Next Time on WOTE: Natalie Portman and her Strange Attraction to Pompous, Overeducated, Underemployed Bloggers

Homunculus blogs and the world follows.

To wit --


July 18, 2008: I discuss -- I mention -- the WBNA for the first time in my life.

Four days later: The biggest event in the history of the league takes place; hockey moms and Joes-six-pack learn what WNBA actually stands for.

Coincidence? Possibly.


Beginning of August: Homunculus visits a friend in Denmark for a week.

The weekend I return: Major stories about Denmark appear in not one, but two of America's finest newspapers.

Coincidence? Unlikely.


Sept. 3, 2008: Homunculus becomes the first blogger in history to devote an entire entry to the Saguaro cactus.

And today: The Times reports on a disturbing new trend in Arizona: Saguaro cactus theft.

Coincidence? Not hardly.


I shall henceforth be known as Homunculus J. Delphic, the Vatic Oracle of the Blogosphere.

W(hy) N(ot women's) B(asketball as long as it involves chicks shoving each other onto their) A(sses?)

Can it be a coincidence that less than a week after I mention the WNBA for the first time in my life, the biggest event in the history of the league takes place?

No, it cannot.

Or can it?

Yes, it can. And who should be in the middle of it all but my new favorite player, Cheryl Ford, whose police mug shot (below, again) I featured last Friday. Ford tore her ACL in the game, and is now out for the season. Unfortunately she got injured on an earlier play, not in the fracas itself, which would have made her "I'm afraid of contact" quip that much more ironic. Or less ironic. I'm not sure which.




"There's no doubt that there has been a tremendous amount of attention," WNBA president Donna Orender said, "but it's not the type of attention that we seek."

Perhaps another marketing axiom is now in play: There's no such thing as bad press. Don't get me wrong. Homunculus isn't about to hunker down with a Cosmo and his bitches and turn on a WNBA game. But if a brawl breaks out, he will watch the highlights. Online. The next day.

[Cue chauvinistic catfight meow sound & scratching-claw gesticulation.]

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

WOTE: "I'm Single & Lonely, and Nobody Actually Reads this Blog." I WOULDN'T SAY THAT. WOULD YOU?

I was checking baseball scores on ESPN.com today when an ad for the WBNA caught my eye in the upper-right-corner of the screen. In case you’ve missed it -- and, given that it’s the WNBA, you probably have -- the newest ad campaign features several of the league’s stars repeating common criticisms of the game from non-fans (a.k.a. men) -- "Women’s basketball is a joke," "You couldn’t pay me to watch women’s basketball," etc. -- and then countering the slights with some serious fire. "She wouldn’t say that," it says on the screen. "Would you?"

Um. Call me a chauvinist douchebag (you wouldn’t be the first) (in fact, you’d be the third this week), but do you really want us (i.e., men) to answer that?

My favorite ad stars Cheryl Ford of the Detroit Shock, looking like she just polished off the world's fattest blunt (below). "I'm afraid of contact," she says to the camera, "so you can post me up all day long." Then, in silence, the world's most non-rhetorical rhetorical question appears on the screen: "SHE WOULDN'T SAY THAT. WOULD YOU?" And then the WNBA's new motto: "EXPECT GREAT."

With the campaign, the WNBA is breaking a cardinal rule of marketing: never highlight your weaknesses, even obliquely (and certainly not explicitly). It's like they teach you at the college career center: In your cover letters and interviews, never qualify yourself with a "but" -- "I know I’m not the most qualified for this job and I don’t have that much experience and I smoke a lot of opium, but I learn fast and work really hard..." Not smart.

Because if you’re like me (and let's be honest, we all have a little Homunculus within us), your first instinct is to accept the negative statement at face value and dwell on that.

Coke: "It rots your teeth and gives you diabetes."

WE WOULDN'T SAY THAT. WOULD YOU?


Um. Yes. Yes I would.

Speaking of ad campaigns, Match.com says it's OK to look. So I did. And I have to say, I was impressed. There are a lot of quality women out there who love to laugh, love their jobs, love to travel, and are just as happy in jeans and a sweatshirt as they are in a cocktail dress.

Below is the profile of one woman I was not as impressed with. Unless it's actually a man pretending to be a recent immigrant, in which case it is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read. My favorite line -- and it was tough to choose just one -- is the part about how she likes being lowered down from mountains, because I'm pretty sure even a perfect Broken-English translator wouldn't be able to decode that one.

[By the way, I know I am a terrible, terrible person for posting this. But I already knew that when I woke up this morning, so -- no change there.]

I SEARCH A REAL TRUE LOVE!!

• 28-year-old woman
• Glen Cove, New York, United States
• seeking men 30-42
• within 50 miles of Glen Cove, New York, United States

About my life and what I'm looking for:

I the usual girl. To me of 28 years. I adhere basically to old principles. I very much want to find the love, the the man with which I can lead the rest of days of the life. I shall care of such person who will find and will appreciate in me understanding, trust, honesty, charm...

For fun:

I look films with participation, Yma Turman. Also I listen N'SINK,

Micle Jackson, etc. Like to experiment
hairdress and a fashion. I dream to visit in the Egyptian pyramids.

My job:

I work as nurse in hospital. I like the work because it is pleasant to me to
Bring in advantage of people

My ethnicity:

I white. I do not accept racial hatred, and I think that all people are equal the World

My religion:

I concern to Christian orthodox religion

My education:

I have finished the Yaransk State university on a speciality the bookkeeper and have received the red diploma

Favorite hot spots:

As I love skiing, I would like to visit where many mountains
And to be lowered from top of mountain. Also I have dream to jump off with a
Go down from a parachute together with my favourite person.

Favorite things:

When in the street the rain to me is pleasant to read books. My favourite (loved) author Mark Twain.
Love comic and interesting programs. To like me vegetables and fruit.
Bananas and peaches. I prefer a free fashion. From music I prefer classical

Last read:

Recently I started to read the novel, but also and to like to read secular magazines to
Keep abreast all have placed, occurbing in a society.