Ladies and Gentlemen (and the rest of you, too), the 2007 Blogger Boobie-Thon has officially begun!

Their main page will always be work-safe. After that, not so much. So feel free to check it out, but save the major clicking til you get home. Unless your employer is really lenient. In which case, I'll send you my resume. (Kidding, kidding.)

RSM will be donating (for the cause and for the good pictures) as usual. Haven't decided about participating yet...

Even if you're opposed to this particular fundraising drive (I can't understand anyone being opposed to breasts, but maybe I'm biased) please do donate to Komen. The life you save may be mine.

I was going to post this last week, because I thought it was clever if not hilarious. Ok, I'll admit it. The armpit hair made me snicker. Anyway, the season premiere of Heroes was kind of a letdown, huh? So I skipped it.

But this week they're right back on track with last season's awesomeness, so here you go:

Click for full size at jinx.com

1. This is going to end badly. I know it. If you're interested in the situation in Burma but don't know where to start, the book Saving Fish From Drowning is really good and insightful, with an interesting fictional subtext.

2. When I was walking back from Subway, the moon was like 45 degrees above the horizon. At 1pm. Is that weird?

3. When the wii is blinking at you, endlessly, irritating the hell out of you, and keeping you awake, it means you have a message. You're welcome.

4. Heather tries to set Pam Anderson straight. How's that working so far?

5. Britney mourned the loss of her two kids the same way most of us would. By drinking a gallon of tequila and sobbing her eyes out for 36 straight hours. Oops. No, by shopping.

6. I just got used to blogrolling finally working correctly again, and now it doesn't work at all? *sigh*

7. Claire McCaskill continues her pleasantly surprising ways.

For those of you who aren't aware (and those of you who've forgotten), you can get a free copy of your credit report once a year from each of the big three credit companies (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax). No charges, no tricks, no gimmicks. No "free for thirty days, just give us your credit card number," either. Free.

I mean, they offer to sell you other stuff, like your score and credit analysis, but the full information of what you owe and what payments you've missed in the past seven years is all free for the asking. It's a good idea, if only to make sure nobody's stolen your identity and there are no mistakes. And, of course, to see what you look like to lenders.

They even remind you when the year's up, so you can check again next year (also for free). I just remembered to do it this morning. (I recommend getting them sent by mail, unless you're in a huge rush, but I screwed up and did it wrong today. I hate mornings.)

p.s. - You can also get a free copy if you've been rejected for credit. I think you have like 90 days after rejection to request it.

There are still two days left in the 2007 Boobiethon!

You simply must go see the boobies. My favorites are the "artsy" ones with body paint and water splashes and stuff. And my very favorite (so far) is the mehndi one on the pay-per-view site.

There are already at least a hundred pictures on the pay-per-view site, I think, so it's totally worth it, and every single penny goes to the Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Komen is my pet charity, and it means a lot to me, for personal reasons. I run in the Race For The Cure every year, donate and wear the pink, and I want to do the 3-day walk if I can ever find a freakin' team. I've donated to the Boobiethon every year except 2003 (when they were still using PayPal and I couldn't get it to work) and usually submitted photos too (No, I won't tell you which ones). So I'm not just promoting something that I don't believe in.

Please donate if you can, go admire the pictures if you're so disposed, and link if you have a blog. This is really a good cause.

2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004
2002 (as bitchery.net)

Did anyone watch last week's Chuck? Did you catch who he said shot down Oceanic flight 815?

I rewound it a few times, but I couldn't decide if he said someone/something, or if he changed the subject.

Dude.

Ok, I need an opinion on this one. I may be overthinking it.

It's a "smart bra" that could be used to find early breast cancer.

Could your bra one day detect breast cancer? One team of researchers in the United Kingdom says it is moving closer to a prototype for such an undergarment.

Called a "smart bra," the device incorporates a series of microwave antennae to detect temperature changes in the breast that point to early stage breast cancer.

Professor Elias Siores, director of the Centre for Research and Innovation at the University of Bolton in the United Kingdom and inventor of the smart bra, says the device can detect cancer before the tumor can develop and spread into the surrounding areas.

Does anyone else think that microwaving your breasts daily, makes it pretty freaking likely that they'll find cancer, eventually? In, like, everyone who ever wears this?

Yikes.

My dad used to say that my dog was the only one he'd ever known who was actually, literally voice-trained. That I'd only have to say something three or four times, and he'd understand and follow directions. It fascinated and tickled him to no end.

It took three tries, and my dog now knows what "I can has kisses" means.

Anyone teaches him what "I can has cheezeburgers" means, I will hurt you.

I swear to god, if I don't start venting about work, I'm going to snap and kill someone. Or worse, get myself fired.

You should probably plan for this blog to move to an undisclosed location in the immediate future.

Fun!

Click for ginormous size

Go build you own wild self

I don't know how many people besides me will be fascinated by this, but I'm drooling like a madwoman, here.

They make pillows out of classical fabrics (mostly toile) and hand-embroider them into far more creative pieces.

(Click each for full size)

I'm not really into decorative throw pillows. I just think they get in the way. I mean, I actually use my furniture, so why would I want to move all of the pillows every time I want to sit (or lie) down? But I'd make an exception here, I think. Or maybe I'd get a blanket-sized piece and do it myself? Hmmm.

Does anyone loathe Acrobat as much as I do? Anyone?

I never really liked it, but now it's just a joke. If I accidentally click on a pdf file while I'm looking for something on google, I just walk away from the computer. It takes a good five minutes to open anything, and everything else is frozen in the meantime. (Admittedly, I turned off the background piece in msconfig, because it's such a resource hog, but it doesn't seem to make much difference, anyway.)

Anyway, if you do hate it as much as I do, you might want to try Foxit Reader. Depends on how often you use it. I've read that some files don't open correctly, but I haven't had any issues yet. So developers would obviously still need acrobat, but they can suffer alone. You'd have to rip my fingernails out to make me switch back. I can't believe how much smaller and faster it is. And it's free and works with Firefox.

And that's your PSA of the week.

Is anyone else irritated about this latest Dumbledore thing? Probably not.

I think I'm taking it too seriously, but you know what? You don't out anyone who isn't you. Especially when they're DEAD! I don't have a problem with Albus being gay. In fact, if asked, I probably would have guessed that it was likely. But if he wanted the whole world to know it, he would have told us. Right?

Christ, I sound like Dan Quayle. But it just seems rude to me.

So everybody's heard about the Delta flight this weekend, where the cargo door opened in mid-flight and some of the checked-at-the-gate bags fell out, right?

I was surprised that they found one of the bags, and foolishly clicked on this link to read about it.

First of all, the plane had already been written up for "deferred maintenance on a malfunctioning indicator light on the cargo door," which is scary enough. Not fixing any door that you've apparently been noted for several times. On a vehicle that goes 30,000 feet up. Excellent.

I don't fly anywhere near as often as I used to, and I was starting to consider myself lucky. Until I got to the end (and the reason I just needed to blog this - you're welcome).

Sunday's luggage incident marked only the latest surprise landing in the neighborhoods surrounding Midway.

In January, a turbine wheel from the engine of a cargo plane landing at the Southwest Side airport crashed through the roof of the house of an elderly Archer Heights resident. The hot piece of metal landed in the women's bedroom, luckily missing her and her cocker spaniel. The incident was attributed to engine failure.

In 1999, a tire fell off a Northwest Airlines plane as it took off from Midway. The tire crashed through an airport fence and struck a car driven by a pregnant woman near Central Avenue and 63rd Street. Neither she nor her 7-month-old fetus was injured.

Um. Yikes.

Sarbanes-Oxley can bite my lily white ass.

I don't care how stressful your job is, you've seen nothing until you've dumped this level of bureaucratic bullshit on top of your already crushing workload.

That is all.

I know. You've been waiting all day. You couldn't stand it. You checked back hourly, then semi-hourly, finally clicking repeatedly like a rat on the crack pellet switch.

Here you go:

Click for full size. You know you want to. Click, damn you. CLICK!

[See here for 2002-2007]