taylor swifty

Someone made up eye-catching graphics of Taylor Swift morphed with what appeared to be her inspirational quotes. One said: "Do not compare yourself to others. If you do so, you are insulting yourself."

Swift fans gobbled these up and posted them all over the Internet on places like Facebook and fan pages.

Turns out the quotes weren't hers. They were actually Adolph Hitler's quotes merged with the Swift photos by some prankster.

If Taylor Swift starts to talk about invading Poland, I think we should be concerned.

creamy and delicious

I was browsing for a book on Amazon and this product popped up in the little "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" suggestion bar.

Of course I had to see what that was about, so I clicked the link. Were people actually selling that? At those prices?

The reviews set me straight. I guess Amazon allows this kind of thing or hasn't caught on. Some of the endorsements are highly amusing.

P.T. Barnum would've loved the Internet.

my first celebrity crush

I have a now somewhat patchy memory of my first celebrity crush. In talking to friends, I know many people had one or several during their pre-pubescent youth, so I'm certainly not alone.

My first was Tony Danza. I watched Who's the Boss? reruns pretty regularly after school when I was young and became absolutely smitten with him when I was in second grade.

I remember that I knew I should keep this a secret. Danza would've been in his late thirties or early forties when he appeared in the last season of that show, so he was very much an "older man." I distinctly remember not telling anyone at school about my crush or even that I watched Boss religiously.

When my older brother took me shopping once back then, he offered to buy me a Who's the Boss? object of some kind -- I think it was a notebook book. He knew I watched the show a lot. I had to pretend that I was mortified at the idea. I badly wanted it, but then I would've have carried it to school, anyway.

I don't recall that I had any sexual fantasies about Danza, because I think I was still too young. But I do know I was aware at that age of what was involved in sexual reproduction. I think I had more "dating fantasies," that Tony Micelli (his Boss character name) would take me on exciting outings and buy me special gifts.

Between second and third grade, I spent the summer with my grandparents in Pennsylvania, as I usually did. I watched very little television and, if I recall, the Boss reruns weren't broadcast in their area. By fall when I returned to school, I was over him.

I saw the promo photo below of Danza in a forthcoming film and I had to laugh. He doesn't look awful, but he's not aging particularly gracefully, either, I don't believe. He has one of those faces that was very striking in a certain age range, but now that he's out of that range, then it only serves as a memory of what he once was and no longer is.

she's no angel

I found the picture first, which you see below, but I knew it had to be a porn performer. That just doesn't look like a "real person" tattoo.

A bit of research later, I discovered it belongs to a newish porn slag named Zarrah Angel, who's starred in masterpieces like Tattooed Anal Sluts 2 and Rock and Roll in my Butthole 3.

If you must have a bee tattooed on your anus, I guess it's better that you appear in porn. Because then this bad decision can be explained away as a career necessity.

But can you take the cost of an anal tattoo as a tax deduction if you appear in porn?

the croc wore black

Australia now has a prime candidate for this year's Darwin Awards.

In the Northern Territory over the weekend, Sean Cole joined a group of friends in a camping trip to a wilderness park on the Mary River. The muddy river is well known in Australia and around the world as a haven for saltwater crocodiles, some measuring more than twenty feet in length.

Indeed, the river has the greatest saturation of adult saltwater crocodiles in the world. Large warning signs are posted everywhere along the river course warning visitors not to swim in the water or even go near the edge. Crocs are known to lurk below river surfaces and then lunge out of the water and grab something on the shore.

Cole was a Northern Territory native and very familiar with the Mary River. But that didn't stop him and a friend from ignoring the many warning signs and attempting to swim across the river and back.

Cole's friend managed to make the whole trip, but Cole did not. A croc measuring about sixteen feet in length, which may be the one photographed by another visitor to the park a few minutes earlier, was lurking in the middle of the river and grabbed him as he was swimming. Friends watched in horror for a number of minutes as the creature swam on the river with its victim in its mouth. Cole's badly mauled body was later recovered by authorities, not entirely intact.

There's just no anecdote for stupid sometimes.

a porn with a view

I chanced on the porn photos below, which can be viewed better by right-clicking. I was first struck at how the stills are not competently shot, visible in the noticeable contrast, focus, and tone variations between frames.

These are things to look for when you're a mainstream model, because a mediocre photographer will not do you justice. Just because someone owns a camera does not make him or her a photographer, no more than someone who owns a piano is a pianist. Then again, rarely are skilled photographers shooting porn.

As far as adult fare goes, none of the three looks like they want to be there. He seems brain dead and doesn't know how to deal with two women in bed with him. The one woman is barely engaged. They're all just cranking it out.

The uninspired porn and regrettable photography aside, the view here is fantastic. I lived long enough in Los Angeles to suspect it was taken in the Malibu Hills overlooking the Pacific and Catalina Island. The only drawback in a spot like that is the significant fire danger.

Which leads me to wonder how this multi-million-dollar home ended up being used for porn. Day rentals on locations like this would probably be more than the entire budget for this smut shoot. Maybe a real estate agent picked up a few extra bucks by allowing a porn company to photograph on a slow weekday.

I guess that's a commentary on mediocre porn where the most impressive thing is the view and the real estate. If you want to watch the actual video for free, you can do that by clicking here, and you can see more stills by clicking here.

fashion catastrophes

Someone out there in Internet land -- I couldn't discover who -- decided to pose ordinary-looking friends in a few of the more surreal outfits seen at the most recent men's fashion week. You will see the results below.

The shirt on top is silly but not extreme. I think that'd be mostly popular with the Fire Island crowd so it would probably sell.

The mess on the bottom is just surreal. It looks like a man has put a woman's skirt on his shoulders. And what crawled up and died on his forehead? I can't imagine anyone would actually purchase and wear clothes that look like this.

temper your nipples

The poster below is from the Soviet Union in the 1930s. According to the translation on the website where I found this, it translates to "Did you take care of your breasts? Temper your nipples by daily washing with cold water." A more literal translation of the second part would be: "Cold temper your nipples with water daily."

The more literal translation matters because cold tempering is an old folk practice that supposedly makes a body healthier. It's still advocated today by holistic practitioners and the like. Others say it's nothing more than a superstition and has no scientific or medical basis.

If I was a new mother in Russia in the 1930s, I don't think I'd want to put cold water on my tits in the middle of winter. On the more practical side, however, I can't imagine too many people had hot-and-cold running water in the Soviet Union at that time.

So keeping your boobies clean for baby was more important than comfort. By perpetuating this folk practice, the Soviets may actually have been trying on the sly to promote hygiene.

This was posted all over Russia at the time -- in public transit, public buildings, and on walls in the street. I would imagine some young Soviet males just beginning puberty would have particularly enjoyed seeing this poster, the 1930s equivalent of porn in a totalitarian state.

Searching online for more information about this poster, I found this website, where some Photoshop wizards made some enhancements of their own.

the escapist

(Written with speech recognition software while my fingers heal. I forgot I had it.)

Many parents, and particularly new parents, have a tendency to brag about how their children surpass their peers. Johnny scored 23 percent higher than... Maria is in the 97th percentile... Sean's already reading whole books and he hasn't even started school...

I've heard this many times from new mothers I know. I will admit I do it, too, on occasion. I have spared you most of that here.

This will be a post about how my son Joey is doing something far ahead of his peers. But it is not bragworthy.

Children usually do not try to climb out of their cribs (cots here) until they are at least two years old. Joey is only nine months now and already he's trying to do it.

His room is next to ours and his crib, sits against the wall adjoining our bedroom, where our bed sits against that common wall. Several times in the last week we have heard a thumping against the wall around midnight. When we go into his room, he's standing on the crib mattress and trying to pull himself up with the slats. We have the sides all the way up, but he seems to realize the way out is to go up the rails.

He's nowhere near succeeding at this point, but his arms seem to be stronger than his legs. So once he stands up on his own, he clamps on to things and then uses his arms for movement. He seems to understand that he needs to step with his feet against the slats to get any height. I'm left pondering how far and how soon he'll progress.

While I'm confident my husband and I will find ways to keep him safe in his crib, I do start to wonder what he'll be like at six or eight or ten. Look Mum, I climbed all the way to the top of this huge tree!

My husband can be a daredevil physically at times. The last number on the speedometer is just a suggestion in his mind. I'm less that way with physical challenges, but I pushed the envelope in other directions, particularly sexually, when I was younger.

I hope our son hasn't inherited the worst of our collective daredevil tendencies. Because I will have white hair before his tenth birthday.

I mangled my hand

I accidentally cut some fingers on my right hand, which will now be bandaged for several days. I turned to check on Joey while I was cutting vegetables and ended up cutting a few digits. Memo to self: stop cutting while not looking.

Typing is now slow going because I can't use several fingers. I am ambidextrous for some functions, but not with typing and, in particular, when using a mouse.

So this will be a short post today with a very nice picture I found online and put on Tumblr. The focus is super sharp, and you can count hairs and pores if you're so inclined (right click to see enlarged).

Fortunately I can still do this to The Husband, maimed claw notwithstanding.

never say never

This is just such a fantastic video. It just really lifted my day. Take six minutes out of your life and watch this. You'll be glad you did.

I miss LA

I saw this photo on Tumblr yesterday and it brought back memories of driving in Los Angeles. You see streets like this all over Southern California, from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Even if you're having a crappy day, when you drive down one of these palm-lined avenues, you can't help but feel a little better.

Some are in elegant neighborhoods like Beverly Hills. Others, however, are on perfectly ordinary middle class streets, and some even on streets where it's probably best not to go without a very good reason.

When I lived in LA, I learned from a native that the palm trees always tip slightly to the south to favor the sun, like flowers in your garden. So you can always tell whether you're on a north/south or an east/west street. The picture below is obviously facing north/south. Here you can see a street facing east/west.

Australia has many palm trees, of course, but I think they frequently look bushier, more like Florida than like California.

a pox on software geeks

Just when I decide I don't hate Windows any longer, Windows does something to make me hate it again. Today I opened Windows and discovered, without me ever directing it to do so, it reverted to default settings.

I repeatedly do the necessary steps to return it to my preferred settings, and it immediately ignores that and returns to default. I've had this happen before, and with other versions of Windows, too. It's a bastard to fix.

I suspect the culprit this time is video software I use, which reset my media settings without my permission when it did an automatic update, even though I had set it before to no automatic update. That, I think, changed some critical setting on Windows which I'm now powerless to unchange for the time being.

I hate when software geeks decide they should make decisions for me, instead of allowing me to decide, by overriding my preferences with some bit of program code. "Yes, we know you didn't select our software as your default, but we've decided that's not allowed, and we'll change it anyway, even though you specifically said not to, and we'll fuck up your Windows settings in the process."

I contacted tech support for the video software, and of course they have no idea how to help me. They're just slightly trained idiots who cut and paste answers from prewritten material, and often those answers have little to no resemblance to the actual issue I've brought to their attention.

bagel tattoo

I can't tell if the bagel tattoo below belongs to a man or a woman. Nor can I tell if the redness around it is a permanent part of the design or if the person is having some kind of skin reaction to the tattoo.

The top right looks like an oozing inflammation where the skin has something like a welt. If it's a permanent part of the design, then from a distance it might look like a big, gnarly scab.

If this is on a woman, I just shake my head in wonder. It's the rest of your life, sweetie. You won't have to stare at it when you're fifty and sagging but other people will.

How do you accessorize for decades with a bagel slapped on the back of your neck? "This blouse would look so great if I didn't have that damn bagel." Trying to have it removed would leave a big ugly scar.

I wonder if in a few decades, when tattoos are long passé, if clothing styles will be big and bulky so people can cover any visible tattoos. Whoever invents a virtually undetectable tattoo removal technique will become a billionaire many times over.

sci fi danger

One of the dangers of sci fi is that, at some point, it will date itself. But that doesn't mean it can't still be good.

A classic example would be the prominent ads in Blade Runner and 2001 for companies that no longer exist. (The 2019 jumbo video screens in Blade Runner also have seams in them, whereas huge TV screens in stadiums here in 2013 are seamless and sharper resolution.)

This meme illustrates an amusing bit about Star Wars. Even Uhura has cordless communication systems. You'd think Lucas would've picked up on that and made his more "futuristic." And if memory serves me correctly, the communication systems in Alien (one of my top ten sci fi movies) also have cords.

Another favorite of mine is the original The Day the Earth Stood Still and many bits in that now are horribly dated. But the movie is still great. (I have never seen the remake, as that seems like sacrilege.)

Communication systems and techy things seem to be the first to date themselves in sci fi. I wonder if current futurist filmmakers are looking at past sci fi films to see what dates itself the quickest.

My personal idea about this is: when you watch "futuristic" sci fi film from the past, think of them as being made in a parallel universe (some physicists say an infinite number exist). That alternative society didn't quite evolve the same way we did, so there are no prediction or continuity mistakes.

Ergo, somewhere there is a universe where The Day the Earth Stood Still is not only accurate but also came true.

bad bald versus good bald

The husband is in his early forties, and as could be expected, many of his male friends -- his "mates" here -- are in their early forties, too. And as is typical for many men of that age, some of are losing their hair or have lost most of it. (Husband James still has all of his thick hair.)

I'm always intrigued by how some men "bald well" while others "bald badly." One acquaintance of my husband is a very good looking man, but he's balding in a way that I think is the worst possible -- he's lost everything in the "forward hemisphere" while the back of the top and the "back hemisphere" remain very thick. Think Larry in the "The Three Stooges."

Other men bald very well. The best I think are those that thin somewhat on the top in a consistent manner and still maintain a very clear hairline. It helps when they have a masculine head shape.

Still others lose more hair, but in a consistent pattern, and they have a good shape to their head and keep what hair that remains trimmed very short. They look sexy bald, not goofy bald.

Head shaving is very popular, and it's a wise choice for some but a disaster for others. Some men just go overboard with the waxing and polishing of their shaved head so they look like a bowling ball. It doesn't help if they have an oddly shaped head or clunky glasses or a facial hair style that looks wrong on a bald man.

Bad hair pieces, obvious wigs, and horrendous combovers are always a disaster. I don't understand how those men can look in the mirror and think they look good.

In light of all this, I think baldness and the disastrous coping with it could make a pretty decent reality TV series. Maybe there is already one and I don't know about it.

My idea would be a before-and-after make-over sequence for bald men. A panel of unattached women would judge the man's hair before the makeover and both give advice on the makeover and judge the results afterwards. I suspect most if not all the men would look better after their female-supervised makeovers. And then maybe the man could be paired on a few dates with some of the women on the judging panel. Only then would he learn they had supervised his new look.

the war on overhead lamps

My husband teases me because I hate ceiling lamps with a passion. I don't exactly know why I dislike them so, but I go out of my way not to use them.

I put the faintest bulb in every overhead lamp in the house, even though I rarely use them. Some have dimmers, and those are always yanked way down.

I have no problem with sunshine or overhead lights in stores. I danced in clubs with overhead lights, and I didn't even notice, really.

But in the house, I despise them. I always have. Yet I don't exactly know why, except maybe the harsh, angry glare they throw on everything.

Or maybe it's some weird thing from my early childhood. Something traumatic happened involving overhead lights, but I can't figure out what could be so disturbing about that to a small child.

concert fingerbang

This picture has gone viral and purportedly shows a spontaneous fingerbang at this year's Lollapalooza earlier this month. All sorts of comments have been posted online about what supposedly is happening.

Some of the comments are skeptical about this image's authenticity. I felt that way even before I saw the remarks.

It's not that a public fingerbang couldn't happen at a rock concert. Sex in public has been happening since the 1960s at events like this.

The photo below just doesn't quite look right. The focus seems inconsistent for elements equally distant from the lens. The fleshtones, particularly his, don't appear consistent. His shoulder angle also is wonky and not natural. The edge of his upper arm against the back of the woman to the side looks too sharp.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is legit. And even if it was real, I don't see why people are having conniptions. Things like this happen at concerts. Innocence is lost at Lollapalooza; innocence isn't found. I suspect more than 99.99 percent of people having a fit about this picture would never go to a Lollapalooza anyway.

This is 2013. Time to stop having a coronary about someone else's sexual delights.

hyperloop

Billionaire Elon Musk has unveiled a proposed new transportation concept known as the Hyperloop, a large pneumatic tube-like system driven by air cushions and electromagnets, allowing for surface travel at up to 800 miles per hour. Think of it as a bullet train on steroids. Some have described it as a hybrid of "a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table."

The system would be solar powered, immune to weather, and purportedly "unable to crash." Passengers would ride inside a giant bullet of sorts as it hurtled through tubes on cushions of air.

"Unable to crash" brought to my mind the "unsinkable" Titanic. And then there are earthquakes. And then what about structural flaws that could cause the tube to rip open and eject the bullet train inside that's still moving at 800 miles per hour.

This would clearly not be a transportation system for anyone who gets claustrophobic. You couldn't have any windows. So it would be like riding inside a giant tennis ball while being sucked through a very long vacuum cleaner.

All of this doom and gloom aside, it does sound incredibly cool, like something from a futuristic movie. It may be a little too conceptual for the real world, but it certainly is different. Musk apparently won't fund the thing and instead will try to inspire others to build it.

I just don't think I'd want to ride on the maiden voyage nor until at least several years after it opened for all the bugs to be worked out. Because one little slip up and you're like a moth smashed on a moving car's windshield.

celebrity versus anonymity

I had something of a positive view toward actor Matt Damon because he seemed more grounded than a lot of other celebrities, but then I read this quote attributed to him the other day: "It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody."

Was he saying what I thought he was saying? It's better to be some famous do-nothing like Kim Kardashian than an anonymous person who volunteers dozens of hours a week in the community but is the antithesis of celebrity?

So I headed to Google and searched the phrase. Turns out he did say it, technically, but he was playing a character when he did. It's one of his lines from The Talented Mr. Ripley. So I'll let him off the hook.

Unfortunately, too many people embrace that belief without question. As exhibit one, I submit nearly everyone on a "reality" show who wants to be famous.

I'm always curious why people want to be celebrities. It's probably not the money. You can make very good money and remain anonymous.

One might be tempted to say it's low self-esteem, but the people I know who want to be famous seem to have a very high opinion of themselves.

So maybe the answer is narcissism. We are becoming more narcissistic as a species. Narcissism is almost addictive, perhaps, like some kind of disease. Greed and narcissism feed the celebrity beast.

Andy Warhol is turning out to be prescient with his comment "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." It probably sounded like a throw-away line when he said it in 1968, but not any longer.

absolute fail

This is just so wrong in so many ways. When you have to advertise, it makes you look like a hooker, which maybe you are. Or maybe you're a tranny hooker. Men want this so bad anyway, so you really don't have to beg.

hollywood vs. linda lovelace

The Hollywood feature film Lovelace about legendary pornstar Linda Lovelace has opened in the US and opens at various times through 2013 in other parts of the world. No word yet when it opens here in Australia.

I've read two interesting reviews, one by pornstar Aurora Snow and another by the sassy "Girls on Film." Each gave it a mixed to negative review, with both also noting the greatest weakness was the underdeveloped Lovelace character. Her complex story, at least based on these two reviews, seems to have been overly simplified and prettified.

It sounds like part of the problem is that the filmmakers might have erred in trying to focus more on the porn story instead of focusing on the interesting and troubled woman who happened to be a pornstar. The porn angle sells tickets -- witness the titillating artwork for the movie -- but perhaps they should have kept that in the background and focused more on the woman herself.

I'm wondering if more experienced filmmakers would have made a stronger picture. The directors have done almost nothing but documentaries, and the writer has only one other credit. Perhaps as documentarians they distanced themselves too much from the dramatic story.

I'm still interested in seeing the movie. I came very close to working in porn in something of a big way -- I did two scenes but decided no more -- so this is a world that interests me. All told, the Linda Lovelace story is not a happy one, and it sounds like this new movie tries to put too big of a Hollywood ribbon on her life.

facebook killer with a twist

In Florida yesterday, a man allegedly killed his wife and then posted his confession and a photo of her bloody corpse on his Facebook page.

He reportedly wrote on his page: "I’m going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife. Love you guys. Miss you guys. Take care. Facebook people you’ll see me in the news."

His friends, and particularly her friends, were shocked. Others apparently thought it was a joke. The confession and photo were shared by more than 100 Facebook users before his page was shut down.

He later turned himself into police, so one is left wondering why he posted this online. He was a seasoned Internet user and regularly posted his self-written books, videos, and more on the Internet.

For me, the greater mystery here is not why he killed his wife but why he put this online. It shows a real lack of common sense in so many ways.

He also seems like he might have some serious mental health issues but not to such a degree that would prevent his prosecution and conviction.

Sometimes I'm just left shaking my head about certain people. What was he thinking?

cotton candy-flavored grapes

Geneticists in California have developed grapes that taste like cotton candy. This was not done with genetic engineering. They simply cross-bred various fruit until they came up with one that was very sweet and tasted like the fairground confectionery.

Technically the cotton candy-flavored grapes could be sold as "all natural" or "organic" as long as they're raised in such a manner because no genetic engineering occurred. No "GMO" (genetically modified organisms) were involved.

They may be natural, but to me, the idea still sounds disgusting. I want grapes that taste like grapes. I like the grape taste. The flavor of grape juice reminds me of my childhoods at my grandfather's farm.

Fruit growers are attempting to compete with fast and convenience food, hence the quest for exotic fruit tastes. No word yet if the public would embrace candy-flavored produce. Or possibly gag.

So what's next -- pizza-flavored peaches?

my slutty past

I've been monogamous for five years. I've been thinking recently how unfamiliar my former non-monogamous life now seems.

Five years ago, I had a little stable of "friends with benefits" who kept me satiated. That whole experience now seems so alien. Those interchangeable, forgettable men used to fulfill my orgasm addiction -- how would I know where to find their sort again?

If I went through some sort of reverse It's a Wonderful Life process, and I went from being a married mom back to the single girl life, where my husband and son didn't exist, I couldn't go back to that whole merry-go-round of sex partners. I would grieve for my now non-existent family, but then at some point I would need male attention.

I'd probably need that long before the grieving process was over, so that means I'd have to go through a trial-and-error period to find one mate to resume the monogamous life because I so like the idea now of a lover who I know better than the back of my hand.

How I have evolved. Once I was sort of terrified of being monogamous and wondered if I could really do it. Now I'm terrified of the idea of not being monogamous. Marriage definitely is addictive, at least for me.

I just came in my panties

Here's proof that a man can be impotent, overweight, balding, and lacking teeth yet still give a woman a fantastic orgasm. And more than once. All he has to do is turn up the bass. She may not let him touch her, though.

I want to ride in a car like this to see what it's like. Once when I lived in Los Angeles, a car full of gangbanger types pulled up behind me at a light with a really throbbing base. It made my teeth hurt, but it didn't give me an orgasm.

ye olde euphemisms for sex

A friend passed along this list of seventeen euphemisms for sex from an 1811 book called Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published for toffs who needed to understand the unwashed masses.

Some of them, like "convivial society" and "amorous congress," sound rather innocent. Others are more obtuse, like "St. George" and "tiff."

A few, though, sound pretty obviously suspect, at least to my ears. Trying to be discrete while referring to sex as "blanket hornpipe" or "pully hawly" seems likely to fail.

My favorite is "lobster kettle." It apparently refers to both the act itself and a woman who puts out easily, used originally to refer to women who would sleep with soldiers coming into port.

I'm guessing a woman like that did it for fun, not for money. It's nice to know that sex-crazed women lived in past centuries, too, but I have to imagine they faced more than a little societal scorn.

touching strangers

The image below is from a series by photographer Richard Renaldi called "Touching Strangers." For the last six years, he's been working on this ongoing project featuring complete strangers posing with other strangers as if they've known each other a long time.

You can see more than a dozen photographs from the series here.

If you glance quickly at some of the photos, they appear to capture an intimate moment between lovers or family members. But if you look at them more closely, particularly their faces, you can spot the lack of connection.

I was thinking that really gifted actors could pull off a convincing shot, but we average mortals cannot, hence the reason the photos seem slightly odd.

the end of facebook?

The Week had a short article recently about how evolving technology is crowding out Facebook. I don't understand some of the tech references, but the overall thrust of the piece seems clear: like many companies, Facebook is having some troubles adapting to the ever-evolving tech marketplace. But since Facebook really has only one product line, does that mean Facebook might eventually no longer exist?

I believe Facebook will be a shorter-term phenomenon and not a longer-term mainstay. It has been hot for a while, but something else will be hot after a while. That seems to be the fate of many consumer-oriented tech companies. Remember AOL? Myspace? CompuServe? Netscape? Forever doesn't last very long in eWorld. Even Microsoft is having some problems now adapting to the marketplace.

I think there are some exceptions. Google and, particularly, Apple both come to mind. I suspect the reason why they're so successful is because their product lines evolve with the marketplace. They predict what consumers could find addictive. The phase out the old and push innovation, but how could Facebook do that with the limitations of its single product?

I imagine the future will see more innovations like Google Glass. With products like that, I think Facebook would be a tough fit. Google Glass itself could be a gigantic flop, but I think it demonstrates that the innovators think outside the box, while companies like Facebook may be doomed to always thinking inside the box.

Time will tell if I'm prescient or completely full of crap.

her twisted fantasy

One of my guilty pleasures is reading websites with people's anonymous confessions. Usually the more memorable confessions involve either something sexual or criminal.

I was reading one yesterday where a woman confessed that she gets off to her fantasy of her doting husband being gang raped by men. Other people commenting said her dark fantasy was all right and probably not uncommon.

I found this troubling. Gang rape inflicts tremendous pain, both physical and psychological, on the victim. So how can you fantasize about something horrible happening to someone you claim to love? That's like wishing someone you love has a bad car accident with painful injuries.

The woman also confessed that she masturbated to orgasm sometimes while thinking about this fantasy. She is, essentially, getting off on the idea of her husband experiencing something horrible.

Now there may be more going on than we're lead to believe. The husband is said to be loving and doting but maybe he's not. Maybe he's sweet to his wife but then he steps out on her regularly and doesn't hide it. So her fantasy involves some kind of revenge.

By confessing this, the woman seems to have some guilt for what she's thinking. I think her conscious is telling her something. That aside, I don't think she should confess this to her husband. Sometimes things are best unsaid.

orgasmic synesthesia

I've read about a condition called synesthesia, but this is the strangest story I've yet seen: a man feels orgasmic when he hears brass-heavy music, particularly the theme from James Bond movies.

For those not in the know, synesthesia is a brain condition where something that normally stimulates a particular sense in most people affects a rare few with a difference sense. Most of us see something that's green, for instance, but someone with synesthesia might feel pain or feel hot when seeing that color.

The anonymous patient with the inadvertent Bond fetish suffered a stroke in his forties and was left with some surreal results.

During the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics, he described the strange sensations he experienced: "When the women came on from the Peking opera, they were singing in a very high falsetto tone, I had the sensation of entering the TV, and entering the stadium and I was floating above the crowd. I could feel the heat and humidity coming off the people. I could feel it on my skin. It scared the hell out of me. I thought, ‘this is how you lose your mind.’ I was convinced I was going to go crazy."

And here I thought some of my food cravings during pregnancy were weird.