Review: KY Intense Gel for Her

By popular demand, here is the video review that I recently did for the Amazon Vine program, for KY Intense Gel for Her.

I don’t know when or if Amazon will post the review, but I had fun doing it. Heck, if I can someday make a career out of reviewing sex products, I’ll be a happy camper.

Why I love Penn Jillette, reason #25698

(first seen by me on GamePolitics)

For my part, this is why I have trouble supporting groups like EqualityNow (though I did contribute to them during the Fannish fundraiser re: Prop 8 that was held on LJ). It’s why I have trouble with NOW, why I had to resign as VP of the LA chapter. I don’t believe in the prosecution of thought crimes, no matter what the potential crime is. (I also don’t believe in putting rape on a pedestal above other crimes. It’s a very terrible thing, yes…it’s a form of torture and just as sick and twisted as torture in its execution. But, there are other terrible things that don’t get anywhere near the attention…and IMO, the way the American feminist movement has escalated rape has, in fact, fetishized it even more.) A video game doesn’t convince you to rape someone, nor to murder. (It also won’t convince you to do things that are even less morally questionable. My husband could play Webkinz all day long, and he’ll never have the want to buy more plushies like I do.) You have to have the desire in you already, the moral/ethical disregard or psychosis, and if you do, and you don’t work out your issues or seek treatment, it’s going to come out someday, no matter what game you play or don’t play.

But, Penn says all this way better than I do, and what’s more, he says it while basking in the Las Vegas sunshine, just meters from his lovely technicolor backyard:

Capitalism FTW!

We’re spending this weekend at the Gopher (Minnesota) Bridge Regional, which happens to be at the Mall of America. Our hotel is literally in the parking lot. Were it not for an annoying fence, we could walk there pretty easily.

Since DH and I were hungry when we got in yesterday, we headed straight to the MoA for food. We ended up eating at Famous Dave’s, and it was tasty. Then, we walked around the 3rd floor and part of the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor seems to be a bunch of stores that are not unusual, but the 3rd floor had a game store and a bunch of kitschy stores, like a store of just socks, a store dedicated to cat and dog items, the As Seen on TV store, and a Minnesota-themed store.

There are roller coasters in the mall. I’m going to make DH ride them, so I can enjoy them vicariously.

Edited on 5/27 to add: You can view the photos from this trip at this link, in the Gallery of the Org*.

Pandora

I admit it. I’ve been living under a rock. I just today tried out Pandora, the free internet music discovery service powered by the Music Genome Project. In case any of you are also living under a rock, the way Pandora works is that you tell it a song or artist that you like, and it starts streaming songs that are similar in tonality, rhythm, genre…well, there’s a ton of qualities it considers, using the Genome data. Then, you can click if you like or dislike the songs it generates, and the radio station you’ve created will get refined based on those results. Right now, I’m playing a station inspired by Panic at the Disco. I’ve really liked the “emo rock” tracks I’ve discovered via Rock Band and Rock Band 2, so I’m using Pandora to find similar things. So far, I’ve bookmarked about six songs and artists that I’d never heard of that I want to check out when I get a chance, plus it’s played a host of other songs that I enjoy but never would have related to PatD. There’s an occasional ad, but it’s still a million times better than suffering through DJ blather on the stations I get via FM radio.

My dear husband has been using Pandora on his iPhone, and I was really pleased with the results. He plugged in his No Doubt station while we were in a hotel room a few weeks back, and it eventually started playing what I would consider to be the greatest hits of my college years. Still, it took me spotting an article in GReader to realize that I could listen to Pandora radio via Firefox, that it wasn’t just an iPhone app.

This is going to be the perfect way to fill up my Zune. Right now, I’m only using 10 of my 120 gigs. (Granted, my laptop’s hard drive is only 120gigs, so somewhere along the way, I’m going to have to do some tweaking to get it full.) I’m about to have all my CDs cataloged and ripped by a service recommended to me awhile back by a friend in part because I’m tired of wishing I had song X that I own on my Zune only to realize I haven’t ripped it yet.

Help me with my MBA

I’m sure this will be far from the last time that I use this blog to help with my MBA projects. For this term, our group project is to present a strategy to help improve business at Regal Cinemas. (Topic chosen by yours truly)

Toward that goal, I thought it’d be good to collect some consumer data. So, I’d really appreciate it if you would not only take the survey linked below but encourage anyone you know to take the survey as well. It’ll be open for the next 2 weeks for responses.

Click here to take the survey (hosted at SurveyMonkey.com)

Also, if you notice any problems with the survey or think of anything I should ask that I’m not asking, let me know.

PS – OMG, watching this survey as people take it is so much fun to me. I had fun putting it together, and I’m loving the data mining. It’s not coming out how I expected in a few categories, but it’s really fun seeing how it does come out. I’ve already written two “advanced” data parsers that are cutting the data in different ways. I’ll make sure to share any interesting insights on here when it’s done.

I’m a Fake Life Master!

I have over 300 masterpoints! Yay! And, I got my fake Life Master (fLM) in the best way: with fake points.

You see, the ACBL instituted a really stupid rule the year before I joined. The rank of Life Master has colored point requirements, intended (to some extent) to require you to play at high-skill events to qualify for the rank. For most people, the hardest color to get is gold, because getting gold requires you to play at a (so-called) nationally ranked* event…and win. You’re also required to get a certain quantity of silver (sectional level) and red (regional level) points. So, it’s Gold > Red > Silver > Black (club games) > Colorless (internet play). These colored requirements existed before I joined. And, I have a ton of red points, all the silver I need plus some, and all the gold I need plus some. I also have a high amount of colorless points, because we play on the internet (BBO) alot.

But, the year before I joined, the ACBL instituted a rule that requires you to get black points. Specifically, you have to get 50 black points, which is more than any other required color. And, unlike any other colored point, having the point color that is a rank above black doesn’t count toward black points. That is, you can’t use a spare 50 silver points as black points.

Here’s my beef with this rule (aside from that it’s keeping me from being an official LM):

• It’s damn hard to get 50 black points. Club games don’t give out very many points per session, because they’re *club* games…they aren’t supposed to be very competitive, so they don’t reward you very much for winning. Also, they don’t get high attendance, and point award limits are based on attendance. The most you can get is ~1.5 points, for a top award at a well-populated club game. So, just getting up to 50 points is much harder than at a sectional, regional, or national.
• You can only get black points at clubs. Silver points are occasionally given out at clubs, and red points are sometimes given out at NAOPs and GNTs (special events that aren’t regionals). But, the only way you can get black points is to go to a club game.
• Most club games are held during the day, because most club players are retired. We’re actually relatively lucky to have as many club games near us as we do, but even with that, it’s very hard for a person who works a standard week to get out to a club game. If you live in an area less bridge-oriented than here, it’s very likely that you, as a working person, wouldn’t be able to find a club game at all. (By the way, even though there are two clubs here with decent timing that are 10 and 23 miles away from us respectively, we’re also a bit screwed because this area has a higher-than-normal density of very good bridge players…meaning those club games are VERY hard to win.)
• Even though the concerns with internet play are mostly unfounded and based on fear rather than reality (and easily preventable if the ACBL cared to do so), internet “clubs” don’t get you black points. They get you colorless points, and only a third of your points for any rank can be colorless. Meaning, for LM, only 100 colorless points count, even if you have more than that. (I don’t have more than 100 colorless, but it’d be much easier for me to hit that point count than to get 50 black, just because there are more internet games in the evenings and on weekends, and I don’t have to leave the house to do one.)
• With the exception of the club games in this area, club games don’t (or shouldn’t) require special skill to win. You’re generally playing with the same people over and over again, not a wide base of bridge talent. So, whereas the red and gold requirement (and even silver to some extent) can be justified as requiring a certain level of play, the club point requirement only exists to force you to spend $$$ at the clubs, which were supposedly suffering vs. regionals and sectionals. And rather than let the bridge version of the free market do its job, the ACBL created an artificial incentive to bail out the clubs.

If I gave a damn (or if I thought the ACBL did), I might write all of this down and send it to them. But, I’m pretty well convinced that the ACBL is filled with retirees who, for all their moaning about getting young people to play, are not willing to learn or accept the technology that would actually encourage people my age and younger to take up the game…and that they’re arrogant asses to boot. So, I’ve decided I’m quite happy with being a fake Life Master and that I may well *intentionally* avoid club games just so that I never get my LM under this stupid rule.

Oh, and what’s better is that I got my fLM with internet points. Ha and ha! Take that, ACBL! fLM party to be scheduled at a later date…possibly over Memorial Day weekend.

* Note: There’s a color even higher than gold: platinum. The events that award platinum are what I would consider nationally ranked events…but that’s just semantics, I suppose.

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