News, views and reviews of the people and places overlooked by the world at large

31 March 2007

Random bullets ala Parts-n-Pieces

Filed under: Inner Life — Terry @ 11:15 am
  • Happy thing: Got the freelance job - yay!
  • Happy thing: cheap champagne to celebrate with - Cooks Brut, $4.99
  • Happy thing: tuna burgers for lunch (tuna, mayo, ketchup, onions, and shredded cheese on a hamburger bun, broiled)
  • Happy thing: Final Four on tv
  • Happy thing: decadently rich fair trade hot chocolate mix from Julie
  • Not-so-happy thing: working on the weekend
  • Happy thing: highlight and copy from a pdf file - saved me several hours this morning
  • Happy thing: Control V
  • Happy thing: my Saturday morning tradition - 16 oz triple latte, skim milk, no syrup, 170 calories for a full day’s quota of calcium
  • Happy thing: orange-scented Soft Scrub cleanser
  • Happy thing: finding hummingbird auto air fresheners online after they disappeared from the grocery store
  • Happy thing: quick and painless dental cleaning - thank you, Colgate Total
  • Happy thing: my son teaching me Joomla, expanding my skill set
  • Happy thing: my caffeine molecule t-shirt from Think Geek
  • Happy thing: being able to do a list when I can’t think of anything to blog about

29 March 2007

Kelly Clarkson - Go

Filed under: Music — Terry @ 7:13 am

I did my drag racing on county roads in a 1972 Chevelle - that baby would top out at 120 and hold indefinitely. Loved that car. Went through 3 clutches due to my hobby, though.

28 March 2007

Spring

Filed under: Photography — Terry @ 1:31 pm

Taking a page from Sherry Chandler’s book ….

The first tiger lily shoots of the year.

You’re walking around in WHAT?!

Filed under: Gender Issues — Terry @ 10:52 am

It happens to all of us. Our bodies change over the years, and sometimes that’s traumatic, particularly for women. We’re bombarded by pictures of young, thin women, not just clothed but also marginally covered, like the Victoria’s Secret ads on tv and my daily online newspaper. Many of us can’t help absorbing those images and feeling we don’t measure up, so we should cover up. I know I do.

A study from the UK says I’m not alone.

From the Daily Mail:

Experts believe the compulsion to cover up is putting a serious strain on domestic relationships, with one woman in ten having to turn out the light before she can undress in front of her partner.

Some of the most awkward encounters happen in the bathroom - with nearly a quarter of females never entering with their other half.

Of those who do, around a third said they felt self-conscious about being seen in the nude. According to the survey of 3,500 women for a bathroom equipment company, one in ten is so body-shy she will even lock the bathroom door to avoid her partner bursting in.

If this is talking about anything other than showering, I think it’s a totally separate issue from nudity. If it is about showering, “bursting in” implies active privacy invasion and being exposed against your will. If you can’t trust that your wishes will be respected, then locking the door seems reasonable to me.

Despite all this, almost all women interviewed agreed that it was vital that a couple felt comfortable naked together. Men seem largely immune to the insecurities afflicting their girlfriends and wives, and are happy spending almost double the amount of time being naked in an average day.

They are so fond of being naked that more than two-thirds said they regularly walk around the house with nothing on.

Even though 46 per cent of women confess they like to do the same, a third of these said they would never wander naked where their partner could see them.

It is the same in the gym, where 79 per cent admitted they had hang-ups showering and changing in front of other. (sic)

Nudity is vulnerability. It leaves you open not just physically but emotionally as well. Rejection from a stranger is bad enough; from a loved one, it’s devastating. So we’ll do nearly anything to avoid that, even if in reality that reaction has never come. It might next time, so we guard against it by hiding our bodies, sometimes going to great lengths to do so.

It’s all so sad. Unfortunately, I have no answer for it. It’s not just age or weight, because many young, slender women have the same issues. Few of us are as comfortable in our bodies as we’d like to be and until we are, how can we expect to get positive feedback for our natural selves? It’s a nasty cycle of fear.

I guess all I can say is, be kind to each other. And to yourselves.

27 March 2007

Plugin stuff

Filed under: Science & Technology — Terry @ 11:44 am

Version 1.1 of This Day in History Word Press plugin is now available. Some changes:

  • It now only reads posts, instead of posts and pages
  • It now filters out the things you posted today and only shows historical posts
  • It no longer lists items other than those tagged published - no more attached pages showing up(thanks, Sherry!)
  • It’s now backward-compatible at least to 2.0. I don’t have a 1.5 install to check it on.

Even if no one else ever uses it, I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s interesting to see where and what I was 2 years ago, one year ago. Some things I remember writing; most, I don’t. It’s a nice little flashback.

Panty raid

Filed under: Weird Stuff — Terry @ 8:10 am

In the last nine months, approximately 1,500 pieces of lingerie have disappeared from laundry rooms in Pullman, Washington, the home of Washington State University. The missing bras and panties were stolen from dryers in 5 different apartment complexes in 12 reports filed with the police since summer, though I imagine dozens more incidents went unreported. Who would think to call? On Saturday a man was seen leaving the scene of a theft and a resident wrote down his license plate number, leading to the arrest of Garth M. Flaherty, 24, whose bedroom allegedly produced 93 lbs of intimate apparel, enough to fill 5 garage bags. Though the crimes have obvious sexual overtones, he has only been charged with 12 counts of 2nd degree burglary and 1 count of first degree theft.

The suspect says he “has a problem.” Gee, ya think?

The evidence will be held pending the outcome of the case. After that it’s unknown what will happen to the underwear.

In the words of Pullman Police Commander Chris Tennant, “Would you really want them back?”

Via the Spokesman-Review

26 March 2007

If we don’t say the word, it’s not a problem

Filed under: Government — Terry @ 7:47 am

After the FAA was forced to admit that staffing–only having one air traffic controller in the tower–was a contributing factor in the crash of Comair Flight 5191 in Lexington, KY, which killed 49 of the 50 people aboard, they’ve come up with a way to make sure it doesn’t happen again. No, not guaranteeing that airports are fulling staffed. By forbidding the word “staffing” in communication. See this email from a top FAA manager in North Carolina with the subject line “The use of the word ‘STAFFING.’ ”

From the Washington Post:

“Be advised that anytime a facility uses the word STAFFING, you can rest assured it will be seen immediately in writing at the Headquarters level,” wrote Denny, a top manager of the agency’s operations in busy Charlotte. “If for any reason you use the STAFFING word, PLEASE advise me ASAP.”

Denny, who could not be reached for comment, goes on to say that a control tower recently could not fully operate because a controller was sick. “It got reported up the line as a STAFFING issue, when it was a SICK LEAVE (or scheduling issue),” Denny wrote.

Well, that should certainly take care of it. I don’t know about you, but I’d feel better knowing that it’s “sick leave” that results in too few eyes on the radar screen the next time I fly, not under-staffing. That’s a completely different animal.

25 March 2007

What I just bought

Filed under: Social Conscience — Terry @ 4:56 pm

Get yours at Radical Rags. $12.99 plus shipping and handling.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird

Filed under: Music — Terry @ 9:50 am

I’m feeling reflective this morning, so here’s the classic anthem from the 70s. This is the best live cut I’ve ever seen.

I love rock-n-roll

Filed under: Music — Terry @ 9:38 am

When I was a teenager, my folks hated my taste in music; Janis Joplin, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, and Jethro Tull, with a heavy dose of Lynyrd Skynyrd just to lighten things up a bit. With the exception of Ronnie Van Zant, I believed that when it came to my life soundtrack, the darker with better. I was reasonably bright (I made money in college as a lab rat taking high-end IQ tests), but with a very bad attitude and worse school attendance record. I retreated into my music to deal with other things over which I had no control.

Turns out I’m not alone in channeling my dark energy into sound. A study out of the United Kingdom finds a correlation between music and intelligence.

From the (UK) Telegraph:

Stuart Cadwallader, a psychologist at the University of Warwick, will present the findings at the British Psychological Society conference in York today.

He said: “There is a perception of gifted and talented students as being into classical music and spending a lot of time reading. I think that is an inaccurate stereotype. There is literature that links heavy metal to poor academic performance and delinquency but we found a group that contradicts that.

“We are looking at a group with lower than average self-esteem that does not feel quite as well adjusted. They feel more stressed out and turn to heavy metal as a way of relieving that stress.

“Participants said they appreciated the complex and sometimes political themes of heavy metal music more than perhaps the average pop song. It has a tendency to worry adults a bit but I think it is just a cathartic thing. It does not indicate problems.”

So much for the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll stereotype. Personally, I’d be more concerned if my kids were listening to Celine Deon.

Older entries »