Hi all!
Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! I've been busy partying with a certain someone, hanging out with my dogs, and we drove up to Lake Tahoe on Thursday.
Currently I'm hanging out in my mom's hotel room at Heavenly Village while Iain and my Uncles/Cousins ski and my brain is MELTING watching white trash less fortunate people get makeovers or try to buy/sell/decorate houses on TLC. Seriously WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE!!?!?
Honestly, a couple just held up a blue, paisley throw pillow and said into the camera, "See this pillow? This represents our style." WHAT?
Anyway, I went skiing yesterday and...well....it was an event, to say the least. I did pretty well until I psyched myself out going down a blue run with Iain. The poor guy had to coax me down a mountain as I slid, cried, whined, bitched, cursed and fell for a straight HOUR. He has the patience of a God and I have no idea why he didn't call up United and book a flight home for himself right there on the slope.
Dude. Seriously. Thank you for not killing me.
BUT! The cool news is that we start our WORLD TOUR ON MONDAY!!!!
Thank you all for your suggestions of what to do in Paris and Tokyo! Keep 'em coming!
Hi all!
We flew into San Francisco last night! I apologize if this post doesn't make much sense, as I think I lost my brain somewhere between London and San Francisco. Maybe it was when we were on a 4 hour domestic flight without any on-flight entertainment, and the only amusement I found was peeking in between the seats in front of us and reading over some bald dude's Word document on Geology, and some pretentious dude in a suit's Forbes and Golf Digest. (Seriously. Who reads Golf Digest?)
(Sorry if you do.)
We'll be in town for a couple days, visiting some friends and meeting up with some girl crushes. We're not on The Tour yet, though, as we're going home for Easter (because I'm so religious) and will be hanging out in Sacramento all week (aka Watch TV on my mom's couch), and then heading up to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. (aka Drinking in the snow.)
Then! We'll be back in San Francisco from March 31st to the 3rd of April before heading off to TOKYO and PARIS! Woot!
I need suggestions of where to go in Paris and Tokyo! Help a pastry out! Where should we go? What should we do?
Also, I'm in the The Guardian today giving terribly authoritative quotes on Dollymix and why women's blogs are better than fashion magazines.
Today I've written a rather frustrated column on both Shiny Shiny and Dollymix about the whole Sarah Lacy, Mark Zuckerman SXSW Interview SCANDAL.
I wrote it before knowing that there was an actual video of the heckling on YouTube, and I'm at least glad that I figured that Lacy was, in fact, a rather dreadful interviewer. Here's a snippet. (Okay, a long snippet.)
"CNET reckons that she "out-and-out bombed", and that perhaps this was merely a case of making a bad interview style choice and that Lacy choosing to act over familiar and flirty with Zuckerman was just the wrong way to go. Feminists are saying this is a case of sexism, and that she was treated that badly because of her gender. One commenter on CNET even said that the heckling audience members acted "like a bunch of pimple faced 16 year old boys mad at the girl dungeon master". However, someone else seems to think that this is just a perfect example of "the love/hate relationship that geeks have with the women who try to invade their territory". Invade their territory? Ooof."
"Unfortunately, I think the ever-so-slightly misogynist commenter has a point. A lot of men, and geeks, do look at The Geek World as being male, and that women, especially good looking women, are "invading" their space. Maybe Lacy's flirtatious interview style with Zuckerman drew too much attention to the fact that YES! She's a woman! and the men in the audience's brains all melted because a girl had just captured their flag...or something.
The same commenter follows up his "invading their territory" comment by saying that if women in tech treat the Geeks "with respect and genuinely act as one of them" you will be rewarded by getting "treated like Veronica Belmont or Cali Lewis". Apparently Sarah Lacy didn't treat them with enough respect and acted to much like not one of them. So, really, Lacy was responsible for her own FAIL. Wow. I think I'm catching on! That's like when women wear revealing clothing and then get raped...she should have known better, right? See? She was ASKING FOR IT, really..."
"I am more than willing to accept that yeah, maybe her interview skills did suck a bit. I don't know for sure, I wasn't there. However, there's a big part of me that wonders who the hell thinks it's okay to start ganging up on a journalist interviewing the CEO of a company? No matter how bad it sucks, fucking keep your mouth shut and don't be a jerk. Have a little maturity. But saying all that, it's the whole "act like one of them" and "have some respect" comment that just puts me over the edge."
"Should she have brought a small offering upon her arrival, as a sign that she shows respect for their culture? Perhaps a small animal sacrifice? Should she have dressed differently to blend in? In that case I'm sure real sure Lacy is just kicking herself right now wondering why she didn't just throw on a pair of Converse, some funky plastic glasses and wear a black and white Fruit Of The Loom T-shirt with ironed on letters that spell out OH HAI."
You can read the rest of my column in its entirety at Dollymix, and I have to admit, I'm really, really proud of this. You can imagine that most of the coments are from angry geeks, but I was pleasantly surprised that one of the CNET commenters that I laid into a bit came back with a very thoughtful, respectful comment, and I greatly, greatly appreciated it.
What I found funny was that the angry, self important boy geeks didn't realize that by throwing a fit and letting me know that I was sexist and an Internet Troll - they were just proving my point for me.
Huh. A female blogger dares write about how shitty and slightly sexist something is, and I get flamed by the same type of person that flamed Sarah Lacy. Funny that.
I do not get annoyed by comments that simply disagree with me. I get annoyed at HOW they disagree with me. The CNET commenter was absolutely lovely. We didn't necessarily agree on everything, but I 100% appreciate the respect, thoughtfulness and maturity they used. It restored my faith in healthy debate. However, it seems that most people don't even GET what a "healthy debate" is!
After watching the video I think that this was definitely a case of Lacy being overly flirtatious and not knowing her audience. I will definitely agree to that. However, I still stand by the fact that a male interviewer would never be heckled as asagressively and so "in your face" as Lacy was.
What did you think of the whole Sarah Lacy/Mark Zuckerman ordeal?
Tawk amongst ya selves!
HOWEVER.
Today, The Observer ran an article listing the apparent 50 most powerful blogs in the world, and it's the biggest load of crap ever to be written. Sorry, but it is.
For example, while I love The Huffington Post...it's not the the most powerful blog IN THE WORLD.
Some (most) of these blogs I have never even heard of, and the fact of the matter is, I'm a professional blogger, so I sort of spend a lot of time reading other blogs.
And seriously, as much as we all love Lolcats, would you really consider Icanhascheezburger the 8th most powerful blog IN THE WORLD??!
A lot of the usual suspects are on this list, such as Dooce, Boing Boing, Gawker and Perez Hilton (which I'm pretty sure, Observer, is two words...) but I wonder why Engadget is all the way at 16 after TMZ, when it's consistently number 1 on Technorati.
There are a couple other blogs that while I'm glad these folks have been added to the list, I fail to see how they're one of the most powerful blogs in the world. I'll just leave it at that, through fear of offending anyone.
However, I think the blog on this list that angers me the most rests at number 22...
Mother fucking Jezebel.
Firstly, how a blog that hasn't even been live for a year is the 22nd most powerful blog in the universe is beyond me.
Secondly, are you fucking joking?
I understand that Jezzie is a huge cash/hype cow for Gawker as they're the most popular mainstream blog out there that claims to be feminist and acts as though they're the first female bloggers ever to be paid to call bullshit on The Daily Mail or notice that female celebs are OMG AIRBRUSHED on the covers of fashion mags.
I understand that a lot of women love this blog and think it's the best thing since Lip Venom, but for realzies, I call bullshit.
BULLSHIT.
I know I'm probably supposed to keep my mouth shut through fear of committing professional suicide, but seeing as for the last year that they've been existence they've not once linked back to that blog I run, despite covering story after story after story that I, and a couple other feminist blogs, have covered before they did and act like it's a completely original piece, or only link back to people like The NY Times.
I'm not asking for much. All I'm asking is why they think they're above
common blogging courtesy rituals and why they can't be bothered to do
the polite and respectable thing and pull their well-manicured finger
out of their coke encrusted nose for two seconds and LINK THE FUCK BACK TO US.
I get that most of this probably has to do with the fact that earlier
last year I posted something calling bullshit on Gawker God N*** D*****
for saying on his personal blog that "women must have finally
discovered blogs" and that's why Jezebel was so popular.
All I said that I sincerely hope he was joking, or something to that affect, and the bastard must have Google Alerts set up on his name, as less than an hour later he fucking leaves me some stupid as comment letting me know that, um, HELLLO LITTLE GIRL, here at Gawker we're IRONIC and so me saying that was, like, IRONIC and stuff and GOD why don't you get a SENSE OF HUMOUR and wake up to how fucking IRONIC we are all the time.
Anyway.
Aside from my personal bitterness towards them, chew on this:
They have a regular feature called Pot Psychology where regular Jezebel contributor Slut Machine gets stoned with one of her friends,(probably some other Gawker dude that I don't know or give a shit about) and then video tapes her and her buddy answering Jezebel reader's questions whenever they can manage to stop laughing at how wildly hilarious they are for video taping themselves - STONED.
Look, if this were actually funny, I'd be down with it. But seriously? The entire time its' like you can tell that they can't even believe that they're, like, actually getting paid to do shit like that.
But anyway, I digress. It was this week's installment of Pot Psychology that really fucking pissed me off.
So, Slut Machine is stoned out of her mind and then they read aloud a question from a reader who asks if they need to do an enema before they have anal sex. Slut Machine responds that while she's mostly constipated all the time, she then goes on to let us know that, actually, every time she's done anal, she's just done "a lot of coke" first, and that usually "cleans her out". Plus she'd rather do "coke than have an enema any day".
But wait! There's more!
Another reader writes in to ask for advice because she's on anti-depressants and The Pill and has no sex drive. Immediately Slut Machine's stoned pal says, "I really don't think your qualified to give medical advice", but she gives it a go anyway. SM responds that there are "different forms of birth control besides the pill" and her friend interjects that The Rhythm Method works quite well.
Then she goes on to say that "I haven't been pregnant in a while...but the last time I was pregnant I was actually on The Pill" AND THEN MY EYES ROLLED INTO THE BACK OF MY HEAD AND I HAD TO STOP WATCHING.
Seriously?? SERIOUSLY???!?!!!?!
And BEFORE you lay into me about how she's JUST BEING IRONIC and GAWKER IS KNOWN FOR BEING IRONIC, please spare me. That girl is not witty or sober enough to pull off ironic, dry humor like that. Girlfriend was serious about that, and serious about taking coke as she regularly writes about her escapades about who she fucks and how they fucked and what drugs she took.
And, the thing about being pregnant. How can anyone possibly think of this blog as being powerful or informative and take them seriously when they write about "how, like, fucked up it is" that there are still people in the government that would like to see Roe vs Wade overturned when they have some dumbass writing about how she's had god knows how many abortions.
Hi Anti-Abortionists! Meet your new best friend!
Even scarier? All the commenters fucking love it. They write about how they "fucking love her" and how she's "fucking amazing" and how her "pregnancy joke" was so funny...um, not a joke Shirley!!!!
All in all, I find this list to be one massively long piece of shit. It's like they asked their team of 10 people it took to compile that list to just list off some blogs that they've heard of or blogs that they subscribe to their RSS feeds. Or does your friend edit that blog? Sweet, we'll add it to the list...
Also, may I just point out, that one of the morons that helped misquote me and a bunch of other women in their New Feminists piece that I was featured in helped write this. She who does not believe in interviewing people with tape recorder, but just writing down half of every third sentence they say with a pencil on a cocktail napkin.
All I'm sayin' is that maybe The Observer should have spent a little more time and thought and effort into WHO they should be crediting as being the most powerful blogs in the world. Jesus. Maybe I'll start doing my own videos featuring me after I've done crystal meth and then go talk to school children about abstinence only education. That'd be a hoot! Could I be powerful then, too?! DOING ILLEGAL DRUGS AND THEN GIVING ADVICE IS HILARIOUS.
WOW I HAVEN'T RANTED LIKE THAT IN A LONG TIME. Feeeeelllssss goooooood.
So, who would you have liked to have seen on the list?
Perhaps I was living under a rock, but today I discovered Google Docs, and now my life will never be the same. Once I was mystified by what Google Docs was. Was it a doctor? Was it a new form of Power Point? I NEEDED TO KNOW.
So, I stopped making love to my Google Calendar for two seconds and clicked on the Docs link, and Jesus, I sure am glad I did.
Watch this video, and I dare you to not pop a nerd boner. I DARE YOU.
**UPDATE**
*The only pain in the ass thing, is that if you're uploading something to Google Docs from Vista, you have to put it into the Word/Excel/Power Point 1997-2003 format. If you don't...FAIL.
*Also, you can access your Google Docs on your crackberry/mobile/cell phone by going to http://docs.google.com/m
My sister bought this handbag for me last time I was in California. I bought the breast cancer pin in honour of my Aunt Susan, and the prostate cancer pin yesterday because I don't think there's far enough awareness or coverage of cancers that don't involve the color pink or body parts that are as media friendly as tits.
I bought the I Heart My Cunt badge because, well, I do. You can heart yours too (x3) for just $2.50 plus shipping and handling from the fabulous Hello Amber on Etsy.
So the whole learning Japanese and French thing is going a whole lot slower than I had hoped for, as I forgot about that whole job thing I have and all the work I have to do. However! I have made time to read the Rough Guide books on Tokyo, San Francisco, and Paris that we bought.
While these aren't necessarily books you can read from cover to cover, I have read through the whole Customs, Etiquette, and the General Pointers section of each book..and I'm not gonna lie. I was a tad bit alarmed by what I read in The Rough Guide To Tokyo:
"In this very male, strictly hierarchal society, men always take precedence over women. so ladies shouldn't expect doors to be held open or for seats to be vacated. Sexual discrimination is wide spread, and foreign working women in Japan can find the predominately male business culture hard going."
Right. Okay. It's fine. I'm going to a different city, a different country, and their culture just happens to be a bit more misogynist than my own. It's fine. I don't need doors opened for me. It's cool....
...And then I read further on:
"The generally low status of women in Japan is reflected in the amount of groping that goes on in the crowded commuter trains - there are even pornographic films and comics aimed at gropers. If you do have the misfortune of being groped, the best solution is to grab the offending hand, yank it high in the air, and embarrass the guy as much as possible. Fortunately, more violent sexual abuse is rare; though most stalking, harassment and rape are seriously underreported...Women should exercise the same caution about being alone with a man as they would anywhere."
So...I know that there's a big problem with men groping women on trains in Tokyo. That's why they have the women only carriages. There's just something about seeing the phrases "low status of women" and "groping" in a guide book about a city you're really excited to go to that is really depressing. I also enjoy the sentiment that, "Hey! It sucks you've had the misfortune of being groped by some sleaze bag on the subway. Fortunately, you weren't raped."
I'm not really sure what to think about that. It, of course, doesn't make me any less excited or happy to be going to Tokyo, it just makes me wonder if any of you who either have lived or have visited Japan have experienced anything like this?
Out of all the 300-something pages in this book, which highlights all of the wonderful things about this city, only about 2 paragraphs touch on the supposed misogynistic, perverted part of Tokyo and the Japanese culture.
On the same token, in the The Rough Guide to Paris book, there's only a short blurb about how, oh by the way, Parisians are sort of RACIST.
"France has a bad reputation for racist attitudes and behavior...there are occasional reports of unpleasant incidents such as restauraunts and hotels claiming to be fully booked, and travelers of north African or Arab maybe unlucky to encounter outright hostility or excessive police interest."
They go on to say that if you are "unlucky" enough to have an "unpleasant" experience like they described, they give you the number of a support line to call as the "police are unlikely to be sympathetic". But! There is good news if you're a woman:
"Full-on sexual harassment is extremely unusual, though female travelers from Anglophone countries may find ordinary male behavior chauvinistic."
Ordinary behavior, huh?
I was pleased to find that the Rough Guide To San Francisco had a whole section on Women Travelers, and they didn't really have one negative thing to say, aside from the fact that if you'd like to carry gas, whistles and pepper spray if you're traveling alone, that that would be a good idea.
"In the West Coast's most politically progressive city, women are treated with respect and courtesy almost everywhere, and commonly hold positions of power and authority."
That sentence just makes me want to lick the city of San Francisco.
While most people who are proud and love the cities they are from and live in don't want to admit that that "they're a tad misogynist" or that "yeah, some of us grope women on trains" or especially that "um, we're definitely a little bit racist", I still appreciate the fact that this information is included in these books....I think.
No city is perfect, no culture is perfect.
If you were coming to London, and I had to write a completely honest, unbiased paragraph on how women are treated here, I would have to mention that, "Yeah, the door won't always be opened for you, and some of my friends have had men grab their ass on the tube." But, on the same token, you also get the lovely British men that will give you their seat if you're struggling with grocery bags in a pair of stilettos on the train, and even a busy Londoner who will happily open the door for you, despite their gender.
Do you think that travel books like Rough Guides accurately depict the culture and the personality of the city their describing?
Advice...I needs it.
