Oh Yeah, That's Right: I'm Posting a Video of Pandas Riding Down a Slide [Cute Overload Better Watch Its Back]

Because its faux-Friday (at least for me as I'm taking tomorrow off--NYC here I come!)...

And because I'm sniffly (and still trying to pretend it's "allergies") and this makes me happy.



If this does not make you happy, you have no soul.*

*Interesting factoid: when you Google Image Search "no soul" this is what you get. <--NSFW if you work in a Borat-unfriendly environment.

Because You're Never Too Old For Your Daddy To Buy You A Pony [Oh, My! Little Pony]

Here's a little music from Ginuwine to get you in the mood for this post (and for a few other things, I'm sure)...

In honor of My Little Pony's 25th birthday and to congratulate me on my new job--because nothing says, "Congrats on your big-girl promotion" quite like a pink plastic pony to call my own--my father mailed me a My Little Pony Decorating Star Catcher pony!

I immediately decided my My Little Pony was a transvestite pony and I named her Lady, accordingly. I love her very much. And here is pictorial proof:

If the look in my eyes doesn't say, "I'm going to love you and take care of you forever," it's probably saying "I'm nothing but trouble and I'm going to do very bad things to you for my own amusement." I often get those sentiments confused. Woe be the man crazy enough to take on the challenge of being loved by me...

But back to Lady! She's not just your average My Little Pony... Lady's got magical heat-sensitive color changing powers!! Just check out this awesome description:

STAR CATCHER pony is the coolest way to make a pony your own! Special ice pens let you stamp or draw to reveal colors on STAR CATCHER pony’s body! Fill the ice pens with water and freeze. When frozen, apply the ice pens to the pony to reveal her colors! Use your warm fingers or a warm washcloth (not included) to turn the pony white again! Decorate her any way you want, as many times as you like.

I was thrilled to try out Lady's awesome color changing properties. But I was too impatient/didn't actually read the info on the box until doing "research" for this post, and did not fully freeze the "ice pens."

And since non-frozen ice is water and water drips on plastic, well...

My little Lady looked like a Pony Land Carrie reenactment:

So much blood! Blooooooooooooooooooooooooood!

The only way to rehabilitate Lady was to put her in the freezer to regulate her temperature!

I gave her a couple nips of the giant bottle of Jagger and tucked her in with the apple pie and frozen squash.

After a few minutes... Lady was magically transformed into a Pink Lady! (Ha...ha ha)

She loves being pink! Just look at her sass the camera!

Lady inspired me to want to take up some My Little Pony modeling myself!


If this picture doesn't scream "I'm fabulous!", it's probably screaming "I'm high on opium!":

More like high on my love for My Little Pony!

Breaking News! Adorable Internet Animals Are On Strike!

In solidarity with the writers strike, the adorable animals that have provided hours of internet entertainment to the bored office cogs and housebound alike have gone on strike.

The implications of this decision for CuteOverload are still unknown.

In my own show of support, I will refrain from being cute for the rest of the day. (Should be easy with the help of this awesome sinus headache!)

(NB: "Bestiality" tag employed for upping my Google Analytics stats only. Mwahaha.
Random web troller, you've been had. Now read my site anyway.)

How I Celebrated Labor Day

Seven Ways I Celebrated Labor Day:

1. Slept in ('til 1:30 p.m.!)


2. Found a new blog to love (and read it from finish to start): Confessions of a College Call Girl


3. Witnessed the bastard birth of memes gone wild:



4. Discovered werewolves can indeed have sex with humans, even though scientists previously thought it impossible, from my new love: sci-fi romance novels.


5. Finished off a roll of toilet paper blowing my nose (attractive, I know).

6. Watched two hours worth of E! True Hollywood Story Investigates: Hot For Student


7. Ate a burrito.


Hope you all had an equally enjoyable Labor Day!

Philosophy of Love, Sex (with animals), and Understanding

You know you've received a fantastic college education when an article about "Zoo," Robinson Devor's movie on bestiality, in Salon reminds you of a class you took freshman year. The class was Philosophy of Love and Sexuality taught by Rebecca Goldstein and we tackled everything from the Greek philosophers' predilection for young boys, to foot fetishes, to the morality of bestiality.

When I first heard about the movie "Zoo" I thought--in part due to the source referencing it--that it was going to be an exercise in poor taste, performing a gleeful postmortem on a man who died after having sex with a horse. After reading a full review today, I am relieved to hear it's not like that at all. (Though it just goes to show you how quickly opinions are formed based on the movie's premise alone.) The movie's actual approach, as reported by Salon writer Andrew O'Hehir, had a far less salacious slant:

As Mudede [Devor's co-writer] said in a discussion after the film's Sundance premiere, "Zoo" morphed into a kind of thought experiment: "If someone can go there physically -- be there under that horse," he said, "then I should be able to go there mentally."

I'm not really surprised this movie has stirred up moral outrage and criticism from people who have not seen it; their opinions based, as O'Hehir put it, "on willful ignorance and incomprehension." Willful ignorance. The fear of knowledge. Wow. Being a person so consumed with the desire to know everything about everything, this concept is on the outer edge of my understanding. Isn't knowledge power? Even if you don't agree, how could you not want to know? What are you so afraid of?

I found myself asking similar questions this morning while reading performance artist Mike Daisey's account of his phone conversation with the man who destroyed his art in the middle of his performance (the full story and video can be found on his website). What struck me about Mike's conversation with both the school administrator and the man who defaced his work, is the language they used to describe how they felt in the situation:

She insisted it was a "safety issue", and that "we had to get our students out of there." There was no discussion of language or appropriateness--it had become a safety issue, as though the students were in danger of being physically assaulted. I think it is tremendously chilling that the language of the war on terror, the language of security, has been appropriated for even this--we can't even begin a dialogue about what is and is not appropriate, because it has all become a "safety" issue.

A safety issue? Seriously? Well, Mark was talking about sex with Paris Hilton right before they walked out--I could see the act of having sex with Paris being a "safety issue," but just talking about it? She can't be that contagious--can she?

I think the real root of the fear isn't the words themselves but the people who are so afraid of them. They aren't afraid of words, they are afraid of themselves. They are afraid they will hear these words--let these ideas enter their bodies--and they won't be able to control themselves. The ideas will inspire the darkness in them and they will have to give in to temptation. To have sex with horses. And Paris Hilton. I can understand where the terror comes from. That is a very scary fate indeed.

Are we really that weak? Do we really have to act on every dark thought that crosses through our minds? Maybe, if we are a person who spends all of our energy battling those impulses. If we believe deep down that we are bad people and need an external, holy Other to protect us from ourselves. Now I'm not about to launch in on a diatribe against Christianity (I'm specifically thinking of the most fundamentalist, fire-and-brimstone versions), but it's hard for me not to see links between the view of "inherent sin" and the fear of knowledge.

In the end "willful ignorance" sounds a lot more dangerous to me than watching movies about bestiality or talking about what it's like to have sex with Paris Hilton--no matter how icky the resulting visual images might get.