Blog Posts by Erin Flaherty, Shine staff

We've met plenty of dudes who've had questionable relationships with their beloved automobiles, but here's a sexual fetish that's too weird for me to even stomach: men who um, have sex with their cars. According to an article in The Telegraph, Edward Smith has finally come out of the um, garage so to speak, and boasts having--move over Wilt Chamberlain--1,000 autolovahs. Sadly (or perhaps, thankfully), he doesn't go into detail about what car sex entails, but hey, I guess where there's a hole there's a way? But don't worry folks, says Smith, "'who lives with his current 'girlfriend' - a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not 'sick' and had no desire to change his ways.

'I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love,' he said."

Alrighty then. And turns out, he's not alone. There's an entire global community of "mechaphiles," the working title for the sex with cars

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That's right my dearies, just for you, to kick off the Memorial Day weekend, it's the classic making the rounds today, a seemingly intoxicated Angie talks S&M ("It comes from that real place,"), in what appears to be some kind of a druggie den. Is that Billy Bob in the background? Eh, I can't help but love the lady--Miss U.N. Ambassador/Mother of the Year has come a long way since those days. Still, had to share. Enjoy!

Chris Dunn and Pam Jensen, a couple that some are referring to as "the silver surfers," are socking it to those who hold on to the outdated notion that online dating can't lead to anything serious. In fact, the couple, who just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, are being heralded as the first two people to meet online... EVER!

Technically, they met before any online dating services even existed, when they were two of the first users of the CompuServe CB Simulator, a pioneering form of what we'd now refer to as instant messenger. In perhaps the greatest understatement ever, Pam acknowledges to The Sun that "Computers weren't as pervasive as they are now." Yes, so true. And certainly, online dating has become oh, shall we say, a lot more popular as well? For example, according to M/Cyclopedia of New Media, since the most popular dating site of all, Match.com started back in 1995, "more than 60,000 new people register on Match.com every day, and it has grown to more than 15

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New York Times
What if rain or shine, no matter what, you and your partner, well, never parted? That is the case with Michael Roach, 55, and two decades younger Christie McNally, two Buddhist teachers who are literally attached at the spiritual hip, so to speak, and took vows to never be more than 15 feet away from each other. Oh and P.S.: They're celibate, too.

In fact, believe it or not, according to an article that profiles them in the New York Times, it's that whole celibacy song and dance that actually makes them a controversial couple within the traditional Buddhist religion. Roach is one of a handful of Westerners who trained in the same Tibetan Buddhist tradition as the Dalai Lama, and became a monk in 1983. The problem: Monks must take strict vows of celibacy, and living with a woman, no matter whether they claim to be celibate or not, is a scandal. However, the couple claims that in order to attract more followers, their traditions must appeal to Westerners who might otherwise be turned

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Miley's scandalous back shot, courtesy Vanity Fair.
I feel like the whole Miley Cyrus scandal was a just a tad bit, I don't know, overblown no? But on the tail end of that whole moment comes another controversial "back porn" image featuring some ladies that are actually over 18. Still, the Star Ledger reports that the naked backs in a new KRock radio station ad campaign appearing on billboards all over New York and New Jersey have stirred up the pot, with some residents of Denville, New Jersey saying the ads are lewd and should be taken down. After getting a few complaints Mayor Ted Hussa felt compelled to ask the station if they might change it. No such luck, but apparently they were receptive to the idea of avoiding advertising in certain zip codes in the future.

Tasteful? Eh, no. Shockingly lewd? Not really. (K-ROCK)Alrighty then. Here's the ad in question. What do you think? Myself, I don't know. It's certainly not designed per my taste (and oh wow, it objectifies women, what else is new?), but I don't think it's overly lewd and I've definitely seen worse elsewhere and certainly on

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It's time for another edition of Heavy Petting! I just stumbled across a parrot with some pretty strong political opinions and obviously, I had to share:

Question is, what would you teach your imaginary parrot to say this election year!?

Love animals? Us too! Please make a donation to The Humane Society today! Want more HEAVY PETTING? See "A green puppy named Wasabi" and "The LOL cats edition."

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Getty Images
We reported on Muxtape, a cute and simple site where you can share mp3 mixes, but now there's Cassette from my ex, and I like it even better. Why? It's juicier...

Each mix--the actual music is there, assembled in its (usually) frozen in time (the 80s) glory--is accompanied by a sometimes funny, often sorrowful tale of the relationship behind the musical masterpiece. Who doesn't love a good "the one who got away" story? Everybody's got one, but each is as unique as the two people who were involved. Sigh.

While we're on the subject, what's yours?

This looks like a serious case of text love. (Getty Images)
In this day and age where major relationships develop and end on Myspace or whatever, it's hard to imagine that paramours used to actually write letters to one another. (And maybe that's a good thing. Aided by technology, who knows how many more wives Henry VII would have wrastled up (and um, subsequently beheaded)?)

Seems the Chicago Tribune just got turned on to this crazy newfangled cell phone thing in a report where they stated that, "Between December 2005 and December 2007, the number of text messages sent and received in the United States increased almost fivefold, from 9.8 billion text messages a month to 48.1 billion, according to The Wireless Association."

Yup, I think we can all agree that this texting moment is hot, hot, hot. They go on to examine what role text messaging plays in romance, and I'm not sure they bring up any new or surprising points, but I can't help thinking about the not-so-subtle ways that texting has started to play a major supporting role in our own

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