I am *SO* proud of Susan!

Susan the Wonderchild (who is 25) lives with us and has a colorful social life. She's just sent me the recent results of her looking for a date by posting an ad on Craigslist.

First, here's the ad itself. It's a damn good ad as personals go.

Dating is hard. And stupid. Dating is stupid and hard. For everybody.

This probably has something to do with the large amount of morons in the world. Not that there's anything wrong with being a moron -- lots of people are -- but it does making dating hard. Stupid and hard.

If I could replicate myself exactly, I'd totally go lesbian and do myself. I'm not trying to say I'm the most awesome thing ever, just that it'd be a lot easier for me to do me, as opposed to me doing someone else.

But as long as we're on the subject: one the scale of Awesome, one being "As awesome as a stick in the eye" and ten being "Megan Fox with a great personality" I put myself at an eight. I'm five feet ten inches tall, and one hundred and sixty-five pounds -- essentially built like an Amazon, tall and muscular with fat in all the right womanly places. I have long brown hair and light blue-green eyes. I work two jobs and attend school at the University of Oregon. I'm intelligent, confident and perceptive, as well as good at sports, outdoors-oriented, socially graceful and adeptly humorous. Depending on what kind of a man you are, all of this adds up to "intimidating," "difficult," or, hopefully, "everything I've ever looked for in a woman."

So why am I not a ten? Well, I don't have washboard abs. My room is messy. I am almost certainly going to be a crazy cat lady when I'm older (I may even qualify for the title right now). My skin could be clearer. I live with my mother and step-father, because rent and college tuition are expensive. I don't eat fish. I have a weakness for Chocolate Cherry Love Blizzards from Dairy Queen. I really enjoy talking about embarrassing bodily functions like pooping and sex. I can't snap my fingers. Depending on what kind of a man you are, all this adds up to "gross," "adorably gross," "amusingly gross," or, hopefully, "grossly honest."

I commute by bike every weekday (just bought a Specialized Allez Triple -- SEXY!) and play kickball on the weekends. I love funny movies, Terry Pratchett, my cats, the color green, snuggling, camping, swimming in cold water, napping, flip flops, and Mitch Hedburg.

I am looking for a date or two. I don't want to marry you. I don't want to have sex with you. I don't want to have sex with you.* I don't want you to loooooooove me. I don't want to ride off into the sunset with you. I REALLY don't want to deal with your emotional angst or help you fix your deep and abiding personality issues. I just want a date or two. Why just a date or two? Well, mostly because I still refer to the last guy I dated as Liar McButtface. When I get over that, maybe then I'll be looking for something long term.

Things I like in a man: confidence, social grace, a sense of humor, kindness, and the inability to find stupid women attractive. Things I don't like in a man: dishonesty, passiveness, laziness, misogyny, the ability to find stupid women attractive.

(Way to make it this far! I'm so proud of you. There's only a little more to go!)

Some instant disqualifiers:

1. No kids. If you have procreated, I am glad for you. Well done. You're an amazing human being. Don't reply to my ad.

2. No Jesus. If you love Jesus, I am glad for you. Well done. You are an amazing human being. Don't reply to my ad.

3. No rapists. If you have raped someone, you're a terrible human being. You deserve to have Hitler shove a pineapple up your butt. Don't reply to my ad.

4. No old dudes. In this case, "old" means "over the age of forty."

5. No young dudes. In this case, "young" means "under the age of twenty-five."

6. No fat guys. I'm sorry if you are fat and this hurts your feelings, but I work very hard to keep my body in relatively good shape and I expect as much from someone who wants to date me. If you carry a little extra weight, that's fine -- but if you are well and truly fat, I suggest you 1. closely examine your eating habits, 2. consult a doctor for possible medical reasons for your weight and 3. don't reply to my ad.

7. No wimps. I am a strong woman. Only a strong man can handle me.

Well, you made it this far -- good job! That shows real dedication. If you found this ramble amusing, interesting, titillating, arousing or some other positive adjective, feel free to email me. If you want any kind of a response, show off your reading comprehension skills and reply with something similar, and certainly something more substantial than "hey i think ur funny i go to u of o wanna smoke sometime email me back". I have photos of myself and will share them with you if you are sufficiently amusing and also willing to share some photos of yourself with me.

Okay, that's it. I'm spent. Have a great evening, morning or afternoon, whichever is most appropriate.


*Sometimes you have say this twice for men to believe you. Sometimes even twice isn't enough. Being a slave to your sex glands really isn't a sexy look, guys.

The footnote makes it clear that she knows men by now. Lord knows I've tried to get her to understand how shabby men are as a species and I think she's got the message. :)

So, in the first day this was up, she received 17 responses to this ad. The interesting part is that 7 of these were dedicated solely to telling her what a bitch she was. (Clearly from disgruntled fat, wimpy, evangelical rapists with kids who are either over 40 or under 25.)

The most amusing of the seven was the following, which came to her from "Will":

"I REALLY don't want to deal with your emotional angst or help you fix your deep and abiding personality issues."

If your ad proved anything, it is that you suffer the emotional angst. Though your candor and soul bearing is appreciated in the internet world, you need to understand who you are before you start looking for someone else.

"(Way to make it this far! I'm so proud of you. There's only a little more to go!)"

Ridiculous. Trust me, it wasn't because of you. I just take pride in laughing at the incessant ranting of a lost soul.

Get over Liar Mcbuttface. I'd wager you just cling onto him as an excuse because there is nobody else out there interested in you. A hint as to why : You're a bitch. Nothing to be proud of, so if you were to say "I know I'm a bitch"...well, at least you know your problem. It helps to change.

I hope you figure yourself out,

Will

Okay, I think Susan is not having trouble figuring herself out. If anything, I think she may have her act together better than I did at her age. She's certainly a confident woman who is able to be really clear about what she's looking for in a personals ad.

Susan could not let this one go, so she sent the following response:

Will,

Thanks for your reply. You sound like such a well-adjusted, kind, and actualized person! 'Cause, yanno, writing hateful emails to people whom you obviously consider beneath your glorious, shining self at 4:17 AM is what well-adjusted, kind, and actualized people do. I'm sure you aren't suffering any kind of emotional angst at all.

Seriously -- why did you respond to my ad? Does being an anonymous fuckstick to people online make you feel good about yourself? Newsflash, William -- there are always going to be people that you don't like. Telling them you don't like them is not a method of character development, especially online, which is the favored medium of fucksticks around the world. But if that truly is how you've decided to bolster your self-esteem, I suggest you check out Fark.com. They have a veritable cornucopia of people upon whom you may perform your digital sadomasochism.

I look forward to your response email, which, I'm sure, will be more of you attempting to crush my psyche with your unbelievably witty and cutting insults. Be sure to tell me how pathetic I am. That really gets my goat. Or maybe you'll do the "well it just isn't worth my valuable time," route, but I suggest you refrain from that, as you read my entire post and took the time to write me that silly little email, making it clear that this is exactly how you enjoy spending your valuable time.

I may be a bitch, but you, sir, are an asshole. I hope that works out for you!

Have a great day. :)

Amazon

The moral of the story: If you have a significant other, and they treat you well, be very, very thankful.

We are both looking forward to his next missive eagerly, because neither of us thinks he'll have the sense to leave this one alone. :)

I am *SO* proud of Susan!

Slumber in the belly of the beast

D'ye remember how, in The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo saved Luke Skywalker's life by cutting open the tauntaun that had died and shoving Luke into it?



Well, ThinkGeek is testing the waters for a tauntaun sleeping bag. This comes with a saddle, a glowing lightsaber zipper pull, and, as you can see from the picture, a lining that looks like (ugh) tauntaun intestines.

It's all so real, the only thing missing is the bad smell that Han Solo mentioned in the movie. Oy.

Slumber in the belly of the beast

Male narcissism

No, the title of this blog entry isn't a redundancy. These prints go rather beyond that, I'd say. (And they are rather amusing, particularly if you're fond of Japanese prints, as I am.)

In the mid-1840s, ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) created a number of woodblock prints showing legendary tanuki (raccoon dogs) using their humorously large scrota in creative ways.

This series of comic prints alludes to the supposed ability of raccoon dogs to voluntarily enlarge their scrotums. It is listed as 209 in Kuniyoshi by Basil William Robinson (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1961). Robinson translated tanuki as ‘badgers’, but ‘raccoon dogs’ seems to be more correct. The images are each about 7 by 10 inches (18 by 25 centimeters), a size known as chûban. Two images were printed on a sheet of paper about 14 by 10 inches (36 by 25 centimeters), a size known as ôban.

Better copies of the prints can be found here and here.

Male narcissism

The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation

Baseline Briefing had an article today on 7 ways to ruin a PowerPoint presentation. There was nothing much new in it, but they did have a link to the Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation, a good demonstration of how not to do PowerPoints.

The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation

The Congress of Wonders

The Congress of Wonders was a comedy group from the late 60s and early 70s in San Francisco. They only recorded two albums--Sophomoric and Revolting--but they were extraordinary, even for their time and place. Their albums are long out of print, but if you look, you can find them in both LP and re-released CD form. There's a rumor of a DVD with clips that I'd dearly love to find, but I'll have to dig around later.

One of the things that that always set their presentation apart was that they'd frequently speak their sound effects for actions ("No one will notice if I shove you down this laundry chute. Che-BLONK!") They had fast snappy dialog and very funny material, much of which is still screamingly funny today.

Some of the great lines that come to mind are:

From Sylvia Davenport:
"List' to the starboard tale of Sylvia Davenport, whose noblesse exceeded her oblige."
"The twine of her life unravelled by the kittens of destiny."
"The passionate turtle of romance was stewed in the soup of despair."

From Health Man:
"Say, fella, where do you eat?" "Oh, I'll have a Grimsburger every now and then, but I usually eat at McBarnyard's Golden Starches, or Colonel Bucket's Chicken Blasphemy."

From the Stoned Ranger:
"A cloud of hooves... a speed of dust... and a hearty cry of "Ohio River!!!" "That not your line!"

From Star Trip:
"Stardate 3.1415... oh, the heck with it!"

In the course of looking for some online references, I struck a huge vein of gold: downloadable Real Player clips of many of these cuts, but, even better, a number of UNRELEASED BITS that I've never heard!!!! So there's good to be had from blogging.

The Congress of Wonders