News Round Up

I haven't blogged in non-Olympics news in a while, so here's what's up:

Writing for the New York Times, Amy Harmon reports on the disturbing trend of teens using the Internet for bullying and harrassment: "Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar".

Also in the New York Times, Susan Dominus tells of a new PPV cable outfit dedicated to producing pron for women: "What Women Want to Watch". (For striaght women, undoubtedly. When do lesbians get our own porn channel?)

Finally in Wired, Xeni Jarden reports on the federal government's plan to bury porn sites in an avalanche of paperwork: "Porn Law Draws Adult Sites' Ire".

For Your Viewing Enjoyment

A pretty girl reading books: Straight A Student.

'Cause smart girls are sexy :)

Gold!

I took the afternoon off so that I could watch the women's gold medal soccer game. The girls pulled through, with an exciting 2-1 victory in double overtime. I got so excited at one point that I knocked a lamp over when throwing my hands in the air :) I must say that it was nice to be able to watch something live instead of on tape delay and not knowing the results ahead of time.

Volleyball

I played some organized volleyball back in my high school days, and still manage to play in a pick-up game now and then. So obviously watching Olympic volleyball is pretty fun--they play on a whole different level than my junior varsity team ever did :)

Watching the US-German women's beach volleyball this afternoon, I have to say that these women have to be some of the most in-shape women on the planet. The US team, Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs are both older than G or I, and look fabulous. Plus, they can play darn good too.

We also watch the women's indoor team play, as they beat favored Cuba in straight sets. I'm always amazed at how all the players manage to zoom around. And that Logan Tom sure is a cutie! (She looked small on tv, but she's 6'1"!)

Run, Girl, Run

After 26 miles of running you wouldn't think that the end of a marathon would be very exciting, but the final minutes of the women's marathon was, with only a minute separating the top three finishers (12 seconds between 1st and 2nd), and American Deena Kastor surging forward just before entering the stadium to take the bronze.

Meanwhile, the US women's softball team continues its utter dominance, getting their eigth shut-out in as many days to get into the gold medal game against Australia. When G asks me why I can't play softball like that, she gets a little slap--playful, of course :)

For Your Viewing Enjoyment

A sexy girl, and a large flat-screen monitor ;)
Sweet Sugar.

The Changing Face of Cheerleading

Today's New York Times has an article on the growing schism in the ranks of competitive cheerleading: "Cheerleading Demands the Field for Itself".

(Thanks to my sexy ex-cheerleader Gretchen for the link!)

Pierced Where?

According to a wide-spread story ("Nicole Richie red-faced after nipple-piercing alarm"), reality tv personality Nicole Richey was recently embarassed at the Reno, NV airport when she had to show her tits to airport security to prove that her nipples were pierced.

Sayeth Ms. Richey: "So they brought in two female officers and took me not to necessarily the most private place in the airport and made me take off my top. Thank God I'm not a shy person, but what if I was shy?"

Um yeah, because shy people are always getting their nipples pierced...

It could have been worse--I wonder what they do with girls who have their clits pierced?

Great Coverage

So far, the television coverage for this Olympics is far superior to years past. And by superior, I mean that there is much more variety in the sports being shown.

For instance, when I turned it on this morning, CNBC was showing Hungary vs. China in Women's Handball. I don't think I'd ever even seen handball being played before (it's a strange combination of basketball & hockey). Then I flipped over to Bravo, where they're showing USA vs. New Zealand in Women's Table Tennis. Yesterday, after watching the Women's Soccer match between the US & Brazil, I was able to see some Women's Field Hockey and Men's Fencing.

In years past, it seemed that all NBC would show was gymnastics, basketball, diving, swimming and track. I think it's great to have all this variety.

It's going to be hard getting anything done over the next two weeks...

Swimsuit Dancers?

Barely one day in and already we have a "What the Fuck?" moment from the Olympics:

During a break in the action in Men's Beach Volleyball, a dance team of women in two-piece simsuits comes out and does a dance routine.

What I'm wondering is, during Women's Beach Volleyball, will a group of men in swimsuits come out and dance for us?

Because I'm all for gratuitous flesh being on display, I just want there to be equal opportunity oggling :)

Olympics

The 2004 Summer Olympics kicked off yesterday with the opening ceremonies, and continues for the next two weeks. I'm not a huge Olympics buff, but I do appreciate that women's sports will get more coverage for the next two weeks than any other time during the year, and that we'll get to see some sports that we don't otherwise. We get coverage on six stations: NBC, CNBC, MSNBC,, Bravo, USA, and CBC; so there should be plenty of airtime to go around.

Here are some impressions from the Opening Ceremonies:

• It takes a long time to march 202 countries into the stadium--nearly two hours. That's too long, and listening to the incessant patter of Katie Couric & Bob Costas for that long is nearly enough to make your ears bleed (and I generally like Katie & Bob!)


• Speaking of their non-stop babbling, couldn't they shut up long enough to nnot talk over Bjork's song? You've been talking non-stop for two hours--give it a rest and let us listen to the music!


• For the first time, women's wrestling is an olympic sport. Yes, you can practically hear the snickering now


• The country with the best-looking female atheletes? Italy, followed closely by Greece, Canada, and Serbia.


• Why were all the kids in the children's choir singing the Olympic anthem wearing iPods?


• How cool was the giant robotic arm that leaned down to take the flame? It's like we're in the 21st century or something! Also cool were the flying statues, the laser DNA, and the floats of Greek history.

Okay, that's all for now.

Scum-sucking Thieves

Wired has the story of the latest attempt by bottom-feeders to game the search engines into leading people to certain porn sites: "CyberQuest Disavows Porn Blogs".

What the article fails to mention is that in addition these people populated the content for their faux blogs by stealing stories from ASSTR--including many of my own stories--stripping off the email addresses and URLs.

I really don't care that much--after all, I post my stories for free on the Web and Usenet. But I don't like to see people taking what I've written and trying to make a cheap buck off of my work. That's just scum-sucking at its worst.

Gay Toons?

In light of the recent announcement that a character on The Simpsons will be coming out of the closet in an upcoming gay marriage-themed episode, Mike Prevatt of the Las Vegas Mercury looks at which other Toons might be gay in "The Homeowner: Outing the 'toons".

Coming ASSTR Upgrades

This blog and my story site are hosted by the Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository (ASSTR). They provide free hosting for authors and ad-free access for readers. (They also moderate the alt.sex.stories.moderated Usenet group.)

Over Labor Day Weekend (9/3 - 9/6) ASSTR will be undergoing server upgrades. The downside is that during that time the Website will undergo some downtime (but hey, you should be outside enjoying the weekend anyway!) The good news is that when they are done there will be upgrades to three servers and a brand new server as well.

The cost for you to access my story site, and all of the content, is nil. But, like public radio, somebody has to pay. And with a popular site like ASSTR, it costs a lot. ASSTR is a project of the Internet Free Literature Corporation, a 503(c) non-profit organization, and relies solely on donations to survive.

I don't ask for any money for my stories--just a nice email now and then--but I do ask that you consider making a donation to ASSTR to keep the bandwidth open and the stories flowing. Plus, if you live in the U.S., your donation is tax deductible.

ASSTR is setting a goal of $5000 by the end of the month to pay for the server upgrades. Please consider helping out. You can donate by credit card at: https://secure.asstr.org/cgi-bin/donations/ccdonation.cgi

Who's a Loser?

An artist known only by the pen name 'Hard' draws the Sexy Losers Internet comic strip. This X-rated manga-ish strip is often profane and sometimes funny as it details the dysfunctional sex lives of its characters.

(It's very much a 'guy' strip though, so those of you looking for hot girl lovin' should stick with Colleen.)

Interesting Reading

The article "The Lost Boys" in the current issue of Wired details the flight of men ages 18-34 from watching television to the Internet and video games. Apparently, 71% of this group visits a porn site at least once a month. (Which, if you're reading this, you probably already know!)

I think that one of the things leading to declining TV viewing is the pervasiveness of the ads. Not too long ago there was just 8 minutes of ads per hour; that number is now up to 15 minutes and more. I think that the ad minutes finally saturated and they're now driving away viewers.

Plus, when they cancel good shows ("Angel," "Wonderfalls") and keep showing more and more crap squeezed in between the commercials, what do they expect?