Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Harry Potter's penis and other odd bits
While surfing blogs last week, I came across a photo of a cute naked guy leaning up against a horse; you see porn pics all the time online, and normally I ignore them, but my attention was caught because the central element of the pic was uncircumcised, which as an American woman I'm not used to. My "What the heck is THAT? Oh, yeah, right" reaction gave me time to see the accompanying text... claiming that the photo was of Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter. He looks so different with his hair shorter and bangs-free that I hadn't recognized him, but a closer look verified that the face WAS his... what about the body, though? The post said that he's currently starring in the play "Equus" in London, and that, as required by the role, he appears nude in one scene; a little research verified that this was indeed the case (not having been born yesterday, I don't automatically believe what I read on blogs), and turned up many reproductions of a group of promotional photos he'd done for the play, including the one I'd seen... but always cropped short of revealing anything, er, reproductive. Further research revealed that speculation's rampant as to whether the X-rated part of the photo is faked, so I asked my husband, who's a skilled retoucher, to look at it; he said that, while an expert with sufficient time and determination might be able to do almost anything, it'd be awfully unlikely that the trickster would've bothered to add a shadowy outline of the horse's foreleg (behind Radcliffe's legs) which is only visible if you put the pic in Photoshop and "crank up the gamma," so... either one of those guys you hear about who specializes in doing this sort of thing (normally with female celebs) did a surreally perfect job, or it's real. Time will tell.
Wondering why I haven't given you the URL to the photo, so you can judge for yourself? If it's real, it's child pornography under American law, as Radcliffe is 17, and even if it's fake I don't want to potentially help pedophiles find a pic they'll THINK is of an underage boy. And where does UK law stand in all this? The age of consent in the UK is 16, but, if Wikipedia is correct, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 included images of 16-17 year olds in the legal definition of child pornography; clearly, public nudity in a theater doesn't count as pornographic, since he's doing it, but how does the law apply to images promoting plays? I hope some British blogger will post about this, because I've got no idea how to find out; either way, Radcliffe is to be congratulated for being willing to bare all on stage to prove conclusively that there's more to him than just everyone's favorite wizard.
Scott Adams has made another brilliant point about the behavior of the turds of the world, in the Dilbert comic of 3-1-07... and since he revealed in a recent post on his blog that he uses some Google service that sends him an email every time a new post is made about him so that he can check it out, let me say; Hi Scott, nice to see you, I post on your blog as "Omni" and am such a big fan that I got my husband Dilbert boxers. Anyways, the comic is here
http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070301.html
In it, Dilbert asks what I assume is someone from marketing, "Do your estimates include tax and shipping?" and she replies "Relax, relax, calm down. There's no need to go all nuts about the tax and shipping. It's under control. Take a deep breath." It's right out of the manipulator's handbook; if you want to stop a conversation from going along its current lines, usually because it's an argument and you're losing but it can be anything you're uncomfortable with, throw a comment at the other person that'll make them react defensively, so that the topic becomes about THEM rather than whatever you didn't like. Accusing them of being upset is the standard ploy, because not only is it difficult to disprove it but the longer they try to the more likely it becomes that they'll GET upset and make it look like you were right... and the less likely that they'll ever go back to the topic that dismayed you.
I saw a hilarious movie that I'd never heard of before, a mockumentary called "Farce of the Penguins"
http://www.blockbuster.com:80/online/catalog/movieDetails?movieId=284673
It's full of sexual and bodily-function humor, provided by some of the funniest people in the world, to go with what's supposed to just be stock footage of penguins; that doesn't make it sound anywhere near as great as it is, so just trust me and watch this wickedly funny story of a shy penguin trying to get some "penguin booty."
And lastly: A few nights ago, my husband and I were having one of those nonsensical conversations that're common with long-time marrieds, and as all too often happens he produced some protracted flatulence; when I yelped "Do you know how disgusting you are?!!" he replied by holding up 8 fingers... and then rotating his hands sideways. When I exclaimed in astonishment at his cleverness (an 8 on its side is the symbol for infinity), he expressed pleasure that I'd gotten it instantly; when I smugly asked if he was aware of how amazing his wife is... he did the 8-finger thing again.
That almost made up for when we were at our friends' house the previous weekend, and he went into the room adjoining the one we were all in, without even a door between them, and farted loudly, much to their horror and my mortification; like a 3 year old, he somehow thought that if we couldn't see him we couldn't HEAR him. Marriage, as I always say, is GROSS... but it also has its moments.
Wondering why I haven't given you the URL to the photo, so you can judge for yourself? If it's real, it's child pornography under American law, as Radcliffe is 17, and even if it's fake I don't want to potentially help pedophiles find a pic they'll THINK is of an underage boy. And where does UK law stand in all this? The age of consent in the UK is 16, but, if Wikipedia is correct, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 included images of 16-17 year olds in the legal definition of child pornography; clearly, public nudity in a theater doesn't count as pornographic, since he's doing it, but how does the law apply to images promoting plays? I hope some British blogger will post about this, because I've got no idea how to find out; either way, Radcliffe is to be congratulated for being willing to bare all on stage to prove conclusively that there's more to him than just everyone's favorite wizard.
Scott Adams has made another brilliant point about the behavior of the turds of the world, in the Dilbert comic of 3-1-07... and since he revealed in a recent post on his blog that he uses some Google service that sends him an email every time a new post is made about him so that he can check it out, let me say; Hi Scott, nice to see you, I post on your blog as "Omni" and am such a big fan that I got my husband Dilbert boxers. Anyways, the comic is here
http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070301.html
In it, Dilbert asks what I assume is someone from marketing, "Do your estimates include tax and shipping?" and she replies "Relax, relax, calm down. There's no need to go all nuts about the tax and shipping. It's under control. Take a deep breath." It's right out of the manipulator's handbook; if you want to stop a conversation from going along its current lines, usually because it's an argument and you're losing but it can be anything you're uncomfortable with, throw a comment at the other person that'll make them react defensively, so that the topic becomes about THEM rather than whatever you didn't like. Accusing them of being upset is the standard ploy, because not only is it difficult to disprove it but the longer they try to the more likely it becomes that they'll GET upset and make it look like you were right... and the less likely that they'll ever go back to the topic that dismayed you.
I saw a hilarious movie that I'd never heard of before, a mockumentary called "Farce of the Penguins"
http://www.blockbuster.com:80/online/catalog/movieDetails?movieId=284673
It's full of sexual and bodily-function humor, provided by some of the funniest people in the world, to go with what's supposed to just be stock footage of penguins; that doesn't make it sound anywhere near as great as it is, so just trust me and watch this wickedly funny story of a shy penguin trying to get some "penguin booty."
And lastly: A few nights ago, my husband and I were having one of those nonsensical conversations that're common with long-time marrieds, and as all too often happens he produced some protracted flatulence; when I yelped "Do you know how disgusting you are?!!" he replied by holding up 8 fingers... and then rotating his hands sideways. When I exclaimed in astonishment at his cleverness (an 8 on its side is the symbol for infinity), he expressed pleasure that I'd gotten it instantly; when I smugly asked if he was aware of how amazing his wife is... he did the 8-finger thing again.
That almost made up for when we were at our friends' house the previous weekend, and he went into the room adjoining the one we were all in, without even a door between them, and farted loudly, much to their horror and my mortification; like a 3 year old, he somehow thought that if we couldn't see him we couldn't HEAR him. Marriage, as I always say, is GROSS... but it also has its moments.
