don't you ever come back...

So with my GMAT a week away and essentially the rest of my life depending on this four hour time slot I'm unreasonably calm. I know I can do this math. I know I can. It's now just a matter of me carrying over this calm to the day of the test. In which case, I should be okay.

A lot of things are changing next week. My boss is leaving and I'll be introduced to a new director who will hopefully be articulate and even tempered. I feel badly because of the way I've been acting towards my present boss but, my tolerance for annoying clingy men has just about faded away completely. Right now I'm dealing with one too many and to be frank, I'm over it.

I'm focusing on getting out of dodge right now. Packing up the car and the dog and escaping for a little while. My dad said something really insightful the other day. We were out on the deck, smoking and he turned and said, "it's your time to get out of here, huh?". And don't get me wrong, my parents are brilliant people, but it's not often that my dad and I speak this way. He's very much reigning emperor of giving you a solution without hearing the problem.

I'm on a train now, heading to work, wishing I had just taken the day off to roll around with the dog but I've gotten this ridiculous guilt feeling lately about that. I don't want to leave my boss alone nor do I want any of the attorneys to think I'm slacking while we're in transition. Weird.

The whole reason I wrote this was because my hands and feet were cold but then when I got into the train it was like the power surged on and they got all tingly and warm. My feet though- still freezing.

If you know who this is, I'd love to know...

If anyone knows who: Imaweject is, let me know... I'd love to make them eat their words.

AIM IM with imaweject
9/21/08 9:01 PM


him: fuck you dont no one care
i'm glad you are grounded

me: ?
who the fuck is this

him: if you cant fucking read get off line
none of your god damn business now stfu parrot nose

me: ...

him: god damn jew piece of shit

me: i'm not jewish you dumb fuck
and why don't you grow up
and stop harboring your issues and taking them out on people online

him: you're whatever the fuck i say you are now stfu

me: stop talking to me

him: stop initiating, faggot
my issue is with your massive snout

me:wow
you're cool

him: oh i need you to tell me this right?
wrong
i told you to stfu

me: get lost
stop talking to me then!

him: exactly now fuck off snouzer

me: i hope you find solace, shithead.

him: just cant stfu can you
gotta have the last word dont ya? insecure fat fuck

me: grow up. clearly this is why no one's interested in you
grow up. go away.
i don't care who you are

him: i'm married, my wife is a model and i've got a lot of money so you need to stop hiring inspector gadget to investigate your potential love affairs

me: well good. enjoy.

him: oh i will fat ass
enjoy your hot dog

me: fat ass?
who the fuck is this?
too pussy to say?
is that it?

him: you = fat with a big parrot nose

me: you're too much of a bitch?
i don't have a parrot nose

him: its shawn wtf difference does it make? Am I the only shawn on the planet?
yes you do
nope

me: i don't know any shawn's

him: you can tell me no all you like, denial is your issue, not mine

me: well good now fuck off
so all of this pent up rage is really unnecsessary
not until youve chopped that nose of yours off
but, listen, if you want to hang out and talk this out. i've got a therapist i can recommend.
until then

him: that will be ok fat ass, i wouldnt want to steal any of your time facing your denial issues

me: go fuck your wife
i hope you get aids and die

him: planning on it
working on that too

me: gooooood.
go away then.
done.

him: but i dont mingle with niggers so doubtful its going to happen
yea i am done now leave, go eat fat ass

me: fuck you.

him: ^never
i wouldnt even piss on you

me: next time you decide you need to vent, call your mom

him: oh momma jokes, we see how fart your wit goes, not nearly as far as your nose

me: if that's the only thing you have to pick on me for you're going to have to do a lot better

him: ....
who says i'm picking?
don't be so arrogant, you aint important

me: arrogance has nothing to do with it, you dumb sloppy fuck.

him: le'sigh

me: if i blew you off it must've been for good reason
i'm bored with this.
go away.

him: you are ARROGANT for you to think that i am picking on you
i've been trying, now stfu and finish eating your hot dog

me: you IMed me.
you're an idiot.
good bye.

Feel free to IM him: Imaweject

He's a reject and apparently a shit-head.

What she wants, she gets... eventually.

aye (11:36:33 AM): you know what i was just thinking about
aye(11:37:21 AM): how about a year ago you were gung ho about moving out of the state and far away and i was absolutely against it
aye(11:37:31 AM): to the point where we'd argue
aye(11:37:39 AM): and now, i'm like let's get the fuck outta here
aye(11:38:09 AM): long story short, you always get what you want. regardless of what level of bitch i am before hand
doog(11:43:19 AM): hahahaa. I like that.
doog(11:43:29 AM): once you are motivated.. you always cave
doog(11:43:36 AM): I like you motivated
doog(11:43:39 AM): tis fun
doog(11:43:52 AM): this is going to be a great experience
aye(11:51:11 AM): a super awesome adventure for sure
doog(11:51:34 AM): ohhh yeaaaa

Maggie's running commentary

experienced through the eyes of maggie:

Aye (2:31:38 PM): http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-deliver-a-baby-in-an-emergency-50607/
________________________________________
Auto Response from M’Gay (2:31:38 PM): maybe i'd be more appealing if i got arrested with a hooker with a suitcase full of blow in vegas.
________________________________________
M’Gay signed off at 2:56:59 PM.
M’Gay is offline and will receive your IMs when signing back in.
M’Gay (4:36:45 PM): AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Aye (4:37:21 PM): it's a whooooole website of those old timey movies
________________________________________
Auto Response from M’Gay (4:37:21 PM): maybe i'd be more appealing if i got arrested with a hooker with a suitcase full of blow in vegas.
________________________________________
M’Gay (4:37:26 PM): oh god
M’Gay (4:37:27 PM): hey
M’Gay (4:37:30 PM): i'm sorry about before
M’Gay (4:37:40 PM): i woke up and she was yelling at me
M’Gay (4:37:45 PM): i was just in a bad mood
Aye (4:37:53 PM): no sweat
M’Gay (4:38:01 PM): you understand
M’Gay (4:38:03 PM): she's a bitch
Aye (4:38:05 PM): of course
M’Gay (4:38:40 PM): HOLY SHIT
M’Gay (4:38:45 PM): there's box in this!
Aye (4:38:48 PM): ?
Aye (4:38:56 PM): yeah!
M’Gay (4:39:19 PM): oh my god
M’Gay (4:39:25 PM): OH MY GOD
Aye (4:39:29 PM): hahahahah
M’Gay (4:39:30 PM): SHE SQUIRTED
M’Gay (4:39:33 PM): AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAH
Aye (4:39:35 PM): it's 22 minutes long
M’Gay (4:39:42 PM): HIS HAND IS IN HER BOX
M’Gay (4:39:58 PM): i'm not having kids.
M’Gay (4:40:17 PM): "and hold on to it, they're slippery"
M’Gay (4:42:35 PM): what creeps
M’Gay (4:42:58 PM): "hows the new mother? & how's that baby.. everything looks ship-shape!"
M’Gay (4:43:24 PM): this is disgusting.
M’Gay (4:43:49 PM): that is a huge baby
M’Gay (4:45:19 PM): what a whore.

Oh. My. God.

http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html
http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html
http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html
http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html
http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html
http://mcrorie.net/Pages/Main.html

Sad...

I'm a huge advocate for New York City. Even as a kid, walking through the East Village or running through midtown trying to catch trains that would still bring me home too late and soaked to the bone. I'd happily announce to friends, family and basically anyone who would listen that I was a New Yorker and that I would end up going to school and living in this city. Slowly all of these plans came to fruition and now the once pride I had in this area that I spent so much time in has developed into a sad level of nostalgia.

Don't get me wrong, I had a fabulous time at school and learned things I would never have had the opportunity to learn if I hadn't gone to NYU, but the whole thing sort of tainted the whole New York experience for me. I try to not spend any time downtown now because it brings back memories of times that were intensely different from what I'm experiencing in my life now. I know this sounds incredibly melodramatic but something happened today that felt so different.

I had just left McSorely's and was smoking a cigarette right outside of the uptown Astor Place train station. I was standing under the little trees that have been placed on that island so that when homeless people/hipsters get hot during the summer, they have somewhere they can go without looking too homeless. I was looking at the Cube in the middle of Astor and watching all of the young kids and old burn outs make their way towards St. Mark's Place. I've got a clear shot right down 4th Ave where you can see lightning flashing somewhere in SoHo and as I'm sucking away on this cigarette and listening to my ipod and watching the lightning and taking in all of the people I couldn't help but feel like I didn't have anything left to offer this city and there wasn't anything familiar about it anymore.

I used to be in love with this place and now I just don't have that anymore it seems, which i guess upsets me but at the same time I think it helps to signify how ready I am to move on from this place.

I think New York in the rain has always bummed me out, and New York in the rain and feeling this way made it significantly worse.

Sorry whoever reads this .

REMEMBER THIS.

no one is how they seem.


family is everything. unfortunately this is how i was raised and regardless of the fact that it means less and less as i get older (or more and more, depends on who you ask or what stage you are in, i suppose).


you are only capable of what you set your mind to



stop doing drugs at age 21.


at one point in your life, leave your comfort zone.


california is only a 6 hour flight.

and i cannot wait to get there.

The best NYT review I ever read.

Movie Review
The Dark Knight (2008)
NYT Critics' Pick This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.
The Dark Knight
Warner Brothers Pictures

Heath Ledger plays the Joker in Christopher Nolan's second take on the Batman franchise.
July 18, 2008


By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: July 18, 2008

Dark as night and nearly as long, Christopher Nolan’s new Batman movie feels like a beginning and something of an end. Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind — including “Batman Begins,” Mr. Nolan’s 2005 pleasurably moody resurrection of the series — largely by embracing an ambivalence that at first glance might be mistaken for pessimism. But no work filled with such thrilling moments of pure cinema can be rightly branded pessimistic, even a postheroic superhero movie like “The Dark Knight.”
More About This Movie

* Overview
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Related
Film: Batman’s Burden: A Director Confronts Darkness and Death (March 9, 2008)

Apparently, truth, justice and the American way don’t cut it anymore. That may not fully explain why the last Superman took a nose dive (“Superman Returns,” if not for long), but I think it helps get at why, like other recent ambiguous American heroes, both supermen and super-spies, the new Batman soared. Talent played a considerable part in Mr. Nolan’s Bat restoration, naturally, as did his seriousness of purpose. He brought a gravitas to the superhero that wiped away the camp and kitsch that had shrouded Batman in cobwebs. It helped that Christian Bale, a reluctant smiler whose sharply planed face looks as if it had been carved with a chisel, slid into Bruce Wayne’s insouciance as easily as he did Batman’s suit.

The new Batman movie isn’t a radical overhaul like its predecessor, which is to be expected of a film with a large price tag (well north of $100 million) and major studio expectations (worldwide domination or bust). Instead, like other filmmakers who’ve successfully reworked genre staples, Mr. Nolan has found a way to make Batman relevant to his time — meaning, to ours — investing him with shadows that remind you of the character’s troubled beginning but without lingering mustiness. That’s nothing new, but what is surprising, actually startling, is that in “The Dark Knight,” which picks up the story after the first film ends, Mr. Nolan has turned Batman (again played by the sturdy, stoic Mr. Bale) into a villain’s sidekick.

That would be the Joker, of course, a demonic creation and three-ring circus of one wholly inhabited by Heath Ledger. Mr. Ledger died in January at age 28 from an accidental overdose, after principal photography ended, and his death might have cast a paralyzing pall over the film if the performance were not so alive. But his Joker is a creature of such ghastly life, and the performance is so visceral, creepy and insistently present that the characterization pulls you in almost at once. When the Joker enters one fray with a murderous flourish and that sawed-off smile, his morbid grin a mirror of the Black Dahlia’s ear-to-ear grimace, your nervous laughter will die in your throat.

A self-described agent of chaos, the Joker arrives in Gotham abruptly, as if he’d been hiding up someone’s sleeve. He quickly seizes control of the city’s crime syndicate and Batman’s attention with no rhyme and less reason. Mr. Ledger, his body tightly wound but limbs jangling, all but disappears under the character’s white mask and red leer. Licking and chewing his sloppy, smeared lips, his tongue darting in and out of his mouth like a jittery animal, he turns the Joker into a tease who taunts criminals (Eric Roberts’s bad guy, among them) and the police (Gary Oldman’s good cop), giggling while he-he-he (ha-ha-ha) tries to burn the world down. He isn’t fighting for anything or anyone. He isn’t a terrorist, just terrifying.

Mr. Nolan is playing with fire here, but partly because he’s a showman. Even before the Joker goes wild, the director lets loose with some comic horror that owes something to Michael Mann’s “Heat,” something to Cirque de Soleil, and quickly sets a tense, coiled mood that he sustains for two fast-moving hours of freakish mischief, vigilante justice, philosophical asides and the usual trinkets and toys, before a final half-hour pileup of gunfire and explosions. This big-bang finish — which includes a topsy-turvy image that poignantly suggests the world has been turned on its axis for good — is sloppy, at times visually incoherent, yet touching. Mr. Nolan, you learn, likes to linger in the dark, but he doesn’t want to live there.

Though entranced by the Joker, Mr. Nolan, working from a script he wrote with his brother Jonathan Nolan, does make room for romance and tears and even an occasional (nonlethal) joke. There are several new characters, notably Harvey Dent (a charismatic Aaron Eckhart), a crusading district attorney and Bruce Wayne’s rival for the affection of his longtime friend, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, a happy improvement over Katie Holmes). Like almost every other character in the film, Batman and Bruce included, Harvey and Rachel live and work in (literal) glass houses. The Gotham they inhabit is shinier and brighter than the antiqued dystopia of “Batman Begins”: theirs is the emblematic modern megalopolis (in truth, a cleverly disguised Chicago), soulless, anonymous, a city of distorting and shattering mirrors.

From certain angles, the city the Joker threatens looks like New York, but it would be reductive to read the film too directly through the prism of 9/11 and its aftermath. You may flash on that day when a building collapses here in a cloud of dust, or when firemen douse some flames, but those resemblances belong more rightly to our memories than to what we see unfolding on screen. Like any number of small- and big-screen thrillers, the film’s engagement with 9/11 is diffuse, more a matter of inference and ideas (chaos, fear, death) than of direct assertion. Still, that a spectacle like this even glances in that direction confirms that American movies have entered a new era of ambivalence when it comes to their heroes — or maybe just superness.

In and out of his black carapace and on the restless move, Batman remains, perhaps not surprisingly then, a recessive, almost elusive figure. Part of this has to do with the costume, which has created complications for every actor who wears it. With his eyes dimmed and voice technologically obscured, Mr. Bale, who’s suited up from the start, doesn’t have access to an actor’s most expressive tools. (There are only so many ways to eyeball an enemy.) Mr. Nolan, having already told Batman’s origin story in the first film, initially doesn’t appear motivated to advance the character. Yet by giving him rivals in love and war, he has also shifted Batman’s demons from inside his head to the outside world.

That change in emphasis leaches the melodrama from Mr. Nolan’s original conception, but it gives the story tension and interest beyond one man’s personal struggle. This is a darker Batman, less obviously human, more strangely other. When he perches over Gotham on the edge of a skyscraper roof, he looks more like a gargoyle than a savior. There’s a touch of demon in his stealthy menace. During a crucial scene, one of the film’s saner characters asserts that this isn’t a time for heroes, the implication being that the moment belongs to villains and madmen. Which is why, when Batman takes flight in this film, his wings stretching across the sky like webbed hands, it’s as if he were trying to possess the world as much as save it.

In its grim intensity, “The Dark Knight” can feel closer to David Fincher’s “Zodiac” than Tim Burton’s playfully gothic “Batman,” which means it’s also closer to Bob Kane’s original comic and Frank Miller’s 1986 reinterpretation. That makes it heavy, at times almost pop-Wagnerian, but Mr. Ledger’s performance and the film’s visual beauty are transporting. (In Imax, it’s even more operatic.) No matter how cynical you feel about Hollywood, it is hard not to fall for a film that makes room for a shot of the Joker leaning out the window of a stolen police car and laughing into the wind, the city’s colored lights gleaming behind him like jewels. He’s just a clown painted on black velvet, but he’s also some kind of masterpiece.

“The Dark Knight” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Consistently violent but not bloody.

THE DARK KNIGHT

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Christopher Nolan; written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer; Batman character created by Bob Kane; Batman and other characters from the DC comic books; director of photography, Wally Pfister; edited by Lee Smith; music by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 32 minutes.

WITH: Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred), Heath Ledger (the Joker), Gary Oldman (James Gordon), Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Rachel Dawes) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox).

Hey Newark, get your fucking shit together.

Killings in Newark Drop, but a Sense of Fear Persists

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By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: July 15, 2008

NEWARK — After decades in which Newark has been notorious for soaring crime rates and lurid murders, law enforcement and city officials say a sea change is occurring: In roughly the first half of the year, the number of killings dropped by close to 40 percent compared with the same period last year.

Newark’s 31 homicides as of July 11 have put the city on pace to match a previous low, in 1997. And earlier this year, 43 days came and went without a homicide. In 2007, the city had recorded 50 killings by July 11; it had 99 for the year.

Garry F. McCarthy, Newark’s police director, said that achievement by itself might not make people feel safer. “We’re up against a 40-year perception of the way this city is, which you can’t turn around with a 22-month reduction in crime,” he said.

Some residents have noticed changes, while others say they still live in fear. Marquita Gittens, 22, who works at an insurance company, said that “pretty much everywhere you go you see a cop. That’s something we haven’t seen before.”

But Debbie Walker, 49, a businesswoman, said she was skeptical of the city’s statistics. “I haven’t seen a change; they’re saying what they want to say, but I’m not buying it,” she said.

Another resident, Alnisha Ligons, said, “I don’t care what they say, you still never know what’s going to happen, a flying bullet might come your way.” Ms. Ligons, 27, lives with her son, Christopher Rawls, 10, on the corner of Huntington Terrace near the spot where a 28-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy fatally shot each other in May.

The new crime statistics have had to compete in the public’s imagination with a series of killings in the past year. Less than three weeks ago, an 18-year-old woman was charged in the fatal shooting of another 18-year-old woman at a high school graduation party. In August 2007, three young people were shot dead in a schoolyard.

Mayor Corey A. Booker, who made reducing crime a centerpiece of his campaign, said he believed that that the triple homicide was a turning point.

“You could almost feel the community say, ‘This is enough,’ ” he said, adding that as more people began patrolling their neighborhoods and cooperating with law enforcement, the city adjusted its policing strategy to an “all hands on deck” policy.

Mr. McCarthy credited a variety of new measures for the reduction in crime, including focusing less on gangs and more on areas known for narcotics sales. He said that when he was a commander in the New York Police Department, he employed a similar strategy in Washington Heights — clearing drug dealers out of a neighborhood, then establishing a round-the-clock police presence to keep them away.

“The gang problem we have is really a narcotics problem,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We have a lot less gang violence than we do drug violence.”

The police are also focusing on so-called quality-of-life problems, like drinking in public, Mr. McCarthy said, because some of those questioned have outstanding warrants for more serious offenses or are carrying firearms.

Mr. Booker on Monday announced 16 arrests in a suspected prostitution ring, saying they were a direct result of quality-of-life complaints from residents of the North Ward. Mr. McCarthy said there had been 77,000 more “enforcement actions,” including arrests and serving of warrants, since the middle of 2006, than there were previously.

Property crimes, including burglary and theft, rose this year, statistics that Mr. McCarthy attributed to improved record-keeping by the department.

Mr. McCarthy said he did not ask Mr. Booker to substantially increase Newark’s police force of about 1,000 officers, opting first to increase efficiency, “like a corporation.”

“If you saw a map of crime in Newark, you wouldn’t even need another map to see the boundaries of the city because crime was so widespread,” said George L. Kelling, a criminal justice professor at Rutgers in Newark and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “It was hard to focus resources.” Mr. McCarthy said he had assigned more patrols at night, particularly on weekends, when homicides most often occur, and had asked county, state and federal agencies for additional help, which led to the deployment of 300 more law enforcement officers on the streets.

The extra patrols have made an impression. “You got more cops on the streets, ain’t as many places to hustle,” said T. J. Hughuy, 26, who said he had recently returned to Newark after more than two years in prison on a drug conviction. “Made me realize I got to get a job,” said Mr. Hughuy, who is now a welder.

Even with a more effective force, Newark still needs about 500 more officers, said Derrick Hatcher, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the city’s main police union.

“Crime is unpredictable; you can go a month without a murder, but then all hell can break loose and you need officers,” he said.

Yusef Ismail, executive director of Stop Shootin’, a nonprofit group founded in 2005, said he believed citizen-led organizations were also having an effect.

“We’re out here every day working with at-risk youth, us and other grassroots organizations,” Mr. Ismail said. “We’re very proud that the murder rate is going down.”

Yet Ronald C. Rice, a city councilman representing the West Ward, said that when he talked about the crime statistics at community meetings, people often expressed skepticism.

“If you know someone that has been shot,” he said, “those numbers don’t mean much to you.”

sent last night from my blackberry to my nyu mail... i'm a loser.

Everything in my head sounds more beautiful while its in my head than it does when I try to transcribe it to paper.

Today while I was at coney island I heard a girl who couldn't have been too much younger than maggie explain what happens when two people kiss. Her reasoning was based on her attempt to ride the ferris wheel with a boy she liked. "Ferris wheels are magic. It's where the fireworks happen.". Her friends were quick to disregard this idea and so she continued. "Every time two people kiss one small firework goes off. And what they do with it is up to them." I was clearly eavesdropping when this was going on and eric managed to catch it and asked what it was I was smirking at. I knew I was never going to be able to articulate all of beautiful things I was thinking in regards to this girls comment, so I said nothing.

I've become increasingly aware of my ability to be mum around people I don't trust not to hurt me. A year ago I would have let the first person to look my way in, in a heartbeat but nowadays it doesn't seem worth it. I don't trust many people to not hurt me. I actually am waiting for those that I have let in prematurely to hurt me. My friends and family know who I really am. Loud, bossy, opinionated, obnoxious. But when I'm with people I don't know I find it hard to think on my feet the same way I do around them. I guess this means I'm getting better at filtering.

Eric is going away to camp tomorrow. And similar to every good person I've had come through my life in the last year or so, he won't be around much. 4 weeks until there's even a chance of seeing him. I'm fine with it. Or I'll say I'm fine with it and not say otherwise. He was a total gentleman about the whole thing, delivered the appropriate speech at the appropriate time. "To be honest and fair, I'm not good with distance." Is anyone? I'm not. Had he not initiated the conversation I would've assumed tonight was going to be the last time I ever saw him. So I guess we'll give him that.

So for four weeks I can smoke, flirt, drink, party as much as I want to. Nothing stopping me. Gotta love the eternal single female. I've got the freedom to do and say whatever I want to whomever I want but don't want to talk to anyone.

Fuck.
--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry

NOTICE: This communication may contain information that is legally privileged, confidential or exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please note that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. Anyone who receives this message in error should notify the sender immediately by telephone or by return e-mail and delete it from their computer.

New York Magazine is my personal Jesus

‘New York Men Don't Wear Condoms Because They Have Small Penises’

Did Spitzer start a trend? Or was he just following
the crowd?

Well, no wonder everyone has herpes. The city Health Department, apparently newly committed to keeping us awake (and alone) at night, has followed up their blockbuster herpes study with a new one that reveals only 60 percent of New Yorkers who have multiple partners used a condom the last time they had sex. We suck at math, but even we know that means 40 percent don't use condoms, and that's kind of bad. But we're not totally surprised: The city released its own branded condom. Clearly, the entire genre was uncool. But still, why are New Yorkers so casual about condom use? Isn't this a city that lost a lot of people from AIDS in the eighties? And aren't they still? Daily Intel Jessica asked her friend Moe from Jezebel, who is something of an expert on … stuff, what the deal was.

JezebelMoe: I think New Yorkers don't use condoms because they all already have STDs and know they're not that big a deal.

JPRESS: It's true. Herpes, specifically. And also HPV. Everyone I know has HPV. And people who say they totally don't have it, they just don't know it yet.

JezebelMoe: I also think New Yorkers don't use condoms because they actually noticed when people stopped getting HIV. Also, I think New Yorkers don't use condoms for the same reason they smoke. It feels good.

JPRESS: Yeah, and New Yorkers like things that feel good. We like to smoke and drink and eat pork belly, and it's okay because there's a safety net — we can go to the gym 24 hours a day, or go on a juice fast, and if something does go wrong with us, there are enough hospitals and doctors here that someone should be able to fix us. So maybe we get kind of arrogant and think nothing can really hurt us. Like, you know, Spitzer.

JezebelMoe: In the case of Spitzer, like it is really hard for dudes to get STDs from anal if they're tops. The statistics are, like, miniscule I think. Especially from straight sex.

JPRESS: Wait: Was the SpizterSex definitely anal?

JezebelMoe: Radar interviewed Heidi Fleiss about it and that was her speculation.

JPRESS: Oh my.

JezebelMoe: So yeah, I mean, who are we to dispute Heidi Fleiss? She went to JAIL for this shit.

JPRESS: Anyway moving on.

JezebelMoe: Another thing is that withdrawal is actually an equally effective method of birth control (seriously, it says so in small print on the package), and New Yorkers are early adopters. Plus they like shooting it places like in porn.

JPRESS: That totally makes sense, since everyone here is kind of under the impression that they are starring in a movie.

JezebelMoe: Also, okay, New York attracts insecurity, which correlates with small dicks. Small-dicked dudes hate condoms.

JPRESS: Oh, is that true? I thought that was a coincidence…

JezebelMoe: Oh hells yes.

JezebelMoe: I never had a condom get stuck inside me

JezebelMoe: until I moved here

JPRESS: It's like putting a baggie on a Popsicle

JezebelMoe: Right! The other day it happened to [redacted]. She found a six-day-old condom. And I tracked it to the day she had a one-night stand with this dude B—.

JPRESS: Wait: She "found" it? Six days later?

JPRESS: Wait: And what do you mean you tracked it? What are you, the Vagina Whisperer?

JezebelMoe: I just put two and two together [Redacted] had TOLD me there was a rumor B— had a small dick. So like … you know. She didn't have to say anymore. It's like code.

JPRESS: You're like a forensic scientist on CSI: Vagina.

JezebelMoe: I never had to ask "so how big."

JezebelMoe: It was just like, the condom was snatched.

JPRESS: Heh. Snatched.

freudian slip

James: so am i supposed to go AP or mike's way, lol
Tracy: I sent it to Mike as well. go with AP and see what Mike says when he returns
James: lol
Tracy: FUCK ME
Tracy: NO WAIT
Tracy: fuck Mike.. thats what I meant to say
Tracy: go with AP
James: do i have to call HR about this?
James: geez, i hardly know you
Tracy: well... you know
James: freudian slip. I understand
Tracy: wow.. good times
James: it happens, i can hardly control myself when I look in the mirror, I can't really blame you
Tracy: I cant believe I did that.
James: so maybe you should be going to the sexual harassment training?S
Tracy: wow. I need a cigarette after that

Laugh it up...

Annie (4:09:32 PM): i've sworn off men
No Way Jose (4:09:40 PM): oh come on
Annie (4:09:52 PM): oh no
Annie (4:10:03 PM): you come on... it's impossible to meet anyone halfway decent anymore
Annie (4:10:04 PM): for sure
Annie (4:10:21 PM): i was seeing a guy-- he was great, massage therapist, making shitloads of money, had a lot in common, really thought it was going somewhere
Annie (4:10:25 PM): then he slept with one of his clients
Annie (4:11:21 PM): then claimed that since he "didn't cum in her, it doesn't count"
No Way Jose (4:11:55 PM): uhhhh
No Way Jose (4:11:57 PM): WHAT
Annie (4:12:00 PM): you see?
No Way Jose (4:12:05 PM): dude
Annie (4:12:05 PM): men = done.
No Way Jose (4:12:06 PM): HAHAHAHA
No Way Jose (4:12:08 PM): HAHAHAH
No Way Jose (4:12:09 PM): im sorry but
Annie (4:12:10 PM): no
No Way Jose (4:12:11 PM): thats hilarious
Annie (4:12:12 PM): go ahead
Annie (4:12:22 PM): i told my mom and she was just like...
Annie (4:12:29 PM): she laughed so hard she was crying
No Way Jose (4:12:46 PM): um im crying right now
Annie (4:12:55 PM): it's comical at this point
Annie (4:13:03 PM): every guy i meet i just expect to be a fucking weirdo or screw me over
Annie (4:13:05 PM): so that's been good

Nostradamus would be proud...

"The world is about to end in 2012… ’cause the Mayans made calendars, and they stop at 2012. I got encyclopedias on the bus. The world is about to end as we know it. You can see it already. A planet doesn't exist - there's no more Pluto. Planes are flying into buildings - and not just the Twin Towers. Mosquitos bite you and you die. And a black man and a woman are running for president."

Lil Wayne

do they manufacture an anti-douche bag vaccine?

ScarletApex (5:23:22 PM): to hide the non existant mark
arsxnickiss (5:23:36 PM): i'm surprised there's no turtleneck
ScarletApex (5:23:47 PM): he was looking for one
ScarletApex (5:23:52 PM): but its summer
arsxnickiss (5:24:08 PM): are you serious?
ScarletApex (5:24:34 PM): dead
ScarletApex (5:24:34 PM): ass
arsxnickiss (5:24:38 PM): dude.

Reasons to love New York Magazine

Examining the Two-Drink Barrier


We always joke that everything in life should come with a two-drink minimum like at stand-up comedy shows, and we were so right! Vindication! A new study reveals that a drink or two a day may make for stronger bones, while more than two drinks may lead to a broken hip (due to bone loss, not because wasted people are falling down). People in the study who drank between one half and one alcoholic beverage a day were 20 percent less likely than teetotalers to sustain hip fractures, according to The American Journal of Medicine.

What is it about two drinks? It’s that magic number on which so much social interaction hinges. It’s enough to make you feel good but not enough to get you sloppy. And why is it we New Yorkers can so rarely limit our consumption to two drinks? Do we just not want to good times to end? Is it because we have more taxis than you can wave a hand at and don’t have to drive home? Or is it because we’re an extreme generation living in extreme times and are completely incapable of moderation? (Remember the first time you found out that four drinks is considered binge drinking and you were all, “That’s not binge drinking. That’s a warm-up”?)

If you’re on a date, the two-drink theory is also a good indicator of how your night will turn out. If you have more than two drinks, the date is going well and you’re probably going to hook up. If it’s not going well, you usually won’t have more than two drinks. There's that awkward moment after you’ve each already had two drinks when the waitress asks, "Another round, guys?" and it’s like she might as well be asking, "Do you want to have sex?” Then there's that pause where the two of you look at each other and have to, like, decide.

The two-drink litmus test can also be used when you’re having drinks with people connected to a job opportunity. If you and your prospective employers get tanked together, it’s a good sign. But if the meeting doesn't go beyond two drinks, it probably means you're not getting the job. Or it means that they have kids and are really devoted to their family, in which case you shouldn’t take the job anyway because you’ll be stuck at the office till 10 p.m. every night doing their work while they peace out at 5 p.m. —Noelle Hancock

It scares the sh*t outta me

Love This

justice_stress
by 75_prod

creeeeeep

Tracy: queen bed okay?
Annie: ;)
Annie: you bet it is.

people make me sad

sad –adjective, sad·der, sad·dest.
1. affected by unhappiness or grief; sorrowful or mournful: to feel sad because a close friend has moved away.
2. expressive of or characterized by sorrow: sad looks; a sad song.
3. causing sorrow: a sad disappointment; sad news.
4. (of color) somber, dark, or dull; drab.
5. deplorably bad; sorry: a sad attempt.
6. Obsolete. firm or steadfast.

Six Days In

So I've been dedicated to the cause with a little variation.

No dates, but I've definitely been in contact with people I thought I was interested in. The most interesting thing about this experiment thus far is that I'm finding that when entering a social exchange with someone I thought I was interested in, I'm finding that there really isn't anything about them that I'm romantically interested in. The other thing I've noticed is that since deciding not to date and to use this month to grow as a person, it's been like blood in the water.


Now, don't get me wrong, I've never been the type of girl who thinks she's lusted after. It's quite the opposite. I'm the type of girl who doesn't think anyone really "likes" her until they've spelled it out. I think a lot of that is straight up naivety (duh) but a lot of it it also retarded self-esteem issues that I've dealt with for like, years?

So the run-down? Shall we?

March 31 I went on my last official date before the "Month of Celibacy" started. He was 35 (claimed to be young at heart -- THIS IS A WARNING SIGN!!) and made a lot of false promises. Said he owned his own business (he was an actor and promoted "himself" as his business), said he was educated (...). It was one of those instances where at first you think someone is very good looking but it turns out they're not and it was just lucky lighting. The whole moral of this story is that if you're 35 and not married and looking to date 21 year olds, there's probably a good reason for it.

Since then I've sort of detached from the work crush, the Queens crush, etc. I didn't think it would be as easy as it has been but I guess you're always surprised when your willpower kicks in. You start to find the things everyone else notices but you don't because you're just so blindsided by lust or "like".

The whole thing, thus far, has resulted in the following, and this is only 6 days in. I've become a lot happier. I'm not worried as much about the stupid shit in life. Work seems a lot more light hearted. Home is a little less trying. Even the dog and I are getting along better. This past Saturday I spent the whole day by myself. I listened to whatever I wanted to on my ipod in the car, smoked too many cigarettes, drove fast, went shopping, bought all new clothes, got my eyebrows waxed and went for a super long walk with the dog. It was great. I didn't think about men once.

This Saturday after picking up my sister from the airport and going out for a drink with Tracy for Nicole's birthday, I headed down to Queens to hang out with Joe and his friend Pete. We were at a bar in Bayside and Joe was waiting outside for me when I pulled in. After he finished his cigarette, I went to enter the bar and some Persian guy grabbed my handed and started spitting game.

"You're so gorgeous, don't go inside, stay here and talk to me."

I can't, it's my friend's birthday.

"He looks like Napoleon Dynamite. You need to hang out with me."

I cannot. Sorry.

"Just tell me your name."

At this exact moment, Joe yells from inside, "Annie!"

"Your name is Annie? That's beautiful. What are you, Annie?"

Italian.

"I love Italians."

I really have to go.

"Okay, I'll see you inside."

Joe bought me a drink, and I was talking to him and Pete for a while when the Persian entered the bar again and proceeded to stare me down. I went back outside to make a phone call real quick and smoke another cigarette when he approached me again, spitting all types of crazy little lines. So I gave in. I gave him my number but didn't take his. If he calls, we'll see what happens with that.

Anyway, I'll update again when some more time has passed. I'm hopeful about this whole experience which is a new thing too.

Weird and a little sad

Heart Transplant Patient Kills Himself in Same Manner as Donor
Sunday, April 06, 2008

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

No foul play was suspected in 69-year-old Sonny Graham's death at his Vidalia, Ga., home, investigators said. He was found Tuesday in a utility building in his backyard with a single shotgun wound to the throat, said Greg Harvey, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Graham, who was director of the Heritage golf tournament at Sea Pines from 1979 to 1983, was on the verge of congestive heart failure in 1995 when he got a call that a heart was available in Charleston.

That heart was from Terry Cottle, 33, who had shot himself, Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad said.

Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor's family to thank them. In January 1997, Graham met his donor's widow, Cheryl Cottle, then 28, in Charleston.

"I felt like I had known her for years," Graham told The (Hilton Head) Island Packet for a story in 2006. "I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I just stared."


In 2001, Graham bought a home for Cottle and her four children in Vidalia. Three years later, they were married after Graham retired from his job as a plant manager for Hargray Communications in Hilton Head.

From their previous marriages, the couple had six children and six grandchildren scattered across South Carolina and Georgia.

Cheryl Graham, now 39, has worked at several hospices in Vidalia. A telephone message left Sunday at a listing for Cheryl and Sonny Graham in Vidalia was not immediately returned.

Sonny Graham's friends said he would be remembered for his willingness to help people.

"Any time someone had a problem, the first reaction was, 'Call Sonny Graham,' " said Bill Carson, Graham's friend for more than 40 years. "It didn't matter whether you had a flat tire on the side of the road or your washing machine didn't work. He didn't even have to know you to help you."

g e n n a

genna:yo fresh prince is a fantastic show
im buying that shit on dvd
seriously
me: a classic indeed

genna: it really is though
its still on tv
like 15 years after is been over.

me: will smith is the shit

genna: he really is though.

me: anytime "switch" comes up on my itunes i just need to dance
i just love him

genna: OMG me too
im so not attracted to black guys
but i would fuck that man 50 different ways

me: ABSOLUTELY.

genna: he is probably one of the sexiest human beings alive
omg annie
can we do something when i get back

me: . . .

genna: can we dedicate a night to will smith

me: YES

genna: and watch like a bunch of his movies
and drool over him
and talk about how we're pathetic losers watching his movies worshiping him and how we'll never be able to do him
OMG and we need to buy the dvd box set of fresh prince
god.. im a loser.

me: what would that cost?

genna: i donno..hang on ill check
its like 80 bucks for 4 seasons!
thats gay!

me: WHAAAAAT

genna: but if we bought them separately its like 20-30 bucks

me:
what about ebay?
or amazon

genna: im on amazon
ebay?
we can get all 6 seasons for 80 bucks though

me: that's not so bad

genna: nah
you should be watching fresh prince right now

me: i don't have a tv in my room dbag

genna: GET ONE!

me: i'm gonna

genna:
but fo' real.. will smith night
im holding you to that
we will bake brownies, drink , and do drugs and watch will sm ith

me:
i'll put it on my list of things to do when you return

genna:
hahahah
i wish i could see hinm nekked
i bet he has a big wiener

me:
and i'll offer a sleepover before you knock out in my room


genna:
hahahahah
deal!
im excited
ok, soo what will smith movies dou already have
i bought I am Legend
so we have that one
we need to get bad boys, hitch, anbd fuckiung MEN IN BLACK!
oh i robot

me:
i didn't see that one
do we have to watch i am legend, again?

genna:
no.. we dont

me:
okay
independence day

genna:
but i have it in case you change your mind
enemy of the stae
state

annie:
i'm not going to change my mind

genna:
i dont wanna watch the pursuit of happyness cause im not trying to be sad when i watch will
shut up annie

annie:
i'm just saying

just sayin'...

http://interracialcupid.com/

http://interracialcupid.com/

http://interracialcupid.com/

http://interracialcupid.com/

Would you still be my friend, if I looked like this?

This song just randomly showed up on my iTunes

I've never heard of this song in my entire life. It showed up while I was growing roots in front of the computer. Needless to say, I'm a little concerned this showed up at all. Cause it's really fucking creepy.


Holly Golightly - I Let My Daddy Do That

I've got a long black hair
I'll say very tall
I'm just about set to have my ashes hauled

I Let My Daddy Do That,
I Let My Daddy Do That

I Let My Daddy Do That,
Cause it satisfies my worried mind

I got a range in my kitchen
got a straightened door
when it get to hot,
I want my oven to cool
I Let My Daddy Do That
I Let My Daddy Do That

I Let My Daddy Do That
Cause it satisfies my worried mind

You can drink my liquor
wear my clothes
when it comes to time
to pay my dow
I Let My Daddy Do That
I Let My Daddy Do That

I Let My Daddy Do That
Cause it satisfies my worried mind

You can milk my cow
use the cream
when it comes to lovin that's just a dream
I Let My Daddy Do That
I Let My Daddy Do That

Keep it churnin' till the butter comes!

I Let My Daddy Do That
Cause it satisfies my worried mind

"Oh Janet you're on bar-b-que..."


You can crank my car
shift my gears
But when any easy ridin's gonna go on here
I Let My Daddy Do That
I Let My Daddy Do That

I Let My Daddy Do That
Cause it satisfies my worried mind

h e a r t ?

within the last two months, two people who i hold dear have told me two separate things about my heart that i didn't know before.

genna, a girl who i've known, hated and love has always been someone to call when i need someone to objectively look at my life and tell me the things i need to hear while still providing the judgment free listening that everyone needs every so often.

after the last shredding, genna flat out told me that i wear my heart on my sleeve. something that no one has ever blatantly pointed out to me before. and she's right. I love the feeling of being loved, but really, who doesn't? She told me i need to start leaving my guard up for longer periods of time and that the only way i wasn't going to get hurt was to stop trying so hard.

this same idea was later confirmed by tracy. i think what few people realize is how long tracy and i have been friends. on and off since basically 7th or 8th grade, Tracy manages to know parts of me better than i know myself. she herself has said that i'm trying too hard to find happiness based on how another person feels about me. She's was inevitably right, though I hate to admit it. So I stopped dating, when that happened. I stopped actively pursuing people who i thought i had some romantic interest in.

Now cut to last night, we're in the car, talking about random things that come to mind. Enjoy the Monday night feel of the ride we're taking. after a long stream of conversations it comes out that i take everything to heart. how is it possible that all of my downfalls are related so closely to the one thing i try to nurture as often and as wholly as possible.

i take everything to the heart i wear on my sleeve.

so i've set up a challenge for myself. Starting April 1, I will be cutting off contact with any guy I may or may not be remotely interested in for 30 days. I want to take the entire month of April to teach myself how to not think with my heart so much as opposed to thinking with my brain.

a whole thirty days, no men, no hook ups, no dates, no phone calls. nothing. i don't want to think about my heart or about love for an entire month.

might as well start using this thing for something useful... y'know, other than dinosaur dubbing and IM conversations between friends and i at 3 in the morning.

done.

LOOK AT MY EARRINGS. I GOT THEM AT MANDY'S. WATCH 'EM SHAKE!

I AIN'T EVEN MAD AT YOU... BUT I'M ABOUT TO SHIT. JUST FOR THE SMELL OF IT

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF MY NOSE, BITCH!

clearly, abusive.

Aye(2:00:48 AM): can i go to sleep now
Aye(2:00:56 AM): i just want to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Aye(2:01:13 AM): <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
Aye(2:01:14 AM): <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
Aye(2:01:23 AM): that's nothing compared to how much i love you
Aye(2:01:31 AM): away message.
Aye(2:01:32 AM): done.
Aye(2:01:34 AM): do it
Aye(2:01:50 AM): okay. fuck you. i'm going to sleep.
Aye(2:01:53 AM): SAVE
Aye(2:01:54 AM): THAT
Aye(2:01:55 AM): FOR
Aye(2:01:56 AM): EV
Aye(2:01:56 AM): ER
Aye(2:01:59 AM): F
Tray (2:01:59 AM): no..
Aye(2:01:59 AM): O
Aye(2:02:00 AM): R
Aye(2:02:00 AM): E
Aye(2:02:01 AM): V
Aye(2:02:01 AM): E
Tray (2:02:02 AM): you scare me
Aye(2:02:02 AM): R
Aye(2:02:08 AM): I WAS JUST SO NICE TO YOU!
Tray (2:02:37 AM): ....mhmm

I Love T-Rex

Tyrannical Romance

If Charles Darwin were alive today, he’d be turning 199: like Abraham Lincoln, he was born on Feb. 12 1809.

I considered observing their joint birthday with a discussion of slave making in ants, but rejected that idea in favor of another. For later this week is another Big Day: the feast of St. Valentine. With apologies to Lincoln, I’ve decided to hold a Darwin-Valentine celebration by revealing one of my more tyrannical romantic fantasies.

I should say, by way of preamble, that Darwin contributed far more to biology than the “Origin of Species,” in which he laid out how evolution by natural selection works, and the evidence for it at the time. He also wrote (and this list is not complete): a treatise on the formation of coral reefs, which is still held to be correct; a landmark work on carnivorous plants; a definitive treatise on barnacles, extinct and extant; a study of how earthworms plow and aerate soil; and a fascinating speculation on the evolution of emotion in humans and other animals.

And that’s not all. One of his other major works, “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,” includes a huge compilation of the sexual decorations and displays of animals, from the jaws of stag-beetles to the tail of the Argus pheasant, which far exceeds that of the peacock in absurd magnificence. From his study of all this, Darwin began to elucidate systematic patterns and principles of the evolution of courtship and sexual behavior. In particular, he developed the concept of sexual selection, which is the idea that cumbersome ornaments like big tails can evolve, even if they make the bearer less likely to survive, if the opposite sex (usually the female) finds them attractive.

In doing so, he founded one of the most important and successful branches of evolutionary research. We now have a robust understanding of how sexual pressures — the pressures to find, impress, and seduce a mate — influence the evolution of males and females. So much so that if you tell me a fact, such as the average size difference between males and females in a species, or the proportion of a male’s body taken up by his testes, I can tell you what the mating system is likely to be. For example, where males are much bigger than females, fighting between males has been important — which often means that the biggest males maintain a harem. If testes are relatively large, females probably have sex with several males in the course of a single breeding episode.
The skeletal remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex. (Credit: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)

These forces are so reliable that, if only we could determine the sex of dinosaur fossils, we could begin to infer their mating habits. But alas. Unless the animal died while heavy with eggs, as one oviraptor obligingly did, determining the sex of a dinosaur is close to impossible. At one point, it was thought that the shape of a particular bone at the base of the tail might indicate sex; but a recent analysis has shown it does not. Now the best guesses come from subtle differences in structure of the bone in the hind legs. For the time being, then, fossils are stonily silent about the dinosaurs’ private lives, their methods of wooing, the exuberance of their song-and-dance routines.

Which brings me to my tyrannical fantasy. I want to take a journey 68 million years back in time to see a Tyrannosaurus rex couple mating. What was it like? Did they trumpet and bellow and stamp their feet? Did they thrash their enormous tails? Did he bite her neck in rapture and exude a musky scent? Somehow, I imagine that when two T. rex got it on, the earth shook for miles around.

And if I could only take this journey, I could answer a question that sometimes bothers me. Did T. rex have a penis? Did he even, as lizards do, have two?

I ask the question not out of prurience, but because it’s a matter of scientific interest. There are a couple of reasons why. First, the penis is another important indicator of the mating system. In species where females usually mate with a single male during a breeding episode, penises tend to be small and uninteresting. In those where females mate with several males (whether by choice or by force), penises are typically larger, and come with fancy decorations such as grooves, nobbles, and spikes. Second, the question of the dinosaur penis provides an exercise in evolutionary inference.

The reason we don’t know whether T. rex had one is that the organ is generally too soft to leave a fossil trace. (There’s an exception to this: some mammals have a bone in their penis, the os penis or baculum. This can fossilize. Humans are unusual among primates in not having one; in case you’re wondering, it’s not clear whether the bone plays a role in maintaining erections.)

Moreover, whether a male has a penis at all varies from one group to the next. Male salamanders, for instance, don’t: they deposit sperm on the ground and the female collects it. Among birds, penises are rare: ostriches, emus, ducks, geese and swans are among the few. The rest just have a cloaca — an all-purpose opening also used for urination, defecation and, in the female, laying eggs. To copulate, two birds bring their cloacae together in what’s called a cloacal kiss.

So what can we say about dinosaurs? My guess is that the males had members — but it’s an educated guess. It’s based on an analysis of dinosaur relations.

Two living groups are most closely related to dinosaurs. One is the crocodiles. Male crocodiles have a penis — just one — which, most of the time, they keep tucked inside their cloacae. (In most species of crocodile, it’s hard to determine the sex of living animals without an intimate exam, never mind dead ones.) Compared with the mammalian penis, the crocodile’s has an oddity: sperm is transported along an external groove, rather than through an internal tube.

The other group related to dinosaurs is the birds. Indeed, to be strict about it, birds are dinosaurs. If you look at a family tree of dinosaurs, birds, and other reptiles, you see that the lineage that evolved into dinosaurs split off from the lineage that evolved into crocodiles. Birds, in contrast, evolved directly from a dinosaur lineage. Birds are more closely related to T. rex than they are to any living form.

Birds themselves divide into two main groups, formally known as the palaeognathous and the neognathous. The palaeos comprises the big flightless birds such as ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries, as well as kiwis and an obscure (but flying) group of south American birds, the tinamous; the neos covers everything else. The palaeos have penises; like crocodiles, they keep them tucked into their cloacae. Again like crocodiles, the organ has an external groove for sperm. What’s more, the lineage leading to the other endowed birds, the ducks, geese, and swans, appears to have split off from that of the other neos relatively early.

This strongly suggests that the ancestor of all birds had a penis, and that at some point early in the evolution of the neognathous birds, the penis got lost. Since crocodiles have one, and ancestral birds almost certainly did, and since the two groups have such similar genital morphology, I think it’s a safe bet that the lineages between crocodiles and birds — that is, dinosaurs — had one, too.

Now, the next question — what did it look like? Was it large or small? Fancy or plain? I wouldn’t like to guess. The blue-billed duck (Oxyura australis) is just a little fellow — he weighs less than one kilogram (two pounds) — but his penis measures 28.5 centimeters (11 inches), and it’s covered with knobs. In contrast, the mighty ostrich (Struthio camelus), which can weigh as much as 160 kilograms (350 pounds), has a penis that’s a mere 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. But at least it’s bright red.

If I only had that time machine . . .

*****************************************

what a poor representation...

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Movie Review

Cloverfield (2008)

Sam Emerson/Paramount Pictures

New York City encounters a new threat in “Cloverfield.”

January 18, 2008

We’re All Gonna Die! Grab Your Video Camera!

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By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: January 18, 2008

It was only last month that Will Smith started up boogeyman patrol in Manhattan in “I Am Legend,” and yet here we go again with the end of the world, or at least some of the city’s most exclusive ZIP codes. This time, the annihilation comes courtesy of a reptilian creature with a slithering, smashing tail, multiple grabby appendages and an apparently insatiable appetite for destruction. At one point in “Cloverfield” you get a close, very personal look at that hungry mouth, which agape recalls that of the adult monster designed by H. R. Giger for the first “Alien,” though without any of the older beastie’s freakily sexualized menace or resonance.

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Like “Cloverfield” itself, this new monster is nothing more than a blunt instrument designed to smash and grab without Freudian complexity or political critique, despite the tacky allusions to Sept. 11. The screams and the images of smoke billowing through the canyons of Lower Manhattan may make you think of the attack, and you may curse the filmmakers for their vulgarity, insensitivity or lack of imagination. (The director, Matt Reeves, lives in Los Angeles, as does the writer, Drew Goddard, and the movie’s star producer, J. J. Abrams.) But the film is too dumb to offend anything except your intelligence, and the monster does cut a satisfying swath through the cast, so your only complaint may be, What took it so long?

As it happens, “Cloverfield” clocks in at 84 minutes, a running time that includes the usual interminable final credits. The movie moves relatively fast, though it’s nowhere near as economical as its colossus, whose thunderous shrieks and fiery projectiles bring a downtown loft party to a merciful, abrupt end. The loft belongs to a blandly pretty young thing named Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who, on the eve of relocating to Japan for work, has been thrown a farewell party by some other blandly pretty young things. The names we’re meant to remember are those of Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), and Jason’s insignificant other, Lily (Jessica Lucas); a bored, boring single, Marlena (Lizzy Caplan); and Rob’s nitwit buddy, Hud (T. J. Miller), who has been recruited to videotape the party.

“Cloverfield” is nominally a monster movie, but mostly it’s a feature-length gimmick. It opens with some official-looking United States government text claiming that the following images were retrieved from what was once known as Central Park. The big (or rather only) idea here is that almost everything we subsequently see is the presumably unedited video material shot by Hud, who, though initially reluctant to pick up the camera, develops a mania for documentation once the monster strikes. So consummate is his dedication to his version of cinéma vérité that he keeps the camera plugged to his eye even while he’s running through hailstorms of debris, trying to cross a fast-collapsing bridge and witnessing friends melt down, bleed out and even die.

For a brief, hopeful moment, I thought the filmmakers might be making a point about how the contemporary compulsion to record the world has dulled us to actual lived experience, including the suffering of others — you know, something about the simulacrum syndrome in the post-Godzilla age at the intersection of the camera eye with the narcissistic “I.” Certainly this straw-grasping seemed the most charitable way to explain characters whose lack of personality (“This is crazy, dude!”) is matched only by their incomprehensible stupidity. Smart as Tater Tots and just as differentiated, Rob and his ragtag crew behave like people who have never watched a monster movie or the genre-savvy “Scream” flicks or even an episode of “Lost” (Hello, Mr. Abrams!), much less experienced the real horrors of Sept. 11.

And, so, much like a character from a crummy movie, Rob hears from an estranged lover, Beth (Odette Yustman), who, after the attack, begs for help on her miraculously working cellphone. Against the odds and a crush of fleeing humanity, he tries to rescue her (unbelievably, ludicrously, the others tag along), which is meant to show what a good guy he is. But heroism without a fully realized hero proves as much a dead end as subjective camerawork that’s executed without a discernible subjectivity. Like too many big-studio productions, “Cloverfield” works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt.

Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.

“Cloverfield” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Monster violence and bloody wounds.

CLOVERFIELD

I Love Leslie Hall

http://www.leslieandthelys.com/

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http://www.leslieandthelys.com/

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By request...the lyrics...
Wick wicky wicky wack
On the way to the club we pass a Dairy Queen
You stop cause it you know it means so much to me
We take the back seats out of your mini van
Now we roll like a hummer or a full size sedan
Now park this thing real close to the club
And feel free to break out the golden lady rug
And hold my hand when we approach the bouncer
I don't wanna look like a hungry camp counselor

CHORUS:
Cause this is how we go out
In my town roll down the windows
Let Reba crack the bass
Wave to the hot pocket people with the smiles on they're face
Waiting and wanting just a good time on the dance floor
Shake it if you wanna hear more
Stomp once to hear Britney
Now twice for Beyonce
Now three times if you wanna hear me get nasty (girl get nasty)

All I wanna do is the ziga-zig ahh
A little louder now cause I can't hear yea
You get me hotter than a stick a hot glue
And I'm scrapbooking everything we do
Ring ring ring- that's my cell
Bring the bling when I sing of course I will
Hand it to me to get the people shocked
Myspaced by my lovers can you hear my beat talken
It says I love you

I arrive looking good and thankfully
My pants do stretch which allow me to be
Free on the dance floor but not a cheap date
I poured the body glitter on cause I never hesitate
Now my master plan is to shock then tease
Break ever heart than bust my knees
Proven and groven my brand new dance
Might just be the greatest in the lands
Then the crowd says ahhhhhh when I do my scissor kicks
Then the crowd screams ohhhhh when I do my lady flips

CHORUS

It's two o'clock and the club is closed
Everyone's heading home
I'll see you next weekend
Then I get a tip about a party
Three blocks away

Friends.

joe(1:41:46 AM): aah sorry

aye (1:41:47 AM): you need that in your life

joe(1:41:51 AM): brainfart

joe(1:41:56 AM): hahaha

aye (1:42:01 AM): i love that term.

joe(1:42:05 AM): its a good one

aye (1:42:46 AM): i actually used the word concordance in a sentence

aye (1:42:48 AM): in conversation

aye (1:42:50 AM): with a friend

aye (1:42:52 AM): yesterday

joe(1:42:55 AM): nice

aye (1:42:58 AM): i sound like such a tool bag

aye (1:43:08 AM): but in my head i was like "YES."

joe(1:43:10 AM): i used stagnate and affinity in the same sentence actually just 5 minutes ago

joe(1:43:14 AM): i was very proud

aye (1:43:22 AM): geez

joe(1:43:23 AM): i did the two hands in the air i won the game move

aye (1:43:35 AM): hahahaha

joe(1:43:42 AM): hahaha

joe(1:43:50 AM): it was a triumphant moment

aye (1:44:06 AM): i just love smart words

aye (1:44:25 AM): cause they are guaranteed to give you that feeling

She really does love her...

Tray: http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=30786712&albumID=758571&imageID=15541093

Tray: the raven isn't too depressing

Tray: ot looks like its smiling

Tray: hahah

Aye: it looks like ruby <3

Aye: one of the secretaries here is going to see Chris Brown tonight with her daughter

Tray: hahahha

Tray: omg

Tray: it does look like Ruby

Tray: done

Tray: and done

Tray: how many arrows

Aye: YOU'RE GETTING A RUBY TATTOO!!!!!<3

Aye: <3

Aye: <3

Aye: <3

Aye: <3