Balls and Walnuts
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A boner for Kate
This one’s just for you, Kate.
From Pharyngula, we have a report on the genetic basis for the lack of a penile bone (baculum) in most male mammals.
Fun and interesting penis facts:
- Most men don’t need that bone!
- It is possible to fracture a penis. Top gals, the weight limit is 120 lbs. (I just made that up.)
- Cat penises are barbed. Rrrrooowwrrr!
- Foreskins secrete a neuropeptide which prevents complex synaptic connections in the brain necessary for any thought more complex than, Grog want woman. (Yup, I just made that one up, too.)
- My nurse just told me she knew an anesthesiologist who claimed “his penis looked like Yul Bryner in a turtleneck.”
Open thread to discuss your fun and interesting penis facts.
D.
NaNoWrapUp
What I learned after 50,000+ words:
1. It took me 47,000 words to figure out what my story was about,
2. 32,000 words (or so) to realize I had no villain, and
3. the first 1,666 words to see that this whole thing was, indeed, possible.
On the one hand, I increased my average productivity fourfold. On the other, the quality isn’t comparable to The Brakan Correspondent . . . but Get Well Soon isn’t total crap, either.
My favorite bit so far: when my villain asks my protagonist the rhetorical question, “Do I look like an asshole?” my protagonist (who isn’t human, but has a fondness for synthetic human prostitutes — cyborgs, essentially) thinks to himself that he had seen his share of assholes, they really were quite cute, and, no, this fellow wasn’t half as goodlooking as your average asshole.
That should give you an idea of the overall caliber of this story ;o)
A fun, clever, and exciting finish eludes me, but even with TBC, I didn’t have all the details worked out until the very end.
D.
Kra Dook, anyone?
Tonight’s dinner reminded me how much I love this sauce. Thai food rocks. Inspired by a similar recipe in Pojanee Vatanapan’s Thai Cookbook, here’s my version of Kra Dook Moo Tod:
4 pounds of pork ribs, cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce (black soy sauce preferred)
Simmer the rib meat in mildly salted water for one hour or until tender. Drain thoroughly.
Saute the onion in the oil until light brown. Add the pepper, sugar, fish sauce, and soy sauce. Stirring constantly, cook the sauce over medium heat until sticky, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the rib meat and toss to coat. Serve over steamed white rice.
I cannot think of a single meat (or vegetable, for that matter) which would not strut its stuff under this sauce. Poultry, fish, you name it. I’m betting even okra would taste good with a thick layer of salty-sweet-peppery-oniony goodness all over it.
Emphasis on salty. The white rice is essential (although, Atkins junkie that I am, I skipped the white rice and I’m alive to write about it). For those of you not wise in the way of fish sauce, that’s the source of the salt in this recipe. Oh . . . don’t be put off by the smell.
By the way: in the original recipe, the author recommends deep-frying spare ribs. Yes, this is superior (the crispiness makes the dish that much more . . . omigod I almost channeled Martha Stewart and wrote delectable . . . delicious — ack! Yummy? Tasty? God in heaven, what words hasn’t Martha ruined?) But my version is healthier and far less messy to prepare.
Now: if someone can tell me where I can buy Szechuan peppercorns, my life will be complete.
D.
Neurosurgery for dummies
During internship, I had a one month rotation on the neurosurgery service. Neurosurgery had a one night in four call schedule with no general surgery duties, so we all looked forward to this rotation. The ward was abysmal, but the neurosurgery ICU nurses had the best reputation in the county hospital.
These nurses knew more about neurosurgery than I would ever know, and they rarely let me forget it. If you think this engendered a constant struggle for dominance, think again. Only a fool of an intern would go up against one of them, and he wouldn’t survive. The neurosurgery residents had learned to trust them. They certainly didn’t trust us.
Neurosurgery is a different world than the rest of medicine. Your patient was discharged today? Huzzah! And you say he left on his own two feet? I’ll buy you a drink. (more…)
Bob Herbert on Jack Murtha
T r u t h o u t has reprinted in full Bob Herbert’s NY Times Op-Ed piece on the Murtha debate. The drumbeat is getting louder, folks. When Condi Rice starts talking about troop withdrawal, you know the writing is on the wall.
Herbert’s conclusion is worth emphasizing (ah, but I fear I’m preaching to the choir):
We need to cut our losses in Iraq. The folly of the Bush crowd and its apologists is now plain for all to see. Congressman Murtha is right, the war is not sustainable. Even Republicans in Congress are starting to bail out on this impossible mission. They’re worried – not about the welfare of the troops, but about their chances in the 2006 elections.
To continue sending people to their deaths under these circumstances is worse than pointless, worse than irresponsible. It’s a crime of the most grievous kind.
Amen. And, may I add, it would be nice to see the responsible parties punished for their crimes?
D.
Technorati tags: bob herbert, Iraq War, Condi Rice
Listen to the hand
On average, an American man will fall in love with 8.6 women before he meets the one who will love him back*. We don’t know the comparable statistic for women, since the male sociologist conducting the study fell in love with his statistician, who spurned his advances and left the collaboration before they could wrap up the work. Oh, well.
Today’s Smart Bitches Day post has a couple of inspirations. First, Deloney got me thinking about my time in college volunteering at Napa State Mental Hospital, where every last patient suffered from unrequited love (at least, those who weren’t able to slip the watch of the psych techs and duck out into the shrubbery for a bit of “mush therapy”).
The second inspiration came last night, when Karen and I were watching a bit of Four Weddings and a Funeral. You’ll remember that Hugh Grant has a thing for Andie McDowell, and that a month before her marriage to some git in a kilt he stammers out in oh-so-cute fashion “I love you,” which she counters with, “Oh, that is so romantic.” And you’ll remember how, at the wedding, Grant’s ex-wife confesses that she still loves him. Hmm. All of this unrequited love. (more…)
Undersexed men of the world, unite
You have nothing to lose but your woodies.
Overheard at The Washington Note (who says Mr. Clemons only cares about politics?): this international sex survey by the good folks at Durex. A few moist facts for your Sunday brunch:
The French claim to have the most sex (on average, 137 times per year), while the Japanese are having the least (46). Yet, knowing the Japanese national propensity for overdoing it, each of those 46 episodes no doubt involved multiple partners, mirrored ceilings, and toys so high-tech the rest of us can only watch Futurama and dream.
The British spend the most time on foreplay (22.5 minutes). Thais spend the least (11.5 minutes). Americans match the international average (19.7 minutes). And I ask: why so little time on foreplay? Even the 16- to 20-year-old cohort spent, on average, a measly 21.6 minutes on foreplay. What’s wrong with kids today?
Italians are the most orgasmic (61%), Chinese the least (19%). Hope that’s not genetic.
17% of men claim to have faked an orgasm. Huh?
The Chinese have had the most sexual partners (19.3), Vietnamese the least (2.5), with the great melting pot, the American satan, once again matching the international average (10.3).
Macedonians lead the world in spankings (42%), followed closely by the US of A (41%).
I’ll let you folks search for more tidbits. I’ve already tried trotting out the stats for Karen, but the wife? Meh. She’s unimpressed by their statistical techniques. (Actually, what she said was, “Everyone lies on those things.”)
D.
Your morning dose of Rich
To Live and Shave in LA (great blog name, eh?) has reprinted NY Times’ Frank Rich’s Op Ed piece, Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt . . . It’s behind the NY Times Select firewall, which I won’t pay for (Judy Miller) on general principle (Judy Miller).
Rich does his usual fine job summarizing the Administration’s falsehoods vis a vis the run up to war. To someone who has been following the news, there’s no new material here. Yet the punch line, delivered in the last two paragraphs, warrants emphasis. Quick snip:
“No debate about the past, of course, can undo the mess that the administration made in Iraq. But the past remains important because it is a road map to both the present and the future. Leaders who dissembled then are still doing so. [My emphasis — D.] Indeed, they do so even in the same speeches in which they vehemently deny having misled us then – witness Mr. Bush’s false claims about what prewar intelligence was seen by Congress and Mr. Cheney’s effort last Monday to again conflate the terrorists of 9/11 with those “making a stand in Iraq.” . . . . These days Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney routinely exaggerate the readiness of Iraqi troops, much as they once inflated Saddam’s W.M.D.’s.”
Did Cheney really think he could say, “We’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history” and not expect it to get thrown back into his face?
Those who forget history . . .
On that last note, Rich offers up an interesting tidbit (which was news to me):
As Scott Shane reported in The New York Times last month, Vietnam documents are now off limits, too: the National Security Agency won’t make public a 2001 historical report on how American officials distorted intelligence in 1964 about the Gulf of Tonkin incident for fear it might “prompt uncomfortable comparisons” between the games White Houses played then and now to gin up wars.
It wasn’t that long ago that the victor had free rein to write its own history. Bush and Cheney think that rule still applies; but this is the Information Age, and history will not be written, rewritten, edited, or fabricated by the hands of a few dishonest men.
More from me later, droogs.
D.
Technorati tags: Frank Rich, Bush, Cheney
Atlantic Boulevard
This afternoon, Jake and I had a slightly disappointing time tidepooling. Not much but snails, hermit crabs, and a few sad-looking anemones. This was only slightly disappointing since the sea was beautiful and, hey, on the North Coast, any sunny day after Halloween is pure gravy.
On the drive home, I exercised a father’s prerogative, attempting to inculcate similar values in my son. In other words, I played Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf for him, stopping periodically to make sure he understood every delicious line of the lyrics.
Then I told him about the time in med school that Karen and I used a snip from the song, I would like you on a long black lead/You can bring me all the things I need, for our answering machine, figuring, “Hey, who calls us?” Our parents, our friends . . . either way, good joke, right? No. The first person to leave a message was my medical statistics prof. “Um . . . sounds like a fun party. I’m calling to let you know the time of the final has changed . . . ” Yeah, whatever. Oh, how I hated medical statistics.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. (more…)
NaNoSchlomo
I had a distant cousin Schlomo, long dead, who was such a bastard that all his kids left the farm and the religion. Seems he drove them a wee bit too hard. NaNoWriMo has become my Schlomo. Some thoughts:
1. Yes, I think I’m going to make it to 50,000. 7000 words in five days? Piece of cake. But that’s not the point. The point is,
2. When you emphasize quantity over quality, you get trite material. My muse keeps falling back on stock images and characters. I’ve tried to compensate for this by setting my story in a make believe society that yearns to be like Earth, Hollywood-style, but the lack of originality is really starting to gall me. Muse, are you listening? Give me something really weird tomorrow, or . . . or . . . I’m airing all your dirty laundry on this blog. I mean it. And another thing,
3. Why must you make the plot ever more tortuous? How am I going to unknot this beast? I purposefully chose a single first person POV to keep your smorgasbord tendencies in check. And what do you do? You keep wrapping my protag in ever more layers of intrigue. This would be fine if the intrigue were truly intriguing, but see #2.
Grrr. No, it’s not crap, but I have serious doubts as to whether it will be publishable in any form. TBC, my numero uno NiP — that’s a keeper, provided I can find someone willing to do a Golden Age on it. (John C. Wright gave his publisher a whopping HUGE first novel. They chopped it into three separate books and marketed each one separately.) But, Get Well Soon? It’ll be one of those novels that gets released when I’m as prolific and well sold as Stephen King, and my publisher says, “Oh, please oh please oh please, give us anything, even your funkiest piece of crap.”
So. NaNoScrewYou is a good thing why?
D.
Technorati tag:
NaNoWriMo