"Were we in the same bed last night?"

Do You Mistake the Imaginary for the Real?

I tend to over-hyphenate.

I wish my spell checker worked.

Via visualsounds, here are some strange Amazon.com reviews to be perused and enjoyed. The wolf shirt tickled me in particular, I have to admit, because the thought of someone wearing that makes me both giggle and cry desperately.

Three Wolves Howling at Moon Shirt

Laptop Steering-Wheel Desk

Let us know what you think in the comments. (They say that on pro blogs all the time, so I thought I'd see its effect.)

Note from my lack of smilies that I am CRABBY today and high-strung. :) Oops, there's one to lighten the mood. :) Oops, another.

I've always been interested in historical fiction, from the most fastidious to the very factually loose (everything is up for debate, unless you're talking to your average history major). If any of you folks are interested, I think you should check out a project I'm keeping an eye on, based upon the historical Greek world, The Iliad, and surrounding circumstances.

Not-Yet-of-Troy

I also decided I might as well mention that it's by a good friend of mine, so if you'd check it out, I'd actually be rather grateful. Not that she needs me to peddle her or anything, but I like her and her writing.

It's been probably two or three (or more?) years since I've had cheese. Well, just to be weird tonight, I stuck a Kraft single on my vegan sandwich.

At first, it tasted very novel, but by the end of the sandwich, I was no longer enjoying it. I don't know if it was the mere idea or the ingestion itself, but now that I've finished, I'm rather nauseated.

It's funny how we get so accustomed to things (or their lack) when it comes to diet. I grew up loving cheese, but now, I'm ready to go at least another two or three (or more) years.

ZOMGUHHHH.. I can't believe I logged off outside of a rest area, and now the server is down for 15 minutes. That's 25-60 minutes of rest experience I'm not getting, and it's driving my OCD crazy!

waaah!

I need to update my user icons on here. My face looks less fat now. :)

I had been exercising in Gramma's garage, and walking when possible. Today, however, exercising in the garage, I quit after less than 10 minutes. I was just too dang cold. And it's 40 degrees outside! What will I do when it's 40 below?

I'm thinking I need to formulate a new plan for exercising, or I'll simply end up not doing it. Maybe it's yet another thing I'll have to do at home in the evenings, but frankly, when I have time at home (about two hours a day, sometimes less), what I like to do is practice and sit with the cats. That's when I make myself a spinach blender drink, too. :) I'm not sure I have time for exercise there, too....

...and it's normally in the evening and I'm tired...

Well, I'll figure something out.

It never occurred to me before, but apparently there are free, privately-run World of Warcraft servers. Odd.

So, you download the client (which is actually free), then, instead of logging onto Blizzard's huge network of servers (which require you to pay for each expansion and charge a monthly $15 fee), you log on to a private server, some of which have as many as 5000 players. Often they have custom rulesets and things.

Sounds kind of complicated, but if someone really didn't want to pay the monthly fee, or really wanted a different experience...

"I don't want to go blind," says Gramma, "because then people wouldn't be able to read my lips."

If only the rest of her nonsensicals were so cute and harmless.

Misleading subject line.

I miss playing World of Warcraft. I like to think I could play it again, only not play it so obsessively (I hate the idea of spending all my time on one game at the exclusion of all others, especially when time is limited), but that darn monthly fee makes me think, "I'm paying $20 a month [or whatever it is... $17?] for this, so I need to play it!" Seems to just add to its already addictive design.

I'd love to just dabble in it... an hour every few days... But I think then I might wonder why the heck I'm paying so much per month.

Darn monthly fees.

Anybody playing Dragon Age: Origins on PC or a console? I know not many of you guys are gamers, but I thought I'd check anyway. :)

I haven't actually even gotten into the "game" yet, really. It's called "Origins" because it's got 6 separate "origin stories" that happen depending upon race (human, elf, dwarf) and class (warrior, mage, rogue) choices. So, I've just been creating character after character, trying to land on what I want to play, and now I find myself playing through each of the origin stories to see which one I want.

Obsessive much?

I think most people would handle this by picking one and sticking with it, then replaying the game, but I guess I want to see them all before I choose one.

I played a female city elf last night, out of curiousity, and I may actually like that origin story the most with its racial tension (elves, except those that live in the wild, are slaves of humans, sort of like in Harry Potter, though they're much more human-like than Harry's house elves). I like the idea of being an elf and a champion of freeing my people.

Then again, I've read that the main game narrative, sadly, does not do much to resolve the whole situation of elven freedom. Maybe in sequels.

Anyway, it's a really fun game, and most of the complaints (other than the above!) leveled at it seem a little silly to me. The console versions are unfortunately and needlessly gimped. The tactical viewpoint is removed from combat, many of the pause functions are disabled, thus necessitating the difficulty being lowered. This is a shame and seems to reflect the stereotype that console gamers prefer action. I don't see why it would have been necessary.

Thankfully, the PC version makes no concessions to the console version as far as interface.

I don't bother with my game blog anymore, so I guess you guys get an earful here. Sorry. :)

I won't be able to think of them all, as I'm drinking "orange juice*" right now, but here are a few.

1.) She has taken to washing the dishes with cold water and no soap. She uses the same dishrag every time, and when not in use, it sits on the counter, growing germs of the highest order. One night it was standing in the corner, crying and repeating "There is no place like home" over and over to itself. If she needs to wipe the table, she uses the same frightened dishrag. Thus, when I need a dish or utensil, I take a "clean" one from the cupboard/drawer and scrub it up with too much soap, hot water, and my fingers. I've developed techniques for eating off of paper towels and using no utensils. Oddly, Gramma has never called me out on it, so I've never had to say, "Your dishrag haunts my sleep and your silverware smells of stroganoff."

2.) She's deaf as a dinner plate.
What?
Deaf as a dinner plate.
Say again?
DEAF AS A DINNER PLATE!
You say you left for a thinner date?
Yes, that's it. A thinner date.

8.) She's got the rankest bowels imaginable. She also has no sense of smell (it's left with her hearing), so if even she can smell it, well then you know it's toxic. Dump is taken, stench languishes on the floor like dry ice and crawls out from the bathroom, invisible and terrible. The heat turns on, acting like a jet, and blows stank directly across the hall into... Jesse's room. Jesse gags, opens the window, letting in frigid air, lights thirteen candles (because he's praying for salvation), and dry heaves in the living room. She's in there frequently, too, despite constipation. Last night, she had something important to tell me but instead farted right into my door. I would have vomited if I wasn't busy trying my damndest not to laugh in her face. Then, I cried.

4.) She talks in her sleep. About potatoes. Potatoes.

2.) She calls me Jim. Sometimes, on a lark, I call her Meredith.

4.) She gets Meals on Wheels every week day, and every week day, she tries to convince me to eat half. And every day, I say, with increasing desperation, "I really don't want any at all, as I have my own food, so please don't ask me every day if I want some." If that doesn't work, I say, "I don't eat meat!" Then, "I don't eat dairy!" Then, "I don't eat any animal products!" This leads to her asking me what I have against milk/eggs/cheese/etc. "It gives me gas," I say, and double-over, pretending to empty my digestive palace.

She really is a very sweet lady, though.

*The 6-pack last night did nothing for me, but one glass of "orange juice" felt like a great plenty.

One of my favorite memories of Hawai'i is all the Japanese tourists. I didn't see them much in Hilo, but when I was on O'ahu, I would see quite a few. Of course, I'd take the opportunity to say odd things in Japanese as they passed by. "Did you see that blue cat?" My Japanese was too rudimentary to say anything complex, but sometimes those least skilled in a language can say the oddest things, whether on purpose or not.

Japanese kids were the best. Usually they'd just look at me, wide-eyed. They were probably confused by the large white man speaking their language. There was a building in downtown Honolulu that had a huge, walk-under fish tank with big sharks. Some cute little Japanese kids were staring in wonder, and I stood beside them and said something like, "What a fine sushi-fish." I never stuck around too long, so I didn't find out if they were frightened by me or just surprised.

At a zoo, I had some extra food. There was a little Japanese girl who was really enjoying feeding some turtles. She'd reach out her hand, and the turtles would reach back, and she'd say, "Gambare!" ("Try hard!"). It was adorable. I nervously held out my hand with the food to her and said, in my very best Japanese, "would you like this food, too?" (or something like that... maybe I just said, "Hai, dozo") She smiled a huge grin and said, in very clear English, "Thank you!" (The funny thing is, most Japanese, when spoken to in Japanese, will usually attempt to reply back in English.)

That was nice enough to top even the expressions Japanese adults gave me when I would say, "Help! It's evil butt-wind!" ("Tasukette! Warui oshiri no kaze da!")

I had a particular sensei, who was herself a Japanese woman, who greatly enjoyed my strange sayings, in both English and Japanese. (She also loved listening to the Jerky Boys, some guys who would prank call folks and record it and put it out on CDs.)

I have decided this morning, due to my love of Japan, that I will again get out my study materials and begin from scratch, studying the Japanese language. It's been my dream for years to break out of perpetual "pre-intermediate" status and finally become fluent. Even if I only do a page a day, I don't ever want to quit. I want to really do it this time.

Sorry for the lack of replies, guys. Been really busy around here.

I ran home for a minute, and I was greeted by an error message on my computer screen. Something like "Boot Disk Failure. Please insert system disk and hit enter."

Eek.

I turned if off, and hopefully I'll be able to boot it up later and try again to back stuff up as best I can... But it seems to me like it was only a temporary respite, the whole "oh, it's working again" thing.

I am probably just going to have to take it in and let professionals figure out what's wrong and fix it. Seems to me like the hard drive has failed.

I hope they can just put in a new drive and put all the data from the broken drive onto the new one. I know that might be a lot to hope/ask, and that that's why people do backups... Oops... sigh.

Grampa is on his deathbed (things seem to have gotten worse today--hospital bed in the living room, morphine drip, etc etc), and he's watching... ready?... Bill O'Reilly. Ugh, really Grampa?

Oh well. At least he's got the volume off (which begs the question, why is it on at all since he can't read subtitles... maybe Bill's pretty face comforts him).

My computer is behaving erratically. It locked up on the desktop, doing nothing. I rebooted it, and now everything is VERY slow. Programs take forever to load. It will be normal for a little bit, then do this.

What the heck could be wrong? Is the hard drive failing? The mother board? Is it a recent Windows update? How can I figure out what's wrong and fix it?

:(

I'm backing up my hard drive right now. If it does turn out to be the hard drive, and I buy a new one and install it in the computer, and I want to restore my backup, how can I do that to just a blank hard drive? My computer didn't come with Windows installation DVDs...

I'm REALLY lucky to have you guys. I wanted to let you know that. I do a very poor job of keeping up with your journals, and lately, I have commented so little. Sometimes I don't even do well at replying to your comments on my journal (which I think is very rude of me).

Yet, somehow, I have friends from all over the world here. Folks from all over the States, folks from Canada, folks from Australia, England, Hawai'i (which might as well be another country)...

I am truly blessed. Some day, I really believe the entire planet will be one community and that people will be able to relate to each other as well as we relate to each other here.

That day will come! And until then, I'm so happy to have this. I wish I was a better LJ friend.

I sure am posting a lot all of a sudden. Finally have a chance!

Good Lord.

Tonight, I asked my 90 year-old, Alzheimer's-inflicted Gramma, jokingly, if she wanted a banjo for Christmas (cause I kinda do!). She said no, maybe a ukulele. I thought she was joking, but Mom said maybe she could actually play one since she used to play guitar. I thought heck, why not? Music is such an amazing gift. So, I decided I'd buy her a uke for Christmas, and if she didn't like it or couldn't play it, I'd keep it instead.

Then, on a whim, Mom said I should let her try my guitar and see if she could play it.

So, I plopped it in her lap, and after I convinced her it was, in fact, in tune, to my total, utter surprise and delight, she began playing tiny little folk chords. A G-chord. A D7th. I was floored. She focused so hard. We all applauded, and she beamed. I have never seen her so happy. I told her that we'd get her her very own guitar for Christmas (and, in fact, I think an early Christmas present is in order). She was absolutely thrilled. She looked 20 years younger. She glowed. She said she was so excited she didn't know if she could sleep tonight.

And I'm thrilled! She wants more than anything to play guitar with me.

She isn't GOOD, mind, but this is a 90 year-old woman with Alzheimer's and crippling arthritis we're talking about. Awkwardly strumming a few slightly muted chords seemed like an outright miracle to me. This will be so good for both her body and mind, not to mention her spirit. Maybe it will even limber up those hands.

I left my guitar there, and she said she wants to keep practicing every day. I'm there like 7 hours a day (10 hours today! jeez) doing eldercare, so I'll be there to remind her. ("How would you like to play guitar, Gramma?") Just the same, I wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table to remind her that she's getting one for Christmas and that, in the meantime, mine is in a special spot for her to play any time she wants.

Today was not a good day for her, and she burst into tears randomly a few times and had to be held. Yet, tonight, she was just happy happy happy.

So, a few things. First off, I wish to heck I would have known this sooner. Who would have thought she'd be able to play, still, after 50 years (!!) of not playing? If I'd known, I would have gotten her a guitar 10 years ago. Better yet, someone could have gotten her one 25 years ago. Frankly, she should never have quit, never have been without one at all. There is no better companion than a guitar. She's just never spent money on herself. Never. She should have had a nice one 60 years ago, a Martin or something. It would be a family treasure now! And she would have been able to play it all these years. ("All that time wasted puttering around outside," Grampa said. He agreed she should have never stopped playing.)

Secondly, I have to figure out what to get her. I want to get her something decent. I know that seems unreasonable, and she'd be happy with anything at all, but hell, she's 90 years old. 90! And she won't be able to play if it doesn't stay in tune well. And I'm going to inherit it and keep it. Even if she only plays it a month and dies, it's still special (and I'd imagine she'll live longer--having a guitar will help like crazy this winter!).

She asked me what a guitar cost. I said $20. Ha! If I told her the truth, she would cry and wouldn't want one anymore. She thinks it's 1950 and that there is no inflation. Mom laughed and said good luck finding a $20 guitar.

I would love to get her a little Canadian parlor guitar in a hard case. She'd be so happy. It would be her "$20" treasure. (In actuality, said Canadian parlor is a great instrument and would be $250 or more, plus case.)

Alternately, with the right strings, this little one of mine she played tonight would be fine. I could wrap it up for her, and she'd never realize it was the one I'd had there for months.

I don't really have the money, and I would also be out my money (and guitar!) if I gave her mine. But, I will think of something. The more I think about it, the more I want her to have something decent. I will inherit it when she passes, and do I want to inherit a junky piece of plywood that might not even outlive her? :) (But, more importantly, it needs to stay in tune and play well, or she'll get frustrated.)

Or maybe it's silly when she'd be happy with literally anything. I don't know. And maybe it's silly when I have a guitar that's perfect for her right here, and it's mine to give her.

Maybe I want it to be "special" in my mind (as, again, anything at all would be special to her) and that's why I want to get her something good and new and all her own.

I will have to sleep on it and think. In the meantime, I'll put different strings on my guitar and see how she takes to it.

Whatever the case, this will be a story to tell at her funeral, hopefully with "her" guitar in hand (even if it's just mine, or a plywood junker).

I have some kind of mental block against signing into MySpace, particularly my MySpace music profile. Aversion therapy. To a lesser degree, I also don't want to sign into Facebook.

Yuck. I just can't make myself do it. I don't know what my deal is.

Phobe Phobia sucks.

The worst is when things are going completely well over e-mail, and then all of a sudden someone says, "Just call me, okay?"

:(

Then I start to think of ANY alternative. I'm sure people think it's weird that I don't just call.

I'm trying to think of a LIE that will work in this case. I thought about saying I'm deaf. Or mute. Isn't that awful? What else could I say? Laryngitis?

Jeez.

Maybe I'll have to just plan a specific time to get jazzed up on caffeine and actually make the phone call. Ugh ugh ugh. :(

Ha, I found this about phone phobia, or "telephobia"--( it's long! )

___________________________

From http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/phone-phobia.html

Unfortunately, in addition to being telephobic, I am also cheap. Money is perhaps one cure? :) Maybe I'd rather face it than pay money for therapy or a course. :) Or maybe it would be genuinely worthwhile.

I'm just really happy about this.

There's been a fly in my window for days. It occurred to me yesterday that it was probably really suffering in there. I tried to trap it in a paper cup, but it just wouldn't work. It was stuck between windows. Well, today, I managed to get it into a position and get it in the paper cup with a business card trapping it in, and I took it outside, and it flew away.

Yay!

In other news, "my" spider still lives outside above my window, right under the eaves. I'm rather pleased to have her there. There's no way she could get inside unless the screen fell off or got a hole (she's huge). I think she must be some kind of orb spider. I'm not sure. It's hard to get any decent pictures because the camera thinks I'm trying to photo the screen rather than what's on the other side of it (the spider).

And finally, just so's you folks know, there are giant (like mile-high), crystal towers on the moon. Some are black, some are white. There are all kinds of shattered domes, too. On Mars, there are ancient pyramids, and there's an old, weathered face, about a mile across. There seems to be buried city-like things and glass tunnels. It's not "red" on the surface, either. The sky is bluish, like Earth, and it looks rather like Arizona.

I'm just letting you know this kind of stuff ahead of time as a public service kind of thing. Eventually, the truth will come out, and NASA won't be able to hide stuff forever. If even a fraction of what I've said above is true (and I believe most/all of it to be true, not just a fraction), the truth has to come out some time.

I've been studying this stuff for a few months and haven't said anything. There are lots of interesting theories.

Also, I'm thinking about getting www.turbojam.com. Any thoughts/experiences?

I do a lot of walking, stretching, working out on this machine (kind of like an elliptical but not as good), and sometimes I lift weights (I have a hard time motivating myself to do it, though, even though it's actually fun and I watch Xena while doing it).

I dunno. This says you get results in 10 days. I'm getting skinnier and skinnier, but I never really get drastic results.

Seems like something more coherent and constructed like this might be good for me.

I sure am tired of that Blue Hippo guy telling me I can get "a convenient labtop [sic]" no matter what my credit, though. This is what I get for watching Roseanne every day on the CW. It's fun to watch while exercising and eating lunch, though, and I love Roseanne! :D

Hey, none of you guys are Cal Hopwood, are you?

Cause I have someone named Cal Hopwood on gmail chat, and I have no idea who it is. They asked me something like, "bastard, I'm going to class how's the apartment".

I have no idea who they are, so I thought I'd have a little fun and said the apartment was on fire. They said maybe I should call 911 and I said my weasel was on fire.

I figured if I eventually found out I knew the person, we'd have a good laugh.

But I have no idea who it is.

Also, I'm thinking about getting www.turbojam.com. Any thoughts/experiences?

I do a lot of walking, stretching, working out on this machine (kind of like an elliptical but not as good), and sometimes I lift weights (I have a hard time motivating myself to do it, though, even though it's actually fun and I watch Xena while doing it).

I dunno. This says you get results in 10 days. I'm getting skinnier and skinnier, but I never really get drastic results.

Seems like something more coherent and constructed like this might be good for me.

I just saw a picture someone drew of a pumpkin, and it reminded me that I LOVE fall and fall colors. I don't even know exactly why, but just thinking about it makes me so happy!

However... I do not love winter at all. And sometimes even the fall is cripplingly cold here.

Today, it's 88, and it's really nice.

So I looked up wolf spiders. I'm not sure if this one is a wolf spider or not. It's certainly not as large as some of the wolf spiders that you guys have described.

It was very difficult to photo my new friend due to the camera focusing on the screen instead of the spider.

It looks to me like she might have an egg sack. D: I don't know how I feel about that. I don't want her children in my house!

( Photos of Ms. Arachne )

I don't know if you can tell in the pics, but I think she might have an egg sack. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't really want her 10,000 offspring in my house either, but maybe they won't be able to get in or have any desire to do so.

There's a HUGE spider outside my window. HUGE. Just sitting on the screen. Now it's climbing up its thread towards the roof/rain gutter.

I hope to God there's no possible way it could end up in my room, because as much as I love all lifeforms, I still have my phobias, and I would be terrified.

I'm not kidding when I say huge. It's the biggest spider I've ever seen. At least it's not one of those that's big and then has even BIGGER, long legs. This one has a big, fat, furry body and fat, furry legs.

It is big. A very big spider. Like the size of a half-dollar. Do you guys know what a half-dollar looks like? It's a lot bigger than a quarter, and so is this spider. I shoulda snapped a pic, but I was too scur'd.

It's got to be two inches across (including legs). That might not sound big, but trust me. It is big. I kinda wanna look at it some more, but I'm mortified it might find a way inside.

I guess it must live on my house or something. Or in my big tree out my window. Spiders don't roam much, do they?

I love trees, but one thing I don't like about trees is that scary bugs might fall out of them onto me. I've gotten so I enjoy the company of most bugs (although I'm always scared I'll accidentally hurt them), but big ones... particularly spiders, roaches, anything speedy, centipedes... I am still scared of lots of bugs. Eek.

I've got this DS "game" called Personal Trainer Walking.


I've been using it for almost two months now. It's actually really fun and encouraging. If I don't get my minimum "steps" for the day, I feel sad, and on days when I get extra steps, I feel great (I went on a long walk the other day and got 16,000 steps for the day; yesterday I was only expecting to get the minimum, but then when I booted it up, I remembered I'd done a lot of walking earlier in the day, so I got 10,000 steps).

It asks me every day how my day was and lets me choose great, good, or not so good. I was looking, and I noticed that on the day my girlfriend and I broke up, I put "not so good", but every day since then, I've selected "great". While we were dating, I chose great about once (a day I saw her, I suppose, a rare one when things went fine) with most days either being "good" or "not so good". That should tell you something right there... (I liked her, but it stressed me out worrying about our relationship, wondering if I'd ever see her, etc etc etc.)

( Cut since I'm not sure anyone cares! )

In summary: Breaking up was a good thing, number 1, and number 2, finding time for video games has helped me immeasurably. There are so many things in my life I enjoy, and rather than crowding some out to make room for others, I am now finding ways to do a little of each of them, and it's wonderful.

Wow, there's just nothing like going for a nice, long walk in the dark. I'm gonna do that a lot more this fall, cause it gets dark really early.

On another topic entirely, yesterday I was sitting on a lawn chair in my grandparents' backyard fingerpicking my guitar (not singing), and a bird landed right on the back of my chair, less than an inch from my shoulder, and sang right behind my head! I thought he must have been in the tree behind me, so I turned to look, and it turned out he was right there on the back of the chair. I was shocked, so I stopped playing and said, "Hello!" He sat there a few more seconds and flew off to a nearby garage. I was sad he left, but that's not something I'm used to, birds just landed on me or an inch from me.

So, I played guitar some more, and he sat on the garage and sang for a good 15 minutes. If it ever happens again, I won't get excited and chase him away!

I've never had that happen before or heard about it happening. The only time I've seen birds do stuff like that is when food is involved.

It was neat! I want more!

I'm sure someone can brief me on these topics. :)

I went out walking after midnight (kinda like the song) tonight to see meteors. I did see like 10, and a few of them, one in particular, were REALLY good. It was hard to find spots where the street lights weren't ruining it. I love looking at the stars.

SO. How far "up" are these meteors? How big are they? They must be far enough up that planes won't be near them, right? How often do "space rocks" make it all the way through the atmosphere? Probably not often, huh? And probably none of these ones will. (I suppose they'd be most likely to land in the ocean.)

I also saw at least two (what I assumed to be) planes. Alien vessels and satellites don't have blinking lights, right? Or do satellites? But do satellites ever fly low enough to see with the naked eye? If they were planes, why couldn't I hear them? (I remember seeing a satellite once as a kid, or, I thought it was one. It was SO close and so large that it couldn't possibly have been, though. I thought it was a UFO, but I'm sure it was not. Black thing with machine-like dangly wings. I was 5-8, so my memory could be flawed. But it was silent. No, I'm not suggesting I saw an alien ship. I'm sure it was not that.)

And my last question. I can't tell you which star it is, because they're not labeled up there or anything, but, for me, in the northern hemisphere, smack dab in the middle of North America, at midnight (and around then), when I look into the western sky, I see a star that is VERY markedly "flickering" or "twinkling". Reddish. Please tell me what is happening/has happened to this star. Has it gone nova? In the process? Is it a red dwarf? Do some stars twinkle even when they're not dying? Is it perhaps not a star? I don't think it would be Mars, would it? Surely not Venus (which would not be red, but I could be wrong about the red... and if it is Venus, why is it flickering?).

The thought of a star dying makes me sad.

Those are lots of questions. I expect them sufficiently answered by the time I wake up. :) Thanks!

You know, I've always liked Obama, but I still always felt like I was "settling". I mean really, I'm practically a borderline communist. Let's face it; a candidate that suited me well would probably get assassinated. Twice.

Anyway, sometimes I listen to Obama, and I just feel so pleasantly surprised. Maybe you like him, maybe you don't. I don't really care. I am just happily amused by how much I like him and how much I like what he has to say. I voted for Nader to give him props (since ND never goes anything but red), but if I had voted for Obama, I wouldn't be able to be any happier or satisfied about that decision.

Sometimes he just seems too good to be true. Can he really "get away with this" in such a stiflingly conservative nation? America is "half-dead at the bottom and rotten ripe on top" to quote Tom McGrath (from a song I wrote using his words). Obama is sticking to his guns, despite extreme, mean, bitter, terrified opposition.

I really couldn't respect him more. It's so nice to have a president who calls out America on its BS. What a pleasant change. This is going to be a hell of an adjustment, mostly for rich, cranky conservatives. Good thing there are a hell of a lot more poor people in America who NEED this.

The health care system is corrupt, dishonest and disgusting. If anyone doesn't see that, they couldn't be more deluded. Not even so-called "liberals" and "hippies" were anywhere near so obnoxious during Bush's administration as these fevered zealots, and we probably should have been just as loud and obnoxious and emotional and stupid.

I had to weather the most absurdly despicable, non-elected, president for *8* years, someone who could not have been more diametrically opposed to my own thoughts, being in office and basically breaking the entire political socio-economic planet and setting us back decades, maybe even centuries as far as foreign policy goes (anyone who made a deal with G.W. Bush got fucked, and God forbid you gave him reason, because he'd send the mighty military with bombs). Now it's my president's turn, so shut the fuck up and deal with it the way I had to. And hopefully if "we" are ever in the position again, we'll bitch just as loudly and obnoxiously as these folks.

Rich, frightened white honkies... My God. Seriously. Telling Arlen Specter he's going to be judged by God one day, etc etc? Gee, I wonder why people hate Christians. Maybe, again, because of an obnoxious minority who spout crap like that. I'm about ready to expatriate myself. Idiot, misinformed, deluded religious zealots. No one came to the republican's town hall meetings with garbage like that. Crybaby, butthurt children who want to live in their big houses and take their RVs to the lake and drive their boats in circles. God forbid "their" money go towards helping people who CAN'T help themselves in this bloated, sick system. We're a culture of excess and capital and selfishness, and we'll piss in our diapers rather than fix things.

You know what would be swell? If commercials weren't approximately a thousand and a half decibels louder than whatever show one may or may not be watching (in this case, Roseanne, best show ever... except for Xena, mind. And, like, those archeology and science and space exploration and whatnot shows.

I wonder if I punctuated that semi-properly.

So, the first big Lunar mission of this century, one of the chief functions is this little experiment (write-up taken from the Enterprise Mission website, which will be linked below).

According to NASA's official statement on the purpose of the LCROSS mission, this "high-energy impact experiment" would target a polar lunar crater which is ALWAYS in total darkness. There, the NASA scientists project, over "billions of years since the Moon was formed" water (from eons of cometary impacts ...) may have collected on the sunless bottom of the target crater ... and been preserved as ice.

The LCROSS/Centaur impact was designed, therefore, to create a "kinetic explosion" (equivalent to about a ton of TNT) from the sheer velocity of the upper stage ramming into the Moon at almost 2 miles per second (!) -- which immediately would throw up a huge plume of lunar dust, shattered rock ... and hopefully ... some of that ice--

Which the LCROSS satellite itself, flying along behind the Centaur at this point in the mission, would be able to observe and measure (below) ... before, 4 minutes later, slamming into the Moon at ~2 miles per second itself.

In case you may have missed it, the idea is to SLAM man-made objects into the moon, into a dark, deep crater where there MIGHT be water, in order to propel the contents of the crater up into the moon's atmosphere and study it.

God. Welcome to the dark ages. Slamming things into the moon to do experiments. This is the kind of bumbling idiocy that ruined great archaeological discoveries in the 19th century. There might be more than just ice in that crater, and I would imagine that whatever it is could be utterly destroyed by man-made collisions. Is that what they want?

This isn't even the main point of the article at all, but it certainly stuck out to me for its sheer destructivity. It makes me bristle. The moon isn't there for us to attack and blast as we see fit. This worries me.

For the entire article, which, again, is trying to get across a different (and probably more important) point, go here at the Enterprise Mission website.

I hope there are plenty of benevolent beings watching out for us, both in the physical and spiritual dimensions, because we sure need it. It's one thing to destroy ourselves, another to destroy "our" planet, but now I see us voyaging off the planet to destroy other worlds as well, and it upsets me. We've taken apart nearly every archaeological discovery on Earth, obliterated natural environs, and we're set to do whatever we can to any archeology off-world as well. Lord knows what we'd do if we found not just archaeological remains but actual life forms. We would probably ruin whatever existence they had utterly.

I want to know what's out there but not at the expense of destroying it. I'm sickened by what I feel this perhaps small development portends.

Maybe after we destroy ourselves and perhaps Earth as well (Earth could become like Venus or Mars), another civilization will find our strange ruins (which will indeed be much stranger in a billion years) and remains of our space craft.

Does anybody else think Lyndon Johnson killed JFK (via Oswald and a second gunman)?

I wonder if, elsewhere in the multiverse, there are beings with enough intellect (and therefore capacity for stupidity) absurd enough to utter something as rationally ludicrous as, "I don't believe there is life on any planet other than this one."

Carbon chauvinists.

I really don't care who he bangs; he is it. The man.

He's not quite Jimmy Carter...

...but he plays a mean saxophone...

...which brings him very, very close.

<tr><td colspan="3" style="padding: 20px 0px 0px 10px; height: 123px;" align="center"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="30">   </td> <td style="padding: 0px 40px;" align="left">
Dear Friend,

If you’re like most Americans, there’s nothing more important to you about health care than peace of mind.

Given the status quo, that’s understandable. The current system often denies insurance due to pre-existing conditions, charges steep out-of-pocket fees – and sometimes isn’t there at all if you become seriously ill.

It’s time to fix our unsustainable insurance system and create a new foundation for health care security. That means guaranteeing your health care security and stability with eight basic consumer protections:

• No discrimination for pre-existing conditions
• No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays
• No cost-sharing for preventive care
• No dropping of coverage if you become seriously ill
• No gender discrimination
• No annual or lifetime caps on coverage
• Extended coverage for young adults
• Guaranteed insurance renewal so long as premiums are paid

Learn more about these consumer protections at Whitehouse.gov.

Over the next month there is going to be an avalanche of misinformation and scare tactics from those seeking to perpetuate the status quo. But we know the cost of doing nothing is too high. Health care costs will double over the next decade, millions more will become uninsured, and state and local governments will go bankrupt.

It’s time to act and reform health insurance, drive down costs and guarantee the health care security and stability of every American family. You can help by putting these core principles of reform in the hands of your friends, your family, and the rest of your social network.

Thank you,
Barack Obama </td></tr>

I was listening to some music from an older computer game (The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall). I used to play it obsessively when I was in 8th grade (and that was, what... 15 years ago? 14?).

Anyway, it's fantastic music, and it's so odd how something like that can trigger almost crippling nostalgia. What is that, when you feel such keen emotion in your chest? How can something like that be brought on by music or a smell? Why is it so strong? What does it mean?

I don't know if "nostalgia" is even the right word for it, but then again, "nostalgia" is one of those loose words that is impossible to adequately define with other words anyway.

If someone else listened to the same music, it would probably mean little to them. It's just very bizarre to me. I've never taken the time to really contemplate nostalgia and its extreme power before, and now that I do, I find it utterly perplexing. That I should feel this way is a great mystery to me. It's an emotion that seems to me to be more than the sum of its parts. Probably that game, and its music, symbolized something deeper to me, some kind of longing; I still long for it, and the music takes me back to not only that longing but also now to a new longing for that game, or something similar, to again hearken to whatever it is I'm searching for. In other words, not only am I still longing for whatever it was that attracted me to the game, now I also long for the game itself (though going back and playing it would likely not be the same, granted), and I long for new things to point the compass needle to where ever it is my emotions want to go.

Being human is odd. There's so much we don't/can't understand, and a psychological explanation of whatever "nostalgia" is would be highly inadequate to me, I'd imagine.

Nostalgia is really a very powerful sorrow. And, as Townes van Zandt sang, "Sorry and solitude--these are the precious things and the only words worth remembering".

To experience this moment, or any moment, fully means to engage fully. Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example, unless you enter the individual’s world by finding out at least one thing that is meaningful to his or her life and exchange at least one genuine feeling.

Tuning in to others is a circular flow: You send yourself out toward people; you receive them as they respond to you. Notice how often you don’t do that. You stand back and insulate yourself, sending out only the most superficial signals and receive little or nothing back.

The same circle must be present even when someone else isn’t involved. If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle.

Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).

So, I just met an old British fellow (66) who knew the Beatles, all four of them, and all the people surrounding them (including the drummer before Ringo).

He might be lying (though I really don't think so--he's the right age and knows all the right stuff; if he's a fake, he's knowledgeable and a great actor), and even if he's not lying, I mean... it's just a guy who knew the Beatles, you know.

But still.

He knew the freaking Beatles! His band used to play gigs at the same places, on the same nights, as the Beatles, way back in Liverpool. They played at the Cave together. He chatted with John Lennon and George Harrison about their acoustic guitars guitars, shook their hands, looked them in the eyes, and communicated with them the same way as I'm communicating with you now. It's silly, but... jeez. For some reason it means something to me.

It's very vaguely like meeting someone who met Jesus in the flesh. (Hey, I said VERY VAGUELY, okay?)

I don't know if you guys like southern folk, but I do, and this here fellow is a fine one in particular. Love his videos, and this story makes me giggle. I think there's a song in here somewhere. In fact, I know there is. I wonder if he'd mind if I wrote that song.

"If men bore children, there would be no siblings, because men would only do it once."

-Wayne Dyer

Generally speaking, Hopkins wrote and played songs in basic 12-bar, I-IV-V chord progressions. Generally. The truth is that Hopkins often ignored the places where chords would typically change if he felt the lyric he was singing or the solo he was playing was more important. As he famously put it, “Lightnin’ change when Lightnin’ want to change.”*

*From

I have something to say, but I think I'm too tired to say it coherently.

Oh well.

The 4th of July always makes me so deeply contemplative..

I just spent 30 minutes chasing a spider out of my room and into the outdoors. I'd like to say it was humane, but that would imply irreparable psychological damage didn't occur to us both.

Maybe it would have been easier just to leave it in here with me, but I just really want to have a no bugs policy as far as my sleeping quarters go. I know it's a lot to ask, but... glah.

'We are really advocates of just getting as happy as you can be — which takes care of everything. Even if you don't have reason to be happy — make it up. Fantasize it. Make a decision that you're going to be happy one way or another — no matter what. "No matter what, I'm going to be happy! If I have to ignore everybody; if I have to never watch television again; if I have to never pick up a newspaper again, I'm going to be happy. If I never have to see that person's face again, I'm going to be happy. If I have to see that person's face, I'm going to find something to see in that person's face that makes me happy. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be happy."'

--- Abraham