I just don't get it. Here I am, in a safe place (Valhalla), innocently reading, typing, etc. on Linnea's computer, and this advertisement pops out of nowhere, telling me not to get older this year. What's the deal? I like the old people in my life. Some of them. But I like the way they look, for the most part. I want to look like them someday. I have my first permanent facial creases - and yeah, they came from smiling or laughing, so that's pleasant to begin with. Why the heck would I want to not get older? -looking I mean?
Now if they could come up with Botox for your joints that'd be another matter. I am definitely not looking forward to arthritis. But speaking of etymologies, the name "Botox" worries me. Sounds really bad for you. If I were in charge of naming that stuff I'd have called it something different to avoid poisonous connotations. You'd think they'd have problems selling the stuff, but no, people are probably more likely to do really scary things in order to achieve eternal youth.
Has anybody read any account of any immortal being that wasn't frightening to contemplate? I mean the kind of immortality that stays in its present location for the duration of its immortality, not like Elves who go sailing off for beautiful lands. One of the things that scares me most about life is that we are faced with the prospect of never not-being again. We are mathematical rays - we had a beginning point, and so can't really understand the idea that we'll go on straight to infinity.
Posted by tuggy at 01.16.04 14:34Hey... at least it didn't tell you that you need a larger penis!
Posted by: ColeSlaw at 01.16.04 15:26tuggy tuggy tuggy
you need to appease the room gods before you use my computer, that's what this is all about.
Appease the room gods?!? I AM the room god, dimwit.
And I have been told I could enlarge my penis by some ridiculous percentage or my money back. I'm not sure whether I laughed more at that one or the magazine I got in the mail for black women over 50 - "women just like you", they said, in the nice letter that came with it. There was some pretty nifty stuff in said catalogs. I almost bought some weave-in braids.
Posted by: tuggy at 01.16.04 18:36I wish I had something witty to say, but I *would* like to say that the concept of being a mathmatical ray, and going on to infinity - that is the first fear I ever remember having. The idea has terrified me for as long as I can remember.
Posted by: Shaw at 01.16.04 21:33Actually, "Botox" is the trade name for the commercial product form of botulinum toxin A. This is a kind of neurotoxin produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacterium, the same bug that produces botulism food poisoning. If large amoungs of this toxin get in you through normal ways, like food poisoning, you stand a pretty good chance of dying. Botox "treats" wrinkles and crows feet by temporarily paralyzing the muscles that produce said wrinkles and crows feet.
This, I just want to say, does not sound like the most pleasant thing one could do to one's body. The risk of side effects is fairly low, as injecting the toxin straight into muscle groups isn't a very effective way of spreading it around, but still.
Posted by: ryan at 01.18.04 05:23