I mentioned this news story a few weeks ago, and now GQ has done an interview with the guy who figured out how to control webcams in other laptops so he could spy on women. Horrifying.

New post from me at GuySpeed about why Valentine’s Day is terrible. I realize I’m a bit of a cynical character over at GuySpeed… weird how that happens.

BREAKING NEWS: Matt Mira on Gadget Pron!!!

Just when I thought I loved Peter Dinklage the full amount possible, this happens.

The littlest kid from Home Improvement got a DUI! Pop the champagne everyone!

I like this short piece (there are many at the link) about how your “dark” side really isn’t that dark at Psychology Today!

Also, you a stupid hoe.

Yup, I loved this song, and yup, I loved this video even more because I thought the lead singer was complete babe. I was just entering my phase of loving guys with long hair, despite whatever the rest of his person looked like, but I liked …. Mike Edwards’ face (Is that name right? Not gonna google it.) too. He was gorgeous.

As a postscript to this story, in early 2000s, late 90s, my best friend Carlos and I went to see Jesus Jones perform in a small club in Carrboro NC. They played this song midway through the show, which was a mistake, because a lot of people left after hearing it. We got to talk to the band after the show (they’ve aged well), and Carlos told the lead singer that I a) had a poster of them up on my wall, and b) that I was in love with him.

That’s a curious moment, because you can’t say to the guy “No I was not in love with you!”, and you also can’t be all creepy and go “Seems like I still am!”.  So I settled on punching Carlos and shrugging.

I did not get laid that night.

(Note: This is not a response to something that’s happened to me recently, not at all, just a result of a conversation I was having with a girlfriend where we both bitched about this happening in general. So if we know each other, please don’t be concerned that this is about you at all.)

Hi there! We’re kinda friends, so I thought it might be time for me to share with you the level of annoyance I have with you and your mouth as of late.

Here’s the thing: when I am telling you a story about something embarrassing that’s happened to me recently, as is common, what I really don’t need is you stopping me to explain why that wouldn’t be an issue for you because you’re so much more socially adept than I am.

Me: I was in a business meeting and accidentally caught my bracelet on my own tights under the table, and I was furiously and surreptitiously trying to unhook myself without looking like an idiot in this meeting.

You: Oh, if that’d happened to me, I’d have been like “Hey, I caught my bracelet on my tights, hang on a sec”. I’d have charmed them with it.

Me: ……

OR

Me: I started my period and I was in a nursing home, so I didn’t ask for any lady products because I was thinking all the women there were too old to have ladyproducts around.

You: You shouldn’t be embarrassed about your period. I’m not.

Me. [glowering with rage]

The point, my dear, is not that I can’t handle myself when things aren’t going so hot, the point is rather that experiencing embarrassment is part of what makes us all brothers and sisters under the skin. Embarrassment is one of the most relatable emotions. In other words…. HEY PRINCESS, I’M JUST TRYING TO RELATE TO YOU WITH AN AMUSING STORY, A STORY THAT I HOPE WILL INSPIRE YOU TO TELL ME A STORY, AND THEN WE’LL LAUGH AND HIGH FIVE AND BECOME CLOSER THROUGH OUR VULNERABILITY, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT MAKES PEOPLE CLOSER. I DO NOT NEED LESSONS IN BEING BRAVER OR MORE SOCIALLY SKILLED.

I don’t give a shit if you’re more badass than me when you bite your tongue during a presentation. Those aren’t the moments I cherish in my friends. I know my friends are badass and smart and amazing, but I want to know about the times that they’re not.

That is all.

New Indoor Kids episode up today! This one’s about video games versus movies, with guest Devin Faraci from Badass Digest!

A collection of movies that did not get the American Humane Society’s seal of approval, for various reasons- did you know they have to give you the word before you can say “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie”?

Yellow Bastard can’t pay for cabs.

Ok, these ads. Thanks so much, Honda, for perpetuating the idea that a leap into marriage or a baby is a leap into death. Seriously, why can’t you do all the things on this list WITH your spouse, or with your spouse cheering you on, or with a baby tucked on your back or with a sitter? Honda, from all the married people I know that somehow still manage to have fun lives, fuck off.

The only way this commercial would have been okay with me would have been if the list of things she wanted to do were all just other dudes.

Me, age 3 (I think), in my Easter dress.

This is a very interesting piece at Jezebel speculating about why…. ahem, jizzing in a woman’s face is considered so chic in pornography and beyond.

There’s a chance that several major food companies are using aborted fetuses in their food, or Oklahoma Senator Ralph Shortey is an idiot. At Gawker.

Here’s a breakdown of what black people watch on TV.

Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre is working on a experimental performance piece about ICP. Yup, read that sentence again.

I dunno, maybe I’m over sensitive, and too PC, and all the other things that ignorant folk sometimes say when they’re being assholes, but I think that a movie poster like this kinda encourages fear.

Seriously? NO ONE IS SAFE with a picture of a black man’s face, even a face as beloved as Denzel’s? It just seems like it’s encouraging some deep down fears. By the way, if the movie is Denzel being a bad guy, I’m totally in.

Her tweets reminded me of a phenomenon that I experienced as a kid but never as an adult, which is watching movies over and over and over again, usually every day, for an extended period of time. Did you guys do this too? Why? Were we that bored? Were we that lacking in new movies to watch? Was there something about our developing brains that required constant repetition? Would we have done this had the Internet been a thing? I have more questions than answers, but here are the four movies I remember watching over and over and over.

Back to the Future- This was the first movie I ever watched on a VCR. I watched it over and over and over, annoyed with how long it took to rewind back to the beginning so I could watch it again. And the scene where Michael J Fox plays the modified guitar and gets blasted across the room? I rewound, replayed, and paused that scene at least 60 times. I had to know how it worked.

Heathers- This was my first “favorite” movie, and god bless my parents for realizing that the R rating was like the buzzing of flies to me. I was obsessed with Heathers, in a way I’ve not been obsessed with anything else. It was just so cool to look at, and even at a young age, I realized that it was smart- smarter than me, in fact. I watched it until I could recite the dialogue along with it, and until I had memorized everyone’s outfits in every scene. I loved studying slightly older females at this age, planning my semi-adulthood, and this movie gave me a lot to look at.

Real Genius- Real Genius does not get enough credit for being one of the first nerd-positive movies to make being a nerd look cool, without being called “Revenge of the Nerds”. It helped that Val Kilmer was the hippest nerd on the planet, and a fox. I watched this movie almost every day for about 8 months. I loved the intrigue, I loved the humor, and I loved that it made kid Emily feel smart.

Young Guns II- I have no explanation for this one. It was not a fantastic movie, but I think I had a Balthazar Getty crush. For one summer during middle school, it was my routine to wake up, do nothing, go into the basement, watch Young Guns II, do more nothing, eat, and then sleep.

I’m sure there are tons more movies I’ve rewatched a thousand times but have forgotten about- like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, for example. But you get the point. Maybe it was a necessary part of development… it was a necessary part of my development, at least. When you’re young and your hormones and your body are changing so fast you cannot keep up, perhaps you need a bit of repetition and comfort to keep you grounded. Perhaps I was working on finding my own personality in these movies, trying to figure out who I was by examining the things that kept me the most engaged. I see bits of myself in each of these movies now, and bits of these movies so deeply in my emotional DNA that I cannot figure out what came first.

Or more likely, it was boredom.

McDonalds thought it might be fun to have people on Twitter tell their McDStories. They thought wrong.

Next time you can’t sleep, remember: New Mexico is growing.

A new post from me at xoJane about my love/hate relationship with party girls.

No. No, Mickey.

I watched Drew Peterson: Untouchable, and though it did a great job of being a campy Lifetime movie and really taking the piss out of Drew Peterson, who seems like the world’s douchiest dickbag, I also feel a bit creepy that to me, watching at home, Drew never once seemed menacing. He seemed like a joke. I don’t know if I wanted him to seem menacing, but I don’t love the idea of turning this murderer, and the two women he murdered, into a campy joke. There are still four kids who are parentless because their dad is a douchebag murderer. MURDERER. I thought I’d be at least a bit creeped out by the movie, but instead I just giggled and then felt weird about giggling. And not to be a downer on what was obviously a silly movie, but domestic violence is something that can happen to anyone, and perhaps we shouldn’t make the perpetrators so cartoonish. Or maybe my reaction is weird… I can’t tell anymore.

I love all these pictures from Sundance, but this one especially.