Ray's X-Blog

Mary Roach Is Going At It Again Yes, snarky science writer Mary Roach penned a book about sex research. No, the book wasn't called Stiff. Stiff was about decaying corpses; Bonk is about copulating live bodies (well, for the most part. There is mention of autoerotic death and whether a beating-heart cadaver could have an orgasm if properly stimulated). Mary goes at her subject with the usual curiosity and irreverence befitting a woman who was raised as a strict Catholic. (Too strict, of course. Press down on that spring all you want but someday -- BOING! Or in this case, BONK!) Bonk is subtitled The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. That coupling part also includes Mary and her husband who volunteer to have an intimate moment recorded by dynamic 3D ultrasound imaging. Why bother with dull regular ultrasound for such an occasion? Just go all the way. Going solo Mary gets some hands-on experience with a photoplethysmograph probe used to gauge her reactions while watching v...

Smell Bad? Off To Camp With You I wonder how this story will play with the New World Order conspiracy crowd. Basing his ideas on the Civilian Conservation Corps program of the Great Depression, politician Carl Paladino wants to transform under-used New York State prisons into special dorms (or camps) for people on welfare. Such a center would train welfare recipients to acquire new skills. Also -- according to gubernatorial candidate Paladino -- the campers would be given lessons in "personal hygiene." Of course this program would be voluntary. (Did you know filing an income tax form annually is also "voluntary?") Out-of-work prison guards would become counselors for such a dorm set-up. After years of walking the cell blocks with billy clubs, I wonder how many guards would have an affinity to "counsel" someone. As Paladino explained in an Associated Press article: ""Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to ea...

Zine Zone Updated Over at my Website, www.xrayer.com , I've updated the Zine Zone archives once again for my snail mail zine. I've simplified the layout to save time for myself. The latest issues of the Ray X X-Rayer, #75 and #76, will be found in the 2010 file. After you click on that file you will find links in ascending order, oldest to the newest, the latest issues at the end, of course. For those unaware of my zine, it collects posts from this blog into an easy-to-print format (PDF). I used to put links on the main page for my Website but I'm getting burnt out with computers, HTML and all the rest. I trying to keep things as simple as possible. The main page will announce when a new zine has been archived but without a link. Speaking of computer burn out, I almost threw my HP printer out the window. Even though I had converted a color image into grayscale and the set the printer to grayscale, pink blotches were showing up in the B&W images. After wasting a ...

X This Date: August 4 Mark a big X on your calendar: Wednesday, August 4. Why? It's the birthday of Supreme Commander James W. Moseley. If my math is correct, Jim is 79. I want to include a photo of Jim with this post and so I'll type "james moseley" "saucer smear" into Google for an image search. Now here's a shot of him: OK, wrong image. Google isn't perfect. Let's try again: That's better. The last issue of Saucer Smear took a while to arrive via snail mail. Jim states in every edition that it's a NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER -- meaning he publishes it whenever he gets around to it. (My zine is also NSN.) But some readers noticed a long gap in his non-schedule. A while ago Jim had a fall and it took a while for him to recover. Apparently he's OK because the last issue of Smear is on target as usual. For a sample copy, mail two dollars US to James Moseley, PO Box 1709, Key West, Florida 33041. Maybe you can hide the cash ...

Yuks And Yuck! Sounds like a good thing to do. Donate your body to science. Maybe your corpse will help train a young surgeon so when he's working on a living body he will have the practical experience not to cut the wrong part. Crash test dummies don't provide the same information as a human body. OK, I won't feel the impact, so let my corpse test the limits of new safety restraints in a vehicle. But leaving my fresh (i.e. unembalmed) cadaver out in a fenced-in grove and let nature run its course to see what happens -- well, let me think about that one. I sunburn so easily. (And I'm already too bloated now as it is.) And using my lifeless flesh for vain cosmetic reasons, to "aggrandize penises" -- to use Mary Roach's phrase -- I think I'm ending up on the short end of the donation deal. The nonfiction book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, is a blend of gags (author Mary Roach's snarky comments and puns) and gags (referring to the r...