Today’s Afternoon Advice with Tiffany Granath began with an interesting conversation about last night’s History Channel documentary, All About Dung (”…the historical, medical, scientific and evolutionary importance of poop on an excremental safari guaranteed to fascinate even the most squeamish of viewers. You’ll be surprised by the amazing manner in which the world puts dung to use…”). Tiffany then segued into Sex in the News with “and equally fascinating, is Regina Lynn!” which cracked us all up.
We started with my discovery of a word that describes Tiffany: telediagnostiopath. (Urban Dictionary has telediagnostiopathic but I think the noun form wouldn’t have the -ic.) This is a person with the ability to discern the nature of what ails you or yours over the telephone while hosting a radio talk show. Perfect!
Let’s see, news news … there’s the European airline CEO who joked at a German press conference that the new business class at Ryanair would offer free blow jobs, then made sure all the reporters jotted it down in at least two languages. He then asked his translator for the German word for oral sex, and the translator said their wasn’t one. But one of Tiffany’s regulars called in to give us the German word for blow job, which is blasen. Isn’t that lovely? So I did some Googling and found that if I want to say “Can I give you a blow job?” in German, I could say “Darf ich ihnen blasen sein?” And even if my accent or grammar were off, I’d probably get my point across. Neat!
We wished our Canadian listeners a happy Canada Day, and noted that people are gathering near Lake Erie this weekend for a pan-sexual and pan-kink erotic festival, TEASE, which I think sounds like a helluva lot more fun than my neighborhood’s eruption into illegal fireworks. It’s too late to sign up for this year’s event but I’m considering marking my calendar for next time. Even if you only went to watch (respectfully), think of the education you would get.
PC Gamer notes that online game Spore Creature Creator let a penis creature sneak by, until someone else made a boobie creature and got her hand slapped by Electronic Arts. Whoopsiedoodle.
A UK telecommunications company surveyed young women and found that 17 percent of them rush or postpone sex so they don’t miss their TV shows. Seems to me like these women have yet to learn that they can schedule sex for times that don’t conflict — or get a DVR. On the other hand, 17 percent isn’t that many. Probably many of these women (aged 16 to 24) haven’t learned to love sex yet anyway.
Futurama continues the sci-fi tradition of treating polyamory as just a way that some people relate with its new DVD movie, The Beast with a Billion Backs. Boinkology says we’ll each have to decide whether the film puts poly in a positive or negative light. The way I see it is that all relationships have their ups and downs, sorrows and joys, pains and pleasures, and all relationship orientations have their advantages and disadvantages. What’s a positive for some is a negative for others. It’s not Futurama’s job to present polyamory in any particular light, but I agree with Boink that “it’s pretty nice to see a depiction of polyamory that goes beyond the standard backwater Mormons in bonnets trope.”
If all that made you hungry, stop by Culver City’s new restaurant Royal/T, where the waitresses wear black-and-white outfits with white knee-high stockings and pigtails, and curtsy after taking your tea order. In Japan the service is more about flirting, but at Royal/T the focus is on “cuteness,” says the New York Times, and the management claims they want to create an Alice in Wonderland atmosphere, not a French Maid porno set.
And finally, I noted on air that BoingBoing did finally post about unpublishing entries that mentioned sex blogger Violet Blue™. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes and I don’t care, but it’s interesting how many people forgot that BoingBoing, no matter how huge, is still a personal group blog that doesn’t even claim to be “news” or “journalism” — it’s a subjective directory of things its authors like. And that their removal of archives doesn’t violate journalistic ethics or the first amendment or anything.
My favorite conversation about the hoo-hah happened today, though, about like this:
Friend: So when are you gonna step in and take sides on the boingboing/violet blue thing, eh? 
Me: i actually talked about it on the radio today
Me: i have no sides to take
Friend: The hell you don’t!
Friend: This is the internet!
Me: seriously, i don’t!
Friend: Where we’re all right!
Friend: All the time!
2 responses so far ↓
1 Nobilis // Jul 3, 2008 at 4:16 am
When you say:
“…BoingBoing, no matter how huge, is still a personal group blog that doesn’t even claim to be “news” or “journalism” — it’s a subjective directory of things its authors like. And that their removal of archives doesn’t violate journalistic ethics or the first amendment or anything.”
…you’re taking BoingBoing’s side. That has been their position on the matter.
The fact that you link to them, but not to Violet Blue, is further evidence.
2 regina lynn // Jul 3, 2008 at 9:02 am
And the real irony there is that the not linking to Violet was a mistake - I went online to find the code for the TM symbol and pasted it in and forgot to add the link too. Doi.
Yeah, I saw that BoingBoing said the same thing - “we’re not journalism” - and if agreeing with that means I “took a side,” well, then, I guess I did. What I meant about not having a side is that I have no opinion on whether BoingBoing’s action was right or wrong, conspiracy or discretion, personal or public, etc., or whether it is a blog responsibility (as well as a newspaper one, etc) to keep things alive forever. Nor do I care what happened or who did what to whom, although if pressed, I’ll admit that I don’t think removing Violet from the archives will have any effect on Violet’s career or on BoingBoing’s popularity one way or the other.