New Year's Resolutions

Everyone's writing about their New Year's Resolutions.

Graphic designer Monina Velarde has created a New Year's Resolution Generator which is cool because it let's you click through a ton of resolutions and then promptly forget about them, much like in real life, but with the speed of the internet. Fuck writing that shit down.

For me, more than any resolution, New Year's Eve is like a Get Out of Jail Monopoly card.  It's a free pass to start over, no excuses.  It's a time marker, that's for sure, but a positive one.  If you're planning on losing weight this year (ladies of leisure don't need to unless it's medically advised), NYE is like a kick in the butt.  If you want to quit smoking (which you should, that shit is o'nast), you'll probably end up getting drunk tonight and smoking a shitload of cigarettes AND THEN QUITTING on the 1st.

Right?

One NYE, not so long ago, my resolution was to not get black-out drunk anymore (i was involved with some bad dick at the time and drinking the pain away, it happens).  Well i don't remember much of that new year's eve other than waking up the next day in my bathroom in only my coat and a puddle of vomit, but I haven't blacked out since.  Goddamn I'm better than that and all it took was a new year's eve to get me out of my slump.  Use and abuse it ladies, NYE is a time for redemption/rebirth/start overs.

Hamilton Wright Mabie sums it up best in this quote:
“New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no woman has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights”

So whether you're sitting on your couch or going out to get your party on tonight, have a safe and happy new year's eve and keep up the keeping up!

And never let the Horse of Judgement judge you from the 3rd floor:

P.S. PoolBoy Magazine's 2010 Resolutions are to put out our first issue (almost done!) and continue to be badass.

Reproductive Radness

While Arizona is probably going to pass the horrific HB2564 bill and further reduce our options for safe, affordable and accurate reproductive healthcare access in this state, it seems as though the federal government is finally moving in the right direction!

Today the U.S. Senate moved on permanently removing the Global Gag Order (which as we all know is a big ole' fuck you to the rest of the world). News Link Here
This is good news. I hope they permanently ban this rule which is totally lame and uber-unethical.

And the House Appropriations Committee (which oversees and approves all fiscal spending and budgets by the federal government - a very powerful and influential committee) just rejected an amendment to the federal appropriations bill for the Fiscal Year 2010 that would have enabled the continuance of a ban on using local funds to help low-income women in Washington, DC access abortion services. This is a good thing. The ban was a hurtful example of punishing U.S. citizens in the name of partisan politics.

And though Governor "Doucheface" Brewer just requested federal funding for AZ's abstinence only programs (i know, i know, it doesn't make sense, why take away reproductive healthcare AND sex education? It's like a catch-22), this morning, the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor HHS) eliminated traditional sources of funding for abstinence-only programs by passing the appropriations bill for the Fiscal Year 2010. News Link Here

In addition to pulling the plug on funding for failed abstinence-only sex education programs, the bill eliminates a ban on syringe exchange programs, which have been proven to be a highly effective strategy for preventing HIV.
The bill will now face a vote in the House Appropriations Committee and in the full House of Representatives. So we'll see how it goes but at least they are fucking talking about this shit. You can contact your elected representative at the house's website to urge them approve the bill.

here's a link to the full bill (H.R. 1105)

The Legend of Pantyboots

The first reported sighting of Pantyboots appears on record in February of the year 2008 at a party (themed "Object of Desire") at a dentist's house amongst the desert foothills of Northern Phoenix. The report of the initial sighting is slightly descriptive and includes multiple witness statements but lacks visual support, references, and date and time marks to make it a truly substantial and verifiable report.

After this initial report, the trail goes cold and one has to assume that Pantyboots will be regulated to the file reserved for those once-in-a-lifetime creatures whose tales are only told at fireside storytellings and in 99 cent comic book bins. These desolate urban legends are destined to fade away as subsequent generations, more robust in their fervor for creatures with solid histories, march into the future.

Furthermore, future filings, found with the initial report, detail in-depth, multi-party searches for Pantyboots on foot, horseback, and land vehicles through the desert outreaches without success. The search parties state that their vast area boundaries for the search are based on witness statements from the initial report filing, in which they (the witnesses) recount the evening of the sighting and detail the surroundings (including but not limited to: wall coverings, carpeting colors, dance music, types and brands of drugs and alcohol consumed, backyard furniture, outfits of fellow partygoers, and sizes of various firepits) but as we have seen multiple times in courts of higher justice, witness recounts based on memory are less credible than desired and can be prohibited from use in civil proceedings based on such a lack of credibility. In fact, B. L. Cutrod, Ph.D. describes this phenomenon as follows:

Uncritical acceptance of eyewitness testimony seems to be based on the fallacious notion that the human observer is a perfect recording device that everything that passes before his or her eyes is recorded and can be "pulled out" by sharp questioning or "refreshing one's memory". In a categorical statement, which psychologists rarely make, I can argue that this is impossible - human perception and memory function effectively by being selective. A human being has no particular need for perfect recall, perception and memory are decision-making processes affected by the totality of a person's abilities, background, environment, attitudes, motives, and beliefs, and by the methods used in testing recollection of people and events.[4]

One can see how relying on witness statements led to the search party's failure in obtaining further verifiable information on Pantyboots.

However, on February 14, 2009 Pantyboots was once again spotted at a similar (if not the exact same) dentist's house party in the foothills of Northern Phoenix. Multiple witness accounts state that not only was Pantyboots present at this party but that such presence was documented with a detailed and complex system of cross-referencing witness account statements and data from this party with the witness statements from the initial 2008 report (which was present at the February 14, 2009 party).

Though, as stated above, witness accounts are lacking in credibility. How can we really and truly know that Pantyboots was there? And will we ever really know?

It seems that such a question would have been where this file on Pantyboots comes to an end. And such it would have been, had not this incredible photograph surfaced in which we can see witness #271, named Lady of Leisure, standing in front of what appears to be Pantyboots:



Subsequent digital dehancement and unimaging has revealed that this photograph has not been altered or photoshopped in any way and that we are in fact looking at a digital representation of the elusive and infamous Pantyboots. This is an exciting revelation in the case and warrants renewed land and air searches as well as a push for more federal funding to keep this case active.

Any and all future information regarding Pantyboots will included in this file.


[4]Cutrod, B.L. and S.D. Penrod. Mistaken Identification: The Eyewitness, Psychology, and the Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.