Tuesday, January 17, 2006

I know I already posted about the talking vibrators, but BoingBoing made me honestly laugh out loud with their list of top ten "voices" they do not need to hear from their sex toys. 10-2 are priceless. #1--if your lover is far away or unavailable or worse, hearing their voice might bring a comfort deeper than simple sexuality that's also capable of enhancing sexuality. What on earth is wrong with that? OK, people who need to hear their own voices during sex have serious narcissism problems.

They also linked to some eight-bit games on WebZen.

This is interesting. Drugs will always be controversial--are they an escape from the mundane or a means of seeking a higher consciousness? This thread on Ask Metafilter shows some very strong and in some cases to my way of thinking harsh opinions on the subject. To which I say, why can't they be both? To some, both at the same time; to others, a journey of discovery of the Self and other realms; to others, merely an escape hatch or a simple crutch (OK, LSD and shrooms aren't crutches--but several drugs, legal, controlled, or otherwise--can be). Don't try this at home, kids, it ain't worth the jail time unless you find that trip important enough to be worth some serious prison time in the name of civil disobedience. But also, why is it so wrong to want to escape? Is all pain weakness? Is it inherently worse to quietly drink or smoke marijuana to escape the pain of losing a loved one than to take any other medication? And if it is inherently more wrong, does that give us the right as a society to inflict even absolute good on others? All right, that was too far off the beaten path, but if anyone stumbles on this, what's your thinking? And have you done it to find out? I don't do drugs because I 've got a kid who doesn't need his mom to be in jail and because he does need a mom who's capable of caring for him (also don't drink more than a single serving of alcohol if he's in my care). But I do believe the shamans were on to (as well as "on") something with their hallucinogens.

This looks really interesting. Reading the blurb on /.'s front page didn't pique my interest so much but I wanted to take a look as the "low magic fantasy setting" reminded me first of Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series (which game I really do want to try out). Looking at the deeper review makes me want to try Iron Heroes as well.

This ties back with all the drug bits from lately, and is also a funny little piece of writing. (Should be the first comment at that link).

Kids' bike helmets

Oooooooh, toys. Science geek toys, at that.

Newest on my to-get list for my kid: Lego contraptions book

As I poke around the Klutz site, I note a startling lack of Koosh balls. Didn't they make those? I know the first thing I remember seeing the Klutz brand on was a book that came with one and suggested fun things to do with them. I love those things. Note to whomever--they are lots of fun as pool toys, but buy dedicated Koosh for the swimming pool. They don't take well to repeated chlorinated-water-logging. The Klutz site itself has some great stuff of the "too much fun to realize they're learning something" variety.

These hearts are pretty.

I understand this academically, but as my line of work is pretty much entirely interruptions, it's entirely academic--even when I'm doing office work, a great deal of the work is fielding phone calls (and it takes me far less than a half-hour to get back on track unless I actually spend that half-hour fielding more phone calls or tracking people down or taking messages for them). It does make me wonder how or if I could fit into a regular office routine at this point.

Once again, I'm glad I don't live in Anchorage right now.

Quotes, 1-10 words (no, really. A one-word quotation, then a two-word, up to 10). Don't necessarily agree with those assessments, but I'm not a career-oriented website, either. Ultimately, the love what you do thing is nice, but if you are limited in marketable skills, time, money, and options (for other reasons like being limited to a certain geographic area), doing whatever you have to do feed and house yourself and your children is more important. All those quotations are worth a read (and worth thinking of what other important ideas can be summed up so succinctly).

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