Sunday, April 29, 2007

et tu, brute?

it's gonna be a long dragon boat season. our leader since the beginning has left us. since we're a team that doesn't like to discourage people from joining or rowing or watever, we've always had too many leaders. but the leader of the leaders was philip. when college started we lost a lot of people, so a few high school teams joined together. since our hs team had the most members left over, our unofficial new team captain was philip. all the original team leaders were added in to our leadership, so we had like 8 leaders for team of less than 40 people (i kno, it's too many. but eh, we mostly got along, and since everyone handled different things, it worked). as the years went by, the team lost both leaders and members (some people joined other teams, some people just quit). last year we had three full time and three part time leaders. at the beginning of this season we were left wit three full time and two possible part times. altho we've managed to hold onto a lot of rowers, most of the leaders keep leaving because they have different priorities. our team isn't one that practices year round so we're not very competitive. this, of course, bothers some people. up until last year, anyway, that was basically the way it worked.
but we had a couple in the leaders. they had been dating for a good many years. and at the end of 2005(?) they broke up. the breakup was a messy one that was further complicated when the female from the couple immediately started dating another guy from our team. because some of us were good friends outside dragon boating, some alliances formed and loyalties were tested. not every friendship withstood the breakup.
this, of course, affected the 2006 season. the male of the broken up couple became a part time leader and later moved away for school. when the female exerted more power over the group (making some questionable decisions), the already frayed friendships deteriorated even faster. and so, this year, philip decided not to join the team.    and then there were two..
i'm closer to philip than i am to thy (the female from the relationship, and the other leader of the team), and i have heard a lot of things from him, so i sometimes wonder if maybe i'm not just biased against her. i'm normally not one to give too much credit to hearsay, except that have seen her in action. and i gotta say, she does this that are sometimes pretty damn inappropriate (eg holding practices without informing me of them, making majorish decisions without consulting with other leaders). in any case, i'm basically ready to quit anytime. i would normally feel bad about just dropping my responsibilities at a moment's notice, but she knows that 1) i was hesitant to db at all this year and 2) i am a lot more sympathetic to phil than i am to her. and i don't kno if she actually knows this, but i will basically only leave  if i feel that i too just can longer work wit her. and that will only happen if she crosses me one too many times. i'm okay wit disagreeing wit people and how they do things. but if she makes any major decisions without consulting wit me first then that's just crossing the line. and yet, i can totally see her doing it. i guess at this point i'm just seeing how far she'll take it.
we haven't officially started the season, so phil hasn't addressed the team yet. he's planning to say that he's too busy. (i kno, i'm writing this on my site. but truthfully, how many of you, dear readers, are dbing? i think close to none). if i leave, however, i won't be so diplomatic. i won't name names but people will be damn sure that i'm leaving because of political reasons, not personal. (btw, phil does kno that i'm planning to be artfully blunt when/if i leave. so i don't think i'll be much of a problem, wat i'm writing here)
this is where rip comes in. i told him the entire situation and asked him if he would continue to row if i quit. he said "probably not" but that he wasn't sure. and i don't think i'm over-reacting when i say that i think he should quit. it's not like i'm leaving for purely personal reasons (i'll be too busy or vacationing or watever). i'm leaving because i feel like i can't deal anymore wit the way the team is being run. that's not to say that it'll be run poorly or anything; things might even be better. but i'll basically be leaving because thy will have forced me out. and how can you, as my boyfriend (and as someone i introduced to dbing), stay on such a team? i think phil said it perfectly with 'i wouldn't have thought this would be a difficult decision...'
another complicating factor, an old friend of reep's will most likely be on the team again this year. nearly every year, the deciding factor for reep, of whether or not to row, has been if tom was gonna do it. i'm assuming that he will; his girlfriend is the captain of the boat, after all. now that reep has two friends, wat will it matter if i'm gone? ...it's a weird feeling. knowing that your boyfriend doesn't have your back. maybe this summer, in more ways than one, it'll be the final straw.
edit: i forgot to mention that reep is very half-ass about dbing anyway. he's lazy and goes to, like, half the beach practices and nearly none of the pool practices (of the nine practices we took roll for last year, we went to five total). and even still, homeboy can't decide if he would quit. that's just fucking great.

Friday, April 27, 2007

poketo

i'm starting to stray away from ready made to custom made. and in that theme, i really love some of these wallets, esp rama hughes2, alex one, dran, veenom, stella2, franki chan1, alika cooper2, pcp4, and most of series 5 and 6. lol, okay. i like a lot of them...

surprise!

LONDON - A passenger on a British Airways flight complained after he awoke on the plane to find a corpse had been placed nearby his first-class seat. Paul Trinder said he awoke from sleeping on the nine-hour flight to find the corpse of an elderly woman who had died on the flight in a nearby seat accompanied by her grieving daughter crying loudly, The Times of London reported Monday. Trinder told the newspaper he found the experience "deeply disturbing" but the airline told him to "get over it" when he voiced  his concerns. "It was a complete mess -- they seemed to have no proper plans in place to deal with the situation," he said. "I didn't have a clue what was going on. The stewards just plonked the body down without saying a thing. I remember looking at this frail, sparrow-like woman and thinking she was very ill," Trinder told The Times. "When I asked what was going on I was shocked to hear she was dead." He said he was also concerned with the health issues involved. "When you have a decaying body on a plane at room temperature for more than five hours there are significant health and safety risks," he said.

WAUKEGAN, Ill. - Workers preparing a Mundelein, Ill., golf course for the upcoming season found a human skull and other bones near the 14th tee. "It was laying there right in the middle of the fairway," John Galford, chief of the Lake County Forest Preserve Police told the Chicago Tribune. Police did not see any indications of foul play, such as skull fractures, Galford told the Waukegan (Ill.) News-Sun. County Coroner Dr. Richard Keller said the age, sex and race of the bones were not immediately known, but he said the bones did appear to be modern and not ancient bonesthat had been dug up, the News-Sun reported. Investigators said clues at the scene may help solve the mystery. Two false teeth bore a star pattern, a front tooth had a golden "R" on it, Galford told the Tribune. The macabre find was at the Prairie Course, one of Countryside Golf Club's two courses, the News-Sun reported.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

unusual buildings

some of the most unusual buildings in the world. i have been to only one. :( but my parents have been to at least four. yay spain!

jobish

besides just the usual kiddie fare (ballerina, singer, actor, photographer, movie/food critic), as a kid i used to want to be (in no order):
*astronomer - love(d) astronomy, and thought it would be cooler than just being an astronaut.
*astro-physicist - i never really knew wat that was, but thought this would be cooler than being an astronomer.
*professional spelunker - too scared of the things that could be in the dark tho...
*marine biologist - i think deep sea animals are so cool and weird
*environmental conservationist - this is why it still freaks me out when people litter or waste water or don't recycle.
*geologist / archaeologist - love rocks and fossils. besides, you get to 'play' in the dirt all day, how cool is that?
*book editor - me loves to read
*psychoanalyst - cause a plain ol' psychologist isn't good enough
more recently, my dream jobs have been philosopher, poet, fashion designer, travel writer, feminist lobbier person...

Tags: , ,

love ewe

haha, if i was ever gonna go to someone's bachlor party i would so totally get him one of these. love ewe!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

amazing!

LONDON - David Brown just returned to London from a honeymoon with the girl of his dreams, although technically it was her phone number he dreamed five years ago. Brown told the Daily Mail that a phone number was stuck in his head after a night out with friends and he decided to send a text message. The owner of the number, Michelle Kitson, was 17 at the time and in the car with her parents when the message arrived. "Did I meet you last night?" it said. "Who are you and where are you from?" she replied. The two soon figured out they didn't know each other but they kept text messaging and finally decided to meet. Brown said he arrived at their meeting spot early, called her number and saw a young woman answer her mobile phone. "It was love at first sight for me -- I loved everything about her," Brown told the Daily Mail. Kitson said the first text message was "spooky" but after that she was hooked. "My mum and dad kept saying, 'But he could be an ax murderer' but I knew there was something special about it," she told the newspaper. 

last words

+------------------- Famous Last Words --------------------+  

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." - Pancho Villa  

"O.K. I won't." -Elvis Presley responding to his girlfriend's request that he not fall asleep in the bathroom  

"It's very beautiful over there." - Thomas A. Edison 

"Why not? Why not?" - Timothy Leary  

"I'm tired of fighting. I guess this is going to get me." - Harry Houdini  

"Remember me to my friends, tell them I'm a hell of a mess." - H.L. Mencken, essayist

"Monsieur, I beg your pardon." - Marie Antoinette, to her executioner, after stepping on his foot accidentally  

"Dying is a very dull affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it." - Author Somerset Maugham  

"But, but, Mister Colonel-" - Benito Mussolini, executed 1945  

"I'm not afraid to die, Honey...I know the Lord has his arms wrapped around this big fat sparrow." - Blues singer Ethel Waters  

"I am about to, or, I am going to die. Either expression is used." - Dominique Bouhours, grammarian  

"Never felt better." - Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. 

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

vexed

seems like the last game was pretty popular so i found this one. it's not terribly similar but does use blocks and does require some thinking. good luck! vexed

reasonable

that cw's the search for the next doll show makes me laugh and wince at the same time. now, i've never seen the show, so i can only go off of commercials but still.. first time i heard the title i thought, shouldn't this be called 'search for the next pussy doll'? and to make it snappier, why not drop the word doll entirely? of course, i kno why they didn't call it that...

then they started wit the commercials for the season finale (which i think was tonight) and one girl says 'god put me here for a reason'. ...and that reason is so you can dress like a slut, simulate sex and call it dancing? um... excuse me for being presumptuous, but i don't think that's the reason.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

idear

all this talk of who has raised how much for the elections is pissing me off. just think of all the good this money could be doing! instead of wasting it on your posters, fliers, solicitous phone calls and letters, plane trips, suits, ties, and makeup, why not actually do something useful wit it and give it to a good cause: welfare, medicare and medicaid, the police, education, soup kitchens, social security, national parks, government subsidized housing, fire departments, homeless shelters, alternative energy sources, transportation, free clinic hospitals, etc. last i heard, obama has raised $25million. and while i kno that that's a lot of money for him, it it's only small change to the national budget. but every little bit helps, right?

i haven't really thought this thru in detail (as reepal repeatedly pointed out to me tonight). but wat if, say, 6 months before the primary elections, national polls were taken on the probability of the election of the candidates. then the results some of the more respected and accurate polls would be averaged. if a candidate had less than, say, 5% of his party's vote (cause even if all the polls did mess up, it couldn't have messed up that badly), then s/he would be allowed the opportunity to stop campaigning and donate their raised funds to, i dunno, the national treasury or something. i kno that people can stop campaigning basically anytime (but this deadline, wit these results, would be a clear view of reality), but i'm not sure wat happens to the money. i'm damn sure that they're not allowed to spend it on personal things, like another house for their family. i think possibly the money goes to their party's fund, for after the primaries. and if that's true, then i guess it's not all bad. but just think of where all this money could actually be going! wouldn't it be nice if they had a clear opportunity to actually make a difference wit this money?

i get that in order to become president and 'make a difference', you first need to be elected. and this money will help get you the votes.  but why not also make a difference on your way to the whitehouse?

Monday, April 16, 2007

save as!

gar, i'm an idiot! for a while now i've been keeping track of my site counter. everytime after i post i open up my excel file and jot down the date and number of hits. i've been doing this for all of 2006 and a little before that. anyway. as i started updating again in 2007 i decided to startup a new file. (i have different spreadsheets for my different sites). so i openned up the file, save ased, deleted all the old stuff, wrote down the new stuff and saved. tonight i come on and realized that holycrap i didn't save as, i just saved. which means that i saved over everything from before! how stupid can i freakin be?! argh! i do have two hard drives tho. and occasionally i'll go thru and copy stuff from my main hard drive to my other. so i checked in there and while i did find a backup it's way old. like from june of last year. so basically i lost half a year's worth of stuff. bah. i kno i also backed up my stuff onto disk but i think it did it all around the same time so i don't imagine that that copy will be much more current. sooo stupid!

btw, i'm not gonna go thru and really catch you up wit my life (if you really cared enough you would've asked me before. and if you're just stalking me online then, well, tough). but i have been updating my flickr pretty consistantly so you can go and check that out.

strange language

+-------------------- Bizarre Language --------------------+  

The word "bozo" derives from the French slang term "bouseaux" (meaning "hick, peasant, or yokel"). However, bouseaux literally means "cow turds."  

Gay men who successfully joined the British Navy used to be called "reverse malingerers."  

A Boy Scout who forcibly helps an old lady across the street is called an officious interloper. Ask any lawyer.  

The Greeks had a word that meant "with armpits smelling like a he-goat."  

The term for when dogs scratch their butts by dragging them across the floor is called "sleigh riding."  

The expression "paddy wagon" is derived from a derogatory reference to picking up drunk Irish people.  

Young women in Atlanta used to refer to their private parts as "janers." 

foodie

world's most unusual resturants. i wouldn't mind trying the in-the-sky one.

Friday, April 13, 2007

sick days

i'm back! well, actually, i'm not sure that i'll be updating consistantly, but i am here tonight cause i got sick again and need to catalogue it for future reference. so, for all the gory details, please read on (would not recommend you to do so!)
this morning. was awake on and off for about an hour before i decided to actually get up. had some stomache pain (started period during the night so i thought it was that). went to bathroom to dump and stomache hurt more. realized wat was going on and said 'oh shit' and then started to feel like throwing up. didn't. hadn't eaten in nearly 14 hours so wat was there to throw up? feeling very queasy and weak. dumped again. no runs tho (unusual). started sweating and feeling very cold. stumbled to bed. started feeling worse so called rip. couldn't really talk, moaned out that i was sick again and asked him to come over. lay on bed for a while, tried to gather strength to go downstairs to unlock door. was in fetal position on my left side. noticed left arm was going numb. managed to flop onto back and realized that no, both arms numb. all the way up to my shoulder. hands in weird positions, fingers together, unbent. able to move, however. slowly. closed left hand into weak fist, fingers sorta stayed in that position. legs started going numb too (all leg). i have never noticed the numbness before... is this new?
when no longer numb (couple minutes), stumbled and nearly fell down stairs to unlock door. dumped again. retched a few times. feeling really terrible. lay on wood floor cause it was cold and i was burning up. started to feel cold again. nothing nearby so curled up but remembered the arm going numb thing. got into kneelin position to try to get back upstairs. retched again. made myself throw up in the empty plant saucer thing on floor. first just throwing up white foam. but retching deeeeeep. so got up stomach acid and eventually this bright yellow stuff (like egg yolk). terrible tasting. when nearly done, reep came in. afterwards it looked like i had cracked open an egg in the dish and had just started frying it. very disgusting.
reep carried me upstairs (my hero!). very cold. eventually warmed up and started to feel better. reep left, i took a short nap and afterwards felt pretty much better. stomach slightly queasy but basically okay. think imma call the doctor next week. now i have two 'documented cases'. wonder wat's wrong?

Tags: , ,

3d fun

reep sent me this 3d blocks game thing which is pretty fun, altho also it can also be pretty damn frustrating! i have yet to finish 1 and 9. i found 1 to be the hardest. didn't have a lot of trouble wit any of the others. a few i finished in less than a minute.
 
tips on how to play: need java. no time limit. don't need to go in order. you have to use the same number of blocks that they tell you to. all views (top, front, and right side) have to match. when it does, you will see a green dot to the left of the 'figuur' you're working on. when you have successfully completed the figuur you will see a yellow dot. won't erase your tries until you close the window. click on figuur# to begin.

Tags: , ,