Daily Rambling
In more non-news, the SI swimsuit issue is hot on the shelves, which was news to me.  First mention of it I saw was a link to this article.  I got the link from andrewsullivan.com, a blog site that I'd never seen before, but is apparently one of the most popular.

First impression: "What's with that disconcertingly-wide left nav bar?"  Second impression, "Wow, arch conservative, I've not seen anyone seriously suggesting there is left wing media bias in months."  Third impression: "Jesus he's got a lot of people giving him money."

On second thought, I wouldn't call it a blog site really (though I just did), it's sort of a personal news page, with lots of links to news of the day and some editorial commentary of a similar PoV to this sort of right-wing idiocy, but much more literate.

After reading a few more pages I'm selling Sullivan's site short with my initial impressions.  He's an excellent writer, and according to the info on his site he's a gay republican, or at least very conservative (is there a difference?) as well as being HIV-infected, religious, and Catholic. 

Gay and catholic always seems such an impossible and illogical combination to me, somewhere along the lines of black KKK member or blind sky diver.  I'm reminded of those commercials that used to be on for some sort of fruit juice, Tropicana or something, and they had these Twisters of odd fruits, orange-banana-kiwi-cranapple or the like, and they'd say, "flavors mother nature never intended!" (No, the reference to "fruits" isn't any sort of homosexual slur, though I wish I'd thought of that as I was writing it, I could have worked it in as a joke.)

So I guess "gay Catholic" is sort of a human Tropicana Twister, a philosophical state nature never intended.  You must really want to be religious if you stay religious after you figure out you are gay.  I mean Catholics, it's not like they burn sodomites at the stake or crucify them or strap them into iron chairs over an open flame (anymore), but their usual church proclamations on the topic seem to tends towards the "Boiling Homos in hell for all eternity: Tar vs. Excrement."

It certainly shows the power of ingrained superstition, that people can't tear themselves away from what they were raised with, no matter how stupid or illogical or bad for them it often is. (I'm speaking in general terms, no idea if Sullivan was raised Catholic or not.)

Looking at Sullivan's generally excellent site, I again ask myself what is a blog?  I wouldn't consider this one.  It's a personal news site, and the average post has about two sentences per link.  There are articles and such as well, but that's content, it's good to have, but irrelevant for my current definition thoughts. I think of a "blog" as the literal abbreviation, "web log".  As in a sort of online diary.  I don't mean that as criticism or compliment, I'm just wondering at the format of sites, when as of now the "blog" term seems to now be applied to virtually any site with any sort of personal opinion or writing that's updated frequently.

Doing a lot of links (this one I'm writing here has a lot more than my usual daily essay thingie) is probably not a bad idea.  If they are interesting or not people can judge for themselves.  Average reader probably only finds 50% of a news site's links interesting enough to click on, and maybe 50% of those worth actually reading the article, but if you are batting .250 that's worth a return trip, since it's quick and easy to click and go.

If the site has "blogs" more like the ones I'm doing here, longer essay style entries, either the visitor likes the essay or they don't.  If they like it they'll probably return, but do so when they feel they have 10 or 15 minutes to read.  If they don't like it they probably won't return, or at least not very often. There are some sites with great content that I visit only occasionally, just since I know they have a lot of words and are scholarly in approach, and there's no point in going if I'm not in the mood to read, and have some quiet and peace of mind to concentrate on what's being said.  Sites with quick hit news items and links are much more accessible for a casual visit.

Anyway, massive digression aside, the article, by Christopher Caldwell, about the SI swimsuit issue (the good parts of which you can see right here) is relatively bizarre, in my reading.  It's too dumb an article about far too inconsequential a topic to do some sort of point by point analysis and rebuttal of, at least while I'm still sane. But I'll throw in a quote:

At issue is the inhuman skinniness of Sports Illustrated's models, and in this there seems to be a two-year cycle to the pornography it peddles. (We're adults here; we can call it by its name.) In one year, columnists will rage at the magazine, complaining that the image of women it presents is unreal and anorexia-provoking.

Looking at some of the pictures in the issue, I don't notice any difference from every other swimsuit pic I've seen.  Runway (super) models are far thinner, usually pretty bony.  The SI ones have to look good in a swimsuit, which means they are usually a bit heavier, so they'll have hips, hourglass shape, at least C cups, etc. I don't own any SI issues, and don't recall ever looking at one for longer than it took to stand in the check out line at the super market, so I'll admit I'm not much of an expert on how heavy or thin the women are from one year to the next. It was my impression that they had many of the same models in them year after year for most of the 90's, so perhaps the supporting case of lesser know models fluctuated up and down in weight from year to year, if we are to believe Caldwell's thesis.

I would also strongly dispute the pornography description.  Maybe he's got a lot better imagination than I do, but swimsuit pictures are very far from arousing my prurient interests, or offending my community standards, to use the most common US Supreme Court definition of what porno is.  And in any event, the SI issue isn't anywhere near good enough to be porno. I don't even consider Playboy porno, with it's endless parade of air brushed plastic blondes, showing nearly-scar-free inflatable titties with an occasional hint of pubic hair (Photoshop-darkened to obscure any potential labia exposure).  Certainly SI is meant to be eye candy, I mean the men aren't looking through it for fashion tips, or suits to get their wife, but the occasional semi-visible nipple or camel toe is not even in the same ballpark with porno, IMHO.  Not that I would care if SI were porn, I have nothing against it, though obviously Caldwell does, from his tone.

My initial point was going to be the weight issue though.  Is he trying to appease his butterball wife or daughter or something?  Men like thin women.  Women like thin men.  Gays like thin partners. The natural biology of humans is to seek out strong, healthy, attractive partners, and if someone is in good shape and active, they'll be thin.  I'm sure some people prefer fat lovers.  I've never met anyone who did though.

People talk about fat jokes being cruel, and how that's one of the last politically incorrect types of humor that is socially acceptable.  Well yeah, but fat is an option and a choice.  Gender, race, ethnicity, etc are not.  Fat is unhealthy, unattractive, and unwanted.  The only people who stop trying to diet and lose their blubber are those who are too weak to stop eating chocolate and fatty meats and such, too lazy to exercise, and having given up on being attractive or sexually desirable, they are trying to change the debate to "fat acceptance".

I certainly don't go around insulting fat people, but I try not to look at them since it's sort of disgusting and pitiable, and when some dope labels the look of the healthy, fit, diet-prone women in the SI issue as "inhuman skinniness" it just shows his own unknown *coughfatwifecough* agenda.  If you want to complain about Kate Moss and her toothpick arms, you might have a point, but she's not in the SI issue.

The only issue I'd have with the SI issue (based on looking through maybe 1/3 of the shots on their website) is that there aren't any butt shots.  I saw one, and it's just barely visible cheeks.  What's a man (like myself) who most enjoys a woman with a great ass and legs, to do?  Every shot has face and breasts, but never a back, or butt.  There also seems to be an awful lot of crotch shots in this issue, something that I hadn't noticed in past years.  I guess guys find those sexy, and I do if you can see something, (or she's not got a suit on, for example) but these are mostly thick fabric bikinis, you can't see any suspicious bulges, and the poses are mostly so artificially gynecological it just makes them seem phony.  Which they of course are, but we like our artifice presented more subtly, please.

Anyway, I'm glad for that whiny pinhead's article, since I wouldn't even have known the issue was out, or seen any of the pics.

I really do have trouble imagining any man over the age of 14 becoming sexually aroused from a bikini picture, especially the non-sexy way they are done in SI.  I mean a tiny wet, see-through white thong bikini that's just falling off the woman, I can see as sexy.  But these weird SI shots with soccer players and paint-flaking dinghies and standing in a meadow in some granny bikini... ugh. 

The mystery gas station closed overnight.

About a quarter mile from my apartment there's a big new Shell station with a car wash and mini mart, and today driving by it was just gone.  All the pumps removed, all the signs gone, the mini mart looking gutted.

They mystery part is how that station stayed open for as long as it did.  It's been there for maybe two years, and has never had gas priced less than 20 cents a gallon higher than every other station in town.  Usually it would be something like 1.59/1.69/1.84 for the three grades of unleaded, while other stations in town were 1.39/1.49/1.59, and cheaper places were 1.19/1.29/1.39.  I've seen it as much as 60 or 70 cents more per grade, even far more than other Shell stations. Directly across the street is a 7/11 that was always 20 or 30 cents cheaper, and within 2 or 3 miles there are probably 10 other gas stations, all of them going to save you $4 or $5 at least on a fill up.

There were never more than 1 or maybe 2 cars at the Shell station, usually none at all, and I always wondered what they were doing.  They had to be losing money hand over fist.  I always meant to go in sometime and ask the manager what the hell was going on, but I was afraid it was something shady, and I'd get shot.  Like they were laundering money for the mob or something, or the tanks were really full of stolen machine guns, with just a little bit of gas on top, and they couldn't sell much or they'd run out.

Invent your bad movie plot concept and insert here.

In any event, it was clearly the worst-run gas station in San Diego, at least in terms of profitability, for despite a very good location on a busy street right by a freeway, they failed miserably.  If they were really trying to succeed.

Curiously there is another store just a block or so away that I have similar suspicions about.  It's a small convenience store, something like "Sun Market Liquor", and it's located on a side street, almost all residential, and is back in the lot, behind a bunch of trees, and right next to a 7-11.  The 7-11 is visible from Spring Street, which is the big busy road my bedroom window looks over, and the parking lot is never less than half full, other than at like 4am.

There's a small residential street next to it, then a huge apartment complex, and then the Sun Market Liquor is past that, next to a realtor.  No one ever drives that way if they don't live on that street, and every time I go past the place, it's deserted.  Maybe one car there, and inside it's like some mob-deli in NY.  Two or three big fat Italian looking guys, very ethnic, sitting around by the counter and just talking.  They don't have a gas pump, and the store is pretty small, so how the hell do they stay in business?  Maybe they deal a lot of under aged liquor sales, but that's the only way they sell anything.  It's no where near any college or other drunk-intensive area, and 99% of people in the area for that sort of purchase would just go to the 7-11 anyway.

So I imagine it's some sort of front for organized crime.  I've been in two or three times in about three years, and always there are several guys sitting around talking.  They look like the "How are you doin'?" Budweiser commercial guys, all swarthy and heavy-set, like a Goodfellas flashback.  You don't see people who look like that in California very often, outside of extras casting for a mob movie in Hollywood.

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