Whine Expert: White Whine Is Funny Except …
White Whine: One Of My Favorite Tumblelogs - Most of the Time
White Whine will be achingly funny for several days so I’ll relax and enjoy it. Then, when I let my guard down, it will try to make a joke out of an absolutely legitimate problem that I have to handle myself, unless I can hire someone to do it for me.
I mean, what’s funny about real problems? “High property taxes for people who live in big houses” - does that sound like a punch line? No, it does not.
But the rest of the time, White Whine is pretty darn funny.
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Which Sex Toy Would Jesus Recommend?
Lord of Leisure has alerted me to a web site which promotes prayer, scripture, fundamentalist Christianity, healthful living practices, politically conservative principles, mainstream cultural values, and the Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3, a $106 vibrator,1 featuring “10 speeds of shaft rotation, 3 clitoral vibration patterns with 10 speeds each, 5 functions of vibration and escalation, glow in the dark buttons, and black satin storage bag,” along with a (heavenly) host of similar sexual accouterments.
The Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3 With Scripture Appearing On Same Page
Yea, verily, it doth appear that Lord of Leisure, by forwarding the link to The Joy of Christian Sex Toys, a NPR story2 about Book22.com,3 a self-touted “sin-free” sex toy business that “caters to the Christian community with books, toys and occasional advice,” has contributed the basis of the definitive Heck of a Guy Post-Valentine’s Day Sunday Post.
Book22.com’s Competitive Advantage: Its Retail Strategist
This excerpt from the NPR story outlines Book22.com’s origin and its unique inventory selection methodology:
She and her husband talked it over and decided that there must be a way for conservative people to add a spark to their romantic lives. She says their site steers clear of certain types of sexual activity that they believe are unholy. And they carefully consider which new products to add.
“We pray about things before we add them to our site,” she says. “We live our lives very openly in front of Jesus, so we just kind of pray for direction about which way he would have us go, and I have to be honest with you — he’s really surprised us. … Almost our whole entire ’special order’ page has come about from that.”
First of all, does anyone else feel as though using Jesus as a consultant seems a tad unfair?
Regardless, I do admit to being curious about the wording of those prayers. As a result of attending three church services a week throughout my childhood and adolescence, I’ve been subjected to prayers thanking God for rain, sunshine, all manner of food, the fellowship of saints, crops (including lawn grass), and, on one memorable occasion, “the mystery of cooking divinity” (which I later discovered, to my disappointment, was a 7th grader’s jumbled version of “the mystery of the holy trinity). I’ve listened to prayers beseeching God for the healing of every imaginable injury, disease, and marital rift, victory in a variety of athletic events (usually coded as something along the lines of “Help us to play our best to thy honor and glory”), and success in a wide spectrum of businesses but especially farming. And, I’ve endured prayers ostensibly directed to God that sounded suspiciously like admonishments to the congregation (e.g., “Help each of us to recognize that all we have is but the gift of your gracious bounty and to contribute accordingly to help make the building fund goal”).
Despite this background, I am experiencing a severe case of cognitive dissonance when I consider the most effective and respectful format for asking Jesus his opinion on which nipple rings to stock (Purple Hearts made the cut) or the propriety of carrying sexually provocative games (Jesus apparently OK’d Strip Chocolate Game and 52 Weeks of Naughty Nights.
Other elusive details are also intriguing. Is pricing (e.g., quantity discounts) part of the prayer-consultation protocol or is this strictly a matter of the quality of the item?
One can deduce certain divine judgments from the store’s stock.
Based, for example, on the availability of several genital-associated edible items, including but not limited to O’MY Flavored Lubricant, Head Candy, and (edible) Happy Penis Cream 4oz., Jesus is down with going down.
On the other hand, given that the only bondage equipment offered is the rather insubstantial Sexy Velcro Kit, which features a “Soft Fuzzy Red Blind Fold,” “Red Pleasure Feather,” “Red Fuzzy Velcro Wrist Ties with Tethers,” and “Red Fuzzy Velcro Ankle Ties with Tethers,” I’m guessing our Lord and Savior is not endorsing any Domination and Submission games that extend beyond the symbolic (well, except that wives submitting to husbands thing, of course).
A Missed Opportunity
Despite receiving divine help, Book22.com isn’t infallible. Consider this marketing faux pas.
Verses from Song of Solomon (see Footnote #3) appear on every page, but as far as I can determine through arduous research, each page displays the same verse(s). I suggest the purveyors are missing a marketing opportunity by not associating certain products with specific passages of scripture.
The Scented Massage Oil could be paired with “For fragrance are thy perfumes good. Perfume emptied out — thy name, Therefore have virgins loved thee!” (Song of Solomon 1:3 - Young’s Literal Translation). And, is there a lusty Christian who hasn’t been laid recently who wouldn’t be willing to purchase and try out the Coochy Shave Creme ($11.99 for 8 oz), purported to be “perfect for intimate shaving,” if its advertising slogan were an admiration of a body likened to “… a smooth plate of ivory covered with sapphires” (Song of Solomon 5:14 - Bible in Basic English)?
The Cost of Salvation
There is, I was taught, a price to being Christian. With the discovery of Book22.com, calculating that cost in dollars and cents is now possible.
Using the afore discussed Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3 as an example, I searched for secular web sites offering the identical item and compared prices.
As noted in the introduction, Book22.com offers this electromechanical marvel for $106 (shipping and batteries not included). A routine search turned up several web sites selling the vibrator. The site thus found with the lowest price for this merchandise was Excaliber Sex Toys which offered the Decadent Indulgence 3 for $51.92 (shipping and batteries not included).
In this case, the Christianity Markup computes to just over 100%.
That’s not to say the price necessarily makes this a bad deal. If the Christian version of the Decadent Indulgence 3 comes with, say, a Get Out Of Hell Free card,4 then a 100% markup is a bargain. I’m just not clear on all the details.
Footnotes
- Requires four AA batteries, not included ~back~
- Link to original audio program available on site ~back~
- For the benefit of my Oklahoma Christian College classmates who overslept and missed the pertinent lecture in our Old Testament Survey course (BLE 102; Dr. Hugo McCord), “Book 22″ references The Song of Solomon, the 22nd book of the Bible, which consists of love poems. In Chapter 5 of that book, for example, the woman’s beloved is described knocking on the door. Then, in the words of the Etz Hayim, a translation prepared by conservative Jewish scholars and used in Slate’s Blogging The Bible project, he “thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt.” Not bad, eh? ~back~
- See Urban Skills: Salvation From Sins ~back~
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The Leonard Cohen Tour: Posting Permutations and Pix Mix
Cohen On Tour: Wrong Cohen, Wrong Tour1
But At Least It’s Not The Same Photo Every Other Story Used
The Problem: Leonard Cohen 2008 Tour - Tour Cohen 2008 Leonard - Cohen Tour Leonard 2008 - 2008 Leonard Tour Cohen - Tour Cohen Leonard 2008 - …
Three issues impact the online and print stories about the 2008 Leonard Cohen Tour:
- The only recently available information about the 2008 Leonard Cohen Tour2 is limited to this announcement posted at leonardcohenforum.com:
The following advance notice is posted with Leonard’s permission.
Leonard Cohen will be touring with his band in Canada and US in May and in Europe in the summer. More details will be announced in February
- Only a finite number of combinations and permutations exist to present that core data.
- The journalistic imperative of professional writers, critics, and reporters as well as blog-empowered amateur hacks of the DrHGuy variety is to produce unique, original stories
The simultaneous existence of these three factors offers the spectator not only a light amusement but also an opportunity to assess the personality of the publication based on its selection of photos and nonessential facts in the attempt to create a very special post about the tour. From my casual and unofficial count, these extraneous elements occur most frequently in these posts:
- Leonard’s Cohen’s age: 733
- Time since last tour: 15 years
- Reference to the tour announcement appearing at leonardcohenforum.com, with or without a caveat (e.g., “if the posting is legit”)
- Speculation that tour is motivated by financial losses secondary to the theft of Cohen’s funds by his former manager4
- Mention of Cohen’s impending induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Also interesting are the attempts to choose a unique graphic (a photo of young Leonard Cohen, a photo of old Leonard Cohen, an album cover, a video, etc) that accompany most stories, a quandary I have cleverly avoided in this entry by inserting “Cohen On Tour” pictures of other Cohens on other tours.
Again, Wrong Cohen, Wrong Tour5
But It Is A Different Look
The Posts
I’ve placed the graphics and links to more than 30 of these posts at GoodCleanWholesome Fun
Footnotes
- Sacha Baron Cohen at Tour de France ~back~
- See Leonard Cohen 2008 Tour Prophesied ~back~
- Rolling Stone lops off a couple of years, making Leonard 71 ~back~
- Most stories are sympathetic to Cohen’s plight. I found only one site that was nasty about this, declaring “let us be the first to say that Cohen probably isn’t doing this out of love for his fans, but rather, his dire financial situation. Wha’? Cohen has accused his business manager Kelley Lynch of defrauding him of $5million.” Although the implicit contention that other, presumably more altruistic artists give concerts for the love of their fans (which would explain why all those other concerts are freebies) is a rather pedestrian bit of malice, the phrasing that makes Cohen the perpetrator rather than the victim of fraud displays more skill. ~back~
- Ben Cohen on the English Rugby Summer Tour ~back~
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Cyber-Bookmarkettes From DrHGuy: 8 January 2008
Cyber-Bookmarkettes are Internet sites and phenomena that are self-explanatory and thus require little elaboration, that are interesting enough to observe but lack, at least at this point, utility or significance of the sort to justify more than minimal annotation, or that are so ambiguous or confusing as to defy elucidation.
Do Not Attempt These Photos At Home - These Are Taken By Trained Professionals
Great Olan Mills Photos
Lord of Leisure1 is due credit for sending Heck of Guy the link to this collection of photos and captions which features, in the felicitous description offered at the site, “Total frickin’ awesomeness from Olan Mills, Sears and other fine portrait studios.” Indeed.
For anyone who had a photo taken at one of the low cost, high traffic flow portraiture studios in the 70s, this web page is laugh out loud fun served with a soupçon of nostalgic anguish.
These pictures and captions are available at
Don’t Picture This
Strictly No Photography
This appealing site consists of photos taken where photos are prohibited - such as museums, art galleries, hospitals, and the Kolkata Metro:
Get your kix from these forbidden pix at
Grammatolatry Site
Luciferous Logolepsy
The explanatory subtitle of this site is a handy litmus test. If ones response to a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words” is “Thanks for the warning” (and especially if it’s “Dude, thanks for the warning”), this may not be the preferred cyber-destination for that individual.
On the other hand, if ones response is “Got to get me some of that,” welcome to paradise.
Luciferous Logolepsy also has its practical applications. DrHGuy, for example, has recently grown concerned about the accelerating rate at which “Schadenfreude” (pleasure in another person’s misfortune) is pervading the argot of the hoi polloi. One can imagine his delight on discovering, at Luciferous Logolepsy, “epicaricacy,” a near synonym that is, as advertised, obscure still.
These 9,000 obscure words and their definitions can be found at
They’re Selling What?
What is it? The Impulsive Buy specializes in reviews of products (primarily food products with a smattering of sundries not intended for consumption) that are typically new to the market and always at least a tad weird.
Why read it? Because Heck of a Guy readers who routinely plow through, for example, a dense dissertation on broomcorn, an extended exposition on the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 Electric Piano as an introduction to a post about Anjani, or an exhaustive examination of a study on hand washing as medical compliance need, on occasion, to decompress by perusing reviews of products such as
The Tooth Tunes Hilary Duff Toothbrush
The Pong A Long 7′ Beer Pong Table
Goldfish Flavor Blasted Blazin’ Buffalo Wings
And, of course, Jalapeño SPAM
These reviews can be found at
Footnotes
- While the Lord of Leisure who alerted Heck of a Guy to these photos is the same Lord of Leisure whose photographic contributions are featured on the Heck of a Guy blog’s Lord of Leisure Photo Gallery, these two groups of images share little other than a camera was, presumably, used to capture both sets of pictures ~back~
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Cyber-Bookmarkettes From DrHGuy: 5 November 2007
Cyber-Bookmarkettes are Internet sites and phenomena that are self-explanatory and thus require little elaboration, that are interesting enough to observe but lack, at least at this point, utility or significance of the sort to justify more than minimal annotation, or that are so ambiguous or confusing as to defy elucidation.
Introducing Cyber-Bookmarkettes From DrHGuy
I have found myself alerting buddies to web sites, anecdotes, and quotes that fall primarily into the “how about that?” category - i.e., they are provocative, dazzling, speculative, glamorous, or even (gasp) cute enough to justify a a few seconds to a few minutes of attention and to trigger the appreciative “how about that?” response but only occasionally prove to have an impact that endures beyond the time spent on the site. Consequently, this content rarely turns up in the Cyber-Bookmarks From DrHGuy series.
Given that folks who receive these links and notes do seem to genuinely enjoy them, it seems worth offering them here as well.
We’ll see how this works out.
What Music Is Popular In New Zealand Today?
Funny You Should Ask
Point and click on a state, region, country, or continent almost anywhere around the world and the Gracenote Music Map will display the “most popular artists and albums” in that area.
DrHGuy caveat: Since, as one might suspect, Gracenote Music Maps are based on The Gracenote Media Database, “most popular” in this case actually means “most artist and album lookups,” so the results are skewed by the likelihood that recently published material will be referenced more than older material, regardless of absolute popularity, and by the likelihood that folks in, for instance, Croatia, use or don’t use Gracenote. Nonetheless, it’s entertaining enough for a quick look.
The Music Maps can be found at ~ Gracenote Music Maps ~
With Love, Leonard
One of the four “love letters” received as part of a marketing promotion for a recently published book, Four Letter Word: New Love Letters, edited by Joshua Knelman and Rosalind Porter, was written by Leonard Cohen.
You’re going to leave me. I know you’re going to leave me. Like you left Laporte. Like you left Arif. I’ll be someone you call by his last name. Laporte didn’t look too good tonight at the Alhambra when he limped over to say hello to you. He didn’t want to give me his hand because it was so wet. He took the tips of my fingers and he smiled cheerlessly, as if to say: The greatest fuck you’ve ever had, the deepest love you’ve ever known, and she’s going to leave you very soon, you poor stunned sonovabitch. In the car you told me that his hands always get that wet when he has to meet people. You know his terrors, don’t you? As you know mine. We haven’t seen too much from Laporte lately, film-maker of a certain period, when you were his juice, when he was allowed to tie you up, and you commanded him to treat you like a slave. Then you told me to look at the moon, so I looked through the windshield at the moon. Then you told me to be impressed by the colour of the sky, so I applied myself to a study of the royal blue Paris sky. The turbaned Sikh assigned you, as he always does, the most impossible space in the garage, and when we walked past his window, he said, as he always does, The Champion of Parking. In the room you did sail so sweetly into my arms. I’m yours. For tonight. Your big joke. And my heart still leaps up between the declaration and the punchline. Like you left Laporte. Like you left Arif, and then slept with his twin brother. I leave them just before they leave me. It’s better that way, no? Not to have a crying girl on your hands. Okay, darling, you’re sleeping, the night has come to an end, and I’m nervous as hell. You’ll either read this by yourself one day, or we’ll be reading it together. 1980
Extracted from Four Letter Word: New Love Letters, edited by Joshua Knelman and Rosalind Porter, published by Chatto & Windus on November 1, 2007 at £12.99. Editors © Joshua Knelman and Rosalind Porter
Best Quote From Last Week’s Episode Of “The Office”
Oscar, who is openly homosexual after being involuntarily outed by his boss, Michael Scott, speaking directly to the camera in the 1 November 2007 episode, Branch Wars:
the Finer Things Club1 is the gayest thing about me.
Second Best Quote From Last Week’s Episode Of “The Office”
Micheal’s observation that
Best Refrain From A Children’s Book And Play
From “The Wolves in the Walls,” by Neil Gaiman with illustrations by Dave McKean:
The phrase, as pithy and terrifying as Dorothy Parker’s “What fresh hell is this?” is absolutely and precisely right.
Lots of famous poems by lots of famous poets in a databases that can be sliced and diced by author, topic, popularity, era, … .
Best two line poem about sex found on Famous Poets and Poems:
Their Sex Life
By A. R. Ammons
One failure on
Top of another
This poetryfest is located at ~ Famous Poets and Poems ~
Footnotes
- With Pam and Toby, Oscar is a founding member of the Finer Things Club, where books are discussed and tea is served. ~back~
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Cyber-Bookmarks From DrHGuy: 26 October 2007
A sporadically promulgated annotated listing of arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame
Suspended Elegance
Walking On Air: The Joy Of Footbridges By Witold Rybczynski
Slate. 24 October 2007
I’ve long had a thing for footbridges. Indeed, one of the few disappointments in the process of designing Heck of a House was that, regardless of how the house was sited, I couldn’t rationalize a footbridge or two. Consequently, it’s no surprise that I’m taken with Rybczynski’s footbridge slide show with annotations featured in Slate this week. The specimens shown range from spectacularly functional to wonderfully aesthetic with some combining the best of both qualities.
This display of fascinating footbridges can be found at Walking On Air: The Joy Of Footbridges
In The Nude For Travel
Top Places In World To ‘Let It All Hang Out’ By Amy Rosen
CanWest News Service. October 2007.
I suppose I’ve had a thing for naked even before I had a thing for footbridges. In any case, when I ran across this article about the best buff beaches and boats, it seemed worth exploring, but I was convinced to include it in this edition of Cyber-Bookmarks after I read the intriguing, albeit ambiguous declaration that
$400 million of the U.S. economy
OK, I admit I am also enthralled by the vision conjured up with the discovery of “the 12-hectare Mira Vista Resort, a nudist dude ranch in Tucson, Ariz., which is done up like an 1800s Wild West town.” Immediately the picture of DS wearing only spurs comes to mind.
Several resorts in the US are listed as well as a retreat in the Mexican Caribbean, a French coastal resort in a town of 40,000 naturists, and a luxurious nude cruise marketed under the name - get ready - Hidden Jewels of the Caribbean.
This piece on travel au naturel is available at Top Places In World To ‘Let It All Hang Out’
Putting The Fix On The Pix
Altered Graphics From The Heck of a Guy Files
[Click on graphic to view larger image]
Top 15 Manipulated Photographs By jfrater
TheListUniverse.com. 19 October 2007
DrHGuy has, as indicated by the above collage of samples taken from Heck of a Guy Blog, occasionally fine-tuned a photo to remove a distraction or highlight some portion of the image. These amateur-level antics, however, are not in the same league as the big-time manipulations on exhibit in this listing. I’ve included one sample below to give readers a taste of the offering.
This impressive and worrisome photo essay can be viewed at Top 15 Manipulated Photographs
Once You Go Mac You Can Still Go Back To PC
The Complete Guide to Mac/Windows Interoperability By Gina Trapani
Lifehacker.com. 19 October 2007
If, like DrHGuy, you’ve got a crush on a Mac and are considering leaving your PC but can’t afford to lose those PC programs in the property settlement and don’t want to worry about the incompatibility problems between the blended families, now you can set up housekeeping with your beloved Mac and still enjoy a friends with benefits arrangement with your old PC.
Today, Mac OS and Windows can work together on the same network, share files, and use many of the same gizmos. Lifehacker offers a nifty primer about what does and doesn’t work when one dallies spontaneously with Mac and PC.
This timely info can be found at The Complete Guide to Mac/Windows Interoperability
Welcome To Babel: Translating Sacred Poetry
Psalm Springs - How I Translated The Bible’s Most Poetic Book By Robert Alter
Slate. 26 September 2007
Translation of poetry is a puzzle so complex, multifaceted, and difficult that it seems to most of us as mystical as advanced physics calculations. In the case of the Psalms, of course, one adds to that task the burden of dealing with one of the world’s major religious texts that is also replete with historical import. Oh, and also add the fact that the Psalms were composed by “anonymous poets over a period of more than five centuries,” and one quickly realizes that this is not a job for the timid. Yet, the process involved in translating poetry offers a unique insight into the workings of literary thought. I’ve re-read this essay about the translation of these Hebrew poems into contemporary English a half -dozen times in the month since it was published and found it rewarding each time.
This excerpt is typical:
This article, as well as a link to a sound file of the author reading from his translations, is online at Psalm Springs - How I Translated The Bible’s Most Poetic Book
Mr (and Ms) Fix-it
25 Skills Every Man Should Know: Your Ultimate DIY Guide
Popular Mechanics. October 2007
This is in every way a prototypal Popular Mechanics article, full of useful information presented with a moral imperative of self-reliance. Or, as the introduction puts it,
My only criticism is the gender-indicative title. I find none of the tasks listed, from Fillet a Fish to Perform CPR to Protect Your Computer to Patch A Radiator Hose, to be testosterone-specific.
Come to think of it, with the possible exceptions of the items dealing with computers, I suspect1 Mary from View From A Farm House Window can perform each of these items better than I can.
Regardless, this how-to guide can be found at 25 Skills Every Man Should Know: Your Ultimate DIY Guide
Footnotes
- ”Suspect” in this sentence is a face-saving word for “am absolutely certain,” ~back~