Labor Day Crab Crackin’

Well, I’ve managed to finally contract that nasty summer cold that I’ve spent weeks avoiding. And right before starting my new job. Hopefully a little Dayquil will do the trick and I’ll sail through this week without incident.

We stayed in DC this Labor Day weekend, hanging out with friends and doing something most of us have never done before: Eating crabs.

If I weren’t nearing a snotted zombie-like state, I might go into great detail about how unclean and gross it was. Instead, I’ll direct you to this Flickr set, where you can see it in all its Old Bay-covered, don’t-forget-to scoop-out-the-guts glory. To get you started, here are a couple of photos:

Our three pounds of crabs

Me and my first (crab)

It was alive 10 minutes ago

Crab penis. (Male genitals are shaped like the Washington Monument; females are shaped like the Capitol.) You have to pry off the penis to get inside to the meat. I know, I know. Completely vile.

After crab cracking, we headed to a nearby pub to watch more college football (how about them Hawkeyes!) and spent the rest of the weekend winding down.

What did you all do with your long weekend?

I’ll Chance It

This is still, like, the single most annoying study ever.

But P.S., regularly taking the birth control pill for five-plus years is proven to cut your chances of ovarian cancer in half. Get with that oxymoron.

Weekend Reading: Why We Love

I ditched my Psych major halfway through college, but I’m still intrigued by how our brains work, especially when it comes to self-fulfillment and relationships. TIME’s article, “Why We Love,” takes a scientific look at love and lifelong commitments between two people. It includes some interesting findings about the confounding effects of the birth control pill when it comes to choosing a mate:

[O]ne thing that throws us off the scent is the birth-control pill. Women who are on the Pill—which chemically simulates pregnancy—tend to choose wrong in the T-shirt test [major histocompatibility complex (MHC) detection]. When they discontinue the daily hormone dose, the protective smell mechanism kicks back in. “A colleague of mine wonders if the Pill may contribute to divorce,” says Wysocki. “Women pick a husband when they’re on birth control, then quit to have a baby and realize they’ve made a mistake.”

Lots of interesting stuff in this one. Print it out for the commute or for some leisurely weekend reading.

[Jam of the Day]: Laura Marling, New Romantic

Boobs

I’m totally exhausted, but I thought I’d try to dig up some interesting morsel for you before passing out at 9p, MST.

That morsel is something I found something over at Innocent Bystanders. Apparently scientists have discovered that bras, even good ones, don’t support bouncing breasts.

The comments are many and, um, interesting. For this evening, I leave you to ponder Sticky B’s response:

Two words I never thought I’d see together: Breast biomechanics

When my daugter [sic] ran HS track a couple of years back, a couple of the better looki………heavier breasted girls wrapped theirs with Ace bandages and then covered that with duct tape before practice and meets. I would google “duct tape bras” but I really need to get some sleep tonight.
(Emphasis mine)

Sigh. People are dumb. I’m not going to think about them for eight hours or so.

When to Say When

Boy was I surprised to get back from my internet-free trip to Florida to see what hell’s been going on with Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users. I caught up over lunch today and had to stop eating. I’m hypersensitive to issues of misogyny and abuse towards women as it is (wait, shouldn’t everyone be?), but this really turned my stomach. It makes Debbie Does Dallas look like a Disney flick.

I’ll try not to recycle what everyone else has said, but will emphasize this:

1. I’m sickened not only by the men who were involved, but by the women (here’s looking at you, Jeanene Sessum) who contributed to this seriously foul behavior. Shame on you. I’ve about had it with the women in this world who disrespect their own gender to fit in with the guys. We see you there, sitting in the front row of strip clubs cloaked in your own self-hatred.

2. Don’t come at me—and I mean it—with any uberFeminism crap. By definition, feminism is a term to classify the philosophy and actions which push for social, economic, and political equality for women. This is America. If you can’t get with that shit then you’re in the wrong country.

3. This kind of stuff absolutely makes my blood run cold to the point that I don’t want to see, talk to, or be touched by anyone with a Y chromosome. So it warmed me up a little bit to see the support great bloggers like Hugh, Seth, and Robert Scoble (to name a mere few) on this issue. Thanks guys, for affirming that not all men are creeps.

4. As someone who’s had her personal safety threatened, it’s important to offer support to people like Kathy—and steadily—for years to come. Fear is a stickler; it doesn’t go away after a few months. It becomes a part of everyday life, and as a friend or loved one, you’ve got to understand that.

5. As a woman who’s lent her name and her face to promoting and marketing her company, I completely agree with Rachel Clarke’s quotable (which was also mentioned on the great Gaping Void):

What the fuck is going on? Why does this happen again and again. The only people I know (in real life or virtually) who have been threatened and stalked have been women. What insecure, small mindedness, misogynistic behaviour takes over people to do things like this. Over 50% of the blogosphere are women, yet we continually get the refrain that they are not A-list, that they are not speaking at conferences. This is why. Put yourself out there, show that there is no difference and you get the anger and vitriol poring out from people from people who think they are better just because they have a Y chromosome.

(I also like Hugh’s musing: “OK, so you weren’t the actual jock who raped the cheerleader. But it seems you were in the posse circling them, chanting ‘Go go go go go go go…’”)

In reality, this stuff goes on all the time. Unfortunately it takes crap like this to remind us that it’s important to say shout “when.”

Kathy, you’ve always ruled the school. Keep your chin up.

When to Say When

Boy was I surprised to get back from my internet-free trip to Florida to see what hell’s been going on with Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users. I caught up over lunch today and had to stop eating. I’m hypersensitive to issues of misogyny and abuse towards women as it is (wait, shouldn’t everyone be?), but this really turned my stomach. It makes Debbie Does Dallas look like a Disney flick.

I’ll try not to recycle what everyone else has said, but will emphasize this:

1. I’m sickened not only by the men who were involved, but by the women (here’s looking at you, Jeanene Sessum) who contributed to this seriously foul behavior. Shame on you. I’ve about had it with the women in this world who disrespect their own gender to fit in with the guys. We see you there, sitting in the front row of strip clubs cloaked in your own self-hatred.

2. Don’t come at me—and I mean it—with any uberFeminism crap. By definition, feminism is a term to classify the philosophy and actions which push for social, economic, and political equality for women. This is America. If you can’t get with that shit then you’re in the wrong country.

3. This kind of stuff absolutely makes my blood run cold to the point that I don’t want to see, talk to, or be touched by anyone with a Y chromosome. So it warmed me up a little bit to see the support great bloggers like Hugh, Seth, and Robert Scoble (to name a mere few) on this issue. Thanks guys, for affirming that not all men are creeps.

4. As someone who’s had her personal safety threatened, it’s important to offer support to people like Kathy—and steadily—for years to come. Fear is a stickler; it doesn’t go away after a few months. It becomes a part of everyday life, and as a friend or loved one, you’ve got to understand that.

5. As a woman who’s lent her name and her face to promoting and marketing her company, I completely agree with Rachel Clarke’s quotable (which was also mentioned on the great Gaping Void):

What the fuck is going on? Why does this happen again and again. The only people I know (in real life or virtually) who have been threatened and stalked have been women. What insecure, small mindedness, misogynistic behaviour takes over people to do things like this. Over 50% of the blogosphere are women, yet we continually get the refrain that they are not A-list, that they are not speaking at conferences. This is why. Put yourself out there, show that there is no difference and you get the anger and vitriol poring out from people from people who think they are better just because they have a Y chromosome.

(I also like Hugh’s musing: “OK, so you weren’t the actual jock who raped the cheerleader. But it seems you were in the posse circling them, chanting ‘Go go go go go go go…’”)

In reality, this stuff goes on all the time. Unfortunately it takes crap like this to remind us that it’s important to say shout “when.”

Kathy, you’ve always ruled the school. Keep your chin up.

Male v. Female Brain

Interesting little test from BBC Science & Nature, which, based on your performance of some fairly simple tasks, tells you the gender in which you think.

I was initially surprised to see that I have a mostly female brain, but despite my foul mouth and operating in a bullshit-free zone, I can be pretty girl-ish. How disappointing.

If you don’t have a life have a few minutes, you can take the test here.

[Photo courtesy of bbc.co.uk.]

Male v. Female Brain

Interesting little test from BBC Science & Nature, which, based on your performance of some fairly simple tasks, tells you the gender in which you think.

I was initially surprised to see that I have a mostly female brain, but despite my foul mouth and operating in a bullshit-free zone, I can be pretty girl-ish. How disappointing.

If you don’t have a life have a few minutes, you can take the test here.

[Photo courtesy of bbc.co.uk.]