Completely Unnecessary

I was way too hungover to blog today. [Ed. Note: Why, why do I never learn not to mix wine and beer? It is like this every single time. It's not rude to reject a beer on the grounds that you've been drinking wine all night...]

Yeah, so it was great. I spent most of the day at State Library doing newspaper research. The Canberra Times is a broadsheet, which means I had to turn it sideways to scan the articles I needed. Being lazy (and be-headached), it was just far too much effort to right the pages each time, especially as I was generally scanning every other page.

Now I haven’t tested this theory empirically, but I think fast-scrolling is far more nausea-inducing when it’s scrolling up, rather than to the left. Trying to read words coming from below as they whizzed past me did not help the pounding in my skull.

Five and a half hours I did that today. Pleasant. Which is probably why I just looked blankly at the sushi lady when she informed me that my only non-mayonnaise-containing choices were kimchi or seasoned squid. I didn’t say anything - just turned and walked out the door.

So I give Slut Machine a lot of credit for making me laugh hysterically in her attempts to make a chocolate cast of her own vagina. I feel that I shouldn’t need to add that this is highly unsafe for work.

Also, my friend gave me a link to Garfield Minus Garfield, which I have been checking nearly obsessively since yesterday.

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I just turned on the TV to try to watch Tancredo drop out of the primaries.

(And can I just take a moment to tell him that, while he’ll be missed (totes), I’m so glad that I’ll finally be able to figure out which one is Duncan Hunter during the debates? Not that Hunter will be in the race that much longer, but still.)

So anyway, it wasn’t on, but NBC is running the a show I’d never heard of called Merv Griffin’s Crosswords. Or something. It’s the best! There’s a ridiculous set, a host who’s just far, far too keen, and full on 1980s banter.

The best part, though, was during the contestant introductions. The host, who talks like very young version of John Mahoney’s character in Reality Bites said, ‘And this is so and so. And she’s a big fan of wiener dogs!’

And on national television, the woman responded, “Yep! I never met a wiener I didn’t like! [beat] Wiener dog I didn’t like.’

And the host just moved on. It was incredible. So great, in fact, that I turned it off right after that.

American daytime TV is better than that of Australia (or so I assume). I remember afternoon television four years ago was just Days of Our Lives from the ’90s and a bunch of kid shows (which is why for months I thought ‘arvo’ was the name of a bus – it’s actually Australian for ‘afternoon’).

I say if you can’t watch a nice lady humiliate herself, it’s not worth watching. Not that it was anyway, but you know.

Tancredo ’12!

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From the Age:

Australians are gaining weight even faster than people in the US, a notoriously fat nation.

Why, you vegemite-eating, koala-coddling bastards…

Alright, fair enough. Proceed.

ps - aside from a couple edits - I’m done with school until March! Would it be entirely out of line for me to do a PhD on Transformers? That’s what I’ve been thinking about all day.

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The AV Club has posted Night Of The Killer Lamp: 23 Ridiculous Horror-Movie Adversaries for Halloween. I suggest watching at least the first clip and the one with the bunnies on the second page. Awesome.

Happy Halloween! You wouldn’t even know it that special day here in Melb. The country has some problems, sure, but American Halloween is the best.

I would like some candy corn. I would not like to continue reading about Conservative branding since the 1980s.

Question: how many copy editing errors do you have to find before you question the reputability of a work?

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• ‘We are not slaves or “crap”.’

Are you a girl? Is it Halloween?

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It’s paper time again, so I’m well on my way to spending hours on the internet. What does it have in store for us today?

Without asking why, let’s say I went to a Chinese horoscope compatibility website. Let’s just move straight from that fact to reveling in the glory that is Master Rao’s Compatibility Between the Signs.

You have to enter a sign for the man and a sign for the woman, and - like the Love Calculator before it - it predicts your ability to love and be loved on completely uncontrollable factors.

So what does ancient Chinese wisdom (clearly) have to tell us about relations between the sexes? Well, mostly things like this:

To get her views across, this woman is likely to react in her usual way - by nagging and displaying vehement emotional scenes.

That’s a Monkey (man) and an Ox (woman), but rest assured that all the other combinations I tried yielded roughly the same results for the women.

Rooster women (i.e., me) appear to be particularly unlovable. Here’s Goat (man) and Rooster (woman):

The Goat only loves mysterious and profoundly feminine women. Obviously, the Rooster falls short of this criteria and cannot expect to be fully appreciated as a woman by him.

Obviously. Thank you, Master Rao.

In other combos I am sulky, brooding, stupid and frigid. Surprisingly, given that last one, I am also incredibly randy:

On the sexual plane, the partners are likely to encounter some difficulties as the Rat man will look for quality while the Rooster, superficial and overrestless, will prefer quantity.

Strangely, with others I am jealous and possessive.

But I don’t want to end on that sour note. Let’s instead look at a Horse (man) and a Snake (woman):

Even in the best of conditions this union is unlikely to last, for the partners’ love is so intense that it will burn itself out completely. But they will ever keep bedazzled memories of each other.

I just hope they ever keep that Beadazzler - gonna be worth money someday.

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I was talking to my new/old friend, Meredith, about blog traffic because we are both a bit sad. And also because blogging is the new route through academia.

Meredith’s doing some interesting work about women, pregnancy, celebrity and technology, which can be explored here and via her blog. She was talking about writing for audience - using your stats to see what your audience wants to read about (what they search terms they use to find your blog/which entries are most popular), and throwing a couple posts their way to drive up readership.

It’s a fair point… except that most people link to my blog through some permutation of three terms: “dog” “licking” and “vagina”. Today we also have “public grooming” and “douche telecom” amongst the group, but the general trend stands.

While I’m totally down for people reading about Juniper, the only entry to which those search terms can possibly lead, what the hell? My utility in the blogosphere seems to revolve around one entry I wrote over a year ago about the opera and my dog’s newly-spayed vag. Somehow I don’t think the sixteen people that went to that entry yesterday were expecting it to begin with:

Dowdy mom-types and aging lesbians flocked to the opera tonight.

Yet my bounce rate is down, which means that some of my dog vag visitors are sticking around to read up on such important topics as hilarious advice from my mother in 2005 and Washington State’s anti-gay marriage ruling.

Thanks for reading, new people. As for your dog - it may be a UTI.

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So my rant just below about the hubbub surrounding the Moveon/Limbaugh thing got picked up by two sites yesterday - The Moderate Voice and a right wing site that thinks Muslims have a 20-year plan to take over America.

To both of them I say: Huh?

While I’m flattered, the only reason why any readers you directed my way yesterday didn’t get a youtube link to John Cusack holding a Peter Gabriel-spewing boombox was because I was too lazy to post last night.

I presume that since I’m generally awake late enough in Oz to read and write about early morning US news, I got bumped early into the technorati queue. I have no other explanation for not one, but two sources noting my writing as of interest. The right wing site had me listed just after ThinkProgress. Okay!

To celebrate my impending blogosphere-wide notoriety, I am going to provide you with what you all missed last night.

This clip comes with a very special note to every heterosexual male on Earth: if she grew up in the 80s, any woman you’ve ever dated wants this to happen at some point in her life.

Finally, to any readers conservative enough to believe that Muslims will take over America, please enjoy this link my previous post about full moon sex dreams.

Confidential to Spree - I deleted your comment because I initially thought it was spam. While I think you missed the point of my post (among other things), in the interest of free speech, I’ll approve it if you re-submit.

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I thought it would take a couple days for me to get back to full ‘YEAHH!’ strength (and that reference is here), but thanks to one man, I’m in a fabulous mood.

Alan Keyes has announced he’s running for president.

For those of you not familiar with the Mr Keyes, he was Obama’s opponent in the 2004 IL Senate campaign, and he is absolutely, 100% hilariously nuts. You know, once you get past the raging homophobia.

Here’s how great the 2004 Senate campaign was: Signs supporting candidates are pretty popular in Chicago (though it’s no Minnesota). I was driving around one day, close to the election, and saw a Keyes sign. I had to look more than once to identify what it actually was - because I had never seen one before. It was literally only one I ever saw, and it was so unusual that I know exactly where it was: west side of Damen Avenue, about four houses north of George Street.

Cut to the actual election: I was pollwatching that day and the three precincts I closed all gave Obama well over 70% of the vote. We thought that would change once more conservative, southern voters weighed in. Nope. The final breakdown was 70% to 27%. Keyes didn’t even commandeer 1/3 of the vote statewide. And Cook County (Chicago) gave Obama 81% of the vote.

Then John Kerry lost, so that kind of sucked.

But things got a bit better three months later, when Keyes’ daughter came out of the closet. Now, I don’t much like the thought of sexual orientation as a cudgel, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be Maya Keyes, but if someone ever deserved to have his core shaken, it’s Alan Keyes. She’s an activist now - it’s great.

And this man - who called homosexuality ’selfish hedonism’, who accused Mary Cheney of being one such hedonist, who kicked his gay daughter out of the house and refuses to pay for her college (but still has her picture on his website) - this man is running for president.

Because what the Republican Party needed was one more batshit crazy candidate.

Keyes will be at the Republican ‘Values Voters’ debate (US) tomorrow. Below is only a small taste of what you can expect. God, the thought of another Obama/Keyes debate makes my eyes nearly swim with joy.

Links:
Alan Keyes Announces for President! [Reneamerica.us - Keyes' website]
Renew America Homepage [look for the link where you can 'hear Terri laugh']
2004 IL Senate Election Results [CNN]
Alan Keyes’ Daughter Coming Out [CBS News]
h/t to Dan Savage for the YouTube clip, and the best news I’ve heard all week - besides this.

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Scared for my life. [Redacted] run by Moonies. GHETTO TYPE ATMOSPHERE.

No, that’s not actually a quote from a Mac student (or a MelbUni student for that matter) - it’s the musings of an anonymous first year at University of Bridgeport, CN.

Radar Online compiled a list of the worst colleges in America, and poor UBridgeport came in first (or last). Why is that? Well:

At orientation, all incoming students are given a “personal alarm locator [sic]” that will send swarms of campus policemen racing to their rescue whenever they press a panic button.

OKAY!

Other notables include Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Falwell’s football team, and I am not making this up, is called ‘The Flames’. They are just asking for a Bob Allen/Larry Craig moment.*

[Via MeFi]

*In vaguely unrelated news - Wonkette commenter SayItWithWookies had maybe the best comment ever today regarding the newly/frequently-released story about intolerant-as-hell-but-unsurprisingly-gay-sex-having Republican Senator Larry Craig (R-ID):

For a party with such a small tent, they have an awfully big closet.

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