little ms. "sweet and innocent."

Monday, August 20, 2001
The history of the Mile High Club
(Thank you, Sara.)

Monday, August 20, 2001
Why Velma's hot

Monday, August 20, 2001
Don't make fun of pedophiles in England. Just. DON'T.
I find this kinda ironic given that while America isn't exactly pedophile-loving, compared to England we give them all a pat on the back and send them out to molest some more. At any rate, apparently people can't seem to figure out the humor thing there...

Monday, August 20, 2001
But there are no boys here...
This article reminded me of why I didn't go to the all-girls school after all. Good thing I didn't, since I suspect I would have ended up like the author.

Monday, August 20, 2001
Condit finally decides to talk, MONTHS later. Do we still care so much?
Took ya long enough...
I've also seen stories (not online) saying that he still intends to run for office again, but won't leave his house and has bailed out on fundraisers. One headline in our paper today was "Condit runs for office - and from the public." Hee!

Monday, August 20, 2001
More stem cell weirdness
"Inside the white, fleecy bodies of the Nevada sheep is evidence of the power of stem cells. The animals look and bleat like regular sheep, but they're composed partly of human cells. There are human cells in their livers, their hearts, their lungs, their skin, in the linings of their guts, and even in their brains.
These human-sheep chimeras, as they're called, were brought to life with funding from the U.S. government. The difference between this University of Nevada, Reno, research on stem cells and the studies that have elicited so much debate recently is that the human components of the sheep came from stem cells derived not from embryos, but from blood in human placentas.
The aim of Zanjani's research is to develop strategies for correcting genetic defects in babies before they're born. He and his colleagues hope healthy stem cells eventually could be injected into unhealthy human fetuses and used by their bodies. Apart from the ethical questions, the human-sheep chimeras are a scientific feat. They suggest that stem cells from the blood of placentas and umbilical cords may be almost as versatile as embryonic stem cells, able to develop into a variety of cell types."

Monday, August 20, 2001
The redneck rules of etiquette
"Never take a beer to a job interview.
Always identify people in your yard before shooting at them.
If drinking directly from the bottle, always hold it with your fingers covering the label.
While ears need to be cleaned regularly, this is a job that should be done in private using one's OWN truck keys.
Always offer to bait your date's hook, especially on the first date.
Be aggressive. Let her know you're interested: "I've been wanting to go out with you since I read that stuff on the bathroom wall two years ago."
- Establish with her parents what time she is expected back. Some will say 10:00 PM; Others might say "Monday." If the latter is the answer, it is the man's responsibility to get her to school on time."

Monday, August 20, 2001
Jar Jar on the hero's journey
Oh, this better not be true. Ye gods.

Monday, August 20, 2001
Info on Fray: the Buffyverse future comic book
"It's probably important to understand the world she live in: there has been no magic -- no demons or vampires or magical creatures -- on the earth for a few hundred years. The implication being that something happened in the 21st century that sort of made them all go away and no more is ever said about that. But, though no Slayer has actually been called, the watchers counsel is still around and it has become a bunch of insane, drooling idiots, and a bit of vampirism has sort of resurfaced, but nobody knows what it is. Nobody even knows they ever existed or has heard stories of vampires -- that eradication really did `em in. So, Fray is basically someone who has always had this power in her, but she was never trained and never "called." She's never had an outlet for her power."

Oh, how I wish they carried this in this town. But they don't, so I must resort to searching for information here, here and here.

Monday, August 20, 2001
Would you feel comfortable sending this character to his death?
Good point.

Monday, August 20, 2001
What, pray tell, is the point of this?
"Nearly 500 struggling students who haven't learned enough to advance to the next grade will start school this fall in "half-grades." They will be 3.5, 5.5 or 8.5 students instead of fourth-, sixth- and ninth-graders.
The lagging St. Paul students will be channeled into a new program, where they will do intensive work in reading, writing and math. If they do well there and in summer school next year, they will rejoin their peers in fall 2002."

Okay, I don't get it. This weird 3.5 thing might make sense if they were, say, only working on part of the work from third grade again instead of retaking the entire grade over or something. But it doesn't sound like they are doing that- instead you take the whole year over PLUS summer school before you 'rejoin your peers', who by now have moved on to fifth grade, so you're not. In other words, this sounds like almost the same damn thing as just being held back in 3.0 grade. So why not just say "You're stuck in third grade all over again?" Trying to be PC about it or something?

Friday, August 17, 2001
More ripping on Salon
This fellow, like me, suspects that the "vacation" is kinda BS, and also breaks some bad news: "Whether or not the site's vacation was long planned, it's like the disgraced Nixon taking a "long-planned" flight home to San Clemente, after being run out of the White House for being a dirty criminal.
Yes, it once boasted some quality writers, but those Name Brands are long gone. Cintra Wilson, Dave Eggers, Christopher Hitchens, Harry Shearer, Ian Shoales, Sarah Vowell, Jon Carroll, James Carville, James Poniewozik ... and Talbot has been telling potential contributors that even Garrison Keillor and Camille Paglia are out." No more Mr. Blue? Damn, that's the one thing of GK's I ever liked (I just do not relate to Lake Wobegon). I suspect they took advantage of his heart surgery to boot him. *sniff* Out of the list here, I liked him, old Cintra (new Cintra seems to be going through a psycho celebrity bent and I'm just weirded out by it) and Susie Bright (who crops up in many places anyway). Anyway, waah.

Friday, August 17, 2001
Scavenger hunt online
This is such a cool idea!

Friday, August 17, 2001
Why actors fall for their costars

Friday, August 17, 2001
Why cloning isn't the best idea emotionally
I admit that I'm kinda curious in a sick way to find out how much different a clone would be from its predecessor, but it probably isn't the nicest idea.

Friday, August 17, 2001
Star Wars Title Generator
Including Son of the Magic Jar-Jar and Bride of the Giant Yoda.

Friday, August 17, 2001
Bad girls and their T-shirts
I actually have a couple along these lines myself (which I can't wear out in public much)- one that proclaims me as evil with a heart over the i (from Narbonic), the other is pink and says "I do bad things" in pink rhinestones. The latter is for obvious shock value, given that I'm all sweet and innocent and never do anything wrong.

I kinda want one of those Oopsy shirts, though...

Friday, August 17, 2001
Mom runs over her two-year-old.

Friday, August 17, 2001
People being duct taped to walls and ceilings.
Why? I'm afraid to ask. Total boredom? Proving the worthiness of duct tape?

Friday, August 17, 2001
No sequel to Planet of the Apes, thank the gods

Friday, August 17, 2001
How Elvis might have looked today
Man, maybe it's a good thing he died young.

Friday, August 17, 2001
How to fake a UFO

Friday, August 17, 2001
The real scoop on Danger Island
"I should emphasize that Danger Island is still a concept only. No TV channel has picked it up as of this writing, and the web site lists several people at the major US networks to write or e-mail in order to show your support for picking it up in the 2002 television season." And here I was hoping it was a gag. Oh well, this seems like something even the networks might want to avoid (watch me eat my words on that one in a week, right?).

More worrisome news: "We've had a wide variety of applicants," Stevens says, "from ex-KGB to purse snatchers. We have applications from sophisticated white-collar criminals, and some far less sophisticated criminals, with various gradations in between." Several celebrities have also expressed interest in being hunters, he says.
The show's producers hope "Danger Island" makes it to the air in about nine months. Stevens says they have met with one interested network, which he declines to name."

Friday, August 17, 2001
Online high school

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Bush's Texas-Sized Summer Vacation (And Your Rhode Island-Sized One)
"Mr. Bush may well be rejuvenated when he flies back to D.C on September 3. But the majority of his fellow Americans will not. Once again, the U.S. has taken the lead as the most overworked nation in the world. According to a recent International Labor Organization study, the U.S. is beating out Japan with the highest average hours worked per annum -- just under 2,000 hours.
According to Joe Robinson, director of the Live to Work campaign, which advocates a nationwide three-week vacation for all salaried workers, employees of large U.S. companies eke out an average of 9.6 days of rest after one year. That number rises to 16 days a year after a decade working at the company. And at small U.S. businesses, it's eight days a year and 16 after 25 years. In other words, the average American takes 15 years to earn the vacation time that an Australian gets after one year.
"Paid time off fell by 15 percent in the 1980s," said Professor Schor in a 1993 interview. "Part of it has to do with the changing structure of the labor force. We talked about casual workers who aren't entitled to vacation time, and also people moving around more because companies were no longer employing people for a lifetime job. But it's also the case that companies were demanding 'givebacks,' that is, reversing the progress that workers had made on benefits."
So it is utterly ironic that our "CEO President," with his Harvard MBA and corporate management-style administration, enjoys European-size vacations. That may say a positive thing or two about Bush's ability to relax and enjoy leisure and family time, even with the most demanding job in the world. But it also reveals that his life, from birth to the White House, has had nothing to do with what it typically American -- in the corporate or private spheres."

You know what frustrates me about articles like this? Yes, we all know we need vacation in a major way, but WHAT THE HELL CAN WE PEONS DO ABOUT IT? We're not exactly in a position to fix the problem. It probably wouldn't do much beyond encouraging firing for everyone to get up and go on strike until they get more vacation, and I don't see why companies would want to change the status quo when they get it so good now, and the power is in their hands. And I will admit that arranging for long-term vacations is a pain in the ass for all. Heck, I don't even know how I could DO vacation when it eventually comes around. I recently got promoted to a job where I do some editorial stuff as well as reporting, and I was supposed to get a day off this week because I worked this weekend. Man, trying to schedule said day off (today) got messier and messier as time went on. I can't take a day off other than either Wednesday or Thursday (when someone else in the office covers part of my job and the stuff I have due in is probably finished with), and said person picks which day she's going to come into the office at the last minute. What they're going to do if I'm not there for a whole week or two I can't imagine.

gwbush.com is amusing themselves by claiming that Bush proclaimed five months of vacation for all after finding out that the rest of the world really does work that hard.

On another note, here's a petition pleading for 3 weeks off after a year and 4 weeks off after three. Not that that'll ever happen, but sign it anyway.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Vote John Cusack for 2004!
Interesting take on this phenomenon: "So though this campaign may have started out tongue-in-cheek, its popularity shows it hits harder than that. People have seized on Cusack as an antidote to the plasticity in politics. And though movies would seem to be the essence of fakeness, it says something about our government when Hollywood is seen as its savior."

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Now the religious right's attempting to go after the Girl Scouts.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
How to title your book

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Aw, poor Anna Nicole doesn't get the money
I weep for her, I really do. She had sex with an 80-year-old (yeah, she did folks) and didn't even get paid for it? Ye gods, what is this world coming to that women can't marry for money and get the payoff for what they had to do?

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Professor gives nude lap dance in class
It's not quite what it sounds like. She's an ex-lap dancer working on a stage show about the business. During the show she talks about what she was thinking at the time, namely that she just wanted to go home and have tea.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Dubya's Amazon wish list

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Microsoft calls Linux unAmerican, and generally whines about it.
Once upon a time I was in a local LUG, and people kept asking me why I stayed in it. I have Linux installed on one of my boxes, but I primarily use it for games and Winblows for other stuff (it was required for homework). I'm not that great at using Linux in the first place, I can't program, etc.- so why are you there? Well, here's why: I think any alternative to Winblows should be encouraged. Down with monopolies!

Thursday, August 16, 2001
The blue blood wedding announcement
"Chestnut Hill was all atwitter July 29 when Richard J. Vanderbilt Drexel McIlhenny and Marissa L. Rockefeller Du Pont Vergnetti were wed at the "estate gardens" of two local friends. Best man was David Benedict Carnegie Kane and bridesmaids included Lynne Rockefeller Du Pont Vergnetti and Lisa Vanderbilt Drexel McIlhenny Pereira.
McIlhenny - alas, he's not even one of the McIlhennys, either - says his announcement initially raised a red flag with the Local's listings editor, Charles Kelsey. Maybe it was the description of helicopters circling overhead and paparazzi chasing the couple's limousine. Or perhaps it was the assertion that Vergnetti had won the "Nobel Peace Prize in kitchen remodeling in 1992, and was second runner-up in the flower-arranging division the following year."

Thursday, August 16, 2001
The return of Laurel Wellman
"Bay Area life and its (dis)contents is the subject of a new Chronicle column premiering today. The column, by Laurel Wellman, will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wellman, a Chronicle staff writer, was formerly the author of the "Dog Bites" column in SF Weekly."

While I'm happy to see Laurel's back, and with a subject matter that should be promising for her, I was disappointed that this column just...wasn't all that funny. I missed her snarkiness and silliness, which is why I read Dog Bites in the first place (and why I don't read it now that a rotating stable of random dull guys seems to have taken it over). I'm hoping this gets better.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
Oh, gee. WHAT a surprise. I would NEVER have imagined them doing that.
"The state Supreme Court ruled Monday that school officials do not need reasonable suspicion to stop, question or search students."

By contrast, I was surprised by this, which I had no idea about because I've never gone abroad. But given all the drunk teenager abroad stories I've heard... this law is completely ridiculous, btw. How are they going to enforce it? Gah, I don't want to know.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
I am the very model of a modern major... PENGUIN!?
Here's the penguin himself.

Thursday, August 16, 2001
People who took that Chains of Love show too literally
(Okay, so they're foreign and probably never saw it, but still.)

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Elizabethan costuming for Renaissance Faires
HOPEFULLY I'll get to one at some point this year myself.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
So much for cryogenics

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
A bunch of uses for old Macs
The best of them: the backpack, the bath toy, the bird feeder, the training potty, the diaper pail, the driveway lamp, the fence posts, the gardening anchors, croquet, lawn chair, mailbox, stained glass window, T-ball, the rabbit trap, and the fish house.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
TV Go Home
This is so incredibly bizarre. Fake British TV schedules.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Survivor: The Computer Game
And here's a more reality kinda game.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Redefining evil on reality TV
"Looking back at Survivor, Richard's so-called villainy seems benign in comparison to antics of Chill Town. Richard was a plotter and a schemer, but he was never deliberately cruel, and he never let things get personal. At the time, he was the standard of evil, but with each new reality show, the standards have been redefined. It's actually somewhat amusing now to go back and look at all the diatribes posted against Richard at the height of his infamy. They seem rather naïve now, in light of the shows that followed Survivor. Richard was called evil because, at the time, the genre was still new, and there was no one to compare him to. Since then, we've seen much worse. Evil, it seems, is a standard that's set only until someone comes along to lower the bar again."

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
I do- kind of
The argument over whether or not it's feminist to get married.

I just wanted to say that this entry, taken from some of the discussions at her forum (yeah, I posted the top link there), rocked.

"At various points in my life I've been a little sad because I didn't think I'd get married, and I can tell you why: because it feels like a failure. Completely unpleasant and unattractive people manage to get married, and here I am, in my thirties, with no ring. I've failed as a woman.
How fucked up is that? I'm not alone. I'm not bouncing from bad relationship to bad relationship. I own a house with a sometimes pissy guy who makes me laugh, makes me dinner, and gives me lots of space when I need it. I'm not a failure at anything except keeping my house clean."

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
They're already working on 48 for 24.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Gateway to Heaven: a chart of undeniable causal relationships.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Religious sex toys
Be sure to check out the testimonials.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
In-N-Out is Not a cult. It's not, it's not, it's not.
I have no idea where this came from. I woulda figured McDonald's more for the cult, given how they have a school and whatnot.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Your Smurf name
I'm "Ficticious Smurf." Hmmmm.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
The Quotable Jesse Ventura

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Oh gack. Now they're doing Survivor with the Miss America pageant.
You know, we don't have to vote someone off on EVERY FUCKING SHOW, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!! Enough already! This is no longer original to do!

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
More on why family friendly programming just isn't gonna work too well.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
The Brady Bunch in the White House, AND not all white, apparently.
This article has some more Brady Bunch stuff, but it also said something I've been thinking for a few days: why are so many other webloggers excited about a Facts of Life reunion movie? Because, you know, it really wasn't all THAT good. I don't get it.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
You can talk dirty on the radio as long as it's in Spanish

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Pig Brother!
"Five pigs will compete next month for the hearts of online viewers of Pig Brother, creator Richard Counsell announced Friday.
The pigs have been named after prominent British politicians. Three cameras -- Sty Cam, Trough Cam and Pond Cam -- will record their every move as they spend up to four weeks in the purpose-built play pen, said Counsell, who runs Somerset Organics, an organic farming business."

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Saddam's romance novel becomes a play

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Surprise! One industry actually doesn't want tips!
To be specific, flight attendants, who think they'd just end up with less pay increases, plus it's not exactly that great for their job otherwise. And how much would you tip them, anyway? I found myself agreeing with this guy: "What's this country coming to that we have to tip before we get someone with an upbeat attitude?"

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Gnomes with serious bodily injuries
Also, moonin' gnomes and suicidal gnomes.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Rent-A-Relative