It's Hard Out There for a Pirate

The ongoing saga of the Pirates Off the Horn of Africa (soon to be a best-selling trilogy of books/movies/video games aimed at the tween market, followed closely by a Broadway musical/traveling-ice-capade tandem to milk the parents dry until the remakes begin production) has just gotten a tad more interesting with the introduction of the sexiest thing in the world: lasers.

This just in from my contacts in London:

Sailors may soon have a weapon in their battle against sea-borne raiders: an anti-pirate laser.

BAE Systems has demonstrated its new laser system, which can temporarily blind would-be attackers. The system would prevent pirates from being able to aim their weapons at targets, BAE claims.

At distances of more than of between 1.2km (0.75 miles) and 1.5km (0.85 miles), the laser beam acts as a warning signal, letting the pirates know they've been spotted, said Brian Hore of BAE.

"Today's pirates tend to be opportunistic. If they know they've been spotted, they're likely to look for an alternative target," he told BBC News.

(courtesy BBC)

"At closer ranges, the green laser beam will dazzle them, making it difficult for the pirates to use weapons of their own" and rendering them physically unable to avoid dancing energetic ethnic steps to a John Williams score as Navy SEALs swoop in to gather the best performers in large canvas sacks to be airlifted to Central Casting in Los Angeles for further study, according to Brian "Dirty" Hore of BAE.

But the real question here is: are Somali pirates dazzled by lasers as sexy as vampires?

We aren't sure...

This is a valid concern and one which at the very least requires further taxpayer-subsidized research at entertainment think-tanks across Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Can we lazily plug pirates into the age-old "star-crossed lover" routine with the same success evinced by the aristocrat/peasant, business heir/rival business heir, North/South, one religion/another religion, and vampire/mortal dynamics of years past?

Well, let's have a shot at the pitch and see what happens:

German Man Does Something Weird

The news is just getting too fantastically strange this lately. There is clearly something in the water--is it oil?

Puppy Thrown at German Biker Gang

A German student "mooned" a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

The man drove up to a Hell's Angels clubhouse near Munich, wearing only a pair of shorts and carrying a puppy.

He dropped his shorts and threw the dog, escaping on a bulldozer from a nearby building site.

He was arrested later at home by police. The 26-year-old is said to have stopped taking depression medication.

And a Good Day to You, Sir!

(photo courtesy KNS News, UK)

Some guy in Great Britain painted an exact replica of his penis on the roof of his parents' house.

Lucky bloke!

_

What is 'real?'

Yet again, I swear I wrote about this before, but I can't seem to find the article anywhere.
So here it is now:

At some point toward the end of this past Project Runway season (that's how I gauge time, by the way), four of my friends all got together at a friend's house to watch a couple recorded episodes. Once they were over, the host suggested we watch another program he had recorded, but not seen yet, called "Guys and Dolls."

It was a very serious, if often funny, documentary about four men who own what are called Real Dolls--poseable sex dolls made in California that cost between $6500 and $10,000. These dolls not only have mouths--they have tongues! Real hair, huge breasts, the ability to hold a lifelike body temperature if submerged in warm water for a while...

The things these four men say, the women they date, the trip into their psyches...this documentary is priceless.


As a man with a sex drive stuck in sixth gear, it is hard to watch this movie and not feel some kind of shared guilt for what these four creepy men feel they need to do to fulfill their sexual urges. I mean, they're men. They get horny. They want to fuck and they don't want to be bothered with pleasantries, don't want to be stalled by refusals, don't want to have to settle for ugly fat women, don't want to resort to questionable prostitutes.

Don't get me wrong--there is a gaping, bottomless crevasse between me and these guys, since I would never allow myself to stoop so low as to have sex with a doll (unless it would somehow save the world or the life of a loved one; I would make that sacrifice). But I understand that not everybody has the standards/drive that I have and, more importantly, I understand where they're coming from. I understand their need to quench those urges, how frustrating it would be if you could never get a woman. I mean, imagine if you were 30 years old and you had never had sex. You've been bursting at the seams since you were 13 years old, but no woman ever even looks at you. Or maybe a couple women do, but they weigh 400 pounds and smell like Cracker Barrel Spreadable Cheese and probably have herpes from some skeezy, truck drivin' Johnny Herpeseed. What would you do?

Some guys would lower their standards and tie one on with the toothless fatties. Some guys would become serial rapists. Some guys would join eHarmony and find a boring Yang for their Yin. Some guys would save up for 11 months out of the year and spend the month of December in Bangkok sex clubs. Some guys would decide they either need to buy a sex doll or cut their balls off and, with that in mind, I think these fellas chose the more harmless of the two options.

In addition to the sex, however, there is an even creepier need being fulfilled by these dolls--companionship. Not all the featured customers, but at least two that I can remember, actually treat these dolls as if they are real women. They take them to the park, they have pictures of themselves together, they act as if the dolls have feelings. They change their faces--literally.


These dolls come with removable, interchangeable faces--sleeping face, awake face, happy face, fuck-me-in-the-face face, etc. They put make-up on them, brush their hair...like I said--it's creepy. But I can't look away.

My favorite thing about this documentary, as far as stylistic choices go, is that the breasts and vaginas of the Real Dolls were blurred out in every shot. Blurred out! But they're not even real!?!

I wonder if this was in the original BBC broadcast, or merely a function of it playing on American television. Either way, the interesting thing about this is that the blurry patches lend a touch of humanity to the already fairly-lifelike dolls. It is as if the director wanted to protect their feelings, to spare them the embarrassment of having their naughty bits on display for all to see.

Interested in watching it?

Unbelievably, I just found the entire 46-minute BBC program available online, for free.
You need to watch it. Trust me--it is riveting. And I guarantee you will watch it at least until the point where my friends and I all almost threw up and turned it off. But we made it pretty damn far along.

In fact, I'm gonna try again right now. I can't stop myself!!!