Real Men Aren’t Afraid To Wear Pink

Someone asserts: "Pretty (cool!) in pink", which not only offers a bright shirt with the caption Tough Guys Wear Pink, but also asserts:

What do baby blankets, bridesmaids, hip-hop artists and skaters have in common?

Pink!

In case you haven’t left the house or turned on MTV in the past 12 months, pink is hot for guys. And girls are hot for guys in pink.

Reminds me of my grandmother’s second wedding. I was an usher, blushing with the responsibility at 19. The wedding colors included pink, and the dictum would indicate I would wear a pink shirt. Acourse, as a poor boy, I didn’t own any pink shirts and didn’t have the fiscal wherewithall to readily acquire one. Besides, I don’t like pink. So I said I’d wear a white shirt, of which I had plenty because in those days, you damn kids, grocery store baggers wore slacks, white shirts, and ties.

“Real men aren’t afraid to wear pink,” my stepmother manipulated.

You see, friends, real men (of whom tough guys are but a subset) don’t follow the dictations of fashion magazines and newspaper columns. Why, every time I look at the style section of FHM or Playboy, I smirk. The guys down at Tap City would beat the cosmopolitan out of me if I tried to real the suggested clothing among them, and I wouldn’t blame them; t-shirts should come free with proofs-of-purchase or should cost under $10 for a brand name advertisement or under $15 for saying something clever. They should not cost $30 to display a fashionplate of an upscale store and should never be worn under a sport coat unless you’re Billy Joel or Billy Jack circa 1979.

You want to know what real men do? They do whatever they want, in a burly fashion.

If they want to wear pink, no one says a word. And if they think pink clothes are fru-fru, they don’t wear them contrary to the prevailing winds of fashion. And they post blog entries about it.

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Random Junk Mail Quote of the Day

From an unsolicited packet, marked DELIVERY MONITORED! to appeal to paranoid occupants like me, advertising an air purifier:

Oxygen is nature’s beneficial element. It is what makes the sky blue. It is what nature uses to get rid of everything harmful on earth.

Well, oxygen is a key component in fire.

So this thing wants to pump ozone into your house to make your household air pure; it calls ozone “activated oxygen” and pretty much implies they’re throwing in an extra atom of oxygen into when you buy an atom of O2.

What the hey, have another quote:

The electronic spark ozone air purifiers use an electric spark to produce ozone. The electric spark produces oxides of nitrogen that form an acid in the air which is corrosive and toxic. The electric spark can cause explosions and it can interfere with radio and T.V. signals.

I understand explosions can also adversely impact radio and television reception by themselves.

Perhaps I should read more junk mail. It’s making my afternoon.

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Unspoken Footnote

Here’s a piece of on-product advertising from Frito-Lay:

Lay's Stax Promo

The text:

America prefers the taste of Lay’s Stax® Original Potato Crisps Over Pringles® Original Potato Crisps**

Taste for Yourself!

** Among those with a preference

Among those with a preference? You mean amongst the thirty people outside of Lay’s who have heard of the canned Lay’s? Wow, that’s some bandwagon there.

In a related note, America prefers Musings from Brian J. Noggle to Pop-Up Mocker**

** Among those with a preference and who know what a “blog” is and who have heard of either of the aforementioned bottom-feeding blogs.

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Go Phish

Some phish scammers really don’t put any effort into it. Check out this phish I received today and the domain that displays when I mouse over the “official” link provided:

Go Phish
Click for full size

I mean, come on, how about registering a second host name aside from your primary line of business, pornography, guys? Is a little effort too much to expect from confidence boys?

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From the Bookmark Collection

Well, it’s Saturday, so I’ve got nothing better to do than to expose you to a representative of my well-used bookmark collection. It’s really only a collection because the bookmarks are accumulating in the nightstand drawer, not because I’m actively seeking new and exotic bookmarks. If I were, I’d undoubtedly have better items than the collection of Amazon, used book store, and “here’s a gift, send us money” unsolicited fundraiser bookmarks I’ve got. Still, some of the bookmarks merit comment, including this one:


This bookmark comes to us from 1985, and it’s geared to students. Check out the fellow depicted upon the front of
the bookmark. He’s got a flattop haircut undoubtedly helped out with a liberal dose of gel. By 1985, we were
moving out of the heavily-teased hair styles for the most part and into more natural looks. At least we were in
the middle of America; perhaps the Flock of Seagulls thing persisted in pockets on the coasts (although the
mullet has yet to go out of style in Jefferson County, Missouri). This kid’s wearing a t-shirt with his own
picture on it, the very latest thing available from the malls, and a pair of the oversized shorts they called
jams. Me, I never had a pair of jams, although I liked to call the patterned oversized swimming trunks I
acquired via hand-me-down-from-outside-the-family or parental garage sale purchase “jams” simply because they
had a design upon them. This kid’s also wearing a pair of untied Converse or some other non-Nike brand of
high-tops, all the rage amongst the rural toughies in the area in which I went to high school. Toughies whom
the urban toughs that I spent my early years would have eaten alive (and probably have in prison by now, or so
I hope in the remainder of my adolescent revenge fantasies).

The text of this bookmark reads, “It’s cool to be you!” The irony, of course, lies in that this self-esteem-boosting message
lies on a bookmark. Cool kids, or at least those of the soc or jock or hooter/stoner mentality would not be privy to
this particular boost. The very fact that this message appears on a bookmark implies that the adults-that-be, or
at least the adults-that-were expected that young people with books needed self-esteem boosts to make up for the slights
and the lacks of dates and for all the other various and sundry humiliations levied against those who preferred books
to television and the assorted social and physical vandalism that represents the high school experience…. well,
a simple I’m OK, You’re OK from a bookmark wouldn’t do a thing for a teenager, who would see through its
facetiousness and condescensious consolation. I wouldn’t have taken it seriously as encouragement had I owned
this bookmark in 1985; since I got it sometime as part of a yard sale book purchase, where it was wedged between the
incompletely-read pages of some adult book, it helped me even less than a “It’s cool to be a middle-aged suburban
subdivision dweller” bookmark more geared to my demographic.

Crikey, I hope no teenager has thrown a belt over a rafter as a result of the loss of this security blanket.


The back of this particular bookmark indicates that I’m not lying when I say it’s circa 1985; as a matter of fact,
the text indicates it’s copyright, which I am no doubt violating terribly since you gentle readers could blow up the pictures,
print them on the new-fangled photo-quality color ink jets whose abilities we could only see in movies in 1985 while we listened
to our dot-matrix printers chattering away or the daisy wheels pounding on paper. Please, do not send me a nickel when you do so,
for you’d just be an obvious plant from the copyright holder’s lawyers.

The brand name, Tab-Marks, would indicate that this bookmark was the product of one of the big three book clubs of the era. Come
on, Generation X, you know what I am talking about. The single sheet of full-color (not the Weekly Reader, you pre-addled
baby boomleters) front and back distributed in class that
allowed those of us who needed ego-booster bookmarks to choose from a menu of paperback books for a buck or two each. Arrow, Tab,
and Scholastic fliers made the rounds at my elementary and junior high (although in Missouri, they call them middle school) classes.
Kinda like Columbia House for kids, with nothing required to buy in the future.

It was always a big deal, as our family was rather, um, undercapitalized, to get to order books from these services. I did, on occasion;
after a couple of weeks, I got some books that were mine and not the library’s. Wholesome youth entertainment like Judy Blume and
Beverly Cleary (I consider it a testament to the power of these book clubs, and the library, that I still score 8 of 10 on the
Harry Huggins trivia quiz).

Do kids still get these circulars? We don’t have children yet, so I don’t know whether schools fit them in yet amongst the
year-round fundraisers to which those pimping schools subject their students. Perhaps children of the twenty-first century
don’t need pencils to make checkmarks and ticks on full-color order forms when they can use their cellular phones to order
the books directly from Amazon.com.

I hope one or the other is the case; I’d hate to think that no children spend rainy afternoons in overstuffed recliners with
simple paperbacks extolling the adventures of anyone not named Potter. Mainly because my dream is to open a used book store, and
to be honest, the Greatest Generation, who stocked their post WWII homes with New American Library editions of the classics, the few
Baby Boomers not into free love and protests, and the few straggling, under-self-esteemed (apparently) Generation Xers are dying
off faster than I can accummulate the wealth and stock to start the money-losing dream-come-true.

Remarkable, ainna, that bookmarks can jog as many memories and reflections, sometimes, as the books into which we stick them? So many people just jam notes, slips of paper, and bank privacy notices (hem, well, perhaps only for technical, business-related books, you see) into books because reading doesn’t require the pomp and circumstance of true bookmarks.

Although, oddly, perhaps that would merit a better sign of books’ ubiquitousness….

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Do Not Eat

A study commissioned by a number of environmental groups interested in regulating chemicals has uncovered, in a shocking twist, that your house contains things that the environmental groups want to regulate more (Study finds toxic chemicals in dust samples from U.S. households):

Americans are exposed to a variety of potentially dangerous chemicals in their homes from products such as computers, frying pans and shower curtains, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The study, called “Sick of Dust,” found 35 hazardous industrial chemicals in household dust samples from 70 homes in seven states, including California. It was commissioned by nine environmental groups, including the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose.

“It literally brings home the fact that hazardous chemicals are in our daily lives,” said Beverly Thorpe, international director for Clean Production Action, one of the study’s sponsors. “We feel now is a prime opportunity to overhaul chemical regulation in the United States.”

The researchers tested the dust samples for six types of chemicals, including pesticides and flame retardants. All the chemicals are legal, but many are known to be harmful to immune, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. They said infants and young children are especially vulnerable to exposure.

I should have chipped in a couple dollars since this also proves a maxim of mine: Do not eat the dust bunnies.

I’d like to take a moment to elaborate on this thesis and enumerate some other things I don’t think you should put in your mouth or slide down your gullet:

  • Dust brontosauri. If you’re like me, your dust has clung together in much larger beasts than mere bunnies; these are probably worse and more toxic than mere dust bunnies, although they’re just as cuddly and furry.
  • Color newspaper inserts. Although the richly-colored flame-broiled burgers look appetizing, and come to think of it, so do the vinylly-sided homes, the colored inks might, in fact, be bad for you. So I implore you to do what I do, stick to the healthy black inks and eat only news pages.
  • Charcoal briquette residue. Although the fine grey powder does provide a noticeable high when snorted, it also brings the risk of mockery and various and sundry cancers.
  • Windex. You know, Mai Tais just don’t look right without a touch of something blue, but you should choose Boone’s Farm Apple Wine Product instead of any glass cleaning product. Listen, Mr. Yuck was right.
  • Insect carcasses after the exterminator has left. I don’t care if Fear Factor is your favorite television show, the reason that the bugs are now easier to catch is that their little bodies are pumped full of poison. If you break the record for ants consumed in an hour, it might be your finest hour, but it could also be your final hour. Chocolate covering is not an antidote.

Face it, the world is full of substances that could hurt or kill you, and the government cannot regulate them all. If you’re really having that much trouble keeping toxic substances out of your mouth, perhaps you should consult with your psychoanalyst and see if he or she can get you promoted to the next stage of psychosexual development.

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The Noggle Blitzed

You know, I don’t normally play chess because most knowledgeable opponents recognize the Noggle Blitz for what it really is–a shortsighted attempt to take as many of the opponent’s pieces as fast as possible while sowing confusion with those inexplicable queen-for-knight swaps.

Of course, I don’t normally drink hard liquor either. But this Shot Glass Chess Set might make me take up both. Take a piece, do a shot!

I wonder what the blogosphere’s resident chessophile would think?

UPDATE: Pejman says what he thinks.

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Warranty Violation

Imagine my horror this morning when I discovered that I opened my new toothbrush from the wrong end:

Wrong end opened

Jeez, I should have read all instructions carefully. By removing the toothbrush from the box handle first, I’ve not only violated the warranty, which means that if this toothbrush fails to clean my teeth effectively, I cannot return it to the manufacturer for repair, but also that I have actually diminished the effectiveness of the toothbrush whose toothcleaning power was actually activated by the upward motion of the toothbrush head through the OPEN THIS END side.

Not to mention this very blog entry will be used as evidence against me at the next hearing, making it harder for me to acquire and receive a license for toothbrushes in the future.

What a sucky way to start my day.

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Mmmm. Fuzzy Chicken

Save Toby.

    Toby is the cutest little bunny on the planet. Unfortunately, he will DIE on June 30th, 2005 if you don’t help. I rescued him several months ago. I found him under my porch, soaking wet, injured from what appeared to be an attack from an alley cat. I took him in, thinking he had no chance to live from his injuries, but miraculously, he recovered. I have since spent several months nursing him to health. Toby is a fighter, that’s for sure.

    Unfortunately, on June 30th, 2005, Toby will die. I am going to eat him. I am going to take Toby to a butcher to have him slaughter this cute bunny. I will then prepare Toby for a midsummer feast. I have several recipes under consideration, which can be seen, with some pretty graphic images, under the recipe section.

As a poor young man in Milwaukee in the middle 1970s, I ate a lot of rabbit. My father had a string of traps in the city parks and sometimes shot rabbits right out of his car. We ate so much rabbit my father called it “Fuzzy Chicken.” Say what you will, but we never went too hungry when my father was between jobs.

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Brian Doesn’t Cry Like a Baby

A reminiscience spurred by Richard Roeper’s column today:

Funny you should mention that, John. I, too, have noticed these bullet hole stickers. They’re not nearly as widespread as “Support Our Troops” ribbons, but they’re definitely gaining in popularity. You can buy stickers that will make it look like your fender, trunk or even your windows have been pierced with single bullet holes or multiple bullet holes. I’ve also seen the stickers on motorcycle helmets, as if the wearer is saying, “I’ve been shot!”

From one Web site hawking the stickers: “Imagine your friend spotting a few bullet holes on his new car after a long day at work; he may just cry like a baby.”

Hell, I’ve lived in the city. I don’t need simulation. On February 20, 1994, I came out from eight hours of slinging produce to find a couple of nice pass throughs between the driver side window and rear passenger window of my father’s car where a couple of small caliber rounds had passed through the car. I drove home with a cold bracing wind blowing through the pebbled windows and got the dual pleasure of dealing with my stepmother’s misplaced wrath and filing a police report. On my twenty-second birthday. Not the height of hillarity, but I didn’t cry like a baby.

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