On Girl Powder: A Cultural History Of Love's Baby Soft
@happymisanthrope Ugh, DREAM. Gap Dream. My friend Meredith wore that all through high school and it is INEXTRICABLY tied to her in my memory.
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On Girl Powder: A Cultural History Of Love's Baby Soft
@Brunhilde Oh my god almighty, THIS! In that bottle with the hot pink and whatever squiggly thing inside??? What is UP, sixth grade?
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On Inside Maximum Fun's Podcasting Shindig In The Poconos
@Chris ZS That show, no lie, has at least 1 or 2 things each episode where I HAVE to pull the car over because I'm laughing too hard. Something about their dynamic just... ugh. HORSE PEOPLE.
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On My Misbegotten Historical Romance
So, I was reading this aloud to my husband, and when I got to the "Late Antiquity" being fashionable in the late 1990's-early 2000's bit, his exact words were "Yes, and this is why we got the movie Gladiator."
Come to think of it, it's probably why that woad-daubed Kiera Knightly version of King Arthur got made, too...
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On Now Nate Silver Is Just Laughing At You
@wb This. Exactly this. Say what you want for Nate Silver, he does not oversell what he's saying. He's a very good example of scientific research, ie: THE DATA ARE THE DATA. They can be interpreted, they can have trends, and it can sometimes be misleading.
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On Not-Yet-Famous People And Whether They Lived Or Died On "The X-Files"
Oh man! is that Luke Wilson episode the one where all of Scully's recollections are edited for language? Because I know that happened, but I never can remember which episode it was in. I DO remember it being awesome.
Also, the Bryan Cranston ep ("Drive") is one of my favorite. Classic X-Files story telling of One Creepy Thing (tm) done really well.
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On 'The Mists Of Avalon': Free To Be In Camelot
@maghrebi @RustBeltFag@twitter Yeah, but it does have that scene where Juliana Margulies is trying to contact someone- I forget who, Morgause maybe?- via the well and can't get her, prompting the friend I was watching this with to shout "God, pay your well bill, you asshole!"
Also, this book spawned a genre she and I refer to as "Ovarian Legends", IE, Arthur for chicks.
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On Yale, 2007, AIDS: "We mostly saw it as an African problem"
"Mr. Glazek, who is gay and was untouched by H.I.V. or AIDS and unencumbered by close ties to anyone who had succumbed to it, experienced a jolt of recognition that eventually led him to create the Yale AIDS Memorial Project, a poignant testimonial to the damage wrought by AIDS at Yale. "
Seeing this in print is sort of horrifying, but on the other hand... I'm 32, and I watched a close family friend contract HIV and then die of AIDS. This was... 1993? I think? That he passed away? And I remember naively thinking (I was, what? 13?) "well, you know, maybe this is the last person I'll ever know who dies of AIDS..."
I kept thinking that my friends were safe until Christmas 2009 when I get a phone call that a close friend of mine is hospitalized with pneumonia. It turns out he's HIV positive and sick enough that his immune system is shot. Punchline: he didn't know he had HIV. How do you not know? Is it denial? He lasted another 3 weeks and we lost him in January. He was 30. 2010 and people are dying of HIV/AIDS without knowing they even carry it. I was blown away.
So part of it is, I think, is that it's very easy for younger generations to see AIDS as a FORMER problem and not a CURRENT one. I fell into that trap and I'm old enough to know better. It TERRIFIES me that this also means people might be less vigilant about protecting themselves and I can only hope that these kinds of projects serve to remind people that yes, people do still die from this disease.
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On Do Bicyclists Deserve Sympathy?
@kitten_witawip You are not at all hysterically exaggerating. Bloomington, Indiana. I live there. It is a paradise of multiuse pathways, sustainability, and cyclists who must burst into flames should they do more than slow slightly at stop signs.
No hyperbole, I have lived here 10 years, I have never ONCE seen a cyclist ACTUALLY stop at a stop sign. I HAVE had one slide up alongside my car, not stop at the stop sign, and smash into the passenger side of my car when I was turning right (after stopping at said stop sign.) CYCLIST. HIT MY CAR. THEN GOT MAD AT ME.
Seriously, I want to bike more, but I'm worried there's something about it that will make me dumb.
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On Jurassic Park Frog Monster Vomits Up Babies
Thank you, Awl, for writing your Genus species name correctly. You get a gold star and shelter from my UNMITIGATED SCIENTIST IRE.