Bet you didn’t realize the window was a restaurant?

Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

The thing that baffles me is that they are basically taking it off the menu for the duration of the western invasion.  Why bother? I get the whole “let’s clean up our nasty toilets and teach citizens about lines and spitting” Neither of those things are integral parts of their culture; rather, they are oversights in decorum. The dogmeat is, however.

I surfed around the net and it’s not all bald, scorched, and eviscerated puppies piled on a dirty table in a marketplace.  Puppybeef.com has nice prepackaged cuts and you log in for current prices. Although, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if that’s a joke website or for real.  I didn’t log in because…well… I didn’t want anyone to think I ate dog.  You know, thinking of it in terms of actuality, not just ‘in theory’ is making me a little bit sick to my stomach.

I look at this nice pleasant dog and think about “Whole Puppy Beef Spit Roasts are now available! ” Gravy. Puppy gravy.

YAY! I HAZ A MEEZ!

I Sold My Life

HumanForSale.com - For Sale 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A man who put his life up for auction on eBay found it wasn’t worth quite as much as he thought when he settled for around $100,000 less than his target price

Ian Usher finally settled the auction for $399,300 (AUD) . That is just his belongings, tho. Everything he owns, his residence, a trial at his job. I wonder what i’d fetch. As you can see, 2.1 million is what HFS says I am worth. I could sell myself, my possessions, my car, my job. What would i get? AND for that matter, to whom would the money go? I just sold myself, right? I wonder if I’d be like a “Layla in a Box.”  Which, don’t get me wrong, that could be very cool.

It’s official. One can return *anything* at Wal-mart, with or without a receipt

The only clues police have are a hand written note along with a bottle and diapers found in a pack back he was wearing

Isn’t that a bitch?  Dumped off at Wal-Mart.  With a note from your mom.  Calling you “Martin.”  Sad thing is, the foster parents say the kid doesn’t answer to Martin.  So his mom took away his mom, his home, his name….

Firstly, I’d not abandon my child like a mangy kitten.  But if, for the sake of the discussion, I was going to?  I would have perhaps took him to a store where the clientele was a little more ……prepared for the strain of another child.  I feel like if I’m desperate enough to (metaphorically) pin the sign (Free Child To Good Home) on my kid’s back, I should at least try to set him up nicely.

Puzzling to me, however, is why the police want to reunite him with his family. Why? His family clearly did not want him. There is no mistake.  She did not just “forget him.” Note and everything. She dumped him off.  I think the priority here should be to find this baby a new home where he has a decent shot of getting to stay.

Stranger Living In His Closet

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday

I read this story like 4 times. Each time thinking “Are you kidding me?!?”

I don’t know when I’ve last blogged about something as fundamentally terrifying.  Some stranger sneaked into this man’s house and crashed there. for a YEAR.  Granted, she didn’t steal any material possessions, but his privacy? GONE!  He thought he was alone. He was not. He thought no one would hear that he farted; she heard.  She could eavesdrop on his telephone conversations. She knew when he went to the restroom.  She touched his belongings.  FOR A YEAR!!!!

I am suddenly drumming my fingers on the desk and obsessively looking at the clock.  Yes, I am trying to decide if my boss would let me leave.  Seriously, all jokes aside, I HAVE to go home.  I must check my closets.  I do have one that could accommodate a smallish person.  I must make sure.  I am thinking “not likely” on the leave tip and that makes me about 5 seconds from beginning a hobby of chewing my nails.

This is how it works in my world: I read something like this. I think “oh fuck. that’s horrific” I think about it. over and over and over.  At some point, the thought changes from “omg. that guy had some crasher in his house for a YEAR” to “wow…that dude had a crasher in his house…it could happen…there could be someone in ANYONE’S HOUSE just..hanging out.”  That one rolls around for awhile and somehow it ALWAYS turns into ”I bet there IS someone in my closet. you have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!” 

I realize it’s OCD. I realize it’s not right.  But that’s just the way it is.

“Classic” Art

This probably should have been one long post along wtih part 1.  I just got so into my thoughts that i couldn’t pull myself away from it.  I rambled for hundreds of words about if naked people made a picture pornographic.

I threw “The Mona Lisa” up there because while she is not naked, I think most people could agree that she is definitely art. Da Vinci boringly painted her on just a regular canvas. Pashur paints his pictures on people.

I’m going to rely on my memory of art class here (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) and say that Mona Lisa was painted in oils.  I’ve raised the question of subject and now medium.  Does a creation’s status of “Art” or not depend on the medium in which it was created?  Watercolors, charcoals, oils, menstrual blood.  Would that lend weight to a drawing if one of the colors was comprised of blood?

My last point of comparison would be that i believe that Da Vinci used brushes to create her. Pricasso uses his penis.  And his buttocks for some of the back grounds.  A side note would be that clearly he only paints in water based paints and i’ll bet he takes very special care to clean his ..instrument.

I am not claiming to be any sort of art critic and clearly, I am not even sure why one thing is art and the other is not. As I look at these examples, I feel as though of course, Mona Lisa is.  Absolutely.  Oddly, I feel like the body painting counts as art.  The menstrual blood smearing is NOT. That isn’t to say that there isn’t genuine art that encompasses blood as a medium.  Orange juice could be used as well, I’m certain.  I just don’t feel like just because one rubs blood on a piece of paper and says “ooo it’s MENSTRUAL BLOOD,” that suddenly it is inbued with some deeper power.  And the example I used? That’s not art, that’s a a phone doodle.  Granted, I don’t stick my finger in my vagina in order to doodle when I’m on the telephone, but maybe it depends on the conversation?

 The Pricasso on this blog is actually not bad.  I don’t think his penis makes it any more or less artistic.  While I wouldn’t want that hanging on my wall, even if I were unaware he painted it with his penis, I could think “that’s not terrible.”  However, I think perhaps his penis is talented at painting?  I’ve never seen anyone else painting a picture with his penis, so I can’t really say “talented panis” without a basis of comparison. 

I’m not finding my point here. I’m starting to think that it’s because my focus has shifted. NOW I’m thinking about “The Mr Talented Penis Competition”  I should copyright that. It could be not a sex competition. It could be a way for a man to showcase the things he can do BESIDES have sex and pee with his penis!

Sydney Police Shutdown Exhibition

Australian police have shutdown a photographic exhibition that includes images of naked children amid complaints that the pictures breach child pornography laws, a spokeswoman said Friday

CRIMINAL investigations into Bill Henson have widened to include previous work by the controversial photographer, after police received complaints about several Henson works on display at a regional gallery

We’re questioning what is art and what is pornography? Bill Henson is an established photographer, one of the “Foremost Artists of Australia” and now the subject of a criminal investigation of indecency and child pornography.  I have linked the story that has a photo of one of the pictures in question because I don’t want to be labeled a pornographer, too! 

When did nudity in and of itself become pornography? How many nudes hang in The Louvre? The Met? The National Gallery? Which of the great masters do not have a classic nude that most anyone would at least recognize on sight? Da Vinci, Rubens, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Michelangelo, Titian.  What makes theirs art and not porn?

 How many of our parents do not have that humiliating nude photo that they LOVED to show to our dates and company?  Generally these pictures involved a bathtub or a some odd little rug.  My mother has one of me and more than once i’ve ooo’ed and “ohhh! you can see his little thing!” when a boyfriend’s mother has whipped out THAT picture to show me.  Seriously. Why isn’t that child pornography?

Anne Geddes. She has naked children in her photos. Naked babies, in fact.  Why isn’t her stuff pornography? If just because we have a naked picture, then BAM! Pornography!, then shouldn’t her stuff be removed from public view?  How many bathrooms in America are decorated with this Child Pornography?  Bathrooms of good church going people.  In highschool, we went to my paster’s house for ..something. There was an Anne Geddes potty. 

I love Anne Geddes, actually.  Several years ago, I wanted a whole themed bathroom, too. I didn’t refrain because of the pornography angle, though.   It was more so because I was a single girl in my late twenties dating a lot and I didn’t want to terrify the men who might use my restroom with a VISUAL CONFIRMATION of “Longing For A Baby.”   No matter that I could have said “Look, Dude. I don’t even want a baby. The shit is just CUTE!” That was actually how I felt. I knew, though, that it wouldn’t matter. He would think “mantrap” because of my “explicit images of forbidden desires”….OH! Hey! PORNO! Guess I DID refrain from it cuz of the porno angle, after all, huh?

Are Henson’s photographs actually bad and exploiting children and dirty and WRONG?  Or are we simply worried that “OH MY GOD “SOMEONE” MIGHT SEE AND FIND THEM SEXUALLY AROUSING?”   Kind of like my random shoe above this paragraph; only truthfully, i’m more *hopeful* of a random retifist’s arousal than “worried”.  Are his photos actually harming anyone or are we willing to censor art because a few people might be inappropriately aroused by the portrayal of the subject? It’s sad that there are sick and wrong people in this world that find sexual gratification in things that have no place in a healthy person’s menu of desires. However, the vast majority do not. I believe that most people would simply see it as an artistic expression.  If Hansen’s photos are condemned as indecent and pornographic, who will the “decency police” next target?   

Kindergarten Votes Student Out Of Class

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

It appears this teacher has watched a little too much reality tv. He’d been sent to the principal’s office. Again. Only this time when he returned, he was made to stand at the front of the classroom and everyone was encouraged to say why they didn’t like him. Then they voted him ‘off the island.”

What a cute little boy. You can just look at him, though, and see that he’s a monster. He just looks… bad. He has that Eddie Munster thing going on.  He also looks just like one of my nephews.

I have issues with this.  In fact, I feel as though it’s pretty fucked up.  Firstly, the *grownups* on reality shows VOLUNTEER for it. He wasn’t really given a choice in his participation.  I find myself without any idea what could have possibly been done as an alternative, but i feel very strongly that this is not what should have happened.

I’m going to slightly shift the subject for a moment while I contemplate suggestions for a less scarring discipline for a badly behaving child:

The Comments:

As is the case with most newstories, the comment section is often much better than the story itself.  The 23 paragraph diatribe by someone without any idea how to spell. Anything.  The very odd militant posters who are always so very angry.  Oft times i feel like their anger isn’t even about the subject matter of the original article.  This particular section had a very special comment.  It was dreamy and surreal and included a whole little ..collage of Kurt Cobain/Nirvana links.  I am not at all sure why a youtube video of “Lake of Fire” is the slightest bit relevant?   But this is why i say “Comments” sections are never to be missed.

175 Dollar Cheeseburger

The Richard Nouveau - from the Wall Street Burger Shoppe, natch - comes topped with a blizzard of real gold flakes, plus 25 grams of black truffles, a seared slab of foie gras and an aged Gruyere typically reserved for a high-class cheese tray.

I have to admit, that while I get righteously indignant about these over priced food stories; i also love them. It fascinates me endlessly that people would charge that much for a sandwich. Even more titillating for me, is that people PAY that much for said sandwich.  I just boggle when I think at 15 percent? you’d tip the waiter 26 bucks and that’ s assuming you didn’t order anything to drink.

Two hundred dollars for dinner is a lot.  I’m not sophisticated and jaded enough to be unimpressed by that.  In my world, that’s a very nice restaurant.  That’s BOTH people eating and sharing a bottle of wine.  If I’m to be totally honest, that’s less than 5 times in my life so far.  Here? That’s one cheeseburger.

I suppose there are people that would feel my $200 dinner date was no more impressive than if he took me to McDonald’s.  I understand.   I’ve felt snobbish when friends of mine have raved about their dinner date to the fancy restaurant the night before.  They chatter until they run out of oxygen and when they pause to suck some in, I’ve asked “where did you go?”  “Olive Garden and blah blah blah ” and there they go again! My badness is when i think privately “Wow.  Not impressed at all.” It’s not that I have a problem with Olive Garden. I love Olive Garden. I just don’t think of it as that fancy of a restaurant.  For me, there is no ..decadence in going to Olive Garden. The tiramisu is sinful but…that’s another blog. 

I think part of the reason I get my panties all assunder about this cheeseburger, is the decadence angle. There is none. It’s a fucking CHEESEBURGER. You know the guy ordering this will be some asshat douchebag who’s all “look how rich I am. I can afford this!” in his little offcenter ballcap.  And yes, I said “guy;” because this is a guy thing.  And this, unlike some of the other status foods Ive blogged about, is something the guy WILL order for himself.  I’ve said in other blogs that he orders these things (usually for the date) to “ensure that there will be fucking.”  I still hold that to be true.  Only in this instance, he gets to be the one to wolf down the status symbol.

I am ok with exorbitant indulgences in the name of decadence.  I understand that foie gras is so expensive because of the labor and the scarcity.  It’s also just THAT fucking good.  I also understand that some people have the means in which to indulge and others of us, not so much. The elitism is just part of the thrill.  Aside from wishing I was one of those people, I’m ok with that too. 

Maserti made 50 MC12’s.  They sold for 700,000 dollars each. Granted, it’s a racing car, but my point is: there were 50 of them.  This cheeseburger is the edible equivalent of taking a Toyota Tercel and blinging it out with 30,000 dollars of extra crap. Yeah, he pimped his ride. Yeah, he’s The Man. But…….at the end of the day, he still has a Toyota Tercel.