So, our topic for the Demystifying Divas and the Marvy Men's Club this week is...{insert drumroll here}what lies do we tell our significant others?

For your education and entertainment, I present to you, Mr. Dave Stewart and Ms. Annie Lennox---yes, that's right kids. We're talking about the Eurythmics--- performing their smash hit Would I Lie To You?.

And, yes, kids. I was trying to sound like Dick Clark there.

Anyhoo...I've always thought the snarky alternative title to this song should be "Did I Stutter, A**hole?" Annie's packed her bags, she's cleaned the floor, and you're supposed to watch her walk out the door, (Although, one does wonder why, if the relationship is over, Annie would bother to clean the floor. Wouldn't a breakup negate the need for that sort of dreary housework?) and all the while the chorus is singing in the background, "Believe Me." So, when one actually bothers to listen to the lyrics of this song, one gets the impression that perhaps Annie wasn't as truthful as she might have been during the course of this relationship. Why else would she need plead with him to believe her otherwise?

Annie's been telling some little white lies, methinks.

And you know that happens, right? No one likes to cop to it, but it does happen, especially in the early stages of the relationship, when we're desperate to impress and perhaps the unexpurgated truth isn't the image we'd like to present. However, when you really dive into the deep end of a relationship, honesty is always a virtue, but not at the cost of being kind. So, instead of lying flat out, we perhaps tell little white lies, or tell lies of omission, where we just skip around the situation altogether. Because, sometimes, lying---and I really do hate to say it---is the right thing to do.

To prove my point, we shall examine all the options for one particular, universal, question that is asked everyday by women:

If a man doesn't want his bollocks to magically disappear, the smart answer to this question is...

...a noncomittal, "hmmmm" and a prompt change of topic. While this would count for a lie of omission, it would nonetheless be, technically speaking, the most correct way of answering this question. It dodges. It weaves. It avoids the killer right hook. Yet it's kind, and if the woman knows how to read between the lines, she will know that a. her man does not want to be dumped into a vat of hot water and b. he's trying not to hurt her feelings.

The seriously wrong answer to this question would be, "Yes, you are a lard ass. Change into a tent, would you? I don't want to be embarrassed." If you have a wish to be castrated, well, go right ahead and throw this one out there for the consumption of your beloved. It won't hurt...I promise.

Yet another incorrect answer would be if he chose to flat-out lie and said, "No, dear. It doesn't. You look great." If said woman then goes out to a party, where the main topic of whispered gossip happens to be "what the hell was she thinking when she put on that dress?" and she catches wind of it, well, he's a dead man. Because he's supposed to protect her from this sort of thing, he's supposed to be honest with her, and he failed. If only he'd told me the truth!

The problem here is that, at times, we want our significant others to lie to us. Sometimes we don't want the truth as they see it, but rather we want them to prop up the truth as we see it, which probably isn't the truth at all, but rather an illusion, or delusion as the case may be. Sometimes the kind thing to do, the thing that will ensure your vital bits don't magically disappear, is to fib. And by my usage of the term "fib," I mean it's all right, on occasion, to slightly lie to save someone hurt. "Fib" is not, in Kath's Thesaurus of Potentially Life Altering Language, the exact equivalent of "I'm not going to tell her that I slept with someone while I was at that dental convention in Acapulco." That would be an outright lie. And it's not kind to pull that sort of whopper on someone with whom you've pledged to spend the rest of your life. Because that kind of lie, while saving your bollocks temporarily, could come back to bite you...hard. Because that's a selfish kind of lie. A fib is a kind sort of lie. Get the difference? Good. Otherwise, you'll be just like Annie and you'll be pleading with her to "believe you" as she walks out the door. And I'll bet you anything she won't have cleaned the floor before she packed her bags.

And that's all she wrote. Quite literally. So, now go and see what the other Demystifying Divas have to say on the topic. One of our newest Divaesque Ladies, Sheila of The Sheila Variations, is stepping up this week and adding her two cents. Then, for the flip side, go and read what our Marvy Men's Club, which is comprised of Stiggy, The Wiz, Phin and our Maximum Leader, has offered up on this topic.

UPDATE: Divaesque Lady Twisty has also chimed in. Scoot along and read.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:11 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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We had some nasty weather move through roughly about two hours ago. When I left the house a little before noon to go walking around the lake, it was sunny, hot and the skies were blue. And humid. Really, really humid. Because we'd had another set of thunderstorms move through around nine this morning and they'd just---to quote Stella from Rear Window---made the heat wet. As I huffed and puffed around the lake, sweating up a storm (yeech!), I wasn't really surprised to hear over the radio that another set of storms was going to move through. What I was surprised about, however, was that the county was in a severe thunderstorm warning, instead of a watch. I decided to hustle home. And a good thing I did, too, because by the time I'd reached the house, I could see big, blue clouds rolling in from the northwest.

Then the husband called. Our new landlord had called him, wondering if he was home and could walk his suddenly available plumber through a preliminary check of the place because he was stuck at work. Obviously, I was home and was more than willing to show the guy through the place. No hassles. But he was going to be there in five minutes or thereabouts. I raced through the shower---did I mention it was humid when I was at the lake?---and when I got out, well, you'd have thought night had descended upon the Greater Twin Cities area. The clouds had turned blackish-green, which, any native of the midwest could tell you usually means bad things. Like hail. And the occasional tornado.

It started to downpour, and wow, what a storm! It was the first really nasty one of the season. In between keeping an eye out for the plumber, I was watching the waterfall on the south side of the house. You see, Tweedledumb never bothered to clear out the gutters after all the leaves fell. Have I mentioned we have three oaks and five pine trees in the yard, and a few of them hang over the house? So, to put it mildly, there's a few years worth of debris in the gutters. Rather I should say there was a few years worth of detritus in the gutters because it was raining so hard it actually knocked crap out of the gutters and sent it careering to the ground. I've never seen that happen before and it was kind of cool. But no tornadoes, which is always kind of a blessing and a curse. No running to the basement, but no excitement, either. Sigh.

Well, the plumber didn't show up until two-thirty. He'd waited the storm out, but hadn't bothered to tell anyone. Which wasn't really pleasing, but was understandable. I wouldn't have wanted to drive through that storm, either. The "world coming to an end" situation comes in when the plumber left and I left the house in search of a pack of smokes.

I'd run out before I'd gone to the lake. Now, normally this isn't a hassle. Just walk down the street to Walgreens and pick up a pack. No hassles. But where we hadn't lost electricity, which I must admit is a first for this kind of storm, everyone else had. And NO ONE wanted to open up and sell their wares to people who wanted to buy stuff. Because they didn't have power.

Now, I know this is going to sound very "When I was your age, I walked five miles to school, uphill both ways, and it snowed a lot too," but what the hell is up with that? Are you that crippled without power that you can't ring things up by hand? Can't you do the math with a calculator? Can't you keep track of what you sold with a pen and a piece of paper, and then enter it in manually when you have power again? None of these things, apparently, are possible nowadays.

Back in the day when I managed for Caribou, we lost power due to an overeager construction crew one afternoon. And it was no big deal. In fact, it was an adventure. The kids working with me had a ball---when they got over their fear of performing all the transactions manually. I gave the drip brew away because I couldn't guarantee that it was hot and I was just going to have to pitch it anyway. Obviously, espresso drinks were out. But I had a boatload of of bakery products to sell, and believe you me, boy, did they sell. People were hungry. It was lunchtime, and here they were in the middle of a freakin' grocery store, loaded with food, and they couldn't buy anything. I was out of product within an hour. And all because I knew how to use a calculator and how to record things with a pen and a piece of paper, I sold stuff I normally would have pitched at the end of the day. There's opportunity everywhere, and yet, no one in this neighborhood apparently cares about capitalism. No one cares about the law of supply and demand. Because the power's out. And they can't be bothered. Because this was more of a "Woohoo, we've got the afternoon off!" situation for most of these employees, and not one where money could be made.

Not a lot of initiative there if you ask me.

Now, I realize you're thinking "well, the cash drawer locked up. They can't access it." Sorry, that one's not going to fly, because I've seen people get into the drawers at these places with a simple turn of a key. Or you might be thinking, "there's liability issues. Dark store, people bumping around, hurting themselves." Yeah, I understand that one, too, but when they've actually let friends into the store---and I can see them---and you're standing at the front door, telling me to go away because there's no power, well, that's not going to fly, either. And, yes, they had flashlights.

You should have seen this chick at Walgreens. Man, was she ever peeved with me. I told her I didn't need change, but I just needed a pack of smokes. That's all. Here's my id. Here's the three bucks. PLEASE? (Yeah, I was having a nicotine fit. But I was polite about it.) But we don't have power she said in a really whiny voice. We can't sell you anything because it would ruin our inventory. "What?" I replied, somewhat baffled, "Aren't you keeping track of sales manually? You can enter them in when the power comes back on, can't you?" When she whined some more, I finally had to play my trump card: "what are those women doing in there? They don't work here. They work at the salon across the street. How come you're selling to them and not to me?" At which point she let out an incredibly windy, My-God-Are-You-Ever-Putting-Me-Out sort of sigh and then handed over the smokes. I took them and boogied. I didn't want to "bother" her anymore.

It kind of makes you wonder what the case would be if there was a really serious outage. A days long outage. Because that's been known to happen in this neighborhood in the past because our power lines aren't buried. This happened before I moved here, but I heard nothing but goodwill stories. People helping people. Stores pitching in and helping their customers. Gas pumps were unlocked manually and no one stole anything.

I wonder if that would still be the case today. Or would it be more like this, even if it was a godawful movie.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oh, that makes soooooo much sense.

In other Tom "I'm MOST DEFINITELY NOT GAY" Cruise news, did you see where he got squirted with water by a fake reporter in London? I don't exactly see how you could have missed it unless you're just checking in from the top of Everest, via a sat phone hookup. In which case, you're excused. But for the rest of you, well, gosh, isn't it striking how well Tommy can dish it, but just can't take it?

{...}Cruise initially appeared to laugh at the incident but then asked the prankster: "Why would you do that?"

As the man gave a barely audible excuse, Cruise said: "Do you like thinking less of people, is that it?" The prankster tried to walk away but Cruise reached across the metal barrier, held his arm and said: "Don't run away. That's incredibly rude. I'm here giving you an interview and you do that ... it's incredibly rude."

The actor grew increasingly irritated and told the man: "You're a jerk." Footage of the incident appeared on Sky News TV on Monday.{...}

Ain't that rich?

We've been subjected to the "Tom Cruise Circus of Dysfunction" for over a month now. We've been told we should be happy because Tom's IN LOVE! That this is the reason why he's, to steal a phrase from Sheila, running around like a gibbering chimp. To make sure his new movie doesn't tank, Spielberg is being forced to give interviews defending his star. And we're supposed to feel sorry for Tommy Boy because he got squirted in the face with a little water? Furthermore, Tommy Boy has to transform the whole incident into a matter of personal philosophy. "Do you like thinking less of people, is that it?" Like Tommy Boy is a complete and utter angel and has never done anything so revolting in his life! The nerve of some people! Scientology preaches against exactly this sort of behavior and, if you'll step right over to the tent that's set up over yonder, those nice people will explain to you exactly where you're going wrong and they'll give you a personality quiz that will last, roughly, for four hours and they won't let you leave! Then they'll tell you exactly how much enlightenment costs, roughly, within the Church of Scientology. Have a good time, sucker!

Bleh.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Go on and click. You know you want to.

Ovaries. Twitching.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just in case you were wondering, I, apparently, rule the universe.

Why, you ask, have I appointed myself ruler of the Milky Way?

Because I completely winged a recipe for pie today and it came out perfectly.

I wanted a berry pie, but all the berries that are normally considered to be suitable for pies (blueberries, raspberries) cost an arm and a leg. But Strawberries were (reasonably) cheap. (They really do stick us for produce here in the Great White North. It sucks, in case you were wondering. $2.99 for a feckin' pound of Roma tomatoes. Grand freakin' larceny!) Anyway, having no recipes for Strawberry Pie, I checked around to see what I could find, but they all either took forever and day to make, or they used frozen strawberries (bleh). So, I mixed and matched and came up with this. Enjoy.

Strawberry Pie

4 cups sliced strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Sift sugar, cornstarch and flour together, mix with berries and throw into a pie crust that you've already prepared and haven't gotten the recipe for from me. Because I suck at pie crusts. I use the Pillsbury pre-made ones you get in your grocer's dairy case. Really. They work just fine. Cover with the second bit of dough, cut some slits into it, and sprinkle some sugar on it.

Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until it starts bubbling. Cover the edge with foil so it doesn't burn, and take it off with ten minutes to go, so the crust gets baked. This only holds unless you're super-duper cool and have one of those nifty metal circles (available at your local cookery shop!) that serves this purpose. If you've got one of those, well, use that instead and save yourself the trouble of trying to fit square foil on a round pie pan.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Does anyone else worry that because of the ever-present scooter, we're going to have a generation of kids who all have one leg that's stronger than the other?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:26 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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For they shall have their own ring of hell to live in.

That thar link shoots you to a windy Financial Times piece from Saturday's edition on the International Red Cross and the difficult decisions they're facing due to modern warfare. You see, the ICRC's mandate, traditionally, has been to send out monitors to POW camps and prisons to ensure that nation-states are living up to their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. To gain access to these camps, they promise that they will not publicize their findings, but will rather work on the inside to make sure things are done to help the prisoners with their living conditions. This has been the case since WWI. It's a quid pro quo arrangement. But, lately, it seems as if some people within the ICRC have been having issues with this quid pro quo. They want the quid, but now they're having second thoughts about giving the quo. And you want to know what events have brought about this remarkable potential change in mission?

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Yes, that's right. This is the organization who did not think twice about what the SS was doing in Theriesenstadt. They bought the SS's story about that town, hook, line and sinker. But wait, it gets worse. From the article:

{...}But on the Nazi extermination and concentration camps, their courage and imagination failed. At a meeting held in Geneva on October 14 1942, the 25 people who presided over the organisation voted not to go public with the knowledge they had about Auschwitz and the systematic murder of civilians, Jews, gypsies, political dissidents and intellectuals, on the grounds that Hitler might retaliate by denying them access to the allied prisoners in German hands. It was not actually in their mandate to protect civilians - a revision of the Geneva Conventions to include protection for civilians had only reached draft stage by the outbreak of war - so that, technically, they were not at fault. But at the end of the war, when this decision to stay silent became known, it provoked widespread criticism including talk of anti-Semitism, and even threatened the future of the organisation.{...}

So, here you have an organization that has, for the most part, stuck to its original mission: to observe and work for better conditions for prisoners of war from the inside. Except for a few rare instances over the past sixty years, they have not publicized their findings. But the one time they should have diverged from their mission and publicized that millions of people were being systematically exterminated, they didn't do it. They were worried about the potential of Hitler retaliating and denying them access to POW's. They kept quiet, instead. Because protecting civilians wasn't a part of their mandate. And the mass murders continued. The smoke kept pumping out of the smokestacks at Auschwitz, in part, because of their silence.

It beggars belief that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo should be the straws that are reportedly breaking the ICRC's back nowadays, when they had the opportunity to play a major part in stopping a genocide and they didn't do it. But, I'll fully admit, that could just be me and my skewed sense of right and wrong.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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{Insert Gomer Pyle Voice Here}

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.

Man, I simply, flat-out, cannot freakin' wait for the Baba Waba interview five years from now, when Katie announces to the world---as a part of her "comeback pr tour"---that, yes, indeedy, she made a huge mistake marrying Tommy Boy; that Scientology, really and truly, is a cult; and that---insert drumroll here---Tommy Boy really does prefer cabana boys over cabana girls. Because methinks Katie will be bitter when she finally realizes she's been used. And everything's going to be fair game at that point in time.

Have you ever seen a more self-loathing, closeted gay man? Nope. Tommy Boy really does take the cake on this one. What's really sad is that he's taking advantage of a moderately talented, but extremely naive, young woman who has a future---but doesn't now---to prop up the biggest lie he tells himself. (There is a reason he picked her, after all. Don't kid yourselves. The fact that she's naive in the extreme was a bonus for Tommy Boy.) It's sad, really. If he can't come out publicly, for obvious reasons, he could at least stop taking advantage of young women to cover his ass and, you know, just be alone, living a discreet life. Because the women keep getting younger and younger. You have noticed that, right? And, in my little world of theory, it's not because he prefers them young, per se, (look at Mimi Rogers for chrissakes) but rather because they've got little experience to suss this sort of thing out. That and his ex-es always seem to go running for men with who possess an overabundance of testosterone once they break up with Tommy Boy. Penelope Cruz has hooked up with Matthew McConaughey; Nicole Kidman was reportedly upset when Russell Crowe got married because she wanted to date him. The pattern is clear. He's using these women as uninformed beards. They've bought into the myth that is Tom Cruise. And he takes full advantage of it. It's just mean and selfish.

And when Katie does talk to Baba Waba, well, it's going to be sweet.

Oh, and just for the record, I believe War of the Worlds is going to tank. Big Time. It's going to be Gigli all over again.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:26 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The blogosphere's veritable James Joyce Junkie, Sheila, has gone Bloomsday crazy.

Back away from your copy of Finnegan's Wake, Sheila. Slowly. Go very, very slowly.

Go on over and just keep scrolling

Posted by: Kathy at 02:57 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 HAHAHAHAHA It's a yearly tradition. I can't stop. I've taken a break for now. But I'm STILL NOT DONE.

Posted by: red at June 16, 2005 03:00 PM (qxKkx)

2 I think Joyce would appreciate that sentiment

Posted by: Kathy at June 16, 2005 03:11 PM (cgZvM)

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Someone comes along and takes a digital picture that just blows your expectations out of the water.

Mazeltov, Margi and Koolaid!

WooT!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:03 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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...to break forth the rhythm and the rhyme.

Just try getting gool ol' Marky Mark out of your head now, sucka!

{Insert evil chuckle here.}

Anyway, it's time for the Carnival of the Babewits. Go read. And the next time someone asks you, "jeez, where are all the women in the blogosphere?" just send them over to Mark's place.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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*Obligatory Warning*: I had no dog in the Terri Schiavo fight. I did not pen one post about it. I stayed the heck out of it. Wasn't going to touch it with a ten foot pole. I made one comment on someone else's blog about an obscure part of the case and I got my head bit off for the effort expended. After that, I kept quiet and watched. Because we all know I'm something of a voyeur when it comes to Internet catfights. So, I make this observation not to get a "nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you suck!" shot across the bow, but rather to simply make the observation. Let me repeat that: Kath did not have a dog in this fight. Got it? Good.

Now for the observation.

Ahem.

Terri's autopsy report came out today. Terri's battle really brought out some of the worst behavior I've ever seen in the blogosphere. If Rathergate was the high point, this was most definitely the low. Perhaps it was simply meant to be that way, to show us the glaring failures of this new medium we're so very fond of proclaiming is the new information revolution. I don't know. I don't read entrails for a living, so I couldn't tell you for certain: this is just my gut feeling. Anyway, a lot of people made hay on this issue. Serious amounts of hay. Enough to feed all the livestock for a very long winter. But, and here's where the observation comes in, very few seem to be chiming in now that the autopsy report is in. Perhaps this is because the actual science of the report goes against what they were proclaiming to be the truth to her condition back when she was alive.

I know whom I'm looking for to chime in on this one, and they haven't. They've been silent all day long about it. I'm not going to name them, because they're very middle of the road bloggers. Not freepers. Not moonbats. They don't deserve the ignominy of being called out for this one. I felt that perhaps they were a wee bit overwrought about the entire deal. Say whatever you will about the entire situation, but you cannot deny that Terri brought out people's passion. And it brought it out in both beautiful and incredibly ugly ways. It was personal for these bloggers and that passion, perhaps, sometimes, I thought, got the better of their usually calm, reasoned rhetoric.

A friend of mine likes to remind me that this is a very new medium and that we'll never really replace the mainstream media, or even really make all that big of a dent in it, because bloggers, as a whole, aren't really held accountable. A reporter is held accountable to an editor, who is held accountable to the publisher, who is held accountable by the paying public. We're just spouting off here and are accountable, in only a very limited sense, to our readers and our blogging compadres. But since we can delete our blogs with the click of the mouse, and we'll never really face any real-life consequences if we've spouted off about this, that or the other, unless we're blogging at work and have been fired for it. That's about it. In other words, we really don't have an obligation to say "we were wrong" if we should be proven to be wrong. Audiences, as anyone who's been doing this for a while can tell you, come and go. You may be someone's favorite one week, and they might lose interest the next. Publish something your reader disagrees with and the beauty of the blogosphere dictates that there's probably someone out there who's said exactly what they want to hear, and has done it even better than the blogger they just abandoned. That's fine. As far as I'm concerned, readers are allowed to do that. What I do wonder about is this, though: there are plenty of blogs, this being one of them, who proclaimed the information revolution was well on its way when Dan Rather resigned because of the ball that started rolling in the blogosphere. Some of these very same blogs made some specious claims about Terri Schiavo. And today they've been proven wrong. Will they feel the obligation to say they were wrong?

And if they don't, what happens to the information revolution?

Posted by: Kathy at 12:19 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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You know, I'm really not a scary person. I know sometimes I come off like one, because this place is where I put a lot of my angst. But you shouldn't take it seriously. I'm not that frightening of a person. Really, I'm not. Most people think I'm really nice.

Except...

When someone tries to use me. Then I have to draw the damn line, because homey just don't play that. For those of you who are wondering what I'm going on about this time, well, it's this: I am getting exceedingly tired of bloggers who perhaps don't have a huge audience---and would like to gain one---tracking back to a post I've written on a similar subject WITHOUT LINKING ME. They're doing this to gain hits. To gain notoriety. I know that's the reason they're doing it, but it's---and I'm going to shout this so they get it the first fucking time---TACKY IN THE EXTREME. Your trackback will get deleted. Trust me on this one. Get your own damn audience, or at least get some balls and send me a promo email. If you want me to get angry, like I just did, try and sneak around me, assuming I won't care. Because, let me tell you kids, that's a surefire way to bring the heavens down upon you. But, really, if you want me to promote one of your posts, send me an email that goes something like this:

Hi Kathy,

I'm a fan of the Cake Eater Chronicles and I just wrote a post that dovetails nicely with one you wrote about such and such subject. Here's the link if you're interested in reading it.

Thanks for your time,

So and so blogger

Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? I may link you. I may not. You'll never know unless you try.

And just a super sekrit message to the dude who inspired this post: if you'd sent me an email, I would have linked to you. It was a good post. But now I won't because you tried to horn in on my blog and my traffic without giving me anything in return. It's pretty fucking simple. Blogging is, at best, a quid pro quo excursion. If you're not going to give, neither am I. Take your parasitic behavior and go elsewhere.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:36 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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1 It was only with the greatest of self control that I did not link back to this post!

Posted by: RP at June 15, 2005 08:15 AM (LlPKh)

2 Awww. You do realize that he'll never blog again in this town. Not that I know what town he's in...

Posted by: sadie at June 15, 2005 11:06 AM (zZMHN)

3 You're talking about me aren't you? I'm sorry. I promise I won't do it again, I thought I had linked back, really I did. Honest. Can't we put this behind us and go back to the way things were before? If I offer to wash your back will it make things all better? It's because I'm fat isn't it? I'm with RP on the self control bit, at least Steve-O didn't let us down.

Posted by: phin at June 15, 2005 11:34 AM (Xvpen)

4 Wait, you have an audience worth stealing?

Posted by: ndh at June 15, 2005 11:50 AM (MazhS)

5 Phin---let's just say I'm the Kramer of this self-control contest. I've never been "Lord of the Blogging Manor."

Posted by: Steve the LLamabutcher at June 15, 2005 12:07 PM (eVpBU)

6 See, that's the point, ndh...I don't have a huge audience. I don't know why people do this sort of thing, when I'm actually pretty generous with what linky love I can offer.

Posted by: Kathy at June 15, 2005 12:18 PM (cgZvM)

7 It happens to me fairly frequently. And it ticks me off! So, yeah, what you said!

Posted by: Ith at June 15, 2005 01:04 PM (46fe5)

8 I'm calling blog daughter privelege - I linked it. I couldn't help myself. It was too funny!

Posted by: Phoenix at June 15, 2005 02:25 PM (4N2f4)

9 That's some A++ quality navel gazing there, Kathy. I look forward to the next thrilling installment!

Posted by: charlie eklund at June 15, 2005 06:57 PM (ywZa8)

10 You frighten me. Now I'm gonna go trackback this post...and not link.

Posted by: Kevin at June 15, 2005 10:55 PM (e7I2/)

11 Well, people DO tell me I'm scary, but only if you have to work with me. I'm not proud of it, but who the hell is happy at work anyway? Sigh. I really think I'm taking the rest of the week off. What was that about navel gazing? Oh, YOUR navel. I get it. Me wonders if we suffered the same phenom from the same new local. I was going to be polite and send a friendly netiquette e-mail prompt. But, I've been too lazy this week, so the trackback is even still there. But YOU just let 'er rip, which is what I like about you, come to think of it. It's nice to think someone out there is scarier than me. I think I'll use it to threaten the hubby.

Posted by: Sandy at June 16, 2005 12:53 AM (r49o0)

12 What I hate is when someone comments with something like "go to my post" without ever really saying anything about the post I've written. I don't mind someone leaving a comment and linking to their blog if they have written on the same subject, but at least really SAY something about what I've written.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at June 16, 2005 06:47 AM (Jgwqx)

13 I'm not a blogger, however a read a lot of blogs. What the hell is trackback anyway? Perhaps you could share with us less enlightened folks?? I've often wondered WTF that was for.

Posted by: Dude Hanz at June 16, 2005 09:19 AM (iqW/Z)

14 And that would be why I used the phrase "navel gazing" in the title, dude Trackback is a pretty simple thing once you get the hang of it. It works on the same principle as a submarine ping: remember that scene in Hunt for Red October where Ramius is asking for a ping to verify the distance to target? Well, trackback is pretty much the same thing, hence the usage of the word "ping," when referring to track back, as in "I pinged your blog." It's a tool that allows bloggers to know who's linked a particular post they've written. If you click on the trackback link up at the bottom of this post, you'll see all the people who have "tracked back," meaning they've linked this post on their own blogs. There are other ways of tracking who's linking to your blog, but they're time consuming and late. Trackback is quick and efficient and you usually know about it within a few minutes of being pinged. And all of this is made possible by an html link that's assigned to each and every post. Now, some blogging software, like Movable Type (the one in use on this here blog) automatically tracks back to other MT blogs. When you link to them, it automatically pings their blog. You don't have to worry about it. Other blogging software, like Blogger, doesn't have automatic trackback, so if you want to trackback, you have to manually ping someone using a software add-on. Haloscan is the primary manual trackback software out there. Now, it's no big deal when someone links to a post you've written and then has manually tracked back, to let me know about it. This is considered to be the polite thing to do in terms of blogosphere etiquette. It lets me know who's linking me and I rather like knowing that. That's not what I'm talking about here. The problem comes in when someone doesn't link me, but tracks back to my post anyway, because it's on the same subject. There are any number of reasons why people would do this, but the main one is that they're looking for links. It's like putting an ad on my blog without my consent, without me getting anything in return. It's very rude. I hope that explains it.

Posted by: Kathy at June 16, 2005 09:44 AM (cgZvM)

15 I'm new to this blogging shit, so when I link to someone I'm supposed to email and let them know? Damn that's too much work, I'm never linking again!

Posted by: livey at June 16, 2005 01:51 PM (lYZQs)

16 "Damn that's too much work, I'm never linking again!" And thus we witness the end of your blog.

Posted by: jimg at June 16, 2005 07:58 PM (5ZWwc)

17 A lot of bloggers consider sending an email like you suggested, tacky. With everyone having their own set of rules how can anyone possibly know the right thing to do?

Posted by: Lynn S at June 17, 2005 09:14 AM (bGY+D)

18 Good lord, that just seems incredibly petty to me. Of all the things to hyperventilate about.

Posted by: Jay at June 17, 2005 09:24 AM (/yylU)

19 I'm sure it does seem like a "petty" thing to "hyperventilate" about, Jay. Unless you have to deal with it over and over again. Which, for some strange reason, I do. Then it becomes a pain in the ass. The last thing any blogger wants to do is smack down a blogger who's getting their feet wet. It's not nice. And I don't really like doing it, but honestly, how much am I supposed to take? Particularly when this blogger pretty much acted like a some as*hole pr0n operator who floods my older posts on a regular basis with comment and trackback spam. Which I then have to go in and delete and then rebuild my site, which hangs things up for my readers. I mean, is that a cool thing to do? Is that how this blogger really wants to get more traffic to their site? By being an a**hole? If that's "petty" of me, well, then so be it. Get a blog and you, too, will know that running one takes work.

Posted by: Kathy at June 17, 2005 10:23 AM (cgZvM)

20 Thanks but I would rather not. It's sounds like stress I would rather not have. And work. I'm not a really a lazy person, but if it's work (as opposed to fun) then I like to see results. I don't see much concrete benefit to expending that level of energy. Anyway, I digress. Focus your anger and frustration elsewhere. I am not your enemy, just some random guy who wandered by to say hello. Relax. My god. There are mountains, and there are molehills. And frankly, who is (not) tracking back to your blog.... is a molehill.

Posted by: Jay at June 17, 2005 12:57 PM (/yylU)

21 Sorry, Jay. Didn't mean to make it seem like I was aiming both barrels at you. I apologize. Not that it's an excuse, but I'm having a cranky sort of day.

Posted by: Kathy at June 17, 2005 01:40 PM (cgZvM)

22 question: what would be the appropriate etiquette for someone who links to you? for example, big fish links to small fish. does small fish return the favor by linking big fish coupled with a trackback? im trying to learn.

Posted by: Dr. Zubov at June 30, 2005 12:19 PM (lLExy)

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Dear Jonathan, as I found out recently, is a wee bit fanatical about all things Apple.

I am not, however, obsessed with all things Apple. I think people who buy those things are probably pretty nice, but are misguided and really should be shown the light.

I am also---as you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, already know---a wee bit obsessed with all things Stewie. And as the laptop is named "wee bastard" I've always had Stewie wallpaper. It just fits. But recently the husband, who is never on my computer, has tired of the old Stewie wallpaper. So he went out and found me a new one.

Well, lookie at the new wallpaper the husband found for my computer.

I just had to share.

Heh.

UPDATE: Jonathan emails and tells me Ipods annoy him, despite his adoration of all things Apple. He apparently doesn't know why.

Hmmmm. Could it be that cult membership only goes so far? Perhaps there's hope for these people yet!

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Once again, Tuesday has rolled around---surprise, surprise, surprise---hence it is {insert righteous, soul blasting, trumpet music here} Demystifying Divas Day. Our topic for today: what is appropriate beachwear?

Now, if you were to ask this question of the husband (which I did: he's my polling sample) he would tell you a. every beach should be topless (And yes, just to confirm any leaps of the imagination you might have made with that little bit of disclosure, yes, the French Riviera is one of his dream vacation destinations.) and b. just say no to the "grape smuggler"-type swimsuits, aka speedos. You see, in his mind, a woman's body is a beautiful thing. He's not going to mind one bit if a woman has a few extra pounds on her---as long as she's topless. Naked breasts distract from any imperfections apparently. For a man's body, well, according to the husband, said man shouldn't wear one of those itty bitty speedos unless he's got the body to pull it off, and even then it's a flip of the coin as to whether the man really should be wearing the thing. What I find ironic is that if he ever were to make to the French Riviera, he'd find a lot of speedos mixed in with all of the topless women, because I believe that's one of the places in Europe where hygiene requirements dictate that men have to wear such a swimsuit.

As for what I think, well, I think as long as you're comfortable in your swimsuit and it doesn't keep riding up your butt (hence forcing you to keep digging for gold...in PUBLIC), you can wear what you'd like. Even if it's a Speedo. Because, really, there are some men who can get away with wearing speedos. (Michael Phelps comes to mind. Hottie McHotHot! Rowr.) It's all about being comfortable with your body: if you're comfortable with your body, well, that feeling of confidence that you give off has a way of hiding cellulite and stretch marks. It's a magic little thing.

A couple of years ago, back when we could afford such a thing, the husband and I were members of what would be thrown into the city club designation for places where you spend an obscene amount of money playing the meet and greet game. It was the same deal as a country club, only without the golf course. There was a health club instead. It was a pretty swank club and we enjoyed our membership there not only because was it the best people watching opportunity in town, but also because there was a rooftop pool replete with BAR SERVICE! There's really nothing quite so nice on a hot summer afternoon than having a very cute, very nice, young waiter deliver you a refreshing, cold glass of Chardonnay as you read the latest edition of The Economist whilst sunning yourself poolside. That's living, let me tell you.

Ahem.

Anyway when I first went to the pool, of course, I was a wee bit nervous about how I looked in my swimsuit. Now, I'm not a bikini girl. I haven't owned one since I was about five-years-old (It was green with cute little fishies on it) because I thought (and still think) they were too revealing for me, so I've pretty much been a maillot girl ever since. If you don't know what these are, well, know that it's got a low-ish back on it, it covers my rear-end, and it shows what I would consider to be a reasonable amount of cleavage. Nothing too fancy, in other words. It's also functional and as such it makes me feel comfortable. But this was the club--- with rich bitches who spend every waking moment on the elipticals in the health club. I was nervous that I was going to be the only one with cellulite poking out. The husband told me I looked fine and then shoved me out the door.

As it turns out, the husband was (once again) right. I needn't have worried. It became quite obvious that the world, and the people in it, really aren't airbrushed. (It'd been a while since I'd gone to a pool. My expectations for embarrassment were high.) There were women there, well over the age of forty, standing around, chatting with friends, who were dressed in skimpy bikinis and they looked fabulous---despite the fact you could divine how many kids they'd had just by counting the stretch marks on their tummies. They didn't care. Neither did they care if there were a few dimples on their thighs and butts. They just didn't give a rat's ass. Why? Because they were comfortable with their bodies.

These women were a sharp contrast to the young woman who always sat devotedly next to her asshole boyfriend at the edge of the pool. (He stole my waiter once by waving a fifty dollar bill in midair, at a club where everything was done by tab, hence he was forever shut into the asshole category as a result.) Now the boyfriend was the type who thought it necessary to wear his diamond-encrusted Texas Timex to the pool (along with a few guido chains around his neck) and was more interested in showing off how much money he had than actually having a good time. Well, let me amend that: showing off how much money he had was his idea of a good time. His girlfriend, who I'm very sure was not used to going to clubs of this nature, was an interesting people-watching specimen. I will admit, she fascinated me because she was, well---how do I put this?---incongrous? Yeah, that works. Her attitude didn't match what she looked like. That's why I found her interesting to observe.

She was tall, thin, and was a bottle blonde. Every time she took a swim, she never dipped her head under the water, because it would wreck the full war paint she had going on, to say nothing of her perfectly arranged hair. Now, this woman had what a lot of men would consider to be the perfect, early 21st Century body. And by that I mean she could have body-doubled for J.Lo. I would swear on a mile-high stack that she'd had gone for the ass implants. Her butt was completely, perfectly, round, like you'd cut a softball in half and had slid each half under either cheek. These implants, of course, matched the ones on her chest, which were just right. Not too large, but not too small, either. Her stomach was flat, her thighs were slim, her toes were professionally tended to, as were her hands. She had the perfect body that only the best plastic surgeons could provide and yet, surprisingly enough, after all that, she wasn't comfortable with herself. Her boyfriend apparently thought all of his money needed to be displayed appropriately, hence she was always in a bikini. She was perfectly tanned and was quite pretty naturally. But she wasn't comfortable with herself. Her arms were always crossed over her chest. She wore a towel around her waist as much as she possibly could. She always looked as if she was trying to hide, always looking down and trying to be invisible, so that the teacher wouldn't call on her. The older, bikini wearing women, who were busy chatting with their friends while they tried to keep their kids from kamikazi-ing off the side of the pool and killing themselves in the process, intimidated this girl. And it was there to see by anyone who'd bothered to look.

Hence, this is why I say, wear what you want to the pool or the beach: if you're comfortable in it, who cares what anyone else has to say about it? You could have the best body money could buy and still not be comfortable with it. So, why bother worrying (and spending thousands of dollars fixing it) about it? You'll save time and money that way. And, as the husband always claims, confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can wear. Don't worry so much about how it fits.

Now, run along and see what the other fabulous demystifying divas have to say on the subject. Also, please go over and say "hi" to Divaesque Lady Kate, who is also contributing to our vast knowledge on this subject this week. Also, make sure to check out what the boys have to say on the topic. The Wiz is taking a bye week, so he won't have anything to say, but make sure to read what Phin, Stiggy and The Foreign Minister have contributed.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:07 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Some random fan quotes given upon Michael Jackson's acquittal

• "This proves that justice can prevail in America," said Tara Bardella, 19, who came from Arizona two weeks ago to wait for the verdicts. "We love you, Michael!"
• "I'm shaking," said Emily Smith, 24, of London, who was among the few lucky fans who got courtroom passes. "I believe justice has been done today."
• Lifelong fan Raffles Vanexel, 29, of Amsterdam, said he "cried like a little baby" when the verdicts were read.

  "I feel like I was reborn," said Vanexel, who claimed he helped lift Jackson onto an SUV for his notorious rooftop dance after his arraignment. "The best is yet to come for Michael. This time around, the world owes him something."

• Martin Stock, the founder of a Jackson fan club in Germany who stayed up past 11 p.m. to watch the outcome, said he was overjoyed, even though he had expected his idol's acquittal.

  "The whole trial was laughable and Michael was treated inhumanely. I think people were trying to throw him into prison to get at his money," Stock said.

I just have one question for these so-called fans: would you leave your kid alone with this man?

If so, you deserve to have your reproductive rights cancelled. You're not intelligent enough to bring a child into this world.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:00 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Good.

Kuwait appointed a woman to its cabinet for the first time in its history on Sunday, marking another victory for women's rights activists just a month after they won the right to suffrage.

Prime Minister Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah appointed Massouma al-Mubarak as minister of planning and as minister of state for administrative development affairs, Kuwait's state news agency, KUNA, reported Sunday.

Ms. Mubarak, 54, a political science professor at Kuwait University, has been a leading advocate for women's rights in the country. {...}

Hurrah!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...but it sure is nice to know that someone's noticed, and in a good way, too.

{Hat Tip: Doug}

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According to The Elder, I'm supposed to have something called "state pride." I'm supposed to send you over to a blog written by a Hugh Hewitt lackey to vote for Minnesota's quarter because it's a matter of state pride.

Pfft. Whatever.

Dude, I just live here. The minute I win the Powerball I am so outta here.

Seriously. Don't vote for Minnesota's quarter. It's lame and this, despite Downtown Minneapolis being loaded with goateed graphic designers, is the best they could come up with. And then they argued for months about not being able to tell whether that's a loon or a duck in the foreground. It's a loon. Or maybe it's a duck. Who the fuck knows? It's pathetic. Colorado's is better.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:30 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Oh, God indeed.

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