Busan

Stupid understanding of prenatal development.

Every time I see a closeup photo of a clitoris and labia, I'm mentally realigning it and watching the penis and scrotum pop out at me like Darwin's own Magic Eye.

I wonder if there are any women out there looking at closeup photos of penises and scrotums and visualizing them as clitorises and labia?  I hope so.

More like RADIO *BLAB*! Ha ha! *pained sigh*

Guys, "Radiolab" finally got to me to the point where I had to turn it off mid-episode.  The ep was called "Speed."  The second Jad Abumrad and Robert Crulwich started down the rabbit hole of high-frequency trading with their patented brand of candy-coated whimsey and wide-eyed fauxlosophy, I could no longer stand to listen.  Sorry, Jad and Rob--I still love you.  But I can't stomach hearing you talk about things when I actually know something about those things.  Because then your explanations just seem sluggish and infantile and wrongheaded and GAAH.  And then I remember about Jonah Lehrer, and the whole program starts to smell fishy, and I need some time off, okay?  The writer (an anthropology PhD) of a Slate op-ed about Jared Diamond's latest book took the position that the more familiar you are with Diamond's subject, the harder it is to agree with him.  It's sorta like that with me and Radiolab right now. 

On the bright side, Ira Glass is picking up the slack with the latest "This American Life" on a downtown Chicago school in a gang-ridden neighborhood.  It's a two-parter!  God bless you, "This American Life."  When you do journalism, you do it so so right.

Headline: Not-Completely-Skinny White Woman Is Mainstream Sex Symbol! Apocalypse Nigh!

Yep, it's that kind of blog now.

Seriously, though, sometime you should take a look at the full gallery of Kate Upton pics from her Antarctica shoot for Sports Illustrated (who helpfully provided her with a jacket occasionally so she only got a little bit of frostbite and her sight and hearing only began to shut down temporarily NO SERIOUSLY THAT HAPPENED GOOGLE IT WTF SPORTS ILLUSTRATED YOU ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE.) 

Now, it may be that the internets are just finally tired of bodysnarking on Kate Upton, who will only be less than half my age plus seven for a few more short years, by which time my marriage to Jennifer Lawrence will no doubt be on the skids, so that works out just fine.  But I can't find much attention paid online to the conspicuous not-skinniness of our intrepid heroine in these photos.  And foreals, guys, just look up any other picture(s) of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models--or swimsuit or underwear models in general--and you will not find anyone looking this curvy.  And I'm not just talking about Ms. Upton's ahem ship-sinking icebergs ahem, either.  She has thick, wide hips and a pleasantly convex belly, too, which only gets successfully 'shopped out in some of the photos.

Know what I'm waiting for?  I look in the mirror every day and I'm waiting for the Russell Crowe swimsuit shoot, the Greg Grunberg fashion brief line.  I want big, somewhat chunky GUYS to be publicly desirable in their underwear.  But hey, I'm a big guy so I'm biased.  Let's take care of the women thing first, since they've been waiting long the hell enough for it and since they're the true poster [people] for dehumanizing objectification anyway (and since, let's face it, we've still got a ways to go--this Kate Upton progress is baby steps at its babystepsiest, to be sure) and then . . .

Someday, Greg.  Someday, buddy!

Wait, you're not reading this at work, are you?

Here's what I'm grumpy about:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful

You guys both listened to this ep, I take it.  But I can't get it out of my head.  That bizarro auto dealer protectionism is like the laws that protect American farmers, only for something everyone actually needs and wants and buys and demand meets supply and you can make money off it if you try and crazy stuff like that.  Gaaaaaaahhhhh HATE HATE HATE HATE EVERYONE!

Here's what I'm reading . . .

"Changeless!"  The second book in a series begun with "Soulless," by Gail Carriger, a sharp-tongued, busty brunette writing about a heroine who is a sharp-tongued, busty brunette (srsly you guys) who has sex with a hunky angry Scottish werewolf lord on the regs (spoiler alert: they get together!) in steampunk alterna-Victorian London.  This is . . . the best thing.

Just finished "Planetary," a graphic novel by Warren Ellis, and while I wasn't a giant fan of the art, I thought the story was definitely mostly great.  This one would make a perfect TV show, actually.  The plot: a "century baby" born at the crack of 1900, a man with superpowers and holes in his memory named Elijah Snow, is employed by a mysterious organization to catalog the world's strangeness.  But Snow slowly begins to realize that the world isn't just strange, it's wrong--and that someone needs to fix it.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUNH!

Also in the middle of "Transmetropolitan," another Ellis comic pitting a wacky transhumanist future dystopia against Spider Jerusalem, who's basically just Hunter S. Thompson in the future, taking all the future drugs and freaking out about the Man.  Which is awesome. 

So what did you guys think of the first four episodes of "Arrow?"  Ehhh?  EHHHH?

 

Also this.

http://www.koreabang.com/2012/stories/newspaper-reveals-the-truth-about-foreigners-in-korea.html

Ironically, considering its title, the newspaper story in question ends up focusing just as much on the naive Korean girlwhores indiscriminately opening their legs for those foreign devils; original reader comments are charming, too, especially the ones lamenting that those shameless sluts might be some hapless Korean man's wife someday.  (Final comments on the repost are more hearteningly un-awful.)  I suppose it's good to be reminded of what shitheads people are in *every* country, not just the U.S.  Maintain a little perspective, that sort of thing.