If there still exists anybody on Earth to whom I haven’t shown the Cyanide & Happiness short film, Waiting For The Bus, you should go and watch it now, because it’s the funniest thing that has ever existed.
In other news, did you see that Sian‘s getting media coverage about her upcoming participation in One & Other?
Had another strange dream a few nights ago (my blog posts are being published with a bit of a delay on them, at the moment, for reasons I might discuss in another blog post!) that I thought I’d share, before waking up early and being unable to get back to sleep.
Dream – Putting a Cap on Liz and I
I was out at a pub with my friend Liz, her partner Simon, and a load of other people, mostly the old Abnib/”Chess Club” crowd. The pub was noisy, and I felt a little claustrophobic, so I excused myself and went and sat in the deserted beer garden at one of the wooden benches. I was also hoping that Liz would pick up on something I’d said earlier in the evening and come and join me where we could talk privately, and sure enough, she did – she came out and sat next to me on the bench.
She and I had had an evening some months prior in which we’d gotten drunk, confessed an attraction for one another, and ended up kissing, which had led to a not-insignificant number of awkwardnesses within our social circle. From some hidden pocket within the table I produced a battered (yet somehow, also laminated and pristine) sheet of A4 paper on which we’d written down, that night, how we felt about one another. My bits were typed in Javascript using Courier New; hers were handwritten in a cursive type. We both sat closely and re-read our words.
A young man we didn’t know came and sat on the bench opposite us, asking only half-politely if the seat was free (despite there being many completely free benches). We ignored him and tried to make it obvious that we were involved in a private conversation which he was not welcome to join, but he didn’t take the hint: he just sat there and lit up his cigarette.
Liz and I reminisced about our flirtatious evening together and talked about it. Realising that neither of us wanted to make anything more of it than had already happened, we decided that “that was that”, and we’d put and end to whatever romantic inklings either of us might have had. We hugged, and there was a brief moment during which we looked at one another, undecided about whether or not we should kiss, but then we didn’t, and instead exchanged a glance of agreement, and walked back inside to our friends.
Significance:
Sometimes sharing what I’m dreaming about with you guys leaves me with the maybes. I record virtually every dream that I remember, but I only blog about the ones that I don’t think will make anybody who reads my blog feel uncomfortable. When I first wrote about this dream, I thought twice. Let me know if I thought wrong!
Right, now I’d better get on with some of that work I’ve been doing too much of!
I read this Chick Tract comic, recently. I’d seen them before, but for some reason it was this week, and this particular article, that riled me so much. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever before been quite so agitated by something as harmless as a comic.
In the comic, an arrogant and obnoxious biology professor argues in front of a class with a Christian student on the topic of evolution. By a combination of bad science, straw man arguments, a veiled ad hominem attack (the lecturer really is a model of intolerance) and the ultimate false dichotomy – that the only alternative to the theory of evolution involves the implication that Christ must have died for our sins – the student persuades his teacher that his acceptance of evolution is incorrect.
It’s a weekend for pet hates, for me, and I suspect that the thing that really got my goat with this comic was this particular panel:
In this panel, the student makes the premise that there are “six basic concepts of evolution”, and the professor agrees, listing them. But most of the concepts have nothing to do with evolution at all!
(if anybody thinks it’s strange that the thing that annoyed me about this piece of propaganda wasn’t it’s conclusion but one of it’s premises, they could stand to know me a little better – I have no objection to a belief in whatever you like, so long as it doesn’t tread on my toes… but I’m not keen on people mis-representing one another’s positions)
The first four of the six basic concepts of evolution expressed in the comic are:
Only the last two concepts – macro-evolution and micro-evolution (which are only generally described in separate terms for the benefit of those who would argue that one is possible while the other is not: in scientific circles, it’s virtually unheard-of to discuss the two as if they were separate ideas, as they are in fact the same idea based upon the same scientific understanding).
I could spend time picking apart the rest of the comic, but it wouldn’t achieve anything: all I really wanted to do is to point out that there are a number of very different and unrelated theories that seem to be often misunderstood – sometimes by both sides – in debates on the subject of creationism, and in debates on the subject of atheism.
I’ve come across it a lot myself, as an atheist: people have told me that, as an atheist, I must believe in certain things, and then proceeded to attack those things, when these premises may well be flawed (especially if they’re coupled with a misunderstanding of what those premises actually mean, as was the case in this comic).
My point is, though, that all of these things can be taken independently, and I think it’s important that people understand and accept that. I’ve met evolutionist theists, biogenetic anti-evolutionists, and even folks who believe that while a creator deity exists, created the universe, set life in motion, and then ceased to exist – they’re atheist abiogenetic creationists. And that’s fine. I think they’re all wrong, and they probably think I am too, but that’s not a problem: we’ve a right to be wrong.
So next time somebody tells you what they believe about the existence or non-existence of a god or gods, their acceptance or not of the theory of evolution, their idea about the initial appearance of life, of their belief in the quintessential beginnings of the universe, please don’t assume that you can guess the rest: there are some surprising folks out there with whom you might have more in common than you think.
(and look, I managed to avoid mentioning my thoughts on ethics and morality and on determinism entirely!)
I know that this probably isn’t news to any of you who care about such things and follow the world of web development even a little… it’s not even news to me, really – I’ve been an advocate of this particular programming library for a while now. But today in particular, I just felt so enamoured by the elegance of the jQuery Javascript Framework that I had to tell you about it.
This line of code:
$('.alpha').not(':has(.beta:visible)').hide();
Hides all elements with the class “alpha” which contain no visible elements with the class “beta” (i.e. if it contains any visible elements of class “beta”, the “alpha” is not hidden).
And it’s just beautiful. Just to compare how elegant it is to something else, here’s the equivalent code in Prototype, another popular Javascript framework, which in itself still shortens the amount of code that this would take in plain-old vanilla Javascript:
$$('.alpha').each(function(element){
var has_visible_beta = false;
element.childElements().each(function(inner_element){
if (inner_element.hasClassName('beta') && inner_element.visible())has_visible_beta = true;
});
if (has_visible_beta)element.hide();
});
(okay, that Prototype code could probably be a hair simpler, but you get my point)
Wow.
I have a new pet hate.
A personal pet hate of mine for a long while has been that often, when I ask somebody for a screenshot to show me what’s going wrong with some software they’re using, they’ll take a screenshot or two, then paste them into a Microsoft Word document, and then e-mail me the Word document.
Why would you do such a thing? You’ve got Paint: paste it into Paint and save it, and you’ll get:
And that’s without even looking at the benefit directly to me: that I don’t need to re-extract your pictures so that I can upload actual pictures, not a document, to our bug tracking system, or the benefit that I can view thumbnails of your screenshots to sort and manage them easily.
But no; I have a new pet hate:
It’s when somebody who’s using Microsoft Outlook sends me a HTML e-mail with several screenshots… each one of them inside a separate Word document attached to the message. WTF?
Sorry; it’s probably just me who gets bugged quite so much by this.
Update, 15th June 2011: almost two years later, I’ve revisited this topic having found something even more annoying than using Word documents as a medium for screenshots…
I didn’t sleep well; I woke up several times throughout the night. On the upside, I have a strong recollection of three distinct yet inter-related dreams:
Dream I: Alex and the Accident
I came into work as normal and spoke to Alex, my co-worker. He’d been in some sort of car accident in which he’d hit and killed a man in an electric scooter. There was a lot of ambiguity about whose fault it was – the man had apparently accelerated his scooter right out into traffic… but Alex had been driving too fast at the time.
Significance:
Dream II – In The Red
I was a Western spy during the Cold War, attempting to infiltrate a Soviet University. With some difficulty, I was able to become enrolled at the University, but soon came under suspicion from the administrative management (all Party members, of course) after my luggage was found to contain a British newspaper. The newspaper contained details of Alex’s car crash, from Dream I, and this was later re-printed in the local newspapers, but with a suitably communist spin.
Later, after my cover was blown, I made plans to flee the country and return to the West.
Significance:
Dream III – Going To Work
I woke up, got dressed, and went to work. I discussed with co-workers Alex and Gareth a dream I’d had the previous night, in which Alex had crashed his car (as per Dream I) and about a film I’d seen the previous evening, about the infiltration of a Soviet University by a Western agent (as per Dream II). I explained that apparently the film was supposed to be about drugs, but maybe I’d failed to understand it because I didn’t see how it was supposed to be about drugs at all.
A client of ours paid a deposit on a reasonably-large job we’d quoted for, and I begun laying the foundations of the work as described in our technical specification.
Significance:
It was quite disappointing to be woken by my alarm and to discover that I still had to get up and go to work. While I’m usually quite aware that I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming, I somehow got suckered in by Dream III and had really got into the groove of going to work and getting on with my day, probably because I’d so readily assumed that Dream I was the dream and therefore that the same mundane things happening again must have been real life.
I was prompted to wonder, momentarily, if I might still be dreaming, when an unusual thing happened on the way to work. Just after I passed the site of the old post office sorting yard, about a third of the way to the office, I came across a woman crouched in a doorway, reaching out to a blue tit which was sat quite still in the middle of the pavement. Still half-asleep, I only barely noticed them in time to not walk right through them.
The bird must be injured, I thought, to not be flying away, as the woman managed to reach around it and pick it up. I stopped and waited to see if I could be of any use. Seconds later, the little creature wriggled free and flew off to perch on top of a nearby fence: it was perfectly fine!
The woman seemed as perplexed at this as I was: perhaps we both just found the world’s stupidest blue tit. I double-checked the clock on my phone (this is a reasonably-good “am I dreaming?” check for me, personally, as is re-reading text and using light switches) – but no, this was real. Just weird.
Edit: changed “Callbacks:” to “Significance:”. This is the format in which I’ll be blogging about the dreams I share with you now, I’ve decided.
To mark the second anniversary of QParty, I thought I’d cook Claire and I a meal consisting of foods that begin with the letter Q. How hard can it be, right? Turns out it’s more difficult than you might first expect.
My first thought was quails with qvark dumplings, but, would you believe it, both of these things turn out to be hard to get in Aberystwyth. Not wanting to have to resort to Quorn™, we ended up having a quirky mixture of foods that have probably never before been seen on the same plate:
I’d have liked to have put quinces in the desert somehow, or else flapjacks made from Quaker oats, but in the end we just had cherry pie and cream, which I insisted on calling queam.
Aside from those listed above, and quinoa, of course, what foods have I missed? Is there anything that you can eat that begins with a “Q” that I haven’t thought of?
I’ve got your attention now.
It’s true, but it’s not like you’d think. My mum’s partner, otherwise known as Andy – or, sometimes, as Slightly Weaseldump – was working in the USA last week and when he was due to fly back his ‘plane was cancelled by bad weather. The alternative flight offered would take him not to the UK but to Paris, where he’d be able to get a short-hop flight back to Manchester (I suppose by the time you’re crossing the Atlantic Ocean, hitting Europe is considered to be a “hit”). They’d run out of regular, second-class, Irish-dancing-in-the-bowels-of-the-aeroplane seats by this point, of course, so they upgraded him to the rich people’s part of the ‘plane, right up at the front (although behind the pilot, obviously). And right next to, he soon discovered, Sarah Michelle Gellar, better known to many of us here in Aber as Buffy Summers.
Apparently she was on her way to Paris to take part in some kind of promotion relating to some perfume or something. And she has a little red mobile phone. And she’s friendly. Although he didn’t get her to autograph.
And being an overnight flight, they naturally ended up taking a kip. So, by technicality if by nothing else, he can now claim to have slept with Sarah Michelle Gellar. He called my mum to tell her so, but it sounds like she was neither as amused nor as impressed as I was to hear the same news.
Edit: Please see the discussion in the comments regarding the believability of this story.
Remember Jurassic Bark, Futurama series four, episode seven? It’s the one in which Fry’s dog, Seymour, left in the present-day when Fry gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the far future, sits outside the pizza parlour where Fry had worked, waiting for him to return. Turns out it’s based on a true (sad) story, of a dog called Hachiko. Read about Haciko’s life here.
Thought I’d share for all the rest of you Futurama-junkies out there.
It’s not all fun and games, though. In fact, it feels like it’s going to be one of those weeks.
It’s not all bad, though. Ruth‘s been immensely helpful in fixing the fridge situation, even in my absence (work etc.), and was also kind enough to poke through my hair with a nit-comb to check for any nasty creepy-crawlies (she didn’t find any, yay!).
This weekend, I was at BiCon 2009 (my third BiCon – I guess that makes it a tradition), and it was awesome. Here’s a short summary of the highs and lows:
Travel
Worcester’s closer than I remembered, and – once Claire‘d gotten used to the Vauxhall Astra we’d rented – we made good time there and back. It’s a really simple journey, really – you just drive along the A44 until you get there, and then you stop (well, okay, there’s a brief stretch on the A470 near Rhayader, but that doesn’t really count, does it?). The biggest difficulty we had was on the University of Worcester campus itself, which is a maze of twisty little passageways, all alike.
Accommodation
The usual student halls affair, although with rooms far larger and kitchens far better-equipped than those in, say, Penbryn. Also, the organisers must have run out of regular rooms, because the flat Claire and I were in had en-suite rooms, which was an unexpected luxury.
An interesting quirk in the halls of residence at Worcester is that they’re very, very keen on motion-sensor-activated lighting with very short timers. The lights in the hallway outside my room would come on for barely seconds, and when I first checked in, I’d only just worked out which was my door and dug my key out of my pocket before I was plunged into darkness and had to leap around to get the attention of the sensor and get the lights back on. The one in the kitchen was even worse – while playing board games on the first night, we eventually grabbed an anglepoise lamp from one of the study bedrooms to use, as it was simply too frustrating to begin your turn right as the lights turn off, and have to wait for a few seconds until your movement is enough to turn them back on again.
On the other extreme, the light (and the – noisy – linked extractor fan) in my bathroom was so sensitive that it would turn on if I so little as walked outside the door to my bathroom, while it was closed, and often wouldn’t turn off for several hours.
Registration
Registration was the usual fun and games, with less time than usual setting up our badges in accordance with the “sticker code” (sort of a handkerchief code, but with a key and an atmosphere of being a little more playful). As usual the sticker code started small (and, unusually, with a distinct and separate “official” code) and expanded over the course of the weekend, such that by the end of the conference it looked like this:
I didn’t spend very long on my badge and stickers this year: just enough to get a core message across… plus a not-on-the-key “Q scrabble tile”, as a reference both to being a board gamer and to Claire and I’s unusual surname. There’s probably at least half a dozen others I could have legitimately added to my pass.
To save you squinting at the pictures (or clicking on them to see bigger ones: that’s allowed, too), I’ll decode my badge for you: polyamorous, likes hugs, possibly available (as in: I’m theoretically open to new relationships, but seriously – where would I find the time?), and the aforementioned “Q scrabble tile” and another “Q” that I found in the sticker stash.
Claire volunteered for a shift of reception desk duties, which is cool, because they’re always in need of more folks there.
Other People’s Workshops
I didn’t go to as many workshops as I have in previous years: many of the things I was interested in clashed with one another, and other slots were simply full of topics that didn’t catch my attention. Also, I’ve found that going to a workshop in “every other” timeslot is a perfectly good way to get by, and spending the alternating periods hanging out, meeting people, and playing board games is a great way to keep energy levels up in the otherwise quite draining busy-ness of BiCon.
My Workshops
This year was the first year that I ran a workshop (last year’s impromptu purity test party doesn’t count), and, because I like a challenge, I ran two:
BiCon Ball
The theme of the BiCon Ball was Crime and Punishment, and so there were – predictably – plenty of burglars with swag-bags, police officers, superheroes and villains, and the like. The standard of body-painting was even better than normal (a number of people opted to wear virtually nothing, instead being painted as, for example, Wonderwoman, who didn’t wear much to begin with).
Just to be that little bit different – and to take a metaphor to it’s illogical extreme in our characteristic manner – Claire and I decided to actually dress as a crime itself. She dressed as a salt shaker and I dressed as a Duracell D-Cell, and together we were… a salt and battery. Get it? Everybody else we spoke to that evening did, too, eventually, although many of them needed some prompting.
And There’s More…
Other highlights and notable moments include:
Right; that’ll have to do for a BiCon 2009 Roundup, because Ruth‘s cooking me dinner so I need to go eat.
Much thanks to Ruth and Paul for running an awesome murder mystery party last night, and to Rory for snapping some great photos. We played Death By Chocolate, in which American tycoon Billy Bonka had been murdered, but by whom?
[warning: contains spoilers for the Death By Chocolate murder mystery pack]
Most remarkably, it wasn’t Paul’s character this time, as has become traditional. Instead, it was Rory’s: Mike Bison – a loudmouthed American boxer who Rory really brought to life (and whom the rest of us – all “civilized” Europeans – mocked mercilessly). I might have guessed correctly – Claire did – if it weren’t for the fact that I disregarded some of Claire’s character’s – Dame Barbara Carthorse’s – observations because she presented it so drunkenly. That’ll teach me!
I played Dr. Sigmund Fraud, pre-eminent psychoanalyst, which was a fabulous role to be cast as, because it gave me license to blame everybody’s faults on the forgotten traumas of their youth. And also talk about phalluses (phalli?) a lot.
Much credit also due to JTA (Monsoir ‘Chocolate’ Bertrand, rival chocolatier to the deceased), whose already-awesome French accent only became more ludicrous and pronounced as he got more and more drunk, and to Elizabeth (Dr. Doris Johnson, explorer, adventurer, and expert in Aztec culture), who was brave enough to come along to one of these things for the first time, and survived.
Ruth and I have started talking about the potential for the next one to take place near the end of October. Hope everybody can make it!
This was one of my most-popular articles in 2009. If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:
Warning: Not safe for work. Not even a little.
[wow; this has been a long while in the writing: I started writing this early in 2009 and finally finished in August – thanks for your patience, folks I promised this to!]
Sex toys are fun. Whether you’re playing alone or with friends, there are a million excuses to let a bit of silicon, plastic, leather or metal get involved, too. But all things said, I’m pretty vanilla: or, at least, I feel that way when I look at the sheer variety of fetishes that are represented on the Internet.
And I’m pretty open-minded. By the time I’m in a sex shop and I’ve turned my head sideways to work out what you’re supposed to do with whatever thing I’m looking at, I’m cool with it. It doesn’t have to be something that I’d want to put up my butt (or whatever) to make it so that I can understand how somebody else might like to.
But once in awhile, I come across something that simply makes no sense to me. Perhaps one of you guys can explain some of these to me:
“…make Baby Jesus the centerpiece of your magnificent Dildo Creche.” – Divine Interventions
I’m an atheist, but this seems to be a little disrespectful even to me. But more than that: supposed divinity aside, who wants to put a baby up their bum anyway? What’s the attraction in putting a small pink lump of plastic up your pooper? It’s not even like it’s a real baby and you’d have the excuse that you were just trying to stop it crying.
Who is this marketed to? Christians who want to show how much they really love Jesus? Anti-theists who want to show their disdain for the Son of Man in the sexiest way they could think of? People who want to experiment with anal play but want their toy to be one that they can leave out and not worry about people seeing?
I’m not even sure that it’d be a particularly good buttplug. Okay, there’s a slight ridge there so you’d be in a good position to grind the Lamb of God’s face into your prostate, if that’s your thing, but if I really wanted a religious-themed sex toy – and I don’t – I’d be looking at something with some substance, like a Jackhammer Jesus. Or go for everybody’s new messiah, Barack Obama, with the Head Of State Pleasure Toy (why do we never make sex toys out of British politicians?).
“You gotta check our resident ass-pig-in-training BOUNCING and FUCKING HIMSELF on this crazy new toy.” – Fort Troff
Do you remember Space Hoppers? Can you think of anything more childish, more innocent, more fun than bouncing around on a big rubber football with handles? It was a time of simple things, when my friends and I would have Space Hopper races up and down the garden. A time of paddling pools and climbing frames. And they’d be memories I’d cherish, until I saw this… umm… toy.
What happens if you take a space hopper and replace the handles with a six inch ribbed cock? You get this, the “Bouncing Ball Fucker”. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how you’d use it, but if you’re somehow in the dark – or you want to see for yourself – there’s a video.
I’m no prude, but I don’t think I’d be able to take my sex partner seriously if they came into the bedroom bouncing around on a bean bag that happened to be raping their arse at the same time. I can’t think of a way you could use this without laughing. And while I’ve got no problem with a good sense of humour, it’s rarely always the most conducive thing to sex.
“Pound the seductive vibrating pussy while fondling the pert breasts.” – LoveHoney
Somewhere in the world, right now, there’s a mad scientist who’s busily working on genetic improvements by which he plans to build the next generation of humanity. And he’s got an idea about what the women of the future should look like. And it’s shown above.
Seriously, that would be a great premise for a horror film. Because I’m more scared of that… thing in the picture than I ever was watching John Carpenter’s The Thing.
There are so many things wrong with this sex toy that I’m not sure I know where to start:
There’s one further possibility: perhaps this is a toy to cater to the fetishes of those people who were turned on by the floating bits of organs and shit in jars in Alien Resurrection. That’d go some way towards explaining this monstrosity.
“A cross between an alien and a dragon, the Xenogon has all the desires and needs of both parents. Here at Bad Dragon, we know that dragons are nigh-insatiable, but aliens are a whole new breed of desire, and this Xeno takes after his alien father! Be a test subject, and submit yourself to his dominant nature, we’re sure he could think of over a dozen experiments to do on you…” – Bad Dragon
What happens when you cross extreme furrydom with modern silicon production mechanisms and put it all on the Internet? You get people making dildos based on the imagined genitals of anthropomorphic fictional creatures. Like this toy, which is apparently based on what the penis of a dragon/alien hybrid would look like.
To be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference between a dragon penis and an alien penis without being told. And you know why? Because we made up what they look like. Why bother making a dragon/alien penis dildo at all? Why not just call it a dragon penis: after all, nobody’s seen one anyway – you can call it a unicorn penis if you like, it won’t change the fact that you’re making it up as you go along!
Now I’m not denying the existence of dragon fetishists – one wrote in to Savage Love last year – but I’m just amazed that there’s such a market for these toys: just Google around if you don’t believe me: there a lots of sites selling this stuff (my favourite is Yiffy Toys, just because their site design is cool). Maybe I’m the odd one.
The manufacturers of the Xenogon are keen to point out that they can’t manufacture these dragon-penises in an ejaculating variety suitable for use with their “Bad Dragon Cum-Lube“. Apparently we know enough about dragons to make a lubricant in the consistency of their semen. Who knew?
“Insert the breathing apparatus into your nostrils, rub the clitoral stimulator against your favorite coral reef and start with the tongue action. With the Pussy Snorkel, anyone can be a dive master.” – SexToys.com
Perhaps I should be expected not to “get” this. After all, I don’t have a pussy to speak of. But even in my furthest imaginings, I can’t see how this can be a winning idea. First, I’d like to pick holes in the quotation from SexToys.com, above: coral reef? Coral reef? Who calls a clitoris a coral reef?
But secondly, how wet do you have to have gotten your female partner before you’re in need of a fucking snorkel to go down on her? The website indicates that it’d be good for muff-diving somebody in a hot tub, but it doesn’t take a genius to observe that the design of the snorkel is such that it’d be pretty much useless for actual underwater use: the tips of the tubes point downwards: after a quarter-lungful of air (and the associated minute or so of hot slippery licking), you’d have to come up for a refill… and I can see this becoming quickly frustrating for your partner, who’s probably just about got long enough to get into it before you come up again, panting for air.
It doesn’t look comfortable. It doesn’t look sexy. It doesn’t serve any practical value. It’s not even a great novelty, because if you gave one to somebody you’d have to explain to them what it was for before they would “get it”.
Do you know what I think? I think that the manufacturers of the beer hat one day realised that they’d saturated the market (quite literally) and that they needed to come up with another product that can be built with food-grade adjustable tubing pre-cut into head-circumference lengths, and invented this silly product. At least the beer hat let you drink while you had sex.
“Jackson is the model for our largest toy yet, measuring 21 inches of insertable length. His size has intimidated most, including the mares. Due to the size, his toy is one of our most detailed when it comes to veins and glans. But don’t just listen to us, try one for yourself!” – BB5T Industries
Whoah. That’s just… not possible. To give you a context of the scale of this dong, that’s a 2L drinks bottle next to it. It’s a shocking 21 inches tall – that’s about the distance between the vagina and the neck of an average woman.
This cock is so large that you could use it as a baseball bat. You could beat somebody to death with it. It’s in the region of four times as any penis you’re ever likely to have inside you. So why the fuck do you want one?
In case it wasn’t obvious from the quote, above, it’s a replica model of a horse’s penis. Yes, an actual horse – there’s pictures of him on the website, if you want to take a look, and he’s certainly hung like a… well, you get the idea. And he’s big for a horse.
I’d like to be able to pretend that the people who buy this toy do so to pleasure some horny mare in their stable, but I know that’s not going to be the case, and I’m sure you do too.
What’s the attraction? Can anybody enlighten me? We’ve heard breasts described in terms of “more than a handful” being a waste – surely the same is true of a cock – that any parts that are simply too large to fit into any of your orifices are a little bit pointless? Or maybe, somewhere, there’s a woman who can take this inside her? I’d like to say that I’d like to meet her, but it’s quite possible that we all actually live inside of her, like little insects in a microcosm of stars and planets, all inside her humongous vagina. And there’s another horror film plot, right there.
“It’s pussy-shaped mouth, 3 supples [sic] breasts, suction cup fingers and ass-shaped ears make it the kinkiest love slave in the galaxy.” – SexToy.com
And for the first time since the dragon thingy, we’re back to aliens again. For those of you who really want to be taken for a flying saucer ride and given a good probing (and who doesn’t), there’s this thing… the Area 51 Love Doll. She features purple skin (pretty alien), three breasts (very alien), and three – yes, three – fuckable holes (not so alien).
Is this actually somebody’s fetish? If so, I’m sorry to disappoint them: a little searching found this picture of what she actually looks like when she’s inflated (with thanks to this guy):
I’m not sure what the trading standards authority has to say about sex dolls, but that doesn’t look much like the thing depicted on the packet to me. Equally unarousing, but not the same, see?
It’s possible that I just don’t understand the attraction of inflatable sex dolls. I mean: I don’t see how putting your dick into a plastic-feeling novelty balloon with a surprised look on it’s face (and it’s always a look of surprise, isn’t it?) is an improvement on just having a wank the old-fashioned way: throwing your hand down onto the bed and raping it. Rotten.com did an article about inflatable love dolls, and I looked through it and thought: I wouldn’t fuck any one of those. Maybe it’s just me, again.
In other news, I frightened myself almost to death when I saw the Frankenstein’s monster-like mess that these guys came up with when they attempted to build their own sex doll out of parts. Take a look.
“I noticed what looked like a bright pink projector in the store window. But instead of a lens, the machine had a faux-flesh orifice with ‘Heaven’ scrawled across the side. And instead of a lightbulb, it seemed to have a motor churning away, tirelessly.” – Gizmodo
I am not popping my peter into that. Aside from the fact that it looks like it’s been converted from what was once a Polly Pocket (or, failing that, looks like it might be built in the body of what was supposed to be “my first tazer”), I can’t read any of the writing on it: what happens if I accidentally hit the “castrate” button instead of the “oh God, please, don’t stop” button? And how would I tell the difference given that I don’t speak a word of Japanese.
Also, I’m having difficulty imagining how this even works. Bear with me: I’m guessing from the photo that the “cartridge” (the bit on the left, labeled “Heaven”, can be removed when, umm, “spent”, and replaced with another: and they come in a number of different varieties based on what sensation you’re looking for) moves in and about of the barrel of the plastic body. It might rotate, as well. So: where do I put the device?
If I put it on the bed, I’m pretty sure that it weighs less than me, and even Newton wouldn’t need to run an experiment (although he might like to, if you gave him one of these for his birthday) to prove that what will happen is that my cock will stay exactly where it is and the machine will jump around on the bed, giving virtually no friction at all. Or you could grab hold of it, but by that point you might as well just be holding the damn cartridge and save yourself the two-million yen or whatever one of these pretty-coloured toys will set you back.
Maybe I’d be surprised: the Japanese have come up with a number of great things, such as Pocky, and maybe this is another one of them. But I doubt it.
“This toy is designed to stretch you out as you use it, the straight parts act to let you “rest” a bit before going on to the next level.” – Zeta Paws
Sooo… it’s a training sex toy? That you can use to “widen yourself up” in anticipation of even bigger sex toys? Oh-kay.
This beast of a toy stands a clear 8½ inches long and starts at 3 inches across at the narrow end. By the base of the thing, it’s 5½ inches wide. So; a little like putting a regular penis into you… sideways.
Okay, for sheer size, it doesn’t really compete with the horse penis we saw earlier, but, shit – 8½ by 5½ inches? That’s not a sex toy, that’s a doorstep! And I’m not sure it was wise to make it out of whatever that shiny material it’s made from is, because every time I look at it I think it’s not real – that perhaps it’s some cheaply-rendered 3D effect, like something The Lawnmower Man might put into his bumhole.
“His softly noduled throat will send you into overdrive. The mustache will make you remember that he’s a guy, and that he craves your juicy cock down his
throat.” – Heartsfire Leathers
A man with the throat of a sandworm, what could be sexier than that? Oh, I know: a piece of rubber made to look like the mouth and chin of a man with the throat of a sandworm: that’s right! The thing that makes it most obvious that this sex toy is bad news is the same test that you can use to prove that anything is bad news: just write “I WILL DEVOUR YOUR CHILDREN” under it, in a speech bubble. If it doesn’t look out of place, it’s time to be alarmed. If you’re supposed to be putting your tool into it, be doubly alarmed.
I’m not sure what it is about Mr. Jack that’d be most likely to give me nightmares. Is it the mouth riddled with “nodules”, which makes it look either like he’s the child of a shark of that he’s got some horrible oral disease: either of which does not incline me to let him suck me off. Or perhaps it’s the obviously-fake mustache, somewhat reminiscent of the eyebrows of my old high school history teacher, that I’d be able to glance down at and imagine leaping off, like ravenous caterpillars, and biting into my balls. Or maybe, and this could be the big one, maybe it’s because fucking half of a disembodied face is fucking creepy.
Seriously. I’ve seen triple-breasted aliens, breast-vagina-penis hybrids, and plastic feet with vaginas in them, but even though they looked like mutants, at least they weren’t half a face. Half a face is the kind of thing that nightmares are made up of. If you fell asleep after spunking into your Mr. Jack, and woke up the following morning to find half a fucking face in bed next to you, well, you’re likely to need some new sheets afterwards. Please, please, manufacturers of sex toys, please stick to dismembered genitals and don’t start making half-bits of human faces. It’s just scary.
Thanks.
It’s been a fun, full weekend. Highlights include:
A good Troma Night
In case you weren’t following, Troma Night is on Fridays nowadays. We watched the fantastic 1945 film Brief Encounter, which I’d highly recommend, and Lava, which I wouldn’t (although if you do see it, watch ’til the end: it improves, I promise).
Same about the early finish, though. People are such sleepyheads these days.
A lie-in!
Ah, it shouldn’t be such a rarity that it’s noteworthy, but unfortunately it is. I thought I had so little to do on Saturday, so Claire and I lay in and then went for a leisurely brunch… and then is when I remembered all of the things I was supposed to be doing – helping out with the Samaritans stand at the Aber Farmer’s Market, meeting up with a friend for a drink, and meeting my dad and his partner Jenny who were visiting.
Did manage to find time to hack around with some Wiimotes, though. I’ve been doing some fun reverse-engineering of their peripherals. More on that later, little doubt.
An awesome Geek Night
My dad had a little difficulty with Munchkin, but apart from that it was a fast-paced and fun Geek Night. I kicked arse at Gnostica, but only by being a bastard (Claire almost had it at one point, and even got so far as to declare an imminent victory), and also played a hell of a game of Puerto Rico, winning by only a couple of points. It was nice that Jenny was able to win Apples to Apples on the first time she’s played it, despite not being able to “play to the judge” as the rest of us so often do.
And afterwards, most of us lounged around and chatted, in that way that’s sometimes become the end to a Geek Night, and it was fabulous. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard as I did while Jimmy was trying to explain to Elizabeth how variable the consistency of semen can be. You probably had to be there, I’m afraid.
Pushing my dad off
My dad’s visit marked the beginning of his now-annual Aberystwyth to Preston cycle ride (yes, the mad fool rides the 130+ mile journey in a day).
I pushed him the first 5 yards, though, along the prom, so I’ve done my bit. He set off at about 08:30 and got home at about 19:15, so made a run of 10 hours of 45 minutes. And I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have done it without that first 5 yards, so it’s my victory, really.
Hafod estate
Ruth and I decided to make the most of the day, having gotten up early to see my dad off, and so – armed with a Forestry Commission brochure from the hotel where he and Jenny had been staying – we went to go for a walk around the quite-beautiful Hafod Estate, near Devil’s Bridge. It’s a quite beautiful part of the Ystwyth valley, filled with forests and waterfalls.
And yet another Whedon Night
And then a Whedon Night (our weekly Buffy & Angel night) to finish off the weekend. We’ve decided to try to squeeze a couple more of these in over the coming weeks in order to try to finish the final series of Buffy (and the penultimate series of Angel) before Ruth leaves for Oxford at the end of the month.
I laughed so hard, I had to share this story with you:
My job is so fucking unbelievable. I’ll try to sum it up by first telling you about the folks I work with:
First, there is this supermodel wanna-be chick. Yeah, okay, she is pretty hot, but damn is she completely useless. The girl is constantly fixing her hair or putting on makeup. She is extremely self-centered and has never once considered the needs or wants of anyone but herself. She is as dumb as a box of rocks, and I still find it surprising that she has enough brain power to continue to breathe.
The next chick is completely the opposite. She might even be one of the smartest people on the planet. Her career oppertunities are endless, and yet she is here with us. She is a zero on a scale of 1 to 10. I’m not sure she even showers, much less shaves her “womanly” parts. I think she might be a lesbian, because every time we drive by the hardware store, she moans like a cat in heat.
But the jewel of the crowd has got to be the fucking stoner. And this guy is more than just your average pothead. In fact, he is baked before he comes to work, during work, and I’m sure after work. He probably hasn’t been sober anytime in the last ten years, and he’s only 22. He dresses like a beatnik throwback from the 1960’s, and to make things worse, he brings his big fucking dog to work. Every fucking day I have to look at this huge Great Dane walk around half-stoned from the second-hand smoke. Hell, sometimes I even think it’s trying to talk with its constant bellowing. Also, both of them are constantly hungry, requiring multiple stops to McDonalds and Burger King, every single fucking day.
Anyway, I drive these fucktards around in my van and we solve mysteries and shit.
As seen here.
