Vote For Pedro
I used to watch a lot of late-night television. It doesn't sound like a productive use of one's time, but that's because you're thinking in conventional non-meth terms. Twenty-four hours is a lot of time to fill if you don't sleep and/or are detoxing. It can't all be Shakespeare and long division. Sometimes you just want--NEED--to watch Conan talk to Amy Sedaris.

These shows all had the same format: monologue, desk-bit, guest, guest, music, comedian, over. Redundant? Sure. Redundant? Sure. But there was some comfort in the predictable format. Besides, your eyes need something to do while your hands are bathing the dog, one hair at a time.

I would get angriest at the monologues, though. What would bother me would be the whole section of it that started with "According to a new study..." It just seemed so lazy and sloppy and wrong. What's with the constant reliance on new studies or new surveys, I would think. If scientists and institutes stopped publishing these results, where would these hack comedians be then? For me, the phrase was an introduction to what was sure to be a lame joke, the punchline of which was some lame, watered down, network-TV-safe double entendre. "According to a new study..." was the signal for me to flip over to... well, about 175 channels all in really fast succession. I blame the meth.

Anyway, those old prejudices predated the days when I had to come up with blog material six days a week. That being said:

According to a new study, women can tell a man's paternal potential just by looking at his face.

At least, that's what the headline says. Why they're playing up that aspect of the story, I'll never know. Within the text, it also says chicks can tell from looking at a guy whether or not they'd want to hit that and move on. Why that isn't equally newsworthy as parenthood is beyond me, frankly.

The markers and indicators women look for, apparently, have to do with testosterone levels in men and how those things show up in a man's face. By that they mean a strong jaw-line and evidence of dense (as opposed to patchy and sparse, I guess) facial-hair.

So what this presumably expensive and exhaustive study found out is that chicks are into dudes with strong jaws and who can grow beards.

Another blow to the cause of chinless freaks with wispy 9th grade puberty-fuzz on their lips and jowls. I feel your pain, brothers.

I would feel bad for Larry Bird, but he seems to have done OK. I guess having a giant, inexhaustible pile of money is something of an equalizer, genetically speaking.

What the article doesn't say is what pictures of guys they used. It would be so easy to skew the results. Don't believe me? Take the Pops Procreation Review Quiz, won't you?

Which dude do you think would be most down with breeding?

Subject A:

Subject B:

and just to confuse the issue slightly, I'll throw in an ambiguous Subject C:

Oh Subject C, you tease. The right physical package (do you see that luscious fucking jaw-line?!), but the hat with the Day-Glo and that pose with the big phallic bat... Maybe he wants kids, maybe he doesn't, but can we be sure he would get within a bat-length of a vagina?

Man. It's tough to be a chick. I don't envy you, ladies.

And if this were late-night TV, this is where Jay Leno would reference Bill Clinton and the crowd of people who stood outside for 8 hours on a sidewalk in Burbank just to get in would roar with approval. Oh to have the leverage of offering people air conditioning and comfortable seating... it would make my job a lot easier.

But I assume you all brought your own chairs.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 5.5


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:32 AM