Still More Reasons Why I love the Internet

So I discovered David Thomson's excellent blog a few weeks ago and, in the course of surfing my favorite links, I happened upon this link in his Friday Ephemera. Now, I should state up front that I'm a big fan of comics, have been for years, and am currently enjoying the 8th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer via comic form from Dark Horse.

Having said that, I should also admit that superhero genitalia - male or female - has never been something I've thought a lot about. But you have to agree that the particular way this character has been drawn ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.") makes you kinda wonder what the artist was drinking that day. And then, to become imbroiled in a, um, discussion about whether the superhero is sporting an erection or just packing some serious meat, well, all I can say is thank God for the Internet.

But that's not the best part.

In the course of reading the post (and the comments), I saw references to two things I'd never heard of: yaoi and XXXenophile. Now, yaoi, as it turns out, is a Japanese form of slash fiction (with illustrations) and XXXenophile is an X-rated comic book, published mainly between 1988 and 2000 by Phil Foglio. Now, slash fiction doesn't interest me a whole lot, although the thought of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in a menage a trois is kind of funny. XXXenophile, on the other hand, I found both amusing and erotic. If you'd like to actually see some scans from them, you can go here, but be aware that these are definitely NSFW.

But even that's not the best part.

Also referenced in the post is a post here, talking about a method of "eyetracking", which measures what the eye focuses on while reading.

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.
Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

Now this is cool. And, whodathunk it, very informative. I mean, who knew that men were so interested in the "private anatomy" of other men? Not to mention animals?

That's why I love the Internet.

Oh, and for my part, I have no problem with the "cock", especially superhero cock, but I draw the line at animal private anatomy.

Almost Gothic

Spring Reading

Just finished Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. Excellent read, very good horror novel in the model of Stephen King's It or Salem's Lot.

Next up, re-reading the Harry Potter books in preparation for Book 7.

The Only Critic Worth Reading

Over the years, I've had trouble finding movie critics who shared my tastes and, um, sensibilities. Most critics are too high-brow for my very middle to low-brow interests and either prattle on about things I couldn't care less about or inject their own "gee, if only I were a filmmaker and not a critic" vibe into the review, making it impossible for me to know if the movie is something I want to pay money to see or not.

True, now and then some critic would break through the void, like Joe Bob Briggs, but JBB is mostly a niche critic and, as much as I like that niche, I do have the occasional urge to see a movie for reasons other than its breast count. These days, that's what Skinemax is for.

For a while, Siskel & Ebert filled the bill - mostly Siskel; his thoughts on movies were so close to mine, it was almost scary, and reviewers like Glenn Kenny of Premiere Magazine and EW's Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum have been pretty reliable for me, but but the U.S. version of Premiere is now history and Kenny of late has shown advanced stages of BDS syndrome. So, what's a cost-conscious movie lover to do?

Turn to this guy, of course. Just read the opening paragraph from his review of "In the Land of Women":

In the Land of Women is the cinematic equivalent of salt peter. You could take a handful of boner pills and watch every Candy Botttoms movie you can get your hands on before walking in, and this piece of shit will shrink your dick, man or woman, faster than getting it slammed in a freezer door. I mean, the only reason I can think of for this movie to exist is to wilt dicks.

Or this insightful comment a little further in:

In the Land of Women are three main women: Meg Ryan, Kristen Stewart and Adam Brody. Brody, actually, is transgendered, looking like a man, but in his pants he has Skittles where his dick is supposed to be. The mother and daughter both hope to taste the rainbow.

Pure poetry, don't you think?

So this summer, on the rare occasion when you're looking for a movie that doesn't have the number 3 associated with it, check out The Filthy Critic first. Not only will you get a free, non-shill take on the movie, you'll also find yourself laughing out loud.

The Taxman Cometh

Take a minute and jog over to Don Luskin's place and read a Tax Parable. Go on. It's short, amusing and seems - to me, at least - to make a lot of sense.

All done? Good.

Now, the only potential problem I can think of with it is this: How much beer did each of the men drink?

Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?

I caught a few minutes of the Dennis Miller show on the radio this morning - completely by accident, I'm not usually driving at that hour and I don't listen to talk radio anymore - and what struck me wasn't the commentary on his show but rather the way he read commercials.

Now, I like Miller; I think he's a funny guy and I also give him props for being that rarest of commodities: a hollywood conservative. And I know that when you have a radio call-in show like his, reading commercial copy is by and large part and parcel of the gig. In fact, advertisers probably pay a few bucks more if Miller reads the copy, thinking that the celebrity quotient might help them sell some more product.

But this is Dennis Miller, gang. Listening to him read ads is like listening to Robin Williams recite Shakespeare: you keep waiting for the punchline. It doesn't matter whether he's telling you to invest in gold, listen to Bose headphones or letting you in on the secret of how he's now a morning person because of his new mattress, it all comes across as pure, unadulterated bullshit. And it's not just because the copy is exactly the same as when Rush Limbaugh reads it.

I'd love to meet just one person who bought anything because Dennis Miller recommended it.

Quote of the Day

Scott Adams on capitalism:

I think a reasonable person can dislike capitalism and wish for a more socialist world where art is free for all takers. But a reasonable person can’t expect that a socialist world would produce nearly as much art. That’s bat shit thinking.

Can't You See Our Love Will Grow?

So I came across this site the other day while perusing del.icio.us and it made me wonder - does the amount of nookie you get depend on how much you wear to bed?

In Vermont during the winter sleepwear is not - no matter how many blankets you use - optional. Unless, of course, your significant other likes the idea of being probed by an icicle. But I thought I'd pose the question to those of you (the few, the proud, the delirious) who actually stumble across this site occasionally:

Does less sleepwear = more nookie or does it matter at all?

This Just In

I just wanted to thank Ben & Jerry's for changing their hours on "free cone" day. After paying my taxes and discovering that I had to work during their annual freebie, I decided to hit the bar instead.

And you know, after 3 or 4 scotches, I discovered that I really didn't need that free scoop of Coffee Buzz!Buzz!Buzz! anyway.

Eye-Catching

I don't watch American Idol, so I have no idea if this young lady can sing or not, but she sure is easy on the eyes.

Life and Liberty

The Virginia Tech shootings are all over the news right now. I'm not going to link anything because the news is everywhere you look. And, other than offering prayers and condolences, there's not much to say at the moment.

Except...

My gut feeling is that the only way this could have been prevented - or at least mitigated - is if at least one of the students or teachers in the general vicinity had been armed themselves. I could be wrong, of course. As details emerge, we'll get a fuller picture of what happened. Still, I can't shake the feeling.

When I mentioned this to my wife last night - she works at the local high school - it led to a rather heated argument. The idea of guns at a school, even a college, is anathema to her and I understand the way she feels. Vermont is a right-to-carry state (one of the few things the state gets consistently right, imho) but schools are typically an exception to that law. The only people authorized to carry firearms at any school, to my knowledge, are law enforcement officers. Which makes sense.

Except...

When things like this happen, by the time the campus security or police find out about it, it puts them on the outside while the gunman (or gunmen) are on the already on the inside with a room or building full of defenseless people. For example, when a jilted boyfriend stalked the Essex Elementary school earlier this year, no one was able to prevent him from killing an innocent teacher he didn't even know. The police caught him, of course. Afterwards. But if one of the teachers or administration personnel at the school had been armed, might that teacher still be alive?

It's a thorny question and one that I know flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which dictates that the way to stop these killings is to place more and tighter controls on guns. But I don't believe our gun laws work and I don't think there's a way to prevent just about anyone from getting a gun if he wants one bad enough. I don't think more stringent gun laws will change that. There will always be bad people with access to guns - and occasionally worse things than guns.

The only answer that makes sense to me is vigilance. Vigilance, and giving law-abiding people the right and ability to protect themselves. By way of Instapundit, I'm directed to this post from Roger Kimball, which sums up my feelings better than I've just done.

Update: A Virginia Tech student argues for the right of self-defense.

My Old School

Over at Instapunk, a pertinent question regarding the Duke Lacrosse players erroneously accused of rape:

Why do we ask our children to excel in school, to get A's, to score well on their SATs, to earn Varsity letters and participate in all the extracurriculuar activities it takes to be admitted to Duke or UNC or UVa or the Ivy league when all we're going to do when they get there is call them PRIVILEGED and penalize them to the max if they ever come into conflict with the BETTER people who drop out of school or wind up in prison?

Goodbye to Lonely Street

Jane Galt offers us the ethics question of the day:

You are a worker in a hospital. An unidentified patient dies on your ward. In his pocket are two tickets for a sold-out concert for two hours hence. You are pretty sure he isn't going to be identified in time to use the tickets. Would you take them? And if not, why not?

Speaking for me personally, 99.9% of the time, I wouldn't take them. If, however, the tickets were to the Steely Dan Heavy Rollers Tour 2007, well, since the dude had such good taste, it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

Right?

Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Lileks on bad luck:

Gnat explained to me today that if she did poorly on the spelling test, it might be the fault of Friday the Thirteenth. All the kids are abuzz about it, because it’s Bad Luck.

There’s no such thing as bad luck, I said.

Uh huh there is.

No. There’s no such thing. If something doesn’t work out, or something bad happens, it’s not because of bad luck. It’s because of something real. Luck is an excuse.

Well Faith said –

I don’t care. Do you really think tomorrow is bad luck?

Maybe.

Then we’d better not go to the pizza store, because the ceiling could fall! Or they could put snail feet in the sauce!

Dad.

And we’d better not get on the bus, because it could be attacked by buzzards. That would be bad luck.

Dad.

And we’d better not study for the spelling test, because we might poke our eye out with a pencil. Bad luck!

DAD.

Well, you see what I mean.

Yeah.

So what do I mean?

There’s no such thing as luck, she said, disappointed.

That’s right. Because it’s up to you. You make your own luck. I know it’s hard to give up thinking about good luck, but that means you don’t have to worry about bad luck.

She brightened. This was good news.

So let’s study the spelling words!
And that was the bad news, I guess.

Hot Licks and Rhetoric

So let me get this straight: If I assault you because of your race, creed, gender or sexual orientation, it's somehow worse than if I assault you just for kicks?

Noun Good; Adjective Bad

Apparently, certain nouns are okay to use, as long as you don't precede them with certain adjectives.

I'm not sure I understand that logic.

Update: I'm not sure I want to buy one of these, either.

Everyone's Gone to the Movies

Watched Near Dark this afternoon for the first time. It's not bad. Pretty stylish but not what I would call scary. Most of it follows traditional vampire lore - except for the part about blood transfusions making you human again. And Adrian Pasdar's becoming a vampire about thirty seconds after being bitten. I guess they wanted to make sure the movie didn't run too long.

It was also fun to see this guy get kicked around in a bar, something he sort of built a career on.

Best bit of dialog:

Caleb: How old are you?
Jess: (with a wry smile) I fought for the south.
Caleb: The south?
Jess: We lost.

Who is that Gaucho Amigo?

This is too funny. (h/t Instapundit) I'd never heard of Subarus referred to as "Lesbarus". I guess I move in the wrong circles.

Actually, the part that got me was at the bottom:

On Gaywheels.com, one indicator of actual gay buying trends is the list of vehicles most frequently researched. As of last October, the Toyota Yaris, a $12,000 economy car, led that list, followed by the Toyota Camry, which was the No. 3-selling car in America last year.

It would be hard to find a more conventional automobile.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit I've owned two Camry's. Does that make me gay or just conventional? Maybe conventionally gay? Or is that what we call "bi" nowadays?

I'm so confused.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Based on the findings, the researchers said reporters should be aware that their own views of religion could influence how they write their stories and readers should take note of their reporters' biases.

I'll bet.

Everyone's Wild About Harry

Okay, so there's nothing really new in the EW article about the 5th movie. Still, it's interesting to note that with Spidey, Shrek and Pirates all doing their third thing (take that for alliteration, Kate!) next month, it's HP that gets the early ink.

I know, I know. Those other movies will be all over the magazine (and everywhere else) the next few weeks.

But with the 5th movie and the 7th book coming out within 8 days of one another in July, it looks like - this year, at least - HP's biggest competition will be...HP.

Notebook

Duane blinked and adjusted his glasses as he entered, feeling the grief and sense of loss strike him anew. He realized that it was the scent of Uncle art's pipe tobacco in the still, trapped air. In that second Duane realized how temporary life was, how fleeting any person's presence was: a few books, the scent of tobacco that a person would never enjoy again, a few clothes that would be used by others, the inevitable snapshots, legal papers, and correspondence that would mean so much less to someone else. A human being on this world, Duane realized with a shock of recognition approaching vertigo, made no more permanent impression than does a hand thrust in water. Remove the hand, and water rushes in to fill the void as if nothing had ever been there.

Dan Simmons - Summer of Night

Family Feud

Tori Spelling says her feud with her mom is over. Translation:

"I'm in the money!"

The Collective Ignorance of Individual Wisdom

Kathy Sierra has posted for the first time since receiving death threats. She says that she probably won't post again for quite awhile, until she figures out just how - and if - she wants to continue.

She also leaves us with some of the illustrations she used to advance her arguments in favor of teaching users to kick ass with the products we sell them. As I've mentioned, reading her blog was always a great pleasure and I got a kick out of her visual aids. I particulary like this one:



To me, it perfectly sums up the current consensus on global climate change.

Spring? What Spring?

Tom Maguire nails it:

...personally, I am loving the switch to Daylight Saving Time, since it means an extra hour to shovel snow in the evening.

Good Friday

So it's Good Friday night and, by rare chance, I have the house to myself. That is if you don't count the two female cats and the former male bunny that are already jostling for attention. I don't mind, really.

In a little while, the bunny and I will start on the jello shots and watch a replay of the Masters second round (the bunny is a big Tiger Woods fan). The girls bide their time - they're not into golf - and soon Mr. Bun starts to get maudlin, waxing nostalgic for his lost bunnyhood. "They didn't leave anything! Not even two little tufts of fur." The girls don't help, of course, dancing around going "You can't hump me! You can't hump me!" He tries to chase them but his heart's not in it.

Then it's movie time. I thought seriously about trying to smuggle them all into a late showing of "Grindhouse" but I decided it would be better to stay home and watch "Slither" instead. While the bunny snores on the couch, the girls each do their best kitty lap dance to see who gets the prime seat.

Which, actually, is more action than I usually get so maybe it really is Good Friday.

Happy Easter.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Lileks invents the McCoy Freakout Scale. Just keep scrolling.

He Wants to Show You the Way

Fred Thompson for President? As an actor, he has an impressive resume.

Here at the Western World

*Sigh* It's Holy Week so naturally someone has to rabble rouse. This time around it's the Chocolate Jesus. You know, I've seen so many of these pathetic attempts to shock in my life that by now it's all I can do not to yawn. It should be clear by now that going after the Catholic Church - or Christians in general - in an effort to provoke shock and outrage is like reaching for low-hanging fruit; anyone can do it. It does not require talent and it's certainly not daring.

A chocolate Mohammed, preferably shown strapping a bomb vest on a young boy, now that might gin up some controversy. Of course, it also might get the artist killed - unlike Catholics, Islamic radicals tend to express their outrage in a more, um, concrete fashion, sort of like Wookies do when you beat them at chess. But think of the posterity!

Over at Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins correctly gauges the feminist reaction.

Life is Unreal

Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard illustrates the insanity of government regulations:

Everyone who owns a television set, set top box or a tuner card for a computer in Britain has to pay the BBC for the privilege. "A colour TV Licence costs £135.50 and a black and white licence costs £45.50." Per year.

Never let it be said that the British regulators aren't fair, however. There is a generous discount for the blind:

If you or someone you live with is blind, you qualify to receive a 50% concession on the cost of your TV Licence. If the person who is blind isn't the current licence holder for your address, you first need to transfer the licence into their name. To do this, call us on 0870 241 6468 and we'll talk you through what you need to do.

Now, when I was young and dumb and full of, er, dumbness, I fractured a few laws, as Axle Foley might say. One of those was to alter my cable box so that I could watch HBO without paying for it. No doubt this is just one more item on my resume which will ensure me a room in the Ninth Circle of Hell. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because it occurs to me that a tax on owning a TV set might tempt some otherwise law-abiding Brits to cheat the system - I mean, how is anyone going to know whether or how many TV sets you have? And this is where the story gets completely bizarro. Apparently, the BBC uses "detector vans" to ensure compliance:

Our TV detector vans and enforcement officers are equipped with state-of-the-art detection equipment which can tell in as little as 20 seconds whether you are using a TV. We have a range of detection tools at our disposal in our vans. Some aspects of the equipment have been developed in such secrecy that engineers working on specific detection methods work in isolation - so not even they know how the other detection methods work. This gives us the best chance of catching licence evaders. We can use a hand-held scanning device. These measure both the direction and strength of a signal, making it easy for us to locate TVs - even in the hardest to reach places.

As Wretchard points out, there is some debate over whether the detector vans actually exist - but the idea is just mind-boggling, isn't it?

Someone please tell me this is just an April Fool's Joke.