The Naughty but Nice Sex Show. And I did I mention they had lube?

This weekend was the Taboo Naughty but Nice Sex Show. It's held every year and I've always wanted to go and so yesterday I finally got around to doing just that. And, I have to say, I was kind of disappointed. I'm not sure what I expected exactly. I guess I just expected more variety. Every single booth seemed to have the same thing - if you were in the market for lube, vibrators, lube, a sexy Catholic school girl outfit or lube, you were in luck. But how many vibrator-lube-sexyCatholicschoolgirloutfit-and-lube booths can one person really look at in an afternoon?

The show is supposed to be like a trade show. And aren't trade shows supposed to be about showing the newest ¹ innovations? I have to say that, based on this show, there really isn't any innovation in vibrator technology... with the notable exception of the vibrator that attaches to your iPod and then vibrates in time with your music. Seriously.

Other "highlights"² of the show include:

• A show on the main stage that I didn't actually watch, but more was subjected to as I walked by. A show by Blyssful Productions - "Home of Blyss, the World's Only Dominatrix Clown." You know, Blyss, there's a reason why there aren't any other dominatrix clowns in the world. Because who the f@$#^ wants to watch a dominatrix clown???
• At one booth, they were selling what were essential baby wipes for grown ups. The product was not so much what was interesting here as the explanation about this product's usefulness given by the saleswoman. And I quote: "These are great to keep in your car. You know, like if you have a quickie and he comes inside you, these are great for cleaning up." That's just not something you hear everyday. She also explained that they smell really good. Because you know, you smell bad. Similarly there was a cream to help "tighten" you up³. Can't you just see some guy buying that for his girlfriend? "Here honey, I bought you this cream 'cuz you are kinda loose. Oh ya, and you smell bad, so I bought these wipes."
  

All in all, I'd have to say that it would be better to spend an afternoon having sex than going to this show.

¹I've never been to a trade show, but that's what I always thought they were about.
²And by highlights I mean, um, lowlights.
³Honestly, I'm not making any of this up!

Second Only to Sex....

... that was how the goalie who played for our team last night described hockey¹.

Also heard in our locker room yesterday:

• Spit or swallow?^2,4


• I can eat 6 men.^{3, 4}

We won 6-0, after losing the past two weeks (our first two losses of the season, after 9 straight wins). And *I* got an assist. I managed to get open in front, took a pass from the centre and shot a mighty shot⁶ which the goalie just barely managed to stop... it was too hot for her to handle and she let it rebound, a rebound that was then picked up by the other winger who shot it in the net. And the crowd⁷ went wild.

This entire posting was not just a lame excuse to talk about my assist, why do you ask?

¹although she did also say something to the effect of "my husband would kill me if I said hockey is better than sex," which makes one wonder, really.
²This was allegedly in reference to the Skittles gum that was being passed around the dressing room before the game. Gum which I, upon reading the label and seeing that it contained shellac⁵, declined to chew.
³This was allegedly in reference to gingerbread men. Allegedly.
⁴For the record, it wasn't me who said either of these.
⁵So I just learned something new! I didn't want to eat shellac because I have memories of spraying it on paintings in art class as a kid to preserve them. But when I just read that Wikipedia entry, I saw that it's made from bugs! Ick! Glad I took a pass on the squished bug gum!
⁶"Mighty" may be translated as "I actually shot it at the goalie"
⁷There may or may not have been a crowd that may or may not have gone wild.

Photo by notanartist on Flickr

Hockey Terms That Sound Dirty

Listening to Canucks games on the radio, I've noticed quite a few terms that the commentators use while describing the game that sound dirty¹, including:

• "he's got good hands"
• "he stuffed it in"
• "poke check"
• "making moves"
  
• "gets his stick in there"
• "scoring"
• "two on one"
• "hitting from behind"

Any other ones that I've missed?

¹Proof, yet again, that I have the sense of humour of a 12-year-old boy.

Palmasutra

Yes, it's what you think it is. And it makes a great conversation starter, like when you are out for dinner, out clubbing on Saturday night or around the water cooler at work: "Hey, what did you do this weekend?" "Well, let me show you!"

Exciting features include:

• full colour pictures of each position
• detailed description of how to do the position, in case you find the pictures confusing
  
• checkboxes to keep track of which positions you've tried
• note pages to record important information about each position (like, "tried this with so-and-so," "I <3 this position," and "causes serious injury; do not attempt"
• searchable by posture (including "standing," "sitting," "kneeling," "from behind," and "preliminaries")
  

The Palmasutra - d ownload it to your Palm Pilot today! http://www.palmasutra.org/

Addicted to Scrabble

My name is Beth and I'm addicted to playing Scrabble online. And the thing is, I'm terrible at it. I don't have the patience, the vocabulary or the inclination to do math that Scrabble requires. Jorge was giving me tips the other night, but I'm still no good. Yet.... I. can't. stop. playing. it. As I type, I have 8 games on the go.

Perhaps I keep playing because I do things that amuse me, like this:




Hee hee. I played sex for 10 points.

Also, amusing is:




Hee hee. My rack.

It helps that I have the sense of humour of a 12 year old boy.

I will say, however, that I'm improving. As evidenced by this screenshot:



That's right. I played sex for 30 points this time. I'm now officially 3 times better at playing sex. It must be true, because it's on the internets.

Adventures in Packaging

A few packages have made me go "WTF?" lately and so I thought I'd share them with you, gentle blog reader. First up, Veggie Patch Spinach Nuggets:

I was in the grocery store the other day, looking for some delicious and proteinaceous foodstuffs and as I was checking out which of the Yves Veggie pretend-meat items were on sale, I noticed a package of spinach nuggets that looked tasty. I started reading the packaging, as is the habit of the nutritional scientist (how many calories? how many grams of protein? are there any trans fat? for the love of all that is good in the world, tell me if there are any trans fats!!!) and saw a picture of the new - and, in my humble opinion, infuriating¹ - American Food Pyramid. Being that I'm in Canada, I found this a little strange - shouldn't it have Canada's Food Guide on there? And then I read what was written next to it - it actually does talk about Canada's Food Guide there. But that's not a picture of Canada's Food Guide!!! Canada's Food Guide is a RAINBOW, people, a RAINBOW! What is up with that???

Next up, Reversaflex tabs.

In the cupboard where the stationery items live in in my office, there was a box of those clear plastic tabs you use to label hanging file folders... you know, like this kind of thing:

Photo courtesy of some random on Flickr.

In one of my "I'm going to be organized" moments, I decided to use them file away some of my papers in an orderly fashion². I just printed up labels and stuck them on the tabs, but check out how the instructions suggest you deal with them:

A *typewriter*? Are you serious?? Or a *tapewriter*?? Do you remember those things? My parents had one and I thought it was sooo cool. Like when I was 5 years old. Sure, I found these in a supply cupboard and do not know how long they've been there so, in theory, they could have been produced in 1981, but I should point out that my program has only been in existence for like 4 years. And the organization in which my program is based for like 10. So really, they can't be older than that³. And I'm pretty sure that typewriters and tapewriters were not prevalent in 1997.

And now, my favourite of the packages that made me go "WTF" this week. This one is from a lipgloss that my mom sent to me:

Hook up lip color? My *mom* sent me something called hook up lip color?? I can only conclude that she either did not read the packaging or she does not know what "hook up" means. Seeing as this is a woman who referred to S&M as M&M, I'm betting on the latter.

¹infuriating because pretty much the only thing that people understood about the US Food Pyramid was that it's big on the bottom and small on the top... so the groups on the bottom (Grains, Veggies & Fruits) are what you should have more of and the ones on the top (Meat, Milk, Oils) are what you should have less of. People couldn't get their heads around portion sizes or figure out the specific numbers of servings from each group they should be getting or pretty much anything else about the damn thing, but at least they knew that you should eat more Veggies & Fruits than Meat. But in this latest incarnation of the Food Pyramid (as seen on the package above), they changed it so that the food groups run vertically instead of horizontally, with the (barely discernable differences in the) width of the groups representing which (unlabeled) groups you should have more of and which you should have less of. And the fact that the groups are each wider at the bottom means that some (unspecified) types of, say, Meats & Alternatives are better than other (also unspecified on the Pyramid) groups. And somehow you are supposed to get that from the unlabeled, different coloured slices in the Pyramid. Like I said, infuriating!
/rant

²As opposed to my usual method of throwing papers haphazardly on any available table, counter top or deskspace.

³unless, I suppose, they were somehow inherited from another organization, but that's a pretty unlikely possibility

Binaries

I was at a women's health event on Thursday and we spent most of the morning talking about the defintions of "sex" and "gender." Sex and gender, you may be surprised to hear¹, are not the same thing.

Sex is a biological construct - based on our genes/hormones/anatomy/physiology, we are classified as "male" or "female," although research shows that things are not quite as clear cut as this. For example, we tend to think of sex chromosomes as being XX = female, XY = male, but there are people with different chromosomal combinations (e.g., XO, XXX, XXY, XYY); similarly, we think of vagina = female, penis = male, but there are people born with indeterminate genitalia, or both sets, or incongruous external and internal anatomy.

Gender is a social construct, something that we humans create. We can think of "gender roles" (the way that society expects us to behave) and "gender identities" (what gender we personally identify ourselves with). We talked a lot about how there are many genders, not just "male" or "female", and even within the groups "male" and "female", there really are multiple "masculinities" and "feminities)².

We spent a considerable amount of time exploring these concepts of multiple and complex sexes and genders, specifically regarding how this complexity affects our research.

What happened at the break after this enriching and thoughtful discussion really struck me as rather funyy. The women's health field is, not surprisingly, dominanted by women researchers. The group at this event was made up of probably 100 or so participants, of which there were maybe 2 or 3 males. At the break, many participants, myself included, headed to the bathroom. As I walked down the hall, I noticed a large lineup of women at the door to the "women's" washroom, and no one going into the men's washroom. Hadn't we just discussed that "male" and "female" is a false binary??

So I knocked on the door to the "men's" room (because I realize that societal norms do dictate that it would be "strange" for a woman to walk in on a man at the urinal and that might make some men uncomfortable), and getting no response, I said something nonchalant to the women lined up for the "ladies's room" and marched on into the unoccupied "men's" washroom. I'm not sure if any of the other women saw the poignancy of my actions and certainly no one followed me. I guess it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk sometimes.

Wow, this posting turned out far more cerebral than what I usually post here. It's almost like something you'd expect to see here or here or here. Perhaps I should nerdify it a bit by adding in a few more big words⁴ and post it on my "professional" blog... yup, I've started a professional blog for work/education purposes... I'm trying to inform others of the benefits of blogging for reflective practice/educational purposes/community building, so I figured that I should be practising what I preach and blogging my own reflections on my professional practice. But I'm not linking it to this blog which, if you know what I did for a living, would probably make a lot of sense to you.

¹or maybe not, depending on your background.

²As an aside, this issue of "masculinities" and "feminities" got me thinking about how I have never really felt that I fit into any predefined gender roles - when asked "are you a girly girl or a tom boy?"³, I've basically come to the point of giving the answer "I'm a tom boy who likes to dress like a girly girl." In many ways, I have some very stereotypically "male" characteristics. I love both watching and playing sports, although I think it is somewhat outside of the "male" gender role to want to bed your favourite NHL hockey player. Another example - I'm very career focussed, but I like to wear short skirts and high heels while I go about my career. Hell, I wore CFM boots to my PhD defence!! I like pretty, sparkly jewellry and wearing makeup, which I think contrasts nicely with my pig-sty of an apartment and my trucker mouth. We are all aware of my obsession with pretty shoes , but are you aware that I will wear my pretty shoes to watch action and horror movies but wouldn't be caught dead watching a chick flick? It's never actually bothered me that don't fit into some stereotypically "female" roles, while I do partake of other "girly" behaviours that would make some feminists look down their nose at me... I actually like picking and choosing my behaviours regardless of what society feels I should do. But it was an interesting phenomenon to think about in a group of predominantly feminist scholars and strengthened my confidence in being who I am, regardless of whether mainstream society accepts it or not.

³Which I've been asked more times that you'd believe.

⁴and remove the part about bedding Taylor Pyatt.

That Time I Got Paid $20 To Watch Porn

So, my most recent Facebook status has garnered some raised eyebrows and several demands that I explain what the f, how the f and why the f someone would pay me $20 to watch porn. So I suppose I should explain. It wasn't really "pay", it was actually an honorarium. That should explain it, right?

No?

OK, the deal is, on Friday I took part in a research study on sexual arousal and testosterone in females. They are interested in finding out if testosterone levels are correlated with sexual arousal in women - studies have been done in men, of course, but (like many areas of medical research) not so much in women. So, as a feminist, I felt that I should participate in this important research endeavour. And when they told me that I got to watch porn and would get paid $20, I was sold!

I was told that I would be filling out a few questionnaires on sexual history and current practices, and would give saliva samples (to measure testosterone) before and after watching some porn. "You'll be in a locked room, completely private." Oh ya, and they are measuring blood flow during this whole thing, so that they can actually quantify your level of turned on-ness. Because nothing really sets the mood for sexual arousal like being hooked up to a machine so that the researcher in the next room can quantify your level of arousal in real time. Hot, I tell you, hot.

After I filled out the questionnaires and spit in a tube (and they even give you a piece of gum to encourage saliva production) for my pre-porn baseline testosterone sample, I got all set up to watch the movie. There was another questionnaire to fill out about your mood before you watch the film, where you have to rank your level of different moods (1 = "Not at all" to 7 = "Intensely") such as "anxious," "worried," "excited," "bored," and, my personal favourite, "dirty." Then the film starts - they don't want to just throw you right into the porn, so first the word RELAX appears on the screen, in capital letters. Because nothing makes you relax like ALL CAPS. Of course, no one who has ever seen Zoolander can look at a screen with the word "relax" on it with breaking out into fits of laughter - all I could think of was Will Ferrell in a bonnet, licking an oversized lollipop and saying "little kid things." I'd been warned that any movement on my part would register on the blood flow monitor, so I tried to suppress my giggles, which only made me giggle more. After the RELAX screen, a travel video came on, again part of the pre-porn show that is supposed to be neutral, to get you to relax before the actual "experimental treatment" (i.e., porn*). The "travel video" they chose to show was on Hawaii, specifically on the practice of making leis. "Lei," of course, is pronounced "lay." And when you are already suppressing fits of Zoolander-induced giggles and are about to watch some porn, hearing someone saying the word "lei" repeatedly can really put you over the edge. "The best way to make a lei is...", "the best leis are...", "a really good lei is..."

Now, so far, so good -- filling out questionnaires, hooking up to machinery, free gum. Unfortunately, however, once the porn starts, it all goes downhill. Inexplicable, the research team who wants to study sexual arousal in women chose as their stimulus: the world's most boring porn. They must have had to watch hours and hours of porn in order to find the most boring pornographic film ever made. "We've carefully chosen porn that appeals to women," the research assistant had told me several times. Apparently then, they think that women like porn with (a) a plain looking, middle-aged man having boring sex with (b) a plain looking middle-aged women who goes out of her way to (c) show the camera that she's wearing a wedding ring. Because clearly women only want to see a married** couple "making love." They made sure to choose porn where they guy goes down on the woman, but not the other way around. Of course, I have no problem whatsoever with the guy going down on the woman***, but didn't it occur to them that some women might actually enjoy giving head and so might want to see that in their porn? Or that some women might want to see a couple fucking rather than boring missionary sex, with a just a little bit of doggie style thrown in at the end? Or perhaps we'd enjoy seeing a guy with rock hard abs and 24" biceps? Or maybe we'd like to actually see a penis in our porn?? Most offensive of all, however, was the fact that the woman in the film didn't have (ok, fake) an orgasm. The guy did, but the woman didn't. Porn where the woman doesn't get off -- how, exactly, is this supposed to be appealing to women??

After the boring porn was over, I had to fill out the mood questionnaire about how I felt while watching the porn**** and take the post-porn spit sample for testosterone (and remove the, uh, apparatus for blood flow measurement*****). Then I tell the research assistant over the intercom that I'm done, so she can come back into the room and give me my $20. When she enters the room, she excitedly asked me, "Did that shock you?" And I was all like, "What? Shock? I found it really tame actually." She seemed pretty disappointed when I said that, but quickly recovered, "Oh ya, I found it tame too. But some women say, "I didn't know it was going to be like that!!" after they see it. They didn't know it was going to be like what? That there would be people with no shirts on? That bad actors would pretend to have boring sex? How shocking!

All I can say is - at least they paid me $20.

*Yes, I'm trying to use the word "porn" as often as I can, so as to garner more hits from Google searches to artificially inflate my stats. Like this woman I met at Northern Voice who constantly gets hits on her blog for her posting called "Beaver Shots"...

**And I'd just like to say that, as a recently divorced woman, wedding rings are not really what I'm looking for in my porn.

***Especially because it meant I didn't have to see his ugly face anymore.

****And you can bet that I ranked "bored" as a 7! I am intensely bored by your lousy porn!!

*****Is this too much information? I feel like this is too much information.

I still haven't figure out how the hell I'm supposed to get anything done when I'm spending most of my day at work! So today's blog posting is another bulleted list of random thoughts... I can finn the time to compose a few random thoughts (on my Palm Pilot on the bus seems to be effective, but I live quite close to work, so the bus ride isn't quite long enough to compose a coherenet single postings. I see that Dave has been resurrected from the dead and is also writing in random ideas in bulleted list form, so perhaps this is a trend...

OK, here goes:

• We have these really funky paperweights at work that have been given out as presents from our program. But it really begs the question: is paper flying off of people's desks really that much of a problem?
• apparently today was "Steak & a Blow Job" day. Allegedly the idea is that since Valentine's Day is supposed to be for women, so exactly one month later, guys are supposed to be getting what they want (i.e., S & a BJ). First of all, I was unaware that women getting oral sex was the traditional way to celebrate Valentine's Day. What's that you say? On Valentine's Day women are giving chocolate, flowers and cards? Hardly seems like a fair trade!! No wonder young girls think that they are supposed to be giving unreciprocated oral to every guy in school!! Secondly, this so-called holiday hardly seems vegetarian friendly. Why not "Tempeh and a BJ"? "Tofu and a BJ"? Better yet, "vegetarian maki, a BJ and some reciprocated oral" day!
  
• I'm sleepy.
  

T-Shirts I Would Buy If I Had A Sugar Daddy

I have a thing for funny t-shirts. In addition to my fan favourite blogging it shirt (from ThinkGeek.com), I also have this one that my sister gave me for my graduation (from Jinx.com):

and this one that my neice gave me for Christmas (not sure where she got it from):


If I ever get a job in a lab again, I'm totally getting this Evil Genius lab coat from ThinkGeek:I'm such a fan of funny t-shirts, that I've decided to spread the funny t-shirt love to my wee neice, buying her such shirts as:

And I know that Sarah & Dave are big fans of the T-shirts over at Glarkware.com.

Well, just the other day I stumbled across a T-shirt site that blows all the other T-shirts I've seen out of the water: T-Shirt Hell. Here are a few of my favs:

Although I don't think that map is to scale... Canada looks awfully small relative to the size of the States... I'm guessing this map was drawn by an American.

This one made me laugh:

This one *really* made me laugh:


This one had me rolling on the floor laughing:

And I haven't stopped laughing about this one since I first saw it the other day:

So if anyone is interested in buying me a present, any one of those shirts would be acceptable. I'm just saying.

In addition to the adult shirts, T-Shirt Hell also has a baby line. If I ever have a kid, I am *totally* getting them this shirt:


and possibly this one too:

Believe it or not, I'm totally not being paid by this site to advertise their wares (although I'm sure it sounds like I am!)... I just thought these shirts were damn funny and had to share them.

O.O.T.S.S.O.E.R.A.A.A.P.

Got an email from Jody yesterday:

I hereby award you the "I blog about science" badge. Congratulations.
http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/index.html

these scouts sound fun.

Thanks Jody!!

Man, I'm sooo special! Check out the shiny badge I get:So, being the internet junkie that I am, I needed to further investigate this organization from which Jody had bestowed me this honour. They are the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique. And being that (a) I am a scientist, (b) my repute is exemplary, (c) my physique, above average, and (d) I meet their criteria for membership*, I have applied for official membership.

Perusing the badges on their site, I have decided to award myself the following:

The "talking science" badge:

This badge is required for all members and commemorates the fact that I talk about science. All the time.

Along the same lines, I give myself the "destroyer of quackery" badge:

"In which the recipient never ever backs down from an argument that pits sound science over quackery." I totally, totally deserve this one.

Next up, I think I should get the "sexing up science" badge:


"In which the recipient has had experience with things such as selective breeding, crossing, mate selection, prokaryotic conjugation, fertility studies, STD related microbiology, and/or any other acceptable interpretation of the badge." I feel like I should get this for another "acceptable interpretation of the badge" based on the following: I once gave a speech at closing banquet at a conference of science educators where I said, "Saying "I'm a scientist" is a great pickup line. No, seriously. Try it at the bar tonight!" I think this qualifies.

And finally, I wanted to give myself the "knows how to collect semen from more than one species":


Although I never technically collected rat sperm per se, I did have check under rat breeding cages for dried semen (the graphically named "vaginal plugs"). But it doesn't really matter if that qualifies me for this badge or not, as when you read the fine print you see: "That's two species not including humans".

*I will fulfill my committment to spreading the truth in a future posting.

My New Calling

Today, I had my first pole dancing lesson. First of all, props to Alicia for giving me such a freaking cool birthday present! Second, a shout out goes to Tantra Fitness, where you can take lapdancing or cardio striptease classes, in addition to learning how to work the pole.

There were a lot of people at the lesson, so Alicia and I had to share a pole. Having so many people there also meant we only got to learn two moves, as the instructors came around to check out each person's form individually.... you know, because as we each "got to know our pole," we need individualized instruction. Once Alicia and I had perfected the first move (a swinging around the pole kinda thing), which seemed to be quite a while before the instructors got around to everyone, we decided to try it out going in the opposite direction. At first I thought I might not be an ambiturner, but I soon got the hang out it.

The second move we learned was a "transition" move. It totally threw me for a loop until I discovered that I was taking my first step with my outside foot instead of my inside foot. Silly me. After that, it was pretty easy. This move was one where you spin around so your back is to the pole, and sort of peel your body away from it, looking as sexy as you can. FYI, we discovered that having a confused "what the hell is the next step?" look on your face really takes away from the sexiness. Once we had that move down, we practised our ambiturning and combined our two moves into one natural flowing routine.

Also, as it turns out, I am a natural at pole dancing. When the instructor came around to check out our form on the first move, she told me "You are actually doing something very advanced. Most people are never able to cross their feet over like that." So I'm thinking that I should give up on this whole scientist thing and become a pole dancing instructor. Anyone want to spring for the $100/hr it will cost for me to take pole dance instructor lesssons? I think I'd also need my own pole installed at home... you know, to practise. That'll cost about $600 - donations to the cause are welcome!

Snippets

For some reason, I heard a number of interesting lines that really stuck in my head this past weekend. I would have got this up earlier, but I was actually doing work yesterday. Work! Here are some snippets of conversation, and their context:

---

Yelled from a block away: "Stop dancing on that pole... Sophie!!"

Picture it. You are walking down Commercial Drive after having watched a play (Life After God) at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, discussing how Douglas Coupland is a self-referential asshole. You see, about a block away, a women with two male companions stumble up the street and start pole dancing on a street sign. You turn to your companion and say, "Is that woman pole dancing?" And your companion yells, "Get off that pole!! Stop dancing on that pole... Sophie!" Yes, my friends know some interesting characters*!

---

"It's OK to bathe or shower in the water, as long as you don't swallow any of it."

This statement was actually made by a news anchor, during a story about the Vancouver water advisory**. I freaking love that they have to people not to drink their bath water!!

---

"Those cheerleaders are wearing parkas!" "I have a good idea - let's have an outdoor event in Winnipeg... in November!"

Grey Cup***. In Winnipeg. In November. What genius thought of that one?

---

"I'm going to go ingest some shigella."

A statement like this could come from an agricultural sciences student who decides he needs some hydration before our ball hockey game and so heads for the water fountain, despite the fact that the city is under a boil water advisory. To date, I believe the friend of mine who made this declaration is shigella-free.

---

"JESUS, THERE'S A SPIDER CRAWLING ON THE BED!!!!!"

This was screamed by me so that my roommate would come and rescue me (which she did). Sometimes I hate living in a basement.

---

"I'm just wondering how long sex lasts... you have A LOT of songs in this Sex playlist!"

OK, this one requires a bit of backstory. I'm at a birthday party on Saturday night and the birthday boy's iPod runs out of power. Another person at the party starts making a playlist on their iPod and I offer my iPod in the meantime, with the caveat of "Don't make fun of my music. I have eclectic musical tastes!" As the one who has appointed themself in charge of the music at the time starts flipping through my music, he discovers that I have three playlists entitled "Sex", "Drugs" and "Rock & Roll."**** He starts playing the "Drugs" music, but a little later on he makes the aforementioned statement of "I'm just wondering how long sex lasts... you have A LOT of songs in this Sex playlist!" The point of the playlist was supposed to be that it was songs *about* sex, not necessarily songs that you have sex to. But now that he mentioned it...

---

*And, for the record, the two male companions were a gay couple that Sophie was *teaching* to pole dance!

**Day 6 and counting! I <3 href="http://www.bclions.com/">BC Lions!

***Props to the Grey Cup Champion BC Lions! w00t! w00t!

****"Sex" includes songs that have something to do with sex (think "Crazy Bitch" by Buck Cherry or NIN's "Closer."); "Drugs" includes songs about, well, drugs (think "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground, "Cocaine Blues" by Johnny Cash, or "My Alcoholic Friends" by the Dresden Dolls) and "Rock & Roll" includes songs about music (think "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis)... I thought it was witty.

Deep Thoughts

I'm glad that there is a "ladies only" section at the gym. Because most of the women go there and then I end up being the only female in a room full of ripped men. Silly women, don't you know that all the hot boys are out here??

The Magic Bullet

Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed that this blender shares it's name with a somewhat different product.

vs.

My roommate has this blender and it works wicked awesome! The other product, however, I cannot vouch for.

Welcome to Cougartown

I have recently been discussing with various people the correct definition of a cougar. This topic has come up in conversation for absolutely no reason at all, why do you ask?

A search of such illustrious sources as wikipedia and urban dictionary have revealed that there appears to be no consensus on what constitutes a cougar. Opinions I’ve heard expressed include:

• you have to be at least 35 years old
• you definitely have to be more than 40 years old
• anyone over 30 can be a cougar
• there’s no minimum age limit – it’s all about the age differential
• age limits don’t count if you don’t look your age*
• without the leopard print spandex and skin that’s been tanned so many times it looks like leather, you ain’t a cougar
• you want to poke your friend’s son? That makes you a cougar – regardless of your age.

But then, when I was having dinner with my friend, Alicia, she informed me of “the formula for calculating if you are cougar.” She assures me that this formula has been scientifically validated:

( your age ÷ 2 ) + 7

For example, if you are, let’s say for a completely arbitrary example, 29 years old, then your minimum age limit would be:

( 29 ÷ 2 ) + 7 = 21.5... which you round up to 22

--> if go for a guy under 22, you are a cougar.

Discussing this formula with some other friends, I was informed by Kyle that there is a similar “hockey player formula”= ( your age ÷ 2 ) --> hockey players can go for anyone who is over half their age**.

So, I'm interested in your opinion: what, exactly, are the requirements of being a cougar?

*I may or may not have been the person expressing this opinion.
**And we all know what an avid hockey player I am. I’m just saying.

Red Wine and Free Sex Clinics

Just got home from dinner at a friend's place... she lives downtown, so after our lovely dinner and a few bottles of wine*, I had to venture out to the craziness that is downtown Vancouver on a Friday night. Deciding that it wasn't worth waiting for the 6 bus (that may or may not ever arrive) to take me up Davie St., I decided to walk it. So did another guy at the bus stop, so we chatted about being from Ontario** as we walked up the street. When I got to Howe St (where I could catch the 17 to get me home), he said, "Do you want me to write about you in "I Saw You"? "I Saw You" is this feature in a local paper, the Georgia Straight, where you can write a personal ad about the person you saw on the bus or in the grocery store or you made out with on the dance floor of some club but were to shy to ask for their phone number. I always read "I Saw You" in the hopes that someone would be so enamored with me that they'd need to write about it in the paper, but no one ever does. And this guy really wasn't the guy I'd want to be writing about me. Boo!

So anyway, as I'm waiting for the 17, I start chatting with a couple of guys at the bus stop. They are from, surprize surprize, Ottawa, and they are giving a number of a company that hires people to teach English in Taiwan to a homeless person. Also, some random is passing a joint around. Anyway, we get chatting and the one guy asks me what I do and I say that I'm a scientist and he starts coming up with things that I should invent. Like a pill that makes your hair grow really fast, but your hair is pot. So you can cut your hair and smoke up. Then some other random on the bus ('cuz the bus has arrived by this point) decides that the pill should also make your fingernails grow as rolling papers. Then he asks what's the deal with us giving free crack to crackheads? And if we are doing that, why don't we give out free alcohol? And free sex? You know, free sex clinics that give out whatever you like... like, a guy can walk in and say "Today I'd like big titties" or a girl can walk in and say "I'd like 8 inches today!" You know, I think he may have been on to something... but then again, I may just be drunk.

*Sarah, I'm starting to appreciate that you are right about red wine being an acquired taste.

**Pretty much everyone you meet here is originally from Ontario. I don't think anyone actually lived in BC prior to 1997.