My random musings on politics, popular culture, science fiction, feminism, design, skepticism & atheism, my life, and anything else I want to ramble on about.
I just spent the past couple of days roadtripping from DC to Topeka, Kansas. David flew into Kansas today as we have his cousin's wedding this weekend. (He's only staying through the weekend but I drove because I'm going to stay a couple of weeks.) As we were driving around Topeka, we chuckled at a few sights that you could only see in this part of the country.
The first was a guy wearing a wife beater and driving a beat up Jeep down Wanamaker with the following sticker in his window:
Yes it's Calvin peeing on gun control. The best part? The car very clearly had an enormous crack caused by a gun shot on the front windshield.
The second is a little bit in a meaner spirit. Forgive me ahead of time! Outside of the Walgreens in Fleming Place there was a woman with the biggest droopy waist boobs I've ever seen. They were what David described as "knee-knockers." And the punch line? She had a t-shirt on that said "I need a hug."
I put a counter on the bottom of my page soon after I started blogging. Today that counter clicked past 1000 visits. I can't believe people are actually reading this. It makes me feel happy yet also a little exposed. I've posted 50 entries since I started in January, so that's an average of 20 views per entry. Wow!
Okay, granted half of those are probably me, but that's still 10 that aren't. I didn't even know I even had 10 friends that cared. I feel so loved.
I want to know who you all are reading my blog. So please add something in the comments section and let me know who you are. For those of you unfamiliar with posting comments on blogs, just click the word "comments" at the bottom of this post. Can't wait to hear from you all!
P.S. I just increased my count even more after edited this post twice and viewing it after each edit. W00t!
This is just a quick post since I'm still in NYC. I'll post later about our adventures at the ICFF. I just wanted to post a link to the first (as far as I know) trailer for the new Joss Whedon show Dollhouse. As many of you know, I am an insane Joss Whedon fan. Now the man behind Buffy, Angel, and Firefly has a new show this upcoming season that has gotten all us Whedonites super-excited. Here's a summary of the show and here's where you can watch the trailer.
This is a totally gratuitous and meaningless post, but I just wanted to point out that today is my fifth 29th birthday - or in "regular" counting that's 33. I really don't feel that old. Ten years ago I would have thought I'd have a couple of kids and be a real college professor by now. Instead, I'm still working on my dissertation . . . but I do have a dog and just bought a house in the suburbs, so I'm getting there. In any case, here's to life leading you to places you didn't expect you'd go.
Anyone in the DC area can come out to Mate tonight from 6:30-10pm to help me celebrate. And buy me drinks, of course :)
David and I are heading to NYC this weekend. For my birthday I wanted to go to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). Maybe I'll take some cool pictures of the cutting edge design we see there and post them on my blog on Monday.
One of my first posts when I starting blogging in January was about why I hate political science, the discipline I'm currently getting a Ph.D. in. My hatred goes beyond the typical graduate student phase where you dislike your dissertation for about a 6 month period before learning to love it again. (I'm told almost all grad students go through this.) My negative feelings for political science run strong and deep. As I've discussed previously, I am seriously thinking a disciplinary or even career change after my dissertation is done.
As proof for to you non-political science types, here's a link to an article from the most recent issue of the leading journal in my discipline, the American Political Science Review. Check out pages 9-10 in particular (Interesting side note - I worked as an editorial assistant at the APSR a couple years ago.) One needs an undergraduate degree in math to read this stuff, let alone produce an article like this.
I guess I should expect no less from a discipline that has to tack "science" on the end of its name in order to feel legitimate. It's like the penis envy of academia. Of course, I personally subscribe to broader definitions of science as "systematic knowledge" and "structured enquiry." But what do I know? I'm just a disgruntled graduate student.
Okay, maybe the title of this post is a bit of an exaggeration - my drinking this weekend was no where near the level of the alcoholism portrayed in the famous Billy Wilder movie. However, I drank more on Saturday than I have drank in a long time and am still feeling the effects two days later. By one estimate I drank almost 3 bottles of wine by myself. I think it's going to be a full week until I can even look at a drink again.
Of course, it was entirely worth it. I spent all day and night Saturday with a group of amazing women, including my two sisters-in-law, Katie and Laura, and two of Katie's close friends. It was supposed to be a kind of reunion for the group that went to Katie's bachelorette weekend in New Orleans last fall. So we headed out to my in-laws' place in the the mountains and toured wineries in the area. That might sound calm and sedate, but when wine tasting is involved lots can happen. Check this blog entry from one of the women on the trip for more details. I warn you now - things got pretty silly.
Like many Gen X kids, I absolutely loved Scooby Doo when I was growing up. There were a few years in grade school that I couldn't wait for class to be over because a local Topeka channel showed two back to back episodes every weekday from 4-5pm. I even had Scooby Doo underoos. So needless to say I was shocked when I made some reference to the typical Scooby Doo plotline, and my husband stared at me blankly. Sure, he's seen it a couple of times, but he never really was a serious watcher of Scooby Doo. Instead, he preferred the Smurfs. "HOW COULD I HAVE MARRIED THIS MAN?!?" I screamed at myself. He must have totally been faking it when he laughed at Veronica Mars saying "ruh-roh."
In order to remedy the situation and preserve my marriage, I decided to TiVo original episodes of "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" After watching a few of them together (and surprisingly remembering most of the plotlines over 20 years later), David began to get a feel for the Scooby formula. The Mystery Machine breaks down near a spooky location or one of the Scooby Gang's family members/friends asks them to come and visit. Local talk about some recent haunting or otherworldly activity. Freddie and Thelma get excited and agree to investigate, with Scooby and Shaggy wanting to get out of town immediately. The gang splits up in search of clues. Scoobers and Shaggy always go together, as do Fred and Daphne, with Thelma floating between the two depending on the episode. Scooby and Shaggy inevitably find some food or make food (typically a dagwood sandwich), and run into the ghost/monster/zombie/werewolf/whatever. They try to hide by dressing up as someone else or integrating themselves into the background scenery. The gang hatches a plan to catch the spook, usually with Scooby and Shaggy as bait. There's a montage of the bad guy chases Scooby and Shaggy again with a groovy 60s music score. The trap backfires (usually catching Shaggy & Scooby instead) but then the gang catches the ghoul anyways.
And then, of course, is the big reveal. The mask is pulled off and otherworldly spook is revealed to be just a regular human being, muttering the famous line "and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you darned kids." And then it hit me after watching a few iterations of the Scooby Doo formula as an adult . . .
Scooby Doo teaches kids to be skeptics; to use critical thinking and problem solving skills to reason out a logical solution. Sure the clues are obvious and the motivations at times hokey, but instead of accepting supernatural explanations on face value, Scooby Doo tells us there's always a naturalistic explanation for purportedly unexplained phenomena. After arriving at this conclusion, I realized I'm not the only one who has. Other skeptics have also recognized the value of Scooby Doo in teaching kids to think skeptically. Too bad the newer Scooby Doo cartoons and live-action movies have jettisoned the human explanations in favor of showing the supernatural as unquestionably "real."
So my kids will definitely be watching old skool Scooby Doo. And I'll enjoy it along with them. Now if I can just get David to watch them all . . .
I've been reading Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" this week. It's one of the big scifi classics I've never read and I decided to finally take it down from my bookshelf and crack it open. I'm not going to post a critique here (that's better saved for my GoodReads account). As with any book written in a different cultural era, I can't help but notice the few sexist, racist, and heteronormative statements sprinkled throughout the book. This doesn't bother me tremendously, as I recognize it's just a reflection of the social attitudes of the time. And in many ways Stranger in a Strange Land was ahead of it's time in terms of questioning social mores and conventions about sex and sexuality. What this did get me thinking about, though, was a projection of our current cultural mores into the future.
When people 50-100 years in the future read books written in the present day, which of our cultural conventions and mores will seem antiquated and even repugnant to them? What will be the sexism or racism of the future?
I think the most obvious initial answer is issues of sexual orientation. While we've certainly made tremendous strides in this area even in the past 10 years, we still have a very long way to go. My guess is that the idea of gay marriage being controversial will seem as ridiculous as the notion of inter-racial marriage being controversial is to us. (Of course, there still exists a tremendous amount of racism in the present day. While it's not socially acceptable to display racist attitudes publicly in most circles, many people still hold these views privately.) So perhaps readers of the future will pick up a Pulitzer Prize winning book from the first decade of the 21st Century, and while reading it will note the lack of gay characters, especially ones who are married and/or have children.
Another possibility I've been mulling over lately is attitudes towards genetics and biology. Will our current distaste for cloning, eugenics, and extreme body modification seem outdated and antiquated to the readers at the turn of the 22nd century? That is, if anyone is still reading books . . .
Any other ideas my fair readers? What current social and cultural attitudes will be the racism and sexism of the next century?
I just needed to share this unintentionally funny ebay listing. It's for a pair of "Vintage Retro Plastic Salt & Pepper Shakers." Or at least that's what the person listing them says they are. Take a look at the picture and judge for yourself:
The listing describes them as
Old pair of salt & pepper shakers that are shaped somewhat like bullets or rockets, maybe?; not sure what they are supposed to be.
Uh-huh. Sure. You, dear lister, have no idea what they are supposed to be. Riiiiiiight . . .
The listing goes on to make such obvious innuendos as "There are holes on the top of each for dispensing" and "The shakers still screw off and on 'tight.'" Either this person is attempting to make a bad joke or they are completely and utterly clueless. Of course, the third possibility is that I'm reading way to much into this listing. (For a possible explanation as to why, see the previous entry on married sex life.)
So how many of you read the title and thought I was going to talk about my own sex life? Sorry to disappoint you but not today. Besides, my Mom reads this blog. (Hi Mom!)
I just wanted to share with you one of the most hysterical parody songs I've heard in a while. I know that's actually not saying much. There's not a lot of competition out there in the genre of parody song. In any case, I've heard this one a few times on the XM station The Verge. It's called "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords. I've sure many of you have seen Flight of the Conchords' TV show on HBO , about the adventures of "New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" after they move to New York City. Funny stuff. This particular song perfectly captures the reality of married/long-term relationship sex, IMHO. So enjoy the clip. You partnered folks will especially appreciate it
Here are the lyrics for your reading pleasure:
Aww yeah
That`s right baby. Girl, tonight we`re gonna make love. You know how I know, baby? `Cause it`s Wednesday. And Wednesday night is the night that we make love. Tuesday night`s the night that we go and visit your mother, but Wednesday night is the night that we make love. `Cause everything is just right conditions are perfect. There`s nothing good on TV. Conditions are perfect. You lean in close and say something sexy like, "I might go to bed I`ve got work in the morning." I know what you`re trying to say baby. You`re trying to say, "Oh, yeah. It`s business time. It`s business time."
It`s business. It`s business time. That`s what you`re trying to say you`re trying to say let`s get down to business it`s business time.
It`s business. It`s business time. Next thing you know we`re in the bathroom brushing our teeth. That`s all part of it, that`s foreplay. Then you go sort out the recycling. That`s not part of it but it`s still very important. Then we`re in the bedroom. You`re wearing that ugly old baggy t-shirt from that team building exercise you did for your old work. And it`s never looked better on you.
Oh, team building exercise `99.
Oh, you don`t know what you`re doing to me. I remove my jeans but trip over them `cause I still got my shoes on. But I turn it into a sexy dance. Next thing you know I`m down to just my socks and you know when I`m down to just my socks what time it is? It`s time for business. It`s business time.
It`s business. It`s business time. You know when I`m down to just my socks it`s time for business that`s why they call it business socks.
It`s business. It`s business time. Oh. Ooh, makin` love. Makin` love for two. Makin` love for two minutes. When it`s with me you only need two minutes, `cause I`m so intense. Two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven. You say something like, "Is that it?" I know what you`re trying to say. You`re trying to say, "Aww yeah, that`s it." Then you tell me you want some more. Well I`m not surprised. But I`m quite sleepy.
It`s business. It`s business time. Business hours are over. Right, right.
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