So I’ve joined the online social media user majority and now am on Facebook. I still will be posting most of my stuff here though, as I see FB more as a way to interact with people in a group gathering type of way; kind of like a more robust Twitter. I don’t get into the games or quizzes or memes. I had my fill of those when I first started LiveJournal about 5 years ago. But I can see using FB for more Baby Grrl photos than I do here, and maybe some more personal stuff.

So if you’re on FB, and would like to add me as a friend, let me know! You can either comment here, or if you don’t want to leave your name, email jessika [at] middleragedpunk [dot] com or send me a DM on Twitter!

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done one of these, and with some amusing ones lately, it’s time to share again!

Just like every year around this time, I still get hits from people searching for info about Ninja Warrior. The past few weeks I’ve gotten a lot of visits for my post on the racist and sexist Sotomayor cartoon. But today I bring you some of the weirdest and most amusing search strings that brought people to my blog! Well, amusing to me considering this place was probably not what they were looking for. You’ll see.

black cat from marvel naked and marvel woman hot sexy are just two examples. There are at least a dozen related like these.

On the flip side, I’ve had many searches like can a fat girl finish a marathon or fat girl runs blog. I hope those people see that you don’t have to be a certain size just to run!

It seems though, that the most amusing are now showing up in spam comments.

Michael | xxxxxxxx@gmail.com | IP: 173.1.61.68

Hey, have you seen this news article?
New details about Michael Jackson’s Death Emerge
I was wondering if you were going to blog about this…

Wow, you surely didn’t waste any time, did you? (And no, I wasn’t going to.)

Pink Mini Stun Gun | xxxxxxx@pinkministungun.info | pinkministungun.info | IP: 66.42.252.130

No kidding - that is an understatement!

Now, what makes this one funny, is that it was on my rant about the Girl’s Guide to Comic-Con. A pink mini stun gun! For the ladies, obviously.

Dr. Martin PhD | xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com | alternativetherapiesrevealed.info/nutrition.php | IP: 190.225.25.217

If a healing technique is demonstrated to have curative properties in properly controlled double blind trials, it ceases to be alternative.

That was on my rant about how “natural” doesn’t automatically mean good. And yeah….that was kind of the point of my last sentence.

However, the winner of all spam comments, and still my favorite, has to be

bathroom accessories | bathrooms@racecare.info | cheapbathroomaccessories.info | IP: 211.95.176.6

You’re a good but lazy blogger.
Mar 31, 6:41 AM

Yes, bathroom accessories spam comment. Yes, I *still* am.

Technorati tags: full of fun fridays, site stats, spam comments

There she goes again, spouting off her anti-gay bigotry and using religion as a cover. This week in The Oklahoma Gazette, Sally Kern wrote a counterpoint to marriage equality. If this were a bingo game using all the same old arguments for squares, you’d win after just the first two paragraphs. It’s hard to find the most ridiculous line out of the whole thing, but my picks would be:

It doesn’t take a genius to know that a man’s and a woman’s body parts naturally fit together. The anatomy of opposite sexes was made to complement each other. Two men or two women can’t physically complement one another.

and

Jesus’ silence on homosexuality is not an endorsement of it. He also said nothing about rape, incest, drugs or pedophilia. Surely, these aren’t acceptable?

If you’re feeling very masochistic, go ahead and read the whole thing. It would take up too much room to tear her arguments apart sentence by sentence, but I could sum up her OpEd for you in “Blah blah God blah blah homosexual sin blah blah man and woman blah blah”. She even used the Norway example that said teen pregnancies went up after gay marriage was legalized. Except that it’s not related to the “decline of morality” but more to the fact that comprehensive sex ed was not being taught as much anymore. Guess what? They were pushing abstinence only education instead. (My Google-fu is weak right now, but when I find the source I will update this post.)

It’s not surprising at all she wrote this. This is just the most recent time we’ve heard anti-gay bigotry from her. The thing that frustrates and depresses me the most is that voters who live in her district know her belief and yet vote for her anyway. She was reelected last November.

Oklahoma. Where no county voted for Obama, we proudly elect bigots and anti-science politicians (Inhofe I’m looking at you here as well), and even our Democrats are right of center.

UPDATED!

I see that News 9 has a PDF of her “OKLAHOMA CITIZEN’S PROCLAMATION FOR MORALITY“. I’ll spare you the whole thing, since it’s basically a rehash of her article, just with a bunch of WHERAS thrown in. Some WTF moments come when they are disappointed that Obama didn’t recognize the National Day of Prayer (uh, he did), and believing the economic woes are consequences of “our greater national moral crisis”. But what irks me is that she’s using quotes from “founding fathers” to make it sound like they were religious like her and they’d be totally ok with what she’s saying. Hey, Sally! I can throw around founding father quotes, too!

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. -Thomas Jefferson

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -Thomas Jefferson

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. - George Washington

The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. -George Washington

See? Just because a founding father said something, doesn’t mean you can claim superiority and deny equality and rights to a minority. Because, well, it seems that on that aspect the founding fathers wouldn’t agree with you. It’s kind of an important reason behind the US after all.

Technorati tags: marriage equality, oklahoma, sally kern

Via io9, I found a photo gallery article about Comic Con. The title? “The Girls’ Guide to Comic Con 2009“. Yeah. It just get’s worse from there. And even though this article claims “we’ve got a pretty good idea of what eager girls can expect”, I really don’t think they do. Especially when they start off by saying:

Women will be rushing the stage, offering to do star Jake Gyllenhaal’s laundry on those washboard abs that he acquired for the film [Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time], since he spends much of it fighting, shirtless or both.

Wow, seriously? How very sexist and condescending to say. Because obviously all I’d want to do is offer to wash his clothes. That’s what chicks do when they see a hot guy, right? Their domestic instincts just take over! Harumph.

From there it just goes on describing different movie projects and the male stars attached to them. I guess the writers didn’t think “eager girls” would want to attend a comic convention for, oh I don’t know, COMICS. Here and there they would compare a movie to one that had a large female audience, like saying Time Traveler’s Wife has the “wonderful sappiness of The Notebook, but for the most part they don’t go into much detail about the movies themselves, except to say how “hot” the male actors are. Apparently I don’t go to see movies for the plot or story; I only go to see the hot guy. Unless of course it’s a movie with a lot of women, then it falls into The Notebook or soap opera territory.

Their comments on The Wolfman put me over the edge:

Vampire-lovers have it all wrong. Werewolves can keep you warm, sympathize with your monthly curse, sniff out where you lost your keys and not thirst for your sweet, sweet blood.

Monthly curse? Oh ha ha, let’s make a joke about menstruation! You see, women get all moody and turn crazy once a month, so it’s totally like turning into a wolf. AmIright or amIright? Harumph indeed.

I really can’t pick out even one summary that was good. Even when talking about the ABC series version of The Witches of Eastwick it goes from saying “female empowerment” to talking about how their wardrobes will give the Desperate Housewives a run for their money. Or when they talk about Dollhouse, it’s “girls who kick butt”, even though Echo is “sometimes a bit airheady”.

Really, LA Times, could you have avoided the misogyny? It’s bad enough you’re marginalizing female Comic Con attendees who don’t go just to ogle hot guys (to say nothing about those of them who aren’t heterosexual), but you’re also playing on the same old geek stereotypes. FAIL LA Times.

Technorati tags: la times, sexism, misogyny, comic con, geeks

I use the gym at work almost every day, and usually listen to my iPod. The past few days I’ve been listening to the audiobook of World War Z, which is awesome by the way, but today it was difficult to drown out the TV. It’s normally turned to a local news channel or to CNN, which I can drown out, but today someone turned up the volume extra loud. Obama was speaking at the town hall in Green Bay, and questions were being asked about the proposed health care reform. I tried to tune it out and focus on the awesome and sexy Henry Rollins in his role as the body guard to the stars during the zombie outbreak, but one thing slipped through and irritated the hell out of me.

I don’t really remember the question asked (there is no transcript online yet), but the President responded with “rising premium costs” and something to the effect like 20% of people who pay into insurance use 80% of the cost. In other words, a small amount of people eat up a lot of resources. Obama gave an example of ways we can help lower premiums by helping the people who use up those resources become more healthy. He said we could help an overweight person lose weight so they won’t develop diabetes. It was then I became stabby.

See, according to the craptacular BMI, I’m overweight and closer to obese than to normal. I’d have to lose more than 20 pounds to be in the “normal” range. I’ve ranted about this before, but it bears repeating.

Just because I am fat doesn’t mean I automatically will develop diabetes or heart disease or some other “fat disease”. Or it doesn’t mean that someone who is skinny, by default, is healthier than I am.

Fat in and of itself is not an indicator of health.

Vitamins, acupuncturists, chiropractors, herbs, and so on. We all know someone who has used these “alternative” medicines before, or maybe even some of you do regularly use them. No matter what you may think these items do to help your health, in reality they don’t do anything. Via Bad Astronomer:

[A]fter a decade and 2.5 billion (with a b, folks) dollar spent, a government study shows that almost no alternative medicines worked.

Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The lone exception: ginger capsules may help chemotherapy nausea.

It’s always good to see a large and well designed long term study that shows the evidence, although this isn’t really a surprise. The placebo effect is a weird and powerful thing, and that’s what is used by these companies to help make them more than $20 billion a year. Sure, Big Pharma (as many of the people who are into alternative medicine say) make a lot of money too. But the medicines that make it to the public are tested and approved by the FDA and are regulated to make sure they don’t make false claims about what kinds of things the medicine does, or hide what kind of side effects they have.

That’s the reason that Airborne had to settle in their class action lawsuit and change their advertising. It’s a scary reason when you get down to it. Turns out there’s an article out this week about “natural” medicines and how other natural items like lead and arsenic were found in them after testing. The problem is that a large chunk of the items you find in a Health Food Store (vitamins, herbs, natural products) aren’t regulated. They bypass the FDA and go straight to the shelves, and the FDA can’t do anything to protect consumers until after enough serious complaints come in about a product.

People die because they hear that a friend’s sister took these pills to help with arthritis. It seems simple enough, and think “What’s the harm?” The harm is that there is no way of knowing how any medicine they currently take will be affected by the herbs or what kinds of side effects they might experience. Or even what is in the herbs themselves.

Please, do research and talk to your doctor before taking anything. As Tim Minchin said, “Know what they call Alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.”

Technorati tags: alternative medicine, anti-science, whats the harm

The Ten Commandment statue in Haskell county that sits in front of the county courthouse was unanimously decided as unconstitutional.

In its decision, the court ruled that the monument violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution because a “reasonable observer would view the monument as having the impermissible principal or primary effect of endorsing religion.” The monument is unconstitutional, the court ruled, because the proposal to erect the monument, its approval by the Haskell County Board of Commissioners, and the commissioners’ expressly religious defense of the monument “strongly reflect a government endorsement of religion.”

This is a great victory for separation of church and state proponents, and gives me hope that the statue that is planned for the Oklahoma State Capitol will also be challenged and ruled unconstitutional. The Oklahoma ACLU was waiting for the decision in the Green v. Haskell County case, and with a victory, I’m sure they will be filing a lawsuit before the statue is erected later this year.

I’m glad the court came to the decision it did, especially when reading the decision, I see that I was right to think of the Kentucky case McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, which was ruled unconstitutional. Although I haven’t heard yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if Haskell County appeals.

Technorati tags: ten commandments, oklahoma, separation of church and state

I don’t know of any of my geek friends, or many geeks for that matter, who don’t think steampunk is cool. I’m a huge fan of steampunk mods, like the keyboard mod or anything on The Steampunk Workshop really, even though I don’t have that much creativity or ability to create something like that.

But even though my hands can’t craft or draw how my mind pictures how it should look, I’ve often thought about writing in a steampunk world. Or a science fiction world, but with some steampunk elements, like a spaceship with brass gears and gas lighting. Since I’ve had just a bit more time at work the past month or so, my mind has begun to form different worlds and possible plots. Even pondering inserting some steampunk elements into my H.P. Lovecraft inspired horror story I wrote during the 2005 NaNoWriMo. Although that would make it pretty specific in genre and probably have only a small number of people who would enjoy something that focused, but I digress…

What brought me to post was about how common steampunk is starting to become, like the steampunk angel shirt (which I own!) from Think Geek. Even io9 ran an article not too long ago about how steampunk is becoming big in the young adult book world, with a new anthology due out soon. And a small blurb in an article about some clothing and interactive props coming to the Avatar Marketplace on Xbox said that “Microsoft is…working with real clothing labels to design avatar outfits that fit fashion trends, such as steampunk…” I can’t wait to be able to put my avatar into some goggles, or sport a clockwork laser gun!

But while I think it’s cool that more people are getting into steampunk, I wasn’t too serious with my title after all, I can’t help but be a bit leery of what will come of it. Mark my words…it will only be a matter of time before we see kids wearing steampunk clothing and jewelry. That they bought at Hot Topic. *shudder*

Technorati tags: steampunk

I’ve posted before about great podiobook novelists like Mur Lafferty and Scott Sigler, and in doing so I’ve mentioned J.C. before, but I realized this morning that I never gave J.C. his own post! He’ll fit in perfectly with Full of Fun Fridays! So for the people who read my blog and don’t know about J.C., you’re missing out. All two of you.

I first became a fan of his back when the 7th Son trilogy was just wrapping up. It’s a great story that caught my interest with the opening line “The President of the United States is dead. He was murdered in the morning sunlight by a four-year-old boy…” The plot combines science fiction, action, mystery…several different genres intertwined well to create a great character driven story; told through podcasts by J.C. himself.

7th Son chronicles the story of seven strangers who are assembled after the assassination of the U.S. president. They quickly discover they all appear to be the same man … with identical childhood memories.

Unwitting participants in a human cloning experiment, these “John Michael Smiths” have been gathered to catch the man who murdered the president. Their target? The man they were cloned from; the original John Michael Smith, code-named John Alpha.

The first book, Descent will be coming out in print later this year!

But before 7th Son comes out, there will be a very cool book released on June 9th.

Personal Effects: Dark Arts follows the extensive notes of art therapist Zach Taylor’s investigation into the life and madness of Martin Grace, an accused serial killer who claims to have foreseen, but not caused, his victims’ deaths.

Zach’s investigations start with interviews and art sessions, but then take him far from the hospital grounds — and often very far from the reality that we know. The items among Grace’s personal effects are the keys to understanding his haunted past, and finding the terrifying truth Grace hoped to keep buried…

* Call the phone numbers: You’ll get a character’s voicemail.
* Google the characters and institutions in the text: You’ll find real websites.
* Examine the art and other printed artifacts included inside the cover: If you pay attention, you’ll find more information than the characters themselves discover.

Personal Effects: Dark Art is the ultimate in voyeuristic storytelling, representing a revolutionary step forward in changing the way people interact with novels.

This will be very cool, and fits very well with J.C. He is very interactive with his fans; inviting them to submit fan art, stories, voicemail…which many people do! For PE, fans can become “patients” of the art therapist in the book by committing themselves to The Brink. He always comes up with some cool ways for fans to become involved.

What I like is that while the extra stuff you can do to enhance the story is very awesome, it’s not required to enjoy the book. Personally, I may not have time to spend looking online or calling a number to listen to a voicemail, so being able to read the book, but not miss any core story, is a plus for me. Although I probably will try to do the extras if I can!

Before the book launches, take a listen to the prequel, Personal Effects: Sword of Blood. I just finished the third podcast this morning, and I’m waiting to hear more. ORDER NOW!!!

There is much, much more to J.C. and his work, so please visit his site to find out more. Or listen to Elmocast 102 for an interview! Definitely follow him on Twitter, or any other social media like Facebook. He’s a cool guy, and a geek! You won’t be disappointed.

Technorati tags: full of fun fridays, jc hutchins, 7th son, personal effects

Via Oklahoma Women’s Network Blog, I see that The Oklahoman chose to run a sexist and racist political cartoon. Take a look:

In case you can’t read the caption it says “Fiesta time at the confirmation hearing”. And yes, President Obama is wearing a sombrero while offering up Sotomayor as a pinata for a group of Republicans who each have a stick.

The racism is obvious, but the sexism seems to have escaped the people at The Oklahoman. Violence has very commonly been used to silence women and “keep them in their place”, and Oklahoma is one of the worst in the nation when it comes to violence against women:

Oklahoma ranks as the 3rd worst state in the nation for women. Much of what holds Oklahoma women and girls back is linked to our state’s culture of violence and disresepct for women. Oklahoma ranks #4 in women murdered by men, #1 in child abuse and our domestic violence shelters are full of women escaping violence.

So the image of Obama asking “Now, who wants to be first?” to a group of men holding sticks, waiting to beat up a smiling Sotomayor who is strung up on a rope sends a strong message to any woman or girl who has opinions or wants to achieve in a male dominated field.

Just take a look at the sexist attacks on Secretary Clinton and Gov Palin during the presidential race. Very often they involved threatened violence against them. It was wrong then, and this political cartoon is wrong now. Violence against women will always be wrong.

Way to stay classy, Oklahoman.

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Your Views
The Oklahoman
P.O. Box 25125
Oklahoma City, OK 73125

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Technorati tags: the oklahoman, sexism, racism, political cartoon, sotomayor