Last week I linked to the post where James Chartrand of Men With Pens came out as a woman and I commented (without knowing the situation properly) and said that what she did was great. Thankfully Poppy linked to a superb post that explains while people are upset and critical about what she did. James didn’t just change the name, she took on a whole personality including misogynistic traits!
Tash also wrote a post on females using male pseudonyms and steps that have been taken in some places to levvel the playing field. Make sex a non factor in decision making.
So it turns out that James Chartrand from Men with Pens is actually a woman! Wow. Reading why she pretended to be a man online for so long was so interesting and proves that sexism is alive and well in the world. Many now say James can’t be trusted and has negatively affected gender bias by not pushing through and making it as a woman, I say she did what she had to do and is making everyone really think about why this revelation affects them at all.
One of the tasks in my 101 in 1001 list is to complete no less than 15 photography projects. I follow sh1ft.org to get ideas and instructions and one of my favourite tasks is A Day In The Life. The next one planned is for New Years, either the 31st or 1st or both and the idea is that you take one photo each hour to show what the day was like. Who’s in?
Irony creeps! You start saying totes or lol out loud to take the piss and not so long after you just say it because you’re used to it. It’s no longer ironic, it just is. Same deal with clothes, one day your hideous knitted sweater is ironic the next it is comfy and warm.
Could you live in a van, scared of being caught, eating spaghetti cooked over a camping stove in order to save money and avoid loans? I’d much prefer to forgo education at an expensive university altogether.
The Atheist Bus is coming to New Zealand. The initial target of $10000 for advertising was reached within 48 hours and a new target of $20000 was made. 5 days in they are just over $1000 from the $20000 target. Go kiwis!
Wow. (nsfw) How’s that for trying to fit into the image a media dominated sets forth for women?
Amaze! I may have to make myself one. (right after I’ve altered those clothes I bought 6 months ago, cleaned up my office, and packed for our 3 week holiday).
Are you a hipster? Check yourself and play hipster bingo on The Thinking Man’s Take On: Hipsterism.
UCB Noteworthy – “Poker Face”
A Capella performance of Poker Face. The singing is great – the choreography is the main attraction though. Hilar.
War Zone
“Filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West believes that the streets are a War Zone for women. Armed with only a video-camera, she both demonstrates this experience and, by turning and confronting her abusers, reclaims space that was stolen from her.”
Lawyers often get it wrong when trying to protect their client’s trademarks, issuing cease and desist letters for mere mentions of a brand name and generally not understanding the laws they’re trying to protect. Copyright gets invoked incorrectly in the same manner. So how do you protect your ideas these days? Get known, and be the best, the go to gal!
Men spend more money than women. It’s true! They buy TVs and playstations and the first thing they spot in the store so they can leave, while women research and find sales and will (mostly) happily walk the shopping strip twice in a day just to make sure they’re getting the best bargain. (I don’t agree with the claim that women spend their money on making men happy though, many do but I certainly don’t!)
Best of Twilight
Piece of Me fan video. Makes me feel sad for Britney
The list of common misconceptions is a fantastic read. Putting to rest many of the uh, misconceptions, we’ve grown up with.
Bats are not blind. While most bat species do use echolocation to augment their vision, all bats have eyes and are capable of sight.
Currently rewatching the Harry Potter movies and at this very moment I’m watching The Goblet of Fire with Cedric Diggory aka Robert Pattinson aka Edward Cullen. How appropriate that this popped up on my reader right now – Harry Potter vs Twilight.
I love how with celebrity caricatures even though every feature is so exaggerated it’s still really easy to tell who it is.
Famous men crying. They all look so vulnerable! My favourite is Daniel Craig.
Buyers generally don’t care that your experience and time are worth paying for. Most only care who can do the job cheapest. That doesn’t mean the buyer is stupid, it doesn’t mean they’re a terrible person. And it’s not your place to accuse them of it.
OMFG I die. My black side zip cotton jacket is an poor substitute for this beauty.
Chickie Little has written an amazing guide on how to yum char, if you’ve always been too scared to try it because you don’t know the etiquette then you’re in luck!
Wee bit of a back story. About 6 months ago our parliament passed a bill that removed the “reasonable force” defence when disciplining children, meaning that no more horrible mothers will escape punishment when they whip their children.
Since then there has been a citizens initiated referendum asking whether people should be allowed to hit their kids (it was actually terribly worded and not at all in plain english). It wasted a whole lot of money even though it’s non-binding. A whole bunch of crazies have decided that citizen initiated referenda should be binding and there was a protest in Auckland to demonstrate their feelings.
A customers value is much more than the amount of their current purchase. So why don’t companies get this? Especially the big ones, sure my $30 a month might seem small now but what about when I have my empire and that turns into thousand per month…that you’re not going to get?
Ms Von has all the tricks. I consistently fail at using lists for productivity, and I work from home so I can’t use the first ten minutes trick, but the 20 minute timer. That sounds like gold.
The National Guard will stand outside the courthouses and force you to grow the hell up, and you will be remembered in history like those sad ugly white people yelling at the black kids coming to class.
Who you are does not have to = what you do. Most people these days realise that you may just be using your unglamorous job to pay for your hobbies, or until something better comes along, or because the economy is shit and everyone in your company was made redundant. It’s not the end of the world.
I read someone’s comment the other day that said you are not just your age, you are also all the ages that came before it. At 24 I also have the experiences of a one, two, ten, 15 and 21 year old. Which means the tactics used to sell products to a five year old will probably still work on me, just dressed up a bit. Make me want something bad enough and I will get it.
Why is it considered the height of civilization to work 8 to 10 hours a day in a mind numbing “job”, to commute 1-3 hours per day, to eat processed and manufactured food, to live in wood and steel cans isolated from mother nature and the very land base we are destroying, all to finally collapse at the end of the day in front of a brightly colored display of moving pictures and sound that feeds various violent or sexual fantasies directly into our brains, only to repeat the next day?
Sally from Alraedy Pretty has the same figure as me. We can look totally slim from the front but get us side on and you see where we store our food! She gives some tips on how to dress including which items to embrace, which to avoid, and which to wear when you don’t care about showing your shape.
Have you always been curious about Madonna’s sex book? The scanned pages are available online. (NSFW natch)
Double Fail – Not only does Andrew completely lose at trying to win some affection from his ex he also writes like he’s been taking tips from the How To Write Badly Well blog.
It’s true, us Kiwis are ridiculously polite (or just ridiculous) when it comes to paying for meals at a restaurant, particularly when you’re in a party larger than five. We’re hyper aware that some people may have ordered cheaper dishes and no drinks because they’re short on cash. Frankly, unless we’re sharing food, like at yum cha, I like to pay for what I ate.
xkcd does beauty as well as snark. I’m an organ donor and am quite happy to donate my body to science if my family doesn’t mind having to keep their memories rather than my ashes. The law is a bit weird in NZ though, even if you have donor printed on your licence your family still gets to decide what happens with you when you die.
(I have just under 300 posts left to read from last week. I suspect there’ll be around 500 waiting for me when I get up in the morning. Hopefully Pick N Mix will be bigger next week!)
Michelle has turned her ongoing negative experience with a counterfeit Melissa shoe seller into a public service announcement. Some great advice if you’re looking into buying Melissa shoes, or if you’re having trouble dealing with a seller on eBay.
If you’ve spent any time at all on highly visited or commented on blogs you might have heard terms like ‘Poe’s Law’ and ‘Rule 34′ bandied about. But what does that mean, and are there any other internet rules you should know about?
Annnd Sarah Von is also giving away a Cupcakes and Mace nameplate. Go and enter. :]
Y’all probably know how amazing the technology the CSI crew have is right? Well, just a reminder – look what it can do.
Between 2004 and 2006 about 100 cards were sent to Margaret Huber. The cards were made of unusual things like hair, fish, and copper pipe and were sent to test the postal system. Only 3 never reached their destination.
Want to see a million giraffes? Send your giraffe artwork to the One Million Giraffes project and it might just be possible.
Lessons from a wedding explores some of the gender stereotypes that are rife in society. Girls must be protected from boys, boys must find a girl they like; vegetarianism is ok for girls because we’re fickle and weak anyway, eating meat is manly and therefore any boy that is vegetarian is weak and feminine.
GeoCities is being deleted today. I never had a site there but I had other free sites resembling GeoCities, which would have been impossible without it. It’s a big loss of history.
I’m reading Wicked at the moment
Having trouble picking a religion? No problem, let the religion flowchart help you. (p.s no atheism is not a religion, and no Buddhists don’t believe in a god. This is fun, not accurate)
The zombies in Brisbane look amazing. My favourite is the librarian with a book stuck in her head.
I’m not a big fan of omelettes, I am however a big fan of ridiculously easy meals. Omelette in a bag definitely fits that description. Make sure you use melt proof bags and/or make sure the bag doesn’t touch the pot.
It’s easier to learn new things when it’s put into language you understand. I love the fucking word of the day site.
Amazing, apparently all the black people of France have disappeared. Due to safety fears France is no longer allowed contact with black people from other countries in case they also disappear.
