Tampons around the world.

Greetings internet!

I posted something on twitter this morning which apparently has people wondering.  I posted the simple fact that when I see my mother after Christmas I will be asking her to bring me tampons from Australia.

Yes, I know they make and sell such things here in the USA.  Yes, I am aware of the fact that the Walgreens is down the street and my mother is 13,000 miles away and thus a tad more convenient.

But I just don't like them.  Why not? I don't really know they just aren't the same.  Its not a brand thing, the same brands are available in both countries.  My personal brand only just became available over here and I was excited until I found they come with an applicator and further saddened when I tried them and found them to be not the same.  I'm not crazy, many expats feel the same way.  The Aussie Products Store in San Jose has had requests to stock tampons, others get family to send them and others just shut up and deal with it.

So there it is.  Tampons are different in different countries.  Bet you didn't know that.  I didn't know that a year ago.  Take this new found knowledge to your Halloween party and wow the crowds with your knowledge.

(Picture from http://www.tamponcrafts.com/halloween.html)

Does my inagural address have to be more than 140 characters?

I recently went to see The Social Network which is a great movie and I recommend it, I wasn't going to see it but I kept hearing how good it was and it is directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin.  But I don't want to review the movie I want to talk about something else.

One day we will have a president who had a Facebook and a Twitter and a whatever the next thing is.  Now I know that Obama has these things but I'm not talking about established politicians using new media to connect to people.  I'm talking about people who have grown up with these things.  Who posted stuff when they were 14 when they weren't thinking about their future.


Here's Obama's latest Facebook update:

I congratulate Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen on winning the Nobel Prize in Economics for their groundbreaking economic research that has applications in areas, like unemployment and housing, where we need our best and brightest minds.

And here is something from Lamebook:

There is a generation of people growing up to whom posting their thoughts as they think them is not a big deal.
A recent article reported that 92% of American 2yr-olds have an online presence.  The presidential races of the future are going to include everything.  Was your mother wondering if she would keep you or have an abortion? Well if she posted it on Facebook it will be achieved somewhere and a journalist will find it.
Did you send your boyfriend a picture of your tits? Guess what they're probably floating on the Internet somewhere and they might be on the front page of the newspaper the night before the Iowa Caucus.

There has already been a lot written and said about this, about what problems teenagers and young adults of today may have when they are looking for jobs or running for office and every dumb thought they had is able to be found easily by anyone.  And I'm sure the first presidential candidate to have pictures of herself swigging from a vodka bottle she posted on her own page with the caption "Totally me lolz" will be a big deal, but what happens at the next election.

What happens at the election where everyone has done that? What happens when all candidates had a youtube channel where they sung shitty songs and cried about how their parents hated them?  Where every candidate has posted about their poos and journalists can find it archived at the Library of Congress (that's for real by the way the LOC archives every public tweet)?  Will it still be a big deal? Will it become a nonissue when no candidate can take the high road?  Or will we as a society still want to hear all the juicy details and make moral judgements about these people?

"Well Candidate A posted that her friend was a whore when she was 17 but Candidate B talked about his shits constantly throughout college, I just don't know which one is better?"