Asses to Asses

Trying on jeans is annoying for women for various reasons. For me it's the fact that sizes come in the all too ambiguous 8, 10, 12 series--which really doesn't mean much. Guys, it seems, have it much easier with their pant, jeans, and even dress-shirt sizes measured in inches. Who whoulda thought?

Well, my rant on men's versus women's clothing sizes will have to wait for another day... right now it's nice to know that a store called Hub Clothing in Scottsdale has installed The Butt Cam with the belief that "[a] lot of people dread trying on jeans and so any more entertaining you can make it the better. A lot of people compare it to trying on bathing suits, you know something they just don't like to do, we're trying to make it painless," (Hub Clothing Partner Tom Simon).

Oh, yes. That's what I want! I want an unnatural view of my ass that no one will have unless they stick their nose up my crack. I'll be an informed consumer this way! Thanks, Tom Simon! Thanks for reinforcing that women's asses and how they look are the most important consideration women have when shopping for jeans.

But, of course, there's more to this story.... According to Tom Simon, he and his associates are "even thinking of doing a best of and putting it on DVD for the year, 'Best Butts of '08' or whatever, yeah."

Yeah...brilliant!

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Gizmodo Review

Sand is sand is sand...

Well...not really.

I've visited, spent the day at, and passed by many a beach in South Florida. I've never really found a beach that I've enjoyed completely. There's always been some feature or characteristic of the beach that kept me from enjoying my time there completely. For instance, the beach might have been too crowded, the shoreline was rocky, the waves were nonexistent--whatever--you get the idea.

Well, I recently visited a beach that I had heard of my whole life, but which I had never had the chance to visit. It is now my new favorite beach (maybe another day I will write about the beach this new favorite has replaced).

Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park in Key Biscayne (otherwise known by the Hispanic community as "El Farito") is a wonderful place to spend the day with your family, with your significant other, or even alone.

It is listed in Frommer's as one of the Best Beaches and the TravelChannel website refers to it. There are loads of other web references about this park, most of them positive.

My favorite aspects of the park:

• beautiful sandy beaches
• not crowded (granted, weekdays in the early morning are the best time to visit...but most people will visit the free beaches nearby)
• sand dunes
• little or no shell shards or rocks to hurt your feet
• bike and nature trails
• lighthouse you can climb up
• snorkeling is possible
• nice little waves (not too big/not too small)
• lots of tables, benches, and gazebos available for rent
• affordable admission prices
• pets are allowed (in certain areas, not on the beach though)
• two places to get food

Also, one more thing that made me enjoy my time there, but probably won't matter to most people, is that the place reminded me so much of the beaches in St. Augustine, Florida where I felt very peaceful, removed from the hectic city-life, and I was surrounded by nature.

This is a great place to visit and I plan on going there often. I can't believe I've never been before. I suppose most people that go to the area opt for the free beaches which abound. That's what my family and I used to do, but thankfully, Tony and I like to try new things. So we checked this place out. We're planning to go back soon!

Here's the addy and the official webpage...
1200 S. Crandon Blvd.
Key Biscayne, Florida 33149
Phone: 305-361-5811

Remember though...if you're in Miami and want to visit, but forget the address or get lost (which happens to us locals) just ask for "El Farito." You'll get strange looks if you say "Bill Baggs".

(Picture taken from http://mpancier.blogspot.com/ who has a nice entry about the Hispanic ties to "El Farito" that I, unfortunately, never had the opportunity to participate in...give it a read.)

Because this world isn't complete without...

...Boob Pillows. Yup. I subscribe to gizmodo.com so I can read about the new gadgets, but it seems that I more often find things that piss me off.

*Sigh* First Pussy Feet, now Boob Pillows... Can some Japanese company make a joystick out of a penis, please? I mean, c'mon!

Oh, wait... there is a penis joystick--sort of.

Levitation

Not much to do with robots, unfortunately, but amazing nonetheless.

**Update** Apparently, this link is no longer working, and thanks to my very vague post here, I have no idea what this was about. Oh well...

Fem-text-astic

This is what gets my feminist taste-buds working!

A nice little collection of feminist writing available in full-text on the internet! Yey!

Thought I would share.

**UPDATE: Crap, this link is dead too. Curse you, changeable internet, and your unlinking ways!

Foot Fetish Anyone?

The SiFeet Pussy Foot is a silicone foot with a "fully functional and totally fuck-able silicone vagina" on the underside of the foot. While I wonder what the "fully functional" aspects of the vagina are, the fact that it is obviously "fuck-able" isn't the only thing that disturbs me--the feet are disembodied (in a crude manner) and bound together by a rope, hanging like a piece of meat.


But why am I surprised? Foot fetishes are behind Chinese Foot Binding. The objectification and fragmentation of female bodies through sexualization is the main reason why women are still seen and treated as disposable and consumable material objects.


Stockroom.com describes "[t]his silicone sex toy is also a convenient practice tool for preparing to get hot and kinky with actual feet." Well, maybe their customers should practice with these feet--and get intimate with the destructive history men's foot fetish has had on women throughout the centuries.

Mind Control

Follow this link for a few words and a very interesting video on the future of mind-controlled mechanical objects.

This, of course, is technological advancement at its height. It would make any geek wet his/her pants, but what are some of the implications of this new technology?

NeuroSky develops the gizmo that reads your emotions with different algorithms.

The idea of mappable emotions and the subsequent quantitative value that could be placed on them is one of my concerns. Turning something as organic as feelings into what may become our new analytic understanding of them may have some repercussions in the future of criminal investigations, perhaps. Maybe I'm wrong--or stretching this too far--but it was one of the first things that sprang into my mind as I watched the video. Can the technology they use to read and guage certain types of thoughts be applied to the rest of the vast array of human emotions? It may be possible to strap one of these nifty mind contraptions on someone and mathematically gauge someone's hatred or love of another person by showing them a picture of that person.

The idea of applying this technology for the physically impaired is wonderful, as Ologic would like to do in the future, but how will this technology limit exactly who can control certain objects? What if two people with the gizmo on their head, presumably, want to make the same object do two different things? Will one person's thoughts be more powerful than another?

And finally, my last thought about this new technology... The military may have vast applications for technology like this; but, in our gun-ho society it is also dangerous to apply, let's say, mind control capabilities on firearms. There would be no physical evidence left behind if something was fired in that manner.

I know that I'm pretty morbid and this technology is fairly new, but still, I think these things are worth thinking about.

Ugly Smile?

I'm at a loss for words about this... thankfully, it probably isn't going to catch on.

A Helping Hand

Better than the real thing?

A New Twist on Oral Sex

Technological advances in speech recognition make it possible for the robot to interpret direction of sound.