Inmate Librarian Cathy passed on the following requests:

• books on public speaking
• craft books, especially focusing on crochet
• ‘Push’ by Sapphire (or any books related to the recently released movie ‘Precious’ – there is a movie tie-in edition)
• ‘Valkyrie’ – this request was unclear, but may be in relation to books about the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler
• anything by the author Rupert Ross
• Italian language learning materials
• additional copies of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books, especially book 3: Eclipse

Thanks!

Just to help pad a month of posts shortchanged by computer woes…I’m publishing some recent finds of mine at the Falls of the Ohio.  I found these objects (and more) the last three times I visited the river across the way from Louisville.  Something about the lay of the land and the prevailing currents push all sorts of floating stuff onto the park’s shoreline.  I found the colorful gourd above about two feet away from this neon yellow-green softball that was losing its cover.  Here are more recent gourd images.

First, here’s a round, variegated gourd…followed by a knobby, elongated, variegated, squash.  Perhaps they are Thanksgiving decorations?

Although it looks like it could be some kind of strange seed pod, the “laces” give it away.  It’s a novelty American football…with “French ticklers”?  Definitely, one of the oddest balls I’ve come across and worthy of being added to my “Balls of the Ohio Collection”.

I came across this tiny smiley-face ball lying face up in the sand.  Another tiny find was this toy hat.  I added a walnut to give you a sense of its scale.

I kept the hat and don’t be surprised if you see one of my Styrofoam figures wearing it someday.  A few months a go, I did a post about “sea life” in the Ohio River.  Well, I recently came across another candidate for that story.

The pincers on this sand toy crab pivot back and forth.  My last image is a flattened inner tube.  Usually, I find tires, but this believe it or not is a rarity.  The way it is just laying there all sphincter-like in the light, caught my eye.  I’m working on new categories of objects seen in the Falls context and I will include them here as they develop.

Primark is always great for buying stuff that looks great and costs (almost) nothing. Especially their lingerie department is always cheap and cheerfull. This spring the lingerie collection will be based upon four themes:

College Re-Union – a young and sporty collection, which focuses on cool cottons and adrogynous styling, think boxers and low-rise briefs, along with tongue-in-cheek slogans and sexy 70’s collegiate numbers.

Enchanted – the feminine, romantic range, it’s all nudes and pinks with lots of lace and ladylike styling.

Candy Shop – fun and playful, it draws inspiration from the 50’s with its ditzy florals and warm checks in soda pink, sherbert yellow, apple green and fresh mint.

Wayfarer – the sophisticated lot! Think nautical-inspired plains and stripes in red, white and blue.

Time to visit Rotterdam again!

Source: www.fashioning.com, www.instyle.co.uk

Collection agency services are in high demand.  The high unemployment rate and stagnant economy have translated into surging delinquencies.  Creditor are turning to outside collection agencies to get bad debt off of their books as painlessly as possible.  However, for debt collectors this is the best and worst of times because it’s hard to retrieve payments or promises when companies are forced to choose between paying the rent and employees and a past-due invoice from a vendor. 

Collection agencies used to be able to collect .20 on a dollar’s worth of debt, but now it’s difficult to squeeze a penny or two on the dollar.  Times are not good for the bill collector because debtors just dont have the money to pay up.  It doesn’t help that debt collectors have has a run of bad publicity lately.

There are systematic changes ongoing in the collections industry thanks largely in part to technology.  Other changes are evident as well; Traditionally, banks and other creditors have sold off uncollectible debt after they’ve written it off.  This debt is typically sold to asset buyers for a tiny fraction of its face value.  Asset buyers, however, got burned amid the recession.  Unfortunately, the debt buyers can’t readily collect on the debt they have already purchased.   So the debt buyers remain reluctant to buy more because it’s harder to line up financing to purchase better debt that has a stronger chance of return on their investment.

Debt used to be sold to a debt buyer immediately after it’s been charged off as a loss.  Now the debt is being kept longer and being worked more aggressively internally at the company.  The earlier you get your hands on the paper the better shot you have at collecting because the will be “more meat on the bone”.  Debt collectors play an unappreciated but important role in America’s economy by helping businesses recover lost debt and helping debtors keep their promises.  In a 2008 analysis by the ACA International and prepared by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, reported that $40.4 billion in debt was returned to creditors by third-party collection agencies.  The ACA maintains that without the return of this lost revenue, businesses would have been forced to raise prices to offset their uncollected bad debt.  In the end this would impact the consumer Price Index poorly.

It’s difficult to gauge where the collection industry is headed in the next 6-12 months.  However, the revenue numbers from 2008 and 2009 are any indication then 2010 could be the best and worst of times for the debt collection industry.

It has been roughly a month since I have posted to my e-portfolio blog.  Nothing much new going on outside of my work with the MetaArchive and volunteering on the side to populate Memoryethics.org with snazzy and helpful resources for its up-coming release.

There has been some recent events that have spurred some thoughts for me of late on the nature of preservation and access in the digital realm.  What has gotten my mental juices flowing has been the recent email theft from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences.  Now I am not about to wade centrally into the debate as to whether I think the theft was right or wrong or even whether I think the media and the public have done a mature enough job of interfacing with the facts.  The two most fascinating pieces of this for me were the breach itself and the ease with which context becomes obliterated in the digital networked environment in which we live.

A set of  growing concerns for me, as I watch cultural memory move by leaps and bounds into a digital medium of discovery and use, is that increasingly institutions will lose their ability to steward the resources under their care and that heritage information will increasingly lose its context and ability to accurately inform.  Now, I am no anti-Postmodernist, nor am I a Technophobe.  I have no illusions about the already distorting effect that the process of building collections has upon informational context, nor do I take a view that digital technologies have only served to undermine the principles and practices of cultural memory workers.  But I do think that producers, consumers, and curators should be more concerned about an environment that we increasingly take for granted.

Networked access to cultural memory in digital forms is not all good.

From the little bit of time that I have spent paying attention to issues of security in regards to networked digital information, my take-away has been that it is a constantly moving target that requires dedicated and routine defense.  In the absence of such interventions digital information is easily pried out of its original context and used for unintended purposes.  In the rush to make cultural memory information more discoverable and usable in the networked digital world, where does the requirement for security tend to fit?  Do university libraries and archives defer to their IT departments and assume that their content is well protected behind institutional firewalls?  Do cultural memory organizations take for granted that robust protection of the product of their digitization initiatives is of low priority because the original analog artifacts are carefully stored under time-tested measures?  Do digital librarians and archivists consult network security specialists for the landscape of their digital infrastructures?

I am not attempting to answer these questions, nor am I deigning to preach here.  This is merely a shout out into the echo chamber, and a sounding board for my own speculative archivism.

Unlike Big Content, I don’t think most cultural memory organizations can afford (to throw away) the legal expenses to attempt to lock down their content in the face of hackers.  We can jump to all sorts of false conclusions about the integrity of scholarly publishing and academic honesty, but I would beg to speculate further that the future is wide open for cultural memory thieves who have the know-how and audacity to swipe the digital assets of many institutions and host them beyond the confines of our content management systems and SANs.  And that just on principle or for the sake of expediency.  To date, this has never been an issue because cultural memory, even with all the force multiplier of the Internet, is largely taken for granted outside of academia.

But I would argue that whole new generations of researchers are on the horizon who are more savvy with networks and interfacing with digital interfaces than anything we can yet imagine or envision.  Digital and network literacy is expanding exponentially and in ad-hoc untrained ways below the radar.  Not only that, but  institutional loyalty may not be as secure if publishing houses and presses continue to fold and open access gains more prominence.  As we push our collections more and more into these environments out of a love for enlightenment it behooves us to consider the cost to institutional viability from threats to context such as security breaches.

At any rate, would love to hear from any digital librarians and archivists who have a heart for collections in an age of increasing lack of concern for context and a voracious tendency for jumping to expedient conclusions.  Where have conversations about security fit into discussions about the progress of your digital initiatives?  Are activities surrounding security quantifiable at the outset of engaging in digital preservation?  How frequently do you defer to automation and system, and if frequently is this because of the intimidations of technology?

In the Environmental Journal section of the 11/29  Providence Journal, Peter B. Lord writes about a massive research project, an ocean census undertaken by 2,000 scientists from 62 countries to answer three huge questions about the world’s oceans.

• What once lived in the oceans?
• What is living in them now?
• What will be living in them in the future?

A book new about the census, “World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Maritime Life”, was written by three  Rhode Island based writers:  Darlene Trew Crist, Gail Scrowcroft, and James Harding. The book is published by Firefly Books .

One valuable resource for scientists as they try to gain a historic view of oceans are whaler’s logbooks.  The New Bedford Whaling Museum  Research Library has an unparalleled collection of 2,300 of these.  A database of logbooks is available through the museum website.

These arrived earlier:

- Figma Saber Casual Ver. (Max Factory)
- Figma Emiya Shiro Casual Ver. (Max Factory)
- Fate T. Harlaown Shin Sonic Form Ver. (Alter)

Of course, the extra Fates are for my friends. They sent me the whole Alter carton box for Fate to save the packaging material, might as well ^^;

…and yes, the shipment fee cost a bomb, but since it’s shared, it actually much cheaper than having to pay for 1 person ^^

The approach of a new decade means a chance for a fresh start with your financial habits. Maybe your loved ones could use a nudge in that direction, too.

Either way, it’s time to cast out any idea that books about money have to be boring. There’s an abundance of well-written, even entertaining books on the market that could make savvy holiday gifts for either the personal finance nerd in your life or that special someone who could benefit from good information.

What follows is a sampler of books for all ages to whet your per-fi appetite. Titles featuring The Berenstain Bears and Christian money guru Dave Ramsey target the young and those looking for faith-based guidance, respectively, while others focus on teens, recent college grads and value investors. And if you don’t want to give them as gifts, grab one for yourself.

_____

TITLE: The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble With Money

AUTHOR: Stan & Jan Berenstain, illustrated by the authors

PRICE: $3.99 (paperback)

SUMMARY: From junk food to environmental pollution, the Berenstain Bears haven’t been afraid of tackling the issues since they first appeared on the children’s literature scene with 1962’s “The Big Honey Hunt.” This title, first published in 1983, teaches kids aged 4 to 7 the basics about money. It’s not just about spending, but earning. Brother and Sister bear find ways to build up a stash of quarters so they can play video games. Along the way, they learn how to find a middle ground between being spendthrifts and little misers.

QUOTE: “It happened that the bank was right next to the video arcade. ‘Say, that looks interesting,’ said Papa when he saw the Astro Bear game. ‘Let’s give it a try!’ So the Bear family gave Astro Bear a try.”

PUBLISHER: Random House Children’s Books

_Mark Jewell

_____

TITLE: The Teens Guide to Personal Finance (2008)

AUTHOR: Joshua Holmberg, David Bruzzese

PRICE: $12.95 (paperback)

SUMMARY: Designed for young adults taking the first step to learn about money management, “The Teens Guide to Personal Finance” lays out the basics concepts of saving, borrowing, investing and maximizing tax advantages. It’s all explained in a way that’s easy to understand with graphics, work sheets and action plans.

QUOTE: “Financial independence means freedom: freedom to do what you want with your money and freedom from the bonds of bad debt, creditors, employers, the government, and others who are more than happy to use your dependence on money to control or at least significantly influence your life. Financial independence is not something that only can be achieved late in life. You can achieve financial independence now or in the near future, if you’re up to the task.”

PUBLISHER: iUniverse Inc.

• David Pitt

_____

TITLE: Prepare to be a Teen Millionaire

AUTHOR: Kimberly Spinks-Burleson, Robyn Collins (2008)

PRICE: $16.95

SUMMARY: The authors are founders of a Texas-based business magazine called “Millionaire Blueprints” and here they compile some of the best advice from some of their issues on how successful young entrepreneurs turn their vision for a business into reality. The book features the real stories of successful teens. It details how they raised money, promoted their business ideas and other aspects of launching their ventures.

QUOTE: “To sit down with Ephren Taylor is to enter the presence of drive, determination, and charisma. Taylor represents an unbelievably rich history of overwhelming success in mind-blowing rapidness of time. Getting into the game at the very ‘mature’ age of twelve, Taylor was well on his way to the big bucks. By age sixteen, he had acquired his first million. Within the next few years, he founded numerous companies. Today, he serves as the youngest black CEO of a publicly-traded company and oversees millions in assets.”

PUBLISHER: Health Communications Inc.

_David Pitt

_____

TITLE: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

AUTHOR: Ramit Sethi

PRICE: $13.95 (paperback)

SUMMARY: This six-week program to financial literacy is geared toward those just getting started with their finances. The tone is tailored to younger readers, who might be sick of parental nagging about money matters. Consider the introduction, entitled, “Would You Rather Be Sexy or Rich?” Lest readers get bored, charts, lists and even scripts for negotiating with banks are peppered throughout. Despite the sometimes casual tone, the book includes useful fundamentals on using credit cards wisely, a breakdown of credit scores and the importance of investing.

QUOTE: “Listen up, crybabies: This isn’t your grandma’s house and I’m not going to bake you cookies and coddle you. A lot of your financial problems are caused by one person: you. Instead of blaming ‘the economy’ and corporate America for your financial situation, you need to focus on what you can change yourself.”

PUBLISHER: Workman Publishing

_Candice Choi

_____

TITLE: The Intelligent Investor — Revised Edition (2006)

AUTHOR: Benjamin Graham; updated with commentary by Jason Zweig

PRICE: $21.99 (paperback)

SUMMARY: Anyone who takes stock-picking seriously should spend some time with the book Warren Buffett has deemed by far the best ever written about investing. Buffett’s mentor Graham pioneered value investing — a strategy based on finding and buying underpriced stocks — and wrote the book that became a stock market bible in 1949. Many bull and bear markets have passed since then, but his practical approach and insights on everything from inflation and portfolio strategies to dividends and margin of safety remain relevant. As Buffett says, it doesn’t take a stratospheric IQ or inside information to invest successfully over a lifetime. It takes a sound intellectual framework for making decisions, and this book precisely and clearly prescribes that.

QUOTE: “The determining trait of the enterprising investor is his willingness to devote time and care to the selection of securities that are both sound and more attractive than the average. Over many decades, an enterprising investor of this sort could expect a worthwhile reward for his extra skill and effort in the form of a better average return than that realized by the passive investor.”

PUBLISHER: Collins Business

• Dave Carpenter

_____

TITLE: The Total Money Makeover (2nd Edition, 2007)

AUTHOR: Dave Ramsey

PRICE: $24.99

SUMMARY: Dave Ramsey is a multimedia star, with a syndicated radio show, a television program, several best-selling books and a Bible-based series of training videos, all focused on helping people get out of debt and learn to invest. In “The Total Money Makeover,” Ramsey admits up front that the concepts he’s teaching are not new or complicated. He walks readers through the dangers of debt and myths about money, and advises a stringent program of cash-only living, aggressive payments on credit cards and other non-mortgage debt that he refers to as the “Debt Snowball.” He also offers advice on building up an emergency fund and investing for retirement, college savings and paying off the home mortgage. Bible quotes and other Christian references are sprinkled throughout, as are testimonials from people who followed his program.

QUOTE: “Winning at money is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. What to do isn’t the problem, doing it is. Most of us know what not to do, but we just don’t do it.”

PUBLISHER: Thomas Nelson

_Eileen AJ Connelly

Personal finance books for kids, teens and adults

This is one of the strangest things I found out recently: Shirley Manson is fronting an advertisement campaign for Oliver Peoples Eyewear. What’s strange about it is that I don’t think I have ever seen her wear glasses, and the other funny thing is that her co-star in the campaign is Elijah Wood…..yes, the hobbit from Lord of the Rings. It makes me wonder what happened at the advertisement agency when they came up with the idea for it…..they couldn’t have been sober? The campaign  pictures look good by the way:

The pictures are shot by photographer Autumn de Wilde. Both stills and short films will be part of the campaign that will debut in November, while the collection itself won’t be available until February 2010.

From www.gradientmagazine.com

Following in Darwin's Footsteps (Kew)

From the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) comes a book for children that accompanies their education program, The Great Plant Hunt: following in Darwin’s footsteps. Following in Darwin’s Footsteps is due out in May 2010. The Great Plant Hunt also has a YouTube page, which includes a little song:

Speaking of Darwin and plants, the University of Cambridge has launched a new website, Darwin’s Plants from the Beagle Voyage, where “you can see high resolution images of the very plants collected by Charles Darwin on his round-the-world voyage on HMS Beagle 1831 to 1836.”

Lophosoria quadripinnata, in Chiloé, June 1834

An Indian jewellery designer has been honoured with an award for a gold necklace he created based on a bunch of grapes hanging in a vineyard.Sunil AM, who has worked with firms such as Kozhikode, Kirtilals and Prince Jewellery, won second prize in a competition held by magazine The Art of Jewellery at the recent Kerala Gem and Jewellery Show, Express Buzz reports.The necklace, which is also decorated with red coral and diamonds and comes with a matching brooch and earrings, is shaped like a bunch of grapes among a number of leaves.Now the designer wants to organise an exhibition of antique gold jewellery inspired by the architecture of the Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram diamond prices."I hope for a day when I [will] be able to showcase my works at fashion shows," he added.The Padmanabha Swamy Temple is dedicated to an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and contains exquisite carvings and 365 sculptured pillars.

Gold necklace wins Indian jewellery award

Trying two new things this morning: grilling a turkey, and live-blogging on SV-POW!

I like to grill. Steak, chicken, kebabs, yams, pineapple, bananas–as long as it’s an edible solid, I’m up for it. But I’ve never grilled a turkey before. Neighbor, colleague, fellow paleontologist and grillmeister Brian Kraatz sent me his recipe, which is also posted on Facebook for the edification of the masses. See Brian’s excellent writeup for the whole process, I’m just going to hit the photogenic parts here. Oh, and usually I tweak any photos I post within an inch of their lives, but I don’t have time for that this morning, so you’re getting as close to a live, unedited feed as I can manage. Stay tuned for updates.

Enough of that. Let’s rock!

The process starts  more than a day in advance, with the brine. Salt water, fruit, onions, garlic, spices, and some apple juice.

The turkey needs to be entirely immersed in the brine for at least 24 hours. Doing this in a solid container would require an extra big container and too much  liquid to cover the bird. I follow Brian’s method of brining in a triple-layer of trash bags. You can see a turkey roaster peeking out underneath the trash bags. Helps with the carrying.

Put the turkey in the trash bags first, then pour in the brine. Unless you like huge messes.

The genius of the trash bag method on display. You can squeeze out all the air so that the volume of the bag is equal to just the turkey and the brine.

Into the fridge for a day.

First thing this morning: out come the giblets, and save the goodies from the brine. We’ll get back to the neck later.

The bird awaits.

Crucial step: putting in a drip pan. Keeps the coals off to the side for indirect heat, and catches the grease so you don’t burn down the neighborhood.

Putting in the herb butter. I used three short sticks of butter mixed with sage, lemon pepper, and Mrs. Dash. Working the skin away from the meat and then filling the space with butter was extremely nasty. This must be what diverticula feel like.

A chimney is helpful to get the coals going.

To eat is human; to grill is divine.

Smoke bombs: mesquite chips soaked in water, wrapped up in balls of tinfoil, with holes poked on top to let the smoke out.

Fruit and spices into the body cavity.

At this point, I was fairly certain that today would be the greatest day of my life. The turkey is centered over the drip pan, stuffed with goodness, subcutaneously loaded with herb butter, draped with bacon. You can see one of the smoke bombs sitting right on top of the coals.

Know what you’re getting into. This 15 lb bird just barely cleared the lid of my grill.

A little over an hour in. I installed foil heat shields to keep the wings and thighs from cooking too fast. It’s all about the indirect heat. Some of the bacon comes off now, as a mid-morning treat.

Okay, the bird is about halfway done, and I have to whip up some sustainer coals and another batch of smoke bombs. Further updates as and when. Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE

I was hoping to get some more pictures posted before we ate, but you know how it is in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day (or, if you’re not an American, maybe you don’t know, so I’ll tell you: dogs and cats living together, we’re talking total chaos).

The turkey just before I pulled it off the grill. The heat shields turned out to be clutch, I would have completely destroyed the limbs without them. That’s going to be SOP from now on.

Ah yes, the bird, she turned out even more succulent than I hadda expected. Check out the pink shade of the meat just below the skin. I recognize that, from good barbeque, but I’ve never produced it before.

That’s it for the cooking part of today’s program. As for the ultimate fate of the bird…we ate a stupifying amount of it. I sent even more home with our guests. And the other half–yes, half–of this thunder beast is sitting in the fridge. Hello-o leftovers!

And hello-o science!

I was going to post some more pictures of the neck, but I didn’t get around to eating it, so…another time, perhaps. In lieu, here’s Mike’s turkey vertebra in left lateral view (see the original in all its supersized glory here). Note the pneumatic foramen in the lateral wall of the centrum, just behind the cervical rib loop. This is actually kind of a lucky catch; a lot of times with chickens and turkeys, the pneumatic foramina are so far up in the cervical rib loop that they can’t be seen in lateral view.

It used to freak me out a little bit that birds often don’t have their pneumatic foramina in the middle of the lateral wall of the centrum, like sauropods. But a possible explanation occurred to me just this morning as I was planning this post. I think that birds have their pneumatic foramina right where you’d expect them, based on sauropods. I’ll explain why.

The first part of the explanation is that instead of wearing their pneumatic cavities on the outside, like this Giraffatitan cervical, bird vertebrae tend to be inflated from within, with just a few tiny foramina outside. The second part is that birds have HUGE cervical rib loops compared to sauropods. If the sauropod vert shown above had its rib on, the resulting loop would be fairly dainty, the osteological equivalent of a bracelet. The cervical rib loops of birds are more like tubes, they’re so antero-posteriorly elongated.

So take the brachiosaur cervical shown above and shrink all of the external pneumatic spaces by several inches. The cavities on the arch and spine would close up entirely, and the complex of fossae and foramina on the lateral side of the centrum would be reduced to a small hole right behind the cervical rib. Then stretch out the cervical rib loop in the fore-aft direction and voila, you’d have something like a turkey cervical, with a little tiny pneumatic foramen tucked up inside the cervical rib loop.

This doesn’t explain why bird verts are inflated from within instead of being eroded from without, or why sauropods had such dinky cervical rib loops (mechanical what, now?), or why pneumatic diverticula tend to make the biggest holes in the front half of the centrum, adjacent to the cervical ribs. I just think that maybe bird and sauropod pneumaticity are not as different as they  appear at first glance. Your thoughts are welcome.

Okay, guys, things have gotten kind of ridiculous. Because I’ve bought dresses, skirts, sweaters, tees, pajamas, unmentionables, shoes, AND the odd lip gloss or whatever  from Vicky’s Secret, I get just about every single catalog they put out (hee, put out) delivered to my house. I get one practically every single day.

This distresses Mama Hoomster, and offends her delicate sensibilities.

Today, I got another catalog from VS, which my mom discovered as she sifted through the magazines and catalogs on the couch. This is what happened.

Mama Hoomster: HUMA.

Hoomster: What?

Mama Hoomster: You need to get rid of this right now. Throw it away.

Hoomster: Throw what away?

Mama Hoomster: This thing. Throw it away, it shouldn’t be here. Your father might see it.

Hoomster: What is it?

Mama Hoomster: It’s…a Victoria’s Secret catalog. [italics convey utter and indescribable disdain]

Hoomster: …Ohhhh.

Mama Hoomster: Yes.

Hoomster: Let me see it real quick?

Mama Hoomster: [holds it up]

Hoomster: Uh…I don’t get it.

Mama Hoomster: What don’t you get? It’s inappropriate!

Hoomster: But, um…the girl on the cover is fully clothed.

Mama Hoomster: :-O

Hoomster: Well, she is. You can’t see ANYTHING naughty.

Mama Hoomster: :-O

Hoomster: Please stop making that face. You’re making me feel like a rent-by-the-hour whore.

Mama Hoomster: This is TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.

Hoomster: She is FULLY CLOTHED.

Mama Hoomster: THAT IS NOT THE POINT. YOUR FATHER OR BROTHER MIGHT SEE IT.

Hoomster: See what? A fully clothed woman?

Mama Hoomster: That’s not the point!

Hoomster: SHE IS FULLY CLOTHED.

Mama Hoomster: Not the point!

[For those unable to follow the argument, it's implicit in this exchange that the point of contention is that it's a Victoria's Secret catalog. Even if the girl on the cover was wearing a nun's habit, it would be inappropriate because Victoria's Secret, the name, is synonymous with "please please please let me screw you because I am a woman of absolutely no morals," and only women of absolutely no morals shop there or receive catalogs from there.]

Hoomster: What is the point?

Mama Hoomster: There are…pictures inside it.

Hoomster: Of what? Women in bras?

Mama Hoomster: YES. It is inappropriate. Your father or your brother could walk by and see it.

Hoomster: So what?

Mama Hoomster: :-O :-O :-O >:-O >:-O >:-O

Hoomster: All they’d see if we just left it there would be a magazine with a fully clothed girl on the cover. I mean, I’ll throw it away because I don’t need to buy anything, but it’s not that bad.

Mama Hoomster: No. It’s inappropriate.

Hoomster: They’d be seeing the cover. There are no naked women on the cover. It’s cool.

Mama Hoomster: Go throw it away.

Hoomster: Fine. Go throw away your Newport News catalog. There’s a fully clothed woman on it. Go set it on fire. Give it to the one-armed man. Bury it in the back yard.

Mama Hoomster: [flips to next page] …No.

:-|

My life, you guys.

So, in honor of my life, a 5 under $50 from Victoria’s Secret to follow. Never fear, gents (all two of you), there are naughty pictures to follow as well.

This is kind of a hodge-podge post of things from Victoria’s Secret that I like. Not all of them are appropriate for work, as you will soon see, but whatever, they’re awesome.

1. After Hours Tank Pajama – $35

I bought these at a crazy markdown a little while back, and they are AWESOME. So soft and comfy, and there’s a ribbon bow. You guys know how I love ribbons AND bows and to combine them? Whoa, man. Blowing my mind here. And it’s black and pink – is there a sexier color combination? Not that I’m trying to be sexy – I just like black and pink together. Pink always softens up the black, and it’s a whole different vibe than black and red, which I also love.

I remember going to a Muslim friend’s bachelorette party/bridal shower/whatever it was, and one of our friends had gotten the bride a pair of pajamas from VS and it was a HUGE deal. Everyone went oooooooooh like we were the tape recorded laugh track clip to be played during an ethnic kiss on a 90’s sitcom.

I’ll let you appreciate that joke – and my galloping insanity – for a quick minute. Also, this isn’t to suggest that all us Muslim women are repressed prudes. It’s just to poke fun at an unintentionally hilarious situation.

Anyway, the pajamas weren’t even indecent. I mean, there’s some naughty stuff on that site. And it’s not even all that naughty, but maybe that’s all the accidental porn I’ve been subjected to talking. (It’s all accidental, I swear. I read too many gossip blogs. Also, I think Perez Hilton is a loathsome creature and encourage a boycott of his horrid site. Dlisted and Celebitchy all the way!)

The pajamas were just a pale, creamy pink with black lace. The pants were loose and had a bit of a satin finish and a drawstring top, and the camisole (yes, it was a camisole, so scandalous) had spaghetti straps and black lace along the top and on the bottom hem. They were cute. But everyone was like oooooooh (ethnic kiss) and the bride was blushing and a couple girls were sitting there open-mouthed as if they couldn’t believe how egregiously their delicate sensibilities were being offended.

And I’m sitting there thinking, crap, I normally sleep in flannel shorts with snowflakes or cupcakes or presents on them and ribbon drawstrings, and a tank top or tee. I’m a lady of the evening of epic proportions to these girls.

And then when the party was over I went home and took a shower and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but it didn’t help and I was still a woman of accommodating virtue.

Anyway, these pajamas are AWESOME.

2. Cotton Rib V-Neck Sweater – $15

I own this sweater. I am wearing it here.

I also own it in black, and in the last twenty seconds I bought one in red, yellow, and green.

Whoops.

Anyway, there’s really nothing special about this sweater. It’s a very simple sweater. But what’s awesome about it is that (1) it’s comfortable, (2) it’s very durable, (3) it’s of great quality so you won’t be running out to get a white sweater – staple of every woman’s wardrobe, among others – next fall, (4) it’s a clean design, (5) it’s low maintenance: no dry-cleaning, just turn it inside out and toss into a cold wash and then into the dryer it goes, (6) it’ll probably be THE most versatile thing in your closet, and (7) it’s only $15.

Have I sold you on it yet? These sweaters are LOVELY. They’re a regular part of my wardrobe, because I just rotate them in and out. Black sweater with collared button down tank and jeans. White sweater with mulberry camisole underneath and jeans. White sweater with red camisole underneath and black pants. Black sweater with tan slacks and a colorful scarf. And so on. So incredibly versatile. Phool-proof, really.

3. Ruffle-Front Shirt with Cami – $49

Everyone needs a pretty silk shirt, and this one’s pretty darn adorable. And that color is just lovely. Not a whole lot to say about this one, but I really do like it a lot.

4. Fleece Double Breasted Jacket – $49.50

Here’s a cute double-breasted white fleece jacket. Love the flat, spread collar and the details on the pocket. Cute!

Rah, rah, rah.

5. Croc Print Bootie – $49.99

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but crocodile print shoes are HUGE this season. Trust me on this one. Trust the Hoomster. She only wants what’s best for you.

The great thing about these croc boots is that they have a stacked heel, which makes them easier to walk in, but it’s not a super chunky heel that is, frankly, ugly and clumsy-looking.

Eh. I don’t know. Whatever.

Anyway.

Want to hear something funny?

I was flipping through the VS catalog after me and Mama Hoomster had our little disagreement, and I was checking out the pajamas and stuff, and then my dad came downstairs with two new coats he got for me and he wanted me to try them on to see if they fit, and I left the magazine on the end table.

Open.

To this picture.

With my dad and brother totally milling around and walking past that table several times.

Whooooooops.

:-|

When I saw what I’d done, I flipped it closed and threw it away. Yeesh. Crisis averted. Not really, though, because it wouldn’t have been a crisis. My dad probably would have seen it, spun around immediately, and walked away as if he hadn’t seen anything. My brother would probably have seen it and  conducted a quick examination and then walked away before I noticed him looking at it.

Also, please don’t tell Mama Hoomster about this, you guys. She’ll be like I TOLD YOU SO THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS LISTEN TO ME and I’ll be forced to agree and before I know it she’ll be picking my husband and using the same argument and I’ll be sitting in front of the elderly Imam being like WTF how did I get here and whose car can I steal to get far, far away?

Okay, good.

I knew I could trust you guys.

MONDAY, Nov. 23 (HealthDay News) — Body weight and co-existing health problems don't explain why black colon cancer patients have lower survival rates than whites, U home design.S. researchers say.

In an effort to determine why blacks have lower survival rates than whites for nearly all cancers, including colon cancers, investigators have explored a variety factors, such as differences in health care access, exposure to risk factors and tumor characteristics. However, the role these factors play in survival rate disparities remains unclear.

In the new study, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham looked at how weight and comorbidity (the presence of other diseases in addition to colon cancer) affected colon cancer survival in 496 patients who had surgery for colon cancer between 1981 and 2002.

Black patients were 34 percent more likely than white patients to have died by 2008, according to the study published online Nov. 23 and in the Dec. 15 print issue of the journal Cancer.

Among patients with early-stage cancer, the risk of death from any cause was 2.2 times higher in those with a high level of comorbidity. Among patients with advanced cancer, being underweight was associated with an 87 percent increased risk of death. However, being overweight or obese reduced the risk of death by 42 percent among patients with stage IV colon cancer, the study authors noted.

These findings were the same regardless of race, which suggests that differences in weight or comorbidity don't explain why black patients are more likely to die than white patients, the researchers concluded.

"Further efforts are needed to identify the basis for the survival difference by race for patients with colon cancer. A greater understanding of this complex issue may help eliminate the disparity," research leader Upender Manne said in a news release from the journal's publisher.

More information

The

J’en ai fait !

Méthode pas forcément évidente et à améliorer de toute évidence, mais le résultat est rigolo et sympathique je trouve…

In a shift in the National Football League’s approach to handling concussions, the league will soon require teams to receive advice from independent neurologists while treating players with brain injuries, several people with knowledge of the plan confirmed Sunday distance finance training.

Skip to next paragraph Donald Miralle/Getty Images

Brian Westbrook sustained two concussions in a month.

Related Ouster of N.F.L.�s Voice on Concussions Sought (November 20, 2009) Now, Pressure Is for Players Not to Play After a Concussion (November 18, 2009) Sports of The Times: Paying a Price for Playing in the Moment (November 15, 2009) N.F.L. Players and Union Say They Share Blame on Head Injuries (November 1, 2009) N.F.L. Scolded Over Injuries to Its Players (October 29, 2009) N.F.L.�s Influence on Safety at Youth Levels Is Cited (October 30, 2009) Times Topics: Head Injuries in Football

Discuss the Giants, Jets, fantasy and everything else N.F.L on the Times�s pro football blog.

Go to The Fifth Down Blog � N.F.L. Live Scoreboard Standings Stats | Injuries Giants Schedule/Results Stats | Roster Depth Chart Jets Schedule/Results Stats | Roster Depth Chart

For generations, decisions on when players who sustain concussions should return to play have been made by doctors and trainers employed by the team, raising questions of possible conflicts of interest when coaches and owners want players to return more quickly than proper care would suggest.

As scientific studies and anecdotal evidence have found a heightened risk for brain damage, dementia and cognitive decline in retired players, the league has faced barbed criticism from outside experts and, more recently, from Congress over its policies on handling players w

I must say, I’m not feeling the Spring 2010 Nicholas Kirkwood line, Fall 2009 was my favorite ever. – CLICK HERE to see it- That was when I fell in love, but since then….I haven’t really been into it, below is a preview of Spring 2010 from Nicholas Kirkwood .