Intellinuts! Smart 'N Salty!

Cannot...stop...laughing....

Ok, so I got this DVD from Netflix in my continued attempt to de-fattify myself while having fun doing things like bellydance (where jiggling is allowed!):  Bellydance Fitness Fusion for Beginners with Suhaila: Pilates

Ok, #1, there is NO DANCING IN THIS VIDEO.  It's all pilates. Where is my fusion?!  Is it supposed to be that annoying *snap* of finger cymbals in the background?  Not working and I hate pilates.  Passionately.

And then, just as I think to myself "Self, I'm getting *really really* tired of this squatting thing," Suhalia has us sit on the floor (I'm thinking, "YES SCORE SITTING! I CAN DO THAT.")

And spread our legs.

And lean forward so that our weight rests on our thighs and not our sit bones.

And then "isolate the gluteous"

*left right left right left right*

She has all of her background dancers spin to have their butts facing the camera, lavendar crushed velvet stretchy pants glimmering in the studio lights.... *left right left right left right*   The round cheeks bounced and shimmered to the beat *left right left right left right* Like sparking Christmas ornaments dripping from snow-pummelled limbs *left right left right left right*

And then....

DOUBLE TIME!

FLUTTERING BUBBLES OF PURPLE BOOTY!  *leftrightleftrightleftright* Jingle jangling rapidly in clenching delight! *leftrightleftrightleftright*  The light dances off of the velvety globes! *leftrightleftrightleftright*

We pause to catch our cheeky breath and start again, turning what was a fluttering of gluteal wings into clenches of floor smacking contractions *oomph oomph oomph* The hemispheres acting as one *oomph oomph oomph*

It was truly amazing.    I've never seen ass move like this!  I had to rewind to rewatch that five minute sequence again, as I was laughing so hard the first time I missed seeing most of the glorious buttacular funfest.

Hotdamn do I wish I had a copy of this to share.  Phoo.  You guys should really just go now and add it to your Netflix queue.  It is that. funny.

Exceptionally long. I'm still impressed I made it through it. I knew (and still know) very little about the history of the region, and despite some apparent biases (especially as the book gets into its latter stages), I definitely learned a bit about the region and its people from reading it.

Dr. Lutz was the brains behind the Newt Gingrich-era "Contract with America." This book was a short introduction to his theory on why certain words ring true, while others fail. He uses his experience in politics and marketing as a form of case study, choosing particular campaigns for each chapter to help address his point. While interesting for the majority of the book, the format starts to lose momentum in the final 4 chapters and I found myself sitting there thinking "great googlie mooglie, how many more pages do I have LEFT in this sucker?!"  Quite possibly one of the ugliest covers I've seen in a while.  I have flashbacks to Win98 WordART every time I look at it.

Stebbins is a geneticist by trade and has held positions as far reaching as an editor of Nature Genetics (one of the Big Momma journals of science), time at Cold Spring Harbor labs, and his current stint as the Director of Biology Policy for the Federation of American Scientists. This book is not for the shy or wishy-washy: Stebbins kicks the data in your face about sex, racism, bioterrorism, prescription drugs, healthcare, and a variety of other current "hot button" topics. His first chapter starts out describing the life of the aspiring PhD student and nearly made me quit my program (I knew it was tough, I just hadn't read *how* tough quite so bluntly) :P Anyways, scary data (average of $1.9 billion to get a new drug to the market) presented in an in-your-face polemic. Especially potent is his chapter on the state of US science education.

Benedict Arnold was a total WHACK JOB. Whoa dookies. Utterly fascinating though. After a number of successes on the battlefield for the American Patriots (no, not the football team), Arnold turned and promised to deliver West Point to the British in the hopes of ending the Revolutionary War and reuniting the colonies with England. Note: this didn't work. Brandt does an excellent job of describing the many facets to the man: his easily bruised ego, his unfailing belief in his righteousnes, his fortitude on the battlefield, his mental cowardice. A contradiction in terms and a fascinating character.

I can't believe this is the only fiction book on my list this time around :P Goodwin's book is set in the period of decline of the Ottoman Empire and introduces Inspector Yashim, a eunuch in the business of intelligence. Yashim is sent to investigate a series of disappearances in Istanbul (which is no longer Constantinople) and is pulled into the intrigue himself (like any good detective) the closer he gets to the truth. Goodwin is known for his studies and non-fiction works on the Ottoman Empire, so the history and tapestry of the period is spot-on.

Books I Read Since I Last Posted About Books (The numbers are compiled from the list started last year. Yes, I really have read that many. Particularly Awesome, Recommended and Notable books will be highlighted in bold. )

94. A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage and the Quest for the Color of Desire - Amy Butler Greenfield


95. High Five - Janet Evanovich


96. Mothers and Other Monsters - Maureen McHugh (I cannot express how much I love this collection of stories in words that would be sufficient. Nekropolis is a gorgeous, moving story. Sigh. I need to read this one again.)
    
    


97. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier


98. The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir


99. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman - PD James


100. Hope Diamond: The Legendary Story of a Cursed Gem - Richard Kurin


101. Lost and Found - Carolyn Parkhurst


102. Getting Stoned with Savages - J Maarten Troost (I love this man. He's funny, adventurous, and has a magnificant love of all things psychotropic. Then, he writes about it. This time, Troost and his family are in Fiji, chugging down kava.)
     
     


103. Twelve Sharp - Janet Evanovich


104. Hunger Point - Jillian Medoff


105. Unusually Stupid Americans: A Compendium of All-American Stupidity - Katheryn Petras and Ross Petras


106. Hard Eight - Janet Evanovich


107. Full Scoop - Janet Evanovich


108. Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel


109. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde


110. The Amber Room - Steve Berry


111. The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant


112. The Lover - Marguerite Duras


113. Bhagavad-Gita - Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Ishawood, trans.


114. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power - Joel Bakan (This was another fantastically interesting book. It focuses on the corporation in America, and how the pursuit of profit pretty much is destroying the environment, causing ethical issues, and a variety of other, highly identifiable mishaps. Also check out the documentary movie of the same name. Way awesome. I took notes :P )
     
     


115. A Lover's Almanac - Maureen Howard


116. Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance - Mariana Gosnell (Who knew you could write a 600pg tome on ice? Who knew it would be so lyrical and so interesting at the same time?)
     
     


117. The Emperor of Scent - Chandler Burr (Meet the world's weirdest scientist, Luca. He likes to smell things. He likes to smell really awful things like sulfur, and then make you smell them and tell him what you think it smells like. Oh, and in the meantime, he came up with a magically elegant, physics-based, blowyourcrapbiologyoutofthewater explanation of the sense of smell. If he weren't so eccentric, and the theory so different from other models, this guy would have a Nobel.)
     
     


118. The Myth of You and Me - Leah Stewart


119. Don't Get Too Comfortable - David Rakoff


120. P.S. Your Cat Is Dead - James Kirkwood


121. American Gods - Neil Gaiman (Wow. Great read. It was mythology + fantasy + high adventure + mystery. Totally awesome.)
     
     


122. The Republican War on Science - Chris Mooney (Holy crap, this book angered me. In a Good Way. I knew that science was kind of a bastard step-child to political gain and financial happiness, but damn. I really didn't realize it was potentially this bad. Shortly after finishing this one, I joined a new science policy group, SEforA, and started pondering going into policy instead of staying in the lab.)
     
     


123. Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth Davis


124. The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson


125. Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? - Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D.


126. The Looking Glass Wars - Frank Beddor (A retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Imagine if Lewis Carroll had gotten it ALL WRONG, even Alyss's name... The power of imagination is illuminated in this joyful read. Soon to be a trilogy.)
     
     


127. Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson


128. Cathy's Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233 - Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Cathy Brigg (I've now read this one Five.Times. It is incredibly awesome. See the article on ARGN, and the questions Stewart answered for me here.)
     
     

Now I'm sorry, but this just can't be considered a good idea. Really. Please. Sledgehammers? Seriously? You're going to give a bunch of disgruntled scientists, med students, and other assorted professionals access to SLEDGEHAMMERS? After work? And then feed them dirt cake?! SERIOUSLY?! YOU PEOPLE ARE FOR REAL?!

*boggles*

And the only think I can think of stems back to elementary school, when, during our "computer lab," one of the boys stands up and announces to all (all macho-like), "Whelp! I've gotta go drain my main vein!"

Which then leads me to think that his artery was probably not the only thing a-throbbing.