Oh noes! First we have to worry about catching The Gay…now this!
According to this highly scientific graphic, I’m already around Stage 2 of the recovery process. I mean, I’m not a vegan, and I shave my armpits. I wonder who’s been working so hard at purging that vile Manus haterii from my body!
(Via STFU, Conservatives)
Their exhibit “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” was rotating in Seattle. And when I say rotating, I mean it was temporarily in an old Hollywood Video Store. And when I say exhibit, I mean insane propaganda filled screed. Of course, I guess it’s easy to be anti-psychiatry when you believe the alien Xenu came to Earth millions of years ago to drop hydrogen bombs into volcanoes and we’re now all infected with the ghosts of his victims. To them, real psychological disorders probably seem normal in comparison.
Anyway, it closed for good last night. I’m secretly thankful, because I know the masochistic blogger in me would have felt compelled to check it out. Now I can just giggle about it without the inevitable facepalming.
The clothing information from my photoshoot just went up. Holy crap.
Strenesse cotton wrap top, $220; Pamela Robbins, 914-472-4033. Joe’s Jeans cotton blend jeans, $158; joesjeans.com. Old Navy synthetic ballet flats, $20; Old Navy. Her own necklace.
Just to remind you, this is what that outfit looked like:
$158 for a pair of jeans? $220 for that shirt?! I’m glad I didn’t know that when I was putting it on, or I probably would have destroyed it due to my nerves of trying not to destroy it. I just… don’t understand fashion. I’m not paying more than $30 for a shirt that simple, and when I’m splurging on jeans I’ll shop at The Gap when they’re having a sale.
I could probably concoct that identical outfit for less than 50 bucks. Are these pieces incredibly durable? Are those super famous brands that I’m just oblivious about? Is this like when I watch America’s Next Top Model and don’t understand why they’re screaming happily about something?
The only thing in my price range were the Old Navy shoes, and those were casually destroyed during the shoot. They didn’t have flats in my size, so the just cut the backs off of these. I was wondering why they were so unfazed by destroying their property – it’s because they were worthless compared to everything else!
Oh, and the necklace isn’t mine – it was one of the staff’s. I was wearing my gray Scientific Method Surly Ramics that day. I tried to negotiate getting it in, but failed. Sorry, Amy!
EDIT:
And my outfit was cheap compared to the rest.
Most expensive dress: $1,250
Most expensive shoes: $1,095
I think everything in my closet isn’t work a thousand dollars. Gah.
This is unintentional comedy gold:
I smell a a drinking game. Take a sip every time a stereotype or debunked fallacious claim appears. A very small sip – we don’t want people getting alcohol poisoning.
I love this winning commentary from Steven Humphrey over at Slog:
In case you haven’t noticed, atheists like me RUIN EVERYTHING for EVERYBODY. However, I will not ruin this. What follows is one of the most hilarious, anus-tingling Christian movie trailers ever, in which a small Alaskan town’s Christmas is totally ruined by fat, evil atheist Fat Daniel Baldwin. As it so happens, Fat Atheist Daniel Baldwin is so jealous of hunky Christ Warrior Ted McGinley (who apparently competed with Baldwin for the affections of his own Mom… WHAT???), he’ll do anything to ruin Christmas—even change a town banner to “Seasons Greetings” and man-handle an adorable child dressed as an angel. YOU FUCKING HORRIBLE BASTARD!!! C is for CHRIST, and C is for CHRISTMAS, you fascist, atheist MONSTER!!!!
Amen. …Wait.
The network is set to announce “Bridalplasty,” where brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win extensive surgical procedures.
Each week, a group of women competes head-to-head in such challenges as writing wedding vows and planning honeymoons. The winner receives the chance to choose a plastic surgery procedure from her “wish list.” She’s given the procedure immediately, and results are shown at the start of the following week’s episode.
One by one, the women are voted out by their competitors and, according to the show’s description, “possibly walking away with nothing and losing [their] chance to be the perfect bride.”
The last bride standing will receive a “dream wedding,” where she will reveal her new appearance to friends, family and the groom. “Viewers will witness his emotional and possibly shocked reaction as they stand at the altar and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time following her extreme plastic surgery,” E! said.
…
Just when you thought American television couldn’t sink any lower. My addiction with America’s Next Top Model seems positively cerebral in comparison.
This is so stupid I’m not even going to grace it with serious feminist commentary. Feel free to have a real discussion in the comments – I’m going to be over in the corner weeping.
A Geocentrism conference? Really?
I saw this story floating around and wasn’t going to comment on it, but then I found out the conference is being held in South Bend, Indiana. Oh, Indiana. This is why I usually tell people I’m from Chicago instead (my home town is a Chicago suburb in Indiana, I swear!).
Phil Plait has an excellent summary of why Geocentrism is wrong over at Bad Astronomy, including this particularly insightful bit:
Look, I’m human: I say “The Sun rose in the east today”, and not “the rotation of the Earth relative to the rest of the Universe carried me around to a geometric vantage point where the horizon as seen from my location dropped below the Sun’s apparent position in space.” To us, sitting here on the surface of a planet, geocentrism is a perfectly valid frame of reference. Heck, astronomers use it all the time to point our telescopes. We map the sky using a projected latitude and longitude, and we talk about things rising and setting. That’s not only natural, but a very easy way to do those sorts of things. In that case, thinking geocentrically makes sense.
However, as soon as you want to send a space probe to another planet, geocentrism becomes cumbersome. In that case, it’s far easier to use the Sun as the center of the Universe and measure the rotating and revolving Earth as just another planet. The math works out better, and in fact it makes more common sense.
However, this frame of reference, called heliocentrism, still is not the best frame for everything. Astronomers who study other galaxies use a galactic coordinate system based on our Milky Way galaxy, and the Sun is just another star inside it. Call it galactocentrism, if you want, and it’s just as useful as geo– or heliocentrism in its limited way. And none of those systems work if I want to know turn-by-turn directions while driving; in that case I use a carcentric system (specifically a Volvocentric one).
You use coordinate systems depending on what you need.
So really, there is no one true center to anything. I suppose you could say the Universe is polycentric, or more realistically acentric. You picks your frame of reference and you takes your chances.
…That’s where Geocentrism trips up. Note the upper case G there; I use that to distinguish it from little-g geocentrism, which is just another frame of reference among many. Capital-G Geocentrism is the belief that geocentrism is the only frame, the real one.
I never thought about it that way! Thanks, Phil!
I can now add “Having a game made out of it” to my boobquake meme’s growing list of accomplishments. I’m not sure where it fits in with appearing on the Colbert Report and having a Wikipedia article, but it’s up there.
Here’s the trailer:
I admit I felt about every emotion possible while watching that.
Hm. Mixed feelings indeed.
Though I have a hard time staying disgruntled when I know the creators are two punk-rock looking Germans who are my age and have great art skills, great bright red hair, and great Mario wallpaper.
(Via PahuPahu)
If I haven’t given you enough evidence of how awesome my sister-in-law Erin is, she took me to Coney Island for a burlesque show. Not just any burlesque show… but Colonel Cornstar’s Cuntry Fair. Complete with a heavy petting zoo.
Yes, a farm themed burlesque show. You know it had to be awesome.
But the cherry on top was the celebrity sighting we had there. We were standing in line waiting to get in when someone walked by who looked oddly familiar. I thought maybe I was seeing things, since 1) he was way more stubbly looking than usual and 2) we had just talked about seeing celebrities not an hour before, so maybe I just had celebrities on the brain. I peered at him as he was buying a drink two feet away, and eventually poked Erin, and she confirmed.
It was Ted Allen of Chopped, Food Detectives, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy! I’m a Food Network fan and he’s my favorite persona (well, tied with Alton Brown), not to mention my favorite one from the Fab Five. He was there with his boyfriend and a couple of friends. I definitely flailed with glee. By pure luck I ended up sitting about two seats away from him.
The show itself was hilarious and awesome. I loved the pig who was covered in balloons, popped them with her tail, and then jumped in a bucket of “mud.” Ted Allen appeared to really get a kick out of the I Want Candy bit:
As the night went on, the skits became more bizarre and less farm themed. They included:
Here she is:
And here’s Ted Allen shooting the freak:
Unfortunately he was always busy with his friends or getting a picture taken with the naked Pig Girl, so I didn’t get a chance to butt in and awkwardly ask for a photo. I didn’t realize until later that he was also a Purdue alumni – I could have had a good intro! Ah well. The experience alone was worth it. I mean, how many people get to say they watched a burlesque show with Ted Allen?
Delightfully bizarre.
(Videos via Year in Dance, the blog of the dancer with the magical rainbow rope hiding vagina)
I saw a ton of interesting and silly things during my trip to New York, so it would be a shame not to share it. So here are some of the highlights, with lots of photos!
The hotel I stayed in the first night was super fancy. At least, super fancy to a poor college student. But I liked it because it had a particular geeky bent to it, since it was in an old “Chemists’ Club” building. Beakers for glasses! Petri dish for the soap holder! Wooo!
It also was a wonderful location – just a couple blocks from Grand Central Terminal, The New York Public Library, and Times Square. I figured I would go check out Times Square since it was a Wednesday night, rather than an insane weekend visit. My sister-in-law pleaded that I check out the new Pop-Tart Store that everyone has been talking about, and try the disgusting-yet-intriguing sounding Pop-Tart Sushi.
The idea of Pop-Tart having it’s own store is kind of odd. I mean, I’ll eat Pop-Tarts occasionally…but they’re just Pop-Tarts. They’re not even all that good. To have a whole store decorated like a Pop-Tart LSD rave was just weird.
But I did order one piece of the “Pop-Tart Sushi,” which was Raspberry, Blueberry, and Wildberry Pop-Tarts mushed up together and held together with a fruit roll-up. If you think that sounds weird, just see how it looks:
It was hard to put that thing in my mouth, it was so disgusting looking. It looked like a piece of fruity salami that had been pooped out by a unicorn. The flavor was okay – vaguely fruity – but the consistancy was gross. It was this gritty yet soft texture, like someone had chewed up a Pop-Tart, spit it out, and formed it into a nice little wedge. Thankfully it was only 75 cents.
I then wandered to the heart of Times Square. All the lights were kind of cool, but I don’t know why it’s such a big draw. It’s basically just a lot of flashy advertisements, with the occasional weird person on the street.
Though my “favorite” weird thing was the Times Square Elmo. It was something out of a nightmare movie. The outfit was super old and dirty, like Elmo had been rolling around in the gutter. Something about the matted fur and human fingers sticking out of holes in the glove was unsettling. What was more unsettling was the parents who still let their children run up and hug Nasty Elmo. Eeewww.
I stopped in a couple random stores to pass the time. The coolest was definitely the Lego Store, where they had amazing Lego sculptures and individual lego pieces in every color.
This is totally different from the Pop-Tart store because Legoes, unlike Pop-Tarts, are super awesome. Just to clarify that.
I didn’t spend too much time exploring that night since I was tired from my flight and needed my beauty rest for the photo shoot. I was tempted to get a last minute ticket for Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, but ended up being too cheap. I did get to see an awesome sunset before turning in.
…Wait, what?
Yes, because your vagina has to smell minty fresh before you dare do serious business. Oh, and don’t forget to eat. Or be on time. Or think about what you’re going to say. Those things may just be important, in case you were too worried about your smelly vagina to remember.
…I hate women-targeted advertisements, in case you couldn’t tell.
Oh, and ladies? Douching is bad for you. Don’t do it.
(Via BoingBoing)
