Here’s a frivolous question: at what age do women begin to prefer hairy chests to bare chests in men? I’ve observed, in casual conversation and in our culture, that women my own age, in their mid-thirties, tend to like a hairy chest. On the other hand, our television and movies are flush with young men with nary a chest hair in sight. From Top Gun to Twilight to The Old Spice Guy, it’s been the case for about 30 years. The same, of course, is true in magazines like Details or Esquire.
It’s my theory that at some point, women start to–at least in the personal lives–prefer a little hair on their man’s chest. This seems to make sense from an evolutionary biology perspective, as it’s an indication of maturity and correlates to testosterone levels (or, rather, a lack of chest hair can be an indication of low testosterone).
So here’s today’s question. If you’re female, when did you start to prefer chest hair on your mates? Or possible you still don’t? Take part in the poll below, and pick the closest age:
UPDATE: I remembered why this was on my mind. I passed a salon this weekend and they had a sandwich board out front. It featured a scrawny, hairy chest and read (something like) “Get him to wax it!” I thought that it was interesting that they were marketing men’s waxing services to their partners.
Somebody on Twitter mentioned that “the Canucks game just got way more interesting”, so I visited TEAM 1040′s website to listen to the end of the game (it’s a pay-per-view game, so there’s no regular TV broadcast. I’m happy to pay for a game occasionally, but not when it’s Phoenix.). TEAM 1040 is running a web poll at the moment, asking “Who is the hottest Canuck?”. Check out the results:
For those readers who are not hockey fans, Daniel and Henrik Sedin are identical twins. They look like this:
Though he looks about 15, I’d say Raymond deserves the lead. Here he is sandwiched between Rebecca and Alanah (the photo is by John):
I’m running a quick little survey about clickthroughs on Twitter. It applies to you if you use a link shortener like Bit.ly that enables you to track the number of clicks a link receives when you post it on Twitter (hmm…mangled sentence there, but you get the idea). It’s all of two questions, and should take you, like, 14 seconds:
As BC readers know, we’re electing a new provincial government on May 12. I confess my general ignorance about provincial politics. I don’t have that much attention to give to politics generally, and I usually exhaust that on federal and international issues. Combine that with our having been recently out of the country for a year, and I have very few opinions about who to vote for next week. I’m a little ashamed of that, but what’re you going to do?
So here’s your opportunity to convince me to vote for your party of choice. I’m not particularly interested in opposition-bashing. I’d prefer to hear about platforms, policies and initiatives that align with your values and vision for the province.
I have a slight bias against the NDP (I’m not a fan of unions) and for the Green Party, but neither seem overwhelming in this case.
Leave a comment and fire away. If you’re disinclined to comment, here’s a poll:
I don’t actually guarantee that I’ll vote for who wins the poll, but I thought it’d be fun to take your temperature nonetheless.
I was talking to somebody about this morning. I doubt they will, but I really have no idea. Less idea than usual when it comes to the Canucks. So, let us vote:
Due to my own busyness and ambivalence, this site’s redesign is moving at a glacial pace. However, it is happening.
In the spirit of revamping things around here, I’m considering dispensing with my links page. Despite what the page claims, it is no longer an accurate representation of what I read. I used to use Bloglines, and I shared my public feeds on that page. That’s no longer straightforward, because I use a variety of aggregating and filtering services (most notably, AideRSS) to mash and morph the feeds to which I subscribe. Plus, I switched to Google Reader a while back.
As a result, my blogroll is littered with old sites I don’t read, defunct sites and inaccurate links. I’m very bad at maintaining it because it’s a chore, and always at the mucky bottom of a long, long list of tasks.
So, should the old blogroll stay or go? I could discuss the pros and cons of killing it, but Rebecca recently did a good job of considering the issue. Looking at my site stats, it ranks #68 in popularity over the past two years. Do you ever use my links page? What do you do on your site? Should I keep the thing? Here’s a poll:
Adding a Job Board?
I receive an email mentioning a job in the Vancouver technology or marketing industries at least two or three times a month. Depending on my inclination and busyness, I occasionally post these to my site. I thought it might be useful to include a job board page on the site where all of these jobs could live.
Somebody recently pointed me at Job Thread, which displays local jobs specific to the industries I specify in a widget. Somewhat like Google AdSense, you earn money “based on a number of factors including the quantity and quality of traffic your Widget generates”. I ought to reject them for the needless capitalization of ‘widget’, but never mind that. That’s not quite the right thing, because I don’t see a seamless way for people to submit jobs that would ensure they appeared on my site. Plus, I want something more robust than just a widget.
Ideally, I’d like a system where anybody can submit a job listing, which would be held in moderation until I approved it. Then it would be posted to a page, and eventually retired to an archive after a couple of months. I imagine one could hack something together with WordPress, but does anybody know of any ready-made solutions? Plus, you know, if there’s a money-generating angle, I wouldn’t complain. I’d do it out of the goodness of my heart, but I’m not going to turn down a little passive revenue. Any advice?
Please answer the following question concerning your GP or ‘family doctor’:
I’ll be needing a new doctor in Victoria sooner or later, and paused to consider whether I’d, uh, consider a female doctor. I’ve always been to male doctors, but that’s kind of been by default. I’m curious to see how common the practice is. Gillian’s post in which she sees her male doctor reminded me about this.
RSS subscribers, this blog post contains a poll. Please consider visiting my site to participate. Or just carry on. Whichever.
Just a quick post to close ye olde loop on that poll I ran before I changed continents. Here’s a pretty pie chart showing the results (as always, click for a larger version):
There was a pretty even three-way split. Cityscape Blue has a slight edge over Yellow and Waving and Brown with Many Signs. There was another late submission, which is probably the most creative and original of the bunch:
What Do I Think?
I haven’t had a lot of time to dwell on them, but I think I prefer either Yellow and Waving or Brown with Many Signs. Cityscape Blue feels a bit generic, and besides, I won’t be living in Vancouver for the next little while, anyway.
I also liked the cleverness of the first late submission, and admire the creativity and detail work in the above submission. It may be a little too busy for my site (and I’m not nuts about how my portrait looks), but I think the treatment is gorgeous. It’s by an artist named Celeste Cronrath, and I’d definitely use her for other work that needed a similar aesthetic. Does anybody else dig this latest effort?
I’m going to let them marinate for a few days, and solicit a few more opinions before making a final call.
Way To Go, Pixish
You may recall that I used a new service called Pixish for this project. I have some minor technical and workflow complaints (and boy do they need documentation), but I’ve been really impressed with the artwork this project has generated. I wouldn’t call it world-class, but most of it is average, and some is quite thoughtful and original. I’d definitely use Pixish again if the right project came along.
