Kara Brown on Mike Brown. Business Insider on the militarization of the police in Ferguson. Think Progress on why there is a no-fly zone over Ferguson. Greg Howard on Ferguson.
Lauren Bacall. Let’s just call the week now.
The Toast never forgets an ally, so I encourage you all to consider acquiring or learning more about the React Sidekick personal security key-chain dongle thing. React was one of our first ad guys, bless ’em, and I just re-read The Gift of Fear so am basically a hyper-alert deer of a person this week and have a massive Bear Grylls-branded survival knife in my bedside table where it will definitely protect me from bears and murder.
channing channing channing and bear
An interview with AHP about her new book (WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SEPTEMBER) and working for Buzzfeed:
Since leaving academia, you have had some pretty strong opinions about the harsh financial reality of being a grad student and the challenges of securing a position in the academic job market. What tips do you have for someone thinking of seeking a job in academia?
If it’s not legitimately and fully funded, don’t do it. I have a mountain of debt, and I honestly don’t regret my PhD, but I simply did not realize—and no one ever told me—the realities of the academic market, in part because when I started (in 2005) they were not what they are today. I thought that if I worked really, really hard, I would get a job—and that’s just not the case. I’m not trying to say “hey, I did this thing, now you don’t do it!” so much as encourage everyone to think at length (and talk to a lot of people who have been through the system) about the economic realities.
stop trying to control Drake
Andrea Dworkin: MRA (CHOIRE. HOW DOES HE DO IT?)
Just buy unscented dude deodorant. With as much aluminum as they can legally use. Smells like freedom.
Yr kids do not want to know anything about yr penis, it is not newsworthy, they do not care:
Q. I Reversed My Vasectomy, Kids!: At what point, if ever, do you tell your kids you reversed a vasectomy to conceive them? My wife and I have three wonderful kids. A lot of relatives and friends know I had a vasectomy, and then reversed it. We figure we should be the people to tell them. Or should we cross our fingers and hope they never hear? And how much do you share, if sharing is indeed the right decision to make?
Best live recording of “Take It To the Limit” ever (I like my men pretty butch, but I would full-on French-kiss this scrawny little longhaired fucker for said performance):
oh my god u are the worst, this is not a real problem, go away
why are there so many men who have apparently never met a woman WHAT IS HAPPENING pic.twitter.com/U2SZOLeEon
— Noelle Stevenson (@Gingerhazing) August 12, 2014
1. Dear Prudence is wild this week. In what universe do children need/want to know about their father’s vasectomy? Please join me here on planet Earth where the answer is “never” and also “never.”
2. Oh my god. Seriously? “This pregnancy announcement video made me Worried! For Someone Else’s Fetus! Oh god won’t someone think of the babies?!?!” (Your thinly-veiled jealousy that their pregnancy annoucement video got more likes is apparent!) (Why do I live in a world where that is a thing? I don’t want that to be a thing, I do not care. No one cares.) Stop concern-trolling over some other lady’s caffeine intake that you can’t even tell about.
3. TOASTIES, my office this week has been overtaken by a crowd of Middle-Aged White Men Science Teachers and it is just as bad as you think it is. Yesterday I had to listen to them all bitch about how schools don’t teach math any more and kids only know how to work calculators and then they all quizzed each other on the right way to do mental arithmetic involving decimals, while I sat in the next room and tried to avoid stabbing myself with my pen.
THAT MOMMY BLOGGER THO.
I couldn’t even read all of it. My eyes were rolling too far back in my head to see the text properly.
This reminds me of when I was hanging out with a pregnant lady last fall, who shunned root beer for the caffeine but had no problem eating a half-pound of chocolate covered almonds. There’s caffeine in them thar snacks! (She also avoided cookie dough ice cream because it “had raw eggs,” which, like, nope.)
…isn’t most root beer caffeine-free, anyway???
Not Barq’s, the Most Superior Root Beer!
But also yeah all of that is bananas
” took my doctor’s common sense guidelines and turned them into an insane compulsion with no scientific basis. You may or may not be less insane than me. You are therefore a terrible person who does not care about your unborn child!”
Best comment on that page was “If you wanted to get more views for your video, there are less roundabout ways to do it.”
I watched her video out of curiousity, and it was terrible. That’s why it didn’t have a lot of views. Because nobody wants to watch it.
the BEST PART is in the beginning where she says she “tries to not judge other people.”
IMO the best part is when she shows up in the comments to complain that people are being mean to her.
and then says, “For me, ‘may cause problems for your baby,’ would be enough to steer clear from caffeine for nine months. But again, that’s just me, a person who is clearly a better parent than anyone ever.”
Is it just me, or is telling your kids about Daddy’s little snip-snip basically in the same category as “Mommy used to have an IUD, but when we decided to have kids, we didn’t need it any more”? Unless I’m super mis-reading this, I just don’t think it’s thaaaaat big a deal.
my dad got his after my brother was born, and I have always enjoyed telling him that I was so great they wanted another kid, but after him, they shut the whole factory down in horror
#bigsister
Ha! “Close up shop, Louise. We’re done here.”
Definitely borrowing this. Will credit you.
I’m the oldest. My younger brother was an accident (we’re close in age and when we were adolescents we asked and it was confirmed) but he turned out to be everyone’s favorite, including mine, so it worked out. My youngest brother was planned but the factory was shut down soon after, as you say.
I feel the same way! My parents told my brother and I when my dad got a vasectomy as a way of talking about sex/birth control in a matter-of-fact and age appropriate way (and also to explain why Dad needed to rest when he came home from the doctor). We were really little at the time, so they told us what the procedure was called, the basic mechanics, and that he had it done because they didn’t want to have any more babies. It was definitely not traumatic.
ALTHOUGH the Prudie question was slightly different – LW was wondering if he should tell his kids that he reversed a vasectomy to have them. Why on earth would that ever be relevant? It’s not like it can serve as a “teaching moment” and it makes literally no difference in the kids’ lives.
Yeah, exactly. It’s not the fact of having a vasectomy, which could be interesting in a facts-of-life way, it’s just….like, SHOULD you tell your kids? Why? I can’t imagining it making any difference at all in his kids’ lives. And bringing the relatives into it is just weird.
I loved this: “notice to relatives: There is no reason you would talk to kids about their father’s reversed vasectomy”
Man I know all about my parent’s reproductive choices. It was presented more like, oh yes, birth control is great! How wonderful. Why is this any kind of a deal at all?
It seems like the kind of thing where if you found out about it as an adult, you’d be like, “huh. Must have really wanted us then.”
Yes, because doing significant arithmetic without a calculator is EXACTLY what we need in today’s world, don’t bother learning Excel!
Sure, if you’re thinking short term, but when the collapse comes and the power goes out for good the math teachers will rule as kings, their inkstained hands and long-division-festooned notepads seen as the marks of a terrible sorcery.
If a train of refugees is fleeing the Plaguelands at 3.2mph and a horse-mounted column of slavers from the Empire of Joliet is moving to intercept them at 14.7mph, where will they meet? Only the mathlords know.
That’s where the mad abacus skills are going to come in handy.
Well, I did recently end up doing pages of long division by hand when my calculator died in the middle of nowhere, but that’s one time versus the thousands of times I’ve pulled out Excel to calculate something.
My siblings and I know about my Dad’s vasectomy. But only because my sister was conceived after said vasectomy, so now it is a funny story my Mom tells and my Dad gets embarrassed about. Side note: if you perform vasectomies the best response to a patient’s wife getting pregnant is not “Well she must be cheating on you.”
HAHA that doctor was very confident in his abilities.
I overheard my mom on the phone once saying, “Oh, if he didn’t have a vasectomy, I’d have four more kids.” (MOOO-OOOM) I was probably a teen at the time and really don’t care at all? A) Your kids don’t care and B) They aren’t going to be traumatized by the information either way.
Ewwww, your parents had sex FOUR TIMES after your youngest sibling, GROSS.
THE HORROR
In the 70s even!
My mom told me about my dad’s vasectomy pretty recently, but that’s because I mentioned that my husband was totally getting one as soon as we could pay for it I. “Be very kind to him,” she said. “Bring him bags of ice.”
My mom told me about my dad’s reverse vasectomy, but it was sort of in a “this is how we met and I wanted to have kids but your dad had already had a vasectomy” sort of things. My dad is 11 years older than my mom and already had three kids with his ex-wife before they got married. (My youngest older brother was born 15 years before me.) I like to use this as proof that I was most definitely an “on purpose” baby. No surprises there!
“Dad, did you ever have a vasectomy?”
“No, son. I just drank Diet Coke until I was infertile. Three cans and it was like a reproductive Mojave down there.”
Oh, you made me spit out my Coke Zero! Well done, hilarious person. (Sidenote: Coke Zero is clearly the best of all Coca-Cola products.)
Daddy’s Dy-Dee 😐
Oh, Lauren Bacall. I like her life and her general outlook on things.
soooo… there was a link at the bottom of the Bear/Tatum video to a horribly cheesy video by Glamour magazine with Natalie Dormer, and I’ve spent the last 10 minutes looking up pictures of her. AGOG.
This is NOT helping with my barely-suppressed urge to find the nearest electric trimmer and acquire the undercut
urghhhhh Natalie Dormer urghhhh so beautiful/evil it hurts. WHERE IS MY OTHELLO WITH NATALIE DORMER AS IAGO. WHERE I SAY. I can’t fuckin wait for the next Hunger Games movie, she is hands down the best part of that trailer.
Last link is broken (tweet seems to be gone – I hope she wasn’t getting harassment for it :/), but if we’re talking about the same Mass Effect / Female Turian twitter comment as last night, heeeeh. For the series that brought the world Jennifer Hale’s Commander Shepard, Mass Effect fucked up its gender politics more than once. See also: no female Salarians or Krogans until the third game, Miranda’s butt, the curing of Jack’s emotional problems with DudeShep’s penis, Miranda’s butt, Tali being revealed to be an attractive white chick, EDI’s body, MIRANDA’S BUTT, and pretty much everything about the Asari. I love the series to bits, and it has some wonderful female characters and some lovely feminist moments, but it was really depressing to buy the art book and see the phrase “sex appeal” used in describing the designs of every. single. female character.
On a more hopeful note, they finally finally *did* figure out how to make Female Turians without boobs or lipstick in the Omega DLC, and this was the result, which was pretty great:
EDIT: Here is the original comment quoted in the tweet, as taken from this video:
“They’re all males in the game. We usually try to avoid the females because what do you do with a female Turian? Do you give her breasts? What do you do? Do you put lipstick on her? There’s actually some of the concept artists will draw lipstick on the male one and they’ll say “Hey, it’s done” and we’ll go “No, can you take this serious?””
I had so much headesk after reading that comment. I think the main thrust of my anger was that the Turians are goddamn bird people and birds are not stupid mammals so why in hell would they have breasts?
I don’t know why we’re talking about Mass Effect but I’m in.
Part of the reason they didn’t have female aliens too was because it costs more as well. Which is dumb, and you should invest the money anyway, but bleh.
The thing that bothers me most about Miranda’s butt is that they “enhanced” the real actress’ body, both boobs and butt, which is super, super gross, and so so common when they mo-cap or performance cap an actress. DO NOT ALTER WOMEN’S BODIES, VIDEO GAMES.
But it only costs more if you design the male aliens first by default, which I think is the big mental hurdle the game companies haven’t gotten over yet.
I dunno if you are aware of the whole Assassin’s Creed: Unity and no female characters debacle, but they still haven’t wrapped their head around including HUMAN women most of the time.
You all have seen the world’s best Unity cosplay, btw, right?
PERFECTION.
There’s also this gem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsyt__ybb8M (make sure to stay after the credits)
How did I not see this when it was posted two days ago? This is amazing. *Right click, bookmark.*
I totally want to play a game where I can be a Bardalock.
That’s. . . okay, I guess. A little better than the female Krogan, who looked like nothing so much as Qunari saarebas all bound and chained up.
I understand that it would probably take a lot of brainstorming to figure out how sexual dimorphism would emerge from alien evolution, but I mean, the alien designs are inferred partly from animals, why not look to animals? For example, I’ve been mostly satisfied with the way that the Elderscrolls universe handles Argonian and Khajit dimorphism, by sort of mimicking animal differences (not very different at all, but bigger manes and crests on the dudes) and then ornamenting them with different kinds of jewelry, as humans do. I’d also be fine with an in-game species that did not display sexual dimorphism at all. Surely not all alien races reproduce sexually.
*The main exception is when the later games started putting the common women in those ridiculous bodiced dresses. What would an Argonian need with a bodice, she has scales).
I liked that Mass Effect *tried* to get away from making the all the female aliens look like human females, if that makes sense?
Although Asari having boobs makes NO SENSE TO ME AT ALL. They’re not mammals! This wouldn’t be a trait they’d develop until post-human contact if at all!
Edit: I just realized quarians have boobs so I guess maybe not??
The Asari only make any kind of biological sense if assume they managed to evolve in the space of less than a hundred years to accommodate the Human Male Gaze. (Well, and there’s the mind control theory from ME2 as well.)
Okay weird thing to say but I was just thinking about quarian birth customs the other day. I was remembering Ra’an”s story of Tali’s birth, and thinking how very humanoid that experience sounded except for the whole putting babies in bubbles thing, which makes me think they are more closely related to humans than, say, asari, who apparently mate via nervous system.
And now I have just spent most of my lunch hour reading the Mass Effect wiki entries about alien physiology, which does not really answer any of my questions.
Quarians are dextro DNA though.
UGH nothing adds up
Let fans design your universe, game-makers
There is one theory that Asari actually just project a neurochemical glamour that makes them appear as a blue, attractive female of the viewer’s species -there’s a conversation between NPCs of three different races in a bar who each claim an asari dancer looks just like one of their own- so they probably don’t have boobs when a human isn’t looking at them.
I always thought it wasn’t actual mind control, just that they evolved a series of traits that each would SEE as attractive. But maybe there IS some secret mind control too cuz it seems that Ardat Yakshi have that.
Actually, they mostly seem to have gone the Argonian route, taking inspiration from birds, with the female Turian not having the male’s crest. Someone wrote an excellent short essay on better examples of non-human sexual dimorphism in games earlier this year, with Guild Wars’ Charr used as a good example, and Wildstar being the absolute worst.
I will never stop being confused by Argonian boobs. I mean, look at this screenshot I took last week. Why do they even have those. Why do they have cleavage.
(Extra thumbs up for the Saarebas reference, btw.)
I am more confused by the draugr chicks (literally mummies) with boobs in that game though, tbqh.
WHY
Can’t have an unsexy mummy
The charr confuse people, which only reinforces the horrible idea that all species need to have visible boobs. My charr girl is always referred to as sir, he, him, etc. by other players, even when they are speaking about the character and not me, the player. (The conversations where I have to explain over and over that, yes, I am a girl in RL, are also interesting.) Many people then ask me how to tell a female charr from a male charr. I metaphorically roll my eyes and say ‘hey, try rolling one up, it’s pretty clear.’ It’s very like real world cats, if real world cats were basically tauren bodies with cat heads–
My charr has taken to announcing, at random, that she is the prettiest charr girl ever, which amuses her, and me, and any of my friends that happen to be around.
Space bug aliens, fine, sure, I can sell havin’ a beer with one. Space girls? How would you even do that
They’re all females in the game. We usually try to avoid the males because what do you do with a male Turian? Do you give him a dick? What do you do? Do you put Axe Body Spray on him?
A frikkin’ huge popped collar.
oh my god dead now
THAT HE NEVER TAKES OFF SO WE NEVER KNOW.
Turian bros: born with a popped collar carapace.
Also, Joker slut-shaming the entire asari species after the fall of Thessia. Yeah, Shepard can call him out on it, but he gets the last word. Apparently, it’s okay because he’s sad about his family.
Alternate head-canon: EDI accidentally throws Joker out the airlock, via a humorous misunderstanding of human mating customs. Javik is pleased.
Prudie what even
There is not a single day when I do not have this exact response to Prudie. WHO ARE THESE HUMANS.
Everything in Prudie this week is WHACK.
That woman who had to share the room with her colleagues, though. At first I thought Oh, okay, that doesn’t sound so bad, I could probably do that but then I shared a bed with a colleague I don’t know very well. What do you mean you had to share a bed with a colleague? I just don’t understand this at all. A room is the limit. A bed? Nopenopenope.
Also, Two male colleagues are also attending, and were not asked to share a room. Yes, burn that HR down, wtf. That’s not you being a princess, that’s you being treated unfairly because you’re women.
If your company has enough money to send people on a business trip, they have enough money to give you separate rooms. This is not a church youth group trip to Des Moines.
I want to frame this comment and send it to my boss, who plans to have me and a coworker room together on a 4-day trip to Nashville in the fall. Which we are driving to. (Because there’s nothing I like so much as spending 18 hours in a van with my coworkers! Also when we are only getting paid for eight hours of work each day! And no pay for travel time! Tralalala please God let me find a new job before November)
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. NO.
I could write a book about the thousands of ways in which my job sucks. TIP OF THE ICEBERG.
The thing about the men not sharing a room made me SO MAD yesterday. I kept thinking of it throughout the day and going into mental paroxysms of fury, approximately like so: “WHAT, three women one room, two men two rooms, HR from hell, NO, WHAT, kill it all ughhh.”
Yeah, that is straight up inappropriate there. Sharing a room with separate beds, sure, I can *almost* understand that, but after the LW mentioned that her male colleagues got their own room AND she had to share a bed with someone she is not super close with? That’s a line drawn and crossed numerous times.
I’m going to a conference in a couple of weeks, and the hotel was close to sold out, so I thought about offering to split a double queen room with one of my female coworkers. But sharing a bed? Nope. And I was always the girl on school trips who said that the person who had a problem with sharing was the one who slept on the floor. But work conferences are not overnight Model UN trips.
Yeah, I have often shared rooms with coworkers (and once with a client, which was weirder) but hell no to sharing a bed. That is NOT acceptable.
I was scrolling down and saw your profile quote and now I have to give you the HIGHEST OF FIVES, because that was one of my all-time favorite episodes of QI. Jimmy Carr! Who knew?
I know, right??? I’m painfully behind on my QI-viewing (I have somehow missed most of series J and the entirety of series K!) but man, there are some gems in there.
I haven’t used the react sidekick and don’t know if it’s for me, but I do want to say that I like that it says it sends an alert to your trusted contacts. It seems like a lot of these devices just call 911, which as we all know, is not a safe option for large numbers of Americans.
What exactly are they supposed to do with it though, like if I get a tweet in the middle of the day that’s just “help I’m in trouble [address that isn’t ten minutes away]” and your armed robbery (or whatever) can’t be dealt with via email you might as well have just filled me in at the end of the day after it’s over because there is straight up nothing useful I am going to be able to do with that information.
Oh you’re on the other end of town and in “trouble”. Are you trapped in a burning building? Choking and need a heimlich? Do you need me to roll up and blast a clip on some motherfuckers? Are you midway through a souffle and forgot to get cheese at the store? Did you pocket-dial your panic button again and summon all your Facebook friends to your office? Should I just pick one?
I’m also slightly confused as to that. Like what does….”alerting your contacts via social media” DO? Considering that lots of my friends are non-local, like…am I going to get an alert for my friend halfway across the country is “in trouble?” I need more details.
Hell, even if you’re local, it’s easily half an hour for me to get from one side of DC to another and you’re screwed if you need anything more than just me, eventually, with no idea what the hell is going on. You know that prepper slogan about how when seconds count the police are minutes away? Well, emergency services are only minutes away because they’re paid to be ready to go with a full suite of every concievable form of emergency equipment at a moment’s notice 24/7 and can completely bypass traffic. Your friends aren’t.
It’s for socially networked preppers?
No way that can end badly. None at all.
I mean, presumably you can program it to call 911 or other emergency services for you, I just know people who have wanted something like this but who don’t feel safe calling the police, and this could be a way for them to alert people that they are in trouble, so that someone will know something went wrong if they go missing.
Yeah one of the reasons why I wouldn’t purchase it is because I’m not even sure what I’d do with it? Like what would my friends then do if I was being attacked on the other side of town. But I know people who’ve wanted some way of alerting friends and family that they are in trouble, when they don’t feel comfortable calling the police, and this may be something that would work for them.
That diet coke lady needs to lighten the fuck up. Also, diet coke is gross, so that might be the problem right there.
Diet Coke Troll Lady- lighten up!
The pregnancy concern trolls annoy the hell out of me. A few Diet Cokes won’t hurt anything. This paranoia about fetus endangerment is another example of a “Dread Risk” and we would all be better off if people stopped harassing women about what should be a personal choice to drink or not drink a Coke, or eat a piece of salami, or some Brie while pregnant. The risks are very, very small, but quite honestly, it’s no one’s business.
I consider all diet concern sanctimoniousness to be Misogyny, and I say the hell with it.
There was a time when NO ONE stopped drinking or smoking or chugging coffee or eating whatever they felt like during pregnancy, and we all survived as a species without a rash of four-headed babies. I feel like the paranoia around this is just a tad overblown.
This is still happening in different circles than Jessica Glassberg runs in. Yesterday while I was dropping off my daughter at daycare, the daycare director was explaining to another mom that the daycare could not give her baby the Cheetos that she had packed for lunch, because she was only six months old and it was a choking hazard. I have seen a mom smoking while wearing her baby close enough to kiss. I have seen kids outgrow bucket carseats and transition straight to the adult seatbelts. I have seen bottles of juice in the fridge instead of formula or milk.
And you know what? These kids are happy and loved and they mostly do fine. Every parent is less than perfect. There are people in this world who do very terrible things to children. More than a million American kids are homeless. Diet Coke is not a problem. STFU Jessica Glassberg.
Brie (or other soft cheeses) only discouraged if made with unpasteurized milk, anyway, so if you are in the US (or Canada) you would have to work your butt off to find the verboten stuff.
THANK YOU. I have been wondering about this (in case I’m ever pregnant). Real brie, the unpasteurized kind, is super hard to find in the States, so I always wondered what the heck the big deal was.
get pregnant, go to a supermarket, and eat wheels of brie until the cops come, you will be just fine
Christ yes, it’s just another way to obsess over what women do with their bodies, especially when they are serving their role as Most Precious Chalice of Infant. I stayed on my Zoloft while pregnant because the risks were small, but the number of sources that were saying “But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” really fucking worked my nerves. I am being safe and giving my baby the best chance of being safe by maintaining my mental health.
YES GOOD POINT ABOUT MISOGYNY. Once a woman gets pregnant, the floodgates open to the whole “you are not a person but your baby is!!” and it’s terrible.
Wait I can’t eat CHEESE while pregnant??
So let me get this straight – the React Sidekick was developed by men, for women, to save them from men?
yeah, that bothered me too. Especially the line where it says it has a “Modular gender neutral design”, but all of the pictures feature damsels in distress and in the video the only men are thugs or the ‘saviors’.
Exactly. There is a token effort made, but it’s still obviously only for weak, scared women.
My problem with the “modular gender neutral design” is that it doesn’t actually seem to be something that works discretely with women’s clothes. I saw a key ring element, and a clip element. I never wear belts and often don’t wear pants. Where am I supposed to clip it? Sure, some dresses have a neckline I could clip it to, but not all of them. And I usually keep my keys in my backpack, so anything that is clipped to them is not helping me if I am assaulted. Give me something that I can wear on my wrist. Or arm, at the very least (actually, something that was a safety light and a personal alarm in an armband would be great – I walk 15 minutes from the Metro to my house and for a good chunk of that year that walk is after dark. It is mostly on sidewalks, but I still worry when I cross streets that don’t have stop lights)
It looks like you could clip it to the inside of your sleeve or skirt or whatever. But yeah, an armband might be a good idea, too.
I feel like there would be a lot of accidental button presses.
That was my first thought as well, especially considering how often I set off my own car alarm with the key button thingy.
I don’t understand Channing Tatum hate. I mean, cool if you don’t like his movies, whatever. Different strokes and all. But the guy is such a GOOFBALL.
I don’t have the emotional fortitude to click on any of the Ferguson links yet. Too early. Maybe this afternoon.
I’m gonna watch the Channing Tatum clip again.
I adore Channing Tatum, I think he is a beautiful puppy dog in every movie and I will watch White House Down at least once a year until the day I die.
I think he’s pretty adorable… goofball indeed.
Just three words:
Magic Mike, Pony.
omggggg
What you said. I really need to see that movie.
Why is it that in my mind I hear **boop** when his crotch hits the floor?
Well I can’t tell you but now mine does it, too, so thank you very much.
I view him as the guy in the frat who’s blindingly hot, wanders around in his underwear a lot, but is still the one that makes sure any girls who come into the house stay safe and doesn’t put up with any rapey behavior from his bros.
Know what I mean? Like, he’s a douche, but he’s still a decent human being who is fun to be around.
I know he was actually a stripper for a bit… maybe that makes him a bit more aware? I feel like sex work might do that.
EXACTLY. And he has a lot of privilege that comes from being a hot white dude, but at least he’s not a total douche about it.
he is gorgeous and goofy and moves like a motherfucking SNAKE
hissssssssss
Channing Tatum does in fact look like a potato and I’m not into any of his movies except Magic Mike and the Jump Streets, but he seems like the sweetest ever
The Jump Street movies are two of my favorite movies ever. EEEEVVVVVVEEEERRRRRRRRR.
I’m so glad someone else thinks he looks like a potato. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy, but… potato. I can’t swoon because that’s all I see and it makes me a little sad sometimes because everybody else swoons.
Okay THANK YOU, I thought I was the only one. Like it’s not Riley-from-Buffy levels of potato head, but it’s there. I think it has to do with the neck-to-head thickness ratio.
He has no neck to speak of but also Step Up, so
STEP UP STEP UP STEP UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
She’s the Man, anyone??
I love his throwback, hot-but-derpy characters (see also: Step Up). I was charmed to discover he seems like such a good-natured goofball in real life.
I saw someone refer to him as “Charming Potato” once and that will be my name for him forevermore.
Channing Tater?
Okay, that’s a legitimately stunning “Take It to the Limit,” but I just finished reading the Jezebel Get Pissed re: deodorant, women’s salon pricing, etc. so my primary reaction was: how much did that pretty pretty haircut cost him? Would it have cost me more? Probably not, because of the fame differential (I’d never go to the same highfalutin’ salon), but what if my brother & I both wanted that haircut? Probably cost me more then.
So basically I’m busy being pissed over women’s pricing and, well, over lots of other things, and my capacity for joy is diminished.
Oh yeah. As a person who gets men’s haircuts but who is not a man, let me tell you. I have been to the same place several times and each time they will charge me differently – men’s haircut, men’s prices? or, men’s haircut, women’s prices? I’ve had both, but the haircut is the same each time. The same, 25 minute, buzz and trim basic cut. Bugs the fuck out of me too because I like paying for my cuts in cash and I have to prepare for either price. Ridiculous. I’ve started going to barber shops exclusively because fuck it, I ain’t got time for this nonsense.
I didn’t know that “Take It to The Limit” was an Eagles song and I thought it was gonna be this horse taking it to the limit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJSFlMCTXE8
This horse >>>>>>>>> any Eagles song
(SORRY BOUT IT)
Thanks! I needed a laugh today.
beautiful thank you
You are all correct https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3_lVSrPB6w
Men’s antiperspirant AND men’s razors are far superior. I actually really like girly packaging, but I’m not gonna pay more for something that doesn’t work as well.
Mach 3 Turbo ftw, bonus points you can shave your legs and pretend your curves are a Formula 1 racecourse.
I use the regular Mach 3, but it’s pretty killer. Bonus: the blades fit in a Venus razor, so I keep my old one in a travel bag because I am forever forgetting to pack a razor.
Dollar Shave Club everyone! They are probably considered “men’s” razors but whatever. They are really good and a bit cheaper than typical and they ship them to your house every month! It’s amazing. http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/?utm_source=google…
thank youuuuuu looks awesome I am in.
Also on the mommy blog was a post entitled “I Tell My Daughter Looks Don’t Matter But I Know They Do”. Dont read it unless you want to faint with rage.
And now I want to read it. Because I’m my own worst enemy.
Okay, yep, I’m a rage monster now.
I wanted to jump through my monitor and scream “LET YOUR DAUGHTER DECIDE HERSELF LIKE YOU DID” at her.
Seriously. Why cant we allow kids to make up their own minds anymore? It wont do them any favours by deciding everything for them.
The title alone gave me rage. I cannot even.
I just now attempted to read it but couldn’t even get past the third line: “Her eyes shone when she looked at me, tiny mirrors that reflected my face back to me in rainbow colors.” Wut.
I like Kveller, you guys, but that is ridiculous. This is why I only follow Mayim Bialik and Sarah Tuttle-Singer.
HOW IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE DIAPER LETTER
I have been talking about it with my coworkers ALL MORNING.
I thought it was quite sweet, actually! I’m happy for the couple that they’ve found something that works for them (and possible their shared diaper fetish???) and I don’t see any reason to tell the kids.
Right? They clearly have a diaper fetish, which is something your kids never need to know.
They clearly want SOMEONE to know about their diaper fetish! Prudie (and all of us) is good enough, it seems.
And I just LOVE the nonchalance about it. Like, “oh it’s no big deal, I diaper him, it brings us closer, it’s really about bed-wetting”. Look, lady, have alllll the diaper fetishes you want, but you will NEVER convince me that it’s just some thing you guys do by happenstance.
THINK OF THE ENVIRONMENT THO
Are you saying they should switch to cloth diapers? I think that throws all discretions out the window.
They (supposedly) already ARE using cloth diapers!
(I mean honestly I’m like 80% sure it’s a fake letter anyway. But it’s a fake letter in which the fake people are thinking of the environment, at least?)
i’m not sure you’re all giving “take it to the limit” the attention it deserves, honestly, randy is putting himself out there for you
YOU CAN SPEND ALL YOUR TIME MAKING MONEY / YOU CAN SPEND ALL YOUR LOVE MAKING TIME
That is a ZEN KOAN right there. The Eagles = Zen Masters
I am 100% here for “Take it to the Limit” right now. Randy looks so serene. Come over here and croon to me Randy
The Mongol Derby has a new queen, Australian Samantha Jones. Everyone’s dragging in behind her and she’s chirping, “You should organize a 2000 km race next year!” (Meanwhile, another woman about five spots back refused to let the medics DQ her just because she had a broken hand, psssh, it’s not like the horse won’t neck rein.)
Whoa, she seems awesome!
Of course she’s Australian. Thanks for the horse race updates, they have made my day(s).
YESSSSS amazing. Too bad it’s so expensive to enter, because I would love to ride across the steppes on a series of feisty horses!!!
This is the coolest; she is the coolest. The least I can do is spend my morning figuring out just how much cooler they are than me.
“There is a special song for the horses that finish last in the race during the annual Naadam festival so that they do not feel sad about losing.”
Also the woman who won last year was 19.
Yay, Sam! I subscribed to the daily updates and she was my fave (as well as the older dame, she appeared pretty cool, too).
Thanks for the original link!!!!
My partner’s brother informed me last night of Lauren Bacall’s death last night, clarifying “You know… Humphrey Bogart’s wife?”
Oh, honey. No.
I had always heard “Bogie and Bacall” but I had no idea that they were married, just that they made some movies together.
NOOO THE BEAR GRYLLS KNIFE IS SHITTY, YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN A VERY NICE KERSHAW FOR THE SAME PRICE AND IT WOULD BE A BAJILLION TIMES BETTER AT KILLING BEARS AND BAD PEOPLEEEEEEE
Seriously someone explain to me what it is you’re supposed to do when you get an email that’s just “help I’m in trouble [address 20 minutes away]” that meaningfully improves anybody’s day, especially someone in such dire straits that all they can do is press a panic button. I guess it’s a thoughtful gesture for the cops if they wind up eventually finding your corpse in a completely different location?
no; shan’t
Two examples!
1.) We had a friend who lived a couple of blocks away from us with an abusive ex; sometimes when he showed up for child custody transfers he’d want to stick around – and sometimes things would escalate. She’d text us/me, and we could stop by, observe with our little judging eyes, and occasionally move things along by explaining that she and I had a gym date/ we were all going out for ice cream. Might be nice if she didn’t have to duck into another room to text us covertly, yes? (This happened exactly twice; that is why I have two examples of where we were going. I don’t know if twice made a difference.)
2.) That lady in the stalking article with all of the neighbors who want to kill her stalker? And the police who don’t take this shit seriously? She’s on her own already; a witness could support her claims, a witness could provide social pressure. She’s already having long talks with her stalker to prevent getting murdered – man it would be nice if a neighbor were there.
It’s not an ideal solution; it’s obviously a stopgap. But it does seem to be a way to reduce the impact of stalkers.
OK yeah the stalker thing makes a lot of sense, I just looked at the quotes that talk about how it all was inspired by an armed robbery and, like, wat
If it’s not marketed as anti-stalker, then stalkers may not know that it’s there for them.
Well, if I got that, I would call 911. I can imagine a situation where someone is in trouble and can press a panic button but can’t call or text 911 (since texting 911 is being mandated as an option now). But I’m not sure about the technical details. If the bad guys take your phone away, does hitting the button still work?
I’m not someone who generally worries about stranger danger; my biggest fear walking alone at night is that a car will run a light and hit me while I’m crossing the street, which this wouldn’t really help. But I can see the appeal of knowing that someone you trust is keeping track of you, especially if you are someone who goes out to meet strangers on a regular basis.
If nothing else, I think “I got this message indicating that she had pressed her panic button, and then she never showed up at work” will hopefully get people looking for you with more urgency than just “She never showed up at work” would.
Well, if you’re in an area where it takes the cops 30 minutes to show up, it’s still a significant improvement. Or if you know someone who lives/works near there, you could call them and get them to help. Or you could call the store or the security of the office building they’re standing in front of and ask them to stick their head outside.
In the Philadelphia neighborhood I was in, the cops did not come when you called 911. They were too busy. Or my neighborhood was too brown. Or emergency services were actually maxed out with crimes more violent than yours.
When I was a day care director there and one of our kids fell and cut her head open, I told staff to call 911. I reminded the staffer to start with “I’m calling from a CHURCH child care center. A CHILD has a HEAD injury.” We practiced that phrasing at every staff meeting. Otherwise our call would go on a list hours long.
Paramedics came right away and little Sarah was fine. But you know how much scalp wounds bleed. She was calm in the ambulance because the paramedics let her stay in my lap with my arms around her while they treated her. Sarah’s mom met us at the hospital and asked me to help hold Sarah while they stitched her up. Sweet baby deity, that was hard! But no way should that mom have to do it alone.
I was amazed at myself: I was a rock. The whole time. I didn’t fall apart until I got home that night. Never made it up the stairs to my apartment. Just sat on the bottom step, crying and trembling. So relieved.
Don’t know how you parents do this shit. Good parents are superheroes.
Thank you for holding Sarah. I had a similar injury* at daycare when I was 6 and the employee on playground duty at the time panicked and nearly fainted.
*Weird bragging break: I’ve had stitches or staples in my head 5 times.
Maybe you need a helmet? Please stop breaking yourself! Were those incidents all in childhood? Should I be worried about you?
I didn’t really have a choice. Though I preferred to hold Sarah, it was she who decided we would not be parted. The paramedics tried to break her death grip on my neck, but she was not having it. I asked them to treat her from my lap and they agreed readily. They had a backward-facing seat in the ambulance and seat-belted us both into it. A frightened three-year-old is surprisingly strong.
I’m just occasionally unlucky and/or foolish. The most recent set of staples was a few years ago when a large flashlight fell on my head. After we went to minor emergency my husband and I had a discussion about things to keep on top the fridge and things to keep in the drawer next to the fridge.
Man, little kids are so good at clinging. It’s a good instinct when you’re injured.
also, an update on the Gawker/Jezebel rape gif sitch
also I love Prudie if the use of the word “seminal” here was a purposeful bodily fluids-type pun: “Dad’s nether regions may be of seminal interest to the offspring”
Who else hears “take it to the limit” and only thinks of Strong Bad, I mean, who is this other guy and what is this other song?
Everybody to the limit–the Cheat is to the limit–every body come on fhqwhgads
I see you jockin’ me
tryna play like
U
NO
ME
Me. Everybody to the limit, The Cheat is to the limit!
Have you heard the mashup between the entire Daft Punk Random Access Memories album and Everybody To The Limit? It’s GLORIOUS.
I get SO MAD about higher pricing for women’s products. I also get SO MAD about the way social expectations cause us to spend insane amounts of money on procedures and products. In order to be able to go to the beach without making a social statement, I literally must spend $70 on a wax, or $15 on a wax kit and then 1.5 hours pulling my own body hair out by the roots. And I have to do this every 4-6 weeks. Like, that’s quite the thing, and it’s the bare (heh) minimum. We accept it, but that’s actually totally fucking insane, and it’s really just one small example. My male partner does not have to do that to go to the beach. He has to… put on a bathing suit. Which costs far less than the bathing suit I put on. Because his body is just fine the way it is, body hair and all. He is acceptable.
It’s absolutely about subjugation of women, about oppression, about keeping us down. It is also possible BECAUSE women are oppressed. It is symptom of our oppression that we accept that our body hair is unacceptable, and spend our (few) dollars and precious time to remove it in order to be acceptable. And here’s the thing: I just want to get along in society. I just want to have friends and go on trips and make decent bank. And honestly, those goals are incompatible with being radical and making radical choices about my body hair. So I wax my legs (in a desultory fashion, hardly ever, in the laziest protest ever). And I buy lipstick. And get pedicures. But I really wish I didn’t have to, even if I do like shiny gold toenails sometimes.
Fuck man, I’m going back to the nudist beach.
I am always flummoxed by how expensive women’s bathing suits are compared to men’s, considering how much less fabric is actually involved. Also that most of the time with bikinis you have to buy the top and bottom separately and EACH is more expensive than the entire ensemble should actually be.
If it’s any comfort, I have friends and go on trips (and do not make decent bank, especially as I am going to be a full-time student in a few weeks, but I am only 24, so hopefully that’s okay) and have never waxed anything or had a pedicure; I haven’t shaved my legs in about a year and almost never wear makeup. And I don’t think I’m particularly radical in that – it doesn’t seem that far from the norm in the (not very radical) circles I move in. So maybe they’re not completely incompatible! I know it depends on the individual situation, though, and I am lucky to not have experienced too much in the way of this sort of oppression.
I’m wondering if any Bay Area Toasties were planning to go to Danville tomorrow night to see Lev Grossman at Rakestraw Books? I just looked to confirm date/time and I see they have changed the location to a private home and require a phone call and reservation before they will disclose the location. WTF? Is this normal? Will anyone meet me there so I don’t have to go alone? I haven’t called Rakestraw yet so I don’t even know if there’s still room. At someone’s private house. [shivers] Sorry for not waiting for the open thread but Friday is too late.
If I could go, I would buy a hard copy of “Soon I Will Be Invincible!” for him to sign. (It’s by his brother.)
“I like this one so much better than your other ones!”
“The female characters! Fatale! Lily! A supersoldier cyborg and a fugitive from the future, bent on changing it so we don’t all get eaten by algae! And they have arcs, and development, and it’s not rape-based at all; have you considered putting that in your other books?”
I loved Soon I Will Be Invincible also, for the term Malign Hypercognition Disorder if nothing else.
Yessss. I like how that thought pattern is familiar, I’m just terrible at building robot arms.
I would like to propose that we light the author of this article on fire for his ability to inject bullshit misogyny into an article supposedly about the achievements of a pretty remarkable woman. “One of the last bastions of male dominance” my ass. Seriously, fuck this dude. (If you skip the first paragraph the rest of the article is pretty interesting in a general and not terribly detailed kind of way. First female Field’s medalist! Huzzah!)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/13/fi…
Edit- Substantially more informative and less rage inducing article here: http://www.nature.com/news/iranian-is-first-woman…
Have you heard the mashup between the entire Daft Punk Random Access Memories album and Everybody To The Limit? It's GLORIOUS.
I see you jockin' me
tryna play like
U
NO
ME
I'm just occasionally unlucky and/or foolish. The most recent set of staples was a few years ago when a large flashlight fell on my head. After we went to minor emergency my husband and I had a discussion about things to keep on top the fridge and things to keep in the drawer next to the fridge.
Man, little kids are so good at clinging. It's a good instinct when you're injured.