A largely personal blog with much silliness, Tales of the Babe & Me and of Susan the Wonderchild, lots of cat photos, and other miscellaneous stories and observations.
Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.
But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.
"We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any."
That's not a surprise, really: men are men and, as Jeff Foxworthy says, men's motivations tend to boil down to "I'd like a beer and I'd like to see something nekkid!" But what was rather interesting was that porn wasn't the corrupter of sexual preferences that it's popularly made out to be:
The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.
Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men's sexuality.
“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.
“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.
So, men like looking at dirty pictures (quelle surprise!) and it doesn't change their basic sexual makeup.
Oh, those silly Midwest Lutherans! St. Luke's, in Prospect Park, IL, does a lot of things but the most famous may be the St. Luke's Bottle Band. They play bottles of all kinds by blowing on 'em, striking 'em with drumsticks, and so on. It's fun stuff.
Something you'll notice in the concert clips is that the conductor will cue everyone by making a sudden gesture raising his arms. The band members will frequently respond. Keep an eye out for it.
I always thought I had a pretty good sense of color. Turns out I do. This test will help you identify your color sensitivity and where you have trouble with particular hues.
BTW, this has nothing to do with anything, but this is a clip of a good production of a piece I'm very fond of. I get goose pimples whenever I hear it and the finale makes me teary for its elegance. I sing bass and the bass line is really yummy on this, particularly in the finale.
I first met this when I had the honor to be singing with the Washingtonians, an 80-90 voice mixed choir run by the many-talented Scott Warrender. It's one of my regrets that I didn't discover them years before I did, because I would've loved performing with them for years and years. Funny, great music, wonderful shows, a joy to be with. ~sigh~
This YouTube clip is the best I've found so far. The video portion just shows a flickering fireplace, so you can crank up the sound and just listen. Headphones are desirable. You're going to want to crank this up.
My dear friend Bonni had a problem a few days ago: her house burned down. The whole thing didn't actually burn to ground, but I won't be surprised if it's going to need to be rebuilt completely because of smoke and water damage. This is really common for houses with even 40%-50% fire damage: the smoke just pours through the rest of the house and there's no good way to get it out of the walls and ceilings. It's tough stuff and we are all looking for ways in which we can help her.
But the funny thing about this that she told me today was that she was in the master bedroom looking for whatever might be salvaged and there were only two books that weren't damaged by fire, smoke, or water: the two copies of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Disaster Preparedness" I'd sent her. In other words, the book I'd co-authored with Dr. Maurice Ramirez on how to survive disaster seems to be reasonably fireproof.
I guess my personal mana extends a thousand miles away even to my books. Hey, am I fuckin' cool or what?
I live in Fircrest, WA, married, 5 stepchildren who I'm mighty fond of, and 6 granddaughters who I extremely fond of. I write books, magazine articles, white papers, documentation, online help... most anything, even buttons for a button company. I've published about 8 million, which is quite a pile.
We have two cats, a 17yo tabby/Siamese mix and an 18-pound black cat who's fairly obnoxious.
The Babe and I play a lot of gin rummy together at restaurants and we bowl. All this may sound disgustingly humdrum, but I'm just giving you the few points of contact with a consensual normalcy amidst a backdrop of periodic chaos and excitement with travel, conferences, and cruises to exotic foreign shores.
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