ok, I am compelled to tell about this somewhere, so here will do for now. I am currently the victim of an incredibly uncomfortable uncontrollable itching of the skin on my shoulders, chest, and back from bad sunburn that is in the healing stages. I got up at 5am this morning itching, scratching, and pacing around madly trying to think of something to quell the irritation. Taking a shower only made it worse, so I decided to go the the store and get some kind of itch cream. I have never before purchased anything like this, and had nobody available to ask at the time, so I went with Gold Bond brand anti-itch cream. right on the back it lists sunburn as one of the things it is good for. I got back to my place, and rubbed it in very liberally, nad waited, and itched, and scratched, and waited some more... to no avail. The level of itching did not decrease any. ANY. Gold Bond DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. It is nothing but smelly placebo in a tube.

Back to the store, I got some Cortizone 10 anti-itch... and although it says nothing about sunburn, it severely reduced my itchiness to a workable level.

That Gold Bond was completely ineffective kinda pissed me off. I went to the manufacturer web site (www.chattem.com) and discovered a whole host of products that I hear advertised frequently, and that I mostly thought to be a bit hoaky. It seems to me that Chattem is a company that makes low cost high margin products that don't work as advertised, and can only maintain a good bottom line through excessive advertising.

So, in case you were wondering about the effectiveness of Gold Bond, It is complete shit. Don't buy it.

I decided to amuse myself by ruining my karma, and oddly enough everyone played along.

here it is

If you go look at this, please note the chained comments. I was giving up on the last "Redundant" but some obliging soul noticed the pattern.

Yeah, I was pretty bored. I'm still kinda hoping the last one gets some "funnies" added to it.

Not really an editorial, but something That I posted to an anonymous comment to my comment. It strangely began to have more depth the more I re-read it. I am posting it here so I can easily find it later.


My post here:******

To try to show an unbiased opinion, I will draw references from both sides of the aisle.

As I mentioned [slashdot.org] the other day, the core of the problem is not guns, it is people. Guns have become the target because it is easier to make blanket decisions about the intermediary than to try to address the real problem of trying to figure out how to pick which people do not deserve to have them.

On the other side, people choose to focus on banning abortion clinics and the idea of abortion for the same reason. These are easier targets to deal with. It is more difficult to try to deal with the issue that women who decide to have abortions are the problem.

In either of these cases the real problem is people, and ploiticians who want to "take things away" do not want to focus issues on individuals, or stratified groups, because it looks like discrimination and is bad for them politically. So they target the intermediaries... guns, or abortion, or some other soulless impersonal thing or idea.


anonymous reply here:******

It seems that you too are reframing the abortion "problem" too narrowly as well. It's not women that decide to have abortions that is the problem, it's the societal factors that put women in that situation.

There two types of women seeking abortion following consentual intercourse: those using contraceptives (60%) and those not. If we could create contraceptives that would not fail, that'd be a whole lot less abortions. For the other 40%, people need to be taught about contraception, real contraception! No more of the abstinence-only programs... why must we assume that marriage entails procreation?

Gah.


my reply here:******

shutterbrained liberal.

convenient of you not to point out the exact same thing regarding handguns. Something along the lines of:...

"It's not people that decide to murder that is the problem, it's the societal factors that put people in that situation."

"There are two types of people that commit murder following the purchase of a firearm: those who can't control their emotions (90%) and those who can. If we could create thought suppressants that would not fail, that'd be a whole lot less murders. For the other 10%, people need to be taught about morals, real morals! No more of the 'you have the right to do whatever you like' mentality... why can't we promote that only war entails murder?"

Oh wait... Why don't we just ban handguns?
Oh wait... Why don't we just ban abortion?

Can't you fucking see that these two contrasting differences of opinion ARE THE CAUSE OF BOTH PROBLEMS?!

Gah indeed.


http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47260&threshold=4&commentsort=0&tid=103&mode=thread&cid=4847703
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47260&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=103&mode=thread&cid=4850006
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47260&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=103&mode=thread&pid=4850006#4850389

I like to listen to ambient groove music while browsing and working.. it is good background music that nicely overwrites whatever song is stuck in my head at the time.

Anyway, if anywone else happens to like this type of music, I heard a song by a British group called Zero7 the other day and followed it to their CD "Simple Things". I listened to some other tracks and they are all fantastic.

The song that caught my attention was called "In the Waiting Line". If you like this kind of music, check it out. If you arent sure if you like this kind of music, check it out anyway. And even if you know that you don't like this kind of music, at least listen to "In the Waiting Line"

good stuff.

Well, I finally got my retro joystick in the mail. This thing is absolutely perfect! It has the exact same akward feel of the original joystick, and is put together very robustly. I was beginning to worry that it was going to be junk after looking at the other avon.com stuff.

Surprisingly, many of these games are much more difficult than I remember. Breakout is damn near impossible, and I think it has to do with the fact that I am going to have to adjust once again to using this un-ergonomic controller. Actually, it's probably because I used to play some of these games with the paddle instead of the joystick. Anyway... I love it.

and it came with a free mini-tub of Avon granny cream!