So, the Chinese government is censoring the internet? This is where we are drawing the line? They can completely control their tv channels, radio stations, news papers and arrest and try journalists but we're saying "NO!" to censorship of the internet which is already full of crap anyways? I feel like this is ridiculous.

Pulling google out of china will only make it easier for the Chinese government to control the information that their citizens are able to see. We aren't fixing the problem, not even close. We're just making is so that we don't have to care. Which is what we American's enjoy doing. Something terrible happening in the world? Are people dying? Are human rights being grossly violated? Are people going without things they shouldn't have to go without? Ehh, not our problem.

Can we make money off it? HELL YES, WE'RE ON THIS SHIT. Some other motivating factors of American action are, Are they close by? Have terrorists ever been involved? And, Is there international heat to take action?

Uggh. *head desk.

Someday, kids, someday, we'll do something because it's the right thing to do. The outpouring of assistance in Haiti is a good start but we could still do better. Sigh, I feel older than I am at times like this.



Next time: Stories of Horror and Hope from Haiti

But don't worry, I have no intents whatsoever on stripping the flesh from your bones. Despite the universe's best attempts, I am still very much alive. Hopefully I will be able to update with more frequency in the future.

So here I am. I'm sitting on this very obnoxious, navy blue love seat that has been worn out so much in the middle that no matter how hard you try to sit on one end you will always sink towards the center. Meiko is playing on iTunes, she was preceded by the wonderful Cat Stevens and the entirety of Mona Bone Jakon. I got so into singing along to I think I see the light that I accidentally spilled my coffee all over the place and had to do a frantic clean up before certain irritating and obsessive compulsive (not to mention bitchy) roommates noticed. I'm pretty sure it reeks of coffee in here though which will surely give me away. Speak of the devil and she will come. The topic she has decided to grate upon us is the kitchen light bulbs, apparently two have burnt out. We MUST get new light bulbs and we MUST install them but we MUST remember to not turn the lights on unless we MUST turn them on. As I have stopped using the kitchen because I was sick of her leaning over my shoulder telling me how to cook (she can't cook) and telling me how to clean(and then immediately re-cleaning what I had just cleaned) I find myself really not caring about the amount of light available in that part of the house. One of these days she will catch me when I haven't been properly caffeinated and I will more than likely go ape shit on her annoying, controlling, behind. I'm working on controlling my rage.

The windows look like that old wavey glass that I love because of the way the rain is dripping down them. It has been raining all day, I've been watching and sipping my coffee since I woke up at the crack of noon. In my defense, I was fully awake until 4 AM sexy texting my paramour. Complications preventing us from dating officially unfortunately also affect my sleep schedule. But I don't complain because it is rounding on 7 months since I had real sex and this, while through electronic media, is effective enough at curbing my horny enough that I can function like a real person during the day. I still believe that if everyone in the world had sex and caffeine there would be no war and we'd all be a lot more productive.

Further, these complications around my pseudo-lover are becoming more and more frustrating as time passes. It starts as it always does with a terrible break up. The Ex is the New Boy's roommate. Complication one. The Ex is irrationally hung-up on me. Complication two. I am not allowed to visit because The Ex does not want to see me at all, which is preventing me from seeing a lot of my friends as frequently as I would like. Complication three. The Ex will not talk to me even though the only thing I would like to talk to him about is a way to be civil to each other so that the group can hang out as a whole again. Complication four. The New Boy, while liking me very much, understandably does not want to put his living situation into jeopardy. Complication five. The New Boy and The Ex are friends. Complication six. And The biggest complication of all is I still care about The Ex to the extent that I still care about his feelings, would like to be friends, and don't want to hurt him and his roommate, The New Boy, feels the same. Long story short? I sure can pick 'em. I know I should move on from New Boy to someone more appropriate but I really don't want to because there is the final complication of the New Boy and I being nearly perfectly simpatico in a manner that I have never experienced before which is exhilarating and breathtaking and wonderful and heartbreakingly tragic since nothing can come of it the way things currently stand.

I need to re-think my priorities.

People don't really realize how important water is. Or how important the nature of water is. There are several things about water that make it one of the most important substances in the universe.

For one, water is essential to life. The human body is 60-70% water. In order to survive you need to drink at least one to seven liters of water a day to avoid dehydration. In an environment with an average daily temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit you could only survive for 10 days without any water consumption.

Another important aspect of water is that when it is frozen (ice, dude) it floats. If it did not float then the world would be hella freaking hot. Ice reflects a lot of the suns heat back out into the great black yonder. On top of that it protects the ocean from becoming too hot. If ice were to sink then only the very depths of the ocean would be cold and the uper levels would be steaming. Life on our planet as we know it could not exist under these circumstances.

Water has an amazing ability to maintain its temperature. This is very important because it acts as a buffer system to changes in temperature. If water was not able to maintain its temperature as it does, our planets temperature would fluxuate far more often and in a more extreme manner.

Water is important. It is vital that we correct out water wasting ways as quickly as possible. Water is NOT an infinite resource. This is directly connected to global warming and pollution. If we don't clean up our act our species is fucked.

Look at this graphic of our solar system, a bigger version of which can be found here. The blue zone is the where a planet can have temperatures and all forms of water like ours can. LOOK AT HOW SMALL IT IS IN COMPARISON TO WHAT WE KNOW OF THE UNIVERSE. Not just the universe, only what we know of the universe. It's freaking tiny. Our planet is literally a perfect planet. It is in the perfect place, the perfect size, and it orbits perfectly around a perfectly sized star. That's a lot of perfect people. That's a lot of perfect that's hard to duplicate even in an infinite universe. Yeah, there are probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of other earths out there but we do not have the technology to get to them. And, at the rate we are going, we won't have the technology before we turn our big blue marble into a big brown graveyard for ourselves. This IS the only earth we got. STOP BEING IRRESPONSIBLE MESSY HUMANS!!

Fondly known as the Matthew Sheppard Act. For more information visit the human rights website and read up on it. The act is up for vote in the House tomorrow.

I am most definitely an proponent of attempts to reduce hate crimes and make hate crimes more actively investigated.

Opponents of the act say that it will take away freedom of speech. This is not so. People can still bitch and moan and rant and rave all they want about the minority group that they hate. The bill addresses only acts of violence against minorities.

When climate crisis deniers and their allies argue that cap-and-trade and other legislation costs too much, they always seem to ignore the price of inaction.

The LA Times reported:

"Global warming could rob the U.S. economy of $1.4 billion a year in lost corn production alone, a national environmental group estimated in a report released Thursday."

"The Environment America study, based on government and university data, projects that warming temperatures will reduce yields of the nation's biggest crop by 3% in the Midwest and the South compared with projected yields without further global warming."

"Iowa would be hit hardest, losing $259 million a year in corn revenues, followed by Illinois at $243 million. California, which leads the country in agriculture but doesn't grow much corn, would take an estimated $4.7-million hit."

Nearly every industry will be impacted by our planet's warming. The costs of inaction far out way any expense incurred to repower America.

This was posted on Al Gore's Blog today. Global Warming is one of my biggest pet peeves. Or, more specifically, people's lack of concern over global climate change is one of my biggest pet peeves. Yes, the Earth goes through cycles of hot and cold but the rate of change in temperature has never been this extreme.

Think about it. Learn about it.




Have nightmare's about it like I do.

The largest living organism in the world is a Honey Fungus mushroom. It has a network of Rhizomorphs (tentacles/"roots" for all intents and purposes) that span an area of over 2,200 acres. It lives in oregon.



It also can glow in the dark.








I approve.

Look at this fucking duck.


Would you not agree that he is gigantic? It's almost terrifying. He is at least three times the size of his companions.

I think he's part goose.

Is it possible for a duck to be part goose? Maybe he is an entirely different species. Or maybe he is an offshoot of the regular ducks. A mutant. A fore runner of ducks that will some day rule the world and turn us all into their human slaves whose only purpose in life is to make them cornbread muffins because we have thumbs and can thus operate cooking utensils.

Another thought : What is ducks had thumbs? And if they did have thumbs where would those thumbs be located? The wings? The feet? What would this mean for us human slaves? Would we be chopped up into Gargantuduck Fodder? OR would they keep us around for amusement. Put us in parks and feed us crumbs and go "Quack Quuuack Quackk Quackakak" which I'm sure translates to "awww, look how adorably they snarf down their food. It's like they haven't eaten in days!" Perhaps they would exact vengeance upon us and let us loose in a wooded area and hunt us? FOR SPORT?!?!

The moral of this post?
Feed the ducks tasty muffins and maybe they won't destroy us when they mutate into giants overlords with thumbs.

I'm a little afraid of him, if truth be told. My fish's name is Fatty McSquishy. He once was a teeny little comet gold fish (you know, the kind you can get at the pet store for 29 cents?) and now he has morphed into a rather beefy comet gold fish. He is adorable. But, he is a psychopathic serial killer.

He has had eight tank mates throughout his life. They are as follows:
Mrs. McSquishy - Another comet goldfish.
Harold - A Very fat and Orange fancy fantail goldfish.
Maude - A beautiful white and red spotted fancy fantail goldfish.
Julio- A snail.
Jacques - Another snail.
Francoise - Another another snail.
Sergei - Another another another snail.

While Julio, Jacques, Francoise, and Sergei all died of natural snail related death causes(aka eating a bunch of goldfish crap and being poisoned to death because it's so toxic) I am 99.99% certain that MqSquishy knocked off all of his fishy-roommates.

The first clue - They all died in exactly the same way. And it wasn't a typical fishy way to die. It was as if they were paralyzed from half way down their spines. They would float sideways and attempt to swim around. Eventually, exhausted, they would give up and eventually get sucked up against the filter intake valve. Eventually they would die and float down to the bottom of the tank with their mouths wide open in an expression of shock. This process took about 12 hours.

The Second clue - McSquishy is a very fast fishy. He can dart around faster than you can imagine. It's almost as if he is a ninja fish and he just warps to the other side of the tank. The other fish could never keep up with him. They were all rather fat and slow.

The Third clue - He is very aggressive for a goldfish. Normally they are very social fish and, while they are known to kill each other, they don't do it very often. But he is not afraid to lay the smack down on the other residents of his tank if they get in his way. This behavior is particularly prominent at meal times. I have seen him push his fellows out of the way, quite forcefully, to get to the food first.

My theory is that McSquishy, in a food-induced rage, would speed at his late tank mates and ram them until they were incapacitated. The other fish, being both fat and slow, could not get out of the way fast enough. They would then proceed to die in slow agony while McSquishy circled the tank, happy as a fat kid in a candy store.

The conclusion of this story?
Well since I have a homicidal maniac of a fish I can't get any new ones cause he'll just snuff out their lights so now I have a huge 15 gallon tank with one rather small, but beefy, fish in it.

It looks really sad.

I really dislike it when I have nothing to do. I can always think of a million things I need to do when I'm busy but the instant I have free time it all rushes out of my head. I sit around and day dream a lot which is not at all productive. But it leads me to have interesting conversations with myself. Example:

"What is that?"
"I don't know, it looks like some sort of weird brown fuzzy grape."
"I wonder what it's doing in the library, you aren't supposed to eat in here."
"It looks like it's been there for a while. Someone probably snuck some food in."
"Did it just move?"
"Oh hey, they have a collected works of Poe on that shelf."
"Poe is a bit depressing."
"But Awesome."
"Indeed."

These little conversations do well in amusing me for about a nano second because that is how long it takes for them to rush through my brain. I seem to run at hyper speed lately. And at the same time I'm stuck in slow-mo. I feel like I'm waiting for some cataclysmic event to push me out of whatever hole I'm stuck in.

This kind of mood always seems to over take me this time of year. It might have something to do with now being the time when I realize I haven't yet done anything to achieve my New Year's resolutions (which are always the same every year, by the way). A sickness of some sort always tries to take over my body this time of year as well. I seem to sleep more, but feel more tired.

And then there are the cliche woes this month brings. Valentine's day is a source of great annoyance to me. It seems like everywhere I look there is some sign advertising some sort of Val-o-crap or another. I have yet to see a Valentine's day when I was with a someone. And this makes me feel ... sucktastic. I know I could use valentine's day to show my love for my friends and such and I do but they are usually of with their someones or busy with family. It points out the two things in my life that I am most upset about. My family relationships and my friendships. A new New Year's resolution would be to rectify those relationships. But, like I previously stated, me and resolutions don't really stick. Motivation seems to be lacking in my life right now. My mindset at the moment just won't seem to switch to "let's get 'er done" mode.

It's cold and rainy and, while I like cold and rainy, it is also ugly out. Everything is still mostly dead and the landscape is like a gang rape to the eyeballs. The cold beauty that is winter has melted away and what's left is just a puddle of muddy filth and decay. Nature is usually a comfort to me but it is this time of year that I notice all the trash on the street and the oil spots in the road and the shredded tires in the ditch because there is nothing else to look at. Anger is an emotion that I am becoming very familiar with, especially on my journey's outside my house. Usually, Anger serves as a motivating factor but I'm so lethargic and apathetic right now that it's just an annoyance. While I still go through the trash cans in my classrooms and sort out the recycleables it seems that now I'm just doing it out of habit rather than passion.

My passions are hibernating. I haven't been painting lately and my drawings have been mediocre and bland. I haven't even enjoyed listening to music or playing video games lately. I haven't danced or jogged. I only do yoga because it's one of my credit classes.

I want it to be March.

So others can understand where I'm coming from. I live in the North West of the US of A. I like where I live; I don't like my country. At the moment that is. Recent changes in administration may change my views in the future but that is a wait and see.

I'm in my late teens. I like to think I'm mature for my age but I will be the first to admit that I can slide into a five year old "BUT I DON'T WANNA!" attitude when faced with enjoyable tasks. I have lived a more --interesting, for lack of a better word, kind of life than most people my age and seen more than I wanted to see. This has led to my having a somewhat jaded view on some of the warm and fuzzy things in life. I'm currently working on my ability to trust others and not see the worst in everything around me.

I've been wanting to move to England for a good long time now. If I do, I plan on moving to somewhere in the Cotswolds area because I love the scenery. And from what I've gathered via the internets, it has weather similar to what I am used to and clean air. Which is important. As a budding environmentalist I enjoy not getting crap in my lungs. As should the rest of you! It's cheesy and over used but we only have the one planet and fucking it up will not benefit us. Things might be a little easier to be dirty and wasteful. Cutting corners in reusing and reducing might save you a little money. But what are you going to do when you need an oxygen tank to go outside and the land is so polluted that you can't grow any food? Hmm? Yeah, that's what I thought.

The majority of my thoughts will probably be disorganized and chaotic because that is just how my brain works. This is compounded by the fact that I am highly caffeine dependent. Coffee is amazing. It is joyous. It is wonderful and delicious and aromatically orgasmic. Tea is subtle and mouth watering. Energy drinks are gross. Bet you didn't see that one coming. I enjoy the occasional Energy boost in my smoothies occasionally but I cannot stand the crap they put in redrockstarmonsteramps. It's just disgusting.

I am a starving (metaphorically) college student planning on becoming a pharmacist. Yes, it's boring but it pays well. And let us face it -- Money makes the world go round. There really is no denying it, especially in this current economic crisis. The "bail-out," by the way, is complete bullshit. I support John Stewert and his "trickle up" plan.

I love to read and I hate to write. The whole reason of starting this was to improve my writing skills and create an outlet for my rage / rants. Books are my lovers. I have many of them and I'm not ashamed of it. I will continue to post books that I love as I think of them on the side module of this page. Another one of my passions is art. I adore drawing and painting. While I think my work is shit, other people have told me that I should sell my work. So I'm going to look into that in the future but for the time being I do it for fun. But maybe, I'll take requests? I'm not sure. Still thinking on it.

Long story short I'm a 19 year old, art loving, book loving, environmentalist / pharmacy student. And I rant.

Labels: Introduction