn’t help.
Yeah, or something with fat in it, capsaicin is oil soluble and many fats will pull it off your tongue and lips.
Janine –
you might want to check out my last post on the Baizley thread.
Wow – Aquaria, thanks!
That just effing rocks. I’ve heard so many stories of mistreatment and never once have I heard the corporation say, “And so we let the jerk go…”
That’s it. You treat a customer wrong, you shouldn’t be in retail. You hurt your employer’s sales, get the f* out of town. I know the story had to start with bad treatment, but me, I actually see that story as a frickin’ step up!
Dairy is the best thing for spicy food. Drink a big glass of milk if you can not handle the heat.
Rev,
Maybe it’s the rate at which milk passes through my mouth, but I have never found it particularly helpful. I do drink skim though…
That’s it! Grab a neighbour’s dinner roll and lick the butter off.
(They’ll never invite you to dinner again.)
Bravo, Macy’s.
(This is from Wife (so you know it will be good)).
No surprise that Macy’s supports LGBT human rights. After all, it is the Macy’s Gay Parade, right?
chigau:
Butter?
Bah — were it not for this taboo against anthropophagy, the by-products of liposuction would be a fine ingredient; god knows there’s enough of that in America.
<runs away>
The American Patriarchy Association put up a poll that is Pharyngula proof.
Doing the most good, my fucking ass.
If it is like the other posts directed at me on that thread, I would rather not.
There really is an American Patriarchy Association? And it’s not a Poe? o.O
I’m ox-gored.
I’m pole-axed.
I’m I’m okay, I’m out of old-timey patriarchal expressions of surprise that involve the letter X.
Janine:
Puh-leeeeeezzzzze?
It is actual the American Family Association. But we call it by a more truthful name here.
Always the second banana, but doing a great job. IIRC, I saw him on December Bride back in the B&W days of TV. Nowadays, an actor is lucky if they are on two good TV shows during a career. I think he had four or five.
Fucking blockquotes, how do they work?
Crip Dyke, thank you.
I had some milk. It put the fire out in my mouth, but my stomach is still burning. I have heartburn on a good day, I really should avoid spicy things.
Janine:
Burrrrrfff!!
Tea now on trackpad.
How did I miss that? I thought I was aware of all internet traditions?
Didn’t I see somewhere that you can donate your fat…
*google*
I see.
ha um ha?
Janine @ 138
You’re welcome.
You might wanna hold that thanks, though, until you find out how much of that rum is backwash. The Villainy were passing it around a while back…
If that is the case, backwash is the least of the problems. Nerd could tell you stories about the Pullet Patrol.
(Avoiding the steely gaze of the Pullet Patrol.)
My mouth loves spicy food. My stomach is ambivalent about it.
And you do NOT want to know what my ass thinks of capsaicin.
Yeah, but I need to get to sleep. Yesterday was the last opera for the calendar year, and with the rebuilding of Wacker Drive in front of the Lyric, had to wait for the train, and got to bed after 1:00 am.
TLC, you are right.
Leviticus, KJV:
***
No slaps, I’m done working for the night!
Caine:
No slaps, I’m done working for the night!
Oh good, I was going to ask – I didn’t want to jump the gun.
Chigau:
I use Skeptic’s Annotated.
Crip Dyke:
Hee. Well…if you care to fund a trip to Miss Patricia’s Spanking Parlour, I’m up for that.
Look at the pretty google doodle!
I’m a huge fan of spicy food. My stomach doesn’t mind it; my mouth gets irritated occasionally but not severely (and milk and bread put the fire out).
I’ve only ever suffered from a ‘ring of fire’ due to capsaicin once. I overestimated the density of pickled jalapeño slices; I bought a pound of them from a deli, expecting to get maybe a half cup. Instead, I got a large container. And I ate most of ’em.
My ass was not happy the next day.
####
I’m thinking I may have tonsil stones. I keep feeling a foreign object in the back of my throat, and coughing to get rid of it inevitably leads to gagging.
Suggestions on how to get rid of the stones (if they’re there)?
Rat chat…Rubin is doing well on his 2nd day in the studio. He’s still overwhelmed and being a skitterbiscuit, but he happily discovered salad, peas, blueberry muffins, crackers and tea. Esme still bullies him, but he’s learning to hold his own and likes cuddling with Chas.
Esme is doing fantastic, she’s been demonstrating her trust in me all day, melting my heart in the doing.
Chas is just grand, as always. He’s always up for a happy, brux and boggle filled cuddle and his obsession with peanut butter continues.
Benjamin, whatever it is, it ain’t “stones” — those are concretions of minerals in organs.
(If it persists, see a doctor!)
Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal? Looks that way
(and, this is from the University of Georgia, not the University of Stockholm or Tokyo, I take that as additional evidence)
Why can’t I link to this Wikipedia article?
I once hawked up a tonsil stone after a long day of running around in the bush.
And before I knew what it was, I bit into the thing.
And that’s all I know about them really. Sometimes they come up on their own. Try looking for it in the mirror with a flashlight?
Hmmm… my daughter gets tonsil stones. At least, that’s what her doctor calls them.
Benjamin, AFAIK they just work their way out on their own accord; when you find gritty little peas in your mouth, spit them out.
Benjamin Geiger @155
The article just confirms that the human body is a digusting pile of goo.
John:
A tonsillolith is a concretion of minerals.
tonsilloliths are mineralised stink. Foul.
As far as I know I don’t get them anymore.
Tonsilloliths, eh? I’ve been wondering what that weird white spot in my throat is for years. It’s small and has never bothered me, but I was always puzzled about why it didn’t go away when I took antibiotics for ear and throat infections.
That’s my bit of trivia for the day.
Coming to an Earth near you this holiday, everyone arguing and hating everybody about what to call a tree! Nothing new for that crazy old crew of homo sapiens!
I get tonsil stones, have for over a decade. They are no goddamn fun, and nothing I have found will get rid of them, I just have to cope.
Oh and don’t Google them because then everywhere you go online, banner ads will follow you screaming “DO YOU HAVE TERRIBLE BREATH???? TRY PRODUCT X!!”
As far as removing a given stone that’s bothering me, I’ve found that massaging the outside of the throat up around the area of the tonsils has the most effectiveness with the least incidence of gaggation.
OK, I have learnt something! ;)
So, Benjamin, treatment is noted in your very own link (Caine’s too, of course!).
—
PS If people here are trying to get internet diagnoses out of rorschach (not saying you are), diane or other medical people here, then you’re bound to be disappointed, generally speaking.
(Diagnosis doesn’t work that way, and they’re professionals)
They can’t afford me John.
Seconded!
Bible quotes:
1 Corinthians 1:20-21 I don’t think Gawd ™ approves of Free Thought Blogs:
Ok, Lawd …we’ll just stay stooopid to please you.
(Emphasis mine, not god’s) That babble shit really does not scan.
@ PZ
The ultimate xmas present for an Ebil Oberlawd: Lobster Bike – linkies.
@ Pharynguphotophiles (yes, that is a real word … look it up dammit.)
Linky to a husband-and-wife photo team that travelled 25 states in 5 months to photograph 50 woman coping with economic hard times.
@ Pharynguhippophiles (No, not a real word, I just made it up … why did you ask)
I put a tenner on horse 6 in the sixth race and won at 14,5 to 1. I haz’ded a cheeseburger with the proceeds. :)
@ Josh
For my last loaf I went with the suggestion of my cousin to leave the dough really wet. (The beauty of the Le Creuset is that it won’t stick.) After 25 minutes, I removed the lid to see the loaf had swollen up like a giant steamed bun (baozi) but completely uncooked. I then left it in for 35 minutes (an extra 10 minutes) and it came out absolutely perfectly.
I just had a strange experience – signed up for a shift with the security company I work for, and ended up working at the end-of-semester tradition, the Naked Bike Ride. Not so many bikes this year, since the college is discouraging it (naked road rash in the cold? eugh. and the liability!) but there were LOTS of naked people.
Funny thing is I heard all the (clothed) guys around me saying that they felt so much better about their manhood now. Can you hear me rolling my eyes now? They were far more shocked than they should have been at the relative smallness of a bunch of dudes’ penises who were running around inthe snow! There should be a lot more collective nakedness, maybe then dudes could relax and stop worrying about how big their goddamn peepee is.
theophontes, wow! Cheeseburgers sure are expensive, where you are.
Nude beach 10 minutes from my house here. Fixes this kind of problem really good. Swing by some time…:-)
SallyStrange, bah. If it ain’t erect, it doesn’t count.
Carlie, 54
I can’t stop giggling at that part of it either. O Tannenbaum O Tannenbaum…
Aquaria @ 117
Yeah, I will get the world’s smallest violin or something. Bigot. Good for Macy’s for letting her go.
SallyStrange
I must admit at the risk of sounding really insensitive, I’ve never really “gotten” the whole penis size thing. It leaves me completely mystified why some guys are so obsessed and/or measure their self-worth with it.
FTR, I am *tiny* in stature. I most certainly DO NOT prefer a large penis.
Right? I don’t like having my cervix bumped during sex.
The doodz stared at me in confusion when I said there was such a thing as a penis that’s too big.
Seriously, there needs to be, like, a year-long sex education module directed solely at teaching young boys how not to freak out about their penis size.
Hordes of young running men with erections… now that would be worth watching.
Insecurity, Gen Fury.
We are men. We must be the manliest of menz. But the pen0r is only one measure of a man. Others include risk taking behavior, AGGRESSION, and ‘getting pumped’.
And remember, bigger is always better. Bigger penis, bigger truck, bigger gun, bigger swords.
Those countless women who have told me, both online and in meatspace, that they prefer average sized penises and find huge dongs frankly painful, are not to be listened to, they’re just trying to protect our egos. Somehow or other they got the idea that our egos are fragile, can you imagine that?
Are you from Saudi-Arabia?
No Rorschach, I just really like swords.
@ John M.
Hong Kong. To put it in perspective: 10.00 HKD = 1.25 AUD (so my winnings where all of 145.00 HKD = 18.13 AUD)
Special days at the races are an incredibly cheap form of entertainment. 10 HKD to get in, 10 HKD minimum bets. Cheap beer, cheeseburgers, fireworks (!) and horses going round and round in circles. What more could one ever wish for…? The whole evening out cost us (theaphontes and I) all of about 20 AUD.
@ Sally
… and betting on.
theophontes @178:
So, who’s the winner, the biggest penis or the fastest runner?
I want to haz a cheezburger too.
Speaking of schlongs and cheeseburgers:
“Hungry Swedes queue up for Obamas sausage” http://www.thelocal.se/37798/20111207/
Since sausage often is made of all kinds of gunk -and Obama’s policies are less than impressive- I find this appropriate
I just ate two excellent cheeseburgers. With bacon. Now I’m drinking a vanilla coke.
You can’t get those in canada no more. :(
@ John M.
You will also love this: Link to Big Mac Index – 2011.
@ Minnie The Finn, Fan of Modern, Sinful Dancing
Everyone thinks they’re a winner as they run around in circles, waving their penises in the air. (Hong Kong really is no different than the rest of the corporate world.)
Imagine if humans had a penis bone, instead of the ‘hydraulic’ system evolution gave us.
There would be no such thing as erectile dysfunction.
Yeah and I’d be terrified every time my wife came.
Well, I suppose it would be fun walking around with a penis cast.
@ TLC
(via birgerjohansson’s Linky)
Hai TLC … this is how I imagine you in the kitchen: Carnage Stew
And for pudding: Chocolate cake.
(cover your ears for some of the language.)
I’m sitting on my hands here doing my best not to link to a Finnish delicacy called mustamakkara after Birger’s Obama sausage. I may have a dirty and non-pc mind but you don’t need to suffer for it.
.
.
.
*crickets*
theophontes @182, yeah, that’s a good’un.
—
[anecdote]
I once tried the McDonalds “Big Mac”, when I had a 2 for 1 voucher, back in the early 90s, back when I was on night shift.
Took ages, since I can’t stand the sweet pickles or the sugary ketchup they put on it, and I saw multiple people being served as I impatiently waited in the sidelines. I took them (and their packaging) back to work and consumed them (mediocre and small but dense is the best I can say), then they sat like leaden weights in my stomach for the rest of the night.
Never, ever again!
(Unless I were starving and had absolutely no choice)
—
PS Falling Down – I want breakfast — too true.
@ Minnie
That looks like a personal favourite: Black Pudding.
rogerbraun
I think the problem is that American christians need to shove “the saviour’s birth” down everybody else’s throat. I’m German, and I celebrate christmas. I’ll soon be shopping for a christmas tree, and I’ve been buying and making christmas presents those last weeks. I don’t have a problem with a nativity scene on public grounds because it has become much more cultural than religious.
But I understand that it’s important for American non-christians to put their foot down and make a stand on this issue.
Caine
I did. I have to make new ones anyway since I gave the pair I listed on the shop to Mr. I’d make the customer “Justin Bieber” pulsewarmers, too, and if I end up making Jesus-pulsewarmers for his whole church they’re going to get a discount.
But it’s still funny. Not only aren’t there that many grown men in Germany who’s run around with “Jesus” anywhere on their clothes, as opposed to men running around with tribal dragons, the fact that this person managed to find a atheist (OK, that’s not too hard) to do it for him is funny.
Aquaria
If I were in the states I’d make sure to stop there the next days, buy something and make sure they knew that I like shopping there because of their cool attitudes and write an email to their customer service.
I think often the biggots get what they want because companies assume that the people who don’t raise their voices agree with them. If they know that they also gain customers by standing against the boggots, that might help.
+++++++
Some more thoughts on the issue of abortion and disability:
I think the problem is not that this issue affects fetuses that are aborted because of X. I couldn’t care less for them.
The problem is that the attitude hurts people who are here and alive, especially in a cold and unfeeling society in which the misfortunes you suffer are your problem and yours alone.
So, just like the issue of sex-selective abortions in India and China needs to be fought by empowering women so that being a girl isn’t something bad anymore, the issue of disability-selective abortions needs to be adressed by empowering disabled people who are (by definition) out and about and alive here and today.
++++++++
Cutting oneself while cooking
If the knife is really sharp you might actually not notice.
Happened to me once and fortunately I was cutting brocoli. Had it been red bell peppers I might have bled to death (yeah, I know) before I noticed.
Happy Birthday Tethys, from me too
I actually like Mcdonalds cheeseburgers. Like a hyena likes the stink of carrion. Or perhaps more accurately, like some dogs just seem to like eating shit no matter how revolting it is. Though, I usually go for the absolutely heart-clogging double quarter pounder.
TLC,
Baculum.
PZ has blogged about it</a.
(Of course!)
Mmm cheezburger. O wait, we just ordered pizza. Weird gourmet ones.
Maccas is gross. I make my own cheezburgers with fresh lean mince, and a nice sharp cheddar.
… make it an ambigram, reading both “jesus” and “satan” at the same time! Here is a good generator, but there are more to be found online.
SQB
Cool, never knew what those things were called.
And, of course, no I won’t
First of all, I can’t “make” such things. Machine embroidery means that I have to feed my machine a digitized design. In order to make them myself I’d have to buy the adequate software, which doesn’t come cheap (several hundred to a thousand €) and then I’d have to learn some basics about digitizing itself, and not to mention the problem of getting designs in the first place. I know some incredibly talented people who create them and then digitize them and then I buy them.
If the future of planet earth depended on my ability to draw 10 recognizable animals, I’d book a trip to the moon, one way.
Secondly, me being an ass would only change his opinion about me, not about baby Jeebus ;)
Plan:
1) breakfast
2) call study counsellor
3) depompoeiify the flat
4) dedicate time to Jesus (I always wanted to say that, I’m planning to make the most out of this joke)
I reckon the Japanese have it right with their trees.
Godzilla would win any war on christmas : http://kotaku.com/5866209/godzilla-vs-baby-jesus/gallery/2
So it’s a BFGS? Big Fucking Glitter Stick?
Just got this in my inbox:
British Social Attitudes Survey
Chapter 12 – ‘Religion’ is encouraging (at least, it encourages me)
@John Morales
and you are obviously lacking in the humor department.
Obama administration joins Republican social conservatives again:
“Plan to Widen Availability of Morning-After Pill Is Rejected” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/health/policy/sebelius-overrules-fda-on-freer-sale-of-emergency-contraceptives.html?_r=2&hp
Fuck the Democrat DINObots. Fuck Obama.
Hmm… I thought being a big prick was an insult, but since big schlongs apparently are a matter of status maybe we should begin to use it as a compliment.
So the winner in the GOP primaries should be referred to “The biggest Putz in the GOP”.
The winner in American Idol will be “The Ultra-Mega Prick”
Oscar/Nobel Prize winner: “The Prick of Pricks”.
Always reminds me of the way Mojo Jojo talks.
====
Happy birthday, Tethys!
====
QFT (again).
====
Giliell, that’s too bad. About the software, I mean, since the ambigrams can be subtle enough that you don’t see ’em if you don’t know they’re there. (“There, there, dear, they’re there” — but how do I work ‘their’ into that? Rembember, “Noe’s nose knows no noes”.) Anyway, try the generator.
====
Crip Dyke, I met my wife in an online chatbox in the mid nineties. We’ve been married for seven years now.
====
rorschach, this flowchart? (Keywords: flowchart bible relations → images, 2nd entry (safe search off)).
And here is another chart.
Are they trying to parody themselves?
That is the correct answer. Praise Cthuthlu!
interesting that a man who has daughters rapidly approaching the age where they might start needing this would not see the harm he’s doing by rejecting this.
He really does think people will vote for him no matter what, huh. I’m reconsidering now.
Don’t get cocky
More to the point, why does it even matter? All the rooms are private, you go in one with clothes on, you come out with other clothes on.
I think people here are probably making too much of Macy’s decision to fire her. I don’t think they really care much about trans issues, just that one of their employees was openly hostile to a customer, and we all know that customers are holy in retail. And that retail employees don’t have the clout of pharmacists, nor a lot of political momentum behind this particular issue. If this had been customers complaining about a trans employee who couldn’t “pass” well enough, then Macy’s might be singing a different tune.
What, you don’t have any old-fashioned soda jerks around? Any burger joint with any nod towards “retro” should be able to make you a vanilla coke, no problem.
The venerable local burger joint near my old home makes a “Scotch and Soda”, which is 7-Up with caramel syrup added. Mmmmmm.
“Hormone therapy making comeback; Doctors say risks can be minimized” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-hormone-therapy-comeback-doctors-minimized.html
The menopause: I am surprised it has taken until now to find a safe middle way for hormone-replacement therapy.
-Some cancer-related news:
“Drug combination highly effective for newly diagnosed myeloma patients, study finds” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-drug-combination-highly-effective-newly.html
“Big promise is seen in 2 new breast cancer drugs” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-big-breast-cancer-drugs.html
“Nipping metastases in the bud: A novel strategy for fighting cancer targets secondary tumors” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-nipping-metastases-bud-strategy-cancer.html
Rey Fox:
The only issue I see is that in some stores, the changing rooms aren’t particularly well divided. You could feasibly peek over or under the wall (like bathroom stalls). While it’d be obvious if someone were doing so from outside, it might be harder to detect if done from another stall.
Assuming it really was (not is) a tree, I expect that nobody on Fox took note that it was a former relative of theirs, which had had its bottom chopped off. There are good reasons to get a plastic ‘tree’, if you insist on decorating, though what I just said is not one such reason (for example, since the turkey you eat is a much closer relative). Perhaps the gov should have referred to it as a “long-lost distant relative”, to see what dumbass TV would say then, though understanding what he was implying about his scientific ‘beliefs’ would likely have been beyond most of them. And those beliefs, if they exist and were revealed, might guarantee non-re-election.
Well, kids, apparently hell does exist and I’m stuck right in the middle of it.
My brother is getting married soon. I like his fiancee fine, and she is an atheist, just as my brother is.
I learned recently that she is not, however, a skeptic. I got an invitation to the bachelorette party (which is a little weird, since I’m IN the wedding, but wev).
Instead of the stereotypical night of drunken debauchery in public, the party is going to take place at another bridesmaid house. And, what is the main activity planned for the evening?
A fucking psychic. A fucking psychic that charges $45 to lie.
There’s no way out of this is there. I’m going to have to shell out $45 to have some lying quack throw at me what she thinks I want to hear, aren’t I.
“Their deer? There, there, dear, they’re there”
FIFY.
Illuminata, maybe read up on cold reading techniques so you can be just as psychic as the professional? You could at least potentially have some fun with the bullshit if you must be subjected to it.
Side note, is it actually weird to be invited to a bachelorette party when you’re in the wedding?
Actually she may still be a skeptic. Or did she plan her own bachelorette party?
The Sailor, thank you.
Cold reading. Actually, it was hot reading.
Illuminata @211:
When you meet the psychic, grasp her hand tightly, then close your eyes for a moment. Then, look her deeply in the eyes and say in a quiet, sober voice: “Oh dear, I’m so sorry for you”. Refuse to comment further, just shake your head and sigh deeply.
Having said that, I’ve read Tarot cards at a friend’s hen party, but all present knew I’m no psychic, nor did I ‘tell’ them anything they (and I) didn’t know before. It was good craic and turned into a kind of a stand-up routine. I hope that’s what your future sister-in-law is aiming at, too.
@Predator Handshake –
I meant weird that I got an invitation, because I’m a bridesmaid and was there when the group of us planned the bachelorette party. ( The psychic thing was decided on later, evidently. ) Meaning, I knew all about it already, why waste the postage?
I really like the idea of studying up on cold reading beforehand. My Aunt and I – both single women – joked about wearing fake wedding rings into the reading just to throw the “psychic” off.
@SQB –
She did plan it. She’s basically done everything herself that the MOH is supposed to do.
As for her still being a skeptic: I don’t think so, and here’s why:
The bridesmaids gathered at my brother’s house (fiancee lives with him, but he owns it) to make the favors for the shower. I got there a little bit late.
When I got there, Fiancee was dangling a threaded needle over her hand because – get this – the way the needle moved indicated what the sex of your future children will be. And you had to keep doing it until the needle stopped, or was interrupted, etc.
As the Horde may remember – I want no kids. Fiancee, however, desperately wants a boy. So, when she did the needle thing – it stopped dead. Every single time. When I did it, I got to four kids(3 boys and a girl). So, she kept trying over and over and over again.
At the time, I put it down to baby fever. Now, coupled with the psychic thing . . . . . ugh. . . .
Illuminata
I’d pay $45 for a chance to spend several hours of quality time with a psychic.
Minnie’s suggestion would be only the beginning…
Maybe they wanted to send you one for posterity? Something like when my mother insisted I send her an invitation to my college graduation so that she could put it in her box with my homework from elementary school. I sure am defending the sending of unnecessary invitations here.
I meant the real Star Trek, not that Shatneriffic abomination.
> > And since when do Xenomorphs reach full adult size
> > within minutes without feeding or anything?
> The first one grew to adult size in hours, though I
> always presumed it had eaten their food supply off screen.
> There’s actually supposedly a deleted sequence where they
> find food wrappers and stuff, implying that the little guy
> had gotten into their food supply, and also apparently making > it appear
> like more time has elapsed between the chestburster
> sequence and the adult Xeno.
>
> Or so I’ve heard.
— — — — — — — —
This was a confusing aspect of the first film, but apparently they got things right in the script, alas the scene was cut. In Alien 3 there was a very short time between emergence from the dog to attacking and killing the first inmate.
For some really frightening alien badasses, see the books by Neal Asher; the Prador, the many and varied predators on the world Masada and just about all the organisms on the world Spatterjay.
And don’t forget Peter Hamilton’s “Immotiles” at “Dyson Alpha”
— — — — — — —
The Modhri mind parasite dreamed up by Timothy Zahn is scary not only because it can take over your body, it can actually do it *without you being aware of it*.
We make sense of a chaotic world by often retro-justifying irrational choices (for instance Bachmann does not need to make stuff up, but she does it anyway and refuses to back down from ridiculous claims). Thus , a Modhri mind fragment in your brain can plant a suggestion for an action in your mind, you will perform it and you will afterwards come up with a justification for what you did.
If the body is expendable, the parasite can assume hands-on control for a length of time that cannot be satisfactorily rationalised for the host. The host will then be killed. Since the parasites are telepathic, they can transfer their memories from one host body to another and are thus not required to keep their hosts alive…
A Modhri mind fragment can be made up of all the host bodies within reach of telepathic communication. They/ it thus have a very fluid sense of “self” and mind fragments passing each other (on meeting trains, on the streets or on the sidewalks) continually swap memories and other information. This makes the Modhri essentially un-killable. It only dies if the whole species is wiped out. And if not stopped, it will infiltrate every sentient host species it meets.
The fear it instils is not a matter of claws or acid, but of the “pod people” aspect.
Also, Wine of the Dreamers and Ballroom of the Skies.
Sili
What exactly is the real Star Trek?
Just a quick note to PZ, the pokey troll has challenged the great poopy head to a sword fight. The pokey troll ends with “Pound me.”
I think it would be best to grant the pokey troll his wish.
[Excitedly] “You’re a psychic? Like Stephen Hawking? OMG, this is awesome! So, can you tell us all about how black holes form? What’s a quasar? How is a Schwartzchild radius different from an event horizon?
What’s that? Oh, psychic, right. [Deflated] So, you’re gonna tell us if we’ll find true love, like one of those folded paper thingies we made in grade school? That’s, uh, that’s cool too, I guess. [Loudly] Is there anything to drink here or what?”
I want someone who can interpret chicken entrails.
Brownian has hit on my solution. Get wikeed.
Anyone can do that. Without even looking at the entrails in question, I think I could claim they say “this chicken is dead” with a high amount of accuracy.
Or, did you mean you want someone who can interpret them according to some sort of fixed guidelines for interpretation?
Birger,
Immotiles, eh? I don’t think they get around much.
I also want to be able to wear the intestines like a scarf around my neck at the bachelorette party after the interpretation.
The chicken is resting.
I’ll read chicken entrails if the price is right.
Hell, I can read them and then EAT them if you pay enough.
Oh! Shit!
I think the Pullet Patrol is pissed off at me!
Janine:
ok, let’s make it horse entrails, I’m sure the Patrol won’t mind that?
If they’re in your bed it means you’ve royally pissed off the Don.
That’ll be $50, please.
The Pullet Patrol is in your bed? Even they want teh ghey secks with Brownian?
I want to start a neo-Puritan sect who are required to respond to “Merry Christmas!” with a kick in the shin and a “Bless your heart!”
You know, I’m not even sure anymore. I really need an executive assistant.
For planning or executing all of teh ghey secks.
secks???
*puts away knitting*
I can draw neat flow charts for Brownian to organize his ghey secks activities (I can even used Excel *spit*), but I’m afraid I won’t be able to help on the, um, delivery side of the busibess.
used? Hail Tpyos! I’ve missed you!
#225: Eh. Pokealot can play Conservapædian all he wants; it just makes him look petty and stupid. I’m more annoyed at the blatant attempt to derail a thread. Just ignore him. I’m sure he’ll find himself endungeoned with good cause eventually.
But I cannot. I guess I will have to play with him until there is nothing left.
Minnie
also “busibess” ;)
chigau:
yup, noticed that eventually too, I was just too embarrassed to call it out myself =)
My theories:
1) masochism
2) lack of innervation in the mouth and lips
3) lack of sensitivity in the nerves of the mouth and lips
4) there’s a reasonable chance that any food-borne diseases and/or parasites have already died screaming before they can get into your mouth, let alone your GI tract
5) they’re damned show-offs.
I recommend a serving of full-fat ice cream, stat. Roll it around in your mouth as it melts.
–
No. Masochist.
–
Gives a whole new meaning to “You can bite my big, fat ass!”, doesn’t it?
*also runs away*
–
Sure. Maybe. Both?
I want one of those situations where I stride from my office on my way to another liquid lunch when my EA stops me to tell me to remember I’ve got a 1:30 on the other side of town, dinner reservations with my wife at Le Coûteux at 7:30 (my tux is back from the cleaners and in the closet), and by the way, here’s the present I’d picked out for my child’s piano recital has just arrived, all delivered with a Brooklyn tang à la Annie Potts in Ghostbusters.
The details of what I actually do that I need an EA to help manage never seem to get fully explained before the exposition is interrupted by space aliens causing explosions.
[Brownian gets a dreamy look.]
Boom! “It’s the Rataxians! They’ve found me! Quickly, get everyone in the building into the escape pods,” I’d tell my trusty EA, “and meet me on the roof! Wear your Juggernaut suit!”
“But the Juggernaut suit is only a prototype! We haven’t fully tested it yet!”
“If we survive this, we’ll send R&D a memo letting them know we’ve fast-tracked the testing phase. See you in Dimension X, old friend!” [Leaps through the eightieth-floor window while tapping a secret button on the left shoe, activating jet-suit with Gatling lasers]
“You’ll never obtain the Neutro-sphere, Commander Klaxx!” Pew-pew! Pew-pew!
Brownian
With all that going on in your head, how do you get anything done in meatspace?
Mmm. Ghey secks with aliens? Go on.
Brownian:
All the while, Carry On Dancing plays in the background. (I’ve always thought that would make an awesome James Bond-ish theme song.)
—
I love spicy food. I don’t generally register it as pain. I don’t get indigestion from it (or from anything, really). I’ve also never really noticed a ring of fire. But I love the flavors in spicy food.
John Zorn made a soundtrack for a Japanese porn movie with that plot.
janine:
I knew that tentacles were about to enter the conversation sooner or later, given the forum.
@cucely:
It also releases endorphins.
When gasbags attack!
Billo, a man with a camera and an umbrella.
Ah. You are trying to sell a house in the US then?
They’re quick. I’ve even heard it said they are faster than a speeding pullet!
Because it is good?
I love chilis. I’m okay with mustard. I detest horseradish (maybe it’s the ‘horse’ part, ’cause I like radishes).
Minnie, I said nothing about tentacles. It is not anime.
janine:
what, not all Japanese porn involves tentacles?
I must google harder.
Minnie, I once saw a Japanese porn that had a drill bit.
Actually, it was a horror movie. You can guess what the drill bit was.
It was a rather disturbing movie.
Japanese do ‘disturbing’ extremely well.
I, personally, ADORE spicy food. To the point where I put cayenne pepper or hot sauce on just about everything. Scrambled eggs, tuna fish, salad. Adore!
According to Cracked.com, its an addiction. Don’t look at me like that. Cracked is clearly a scientific journal full of scientific truth!
Sidebar:
Who demoted Ogvorbis and why?
I don’t. I’m somewhat likeable enough to make up for my uselessness, though.
A Rataxian defector who understands that the junta cabal of rir↑* species would not handle the Neutro-sphere responsibly and falls in flhrrrik with an Earth-meat? I like the cut of your jib, Minnie.
A highly-stylised rooftop fight scene at night amid drizzling rain? Can we afford to cast Jennifer Garner? Do we want to?
*Rataxian genders are…complex. In English, pronouns are marked with arrows corresponding to directions as on a cartesian plane, double arrows up or down are used for the z-axis genders, and a lower-case ‘O’ to indicate the pregnant, or ‘origin’ gender.
I like spicy food a lot. There is a limit for me, though. Eating one of those green peppers has allowed me to experience one of the worst pain to ever afflict my tongue. I can’t imagine what pepper spray is like.
What is amazing though, is that the old Koreans like my dad can take it. They eat eat peppers like it is candy. How can they do that!?
Spicy’s not for me. BoyToy puts it in practically everything he cooks* (and he cooks practically all the time), to the extent of me not being able to eat some of the hotter varieties.
Luckily the spawn are cool with chili, I can always grab a sandwich instead, or go hungry. Leaving the chili out appears not to be an option.
I did. Lack of ability to spell. All of my curses, due to mispellings, failed.
I’ve never heard of tonsil stones, but I frequently get that “foreign object in the back of my throat” feeling; actually, the side-back, usually on the left. There’s a fold behind the base of my tongue, and stuff (sometimes as big as a baby aspirin) gets lodged in it. I can sometimes get it to move along by sorta writhing the base of my tongue near it, or by opening the area as wide as possible while vigorously agitating water through the area. If neither of those works, I’m afraid that it’s a matter of waiting for erosion to take care of it. Not pleasant.
I do know that trying to knock it loose with finger or q-tip leads to gagging just as surely as trying to cough it out.
–
“I’m cicely, and I approve this message.”
–
I thought that was the horse’s head.
(And I don’t imagine the horse would be best pleased, either.)
–
Kinda explains the slow processing rate of the “Ghey Secks With Brownian” line, doesn’t it?
–
There are no flavors in spicy food. They all burn off before entry.
–
So, you think I should add
6) overly-robust endorphin production/delivery system
?
–
Huh. Tonsil stones. I had no idea there was such a thing.
Go ahead. You know you want to.
SPRINGFIELD COUNTRY FAIR
WARNING: FUNHOUSE MAY HAVE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE
Sorry, I forgot you weren’t on teh Thread for so long. They lived together for months or years. Only a few months ago did StrangeBoyfriend move away. If he didn’t manage to help her during that time…
…actually, I’m not sure which conclusions exactly to draw from that…
:-D
Well, definitely not in those exact words. Creepeth is old for creeps; “birds” and “creeps” don’t go together.
Protoceratops wasn’t a predator.
(…Well, maybe it was some kind of omnivore… but “macropredatory habits” doesn’t fit.)
Month saved.
Pavlovian conditioning. They have learned to associate pain with good taste, so now they somehow enjoy the pain itself – the concept of “it’s a good hurt” is born.
I bet masochism in sexual activities works the same way.
Oh, wait. There’s one other thing about spicy food, though I suspect it doesn’t have much influence on present company: manly men must prove they can tolerate any level of pain, so they must, in some cultures, eat at least as spicy as possible. In Serbia, Real Men™ are expected to eat pepperoni, just so, out of their hands, without any bread or anything.
Intense joy and intense pain don’t have anything in common if you’re not conditioned otherwise.
That must be why.
(Pet peeve alert: skimmed milk is one of the stupidest inventions of the last 100 years.)
Oh for crying out loud, what have you eaten.
PZ invented the tradition of reading “Family” as “Patriarchy”.
I bet the word order is that of the Greek original.
Oh yes.
Men don’t get many opportunities to see other mens’, and the whole culture tells them that women are obsessed with length. It’s considered the pinnacle of sophistication to “know” that women are obsessed with girth instead.
Besides, I suspect the variation in flaccid length is a lot greater than the variation in erect length — but, as I just said, I have no access to a relevant sample size.
Well, they don’t have to stick theirs all the way in, do they?
:-D :-D :-D
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Why do you think so? The bone is thrust back and forth, and the forth-thrusting part – the erection – may of course dysfunction.
ROTFLMAO!
Dr. Cox of Scrubs already swears to Godzilla.
Just say no.
That’s another option!
Perhaps answer questions with “you know exactly what I mean” and sob. B-)
Not bad!
Two words for you: Jean-Louc Picâ.
(…um… actually… I don’t take sides in the Great Trekkie War. I’ve watched almost no TNG because Sister 1 likes Young Kirk so much. The best, obviously, is Enterprise, the one from a sane age when the writers had finally learned from their past stupidities and cultural complexes.)
…Oh, yeah. That, too.
ROTFL!
“Your brother is dead. *1-second pause* Keep dancing.”
[WARNING: FIRE STORY FIRE STORY FIRE STORY]
Some years ago I as at a forest fire in Oregon. We were based out of the rodeo grounds on an Indian reservation. I was working security (which (at this fire) meant sitting in the sun for 12 hours a day controlling camp access.
Luckily, one of the tribal elders was in charge of the reefer — fresh fruit, bagged lunches, water, Gatorade, and ice. The camp crew were all locals and, when family members came by, I could send them over to the reefer and, since he knew everyone in the town, he could make the judgement call to let them walk back to supply (or wherever in the camp) or wait at the gate.
One day, a young woman with two little girls drove up. She parked off to the side (not blocking traffic) and I sent her over to the reefer while the kids waited in the car. She came back and said her boyfriend would be out in about ten minutes and they waited in the (almost) shade of the fly.
The younger of the two girls (they were about two and five) loudly announced she was hungry. So mom sent the five-year-old into the car to get here a snack. She came out with a couple of green chile peppers. They looked spicey. They smelled spicey. And she handed one to the two-year-old while mom looked the other way.
I wasn’t quick enough to warn mom. The two-year-old took a big bite (and, four feet away, my eyes began to water — these were hot!), smiled, and took another bite. She ate two peppers and smiled through it all. What went through my mind? Wow, I’m glad I don’t have to change that diaper.
A few days later, one of the townsfolk go permission to set up a Navajo taco/fry bread trailer outside the camp. I remember, with fondness, the Navajo tacos out in Tusayan (at the now-gone RedFeather Lodge) when I lived in Arizona, so I wandered out to get one. They came in three levels of spicey — hot, mild and anglo. I chose mild and, while absolutely delicious, it made me sweat for an hour. Like taking a sauna.
[FIRE STORY ENDS FIRE STORY ENDS FIRE STORY ENDS]
Spicy food preference isn’t necessarily genetic; you can adapt to it. Via culture and maternal diet during pregnancy, of course, but also as an adult. Since my natal fundie sect believed in bland food (not just no heat, but no *spices* – not even garlic or ginger), I didn’t taste spicy chili or Oriental or African food until college. At the time, even one-star food was too hot for me. After more than ten years of gradually increasing exposure, now I can handle (and favor) three- or even four-star chili sauce heat. Still can’t handle anything from the mustard family, though; so I suspect they activate different receptors.
@pteryxx
For me, there are different kinds of spiciness. I can stand the pepper spiciness, but if I eat wasabi, I find it a horrible experience.
@Ogvorbis
Wow, it is incredible to think that it might be possible that they are more resistant to spiciness than the Koreans.
*reads a few more comments*
…
*shrug*
Penis size preference chart
Oh, I missed this:
Yes, this please! It’s hard enough not wanting the damn thing half the time I can’t imagine how it would be to want one and not think yours is adequate. (Though, perhaps TMI, I’ve been told mine is… *ahem* rather large)
TV evening news: apparently a secret CIA prison has been discovered in Bucarest. The Romanian authorities deny everything.
X-D
*clenched-tentacle salute*
Like the Serbs: machismo compels them to decades of hard training. Then it works. Apparently the pain-sensitive nerves in their mouths are actually destroyed in the process.
No – it’s like runner’s high and bungee jumping: when life becomes absolutely unbearable, all feelings are switched off because they’re useless anyway, and bliss sets in. Some people get addicted to that.
Oh. The slashes happen when I copy text in italics into a Thunderbird e-mail and then change it to plain text.
The current topic is begging for this song.
Big Ten Inch Record
Youngsters, 78 RPM records were, ahem, ten inches wide. And most of the blues songs were to be found on those.
This was from an other lifetime, back when Aerosmith was a good band. Hard to believe, ain’t it?
…nuuu such thing. >_>
@David Marjanovic
If eating green pepper like that is what it takes to be a Real Man TM, then I don’t think I want to be one. Granted, I bet it looked funny when I was scrabbling to get the glass of milk while I was yelling and cursing in agony.
I have a reddit treat. This has gone viral; I feel sorry for the guy, then I read the paragraphs about her leading him on by playing with her hair ‘too much’ and that feeling just, well, dies.
“I request that you call me and make a sincere apology for leading me on…”
And secondly:
BACONLUBE
/end transmission
I’ve heard/seen people describe the flavors different hot foods have (comparing different kinds of peppers and so on). I don’t get it. To me, hot food just tastes … hot. I can taste practically no other flavors while the hotness fills my mouth. So I don’t eat spicy food, because I like to taste things and I don’t see the appeal in covering up all the other tastes with burn.
DDMFM
I would venture to suggest that you are incorrect here.
Cicely,
The two don’t work at once.
___
And I suspected I would hear from David M on that note too. I maintain that there are sensations that feel good to me, as in I enjoy them, which are described as pain by many other people. Wasabi, capsaicin, DOMS, isopropyl alcohol on a fresh wound, temporary muscle failure. I don’t deny that this is at least in part a result of the specific experiences that make up my past, but I also know that I am not alone in having those interpretations. I don’t recall not liking certain types of pain, generally sharp and always below the threshold where nausea is a result, and so it makes me curious if there might not be a physiological effect as well as a psychological one.
_
Also, I get that many people don’t like skim milk. I like milk, I drink it by the litre and I am happy that I like skim milk as it saves me a lot of fat that I would consume and not notice. I could just as easily drink homogenized milk, it tastes fine too, but an extra 35 grams of fat is just not something I am lacking.
There’s a point at which spicy-heat sensation starts to drown out other flavors. For me, at three-star level now, that point’s around four- to five-star. It feels a lot like too much raw onion, or too much garlic (or even too much strong cheese) where the one flavor just blows everything else away, complete with wincing and cringing. I think that setpoint varies though, because back when I had barely any heat tolerance at all, the blow-away point was around two-star. I’m also not one of those folks who *needs* chili sauce in everything for it to have a taste – I like the zero-star just fine too. But hot spicy food is something you can relax into, like a rough massage, or a really emotional movie. It’s also awesome in cold weather.
Has an OM, tells Fire Stories(TM) and drinks skimmed milk by the litre?
I haz an internet crush.
Oh, just with chile peppers there are so many different ‘hots’ — for me, anyway. Jalapenos have a spicey-grassy flavour. Serranos have a fresh, clean biting hot (Serenos, however, just dig up dinosaurs and archosaurs and other neat things). Passilla chiles have a flavour similar to a smokey raisin. Poblanos are rich, almost meaty. Habaneros have a bright spicey sting. My palate is not well developed (for anything), but for some, different peppers are as different as wines. But far more useful.
TV evening news: apparently a secret CIA prison has been discovered in Bucarest. The Romanian authorities deny everything.
X-D
*clenched-tentacle salute*
Like the Serbs: machismo compels them to decades of hard training. Then it works. Apparently the pain-sensitive nerves in their mouths are actually destroyed in the process.
No – it’s like runner’s high and bungee jumping: when life becomes absolutely unbearable, all feelings are switched off because they’re useless anyway, and bliss sets in. Some people get addicted to that.
Oh. The slashes happen when I copy text in italics into a Thunderbird e-mail and then change it to plain text.
Chili has nothing to do with the country of Chile and isn’t pronounced that way in Spanish.
Similarly, my mom doesn’t like spicy food, but doesn’t notice that green pepper is spicy at all.
1) “Enjoyable” is less than “satisfying”?
2) “Ideal (perfect)” length only starts above 7 inches. Someone on this very Thread once said the average is 6 inches, and one of the comments to the chart says the average is 5 1/2 inches. (Yeah, “very satisfying” starts just above 6 inches, but still. Minority complexes come from “I’m not perfect”.)
3) Why the literal fuck circumference and not diameter? Diameters are much easier to imagine. *sulk*
4) …So, the poll sample is from an Internet forum. It’s an Internet poll. *sigh*
*clenched-tentacle salute*
When the hotness gets halfway serious, it’s the same for me. As long as it’s rather ridiculous, I can largely ignore it and concentrate on the flavor… and things like black and green pepper do have very good tastes. The best curry I know is so hot that I can only use it in pitifully small amounts.
Then how does it work? I’m the first to admit that my imagination is limited.
I never said you were. I know you’re probably even in the majority.
AFAIK, the receptors for mechanical damage, heat and acid all feed into the same nerves, and AFAIK spicy substances attach to one of those receptors.
I notice the fat: in healthy amounts, milk helps against hunger. Skimmed milk not only tastes worse, it makes me more hungry than I’m used to.
I love spicy food!!!! But I’m the only one in the family who does :-((((
On the other hand, I will concede that it can sometimes go too far. I was once walking along the street eating some pakora I’d just bought from a branch of Ambala when I bit into a significant piece of chili and – I kid you not – went blind for maybe 15 seconds (well I couldn’t see, so I’ll call it going blind. It sounds more dramatic that way).
Also, I want to watch that film. Brownian can be in it or script and direct, or all three, à volonté.
I so wish there were more actual m/m and f/f romances on the screen, mainstream, without anyone pretending it means the end of the world or something. We get bloody bombarded by m/f romance all the bloody time, why can’t we have a change sometimes dammit.
kristinc – that is fascinating to me because I feel exactly the same way about food that isn’t spicy. It always tastes like its missing something to me. Always seems slightly wrong.
++
Re: the Size discussion:
TMI WARNING: You have been warned.
Count me in with the not liking the BIG ones group. I am a petite woman. Cervix bumping hurts, sometimes really badly. There’s even a relatively popular position I can’t handle because even average sized penii hit the back wall that way. I’m a light-weight BDSMer and, frankly, that’s just the wrong and bad kind of pain.
Er, no. The only time I drink milk is when I put it on my boring shredded wheat biscuits (which also are useful to add some texture to bread). And I drink milk by the cup, pint and quart. I ain’t no furriner. I’s a ‘Mercun!
Oh, dear, it looks like I’m going to have to be a moderate in the spice/no spice debate…I like spices, but I don’t like overwhelming spices. Subtle amounts of pepper flavoring food, great, pepper so strong I can’t taste anything else, bleh. If the food’s so spicy it overwhelms your taste buds and you can’t taste it anyway, what’s the point? OTOH, food without any spice is kind of…boring. To me at least.
My anecdote about spicing of food and culture…I used to live in Germany, back in the 1990s when they didn’t seem to favor spices much*. My partner and I went into a Thai place we found and asked for our order “scharf” (sharp, spicy.) The waiter looked at us dubiously. My partner said (in English): “It’s ok. We’re Americans.” They looked relieved and came back with some yummy, nicely spiced food.
*At least not of the sort I was used to. I eventually learned to appreciate the subtler flavors of central European cooking, but it took a while.
What about this, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster
Speaking just for myself and hoping it’s not TMI, the flaw in your hypothesis is that I never had to “learn” to connect pain with pleasurable sexual feelings. The two were deeply linked for as long as I can remember having sexual feelings.
Ogvorbis: oh, my bad, a serious case of ‘nym confusion.
Now I have two internet crushes, apparently.
David,
I was a little vague there, I notice the fat in terms of mouth feel, although I don’t prefer one over the other. I don’t notice it in terms of satiety, a litre of skim fills me up just as well as a litre of homogenized.
Seconded.
I have always wondered where it came from though. Internalized societal cues? This was before the bad shit happened, so I can’t pin it on that.
One of the best dishes I know is very lightly battered haddock with rice and butter. Very bland – with a very fine, subtle taste. :-)
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
LOL, speaking of “contrived outrage”, some gems from Emrysmyrddin‘s link @278:
Hey there! I’m a non-creepy, non-stalkerish totally safe and caring individual who would never try to control you or your behaviour! Keep me in mind for future dates!
You’re a horrible person and a TEASE! I demand an apology! If you wanna go out with me again, lemme know!
You wanna talk mixed signals! Well two can play THAT game, princess!
Okay, I’ll stop now or I’ll be pasting it all. This is priceless. So, do you think this is
A.) a case of legitimate non-neurotypical obliviousness to social cues
or
B.)Entitled douchebag being entitled (and whiny, good Godzilla, the whininess!) who may or may not have read too many books/websites about Game and the MRA?
Obviously, having an Autism spectrum family member doesn’t make me an authority, but I’m gonna go with B here.
Yes, that was included just for you, Herr Doktor!
Gen Fury:
I’ll go with an extremely privileged ‘b’ on that one.
Based on what I read this morning: Just don’t like the answer I am so going with B.
Illuminata’s TMI in 287
Word! Well, except for the BDSM part. I’m all boring vanilla, I’m afraid. Which brings us to
hot food
I simply cannot. Even the most mildy spicy food burns the crap out of me, to the point of tears streaming down my face and gasping for breath. THE MILDEST!
Now that kristinc mentioned it, the juxtaposition of these two things seems really incredibly fascinating.
I see. ~:-|
:eyeroll: 10 to 1 it’s more often an anxiety response. A lot of people mess with their hair as a way of dealing with nervousness, and are often completely unaware of doing it.
craigore:
Oh, I dunno about that — I have plenty of phlegm and bile.
OOOhhhhh yeah. Plus some extreme entitlement issues.
Isn’t eye contact, particularly prolonged eye contact, one of the things avoided by the former group?
I’m going with read PUA books too many times because her completely ignoring him is a very clear GTFO from her. This long, whiny, assholey letter is just his way of trying to neg her into relenting.
I hope Cthuthlu she didn’t respond to this. Gavin DeBecker would be very “disappointed” if she did.
as long as we’re TMI’ing,
Heck, I adore penii and I like size, but for petes sake* I have sex with PEOPLE not dicks and I’ll go with whatever they bring to the table, so to speak. Big ones are better for anal than oral; small ones the reverse. If it’s a game-breaker, just buy a gigantic strap-on and get on with it, sheesh. They even make hollow ones.
(*case in point.)
…I dunno about *sexual* feelings per se, but I’ve always found low-level pain to just be not that big a deal. Little things like walking barefoot on sharp gravel, or ice, getting chomped on by various critters, scraped by branches or rocks, never bothered me as a little kid. Apparently I have a high pain tolerance as well (see: ice hockey) and I’m always getting cuts or bruises that I didn’t notice at the time. I suspect some of it’s inborn. (Partner and I suspect I might enjoy a little SM if I can get over the PTSD… we shall see.)
Conversely, I haaaate hate hate light touch, such as tickling. Isn’t there some link between pain tolerance and insensitivity?
Pteryxx,
A second on mechanical assistance. Toys come in every which size, use the ones that work.
_
Also, I too don’t deal well with light touching. Hmmm.
Yeah but Caine, dood clear out stated that it was NOT nervousness. He knows these things, obviously!
(Well, okay, he said it didn’t look like nervousness. Let’s do be fair.)
Gen Fury:
Mmm hmmm. I am so impressed with his level of ignorance. I’m sure, in his book, there simply isn’t anything a woman can do that isn’t interpreted as “oh man, she wants me!”
Well, my hair is long and unruly. Unless I use extra hold mousse, it will do what it wants.
David quoting I’m not sure who (sorry)
David, for many folks kink is orientative, it’s as much an orientation as their sexual orientation.
Oh, so it is TMIThursday?
I had a truly shocking realization about eight months ago. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this baby doll. Cloth body, hard plastic head. Well, I was just thinking about my habit – from as far back as kindergarten to when I graduated from high school, I would “play” with this doll. That is, I would masturbate with it.
I realized that this was what I was doing RECENTLY. *facepalm*
WRT the neurotypical and asshole vs. clueless and on the spectrum debate, I’m going to come down squarely in the “asshole” side. Speaking as someone on the spectrum who knows many who are also on the spectrum, the author of that email has “self-entitled jerk” written all over him. I just not getting an autism-spectrum vibe from him.
Illuminata,
Nope. There is no such need.
Um, what makes you imagine there won’t be any “hot” reading, especially when the
suckersguests are known beforehand?More TMI: You have again been warned:
@Pteryxx
Specifically for me, BDSM has helped with left over anxiety from the shit that’s happened in the past. It’s a way to be totally in control of not being in control, if that makes any sense. With a trustworthy partner, the ground rules are laid out before hand and nothing ever happens that I don’t want to happen (same goes for him). Yes, boundaries are pushed, but never the ones deemed off limits. And, its freedom to explore, but with someone who can be trusted not to hurt you.
Its helped me a lot to come back out of the shell that my abusive, rapist ex caused me to retreat into. Helped me face my fears related to the opposite sex (as I’m straight), that he gave me, and work passed them.
I’m not advocating for it for everyone, mind you, just thought it needed to be said, as there can sometimes be a lot of misunderstanding of what BDSM is.
Damnit. You’re right. Plus, they asked for your birthdate ahead of time too.
I’m going to have to do it because all the other bridesmaids are doing it and I already pleaded with the Bride to not do the goddamn bouquet/garter toss. I’m the ONLY single bridesmaid and one of the only single women that will be there. All the single men that will be there are related to me. I told her I’d go for a “smoke” during it, if she did it. Now, I’m obligated to do the damn psychic.
Re: size/comfort
Here’s a me too: count me in on the definitely-average-at-most group. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to have to be careful during sex with a man with a largish penis to avoid discomfort. Although based on what I’ve heard elsewhere and what I’m reading here, I really think my cervix is kind of in a non-typical configuration.
Am I correct in assuming that for most of you, the cervix is at the very back of the vagina? Cause mine isn’t. I’ve never had doctor say anything during checkups, but I’m starting to think I have a less common variation here.
Re: Spicy foods
Like most kids, I was pretty averse to spicy foods and I find that as I get older, I have more tolerance for them and prefer more spice in my cooking. When making chile verde now, I use more chiles than I would have when I was younger. I just figured that was a function of fewer taste buds over a lifespan.
The masochist said, “Spank me!”
The sadist said, “No.”
(sorry)
Gen Fury @296, I’ll go with B, although I suppose there’s no reason not to include a C) all of the above.
–
No one’s mentioned it, and Poopyhead hasn’t chimed in, but there’s another shooting, thankfully smaller so far, at Virginia Tech.
JM: I have plenty of phlegm and bile.
:-D :-D :-D
You do indeed seem to be a humorous bloke. Dry humors, of course :)
Yeah, sometimes BDSM with good boundaries, exquisitely careful communication and a partner I trust feels a lot less threatening and difficult than “normal” interaction. ‘Course, everybody has different triggers ad stuff.
Oh, and the email, huge creepy asshole. I think that @Dhorvath is absolutely right and this is very much a case of understanding just fine, but not liking the answer. Basically it’s rape culture all over.
100% co-signed. This is precisely why I can’t do casual hookups. If I don’t know them, I can’t trust them, so I sure as shit don’t want to be that vulnerable around them.
I’m got very lucky with the current FWB. He’s very experienced with BDSM as both a dom and a sub and he’s game for just about anything. So we can explore pretty much anything we can think of. Its remarkably liberating.
Though, I have to admit, it makes me worried that I’ll never be able to actually settle down, as it were, with anyone. Men like him are – in my experience – way to few and far in between.
Illuminata:
I wouldn’t worry about that too much, there are lots and lots and lots of BDSM peoples about and lots and lots and lots settle down. I’m one, settled 30+ years.
(more TMI) @Illuminata and whoever: I maybe should ask y’all about really beginner BDSM, because I don’t know yet what my boundaries actually are. There’s been a time or two when partner tried something that I thought I was fine with, with my explicit permission no less, that still ended up causing a panic attack. (And few things ruin sex like panic attacks, srsly.) But discussion of BDSM always seems to start from the presumption that you actually know HOW to determine your boundaries already. (Also, abuse counselors don’t seem to know much about it…)
This is an excerpt from the best comment on the reddit link.
I vote entitled asshole.
@Pteryxx, I seem remember that Holly at The Pervocracy had written some stuff about that process when you first figure out what you’re interested in and how to get involved with a local kinkster scene if you wanted to.
… although come to think of it, phlegm and bile are the moist humors, aren’t they? Is choler a dry one? And … can’t remember … what about blood?
Stoppit, back to work dammit.
Brother O:
The masochist said, “Thank you!”
Pteryxx – It’s hard figuring out what you like and what you don’t like, especially if there is trauma somewhere. Saying, “I’d like to try this, but i don’t know how I’ll react, please take x, y, and z reactions as a safe-out, even if I can’t manage English” is fine. You don’t have to know everything and it’s okay to say “well, didn’t like that, was much hotter in my head”
Tethys,
I think that goes beyond “entitled asshole” and lands squarely in “raging douchebucket” territory.
Pteryxx, that comes to exploration and negotiation. You should talk about new acts before doing them, that way you can often discover a potential trigger beforehand. As you aren’t sure of all your boundaries at this point, spur of the moment new acts should be off the table.
Pteryxx: I am no fan of a lot of stuff Jay Wiseman says about BDSM and power differentials, but in his book SM101 he wrote a really good suggestion/instruction for erotically hitting someone for the first time. It involved hitting very lightly for 10 strokes (barely taps), getting feedback/taking a break. Then if the bottom agrees to it, 10 strokes very slightly harder (still really gentle), feedback/break; if the bottom agrees, 10 more very slightly harder and so on. The feedback system he suggests includes a 1-to-5 rating of how much the bottom feels they’re struggling with each set of strokes. Maybe you can find the excerpt online, he seems to have a lot of articles floating around in various places.
From my own experience it seems like a good way to avoid fear or panic attacks is to not combine a new sensation you might be nervous about with a level of powerlessness you might also be nervous about. So if you’re going to play with some erotic pain maybe make it absolutely clear that anyone can stop at any time and make sure you have control over what you’re experiencing: “OK can we try this now?” “I liked that but it was too high on my thigh” and so on. I’ve always been a fan of the “trip through the toybag” experience where the bottom and the top experiment together playfully with new things, with no pressure or obligation. Mixing intense sensation with obedience or bondage can always come later when you feel more confident about it.
The one thing I’ve always admired about those who write about BDSM openly and constructively is that they stress and “get” consent so well.
This was definitely not true for me, when first getting into this. I didn’t have the triggers for anxiety that I have now. But, I was into it, then shamed and humiliated out of it by asshole ex (who from now on will be called Jawbreaker, because that’s what I call him IRL.), and then got back into it with my FWB several years after finally getting away from Jawbreaker. So, there were triggers associated directly with BDSM.
its important to take it one step at a time. Don’t combine sensations that can trigger with situations that can trigger. Try making a mental checklist of what you feel is non-negotiable. For me, that’s – certain language, for example. I’m all for talking dirty, but bust out one “slut” or “whore” and you’re ass is on the curb. I also can’t handle having my mouth covered. Its still very much trial and error.
Bottom line: Self-care is the most important thing.
Agreed, slignot.
I used to know a guy who was a textbook MRA. Asshole, entitled, raging misogynist.
Said that he’d just heard of BDSM and wanted to get in on that. Find a real woman, a submissive.
Yeah, that didn’t work well. He went to an event and got tossed out like 10 minutes later. See, people in BDSM are big on consent. The dom must have the explicit consent of the sub. Coerced consent is not okay.
Or why not cut out the middle-man and just copulate with the cash?
–
Credit cards cut, bills are filthy and tear, and coins tend to lead to embarrassing explanations to ER docs on a Friday night.
Thought you people were supposed to be the empirical type.
@Dr. Esteleth, yeah, that has always been the scary side to things: the risk that you’re going to be with someone who doesn’t come into the relationship with good intent. It should be roleplay, not a desire to actively oppress a woman, and I get creeped out just at the thought of it.
I remember having a bit of a lightbulb moment reading something Holly Pervocracy wrote where she explained that in many ways, the sub has much more power than the Dom specifically because of consent. It is in the hands of the sub to say what is okay and when it stops because it needs to be.
It’s great that MRAs like the one you mention are rejected. I like the idea of well policed kink communities, although I don’t think that spouse would be comfortable enough to play at a play party; he’s just not the exhibitionist type.
I wish this were true in my experience. Having been victimized myself as a kink newbie and been attacked and vilified when I came out in the open about it, and having observed the same vilification happening to other people who have come out in the open about being victimized, I have to conclude that in practice, consent is about as important in BDSM as it is in the non-kink world. That is to say, there are good people who really believe in it, there are other people who give lip service to it, there are scum who don’t even pretend to care about it, and the whole microcosm exists in the larger context of a rape culture.
My contribution to the spicy thread: I like some spice, but too much and I regret it all over again in 4-10 hours.
But wasabi makes my head float. In the good way.
I think the kink community is better about being explicit about it, but we’re not perfect. We live in our culture as much as the rest of society.
Esteleth
It’s a good parody of the original letter. Men who blatantly tell you they’re a good catch because they make lots of money while alternating between belittling you for avoiding them and begging for a second date are beyond creepy.
It is annoying how many people in the comments try to justify his behavior as Aspergers.
I see it as possibly warranting a restraining order.
Yeah, people with Aspergers can be assholes too, just like people with cancer can be assholes and paraplegics can be assholes. You only get that kind of freakish entitled douchebaggery when you have Aspergers PLUS asshole.
@kristinc,
That’s the worst fucking part of rape culture is that no matter how much you want your community to be better, patriarchy fucking spoils everything.
I’m sorry that happened to you, and I’m sad to have yet another hopeful bubble of sex-positivity pricked.
Oh, we’ve moved on, I see.
In that case, did I ever mention the list of “Things Not to Rub on Your Scrotum” I compiled back when I was a wee lad of nineteen or so? The trick was that I had to personally test all substances before adding them to the list, so it mostly consisted of things people might normally rub on their skin. (It was born out of experimentation with Vick’s VapoRub and my eyelids.) Alcohol-based muscle liniments were the worst. Correction: Alcohol-based muscle liniments and previously having had shaved my scrotum with a razor was the worst.
I had issues as a kid.
Tethys
Right! The whole “hey I googled your e-mail since you won’t take my calls” thing? EEEEEEEK! And then throwing in “not going on a second date may just be the biggest mistake of your life (paraphrased)”… HIGH OCTANE NIGHTMARE FUEL!
Speaking as a feminist who is also a hetero submissive woman, FUCK YEAH, EXACTLY.
Yeah I wish people would stop using things like autism to justify harassment, stalking and the like. Not only is it bullshit and insulting to everyone it’s increasingly making me more apathetic to legitimate cases of Aspergers (which I recognize is my own failing).
*cough* Trick for that: bowl of oatmeal as the meal before the spicy one. (As my main gay character likes to say, “We bottoms think very highly of dietary fiber.”)
So… take several fat rolls of bills (to a diameter of one’s choosing), tie securely, lay end-to end, unroll two or three good-sized condoms over all. Presto, world’s most expensive dildo. Bonus points: can be excused as either a sex toy or smuggled payoff.
—
Everyone else… thanks for the responses, all saved for calmer perusal.
Ugh, Julian.
Yes. Speaking as someone who does have Aspergers, I am pissed at the tendency of assholes to justify their assholishness by claiming to have Aspergers.
Fuckers. Your attempts to escape the consequences of your jerkass ways are giving me and other Aspies a harder life.
I was just thinking about fibre in this context. I’ve been trying to counteract all the holiday parties and treats and shit with massive doses of chickpeas and wild black rice.
Hot wings with bleu cheese dressing, while awesome, tend to take their time leaving the building.
But why is everybody going on about Brownian’s grey socks?
@Dr. Esteleth
I really don’t want to, even unconsciously, be contributing to a more hostile atmosphere for you. This may sound strange but, is there any tell tale signs of when someone is using what would otherwise be a legitimate condition to get away with disregarding those they’re interacting with?
The impression I’ve been getting (and I’ll freely admit it’s likely being shaped by my frustration, prejudice and own general insensitivity) that they’re bordering sociopathy.
LOL!
News from the frontlines of the War on Christmas:
Skeleton Santa Crucified
@Brownian: Autoclave it. Autoclave it all. Or whatever other and better methods may be appropriate.
Clearly some of it might be more appropriately used for purposes of stimulation other than penetration. For instance, I would like to explore the stimulating possibilities of rubbing hand-fulls of large denomiation bills all over my body.
–
Sometimes bigger is better.
I hate tonsilstones too. The advice I’ve heard is to work them out with the back of your toothbrush when they bother you.
I’ve adopted the – well, not nuclear option – but nearly. I massage my tonsil directly every morning when I’m in the shower anyway.
Climb inside one. You’ll see.
Don’t you have to get ribs removed in order to do that?
My gag reflex engages slightly just reading that sentence.
@The Laughing Coyote
Hi, do you remember your idea to make an oyster mushroom soup? I just made one, rather minimalistic, and I did it thusly:
– Fried some oyster mushrooms in a pan in butter until they are nice and brown,
– added some salt and pepper
– deglazed the pan with some bock beer (I thought about doing a wine version, but was in a beer mood and there was a nice local bock on sale).
– put the whole in a pot, add water and some more beer,
– added some garlic, nutmeg, and puréed it.
– put it off the stove and add some cream, stir, and there you go.
Bottom line: Tastes very nice, the only criticism I have now that I should have put only half the garlic because it is a little more prevalent than I wanted. The only remaining challenge is cosmetics, because the whole thing is basically greenish-brown. Input is appreciated :)
The new Canadian $100 is made of plastic.
Sharp! edges.
I never ‘learned’ a pleasurable pain response either; I discovered during the usual childhood/adolescent self-experimentation that certain painful physical sensations were also very pleasurable – as if they fired on the exact same neural pathway as sexual pleasure. I’ve never been exposed to violent abuse.
Also, I’d vote a B) for the e-mail. Just creepy personal details, and laser-intense focus on interpreting actions, and the aggressive insecurity, and the simultaneous put-downs and pick-ups…loving the comments though; the Interwebz contains smart peoples.
Tyrant@361: That sounds delicious…
I had never heard of “tonsil stones” until today. Never imagined such a thing could exist … where do they come from/accrete from?
Now you’re no longer a kid.
data point: currently eating leftovers spiked with extra chili sauce, specifically to help against panic. Coincidence?…
I didn’t say I no longer had issues. Just that I had them as a kid as well.
______________________________________________________
“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.”–Mitch Hedberg
Well, surely you can understand that there’s no way I could leave that setup alone.
And I just remembered how incredibly obnoxious it can be to ask someone to provide some magical insight into the group they belong to. Sorry…
I would have lost respect for you if you had. ;)
Julian,
I appreciate the sentiment. I’m trying to think of useful tells, and the best I can come up with is a definition: autism-spectrum disorders are characterized by an inability to read social cues. An inability, not a lack of desire to.
Most of the stuff I can come up with is symptomatic, and like everything symptomatic, it varies from person to person. Repetition (that is, doing the same thing again and again) is common. Due to the inability to read social cues, many people on the spectrum learn “rules” and abide by them. Conversation Type A follows steps 1, 2, and 3, for example. Some also tend to use very precise language and diction. This makes us seem awkward and stilted. Many people on the spectrum are very enthusiastic about something and enjoy going on about this and don’t really notice when others aren’t as enthused. Stimming is common, but most people on the spectrum know that this is seen as socially unacceptable and will only stim when very upset or when surrounded by known and trusted people.
Uh.
Basically, you want a hard-and-fast way of telling the difference between someone who’s actually on the spectrum and someone who’s just a jerk? Good luck. The best I can think of, again, is that a person on the spectrum can’t tell that the social cues are saying x, the jerk can tell and doesn’t care. This can look the same.
@opposablethumbs, I’m now wondering if get tonsil stones, although I’m still leaning toward no. What I got from looking them up makes me think you notice where they come from and feel them in your tonsils.
I get something that looks similar (as does my dad), but that feel like it comes up my throat instead; I’ve never felt or seen them near my tonsils. I always figured they were tiny compressed phlegm from my upper respiratory system since I have seasonal allergies that act up during the year. But I could be wrong.
thinkgeek is much worse than tvtropes
Unrelated: I just realized that one of my plants (a gardenia, FWIW) has spider mites. Google brings me up a lot of info about pot (????) and the non-pot related suggestion of gently washing the plants with warm soapy water. Does this work? Does anyone have a better suggestion?
Holiday trees. Tonsil stones. BSDM. Aspergers vs. assholity.
I love TET. Pray continue!
—
Unrelated. This product (yours for just $40-ish in our never-to-be-repeated-special-offer) is a revelation. As I type this, the keyboard is *cold*. And the laptop has not yet shut down due to CPU overheating. These are good things.
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?gl=uk&hl=en&cid=18246506279560884178&q=zalman%20laptop%20cooler
Esteleth, an insecticidal soap will work better, it can be found anywhere that sells plants.
At least, I think it’s spider mites. I can’t see them, of course, but there are little webs on some branch points and under some leaves. Also, the plant is sickly.
Caine, I’ll check out the store and see if I can’t find some insecticidal soap.
Oh cool, wikipedia says that spider mites are also haplodiploid. Imagine we had that – no father-son talks ever…
I believe that would have gone a long way towards mitigating some of the issues Rey Fox won’t let me move beyond.
[Runs crying from the room.
Not because of anything TET-related: it’s how Brownian always ends his work day.]
Now, now, David Marjanović, I’m sure you know perfectly well that skimmed milk is an ancient invention. You skim off the cream and feed the remainder to the pigs. Or to desperately poor people.
I actually prefer skim milk in cafe-made coffee, because I like just a little dash of milk, but all the usual cafe espresso drinks have a lot of milk in them. Too much fat makes it seem all sticky. Ick. But in cold drinks, I prefer full fat milk.
Spicy food is awesome. There is very little that is not improved with chilli or mustard or wasabi. Endorphins? Bring ’em on. Err, not the habanero slices, though.
As to the letter – hey, it could be an asshole who also coincidentally has Aspergers! Why dichotomise?
Logical OR vs XOR pedantry aside, though, I could see one of my aspie friends *starting* this letter: “Please explain, I don’t get it, are my rules broken?” But as it goes on it just gets worse and worse, and the aspie hypothesis becomes very much less plausible. I’d just go for the plain old douchebucket option. It has all the smell of the kind of sexist pseudo-rationality that you often see in the mensa scene.
Esteleth
APHIDS!!!
Kill them now!
If it’s a potted plant put the whole thing in a sink or bucket of soapy water and leave it for 20-30 minutes.
Chigau,
It is not aphids. I have kept roses and know what aphids are like.
At least aphids stay outside (mostly). Psocids make for your books.
I wear a grey (and green) uniform and have brown socks. Does that count?
And, tonight, I am going to a jazz concert at one of the local colleges. Girl plays trumpet in the band.
No solo, though. Trumpet or strumpet. Either one. None.
@changeable moniker, I’m always terrified of something going after my books. My library must be kept safe and whole; books are precious.
Esteleth
OK. not aphids.
The bucket of soapy water works for spider mites, too.
—
changeable moniker
Aphids stay outside???
I’ve never seen any outside, only on my houseplants.
(I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Tethys says:
I guess I should get a boyfriend.
ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of my aphids are farmed by ants. (Feckin’ ants. Also, Gulf Stream.)
Fucking tonsil stones.
Finger, q-tip, or, in one particularly annoying and difficult case, blunt end of a butter knife. Yeah, there was gagging. Didn’t care. Worth it. Can’t manage a toothbrush that far back, though.
Word.
(/Want.)
Tyrant of Skepsis (is that a Dark Crystal reference btw?) I never thought of using beer for deglazing, though I always use it when I make filling for meat pies. I had this idea that it wouldn’t be good with the cream or something. My main flavor came from the bacon and mushrooms frying together, I honestly think that Bacon and Mushroom are made for each other, though it can be overpowering if overused much like garlic. Perhaps next time I’ll add a little garlic too, now that you mention it.
No idea where the green coloring may come from.
BDSM: (TMI Warning)
I dunno if this counts or not, but the ex and I used to indulge in some pretty savage tooth and claw play. Blood was drawn (from me).
She usually ‘won’ these little sex games, but only by virtue of her better weaponry. One week she grew her nails out and then filed them into razor points and painted them with hardening goop. She was very disappointed when most of them broke the first time she used them.
We’ve outgrown this kind of stuff though. Neither of us are as vicious or reckless as we used to be.
On a side note, I have a bit of a theory that this ritualized aggression is the reason we never actually had a real full on ‘argument’ or shouting match, despite all the bad stuff that happened over the years.
TMI OVER.
Well… that’s the kind of thing I could have written 15 years ago (if I had fallen in love at the age of 14, LOL). Remember, this sentence applies to itself…
(Well, I wouldn’t have written “I suggest”.)
I think that’s beyond me. Demanding an apology most definitely has always been.
What – he’s had dates before???
And he’s extremely optimistic about the difference between his wishful thinking and his realistic expectations. *shudder*
Impolite? Seriously, I can stop identifying with that guy already. And expecting it to be the other person’s fault when he doesn’t understand a social situation… *headshake*
It’s obvious he didn’t think that far.
Why doesn’t he at least phrase it as a question?
How about both? They’re not mutually exclusive.
^_^
Are you on the smack? Did you not go outdoors this past summer? It was the aphidcalypse!
This was the first year I’ve ever had to regularly scrape a car windshield in July because of overnight bug goo. And they ate the leaves off of the pepper and tomato plants I worked so hard at neglecting.
I want to ask if Girl favours any particular flavour of jazz (sonspawn loves Wayne Shorter … among about a million others at the moment. And lives for that whole business of playing around, taking turns to solo) but it’s gone midnight here and I probably won’t be around to read any possible answer until tomorrow :(
So I’ve been watching livereporting of the Prop8 appeal hearing on video/recusal because I’m that kind of person, and I am continually struck by how bumbling the proponent counsel always seems to me. It’s just fucking routine for them to offend judges, and that’s never helpful.
The previous ruling by Judge Ware was that not only did Judge Walker not have to recuse himself for being gay/in a relationship, but that the arguments used by proponents were insulting to the extreme. Proponents are trying the same arguments again and it’s really pissing off (conservative appointed) Judge Smith. It’s funny but kind of pathetic. Some highlights (livestream crazily overtaxed so I’m relying on live reporting via the trial tracker, although there’s some of my editorial snarkiness here):
(Currently I’m following a rule “let the specific person asked have the first chance to answer”. After that, my two cents: )
– Most people care about others’ feelings, including folks on the spectrum. Someone who says or does something to be hurtful, not merely careless, is being a jerk. Particularly if they ignore another person’s clearly expressed wishes to do so.
– Most people on the spectrum know they’re likely to be misperceived by neurotypicals. They’ll work to *resolve the miscommunication*, for clarity, or to demonstrate their point through discussion, not to gain victory over the other person. Someone who focuses on how right they are, or how wrong the other person is, most likely is being a jerk.
– And, most people on the spectrum don’t attempt to manipulate others. Manipulation requires good practical understanding of social cues and subtext. Manipulation tactics tend to identify a jerk.
Entitled reddit letter: It’s focusing on controlling the other person, not on solving the ostensible miscommunication. Never once does the letter inquire about the other person’s feelings or opinions, but constantly assumes and ascribes, often with belittling language and inferences. And, all the claims made in the letter are justifications for the writer’s actions, opinions, and preferences, without ever admitting the possibility of error. In fact it leaves the recipient no “out” except by direct contradiction. In my opinion, this is most likely an entitled, self-absorbed jerk cultivating an image of honest cluelessness. (He might be on the spectrum *too* of course.)
Disclaimer: I’m not formally diagnosed as aspie/on the spectrum, though I’ve been INformally diagnosed by multiple counselors and learning specialists. (Is “aspie” an impolite or outmoded term now? That’s usually what I call myself.)
chigau (違う)
True. tvtropes only makes your time disappear.
Online shopping. Harder than ever to resist. ;)
http://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/
Fuck. An 18-screener with one too many <blockquote> quotes and deeply silly < failures in it. The first quote that begins with >> should have ended in <<, and here’s all the rest (which of course shouldn’t have been in italics):
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
I fear there’s more than one of precisely such scary people out there.
A bit further down there’s this comment by Too_Gullible:
>>
Lauren,
I cannot believe you have defamed me like this. I am hurt and heartbroken, etc. I was a little put off when you ignored me, but from this its very clear you are getting my messages, voicemails and texts, etc. This was supposed to be a private message to you, not to all of reddit. Thats why I googled your name and found your email address and didnt post this to twitter or facebook, etc. Please remove this as I am very hurt by your lack of respect for both my interest in you along with my advances toward you. Why is it so easy for you to talk to all of reddit about this and not myself? Please have a conversation with me personally, etc.
Regards, Michael
<<
If that’s genuine, it’s more of the expected cluelessness.
(For instance, does he really expect Lauren will ever see that comment? It’s one of 941 as of this writing!)
:-D :-D :-D
How about chocolate?
~:-|
That, too.
Yeah. The difference is he doesn’t ask. He simply assumes she‘s broken.
Again, not incompatible with the autism spectrum.
I’m way behind the thread, but:
kristinc, Illuminata, I feel the same way, except from the other side. I noticed from a very, very young age that women who were tied up made my funny parts tingle. I don’t think its social conditioning. (5 – 8 years old? I didn’t even know I had funny parts.)
++++++++++++++++++
I didn’t much care for spicy foods until I moved from the Midwest to the Southern climes. The hotter it got climate-wise, the more I enjoyed spicy foods. It wasn’t ‘Oh, it hurts, give me more’ or ‘I iz a manly man, I can take it’ it was just ‘wow, this is amazing!’
Since I’ve moved back to the Midwest my taste for it has abated, even in my own cooking. (I had to scale down my White Chili recipe so I can eat it.)
I’ve heard that spicy food is more popular as one approaches the equitorial climes because you sweat more and then cool more. May be bullshit. But brighter colors, hotter spices … there maybe something to it.
+++++++++++++
“It’s a way to be totally in control of not being in control, if that makes any sense.”
It makes perfect sense.
++++++++++++++
FIRE STORY, oh, wait, it’s not a fire story, it’s BDSM advice; don’t just establish a safe word, establish two levels of safeword. One is ‘I’m not sure I like where this is going’, the other is “STOP!”
My partners pick which ones, but Yellow, and Red seem to work. And you can clearly delineate them from behind a gag.
Brownian
The only thing in my garden that gets aphids is the dill and only late season.
I don’t park under a tree so no aphid-shit on the truck.
or maybe I’m in a better neighbourhood ;)
<blockquote
.Don’t feel obliged to answer, but… didn’t you just contradict yourself? Are you the M part of BDSM, or are you not?
You’re not quoting me there, David. That was a response to me.
Fucking keyboards. how do they work?
Brownian – you have made me pull an ab muscle with laughter in this thread.
I am decidedly not autistic, and lived too early for Asperger’s to be recognized in the US. So as a kid was diagnosed with neither. As an adult, people competent to diagnose feel that it’s very possible /probable that if we went through the process that I’d be diagnosable/diagnosed.
But as an adult, there’s not really treatment, and I’ve developed my coping skills over decades, they aren’t likely to change now.
All of which is to say that my fantastically long posts are just an expression of exactly this type of mind. One of the things I love about the internet generally and P in particular is that I can type up all the details that I think are so fabulously interesting and relevant…and no one has to be bored by them if they don’t want to. I’m not running over conversational boundaries by writing a long post. People just don’t respond to it if they don’t want to.
Anyway, I’m careful about saying I’m Aspie b/c I don’t have any “official recognition” (women and asperger’s have an interesting history anyway, in some communities more likely to be diagnosed in many communities, less), but so many things that are part of common Aspie experience are also central to mine.
And that paragraph quoted above? Me to a frickin’ T.
It’s absolutely official: Boies (Olson’s counterpart in seeking to overturn) is my fucking hero. I am absolutely in awe of him as a speaker and litigator. Seriously:
Side note, everyone watching points out that the judges are content to let Boies argue without peppering him with questions, something untrue of every other attorney today. He’s amazing.
Please forgive my geeking out and spamming TET, BTW.
So… I”m so behind b/c I have a new crush and have been on the phone with her every single night for multiple hours during what is often my prime writing time. I have a paper that just has to get done b4 tomorrow and an article that is supposed to be done tomorrow but really could be e-mailed any time before Texas’ business day on Monday. So I should be writing my brains out, but I’ve been here a lot this week.
While I’ve been here, the new Molly came out (for A. Noyd, to whom I say conga rats and you didn’t have one before?) and I ended up learning about the voting (after making a fool of myself) and other things. I’d looked through the order before, but never before this morning did I feel myself so missing the links to actual comments. While some of the nominees have links this month, not all do, but more important, there are a whole lot of winners in the OM up there and very few have links to why they won.
I bring this up for 2 reasons: smashing trolls and bad arguments is a particularly common reason for giving an OM, but there aren’t very many examples of it to which PZ has links for my reading enjoyment.
and
2) It made me which for some serious stupidity so that it would generate some serious excellence around here. After all, it was the most compelling stupidity (3d4k was only the last example of this before I lept in & started commenting, but it was things like this, way back to the CrackerCaper, that got me reading here) that really motivated me to be here and enjoy this place… or at least the responses to that stupidity.
Is it bad that I almost bristle for a fight. There is so much stupid out there, I love it when Stupid tries to drop by for a cup of tea and a conversation about our personal lord and savior to find that this charming place of intellectual discussion is quite a den of lions. And, um, porcupines.
But anyway, back to everyday life…
Brownian
Aphids are sap-sucking insects, so I think something else was eating your peppers and tomatoes. Or you grow some enormous mutant aphids in the great white north.
___
Pine-sol in water at a 1:100 dilution ratio is an effective treatment for soft-bodied insects and spider mites.
*do not spray in full sun/ impatiens don’t like it.
Hah! Take that, Cooper! I love seeing arguments reframed like this:
…Holy moley David, speaking of length!
Not necessarily. I assumed that when other kids cried and screamed when bitten by a grass snake, it was because of OMG SNAAAAKE and not because the little teeth actually hurt that much. Other kids not going barefoot on rocks or ice, I ascribed to OMG SHOES MANDATORY and so forth. …I’ve never been good with rules that made no sense *to me*. Hence, atheist…
Cervixes are squirmy, though; they shift around, even in the same individual (just ask a gyno nurse *snaps speculum meaningfully*). Also, some … 20%, I think, of uterus-bearers have retroflexed uteri, where they lie behind the vagina instead of in front. The vagina also changes shape with muscle tension, experience, hormones… I’ve even heard that the cervix can retract further from the vaginal space with arousal. YMMV.
Heh, I know that actually, but I was screwing around so said “penii” for humorous effect. Which leads into:
because when I say “for petes sake” in my head I’ve meant “for penes sake” ever since I was a kid and learned that “peter” was another nickname for the male-mammal dangly thing. I have more respect for, and would rather swear by, my favorite sex organ than some holy dead dude. I had to camouflage it though, because fundies. (Yes I know there’s no apostrophe. There’s no apostrophe in “fer chrissake” either. Nyah.)
30C and sunshine and I have to work the next 10 hours !
Hey Horde, I’ve been asked to comment on this guy, but I don’t know much about him. Looks to be just another “quantum” kook, Templeton-style, but I’ve never heard of the guy, and someone over here asked me about him the other day. Does anyone know more ?
Yeah, there are some damn strong muscles there, but it’s definitely a malleable area in general. However, I guess I would try to describe mine as bumpily “on top” of my vagina partway in. I definitely don’t have a big one (hence the bigger-is-NOT-better preference), so I think it’s just a case of having everything connect together a little differently.
What’s to forgive? Open thread, and some (most I would guess) are interested in hearing the defenders of proposition 8 shooting themselves in both feet, both hands, and their buttocks.
@Nerd of Redhead, I’m always nervous that I fill up long quotes of attorneys talking and annoy people. It’s been my experience that when I geek out about this stuff with most people in person, they look at me like a crazy person. I have a full stenographer’s notebook of notes from Walker’s original wonderful ruling. As soon as the full text was out, I printed it out and pored over it with a highlighter and pen. Just amazing stuff.
Today’s hearing was fascinating, for all that it was about releasing videotapes and appealing Ware’s decision not to piss on judicial neutrality. It was fun to see that at the very end, Cooper’s rebuttal got emotionally heated because he was pissed he is going to lose on Ware’s recusal ruling. It really was astonishing to watch him flail. It made Boies look so much more collected and polished by comparison (and I’m really sad the livestream got just trashed).
Habanero juice
I know this from personal experience.
Crip Dyke:
I try to provide links for each of my noms, but I haven’t always done it. The reasons and links in the Molly list are only there if we provide them in the OM nom threads. Oh, btw, PZ doesn’t handle the mollies anymore, he gave those over to Mary so they’d actually get done each month.
@chigau -#362
is there a reason you made this comment:
The new Canadian $100 is made of plastic.
Sharp! edges.
On a thread discussing size, sex, bdsm, and guys who think that money is for sex?
You’re not trying to tell us something, are you? Because you a) missed the TMI tag, but b) you don’t have to beat around the bush, we’re supportive here.
Well, the coverage is now over, Cooper got his last two minute rebuttal (though he wanted more). During it, he apparently lost it because it’s clear he’s lost; I’m so disappointed not to have been able to watch the hearing. He tried repeating the same arguments about how it’s fine to single out minorities as unable to judge other like minorities impartially, and was described by lots of people as shrilly furious. (If we were talking about a woman, I might be a little suspicious of the word, as an aside.)
I think they know they’ve lost on the appeal re: recusal. I think that the 3 judge panel may rule in the proponents’ favor about video release to prevent broadcast, even though they did not object when it was admitted into court record. All in all a fascinating thing.
Caine – #417:
I noticed that you provided a link to every one of your noms. I actually very much appreciated it, but I didn’t want my comment to be about one person here being better than another person here. I like the links. I think they’re good. I appreciate learning history (even though I’ve been reading since just before crackergate, there was a long time when I never read TET where so many of the traditions round here are either created or cemented, so there’s a lot of history that I still don’t know). I want more. I just didn’t want to fight about it or make any folk feel like I was saying that they were somehow slacking. We all write exactly as much as we can and want to write. To say someone was slacking for writing some but not enough would have to be even more of an indictment of those who read without writing. Yet how could I name them? So it just seemed easier to go without names.
But for the record, a lot of the history I’ve learned around here has been through your helpful engagement with my noobness and your wicked-strong google-fu.
I hugz u.
Finally managed to get the monster dogs out and about for play the other day. They had a lot of fun running on Lake Tschida.
Crip Dyke:
Hugz right back. ♥ ♥
The molly nom threads can be a hassle when things get busy, and you remember people, but only that. I try to keep a list and bookmark peoples, but I’m not consistent about doing it.
Try ahs. I think he bookmarks everything. ;)
DC LOCALS:
Just a quick reminder:
mfheadcase (or mikefoxtrothow) is in DC for the next few week and would like to meet up with the local Horde. So, here’s the plan:
Saturday, December 10th: Meet in front of the Smithsonian Castle at noon; museum(s) of choice or other sight-seeing TBD.
Saturday, December 17th: Dinner in DC at a restaurant TBD. If you’re unable to make the Smithsonian trip, you can join us for dinner; please RSVP so I can get an idea of the head count.
Wednesday, December 21st: Nancy already posted this, but just a reminder: Solstice gathering at Matthew’s 1600 in B-more.
Please let me know (if you haven’t already) which events you’ll be able to attend so I can organize the logistics. :) (Also, if you’re coming this Saturday to the Smithsonian and don’t have my cell phone number, email me at oniongirlsays at googlemail dot com.
I hope I’m not going to offend anyone, but I wanted to comment on the upthread size discussion.
and…start the TMI:
While the hollow strap on is a great idea for versatility in some situations, it doesn’t magically *reduce* size for other situations.
But, and here’s where I might offend a lot of people, I’m trying to say this without judgement:
I just don’t fucking get straight people.
I’ve had sex with women and men and people who are neither. I’ve had sex involving male bodies, female bodies, and bodies neither male nor female in the everyday senses of those words. And there have been absolutely no shortage of things to do when there are no penes in play and no shortage of things to do when there are penes in play.
But if a particular phallus isn’t going to work for a particular activity, why not skip the activity? Turkey basters can handle insemination and everything else is just about relationships building, emotional expression, being nice to bodies, and orgasms. You can even have mutual simultaneous orgasms when one person is stimulating oneself and another. I’ve actually found that Hitachi magic wands (and similar) can work wonders on male or not-female anatomy. There is so much to do. If doing one particular thing is going to cause unwanted hurt or discomfort, or even if it just doesn’t further or antagonizes efforts towards the goals listed above (it isn’t loving to cause unwanted pain, discomfort isn’t what brings orgasms, etc).
So, yeah, I know that evolution and peer pressure cause a disproportionate focus on PiV sex, and if it works for you, even if it seems humdrum, milquetoast, or routine, I’m all for y’all straight people gettin it on that way.
But if it doesn’t work, what is it that makes it so difficult to just ask, “So what were the actual goals/motivations for sex anyway? Once we know what those are, can those goals/motivations be met/satisfied by anything else? (And I’d be surprised if the answer was no).
I’m not trying to troll. I guess part of this is advocacy of seeing sex differently, but part of this is just one giant WTF?
Straight people, how do you work?
Crip Dyke,
It would be farcical of me to answer seriously for all straight people, but as most of my play fits the straight end of the spectrum I would start with a silly response: We don’t.
#425
It all comes down to brain chemistry and what gets us fired up.
Not gonna post next to MM.
A demain!
mythusmage
Oops, no. I get that.
But clearly, based on size discussion here but also based on lots of info from elsewhere, there’s pressure to make PiV work when it clearly isn’t working.
I’m wondering why people seek something that clearly *doen’t* get at least half of the people in the room fired up.
Also, I suppose I have to admit that my friends and lovers do not constitute a random sample, but I think that even if we start from a place of “one way sex must happen to be sex” that, since that’s straight sex which we aren’t having (often), we *have to* get passed it.
Maybe my question is just as much for queer folk who can remember that transition from thinking that there was a type of sex that just has to be on the menu (and even has to be the main course)…so long as they also remember where that came from. I just think it would be easier if there are people who are closer to that dilemma when I’m looking for insight on that dilemma.
Also, I said, “Straight people, how do you work?” because I wanted to say, “fucking straight people, how do you work” but I didn’t want to have that taken the wrong way.
But actually, that latter question really would be the question to ask…if they weren’t too busy to be reading my posts on TET til they were no longer “fucking straight people.”
Crip Dyke, I think a lot of hetro peoples are adventurous and playful when it comes to sex. They end up being subjected to stereotypes too.
When it comes to the whole penis size business (which has been a frequent subject of TET talk), I don’t care for the large ones either, my vagina being on the small and tight side. My ex had a very large one, 12″ and talk about pain…yeesh. I think a larger problem is cultural. Men (U.S.) are brought up that it’s taboo to look at other tonkers and that ‘bigger is better’. The whole ‘bigger is better’ thing is really about relating to other males, though, rather than anything to do with females. When it does come to relating to women, there’s a sense of pride in the size, so the woman is supposed to be awed and all happy about it.
Crip Dyke:
Just a word here – ‘mythusmage’ aka Alan Kellogg is well known on Pharyngula, as a seriously fucked up person, a crackpot who tends to jump on newbs who don’t know who he is and will actually give him attention.
Talk to him at your own risk, and don’t be surprised if there are many yells of shut the fuck up directed at mm.
Catholic trolls want to “Adopt an Atheist“.
In my personal and admittedly limited experience, there’s quite a bit of variation as to how PiV sex can be carried out. Positions, obviously, but also rhythms and angles and such. Of course, this all applies to strap ons too. Except strap ons aren’t inundated with nerve endings.
I think, from my hetero perspective, it’s as much a problem of half the hetero equation not listening to what the other half may like, or assuming they all like the same thing the same way, as PiV sex flat out clearly not working.
Beyond that, I’m not sure how I can explain it. Instinct. For a guy who argued so vociferously for free will a thread or two back, I’m a very instinctive creature.
Jesus Lover
“Talk to him at your own risk, and don’t be surprised if there are many yells of shut the fuck up directed at mm.”
I don’t mind engaging until the f*d up comes out. I won’t be surprised by others’ admonishments either. To me it’s the internetz, what’s the worst he could do?
*nodnodnod* though there *are* imaginative, open-minded straight people, too. (Or so I hear…)
I can’t for the life of me figure out why mainstream culture, in America anyway, is so damn determined to stay sex-phobic. Sex can’t possibly exist! …Okay, it can exist, but only vanilla sex! Within male-female marriage! For purposes of breeding or male needs only! (not for FUN never ever EVER) With the man dominant! And there must be a Man and a Woman (or maybe women, plural) involved and all men are This and all women are That, No Exceptions, nothing In Between ever ever!!
I mean, frick, people aren’t LIKE this. They’re just not. Nobody gets this wild hair up their butt about only one kind of sports, or cooking, or TV show, or career. I hate to blame it on religion, but dangit… I don’t know of anything else that involves this level of systemic silencing and disappearing. Except maybe racism… cripes, it may just come down to misogyny, after all. How dare two horny people deviate from the [M/F] script.
*refocus*
…anyway, I think a lot of straight people buy into the severely restricted narrative, while another lot learn surreptitiously, and neither of these groups will talk openly about sex at all, much less unconventional sex. So all of us get a skewed picture of what “normal” actually is, much less what the possibilities could be. Personally, withholding sexual education from people pisses me off as much as withholding formal education. It demeans us.
And while PIV is overrated, yes, some of us really get off (so to speak) on penetration. It’s just neat to play with a body part designed to go inside places that feel good and are inconvenient to reach by yourself. (Though it’d be cool if we were snails. Woo, size!)
Crip Dyke:
Annoy the ever lovin’ fuck outta the rest of us, like he did on the last TET when he wouldn’t shut up.
Ohgodohgodohgod
Caine you completely crack me up.
…Get right on that, medical technology. *cackles*
Spicy food: Love it, much more so than when I was in high school. I once ate a whole bowl of spicy seafood noodle soup even though my lips and tongue were tingling like crazy, my face was red, and my eyes were red and watery. It was sooooo good (but my best friend was utterly worried).
————————————————–
Size.
Well, J is a pretty good size for me, although from certain angles it can start to hurt my cervix. I guess it’s one of those times when fantasy and reality don’t meet: Sure I like to fantasize about guys who are bigger than 5 or 6, but in real life that’s probably the best range for me.
Surprisingly, I’ve found that my first ever dildo is about the same length and thickness as he is. I guess that worked out nicely.
—————————————————
Mom bought two boxes of Yodels last shopping trip. For some reason this reminded me of how I would fondly spend my Saturdays in college: Kickboxing in the morning, followed by lunch at a little Cuban restaurant, sometimes then followed by a trip to the 7-11 for a bottle of milk and Funny Bones.
—————————————————-
I must admit, I love this clip mostly because Dag is playing a guitar, very well, and then eats it when Norbert pisses him off. Plus, I love the simile he uses to describe Norb’s singing.
Pteryxx:
Oh, that’s just not true. Most people will happily talk about sex at every opportunity, regardless of orientation. Much to my surprise, your first category (the severely restricted narrative) tend to open up and talk themselves silly about sex when they find out I’m bi. That’s happened time after time after time.
BlowsBoggles my mind.I’ve read the reason is disinfection… either way, except for Korea, the places with the spiciest cuisines are all hot in climate, with southern China and southern India having considerably hotter food than their northern counterparts despite otherwise similar cultures.
I’m famous for it. I’ve written 23-screeners.
Oh. I see.
High pain tolerance has been claimed to often occur together with Asperger’s, BTW.
Same here!
Ah. All unsurprising in hindsight, but good to know! :-)
:-)
A lot of that is probably just cultural preconceived ideas about what sex is, but maybe I can help figure out where those ideas came from in the first place (other than the obvious factors: 1) the Christian and Roman idea that sex is strictly for procreation and mustn’t be enjoyed; 2) privilege means lack of exposure to alternatives to PiV, so people who aren’t naturally imaginative or curious about such things won’t discover them on their own; 3) those who are tend to be shut up by 1)…).
See… as far as I know, I only have one place where touch can be sexual stimulation, whether it leads all the way to orgasm or not, and that’s the tip of my penis. (OK, I suppose that’s actually 2 places, the foreskin and the tip of the glans underneath, but… never mind, it’s so late at night at I don’t want to keep typing for too long.) I don’t know if my prostate would also work, but I’m not willing to try, because I simply can’t imagine I’d like that (hypersensitive as I am); and while apparently most men can be sexually stimulated at their nipples (as I learned here on Pharyngula a few months ago), I’m not one of those (if brief self-experimentation is a reliable guide… but I’m sure it is; I’m so sensitive I actually sometimes manage to tickle myself when I try). Apparently it’s possible to go all the way to orgasm from just fantasizing; it’s imaginable that I can do that, but I’ve never tried that hard (pun not intended), and apparently I only have wet dreams – or dreams that, much to my confusion till I wake up, suddenly turn sexual for no discernible internal reason! – when mechanical stimulation (from just accidentally lying in a stupid position while wearing too loose pyjamas) is already occurring. I’ve even on a few occasions woken up having an orgasm without any dream before it. So, any activity that is supposed to stimulate me sexually will probably involve the tip of teh pen0r touching something, exactly as the patriarchy wants it.
…Um. I speak in the future tense because… you’re new to TET, so you probably don’t know it… I’m a virgin. And no, that’s not a matter of definition. I “blame” it on knowing very few people in meatspace.
Vibrators?
As far as I can tell, it’s a competition of “I am measurably more popular with teh ladeez than you, loser”, and it’s based on the premise that The Ladies Monolith really does think bigger is better.
I’m quite sure there isn’t an instinct to insert tab A into slot B.
Obviously, people who believe this aren’t, on their own, going to get the idea that they could be wrong, so they simply won’t talk to each other. Then it won’t work, and they won’t know why.
The discussion where this was explained in detail, with tons of TMI, was in the same thread as the one about nipple stimulation, right?
Hmm… I grok I may have missed the crest of the TMI/bdsm/capsaicin wave, but even so…
First, let me preemptively apologize to all the actual kinksters here for even broaching the topic, because my own real-life sex life is (and seems likely to remain) about as vanilla as you could possibly imagine (that’s a sort of inverse TMI right there, isn’t it: “TMI about nothing”?)… and I’m guessing looky-lou wallflowers like me make your eyes roll.
That said, pain play — specifically, spanking — features prominently in my erotic imagination. It would feature prominently in my (fairly modest) porn consumption, too, if I could only find the kind of thing I like. The thing is, it’s specifically the “pain” — the sensual/sensory aspect — that I’m interested in, rather than the dom/sub aspects: I want to watch people having sex where spanking is simply part of the sexual repertoire, just one more form of erotic touch. I really have no interest in the punishment/domestic discipline role play that dominates virtually all of the spanking porn I’ve seen (not to mention depictions of erotic spanking in mainstream films).
I’ve actually seen exactly one video (sadly no longer available from the place I downloaded it from) that fits my imagination on this point: One woman laying into her lover’s ass with her bare hand, but with no suggestion of dominance or submission or punishment or humiliation or anything other than pure sensual pleasure on both women’s part.
I’ve pondered this — Why do I think this is hot? Why do I imagine I would enjoy it myself? How could I explain it to someone? — and the only analogy I’ve been able to come up with is the very one that led TET down this path: hot spicy food.
Dhorvath, you and I have really been on the same wavelength recently, because this…
…is exactly it (almost exactly that same list, though I confess I don’t know what DOMS is). Those things — especially the foods — no doubt fire the sort of neural pathways that many, if not most, read as pain… but to me, in those contexts, they read as pleasure instead. It’s not that I like hot food because it hurts; it’s that hurt isn’t how I experience it.
And that’s how I imagine erotic spanking, too.
But probably I’ll never know.
Caine: quite a few straight folks will talk to me too, if and only if we’re somewhere safe and *I* take the first step into each level of TMI’ness. How the heck do they talk to each other, if they have to wait for someone freakier than them to go first? But again, I am in Texas currently, so I’m pretty sure everyone here’s more hesitant than in some places to go into detail unless they’re behind a safely closed door. I did link to that save-the-veggies ad earlier; they had a billboard up in Texas, so of course people complained about it. (Also, in anatomy study groups I had to explain a LOT of sex-based TMI to other students. Such as, how hymens work, how withdrawal doesn’t… yeesh, some of these folks had fiancees.)
*chortle!*
I find a lot of people, and men in particular, are completely lacking in sensuality/eroticism/imagination when it comes to sex. In their impoverished minds, the
peniswunderschwanz is the star of the show.See also- I did not have sex with that woman.
So on the more serious front, I would say that education plays a serious role in why so many people end up with a messed paradigm of what constitutes sex. I was lucky in the exposure I received regarding what was possible and how little normal really means, but my first sexual partner had no clue and we ended up having many discussions to work out what was possible and spent much time sorting out what worked for us. Not everyone has that luxury and so you end up with people who think that sex means penis in vagina.
I wonder sometimes if it’s not one place that being straight is a distinct disadvantage, everyone else has to go looking for their sexuality but most straight people just assume the script provided to them is accurate and try to adapt themselves to the script. It’s very sad, even with people trying to break out, it’s easy to fall into the same ruts. We end up with people barely making any progress due to trying to rediscover what others already know and could convey easily were frank talk about sexuality more common.
We run into this with partners all the time, they aren’t thinking outside of porn if they are even thinking that far, they have sex by accident and then wonder why it’s frustrating or disappointing. As a society we could do better, but this sexual frustration seems to suit a certain group of people: they want people unsatisfied because it ties in well with guilt.
David:
It certainly is possible. I find it quite easy to do.
Pteryxx:
Ah. I have no experience with Texas. (And no desire to gain said experience.) It makes ND look positively orgiastic by comparison, though. ;D
Generally, I’ve found people who have a “go with the flow” attitude to be open about sexual experience and more willing to learn and experience more than script sex.
Bill D,
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. The after effect of intense or unusual muscle training, generally peaking between 24 and 48 hours post exercise.
Bill:
Is it not possible to work that into your current repertoire?
David M: Re self-experimentation, I’d mention that partner and I discovered quite by accident that types of stimulation we’d tried on ourselves, with little or no effect, suddenly became effective when performed on us by the other person. Nipple stimulation was the biggest surprise (so far). In fact, there’s a few tricks I can now use on myself because my partner ‘taught’ them to me, when they never worked before. Obviously I don’t know if that’d hold true for you, being capable of self-tickling and all, but it might… it sure startled us. Sexual response ties into imagination, socializing, communication, proprioception, reflexes… it’s just completely bizarre and fascinating.
…HOW DID I MISS THIS AWESOME DISCUSSION
One year I had to evacuate my mother’s green room before the first serious frost, and then we ate quite a bit unripened capsicums. The green cayennes tasted mostly like peas, but the jalapeños had quite a bit punch even at that point.
Caine,
This has not been my experience, even getting people who have met with the intent of talking about sex is not easy.
Naw, not at all. Not for me, anyway. Not everyone has to keep ramping the kinkiness up to find pleasure, much less try to out-weird each other. Vanilla’s just as valid a choice as anyone else’s, as long as it’s a choice and not enforced out of ignorance or shame.
My main character (the horndog with all these NSFW adventures) has a grassy spot where he likes to lie in the sun after swimming, and he will fantasize about having an old flame there to dry off beside. That’s about as simple as it gets, after all the metahumans and aliens and whatnot. (Someday I hope to draw that scene, even.)
Dhorvath:
Maybe it’s just me.
The good news:
I have a confirmed A in Digital Image Processing.
I’m probably going to get an A in Principles of Computer Architecture (if I did the math right).
I’m going to get an A in Intro to Theory of Algorithms if I make better than a 56 on the final (and that’s assuming no curve).
My other two courses are S/U (pass/fail), so they don’t count.
So, as best I can tell, I’m one test grade away from a 4.0 semester.
The bad news:
I’m currently running a fever of 100.3°F. Oog.
Adding to mine @455:
People have always talked to me. Even when I really, really, really don’t want them to.
@Crip Dyke, I absolutely love that you asked this question:
I’m probably not the best person to explain the obsession with PIV sex being the only sex that “counts” right off the bat. Since my definition of “having sex” with someone doesn’t have to involve even touching the other person.
I’ve honestly always been kind of creeped out by people who want to make PIV sex happen if it’s just not fulfilling for both people, and I’ve been very lucky with spouse to have open, well-communicated happy sex for years. But I think I blame the whole religious thing of sex=potential for children from God. Other types of sex were (and in many places still are) criminalized so they’re not “real sex.” It’s pretty much stupidity itself.
That being said, I’m definitely on the end of the Kinsey scale straight, so I kind of understand really wanting PIV sex at times. There is something psychologically about the type of closeness you get from, say, the missionary position that is hard to describe.
Or just as easily maybe it’s just me. Do you find it changes depending on it being just you or you with your partner? I am male and there is certainly a well earned reputation for men to take a conversation about sex as an invitation. I am now thinking that pressure could be at play at least for me given the situations I am familiar with.
David M
Um…nearly every member of the animal kingdom does have this instinct. It seems silly that humans alone do not possess sexual instincts. We just like to pretend we aren’t animals.
Dhorvath:
It does change if my partner’s in on the conversation, at least until it’s realized that he’s open-minded, easy going and kind.
DrDMFM:
Hmmm… I would put it differently: I’ve come to think of what you’re calling pain there as raw signal data. What I think of as pain is more of a cognitive construct: what we end up with when we process the raw data. Sometimes some of us process the same data differently, and end up with pleasure instead.
Which is not to say I don’t get your point that it’s a different physiological phenomenon than processing taste/flavor. FWIW, hot peppers have (IMHO) wonderful flavor in addition to the heat.
***
Crip Dyke:
Well, I guess I’m laser-straight, Kinsey 0, in that my erotic/romantic focus is entirely on people of the opposite sex[1]. In my experience…
straight ≠ phallocentric
In fact, in virtually all of my relationships. I’ve been the one advocating for less focus on PiV and more on… well, almost anything else (even though I’ve confessed just upthread to being boring vanilla, that’s a matter of circumstance rather than inclination); it’s been my partners (including my current mate of 27 years) who’ve been relatively more intent on “a little of the ol’ in-out.”
Honestly, PiV is the least pleasurable aspect of sex to me (keeping in mind that “least pleasurable” is a completely relative term, and admitting that some of the most pleasurable also involve the P). It’s really not the case (at least, I don’t think it is) that straight folks are invariably nothing but piledrivers.
***
[1] And I have no incentive to fudge on this point, since around these parts, all the cool kids are Kinsey Nonzero. I’d happily claim a step or two up the numberline, if I could do so honestly.
Benjamin,
That is stupendous. Good on you.
Well… for what it’s worth, most of my sex education has been in just the last few years, and during that time, I’ve been alone. The major meatspace conversations I’ve had with regular folks were mostly in the context of that anatomy class, with a mixed male-female study group of about 20… though now that you mention it, the women sure did ask almost all of the questions. I don’t know if the men were too embarrassed or just not interested (or, possibly, intimidated), but they were far quieter during that conversation than any of the others. Now I wish I’d paid closer attention.
—
Bill:
…Personally, I’d love to hear MORE about sex from the straight/vanilla POV. Most of my learning’s come from the gay, lesbian, kinky or just plain odd communities (i.e. furries, natch.) Honestly, I feel like straight people are underrepresented on the topic.
Dhorvath:
Ahh, you mean what happens when you start back at the gym after having slacked off for far to long, eh? Something that happens to me several times each year!
I was a (too-small, entirely unskilled) football player for one year in middle school, and I would regularly get laid the hell out in drills during practice (I was a lineman, because even though I was too small for the line, I was too slow and uncoordinated for anything else). My memory is that that feeling of impact — of being crashed into — was really wonderful.
***
Caine:
It’s not impossible, but I think it’s unlikely: My wife has given no hint of any erotic interest in pain, and she has a specific, very profound philosophical horror of corporal punishment. Now, my (hypothetical) kink is distinctly not about punishment, even in a role-playing sense, but I think that would look like a distinction without a difference to her eyes. I’m afraid even bringing the subject up would upset her terribly.
Perhaps I’ll eventually hit on the right combination of courage and a creative approach, but in the meantime….
Also, I gather that some people have outside play partners on a just bdsm play, no sex basis… but what I have in mind is all about sex, and so would definitely constitute cheating. So I won’t go there.
Bill:
Ah, but this isn’t about punishment at all. Has she never playfully given you a slap on the ass or snapped you with a towel?
Part of being a loving partner is the willingness to listen to your partner and at least consider exploring new things. I don’t know, of course, but you might be selling your wife short here. I suppose you’ll never know if you aren’t willing to talk with her.
BDSM is all wrapped up with sex for me, however, I’m not strictly monogamous.
Bill D,
With appropriate cycling of resistance, sets, reps, and exercises that sensation need not be abandoned by someone who is training regularly. Just sayin’.
_
I didn’t play any ball sports, or team events for that matter, but I think I can understand based on the things that I do pursue and the impacts related to them. Crashing off my bike is not something I seek out, but it is not always traumatic and sometimes basically fun and I could see how tumbling of that sort could trigger the same sorts of sensations.
Hey, DrDMFM, I already noted that you didn’t have to use XOR – in the actual post that you quoted!
CripDyke, re: “But if a particular phallus isn’t going to work for a particular activity, why not skip the activity?” – Ouchies can happen by accident. You might not know that a particular position with a particular phallus will hurt, until you actually try it.
Caine:
Probably I am, though I think its more a matter of my own cowardice than any lack of regard for her. I often think I’m exaggerating in my own mind her likely reaction… but I also often think that the potential consequences of going for it and being wrong are less tolerable than the consequences of the status quo (i.e., of not going for it): It’s not killing me to forego this avenue of experimentation; screwing up my marriage just might.
But (as I’ve quoted here before) “I am but an egg; waiting is.” Perhaps the time will come when I will see things differently.
Um… that association of spanking with punishment might have to be un-learned on a deep basis before seriously considering it. I certainly couldn’t convince myself that a given sensation didn’t mean what my less conscious mind thought it meant, based on the rather extreme reaction I had. Much less bring myself to try it on someone else, even someone I love who’s asked for it. Maybe that’s abuse-specific and I’m making too cautious an estimation; but saying “even mentioning it might upset her” doesn’t sound good.
Bill D,
But does it have to scary? Can you maybe broach something else, a gateway?
Hey,
Sorry if this has been asked and answered but have we organised Pharyngula tables for the Saturday night dinner at the GAC? If so, who do I see about getting a seat?
Now that I’m back from my Medieval dance class…
@CripDyke:
re: autism. I was diagnosed at 22. FWIW. And while there’s not a lot for adults, true, there is some. Just having the right words to describe stuff, for example. Do you hang out around ASAN, for example? As someone diagnosed as an adult
re: het sex. Well, speaking as a Kinsey 5.5, uh? I gotta say, the few times I’ve had sex with the male-bodied and -identified (like, all 3 times), penii were focal members only infrequently. There was finger play, there was mouth play, there was vibrator play (in both directions), and there was PIV. Of course, the fact that (1) my attitude towards penii can be summed up as “lolwut” and (2) overall, I prefer women probably skews my perspective.
@David Marjanović way up in the 300s:
In other news, I can write a Ph.D. dissertation and defend it, but I cannot properly close an html tag. Go me!
Neither can I properly finish a sentence, apparently. “As someone diagnosed as an adult re: het sex.” indeed.
I’m going to bed.
Just read this thread: http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=28755. Very Poeish. One comment has a signature that lists the sins that Jeebus will damn people for, which would include the daily activities of most Xtians. Also, pumpkins are apparently the Devil’s fruit.
Speedweasel:
Rorschach.
That would be because landover baptist is a parody site.
I’m out too, g’night all.
Caine: Thanks, I was getting that sense.
I know of a SF series by Jacqueline Carey that has as it main character a women named Phèdre nó Delaunay who is termed an anguisette. (she also has an awesome tattoo!)
It’s called the Kushiel Series. The artwork on the cover is what initially attracted me to the book, but it was an enjoyable read and an unusual premise.
hmmm, while the topic is still on sex, the girl I met on PoF and I broke it off earlier tonight. It was painless, drama free, and mutual. That’s… never really happened to me before. :/
I’ve been thinking more on the PiV sex question, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a fair chunk of it is societal pressure. Before I ‘got enlightened’, I always subconciously figured that PiV sex was the only sex that really ‘counted’.
However, I still wouldn’t deny that there’s a strong instinctive component.
Pteryxx:
Funny you should mention abuse. I’m pretty sure my wife was never abused — her mother is a wonderful person and both her parents were, AFAICT, loving and kind, if somewhat overwhelmed by raising 6 kids — but I believe she and her siblings may have been spanked, in the considered parental way that was still fairly common in the 60s and early 70s (and commonly considered normal, even though it might seem shocking today). I certainly was (though not very often, ‘cuz I was a good little boy), both at home and at school. Perhaps she was aware of friends and schoolmates who were punished more severely, if not outright abused.
In any case, early in our marriage, when we were living in our first apartment in Houston, she became obsessed — staying-up-all-night-pacing obsessed — over a series of letters to the editor in the newspaper regarding the corporal punishment policy in the Houston school district. She knew I’d been spanked at school, and seemed almost angry at me for not being more upset about it. For a (very brief) while, I thought she might really “lose it” over this, and I was worried that our brand-new marriage was in trouble.
Does any of this means it would be impossible for her to enjoy a little kinky fun? Of course not: First, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. And, as Caine points out, I may well be underestimating her ability to wrap her mind around a new thing. But I do at least have some real predicate for worrying that the subject might upset her.
The thing is, I’m not obsessed about erotic spanking: It’s just something I’m turned on by in theory, and think I might enjoy. As it stands now (and likely always will), I don’t need it badly enough to be worth the risk of freaking my wife out.
OTOH, if a reasonable, safe-seeming opening were to serendipitously present itself….
Occupy Wall Street now has a political-science journal.
More like a literary journal. But still interesting nonetheless. A bit woo-ish and more focused on the mytho-poetic experience of disliking capitalism than would be to my taste, but well done. “Occupy Theory” is a good idea, the first issue doesn’t have that much theory in it but I’m interested to see what comes next.
So, for those interested in emigrating…
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/12/08/australian-exceptionalism/
Crip Dyke @418
It’s late and my irony detector is in the shop so I’ll treat this straight.
Upthread from my 362 were a number of comments about having sex directly with currency. My comment fits in.
This is The Endless Thread (TET), the Thread™ was not discussing “size, sex, bdsm, and guys who think that money is for sex”, some of the comments adressed those topics, some did not.
I haven’t beat around bushes since … ever.
I know how we are here.
Is it really better in the Bahamas?
Late to the thread, but Esteleth @375:
neem oil. Sorry for non-linkage, I’m still trying to figure out the tags on FTB…
It’s a pure, natural product, non-toxic to humans on smaller levels (and surely you’re not going to eat your gardenia, anyway?) and a small bottle goes a long way!
Saved our, um, gardenias, last summer a couple of times.
That boat might have sailed already, I don’t know. The only person I heard from was Wowbagger, and he didn’t send me the required details yet, so I haven’t put in for any table at all.
Hang about, Rorschach, I contacted you via Facebook some weeks ago, and was told the table was for regular commenters only, and when I asked if it was full, received no reply – so I assumed it was.
Did I get things completely wrong? One of the motivations for me traveling from NZ to Aus. is to meet more Pharyngulites. Sharing a meal would have been a good way to do that – although the cost was really high – I’m going to try and sell my ticket – and a handful of us are looking at a paupers’ meal elsewhere.
OK, I just checked my messages, and I wasn’t quite right. Rorschach, you were organizing a table for regular commenters, but didn’t want to do any other tables – fair enough, I guess. I asked you if the ‘regular commenters’ table was full, didn’t receive a reply, so I assumed it was.
What other information does Wowbagger need to give you, other than ‘I’d like a seat at dinner.’?
Updated version of the old “It’s the end of the world — again!” site?
Anyway, a goodie: A Brief History of the Apocalypse.
Oh, chigau, #486…
I was trying to be funny.
So sorry I failed. I do know TET talks about other things, I just…. It was just funny that that comment came up on the same thread as some of the other comments, including a comment about a guy skipping the middleman and literally fucking money. And after that were comments about paper cuts, IIRC.
So… just funny to me. Tried to be funny back. Catastrophic fail. I’ll be funnier next time, I promise. ;-)
So before 493 I wrote for 48 minutes on a comment and then lost it trying to get it to post.
I’m not going to do it again. I appreciate the people who took pity on my and, solely for my good, I’m sure, were willing to about sex. My queer brain that was forced to get past stereotypes of sex is still very interested in how those stereotypes (or other forces) manage to constrain those they do.
I’ll continue thinking about this.
For David #442:
When you asked “Vibrator” about hte Hitachi Magic Wand, the answer is: Yes. It’s a vibrator, but NOT a dildo.
Here:
http://www.goodvibes.com/display_product.jhtml?id=1-1-AB-BE01
I’ve found that during use on the underside of the penis near or at the tip, male bodied people can certainly come gangbusters from just this. But of course, when you combine it with nipple play or kissing or whatever, it gets even better. The main use imagined for such toys is female use on or near the clit, but these are body massagers and they feel good almost anywhere on the body – on anyone’s body. Use along the labia, perineal area, on the gluteals or even the anus can all cause intensely positive and intensely sexual sensations. But some of those body parts are well developed in male bodies and, as mentioned, there are places uniquely male that can get quite a lot of fun from a vibrator like this.
Because of my disability, I actually use one on my body non-sexually virtually every day. I also use it sexually sometimes, but it really isn’t a “sex toy” to me.
However, this also causes problems for me. Despite the fact that Hitachi doesn’t like to advertise it as a sex toy, queer women 20-60 almost **all** know it as a sex toy, and many straight women, younger or older women, and other people will recognize the device as a sex toy and not, as Hitachi markets it, a general muscle massager.
But me, I use it mostly as a muscle massager (far over 90%) and since it’s not inherently a sex toy, I’ve done things like take the thing with me when I have to spend a long day in the office/at school working on an article or paper. I plug it in and am running it over the outside of my leg trying to calm the pain by relaxing the muscle spasms and someone comes in & sees me reading some thick tome of technical commentary and running an Hitachi up and down my leg…and then excuses hirself immediately.
I’m all, “Bwuh?” Then I start hearing stories that X walked in on me masturbating to academic-ese.
Oy. This is one of the ways my aspie-ish self gets me in big trouble. Hey, it’s not *only* a sex toy. There’s no reason to leap to the conclusion that any use of it must be masturbation. I’m not using it to masturbate. I have a disability that it helps with. Easing pain makes me a more effective worker.
Therefore, Hitachi at work is good for efficiency and I will be praised for my creative thinking not unthinkingly branded as a pervert. QED.
It all made so much sense in my head. Apparently some people do think of the Hitachi *only* as a sex machine, regardless of its actual capabilities….
@1. Tyrant of Skepsis : 7 December 2011 at 4:42 pm
ROTFLMAO! Classic. Happy holidays mate (Raised beer salute to you.)
From Wired:
Rats may have empathy
@ 491,
And I’ve lost interest in doing it now, I’ll just sit with whoever. People move around anyway. But to think that we had, what, 8 or 9 Pharyngula tables last time, and not a single one this time around, is slightly depressing.
Dear gawd, Rev. Between nearly freezing them off, and nearly burning them off, they must be made of tempered steel by now.
(Too bad I’m at work, because an embedded link to Iron Crotch would have been so funny right now!)
Crip Dyke @493
No problem :)
I learned early in my life on line* that irony cannot be conveyed in text-only :(
.
*1993 or so on alt.rec.urbanlegends. You’d think Barb would have recognised witty banter o_O
:(