Rottenchester

Today's rant is about the new trend that is apparently striking Rochester: fake titties*, a.k.a. breast implants.

Back in the old days, fake titties were a rarity. They were generally confined to the extremely rich, the hopelessly vain, or residents of California. (I realize that most Californicators are rich and/or vain, but I include them in the list because they're the root of all stupid trends and deserve a tweak.)

Unfortunately, in the past few years, plastic boobs have become a middle-class status symbol. This means two things: First, they're getting to Rochester ten years after they arrived everywhere else. Second, like the hood ornament on an Escalade, "the bigger the better."

Now, your pal Rottenchester doesn't get out that much, and I hang with an over-30-with-kids crowd, so I'm probably late to this party. But I saw my first obvious set of fake titties on a friend the other day and, ladies, let me tell you, it was a true waste of $10K. They were wrong in so many ways:

Let's start with proportion. If you're barely an A cup before the operation, getting to a C is going to be a stretch, literally. Realize this: until your body accommodates these large foreign bodies which have been shoved deep into your chest, you will look like you're wearing two inverted soup bowls topped with maraschino cherries. In other words, you will look almost comical if you wear anything but a loose sweater. Even after you skin stretches to accommodate those implants, you'll probably have lines, ripples and boobs up to your
collarbones.

A byproduct of stretching is that your nipples are being pushed up, hard. You're going to be popping out all over. I'll definitely enjoy it, but you don't want a pervert like me staring at your erect nipples, do you?

Perhaps appearance doesn't bother you - maybe you want to have obviously fake hooters. Lets move on to the skill of your surgeon and the money you have to spend on this project. That $10K you spent on the surgery was probably your tittie budget for life. In fact, you probably financed the operation. What happens if you're not happy with the result? There's no money-back guarantee in plastic surgery. You could be in for more operations at $5 or $10 K a pop.

A side note - I'm using $10K as the price for your boob job, and you might think that's high. You might point to some local general surgeon or shaman who will do it for much less in his grimy office. Believe me, this is one area in life where you get what you pay for - have it done in a hospital by a board-certified plastic surgeon who does a lot of boob jobs.

Finally, one question: Why are you indulging your husband this way? And don't tell me it is "for you". You're not enduring a painful operation and adding extra weight to your chest because it feels good. You're doing it for men. That makes you a sap, and therefore less attractive to discerning men. Of course, most men are pigs and like fake tits, but why cater to them. Just like the beer is never cold enough for them, the tits are never big enough. Your body will never meet their expectations, so why try? (At least make him lipo his fat gut first.)

Look, I'm a man, I like tits, and I'm all for doing what makes a relationship work. But, really, you're the mother of children. You want to go through general anesthetic (risking death) and implantation of a foreign object (risking disfigurement, infection and death), all for fake titties? Just blow the guy a few more times a month and he'll forget all about your boobs. Better that than motherless children.

People bitch and moan about how Rochester is "unhip" and "behind the times". I'd like to think that people in our fair city don't feel a slavish need to follow every silly trend. Please, ladies, help make Rochester a better place, and keep those titties real.

Yesterday was better than forecast, so I'm glad that you had a chance to take the top down on your red Miata. Don't believe what everyone else says, btw: your bald spot only shows from the back.

I'm sorry to report that the lady who pulled out in front of you wasn't really a danger to your shiny red midlife-crisis-mobile, so I don't think you had to make hand gestures at her, nor did you need to contort your face into an exasperated rictus. If you get that bent out of shape at 2 p.m. on Memorial Day, you're probably going to stroke out if someone cuts you off this morning on the way to work.

So chill out, my middle-aged friend. And meditate on this: perhaps if you were a bit more tolerant and forgiving, you wouldn't be riding alone in your little red toy on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Dear Beautiful Woman Running in the Park Yesterday at 11 a.m.,

Yes, you are lovely. So lovely, in fact, that I would like to have a short, meaningless relationship with you.

Don't worry, not a lot of work, or even physical contact, is involved on your part. I merely desire to gaze upon and admire your classic form.

I'm sad to report, however, that there is something keeping us apart: namely, your attire. Yesterday you chose, wisely I might add, to dress sparingly. Your black spandex sports bra was fetching indeed, and it made a pleasing counterpart to your alabaster skin and shiny navel piercing. Bravo to you from the middle up.

Unfortunately, there was a teensy-weensy issue below the middle: those little yellow short-shorts you were wearing. They really didn't flatter you at all. Perhaps some visual aids will help me explain.

Below is an idealized version of the midsection of the female form. Note the hourglass proportions.

.

For purposes of illustration, I've added a blue line to indicate the traditional location of the waist in the second graphic below. The red line indicates the early 21st century mislocation of the waist. As you can see, they are in quite different positions.

Finally, this last illustration shows the effect that I observed today, exaggerated for emphasis. As you can see, the elastic waist of those shorts dug into your gorgeous hips and made it look like you have "back fat" or "rolls".

This appearance of back fat is only an illusion, one which can be quickly corrected by wearing shorts that are positioned closer to the blue line pictured in the second illustration.

Based on this evidence, I humbly submit that, for the good of our potential relationship, you should get some higher-cut shorts.

I realize that such shorts are currently out of fashion. Today's ugly, low-cut shorts favor women who are shaped like a board. Like most "high fashion", this look can be pulled off only by a select few - in this case, women without curves. The rest of the world, including you and every other woman with hips, must squeeze themselves into ill-cut clothing that creates an artificial and unattractive bulge, all for the sake of the au courant.

Though current fashion would have you think otherwise, hips are beautiful, and most men find them attractive. In fact, men are hard-wired to find them attractive, since they indicate that you are able to mother healthy children, and men's sexual preferences are inextricably linked to your suitability for procreation. (Sorry, we're just built that way.) Your hips are the product of millenia of evolution. For hundreds of generations, women with broad hips were
able to have larger babies, and therefore survived and multiplied.

So, rejoice in your hips. Sport them proudly. Buck the trends and wear clothes that accentuate them. Our future together depends on it.

Shallowly yours,

Rottenchester

Lady, I can see that you're in a hurry. Judging from your exasperated look, life isn't treating you well. How frustrating that I'm standing between you and whatever important task lies down the road.

But hanging inches from my tail in a school zone just isn't going to get you anywhere.

Yes, I did just slow down. In fact, I might slow down again -- your reaction was priceless. I've never seen anyone look so thoroughly frustrated in a long time.

Look, no matter what flavor of stink eye you shoot me, and even if you tailgate me so close that your hood is in my trunk, I'm just not going to speed in a school zone. There are lots of kids around, and running them over is apparently your department, not mine.

If a few seconds of slow driving gets you this bent out of shape, I have a feeling something else is going on. In fact, judging from your pinched up face, I'd guess that its been a long time since you've had a good old-fashioned toe-curling deity-invoking orgasm.

So, when you get home, I suggest that you pour a glass of wine and a hot bath. Relax and let the cares float away. After you towel off, pull out your Magic Wand, economy-size bottle of Liquid K-Y, and John Holmes replica dil. No ordinary set of masturbation tools will suffice for someone as backed up as you. Then, you need to hit it, baby. Rev up that vibe and let the magnificence of the late Mr Holmes carry you away to not one, but multiple petit morts. Repeat as necessary until satisfied.

After you've done all that, perhaps you'll be able to spare a few precious seconds and slow the fuck down in a school zone.

Your orgasm could save a child's life.

Hi, CL -- I'm back, and let me tell you, there's nothing like a vacation somewhere else to make you appreciate Rochester.

I might weigh in on the sexual politics of shaving later, but right now, I have a little story about the practicalities of hair removal in delicate areas.

My wife keeps it cleaned up downstairs, if you know what I mean, so one day I decided to return the favor.

Early one evening, I went into the bathroom, pulled out my hairy nutsac and surveyed it. I concluded immediately that hitting it with the razor first wasn't too smart - some of those hairs are long. So, I searched for a scissors for an initial trim. I'm sure that my wife has a full grooming set somewhere, but I wanted this to be a surprise, so I didn't ask her where she kept it. On my own, I was only able to find a sewing scissors, about 8" long, with orange handles ("Fiskars" brand, for those interested in meaningless detail). Though unweildy, they were razor-sharp.

I grabbed a hank of nutsac-hair and snipped it off with the mighty Fiskars. So far so good. I repeated this process a few times and I must confess that I began to get a bit careless. I should also note that it is extremely difficult to trim the bottom of one's nutsac, unless you're a contortionist. Having the flexibility of a steel I-beam, I really was having a hard time bending far enough to see what I was cutting.

The first indication that I had cut things a little too close was that the hair falling from my sac stuck together. The second indication was a sharp pain. Yes, I had snipped some of the skin of my nutsac along with the hair. Though it was a pretty small amount of skin, it did bleed rather profusely. On the plus side, however, those Swedes do make good scissors, and the wound was very neat - no jagged edges.

At that point I had two problems. First, there was still plenty of hair on the old sac, and though it would have been easy to apply a band-aid, removing it would probably have to be accomplished under general anaesthetic. Second, what the hell was I going to tell my wife?

Well, I addressed the first issue by stuffing my shorts with toilet paper. As for the second, when I told her about my mishap, she said: "Oh, I like it hairy down there anyway. I wouldn't like it if you shaved."

Rochacha, your discussion of the Delta of Venus sounds like an ancient mariner's tale of the Bermuda Triangle: second-hand, completely theoretical, and totally removed from actual experience.

In other words, my Internet Pal, you have a lot to learn about homo sapiens and this rich pageant we call life.

Let's begin with a quote from your most recent post:

I reiterate my original rant that this practice is “peculiar,” not because it is practiced by some (variability among us demands that we have to expect that), but because it is practiced by so many despite the obvious drawbacks (very high maintenance requirements, pain, irritation, stubble, potential genital mutilation***, etc).

Bzzt! Wrong! It is not variability that causes otherwise normal folks to shave their genitals, get pierced or tattooed. It is in our nature to do so. The practice of body modification is as old as humanity, and it is widely practiced by every culture on record. The pain, discomfort and effort if shaving is nothing compared to what's happened in other cultures and at other times.

Pick up Mom and Dad's National Geographic and take a look. The rituals of the African or Pacific tribes are not just strange primitive acts. Those people have the same DNA and brain as you and me, and though they modify their bodies in ways that may seem odd to us, the underlying motivation is the same as our need to tattoo, shave or pierce.

If those tribes are too primitive for you, let's take another example from a more "refined" society: the upper classes of the 17th and 18th centuries. If you listen to any Baroque opera, you'll notice that the male characters are all sung in the alto or soprano range. That's because this delicate, highly educated society preferred the voice of men who were castrated as youngsters to retain their high voice. There's a mutilation worthy of the name, and done in the name of art.

I could go on for days with other examples, but my point is the desire to modify our bodies is an intrinsic part of who we are. At the moment, shaving the pubes is au courant. This fashion will change, but the underlying impulse to modify will be with us always.

So, Rochacha, put away the ruler. Stop measuring and start doing! Step one: a few meals at the Y. Enjoy the special fragrance and taste of a beautiful, unshaven woman. Then, after she shaves or waxes, glory in the slippery smoothness of an uncomfortable (and maybe painful) gift freely given. Both are a great part of this chaotic spectacle we call life. Live it to its fullest, my friend.

Today, as a public service, I'm going to connect with some of the "missed connections" posters. I hope that, by making a connection with me, they will fill up a little bit of the vast emptiness that caused them to post in the first place.

First up, What is Age m4w. Choice quote: "You are so young, and I am definitely old enough to be your father. But what is age? Who cares?"

Let me answer your questions: First, age is generally reckoned as the number of years since birth. And it sounds like there are a lot of birthdays between you and the young woman that you're lusting after. Who cares? She does. Right now, she probably views you as an innocuous, even nice, older guy. If you hit on her, she's going to throw up a little bit in her mouth and make it a point to avoid further eye contact with you. So, take your copy of Barely Legal into the bathroom tonight and help keep it a fantasy, OK?

Next, a Female, 27 in love / lust with a guy from Webster: "The Coke and vanilla vodka cocktails I had been drinking didn't help, of course."

Of course. Your sense of desperation ("I'm married and powerless") could also have been a contributing factor.

Now we come to the acme, the pinnacle, the alpha and omega of missed connections: I saw a very attractive blonde woman at East Ave. Wegmans last year - 32. (Funny, so did I. There must be a lot of that going around.)

This one's worth reading in its entirety:

It was a Friday afternoon at the East Ave. Wegmans. We first glanced at each other in the produce section.

Hey, Joe Friday, narrow it down. Was it winter? Summer? You're giving us 52 possibilities here.

You had medium length blonde hair, were very nicely dressed, and had some sort of ID badge hanging from your neck. I had medium length brown hair and probably was wearing jeans. You bought cheese doodles & M&Ms, and I fruit & vegetables. Maybe you offered to let me go ahead of you, saying I had less.

"Maybe" as in "Maybe while I was back home masturbating furiously to your remembered image I imagined that you talked to me, but really you turned and ran when you saw me." Is that your sense of "maybe"?

Only afterwards did it ocurr to me that you might be flirting with me. You drove off in a large new silver Honda sedan, I in a red Toyota Corolla.

By "afterwards", do you mean, "a year later, after I've turned this incident over and over in my head, imagining and wondering and what-if-ing myself to death"?

I've wished I could go back to that day ever since. Wish I hadn't been so shy! Would you like to meet & give me a 2nd chance?

To have a 2nd chance, you need a 1st chance. Where's the evidence that she gave you a chance at all?

If you have a friend that dresses very nicely, maybe works in a professional position (at Harris RF Communications ???) has medium length blonde hair, is 30-ish, drives a silver Honda sedan, and may have flirted with a shy brown haired software engineer please tell her I'm looking for her.

How did she flirt with you? I'll bet that "maybe" she looked in your direction and smiled. Who knows, she might have looked in your direction and experienced gas pains. Even if she was attracted to you, your descriptions aren't very helpful. In her case, I'll bet there are only a few hundred mid-30s women with medium length blonde hair driving silver Hondas. In your case, were you wearing your "Kiss Me, I'm a Software Engineer" t-shirt that day?

Now the scary part:

I'm a very compassionate and sensitive person, am very sorry to have let her slip away and hope she can forgive me. If your responsible for my finally meeting her I'll pay you $250. No kidding.

Yes, your sensitivity is in evidence by your willingness to pay <gameshow voice>Two HUN-dred and FIF-ty DOL-lars</gameshow voice> to anyone willing to pimp a friend to a stalker obsessed with a fleeting, year-old encounter. No kidding, indeed.

This may appear to be a heartless rant, but I'm not gonna apologize. Life is cruel, mean, brutish, short and painful, and those of us who attain what little happiness is possible on this planet of woe are not spending our time staring into the rear-view mirror.

So, here's my connection with the old guy lusting after a young woman: hey, we're all a prisoner of our hormones, but there's probably someone your age who will make you much, much happier than her. Go find her.

To the 27-year-old woman pining for the guy in Webster: my almanac says you've got at least 50.3 years left on this blue orb. That's a hell of a long time to spend powerless in your marriage. Counseling helps. Divorce can cure. Stasis kills. Get moving.

To my friend the 32 year-old software engineer: Yes, going to RIT can mess up your attitude towards women for the rest of your life. But you can be healed, my brother. You've spent a year obsessing over a 30-second encounter in a grocery store. Let it go. Move on, and spend your $250 on therapy or weed. In your case, either will probably work.

I hope you all feel more connected now. I know I do.

Is it Friday already? Well, that means it is time for more free stuff.

Let's start with Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About. Sweet Jebus is that a long page! I think the author, Mil Millington, is funny as hell. If you like his page, you can sign up for his free mailing list and get an occasional email as well.

Next up: music. Jonathan Coulton sings some really funny stuff. My favorites are his gentle ode to his new computer, A Laptop Like You, and his history of a major furniture store, IKEA.

Jim's Big Ego is another funny band. No free downloads from them, but you can stream all of their songs from their site.

Finally, there's always They Might Be Giants, who you've all probably heard about, but are still funny after 20+ years. You can stream songs from their site, or sign up for their mailing list and get updates and free mp3's occasionally.

Dear Programmers,

Your site is fully of sparkly goodness. I use it frequently to book travel from my beloved ROC to other wonderful places in this incomparable nation of ours. In fact, I so enjoy using your site that I have recommended it to friends and family members, all of whom are loyal Northwest flyers.

And therein, my cyber-friends, lies the reason for my letter. My mother, who is 68 and a pretty smart lady, has decided that it is no longer acceptable for her children to schedule all of her airline travel. No, even though we're happy to do so, she feels that she's missing out on an important part of the travel experience by letting us do her booking for her.

So Mom went on your site yesterday to book her ticket.

Now, a word about Mom. She's most familiar with this piece of technology:

Granted, this might seem like an antique to you, but Mom can really get one of these flying. And when Mom is cranking along on her typewriter, which she still uses, the third line of an address looks like this:

However, on your site, and on every other site on the Internet, an address looks like this:

And that really, really confuses Mom. Because, since the first time she touched a typewriter, she's been told that there's a comma between city, state and zip code. And it kills her to leave it out.

So, Mom tries this:

But your system tells her "Only alphanumeric characters are allowed in the address" and rejects it. And then Mom says, who has typed thousands, if not millions, of addresses like this since before you and I were born, says "WTF?"* and calls one of her kids (me) for help.

So, guys, I hope you can see my problem here. Mom's trying her best, and you're not. If you can see that the address has bad characters in it, why don't you just remove those characters and give the address a shot?

If you're not going to do it for me, do it for your Mom, or for Moms everywhere.

Thanks,

Your Internet Pal,

Rottenchester

My ISP has a great Spam filter. Really great, in fact. I get something like 150 pieces of Spam per day, and it gets almost all of it.

Except this fucking Hoodia shit.

Every day, like a turd that just won't flush, there are a couple of Hoodia ads. They want me to "l0se weight." A noble goal, and 1337 as well. Unfortunately, there's a strict embargo on Hoodia. It is "not available in stores until February 28, 2006." But for me (and me only!) a link to purchase it is thoughtfully included in every one of the ten emails they send me every day.

Naturally, I'd rather stick my dick into a wood chipper than click on a Hoodia link. But I'm thinking that someone here might have clicked the link, or even purchased, Hoodia.

If so, do the world a favor: tell us about it. Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? Cheap? Expensive?

Please post your experiences - but don't mail them. I've got a new, second spam filter set up just for "Hoodia" and everything with that word is going straight into the trash.

Christmas, we need to to talk.

It started out great between us. Back then, your fantasies made me hot -- big guy in a red coat, baby in a manger, three guys following a star. And, man, did they pay off. I couldn't keep my hands off the presents under your tree, if you know what I mean. We had a lot of good years when I was young and you were younger. It all made sense back then.

But lately, Chris, things between us haven't been so good. You know, you're quite a materialist. Do we really need to shop for a solid month? And the constant nagging ("buy, buy, buy") is getting really old.

Plus, you're a little bit two-faced. If I'm supposed to feel good about buying all this stuff, why are you always reminding me about your "true spirit" and how I need to "remember your genuine meaning"?

I could have put up with listening to the same music all the time (do you ever buy anything new?), if your new fantasies were any good. But I'm afraid they aren't doing much for me. Screaming "Santa" at the top of my lungs used to be a big turn-on. I only feel silly yelling "Kwanzaa".

So I think it might be over between us. But don't take it personally: it's about me, not about you.

Christmas, I'm just not that into you anymore.

Someone posted complaints about men who make "fish jokes" and who don't keep it clean downstairs. Here's my response:

Any guy who thinks those fish jokes are funny is an asshole. Unfortunately, there are a lot of assholes around. Women on here probably know the type: they have swamp ass and skidmarks, expect regular bjs yet treat your vag like the forbidden planet of mystery, and make comments about your fat ass even though they have a beer gut.

I'm a man and I can spot that kind of asshole a mile away. It doesn't take any special talent other than a little common sense and life experience. So, naturally, you'd expect those guys would be spending most of their time without female company after, oh, 10th grade.

But you know what's funny? Those guys all end up with women who will bitch and bitch and bitch about them to their friends, to their family, and even on anonymous forums like this one. And those women will stick with them. Apparently, it's better for them to inhale the moist aroma of sweat and poop while giving unreciprocated bjs, and then complain about it to their gal pals, than it is to dump the motherfucker already (DTMFA) and look for someone better.

And fuck that "low self esteem" bullshit - let's call this what it really is: fear and laziness. It's just easier to stay in a shitty relationship and let off some steam by bitching than it is to risk rejection by a guy who knows how to wash his ass and can string together a few sentences that don't include stale old misogynistic jokes.

So if your boyfriend has swamp ass and skidmarks, and you haven't called him out for it, then have a word with him. If he doesn't clean up his act, he's an asshole: DTMFA. If your boyfriend laughs at fish jokes, and refuses to go down on you, do the finger sniff test. If you don't stink: DTMFA. He doesn't even deserve a second chance, because he's an obvious asshole.

But whatever you do, don't fall into the deadly trap of bitching about him to your friends, family or Craigslist. Then you're the asshole, not him, because you know goddam well that you should DTMFA and you just don't have the guts to do it.