Really?

Anyone have a copy or two of Lynne Truss's EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES they can spare for the journalism world? These two headlines were taken from today's news:

Police: 14-Year-Old Hospitalized, Struck By Car (The Hartford Courant)
Don't worry--as it turns out, he was struck by the car before he was hospitalized, not after. Because being struck by a car in the hospital would be awkward and disturbing.


photo credit: SOAPnet (from a General Hospital episode, apparently...who knew?)


First a spat, then boy, 3, goes missing (CNN)
Again, rest assured. Only the three-year-old went missing (after a fight with his mom), not the boy and a spat. Phew! For a second there, I thought we had some sort of bizarre serial kidnapper on our hands!





Now it's really the word order and choice, not the punctuation, that's screwing up those headlines. But still. Lynne Truss's clever book would probably be of some kind of assistance...

Dreams of change (and Mark Henry)

Last night I dreamed that Mark Henry and I were pregnant. And when I say that "we" were pregnant, I don't mean as a couple. I mean we were *each* carrying babies inside us.

I'll wait for a second, while you have the same "WTF??" moment I did.

Aaaaand we're back. To top it all off, I was having twins. I'm sure that part came from the lovely Sandy Williams, who actually is pregnant with twins.

If memory serves, dreaming that you're pregnant is supposed to be symbolic of upcoming change or transformation in your life. In my dream, Mark and I were both very excited and happy about our pregnancies, despite the fact that I don't want kids in real life*, so I'm going to assume the dream was a portent of positive change in our lives. Twins for me...an agent and editor, perhaps? (pleasepleaseplease) Or maybe something else. Who knows. I'll try not to get my hopes up. Maybe it was just the Chinese food I had last night. ;)

*Direct quote from me to my doctor this week: "I live in terror of finding out I'm pregnant."

Attention Gamer Girls!

Dudes. Activision has pulled some shit.

Apparently they released codes for free black ops gear for your Xbox avatar with the Hardened and Prestige edition packages of Call of Duty: Black Ops--only the codes would only work on male avatars.

Because, you know, no women like to play that sort of game. And there are definitely no guys with girl avatars--at least, none who would play a real man's kind of game like Call of Duty.

O.o

I'm holding back my full-on expletive-filled crazy ass code red nuclear rant because Activision has already released the girls-only gear codes to make up for their idiocy error. Thanks to my husband Ben for alerting me to the situation and thanks to Joystiq for posting the article with the codes.

I don't play the Call of Duty games because I'm no good at first person shooter games--NOT BECAUSE I HAVE TWO X CHROMOSOMES. But I sure as hell suited my avatar up in the free gear as soon as I got home from work tonight. Take that, Activision!

Here are the codes, in case you'd like to do the same:

GYVF8-PF7RY-28D7V-VGWV8-CFGRM gets you the "SR 71 Flight Suit" as pictured on my avatar below:

And this code:
R76BQ-CR3MF-G2TTF-9G36R-BQWJD gets you a "Woods Outfit" (which is the one I'm sporting, as seen below):

Feel free to cross-post. I'd love for Activision to see thousands of Black Ops girl avatars out there! Jerks. >.<

Damn you, sluts.

Could all you promiscuous women please, for the love of rhinos, stop causing earthquakes already? (Don't. Even. Get me. Started. Grrr.)

This DISGUSTS me

Thanks to inbabies for the cross-post. Click through to read about how an elderly gay couple in CA was physically separated by Sonoma County. Perhaps you, too, will be nauseated. We do unspeakable things to each other.

Fashion Advice (or: The Horror That Was My Afternoon Coffee Break)

As I mentioned yesterday, I work in Corporate America. A very large office building of a very large company where people are, presumably, professionals. There is a dress code. Allegedly. Therefore, I should not have to be subjected to the horrors of nastyass mancleavage while innocently getting an afternoon coffee!!!!

This dude in the cafe this afternoon had his shirt unbuttoned to his freaking solar plexus. Not kidding. No t-shirt underneath. Now, some people can get away with that.

Robert Pattinson is one of those people. I don't find him especially attractive but...he's Robert Pattinson. Done.

Also? This guy:

My man Andy Gibbs was rocking that shirt back in the day when this photo was taken. We could all live without the package-master spandex pants, but the point here is the shirt.

David Beckham sporting the mancleavage? Two words: yum*.

This dude in the cafe? Not so much. His shirt was unbuttoned about as far down as Beckham's but spread about as wide as Andy Gibb's. But don't be fooled! There was no tanned, muscled, sexy-hairy or baby smooth chest on display. It was pasty white, sprinkled with a few curly hairs and seated atop a good headstart on a hideous, over-the-belt pot belly. And, may I remind you, this was AT THE OFFICE.

Oh, and there was a chain, natch.

*shudders*

Men: Do not do this! Keep your mancleavage to yourselves and your partners! And, for the love of rhinos, keep it out of the workplace!!!


*This is not a typo. Yum is actually two words when referring to David Beckham in any sense. Now quit proofreading me and pay attention to my fashion advice.

Please support Judy Blume & Planned Parenthood

Thanks to Lilith Saintcrow for posting this on her blog and bringing it to my attention.

Judy Blume, wonderful children's author of such books as Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, wrote an email appeal for Planned Parenthood and has been getting slammed with hate mail ever since. I have an incredible amount of respect for Ms. Blume for the quality of her books and the truths in the perspectives she offers the young women who read them. I am also a strong advocate of Planned Parenthood.

The California NOW (National Organization for Women) website has a few links where you can send a note of support to Ms. Blume (though, please note, the link through the Planned Parenthood website is no longer active). Click here if you'd like to express your support to a fellow writer who was standing up for something she believed in and took a bunch of heat for it.