eruthros

For serious, you guys, I totally saw this news story when it was a Buffy episode.

Now that is some incredible foreshadowing -- from first season to here. Wow.

You guys, I have discovered the best blog ever. No, really.

Modern Mechanix: Yesterday's Tomorrow Today. Yes. So you expect all those awesome early ads (like, ways to make your spine young with a revolving hammock).

But this site is more than that! It is way more awesome! Because it also has complete scanned early articles. So you can go read this 1937 article about the possibility of surgical sex changes, or check out How Scientists Visualize the REAL Flying Saucer Men, 1951 (hint: apparently with bat ears), OR you can find out all about Marijuana: Sex-Crazing Drug Menace! Fast Growing Debasement of Our Youngsters, Making Them Wantons and Killer. (My immediate response: wantons?)

And most importantly? LARGE CHUNKS OF MAGAZINES. With covers and ads and articles. SO, you guys, seriously, go check out Physical Culture Nov 1934, for such AWESOME articles as "Glasses are only Eye-Crutches," "Try Dancing For that Inferiority Complex," and one of my personal favorites: "Ever Had Your Colon 'House Cleaned'? Large per cent of all ills and ailments have their source in the neglected 'cellar' of the human body."¹ (note: click on titles, not pictures, for the whole article)

OR, for example, This 1959 edition of Sexology. "Sex Worries of Teenage Boys."² Also, "Wife Swapping: Is it possibly to combine desire for variety in sexual relations with the maintenance of a stable, happy marriage?"

CHECK IT OUT YOU GUYS FOR REALS.

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1. Subheads include: "a true 'internal bath'" and "glorious relief." Really.

2. "Others worry needlessly about some kind of sexual conduct. 'What are the consequences of masturbation?' 'I have been involved in sex play with a boy friend. What should I do?'"

Best headlines of the day:

"Pomos wary of superfund."
My first take: postmodernists don't like superfund sites? Who huh wha ... Oh, oh! Pomo Indians. Right!"

"Study: Don't get divorced or fired."
Apparently they're bad for your mood, according to the subhead. Really? Whoda thunk?

"Developer condemns city." (In the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
Me: "the whole thing? Oh, wait. They mean city hall." Lo, I am slow on the first DST weekday.

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Life goals:

One day, when I produce a TV show (I don't know how I'd get there from here, but that's irrelevant), I will commission an amnesia episode. You know, like the famous amnesia clip shows of yore (due South, I am so looking at you). Except that all the stories we frame as big, important stories... will be clips we've never seen before. It will be fabulous! It'll be the anti-clip show, with "flashbacks." You know you want to subvert the clip show, too! None of the "he was dreaming!" "he had amnesia!" "he was on trial!" "but it's not really a clip show, because we dubbed in new dialogue!" crap.

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This is quite possibly the most hilarious quote regarding DADT ever. Regarding, of course, Matt Sanchez, the Marine Corps Times informs us that officials are "unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status." These are important questions, yo! If you're a Reserve Marine, and you're not drilling, and you're in some gay porn: does that violate DADT?

Man, DADT: how are you so completely ridiculous? GOD.

But, on the other hand, think how useful this information might be to people who write in SGA.

( Aside )

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And one last link for those of you who, like me, are bitter about this whole stupid thing where Daylight Savings starts earlier and ends later: a University of California study, based on the Australian case, that argues that pushing DST back into winter actually increases energy use. Rather than putting daylight hours when we use them, it puts dark hours when we wake up -- so we get up, turn on the heater, the lights all over the house, and so on. And this turns morning into a peak-load time, increasing the prices of electricity in the morning. Yeah, a nice "free" way to conserve energy? Bite me, Congress.

This is quite possibly the worst review I've ever seen a movie get in a real newspaper. (Inasmuch as a Hearst newspaper is a real newspaper, but that's a whole nother discussion.) I mean, there's stuff in that review that I would be surprised to see in blogs. Like:

Seamlessly and rather cleverly, without telling anybody, Gus Van Sant has transitioned out of important filmmaking and has taken up a new career in torture. He's developing a knack. With "Gerry" (2003), about two guys who get lost in the desert, Van Sant seemed to go as far as anyone could in making a completely inert movie. But with "Last Days," about the events leading up to a grunge rocker's suicide, he surpasses himself, making a picture that's in trouble from its first minutes.

That's how it starts. That's the first paragraph. Where can you go from there? I mean, the review's pretty much over, right? Nope. After all, Mick LaSalle's got a word count to meet, so you get lines like "I can imagine that if people were to watch that scene while stoned, they might crack a smile." Yeeeeesh.

As near as I can tell, this headline makes exactly no sense: "Wal-Mart warns on profits target." And it's a bbc.co.uk headline, yet! (I can work out what they mean based on the article -- blah blah Walmart thinks it'll be below expected profits blah -- but.)

In recent story summaries that I've received on hpfanficrecs (the things that get recced make me wince) or have seen while browsing, we have the following:

"There's no Harry Potter,but Avernus Noir.Harry had been neglected since his sister was the Girl Who Lived.At four,Harry had been kicked out of his home because a baby.Adopted by the Noir family, Harry attended Hogwarts when he was 15.Vote!Poll Inside."

I do not understand this at all. He was kicked out of the Potter family because a baby... what? Was born? Hung out? Taught salsa dancing? And then he was adopted, and then was ... a late admission to Hogwarts? Students of non-traditional age?

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"Ranma Soatome hasn't been feeling to well lately. He's been breaking out into fevers and even having fainting spells. But the end result just might make him the new student of Hogwarts."

This may well be my favorite ridiculous crossover EVER. I quote the first paragraph:

"Voldermort was sitting in his chair. He tried to get close to Harry to kill him but was too unknowingly well protected. Stupid undercover Auras. Voldermort considered himself the most powerful wizard ever but even he had his limitations. Question was: what was he going to do?"

... Soatome! Voldermort! As near as I parse the second sentence, Voldermort was unknowingly well protected, which rendered him unable to kill Harry! And my favorite: undercover Auras! *dies laughing*

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"Touch is heaven and hell, pain and relief. Touch is deliberately caused. Or not? Can you distinguish love from hate, lust from indifference in the touch? Sometimes you don't seem to know at all; can't judge coincidence from intention; can't trust yourself. You can only give in and let the fingers burn you, brand you, own you."

... oookay. The story is actually decent; the author just needs to get someone else to write summaries. Because "Touch is deliberately caused. Or not?" is just too giggle-worthy for words.

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"This is about Harry in his 6th year. it corresponds with 'What Goes Around, Comes Around.' it's going to be funny. i know i made the first chapter really suck, but that's life. it'll get better. i promise!(crossees fingers:even though i suck at writing!)"

I have no words. None.

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"Tom Riddle, a name associated with fear, darkness, and unimaginable evil and power. Yet there was one who knew something else. One who watched quietly in the background as a greatevil grew. This is the story of Aurelia Hymes... the girl who loved Tom Riddle"

Shouldn't that say "... the girl who was a Mary Sue?" And this was RECCED, people. RECCED. I quote the first paragraph:

"He watched her, and studied her every movement - the way her blonde curls glimmered in the light, and the way her green eyes shone with feisty passion as she continued working, her eyes narrowing in concentration. As he watched her, sitting across from him, as a fierce hunger that he had never known rose to its climax. Tom Riddle had a crush, whether he liked it or not. Perhaps, he mused, watching her as a smile curled upon his lips, he was in love."

Notice the sentence fragment. Notice the word "feisty." Are non-MSs ever described as "feisty?" I think not. Also, I think greatevil should be a name for a plant. I want to grow greatevil! Next to the tomatoes!