Thursday Fluff: Things that made me laugh this week

Because I've been struggling with a lot of introspection this week without being able to narrow down the huge conflicting mass of feminism and body image and female identity into a single (or even a few seperate) blog posts, here are things that made me laugh this week. Sure, sometimes the chuckle was a little darker than at others. But hey, if I'm laughing, I'm not screaming in outrage :-)

P.S. Thanks to everyone who posted on yesterday's thread on men in Fat Acceptance! Some blogs I missed and some very interesting ideas were posted in the comments.


1. A shoe designer has decided that Barbie's ankles are too fat. Seriously.

2. Our taxes paid for a federal study showing that fat people are responsible for the decline of the mitten industry. (yes, I thought it was from the Onion too, but apparently they're serious.)

3. A woman at work got all excited when she received shoes that claimed to help you lose weight by virtue of the toes being stacked higher than the heels. She said it was like walking uphill all day. I told her it sounded like a recipe for Plantar fasciitis and the lame marketing equivelent of the weather rock. She was offended, which is always fun.

4. In a related lol, Atchka posted a clip from an infomercial for the Hawaii Chair, which moved the seat around so that you were forced to do the hula while you were sitting at your desk. I had to re-play it twice, and again for JD. We speculated whether it was the perfect gift for a draftsman who wanted to destroy his competition, or simply had a lot of potential for wild sex. As of this morning, I still can't get the theme song out of my head.

5. At work, a stray conversation about whether our governor wants us to secede to Canada made me realize that the french pronnounciation for Detroit (Day-Twa) is almost indistinguishable (at least to ignorant American ears) from the very rude french slang phrase for "Shut Up". (pronnounced Tay-Twa). Coincidence? Nah.

6. JD forwarded me this link about the "shrinky-dink" epic photoshop fail by Ralph Lauren, RL's subsequent attempt to do damage control by sending DMCA legal threats to every blog that picked up on the mocking potential, and BoingBoing's awesome STFU response that shoved fair-use-doctrine down their throats.
As JD said, Ralph Lauren v. Free Speech ---> Score: Free speech 1, Ralph 0

7. From a collegehumor.com article JD's physics professor had taped to his office door, if you want to avoid the flu this season, avoid opening doors using your mouth. Boy I'll have to watch that one....

8. The state of Michigan, in an effort to purge old felonies from the record books, no longer explicitly outlaws dueling. From the AP article: "Republican Sen. Bruce Patterson of Wayne County's Canton Township jokingly asked if it was wise to lift the specific ban on dueling, given the animosity inside the Capitol at present over resolving a $2.8 billion budget deficit. Much of state government is running on a one-month budget because of the standstill. Morse replied in jest that if lawmakers had pistol duels, the state could 'reserve Spartan Stadium and you could sell some tickets.'"

Come to think of it, it would be one of the only Michigan sporting events that COULD still sell tickets.

Anyone else have funnies?