okay, so it seems i have some issues to get out

And there it is. I have an email address I have *never used*, that somehow, is getting German spam.

Yes, *that* German spam.

Okay, gateway yes, it's been on the web since, God, 1998; by rights, I should have a *lot more spam* than I actually get, even with two sets of filters going through my email daily. But the IT one? That just makes no *sense*. Grrr. And also, grrr.

I'm just trying to figure out how it happened.

The Sugar Thing and Blood Plays

fyrdrakken posted a link to a recipe I've been thinking about for years--to wit, the sugar-based depilatory that doubles as a tasty treat. Like waxing, it requires a certain amount of growth before use, but hey, we were experimenting, so a lemon, some water, and a long time in front of a pot stirring granule sugar, we *did not manage* to make it work. However, we had some deliciously strange lemon-flavored hard candy come of it. We are trying again this weekend. Will update you here on progress. I cannot see how this will not be hideously painful, whether you are using sugar or wax, but on the other hand, I haven't tortured myself for smooth skin in a long time, so really.

Yes, this is something I do to entertain myself.

Also, we found a digital blood pressure thingie at The Great Eternal Garage Sale to take our blood pressure at home. New family game--we all sit around and compete to see who can get teh lowest blood pressure. Today's lows:

Me:
first time: 114/66, heartbeat 89
second time: 101/69, heartbeat 95

Mom:
first time: 99/65 (sixty something, my handwriting is really bad)
second time: 79/51

Child:
99/61, heartrate 67

I'm asking for a blood test to see if anyone is taking non-regulation medication, as I suspect Mom and Child are cheating and popping blood thinners before taking-time.

No, really. We do this for *entertainment*.

Randomly, the name Wayne?

Okay, now it's just getting disturbing. Is anyone noticing a trend---that if you have the middle name of Wayne, you are somehow destined for notoriety or a serious serial-killing streak? Recnetly, I was listening to Yet Another Lecture about gun control (and I'm fenced on this one, I'm a *Texan*, I've been, near, or around guns since they washed me clear of amniotic fluid) and I was thinking, if we just got rid of the middle name Wayne, there'd be a serious decrease in really freaky crime. I mean, you don't hear a lot of Jason Elvis' going on killing sprees, but there's a really creepy number of John Waynes wandering around with some kind of unbalance in the "don't kill" portions of their brains. So. Hmm.

Actually, all of it was me, just getting frustrated with the entire issue of gun control. Like the abstinence education thing, whereas it has become chic to terrify people into staying away from sex, the overkill on guns is becoming too ridiculous to be able to take seriously, and it *should* be taken seriously. But they always start with the story of the unloaded handgun in the safe deep in the wood behind the house under five feet of solid concrete while the bullets were miles away hidden in a tree, and yet five year old Junior ferrets all of it out, puts it together, and re-enacts something from Doom with his three year old cousin Sissy. The anti-drug campaign--and people, I am not a spokesgirl for drugs, I have way too many clients and One Certain Sister Who Makes Me Nervous, not to mention Incarcerated Brilliant Cousin and so forth, but y'all, lying through the pearly-whites about how breathing in the scent of pot once will addict you for life and end with you hustling on the street with six crack addicted children? I want to send these people who say this stuff to *therapy*. They have reality-displacement issues.

I find all campaigns of terror disguised as education repugnant--don't even *get* me started on some of the crap I saw and read before my son was born and I was deciding against breastfeeding. They didn't actally say in so many words, "you are killing your child", but whoa, so *close*. This isn't exactly a fine line of differnce between 'education' and 'rabid stupidity'. It's really a thick line. It starts when you start lying to make your point, and making the truth a lie as well, making it impossible to believe the truth because you can't see it anymore for all the nonsense piled on top. The anti-teen pregnancy thing--*rubs forehead*. What were they *thinking*? Did anyone in the greater United States really think scare tactics actually *worked*? So far as I can tell, there's now a lot of teen mothers with kids who have been convinced beautifully that they can't do *anything* now that they have a kid, not finish school, not go to college, not get a decent job, they need a *man*, or they are helpless, and oh God, the men they pick, that practically salivate knowing this is the message these girls get. And most of them I wnat to shake and say, *I* got through it, most of the women in this office? Also did it. And yes, it takes time, and yes, it takes a lot of energy, but honestly, Child was learning to talk with me reciting my chemistry to him and probably knows about as much Physical Anthropology as I do, and at this point, I'm not even sure I'm finishing college because I want to, but because I want to be able to point at the diploma on the wall and say, I did that, I finished that, and it took a bit longer than expected, and you know what? You. Can. Too. Christ, for thousands of years, women have been rearing children alone while men wandered off to die in war or killed by pestilence and why the *hell* is everyone treating it like something invented in the twentieth century? And don't even *give* me that stay-at-home mommy crap, cause women would work the fields through pregnancy and the day after giving birth, kiddo attached by a sling. Stay at home mommy was always, always the privilege of the upper classes.

Whoa. I had some PSA rage to get out. I am going to zen my blood pressure down with coffee. Cause really, that will do it. This now ends my biyearly temper tantrum. I'm going to, instead, sit here and remmeber that at noon today, I found out the women of Kuwait were enfranchised and I started crying in the car.

Comments

[viggorlijah.livejournal.com]

The german spam! Bewildering. I got nearly a thousand of those fuckers overnight.

This is your brain. This is your brain on german prescription-not-required drugs.

[thecaelum.livejournal.com]

*is hopeful and excited about women in Kuwait, and nodding along with the Mass Hysteria of the PSA, and dying laughing at Mom and Child cheating*

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

The German language spam emails seem to be hitting different types of addresses -- free, corporate, etc. It's part of the "Sober" virus, and it should probably slow down considerably over the next day or so as the source has now been definitively identified.

Gmail was getting hit hard, but since this evening, nothing. So I have hopes for your service as well.

[midnightbex.livejournal.com]

Random person you don't know dropping in from friendsfriends list. Hi!

Anyway, the random German spam? Out of nowhere I received something like 200 of them this morning. It really sucks. Just thought you might enjoy random commiseration on weird German spam coming in and taking over your inbox.

Also about the teenage mother scare tactics, I completely agree. A few of my friends in highschool had children while still in school. All of them managed to graduate and all of them are now in some form of college schooling as well. I think the main thing people are objecting to about teenage pregnancy these days is the fact that the girls are keeping the kids and not just giving them away. Teenage pregnancy rates are lower than they were in the fifties! The only statistic that has gone up in that area is how many are opting to keep the kids and arguing that the scare campiagns are anything but trying to get them to opt for adoption is rediculous.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. :"> Leaving now.

[reneepeach.livejournal.com]

No, really. We do this for *entertainment*.

lol--i thought that i was the only one. We do this too. I have to hide it from myself sometimes because I become so obsessive compulsive about it.

I also got the german spam thing at work--grrr.

[rose7.livejournal.com]

Stay at home mommy was always, always the privilege of the upper classes.

Seriously true. The ideal of the bourgeois classes in the 19th century has become the ideal all women in Western societies should conform to even though it has only ever been a reality for an extremely small number of women. The rest never could afford to stay with their children, and a very small number of very rich women never thought about cutting their social life short by devoting their time to raising their children but rather left that to nannies and boarding schools.

Ya think its a Texas thing?

[ilexa.livejournal.com]

Is anyone noticing a trend---that if you have the middle name of Wayne, you are somehow destined for notoriety or a serious serial-killing streak?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. At the newspaper where I work, I am oddly in charge of both the weekly Crimestoppers photos and the Eagle Scout announcements. Scouts with the middle name Wayne? Get speculated about their future appearances in the paper.

Of course, we're the same people who play "Guilty? Not Guilty?" with mug shots, so...

[queenydiva.livejournal.com]

I just want to say that your PSA rant was strangely funny, and yet oh-so-true. LOL.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

but y'all, lying through the pearly-whites about how breathing in the scent of pot once will addict you for life and end with you hustling on the street with six crack addicted children? I want to send these people who say this stuff to *therapy*.

Eeep.

I've got to say the most effective drug education I ever got was at a Girls' Catholic high school, where the older girls in year 12 discussed facts and experiences about drugs with us (we would have been 15/16, so we were a couple years younger). It wasn't a scare tactic, it wasn't a "Don't ever do this, it's WRONG!" thing. It was a "this is what medical people say" and "this is what's happened with people I know" thing. It was a "if you're going to do this, be smart about it and know the risks" and "trust the people you're doing it with" thing.

Also, the story about a friend of one of the girls who had a bad reaction to LSD and spent weeks thinking he was a giant glass of orange juice and anyone coming near him was going to either drink him or tip him over? Is both one of the funniest and disturbing stories I've ever heard about drug usage.

[fyrdrakken]

I've heard the LSD OJ hallucination story too -- fairly sure that one's an urban legend.

What I'd really love are the details on just how likely it really is that an acid-tripper is going to think they can fly and jump off a roof. Because I think that kind of accident is seriously over-reported.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

I've heard the LSD OJ hallucination story too -- fairly sure that one's an urban legend.

Huh.

[fyrdrakken]

Yep -- here it is. Didn't actually look it up till today, but since I'd heard the same story told me in the, "Happened to someone a friend knew," format that is the hallmark of the urban legend, I was naturally suspicious. (The story I'd really like to track down is the one I was told in college of the guy who snorted No-Doze and wound up being taken to the ER and mistaken for someone on amphetamines.)

[akacat]

Your blood pressure game sounds like a real 'video' game I just read about. (I don't remember where, it might have been boingboing.net.)

The controller is a biofeedback device, the more relaxed you are, the better you do.

Your game is probably cheaper. {g}

[aivilo-18.livejournal.com]

"...if we just got rid of the middle name Wayne, there'd be a serious decrease in really freaky crime.

::winces::
::looks in direction of father, who's middle name is Wayne::
::winces again::

Yeah, maybe. But does this include Canadians as well?

Because, while Canada is currently being run by a guy who's "special" in a "stop eating your paste" kind of way and while my dad is really special in a "plaid and polka dots are *not* complimentary, dad" way, I don't think I've ever noticed a pattern with Canadian serial killers having the middle name Wayne. However...

::vowes to keep closer eye on dad::

[goosegirl9.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to tell you I loved your post, and whew. For a moment I thought you wrote that the women of Kuwait were dis-enfranchised. So relieved. Power to the sisters!

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Yours is a long and fascinating post, and yet I find myself using the comment button to ask for a link to the sugar-based depilatory recipe. ::hangs head in shame for my shallowness::

I enjoyed checking out all the links on fyrdrakken's useful LJ, but could not find the sugar-recipe link there!

[fyrdrakken]

Thanks and glad you liked -- I got it from unanon, who BTW updated with a different recipe (but apparently couldn't get either one to work herself).

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Could you post the link in response to this? I looked, but I think it might be on one of unanon's locked posts, as I could not find it on her LJ!

[fyrdrakken]

Heh, just tracked it down a minute ago -- well, at least the second recipe she tried. Be warned, she couldn't get either of them to work -- seems there's an extremely narrow window of opportunity in which it actually works as a depilatory agent and it must take quite a bit of practice to identify this stage.

[aki-san.livejournal.com]

re: Wayne

My mom works in the warrants office at the county jail and has commented several times about the middle name Wayne showing up regularly on arrest warrants.

[fyrdrakken]

I'm tempted to get some wax to deal with my upper lip -- as I noted when posting the link for the recipe, I get ingrowing problems and wouldn't want to try that stuff on my legs (or possibly my bikini area either). Went back to unanon's LJ for the link to the second recipe she found, though she had problems with both of them.

Your mother and son's BP readings sound like mine back when I was in college. I'm sure they've gone up since then, but I clearly recall Dad trying to use me to teach my sister to use a BP cuff and then asking me, "Are you sure you're not dead?... Here, put the cuff on me, I've been smoking for thirty years and have a discernible blood pressure."

Question: How many of the serial killers simply have the middle name "Wayne" and how many are specifically named "John Wayne"? Because that right there is fairly significant of the kind of upbringing they're likely to be getting. (Though I'm also remembering A) John Wayne Bobbit and B) a former boss of mine whose middle name -- which he went by -- was Wayne and whose given name I can't recall, but who was quite a decent guy.)

The unwed mother thing I would cynically put up in general to what you note about PSAs that are really propaganda and in particular to the attempt to return to the days when society made it easy to control female reproduction via direct control of female sexuality. Hence the pressure to link childbearing to marriage without regard for husband quality.