Motivation!

The girl will be out of town this weekend, which makes me kind of sad. Weirdly, it'll be the first time I've slept alone in our place.

BUT! I've got me three gift swop packages to get out, and this will provide me ample time to do all of the mad scientist stuff that's been swirling around in my head surrounding the swop. Muhahaha!

:)

What Tarot is I?

Would this one were true. :)

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

(thanks to mishka for the timewaster :))

Buy Nothing Day!

There's nothing more sybolic of "America" than Black Friday. For the uninformed, Black Friday is the day after thanksgiving when the media tells us that every woman should be up before the crack of dawn and at her favorite store to be blessed by the retail gods, who see fit to throw some sort of cheap trinket their way.

Well, f*ck that. Adbusters has been organizing Buy Nothing Day for years now, and I think it's high time you participate. There are plenty of ideas on the website, including ways to have a Buy Nothing Christmas (imagine!).

So my request to you is to spend the next month celebrating with your loved ones the fact that you've made it (relatively) unscathed through another calendar year, and the future is boundless. And you don't need all that frickin consumeristic crap!

Banksy

The man, the myth, the legend, rocks Disneyland.

Today's life lesson...

Is that when you're trying to move past your feelings of anger, it's only going to make it more difficult when you're surrounded by people who have no interest in moving past their feelings of anger at the same target. Very difficult.

That is all.

Dread

I find myself dreaming of being on a beach somewhere, selling t-shirts to fat tourists. This business world is not cut out for me, and the dread I feel every Monday morning saps my energy so fast I hardly have time to blink. And this world of drones is no family, just a collection of fools I can usually stand for the 9 or 10 hours I'm here- it chills me to think that they each have lives outside of here, and it makes me wonder what they must think of me, with my utter lack of interest in sharing the details of my private life with them...

Christmas?

Where did 2006 go? It feels like we just started, and now people are asking for christmas lists?!?!?!? Crazy. All I really want is everything McSweeney's sells anyways. Easy peasy.

Anyone?

Anybody want to go to the Ted Leo show with me the Sunday after thanksgiving at the Chameleon in Lancaster? I'll go by myself if I have to, but that's no fun... :(

Are we having fun yet?

I can't tell lately if the crankiness I've been experiencing is seasonal, or if it's just a generalfatigue with the world. It's hard not to get frustrated when dealing with people who don't see eye to eye with you, and that seems to be happening more and more often lately. But then again, I know my depression is cyclical, so maybe it's that which is making me suffer fools less lightly.

I dunno.

I think the key might just be to stop worrying about it so darn much. You can definitely get sucked into the cyclone of thinking and worrying and thinking and before you know it, you've eaten six pints of peanut butter zig zag and it's almost spring.

Wait, is that a good thing? :)

The temperature at which paper burns...

We just finished watching Fahrenheit 451 - I've always been a big Ray Bradbury fan, but this is one that always sticks with me, maybe because of my love of books, or maybe because I fear it.

This is a science fiction book that I've always feared woud become true, and when you take a look around, a lot of it has. People feeling that TV characters are more their family than their actual family. Pills that take away the pain of the "real world", and a feeling that what's going on in the rest of the world has absolutely no bearing on their own lives...

There is a real fear of ideas that we don't like in this world. I'm not sure where it comes from, and it's not always clearly expressed- it's implied. Today it comes in the form of derision, mockery- race baiting, ideological stubborness, general stupidity. We hide behind and cherish the clever words that come out of our mouths, but we still want to quash the words and dreams of others, just because we can- it's not for any real disagreement or real reason, it's just because we can.

It's no wonder there will always be the "anti-social" element who wants to hid behind a book, and nourish their creative souls, instead of engaging the idiocy they encounter around them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I want to go get some reading in before I dive into tonight's social situation.

Erm, yeah.

So I missed another post. It was a rough day and I was tired. I am repentant, and shall endeavour to make up for it later tonight. So there.

Who knew?

I'd kept my skeptical hat on for a long time, hedging the bet that the Dems would win both houses- because, yeah, I figured the Repugs would find a way to steal it away. I guess it's harder than I thought to steal 400 elections at once, eh?

Now that all this politicking is over, I can start to think about the holidays. Well, the food, really. I've no room for the meaning of Thanksgiving- invasions and removing native cultures to me are not the best reasons for expressing thanks to some abstract supernatural leader. And the only thing to take away from Christmas is that we should be nicer to each other on a far more regular basis than when we think some fat man is watching. But the chance for a Tofurkey roast and some delish mashed postatoes, sign me up. :)

Time for another video share- I think this one's a stunner:

And so it's done.

What I voted at 8:00 this morning, I was number #60 already. Spending the day at the polls was wild- turnout was well over 50% for our precinct, this in a precinct that typically turns out at about 25%. The optimist in me remembers that high turnouts are typically good for Democrats. The pessimist in me is, well, pessimistic. Here's hoping.

Oh- and I'm going to change doctors after coming this close to getting a lecture from my current doctor about the evils of premarital sex, all because I went in with a yeast infection. Screw that sh*t. So if you have any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them...

Okay, seriously now.

So tomorrow we vote. I'll be there at the crack of dawn, come cold and rain, talking to people, handing out literature, making sure there are no shenanigans, hijinks or falderal. It'll be a long day, but I see it as part of the eternal vigilence thing that the founders talked about. Someone's got to get excited about democracy, right? Someone has to believe democracy is still possible in a country where I could be thrown in jail simply for saying that the president of this country has betrayed the solemn trust the people invested in him.

As a public service- if you do witness voting irregularities, or are a victim of what you feel are unfair practices, or broken machines, or intimidation- please call the National Voter Hotline- 1-866-MY VOTE 1 (866-698-6831)

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!

How did they get so corrupt?

You do have to wonder how it happened. I chalk it up to slopiness. I mean obviously, if you're going to do meth and sleep with prostitutes (male or female), don't be the president's spiritual advisor. And if you're going to ask for private medical records and then leak the information to Bill O'Reilly, don't be surprised if Dr. Tiller (my hero) calls you on it.

While I do fear a low turnout, I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that if they try to steal the election this time, they're going to screw it up and get caught...

well that didn't take long...

Three days in and I miss a post. That was sort of prediatable, I guess. But I did work all day and then I had to spend the night trying to get a friend to decide whether or not he's going to marry the girl he's dating. He's a touch indecisive, it took a while. And still no decision, go figure. He said he'll figure it out when he gets back from Egypt. Tough life this one has.

But to make up for the missed post, I'll treat you to some maaaaaagic:

(nsfw)

Here's what bothers me about November 7th.

I am thrilled with the idea that many conservative Republicans will be out on their collective ear after the election this coming Tuesday. What scares me though, is that the Democrats that take their place won't get the real message...

People aren't interested in making a change because of party affiliation, or because of the choice of tie colors. Voters are tired of the government intruding into their bedrooms and doctor's offices. They're tired of their kids' favorite school programs being cut because of a budget crisis, or because the school needs to spend more time preparing them for a culturally biased standardized test. They're downright sick and tired of their government, the people their taxes go to pay for, legislating hate and ruling through fear.

So here's what needs to be done. Viewership for all three C-SPAN channels needs to go through the roof. We need to read the newspaper, scour the internet, and talk to our friends, so that every single eligible voter in any given electoral district is aware of what THEIR representative is doing for THEM. And if they're not doing their jobs- there are recall opportunities, there are the next elections to prepare for, there are ways to take action and make them take notice.

The only way the Repubicans can maintain power is with a low voter turnout. It's easy to fix an election when no one's looking. So if you care about anything, you've got to get out there and vote. I don't want to hear any excuses, get out there...

[/rant]

NaBloPoMo!

I've decided to participtae in National Blog Posting Month, since I don't have the patience or time to do National Novel Writing Month. So-

• Thrill to me learning the secrets of HTML, bloggin' style!
• Swoon as I recite the boring details of my day!
• Gasp as I tear politicians a new one!

The basic idea is that I'll post a blog entry every day. The side plan is that I'll play with the html and teach myself a little something. So stay tuned. :)