Why Women Cook And Men Barbeque

About a week or so ago, I posted a picture of the cover of the game of Battleship. It was clearly the original cover version, as it had the dad and the son playing Battleship at the table while the mom and the daughter happily did dishes in the background. Naturally, that image resulted in a couple of very unfortunate comments (Scott and Mark) about women and kitchens and sandwiches. And since I really have a soft spot for both of those guys, this is for them. Enjoy!

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I Sank Your Battleship

Wow. Yesterday I learned that I had previously greatly underestimated the amount of Easter ham that I am capable of eating. My GOD, it was delicious! I was barely able to get up from the table and find my way to my computer so that I could surf the Innerwebs. But I'm glad that I did. Had I not, then I wouldn't have run across the little gem below. From the days when boardgames were everything, I present to you an original cover from the game of Battleship. Behold!

What a great game that was/is. "America's all time favorite game". I bet it was. Very wholesome and very...wait a minute. How come only the guys are playing? What are the girls doing in the background there? I need a close up. Close up!

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me! The guys are playing the game whilst the women are in the kitchen doing the freaking dishes?! How all-American of them. Man, we could not have moved past that mindset fast enough if you're asking me. Washing dishes. For cryin' out loud...

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A Friday To Forget

I'm going to call this Hoo-Ha Friday. I'm not going to be proud of it. It's just what I'm going to do. Hoo-Ha Friday is brought to you by two individuals in two separate, yet frighteningly similar incidents. Individual Number One is featured in the video below. It seems that she was in Atascadero, California when she was arrested for DUI after she crashed into the garage of her home. Baaaaad! She was cuffed and placed in the back of the squad car. Shortly afterwards, the arresting officers noticed that she had slipped out of her handcuffs. More baaaad! They put another pair on her because they couldn't find the first pair of handcuffs. Even after she was booked into jail (where they search you...in theory), no one could find the handcuffs. It was sort of a mystery. Where could they be? Where could they possibly, yet unthinkably, be? If you guessed some sort of body cavity that only a female has, you are correct! Aaauuugghhh! All of the baaaad! You may now vomit.

My favorite part of that news report was at the end where the guy was trying to explain the inexplicable. That being why she chose to hide the handcuffs after she was able to find her way out of them. That's what they were focused on?! She was drunk! End of story! And I would hope that the ONLY reason why one would cram a pair of handcuffs up into their uterine region WAS because they were drunk. And we're talking pretty darn drunk. Handcuffs in the hoo-ha drunk, to be exact. I'd be more concerned with how she got them off in the first place rather than why she chose to do what she did in her heightened state of inebriation. And yes, that picture there is of the confiscated handcuffs inside of a plastic glove. Eww.

And as I alluded to earlier, this, sadly, is not the only incident that I have to report here on Hoo-Ha Friday. From the folks over at Cincinnati.com, we learn of another incident involving the arrest of another woman behind the wheel. It would seem that in this case, the car had illegally tinted windows. Uh, yeah. It seems that there was a reason for the illegally tinted windows. When the officer approached the vehicle and looked inside, it wasn't pretty. Inside he found a one 36-year old Colondra Hamilton "...sitting with her pants unzipped and a sex toy in her lap." And listen, let's not judge...yet. Save the judgment for after you learn that she was allegedly "...using the toy while watching a sex video on a laptop computer that a passenger in the front seat held up so she could see it." All whilst driving. Good Lord, lady....

And we're worried about people texting while driving. Wow. I'm trying to figure out what would compel a woman to pull something like this. Is she just SOOOOO busy that there isn't enough time in her day to fit in a good masturbatory porn session, so she decided that she'd kill two birds with one stone and take care of that whilst she drove to the post office or something? How in the world could she even pay attention? Would you even remember that a green light meant "go" and that a red light meant "stop" if you were in the middle of something like that? I can't imagine that you would. I also can't imagine how enjoyable that would possibly be. And by the way, in case you're wondering, driving with a dildo in your lap and a porno on your laptop whilst you drive your vehicle amounts to being charged with "driving with inappropriate alertness". That makes sense. After all, I imagine that she was paying attention, just not to the driving (which is really the most important thing to pay attention to when you're behind the wheel). Oh, and by the way, she looks probably about like you'd expect her to. Behold!

Yeah. All right, then. This has been what will hopefully amount to the last Hoo-Ha Friday ever.

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Thank You, Captain Obvious

Where do I sign up to get a job that studies the completely obvious? I know that such jobs exist. In fact, I'm positive of it after reading in Psychology Today that a one Nicolas Guéguen did a study "...on the likelihood of a female hitchhiker being picked up, by either a male or female driver, as a function of her breast size." Sooooo...let me get this straight. He wanted to know if a hitchhiking woman had larger breasts, would it increase the chances that she would be offered a ride? Really? There needs to be a study for this? Can't we all just agree on some things without the study?

The author of the article at Psychology Today is a one Gad Saad (pronounce that however you'd like). Mr. Saad muses about Mr. Guéguen that he "...could not help but notice that he possesses a talent for conducting naturalistic experiments about issues that many people have wondered about and yet few (if any) have tested." Really? Do you really think that many people have wondered whether or not chicks with large hoots get preferential treatment? Or do you think that many people already know that chicks with large hoots get preferential treatment? Can't we just agree that some things don't need to be proven, that they're just intrinsically known and we're all good with that?

The guy, Mr. Guéguen actually did a little test where "...an average looking female confederate" with either A cup, B cup or C cup sized breasticles "...stood at the side of a road and actually hitch hiked (i.e., put out her thumb as cars whizzed by)". Someone counted how many guys and how many girls drove by and also counted how many guys and how many girls stopped to pick this chick up. (They make of point of telling us that the "female confederate" did not actually get in any of the cars. I wish that would have made a point of telling us why she is called the "female confederate" instead.)

Now, this may shock you to learn that more men stopped to pick up the chick with bigger breasts. This is summarized in Mr. Saad's article as "If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior." You think?! Are you freaking kidding me? How about next time, instead of sending some chick out on the side of the road and having her thumb rides, what say you just ask guys what they would do? "Excuse me, sir? If you saw this woman hitchhiking (show picture of voluptuous female, preferably Pam Anderson because, well, who doesn't like Pam Anderson?), would you give her a ride?" Then give the man a tissue to wipe the drool coming out of his mouth. Repeat as needed. (I realize that "as needed" makes it sound as if it is necessary to ask someone else to see if this is, in fact, an actual phenomenon. You and I both know that it's not. You and I both think that this study was about as stupid as it can get in the first place. Then again, some guy managed to figure out how to study how women's breasts cause different reactions in society. OK, that guy might be a genius, but this study certainly is not.)

And just in case you were wondering, here is the picture that Psychology Today included along with their article. You know, just in case you were unfamiliar with the concept of a fairly attractive, large breasted woman. Behold!

Good Lord....

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What Can Electricity Do For YOU?

You know, I've been saying we're doomed for quite some time now. But I suppose that I had thought that it was only a recent phenomenon in which we, as a people, were propelling ourselves down a path of stupidity. I'm beginning to think that people in general (excluding the majority of you reading this right now) have always been rather dim-bulbed. I say that because apparently, at one point, it was necessary to inform folks of all of the things that electricity in the home can do for you. Wait. What?

Look, I wasn't around during the advent of all of the electricity, but I'd think that all I'd need to see is that light bulb glowing and realize that life is good! But the thing is, this video doesn't seem to have been made around the advent or discovery of electricity. I mean, it does reference television at some point, so it's not like the wonders of electricity were not well known during the filming of this odd, odd PSA. The video is below and I'm going to run through just a few of the things that I found particularly entertaining. Behold!

1930's Infomercial About Electricity, Funny - Click here for more blooper videos

Do you know that electricity will switch on your kettle and when it boils, make tea, light the lamp and ring the alarm to wake you up? Am I sleeping with Rube Goldberg? Who in the world had that contraption next to their bed?

"And when, half an hour later, when your husband is waiting to get off to work, it will boil another kettle for breakfast and cook his toast at the table for him in the twink. Perhaps he'll even offer you a piece!" OK, I might not have heard the lovely British fellow correctly when he talked about cooking toast in the "twink". I've listened to it several times and that's the best I can come up with. Regardless, maybe your husband will OFFER you a piece? A piece? Of the toast YOU just cooked for HIM? Good Lord...

But this voice over guy is a crack up! After making the comment about the guy offering a piece of toast up to the little lady, the guy says "I'll be he doesn't when we're not filming him!" Nice!

"In this country, the waffle griddle may still be something of a newcomer, but it is growing in favor every day." (Apparently this wasn't filmed in Belgium, home of delicious waffles!) But here's where he loses me. "It uses only one unit in twenty hours and will also give you toasted sandwiches." What? A unit of what? Twenty hours? Is there a timer on this waffle cooker contraption? And toasted sandwiches? In a waffle iron? Er, griddle. Machine. Whatever! There are no sandwiches in my waffle iron!

This whole thing cracks me up! "And if you're husband feels in need of a little fresh air..." Enter some guy who was not the guy sharing his toast with you earlier. "Hello! You've got a new husband!" Funny how electricity informercial guy can mention that it's a different person playing the husband, but do you think anyone ever wanted to talk about the second Darrin? Not so much. Odd.

"...Electricity to warm you as you recline so beautifully in front of the drawing room fire as you wonder what's keeping your husband out so late. I wouldn't stay out so late, madam, were I your husband." Is he hitting on our electricity model? I believe he is! First he tells her that her husband is a selfish toast hoarder, now he's telling her that he's out carousing around! Does he know that she can't hear him?

It's just a tad bit unnerving for me to see the hot water heater positioned directly above the tub. Why is it there? There had to have been plumbing pipes at that time, didn't there? I mean, it's not like the tub was the only appliance the in the home that used hot water. Why positioned directly over the tub?

Well I don't know if this little Public Service Announcement explaining how electricity can be useful in the human home would have been successful at convincing me of anything other than those women did a hell of a lot of work all the live long day...electricity or not!

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The Hermaphroditic Sprinter?

Am I one to judge? Of course I am. But this is a case where there needs to be some sort of judgment. Technically, I suppose I don't need to be the one doing it, but what fun is that really? Not much. Let's begin.

Over there in Berlin at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics competition (it's Track and Field, not to be confused with Field and Stream), there's a bit of controversy. Well, maybe just a question. I don't know if it qualifies as a controversy just yet, but it's ramping up to get there. It makes you stop and think, though. It at least makes you wonder. But whether you stop and think or you just wonder, both can be expressed in this situation with the extremely apt expression "WTF?" That's because in the women's 800m race, the winner...well...see, some folks wonder....it's just because.....and the.....you can't really....oh, for cryin' out loud, here! This is the person who won the race. Behold!

Aaahhh. Now do you see what all the hubbub is about? I'm sure you do. That is a picture of a one Caster Semenya of "....a remote, rural part of Limpopo province in South Africa", according to our friends over there at The Telegraph. Caster is 18 years old and has apparently improved her performance in the 800m race by incredible amounts over just a few months (7-ish, to be more vaguely precise). Usually with such a wide margin of time being shaved off of your previous time there is usually talk of doing so by artificial means, aka 'roiding up. Steroids. And while Semenya is muscle-y, that's not what they're concerned about. They're concerned about whether she's running with the appropriate opponents. That is to say, she might be a man.

Again, who am I to judge? Well, I'm me. And I'm gonna. Judge that is. Upon first glance, all I could hear was the Aerosmith song "Dude Looks Like a Lady" running through my head. Well, that and the thought that she's a guy. Simply put, that's a man. But I looked at some footage of how she ran and I also looked at a whole bunch of pictures and in some of them, I'll totally admit that there was a slight hint of a female. I couldn't say what it was. I could say what it wasn't. It wasn't the unshaven legs. It wasn't the rippling muscles. It wasn't the short hair. But there was something. (Ironically though, if there is "something", that won't bode well.) Maybe it's that there isn't a whole lot of room in that outfit to, um, tuck...if you know what I mean. (And while I don't have one, I'd imagine that if you did have that thing all tucked up there, you'd chafe quite a bit if you were running 800m with it like that. You might even rub it down to a little nub, like the eraser on a pencil, if you had really picked up some speed.)

Some of the things that caused others to question Semenya's gender shortly after her arrival in Berlin were her "...muscular development, her narrow figure, deep voice, a dusting of facial hair and her masculine looks." I'm going to take issue with the deep voice part. There's nothing wrong with chicks with deeper than usual voices. Nothing! They're still chicks. They just sound like dudes...mostly on the phone. And they get called "sir" a lot....again, mostly on the phone....so I've heard. So just because someone has a deep voice, that doesn't mean that you need to be calling them "sir" because they're really a man. Then again, it does help if they don't look like a man as well as have the deep voice. That's all.
But as far as the rest of it goes, the "dusting of facial hair" is definitely cause for concern, if not alarm. Just because you're female and athletic doesn't mean that you have to sport a "dusting of facial hair". You an be a female athlete and still be able to be identified as a female. Look at these two from Jamaica that were also at the World Championships. No one is questioning whether they're female or not. Behold!

So now what's in store is that they're going to do a gender verification test which, according to IAAF spokesman Nick Davies "...is an extremely complex procedure." Wait. What? Extremely complex? How many pairs of pants does she have to drop?

According to a one Dr. Richard Auchus, a specialist in disorders of sexual differentiation, "We can get quite philosophical here -- what does it mean to be male or female?" How non-philosophical do you want to get, Doc? Because it's really pretty basic as to what it means either way. Why must it always be so complicated?

There's going to be a series of tests to determine if Semenya is female. (Rumor has it they will include attempting to parallel park, seeing if she stops and asks for directions, has any interest in football and can work the remote control.) These tests would seem to include "...a physical medical evaluation and reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender." That seems like a lot. But apparently, just dropping the ol' pants isn't good enough if someone happens to have been born with ambiguous genitalia (which is not a bad name for a band).

But even without the ol' AG (ambiguous genitalia), it's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before, where a person of one sex can somewhat pass for a member of the opposite sex and therefore does the most logical thing which is to compete in athletics as a member of that opposite sex. Of course. Take the case of a one Samukeliso Sithole. According to the BBC he "...won seven gold medals in women's competitions in 2004." And then it was discovered that she was a he, a fact that he tried to weasel out of by claiming he was a hermaphrodite. That didn't fly and he "...was charged with impersonation and causing psychological damage to fellow athletes." (Wow. If they had that sort of charge here in the US, half of the sports players out there would be charged.) Once they figured out which prison to send him to (they chose a men's prison) off he went, where he later claimed "...to have periods and feared becoming pregnant. Sithole said the male organs became enlarged after a traditional healer took revenge after not being paid for treatment last year." Nice going, Sithole!

Seriously, what kind of a guy wants to win something so badly that he'll pretend to be a chick and go run against a bunch of women? That's really pathetic, yes? It's also nothing new! This goes back at least to 1932 with the case of a one Stella Walsh, later nicknamed Stella the Fella (you can see where this one is going). According to an article over at The Mirror , she won "...Olympic gold for Poland in the 100 metres at the 1932 Los Angles Games", then in 1936 won a silver in the same event and went on to set "...100 national and world records, including 51 Polish records, 18 world records, and eight European records." That was all fine and good until 1980 when, as a bystander to an armed robbery in Cleveland, Ohio, she was shot dead and her subsequent autopsy revealed that she had male genitalia. Holy canoli! I'm still wrapping my head around this one. Mainly because I've been looking at photos of "Stella" and wondering if there were any questions at the time that this was going on. I look at these photos and I think "You could have at least tried to alter your appearance. Maybe shave or something." She's pretty manly. Behold!

See?! What did I tell ya? But get this! At the Berlin Games in 1936 high jumper Hermann Ratjen "was forced by Hitler and the Nazis in Germany to pretend to be a woman and call himself Dora". I guess that if Hitler is asking/telling you to be a woman, you be a woman. ("Would you like me to put on a sundress, Fuhrer?") They did this because the Nazis "...wanted to ensure that Germany won much more medals than they had done the previous Games." That didn't go over so well when Hermann came in fourth in the women's high jump. And that is why Hermann Ratjen did not go down in history as one of Germany's most famous athletes. He was found out in 1938 when on a train where he was recognized by a couple of women. Even though he was wearing a dress (still going with the Pretend-like-I'm-a-woman-for-Hitler ruse), it was something about his beard stubble that gave him away. Go figure!

But again, I have to ask, was anyone questioning this at the time it was happening? Or, in this case, were folks just going along with it because of the Hitler factor? I'd be OK with that, you know. Not saying anything as to not upset Hitler? Not a problem. Seems reasonable.

The "extensive gender tests" on Semenya are expected to take a while, so we won't know right away whether she's all woman or all man or some sort of hermaphroditic sprinter (another really good name for a band. Hermaphroditic Sprinter.). But until something or someone says otherwise, she's a chick and she won the 800m race and that's how it should be for the time being. While this likely won't be the most pleasant public relations incident that she'll ever be involved in, at least when it's done, it's done and she won't have to go through it again. In the meantime, just a slight touch of femininity can go a long way. Just something to think about.

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