Jane Austen Novice

There’s something I’m rather embarrassed about but no longer wish to be.  My mother and sister and I are Jane Austen addicts.  Pride and Prejudice is our drug of choice, and I will tell you right now I have watched at least 4 versions of it, read the book,  and listened to the Irene Sutcliffe audio version numerous times.  I will also tell you, in strictest confidence, that we bought the board game (this, I blame entirely on my mother).  It turned out we knew all the answers anyway, so we only played it once.

In no way do I wish to argue that this is healthy.  It is merely enjoyable, and it has become a tradition for my mother and sister and I to watch the 1980 version (we imprinted on it like baby chicks; we enjoy the other versions but they do not give the same sense of home) once a year or so when I am back in Iowa.  My dad has typically avoided this activity, presumably out of some half-formed desire to hold onto whatever masculinity can survive living in a household full of women and a pug for however many years — but THIS year, I cleverly brought home a cold virus that weakened his defenses, so he huddled sniffling and gurgling in front of our small television with the rest of us.

And it was the best!  I had feared that a cold-sodden skeptic would dampen the festivities somewhat, but it made it all new again  — watching him chortle at jokes that the females in the room had known so long they had transmuted from joke into Universal Law.

As usual, we drank tea (and Manhattans, my mom has invented a truly amazing new recipe for them) and my Mom made her usual arguments that Mrs. Bennett was perfectly right about all the things that fit into her (admittedly small) worldview;  my sister fought the usual accusations that she was just like Lydia (I am always Eliza, because I was born first and made the call early, though I sometimes think I may be Jane, or fear I may be Mary); we all judged the fashions and yelled along with our favorite lines.  But whenever a pivotal scene or favorite joke came up, all eyes turned to my dad, to catch that first delightful grin of comprehension.

High fives to all the Jane Austen lovers in the world.  (To those of you who aren’t, you’re not reading it right.  Try again.)

Glamour’s “energy boosts” are quite disappointing

So I tried to give blood today and they said I was slightly anemic so I couldn’t.   The blood-not-drawing lady told me I should cut back on coffee because it keeps one from absorbing things like iron, so I was trying to find some other energy boosters.  Here’s Glamour’s suggestion:

Shopping for your health

Booooooooo!

 

Update sorry here’s the link

Headline of the Week: I Smell Dead People

Deceased Celebrities DNA Used to Make Perfume [sic]
Seriously!  They’re doing it!  They’ve even already got Michael Jackson, which seems SUSPICIOUSLY SPEEDY if you ask me.  Though I guess they could have started creating it from his plastic surgery scraps a while ago, and just held on till he died.

(got this from my UrbanDaddy alert this morning)

Congress, I will turn this car RIGHT AROUND

Watching the Health Care debate.  The main attraction: Rep. Sessions is yelling “I object” “I object” “I object” unremittingly, like a nerdy Tourrettes patient, while everyone tries to make their little statements.

Nothing comes to mind more than two kids in a backseat of a car playing the “I’m not touching you” patience-testing game.  Except multiplied by a few hundred and played by adults on C-SPAN.

I’m frankly amazed that no one has been slapped yet.

A brilliant marketing campaign is born

Candace: Tara: so, im contemplating becoming mormon. ive decided that my life would be better with magical underwear

Me: should we explain to tara that she’s thinking of vibrating underwear, not mormon underwear?
Candace: ah yes yes yes, common mistake

Me: many a poor mormon has come to the realization too late

Candace: which is really, really, unfortunate
all that wasted time
and underwear

Me: for serious. there should be a public awareness campaign.

Candace: HA
can you see the billboards?
MAGICAL MORMON does not = VIBRATING

Me: ooh and tv commercials like the pharma ads for drugs “i thought i had to become Mormon to get special underwear — but then my friend informed me yada yada”

Candace: you should not operate heavy machinery when using vibrating underwear

Me: gaaaaah yes!

Candace: we are onto something

Me: if i had money, i’d put that ad together RIGHT NOW
i bet i’d sell a lot of vibrating undies too

Candace: i know! we’d get an awesome slice of profits
and be RICH!

Me: yes!
if only we were rich to begin with, we could totally afford to become rich!!!

O Google

This ad showed up at the top of my gmail this morning.

“Find Iran Girls at Great Prices.”

I hadn’t been writing or reading any emails about Iran or girls, but I was curious.  I clicked to see if it was a weird auto-advertising error or sleaze for cheap bastards.  While loading:

Seems like auto-advertising word fail.  I waited.

 

I guess the results are kind of a mix of both.  Auto-advertising picking up a random weird word combination, but then sponsored links that are intentionally advertising Iranian women (or any 18+ women, etc etc).

Summary: all-round fail.  You end up with sales on Ralph Lauren Childrenswear next to sexy webcam link advertising.  Everyone leaves feeling a bit dirty and depressed, no matter what they were originally looking for (except pedophiles, I guess, and I would imagine they feel dirty and depressed all the time, though I’m not up on my DSM-4).

Diamond Ad Fail

So, I just got this newsletter and it had been bought out by Everlon Diamonds, running a campaign for some new diamond jewelry with the tagline “the strength of love forged in a knot”.

Does it look suspiciously noose-like to you?

It didn’t help that I already fielded an email about blood diamonds this morning, nor that I always have this brilliant Atlantic article in mind when I look at diamond ads now, but, regardless, I’m pretty sure this piece of jewelry is dreadful.  It’s as if you unironically designed a wedding ring that looked like a ball and chain or something.

Awesome gadgetry

I wonder about the psyche of the person who developed this ad:

When I saw James Fallows’s post about this pen I thought it looked pretty cool for reporters.  But the above ad I just caught on Facebook made me realize HOW PERFECT it would be for when you’re fighting with your loved ones (or coworkers, I guess).  Imagine!  Mid-fight, you can reference the last one!  And when your opponent says you’re making things up, you have PROOF!

Because I am sane, I still didn’t vote for “happier love life”.  Winning fights is awesome but you’d probably end up stabbed to death with your own pen, and people would be writing snarky obits for you before you’d finished bleeding out.

Still . . .

Tempting . . .

Man with gun at Obama Town Hall

Kinda crazy / ridiculous that they can’t get rid of this guy with a gun.  I’m sure they will eventually.

I do confess to being mildly amused by the newscaster’s rather awkward phrasing “there are concerns about every president’s safety, but certainly this historic president, the 44th president of the united states” — because the number 44 is what makes his presidency historic, clearly. Erm.

I guess maybe they get in trouble from the NRA if they imply gun-toting nutjobs are often racist gun-toting nutjobs?

It’s cheaper than therapy

I didn’t think this needed to be explained, but apparently it is not a nationally accepted practice:  Sometimes it is necessary to get drunk alone at home and watch the Disney Channel.  There is no shame in this.

Sheesh.