1. Which person would you rather be? 

2. Which person would you rather hang out with?

3. Is success really determined by living arrangements and cost and frequency of haircuts? 

4. Does that even look like a $65 haircut?

5. Is anyone else disturbed by a school that turns fun, funky, albeit lopsided people into frightening Stepford-bots?

1. This is the Ticketmaster security code I was faced with this morning when REM tickets went on sale. I think they were getting back at me for posting those other codes. Any guesses?

2. Can someone please explain to me why, for a show that doesn’t sell out, if you wait hours or even weeks after tickets go on sale you can get better “best available” tickets than you would have gotten at the moment they go on sale? I am already finding better seats for REM this afternoon than I found when tickets went on sale this morning. Ticketmaster, you are lame.

I hate stuff like this. See, to the best of my knowledge I am in fact a woman, and yet it’s a sure bet that anything targeted to women is going to have zero appeal for me and many of my female friends. Case in point, Yahoo is going to launch “Shine”, “a site for women between ages 25 and 54.” After admitting that this is all about targeting advertising to this group, Yahoo pretends they have a nobler mission..

“These women were sort of caretakers for everybody in their lives,” she said. “They didn’t feel like there was a place that was looking at the whole them — as a parent, as a spouse, as a daughter. They were looking for one place that gave them everything.”

Everything? So this site is going to have world news? In-depth political analysis? Science and technology? Well, not exactly:

With Shine, Yahoo plans to expand its offerings in parenting, sex and love, healthy living, food, career and money, entertainment, fashion, beauty, home life, and astrology.

Sigh. So in other words, the usual lineup for anything prefaced by the word “Women’s”. Now, I have nothing against many of these things in isolation, but why is it that “Women’s” issues/magazines/websites/etc always focus exclusively on these and only these topics? Sadly, I think the answer has nothing to do with the oppression of the patriarchy or whatnot, but rather has to do with the fact that on the average, this is what most women are interested in. Women probably still do most of the grocery shopping, and if they tended to buy the Economist or Atlantic Monthly or even something like Wired as impulse buys, then those magazines would be next to the checkout instead of Cosmo, Good Housekeeping, and People. But they aren’t.

Thing is, I spent last Saturday evening hanging out with five people I’m reasonably certain are women, and I don’t think we talked about any of the above topics. I don’t remember everything we discussed, but I know politics was huge, and other topics included mice, blogging, batshit insane neighbors, and how to immobilize an ostrich. I ask you, when will Yahoo make a website for women like us??

Those ticketmaster codes they make you type before you purchase tickets are becoming impossible. It’s probably a no-no, but I lifted a few of them so you can see what I mean. Any ideas what these might say?

Twenty-plus years ago, high school students didn’t have the Internet to store their trivia. Now they know that the specific dates and what-was-that-prince’s-name will always be there; they can free their brains to go a little deeper into the concepts instead of the copyrights, step back and consider what Scout and Atticus were really fighting for.

Two points: 1. If kids are grateful that they aren’t being asked to memorize facts, it’s because they’d rather not memorize facts. Are they using all that extra time to dig deeper into concepts? Unlikely.

2. I’m tired of people confusing the potential of the internet with reality. Sure, the internet has the potential to be used as an educational tool, as does TV. Or even video games. But that’s not how these things are being used. The internet has had a profound impact in many realms (entertainment, commerce, social interactions), but I’m not sure we, collectively as a society, are any better informed than before.

Case in point- the internet really took off in what- the late 90s? Well, since then we’ve voted into power (twice!) what is possibly the worst and most damaging administration ever in US history. So much for power to the people.

Supernanny maintained that dress-up is harmless. All kids do it! She made the family all get dressed up to prove her point. She dressed up as a bee- did that make her a bee? Of course not! Lesson learned, and dad chilled out a bit.

So, yay for Supernanny, and her message of accepting kids as they are and not shaming them for what they choose to play with. But what about her zero-correlation message? I thought back to some boys I knew a long time and many jobs ago, who made a beeline to the dress-up area at the start of the day, and NOT to put on the overalls and fireman’s hat, let’s just say. Wonder how they’re doing now?, thought I. Suddenly it occurred to me that the answer was a visit to facebook away. A few clicks and a network change later and I was able to track down one no-longer kid and, yep, gay. So.. it’s a sample size of one, and let me be very clear that I *don’t* think correlation implies causation, or that it even implies 100% correlation. But I don’t think the correlation is zero either, and the message of accepting your kids as they are is far more important. I wish Supernanny had asked the dad the follow-up question- “So, even if your fears are realized, would you love your kid any less?”

So I told the guy that he could tell me about his organization, but that I couldn’t give him any money at the moment. An upfront and honest approach, but all this means to the guy is that he has more of a chance with me than the last 50 people who just blew him off. And of course the longer he went on, the guiltier I felt, especially when I suspected that he got a bonus for everyone he signs up. (I verified this. Also, without going into details, I’m inclined to believe that he really was working for DialogueDirect raising money for Save the Children, based on what I saw at the time and from research I just did).

So finally I said, “Listen, I don’t want to sponsor a child without thinking about it, because if you send me a picture of a kid, that’s it, there’s no way I could cancel.” (which made me realize how brilliant the whole sponsor-a-kid with a monthly donation thing is. I mean, who wants to un-sponsor a kid?) But I asked if I could just make a straight donation. Sure, says he. Paperwork comes out. Name, address and birthdate- Done! Credit card number- Done! (with a sick feeling that I’m going to regret it) Great, he says, now I just need you to initial this box saying you’re over 21. Done! And these two boxes that just say that you support the organization. Do-.. waaaait a minute..

That’s not what they said. What they said in small print was:

I intend on supporting Save the Children with my regular gift for at least two years.

and

I have received a disclosure letter and understand that this is not a one-time gift.

Looking back at the form, I realized that I was authorizing them to deduct from my credit card every month what I thought was a one-time donation. I didn’t sign, said I’d really need to think about it. He claims that there’s a number I can call to cancel. So basically he’s getting a bonus based on his bringing in two year’s worth of funding, and encouraging me to cancel after a month. Either the organization is getting screwed, or I am. And how can I believe him on the canceling thing, when he almost tricked me into donating far more than I intended? He’s pushing forward, trying to close the deal, I’m trying to read the fine print to see if there’s an escape clause and feeling this rising panic. I finally told him I couldn’t do it, he put a big X on my form saying that invalidated it, I asked for the bottom copy and he seemed reluctant but finally gave it to me. I left and then realized I should have asked for all the copies, since he still has my address and credit card number. I do think this guy was legit and just misguided, but to be on the safe side I called and asked for a new credit card when I got home. Fortunately it was easy to do this, and this credit card isn’t tied to too many online accounts.

So, if we’re keeping score, the guy gets no bonus, I feel guilty and am inconvenienced (and hopefully not anything worse), and “the children” get nothing. Moral of the story, donate online or at fundraising events, and when you see sidewalk people, put in your iPod and DO NOT make eye contact. Sigh.

BUT.. the recommendation does come with reservations. [spoiler warning for the remainder of the review]. The portrayal of male/female relations, and of women and men in general, is just grim. In the world of this movie, men are incapable of evolving beyond a sex and drug obsessed adolescent mentality, and women are demanding, humorless shrews, whose duty it is to rip men away from their carefree boyhood and trap them in the stifling sameness of family life. The “sweet” sensibility I mentioned earlier is applied only to the men, who at least come off as funny and fairly loveable. The women aren’t so lucky. The lead is at least likeable for a while, until the pregnancy starts to kick in and it becomes clear that the responsibilities of family life are going to turn her into a harpy just like her sister. The sister is unbearable, and is part of the “counterpoint” marriage that the lead characters watch with apprehension as they wonder if this will be their fate. The sister and her husband got married under similar circumstances as the lead characters (accidental pregnancy), and are doing their best to make it work for the kids, but the movie makes it clear that for the most part every day is sheer hell for them.

The one sympathetic moment for the women comes when they try to have a girls’ night out on the town, and find they can’t even get admitted to a bar because they are too old and too pregnant respectively. No wonder women are forced to entrap men, when their market value is so quickly lost!

Now, I know movies are under no obligation to portray women or anyone else in a positive light. And I do know women who are just as unpleasant as the ones in this movie, and that the “shrew” stereotype is a common one. It’s just that although I laughed a TON at this movie, I left feeling sort of weird, wondering what I had just laughed at. Interestingly, the one thing that bothered me about “40 Year Old Virgin” (made by the same director/writer) was a similar issue. In order to finally lose his virginity, the lead character had to not only find a woman to sleep with, but he had to abandon his boyish loves, in this case an impressive collection of action figures and other toys. I thought for sure that he was going to find someone who loved him AND his toys, but no. He had to “grow up.” This was a very minor point in the movie, but it’s interesting that this idea is carried forward more forcefully into the director’s next film. Kinda makes me wonder where this guy is coming from.

So, um, bottom line, like I said, funny as hell. Just don't think too much about it.

There are very few plausible explanations as to how this mysterious food item came to be sitting on my floor. It’s somewhat disheartening that the *best* I can hope for is that it has to do with a rodent. I don’t want to think of the other possibility, namely, that a human was in my apartment, brazenly leaving the cookie as their calling card. But.. what else could it be??

For some reason a fact from Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World” popped into my head. I actually managed to find the relevant passage pretty quickly, surprisingly, since it’s been years since I’ve read the book. According to Sagan, “Once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street.” Apparently this has to do with a consequence of quantum mechanics called “barrier tunneling.” He adds in a footnote, “The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow.” So I suppose that would be explanation number three for the cookie.

Anyway, I just wanted to send this out to the world in case I am carried off by large rodents, or spirited away by kidnappers who are careless with their cookies, or transported to another spot in the universe due to stochastic hyperactivity. Just remember.. The Cookie is the Clue.

(I was going to reference the Onion story about an emergency shipment of vowels being sent to Serbia, but I can’t seem to find it online) [edited to add: a friend informs me it's Bosnia and not Serbia http://ifaq.wap.org/society/voweldeployment.html]