Where the Lights Glow

I don’t know
I don’t know
If I should go
where the lights
always glow.

There is darkness
in my heart I show.

Watch the world
begin to fall
It is the counting
of the crows call.

and this is all
and this is all

that I have

Duct Tape Does Fix Everything

We all know phrase if it not broke don’t fix it but what they dont’t tell you is that apperently if it is not technnically broken but somewhat dysfuntiional or at least does not funtion as well as you would like it to if you break and than put it back together with duct tape it will improve performance. 

We have this vaccum that I cannot complain too much about sense it was given to us for free but it tends to be prone to clogging rather easily. We don’t line our floors with shards of broken glass or slivers of metal or anything excessive but trying to vaccum up rather normal everyday stuff that ends up on the floor at a certain point the vacum decides no, I am done with this and starts spitting stuff back up onto the floor, than refuses to vacuum anything else. It did start to become pointless to attempt to vacum anything.

The vacum acquired a rather large clog in the middle of the hose which the usual means of trying to dislodge were not working. In an effort to remove it we ended up puncturing a hole in the side of the hose. We still couldn’t get the clog out and being that we already had a hole in at this point anyway we ended up cutting the hose in half at the point of the clog. Finally we got it cleared out and taped it back together with duct tape and now it works better than it did before.

A New Discovery of the Old

I am perhaps ridiculously excitied about my new library card. I know some pepole would not consider it a very important piece of paper and others would look at it as being archaic and perhaps obsolete but it is like having a whole new wonderful world of books while granted I have certainly been to libraries before and always enjoyed them as I bibleophile I have to confess I have not really fully utilized the libraries as I should have. In my former location I lived in an area where Half-Price books was more concinate to transport myself to than the library and there where many other good used bookstores and oppertunities for cheap and free books. I also became quite addicted to the ease of amazon. For me paying a few books was worth the luxury of being able to read the book in my own time instead of having to read with a deadline. 

But I am curntly living in a location in which used bookstores are not as readily available and while there is still Amazon even for the cheapness of Amazon economics is an issue and I still enjoy the act of physically browsing books.  There happens to be a library quite near by and on eof our friends asked if we wanted to check out the library with her and of course we were up for it. I figured while I was there I might as well get a card. 

As it so happens when I was standning in a random isle trying to get oriented and figure something out by pure chance I spotted a book that I have been wanting to read and it was a quirky (I won’t say rare) but not very common book.  It was like a sign of fate. I must also confess I was exited to discover the library has a graphic novels section including The Walkind Dead comics and graphic novels no matter where you get them are expensive. 

The other cool thing is our library gives you 28 days to have the book with the option of 2 rechecks of which can be done online, so that is almost three months to read the book. They also allow you to check out up to 200 books at a time. The other cool thing is that the library uses Overdrive so if they do not have a book you want they will pool thousands of libraries across the country to find another library they can loan the book form. 

Peanutbutter Infused Apple Muffins

One of my favorite snacks is peanut butter with apples and so the idea to combine the two in a muffin came to me. I looked around online and did not find any apple peanut butter muffin recipes that I was happy with so I looked up a simple apple muffin receipe that I used before and knew was quite good. I added the peanut butter by melting it down and using it in place of the vegetable oil the recipe called for. And to give a little extra peanut butter flavor to the muffins for the cinnamon sugar crumble topping I replaced the butter with melted peanut butter. 

The addition of the peanut butter makrs the batter a little thick and the muffins come a little dense and quite rich but the combination of flavors of cinnamon, peanut butter and apple is really good. If you cut the apples into fairly large chunks when you get a bite of them in the muffin you cab really taste the cinnamon flavor soaked into the apple almost like with an apple pie.  

CAGED

Contained; Confined; Constrained ; Captive
Amputated; Asphyxiated; Affixation; Aphoria
Goaled; Gridlocked; Grounded; Girdled
Eviscerated; Encumbrance; Enshrouded; Ennuied
Divested; Detained; Deadened; Deposed

A Touch of Sexism

There is this realtively new app called Touch of Modern that I quite enjoy mostly just for the entertainment and amusement of seeing what quirky, innovative, outrageous and sometimes downright bizarre or laughable items they have. Most of which is too expensive to seriously consider buying but there are some items I would quite like to have when I have the spare cash and not everything they sell is outrageously priced. 

Recently viewing the app I have come to notice a sexist/misogynistic trend. Many of the products sold are things that stereotypically have been (and still are in many cases) seen as being the domain of men or things that would appeal more to men than women. There is a lot of high tech items, outdoors items, tactical gear, knives, varrious items relating to drinking and smoking (particularly cigars) and sometimes gambling related items. They also have a lot of clothing lines that seem to be targeted at men (in fact now that I think about it I don’t recall them really having any women’s clothing lines not counting skimpy lingerie. 

Honestly this ibn itself never really bothered me and I never really perceived the app as targeting men specifically and discounting women afterall these are all things women can be and are interested and partake in. Considering I myself was interested in many of their merchandise I never thought twice about it.  In addition they also sell a variety of items that can be seen as gender neutral or sterotypically the domain of women. Housewares, cookery,  funiture, jewelry, artwork etc…. This eclecticism made the app seem non-gender specific.  

But there is something that struck out at me today that made me think. One of te things they sell is high-tech sophisticated sex toys. This on its own is not a problem, it is something both men and women enjoy. The issue is that I noticed their sex toys are predominately aimed at male pleasure.  There are some toys labled as unisex or for couples but the majority of them are labled as toys for men. They do not sell any toys targeted at women’s pleasure. 

This made me wonder is the app inteionally targeting a male audience and thus declaring that these items are of prime interests to men and not really seen as something seen as being meant for women like some discrete modernized Old Boy’s Club?  Or do they stereotypically think many women won’t be interested in what they sell, rather than intentionally targeting men or excluding women, simply expect moremale viewers thus have more male oriented pruducts.  Or inspite of their innovative moderness are still unwilling to openly acknowledge women as sexual beings and believe it would be more taboo to sell sex toyes directly to woemen?