Riding Sidesaddle: Propriety, Flexibility, and the Bow-Legged Way

Why were women forced to ride sidesaddle way back when? Every description I've read sounds beyond uncomfortable. And heaven forbid anyone go at a gallop and fly off!



Weren't the skirts of the time more than voluminous enough to accomodate riding face forward? They contained enough material to cloth twenty orphans or so. Must have been awfully hot and heavy to wear and not in any good way.

Women tend to be more flexible if you believe countless Hollywood depictions. Cheerleaders doing splits. Yoga chicks locking their legs behind heads. Guys doing splits to horrible cracking sounds, crotch grabbing, and screams of pain...



Not to be indelicate but don't women have more need to spread their legs wide for giving birth and such? It's not a dirty thing to be ashamed of. What do guys need to spread their legs for?

The cowgirl position = fun in the sack. The cowboy bow-legged walk = funny-looking. What more is there to say?

Fantastic Four 1967, Thing in a Diaper!

The Thing's a big softy - He looks more puffy Michelin Man than hard rock. And why does his underwear uniform look like a diaper?


Invisible Girl? Why isn't she the Invisible Woman? They have a female on the team and she always has to be the damsel in distress. She's always the hostage, she does anything that Reed says, and she's always scared. Insulting!

Vacations and islands - Who vacations in Transylvania? Was that episode a tribute to Scooby Doo? What's with all the islands? If Mr. Fantastic's so smart, why did he fall for that island scam? I've got a bridge to sell...

Those men saved Dr. Doom's life, healed him, taught him magic, gave him pretty much everything like a charity case. Why make him their ruler too?

Why does Mole Man look like Doc Ock?

Avast! Thanks for Not Letting Me Use Your Software...

Realizing I haven't scanned for malware in way too long, I set out to update the seven malware programs on my system. Yes, I know they all complain about each other but they can just suck it up since no one of them is good enough to be The One.


Updating from within Avast! proved impossible (remnants of two versions back!, connection kept unconnecting and and killing unresumable loooong downloads!). So I uninstalled the program. Ahhh, cathartic deleting! Except a certain component refused to be deleted no matter what, not even in Safe Mode or with Avast!'s deletion tool. Yes, they actually made a separate program to delete their stuff... and it still didn't work.

I then downloaded the 160 MB plus newest version of , scanned with the other six scanners, and installed it. Opened it to tweak the settings and, among other things, checked the option to not allow malware to close the program, closed the program. I hate a slow startup full of programs I don't want running all the time so I opened up msconfig to remove the program from starting up automatically. I then opened up services.msc to change the Avast services from Automatic to Disabled. This is how I usually leave things so that once in a blue moon I can go into Services, set it to Manual and run the program once before Disabling in again.

All my settings set, I restart, go to Services to set Avast! to Manual so I can update to the latest malware definitions and run the program once. Denied! The option in Avast! I turned on to keep malware from closing the program now isn;t allowing me to turn the program on. What a conundrum! What maroons! I uninstalled the program once more and deleted the whole mess. Except, of course, for that one last component that refuses to get off my system. Thanks a lot Avast! And no thanks anymore.

The Incredible Hulk 1966, Purple Pants and Moe Hair!

The amazing purple pants! - How do they stay on through trnasformations? They ought to market those to yoyo dieters. One size fits all. What happens to his underwear under there? And while we're at it, how did those glasses appear on Bruce's face right after he changed back from the Hulk?

Not a mental giant - Of course, green Hulk isn't too smart. Sometimes, he frets about turning into weak Banner, then wonders why Banner isn't around. He wanted to kill everyone to make them leave him be but the moment a bomb threatens to kill everyone instead, he rushes to stop it. Everyone must die to leave Hulk alone as long as he does the killing! Brilliant. And check out the Moe of the Three Stooges hair.

Squeezing stress toys doesn't work for everyone - Hulk only got more angry when he couldn't squeeze the "life" from The Leader's humanoids.

General Ross orders Betty - She's not one of his soldiers, she's his daughter. I know it was the 60s and all, but maybe she wouldn't be happy to show his new lackey around the base.

Ironman, you're fat! He looks awfully bloated in his little guest spot, doesn't he? And where did that antenna come from?

Marvel's Mightiest Super Heroes Gift Set [VHS]

Everbank Wants Money Before Approving App?!!

Time to open a new CD and it's such a hassle to do these things I went for a five year. The highest rate I could get in on was at Everbank so I applied on a Saturday.

At the end of the process, it lists one Required Item, a signature card to be mailed or faxed. Once I clicked on the card to download it, the item got checked off. As downloaded? As completed? Who knows? There aren't any definitive instructions. Besides, last time I applied for an account, they required a signature card after they approved my application and sent me materials. So I think I should wait for approval before doing anything.

Tuesday, I chat online with a rep who tells me to wait, it takes 2-3 business days for approval and I shouldn't do anything until then. Thursday, I get anxious and chat with another rep. This one says I have to send in the signature card before they bother processing my application at all! Plus it takes 3-5 days instead of 2-3. Wow, thanks for wasting all those days for me!

Just to check, I chat with a third rep to get a consensus. Yep, I was supposed to have sent in the signature card. Oh, and if I like I can also send in all of my money with it. How wonderful! Of course I'd love to send in all of my money without knowing whether or not you'll approve my application. Why, if an unscrupulous employee rejects my app, he or she can go ahead and cash my check out for themselves too! Why not?

Um, no thanks, Everbank. You just lost my potential business. I'll go for the next best rate at a completely different bank. It's only .01% less interest.

Avira, Why Do You Punish Me!?!

For a recent update, I need to download ~3 MB of stuff which gets installed (Not!) before I can download ~14 MB more to install. Only my Internet connection is absolute crap and dies before getting through the 14 MB. Which might have been fine, but it turns out the first 3 MB hasn't been installed after all! It needs to be redownloaded before I can try for the 14 MB again. Do I want to know if there's more beyond the 14 MB? Maybe 66 MB in mathematical sequence? Will I ever find out? Stay tuned...

Or you try it and tell me:
AVIRA AntiVirus Premium 2013

Buy a HOT Phone for $0 Down! Amazing Holiday Present!

An amazing deal for everyone but the giftee, all right. You "buy" a present for nothing, the carrier gets a new customer, and the manufacturer sells more models. What does the giftee get? A big fat monthly phone bill!

Oh wait, did they mean for you to pay the phone bill too? Isn't it enough you gave the phone? Besides, you're not ready for that kind of commitment!