Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion

Lizzie and I went to Toys R Us today to do a little shopping for our little bundle of joy. In wandering the aisles from which she had requested items, I became sicker and sicker. Barbie is NOTHING. By now most people know about Bratz, little trampy, skanky dolls with little clothes, huge sexy eyes, and accessories that stop just short of tattoo needles and home pregnancy tests. Now there are other lines of girl-deflating products — Totally Me, a bunch of stuff that seems egotistical and self-indulgent to me; Hannah Montana everything (guitars, microphones, clothes, play kitchens, secret diaries, kabob skewers, curtain rods, fuel stabilizer, and God knows what all else); High School Musical everything; and girl-centric virtual pets.

And then we saw it. Stuck among the hair twisters, scrunchies, High School Musical brushes, hair bands and beads, and so on, was the following item:

That’s right, adult-grade “lip inflation” stuff. Lizzie heard some morning DJs around here trying the stuff once, and they were wailing in pain. Apparently the way it works is it uses ginger and cinnamon to irritate your lips a little bit so they get redder and a bit swollen. And now it’s being sold at Toys R Us to little girls. You know, little girls who feel like their lips just aren’t lush and robust enough to make them sufficiently pretty. Little girls, whose skin is different from an adults and therefore shouldn’t even be in the same room with this stuff.

According to the Sally Hansen website, “Lips become flushed and plump instantly for a sexy, pouty look that lasts.” This is accomplished, apparently, by a patented formula of the following wholesome ingredients:

Polybutene, Tridecyl Trimellitate, Octyldodecanol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Menthoxypropanediol, Flavor, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Tribehenin, Sorbitan Isostearate, Palmitoyl Oligopeptide, Mentha Piperita (Peppermint) Oil, Zingiber Officinale (Ginger) Root Oil OR Zingiber Officinale (Ginger) Root Extract, Cinnamomum Zeylanicum Bark Oil OR Cinnamomum Zeylanicum Bark Extract, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Propylparaben.

I tend to gripe about girls’ toys anyway, but I can generally do so with a bit of fun and sarcasm. This really bugged me — it’s been on my mind since we left. It goes on their mouths. It will get ingested. It will, by design, irritate the skin around their mouths. It just feels like it crosses a line, you know? Anyhow, I’m off to write to Toys R Us next.

Bah, humbug. I’m going to be the coolest dad ever, I just know it.

I know, for the Peter Gabriel purists out there, this is kind of the annoying song. But it’s one of my favorites, and I found a very fun live version with Youssou N’Dour here. Just enjoy the thought of how it would have been to be there.

And I just found a much older (read: 80’s) version, but it looks fun, too.

Sarah Palin has been quoted today as saying, “it would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration.”

While I appreciate the extra mile thing she’s doing, I think she did her level best to ensure an Obama victory.

I was recently turned on to postsecret.com — it’s a blog that posts scans of postcards sent to its owner. People make their own postcards with really fascinating messages and send them in. The only rule, apparently, is that you HAVE to send a card — it can’t be e-mail or any other form of communication. It now resides in my blogroll to the right. Check it out every week or so — there’s a new batch every now and again, and they’re always interesting.

I just hung our flag out in a fit of patriotism after we got back from voting. We had about a fifteen minute wait — certainly manageable. Of course, our precinct is kind of soccer-mom-heavy and we timed it out so it would be right between the early work rush and the mid-day housewife rush. I expect it’ll be pretty dicey after work tonight.

I was going to go downtown to the Obama rally tonight, but my ticket never came. Lizzie’s did, but she doesn’t want to go. And I’m just as happy to stay home with her and Nora and watch history happen together.

While I’m slightly concerned that our flag will make us look like a polling place, I’m perfectly happy to accept any votes for McCain here.

Three versions of Baby Got Back (by Sir Mix-a-Lot). My friend Jen exposed me to Jonathan Coulton today (he’s very talented and very funny), and his thoughtful acoustic version of this timeless classic brought up a couple videos on YouTube.

• the original video
• Jonathan Coulton’s version
• a Gilbert-and-Sullivan-type shameless dubbing
  

Gotta love YouTube.

Jen’s original recommendation was Code Monkey (here’s a live version), a Jonathan Coulton song about being a VB programmer.

The guy who claims to have started the rumor years ago that Barack Obama is Muslim has reversed course, now claiming that he’s not Muslim but is instead the illegitimate son of a civil rights leader (that’s a CNN video). If this would make the Muslim thing go away, I’d almost welcome it. But it won’t — we’ll just have another bucket of made-up nonsense to listen to from all the knuckleheads who get their news from Rush Limbaugh and that strange guy at work with all the pamphlets.

Just noticed this story about McCain’s people getting more and more upset about how Sarah Palin is conducting herself. I will offer no opinion beyond a very soft “ha ha.”

Check it out. The CGI is fun, but the dude who does the all-hands windmill at about 1:34 (not digitally enhanced) is what floored me. The animation is neat, but that’s freaky.

This is cool — Eddie Adcock, bluegrass banjo player, had a tremor repaired through brain surgery. This is footage of the surgery, as they tune his brain to match what he expects his hands to do. He gets worse and better as they crank up (or turn down) the power to the part of his brain responsible for the tremor. Neat. Scary for him, but neat.