technology's glacial pace

The Atlantic has up an interesting article up with some very nifty graphs showing how Americans were slower to embrace many new technologies than one might think.

For instance, radio was invented later than the telephone but, by 1930, the number of households with radios was far outpacing those with phones. The same for color TVs and clothes dryers -- the latter was an earlier invention but color TV quickly passed the dryer.

I remember accompanying my MD grandfather on some house calls to elderly patients in rural PA. Some of them had no running water and/or electricity, even though it was the 1990s. They could afford it but just didn't want to spend the money.

I've been to a few farms here in Australia with my husband where the owners are not "hooked up to the grid" but instead use a generator. That's more a result of remoteness than choice, however.

celebrity urine

I had to provide another urine sample last week for the doctor. On the way home, I started wondering how heads of state and royalty and other important personages provide their pee for medical testing.

Does Queen Elizabeth get a tacky plastic cup like the rest of us? Does she have to write her name on the side with a wax pencil? Or does she have some sort of elegant silver chalice that's used for The Royal Sample? And if one is expected to bow or curtsey the Queen, does one also have to do it for her specimen?

What about the President of the United States? Does his pee-in-a-cup get a Secret Service escort? Is his sample referred to as the First Slash? Is it kept in a secret vault after testing to make sure it doesn't fall into terrorist hands?

A friend once saw Sigourney Weaver at her doctor's when they both happened to have an appointment around the same time. Ms. Weaver was given a plastic cup like the rest of us mere mortals. I've thought of that story every time I've had to make my own donation-in-a-cup.

1948 olympics

Talking Points Memo has a great picture feature up with about five dozen old photographs from the 1948 Olympics in London. I've reproduced some of them below; click to see them in a larger size.

You've probably heard the 1948 Olympics were called the "austerity games" because London was still recovering from the war. You clearly get a sense of that from these pictures.

You also get a sense the 1948 event was more about the athletes and less about the glitz and celebrities, before the Olympics became a massive media event. It's also interesting to see the diversity of gold medal winners -- no one country seemed to dominate.

real or fake?

I've been trying to figure out of this photo is real or some kind of Photoshop fake. I used Google's image search but could not find anything about where this originated.

She seems impossibly tiny compared to him. I wonder if this started out as a legit pic, and then she was cut out, reduced in size, and pasted back in.

If I have to vote, I'm inclined to say fake, not real.

I need a spanking

The husband has not spanked me in a very long time, since before I discovered I was pregnant. I've mentioned this several times, and his standard reply is "I don't want to hurt the baby."

I keep reminding him that he never spanked me hard, so he certainly couldn't do any damage. It's not like he whipped me. But he will not be convinced.

I miss that warm rosy glow on my ass. I miss him gripping my recently spanked buttocks while he fucks me. I miss the feel of his rough hand caressing my butt cheeks between spanks. I miss how he snakes his finger into my pussy when he pretends to adjust me across his lap.

creepy implants

These are plastic objects their owner had surgically implanted under his skin. Yes, they're your hands and you can mutilate your body if you want to, but I will not change my opinion that you're an idiot.

Apparently no one bothered to tell him that your hands contain some of the most delicate bones and tendons in the human body. When you're old and your hands are crippled with arthritis, let's see how cool you think these are. I guess that's my MD grandfather speaking through me.

I'm reminded of a very interesting literary scifi novel called The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The book's hero is this sort of macho Franciscan priest who travels to another planet, where he's captured and his hands are surgically altered, which causes him excruciating pain. In the book, he had no choice. Here, the story is different.

masturbating in public

You may have heard actor Fred Willard was arrested recently for allegedly jerking off in a porn theater. He was fired from a new PBS show as a result and faces the possibility of criminal prosecution, although he may be able to avoid the latter by attending a diversion program.

If you go to a shopping mall, you don't want to see an old man giving himself a handjob. In that sort of situation, I would agree prosecution is warranted.

But if you're in a porn theater, you're not there to watch wilderness documentaries. Human genitals in sexual situations will be seen constantly on the big screen, so it's not like the wankers in the audience are showing anything shocking. If you're there to see hardcore porn, you could hardly be shocked to see a real dick or two as well.

Why does any city these days bother prosecuting men for jerking off at a porn movie? It would be easy to fault the officers who made the arrest, but they were in that theater because someone up the chain of command sent them there.

With all the budget cutbacks facing cities like Los Angeles, where Willard was arrested, you'd think someone might have the intelligence to ax funding for busting and prosecuting people for wanking in porn theaters.

three little pigs

This is a very strange movie trailer, as you can see below. It's for an ultra-low-budget feature-length film that's a modern noire telling of "The Three Little Pigs." You can read more about it on the filmmakers webpage and also here.

Now considering their micro budget ($7,500), some things are very good about this -- the cinematography and the editing, for example. The look is sharp.

The makeup and prosthetics obviously were done on the cheap. They did a very good job considering what they had to work with, but clearly it's not up to Hollywood standards. And the prosthetics make the characters all sound like they have sinus infections.

The biggest problem for me is the whole concept. "The Three Little Pigs" in this style just seems laughable, and the moviemakers are trying to be serious. The pigs are cute but they're clearly men dressed up as pigs. We can all see that.

The suspension of disbelief just doesn't work for me. But it is memorable.

fluttering moth

I'm now regularly feeling the baby move. The sensation is nothing like I once thought it would be.

In all honesty, before it happened the first time, I wasn't looking forward to the baby moving -- I imagined it would feel creepy or as if I had parasites or something. But once baby put on his dancing shoes, I wasn't at all bothered.

The first time I was sitting quietly on the couch while reading and felt the faintest fluttering. When I realized what it was, I just started to giggle helplessly. Oh that's what it feels like.

Now I actually look forward to it. I sit and wait and, sure enough, more often than not within a few minutes, I usually feel him putting on a show.

golden gate

If you've seen the Golden Gate Bridge in person, you might like this short film. There's something majestic about the bridge that's unlike any other. Maybe if you travel on it daily it becomes routine, but if you only cross it every few years, it's magical.

If we ever move back to the United States, I think I'd like to live in the Bay Area. I've lived in Southern California but never up north.

pure nature

You can find a lot of great erotica on Tumblr, in addition to all sorts of porn, but you'll also locate a wide variety of intriguing G-rated material, too. These are samples from a lovely Tumblr called Pure Nature, which features unusual nature shots, frequently featuring animals in unusual shots but occasionally flora, too, plus some images that defy categorization.

a modest proposal

Billions of dollars will be spent this year on American political campaigns. How and where the money is spent, by both major parties and nearly every candidate, will be mostly a waste, in my opinion.

A significant percentage of those billions will be spent on negative advertising. Negative campaign ads have become so pervasive that candidates often spend more time trashing their opponents than mentioning what their own plans might be. Voters go to the polls not knowing what Candidate X or Y stands for, but they will be versed in knowing what the candidate said about his or her opponent.

While I think some negative campaigning and advertising is warranted, too much is not. I think we're way into "too much" territory now. Many campaigns will spend a majority of their donations on negative ads and very little on ads saying what their candidate actually would do with any specificity.

The debates also are usually a big disappointment. They're often not debates. Candidates are asked questions, but the answers often have little to do with the questions, and the moderators rarely press the point with a follow-up. Rarely do voters themselves have any input or participation in the debates other than as a passive audience.

American political campaigns need a major makeover IMHO. Voters need to be more integrated and engaged into the process. It's time to let voters, not candidates, set the tone and the course of a campaign.

When you think about it, a political campaign is a job interview. What kind of job interview has the potential employee, not the employer, run the interview?

I'd love to see more voter involvement in the debates. Have a dozen randomly selected voters from both parties sit at a table with the two candidates. No one else. The voters pepper the candidates with questions. When the candidates spin off into another direction, the voters force them to answer the topic at hand -- you're ducking the question or stop campaigning and answer the question. This would be done once a week. That way, the candidates are directly engaging with the voters, not running around to carefully orchestrated campaign events and photo ops, re-repeating the same tired spin and deceptive talking points.

emaciated pornstar

I saw this promo on a porn site. Obviously most porn is targeted to a male audience, so they're looking only at her.

As a woman, I always look at the male first. With his hollow chest and stick-thin arms, this poor guy looks like he was just released from a penal colony. Couldn't the crew pitch in and buy him some sandwhiches?

He has a pretty big dick, so that's probably why he was hired. It certainly wasn't because of his physique, what little there is of it.

If he appears in a porn movie, they could call it The Stickman Cumeth.

winning?

Charlie Sheen's whole "tiger's blood" shtick seems very last year. It was a media blip for a few months and then evaporated. You don't hear much about it any more, given Charlie has moved on to other narcissistic endeavors.

Whoever has this tattoo, however, will be stuck in 2011 for the rest of his life. Twenty or thirty years now, when Charlie Sheen will probably be a distant memory, the tattoo's owner will still have to explain why it matters to everyone who asks.

rocking the bed

This bed is completely fantastic. Sex while you're rocking has to be fun. You'd need quite a large bedroom so it didn't bump into furniture and the walls.

They're not inexpensive. The full is $2,835 American and the king is $3,665 American.

I would not want to sleep in this while pregnant, however. The room moves around enough as it is when I get up with morning sickness.

I'd also want to test it out in a showroom. Although I doubt the sales personnel would let you have sex on their floor model, I think you could get a sense if you climbed up on it and moved around.

No breakfast in bed though. Unless you like wearing your food.

unique tribute to love

Sometimes true-life love stories are better than anything Hollywood could concoct.

After Winston Howes's wife Janet died seventeen years ago, he planted a six-acre field at his home in the United Kingdon with thousands of oak trees, leaving a one-acre meadow in the middle shaped like a perfect heart. The tip points toward her childhood home. The meadow contains a single bench where Winston sits to remember Janet.

The heart remained a family secret for years until discovered and photographed recently by a hot air balloonist.

I broke out in goosebumps when I heard this story. I think it's the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time.

russian catfight

Both women involved in this little dustup are rather cute. Some, however, might be dismayed that this didn't degenerate into a full-bore hair-pulling catfight.

The tossed poop was a nice touch. Her victim wasn't particularly bright to continue lingering at the curb in an open convertable with steaming dogpoo within flinging range after things turned heated.

Google Translate does a magnificent job (!) with some of the comments. There's this: "why is such a thing, they do just such virgins, sorry for the dog that she is a housewife." And also: "in your head trash, and not in Russia. And in Europe you did not like was there all licked just a tourist and resort areas." So there!

For its part, the dog looks particularly embarassed by the whole sorry fiasco.

tour de france

I had a "friend with benefits" when I lived in Los Angeles who was addicted to bicycle racing. The guy was one of the best sexual partners I ever encountered, but he was boring as hell outside the bedroom. He was obsessed with every aspect of bike racing -- participating in them, training, tinkering with his bicycles, reading about bicycle racing, and of course talking about anything to do with bicycles. He was a crashing bore.

Because I knew him, I attended a few bicycle races. I found them very dull. Clapping for people you don't know whizzing by on their bikes while looking for the one person you do know.

I found these photos of the Tour de France to be much more intriguing than actually attending a bicycle race. Click them to see full-sized because they're quite striking. If you'd like to see the complete set, you'll find them here.

exploiting my tits

Sometimes the most inappropriate things pop out of my mouth. I don't know why I say them. My mouth is already engaged before I've finished putting my brain in grear. I am possessed.

An example for your edification.

I was in the library a few days ago. I noticed one of the middle-aged male librarians at the front desk holding a new book my husband asked me to watch out for.

ME: Oooh, I was hoping to get that. May I check it out?

HIM: Sorry love, other patrons are already on the waiting list. There's nothing you could say to make me give it to you.

A half-second of silence passed. Now here is where the little demon on my tongue said something before I even realized it.

ME: What if I showed you my tits?

He was astonished. Then his blushing face morphed into a sort of half-smile.

HIM: Give me your card. You don't have to go that far.

So I hand him my card, and he checks out the book to me.

Now I know when he said, unprompted, "there's nothing you could say to make me give it to you," the insalubrious part of my brain said, "that's what you think pal." That's probably why I said what I did even before I realized it.

In hindsight, I am a bit mystified why he put it that way. There's nothing you could say to make me give it to you. Do other female library patrons try to tempt him, too? Did I stumble unwittingly into a conspiracy of wanton library patrons, trading salacious glimpses for hot reads?

election 2012

Far away from the US, most of my news comes via the internet. It seems like the forthcoming 2012 election is huge front-page news most every day, based on all the Internet coverage I see. I've been following it pretty closely.

I mentioned this the other night to my brother on Skype and he said it's hardly registering with anyone he knows back home. It's too early, he said, for people to be paying much attention. I asked another friend in the US and she said pretty much the same thing.

I find that interesting. Candidates and campaigns are shoveling countless millions into advertising and operations right now. Is anyone really paying attention except for a few wonks and ex-pats like me on the other side of the globe?

The conventional wisdom, whoever decides that, appearently holds that no one pays much attention until after Labor Day. So the whole long drawn out process before that all seems rather cumbersome. I wonder if the US will ever go to some sort of national primary, with a short turnaround before the final election. That might focus attention on actual issues as opposed to all the distracting drama.

momentary insanity

I opened a new can of food for the dog yesterday afternoon. It was a flavor we hadn't tried before.

The dog sat patiently watching me with her big innocent, trusting eyes.

Normally her food sort of disgusts me. But this stuff actually smelled good.

I stuck my finger in the can and tasted. A bit bland but flavorful.

I tasted a little spoonful. Then another, bigger one.

I noticed the dog watching me, a slightly hurt expression on her face.

Realizing what I was doing -- my God you're eating the dog's food -- I hurriedly scooped out the rest of the stuff into her dish and put it on the floor.

I raced to my laptop and Googled if other pregnant women were ever tempted to eat dog food.

Relief washed over me. I was not alone. The Sisterhood of Alpo lives.

And some women even craved eating canned dog food. I found one woman offering advice on what particular variety is best.

I didn't feel like such a freak any more. I wasn't craving the stuff.

At least not yet.

But the dog is still giving me dirty looks.

books for a desert island

If you were being sent to a desert island -- or into solitary confinement or a deep space probe that would be gone for decades -- and could only pack one book, what would it be?

No fair to say you'd take a Kindle. The battery would die. It has to be an old-fashioned book with paper pages book.

I would have a tough time deciding between these three, if I could only choose one.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. This is my all-time favorite novel. I must've read it twenty times. It's tragic and brilliant and prescient.

I Shall Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, by Victor Klemperer. This is a collection of Walter Klemperer's diaries from 1933 to 1945. A university professor, he was born a Jew but converted to Christianity as a young man and married a Christian woman. He avoided being sent to a concentration camp for most of the war because of his marriage and the fact he was a decorated World War I hero. Just when he had to report for shipment to a concentration camp near the end of World War II, Dresden is bombed, and he and his wife escape.

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. I've read maybe twenty of his plays. Not bad for a high school dropout. This might be cheating slightly as it's more than one work, but all of Shakespear's known writings are often collected into one volume. There's always something more to be discovered when re-reading Shakespeare.

Writing this now, I realize I can't decide. Fortunately, I don't have to go to a desert island.

man has 100 pound testicles

Wesley Warren Jr. of Las Vegas has massive testicles weighing 100 pounds. They're so huge they practically drag on the ground. This is for real; you can see a video of him here. His sex life is nonexistent, no surprise, and he has great difficulty urinating.

So Warren went public last year with his plight, hoping to raise money somehow for the surgery to reduce his nuts to a normal size. The procedure would cost about $1 million.

His prayers were answered. Dr. Oz stepped forward and offered to pick up the entire tab. Warren could have the surgery for free.

But Warren said no. "I'll make a decision when I'm ready," he told a reporter.

Between the time he went public with his appeal last year, Warren has been featured on the Howard Stern Show, Comedy Central, The Learning Channel, and other TV outlets. He has given countless media interviews. He will be the subject of a forthcoming documentary.

If he accepted Dr. Oz's offer, he'd have to give them exclusive rights for his story in return.

Warren clearly seems to be enjoying his fame, according to reporters who have interviewed him before and after the Oz offer.

What an apt commentary on our times. Rather than accept a free gift of surgery that will make his life normal again, he chooses to be a reality TV freak. (He even compares himself to a sideshow freak in the linked video.)

Warren's story reminds me a bit of Citizen Ruth, Alexander Payne's brilliantly dark comedy about an ordinary woman caught up in a web of momentary celebrity.

Common sense is trampled in the quest to be famous.

sharon stone's body parts

I saw this recent picture of Sharon Stone and have been trying to figure out what she had done as far as plastic surgery. Some web searches turned up a variety of conflicting reports about what she has admitted to having done. I've also found pictures that were alleged to be her without makeup, but some of those seem pretty dubious.

You can clearly seem some wrinkles in this photo but, at the same time, something doesn't look right with her face, particularly the upper half. It has changed from a few years ago. Her eye shape seems to be different. I'm guessing she had a little eyebrow lift and maybe some forehead work but no botox.

I've always liked her acting work. Even if the movie stunk, she almost always managed to put in a good performance. She's at that difficult age now -- 54 -- where she can no longer really play the femme fatale but older roles don't fit her, either.

the shard

"The Shard," pictured below, is a new mixed-use skyscraper in London. At 1,016 feet, it is now the tallest building in Europe.

Although not yet finished inside, there's no doubt the views from the upper floors are fantastic. The residential portion will be near the top of the building. I can't imagine they'll be inexpensive.

So from inside out, it will probably be a great place. From the outside in, however, I think the thing looks bleak and oppressive. It's more fortress than building. It's not unlike the massive pyramid-shaped "Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's novel 1984.

It will almost certainly stand for several hundred years. Massive skyscrapers are too expensive and difficult to tear down. So ugly will remain for a very, very long time.

Maybe it wouldn't look so bad in a place like Dubai or Las Vegas. But in lovely old London, it's a blight. At least in my opinion.

North Korea also has a large pyramid skyscraper. Called "The Hotel of Doom," it's actually slightly uglier. You can see pictures of that here.

bad blood

My OB/GYN ordered a routine blood test between two recent appointments. I've had blood tests before and they were uneventful.

I had an appointment this week and, as soon as she came in the door, she said "I don't like some of your blood numbers." She was frowning. Certain things are low -- sodium, chloride, and a few other things that I can't remember. Apparently the levels have been getting lower with every blood test.

So now I have to see a endocrinologist. "It's probably nothing so I wouldn't worry too much," she said. I shouldn't worry too much. So that means I should worry some? How much is too much?

She ran through a whole list of symptoms, asking me if I had experienced this or that. I hit on a few of them, but then I'm pregnant.

I was pleased to realize later that my maternal instinct seems to be kicking in. The first thought that came to my mind when she mentioned this was not "what's wrong with me" but instead "I hope this won't affect the baby."

submissive in seattle

This is an intriguing photograph. Most femdom images are campy, but this one is decidedly not.

Her attire is much more ingenue than mistress, but she clearly is in control here. She doesn't rely on costume props for her authority.

She is a true alpha female, and her submissives know it. I would love to see her in action and, particularly, her face.

happy independence day

Happy July Fourth to my American readers. I hope you enjoy the holiday but also take a moment to contemplate the magnitude of what the day celebrates.

I spent a number of summers with my grandparents when I was a kid and my family doctor grandad was very much a student of history. Every Independence Day, with various relatives gathered around the outdoor table after supper, he would tell a story from the Revolutionary War.

My grandfather was a natural storyteller, so his history lesson had the intensity of an adventure story the way he kept his audience hanging on every word. The one that stands out the most in my memory was his tale about how Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga, an important early victory for the colonists. (This was when Arnold was a hero and before he turned traitor.)

Happy Fourth!

grandma gets her freak on

So Grandma is coaxed into moving to a care home because she keeps losing things and nearly burned the house down. She forgets her medicine, forgets her children's names, and sometimes forgets outright who she is.

At the care home, Grandma takes a particular shine to an even older man with an even spottier memory whom she alternatingly calls Bernard or Edward or Herbert. They soon seem devoted to each other, and the family breaths a sigh of relief for Grandma.

Then the call comes from the care home. "We caught your grandmother having sex with an old man.

"And not just once. It's been four times now. We're keeping them separated now."

Is it wrong to prevent old people from having sex, even when they have memory and dementia problems, even if the intimate contact is consensual? Most elderly care facilities try to prevent them from having sex, regardless of their mental accuity, according to an interesting piece now up at Salon. The ones that allow the grandfolks to bump their uglies are an exception to the rule.

pitch black humor

Both my husband and I have a macabre sense of humor. That's one of the things that attracted us to each other not long after we met. Like two minutes after we met.

We met at a disastrous photo shoot in the Nevada desert. I made a joke about a murdered person's corpse. I liked the way he laughed. It was, as they say in Hollywood, "a meet cute moment."

This has continued through our marriage. I mentioned the other day that I hadn't seen a friend of his for quite a while. He responded it was because no one had yet found his shallow grave. That sort of thing.

We frequently joke about murdering each other, sometimes in public. "Did you fill the car with gas?" "Yes, I'm planning a quick getaway after I bludgeon you with a shovel." You get the idea.

The other day I made a joke about how he needed to know which plants to feed "because I don't want them to suffer after I die in childbirth." He did not laugh.

Yesterday I made a similar joke about haunting him after dying in childbirth so he wouldn't forget to do something in December. Silence. I glanced at him. He looked like I had kicked him in his stomach.

"Please don't say that again, kitten," he whispered. "I don't even want to think about that."

I felt bad. At the same time, he looked so adorable with his pouty face. I had a precognitive flash of what our son will look like with a similar face. I felt all warm and tingly.

I told him that. He laughed. All was forgiven.

what's going on?

Pictures like this intrigue me. (Right click to see full sized.) Was this shot for a porn site, paid porn passed off as "amateur porn"?

The backgrounds look realistic, like it's someone's actual apartment. If you look in the mirror in the background, you can see more people in that room, presumably watching. The spectators don't have a very clear view of what's going on.

So is there another story here or is it just badly shot porn?