No, I mean my Mom REALLY likes panda bears

December 31, 2007

With a great debt of gratitude to my mother for giving me permission to post this:

This is what it’s like visiting the Dziura household for Christmas. Oh, and also we drink the blood of Christian children, but that’s not in the video (just pandas).

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remarks after eight hours of listening to various hip-hop radio stations while driving up the east coast

December 29, 2007

Justin Timberlake has made ‘pologize a word for an entire generation. There simply isn’t a beat in his song for that pesky first syllable.
According to Flo-Rida, “baggy sweat pants and the Reeboks with the straps” (truly! the outfit you wear to go to 7-11 to buy tampons!) can attract a great deal of flattering attention in the club, provided that you are willing to “give that big booty a smack.”
I now have no trouble knowing when to sing “Party like a rockstar” and when to just sing “Party like a rock–.”

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what I do for fun in my hometown

December 28, 2007

Tonight I went to go see a New York-based old-timey intellectual band at the Jewish Mother here in Virginia Beach. I thoroughly enjoyed their new song regarding the ways in which love is like the square root of two, in decimal form.

One nice thing about traveling alone is that I don’t need to justify my preference for setting the rental car GPS to “route with least use of highways” (i.e., the slowest route), just so I can see which stores in my hometown have been converted into new stores.

On the way back, at the late-late hour of 11:45pm, I had a hard time finding a fast-food cheeseburger. I really wanted one, as one of my major goals for this vacation was to drive (just the driving is kind of exciting for someone who lives in New York and doesn’t own a car) around Virginia Beach with the driver’s side window open, listening to local hip-hop station 103 JAMZ and eating a fast-food cheeseburger purchased from a drive-through window.

This, I have accomplished. Also, I got a free kazoo at the show.

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Math bee at the spelling bee!

December 23, 2007

On December 10th, we had the season finals of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee. Since the Finals is open only to winners of the previous season of bees, I run some little mini-contests between the rounds that are open to anyone. Some of them are silly, like “spell a word to the tune of the alphabet song.”

One of the competitions, however, is the “math bee,” in which I bring three volunteers on stage, and they compete to complete math problems in their heads, with a point going to the first person to shout out the answer to each question.

Here are my favorite questions from this time around:

If Pete’s cocktail menu of 7 drinks contains 3 drinks including gin, and the panini menu of 6 paninis contains 2 paninis including arugula, and you order a cocktail and a panini at random, what are your chances of receiving neither gin nor arugula?

What is your mom’s age when she had you, plus your age, divided by your mom’s age now, minus your mom’s age to the 0th power?

(Click on “Comments” for the answers).

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problems you didn’t know you had

December 22, 2007

I once read in a business book a (possibly apocryphal) tale that went as follows:

A big news story came out about how there were a shocking number of rat parts in commercial cat food. One company decided to capitalize on this by coming out with a product called “NO-RAT CAT FOOD.”

Despite the fact that it was, indeed, the only cat food guaranteed to have no rat parts, it sold terribly and was discontinued — it seemed people didn’t like to see the word “rat” on their cat food, even in the context of “Really, there are none in here!”

I mention this because I have purchased a bottle of fish oil capsules that claim to have a gelatin coating that doesn’t dissolve until the capsule reaches the lower intestine.

The claim on the label? “NO MORE FISH BURPS!”

I can’t believe I own a product that mentions something called “fish burps.”

Posted by jen | Categories: advertising, consumer affairs | 2 Comments | | Email This Post

Jamie-Lynn’s pregnancy has eclipsed Ashley Tisdale’s new nose

December 20, 2007

Britney Spears’ little sister Jamie Lynn is pregnant. Okay, fine. But her employer, Nickelodeon, issued this statement:

“We respect Jamie Lynn’s decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation. We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn’s well being.”

“Take responsibility”? I think that sounds a lot like saying she needs to be punished for having sex, and that women who have abortions are “irresponsible.”

When did Nickelodeon turn paternalistically weird?

Update: I just discovered that Feministing wrote basically the exact same post twelve hours before I did. There ought to be some gaydar-type word for picking up on this shit. Misogyny-dar sounds terrible. If Nickelodeon is being a big corporate douchebag, can I call it douchedar?

Posted by jen | Categories: celebrities, feminism | 2 Comments | | Email This Post

Misogynistic Advertising of the Week

December 19, 2007

I find this repulsive. I have no problem with wanting to look good naked, or with shows dedicated to that purpose. However, all of the women here are naked and terrified, and that gross, facelifted man is fully-dressed and hideously smug. I know he’s gay, but I’m not any less repulsed. Gay men do not get a free pass to tell women to hate their bodies. Or — as is apparently the case — to pilfer clothing.

Certainly one could get across the message about looking good naked by picturing some attractive, lean, muscled men and women, perhaps the trainers who might help you look good naked. Only semi-repulsive might be an ad featuring both men and women looking terrified at the unattractiveness of their naked bodies. Also, all three of those women are way better-looking than creepy Botox-forehead-man. Maybe he needs a show called “How to Hide in Seclusion Until Your Plastic Surgery Relaxes.”

Click to enlarge: “The intelligence you require, with the beauty you desire.”
This I just find … disappointing. The Blackberry Curve? It’s … curvy? It’s both smart and beautiful, like a desirable woman you can put in your pocket and use to view miniature Excel spreadsheets? What? I think I’m more just disappointed that Blackberry thinks women don’t want to buy Blackberries, and are best used as a trope for selling Blackberries to men.

Also, E = 36-24-36^2 is just stupid. If those were your measurements, your hips would be 1,296 inches around, which is equivalent to 108 feet. Also, your hips would be 36 times greater around than your bust, which is taking the pear shape to a bit of an extreme.

Blackberry: We’re bad at math and think mini-computer-phones are like having sex!

Good work, guys.

Posted by jen | Categories: advertising, consumer affairs, feminism | 3 Comments | | Email This Post

blasphemy on 42nd St.

December 17, 2007

For those not familiar with the Times Square-area subway stations, these people have a permanent, very lower-middle-class-looking Jesus exhibition at the 42nd St stop near the ACE.

Their many placards pull from the Bible very brief quotes — often containing beginning ellipses, closing ellipses, and internal ellipses (for extra accuracy!) — which give a highly effective proselytizing effect much like this: