Because I’m the only girl on this blog, I feel it’s my occasional duty to clue you guys in to What Women Want. And What Women Want — at least the women are likely to be reading our site — is unabashedly, adorably geeky trinkets and gewgaws, such as Jacqueline Sanchez’s Lego rings. Or, my personal favorite, this necklace/earrings set in the shape of seratonin and dopamine molecules. If none of these suit, perhaps the lady would enjoy an LED necklace that “is as close as you can get to a personal mini planet you wear around your neck?” No? What about baubles modeled after DNA? Still not geeky enough? Alright, here: Try this necklace made from resistors. Apparently, “a resistor is a two-terminal electrical or electronic component that resists an electric current by producing a voltage drop between its terminals in accordance with Ohm’s law.” If that’s not geeky enough, you’d better give up on jewels entirely and just go to Best Buy.

Forget all those romanticized notions you have of life in the good old days. According to this article in New Scientist magazine (titled “Muggings Were Rife in New Stone Age”) there’s evidence that people living between 4000 and 3200 BCE in Neolithic Britain didn’t have it nearly as good as that filthy Flintstones propaganda would have you believe. In fact, the study reports that not only was the era considerably more violent than previously thought, but on the Mean Streets of Neolithic England “Britons had a 1 in 14 chance of being bashed in the head.” Worse still, they had a 1 in 50 chance of dying from the walk-by bashings.

In an admittedly bad segue, Grok and all his buddies might have fared better had they had access to the new Electric Cinderella Shoe. Designed as part of Simona Brusa Pasque’s thesis project, the “stunning” shoes work like a taser, and can deliver100,000 volts of jolt to attackers when activated by a special necklace. Read all about it here, via ShinyShiny

Interesting article in the New York Times today about Keith Richards having a hole drilled in his head.

Here’s a curious excerpt:

Mr. Richards, 62, thanked the hospital staff for what he termed the “truly wonderful” care he received in the hospital, according to an article today in the New Zealand Herald.

“From the doctors to the beautiful ladies who make painful nights less painful and shorter, I’m pretty much at a loss for words to express my deep gratitude,” he said, according to the newspaper.

I guess when you’re a living-legend, and 62, you can get away with such euphemisms. Got me wondering how old some other living-legends are.

David Bowie = 59

Paul McCartney = 64

BB King = 81

Elvis Presley = 71 (and counting)

I notice that some people seem annoyed that Britney Spears is breeding again.
Let me just say a couple of words in her defense. First, as far as we know, she’s never eaten her young, which already puts her ahead of rats, hamsters and some subspecies of rabbits. Second, she’s a better mom than many other people. Like, um, let’s see. Yes, here we go: The Witch of Endor, a sorceress in the Old Testament who, legend has it, made black magic potions from the fat of her own son. (Important pop culture factoid: Endora from Bewitched is thought to be named for the Witch of Endor).
So let’s give the woman a break, you know?

For the last few years, we’ve read story after story about the potential benefits of green tea. And if you Google “benefits of green tea,” there’s no shortage of companies telling you why you should drink it and do plenty of other things with it. Which is why I’m actually soaking in a tub of the stuff as I write this. Pretty soon the green tea market will hit $1 billion annually. Crazy. Newsweek did an interesting bit last fall on how the craze got started. It’s amazing how this Starbucks-led fad continues to grow despite the fact that the FDA keeps coming out with statements saying there’s really not enough evidence to prove most of the health benefits. Another statement came out just this week rejecting a company’s attempt to claim that green tea helps lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. But I’ve got good news. For a few years I’ve watched Mangesh survive on french fries and green tea. Well Mangesh is a pretty healthy guy. And we know french fries are only kind of good for you so it must be the green tea. I think I’ll call the FDA today and suggest they check him out. Maybe I’ll just wait for their report on Hulk Hogan’s new drink.

My tastes are simple. I like $300 jeans and William Gaddis novels and the cuisine of Ferran Adria. But most of all, I like it when ex-athletes get ripped up drunk and embarrass themselves in front of a national audience.

The latest victim: Rick Sutcliffe, 1979 Rookie of the Year and 1984 Cy Young Award winner. (Since I don’t know how to hyperlink yet, here’s the audio: http://images.gaslampball.com/images/admin/sutcliffe.mp3) Anyway, both Rick and his beard (http://www.shaveyourhead.com/2005/Wrigley05/612_sutcliffe.jpg) were noticeably intoxicated at a recent Padres game, and hearing his sweet slurredness brought me back to one of my favorite days, not even three years ago, when Joe Namath made the clumsiest pass at a woman I’ve ever seen. And on national TV no less. The video is here (http://thatvideosite.com/view/937.html). It takes a while for the video to buffer (can a video buffer? What is buffering? I’ve just written a variation of the word “buffer” four times in 30 seconds and I’m giggling. I’m six years old. Honestly.), so here’s some transcript in the meantime:

Suzy Kolber (ESPN sideline announcer): Joe, it’s been a tough season for Jets fans. What does it mean to you now that the team is struggling?

Namath: I wanna kiss you now. I couldn’t care less about the team struggling. What we know is we can improve. Chad Pennington, our quarterback, missed the first part of the season, and we struggled. We’re looking to next season, we’re looking to make a noise now, and…I wanna kiss you!

Kolber: Thanks, Joe!

Namath: YEAH!!!

**

Goosebumps. I have goosebumps.

Buffer.

#1: This aquarium toilet made me smile, particularly because it makes the walk from scooping up your dead goldfish to flushing him that much faster, and I am all about efficiency. Link via efft.net

#2: I know this sounds a bit curmudgeonly, but I’m kinda sick of people trying to wear their creativity on their USB flash drives. So far, I’ve seen flash drives that look like plastic pieces of sushi, or kitschy stuffed animals. I’ve even seen one that acts like a working PEZ dispenser in addition to storing your data (which admittedly, I’m kind of attracted to because I do love PEZ candies so much). Still, I had to resist on principle. And then I saw this ingenious item from plusminus. Essentially, the drive inflates or deflates to show you how much of the drive’s space is currently being used. It makes it a little trickier to carry in your pocket when full, but still, there’s less of a chance that you’ll grab a full disk when you’re desperate to store or save a document or file.

According to this Business Week article, the Turkish government has announced that they are officially banning the sale of all energy drinks with more than 150 milligrams of caffeine in them. Tea and coffee will still be allowed (thank God!), but popular energy drinks like Red Bull are being forced to change their formulas to comply with the stricter standards. Of course, the saddest part of this whole announcement is the bad timing. If only the Turkish government had known that BOTH Hulk Hogan and Steven Seagal are offering energy drinks of their own, perhaps they could have been swayed to reconsider. Seagal’s Lightning Drink brand seems particularly interesting since it comes in “flavors” like The Asian Experience, which I’m assuming tastes like  my study abroad in a can? It’s also touted as the first energy drink to use the Chi symbol on its label. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds delicious.

A fantastic headline in this week’s St. Petersburg Times caught my eye this morning. (Wait, you mean you don’t read Florida’s newspapers online? Well, you clearly don’t know what you’re missing, as this story is about to reveal.)

Scientology nearly ready to unveil Super Power

Huh?

I mean I know Tom Cruise and the gang have a certain affinity for eye-catching blockbuster verbiage, but really:

HUH?!

Well, it turns out that
a) Marvel Comics and Scientology are soon to have a lot in common. Because
b) “Super Powers” as defined by the Scientologists, are, indeed, Super Powers in the Superman sense of the expression. And
c) Clearwater, Florida, famous for baseball during Spring Training, is about to become famous for something else, namely:
d) A new, secret, program that’s been in the works for decades.
Through the use of technology “Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to excerise and enhance a person’s so-called perceptics.”
Okay, so what the heck are perceptics? Simple: Scientology’s 57 (yes, I said 57) senses.
Things like “body position,” “sound direction” and “rhythm.” Or my personal favorites, “awareness of awareness” and the “Perception of having perceived.” (See the the article for a complete list of all 57.)

I’m getting married in nine days. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about weddings and marriages. Admittedly, most of my time the past few months has been wasted accomplishing the little tasks inherent to a 450-guest wedding. But now and again, I’ve found myself researching the wider world of weddings. Here’s what I’ve learned:

My all-time favorite marriage certificate comes from this apparently true story: Amidst a thunderstorm, Swift had sought refuge under a large tree. A man and his pregnant fiancee showed up soon thereafter, and Swift (who was, besides being the best satirist ever, a priest) offered to marry them quick before the baby popped out illegitimate. He then wrote them a marriage certificate:
“Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and whore together;
And none but He who rules the thunder
Can put this rogue and whore asunder.”

Long-standing rumor has it that Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw’s 45-year marriage to Charlotte Shaw (nee Payne-Townsend) was never consummated.

And finally: Did you know that today in America, the average wedding dress costs more than a space shuttle?