Better Personality Quiz:

"You are an SEDL--Sober Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you a dictator. You prefer to control situations, and lack of control makes you physically sick. You feel have responsibility for everyone's welfare, and that you will be blamed when things go wrong. Things do go wrong, and you take it harder than you should.

You rely on the validation and support of others, but you have a secret distrust for people and distaste for their habits and weaknesses that make you keep your distance from them. This makes you very difficult to be with romantically. Still, a level-headed peacemaker can keep you balanced.

Despite your fierce temper and general hot-bloodedness, you have a soft spot for animals and a surprising passion for the arts. Sometimes you would almost rather live by your wits in the wilderness somewhere, if you could bring your books and your sketchbook.

You also have a strange, undeniable sexiness to you. You may go insane."


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dear people I don't like,

Stop being on my side. You're making my side look like pretentious, hipster-chic, pseudo-artsy-intellectual, pot-smoking, trend-worshipping, emo-kid wannabe posers.

And quit fucking agreeing with me. Its annoying.

No love,
CJ

UPDATE:

1. Have finished more than half of my grading. This will be rendered irrelevant this evening when my students turn in their lab assignment.

2. Have decided not to go to funeral because I didn't know Debbie's family.

3. Have negotiated with stomach to where the occasional meal of tea and toast, possibly augmented with cheese and not-too-acidic fruit, will be accepted without complaint.

4. Am still in Twin Cities. Bugger.

Who's on the list? They're at it again down in Florida.

"Aww hell. Let's try and spell it out anyway. Let's just say it right here: The kids are fine. Kids are not traumatized by much of anything we think they are. Kids are not scarred for life by hearing Howard Stern crack a penis joke with a porn star. Kids are not scarred for life by seeing one quarter-second of a famous nipple on national television. Kids are not scarred for life by reading the word 'f--' in this column, which of course they can't, because we can't print it, because if they saw it they would explode and die."

This article is a thing of beauty. Jon, it relates back to the "what do they fear" conversation. Enjoy.

My Debbie is dead.

Still in Minnesota, and apparently still ill. And I mean that in a decidedly non-slang way. I went to bed about an hour ago, but my stomach apparently objects to... well, everything -- especially food -- tonight.

I consoled myself with a MPLS/St. Paul Magazine that the mom bought for me today. Sadly, MSP Magazine does not seem to know much about MSP. Main features discussed "fashionistas" and polo tournaments (in fairness, the cover story was a Prince interview, hence reason for ownership of the damn thing). Now, I know a few Twin Cities residents who are among the young and fairly affluent, and I can spot a yuppy at 50 feet. These are still not people who go to freaking polo matches. Hell, for some of them, high class means changing into a polo SHIRT. Dining out is more likely to involve Olive Garden than Bellanotte.

So yes, I was amused. Here I was reading a magazine aimed at a small group of Minnesota elite (who I'd normally roll my eyes at). I did find out that Josh Hartnett's birthday is next month, though, in case any of you were afraid you'd miss it.

I AM NOT IN NEW YORK YET!!!!

More over, Chris is in New York. Bastard. OH, TEH JEALOUSY!!!

WHY AM I NOT IN NEW YORK???

I rode the spanking new light rail train today, in lovely downtown MPLS. My mother and I took the demon spawn down for the day. My lovely cousins are subject to absolutely no discipline at home, so they are unacquainted with the word "no." A typical exchange might go something like this:

Me: No! Don't cross the street in front of the cars!
S: Why? *steps in front of traffic*
Me: *ponders... why indeed?*

That said, the day was a nightmare, and the coolest part was literally the drive home. This was not entirely due to the fact that the brats would soon be delivered back to their rotten parents. We drove past a park on the way back, where there were a bunch of people dressed all in white standing about on a field. Upon closer examination, they were playing cricket. The kids asked what cricket was and actually shut up while I explained my absolutely basic knowledge of the provenance of the game. Bliss.

Jordan Knight is working with Jam and Lewis. I'm laughing too hard to blog right now. He's playing the Fine Line on august seventh, and I'm terribly tempted to catch the show for nostalgia's sake.

Today's Showtune Shower Showcase:

"Sandra Dee," Grease
"There Are Worse Things I Could Do," also Grease
"A Bushel and A Peck," Guys & Dolls
"Little Girls," Annie
"Hard Knock Life," Annie

Be glad you weren't around to hear it. Yes, I was attempting to perfect my Rosie O'Donnell impression with the first two. No, it wasn't going well. Yes, I promise never again to subject anyone to it. Now stop laughing.

Dear CJ,

Stop being an idiot. Your classmates do not want to hear you blather on about tap dance. Sociology, maybe; tap, no. Give it a rest, mmmkay?

Love,
yourself

ps that other thing you're contemplating? A world of no.

Darren,

Here's the archive where you can find the Michael Moore postings I referenced in comments -- scroll down to September '01, if you're curious.

CJ


And yes, I'm too lazy to go back into my site and leave this as a comment. Why should I when I have this nice little button that gives me a pop-up blog screen?

In other news (because now that I've opened my little pop-up, I may as well cram all of tonight's blogging into it), I was rudely reminded today that Konstantin Stanislavski is an unholy bastard, and sense memory really ought to confine itself to acting exercises and leave my daydreaming alone. If anyone can decipher what that means without consulting the internet, you get a cookie. Suffice it to say, it's tough to explain why you're shivering when it's summer and the car you're riding in is hot from the sun.

Finally, as a public service, even though I know the dumbshit person who most needs to hear this doesn't come 'round these parts, now here this: If you have my phone number, that means I probably won't mind if you call me. There are some exceptions to this, of course -- call at eight in the morning, I'll hang up on you -- but really, you needn't request permission to phone me at a later date using fifty cent words and citing specific need. You can do, as it's damn entertaining, but it's not requisite.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blather.

Irony: the author of the ultimate anti-censorship novel demanding that a filmmaker change the title of his film, despite fair use laws.

Dear Ray,

Your book is one of my favorites. Stop being a wanker. All its gonna do is cause more people to read your book. If you don't agree with the politics, write a scathing critique and send it to every bloody newspaper in the country -- it'll reach more people than the movie will.

In complete exasperation,
CJ

Most recent phrase uttered: "why are you standing on my clarinet?"

The cat looks like he just won a strategically important battle position. Instrument cases: the latest in spider-fighting technology. Who knew?

More memeage:

Last Cigarette:: bummed one at SRI to keep from killing
Last Alcoholic Drink:: haven''t been drinking -- G&T, most likely, at least a month ago
Last Car Ride:: yesterday, to and from Tim's for D&D
Last Kiss:: my dad, saturday; can't remember last tongue action
Last Good Cry:: whadda you care?
Last Library Book checked out:: likely something sociology related
Last Movie Seen in Theatres:: PoA
Last Book Read:: Hamlet
Last Movie Rented:: Pirates of the Caribbean
Last Cuss Word Uttered:: fuck
Last Beverage Drank:: mmm... water
Last Food Consumed:: oatmeal
Last Crush:: are there actually people who post this in public?
Last Phone Call:: just got off the phone with dad, who is becoming a computer genius
Last TV Show Watched:: West Wing re-run last night
Last Time Showered:: yesterday afternoon
Last Shoes Worn:: ubiquitous chaco sandals
Last CD Played:: Prince, The Hits, volume I
Last Item Bought:: a book for dad for father's day (an encyclopedia of guns)
Last Download:: stuff Jon sent me (does that count?)
Last Annoyance:: three guesses, you'd probably get it right
Last Disappointment:: teaching evals
Last Soda Drank:: Coke
Last Thing Written:: IM conversation with Jon
Last Key Used:: house key, when I came home yesterday
Last Word Spoken:: what the heck are you doing? (cat hijinks)
Last Sleep:: this morning (fell asleep at five, finally)
Last IM:: Jon, re: music, research, and Chris the devil
Last Sexual Fantasy:: well it certainly had nothing to do with ninja turtles, despite the numerous "turtle porn" google searches that have brought people here
Last Weird Encounter:: dance class last week... real dancers are foreign to me
Last Ice Cream Eaten:: Cherry Garcia
Last Time Amused:: IM with Jon
Last Time Hugged:: um... mom or dad, this past weekend
Last Time Scolded:: I've stopped paying attention to scoldings
Last Time Resentful:: yesterday was bad, but I still feel it today; stupid work stuff
Last Chair Sat In:: spinny chair... whee!
Last Underwear Worn:: bugger off, stupid list
Last Bra Worn:: really, no one here cares
Last Shirt Worn:: grey dragon shirt
Last Webpage Visited:: Frogblog

Classics, schmassics. Once again gacked from the entire internet. Bolded text means I've read it. Can anyone tell I was a drama major for awhile?

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice (sort of)
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust (does the crappy one-act adaptation I was in count?)
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

PBS is playing a documentary about being queer in Duluth and on the Range.

Good times.

I'm feeling a bit meme-ish.

Gacked from everyone on the friggin'internet:

"1) go to google.com and type in "You know you're from (your state here) if..."
2) pick out whichever list strikes your fancy and bold the ones that apply to you.
3) post it in an entry. Duh."

This should be fun.

You Might be a Minnesotan if...

*You measure distance in minutes.

*Weather is 80% of your conversation. This frightens me with it's truth.

*Down south to you means Iowa.

*You call highways "freeways."

*Snow tires came standard on your car.

*You have no concept of public transportation. (Lived in NYC just long enough to learn what I'm missing.)

*75% of your graduating high school class went to the Univ. of Minnesota. (Only 40% went to college at all, most to community college.)

*You know more than 1 person that has hit a deer.

*People from other states love to hear you say words with "o"s in them. I was party entertainment in NY

*You know what and where "Dinkytown" is. I grew up on this damn campus.

*"Perkins" was a popular hangout option in high school.

*You have no problem saying or spelling "Minneapolis." Duh.

*You can list all the "Dales." *feels shame*

*You hate "Fargo" but realize that a lot of your family has that accent. (We speak "city" Minnesotan. It's slightly less grating.)

*You get mad at people who think Fargo is in Minnesota. (Nope. Just mock them visciously.)

*Your school classes have been canceled because of snow or cold. Really, I think "cold" is the only uniquely Minnesotan bit here.

*You know what Mille Lacs is and how to spell it.

*You assume when you say "The Cities" people know where you are referring to.

*You know what the numbers 694, 494, I-94, 394 mean. Of course. They're the number of minutes you'll be parked on that stretch of road during rush hour.

*You have tried boiled fish in lye at Christmas.

*You know the 2 sports-related reasons why we hate Dallas. This was almost a "no," but then I remembered the second one.

*Nothing gets you madder than seeing a Green Bay sticker on a MN car. (Uh, three letters: GWB. Amongst myriad other things.)

*You know what "uff-da" means and how to use it properly. And every day I bang my head on something hard, just to see of I can erase it from my lexicon.

*You can pinpoint exactly where each scene in "Untamed Heart" was filmed. Had a friend who lived in the neighborhood while it was being filmed. Yet another childhood memory made mundane by the Big City.

*You can spot the three-second cameo appearance by "The Artist formerly Known as Prince" in "Fargo." (Shit, Prince was in that? I never made it through more than half an hour of the damn thing. And how old it this quiz, anyway?)

*You're a loyal Target shopper.

*You've licked frozen metal.

*The only reason you go to Wisconsin is to get fireworks or to fish. (The only reason I go to Wisconsin is to get booze after liquor stores in Duluth have closed.)

*You own an ice house, a snowmobile, and a 4-wheel drive vehicle. (N to the O. I own an AWD car. And don't you say the word snowmobile to me.)

*You wear shorts when it's 50 degrees outside in March, but bundle up and complain in August when it goes below 60. Guilty.

*You know people that have more fishing poles than teeth.

*You remember WLOL. I remember most incarnations, even. Including the current one.

*It feels like the Mississippi is everywhere you go. It is. I never lived more than a mile and a half from it before I left for university.

*When you talk about "opener" you are not talking about cans.

*You have gone Trick-or-Treating in 3 feet of snow. (I was grounded that year. I ended up feeling lucky.)

*You know that when it comes to AM, there is only WCCO, besides, what else do you need? (Uh... Radio K?)

*You know what the word SPAM stands for -- in more ways than one.

*You carry jumper cables in your car. Doesn't everyone?

*You drink "POP," not "SODA" (I drink soda most of the time, fizzy drinks when I'm feeling international, and pop only when my family and friends start making fun of me for "soda.")

*There was a time when you were SO proud that Soul Asylum is from MN. STFU, bitch, I'm still proud. *is dorq*

*In a conversation you heard someone say "yah, sure, you betcha" and you didn't laugh.

*Everyone you know has a cabin. (Not everyone. Just most of them.)

*You get sick of people asking you where Paisley Park is. (I heart the small, strange man. Why would I mind? *is total dorq*)

*You know that Lake Wobegon isn't real and you know who made it up, where they live, and exactly what to do about it. Hell, I used a G.K. piece in speech competitions one year.

Yay, that was fun. You know you want to do your own:-)

A few things:

1. DAVID BECKHAM IN MY MAILBOX!!!!

2. Katherine, if you have a mo', I have a digital content question for the expert.

3. STARFISH AND COFFEE

I really never said they'd make sense.

"These people have no respect for human life. They don't understand human life as we do." --Sean McCormack, NSC Spokesman, on the kidnap and execution of Paul Johnson

Dear Sean,

The world really is that black and white, isn't it? "They" are the real infidels here, along with all of those who conveniently look like them. Who are "They," Sean? The kidnappers specifically? Al Qaida, generally? Muslims, because a Christian god could never allow his followers to do this?

Were "They" really unprovoked? There is no excuse for this malicious act, but would you really say that those on our side have not committed inflammatory acts in this disgusting war? Can you really claim a monopoly on respect for human life when our side has flashed pictures of tortured prisoners all over the airwaves? Or are you claiming that those lives were something other than human?

Forgive me for having a few questions, Sean, but your terms are vague and frankly disturbing.

With trepidation,
CJ



"America will hunt down these killers, find them one by one, and kill them." -- Cheney, speaking in Colorado, upon hearing of Paul Johnson's death


Dear Dick,

Will you know when you've got them all, or will you kill everyone who looks like them or worships the same god, just in case?

With suspicion,
CJ


Parting thoughts:
"More than nine centuries after Urban II called the first Crusade, the legacy of misunderstanding and animosity is still with us today. In the West, many of the most lasting misperceptions of Islam stem from that time. In the Arab and Muslim world, the Crusades have made an unfortunate rhetorical comeback." Go, read, learn. One thousand years later, we ought to be beyond "They."

Review: Prince at his best for home crowd

Jon Bream does a much better job than I ever could.

Urgh. I'm up. Going to eat, then pick up Sadie for class.

Damn. That was fun.

First off, entirely hypothetically, if you wanted to bring a crappy, hand-held, sound-capturing thingy into a place where it's probably not welcome, it might help to steal your mother's giant purse. Place said thingy in the deepest recesses of the purse and cover it with artifacts of modern female life (this will probably work even better if you are a man). Find the first male security agent you see and allow him to search you upon entering the venue in question. Smooth sailing from there. Or so I've heard.

Speaking of venues, I continue to be impressed by the Xcel Center. Gone are the tinny, unintelligible arena concerts of my youth. I heard every word this evening, even with thousands of nutty Minnesotans screaming in my ears (me? scream? I don't know what you're talking about). I had a seat in the St. Paul Club level, which would have been more impressive if I'd not had to ask three people before I finally found it. I was third row, though, and the show was in the round, so in another dramatic change from what I'm used to I could see everything.

The place rocked, from the opening lines of Musicology to the Purple Rain finale. The first half of the show (start time 8:45, no opening act) was incredibly frenetic. We were on our feet through the first four songs (Musicology, Let's Go Crazy, I Would Die For You, When Doves Cry), and up more than down for the next hour. What was most impressive about this first half, though, was the sheer volume of talent onstage. This was made crystal clear by the periodic solos and jam sessions set between songs. The horn section was awesome, and appropriately attired in mortarboards and gowns (Musicology tour, see? It was all academic, really), which was the first of many things that cracked the audience up. Prince: putting the fun back in funk.

My favorite part of the show came just after the mini-intermission. The second half of the show started with Prince in the center of the stage, seated on a spinny chair with an acoustic guitar. He sang the blues off the top of his head for about ten minutes. He started off bemoaning telemarketers, censored himself on the word "fuck" (my man's gone family friendly now), then explained with the line "I used to use curse words, now I use caller ID." The dramatic ending to the Telemarketing Blues was an imaginary dialog in which Prince gets rid of a caller by adopting a thick Fargo-esque Minnesota accent and claims not to be himself.

Still in the spinny chair (and can I just say, I love the man for playing in the round), Prince next led a sing along of some old favorites -- Little Red Corvette, Cream (he made us perfect this one, repeating lines until we were loud enough), and Raspberry beret. He did Alphabet Street (one of my favorites) blues-style -- I have a perfectly legal (no, really) mp3 of this, and it was even better live. He also had the coolest white and silver boots ever made on (pointed out by the woman next to me, who was nice enough to let me party with her and share her binoculars). All in all, the half hour after intermission was pretty mellow, with minimal backup and a single spotlight center stage. That changed after the first verse of 7, when the band kicked back in and we were on our feet once more. (OK, at this point, I have to admit to screaming. Mostly because I just "remembered" it rather loudly.)

At this point, everyone has to be sick of my complete inability to write about music. I'll skip to my post-concert adventure, saying only that Sign of the Times, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, and Purple Rain were other dazzling points in an already bright evening, expecially the horns during "Sign."

I left right at the end of the concert, thinking I might just head out to Paisley for the afterparty. Of course, I was completely incapable of making a decision. I called Chris, who is normally the second most indecisive person in the world, but who I was pretty sure would talk me into going. Thirty minutes later, I was in Chanhassan, finding out that there was a fifty dollar charge and five dollar valet fee. I went off to regroup and reconsider. On the one hand, I've heard the aftershow is pretty good; on the other, I'm poor, and I'd already spent seventy bucks on the evening. I decided that I'd rather be satisfied with what I did see than risk feeling ripped off.

And now, I'm going to bed. It's taken me two hours to write this, roughly the duration of the show itself. And, hey, if I still haven't blogged anything by noon tomorrow, will someone give me a call to make sure I'm up? I've got to work... :-)

Dear stomach,

I'm not amused. I would like to eat. I'm going to have a completely boring sandwich before the concert tonight. Please digest it.

Love,
Me

Am blogging via email from the tungsten handheld. Am also eating a dinner of patato chips and peanut butter m&ms; this is due to my decision to talk to Forrest when I should have been getting food. Forrest informed me that the Twin Cities are due for still more thunderstorms this weekend. I think I might teach myself the ancient craft of ark-building this weekend.

Mad monk's member features big in Russian erotica museum

Yeah, it just made more sense to leave Yahoo's headline intact there. Excuse me while I go die from laughter. Also, probably not work safe. "Member" means exactly what you think it does there.

Had my first summer tap class today. Am properly exhausted, having done sweet fuck all during the past five weeks as far as exercise is concerned. Note to self: typing is not aerobic.

I have Gmail.

*Looks smug*

You know you're jealous.

CAT JUST CAUGHT AND ATE JUNE BUG!!!

That crunching sound was nothing I ever really needed to hear. >:-O

They're counting on you not to vote. That's right. Mass market political ennui -- this season's hottest look for the young and hip. Making politics safe from the interests of citizens under the age of thirty.

Are you gonna let them?

Where can you see lions? Only in Kenya, apparently.

I keep singing the "where can you see tigers" part to my cat. I am such a dorq.

Link contains flash animation; those with dial-up may want to click cautiously.

Where can you see lions? Only in Kenya, apparently.

I keep singing the "where can you see tigers" part to my cat. I am such a dorq.

Link contains flash animation; those with dial-up may want to click cautiously.

Where can you see lions? Only in Kenya, apparently.

I keep singing the "where can you see tigers" part to my cat. I am such a dorq.

Link contains flash animation; those with dial-up may want to click cautiously.

It would seem that my two most likely sources of income for next semester are rather dubious. Katherine and I were chatting about which of the two possibilities would be preferable:

CJ: BAD CHOICES!!!
Kat: LOL
CJ: geeze, when you put it that way
Kat: Hmm, need secret option #3.
CJ: win a nillion dollars?
CJ: million
CJ: nails are getting too long to type
Kat: That's a good one. Play the lottery!
CJ: yes! my grad school financing plan involves the powerball!
Kat: Maybe they will give you 10K to spend on tickets. That would be nice.
CJ: yes. I should get the lottery fellowship.
CJ: also, I'm blogging this idea, in case someone with money picks up on it.

Note to Self:

This insane desire to say fuck it and fly to New York for the weekend is not helped by listening to radio shows originating in New York.

Please stop torturing yourself me like this.

Love,
You

Gacked from Jon, in response to this weeks Republican Amnesiac Stealth Campaigning. Exactly who was better off?

Movie: over (and still so awesome).

Stomach: dull roar.

Me: going to bed

I leave you with amusement: a Russian yarn site. No I haven't read it yet. Yes, there's about a 7 of 10 chance that I could translate enough of it to, say, work a crochet pattern from it. There's about a 1% chance of me testing those odds.

????? ? ???????


Edit: ok, the text on that link is not working. I'll try to convince the blog it wants to type in Cyrillic, but probably not tonight.

Update:

1. WE channel now showing Crybaby!Johnny. I <3 this movie.

2. Stomach still awful. Am awake because laying down makes it worse. *grumble*

I'm watching a Madonna biopic on the women's entertainment network (this is what you get for getting the cheapest possible cable). Can you imagine calling someone Madonna on a regular basis? With a straight face?

In other news, stomach still annoying.

Dear stomach,

You really have very little to complain about. I have spent the past few days eating only the dullest of foods. I made chilli last night and dutifully froze the lot of it -- even thought this will make the veggies squishy -- for when you are up to eating such things. I've even resorted to chugging pink crap in order to make you feel better.

Unimpressed, stomach, unimpressed.

No love,
The rest of the body

More fun with site statistics: someone got here via a search for the answer to one of life's mysteries: why does a penis look like a turtle head?

This is so much funnier than the tons of freaks who come looking for Ninja Turtle porn.

Since when is the "Ode to Joy" in English? Or does Bill Clinton know German?

Also, though it pains me to say this, props to GW. While his eulogy wasn't beautiful, it did have that "I'm reading this too fast to know what I'm saying" cadence that causes his actual words to completely slip past my ears. Then the efficiant got up, and OMG TEH BAD! The man sounded like one of the teachers from Peanuts delivering a homily. I really never thought anyone would trump Bush in the poorly delivered speech contest.

Laughing. My. Ass. Off.

That quote is hilarious.

Oh what fresh hell is this?

Wilson Phillips has reunited.

Bad, bad, bad.

In further news, I am sick and dying. I can't keep anything in my tummy (I will spare you further detail). I am dehydrated and dizzy.

So, naturally, I have my first tap class tonight. Bugger.

I've had mixed feelings about Ronald Reagan ever since I gained enough political awareness to realize that his social and economic policies pretty much fucked a good portion of my friends and family. On the one hand, I grew up knowing only that he was my President, from ages two to ten. He had a kind face and a grandfatherly demeanor, and I was a rule abiding little kid who never really questioned the authority of police officers, lunch monitors, or presidents. When I grew up, I learned about economics, and about how that trickle meant quite a large number of people were unable to keep roofs over their heads, while a select few others saw their wealth accumulating rapidly. Socially, the 80's were a veritable heyday for institutionalized heterosexism, including Reagan's refusal to take action to stem the burgeoning AIDS epidemic.

For the past couple of days I have seen pundit after pundit extoll the virtues of Reagan's policies in hopes of tying them to Bush II's present policies. Any criticism of these policies has been viewed as "speaking ill of the dead." I have also seen activist after activist state that they are glad he's gone. Both of these phenomena strike me as incredibly gauche and disrespectful. The time for liberal celebration of Reagan's departure from politics came in 1988, and Republican attempts to disallow policy criticism ultimately amount to capitalizing on one person's suffering and death. Shame on all of them.

I find myself in the undesirable position of defending Ronald Reagan -- not his policies, as I believe that in any free society citizens have not only the right but the duty to question the policies of their elected officials. Rather, I would instead defend his humanity. No one "deserves" what Reagan suffered. I am presently seeing my grandmother down the painful path that is Alzheimer's Disease, and it is exactly as torturous as the literature implies, for both the sufferer and friends and family thereof. This is not a "lucky break" for republican campaigning, nor is it "justice" for the downfalls of Reagan's policies. It is a personal tragedy.

Let's try to keep any political discussion of Reagan's life to the years he was able to speak for himself, yes? Both sides only come off looking like salivating opportunists when they "celebrate" his death in either fashion.

Today was my major geek-out day. I went to see the latest Harry Potter film with the dad. The first two films left me unthrilled; this one was brilliant. It's amazing what a change in director can do.

Sadly I can't do spoiler cuts here or I'd give my likes and dislikes. If I can be bothered to remember in a week or so I'll post them then. If you happen to care, remind me. Or find me on IM (xturtle78).

OK, wise asses. Fess up. Which of you decided it would be fun to google turtle porn, page through until you found my site, then click the link? Because it's on the 28th page, and I don't think anyone who isn't looking for a specific site really ever makes it to the 28th page of a google search.

And really, the very idea of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle porn will now cause me to lose sleep tonight.

Awhile back I made a joke about people accidentally finding this site whilst looking for turtle porn. Today, my worst fears were confirmed. My site statistics linked me to this MSN search.

I need to go wash my brain.

Project Vote Smart is the best entertainment money can't buy. Did you know there's a such thing as the "National Barking Spider Resurgence Party"?

There's also a Turtle Political Party candidate this go-round. He will not have this turtle's vote, but he does get my curiosity. I'll have to hunt up the origin of the party.

One party seems dedicated to DIY -- it's called "Mike's Party," and its candidate is called Mike. I suspect favoritism.

So of course, being normal and boring, I looked up the two major-party-endorsed candidates first. Neither took the time to fill out the survey of political beliefs sent to them by vote-smart. It's a bit disconcerting that the entire population of potential incoming presidents is unwilling to fill out a survey that would allow voters to clearly identify points of agreement and disagreement with the candidates' platforms.

Of course, if either of them actually took a stance on something, they'd be in the sticky position of having to stick to it when it became politically inauspicious. Ah, the politics of doublespeak.