Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow

It's been all-Katrina all-the-time around CBI for the past few days, so I kind of feel like shifting gears. Not that Katrina is "all better," which seems to me to be the way the major networks are reporting the story. Yahoo's got a photo of a black woman shrouded in an American flag with the headline "National Guard Finally Arrives," which gives the impression that they've swooped in and saved everyone, when really all that's different is a few more guys have been assigned to "floating dead guy" duty.

But the point of this post wasn't to talk about the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. I wanted to take a break and discuss something light-hearted.

Like penis-pinching swimwear.

Here's blogger Riding Sun, a New Yorker living in Tokyo, with the details:

Fast Retailing Co., which operates Japan's Uniqlo casual clothing store chain, said it will recall swimsuits for boys after six injuries were reported.

The inner mesh of the suits pinches the skin of the penis, the company said in a statement.

Fast Retailing sold 50,090 of the suits in 2004 betweenApril 17 and Aug. 31. The company will repay customers.

Don't they have a single person try on the new product design before they start actually producing bathing suits? If so, how could this guy have possibly failed to alert the designers that the suit actively pinched his penis.

That's the very first thing I would bring up. If I tried on a bathing suit that was tight around the schlong (and, despite the massive, ungainly, almost superhuman size of my member, it has never happened), I doubt I'd even finish putting it on before pulling it off.

"Hey, not so fast. This bathing suit is pinching my penis," I'd say, and then I'd frown in disapproval. "Bad Japanese designers! Bad!"

I never liked the whole mesh inside the bathing suit concept anyway. Why can't a bathing suit just be like a regular pair of pants except, you know, they can get wet. Why do you need this little testicle hammock in there? What function is the testicle hammock serving?

I mean, I guess you could argue that, should your bathing suit get wet and roll up, without the mesh interior, you'd be in grave danger of showing off your twig and berries to any potential passers-by. But does the mesh interior really prevent this problem? Or does it just result in you showing off your genitals while they're encased in some fibrous netting. Is that less embarrassing?

It doesn't really matter to me, because it has been years since I've even put on a bathing suit. That's true, 100% true. I don't even recall the last time I went swimming, or even put on a swimsuit. I don't really have access to a pool. Are there even public pools in LA? If so, I've never seen one. And I would never go to one because I'd hate to think of what sort of exotic diseases might be festering in a public-use pool here in Los Angeles. Public pools in LA would be the Baskin Robbins of STD's - 31 varieties.

Plus, pools are always filled with young children, and I spend most of my time avoiding contact with children already. Believe me, I get more than my fill of the little bastards between Sunday afternoons at the video store and living in my apartment building.

You should see this place in the summer. It's insane. You thought New Orleans was a lawless, desolate wasteland...You should see my driveway. (Too soon?) It's like "Lord of the Flies" here, only far less civilized.

So, I avoid pools, which means I don't often wear swimsuits, which is probably why I'm mystified by the ball hammock. But not mystified enough to actually go around asking guys why they want netting around their nuts. Cause that would be kind of gay.