And The Vibrator Goes To…
<b>V</b>alentine’s Day is this Sunday, and regardless of your relationship status, you should learn to “love” yourself properly.
All my single ladies
This weekend is Valentine’s Day, which is pretty awesome if you’re coupled up but kinda sucky if you’re single — and especially shitteous if you’re a single gal. For single girls, Valentine’s Day serves mostly as a reminder of how much we fail at life that we don’t have a “special someone” to do cute things for us and buy us flowers and take us to dinner. Can we get Hallmark working on some “You (don’t have a dick to) suck” cards that I can buy for myself on the 14th to supplement my romantic evening of watching <i>Pretty Woman</i> and feasting on some Chubby Hubby?
The ethical <br />merry-go-round broke down
The other night, I was with some friends and watching a Looney Tunes marathon (3 DVDs from four-disc set, $3 at the thrift store), when the question arose of why we, one of many generations who grew up on cartoons, aren’t more messed up than we are. What went on television when we were young would have today’s parents up in arms and at the doorsteps of the production companies before you could say “That’s all, folks!”
I Don’t Need No Minute Man
I’m horrible as far as introductions go, so I’ll say this: For someone who got tapped to write the sex/relationships column for The Tech, I sure have been having a crappy sex life as of late. Pathetic, even. I used to have pretty good sex, but at some point, it all went to shit.
Sex toys: Two can play at this game
<i>Christine:</i> Sexually adventurous as I am, I managed to talk a partner into trying out a vibrating cock ring. From his initial hesitation, I should’ve known better.
The Tech’s 2010 Sex Toy Giveaway
<b>A</b>nother sad, single Valentine’s day? Not this year! This year, <i>The Tech</i> is here to ease your loneliness...with sex toys and lube! (What did you expect?) If you’d like to win one, write in to <i>cl@tech.mit.edu</i> with “Sex Toy Giveaway” in the subject line, and tell us why you deserve a particular item. Unrequited love? An incompetent partner? An inconvenient mole? Share your pain.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’ve never been very good at grocery shopping. For one thing, I’m constantly snacking, which means that walking down the chips and cookies aisle is just asking to load up on more munchies. For another, there’s so much variety in products that I can’t tell what’s inexpensive and what’s a ripoff. Music and movie shopping are easy by comparison — anything under fifteen dollars is a bargain (except perhaps <i>Plan 9 From Outer Space</i>), anything under five dollars is a steal — but groceries are a different beast altogether. Even considering that I’d watched <i>Supermarket Sweep </i>as a child, I was much more interested in the “run like a maniac around the supermarket” than the expected retail prices of anything. For instance, the Oreos at Shaw’s are in yellow-tag Purgatory, meaning that it’s always the same price every time I go, and seemingly have been for the past three years. Whether that means they’re actually never on sale or perpetually on sale, I leave to you to decide.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’m not precisely sure when the word “awesome” was first used to describe something indefinably spectacular and/or amazing, but it seems as if in recent years, it’s gone from the upgraded, superlative version of “cool” (itself a reissue of “groovy”) to the heavily-used catch-all adjective of our generation. I don’t have anything against the word “awesome” in and of itself, but I do have to wonder at what point we stopped demanding more than “it’s awesome” as justification for holding something in high regard.
East Meets West
During the first week of January, a class of 90 MIT MBA students traveled to Silicon Valley as part of the annual MIT Sloan Entrepreneurship and Innovation Class Trek. Our purpose was to cast a deeper glance at the entrepreneurial ecosystem on the West Coast by engaging entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the Valley. We met with successful companies such as Genentech and LinkedIn, hot Web 2.0 startups such as Aardvark and Yammer, and premier venture capital firms (VCs) from Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel and more.
Brouhaha Rhythm
If you asked me what possibly could have compelled me to stay up until five in the morning to trudge through Cambridge for a Black Friday sale, I would have given you exactly two reasons. One is the age-old excuse, “my friends were doing it.” The other is that I managed to justify it to my nerd self by going to the electronics store first. A few DVDs, a set of Rock’em Sock’em Robots, and more self-restraint than any human should ever have to exercise later, here I am pondering the significance of the experience.
To Kill a Creative Bird
It’s 4 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and I want to paint. I haven’t had an urge this strong to reach for my brush and palette in a long, long time. And I haven’t been this swamped with work in a long, long time. Psets, midterms, make-up midterms, quizzes, make-up quizzes (I was sick for a while), essentially make-up on all my to-do lists. Oh, and “e-mails requesting extensions.” My only concern (while rearranging items on my to-do list) is, when do I get to absorb all this new information and to let it really sink in? When and how do I reflect on my newly acquired knowledge and think of real world applications?
Evening Walk
Many students come to MIT Sloan not because of the business school itself, but because they want to be part of the MIT community at large. I was one of those students, and I wanted to apply what I learned in the classroom by working side by side with outstanding engineers on bringing new technologies to market. To me, that seemed like a great way to prepare for and anticipate the future evolution of business and society, as opposed to treating business school as just a springboard for a job.
Brouhaha Rhythm
In last week’s edition of “Frivolous Dissertations on Breakfast,” in which I discussed my thoughts on the ideal cereal shape, it occurred to me that one edition simply wasn’t big enough to contain the sheer mass of frivolity on the subject that I wanted to share. More than that, it seemed terribly prejudiced of me to assume that cereal was the only breakfast food worth talking about. After all, non-college students eat breakfast, too (I think) and if I expect to be taken seriously in debates on the subject of breakfast, I should have an informed opinion on more than just the issues that matter to me.
Ask SIPB
This week’s column covers the upgrade of Athena clusters to Debathena from Athena 9.4, and details some of the main new features that are now available.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The idea of the “frivolous conversation about everyday subjects”, experienced by all and popularized by sitcoms, remains one of the few ways in which we can connect with new acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers without being invasive or sketchy. Just yesterday, I briefly discussed Cheetos and dental hygiene with the lady next to me in line at the pizza parlor. Several months back, it was carbonated drinks with Ingrid the Shaw’s Cashier. Last week, the <i>pièce de résistance</i> was an interchange at length over bagels and cake on the subject of breakfast food, with cereal (specifically cold and served with milk) as the centerpiece.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday of the year. For one thing, it takes place during my favorite season — I grew up in a heavily forested area of Pennsylvania, and seeing entire mountainsides change color is pretty stunning for me now and positively mind–boggling to an eight–year–old. I also got to feed my hero complex, a long-standing tradition that continues even today in a manner that I suspect would be of some psychiatric interest. It started with a cowboy costume, presumably because I asked for it but likely influenced much less by Clint Eastwood and much more by the release of <i>An American Tail: Fievel Goes West</i>. From there, it alternated between “Robin Hood” and “Musketeer” (each with relevant movie releases, the more observant of you might notice) until I hit high school.
On Anal Virginity
Years ago, the fuss was over fellatio; nowadays, it’s everywhere. In a story on Duke University, <i>Rolling Stone</i> said, “oral sex [is] nearly ubiquitous, regarded as sort of a form of elaborate kissing that doesn’t really mean very much.” Likening oral sex to elaborate kissing might be extreme, but it isn’t extreme to say that oral sex has become a widely accepted practice.
My First Time
I was high and drunk and at a party and, against my better judgement, got in a cab with a Harvard student and went back to his apartment, where we fucked each other’s brains out. He was a good lay but boring to talk to. I bounced out of there early in the morning with the sex hair and the runny makeup, and got in the T and never spoke to him again.
For the Love of Lube!
Anyone who has ever taken basic Physics, which is a graduation requirement at MIT, can tell you that friction is the arch-nemesis of motion. Friction always opposes motion, and whenever bodies are in contact, a la intercourse, there will be friction. Some friction is a good thing, but too much can lead to painful consequences. When that happens, the result isn’t pleasant for either partner. Usually there’s a chain reaction: if a partner goes dry, the other partner goes soft. Many a virgin has botched an attempt at losing it because of too much friction.
Sex Toys: Your New Best Friend
I’m as big a fan of self-love as a newly sexually-awakened postpubescent, but sometimes a couple digits just won’t do. That’s when I reach for my favorite vibrator made by Fun Factory, a German sex toy company. Before I came across their nifty invention, I’d tried a lot of toys that left me feeling dissatisfied, so I resorted to masturbation without technological enhancements. Though it’s cheaper and equally pleasurable (especially if you’re familiar with your own body and nimble with your fingers), masturbation alone can get boring and sex toys can add variety to the bedroom. Some women have a difficult time reaching orgasm and can get closer to their goal with the aid of a toy. For me, finding the right vibrator made me realize that sex toy shopping is a little bit like playing Goldilocks. You have to find the toy that’s juuuust right and there are a lot of factors that come into play!