The Daily Minutiae

Sex-volution: L'homme Fatal

⊆ 6:49 PM by A. Liebendorfer | men , sex , women . | ˜ 7 comments »

A lot of articles are floating around there written by women about men. A lot. When things are going slow --and let's face it, we're on a six-week break here-- sometimes I like to skim through one or two and just meditate what They have to say about Us.

It seems like I'm sneaking across the front lines in the dead of night every time I do, though. The conviction! Sometimes it almost feels like women think men get together and convene about what the next salvo of jerks we're going to send their way will be like.

This article I found today has me convinced that somewhere out there women have a two-word nomenclature for men. It's probably in feminese or chicklish or some language every man wants to learn. I just have to look a little harder, I guess.

The Homme Fatale (or grammatically correct, L'homme Fatal) is apparently manhood's answer to the age-old Femme Fatale stereotype. The writer describes L'homme Fatal as just the opposite to its fatal female counterpart: intellectual, not necessarily attractive, self-effacing, but somehow still confident. L'homme Fatal plays the emotional game, and rarely pushes for physical relationships, which, coupled with their typically boyish features and voice, makes them seem innocent. Once they're in, they wait a few months and then bail without a word.

The result? A woman-devastating marvel with effectiveness somewhere between Russia's new conventional "father of all bombs" and a full-on T-850 series Terminator.

These new operatives in The Battle of the Sexes are reportedly very hard to detect. They are normally flanked by a posse of women that would otherwise be out of their league, which can be mistaken for almost anything. A relative, a gay friend, a boss, or even a sugar daddy.

You know, I don't think this is anything new. We skinny runts have been around for ages. I hate to say it, but women are finally just catching on. First to go was the spousal abuser, and we can all agree that was for the better. Then they went after the one-night stander. And now the average dude looking for a pretty lady is under the gun. [Enemy code name: emosogynist]

For L'homme, it is all looking very fatal. Who knows? Maybe one-night stands will be fairy tales for our grandchildren, which isn't a bad thing, only a sign of the times.

Yes, very fatal.

Thoughts: This Fella is the Man

⊆ 4:57 PM by A. Liebendorfer | attack , bush , chuck , democracy , iraq , lob , paula abdul , politics , shoe , throw , toss . | ˜ 0 comments »

I am not one to divulge my blogspace to spreading Internet videos, but this one ... this one is a doozy. I'm not entirely sure I frown upon what this man did, and the question comes up, "What would I do?"

The video explains it all.

To bad it was only a size 10.

Just Saying: And the Deity Dundee this year goes too...

⊆ 10:36 AM by A. Liebendorfer | asian , bangladesh , birth abnormalities , cambodia , eight limbs , fetus in fetu , indian , shiva , tails , tea leoni , two heads , vishnu . | ˜ 0 comments »

Shiva?

Since I've added the Newser app to my Google homepage, I've had the pleasure reading some of the most appalling headlines of 2008. The nine-year-old who landed a movie deal for his book, How to Talk to Girls; kids indicted for Kick-a-Ginger day; death by spray deodorant; studies showing intelligent men have more virulent sperm. The works.

But one this morning got me to thinking of an alarming trend. The story tells of a 70-year-old Indian woman having her first child. It says it fulfills the woman's dream of having a child she's had for a half a century.

What's alarming is that this story doesn't surprise me one bit. In fact, I call it mild.

An Indian man was highlighted on ABC some time ago for having a rare condition known as fetus in fetu, where a person develops in the womb alongside their twin. But when the twin fails to form, it becomes absorbed into the other twin. The result is a tumor-like growth these "hosts" carry with them until surgically removed. The twin's fetus grows but never develops vital organs. Believe it?

Google Image Search List:
1. fetus in fetu
2. 8 limbs
3. vishnu
4. two heads
5. wolverine (5th picture)

Sadly, on August 28 of this year, a baby Bangladeshi boy died three days after being born. What's debatable was whether one boy or two boys died, as the child had two heads.

On a lighter note, a little Indian girl seems to be a happy kid --with her extra set of arms and legs. Little word has come out recently about Lakshmi Tatma, the girl born with eight limbs, but from a 2007 article, things seem to be going well and she's all smiles. I would be too, if I were considered the reincarnate of the Vishnu.

These are all without including the countless children born with tails, of course. One such case is this 2004-born Cambodian girl, whose tail has lifted her family out of poverty. By charging roughly 50 cents to see her wondrous tail, the little girl has become the family's main breadwinner. Her mother reportedly had a dream of an old man bringing her a baby monkey while she was pregnant with this "deity."

So the next question is, "What the hell is going on in Southeast Asia?"

To that, I have my well-constructed answer: "Nothing; we Americans just know how to keep our X-Men under wraps."

Just Saying: Huh...loud sounds

⊆ 7:42 AM by A. Liebendorfer | bailout , bond 22 , china , economy , europe , olga kurylenko , united states . | ˜ 1 comments »

Rue in Europe, woes in China (not to mention things getting worse), and everybody's blaming the stars and stripes. Many seem to think the United States has plunged the world into economic limbo and catastrophe.

Haha ... oops.

It seems like by letting housing market run rampant, the U.S. has played the role of the jerk who threw the bottle rockets in the bon fire. That minute where they brandish the fireworks and verbal mull the idea over? Yeah, that's effectively called "Bush's second term." That nerve-wracking couple of seconds everybody watches for the proverbial shit to hit the fan? We'll call that 2008.

Pursuing the metaphor a little further, all huddled around a campfire, the thrower is the only one that really knew how far he or she or it threw that bottle rocket.

Which, of course, inherently knew how bad the big ka-boom was going to be, not to mention the first one to know to run away.

I'm liking this model. Next quarter, I'm running this by my macroecon professor.

And you know for some reason the U.S. is that tone-deaf douchebag with the taped-up acoustic guitar. Now —playing devil's advocate here— what if some that were seated at this G-20-style campfire, spoke out about old America's numb-nutted renditions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" and "Smoke on the Water" and "Seven Nation Army?" Let's get really out there. What if everybody else was playing "Wonderful Tonight" and "Stairway to Heaven?"

So with reports of the last month's big bailout working, it looks like as the world is falling to pieces, the Yanks are, yep, once again emerging out on top.

Haha ... oops.

Politics: O Come, O Come Emanuel

⊆ 10:17 AM by A. Liebendorfer | ˜ 0 comments »

When Obama took Pennsylvania, I started the Obama Administration conversation. Everybody thought I was jumping the gun and the conversation died. Looks like I was right.

Remember, remember the fourth of November. That night the changers cheered and McCain's strangers jeered (and untactly booed). History had been made, Oprah tears had been shed, and the entire world except Americans conservatives celebrated.

Word came out this week that the first member of the Obama Administration would be the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Surprise, surprise I thought reading his name in a headline, a hispanic. Obama was going to make the beltway look like an elementary school social studies textbook. You know, the ones that throw out demographic populations and make the u.s. seem one part white, one part black, one part latin american, one part asian, and one part native american. And surprise, surprise, Emanuel is a young'n from Illinois.

Sitting here, donating plasma, I took the time to check out this new mysterious figure. After Sarah Palin, the informed American has learned to always do his or her research.

And what I found was the Biden Effect: inspiringly devoted to a party but competent, a rhetorical artist, and ready to stir things up. On YouTube I fell in love with Biden when at a democratic debate he simply answered "Yes," to if he could curb his verbosity on the campaign trail.

Election '08: Adam the Soothsayer

⊆ 4:57 PM by A. Liebendorfer | joe biden , joe the plumber , john mccain , monkey , obama , penelope cruz , sarah palin . | ˜ 1 comments »

I swore twice I'd never talk about it ever again.

From the bottom of Morton Hill, I could hear the latest voter peddling. Gone are the "Are you registered to vote in Athens?" Now we're haggled about early voting.

I walked back from the board of elections office last week feeling relieved. I hadn't forgotten to vote; I had earned my hindsight. And in this hindsight I'm seeing things about this election we have on our hands.

There's definitely a few things I would've done differently.

The first time I heard of Joe the Plumber was during that last debate. Both candidates referred to him and even addressed him. At first I thought he was a numb-nutted American allegory.

Then Joe the Plumber hit the media. He's kind of a big, dumb ape from everything I've seen.

But, he's riding the wave.

Old Joe (who's from Toledo; only in Ohio right?) might be just as inspiring as Obama's rhetorical skills. Think, one loser makes a story for himself and speaks out like a Yahtzee-playing idiot at the Athens Lunatics Asylum and he's famous. The story's not even necessarily true.

All this has me thinking. I'm a loudmouth, you know? I could tell people what I thought. What's more, I could trump Joe the Plumber and back it up if I needed to. Why not try to get some media attention?

After all, I've got a face for television.

Just Saying: "...and I approve this message."

⊆ 9:51 AM by A. Liebendorfer | carmen electra , financing , fundraising , money , obama , politics . | ˜ 11 comments »

Presidential front-runner Barack Obama has made history again. Go figure.

The Illinois junior senator simply mauled his previous monthly election fundraising record by almost three-fold. In February 2008, with the Democratic nomination shifting to his favor, Obama decided to know no longer use public funds for his campaign. By August he had set the fundraising record as $62 million, only to be eclipsed the following month by $150 in fundraising efforts putting him at $600 million raised. McCain, who has only raised $84 million, perched from a conservative vantage point at FOX News and questioned the accuracy of this astronomical figure. And being down nine points in the Gallup Poll, who could blame him?

A graphic attached to a recent article by The Post tries to put in perspective what a $700 billion bail-out really means. The figures range from 11,667 Baker University Centers and 208 Oprah Winfreys.

$600 million dollars in campaign financing. At first blush it seems like people are throwing their money at something maybe not entirely necessary. Whether or not that's the case is debatablt. Americans have NEVER thrown their money away on things. But what happens when Obama wins by a landslide? I doubt any of that leftover of $600 million (which there probably won't be) will be donated to help the Obama administration we're planning for alleviate economic concerns.

We should possibly look into helping and relying on our banks. I'm not saying donating to a candidate is undemocratic; that's ludicrous. But democracy is relative. I'd say the bad karma from people who have already run to the banks and their good karma of getting involved and donating to a campaign even out.

So I end with three quotes from FDR, a rather appropriate voice in our time, I think.

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depressions, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

Tech: It's Like Apples and Apples

⊆ 10:25 PM by A. Liebendorfer | apple , glenn close , macbook , macbook pro , review , technology . | ˜ 0 comments »

So, ah, the new MacBooks came out. There was fanfares in the streets; the pope sanctioned the day as a holiday. Figures, right when I get mine and am content with it, they come out with the Next Generation.

To the armadas of college kids out there who flip open their MacBooks and MacBook Pros (Even you, you black MacBook owners. Why you'd fork out an extra hundred or so dollars to get a black MacBook is beside me.), the new fleet of Apple laptops don't seem like anything special.

Let's start with aesthetics. I think they look like crap. Then again, I'm a purist, so take that bias into account. I like the astronaut, 2001: Space Odyssey look of what I guess are the "old" MacBooks now. Don't worry though, they've kept my "old" 13-inch whitey still around, I think a little bit cheaper.

Notice its black keys and black screen. The video gave me a migraine just looking at the thing. Though I will say, the video sells it very well. Set to what should be The Greatest Hits of Britpop (Coldplay's "Life in Technicolor," and U2's "City of Blinding Lights" namely), three of Apple's higher up's in the design department talk about how making a computer as one unit is better and as always, throwing in how environmentally-friendly the new laptops are.

Aside from the shoddy improvements in the regular MacBook, the ones in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are just as marginal. The only thing I saw at first glance was the new, ugly design for the 15-inch Pros, the old cool one for the 17-inch, and higher-end graphics cards.

Positives:
-pretty sweet touchpad, clicky, sleek, one piece
-better displays
-"environmentally-friendly"

Negatives:
-not necessarily a price drop
-new designs look like butt
-not any real, performance innovation

I don't even want to talk about Macbook Airs. If you own one without stealing it, shame on you. They either got a graphics card or improved the one that was in it. Also, the hard drives are now bigger than those of most mp3's players.

Yes, yass, I know I'm being a Negative Nancy here; let's look at the positives. I'm jealous Apple improved the touch pad. Now you can apparently use a four-finger combo to toggle Exposé which is nifty. Thats the only reason I want a Mighty Mouse right now. The displays have improved too, now using glass and LED backlights.

Bottom Line:

The regular MacBook line has been upgraded, given an aluminum body, and the had price increased so now it's comparable to the "old" MacBook Pros. The MacBook Pros have gotten a little better graphics card and the MacBook Airs are on the fast-track to being worth their price: graphics upgrade, improved, now-mediocre hard-drive space, same price.

Just Saying: The Mean Gene

⊆ 10:40 AM by A. Liebendorfer | asian , black , brown , chinese , indian , japanese , latino , lebanese , megan fox , taiwanese , white , yellow . | ˜ 0 comments »

Maybe only Ben Folds can get a crowded auditorium of people scream an expletive in unison:

Y'all don't know what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white
Y'all don't know what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white
Y'all don't know what it's like
Being male, middle-class and whiteIt gets me real pissed off and it makes me wanna say
FUCK!
-"Rockin' the Suburbs," Ben Folds

In a brief, paltry sketch of myself, I hail from a relatively small town. East Palestine is almost the stereotypical 99% white small town except it's only 98.47% white. Aside from that, it's the quintessential northern, semi-rural village. Not surprisingly, college was a culture shock.

Which has got me thinking about race. Since we're all suddenly talking about politics and that's the one thing you're not supposed to talk about, we move onto what is trying become a less touchy subject: the racial divide.

Having seen the real world that every small towner dreams of, I can't help but get a kick of this "racial thing." Be it by God or Hippocrates, I think it's ironic when I hear the stories of how we whites used to try to prove that we were superior, when in fact if you look at it, we're histories most despicable race.

Geneticists are becoming the go-to men and women for divine answers. They've already supposedly found the blue genes that may trigger depression; in fact, some think everybody has blue genes but only a few slip them on.

We can argue it, but look at our track record. Whites as we know them --caucasians-- have taken at least the top half dozen spots in the worst atrocities of mankind. I elaborate without ranking them: The Holocaust, The Holodomor, extinction of the Neanderthals, two world wars, the enslavement and near-extermination of American Indians.

Makes you wonder, where is "The Mean Gene"?

Impressions: Sticks and Stones

⊆ 6:47 PM by A. Liebendorfer | bucket list , canada , documentaries , eh , politics , sinead oconnor . | ˜ 4 comments »

My bucket list has been growing since I got down to Athens:

-kill a bear with my bare hands

-be a centaur for Halloween

-drink a gallon of milk in one city

-run a marathon

-make a documentary that I'd watch

Unlike musicals, I used to like documentaries, but like musicals, now I don't. This doesn't mean that documentaries were my passion and one day they failed me; I just liked to watch them from time to time. What burst it for me was the one we watched in Journalism 101 about the elections. It was very well-done, but between dozing off and the slant it was trying to hide, I had the worst neck ache. I'm not sure what it is, but now that I have a journalism major cap to put on, I've found myself very critical of them.

Namely the one we watched tonight at our weekly SPJ meeting. It was called The Fifth Estate: Sticks and Stones. It's from the Canadian Broadcasting Company and, though I tried being as objective as possible, it faintly echoed the arrogant, American wannabe stereotype to me.

The entire idea was just stupid, rubbish --it was to illustrate how the apparent great partisan divide in American politics and media is tearing our country apart. Near the beginning, they had some American say that there hasn't been this kind of partisanship since the Civil War era. How they hell would he know?

And who the hell do they think they are? I'm not trying to sound elitist, but they're Canada. We don't go around bashing their media (which evidently sucks if this garbage was on their national cable). I guess our all-terrible pundits are too sinister to go into a friendly neighboring country and trash-talk their media.

It all feels like a neighborhood alley fight.

The most prominent figure to me that they had was Phil Donahue, if that says anything.

Some of the material had merit. I always enjoy a Bill O'Reilly burst and Ann Coulter really is the antichrist. Entertainment. Those people really should be publicly embarrassed, maybe even tried for heresy.

Near the end they showed that the American press --ahem, my profession-- sometimes take things just fill space. The example they used were the two or three brief comments about George W. Bush's new Cadillac he rode to his second inauguration. The CBC seems to think that's trivial, and they're entirely right. But what else are we going to listen to while we wait for the speech? Commercials?

This is coming from a country that doesn't even have a president.

For your viewing displeasure: