Apparently, in London, England, there’s so much of a glut of prostitutes that prices for paid sex are dropping dramatically. Um… road trip, anyone? (Kidding, kidding, I’m a kidder…. mostly.)

Meanwhile, in Australia, land of fair-eyed beauties with swimmer bodies, there’s a man shortage. Um… road trip, any— oh, never mind.

And now, some images of Sarah Palin:

From The Star blogs
Here’s her appearance at the Republican convention:

Speaking of the convention, this fellow gives us a (slightly biased) fact checking of Palin’s reality-challenged speech. And what about John McCain’s speech? One discussion group summed it up well with this image:

And lastly, from The Other Ray, 20 things you didn’t know about telescopes.

From CartoonStock.com

Today’s weight: 149 pounds… and dropping. This is down from around 190 at New Year’s, back when I was substantially more muscular, but a tad bloated. I like the lightness, but I’m not enjoying the weakness. Yesterday’s sad adventure on the field with the undergrads reinforced that sentiment.

Part of the problem is that my back pain issues are preventing me from doing my usual workout. So I’m designing a new program to ameliorate the situation. In addition to my regular lifting routine, I’m including a daily lower body regimen consisting of slow hamstring curls and static squats, based mostly on my kung fu training from decades past. The idea back then was to remain in a difficult stance for an hour or so to train both your mind and the small, balancing muscles around your lower joints. Today was Day One of the new program, and my back feels much better already. I’ve also instructed my massage therapist to focus more on my iliopsoas and hip flexors, again to accelerate the return to full mobility.

All of this will be very painful (and a tad expensive) in the short term, but I think it’s worth a good shot at a medicine-free solution to a chronic condition. The solution to most of life’s problems, kids, is always discipline.

And that brings us back to diet. I’ve shared with y’all my adventures in para-vegetarianism (which includes eggs and fish –’cause fish are moving vegetables, after all– but not milk, ’cause I’m not a fan). I’m into month #3 of that journey and I’m desperately feeling the need for protein. I’m convinced that my reduced protein intake is in large part responsible for my drop in weight, which I believe is a loss mostly of muscle mass.

Yes, other things have improved as well. My cholesterol is lower, and overall metabolic functions are better than they’ve been in years. But I miss the muscle, and I’m concerned that I may not be able to regain it if I rely strictly on vegetable and fish protein. Keep in mind that unfermented soy products (i.e., all fake meats, soy milk, most veggie burgers, TVP, etc) are mostly off limits due to their estrogenic effect.

I take solace in the existence of muscular vegetarians, like Christian Bale and the Klitschko brothers. But these dudes must be sucking back tons of cheese, vats of whey powder and a mountain of beans daily. The vegetable combinations necessary to make up a complete protein (akin to that found in animal flesh) are not too much work, but they’re not as easy as grilling up a steak. Luckily, a lot of Indian food comes already pre-balanced, after centuries of culinary evolution, to provide such completion. You will note, I hope, that a lot of Western vegetarians fail in their dietary quest because they do not pay enough attention to appropriate protein balancing standards. An amino acid deficiency will kick your ass in a serious way.

My problem is not in acquiring a full protein from vegetable sources, but in acquiring enough protein mass from those sources. Yes, the fish and eggs have helped. But a serving of oily salmon provides about 22 grams of complete protein. The same mass of chicken breast, boiled or grilled, provides more than twice that amount. Vegetable sources, per mass, offer a fraction of that amount. Despite my weight loss, I’m still a fairly muscular man, and I’m in dire need of more protein!

In short, I’m giving very serious thought to re-introducing bird flesh into my diet, specifically chicken and turkey breast. Do keep in mind that my migration to pesco-vegetarianism these past months was not solely a moral choice, but a health one, as well, and one borne of a theory that the human body is best atuned to the hunter-gatherer diet of our distant ancestors, one made up mostly of legumes and fruits, spiced monthly with high protein animal flesh. The point at which this experiment must be modified is when my health becomes affected, which I believe it has been.

So don’t be surprised if in a future post I wax poetically about the joys of a chicken breast sandwich.

In Other News…

Taken from Distinguished Canadian Leadership Awards
I met Allan Rock yesterday. He’s the new President of the University of Ottawa, and is making the rounds meeting everyone. Rock is, as I hope you know, a former federal Minister of Health, Minister of Industry and former ambassador to the United Nations. I’ve always been somewhat of a restrained fan of his, and welcome his ascension to the University’s highest office. Yes, I am sucking up to the new boss…. mostly because Mr. Rock agreed to give a guest lecture to my class this year, and I intend to see that he keeps that commitment!

Young Dr Klar sends us this great site: The World is My Canvas, about GPS art. It’s best enjoyed with the sound on.

Well, I’m back from the drive from Florida. I don’t recommend it. It took about 34 hours, and my brother did most of the driving (about 24 hours worth), but it certainly took a toll on me. I slept for 15 hours yesterday and today and beaten down by both a nasty head cold and a bad back. I don’t want to see a steering wheel for a loooong time.

There were some interesting observations along the way, however. We went past Coleman federal penitentiary, where Conrad Black is serving his time. We were in Florida just as Hurrican Gustav was going by. Thus, we were hit with several very intense rain storms, out of the blue. The road kill complement was decidedly weird, with highlights being a dead o’possum and a relatively intact –but dead– crocodile! The latter was a good 5 feet long, tail not included. The driver who hit it must have been scared out of its wits. Traffic approaching Toledo on the I75 drew to a standstill when a stray dog decided to cross 4 lanes to the other side– sucessfully. As we passed it, we say in the rear that the idiot dog was trying to cross again to the other side. Don’t know if it made it.

Two really interesting sights will remain with me for a while. The first was the enormous way in which the I75 expands to 12 lanes just outside Atlanta. Yes, TWELVE lanes. You could land a couple of jumbo jets on that spread. The Atlanta traffic is pretty intense, as is the wacky way in which they’ve chosen to present their highway signage. The second memorable sight was the glistening reflective lanes that are incandescent at night, about 3 hours north of Atlanta on the I75. It really is mesmerizing, especially if you’re the only car for miles in either direction. It’s as if aliens are trying to communicate with you via road reflections.

Staying awake for many hours is one thing. Staying awake for more than 24 hours while driving is quite another. Not the safest thing, I know, but we switched off when it was appropriate. It’s intriguing, though, to note how the brain plays tricks on itself when sleep deprived. Everything starts to remind you of sleep. The point at which you must stop, though, is when your brain starts to tell you that the car is in fact a bed, and that you are actually tucked under sheets and well into slumber.

I don’t think I want to do that again for a lonnnng time.

In Other News…

As you all know, John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin (who?) as his running mate. Well, for obvious reasons I don’t like her. To name a few: she is pro-Arctic drilling, anti-Climate Change control, pro-Creationism, anti-Choice and, most critically to me, pro-Iraq war. There are a few things about her that are admirable, however, among them her ability to “walk the talk”. Specifically, regarding her stance opposed to abortion, she at least had the moral courage to keep and raise her Down’s Syndrome child. Her teenage daughter’s pregnancy is no one’s business, so I won’t discuss it here, even though it is currently front page news.

Her predictable, nonsensical small-c conservative views on Climate Change are profoundly disappointing:

What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

It is incorrect to suggest that Alaska will be affected more than any other state. Every place on the face of the Earth will be affected quite profoundly, though impacts on human culture will vary. Hers is a misperception born of the media’s mistaken characterization of “Climate Change” as “global warming”, and the lay person’s characterization of Alaska as a place that thrives in coldness.

But whatever. She strikes me as someone with dangerously anti-scientific views. For me, the kicker is her desire for Creationism to be taught in secular public schools. There’s a nice discussion of her views on this issue here. Sarah Palin has some attractive traits that make her –in the eyes of some Americans who are intolerant of any change– somewhat of a reformer. But to me she is just another old-fashioned, Bible-thumping theocrat, dressed up in modern clothes, and seemingly unaware of the religious roots of many of her beliefs.

As for whether it was a canny choice for McCain, I say no. It seems she was chosen to court those disaffected Hillary supporters who have not been swayed by Obama. But does anyone really think Hillary Democrats would support an anti-Choice Creationist, just because she’s a woman? There’s also something superficially desperate about choosing her, that it speaks more to her electability than to her potential contributions to government. If Obama won, then croaked, I think most people would be confident in a President Biden. If McCain won, then croaked (more likely, given his age), how many folks would be happy with a President Palin?

Overall, I think she’s a silly choice. And a final note about Creationism:

I’ve oft opined that the surest path to true aging is that bugaboo of existing in an information rich world, nostalgia. Sometimes, however, a bit dreamily thinking about the “good old days” is unavailable. It’s easily justified: what’s the point of living at all if one cannot find a moment to reflect on those impactive moments lived?

This evening I attended the wedding of distant relatives. There, I met even more distant cousins I didn’t know I had, young adults starting University in the Fall. As I tried to figure out exactly how we were related, it suddenly dawned on me: I had attended their parents‘ wedding back when I was their age.

Wow, I really am old.

Well, thinking back to my twenties and late teens necessarily brought back memories of one Thomas Dolby, one of the pioneers of “synthopop” music. Thomas Dolby (we have to use his full name, due to a lawsuit) is best known for his poppy hits “She Blinded Me With Science” and “Hyperactive”. But I want people to know that his true genius was in the thick, gracious and sweeping tunes he produced mostly outside of the mainstream eye.

I like to think that I was attracted to Thomas Dolby’s nerdly demeanour. His father, after all, was a celebrated archaeologist, and y’all know how much I love ancient history. Thomas’s familial erudition seeped into his music: none of his products were ever dumbed down. But, most importantly, more than any of his peers –OMD, Depeche Mode, Human League, Soft Cell, etc– Thomas Dolby layered his electronic songs with complicated, dreamy and surreal emotion. It’s worth pointing out the fellow’s musical pedigree, with associations with Trevor Horn, Foreigner and Lene Lovich: names that mean much to me, but maybe not to many of you.

Two songs stand out: “Screen Kiss” and “Mulu the Rainforest”, the latter a kind of electronic masterpiece for its tapesty of sound. But I will present you with the following. First, here’s Thomas Dolby’s cover of Dan Hick’s “I Scare Myself”:

For the curious, here’s a live version:

The genius of the cover is that it took a quirky, humourous novelty song and made it into a timeless, haunting and somewhat creepy drone.

When I was young, I particularly liked “Europa and the Pirate Twins” for the story that it told, that of childhood lovers longing for each other years later, though kept apart by one’s celebrity. The arrangement and synthy nature have not stood the test of time, but the melody and lyrics of the song itself are still viable:

If you like that song, you may enjoy the modernized guitary version by Norwegian singer Sondre Lerche. Access it on youtube here.

But my favourite Thomas Dolby song of all time is “Flying North”. Here’s a recent live version, performed by the now bald and pudgy, 49-year old Thomas Dolby:

I find it charming that one of the youtube commenters added: “I’m 67. Where was I when this was going on? This is spellbinding. ” I agree: Thomas Dolby flew under the radar for most of his career, but produced some alluring, hypnotic and eternal music.

It’s worth noting that Thomas Dolby married a movie star, has three kids, founded a couple of companies and invented a lot of shit, including the method by which you play song ring tones on your mobile phone. So don’t feel too sorry for him. He’s doing just fine.

Today, 8-8-08, marks the official commencement of the Beijing summer Olympic games.

I take this moment to recall one of the greatest Olympic moments that I can remember: Canadian-Jamaican sprinter Ben Johnson smoking the competition in Seoul:

Yes, Ben was subsequently stripped of his medal due to illegal doping. But you know what? As far as I’m concerned, Ben Johnson was (until very recently) the legitimate fastest man in the history of the world. His time of 9.79 seconds, though stricken from the books, stood for years as the quickest pace that a human being has ever set while being timed.

Jamaican runner Usain “Lightning” Bolt broke Johnson’s score with 9.76 seconds, then blew away his own record with a new astonishing standard of 9.72 seconds:

The Ben Johnson affair has a particular soft relevance to me since I was in love at the time, and was watching live coverage of the race from Toronto’s Black Bull bar with my beloved. As my girlfriend and I were busily making out sloppily, as unrepentant 20-somethings are wont to do, a creepy middle aged woman kept interjecting, possibly trying to get a piece of the action. Now, I’ve got nothing against creepy middle aged women or potential threesomes, but this particular woman was unpleasant and unattractive. So a fond memory of innocent youth is nonetheless tinged with the visceral ugliness of a drunken barfly, but redeemed by the lofty performance of one Ben Johnson, whose excess athleticism managed to stoke the dying embers of patriotism even in this avowed anti-nationalist.

I believe that everyone on the field that day was illegally doping. Ben Johnson’s sin is that he was too sloopy to avoid getting caught. One day history will redeem his name and remember him as Canada’s greatest track star of the late 20th century.

I wonder how many misdirected hits the title of this blog post will draw to this site?

First off, got a new article over at Skiffy.ca. This one is a review of the fascinating Canadian-South African co-production called Charlie Jade.

Speaking of Skiffy, this discussion forum had some brief words about one of my reviews. The funniest part is that they suggest that I have a crush on Ben Browder. Well, Ben can do worse.

Meanwhile, EK Hornbeck sends us news that journalist Martin Bashir has had to issue an apology for using the words “Asian babes”. I’ve got five words: give me a freakin’ break.

Darth Vadum sends us this excellent public service ad:

Meanwhile, Dawn sends us a site dedicated to discussing the Next Dick Cheney.

And Nasty Nicky B sends us this video about “how to pretend you give a shit about the election”:

The world’s oldest joke has been found. Unsurprisingly, it’s a fart joke.

I’m afraid I have to report this: they found a drug that does for your body what regular aerobic exercise is supposed to. Hey, maybe this will mean smaller crowds at the gym!

On a totally unrelated topic, Brother Bhash sends us this very first image of the Earth from the Moon:

I leave you with this sad, but unsurprising bit of news, that the Bush administration pressured the FBI to blame the 2001 anthrax attacks on a Middle Eastern perpetrator, even though no evidence existed to that extent. Will someone hurry up at indict these bastards already?

2:AM and once again procrastinating. Today I saw The Dark Knight for the second time, and made the mistake of sneaking in to see The Mummy 3. The latter was one of those movies that’s so bad that you can’t believe it can get any worse, and then it does. The best part of the evening is that I managed to convince my sister’s boyfriend that Spiderman has a cameo in the Batman movie. (“During one of the boardroom scenes, you can see him crawling on the wall outside!”)

Know what’s interesting? For filming The Dark Knight and its prequel, Batman Begins, the producers opted to employ a relatively new and unknown martial style called the Keysi Fighting Method. Here’s a video of some Keysi techniques:

One of the trailers before the movie was for the upcoming film Watchmen. I’ve previously blogged about Watchmen here and here. It is, in my opinion, the finest so-called “graphic novel” ever written, a genuine work of artistic literature. If you read Watchmen, you will never perceive the superhero genre the same way again, it is that important of a book…. well, inasmuch as any book can be called “important”.

“They” have been trying to make a Watchmen movie since the 1980s. The first attached director, Terry Gilliam supposedly quipped that the story is unfilmable. It might be. I’m quite nervous about the film. I want it to be fantastic. It’s such an important (there’s that word again) defining story that its first venture into the mainstream consciousness must be a triumphant one, if only to justify the nerdliness of those who’ve salivated over its pages for so long.

In Other News…

Here’s a Daily Perv Link (TM) for you: a Brazilian man is accused of “turning his cat gay” after sodomizing it. Or maybe his cat was sodomized by someone else whom he then killed. I don’t know. It’s a confusing link. In any case, the story leads us to the following image of the supposedly turned-gay cat, courtesy of the Fark.com forums:

Let’s assume the white stuff is milk, shall we?

Lastly, Deonandia regular “Brad Parker” has launched his amateur cartooning career. His first attempts are here.

Oh that homoerotic Archie!

Well, I’m pleased to announce that my feedjit.com widget (see the lower sidebar to your right) is working fine. I am not so pleased to announce that the geographical distribution of my readership belies the content of what they are searching for. Specifically, the phrase “dog fucking stories” continues to lead people to this site…. specifically to this post. And probably to the present post, as well, from now on.

Now, I’ve discussed why that is before: genuine pervs type in those keywords hoping for some quite disturbing masturbatory delights, and are instead driven to the banalities of the minutiae of my life. But isn’t it interesting that people are actively looking for “dog fucking stories”? Doesn’t that just give you the classic heeby jeebies? (To be clear on where I stand on this matter, please consult my disclaimer.)

Oh, but it gets worse. In the past 24 hours, 10% of all visits to my site have been by folks looking for such questionable content. Oh you know who you are, since you’re reading this right now. Here’s where they’re located:

• St Louis, Missouri
• Somewhere in Kansas
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Huntsville, Alabama
• Acton, Massachusetts
• Peshawar, Pakistan
• New Delhi, India
• Visakhapatnam, India
• Bangalore, India
• Kochi, India
• Somewhere in Bangladesh

In other words, about half of my American readers and 100% of my South Asian readers are perverts. Or, to be more gracious, maybe they’re all doing school reports on dog fucking and this was their only way to get data.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the geographical distribution also matches, in my opinion, the expected distribution of societal sexual repression. None of my Canadian, European, Australian, Kiwi or elsewhere readers are seeking this particular content, at least not within the last 24 hours. (Who knows, maybe all the sheep-shaggers in New Zealand and northern Europe will be looking for a little ungulate diversity in coming weeks.)

All I can say is…. Ewwwwwww.

In Other News…

One of my older blog posts has been turned into a magazine article and will appear in India Currents in October. I’ll share the final version after publication date.

And just to piss some people off, here are 10 reasons why I have no interest in moving back to the USA, by some ex-pat dude, link via Andoo.

It’s interesting that the comment section of that article includes the predictable comment by a US military veteran incensed that he fought for the writer’s “right” to express this opinion. I’ve never understood this logic. If what he says is true, that he fought for the blogger’s right to express his opinion, why then is he mad that the blogger is expressing his opinion? Shouldn’t he be happy? Oh, I see…. he actually fought only for those he agrees with to express their opinions. I get it now. Moran.

My fascination with all things David Bowie is well documented. (Thanks, Dawn, for the Flight of the Conchords link!) I once dedicated an entire post to the evolution of the Bowie song, “Life on Mars”. You may recall that “Life on Mars” was supposedly Bowie’s response to not having had his version of the Sinatra classic “My Way” picked up by the big labels.

See, there was a great French song called “Comme d’Habitude” that had a hypnotic and powerful melody, and there was great interest in creating an English version of it. Bowie wrote his version, called “Even A Fool Learns to Love”, the lyrics for which are here. But Paul Anka managed to buy the rights to the melody, and turned it into “My Way“, which he promptly gave to Frank Sinatra, and history was made.

I thought you might be curious to hear the original French version. The lyrics to this original song are here and, trust me, they’re a lot more interesting and poetic than the Sinatra version. The originator, Claude Francois, had a powerful voice but looked kind of freakish. Dig the waxed eyebrows. I think he may have been the godfather of the modern guido:

And because we’re all about circularity, here’s Paul Anka trying to recapture some of that pop magic by covering Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World”:

To complete the circle, here’s Simon Le Bon getting pwned by Pavarotti, doing the same song:

In Other News:

You will note, I hope, a few changes to this site. The archives are a bit more tidy, and there’s a new widget on the side, from feedjit.com, that I hope is showing us the geographical location of recent visitors. Cool, huh? (Now I can finally see where these people are who keep googling “dog fucking stories” and ending up here. Actually, I already just found one of them: he’s Acton, Massachusetts. Hi, fella! Thanks, Feedjit.com!)

Meanwhile, there’s a new article up on Skiffy.ca about the great, overlooked Canadian series, Odyssey 5.

“Brad Parker” sends us arvindguptatoys.com, a site that popularizes educational toys.

Brother Bhash sends us this new search engine, Cuil.com, which is supposed to be a competitor for google. See, “cuil” is supposed to sound like “kewl” or “cool” or something. (Actually, it means “wisdom” in Gaelic.) So far, I’m not too impressed. Neither is Time.

Finally, further to my so-far failed attempts to migrate to Ubuntu, Nasty Nicky B sends us this from here:

First off, for my fellow scientist friends, the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research is looking for doctorin’ types. Send your resume here.

One of my peeves has been the consistent depiction of men as arrogant simply because we don’t like asking for directions. I’m certainly one of those men who hates asking for directions. For me, it defeats the very purpose of driving, which is not just to get somewhere, but rather to get yourself somewhere. I’ve often argued two things: (1) we’re really not lost, just momentarily disoriented; we’ll just take the next exit and turn around, so calm the f@ck down; and (2) getting unlost on your own is a skill- and character-building exercise. What do you learn if you always stop to ask directions, rather than trying to figure it out yourself? Civilization was built upon our predilection for problem solving, so don’t quash it now.

Now this study suggests a biochemical mechanism for the difference in direction-asking between the sexes. According to them, it’s all about testosterone.

Today we have for you a series of images, mostly cribbed from Fark.com..

First off, the Other Ray sends us this tattoo, because it reminds him of one of my books:

Next, what is this foul creature? It’s a goblin shark!

That leaves us with these three somewhat self-explanatory images, one of which may qualify as a Daily Perv Link (TM):