Monday, January 24, 2005

It's like a gentle zephyr caressing the surface of a still pond

The Bjork song lives!

There should be an umlaut in there, but I don't know how to do that. Anyway, Lore is genius.

I should point out that when I started playing the Bjork Song, my suite mates were inspired to drown me out with rap music. Philistines.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

I love real headlines that sound as though they were made up

"President vows to spread liberty around the globe"

A new age of optimism? Perhaps!

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Angry feminist be me! Hruuah!

The following is my response to a question from a friend of mine, thirty-eight years young and just beginning to feel the urge to lie about her age. She likes to come to me with her theological problems. "Why," she asked me, "would a benevolent God cause women to reach their sexual peak FIFTEEN YEARS after men have hit theirs and gone into decline?"

I expressed the opinion that this was likely the result of the biological tendency for men to DIE earlier. So of course the female of the species would need to maintain the desire for breeding and find a new mate, or several. To which she replied:

"So you're saying that women are more likely to cheat?"

And so:

"God, no. Anyone will tell you it's the opposite. Men
are more likely to cheat for two reasons: first,
sexual conquest and potency in men are encouraged in
almost all cultures. The old idea that women are not
supposed to enjoy sex or even care about it is fading
in Western society, but its ghost is still there,
particularly hovering around men, who may feel that
feminism has reversed the sexual situation between the
sexes rather than making it more equitable. In other
words, men may feel themselves to be expected to be
subjected to women's sexuality, rather than the
reverse. The other reason is probably linked to that
same biological function: since we're going to kick
it early, we've got to get humping as soon as possible
to spread our genes around. All I meant was that
women's sexual prime lasts longer, and so they can be
expected to have multiple partners over their
lifetimes. If anything, older women should be more
likely to expect a young lover than older men should.

Which is just another way porn has lied to men."

There. Thoughts have been expressed. Opinions, valid or invalid, have been made public. Now, go thee to read Something Positive, that bastion of dark, angry humor. Unless thee are Grandma. Do not read Something Positive Grandma. You and Papa Baer pray for me enough as it is.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Sometimes I eat TV. It tastes like Salisbury steak. Old, chewy Salisbury steak.

I don't know why I get interested in some TV shows. I don't even like watching TV. Commercials make me want to shoot the world in the face. Reality TV shows, Surreal Life and Survivor included, make me horribly, horribly disgusted. It is common knowledge that 90% of television is pure crap, mixed and refined to enhance the quality of crapiness to its maximum potential level. And yet...

Aside from watching Sci Fi's various non-Scare Tactics original series, I also watch a bunch of mainstream network shows, when I get the opportunity. My mother and I used to watch Law & Order religiously, every Wednesday. We would shake our heads in admiration of Jack McCoy. She called me the day she heard that Jerry Orbach died. I still watch reruns, even though I've seen them all, and I'd probably watch the latest season if I could. Instead, lately our new religious viewing has been CSI on Thursdays. Something about Gil Grisom, genius forensic criminologist, is entertaining.

Anyway, what prompted this entry is the show "Without a Trace". It follows CSI on Thursdays, plus TNT appears to have picked up old episodes on Mondays. It's about an FBI missing persons investigative team. It doesn't require nearly the suspension of disbelief that CSI or Crossing Jordan requires. These are FBI agents and I have no trouble believing that they can arrest, question, and shoot suspects while in the pursuit of their investigation. On top of that...Without a Trace is just so much more emotionally satisfying than those other shows. Sometimes they go a little too obviously for the emotional angle, with the soldier returned from Iraq, for instance, a plot failing that Law & Order shares, whereas CSI scripts tend to shoot for the obscure, or at least the shadier kind of urban legend. But I still feel good after watching an episode of Without a Trace. There have been episodes of CSI that left me aching and breathless with tragedy. I don't know how to explain it. I just enjoy Without a Trace more.

Okay, I can't justify the fact that I watch TV. I can't even justify that mumbling, rambling paragraph I just wrote. I have to get up early tomorrow. End.

Also, my dad and I watched the season premier of "24". Dammit. They got me again.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Tackleford Life Lessons

Things I have learned from Scary Go Round:

1. Death is a correctable mistake.

2. Undeath is also a correctable mistake.

3. Always keep more than one time machine.

4. Krakkagar is my secret scary friend.

5. The Portuguese man-o'-war will never achieve its mad military ambitions. It is a jellyfish.

For further endorsement, Eric Burns of Websnark says, "Stroppy! Good English fun..."

There you go. It is educational and stroppy. Bye-bye now.