I've Been Waiting My Whole Life To Hear This.

"Don't you ever bring home a wimpy man! You need someone capable! You need someone stronger than you to take care of you!"

-- My mother for the last 25 years

"Don't you ever bring home a wimpy man! You need someone capable! You need someone stronger than... never mind. I don't think you'll ever find a man who's stronger than you. You're stronger than every man I know."

-- My mother yesterday

The Cumberbatch Effect

“[Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes is] lavishly, wonkily beautiful, 900 feet tall, has a voice like a jaguar hiding in a cello, and would clearly be able to work out in a second what a 15 per cent tip should be..." -- Caitlin Moran, from The Times

"The Cumberbatch Effect" is a phrase my friends and colleagues have heard me use for the better part of a year. I've been promising to blog a definition for most of that time, but life kept getting in the way.

Until today.

The man who inspired the phrase, the incredible British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, is about to get a hell of a lot more famous than he already is. He just snagged a film role portraying one of my all-time favorite literary characters in what's sure to be one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. Thus, I need to put this definition in print so people all over the world have a phrase to describe their emotions when The Hobbit is released and they find themselves oddly attracted to the CGI dragon.

the cum·ber·batch ef·fect

noun: the phenomenon by which an ordinary-looking male is perceived as being significantly more attractive than he actually is due to the deep, sexy timbre of his voice. See also: rickmanssage.

In lieu of an example sentence, I present the following:

I Know This Looks Bad, But...

"It's the same old song, but with a different meaning since you've been gone." -- The Four Tops

It's been raining on and off all day -- and by "raining" I mean "walking outside feels like having buckets of water thrown on you." I was fortunate enough to get stuck outside during one of these deluges, and while I have no problems walking in the rain, my feet were sliding around in my shoes too much to make any semblance of walking possible. Thus, I conceded defeat and ducked into a drugstore to wait it out.

I checked my appearance in one of the cosmetics aisle mirrors; aside from my dripping hair and a black ring of mascara around each eye, I didn't think I looked too terrible. I wandered around, picked up a couple of items, made small talk with a couple about the deliciousness of Pop Chips. When I saw that the skies had cleared, I made my way to the register.

I greeted the cashier. He looked at my runny makeup, then he looked at the two items I was purchasing. He picked up the package of feminine products, scanned it, and placed it into a bag. He picked up the bottle of Drano, scanned it, started to place it in the bag, then hesitated. He held it up and raised an eyebrow. "You're not planning on drinking this, are you?" he asked.

I didn't look that awful. I swear.