...Salon columns have claimed (as I recall) that anyone with a BMI of below 18.5 is "unhealthy" and "an example of bad health of young" women. In fact, a large number of professional, women athletes are thus in poor health and poor examples, according to your standards...

By February 2008, it should universally understood by all but the willfully ignorant that BMI calculations are a reasonable metric for anyone who is not an elite athlete. Male athletes will have an artificially high BMI due to increased weight from muscle mass, not fat. Most men aren't elite athletes or body builders, however, and their weight is not due to muscle mass.

Medical researchers actually claim that for people to achieve their maximum potential lifespan approaching 130 years, the key, in fact the only positive factor they can confirm, is to consume 30% fewer calories than is normally recommended and primarily eat salads until you're skin and bones -- sort of like a model.

Not quite. The recommended caloric intake is way too high, in my experience. My recommended intake is 2000 calories a day. But a sedentary me only requires 1200 calories a day to function normally and maintain my weight. If I add my daily 5-mile run into that, I should boost my calorie intake by a mere 400-odd calories to maintain my weight, still well under the 2000-calorie "standard". If I consumed 2000 calories a day I'd gain a pound a week til I couldn't move anymore.

Its worth noting that I am *not* skin and bones, I am even quite jiggly in certain places. I rarely eat salads (not a lettuce person), consume lots of dairy because I love it, and love a good steak and spuds as often as I can afford it. And beer, I love that too. 1600 calories a day is a pretty reasonable mark to hit if you don't overdo it on the hooch and stay away from junk food.

Many women, because of exercise, weight gain, and/or current boot design, cannot get tall boots over their calves. There's ways around this, of course.

Really? What ways are there to get around it?

I buy the ones made with stretchy pleather. A little chintzier than actual nice leather boots, but at least they fit around my legs.

Euro Size 38 = US Size 8? I don't think that's right.

It's a size 10. A US 8 is a European 36

I have never heard a more ridiculous idea than allowing a 14 year old to witness the trauma of childbirth (not to mention the physical aspects associated therein)

How irresponsible and absurd!

Back before hospital births became expected and commonplace (which is to say, about 60 or so years ago), pretty much the entire family witnessed birth, to some degree. Aunts, grandmothers, and probably even older daughters had some level of participation and the menfolk of all ages were certainly aural witnesses since houses were small and womenfolk can yell pretty loudly when the situation calls for it.

That nobody in the family witnesses childbirth *now* is far more absurd.

Hahaha! Poor Hayden Christiansen, he sure is cute though.

But not cute enough to get me to pay money to see a POS like this.

I'll take your house in the 'burbs with a nice kitchen, central heating, room to have more than three friends over at a time, and best of all a yard where I can sit in the summer and drink a cocktail at sunset, let my kitty cat out to hunt beasties without the thought of her getting squished by a car, and grow a real garden that gets sunlight and attracts bumblebees and hummingbirds.

In exchange, you can have my first floor apartment in a 1905 Victorian with a throw-rug yard, that hasn't been renovated ever, with little to no insulation in the walls, steam heat that only heats the living room and kitchen before the thermostat trips and the boiler shuts off, and Brazilians upstairs who play really good music at really bad times (like 2am), and a landlord who took 4.5 years to install the double-glazed windows that required by my state's building code and fix the crumbling drywall in the bathroom. I won't even ask about the cracking lead paint that covers all the trim.

But hey, there's a cool subterranian bar and an overpriced "indie" coffee shop in walking distance, and we're right on the bus line so if you don't mind waiting for 30 minutes in 15-degree (with windchill) weather for four months a year that should be OK, right?

Thanks! I'll pack my stuff this weekend!

This was a plot device in the movie "Real Genius" that came out in I think 1986 or 1987.