More Archives

Jun 29 - Jul 5

Jul 13 - Jul 19

Archive List

Web Log Archives: July 06, 2003 - July 12, 2003

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Speaking of baseball and blow jobs . . . Sausage smoker penalized. Apparently MLB didn't catch that Supreme Court ruling.

For me, the most interesting thing about this scandal was learning that a teenage girl was inside that costume. I went to many Brewers games when I lived in Wisconsin, and somehow I just always assumed that the eight-foot-tall Italian sausage running around the field was a dude.

UPDATE: Dead link as of 7/14. The story was about Major League Baseball suspending Pirates player Randall Simon for hitting a Brewers sausage mascot with his bat during the nightly between-innings sausage race. And I swear, the headline was "Sausage Smoker Penalized."

Tristan Taormino believes "the blowjob might be up there with baseball and apple pie."

Spammers and scammers are getting frighteningly sophisticated. "More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who are using them as pornographic Web sites. The hijacked computers, which are chosen by the hackers apparently because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet, are secretly loaded with a software program that makes them transmit explicit Web pages advertising pornographic sites. . . . The hackers operating the ring direct traffic to each hijacked computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, quickly rotating through a large number. . . . By hiding behind a ring of machines, the senders can cloak their identities while helping to solve one of the biggest problems for purveyors of pornography and spam: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material." The same system was being used to run a fake PayPal scam, sending email that directed the recipients to "update" their PayPal credit card info on a spoofed site. More.

Friday, July 11, 2003

While we're on the subject of Harry Potter innuendo, does anyone else think those candle flames on the dusk jacket look a little, uh, spermy?

Or maybe I just need a good long vacation from sexblogging.

Noah Shachtman writes about the Acacia patent lawsuits. More articles about this case here.

Matthew Barney's Cremaster films are playing in Austin this week, much to the delight of modern art mavens Daze and Dazette. Browsing reviews and museum sites last night, I came across this fun factoid.

Barney reveals in interviews that his films are all about that pivotal fetal stage when we develop either ovaries or testicles. Barney named his Cremaster films, numbered 1 through 5, after an obscure muscle that raises and lowers testicles, sort of like an elevator cable.

And have you gossip hounds noticed the inverse relationship between Barney's growing renown and how soon/whether journalists mention the "Björk's boyfriend" angle? A year ago, every newspaper or magazine piece about Barney divulged the Björk connection by the second or third paragraph. Now it's either mentioned in passing at the end or omitted altogether.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Noah Shachtman at Wired reports: Porn Purveyors Getting Squeezed. "Pay me, or I'll crash your porno website. That's the threat Internet smut-slingers say they've been receiving from a hacker with a vendetta against the adult industry. And it appears to be more than just tough talk. Several sites have been temporarily taken offline in the last 10 days, battered by massive denial-of-service attacks, according to website operators."

Best sports headline ever.

Ever wonder what a blue RealDoll with hot-pink hair would look like?

Around the sexblogosphere:

• Philip at Hot Action tries out his new invention, the Hot Action Remote Dream Receiver.
• Doxy got the worm. "I am pretty sure this product was largely the work of some Hasbro executive with hairy palms who spent the majority of his time hanging out around schoolyards." (July 1 entry)
• Raymi's Guide to Public Washrooms.
• Davo interviews Raymi the Minx.
• Dubberley interviews Mil Millington, author of Things my girlfriend and I have argued about.
• bj writes about dating and if you scroll down, eBay's got him on double secret probation.
• Dirty Whore tells a true story about a first time.
• Bazima had a dream that soap operas were now showing nudity.
• A glitter splashed Britney lovin' lesbo hates mobile phones and if you scroll down, she also hates removing nail varnish with a sweaty sock (not really a sex blog, but a fun read).
• The reverse cowgirl discusses the rules of blogging.

That internet-is-shit guy is simply reading the wrong sites.

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

Michel Houellebecq published a novella called Lanzarote last year, which like his novel Platform deals with sex and tourism. (Lanzarote is one of the Canary Islands.) An English translation is now available in the UK. Rod Diddle calls the 87-page book "terrible value for money and little more than a blueprint for last year’s brilliant Platform; but all that notwithstanding, you would not wish to miss it." (Note: the French edition was entitled Lanzarote et autre textes, but the UK edition apparently contains the novella only.) John Preston also complains about the length but praises the book. "Lanzarote shows off Houellebecq's style and tone very neatly: his vigour; his engaging misanthropy; his apocalyptic fervour; his combativeness; his preoccupation with sex." Most of Preston's review consists of a lengthy plot synopsis. The Guardian's "digested reads" section has a short parody.

Julian Barnes reviewed Platform in the New Yorker last week. The US market seems to lag 6-12 months behind the UK in getting English translations of Houellebecq's books, for reasons I can't figure out.

A Saskatoon bar is planning a combination beauty pageant/trivia contest with breast implants as the grand prize. There have been many complaints already, and one local woman is organizing protests outside the bar. A Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority representative visited the bar but concluded, "There is nothing in the Alcohol and Gambling Act that prohibits cosmetic surgery from being offered as a prize." (Thanks, Jeremy.)

Prankster artists Michael Hernandez de Luna and Michael Thompson have published a coffeetable book of fake stamps, "lavishly illustrated in full color and complete with essays from leading authorities in both the stamp and art worlds." The Bad Press Books website displays many sample sheets commemorating Monica Lewinsky, Catherine the Great, masked wrestlers, National Group Sex Day, boobs and more.

Bad Press also publishes Sextablos: Works on Metal, "a book featuring 60 artists from New York, Seattle and Chicago exploring the issues and taboos of sex, created using the format of Mexican Retablo painting. The website has thirteen quality scans from Sextablos. (Also snagged from Geisha asobi, where else.)

Must see: full page from a 1960 Frederick's of Hollywood catalog featuring inflatable brassieres. The guy who found, scanned and posted the page also reprints his correspondence with Frederick's. (Snagged from Geisha asobi.)

Bunny sees boobs! "This is a 5' high fiberglass sculpture which has an automotive paint job and a weighted 'boob' base! This is the first in a series of 'dirty bunnies'."

For sale for $4000. (Link snagged from Geisha asobi.)

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Emily Bearn recalls a visit with Barry White five years ago at his San Diego home.

There were lilies draped with gold tinsel; there was a jet-black swimming pool flanking one side of the reception room; and — through a door that had been left slightly ajar — I saw a vast black-and-gold bed.

There was also a 16ft, black stereo playing songs by Ella Fitzgerald, to which I listened for 20 minutes before the sound was ruptured by a deep, penetrating growl. It sounded a bit like thunder, and seemed to be encroaching at an alarming speed, culminating in a rumbling "Hello sweetheart". This was the voice of Barry White, which — despite his considerable girth — filled the room far more amply than he did.

White was an immensely courteous host. He plied me with sweet, Lebanese cakes (brought in on a gold plate by his son, Kevin); he invited me to touch his Steinway piano ("Feel it, sweetheart. It feels good"); and he frequently interrupted me to announce in a deep, syrupy baritone: "I like your questions, baby."

(Link snagged from 2 Blowhards.)

A six-year-old British girl won an Incredible Hulk doll at a fair. Playing with the doll at home, she ripped off the Hulk's purple shorts and discovered that the doll was anatomically correct.

No word yet when this doll will be for sale on eBay.

Monday, July 7, 2003

Discovery Channel: "While other animals, such as salmon and mayflies, die shortly after mating, the male Argiope aurantia is the first known species for which mating is an instantaneous trigger for death. According to a paper published in the current Royal Society Biology Letters, the male spider must insert both of his sexual organs, called palps, into the female's genital opening. Death happens just after insertion of the second palp."

Sunday, July 6, 2003

The Guardian looks at the theory that Stonehenge is a giant pudendum-shaped fertility symbol.

'There was a concept in Neolithic times of a great goddess or Earth Mother,' says Anthony Perks, a gynaecologist who decided to investigate the idea that the circles could have symbolic anatomical links. 'Stonehenge could represent the opening by which the Earth Mother gave birth to the plants and animals on which ancient people so depended.'

This still sounds to me like crackpot pseudo-scholarship. Some sensible skepticism emerges at the end of the article.

It is intriguing theory, though it has failed to impress experts. David Miles, chief archaeologist for English Heritage, which owns the site, said Perks's theory, although interesting, was essentially untestable. 'You can come up with just about any idea to explain a structure like Stonehenge if you stare at it for long enough. And if Stonehenge was built so that it looked like a female sexual organ when viewed from above, how were people supposed to see that? As far as we have been able to tell, they didn't have hot-air balloons in prehistoric times.' [...]

'The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once said that every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves,' added Miles. 'For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the computing era, researchers argued that you could use Stonehenge as a giant calculating machine.' Later, in the more mystical New Age, it was argued that the monument was really a spaceport for aliens, while, in the Middle Ages, it was said Stonehenge was built by giants. 'By those standards, this latest idea seems to say something quite odd about the twentyfirst century.'

From Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, UK edition:

"Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said George. "If you care about exam results, anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our peckers up somehow."

In the US edition, this passage reads:

"Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said George. "If you care about exam results, anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow."

Along the same lines, Clockwork Harlequin is compiling the Order of the Phoenix innuendo list.

"Ah well...wand still in your jeans?" (53)

She pressed hard on the top of his head. "Doesnt it ever lie flat?" she said desperately. Harry shook his head. (123)

He was on all fours again on Snape's office floor. (536)

(Link snagged from CalPundit.)