Being that the heatwave (I’m trying really hard to not bitch about it too much here) has kept me confined to the living room more lately, I’ve been watching a bit more TV. This means I’ve been seeing a lot more commercials than I usually do. More and more, I’m seeing commercials I don’t get. Like, I’m not sure of the message they’re trying to send.

Specifically, shoe commercials seem to be getting stranger and stranger. Well, Adidas ones do anyway. A few months ago there was the Adidas commercial with the guy in a dream sequence with strange visuals to convey that, accompanied by a really trippy song that stuck with me. To be fair, it was a cool commercial really, and the song intrigued me enough to do some research. The commercial, titled Hello Tomorrow (when did commercials start getting titles??), is directed by Spike Jonze. The song was written by a relative of Spike’s (Sam Spiegel - did you know Spike Jonze was a Spiegel, as in the Spiegel catalog? I know far too much random trivia like that.) specifically for the commercial and was performed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s.

But as cool as all that was, and as interesting as the commercial was (both visually and audibly) what did it have to do with shoes? I mean, thanks for the taste of Spike Jonze brilliance and all, but it didn’t make me want to run out and buy Adidas shoes.

More recently, I’ve been seeing an Adidas commercial I flat out don’t get, and it doesn’t seem to be an art project like Hello Tomorrow. So I’m hoping someone can explain the idea to me.

We see a man running, and things explode or break as he runs by. A trampoline snaps, waterbeds explode, an inflatable playground collapses, and tires pop on parked cars and a passing truck. Then we see the tag line - “Cushioning that never quits” - as the camera zooms in on the tennis shoes.

The message I get from this spot? Buy these shoes and cause mass destruction as you go for your morning jog!

I’m guessing that’s not the message Adidas meant to send… can anyone explain what they’re trying to get across with this?

I usually shun the hype. I think some of it goes back to my need for individuality; I’ve always been one to go against the flow. Not in the extreme sense of pure rebellion (in fact the extremes turn me off just as much) but I just like to think for myself. Just because everyone else is doing something, I don’t feel the need to. I would definitely be one to skip jumping off the proverbial bridge.

If something is really popular, uber-hyped, I tend to avoid it, even if it might really be good. I can’t really explain why this is, or why I sometimes make exceptions that seem to make no sense. Like the fact that I was one of the millions who watched the original Joe Millionaire. I’m not proud of that honestly, and I think I was docked some IQ points for that guilty pleasure, but there you have it.

But sometimes my avoidance just makes me a little late to the party. I didn’t get hooked on the Harry Potter books until just before the fourth one was about to be released, and I’ll admit that I didn’t really get clued in to Family Guy’s brilliance until I started watching it on Cartoon Network. (Though in the latter case, I still blame Fox since I wanted to catch it but I could never figure out when it was on because they kept switching the night and time.) And The Mole. I just have to mention The Mole. Not that crappy celebrity version they ran with later, but the original Mole with Anderson Cooper hosting. I started watching in the second season due to my boyfriend’s insistence, and I’ve since caught the first season on Game Show Network. That was a brilliant, mind-fucking “reality” show. It was too smart to last though, and I still mourn its death at the hands of the celebrity invasion.

This time though, I sucked it up and went with the flow.

Batman Begins is pure brilliance.

Even if you think you don’t like superhero flicks, I would recommend you give this one a try. Christopher Nolan managed to create a wholly fictional world that was realistic at the same time. I don’t mean to slam Tim Burton’s Batman - believe me I love that movie for its own merits - but where Tim Burton brought us a pure fantasy, Christopher Nolan has given Batman some realistic footing. It helps that you’re seeing the beginning… the details of how he became Batman, and the early flubs that show him as a human first, superhero second. But there’s another level of realism given to us just in the sense that Gotham resembles, for the most part, a big U.S. city. Aside from a few touches here and there (like the train system), it wasn’t so much futuristic as it was rooted in modern day. This gives it a sense that Gotham could be our world, a feeling of there but for the grace of [insert your chosen protective entity here]…

The acting was brilliant as well, though whether that’s a triumph of the actors as a collective or the director that was able to pull out such stellar performances, I’m not sure. This was one of those rare films where I forgot who I was watching play the roles, and I was just completely sucked into the world of Gotham. When the credits rolled and I saw Gary Oldman’s name, I honestly couldn’t recall who Gary Oldman was playing… I mean, I think I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind. But while I was watching the film, he simply was Jim Gordon instead of being Gary Oldman playing Jim Gordon. Even Katie Holmes wasn’t enough to mar this beautiful piece of cinema, as she truly became Rachel Dawes for me; in fact, I gained a little respect for her. (Though that won’t last too long, I’m sure. Though I’m really trying to avoid it, the Tom/Katie thing is really just out there. Or at least, Tom is really out there and is dragging her along for the ride to outer space.) Considering we’re talking about several well known actors portraying familiar characters, I find this a wholly remarkable feat. Bravo.

The only exception to that was Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane. Not that he wasn’t as brilliant as the others; he is a very talented actor (which was evident in 28 Days Later as well). He was just so strikingly beautiful… on his first appearance in the film I was taken aback by that and it took me out of the movie for a minute, because I had to figure out who he was. So this is my shallow side coming on strong here, but damn, that man is absolutely gorgeous.

Ahem. Anyway. Pardon me.

I only have one criticism of the movie overall: Some of the fight sequences are a little too stylized and they just become chaotic. You can’t really follow the action; you can’t tell who’s doing what. Those were the only real moments where I kind of wandered off mentally… I just sort of waited for the fights to be over. There are only a couple of these anyway, so it’s not like a huge blemish on an otherwise perfect film, it’s just a little flaw that I noticed.

Other than that little thing though, I can’t really find anything else bad to say about it. In reading reviews here and there, I find that I’m not the only one who feels this way, and even the audience we saw it with last night was spurred to applaud as the credits started. (This is something that happened frequently in LA, but I have only seen it once or twice here in Ohio.)

Sometimes I guess it’s good to believe the hype.

After a busy day at the store that left me feeling like I’d been run over by a semi followed by a necessary grocery shopping stop to pick up some essentials, I didn’t want to do much when I got home. My darling boyfriend cooked up some dinner for me (begrudgingly, to be sure, but hey, he offered) and I sat down to completely veg out in front of the TV. He had turned it to the movie Monster, and rather than muster up the energy to change the channel, that’s what I watched. Well, ok, I did kind of want to see it a little, seeing as I’d heard mostly good things about it.

After watching it though, I have to say I don’t understand why this movie was so critically acclaimed. As just a movie by itself, it’s a manipulative film with one dimensional characters and no real entertainment value, unless you just like watching movies that make you feel like you’re superior compared to the pitiable characters. As a portrayal of a real life story, it’s pure crap.

SPOILER ALERT - but geez, if you haven’t seen it yet, do you care? No, of course not, so keep reading.

Even if I knew nothing more about the story of Aileen Wuornos I would immediately recognize this movie for exactly what it is: an attempt to explain why a woman would become a serial killer (as though it is a territory only meant for men), and in turn inspire sympathy for her. Wuornos is portrayed as a basically good person at heart who is a victim of a cold and cruel world and is left with no other choice than to murder really creepy men.

This is but one example of the pure manipulative nature of the film (though there are plenty more): At one point Wuornos decides to “go straight”, to find a job more respectable than turning tricks on the highway. In presenting her plan to her girlfriend, she babbles on about wanting to be a veterinarian, or even President of the United States, though she has no education or skills that don’t involve sexual favors. Though what we should be thinking at this point is “Hey, um, she’s got no grasp on reality at all!”, what the scene leaves you with is a sense that she’s just sort of psyching herself out… getting ready to really give it an honest go. So she goes job hunting. After a few rejections (in a montage that is calculated to appeal to your own experiences in rejection) she is shown in a lawyer’s office, where she’s applied for a position as a legal secretary with no education, no experience, no typing skills, and hell, no resume. Again, what this sort of situation would normally lead to is a clear picture of the disconnection between her fantasy land and the real world. Instead, we’re presented with an uber-prick of a lawyer who dehumanizes and ridicules her, and suddenly, we’re supposed to feel bad for her. Because he was a jerk about it, we’re supposed to see this job hunting experience as a completely demoralizing process that forced her back into hooking.

Again and again events similar to this unfold in the movie, and ultimately we’re led to believe that Aileen Wuornos was just a poor victim of circumstance who was forced to kill all of these men to survive. I’m usually able to suspend disbelief long enough to watch a movie, but this was really unbelievable even as a fictional tale.

As a movie that’s based on a true story… well, they’re stretching the idea of “based on a true story” pretty thin here. Aileen Wuornos did have a hard life - that much I’ll grant - but she was, by a great majority of accounts, not a good person. Her very real turpitude may have been nurtured by her lot in life as an abandoned and possibly molested child, but as an adult she was said to be a schemer and a manipulator (one thing the movie does actually have in common with the true life story, I suppose) and seemed to know full well what she was doing.

The movie shows the first couple murders as nearly justifiable homicide: a man who beat and raped her who she killed in self defense¹ and another pervert who asked her to call him Daddy while he fucked her, seemingly because he was a child molester which gave her enough reason to shoot him several times. She’s shown later letting a few men off the hook, because they’re basically good guys who happened to pick up a hooker, and finally we’re shown her pure anguish over killing a man she didn’t want to because she was under pressure to get a car. This all basically comes off as fiction when you know that not only has it been said that Aileen Wuornos craved fame by whatever means necessary, but that she actually admitted to killing these men in cold blood in the latter days of her life.

As well, her girlfriend is portrayed as some poor, dumb, confused hick of a girl who knew nothing of Wuornos’ activities until nearly the end, when in reality she knew all along and stayed with Wuornos anyway. Tyria Moore (inexplicably renamed Selby in the movie) testified that Wuornos came home after killing her first victim and plainly stated that she had killed a man that day. Moore was never charged in the murders, as Wuornos took full responsibility (and I’m sure Moore’s cooperation with the investigation helped her avoid accomplice charges), but it would be a challenge to look upon her as a fully innocent bystander.

The true story of Aileen Wuornos (and Tyria Moore) is fascinating as a study of depravity to be sure, but not for the reasons the movie would lead you to believe.

And on a shallower note, why did Charlize Theron win an Oscar for this role? She gained a few pounds and donned a few prostheses that made her ugly. Ok, so, the special effects were good. Honestly though, there was never a moment where I really felt like she completely shed the bubbly blond underneath, and aside from using some bad grammar to convey that she was a redneck, in my opinion she wasn’t overly convincing as a poor ugly woman led to a life of crime.

I gain a few pounds and make myself look ugly (albeit unintentionally and without the aid of a prosthesis) on a regular basis, but no one gives me awards for that. Maybe I’m just bitter because I can’t clean up as well as she did after she was done with the role.

¹ Though it was revealed later that her first victim had been in trouble for abusing a woman as a juvenile, her account of the circumstances surrounding his murder was a story that changed over time. It is likely that he was at least a violent “John”, though it is doubtful he was as brutal as shown in the movie. The ultra-violent portrayal is based upon her testimony, which contradicted both her earlier and later accounts, according to what I’ve read & seen about the case. Of course, we’ll never know the truth either way, as both parties are now deceased.

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle over on Boing Boing about the Amended Section 2257 recordkeeping regulations and the announcement that some web sites were shutting down rather than trying to comply with said law. I’m really not sure what is different with this amendment from the previous law (Porn producers have long been required to keep records of the ages of their ‘actors’ and ‘models’, not that that has really ended the inclusion of folks under the age of 18 in their work… it just provided fake ID merchants with more job security.) but if I’m reading right, it has been amended to include computer generated images and digital images.

One of the sites mentioned as a casualty is ratemyboner.com.

Now, let me make it clear that I’m not complaining that ratemyboner.com is going away. I’m not really that into rating boners, and it’s just another one of the 8 zillion clones of HotOrNot, which has never really been one of my favorite concepts anyway. (Yes, yes, I’m just bitter because I’m sure I’d be planted firmly in the “NOT” category. Bite me.) All in all, the world may actually be a better place for its shutting down.

However - I have to say it’s kind of a shame to see it go, for the simple fact that the law does not actually make a site like this illegal, though I’m sure that someone at some point would attempt to shut ratemyboner.com down using this law. It would be a perfect site to fight the law, as ratemyboner.com is merely a distributor of the digital images, not a producer.

From the aforelinked law:

The statute defines “produces” as “to produce, manufacture, or publish any book, magazine, periodical, film, video tape, computer-generated image, digital image, or picture, or other similar matter and includes the duplication, reproduction, or reissuing of any such matter, but does not include mere distribution or any other activity which does not involve hiring, contracting for[,] managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the performers depicted.”

Which is further clarified here:

Two commenters commented that the definition of producer in the proposed rule was too broad and would encompass a convenience store that sold sexually explicit magazines or a movie theater that screened R-rated movies. The Department declines to adopt this comment. As the rule makes clear, mere distributors of sexually explicit material are excluded from the definition of producers and under no plausible construction of the definition would a movie theater be covered merely by screening films produced by others.

So unless the owners of ratemyboner.com are actually sending out photographers to take the pictures featured on the site, they are exempt from keeping records on the age of the subjects of the photos.

And the same could be said for probably 99.9% of the porn oriented web sites out there. Very few of the porn sites I’ve ever seen (and yes, I’ve seen more than my fair share at this point) are actually related in any way to the company that produced the porn they are showing. Most of them are simply distributing movies, pictures, etc.

Which means not only is this a mostly pointless amendment to a law that really changes little (seeing as how the producers of most porn have already been beholden to keep these records anyway), it’s going to be a piece of legalese that may see many fights over its interpretation. It would seem that many of the targets of the amendment, those being porn web sites, are already completely exempt from this.

In addition, what the fuck is up with including computer generated images in the definition? How the hell does one prove the age of a computer generated image?

Here’s a pornographic computer generated image for you:

Considering I just drew these two beautiful stick people (who appear to be strung out on crack as well as horny), that would make them about 10 minutes old. As I’m the producer of this image, do I now need to keep a record of their ages? Am I breaking a law by putting this out there, seeing as how they are under 18 years of age?

_{If anyone cares, I was interested in this mainly because I am employed as a webmaster for a web site that sells some pornographic material. I needed to see how this law applied to us, which of course, it doesn’t. At all. Because we don’t actually produce all the gay porn we sell. Thank goodness.}

It’s re-post time ladies and gents! Things have just been super hectic around here with Pride this weekend and the launching of the store’s Internet radio station. And of course there’s the ever present stress of my cat and her oh-so-lovely habit of peeing on the bed, which has happened several times in the last few days after a couple of weeks’ respite. This has made it necessary for me to crash earlier than usual this evening in order to wake early in the morning to do laundry before work because we are now out of clean bedclothes, which has made it impossible for me to finish what I’ve been working on. Thus, I bring you a somewhat related re-post of a story I told a scant 2 days after I began this here blog… so I’m fairly certain most of you haven’t seen it. Just because I feel like I should post something before I head off to dreamland for the evening. So… enjoy. And feel free to give me suggestions on how to make the cat STOP PEEING ON THE DAMN BED.

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I have at least 40 pairs of panties and probably about 45-50 pairs of socks, mostly in good wearable condition (there are a few exceptions, I’ll admit). Is it because I am a fashionista intent on taking over the world of underthings? A fetishist who gets a thrill from my undies? A pack rat who cannot throw anything away? No, it’s because I despise laundromats. (Well, yeah, I am a pack rat too.)

Having been mostly poor for a good portion of my life thus far, or at least without a space for a washing machine and dryer in my residence du jour, I’ve spent a fair amount of time loitering in laundromats. Not that I would choose to spend my free time in these gathering places for the dregs of humanity, but I usually find it’s more socially agreeable to wear at least 80% clean clothing. (Unless it says “dry clean only??? on the label… that translates to “dirty???.) My solution for avoiding these places was to simply buy more underwear… thus the impressive collection I now possess. (In my world, all other articles of clothing can be worn multiple times before needing a wash, and bras can be handwashed quite easily.)
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So this post on BoingBoing today totally reminded me of my favorite science project ever. And because I have nothing else to do at the moment (besides sleep, working on the store’s site, working on the new DU Radio project, or well, 800 other things that need to be done) I thought I’d share. If you have kids, you may want to take note. I’m providing a valuable service with this one.

I always hated doing science projects. The actual idea of forming a hypothesis and then proving it (or disproving it) sort of appeals to the geek in me, but it wasn’t the process or the work that got to me. It was that we were poor, and my parents just didn’t have the money to go out and buy me a couple hundred dollars worth of crap to do a project. So I had to get inventive, which meant putting my creativity to use, and really, I just never cared enough to put that much effort into it.

This led to some really bad science projects, like the landmark “What are the effects of various liquids on the growth of plants?” I learned that watering plants with things like hairspray and Coca Cola will kill them. Imagine my shock!

One year though…

In the 8th grade I did a science project so amazing and cool that I won first place in the school science fair and got to actually take my project to the city wide competition. Just the title of it screams coolness.

“Which dentifrice is more abrasive, gel or paste?”

Yes indeed. I won a science fair by presenting a project on toothpaste. I got the idea for such an exciting pursuit from my mom, who related a story about a similar project done by a friend of hers when she was in school in the early 60’s. And it was cheap to do. I think the total cost of all the materials came to about $40, and that’s counting the poster board and other art supplies needed to create the oh-so-original tri-fold display.

I hypothesized that paste would be more abrasive than gel. To prove my hypothesis, I took a small square of plexiglass and blocked it off into 8 sections. I labeled each section for each of the 8 dentifrices I was testing, and nightly for 2 weeks, I brushed each section with it’s assigned paste or gel for 1 minute. (Ok, so in reality I spent a few hours doing this repeatedly in one day. But I claimed it was over two weeks, and I got the same effect either way, so there. Besides, my arm nearly removed itself from my body in protest of the overuse, so I was punished for my procrastination.) I judged the results by a visual inspection of the plexiglass for scratches.

There was a noticeable difference among the brands (Crest was more abrasive overall than any other) and among the different types. I actually proved my hypothesis incorrect, in that gels were more abrasive than pastes, in some cases much more so. Who woulda thunk it? It was an earthshaking revelation, I tell you.¹

So if you have a son or daughter in need of a cheap-to-pull-off science project idea, there you go. I’m sure there have been many scientific advances in toothpastes since my middle school days, so I’m betting there’s a variation or two that could be done if you don’t want to outright copy my brilliant idea, though I give you full permission to rip me off. I know just how super-cool this idea is, so I’m willing to share it with the world.

But I will caution you to go the extra mile and purchase a separate toothbrush for each participating dentifrice, as that’s what kept me from getting anywhere at the city competition. A judge there pointed out, and rightly so, that using just one toothbrush for the entire experiment skewed the results. Those charlatan judges at my school had missed this very important detail apparently.

So take my idea and perfect it. Your lucky child will go on to win every level of competition in the science fair arena!² Just remember me when you’re raking in those scholarships and prizes, ok?

¹Can someone please tell me why I can remember things like this - things that happened 17 years ago - with such clarity, yet I forget to buy paper towels when I am grocery shopping?

²Please note there is no money back guarantee on this. My results were likely not typical; your kid’s mileage may vary.

My boyfriend and I respect each other’s privacy. Well, it’s more like I’ve made it very clear that I expect my privacy to be respected, and in turn I don’t violate his. He probably wouldn’t even care if I did; it’s not a big issue for him. For me, privacy is a big deal. It’s not that I have a ton of things that I hide from him or anything, it’s just that it’s my stuff. (Not having siblings till I was older kind of warped me that way. I didn’t have to endure sharing my space with anyone as a young child, and so I’ve never quite been able to do that with anyone.)

To that end, I have never rifled through his dresser drawers. I have no idea what he keeps in there, despite the fact that my stuff occupies several drawers in the same dresser. Most of them are filled with clothing, but he does have a couple of “junk” drawers as well.

A few weeks ago, as I entered the bedroom to go to bed, I heard a faint buzzing sound. At first, I thought it must be coming from outside. As I walked toward the windows though the sound grew fainter, so it had to be coming from inside the room. I finally determined the sound had to be coming from within a dresser drawer, one of the drawers designated as his.

My own toys that make buzzing noises (to paraphrase the way Supine so beautifully put it, those toys that are battery operated and are for women) are packed away in my lair. (Yes, I have more than one. I get a discount on ‘em, you know?) And even though he knows full well they are there, he wouldn’t have taken one of mine and stored it in his drawer, would he?

To snoop, or not to snoop? Did my boyfriend have a toy that was battery operated and for boys in his drawer? (Or one that’s made mostly for women but I sell to men in the store all the time?)

I decided to not snoop, not so much because I was respecting his privacy though. It was because while I was pondering the decision, I heard him coming toward the room to also go to sleep. The thought of him walking in to find me leaning over his drawer and turning off some vibrating toy that was hidden from me was a bit too much. So I laid down, feigned sleep, and tried to ignore it. I guess he didn’t hear it, because he just came in, shut off the light, and drifted off to sleep.

I laid there, tortured. Not only because the noise was driving me mad, but because I kept trying to figure out what it might be. I tried to think of non-sexually oriented items that could be making that noise. An electric razor? No, he’s got two of those, but they’re both in the bathroom. An electric toothbrush? No, that’s also in the bathroom. So of course, the only things I could think of were all toys of a more sexual nature, and I didn’t want to imagine what he might have hidden away from me… what was he secretly into? I didn’t want to ask him what it was… I mean, I like to think I’m pretty open minded and open with him, and we’ve been together nearly 4 years so I thought I knew all his secrets by now… but I guess if it’s a secret I don’t know by now I don’t really want to know… I finally drifted to sleep, visions of sex toys appearing in my dreams.

The next morning, I woke after he had left for work, as I usually do. The noise was no longer present, but I still remembered where I had heard it. I thought about it for a moment or two, then decided my imagination couldn’t take it any longer; I had to know what had been making that noise. Privacy issues be damned.

I opened his drawer to find…

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It’s just been too damn hot to be back here in the lair much. When I am back here I’m catching up on reading… reading that I’m still far behind on. Add to that the crazy week I’ve had, what with the refrigerator dying earlier in the week (We’re now on our third refrigerator in this building. The fridges are just as ancient as the air conditioners.) and the insane comedy of errors day I had today (you don’t even want to know - let’s just say the day started with a leg shaving incident resulting in near massive amounts of blood loss only to go downhill from there), and I’m beat.

A few bits and pieces:

The new issue of The Antidote is out in the Cleveland area now. If you’re in the area, make sure to pick it up from your favorite local retailer. If you’re not suffering here with us in the heat wave, keep an eye on the web site; I’m sure he’ll update it soon, provided he has a nice air conditioned room in which to work on the site.

Howl’s Moving Castle is open in a few places already; if you’re lucky enough to be close to one of those cities, be sure to check this out. Miyazaki has yet to disappoint me, and I’m reading rave reviews for this one already. Spirited Away is one of my very favorite movies (granted, the list of my very favorite movies is a damn long one, but still) and I’m eagerly awaiting my chance to see this one. And you definitely want to catch his movies on the big screen if you can… it’s almost a whole different experience.

While I’m plugging stuff here anyway, let me direct your attention to Dirty Kitty Vegan Soap Works. I’ve personally tried almost everything they have to offer (and I use the lotion & soaps on a regular basis), and it’s all fabulous stuff. All of their products are vegan, all natural, and made locally by super-fabulous people, so you should go order something from them now. If you’re in the area and needed an excuse to come by to say hi to me, we carry a small selection of Dirty Kitty stuff in City Dweller (where you can also pick up the latest copy of The Antidote). You know you wanted to come by anyway, right?

Using The Free Dictionary to confirm that you remember the “i before e” rule correctly can result in some unexpected entertainment, even if that entertainment is the sort of thing that really shouldn’t amuse a 30 year old quite so much. (For even more fun of this nature, this thesaurus entry should do quite nicely, especially the use of the word in a sentence for the second entry. And don’t miss the picture they chose to use.)

Researchers have found that genetically altering fruit flies can alter their sexual orientation. I can’t be the only one who finds humor in the use of fruit flies to try and prove the “gay gene” exists, can I? And the fact that my boyfriend related this story to me without even hinting at the humor possibilities in the choice of subject for the experiments tells me he has not actually found this blog yet, which is a good thing.

When the weather cools a bit, I’ll be back in long form again. Enjoy this break while you can.

The long cold winters here wreak havoc on the roads. Most of the streets around here have numerous cracks and potholes in them. They try to patch them up as much as possible, but there’s only so much they can really do without having to re-pave the whole road. So they use tar to fill in the cracks.

This is a picture of the tar on the road just outside the store this afternoon:

And this is the same section moments after I stepped on it wearing tennis shoes:

It’s supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. What fun!

Yes, it’s a post about the weather. Deal.

I’m not good with heat. I never have been, I probably never will be. I can handle cold much better, and though I will bitch about the bitter cold we get up here, I like the winters here much better than the summers. The way I look at it, in winter, you can wear more clothing, wrap up in blankets or snuggle up to the one you love to keep warm. In summer, there’s only so much clothing you can shed in public (without being arrested or scaring small children) and if my boyfriend even so much as touches my arm when I’m all hot and sweaty I’m ready to kill him. Summer has never been my favorite time of year, and it gets really hot and humid here.

To make matters worse, we live on one of the upper floors of our 8 story apartment building (remember, heat rises) and we live in an old building that’s made of lots of concrete and well insulated, which apparently means it just holds in all the heat it absorbs. We do have air conditioning, but it’s in the form of a window unit type air conditioner that’s installed in the wall in the living room. The particular models that we have in this building come from the late 60’s or early 70’s, and they’ve all been broken and repaired multiple times (we’re on our third in the almost year and a half we’ve lived there - they apparently cannot simply replace them with new ones because no new ones will fit in the spaces these old ones are in). These things barely work even when freshly repaired… they blow out a little cold air, but it’s really just enough to cool down the immediate area in front of the unit. To cool the living room completely, we have to rig up a fan to sit in front of the air conditioner to blow the air out into the room. And the rest of the apartment? Well, we try to rig up more fans to blow cooler air back there, but it only manages to lower the temperature a tiny, tiny bit in the hallway.

Yesterday we had temperatures in the mid 90’s, meaning my lair in the back of the apartment was like a sauna. If I had turned on the computer in there, it would only have made matters worse. And sitting in a leather chair wearing shorts in a sauna is not fun people.

So I spent the day playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with my boyfriend in the living room, parked in front of the air conditioner. Thus, no writing for me. (And I’m at work today, and have actual work to do.)

So in lieu of anything of real substance, I bring you some ways to describe the heat wave we’ve got going here, culled from Googling “it’s hotter than”.

It’s hotter than you think.
It’s hotter than ever.
It’s hotter than a jalapeno in a heatwave.
It’s hotter than a New York elevator in August.
It’s hotter than Mojave.
It’s hotter than hell.
It’s hotter than Hades.
It’s hotter than 400 hells.
It’s hotter than the hounds of hell.
It’s hotter than Satan’s heels.
It’s hotter than the devil’s balls.
It’s hotter than heaven.
It’s hotter than the surface of the sun.
It’s hotter than tripe.
It’s hotter than whoopee in woolens.
It’s hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut.
It’s hotter than a really hot place.
It’s hotter than an armadillo’s hide at a West Texas picnic on the Fourth of July.
It’s hotter than shit.
It’s hotter than the firepit.
It’s hotter than a hooker on nickel night.
It’s hotter than a Volkswagen full of fat gals.
It’s hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock.
It’s hotter than lava at the center of a sauna.
It’s hotter than blazes.
It’s hotter than Georgia asphalt.
It’s hotter than a half-fucked fox in a forest fire.
It’s hotter than hot.
It’s hotter than a muhfukka.
It’s hotter than a peppered fart.