Eat My Shorts

The Cerne Abbas Giant is an 180-foot high outline of a giant, naked man carved into the steep hillside in Dorset, England. The 17th century carving is formed by a trench that is about a foot wide and has long been a revered symbol of fertility among pagans. Today childless couples are known to visit the site in order to copulate in the hope that the very phallic symbol could assist with the conception of a child.
In celebration of the upcoming Simpsons movie, a giant Homer Simpson brandishing a doughnut was outlined in water-based biodegradable paint to the left of the Cerne Abbas giant.

I also discovered that on the The Simpsons website you can create your very own yellow-skinned characters. I decided to make a few of my most handsome readers into official Springfield residents.

C.A.G.E.


GOGO


D


HEED


Quote of the day - Homer Simpson: "Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel."

- I'm lada, who the hell are you?

♪ ♫ I Want To Hold Your Hand ♪

I was walking in the grocery store parking lot today and noticed in front of me a father holding hands with his daughter. The thing about them that caught my attention was the fact that the daughter was a little too old to be holding hands – maybe ten. As soon as I noticed her age (past the point of needing supervision when crossing a street), I was reminded of the last time I was able to hold hands with my father.

If I remember correctly, I was a little younger than this girl and oddly enough, we were also walking together in the grocery store parking lot. I love my dad and I loved holding hands with him and I vividly remember on this day years ago, as I reached up for the familiar touch, he told me no. He said I was too old and that we couldn’t hold hands anymore. At first I was hurt and sad. Although I didn’t have a name for it at the time, innocence lost is one of the tragedies of growing up and I really felt it at that moment. Of course, if you know me at all you won’t be surprised to know that the sadness was rather quickly replaced by a stubborn anger. I was still too naïve to know about pedophiles and those horrors, but I had some concept of age appropriate dating, so I assumed that my father was concerned that the other shoppers at the grocery store would simply think we were dating and that they would frown upon it because he was too old for me. My nine-year-old answer to this was that I didn’t care. I loved my dad and he loved me and we should be able to show affection for each other and anyone who wanted to think dumb things or judge us could go to hell (I doubt I was actually thinking “go to hell” at that age, but I’m sure all the same piss and vinegar was behind whatever I was actually thinking at the time). But it didn’t matter what I thought about the hand-holding because there was obviously no arguing with Dad. Still, it was tough.

So today, as I walk behind this girl and her dad, I smile a little, glad that she still has that pleasure that I had to give up years ago. But then I think it IS a little odd - she IS a bit old for that sort of thing - they ARE making me a little uncomfortable because now I know TOO much about pedophiles and their like and I start looking at the pair differently. I start to check their body language for anything odd - I look at her face to see if she seems unhappy - I look at how tightly he is holding her and if he is pulling her along at all. And then I found my were eyes welling up with tears because my relationship with my father at that age was innocent and I’m sure that their relationship is innocent but it is an evil world we live in and I was so torn between smiling and enjoying the cuteness of the pair and thinking the most horrifying thoughts about them. The back-and-forth in my head was just so utterly wrong (such a warm memory mixing with such a feeling of revulsion) that I cried a little at the mess of it.

All of this in the twenty or so seconds it took for us to cross the parking lot and get to the sliding glass doors of the store.

In the end I was made more comfortable. He let go of her hand, gave her a gentle, very fatherly cuff on the back of the head and reached for a cart. He then said something to her in a language I couldn’t quite place and I relaxed some more under the assumption that their home country simply doesn’t have quite the taboo that America does about adult men and girls. They are probably unaware of how people in this country might react to what they see as a natural, tender act. Or maybe they are perfectly aware of what those of us who are judging them are thinking and they figure we can all just go to hell!

If you're ever on Jeopardy: The original single sleeve photograph for the Beatles' song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" featured a group shot in which Paul McCartney is clearly holding a lit cigarette. When the single was re-released by Capitol on its 20th anniversary, the cigarette was airbrushed out of the photograph. However, by the release of the 30th anniversary, the smoke was firmly back in place.



- lada's tell-tale heart

Bateau est Beau

There seems to be a lot of boat naming talk floating around in my life lately (get it, floating - wink, nudge) and it reminded me of a ship's name I saw on some television show or movie. I remembered thinking it was a clever name that was a play on some foreign phrase, but couldn't seem to recall what it was. So, I went online to hunt it down. I never figured out what the show was (some 007 movie perhaps?), but I did find the name of the boat - Sea Vous Play. ("S'il vous plaît" is of course, "please" in French.) And during the hunt for this particular name, I came across many others that were just too damn clever.

For Fun
Aye Candy
Hipnautic
Molly Brown
First Born
Tip-Sea
Nauti and Nice
Clairbuoyant
Pier Pressure
Which Craft?
Flip Me Over and Pour Me Out (written upside down)*
Ship Happens
Running Errands

Sea Life
A-fishionado
Just for the Halibut
That's a Moray
Bass Ackwards
Street Sea Urchin

For the Sailboat
Sail la Vie
Between the Sheets
For Sail
Mast Confusion

Hollywood
Cod Father
Scene Isle
Isle Be Back
Bait's Motel
A Three Hour Tour

Specific Ethnicity
Czech Mate
Irish Ayes
Sea Señor
Ahoy Vey

Job Related
Tooth Ferry
Freudian Ship
A Loan At Sea
A Born Sails Man
Gone Fission
Sea + +
Port Folio
Aquasition

And these two took me a moment to figure out
A One Anna Tuna
Noah Genda

Quote of the day - the Water Rat (of Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame): "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing."

- lada swabs the poop deck

*I came up with this one on my own and I must say, I am quite proud of it.

Ill Communication

I am sick. Ug – getting sick in July is just stupendously crappy. And I have gotten one of those colds that make me feel like snot is coming out of practically every orifice of my body. My nose is so red and raw from blowing that I can only be happy if I am blowing my nose in the sink or in a hot and steamy shower and avoiding all contact with that rough paper. Ah water, nature’s softest tissue. Yeah, I know that is pretty gross, but I'm not going to try and sugarcoat mucus for you. (This is what the Kleenex box says: “Always within reach! Kleenex Tissue is always there when you need it, popping up in all sorts of places to help you though life’s little ups and downs.” Ha-ha, get it? Popping up! Yuk, Yuk.)
Now here is what happens when you get sick: people hear your nasally voice, hacking cough and fog-horn nose blowing and, although it seems pretty obvious, they ask if you are sick. Now ideally, the sick individual (in this case, me) would come back with some witty answer – unfortunately I think the boogers have slowed my usually ninja fast brain synapses, because I cannot seem to come up with anything clever to say. My best snotty response (pun intended) to the “are you sick?” question: “Only if you mean sick as in crazy, cool or insane!” However, this is obviously a retarded answer so I will not ever actually use it.
Another common occurance when you are ill is getting advice on how to cure yourself. Over the last few days I have heard:
1. Hot compress over the eyes
2. Take a Claritin-D
3. Head over a pot of boiling water
4. Avoid dairy products (they increase mucus production)
5. Smear some vasaline under the nose
6. Drink hot tea

And my favorite advice:

Not-a-doctor: You sound sick.
lada: Yeah, I have a cold
N.a.D.: Maybe you should go to the doctor.
lada: Eh, what are they going to do? I’ll get over it eventually.
N.a.D.: Well, they can give you some medication.
lada: (Seeing where this is going but having to ask anyway) What is a doctor going to do?
N.a.D.: I don’t know. I’m sure they have something to get rid of a regular cold.
lada: Something for the common cold?
N.a.D.: Some antibiotics or something.
lada: Yeah, but it is a virus so I don’t know how effective. . .
N.a.D.: (Backing away) Ew! You have a virus! Stay away from me, I don’t want to catch what you’ve got.
lada: Er. . .
N.a.D.: You shouldn’t be working! Go home and go to the doctor.
lada: Okay.*

Quote of the day – Reese’s advertisement: “They say sex is better than chocolate, but what about chocolate AND peanut butter?”

- lada is not a significant source of calories or vitamin C

*In case you are confused about why this conversation was amusing to me, I will elaborate. Antibiotics are used to treat illnesses caused by bacteria (e.g., syphilis, the plague) but are fairly useless against illnesses caused by viruses (e.g., a cold, H.I.V.). I thought it was widely known there is no cure for the common cold and I used to find it humorous that she didn’t know this, but since mentioning H.I.V., things don’t seem quite as funny as they did at the time. Um. Well, Dr. Heather promised she will work on a cure for the cold, but in the mean time, prevention is the key. Wash you hands and wear a condom.

For No Other Reason

1. If you had a boat, what would you name it?

2. What would you like to eat for your last meal?

3. I know you are but what am I?

4. Do you scrunch or fold toilet paper?

5. What color crayon would taste best?

6. What happens if every NFL team goes 8-8?

Quote of the day - E.C.: "We really didn't have any pregnancy scares. She may have had pregnancy scares, but I understood science."

- how much is that lada in the window?