TresSugar

Briefing Book! Knowing Is Half the Battle . . .

LibertySugar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:30:25 -0700

Zimbabwe: Could it get any worse? Supporters of President Mugabe broke both of baby's legs in an attempt to force his mother to reveal the whereabouts of her husband. – Radar
Media: Would the issues work? Media struggling with the campaign narrative. - DailyKos
Obesity: Obesity and savings connected? Australia is the most obese country, but the US isn't far behind and has dwindling savings accounts to go with it. -SavvySugar
Equality: Chauvinist backlash? British proposal for positive discrimination to end gender pay gap not well received. -newsblog
Tiny Campaigners: Christina Aguilera chats to Larry King about her little one's political involvement. - lilSugar

Sex Toy or Roller Coaster? Part Two!

TresSugar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Sex can be a wild ride, and amusement park rides sure sound like sex toys. After making the first sex toy or roller coaster quiz, I had so many more ridiculous names to choose from that I figured I'd test your sex-toy savvy yet again. Do you feel the need for speed? See if you can tell the sex toys from the roller coasters.

Take the quiz

Are You More Technologically Savvy Than Your Man?

DearSugar — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Feeling Second Best Bianca wrote in yesterday complaining that her boyfriend's admiration for technology is ruining their relationship, but a new study says that it's girls that actually have the edge in new technologies, not the boys!

According to the findings, 94 percent of girls had laptops at home while only 88 percent of boys did, and 50 percent of the children turned to their mothers for tech help versus 22 percent who turned to their fathers. Study coauthor Professor Karen Pine feels as though, "Mothers are taking the lead" and that they're "also the most experienced and capable computer and Internet users.” So when it comes to your relationship, tell me, are you actually more technologically savvy than your man?

Source

NYC Sells Subway Station Names - Savvy or Selling Out?

TresSugar — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:00:00 -0700

New York's MTA decided a long time ago that it would try to sell the naming rights to the city's subway stops, but it finally found someone willing to pay up. London-based bank Barclays has offered $4 million to add its name to Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station. The name will officially change when the upcoming sports center, also called Barclays Center, opens in 2012.

We've long forgotten the days when stadiums and arenas were named after their locations, but subway stations? New Yorkers better be prepared to see a Miracle Whip sign on the 34th Street station or get ready to take an express train to Taco Bell Avenue.

Do you have a problem with corporations invading public space or is this a good way to subsidize the taxpayers' burden of paying for public transportation?

Photo by WalkingGeek

Do Tell: What Do You Envy About Your Mate?

TresSugar — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

When a relationship works, it often has a lot to do with how the partners complement each other's personalities. If you're super organized, your easy-going mate might balance out the stress you typically feel.

These differences could leave you (lovingly) envying the qualities of your partner. Whether it's his or her cooking skills, tech savvy, or ability to remember everyone's name, what's the quality that gets you green with envy?

Front Page: Obama Names Bernanke to Second Term

TresSugar — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:00:54 -0700

Seeking calm and continuity, Obama names Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term. - Wall Street Journal
With the death of four soldiers, the US casualty toll in Afghanistan reaches its highest point since the war began. - New York Times
As Michael Jackson's death is ruled a homicide, the singer's family seeks justice. - Us Weekly
The young, tech-savvy activists who helped elect Obama aren't doing much in healthcare fight. - AP
Early, partial results show Karzai leading in the Afghan election. - CNN

Front Page: Afghanistan Prepares For Elections

TresSugar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:00:24 -0700

As crucial elections approach in Afghanistan, the Taliban has escalated its threats and intimidation. - New York Times
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says that it's hard living alone in the governor's mansion now that his wife moved out. - CNN
Financial cheater Bernie Madoff apparently cheated on his wife, too. - Bloomberg
Hoping to beat the recession, JetBlue is offering a $599 one-month pass for unlimited travel to any of its 56 destinations. -SavvySugar
Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, has confessed that the character baby Stewie is gay. - New York Daily News

Smart B*tches, Trashy Books Unravel Romance Novels

TresSugar — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:00:00 -0700

Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan have helped romance readers discern the good smut from the bad for years with their blog Smart B*tches, Trashy Books. And now with their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels, they offer a guide through the heady world of the $5.99 novel and defend it with wit and intelligence.

So we asked these two smart readers about romance novels, and oh how they talked. So much, that we're breaking all their thoughtful answers into a five-part series. What's up first? Who reads these glossy books?

One out of five people read romance novels - who are these people?

Sarah: The truth is, behind the stereotypes, smart, savvy women read romance. It's a 60+-year-old industry of women operating independent businesses writing books consumed by an audience of women who spend $1.7 billion dollars a year. Two romance readers may have absolutely nothing in common except for the books they read, because romance readers are an incredibly diverse audience - no group of readers that supports a billion-dollar industry can be homogeneous. We're found across all ages, education levels, income levels, geographic locations and reading habits - and we all love romance novels.

Candy: The demographics for romance novel readers are all over the place, though there are strong trends. They overwhelmingly tend to be women, for example. They also tend to be voracious readers, period, and to be more highly-educated than the population at large. Other than that, it's hard to generalize.

You say, actually five out of five people read romance novels, what are some romances in disguise we've probably read? To see their answers, read more.

Sarah: Every fictional narrative contains a romance element. Where would Bond be without the sexual tension? What horror thriller in general doesn't contain the romantic suspense to support the plot? Romance is one of the oldest narrative traditions, so it's everywhere.

There are few readers more diverse in their tastes than the women and men who read my site, so I asked them. From the readers of Smart B*tches, here are romances you might not have recognized:

Lois McMaster Bujold's books, like the Miles Vorkosigan series, especially A Civil Campaign; Patricia Gaffney's Mad Dash; Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series; William Brinkley's The Last Ship; Jean Auel's Earth's Children series; many of Philippa Gregory's historical novels; Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series; and many of the novels you read in English class, including, and especially, Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice is one of the best romances ever written.

Candy: Sarah's right about romance being an element to a lot of fiction and storytelling, but the modern romance genre is its own beast with a long, tangled past. If you've read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, you've read books that would qualify as romances if published today. A lot of the sturm und drang (storm and stress) of certain romance subgenres owe a debt to books like Wuthering Heights, for example.

Here's the thing: the plot set-up and conflict dictates the genre the book's most likely to be slapped with. Speculation involving science and technology? Sci-fi. Mystery or conundrum that needs to be solved? Mystery. Mystical other worlds involving magic? Fantasy., etc. And there's considerable bleed-through among the different genres: it's perfectly possible for a book to be both a science-fiction novel and a murder mystery. But what drives the emotional conflict? If it's romantic love, odds are high you're reading a romance novel. Sharon Shinn and Catherine Asaro have written plenty of novels in which the central driving emotional conflict was a romantic entanglement, even though the plot setting was science fiction.

Stay tuned tomorrow to read about what romance novels tell us about women, relationships, society.

Flashback: Stealing Fashion From Fishermen

TresSugar — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Thank goodness they finally gave this fashion back to these fishermen. I'm still wondering why the brand found Portuguese fishermen sartorially savvy in the first place. Seems utterly random. Then again, fashion does have a thing for using peasants as props.

Source

Momma Said: I Was Stalking Andrew but Found You

TresSugar — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:00:00 -0700

This week the Postcards From Yo Momma editors are preparing us for Mother's Day by helping us understand mom. Now authors of a book - Love, Mom - they should know!

Our last email is from an increasingly popular mom - the Technically Savvy and Loving It. She's probably your Facebook friend and if she wants to know what you're up to, she'll Google you. The bright side? She'll never ask your iPhone to send her BlackBerry a message. Probably! Technically Savvy and Loving It moms are known to have Technically Challenged-mom tendencies.

To see the email and authors Doree Shafrir and Jessica Grose's response, read more.

RE: The Internet
Your profile looks like you are still in NYC writing books . . .

Love you, Mom the Stalker (actually I was stalking Andrew, but found you)

Doree and Jessica: Keep your Internet profiles clean as a whistle, big momma is watching.

Photo credit: Brad Walsh