Blather, rinse, repeat

SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS, HOW TEH MOON GOT UP THERE? Have you ever looked up there? There's a big white disc in the sky and IT GOES AWAY IN THE DAYTIME. Where does it go during the day? WHO MOVES IT? It gets replaced by this bright orange glowing ball that's hot! Who keeps switching these two around? THERE MUST BE AN ANSWER. Is it gnomes? Is it space gnomes? Does a wizard do it?

Effing night time, how does it work?!

How come no one else has a moon? Like Jupiter, how come Jupiter doesn't have SIXTY THREE of them?

It must be space gnomes and wizards! If you don't agree, you are a PINHEAD.

Last night I finished Dean Koontz's book What The Night Knows. I read it because a few weeks ago my brother called and said that the beginning sequence was really scary.

Well, yeah, the beginning sequence was scary. And then about halfway through, I started getting annoyed with his overly perfect characters, and his ridiculous, forced child-voice when he wrote young characters. The book was about this evil spirit who possesses people and wants to murder families, especially the kids. Halfway through the book, I wanted to murder the kids.

But the part that really singed my ass was when, at 77% of the way through the book (I read it on Kindle,) it turned into a MEGACHRISTIAN TRACT.

How did I go into this story so blindly, not knowing that I was going to get preached at for the last 25% section of the story? And I mean, he could not have been more obvious about his agenda. He went to great lengths to describe the beautiful, holy, soul-saving faith of the perfect female/wife/childbearer/Ultra!Sue character. He spent two paragraphs explaining why the youngest child in the family was just like Frodo, and expostulating why she was so innocent, so pure, so like baby Jesus. Like, he actually told the reader those things. After a few hundred pages of story, he just wrote like three paragraphs actually saying these things. I was flabbergasted.

However, most of the last quarter of the story wasn't only a Christian tract. It also was such a plainly* written admonishment to anyone who isn't Christian. (*I want to stop here and add that I first misspelled "Plainly" as "Palinly." Yes, that too.) Like, the story makes a point of saying that anyone who isn't sure in their Christian faith is at constant risk of being possessed and raping and then killing their entire family. Even children of those evil pagans. In fact, that's the basis of the story. At the beginning, a 14 year old boy is locked up for raping everyone, defiling their bodies, killing his little sisters etc. Koontz later explains that the reason he was able to be "taken", even at a young age, was because his mother bought crystals at a pagan store.

I KID YOU EFFING NOT.

This is the depth of his asswittery.

Towards the end of the story, the UltraChristian!Sue wife starts to think of nature itself as "a pagan beast, hunting her down."

I think I'd have more rage at this if I wasn't actually amused by how badly the whole thing is written.

Around that point in the novel, I did google "Koontz" and "Christian" to find out if he was doing it on purpose or not. Apparently he's sort of Anne Ricean in that way, where he's all like "Yeah, I'm a Christian, and if you're not, then suck my Christian wang and burn in hell."

I feel like he should reimburse me for having read his crap story. It would have been a wallbanger if it hadn't been on my Kindle.

So, that was my review of his crappy work. Now I know better.

In other news, Haku continues to make progress at therapy. He can put his foot to the floor now. Normally, most dogs can do this a few weeks after the surgery. However, seeing as he had to have the surgery twice, and then was in a cast, and whatever else, of course he had all these complications. The therapy has to be aggressive. He has to go in the water treadmill and all of this stuff.

What else is new? Not much, I guess, which is probably why my LJ has had tumbleweeds going by. Work, Kung Fu, cleaning the house, reading, writing, playing the odd video game here and there.

I've been kicking so much ass at work that they're saying they're going to make me "elite status." AFAIK, elite status does not include a raise, however. :/ Still, that would be pretty cool, I guess.

Oh, the video game is Final Fantasy XIII, still. I like it now that the battles are a little more complicated. But every time I put the game down for a few days, by the time I go back to it, I've forgotten how to do them. It's complicated at first. But I'm only in the beginning of the game, so I'm kind of still not used to it. Graphics are so fantastic, though. The story's kind of neat, too. And I like Lightning. She's a tough broad. :)

So there it is, my ranty rant on a crappy book, and some random bits of news. :)

I'm writing this before I've even finished Stephen King's novel Under The Dome because I can't hold it back anymore. I get like that sometimes.

I love this behemoth. I think it's one of the best, most subversive-but-not-really pieces of work he's ever written. I say this as an admitted long-time King fangirl. Sure and he's written stories that've made me go “meh” but this is not one of them and Imma tellya why.

First let me say that it's not King's ability to write male leads that I always fall in love with—although he does—that gets me so into this book.
You just gotta love Dale Barbara. (Not in the same way one falls in love with Roland Deschain, but still.) King is such a master at taking the mundane and making it epic, at taking normal people and making them into heroes and unthinkable villains, it seems effortless when he does it. And he writes a good scare, and he's not afraid to get really dirty and gross and horrific with the body fluids, guts, rot, and general nasty stuff like that. I appreciate a good gross-out almost as much as I appreciate a good scare. And I envy his ability.

But none of that is what is really getting me so excited by Under The Dome. What's got me worked up enough to devote an entire LJ entry to it is the premise and how he handles it.

So, there's this small town and a dome randomly covers it. No one can get in or out. It's a national tragedy. Throw in some good guys, some bad guys, and a small-minded dictator, and you've got a political tragedy.

After this devastating event locks the entire town down, King's as-yet most evilest ever Bad Guy decides that he's the only one fit to rule the town. It's 'cause he's a good Christian, see, everything he does is for the good of the Chu'ch, for the good of 'Murrika the town. Never mind that he and his henchmen are involved in some really filthy side-businesses that make them tons of money and destroy the health of the rest of the citizens. It's all for the good of the town. And don't think they don't struggle with their decisions. But the Big Bad, he gave his heart to Christ, so he prays a lot. You know, in order to get guidance, to do what he does. For the good of the town.

The Dome isn't enough of a unifying tragedy, since some forward-thinking townspeople are still against him and his cronies. So he creates more tragedies in order to pull them all together (for the good of the town.) And any turr'rist citizen who is really against him, why, they are easily gotten rid of. Then he can frame them for his crimes, and those of his henchmen, and lock them in prison, trying to force them to confess under the threat of waterboarding. For the good of the town. And he gets his son, and all his son's friends, on the police force in a state of martial law, in order to create and enforce order, and repeals the citizens' rights to carry weapons. Because you have to give up your rights sometimes, when it's, you know, for the good of the town.

After another tragedy strikes, most of the citizens start wearing yellow ribbons blue armbands to show their solidarity, and support of the good men of the police. Even the folks who are against him and his group have to wear the armbands in order to blend in, to not be lynched.

And I really can't go much further with my own take on this here, because otherwise I'll be e-lynched, and probably by a few people I even know. There are certain opinions that are still taboo.

King made some cagey decisions to save his own ass, or at least that's what I think he did. The hero of the story is an ex military guy. There is a sympathetic and sane Christian character – although she's secretly agnostic; and a sympathetic, sane and heroic Republican – although the newspaper she writes is called “The Democrat.” King's obviously no dummy, but neither am I. I know a token when I see one.

So, I haven't finished the novel and I really have no idea of how it's going to end, but I love him for this book. On the one hand I think it's not timely enough: it should have been written in 2002. On the other hand, I perfectly understand the impossibility of releasing this book even a year ago.

Well done, King. Bravo for seeing and saying what so few people have the balls to see, or if we do see it, to say. And then to use your obviously HUGE voice to write a great big novel about it. Beautifully carried out. I know a few folks in my own circle who are devout conservatives who probably won't even see what's going on here.

We see what we expect to see in novels. In many things, really. That goes for me, too. I could be wildly misreading his intentions here.

But I'm not. ^_^

I have no idea how I let this entire week run away from me. I wanted to get on here and update every single day, but couldn't find the time to dedicate to all the things I wanted to say. Minor things, major things, and in between. In the time I haven't updated, an entire country crumbled and hundreds of thousands of lives along with it.

The Whitehouse's earthquake relief page. Rush Limbaugh doesn't want you to donate or even help through that page. Awww. I hope someone punches him right between the eyes someday.

And how shocked wasn't I to read about the asshead Pat Robertson saying that the Haitians deserved this because they made a “pact with the devil” and the devil was now collecting? I find that so strange, because he made a similar comment about 9/11 along with Jerry Falwell, that “God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.”

Well, it just seems to me that if their silly “god” made 9/11 happen and their doofy “satan” was responsible for Haiti, then God and Satan operate in much the same way, don't they? When they get mad or collect on a deal, they're kind of the same person.

Whatever, the whole “a wizard did it” mentality from “creation” to destruction just makes me laugh. It's when they say disgusting things at the expense of hundreds of thousands of suffering families that they really make me want to kick some fictional god square in his fictional cojones.

And speaking of fictional characters, last Saturday my Wonderful Friend the Glassworker came over having decided that we would forgo going to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes or Avatar, and instead use her online Netflix to watch DEXTER. I am a total Dexter n00b so I really didn't know what to expect. I'm please to say that I was immediately caught up in the story and the hot, ginger sociopath lead character. I watched it every single night for the entire week until I finished the first season, and then found out yesterday that said hot, ginger sociopath lead has cancer. A huge WTF. He is only a year older than I am. I know that cancer knows no age or any other boundary but it still shocks me and I hope that homeboy will be all right. The world needs more hot, ginger actors capable of playing sociopaths.

The show itself stole into my heart in the same way that House did years ago, and I love it for the same reasons. It's edgy, gross, funny, engaging, and occasionally stupid with plot holes you could drive a spaceship into, but such a fun ride and so well-acted that it's worth it to go into those holes with them.

My week was actually so nice (aside from the bad news reports and another agent rejection – my third,) that I almost kinda want to go day by day. I have pictures, too.

Sunday was such great fun. My aunt and uncle, along with Jo-chan and SB and SB's adorable GF, came over and brought The Beatles Rockband over. Later in the day Boychild's Mon and Dad and Boychild came by. SB helped me finish Silent Hill. (Creepy, but the MC didn't engage me because he didn't seem too worried that he couldn't find his little girl and that skinless creatures were chasing him through icy nightmares, although the reason for this is revealed in the twist ending. The game was very short, and there was no way to fight the bad guys, but the creep factor satisfied me.) We had a great time playing The Beatles. I sang all the John songs, my aunt sang the Paul songs, and my uncle, SB, Jo-chan and SB's GF took turns on guitar and drums. At one point I was playing guitar and singing “Can't Buy Me Love” and thinking I was doing such an awesome job, only to find out at the end that I hadn't actually pressed the “pick” button on the guitar a single goddamn time. That gave everyone such a laugh for the rest of the night.

( Beatles Rock Band )

My beautiful freakin' goddessdaughter looking all like Gillian Anderson over there. But actually she's going to an anime con this weekend, and she's decided to cosplay Claire Redfield. She needed the red vest to complete the costume, so her mom found the vest and I painted the back with Claire's “Let Me Live” Valkyrie design.



It's not the best, but I'm fairly pleased with it.

On Sunday, I worked, entered my data, and then went to pick up my free fish tank from the nice gentleman who was giving his away. I still haven't filled it or put in any fishes. The time in which to do any of that just hasn't presented itself. Plus, the whole entire room is still a shambles. Nothing painted, and I even find myself at a standstill with taking down the paneling. There's just too much stuff, and I don't have the time or the spit to get into it. School, work, Kung Fu, family, friends, and still querying agents and re-writing...I just don't know how I'm supposed to fit that in, too. It bums me out. I hate seeing that beautiful room just sit there. By now it should be silver-green with a nice floor and my massage table. And I really want some nice swimmy fishes.

Sunday night, I uploaded my Kung Fu class pics that I had taken the previous week. Also a video of Red-haired Assassin and CC sparring. The one of me sparring CC was way too long. As was the one of Snarklit and I trapping, though I wish it wasn't, because it's hilarious. Some of the pics in that album demonstrate that. ;)

( Funny dog pics from Monday afternoon. )
That one of Haku's face is priceless. My Mom is petting him in that one. It was so ball-chillingly cold that day that I can't even tell you.

On Monday night I went to Kung Fu and we did some of these anti-rape drills (that's what I call them because honestly you could use them for that kind of attack, but really it is for any attack where someone gets you on the floor.) Those always lead to moments both awkward and of varying degrees of hilarity and that night was no exception. The move ends in an arm-break you do using your groin. (“Do women have a groin?” Sifu asked. “I think you call it a groin in women, too.” “Yes,” I told him. “The scientific term for what we don't have is 'package.' I learned that in my medical class.”) After class, I gave the Dragon his b'day gift (because he took me out for my b'day) which was this really lovely black Chinese shirt with dragons subtly embroidered in black down the front. Also a card with a tidy little Japanese poem in it and a note thanking him for everything.

The next day the Gold Dragon called me and said, “Let's go out.” “Let's stay in,” I said, “and watch Family Guy DVDs,” but he really wanted to see a flick at the theater. We both decided that Avatar was way too long and probably retarded, so off we went to see Sherlock Holmes. It was better the second time around for me. We were both O_O to see the same arm-bar used towards the end of the movie. I hadn't even noticed that the first time! Anyway, it was a seriously nice night out, though so cold I thought I was going to go all Silent Hill and spontaneously turn into a block of ice. It was RIDIC.

Wednesday was back to school, and what a long day Wednesday is. I'm either on the road or in school from 8 to 8, give or take, with a three hour break in between. That break gives me time to: eat, do that day's homework, AND get a massage. These things I did, as well as going to see about my GODDAMN MONEY FROM THE CANCELED CHINA TRIPS.

Thursday, yesterday, I finally got what little amount of the money they were willing to return. $1900, out of the $4500 I paid. But, I'm so tired of fighting for it. Seriously, all this time, and only now, and only after I rode them about it. Death certificates, letters, calls, emails, all this other stuff that I didn't need to be doing—or shouldn't have needed to be doing—at an already hard time. I want to get my damn license and run as fast as I can the other way.

However I continue to enjoy taking the actual classes, and I have some great teachers. In fact there are some professors there who I love to see, just even see them in the hallways or in the cafe or whatever. Like in high school and college, I find myself keeping a distance from the other students but really enjoying the company of professors. I don't know why I do that. I like them and they seem to enjoy me as well. Yesterday in class, a girl randomly told me, “You have beautiful eyes. You never really see that dark green color.” I thought it was really sweet, it made my day. I feel like I need to collect nice things that people say to me, to break them out once in a while on days I'm feeling blue and self-hatey.

And today is Friday, my one true day off where I don't actually have to be someplace. (Although I might start going to KF on Fridays, in which case I will have absolutely no days in the week when I don't have to be someplace.) One thing happened today that quite upset me. I went out shopping (red wine, organic dog cookies, avocados, broccoli, carrots, a sweat-shirt for Sano so he doesn't keep itching and licking his rash, etc.) and as I was going into the store there was this not-so-little old lady with a cane, trying to get over the curb. It's not as tit-freezingly cold as it was—actually it's about 45* today—so the snow is melting into slush, but it's still slippery and she was having some trouble. I asked her if she needed a hand and she said that in fact she did. So I took her hand and helped her up onto the curb. She said she also needed help stepping down, so I held onto her arm. She started talking to me, and as she did so she turned her head to look at me. I don't know if she got dizzy or what, but I saw her do this weird cross-step and she started to tip over backwards. She was considerably bigger than I am and I tried to hold her up, but the most I could do was get her to fall really slowly so that she just sat down, and then she damn near pulled me on top of her because she just kept going over backwards, like she was going to lie down. It was like her brain went somewhere else for a second and she didn't know which way was up.

I helped her up and became aware that someone was standing there watching all of this, another older woman, though younger than her. The older lady said, “That's my daughter!” and at first I thought she must be imagining things, because why would her daughter just be standing there watching all of this? Finally the younger lady came over and she was, in fact, the old lady's daughter. She was all, “Mom, why did you cross your legs while you were walking, this girl was trying to help you and you know you can't walk and talk at the same time!”

I was a little shocked. I said, “Don't worry about it; I can't walk and talk at the same time either.” It took both of us to help her up, get her cane and her bag and get her to the car. Why was her daughter just standing there that whole time waiting for her, instead of helping her? I found it odd. Most of all I felt so terrible for offering to help her and then letting her fall. I told her that I had slipped in my own yard the other day, and I couldn't wait for this treacherous ice to melt, etc. I didn't actually fall in my yard, but I didn't want her to feel silly. (I did fall up the stairs though, twice, and quite hard. My slippers are deflated and keep slipping off and tripping me.)

Long, pointless story, I know, but it just kind of bummed me out, this old lady falling down. I like old people and it bugs me out when bad things happen to them.

By the way, even with all of this going through my head—Haiti, religious freaks, school, family, friends, writing, ginger sociopaths who need to get better—I cannot get PANTS ON THE GROUND out of my mind. Honestly that crazy “song” is trapped between my ears and won't go away. Which is fine, because it tickles me. It's just a little random among the many other random oddities happening in there this week.

I hope I can find time to update again soon, because I hate being away from my journal and then dumping a week's worth of baggage on the doorstep like this. Yet, tomorrow I have work and then hanging out with My Wonderful Friend the Glassworker, and then Sunday I have work and then I think I'm hanging out with some old pals from The Bad Place who seem be bursting to tell me something HUGE that I am just wiggling to find out. Hmmm!

First: Yesterday I posted about my feelings re: Obama's stance (or lack thereof) on Iran. As I stated, I was torn about how I felt he should handle it, mostly because I don't think there's anything for him to handle. But I thought it would be decent if he spoke out against the ridiculous, insane violence that is going on there.

Today, he did. He saw the same videos we all saw and I really believe he feels the same horror:

"I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran's affairs," Obama said. "But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."

I agree with him on that. McCain said of him: ""The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it. He's been timid and passive more than I would like."

I hate this midset and I always have. No, McCain, Obama is not supposed to lead "the free world." He is supposed to lead AMERICA. And that is a small part of what I hate about that Republican mindset. That America is the Hero to the rest of the world, we just have to lead those poor, lost bastards because obviously we know the way things should be done 'round these parts. And 'round your parts, too.

That whole culture needs to learn to stay the hell out of everyone's parts.

But anyway. Today is an historic day because this is hopefully to be my last LJ post on Windows! My computer was waiting for me when I went to pick up the dogs today, and I'm going to spend the rest of the night attempting to set it up (the easy part,) navigate it (probably fairly intuitive: it's a Mac,) and then get my internet and email set up. (PROBABLY MANY IRRITATING PHONE CALLS AND SUCH.)

Speaking of irritating:

THE DOUCHEBAG CHRONICLES.

Yes, it is Tuesday, which means I spent most of my day with my eyes rolled so far into my head I could practically see my brain, the whole while thinking, "THE FUTURE OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN."

Guido Midget wasn't there today (much to the relief of much of the rest of the class, who seem to feel the same way that I do about him and avoid him like a raging yeast infection.) But the other two douches were there. Yes, there are three total now. I mentioned the new one a few weeks ago, wondering if he was "inoffensive," but since then he has spent every break talking about all of his girlfriends and what a big stud nice, sweet, loving man he is who just loves women. In the smarts department and in how he presents himself, he's kinda like Ted Theodore Logan, without the intentional comedy or cultural significance. But, we'll just call him Ted.

Today, Ted sauntered in an hour and a half late (like half of the class tends to do, in fact.) Right before lunchtime, Ted decided that the middle of an A&P2 lecture was the best time to make a night-night. So he propped his feeties up on the lab table, propped his chair up against the wall on its back two legs (wait for it,) and went nappie-byes. As I'm sure you have all imagined by now, it wasn't long before his chairiepoo went BANG! against the floor, taking him with it, his two bare, dirty feet poking up over the lab table as he tried to get up.

There was a lot of "OMG ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!" but honestly all I could do was just bust a gut. That's what you get.

Of course it wasn't just him today; The Atomic Douchebomb (henceforth ADB) was also in attendance, with his frequent, blowing yawns (he puckers his lips, puffs his cheeks out and goes, "WHOOO! WHOOO!" to yawn,) and his enlightening questions and commentary.

I took notes on them today, because they were truly all sparkling gems. Bear in mind, any time he needs to say something, he raises his forefinger to the professor. This is his signal that he's about to share something truly exceptional. We're doing a broad overview of the lymphatic system and immunity, and these were his first four questions on the subject:

1: "Why do fluids have to move around your body? Why can't they just stay there?"
2: "Why don't the lymph nodes themselves move around?"
3: "Is the spleen a pump?" and
4: "Do blood nodes get stuck in your blood stream?"

These all stumped the professor, who, I have mentioned, is way more patient than he should be. His response to that last one was similar to mine. "Blood nodes?"

Later, ADB on seeing a picture of a lymph node: "WHOA! Is that a parasite?"

A few hours later we moved on to cancer. A few questions on cancer (always preceded by that upraised forefinger: )

1: "What's the proper word for when cancer cells become cancerous?"
2: "So you're saying that cancer is just a swelling effect?" (Yes, that's right, everyone. All of this panic is for nothing. Cancer is really just a swelling effect.)
3: (OMG, this one is my favorite.) "Is there a movie or a trailer you could show us instead of a lecture, about cancer? Just so that we can watch it happen? I'd be curious to watch that happen."

Personally, I prefer a lecture, and moreover, I'm not really curious to "watch cancer happen." What I am curious to watch happen, though, is me punching this guy in the facehole.

Okay, just one more! This one is my favorite! We got into immune response to a virus, and a really broad overview of what a virus is, how it functions etc. The professor posed the question, "So, how does a virus get past the cell wall into the cell?"

ADB: *raises forefinger* "Wind?"

People, now you know. You have wind inside of your body, and it blows a virus clean through the cell walls. I'm so sure that after that, it sets fire to the cell, kills its mother and rapes its dog, before the wind carries it somewhere else.

A future health care practitioner, boys and girls! Let's have a big round of applause.

Am I really too mean? Am I? Or would you all have rolled your eyes too, and either laughed or hit him with a studded clue-bat? Or is it really just me?

Well, I want to end my time on Windows on a HAPPY note, so I will say, umm, YAY for Mac Daddy, and from here on in everything is going to be peachy! ^_^

I very much apologize for double-posting today.I hope I'm not being an LJ pest to my f-list. But this doesn't belong with my last post, and I still wanted to post it because it's important and I know a few of you on my F-list are interested in knowing things like this. Probably most of you, actually.

The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, successfully argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.

In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation. Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.


What the HELL? It's "only a policy?" Oh, well I guess that makes it all right then. I want to spit in Bill O'Reilly's eye (actually I would love to do much more than that, involving a fishbat,) but hey, that's just my "policy."

The other night I was driving the Empress home from KF, and we chatted about all manner of things on the way home (as we usually do.) When we got to her house, I saw that the plow trucks had piled the snow up so high that it nearly covered her front gate, and was higher than their cars. (It's just the same out here, too.) I am just about done with witner, to be honest (I always am around March; though I really don't begrudge winter its parting wallop; gotta hand it to winter.) But anyway, still dismayed by the mountains of snow when I thought Spring was on its way I told her, "Look at these huge mounds of snow! There's no way this is going to melt soon. It'll still be here by April."

"No way," the Empress said. "Do you really think so? Nah, it has to melt before then."

Well, that was a brief and fairly meaningless semi conversation but while I was driving home all of a sudden I remembered this part of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book:

"Well," said Her Majesty, "how long is that mountain [of snow] likely to last?"

Everyone guessed that it would be ten days or a little more.

"And what do you think?" the Empress asked me.

"It will last till the fifteenth day of the first month," I declared.

Evem Her Majesty found this hard to believe, and the other women insisted that it would melt before the end of the year. I realized that I had chosen too distant a date; the mountain would last until the first of the year at the outside, which was the latest day I should have given. Yet there was no taking back what I had said: though I knew the mountain was unlikely to survive until the fifteenth, I stuck to my original prediction.

Towards the twentieth it began raining. There was no sign that the snow was about to melt, but the mountain did shrink a little. "Oh Goddess of Mercy of Shirayama," I prayed frenziedly, "Do not let our mountain melt away!"

Haha, so neat! Because I code-name Empress "Empress" because of the historical figure depicted in that book, naturally! Anyway, I thought that was cool.

This, however, is not so cool:

( The Subversion of Liberty Narrowly Averted by Naomi Wolf )

Please read that article; really take it in! And I'm not convinced that this was actually "narrowly subverted" or was subverted at all. I've always thought that the Bush Administration wasn't just one man voted into power by half of a terrified and manipulated country: I feel like the Bush administration has roots far deeper than most people know, and farther back into history than we suspect. This wasn't just some guy who happened to get voted in. If that sounds paranoid, well, maybe so did some of the stuff listed up there before these files were released a few days ago.

So I don't think anyone can afford to sit back and go, "Whew! Wow, we skirted that one!" Because those sons of whores will be back for more. Like my friend who sent me this said: the pendulum swings. But it has never swung this far in America before. Who knows but that it might swing even farther in eight years? I'm still afraid of Bush. Cut off the head of the dictator and the body will grow a new one.

I'm sorry to end this note on such a downer, truly I am. But anything I say after this will look paltry and insignificant (kinda like the rest of this journal. ;D )

First let me get this out of the way: Obama releases secret Bush anti-terror memos.

The legal memos written by the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights....

"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically."

While I'm glad that this is (at least for eight years,) OVER, how the hell is it that Bush and his ilk are still making me want to tear out my hair and scream and rant and rave? GOD, I hate him and everything he stands for, hate with every darkest corner of my psyche.

*Whew!*

Anyway. So the March Lion brought me two things today,and failed to bring me other things. It brought me a snow day! HURRAY! And it brought me a viewing of House as it airs, since Kung Fu is closed tonight. Honestly I'd rather be at KF, but what the hell, you take what you can get.

So we got about 10 inches of snow in some places, and the wind blew it even higher in others. And it's still coming down. It is a true blizzard; there were moments of white-outs. Today I was craving a cupcake so hard. SO HARD. Like irrationally craving an effing chocolate cupcake. So I dug my damn car out of two feet of snow (and my Dad came by with the snow blower to really clear out a path,) and decided that I needed to go to the store today. I did need a few other things anyway that I was out of, so I figured I should just up and go. The roads were terrible (they always are,) but I made it there and I went right to the bakery. Everything there looked so beautiful and I found that it wasn't a damn cupcake I wanted, but some of their cookies. Holy crap they looked awesome. Gooey, huge, organic, freshly baked chocolate chips and chocolate chocolate chunk ones. The girl behind the counter asked what I wanted and I told her I'd have to get back to her. I wanted to finish my real shopping first and then decide.

So off I went and did my shopping. I came back to the counter and the bakery girl was nowhere to be found. I really wanted those cookies. They looked so good, but she was nowhere to be seen and I was thinking, "Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't eat one?" I waited and waited and there was no one even to ask if I could buy something. I guess I probably just stood staring in totally mournful desire at those cookies, absolutely wistful and self-pitying because I could not get to them.

As I stood there, going up an aisle behind me was this dude, and I kid you not when I tell you that he was so drop-dead freaking gorgeous that I think I just stared, slackjawed for a second. He looked to be some kind of Native American/Asian mix and he had this shoulder-length dark brown hair and beautiful skin, not to mention being around 6'1" or something with a really cute winter hat and bulky coat that did not cover up the fact that he was that perfect combination of slender and broad.

I believe that stared at him in exactly the same way I had looked at the cookies.

Well anyway, some pictures of this March Lion. Actually, mostly of my dogs in the snow.

( This gives you an idea of how much snow there was without the wind blowing it into drifts. )

( That's outside the lower window of my bedroom. )

( I love this one of Sano; he looks like some kind of snow wolf or something. )

( Can you spot the white hound? )

( How about now? :) )

Like it or not, I totally owe another post with pictures, of stuff like Boychild's birthday, and these admittedly freaking awesome Kung Fu photo-manips I've been doing.

LOL I said "nips."

More later.

I've been having these crazy dreams. And obviously they are related to my playing RE2 late into the evening just before bed. I may have mentioned that the game is really well done for its time, even though for me it is a few steps backwards. It is also mega-scary. At some parts, it comes close to Regenerator scary. Okay, not quite, but sort of. Two nights ago I had a dream I was Leon and the alligator was chasing me down the hallway just like it does in the game. It's a narrow hallway and even though Leon is eight way directional he is goddamn hard to control because a) you have to use the pad instead of the analog, and b) he can walk backwards but not run,and in order to get him to actually run in the other direction you have to turn him with the control pad. The controls are something between FFVII and FFVIII. So anyway, it's a scary little part of the game and I dreamed that the alligator was chasing me/Leon down that hallway and I couldn't run quickly enough. I could feel the floor shaking behind me and the alligator snapped at my heels and then I woke up.

Last night's dream was even weirder. I might have talked about this one aspect of my dreams before; I can't remember. But I do this so often in dreams that it bears mentioning. Often I'll be dreaming of the hero of a story and he'll find himself in trouble. This is where I always step into the dream. I tell myself, "He can't handle this; I'd better do it until the crisis is over." And then I'll become the character. Usually it's men; there are very few women in my dreams and when there are, they are taking care of business themselves. In my dreams, men can't handle it and so I have to solve their crises. O_O I'm not sure precisely what this says about me but probably not something good. According to my friend Kim, however, the gender of the character doesn't matter since every character in your dream is really you: after all it's your mind and you have created the scenario and the characters, even if they resemble anyone else. So in her logic, the "hero by proxy" is just my way of solving a problem using another aspect of my own mind. Which I think is really neat.

Well, anyway. So in this dream, once again I'm playing as Leon Kennedy and there are zombies all around. A few have bitten him. (In the game when you get bitten or injured, you can no longer run; instead you hold your side and limp along, which makes every consecutive battle even harder!) So he's limping along inside this big factory, actually more like a grainery because there was definitely some grainery action going on, zombies everywhere but these were more like the Ganados of 4 rather than the zombies of 2. At the top of a silver staircase is a huge white dog. I realize that this dog is the german shepherd Jimmy, the one who I trained and finally got placed in a dog sanctuary (anyone remember how angry I was at Douche Ex Boss over that, when he kept threatening to put the dog in the pound and he made it my problem even though it was his business? And I had to care for the dog myself and finally drive it to Lindenhurst etc.? Well anyway, I was crazy over this beautiful dog and I cried when I had to say good bye to him. This was the dog in my dream.)

So there was Jimmy at the top of the stairs, and he was being used as a guard dog to protect the zombies' grainery. O_o Every few days they would throw him the arm of some person they had killed. He was chained up at the top of the stairs and he started growling at Leon. I was watching from behind a wall; I knew that he would not be able to get past Jimmy. But I also realized that Jimmy would recognize me even if I had to take Leon's place in the story. And I knew that i had to or they would both die. So I jumped into Leon (O_O) just as one of the zombies was going to feed Jimmy. Jimmy finally saw me / us and started barking. I waved my (our) arms around and said, "Jimmy, it's me! I placed you years ago, why did they put you here?" I immediately knew it was Douche Ex Boss's fault. Well, Jimmy recognized me and started barking joyfully. The zombie went to hit him, and Jimmy bit the zombie's arm. He started twisting it around until he bit the arm off totally. The zombie started to scream at him and that got the attention of all the others. They started to run towards, not Jimmy, but me / Leon. I ran up the stairs towards Jimmy where everything was suddenly so bright, and I grabbed him and hugged him really hard.

Zombies started to throw bars of soap at us. It was white soap; suddenly everything was white. Beyond the door there was a field of white flowers and we both ran into it. I kept hugging Jimmy and saying that I hoped he was okay and I missed him.

The scene changed and I was outside of what used to be my grandparents' front yard but is now my cousins' front yard. Jimmy was still with me, only he looked more Saluki-ish and I said (to no one in particular,) "This dog was the reason I got a different white dog. Otherwise everything would be different. It's like he's the grandfather, or maybe the prequel to the line of white dogs."

Then one of the zombies told me that if it hadn't been for the white dog, the entire story of Resident Evil wouldn't make sense, and that if I paid enough attention, the white dog would show how 2 became 4 and 4 became two, like a story with no ending.

And then I effing woke up.

WTF?

Let's see, let's see. Okay, I love the drill we're doing in Kung Fu, in blackbelt. It's got some steal-steps, a binh-choy, a side kick to a back-kick, then two head-removing hits, the cup choy and sou choy. (I can only hope I'm spelling those right.) I was so happy because I was doing them tonight and Sifu said I was doing a great job. Pretty much made my night!

And just because I don't want to forget this: U.S. "war on terror" eroded rights worldwide: experts

( Under the cut )

THANK YOU.

To get this out of the way first:

Say, Bush, you invaded the wrong country and Al Quaida wasn't there until you invaded it.

"SO WHAT?"



Once again, Cenk says it all. I don't even have to add to his commentary.

Well, now that that's off my chest... Today is otherwise lovely! It's raining, and though I wish it were snowing, this will do for now I guess. Once in a while the rain freezes into sleet and makes a cool noise on top of my patio room and the aviary.

Last night in Kung Fu we all had such a great time. We worked really hard in basics class and then in advanced we did locking and trapping and throwing. I'm feeling all stretchy today, also I think I caught a cold but it's not so bad.

As we were closing up the school I asked Sifu when our party was going to be and he said he didn't think we were having one because no one could afford it. This was a MAJOR bummer for me. I told him, "Yeah, I guess I understand. But, let's have one anyway!" and he was like, "Well, okay." In the end we decided that whoever wants to will just meet up for a night out. It probably won't be that many of us. Me, the Empress, Lady Chrysanthemum, Beautiful Boy, Snarklit, and Sifu is my guess. Maybe Scarred Hardcase and Tattooed Sweetheart.

This afternoon I'm going to see TDTESS. It plays at 4:10 around the corner here. I guess I'll go out to the grocery store and get a pint of ice cream for dinner and then head over to the theater.

BLISS, right? :)

Oops, one more thing. Making me both LOL and cringe today, Resident Evil 4 ways to die. It's 8 minutes freaking long!



It's hideous when he gets totally owned by the regenerators! And chopped in half, and run over, and stabbed repeatedly and, like, really graphically. It's kind of hilarious when Luis kills him out of exasperation. And It's AWFUL* when he drowns!














*Kind of hot.

Yeah, kind of hot.

ETA:



O_O