Take The Atheist Census!

Unless it's taken offline again because of a DoS attack!  But it's probably fine now.  The Atheist Census is a project designed to collect some basic demographic information about atheists.  It's very short: it took me less than a minute to complete, only asking six very simple questions.  But it's really cool to see the statistics they've already got!  For example, women comprise only about a quarter of the people who've already completed it world-wide, but here in Canada we account for about thirty percent while in Brazil it's closer to fifteen.  It's just really nifty to see the statistics for different places!

Anyway, my atheist friends should go and get themselves counted.  Censuses are fun!  Here it is!  Have fun, everybody!

MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY DICKING NEW YEAR TOO, FUCKTRUCKS

Happy End Of The World!

Except, you know, not!  More like, happy Mayan calendar event thingy where nothing will actually happen because the Mayan calendar has not actually been relevant to anything since all the Mayans died.  But still, it's an excuse to do stuff!  Drink and play darts or go bowling or something, make a day of it.  Remember, this is the last time you'll get to use "what if the world is really ending" as an excuse to do shit until the next loony toon makes an end of the world prophecy.  And that might not happen for months!  So happy pretend-it's-the-end-of-the-world day, everybody.  Have a penguin gif.

JennaMarbles, why you gotta slut-shame? D:

Oh, Jenna.  I think you are so cool.  I loved your sports-bra video, and your dogs are adorable!  But girl, I gotta disagree with your "Things I Don't Understand About Girls: Slut Edition" video.  Because slut-shaming is wrong, and I want to speak up against it whenever I hear it going down.

First thing right off, you seem to think that being a slut is a bad thing?  Except you're kind of flip-floppy on that.  You say that you know that the word slut has some negative connotations, but that you think being a slut is a choice.  Which, yes, it is a choice!  It is the choice to have lots of sex.  But you kinda trailed off there.  You acknowledge that "slut" has negative connotations....then never say whether or not you agree with the negative connotations.  So I'm gonna assume that you think being a slut is a bad thing, because overall you're being very critical of slut-ness*.  That's not cool!  So you don't wanna have lots of casual sex, that's cool.  Neither do I!  But some people do, and that's okay.  It's their life, it's none of my business if they want to have casual sex!  In fact, more power to them, because sex is fun and there's nothing wrong with wanting lots of it, from lots of people.  So let's stop trying to say it's bad to do it, okay?
Oh look, you do think being a slut is bad, you say so at the end of the video!  Maybe you should have said it here too, just to clarify things.

Next, you talk about one night stands.  You don't get why people want them, pretty much.  Because girls have body issues, and boys are dangerous!  Except maybe you should wonder why your insistence that everyone has body issues should stop people from doing what they want.  Maybe people don't have body issues as bad as you think they do?  And even if they are as bad as all that, it's a good thing that body issues don't stop people from going after what they want (like sex).  Besides, what could be better for body issues than getting ass-fucking-naked in front of someone and seeing how somebody else finds your body to be totally awesome tonight, instead of standing six inches from the mirror and hyper-focusing on every pound and pimple until you're so convinced at your hideousness that you never ever undress in front of anybody ever.  Sure, it's better to realize how awesome you look on your own and learn to love your body because it's gorgeous rather than because other people like it, but sometimes that's hard and it's nice to take a shortcut to feeling totally hot.  Doing one of these things does not automatically negate doing the other thing as well.

And you say boys are dangerous because what if the stranger is into rape or murder!  You should not go home with him but instead google his name and get with him after that!  Except, you know, a dude is not going to say on his Facebook wall, "Hey tonight I'm gonna go to the bar and find a lady to take home and rape and murder!"  The vast majority of rapes and murders are committed by people known to the victim.  Googling his name and finding out where he went to high school will not suddenly let you know whether he's a safe dude to sleep with.  And saying that you should not be a slut and go around sleeping with people just in case somebody turns out to be a rapist/murderer, is just another way of saying "if you are raped/murdered, it is your own fault because you were a slut."  And that is not cool at all.  Don't go victim-blaming, it is never ever the victim's fault that somebody else is evil and attacked them.  If anybody ever thinks that a victim is ever to blame for their rape, then they can just fuck right off.  Seriously.  Go away, get off my blog, you are not welcome here.

Now we've moved on to the "stupid sluts" part.  Yeah, I wish more people would admit that any sexual behaviour is technically sex, even if they want to put special importance on the penis-in-vagina kind.  But sex means something different to everybody, and you shouldn't judge people just because their definition is different from yours.

I literally made a D: face at the pregnant-slut part.  What!?  Jenna, Jenna, why is it so important to you who the fetus's dad is?  Why does it have to make you feel weird that you don't know, or that you don't think that the mom-to-be knows?  Guess what, who the dad is maybe isn't all that important.  Single parents can raise kids fine, and the real father is never the guy who donated some genetic material but the guy/guys that are actually there for the kid and give it a person to look up to, as a father-type person.  But not having a father-type person is not inherently bad, because there are so many people who have been raised by just moms, or by two moms even!  It's really none of your business that the pregnant lady slept with lots of people, so "feeling weird" about it is kind of intrusive, especially if feeling weird about it means you later go online and tell the world how terrible you think they are for making you feel weird.  Just be happy that the mom-to-be is happy about her mom-to-be status, ok?

Please don't assume that all sluts are making bad decisions, or are having lots of sex because of a lack of respect for themselves or something.  Casual sex is not inherently a bad decision, it's just a decision that some people make that you or I would not make.  It's a different decision.  And it's really insulting to say that people only choose it because they have no self-respect.  Have you never read sex-positive feminist blogs?  Most of the sluts I am familiar with have self-respect coming out of their ears!  How many people you have sex with does not necessarily correlate to absolutely anything other than, you know, the number of sexual partners you've had.  And possibly the amount of sex you've had?  But there are lots of people who have had lots of sex with a few partners, so I dunno.  I'm not really a sex mathematician.  Sexematician?  Mathemasexian?  There's gotta be a pun for this.

I'll grant you a few points, Jenna.  It's important to practice safe sex.  Use a condom, people!  STDs are bad!  It's a dick move to have sex with a guy when you know he has a girlfriend, because it's wrong to hurt other people like that.  Don't let people pressure you into having sex you don't want (ie, rape), and don't feel pressured to have sex if you only want to have sex because it's cool .  Have sex because you want to have sex, not because cool people have sex (while I have not met anyone who has done this, I'm not going to say that nobody ever did because hey, there's a lot of reasons people have had sex, how should I know them all).  And having friends around who can help you from getting into trouble by, say, trying to stop a creeper from taking advantage of you if you've had too much to drink or somebody slipped you something is awesome.  Or being a person who is willing to help strangers from being taken advantage of like that!  But don't judge people because they sleep with what you think is too many people.  Other people's sex lives are none of your business, and it's wrong to slut-shame people.  There's enough of that in the world already, we don't need more poison in the blow gun dart of sexism.

But I am not mad at you, Jenna.  I'm just disappointed, parent-style.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I think you're cool and I like a lot of the videos you've made.  I still think you're cool!  But I also think that you've succumbed to a lot of very negative messages that lots of other people have also internalized regarding sex and women's sexuality in particular.  You say in the video that you love when people disagree with you and start discussions, and I sincerely hope that you listen to the discussions that your video started and see what made your video so sexist and problematic that the internet kind of exploded at it, even if you don't change your mind about any of the subject matter.

PS: I could not help but notice that your entire video was aimed at slut-shaming women.  I know that the video was made as a "things I don't understand about women" thing, but I gotta help but wonder if your opinions on slutty guys are just as toxic as your opinions on slutty women?  Ladies have gotten the short end of the slut stick, you know.  When guys sleep around it's just what guys do, but if women do it then they are demonized and labelled sluts.  Even when people try to shame a man for sleeping with lots of ladies, it is pretty much always a much milder shaming than a woman would get.  Just something to think about.

The Mob Doctor was cancelled? It can't be!

I simply cannot believe that The Mob Doctor has been cancelled.  What the hell, Fox?  It's impossible.  It's inconceivable!  Why on Earth did it take them so long?

To recap: The Mob Doctor is (was) a new medical(ish) drama(ish) that Fox trotted out this year.  When I first heard about it, I really, really, really wanted it to be good.  And on paper it has so much going for it!  It's about a woman who's a resident at a prestigious hospital, but by night moonlights as a Mob Doctor to pay off her debt to the mafia.  How rad is that!?

Unfortunately, it was not good.  At all.  It was kind of terrible, actually, and it was pretty obvious from the first episode that it wouldn't make it to a second season.  And it made me  so sad.  Not only did this show that sounded like it could be awesome turn out to be not-awesome, it wasn't even entertainingly terrible.  It was just really bland and boring.  When I realized that it was not the cool show I wanted it to be, I decided to watch it anyway, hoping that it would be bad enough to be fun ranting about on my blog and to friends.  But it didn't even have the decency to do that!  It was just....boring.  And bland.  And everybody was stupid.  And so even though I wanted to watch it despite not liking it (I had not realized how ridiculous that sounds until just now) I couldn't even do that.  I don't think I managed to get past the fourth episode.

So in short, The Mob Doctor was a vaguely terrible TV show that was impossible to enjoy no matter how hard you tried and I am kind of impressed that Fox let it go on for a full thirteen episodes.   The pilot made it clear that it was barely watchable.

In short: bad TV show is cancelled to the surprise of no one ever and I still need to find a good show to watch. Or just a bunch of good movies.  Whatever.  Maybe I'll finally get around to watching Reservoir Dogs, I've been meaning to check it out ever since I finally saw Pulp Fiction a month ago.

Did you wish on a star last night?

Fuck, it was cold as balls out there.  I went out a few times (in between Tremors movies) to stargaze, saw a whole lotta night sky and a fair few shooting stars, a couple of them really impressive!  It turns out the top of the hill by my house is a great place to stargaze ever since they cut all the trees down.  Well, it's pretty good.  It's got a lovely view of the city, but the light pollution makes that part of the sky kind of useless, stargazing-wise.  It's right in the wind, too.  Again, you're kind of screwed when it comes to being cold and seeing great stars.  Either you're warm or you see a nice night sky, one or the other.  I wish I could have gotten photos or video of the meteor shower, but my camera couldn't possibly get any decent image of the night sky.  You'd need a crazy-good camera for that, probably.

Supposedly the meteor shower should have still been visible tonight, just not as good as last night (which was when it peaked).  I didn't go out tonight though, last night satisfied me.  I saw some very pretty falling stars last night, and again, it was cold as balls out there.  And I had to be pretty patient to see the stuff I did yesterday.  As cool as meteor showers are, I don't think it would have been worth it to go out tonight, to see far fewer meteors, and under a lot more cloud cover than there was last night to boot.  Let's just watch some timelapsed meteor showers on YouTube instead, ok?

Geminid Meteor Shower

I almost forgot about this!  Have you seen any shooting stars yet?  Tonight's the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, and it's a perfectly clear night with no moon, excellent conditions for stargazing.  It's also cold as fuck.  But cold nights are better for stars anyway, so you're screwed either way.  Can't stay warm and look at the sky at the same time, I suppose.

It's going all night, but I think it's gonna be best later in the night as opposed to now-ish evening.  At least, I hope so.  I can barely see any out right now.  I choose to blame the hour and not the light pollution that comes from living in the middle of St John's.  SKIES HO!

Don't expect a meteor shower to ever look this awesome unless you are on Mars or something. Be happy with what you can get.

HAPPY 12/12/12

Guys...it's gonna be the last day for a long time before we see a repeating date like today's.  And today is almost over, too!  I hope everybody had a chance to appreciate the date today.

How To Make A Dorky Hat

The other day, somebody found my blog using the search keywords "how to make a dorky hat" and I am sorry, random person, that I could not give you the tutorial you seek.  But!  Now that I know there are those out there, alone, lonely, wandering the barren netscape in search of dorky hat instruction manuals, I will do what I can to help.

Step one!  Find things.  What things?  Who knows!  A pancake, a pair of underwear, a salad bowl, one of those plastic VHS cases, a brown paper bag.  Anything!

Step two!  Put things on your head.  

Step three!  Assess dorkiness of new hat.  Is the Christmas stocking adorning your scalp not dorky enough? Repeat steps one through three.  Are you satisfied with your dorky banana peel?  Congratulations!  You now have a dorky hat.  Many celebrities model the art of Dorky Hats!  For example, Annie Edison from Community shows the rare sexy Dorky Hat, complete with Seduction Face!

What's a diminumunuh?

The late Oolong is patron saint of Dorky Hats, with the classic Pancake On Head look:

But don't be intimidated!  Dorky Hats aren't just for the famous and fashionable.  You'll see this look on the street by the average fashion-conscious hat wearer everywhere!

This sports enthusiast shows of his love of socball:

This advanced hat enthusiast is a perfect example of how you can combine Dorky Hats with other forms of headgear by wearing a cat on a baseball cap!  Well done, sir!

But don't take it too far!  While the use of dorky hats is perfectly safe when proper precautions are taken, there are those who take it too far.  There are some basic safety rules to follow!  Or, well, pretty much just one basic safety rule, don't make your dorky hat dangerous.  But there are so many ways to make a dangerous dorky hat!  I can't possibly list them all.  I guess I'll just have to go for the most common rookie mistakes.

For example, do not make your hat too heavy to wear!  This is a very basic mistake.  A good rule of thumb is, if it is too heavy do not wear it.  Always remember this rule!  A too-heavy hat could lead to anything from neck pain to death.

It is not advised to make a hat out of an object with sharp edges or points; if you choose to do so anyway, please take care not to apply your hat too firmly to your head or to the head of others!  In extreme cases this could lead to death or murder charges.

Do not make your hat out of flame or highly flammable materials such as gasoline or explosives!  I cannot stress this enough.  While it looks totally awesome and anybody who can pull it off automatically becomes totes amazeballs, the sheer radness of fire-hats are not worth the chance of head burns, because any awesomeness you earn from wearing a hat made of fire omfg is immediately lost upon recieving gross-looking burns all over your head and/or dying because you set your head on fire you idiot.

If you really want, you can always photoshop the flames in.  But it looks really dumb.  Just check out this guy.  You suck, hat dude.

So that's how you make a dorky hat!  You are welcome for the belated tutorial, random google searcher.  I am sorry that I did not have it up when you needed it, but thanks to you it exists in the first place!  Congratulations!

Giant Squid

So I went to the Rooms last week, and WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME THEY HAD A DEAD GIANT SQUID IN A TANK.  Seriously, that is amazing.  I've always wanted to see one of those!  I gotta go back there with my camera soon and take photos.

Don't Be That Guy

So there are some awesome anti-date-rape posters running in Edmonton now.  Why are they awesome?  They are awesome because, instead of saying "Ladies, don't get drunk or you will get date raped! (because if a lady gets drunk, she is responsible for her rape)" or something victim-blaming like that, these ones are aimed at actually stopping rape.  By realizing that the person responsible for rape is the rapist, not the victim.

This makes me equal parts delighted and terrified.  Delighted, because finally finally finally people are realizing that no matter what a woman does, there's really not much (if anything) she can do to magically protect herself from ever being raped if a rapist wants to rape her.  "Don't drink too much, you'll get raped for being too wasted to stop someone from taking advantage of you!  And even if you're only drinking soda or something, keep your eyes glued to your drink all night to make sure nobody slips anything into it!  Don't walk home alone!  You'll get raped for walking alone at night!  Don't go home with a guy, you'll get raped and it won't be his fault because gee, he walked you all the way home, are you sure you weren't asking for it?  That skirt's pretty short, after all, and you did smile at him earlier!  You should cover up, you're sending the wrong signals when you're dressed like that, of course a guy is gonna take advantage of that. Maybe instead of going to a bar with strangers, you should just stay with people you trust! Oh, your boyfriend raped you? Well you had sex with him before, how was he supposed to know you didn't want it? Look if this is such a big deal, just never leave your house again and you'll be safe.  Wait how many rapes occur in the victim's home?" (4 in 10)

Terrified, because oh my god I should not be so happy to see date rape posters.  Seriously, what is fucking wrong with this situation.  That we need posters like this at all is horrifying.  According to the site that I got this from, "a recent U.K. study involving 18- to 25-year-old males that revealed that 48% of men didn’t consider it rape if a woman is too drunk to know what was going on."  I want to scream at the world until my throat bleeds.  

I like that they shook up the heteronormative rape-only-happens-to-girls stereotype by including a gay pair.  It would be nice if they could have had a lesbian pair, or a woman raping a man, just for inclusivity.  But to be fair, the statistics for that are so low that it seems almost pointless to waste time stopping female rapists when male rapists are so much more common.  Not to make light of female-on-male rape, it happens and it's bad, but it happens so much more rarely than male-on-female (or male-on-male, for that matter) that I can easily understand why these posters chose to go after the ones that are, statistically speaking, affect the vast, vast majority of victims and perpetrators, with the assumption that they could only make so many posters and wanted to have the biggest impact possible.  I think the posters are good.  After I stop feeling all icky and terrified that these posters are so necessary, I kind of want to go to whoever created them and give them a great big hug, because they are pretty awesome.  Well, the people, because this can't have been the work of just one person, of course.  But you know what I mean.  The Edmonton police department is pretty cool and I appreciate their work.  Even if the fact that the work is necessary makes me feel like punching the universe.