The importance of being (fashionably) earnest

Audrey, ESI Cultural Affairs Officer, is nothing if not a trendspotter. And what better place to detect the latest fashionista wave than Italia?

It appears Sarah Palin may be on to something. Audrey has noticed the look di giorno among the women of Firenze is "austere serious." Simple. Understated. Muted. Dark colours. Perhaps with hair pulled back.

In short, nothing too flashy. Kind of like the Alaskan governess. As the Washington Post's Robin Givhan recently noted about Palin, "Her clothes are unpretentious, but they are also unremarkable. ... Everyone knows someone who dresses like her, which is partly why so many folks seem to think that they know her."

Image: Near the Mercato Centrale, Firenze, 01/10/08

Breaking News: ESIs Headed For Majority

It's All for Your Future Pleasure, So VOTE!

At a recent gathering which included a few men and women in their forties, the consensus was that they preferred the natural look on a woman's coochie. I have not had the opportunity to ask the younger generation what they prefer, but of course I am curious.

Men and women of all ages, this is your chance to let the ESIs know if you prefer the Garfunkel, the Mr T, or the Larry look on a woman's revered mons veneris.

What is your preference?
	The Garfunkel
	The Larry
	The Mr T
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Tank Top Tuesday

Something borrowed from Manny Blue

RNDP 16: Asian Innovations?

This week our search for an RNDP takes us to Asia.

In early June, Weird Asia News reported that a South Korean TV station had received about 2200 applications from young men wanting to be "pet boys" for women looking for company anytime they want.

The idea came from a Japanese anime program where a business woman with a history of bad relationships adopts a young street person to be her "pet".

Weird Asia News predicted the trend would spread throughout Asia in the near future.¹

If the Korean women are following a Japanese cartoon and adopting pet boys, you might wonder what the Japanese women are doing.

According to TechCrunch, they are going to Webkare to meet a male cartoon character and win his heart in a series of online dates.

Apparently, five days after it was announced, 10,000 people had signed up to try it out.²

4D Analysis: If we ESIs want to be famous, we should come up with postings demonstrating that modern women are increasingly desperate to find men they can be with. So desperate they'll pay for them or use pretend online versions.

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¹ I hope I don't need to point out that:

• There are many, many internet stories on the Pet Boy "trend" and they all seem to be based on the WeirdAsiaNews story;
• There don't seem to be any stories about the trend spreading to Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere else in Asia; and
• While 2200 applied to be Pet Boys, there is no mention of any woman asking to engage the services of an applicant.

² I hope I don't need to point out that:

• There are many, many internet stories on the WebKare "trend" and they all seem to be based on the TechCrunch story;
• In a country the size of Japan, 10k sign-ups isn't much of a splash if there had been any sort of national promotion of the website;
• WebKare.jp is not even in the world's top 5 million websites (it is ranked 5,261,557 at Alexa, which beats our position at 9,309,169, but we don't claim to be a hot new trend) and
• There have been no followup stories to tell us how may members actually returned to the site after one try.