pira

It's not that I fell off the planet...rather I've been distracted by life and when I'm not the kids are on the pc. Fair enough.

Anyway ~ I'd finished reading the Penguin Classic version of Jane Austin's, Pride & Prejudice . It was such a treat and a lovely revisiting of an old friend after 30 years, with the addition of a wonderful appendix that elaborated on the social customs, events & items of use common in 18th century England which I could not have hoped to understand fully when they were mentioned in passing during the course of the story. I even became accustomed to the 18th century spelling and am a bit bemused how the English language has moved so far away from phonetic spelling of common words. You'd think modern spelling would be more efficient rather than complicated. :3

I recently picked-up in the *discount* section of a shop, Reed Darmon's small visual book; Made in Japan which is filled with lovely examples of Japanese graphic design from the 20th century ~ from matchbook & record covers,to posters, toys and cosmetic ads. Light, insightful and a bite-sized visual treat for anyone looking for some eye candy.

Speaking of sweet books, yesterday Saika Kunieda's Future Lovers vol.2 arrived and I'm just wiggling happily having re-read it a 2nd time in 24. I'm a great fan of the first volume and this one is just as sweet and silly. I knew it had shipped and picked up volume one from my bedside the night before to read once more (it's a very well thumbed piece of yaoi) and I can't recommend this work enough. The characters personalities are as realistic as you are going to find in the genre, as they deal with RL questions and bumble around to find the answers in such a way that you are left feeling very satisfied with the results. This is one of those yaoi where you keep coming back to it not because of the smuts (although there is something amazingly sensual in their kissing scenes) but because you just love the boys to bits (and the cranky old grandpa too) >D

New reading during my *waits* for teh sprog at his swimming or tutoring: Nation of Wimps: the High Cost of Invasive Parenting by Hara Estroff Marano. The jury is still out on this book but it's definately scratching a few itches for me while also shoving me back onto my self righteous little ass and making me ponder some of the parenting decisions my hubber and I have made over the years.

I like to think to that we haven't bubble wrapped our kids and are spoon feeding them life experiences while sheilding them from reality, but this book certainly is a wake-up call in some respects for me and it's giving me much contemplate.

ON the other hand ~ it is also a book rather like the housing crisis tome, House Lust, by vindicating when not extrapolating on things I've either suspected or observered over the years in the media and amongst my peer group. It's fascinating to read about what the motivating theory is behind the phenomena of parents over-protecting their offspring physically but emotionally stressing them to the breaking point while retarding their ability to cope with the real world on their own.

More on this book as I work through it.

Last Friday my Mattel Spock arrived. Aside from reminding me that we are another step closer to the arrival of the new Star Trek film in theatres (woot) I was reminded how much I loathe this doll company.

I'm happy enough with the head, which I immediately put under the gun of my hair dryer and popped the piece of vinyl from the P.O.S body it was attached to. This was my intention all along and I think he will work very well on an Obistu figure, colour match should be just about perfect and modding of the neck-piece minimal.

While I had not expected much of the Mattel body, I was VERY disappointed in the shoddy design for the uniform. The pants are fine, but the nice blue science officer shirt is borderline trash. The black clowl neck is held on by 4 tiny plastic bits of plastic that you usually see in a larger form, holding tags on clothing. WTF!?!?!?

Garbage. Mattel is GARBAGE. And in an era when they have A LOT of competion for the higher end market (and NOT just from Japan) they can't afford to be producing such pathetic quality items. I am stunned at how much WORSE this item is than expected. Wow...just wow.

Anyway..here he is on a shelf with the boys:



The other day I started scultping some fox/kitsune ears for my new big Obitsu and while I was waiting for the protecive spary to dry between coats prior to blushing the inner ear, I was grazing on a national paper. From today's Globe & Mail, Social Studies section:

Last month, the jounral PLoS Medicine analysed data from a study of over 50,000 pregnant women and came to a simple but stunning conclusion: Older fathers have dumber kids, "Emily Nussbaum writes in New York magazine. "...But at really caught my eye was the secondary finding, which was that older mothers were associated with smarter children. I quickly did the calculations and was pleased with my findings. The most intelligen children, I deduced, must be the outcome of 45-year old career women inseminated by their 21-year old personal trainers. At last, science has produced the case for cougers."

That makes my inner feminist grin like a fool. *^___^*