Question of the Day
What was the last encouraging sign (outside the blogosphere) you saw that womanism/feminism is still on the march?
iGirl: "She Obeys"
[Trigger Warning]
Above is a screencap from iTunes showing an iPhone app by Resistor Productions called iGirl. From the app description (emphasis mine):
iGirl-- She Obeys
Blow her, shake her, touch her and more! Check out the new custom voices.
Have your own virtual girlfriend on your iphone for less than the price of a cup of coffee or a beer, and shake her around!
iGirl combines fun and flirtation to offer users a playful app for entertainment.
The iGirl application consists of a beautiful 3-dimensional female model that can be manipulated by the user to perform various actions, including dancing and speaking.
Shake the iPhone and see how the iGirl reacts.
New animation activated by blowing on your iPhone: the famous Marilyn Monroe pose!
iGirl serves as the perfect virtual companion that you can take with you anywhere.
Got that? Buying a "virtual" girl for less than a cup of coffee and shaking her around is fun and playful. And flirtatious too apparently, though why the company thinks one can have flirtation in a unilateral interaction with a machine is left as an exercise for the reader.
The iTunes user reviews are mixed, and it might be a bit heartening that the vast majority of the reviews are one-star:
But some of those negative reviews pan the app because it's not egregious enough. Here is a sampling of reviews:
“pointless, pathetic, inappropriate for children, and downright sad.”
“U should be allowed to show nudeness. U should be allowed to customize the girl exactly the way you want.”
"This app is so stupid this is not worth the money."
"Waste"
"They made this free for Valentine’s Day. ‘Cuz there’s nothing more romantic than forcing a “girl” to obey your every command."
“she needs to get naky tehe :] but yeah more changeability and interaxtment.”
“I guess you have to be married to fully appreciate this one”
"Needs to be way more revealing there should be a guy that represents you that does stuff with or to the girl."
Aside from the fact that these reviewers seem unaware that we already have words in English for "nudeness" and "interaxtment", we see a good old domineering-wife joke and some pretty creepy fantasies (you should be able to "do stuff to the girl").
I agree with the first review that this app is downright sad and a waste. I hate to see potentially cool features like animations that respond to shaking or blowing on your phone used as yet one more joke that boils down to "heh heh --she can't stop you! Now that's the 'perfect companion', amirite?"
I have seen little analysis of this app, except for a review at Pocket Lint by Verity Burns, who says "the new iGirl app frankly just gives us the creeps" and a review at Bright Hub in which Shane Burley says, "When looking at iGirl it does not take a radical feminist member of the anti-pornography league to see this as a little misogynistic". Well put. But I was very curious about all the references to shaking the iGirl (hence the trigger warning), and I also wanted to hear about the thinking behind this app, so I dug a little deeper.
Below are a review of iGirl from tapcritic dot com and an interview with the lead developer of iGirl. Both videos also appear on Resistor Productions' iGirl app page. I have made partial transcripts, with summaries of the rest, including quotes.
Tapcritic review:
Hi this is Hal9000 from Tap Critic dot com. We’re gonna do a video review today, for probably the most juvenile and awesome application that I have yet come across, called iGirl...I think the logo pretty much says it all....What is it? Basically, it’s a virtual girlfriend. If you want you can use movements to rotate, and get just about any view you want (zooms in on her butt) Oh, we’ll get away from that. Another thing you can do, you can hit a button and she dances on cue, which, none of my real girlfriends ever have, so that makes me happy.
[...]
Let’s move from the chauvinistic bathing suit into, uh, chauvinistic schoolgirl!
[...]
[he then changes the “ethnicity” of the Girl to “Asian”]
[...]
Really the app has no purpose, other than to entertain you and your friends, which is why I love it, because I think it’s hilarious.
[review ends with multiple closeups on the iGirls' dancing butts]
I notice the reviewer directly compares the app to real women he has known and the iGirl comes out ahead. Also, he recognizes the "chauvinistic" aspect of the costumes, and it seems to be a selling point.
Developer interview:
Hal9000: We’re here today with Toby, from Resistor Productions [...] Toby is the developer of [...] iGirl, which I know everyone here at Tap Critic is very addicted to.
Hal: So, How did you get the idea for this application?
Toby: ...We’re a web game company, and we’ve been working on a web MMORPG for about a year now, and we saw this iPhone stuff happening and we’re like , OMG some of these apps are obviously becoming really popular and in terms of resources that it would take to build one, I don’t think it would take a lot. So we decided to make an app, and, we were basically analyzing what was in the top 25, and you have like iBeer, iFart, y’know all these kinds of things, and we were working on a game, and the costs...can be pretty intense, so we said why don’t we start out with a novelty application? And the biggest thing that we saw missing in the top 25 was some kind of like a hot babe, or like, boobs, or something like that. So when we were discussing this—you probably saw that an app called iBoobs got rejected by the app store, which was the app we were working on making at the same time as the other developer. So we...decided to scale it back and just make an iGirl application.
When asked if there was anything they had to take into account when trying to get through the Apple approval process to be accepted on iTunes, Toby says,
When you shook the iPhone, now you’ll notice that her breasts shake a little bit, but it used to be just ridiculous, like, they were like, flopping all over the place, so we just toned—we scaled that back quite a bit for the first release.
And Hal says: It’s a shame...they [Apple] need to open their minds up and realize how ridiculously funny the application is.
Toby: Yeah, y’know I think that was the goal with us, y’know, like you mentioned in your first article, there are probably some basement dwellers out there that really get into this. But our whole goal with this is the whole sort of American Pie thing, it’s not like, serious, adult stuff—you’re not supposed to take it seriously. It’s a big joke, it’s for fun.
Toby: We’re getting a few thousand downloads each day. The reviews are mixed: some people completely get it and they love it, and some people are like “hey, this is a cool app, but you could add some more features to it”.
Then Toby summarizes the updates they plan to make to iGirl. He mentions that a lot of people want the girl to be naked. Toby says “hey, we’re with you, but that’s not gonna happen!” He is planning to add custom voices, where the user can record the iGirl’s verbal responses. Interestingly, he says “you can do it yourself if you want to, but you can actually have your girlfriend go in...you can make completely custom recordings, so the reason why that’s cool is, you can make it as dirty as you want to. Or you can just be funny with it, whatever”
Toby then summarizes the new blow feature, where the user can blow on the phone and the iGirl’s skirt blows up and she has to hold it down, like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
Toby describes a future update which will show every phone that has downloaded iGirl as a “heart” marker on a Google Earth globe and users can zoom in on any iPhone anywhere in the world and see and hear their iGirl.
To this, Hal9000 quips, “I’m glad I can see the iGirl, but not see what the person’s doing, involved with the iGirl, ‘cause that would be a little much for me.”
Toby then goes on to say that they are also considering making the iGirl more like a Tamagotchi. He says, “you can, like feed her Prada bags or whatever, and she’s in a better mood”. He also says the user will be able to “interact with her, and y’know, give her money and whatever”.
There is a lot to unpack in this interview, but I'll just point out a couple of things. First, an app of disembodied boobs was Toby's stated original goal. Apple would not approve disembodied boob apps; the iGirl represents a "scaling back", which Apple obviously approved. So, an app where the user can manipulate, control, shake, put words in the mouth of, and blow the skirt up on an entire woman is more acceptable than a depiction of breasts. Discuss.
Second, I see now that the whole joke of shaking the iGirl to "see how she reacts" boils down to ha ha boobies. They jiggle, get it? And it's hilarious.
This app is "just for fun" and "just a joke". Anyone who doesn't like it just doesn't "get it" and anyone who pervs out on it is a "basement dweller" who is just taking it "too seriously". This last part is an especially interesting bit of denialism. On the one hand, only weirdo "basement dwellers" would take unsavory pleasure in this app; on the other hand, Hal9000 jokes that he doesn't want to see what users are doing "involving" their iGirls, as though he assumes that masturbatory or sadistic interactions are widespread. So which is it?
This app is obviously not a real woman, is just for fun, and has nothing to do with real women. Yet Hal9000 compares her to his real life girlfriends, and Toby thinks it would be neat to "have your girlfriend" record custom statements for your iGirl to make it "as dirty as you want". These reactions blur the lines between real women and iGirls. Moreover, most real women have experienced to some degree or another being treated as though we are interchangeable units of femininity who can be grabbed, moved about, and yes, even shaken at the will of some random dude who doesn't like how we respond to him. So yeah, not so much fun.
Finally, way to turn a tamagotchi into nothing but a threadbare gender stereotype of a gold-digger ("feed" her Prada bags to elevate her mood? Give her money? Seriously?). Yawn.
The hat tip goes to Shaker Kate. Thanks, Kate!
"The Occasional Wife"
That's the name of a business (actual logo, left) that has sprung up in New Orleans to help busy professionals "do all the things you don't have time to do." According to founder Kay McCaskill-Morrison, quoted in the New Orleans Gambit, the idea of the company came to her when she was helping her divorced male friends organize their homes and take care of their kids; "There's a sense of bringing back the past, when one person took care of all the details," she said.
What are the "details" these "wives" (yes, the company's employees are all women) perform? Oh, just womanly stuff like "tedious tasks," "organizing and streamlining work and personal environments," "car[ing] for and manag[ing] your errands, tasks, and other daily responsibilities," planning kids' parties, shopping, and taking care of "holiday" chores (like buying gifts for your real wife, one presumes).
OK, let's unpackage this, because it's not all bad. Outsourcing chores you don't want to do? Fine, as long as it's nonexploitative and you can afford it. (Or even, in some cases, if you can't: May I introduce you to my army of interns?) Outsourcing chores to someone under the guise of "wifely duties"? Not so fine, especially when those "tedious" chores are things like decorating your Christmas tree or spending time with your kids. So why didn't the women who started this company call it something like "Life Management Consulting" or "Problem Solvers Inc."? Because those arguably more accurate titles don't convey the imagery that "renting a wife" does: The idea that you can buy a woman ("Order as many as you'd like!" the company's web site winks) to do things that you won't do and that your own wife is too uppity to do herself. There are obvious parallels in everything from porn (watching actresses do things no "real-life" woman would) to more mundane fee-for-service systems--many couples I've known have hired a maid because he would never think to clean the house and she resents being expected to.
Of course, "I want a wife" has been a trope in feminist since the 1970s, when Ms. Magazine published a piece with that title by Judy Syfers. The difference is that when Syfers said "I want a wife," her tone was biting, sardonic, biting, and self-aware. ("I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife's duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies.") When the "Occasional Wives" say "You need a wife," they mean, you need a servant who will do the things you don't wish to make time for, for minimal pay ($40 an hour for one "wife," $65 an hour for two), and who will disappear when her services are no longer needed.
H/T Shaker Kelly.
Number of the Day
~70. The percentage of "the Pentagon's 96 major weapons-buying programs" which were "over budget in 2008 for combined cost growth of $296 billion above original estimates, congressional auditors said in an annual report released on Monday."
C. Thomas Howell Wouldn't Pull This Shit
In which I substitute an email conversation between myself, Spudsy, and Deeky about Sacha Baron-Cohen's upcoming film Bruno for an actual post…
Liss: Oh this sounds GREAT. Doesn't sound AT ALL like he's playing on gay stereotypes and trying to justify it with a few scenes that expose people's homophobia. Sigh.
Deeky: You mean like the scene where he sneaks into someone's sleeping bag in the middle of the night?
Liss: That (predatory gay) and the stuff with the baby (recruiting gay). This sounds like more Deathbed Confession Cinema, without even the obvious, hit-you-over-the-head ending.
Honestly, the justification for this film is rooted in a rationale as mendacious (and/or naive) as believing that the most memorable part of a rib dinner is the handiwipe you're given at the end. So NOT.
Spudsy: How do you "challenge homophobia" by "embracing" it? I'm sorry, I have real problems with a straight man making this film.
Liss: Why would you be sorry about that, lol? It's like insanely narcissistic—as if he knows so well what it's like to be gay that he can tease out the subtleties of being a gay man in order to expose homophobia, instead of just playing on it. And, clearly, he doesn't.
Spudsy: Honestly, I'm not all that comfortable with his Borat character either, and I hate "predatory" comedy. Seriously, Alan Funt beat that horse to death a long time ago. Who the fuck is he to "expose homophobia?" Live it, then come talk to me.
Liss: Right. It's like when Gwyneth Paltrow puts on a fat suit for 6 hours then claims she totally understands what it's like to be a fat woman in this culture. Uh huh. Except I don't get to take off my fat ass at the end of the day, so not really the same at all, is it?
What's most irritating about this stuff is that they wouldn't ever give a movie to a real gay man who wanted to "expose homophobia." No, instead it's a straight guy who won't, in his real life, ever suffer any blowback from perpetuating gay stereotypes or fomenting gay hatred.
Meanwhile, he'll insist it's all a joke, it doesn't really perpetuate stereotypes or foment hatred because he's just playing a character, an argument which is predicated on nuanced thinking from the very homophobes who are such ignorant, bigoted rubes that they fell for his shtick in the first place.
Spudsy: Exactly, it's only safe to make a gay-empowering movie if it's a straight guy making it. Not that this is "gay empowering" at all. And like it's really hard to get a big reaction out of someone if you sneak in their tent to supposedly have sex with them. Christ.
Deeky: "Right. It's like when Gwyneth Paltrow puts on a fat suit for 6 hours then claims she totally understands what it's like to be a fat woman in this culture. Uh huh. Except I don't get to take off my fat ass at the end of the day, so not really the same at all, is it?"—Which is, if you remember, the very lesson of Soul Man, starring C. Thomas Howell.
Liss: I'm going to have to go on record at this point suggesting that every Hollywood studio immediately institute the Soul Man, Starring C. Thomas Howell, Rule: If a pitch does not pass the enlightenment threshold set by Soul Man, starring C. Thomas Howell, do not, repeat DO NOT, greenlight the project. It is made of fail.
Assvertising
I've written before--on a now-defunct blog--about the fact that while male food personalities typically look like this...
Women who are "really into food" have to look like this:
But Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi's new commercial for the Hardee's Western Bacon Thickburger takes the "sexy foodie" trope to a whole new level.
While bow-chicka-wow music plays in the background, we see Lakshmi sitting on her steps, taking out an enormous burger, hiking up her skirt, and downing the sandwich lustily, licking and sucking bits of "sweet, spicy" sauce off her fingers, legs, and the burger itself. (Seriously, Hardee's: Who licks a burger?) In voiceover, she all but moans: "I've tasted just about every flavor imaginable. But there's something about the Western Bacon."
Confidential to Padma: Next time, if the tagline for the product you're hawking is "More Than Just a Piece of Meat," you might consider asking why the scriptwriters are treating you like one.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One, Forty-Two, Forty-Three, Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six, Forty-Seven, Forty-Eight, Forty-Nine.]
Quote of The Day
"Here's my problem with this, I'm just going to come out and say it. If I have anything to say against Obama it's not because I'm a racist, it's because I don't like what he's doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you're called a racist."—Republican actress Angie Harmon.
You know, Harmon's not the first person I've heard to make this complaint. The thing is, I've criticized Obama and/or his policies a good few times already since he's become president, and no one (that I recall) has accused me of racism. So it's not really true that one can't "say anything against him" without being called a racist, so maybe Harmon needs to take a look at the way she's criticizing him and see if there isn't some internalized racism there.
Then again, during the primaries, I was called a racist pretty routinely if I criticized Obama, but it generally wasn't by people of color who were making substantive critiques of my posts and pointing out expressions of unexamined privilege; it was by fauxgressive white dudez who had no other ammunition in their arsenals. So I didn't give a fuck. I certainly didn't feel obliged to make a public announcement insisting I wasn't motivated by racism.
Because I knew I wasn't, and that was good enough.
Just saying.
Sigh
What in wewereonabreak hell is going on with Jennifer Aniston? Because playing a stalker on 30 Rock, playing a woman desperate to get married in He's Just Not That Into You, and playing a woman desperate to get pregnant whose best friend switches donor sperm with his own in The Baster, a film actively seeking female extras just to humiliate them, just isn't enough collusion with the patriarchy [/Renee], her next film, for which Shaker Eileen saw a trailer this weekend and emailed me a heads-up, is this heap of misogynist shit:
For those who can't view the video, it's a trailer for Management, a film reusing the tiresome plot of a woman trapped between two men who must be the only two men left on the planet, because they are both assholes (though in different ways) and both totally wrong for her, but she is nonetheless struggling to choose between them.
Only this film is extra awesome, because one of the men is wooing her by stalking her—first in her room at the hotel where he works, then at her job, and then by following her to another state where she's moved to be with her equally objectionable boyfriend. None of which prompts a call to police, for the same reason it never does in Hollywood films—because stalking is adorable when men do it.
(As for what it's like when women do it, hold your fire. Spudsy's got a post on that coming up.)
Ben Stiller has played several of these characters, as well as starred in an archetype of the genre, There's Something About Mary, the full title of which, if honest, would be the (victim-blaming) There's Something About Mary That Drives Men to Stalk Her, since Mary (Cameron Diaz) is stalked by no fewer than five men, including Ted (Stiller), Dom (Chris Elliott), Healy (Matt Dillon), Tucker (Lee Evans), and professional football player Brett Favre. Stalking, you see, is a compliment (just like rape). Adorable!
Even when it's not adorable—as in As Good As It Gets when Carol (Helen Hunt) screams at Melvin (Jack Nicholson) for showing up at her apartment, only before eventually falling for him—love will win out in the end.
And even if love doesn't win out in the end—as in Dumb & Dumber when Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) fails to successfully woo Mary (Lauren Holly) after following her across the country—there are no consequences for the creepy stalker. At least in Dumb & Dumber, the tactic wasn't tacitly endorsed, which is more than one can say for most of these films, like the classic "stalk-and-conquest" film The Sure Thing, in which Gib (John Cusack) doesn't get the girl of his wetdreams (Nicollette Sheridan), but instead gets the girl of his dreams (Daphne Zuniga), despite the fact that she has accompanied him on his stalk-trip for another woman—and somehow manages not to feel like a consolation prize.
Off the top of my head, I thought of about dozen more "romantic comedies" in which some element of stalking and/or grave deception (a la Overboard) serve as a key plot device—and I'm sure there are dozens more.
Because people keep making them. Like Jennifer Aniston. Who apparently hasn't been informed, or just doesn't give a shit, that conveying to film audiences the message that stalking is the way to a woman's heart is neither original, nor funny, nor responsible.
Related Reading: The Onion—Romantic-Comedy Behavior Gets Real-Life Man Arrested.
Your Government at Work
In which Representative Mike Doogan (D-Alaska) stalks and tries to expose the identity of an anonymous blogger in retribution for criticism. (He didn't quite succeed, but he came close, and got her first name right. It is, unfortunately, unlikely that the story will end there.)
Disgusting. I honestly don't even have the words to describe how furious this shit makes me. This is borderline if not outright criminal, and Doogan should be asked to resign his seat immediately.
Mudflats' whole post should definitely be read in full, but there's one passage I want to highlight specifically (emphasis mine):
This is an elected State Representative, of my own political party, who has decided that it's not OK for me to control the information about my identity; that it's not OK to express my opinion on my own blog without shouting from the rooftops who I am.Part of the reason that I gave up my anonymity was because there were people trying to figure out who I am, and the feeling of being constantly stalked was worse than the fears associated with exposing my identity. It's fucked up that those are progressive bloggers' only choices, all because we hold opinions that people don't like and have the unmitigated temerity to express them.
If I were to appear, as many of you have, at a political rally and I were to hold up a sign that expressed my opinion, I don't have to sign my name on the bottom. And if someone wants to come online and read my diary, they are free to do so. And if they want to disagree, that's OK too.
It said in my "About" page that I choose to remain anonymous. I didn't tell anyone why. I might be a state employee. I might not want my children to get grief at school. I might be fleeing from an ex-partner who was abusive and would rather he not know where I am. My family might not want to talk to me anymore. I might alienate my best friend. Maybe I don't feel like having a brick thrown through my window. My spouse might work for the Palin administration. Maybe I'd just rather people not know where I live or where I work. Or none of those things may be true. None of my readers, nor Mike Doogan had any idea what my personal circumstances might be. But that didn't seem to matter.
And there are people who just don't find anything more important than their own "right," which is, in fact, not a right at all, to know the identity of someone who says something they don't like.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of the Fertilofag Spunk Baster, disseminating the Radical Gay Agenda for the 21st Century.
Recommended Reading:
Chewing the Fat: An Elephant Disappears.
Archie McPhee: The Eighth Commandment.
Joe My God: Zurich Gets Lesbian Mayor.
Monkeys For Helping: The best picture of Jesus on the telephone you will see today.
Corey Feldman: The truth about Lost Boys 3.
Alex Hannaford, CiF: Jail Guitar Doors.
Cliffie's Notes: "Dracula" Fish Described By Human Science.
AFOTD: Lobot.
Mondo Rick-o: The Things I've Noticed During Jury Duty.
Dog Eat Blog: Art Nouveau in Prague.
Leave your links in comments...
Assvertising
A bunch of Shaker Ladies have sent me this advert for the Schick Quattro for Women TrimStyle with "bikini trimmer," the in-house working title for which I can only imagine was "Trim Your Bush, Bitchez."
If you can't view the video, there's no real transcript, aside from a description of the product, which is a safety razor with a trimmer at the end of the handle. As various thin white women and one thin black woman pass by unruly bushes (of the plant sort) during their daily activities, and some ethereal music plays in the background, the bushes magically get trimmed into, well, familiar bush (of the non-plant sort) shapes, in possibly the clunkiest, sledgehammery metaphor of all time.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One, Forty-Two, Forty-Three, Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six, Forty-Seven, Forty-Eight.]
Economic Armageddon: Beyond Thunderdome
Part Wev in an ongoing series...
In case you haven't already heard: "The Obama administration has forced the longtime head of General Motors to resign and said yesterday that it would withhold additional federal aid to the auto industry unless the ailing companies undertake changes they so far have been unwilling or unable to make. ... The White House's insistence that Wagoner step down is an extraordinary intervention of the federal government into the management of a private company."
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
I only wish the administration would start getting this feisty with the financial fucks holding the economy hostage.
Meet the new baby
Come meet Rosie, who joined our family last night:
Sam has welcomed her into the house, though I'm sure he'll be happier once she's bigger and can really play. She seems to adore him so far. Empress Zoë is supremely unimpressed as cats are wont to be, though not unfriendly--just more like "Wevs. Just leave my stuff alone, pup." Oh, she's a (yellow) labrador, for those wondering.
Scenes from the Struggle in Post-Feminist America
So I'm watching "At the Movies," and the two Bens are reviewing Monsters vs. Aliens, which they give a pretty good review. Then Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Classic Movies ends his review by saying (approximately), "Not to get too PC, but the main character is a big, powerful woman, which is a good thing to see."
Don't you love that? Just merely commenting positively on a strong female lead risks being "too PC," despite the fact that strong female leads are still so unusual as to be remarkable, which is what warrants the comment in the first place.
In other words, what Mankiewicz was really doing, intentionally or not, was apologizing for publicly noticing that women and girls are still enormously underrepresented in films.
Coastal Fun
This past week my mom came out to visit--and it was spring break. My mom loves lighthouses and so we always go out to the coast to see one when she comes out (as southwest Ohio isn't known for its lighthouses, lol). This time we went out to see one that we attempted a couple years ago but had been closed for renovation then: Yaquina Head Lighthouse.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse was built during 1872 and 1873; it is the tallest lighthouse on the Oregon coast at 93 feet tall.
The lighthouse was pretty neat but the highlight of this trip were the tide pools.
One of the biologists came over to talk to us for a bit about the different sea life living in the pools, which was also pretty neat. It was a great afternoon and wonderful experience!
Over at Shakes Manor...
...we're talking about this story, which Iain emailed to me yesterday with the note: "I think it's incredibly sad that this idea won a creative game development contest. The video game industry must be really bereft of ideas if this is the best they can come up with."
And to which I replied: "Sadder than the idea that actually won is the fact that the contest itself demanded that the entries adhere to the concept of losing one's virginity in the first place.
And, just based on what I know of gaming, especially any kind of sex-related gaming, I'm going to guess that women were suddenly able to win a male-dominated contest because many of the male-created entries were creepy as hell. I'm skeeved out just contemplating the possibilities.
Way to break down that stereotype of gamers being pathetic loser virgins, btw. And way to prove the industry STILL has no fucking clue how to attract more female gamers."
(Iain hadn't realized the "your first time" was the theme of the entire contest. When I pointed that out, he was even more disgusted, lol, and went on a very long and amusing rant about the state of the video game industry that I really wish I'd captured on tape.)
Discuss.
