Alisongrinter

Commercials for erectile dysfunction drugs can really only go one of two ways, because, as much as they’d like to, pharmaceutical companies can’t just come right out and say “DUDE, THIS IS FOR YOUR BONER.” The first option is innuendo: rockets blasting off, virile gray-haired men zipping footballs through the holes in tire swings, etc. The second is more subtle, and includes couples of a certain age doing normal couple things, with the implication being “Hey, you. You know how you do things with your wife? Well what if you, like, get horny while you’re doing them? Better have a boner pill handy.” These are my favorites.

The most recent Cialis commercial — which has technically been on TV for a few months but is in heavy rotation now that football is back — takes this second route. It features three couples: one playing a doubles tennis match, one building a bench together in their driveway, and one going for a peaceful boat ride in a lake. I will now rank these couple from worst to best.

3. Bench-Making Couple

If I understand what this commercial is trying to say, and I think I do, the guy in Bench-Making Couple is taking Cialis because sometimes he and his wife get SUPER-TURNED-ON by woodworking (heh heh), and he doesn’t want to miss out on potential post- (or, I suppose, mid-) bench-making coitus right there in the driveway. “Hey, honey, I’m gonna run out and check the mail. Want to see if the new edition of the New Yorker is here y-… OH GODDAMMIT, Bob and Sharon and having sex in their driveway again.”

This is creepy and I do not like it. Also, they’ll get sawdust in all their sensitive places, and I can’t imagine that’s fun. Last place. F-

2. Boat-Rowing Couple

I know what you’re up to, Boat-Rowing Couple. You’re going to try to have sex in that boat. Oh sure, you’re all “No no no, we’re just going out for a nice boat ride. It’s romantic, and the rowing is good cardio, which our doctor is always on us about now that we’re getting a little older,” but you can’t fool me. You’ve been out there long enough that the sun is starting to set by the end of the commercial, and you’re starting to get mighty cuddly and nuzzly, and I know for a fact that you planned it so the Cialis kicked in right as most people are heading back to shore.

To be honest, I like your moxie. Having sex in a tiny rowboat seems like a difficult enough task for the young and limber, so the bravado on display here alone is admirable. But I imagine it also requires quite an exertion of effort, and you’ve still got to row all the way back to shore when you’re done. (Or, God forbid, swim, if you get a little carried away and end up capsizing that vessel.) You could get stranded out there all night! And then what? YOU COULD DROWN.

You’re not as young as you used to be, Boat-Rowing Couple. It might be time to accept that.

1. Tennis Couple

You know what I like about Tennis Couple? They are WINNERS. Just look at them: Mr. Tennis Couple, that silver-haired fox, out there playing doubles tennis with his wife, who not only still looks very good in a short tennis skirt, but also is a forehand-blasting ringer on the court. They’re probably club champions. In fact, I bet their friends won’t even play against them anymore because they’re tired of getting embarrassed. That couple they’re playing against in the commercial? Probably a pair of saps who just rolled into town looking for a friendly game of tennis, only to end up $10,000 in the hole to Tennis Couple. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. IT WAS ALL GOING SO WELL. WE WERE UP $500. THEN WHEN THEY ASKED TO RAISE THE STAKES, THEY JUST GOT SO … SO … GOOD.” Now Tennis Couple is off in some suite in a fancy hotel, just waiting for the Cialis to kick in so they can make sweet love on a pile of grifted $100s. I bet they don’t even need the money. They just like the rush.

God, why didn’t anyone ever tell me that New Orleans was so amazing? It seriously reminded me of a mixture of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island  and the The Foot Clan’s Hide Out in the TMNT movie. I really think I would be dead in less than 3 months if I lived there. Can you OD on partying? I bet I could. Anywho, lets get into the action.

DAY 1:

So the first stop off the plane was to get some breakfast. Wait, the first stop was to the drive through daiquiri joint (Yes, you can get drive though booze here (I.LOVE.YOU.NOLA)) then off to breakfast. It being the first time in NOLA, I had to trust the host and she said Surrey’s is the SPOT for some bf.

This gorgeous thing was the boudin sausage biscuit and eggs. If breakfast sausage and meatloaf had a baby it would be this boudin. This a good thing. I LOVE IT. The biscuits were handmade too. This is something I would like to see done everywhere.

This was a little anti-Glutlife but it was still bomb. Check it, VEGAN Pain-Perdu. I swear I would NEVER order this thing, but after one bite I melted. I guess they soak the bread in soy milk but it was suuuuuper crunchy and tasty. This is def a must try if you ever stop here. Oh and its vegan so yeah its 100% healthy.

DAY 2:

So after a VERY long night of New Orleans debauchery, I needed something to soak up all the booze that was still in my system. We headed out to one of the best Po-Boy places in the city, Domilise’s.

ILOVECHIPS and Zapp’s are the bestest. In NOLA they got the exclusive flavors. Check it, Creole Onion. They tasted like Funyuns and were effing delicious. Soooo upset at myself for not bringing back a couple of bags of these. If you’re reading this and have access to these chips, holler at yer boy.

Not many people know this but the true authentic New Orleans style of po-boy is the roast beef and swiss and the one at Domilise’s was the shizzle. The roast beef was sliced thin, the french bread was fresh, the cheese was stringy, and the gray was off the chain. I prob destroyed about 50 napkins tackling this beast but it was worth the sloppiness.  You did good Domilise.

Crystal’s hot sauce reigns supreme in New Orleans and Yep just about killed this entire bottle of it in one sitting. It paired PERFECTLY with the roast beef x swiss. Watch out now Sriracha, Crystal’s coming to get cha’.

A trip to Domilise just wouldn’t feel the same with out getting a shrimp po-boy. I almost got iodine poisoning there was so many skrimps on this thing and you could tell the shrimps were SUPER fresh but other than that it tasted pretty much like, yup a shrimp po-boy. Nothing to write home about but still really good.

This is what winning looks like.

DAY 3:

GAMEDAY!! I don’t know about you guys but the New Orleans Saints fans know how to party. The Who’Dat-Nation make Cowboy fans look like a JOKE. Oh and can we talk about the Superdome? This thing was ginormous. Walking up to it reminded me of the space ship from District 9. I can only imagine how it was during Katrina. NIGHTMARES.

Want chili cheese fries but the stadium doesn’t sell them? don’t fret,  just order some fries, then go to the nacho booth and order up some chili and cheese, bong.

YESSS! Love the fact that they sell shrimp po-boys at the stadium. It was actually really good too.

Well that’s it.  The NOLA weekend was amazing I know that is one of the most over used words in the the entire world but there’s really not another word that can describe it. I wanna give a HUGE thanks to my host and hostess . They really showed me how to hang in the Big Easy and be apart of the who dat nation.

‘ WHO DAT SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS!!!’ Knock’em out the park #57

comehomelouis:

Bastille covering “We Can’t Stop" by Miley Cyrus (and throwing in a few extra surprises) in the Radio 1 Live Lounge

This article originally appeared in Zócalo Public Square and the New America Foundation’s Weekly Wonk. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University; Zócalo Public Square is a partnership of NAF and Arizona State.

I don’t suppose  we have many Frisky readers in the Himalayas, but if we do, WATCH OUT. The abominable snowman exists and he is half-polar bear. Science says so!Professor Brian Sykes, a researcher from the University of Oxford said he has found a genetic link between polar bears and an undiscovered bear species believed to be the yeti.He discovered this while doing research on the evolution of brown bears and polar bears. At some point, Sykes thinks, DNA evidence shows that some ancient polar bears could have evolved into a hybrid that is now the elusive yeti. Yetis supposedly stand on their hind legs and walk like humans do and, given their “snowman” name, are furry and white. As recently as the past few decades, hunters, locals and explorers who spend time in the Himalayas have seen strange fur samples or even claimed to come fact to face with the yeti. Sykes said further research is required, but he is submitting his findings to a peer reviewed journal.

Hmm. As much as I would like to see what adorable yeti babies look, I won’t believe in the abominable snowman until Naomi Campbell is wearing one as a coat.

[Telegraph UK]

[Image of polar bear via Shutterstock]

Anti-abortion activists have been successful in collecting enough signatures to get a fetal personhood ballot initiative for the 2014 election.The initiative will ask voters if they would like to change the definition of a person to include fetuses, or in anti-abortion parlance, the “unborn,” in the state’s criminal code.

One supporter of the initiative is a woman who lost her baby when she was eight months pregnant after she was hit by a drunk driver. But the ultimate goal for anti-choicers in pursuing fetal personhood isn’t to protect pregnant women from violence; in fact, as Think Progress notes, Colorado already has such a law. No, their intent is to criminalize all abortion by essentially classifying it as murder.

Usually anti-abortion activists work to get fetal personhood amendments added to the state constitution, as they have attempted in Colorado a couple of times before without success. This latest attempt now directs its focus on the state’s criminal code. Here’s hoping voters continue to see through them and their shady tactic continues to fail.

[Denver Post]

[Think Progress]

Email me at Jessica@TheFrisky.com. Follow me on Twitter.

A few days ago notorious Twitter troll and bitter has-been Bret Easton Ellis took to Twitter to express his displeasure over Alice Munro being awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote: “Alice Munro was always an overrated writer and now that she’s won The Nobel she always will be. The Nobel is a joke and has been for ages…”

Naturally, this sparked some outrage, especially considering that the criticism was coming from the guy who wrote The Canyons, leading Ellis to backpedal a bit, saying that he felt he’d “beaten up Santa Claus.”

But of all the backlash his Munro-slamming tweet provoked, I don’t think anyone put Ellis in his place as expertly as Norm MacDonald, our new favorite Twitter user, did with a single tweet this morning.

As the kids say today, “BOOM, roasted!”

MacDonald went on to take a few more deliciously biting swipes at Ellis. These were among my personal favorites…

The Breaking Bad tweet reminded me of the time Ellis tweeted about wanting to bang Walter Jr. He really should be put in the Natural History Museum with all the other dinosaurs.

(Ellis pic via Shutterstock. MacDonald pic via Getty Images.)

In the mid-nineteenth century, long before computers existed, Ada Lovelace invented computer programming. She was the daughter of Lord Byron, whose wife insisted that young Ada receive a strong education in math and science; she was also a mother of three, although records remain frustratingly unclear on the quality of her beef stroganoff. Lovelace wasn't credited publicly for her work until almost a century later, and she's still often written out of the history of computer science. This is the fifth Ada Lovelace Day, and there's going to be a Wikipedia edit-a-thon this afternoon to raise the profile of notable women in STEM, so feel free to dig up some old photos of your best gravity bong and add yourself to the pantheon.

More on this topic at Mother Jones: "Eight Inventions by Women That Dudes Got Credit For."

Redditor Deconstructress is responsible for this family-wide Labyrinth costuming effort, and says that, despite appearances, the idea for the whole thing was not inspired by the resemblance between the family dog and Ambrosius.

(Reddit via Jezebel)

Previously in Labyrinth

• Saint Jareth
• Lifelike David Bowie Dolls
• Labyrinth Cake

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We’d love to throw the world a party, but the cleanup would really get us down. So if you couldn’t make it to our New York Comic Con meetup, greetup, hang around and chatup last night, we’ve collected as many pictures of it as we can find right here. Many thanks to everybody who came, our valiant coworkers who helped set everything up and make sure it ran as smoothly as we could manage on about three days notice, and of course the folks at WeLoveFine.com, BBC Home Entertainment, Quirk Books, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and Dan Slott, who all offered an incredibly generous amount of prizes for our raffle.

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Spanish artist Santiago Perez spent an entire summer turning this heroic-looking squirrel into popular superheroes (not to mention movie and video game characters) using Photoshop. Here’s a taste:

Click through to check out the rest of Santiago’s impressive images, along with some videos showing how he completed a few of them. You can see more of Santiago’s work on DeviantArt.

Time-Lapse Videos Of Perez Crafting A Few Of The Images

Loki:

Spider-Man:

Terminator:

You can see more of Santiago’s work on DeviatArt.

Smaragdine is emerald, and it was Pantone's Color of the Year in 2013. Fulvous is owl-or-duck-colored, coquelicot is poppy-colored, wenge is wood. Seven more cool colors over at Mental Floss.

It's  nice to think about color stuff, like how in Japan kids will draw the sun as red rather than yellow, and how their word for blue is used for what we in the West might call "smaragdine." (I also love that the Japanese word for green is "midori.") In 1969, two anthropologists named Brent Berlin and Paul Kay wrote a book theorizing that "as languages evolve, they acquire new basic color terms in a strict chronological sequence"—first white/black, then red, then green/yellow, and so on. Separate terms for purple, pink, orange and brown emerge only after the language distinguishes between green and blue, which quite a few languages still do not do. Colors are crazy!

Here's a chart of Crayola crayon evolution from 1903-present.

There's a fascinating post over at Collectors Weekly about the first "hunk," Eugen Sandow, and the history of objectifying muscular male bodies. In 1894, when Sandow became famous, it wasn't for actually lifting things, strongman style. It was for just posing and looking fine.

Read more...

The next time you get the bill at the end of a meal, just Google it. A new tip calculator can instantly tell you how much you should leave behind, and even lets you split the bill between friends.

Read more...

atmidnightcc:

ifold tower

This, from the Guardian, is interesting:

Eating popcorn in the cinema may be irritating not just for fellow movie goers, but for advertisers: a group of researchers from Cologne University has concluded that chewing makes us immune to film advertising.

The reason why adverts manage to imprint brand names on our brains is that our lips and the tongue automatically simulate the pronunciation of a new name when we first hear it. Every time we re-encounter the name, our mouth subconsciously practises its pronunciation.

However, according to the study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, this “inner speech” can be disturbed by chewing, rendering the repetition effect redundant.

Because I’m a cynical a-hole I’m absolutely convinced that this Cologne University research was funded by some movie concession stand lobbying firm. Surely such a thing exists, right?

(The Guardian via Digg)

But don’t worry! It’s not because he’s worried about her prostituting herself, or that she’s using Black women and little people as props in her act, or that she’s not practicing proper tongue hygiene. No, the singer-songwriter is concerned about Miley’s grammar:

Dear Miley.

I can’t stop listening to #GetItRight (great song, great message, great body), but maybe you need a quick grammar lesson. One particular line causes concern: ‘I been laying in this bed all night long.’ Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. ‘I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.’

Whatever. I’m not the best lyricist, but you know what I mean. #Get It Right The Next Time. But don’t worry, even Faulkner messed it up. We all make mistakes, and surely this isn’t your worst misdemeanor.

But also, Miley, did you know the tense here is also totally wrong. Surely you’ve heard of Present Perfect Continuous Tense (I HAVE BEEN LYING in this bed all night long [hopefully getting some beauty sleep?]). It’s a weird, equivocal, almost purgatorial tense, not quite present, not quite past, not quite here, not quite there. Somewhere in between. I feel that way all the time. It kind of sucks. But I have a feeling your ‘present perfect continuous’ involves a lot more excitement than mine.

Anyway, doesn’t that also sum up your career right now? Present. Perfect. Continuous. And Tense. Intense? Girl, you work it like Mike Tyson. Miley, I love you because you’re the Queen, grammatically and anatomically speaking. And you’re the hottest cake in the pan. Don’t ever grow old. Live brightly before your fire fades into total darkness.

XXOO Sufjan

Is Sufjan negging Miley Cyrus? Like, it sounds like he sort of wants to hit it, but his idea of flirting is being really condescending. Dude clearly wants to lay with her. Or is it lie? [via Gothamist]

At The Week, Therese Oneill looks at diet tips from books published in the early 20th century, a time during which water seemed to have the same reputation as a fraternity's jungle juice. Three tips, courtesy an absolute absence of medical training or science (Oneill says it was understood at the time that water "[interfered] with 'gastric juice'"):

1. "Do not drink much water. A little lemon juice added to it will make it less fattening."

2. "First and most important, drink very little, as little as possible, and only red or white wine, preferably Burgundy, or tea or coffee slightly alcoholized."

3. "In America the number of fat people is growing larger every year and the suffering endured by this usually good-natured class of people is tremendous. As a matter of fact, a great deal of this discomfort might be avoided if people would not drink such an inordinate quantity of ice water and could be made to understand that thirst does not lie in the stomach and that it is not satisfied by pouring down water by the glassful."

I, for one, will not rest until we figure out a way to remove any and all water base from all alcohol and caffeine. *Pours Burgundy into coffee cup, adds a squeeze of lemon.* Ahhhhh. [The Week]

notahoe:

The future is now 

To celebrate the season premiere of “Nashville” tonight (side note: FINALLY!), we thought it would be fun to do an astrology post set in magical Music City. Which sign is busking on Broadway? Which sign is managing a world tour? Which sign is a stylist to the stars? Read on to find out…

Aries (March 21st-April 19th): Fronting a hardcore rock n’ roll band and getting visibly annoyed every time an audience member requests “Chattahoochee.”

Taurus (April 20th-May 20th): Waiting tables at a midtown bistro at night and spending every day practicing their songs and working up the courage to actually get on stage.

Gemini (May 21st-June 20th): Working as a columnist for Nashville Scene, you’ll find them at every event, concert, and festival the city has to offer, even on their days off.

Cancer (June 21st-July 22nd): A fixture at local songwriters’ nights, where they’ve gained a following for their emotionally raw (but still catchy!) country tunes.

Leo (July 23rd-August 22nd): Decked out in sequined cowboy boots and busking on Broadway, singing at coffeehouse open mics, strumming on the porch — basically wherever they can find a chance to perform.

Virgo (August 23rd-September 22nd): Managing the world tour of a country superstar, juggling travel schedules, dressing room requests, and misbehaving roadies like a pro.

Libra (September 23rd-October 22nd): Working as a stylist/confidante for up and coming country singers, Libra handles everything from pre-performance meltdowns to ripped rhinestone cutoffs.

Scorpio (October 23rd-November 21st): Playing an acoustic set in a small, dark bar, Scorpio is pursuing their musical dreams away from the neon lights of Broadway.

Sagittarius (November 22nd-December 21st): You’ll find Sagg first in line for every open audition, talent contest, and industry meet and greet, stopping at nothing to make their big dreams come true.

Capricorn (December 22nd-January 19th): Sick of dealing with the bureaucracy of Music Row, Capricorn is starting their own music label/empire, allowing them to manage, produce, and promote themselves.

Aquarius (January 20th-February 18th): Starting a weekly songwriter’s night at the coffee shop where they work, trying to help out a coworker who wants to break into the music business.

Pisces (February 19th-March 20th): Pisces can be hard to spot, but they’re easy to hear: they’re working as an in-demand session musician, lending their talent to hit songs and intimate performances.

Put it on, and then do science. (Science is also her rat.)

(Hot Topic via Fashionably Geek.)

Previously in Adventure Time

• Baby Finn Cosplay
• Fionna and Cake Get Funko’ed
• Jake is Now an Engagement Ring

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Ricky Gervais’ new television show, Derek, available on Netflix in its seven-episode entirety staring Thursday, swiftly tracks a course from sweet to cloying to sugar coma. The show is about a group of kind-hearted, extreme oddballs working at an old-age home, among them a benevolent man named Derek who may or may not be mentally disabled. Gervais, who plays Derek, has vehemently denied that the character is anything other than naïve and strange (an earlier iteration of the character, who Gervais was performing back in 2001, had been seriously sexually abused), but he seems, at the least, a little slow. He’s a grown man obsessed with outlandish fantasy fights—who would win, a shark or a suicide bomber? A whale or a rhino?—who never stops talking and seems confused by complex social interactions. His lower jaw juts out, he walks in a lurch, and he doesn’t make eye contact. There may be nothing wrong with Derek, but people who don’t know him—including us, at the start—suspect that there might be: Strangers make fun of him in bars or think he should be tested for autism.

The sad truth is that body snarking may not ever end. The pressure to look a certain way may just continue to get worse. The eating disorders and thinking disorders that accompany poor body image may keep spiraling out of control. The disconnection and hatred women feel for their bodies may only grow stronger. The dehumanization, objectification, and transmogrification of the female body may continue to flourish. The way we see it, the only way to protect ourselves from this sad truth is to steel ourselves against it. We might not have grown up armed with the right tools to fight the wolf in the cereal bowl or the mean boys on the playground or the airbrushed models in magazines, but we can prepare the next generation of young women to brush these messages off and treat their bodies with kindness and respect.

Below are 10 powerful body affirmations to help young women to stay strong and love their bodies in spite of all the insidious messages to the contrary. Because in crazy, complicated times like these, “Love your body” just doesn’t cut it anymore. Share this list with the young women in your life who might need a dose of body positivity, or use it to remind yourself that all of us, and all of our bodies, deserve better.

1. Your body is in flux for the rest of your life. Think of your body as fluid instead of static — it’s always going to change. So get comfortable with those changes.

2. No one will love you or not love you because of your body. You are lovable because you’re you, not because your body looks a certain way.

3. The most intensely personal relationship you’ll ever have is with your body. It’s a lifelong relationship that’s well worth investing in and nurturing the same way you would with loved ones.

4. You don’t owe your body to anyone. Not sexually, not aesthetically. Your body is yours. Period.

5. What someone else says about your body says more about them than it does about you. Look past the actual snark to the person who’s saying it, because it’s only a reflection of what they think of themselves. That’s when you’ll see how little power their words have.

6. Your body is not a reflection of your character. It’s a physical home for the complex and wondrous and unique being that is you.

7. Take up as much space as you want. You don’t have to be small, or quiet, or docile, regardless of your physical size.

8. Everything you need to accept your body is already inside you. There’s no book, or diet, or workout routine or external affirmation that you need to feel good about your body right now.

9. Your body is a priority. It’s always trying to tell you things. Taking the time to listen to is of the utmost importance.

10. Wear whatever you want. Your body shape does not dictate your personal style, and fashion rules that say otherwise are wrong. Dress yourself in a way that makes you feel happy and confident and beautiful, because guess what? You are.

[Photo of young women jumping via Shutterstock]