I'm sure I could say this without sounding condescending

Dialogue Assignment

2009-04-06T09:22:00.002-05:00

It’s always fairly quiet in the diner late at night. The whole town was pretty amazed when they got approved to stay open 24/7, which is a pretty big deal in a place this rural. The only customers tend to be hungry truck drivers just passing through town but once in a while a few bored twenty-somethings will wander in. Kristen and Max were bored twenty-somethings who just happened to be passing through.
When they entered the diner, they were pretty grateful for the empty parking lot outside. Except for a few booths tucked against the front wall on either side of the front door, there was a small counter with six stools. As per the signs request, they sat themselves down at the counter directly in front of where the waitress was flipping through a magazine. Though, not really a magazine as much as a tabloid rag, the kind of “literature” one purchases in the super market checkout line.
“Evening”, she said, “I’m Carol, I’ll be serving you this evening.” She barely glanced up from her tabloid as she passed them two menus to look over. “Can I start you off with a drink?”
“Two coffees, and a double order of fries,” Max said as he passed the menus right back to her. Carol placed them back under the counter and went into the back to get a pot of coffee.
“This place is beat,” Kristen whispered while glancing around the converted diner car. “We haven’t seen any cars for about an hour, now, and the first sign of life is in desperate need of a crash cart.”
Max snickered. “It reminds me of the beginning of a horror movie. Or even better, a zombie movie. Next thing you know, legions of the undead are going to be beating down that door, clamoring for a chance to eat Carol’s brain.”
“Our brains, too, Max. There’s no way a zombie could pass up the opportunity to sink whatever teeth he has left into our big, juicy brains” Kristen put her arm around Max’s shoulders. “Well, my brain at least, given my superior intellect I’m sure it’s quite the tasty snack.” Max jokingly pushed her arm off his shoulder and grabbed her in a head lock. Just as he was about to rake his knuckles against her skull, Carol re-emerged from the back with two mugs and a pot of hot coffee-flavored sludge. She placed the mugs and coffee pot down in front of them and fished some creamers out of her apron.
“The fries’ll be out in just a minute,” Carol sighed as she grabbed her tabloid and stuffed it into her apron. “I’ll be in back having a smoke if either of you need anything.” Just as she was about to slip into the back, the front door opened and a truck driver walked in.
“Hey there, Carol. Can you get me my usual?” The man removed his baseball cap and sat down at the opposite end of the counter from Max and Kristen.
Carol gritted her teeth, slapped on the fakest smile and muttered, “Damnit, every time I try to go grab a smoke.” Unclenching her jaw, she winked at him and said, “Sure thing, love. Be back in a jiff.” She slipped into the back again and came right out with another empty coffee mug. She grabbed the pot of coffee from Max and Kristen and poured some for the truck driver. After giving him his cup, she placed the pot in the middle of the counter between him and Max. “Now, you all need to share that pot, I’ll have to make a new one if it’s not enough for you three.” She then hurried back into the kitchen area.
Max shrugged and turned to Kristen, “So where were we? Oh yes, I believe I was about to give you one hell of a noogie. You know, just to tenderize your brain a little before the zombies come to claim it.”
“Try it and meet your doom.” Kristen took a big gulp of her coffee and choked it down as best she could. “You know, there’s something I’ve always wondered about zombies.”
“The answer is ‘no’. The rigor mortis has worn off by then so, no, they are not walking around with a hard-on all the time.” Normally, Kristen appreciates Max’s sense of humor. Except when she’s trying to drink something and she winds up having to spit it out to avoid choking herself.
“Oh ha ha, Max. Jeez. What have I told you about saying ridiculously hilarious shit when I’m drinking, huh? Of course, you probably just want to watch me choke on this sad excuse for coffee just so you can tell everyone that your best friend was killed by diner coffee.” She grabbed some napkins out of the nearby dispenser to soak up the coffee that spilled on the counter, well, the coffee she spit onto the counter.
Max leaned over to grab the pot of coffee to refill her cup when the truck driver snatched it away from him. Max shrugged it off. “Ok, so, what is it that you’ve always wondered about, then?” He offered Kristen the rest of his cup of coffee, and she poured half of it into her mug.
“Well, they say that with human brains, they evolved from back to front. Our hindbrain is the oldest part of our brain but over time our midbrain and forebrain turned on. I wonder if that works for zombies, too?” She could feel the eyes of the truck driver, but she didn’t look up to meet his gaze. She knew he thought they were just plain nuts and was probably trying to figure out why some group home wasn’t out looking for them by now. “I mean, if OUR brains activated systematically like that, over time, then surely zombies must experience the same thing, only at a much slower rate.”
“I’m not quite sure I’m following here. You’re telling me that you think zombies, the formerly dead, experience evolutionary advances similar to those of humans, only over a lengthier period of time?” Max scratched his head, “How can something dead possibly evolve past any state of decomposition?”
“But that’s just it,” Kristen paused to take a sip of coffee, “they aren’t dead anymore. They were dead, but now they’re reanimated. Sure, they may not technically be alive, but there are definitely electrical impulses firing through their brains and bodies. There’s just no possible way that they would have any of the functioning without some kind of life force driving it. So I think it’s at least plausible to suggest that zombie brains would eventually evolve to higher functions.” Max sat there in complete silence for a moment, taking all of this information in and letting his brain process and formulate a response other than a look of slack-jawed surprise.
The door to the kitchen swung open and Carol appeared with two plates of fries and a plate with pancakes, eggs and sausage. She handed the breakfast meal over to the truck driver and then gave the fries to Max and Kristen. As she was about to head into the back, the truck driver cleared his throat and shook the empty coffee pot at her.
“I guess I’ll go make a fresh pot,” she sighed and went back into the kitchen.
Max sat there in complete silence as he put salt and ketchup onto his fries. He sat there, not making a sound, as he slowly ate, methodically chewing. Kristen felt a bit awkward, having to sit there in this silence listening to Max and the truck driver chew their food. She was almost starting to regret even bringing the subject up.
“Listen…” she started, but Max quickly put up a hand to silence her.
“I’m thinking this over.” He stared down at his plate, picking up fries one at a time. Putting them in his mouth. Chewing. Thinking about his response. “OK, I think I got it. Zombies were once people, who died, and are then reanimated at various stages of decay. If a person were dead long enough, then their brain may have decayed to a point where evolutionary improvements are not possible.”
“Well that would make sense. A brain that’s half mush probably wouldn’t be able to evolve beyond the basic, rudimentary skills that all people possess.” Kristen shoveled a forkful of fries into her mouth. She always put so much ketchup and mustard on them that eating them any other way made a huge mess. After swallowing, she said, “But what about fresh brains?”
Max quickly finished chewing the fries in his mouth and washed them down with a gulp of coffee. “Fresh brains, I think, would probably have a much better chance. If the person died only a couple of days ago, then I think it could possibly experience a similar change in functioning that is reminiscent of the way human brains evolved. I don’t agree with your theory on how long it would take, though. I think that zombie brains would activate much more quickly than human brains did.”
“I don’t know why you think that, zombies are slower creatures in every sense, so I think it is far more logical to say their brains would evolve at a much slower rate.”
Max shook his head. He silently ate a few more fries, sighed, and then said “This really is such a wonderful concept, it’s just such a shame that nobody will ever be able to hypothesize and test it.”
The truck driver chuckled. Taking a sip of coffee he turned to Max and Kristen. “Why, could that possibly be because zombies don’t exist?”
“No,” Max said, “It’s because the moment someone sees a zombie, they end up shooting them in the head. There’d never be enough test subjects.”

Defunct GI Club?

2009-03-31T08:55:00.002-05:00

Well, it appears that ol' Joshy did have a GI flare-up. They didn't specify what his GI problem is, but that may be just because GI issues aren't sexy as it is, and naming them is just totally un-sexy to the extreme, especially when you're a hot, young thing like he is.

The Star said:

he was "suffering from a flare-up of a gastro-intestinal problem that plagued him while he was starring in the West End of London during the production of Rain Man.
"He is under observation but is resting comfortably," the spokeswoman added.

My offer to form the Defunct GI Club still stands, Josh. Together, we can show people that sexy beasts** have muffed up GI tracts, too!

**Of course, this insinuates that I think of myself as a sexy beast....which I presently don't

Now you guys are REALLY spoiled....fourth post today.

2009-03-30T17:51:00.003-05:00

After careful consideration, I decided I am going to totally send an e-mail to the ShamWow people to offer up my services as their new spokesperson. Scratch that. I TOTALLY sent an email to them already. I attached my resume, so this is a for reals thing, along with a picture just so they know who is offering this "once in a lifetime opportunity" to them.

And here's the e-mail I sent:

Are you tired of Spokesmen who go on crazy drinking binges and beat up prostitutes? Are you sick of seeing Billy Mays' face plastered all over every commercial for anything from Life Insurance to Mighty Putty? Folks, I am extending a once in a lifetime offer to you, the makers of the wonderful absorbent cloth that has swept the nation and stolen the hearts of all.

I am stepping to the plate to be the new ShamWow pitcher. I promise to be the most enthusiastic, unabashed spokesperson the world of informercials has ever seen. I am a rare breed. I do not embarrass easily, or sometimes at all, and am always willing to do ridiculous things for my own personal amusement. And luckily, 99% of the things that amuse me amuse other people as well. I'm also willing to film the informercial spots myself and submit them to you electronically. I own video equipment and equipment to upload video onto my laptop. I also have some friends who are in the independent film making community who could help me should I run across an issue I'm not able to overcome. I also solemnly swear to never get into a boxing match with a prostitute.

So I'll let you guys mull it over a bit. If you'd like to know just who is bringing this offer to the table (and subsequently who this offer is referring to), then feel free to check out my blog: dollarstorecondoms.blogspot.com, the attached resume and the picture that I've attached to this email.

My services are only available for a limited time, so act now!

Three Posts in One Day? I'm Spoiling You

2009-03-30T16:49:00.004-05:00

I <3 Wife Swap....so I put on Lifetime a moment ago to catch the last 10 minutes. Instead of Wife Swap....I see an EAS screen. It says "The Emergency Alert System has been activated. Please stay tuned for further details." Every other channel that we get on our basement TV is working just fine.

So what gives, Lifetime? What is the Emergency?

Did your entire stock of Golden Girls episodes burst into flames?
Has Markie Post decided to no longer let you endlessly replay all of her Lifetime movies?

Oh, wait, crisis averted, I suppose....Wife Swap just came back on.

Clearly, the emergency was that I wasn't watching. And so they were punishing everyone else by not letting them watch. It just took them a few minutes to realize I had, in fact, tuned in.

And in unrelated news....I have an offer to make to the company who sells those glorious ShamWows. I am willing to be your new infomercial spokesperson. I will be the most enthusiastic goon shilling random products in the history of infomercials. And I solemnly swear to NEVER get into a boxing match with a prostitute. So, you know, call me. But whatever you do, do NOT call Billy Mays. Hasn't that man done enough already?!

No....not Josh Hartnett!

2009-03-30T16:22:00.005-05:00

According to Jezebel and TMZ, Josh Hartnett was picked up by an ambulance at 2AM due to excruciating abdominal pains. TMZ updated saying:

We're told Josh was in "excruciating pain" last night, because of gastrointestinal issues. We're told he may have picked up some sort of stomach virus while shooting a movie overseas, and he's had ongoing stomach issues as a result. He's seeing a specialist today**.

Well, it's either that or he popped an ovarian cyst.

I'm hedging my bets on mysterious GI issue.

Josh, I feel for you. We should start a defunct GI club. I'll even let you write the theme song.

**I swear, that being famous has to be the only way to get in to see a specialist on such short notice after an ER visit....

Hypocrisy at its Finest - Shame on you, PETA!

2009-03-30T13:14:00.004-05:00

The hypocrisy that oozes forth from PETA is an awful lot like a Pro-Lifer who condemns people for getting medically necessary abortions and then goes off, gets knocked up and proceeds to take care of it by cramming a metal hanger up her vadge. Lather. Rinse. Repeat about 21,000 times.

If PETA weren't so militant about their pro-animal ways, maybe people would be a little less outraged by the fact that, all together, they have managed to kill 21,339 dogs and cats since 1998. Actually, that would still be pretty hypocritical and outrageous. They just need to give up their game because it really is ridiculous. Ingrid Newkirk is basically just trying to out-crazy herself on a daily basis while her little minions are going around, collecting domestic companion animals from people, shelters, etc and slaughtering them yearly.

In 2008 PETA killed 95% of the adoptable pets that wound up in their custody. They kill roughly 5.8 animals a day...but I bet that doesn't come close to the number of animals you guys save every year by brow-beating people into becoming vegetarians or vegans...does it? Maybe the number of animals saved by vegans/vegetarians converted by PETA far exceeds 5.8 a day...or maybe not. Animals will continue to be slaughtered regularly to create food and other products for the general well being of people. Just because you, personally, stop wearing leather and purchasing leather does not mean that the cows are not still getting slaughtered, skinned and tanned before shipping the pelt off to the designers. That just means that there will be that many more leather garments on the clearance rack for frugal and savvy shoppers like myself. And maybe then the retailer won't order as many the next time around. So the designer won't have to make as many garments. But I bet the same number of cows will still be getting slaughtered to produce said leather for the designers. If you think otherwise, feel free to submit valid research-backed data and I'll mull it over.

Back to the needless slaughtering of puppies and kittens. Now, granted, I know that PETA isn't an adoption shelter, nor do they operate an adoption shelter...but wouldn't it make much more sense for them to contact various adoption shelters in their immediate area (as well as in a broader area depending on the volume of animals they take in) and turn the animals over to them? Hmm...let's see...kill 5.8 animals a day or transfer 5.8 animals a day to no-kill shelters...decisions decisions.....

Blatant hypocrisy is not the way to go about being taken seriously. And the Center for Consumer Freedom's Research Director, David Martosko, thinks so, too, according to this article

Martosko added: “Since killing pets is A-OK with PETA, why should anyone listen to their demands about eating meat, using lab rats for medical research, or taking children to the circus?”

While I have never appreciated PETA's militant approach to, well, anything, I did somewhat appreciate them when I was just a fledgling of a vegetarian. OK I wasn't technically a vegetarian as I still ate fish and poultry. BUT I credited PETA with being the information source to open my eyes to the disgusting and inhumane treatment of animals on factory farms. And while I'm sure the dogs, cats, puppies and kittens that PETA kills every day are living their last few moments in the most luxurious conditions....they are NO BETTER than any of those factory farms. Actually, I consider them to be worse than the factory farms regardless of the conditions the animals are kept in before PETA euthanizes them. At least Factory Farms kill their animals for a reason!

I expect that any uber PETA fanatic that somehow manages to stumble across this post is probably saying to themselves (and not their friends because uber PETA fanatics have no friends) "but PETA IS killing them for a reason! They are humanely euthanizing them because it is just WRONG for dogs and cats to be domesticated and treated like 'pets'. They are our furbabies!"

OK. First off, humanely euthanizing dogs and cats that are otherwise completely healthy and adoptable would be akin to an orphanage humanely euthanizing the children in their care. The uber PETA fanatics out there are, in my best guess, the same people who protest and avoid kill-shelters like the plague. They won't support kill-shelters (which, really, when you think about it, if kill-shelters had more financial support they probably wouldn't HAVE to kill their rescues since they'd be able to afford to keep more animals as they'd be able to expand their spaces...and that's why they are kill-shelters...because they cannot afford to keep animals in their care for longer than a certain amount of time because of time/space/money constraints....but, you know...just a thought ^_^), but their beloved PETA is the biggest kill-shelter in the country. Actually, I think it's safe to call PETA a slaughterhouse instead of a kill-shelter because shelter denotes the possibility that the animals in question have the potential to be adopted by a loving, caring home. The uber PETA fanatics will also probably shout and scream about how kill-shelters could merely transfer their animals to another facility that has a no-kill policy in place instead of euthanizing the animals.

Oh what a tangled web you have woven, uber PETA fanatics, because your solutions for kill-shelters helping animals without euthanizing them are the same solutions that PETA should use to handle the animals they take in before laying them to waste.

Plain and simple...PETA needs to shut the fuck up about vegetarianism and veganism and fade away into oblivion.

I think it's about high time we lock Ingrid's crazy ass up, dissolve PETA, and just let people decide for themselves whether they want to eat meat, or not, without cramming any propaganda down their throats. While it helps to have information and resources that will let you know just what happens on the inside of slaughterhouses and factory farms, I think we could all do without PETA's rampant hypocrisy and militant ways.

Humor In The Eyes of Children

2009-03-26T08:30:00.003-05:00

My youngest niece, Natalie, thinks I'm funny. I take great joy in hearing her tell me so and she tends to tell me at least once every time she sees me. Of course, part of the joy is from my niece finding me amusing and the other part is because she talks in that broken, mushy 2 year old way. We aren't quite sure what the ramifications of her finding me funny are, though, especially since my sense of humor is so refined that it usually escapes most people. And by refined I mean bizarre, strange, eccentric, odd, you get the idea. But I think we're starting to discover that her sense of humor is shaping up to be quite like mine, or maybe even worse than mine.

You see, the first time that she told me I was funny, I was making strange noises at her. She's 2 and still has a hard time pronouncing most words. Usually, she'll end up telling me something or asking for something and I end up having to ask her to repeat herself. The insanity in that is that the more she says it, the less I understand what she is trying to tell me. And yet I keep asking her to repeat herself, fully knowing I will be no more enlightened than I was the first time she said it. I usually end up more confused. So after asking her over and over again what it is she was trying to say, I finally just mimicked what she was saying the way it sounded to me. She laughed and said "You funny, Fafa" (I'm not sure what Fafa means...but it's what the kids call me so don't ask as I don't have the answer).

It's never a guarantee as to what she'll tell me is funny. I could mimic her speech three times in a row, and she'll probably only tell me it's funny once or twice. But I guess that's a good thing as it means her sense of humor is diverse. But the diversity of it is a little odd, because some of the other things she has found funny are just, well, off. I'm sure to a 2 year old they probably are, though.

For instance, this past Sunday I went up to my sister's house so that we could take my nieces to the park. At one point, while hanging around, I had grabbed Natalie and was trying to get her to sit on the couch with me. Instead, she decided her best course of action would be to jam her little fists into my neck and, thusly, choke me. As I'm laying there, trying to tell her that she is choking me, and not having much success since she's a strong little booger and my windpipe was getting compressed, I barely manage to squeak out a "can't...breathe...choking me!" I'm not sure if it was the way I said it or the fact that my face turned bright red as I was struggling (yes, I was struggling against a 2 year old....and lost....jeez), but she immediately released her fists and giggled "You funny, Fafa!" I'm so glad that my asphyxiation could delight her.

Then, yesterday, I had to make a stop off at the Hospital in Morristown and I was at my mom's house afterwards. The girls were there (as my sister drove me from my mom's to the hospital), and they were crawling all over my mom. I was sitting across the living room from them and, not being actively engaged in the grown-up conversation, I started playing with the floaters in my eyes.

OK a bit of explanation is needed. Tuesday night, I learned from my lab partner what the floaters are (according to a doctor of his anyways). His doc told him they are bits of pigmentation that flake off on the inside and get suspended in the fluid. I asked him some more questions about them during our break, mainly because there is one in my left eye which is ever present, but that I also have a bunch of them in both eyes that only show up once in a while. He told me that, when I contract my eye muscles, it stirs things up and I'll be more likely to push some of the other floaters into my line of vision. Mind you, this is all just what my lab partner told me and has been the only explanation for those little floating fuckers that I have ever gotten.

So, as I was sitting in my mom's living room yesterday, I was not engaged in conversation and decided to give it a little bit of a test. I focused my eyes on something very close (thusly engaging and contracting the muscles in my eyes). I saw bunches of those floating fuckers. So then I relaxed my eye muscles and looked at a wall across the room from me and watched some of them float around best as I could. Unfortunately, this involves darting your eyes around all over the place. Some people would term this behavior as 'crazy'...hm. I tend to try to look directly at my eye floaters whenever I'm bored and not actively engaged in something, no wonder most people won't talk to me. I look fucking crazy.

So as I'm sitting there, doing that, Natalie starts giggling and says "Fafa funny!" My mom assumed that I was making faces at her, until I explained what I was doing.

Now my mom thinks we're BOTH crazy.

I've Got A Solution

2009-03-20T18:31:00.003-05:00

So, everyone is pretty pissed off at AIG and all the ways they have decided to use their bailout money. Some people are demanding they return the money and others are demanding that they get taxed 90% on the money.

Well I just thought of the perfect solution to the problem.

AIG can keep the money, and the bonuses can remain with those they were awarded to, if AIG gives EVERYONE* in America a reasonable** car insurance policy. For free.

*"Everyone in America" means all citizens who currently have a legal driving status.
*Reasonable means that AIG can't be stingy and hand out policies with shitty coverage and it also means that we can't be greedy bitches about the policies either. A nice happy median will suffice.

So Not Fair

2009-03-20T08:50:00.003-05:00

I'm unemployed, a full time college student, and do not have health insurance.

Given all three of those factors, I am not in a greatest position to afford medical bills right now.

So my mom wanted me to check out eligibility requirements for Medicaid in NJ.

I don't qualify. Simply because I'm not pregnant, I don't have a child with a disability and I'm not legally responsible for a child under the age of 19. How fucking unfair is that?!

Just because I'm not a breeder, I don't qualify for government assisted health insurance.....

Fantesticle....

How Hard Should It Be To Get a Doctor?

2009-03-16T08:16:00.002-05:00

I don't have what you would call a regular General Practitioner. I've seen many different GPs over the past few years. I used to see one doctor fairly regularly, but he's retired now. I basically just end up going to whatever doctor my family uses. So, of course, when they asked me in the ER who my GP was, I didn't give them a name at first cause, as I said, I don't technically have one. But my mom insisted that I go see their GP, Dr. Morandi, for my follow up.

So we called his office yesterday in the hopes of making an appointment for today and, wouldn't you know it, he's on vacation until Thursday. But, like all good doctors, he has an answering service that gives the name and number of a covering doctor to the patients if they desperately need to be seen.

Unfortunately for me, his answering service of choice is run by a bunch of asshats.

We got a number for a Dr. Catania who works with my Cardiologist, Dr. Shioleno. Trusting the answering service, I called and left a message explaining the situation. They called me back this morning and they were confused as all hell. Why would I be 'referred' to a cardiology group when I just need to see a General Practitioner?

Naturally, since the phone call came after I had only been awake for 10 minutes, I felt like an idiot and got really upset and called my sister. She told me to call the answering service back and AGAIN they tried to give me Dr. Catania's number. I explained to them that Dr. Catania is a cardiologist, and that they had no idea why I was referred to them in the first place, so they put me back on hold and gave me a phone number for a Dr. Tanveer Janjua. OK, I thought. This is good.

Not knowing where Dr. Janjua's office was located, I quickly googled the phone number to find out and realized that, whoops, yet again the raging retards at the answering service gave me another useless number. Thankfully, I hadn't called the office yet because I would not enjoy being embarrassed a SECOND time today....and why would I have been, you ask? Well, that's because Dr. Janjua is a FUCKING PLASTIC SURGEON. Oh wait, I'm sorry he's a fucking FACIAL plastic surgeon......who does botox.....

WTF do I need a plastic surgeon for?! I am having gastro problems and ovarian issues. I don't need fucking botox, I don't need a fucking face lift. I need a general practitioner to check me out and send me off to someone who can help me.

Luckily for me, Dr. Shioleno is a stand up kind of guy, because his office called me back and referred me to Dr. Dalena, an excellent gastroenterologist located in Cedar Knolls.

So while I guess it was good that the answering service gave me the phone number for Shioleno's office in the long run, I probably would have had an easier time this morning if I had just played eenie, meenie, miney, moe in the yellow pages....

How I Cheer Myself Up

2009-03-15T22:49:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, buying myself a little something cheers me up.

When my sister, brother in law and nieces were taking me home today, we stopped at Target and I saw just the thing to cheer me up. A beautiful, blue strapless dress with a neat tattoo print all over it.

Sadly, it was $80. And I was not about to drop $80 on a dress. Especially at Target.

So I cheered myself up in another way.

Oh yea, Easter Bunny Domo.

Not nearly as great as Domo Kitty But still pretty fan-fuckin-tastic!

Research Nerd Strikes Again

2009-03-15T19:40:00.003-05:00

So I figured I would look up ovarian cysts, since I'm sitting here, on my computer, not really doing anything.....and I'm kind of glad I did. I now know roughly which type of cyst I had....I believe it's this kind:

Hemorrhagic cyst
A third type of functional cyst, which is common, is a Hemorrhagic cyst, which is also called a blood cyst, hematocele, and hematocyst.[13] It occurs when a very small blood vessel in the wall of the cyst breaks, and the blood enters the cyst. Abdominal pain on one side of the body, often the right side, may be present. The bleeding may occur quickly, and rapidly stretch the covering of the ovary, causing pain. As the blood collects within the ovary, clots form which can be seen on a sonogram.[14][15] Occasionally hemorrhagic cysts can rupture, with blood entering the abdominal cavity. No blood is seen out of the vagina. If a cyst ruptures, it is usually very painful. Hemorrhagic cysts that rupture are less common. Most hemorrhagic cysts are self-limiting; some need surgical intervention. Even if a hemorrhagic cyst ruptures, in many cases it resolves without surgery. Patients who don't require surgery will experience pain for 4 - 10 days after, and may require several days rest. Studies have found that women on tetracycline antibiotics recover 25% earlier than the majority of patients, a surprising correlation found in 2004. Sometimes surgery is necessary,[16][17] such as a laparoscopy ("belly-button surgery" that uses small tools inserted through one or more tiny slits in the abdomen).[18]

I'm glad because, now I can nerd out in my OB-GYN's office and say "I think it was a Hemorrhagic cyst..." I'm not glad because it said the pain (which right now is just discomfort) could last 4-10 days. I'm hoping it doesn't. I really am.

Attack of the Killer Ovary

2009-03-15T18:27:00.002-05:00

So my ovaries tried to kill me yesterday. Well, actually, only one of them did. And the fact that I wound up in the Emergency Room, doubled over in pain, should attest to the fact that it was severely painful and unpleasant.

The day started normally enough. I woke up around 11:00 AM and walked Whitey/Wicket (My roommate and her mom both went out to Pittsburgh this weekend for a funeral and her mom left the dog with us for the weekend) and decided that Giant Boy and I would clean the house prior to my roommate arriving home for the night from Pittsburgh. She took a butt-ass early flight out there yesterday morning and was going to come home later that night and I thought coming home to a clean house would be a great surprise. So that's what I had decided to do. Apparently, however, my ovary had other plans.

Roughly an hour later, I started getting pains in my abdomen. They were a little worse than I've experienced before but nothing to truly complain about. I figured I just ate something the night before that really didn't agree with me. I mentioned it to my mom and she suggested that if I need to, I should call my sister and have her take me to the hospital. I shrugged it off because I figured I wouldn't need that.

So I took a hot shower, while the pain got worse, and then decided to lay down in my bed. And the pain got worse. And more frequent. My sister texted me at one point, asking what I was up to for the day, so I told her about the pains. And over the course of about 45 minutes of talking to her, the pain got so unbearable that I was curling up in the fetal position to try to alleviate some of the pain. Of course, it didn't work. I'm glad the pain wasn't a constant, however, because I probably would have flung myself into the middle of Route 18 to get run over by a Tractor Trailer were that the case. Yea the pain was that bad.

I asked my sister to come get me, and we decided that I would figure out by the time we got back to her house if I wanted to go to the hospital. I decided before she even got to my house that I wanted to go to the hospital. I couldn't deal with it anymore. And boy howdy was I grateful that, when she got to my house, both of my nieces were sound asleep in the backseat of the car because it was a horrendously bad car ride without them being all hyper and slightly obnoxious in the cutest way possible.

Now, mind you, I live near three hospitals. St. Peters, Robert Wood Johnson and JFK. I was contemplating having her just take me to one of those hospitals but, given that I have never been a patient at any of those hospitals ever in my life, so I was more comfortable having my sister drive me all the way up to Morristown Memorial instead of five seconds away to New Brunswick. Pain does weird things to people.

So my sister got me, I crawled into her car and we dropped the girls off with my grandparents before shooting up to Morristown. When I got there, I was taken into triage almost immediately, but unfortunately for me, the triage nurse didn't ask me WHERE the pain was in my abdomen or how bad it was on a scale of 1 to 10. Fortunately for me, one of the OTHER triage nurses, a stand up guy named Michael, saw that I was clearly suffering due to being doubled over in pain and got me into the first room available. He just made me sign my name on the treatment forms and let my sister register me.

We got there at about 4:00PM. 6:00 rolls around and I haven't been seen by ANYONE. Well, ok, that's not true, one person in the other side of my room got me wet and dry paper towels to use after I puked whatever fluid was in my stomach into the blue barf bags they give you at the hospital. If it weren't for those blue barf bags, I wouldn't be able to say that I puked 5 ounces of stomach fluid out. I'm sure that EVERYONE wanted to know that.

After puking, and trying desperately to nap without any success (every time I dozed off, the pain came back. Awesome.), my sister went and grabbed a nurse shortly after 6 to tell them I was in immense pain. Their remedy? Stick an IV in my arm. Yay. At least the IV came with morphine and medicine for the nausea since I puked a second time. The vomiting coupled with my pain being on the lower right side of my abdomen made everyone think that it would probably be my appendix. But they decided to run a number of tests to rule out other possibilities first.

The tests included a blood test (to see how my white cell count was), a pelvic exam (to see if maybe I had some Pelvic Inflammatory disease or something else in my womanly region causing the issue). Oddly enough, when they did that I felt no discomfort whatsoever when they 'probed' the offending ovary. I think it may have been due to the fact that I had literally JUST gotten morphine less than five minutes earlier.

They also ordered a CT scan of my pelvis and abdomen which meant drinking a bottle and a half of "berry flavored" barium sulfate. Great. Berry flavored chalk. Yum. While waiting to be taken away for my CT scan, the morphine started wearing off and the pain started coming back. Unfortunately, I had to wait until well after my CT scan to get my next dose since my one doctor was wandering around the hospital somewhere and didn't leave his number for my nurse. Eventually, they found him and got me more morphine.

Then we got to wait for an excruciatingly long time to get my full results back. My sister badgered the nurse into giving up some information about my blood tests (my white cell count was slightly elevated which could signify an infection of some kind in my body) so we were still all waiting for them to come in to tell me my appendix was going bad and that it would need to be removed. Of course, I'm a giant nerd and looked up my symptoms on WebMD and checked out information on the various afflictions that could be causing my pain, so I knew there were other possibilities, so I was basically prepared for anything they could have told me.

Well, sort of. I was not aware that my ovary was so angry with me, so I was a little shocked when they told me that I had a popped ovarian cyst (which can be slightly scarier than it sounds because any ovarian follicle that is larger than about 2cm is termed a cyst). They said there was free-floating fluid (blood) in my pelvic area from it and that it was the cause of my pain. I felt good with that because by this time the morphine had worn off again but my pain was no longer there. Thank God. They also found swelling in my ileum and want me to go get checked by my doctor for Crohn's disease.

This means more tests, since Crohn's is hard to diagnose apparently, and that means money money money. Ugh. My life goes like this. I'll be generally healthy for a stretch of time and then something dramatic happens that requires at least one trip to the ER and a ridiculously large assortment of tests to figure out what is wrong with me. Ugh. And again I say ugh.

Aside from the fact that I felt like a truck ran over my head in the middle of the night (thanks to Captain Morphine), I felt relatively fine this morning. I've been slightly uncomfortable all day, especially when standing or walking for periods longer than a few minutes, but I suppose that happens when something on your ovary just up and decides to burst on you in a painful, dramatic way. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from the doctor tomorrow (my 'regular' doctor is on vacation until Thursday, so I have to go see the covering doctor...wherever HE is...yea I don't even know where the office is hah) to find out when they want me in the office.

I'm back on a restricted diet, I'm ordered to come back to the ER if the pain comes back (like they even had to tell me this....), and it's all pretty upsetting to me. I'm grateful that I didn't wind up having to get anything removed, but the thought of being a "lab rat", so to speak, and having all these tests done on me just to figure out what's wrong with me NOW is upsetting me big time. I have this mentality when it comes to doctors. I like as little interaction with them as possible, and only when strictly necessary because I always fear they'll find something else wrong with me.

I guess I was sort of right with that mentality last night, while it wasn't the "easy" problem of the appendix (which, yes, I realize is not easy but would have been remedied by surgery and recovery...bing bang boom), I now have to not only go to a GP and possibly specialists to get the issue in my ileum figured out, I also have to tell my OB-GYN about the visit last night, and see what they think...if they want me to get an ultra sound to see if there are anymore. I might enjoy that because then next time I'll be prepared. Oh and I'll bet dollars to donuts that, back in November, when I had severe pain in my lower right abdomen that prompted a doctors visit only (cause it was bad but not as painful as yesterday), that it was my ovary popping a cyst then, too. I wouldn't mind being prepared for the onslaught of pain from an ovarian cyst bursting.....

Oh, and to all the women out there that have children or plan to have children, more power to you all. For seriously. The pain yesterday was so friggen horrendous that, even though I have already made a decision to not have kids, I was reminded last night of one of the reasons I would not want to. Popping an ovarian cyst was excruciatingly painful (the pain was between an 8 and a 10 on the pain scale and required 8mg of morphine to get me through it), I cannot begin to imagine the pain of labor. I made sure to tell everyone that last night was painful enough for my entire lifetime and that I was completely turned off from the whole getting pregnant, giving birth thing.

The pain is why I vomited, too. That's just something fun my body likes to do. If I'm in pain long enough, I eventually throw up. If I get a headache and don't take anything right away, and it's bad enough, I'll puke eventually. Maybe my body just likes to remind me that I'm in pain, in that way, cause apparently it thinks I will forget. Hah.

So that was my exciting weekend. Stupid ovary. Stupid ileum.

2009-03-13T18:04:00.002-05:00

I found the 2D to 3D Coat Tree on Nerd Approved and thought it was pretty damn awesome.

Here's a shot of it:

Of course, I stopped thinking it was so awesome when I saw the price tag on it. $109?! Yeesh.

Maybe it's just the crafty side of myself, but I immediately thought of a way to replicate such an illusion without the hefty price tag.

I actually thought of two methods. One would involve a custom decal (Either cut out a sillouhette on black contact paper to resemble a coat tree, or else seek the help of a custom decal company.) and the other would involve black paint. Basically, by either method you wind up with a black coat tree design on your wall. And both methods offer a variety to people with various level of craft skills.

So basically, you just either cut out the coat tree shape or paint a coat tree on your wall. Then take a trip to your local hardware store to get some pegs that you could screw into the wall. Paint them black to match the coat tree and secure them into the wall at the various "hooks" on the tree. I'm sure you'd probably have to drill a hole to secure the pegs into your wall. And that's basically all there is to it, I suppose.

I'm not really a handy type person, so I don't know the implications behind just screwing the pegs into the wall other than in my mind, it's awesome.

So there ya have it. A couple of cheaper and more personal ways to achieve the 2D to 3D coat tree. Of course, if you have absolutely no craft skills whatsoever, you could always just plunk down the $109 for the fancy one.

Just a Quickie

2009-03-09T11:41:00.002-05:00

Everyday I seem to be experiencing a different kind of physical pain. Almost as if each night, my body secretly enters itself in the Pain Lottery and every morning, I win a prize. I'm doubtful that I've hit the 'jackpot' yet, though. But between my knee(s), my jaw, my digestive system (mostly the appendix area) and my wrist, I am guessing that the jackpot may be just around the corner.

It'd be awfully nice to wake up one day and not be in any pain.

Musings To Ponder

2009-02-27T18:53:00.004-05:00

The Snuggie essentially looks like the outfits The Chipmunks wore in the original cartoon series.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Snuggies come in the same colors as the Chipmunk outfits.

But do they offer embroidery/personalization services so that one could get a giant A embroidered on the front of a red Snuggie??

I Want To Ensure That Chuck O'Connor Reads This

2009-02-24T16:13:00.005-05:00

So I am going to be a jerk. And post this for EVERYONE to see. Because I can do that. It IS my blog after all.

Chuck: You must be new. You don't seem to understand that I am a giant nerd who has quite a bit of free time on her hands for research purposes.

First and foremost: you missed the entire point of my post. I in no way said or implied that people suffering from RA should not have options to treat their diseases. I was poking fun at the 'light tone' the commercial has for a medicine that has such a risky purported side effect as an increased risk of cancer. Yes, I actually DO understand RA. Remember, I'm a giant nerd. When, in my Biology Class, we went over the skeletal system, reference to RA was made and it was told that further explanation of it was to be found later on in our text book. I skipped ahead and read it. A week or so ago I would have confirmed that I did not understand RA. But I do. Does this mean I understand what it's like to have RA? By no means. Does this mean that I understand the treatments? Kind of. Having researched this post extensively, I feel comfortable saying that I understand the treatment of RA better than I used to. Oh and yes, I DO know that drug companies need to list those risks and side effects.

Based on the research I have done today I feel that I can safely make the following statements until further research removes support from said statements or until you can present me with something that supports the opposition of my statements. With that being said...

All biologics do NOT have a cancer risk. You, sir, are generalizing. Making a generalized blanket statement to me is mighty risky since I will research said statement to either find merit or prove you wrong. I will now prove you wrong as recent studies have shown that there is no risk of cancer for people who take biologics to treat RA. Don't believe me? Go read This Article
There are also cancer risks assocaited with each specific drug treatment on This Page from John Hopkins that states exactly what the risk is. Which leads me to....

Biologics are NOT the only known treatment for autoimmune diseases. While Orencia is a Biologic and there are other Biologic treatments for RA, they fall under the classification of DMARDs on that John Hopkins website up there. I don't know if I could safely say that all DMARDs are biologics or not, so I will not make that statement. But I can safely say that all the Biologic treatments for RA fall under the DMARD classification. Other classifications for RA treatments are NSAIDs and Corticosteroids. Based on the fact that there are other treatments available for people who have RA (depending on the severity of the disease) I can safely make the claim that Biologics are not the only treatment available for autoimmune diseases and there are other treatments available.

Now let me make this very clear to you. I am in no way implying that every single autoimmune disease (of which I believe there are over 80 types) has various treatments available to them outside of Biologics. I stuck closely to the RA argument in my research. I am also not implying that Biologics are not effective treatments for the various autoimmune diseases. Additionally, I am not implying that those who have severe RA symptoms to the point that they must rely on Biologics should not have the choice.

I merely believe that the light hearted approach that the pharmaceutical company and advertising agency behind the ad took was inappropriate given the claimed side effects and risks. That's a pretty heavy risk when taking a medicine that is supposed to make you feel better. A risk such as cancer will put fear into someones mind when they are faced with making a decision about what treatment to seek. To me, it seems like they took the up beat, light hearted approach to gloss over the serious risks and side effects attached to the drug and maybe squash some fears while they're at it. Yes, they used a more serious sounding voice actor for the risks, but not fully serious because even his tone sounds upbeat. Then again, that could just be because of the music playing during the commercial. Fun, lively and upbeat. This just makes the commercial seem dumb and still a bit disturbing. But disturbing more in the sense that the geniuses behind it are quite possibly disturbed themselves because, when you really think about all this information, it's clear that more research needs to be done on the various types of biologics since that recent study found that they won't bring an increased risk of cancer to those with RA.

That's one of the beautiful things about science. It's always changing, growing and evolving.

Oh and I now officially take back that statement up there about how I can't say that all DMARDs are biologic or not. Because I can now say that all DMARDs are not biologic. But all biologic medicines for RA are DMARDs. My source: Arthritis NSW. And, again, I'm going to say it: Biologics are NOT the only treatment for all autoimmune diseases. It may be the only one for some of the others outside of RA, but since RA is an autoimmune disease, and it has treatments other than Biologics available, I can safely make this claim.

In conclusion, if you're going to yank out a soap box and spit ridiculous and generalized statements out at me because you misinterpreted something that I wrote, I'm going to kick that damn soap box out from under you.

But thanks for giving me something to do with my spare time, Chuck!

ETA: And for those who really want to know...here's what Chuck wrote:

Stick to skating. You don't understand RA and don't udnerstand the treatment for it. All biologics (the only known form of treatment for auto-immune diseases) have some cancer risk. The cancer risk in ORENCIA clinical trials is 3/1000 patients but according to FDA standards it must be communicated in SSI language during commercial presentation. Do you think an elderly population suffering from a crippling disease should not be offered options to their disease?

In Which Busty Brags About Her Good Grades

2009-02-24T13:46:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that I'm doing well in all of my classes. Surprisingly, I'm doing well in my Bio class. I was afraid that it would be my hardest class since I've never taken a Bio class before in my life. For seriously. But I'm doing quite well so far and hope to continue doing so.

I'm also doing well in my Psychology class (duh...yea modesty), my algebra class (surprisingly as well) and in my Creative Writing class.

Now, with my Creative Writing class, I've had mixed feelings about my work in the past. I've been told that I'm an excellent writer and I've also been told that I'm a good writer, two ends of the same spectrum. I've also been told that I'm very creative. That's part of why I signed up for the class. But then as the semester began, I had some misgivings about the work required for the class. I was genuinely afraid that I'd blank out on each assignment and be forced to just put something, anything together. So far, that fear hasn't been realized. So far I've done quite well. Luckily the class isn't all writing. It's a lot of discussion as well so that helps in the sense that it allows me a chance to really contemplate the future writing assignments before they're due. It's quite unlike the essays I had to write for my first two English classes. In both English classes, it seemed to me as if we had just only finished one essay before we were to start writing yet another essay. And that doesn't even speak of the weekly reading assignments which sometimes made writing the essays difficult for me.

In each English class, we had a weekly reading assignment of a couple of pieces from each text book. Then we would be simultaneously working on an essay that covered previous readings while reading new excerpts from the text. During my first semester of English 1, it was fairly easy to get away with not doing the readings until the essay had been finished. I usually ended up writing the essays in the beginning of the week and doing the readings in the second half of the week. I only had to make sure that I was able to discuss the readings in the weekly classes. My biggest problem with the readings and essays being simultaneous is that ideas from one reading would infiltrate my thought flows while working on the current essay. I'm not even sure if that makes sense. In an attempt to clarify: I'd be writing my essay, and I'd think "Oh I have the best idea to tie these two pieces together in paragraph 4!" but I'd find myself helplessly scanning through the texts only to realize the idea I had was related to a reading not assigned to the essay. So I split the work up throughout the week, to simplify the thought process and writing process for myself. But it got harder to maintain that during my semester of English 2.

My English 2 teacher had weekly quizzes that covered the readings that we had to read over the week. It required a little bit more juggling on my part as I had to be focused on the content and writing of the essays all while reading new pieces that had to be well read by the end of the week for my Friday class.

So needless to say, I'm quite glad that there's a bit of separation between writing and discussion in this class. We've only had 2 assignments thus far and the rest of the time we've been discussing either the writing that has been posted by our classmates or the weekly lessons. Also, I think part of the reason it's a little easier to handle than an in person English/Writing class is that the discussion is spanned out over a week, give or take. The responses to what you post aren't instant, as they are in a classroom. You have time to think over and formulate your response before posting it. In a classroom, you have time to think it over, but not too much time because then the class may have already moved on to a new subtopic of the discussion.

Of course, the waiting period between posting a thought and getting a reply can also be torture.

I e-mailed my teacher over this weekend, asking about when the Character Sketch assignment was due (she had accidentally left the date up from last semester), so she permitted me to submit it a little late without suffering any grade penalties. After a minute of freak out, and searching through the text book as well as reading over the lesson assignment, I worked up my Character sketch and submitted it to her. She responded back to me yesterday with my grade: A. She sent her comments to me in the grade email:

You really have insight into the psyche of a man like this. The strippers, as the "therapists," make perfect sense. What I like best is your use of the word "slash" in "living room slash closet," etc. Given his accident, it's beautiful irony.
Did you do this deliberately, or did it pop out of your unconscious? :)

Of course, I sent back a ridiculous and partially unrelated response. Yes, I realize now that she was asking about the "living room slash closet" etc part being ironic given his accident. But I sort of expanded upon that, because it all just sort of popped out of my unconscious after I had a few concrete ideas that I wanted to use:

It basically popped out of my unconscious. I started off with the checklist of questions you had posted on the board and I started filling out the more general questions first, and while considering that the character should have some kind of conflict (inner or outer), and I figured that a physical disability that results in the loss of a job could create a conflict. From there I filled in more of the details, thinking about what type of a person this guy would be. How he would cope and deal with the lack of his left forearm. After I had a good portion of the questions filled in or answered, I wrote the sketch.

See? It SORTOF answers her question, but is more vague and broad and less centralized than her question required. Meh. it's merely just a discussion about how I came up with it.

I find it highly amusing that my teacher thinks I have insight into the psyche of a man like the one in my character sketch. Perhaps my psychology classes have been useful in aspects besides my insane need for nerdiness.

In a separate e-mail, my teacher asked if I wanted to post my character sketch in the Week 4 board for everyone to read and respond to. At first I thought "gah! why? no. BAD." because I'm always nervous when it comes to exposing the public to my works. I didn't even post my first writing assignment on this blog until after I had safely submitted it and posted it on the class discussion board. But, of course, I had posted my Character sketch here only after submitting it for a grade. I hadn't received a grade yet. I hadn't received any input on it aside from Bone's, who I force to read all my writing assignments now. I spared her from having to read any of my damn essays for English 2 last semester, but creative writing pieces are WAY more fun than essays in both reading them and writing them. OK, fine, nerd alert: essays ARE fun to read and write, but creative writing is MORE fun. So it made no sense to decline posting it on the board if I've already exposed it to the general public via my Blog.

Now I just have to sit patiently and wait for anyone to comment on it. Do you know how hard it is to be patient about that?

I Saw an Awfully Disturbing Commercial Last Night...

2009-02-23T09:31:00.003-05:00

Last night, Bone and I (and Emily and Randall *Shaune*) went to Wolfe's apartment to watch the Oscars. We all ended up playing poker while watching the show, which at first proved distracting for most of us I believe. The game ended up lasting the majority of the show since we never raised the blinds and just kept them at 25 and 50 for little and big respectively.

The game was definitely fun, I ended up being the winner due to some random fluke. It was only my second time playing Texas Hold'Em poker and the first time I played, I was the second one out. The reason I ended up winning? After it got down to just two of us, Bone and myself, I wanted to raise the blinds. Instead we decided to go all in on each hand until one of us won. It only ended up taking two hands. Whoever had the smallest amount of money, the other matched it and then we played the hand. The random fluke? I ended up winning both of those hands. The first one with two pair and the second with a pair of Jacks. Though I have to say it was definitely a fun game and I'm hoping I get more opportunities to play it.

But that was all beside the point of this blog post. After Emily and Randall *Shaune* had left, and the poker game had ended, we just settled back and watched the last three awards (Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Film) and I was witness to quite possibly the WORST commercial I've ever seen. OK The Commercial itself probably wasn't half bad, but it was what the commercial was selling that was pretty bad.

And this is all being said by a chick who watches Rock of Love Bus and likes to take notes on how many Vagisil, Herpecin and Plan B commercials they broadcast during the Sunday Night premiere of the episodes. Trust me, VH1 has their core market NAILED for that show.

But anyways, this commercial was yet another medicine shill, this time aimed at people with Rheumatoid Arthritis. The medicine in question is Orencia.

The commercial starts off by saying "When you're on treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis, everyday things can still be tough to handle." All the while showing images of a hot water tap, a jar of some type of fruit preserve, a door knob. The mortal foes to those suffering from RA. It then goes on to show a can with a pull tab lib. "Can you pull this?" the voice inquires. The screen changes over to a button on a shirt, "fasten this?" at which point it switches images again to a cup of delicious looking coffee and the voice asks, in serious voice mode, if you could "grasp this?" From there, the commercial gets way more upbeat, proclaiming "Oh yes I can!" Apparently, Orencia can assist you in simple, everyday tasks that, as someone suffering from RA, you would not ordinarily be able to do. It shows you lots of images, next, of people doing simple every day tasks that those with RA could probably not do, unless they were on Orencia.

So what can't people with RA do, Orencia Gods?
You can't butter a roll. You can't lift a cup of coffee. You can't fasten the chin strap on a helmet. You can't turn a key. You can't open a jar of preserved...peaches I'm assuming. You can't tie a shoe lace. You can't knit. You can't peel an orange. Oh and by the way, you can't take Orencia if you are taking another biological medicine to treat RA, because then you're risking serious infection. So if one medicine you are taking is helping, but not enough, you can't just piggy back the meds. Serious infection, folks. SERIOUS. INFECTION.

You also can't put on socks, if you aren't on Orencia. You can't pull on a turtleneck shirt. You can't write a letter. You can't button a shirt. You can't drive a car. You can't go out for a late lunch with your friends (OK this one may just be in there because of the lifting of the glass).

Oh, and, they just wanted you to know, also, that while Orencia will help you so you will be able to do ALL of the things listed above without bother from your RA....it may also give you cancer. BUT HEY! You'll be able to open jars, put on socks, pull on a shirt, button a shirt, write a letter, drive a car, tie a shoe lace, turn keys, fasten the chin strap on a helmet, lift a coffee cup and butter a roll. So while you may end up with some horrendous form of cancer, NOTHING will be able to stop you from doing the things that you love. Like, opening....jars....and tying shoes....

Second Creative Writing Assignment

2009-02-22T18:18:00.002-05:00

This is the second assignment for my Creative Writing class. We had to do a character sketch. I started with a guy who lost his left forearm in a tree trimming accident, figured his life was probably pretty depressing or miserable, then filled in a few Central Jersey related details.

6:30 PM. It’s the same time that I get home just about every day. It’s not like I put in a long day in an office. I don’t do much work at all when I go out during the day. Except for walking. I haven’t had a regular job in the past 14 months. It’s hard to get work when you’re missing half of an arm. I lost mine in a tree trimming accident while on a job. Or at least that’s what my disability papers say. Instead, I go out and walk around town. Usually with no specific destination in mind. All day, every day, I just wander around aimlessly.

Every night, I come home around 6:30 and get my mail. The only mail I get these days is my monthly check. That and junk mail delivered to “Resident”. I wouldn’t even mind junk mail so much if it were addressed to my name, Tony Collins. Then you at least have a shot at hoping for a letter from a long lost friend. Or a relative. Not that I have many of either left these days.

One might have suspected my mom was a lush given my name. It’s close enough to Tom Collins to make a guy wonder. But wondering is all that I have when it comes to my mom. You see, I was in second grade when my mom died. I can’t remember how she died, but I know it was a hunting accident. I don’t think my mom hunted. I also don’t think she ever drank. In the few years worth of memories I do have, I never remember a drink being in her hand. Unless it was seltzer. My grandma always told me that she loved seltzer, and I share that love with her. Or at least I shared it.

A brief thought of my mom crosses my mind as I strip down to my boxer shorts. It’s sort of a ritual for me to take a shower every evening. Actually, it’s more habitual than ritual. I used to work for a tree trimming company and every night I’d get home completely covered in sap. Ten years of showering every evening will make it very hard to stop once you give up the job. Ten years of any habit makes it hard to give up anything. Getting undressed is a lot easier than most people suspect for a guy missing half an arm. I owe a lot of my capabilities to the fact that I lost my left forearm and I’m right handed. It takes a while to get used to having only one hand. I’m still not completely used to it. I’ve managed to figure out everything but shoe laces and shirt buttons. The shirt buttons can be a problem for me. I wear mainly button up shirts, but I’ve taken to wearing them unbuttoned over a tee shirt since the accident. I’ve also replaced both pairs of shoes I owned with slip on sneakers and a pair of loafers. Maybe one day I’ll have someone pre-button my shirts so I can just put them on over my head. Or maybe one day I’ll have a girlfriend who would help me out. And maybe one day I’ll discover I possess the powers of spontaneous regeneration and will grow back my missing arm. That one actually seems more likely.

After getting undressed, I walk to the bathroom which is conveniently located in my kitchen slash living room slash dining room slash closet. I basically live in a one bedroom apartment in the middle of New Brunswick. Calling it a one bedroom apartment sort of implies the existence of a bedroom. It’s more of a big closet that can just barely fit a twin bed mattress and a space heater. Thank God for space heaters otherwise I’d freeze my ass to death every night in the winter. The ‘entertaining area’, as I like to call it, is about twice the size of the bedroom with a fridge and a stove in one corner and a sink, toilet and a shower head shoved into the corner next to what passes for a bedroom. There’s a single wall and a shower curtain blocking the bathroom nook from the rest of the room. The whole floor is tiled in this hideous pea green tile straight from the Seventies. If I had friends who wanted to actually hang out with me, I’d be more concerned about the appearance of my apartment. But it’s all that I can reasonably afford with my disability payments.

After waiting the requisite two minutes to let the brown water turn less brown, I test the water temperature to make sure I won’t get scalded, or worse, frozen, and I jump into the shower. I go to draw the shower curtain closed, but decide against it. It’s not like anyone is around to complain about watching me in the shower. Although if I did, for some ridiculous reason, have a roommate, I’d bet they would not enjoy watching me shower. It goes the same every time; soap up, lather up, rinse off, jack off. Probably not the most enjoyable sight in the world, watching a one armed man rub one out. But it’s something I need to do every evening. It’s detrimental to my plans.

Every night, I come home after aimlessly wandering around downtown New Brunswick. I shower, jack off and then get dressed to go out. I used to go to a different place every night. I also used to stay home every night when I first started working for The Tree Guys so many years ago. Then my work buddies dragged me to a strip club, Delilah’s, on a Tuesday night. Then some of my friends and I would go out to karaoke at Doll’s on Wednesdays. Before I knew it, I was also going out for dinner or drinks with my friends on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Now I go out every night. Every night I go to Delilah’s. Every night I go see my girls.

“My girls.” They’re just about the only thing I have that could even be remotely considered friends at this point in my life. I guess I made a lot of people uncomfortable after my accident and a lot of my friends, shit, all of them, started to avoid me. No matter to me. I just spent more time with my girls. I go to Delilah’s so often, now, that if I miss a night without telling my girls in advance, they get worried about me. This is why my nightly self-love session is so important. Do you know how embarrassing it is to cum in your blue jeans while getting a lap dance? It’s akin to pissing yourself in public. I’m just grateful it didn’t take me long to figure the remedy out.

Candy, Sapphire and Vikki. My girls. They’ve been stripping at Delilah’s almost as long as I’ve been going there. No matter what kind of a mood I’m in, at least one of my three girls can help me out. And, no, this isn’t some sick perversion. I’m simply talking about them helping me talk through my issues. If I want a lap dance, a little bump and grind, I hire a different girl. A girl I don’t know. A girl I don’t want to talk to. But these girls, I just hire them to talk with me. Candy usually helps me out when I’m feeling bad about my appearance. She used to volunteer at a Veteran’s Hospital and she is completely comfortable with people who are missing limbs. She helps me cope with the staring and the fact that I’m less capable now than I ever have been. I was more useful as a baby than I am with half an arm gone. Sapphire helps me deal with my relationship issues. Anytime I start to feel lonely or just generally pathetic, she is just the one to cheer me up. She hangs on my every word, gushes over every little thing I say, making me feel like the most important guy in the room. While Candy and Vikki are both sweet girls, Sapphire is the only stripper I’ve ever met that hasn’t treated me like a dick made of money. Vikki, now she’s special. She helps me cope with my mom. And it doesn’t have anything to do with her age. Sure, she’s older than most of the girls, but that’s not why she helps. I’m not quite sure why she helps, actually. I’ve started needing to talk to her more and more over the past year, as images of mom flooded my dreams at night. She helps me sort out the images I can remember from the dreams. Figure out whether any of them are even remotely close to the truth. Something about her also reassures me that my mom loved me to pieces.

After showering I pick out what to wear. Picking out an outfit is extremely simple for me. First, I pick out a pair of boxer shorts. Then I pick out a pair of clean jeans from my stash of ten identical pairs. The belt is easy because I only have one. Then I decide if I want to wear a white or a black shirt. Tonight I’m going with white. Then I pick from my collection of black, dark gray and dark brown button up shirts. I go for dark gray since everything else is dirty. I get dressed and double check that I have my keys and wallet before heading to my car.

My car is far from nice. It runs well, but it looks like hell. There are dents and rust marks all over the body, the left driver side mirror is attached with clear packing tape, and the stereo is gone. I used to have a nice stereo in my car but it got stolen five months ago. I haven’t had the motivation to replace it. The next one will just get stolen, anyways. The only saving grace is that my car runs like a champ. It gets decent mileage for a mid-90’s Pontiac. I only need to fill it once or twice a week depending on how close it is to needing an oil change. I climb into my car and start it up. Tonight is just a night like every other night. Heading down to Delilah’s, driving down Route 18 to cut through South River and Sayreville. Not the quickest route, but the most scenic to be sure.

After about a half hour, I reach my destination and put my car into park. I contemplate locking it before going inside but decide it doesn’t really matter if I do or not. Nobody would want to steal this beast, and if they did, they can have it. I’m sure a taxi to and from the club would cost just as much as insurance and gas on this piece. I pull out my wallet and fish around for my ID and the cover charge. Being such a regular, they always waive it, but I like to offer it anyways. You never know when they’ll all of a sudden decide to start charging me again, and I don’t want to be the asshole that assumes he’s above paying. After I pull my money out, I notice a piece of paper. It’s folded up and soft with age. I’ve unfolded it many times to read it before now. But every time I ‘discover’ it in my wallet, I read it and it’s like I’ve never seen it before. Ten years of any habit will make it impossible to give up anything. Ten years also hasn’t dampened the effect it has on me either.

My dad gave me this note ten years ago right before I moved out of my Grandma’s home and into my first apartment in Bound Brook. I had been working for The Tree Guys long enough to set aside money to strike out on my own. In his scratchy hand writing, my dad wrote three words. “Don’t fuck up,” I read aloud. “Little late for that, I think.” The sick feeling in my stomach starts to spread. It’s the same sick feeling I get every time I read the note and realize that my dad had, has, no faith in me. Rightfully so, I guess.

I walk inside and greet Celia at the door. I show the bouncer my ID and offer up the token ten bucks to Celia. Celia giggles at me and reminds me that I don’t need to pay a cover fee. I nod and thank her before I step into the club. With luck, Sapphire is right near the entrance. I straighten my posture and smile at her. “Just the girl I needed to see.”

So Which States Are Using Jobless Benefit Debit Cards??

2009-02-22T12:53:00.004-05:00

Pulled from: This Article

States issuing jobless benefits debit cards

States and the banks they use to distribute unemployment benefits through debit cards:

Alabama (Regions Bank)

Arizona (JP Morgan Chase)

Arkansas (U.S. Bank)

Colorado (JP Morgan Chase)

Illinois (Illinois National Bank)

Indiana (National City Bank)

Iowa (Wells Fargo Bank)

Kansas (Citigroup)

Louisiana (JP Morgan Chase)

Maryland (Citigroup)

Michigan (JP Morgan Chase)

Minnesota (US Bank)

Mississippi (Comerica Bank)

Missouri (Central Bank)

Nebraska (US Bank)

Nevada (Wells Fargo)

New Mexico (Bank of America)

New York (JP Morgan Chase)

North Carolina (Wachovia)

North Dakota (US Bank)

Ohio (US Bank)

Oklahoma (Oklahoma)

Oregon (US Bank)

Pennsylvania (Comerica Bank)

Rhode Island (JP Morgan Chase)

South Dakota (US Bank)

Texas (JP Morgan Chase)

Utah (Comerica Bank)

Virginia (Wachovia)

Wyoming (US Bank)

States where such programs are planned or under consideration:

Alaska plans to issue debit cards through JP Morgan Chase, possibly during the states 2010 fiscal year.

California has been researching debit cards since 2007 and hopes to have a system in place by 2010.

Connecticut is reviewing bank proposals to issue unemployment debit cards for the state.

Florida plans to solicit bids from banks that would issue unemployment debit cards.

Idaho plans to solicit bids from banks that would issue unemployment debit cards.

Maine is planning to issue unemployment insurance through debit cards.

Massachusetts officials hope to replace unemployment checks with debit cards by July.

South Carolina is in discussions with Bank of America and hopes to issue unemployment debit cards this year.

Vermont has not entered any official discussions with banks, but is reviewing unemployment debit card programs.

West Virginia has signed a contract with JP Morgan Chase to issue unemployment debit cards, and hopes to have the program in place by March.

02/20/09 16:38 © Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

EPPI Card Math, Posed Scenarios and REAL Scenarios

2009-02-22T11:22:00.005-05:00

OK So following the math used in the Yahoo article on my last EPPI Card post, I did a few calculations just to get an idea of the scope of this thing in a couple of ways.

First of all, in December of 2008, it was estimated that 10.08 million people in the US were unemployed. Now, granted, there are only 30 states using the Debit Card system, but I calculated my numbers under the assumption that since 10 more states are considering it, it could end up being a nationwide payout method in due time.

So, let's say (for the sake of my shitty math skills), that there are 10 million people in the nation that are receiving unemployment benefits. Now lets say that every single one of them has an EPPI Card or similar government benefit card.

If, like in the scenario posed in the Yahoo Article, they all used their card to make 3 withdrawls at an out-of-network ATM, they get charged $1.75 a pop. That calculates to roughly $52,500,000 a month on just the withdrawls.

Now lets say that half of the people using the cards in my scenario call customer service three times in any given week. The first call is free, the next two calls cost 25 cents each. So half of the people are getting charged 50 cents a month. That puts the banks at earning about another $2,500,000 a month on the card users.

That equates to be about $55,000,000 a month or $660,000,000 a year if the Unemployment Debit cards were used in every state.

That is sickening to me that the banks could be allowed to do anything like this. Even if that is just a posed scenario.

Now lets look at a REAL scenario

My roommate, Bone, figured out about how many people in NJ alone use the EPPI Card for child support payments. It comes out to about 200,000 people.

Given the math used in the Yahoo article and in the posed scenario above, Comerica Bank currently makes roughly $1,100,000 a month and $13,200,000 a year on people who use the Child Support EPPI card in New Jersey.

That's $13,200,000 a year being taken away from the people who really, truly, need that money.

$13,200,000 a year that I hardly think Comerica Bank needs more than the people who receive the benefits.

The Original Was Great....The Knock Offs Are Just So Cliche

2009-02-21T17:56:00.001-05:00

***I realize this may be offensive to people. I do not apologize.***

More Shitty Ass Thieving Banks, Ripping off the Unemployed Through Jobless Benefit Debit Cards

2009-02-21T15:58:00.009-05:00

So The Consumerist posted another article in regards to Bank controlled Government Benefit Debit Cards. It turns out that 30 different states have them, and some of them make the debit cards mandatory.

They have an interesting scenario that they pulled from the original Yahoo Article:

In Missouri, for instance, 94,883 people claimed unemployment benefits through debit cards from Central Bank. Analysts say a recipient uses a card an average of six to 10 times a month. If each cardholder makes three withdrawals at an out-of-network ATM, at a fee of $1.75, the bank would collect nearly $500,000. If half of the cardholders also dial customer service three times in any given week (the first time is free; after that, it's 25 cents a call), the bank's revenue would jump to more than $521,000. That would yield $6.3 million a year.

This is the problem that I have noticed when people are 'enlightened' about this nonsense, nobody seems to look at the larger scale, everyone seems to just focus on the fact that the fees are anywhere from less than a dollar to almost a couple dollars each. I'm glad that someone has finally posted the math behind the revenue the banks will be getting from the fees.

Maybe now more people will realize the true scope of this situation and rightfully get disgusted by the bottom feeding, TARP banks siphoning off money from the people who really need it the most.

If there need to be fees attached to these ridiculous cards, why can't the money go to the Government? Granted, in a perfect world, there wouldn't be any damn fees attached to any of the cards, but this is far from a perfect world. So the very least the Government should be getting the fees, not these dishonest and despicable banks who had to beg the Government for money only a few months ago.

For more information about cards like this, go check out my roommate's website: No EPPI Card!

ETA: I should note that Comerica is NOT the only bank running these types of cards. Banks like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America are also running a reverse Robin Hood scenario with Government Benefit Cards.

2009-02-16T23:22:00.003-05:00

Friends come and go in ones life and regardless of the type of impact they make on you, they usually end up teaching you something. It doesn't matter if they make a positive impact or a really negative impact, there's a lesson in all of it.

I've recently had a friend slip out of my life and I can say that it was yet another learning experience for me. Actually, it isn't much of a learning experience as much as it's providing yet more proof of a theory I have.

I have learned over the years that people who want to use you up as an emotional sponge and have you devote every waking second to them tend to hate it when they don't fit into your plans for life. They also tend to hate it when you won't drop every little thing to tend to their wants and needs. And it doesn't matter what it is. Could be a hobby. Could be a job. Could be school. Could be friends. It really doesn't matter.

These type of people have a problem with independence in any way shape or form. They need to know that at any given moment, you'll be there for them to use up.

But if you have anything else going on in your life that interferes with their desires, they get out of hand pretty quickly.

And seeing as this is yet another time where I've had someone basically dump me out of their life because I wasn't sitting around, waiting for them to be available and waiting for them to need me for something, I'm not as shocked by the behavior as I used to be. The first time it happened it was pretty jarring. Now that it's happened four more times since then, it's getting to be a bit of a yawn.

So why am I writing about it then? Well, I guess so that I can look back on it and laugh in later times. Or so that I will have a documented account of the last time. And I mean 'last time' as in "Oh the last time this happened....." and don't mean that it will never happen again because I'm sure that it will.

Or, at the very least, I'll have some notes to look back on so I'm better studied.

Thought Provoking Post Of The Week

2009-02-16T02:30:00.003-05:00

Here's a fun thing to mull around in your noggins for a little while:

If a college student is caught with a single marijuana joint, they would no longer be eligible to receive government grants, financial aid, and student loans for college. But if the same college student instead raped, murdered or robbed someone the same punishment would not apply.

First Writing Assignment - Creative Writing

2009-02-15T14:18:00.004-05:00

The following is my first as of yet untitled writing assignment for my Creative Writing class.

My mom told me that when she was in school they had a completely different curriculum for Sex Ed. She said they taught everyone about abstinence and the various STDs and how to protect yourself by using Condoms and Dental Dams. At first I thought she was simply making it up, but one time when I was at my friend Julie’s house, her mom overheard me mentioning it and she insisted it was true. We still weren’t sure if we should believe it or not.

Julie and I were nervous enough about having to take our first Sex Ed Class next semester without our Moms telling us strange stories about how the class used to be structured. All the things they told us completely contradicted what the older kids on our bus said. I almost wish I hadn’t told anyone that we were taking it, maybe then I would be less anxious.

As the first semester wound down and the second semester neared, my anxiety about the Sex Ed class only seemed to increase. The strange thing was that Julie seemed to be getting more relaxed about it as time progressed. I couldn’t figure it out, myself, because I was fretting over what was going to happen once we sat down at our desks on the first day. When we had gotten the notice that we were taking Sex Ed during our second semester, I hung the paper up in the back of my locker. Every day, when I got to school in the morning, I stared at it for what felt like hours. My biggest relief was that the classes were divided up into groups and that the boys and the girls met separately. That would probably have been the one thing to make me even more nervous about this experience.

On the first day of our Sex Ed class, I started my day by staring at the notice the school sent home with me, which remained in my locker. I could have avoided the whole class all together if I had just not mentioned it, then my mom wouldn’t have told me her crazy stories and she wouldn’t have even known about the permission slip she had to sign. I could have just told the school she refused to let me take the class. Unfortunately, this wasn’t anything I thought about before that day.

After the first half of my day had passed, I made my way to the basement of the school, where the physical education classrooms were located. This was probably how all the hallways and lockers looked when my mom went to school. My heart started pounding and sweat beads erupted all over my forehead and the palms of my hands as I made my way closer to the classroom. I was afraid I was going to pass out in the hallway, so I hurried myself along to the classroom so I could sit down at a desk and give myself a few moments to calm down before class started.

After I entered the classroom, I noticed that only about half the girls in my class were there. And I couldn’t find Julie. I put my books down on the first desk I saw and walked over to the teacher to find out why the girls group had been split up. If I had to suffer through a Sex Ed class, I wanted to suffer through it with my best friend by my side. After asking the teacher, I found out that what the kids on our bus said was true.

Every year, when the boys and girls in our school district reach the age of 13, they are offered the opportunity to take a Sex Ed class. Their parents have to fill out a permission slip to let them take it, this much I had already known. What I didn’t know about was that when the parents fill out the permission slip, they have to list every hereditary medical condition that runs in your family. Based on those lists, the school selects the students with the undesirable conditions and weeds them out of the main groups. Basically, if your family has a history of cancer, they weed you out. If your family has a history of heart attacks, they weed you out. I was weeded out. My Mum-mum on my mom’s side died from a massive heart attack when I was six. You can also be weeded out of the main group if your parents just don’t want to sign you up for Sex Ed.

Julie, however, was not weeded out. She remained in the main group of girls who ended up gathering in the auditorium of the school for their first class. Only, it wasn’t really a class as much as it was an orientation. All the girls and boys in our classes who have pristine medical histories and have approving parents get ushered off to a breeding facility where they will be pampered and spoiled for the next 20 years. Their care takers will make sure they remain in the utmost of good health so that they can produce happy, healthy babies for couples all over the country to adopt.

The rest of us get to learn about abstinence and STDS and how to protect ourselves using Condoms, much like my mom learned in school. The only thing I am worried about now, however, is the sterilization procedure. It’s a mandatory practice now for the kids who aren’t selected for the breeding facilities. It’s a measure taken to help ensure that only the healthiest children get born, unlike back when my mom was in school. Nobody had to get sterilized and there were no breeding facilities. That’s part of why I was weeded out. My mom and dad just had me without taking their family medical history into consideration. But I’m really starting to get nervous about being sterilized. The kids on my bus told me that it’s very painful.

In Which Busty Is A Nerd And Flaunts Her Learning

2009-02-14T13:09:00.005-05:00

One of the reasons that I enjoy learning things all the time is that I get to apply these things to my everyday life and it helps me to better understand the world around me.

That's part of why I want to become a psychologist and part of why I'm taking my Theories of Personality class. Much like Carl Jung, I'm using this knowledge to be able to better understand not only myself but the world around me. Only without the vehement bias against women. (woo big words!)

For example, I was reading my weekend Jezebel posts and one of them was in regards to the possibility of baby addiction. It's all quite possible because a person who has an addictive personality can essentially become addicted to just about anything. One could argue that it depends on whether it is a healthy and constructive addiction or a destructive addiction but I don't think there is such a thing as a healthy addiction.

Just the word addiction alone denotes negative aspects. The definition of addiction says that it is a state of being enslaved to a practice or a habit so therefore I cannot see anything that one is addicted to being a good thing in the long run.

In terms of Freud's defense mechanisms, people will sublimate their unhealthy addictions and impulses with seemingly healthier and more constructive things. For instance, people who go to AA or NA to battle alcohol and drug addictions end up sublimating their substance addiction with religion. So in essence, while they are no longer addicted to the substance or habit, they are then addicted to religion or Jesus.

When a person has an addiction, they're essentially trying to fill a void in their life or deal and cope with unpleasant feelings that they are otherwise unable to handle. So they turn to drugs, booze, sex or anything that will dampen the negative things they are feeling. The problem with that is that the void doesn't get filled and the feelings are only temporarily masked by the effects of what they are addicted to. That's what generates and perpetuates the cycle of addiction. It's a temporary fix so they end up needing more of it.

Even in the terms of people who have a supposed baby addiction.

While they haven't classified it as a bona fide addiction, yet, I think we've seen enough evidence to propose that it is a possibility. In the case of Nadya Suleman who had six children previously and then just recently had another 8 it's quite possible that she has an addiction to having kids. It can almost be seen in the case of the Duggar's who have 18 children. And this isn't a personal attack on either group, but it is evident that there is at least a possibility for a baby addiction.

"If you're just having babies to complete something in yourself that never got completed, you really are talking about an addiction." via the MSNBC article on the subject of Baby Addiction. While Jezebel Margaret asks if that isn't at least partially why most people have babies anyways.

I do believe that is the reason why most people end up having babies, but I think there is a stark difference between a woman who knows deep down inside her entire life that she was destined to have a baby and a woman who has more children than she can conceivably care for. The difference between these two women is that the first woman gets her need met. And her 'void' that she's trying to fill isn't always going to be something that could have been caused by a tumultuous incident from her childhood. The second woman, however is clearly suffering from the addiction. Her needs never get met and so she continues to reproduce children at an almost alarming rate, seeking out the missing component of her life. It is very easy to speculate that her emotional needs weren't met when she was younger and that she is seeking to have those needs met now by having so many children who will have to love her since she is their mom. And yes, I have accounted for women who believe they are meant to have large families. But most of the large families that I have personally known were not created to fill some need that has never been met.

This is something that I've been thinking about since I first read that post earlier today. And I was able to intelligently comprehend and contemplate both the article and the blog entry but it's merely due to the fact that I'm a seeker. I seek out knowledge and am happiest when I am learning new things.

Comerica Bank = Thieving FUCKS! ELIMINATE THE EPPI CARD NOW!

2009-02-10T09:42:00.009-05:00

Some people seem to be up in arms about the Comerica Bank MasterCard Debit Cards that people on unemployment in Pennsylvania are getting. And everyone who has one SHOULD be upset. They should be fucking enraged. They should demand that the state finds another alternative.

Then there are the people who are saying that anyone who has one of these cards is retarded. That it isn’t the only option, that they should go and get a bank account and opt out and instead use the direct deposit program. But there’s something that this group of people fails to realize, something that I learned from my stellar roommate who is, unfortunately, being screwed over by Comerica Bank as well through their EPPI Card program for Child Support payments.

Anyone can see the true nature of such a program merely by reading this post on the Consumerist and This article and this article. Go ahead, read those articles. This blog entry will still be here once you have finished reading them. I’d recommend reading them a couple of times, as well, which would give yourself enough time to recognize some interesting things that stood out to me immediately in those articles (aside from the scumbag bank of Comerica’s name being attached to the articles, that is).

In the post on The Consumerist, it’s clear as day. “Replacing checks with debit cards saved the state $2 million in processing and postage”. It's worded a little bit differently in the post from Philly.com. "The state did away with unemployment checks in 2007 in a move to put money into needy hands faster and save taxpayers $2 million a year in postage and processing." And in the article about Comerica being the bank to offer the Social Security and other government paid benefit cards? "The service is expected to reduce the governments cost of mailing benefit checks to recipients."

Are you noticing the trend yet? Every single program that offers a Comerica Bank card is purported to save money for those who issue them. So why, oh why, does ANYBODY think "Gee, all I have to do is just opt out of the debit card and get my direct deposit going"?? WHAT makes anyone think that Comerica will give up those fees in order to save YOU money? What makes anyone think that the State would be OK with this either?

The following will enrage you (if you have a shred of humanity inside of you that is), and will hopefully help anyone to understand just WHY these Comerica Cards are horrendous options:

My roommate gets child support payments for her son, and when she first started getting the payments they sent her an EPPI Card (Comerica bank LOVES the less fortunate), and information saying that instead of activating the card, you can send in the forms requesting direct deposit. Not wanting to be subjected to the nonsense fees, she destroyed the card and sent in the direct deposit forms. She was then under the impression that the checks were getting deposited into her son's savings account until they sent her a letter. Telling her that she had X amount of dollars on her EPPI Card and had Y amount of time to use it or else lose it forever. (Yes isn't that grand that Comerica likes to TAKE THE MONEY YOU DON'T USE). Since she destroyed the first card, she had to pay a replacement fee to get another card.

After she got the new card, she went down to the local Wachovia where her son has an account and was looking to transfer the money from the card to the account. The teller told her that they couldn't do it and that she would have to withdraw the money from the ATM and bring the money back inside. This wasn't just 50 bucks or so, this was roughly $2800...and ATMs have a limit on how much you can take out at a time. After everything was said and done, using the card this once cost her $7.50 and required her to leave almost $9 on the card since you have to take out money in even amounts. So chances are there will always be some amount of money that they take after it's been a couple of years if you are not allowed to transfer it all to a bank account.(I'm unsure as to why Wachovia told her no)

Whether it was the Bank or the State that ignored my friends request, I'm not sure. But I have a funny feeling that the bank calls all the shots right now since all the fees go directly to them and if they are, indeed, calling all the shots in terms of how people get the money, then why would they forgo the fees they collect from ALL the people in this country whether they have an EPPI Card, an Unemployment Debit Card or soon to be Social Security Debit Card (long sentence much?). Sure the fees seem small on the level of one, solitary person ($1.50 for every withdrawal made after the freebie each month, $1.50 everytime you transfer money from the card into a checking account, 40 cents to check your balance, $1 a month if you let it sit dormant for too long), but when you account for the fact that, in Pennsylvania alone, only 54% of people on Unemployment are using Direct Deposit, they're probably making a pretty good amount off of the 46% who have the cards. And that's just the Unemployment card. Let's not forget about the NATIONAL EPPI Card for Child Support Payments and that they are going to be the bank that your Social Security card will go through. They stand to make a lot of money off of their various card programs.

Let's now go into a parallel universe where banks don't care about making money and states don't care about saving money. Let's say that they DON'T ignore the cheaper-for-the-consumer requests for Direct Deposit. What about all the people who don't have bank accounts? Yes it can be a bit of a stretch in terms of who is getting the Unemployment Cards, but it isn't a stretch in terms of Social Security or Child Support.

Speaking for my grandfather exclusively, who gets Social Security checks, he refuses to keep all of his money in a single bank account. He also refuses to keep all of his money in a bank period. He grew up in the Great Depression and he's having a big ol' bout of Deja Vu right now and he's really glad that he doesn't rely on the banks to keep all of his money for him (he maybe keeps about 15-20% of his money in a bank at any given time). He's understandably nervous that the economy is going to tank just like it did during the GD and there will be a run to get money from the banks. It's reasonable to assume that anyone else who grew up in that time period, or was otherwise affected by that time period would be hesitant to keep their money in a bank whether in full or just partially.

So that's one reason someone may not have a bank account. And there are plenty of other reasons as well from a history of bad checks to bankruptcy to bad credit history (yep, banks can turn you down for an account if you have an exceptionally shady credit history, or make it VERY expensive for you by charging fees out the ass). It's safe to assume there's a myriad of reasons why some people may not have bank accounts. Even if they had jobs because, remember folks, having a bank account is not a requirement for having a job. After I started working to support myself, I didn't have a bank account for YEARS. I always just went to the bank the paycheck was drawn on and used cash everywhere. And I noticed the trend of not having a bank account of any kind in retail a lot: most people who worked for big companies (or any that would do this) would pay for a purchase with their paycheck and get the rest back in cash when they didn't have a bank account.

So why is it OK for Comerica to punish anyone who doesn't have a bank account with all these fees? The people who are getting money through their various National and State Debit Card programs are people who need EVERY SINGLE PENNY of that money. These are the Unemployed, the single moms (or dads) who are receiving child support payments, people who are no longer able to work and are on Social Security. These are the PINNACLE of people with FIXED, LOW-INCOME BUDGETS. These are the people who need that money WAY FUCKING MORE than the bank does or ever will. Yet Comerica insists on ripping these people off if they dare to have one of the various debit cards in the government run programs.

And the cherry on top of this shit sundae??? If you are "lucky" enough to have a regular checking or banking account with Comerica, as a customer, and you get a debit card with them....there's no hint of any of those fees.

When you take all this information as a whole, you quickly realize that Comerica Bank are a bunch of thieving bastards who are looking to further punish the poor, low income families in our country.

Let me say this again: COMERICA BANK ARE A BUNCH OF THIEVING BASTARD FUCKS WHO ARE RIPPING OFF THE POOR, LOW INCOME FAMILIES IN AMERICA.

Chuck Norris In His Most Stable State

2009-02-07T16:18:00.009-05:00

According to the Periodic Table of Awesoments, when is Chuck Norris in his most stable state?

Click to Enlarge

Based exclusively on the Periodic Table of Awesoments (see previous blog), Chuck Norris is in his most stable state when he has bonded with a Zombie-Bacon molecule, A Jedi Atom, An Assassin Atom, A Ninja Atom, A Sniper Atom, A Vampire Atom and a double bond with a Bacon Atom.

Correction: Atoms and molecules don't bond to Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris' gravitational pull is so strong they can't get away.

This is clearly the best time to ask Chuck Norris for a personal favor.

Nerding Out First Thing In The Morning

2009-02-07T11:51:00.006-05:00

OK Well it isn't really first thing in the morning, technically. But I started working on a little nerd project almost immediately after I woke up (and had my coffee and got over my period of crankiness that always comes every morning).

In the introductory chapters in my Human Biology book, we covered such things as what differentiates a living thing from a non-living thing (besides the obvious reasons, like a pulse...because plants don't have those. Ha) and had a brief chapter on chemistry, which led us into the molecules, proteins and other chemical makeups of cells and the human body (we're going from smallest thing to biggest thing in Human Bio...which means it's going to be a long time before we dissect anything).

In the brief chapter on Chemistry, we talked about the various elements and how the atoms like to bond with one another to ensure that their outer most shells are full so that they can remain in their most stable state. So for some reason I started thinking about atoms bonding to form molecules today when I woke up.

Then I started thinking about the periodic table of Awesoments.

Periodic Table of Awesoments (Click to enlarge)

Then I started thinking about how those various elements would bond with one another so they could remain in their most stable states and create molecules that are even MORE awesome than the original elements.

Right off the bat, I picked out Bacon (Bn) and Explosion (Ex). They could, theoretically bond to one another, but since there are only 2 electrons in the outer shell of Explosion, there can only be two double covalent bonds (In which Bacon and Explosion share their electrons, thusly filling the outer shell of only two Bacon Atoms) and four single covalent bonds, which would leave those four Bacon atoms open to unstable conditions (since Bacon requires a maximum of 2 electrons in its outer most shell to remain stable). Therefore, in order to have a properly bonded Bacon Explosion, the bonding requires another element from the periodic table of Awesoments.

Unstable Bacon Explosion (click to enlarge)

And that's when it occurred to me. The perfect additional element was in front of me all along. And I should have known it, too because you simply cannot have Bacon Explosion with just Bacon and Explosion. You need Sausage.

Sausage, as an atom, has 6 electrons in its outer shell and thusly needs two more electrons to make it more stable. Explosion also needs to have 8 electrons in its outer shell to create stability. In order to accomplish stabilization of Sausage, one can create a double bond on the outer shell of Sausage to create stability for both the sausage and the bacon. If you apply this to yet another Sausage atom, you have two molecules which one can bond to the Explosion in order to stabilize its outermost shell once it has the double bond of two bacon atoms as well.

The Stable Bacon Explosion (Click to enlarge)

By bonding the Sausage, Explosion and Bacon, the outer shells of all the atoms have been filled, creating a stable environment for all the atoms involved and, thusly, creating a delicious treat.

ANYONE But Corzine in 2009!

2009-02-06T11:28:00.004-05:00

The majority of the people who live in New Jersey have just about had it with Governor Corzine. During his time in office, he's managed to destroy this state so much that I'm surprised he hasn't set the entire thing on fire in an effort to rid himself of it.

So, in an effort to rally people against voting for him again* I've created a bumper sticker that I'm selling in my CafePress store

So, if you live in New Jersey, please buy one.
If you have a friend who lives in New Jersey, please buy one for them.
If you have a lot of free time on your hands and a bit of extra cash, feel free to buy a bunch and run around New Jersey slapping them onto random cars. That would be loads of fun, wouldn't it?

* I have no doubt that common sense will lead the way and result in Corzine not being re-elected, but I need to do something to help ensure that will happen.

Learnings From Biology

2009-02-05T22:17:00.004-05:00

In reading chapter 3 in my bio book this week, I learned something about cells in the human body.

I learned that a human liver cell is more similar to the liver cell of a cockroach than it is to any other cell in the human body. Admittedly, it may NOT be a liver cell, specifically, in the book, but it kind of works with any specific cell in humans and in animals.

For instance, what popped into my head IMMEDIATELY after I read that...

A human egg is more similar to a chicken's egg than any other cell in the human body (yes, eggs are cells bitches)....which means that eating a chicken egg is a hell of a lot more similar to eating human menses than I EVER THOUGHT.

Some things just can't be unlearned.

P.S. I do NOT apologize if I ruined eggs for anyone else. If this horrible thought has to enter my mind it has to be shared with other people. Yep.

Don't Sit In My Fucking Seat

2009-02-05T21:33:00.002-05:00

I've found out, recently, that my back bone is a lot stronger than it used to be. Well, more correctly, I'm more willing to work WITH my back bone instead of against it.

For instance, when I got to school tonight, some chick was sitting in my seat. That would have aggravated me either way, but there was something different about her. She was dressed like a pirate.

I'm not kidding. She was wearing black pinstripe pants tucked into brown leather boots and on top she had a white puffy pirate looking shirt with an orange shirt underneath which was longer than the white one so it looked like she had a sash around her waist. So a pirate stole my seat.

Let me take this time to note that my Biology teacher made a seating chart of which tables we are seated at for class so it is easier for him to 1) learn our names and 2) mark us as present or absent.

SO I'm figuring this chick randomly sat there on Tuesday as I was not in class. So she must have taken it upon herself to sit there tonight. I wasn't pleased at all. And I wanted to let her know it.

Busty: had my first bio test
Casey: Did it go well?
Busty: duh
Casey: LOL...I love your modesty.
Busty: some pirate looking bitch sat in my seat, though
Casey: Why for?
Busty: I have no friggen idea. I'm guessing, she sat there on Tuesday when I wasn't there. But the thing is....my teacher has our names written down on a seating chart for the room so he can know who is and isn't there
He got me marked present, but I made pirate noises at her after I sat down in my lab partner's seat
Casey: LOL...Really? Cool.
Busty: Yuh I was all "Arrrgh" and "Yo ho ho"
Casey: Never piss off a derby chick, by taking her seat....Even if you are a pirate.
Did she get the hint?
Busty: No I think she just thought I was crazy

But, hopefully she frets over it just enough to think "Oh God, if that girl is crazy, who knows WHAT she is capable of!" *obnoxiously high and annoying squeals of fear.

Move Over!

2009-02-04T09:35:00.005-05:00

Corzine signed the Move-Over law into legislation last week which imposes a fine on drivers who don't move over a lane for police and other emergency vehicles parked on the shoulder. I have mixed feelings about this new law and I'm still not sure if I really like it or if I don't like it at all.

See, when I was learning to drive, my mom told me that I needed to slow down, at the very least, and move over for emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road and highway. And I always do it whenever I am able to but there are most definitely times when I am not able to move over. There have been plenty of times when I have driven on 287 or 78 and have seen police cars and such parked on the side of the road and, as long as there is room for me to SAFELY move into the middle lane, I do it. Yes, that's right folks, I drive in the RIGHT HAND LANE....like you're supposed to....Drive right pass left....ok sometimes I drive in the middle lane, especially on roads like route 1, 18 or 22 or parts of other highways where people are constantly getting on and off the highway in the right hand lane but that's neither here nor there and is strictly a practice to avoid having to increase and decrease my speed constantly to accommodate the people who seem blissfully unaware that they are about to enter a 65MPH roadway.

But either way, I always TRY to move over. The people in the middle lane don't always let me do it, in which case I slow down below 65 mph to pass the emergency vehicles on the side of the road and then regain my speed after I have safely passed them. And I think that everyone should try to move over or at least slow down if they are passing emergency vehicles. It really is a safety concern. I've been in a situation where I was on the shoulder of a road in my car and people were just zip zip zipping along in the right hand lane without a care in the world which creates a hazard should I have decided to get out of my car for any reason. I can also safely say that, when a car travels too close to someone walking or standing on the side of the road and is traveling 30mph or faster, the force is enough to knock the person over if the car is merely going 30mph.

But I'm not a big fan of this law for the fact that you can't ALWAYS get out of the right hand lane for the emergency vehicles. Are they really going to let you argue that point? How would you be able to prove you had no chance to get over at all? While cop cars do have cameras in them, they tend to focus straight ahead and don't usually get side shots of the traffic traveling past the car. It'll assist them in giving out tickets to people who don't move over, but only provided the cameras are good enough in quality and resolution to properly display the license plate number without an issue or any discrepancy.

That brings up the other issue of how they are going to be giving out theses tickets. Are they going to be relying on the video cameras in the cop cars? Or are they going to be dispatching out extra police officers to the locations as a just in case? That's not going to be a fun thing to have to pay for...and it takes police men away from other places at which they could be stationed.

So let's imagine that they are, indeed, going to be relying on the cameras in the cop cars. Are they of a high enough resolution to properly display every single license plate that passes the cop car in the lane closest to it so that nobody can question it? cause if there's even a little bit of doubt, people will be able to fight and possibly avoid the ticket. Of course, there are other factors that could be used to identify that the car belongs to the person they're trying to issues the summons to, such as bumper stickers. Let's just say that if I were ever unable to move over for emergency vehicles, I would not be able to argue the point if I was driving my car. Yep, lots of stickers. Lots and lots of stickers.

Now let's say that they are able to pin the ticket on YOUR car, do you know how many people are going to argue that it wasn't THEM driving? It was someone else? Of course people are going to argue it....people argue it NOW when it comes to other photograph enforced tickets like ones at parkway tolls and such.

I want to move away from the video camera now. I'm thinking there might be other ways for them to attempt to enforce the ticket. Like, maybe they'll put different cameras in the cop cars all together that are set off by a car traveling in the lane next to it. A nice high resolution camera that will take indisputable photos of the car's license plate. I may be wishing for a bit too much there. Because the only other way I can imagine them enforcing this is to have extra cops stationed at the scene of the emergency vehicles.

More often than not, when I see a cop has someone pulled over, there usually is another cop car there. But they are usually there to serve as backup if it is needed. And I HAVE seen the second cop go after someone who speeds by, so I think it's fair to assume that if a cop was pulling someone over, and the backup car was there then they could go after people who didn't move over. But what happens if yet ANOTHER person goes by without moving over?

Now on to my final point. We have drivers in this state who drive WAAAAY too fast and then we have drivers who don't seem to notice the speed limit in the opposite direction. Every day nervous drivers get on the highways in NJ and take not only their lives but the lives of others into their own shaking hands. There have been many, many times that I have seen people driving on the highway at ridiculously low speeds that then proceed to slow down even more or STOP for other traffic getting on the highway. Something tells me that these same people will be slowing down to a very slow crawl and/or stopping in order to get into the middle lane of traffic, posing as a risk for drivers coming up behind them in the right hand lane and the drivers in the middle lane once they decide they DO have balls and WILL just go for it and jump into the middle lane at a turtles pace. This isn't a stretch of the imagination either, we have had many accidents in this state caused by nervous drivers. Need I mention a horrific and fatal accident caused by a pair of nervous people who SLAMMED ON THEIR BRAKES to avoid a ground hog??? on 287?! Yea.

I'm definitely over thinking this.

Basically, I think this law is going to be like all the other laws in NJ, great on paper, difficult to execute and pretty shitty in practice.

The laws and threat of fines that we have in place already haven't changed anything. Simply because people in this state pick and choose the rules and regulations they wish to follow.

Warning: This MAY Be a Little Biased. But I Don't Really Care

2009-02-03T17:09:00.005-05:00

Alright, I'm calling shenanigans on Mana Energy Potion RIGHT NOW.

I didn't even know this shit existed until about 5 minutes ago, when I read a blog on Gizmodo written by Jason Chen who chronicled the first hour after he drank it.

So I wandered over to the website to see just what the hell it was and that's when I read this:
WTF is a Mana Energy Potion?
Mana Energy Potion is the premium energy shot made by gamers for gamers. It's for long nights of gaming, partying, and the longer mornings that follow. It has lots of vitamins, no sugar, and no aftercrash.

Long nights of gaming and partying.

I buy the bit about gamers using it for energy during long nights of gaming. But I do NOT buy the bit about partying.

Nothing against gamers is meant in any way by this following statement, but: Most uber hardcore gamers that I know of don't party. And we're talking UBER UBER FUCKING hardcore.

"But what about the casual gamer?" you ask. Simple. I have reason to believe that only uber hardcore gamers would purchase an item such as the Mana Energy Potion and that no casual gamer would do such a thing unless they had some other, deeper cause or reason to purchase it (fanboy?). The reason I believe so is that when you're an uber hardcore gamer, nothing else really matters to you and you end up devoting every waking moment otherwise unoccupied by work/school to gaming and your games of choice. And because of this belief of mine, I believe that the statement made about gamers using it for energy while partying is foolish at best because as I stated before, all the hardcore gamers I have ever known did not go out and party. They devoted all their free time to gaming.

So I call Shenanigans on you, Mana Energy Potion for selling a potion that purportedly gives gamers energy to party all night when you KNOW they don't party.

Unless, of course, you're referring to a LAN Party. In which case....carry on.

ETA: And if there ARE any uber hardcore gamers out there who eat, sleep, breathe and copulate with gaming that actually DO party....by all means step forward and inform me and I will concede.

"so many people smoke weed recreationally that it's not all that taboo" - Tracie (Jezebel)

2009-02-03T11:22:00.008-05:00

Apparently, some people are up in arms about Michael Phelps' bong hit photo. Namely, Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View. She seems to think that if he's open to using illegal drugs while he's not busy winning a bajillion gold medals then SURELY he is open to using illegal drugs to advance his career.

Yep. That's right. According to Hasselbeck...pot is a gateway drug to steroids. Oh noes! Well, technically it could be if you think about it in the uber nerdy way that I think about it. One thing that I have learned thus far this semester is that steroids in human biology covers a wide variety of things including cholesterol. SO, if you think about it, she's SORTA right. Cause if you get stoned, and then get the munchies, you could easily be increasing the amount of cholesterol in your system if you don't snack on healthy items. Of course, she's not referring to THAT steroid. She's referring to performance enhancing steroids and as far as I or anyone else knows, cholesterol cannot be considered a performance enhancing steroid. Unless an opponent of yours has high cholesterol which prevents him from properly competing against you. But in that case, it's still doesn't technically enhance anyones performance because it's easy to look good next to someone who is clutching at their chest because their heart and arteries have been filled up with fat deposits and they are now suffering from a massive coronary attack.

I've always found the "pot is a gateway drug" thing amusing. I've known many, many people who enjoy pot in their free time and never move on to harder and more dangerous substances like they warned us about in elementary school.

In fact, Whoopi verbally bitch slapped Hasselbeck when she made that ridiculous statement in regards to Phelps. She admitted that she enjoys pot. So my favoritest blog ever, Jezebel posted a nice list of 35 celebrities who enjoy smoking pot. You can find that post Here.

I must admit, though, that some of them were fairly obvious (Snoop Dogg anyone?) but some were a little surprising. So go check the post and the list out. And check out Charlize Theron being all clever with her smoking apparatus (I love love love that picture of her ^_^)

ETA: And can I just say that if Michael Phelps tokes once in a while and was STILL able to win 8 friggen gold medals we should give him a couple more. And if he tokes ALL THE FRIGGEN TIME and was able to win those 8 medals, well, we should just rename the damn olympics after him. The Olymphelps. Kind of catchy.

Myron Cope's Official Terrible Cake

2009-02-01T13:37:00.002-05:00

Winning's a habit, not only a dream, go out and get them Steelers!

2009-02-01T00:05:00.003-05:00

Aside from the fact that I feel compelled to add a comma before "Steelers" in my title up there, I am super excited for the Super Bowl. I'm just hoping my friend Rich makes good with the promise of bringing Plavix for our arteries Monday morning.

I am, of course, referring to the delectable spread of artery clogging food that will be showcased at our Super Bowl party.

For starters, we're going to have some Tuna and lots of various dips (Some Bruschetta, Spicy Artichoke Dip, Guacamole galore, Hummus, and Ranch Dip) as well as cheese and crackers (nice, fatty fancy cheeses), 2 Bacon Explosions (A meat version and a vegetarian version) and a Terrible Cake.

We will be documenting the whole Bacon Explosion process with photos and hopefully will get some pictures of the Terrible Cake.

I got the idea for the cake from Cake Wrecks who posted a Grocery Store version of a "terrible cake" which was really just a cake slathered with Steelers Gold icing and the words "Terrible Cake" written on it. That's it. I'm actually going to make my cake look like the Terrible Towel. I even went as far as dying the cake batter a Steelers Gold color. And I also threw mini marshmallows into the mix for a yummy surprise.

And while all the delicious food we will be having is more than enough, I can't help but feel a bit of jealousy about this awesome snack spread:

Featured on Holy Taco and, I should note, created by them as well, this snack stadium is a thing to behold. They were also kind enough to tally the entire caloric content of this snack spread which packs in a whopping 24,375 calories.

You can tell they really put some thought into this, seeing as the Twinkies are a completely different type of snack and, thusly, serve as a wonderful dessert after you have finished chomping down on the chips and dips. They also serve as a holding place for all the chips to prevent them from falling into the field (dip).

Go out and get them, Steelers!

2009-01-30T20:57:00.002-05:00

So my friend tagged me in a "25 Random Facts" note on Facebook and I played along. I worked on it all morning between cups of coffee. And I wanted to just share it here as well.

1. I don’t trust male gynecologists. And it’s not because I think they’re going to molest me, but I have a hard time comprehending why a man would wake up one day and say “I want to be a doctor but I only want to look at vaginas every day for the rest of my life!” Yet, I’m fine with male porn stars because of the societal standards that straight men like vaginas in the sensual and sexual sense, so a guy wanting to have sex with girls every day for a living makes complete and total sense to me.

2. People who chew anything with their mouths open, and make the incredibly gross noise that comes along with it, irritate me to no end. Actually, it’s not the person that irritates me as much as it is the “cow chewing cud” sound that they make. It’s also been known to make me completely lose my appetite if I happen to be eating in the same area as that person. We’re not talking about a mild irritation here, we’re talking about a full blown desire to either rip their lower jaw off, sew their mouth shut or stab my own ear drums out so I can no longer hear it. Yes, I clearly overreact internally to such stimulus, but this is rooted in growing up in a household where you had to chew with your mouth shut no matter what. Punishment was imminent if you didn’t abide by that rule, so I’ve been stricken with this intense disgust of that habit.

3. The classification that I best fit into would be that of a nerd, especially when one takes this definition into mind: “A person who gains pleasure from amassing large quantities of knowledge about subjects often too detailed or complicated for most other people to be bothered with.” I enjoy learning things regardless of the subject. While I am more passionate about certain areas of study (like Psychology), I enjoy learning about subjects that I loathe as well (like Math).

4. I have never once been referred to as normal in my entire life until about 3 or 4 months ago. Now people keep telling me all the time that I am “normal” or the equivalence of such and it still shocks and amazes me that anyone thinks of me in such a way.

5. Back to the nerdy thing a bit…I am the student in class that seems to have or know the answers to all the questions asked. I’m the one that people make snarky remarks about, usually along the lines of “well I guess SHE’S getting an A….”. While their remarks are hurtful, I do get a sense of satisfaction from knowing that they are jealous and envious of my intelligence level. **ETA** I should mention that the remarks were more frustrating than hurtful when it was the students who didn't even TRY to do well.

6. Enough about me being oh so smart, I do stupid things all the time. One example would be when I burned my inner knees while flat ironing my hair one day. I was living in West Caldwell at the time and it was the beginning of summer and extremely hot so I was wearing shorts. While doing my hair, I dropped the iron and instinctively caught it between my knees and wound up with horrendously painful burns. It didn’t help much that I had to go to work an hour after that and that I worked as a waitress at the time. Yay me. (I should note that prior to this incident, I hardly ever wore shorts. And after this incident I returned to my habit of not wearing shorts.)

7. There are only two things that I truly like about being a girl (the clothes and the shoes), everything else just pisses me off or annoys me.

8. I live for coffee. Ok maybe that is a bit of a stretch but I very much so love coffee. And I’ve surmised that it isn’t even a caffeine thing since I am capable of not drinking coffee without getting a headache, which apparently happens to some people when they deprive themselves of caffeine. I just really like the way coffee tastes and smells.

9. I know that I definitely like knitting/crocheting/sewing (etc) more than I like other people. I’m starting to think that I like psychology more than I like people. Which is actually a strange notion when you think about it because it isn’t like psychology is more reliable than people, each has the capacity to evolve, grow and change. I just like psychology more, mainly because psychological theories won’t purposefully let you down without having an alternate theory or reasoning right around the corner. That and I just like reading the case studies because it makes me feel better about myself (which is kind of mean but hey, it’s the truth).

10. I also enjoy the company of animals more than I enjoy the company of most people. I spent my entire adolescence riding horses and working on farms and I also grew up with dogs and cats. I find that I am better at connecting and bonding with animals more than with people. It makes me sad sometimes but that’s just because animals make an occasional appearance now instead of being around all the time.

11. I am not a believer, meaning that I don’t think everyone is destined to find their one true love and soul mate in life. I don’t believe that there is one person for everyone. I do believe that we all have the potential to find one person we’re willing to spend our lives with and I think that it’s great for the people who manage to do this. But I don’t think there is anyone out there that I would manage to connect with on such a level that would make me want to spend the rest of my life with them. The closest thing I have to that would be my close friends because I find they are more important to me than a significant other.

12. Whenever I see elderly people out and about on their own, especially if they seem to have some physical ailment or disability that hinders their travels I get incredibly sad. Part of it is because I feel that one day I’m going to be in that position and part of it is because they never look happy to me and I feel bad because it appears that they have nobody close to them to assist them with such things.

13. This task is very difficult for me. I don’t hide much from people so naturally the stuff that I would include in this list could end up being intensely personal stuff and I’m finding it hard to find a comfortable balance between that and stuff that people would actually want to read about.

14. Anytime I find out that someone likes me (whether it be on a level of friendship or a slightly more intimate level), I immediately question their rationality and sanity. While I hardly enjoy the company of most people, I don’t really like spending time with just myself (hence why I’ll never just go for a walk. I need to have some task for my brain to perform because I cannot stand my own personal thoughts). And plus, I’ve had 15 years of people rejecting me for someone better and after a while, it tends to sink in and make you believe that there is always someone better than you.

15. In case you hadn’t noticed already, I’m not a terribly happy person.

16. Some people think that the reason I’m planning to go all the way through college and grad school is so I won’t have to pay back my student loan for a LOOOOONG time. This is only partially true. Actually, it’s more like a consolation prize for earning my doctorate. And you can bet that once I do I will insist that EVERYONE address my as doctor.

17. My dad is probably the only person that I miss intensely. He’s also the only person that I was really close to that passed away.

18. Hot dogs, especially dirty water dogs, are my weakness. When I was vegetarian, most of my slip ups were due to dirty water dogs. Their aroma is captivating and has wonderful associations to memories of my childhood, mainly going to get hot dogs from the dirty water dog carts on the side of a road with my dad.

19. I don’t get hungry anymore. For whatever reason , my body has felt it necessary to eliminate that basic function that tells me it is time to eat. Instead, I have to remind myself to eat at regular times or else I will wind up not eating which could lead to one of three possible outcomes. One: I get a massive headache. Two: I just don’t eat and then once I DO remember to eat, I overeat. Three: I pass out. Three hardly ever happens. It usually tends to be number 2 or number 1. I’ve also managed to go a few days in a row without really eating because I just never remembered to do so.

20. When I was in High School, I got salmonella poisoning from the chicken in the school cafeteria. Seeing as it was the only chicken I had consumed in 2 weeks and I had a positive diagnosis from my doctor at the time, I really wanted to pursue legal action against the company that provided the food to the school. But my mom didn’t want to, for some reason. I felt it would have been a good way to get extra money because it was a large corporation that provided food to schools and entertainment venues across the country and figured they would have gladly settled out of court.

21. My stomach has gotten worse over the years. I’m not sure if there is any causal relationship between the salmonella and the fact that my stomach is a factory of displeasure.

22. I feel like a bit of a let down to my dad, even though he passed away when I was 12. Every year on Thanksgiving, at my dad’s request (since his birthday was usually around that time of year), our family would go to a soup kitchen and serve dinner. Then, during the Christmas season, he volunteered to be Santa Claus for a local battered women’s shelter to hand out presents to the kids. He was also a big fan of donating toys to Toys for Tots. I feel like I’d be a disappointment to him because I haven’t volunteered at a soup kitchen in a while and I gave up on volunteering with People For Animals because of my intense dislike of one of the other volunteers and not wanting to put up with her piss poor attitude towards everything and everyone. She was NOT a pleasant person and I let that dictate how I spent my free time. I think he'd be sad about that.

23. I’m incapable of being embarrassed. Or, at least, that is what the most recent evidence has shown me. I’m not sure why I am not able to get embarrassed, but I think part of it is that I haven’t always had dignity or respect for myself. I definitely don’t have any shame.

24. The above statement, however, does not mean that I am unafraid to say whatever I want whenever I want to whomever I want. 90% of the time I won’t say things to people for fear of rejection rather than a fear of embarrassment. So needless to say, I am chock full of repressed thoughts, concerns and emotions.

25. If I ever found a time machine that would take me back to meet Sigmund Freud, I would simultaneously shake his hand, punch him and kick him in the groin. I think he’s kind of a pompous asshole.

Star Wars As Retold By Someone Who Hasn't Seen It

2009-01-23T22:14:00.001-05:00

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Bustyology - Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Busty

2009-01-23T11:51:00.002-05:00

***********FOODOLOGY***************
What is your salad dressing of choice??
Creamy Italian or Blackberry Poppyseed

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
I don't do sit-down restaurants too often, and when I do it is usually something like Charlie Browns (cause it's real close by) or Applebees.

What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of it?
Ramen. I could eat Ramen for a year and not get sick of it. In fact, I HAVE eaten it for a year.

What are your pizza toppings of choice?
Pineapple or Mushrooms

What do you like to put on your toast?
Cream Cheese. Cause that's how I roll

***********TECHNOLOGY***************
How many televisions are in your house?
I'm pretty sure there's only four. There could be some hiding in the basement somewhere, trying to avoid disposal.

What color cell phone do you have?
Red and black

***************BIOLOGY******************
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
I'm a righty

What is the last heavy item you lifted?
My laundry hampers. Yes, hampers. I am so fantastic that I didn't do laundry for two weeks. And I had two full hampers. Yay me.

Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
Not exactly. I've been knocked silly enough once that I blacked out for a few moments. This was back when I was 18 (maybe) and I was at the Stone Pony to watch my friends band play and since there was nobody else there besides their friends, I went a little silly dancing around and crashing into my friend Moose. For future reference, crashing in to someone with a nick name of Moose is NEVER a good idea. He returned the sentiment and sent me flying across the floor, where I smacked my head on it. Hence, I blacked out for a few moments and got myself a wicked concussion.

************BULLCRAPOLOGY**************
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Yes, that way I could do everything that I wanted to do before I kicked it.

If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I would want to either legally change it to Busty Yorneekaps or I'm not sure what else. Hrm. Oh, I got it. Princess Maria Conchetta Prissy Pants The Third

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
That depends. What type of hot sauce? Tobasco sauce? Or some special reserve brand? And how big of a bottle? Little? or large? There are several different factors that one needs to account for before one could legitimately answer a question of this magnitude.

************DUMBOLOGY******************
How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A lot. I can't count them since they're in out of season storage and I don't feel like digging thru everything so I'll try to remember.....lets see...I've got a pair of black ones, a pair of skull ones, a pair of bondage jeebus sandals, a pair of leopard ones and two pairs of fancy jeweled ones....that I can recall. so I've got at least 7 pairs of flip flops. That's far more than anyone ever needs to own at one time.

Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A cop helped me move back in June...does that count?

Last person you talked to:
Kathleen, Bone's mom. I'm picking her doggie up later today cause she hurt her knee :/ but yay furry lil boyfriend!

Last person you hugged?
My mom

**************FAVORITOLOGY****************
Season?
Fall, followed by spring in a close second

Holiday?
Halloween, duh

Day of the week?
I like Friday. A lot. although I'm quite fond of Tuesdays and Thursdays so far because of my cool ass bio class :D

Month?
October

***********CURRENTOLOGY*****************
Missing someone?
Yep

Mood?
Nonsensically unmotivated.

What are you listening to?
Nothing right now. Oddly. I usually always have to have music or the radio playing.

Watching?
Nothing

Worrying about?
Whether or not I'm going to be approved for unemployment because I'm a student.

***************RANDOMOLOGY*****************
First place you went this morning?
Bathroom and then downstairs to check my email and smoke a cigarette. Same thing I do EVERY morning.

What's the last movie you saw?
Hm. Well, I watched the Sex and The City movie the other night, though I've seen it before. And I also watched Choke, too. Seen that before as well but love it ^_^

Do you smile often?
Not really. I kind of smirk or sneer at people.

Do you always answer your phone?
No. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to talk to people. And the call goes to voicemail.

It's four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it?
I don't know but they better not be expecting me to reply because I'm usually deep in my coma of sleep by then.

If you could change your eye color what would it be?
I like my eye color.....for the simple fact they change color randomly. Sometimes they're gray, sometimes they're green, and sometimes they're a deep, smoky color. I like it.

What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?
I don't because until recently there hasn't been one in Jersey, but I just haven't found time to go to it, mainly because it's all the way down in Waretown. Far. Otherwise I totally would add all the yummy flavors....actually I'd probably not add anything at all cause I'm ordinary like that sometimes.

Do you own a digital camera?
Yep I do. Its a nice one too.

Have you ever had a pet fish?
Yep. We had pet fish growing up (tho they were technically dad's fish), and I had a Betta fish for quite a long time. Let's put it this way, when my mom told me he was dead I had no idea he had been alive for the two years prior to that moment. But way to shine, Dexter! And when I lived in Manalapan I had a bunch of fish that didn't last very long because, apparently, aquatic life HATES me. I have proof of this because I had sea monkeys at my office. Sea Monkeys. The easiest friggen thing to care for EVER and they all died. Thankyew

Favorite Christmas song?
Hrm Dominick The Donkey. Hands down. HAVE to listen to it all the time during the xmas season.

What's on your wish list for your birthday?
I've got a whole year before I need to think of this....

Can you do push ups?
I can do sissy girl push-ups really well. But what I'm REALLY good at is doing push ups against a wall. Ya kno, you walk over to the wall, put your feet at the bottom and press your hands against the wall. Then act like you're doing push-ups. Wall push-ups. Yep.

Can you do a chin up?
Are you new? No.

Does the future make you more nervous or excited?
I look to the future with equal parts anticipation and anxiety

Do you have any saved texts? Who are they from and what do they say?
I have one that was highly important. And I saved it so that I wouldn't have to scroll all the way back into my text log on the crackberry. And so I could delete everything else outta the message inbox.

Ever been in a car wreck?
Yep. A couple actually. None of them were ever my fault, though. But, of course, New Jersey Insurance Companies don't care because I totally should have known that my car was going to be in an accident and should have done everything within my power to avoid it at all costs.

Do you have an accent?
That entirely depends on my mood, who I'm talking to, what I'm talking about and how drunk I am :P

What is the last song to make you cry?
I got ambushed by that damn Christmas Shoes song on my way home from my mom's house on Xmas Day. I was flipping through the channels playing Christmas music and I happened upon that one during the SADDEST PART OF THE SONG. And if you don't well up even just a little teensy bit when you hear the kid saying how he just wants to buy the pretty shoes for his mom, who is dying, so she will look beautiful if she goes to meet Jesus that night...well then you have no SOUL.

Plans tonight?
Erm. I'm winging it.

Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom?
Yea. But I don't know that I have just yet.

Name 3 things you bought yesterday...
Coffee, cigarettes, and a bagel

Have you ever been given roses?
Yea

Current worry?
Wait.....this was asked before.....and the answer hasn't changed.

Current hate right now?
Meh. Stress.

Met someone who changed your life recently?
I suppose so because everyone changes our lives whether we realize it or not. With every breath we take life changes just a little bit. Deep.

How did you bring in the New Year?
I stayed home with my roommate, her mom, her son and a couple of friends. We drank and watched silly things on TV. And then drank really weird champagne/sparkling wine to ring in the new year. Oh and ate lots of delicious foods (pizza, appetizers and chocolate pecan pie)

What song represents you?
Chemical Bomb.

Name three people who might complete this?
Nobody would. I just do this to amuse myself. This is why I posted it in here instead of on my myspace

Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
Yes. But only if it wouldn't drastically alter the present. Oh wait....

Have you ever dated someone longer than a year?
Yes. Unfortunately the quality of person did not give reasoning to the quantity of time we dated.

Do you have any tattoo/piercing?
I have 11 tattoos. No piercings.

Will you be in a relationship 4 months from now?
I have no idea. I'm not in one now so my sources say NO.

Does anyone love you?
Yep.

Would you be a pirate?
Can I be a pirate who doesn't do anything???? I really want to be a pirate who doesn't do anything....

What songs do you sing in the shower?
Whatever is stuck in my head.

Ever had someone sing to you?
Yes, and it was scary

When did you last cry?
The other day, I stubbed my toe REALLY hard that I ended up crying from the pain. It was not fun at all.

Have you held hands with anyone today?
no

Who was the last person you took a picture of?
Buttercup. My zombie.

What kind of music did you listen to in elementary school?
Country and Oldies courtesy of my dad.

Do you believe in staying close with your exes?
So far I have not, but they all screwed me over and basically turned into people that I didn't want to even be friends with let alone date.

Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
Majority can be considered new, although I do greatly miss some of my old friends.

What is something your friends make fun of you for?
The list can go on and on.

Have you ever ridden an elephant?
Yes, yes I did.

Do you like to play Scrabble?
Yes, triple word score...booyah!

What are you saving your money up for right now?
Rent, Bills and other necessities. I'm not saving for any frivolous things because I can't afford that right now.

When is the last time you ate peanut butter and jelly?
The other night. Smuckers Uncrustables. Yea!

What song do you want played at your funeral?
Funeral? Who says I'm having a funeral? Can I just get stuffed and mounted like a grizzly bear?

What were you doing 12 AM last night?
Watching True Blood. I'm hooked on that damn show, now.

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
"Where the frig is my bite guard?" Yes, I'm THAT cool folks. I now use a bite guard while I sleep because apparently I've been clenching and grinding in my sleep. The first time the dentist told me, I just let him adjust my bite and shrugged it off. The second time he told me, I again let him adjust my bite and shrugged it off. After that visit I felt OK for the most part. Then the other day my jaw hurt like crazy and chewing started to hurt again. So to save myself the "bite guard" lecture (I already know he is TOTALLY going to say "well then why didn't you get one the FIRST time I told you?" so I want to save myself from hearing "Wait, you STILL haven't gotten one??") I picked one up the other night. I feel like a complete goon when I wear it but *shrug* it's better than having to get my bite repeatedly fixed :D

A New Day Brings A New Future

2009-01-20T08:52:00.005-05:00

Today is a big day, inauguration day. The day we'll have our first Hawaiian president sworn in to office. It also marks the first day of my third semester at Raritan and what could potentially be a hard semester for me.

I'm not even concerned with the fact that I'm taking three online courses. I'm disciplined enough to do all the work for those classes just fine. It's more the subject matter of the classes that could prove difficult. But I'll do the best that I can and hope for the best.

It's a little weird, though, because I'm not really concerned with the psychology class and I'm only moderately concerned with the biology class. But even then, I'm not terribly worried about it being hard because I've always proved to be a big, old science nerd. I'm more concerned about my math classes because I stink at math. Big time. I can only hope that the math teacher I have this semester is better than the one I had last semester. She wasn't helpful at all. I just need to hope that I get the minimum passing grade for both my math mods so that I can move on to a for real math class.

That's the thing that gets me about the 'remedial' math classes. They don't apply to my GPA. They don't affect my academic standing unless, of course, I didn't take them, then the school would demand I take them. No, seriously. They sent me a letter via e-mail telling me that since I failed it fantastically last semester, that I had to take it this semester. And I had to pass. Otherwise it could affect what classes I could register for in the future. Meh.

But to mark the ushering in of a new period (in terms of school and presidency), I got my hair cut yesterday. It's not a hugely drastic change, but I needed a change and this was a good time to go and do it. There's just something to be said about starting the new semester (and, thusly, my second year at Raritan) off with a new hair do. New hair color, too. I dyed my hair a couple weeks ago, the day before my last dentist appointment, and I wanted to get it cut but I didn't feel like doing it myself. So Bone and I went over to Sparks, yesterday, in New Brunswick and we both got our hair cut.

I basically told the stylist my requirements (I didn't mind losing length, but didn't want to lose a LOT of length. I wanted to keep my bangs but I wanted 'side swept' bangs instead of blunt bangs. I wouldn't mind keeping layers if they were able to be rescued from my 'self cutting' ways. And I wanted something that I didn't have to fuss with all the time). Which, apparently, made me an easy client because I let him do what he felt was best for my hair and face. He basically just fixed my layers, took about 2 inches off (to remove damaged ends), and fixed my bangs.

OK I just saw a "Total Gym" commercial (the home gym that Chuck Norris endorses) and he TOTALLY looks like Ned Flanders in the commercial. Yes, I realize that was completely random, but this is what happens when I blog in front of the TV.

Oh, and the stylist told me he stands behind all his work and will fix anything that gives me an issue should I need it, no matter how small a problem it may be. I'm just hoping that it will, indeed look better when it dries than before. And with less 'anti-frizz' product. I guess I'll find out after I wash it for the first time.

So, yes, I am sporting a new hair do for my first day back at school and I'm terribly excited to attend my first Bio class tonight. I'm also looking forward to going to the bookstore and getting my books before class. That's gunna be an interesting thing. I have to get 2 books for bio, 1 book for my creative writing class and 2 books for my psychology class. Luckily, I don't need a new math book....I hope. I didn't check online and I will check while in the book store but it is doubtful that they changed the book. They love that retarded math book oh so much.

Now, This is Assuming You Still HAVE A Job....

2009-01-19T19:48:00.004-05:00

Is it just me, or is this a pretty inappropriate way for Facebook to get people to play their little games?

OK so it's not really facebook as much as it is the developers that made Scramble.

And maybe I am just a big, huge, whiny baby.....but I totally sent feedback on this to facebook AND the developers at Scramble. It's a fun game and all but it really isn't THAT fun that people should be ditching work to play it.

Yea, yea it's light hearted comment, I get that, but I still don't really find it amusing at all that it popped up in my notifications.

Meh. I am a big, huge, whiny baby. But I don't give a shit right now :P

Who Do You Think Will Die in 2009?

2009-01-14T21:55:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday, while awaiting the 'storm' that we never got, Bone and I signed up for a death pool on Cash4Cadavers. It was $20 for 20 hopeful stiffs and I had so much fun picking people. At first, I just started off picking old people, but then I actually started putting thought and a minuscule amount of wikipedia fueled research into my picks. I finally got an e-mail regarding my roster and I wanted to share it, and the reasoning behind some of my picks, with you

1. Keith Richards: Hey, he has to die eventually, right? So I figure I have a 50/50 chance with him.

2. O.J. Simpson: He got away with murder and he's going to jail for robbery. I highly doubt his prison term will be uneventful and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a shivving.

3. Esther Williams: Honestly, I was surprised that she's still alive. She was just a "oh, she's alive and old?" pick. No reasoning behind it whatsoever.

4. Kitty Wells: Yet another "she's alive and old" pick.

5. John McCain: He's old, he had cancer, he just went through a grueling and stressful campaign to try and become president. And he lost. The man has to have stress in his life, so I'm thinking he'll either have a relapse or he'll have a heart attack.

6. Willie Nelson: He's on this list for his age, and also because he is on my list of people I want to meet. So why would I put him on my death pool list? Well, that's just because the list of people I want to meet before they die has dwindled down to a piddly and pathetic number in recent years because they all seem to be dying off on me. So I may as well try to make some money off it, right?

7. Christopher Lee: He's an old, pompous ass. No, seriously, go watch any of the LOTR movies that has a Christopher Lee commentary track. Yes, I realize that's not a reason, but, carrying around all that ego must be exhausting...

8. Nate Dogg: This is Snoop Dogg's cousin, and it was my first pick that I put a lot of thought into. OK saying "a lot of thought" is kind of stupid, because I really didn't put lots into it. I just searched around online and discovered he has recently had 2 strokes and is now paralyzed on his left side. They say the prognosis is good but that's not an easy road to recovery, there, so I think he's more of a sure thing than any of the other old people on my list.

9. Brett Michaels: Oh c'mon. This shouldn't be a HUGE surprise, he's got diabetes and he drinks. A lot. He doesn't lead the healthiest lifestyle at all, but this one is definitely my long shot.

10. Morrissey: Yea, I'm not sure why I picked him at all.

11. Bill Cosby: Another old pick

12. Steve Jobs: Anyone who DIDN'T pick Steve Jobs is just trying to kid themselves. He had health issues, backed out of Macworld, said his health issues were just hormonal, but he's lost tremendous amounts of weight recently. And there's a glimmer of hope for this one kicking it...he just took a leave of absence from his position as the CEO and Chairman of Apple, because it's worse than he had first realized. It'll be a sad day for nerds everywhere.

13. Stephen King: Again, this is a pick from my "people I want to meet" list. Sadly, Mr. King is getting on in years and his health is not as up to snuff as it once was. There was a while after he got hit by that car years back that they thought he would die. So, I figure the imminent death granted to those on my "people I want to meet" list would kick him off it sooner rather than later.

14. Anne Rice: Another "people I want to meet" pick.

15. Ozzy Osbourne: And yet, ANOTHER "people I want to meet" pick. He was actually the last person I picked off of that list and makes sense to me. He's done far more than his fair share of drugs in his life and he's paid for it. Hrm. I've got my fair share of substance abusers on this list as you'll see as you keep reading.

16. James Gandolfini: two words: heart attack.

17. Patrick Swayze: He is definitely the popular pick for this year, I can already tell. I picked him, Bone picked him and a few other people picked him as well from what I read so far. He's got pancreatic cancer and was just recently admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. There isn't a long life expectancy for people with pancreatic cancer as it is and he's a smoker. He might as well just be playing russian roulette

18. Shane MacGowan: He's in his 50's and he claims to have first gotten drunk while 4. He drank hard his whole life and still does. Something's gunna have to give at some point.

19. Bernard Madoff: I think his death is imminent as well. And I have a strong feeling that it will either be a suicide or a homicide. A man who dicks over THAT many people out of THAT much money does not live very long. I used to watch the Sopranos, I know what happens when you dick people over in regards to money.

20. Ringo Starr: This one was a little bit harder. I wanted to pick one of the remaining Beatles so I used a scientifically proven method; eenie meenie, miney moe. Yep.

So that's my death pool. sure, some of my picks are a bit of a stretch, but I have a good feeling about this.

Stupid Girls

2009-01-13T22:47:00.017-05:00

Most who know me know that I adore the VH1 reality shows, especially all of the Rock of Love shows. So naturally I've been watching the new season, and if there's one thing I will take away from this season is a very valuable lesson that everyone should learn at some point in their lifetime. And that is how not to behave on TV...or in public....or ever.

There are many good instances in just the first two episodes alone that act as shining examples. Actually, the whole two episodes are basically one long PSA on excessive drinking, although something leads me to believe that the whole season will be, yet I'm not quite sure just what it is....

And here is my breakdown of the first two episodes:

First, Bret met the girls and took their photos, and Gia was the first to strip down

Then, the girls got to join Bret at a concert and get drunk. And drink they did. Gia made out with another girl on the stage behind Bret at his concert, and then later at the after party.

She then let Nikki do a shot out of her cooter. Yep. You read that right. Cooter shot. Class, this girl has it.

The girls drank and fought and bickered and made out and fell down and drank some more and then they all went to sleep. The next morning, the girls hung out at a hotel room while Brett did Brett-like things elsewhere. Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-uh)took it upon herself to drink all the tequila in a 50 mile radius while the other girls chugg-a-lugged on some beer and champagne. It didn't take long for the tequila to cause this lovely scene

And VERY shortly after, this happened

Marcia did munch on some doritos beforehand, so at least the spicy, cheesy flavor helped to at least remotely cover up the taste of tequila vomit.

And a short time after the face-suck fest

Marcia attacked the Juliette Lewis looking girl who happens to have the same name as me. JL-Twin was actually being a douche the night before BEFORE the concert while they were hanging out on a bus. She was mocking Marcia's appearance and lack of perfect pronunciation in the English language (She's from Brazil) so the girls had a tiff (which really was just Marcia dumping a drink on JL-Twin) and then the had it out again the next day. Surprisingly, it didn't result in Marcia getting kicked off the show. Usually anytime there is outright violence on a show the offenders go home fast.

But she ended up sticking around.

Then, of course, there were the eliminations which some took as a time to reflect on the short time they have spent on the show and with Bret, and others took as a time to show off their stylish swim wear.

Then Bret sent 5 girls packing:

Surprisingly, Gia and Nikki were both eliminated. I guess Bret is definitely, for seriously serious this time cause old ROL Brett would have totally kept the sleaziest girls hang around. The production company would have insisted upon it because they would make for outstanding ratings.

The newest episode is just as hilarious. Bret challenges the girls to write wedding vows and give him a gift to express to him just who they really are. And express themselves they did.

When they arrived at the church, they were informed of the giant wardrobe of clothes and accessories they had at their disposal to make themselves more appropriate for a faux wedding.

I'm not going to subject you to pictures of just every girls outfit after this, because they are all basically the same. Pink and black corset set, boobs about to pop out. Only Farah was 'clever' enough to wear that atrocious hat.

And speaking of Farah, her vows promised to let Bret hit it from behind once in a while, and party all the time. Fair 'nuff I suppose. Marcia promises to cook for him and never wear panties. Constandina belly dances and Stephanie tells Bret that she's easy. A lot.

And then there's Beverly. The one girl who has ever been capable of winning my heart from the first episode. She is nothing, and I repeat NOTHING like the other girls. So it isn't any surprise that she didn't slut it up for her faux wedding vows.

Natasha gave Bret one of the most original gifts. She got him a blow up doll that looks like her inflatable plastic twin, and tells him he can have sex with it when he's not around her.

Yes. Great. Just what every man wants, a frigid, uncomfortable plastic object that some say is supposed to resemble vadge to stick your peen in. Yaaay plastic sex?

Mindy gives Bret a plaster cast of her torso, which she made herself. I guess she felt secure in that decision given that Natasha gave him a blow up doll. But, the openings in her chest cast are not sized for plaster sex....but then why would she want him having sex with her replicated torso? Melissa gives him a $2 bill that she 'wished' for him on after the end of the last season. Megan the animal trainer gave him a small menagerie of stuffed animals (she trains wild animals, so I guess she thought it was a fitting 'momento' of her).

Then, not to be outdone by a sex doll and a no-sex torso, Brittanya gives him a piercing, from her vagina. And tells him that once they are friends (hah friends) she'll let him search for where it goes.

And then finally, Taya, the elitist Penthouse Pet. She gives Bret two nekkid photos and the lingerie she wore in them.

Bret then picks three winners who will go on a date with him. He picks Brittanya (duh, she just guaranteed him an up close and personal experience with her vadge), Farah (Butt sex, it gets them every time) and Taya because used underwear is hotter than new?

Then Brittaney freaks out.

And somebody lets Marcia get into the tequila again

And then she gives Bret a lap dance.

And then all the other ~~slut bags~~ less than classy girls give him a lap dance too. And Brittaney sits and sulks until she apparently gets fed up or just gets drunk enough to go throw on a bathing suit that really doesn't cover enough. Really. It's totally inappropriate to post on here. Actually, I just don't have a picture of her in her bikini right now, and I can't be bothered to go find one. After the lap dances, they go inside to play a trivia game for the chance to win one of three all-access passes. These entitle the holder of the pass to a free "alone moment" with Bret. But....Bret's really drunk and after attempting to play, he just picks three random girls: Brittanya cause he's probably hoping that hey, maybe SHE'S drunk too and he'll get to have his up close and personal time with her vadge that very night! Natasha because he might be hoping to get it on with her AND her sex doll. And Taya, the Penthouse Pet. Hellooo. She's got all the sex appeal and none of the skeezy "Ew she had sex with guys for pay" vibes that ex-porn stars have.

And speaking of ex-porn stars, Brittaney freaks out again

And takes it out on Natasha

Who bites back. But then I guess Brittaney must have instantly realized that she sounds like a complete ass, or was scared of Natasha because she immediately freaks out again, this time in a moist way.

and cries that she isn't racist because he grampa is black. Right. That gives you an automatic "get out of racist jail free" card. She winds up hiding in an alien themed room, crying in an alien themed bed (which looks like a UFO), crying that she wants to go home.....you can't make this stuff up folks. You really can't. Although, it wouldn't surprise me if she went to freak out in some other room and the crew came up to her and said "Uh, ya know, we were thinking and we think it would be pretty awesome and memorable for the viewers if you went and cried that you wanted to go home in the UFO bed..."

So, Bret takes the three inappropriately dressed winners of the wedding challenge (that would be Brittanya, Farah and Taya) to a farm for a hayride and lunch. Taya was the only one smart enough to wear jeans....I think...they were awfully tight so it was a little hard to tell.

The girls not on the date? Well, they get drunk. And apparently that's what a couple of them needed. Namely, JL-Twin and Marcia. They're pals now. Thanks to the magical bonding properties of tequila. Yaaay tequila!

Oh, I forgot to mention how, in the first episode, Melissa decided the best course of action was to tell Bret she wouldn't be able to put up with the girls and their crazy ways, and yet, she was willing to put herself through psychological torture for him. Aw, well, I guess the consolation there is that while he may wind up with a schizophrenic, babbling mess of drool, he'll know that she did it all for him. Now that's love. I think.

But I was shocked, SHOCKED, when she did it in the second episode! Did she not watch season 1?? Does she not remember Sam who pulled the same exact act?? One minute Sam was all loving being there, on her way to loving Bret and then next thing you know she was off in some corner crying about how she wanted to go home. Although Sam gets more credit because she didn't say it in the first episode like Melissa did.

So Melissa reveals this whole psycho side of herself to Bret again, and then Constandina drops a HUUUGE bomb onto Bret. She took a vow not to have 'all-the-way' sex for three years. Three. Years. Bret wonders if she took the vow three years ago, but I need to ask...all-the-way sex? Usually when someone takes a vow of chastity, that means EVERYTHING, not just all-the-way sex. I'm guessing this is the slut's version of a chastity vow, which is eerily similar to the slut's version of virginity. "I didn't lose it if I didn't go ALL the way..."

Then...Brittaney freaks out again. But this time she freaks out to Brett about how nobody likes her, everyone hates her, guess she'll eat some worms. But he tells her to shut it, because he has to prepare for eliminations. And in this season, time schedules are strict....in the edited, forced perspective version of the show that the home audience sees.

Bret then eliminates Constandina, Stephanie and Megan. Cause, what does he want from a girl who professes to be easy, a girl who gave him stuffed animals and a girl who won't have all-the-way sex with him? Not a damn thing since he has the easy, non-stuffed animal ALL THE WAY (WOO!) girls on the buses.

I'm looking forward to the next epsiode because not only does he make the girls play baby bret hockey (with Lacey!), but he also cusses one of the girls out during eliminations. And I bet we can be treated to more of Brittaney crying and Melissa acting like a scarier Sam.

Tattoos For Blind People

2009-01-12T23:17:00.005-05:00

I've been getting tattooed since I was 15. Yep. I'm that chick. No, not that one, my mom signed for my tattoos prior to me being 18. In fact, she signed for my first three tattoos and my first non-ear piercing. I've noticed, over the years, that some of my tattoos swell in random spots for random periods of time at seemingly random moments. OK the spots aren't really random. It's everywhere that black shading ink was used (not liner ink) that ends up swelling. I've never been too terribly curious about it until recently, tho, because I have always thought it was a common occurrence. It IS a pretty common occurrence, but I wasn't sure what caused it, until now.

But first...a little back story.

My cousin and her friend stopped by earlier tonight because they had both gotten tattoos done at Revolver in New Brunswick and wanted to show me. We hung out, watched a movie, etcetera, etcetera. As they were getting ready to leave, they asked me some last minute tattoo after care questions. ("Is it OK to use cocoa butter after the first week?" "How often do I wash it?"). It's always best to ask your heavily inked friends how they keep their tattoos looking perdy. *wink*.

And that is when we got on the subject of reactions to ink and various after care products. I casually mentioned that I think I have a particular reaction to black shading ink since, at random times, the black parts of my tattoos get itchy and swell up. Or, rather, they swell up first and then get itchy, and it is only when I go to lightly rub them (I never scratch my ink cause that's how I roll) that I notice they have raised up. It is then that I refer to them as tattoos for blind people. I also think my skin has a special reaction to black shading ink because it doesn't take that color black on nearly as strongly as it takes on the black liner ink. No matter how well a tattoo artist colors in my black, it always ends up looking haggard and faded after the healing time has passed. But, then, my body does the same with ALL the color inks....except white for some reason. But I can't just go around getting all white tattoos....nobody would see them! OK that's not true. I'm pale. But I'm not THAT pale. Everyone always says my body holds white really well, for some damn reason. And, anyways, the color doesn't swell up and itch like the black does, so I think black shading ink is a completely different beast than black liner ink according to my finicky, persnickety skin.

Anyways, back to my braille-rific tattoos. I've never seen a rhyme or reason as to why they raise up when they do. And I've never put thought or research into it at all until tonight and I've actually learned something. I was extra curious about it because the reason I casually mentioned it to them was that the black parts on some of my tattoos had started to raise up. And now I was determined to know WHY. It is just my body reacting to the ink. It is phototoxicity (of sorts) at its finest.

A basic rundown is that the body reacts to the pigments and minerals in the ink when it is exposed to: A) sunlight B) heat or C) something internal.

Whenever I go out in the sun in warmer weather (I need not worry about this in winter since my blood pressure levels of doom have assured that I will forever look like an eskimo if the temperature dips below 40), I always keep my tattoos slathered with sunscreen. But that's because I'm anal and I don't want them getting anymore faded. We're talking SPF 50, here, motherfuckers. I soak myself in it before exposing my tattoos to the sun. And religiously apply it every few hours. And I try to avoid direct sun exposure as much as possible. I'm also anal about rinsing my inked skin off after I go into a swimming pool because I fear an adverse fading reaction to the chlorine. This may just make me crazy, though. The jury is still out on that one. But since it is currently winter, and the temperatures haven't gone above 35 all day, I am safe in assuming that exposure to sunlight is NOT the cause of this bumpy mess.

So we turn to option B, which is heat. I have noticed that when I'm overheated I tend to get the bumpies and raising a little bit more frequently. For a good example, I will refer to tonight. Well, let's start with today, actually. I went into the city for a seminar today, and was freezing my ass off when walking back to the train station. I was so chilled by the time I got home that I put a big ass hoodie on to warm me up nice and quick. I also left my long sleeve shirt on. I have an overheating problem. My body is always overheating, apparently. Or it heats up far too much which is why I sweat so damn much. And I have the pit stains to prove it. I know, sexy, right? Damn straight. So let's say, for arguments sake, that my body is over-heated for its own comfort level. So my tattoos with lots of black shading ink raised up tonight. But, of course, that is to say that the tattoos on my legs and upper arms with black shading ink raised up tonight. The stars on my lower arms NEVER swell and raise. Never. Nor does the black and gray faerie that I have on my shoulder. Different type of skin, I suppose. But. I've been drinking. And drinking lowers your body temp rather than raises it like some believe.

That leaves us with something internal. Well, in one post I read a gentleman replied and said that sometimes it happens to him when he has had a few beers. I've had a few beers tonight. As previously stated, alcohol does NOT raise body temperature. This is a big, old, fat myth. It does, however, dilate the capillaries and fill them with more warm blood, which makes it FEEL like your body is getting warmer. But it really just lowers the body temp. So it is safe to assume that the capillaries in my body are getting more warm blood in them as I drink (which I am doing right this very.....second. Yum), and is creating the reaction to the black ink that I am experiencing.

So the things that I have learned tonight have helped me to figure out the various reasons that my tattoos swell where there is black shading ink. And only black shading ink. My body is weird. It reacts differently to various situations and therefore, the black parts of my tattoo (outlines excepted) swell and itch when I either get too much exposure to the sun, over heated or exposed to higher amounts of heat than my body likes (picky, bitch ass body....) or I drink. Does it always happen to all of these instances no matter what? I'm not sure. I'll have to keep tabs on some of my tattoos in these various instances when I'm conscious enough to notice a difference, in other words, when I'm not sleeping or otherwise unable to take note of the reactions.

Just a Random Post to Start The Day Off

2009-01-12T09:01:00.003-05:00

I'm going to be trying to blog more, in this coming year. And not necessarily on this blog, but on my knitting blog as well. I've all but abandoned my livejournal, only updating when I feel the need to which isn't often at all. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I get logged in to my blogger account when I'm logged into my gmail account. But my goal for my blogspot blogs is to post at least once a day to each.

I'm very thrilled with the outcomes of last nights football games. The Giants vs. Eagles game was a win/win for me because I'm fans of both teams so either way I knew I would be happy with the results. And I'm thrilled that the Steelers won against San Diego. I've not been the hugest fan of the Steelers in the past but I find that I'm growing to like them more as time goes on because it's really hard to dislike them when you live with someone from Pittsburgh. So I'm holding out hope that the Steelers stomp all over the Ravens and the Eagles kill the Cardinals cause I think a Steelers/Eagles Superbowl would just be awesome. I have a running theory that if that were to happen, the state of Pennsylvania would implode upon itself. We'll just have to wait and see, now, won't we?

Dolphins love New Jersey. And I'm not talking about the team from Miami, I'm talking about the marine mammals. The dolphins that took up residence down in the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers last summer are still there. Of course, they played a little trick on people by making their way towards the ocean, and people thought they were finally going to go back to sea, but I guess that it was either an elaborate prank or the dolphins chickened out at the last second cause they're still there. I don't know why they like that damn river so much. It appears, according to an article on NJ.com, that the dolphins who attempted to go back to the ocean on Saturday were scared back into the river by construction, and that they tried again on Sunday and turned back again due to unknown reasons. I'm just hoping that the dolphins get back to the ocean eventually and without anymore of them dying. Though it would be a funny thing to have dolphins taking up permanent residence in those two rivers. It's not like we haven't had oceanic critters hanging out in our rivers before. Way back in the day in 1916 a bull shark swam up through the Matawan Creek in Matawan and attacked people. But that's more "I'll bite your legs off" than "lookit me I'm a cute ass dolphin". I'm sure Jaws would have been a completely different movie had it been cute ass dolphins.

Madoff's bail ruling is set for today. I'm holding out hope that his bail gets revoked and he goes to jail. That could be completely due to the fact that I have him in my 2009 death pool. But part of it is due to the fact that this guy scammed and screwed over so many people that I find it hardly fitting for him to be staying in his penthouse.

NJ just filed for a 13 week extension of unemployment benefits for 60,000 people in the state. Oof. I haven't even started my benefits yet. I haven't gotten my mailer packet, either. Hrm. I'm trying to remember how long it took to get my packet the last and only time I was on unemployment. I'm sure that everything is probably running a lil bit slower than it was then given the fact that so many are getting laid off from work. I'm really just keeping my fingers crossed at this point that everything goes well with mine.

International Wines of Mystery

2009-01-11T12:51:00.002-05:00

In an unprecedented move, we cleaned the kitchen today. And by we, I mean Bone. But it got cleaned up. So that's good. But don't for a moment think I don't share in the house work. I often clean up during the week and Bone cleans up on weekends.

I went upstairs after she had cleaned it up and I noticed two additions to our collection of alcohol on the counter.

We aren't sure where they came from or why they are here. But we have a giant bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio (my fave) and a half jug of Carlo Rossi Paisano wine. That's where the international part comes in.

I won't turn my nose up at free wine of mysterious origins, though if I am suddenly found dead due to poisoning, well, you'll know what did me in.

The Gigantic, Nerdy Sponge-Like Brain of DOOM

2009-01-07T10:23:00.005-05:00

I finally got all of my grades back. It took a while to get my English grade, given that the new semester starts in 2 weeks, but that makes sense because while my English teacher only had one class, there were roughly about 12 or so of us in the class by the end of the semester. And the final consisted of 2 parts, one where we had to correct grammatical and sentence structure errors as well as write an essay about two pieces we read for homework. So part one was probably pretty easy to grade, since she had an answer key I'd hope. But the essay part was probably what held everything up for so long. 12 essays is a lot. Especially to have to read and grade within a set period of time.

But I am proud to say that I finally have my grade, and final GPA calculation, and it is awesome. Not in the original sense of the word, however, but more in the "dude, awesome!" sense. My English grade does confound me a little bit because I'm just a little unsure of how I was able to pull it off. See, I got an A, and I'm so not complaining about that, but I only got one A on any of my papers. Coincidentally, that was also the paper that she had read twice and graded lower the second time. Clearly she liked it less the second time around.

I did get good grades on the reading quizzes, rarely getting less than 4 points (they were all worth at least 5 points and most had bonus questions). I also only did about half of them. Attendance in my English class, for me, was spotty at best. But it was not anything that could be held against me. Except for one. One night I decided to play hooky and gave her an excuse about my car. But every other night that I was unable to attend was for legitimate reasons (mostly of the health variety). That's also part of why I'm taking so many online classes this coming semester, cause if I'm sick I can still do my work at home, no big deal.

I must have nailed the final, tho. I know I got a B on the midterm, which was pretty sweet considering my haste in taking it. Well, it can't really be called haste, I'm a fast test taker. That's all there is to it. I'm also a pretty fast writer when it comes to essays. I always prepare adequately before in class essays by way of reading the texts again and annotating them as well as formulating thesis ideas in the margins of my books. But I must have done pretty damn well on the final, no?

Like the midterm, the first part was grammatical and sentence structure errors. And one part was a story (about a paragraph long) which contained 20 grammatical errors. We had to go through and correct 15 of them at least to get full credit for that section. I found and corrected all 20. Cause I'm a nerd like woah.

But a good grade on the final is the only reason that I can figure for my getting an A in the class. But, again, I'm totally not complaining at all.

But because I got an A in my English class, as well as in my Abnormal Psychology class, I was primed for a good GPA this semester. My GPA for the semester itself is a 3.60, not bad at all (The B in my Italian class is what took the final .40 points off of it). And my new cumulative GPA is a 3.45. Much closer to a standard B average. I'm trying really hard to get it up a little bit higher every semester. And next semester I hope to bump it up again.

I'm looking forward to the start of my classes with an equal mix of anticipation and nervousness. Anticipation because I get to take another psych class, a biology class and a creative writing class along with my required math classes. Nervousness because I am taking a psychology and biology class in the same semester as my math classes. Yipes! But I have faith in myself that I will do just as well this coming semester as I have done in the two semesters prior.

2009-01-01T01:16:00.000-05:00

So it's 2009.

Feels an awful lot like 2008. Only drunker.

Happy New Year.

The Best Idea I've Ever Had (That Has Made It Out In Public)

2008-12-30T22:58:00.005-05:00

Every good idea I have eventually comes to fruition. Some manifest themselves more quickly than others that seem to just drag on along(see Knits Of The Living Dead Blog's sidebar of WIPs for the super secret project that has been listed there as long as the blog has existed. I'm still in the design phase). That's actually unfair to list that one as a WIP since it's only in the design phase as I have tons of other projects that are in the design phase as we speak (my drawer full of notebooks won't lie). But I digress.

There is one project of mine that repurposed a sweatshirt that had ceased fitting properly. In other words, the whole damn thing shrank and I looked like I had monkey arms when I wore it. Or, even better, think back to the Michael Meyers skit on SNL where he played the hyper hypoglycemic kid who was tethered to a jungle gym. I love that. Hang on I need to go watch it.

Aaannnd...I'm back. I love that skit almost as much as I love the Schweddy Balls skit. Oh, wait, where was I going with this? Oh yes, uhm. Well, if you've seen that skit then you know my reference is a moot point because he is just wearing adult clothes that look like kid clothes and I, for some reason, envisioned him wearing a ridiculously small sweatshirt. The reference that was going to make was an adult wearing kids clothes. Damn.

ANYWAY. So rather than banish the entire sweatshirt, I figured out a way to repurpose it. First, I snagged the zipper off of it because, well, zippers are a terrible thing to waste. I used the hoodie to trace a basic, vague outline for future reference. In hindsight I should have traced it with the seams ripped...BUT I wanted the hood to stay on it. and then I investigated the rest of the crime scene. The sleeves were now sized in such a way that they seemed, to me, to be the perfect leg warmers.

I'm a weirdo. I like leg warmers that flare out at the bottom. I think it is because I have big feet and, when I wear leg warmers it is usually because I am in a skirt or skinny pants. So wearing sneakers with leg warmers only accentuates how HUGE my feet look if they don't flare at the bottom. Especially when I wear chucks.

OK then. So, since I like the flared leg warmers, the sleeves were a perfect shape.

This is the sweatshirt in question. Or rather, I should say....was.

See the shape of that sleeve there? Beeeeeeeeeeee-you-tiful.

Using scissors, I cut the sleeve off just below the shoulder seam.

Here I am, cutting away. Look how pale I am in this shot...this was just after xmas 07 in February or early March of last year. Dracula ain't got shit on my pale ass. Thas right.

So I cut along the seam, and after I have the sleeves cut off, I then cut across the bottom to make it straight. This is because, once cut off the hoodie, the sleeve has a sort of ear shaped look to the one end.

Or at least a wicked curve. It's hard for me to tell from this picture and I'm not in the mood to cut apart any hoodies for a repeat performance.

Lather, rinse and repeat for the other arm and you now have yourself a nice new pair of leg warmers.

One word of note, however, is that the elastic cuff on sweatshirt sleeves are your friend. LEAVE THEM ON. As you can see in the picture above, one cuff has been stretched out (by hand and then by trying it on) and the other hasn't. The leg warmer cuff has retained that size since I stretched it out. It holds them up rather well and the only other thing I would possibly recommend would be to open the seam a little bit on the cuff only and thread in some elastic, connect the elastic and then glue or stitch it shut. This would work out well for someone who stretched the cuff out further than necessary in taking it on and off. Hi, I have very large calves.

And that's it. You got fairly instant leg warmers. And, if you keep the shell of the hoodie, whether you remove the hood or not, it can be used to replace lining in an old jacket, which will also make the jacket warmer. I have to actually dig up all the information on that project because it was mighty good. And I was proud since I managed to repurpose a WHOLE sweatshirt without having to throw anything away. If I can't find any of it....I may have to repurpose a new hoodie. And I have just the one in mind.....muahaha.

Oh and here are my giant feet. In Chucks. Just for fun.

The Joy Of Giving

2008-12-26T11:42:00.004-05:00

So, rather than post about what I got for Xmas (which was a lot of wonderful gifts), I would rather post what I gave to everyone.

First, my mom: I gave my mom a crocheted scarf and a black fuzzy bathrobe from Wal-mart. She loves the scarf and the robe. I made her the scarf out of a boucle yarn so it would be fuzzy and warm, then I made it really wide and extremely long so it will wrap around to block any cold air that may try to chill her when she's outside. And the black fuzzy robe I got for her because her only house robe is cotton and not very good for winter weather at all.

My Sister: I got my sister a jade turtle necklace and a crystal turtle necklace. She loves turtles and given the current circumstances, I knew she wouldn't be getting any jewelry for Christmas like she usually does, so I wanted to get her some jewelry that would cheer her up. I also got her a Reindeer car costume which turned into a pseudo Christmas present because I gave it to her on Xmas Eve.

My oldest Niece, Kaylee: I got Kaylee a pair of Hello Kitty ear muffs with a pink head band and the Rose Petal Cottage. She loves play houses and I knew she'd love to have one for inside the house. I should have gotten someone else to put it together, though. Because HOLY CRAP was that annoying and hard to do. But, it was worth it because she does like it a lot.

My youngest Niece, Natalie: I got her a pair of Hello Kitty ear muffs with a purple head band and the Gab and Sing Muno (Yo Gabba-Gabba) since I had gotten her the other 2 for her birthday (Brobee and Toodee). She loves Yo Gabba-Gabba and anything that talks or sings to her so she definitely loved her new Muno!

My Grandparents: My mom and I got them delicious biscotti from an Italian bakery in Somerville that they love. They've been ridiculously house bound lately (my grandfather has been for a long time and my grandmother is only recent since she's been on oxygen) so they can only go when my mom is around to take them. And even then usually only my grandmother goes. So it was a nice treat for them as they adore biscotti.

My friend Rich: I made Rich some Lemon Meringue Bars. In Bone's family, her one grandmother makes bars at all the holidays, so to keep that going a bit here, I wanted to make bars. But then I heard Rich going on about how much he loves lemon meringue pie, so an idea was born. I was going to make lemon bars anyways....so I made him lemon meringue bars. And they were a BIG hit! And super sweet haha.

My roommate, Bone: I got Bone two tees from Threadless (What if They All Fought and Bone Idol), Wine Wipes (which are still in transit here), Garnier undereye treatment stuff (with her permission that it wouldn't be an offense lol) and Yummy lemon creme scented shea butter.

Giant Boy, Bone's Son: I got GB a brimmed beanie with built in headphones (since he enjoys taking walks and listening to his mp3 player) and two shirts from Threadless (Afternoon Delight and the one with Godzilla hitchhiking to Tokyo which was great because I call him baby godzilla a lot lol).

Wicket, My Furry Lil Boyfriend (FLB): A red hooded dog sweater with white faux fur trim that says "Ho Ho Ho". He loved it :)

Everyone Who attended Xmas Eve Dinner and Everyone Who Is Attending Our St. Stephen's Day Party: Red Velvet Cake Balls. They are scrumptious and delectable and I am so incredibly happy to share them with everyone who will be gracing us with their presence this Holiday season.

I think that's about it for gifts that I gave. Some people are getting post holiday gifts as well since I ran out of time given that finals happens right before Christmas. Stupid finals.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

So There Was This Chick, Right, Who Was Pregnant...

2008-12-23T20:18:00.003-05:00

You need to go read this: here and here

It's about Tina Cook, a 31 year old who gave birth to a full term baby. But she didn't know she was pregnant. Until she had the baby. Three days after her period ended.

Yep. That lovely little tale people say about how it is possible to get your period throughout your pregnancy is true. And we all know that not everyone gains tons of weight and looks pregnant while pregnant. So now we know it is possible to get your period while pregnant and not gain a lot of weight to the point where you DON'T KNOW YOU ARE PREGNANT!!

Gah. I may just be having a hard time digesting this fully without a weird reaction for a few simple reasons which really only seem to pertain to me.

I'm a smoker and I drink. I would be scared shitless if I were all of a sudden birthing a child. So I would hope to sweet bajeebus that this woman does neither.

I'm assuming that she doesn't for the simple fact that she carried to full term. But the baby is on the smallish side, barely even hitting 6 lbs. But, she could have had small babies with her first two kids too for all I know. The article doesn't give many details.

I just really hope that this woman has never felt the need to smoke a cigarette or drink during her 9 months of not knowing she was pregnant. That'd be the first thing I'd worry about personally. But that's because I drink and smoke.

I'm just so glad the woman went to the hospital for 'stomach pains' and didn't have her baby on the toilet as is so often what people add to the "there was this chick who was pregnant but didn't know it" stories.

Huzzah!

2008-12-23T09:38:00.003-05:00

So I'm now officially done with my semester. It took a bit longer than anticipated but hey. It's done. Can't complain now.

I got my Psychology and Italian grades and am hoping to have my English grade by the end of the week. So far, my GPA is in fantastic shape. It's about a 3.40 right now and should be just as nice once my GPA calculation is said and done. I got an A in my Abnormal Psych class and a B in Italian and I feel very confident that I'm going to be getting a B in my English class. I could have gotten an A, like I did last semester, but I really didn't put my full effort into it like I should have. Although, last night was the English final and I am confident that I nailed that bad boy. Long as I get a B on it I'm solid.

Of course, our final was supposed to be on Friday, and I had arranged with my English teacher to go and take it in the testing center around midday so I wouldn't be late for the office party. Of course, the Snow-pocalypse wound up hitting us on Friday and I didn't even make it into work so the final got postponed until last night. It's not so terrible. I still have about a month off from school. Plenty of time to do things that I want to do after work :D And figure out wtf is wrong with my stomach (because I still don't feel any better).

Oh and I should also mention, I'm getting a cold. Or something. I've been congested and my throat has been sore for the past day now. Yay? Way to get sick right before Christmas, Busty.

Dear American Government:

2008-12-19T14:36:00.001-05:00

Where is my friggin bailout? Huh??? All these industries that carelessly handled money are getting billions upon billions of dollars handed over to them.

Where's MY cut of that pie???

Damnit.

You Can't Make This Sh*t Up

2008-12-17T08:38:00.015-05:00

I must say, I'm a little bit confused as to why anyone who isn't racist would want to name their child after Hitler. Actually, I'm confused as to why anyone at all would name their kid after Hitler. Or at least anyone in America who is planning on sending their child through the public school systems.

Some of you may have heard about the couple from ~~Pennsylvania~~ New Jersey(? I'm confused as to where these people are from because some sources say Hunterdon Co. some say Lehigh Valley or Easton) (Heath and Deborah Campbell) who were denied a personalized birthday cake for their three year old by a Shop Rite. If you are unfamiliar with the story, go here.

Personally, they sound like the kind of idiots that flood the news stories all the time.

If they seriously had no clue that naming their son Adolf Hitler Campbell would bring about any kind of negative attention, then they are brick ass stupid. I highly doubt they are brick ass stupid because they were able to coherently talk to the news reporter from that article. Oh who am I kidding, they are pretty damn close to brick ass stupid, or at least the husband is.

"There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," the 35-year-old continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did." (Yahoo News).

I'm guessing that he hasn't figured out that those who are offended by his son's name aren't worried about the kid growing up to be the next Hitler in every way shape and form. He thinks that people need to pull their head out of the clouds, but he needs to pull his head out of his ASS. It's not the silly, stupid notion of "Oh no! this kid will surely grow up to slaughter a whole group of people for not being of the perfect Aryan origins just like the real Hitler!". It's just plain offensive to name your son after Hitler.

Mr. Campbell claims that he is not a racist because he let his son have children of mixed races over for the birthday party. But he also admits that he was raised "not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently" (Yahoo News). Oh gee, really? That sure is swell of you Mr. Campbell! I'm glad you're going to TRY to raise your children differently. That's so big of you, especially because they're totally going to have LOTS of friends of mixed backgrounds with names like Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

And yes, Mr. Campbell is a hypocrite. He claims to not be racist, yet...."The kids are growing up in a home festooned with a swastika in every room. The father wears boots that once belonged to a Nazi soldier, and claims a relative was a member of Hitler's feared Schutzstaffel." (NY Daily News). But no. He's not a racist, he's not a Nazi. He's just proud of his ancestry....and doesn't believe in the mixing or mingling of races. And really, really likes goose stepping around in his gen-u-wine nazi boots.

I'm also fairly certain that his kids will have the worst experience in Jr. High School EVER. All the awkward, pimply, loner, outcast kids will need to step aside for the Nazi kids. Actually, I'm sure they'll have a difficult time in school period (unless they're home schooled) but the most difficult time will be when they are taught about the Holocaust. They taught us about it in 7th and 8th grade. Those kids are fucked. Plain and simple. Because mommy and daddy wanted to show the world that they're Nazi fans and supporters by naming their kids Adolf Hitler, Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler.

Clearly these are a couple of attention seeking idiots. There is no reason that they couldn't have managed to go and buy a blank cake and write their son's name on it themselves. Yes, sure, they could have wanted a cake that was decorated in a theme befitting a child, but they could have simply asked the bakery to not write anything on the cake. Then if they managed to stop drooling on themselves long enough, they could have gotten tubes of cake icing or gel (fancy!) to write the message on the cake themselves. They even sell a wonderful product these days to assist morons who can't manage to write on cakes. Most craft stores sell candy letters for cakes. So they could have merely purchased some of those. Or they could have just been less idiotic and asked for them to only write ADOLF on the cake and not ADOLF HITLER (I wonder if they seriously run around after the kid calling him that...."Adolf Hitler, do NOT hit your sister!")

Once Shop Rite refused to write the name on the cake, they could have simply left it at that. But no, they had to run to the news because of the injustice of it all! How dare a giant corporation like Shop Rite deny them a birthday cake for their little angel! How DARE they tell them that their son's name is offensive!

Shop Rite even offered to decorate the cake and leave enough room for them to write the name on themselves. Wow...a COMPROMISE from the big, evil, discriminating corporation! But no, they didn't take it. Why? Because then they couldn't bitch, moan and wine to the press about how Shop Rite refused to make a cake for their son.

I know I said it before, but it bears repeating that they're just so confused as to how their son's name is offensive. I bet they're also confused about how those tiny people manage to be inside their television AND every other television at the same time.

I personally would love to see both Heath and Deborah get smacked upside the back of their heads. They are a couple of mouth breathing, oxygen stealing idiots who are clearly just looking for their moment to shine. But unfortunately for them, no matter how much you try, you just can't polish turds.

Aftertought:
I totally had "Little Tiny Mustache" playing in my head while I read and wrote about these fine specimens.

Update:
This wasn't the first time that Shop Rite denied them a request like this. And charming, non-racist Mr. Campbell had requested a SWASTIKA be included on the cake. Classy. (Reference Here)

2nd Update:
AAAAAND the dad's real first name is ISIDORE. No wonder he feels it necessary to inflict pain upon his children in the form of hurtful names. (Reference here Yes it's in German. But there's part that says "Vater Isidore Heath Campbell" and well, Vater is father, and Isidore is a name. Mayhaps the German journalist is playing a joke on Mr. Heath "I'm Not A Racist" Campbell)

Sometimes I Wonder

2008-12-15T13:36:00.003-05:00

I wonder if, one day, people will stop acting like my feelings aren't rational, or founded. I also wonder if people will start recognizing that my feelings matter.

That's not to say that everyone in my life treats my feelings like they're insignificant, but one day I wonder if the people who do will realize that they are quite significant, or if I'll find someone who will.

I also wonder if I'll ever find someone who will be upfront and honest with me no matter what.

Probably unlikely though since I already know I'm dying alone.

Sad News Today (and Other News Tidbits)

2008-12-12T08:55:00.006-05:00

Miss Bettie Page, someone I love and adore, has passed away Thursday night at the age of 85. It's better this way. She had suffered from a heart attack on the 2nd and was on life support, so now she has passed on and is no longer suffering. She was the main reason I ever started doing pin-up modeling and I will miss her presence on this earth.

In other news, prepare for the stock market to bleed like a stuck pig again. The auto FAILout was rejected. On the one hand, I'm not upset that they rejected it because, well, how many times are we going to have our tax dollars handed over to money grubbing corporations who are, evidently, really bad with money? On the other hand, I AM upset about it because, if they don't get a bailout soooo many people will be out of jobs. But I guess you can't use your compassion for the millions of soon to be laid off people as a reason to give the assholes money.

The former porn star, Louisa Tuck, who was working as a cafeteria and playground aide in Vineland, NJ resigned. I can't really blame her for resigning. So much stink was stirred up about her PAST employment as a porn actress that was just totally uncalled for. She wasn't CURRENTLY acting in porn while being employed at the school. For seriously, if she was doing both that'd be reason to raise a stink, but it was in the past. But the whole thing got so stirred up and blown up by the media, it's not really a wonder why she'd resign.

By later today, the roads down by my house may be flooded. They aren't flooded yet, but they could end up that way. It depends on if it rains any more today and how quickly the runoff is flowing into the rivers and if there's even any runoff left to make a huge difference. And hopefully, it doesn't rain anymore next week before it has time to subside. I guess I'll see what happens later today because both our Flood Watch and Flood Advisory are still in effect.

And a bit of personal news to cap this off: My medicine sucks. It helps me feel only marginally better, yet still everytime I eat or drink I get either stomach pains or nausea. On top of that fun fest, it also dries the skin on my face out like crazy (we're talking, I woke up Monday morning with skin that felt like a lizards, yet didn't look awful....figure that out?), makes my mouth dry so I am constantly drinking water (and getting a bit nauseous as a result), and it makes me incredibly sleepy and blurs my vision. I've been wearing my glasses all the time to help counteract the blurred vision, but it only helps so much. I'm glad that it isn't presently raining because with my vision acting wonky as it is driving in the rain is not so fun and easy. You could also imagine how less than stellar it is to drive at night, too. And it's equally un-fun to drive in the rain at night. Driving home the last two nights was just awful. But what can I really do about it? I can't miss the last week of school just because of this. Luckily for me, I only have two more nights of school after tonight(one is my final review for Italian and one is my Italian final). I'm hoping to get my English teacher to let me take my English final before the party next Friday. I get outta work at noon so I could easily shoot over to the school, take my final in the testing center and then head home to change and whatnots before the party, were Bone and GB to come with me that is. If not, then I'd just go to my mom's house, I guess, beforehand. I'll figure that part out I'm sure.

I Wish I Had A Button In My Car To Erradicate Asshole Drivers On The Spot

2008-12-09T23:05:00.003-05:00

I left my crackberry at home today. Completely on accident. And by the time that I realized it, I wasn't too far from home but was not in the mood to turn around and go back to grab it. Mainly because, as I was leaving, the neighbors across the road had their landscapers blowing leaves around and didn't stop while I walked across the street to my car so I got a lovely face full of leaf dust. Yay. I didn't want to experience round 2. Oh did I mention the yard they were cleaning was the one my car was parked in front of? Fun times.

But this was one day that I really wish I had it on me cause I totally needed to call the local cops along 78, or at least #77.

From my exit in Summit (exit #45) all the way to 287 (which is just past my mom's exit #33) a light blue mini van with Pennsylvania plates was driving in the center lane and swerving into the lanes on either side of him. I stayed as far back from him as I possibly could, hoping he wouldn't hit anyone else, because I was afraid to go around him. His swerving was THAT bad. He also had issues maintaining his speed. I'd be amazed that nobody else called in about him, because his driving was that erratic.

After trailing so far behind him, I finally got up the courage to speed up and go around him and as I was passing him, I glanced over to see who was driving the vehicle, and maybe see what kind of state they were in, and that's when I saw the dude lighting up a fuckin bowl, while steering with his knees. In the middle of the afternoon. On Route 78. And, amazingly, there were no cops around on the West bound side. Of all the times I drive on that highway, this was the first time I've never seen any cops hanging around anywhere.

I'm not one who is going to preach to people about what they should and shouldn't do. My personal feelings are that as long as what you are doing isn't endangering anyone else or causing you major malfunctions in your life then rock on. But smoking a bowl while driving down the center of a busy highway? Right before rush hour? On a highway where school buses travel frequently? Give me a friggen break! That's ridiculous!

Sad thing is I keep obsessively checking MyCentralJersey.com to see if they posted an article in regards to him getting his ass pulled over and handed to him. If you're gunna fuckin smoke, do it at yr house when you aren't going to have to drive anywhere. I doubt highly that he made it all the way to Pennsylvania without anyone noticing the swerving. But I also highly doubt that the article would wind up on MyCentralJersey.com given the epic news report of the transformer fire in Neptune which blew power to parts of Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex Counties. Talk about a real fuckarow.

They were discussing it on After Hours on 101.5 tonight during the first hour, and a guy called in to talk about how it affected him. He and his family got hit three ways with this mess. His son was playing at Carnegie Hall tonight, so his wife, his mother (in law?) and he were all driving into NYC from Ocean County area. There was a bad accident on the GSP that lagged up traffic for almost 8-12 miles, and they barely even went a quarter of a mile in an hour. They had to call their son to tell him they wouldn't make it to see him play. As they were stuck on the Parkway, the transformer went, so they saw the bright blue/white explosion (which, upon hearing the description must have been absolutely frightening to see) and went home to no power, driving along highways and roads that had no traffic lights. And there's rain in the forecast for tonight. I'm not sure if they got all the power situations fixed or not, because they were hoping to have it all taken care of by 9:30 but we know how reliable the power companies are....just ask the folks who lost power for almost a week back in the end of October when we had that freak snow storm. Good times.

Getting My Learn On....Spring 2009 Edition

2008-12-09T17:10:00.003-05:00

I registered for my Spring classes today.
I was going to give myself an easy semester, but then I decided (last minute as always) "screw it!" because if I have any bit of worry leading into the semester, I'll be able to adjust my schedule personally.
Instead of signing up for a bunch of fun electives and two core classes, I signed up for Creative Writing (fun elective), Algebra mods 3 and 4 (maybe this time I can conquer this beast), Theories of Personality (a psych class because you just know I'm going to take every single psychology class RVCC has to offer), and Human Biology for which to satisfy my lab science requirement on my current degree which will then satisfy part of the biology requirement on my degree when I get it changed to accommodate a transfer into a psychology program.

Most of my classes will be online, which would suck if I were any worse at time management. But luckily I'm not because I am fully capable of coming home and diving head first into my school work and not screwing around until it's done. Also, luckily for me, the Bio class is on campus with two days of lecture (Tues and Thurs) and one night of lab (Tues). The suck with that class is that I'll be on campus until at least 9:30 every Tuesday night, but that's not a big deal because it's only one night a week.

They do charge extra per credit for online classes, so my tuition for the Spring semester is about $200 more than it was for this semester, but that's really not that bad compared to the money I'll save in gas from not having to drive to campus four nights a week. I drove about 80 miles each day that I had work and a class on the main campus, so that'll cut down my gas bill a bit and at the very least will end up coming out to about even in the end. Plus there's the luxury of getting to do classwork whenever I'm able to, coupled with not having to worry about missing a class due to inclement weather or illness. So that's always nice :)

Oh yea. I'm a big fat nerd if I'm excited about not having to miss classes because of weather or illness. Big. Fat. Nerd.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Nobody Knows How To Drive

2008-12-08T11:48:00.002-05:00

On my way in to work this morning, Dennis and ~~Judi~~ Michelle were discussing people who save parking spots for people and other dirty tricks that people use to find parking spots during the holiday season at malls and shopping centers.

It got me thinking about my standing as the person that all those lazy fuckers love to hate. You know who those lazy fuckers are, the ones who circle the lot a billion times just to get a spot a few spaces closer so they don't have to walk an extra yard or two to get into the mall. Cause heaven forbid they exert any extra effort and maybe exercise a little bit.

If you ever see my car in a parking lot (and you'll know it's me if you're in NJ because it's a blue Pontiac with zombie-centric stickers all over the back) and you attempt to get my parking spot you should be forewarned of the following:

1) If I am leaving a store and you are pulling into the lot and see me, do not stalk me and try to follow me to my car. I will cut over the lanes and zig zag my way all over the parking lot just to ditch you because since you are following me very slowly, I will automatically assume you are a creepy pervert who is just trying to lure me away with candy and tie me up in your basement.

2) Do not assume that bags going into my car means that I am leaving. If I am putting packages into my backseat and I notice that you are waiting, patiently for my parking spot, I will lock my car up and go back into the store. My spot is not better than the one at the other end of the aisle. And you can't just assume that I'm ready to leave because I am putting bags into my car, especially if I'm in a strip mall. And if you aren't waiting patiently, and decide to honk at me to 'encourage' me to hurry up. I will hurry up...back into the store.

3) If I am in my car, whether it is on or not, and am getting ready to leave, do not honk at me. That will ensure that I will act like I just got there and am going to go shop, even though there are bags in my backseat and I know you can see them. Being impatient doesn't win you my parking spot. It wins you another trip around the lot.

4) Barring the above instances, if I am in my car, with it running, and am preparing to back out...DO NOT BLOCK THE AISLE! Move your stupid car! I will have no problems pulling back into the parking spot and waiting for you to move your damn car. Sure, I could conceivably back out to the other side, wait for you to take my parking spot and then go, but that would just reward you for being a dumbass. I don't reward stupidity, I punish it. Hence I will pull back into my parking spot and wait for you to go away.

5) Banging into my car, keying my door or bending my antenna will not piss me off. Have you SEEN my car? My drivers side mirror is being held on by packing tape, do you really think I care about a dent, ding or scratch in the rest of it??

6) And this is just a general note to everyone who drives in parking lots, or attempts their own personal form of driving. There are other cars. The aisles are generally two ways unless otherwise labeled. Kindly learn the width of your car and that it is not THAT wide, because I can assure you, we could safely fit both of our cars next to each other, with room to spare, in the middle of the parking lot aisle.

I Like To Do Stupid Things That Have Zero Consequences

2008-12-03T11:22:00.003-05:00

Hello Ashley,

Thank you for your interest in joining the Obama-Biden Administration. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to the more complete on-line application. Please be patient, as we are trying to respond promptly to the large number of people who are interested in working in the Administration.

Thanks.

OK almost zero consequences. Worst response will be no response. Though what would happen if they saw my more complete application and said "Wow, hey, she's awesome...let's grab HER!" Not likely. Bone applied too.

But hey, it's not like I just joined the Army or anything....

~

"I hate everything
Everyone and everything
Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now...

I don't wanna hear you tell me everything is wonderful now"

2008-12-01T15:09:00.004-05:00

I was going to write about my weekend.

But now I don't feel like it because ~~it doesn't~~ I don't even really matter anyway.

Oh, The Weather Outside....Can't Seem to Make Up Its Damn Mind!

2008-11-24T16:41:00.003-05:00

This is going to be my obligatory pre-Thanksgiving Post. Why? Cause the chance of me updating again before Thanksgiving is slim to none and Slim is gettin ready to head out the door.

In short: I'm going to update on the goings on as they currently are and my plans for the horrid holiday that is approaching.

OK it isn't really fair to call Thanksgiving a horrid holiday. Well, yes, it is from my standpoint, but one is BOUND to hate Thanksgiving if the last good one revolved around your now deceased Dad's birthday and your paternal grandmother's death in that order. I'm sure other people like it. But I'm not one that really does. But in an effort to "grow" and be open minded, I'm willing to look past all that and anticipate this Thanksgiving with a new found, uh, anticipation.

Given the ever increasing amount of stress that is circulating at my mom's house (due to strictly private and non-blog worthy goings on), I was not looking forward to Thanksgiving at all. The meals there, lately, have been mostly take out of the pizza variety, so I feared a giant turkey shaped Thanksgiving pizza, or a hastily prepared meal. Of course, I could have been a big person and swooped in saying "Have no fear, I'LL cook dinner!" but no. I'm not THAT big of a person. I personally do not like cooking that much because, well, I just don't. I used to once, but not anymore.

I was getting ready to hunker down and prepare for the worst when I was offered an invitation by Bone to tag along to Pittsburgh for the holiday. I thought about it briefly and decided that it would be really quite fun. Why settle for madness generated by my own family when I can strive for madness generated by a strange family? And no, I don't mean strange as in 'weird'. I mean strange as in, aside from her mom and Giant Boy, I've not met Bone's family.

While it will mean leaving the comfort and security of my own bed for a long weekend, I'm looking forward to it. I've never been to Pittsburgh, and I've wanted to go for a while. Ideally, I would have gone to Pittsburgh in the end of October for the World Zombie Day weekend extravaganza, but that didn't pan out. But now I get my chance. I also get my chance to go to the Monroeville Mall, since it is relatively close by to where Bone's Aunt lives. Huzzah! Thanksgiving and a Zombie Movie Mecca in one glorious weekend.

It wasn't until this morning that I realized that I have to be extra strict on myself with my free time to ensure that I have everything ready to go before I leave for work Wednesday morning. We are leaving Wednesday afternoon around 4:00 or 4:30 (I honestly forget which), and so I am planning on working 10:30 to 2:30 so that I may get home a little bit early just to ensure a nice buffer. But I need to make sure that everything is packed and ready to roll before I leave the house Wednesday morning. Which means that, sadly, I get to forgo going to see an Academic Advisor on Tuesday because I'll have to pop into Wal-Mart and maybe Five Below to get travel sized necessities.

Free space on the car ride out to Pittsburgh is going to be at a premium because we are bringing lots and lots of drinks (of both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety) for Thanksgiving and such. Because of this, I want to make sure that I have everything packed in such a way that it will take up as little space as possible. I realize that wishing to get all my clothing and shizz for the weekend in my back pack is a huge stretch of logic, so I'll settle for my Jeebus messenger bag, my carpet bag or my small duffel bag.

I notified my mom yesterday about my trip to Pittsburgh, and the ironic part is that they probably weren't going to be having Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving itself, because my mom is working Thursday. She called me to ask if either Wednesday or Friday worked better for me. So there ya go, I am going to be having a Thanksgiving Thanksgiving in lieu of an offset Thanksgiving.

Aside from the planning and packing that I need to do, I also have to make sure that I get myself a new copy of the book "Haunted" so that I can read and annotate it this weekend for my Research paper draft due on the 5th. I'm still waiting for the approval e-mail from my English teacher, though. But I'll work on that while out in Pittsburgh as well as my reading notes for my Psych class. Those will be easiest since they are just a matter of reading, summarizing and then reacting to what I read.

So if you see a new post from me pre-Thanksgiving, consider it a gift. Because I'm definitely not planning on writing another one because I doubt I will have the time.

In Which Busty is FAR too Ambitious

2008-11-23T19:12:00.003-05:00

So I've decided that I'm going to be THAT asshole in my psychology class. I'm already getting an A, but I am going to go above and beyond. We only have one more reading note due that is mandatory, but then we have a third one which we can choose to do for extra credit. I'm gunna be the asshole that, regardless of my already high marks, still does the extra credit work.

I've got both of my APA articles picked out, and I'm going to bring them to class tomorrow night so as to present them to my teacher for approval.

I'm also going to do my English research paper on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. We're really only supposed to be doing them on a short story, but I would love to do mine on a novel. More specifically on "Haunted". I could, essentially, do it on one of the chapters of the specific novel I'm using since it is basically 21 poems and 23 short stories with plot driving chapters formed around them. I could just as easily pick one of the short story chapters, any of them really, and use the reviews and other resources on the novel that I have. I guess it just depends on what my English teacher says in regards to my approval request. She could very well tell me that, if I want to take that task upon myself, to go for it. Or she could tell me to just pick one of the chapters (I informed her of the fact that it's a novel formed from short stories and such). I'm starting to think that might be the most likely answer.

So I've got quite a little bit of work ahead of me these next two weeks. I have two reading notes for my psychology class to do and a shit load of reading for English. I'm gunna have to re-read "Haunted" as well as read all the resources and reviews on the novel itself. I have to have the first draft and annotated bibliography for my research paper finished by the 5th and I have to have both of my reading notes finished by the 8th.

Holy shit, when did it become the end of the semester?!

2008-11-21T23:53:00.003-05:00

Something strange is going on with the bottled water my family bought from Sam's Club. No it's not morphing into a giant robot spider to kill us all and it's definitely not changing colors or anything. It's just being plain old bottled water. But there's something bothersome on the label. Or at least it's bothersome to me.

I stopped by my mom's house on my way to school tonight because my sister got me a Nightmare Before Christmas mug from the Disney store just for scuz and so I snagged a bottle of water and a banana before heading off to class. It was once I got to the school that I noticed what the claims on the label were. "Natural Spring Water with Flavor Enhancing Minerals". Wait...what? Flavor enhancing minerals?

Can water have it's flavor enhanced? Sure, if it's flavored water. Then it would be that specific flavor enhancing the natural flavor of water. Because then it is not just water anymore, it is flavored water. But can you have non-flavored water with an enhanced flavor? Webster's defines water as being odorless and tasteless, so then how could water have it's already non-existent flavor enhanced when it isn't specifically flavored?

Are these magical minerals, the likes of which I would immediately notice if their presence was lacking? Are these minerals that special that they are able to enhance something without a flavor? And just how would the water taste if these minerals weren't included in it? I'm a little frightened by the notion that my bottled water is that dramatically changed by these minerals, what if it tastes like poo? But water is naturally odorless and tasteless. If you are met with a clear liquid that has no odor or taste, you can almost always be assured that it is water. If it smells or tastes like poo, well, I'm not sure why you would even taste it to begin with. Especially if it SMELLS like poo. Why would anyone taste something that smells like poo?

Now, assuming the logical, these minerals probably do not make any kind of a difference with the way the water tastes. Especially since water has NO taste to speak of and unflavored bottled water doesn't taste any different than regular water, therefore they make no discernible difference in the actual taste or flavor in question. If this is the case, which I can logically believe to be true, then we have no real guarantee that said minerals are even in the water. It could very well just be a marketing ploy:

Marketing Guy 1: "Let's convince them that our water is better for them, because of these fancy flavor enhancing minerals"

Marketing Guy 2: "Well, it's far too expensive to sell our water with those fancy minerals in it, we'd have to charge way more and we want to present the cheapest option to people so they're more inclined to shop with us on further ventures."

Marketing Guy 1: "OK well then let's just SAY the minerals are in there, and let's give them some virtually unverifiable claim."

Marketing Guy 2: "Oh, very good, we could say that these minerals enhance the flavor. Nobody would be able to prove it otherwise."

You know, something like that anyways. I'm sure that marketing guys don't give a shiny rat's ass about offering the best priced option to their customers. It's more along the lines of "OK, we made this product for 38 cents, let's charge people $40 for it. That's a profit of eleventy billion percent".

So logically, I can not be led to believe that these minerals actually enhance the flavor of the water. I drank the water and, to tell the truth, it was not that spectacular. It tasted like water. Like the water that I can get out of the drinking fountain in the hallway of the school. Only the water fountain water would have been cold....amazingly so.

I just find it incredibly pretentious for a bottled water company to claim that their minerals are anything but little bits of rock and dirt and that they "enhance" the flavor of the water.

Questions To Ponder

2008-11-19T21:59:00.002-05:00

If you cloned yourself and then killed your clone, would that be murder or suicide?

If you cloned yourself and caught your significant other having sex with your clone, would that constitute cheating or adultery?

If you cloned yourself and then had sex with your clone would that be incest or just self love?

Zombie Game!!!

2008-11-18T21:05:00.003-05:00

This is a fun zombie game. You gotta answer 15 zombie trivia questions correctly and make it to the end/safe zone. You get three lifelines ala Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Go Play Professor Vost's Zombie Challenge

Just Some Fun From Italian Class

2008-11-18T18:25:00.005-05:00

L'ultima mostra ho visto in un teatro e stato The Dark Knight. Sono andato a vedere questo film con il mio amico, ed ora di stanza, Bone Crawford durante l'estate. Il protagonista in il film era svolto dalla Christian Bale e le principali villian era svolto dalla Heath Ledger. Il regista di film era Christopher Nolan che anche scrivero il film con il suo fratello Jonathan Nolan. Gli attori hanno recitato bene, ma non ero piacevo con la scelta di colata per Rachel Dawes. Mi piace Maggie Gyllenhall, ma mi e sembrato molto banale di esprimere la sua dato che il suo magliore amico e allo stesso modo uno stile l'attrice, Kirsten Dunst, ha svolto un ruolo prominente e molto simile ruolo nella triologia Spiderman. A parte questo, pensavo che il film è stato eccellente. Hanno utilizzato una storia molto creativo linea per la produzione sia del Joker e Due Facce. E 'triste che Heath Ledger non sarà in grado di essere nel prossimo film di Batman, poiché egli ci ha lasciato prima del rilascio di The Dark Knight

We had to write about the last show or movie that we saw in a theater and since I hardly go to the movies, I wrote about going to see The Dark Knight with Bone.

***Not all of the accents are on the letters, so if you try to copy and paste it into a translator it may not work for you***

The Dessert That Will Never Happen

2008-11-15T16:51:00.003-05:00

Last May, when I went to Chiller, one of the people staying in our room made Pink Lemonade Cake balls. It was like sex in a little, slightly mushy, ball form.

Basically, with cake balls, you take a cake mix and prepare it as a 13 X 9 cake, then after it's completely cooled off, you crumble the cake up and mix in about 16oz of icing, usually of the cream cheese variety. Bakerella has a most delicious sounding recipe for Red Velvet Cake Balls that you can find here. After you've mixed the cake and icing, you form the mix into balls and freeze them. Bakerella then dips them into melted chocolate once they're nice and firm, but the Pink lemonade cake balls weren't.

I long for the day when I can experiment with making Pink Lemonade Cake balls. I envision taking a white or silver cake mix and mixing some pink lemonade powder in with the wet ingredients to give that a nice flavor and then mixing some more of the powder in to the cream cheese frosting. I would then take yellow candy melts (melted, of course) and dip the cake balls into them. Oh how delicious that sounds. and if I were feeling EXTRA ambitious, I could even shape the little buggers like lemons. Heh.

But I know that I will not be making them anytime soon. And why is that? Well, simple you see. I live with the 14 year old incarnation of Godzilla (see previous post). The notion of baking a 13 by 9 sheet cake and letting it sit out to cool completely is entirely laughable. And if that were even something that I could accomplish, with him hanging around the house, having the cake balls sitting prey in the freezer is a lot like throwing a deer carcass into the lion cage at the zoo and expecting them to not eat it. Foolish.

The only way that I'd be able to make them anytime soon would be if I waited until he was off on a trip. I could possibly make some over Thanksgiving weekend or wait till Christmas while GB is at his Dad's. That would allow me enough time to properly make them. In fact, I think I might make a batch the night before Thanksgiving to bring up to my mom's house for dessert. I could make Red Velvet cake balls and dip them in orange or plain chocolate melts and drizzle a contrasting color on them. OK that would be cute. Orange and brown cake balls drizzled with contrasting colors (obv. orange drizzled on brown and brown drizzled on orange) And mayhaps some red drizzled on all of them. You know....fall colors.

Sometimes I think Martha Stewart has taken up residence in my brain and that notion doesn't thrill me.

Look Out! It Godzilla!

2008-11-14T20:07:00.004-05:00

Life in the Chateau Du Bone is a little bit like living in a house with a great friend, and it just so happens that Godzilla lives there too.

There is a reason we call him Giant Boy. At only 14 years of age, he as reached 'critical mass' in his height. He is 6'3". And since he's only 14, he is clumsy, loud, and awkward. He doesn't walk lightly. He walks very heavily.

We have set up a room in the basement purely for smoking cigarettes (there's a door to the room and a window and fan to help keep the smoke out of the upstairs and we've taken to smoking outside or on the porch when it's not cold). So when we spend time downstairs, we get to hear him thump and bump around upstairs and it really does sound like Godzilla descending upon Tokyo. Especially when he's making strange Giant Boy noises.

Tonight, in lieu of making an actual dinner since GB was foraging around for food all afternoon, I made McCain Smiles. The single greatest invention ever. I can greatly appreciate a food that even vegans can eat that smiles at you as you eat it. That sentiment right there goes to show just what a carnivore I really am deep down inside.

Naturally, I'm not going to make something delicious and keep it from GB (I do hide snacks but I share food that I make since I usually end up making far too much at any given time), so I offered to cook extra for him to share.

Let me just tell you how absolutely hilarious it was to see GB eating little smiley face 'french fries'. If ever a more perfect scenario existed that conjured images of Godzilla attacking, I have yet to see it. I am glad that I was able to witness the event but was sad that Bone was not here to witness it herself.

Alas, she has jetted off to Portland for the weekend to attend the WFTDA Nationals. Lucky duck.

2008-11-12T09:31:00.002-05:00

As I emerge from my slumber
Barely able to make a sound
I shuffle, my steps encumbered
I collapse upon the ground

With effort I regain my stance
A snarl escapes my throat
I pass a mirror and at it glance
and note my body’s bloat

Discoloration of my skin
My face is swollen and marred
I try to recall where I’ve been
But thinking hurts, it’s hard

Into the kitchen, I shuffle towards
My roommate sitting there
I advance and seek my just rewards
Encased in skull in hair

She cries out as I attack
We struggle, tumbling to the floor
She fends me off with a cranial smack
She looks shaken to the core

“What the hell!” she shouts at me
“You’re mind is really askew”
I growl and she laughs with glee
“You’re not a zombie, jerk, you have the flu”

In Which Busty Ponders The Imminent Demise of DHL

2008-11-10T12:54:00.005-05:00

On October 21st, I logged onto DHL's website using the account registered to the company I work for in order to ship a sample of high importance to a customer. When I logged on, I clicked the 'prepare shipment' button and was directed to a page stating that our account had been revoked and we were strictly cash-only. I sent the information to my supervisor and she had our accounting manager leap into action.

It was then found out that it was a billing error on DHL's part and they were working to remedy the situation. At first they said 1-2 days, but then they said it would take about 7-10 days to fix (which would have put our account at functional on either Oct 31st if they counted weekends or November 4th if they only counted business days). Conveniently enough, for DHL anyways, they sent an e-mail out on the 5th stating that they would be suspending domestic shipping of hazardous materials for us (whether it was for us or EVERYONE i cannot say for certain. I do not have the official DHL e-mail, only the e-mail from our one supplier).

At this point, we weren't really concerned. We quickly set up domestic hazardous material shipping with UPS and have been using FedEx to ship any product that couldn't go freight for the past few weeks.

I had, at this point, figured DHL would either be downsizing or folding completely by the end of November. How bad was their billing error that they couldn't fix our account status within the alloted amount of time of 7-10 days? Nevermind the fact that initially they said it would only take a couple of days to fix it.

At one point about a week and a half ago, our regular DHL guy at this building asked me why we hadn't been sending anything through him lately. He'd noticed that we were putting only FedEx boxes out (creepy). I told him that DHL had made a mistake and revoked our account and hadn't fixed it yet, even tho it had been a while since we first asked about it. I then told him to prepare himself, because something didn't seem right. I said it seemed ripe for a downsizing at least. Sadly, I haven't seen him since then. I hope he got laid off and got a severence package and whatnots and didn't up and quit.

But sure enough, this morning I found an article on Consumerist reporting that DHL cut 9,500 jobs and suspended ALL domestic shipping services. What. The. Fuck.

Clearly I was right in suspecting the downsizing.

They're also closing down all ground hubs and closing stations so they will only have 103 out of the 412 that they had.

I guess FedEx and UPS are probably pretty friggen excited about this. They've been doing well lately anyways (I suspect the account revoking was more widespread), and now they get to absorb the domestic shipping market from DHL.

This is reminding me of something else...oh yea! Sprint's crazy customer hemorrhaging and how AT&T and Verizon are happily profiting from their failures by absorbing their customers.

I'm still giving DHL until the end of November to completely fold. I think that they will die off because, even tho they cut jobs and cut out domestic shipping, they're going to lose a LOT of business because of this stupidity. Anyone else want to take part in my DHL Death Pool? I claim November 27th to December 5th.

OH and in case you want to read the whole article: DHL Cuts 9,500 U.S. Jobs

In Which Busty Grows Up....Sort Of.

2008-11-10T09:00:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a nice quasi relaxing day. Bone, Giant Boy and myself all slept in and when we woke up we decided to hike up to the Dish for some breakfast and then go shoe shopping at Marshall's. Bone & I were both in the market for a new pair of chucks (I know, I know, I have many pairs as it is, but one more pair won't hurt any lol).

I managed to find a pair of double tongue Chucks in a lavender (the box says gray for some reason) and red (which looks kinda orangey) but Bone was unsuccessful because they only had gargantuan sizes. The plus to that is that I now know what I'm getting her for Xmas, a new pair of Chucks :D I'll have to sneak a peak at what size her other two pairs are.

I also managed to find myself two pairs of shoes for work that have short heels and are closed toe. Thank Gahd. I've been searching for shoes like that for ages and have never found a pair that I liked. Most of the time they have those pointy toes and I hate those. My feet are big enough as it is without having the shoe add to it, thanks. I got a pair of them in brown initially because I could not find them in black and just as I had settled on another style of black with short heels, I managed to find the black ones in my size. Score :D

I also found a leopard print cardigan which caused us all to meander over to the clothing section and browse for work appropriate wear. OK Bone and I were looking for work clothes, Giant Boy was looking for long sleeve shirts and hoodies. I managed to score two pairs of really inexpensive work trousers (cheaper than any pair of jeans I've ever bought and I usually don't spend more than $20 on a pair of jeans), and a green long sleeve sweater dress. I also purchased some tights to wear under the dress because all my leggings require boots since, well, they're leggings and are thusly footless. I was happy with what I managed to find because I want to try to appear at least slightly more professional at work. The work clothes I have now are only sub par, and I really did need more pairs of work pants so I can stop wearing my brown nylon-y pants from Old Navy lol.

So basically, most of what I purchased from Marshall's yesterday was work clothing, save for the Chucks. And I hardly ever do that. Then again, I hardly ever spend more than $20 on a pair of shoes and I definitely did just that with the new work shoes I got. But pricing on the shoes aside, I feel like I'm maturing a little bit, or growing up slightly more, since I focused on the task of getting work clothes and actually pulled through that task with a few nice pieces to add to my wardrobe.

Then, of course, whatever level of maturity I had ascended to due to my purchases was short lived. After Marshall's we drove over to Barnes and Noble so Bone could get the next book in a series she's reading. Some lady cut us off by blowing through a stop sign and we proceeded to curse her out for five whole minutes and mused about following her around the parking lot. Then I lost any last bit of that maturity as we were talking about NJ 101.5 and discussing David Matthau, one of the news guys, and doing impersonations of his story sign off while walking through the parking lot.

The Pitt/Jolie Plan For World Domination

2008-11-09T10:53:00.003-05:00

Angelina Jolie has a whole mess of kids. Lots of them are adopted, and then there is Shiloh and the new twins. And there are already rumors circulating that she might be pregnant again (seriously, Brad? Can't you keep it in your pants just a little bit?).

Because of the massive size of her brood, plus the new habit of having her own little ones, I've found that I spend many days thinking about what would bring someone to want that many kids, besides the "I want a big family" argument.

First, I think that she is preparing to repopulate the world should a disaster (natural or otherwise) strike part of the Earth and diminish the inhabitants of that nation drastically. Angelina is a Goodwill Ambassador, after all. She has adopted kids as well as kids that directly carry her genetic lineage. This way, they aren't all blood related and are able to safely procreate with one another in the event that we need to have a surplus of babies. And since they are all of mixed backgrounds, it would provide for one hell of an adorable population of many races. As long as she continues to adopt kids while having her own, there won't be much trouble in the repopulation area. And if it is needed in an area where there are SOME inhabitants still, but not enough of a mix to safely procreate, then the Jolie-Pitts can swoop in and procreate with the LOCAL people, passing on their genetics and creating yet another adorable population of many races. In the least sinister sense, this could be a way to make a beautiful, mixed world.

OR, Angelina Jolie is hell bent on world domination. She is constantly adopting and squeezing out puppies of her own in preparation for when she attacks some of the impoverished countries of the world. This is clearly why she is a Goodwill Ambassador. She isn't just going around and spreading goodwill to these people, she is vetting them all. She is clearly taking the best specimens for herself and then ranking the rest of the local populations. Her plans are to eliminate all but the cream of the crop (save for the ones she adopts) and then swoop in and let her kids repopulate that country. In a twisted version of the game Risk, she will slowly take over each third world nation in this manner, cycling which children of hers go to repopulate the land so as to avoid crazy mutated inbreds. Her ultimate goal? A world filled with adorable, sexy people of many different races.

Just a thought.

My Fake Uggs

2008-11-09T10:47:00.002-05:00

Last Xmas, my mom gave me money to purchase some presents for myself. I think mainly because I bemoaned the fact that every birthday and Xmas I was stuck with lots of clothes from everyone and that not all of them were my 'style'. Or maybe she was just unable to get out to the stores to do any shopping, which I can also understand.

So anyways, a day or two after Xmas my sister and I went to Joyce Leslie down on route 22. I found the best pair of fake Uggs there, they were black with a sacred heart on the back. And they were only $20. The only part about them I disliked was the tops on the back of each boot. One boot said "Slow" and the other said "Burn". Geh. Not my thing, but I still liked them anyways.

Imagine my surprise when, this winter season, Wal-Mart has THESE:

GAAAH! It's the same exact boot as mine only with out the stupidass "Slow" "Burn".

But I don't stress too much because THESE boots are, retardedly, $3 more than the boots I got. Tho, if I were met with a pair of these exact boots, in a Wal-Mart for less than $20.....I would buy them in a heartbeat (cause hey, then i'd have an extra pair of winter boots kicking around...crap that was totally something my mom would say. UGH).

Reasons Why Busty Should Never Have Kids...

2008-11-08T22:37:00.004-05:00

A few months ago, we had a nice lunch at my job, and we were all discussing kids. We were talking about vacations and then it drifted to Disney and I started us on the "embarrassing the kids" convo by mentioning how my parents took us to Tennessee when we were little and we drove there. In a woody station wagon. With a ten million foot long CB antenna on the roof.

I decided a long time ago, that due to the embarrassment my parents put me through, I was going to embarrass my kids to no end, provided I ever have kids. I think it did a lot of good for me. As such, having to deal with ridiculous parents growing up and all of their shenanigans, I am incredibly hard to embarrass, especially in public. I'm usually the one embarrassing everyone else with my ridiculous behavior.

But yes, I decided that if I were to ever have kids, I will be the single most embarrassing mother. Ever. I will be the mom that drives her kids to school wearing a house coat, slippers and with rollers in her hair. I will be the mom who wears glasses so thick that she can't see well enough to put her obnoxiously bright red lipstick on straight, even if it's unnecessary for me to wear such thick glasses, I'll don a pair when stepping out in public with the young-ins. I'll be the mom who has to walk her kids into their classroom upon delivering them to school. Even, no ESPECIALLY, when they're in High School. I'll be the mom who sends her kids to school in obnoxiously bright and stupidly decorated sweaters on school picture day. I'll be the mom who makes her kids wear matching outfits on all the major religious holidays well into their 30s. I'll be the mom who escorts her children on their dates, even if it's their wedding night. I'll be the mom who spits on a napkin to wipe their kids face off, especially on their wedding night. While in the honeymoon suite.

And before anyone chastises me for notions this ridiculous, no it won't stunt my kids growth nor will it get their asses beat in school. Lookit me, I never once got the shit kicked outta me in school. :D

Now this is all provided that I actually decide to have kids. As it stands, I do not want kids. Ever. No thank you. I get much more enjoyment out of other peoples kids. It's very comforting to know that, at the end of the day, I can hand the kids back over to their parents and go on my merry little way.

A big indication of why I would not be good with kids is cell phones. Yes, cell phones. A friend's friend once made the observations that that's the thing with cell phones, there are people out there who treat them like babies. They make sure they never get filthy, they don't drop them, they keep them fully charged, they buy little cases and accessories to dress them up in, and they especially do not mind them going off all the time throughout the course of the day, shrilling away with an incoming call or text in the middle of a crowded public space. Much in the same way that parents care for their children. Parents bathe their kids and keep them clean, they don't drop them, they keep them fed, they buy them clothes and accessories to dress them up in, and they too do not mind them shrilling away with screams and cries in the middle of a public space. And neither the cell phone babiers nor the parents ever LOSE their prized little cherubs. So it's easy to make the correlation between the two.

My cell phone? I'm lucky if I remember to charge it every night. Oh, ok fine I'm lucky if I remember to charge it twice a week. 9 times out of ten my phone ends up dying halfway into my shift at work. I've gotten slightly better at that, however, as I now keep a charger in my room, my car and at my desk at work. So once my phone dies because my dumb ass forgot to plug it in the past three nights in a row, I can give it a bit of juice.

I do actually have cases for the phone I have now. But about 50% of the time, I've removed the phone from the case while at home and misplace it. Then if I have to go somewhere, I can't find it. I usually then spend about 20 minutes looking for it, which used to make me perpetually late (Though now I have learned to get ready to leave well in advance of when I need to actually leave to balance this out). Once I've searched long and hard, and haven't turned it up, I give up and just throw the thing into my purse. Then there are times when I'll have the case with me and I'll just throw the phone into my purse anyways because putting it into the case takes too much effort. If it helps convince you anymore that I shouldn't have kids, you can liken this to a baby in a car seat.

I had this new phone for two days....TWO DAYS before I dropped it. On the sidewalk. Bone & I went to a great Greek restaurant in Highland Park and as we were walking back to the car, I went to check my text messages and as I flipped my case open, I flung my phone out of it and onto the sidewalk. TWO DAYS. I now drop it all the time. On various types of surfaces. Sometimes I even throw it across my car when I'm mad.

Just last night, I left my cell phone behind when I left class. I remembered to put it back into its case, which is a rare but joyous occasion. I thought I put it in my purse but I really just dropped it on the floor (there's that dropping thing again). I left school and got about half way down 22 when I decided I wanted to listen to my MP3s. I dug through my purse and couldn't find it. Then I realized that the bluetooth symbol on my stereo wasn't lit, which means it wasn't in my car. I had to turn around and drive back to the school to go get it from the classroom.

There were also a few phones of mine that I wound up dropping into various liquids. My mom used to love Cluck-U Chicken and she'd always get the mega large drinks to get the souvenir cups. They were huge. I'd fill them up with Orange Juice and make a day of a carton. One time, I had a phone in the hand that was holding the juice. I shifted my fingers the wrong way and dropped the phone in the juice.

Clearly, if my cell phone were a child, protective services would have taken it away from me AGES ago.

Then there's the level of interaction that I have with my nieces. For some reason, I devolve to a child myself when dealing with them sometimes. Yes, I get into 'intellectual' arguments with my niece about how her mom is my sister and her gee da is my mom. I never win. It sucks.

But besides those instances, there's the method of behavior modification that I have started to employ. It has gained me much ridicule from my family, but I just shrug and say "hey, it's why I'M not having kids". You see, I like to encourage my nieces to behave themselves. The youngest one isn't too much of a pest right now in the misbehaving department (meaning that she can be put in time out and it still works). But the older one, oof. Last Christmas, in an effort to get her to eat the cornish gaming hen that my sister laboriously prepared for everyone for dinner, I devised a little trick. I told my oldest niece that Baby Jesus lived in her closet. And that if she didn't behave herself and eat her dinner, that he would come out of the closet after she was asleep and take ALL of her toys that she just got for Christmas. My sister was thrilled.

Most recently, I've taken to threatening to put on a scary movie if she doesn't behave. She then tries to convince me that Casper is a scary movie and that I should put that on, but her Faa Faa is far too clever for that. I know that she just wants to watch Casper, so telling me it is scary, in her mind, would encourage me to put it on. (The real scary thing about this is that she isn't even 4 yet and she has already figured out how to manipulate people to do her bidding. She'll make a great supreme dictator yet.) No, I say, not Casper. A REALLY scary movie. Like the kind that is SO scary you won't sleep for a month. She will immediately start behaving after hearing that. Again, my sister is thrilled with me.

Clearly, Busty should never procreate.

All I Can Muster Up The Energy To Say At This Point...

2008-11-05T00:54:00.002-05:00

...is WOO FUCKING HOO!!! Congratulations are in order for Obama our 44th President! Sure we have about 3 more months of the muckety muck that we've been wading in but lookit what is waiting for us on the other side!

Besides Giant Boy, I was the first from the results watching group to journey off to bed. But now I'm wired and wide awake. Isn't that just always the case?

I'm super excited about our first Hawaiian president! ;D

Wow

2008-11-04T12:08:00.002-05:00

I guess I really haven't changed that much afterall.

It Feels Like.....

2008-11-03T15:20:00.004-05:00

....the world is trying to keep me from getting my Abnormal Psychology midterm grade.

Last week I didn't go to class cause I had poll worker training. This week they canceled ALL classes at the Franklin Center today. But didn't give any reason as to why. Damnit.

It already feels like I've missed a whole butt load of class cause I missed one. *sigh*

I guess the plus side is that I'll be able to study lots of Italian via Rosetta Stone and work on my fugly granny square blanket some more.

The Quickest, Most Reliable Way To Ensure That I Wish Your Skull Gets Crushed By A Mack Truck

2008-11-03T12:09:00.002-05:00

Say anything....ANYTHING derogatory, insulting, or otherwise negative about my dad or anything having to do directly with my dad (including, but not limited to: my relationship with him, anything he and I enjoyed together, anything that I inherited from him *tangible, intangible and genetic*)

Last Semester....

2008-11-03T08:57:00.001-05:00

I was far more obsessed with getting all of my homework done in a retardedly timely fashion so that it was all done before Friday night. Now? Not so much anymore.

I gotta start carving out time in my schedule post-class daily to do my homework at night and get back into the REAL groove of things.

Busty is Climbing Up The Ladder

2008-10-24T12:03:00.003-05:00

I've been saying for a while now that the job task of shipping samples to our customers would, without a doubt, one day be transferred completely to our Waukegan facility. It was kind of a no-brainer observation because the ultimate goal with out production facility is to produce all our products in-house in an attempt to offer the most cost effective product to our customers. I figured it would come one day, maybe another year from now or so, but imagine my surprise when they pulled me into the office today to tell me it would be happening over the next couple of months.

They assured me it wasn't an ominous meeting, and that it was nothing bad. So I figured, once they mentioned samples, they were going to offer to send me out there but BOY was I wrong.

I'm now, almost officially, the Sales Assistant. I've held that title at a job before, but it was retail and it meant I was a cash register monkey. Now, it means that I assist the sales team. I'm not 100% on what all my new tasks are going to entail, but I'll basically be shedding off my old responsibilities and transferring them to Waukegan, and focusing on assisting the sales team with Call Reports, statistics (i hate that word lol), and other such tasks, possibly even accompanying them on sales visits (cool!). I'll still be handling the orders that I have in the office, since it is no longer a one person job, but it won't increase in size so that I can devote as much time each day to assisting the sales team.

I'm very excited by this prospect, because it's an advancement (this makes my second advancement in the company within the 9 months that I've been employed here) and leaves me up for another raise as well. We didn't fully complete the meeting because we all got distracted by what items from the sample inventory room we'd be shipping out to Waukegan once they gave us the go-ahead.

SO that's definitely great :)

Randomosity The Likes of Which You've Probably Never Seen....Today At Least

2008-10-20T12:35:00.005-05:00

On days like today (Where I am exhausted from the weekend) I wonder if my job realizes that I'm being as unproductive as I could possibly be without napping under my desk.

I also wonder if I could legitimately get away with napping under my desk as long as I had paperwork and the keyboard down there with me, would they notice?

This weekend took a lot out of me. Mostly because of all the damn moving I was up to. Sure, I only moved from New Brunskwick into Highland Park, but it was me and Sugar Daddy loading everything up and then Bone helped us unload at her house, now partially my house.

I've got everything mostly unpacked. There's still stuff in my car that wasn't pertinent to bring in and then there's like, a few things left at the New Brunskwick apartment. I gotta go get some of them today (coffee maker, dress, laundry supplies) so that I can have coffee in the mornings and not have to 'dunk' the coffee pods like tea bags (note to everyone: it doesn't work)and have clean clothing to put away (my hampers full of stuff which was either definitely dirty or questionable).

I can tell I'm out of it today, and I hope I sharpen up before my test later. I just stood at the microwave trying to heat up my lunch, I kept entering the time and hitting the clear button. I did it 3 times before I realized the start button was the other one.

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to Friday night and tell myself to get more people to help me move and to take it easy Sunday night and not get so shnookered. I also wish I had a time machine so I could go back to last summer, when I started knitting my black sweater and tell myself that the neckline is awfully obnoxious and to make it a V-neck instead.

Instead I'll just have to settle with knitting a v-neck sweater in purple. maybe I can do purple and black stripes. That'd be garishly obnoxious because the purple yarn I have (Simply Soft) is bright as fuck.

I want a freddie kruger sweater. That means I'll have to get yarn in that green and dark red. I can do that. I want one big time.

Does endlessly searching for crochet and knitting patterns count as productivity?

I really like the 'fart' noise that new, non broken in chuck taylors make. I've been taking laps around my office randomly all day just to brighten everyones day a little bit. OK it doesn't brighten their days but it amuses me endlessly.

nataliedee.com

Busty Puts Far Too Much Thought Into Everything

2008-10-20T12:10:00.005-05:00

And she can always make things dirty when they don't need to be.

Busty - Rawr, coffee should be helping me but its not.

Casey - Advil?

Busty - Left it at home, and it's not so much my head as I'm exhausted

Casey - Buy a red bull :)

Busty - Ew god no. Urgh. At least I know what to buy you as a present if the store runs outta yoo-hoo

Casey - Lol. I don't need any presents

Busty- We'll just see about that when I give you a present that spectacular

Casey - Lol. Bday is just not a big deal

Busty - Bday shmeeday. Who said bday present?

Casey - True

Busty - I was merely saying if I ever needed to get you a present, and the store had no yoo-hoo, I could simply get you a red bull or even mountain dew as a stand in gift

Casey - I don't know why you would even shop at a store that had no yoo-hoo. I'd leave in a huff

Busty - What if they did carry it but were out of stock

Casey - They should have prepared better

Busty - But what if a whole mess of people suddenly realized how much they loved it, and so they went to the supermarket to get it since they're obviously too cheap to pay for a bulk club membership and the store ran out and it's a saturday and the distributor is closed on saturdays so they can't order anymore until monday. And then when they do they order a LOT but then nobody buys anymore of it because they suddenly realize it wasn't yoo-hoo they liked, it was nestle quick they liked so then the store has a giant surplus of it and the next time you go in it is all on sale. But then the people would buy it because it's on sale so it must be good. Who cares if they like nestle quick better? And then the store runs out again.

Casey - While your scenario is highly likely, I still think they should have planned better!!! It's yoo-hoo!!! It's a national treasure for God's sake!!!!!

Busty - So then you're saying that all supermarkets either need to carry it in bulk quantities that make no logistic sense since they'd no longer have room to store anything else in the back or else hire psychic managers for the beverage departments.

Casey - That is the jist(sic) of my argument, yes

Busty - When you spell gist wrong like that, I think of dirty words that start with 'jis'.

I Know Thanksgiving is Still Quite A Long Time From Now....

2008-10-12T11:43:00.003-05:00

But I just have to say I am super thankful for the Derby News Network. They are seriously friggen awesome, they've been boutcasting the entire Eastern Regionals this weekend and live blogging it as well. It surely is not as good as being there, live and experiencing all the great derby madness in person, but when you can't get out to Wisconsin for a long weekend, it's the next best thing.

Especially the set up we had over at Bone's house. We had her laptop going with the boutcast hooked up to her big ass TV, and then we had Fister's laptop with the live blog going the whole time. Bone and Fister also snagged the giant white board outta her kitchen and threw brackets up for the weekend. And hot damn, super exciting bout last night with Gotham vs Philly! Holy shit, Philly gave Gotham a huge run for their money. So many people thought that Gotham would stomp them, hard, because they've played before and Philly has lost by a large spread, but last night was absolutely amazing. The final score was 96-91 Gotham. Damn. Suzie Hotrod really pulled it off in the end, the Gotham blockers kept Mo Pain held back into the pack and Suzie blew through, grabbed lead jammer and got the grand slam. Mo barely even made it through her first pass before the jam ended.

All the girls were AMAZING last night. Everyone played so well and that bout was a nail biter for sure. We were on the edge of our seats in Bone's living room, and I could only imagine how intense it was to be there watching it in person. Fantastic!

Thanks to DNN & all their boutcasting/liveblogging! And their awesome sponsors for making it all possible!

Edit @ 9:20PM Eastern Time: CONGRATULATIONS GOTHAM!!! EASTERN REGIONAL CHAMPIONS WOOT! Only five more weeks till you gals kick ASS at Nationals!!!!!!

Shame on You Governor Schwarzenegger!

2008-09-29T20:38:00.004-05:00

Shame for vetoing AB 2233! This Assembly Bill would have made it illegal for people to drive a vehicle with a live animal in their laps or arms. Though he does have a reason for vetoing it, which is flimsy I think: "As he has with six dozen other bills this signing period, Schwarzenegger attached a uniform four-sentence message explaining he is signing bills only of the "highest priority" during the condensed signing period caused by the 85-day budget delay."

Others have claimed it was excessive government, but I really don't think it is. I think it should be something that should be recognized as a legitimate distraction while you are driving, much like talking or texting on your cell phone. It's not like you have a purse in your lap, it's usually a dog that people have in their laps.

"A traffic collision at 40 mph can hurtle a 25-pound dog through a vehicle with the force of a 1,000-pound object, according to a legislative analysis of the bill."

For instance, I heard a story from an acquaintance that her boss's car was hit by a girl who was DISTRACTED BY HER LITTLE DOG while driving, hit the guy's car, and her little dog ended up on the back dashboard of the car, from it's original place in the front seat of her car, where it wasn't secured in by a canine seat belt or in a traveling crate.

"But Sacramentan Kurt Reiswig, 70, opposed the measure as a "nanny government" attempt to regulate personal behavior that should be left to common sense. Lawmakers simply can't ban every driver distraction – from eating to changing a radio station – that can divert attention from the road, he said.

"Next thing, they'll say we've got to have seat belts for the dog," Reiswig said."

Actually, Reiswig, they already MAKE seat belts for dogs, and in the fine state of NJ we require that dogs be properly transported or else you get slapped with fine of a minimum of $100. California's bill was only proposing a $35 fine, and after all costs it would have been a grand total of $150. Not a lot of money, but enough if it becomes a repeated offense.

"State law currently allows drivers to be cited if their vision is obstructed or a distraction causes them to violate a rule of the road – but not simply for holding an animal.

Pets must be secured in the back of a pickup but can roam freely inside a vehicle.

California Highway Patrol statistics show that four people were killed and 346 others injured in collisions from 2001 to 2007 due to driver inattention caused by an animal. No breakdown exists of how many were in their owner's lap."

Hrm. That's a lot of injuries and a few deaths for a span of 6 years caused by drivers who were distracted by animals. It would be a more helpful number if they could break it down to what animals were in laps and what ones were just in the car.

People have criticized it, because you can never make EVERYONE happy, saying it is easier to quiet and calm a dog in your lap than deal with one in the backseat. Here's a hint. Unless the dog in the backseat is in severe distress (which I'll touch on in a moment): IGNORE THE DOG BARKING IN THE BACKSEAT. If telling the dog to stop does nothing, then ignore the dog. Lavishing any kind of attention on a dog, positive or negative, is just going to reinforce the behavior, you dopes. Now, if the dog IS in severe distress: Pull the frig over and help your dog! Why are you going to leap into action while driving? Would you do the same if it were a kid in the back of the car, hurtle yourself over the seat into the back while careening down the highway at 80MPH? If so then I'm glad all you guys live in California and not in NJ.

Anytime anyone in my family has had a dog, depending on the size, and the vehicles we owned, they either chilled in the way back, secured in place by a leash, behind a barrier for dogs; sat in the backseat with a seatbelt harness on; Or sat in the front seat with a seatbelt harness on. Or lacking one of those three options, the dog rode in a crate secured into place.

I feel like this point is worth visiting again: "A traffic collision at 40 mph can hurtle a 25-pound dog through a vehicle with the force of a 1,000-pound object, according to a legislative analysis of the bill."

Got that?

Now, imagine if you will, a nice little scene: A girl is driving along with her approx. 25-pound dog sitting in her lap. She's, thankfully, belted in, but the dog is just sitting there. It's a nice day, so she has her window down and the dog is hanging his head out, checking out the scenery as it whizzes by. Her dog starts fidgeting around and, thusly, distracting her. Or else she gets distracted by her cell phone because, hey, her dog's on her lap, why is she gunna care about getting a call or text? Either way, no matter the distraction, she takes her eyes off the road for a mere moment. Next thing she knows, she looks up and is a nanosecond away from slamming into the back of the car in front of her. Her poor little dog just got crushed between her and her steering wheel and airbag, and worst case scenario got decapitated or had his neck snapped because his head was hanging out the driver's side window. A little extreme, but this happens. The girl who hit my acquaintance's boss's car was pretty lucky that neither she nor her dog were hurt.

And the sad part is that the people driving around with their dogs on their laps usually don't think about that. A few months ago, I saw a girl who was driving with her dog in her lap, and was letting him stick his head out the window. She pulled into the same place I was going to, so I approached her and talked to her in a non-preachy, non-animal rights freak kind of way, first informing her that a NJ cop COULD write her a ticket, and that it poses a safety risk to herself and her dog, and she honestly seemed surprised by this. She didn't know she could get a ticket, and she didn't think about the risk involved. This is why I'm a nerd, to look up these statutes and pass my knowledge onto others I guess.

It's really disheartening to think that this Assembly Bill was treated as such a joke. And, yes, I do realize that I don't live in California, but c'mon. If they don't give a rats ass about the animals, they could at least potentially concern themselves with the people who could be injured by this.

all quotes are from the article found on sacbee.com

Results Not Typical....

2008-09-29T13:06:00.002-05:00

That couldn't possibly be because those are two completely different people.....right?

El Granizo Al Jefe

2008-09-26T09:21:00.003-05:00

Last night, parking on my street was HORRENDOUS. And that is thanks to the fact that Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, was at the Lord Stirling school right across the street from my house. Yep. And Mayor Cahill deemed it a worthy enough event to come on out to the town he runs. How sweet of him. I had no clue that was going on and had to park far away from my house, which sucks because 1) my neighborhood is not the nicest *see the entry from Tuesday* 2) I end up having a lot of shit to carry into the house on a school night. So it irked me.

And now, the briefest bit on WHY Calderon was actually in Brumfus:
I read up about it today and apparently they want to put a Mexican Consulate in New Brunswick to serve the growing population of those who come here from Mexico, and yet, he wants to create more jobs and better living in Mexico so that people won't want to flee to America. Hrm. Sounds like one side of his mouth has no idea what the other one is saying. Actually, they probably are both agree, that telling us that he's wanting to improve Mexico so the citizens don't go abroad in search of a better life. "One day Mexico will have the conditions to generate work and schools sufficient so that never again you have to leave due to hunger." Yes, one day, which is a lovely little term used to placate us into thinking "oh wow, he's really gunna do it!" but then when he doesn't....he can shirk the blame onto someone or something else. OK so let's put the consulate in to serve the Mexican immigrants that come here, and let's try to improve conditions in Mexico one day....because then your citizens will REALLY want to stop coming to America, even tho there's a consulate in New Brunswick, NJ set up to serve and assist them. Brilliant. Bravo.

But all that is just blahbittyblahblahblah in my head compared to the most interesting thing to come out of his visit to my town last night. That thing is that one of his cronies PEED ON MY NEIGHBORS HOUSE.

Yes, folks, that's pure class right there! I was hanging around on the balcony, smoking a cigarette watching everyone flee to their cars and leave, thus clearing up the parking issue from 20 minutes earlier. A little later on, I saw a lone gentleman walking down the road, he looked up and I guess figured I wasn't paying attention, or wasn't watching, or maybe he didn't even see me. But once he got to my neighbors townhouse, he ducked right behind the one front entrance area and proceeded to pee on the house. I wasn't sure at first cause it was a bit difficult to see him, at first I thought "well, maybe he lives in the house next door, but no, wait, that's my fireman neighbor's house and he does NOT look like that." About ten minutes later he reemerged and proceeded on his way to his car. So I kinda bugged out a little going "Oh my god that's GROSS! He peed on my neighbors house!" Then he drove down the street in a car with governmental seals on the windows. NIIIIICE.

So that's what they really think of us....

Mexico: We'll Come To Your Country and Pee On Your Town

Little Busty - The Driveway Incident

2008-09-24T22:27:00.005-05:00

When I was little, I'm gunna say around 4 or 5 because I cannot remember the exact age and I'm too lazy to go scope out my photo albums for the pictures, I busted myself up quite nicely.

It was a nice, somewhat breezy day and the idea came upon us to fly kites in our front yard. My sister and I were running around like maniacs, trying to get them up in the air, when I tripped in a hole and landed with my face in the driveway.

I can remember the pain of falling, I hit the ground chin first and, because I was running around having fun, my mouth was open in a big, stupid grin. Thusly, I ended up breaking my two front teeth. Even just thinking about it reminds me of the pain it all caused.

My mom and dad had to get a hold of our dentist and take me over there to get my teeth checked out. So they called and then piled me into the car with a whole bunch of towels shoved up against my face. I remember sitting on my mom's lap while she held me telling me that it was going to be OK and that the pain would stop. It hasn't really, but I believed her.

My dentist X-Rayed my mouth and ended up capping my front teeth. He warned us that I could have residual damage later on to my jaw bone. I've basically wound up having TMJ, and my jaw will ache and hurt for days at a time or lock up all together to the point of me not being able to properly speak. My jaw also pops when I open my mouth too wide...like when I yawn. And thankfully only one person has seen me with my jaw completely messed up to the point of unbearable pain, which is good because it's not a fun or pretty thing to witness.

I get to deal with tons of pain on a regular basis and all because I was having a happy moment as a kid, and trying to give myself a happy childhood memory. Now I've got the memory of that day embedded in my mind, but it's more about the pain that I inflicted upon myself than anything else. I'm so fucking cheerful, right??

How Cool

2008-09-23T19:26:00.002-05:00

I juts got to watch New Brunswick's finest throw some baddie down on the sidewalk and slap cuffs on him. They chased him up Redmond St in their squad cars, I guess he was maybe on foot? Or maybe in a car? I didn't see that part. But I did see a cop run, jump and land on his ass (then again I'm not 100% positive it's a he). It was so.....wait a minute, wtf am I saying? It was right across the street from my house! That's not that cool!

Part of the fun of living in ghettopia.

Reminds me of a conversation I overheard a few weeks ago, two gentlemen (ha) were walking up Redmond while I was sitting on my balcony. The one was saying to his cohort how their friend would not be able to accompany them in messing up the life of a particular person who did them wrong because he was under house arrest and he did not want to get into any further trouble. Only it was less eloquent and with far more vulgar terms thrown in. These are the things I overhear while sitting on my balcony. Yea. Wait, why the frig didn't I call the police when I overheard that and say "hey, guess what boys, anonymous tip, two guys are walking up redmond street, they look like such, they said such, and headed this-a-way on Jones". I'm lame. :/

There is only one place where the "Christmas Creep" is acceptable...

2008-09-23T14:34:00.001-05:00

and that is in the world of Knitting/Crochet.

Speaking as someone who made three xmas stockings last year in a matter of a month and a half, the sooner the friggen christmas knitting/crocheting starts the better. Oof.

But everything else needs to learn that we have two more holidays to go before christmas. Especially cause knitters/crocheters/crafters like myself are usually knee deep in holiday projects about now.

Everytime...

2008-09-23T07:37:00.001-05:00

Everytime I see one of these new "Start Wearing Purple" Yahoo ads, The Gogol Bordello song starts up in my head.

Avast, ye scurvy bilge rats!

2008-09-19T09:42:00.005-05:00

It be talk like a pirate day!

Ye best t' start in on the fun or ye'll be keel hauled!

How To Talk Like A Pirate

The Official International TLAPD Site

Talk Like A Pirate Day - US

You Just Can't Kill It

2008-09-18T10:30:00.002-05:00

Anyone who reads the NY Times will probably say "that headline looks familiar", unless they're the types that DON'T flip to the style section. Then they're probably confused by that.

But according to NYT Style writer Cintra Wilson "Goth style endures in High School and in High Fashion because alienation will always be chic". Excuse me a moment I have to go laugh my ass off.........ok and done. Wow, and here I thought I just had no friends! I never realized I was "chic"! Granted, I may not be as chic as those Wilson is referring to since I do not partake in Goth fashion and style. I'm a t-shirt and jeans kind of gal. Once in a while a skirt gets thrown in where necessary and I don't even pretend that anything I wear to work gets worn in regular life. If there's something clever or funny written on a shirt, especially if it's of the horror nature, I'm more apt to wear it. I do wear plain t-shirts but that's pretty much it. Oh and once in a while I'll throw a western shirt or flannel on over top. Low maintenance. Nowhere near goth.

I find the blurbs in the article to be far more amusing than the actual article itself. It seems very scattered. It starts with this whole "Oh, hey, I lived in the thick of 1980's Goth San Francisco, I knew so-and-so. I'm so hip that I was in this bands apartment and blahbiddyblahblahblah" self-indulgent crap, jumps around to conversations with current young adult/teen goths, touches on some historical points and then repeats the whole damn cycle. Really, in the whole set up of the thing it probably would have been a better serial article. Or at the very least just a piece about how "Here's the latest fashion trend, the history goes back to the victorian era". Basically reading it made my head hurt.

But thank god for the article blurbs! The little tidbits and gems that are bolded and enlarged, or paired with a picture. "The all-black uniform of goth says, “I feel your angst.”" or "O.G.: Original Goth". And the second best, after the "Alienation is chic" one: "'Goth just seemed to fit," invoking a feeling of happiness and belonging." Whoever had the job of creating and placing all of those, I commend you. You made an otherwise blah day of time extremely amusing.

I'll Try My Best To Explain This Thoroughly and Logically

2008-09-17T10:18:00.004-05:00

I own over 15 bottles of various lotions and moisturizers. In various scents and viscosities. We're talking lotions, creams, butters, spray lotions. Basically any incarnation of moisturizer in a particular variety or scent I own. I even have different versions of one moisturizer, in the sense that I own the face moisturizer, the hand cream, the foot lotion, the body butter, and the basic body moisturizer.

Let me clarify this: I own over 15 bottles of moisturizer did not purchase ANY of them. And they aren't gifts that I've managed to collect during holidays and birthdays over the last few years. They all came from my mom. I know you are all probably thinking 'Well then doesn't that make them a gift?' (if there are any readers to think that). Yes and no. Yes because she gave them to me and I was not required to pay her back. And no because of the motives behind her giving it to me.

First, a little back story. My mom is not completely impulsive. She is in the sense that she impulsively buys stuff, but not in what she buys. She buys things that she likes and gets upset when she can no longer buy it. I can fully understand that. There's nothing fun about falling in love with a brand and then going to purchase it one day only to find out that it is no longer available. It is because of this that my mom stock piles certain products she likes.

When she finds a lotion, perfume, or even sandals that she likes, she will buy it in large quantities and keeps them stored in her bedroom to ensure that she will not run out should they no longer manufacture the product she's in love with. It's an excellent plan regarding the sandals (imitation Birkenstock style sandals from Wal-Mart) that she's in love with because she wears them all the time and has yet to find another pair or style of sandals she likes as much. It's not so excellent regarding beauty items like lotions.

She falls madly in love with a moisturizer or lotion, buys tons of it in the fear it will one day no longer be manufactured, but inevitably she always winds up finding another lotion shortly after the stock piling begins that she loves EVEN MORE. So what does she do with all the excess lotion that she's only so fond of? That's right, she thrusts it upon her youngest daughter.

This is why I own over 15 bottles of lotions in various forms.

I'm just glad she hasn't started thrusting her perfumes on me. I have my own little 'collection' of perfume (4 bottles, three different scents) and I don't need that increasing in size anytime soon. I'm also glad she hasn't strayed from her favorite sandals because what the hell would I do with five pairs of Faux Birkenstocks in men's size 11?

The Undead Roamed Through The Streets of New Brunswick....

2008-09-16T22:07:00.003-05:00

So last Saturday was the first NJ Zombie Crawl, and it went off fantastically. The turn out was small (but that was to be expected due to the minimal amount of promotion involved haha) but the next one will be better because I'm gunna pimp that shit out worse than a hooker. Pics can be found at myspace.com/njzombiecrawl.

This Saturday, however is going to be even BETTER. It's an event of epic proportions. I am, of course, talking about the Jersey Shore Roller Girls bout against the Gotham Girls Roller Derby. The JSRG All Stars are going to take on the Wall Street Traitors at the Asbury Park Convention Hall. It is not to be missed for a few simple reasons:

-The JSRG All stars are undefeated and are taking on the Traitors, who are from the #2 ranked league in THE WORLD
-The bout is at the Convention Hall....where one is supplied with not only derby of epic proportions, live music that sounds fantastic but beer as well. Hm, hell yes!
-Casey "Wolfman Smack" Bartholomew (from NJ 101.5's Jersey Guys) is making his Derby Announcing debut alongside Hardcore Derby Announcer Tricia La'Vicious
-The BOUNCING SOULS and KISSY KAMIKAZE (featuring GGRD's very own Suzi Hotrod) are playing after the bout.

Epic epic epic. Get your asses there if you live anywhere even remotely close to NJ.

Oh yea and I'll be there as well.

Seriously?

2008-09-12T13:33:00.003-05:00

This was the most flattering still from the video they could pick for him??:

Damnit, Stephen King, get some of those cell phone crazies after whoever is responsible! You look skeery in a bad way there.

Unless....that's you smiling. In which case just stop. Don't ever do that again.

Please?

I still love your books, don't hurt me

Somedays....

2008-09-08T21:51:00.002-05:00

Busty feels like a big fucking loser.

Today is ending up one of those days.

I don't know why, but I just feel like a giant butt wipe. Yep.