Snippets from Maxim

Maxim Magazine, the magazine for men is by far the coolest magazine I have seen in a long time. It is full of cool gadgets, interesting information, advice, jokes, reviews of all the latest and greatest and well, good looking women. Playboy it is not! And I know this sound so cliche, but I do read it for the articles! And to prove it, here are some really funny and cool little bit of information gleened from its December 2007 pages!

A silver lining to global warming. pg. 44
All that melted glacier has to go somewhere, and what better place that to your liver! Brewmeisters in Greenland are using H2O that's been frozen in the island's massive icecap for 2,000 years to make dark and pale ales they claim are fantastically polluntant-free. Farewell, mercury-infused hops. It was delicious while it lasted.

Bacon Porn: The sexiest sentence ever written. pg. 52
"Who, under any circumstances, is not rendered almost helpless by the tantalizing sound of bacon sizzling slowly in a skillet, by the taunting backwoods aroma that permeates the air, by the luscious textures of crisp fat and toothsome lean meat, and by the explosion of mingled salty and smoky and sweet flavors that virtually explode in the mouth?" - from The Bacon Cookbook, by James Villas.

The Great Weird of China: pg 116
Freestyle Grave Robbing: The black market for female corpses is resurgent in China. Recently deceased or "wet" women fetch up to $5,300 from parents who don't want their dead sons to be bachelors in the afterlife. Earlier this year, a grave robber confessed to murdering six women. Killing, he told police, was much easier than digging bodies out of the ground.

Lethal Injection Marathon: While America's courts wrestle with lethal in jection, China has put it on wheels. At least 40 "Death Cars" - vans that bring mobile lethal injection to remote communities - help China build on its 2006 world-record exectution tally of 1,010.

And the best, or rather, the worst snippet of them all: A reveiw of a perfume to be released on the world in December: pg 36

Can you smell the sex in the air? You can if you want to. VULVA Original is a "beguilling vaginal scent" that, according to its makers, "intensifies erotic fantasies" for men who sniff it. We took a whiff and it vividly transported us to a sexual fantasy of ours: the one where we're doing it inside a dumpster behind the Red Lobster.


There you have it. Useless info from a pretty cool magazine. And if you think Maxim is just for the guys, I can tell you that the person who introduced it to me was a girl who subscribes to it!


Later!

Do you play video games with your kid?

Some of you may have come across the study that says that 43 % of parents never play video games with there kids. (I am not one of them!) I enjoy playing video games with my kids and their friends. Hell, I am even trying to figure out what is the best buy for the new XBOX as a Christmas gift for them I am not the best player but I can hold my own. However, I do agree with one of the columnists from the Decatur Herald and Review when he states that most adults don't like playing with the kids because they are humiliating them,(see full article below) and I can understand that completely. My kids do not spend all their time playing XBOX, but far more time than I ever do and their skill at the games shows. My son can walk up to my character in Halo and kill me with one shot or hit with the butt of a gun, but I can send endless round of bullets at him and only take him down maybe 4 times out of 10. I know he is not cheating but it sure feels like something is wrong! Even my daughter is getting better than me! For a while, I felt assured that as long as she was on the other team, there was someone I could beat or at the very least, come out even with. It did not take long for her figure out it was a great deal of fun to whoop Dad's ass in a shoot'em up game! After that, I was all by myself.

Most of the reason I don't get to play the video games much is because of lack of free time, the XBOX being attached to the main TV of the house, and usually, there is little room for me when the kids all get together to play. But that is ok. I will find the time and play some video games with my kids, because I actually enjoy the experience and time with my kids is time with my kids. (Although there are times when I wish there was some time without them too!)

My fall back is that we play alot of board and card games and in those games, I can more than hold my own against them. These games require real brainwork and strategy and not just finger-eye coordination! Give me a game of Memoir '44 or RISK or something else that requires forethought and we'll see who is kicking butt and taking names!

Game On!

Later!

From the Herald and Reveiw Newspaper, 11/07

The Real Reason Adults Don't Play Video Games:

There was a time when I thought it was fun to play video games with my son, who is now 16. When Eric was five, we inherited an old Nintendo console that featured one-dimensional games. The older games had paths that led you places and you had few decisions to make outside of whether to go forward or in reverse. The games are addictive. I spent one day playing Super Mario Bros. 2 for about seven hours before finally figuring out how to kill Wart, the monster at the end.

When I played "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out," I could get through everyone until I got to Mike who flattened me with about three punches. It was then I found out yelling at games and complaining about the unfairness of hitting Iron Mike with a flurry of punches that did virtually no damage was at least therapeutic. That was the heyday of my video game playing. Eric graduated to Nintendo 64 and the end of my effective playing life was near. He easily beat me at just about every game except the driving games - years of actual behind-the-wheel experience finally paid off. I bring this up now because of a survey conducted by Associated Press-AOL Games that found 43 percent of people whose children play video or computer games never play along with them. This result means that 57 percent of them do play along.

The attitudes run the gamut. One man quoted in the AP story said he never plays video games. "It's just such a waste of time," said Jesse Lackman, 47, of Center, N.D. "I tell him, 'Do something that has some lasting value.'" Then there is stay-at-home dad Marvin Paup, 33, of Golden Valley, Ariz., who told AP he plays 30 hours a week with his son and dozens more on his own. Their current favorite is "Halo 3," a shooter game played online by thousands of players at a time.

Place me closer to Mr. Lackman than Mr. Paup. While I don't believe video games are a total waste of time, I can't fathom doing anything more than 30 hours a week other than work and sleep. Plus, I don't play video games much now because I am a poor loser. Eric and a couple of friends coerced me into playing some sort of James Bond 007 game a couple of years ago. It didn't take me long to figure out I wasn't playing the game, I was the object of the game. They used me as bait. I would peek around the corner and my character would get shot in the leg or arm - nothing fatal, just enough to drain some of my energy. Finally, I just said, "Kill me and put me out of my misery. Quit toying with me."

Now, I will occasionally play "Guitar Hero" with Eric, partly because I know many of the songs. While I am musically inept, I am not so inept that I can't at least play along in an easier mode. Inspired by a recent episode of "South Park," I found I'm quite good playing "Guitar Hero" acoustically.But don't let the survey fool you. Adults quit playing video games with their kids because they are tired of being humiliated by a kid. And if an adult tells you they don't play for a different reason, don't believe them. They're lying.

Managing Editor Dave Dawson's video game skills have eroded to the point he would have trouble defeating Bald Bull in "Punch-Out." He can be reached at ddawson@herald-review.com or 421-7980.

Finally, A role playing game that makes you shoot milk out of your nose!

I recently discovered a new Role Playing Game (taken pretty much tongue in cheek) called "Kobolds ate my Baby!" I have included the review from RPG. Net so that you can check it ouf for yourself if you are inclined to such sorts of games. I for one, would like to chekc this out. Maybe at a convention or if I get an extra $20 or so, I might just buy it and try it myself!

Check out the review at http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13459.phtml

Game on!

Later!

Gimme a break... well said!

OK, I thought Australia was a pretty level headed country and then I go and read this...(see the Yahoo News Story below) Since when has the jolly "HO HO HO" of Santa ever sugested that he is being offensive to women. It is not like he is standing around pointing at women in the mall and screaming "HO!" "HO!" "HO!" "And there's another one! HO!"

Only in this day and age of knee jerk liberals and people who want to regulate us into politically correct hell can something like this happen. Rather instead, blame the idiots who cannot speak correctly enough to say a proper word like "whore" but instead say "ho". Blame it on poor education, lack of culture, or shear stupidity.

The gal in the news article said it best... "Gimme a break!"

Later!

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday. Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.
"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.
"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.
"Leave Santa alone."
A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Burning down the house... movie house that is.

Yesterday afternoon, at around 10 am, one of the main historical landmarks in my hometown of Paxton, burnt to the ground. While the theater was not in operation at the time, there were three families living in apartments upstairs and a bookstore located directly next to the theater, all of which were lost. In addition, the Senior Center, located next door took heavy water and smoke damage and some fire damage. While not a complete loss, it will probably be enough to kill off the Senior Center which had trouble staying afloat. A hit like this most likely will put it under. All that remains now is a charred mess in the middle of town. The Majestic Theater, our most recognizable landmark, next to the water tower (seen in photos #2 and #5) and the clock tower, (photos #2 and #3) is now gone, most likely to never be replaced, and if replaced, it will be with a nuch different structure, most likely lacking that style and appeal found only in turn of the century theaters. It will not be the same anymore, walking in downtown Paxton. Our view will be so different from what we have come to expect and enjoy. In many ways, yet on a smaller scale of course, it was like the feelings we had when we saw that the Twin Towers were no longer part of our mental images. You come to expect to see certain things on a regular basis, and when they are gone, you realize just how much a part they are of your mental map of your town or city. At least no one was hurt and insurance will cover everything and it could have be so much worse that it was, but something very special was lost in Paxton, and I doubt if it will ever return. Later.

Only in Germany!

While bratwursts are certainly not one of the most perfect foods in the world, it is one of the more tasty in my opinion! Found this on the Yahoo new services. Now if only they would release the recipe!


Historian finds oldest recipe for bratwurst:

Thu Nov 1, 12:06 PM ET

A hobby historian has discovered the oldest known recipe for German sausage, a list of ingredients for Thuringian bratwurst nearly 600 years old.
According to the 1432 guidelines, Thuringian sausage makers had to use only the purest, unspoiled meat and were threatened with a fine of 24 pfennigs -- a day's wages -- if they did not, a spokesman for the German Bratwurst Museum said Wednesday.
Medieval town markets in Germany had committees charged with monitoring the quality of produce. Thuringian bratwursts, which are made of beef and pork, are symbols of Germany's cultural heritage and ubiquitous snacks at football matches.
Historian Hubert Erzmann, 75, found the ancient recipe, inscribed with pen and ink in a heavy tome of parchment, earlier this year while doing research in an archive in the eastern town of Weimar, museum spokesman Thomas Maeuer said.
"The discovery shows that there were already consumer protection laws in the Middle Ages," he said.
The instructions go on display Thursday in the Bratwurst Museum near the eastern city of Erfurt, Thuringia's capital.