What Exactly is a ‘Bra Fitting Destination’?

If you’ve seen the billboard ads along the highway – “Your bra fitting destination” – you may be wondering just what exactly a bra fitting destination is. I certainly was. It turns out that the ads are for Sol Lingerie. Sol Lingerie specializes in bra fitting. Now, you guys can stop reading right here (save for your prurient interest), but us gals can attest that one of the most vexing parts of life as someone with two X chromosomes is finding a bra that fits well.

SOL is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, so, apparently, Denver, Colorado is your bra fitting destination. If you’re in the Denver area, you can head over to SOL to get a bra fitting with a trained bra fitting professional (according to SOL, their bra fitting professionals go through a six-week training before they are allowed to fit customers).

However, even if you’re not in the Denver area, you’re still not S.O.L. as far as SOL goes. SOL offers some of their bras for sale online, and they have an “Ask the Expert” area on their website. You can also call them.

Says SOL, “At SOL we believe receiving a professional bra fitting is the best way to ensure finding a perfect fitting bra. As a result we recommend coming into SOL to find out which size and styles fit you best. But we also know how busy life can be so as a result we’ve made a few of our most popular bras available for purchase online. If you have any questions about a bra you see here or would like us to look up your size, please don’t hesitate to call us.”

SOL is located at:

248 Detroit St. (in cherry creek north)
Denver, CO 80206

And you can look up your bra fitting destination online here.

Slashdot and the Baltimore Sun “Discover” Unschooling

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when mainstream media gets something so spectactularly wrong, but I expect better from the brainiacs at Slashdot.

So imagine my surprise to read the headline “Schooling, Homeschooling, and Now, “Unschooling” ” on Slashdot today, and to learn that unschooling, a method of homeschooling that I and many of my homeschooling friends have personally known about for at least a decade – and which has been around since at least the 70s when John Holt wrote about it – is something new and now.

At least Slashdot only acted as if it were something new – the Baltimore Sun was much more insulting, calling unschooling, and I quote, “a byproduct of home schooling.”

Hrmph.

You can read the Slashdot piece here, and read the Baltimore Sun article here.

Two Writing Wrongs Don’t Make a Write Right

I used to love going to the Brewing Market and teasing the barristas because their sign on the case where they have their pastries and snacks offered, for the longest time:

Bagels and “Cream Cheese”

Scary. I pondered aloud what they could possibly be offering as “cream cheese”, rather than actual cream cheese, and scarier still, was that few of the staff actually understood the source of my bemused merriment.

I only wish that I had a picture of the sign for you. You’ll have to take my word for it.

Today, I went into the Brewing Market, all set to joke around with the one barrista who did get it, and who would roll her eyes and laugh at it with me, when to my shock and horror, I saw that the sign was gone, replaced with a newer version, missing the offending quote marks around Cream Cheese. (Keep reading below the picture.)

I felt like an old friend was gone – and as I was saying so to The Barrista with a Clue my eye fell upon the rest of the signage, just above it:

Whew. It’s good to see that some things haven’t changed. Like, the literacy level among the sign-making staff at the Brewing Market.

Odor Eaters for Your Pants

Would I make this up? A company called The Pond is marketing a product that can only be described as odor eaters for your pants.

Actually, I guess it can also be decribed as “Subtle Butt” filter pads, as that’s what the company is calling it. (For the record, I detest the word “butt” – and I also detest the word for the emission at which this product is aimed – or, er, I guess, vice versa, the emission is aimed at the product.)

And, while you are buying pant filters, you can also buy underarm filters, and other items sold to help you deal with the pesky problems of when your bodily oopsies meet your fashionware.

You can buy all of these nifty, must-have products from http://www.garmentguard.com/.

Germany to Circumcise Constitutional Freedoms

You read that right. According to the website NetzPolitik.org, in reporting on the upcoming change to German law which would censor certain websites:

I imagine that they meant “circumscribe”, but, you never can be too sure!

As English is probably not the author’s first language, it’s a rather darling translation error. Still, at least two comments to the article point out the error, and yet the error has still not been..er..cut.

You can read the full article here.

Anguished Fans Beg Tennis Star Simona Halep Not to Have Breast Reduction Surgery

Teen tennis phenom Simona Halep has two things going for her – her incredible tennis chops and her youth – and two things going against her: her breasts.

The 17-year old tennis star, originally from Romania, is slated for a breast reduction surgery in the fall, to reduce her greatest handicap – a pair of 34DD breasts, the weight of which, she says, are hampering her game.

While perhaps worthy of a news story or two, the situation has achieved international incident status as howls of anguish and outrage from her – or rather their – fans, are being heard around the world. There is even talk of an online petition, begging her to spare the most beloved set in tennis since Andre and Steffi.

Those who are keeping abreast of the situation through online comments are already making their voices heard, and the score seems to be 2 Love.

“Noooo…. there are so many professions where huge breasts are badly needed…. Please, Simona, do not do it!” begged one fan of the pair.

“There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours,” exhorted another.

Added a third “And there goes the only two reasons to watch tennis.”

Wow, apparently we haven’t come a long way, baby.

“Halt or I’ll Make You Spew” – Defense Firm Develops Barf Ray Gun

First, please note that it is not April 1st. Now, U.S. company Laser Energetics, Inc., has announced the “Dazer Laser”, a non-lethal weapon that incapacitates the subject by causing them to puke their guts out. Seriously.

According to Robert Battis, CEO of Laser Energetics, “This life saving non-lethal weapon will help all branches of the military, law enforcement, correctional facilities, security, border patrol, piracy control, homeland security, airport security and much more, adding that “This weapon is humanitarian and will save the lives of both the enforcer and the threat at longer ranges. No longer will the enforcer have to risk their lives to bring the threat in closer to them in order to engage them, which puts the enforcers life at risk.”

The Dazer Laser emits a continuous laser beam that creates an approximately 1 foot by 8 foot “Dazer zone”, and, when aimed at the subject (or “threat”, as Laser Energetics calls them), “the threats vision is temporarily impaired, their balance is effected, and they become affected by nausea.” And, says the company, because it emits a continuous beam, “if the enforcer misses they can continue to aim the beam at the threats face until they hit the target, unlike other non-lethal weapons that have to be reloaded and only work at close range endangering the enforcer.”

Interesting, the Dazer Laser press release announced that they had “begun rolling out the all new Dazer Laserâ„¢ Light Fighting Technologies – Non – Lethal Laser Weapon at the largest and longest running Memorial Day Parade in the United States.

How, exactly, it was “rolled out” is unknown, but Battis observed that “This was the most appropriate place to begin our role out of the ‘Ultimate Non-Lethal Weapon’.”

Baking Soda 101 – Uses for Baking Soda You Might Not Have Known About

Welcome to baking soda 101: uses for baking soda you may never have heard of. Read on and you’ll understand why I order baking soda 12 pounds at a time – because there are so many cool baking soda uses!

This all started because of this post: What Do You Get When You Mix 12 Pounds of Baking Soda with 2 Gallons of Vinegar?

Enquiring minds wanted to know why I needed to order baking soda in 12-pound packages. The answer is below, along with lots of other uses for baking soda.

While I will be posting various useful and nifty baking soda uses, I hope that you will add to the list!

To start with, and to answer everybody’s question – why do I need twelve pounds of baking soda…

1. Goats need it in their diet. And they love it. Seriously, they eat it straight. It’s at once both adorable and disgusting.

2. For that same reason, baking soda is a great scouring powder for the cement patio where your goats hang out. It’s a non-toxic and goat-yummy alternative to Ajax or Comet.

3. Mix a little in with your shampoo once or twice a week to remove all of that waxy build-up.

4. Mix a little in with your toothpaste once or twice a week, or even daily, to boost the power of your toothpaste, and for kissing-sweet breath.

5. Use as a gentle exfolient on your face.

6. Use to dowse electrical or chemical fires.

7. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup to your laundry.

8. Use to wash produce.

9.   (Your tip here)  

Archie Proposes to Veronica, Jilts Betty – WTF is He Thinking?

Much like the “Ginger or MaryAnn” argument, the “Betty or Veronica” argument has gone on for decades, pitting the girl next door (Betty, MaryAnn) against the spoiled little rich girl (Veronica, Ginger). And everyone, but everyone knows that the girl next door – the faithful, smart (but still cute and perky), steady girl next door is supposed to get the guy. But apparently nobody told Archie Andrews that, because next month he will be proposing to Veronica, while a stunned Betty and a befuddled Jughead look on.

As Entertainment Weekly (no, I don’t actually read it, I found this article while researching this piece) put it so succinctly, what the hell is Archie thinking?

More to the point, what the fnck are the writers thinking? What the hell kind of message is this to send to the thousands of pre-pubescent, pubescent, and even post-pubescent boys and girls – the already confused teens – that read the Archie comic books, about values, and what matters in a mate?

It seems that, at least in comic book land, slow and steady does not win the race – but rather that gold, glitz, and girlie gets the guy.