[This is a guest post by my sister, Rebecca]:

Alternate Title: “Are You There God? It’s Me, Marketing“

It’s 4:00 AM and after an hour of tossing and turning with a nauseating abdominal cramp, you finally get out of bed and go in search of some Alleve; you stumble in the dark to the bathroom and paw around in the cabinet for a maxipad. You turn on the light and find your Always pads, open one up and as you go to remove the adhesive label covering the ‘wings’ you read:
“Have a happy period!”

Are you f#$king sh!tting me!?!

Touring the Always website, I get the impression that this is a genuine attempt to ‘get’ young women and to somehow empower them in their monthly trials. To encourage female bonding, they have a whole campaign dedicated to promoting enjoyable menstruation, with a list of acronyms like HAHP (Have A Happy Period), MLB (My Lady Business), and GAP (Got A Pad?) – lots of hip lingo for discussing your period without actually using the words “blood”, “tampon” or “excruciating pain.”

They have suggestions for pampering yourself and indulging – to abate your feelings of depression, ugliness, and discomfort. They offer a downloadable calendar for keeping track of your ‘Happy Parties’ – they recommend having a ‘Happy Party’ every month with piñata and pedicure themes. Not only can you play a menstruation crossword puzzle and make downloadable iron-ons, but there is also a lame hormonal roller-coaster game (with a maxipad as the car). Seriously.

I can’t help but believe that the marketing person responsible for this whole whacked concept learned everything they know about periods from reading “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Would a woman really come up with this bullsh!t?

I for one would really dig a feminine hygiene product campaign that cut the crap and had a sense of humor. I want to open a maxipad and have a fortune-cookie fortune on the label, something along these lines:

•“You will feel bloated, puffy and ugly today.”
•”Thank god, you’re not knocked up!”
•”Do not wear tight white clothing.”
•”Use that dull aching pain in your back as an excuse to be a bitch.”
•”Don’t bother shaving your legs.”
•”Yes, everyone CAN tell that you’re on the rag.”
•”Do not go camping in bear territory this week.”
•”You’re not getting lucky tonight.”
•”Go with the flow.”

They could even print t-shirts that say in big red writing, “I am bleeding. F**k off!” that you can wear to your “Happy Parties” where you serve Bloody Marys and blood orange cosmopolitans, and sit around and bitch about how much pain you’re in (and how men suck for not having to experience it). The possibilities are really endless and would probably win over the menstruating market in a heartbeat!

And, no . . . I was not on my f*&king period when I wrote this.

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It’s the end of September and stores are already flooded with Halloween candy. Of course.

I bought the “Gummy Body Parts” assortment.

The pressing question is: What gummy body part is this?

It looks naughty. Let’s pretend it’s an ear.

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…the Rhode Island School of Design “NADS” and mascot ‘Scrotie’:

(via RISD Daily Jolt; hilarious photo gallery)

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I would definitely say the officers were the ones unwilling to cooperate in this case.

(via Jacobe)

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This arrived in the mail today. Sent by my friend Steve (he’s a sicko).

What is wrong with this squirtgun?

a). – It is a clown.

b). – It is a gun.

c). – It is a clown and a gun.

d). – Anatomically, the trigger is in the worst possible location.

e). – When you squeeze the trigger, you feel dirty like that time when you were nine and a clown was at your friend’s birthday party and . . .

f). – All of the above.

It’s wrong. So very wrong. I hate you Steve.

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Behold! The Super-Awesome Action Hero Name Generator!!! Push the button for non-stop crime-fighting Action Hero names!!! You can’t fight zombies with a name like “Scooter.” Push the button and get ready for ACTION!!! [Does not work well with Internet Explorer - the browser of the feeble].

©2007 Blogadilla
Concept (and names): Timbotron
Actual Labor and Creation: Steve B
Machete Photograph: Y. Trottier.

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If you find yourself swimming in the Amazon River, wearing loose shorts (or naked), and urinating in the water – you may be in grave danger. A candirú just might swim into your urethra and lodge itself there. Long considered a myth or “bush legend,” this fear has recently (and unfortunately) come to light as true. The name “candirú” actually refers to several species in the Trichomycteridae family and the Vandelliinae subfamily – they are tiny, parasitic, transparent catfish that subsist upon the blood of larger fish. Most of these species lodge themselves among the gills of larger fish (they have sets of backward-facing spines around their head) and live on the blood of their unfortunate hosts. Accounts* also note that some candirú species lodge themselves in the anuses of larger (and terribly unfortunate) fish. Perhaps as a case of mistaken identity, they seem to be attracted to human urine (which perhaps has a chemical signature similar to fish excreta or gill respiration) and will advance to the source, and at times lodge themselves in that source. A 1997 incident of a young man (23 yrs old) near Manaus, Brazil who had a candirú removed from his manhood is one of the first extensively and scientifically documented cases (gnarly web archive photos of the procedure here). The dead specimen (a species of Plectrochilus), which was removed with some difficulty, measured 133.5mm long and 11.5mm at the widest part of its head. The man and his equipment survived intact. A fish this size seemed to have little difficulty working its entire body into the urethra of the poor man. To offer a sense of scale, here is an illustration of a Trichomycterid candirú with an American quarter (specimen illustration redrawn from Spotte).

*The definitive work on this subject is marine scientist Stephen Spotte’s “Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes.” Spotte has left no stone unturned in this extensive collection of candirú accounts and current research. I got it for Christmas, an awesome read.

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