TresSugar

Orchestra Is a Hit!

GiggleSugar — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:00:00 -0800

It's the day of the big recital and all the kiddies are ready to impress their parents with a bangin' performance. But the little violinist on the right gets the job done before any playing begins. She's a real show stopper, that one.

Dumbass Invention Of The Day

GiggleSugar — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:00:00 -0700

The Self-Sustainable Chair is actually an unflattering dress made of the finest polyethylene. Two pumps extend from the bodice and attach to foot weights that force air into a bubble of fabric positioned over the booty (heyyy!) while walking. The result is a ready-to-sit-on chair you can use anywhere-- for five seconds. That is, until the weight of all the junk in your real trunk deflates the cushion and leaves you looking plain dumbass. For more awkward demos, click here.

Product of the Day: The Hawaii Chair

GiggleSugar — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:30:00 -0800

I'm all for the power of positive thinking, but I think the Hawaii Chair may be taking that idea a tad too far. The selling point? "If you sit, you can get fit" and "Take the work out of your workout." Ha! In my dreams! Throw in, "while eating nachos" and I'm sold. (Honestly, I have a feeling that all this product does is keep you from concentrating on your work. How can doing hula motions while sitting down be conducive to work?)

Give It a Rest Already!

GiggleSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:40:26 -0700

Is comfort the new cool? Artist Nick Baxter seems to think so. A number of months ago, we posted this silly lounge chair tatt. It didn't sit too well with some of us, while others were able to appreciate the fine artistry on display. Well, Nick has created a few more for us to love to hate . . . to love? You decide.

View 4 Photos ›

Source and Source and Source

Product of the Day: The Hawaii Chair

GiggleSugar — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:10:00 -0800

"You know Tamra," this here Hawaii Chair is as comfortable as an effing earthquake - but you're gonna get one anyway, cuz it's the newest piece of workout equipment that promises to take inches off of your waistline, without requiring any effort outta you. That's right, hanging onto the nearest stable object in a frantic attempt to keep yourself mounted requires very little - if any - exertion. And someone might slap a sexual harassment suit on you for getting your hula on at work, but at least you'll look slim and trim in court.

Have You Ever Dated a Mama's Boy?

TresSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

In a way, that's a trick question.

Although "mama's boy" has negative connotations (he was smothered or spoiled by mom), a man who was raised with love and affection by a mother with boundaries often grows up to be what the author of Raising Boys Without Men calls a "head and heart" person.

This positive version of a mama's boy, says Peggy Drexler, is in touch with his and others' emotions and knows how to communicate. (This is assuming the mother herself is connected to her emotions and is a good communicator - a big assumption.)

Have you ever dated a man who was close to his mother? Was he spoiled, expecting you to do everything dear ol' mom did? Was he smothered, one wig and a rocking chair away from being Norman Bates? Or did it help him to respect women and teach him to be connected to his feelings?

The Dark Side of Cute

TresSugar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Kittens in casts. Babies nudged to laugh every five seconds. Stuffed teddy bears left at killing-spree sites. We are so surrounded by the tyranny of cute that even multibillion-dollar corporations have cute names like "Google" and "Twitter," and the uncute business of insurance is represented in ads by a cute lizard with an English accent. (And yes, I too am guilty of spreading cuteness.)

What's up with the cute? Writer Jim Windolf has had enough and decided to try to get to the bottom of what he calls the "self-infantalization" of Americans. His conclusion? There's a dark, manipulative side to cute. If you want to know what it is, read more.

In Daniel Harris's book Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic, he says that there's a hidden sadism to our love of cute, citing the barrage of images of cats falling, puppies slamming into mirrors, and even babies trapped in high chairs being prodded to laugh.

"The process of conveying cuteness to the viewer disempowers its objects," he writes, "forcing them into ridiculous situations and making them appear more ignorant and vulnerable than they really are. Adorable things are often most adorable in the middle of a pratfall or a blunder." In other words, they are cute insofar as they are helpless, and we, conferrers of cute, are all-powerful.

Becoming cute, conversely, is one way of disarming opponents or critics. It's not incidental, argues Windolf, that the cult of cute in the US emerged during the Bush years, when "the American image went from that of protector to invader, from defender of human rights to aggressor on the lookout for loopholes in the Geneva Conventions." Cuteness then, according to this theory, "came about as some sort of correction, as a way for us to convince ourselves and our friends that we're not as bad as our recent national actions have made us seem." (It reminds me of smiley emoticons at the end of passive-aggressive email messages and instant messages. In this case, American cute is like a ginormous cultural smiley face emoticon tacked on the end of dubious actions telling our allies we're not all that bad.)

Windolf traces American cute back to Japan's kawaii culture, which got huge 10 years ago but actually emerged at the end of WWII after it was "humiliated and emasculated." If you're interested in political and cultural psychoanalysis, I suggest reading this long essay. But whatever you do, remember - ~~sometimes a cigar is just a cigar~~ sometimes a cute kitten isn't just a cute kitten.

Source

Très Bizarre: The Shake Weight Self-Pumping Free Weight

TresSugar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0700

One way to distinguish your exercise machine that does the work so you don't have to from others on the market is to make your ad sexually suggestive. Like, really sexually suggestive.

How these men can hold their "Shake Weight" self-pumping weights without laughing is a testament to their acting talent. (Especially when they are in a circle, pumping away in tandem at 1:21.) The Hawaii Chair has nothing on the Shake Weight. If you can't get enough of watching people holding self-pumping weights while keeping straight faces and want to see women in the ads, read more.

Say What? RNC Has a Kanye Moment

TresSugar — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0700

"Michael Steele had a Kanye West moment coming out there and saying Beyonce should have gotten the award. He shouldn't have done that."

- Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan said yesterday that RNC chair Michael Steele had a Kanye West moment when he came out early against President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Steele said that the prize should have gone to those people who have made "real achievements working towards peace and human rights."

To see the video of Pat, which includes hilarious pronunciations of "Kanye" and "Beyonce," read more.

Say What? RNC Chair Michael Steele on Sotomayor

TresSugar — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:00:00 -0700

"The trap here for the GOP I think is enormous. I know that a lot of folks want to do the knee-jerk, you know, let’s start slammin’ and rammin’, but I think we really need to take a step back from this and deal with two things. One, the historic aspect of it, OK, acknowledge it but then move on to the substance of the conversation about what this woman believes and why she believes it."

- Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele's oddly phrased advice in a radio interview. He's referring to how Republicans and conservatives should stop attacking Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Source