Friday Random 10

I'll bet you thought I forgot...


Will Never Marry - Morrissey
Slip Away - David Bowie
The Rain Song - Led Zeppelin
This House is Empty Now - Elvis Costello
Ruby's Arms - Tom Waits
Breaking Us In Two - Joe Jackson
Soldier of the Flesh - Fairfield Parlour
You See Me Cryin' - Aerosmith
Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa - Sigur Ros
Just Friends - Gavin DeGraw

Friday CNN WTF

Also, if you want to see any pictures of my stuff, a la the Dr. Brazen's self-absorbtion meme, just let me know. I'll warn you, though, my stuff mostly sucks.

Work? What work? Mull over socio-political abstractions instead!

1. I suggest you go over to Feministe and check out the discussion of personal choice versus collective responsibility. This is the issue as I understand it: although women with children may want to leave the workforce, this generally reduces the number of working women and makes men less likely to introduce the kind of working conditions that would make it easier for women to remain at work in the first place. Should women make personal decisions based upon their larger political implications? Granted, both women and men (at least those with a social concience) make this kind of choice all the time, but this goes slightly beyond having a Cingular cell phone because their employees are unionized. I haven't decided where I fall - comments?

2. Browsing the archives of this very blog, I realized that men are heavily objectified; treated as little more than a collection of parts for the purpose of sexual gratification. I got to thinking - what are the political implications of objectifying men? Is it 'right', not just to comment on the attractiveness of men, but also to speculate on how they might be manipulated into various sexual acts? I think there are three points of view one can take. The first is that turnabout is fair play, and because men have subjected women to this cold gaze for so long, they should be - deserve to be - dehumanized in this way. Perhaps it will teach them how harmful and hurtful objectification is. Although this strikes me as somewhat punative, I'd be willing to take arguments.

A second (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) possibility is the objectification of men OK because there is (in Twisty-ian terms) an intrinsic power imbalance between men and women. Perhaps sexualization is a tool that can be used to increase women's social power at the expense of men. Note that this requires equating social power with sexual power. As women, do we want to play into this game, or do we want to change the game itself?

Finally, one could argue that, just as women are not uteruses with legs, men are not sperm delivery systems, and have just as much right to be treated as a complete human being. Although this is a superficially pleasing, "why-can't-we-all-just-get-along" viewpoint, it requires one to ignore the weight of history, and some might see it as hopelessly naive.

I'd like to know what people, both women and men, think about the treatment of men as sexual objects. Am I an evil oppressor? A feminist champion? A girl-nerd who overestimates the social and political importance of her actions, and like legions of guy-nerds, is just bitter about her inability to get laid?

Embarrassing fact Wednesday

I haven't had the cash to join a gym, so I've been running the obstacle course in the park. That's not the embarrassing part - it's that I pretend that I'm in Kill Bill 2 while I do it. Seriously, I put the soundtrack on my iPod and everything.

Summertime Cocktail

Here's a drink the the Greekboys and I mixed up last summer. A warning - the bright pink color led one of them to say, "It tastes good, but a man blowing me while I drink this couldn't make it gayer". That's why I call it:

The Pretty Euro Boy
Makes three (of course!)

Combine in a blender:
6 ice cubes
3/4 cup lemonade
~3 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
4 shots Stoli vanil
1/2 shot cointreau

I watch 30 minutes of The Today Show and draw a bunch of conclusions about the entire media establishment

For a variety of reasons as boring as they are convoluted, I couldn't listen to my usual NPR while getting ready this morning. Instead, I flipped on the Today show for some background noise. Now, a short disclaimer - I haven't watched network news in...oh, probably five years. Aside from America's Next Top Model and my beloved Anthony Bourdain Show, most of my contact with the outside world comes from public radio, the New York Times, and blogs. Yes, yes, I'm a screaming, bloody-hearted liberal. Sue me. Anyway, here was the news lineup this morning: could YOU handle it?

TOP STORY: To Today's credit, they did actually mention the whole New York Times- banking surveilance thing. Rather than provide any analysis (which I'm not going to give either, suckers. That's what the Kos is for), they drag out Tim Russert, who says something to the effect of:

"Yeah, it's the job of the press to watch the administration and alert the public when they overstep the bounds of the law. Yeah, the press... oh, dude - that us! Damn, son, that's my bad."

That's it. No mention of the fact that Bush, Cheney, and Snow were out in force, all simultaneously shooting disgrace rays at the 'liberal' media. No mention of how congress was briefed on the program only after it became clear that the media was going to publicize it. Should we place this story in context and mention that this is only one more eggregious breach of privacy by an administration that has raised government snooping to a high art? Certainement non! We've got more important things to talk about, like...

J.K. ROWLINGS IS GOING TO KILL OFF TWO CHARACTERS IN HER NEXT BOOK AND ONE OF THEM MIGHT BE HARRY OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

...becauses the potential death of a fictional character in a book that might be released this year warrants intensive media scrutiny.

At this point, I think I was bumped back to the local affiliate. Just in case you were wondering, the top story in NorCal this morning was...

THREE MILLION DOLLAR SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS! YOU COULD WIN! RIGHT NOW!

...at which point the talking heads spent the next five minutes scratching off tickets and joking about walking off camera when they won.

If this is the average American's exposure to current events, it's no surprise that people aren't outraged. How could they know? As for the media, it reminds me of a girl that I met while interviewing for graduate schools. She was working for a business that artifically inseminated poultry. I shit you not - she jerked off chickens for a living. But she said that even though it was a disgusting job, and even though your average chicken masturbator doesn't get a lot of credit, and in spite of the fact she went home every night tired and splattered with bird semen, she could go to sleep knowing that this was a service people needed, and that she'd done her job well. It seems to me that this is what televsion needs: less Harry Potter, more chicken jizz. How do they sleep at night?

Dog-heavy post

You Are a Chihuahua Puppy

Small, high strung, and loyal. You do best in the city with adults - young kids could crush you!

What Breed of Puppy Are You?

Seems about right, eh Publius?

Damn, dude, I want a dog. Unfortunately, a) I can't afford it, and b) my apartment doesn't allow pets of any kind (it also don't allow "exuberant behavior", but that's another story). In the off chance that someday I do have a dog, I have thought of the following names:

1. Stinky Pete
2. El Macho Grande
3. Godzilla the Wonder Dog
4. Fernando

As an added bonus, you now understand why I should never, ever be allowed to have children.

Overeducated and Immature

...according to Discovery News, the more education you have, the more likely you are to never attain mental maturity

The theory’s creator is Bruce Charlton, a professor in the School of Biology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

It's worth reading, if only for the weird reference to David Brooks at the end - maturity, bla, psychology, bla bla, hippies ruined America - whaaa? Who's manning the store over there?

via slashdot, because my nerditude is well established.

Every conversation I've had this week

A play in one act.
Setting- University Town, California



Hippy: Hot enough for ya?

Me: Fuck off.

FIN




Eventually, I will get up the courage to tell them that it's nowhere nearly hot enough for me - according to the USDA, I'm just barely safe to eat.

I'm like Fox News

...in that I'm going to totally rip a quote out of context. But what the hell. Haven't you ever wanted to say that:

Dick Cheney's a barely human, oozing, feces-covered demi-gorgon who rips the heads off ducklings just for sport

Rude Pundit did, and also comments on why members of the press have a grudge against the bloggers.

It's probably a good thing I don't know this guy in real life, 'cause I'm a sucker for gratuitous profanity.

Your Commie has no regard for human life. Not even his own. Oh, and Friday random 10.

The movie theater in town has a 'Retro Movie Night' where, for $5, you can see an old movie and participate in some film anarchy. Yelling, throwing things, and shouting out movie quotes are encouraged. It's one of my favorite things about this town.

Last night's offering was Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in a decade, I strongly suggest that you do. Between Slim Pickens' cowboy-hatted pilot obsessed with 'staying the course' and Peter Sellers' titual former Nazi, who can't help but call the president "Mein Fuhrer!", it is even more hilarious in the light of recent events. In fact, if you take every every use of the words "Commie", or "Rooskie" (remember those?) and substitute "Terrorist", you could have any speech by Condoleeza Rice. Except when Pat Robertson forgets that you can't be afraid of commies and terrorists at the same time. 'Cause, dude - that's just stupid.

The random 10 today comes from the (rather depauperate) offerings on my work computer, but are LBP approved, nonetheless.

1. Hotel Yorba - The White Stripes
2. La Fiesta Comenza - Gipsy Kings
3. Drive-in Saturday - David Bowie
4. Roxanne - The Police
5. Angry Inch - Hedwig and the Angry Inch Soundtrack
6. Refractions in the Plastic Pulse - Stereolab
7. Nazi Punks Fuck Off - Dead Kennedys
8. Imitation of Life - R.E.M.
9. All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople
10. Boys Don't Cry - The Cure

Please to be enjoying our new look!

Leaving the house is like stepping onto the surface of the sun, so I thought I would take a few minutes to do some long-overdue housekeeping here at LBP central. You will find that all of my friends' links now go to the actual blog (as long as NOBODY ELSE moves their stuff).

I need a hobby

I had a dream last night that I was at the Cayo Santiago research station, watching monkeys. When it got dark, there were vampires with dripping fangs that come out of the caves. And the vampires would shout pro-communist slogans. And then they would kill you.

The best science book ever

Funny Indiana Stories

A guy shoots his neighbor's dog and somebody's grandkid gets scared, then both parties launch a full-on sign war.
Oh God, just read it for yourself. Or, better yet, look at the signs.

DHS hates Bush as much as we do!

How can illegal wiretapping be a bad thing when it leads to such cool gossip? Ok, so like this DHS guy (look at the picture in the article, he's all old and gross) was talking on the phone, and he totally said Bush was a nob, and a liar and stuff.


Also, he thought he was having a sexual conversation with a 14-year-old-girl, which, last time I checked, was illegal.* Trust CNN to focus on what's really important.



*Unless you live in Colorado, in which case, chat away, perv.

Friday things I don't agree with

1. Usually I lurve Twisty, and I was ready to support the whole anti-fellatio thing (Which started here, but went here and here and ended up here), mostly because I thought I caught the scent of heavy scarcasm. I guess not.

I’d forgotten that when it comes to sex, it is the duty of the radical feminist to shut the fuck up. Sex, which, along with religion, is the new religion, is sacrosanct territory. It is anti-feminist to point out the ideological problems with certain patriarchal sexbot traditions because so many women enjoy patriarchal sexbot traditions.

No, it's not anti-feminist, it's just hypocritical, and crosses into the unfortunate feminist arena of "saving women who don't really want to be saved" (read: housemoms). Frankly, cry me a fucking river. Twisty accomplishes the amazing feat of passing judgement on other peoples' sexual preferences while simultaneously trying to sound like a feminist martyr. Oooh, I'm so sorry we silenced you in your fight against evil sex practices in which you yourself never actually engage. I'm certain that I'm not the only one drowning in irony right now. Now it's time to empty the 'ol browser cache.


2.Why don't you save all the pity you have for poor blow-jobbing straight ladies of the world and give it instead to the girls of Colorado, who now have the 'right' to enter into common-law marriage at the age of 12. Does anyone else see this as a boon to polygamists? Maybe, maybe not. I'm currently reading Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven , a book about the past and present of Mormonism, and perhaps I'm just seeing polygamists behind every bush. Can anyone really come up with a good reason for why children should be able to marry? I think we can be reasonably sure that they're not marrying other children.

3. Rude Pundit continues to have a total boner for A.C..

4. Stephen Hawking says that long-term human survival is only possible if we move to other planets. Technically, I only partially disagree with this. It is true that we will eventually have to find a new habitable planet once we've trashed this one, and I agree with Steve-O when he says we're going to have to go a long way to find something that fits our rather specific needs. However, (and I certainly didn't come up with this idea, but I can't remember where I read it) I'm a little afraid that the right-wingers are going to read this as an argument against conservation. Why does conservation matter when we'll just blow this popsicle stand when it gets completely scungy. The problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't have techmology (as Ali G would say) for large-scale interstellar migration, and we're going to need an planetary exit strategy long before we do. What will we do in the interim? That in itself should be an argument for conservation. Right? Right? Somehow, I think it is not to be.

5. Finally, people keep mistaking me for an undergrad, and I really don't agree with that. In the past, I just thought that it was because this is a big university town, and people just assume that everyone under 30 is associated with the school. That is, until yesterday, when I was getting my morning tea at the Union cafeteria. It's finals week, and all the students were slogging off to exams. I was stirring in my daily dose of sugar substitute when a girl leans over and says conspiratorially, "8 am final, huh? Yeah, me too." Nuh- what hey? I didn't even know what to say. I was just, like "yeah, exam. Good luck." I feel like I should be dashing off e-mails to my professor :

sorry i didn't send in my car payment this month, but u know I had a lot of personal problems and stress and i spent the money on raisin bran and new socks. can u give me, like another semester to pay will be enuf.

Thanx!

Yeah, I think I have this whole undergraduate thing beat. Happy Friday, everyone!

My last words on the subject Anne Coulter. I swear.

Although I've been on the receiving end of no small amount of schadenfreude due to Rude Pundit's continuing coverage of the Coulter plagarism 'scandal', one must consider Anne's writing for what it is - a desperate scream for attention.

Coulter has blown past even Rush Limbaugh's easily refutable lies on her way to becoming mayor of Fucking Nutjob City. And on this topic, Ingo Fast's editorial in the NYT asks a good question: why do we let her get to us? Why do we waste our time? (Personally, I do it because I don't have any friends here - I don't know about you.) He says:

Without the total package, Ms. Coulter would be just one more nut living in Mom's basement. You can accuse her of cynicism all you want, but the fact that she is one of the leading political writers of our age says something about the rest of us.

Sooo.. no more Anne. But I'm still going to watch "America's Next Top Model". For the love of Christ, leave me something.

I see you've bested my Spaniard

*giggle*



Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

OH GOD, MY EYES!!!

Ok, scroll down after you click the link, but slowly

It'll open in a new window, because after you see this, we'll need to talk.

Ready?


Take a deep breath


and click.



No, it doesn't matter where I found it. I just did.

But I have to know: is this what red-staters beat their meat to? Because whenever I look at that picture, and in my head I hear her bleating about "harpy 9/11 widows", I want to become a gay man.

I'm not even a dude, and this picture has put me off the va jay-jay forever.

Mission accomplished, Anne.

ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease

Anne Coulter has been accused of plagarism.

I can't even say anything snarky, 'cause I don't want to jinx it.

My life as a postdoc

6:15 Awakened by birds outside my window. Curse birds.

6:30 Alarm goes off. Go back to sleep.

6:32 Curse all current and future offspring of birds. Get out of bed.

6:32-7:22 Showerbrushteethchecke-mail. Put on clothes at some point, also makeup if feeling particularly saucy. Most likely not.

7:50 Drink tea purchased from campus cafeteria. Remind self that while the undergrad girls working in said cafeteria may be both pretty and taut, they have to take final exams this week, and you don't. Get comfortable with poor self-image.

8:00 Open first file for data analysis. Keep file in an open window so it can hide the blog I'm reading in case anybody walks in.

9:00 Lab manager arrives. Receive update on cute things her cats have done in the last 12 hours. Respond with appreciation of cat's unbelievable cuteness, and comment accordingly.

10:00-11:00 Run analysis. Recieve error message. Reformat data. Repeat.

11:01 Check cafeteria lunch menu online

11:03 Check cafeteria lunch menu online

11:05 Graduate students arrive.

11:06 Gratuate student's research encounters insurmountable obstacle. Inquire if graduate student has taken their Wellbutrin. Suggest that graduate student add more magnesium/lower annealing temperature of the next reaction.*

11:30 Lunch, and the inevitable disappointment that follows heightened expectations. Ponder how lunch is like a microcosm of life that way.

12:30-2:00 Lab manager affirmation. "You could go back to graduate school any time you want."

3:00: Undergrad interns arrive. Make stilted conversation. End conversation when they ask "yeah, but what exactly do you do?. Punks.

3:01: Check analysis program that has been running all this time. Replicate 20 of 1,000. Perfect.

3:02 Analysis program crashes. Restart program. This is called job security.

4:42 Analysis program finishes. Paste results into color-coded spreadsheet. Show spreadsheet to boss.**

4:59 Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeon

4:59:30 Graduate student crisis

5:20 Arrive home. Yell "I'm home!!" before remembering that you traded possessions and the love of others for a graduate degree. In anthropology. What the hell were you thinking?

6:30-7:30 Constant exposure to undergraduates has lowered self-esteem to record levels. Go for a run. Contemplate which thing you hate more: running or cats.

7:31 Begin to chop vegetables for dinner. Wonder who the hell you're trying to impress. Make bowl of cereal.

8:00 Really and truly intend to work on paper for publication.

8:01-12:00 Court TV

Well, there's always tomorrow.






*Note to aspiring post-docs: occasionally, a particularly astute or vengeful grad student will notice that these are the only changes you ever suggest. Such smart-asses should not be tolerated. Ask them "well, do you know if you extraction worked? Maybe there's no DNA in there!" This will strike fear into their hearts, or at least discourage them from asking you for advice, which was the point all along.

**Occasionally, the boss will ask you how you interpret the results of your analysis. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TRICK! He has known how the results will be interpreted since he told you to do the analysis. Merely look thoughful for a few moments and say "Well, it depends on what sort of question you're asking."

I knew all the waiting would pay off

Keanu, I love you.

Shhh- don't talk.


No, seriously. Don't.



via Defamer, who knows how to make all my dreams come true.

Art imitates life

In lieu of TV or oh.. working on my revisions, I've been watching a lot (lot LOT) of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you think I'm exaggerating the badness of TV out here, I'm assure you that I'm not- I currently know more about the Real Madrid vs. Bar-the-lonaa World Cup match than Spaniard-in-Residence. (Tuesday, 9 pm eastern, Travel Channel, if you're into that sort of thing.)

...which is why I found MST3K's send-up of the Joe Estevez vehicle "Werewolf" so amusing, especially the following bit:



Bad Actor: I really screwed things up in the lab

Bad Actress: Don't worry, the damage wasn't that bad...trust me, I do this for a living.

Mike Nelson: You console European losers?

Tom Servo: He's not a werewolf... he's just Greek!


Ahhhh... it's funny 'cause it's true.

The good news is that it's you-tubed, the bad news is that it's broken up into 10-minuted segments. Regardless, I highly recommend going to tha Tube and searching on "mst3k werewolf". C'mon, you weren't working anyway.

Are you a bad driver?

As a new driver but longtime passenger, I wasn't surprised at all to see a CNN report that the Northeastern US is home to America's worst drivers.

Before you read the article, though, take the test yourself. I received 90%, but you need 70% to pass.

Personally, this was a vindication for me, because, according to my family and especially one of my brothers, I am a terrible driver. Perhaps, but apparently I'm also a terribly safe driver. So take that!!

Indiana makes the news

I'm always scanning the news media for references to my home state, and here's a big 'un. It appears that tiny Reynolds, Indiana is trying to become independent of the US power grid.

I've been through Reynolds a billion times, (because it's a gas stop on the highway between where I used to go to school and where my parents used to live), and may I say I admire the restraint of the NYT reporter for this article. She mentions, and then completely glosses over the fact that people in Reynolds are doing this, not because of any sense of social responsibility, but because they hate and fear Arabs. Well done, m'am!

In other news, here's a picture of my bargain-basement sleeper couch, of which I am more than a little proud. Mostly, I am proud because, technically, it is NOT a futon. That is because I am a GROWNUP and grownups do not have FUTONS in their living rooms.
As you can see, I have very little else in my living room. That is because I am extremely picky, and also because I get paid monthly.