Amazing Things that Happened on April 14th

As most of you know, tomorrow, April 14th is my birthday! Other than me being brought into the world, tons of important things have happened on April 14th:

 first abolitionist society sets up in Philidelpia

1st edition of the Webster’s dictionary is printed

Formal Union surrender at Ft. Sumter 

Thomas Edison makes a “peep show” machine

Lincoln is assassinated

The Titanic starts to sink

“The Grapes of Wrath” is published

 

 

 

It’s not the size of the…

“It’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean, except right now there’s no tide.”

Things to try at 2am

1. Walking on your hands.
2. Look for a shooting star (or a UFO).
3. Listen outside and try to identify the different creatures that made them.
4. Make a fort in the middle of your room.
5. Come up with a new ice cream flavor.
6. Make a house of cards.
7. Invent a new holiday.
8. Burp the alphabet.. backwards.
9. Write a parody of the most annoying song you know. (Mine is “Monday”)
10. Bake a cake.
11. Learn a new word in a different language, and write it on a piece of paper. Then, sick it to your forehead.
12. While eating animal crackers, make the sound of the animal you’ve just eaten.
13. Write a “Thank you” letter to 10 random people who’ve made you smile that week.
14. Sing “Row Your Boat” to a duck.
15. Build a squirrel house to put outside.
16. Read only the first and last pages of a classic novel.
17. Make up a random superhero based on someone you know.
18. Answer “Would You Rather” questions the way you think your pet would.
19. List 3 random things that make you happy.
20. Try listing all 50 states within 1 minute.

Mae West Quotes

“When I’m good I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.”

“I wrote the story myself. It’s about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.”

“A hard man is good to find.”

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”

“I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.”

“I see you’re a man with ideals. I better be going before you’ve still got them.”

The History of Vibrators

The history of the vibrator is rooted in the puritanical ethics of the Victorian Era. In Victorian society, an androcentric model of sexuality was the accepted norm, meaning that “sex” consisted only of the act of penetration to male orgasm. Anything else wasn’t considered sex. As practiced by most of society, it was robotic and pleasure-less, especially for women. You jumped in bed, the old man hid the salami, and with a couple of strokes the deed was done. The heavenly mandate was met. Sex was for procreation, not recreation.
Obviously not very satisfying for the woman. Of course, in Victorian Society it wasn’t accepted that “proper” women had any sexual desire, much less that they were capable of orgasm. If they did have an orgasm, it was to be solely through heterosexual coitus. Given that we now know that less than 50% of women can reach orgasm through penile penetration alone, that left a lot of frustrated women out there (not even including the ones with 5-second willies for husbands). We can only imagine all of the pent up tension. As a female acquaintance once told me, “If I don’t get laid pretty damn quick, somebody’s gonna get hurt.”
When a woman showed signs such as fainting, hyperemia, nervousness, insomnia, sensations of heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasms, shortness of breath, loss of appetite for food or for sex with the approved male partner, and sometimes a tendency to cause trouble for others (particularly members of the patient’s immediate family), irritably, anxiety, sexual yearnings, excessive vaginal lubrication, or damn near anything else, she was taken to the local doc who would promptly diagnose her with Female Hysteria. Based on the ancient Greek idea of a wandering womb seeking its proper place, female hysteria was a very common catch-all diagnosis. Using the wandering womb analogy, doctors sometimes said it was caused by a woman’s inability to find her proper place in the world. Women who were too smart, too athletic, too ambitious, or were not sufficiently condescending were commonly diagnosed with hysteria.
So the cure? In one of the most bizarre twists in history, women diagnosed with hysteria visited the local doctor, who induced hysterical paroxysm – what we call an orgasm. How was this feat accomplished? The good doc just reached down there and manually massaged the clitoris until he brought the women to orgasm – excuse me, hysterical paroxysm. Since this didn’t involve penetration, the Victorians didn’t consider it sex, so it was ok. In fact, the introduction of the speculum and the tampon created more controversy. Imagine legions of Victorian men taking their wives to the town doc to get a hand job, and paying the doc for it! The mind is an amazingly malleable thing.
It is reported that with some doctors, pelvic massage treatments comprised more than half their business. With this kind of demand it was only natural that with the beginning of the machine age, a device would be built to decrease their work and increase their profits. During the 1860s, health spas offered water jets and steam-powered vibrators. More modern vibrators appeared in the 1880s. By 1900, a wide selection of electro-mechanical vibrating devices was available, ranging from hand or foot powered models to those powered by air pressure, water turbines, gas engines, batteries, and street current (through lamp socket plugs). The first recognizable electric vibrators appeared in the late 19th century. They were first positioned as medical devices and sold only to doctors, but they soon appeared in mainstream American commerce. In fact, the vibrator was the fifth household device to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle, and toaster, and preceding by about a decade the vacuum cleaner and electric iron. Perhaps this reflected consumer priorities.
Soon many low-cost vibrators were being marketed in respectable women’s magazines using language that seems clearly aimed at promoting sexual gratification, such as “…all the pleasures of youth will throb within you.” The Swedish Vibrator Company of Chicago extolled its device as a machine that gives “30,000 thrilling, invigorating, penetrating, revitalizing penetrations per minute.” In 1918, Sears Roebuck advertised vibrators in its catalog, “very satisfactory, an aid every woman appreciates.”
The vibrator’s social camouflage in mainstream publications lasted into the late 1920s, when use by physicians began to diminish. Some speculate that the diminished used was attributed to a greater understanding by the medical profession of female sexual functions; at the same time, the appearance of vibrators in stag films in the 1920s kind of removed the veil of respectability. By the 30s, vibrators had all but disappeared from respectable women’s magazines. But hysteria, history’s most frequently diagnosed female disorder, was not officially removed as a disease by the American Psychiatric Association until 1952.
Still, God bless the 60s when vibrators resurfaced again with a vengeance. This time, however, they emerged as unabashed sexual toys. Women’s sexuality has been depressed (hell it wasn’t even acknowledged) for almost 2,000 years. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do. If not for you, then for the generations of hysterical women who went before. (Sounds almost patriotic, doesn’t it?)

Sick

I seriously hate being sick and seeing doctors and not being able to talk. Also, everytime I blow my nose snot bursts out of my eyeball. It’s gross as hell.

“Emma you sound like you have a dick.” -Sheridan

Since I’ve been doing Drive-Thru all weekend, my voice is almost gone. I’m pretty sure that when second period on Monday rolls around my voice is going to be deeper than Ricky’s. Oh well, it’s a job! Right now I’m sitting at work waiting for Sheridan to get off work so we can head to the Mexican resturant and get our virgin piña colada party on!

Fun Facts for Everyone!

As I was reading fun facts, they made me think of you AP folks! Enjoy!

For Ricky and Sarah: Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled “Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden”…and thus the word “GOLF” entered into the English language.

For Reagan and Christina: Of the 262 men who have held the title of Pope, 33 have died by violence.

For Kelli: In the marriage ceremony of the Ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.

For Christopher: February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

For Alex: To take an oath, ancient Romans put a hand on their testicles.

For Brianna: The White House, in Washington DC, was originally gray, the color of the sandstone it was built out of. After the War of 1812, during which it had been burned by Canadian troops, the outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains.

For Melody: Because metal was scarce; the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster.

For Kelli Jo: The Miss America Contest was created in Atlantic City in 1921 with the purpose of extending the tourist season beyond Labor Day.

For Austin: If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

For Mary: The slang word “hooker,” which means prostitute, was gotten from the US civil-war general Joseph T. Hooker. He hired prostitutes for his army to keep up troop morale. They started being called, “Hooker’s girls” which was eventually shortened to “hooker.” The name stuck.

1920s at a Glance

• The First Transatlantic flight: Charles Lindbergh , James Doolittle first one-day.
• Mail was now transported by Air flying companies as they outbid the railroads (1926).
• Business travelers were able to do so on scheduled coast to coast flights.
• Flappers, the Roaring Twenties, prohibition, speakeasies and bootleg whiskey .
• Gangland warfare, Sing Sing, sawed-off shotguns, and Al Capone.
• Women vote for the first time in a national election (1920).
• Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan debate Scopes Trial.
• Ku Klux Klan is active in the south and Midwest. Burnings multiply.
• Stock Market Crashed.
• October 24, 1929, bank closed – panic on Wall Street.

Five Word Sentences All True Friends Say

An episode of How I Met Your Mother made me think of these. :

“We should buy a (insert name of an establishment)!”
“We should start a band!”
“We should marry twin (brothers or sisters)!”
“We should sing Kareoke together!” (sorry, I can’t spell Japanese words.)
“We should buy matching (insert item)!”