So what's this I hear about this new Olay body lotion? I've seen ads for it a couple times, and it's being touted as 'breaking the cycle of dry skin.' Okay, think about that for just a minute. Olay earns money selling lotion. If they invented a lotion so amazing that once you use it, your skin stops being dry, why would they want to market and sell it? This would be like Starbucks giving out a recipe for their amazingly good hot chocolate that actually made amazingly good hot chocolate. I would never buy hot chocolate again; I would make my own. They would have destroyed the market for their product. If I used a remarkable lotion that kept my skin from drying out, why would I ever buy it again? I wouldn't. My skin wouldn't be dry. I wouldn't need to. In short, this is one of the more ridiculous advertising pitches I've ever seen. Whether or not it's a good lotion, I refuse to buy it on principle alone.
St. Ives' Whipped Silk, however, is as far as I'm concerned pretty much the perfect lotion. It makes my skin feel nice and soft without making me feel like I need to wash my hands before I can touch a book. And it smells nice.
It is an interesting fact of life that brand names that become names for types of products in their own right (Xerox, Q-Tip, Band-Aid, etc.) are automatically assumed to be the best of their kinds. Or usually it is only interesting; in the case of Kleenex, it is interesting and unfortunate. For Kleenex is not in fact the best tissue. I have found it to be little better than the store brand. The absolute hands-down best brand of tissue is Puffs. They're much thicker and softer. They may be pricier; I honestly don't know - I don't bother looking at anything else. If they are, though, I promise they're worth it.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
10 reasons hot-water radiators are better than hot-air vents
1 While you're taking your shower, you can lay all your clothes out on the radiator, and when you put them on, they'll be nice and toasty. This technique does not work with vents.
2 What if there's something wrong with the heating? Well, if you have radiators, nothing happens. The radiators simply aren't warm. Which I grant you is not a good thing, but with vents, instead of nothing happening, cold air is blowing into every room of your house. Think of a little mini fan going in every room, all day. Nice in the summer. Not so nice in the winter. (My bathroom has this problem perpetually. I don't think I have ever seen the bathroom get warm enough to steam up the mirror, no matter how long a shower I take. I do not like it, Sam I Am.)
3 A radiator simply warms up the room. If it's doing its job, you don't even notice it. But a vent? You can hear it. You can feel the breeze. (I slept directly under one before I moved to the lower bunk. I had to bury my face under a blanket to be able to sleep.) A vent interferes with your life; a radiator is simply there.
4 What if you have exotic allergies to dust or mold? Or what if you just wonder what might be in the air that's circulating through your house? Anything could be in those air vents. No, really. Once more, for emphasis: Anything could be in those air vents. Could you decisively prove to me that there aren't mice living in there? Snakes? Cockroaches? Flobberworms? Pixies? I know I couldn't. Surely this is a bad thing.
5 When a person, or a cat, or a dog, or whatever, stands over the vent, they're blocking the warm air. They're taking the warmth for themselves, and it's not getting to the rest of the room. When a person sits in front of a radiator, or a cat on it, there's a lot of heat still escaping to everywhere else. Warming up by the heating apparatus is not a community disservice when it's a radiator.
6 Some vents are in the ceiling. This is so obviously idiotic that I wonder that such vents exist. But they do. They blow out hot air (ideally), and since heat rises, it stays right there, keeping the ceiling nice and toasty (ideally). Now, I'm in favor of nice toasty ceilings. I wouldn't want my ceiling to be catching a chill. But all the same, I'd like a little of that warmth to be finding its way to me. I grant you, this is not a problem with all vents, but I dare you to find me a hot-water radiator stuck to somebody's ceiling.
7 Well, I wouldn't like the ceiling vents to feel singled out for chastisment, so how about floor vents? Stuff falls into them. Crumbs and bits of food in the kitchen. Hair in the bathroom. Candy wrappers and pencil stubs and scraps of paper and who-knows-what everywhere else. They're difficult to clean, and easy to get dirty. This is a bad combination.
8 Central heating vents require a big ugly box to sit somewhere outside by your house. It cannot be disguised, and is too large to be tucked behind the average shrubbery. A furnace hides in the basement with the water heater.
9 Radiators are so darn useful! Cats can lounge on them. They're a bit high to sit on, but if you haven't a chair, you can use one as a sort of miserichord. They're perfect for goals when you're playing a mostly innocuous game of indoor soccer. Throw a ball under one to add an interesting challenge to your dog's day. You can set all kinds of stuff on them - especially if you put a board on top first. See, useful as can be. Name me one thing you can do with a vent. I dare you.
10 An old-fashioned hot-water radiator just looks so much classier than a vent.
2 What if there's something wrong with the heating? Well, if you have radiators, nothing happens. The radiators simply aren't warm. Which I grant you is not a good thing, but with vents, instead of nothing happening, cold air is blowing into every room of your house. Think of a little mini fan going in every room, all day. Nice in the summer. Not so nice in the winter. (My bathroom has this problem perpetually. I don't think I have ever seen the bathroom get warm enough to steam up the mirror, no matter how long a shower I take. I do not like it, Sam I Am.)
3 A radiator simply warms up the room. If it's doing its job, you don't even notice it. But a vent? You can hear it. You can feel the breeze. (I slept directly under one before I moved to the lower bunk. I had to bury my face under a blanket to be able to sleep.) A vent interferes with your life; a radiator is simply there.
4 What if you have exotic allergies to dust or mold? Or what if you just wonder what might be in the air that's circulating through your house? Anything could be in those air vents. No, really. Once more, for emphasis: Anything could be in those air vents. Could you decisively prove to me that there aren't mice living in there? Snakes? Cockroaches? Flobberworms? Pixies? I know I couldn't. Surely this is a bad thing.
5 When a person, or a cat, or a dog, or whatever, stands over the vent, they're blocking the warm air. They're taking the warmth for themselves, and it's not getting to the rest of the room. When a person sits in front of a radiator, or a cat on it, there's a lot of heat still escaping to everywhere else. Warming up by the heating apparatus is not a community disservice when it's a radiator.
6 Some vents are in the ceiling. This is so obviously idiotic that I wonder that such vents exist. But they do. They blow out hot air (ideally), and since heat rises, it stays right there, keeping the ceiling nice and toasty (ideally). Now, I'm in favor of nice toasty ceilings. I wouldn't want my ceiling to be catching a chill. But all the same, I'd like a little of that warmth to be finding its way to me. I grant you, this is not a problem with all vents, but I dare you to find me a hot-water radiator stuck to somebody's ceiling.
7 Well, I wouldn't like the ceiling vents to feel singled out for chastisment, so how about floor vents? Stuff falls into them. Crumbs and bits of food in the kitchen. Hair in the bathroom. Candy wrappers and pencil stubs and scraps of paper and who-knows-what everywhere else. They're difficult to clean, and easy to get dirty. This is a bad combination.
8 Central heating vents require a big ugly box to sit somewhere outside by your house. It cannot be disguised, and is too large to be tucked behind the average shrubbery. A furnace hides in the basement with the water heater.
9 Radiators are so darn useful! Cats can lounge on them. They're a bit high to sit on, but if you haven't a chair, you can use one as a sort of miserichord. They're perfect for goals when you're playing a mostly innocuous game of indoor soccer. Throw a ball under one to add an interesting challenge to your dog's day. You can set all kinds of stuff on them - especially if you put a board on top first. See, useful as can be. Name me one thing you can do with a vent. I dare you.
10 An old-fashioned hot-water radiator just looks so much classier than a vent.
Friday, February 16, 2007
10 reasons why everyone should have a dog
1 You never have to suffer the embarassment of knowing that, yes, you really will eat that bit of cookie/pancake/macaroni-and-cheese that fell on the floor because before you can so much as bend over for it, it's been snarfed. He's happy, you don't have to feel like it went to waste, and you didn't even have to clean it up.
2 Once he's housetrained, you almost never have to mop the floors. As explained in 1, foodstuff magically gets cleaned up, and what else do you spill on the floor?
3 You always know when you have visitors. Even if your doorbell is broken. Even if you don't have a doorbell. A dog will always let you know when you have visitors.
4 A dog helps you appreciate your food so much more. No matter what you're eating, his high opinion of it makes it taste better.
5 A dog helps your social life. You're out taking him for a walk, and you start making friends with everyone else on the block who has a dog. Now, just imagine if everyone had a dog, you'd get to know everyone on your block! Wouldn't that be cool? Better yet, you'd get to know all their dogs!
6 Say it's a Saturday, and you're antsy, but you don't want to do something useful, and you're not the sporty go-play-basketball type. What do you do? Well, if you have a dog, you go outside and play fetch. You burn energy, your dog has fun, and everybody's happy.
7 Say you're sick, or maybe just tired, and you want to curl up in bed and read a book, or flop on the couch with a movie. Is there anything better than cuddling up with a dog on such an occasion? Okay, maybe an attractive member of the gender of your choice. But short of that, is there anything better than a dog?
8 Dogs build critical thinking and memory skills. Basic things like remember to feed him, and remember to take him out. But also, remember not to leave food at the edge of the table where he can get it, and judging just how close to the edge of the table is safe. Or, is this Christmas present probably something safe to put under the tree, or could it be chocolate, and I'll find its wrappings shredded all over the floor? See, critical thinking skills!
9 You always have someone to talk to. Okay, so maybe he can't actually converse back with you about politics or books or your miserable lack of a love life or whatever it is you'd be talking to yourself about, but he'll listen. Intently, if you scratch behind his ears.
10 A dog automatically forms a pack, with you at its head. You get to be the alpha. All you have to do is take care of your pack and be a good leader, and you get a pack member who's loyal and good and funny and always likes you. You get the pleasure of knowing there's somebody who prefers your company to anyone else's. You get to have a pack. And, really, what's better than that?
2 Once he's housetrained, you almost never have to mop the floors. As explained in 1, foodstuff magically gets cleaned up, and what else do you spill on the floor?
3 You always know when you have visitors. Even if your doorbell is broken. Even if you don't have a doorbell. A dog will always let you know when you have visitors.
4 A dog helps you appreciate your food so much more. No matter what you're eating, his high opinion of it makes it taste better.
5 A dog helps your social life. You're out taking him for a walk, and you start making friends with everyone else on the block who has a dog. Now, just imagine if everyone had a dog, you'd get to know everyone on your block! Wouldn't that be cool? Better yet, you'd get to know all their dogs!
6 Say it's a Saturday, and you're antsy, but you don't want to do something useful, and you're not the sporty go-play-basketball type. What do you do? Well, if you have a dog, you go outside and play fetch. You burn energy, your dog has fun, and everybody's happy.
7 Say you're sick, or maybe just tired, and you want to curl up in bed and read a book, or flop on the couch with a movie. Is there anything better than cuddling up with a dog on such an occasion? Okay, maybe an attractive member of the gender of your choice. But short of that, is there anything better than a dog?
8 Dogs build critical thinking and memory skills. Basic things like remember to feed him, and remember to take him out. But also, remember not to leave food at the edge of the table where he can get it, and judging just how close to the edge of the table is safe. Or, is this Christmas present probably something safe to put under the tree, or could it be chocolate, and I'll find its wrappings shredded all over the floor? See, critical thinking skills!
9 You always have someone to talk to. Okay, so maybe he can't actually converse back with you about politics or books or your miserable lack of a love life or whatever it is you'd be talking to yourself about, but he'll listen. Intently, if you scratch behind his ears.
10 A dog automatically forms a pack, with you at its head. You get to be the alpha. All you have to do is take care of your pack and be a good leader, and you get a pack member who's loyal and good and funny and always likes you. You get the pleasure of knowing there's somebody who prefers your company to anyone else's. You get to have a pack. And, really, what's better than that?
Sunday, February 11, 2007
a review: alabama, books, skin
I thought in an effort to find a reason to post more often, I would review movies, books and music as I encounter them. Don't expect anything in-depth; I'm just going to say whether I liked it and not much more.
Sweet Home Alabama is fun movie. I confess I haven't seen a great many honest-to-goodness chick flicks, but I've only liked about half of the ones I've seen. This is a member of that happy club. It made me forget that I generally don't hit it off with rednecks. So, good show.
I'm in a Contemporary American Fiction class right now, so I'm reading a bunch of books I might not otherwise have read (I shop mostly in the SF/Fantasy section). The next several books are among them. I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier never actually made me really care. I'm not sure why, but I didn't. The last couple pages were an absolute mystery to me. In class, Prof. Card acknowledged that there might be people who got to the end of this book and had no idea what had just happened. He assured us (without asking for a show of hands, bless his soul) that we were not idiots. Yet the fact remains that I needed to be told what had happened to know.
David Lubar's Hidden Talents was way fun. Likeable characters (I almost typed lickable - Freudian slip?), a cool premise, and a happy ending. In addition to the copy I have, I bought a copy at Wal-Mart for my brother and another for the next kid that I decide should have one.
Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is one of the best, most personal books I have read. High school was a rough time for me, and the books that helped me then are some of the most personally meaningful books for me. This book is meaningful enough to join them. Painful, but beautiful, and very good.
Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson was not for class, but Speak made me think of it. I had somehow got through childhood without reading it, and read it recently. It's beautiful and sad and wonderful and true. I rarely cry for books, but I cried when I read this.
John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany was not a book I disliked. But then, neither did I like it. It was slow as anything. I'd feel like I'd been reading forever and find myself thirty pages in. Somebody else in class said that she'd start reading this and suddenly realize, "Oh, y'know, I should go do dishes..." That seemed to be my class' concensus -- that it wasn't painful to read, just... not particularly gripping, and slow as molasses.
Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool was similar in that not much happened, and it wasn't terribly gripping, but I liked it far better. Reading it was like being with a friend. Not gripping -- when you say goodbye to a friend, you don't sit around biting your nails, counting the minutes 'til you can find out what's going to happen next! No, you're happy to see your friend, and you enjoy your time together, but then when one of you has to leave, that's okay too. That's this book -- friendly and comfortable and pretty darn likeable at an easygoing pace.
I feel silly reviewing an individual song, but I like it. I ran into Natalie Merchant's My Skin in a music video featuring Firefly/Serenity's River Tam on YouTube.com.
Sweet Home Alabama is fun movie. I confess I haven't seen a great many honest-to-goodness chick flicks, but I've only liked about half of the ones I've seen. This is a member of that happy club. It made me forget that I generally don't hit it off with rednecks. So, good show.
I'm in a Contemporary American Fiction class right now, so I'm reading a bunch of books I might not otherwise have read (I shop mostly in the SF/Fantasy section). The next several books are among them. I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier never actually made me really care. I'm not sure why, but I didn't. The last couple pages were an absolute mystery to me. In class, Prof. Card acknowledged that there might be people who got to the end of this book and had no idea what had just happened. He assured us (without asking for a show of hands, bless his soul) that we were not idiots. Yet the fact remains that I needed to be told what had happened to know.
David Lubar's Hidden Talents was way fun. Likeable characters (I almost typed lickable - Freudian slip?), a cool premise, and a happy ending. In addition to the copy I have, I bought a copy at Wal-Mart for my brother and another for the next kid that I decide should have one.
Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is one of the best, most personal books I have read. High school was a rough time for me, and the books that helped me then are some of the most personally meaningful books for me. This book is meaningful enough to join them. Painful, but beautiful, and very good.
Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson was not for class, but Speak made me think of it. I had somehow got through childhood without reading it, and read it recently. It's beautiful and sad and wonderful and true. I rarely cry for books, but I cried when I read this.
John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany was not a book I disliked. But then, neither did I like it. It was slow as anything. I'd feel like I'd been reading forever and find myself thirty pages in. Somebody else in class said that she'd start reading this and suddenly realize, "Oh, y'know, I should go do dishes..." That seemed to be my class' concensus -- that it wasn't painful to read, just... not particularly gripping, and slow as molasses.
Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool was similar in that not much happened, and it wasn't terribly gripping, but I liked it far better. Reading it was like being with a friend. Not gripping -- when you say goodbye to a friend, you don't sit around biting your nails, counting the minutes 'til you can find out what's going to happen next! No, you're happy to see your friend, and you enjoy your time together, but then when one of you has to leave, that's okay too. That's this book -- friendly and comfortable and pretty darn likeable at an easygoing pace.
I feel silly reviewing an individual song, but I like it. I ran into Natalie Merchant's My Skin in a music video featuring Firefly/Serenity's River Tam on YouTube.com.
in response to the bar theory
So, the bar theory basically says that no guy, when he encounters a number of females he doesn't know, looks for one with a great personality. He goes for the pretty ones, hoping to find one with a good personality before he gets too far down the line. Whether or not we believe that guys do this, we all agree that guys shouldn't do this, right? It's the old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover."
Let's go with this analogy for a minute, shall we? You're in a bookstore, and by some terrible bad luck, they don't stock any of your favorite authors. In fact, they don't even stock any authors you've even heard of. So you go and pick up this sort of ugly-looking mass market paperback, right? What's that, you say? No, you'd go and check out the hardcover with a beautiful, appealing cover? Well, of course you would! You can't read the back cover and first few pages of every book in the bookstore. So you pick up the ones that look appealing, and see if the story seems interesting and the writing good. It's what you do. If you know you like the author, or if the book has been recommended to you, you'll pick up an ugly book, but all other things being equal, why would you?
So back to the point. What honestly is a guy supposed to do besides judge by looks, at least initially? I feel like a traitor for writing this. I'm a girl who's not blonde, fashionable, cool, athletic, or a size 2. I don't want this to be true. I don't want this to be the only reasonable course of action open to a guy. But how is it not? It's not as though likeability and attractiveness are mutually exclusive or even inversely related. A guy is just as likely to meet an attractive girl with a great personality as an unattractive girl with a great personality. So, assuming he can woo either, why shouldn't he go for the cute size 2 blonde? If I'm wrong, please tell me. Or better yet, convince every guy you know of the fact. I promise you, I do want to be wrong, for if I am right, the world has suddenly become a far more depressing place for me and mine.
Let's go with this analogy for a minute, shall we? You're in a bookstore, and by some terrible bad luck, they don't stock any of your favorite authors. In fact, they don't even stock any authors you've even heard of. So you go and pick up this sort of ugly-looking mass market paperback, right? What's that, you say? No, you'd go and check out the hardcover with a beautiful, appealing cover? Well, of course you would! You can't read the back cover and first few pages of every book in the bookstore. So you pick up the ones that look appealing, and see if the story seems interesting and the writing good. It's what you do. If you know you like the author, or if the book has been recommended to you, you'll pick up an ugly book, but all other things being equal, why would you?
So back to the point. What honestly is a guy supposed to do besides judge by looks, at least initially? I feel like a traitor for writing this. I'm a girl who's not blonde, fashionable, cool, athletic, or a size 2. I don't want this to be true. I don't want this to be the only reasonable course of action open to a guy. But how is it not? It's not as though likeability and attractiveness are mutually exclusive or even inversely related. A guy is just as likely to meet an attractive girl with a great personality as an unattractive girl with a great personality. So, assuming he can woo either, why shouldn't he go for the cute size 2 blonde? If I'm wrong, please tell me. Or better yet, convince every guy you know of the fact. I promise you, I do want to be wrong, for if I am right, the world has suddenly become a far more depressing place for me and mine.
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