This is hilarious: Joal Ryan points out that all celebrity bloggers aren't really equal. In fact, he hints rather delicately that there are actors out there who cannot write at all.

My favorite celebrity web site? Easy: Pierce Brosnan's.

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Women's Wall Street has a fascinating summary of Chanel's life—and her influence on women's fashions.

These days we tend to think of her as a "luxury designer" because most of us cannot afford clothing that comes from her particular company. But her influence made women's garments more humane for real flesh-and-blood women to wear.

My mother used to put on a little black cocktail dress, spritz on a little Chanel No. 5, and go out to parties in the 60s. And I wore that same cocktail dress myself—decades later—until it finally fell apart and I had to replace it.

And if I ever have money again, I'm going to get a little spritzer of No. 5 for special occasions. It'll bring back good memories, and serve as an homage both to my mom and to the woman who made it okay to wear jersey fabric.

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. . . are now promoting a little animated short that they themselves did not produce. It makes fun both of the pharmaceutical industry and our tendancy to see pills as the solution to many of our problems—especially here in the States.

It's funny enough that I'm willing to accept that its makers have different biases from mine.

Go. Now.

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discussed his demanding job with the Attila Spouse today.

He said he realized it might be time to think about moving on to something else about a week ago when he was heading home at 9:30 at night and found himself hoping that his toddler son would be asleep when he got in—that way, he'd be able to get some more work done.

He pulled his car over to the side of the road, then, and figured out that the job had taken over and neatly inverted his values.

He started sending out gentle inquiries about possible jobs the next day to all his business contacts.

Take-home question: how many men have that moment of clarity? And how many men (and women) simply go, "yeah, I hope the kid's asleep; it'll sure make my life easier."

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I'll bet the Rez game with its "Trance Vibrator" is better than drugs. And, of course, even more so if you put the vibrator between your legs. Is this thing available in the States? Just askin'.

There is an old tradition of listing the various activities women can do that unadventantly—or incidentally—provide stimulation: my favorite is muleback riding (though not horseback, for whatever reason). And then there were the stories about a particular style of trundle sewing machine, used in factories in the late 19th century IIRC; word was, the seamstresses really threw themselves into their work with a will.

Hey. Don't complain, guys: you can pee standing up. And you have that muscle mass thing, too. Some of you even have wives and girlfriends who let you think you're smarter than they are: what a treat that must be.

Hat tip: Prof. Purkinje. (I'd link your page, dude, but you have real contact information there. What kind of a blogger are you, anyway?—get a gmail account. And a better name, like Cat Stevens Manque or something.)

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1 That post did more to bring me out of an alchohol induced vegatative state then all the coffee I drank today

Posted by: William Teach at February 25, 2005 02:58 PM (TFSHk)

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Yes, I think it's good that Eason Jordan quit. No, I don't think Ward Churchill should follow on the basis of his inflammatory statements (the charges of sloppy scholarship are another matter entirely).

Academia and journalism are very different arenas. Both should depend upon facts, but in the case of academia it's really paramount that scholars feel free to say provocative things.

If you're part of a mainstream news outlet like CNN (on the left) or Fox (on the right), there should be a greater sense of responsibility: the line between information and propaganda can be very fine.

Both the mainstream media (other than Fox) and academia (other than Texas A&M) tend to tilt left, and the solution to that is not to fire the lefties, but for these institutions to begin hiring some bright people who do believe in capitalism, who do think America has done some extraordinarily positive things in its short history, who do believe it's okay for for people of faith to publicly express it, and who don't necessarily think government is the only implement in the toolbox of social progress.

In the media, the pendulum is moving to the center very slowly, forced by 1) market changes (as the viewing public rejects traditional left-leaning sources or balances those sources with Fox, The Wall Street Journal, or the right side of the blogosphere); and 2) pressure from blogs when a particularly egregious example of disinformation occurs (Dan Rather airing obvious forgeries, Eason Jordan making outrageous statements about the U.S. targeting journalists).

In academia it'll be harder, because there isn't a market in the conventional sense: it's not as if those who voted for Bush are going to keep their kids from going to college to protest the death-grip moonbats have on higher learning. Change will come slowly and painfully, pushed by people like David Horowitz and the amazing Evan Coyne Maloney.

It's a more entrenched culture, and one that's much less transparent to its consumers, who are in many cases impressionable kids. They may not always understand that they are being fed lefty propaganda, and in many cases they will be delighted if they can grab a shocking idea here and there that might rattle their parents' cages.

And so the wheel turns slowly.

[Dr. Neuron: feel free to comment, though of course I'm discussing the humanities more than science, here.]

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. . . just shines through in this commerical. I wonder if they have similar contests for judging mooses meese meeses really large animals vaguely related to deer.

Via Diana, commenting on this post at Protein Wisdom, which discusses Janeane Garofalo's relocation plans in the wake of the election.

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Gives us the Complete Idiot's Guide to Bumperstickers. Brought to you from spectacular Berkeley, California—the bumpersticker capital of the world. Enjoy.

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Scanman reports from Black Rock Desert:

The weather is cooling down somewhat, and the wind
report for the burn tomorrow is promising. Rumor has
it from the rangers that the pyrotechnic guys have
installed a platform of magnesium under the Man,
which should generate quite the fireball!

We relaxed the early part of the evening and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail and an episode of Firefly on DVD. We're such bums.

Met a 16-year old hacker today. He creates websites for people and installed an ftp server on his Windoze laptop pretty damned fast for transferring photos over the local wireless network.

Scanman is on the left. He and his father were the first Republican acid heads I ever met. At the time, the existence of such people blew my mind—but I was narrow in my youth. I'm making up for that now. Of course, Scanman eventually left the party, but nobody's perfect. He's still an arch-capitalist.

I'll bet it's quite the phenomenon. Me, I'd go just to see people play with fire on that kind of scale. You can take that any way you want.

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. . . has an interesting, meditative little essay on the development of the ARPA net, which of course turned into the internet. Worth a look.

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Am I supposed to be following this sports thingie in Greece?

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I'll be going to Siggraph, the big computer graphics convention, again this year at the beginning of August, while my husband's away in the midwest researching his book. I don't happen to know jack about computer graphics; I'm just going for the parties and the movie (a film comprising all the latest promotional shorts and special-effects work in the industry; it's the highlight of the show, especially for slackers like me who are just there to glom off of others' brilliance).

It'll be much cheaper to go this year, since it'll be in L.A. I'll be my own Blogger's Alley.

They asked for a job title for my I.D. badge. I wrote Woman-About-Town.

"That makes sense," Attila the Hub commented. "You are sort of a cyber bon vivant."

In years past the rule for parties was this: if you could successfully forge your own invitations to a particular event, you were welcome there. That is, you have to have a good eye in this field, so if you were able to make the "look" of the fake invite convincing enough, the hosts always called it fair.

Now I don't have to forge any invites at all, since I'll be the guest of the Scanning King, who gets invited to everything. Probably I'll just hang out with his wife: we'll be the ones in the corner drinking and dishing. You'll know we had too much if we start composing poetry on the spot and loudly reciting it to innocent passers-by.

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Someone has started the first newsfeed meant specifically for bloggers and news junkies. This does look like it's a good complement to The Command Post.

The name actually is "Newsfeed." The slogan actually is, "news for bloggers. News for junkies."

And there's some sort of deal going wherein I apparently get a free T-shirt if I refer enough people over there (though perhaps I have to share it with Michele). So click away; do it for the children.

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There is never any danger of mistaking a "Cappuccino Delight" Slim-Fast for a real latte-type drink--even an iced one.

No danger at all.

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I was oddly saddened and startled by Tony Randall's death. I guess I sort of thought he would go on forever, like he always had.

What a great guy--and, BTW, a great exploder of stereotypes about straight men.

R.I.P.

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