My lovely friend Jean sent me a link to this game:
It’s not just pants, it’s fancy pants.
pants in the media
Here’s something I’ve been meaning to share. In a reflection of pants synergy in the universe, as soon as I’d posted my last pants musings, I came across this excellent pants-related post on a blog I frequent:
Dressing Down the Media’s Attention on Pelosi’s Pants
(synopsis: Media says “Nancy’s pants are fancy pants.” Alice rants.)
subway tokens
I have a long commute. I work and go to school in Boston, and neighboring Cambridge, Massachusetts. But I live out in the boonies. I’ve been dealing with this commute since I started grad school. Until fairly recently, I would pretty much always take public transportation. I would drive to the nearest train station, take the commuter rail into Boston, and then ride the T, Boston’s combined subway and above-ground transit system. The whole commute would take about 2 to 2 and half hours from door to door. Each way. I’d only do this about 2 or 3 times a week, piling up my Boston/Cambridge commitments into crazy-long days. I’d usually be gone from home between 12 and 15 hours on one of my commute days.
Sometime last year, say around February, I stopped commuting so often. I’ve been largely busy with another project, and have been working from home, telecommuting, etc. And days when I’ve gone into work for meetings, I’ve driven. While it has plenty of downsides (traffic delays, parking hassles and environmental impact), driving is also usually a bit faster: 2 to 3 hours total. Plus with more flexible times. So, in order to be able to have that extra time with the other project, I’ve been driving a lot more. But I decided to start taking the train in again, at least some days.
So here I am, taking public transportation again. (And today I got my first Charlie Card. I guess I’ll write about that later.) Sitting on the train and the subway, I have time to sit and think. So I’ve been thinking about subways, and subway scenes.
Subway scenes seem quite popular in movies and TV shows, especially in the action genre. There’s something compelling about the seedy, dark atmosphere of a subway station for a fight scene, with the tension of possible oncoming trains. Or about slipping into a subway car as the doors shut in a chase scene. And let’s not forget the claustrophobic fight scenes inside a subway car.
Subway Scenes
This is the episode where Spike tells how he killed 2 slayers back in the day. The second one involved a fight scene in a New York subway car.
This one has an L train (elevated train) rather than a subway. Harrison Ford has a fight scene with the one-armed man in a train car.
There’s that vengence fight scene in the subway station at the beginning with Ben Affleck, followed by that whole flaming “DD” insignia on the platform in the scene with Joe Pantoliano.
Keanu (dude) Reeves has a big showdown with Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in a subway station.
V (Hugo Weaving, again), with some help from Evey (Natalie Portman), uses a subway train to deliver a message. (“Boom.”)
Lola’s run started because her boyfriend left a bag of money on the subway.
The movie starts off with a chase scene where a woman (Brigitte Bako) escapes by running into a subway car just as the doors close.
This movie’s alternate outcomes hinge upon whether or not Gwyneth Paltrow makes it onto a subway car before the door slides shut.
End of movie. Declarations of love shouted across a crowded subway station.
Hellboy (Ron Perlman) chases down demons in the subway tunnels, gets hits in the head with a train. (Don’t worry, he’s fine.)
Minis get driven down into a subway station, and race down the subway tunnels.
opportunities
Phoebe got a cool toy as a gift for Christmas. (Actually, she got lots of cool toys, but I’ll spare you the details. For now, at least.) The toy I’m talking about is actually more of a set of toys: it’s the Fisher-Price airplane with Little People.
The set came with 3 people: the pilot and 2 passengers. You have no idea how thrilled I was to see that the pilot is a woman. How cool is that? I mean, seriously. The small step of representing a woman as a pilot in a miniature toy represents a giant symbol: a woman is shown matter-of-factly in a prestigious and traditionally male-dominated 
job, and this mass-produced representation is being sold as part of a mainstream popular toy. This is huge. (I once wanted to be a pilot, by the way, but that is a story for another day.)
So there we were, Christmas morning, looking at Phoebe’s new toys (once we finished wrestling to free the toys from their elaborate packaging). And I saw the pilot, and felt my thrill. And when I looked at the other two little people figures, I said to John “hey, the passengers are women, too. They must be a newlywed lesbian couple heading off for a tropical honeymoon.” I was joking when I said it, but honeymoon was what came to mind when I saw the two passengers all decked out in their Polynesian-inspired garb. I live in Massachusetts, one of only a few US states to have legally recognized same-sex unions, and apparently the only US state to recognized such unions as marriage. (By the way, when working on my wedding anniversary post, I discovered that the definition of marriage was under dispute on Wikipedia. That in itself tells quite a story. But I see now that the flags announcing the dispute have been taken down. I’d be curious what the changes made were…I found one older version in Google cache but haven’t had a chance to look.)
So here’s the thing. I’d like Phoebe to grow up accepting diversity in people: diversity in ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Ideally, she would get to know people of such diverse backgrounds and beliefs in person. And hopefully she will. But the reality is that we live in fairly rural Massachusetts. In a town where there is not a whole lot of diversity. It struck me that toys and playing games offer opportunities to supplement the exposure to diversity she might get through school and the media. We don’t actually particularly know any married same-sex couples. But we can matter-of-factly say that 
the two women figures in the play set are married. Just as the set matter-of-factly depicts a pilot who is a woman.
Of course, John now has me half-convinced that one of the passengers in the set is actually supposed to be male. I still think of her as female. Just possibly a less girly female than the long-haired lei-wearing obviously female passenger. She, who is wearing shorts and purple sandals, and has a moderately short haircut, is at the very least of somewhat ambiguous gender. We have agreed to call her Pat. 
More kick-ass women TV shows
Here’s continuing my ongoing kick-ass women project. (Check out my index to previous posts in the project, if you like.) Following up on my last list of favorite kick-ass women TV shows, I offer up another list of TV shows. These are are shows that I’ve watched and loved, or at least enjoyed, that prominently feature kick-ass women (and girls). I do have some reservations about some of these, though…(And again, shows are listed chronologically by start date.)
9 more kick-ass women TV shows
- The Avengers (1962-1964)
This incarnation of The Avengers starred Honor Blackman (who later gained more fame playing Bond girl Pussy Galore) as Cathy Gale. I didn’t get to know the Gale episodes until quite recently, when they were released on DVD. But they are well worth watching, in spite of the poor video-taped quality. - Get Smart (1965-1970)
Barbara Feldon was great as Agent 99, the competent foil to the bumbling agent Maxwell Smart. However, I was never too thrilled with the plots developing to woo and win Max. I don’t really buy her desire to get married, especially to him… - The Avengers (1968-1969)
I was mostly just going through the motions when I watched this incarnation of The Avengers. Linda Thorson played Tara King, a much softer, wimpier partner to Steed. But she still played a secret agent who could kick some moderate ass. - Remington Steele (1982-1987)
Stephanie Zimbalist plays Laura Holt, a brilliant private investigator who finds she gets more clients by operating under a man’s name, even a man’s name that she’s made up. Unfortunately, the whole premise of the show is that Pierce Brosnan comes along and usurps her success, and she has to go along with it. - Teen Titans (2003-????)
This Cartoon Network animated series featuring bunch of adolescents with superpowers has a couple of pretty kick-ass girls. Starfire (voiced by Hynden Walch) is a bit too needy-touchy-feely for my tastes, but I guess can kick some ass in a fight. I’m partial to Raven (voiced by Tara Strong), who is cranky and dark. - Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
It’s been absolutely ages since I watched this. I didn’t even realize it was on the air that long. Anyhow, I seem to recall some pretty kick-ass women characters: Roxann Dawson as B’Elanna Torres and Jeri Ryan as the Borg Seven of Nine. There was also the kick-ass character Captain Kathryn Janeway, portrayed by Kate Mulgrew. (I am remembering a story about Kate Mulgrew publicly proclaiming that she wasn’t a feminist, though, which made me lose quite a bit of respect. Jenny, care to remind me of the details?) - Futurama (1999-????)
Leela (full name: Turanga Leela) as voiced by Katey Sagal shines with competence as a spaceship captain surrounded by dimwits in this animated series created by Matt Groening. (I never really bought her attraction to clueless Fry, and am suddenly noticing the parallels to 99’s infatuation with Max Smart…It’s a theme we’ve all seen too often…) - Jackie Chan Adventures (2000-2005)
Animated Jackie’s trouble-making little niece Jade (voiced by Stacie Chan) shows some potential to grow up into a kick-ass woman in this kid-oriented cartoon. She’s got some of the key ingredients: courage, daring and wit. (Forget sugar and spice.) - The Tick (2001)
This inpsired gem of a show, the live-action version of the zany superhero cartoon, only lasted 8 episodes. Liz Vassey was great as the tough-as-nails-in-her-shiny-gold-boots Captain Liberty, a character inspired by Wonder Woman.
donuts are evil
John just walked by, looked at the title line I just typed and said: “you are in a wacky mood today.” Yes, it’s true. Wacky. Perhaps it’s the sugar. Because I have eaten 3 donuts. We are now down at my in-laws. And whenever we visit, John’s mother lays out various breakfast “treats” for us. Every morning. A different box of Freihofer’s each morning: coffee cake, cinnamon rolls, donuts. This morning was donuts. I can largely resist the coffee cake. But I seem to have little will power to resist donuts. Even though I know how bad they are for me.
Here are some of the donuts I have not (yet) eaten.
There is a popular tendency to call donuts “baked goods.” But, and I realize I may be disillusioning someone out there, donuts are not baked. Unless an alternate meaning of bake is “cook by means of dropping into a big vat of boiling fat.” Yes, donuts are fried. (There may be some exceptions to this rule, but I warrant you they are not nearly as tasty.) Check out this early reference from Wikipedia’s entry on donut:
Washington Irving’s reference to “doughnuts” in 1809 in his History of New York is an early printed use of the word. Irving described “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks.”
According to the same Wikipedia entry, modern donuts contain between 20 and 25% fat. Happily, hog’s fat is no longer the norm, though.
In defense of donuts, though, they are tasty. Check out ytsl’s list of favorite American specialty foods: Krispy Kreme donuts top the list. (I’m not sure I’ve had many Krispy Kreme donuts. I live in New England, where Dunkin Donuts is the fried ring king. There are practically more DD shops around here than even Starbucks…Not that I frequently buy donuts. As I said, donuts are evil.)
morning cup of funny
Good morning. I would like to share with you this, which has made me laugh before 10:00 a.m.:
When I used it, I got catchy slogans like:
“Smile less” and “It’s everywhere you say to make.”
Thanks to LGM for pointing me this way. (John says I should say hat tip. But it’s a new term for me. So I should practice using it in a sentence first. As in “John told me I should say hat tip.”)
I’d also like to point out that this looks to be a case of Computational Linguistics in action, and used for good (and not evil). It probably uses some sort of n-grams and conditional probabilities. (And also photos from Flickr.)
The generated slogans also remind me of things you might fight with Engrish text. (Another fun website. You must check it out. It’s everywhere you say you make.)
I am…someone I’ve never heard of
John just sent me a link to this quiz:
Which science fiction writer are you?
It was an enjoyable quiz, with a number of questions that made me laugh. But then my answer:
 |
I am:
A quiet and underrated master of “hard science” fiction who, among other things, foresaw integrated circuits back in the 1940s. |
Don’t you hate it when you get results on these things that you find disappointing? I mean, I appreciate the underrated, and also the evidence of great foresight. But why not somebody cool? I mean, John got Ursula LeGuin as a result. That is so cool. It’s the sort of thing that makes me want to go back and change my answers. (Now what does that say about me?)
Okay. Here’s an update. My brother-in-law, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican with books on his shelf at home by Evil Bitch from Hell that Anne Coulter and Scary Dork of an Asshole Sean Hannity as well as other “authors,” just took the quiz and got the same frickin’ author as me.
What did I do wrong?
the power of pants
Fooled ya! This post isn’t really about pants at all. Well, I guess it’s about “pants,” the tag.
WordPress has this feature by which you can check out other posts from WordPress blogs with the same tag. And for each tag, it will also show you a list of “related tags,” in case you want to follow up with other posts on similar topics. For example, for the tag “politics,” you currently get the following list of tags:
news, blogroll, life, culture, personal, religion, iraq, music, media and books
Recently, I decided to add the tag “pants” to my recent posts on pants. I am pleased to inform you that right now, at least, if you click on the “pants” tag, you get to see the following “related tags:”
- words
- linguistics
- humor
Those are actually the only related tags WordPress lists right now. (You’d expect to see “trousers” or “slacks”, perhaps “shirts” or even “fashion”…)
What I find even funnier, is that I see that the list of related tags for “linguistics“, which has related tags such as “languages”, “sociolinguistics,” and other terms you might expect, also includes “pants”. My friends, that is the power of pants.
By the way, this suggests to me that perhaps looking at blog tags would not be the most reliable means of investigating, say, semantic networks. (Though it could lead to lots of entertainment.)
collecting tokens 