zen.org Communal Weblog

The BBC has an article, Viruses leap to smart radio tags. The article is kind of cool, but it’s the picture. Wiskas with rabbit! Why can’t I get Wiskas with rabbit for my cat in the USA? My cat kills rabbits, I should be able to get it canned! We keep pigs, cows, chickens, et al, packed in dark rooms, pumped up on antibiotics and hormones, slowly breeding super microorganisms, we can do the same for rabbits! Rabbits are really only caged up for cosmetic testing in the USA.

While we are at it, I bet my cat would also like canned moles too.

Katie at ShinyShinypointed to a discussion happening on chick geek sites (like Darla Mack, Anina and Techie Diva). Mainly the fact that at CeBit, lovely Korean mobile company VXMobile decided to have naked (but body-painted) booth babes showing off their product. The mobiles appear to be glued to their arms, and I guess we should thank the Goddess that it wasn’t glued somewhere else.

Now, let me first say one thing: These women are obviously beautiful. They have lovely bodies. They were paid for this. This is their choice, and I have no problems with them.

It’s the stupid-ass marketing people who thought “OH, I KNOW! Let’s paint them. Let’s have them naked and do a Demi Moore on them!” Body painting is an art. It can be classy, stunning and breathtaking.

These booth babes are not. They are painted, sorta. Not artistically, but to get men to look at them and what they are “selling”.

I guess I just thought that, since I know sooo many women involved in technology, so many grrls, hackers, writers, and since most of the people I know online are women, that the world will have caught up with that. Guess not. Hooters sell, apparently. Well, we should find out if VX made a lot of sales at CeBit. But why on EARTH can people still think that nudity, heck, even booth babes, are trade show fodder? I *cringe* when I see women posed over cars and motorcycles at car shows. And I again cringe when I look through Stuff magazine (someone please start a magazine for smart women that has all the same gadgets, but without scantily clad women all over it?)

Women are technically minded. Women who are in tech have, most of the time, been accepted as technical by their (mostly male) peers. Most guys I know accept me as technical cause I can talk the talk. But tech women are smart women. Intelligence. I would love to know what Carly Fiorina, Kim Polese, Esther Dyson, even Grace Hopper, what they would say seeing that. Even women I know who are in tech and television (Michaela Pereira, Sumi Das, Becky Worley), who have dealt with trade shows and reporting from them, who have dealt with this before…I want opinions.

Personally? Women are smart. Women are beautiful. And I don’t even want to go down the line of “don’t let a man demean you”, but it seems that it still needs to be done.

Jeeez. Pink got it right, ya know? I don’t know who to be madder at…the women who stood there, naked but covered in paint, or the idiots who think this is still acceptable.

[tags] shinyshiny boothbabes cebit vxmobile nudity bodypaint anina techiediva darlamack pink irishblogs ireland gracehopper carlyfiorina kimpolese sumidas michaelapereira beckyworley[/tags]

P’s best friend D was over playing today. We were in the dining room, coloring, when the doorbell rang. P is in his “I’LL GET IT” stage (wait til he figures out he can answer the phone!) and ran to the door, with D in close pursuit.

There were two older men there, in woolen scarves and jackets. “This is for the parish…” and handed me a flyer. I, of course, having NO idea what to do with it, said “Oh…um, is this everything?” and as they were moving away, they said yes.

So I look at the pamphlet, with the boys trying to see it.

“Is it from…God?” asked D.
“God?” I said, not knowing what to say. D tried to open the pamphlet in my hand, looking for a special picture.
P, not knowing what/who God is, said “Oh, it’s from Galway.” And D replied “From Galway?”, looking at P like he’s nuts. And then they both walked away.

Apparently God is from Galway.

Let’s all go and demand Wil Wheaton to come to Dublin for a talk. Sound good? Go on, click it, you know you want to.

[tags]wilwheaton dublin talk demand eventful irishblogs ireland blog[/tags]

Today’s adventure: make dinner.

Sounds easy. Wasn’t. Cause as I sit in my comfy couch this afternoon, I see happy Vera walking by. She pops in, says, “I’m going to the doctor to see if I need stitches.” She *sliced* her thumb on a ham tin. I mean sliced (dude, if you’re squeamish, please don’t look. I warned you). Like, I’m never using a key to open any of those silly kinds of cans ever. She didn’t believe that she needed company, but I convinced her otherwise. Thank god, too, cause we were there for like 2 hours waiting. Then they finally saw her, had her put her finger under the taps, and then *glued* it shut. GLUED. /shakes head. I had that in the back room….we coulda avoided the 2 hour wait!

So after she let me to go Tesco to get the few things I needed for dinner. Basically leeks, since it’s chicken and sweet leek pie. Now, this is a Jamie Oliver recipe, and it’s one we’ve done before (tho no comments written in the book, so that should worry me…), but it takes forever. First you have to skin and debone the chicken legs (thank you for teaching me technique, Alton Brown), then cut up the leeks, carrots and prep the thyme. (Does anyone else get thyme all over the place when they strip the leaves? I got some in my hair.) Then cook for 15 minutes, add wine (we used apple juice instead, as I had no vino), water and soymilk, and boom. Stir, and bubble for 45 minutes. Then put in pie dish and then top with puff pastry.

Sounds easy. Can take a while. Was it good? Ummmmmmmmm….yeah. Filling. Hopefully the puff pastry will last til lunch tomorrow. We’re having a massive leftover lunch, since almost every plastic container (and that’s saying a lot) is being used right now.

P decided that he wanted to make something from the leftover puff pastry. So we did. All together now…awwwwwwwwwww.

[tags]altonbrown, cooking, jamieoliver, vera, p[/tags]

Flippin’ Classic. Curse words, so it’s nsfw, depending on where you are.

PATRIOTIC POSTERS@WHITEHOUSE.ORG

According to the latest EFF: DeepLinks, it’s time to claim your money/replacement/downloads from SonyBMG for the lovely XCP/MediaMax debacle. This is mainly for US people, since I don’t think they’re replacing for non-US CDs (hello…DRI?).

Regardless, spread the word. Sony needs to know they screwed up, and that consumers feel really upset about this.

[tags] eff, sonybmg, xcp, mediamax[/tags]

Irishblogawards are in the top tags on Flickr right now. Does it help it’s a sleepy Sunday? Sure…but Rymus’ photos are sooooo good. All of them are, actually. ‘Cept the ones from my cameraphone. Can’t wait til O’Shea’s are up.

That was a hell of a night. Twenty cleaned up completely, that’s for sure. But he missed out, since he didn’t show, cause his emissary shall be keeping the iPod Nano that Twenny was given for winning Best Blog.

Rick O’Shea did well as the MC, and Damien is to be fully commended for getting the things up and running. I’m guessing that about 150 people showed up.

The greatest part was seeing all these people whose blogs I read in one room. Raftery, RedMum (have fun with that router!), Sarah Carey, Bernard, Justin Mason (looking oh-so-California), Antoin, Piaras (getting crap for that post), and so so so many more. One of the best things was that one group who sponsored one of the awards later WON one!

Rick and I have determined we were separated at birth. And a very kind soul poured me into a cab home, thankfully. I blame the Cosmopolitan. My dear hubby is now patting my brow and getting me to drink lots of water.

I’m going to upload any photos from the cameraphone to Flickr, tagged with irishblogawards. Enjoy!

[tags] irishblogawards, irishblogs, ireland, awards, irish blog awards [/tags]

On a recent episode of the tv programme “Family Feud” [the US version of “Family Fortune”], 100 people were asked to name a famous person to whom they’d like to give a lie-detector test … out of those 100 Americans, 47 responded “Pres. Bush.”