Month: January 2006 (Page 2 of 2)

I Am So Over Boobs

January 17, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 57 Comments

(Scarlett Johannson and the Golden Globes)

Once upon a time, I read this really cool blog that had hardly any readers. I loved this blog. The writer was terrific. I felt as if I had a personal relationship with this blogger. Then, all of a sudden, she was found out by others, and is now very popular. I lost interest.

Many years ago, I remember hearing Prince’s first album on some obscure independent radio station. I bought the album. I felt like I had "discovered" a new artist. A year later, everyone had heard of him. People laughed in my face when I said that I was the "first" to listen to him. I never bought another Prince album.

I’ve always been in love with women’s breasts. But slowly I’m realizing that 98% of the population is obsessed with them, both men and women. In fact, it’s almost all I see on television and magazines.

For all practical purposes, I should be bored with breasts. I should be an "ass man" or a "leg man" or a "earlobe" man — something less mainstream and "bourgeois." Being a breast man is like reading "The Da Vinci Code" in the subway. Or watching "American Idol."

Today, I am officially over women’s breasts.

From now on, I’m going to sexualize women in less obvious ways. I think you expect more of me.

Like with Prince, no one is going to believe that I was the first one to discover the joy of seeing a woman’s breasts freed from her clothing, or that I deserve a special "Golden Globe" Award for starting the now-hip-trend of "feeling a woman up."

Yes, the Boobie era is over for me. You female bloggers that were reluctant to send topless photos to me before, now have nothing to worry about.

Email away. Your breasts will do nothing for me.

The Toothbrush

January 15, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 51 Comments

Sometimes I feel a little frustrated with blogging, mostly because of you, my dear reader. While I enjoy our interaction, try as I might, I still don’t feel I really know you. Mathematically speaking, am I being too generous in saying that you only get to see about 15% of a person by reading their blog?

People are complicated in general. It’s hard enough knowing yourself, so knowing someone else is especially difficult. For all my time with Sophia, I suspect I only know 25% of her. She’s always doing things that are surprising to me. Last night, we played Texas Hold ’em poker with some friends, and she bluffed with a two of diamonds and three of spades. That just wasn’t her! It was shocking.

I love my mother, but having never seen her in her wild single days in Coney Island, I suspect I’ve only seen 35% of her true self.

I don’t understand myself at all, especially with all my self-deception, so I gather I only know 60% of myself.

As a "writer," I’m supposed to understand characterization, but in truth, people are way too mysterious. My interest in the human psyche started at an early age.

When I was a kid, I remember my parents being involved in a Jewish social group that met at our apartment every month. There were about twenty members of this group. On this night, my parents would let me stay up late. Sometimes, I would come out in my pajamas and play a song on my clarinet, or do a magic trick (I was a budding magician who did shows at childrens’ parties). After doing a trick, Abe, a hefty optomotrist, would give me a quarter "tip."

I bring up this monthly event because something odd happened in my apartment every single month — something that became legendary in my household. After all the guests left, we would find that one of the toothbrushes in the bathroom was missing, and we would then find it sitting in the bathroom hamper with the laundry.

The first time it happened, we assumed it was some weird accident. But every month it would be the same — a toothbrush in the hamper after all the guests left.

My mother suggested that we hide all the toothbrushes, but my father, being an overly nice guy, didn’t want the culprit to know we were onto him — and make him feel bad. My father worked in a hospital and was very understanding of all sorts of neurotic people.

One night, a year and 12 discarded toothbrushes later, my mother had had enough. She gave me a secret assignment, something I wasn’t supposed to tell my father. I would watch TV in my parents’ bedroom during the evening. With the bedroom door slightly ajar, one could get a perfect view of the bathroom. Each time someone went into the bathroom, I should make a note of the person, then run in to check the status of the toothbrushes as soon as they left.

I was on toothbrush patrol all night, and I must have run into the bathroom at least 10 times for an examination, each time with my father’s handkerchief covering my face, protecting me from any smell and making me feel like a real sleuth.

Then came the big moment.

Abe had just left the bathroom. As he passed from view, I ran inside — and there was the proof — my father’s toothbrush was gone! I opened the hamper and laundry scattered all over the floor. On top of one of my t-shirts, was the toothbrush!

I rushed into the kitchen and told my mother. It was Abe! She said we should talk about it with my father later.

After everyone left, I told my father about my investigative reporting. He was not surprised, but insisted that we never bring it up and embarrass Abe. The next day, my father and I went to our local dime store and bought a 12-pack of toothbrushes, enough to keep Abe happy for a year of throwing toothbrushes into the hamper.

My parents were friends with Abe for many years. His weird toothbrush fetish was never brought up. Why did Abe do this? Did he have a bad experience with a dentist when he was a child? Did he want us to launder the toothbrush? And why only one? Would he have remained friends with my parents if they confronted him?

Did they ever really know more than 2% of the real Abe?

People are complicated and mysterious.

Attack of the Blogs

January 12, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 44 Comments

Back in November, there was a much-discussed cover story in Forbes by Daniel Lyons titled "Attack of the Blogs." The article was mostly about how blogs have given a lot of power to "the mob" — meaning us — which can have an adverse effect on business. Since the explosion of blogging, some disgruntled consumer can start a rumor that can quickly spread around the blogosphere, costing a business millions of dollars.

"Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality," says Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a Cincinnati firm that sifts through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients, including Procter & Gamble and Ford. "The potential for brand damage is really high,"says Frank Shaw, executive vice president at Microsoft’s main public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom. "There is bad information out there in the blog space, and you have only hours to get ahead of it and cut it off, especially if it’s juicy."

I was actually sympathizing with these companies, until I read one of the suggestions for businesses to "fight back" against bloggers:

Build a Blog Swarm: Reach out to key bloggers and get them on your side. Lavish them with attention. Or cash. Earlier this year, Marqui, a tiny Portland, Ore. software shop, began paying 21 bloggers $800 per month to post items about Marqui.

Isn’t that a bit like what Jack Abramoff was doing in Washington?

Why is this OK?

I actually know someone whose job is to go to online forums and talk excitedly about movies and products to produce "a buzz" — but acting as if she were a regular person just chatting online.

I also remember going to a hotel in San Francisco because of a great "review" in TripAdvisor, only to find out that it was written by the manager himself.

So, the internet can be used for good and evil, on both sides. Despite the potential for abuse, I like the fact that the internet gives Regular Joes and Janes the power to be heard and to speak up against the powers-that-be. The internet will be a sad place when it is just another outlet for constant advertising and self-promotion.

Oh right, it’s like that already.

Recently, I thought about blogging about a not-very-nice Los Angeles mattress store, just to embarrass it by publishing its name. Normally, I would just suck it in. But having a blog is empowering, it’s like I have my own New York Times.

Here’s the story:

Sophia’s mother and step-father are an older couple who only speak Russian. For several weekends they asked Sophia and me to help them buy a new mattress for their bedroom, but like most selfish children, we were always too busy (going to movies, playing Texas Hold’em poker, etc.) to help.

"Next week… next week," we said.

Finally, they gave up on us and decided to buy the mattress themselves — at a store on Wilshire near Fairfax in Los Angeles. When Sophia called them later, she became very upset when she heard that they paid a small fortune for the mattress + 80 bucks for delivery.

Were they ripped off?

There was certainly one way to find out. I went to the store the next day and asked to buy the same mattress.

Can you believe that the salesman offered to sell it to me for a couple of hundred dollars less, with free delivery — without any bargaining at all?

This was one day later. There was no sale the day before.

Is this just business as usual — different prices for different people?

Did he maybe recognize me from my blog and wanted to give me a special "blog deal?"

Or did he just rip off Sophia’s parents, seeing they were an older couple who didn’t speak English?

Of course, I have no proof of this.

But would it really be so wrong for me to publish the name of this mattress store? You know, the one on Wilshire near Fairfax in Los Angeles.

Girls Gone Geeky

January 9, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 48 Comments

I’m still a little sick from the cold I got at Vegas, but we finally made it back to LA. Sophia, bless her heart, drove the entire way back. Here are the highlights of our trip back from Las Vegas:

As we’re driving out of town, Sophia and I pass a huge truck painted with images of half-clad women and the words "Girls Gone Wild."

"That guy was brilliant." she says.

"Who?"

"That sleazy guy who came up with "Girls Gone Wild." He’s a millionaire many times over."

"The whole concept is disgusting and exploits women."

"I’m just saying he’s filthy rich…"

"So, are you saying it’s better to be sleazy and a millionaire, than not sleazy?"

"I didn’t say that. What kind of logic is that?"

"Why, would you rather have married him?"

"I don’t know the guy from "Girls Gone Wild.""

"You seem to know a lot about him."

"I read some article. I know he’s a millionaire. I know he had a very smart idea."

"I have smart ideas also."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, tons of them. I’m having an idea now."

"Tell me."

"Imagine if you did something like "Girls Gone Wild," but with a twist! Something that’s not demeaning to women, but actually empowers them. We can call it something like "Girls Gone Geeky.""

"Girls Gone Geeky?"

"Yeah, imagine this. At first, you’ll see three girls sitting in a coffee shop, all reading books. Then I’ll show up with a cameraman and I’ll shout out to them, "Hey girls,what are you doing?" And all of them will shout back, "We’re studying for our bio-chemistry exam!" And I’ll say, "Hey, girls, how would you like to show me your books?" And all of them will flash their bio-chemistry books up for the camera to see."

"Neilochka, why don’t you take a nap?"

Two or three hours later, Sophia wakes me up.

"I’m hungry and tired, and we’re almost out of gas," she says.

"Where are we?"

"Victorville."

"Where’s that?"

"I don’t know. I’m just going to stop at the first restaurant I find."

I went back to sleep. A few minutes later, Sophia knocks me in the arm.

"Get up," she says.

I look outside the window. We are in front of Olive Garden.

"Shit."

This Olive Garden looks exactly the same as the last one we visited.

While I’m not coughing as much as before, my stomach is uneasy. Just opening up the menu makes me feel sick.

"Do you want to share the soup and salad again?" joked Sophia.

"Sorry, I don’t want anything. I feel nauseous."

"Nauseous? I think you mean "nauseated." It’s a common mistake."

"I never heard anyone say, "I feel nauseated.""

"So what? People are idiots. I’m a language professional and you’re not."

"Well, I grew up here and you didn’t. And everyone says, "I feel nauseous.""

"I’ve also heard people say, "I have to nip it in the butt," but that doesn’t make it right.

"So, how would you use the word nauseous?"

"You would say "Nauseous fumes.""

"That’s "Noxious fumes.""

"Geez, Neil, "noxious" means ‘harmful." Nauseous fumes are fumes that cause nausea. So, if you say, "I feel nauseous," what you are really saying is that you are making me sick, which might be true. But if you are sick to your stomach – you are nauseated."

"Huh! So — "You are nauseous." "You make me feel nauseated.""

"That’s right. "I am nauseated because you are nauseous."

"Nauseated. Nauseous. Nauseous. Nauseated. Hmmm…"

The guy at the next table taps me on the shoulder. He’s eating his pasta with his wife.

"Do you think you guys could change the subject of your conversation? You’re making me nauseous"

An hour later, we’re back on the road, when we surprisingly find ourselves passing the same "Girls Gone Wild" truck.

I turn to Sophia.

"Sophia, you know if we did that "Girls Gone Geeky" idea, we could spice it up by having a bunch of really attractive women on the beach, maybe even wearing bikinis, but they don’t do stupid things like play volleyball with their boobs jumping up and down. Instead they discuss matters of linguistics, like that nauseous-nauseated thing we were talking about. They can even be qualified grammarians, or linguists like you."

"Neilochka, why don’t you take a nap?"

CES: Day Two

January 6, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 26 Comments

In a desperate publicity stunt to take attention away from Google, Yahoo!’s Yodelimo will drive you five feet from the monorail to the convention center entrance.

After we heard some Microsoft presenter talk and talk about technology advancing "productivity," we noticed that most of the crowd gathered around the X-Box games.

At CES, the world is already Asian.

My favorite booth at CES — cutesy TVs by Hannspree.

At last! We found Moxi and Sophia promptly told them what she thought about their shitty DVR interface. I couldn’t believe it, but they actually took notes!

Sony’s AIBO robotic dog costs $3000 and has "blog capability." I’ve already put him on my blogroll.

The one question that stuck in my mind throughout the event: Is Yanni really any better in Hi-Def and Surround Sound?

Polk Audio’s new line of speakers offer amazing clarity and sound. You won’t believe the power of the highs, mids, and bass coming from this attractive set… uh, excuse me, this photo is from the wrong Las Vegas convention. She belongs in the Adult Video Expo across the hall…

CES: Day One

January 6, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 21 Comments

The sun rose over the Las Vegas Strip and the official first day of the giant Consumer Electronics Show. I came here to Las Vegas for one simple reason — to report back to you, my loyal readers, everything I can about all the latest high-tech gadgets in televisions, monitors, wireless, computers, audio devices, and mobile phones. A convention this big requires more than one person to cover it. That’s why this year, I brought along Gadget Girl herself, Sophia.

After our delicious "breakfast buffet" at the Palms Hotel, it was time to head out to the "big event." I had read that it was impossible to park at or near the Convention Center, so we decided to park at the Bellagio and take the "CES Shuttle Bus."

After a half hour of trying to find parking at the Bellagio and walking through the enormous casino, we finally made it to the CES shuttle bus stop. It was 10:35 A.M. We were promptly told that the shuttle bus stopped running at 10:30 A..M.

But it was no big problem. The Bellagio valet told us that we could take the Las Vegas monorail right across the street at Bally’s.

Simple enough. We walked across the street to Bally’s.

Have you ever driven to the Grand Canyon? At a certain point, you pass a sign reading "Now entering Grand Canyon Park." In reality, you still have to drive an hour and a half until you can see anything.

Keep that in mind as we entered Bally’s. There was a sign pointing to the monorail. We then walked for twenty minutes through the casino, up two flights of stairs, up and down three flights of escalators, past the restaurant, the pool, and the spa — until we got to the monorail, which cost us five bucks each to be crammed in with hundreds of other CES geeks for a three minute ride.

At last we made it to the Holy Land. The Convention Center. CES. Oh, wait, not yet. First, we had to wait in line for forty five minutes for "registration" and to pick up our name tags.

We entered CES, completely exhausted and cranky. The show is enormous, taking up 28 football fields, and that is not counting three other huge venues.

Now we had to figure out what to look at. The next version of Windows? The new Sony HD camera? The XM Radio display? Sophia and I sat on the floor to look through the 700 pound CES directory.

Suddenly, Sophia found something exciting. MOXI was at CES!

"Who the hell is MOXI?" I asked.

"They make the DVR box for my Adelphia Cable company."

"So?"

"They have the worst interface ever. If you press the button to see what movies are playing, it only shows you the moves that are playing RIGHT NOW, even if the movie started forty-five minutes ago, but not the movie that’s going to be on in five minutes. It was developed by a complete idiot."

"So, what do you want to do… tell them that?"

"Exactly. How often do you get to talk to the developers of a product you hate? Maybe they’ll listen."

So, off we went, to the South Hall of the Convention Center, past Motorola and Microsoft and Samsung and two football fields of space, trying to find MOXI. After twenty minutes of walking, we were hopelessly lost. We asked some woman carrying a cool orange cloth tote bag if she knew anything about MOXI. She never heard of them.

"Did you get that nice tote bag here at CES?" I asked the woman.

"Yes, over at some high-def company over there. All the other tote bags are cheap plastic. But this one is really nice."

"It really is," I replied, admiring the bag.

"If you want one, you better go fast because they’re running out!"

Sophia wanted to continue looking for MOXI. I thought we should first get the tote bag before they run out.

"What do you need that tote bag for?" she wondered, slightly annoyed.

"Did you see how cool it looked? It would be nice two put these huge books into something. Come on, let’s do that first, and then we’ll find MOXI."

So, off we went, wandering around like the Israelites in the desert, looking for the orange tote bag company. Fifteen minutes later, we realized that we had mistakenly walked into the North Hall. We were lost.

"Why don’t you ask someone for directions?" Sophia asked, like a typical woman.

"Directions to what? The company with the cool orange bags?"

"Yes.."

"I’m not going to look like an idiot asking for that."

"You’re the one who wanted it! Just ask someone."

"I think the company on the bag was Abracadabra Media."

"It wasn’t Abracadabra."

"It was something like that."

"JUST ASK SOMEONE."

Some self-assured man, about 35, wearing a blue suit approached. He looked like someone who was knowledgeble. I took a quick look at this name tag. It read that he represented the William Morris Agency. I couldn’t move my tongue as he passed by.

"Sophia, you see that guy? He works for the William Morris Agency. What is he doing here?"

"Maybe he works for their tech department."

"Maybe he’s a literary agent."

"Go talk to him."

"And say what?"

"Tell him you’re looking for a job. Tell him to go read Citizen of the Month.."

"Forget it. Let’s find the orange Abracadabra bags."

"Are you stupid? This is more important that a tote bag! This is a perfect opportunity to do some networking? If you’re not going to talk to him I will."

"OK, OK, I will… "

"Which one is he again?"

"He’s wearing a blue suit."

We looked over towards the X-Box display area and there were at least forty men wearing blue suits. It was like a Hitchcock movie where we needed to find the killer with a black umbrella among thousands of people with black umbrellas.

For the next twenty minutes, we weaved in and out of various-aged computer geeks trying out new X-Box games, vainly searching for the William Morris agent in the blue suit. We never found him.

"I’m tired." said Sophia.

We had hardly seen any gadgets at all.

"What about MOXI?"

"Forget it. You still want your orange bag?"

"Not really."

"Let’s go back to the Belllagio and play the slot machines."

"You read my mind."

We pushed our way through the crowd and made it out of the convention center. We saw a sign that the CES Shuttle Buses are running now. We sighed in excitement. And then we noticed that there were at least 500 people waiting to get on the bus.

An hour and a half later we fiinally made it back to the Belllagio.

Day 1, CES: That’s my report.

Just a Little Trim

January 3, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 71 Comments

There’s nothing as flattering as being thought of as someone knowledgeable, as someone whose opinion matters — particularly on issues of male-female relationships. I’ve always harbored a secret desire to be a male "Dear Abby." So, I fell out of my chair this morning when a reader asked my opinion of something quite unusual:

I have been waxing (or shaving I guess) the bikini area. I haven’t been with someone since I started waxing everything off and I am wondering if upon finding this out… is a guy going to have a positive or negative reaction to it? What do you think? You can write about this on your blog. It might be interesting to hear other people’s thoughts!

Sara

Thanks for the question, Sara, but I’m not a typical man. After all, in my comments of my last post, I admitted that I would sleep with the 62 year old Stephanie Edwards.

Other men might disagree with me, but I couldn’t care less whether you are shaved or not. I mean the public hair is not made of steel wool and it certainly isn’t going to prevent me from getting to the good stuff. In fact, I like the hair because it gives the man something more to play with. What man doesn’t enjoy making braids with the woman’s public hair. Why take away the fun?

On that note, I should reveal that even I once shaved my pubic hair.

It all happened becuase one day, when I was in college, I noticed that my roommate, Wade, had shaved his.

"What the hell did you do?" I asked. "Are you trying out for the swim team?"

"Nah. I read that it could make my weiner look bigger."

I shrugged, thinking he was an idiot. Wade was constantly obsessing over his "weiner," which didn’t make much sense, since he had a beautiful girlfriend over at Barnard College, who obviously loved him despite whatever the "size" of his "weiner" was.

That night, Wade came home, all cheery. He told me that his girlfriend, Becca, gave him oral sex. She never wanted to do it before, because she was always repulsed by his pubic hair.

This quickly changed my opinion on this issue. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all? After all, look what happened with Wade and Becca!

I began to give this shaving idea some more serious thought when I was invited out to dinner with Wade, Becca, and Becca’s hot roommate – Annette. If Becca feels this way, maybe it’s the same with all Barnard girls. As they say, when in Rome, do as Romans do. When in a Barnard girl… maybe you need to get a trim.

A few hours before the big event, I went into the dorm bathroom with my scissors and my Gillette — and gave myself a lower body crew cut.

Later, at the restaurant, things were going terrific. There was food and drink and music. Wade and Becca were dancing. Annette and I were at the table, hitting it off. She said she was from Vermont. She said she loved Charles Dickens.

"So do I!" I said.

I said I love French movies.

"So do I!" she said.

Things couldn’t be going better when, suddenly, it felt as if I was sprouting a five o’clock shadow around my groin. I could actually feel the stubble rubbing against my underwear and it was itchy as hell. I started squirming in my seat.

"Is there anything wrong?" asked Annette.

"Just moving to the music," I answered, and started singing along to Duran Duran. "Uh, let’s dance…"

I grabbed Annette and we went off to dance. Anything to keep moving. I started dancing erratically, moving my legs this way and that, hoping the flowing air will give me some relief. Some people stopped dancing just to watch my crazy steps.

"You are a wild dancer!" said Annette.

Soon, I was totally exhausted from jumping all around. Annette and I sat down again. She seemed to be having a great time.

"You know, you’re really fun," she said.

"I like you, too."

I couldn’t believe I blurted that out. But, she smiled at me. Everything was OK. Everything was great. Annette was blushing and shyly turned away to watch another table that was singing "Happy Birthday."

But then the itch resumed. And it was worse than before. I quickly slid down in my chair, so no one can see — and gave my itchy area a little scratching, hoping to relieve my agony. Never was a scratch so necessary. I just hoped that this wouldn’t ruin the evening, considering that Annette seemed to really like me.

But then I noticed that Wade and Becca weren’t dancing anymore on the dance floor either. In fact, they were standing right behind me. Becca’s face looked in shock as she watched my hand on my groin, moving in an up-and-down motion under the table.

"Oh my god!," Becca said loudly. "Wade’s roommate is masturbating under the table!"

I still can visualize Annette’s face as she turned around to face me. Who knows if she even heard my explanation, or if the blaring sounds of "Hungry Like a Wolf" blocked out everything as she ran away from me. I doubt she would have really understood what happened — why I had shaved my pubic hair.

Let’s just say that things never worked out between us.

During that year in college, Wade got a lot of oral sex from Becca.

I let my public hair grow back. I’ve never touched it since.

At Least She Got an Umbrella

January 2, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 63 Comments

(photo by Fescue)

Los Angeles doesn’t have too many big civic events, like other big cities back East. That’s why the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade is such a big deal here in town. I’ve been to it a couple of times, and the floats, created with flowers, seeds, and other natural items, are really amazing. This year the parade was a blow-out, with torrential rains for the first time in fifty years.

However, the big story in town was not the rain, but what happened in the anchor booth of local television station KTLA. Although KTLA is only the local WB network affiliate, they easily get the most viewers during the parade every year because the hosts, B-celebrities Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards, have been doing it together since 1978. When you say the Rose Parade to most Angelenos, they think of these two, sort of like Dick Clark is forever associated with New Year’s Eve.

Stephanie Edwards, who is 62, hasn’t been very lucky lately, due to her advancing age. She was the long time spokesperson for the Albertson’s Supermarket chain (which ironically used to be called Lucky Supermarket before a big supermarket merger), until she was replaced by Patricia Heaton of "Everybody Loves Raymond." In an interview she gave a few years ago, she said that before she was let go, she was told that her crows feet were getting too noticeable.

Today, I turned into KTLA to watch the parade and there in the booth was Bob Eubanks, 68, along a new co-host — the much younger Michaela Pereira, the sexy co-anchor of KTLA’s jokey "Morning News," showing off some really nice cleavage that wasn’t matched by her knowledge (she said that "Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Superior Court" and referred to floats as self-built).

And where was Stephanie Edwards?

(photo by Fescue)

She was standing on the street in the pouring rain and had about five minutes of air time over the entire telecast.

Kevin Roderick of L.A. Observed reports that:

Pasadena Star-News editor Larry Wilson saw it coming, writing in a column last week that Edwards has been hinting around town at Channel 5’s plans to exile her. Wilson received calls from Edwards supporters saying it was unfair that she got moved out for a younger woman while Eubanks, who is six years older, remains. Wilson then got a message from KTLA denying that Edwards was demoted, but rather had shifted into the new role of "roving co-host."

Some say that Edwards was temperamental and there was tension between her and Eubanks. But Eubanks is also known as temperamental. In fact, in Michael Moore’s "Roger & Me," the former host of The Newlywed Game said: "Why don’t Jewish women get AIDS? Because they don’t fuck assholes; they marry them."

Nice guy.

Why was he the one kept in the booth? And how many times did he have to mention his two year old son? We get it Bob, you don’t need Viagra. Translation: Old men can still marry and procreate with hot young women. Old women get sent out to stand in the rain.

I have so many female readers. Does this putting an older woman out to pasture bother you or do you accept it as the way of the world? I overheard two young women at a coffee shop today, and they liked the new female host since she was "prettier and friendlier." I’d like to hear what these two have to say in 40 years.

Today on Blogebrity: Communicatrix Gets to Empty

Viva La iPod

January 2, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 27 Comments

I was playing Texas Hold-em Poker with Sophia and my mother when we got a little confused over what the dealer button meant.

"Go check out the ‘World Series of Poker’ I have recorded on TV," Sophia said. "They explain it prety well."

I went to the living room to check out Sophia’s Tivo, which is not really a Tivo, but a Replay TV, but I always call it a Tivo, like some people always call a Pepsi a Coke, which must annoy the hell out of executives at Pepsico. In fact, I sometimes go to Burger King and specifically ask for a Coke just to hear the beleaguered girl taking the order say for the thousandth time that day "We don’t have Coke. Is Pepsi OK?" So, yes, I do have a passive-aggressive streak.

When I got to the Tivo — I mean Replay TV, I noticed that Sophia had been taping every Texas Hold ’em show on TV. These poker shows have clearly taken over from the designing shows as the new flavor of the day. There are poker games on Bravo, GSN, ESPN, and even the Travel Channel. If there’s an excuse for a poker series, they’ll find one. "Next on CSPAN: Congressmen who love Texas Hold ’em Poker."

Now I understood why Sophia was winning every game. At first, I thought she had just looked stupid wearing those sunglasses and that hooded sweatshirt, but now I see she was imitating the poker "masters" — and intimidating us.

"Sophia, I’m having some trouble finding the show you wanted me to look at."

"It’s called ‘World Series of Poker."

"You have 2005, 2004, 2002, and 1998."

"Just pick any one."

I couldn’t figure out this Replay TV box. I had to call Sophia for her assistance.

"What’s the matter with you? You used to be so good with electronic things."

She was right. After we started playing poker again, I lost interest. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said. I quickly went "all in" and lost all my chips. I started to head upstairs.

"Where are you going?" asked my mother.

"To the bedroom to sulk and ponder my life."

I sat on the bed and thought about the past. At one time, people used to come to me to fix their computers. But no more. Now they always go to some fifteen year old cousin.

Somewhere along the line, I lost interest in technology. Perhaps it was the time several years ago when I started having sex on a regular basis. Honestly, if you have a woman to play with, isn’t that enough to occupy you for the rest of your life? Do you really need a Blackberry?

I still use an old-fashioned CRT monitor. My cellphone is clunky. I do not own an iPod. I’ve never touched an X-Box

But blogging has changed everything. Many of my readers depend on me to keep them in touch with the latest and greatest, the hottest and the trendiest. Some of you get all of your news from blogs, some of you are shut-ins on medication. I have a responsibility to the community.

So later this week, from Thursday to Sunday, rather than blabbing on about my usual mundane subjects, I will be attending The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This is an enormous show that takes over the city as companies showcase the coolest gadgets coming out in 2006. And Citizen of the Month will be blogging from the show floor. There will be other bloggers there, including many from big time blogs. But only at Citizen of the Month will you get a unique perspective — from someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject.

If you have any questions on what’s hot in consumer electronics, please ask me and I’ll be sure to get you a wrong answer.

Oh, by the way, I will be doing other things in Las Vegas other than attending this fascinating conference. I will try my hand — for the very first time — playing real life Texas Hold ’em Poker. Sophia even gave me this Hanukkah gift for me to wear at the table, so I can look like all the other professionals.

(photo taken by Sophia on her cool, gadgety Nokia phone)