still blogging 2

aol closed down all their blog / website hosting stuff (and eventually they deleted all the sites too). tho they let you transfer everything over to blogger, so i did. but i kept it as three separate blogs: travel log, amusings, and snapshots. and, actually, i didn't link them all to each other either. if you clicked on my profile, you could easily find travel log, which was my personal site. but if you didn't check my profile, you'd have to find it on snapshots. i didn't link it from amusings at all. lol, i dunno, just trying to keep things private-ish i guess. i have a similar set up now too, actually.

in febuary 2006, i created "travel guide" which is really just a site for me to keep track of what i'd read that month. sometime in 2010 i also kind of started to keep track of movies watched.

i started tapering off my blogging in 2006, and in early 2010 i barely blogged at all. in fall 2010 i sort of re-discovered my blogs and started posting again. and by the end of the year i deleted amusings and snapshots. i exported all those posts to travel log tho, so i do still have them all. i was just tired of posting and i was sad to see these dead sites.

for most of 2011 i've been pretty consistent in posting here, usually every 3 or 4 days. i tried adding pictures to make my posts more interesting, but since i'm really just writing for myself, i get tired of finding pictures.

oddly enough, i still have a couple other side sites that i sorta maintain. my restaurant picking site taster's choice. and i occasionally share a post with my girlfriends' old site: 6 degrees of design. (us girls have had a couple blogs over the years as well, lol. (one for all of us started in 2004, one design one (nov 2008), and two wedding specific ones). i also now help maintain my dragon boat team's site. i don't normally contribute content there; i mostly just post our weekly digest. but i did tinker with the design a little bit, adding the nav bar and a few other simple things.

anyway, i just wanted to write this up in case many many years from now i struggled to remember how i got started blogging. btw, shout outs to ting, robert, and rip. you three have pretty consistently read and commented my entire blogging career. angel has started reading / commenting a lot too. that really means a lot. thanks everyone!! :) it's super awesome cause i write / post for me. even back when i was doing "amusings" it was so i could somehow keep track of all the funny things i'd found. i now use this site and my google+ for interesting articles.

still blogging 1

i think i started my first blog in college (i actually have posts saved from 1/27/03, tho nowhere does it say anything resembling "hello world, i am new to blogging!"). it was olive green and was called "trips / travels" (defunct link: http://hometown.aol.com/neurp/opener.html) it was hosted by aol hometown and it was really difficult to use because it there wasn't a blog template; it was a blank page that you could add text boxes to (no rulers either! so you had to line everything up manually). it actually had a couple pages: the olive green homepage (with links and stuff), and a black blog in blue font (called "trips"). eventually i added a magenta page highlighting some lovier passages i had written about reep. ...and no, the colors aren't actually important, but that's how i see them in my head.

screenshot of trips / travels from 2005

after that first attempt, aol journals released an actual blog template. in june 2004 i started "(a)musing(s)" (defunct link: http://journals.aol.com/neurp/musings/) and it too was olive green. i mostly posted fun links and stuff. i now used "trips / travels" as my main page and linked my blog thru there. i think i was was also considering live journal, but i decided to stick with aol.

october 2004. started "travel log" (defunct link: http://journals.aol.com/neurp/travellog/) to take over my more personal "trips." i wanted a separate blog because i was getting random hits from strangers on (a)musing(s) and felt uncomfortable with them knowing the intimate details of my personal life. i like journals cause there was text box for music and you could display your mood (you could choose one of ...maybe 15). so at the end of some of my older blog posts, i have lyrics.

on april 24th 2005, i created yet another blog. this time named "snapshots," which focused on pretty things, rather than funny things, a la "(a)musing(s)." so i now had three blogs which i updated simultaneously. crazily enough, i was averaging about 2.5 posts every weekday. that's nuts!! i think by now i was just used to compartmentalizing my blogs. and really, i had two, what was one more? also, at that time you couldn't save your posts to be automatically published later (as i do now)

...history continued romrow...

bachelors in china

a single man: one chinese bachelor's search for love

omg what a freaking sad article! btw, this is about a bachelor in china, not about a chinese guy here in the states.

“China is probably the only country in the world that mandates a girl to marry someone two years older than herself,” says Cai, referring to a law that allows women to marry at 20, but requires men to wait until 22. 

“For Chinese women who want to date or marry, it’s easy. ridiculously easy.”

"And as the gender imbalance grows, it increasingly affects poor women in even darker ways, contributing to a rise in forced marriages, prostitution, and human trafficking."

"For the past 20 years, eternal bachelorhood has become an increasingly likely fate for Chinese men, particularly for those in remote areas without access to jobs. As this group of desperate, sexually frustrated men grows, the situation could become even more grim... In 2007, Edlund published a study that showed that a 1 percent increase in sex ratio could lead to a 5 percent increase in crime rate"

"This trend could create a new marriage economy, she says, encouraging lower-class parents to sex-select for daughters while the wealthy continue to have sons. Relegated to the underclass, women’s growing financial value could prime them for exploitation by their impoverished parents who could sell them to wealthier families for ever-increasing bride prices."

assume nothing

rabbi adam jacobs - the god test: why everyone believes

this guy really pisses me off. i think he's a fucking idiot. seriously. he assumes way too much (and incorrectly a that).

"...so many of their choices and thinking patterns seem to suggest that they believe something quite unlike that which they profess." isn't everyone at some point hypocritical? people are complicated, dumb ass! and btw, the religious are as contradictory as the rest of us. e.g. are atheists the only ones afraid to die?

"Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level? After all, one random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value." ...just cause i don't believe in god doesn't mean i don't think that life has value. if anything, i might find it more valuable because it's so random. i know how lucky we are to be around because some things had happened just a little bit differently, humankind might not ever have existed. and if something went horribly wrong there'd be no stopping it since i don't believe that someone can step in to stop it (i.e. no god to preform miracles!)

jacobs makes a huge mis-assumption. he believes in god and that gives his life meaning. but just because i believe there is no god doesn't mean i find life worthless.

this isn't an "if an only if" situation. and how incredibly pompous of him to even think so!

in regards to his questions: 1. no, because i don't have a dog. but also because i love my parents enough to want to honor their wishes (as long as they don't really hinder my life in any way). but if i needed money and someone offered me some for either sex or my parents' dead bodies, you'd better believe i'm not going become a prostitute.

2. i'm not going to kill him because there's simply no reason to. what would be the point of killing someone who's going to be dead in a hour anyway? for my personal satisfaction? well, i'm not a murderer and i get squeamish when killing bugs so i doubt i'd have the stomach to kill a person. having a gun would make it easier, but again, why bother?

3. it can be. art, love, beauty (and religion) make some people think life is worth living. and if it isn't hurting anyone, why destroy it? music doesn't feed my body, and it certainly doesn't feed my "soul", but it makes me happy. so that's cool.


alo, btw, atheists aren't non-believers. we are believers. we believe there is no god.

cheap vs fast food

i've heard a lot of people complain about how one of the reasons they wanted to quit smoking cigarettes was because it was just too expensive a habit. i think the same thing can apply to eating healthier. imagine how many people would eat less fast food if it was also super expensive!

source

we should tax fast food and use that money to subsidize healthy stuff. taxes from burgers make peaches cheaper. wouldn't that be awesome? experts say that we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, but if they were a lot cheaper, i think people would totally eat them.

btw, notice that i'm not saying that the govt should tax fast food restaurants. mcdonald's offers salads, water, milk, fruit parfaits, apple dippers, etc. those things can remain tax free. but if you plan to get fries with that order, you'll need to pay extra.

btw, i'm not talking about like a 10% tax. i mean it when i compare this to the cigarettes. maybe an 80% tax? i haven't thought too much about the numbers, but i do think it should be significant enough to deter people from eating unhealthy fast food. because as long as prices are close, the convenience of fast food cannot be overlooked.and  i think one way to help eating better easier is to make healthier food significantly cheaper than fast food.

brinicle!!

this brinicle stuff is freaking amazing! short video, must watch! read the video description for info. for slightly more info, read this article. for more details, go look it up yourself. :)

btw, those starfish and sea urchins are STUPID! also, they're so cute "walking" around!

history lessons

learned from robert k massie's nicholas and alexandra: rasputin was first poisoned with huge amounts of cyanide, then shot and confirmed pulse-less by a dr. he wasn't dead tho, cause he got up and ran out the house where he was shot at three more times in the back. he was still alive tho, so his murderers clubbed him, tied him up, and wrapped him in up a carpet. they then threw him in an icy river. days later, when they took his body out, it was discovered that he had actually managed to free an arm, and that after the poisoning, gun shots, and beating, he had finally died by drowning.

learned from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things: ptolemy VIII married his sister cleopatra II. as a birthday present, he had their son dismembered and his head, hands and feet sent to to her.

unoriginal

sometimes the coincidences in the world are just so great that you kind of can't believe there isn't something controlling the universe. and i pretty often feel like the controller of the universe is sometimes just damn lazy.

example: i was reading a book that mentioned a short story. a few days later, i was reading a book being propped up by another book. i closed the first book, and was about to close the other when a line of all caps in the text caught my eye. i read it and then some more, thought it was vaguely interesting and looked to the top of the page for the author or title of the story. and guess what? it was the swimmer by john cheever. the same short story that my first book had mentioned.

i use a book to prop open my current reading, but i don't ever read it any more. it's huge, has onion paper, and has a lot of great, but also a ton of really boring, stuff. but that line of all caps made me look at it. and the story is really short too, only a couple pages. and since i read a ton and have pretty poor memory, i rarely remember what i read, especially if it has nothing to do with the story, which the cheever story doesn't really. so it's also weird that i remember that it was that same story. what a weird coincidence!

posterity

"Posterity is a limited edition series of posters for good. Designed by The Mill’s creative staff and its extended network of artist friends, this poster series has been created as a part of the 50/50 initiative to aid the famine relief efforts in East Africa."

better life

when most of talk about illegal aliens, i think we often forget about the people who come over and try to get professional jobs. or even those who come (maybe on a student visa) and try to get an education first, before trying to get work. but really, illegal is illegal. having more education doesn't mean you're more law-abiding.

and i know this is crazy over-generalizing, but i have more respect for the illegal aliens who maybe pay coyotes hundreds of dollars, risk their lives to get here, work under-paying sucky jobs while living like sardines in a tiny room. many of these people send as much money as they can back home to their families. they work here a few years, maybe a decade, and when they feel like they've earned enough money, they go back home and live middle class lives.

i get that mostly every illegal alien came over to try to live a better life, so really, it's all the same. but some of the jump-ship students drive around in beemers and seem to live better lives than the rest of us who are here legally! gah, anyway. no point to this rant. just saying.

occupy satire

i'm for the occupy movement. but this video is freaking funny. thanks to robert for the link!

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog

seeds

source

the end of the world does not scare me. i don't think it'll happen in my lifetime. but even were it to, i have the feeling that i'll be in the majority of people who dies pretty early on, maybe not in the first wave, but certainly before human kind really starts rebuilding. but while watching the very poetic, tho not very good, climate of change documentary, i found out about the svalbard global seed vault. which, honestly, kind of scared me.

the svalbard global seed vault is a secured seedbank on a norwegian island in the arctic. "The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises." (wikipedia)

source

this is probably a really great idea. but for some reason it also creeps me out. i mean, i know we should plan for a huge natural disaster where we can't find viable seeds to plant foods. but that the whole thing was paid for by the norwegian govt, which seems like serious bunch of people (unlike the taiwanese govt who pretty consistently has fist fights during congressional meetings) is just... i can't describe it. anyway, just thought i'd share this freaky bit of "news".

food integrity

highlights from daniel klein's article: are chipotle and trader joe's really selling food with integrity?

"Beyond helping them [immigrant farm laborers] to know their rights, CIW also created the Campaign for Fair Food asking the major tomato purchasers in this country (fast food chains, grocery stores) to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes, and asking farmers to put that penny towards the workers... Taco Bell has agreed to join the plight for farm workers, as have 9 other major corporations including McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, and Whole Foods. But guess who wont: Chipotle and Trader Joe's.

"Yep, the two corporations whom you would assume would be at the forefront of workers rights issues, are distancing themselves... And that Chipotle --  the company who promotes the integrity of their food and practices more than anyone -- wont partner with CIW in adopting the Fair Food Principles is especially baffling.

"Both have written statements about their uninterest in partnering with CIW... These actions seem very at odds with the Trader Joe's and Chipotle image. They both claim to be doing it their own way, but as Eric Schlosser was quoted as saying: "Claiming you support farm-worker rights but refusing to work with CIW is like someone in the '60s saying they support civil rights but they won't work with Martin Luther King, Jr. or the NAACP.""


btw, if you're for gay rights, here's some more food for thought. chick-fil-a donated nearly $2 million in 2009 to groups that have anti-gay agendas (source).

gorgeous!

november 25th's astronomy picture of the day!

role models

source

like her or not, paris hilton maybe not be the worst role model for your kids. no, seriously. she's not a great person, and she hasn't done lots of super commendable things, but she's really comfortable with her body. she doesn't have the "perfect" nose and she has small breasts. but nose jobs and boob jobs are some of the most commonly performed plastic surgeries for women. yet she's done none of that. good on her!

...tho that's not to say that she's a good role model. and even if you could argue that, she's certainly not a great one!!

side effects

an unanticipated "side effect" of me getting a smart phone is that i'm becoming a bit of a news junkie. and it's more than that i'm subscribed to eight news feeds which i check every day, i've also subscribed to a number of twitter feeds that frequently post articles on science stuff. amazing!


the above video is from scientific american "the best video of earth from space ever made". Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

lasting marriage

The Fine Line Between Marriage and Divorce

"3 common factors in lasting marriages: "The happiest wives have a sense of purpose and passion in work and causes outside of the home. Wives who counted on a spouse for fulfillment and sustenance were often angry and lonely. And the happiest wives don't spend a whole lot of time with their husbands... Couples who allow each other to grow separately are the ones with the best chance of growing together and staying together.

"Finally, the wives with the highest marital satisfaction have a tight circle of wild women friends with whom to drink, travel and vent about their husbands"

"But most women told me they stay married simply because they like their marriages more than they dislike them, even if much of the time it's 51 percent "like" to 49 percent "dislike.""

 i'm very much starting to believe that all it really takes in a normal marriage (so no major problems like domestic abuse, addiction, repetitive cheating, frequent lying about money...) is commitment. don't expect to be happy all the time, don't expect your spouse to give you reason to live, just... don't let divorce be an option.

i recently told this to someone and she said her professor once said something like "the key to a successful marriage is not falling out of love at the same time." which is i think is pretty good. but even if you are both no longer in love with each other, that doesn't automatically mean you should get divorced. i think people today weigh love much too heavily. there's more to marriage (and life!), you know? like companionship, acceptance, respect, affection...

sounds salty

from time.com

"Experimenting with how sound affects taste, chef Heston Blumenthal found that playing a recording of breaking waves makes an oyster taste 30% saltier than the same food eaten to the noise of barnyard animals. At the Fat Duck, a restaurant in Bray, England, his Sound of the Sea dish comes with an unusual side: an iPod loaded with sea sounds."

for more interesting stuff about heston you can read this, there's a video about making egg and bacon ice cream!

the "list"

jillian straus - unhooked generation: the truth about why we're still single was a pretty good read. something interesting she brings up is 'letting go of your list'. a lot of people have a list of qualities they want their significant other to have, which sounds like a pretty good idea. but for some, this list is an absolute, if their date is missing even one item, they are automatically taken out of contention. no more dates! which can be pretty dangerous, especially if your list describes the perfect man or woman, cause there is no such person.

when i was a kid, i had a list: born in america, can sing, taller than me, older than me. and it's funny, but i have yet to date anyone with all the qualities. a few years ago i came up with another list. i don't remember what was on the list, but i know there were three items, and one of them was: able to hold a conversation.

in the book, some of the people interviewed have much more specific lists. this is one guy's 25 item list: loves children; hard working; has the ability to listen and communicate; poised; a team player; looks good / sexy; balance--the ability to keep things in perspective; enthusiastic / love of life; shows initiative; knows how to be a friend; patience; has religious conviction; determined and persistent; considerate of others; has self-control, has faith that things will work out; loyal; ambitious; loves sports; loves music; loves to travel; good mental, physical, emotional condition; sense of humor; alert; the ability to be herself.

honestly, this does sound like a good list. i probably wouldn't want to date someone who didn't have most of these qualities. but when you actually have a list, you'll be so focused on it that you'll lose whatever else comes up. and i don't think anyone is looking to date someone who isn't considerate of others, but you'll naturally come to notice their selfishness so there's no need for a checklist. or what if on the first date you find that this person is perfectly content with their current job as a grade school teacher. not ambitious enough you say!! but what if this was their life-long dream? and what if they're more ambitious when it comes to fitness or something? but you'll never discover that because you'll already have written her off.

my old boss didn't want to date his current girlfriend because she's not chinese (not that he's truly racist, but his mom doesn't speak good english so a chinese speaking person from the same background as him would just make a long-term relationship easier). other than that one thing tho, she seemed really great. i encouraged him to date her and just see what happened. two years later, they're still together and he plans to propose by the end of the year.

anyway, if you're one of those looking for long lasting love but are also holding onto a really long and detailed list, maybe let a go a little and see who comes your way.


...btw, i asked rip about his list. and he said that his new list (if we broke up) would have some opposite things of me, like, not a feminist and someone who doesn't care about the environment. i made a joke about it, but honestly, i was pretty hurt by his comment. i think that being a feminist and an environmentalist shows that i care about much more than myself. i care about global issues, i worry about future generations (even tho i don't plan to have children), i am not a selfish dimwit. but hey, if he wants to date someone who prefers to think only of her very small circle of influence, then that's hardly something i can control. it does bother me though, that he might prefer someone who chooses to be so unaware because what does that say about him? i do think he's not terribly empathetic or even particularly conscientious. but maybe the real problem is that he prefers to self-absorbed. which leads to the question of "will he ever love me the way i want to be loved?"

last meal

 

texas no longer serving death row inmates a special last meal

i think that kind of sucks. i agree that the dude in this article took advantage but to deny everyone in the future the privilege is not nice. the article says that "some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple 'final' meals, restrict it to one or impose 'a vast number of conditions'..." which i do think is a good policy. maybe we can allow a person three special last meals, and if they don't eat the first one, or if they do crappy stuff with it, they don't get any of their remaining two.

i get that we only execute really bad people (well, we try to anyway). and usually the crimes have to be pretty gruesome of us to kill them for it. violent crimes, nothing like tax evasion or theft or anything like that. so of course you can argue that we shouldn't give them any privileges at all, not even a request of a last meal. but just cause they're messed up doesn't mean we have to be also.

the last meals project features some interesting last meals. very simple and sad. actually, they're pathetic because they are so simple. all john r thompson wanted was a glass of fresh squeezed oj. doesn't that kind of make you want to cry? gerald lee mitchell wanted one bag of assorted jolly ranchers. i don't know why he wanted them, and i can think of some really twisted reasons, but maybe those were his favorite candies as a child and as he sucked on each one in the hours leading up to his death, he thought about that one time he was so was so scared by that rabid dog that he peed his pants. and his dad, rather than getting mad like he always did, hugged his son, said that it was okay, and slipped him a jolly rancher or two. maybe he thought about the last halloween with his mom. he wanted to be a barnyard animal, but all they had was his brother's old green sweatshirt so his mom made him a frog costume. gerald was so mad; who wants to be a frog?! he made such a fuss about it but his mom dragged him door to door anyway. and the next day she ran away with their neighbor's husband. at seven years old, all gerald could think was that if only he hadn't told his mom he hated that costume she wouldn't have left him.

...i mean, who knows?

sylvia plath's drawings

apptly sylvia plath could draw too! follow link for more of her drawings.

steve jobs and giving

for the last couple months, the occupy movement has been all over the news. and for a few weeks, so was steve jobs' death. what i find interesting about the occupy movement is that no individuals in the 1% have really been called out. and seeing how i just mentioned steve jobs, i think you know where this is going...
jobs had an estimated net worth of over $7billion at the time of this death. but did you know that "there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity" (source)?

did you also know that apple has more cash holdings than the u.s. government? and what are they doing with that money? not giving back to investors, that's for sure. nor, under jobs, were they giving to charities. within weeks of jobs returning to the helm at apple, he cut all philanthropic giving. the justification at the time was to save money since apple wasn't terribly profitable. but how come he never reinstated them? they're certainly profitable now. (tho tim cook did reinstate charitable giving at apple just a short time after taking over ::applause::)

i think it's incredibly weird that certain billionaires (gates, buffett, zuckerberg, walton...) get tons of flack for lack of generosity. yet, for whatever reason, society has given jobs a pass.

a lot of people say that jobs has already given a lot back to society in the form of technology and jobs (as in, work, not his name). and that's great, but just because you've done some great stuff for technology and job creation, that doesn't mean you can't go help others. tons of the extremely rich have manged to run their empires and think about others at the same time: rockefeller, gates, carnegie, winfrey, buffett, bloomberg, knight, koch... and these people have also contributed to society in general in no way less than jobs. to say jobs has already given back enough through his work trivializes what others have done.

also, if jobs' big concern was making great tech stuff for the general public, why didn't he price stuff cheaper? istuff aside, most mac stuff is really expensive! more people would then be able to buy his products and apple still would have been able to make a profit.

jacobs brings up a good point in her article for forbes that maybe jobs did donate, just anonymously. people donate anonymously for a ton of reasons, a major one being that they don't want to be badgered for more money later. and as one of the richest people on the planet, i can see why jobs would already be a target! another problem with donating, especially if you're giving away a lot, if that you want to make sure the receivers are actually worthy. otherwise you could be giving it to someone else who can enact more positive change. but how do you even decide who's going to do a better job? (tho lots of people create their own charities to make sure their money gets allocated to their liking) and some people just don't want the recognition. ...but how come jobs didn't reinstate apple's philanthropy?

(btw, i totally get why people don't want the credit. i do my drives and post about the results and my locks of love stuff, but i have declined to be put in the organization newsletters and stuff. i find that stuff embarrassing. [i realize that i more and more dislike being the center of attention. i won't shy away from doing things because of the attention, but i certainly never do anything for the sake of recognition.] but for all the lack of wanting credit, i still do stuff!)

the rich are certainly entitled to do what they want with their own money. but we, as consumers, are also entitled to our decision on where to spend our money. camping out and protesting the 1% is great and all, but maybe we should also look at how they became so rich -- we made them that way.

jobs said in a 1993 interview with the wall street journal that “being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me." well, steve, you definitely did do something wonderful, but you could've been someone really wonderful too.

the f word!

i know this is several years old, but i only just discovered this... have you heard of chef gordon ramsay's f word? it was a tv from a few years ago in the uk. i haven't watched enough episodes, but gordon talks about food, eats some, cooks, meets celebrities and sometimes challenges them.

the funniest one i've seen so far is with him and james may from top gear (the british version of course, since the american version flipping sucks).

occupy

sourc

disclaimer: i haven't been following the occupy movement very much. and i didn't do any research for this post so if there are actual wrong facts in here, sorry. (tho i don't apologize for my opinions!)

i asked a few people what they think of the occupy movement and they all said that they don't see the point because the protesters don't seem to have a very clear plan of action. as in, when does this end? what change do you need to see happen in order to stop protesting?

i don't think it's pointless at all. this isn't like a union strike where you're protesting for something. the occupy movement is against something. and everyone, including the protesters, know that this something cannot be easily be changed. but that's fine, because the movement is to bring attention to the issue: the unfairness of massive financial inequality.

this reminds me of the sit-ins and the rallies of the 60's for desegregation and 70's against the war. did the protesters think that by sitting in a diner suddenly there would be change? of course not. they were looking for media attention (and not in a stupid kardashian way), and they got it. which led to others around the country also starting protest movements. and eventually there was change.

with the occupy movement, there may not be drastic change, who knows? those in charge are generally in, if not the upper 1%, at least the top 5%. but this movement is about money and unemployment. and since a lot of those occupiers don't have jobs to go to anyway (largely thanks, in their mind, to the upper 1%), theoretically, they could sit there forever. part of the occupy movement is to shame the fat cats. remind them of the 99% many of them don't seem to give a shit about even though we power the world they hold temporarily hold power over.

sexy music

last month classical pianist yuja wang played at the hollywood bowl with the la phil and the next day, much of the press coverage was not about her talent, instead, it was about her wardrobe.

i think she looks cheap. i hate the haircut and i think the dress is tacky / too revealing. but! i think she can wear what she wants. classical music has a bad rap for being stuffy, but that doesn't have to be. wang is only 24 and she has a decent body, so she if doesn't want to cover up, she shouldn't have to. even though her dress reveals more than i'd like to see, her outfit isn't at all indecent, so i don't see what the problem is. besides, her most recent cd is titled "transformation". maybe she's using fashion to help transform the image of classical music to something more hip, even sexy.

(ps, why are her shoes so big? does she have to pick a size too large because of piano playing stuff? cause i don't think that's the case...)

natural burial

i've always thought that the way we deal with our dead makes no sense. we take out their organs, pump them full of preservatives, dress them up, put them into expensive and beautiful coffins, and bury them under 6 feet of dirt. but... why?

as a kid i used to want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered (instead of kept in an urn). then my dad told me about the neptune society (tho, thanks to his poor english, i always thought it was lipton society) which gives you the option of scattering your ashes at sea. sounds fun!

in high school i thought maybe it would be cool to be buried under a tree or whatever, something natural. then sometime in college a read stiff by mary roach. she described a bunch of alternative "burials" including promession or cyromation. when you die, they quick freeze your body using liquid nitrogen, then they smash it to pieces. that stuff can now be used as fertilizer! your body is mostly organic anyway, and plants / soil need nitrogen. also, nitrogen is very abundant, and this process creates by little by-product, unlike traditional cremation which creates air pollution in the form of carbon dioxide. so awesome!

but the other day i saw the above video on ted about the decompiculture society. founder jae rhim lee was also worried about the environmental effects of traditional burial so she came up with a new idea: a body eating mushroom suit! when you die, you wear a special outfit that has "infinity" mushroom spores on it. your body is then buried and the mushrooms decompose your body. they also eat up all the random chemicals and stuff in your body, which is really great. apparently our bodies are chock full of poisons and stuff that normal decomposition would have a hard time taking care of. but the mushroon death suit takes care of all that. pretty smart!

but as intrigued as i am by decompifulture i think i still prefer promession. it's faster. not that faster means better, but it also seems... safer. what if the mushrooms don't work? what if wild dogs dig up my body? what if unknowing people stumble upon my body and dig me up and think i'm a cult victim?

anyway, i totally recommend reading stiff by mary roach. but if you don't have the time for a full book, this article pretty much sums up a lot of the stuff covered in the book.

anyone else give any thought as to how they want to be "buried"?

wigglewigglewiggle

i'm sure you've heard the idiotic song by lmfao, sexy and i know it. i thought it was the dumbest thing ever cause i thought they were being serious (just pay attention to the lyrics) but then rip showed me the music video and now... haha, i feel differently. it's hilarious!

church or jail?

Bay Minette Lets Offenders Choose: Jail Or Church

how the fuck can this even be legal?! i'm not even going to rant much about this because it's so obviously unconstitutional!

...tho it is interesting. as offended as i am, i wonder which i would choose? one one hand, i don't want to go to jail!! but on the other hand, i don't want to go to church either! and not because i'm afraid i'll burst into flame or anything, but because i feel very strongly that the government shouldn't force me into any religion. especially if i can't even choose that religion! (if the govt could force me to attend religious services, i would probably try to visit a new one each week. that might be interesting.)

also, even if this were legal, the idea behind the whole thing is just bullocks. in the article, pastor robert gates is quoted as saying, "You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I'll show you a person who won't be a problem to society but that will be an influence and a help to those around them."

right, cause religious people never commit crimes. ...

hope is the thing

from christopher cokinos - hope is the thing with feathers

"the statistical palentologist david raup reminds us that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on the earth are extinct and that, on average, a plant or animal species vanishes after about 4 million years."

"...the great evolutionary theorist alfred russel wallace would write, 'the most effective agent in the extinction of species is the pressure of another species.'"

cheaters2

"Study Claims Men Resent Sexual Infidelity, Women Jealous Of Shared Love"

"while men felt guiltier for cheating on their partner sexually, women felt guiltier about being unfaithful emotionally. Men... would feel guiltier about having a one-night stand than falling in love with someone else (without sex). Women had the opposite response."

another study asked "400 people if it would be more upsetting for their partner to form an emotional bond with another person or sleep with them, men tended to be more disturbed by sex and women by the emotional bond."

i wonder if this might be true in my case. altho i have liberal views about sex outside of relationships, i think that sex (or anything relating to it, even fantasies [i know that sounds crazy. but if you're to do it, you shouldn't indulge your fantasies. and please don't fucking tell me about it]) within a relationship should be between the couple only. in other words: no fantasies about others, no porn, and certainly no sex workers (e.g. strippers and whores).

a big part of me not wanting my boyfriend to engage in any sexual activity outside of me (not physically me, you understand) is that i feel that i should be enough. if you're sexually satisfied, then you shouldn't want to look at / touch other naked people. if you're not sexually satisfied then we should work on that. i also think it's a matter of respect. i have all the same parts as any other woman (tho not the same size), and since you love me, you should prefer mine. and since i do not deny you access to my  lady bits, you should enjoy mine exclusively.

my boyfriend does not see it this way. apparently porn and strippers are just visual stimulation. nothing to do with me, our relationship, or emotions. i don't see how this is possible. if you see something you like, and you don't currently have it, don't you start to make comparisons and maybe start to wish you had it?

example, i can't "shake it" (nothing specific, but i don't have much to shake on top, and i don't know how to shake what i do have on bottom). if he sees some naked lady shaking her stuff in a way he finds pleasing, wouldn't a natural progression of thought lead to "i wish stephanie did that" (if he even bothers to think of me at all!!). maybe he'll describe the act to me, which i might try and fail at. he'll see her in his mind, very adroitly shaking, and forever more, whenever he thinks about shaking lady bits, he'll think about how great she was and how damn lousy his girlfriend is.

obviously comparisons will be made about other things, "that other girl tells jokes better than stephanie," "that other girl is prettier than stephanie." but none of it as personal as sex.

our relationship has some pretty serious issues from the beginning, so many of our arguments come back to that i don't feel like i'm the number one girl to him. which, of course, is a pretty damn terrible feeling. especially considering that i'm generally pretty self-confident, this sits particularly unwell with me. so i guess for me, cheating either way hurts equally. no matter what, i'll feel like i'm not a priority to him and that he'll always think someone else is better.

oh, btw, that second study i quoted "also implied that these reactions to cheating have to do with more than just gender and are rather explained by how a person was raised to deal with intimacy. ...both men and women with "dismissive" or "hyperindependent" senses of detachment -- meaning that they were taught as a child to avoid intimacy -- were more jealous of sexual infidelities. Those with "secure" attachment, male or female, were more likely to be disturbed by emotional infidelity."

this is actually kind of funny, because when reep and i were "fighting" the other day about porn i brought up that i think he's emotionally stunted. turns out science might actually back me up on this!

cheaters

"Infidelity Linked To 'Sexual Personality': University Of Guelph Study"

"Men who were easily aroused and men who suffered from "performance anxiety" were more likely to be unfaithful. Their sexual satisfaction within their "monogamous relationship" was irrelevant--they'd cheat whether the sex with their partner was good or not. Conversely, for women, happiness with their long-term sexual partner was paramount--women who felt sexually unsatisfied were more likely to cheat."

in other words, regardless of who cheats, it's always the man's fault! well, unless she's gay. :) but seriously. it's no one's fault but your own!

miss representation

extended trailer from miss representation, which premiered at the 2011 sundance film festival.

you can also find screenings of the movie at their website. i hope something comes up close to us because i want to see this movie!!

school on wheels

finally went through all the donations for the school on wheels drive which ended two weeks ago. my uncle came back from taiwan so i didn't have a lot of floor space for sorting.

in any case, i think the drive was a pretty big success! in addition to having a lot of stuff in general, we have a good variety. btw, the photo doesn't show everything. i left a lot of the smaller things in the backpacks.

unlike with shoes or glasses, school supplies aren't easy to count up. so my didn't count every little thing. just the easier stuff.

15 backpacks!!!
32 legal pads
7 composition books
37 spiral notebooks
7 "other" notebooks
6 packs liner paper
21 folders
21 binders
6 sets index cards
2 index card boxes (with rings)
16 post-it pads
1 set math flashcards
9 math supplies (rulers, compasses, protractors)
10 calculators!

3 jump drives
1 day planner
7 pairs of scissors
6 tape dispensers / refill rolls
20 glue sticks
5 bottles of glue
2 staplers 
5 boxes of crayons
7 boxes of markers
4 boxes of colored pencils
6 pencil boxes / pouches
assorted staples, paperclips, binder clips, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pens, highlighters, sheet protectors, book covers, dividers...

thanks to everyone who contributed. big shout out to those pearl and arlene from space who went out and bought tons of stuff to donate. and to emilio (also from space), who donated 6 backpacks full of binders and writing stuff!

paperself

paperself makes some of the most AMAZING false eyelashes. seriously. i kind of want to just buy these, put them in a shadowbox, and display them!! those of you wanting to see them irl can find them at sephora.

parents first

kate gosselin has been "freaking out" and doesn't know how to support her droves of kids now that her tv show has been cancelled.  in other news, she recently bought a new car. it's an audi coupe. she probably didn't pay the $40k base price since she's a "celebity" but... let's face it, even if she wanted a car that could only fit one child, she could've gotten a much cheaper, tho still somewhat sporty mazda mx-5 for nearly half the list price.

also in celebrity gossip, ella nolan from "the bachelor" and more recently "the bachelor pad" recently underwent five plastic surgeries: nose job, boob job, lipo in three places (article). what makes this story 'interesting' is that while on the show, she kept saying that she needed to win the $250k prize money for her son. at every moment she would remind people that she wanted to buy a house for her son. "i'm doing this all for my son." "this money means more to me than anyone knows." yet, even though she didn't win the money, she went and spent probably upwards for $20k on plastic surgery. i get that $20k isn't enough for a house, but that's still a lot of money she could've put towards that house, or a condo.

(btw, did you catch kate and her "droves of kids" in a post about her car? haha!)

relationship status?

from an article by leslie dorman in an issue of elle: "i've used my husband as conversational bait while pondering whether i'd sleep with another man" (full article [worth reading!])

i don't feel like i've done this. when i complain about my boyfriend or my relationship, it's because i'm just complaining; i'm not hoping the guy i'm complaining to will "get the hint" and try to "rescue" me from said relationship. also, when talking to "strangers," i'm pretty careful to bring up that i have a boyfriend pretty early on. my boyfriend said that he mostly only mentions me if he fees like the girl he's talking to is interested. i usually don't bother gauging interest before mentioning my relationship status.

i used to be different tho. i didn't deliberately insert "my boyfriend" into conversation because i thought it would be pretty egotistical of me to assume that the person i'm talking to would even care that i had a boyfriend. i felt like pointedly telling every guy i met that i had a boyfriend implied that i thought every guy i met was attracted to me. which is, of course, crazy. later i realized that it doesn't mean i think i'm irresistible, i'm just careful. and so now i always try to remember to say something. (this is funny tho because a good friend of mine was recently in an awkward situation where she hadn't mentioned her live-in boyfriend to a guy she'd been talking to because he'd never shown interest, so she didn't bother. but after a few months she didn't know how to mention her boyfriend!)

in matters of the heart, i think it's best to be careful.

fur ban

source

west hollywood in california recently passed a law banning the sale of new clothing containing animal fur. i wonder what this will lead to. (warning: slippery slope fallacy ahead!) if we ban fur in clothing, i'm sure eventually it will lead to banning fur in other stuff: furniture, decor, bedding, jewelry, shoes... the activists are arguing that we should ban fur because it's cruel to animals. so what about stuff using leather? or feathers? there are synthetic furs and leathers, but i don't think we have fake feathers yet. and while birds do lose the occasional feather that maybe reusable, but about down feathers that go into insulating cold weather gear? there is synthetic down (which is usually just fabric filler), but i don't know that they've come up with a better insulator in jackets and sleeping bags than down feathers. (tho i know barely anything about this kind of gear so i could definitely be wrong.)

source

and other than using animal products for "non-essential" stuff like fashion or decorating, what about eating meat? you can't argue that eating meat is less cruel to animals than using their fur or skin for stuff! i doubt a whole town will ban meat tho. that would be crazy!

what's your #?

"what's your number?" is a movie that "...follows Ally (Anna Faris) who after reading a magazine article states 'In America 97% of women who have had 20 or more lovers can’t find a husband.' This inevitably leads the character (who of course is at number 19) to believe she’s going to be forever alone. Thus beginning a wild search for the best 'ex' of her life." [source]

20 does sound like kind of a lot. but is it really? let's say you started having sex at 18yo and you're now 30yo. that means you had over 10 years to sleep with 20 people, that's less than 2 people a year. that's not much at all! i think when you put it into those terms, average in a year, it sounds like waaaay less. i think a total number can definitely be misleading, so we should maybe start thinking about averages. ...to a point.

i think your average number should get smaller as you get older. if you've been having sex for 70 years and your number is 70, that's still pretty gross; i don't care that it averages out to only one person a year! i think anyone's cap should be under 50, which i admit is a completely arbitrary number. i'd probably be able to give a better "defined" number if i knew when people stopped having sex. do most 85yo still have sex? i have no idea! (and there seems to be no consensus online, tho you might be interested to learn that the average age of americans to start having sex is 17)

btw, i don't think it matters if you're male or female. i'm going to judge you equally if you've slept with 40 people (tho why you'd even bother counting past, like, single digits is beyond me [single digits only because they're much easier to remember])

giving tree

shel silverstein narrates animated "the giving tree". video is from 1973 so it's not the best quality. worth watching nevertheless!!

racsim as vogue

caucasian model gets her eyes pulled back in photo shoot to look asian. what's really weird, is that it was for an issue of vogue nippon (japanese vogue). ...

there's a poll at the end of the article on whether it's "racist and inappropriate" or "simply playful and fun." the votes are 60% for for fun. ...that's fucking BULLSHIT.

asians are stereotyped for many things: bad drivers, good at math, buck teeth, slitty eyes. but by far we are most made fun of for our "chinky" eyes. someone "playing asian" by pulling back their eyes is incredibly racist!

can you imagine a magazine putting black face paint on a white model (and tho it has happened, most people were outraged!)? or giving a narrow nosed model a prosthetic hooked nose and saying she's jewish? that wouldn't be allowed because it's recognized as clearly racist!!

this reminds me of the rosie o'donnell racist comments a number of years ago. not only was she clearly racist, but she had the audacity to refuse to apologize (she did eventually, but really only because she was forced to. and honestly, it wasn't a sincere apology.). in fact, her rep said, on record, that "She’s a comedian in addition to being a talk show co-host. I certainly hope that one day they will be able to grasp her humor." oh, i get it. it's funny when people make fun of asians and we jut don't get it because we don't have a sense of humor. well, black people are funny right? yet, i don't see them laughing about how they're discriminated against. also how people no longer make fun of "money grubbing jews", or the "drunk irish", "crime prone blacks", "gambling addicted native americans", "dirty poles", "america hating middle easterners", or whatever the fuck.

no seriously, think for a damn second if someone were making fun of your ethnicity and the violent history that came with hundreds of years of ignorance and discrimination, it's not "simply playful and fun" anymore now is it?

(btw, i've been experimenting with punctuation [specifically with quotation marks]. i've never been fully comfortable with the american way of using quotation marks and recently found out that the british punctuate in a way i find to make more sense.)

single again?

i've asked rip this same question a couple times over the past 10 years and he always has the same answer: no, he doesn't have any regrets about not having dated more. i asked him again a while ago and he added that "being single just seems like a hassle." which i do agree with. yet...

it's not that i want to gain more sexual experience or anything like that. i think i just miss the excitement of a new relationship. the shy flirting, the ambiguity of 'does he like me?', the excitement of finding out random things in common, the electricity of the "firsts", the shimmer of possibilities...

in a long term relationship, there's very little that's new. you rarely even have new fights (tho rip and i had a BIG new one in july, which i won't get into except to quote henry fielding - the history of tom jones: "my eyes must have been very faithless interpreters of my heart"). even when i "catch" him looking at me, it makes me happy, but i'm not still excited about it hours later.

i think a big part of the problem is with tv (ha!). but seriously. nearly every show has the two lead characters with tons of sexual tension. and, as dorky as it is, i get really excited about castle and beckett and mcnally and swarek. and, of course, tv romances pale in comparison to my real life one. so i get a little sad.

anyway. i'm not saying that i want to be single again. but if rip were to fall into a coma for a few years, well... tho let's hope he doesn't!!!

btw, rip and i are "celebrating" our 11th anniversary today. pretty crazy, eh?

name of the game

ive been watching bachelor pad. i know, i know... anyway, the other night they played the "nearly wed game", which the "newlywed game" except that none of them are married (btw, the video is pretty good, if you've got 14mins to watch it).

one of the questions was "how many dates does your partner need before 'make whoopie'?" answers: 5, 22, 3, 7, 14. (btw, the girl who said 3 then said "i'm kind of a slut". the girl who said 14 said it was only after 32 dates that she slept with her game partner [her ex-fiance]. also, the girl who said 7 has to be discounted because they were playing to a strategy, not just the game.)

i think some of these answers are CRAZY. i mean, 22? why that number specifically?! and the girl who said it was after 32 dates that she slept with her guy is also nuts. 1. you counted? 2. you remembered?!

okay, back to me (ha!). how many dates? i must be super slutty because, well, i'd probably sleep with you on the first date. i think a lot of people don't have sex early on because of the "respect" factor. but it goes both ways, doesn't it? cause, hey, you had sex on the first date too! so if you're going to un-respect me for doing the same thing you are, i don't particularly care cause you're a massive hypocrite and we're not going to be in much contact after this date, in which case, i should feel free to have fun and have sex.

honestly, i think having a guideline number is okay, if it's an easy to keep track of number (single digits). i think a better gauge would be how you feel about each other, where you are in the relationship, or other non-arbitrary markers.

there are too many random rules and games being played in relationships: you can't call before 3 days, man always pays no matter what, you can't say "i love you" first, you can't sex till after 22 dates, what the bloody hell? if you like someone, call them! if you love someone, tell them! if you want to have sex, do it!

part of why relationships are so much fun are because of the excitement of not knowing exactly what's going to happen. if you schedule and regulate stuff that takes a lot of the spontaneity out. and i think, more importantly, the whole thing just seems less genuine. in which case, if it even worth it? not for me anyway.

good business?

went to target this mid-morning to check out the missoni collection. i was only planning to buy bobby pins since i'm low anyway, but i did want to look at their stuff since i've only really seen it online (btw, the target website crashed from all the traffic!). maybe it's my fault because i didn't get there first thing in the morning, but nearly everything was sold out!! the target employees said there was a big line waiting for the store to open and that within the 30 minutes nearly everything was gone. target was smart and set up all the missoni stuff on endcaps or in highly visible places so people wouldn't miss anything. and they really didn't! but even this "late in the day" there were some women with shopping carts full of missoni stuff. seriously, jam packed with nothing other than missoni (they were practically stalking the target employees waiting for them to restock with new items they had just found in the backroom). that might be cool if they really like missoni, but no one buys 10 pairs of the exact same shoe in multiple sizes!

i came home and did a search on ebay and wouldn't you know, there are already thousands of items up! i hate these people! i get that this is a good way to make some money, but it's also pretty fucked up. i wouldn't go as far as to say it's immoral, but it's certainly shady as hell.

i remember that when h&m did their designer collaborations they limited customers to either a few items each, or one of each item in the collection, i can't remember exactly. but i think that's a great idea. of course, dishonest people will go back and wait in line again, or go to another store, or bring their whole family to buy stuff but at least h&m tried to let as many people as they can access the collection. target should seriously consider doing the same thing. if you can't stop opportunistic people, you can at least inconvenience them.

btw, those bobby pins i bought for $7? i found them on ebay for $30.

remembering

source

the older generation talks about certain moments that they know they'll always remember. i don't mean their wedding day or when their first kid gets born. i mean when pearl harbor was attacked or when kennedy was shot. even as a kid i thought "i never want to have one of those moments." yet, ten years ago, something really scary happened and i'll remember that moment forever.

saturn

amazing photo of saturn!!

saturn in front of the sun: cassini spacecraft captures breathtaking view of ringed planet

no more mctoys

last year san fransisco banned mcdonald's from giving out free toys in their happy meals. people say the toys in un-healthy meals gives kids extra incentive to want to eat fast food, which could eventually lead to childhood obesity.

cnn reports that "40% of preschool-aged children ask to go to McDonald's on a weekly basis, and 15% ask on a daily basis. Also, 84% of parents say they've taken their children to eat fast food at least once in the past week."

yeah, i'm pretty sure that isn't because of the toys. do these kids only play with the toy and discard the food? no, they want all of it. cause let's face it, the food tastes pretty damn good.

btw, it's the parents who take their kids, no? because parents decide what to feed their kids. kids can ask for whatever they want, but they don't matter, the parents do. i get that sometimes your kids drive you crazy so you cave in and do what they want, instead of what's good for them. but that's still up to you.

also, "the fast food industry spent $4.2 billion on advertising in 2009." which apparently these kids are falling for since they ask their parents so often to take them. (tho, again, parents don't have to do whatever their kids ask for) so maybe instead of banning the toys, which i know a lot of adults enjoy too, maybe don't let fast food places advertise during kids shows. just like how companies aren't allowed to advertise alcohol or sexy 1-900#s during kids shows. a few counties actually don't allow companies to advertise at all to kids under a certain age.

the ban isn't for every meal offering though. if restaurants want to continue to give away toys, the meal it comes with will need to "contain fewer than 600 calories [drink included], and less than 35% of total calories will come from fat. The meal must contain half a cup of fruit and three-fourths cup of vegetables, and offer less than 640 milligrams of sodium and less than 0.5 milligrams of trans fat."

it'll be interesting to see kids ask for the healthy toy-included meals instead of the regular now toy-free happy meals.

happy meal updated. no word about those toys tho.

ashamed

the other day my neighbor asked where i find the organizations that i do drives for. was it through my church?, he asked. so i replied that no, i find the organizations online. i don't go to church; i'm an atheist. he made a face and said that i "shouldn't say things like that." i didn't ask, but i figure "that" is that i'm an atheist.

WTH?

religious people are now offended that i'm an atheist and ask me to not say what my religious affiliation is even though it basically came up in the conversation? well FUCK you! i didn't ask for christmas or "under god" in our pledge of allegiance and i sure as hell don't appreciate it when homeless people i give money to tell me "god bless." that makes me want to snatch my money right back. it also makes me want to yell at every religion pushing person that "goddamn it, atheists do nice stuff too!" but that would make me a bigot, just like you!

keep your fucking religion to yourself, and i'll keep my heathen ways to myself. don't bloody preach at me and then tell me to not talk about how i don't believe in any of that shit you do. btw, i didn't even fucking talk about it! all i said was that i don't go to church since i'm an atheist. that's it. it's like you telling me telling me that you go to synagogue cause you're jewish. i don't ask you to keep that info to yourself because it's nothing to be ashamed of.

you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you shouldn't silence others just cause they disagree with you. let's all just be loud and proud together, okay?

dismemberment

animal cookies: 1890s, england

source

originally, the "british animal crackers came in only a handful of shapes, the american menagerie boasted a circus of seventeen different creatures (though the cookie came in eighteen distinct shapes): bison, camel, cougar, elephant, giraffe, gorilla, hippopotamus, hyena, kangaroo, lion, monkey, rhinoceros, seal, sheep, tiger, zebra, and sitting bear. the eighteenth shape was a walking bear.

"although a box of animal crackers contained twenty-two cookies, no child... was guaranteed a full representation of a zoo... the randomness added an element of expectancy to a gift box of animal crackers, a plus the company had not foreseen. and soon parents were writing to nabisco and revealing another unanticipated phenomenon (either trivial or of deep psychological import): children across american nibbled away at the animals in a definite order of dismemberment: back legs, forelegs, head, and lastly the body."

i totally ate my cookies the same way. creepy!

from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things

school supply drive

this year i decided to do school supplies for my annual drive. below is the announcement i asked to be put into my dragon boating team's weekly email.

"It's that time again, when students start heading back to school. But do you know that many families cannot afford even basic classroom supplies? School on Wheels provides one-on-one tutoring for homeless children and they run entirely on volunteer support and donations.

"Stephanie will be collecting school supplies for for the month of August. Your donations will be put into backpacks and distributed by School on Wheels to kids in need in the Long Beach area. So the next time you go to Target or Office Supply, please pick up a pack of pencils or notebook paper!

"For a full list of needed supplies, please see the Student Wish List. You can also email Stephanie for more details of the drive. Thanks!"

originally i was wanted to do something for teachers or maybe for a long beach school district, but i found  school on wheels online and thought that it sounded like a great organization. they get no govt support and everything they do / get is thru donations.

btw, cool coincidence, after i emailed the above to my captains to be included in the weekly email, a captain messaged back saying that she's been volunteering thru school on wheels for the last 4-5 years. isn't she awesome? :)

and one wednesday after practice, a PINK came up to me and said her husband is on the school on wheels board. small world!

btw, if you're interested in donating things, i've extended the drive thru the end of september since i've been missing a lot of practices lately.

god vs gay?

whether or not the bible is pro- or anti-gay, i don't understand what the bible has to do with our government's laws. we don't have an official religion; that would be unconstitutional. so why should our government cater to the current religious majority? you may think that your religion is correct, but others think theirs is correct. either way, they don't force you to take communion, make a hajj, get cremated, or not eat animals. besides, christianity can't even agree on whether or not homosexuality is wrong! some experts say yes, some say no. it isn't exactly clear cut, like how in the ten commandments god forbids you to murder.


keep religion out of our government, and especially out of my bedroom! and if you keep your religion out of my bedroom, i promise to keep mine out of yours.

drinking alone

i think people take this "you're an alcoholic if you drink alone" business waaaaay too seriously. i'm going to say right here and now: just because you drink alone, you are not an alcoholic. duh!!! you're most likely an alcoholic if you have a constant physical or psychological yearning for alcohol. what the hell difference does it make if  you're alone or in a group?!

and on a related note, it seems to me that i have a couple friends won't drink if no one else drinks. which doesn't make any sense to me. if you want an alcoholic beverage, have one. maybe this is because i'm not purely a social drinker. for many years i abstained completely. and i had a strong enough will that people couldn't "convince" me to get a drink if i didn't want one. these days, i drink occasionally. but only when i feel like it. and if i feel like it, i don't understand how your getting a coke should deter me from ordering a martini.

explicit reference

george saunders - bill clinton, public citizen

"the book of james says faith without works is dead," [bill clinton] says. "'show me your works and i will know your faith,' you know? while there is no explicit reference to, let's say, homosexuality in the new testament, no explicit reference to abortion, there are hundreds and hundreds of reference to he imperative of acting to help people who are in genuine need, who are less fortunate than you, whom you can help, and you're supposed to do it without regard to your own economic or social standing. the only test is whether you can make a difference in someone else's life without disadvantaging or really hurting someone in your circle of primary responsibility, you know, your family."

male birth control

huzzah! there is a promising new method of male birth control in the form of an oral contraceptive. (there is a gel that sounds pretty interesting, but i know i'd be more interested in a pill) i think this is super fabulous and i've always wondered why there wasn't a pill for men.

if you don't want a kid, and you're sleeping with random people, can you really trust them when they say they're on the pill? no, you cannot. so you should definitely wear a condom! altho everyone knows that doesn't feel as good and they have a higher instance of not working. so then what? well, you can be on the pill too!

some talk hows have been saying really sexist things about men regarding this pill. they seem to believe that women are more responsible and that you "can't trust a man to remember to take the pill." but that's bullshit. if a man gets on the pill he probably wants to be on it, so he'll probably try to remember to take it -- just like women! and if generalizations are to be believed, more men then women don't want kids. so they should, then, more likely want to be able to prevent pregnancies, right? either way, i think this is a great opportunity for men to have more control over their reproductive lives.

i don't know if it was just that rip and i were in a stable relationship, but when i was on the pill, i asked him to remind me about it every day. i felt like it was his responsibility too. it's not just that i don't want a baby; we don't want a baby.

the male birth control pill is a great way for both partners to be involved. you can both be on the pill so if one of you forgets, you've got backup. rather than saddling one person with the whole burden, you are both being responsible for pregnancy prevention.