"Boy" - A short film

Vincent Van Lego

What if you got a lottery ticket every time you stayed within the speed limit?

If girls hit on guys like guys hit on girls

Do It Yourself Doodler

Let's see what you can come up with

And then check in with the fantastic works of art here. 

"Gendered marketing does not exist" ?

so i went on the american apparel site today

looking at the socks

and

for reference

here’s one of the pictures for men’s socks

seriously i’m not one to complain about sexism much but i just looked on this site and??

headwear

what

THE FUCK IS THIS???

????????

also BAGS AND WALLEtS???

male:

female:

????????????????????? I DON’T FUCKING GET IT????

"gendered marketing doesn’t exist!! shut up femenazi"

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Custom suits to make transgender and female clients feel handsome

[ via ]

There has long been a dearth of clothing tailored to trans and butch communities, but a spate of new companies is changing that. BEHOLD! A suit designed to make transgender men and butch women feel handsome.

And in case you ever forget, The Handsome Butch is here to remind you that you have the right to be handsome. Read more about how Rachel Tutera, in seeking a sales job, got Daniel Friedman to make masculine suits that fitted women's bodies. Something that he had never even considered before!

More avenues for looking handsome:

• Bindle & Keep
• Tomboy Tailors
• Haute Butch
• Saint Harridan

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Let's talk about homosexuality & the bible

What If You Stick A Gay Person And An Anti-Gay Straight Person In A Room And Ask Them To Hug?

Not sure if you heard, but there was a big craze around the "First Kiss" video where a filmmaker set up two strangers to meet and kiss like they'd just finished drinks and were heading back to someone's apartment. The Gay Women Channel on YouTube decided to have a little fun with it. They found some mildly homophobic but open volunteers to meet gay people and have a very safe, platonic hug. The results were surprisingly heartwarming. Especially at 2:07. And 2:31. And 2:44. And then at 3:00, I just laugh.

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Man sets up fake online dating profile pretending to be a woman but quits two hours later due to harassment and hostility

The man’s experiment backfired when he was forced delete his account after just two hours (Picture: Alamy)

When a man set up a fake internet dating profile pretending to be female, he set out to prove a point about how easy women have it when searching for an online match.

However, his experiment backfired when – just two hours later – he was forced to delete his account because of an ‘onslaught’ of unwanted attention.

Bombarded with explicit and intimidating messages, the man was so shocked he shared his experience in an online forum for women on reddit.

Revealing his cautionary tale on the social news site, user OKCThrowaway22221 said what initially started as a ‘bit of fun’ soon escalated into harassment and hostility.

He said: ‘Guys were full-on spamming my inbox with multiple messages before I could reply to even one asking why I wasn’t responding and what was wrong.

‘Guys would become hostile when I told them I wasn’t interested in NSA [No stings attached] sex, or guys that had started normal and nice quickly turned the conversation into something explicitly sexual in nature. Seemingly nice dudes in quite esteemed careers asking to hook up in 24 hours and sending them naked pics of myself despite multiple times telling them that I didn’t want to.

‘Within a two-hour span it got me really down and I was feeling really uncomfortable with everything. I figured I would get some weird messages here and there, but what I got was an onslaught of people who were, within minutes of saying hello, saying things that made me – as a dude who spends most of his time on 4chan [the popular online imageboard] - uneasy.

‘I came away thinking that women have it so much harder than guys do when it comes to that kind of stuff.’

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The "Friendzone" Myth - demystified

[ video ]

Men who are uncomfortable with their sexuality

That last image. *dies*

[ video ]

Six-year-old understands better than adults

Shame on us, yeah?

Using Oculus Rift To Swap Your Gender

What at first seemed like a silly toy for video games now seems to have promise as a device for increasing empathy and intimacy. [via]

Lipstick in Catholic School In Singapore

(This is marvelous!)

According to a news report, a certain private Catholic school was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine provided it was of a natural or neutral skin tone, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them; and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally, the principal, Sister Mary, decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses!)

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, Sister Mary asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required, and how he cleaned off the lipstick marks every night.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet bowl, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers...... and then there are educators!

If Sister Mary ran for office, I would vote for her!

Don't mess with a nun, they are holy spirit smart!!!

How to pull a cat out of a laptop

... and many, many other tricks!
This guy is really, really, REALLY good at video editing

I hope to come back

soon, to blogging regularly. It was always something I did for myself, a journal or reminder of sorts, of issues that are important to me.

I've just updated the look of the blog a little, the old look was getting... well, old. Picures on some of the old blog posts have gone missing and I cannot be bothered to replace them.  The new look now comes with social media "sharing" thingamajigs... little Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons and whatnot.

I've removed a lot of unnecessary clutter from the sidebar, and updated the blogroll. I'm glad to see one of my favourite bloggers is still blogging regularly - Ms Chor Lor's stories of being a transgendered woman in Singapore never fail to grip me. I read every last word. Her blog posts are equal parts fascinating, insightful, self-deprecating and yet real. I admire her for her strength, her bravery and mostly for her real-ness.

A cautionary note: If this is your first time here - this blog is going to be offensive to some of you (although I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Actually I do know why, but I'm not going to tell you HEH). If you don't like it, click that little 'X' in the top right corner, or go here. However, if you're still in the mood to be further offended but in a very nicely illustrated way, go here and here.

Israeli researchers may have found a way to make cancer cells self-destruct

Lemongrass is one of my all-time favourite ingredients.  Fresh lemon grass fields in Israel become Mecca for cancer patients      By Allison Kaplan Sommer April 02, 2006 A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube. Israeli researchers find way to make cancer cells self-destruct - Ben Gurion University At first, Benny Zabidov, an Israeli agriculturalist who grows greenhouses full of lush spices on a pastoral farm in Kfar Yedidya in the Sharon region, couldn't understand why so many cancer patients from around the country were showing up on his doorstep asking for fresh lemon grass. It turned out that their doctors had sent them. 'They had been told to drink eight glasses of hot water with fresh lemon grass steeped in it on the days that they went for their radiation and chemotherapy treatments,' Zabidov told ISRAEL21c. 'And this is the place you go to in Israel for fresh lemon grass.' It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev discovered last year that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while leaving healthy cells unharmed. The research team was led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof. Yakov Weinstein, incumbent of the Albert Katz Chair in Cell-Differentiatio n and Malignant Diseases, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at BGU. <http://keralites.net/> Citral is the key component that gives the lemony aroma and taste in several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis) and verbena (Verbena officinalis. ) According to Ofir, the study found that citral causes cancer cells to 'commit suicide: using apoptosis, a mechanism called programmed cell death.' A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt the cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube. The BGU investigators checked the influence of the citral on cancerous cells by adding them to both cancerous cells and normal cells that were grown in a petri dish. The quantity added in the concentrate was equivalent to the amount contained in a cup of regular tea using one gram of lemon herbs in hot water. While the citral killed the cancerous cells, the normal cells remained unharmed. The findings were published in the scientific journal Planta Medica, which highlights research on alternative and herbal remedies. Shortly afterwards, the discovery was featured in the popular Israeli press. Why does it work? Nobody knows for certain, but the BGU scientists have a theory. 'In each cell in our body, there is a genetic program which causes programmed cell death. When something goes wrong, the cells divide with no control and become cancer cells.. In normal cells, when the cell discovers that the control system is not operating correctly - for example, when it recognizes that a cell contains faulty genetic material following cell division - it triggers cell death,' explains Weinstein. 'This research may explain the medical benefit of these herbs.' The success of their research led them to the conclusion that herbs containing citral may be consumed as a preventative measure against certain cancerous cells. As they learned of the BGU findings in the press, many physicians in Israel began to believe that while the research certainly needed to be explored further, in the = meantime it would be advisable for their patients, who were looking for any possible tool to fight their condition, to try to harness the cancer-destroying properties of citral. That's why Zabidov's farm - the only major grower of fresh lemon grass in Israel - has become a pilgrimage destination for these patients. Luckily, they found themselves in sympathetic hands. Zabidov greets visitors with a large kettle of aromatic lemon grass tea, a plate of cookies, and a supportive attitude. 'My father died of cancer, and my wife's sister died young because of cancer,' said Zabidov.. 'So I understand what they are dealing with. And I may not know anything about medicine, but I'm a good listener.  And so they tell me about their expensive painful treatments and what they've been through. I would never tell them to stop being treated, but it's great that they are exploring alternatives and drinking the lemon grass tea as well.' Zabidov knew from a young age that agriculture was his calling. At age 14, he enrolled in the Kfar Hayarok Agricultural high school. After his army service, he joined an idealistic group which headed south, in the Arava desert region, to found a new moshav (agricultural settlement) called Tsofar. 'We were very successful; we raised fruits and vegetables, and,' he notes with a smile, 'We raised some very nice children.' On a trip to Europe in the mid-80s, he began to become interested in herbs. Israel , at the time, was nothing like the trend-conscious cuisine-oriented country it is today, and the only spices being grown commercially were basics like parsley, dill, and coriander. Wandering in the Paris market, looking at the variety of herbs and spices, Zabidov realized that there was a great export potential in this niche. He brought samples back home with him, 'which was technically illegal,' he says with a guilty smile, to see how they would grow in his desert greenhouses. Soon, he was growing basil, oregano, tarragon, chives, sage, marjoram and melissa, and mint just to name a few. His business began to outgrow his desert facilities, and so he decided to move north, settling in the moshav of Kfar Yedidya, an hour and a half north of Tel Aviv. He is now selling 'several hundred kilos' of lemon grass per week, and has signed with a distributor to package and put it in health food stores. Zabidov has taken it upon himself to learn more about the properties of citral, and help his customers learn more, and has invited medical experts to his farm to give lectures about how the citral works and why. He also felt a responsibility to know what to tell his customers about its use. 'When I realized what was happening, I picked up the phone and called Dr. Weinstein at Ben-Gurion University , because these people were asking me exactly the best way to consume the citral. He said to put the loose grass in hot water, and drink about eight glasses each day.' Zabidov is pleased by the findings, not simply because it means business for his farm, but because it might influence his own health. Even before the news of its benefits were demonstrated, he and his family had been drinking lemon grass in hot water for years, 'just because it tastes good.'