Wonderfalls (Watch This Show!)

I don't know if you've ever heard of "Wonderfalls" - only four episodes of the first and only season were aired back in 2004, although they were all put out on DVD, which is how I came across them sitting innocently on our friends' DVD rack. We borrowed it, happily, and I am totally amazed that it was cancelled! The writing is quirky and hilarious, the acting is spot-on and the plot manages to be completely ridiculous and still be taken seriously.

The basic premise of "Wonderfalls" is that Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas), the black sheep of her rich WASP family, starts hearing voices... from anthropomorphized animal-headed objects like her mother's shrink's monkey bookstop or the stuffed bears in the Niagara Falls gift shop she works in.
Many of the instructions her animals give her, force her to put herself in awkward positions like blaming her crush's kind-of wife for attempted murder or outing her sister by setting her up with the cute package delivery guy. In the end, though, all of the instructions end up benefitting both Jaye, who would otherwise remain univolved and unattached, and many others as well. She saves a man's life, a rare pair of birds' love, ruins her crush's marriage in the best way possible and becomes closer to the family she's been holding at arm's length. Generally, the show seems to be about the disaffected Gen-Y 20 somethings feeling like society has nothing to contribute to their lives and vice-versa.
"Pushing Daisy" fans should check out Lee Pace playing the concerned older brother and "Firefly" fans will enjoy the several episode guest spot Jewel Staite (aka Kaylee) has as the almost-ex-wife of the love interest.

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3 Books Every Woman Should Read

Say what you will about feminism, being a woman has it's own special set of circumstances we have to deal with. Whether it's not being safe walking alone late at night, dealing with menstruation or being shafted by the medical field, there are just some things we have to deal with. These three books, I am convinced, can help us deal and I think every female should read them.

1. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio
I'll be honest, I was turned off by this book for a long while because of its title and most women I've recommended it too had the same reaction, so I'll start by saying that you should just pretend it has a different title if it bothers you too much, because it is so important you read this book! Inga took the blinders off my eyes about so many female things. She taught me to start looking at my period as a positive thing instead of a negative, she helped me realize how I'd been pretending that women's safety isn't the problem it is, showed me that I had no idea how my vagina is really put together and so much more.

Reading this book changed my life and it will do the same for you. She takes an honest look at our culture and how it supports or doesn't support women's opportunities and self esteem. Where it doesn't support us, she offers suggestions on how we can do better at taking care of ourselves and female friends, family and acquaintances. It is the most honest and empowering thing I have ever read and I CANNOT emphasize just how worthwhile it is.

2. A New View of a Woman's Body by Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers
After reading Cunt, you will hunger for this book! Inga teaches you how little you really know about your body (because lady bits are still not properly represented in most sex ed and health books) and suggests this book as a way to overcome that. Medical science favors the male of the species and until recently drugs for women only weren't even tested on women before receiving FDA approval! That's how unhelpful it can be.

A New View of a Woman's Body is based on the work done by women for women to represent our sexual organs properly. It includes illustrations as well as photos that show what the figure eight muscle structure "down there" that is activated during orgasms and childbirth, compares the female genitals to the male to show both similarities and differences, and shows a broad range of "normal" cervices and their natural variations.

I don't know how I can describe how empowering it is to understand the minute responses of my body that were complete mysteries before, but it is literally life-changing. I feel I have so much more ownership of who I am and what I can accomplish.

This book also includes some information that some women will find really weird - like their advice on birth control use and certain other things that might seem extreme. This is a small part of the book, but just to warn you - just take what you find helpful and leave the rest.

3. Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, M.D.
I've talked about this book a lot on my other blog, but I'll keep it short here. This book is wonderful because it mixes a deep understanding of the medical world and the unique challenges of being female. Northrup dispenses a mixture of health, mind and spiritual advice that is invaluable to a girl like me who grew up without a female mentor.

Reading this book challenged my assumptions about life. Her feminist, holistic outlook on life is empowering and takes into account the emotional and physical equally. Her experience in life as a doctor for over twenty years has given her unique insight into many problems and concerns of her female patients and being able to access all that knowledge at once is kind of overwhelming.


I think sometimes one of the negative effects feminism has on my mind is that I want to forget that the differences between the sexes really do affect people's lives. These books help me to realize that embracing my womanhood doesn't make me less of a feminist or a person and they've shown me ways of approaching problems that I wouldn't have thought up on my own.

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Sam & Max: Season 1 (Wii Game Review)

In case you were unaware, The Collected Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway by Steve Purcell is, no question, the best comic book EVAR. And lucky for you, it was just re-printed recently otherwise you'd have a devil of a time trying to get your hands on a copy. Lucky for me my oldest bro has one (that I'm trying to make him leave me in his will - I'm so not kidding), which was how I found out about it, and my sexy boyfriend has another. In fact, one of the first things he and I bonded over (besides Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried") was Sam & Max.

Matt's got a tattoo of that middle panel with Max's face

Sam & Max are a 6 foot dog and a rabbity-thing who just happen to be "free lance police." Which basically gives them free license to do whatever they want. They solve wackadoo crimes like why an aisle of the local grocery store is possessed, why the giant insects on the dark side of the moon are kidnapping the rats that live on the light side and where all the tourists are disappearing to on the island with a volcano cult. Sam is the straight man to Max's complete insanity and they've got the most impressive, random and hilarious dialogue of any crime fighters or cartoon characters.

Sam in the office (Sam & Max: Season 1)

I played the LucasArts game Sam & Max Hit the Road back in the day, watched the brief cartoon show, and now I have defeated the Wii game: Sam & Max: Season 1. This newest game is essentially the same as the LucasArts game, only instead of using the mouse to click around, you're using the Wii remote. Sam & Max: Season 1 is one of those puzzle-type adventure games, where you have to solve how to get money for a purchase to solve one problem even as you're working on solving a couple others simultaneously. It can be tricky and we used a walk through several times, especially on a couple of the "episodes" that are not as logical as these games can be.

By "episodes" I mean that Sam & Max: Season 1 is broken up into 6 smaller segments they call "episodes," each with their own specific agenda that all leads up to defeating the one big villian behind all the other smaller ones you have to defeat along the way. Constant throughout all the episodes is the street where Sam and Max have their office.

Sybil in her store (Sam & Max: Season 1)

Your neighbors are Bosco and his Inconvenience Store and Sybil with her constantly-changing-function store (she's got a problem with choosing one career and sticking with it). These are where you will go often for finding gadgets you need to accomplish tasks and solve the mysteries. Depending on the episode, you will have new locations to visit including a TV studio, the internet and the White House.

Each episode includes a degree of mind control of hypnosis used on victims. In one episode, you even get to knock the head off of a robot president who's hynotyzing the country! This similarity is the first clue you get that all of the crimes you're investigating are ultimately related somehow - all leading up to defeating the big bad crazy guy.

Max & Sam face a gangster in his toy manufacturing set-up for hypnotyzing bears

There was enough variation among episodes that you didn't feel like you were doing the same thing over and over again, which could have happened since the last Sam & Max game took you all across the country instead of staying focused largely in one small area (although, you do get to visit the internet which is arguably everywhere). Overall, the game was good about helping you along with enough information to know what to do next without it seeming all too easy. But, as I said, there were moments when we would have had no idea how to proceed without taking a peek at the walk-through.

This is a great buy if you're a fan of Sam & Max, weird humor and puzzle-solving, or if you just want a Wii game that you can be lazy and still play - it doesn't call for much more action than pointing and clicking.

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Continuum of Acceptance

Had a diversity training at the ole job recently and it introduced me to The Cultural Proficiency Group's "Cultural Proficiency Continuum" or as I like to think of it: a continuum of acceptance. Since I've been blogging and thinking a lot about racism and other forms of discrimination lately, I was very interested to find something that could break up the different kinds of reactions people have into something that disrupts the normal dichotomy of acceptance/rejection. I like the idea of there being a variety of of ways to accept others and it makes me feel like those fuzzy gray places that lacked definition before now have a rather simple explanation.

This is the "Cultural Proficiency Continuum":

1. Cultural destructiveness: See the difference, stomp it out. The elimination of other people's cultures
2. Cultural incapacity: See the difference, make it wrong. Belief in the superiority of one's own culture and behavior that dis-empowers another's culture.
3. Cultural blindness: See the difference, act like you don't. Acting as if the cultural differences you see do not matter, or not recognizing that there are differences among and between cultures.
4. Cultural pre-competence: See the difference, respond inadequately. Awareness of the limitations of one's skills or an organization's practices when interacting with other cultural groups.
5. Cultural competence: See the difference, understand the difference that difference makes. Interacting with other cultural groups using the five essential elements of cultural proficiency:
• Name the differences: Assess culture
• Claim the differences: Value diversity
• Reframe the differences: Manage the dynamics of difference
• Train about differences: Adapt to diversity
• Change for differences: Institutionalize cultural knowledge
6. Cultural proficiency: See the differences and respond positively and affirmingly. Esteeming culture, knowing how to learn about individual and organizational culture, and interacting effectively in a variety of cultural environments.

Do you think this is a helpful way to describe the way someone might or does respond to a person different enough from them to prompt a reaction?

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May's Rules for Living Well

I've been working on my personal philosophy and point of view lately, trying to avoid all the ego-driven bullshit I can get caught up on all too easily and trying to be level-headed and calm (or at least calm-ish) when dealing with problems. It's all about observing how I behave and correcting the stupid behaviors, trying to replace them with healthy ways of self-expression or problem solving or what have you. To that end, I've set up some simple "rules" for myself to try and follow - I'm always trying to have the happiest life I can and these seem to be working:

1. Feel Your Feelings
I spent a lot of time repressing what I felt in my life and because of it I ended up with a butt-load of angst, depression and emotional frigidity. PLUS it turns out feelings don't go away if you just ignore them. Time was, I'd start feeling pissy, sad or some other negative emotion and I'd just respond by being upset I was feeling that way. That ended up creating a stupid cycle of icky feelings that would keep reinforcing themselves until I'd eventually freak out or else drink them away. Now, I just accept that life isn't all pooping rainbows and when I feel badly for some reason I give myself space to feel those emotions. Turns out when you listen to your emotions, you can examine them more closely which has led to alot of problem-solving or just simply deciding to not be upset anymore because it isn't worth it. All in all it's helped me be more balanced, less demanding and more forgiving of myself and others.

2. Expect Problems
We'd all like life to be sunshine and roses, but it's generally not and I've found that the expectation of having good things happen to us can cause really bitchy attitudes when something bad does happen. The whole "why do bad things happen to good people" question can be answered simply: bad things just happen. It's still wonderful to expect goodness, but if you only expect that, any little thing that goes wrong can derail you very easily. Accepting bad things as part of what makes me unique has helped me to view bad things as opportunities for personal growth. It's taken me a long time to get here, but I finally agree with the statement "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Also, when taken with rule #1, these things tend to be easier to deal with.

3. Love Yourself
I keep finding out that the most important love I can experience is self-love (and while I don't specifically mean masturbation, I'm sure that helps). No matter what else is going on in my life, if I'm not in love with myself I'm a pretty unhappy person. I spent years searching for the approval of other people and denying and it sucked. Then I started to focus on making myself happy first and then others and things are working much better for me now. Self-love for me includes rebutting the "you're not good enough" type voices in my head with positive messages that I know are true about myself (whether or not I'm feeling it at the time); making sure to put as much energy into comforting myself when I am sad/upset/etc. as I would put into another person I love; and finding the best things about myself to celebrate. All this makes me a less needy person, which is really good seeing as I'm already an attention whore.

4. Keep an Open Mind and Heart
While keeping an open mind comes naturally to me since I'm a crazy-ass reader and I love to know about people and experiences I'll never know personally, but keeping an open heart is harder for me. I picked up a lot of critical bitchiness from being in college and picking apart other people's stories and ideas and then I discovered how cranky that makes me. It took me a little bit to stop my ego from automatically responding to everything I see, but now I feel I've gotten to a place where I'm more accepting of others. It's made me friendlier and happier and reduced the amount of stress I was putting on myself. Turns out judging others really is bad for you.

Do you have any "rules" to live by?

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Captain Blasto, Mercury Men: Serial Radio Style on the Internets

Christopher Preksta created a video web series called Captain Blasto last year about a wimpy high school student who takes on the persona of an old-timey radio drama hero called Captain Blasto. He gets together a group of disaffected guys who want to blow off the frustration in their life by getting involved in something bigger than themselves: which just turns out to be pretending to be the bad guys in faked crimes so Captain Blasto can seem like a hero. Each episode is just minutes long and uses a lot of radio drama voice-over and comic book-like split screens and animation. Here's the first one:

You can view the rest here.

Preksta and crew are now working on creating another similarly serial series, The Mercury Men,

currently in production. This series will be a sci-fi one:
Edward Borman, a lowly government office drone, finds himself caught in a nefarious interplanetary plot when deadly invaders seize his office building as a staging ground for the destruction of Earth. Aided by a daring aerospace engineer from a mysterious organization known as “The League,” Edward must stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.

Considering how low-key all of the sets and props are for Captain Blasto, I'm really interested to see what kind of time and money goes into this project. I wonder if it will be as simple as Blasto or will Preksta totally blow my mind? These production stills sure make it seem like it will be flashier:
Watch The Mercury Men blog for release dates!

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Kaiser Chiefs, "Off With Their Heads" (Album Review)

Kaiser Chiefs is a 5 person indie band from England that sounds to me like Cake, The Beatles, The Killers and Voxtrot in a blender. Their latest album "Off With Their Heads" was released last year in October and here's what I've got to say about that:

The album starts off with "Spanish Metal" a catchy song with Beatle-esque vocal harmonies, but unfortunately I can't really understand more than a word or two of the lyrics at a time so I have no idea what it's about. It's pretty straight forward until some fancy guitar flourishes at the end, but it's a great introduction to the overall sound of the album.

The next song, "Never Miss a Beat," is one of my favorite and features the snarky type of sarcastic lyrics that made me love the Kaiser Chiefs' previous album "Yours Truly, the Angry Mob." It's mocking stupidity and the idea that "it's cool to know nothing." The sound is more aggressive than "Spanish Metal" and uses fewer harmonies. You can watch the music video here (embedding is disabled or I'd post it here).

"I Like it Too Much" is, as I said, my favorite song on this album. It starts out with a simple driving bass/drum line that the singer emphasizes by the way he sings. Towards the chorus, the melody becomes more flowing and the guitar takes over. It's the most beautiful song they've made, IMO. The song is about addiction, human nature and self-denial. I posted the video before, so check it out if you missed it.

"You Want History" is about the mystery of a partner's personal history. It has a similar tempo to "I Like It Too Much" with an extremely effected guitar line reeling over it. A great song that drives the album forwards and makes me want to shake around to the beat.

"Can't Say What I Mean" is another one of my favorites, starting out with the great line: "Nothing's so important that it can't be shortened to fit on a badge." The entire song, as you might guess, is about a guy who finds himself incapable of saying what he means and wishes that he was a pithy, sound-bite delivering suave speaker. As a person who also finds the words to say hard to find lots of times (surprised?), I totally relate. Add to that the catchiness of this song and the fierce drumming and you've got a winner.

I really like it when musicians take words from our common cultural heritage and re-frame them. Like when Panic! At the Disco referenced the Sound of Music song, "My Favorite Things," for "Build God, Then We'll Talk" and ended up with: "Raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses/ It's sleeping with roaches and taking best guesses/ At the shade of the sheets and before all the stains/ And a few more of your least favorite things." In their next song, "Good Days, Bad Days," Kaiser Chiefs rewords the common saying: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," changing it to: "Sticks and stones and animal bones/ Can't stop me from having a good day or a bad day." Another super catchy tune, this one also makes me want to get moving. The basic message is that nothing will change the fact that we all have good days and bad days. Kinda obvious but kudos to them for making it sound so spiffy.

"Tomato in the Rain" kind of fails as far as lyrics are concerned. I don't get the metaphors they use ("like a tomato in the rain I got my feeling again) and the chorus seems to have nothing to do with the verses. On the other hand, it's a lovely, lyrical song and if you ignore the words, it sounds great.

"Half the Truth" uses the Kaiser Chiefs favorite from the last album: really monotonous vocals for the verses mixed with slightly more varied vocals and harmony in the choruses. It's a very Kaiser Chiefs kind of sound and I like it for that, but since it is also so much like songs from the last album, I'm not all that impressed. The song is about communication (and otherwise) breakdown in a relationship: "I will not life to you/ but I definitely only give you half the truth."

"Always Happens Like That" describes the frustration experienced when given mixed messages by society: "You can do what you like/ but you can't do that/ You can say what you like/ But you can't say that/ You can go anywhere/ But you can't go there." It also refuses to accept these limitations, describing breaking into a public pool and other activities. The vocals, guitar, bass and drums are all quite simple, but perfect and the sound changes slightly from one section of the song to the next, keeping it interesting.

"Addicted to Drugs" is one of the two songs that really caught my ear during my first listen to this album. It's a weird song about a couple that has nothing in common but their drug problem so they decide to get married. The sound is one of the more fresh sounding on the album and the chorus for some reason just cracks me up: "You might as well face it you're addicted to drugs/ You might as well face it you're addicted {repeat}." No reason for that to be really funny but it cracks me, maybe because it's implied that one of the druggie couple is trying to convince the other that they're addicted while avoiding blame themselves? Anyway, it's catchy shit. You can take a listen here.

"Remember You're a Girl" is the slowest, dreamiest song on the album and sounds the most like a Beatles song. It ends the album on a soothing note and acts as a goodbye kiss and final encouragement to be unique as "interesting people will always run the world."

Overall I liked this album even more than their previous and would definitely recommend you listen to it.

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Street Art from Guatemala

Via Mixx.com I found some gorgeous images of street art from Guatemala and I couldn't resist sharing my favorites:
Go here to see all of them.

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Hope in the White House

Today we get a new president! One that isn't a moron/puppet and who doesn't do the double talk bullshit as much as other politicians. How awesome is that? This video sums up a lot of what I'm feeling about the political scene lately. Every time I watch it I am shocked to realize just how much Bush being president really got me down the past 7 years and how far away America got from being "the land of the free." Anyway, this is lezzie rapper MC Flow singing "Created Equal."




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The Bush Legacy (of Failure)

Tomorrow, President-Elect Obama will be sworn in, so it seems only natural to take some time today to look back at the legacy Bush will be leaving behind him. Salon.com broke down his effect on the nation by seven points:

1. Ecomony = FAIL
We all know the economy sucks. People are losing their homes and jobs and the only people receiving hand outs are a bunch of corporate asshats who don't deserve it. The national debt is now 10.6 trillion, 4 million people became unemployed from 2000 to 2008 and the gross national product and Dow Jones are going down the tubes.

2. Infrastructure = FAIL
Bridges and roads suffered major failures under the Bush administration. It didn't help that SUV drivers were given kick backs, making the damn machines more popular and crowding up streets. One-third of roads nation-wide are in poor condition and 70,000 bridges were declared structurally deficient. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is proposing a cut of $202.1 million for public transportation - apparently spending $17.4 billion in the auto maker bailout doesn't mean we need good roads on which to drive all those stupid vehicles.

3. Iraq = FAIL
How long ago did we get that "Mission Accomplished" bullshit from the Bush administration? Cuz it sure as hell doesn't seem like the fucking war is over yet. 4,222 military deaths and over 3 trillion dollars later, things aren't getting any better. This war costs us $12 billion each month and the military predicts it will take at least $250 billion to repair the Army's resources and equipment.. of course, that's just for the vehicles and such that have been damaged so far.

4. Human Rights = FAIL
Never mind the torture that did receive public attention, the US was involved with tons of activities that went against basic human rights during the Bush administration. About 100 "detainees" under US custody - that's people held without any legal cause and usually tortured - have died and over 35 have simply disappeared. And let's not forget all of our rights to privacy that the Patriot Act destroyed.

5. Hurricane Katrina = FAIL
Arguably the worst disaster to hit an American city since 9/11, Katrina affected 15 million people and caused the loss of 400,000 jobs and 275,000 homes. The death toll is still unclear, but it is believed to be about 1,500 with 700 people still missing. New Orleans is still only at 72% of the population it had before the storm. Despite Congress approving $122 billion to go to the region, not many results seem to have come from it. Insurance costs from the storm were over $40 billion, affecting everyone who has home insurance. The Bush administration showed no leadership in this tragedy and all but abandoned the city of New Orleans after the storm hit. Trillions of dollars go to a war in another country and Bush can't even take care of his problems at home. Shame, shame.

6. Health Care = FAIL
Bush's drug plan has turned out to be one of the biggest new entitlement programs of the past 40 years, forcing the government to pay the high prices of drugs once dealt with by the consumer and protecting drug companies for no good reason. Noticing a trend yet on who gets ahead the most when Republicans are in office? Brand name drugs are 70% more expensive here than in Canada. Bush also denied health care benefits for 4 million children by vetoing a bill to assist families with children. 46 million Americans, about 18%, are without insurance and the average cost of health care for employees has risen 120% since 2000.

7. Climate = FAIL
Seven of the hottest years on record have happened since 2000, despite the Bush administration's denial of climate change and suppression and censorship of scientific information backing it up. The sea level has risen 40 feet, areas of the Southwest USA are turning into deserts, extreme temperatures are affecting the farming industry and this unaddressed climate change is projected to cost us 20 percent of the world gross domestic product.

Kudos to all of us who had a part in ending this administration! It has been total suckage.

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My Top 5 Movies

Every one has favorite movies they like to watch over and over again. These are mine:

1. Death to Smoochy
Sometimes I swear this movie was made just for me. All about dark humor, environmentalism, love and craziness, Death to Smoochy still rocks my world unlike any other movie. Starring Edward Norton, Robin Williams, Danny Devito (who also directed), Catherine Keener and Jon Stewart, DtS is the story of how one kid's show host (Williams) gets in trouble for taking bribes and is replaced with a "squeaky clean" host (Norton) who dresses up as Smoochy the Rhino. Between evil money-grubbing children's charities and Williams' deranged attacks, Norton's character is totally overwhelmed and only after he's framed as a Nazi does he finally start finding out how to roll with the big boys of children's entertainment.
Death to Smoochy includes such awesome lines as:
"He's a bottle of pancake syrup with legs!"
"He's a piggy bank with a horn!"
and
"Remember, you can't change the world, but you can make a dent." Truly, those are words to live by. Also, there's a scene where Williams lists off a bunch of nicknames for cock & balls in front of a whole load of kids. If that doesn't interest you, I don't know what will. Go here to view the trailer.

2. I Heart Huckabees
Big surprise! Another movie about how the environment is important? It's like I'm a freaking environmentalist or something! Anyhoo, this is another movie I feel was made just for me. It's got loads of ridiculous philisophical dialogue, evil corporations, an environmental nonprofit group and the weirdest sex scene I've ever seen. Huckabees stars Jason Schwartzmann, Mark Wahlberg (playing his sexiest role ever, IMO, as a bike-riding fireman), Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin and Naomi Watts.

It's about the Open Spaces founder Albert (Schwarzmann) who is displaced by corporate pretty boy Brad Stand (Law) while undergoing an existential investigation run by Hoffman and Tomlin who eventually pair him with Tommy (Walberg) to work through their issues together. This creates a team determined to put a stop to Brad Stand and while searching for the meaning of existence. Ridiculous, hilarious, intelligent and heart-felt this movie cracks me up and makes me think at the same time.

3. But I'm a Cheerleader
This one's a fave with those of the lesbian persuasian and I'm not different. But I'm a Cheerleader tells the story of a girl whose friends and religious family hold an intervention to tell her she's a lesbian before sending her off to True Directions, one of those places that claims to cure gays. There she comes to grips with her newly-discovered sexuality while pretending to lose it. She falls in love with another of the "inmates," a rich girl whose parents will cut her off completely if she isn't "cured." The girls have to decide to go with their true selves which means being rejected by their families but having their love or else to fake it forever for the sake of fitting in. See why I like this movie yet? It's a great, humorous look at an all-too-common choice gay people face.

4. Secretary
This one's another unusual love story about a slightly crazy girl played by Maggie Gyllenhall, who happens to be one of my favorite actresses, who becomes secretary to a lawyer, played by James Spader. Spader's corrective methods start leaking over into the sexual realm with spankings and more but Gyllenhall likes it. They play the submissive and dominant game so much that Spader starts freaking out about liking it so much and calls things off. But when Gyllenhall agrees to marry a boy who offers her what she now sees as the most boring aspects of love, she leaves him at the altar determined to make Spader accept their relationship no matter what. It's naughty, hot and an interesting look at how BDSM stuff.

5. The Mexican
Yes, yes another love story. I'm a romantic, I can't help it. The Mexican stars Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts as Jerry and Samantha, a normal couple who's life has been sidetracked ever since Jerry accidently helped the cops arrest a local crime lord. Forced to work off his mistake with the crime lord's goonies, Jerry has spent the last 5 years as a bumbling messanger and courier but Samantha just wants to move to Vegas and get on with her life. When Jerry is sent to Mexico to pick up a pistol named The Mexican, Samantha forces him to choose between being shot for not going and leaving for Vegas with her. They break up and go their separate ways but circumstances won't let them stay apart.

Samantha is kidnapped to ensure Jerry's cooperation after he gets into trouble in Mexico with local crooks and they eventually meet back up in Mexico where they learn to work together to get Jerry out of his dilemmas - which turn out to be rather life-threatening. Threaded through the entire story is the love story of the assistant who helped for The Mexican, the girl he loved and their tragic love story that ended in death for both of them. The Mexican is silly, surprising and way more touching than you'd think.

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Simple Daily Detox Tips

Carole Fogarty at Rejuvenation Lounge always has such interesting tips! I'm glad I found her somehow. These are her three daily ways to detox and they were so unique and simple I thought I'd pass them along:

1: Tongue scraping:

First thing in the morning I get up scrap my tongue at least 7 or 8 times. This removes the very unattractive coating that has gathered on my tongue over night. When this coating is not removed then all that unpleasant “gunk” gets reabsorbed back into your body.

The benefits of tongue cleaning are:

• Remove toxins
• Reduces bacteria on the tongue
• Enhances your sense of taste
• Improves your digestion
• Gently stimulates your internal organs

A tongue cleaner should be made from copper or silver and not from processed materials such as plastic. You should also try and scrap your tongue from as far back as possible.

[Matt already had a tongue scraper so I've started doing this. You'd be surprised the goop that comes off your tongue in the morning!]

2: Spiced water detox tea:

Each morning I make a thermos of this spiced brew and sip frequently throughout my day. It’s not drunk like tea in a cup or mug, you simply take small sips whenever you think of it.

Add 1/4 tspn cummin seeds, 1/4 tspn fennel seeds, 1/4 tspn coriander seeds to 1.5 litres of hot water. After 15 minutes the detox brew will be ready.

[Tried this kinda but I only had fennel seeds so I used powdered versions of the others. It worked okay but I'm going to wait and try again until I have all the seeds. It tasted a bit odd but wasn't offensive.]

3: Sipping warm water as medicine:

I’ve actually drunk warm water for years as I simply prefer it to cold beverages. However, don’t overlook the healing benefits that sipping warm water has to offer your body. My practitioner shared with me that it has a hormone balancing effect, strips your body of ama (toxins) and improves your digestion. How magical is that. Sometimes I even add a small piece of ginger for a bit of variety (it’s allowed).

[Turns out I already do this at work just because the filtered water always comes out warm. Who knew I was getting a health benefit out of that?]

Carole has lots of unique insights, so I hope you'll subscribe!

Related posts:
Test Your Home's Toxicity
Detox Your Petcare
Detox Your Life (How To)

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Balloon Me!

Stacey K. local blogger and owner of Oh Wow! Balloons! totally made me out of balloons.

Love it!

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Perception and Reaction to Racism Not Equal

Not Exactly Rocket Science covered an extremely interesting study on how people respond to racism and how they predict they will respond, offering it as a reason why racism is so looked down on and yet so rampant. What with all the previous discussion here about racism, I couldn't not post this info. It's the most unique approach I've seen yet.

[Kerry Kawakami of York University] recruited 120 volunteers of various races (apart from black), sat each one in a room with two actors - one white, one black - and watched as the white student reacted to having their knee bumped. In some trials, they said nothing; in others, they said, "Typical, I hate it when black people do that," and in the most extreme cases, they said, "Clumsy [n-word]." When the black partner returned, all three were asked to fill in a survey about their current state of mind and the real volunteer was asked to pick one of the other two to help them complete a word task.

Only half of the volunteers - the "experiencer" group - actually sat through these events. The other half - the "forecasters" - were only told about it and asked to put themselves in the shoes of an experiencer. Kawakimi found that their forecasts of their feelings and reactions bore little resemblance to the way the experiencers actually behaved.

Expectedly, forecasters said that they would be very upset by either racist slur. In reality, the experiencers were largely indifferent, and those who heard negative remarks were actually no more distressed than those whose partners hadn't said anything at all. Likewise, only about 10-20% of the forecasters said that they would choose the white person as their partner over the black one but a much higher 63% of the experiencers actually did so. If anything, they were more likely to pick their white associate if they made a racist slur than if they said nothing.

...

Kawakimi's results suggest that people really are terrible at predicting the extent to which racist comments would upset them and whether they would distance themselves from people who said such comments. The two mistakes are probably related - people think that they would reject racism because they overestimate how much it would really affect them.

Even [the n-word] - widely regarded as one of the most offensive words in the English language - didn't bother people that much and didn't change their likelihood of associating with another person. Acts that ought to make the blood boil were actually met with indifference.

So basically, non-blacks are much more likely to pretend to be shocked/dismayed by racism than they really are.

I find this surprising myself since the first and last really racist person I had to deal with for any amount of time constantly made me incredibly pissed. I was nanny for a summer in Erie, PA for a really racist couple. The guy made a comment one day about how he was worried that his son played with the one black kid in the neighborhood, "because he might think it's okay to grow up and marry those people" and I wanted to slap his face. I didn't, of course, cuz I needed the job, but luckily I dealt with his wife most of the time.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand why intolerance is so widely tolerated.

Related posts:
Racism in the Kansas City Area: Western Expansion - 1800s and 1900s - Present
Tony's Take on Racism in the Kansas City Area

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Bugs Are Beautiful

That's right... bugs are beautiful and if you don't agree, then you haven't seen these incredible pictures by Igor Siwanowicz. Here are a few of my favorites, but you should really go to his site and see all of them.

Isn't it amazing how alien stuff from our own planet can seem?

Related posts:
For the Birds
Girls Who Graffiti
Tjie Tsang, Artist of the Apocalypse

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