idiotic design trend

Pictured below is the hot new trend in residential interior design (enlargement): shelves with the books all shelved backwards, so their title spines are hidden. This is apparently necessary to maintain a "minimalist" look.

What's next? A minimalist kitchen with all the labels torn off spice containers? Are you putting cinnamon or cayenne pepper in those muffins?

Perhaps this could spread to records management. Don't bother sorting records in alphabetical order. Why not sort them by house number?

Why bother with house numbers at all, now that we're on the subject, or even streets, towns, or postal codes? Go for a totally minimal address in records, perhaps only using the first letter of someone's name, unless the want something even more minimal, like simply a comma.

If it makes you happy storing your books in a ludicrously inefficient system, knock yourself out. Just don't let this trend spread to public libraries.

karma is a bitch

A man and woman in Washington state followed around a UPS truck and stole packages minutes after they were delivered. But then karma struck.

The woman snatched three boxes from one porch but, as she ran back to the getaway car, she slipped and badly injured her leg to the extent she could not walk. Her partner in crime lumbered across the lawn, picked her up, carried her to the car, and then completed the theft before speeding away.

Not only did she likely suffer some pretty intense pain, she now faces medical costs. And then she'll likely have some nasty legal fees, because a news report reveals she's been identified by police.

Wouldn't it be terrible if karma continued to pay her dividends by causing months if not years of recurring pain and medical expenses because the injured leg, for some reason, fails to heal properly?

double murder

I've been following this double murder mystery in the news because it seems so much like reality mirroring fiction. The story so foar: in December, a Toronto billionaire and his socialite wife were found dead in their home, both hanging by belts from a railing near their pool.

Initial news reports suggested that police thought it was a double suicide. As a result, the couple's four adult children hired a private detective and pathologist who believed otherwise. Last week, Toronto police announced that they had concluded the couple's death was not suicide but instead murder.

I've read a good number of true crime books and fictional crime thrillers where murder was dressed up like suicide. It has to be one of the more common subgenres for the latter. But in reality, forensic science has advanced to such a degree that attempting to make a murder look like suicide has become much more difficult.

If a skilled novelist was tackling this as a plotline, a nearly infinite cast of suspects could emerge. The real crime sounds like it's much the same, not surprising with billionaire victims. Will this end with shocking charges and a sensational trial, or will it have a suspect who confesses quickly then pleads guilty?

This case fascinates me and I guess that's because of the sensational and vicarious factors. I know no one involved so the tragedy is emotionally removed from me.

Some people would say I should feel guilty about this idle fascination, but I don't see it that way. Curiosity is a common human trait. It's neither a virtue nor something about which one should feel ashamed IMHO.

judging book covers

The BBC is running an amusing-but-true piece about common book cover cliches. I don't buy books but I do regularly browse for books at the library. IMHO, American book publishers are more likely to use cliche covers than non-American English-language publishers.

I tend to read books by authors I like and usually order them online to my local library, so most of the time I have no idea what a book looks like until it arrives. When I do browse for books, however, I can tell by the cover if it's a genre that I probably will or will not like.

In a way, however, cliched covers help the browser. I ususally don't read romance, and those covers telegraph probably more than any other. The poor men depicted on them never seem to have much clothing to cover themselves.

The article does not include what I think of as the "precious book cover," a particular type of chick lit that can be insufferably precious if you're not careful. These covers are something of the type.

Whoever first said "you can't judge a book by its cover" was obviously reading in a different era.

cartoon carousel

One of my regular weekly internet stops is the Cartoon Carousel at the Politico website where there are no sacred cows and all viewpoints are game. I will admit to laughing at some even though I don't agree with the politics.

I'm no illustrator but I think the best ones are done by skilled artists who can lampoon both the characters and also put them in a humorous setting. Some cartoonists just do doodley stick-like drawings that suggest they don't have a lot of drawing talent, although the cartoons themselves can be wickedly funny.

Occasionally, they feature a cartoon that's particularly good and also non-partisan. The one I've selected below (enlargement) is a good example.

facebook's downward spiral

Vanity Fair is running an interesting article about significant difficulties now threatening Facebook.

I can't remember the last time I signed in to their site. Yes, that's anecdotal, but I know friends and acquintences who say the same thing. To me, Facebook is like a cafeteria where someone else selects what you'll eat. No thank you.

By using the conventional internet, I decide what email platform to use and where and how to surf the internet. I don't need intrusive Facebook to do that while harvesting my private life in the process to try and sell me things.

I've said on this blog before that I think Facebook is like AOL once was. Some twenty years ago, AOL ruled the internet. Today, it's not even a player. AOL stock was white hot when everyone wanted it, but then everyone who invested in it and didn't get out quickly enough lost most of their investment.

My biggest pet peeve with Facebook is how real names are required and you must interact on their sanitized terms. I don't want to do something online that will be visible for decades. If want to share photos or discuss things with others, I want a cloak of privacy. It's for the same reason that I don't much use Twitter.

There's too much Wall Street money invested in Facebook for it to crater quickly, but I would not be at all surprised if we are somewhere past its zenith. I'm glad I never invested in the company, but if I did, I would already have sold the stock by now.

prop fail

Set dressing and props should never distract from a photograph's subject. When you're reviewing a photographer's portfolio, there are many things to look for, like image quality, balance, clarity, and more. How the photographer uses -- and sometimes misuses -- props and set dressing are important, too.

When I first glanced at the photo seen here (enlargement), my eye was almost instantly drawn away from the attractive naked women to what appears to be splattered blood beside one of them. Given this was cleverly shot from a high angle, the red distraction only makes the situation worse, appearing like the model had fallen from a high window and her blood spurted from a ruptured skull. Less violent, but equally problematic, the red could also be mistaken for a feminine hygiene accident.

Here, the culprit is a pink towel with what appears to be a red floral pattern. That was a horrible prop to use. The all-pink side should have been flipped over in this shot, obscuring the red. It's never a good idea to include any fabric in a shoot with a pattern that looks like blood or has what appears to be brown smears.

So even when something is in doubt and many people may not be seeing what you see, diplomatically suggest to the photographer a change that will remove a problem prop. If the shoot has an art director, enlist that person in your quest to purge the offender.

After all, you never want to be mistaken for a model with an incontinence problem because of a prop malfunction.

snubs

This year's Academy Awards nominees were announced yesterday and, within hours, at least two dozen entertainment writers had posted articles on various major newspaper and movie publication sites with their lists of this year's "snubs," those people and films they felt should have been nominated but were not.

IMHO this kind of circular thinking is pointless. Just because something is not picked does not make it a snub.

Oscars are nominated in two basic ways. For some categories, all members from the relevant branch -- acting, directing, writing, etc. -- are given ballots to nominate their five choices for each category. For the remaining categories, those nominees are selected by large committees drawn up of members from the relevant branches.

Hence, a particular person or film may receive only one or two nominating votes less than the number that would have made it a nominee. Those fewer numbers could be for any number of reasons -- the voting member may have not seen a particular film or did not complete the nominee ballot in time or thought the deadline was later than what it actually was or whatever.

Snubbing involves a conscious act. You deliberately choose to not choose something. But the nomination process is group driven with so many variables as to why a nominee went to one and not another.

When you vote, you typically are voting for something, not against something. After all, the Oscar ballots hardly read: "which five actors would you like to see snubbed for this year's nomination?"

All of this talk about "snubbing" strikes me as manufactured outrage. There are so many real problems in this world that yammering about "snubs" is just so much unneeded noise.

the beguiled

The husband and I continue to make our way through the DVD screener carton my Hollywood friend sent to me. Last night we watched The Beguiled, writer/director Sofia Coppola's eighth latest film. I have to say going into it I was rather wary, given this is a period film and I thought she did such a horrible job with Marie Antoinette.

We both were pleasantly surprised and liked Beguiled quite a lot, although it was not without some flaws. The movie has a fantastic look, except that it was supposed to be set in Virginia and looks much more like the deep south, where it was actually shot.

While some (many?) films seem too long, this one did seem a bit short -- it clocks in at only 88 minutes. I think Coppola could've used some more character development.

I did think what is arguably the most important scene in the movie -- a love scene that sets up the ending -- was curiously rather unerotic. The two actors involved just didn't seem that much into each other (I won't say who they are, because that would give away the end).

The material might have been a lot darker, and I was pleased Coppola avoided that trap. It could've been made into a quasi-horror movie but it's not, yet nonetheless has a terrific Gothic edginess to it.

This is definitely a wait-for-DVD movie but, at the same time, it's not something that should be overlooked. I suspect the Academy Awards will not pay too much attention to the film, with the exception of possibly some technical awards, given there are a lot showier fillies in the race this year.

the joy of ironing

I have a sense not a lot of people iron any longer. They simply buy no-iron clothes or they take their clothes to a cleaner.

For whatever reason, I love to iron, as long as I don't have a huge lot of it to do. Give me an all-cotton shirt or blouse to iron or a pair of pants that just isn't creasing well, and I go to town.

There's something tactile and therapeutic about ironing, particularly when the item is really wrinkled and you iron it completely smooth. I always do it the traditional way, with a hot iron, lots of water spray, and a clean old cotton handkerchief to use between the appliance and the garment so the results don't look shiny.

I'll even press no-iron clothes if I don't think they look as sharp as they should. Here I think the key is to leave the details alone and just concentrate on the large fabric section because that's where no-iron garments can have sort of a rippled look if they're not touched up.

The trick I've learned with ironing is not to wait until the last minute. Then it's a dreaded chore and you don't do as a good a job because it's rushed.

In a slightly related note, the naked woman seen ironing below was photographed in 1887 by Eadweard Muybridge, a pioneer in early cinema development who produced more than 100,000 stop-motion images to show human and animal motion. The shot I've chosen is from a large panel with three-dozen photos of the naked ironing lady.

I wonder who this Victorian woman was who had no problems stripping naked to be photographed in a wide variety of ordinary tasks?

partly birdy

The full title for this forecast could be "Partly Birdy with a Chance of Poopstorm." I wonder if the bird will now get AFTRA residuals for this. Does it have an agent?

I remember seeing a nature documentary a while back where scientists put a tiny camera near a nesting bird to observe it. The bird soon began the thing relentlessly until it no longer worked. Birds have privacy, too!

finance pet peeve

I've written before about how I took my earnings from my years as an exotic dancer and invested them in the stock market. Taking all your clothes off onstage can be ridiculously profitable.

I invest in what I believe are stable, safe blue-chip stocks. These are not high-fliers but, instead, companies that have shown a steady, reliable increase in share price and dividends from year to year, the best of the so-called "dividend aristocrats."

Unfortunately, however, these safe and stable companies are often attractive targets for buy-out artists. So I have a stock I love that has steadily increased in price and regularly boosts its dividends, and suddenly some Wall Street master of the universe type wants to try to take it over.

That can mean one of several things that I don't like: (1) the takeover suitor is from a company that pays low or no dividends, (2) the suitor is from a company that's considerably less stable than its buyout target, or (3) the suitor wants to privatize the company, which means a forced sale of all stock.

So I either end up selling the stock so I don't end up owning stock in a company I don't want or the stock is sold out from under me. Yes, that can be very profitable, but that's what I don't like.

If I get out of a stock for twice what I paid for it, that means I'll have to pay capital gains taxes. More important, it means I will have to find another company in which to invest that I might not like as much or might not pay as good a dividend.

This is getting ready to happen with another stock I hold that I really like. This is now happening like at least once a year to me. Another stock that I loved was sold out from under me late in 2017 in a privatizing buyout.

I primarily hate when a buyout happens because it's like some stranger has decided to monkey with my portfolio. I alone chose these stocks, and they're the stocks I want, not some crappy replacement.

I liken this to someone suddenly approaching you when you're out in public and handing you an outfit you don't like then requiring you to change your clothes.

Hands off my stuff, Wall Street.

superhero drone

This is a pretty incredible story from here in Australia about the world's first sea rescue by drone.

Two teenage swimmers were swept into dangerous waters far from shore by a strong tide. By sheer coincidence, lifeguards were training nearby with a sea rescue drone.

A lifeguard on shore remote piloted the drone over the swimmers, announced he was dropping a flotation pod and how to use it, then let it drop into the sea, where it self-inflated and the swimmers grabbed on for the trip back to shore. Had a conventional lifeguard rescue been attempted, that would have taken six times as long.

I imagine that several decades from now, drones will have become commonplace with an infinite number of applications, so stories like this could be uneventful. Our grandparents and great-grandparents were astounded at news stories about human flight, and it was a rare day to spot an early airplane in the air. So too will our grandchildren snicker at how we remember with wonder when we first saw a drone flying above us.

do-it-yourself tattoo

This was posted on a horrendous tattoo forum with the explanation that someone bought a tattoo machine to "learn tattoos" and gave this to himself. Something tells me he won't be finding much business through this exercise in self-mutilation.

If Bob can see this from the great beyond, I hope he's touched that his friend back on earth will endure self-humiliation for the rest of his life in remembrance of his pal. It's almost like Bob will forever be with him, haunting him by taunting him.

questioning authority

Last week I wrote a post about the teacher who was arrested after politely questioning at a public meeting why an administrator received a five-figure salary increase while the rest of the staff received nothing.

Yesterday I noticed this article just published by The Atlantic about another pending case before the United States Supreme Court that touches on many of the same issues.

In this latter case, which occurred in Florida, a man who had a long-running series of disputes with the city of Riviera Beach had already won a case against them in the U.S. Supreme Court (he is not a lawyer but successfully represented himself in trial and appellate levels). When he spoke about public corruption at an open microphone event before the city council, one council member ordered the police to arrest him.

He was originally charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence, but the prosecutor subsequently dropped all charges. He then sued the city for "First Amendment retaliation," but that suit was dismissed when the judge said the police could have arrested him for other reasons.

In short, the court said, he could be arrested for any reason that police could think up later, even if nothing was mentioned about that at the time of the arrest. Essentially, like the school teacher case, both were arrested for questioning authority.

This does not sound like something that should be happening in America. It sounds like something in a dictatorship.

I certainly hope both individuals succeed in their legal quests. This could happen to any American, and to allow this kind of abuse like public officials is, frankly, un-American.

washed-out porn

The woman's photo seen below is an example of something I've noticed more recently both in porn world and legit modeling world -- severely overlit, overexposed shots. It's becoming commonplace everywhere from smut to the pages of top modeling magazines like Vogue, both in editorial spreads and ads.

Because not every image from a specific shoot looks like this, the photographer is obviously not a complete fuckup. But the pictures look like somebody fucked up?

How does anybody find this appealing when the models look like they have severe jaundice and anemia? In the quest for "something different," I think this is instead "something awful."

Not too many models can demand photo approval, but you can look at the photographer's portfolio before working with him or her. Then try to suggest diplomatically what you think works best for your coloring and image.

And sometimes you have to turn down work, as long as you don't do it excessively, if you don't think the results will do your career any justice. While I haven't done much modeling work lately out of choice, several times I have turned down work because I didn't think the photographer was the right fit.

Just as a photographer can help make your career, he or she can hurt it, too. Jumping at every job just for the pay might mean you end up shortchanging yourself in the end.

panic in the streets

You likely heard about the false alarm that was accidentally sent to Hawaiian residents alerting them that a missile had been launched at the islands. Many received this as a text alert.

The message read "ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."

People freaked and panicked, a perfectly understandable reaction given tensions are already high because of reckless rhetoric lately thrown between Pyongyang and the White House. It then took 38 minutes to send a correction message.

Obviously this was a gigantic fuckup. Many people are saying heads should roll.

I don't think that's a solution. That appeals to knee-jerk emotions but it doesn't remedy anything. Firing people will not fix the system problem.

The false alarm was caused when "someone clicked the wrong thing on the computer," according to a state employee.

If you delete a file on your computer or smart phone, you usually must respond affirmatively to some sort of nag screen asking you to confirm. Sometimes you get two of these. Why wasn't this emergency alert system designed the same way?

Hopefully this will all be fixed and soon. But the damage has already been done.

Arguably the greatest danger of false alarms like this is that people would be less likely to take them seriously in the future. We all know the "boy who cried wolf" story, except in this case a computer was the boy.

carrot man

I almost always have ready-to-eat raw vegetables in the refrigerator kept in Rubbermaid containers with water. The husband, the boys, and I regularly eat raw carrots, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and cucumbers that I cut for snacks.

Tombo is now nearly two years old, so he feeds himself, albeit somewhat sloppily still at times. He's actually neater than his older brother was at the same age.

I noticed not too long ago that Tombo really likes carrots. He always eats those first. I've tried experimenting with only carrots and no other veggies, and he eats them all without complaint. He also clearly prefers carrots above all other snacks.

Carrots can sometimes make people constipated but his pooper is always regular. So I don't deprive him. People who eat a whole lot of carrots regularly do run the risk of carotene overload, which is harmless but can give the skin a temporary orange color. Fortunately, that has not happened.

So I figure why not? My MD brother said there is no harm, and carrots are certainly healthy. I'm wondering if this is a phase that he may eventually outgrow.

I have seen carrots other than orange in the store. I've been tempted to buy those to see if he would like them, but I would have to break my frugal shopper vow to do so.

It may just be my imgagination, but I think carrots grown in Australia taste somewhat differently than the ones I remember from the United States. I've noticed the same thing about tomatoes and some other produce.

It's not that one tastes better than the other, but they're just different. The answer could be that the varieties are not the same to account for regional climate differences. I grow "American" tomato varieties in my garden, and I think they taste the same.

the libertine

I've nearly finished the book on seventh century Britain that I posted about earlier in the week. I just completed the chapters about Charles II's earlier reign and how the country shook off the extreme puritanism of earlier decades.

Something like Paris did after the Terror was over in the 1790s, people in London went a little wild, and in certain parts of town, they went really wild. Charles II was no prude and acted more like a fratboy at times than a monarch.

This short excerpt is particularly amusing:

In the summer of 1663 Lord Sedley appeared naked on the balcony of the Cock Inn in Bow Street where, according to Samuel Pepys, he proceeded to enact "all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined, and abusing of scripture." He delivered a mock sermon in which he declared that "he hath to sell such a powder as should make all the cunts in town run after him." After the recital "he took a glass of wine and washed his prick in it and then drank it off; and then took another, and drank the king’s health." He then took down his breeches and proceeded to "excrementize." On the following day he was brought before the chief justice, who asked him if he had ever read Henry Peacham’s The Complete Gentleman. He was then bound over to keep the king’s peace on a bond of £500, whereupon he said that "he thought he was the first man that paid for shitting." The bond was paid with money borrowed from the king himself.

Lord Sedley would be aghast at pay toilets today.

arresting dissent

You may have heard about the Louisiana teacher who was arrested after she was recognized by the chair at a school board meeting and commented about how a superintendent should not have been given a raise when the staff had a pay freeze.

She was told to leave notwithstanding the chair had twice called on her to speak and she responded in a courteous and civil matter. After she left, she was then arrested.

The woman in the immediate story should not even have been told to leave. This was a public meeting. She was called on twice. She was not someone interrupting and screaming from the audience.

My immediate thought after reading about this and watching the video is that American officials are getting arrest happy about cordial dissent. This is not the first time recently someone has been arrested for lawful behavior.

If they become a problem, they should be asked to leave, removed, and then prohibited from reentering. If they walk away, they should not be arrested. Only if they attempt to re-enter should it be taken to a higher level.

America was founded in dissent. Hopefully any elected officials responsible for any part of this woman's treatment will lose the next time they appear on a ballot.

basic black

I don't generally watch the Golden Globes, for reasons I explained seven years ago. I do nonetheless usually look at coverage in the fashion press afterwards to see what people wore.

This year, a large majority wore black to be in solidarity for sexual harassment victims. Many in the fashion media said everyone looked terrific and not at all funereal, but I disagree.

Black can look chic when everyone is wearing a wide variety of colors, but a large group of people with nearly everyone in black can't look like anything other than a funeral, albeit a chic one with people wearing very pricey designer duds. Black clothes have, for many centuries, been worn in observance of death.

IMHO it would have been better had everyone wore or carried a white rose or something like that. Arguably it would more visible and more distinct than the colored lapel ribbons that have now become ubiquitous.

I scanned some message boards about what ordinary people thought of the all-black look. Some hadn't heard about it ni advance and assumed because it was someone important had died. For those who knew about it in advance, about half seemed to give it thumbs up and the other half down.

It will be interesting to see if this dress-in-black trend continues at the forthcoming Oscar ceremony, where considerably more money is spent on costumes and far more media attention is paid. I have a feeling it will not be, but I may well be wrong.

awakening my inner adulterer

The husband and I continue to make our way through the screener DVD box that my Hollywood friend sent to me. We're watching them in no particular order, and my husband and I take turns selecting what to see next.

He picked The Lost City of Z, which we finished last night. We both liked moments but ultimately were underwhelmed. It's beautifully shot and acted, but the story is inherently flawed because it has no ending. That's not really the writer's fault, because the movie is based on a true story which just sort of runs out.

After the movie was over, I told my husband that if I ever found out he was cheating on me, I might consider having an affair with Charlie Hunnam, who plays the lead. There's something about him that I find very appealing, and I suspect the reason is because he reminds me of my husband.

He does not look like James, who is much darker, nor are they built the same. Hunnam is slighter than my husband. But their sincere, low-keyed intensity is somehow similar. The two do serious the same and share some of the same mannerisms and facial expressions.

Fortunately, I know the chance of James committing adultery is somewhere between extremely slim and none. I do know he has a thing for Kate Mara, however, so I better keep an eye on that girl just to be safe.

celebrity coffee enema

While we were otherwise distracted, dimming star Gwyneth Paltrow has continued to sell significantly weird, highly dubious shit on the internet. Both BoingBoing and ArsTechnica lambasted her last week for her latest triumph of ignorance: a $135 device to give yourself a coffee enema to "detox."

The bottom line is that you don't need to "detox" your pooper and doing so may actually cause harm. Even worse, a coffee enema is probably bad for you because it messes with your electrolytes and can lead to colon inflammation, burns, infections, sepsis, and rectal perforation.

Paltrow's goofy device could also injure your wallet. The thing is nothing more than a glass bottle with a rubber tube attached. The perfect thing to shatter all over your bathroom floor while you're pumping java up your brown canal.

Why do people even bother listening to celebrity health "advice," particularly when said famous person is trying to separate you from your cash? Paltrow has zero qualifications to be peddling health products of any sort. Is this kind of huckstering more interesting and profitable than appearing in movies?

Her coffee enema has already perked controversy, but it's not the first time her products have been widely condemned as pricey hokum. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in her near future she finds herself on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit and/or a cease-and-desist demand from the Federal Trade Commission and/or the Food and Drug Administration.

florida man's sister

It's not really funny to laugh at others' misfortune when they're seriously hurt, but this poor woman will never see this blog so I guess I can make an exception.

Driving over yourself is not easy. It's arguably rarely done. The cop interviewed in this article is the master of understatement.

The cat business takes the cake, however. When I saw the headline, I thought it was a Florida panther. That would make sense -- the woman rushed to escape a deadly predator known to kill humans so she panicked and a disaster of a different sort resulted.

But, no, it was a housecat. So the cat might bite or scratch you, but that's no reason to practically kill yourself to get out of its way.

I'm guessing this woman has a major phobia about kitty cats or something. How else to explain her extreme overreaction?

Whatever the answer, I hope she fully recovers

17th century fops

I am currently reading this book about British history of the seventeenth century. It's very interesting and an enjoyable read, notwithstanding it is a little royal centric.

Nonetheless, the author does devote a good amount of prose to discussing life for ordinary folk in London and wider Britain in the 1600s. In a chapter I finished last night, he wrote about fashions for women and men.

Women's fashion of the seventeenth century looks more comfortable to me when compared to the sixteenth or eighteenth century. Men's fashion, in contrast, looks ludicrous and very unmacho.

If a man tried to seduce me in some of those getups with the spaniel-ear wigs, I don't think I could keep myself from laughing. Wearing attire that appears borrowed from Puss in Boots is not sexy.

I imagine fashion only seems absurd when you're from a later era. I think many men's fashions from the 1960s look effeminite and silly, but if I was living in that time, I'm sure I would think differently.

bitcoin bubble

It's been a while since I wrote about bitcoin. A few weeks ago a reader commented on one of my posts from several years ago and mocked me, saying something like "if you weren't a fucking moron and bought Bitcoin when you wrote this shit, you could be rich by now."

And, equally, I could be bankrupt by now.

I don't care how high Bitcoin happens to be at the moment. The bottom could drop out tomorrow. Or in two minutes.

Unlike commodities such as gold or blue-chip stocks, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It's not backed by any assets. It does not pay dividends or interest. It is as real and as fictive as Monopoly money.

Yes, some people will make millions on Bitcoin. And some people will lose millions. Unlike stock and commodity markets, which are regulated and subject to limitations, Bitcoin is a car with no brakes.

In the words of Warren Buffett, a man who has made countless billions investing, Bitcoin is "a mirage."

Investment pits reward against risk. The higher the risk, the greater the reward -- or the greater the loss.

I prefer reward with a light seasoning of risk, so that's why I would never touch Bitcoin. Others have a higher risk adversion.

I am neither a historian nor a scholar, but I have read a lot of history. The current Bitcoin craze reminds me of the South Sea Bubble. Some people made a killing on that speculation, getting in and out at the right time. But many people were ruined by it.

For those still in Bitcoin with the price up, now might be time time for a hasty exit. Because what goes up always comes down, for everyone who makes a fortune, others will lose fortunes, and you should always buy on hysteria and sell on euphoria.

penis whitening

This article describes about how penis whitening with lasers is seeing a serious uptick in Thailand. And a simple Google search shows products are sold for home dong blanching.

Why would someone in their right mind want to do this kind of thing? Why would a man wants his love pickle to look like it was dipped in White Out?

IMHO, a man's most important organ should be left alone. Based on my observations of naked men in my bed when I was a single woman, some men have dicks that match their body skin. Some have darker dicks while others have lighter ones.

Bleaching the thing, however, will make it look like raw chicken meat or like you have some kind of circulation problem. I can't think it would appear healthy nor erotic.

FWIW, my husband's cock is somewhat darker than the rest of his body skin. He has probably 100 percent Irish ancestry and has the somewhat swarthy look that some men have in the western part of Ireland, thus his meat is darker like some Latin men.

I want hubby to leave his junk exactly the way Mother Nature designed him. When he uses a condom, I prefer that he uses ones that don't make his cock seem like an unnatural color, and he has usually complied unless the drug store was out.

Don't mess with surgical procedures you don't need, particular in delicate areas. Your naughty bits will thank you.

beat sweet effete deceit receipt

Joey is now four, so both James and I have been reading with him every day. Like most children his age with good reading skills, he probably likes reading to someone as much as he likes being read to.

He asked me last night why three words are spelled differently but pronounced the same: to, too, and two. I said the most honest thing I could: the English language is filled with numerous illogical rules. It's much easier to memorize them than to try to reason with them.

It's only going to get worse, my sweet summer child. Hopefully he has his father's better spelling skills than what I have. I long ago gave up on figuring out the logic and just try to remember the rules.

If he thinks to, too, and two are bad, he ain't seen nothin' yet, but I didn't tell him that. No point overwhelming him. How else could I explain why some words have many different spellings and rules but the same sound?

The worse I can think of are words that rhyme with neat, like beat, sweet, effete, deceit, and receipt. One sound, five different spellings.

Or words like bow, bow, and bough. The same pronunciation, three different meanings, but only two different spellings.

a rose among carrots

Last night I finished reading Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. The novel is considered by many to be both the author's best book, out of the many dozens he wrote, as well as the greatest piece of 19th century satire.

Reading this reminded me of how absolutely magnificent Trollope is as a writer. In many ways he's much better than Jane Austen, whose work is more limited.

Sometimes when Trollope is on a roll, he is absolutely wickedly funny. Consider this paragraph: "Slope, taking the soft, fair, delicate hand in his—and very soft and fair and delicate it was—bowed over it his huge red head and kissed it. It was a sight to see, a deed to record if the author could fitly do it, a picture to put on canvas. Mr. Slope was big, awkward, cumbrous, and, having his heart in his pursuit, was ill at ease. The lady was fair, as we have said, and delicate; everything about her was fine and refined; her hand in his looked like a rose lying among carrots, and when he kissed it, he looked as a cow might do on finding such a flower among her food."

He thereafter uses the carrot/finger metaphor at least one other time and also other carrot references throughout the book. The fact that the man with the carrot fingers has bright red hair makes it even funnier.

I suspect the reason Austen has eclipsed Trollope in our era is that she was writing a sort of proto-romance novel. While Trollope's books usually close with a happy ending, some characters will take quite a literary beating before reaching their denouement.

a gorgeous mess

My Hollywood friend sent me a huge box of DVD award screeners last week, the largest collection he's ever shipped. Apparently the studios are heavily pandering this year for awards because business is way down.

It will take a good while for the husband and I to make it through everything he sent but we nonetheless are extremely appreciative, given how many of the movies are not yet in theaters let alone on DVD.

First up was Tulip Fever, a breathtakingly stunning film that has to be one of the prettiest movies I've ever seen -- and also one of the dullest. In all candor, the movie would be better if you just turn off the sound, ignore the plot, and just gaze at the gorgeous look of the film.

The costumes, lighting, cinematography, and music are all lushly sumptuous. The actors try their best with a lifeless script, but there's no silk purse here.

This clearly was a movie where too many cooks spoiled the broth. If only they had a decent script to match the arresting beauty of this film, then it would be a masterpiece.

This is definitely a "wait for DVD or download" movie.

happy 2018!

I can't believe another year has come and gone. Maybe I'm dreaming and it's still August. If so, please don't wake me up. I need the rest.