2008 year end wrap-up

I'm not sure if you've heard, but it's the end of this year.  Look at a calendar, you'll see.  So, the journalist in me thought I'd give you a year end wrap-up, being that I'm a news junkie I can't help myself.  I've scanned all my usual news sites and my favorite list comes from CNN/Time.  They have the Top 10 everything stories, from straight news to the top 10 Late Night Jokes, it's worth checking out.  But, because I'm me, the list that caught my eye was the Top 10 Oddball News Stories of the year.  That's a list I can get into. Let me start by saying the story names are from CNN/Time, but the writer has my sense of humor.  Particularly for #5.

1. The Pregnant Man — trans-gendered Thomas Beatie gave birth to a baby girl in June.  Beatie was using testosterone therapy and underwent chest reconstruction, but kept his girly parts and was artificially inseminated because his wife had had a hysterectomy.  He went talk shows, 20/20, Oprah felt his baby belly and everything.  Oh, and guess what?  He's preggo again.  Personally, I don't think this is a big story. Um, he still has a uterus and a vajayjay, so yeah, he can have babies just like me and almost every other person born a girl.  Now, if I don't know, Tom Selleck were preggo — that would be news.  Anderson Cooper would be all up in that action with the first interview and Oprah would have a fit.

2. Night of the Corpse Skull Bong — 3 Texas teens not only robbed a grave, but cleaned up a skull to turn into a bong.  The idiot that confessed was sentenced to 8 months in the county jail for abuse of a corpse.  Damn.  When I was a teenager we used to prank call people and stay out past curfew.  I was a goody goody, but some of my friends did at least commit misdemeanor crimes and though I did hear tales of hi jinks, grave robbing never came into play.  At least not that I know of.  My friends weren't into drugs either, but I would think if they had been, human remains wouldn't be at the top of the list for making bongs.  Again, I am assumming.  For all I know, they were smokin' crack out of Elvis' sideburns.  Really, I wouldn't have put it past some of my high school punk-ass boyfriends to rob a grave.  I dated some high class morons, some day I'll tell some stories.

3. Strange Things Afoot in Vancouver — 6 severed human feet have been found on the shores of
British Columbia since August 2007.  Medical experts believe the feet were "detached naturally" from bodies floating in the ocean and have washed up on the beaches.  Um, dude, are there that many dead bodies just floating around up there?  Seriously?  And can we just talk for a minute about the poor people who stumbled upon these feet?  I could never go to the beach again.  I guarantee you I'll never go to a beach in Vancouver.  When we lived in Canada, my bookclub friend, Paula, was from Vancouver and she never mentioned the washed-up feet.  And she was the outdoorsy-type (complete opposite of me, hence the bookclub), so I'm sure she went to the beach.  Who's up for a vacay to B.C.?

4. Virgin Shark Mother

Y'all — I wouldn't attempt to paraphrase that one.  First of all — virgin shark.  WTF?  Second, asexual reproduction is freakish.  I wouldn't trust any animal who could reproduce by itself.  If an animal can Xerox itself, that's pretty much cloning as far as I'm concerned.  Not that I learned that in biology or anything ('cause Lord knows I wasn't paying attention and I was probably writing Mrs. Andrew McCarthy on my notebook) and I'm far from being a science whiz.  Unless it's the science of love, of which I have a PhD.

5. She Ain't Heavy, She's My Partially Absorbed Embryonic Twin

Shut up.  I've spent A LOT of time in OB/GYNS offices and I've never heard of this in real life.  Yes, I've seen the documentary on TLC, but for realz, y'all.  Damn.  Absorbed?  No.  Viva paper towels absorb, not people.  Can you imagine being told this info in the doctor's office?  I wouldn't need anestetic for the surgery, I'd go into a coma right there.  Have you noticed 3 of these stories have had to deal with pregnancy?  I'm glad the reproductive chapter in my life is over because I couldn't take this crap. 

6. Second Life Divorce — follow me on this one.  A real-life British couple were apparently really involved in an online role-playing game called Second Life (I've never heard of it, but it sounds just lovely) and the wife caught her husband "cheating" with a Second Life prostitute, who in real life is a divorced mom from Arkansas.  The Brit courts saw online cheating as grounds for their real divorce AND now the guy is engaged to the woman he "cheated" with online — in real life.  Did you get that?  I'm getting a headache just trying to process that.  The only role-playing games I'm familiar with are action games, not people being prostitues online.  Is that what our world of technology has turned into?  Online prostitutes?  I suppose you can't get STDs from computer sex, but you could get a computer virus, perhaps.

7. Fish Pedicures — The practice of plunging feet into a tub of tiny carp called garra
rufa, which nibble on dead skin, was popular in some Asian countries
and became an American craze after John Ho, a Virginia salon owner,
announced he had offered the treatment to 5,000 customers over a
four-month period. Soon, pedicurists all over the country were ordering
thousands of
the fish, which are said to help soften the skin in advance of normal,
human-administered pedicures. Unfortunately for some salon owners who
had already ordered the fish, Washington and Texas quickly banned the
practice
on sanitary grounds.
Oh, hell to the no.  I love a pedicure, but there's no way on Earth I'm sticking my feet in a tub of itty bitty dead-skin eating fish.  That's sick.  What the hell are people thinking?  This is disturbing.  Damn, why not use a freakin' dingo from the outback or a damn grizzly bear to give your tootsies a rub down?  What's the punk-ass salon owner going to do next, get wasps to sting you and call it botox? 

8. Breast Milk Ice Cream — PETA wrote an open letter to Ben & Jerry's telling them to use breast milk instead of cow's milk.  PETA later said it was a gimmick.  Really?  Now, I'm all for breast feeding, I nursed three babies, but I draw the line at ice cream.  And I'm all for ice cream, too, just make mine with cow's milk, please.

9. Bigfoot Lives! No, Really! — Ok, here's my summary: a couple of guys in Georgia told the world they found bigfoot and had its corpse in a freezer and CNN and a bunch of news people went nuts when a bigfoot expert went to see it.  The dudes put up a website, had videos on YouTube, and people ate it up.  Of course, it was a bigfoot costume in a freezer and those guys are back to watching Larry the Cable Guy on Comedy Central.  Yeah, if bigfoot exists, two rednecks will find it, I'm sure of that.  I'm actually going to give these guys props, they sold it and people bought it!  Oh, by the way, I've got a unicorn in my backyard and some leprechauns in my garage.  CNN, you listening?  Just be careful when you go in the backyard, the unicorn's tame, but my dragon gets a little hot around strangers. By the way, is this not the best photo ever?  I think it's t-shirt worthy. 

10. Your Money For My Life

That's pretty awesome.  Who hasn't wanted to start all over after an extremely stressful period?  The rug salesman put his whole life on eBay!  It would be strange to watch the bids roll in for your life, wouldn't it?  When I've sold a few things on eBay, I was excited to see people bid on stuff, but I don't know how I would react to selling all the tangible things in my life.  Here's what my auction listing would include: 4 bedroom house, Town & Country minivan with a dent on the back right bumper, 7 or 8 magazine subscriptions, my Vera Bradley collection, pink Dyson vacuum and pink handvac, fantastic record collection, a closet full of clothes in a range of sizes to accommodate the most discriminating yo-yo dieter,  co-ownership of a small scrapbook business, an introduction to my friends (who rock the house, btw), a husband who loves scuba diving and video games, and 3 kids who are super adorable, but don't listen worth a flip.  Oh, and ton of laundry that's currently blocking the doorway to the laundry room.  What would the starting bid be? How would you decide that?  I'm not sure.  My auction listing title would be "Get a Life."  Maybe the bigfoot guys would buy it.  They need one.

Well, peeps, that's my year in review.  I stayed away from the obvious stories because we all know about those, you've heard all the commentary you need about Palin, Obama, gas prices, the economy, and Iraq.  Where are you going to hear about the virgin shark mother and fish pedicures if I don't blog about them?  This blog's tagline should be "pondering the innane, so you don't have to."  Once again, the Kerry Blog delivers on that promise!

Friends and peeps, there are lots of fun things coming up this week — my new scrap office will be revealed (before and after pics), pics of recent layouts and a trip down memory lane with a look at my first foray into scrapbooking from back in '99!  And my New Year's resolutions, so check back for more fun than you can shake a paint stick at.