scary

No, this is not a Halloween costume. It's a real tattoo.

the time traveler

You may already have heard about this alleged "find" -- a time traveler in 1928 purportedly talking on a cellular phone in an old Charlie Chaplin film.

Historians say that she likely was using one of the hearing aids of the era, which were quite large. Others refute that claim by asking why the woman clearly seems to be talking on the device like a modern mobile phone and why would she need a hearing aid while walking down a street when no one is with her engaged in conversation?

Here's one question I have for those insisting this is proof of time travel: if she was really talking on a cell phone, how could she in 1928 when no cell service, towers, or the necessary satellites existed?

I would die for you

The enigmatic T left a comment here the other day. I clicked on his profile and ended up at his rather Spartan blog, but I love the single post there, which I'm reprinting here. Less is definitely more.

I would die for you.

Not a lyric in a song,
But a truth.

In a dark alley,
I would fight.

In a hospital bed,
I would take your space.

Arrows flying,
I would shield.

If demons took form,
I would chase.

Despite my pain,
I would not yield.

Throw me aside,
I'll stay in place.

You are my love,
You are my light.

And there has never been another.

harvest moon hnt

Halloween is almost here. What will you be wearing (or not wearing)? Unfortunately, it's not much of a holiday here in Australia. No little wee beasties knocking on the door.

So why is this called "harvest moon HNT"? If you know your way to the vault, you will understand.

you've changed

My friend Bee is visiting from the States now with her new husband on their extended honeymoon. They'll be here until almost Christmas.

They're off on their own most days, but we've also had a chance to spend some time with each other, all four of us on occasion and sometimes just us girls. Our two husbands are already the best of friends.

After the first day we saw them, when I had a moment alone with James, I said something like "wow Bee has changed so much." He asked for good or for bad and I replied very much for the good. She and I became instant friends the moment we met, a sort of yin and yang connection, each with unique flaws that complimented the other. I had long departed for Australia, however, when her husband-to-be entered her life.

The new Bee, the post-married Bee, is so much of a fuller person than the single version. She seems more mellow, much happier, and just an all-around fantastic person. It's like all the not-so-good parts disappeared when she fell in love. I adored her then, and that makes the Bee 2.0 so much more fantastic. I will be miserable when they have to return to the U.S.

A few days ago she and I were talking about nothing much of anything. I said something about how "the old me" would've been so ragged about something but it didn't bother me a whit now.

To this she replied something like, "You've changed. A lot."

And then she proceeded to rattle off pretty much the same observations about me that I had made about her.

I think the reason both of us changed is pretty simple: we both needed love, and when we found it, we metamorphosized into better people.

Love is such a wonderful state of being. I recommend it highly. Lennon and McCartney were right: all you need is love.

girls who can't change tires

I've had maybe a half dozen flat tires in my life. I've changed all but one of them.

I've never understood young women -- and some men -- who make such a fuss about getting one, like it's a monumental crisis. I never found changing a tire that difficult, and I've done so on a variety of vehicles. It helps if you practice removing and replacing a tire before you actually need to do it.

I even changed a tire once on a male friend's pickup after he got a flat while he stood by watching helplessly. He did manage to help drag the thing from underneath the back of the cargo bed. I had on casual clothes so I didn't mind the dirt.

In any car I've owned, I always keep one of those cheap folding plastic raincoats in the trunk so I can slip one on over my clothes to keep things clean. I prefer those to jumpsuits, which are a pain if you're wearing a skirt. And, of course, liquid disposable wipes are a must.

The one exception to my tire changing history was on the 405 Freeway when I lived in California. I had a blowout and had to pull over on a narrow shoulder. I called the auto club because I thought an experienced professional familiar with changing tires in hazardous situations was better suited than I.

Now I understand why it's difficult for an older person to change a car. But if you're younger, it's just not that hard.

I guess I'm in a small minority, however. The inspiration for this rant came the other day when I checked and topped off my air at a petrol station, and a bunch of men looked at me like I was from Mars. As if tire maintenance was some secret fraternal ritual in which we women were not allowed to participate.

climate change

Apparently they've been having some really strange weather in Texas.

Is it just me or does New Mexico look like it's smiling?

miniporn

Like a cat tantalized by string, I can't get enough of these endless porn loops. I found a giant treasure trove of them here, all created by one digital artist. My husband says I'm going to induce an epileptic fit if I watch too many of these.

trojan

I've had my current laptop nearly four years and, until today, have never had a virus or trojan problem.

Somehow I ended up with the annoying "system defragmenter trojan." I knew as soon as it started that the bastard was fake, because my husband's older computer gets a similar trojan every few months. Removing it from his computer is a snap. Removing this little monster from my laptop, however, was not so easy.

I ultimately was able to give it a merciless death, but what really pisses me off is the fact I have Norton Internet Security loaded and active on my computer. I pay for renewals every year plus update weekly, so it's not like I wasn't protected.

Needless to say the little vermin slipped past Norton completely undetected. Norton typically alerts users instantly as soon as something naughty is going down, which has happened to me before, but today it was asleep with its cyberthumb stuck in its bum.

I have no idea what webpage was responsible for this little gem, because trojans typically sleep on a computer for any length of time, from a few minutes to a few days, before they wake up and go to work.

porno panic, circa 1965

I had never seen this before. Apparently this is a pretty infamous 1965 documentary about the evils of porn -- you can read more about it here. It's at times hysterical and at other times annoying.

standing hnt

Viemoira asked last week about these shoes, "Can you walk in them at all?"

The answer is "yes, but not easily." I always make sure I can grab hold of something if need be. For example, I would never walk across a grocery store parking lot with armfuls of bags while wearing these. Because I'd never make it to the car.

the antithesis of discretion

Many male porn actors find life difficult after their adult film career ends because potential employers are turned off by their history. So an aging porn stud often keeps very quiet about what he once did.

When you've turned your body into a billboard advertising your career, however, there's no turning back. Yes, most guys don't strip during a job interview, but if his shirt ever slipped out of his pants in front while working and exposed his abdomen, the proverbial cat would be out of the bag.

And the homage to a minor punk band in the region above his crotch might be another decision he will regret later in life. His right arm is unfinished (I assume), but right now it looks like a coloring book.

ordinary or extraordinary?

At first glance, this guy appears pornstar huge. He seems as big as that can of Pringles.

Or is he? Maybe he's actually rather ordinary.

Because if his manhood was a lot closer to the camera lens than the container of Pringles, he's actually not big.

An old adage holds that "the camera cannot lie." However, a corollary to that rule might be "the camera can deceive if positioned a certain way."

shell house

Is this not the most fantastic house? Designed by Kotaro Ide, it was built in the Nagano prefecture of Japan in 2008. You can see many more incredible images of the structure, landscaping, and interior here.

love me tender

I must've listened to this Norah Jones cover of "Love Me Tender" a thousand times, but it never fails to make me goosebumpy. I know it may be considered heretical by some for me to say this, but I like her version much more than the one by Elvis Presley.

boring married couple

I've written before here about how my husband almost always wakes me up with some tongue foreplay just before dawn. He's a light sleeper and never needs an alarm clock, thanks to two decades of military life. So we have a good a.m. bed romp, then shower and begin our day.

The only time I don't get the tongue reveille is when he must leave very early for a dive. On those occasions, I set the alarm clock for six.

The other morning, he didn't have to be up early, so we went to bed the night before without setting the alarm. I expected the usual wakeup.

The next day, however, I awakened on my own. It was awfully light out. James had me in his protective embrace as he always does, and he was snoring very quietly. I moved slowly so as not to wake him and peered at the clock.

It was 7:20.

So I shook him awake. He roused after about a minute from a deep sleep and looked around in confusion. "Whoa, we overslept," he murmured. As a result, we were late for our day's engagements, so no time for sex.

In his defense, he had worked an incredibly long and strenuous dive the day before, so he was exhausted.

But still -- I think we're officially now a boring married couple. Daily life got in the way of sex.

groovy jaybird

This still is from a 1960s porn magazine has to qualify as one of the more bizarre flesh products generated during the so-called golden age of adult entertainment. You can see more shots from it here.

Men and women at a nudist colony strip down and play with randomly disassociated objects. Some have obvious titillation value, like the hoses and the balls between their legs. But a train set? Monkey masks? A toy plastic farm?

This has to be about the most un-erotic porn ever produced.

trade modeling hnt

These are shoes I sometimes wear for trade show modeling when I don't have to be on my feet. I did a gig recently where all I had to do was lounge on a large industrial generator in various poses while smiling like an idiot. Nearly all the show attendees were male, so neither the absurdity nor the overt sexism of a smiling come-hither female in fuck-me heels and a swimsuit seemed to bother anyone.

pseudo-celebrity sex tape

Much was made recently of the alleged "leak" of a sex tape featuring model Karissa Shannon and actor Sam Jones III. The two purportedly were "outraged" about the fact that a porn producer planned to release the alleged stolen tape, but curiously no police report was ever filed about the "stolen" property.

Concurrent to this outrage, lawyers for the pair were negotiating behind the scenes with the very same porn producer to sell the stuff. Now if your possessions are stolen, you don't negotiate to sell it. You demand it back because you have the legal right to do so, and you get a court order if they don't comply.

Then, surprise surprise, the lawyers negotiated a "settlement" in the six figures and the porn producer releases the video after all with a flurry of press hoop-te-do.

Boys and girls, can you say "publicity stunt"? Does anyone actually believe this wasn't all planned out from day one, right down to filming the actual encounters?

Jones's career is now pretty much in the toilet given his arrest last year on drug trafficking charges which could bring a twenty-year prison sentence, so what a handy way to pay for his criminal defense team.

I watched parts of the tape and it seems to me like it was made for a wider viewing audience and not just the two participants. And I'm not talking about the extra footage that was obviously added later. This seems not to have ever been meant for their eyes only.

You can see the tape below (or click here for a larger-screen version) and judge for yourself. In order to play the video, you need to press the red button and then press it again when it turns green. The cinematic masterpiece is nearly two hours long.

three-second sex lesson

This endless loop contains two teachable moments.

First, just because your dick is inside her doesn't mean you can't also stimulate her with your finger(s). It's more work for you, but potentially more pleasure for her, too. She'll reward you, too. The technique seen demonstrated here, if done effectively, is indescribably wonderful. If you have big strong thick fingers, all the better.

Second, look in her face when you're sticking it to her. The guy here looks totally disconnected, like he's just grinding into her and off in his own little world. If you're fucking her, let her know you're totally into her. Talk dirty while you're doing this. Make her beg for you not to stop. Good sex is about communication during, not just before or after sex.

The girl is Stoya, and the male appears to be Evan Stone. (In true porn objectification, we see her face but not his. And smut peddlers wonder why women tend to be disinterested in porn.)

public humor vs. public humour

I find myself slipping more and more into Australianese when I write. I titled this post "public humour" inadvertently, then corrected it, and then used both.

I never know what the protocol should be when I need to write to someone here in Australia. I'm an American so should I spell like an American or when in Rome do as the Romans do?

My husband says I've perfected close to a flawless Aussie accent. On rare occasion I'll use it in public when I don't want to sound "foreign." But it seems otherwise pretentious not to use my native Great Lakes American accent, which has smoothed out somewhat with time.

Anywho, the public humor aka public humour below was found at the always enticing Library Vixen. If you don't already know about the site, you definitely should. I wondered if it was a prank played by a male who was compelled to wait while his woman shopped?

charlie manson tattoo

The owner of this masterpiece writes: "This is my Charles Manson tattoo. I got it for a whole bunch of different reasons. Mainly because he’s extremely misunderstood and used as a scapegoat a lot. He’s not a great person by any means, but he’s not the monster that anyone makes him out to be either. I don’t know. I’m prepared for any close minded [sic] comments that are going to come my way."

It's "close-minded" my friend. And I don't even have a high school education.

So you're prepared for close-minded comments. What about comments that force you to think? Or those that might cause you to question the wisdom of your new acquisition, or the lack thereof?

And how was Manson a scapegoat? What about Sharon Tate? Was she a scapegoat, too? Ever look at the crime scene photos? And what about Bernard Crowe, whom Manson himself shot months before the Tate and LaBianca murders?

Extremely misunderstood? You bet he is -- he's romanticized by people who've never educated themselves about his many crimes.

But, hey, it's your body.

ladies room graffiti

Living here in Australia, I've noticed women down under are less inhibited about writing on restroom walls and often wittier about what they have to say. I think overall Aussie women seem somewhat more relaxed and take life a bit less seriously than their American counterparts, so perhaps that explains this trend.

(With that said, some of the best graffiti I've yet seen was in the ladies loo at a strip club where I worked in LA. No man was safe.)

One doodle I saw yesterday in a stall has kept me giggling to myself: Be a liberated woman. Make him sleep in the wet spot.

woman's sex ratings causes outrage

I totally love this story. A female college student at Duke University has caused a major scandal at her college -- and an internet sensation -- because a "thesis" with detailed ratings of her various sex partners has gone viral.

The men involved are purportedly not amused. (But who's bullshitting who people, because you can't tell me the guys who earned high scores for cock size and sexual prowess aren't secretly delighted.)

One has to wonder if the proverbial shoe was on the other foot -- if college women had been rated by some guy, would this would cause so much public fuss?

I also have to wonder if the woman involved has actually seen a big dick, because quite a few of the men are described by her as being substantial, a much higher percentage than one would encounter with a random sample. (A big dick, girlfriend, is as thick as a wine bottle.) I did giggle, however, at her sheer delight at men with Australian accents. Damn right they're sexy!

You can see her entire thesis here. I was amused that the names were redacted but their faces are shown in photographs.

guest newlywed hnt

My friend Bee was married this past weekend. She's modeling a gift from her new husband. They arrive early next week here in Australia. We can't wait to see her again and to meet Mark.

hentai

I don't understand the attraction of hentai, which is apparently Japanese for animated porn (a rough translation). It seems decidedly unerotic to me. It's cartoon sex.

ruptured

I wrote here recently about how we expect we'll soon be evicted from our little cottage. That won't be a hardship because we're actually not living in the place any longer, although most of our stuff is still there.

I ran over the other day for some personal items, as we do almost daily, and discovered a small pond had suddenly appeared in the backyard. The culprit is a ruptured hot water heater. Fortunately the flood damaged nothing inside.

Needless to say, the little cottage no longer has hot water. We rarely shower there, so that won't be a big hardship, although we were planning on using the place when my friend Bee and her new husband visit soon.

I've called the manager to negotiate a lower rent because I highly doubt they'll fix it now. Legally we could hold their feet to the fire, but I'd rather just have them reduce the rent drastically. Like to $25 a month or something.

helplessly male

A friend showed me some pictures the other day of a bachelor party that my husband James attended. I was heartened to see that when some slaggy-looking stripper was gyrating around and smearing herself all over the groom-to-be, the hubby was busy nearby in a conversation with a friend. He was utterly oblivious to the naked woman. That did my ego good.

But then...

The other day we stopped in the store to pick up some dog food. A stunning tall woman in very sleek, stylish clothes hurried through the door and toward her car when we were about twenty feet from the entrance.

The husband looked in the way that men check out women. With his wife standing not three feet away. He caught me glaring at him and had a slightly guilty expression. As if reading my mind, he said, "well, you have to admit she was hard to miss."

I didn't give him a hard time. She was quite breathtaking. I forgive him for being not entirely blinded by me.

why does blogger exist?

I'm one of countless millions who host their journal on Blogger, which is owned by Google. The site is free, so I can't complain (much); however, it periodically goes through wonky periods where not everything works, like right now. I've been getting a lot of "time out" errors for no reason, and the "reading list" function has all but ceased to work.

Google doesn't seem to put much effort into the service. Some minor modifications are rolled out very infrequently but nothing noteworthy. Blogging is purportedly on the decline, at least personal ones, but the service is still nonetheless extremely popular.

I've always wondered why Google even bothers with Blogger. I can't see how they would make much money because I rarely see any advertising while I'm using it. Yes, you can enable advertising on your blog for which Google takes a sizable cut, but few seem to use that because the payouts are so tiny. If you choose not to, like me, then it's ad free. Google offers other free services like Gmail, which have an obvious ad presence.

I often wonder if Google thought they might evolve the service into something more after they bought it in 2003 but then decided against it, or perhaps they thought blogging would continue to grow and not coast. I hope they don't decide to kill it one day and purge all blogs.

Speaking of wonky platforms, Tumblr is becoming something of a pain in the ass, presumably due to its popularity. I have nearly 3,000 subscribers on my Tumblr page, but the site seems to be burdened by too much use and not enough server capacity. It frequently craps out when I add new content, and their queue function has gone into meltdown.

little prince tattoo

The Little Prince is a lovely book and a timeless classic. But, really, your entire back?

I have a feeling that what seems cute now for the owner will not be nearly so endearing when she's, say, 64. Or even 44 when she wants to wear a strapless bathing suit or top and her mortified children roll their eyes in shame.

What will all these tattooed people do when tatts are as out of style as they are in style at the moment? (All things go out of style for periods of time -- it's the nature of fashion.)

attention all bloggers

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