little ms. "sweet and innocent."

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Some entertaining bad movie commentary
Also here and here.

Sunday, August 5, 2001
More on Brittany Cleary, complete with painful song lyrics
(That Britney ripoff I linked to awhile back.)

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Cool piece on Bridget the movie, rom-coms, British swearing and how Darcy is dull.

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Having to cuss in a play in Utah legally OK after all
The result doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that anyone in Utah would actually pick a play that has swearing in it to work on in the first place.

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Obsessed with David Bowie's crotch beyond reason.
This person saw Labyrinth just TOO. MANY. TIMES.

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Jeff Probst kept injuring his crotch

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Confessions of a pornographer

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Foulmouthed clothes for attiduinal infants

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Jurassic Park 3 stinks on ice.
"I know we're not supposed to expect much from these blockbusters. We're supposed to sit back and enjoy the effects; in this case we were supposed to enjoy the wondrous dinosaurs that roam around and eat people.
But I am fed up with films in which every member of the audience is infinitely more intelligent than everyone in the movie.
Warning, I may give some stuff away, because anything I can do to make you not see this movie is a service I will have provided for the good of humanity.
Eventually, of course, they find the young boy, about thirteen or so, who has been living alone on the island for eight weeks. So guys with semi-automatic weapons are toast after five minutes on this uncharted Dino Isle, and Lord of the Flies survives for eight weeks? It only makes sense when you realize he's channeling Newt from Aliens.
The only reason the Raptors don't eat everyone at the end is because Sam Neill asks them not to. He sticks a plaster cast of a Raptor's'resonating chamber' between his lips and blows.
So the Raptors understand his message, agree to leave them along, give them directions to the coast, comment on the weather and discuss proper dining etiquette. Thank God Sam learned Raptorspeak at some point in the film."

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Sara Pezzini stuffs!
"D cups are required of all female officers in her precinct, since they provide for free the same protection as a Kevlar vest, and are usually implemented in criminal investigations as 'diversionary tactics.'"

As well as buying Chasing Dogma (see below), I ended up buying the graphic novel "Witchblade: Origins" a few days ago. Now back when I was hanging out with other Buffy watchers and the episodes had run out, one guy insisted on watching the two-hour movie of Witchblade. I kinda liked it and kinda thought it was strange at the same time, so I picked up the original source. For those who remember the all-comics weblog I did awhile back, you'll remember that I got all fixated on the nastily-drawn abnormal superheroines featured in the "Bizarre Breasts" column at Sequential Tart. Well, reading Witchblade was totally like that. Long stilt legs, butt-length hair (yeah, they'll allow that on the force), round knockers without any sort of nipples, and she runs around half the time half naked covered in nothing but Witchblade, which covers her non-nipples and crotch but lets her ass hang free in the breeze. YUCH. I know these were designed for horny virgin fanboys, but I still wanted to barf at the total fakiness. The drawings continued to bother me so much I doubt I'll read the series again.

So I went back to the Bizarre Breasts and found some more visuals: what a superhero girl looks like when she's not standing in the hooters-out position", all about genetic mutations in superheroines and what will happen if they're left unchecked.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD
Basically, GLAAD expressed disturbance with his new movie (which Kevin doesn't agree with), and they agreed to shut up (basically) if they got donations to the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Then they really badmouthed it anyway. (Read the link, I'm simplifying hugely.) Anyway, I feel like quoting some of the non-explaining parts today.

"The only reason I never dabbled in homosexuality when I was younger was because I wouldn't know what to say to a guy after he blew a load in my mouth.
When you have two main characters who've both - at one point or another - hinted at or flat-out copped to homo-erotic escapades, how on earth can that be considered "gay-bashing". The gay jokes in 'Jay and Silent Bob' satirize a young male culture terrified of any cock that isn't their own. In fact, two of them thought it was pretty daring of me to have Silent Bob admitting that he'd have gone down on Jay (see the flick). And by making them and other mental midgets in the film so leery of homosexuality, I'm making fun of a mind-set that exists in our culture - a mind-set, mind you, that I didn't create nor condone. And making fun of said mind-set doesn't legitimize it, in my opinion; it de-fangs it.
In closing, I'd like to leave you with an excerpt from the Jay and Silent mini-series that was re-released by Image Comics last week under the title of 'Chasing Dogma'..." (Which I just read and highly recommend. Cracked. Me. Up!)
"JAY: What the fuck is this country coming to?!? First, we're accused of brown-humping each other, and then we get kicked to the fucking curb for having a smoke! You know, there was a time when a man could fuck his friend, AND enjoy a goddamn toke, and nobody said shit! Where's the so-called freedom for the pursuit of happiness?! What if I WANTED to fuck you, Silent Bob?
I'd never, because I fucking love chicks man - even though I know you think about cuddling up to my three-piece set all the time.
But what If I was all pent up, and all I needed to keep me from going postal on that bus was to bust a nut in your dark and stinky? That's the problem with the climate of consciousness on this planet today! Everyone gives too much of a shit about who fucks what! The moral majority has to wake up and realize that it's better to have two guys stink-dicking or two chicks gargling clit, than it is to have four complete fucking lunatics nine millimeting random people from a rooftop because they're not allowed to 'unpack their bags' in whatever 'hotel rooms' they want, so to speak! And by that token, I should be able to scream - if I so desired - from the bathrooms of the buses that traverse the unending roads of this great country, to the bathrooms of the public parks and rest-stops that dot the landscape like a thousand points of light... "I'M HERE! I'M QUEER! GET USED TO IT!!!"

And speaking of Chasing Dogma, one section of it will be in the new movie. So if you want a preview...

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Losing your name
Poor schmuck.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
The PacBell monopoly on DSL
"Current law requires PacBell to fairly lease its DSL lines to competing high-speed Internet ISPs. But the service providers have been complaining for years about unfair treatment by PacBell and its parent company, SBC Communications.
At present, because of PacBell's lengthy and cumbersome provisioning procedures, when a DSL service provider goes out of business, it can take weeks before consumers hooked up to that service are permitted to obtain a new connection. The ISPs say PacBell often uses that time to poach those customers.
PacBell has proven unable to keep up with DSL demand. It would be difficult to come up with a more effective way to further accelerate the current downward economic spiral than putting the state's remaining independent ISPs out of business.
Unfortunately, now that some of PacBell's largest competitors, such as NorthPoint Communications, Rhythms NetConnections and Covad Communications, are either dead or dying, it looks like PacBell is about to claim victory. But that triumph is coming at a considerable expense to the rest of us."

Annoyingly, my article on how they were doing this to local ISP's didn't make it online. But they're pretty fricking evil about this, and that's why I don't go with an independent ISP. I haven't had issues with PacBell as an ISP really, but still. Bleah.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Everyone's passing this link around the Internet now
Update: The dreaded soda agency has now deleted this page, this is a link to the Google cache of it (and here's another.)

"Water. It's necessary to sustain life, but to many Casual Dining restaurant chains it contributes to a dull dining experience for the customer." (And it doesn't make us more money.) "Many customers choose tap water not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past." (Or because gee, they don't feel like springing for an extra beverage. And it's not like most water tastes like rocks or something. Unless you're really cheap, you're not going to drink something you don't like because it's free.) "In response, some restaurant chains are implementing programs to help train crews to sell alternative choices to tap water, like soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages, with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction." (AND MAKING MORE MONEY.) "Because of its own successful campaign against water, The Olive Garden has recently sent a powerful message to the entire restaurant industry - less water and more beverage choices mean happier customers." (AND WE MAKE MORE MONEY.)

Okay, perhaps I was getting a little redundant there. When I've been to Olive Garden, I've always gotten soda. But the next time I go? I'm ordering water. :P

Thursday, August 2, 2001
He ain't no Agatha Christie
"A bar owner in Brazil trying to discover who was stealing liquor from his bar killed two customers after putting rat poison in a popular liquor."

Thursday, August 2, 2001
This is depressing
"Based on current trends, 100 percent of Americans will be obese." And it gets even more depressing than that for future predictions.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
How much are you worth?
I are worth exactly: $2,046,440.00. Which way surprised me. Lots more than I figured.

I have heard others say that this site is a big ol' marketing thing and to not give them your e-mail, which they require in order to send you the results. I've heard that there's some sort of "opt-out" for giving them your e-mail. However, I have no idea where this opt-out is, and I haven't gotten any crap from them beyond the original e-mail with my results so far (okay, it's been a day).

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Good Q and A with Laurell K. Hamilton
If you don't know who she is you might not want to read this, but she does these very interesting mystery/horror novels in which mythological creatures exist in our world. This one is about her new series and mentions her old one (the Anita Blake series) as well. And here's another, which mentions that the newest Anita will be over 900 pages!! Whoa! This one's gotta be good given the previous plot setup with her boyfriends, and I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
PENELOPE CRUZ likes to pig out! to pig out!
"On film sets, I catch other actors and the crew watching me when I eat. They can't believe I eat so much and don't gain a lot of weight. I've never had to exercise a lot. I started as a dancer and that helped condition my body." Excuse me? A dancer that eats? Does such a thing exist?

Thursday, August 2, 2001
No Celebrity Survivor
1."they can't cope with the stars demands."
2."with a celebrity it would be like 10 days without their assistants, no room service, no cell phones."
3."But the truth of the matter is that, for a lot of celebrities, that's the thing that scares the heck out of them. To be rejected in front of 20 million people would be devastating for an actor. It just wouldn't work."

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Princess Diaries review
Normally I would not link to this kind of site, but it mentioned something that bugged me about the altered movie plot: Now I have read the book (I'm a little kid, you know), and what's funny about the situation of it is this: The dad, the prince of a small Monaco-esque country, had a quick-lived fling with the girl's mom in college, but they were broken up by the time of her birth. They decide to hide the whole prince thing from her so she can have a normal life, so she thinks he's a politician or something there. And he is involved in her life to some degree. However, he's a big ol' playboy and never did get married. When she's sixteen or so Dad gets testicular cancer, and while he survives, his fertility doesn't, and thus she's finally told that she has to take up princess duties, illegitimate or not, because no one else is left. Anyway, I find that funny.

But in the movie? None of that. She doesn't know Dad, and he just dies. Pooh. How conventional.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
20 percent would give up great sex or personal wealth if some genie would grant them eternally perfect hair.
How stupid are these people?!? Go buy a damn wig!

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Okay, NOW J.Lo got back!
This is the funniest, most evil divaesque crap I think I've ever read. Good. God. She's. Evil. And. Lame. It's an exchange from someone promoting Angel Eyes and her publicist.

"According to this fax, you're asking us to pull all the one-sheets, posters and prints of the movie in order to bill Jennifer as "J.Lo" instead of her fucking God-given name. This is *not* going halfway- unless she intends to pay for the millions out of her own pocket. We are talking here about a movie that opens in two weeks!! The junket is tomorrow!! Are you guys smoking crack over there with Robert Downey? The bottom line (and I've got backup on this): She signed onto this project as "Jennifer Lopez." She-so help me-is going to be billed as "Jennifer Lopez." We can't help it if she's decided to get a diva transplant."

"Okay, I'm going to do you a big favor, Martha. I'm not going to repeat what you just said to J.Lo. But only because I don't want to see her go to jail FOR RIPPING OUT YOUR ORGANS WITH HER BARE HANDS! I simply can't believe the lack of respect here. Maybe you can play these games with "James" Caviezel (or is it "Jim"? ... Gee, I guess he can't make up his mind, either.) But J.Lo, clearly, is no "James"/"Jim" Caviezel. She is the world's preeminent female celebrity. She has more talent in her ass (I told you I was sick of hearing about her ass!) than most people have in their tiny finger. J.Lo is not just an actress. She is not just a singer. She is not just a celebrity. She is a movement. (Bowel.) (Why do I even have to say this?) She feels extra-determined that "Jennifer Lopez" isn't where her movement is at these days. She is "J.Lo." Okay, who thinks that her next name is going to be a Prince-esque symbol featuring the letter J and her T&A? Seriously. I really hate her now.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Breaking up with Slacker Bonding
"I find at 34, it's still rare for me to find a couple, amongst my friends, that has been together longer than 5 years (there are one or two however that restore my faith). What blows my mind, is meeting people in their thirties - and this is common - who've never had a relationship longer than 6 months!!! I say this is a crisis!!
We are a generation that was deprived of many things early on. Those fantasy things like, you know: two parents, that love each other, and stay together, or stay together and are IN-LOVE - the whole time - treat each other with respect and dignity!! Now I'm told that there might be a few that actually exist. Yes, yes its true, but hell, what chance do their children have (our peers) in a society of walking wounded out there in the world as potential love interests? NONE I TELL YOU. WE'RE DOOMED!"

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Shatner Haiku

Thursday, August 2, 2001
The Web is just a bummer these days
"The Web, in a general sense, is just one long bummer after another these days. The whole thing has the stench of fatigue and nervousness; everyone who is working on it professionally is either just counting the days until their own layoff or is festering over the idea that if they had just cashed out their options 18 months ago, they'd be on a beach somewhere sucking down umbrella drinks instead of actually having to work at a place where you can buy a share of stock for less than what it costs to buy a Snickers bar.
So my daily stops are being trimmed, some by attrition (Suck, Wall of Sound), some by lack of interest (News.com, Wired News) and those places I do visit I spend less time at. I find it difficult to spend a great deal of time at Salon, for example, which is perhaps the finest model of passive-aggressive Web panic ("We still have jobs, we still matter, we're still leading the digital content revolution..."), and which tires me out with its oh-so-brave pose in the face of imminent annihilation. I wish they'd either crash and get it over with, or return to their knitting and get on with it. Some of my stops have voluntarily walled themselves away, and I chose not to follow; there's nothing that Inside.com tells me that I can't get off of the free Reuters and Associated Press newswires on AOL. So, so sorry, no $3.95 a month for you, Mr. Brill.
In the book American Gods, Neil Gaiman presents the idea of new gods springing up to hover over anything humans worship -- trains, cars, media -- and the old gods eventually declining and falling as their worship decreases towards nothing. One wonders if the god of the Internet, should he exist (because an Internet god is almost certainly a guy, looking like a sickly cross between Bill Gates and Marc Andressen), is already feeling his powers wane. One wonders if he understands what's going on. I think he does. I think he noticed how he's a little less sexy, less exciting and less interesting (and a lot less rich) than he used to be. Yes, he understands. I think he's probably a little scared."

I hate to say it, but I don't think Scalzi has actually read American Gods when making this reference. Mainly because (a) the Internet god is not remotely sexy, and while Bill Gates is a good guess, he's really more pimply fat teenager, and (b) how the Internet god ends up in the book. Suffice it to say that if that ending really did happen, it sure would explain a lot of what's going on these days.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Exhaustion as euphemism
"Ah, but if you were a celebrity, your exhaustion would be a medical condition. Your exhaustion would land you in the hospital.
I'm talking about "exhaustion" that exists as celebrity-speak for a star snorting, sniffing or smoking something, or simply bending under the pressure of being rich and famous, which is much more taxing on the human spirit than, say, being poor and unknown.
Not that any of this will hurt Carey's career, of course. Nothing sells like celebrity misery followed by celebrity recovery. Wait for the People magazine cover and the Barbara Walters interview, coming soon to a newsstand and a TV set near you."

In the meantime between my finding that link and today, Mariah's condition was upgraded to official breakdown. But this is what's weird: "When asked about this morning's tabloid reports that Mariah had attempted suicide over her break-up with long-term boyfriend LUIS MIGUEL, Cindi denied the story, saying, "There was no suicide attempt. Mariah did break some dishes and glasses and may have cut her foot in the process, but she definitely did not hurt herself intentionally." Der, what? Hurting herself? Should we be checking her latest song lyrics for suicidal indicators? "In regard to Luis, Cindi insisted the couple were still together as they "have not officially broken up" and he was "very concerned about her." "Not officially broken up?" What the hell is that?

Anyway, found this, which while mean, summarizes my issues with Mariah. Once upon a time she started out sweet, sexy but not a total ho, did decent songs, etc. Now since the divorce it's pretty obvious that the packaging was all Tommy and deep down she has no sense or clothes or much that covers her crotch (ugh!). Bleah. Too tacky. When does she end up in a comic book?

Thursday, August 2, 2001
More on Angelina and pregnancy, or lack thereof.
In the same interview, Angelina (a) indicates she wants to get pregnant, then immediately says they might adopt because (b) she's never wanted to be pregnant. Er, what?

On the one hand, I hope she'd adopt because passing on those genes is a frightening thought. But then again, so's the thought of whoever would give THEM a baby.

Update yet again: Billy Bob gets it notified that he can't leave her for eternity. You know what that means, boys and girls: divorce in a year!

Thursday, August 2, 2001
He did what any self-respecting comedian would do: begin fucking with people.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Better to be dead than rested and out of a job, I guess?

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Resources for genre writers
Courtesy of Joanne.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
More Buffy spoilers from Beth of Bad Hair Days
Ain't-It-Cool posted some spoilers a few weeks ago that I linked to here, and I made some comments along the lines of not all of it sounded believeable. These spoilers, however, sound a lot more believeable and realistic to me. This site, however, contradicts the first a bit. And I'm definitely thinking the "Crossovers with Angel will be incredibly unlikely to occur this season, but if they are necessary, they will happen...somehow." is wrong, since I've read repeatedly that WB said they will never allow crossovers again. *sigh*

Man. I need a Buffy fix. I went and bought the first six episodes of the series the other night, but I need to find where I can get more, particularly seasons 2 (my favorite) and 3 (which I didn't see enough of). I was looking on Amazon yesterday and it looks like they sell them two episodes at a time instead of in a big set (about $30 apiece, the 6 ep set I got was $40). Gack.

Thursday, August 2, 2001
The Oprah cult

Thursday, August 2, 2001
T-shirt slogans
I've heard most of these before, but I liked "Army: Be All That You're Told To Be" and "Some Days It Just Doesn't Pay to Chew Through the Leather Restraint Straps."

Thursday, August 2, 2001
Oh no! They forgot it was the FAMILY HOUR!
You know, I'm just not all that bothered by kids watching sexual crap on television. Isn't that what parents and OFF BUTTONS and the ratings and the V-chip are for? Just because some show got stuck in the 8 o'clock slot doesn't necessarily mean it was intended to be wholesome. And at any rate, I don't think it warps their fragile little minds to hear about some of that. Heck, "the family hour" at my house growing up was watching Dynasty.

Monday, July 30, 2001
Womanly Secrets
I am so tempted to comment on this one, but that'd be worse TMI than I did in the guest stuff post. Anyway, as a girl I'm amused.

Monday, July 30, 2001
Maybe it's stupid of me to be bothered by this...
"It's OK to use her name in print, she said, despite the fact that rumors were spread about her at a previous school. She confided in the wrong person, and soon classmates were taunting her in the halls.
"Some people don't understand, so they don't know how to react," she said. "They try to make me feel bad to make themselves feel better."
This, a remarkably level-headed assessment of ostracism, a speciality not just of teenagers but of society itself.
No, we won't use her name. It's not necessary.
"I don't try to keep my illness a secret," she said. "If people find out, they find out. It's who I am. If they're going to like me, they're going to like all of me. This is part of me."

Okay, I don't necessarily think that they should have used her name, but what is with saying that she's fine with them using her name and that she doesn't try to keep it secret, and then keeping it secret? There's just something very weird to me about that.

Monday, July 30, 2001
The Bush IQ e-mail that was going around
sadly isn't real, but it was funny as hell.

Monday, July 30, 2001
August sucks
(Yup, linking to this two days early. The irony.) I actually don't have much of a problem with August myself- hey, it's at least warm instead of frigid, and you're not in school, which beats my least favorite month of January hands down. Before I get back to the point of this link, I'd like to share my reasoning for why January sucks: nasty weather, fun holidays over for months and the bills come in, dark and cold and wet, returning to school, and did I mention the weather? The only days good in January are the first and the fifteenth, and the first is actually debatable depending on how you spent the 31st and the resultant hangover, plus in my family, that's my parents' official day to throw a party for Dad's side. This is hell. (February is much the same (plus there's the hell of Valentine's Day), but I still think it's better than January because it's at least short, and at least I liked VD back in elementary school so it hasn't always sucked.) Oddly enough, I tend to date guys born in January. Fortunately, none of them are likely to read this dissing of their month ;)
The lack of holidays in August thing, however, I will give this guy. I think we can use one. But then again, I think all months need more holidays. Anyway, I can't really argue with this guy about the lack of culture thing either.

"August is the vast sandy wasteland of American culture. Publishers stop releasing books. Movie theaters are clogged with the egregious action movies that studios wouldn't dare release in June. Television is all reruns. The sports pages wither into nothingness. Pre-pennant-race baseball-if that can even be called a sport - is all that remains. We have to feign interest in NFL training camps. Newspapers are thin in August, but not thin enough.
You can't get a day off from August, because it is the only month without a real holiday. August is the month of vagueness. October is the 10th month, March is the third month. What's August- bet you can't remember. Does it have 30 days or 31? You have to recite the rhyme to figure that one out. The great writers of history forget August: It rates three mentions in Bartlett's Quotations, compared with a dozen for December and two dozen for March."

Monday, July 30, 2001
Sars does the personal ads
Sars just rocks so much. Anyway, she wrote her own personal ad, being brutally honest, and then posted about the people "matchmade" for her. Once again, I'm reminded of why I refuse to do personals. Gack!

Monday, July 30, 2001
Conversational Terrorism
Reading this page made me understand exactly WHY certain people I have to argue with all the time (especially Mom and Dad!) can be such pains in the asses to deal with. Here's my er, favorite examples:

"OVER YOUR HEAD: "I'd like to respond to that, but taking into account your background, education, and intelligence, I am quite sure that you would not be able to understand."
EVEN YOU:"My next point will be so cogent that even you will be able to understand it."
YOU'LL GET OVER IT: "I used to think that way when I was your age."
"As you mature emotionally (or mentally, or spiritually), you will grow out of your present way of thinking, and you will eventually come around to my point of view."
"You're new here, aren't you?"
THE SALESMAN'S CLOSE: This technique asks an obvious question and, by playing on a sense of guilt, demands a predetermined response driven by common sense or decency. The yes or no response is then implied to mean a complete agreement with the asker's point of view.
Family get-together: "Doesn't your family mean anything to you?" ["Well, yes!"] "Then I will see you at 10 am."
Join a Health Spa: "Don't you care about your own body?"
SELECTIVE MEMORY: To bring up a past event and GET IT ALL WRONG, or even to make up a past event. The intent is to get the other person confused, angry, and defensive.
"But last week (or a minute ago) you said the opposite! Make up your mind!"

Also found on that site was this page of translations. Most of these my mother has started using heavily lately because my relatives on my father's side can be such stupid jerky gits. Especially "bless his/her heart" for my dad and grandma and her father. Just note folks, if anyone ever says "(your name), with all due respect, means well, bless her little heart ...", it's BAD.

Monday, July 30, 2001
More Russian girls want sex changes
Man, can you tell this was awkwardly translated when you read it. (I'm cutting out this bizarre Schwartzenegger bit in the article because it's so bad as to make no sense.) "Over 1% of teenagers aged 11-16 in Russias Kuzbass region in Siberia regularly apply to medical clinic asking to have their sex changed. At that, girls who want to become boys are much more in number than boys who want to turn into girls. (snip) Secondly, it is much easier, as they say, for men to carry on you do not have to bear children, to rear them, to keep vigil at the stove. You may safely lay on the sofa reading a paper or just hang out sipping your beer.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, and pedagogues organize special talks with teenagers, meet with their parent. But those efforts bring little fruits so far. The number of teenagers who want a sex change is increasing, doctors say." You know, I just CAN'T IMAGINE why girls would want to be boys instead of women. Doesn't their future of having babies and cooking all day while the husband lounges around (IF he stays around) sound wonderful?

And it's even worse in India. (Yes, we're back to this topic again) I can't even blame them in some respects for aborting girls.
"Raising a daughter, according to a saying in India's northern state of Haryana, is like watering someone else's fields.
Spend 1,000 rupees today on a sex determination test and save 100,000 rupees on the wedding costs of a daughter, it runs.
"The girl child is up against tradition and technology, a formidable combination which is wreaking havoc in Indian society," says demographer Bose.
"Almost everyone, including women doctors, felt selective abortion of female foetuses would increase the status of women," he says. The fewer women, they told him, the higher their status.
One commentator says centuries of social customs, including the dreaded dowry, often leave parents with little choice but to avoid having a daughter.
"Even if you convince parents that girls are precious, wonderful creatures to be cherished and loved, they also know that these little girls must grow into a world where there is a price tag fixed on them," Kalpana Sharma wrote in the Hindu newspaper.
Rich or poor, the bride's parents must cough up dowry or wealth that could be money, property or goods for the groom and his family. When the dowry falls short, it is not unusual for the groom's family to harass the bride. More than 13,000 young brides are killed in India every year over dowry.
"If the parents cannot pay the price (of dowry), then the girl must pay for it later in life," Sharma wrote."

Monday, July 30, 2001
Watch out for that croc!
This sounds bad when you read it- "An Australian coach is using a crocodile in the pool to encourage his swimmers to improve their speeds." (I'd want a new coach), but the closing line of the article is this: "Before the 1.8-metre saltwater crocodile is lowered into the water, its jaw is bound with tape and its claws are clipped." Well, shoot, if it can't bite, then what's to be as afraid of?

On another disgusting note "Peeing in the pool is very common among competitive swimmers because your coaches don't let you get out during practice." EW! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment to make you swim in your own pee for hours!

Monday, July 30, 2001
Hollywood Bad Ideas
"Perhaps it was too much time running around Hollywood (as a former head of Disney) that twisted ''America's Sweethearts'' director Joe Roth's perspective enough to cast Julia Roberts as Catherine Zeta-Jones' supposedly dowdy sister. This was the same studio logic that made Janeane Garofalo the stereotypical ugly pal in ''The Truth About Cats and Dogs,'' even though she was damn good looking, and only when placed opposite the reedy Uma Thurman would she be considered overweight. If you want for us to believe a fable about how glamour doesn't matter, get an ugly actress.
(Lord of the Rings fans) We're five months away from the first installment's premiere, but it's all been shot, and all the emoticons in the world aren't going to change Jackson's vision. Just take some time off and develop some other interests. Oh, and bitching about whether Chris Columbus was the right director for the Harry Potter movie doesn't count as ''other interests.''
Those who always speak in reverent tones about Michael J. Fox: Fox is a beloved TV actor, and, by all accounts, kind,funny, and down to earth. He is not, however, dead."

Monday, July 30, 2001
The job market is awful and getting worse
I am SO glad I'm employed, you have no idea.

"http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,45595,00.html"> "For the majority of resumes he sends, Whittaker gets no reply. About a quarter of them inspire a form letter thanking him for his interest. Having an actual human call him back is a relative rarity.
While job sites are full of positions that sound good, the process of actually getting the attention of those doing the hiring seems harder than ever, tech workers say. Job leads turn into dead ends. Contacts don't respond. Or requests for e-mails of resumes generate so much response that later applicants are rewarded only with an automated message saying the receiving inbox is full.
The lack of response has led a few jaded job seekers to question how many of the hundreds of thousands of jobs posted on leading online employment sites actually exist.
"What happens with many of these positions is they're never closed," said David, an unemployed San Franciscan who last worked as director of marketing at a now-defunct director of marketing at a now-defunct Internet startup. He says he makes a habit of first looking at job postings and then searching for the employee's name on FuckedCompany, a site that tracks layoffs and closures at so-called new economy companies.
A few times, he's found that the company offering the job no longer exists or has just laid off most of its staff. Other times, job postings that looked new turned out to be several months old."

Monday, July 30, 2001
Introducing Blogdex
Introducing Blogdex, which indexes blog's links and ranks them by popularity. However, note so far this thing only does Blogger logs, and "supposedly" Pitas, etc. will be added "as soon as he returns to the lab last week." Hm. We'll see if that actually happens, I guess.

Monday, July 30, 2001
I may be a girl, but I relate to this one.
"It's a mistake many guys make. A guy will be in a guest bathroom, dripping wet, and he sees a towel, and for some insane reason he thinks it was put there for guests to dry themselves with.
In fact, as Dick's wife angrily pointed out to him, the there for guests to dry themselves with. The towels they were supposed to use were NOT in the bathroom; they were (Of course!) in the bedroom. The towel Dick used was intended solely as decoration.
Here's a similar bonehead error that guys often commit in guest bathrooms: They see soap on a soap dish, and they use it to wash their hands. This of course ruins the guest soap, which is defined as ``soap that guests are not supposed to use.'' Its purpose is to match the guest towels.
The guest bedroom is usually equipped with decorative candles that you must not burn, because that would ruin them. Also you must never throw any waste into the decorative wastebasket, which has never contained any waste and may have been waxed just prior to your arrival. If, during your visit, you generate waste, you should hide it in your suitcase and take it home."

I always think this kinda stuff is dumb. I mean, sure, you might want to switch the skanky towels for some other ones, but you can't expect people to NOT use them! Those guest soaps are just useless, so you can't even thorougly wash your hands OR dry them. For chrissake!
While my mother's not horribly bad about this stuff (you can use the soap and towels) at home, on vacation, it's another story. (TMI story!) I remember getting my period for like the second time ever while staying at a 60something relative's house, and my mom would not let me throw out the equipment in her bathroom. I had to bring it back, hide it in a bag in the suitcase, and Mom would sneak out and hide in the trash pile downstairs. Can you believe that?

Monday, July 30, 2001
Another article on technology and plots
"The dramatic logic of countless films and TV shows demand that the kidnapper must talk for at least 30 seconds to allow the call to be traced. But always the taunting villain hangs up before being pinpointed.
Well, no longer. Caller ID has made all calls instantly traceable. Even if the caller blocks it so you don't know who is ringing, the network will (for billing purposes) and the boys in blue could be speeding round to arrest the perp in a trice.
But this is not the only plot device that technology is rendering obsolete. You can use 1471 in the UK to trace the source of all those wrong numbers you are suddenly getting, and perhaps discover your spouse's infidelity long before they, and their "partner", think about doing away with you. The 1471 service is used about 13 million times a day according to BT, so any drama that ignores it is going to test the tolerance of its audience." (Just like Bridget Jones.) Oh well, at least cell phones can still lose their signal.

Monday, July 30, 2001
Digital progeny
Blending you and your SOo's face together comes up with, well...really ugly kids. I like the idea, but the execution! Ouch!

Monday, July 30, 2001
Whine whine, we can't control the Internet and it won't make us money! Damn hippies!
Y'all think I'm kidding with that subject line, but that's the tone of this.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
What it's like to win the lottery.
Two profiles of winners, one who spent all his money and one who didn't. Both had it pretty crappy, at least for awhile. One spent, spent, spent, was hounded for money over and over again, relatives tried to kill him, and now it's all gone. The other lost his girlfriend, but found a new wife and sounds like he's doing pretty well, especially at pretending to be his own gardener.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
Linking to this because Sara looks so dang cute
Man, I wish I could do line drawings of people this well. Mine are too cartoony for my taste.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
Of the reality shows this summer, Small Town X is about the best.
The above article offers tidbits for the future involving a boat and car, and tells that the murdered Flint family is apparently a bunch of sleazeballs. Hmmmm.

There are a few things I'm not fond of in the show, however, which a few articles pointed out. One being that the show is expecting the detectives to be stupid (not an unfounded fear considering every other show cast!) and thus leads them to the clues by the nose. ("Look at this video. See anything in it? That clock? Go find the clock." Not "go look around for anything", just the clock. Hmmmm.) The other is, well, you can guess it. "The show's glaring weakness is the inclusion of yet another vote-off, both because the grade-school behavior it generates is getting wearisome, and because it takes us out of the mystery." "The relationships among the investigators - befriending one another in an effort to not be sent out to possible ''death'' - are the only part of the game that encourages alliance building, and it seems tacked on and unnecessary. It's an incidental element in the first episode that detracts from the more compelling mystery." And to top that all off, they "kill" one of these people off by sending two of them out in the dead of night alone, one that will survive and one that will not. The killed lady was FREAKING OUT no end and crying. It was sad and it was so Blair Witch.

This article makes a good point, though: "While starving cast members on other shows are talking about cookies and ice cream and watching their hair fall out, the cast members of MSTX are out in the field, witnessing a corpse being loaded into a body bag, and watching the suspects scamper around the dock. I mean, come on - would you rather see people argue about the consistency of cooked rice or investigate a murder scene filled with blood spatters and gun shells?" (Gun shells!)

Lookie, a show weblog.

On another topic, this show appears to be the only one without a voteoff and with some actual like, independent thinking involved. At least, we can hope.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
I got this fucking virus over seventy times this week.
On about four different e-mail addresses, one of which I had to kill off because it was the one getting them all (the other three got it once each). It's an evil one, apparently, which makes it a good thing I don't open random e-mail attachment crap. My parents are always FREAKING OUT that I'll get a virus, so I'd er, better not tell them about this. I know they won't get the concept of "I didn't open it, ergo my computer is fine."

Saturday, July 28, 2001
Polly Esther/Heather Havrilesky on the radio again

Saturday, July 28, 2001
Ah, cynicism
"Give Paul McCartney credit. When his wife Linda died in 1998 from breast cancer, I thought it would be a matter of hours before he devoured a raw steak with his bare hands while banging a teenage supermodel." Kinda sad that this is what we expect of celebrities these days, isn't it? At any rate, it's nice to see someone not going in that direction. Congrats, Paul and Heather.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
Men who shave it all
This is just SO weird. One guy on Big Brother shaves it all too.

Saturday, July 28, 2001
The G-Girls in Washington
(I stil don't know WHAT the "G" is supposed to stand for here, but it's referring to the interns and bimbo-types, I think.) "The G-Girl, on her arrival in the nation's capital, still hasn't learned the last prevailing double standard in any workplace: That everything you learn about getting ahead in the world—find a mentor, attach yourself to powerful people, schmooze till your molars hurt—works better for men. The same young woman who serenely acted as a teaching assistant or researcher for an avuncular professor in college struggles for the same "face-time" or access as the male interns. The difference is that any close one-on-one relationship between a man and a woman is fraught with a million subtle nuances, which can be difficult to manage. That tension is worth slogging through, if it comes with career advancement. Who could say no or back off to a man holding the keys to your professional advancement? Men don't have to say no to their mentors, unless it's "no more yards of beer for me tonight, sir!"
Politicians are immune from the sexual harassment systems that protect young women in corporate workplaces and academia, where the presumption has become that the older male will say no or face brutal consequences. These kinds of advances would cost your political science professor his job. In an office, it would be sexual harassment. In D.C., it's still 1951, and young girls are still curvy temptresses."

Here's an article on orientation for delusional interns. Harsh stuff.

Friday, July 27, 2001
The Planet of the Apes plots sound SO STUPID.
I honestly can't figure out why people are all hyped to see this (that aren't Tim Burton fans) remake, given the source.

Monty today has summarized my feelings on the issue nicely. I've been asked repeatedly by rabid monkey fans in the last couple of weeks to go see it (that and Jurassic Park 3), and I keep going "No, even if Tim Burton directed it it looks like a stinker." I went to see A.I. finally with a friend Tuesday night and as she put it, "When the trailer is bad, and that's supposed to be the best part of the movie..."

"People keep asking me if I've seen Planet of the Apes yet. And the answer is "no". So then they ask when I'm going to see it. And then I have to explain that I've had plenty of opportunity to see it, and it's not that I'm waiting for something. No, the reason I haven't seen it is that I don't want to see it.
This happens every few years. In 1998, when Godzilla came out, I thought it looked terrible. But everyone around me talked about it constantly for the months prior to its release. Are you seeing it on the first matinee of its release? Or are you waiting until an evening show? Really? Neither? You're going to wait a whole day before you see it? But don't you understand that it's Godzilla? Well, when are you going to see it?
I still haven't seen the 1998 Godzilla. And the strange thing is, after it had been out for two weeks, no one cared about it anymore. This might be because it was a bad movie."

Friday, July 27, 2001
The return of Jerri *sigh*
And she's going to Burning Man. Now I'm glad I'm not. The thread about this on MetaFilter (yeah, another link) turned into Haiku Corner.

Friday, July 27, 2001
MetaFilter makes a point...
this is plus-sized?

I'm not going to comment on the rest. It's just sad.

Friday, July 27, 2001
More on subscriptions

Friday, July 27, 2001
Here's how to leave a phone message that gets you a call back
I read this, thinking "hey, maybe it's got some tips for me at work." Hah. I do all of these but #7 (around half of the folks I talk to don't do e-mail or don't do it much) and I still have flakin' slackers who don't call back. Guess it's more the job than anything else *sigh*

Friday, July 27, 2001
Coming out as straight
This is the part I like: "I'm not even comfortable with the idea that, as a woman, I am seen as sexually available to men. For me, an essential benefit of identifying as a lesbian was that it was a de facto indicator of my politics. It was a simple, clear statement of one of my underlying values: I am not here for men. Of course, there are plenty of straight women who would say the same thing, but there's nothing quite as efficient for getting the message across as walking down the street arm-in-arm with a multiply pierced and freshly shaven dyke." Damn straight. I hate being single and that translates into every guy's head (or at least, plenty of their heads) as "Anyone can have me," when in reality I'm not and they can't.

Friday, July 27, 2001
The Microsoft keyboard
Speaking of Microsoft, I loved this article for being honest about them and viruses. Seriously. "The wonder of all these Internet security problems is that they are continually labeled as "e-mail viruses" or "Internet worms," rather than the more correct designation of "Windows viruses" or "Microsoft Outlook viruses."

Friday, July 27, 2001
Breakup Girl's alive and dyeing her hair pink and orange (or not).

Friday, July 27, 2001
Etiquette for Outlaws

Friday, July 27, 2001
Fictional press conference after reality TV death
"Executive: Look, it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. You can argue that our background checks should have uncovered the alleged perpetrator's history of mental illness, hatred of people and fear of being confined in small spaces for any length of time. But we did our best, and viewers loved the show--especially when he seemed to be experiencing a nervous breakdown--until this unfortunate incident.
Q: Was it really necessary to fill the house with guns and long, sharp knives?
Producer: Yes, of course that was necessary. Having the contestants hunt, kill and gut their own food on camera was part of the game. We needed to introduce a level of excitement beyond what's come before. It never occurred to us they might turn the weapons on each other or the crew members, who, fortunately, were outfitted in bulletproof vests... No one was supposed to get hurt.
Q: Now that people have, have you reconsidered this genre?
Executive: After doing a 34 audience share with the high-speed chase? Are you out of your [expletive] mind?"

Update: I think I finally found the show that's going to cause the first death. Can you believe these weapons?! Ye gods!

Friday, July 27, 2001
You name your cat India, we name our dog George!
Not to actually, you know, like, defend Dubya or anything, but naming the cat India doesn't necessarily mean anything BAD. Unless he kicks the cat.

Friday, July 27, 2001
She voluntarily collects AOL disks
I should just send her all of mine, including the one in my mailbox now that I refuse to take out.

Friday, July 27, 2001
MASH!
I vaguely recall finding some online MASH game ages ago, but I think this one is better. And I came out with great results- the guy I wanted, two kids (not what I wanted, but hey, it's not four, and who said they're biologically mine?), that I'm an actress with a purple Cadillac. "It's truly a wonderful life when you consider the countless romantic nights you have spent with your husband in your shack in California." That housing crunch, I guess...

Friday, July 27, 2001
What happens when a nerd makes the cheerleading squad
On another comic note, Smashing Peanuts: Billy Corgan's Christmas.

Friday, July 27, 2001
Lizzie's Hamptons 500

Friday, July 27, 2001
The bad news and the good news about Bust
The bad: There won't be another new one for six months (the summer edition is quite good, though). The good: After that it'll be monthly!

Friday, July 27, 2001
Linux Magazine ran a Microsoft ad
They must be desperate for cash, but for crying out loud, the ad was designed to get people to stop using Linux! Talk about shooting yourself in the crotch, not to mention pissing off everyone who reads the damn mag.

Friday, July 27, 2001
Prince is getting weirder and weirder. Joy.
I hate it when people get religion sometimes. "Would you rather be a leader or a follower?" Prince asked the dozen or so journalists at the conference. "I would rather be a follower. That's what the Bible says is the right thing to do. Only one person in the Bible was not God's follower, and look what happened with that!"
"And how can someone who so revolutionized gender roles in the early Eighties with his androgynous style and ambiguous sexual orientation suddenly insist that we should all adhere to "traditional" values?"

Friday, July 27, 2001
I love the Onion
"Spare me your rationalizations. All I know is, stem-cell research kills a quasi-living four-day-old blob."

Friday, July 27, 2001
Don't take a smoke break with Sorkin
Smoking kills your character.

Friday, July 27, 2001
The dude who thinks Tom Jones is a god

Friday, July 27, 2001
Sin City: The Webpage of Penn and Teller
This is just fun, folks. Among other things, the site houses a lot of their interviews and writings (Penn's been a columnist for various places, Teller does essays, etc.), where you find out fun tidbits like Penn's penchant for getting blood tattoos repeatedly or how he eats fire or about when he rode the vomit comit naked. Or you can read about the Teller and Penn switch. I admit that Penn's my favorite, as I like smartasses, and you gotta agree with stuff like this: "What kind of parent would see a huge, mentally ill man standing with broken liquor bottles in his hand and send a child to have a talk with him about his language."

This comparison is fun: "If Teller is silver-tongued, Penn's speech is scrap-metal corroded. As Teller tells it, when they were first starting out, street performing on New Market, "I brought my own little spotlights and charmed the hot dog wagon people into letting me plug my spotlights in at the hot dog wagon." In Penn's version, Penn is "fucking the hot dog girl."

Friday, July 27, 2001
Toad Patrol
Living in We-Love-Toads-Lots Land, I find this amusing. Though the ex-mayor would probably have a toad herself if she ever saw this site.

On the same site, the sad, scary story of the crazy guy who kidnapped his mother. And back to the whole if-this-happened-in-Davis-they'd-all-freak thing, here's an article about how bikes aren't so popular any more.

Friday, July 27, 2001
Institute for Naming Children Humanely Homepage
This page critiques naming mistakes and also provides indexes of okay and not-okay names (warning: they hate French names). I'm seriously fighting the temptation to send How about another last name to the ex (who has no first names). The logic used on the site is pretty funny, like on this page about rich names. "In the popular mind, the very rich are named differently from the commoners. They carry such names as Nigel, Preston, Josiah, and other ridiculous monikers. They also use both their mother's and father's names in hyphenated form, to proudly display their pedigree. This is nowhere displayed better than with the WWF's supposed blue-blood, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley.
Actually, there are no famous people with "Bogus Blue-Blood" names. Just goes to show you how ineffective they are at attracting fame and fortune."

I can't help but agree with their let me spell that for you page. "We love the name Amy," says the future soccer mom. "But Amy's too common. We want our daughter to stand out in a crowd. We want her to be different. That's why we're naming her Amie." Creative, indeed! The major problem with such horrible misspellings of names is that it can actually decrease the precious career prospects of the child, and leave their names writ in water as they die thanklessly.
This is no exaggeration. For every time little Amie announces her name to the good people of bureaucracy, she will have to stop them in mid-scrawl or mid-typing, to announce, "That's Amie. A-M-I-E." Altogether, this totals five seconds of wasted time. Multiply by the approximate one million times that Amie will have to say her name during her life, and the horrified parent discovers nearly 58 wasted days in Amie's life, enough time for her to learn sign language, join an extra-curricular club, or otherwise allow her parents to live vicariously through her."

I can only say that I'm grateful that my parents didn't name me Gennifer. Or (as I saw horrendously in P is for Peril) Jeniffer. Or as I saw on their strange names page, Jenyffer ("I bet they thought "Jennifer" was too common. This is not the way to resolve that problem.").

Ironically, they slam Michael on the boys list as being too popular ("Yell "Mike!" on any playground and watch twenty kids come running", but Jennifer isn't even mentioned for that in the girls list. (Probably because it's miraculously slipped down to only 26 on the popularity list.) Anyway, I recommend reading all of this site, including the lists, because the comments can be great.

Friday, July 27, 2001
All about spam

Friday, July 27, 2001
This woman is REALLY not over her teenage rejection issues.
"You don't understand," she said. "When I was a teen-ager, I had braces, glasses and permed hair. Those kind of boys were not interested in me. Now, I can be attractive to them."

Then there's the dumb teacher who fooled around while being married to a sheriff's detective. Talk about Bad. Idea.

Friday, July 27, 2001
The Sarah Silverman joke
(linked to this because I no longer have any clue where links on the issue went). I'm the Jennifer commenting around the top of the page.