Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

I saw an ad for Lysol’s No-Touch Hand Soap System the other day and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Isn’t it kind of super germ-phobic to want a germ-free soap dispenser? I mean, you’re touching the soap dispenser in order TO WASH YOUR HANDS. Who cares if there are germs on the dispenser? YOU’RE WASHING YOUR HANDS. Am I missing something here?

I subscribe to The Goldberg File - Jonah Goldberg‘s email newsletter, which is hilarious.

In his latest missive, he mentions his appreciation for the vampire ouevre:

I can understand why John Miller wants the culture to move on to werewolves, Frankenstein, mummies, or whatnot, but I don’t think that’s likely. Vampires are better literary devices for, I think, obvious reasons. Werewolves are nice people who turn into mean animals. Mummies are zombies wrapped up in Ace bandages. Frankenstein is a DIY zombie with a slightly better operating system. (Note: Lord knows I’m not dissing Zombies. But two points need to be made on that score. Individual zombies are not particularly scary or interesting. For zombies to work cinematically, pretty much the whole word has to go zombie. Second, even then it’s not like there are a huge number of plot innovations for zombie themed movies). Meanwhile, vampires are smart and wise (thanks to their age) and they can have sex and so on. Oh, and they’re subversive: They live among us.

He then expands on a thought I’ve had myself, which is why I never read the sequels to Twilight (aside from the terrible movie, which is the other reason I won’t be continuing with the stories in either dead tree or celluloid versions).

But I do have a problem with the vampire mania sweeping pop culture. There’s something gross about it.

In Twilight, the romantic lead is Edward Cullen, who’s about 120 years old and falls in love with a 17-year-old girl.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel was born in the 1700s, and he’s in love with Buffy, who’s 16 or so when the relationship starts.

In The Vampire Diaries, Stefan Salvatore is about 160 years old. His girlfriend seems to be about 17.

In True Blood, Bill Compton is roughly a century-and-a-half old, and he seduces a woman in her early twenties.

Anyone see a trend here?

Put True Blood aside, since it’s intended for adults. Imagine if the 17-year-old girls in Twilight, Buffy, or Vampire Diaries were being seduced by 65-year-old guys. That would be gross. But when the teenage girl is seduced by a guy two, three, four times as old, it’s like-totally-OMG-super-romantic. Why?

The explanation, according to the girls, seems to boil down to: Because he’s good looking. Because he’s mature. Because he’s mysterious (“I’ve never met anyone like him!”). And because he’s at war with his urges.

The problem is that if you take away the good-looking part, you’re describing a run-of-the-mill dirty old man. If you keep the good-looking part, you’re describing a slightly younger but really, really sleazy dude who cruises high schools looking for jailbait.

Ick.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

From the inbox, from my MIL. Prescient.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

I present, you decide.

SaveAward.gov

We get weekly emails about it from the lead organization.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

I have two friends who are currently on bed rest in the latter weeks of their pregnancies.

One is not local, which is a shame, because I’d love to visit her. She has nearly 2 year old triplets and is expecting baby #4 in December. She’s on bed rest at home, which I’m sure is easier and harder since she’s probably tempted to help when she can’t.

The other is local. She is expecting twins and it is her first pregnancy - she’s due in December, as well. She’s in the same hospital that I was when I was on bed rest, which is great because I’m obviously really familiar with the joint. So I went to visit her on my lunch hour yesterday, taking Panera with me and got the bonus of seeing her mom (who was my bridesmaid in my wedding), too. The bummer is that with H1N1 fears, the hospital is really cracking down on visitors - with two 2-hour slots for visitors. And then I heard that they may start clamping that down to family only, which will really stink because I planned to visit her a couple of times week on my lunch hour as I could work it in. Fortunately for her, she has a laptop (which I didn’t, sadly) and her hubby brought in a DVD player to attach to her TV.

Both are doing well, just trying to keep their babies in until the 34-37 week window, of course.

Anyway, being there really took me back to those weeks when I was living in that hospital waiting for Jesse - missing my baby showers and Christmas; spending our 1st anniversary in Labor & Delivery because I was bleeding and contracting; developing a kidney stone; and then the scary and glorious night when my baby boy finally made his arrival into this crazy world. For me, God’s grace and the many visitors kept me sane and in good spirits. I know that the Lord is providing grace to both of my friends - they are both well prayed over by Godly families and friends. And I pray that God will allow for the visitors that they both need to help the tedium of the days pass as they wait for the time to deliver their babies.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Who knew that McDonalds uses so many varieties of potato for their fries or that they had so much influence over the industry?

Monday, September 14, 2009

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.—Sam Adams

Friday, September 11, 2009

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Choosing Thomas - A family’s decision to let their son live, if only for a brief time.

Have a box of tissues handy.

Monday, August 10, 2009

[via]

Sunday, August 09, 2009

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Stick with it during the seconds of nothing. There is more after McFerrin’s initial stuff.

[via Thinkling Jared]

Thursday, August 06, 2009

I’m loving my new glasses, that arrived yesterday. I’m wearing this pair right now. Mine are in clear red. I also have this pair in grey.

I got both pair for just under $70 - I paid for the thinner lenses and for the anti-reflection coating. Considering one pair of comparable glasses at one of those places at the mall can cost three times that amount, I am very pleased. The quality is solid and the customer service is great - I got my glasses 13 business days after I placed my order online. Both fit perfectly and my vision is clear.

Things to know before you place an order for glasses with Zenni Optical - read their instructions once and then read them again twice more. You need to make sure you understand exactly how to order your glasses. What helped me was that I measured two pairs of my glasses to make sure the measurements of the pairs I was looking at would fit my face. You lose out on the trying on of the glasses like you get in stores, so I found that measuring the width of the frames, lenses (as well at the height of the lenses), bridge, and arms helped me to know how the glasses I was ordering would fit.

I doubt we’ll ever buy glasses in a B&M store again. You just can’t beat the price.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Via Thinkling Bill, I’m getting my nerd on this weekend by checking out We Choose The Moon. It’s a website devoted to running the audio of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in real time. I’ve got a window open and it’s kind of cool to just listen to the static and hum of the radio transmissions. Then randomly someone will key the mic to say something rather mundane. Of course, I haven’t really had a chance to listen when they’re in the midst of a full work day yet, although I did hear some conversation yesterday between Buzz Aldrin and Houston about some problem with their TV signal in space - apparently they were getting wavy lines on their screen up there and they wanted to check with the contractor if that was to be the norm or if it was some glitch that could be fixed.

[UPDATE (9:15 am)]: Just ordered my new glasses and heard CapCom explain that while it is now 40 minutes past the scheduled rest time, they have opted to let the astronauts continue to sleep since there’s nothing pressing for them to do at this point. Love that little nerdlet of info.

Friday, June 12, 2009

This is the kind of civil process I see in my office all too often.

Late last month, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed a complaint filed by a woman who said she’d been buying Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries cereal for four years under the assumption that crunchberries are a real berry. “The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said ‘berries’ were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls.”

Idiot.

[via rude cactus]

Saturday, June 06, 2009

On this date 65 years ago, thousands of young men in the Allied forces traveled across rough seas to the shores of Normandy, France. Their goal? To push back Hitler’s army in order to prevent the invasion of Great Britain. Thousands died on the beaches of Normandy. Paratroopers and glider pilots died behind the lines as well. But they prevailed and the tide was turned in that horrible war on that Day of Days. Thanks, veterans. We remember and will never forget.