Modern Lives

Okay, time for a little bathroom humor to go. Ever been in the car on a roadtrip or stuck in hellacious traffic for hours on end and have had the call of nature start ringing down below? Well, thanks to a European company, you don't even have to get out of the car to answer that call. Just plug the Indipod into a cigarette lighter output and voila, a small bathroom inflates inside the car replete with a mini toilet for your squatting pleasure. Worries about offensive odors are apparently dispelled by a chemical concoction within the plastic john, one pouch of which the company claims will last one person eight days of regular use. It is designed for small children and people with disabilities who might find themselves on a long roadtrip without ready restroom access, but I see great potential here . . . Think about it, America the Lacadazical can think up all kinds of uses for this new contraption. It would be a great help to those too lazy to leave the living room during marat...

After you read the article linked in the post below, you may feel like escaping from reality. If only there was something you could hook up to your TV in the primetime off-season that would fill the room with colors, lights, and sounds--something interactive that would stimulate the imagination and sharpen both your problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination. No, Leeann, I'm not talking about karaoke. No, something altogether different. If such a thing existed, I think I would call it "Playstation". What? It already exists? In two, soon to be three, generations? Well I'll be a crashing Super Custom Muscle Car. Video games do provide such an escape from reality, and I have two things I'd like to anounce. A) From the creators of SimCity and the Sims comes Spore , a Sim game (for PC's) based on evolution. It sounds fascinating and as addictive as its predacessors. B) Burnout 3 is the coolest racing/crashing game EVER , period, end-of-story. You have to ...

I have laid off the political rantings for awhile now, but I felt this warranted mentioning. Senfronia Thompson, an African-American representative from Houston, stormed the pulpit of the Texas legislature to tell her fellow congress-people just how bigoted and sorry they really are in their perversed and obsessive need to gay-bash in the name of justice and all that is "holy". Her remarks provided a candlelight's glimmer of hope in the face of an approaching F5 twister. It's politicians like her that are far to rare in the brave new world of the Bush Theocracy. Many supposed political "allies" of progressive, fair-minded people (aka, you and me and anyone else who isn't a Bush lackey or sheep) lack this kind of moral conviction and the courageous gusto it takes to stand up to legislative bullies like Rep. Chissum. Read her remarks here . You will feel your heart swell with hope and pride at her words--hope for the future, pride for what our great state ...

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent me their good "get well" mojo the past couple of days--I can feel the love! I am back at work, continuing to improve, and should be completely well by the weekend. Yay for three day weekends! Almost makes up for being sick during half the previous weekend. Most importantly, the leprechauns are gone. If ever you get the flu and have to take NyQuil, I gotta tell ya, whatever you do, don't throw off the leprechauns' groove. Beware the grooooooove!

I must say, having the flu this late in the season sucks almost as badly as having it in the dead of winter. I think the flu was invented by the Kleenex and Pharmaceutical Industry, or at the very least they repress attempts at curing it and the common cold. I mean, look what a economic boon it is to them. Millions of people catch these highly contagious, yet for the most part manageable diseases, every year that requires us to consume massive quantities of tissue and NyQuil (The last legal, over the counter narcotic that doubles as the thirteenth step . . . I'm high as a kite an my teeth are green, Merry effing Xmas! . . . NyQuil we love you, you giant fuqing Q! . . . &c.). Last year's flu vaccine shortage was the most blatant attempt at keeping the conspiracy going--only enough for the people who might actually die from it, so give the vaccine to them and let the younger, healthier population catch it so they can send another generation of Kleenex and NyQuil offspring...

Okay, normally I don't do tech posts, but this I had to share. Sony unveiled the new Playstation 3 today. I won't bother posting all the specs, but suffice to say it is superfast (35 times faster than the PS2), backwards compatible all the way, has a hard drive, comes with standard wireless controllers (Bluetooth), internet ready (via wi-fi and dsl), and will be available in black, white, and my personal favorite, silver. No price has been announced. Okay, so I gave some technical details . . . shoot me. Read more about it and how the presenters made a dig at Microsoft, here: BBC News

Just got the latest issue of Out magazine and while thumbing through the usual spread of young and impossibly fit models hawking ridiculously priced fashion, gadgets, and the latest and trendiest in "must-haves", I came across a story that was (pull out the puke bucket) actually heart-warming. Ironically, the story takes place in the refrigerated section of New York's Central Zoo, where a pair of special penguins have proven that being gay really is going to the birds. Meet Roy and Silo, a pair of chinstrap penguins. Roy and Silo met during the 1998 breeding season and paired off for life as many species of penguin are wont to do. Nothing unusual here, save one small detail: both are male penguins. Gay penguins are nothing new. The are several paired same sex penguins at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. The Gay penguins there have gotten so famous in their homeland that there were protests when zoo keepers attempted ways of making the homo-ice-birds go for members of the oppos...

That's right, now joining the ranks of applying the law fairly and ubiquitously, a federal judge has struck down the Nebraska constitutional ammendment prohibiting gay marriage, citing that it was not only unfair to gay couples, it had much farther reaching implications that would negatively affect many other familial structures. It is unclear what, if anything, this means for same-sex couples living in Nebraska who wish to marry. Read more here: CBS News Thanks to my partner in life and love--and everything in between--Tim, for the tip!

Happy Ft13 , y'all! Today's the day when superstitious people all over the world steer clear of all things unlucky. Black cats and ladders everywhere are feeling the pressure to make themselves scarce and black isn't just slimming, it's a fashion statement. It promises to be a fun Ft13 tonight as here in the Metroplex we're expecting big happy funtime thunderstorms to overtake the area, bringing rain, lightning, and possibly hail and twisters with them around midnight. So break out the scary movies, ouija boards, Ozzie Osbourne, and visit your local ancient graveyard, cuz its gonna be a fun one tonight! But beware of the shadow demons . . . especially the ones with the glowy eyes.

I keed I keed! A big WELCOME to our good friend Lesley, who has mustered the courage (or lack of anything better to do during her downtime) to start her own blog ! Now, by her own admission, she has an attention span almost as long as her pug Popo's, so make her feel welcome, inundate her with loving or scathing comments, and above all keep her interested past her two week blog life-expectancy. Spread the word and the love!

(Originally posted on 3/6/2004) Okay, I promised poetry, so to get the ball rolling, I have selected one that has been rather popular. Sounding Fury I finished reading Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, placed it next to the notebook in my sack, and headed out the door ruminating on its lack of sense, suddenly realizing its randomness is everyday life. A printed never-ending consciousness stream of TV images, as the ones played out in front of me while I watch. Engrossed by events I lose track and look at my watch. Seeing the time, late to work, I imagine supervisory fury as I rush in, still distracted by images of people, ideas and faces pulling from bottles of sack. I stop in my cubicle, claustrophobic cell of office life, my desk staring blankly, appealing to logical non sense. I stare ...

Tim comes home today!!!!! Me so happy I could just pee-pee! (Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.)

Or so it seems more and more with every scientific study. So here's the scoop. Some Swedish science geeks trying to find out whether or not humans secrete and respond to pheromones--like almost every other creature that has ever lived and died on this planet does--made a rather interesting discovery along the way, a discovery that corroborates a study done in 1991 by one Dr. Simon LeVay. But first, a little history-cum-biology lesson. Deep within the recesses of the brain, there resides a little gishy part called the hypothalamus. It is a primitive, autonomic part of the brain that controls, most notably, body temperature and the human sexual response among other things. Dr. LeVay was studying the differences between the hypothalumus of men and women when he came upon a rather fascinating find. He discovered that the hypothalumus in gay men and hetero-women were roughly the same size in one particular quadrant, and that both were smaller than the same hypothalamus section in hetero...