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QotD: If I Had Guaranteed Success…
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could never fail?
Submitted by BeckyPink.
Jessica Alba!
…
*ahem*
Oh! You said "what" not "who" would I do?
That's different. After I cured stupidity in the world, I would create the coolest space-ship in the world, I would grab my ultra-sexy girlfriend, marry her, and make her my first mate. Then I'd grab some muscle with a big chip on his sholder and a bit of the left-over stupidity I abolished for some comic relief, get a really good ship's cook and take my Nobel-prize money and use it to buy the universe's coolest souvenirs.
Trends of the 00’s
It's not the second half of 2007, we are firmly into the new millenia, and I've been pondering the hallmarks of this decade. I was a toddler through the 80's, a school-kid during the 90's and a burgeoning adult in this decade, as we're coming up on the home stretch I feel I'm seeing some of the patterns. I may try to gather these thoughts into something more cohesive later and make it into a stronger post… but right now here's some thoughts.
Fashon
Gone are the baggy clothes of the 90's. We now wear clothing that fits us again. The first half of this decade pushed the snarky phrases on tee-shirts, which is now on the downswing, replaced with shirts bearing asimmetrical tattoo designs. The concept of goth has now fully fallen away and has been replaced by Emo which seems almost universally reviled. Though when I saw Skype now has an emo emoticon, I knew it would be one of the prevailing legacies of the decade.
Trademarks
Trendy people wear logo's, they have for the past 30 years. We wear them like badges of status. Trademarks have been a newer phenominon, and some never really go away. The 70's and 80's gave rise to people wearing their favorite bands on a teeshirt, which never truly died. In the 80's the shoes you wore became hugely important. My experience with the most prevailant trademarks in the 90's was sterios. Your true status lay in what name was on the amp in your backseat or in your home-entertainment system.
Now, it's gadgets. The last 3 years apple has taken over the status symbol market. The razr was popular for 2 years, now blackberry is a strong topic, and some of the smaller names like the sidekick have been extremely trendy in certain circles. White earbuds became a fashon statement. Digital Media has finally become mainstream and despite the constant opposition from corporations is being backed by hardware manufacturers all over.
Media
TV on Cell phones, printed press, and conventional broadcasting is starting to slip. Blogs are becoming the way to keep in-touch with news. Naysayers call them astroturf (term for "artificial grass-roots movement") but they're picking up more and more momentum. Now political candidates are trying to figure out how to harnass the internet's power to get themselves votes. There's a Web 2.0 fashon thingy somewhere in there, but I've yet to upgrade my browser… and I'm still trying to figure out why LOLcats with their unconventional syntax are so damn popular. *Meow*
That's it for now… I'll think on this later.
A Discussion on Sex Part 1
I've been mulling over this post for quite a while, and finally I've decided to take the plunge. Today I'm venturing into a topic that's near and dear to me, sex. This is not a blog going; "Woo Hoo I finally got-some!" Or; "Please Donate!" This is me attempting to offer some of my humble opinions and learnings in regards to the delicious act. I am not a kink-crazed sadomasochist, and do not have any particular fetishes, but I will warn you up front that the stuff I intend to discuss is not "vanilla sex."
Over the past few centuries, sex in western society has come a long, long way. Not so long ago, the whole act was something akin to a marital duty where a good wife remained silent for the duration and a good husband finished quickly. I for one am fucking thankful those days are over.
Even now the female orgasm is shrouded in myth, it's something many men consider impossible except in a tiny portion of women who seem to be able to cum at the drop of a hat. Magazines and modern journalism do little to dispel this myth, it's too lucrative a mystery. They sell themselves on tartaric secrets from the far-east and expert advice from leading gynaecologists, when in reality you can pick up a full hardcover copy of the translated Karma Sutra, completely illustrated at your local boutique for less than the cost of 6 months subscription to your rag-du-jour.
Even more startling is the idea that men require nothing more than the presence of a female to be ready for sex. This I consider just as harmful a myth as the idea that most women can't have orgasms. This way of thinking gives rise to retarded ideas like "once you get married the sex starts to suck" and "it's hard wired in a man's psyche to want to stray." There is a misconception that men are always ready and when proven false the man in question feels embarrased and unmanly, while the woman feels hurt and unloved. This does not have to be the case.
Sex is about exploration, and if you believe there's nothing more to explore with your partener sexually you're wrong. It's not a robotic act, there are so many factors in-play, emotion, trust, loyalty, role, body position, sexual orifice, and external stimuli all have a bearing on each and every time you crawl into the sack. These factors vary in intensity, and altering any aspect will drastically change the sexual experience.
There's a reason why I put emotion and trust at the forefront of the list. For women no two factors play a more pivotal role. Anna David, author of Party Girl and sex columnist for Stuff Magasine was asked once what her best sexual experience was? The reply: Her best sex was always with someone she was in-love with. I'm sure the guy asking was wanting a down-and-dirty decription of the kinkiest thing she'd ever done, and probably went away disappointed, but she was honest, love has everything to do with it. For women sex is an act of giving one's self and love and caring are a huge part of that. Oddly enough the biology of it has the woman receiving the man which in some very visceral way seems to make you feel a bit more vulnerable. I think any guy who's been on the receiving end of a bit of anal experimentation might agree with me, but more on that later…
QotD: Have, Need, Want
What do you have, what do you need and what do you want?
Submitted by Miss Scotch.
Have: A vox blog with readers that comment. I like them.
Need: To learn how to do Google Adwords…
Want: An independant gaming blog that's monetised with a readership in the 5 digits, and a contract for me and my friend Ian to produce the greatest RPG ever. Then spend the rest of our days playing it to our hearts content.
For those of you who can…
Since I've started blogging there have been a few people I've found here that are so excellent, so genuine and strike such a perfect chord with my own thoughts and opinions that I've grown to honestly care for their well-being.
One of those people is Faerie Wings. Lately in her posts she's been suffering a bout of infection and as she's starting to recover from it her husband has come down with the same. Throughout her ordeal I tried to offer my own particular brand of cheerful humor to help her along, and when I could not think of anything else funny to say I decided to help her out with something more tangiable.
Both Faerie Wings and her husband are both very industrious and creative, and have an Etsy site with some great handmade crafts. I picked one out for my girlfriend's upcoming birthday and bought it. Neither of them are wealthy people and they work hard for every dollar they make and with both of them sick I knew they'd be stretched. I would have sent the money on it's own, but I don't think she would have accepted it.
Then today I see this. I'd hoped it wasn't this dire, but I guess it is.
I'm not posting this to toot my own horn, I'm doing this because Faerie Wings needs help. So if any of you are in a situation to pick up her crafts please take a look.
Halp! (Blackberry Powerpoint Presentations)
Okay. Apparently I have a reputation for knowing my way around gadgets and the like and today that reputation comes to bite me in the ass.
My good friend Coll has a computer inept boss who has a blackberry and wants to know how to do powerpoint presentations on it… normally I'd say "Sure no problem." But I've not worked with powerpoint ever and not with any sort of projector since the mid-90's.
Give me 5 minutes with the eqipment and I'd have figured out. But I don't have it and Coll and her boss are a few thousand miles away… so I'm kinda stuck. I'm certain some of you have used this stuff before so could you point me to the best forum's or blogs to help her out?
Mostly my concerns are related to the various projectors and compatability. He wants a mobile powerpoint solution, but I just don't know how standardised the projectors are nowadays… do they all have bluetooth or USB? Do they take the powerpoint file and read it themselves, or are they simply projecting the slides the laptop or blackberry feeds them?
Any help would be most appreciated.
(Oh did I mention that he wants her to figure this out, but her office won't give her access to the goddam internet! She's a DOCTOR!!! I swear if I put myself through 10 years of school I would so not tolerate that BS.)
Shame On Me
I love my job. I get payed well to wait for things to happen. This waiting gives me the time to do things like write this blog. But today I will explain to you one part of my job that I hate.
Yesterday Tash my girlfriend of 7 years just got her drivers license. Today she had plans to come up and visit me at work, and bring me a few groceries, but her itinerary got filled up; work to do, friends to visit. Our friend Kyle had invited her over to hang out after she was done work. Kyle's been quite busy lately and neither of us have seen him much so she couldn't pass that up. Tash had the idea that she could drive both of us out to visit, and instantly I knew and said that wasn't a good idea.
Why would I say that?
My supervisors are fine with Tash visiting, I've had other visitors up before… why not Kyle?
Kyle is gay.
He's not flamboyantly gay, and in all honesty that aspect of him holds no bearing on our friendship at all. He's a dear friend and I've known him since high-school we've always had great respect for each other our ways of life. He's been a consistent friend for over 10 years. There was a period of a few years when he went to the city and fell into a very bad lifestyle, but after he pulled himself out and came home I was one of the first people he called. That really meant something to me. Kyle is one of the few people who I would help out in an instant, no questions asked, no favours demanded. One of those true friends that some may never know.
But I can't have him out here.
The oilfield is sexist and racist and prejudiced. Individually the people who work in it might be very tolerant of all things, but within the oilfield they must prescribe to that trinity. It's the role everyone plays and I have to play it too, I am a guy medic, I do one of the few jobs out here that it's acceptable for a woman to do. And in the mind of many it is a woman who should be doing what I do. It's frustrating, but I accept it. Whenever I announce that I'm leaving to go on days-off I'm always greeted with the same words: "Does she have better tits than you?"
This is not a likelihood, this is a constant. You have no idea how sick of it I am. But I do not say anything because I like my job, and in all things there are aspects that we must endure. And so I play my part and chuckle along with their stupid inane sexist question that will never, ever change.
Out here a guy who is gay is not someone you associate with. They could be someone who does your very hot girlfriend's hair and takes her out for drinks when you want to play poker with your friends. But being friends with a "fag" means that you must be one yourself, or a closet one, and that's reason enough to send you packing and get someone with "better tits" on the job. So to my great shame I must turn away a good friend because of their ignorance.
Fuckers…
A Glorous Thing
I may not have ranted on here much but I despise conventional new broadcasting. And it appears I'm not alone because some of the oldest networks are finding their viewer base decaying under them. There's a ton of reasons why this is, but I attribute it mostly to too fucking much crap not-news and fear mongering.
Two shining beacons of hope in this sea of shit have been consistently Attack of the Show and X-Play, now admittedly X-Play isn't quite news…. but both shows take dry(ish) topics and make them interesting! Now Morgan Webb co host of X-Play is web casting more NEWS! I have to support her. Let me count down the reasons why:
- She's soooooo gorgeous.
- She's got snappy wit.
- She's SMART!
So check out Webb Alert, subscribe to the Podcast, the RSS, and Embed her Widget. Spread Morgan all over the internet, and then vote her in for Prime Minister. (She's Canadian, so she can't be President, sorry guys, your loss.)
I’m so Horribly Unashamed
Don't let me loose in a boutique unsupervised.
The shop is really lovely actually, but I won't show you the whole thing because there's lots of naked ladies and unveiled fallacies everywhere and I don't know who's sensibilities might be bruised. I'm not officially flagging this content as adult only, but it is somewhat mature content and the jokes are gonna be off color. So if you're easily offended please PM me before you read further and I'll point you in the direction of some very good websites that will be sure to desensitize you.
We'll start with the keychains. Everyone likes a nice old-lady flash joke. Though I must confess the size of those things is a tad impractical. My keychain is big enough allready, they'd actually be better to hang off the zipper of a jacket or from a rear-view mirror.
I know what you're thinking… you're saying "T! You promised us offencive naughty bits, and this is tame!" Well this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here's more:
Veronica's Closet has lots of cool games, like Dirty Minds, and scads of fun drinking games, a pot-smoking game, and some even more risque sex-play games for couples and groups. I've not played this one, maybe I'll try it out sometime and offer a review.
For those of you who just can't get a date on the farm… or if you're just not on the farm anymore and miss the "companionship"… we have an inflatable solution. Choose your preference, little blowup piggie or blowup sheep. Velcro gloves, and rubber boots not-included.
We've all watched Austin Powers, but penis pumps are no myth, and really aren't a novelty. I'm not sure about the stylings though, is it meant to look like an industrial lubricator? Maybe you could fool the maid by telling her it's for turkey basting or unclogging the toilet or something… I wonder if it comes with a measuring tape or a ruler?
Old Line 