Monthly Archive for November, 2008

Stiff but not dick

Published on November 26, 2008 by Corinna Carlson | 0 Comments

Ok ok so that is a total click this link title but it is my blog and I’ll do what I want.

I recently finished reading Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Mary Roach and it was so intense that at one point I had Adam feel how hard my heart was beating and he said that I sounded like Joey Lawrence with the amount of WHOAS! I let out when reading within his ear shot.

This book was already on my favourites list before I was even half way through.  It was morbid and grotesque, engrossing, fascinating, gripping and changed everything I thought I wanted done to my body after I die.  There were parts where I found myself seriously over-stimulated but couldn’t put it down and allowed the anxiety to escape through deep breaths and lots of WHOAS. I found myself pinching the skin on my forehead and shifting my ass position constantly.

I not only read a lot of morbid material already I’m a pretty morbid person in general and this book had me shaking my head in disbelief. From the opening chapter on surgeons practicing facelifts on decapitated cadavers’ heads to body composting and crucifixion experiments this book genuinely covers the gamut of possibilities for your cadaver.

Stiff

I remember when Extreme Measures starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman came out I LOVED it and not because it was a good movie it was pretty crappy but because to me the subject matter was so real and interested me. They don’t take it as far as harvesting dead bodies behind closed doors but they may as well have it made me think some serious thoughts about what really does happen to homeless people who just disappear.

This book was the most fun I have had learning since I learned how to play Guitar Hero. And Guitar Hero is pretty fucking fun.  I can see how some people would be squeamish about the content but the book doesn’t hesitate to dive head first into the taboos surrounding cadavers and the ways they have been used from as far back as history records.

I found myself wondering if Gunther von Hagens the creator of Body Worlds, an exhibit we saw when it was here in Vancouver, would be mentioned in the book and when he was I must say I felt smart for a moment but even after all of the reading on war crimes, violence, and serial killers I’ve done over the years I was shocked at all the things that people have been doing to dead bodies for generations that I would have never even thought of.

A must read doesn’t slice it. Read it now.

The Sony eBook [My official review]

Published on November 25, 2008 by Corinna Carlson | 0 Comments

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Back in September I mentioned that I had been given a Sony eBook, a digital book reader, I briefly mentioned how awesome it was.  I have now not only used it and read some books on it but I have also traveled with it.

I started to read The Turn of the Screw Henry James, because as mentioned previously it came with one hundred classic novels to choose from.  As soon as I started reading, I noticed an increase in my reading speed. I read sixty or so pages and couldn’t decide if I was going too fast or if I didn’t like the book.  I gave the book the benefit of the doubt and started it over. It was not the reader it was the book it was not my thing and I stopped reading it again around sixty pages in.  I put the reader down after this and didn’t touch it again until shortly before my most recent trip.

The reader has two off options, I had left it in sleep mode which is an automatic mode used by simply flipping the on/off switch so when I turned it on to load it up for travel I found it dead.  It takes all of a half hour to fully charge it. Had I known after finding Mr. James a bore that I wasn’t going to use it for a while I would have powered it down completely which is very easily possible from the settings/advanced settings menu.

Once it was charged I added Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll to the four classics I’d already loaded onto it as soon as I hooked up the software.

When I went to pack to leave it was pretty awesome only needing to grab the paper book I was reading and one other I had started and actually still haven’t finished but that is neither here nor there. The reader is light enough that you can comfortably hold it while reading and your wrist doesn’t get sore, if you are a pussy I can’t help you it shouldn’t hurt it is that light. If you are anything like me you need at least four plus books a trip just think of the space and weight that you save right there.  I have a book bag that goes inside of bags and I placed the reader into it as if it were a cherished first printing first edition hard cover, the USB port and the headphones port and some other tiny little hook-up area are open, I would prefer if they were covered but I guess this is a gadget that if you own you are already going to treat like a baby.  Or I do, I find myself sometimes kissing its smooth brown magnetic cover.

When it comes to gadgets and gizmos I could use a lesson or six million, I can hardly use my cell phone, I have had it almost two years and just learned how to get the photos off of it. The eBook is so easy to use I’ve been able to figure everything out without issue from downloading the free books from the Sony site to transferring them onto the reader.  There are no unnecessary buttons and I forgot to mention it also has a removable memory slot, which is filled with a fake card and therefore it was part of it that I had no idea how to use, but the very small manual explained it and I now know it is just to hold more than the 160 books it already holds with it’s internal memory.

I finally settled on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as the next book I would try to start and finish.  Again, I found myself reading a lot faster than I normally do, I didn’t read it in one sitting as I’m sure many people do but I noticed a few things that made the book more enjoyable to read; because you can’t, you are not constantly checking how far into the book you are every time you pause to pick your nose or scratch your ass.  Once you have decided on your hold position you’re pretty much set because, and this is my favourite thing, you can turn the page with either hand with just the light tap of a finger.  The screen is not back lit like a computer screen making it almost exactly like paper to read off of. Reflections are no more or less annoying than shadows or weak light on a paper book.  You can bookmark as many pages as you like, it tracks them for you, and it turns on to the page you turned it off at.

I can’t imagine traveling anywhere without it already and not only does it give me an excuse to read 100 classic novels, it means that I can buy more of my favourite books in first printing first editions and save silly books like the new one by Dennis Leary that I seriously want to read for the eBook that and the book Madonna’s brother wrote, totally don’t want to own them on paper. You do have to buy books for the reader but they are considerably cheaper and it supports PDF documents so you can also get books free from the library for it, I just have this odd thing about having to in some way shape or form own all of my books.

Mystery Break

Published on November 24, 2008 by Corinna Carlson | 0 Comments

I broke my toe and did not go to the New Kids concert.  Of all the things that I thought would keep me from the concert I never foresaw a broken toe. I honestly haven’t cried over either.

I don’t even know how I broke my toe, which is the funniest thing about it, had Rhonda not been here to witness what I will explain here then I’d have not believed it myself.  I know, talk about building a mystery.

taunting the sea stars. So, we were going out in the rain to get Rhonda a tattoo down the street at Sacred Heart, because it was raining and getting chilly I put on my thicker purple pair of Wigwam socks, they are also perfect for rubber boots.  I always put my right foot into any type of footwear first.  Just as my foot was about to land completely inside a sharp pain shot out from the toe next to my baby toe, it is already an ugly hammer toe. I am extremely clumsy to the point I find bruises pretty much daily that I have no idea how I got, I drop and trip over things constantly, I also have a seriously extreme pain tolerance, you wouldn’t think it with the way I whine and complain about things but people exhibit much stranger body behaviors than I do, I’m sure of it.  I have dick all for balance so I grabbed the wall because my toe was screaming at me and I needed to get my other boot on.  I decided to walk it off, I started limping around the apartment and saying over and over and over and over MY TOE, MY TOE, MY TOE.  I took off the right boot, tore the sock off and there was NOTHING my toe was fine.  SUCK.IT.UP.

We left and I kept whining MY TOE, MY TOE, we got to the Sacred Heart that is really close to me about six blocks and they were full so we walked another twelve blocks to the next closest Sacred Heart Tattoo shop and they fit her in.  I had decided to go home because it was Thursday and I’d already had a really bad migraine since the Sunday past and the mixture of the radio and the steady buzzing of the tattoo gun was too much for me.  One of the other reasons that I wore my purple Wigwams is because originally we weren’t going far and in my rubber boots my feet walk the purple socks off but they are so comfy that if I’m not going far I don’t mind.  My other pair are thinner and don’t get walked off.

I wasn’t really sure what was going on with my toe, it was hurting but had almost stopped hurting and I had myself convinced it was just a very bad cramp.  I’d been walking on it for at least forty-five minutes by the time we got to the second shop.  Before I left I fixed my socks but decided to take off the right one and have another look at my toe and I found it to be broken. It was black with bruises.  I replaced my sock and my boot and limped home similar to how I got there but with a bit more ginger.  I am pretty sure my toe had gone numb.

day troisRhonda confirmed the bizarreness of the break to Adam and I reminded them both that when I was in kindergarten I fell off a chair backwards and cracked my head open and I didn’t notice and or cry until after everyone had rushed over to me and the circle I was supposed to be sitting in was reformed and not till then did I touch the sore spot on the back of my head and felt into the wee hole that was later sewn up with stitches. And then in my twenties I broke my clavicle on vacation in the Cook Islands and flew home on a delayed flight and had to overnight in LAX by myself [back when they still put you up in hotels for the night] and didn’t even find out it was broken until I got back.  That particular story I’m saving for a post I am going to call ‘Flying Broken and yet More reasons to hate Air Canada’.

My toe looks really nasty and hurts a little, the worst is that I was going to be going back to Yoga today so I had to email my instructor and say I won’t be back for a bit and because I am so clumsy I really must keep my flipper sandals on or I will forget it is broken, which might sound funny but you’d be amazed at how often I forgot my clavicle was broken and sent myself off screaming in pain from moving it wrong.  Basically I have cold feet.

OMG they are so gorgeous

Published on November 16, 2008 by Corinna Carlson | 0 Comments

Oh what I forgot to mention that I’m going to the New Kids on the Block concert on Friday? The love I have for my friends holds no bounds. Rhonda gets here on Wednesday she has a five star V.I.P ticket and I’m fifth row.  This is going to be one of those life experiences I’m sure.

I am not a fan. Not.At.All.

C.J and I were talking over email as we often do, here is an excerpt.

Me to C.J:

so umm can you believe i am going to the new kids concert! that is how much i love rhonda. holy shit i will NOT be able to stop laughing. taking 100 pairs of ear plugs. im seriously afraid that the place will smell like wet pussy from all the riled up ladies. ew gross times 900.

C.J back to me:

You are talking to a man that got swept into a Robbie Williams Concert on a wave of Estrogen. 95% of ALL un-planned births (Actually both pregnancies and births) are because of New Kids concerts. Please please please play it safe. Tape it up before you leave the flat. It’s the safest way. be it Sello, Gaffa or Duct….. tape it up before your journey.

Good thing Adam had that there vasectomy.