Everybody hates links

I can only imagine. A lot of people hate to read but love to talk. Too bad. All I get to do these days is read.

Life:

Wanna know a secret? Men think a lot of women's fashion is lame. They at least say which they think are lame and which are less lame.

I never understood how they were comfortable, but apparently underwire bras are dangerous

Ehow will also tell you how to clean your toothbrush. I am so excited.

I am not excited about all the gross ingredients in what is supposed to be a healthy food. So am I surprised that apparently the blueberries in packaged foods aren't always blueberries? Nah. I'm not surprised.

Continuing with the nutrition theme, this article tries to give a visual to what 300 calories looks like when done in healthy foods and an unhealthy equivalent.

I am mostly opposed to the trend of drinking bottled water, especially since most people don't know what they're drinking.Is your favorite water spring or distilled? Are there added nutrients or sodium? WHERE does it come from? This is a list of the worst bottled waters, and most of them are from the Nestle corporation.
Alternatively, this is a list of the cities with the best tap water. New Orleans isn't one of them.

Funny:

I greatly enjoy Drunken Shamings.These are particularly good. Also from List of the Day are motivational posters and the Engrish roundup. Never ending supply of funny.

Prenatal pole dancing from Funny or Die. Wish I'd done that to keep in shape LOL.

Nerdom

Putting two spaces after a period is wrong, wrong wrong.

Yet I still can't stop myself from doing it.

Scientists claim to have discovered teleportation. Not your mind-bending,sci-fi type of teleportation, but in quantum physics. Particles that are doing things that weren't really imagined.

Here's a map that shows the occurrence of bachelor's degrees in the U.S. by county. Very interesting.

Facts poster on U.S. unemployment and U.S. teacher's salaries. Sometimes we screw up so bad.

I used to be fat and MTV

I used to be fat. By my previous standards, I am fat again (but can at least blame this minor weight gain on having a baby). I was never particularly happy with my body but I never had a problem with who I am. I do, however, have a problem with the messages that are being sent by MTV.

MTV has a new show called "I used to be fat" which features recent high school graduates who want to lose weight and essentially try to become someone else before they start college. This sounds awful to me. I am all for self improvement and I feel strongly about being and living healthy but perpetuating the idea that if you are overweight you can not be happy is a serious bad move. We have a lot of issues with our American society but it really bothers me that there is no positive support for overweight, healthy people. I loved the movie "Real Women Have Curves" with America Ferrera but guess what-even she lost weight once she became a well known actress as did many other overweight actors and actresses. They all suggest that you will be left behind if you stay fat.

I understand wanting to lose weight and to look and feel good; I lost 49 pounds six years ago. The reason, however, had nothing to do with men, feeling or being attractive, or fitting in. I no longer felt comfortable, seeing as I had become shaped like a child's play block. Losing 49 pounds meant that I got down to a size 10, a size that is still considered to be too big for many women but I felt too small. Some friends commented that I looked odd and I felt odd. I gained a few pounds back over the year and started to look better. Most women would go into a downward spiral at that point. No one wants to address this obsession with size and fitting in. No one wants to address that men care less about how women look than most women are willing to admit. I had no shortage of male attention at any point in my life because I was happy, even when I was wearing overalls and I was shaped like a brick.

I feel that MTV is playing a huge part in the deterioration of self esteem in young people, even men. Is this new show supposed to give young overweight children hope that hey can lose weight? Maybe. It seems to me, though, to send the message that to be happy and successful you can't be fat. The show's tag-line blatantly says that they can "change who they are"- but why? Isn't college the time that you find out who you are, and why does who you are have to be tied to your body?

There is only one thing that I can support about this show but MTV does not mention this at all: the amount of fat cells that you have by the age of 21 is the amount you will have for the rest of your life. Here's one important thing to know about losing weight: you don't lose all those fat cells, you just shrink most of them. So losing a large amount of weight at a young age means there is a greater chance of keeping a lot of it off later in life with a minimal amount of effort.

Americans need to improve their health. Americans need to lose weight. Americans needs a better economy, need to stop blaming others and need to learn what true happiness is. However, at every turn there is someone with great influence ruining any true progress. I am going to watch the show and judge MTV and these poor kids in silence, and feel some sadness that these young people were never encouraged to find happiness within their normal and oversized bodies.

Random post partum junk

Non-cohesive. Just stuff. Make good use of it.

I rag on Louisiana because we've earned it. This isn't news anymore but just in case anyone missed it or thought that it wasn't important, HERE IT IS: Louisiana reneges on millions promised to school systems. Because Jindal wants to ensure that Louisiana stays stupid.

Do you like Death Cab for Cutie? I do. And Ben Gibbard is proud of his band's new album.

People drive and park like shit. Here's a site with printable cards you can leave those annoying offenders: You park like an Asshole. I would like to add a few other things to those cards, too...

In the ongoing war with snmartphones, here's a look at how users view each other.

Also, a really cool bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone 4. I hate typing on touch screens so this is awesome.

For those of us who can't find respectable jobs [because we live in Louisiana which sucks], there's a new theory about the economy and what our education ISN'T doing for us; some suspect that, with degrees, internships are now the new entry level position. I didn't want to hear any of this a year ago but now I understand that this is now the way to get a foot in the door for a job.

Think about this: Children in lesbian families may be emotionally better off than their peers.

I shall end with a gif of Lightsaber Woman!

It's the end of October and it's 87 degrees

The heat is making me delirious so the links are sporadic.

Let's save the planet! Scott toilet paper now comes without cardboard holders. I don't use Scott but I can appreciate what they're doing.

Know your politics! While some of this is a bit vague, the points are still true.

Meanwhile, let's examine how Americans don't grasp the large scale numbers in the country's budget and deficit. This is a helpful visualization and, before and Repubs start high fiving it, this also applies to the amount of money Obama is spending on healthcare. Mere pennies in comparison.

Target hates creative people, poor people, black people, and smart people. Ok, they really just want to sell their products but this is an interesting article about one of their Halloween ads.

I've always been grossed out by pumpkins, but these amazing carved pumpkins just makes it worse.

And in all seriousness, we can't get rid of Antoine Dodson. Now you can have his Bed Intruder App.


Now, I'm done, gimme some love!

Saints Sunday links

I've been told that I never say anything nice about the Saints and that's not true. I'm just a realistic fan. There's a real chance that they might do something stupid.

Helpful:

The people have spoken: NO MORE PHONE BOOKS!! Most people don't use them, and in my case, I can get as many as four of them. Now you can opt of out receiving them.

Need to find out where an image came from? Tin Eye reverse image lookup. There are some really cool search options popping up out there.

Some facts about sleep and a podcast showing, yet again, that
later school times lead to better performance

I've blogged about this before, so maybe this will be more helpful. When to use the word "literally". Thank you, The Oatmeal.

Fun:

Again, thanks to The Oatmeal for these things you do in e-mail that make me hate you.

The internet makes me regret a lot of things, but here's the best of Regretsy. Absurd creations.

The funniest news about a band: FORMER Weezer fans offer money for the band to call it quits.A LOT of money.

Bastard Thursday links

Whatever I give you is what you will take. I am so tired.

I'm tired of it, too. Three dimensional viewing is not fancy to me anymore. It's been around since I was a child and frankly, I'm tired of really dumb films coming out in 3D. It's actually, for me, harder to focus on and enjoy the film when it's in 3D (I kept taking my glasses off during "Avatar"). There are, however, apparently some things that are sacred, since Star Wars fans are unhappy about 3D plans. Good for them. Now, if we could only stop making BAD Star Wars films, we'd be set.

Pretentious non-grammarians like to correct the average speaker when on things such as "I feel bad" (a la Donald Trump, right) when that is correct. It's kind of funny that Americans like to try to appear intelligent by attempting to speak properly when they just sound silly when they don't follow proper grammar rules.I've got a great podcast from the Grammar Girl on flat adverbs, or rather, adverbs with no "ly". Read it so that you won't look like a jerk the next time you are tempted to correct someone.

First it was dolphins, now it's monkeys that have shown a capacity for self awareness. This should bring up some interesting conversations soon. There are also some interesting links at the end of the article. (Don't worry, chimps are just as idiotic as humans I mean ever (thanks for sharing)

Anderson Cooper apparently IS gay. Ok he's not, but he's in the works for a daytime talk show. Close enough.(Will he be the new Oprah?)

Scientists have found what should be a truly habitable planet. Don't go thinking that YAY we can keep trashing this planet. Because we can't.

Labor Day weekend links

I was saving a lot of these for a special occasion, which would be now.

I haven't had cable since February and now that I have it back, I have discovered a great VH1 countown called Undateable. It's a top 100 countdown of things a man could do to be labeled undateable. I LOVE that VH1 is as cynical as I am. They also keep me entertained on days when there's too much sun to go outside.

Fun links:

I hate stupid names but I am not the only one.

Douching isn't even good for you, and only nasty girls do it. So suggesting that if you want a raise, you have to douche, is taking it to the next level.

List of the Day: Fourteen inventions you could have thought of. Totally. Some, I wouldn't even call inventions. Then another Seven stupid products created by brands. People ought to be ashamed.

Important story suggests that standardized tests are biased against kids who don't give a shit.

Cracked: Six really creepy things slipped into kid's cartoons. REALLY creepy and inappropriate. Thanks to Netflix, I can stream them and watch them.

Nerd links:

Video of a fire tornado in Hawaii. ARMAGEDDON!!!!

How something feels affects thought.

Thinking about adding to the family? There may be no need. "Only child" syndrome may be a myth.

Everything else:

Paste Magazine is shutting down. How sad. They tried to keep things going but couldn't do it. I appreciated getting my new music every month and hope to continue to support them on their site.

We know you're lying, and so are we. The top 13 books people lie about having read. Some of us have been forced to read Cantebury Tales, but even a lit major hasn't read these.