Bisexuals get no LGBT love, apparently
Posted: January 20, 2011 Filed under: Health, Science | Tags: Bisexual, bisexuality, Gay community, LGBT, porn for women, Sexual orientation 3 Comments »
wtf, bisexuals have a flag too? Where is the straight flag!?!?! Image via Wikipedia
So I was browsing reddit, like I do, and I happened upon a mother telling her daughter she is a slut if she is bi. This shared text exchange caused me to revisit a bar conversation I had recently with sex journalist Rabbit White. Our conversation started out with the discussion of the ”queer” label’s rising popularity, but quickly moved over to the black sheep of the LGBT community: the bisexuals. The general feeling is either bisexuals are whores at heart or don’t know they’re gay yet.
This was news to me, but you’ll have to forgive me on this one – I never got into the whole LGBT community because a) I am not one for “groups”, b) I don’t really go around announcing my sexual orientation and c) I exhibit no visual markers or cues through my clothing or hair so my bisexuality rarely comes up. My sexual orientation is my own personal business, so in my silence I guess people assume I am straight? I never felt the need to “out” myself as a bisexual, but I think this is the problem the community has with me. I am either “confused”, an artsy chick trying to be edgy, or worse, one of those curious girls kissing each other at a frat party for “top dog” status. Read the rest of this entry »
The 'Dance Central' Work Out
Posted: June 29, 2010 Filed under: Health, Uncategorized, video games | Tags: console peasants, Dance, Dance Dance Revolution, Electronic Entertainment Expo, Kinect, master PC race, PC GAMing, Performing Arts, River dance, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Video game, Wii, Xbox 1 Comment »
GTFO DDR!!!! Image via Wikipedia
I knew about the “Portal 2″ announcement and the newest Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer before E3, so I wasn’t expecting anything to come out of the convention that would shatter my hum-drum gaming existence.
But then I saw “Dance Central“.
I think it was love at first sight.
I tried to resist. Dance Central? Please, Fruzs, have some gaming class. I can’t buy an Xbox and Kinect just for “Dance Central”. I am part of the “Glorious PC Gaming Master Race” – not some ninny scum “Dirty Console Gaming Peasant”. But then I remembered how much I love dancing. And then I noticed this game actually teaches you different dance moves – moves I’ve never attempted before.
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This isn’t DDR, where I jump around pressing buttons to the beat with my feet, and nothing happens with my upper body (DDR is no ”glorified tap dancing“). And I do like this idea of making “working out” a game. Sure, marathon running or sprinting is a great skill to have if I needed to worry about the impeding Apocalypse, but I’ll take my dancing in my home with weights over running on pavement every 6am any day.
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I never got into the Wii Fit, with its balance board, or yoga in general, because I much prefer high impact workouts, like jump roping, or dancing in my apartment with weights. Why not just play this game with some light 2 – 3 pound weights around your wrists? (psst, “gamer girls”, if you post videos of yourself playing this game with weights come November, you must link here, or I will get very mad.)
I would to take this moment to challenge you, Kristen from GameMeetsGirl, to a Dance Off.
How to talk to your video gaming significant other
Posted: June 12, 2010 Filed under: Health, video games | Tags: addicted to gaming, Call of Duty, Console Platforms, gamers, Games, hot chick destroys PS3, hot chick destroys xbox, internet addiction, lost the art of conversation, nerd rage, Norman Bates, social media, Video game, video game addiction, Video game industry, World of Warcraft, Xbox, Xbox Live 3 Comments »
I typed in "nerd rage" and this is what Zemanta found.... Image via Wikipedia
It is 2010, and techno-phobes are crying over our youth’s inability to communicate without a machine and somehow we’ve lost the subtle art of conversation. Social media is more popular than ever, and even the video game industry (from Xbox Live to Steam) has gotten into the online community-building business.
The exact percentage of the US population that plays video games is unclear, but lies between 68% (the Critical Gaming Project), and 87% males/ 80% females (2009 chart from gameindustry.com). The percentage of the population that plays video games online ( chance for addiction increases) hovers around 58% for males, and 42% for females.
According to some Australian researchers, 1 out of 10 gamers is addicted, but I have a hunch that percentage might be higher. My hunch is based off of Cracked.com’s most excellent piece “5 creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get you Addicted“. For those about to scoff at the idea of being addicted to something that “isn’t even real”, David Wong counters with:
Your brain treats items and goods in the video game world as if they are real. Because they are.
If it takes time, effort and skill to obtain an item, that item has value, whether it’s made of diamonds, binary code or beef jerky.
After all, people pay thousands of dollars for diamonds, even though diamonds do nothing but look pretty. A video game suit of armor looks pretty and protects you from video game orcs. In both cases you’re paying for an idea.
If you or your significant other is a gamer, chances are, there is some form of neglect going on in your relationship.
Before I address the right ways to go about approaching your significant other when you feel they’ve been playing video games for too long, I would first like to address the wrong ways. And while this “How-To” might seem obvious to some, it apparently isn’t when you consider the magnitude of people using the wrong methods to deal with their video gaming significant others.
THE WRONG WAY TO GET YOUR GAMER’S ATTENTION
1) Destroying your significant others gaming property, from deleting characters to destroying consoles
The internet is littered with videos of gaming equipment being destroyed by significant others. Despite many internet users proclaiming these videos as fake, the destruction of property in each video is too real (and also could be deemed illegal in some cases). There is a reason these videos are popular – these videos appeal to both the gamer who fears their significant other will do this to their machines, and to the significant other who sympathizes with the person doing the smashing.
Deleting Characters
The most recent video to make the rounds of the internet is “Girl deletes WoW Characters, Dude destroys Computer“
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Love me, I quit smoking three months ago…
Posted: April 23, 2010 Filed under: Health | Tags: Addiction, Addictions, brain development, Cigarette, Drug addiction, Health, Nicotine, Quitting, Smoking cessation, Substance Abuse, Tobacco, Tobacco smoking 7 Comments »
Image via Wikipedia
Full disclosure: it will be three months by next week, which means next week I will have hit that 12 week mark where I should be more comfortable with my new lifestyle.
Just this evening, I was jogging home from my local CAPS meeting and I surprised myself. I was able to run 4 blocks to my house and not be out of breath. I didn’t feel tired, or as if I was going to pass out, and I couldn’t hear my heart pounding loudly in my ears. My mini-run put me in such a good mood that I couldn’t stop smiling for at least an hour. My smoking cessation hasn’t been all peachy, however. I will admit, I’ve had a couple of incidents.
The first incident:
I don’t know if you can call this a relapse, but a couple weeks ago I was eating lunch with a friend, and I had a drag of her cigarette. I asked for a drag because I wanted to see what it would taste like. I was feeling pretty confident in my abilities; I hadn’t had a craving in a couple of weeks, and I just wanted to try it. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, maybe I was testing myself, but either way, I hated the drag I had. I actually coughed. I was disgusted. And then I felt proud of myself, for feeling that way. I felt proud of my body for reacting so negatively to the cigarette smoke.
The second incident:
This incident is actually an ongoing process. Lately in my dreams, I am smoking a cigarette. It is not every night that I am smoking a cig, but I would say it has happened at least 5 times in the past 2 weeks. At first the dreams worried me, because I thought I would start smoking again because it was “on my mind”… but now I wonder if it is a warning to myself, and a reminder that I am trying to change, and be a new person, and I can’t relapse now. It is common knowledge that our brains don’t stop developing until we are 25, so if I spent the last 6 years of my adult life addicted to nicotine, my brain chemistry would have developed with a place for nicotine. Now that I no longer feed my brain nicotine, is there a chemical hole in my brain? Has my addiction harmed my brain chemistry?
“Brain skills come online with the onset in adolescence,” Caldwell said. “It’s a work in progress. It’s learning every single day.”
As teens learn to bridle their emotions with reasoning skills, Caldwell said, alcohol and drug use can be counterproductive.
“Addiction is related to experiences of learning, memory, reward and the motivation to go back to the substance, despite consequences,” he said.
via GazetteXtra.com “Alcohol, drugs slow teen development“
And while I know the article quoted above is about drugs and alcohol in teens, couldn’t it also apply to nicotine? Could this explain why I am still so ruled by my emotions? If I had never started smoking, would I have a different personality? Scary thoughts…
You can read about my first 6 days here, and my status update after a month here. 
Woman claims Nintendo Wii made her a sex addict
Posted: April 15, 2010 Filed under: Health, Techology, video games | Tags: Amanda Flowers, Daily Star, Huffington Post, Manchester, Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Sexual addiction, Sexual arousal, Wii, Wii Fit 6 Comments »
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
Amanda Flowers, a catering worker in Manchester, needs 10 sex sessions a day – courtesy a fall from her Wii Fit board which turned her into a sex addict.
Even the slightest of vibrations, from mobile phones to food processors, turns her on, reports The Daily Star.
She said: “It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.”
A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome due to a damaged nerve.
Single Amanda, 24, from Harpurhey, said: “With no cure I just have to try to control my passion by breathing deeply. Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me.”
via Yahoo News “Wii Fit Injury Turns Woman into a Sex Addict“
This has to be a hoax, from a silly tabloid! If the name Amanda Flowers doesn’t rub you the wrong way, her quote should ring some bells: ”Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me”. If this isn’t a hoax, this is a very clever marketing ploy by Nintendo Wii…that happens to be working, because now I want to buy a Wii Fit balance board.
The Huffington Post rehash of the same article links to a 2008 article from Fox News about people injuring themselves on the Wii, and passes it off as if the injuries are related solely to the Wii board. It’s not like those same people would hurt themselves walking down some stairs, or stepping off a curb now, would they? Their clumsiness is all on the Wii.
…And just for shits and giggles, some folks on the internet have begun a “Orgasm Warning Labels for the Wii Balance Board” petition.
Cigarettes contain Pig Blood
Posted: March 30, 2010 Filed under: Business, Health | Tags: Advocacy, Business, Cigarette, Health, Health care, Pig, quit smoking, quitting smoking, Smoking cessation, Specific Substances, Tobacco, Tobacco industry 4 Comments »
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
Dutch researchers have found pig hemoglobin in cigarettes:
The pig’s haemoglobin was found to be a fairly effective filter for cigarettes but this information was not on cigarette labels because the Tobacco industry was not required by law to disclose the ingredients of their products
via Ozcar Guide “Cigarettes Found To Contain Pig’s Blood“
The pig’s hemoglobin blocks toxic chemicals from entering the lungs. That is all fine and dandy, but cigarette companies really should disclose what is in their products. The new health care bill requires all restaurants to make their calorie counts publicly accessible, so why isn’t this the case with cigs? An Aussie Professor says it best:
‘It just puts into hard relief the problem that the tobacco industry is not required to declare the ingredients of cigarettes – they say “that’s our business and a trade secret”.’
via Daily Mail “Warning to religious groups after traces of pigs blood found in cigarette filters“
If you are Jewish, Muslim, or a vegetarian, you now have another reason to quit smoking!
I have been nicotine free for over a month
Posted: March 7, 2010 Filed under: Health | Tags: Addiction, anxiety, Cigarette, Cold turkey, depression, gaining weight, Health, ke$sha stole my hair style, moods, Nicotine, Obama smoking, Smoking cessation, Substance Abuse, Tobacco, Tobacco smoking, Virginia Slims, White Fang 9 Comments »
You disgust me, cowboy killers! Image by elisfanclub via Flickr
As the title suggests, I have not had a cigarette in over a month, and all cigarette smoke is now disgusting to me. I attribute my success to the rigid control I exerted on my environment, but let it be known that the subliminal messages I got from TV shows were also helpful (both 30 Rock and Community had “quit smoking” references during my worst pangs).
My cessation of cigarettes was a multi-month long operation that began a week before the new year. I’d been talking about quitting smoking for years, … but I was “waiting” for the right opportunity.
Love me, I just quit smoking…
Posted: February 11, 2010 Filed under: Health | Tags: Cigarette, Cold turkey, GlaxoSmithKline, Health, Nicorette, Nicotine, Obama smoking, Rorschach, Smoking cessation, Tobacco, Tobacco smoking 26 Comments »
Nicotine via Wikipedia
Yes, I realize this space is not for me to share personal experiences, but I thought I would share with my fellow T/Sers my struggles. This is also a ploy to get some cyber sympathy, some pats on the back and words of encouragement… so please leave them below. I need them.
I started smoking when I was 16 because I thought I was a bad-ass, and I was rebelling against my parents and my catholic school institution. I don’t think I got addicted then, it was more “let’s go to Central Park after school and smoke cigs before we go home”. In college it was a different story as access was easy. I was 18, and shopkeepers could not refuse my requests. My health deteriorated over the years, my clothes began to reek, and I lost my sense of smell. Read the rest of this entry »
Cat Poop Mind Control
Posted: October 3, 2009 Filed under: Chicago, Health, Science, Strange | Tags: Cat, cat overlords, Dark Ages, Gerina Dunwich, kitten hat, Lolcat, Muezza, pets, prophet Mohammed, Rebecca Beachy, Robert Sapolsky, The Pope, Toxoplasma gondii, toxoplasmosis 8 Comments »
the face of our fluffy overlord?
Rebecca Beachy became a mini-celebrity when she wore her skinned feral kitten hat to the September 11th gallery openings. Gapers Block interviewed her a couple days ago, where Beachy said:
Most of my art was already concerned with material and I started thinking about the mythology of cats. I have been thinking about puns. You know, the cat in the hat. The cheshire cat. And then the LOLcat website which is such an obsession of people in our generation. So I thought it would be interesting to re-purpose the cat body to make connections between the body and the image and the mythology of the cat. The cat hat was my first project along those lines.
via Gapers Block
The idea of wearing a dead kitten on the head makes sense in a pun sort of way; we all have cat on the brain. Humanity has always been obsessed with felines on one level or another. Cultures around the world all have their own cat folklore and mythology, from the Egyptians, Greeks, Norsemen, Scottish, to even the Chinese. Did you know that the prophet Mohammed had a beloved cat named Muezza, and one day, instead of disturbing his sleeping cat to attend the call to prayer, Mohammed cut his own robe?
On the other side of the cat obsession, during the Dark Ages the Church believed cats were the agents of the Devil and would organize massive cat burning parties. Gerina Dunwich outlines cat torture methods the Church employed in her book “Your Magickal Cat: Feline Magick, Lore and Worship” (starting on page 60). This cat burning craze had dire consequences. When the feline population in Europe came close to zero the rats ran amuck and spread the Plague.
So Fruzsi, what’s your point about Beachy’s kitten hat and cats being our overlords? (Wait for it…)
I was listening to a Radiolab podcast the other day, and they had a great episode about parasites. The very last segment titled “The Scratch” (starting at minute 47) deals with a little parasite in cats called toxoplasma gondii and its ability to effect and control the brain of the host animal. Toxoplasma gondii can be carried by a variety of animals, but really only wants to live in cat stomachs. Robert Sapolsky, the neuroscientist on the show, goes on to explain the effects of toxoplasma gondii on rats; toxoplasma gondii travels to the rat’s brain and messes around with the circuitry to make the cat attractive to the rat. The end result has the rat approaching the cat to be eaten. Sapolsky goes on to mention that it is not “speculative” to think that Toxoplasma gondii might be doing the same thing in humans. Research done on toxoplasmosis in humans has revealed a link between toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia. Dr Fuller Torrey explains during the show how rates of schizophrenia “exploded” around the same time humans began keeping cats indoors as pets.
A study published in 2007 by the Oxford University Press hypothesizes toxoplasmosis effects dopamine and testosterone levels in the brain. Men with toxoplasmosis
“were more likely to disregard rules and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic”
while women infected with toxoplasmosis
“were more warm hearted, outgoing, conscientious, persistent, and moralistic“.
Either way, that’s some serious mind-altering power right there.
According to the CDC, 60 million people are infected with toxoplasma gondii and most don’t even know it because our immune system keeps us healthy. That means 1 in 4 Americans have it. The wiki entry on Toxoplasmosis says one third of the worlds population has been infected at some point.
Does this mean the prophet Mohammed had toxoplasma gondii in his brain? He is said to have drank from the same water vessel as his cat. The Pope’s cat Chico has his own Twitter account. Does this mean the feline-obsessed Pope has it too? How long have humans had this parasite in our brains and not even known about it? Do I love my cat of my own free will? Am I really a warm-hearted and outgoing person, or is this the parasite talking?
Even if Rebecca Beachy wasn’t thinking about toxoplasma gondii when she made her fashion piece, her kitten hat has a whole new meaning.
