Month: July 2001

Nicole Appleton and Liam Gallagher have named their newborn son “Gene”. Not a very rock and roll name, is it? (Well, except for Gene Simmons, but Liam’s given no indication that he’s a big KISS fan.) As further indication that she’s an idiot, Appleton declared that giving birth was “easier than having a tattoo”. Gallagher, as expected, headed to the pub immediately after the birth. I don’t envy that kid his parents. Oh, and look at his full name: Gene Appleton Gallagher. His initials spell “Gag”!

Everybody’s been linking to this list of Conversational Terrorism Tactics, which also happens to be a guide to every argument that takes place in our house. Our favorites are “Lunatic Fringe”, “Selective Quotation”, and “Studies Have Shown.” (In fact, we have our own name for that last one. It’s called “Pulling a Woodroffe.”) I’ve also come up with a few additions to the list based on arguments we’ve actually had in the last week:

    GEOGRAPHISM:
    If a person is making a good argument that you cannot refute by any other means, make reference to some incident in their country of origin’s history that has nothing to do with the point and that they cannot refute.

    • “I understand [your point about space travel], but what about when the Americans killed all the Indians?”
    • “Of course you’d think that [about the weather], you thieving Aussie bastard. Your ancestors were all criminals!”

    VISUAL AID:
    Try to deflect the person from the real argument by constantly jumping up to physically demonstrate side points that have very little to do with the issue at hand.

    • “I know you think that [women are psychologically predisposed to avoid fighting], but check out this move I once used on a huge bloke in a karate match in 1994. Okay, now I grab you ’round the neck like this…”

In fact, Snookums has suggested that the very concept of “Conversational Terrorism” should be renamed “Condie Baiting”. Heh.

“So you want to be an online pornographer?” Actually, Snookums and I joke about this kind of thing all the time. A guy we used to work with actually had experience working for an online porn site. Everybody in the industry knows that that’s where the real money and innovation are. I mean, porn sites were turning a profit before Jeff Bezos even knew what the Internet was. Now that the dotcom boom is over, it’s looking like a more and more attractive option for folks worried about falling stock options and layoffs. Unfortunately for me, I don’t think I could do it. I mean, skim through that Salon story. The guy sounds like a real asshole! I wouldn’t want a job that I’d be embarrassed to tell my parents about. I wouldn’t want to participate in the continued public degradation of women. This guy thinks he’s hit the jackpot because he can buy a new car with two days’ salary and gets invited to porn-picture-taking parties. *shudder* Like I said, it’s a funny thing to joke about, but the reality looks quite different. I’d sooner become a farmer and do something real than sell my soul serving up digital excrement to the masses.

Can you juggle? I can. I had to learn to do it for a one-act play. Luckily my co-star was a jugglin’ freak, so he taught me pretty much all of it. He was also a contact juggler, which always makes me think of David Bowie in Labyrinth. (My co-star also told me that Bowie didn’t do his own juggling for the film; an expert simply stuck his arms around from behind.) Anyway, here’s an excellent juggling site that even includes cool animated gifs demonstrating tricks. (Link courtesy of Zannah.)

Brigita found a cool toy at the PBS site: Surname Popularity Index. You enter your last name and it tells you how popular it is in the U.S. based on Social Security records. “Howard” is #62 out of, like, 50,000! Yeah, baby! I got more relatives than you can shake a stick at.

Reason 6,415 Why I Love Britain: The British Medical Assocation have passed a motion that will allow women access to the morning after pill free from pharmacists. Yes, free. Without a prescription. Meanwhile in the States, only 15% of women even know that such a pill exists. And even if a woman did know, is she really going to head down to Planned Parenthood and run the risk of some whackjob shooting her? We’re talking about something that could reduce the number of abortions in America by 50%. (Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, I think everybody can agree that fewer abortions is a good thing.) Now I don’t want y’all to get the wrong idea about me. I’ve never had the need for these services whether in the U.S. or the U.K. But I still love the fact that over here, the government doesn’t try to legislate what happens with women’s bodies. They give us the choice and the means to take control of their own lives. I also like that they subsidise their programs so the poor (i.e. the ones most in need of the services) aren’t left out. Did I mention that ALL contraception is covered by the National Health Service here? Sometimes leaving the U.S. feels like travelling into the future by 100 years.