It's been covered before on Tuesday Tasting - the saturation of subway gropers in Japan. Not wanting to be lumped in with the lot of pervy men, a new accessory helps define where non-wandering hands are.

"On super crowded trains, standing commuters quickly run out of stationary rings to hold on to, and have nowhere to put their hands. That's probably what inspired gropers to fondle in the first place, but it's also a looming dilemma for non-perverts as to where they can put their hands in order not to be mistaken for one."

While the idea of men holding onto rings to proclaim their non-perv status may be laughable, the product apparently sold out within a very short time frame.

Targeting your txt-fetish, a new study tries to conclude that text messaging is creating a lack of social confidence among the T9-hungry teenagers.

"The social impact of text messaging is the subject of renewed concerns as SMS use stretches to notifying someone of a death in the family, wedding RSVPs, breaking up with long-term partners and even quitting a job. News.com.au reports. "Experts say the text-messaging generation is fast becoming socially inept as it hides from "normal communication"."

Are door knocks and phone calls really still the norm? Is communicating in 160 characters avoiding social interaction or getting to the core of it? Most likely, it's best to be titillated rather than timid about technology, as it has always been known to drive social change.

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Getting ready for Halloween requires more than a pair of fishnets to freeze the rest of the night in. Many are making the evening memorable with a variety of morbid recipes.

Perhaps among the most interesting, the Robotic Snap-O-Lantern was at the recent Maker Faire featuring pumpkin robots (I'm coining the term "geekins"). With a couple of Duracells, the Snap-O-Lantern turns on to be quite the deadly squash.

Craftzine and Slashfood are spookifying your sweets with Spider Cakes and Punk Glow-in-the-Dark Cupcakes.

If Snap-O-Lanterns and sweets aren't enough to satiate, Suicide Girls tackles the unstoppable sexy costume scene. Seemingly, sexy-anything costumes are the ultimate undead.

Going off of Leeroy Jenkins invading advertising, it was only a matter of time until advertising invaded LOLcats. Yes, advertising has now penetrated and confused LOLcat lovers, the cute cuddly trend that confuses serious cat lovers around the globe. Dubbing this LOLvertising, advertisers have successfulled 1-up-ed ICanHasCheezBurger commenters with their Cingular txt commercial reference. Prepare yourself, it's only a matter of time before KFC runs spots for "where's mah bukket?"

Arse Elektronika, a conference about pr0nnovation kicked off tonight at Kink.com's Porn Palace in San Francisco. The opening speech by Johannes Grenzfurthner of Monochrom was considerably delayed due to, not surprisingly, a porn shoot that had run two hours late earlier in the day. After cleaning up spots and stains, Johannes apologized and took the stage. Opening the speech with looking back at a patent for a condom containing a computer chip that played music, he asked, "is this progress?". To some perhaps, to others, the envelope needs to continually be pushed, or in this case played with.

From polaroids to VHS to virtual reality, technology has always been quick to appeal to porn consumers. Johannes pointed to films like the Lawnmower Man (a movie he says is more outdated looking than Tron) and his experiences with an iPhone (the first thing his friend showed him on it was porn and said "you can even zoom in!"). Talking about merging sex with technology, a wise crack from the crowd yelled "I gave up my penis for an iPhone!".

Up next was a short film about overhead projectors. The film began with "Overhead projection is a dying medium. The only way to save it is to explore porn possibilities." A man then proceeded to masturbate using an overhead projector to document his "results". Somehow, I felt my years of grade school lecture notes being violated.

Skipping the Electric Orifice Orchestra due to technical difficulties, the Moaning Lisa was proudly propped up on stage. A modified mannequin of sorts, the Moaning Lisa is a life-size (and in some areas, augmented life-size) "doll" that contains sensors in an assortment of places around her body. Matt Ganucheau explained that partially due to the Nintendo Wii, alternative controllers on a public scale made people ask what can we interact with to enhance experience? As such, the Moaning Lisa's controls are unique, and like the female orgasm, there are no instructions. Photo sensors in her eyes detect presence and others around her body make her moan. The moaning is generated by the sound of 200 pleasured women. Why 200? Matt says it just sounded cool.

More from Arse Elektronika to come, the Flickr album can be viewed here.

Trendhunter rounds up the "16 Brands of Drinks Using Sex to Make You Thirsty". From Pimp Juice to Monster Energy, to a you've-got-to-be-joking energy drink called Who's Your Daddy?, the list covers off on quite a few. The 16 sex-obsessed still leave out a few notables, though. Most recently, Heineken's "Draughtkeg" commercial left a misogynistic taste in some viewers' mouths, while others creamed their pants over a cyborg-like, beer-dispensing, techno-dancing, short-shorts-wearing woman.

AdAge jokes, "The perfect woman: a mute nymphomaniac whose father owns a brewery." However, AdAge adds that the joke "manages to [not] trivialize the essence of femininity quite as egregiously as Heineken. And why don't they?

Because they don't portray a woman's uterus as a beer keg."

Breast enlarging cookies from Japan.

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[A weekly link post of skipped over (and slightly stale) sights and stories]


• Mobile gadget geeks prefer gaming over music.

• Japanese celebrate 110th anniversary of their immigration to Mexico with a 110-meter-long sushi roll. Mmm, delicious anti-assimilation.

• Jane Fonda is planning to make an erotic film to prove couples can have fulfilling sex lives in their 70s.

• Computer Ports Are Forever.

• Treat your tush to a cushion of cuddly pandas. [via]

No longer about who can out-drink who, texting is the new tolerance tournament, especially among teens. A recent survey found that 44 percent of teens use text messages as their primary mode of communication. While that figure is far from shocking to the majority of us gadget geeks, 28 percent admitted to texting under the dinner table. More close to 'home' (aka the blogosphere), the rising number of insatiable SMS-users has created an ongoing discussion and debate about the social integration or rejection of "interconnected multitasking culture".

[image via]

Oh, who can't forget the interweb's beloved Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOOOOOOUR!!1!!1! kid? That kind of geek love can only be recaptured by balding old men splooging over the iPhone launch (yes, we're looking at you, Mossberg). So, that's exactly what this guy in a pair of onesie pajamas did. Oh-Em-Gee! Yes! Yes! Yes!

To no surprise, sex remains among the top searched on across the internet. Wikipedia is no exception, as a top search term study in April 2007 revealed sex, pop culture, and anime to be the leading researched categories on it. The study gives a few insights about sex searching that may otherwise be overlooked in the stereotypical Google-porn popularity. As Violet points out, it shows that people are hungry for accurate sex information over titillation. Even more so, it verifies that the internet is not a compartmentalized ecosystem of information in one place and sex in another.

Seduced by not-so-subtle suggestions, an artist typesets signs into sculptures. David Kramer saturates himself with the overindulgence of pop culture, despite an underlying skepticism. It's this constant negotiation that generates a need to create. In his own words:

"I love the excessiveness of cultural iconography and yet I totally mistrust it. I am easily seduced by the sexiness of the simplest marketing strategy and hate myself for being so easy."

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Attached to more than just a belt clip, a new survey shows that 22% of 16-24 year olds wouldn't give up their mobile phone for £1 million. The study of 18-24 year olds showed that 20% wouldn't give up sex, compared to a 31% who wouldn't give up tea/coffee.

"What does this teach me? I am drinking at the wrong coffee houses," says Shiny Shiny.

Half of the young adults admitted to sending/receiving "sexually explicit" text, and only 14% said they would turn their phone off completely during sex. An interesting quote found embedded in the reports reveals that we geek girls are not alone:

"Women often use their mobile phones in public to deter people from approaching them."

From T9-ing your tasty fantasies in 160 characters to letting there be two kinds of vibrators in the bedroom, "young adults" have certainly assimilated cell phones into all aspects of their daily life.

Trend Hunter recently rounded up their Top 20 Graffiti Innovations. Paired down to the top five "techie" tag trends here, it's apparent that geek goodness has penetrated the paint.

1. Geek Graffiti - vintage video games in pixelated paint
2. LED Throwies - ferromagnetic surfaces + rare-earth magnets
3. Dot Matrix Graffiti Bike - interweb connected and sidewalk suitable
4. Pixel Roller - paint-by-pixels
5. Automated Graffiti Robot - "a tele-operated field programable robot which employs a custom built array of spray cans to write linear text messages on the ground at a rate of 15 kilometers per hour."

Debonair Magazine recently released its "Best Food Blogs"awards. Fourteen delicious daily reads were picked for a variety of culinary categories, including "Best Food Porn" and "Best Eco-Friendly Food Blog" among others.

"When working in an office, I found it incredibly difficult to inconspicuously ruffle through The New York Times and read an 800-word restaurant review or try to hide my stacks of Saveur and Gourmet. Thankfully, a good food blog offers quick snippets of information that can easily be read between conference calls. "

The amuse bouche of blogs are below:
101cookbooks.com
amateurgoumet.com
chezpim.typepad.com
chocolateandzucchini.com
chowhound.com
davidlebovitz.com
eater.com
ethicurean.com
midtownlunch.com
nordjus.co.uk/en
restaurantgirl.com
shewhoeats.com
tastespotting.com
travelerslunchbox.com

[image via: chocolate cupcake stuffed with ginger caramel, frosted with mango ganache, and topped with a mango-ginger won ton]

ICYMI on every other blog and network besides Fox and CBS, a tv spot for Trojan has been flying around. Mainly picking up buzz due to the two aforementioned networks banning it, the nature of the ban is perhaps the most buzz-worthy. Allegedly, the reason why the condom commercial was banned was due to the fact that Fox/CBS refuse to air ads that promote pregnancy prevention, and will only feature spots that focus on the (turnyourheadandcoughMALEcough) "health reasons" alone. With only one out of every four fucks in the US using condoms, the lack of consideration towards women's bodies from networks is nothing short of them... well, just having short dicks. Carol Carrozza, the VP over LifeStyle condoms responded, "We always find it funny that you can use sex to sell jewelry and cars, but you can’t use sex to sell condoms."

Liposuction of fat for an injection of fear, new ads from a Brazil-based yogurt maker are playing on the offensive. With a tag line of "Forget about it. Men's preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt", the ads feature overweight women in well-known movie scenes. Below-the-belt blunt advertising can work when well done, but this campaign still leaves a bit of a blood in the middle. Created by Salles Chemistri, the campaign is certainly garnering reactions. Unfortunately, negative Word Of Mouth travels at a much more rapid rate. Take your anger out on the treadmills or truffles, ladies.

Not always just about car giveaways, books and teary-eyed families, Oprah's O Magazine featured sex blogger and all around crush-bait Violet Blue. This month's mag published a two-page article by the "brazen blogger" about porn for women. Beginning blurb:

"Eyes Wide Open - What kind of woman watches porn- and likes it? You might be surprised. Violet Blue reports on the pleasures of pressing Play."

As Violet points out, this is a very progressive step for Oprah's brand. Resist as many of us have, Oprah may no longer play only to the stereotypical suburban housewife watching Pinesol ads between soap operas.

[image via - congrats, violet!]

The SF Chronicle published a piece last week titled, "Summer sizzles for Man Crushes -- and there's nothing wrong with that". A Man-Crush is defined as a non-sexual (and hopefully, not-too-clingy) "cool factor" feeling between two heterosexual males.

"The Man Crush has always been a delicate subject among straight men, with a very complicated rule set. It's considered OK to spontaneously proclaim your love for an NFL quarterback when he just scored a touchdown. It's not cool to point out that Bob from human resources always looks nice in that blue sweater."

Sweaters aside, summer time sets in with a new slew of man-crushworthy movies such as Ocean's 13. More keen on the classics? The article goes on to state that almost every man between 25-40 is no virgin to the Man Crush, having had a definite desire aimed at any character played by Harrison Ford. From Han Solo to Indiana Jones, there's no escaping the creepy-crawly snake pit of Man Crushes.

[Thanks, Tantek!]

Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration is a recently published book that explores and interviews bloggers and geek girls. Looking into the intimate nature of the internet, the 80 interviewed reveal how they intertwine sex and their computer screen into their lives and lifestyles. Wired's interview with the author, Audacia Ray, states, "women have wide-ranging sexual interests and are savvy enough to figure out how to harness technology to pursue our erotic desires". Technology truly is a turn on.

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Perhaps not first date attire, Transformer watches are wrapping around wrists in preparation for the Transformers movie debut. Although, fans know the original Transformers movie came out in 1986. Regardless, the 80s are back with this selection of retro Autobot and Decepticon wear. Seiko created eight new designs to launch on June 2. Though most geeks have ditched their watches for mobile phones, the Transformer Shield Watch may be hard to pass up.

Geeks are gaining more ground with social networking on the interweb, but are assimilating pop culture as well. Like the porn versus social communities graph from last month, nerds are on a course to surpass adult entertainment. Geek Sugar points to an anonymous Craigslister with a numbered list for why geeks should be on your radar for dating:

1. While geeks and nerds may be awkward, they’re well-meaning 9 out of 10 times. That smooth dude with the sly grin and the spider hands? Wonder what HIS intentions are... plus, I’ve never had a geek guy not call me when he said he would. Score major points THERE.
2. They’re useful. In this tech-savvy world, it’s great to have a b/f who can make your laptop, desktop, and just about anything else that plugs into a wall behave itself.
3. They’re more romantic than they’re given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such... but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.
4. Due to their neglected status, there are plenty to choose from. You like ‘em tall and slender? There are plenty of geeks/nerds who are. You like ‘em smaller with more meat on their bones? Got that too.
5. They’ve got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

It'd be interesting to see a list for reasons to date a geek girl. In more recent geeky goodness, Geek Prom 2007 was held on Saturday, more photos can be seen here. [Photo above courtesy of massdistraction]

Asking if it's a reaction to "brandaslism", PSFK posts a photo of the latest anti-advertising campaign. Stickers are apparently being spotted around New York with the phrase "Corporate Vandals Not Welcome" on top of outdoor advertising. Advertising is often the culprit for most forms of culture pollution, as we've seen in the past. New York has been laying down advertising laws as of late, but they might not be coming soon enough to the advertisement vigilante.

Online communities set to surpass porn? Is porn losing popularity or has the internet finally reached pressure equalization? A recent article in the Economist examines the trends in adult entertainment and online communities.

"In America, the proportion of site visits that are pornographic is falling and people are flocking to sites categorised “net communities and chat”—chiefly social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Traffic to such sites is poised to overtake traffic to sex sites in America any day now (see chart)."

Perhaps less about a popularity contest, porn has in fact penetrated online communities since their conception. Charts like these fail to recognize that the interweb can't be compartmentalized by just sex or information. The lack of recognition for an ongoing intimate interaction slightly skews the data, especially with the induction of communities like Second Life. To quote Kyle Machulis of Linden Labs, "if you put two people together in a game, they're going to find a way to fuck".

While sex sells, lawsuits linger. Taking note of America's fancy for feuding, European lingerie boutique, Sloggi, approaches advertising in an off-kilter fashion. By purposefully targeting treacherous territory (Fleshbot points out mosques) with banned billboards, Sloggi aims for shock over seduction. Now with an interactive website, the French fanny line allows you to make your own politically incorrect content, just in time to piss off more conservative-commenters at Adrants. Wah, a LINGERIE line is using sexual imagery of women for advertising. How shocking.

Violet Blue (who, like me, came down with a bad cold this week - get better!) managed to point to a very insightful article by Scientific American, recapping the New York Times observation of female sexual orientation, or lack there of:

"Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men. In experiments in which subjects are shown photographs of desirable men or women, straight men are aroused by women, gay men by men.

Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, "Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate - they get aroused by both male and female images," Dr. Bailey said. "I'm not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men."

Though the thought may lend a great deal of potential for scientific observation, the assumptions around it seem far from scientific. It is intriguing to gain insight into what imagery the female brain responds to (advertisers need as much help as they can get these days), but "disorienting" ourselves from society seems a bit extreme. Violet, of course, came ranting to the rescue:

"Besides my personal reactions, the NYT piece gave me a big knee-jerk rejection of the gender assumptions about women being "picky", or some construct of a biological imperative in regards to our pursuit of sexual pleasure. I will never take these hack job articles seriously until they present both sides of the argument for sex -- one that includes evaluation and discussion of the factors of sexual pleasure, not just making babies. Hysteria, which classified female arousal, desire and pleasure as a disease was a valid medical diagnosis on the books until the 1950s -- does science and medicine still see female pleasure as a disorder so as not to allow fucking for fucking's sake into the calculations? Or, is that when we're "picky"? ... You can't tell me that women choose men to make babies, but choose women because they're "picky" and that we have no sexual orientation. I mean shit, do these people know *any* lesbians?"

Decked out in anime, a new airline caters to children and f-ed up fantasies with a Sanrio sensation. Eva Air, a Taiwanese airline, created Eva Kitty, an airline entirely in ode to Hello Kitty. With pink patterns and precious Hello Kitty outfits for flight attendants, Eva Kitty proves to be playful. Despite catering to the kids, does the fantasy of flying with anime-infatuated Japanese women play out to the pervs? Perhaps it's best that this sub-airline only takes tickets between Taipei, Fukuoka and Tokyo, leaving our American anime appetites untroubled.

Presenting a prude and perverse perspective of porn, a new book pushes the boundaries of stimulation. Porn for Women, by the Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative is 98-pages of nonsense and nausea. Glossed with photos of men in khakis and Kmart sweaterrs, the non-porn "porn" is about as attractive as a screenplay for Stiff Sluts IV featuring Anna Nicole. Surprisingly not doting their i's with hearts, the curvaceous calligraphy and pastel patterns offer such lines as "Breakfast is on the table. I'll have your outfit ready in five minutes" and “Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair", it's a surprise that they don't tack on "It's okay, I totally understand why you only want to have sex twice a year". Wishing the book was a cute joke, the sex-less soccer moms behind the book are apparently serious and believe that this is what straight women fantasize about. For the rest of women, this may be the only thing we find hard to swallow.

[via]