Ha, Ha Men

Well, after my little bout of sympathy for men, I now have to laugh at them. Not all of them - just the terminally lame ones. Like this one with the famous wife and the Cheeto colored shirt and the extremely healthy ego. Or these ones with the wrong color shorts, the wrong length t-shirts and the extremely healthy - well, see for yourselves.

Here's something sort of fun, though you have to register. You can upload a picture of yourself, and find out what celebrity you look like. I did two of mine, and the only celebrities that came out for both were Julianne Moore and Rita Hayworth. I bloody wish. I think that may be based on my coloring - it certainly isn't on my features. Other celebrities I supposedly resemble are Cameron Diaz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rowan Atkinson and Harry Harrison. Did I mention this was in beta?

Here's another rather less superficial test, via Salon, which tests how prejudiced you are. The actual test is here - that site does seem to have an anti-American bias, as the stars and stripes are conspicuously absent. I discovered so far I have a slight bias to straight people, and a strong bias towards young people, which shocked me. There's also a test for thin/fat preference, but if you do the test, it's more like a preference between normal faces and very badly Photoshopped 'fat' faces.

Poor, poor men

Lately, it seems like there is a lot of attention being paid to men and their feelings, and it makes me feel a little sorry for them. First of all, there's Brokeback Mountain, which, as well as being a really sad love story, shows the tragedy of being emotionally hobbled by the expectations of 'being a man'.

Then, there's the Japanese phenomenon of Hikikomori, where young men seclude themselves rather than meet the challenges expected of them. Please God, let it stay on Japanese shores.

Then there's Norah Vincent's walk on the Y side, where she concludes that being a man kind of sucks, and that men essentially live hidden behind a macho facade.

Even a Neanderthal like this guy comes across as being a little pathetic and jealous of his child, and of his wife's bond with their child, and unable to deal with it in an adult fashion.

On a totally unrelated note, my son was watching Bobo-bo Bobo on Cartoon Network. I still haven't quite figured out what it's about except the hero can do karate with his nose hair, and his sidekick, Gas Can attacks with his farts. Really. It sounds like a bunch of eleven year olds made it up, which is probably why my son likes it.

Nothing sucks

like my clapped out barely a year old vacuum cleaner. It's not like I'm that hard on it or anything, only having one carpeted room in my house. And I'm not that much of a hausefrau, though I do kind of like doing housework (or rather, I like to not feel shame about the state of my house). I like a slightly cluttered, book-filled cottage-y house that smells of something good cooking, that's clean and tidy enough to relax in. I don't really get why people buy big fancy houses and they're really messy, or have no comfy chairs - what's the point?. Anyway, my stupid vacuum cleaner bit the dust (ha,ha).

I think it's weird that Hugh Laurie is considered a sex symbol, now that he's won a Golden Globe. In the U.K, he is (was?) considered a comedian who played buffoons, though I think the character of House is kind of sexy, in a Byronic doomed sort of way.

George Galloway is being lambasted for pretending to be a cat on Big Brother. I think what's worse is he is so blatantly absent from his constituency, a job for which he gets a salary. He's probably best known here for being 'involved' in the U.N. Oil for Food program. Though it's hardly worse than our lot, who don't have to pretend to be fat cats who got the cream.

I hope this fake skin trend doesn't take off. The apron is particularly Silence-of-the-Lambs. And I'm sorry, but there is no way I would hang one of these bags off my belt. I do not want a dangly inside out testicley thing bouncing around my butt, contrary to popular opinion.

I love these stories about people who made it to 100. They sound like such a sweet bunch of old people. And now there's a theory that your grandparents lifestyle can affect your health. Which might be good news for me as both my grandmothers were tough old birds; one in a genteel, ladylike, covertly slugging down brandy manner, and the other in an almost pathalogically self-reliant Luddite way.

If I only had a brain...

and some time. Here are ideas that have been rattling around my head for a while, that I'll probably never do. If anyone wants to run with any of these, please do; I'll probably never get around to it.

A cookbook for party leftovers - you know, baby carrots, dip, crudites, stale chips, salsa, flat beer. I can think of so many things to make.

Screenplay/book about the Land of Oz; the men who created it and Tweetsie Railroad.

Book about graduates of a club like The Cambridge Footlights or The Groundlings who didn't become famous.

Founding a Scottish bakery, with unfancy, good cakes like meringues and shortbread. Though that particular baker has Weight Watchers cookies. I'm sorry but that's just wrong.

An import business for Scottish kitsch, including publications from the esteemed publishing house of D.C Thomson, purveyor of the sentimental, judgemental, parochial and maudlin.

Designing and making stylish, girly clothes for the size that I am, straddling regular and plus size, with giant shoulders and long arms - i.e. big women. And trannies too I suppose.

Speaking of women a bit on the butch side, here's evidence that women are hairier than they used to be, attributed to high carb diets. And evidence that depression is definitely linked to poor diet. So if you are sad, and have a moustache, and you're a girl, eat a salad!

I'm heartened that Chile has elected a woman. Not only a woman, but a socialist single mother who is a pediatrician, and was tortured during the Pinochet regime. She joins the list of woman leaders which is larger than expected. She is inspiring; if she can lead a country, I can make it to the gym twice a week, right?

The blurb for this show pushes all my buttons. I don't doubt that schools are not everything they should be, but it's not due to the government having a monopoly over the school system. That seems like veiled code for the promotion for vouchers. Since I started living here, I've met both astonishingly well-educated and informed individuals, and barely literate, credulous individuals. One thing that America teaches it's youth, which I have seen first-hand with my son, is confidence. When this confidence is backed up by intelligence and ability, it's a wonderful asset. When there is nothing except confidence, it's a cringe making embarassment.

We've come a long way baby...

Martin Luther King Day is just around the corner, and it made me think, even though we have a ways to go until we have a color-blind society, that we've progressed quite a bit since I was a kid. Especially if you think institutionalized racism reflects societal attitudes in general. And yes, I have been called a sheep-shagger before, by an insensitive English person (note my linguistic restraint).

Believe it or not, when I was growing up in Scotland, the Black and White Minstrel Show was considered wholesome family entertainment. Luckily my mum was kind of ahead of her time, and would switch off the TV when it came on. But she still bought marmalade which had little paper golliwogs stuck under the label that you collected to get a brooch. Weirdly enough, this is a purely British artifact of racism.

That WeightWatchers commercial with Cher singing makes me want to either dress up in major drag like a Vegas show girl or do a song and dance routine on an aircraft carrier. But it doesn't make me want to go on a diet, even though the song clearly underlines the fate of the fat.

I was watching Dancing With the Stars, and I can't imagine their budget for self-tanner with George Hamilton and Lisa Rinna in the cast. Plus George Hamilton looks like Nixon, which adds a whole other level of entertainment to the show. And I love that particular breed of tightly trousered, oily coiffured, squirm inducing and deeply disturbing male dancer they have on the show.

Giant Drag

describes both what it's like to go back to work again, and also whose song is totally stuck in my head - Kevin is Gay.

Speaking of gay, Brokeback Mountain is an incredible movie. It's a beautiful and tragic love story, and I would think the story would resonate with anyone who has fallen in love with someone that they can't be with, for whatever reason. Heath Ledger is absolutely amazing in it, and he had better get a bloody Oscar.

I actually saw this in the News and Observer - dangerous ideas. Such as the difference between the real and virtual worlds is vanishing. This is really thought provoking to me - my childhood in Scotland (or living in Fiji, or LA, or being married to someone I hear from maybe once a year) seems so distant and foreign, that the difference between my memories of it and a vivid dream or a good movie is minimal. So which is more real? Anyway, it's a very addictive website.

The guy who designed this website had a simple but brilliant idea - selling pixels. Lucky, lucky bastard. The last few pixels are making quite a bit on EBay

I feel so sorry for Charles Kennedy. And so not sorry for Tom DeLay. About bloody time. Let's hope his buddy is going down too.

This pair are like Two Fat Ladies in drag, if they were both alive that is.

I saw on FOX that they call the post (football) game show the OT. I just hate this trend for 'on the O' something-that-rhymes-with-see. What about 'on the o.b.' for when you're on the rag? Or 'on the o.g.' for church-goers or conversely if you're having good sex? Or 'on the o.z.' if you're Judy Garland.

Auld Claes and Porridge

My lovely old Dad says this every New Year - 'Back to auld claes and porridge' - which loosely translated means back to old clothes and plain eating. I'm usually ready for this by New Year's, when I start to crave citrus fruit and soups with lots of veggies in them. And I want to start A Project. And I start to feel like an antsy teenager desperate for freedom (being a single mom of a pre-teen is very much like being a teenager; you can't wait to be freed of your shackles but you're scared as well, so you spend a lot of time moaning about it and not much actually trying to escape those 'shackles').

Apparently, the troops in Iraq aren't as well entertained, as they have been in the past, but it's interesting to note which celebrities are still hanging in there: Al Franken, Henry Rollins, and Robin Williams (much as he gets on my last nerve). And Ted Nugent, packin' of course.

My son and I have been spouting our new angry Hermione inspired catchphrases:

For your information, and in case you haven't noticed.. insert indignant declaration here
Will you STOP going on about...insert subject of obsession here

We love angry Hermione.

What's the deal with plunging into icy , icy water on New Year's Day?

Dunno why but I was looking for celebrity playlists, and I found Jennifer Garner's, which is the lamest thing I have ever seen. Wow - she really is thirteen going on thirty. It explains a lot (willingness to spawn with Ben Affleck, bad movie choices)