Saturday night cantilever
I just came back from my wife's aunt's birthday bash (it was a big round number), in which I spent most of the time playing bid euchre
with some other older menfolk of the family. There would have also been
some baseball game on the telly, but sitting down to watch it would
perhaps have been a bit too middle class American thing to do for me.
Afterwards, my wife decided to stay behind to chat and yammer with the
ladies and show them how to use the video making software that she had
used to create a video (she is such a practical computer genius and
Windows wizard), so I guess I'll spend the next hour or so sipping
liquor, playing music videos and blogging about things I have recently
seen.
The American aunt who was also visiting here up north was a bit worried if it will be safe for my wife to take the bus home alone, but we assured her that it's perfectly safe, since unlike the town that this aunt hails from, we have never had a single race riot around here. Speaking of which, this reminds me how I remember once back in Finland when a bunch of guys from the department were taking a car to travel to a mini-conference in another town. The guy who was visiting the department from South Africa was coming with us, and when we stepped in the car, the first thing that he did was reach and lock the doors from the inside. When we realized what he was doing, I think we laughed a little bit.
But first, let us recognize "Italics Mine", "Writing, One Hopes" and "Diary Of Barbie's Worst Enemy" for being the latest blogs to link here. Fine blogs one and all of them. For the outgoing links, I came upon a Catholic blog "Eternity Road" that is quite good. Next time when I update the blogroll, I might actually use that one as the token Christian blog in there --- the diversity-minded person that I famously am, I'd like to have at least Christian blog in my blogroll.
Perhaps we should also be listening to the latest broadcast of Derb Radio. In his latest broadcast, The Derbster gleefully notes an incident that was also reported in "19-age Bianchi: "Brinkley's husband seduced me"" and that serves as a counterexample for all the feminist ideas of how the middle-aged women are more beautiful and sexually attractive than women who are in their late teens. You know, the way that the Derb got in the hot water for pointing out a few months ago. How does Derb (who is pushing sixty) dare to say that young people are more attractive and sexually desirable than old people? Doesn't he understand how icky it is to imagine an old man like him thinking that young women are desirable and attractive? Note the hilarious, almost Moorean self-refuting nature of this feminist tantrum. So tell, dear feminists, which way do you want it: are the old people less attractive than young people (the way Derb says), or not?
But as for Mrs. Brinkley, I am sure that there are just as many similar examples of successful men leaving their hot twentysomething wives and girlfriends for fiftysomething over-the-hill women... surely there must be some... I just can't seem to think of any examples right now...
And why didn't anybody tell me about the excellent webcomic "Sinfest"? This is the way manga should be done, and the way these strips flow and work reminds me of the best similar-styled manga that I have read on dead tree, such as "Oh My Goddess!". That will certainly go to the comics sidebar at the next blog template update. It really annoys me to think that great webcomics like that one go by without me knowing about them. Grrr!
I wrote earlier about the Absolute, a 50-story postmodern weird-for-the-sake-of-weird ugly-ass condo skyscraper that is meant to be the local landmark going up two blocks away from where I live. It's almost like these people are out there just to annoy me, because I read in yesterday's paper that they are going to build another one right next to it. So it's like these people are giving me a "screw you" finger with both hands instead of just one. And every single day I will then have to look at this design abortion.
At least the annual Ribfest came to town for this weekend to soothe me. This year the festival is about twice as big as last year, and like last year, big barbeque trucks are coming from the southern states of the USA to serve as delicious pork. I don't know if there really is a much difference between the ribs and pulled pork sandwiches that all these places serve, but it is fun to find out! We bought some ribs from a place that was named "Kentucky" something, but later it turned out that these people actually hail from London, Ontario. Just like every single place in Southern California is a name of some movie, every single American state acts as a name of a thousand greasy barbeque joints around the world. Or perhaps this is for the "red states" only.
Somebody linked to the results of the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. At least the winner was quite amusing.
I guess that I have been watching too much Simpsons during my adult life, since my first reaction to the post "Marginal returns vs. average returns" at Marginal Revolution was "Hey, that must be that private highway that only the Stonecutters get to access!"
Udolpho's new post "Kevin Smith: Peter Pan in short pants" explains why I don't feel much need to go see Clerks 2. I am actually rooting for it to fail, since it would serve as a nice reminder for the hipsters how worthless they really are in the great scheme of things. When I tried to watch the original Clerks years ago, the whole movie was so unimaginably bad that I had to stop it after fifteen minutes. Later, at the university I remember seeing a poster advertising an upcoming Kevin Smith lecture, him looking all wild and zany with the implication that for $20 or however much it the tickets were, he would tell all the English majors how they could get to be like him instead of having to work as clerks or glorified clerks while they wait for the next available assistant professorship to open up. Perhaps Kevin might even tell funny stories about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon so that the whole audience could laugh that stupid horselaughter that you would imagine they would.
Speaking of English majors, I would really like to take the article "Academics KO Grammar Again" and send it back in a time machine a few decades or so. I wonder when the humanities will realize what an utter sad joke they have become. Of course, the humanities have to suffer the worst for the increased student intake. I guess this is certainly poetic justice, since it is typically the humanities professors who are the loudest to advocate all kinds of looneytoon socialist ideas such as everybody being equal and a college degree being a basic human right, whereas the professors in the reality-based fields where, unlike in the humanities, being wrong has actual consequences tend to be, uh, more reality-based.
The American aunt who was also visiting here up north was a bit worried if it will be safe for my wife to take the bus home alone, but we assured her that it's perfectly safe, since unlike the town that this aunt hails from, we have never had a single race riot around here. Speaking of which, this reminds me how I remember once back in Finland when a bunch of guys from the department were taking a car to travel to a mini-conference in another town. The guy who was visiting the department from South Africa was coming with us, and when we stepped in the car, the first thing that he did was reach and lock the doors from the inside. When we realized what he was doing, I think we laughed a little bit.
But first, let us recognize "Italics Mine", "Writing, One Hopes" and "Diary Of Barbie's Worst Enemy" for being the latest blogs to link here. Fine blogs one and all of them. For the outgoing links, I came upon a Catholic blog "Eternity Road" that is quite good. Next time when I update the blogroll, I might actually use that one as the token Christian blog in there --- the diversity-minded person that I famously am, I'd like to have at least Christian blog in my blogroll.
Perhaps we should also be listening to the latest broadcast of Derb Radio. In his latest broadcast, The Derbster gleefully notes an incident that was also reported in "19-age Bianchi: "Brinkley's husband seduced me"" and that serves as a counterexample for all the feminist ideas of how the middle-aged women are more beautiful and sexually attractive than women who are in their late teens. You know, the way that the Derb got in the hot water for pointing out a few months ago. How does Derb (who is pushing sixty) dare to say that young people are more attractive and sexually desirable than old people? Doesn't he understand how icky it is to imagine an old man like him thinking that young women are desirable and attractive? Note the hilarious, almost Moorean self-refuting nature of this feminist tantrum. So tell, dear feminists, which way do you want it: are the old people less attractive than young people (the way Derb says), or not?
But as for Mrs. Brinkley, I am sure that there are just as many similar examples of successful men leaving their hot twentysomething wives and girlfriends for fiftysomething over-the-hill women... surely there must be some... I just can't seem to think of any examples right now...
And why didn't anybody tell me about the excellent webcomic "Sinfest"? This is the way manga should be done, and the way these strips flow and work reminds me of the best similar-styled manga that I have read on dead tree, such as "Oh My Goddess!". That will certainly go to the comics sidebar at the next blog template update. It really annoys me to think that great webcomics like that one go by without me knowing about them. Grrr!
I wrote earlier about the Absolute, a 50-story postmodern weird-for-the-sake-of-weird ugly-ass condo skyscraper that is meant to be the local landmark going up two blocks away from where I live. It's almost like these people are out there just to annoy me, because I read in yesterday's paper that they are going to build another one right next to it. So it's like these people are giving me a "screw you" finger with both hands instead of just one. And every single day I will then have to look at this design abortion.
At least the annual Ribfest came to town for this weekend to soothe me. This year the festival is about twice as big as last year, and like last year, big barbeque trucks are coming from the southern states of the USA to serve as delicious pork. I don't know if there really is a much difference between the ribs and pulled pork sandwiches that all these places serve, but it is fun to find out! We bought some ribs from a place that was named "Kentucky" something, but later it turned out that these people actually hail from London, Ontario. Just like every single place in Southern California is a name of some movie, every single American state acts as a name of a thousand greasy barbeque joints around the world. Or perhaps this is for the "red states" only.
Somebody linked to the results of the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. At least the winner was quite amusing.
I guess that I have been watching too much Simpsons during my adult life, since my first reaction to the post "Marginal returns vs. average returns" at Marginal Revolution was "Hey, that must be that private highway that only the Stonecutters get to access!"
Udolpho's new post "Kevin Smith: Peter Pan in short pants" explains why I don't feel much need to go see Clerks 2. I am actually rooting for it to fail, since it would serve as a nice reminder for the hipsters how worthless they really are in the great scheme of things. When I tried to watch the original Clerks years ago, the whole movie was so unimaginably bad that I had to stop it after fifteen minutes. Later, at the university I remember seeing a poster advertising an upcoming Kevin Smith lecture, him looking all wild and zany with the implication that for $20 or however much it the tickets were, he would tell all the English majors how they could get to be like him instead of having to work as clerks or glorified clerks while they wait for the next available assistant professorship to open up. Perhaps Kevin might even tell funny stories about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon so that the whole audience could laugh that stupid horselaughter that you would imagine they would.
Speaking of English majors, I would really like to take the article "Academics KO Grammar Again" and send it back in a time machine a few decades or so. I wonder when the humanities will realize what an utter sad joke they have become. Of course, the humanities have to suffer the worst for the increased student intake. I guess this is certainly poetic justice, since it is typically the humanities professors who are the loudest to advocate all kinds of looneytoon socialist ideas such as everybody being equal and a college degree being a basic human right, whereas the professors in the reality-based fields where, unlike in the humanities, being wrong has actual consequences tend to be, uh, more reality-based.
Just in case nobody has told you about Dan Kim's webcomics either:
http://manga.clone-army.org/
Posted by Anonymous | 6:47 AM
"I am sure that there are just as many similar examples of successful men leaving their hot twentysomething wives and girlfriends for fiftysomething over-the-hill women"
There's the movie Manhattan, where Woody Allen leaves his high school aged super hot girlfriend played Mariel Hemingway for the older and not as hot Diane Keaton.
Posted by Half Sigma | 11:46 AM
You are right in pointing out that many successful middle-aged men dump their wives for 20-something hot women but not usually for women their own age. Keep in mind, however, that the young women are attracted by the older men's money and/or power, not, in most cases, by their physical desirability. A 55-year-old woman is unlikely to be as desirable in a strictly physical sense than a 25-year old. But this works both ways - physically, a 55-year-old man can't compare to a 25-year-old man. If it weren't for money and power, few young women would get excited by the thought of a man in late middle age who's losing his hair, has a huge beer belly, and a scrotum hanging halfway to his knees.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Posted by Anonymous | 11:49 AM
Peter, I know where you get this idea from:
and a scrotum hanging halfway to his knees.
I'm only a few short years from that age, and I can assure that my scrotum is no where near my knees.
Posted by Loki on the run | 1:44 PM
Ikka, you work at a finishing school for aspiring CBC journalists (Ryerson). If it weren't for humanities students (in fact, the lowest breed of humanities student), you'd be back in Finland, searching the snowswept taiga for edible mosses, or making cell-phones, or whatever they do there. Remember on which side your bread is buttered!
Posted by Fred S. | 12:07 AM