You’re in a bar, let’s say.  The guy next to you says, “Oh, man, check out that ass!”
     “Go talk to her!”
     “Nah, I’m shy and quiet.”

     You pull out your trusty digital camera, and start snapping pics of different stuff going on, and offer to take a few of the girl.  When she turns around to walk away, you snap a picture of her butt.  
     When you come back and sit at the table, you show him the pictures you took of her.
     As she walks by, you show her.  Women love to look at their own photos.  She says, “Oh, nice pic, bad pic, oooooh, I hate that one…”
     Then you get to the butt pic.  “Ooooh, that’s nice…”
     She says, “Yeah, it is!  Whose butt is that?”
     “Yours,” you grin.  “But I’ll bet we can do a better one than that.”

     And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get a hot young thing to climb up and lean over the bar and stare back at you seductively as you snap off a few more shots.

     Any questions?

     A few months ago, when Monty started to return, I thought, “Ya know, we need some women writing on this blog.”  

     I was reading through a lot of blogs on LiveJournal, and trying to find someone who’d “be able to inject a bit of estrogen into our otherwise male-dominated blog.”  When I found a suitable subject and asked her about writing here at Blogitude.com, she was initially interested, but serious ever came the conversation.

     Last night, I got an e-mail from her about a new post she’d written, and expressed interest in writing here.  And now … we’ve got a new writer!
     Welcome aboard, Kim!

     As I’ve mentioned before, I generally hang out with women.  I’m comfortable around them.  I enjoy their company and companionship.  But dating is tough.  When you go from “friends” to “more than friends,” there are substantial changes in what’s allowed and what isn’t, what they’re worrying about and the way they treat you.

     Last month, I put up a personal ad on a dating site just to see what would come of it.  My profile was natural, just a quick ramble about myself, what I didn’t want, what I was looking for and where I wanted to end up.
     I was also quite clear that I didn’t want to date women with children, because there are simply too many points of possible conflict such as distraction which take away from being able to get to know one another, conflicts with schedules, meeting ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends, families who don’t take kindly to anyone else other than the father-of-a-child being with their daughter, discipline issues, etc. etc. etc.  I simply don’t want the stress of that.
     I was also quite clear that I wasn’t looking for mind games, and wasn’t putting up the ad simply to find a boink-of-the-night.
     Unfortunately, all of these things were ignored.

     Out of fifteen people who I went out with over the course of a month (yes, my profile was popular)…

• Nine went out specifically to complain about the fact that I didn’t want children.  Insults ranged from my being selfish, having a worthless life, being a sexist, to nothing but pure profanity.
• Two went out specifically for sex.  One became extremely angry and stormed out mid-date because I wasn’t interested in helping her get back at her cheating husband.  The other got so entirely falling-down drunk that she couldn’t keep her clothes on, and then decided to profanely take a knock at my sexuality because I didn’t find her particularly attractive at that point.
• One went out, talked about what a great time she had and how much she was looking forward to our next date, but stood me up and then systematically and callously went out of her way to ignore me without bothering to even tell me what was going on.

     The remaining three were sweet, they were fun.  There was no real chemistry between us, but they’ve become friends nonetheless.  But a twenty-five percent rate of having an amicable time together is bad odds.  It is absolutely astounding that seventy-fire percent of the women I went out with from that site were such total … err, umm … well, you know.

     It’s truly refreshing to see Joan over at Seven Inches of Sense make a similar argument.  It’s good to know that just when I’m feeling despondent, someone of the opposite sex can pipe up and make an argument about very thing that’s I have known is true, and has been bugging the crap out of me.

Somehow, over the past fifteen or so years, the attitude of women has changed drastically. They have gone from striving to prove their worth, to asserting it without ever having proven anything. And the problem is, somebody is allowing them to do it. Men have become so scared of being called ‘sexist’ that they are enabling these bitchy little divas to walk all over them. It’s time for that to stop, boys. There are other options.

Seriously, if I see another video, movie, or book about what scum men are and how the scorned woman can destroy them, I think I might just pluck my eyeballs from their sockets. Do you know how much shit a man would get for putting this kind of hatred out into the world against women? Need I remind you of the fallout over the Eminem song, Guilty Conscience, where a man is urged to kill his cheating wife? It got ugly. Yet when the Dixie Chicks sang a song about killing an abusive spouse, people dedicate websites to explaining step-by-step how to get away with murder. Seems a bit lopsided doesn’t it?

[…]

I’ve been hurt by men in some truly horrific ways. But at the end of the day, how I handle it is the only thing within my control. And that is the only part of the ordeal that says anything about my character. Everything else is on them. If I go off the deep end and ruin someone’s life because they hurt me, that becomes definitive of who I am as a person, and as a woman. Do I want to be a cruel, jaded bitch? Not especially. There are people who think this makes me a pushover. Personally, I think it makes me an adult…not a whiney little child.

I don’t make demands of my mates (except in bed). I make requests. How they react to my requests, lets me know what kind of person they are and if the relationship is going to work out. But everywhere I look, I see women beating men down into submission with the entitled diva attitude. It makes me very sad for those men. I guess they don’t know it doesn’t have to be like that. Even though that attitude does seem to dominate popular culture, it isn’t indicative of all women. Just keep looking and you’re bound to run up on a good one at some point. But when you do, you better hold on to her for dear life because she might not come around a second time.

     Bravo, Joan!  You’ve singlehandedly restored my faith that there might actually be some normal, rational women out there past my group of friends!
     I was actually starting to wonder…

     I can remember, back in 1970-something, seeing the first video game console — the Magnavox Odyssey — coming to a twelve or twenty-five inch black and white television near you.
     The fugly, black-white-and-woodgrain behemoth came complete with the most clunky controllers you’ve ever attempted to use.  And talk about GRAPHICS — the included set of plastic overlays attached to the television screen (thus the twelve or twenty-five inch requirement) so you could get COLOR!  But God forbid that your mother used one of those overlays as a place mat during one of your younger sibling’s episodes of projectile-spitting carrot puree — Why, then you’d never be able to find the secret treasure in the Haunted House!
     That’s right — and we had to walk ten miles to school, in four feet of snow!  Uphill — BOTH WAYS!

     It’s truly magnificent to see how much progress has been made over the last thirty-five years.  Now, we’re seeing video games with completely destructible environments.  If you’re not sure what that means, check out this Video of Crytek’s upcoming game, Crysis:

     Although several other manufacturers have now released PC games with similar features, such as Relic’s Company of Heroes or HD Publishing’s Joint Task Force, Crysis looks like plenty of fun.

     Having a reasonably well-spec’d PC, I tend to stay away from video game consoles and the like, but the Xbox 360 has really pushed the technology envelope — especially if you have a Windows Media Center Edition PC in your home (or even a Windows Vista with Media capability).  In that case, the Xbox 360 not only serves as one of the most advanced video game consoles you can buy, but also acts as a DVD/CD/MP3 Player, DVR and a Media Player for all the music and photos you’ve downloaded onto your PC — maybe even wirelessly if you’re set up for that.  It’s less a video game console, and a more a Digital Convergence appliance, giving you a pretty full range of functionality to complement your home theater.
     The downside is that it’s damned expensive.  Even the old Magnavox Odyssey only retailed for $100, while the Xbox can run you four times that easily.   (Ok, truthfully, that $100 in 1972 was as hard to come by as $2500 these days, but still…)
     Of course, you still have Sony out there trying to beat out the Xbox 360 with their Playstation 3, but seeing as how they’ve had an additional year to release the unit, it won’t be much wonder if they did manage to cram some extra functionality it.  I suppose when it’s released in the second half of November 2006, we’ll know whether or not all the hype was for real.

     And, then, of course, Nintendo is still at it, skipping all the cutting-edge technology and just making a Video Game console that is simply that.  The Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”) has focused on keeping games “fun” and “playable,” something that seems to be a bit lacking with their more expensive counterparts who’ve focused on cutting edge confusion and overly complex gameplay.
     And their television advertising surely drives that nail home with a sledgehammer:

     Of course, given the choice between Rosie O’Donnel and Paris Hilton, I’d still choose neither… 😉

     The other day, Anton (from LR2) and I were talking about stupid headlines.  He says, “I saw a great one the other day…”

Women Have More Orgasms During Lesbian Sex than Men

     Once I stopped laughing, I responded with, “Yeah, I can see that.  Once most guys get it over with, they turn off the video.”  I mean, I certainly can’t think of any men who engage in Lesbian sex (I mean, past the occasional ménage à trois, which apparently doesn’t count as “lesbian”), but then, it’s a big world … so who knows?

     Unlike the last Media headline I loved, “Jets May Be Vulnerable to On-board Bombs,” I don’t have any screenshots or cut & pastes of the headline.  
     The original article, however, was real, and could be easily found from multiple sources ynder the titles, “Lesbians Have More Orgasms” and “Variety is the Spice of Sex Life.”

     AP, Reuters and miscellaneous others often change these sorts of absurd ambiguitues soon after they’re discovered.  However, it’s a good thing for us a lot of that many people under Media outlets’ employ aren’t proactive in doing it beforehand. 
     It gives us the occasional opportunity for a comical comeback!

     If ya find any good ones, send them to us!  If we find them equally amusing, we’ll post them and give you a link and a credit.