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Saturday, December 31

2005: The Year In Review

January 2005
Someone was brave enough to spar politics with me and I almost went postal.

I dappled in ageofconsent.com and wondered why I was surprised by its existence.

There was a blinking Jesus and an ode to Blitz Mints.

Split Pea Soup was in great supply, as were silly, inane political protests.

On a more serious note, January 12th marked the passing of my Great-Grandmother.

February 2005
Rodney still couldn't get any respect from CNN [clicky]

I was a
Ninja and a Resturant Critic and a Plumber and a fangirl and a Movie Critic.

My boots got the flu and anime tried to infect my life.

March 2005
I took a 15-day hiatus and came back with a post involving the words "turnstyle" and "pregnant".

I fell in love with spring rain and promptly feel right back out.

The Backstreet Boys came back and that wasn't even the low point of the entertainment month.

Texas tried to kill cheerleading, Nate got a goal in life and my father turned to the bottle as a means of dealing with the family.

All in all, it all ended in tears.

April 2005
Max escaped so we brought him home a girlfriend.

Alexis Bledel got worse and Orlando Bloom was type cast.

The Pope took over my tv and brought droves of the British with him.

I gave the marketting companies something to work with, got wise and then bought into the lie.

Flash gave you another reason to listen to me and tabbed browsing took blame for my addiction

Nerdy Boys spiked an all-time popularity high and the world's gayest man got a blog.

May 2005

I killed Gehrard and became an "ist" only to prove it 15 minutes later.

Jameson went to his first concert and Mike and Jeff so almost got arrested.

Spring reared it's ugly head yet again while I put Time Life out of business.

My readers got a lesson in Internet Ettiquite and body language.

Princess went for a swim.

My secret recipie was revealed.

June 2005
Teenagers got blue and then stupid.

My menagerie got two tiny new EVIL additions.

And a whole lot of history got remembered and reconciled.

July 2005
My hamster family got bigger and the Corn Cam got more viewers than it's ever had.

My fear of hotel sheets came to be regarded as sane. My ode to the pickle, not so much.

My birthday became a source of early stress, while my match-making skills were finally respected.

I hated HBP.

August 2005
Bad things happened to my skins while I decided who to hate this month.

I was disgusted beyond belief and cranky as hell.

Katrina hit and I felt nothing but irratation.

September 2005
Most of my life was not blogged about this month but I did manage to get bored enough, at one point to read my spam and publish 2005's, Totally Fuckable List.

Jon Stewart made me laugh all over again with his performance on Crossfire and I drafted yet another new rule.

October 2005
My PHP class turned into Algebra flashbacks and the internet forgot who it was.

I rekindled my pursuit of higher education and discovered, curtosy of MSNBC, DJ RX.


People started lighting halloween.

Then things took a turn for the worst and just kept getting weirder. I still haven't fully recovered from this one - i'm not sure I ever will.

November 2005
Hufu topped my "weirdest product ever list."

The calander got a makeover.

My slug lovin style was cramped and Mike turned the infamous 23.

I talked to Colin.

The Gilmore Girls got even worse.

Chili was ruined for me.

We all got a bit of a shock - which, by now, I think we're all sick of and I asked and was answered.

December 2005
So fresh, it doesn't need links. This month, O'Reily was not the enemy, Christmas just kept getting worse, I experienced a world without Photoshop and, in the ultimate WTF of December - I got an appology I didn't expect and, as I'm sitting here wiht my stomach churning over it's contents and implications - i'm starting to think I wish it would never have come.

I'm glad King didn't live to see it and I hope against hope that it isn't what I think it is.

All hail, 2005: The Year In Review.

Monday, December 26

A World Without Photoshop

I can entertain myself for hours with some media and a psd of any kind to work on. I switch between media player, firefox, outlook, photoshop and word like men channel surf but sitting here on a system that can't run it, i'm realizing that the internet is really no longer enough to hold my attention. Maybe it would be if i could read or focus but with the constant barage of noises and people cleaning things it's nearly impossible to focus on a new story or even long enough to crack open the queue and knock out even some of the 9 day backup we're currently suffering.

It's gonna be a long few days. Today is the...26th? Only 48 more hours...Just 48 more hours :)

Sunday, December 25

Flying

So, yet again, listening to my mother comes back to bite me in the ass.

The 3:30 flight I’ve been talking about for 2 months since my mother told me I had a 3:30 – it was a 12:15. There was a freak-out extravaganza when, at 1:15 my father called to ask me where I was….”What do you mean ‘Where am I’? I’m on Ciscero….” Whatever was I thinking telling him that.

Cut to a few miles down the road and driver instructions of “Mike, find us somewhere that we can pull over and not get shot” Yup, my boarding pass confirmed it – 12:15. So, by now, I’m paper-bagging it in the back seat wondering why they don’t issue barf bags with ticketless travel. All I’ve eaten since 11 o’clock last night is a handful of barbeque potato chips and a grande Caramel Macchiato.

But, apparently panic attacks suit me because the wonderful girl at the ticket counter not only waived the upgrade charge but also gave me a boarding pass instead of making me fly standby so, I suppose all’s well that doesn’t end in life-threatening injuries.

I’ll feel stupid for listening to my mother just as soon as the nausea fades

Saturday, December 24

Weirdest Playlist Ever

So my iPod is all colors of fucked up tonight. Well, not as fucked up as Mike's, but still sizeably unhappy.

Anywhoo, hopes were that I could hook it up to his pc tomorrow and it would like his computer better than it likes mine. It's a longshot but it's worth it. So i threw all of the media I wanted to put on it in a folder on the msn sharing folders feature (yes, pretty beta) and yay. As i was transfering it, I became quite painfully aware of what an odd playlist this is and, yes, it's a playlist.

XTC, Shakin' Stevens, Radio4, Grant Lee Phillips, The Shins, Elastica, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, Frank Sinatra, Pernice Brothers, Komeda, Beck, Culture Club, John Lennon, Louis Armstrong, The Clash, Wilco, Siouxsie And The Banshees, BRMC, Madness, Belle & Sebastian, Travis, Fountains of Wayne, The Streets, The Smiths, The Bangels, PJ Harvey, Sam Phillips

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - this is my "oh man do I wish I smoked" playlist :)

Friday, December 23

TB And Ranting

All right, now I rarely call on Colin - okay, never - but damnit, this pisses me off and he and Mike are the only ones that remember my frantic phonecall when we found out Tracy tested positive for TB.

In search of my "What you can bring on an airplane now" list, I ran across this. [In case you don't feel like clicking through - the headline is "Carroll College Student Contracts TB" or something equally like that.]

To this, I say, FUCK YOU!

My roommate - a woman with whom I shared a kitchen - had tuberculosis and they wouldn't give me leave from classes until the tests came back but someone at Carrol gets TB and the news covers it. My life is never fair.

Travelling Candy

So I needed something to pack in this week. I needed something small, compact, light and preferably with shoulder straps. I needed something I could get past security, not have to check, and wouldn't regret having to lug around the airport. The answer? My brother's backpack.

When they left on the 16th, I happily relinquished my dufflebag in exchange for his compact blue backpack and agreed to wash it out before I used it (because the only thing more disgusting than a 13 year old boy's backpack is the gym clothes he left in it.) Well, when I got it, it still weighed a ton but I ignored it, assuming he'd left some school books in it.

Tonight - moments ago, in fact - i wandered into my kitchen and seized both backpack and 6 - count 'em, 6 - pounds of Jelly Beans I have to bring with me to try and begin the process that is cramming too much stuff into too small a bag.

The weight in his backpack? A binder, a garbage bag (mercifully empty) and three bags of chocolate. Not little, ziploc sized bags of chocolate but giant halloween sized bags of snickers and butterfingers. To this I say - eh?

...And So It Begins

Pardon this post, first of all. I'm making it soley in effort to stay awake until my clothes are dryer ready.

It is, officially, Christmas Eve, and while we braved both mall and best buy today without any visible marks, my rant on people who saunter is nearing the bubbling over point. I can't help but think i'm going to kill someone before the holiday season is anywhere near over.

It would figure, that after a week of downing anti-histemines, avoiding caffine - my lifeblood - and going to lay down early like a good little paranoid skisophrenic, that I would hit with a one-two sleepy cocktail the first time I actually have something to do. Yes, that's right folks, after a week of boredum, despite the stress, i finally have a goal to meet and a timeframe in which to do it and I can barely keep my eyes pealed open. That is, of course, a sign that the moment I close my eyes this evening i'll be greeted with the oh-so-wonderous barage of nightmares I always have when I need sleep the most.

Then, tomorrow - or today, rather - it begins. This year, contrary to years of the past, it isn't the sheer number but the sheery suckiness of the desinations that makes Christmas Eve hell on toast. By making one of our stops a few hours ago and skimming the Grandparents-on-my-Mom's-side visit because I will be seeing them in what, i'm sure, will feel like a 3x9 cell for three days, we've narrowed our night down to two stops. The ever innocuous stop over with Mike's family. There will be cookies - way more snacks than we'll ever eat and, if we're horribly unlucky, his sister will drag out the DVD version of Trivial Pursuit. Then, oh then we must embark on the family history.

I promised I wouldn't do this, because I figured I would find the entire process exhausting but I cannot help but want to rant about the shit position my supposed elders have thrown me into this year. We normally see my Grandparent's on my father's side - Eva and Adolf - on Christmas Day. We stop by there house, there are cookies and shrimp and crappy gifts no one wants. [For two years running she has purchased mike a popcorn bowl. I have no idea why, but she does. Oh, and every year she gives me the family-pass-around of semi-used romance novels. To quote the 90's - As if.] This year, my own parents really managed to fuck me on this one. You see, they're going to be out of town this year which means that, for the first time in 40 years, my father won't be celebrating Christmas with his parents. Why is that a problem for me? Because I'm still fucking here and I still have to see them on Christmas. Now, the afor mentioned Eva and Adolf status they hold isn't even the reason that totally fucking sucks. I've long since accepted that my Grandmother makes Pol-Pot look like a stand-up guy with a few social issues, but it's not her that's the problem this year. When your flight leaves out of south Chicago at 3:30 on Christmas Day, it's a bit difficult to make your standing 2 o'clock appointment in Bristol and so I find myself visiting them on Christmas Eve. If Eva and Adolf (the real ones) ever managed to make it past the honeymoon stage and actually spawned it would be my Uncle and, in the great scism between him and my father, he got Christmas Eve as his designated visitation night. For me, this means an hour and a half (i did manage to steal it down to that with only a minimum of lying) at my psycho Aunt's house exchanging awkward conversation with people i've only seen three times since I was 6 and trying to dodge the Gestapo.

Monday, December 19

Merry Fucking Christmas

Before I embark on this, I should say two things. First, as I grow older, I realize that not everyone's family is like mine. Yes, we all have our Fredo's but no one elses family seems to have quite as many as mine and, at the very least, they all have the self-respect to not invite Fredo to the house for Christmas. Second, I have a big family who, unti very recently we visited all of on Christmas Eve.

Last January, my Great-Grandmother died. (Blunt, no?) In any case this ment that Christmas Eve at Gram's house was off. The prospects seemed excellent. I no longer had to stop in to see all of those Great-Aunts and Uncles that I'm not really a big fan of anyway and, it took one stop off of our already daunting schedule. (I swear to god, I need to get to work on that time machine.) Aside from the whole "death" issue, I was thrilled.

Ah, how naieve I was. It never occured to me, at that time, that if Gram was no longer alive to require my family members to get together in one place at one time, I would never again be off of the proverbial Christmas hook with a one stop shop - what's worse, my mother took her death as an invitation to flee the state and suddenly the 45 minute drive between places turned into a 6 hour affair.

For all the joy that is Christmas to the young and the old alike, to the young couple, the holiday's are thy bane.

Christmas Eve means three stopovers for us - it's up from our previous two but, nevertheless, not bad. A brief stop to see Sis and Frank. I like them, they're good people, but seeing the mother of a friend who died exactly two months ago that day on Christmas, a day when i'm already cranky, is probably not the kind of upper I need. After (or possibly before. The logistics are still a blur) menas a swing over to my Aunt Cindy's house to see my father's parents and my father's brother (whom I haven't seen in excess of the two times I saw him for about 10 minutes since I was 7.) Family history aside, I hate Cindy, my Grandfather is suffering from early stage alzheimers and hearing loss (excellent self-preservational instincts on his part, i think,) my Grandmother is more evil than the Queen of Narnia and, without a lengthy explaination, my Uncle Jon and Aunt Vicky who, in short, suck donkey balls.

Needless to say, two very pleasent stops on a very pleasent day. (When it occured to me that it was the two month anniversary of King's death all I could think was "It figures.")

From there, it's to see Mike's family. This is probably the most low-key event ever and I love them for it. Someone threatens to bring out trivial pursuit, there are cookies and the arguing is generally kept to a reasonable minimum. It's all very happy. (Sad when I consider "not open animocity" a good sign.)

Then, of course, Christmas Day brings an even more festive exchange. As I mentioned, my mother, father and brother can be found in Ohio this year. They've already depearted and they won't be back until the 2nd of January, so yay for that. It does, however, mean that inspite their shirking of family duties (like seeing either of their parents or any of their siblings) I have not been so luckily gifted. At about 11:30 Christmas morning, I'm gathering up my bag of tricks and piling into the car for the doubtless gridlocked drive down 94 and Ciscero to Midway where I can pile, unhappily, into the security line and be poked, prodded and violated until the time comes to actually board my plane. Somewhere in between there I will probably go get some bad kiosk food and a very large cup of coffee. Irish coffee. I leave Chicago at 3:30. Why am I leaving at 11:30 when I live only an hour and 20 minutes away? Because I suspect that between traffic and security I will still be late for my flight.

I should pull into Ohio at about 5:30, local time and there I will proceed to spend the next 3, count 'em, 3 painstaking days in a one bedroom apartment with both of my parents, my younger brother, and my grandparents on my mom's side. Oh yes, it's gonna be great.

On the 28th at about 9am I come back in to Midway only to turn right back around and head in the opposite direction for Madison becuase my idiot parents bought Mike and I tickets to see Trans Siberian Orchestra three days after christmas when they knew i'd be out of state for that time. I wish I had a picture of the face Mike made.

All in all, next christmas i'm renting a hall and sending out invitations explaining that anyone interested in seeing either of us for Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving or any other holiday we may have forgotten can stop in anytime between 6 and 9 on December 24th. BYOB.

Wednesday, December 7

Tasteful Twinkle

So when this christmas started to approach, I vowed to charge up my digital camera and chronicle some of the do's and dont's of christmas lighting. Well, I haven't gotten around to that yet (I'm thinking that after a few cups of coffee one night i'll make Mike go around driving for HOURS to find all of the good, the bad, and the ugly.)

I did think I would share this link that Mike sent to me.

tasteful twinkle

Monday, December 5

The Enemy

"Yes, Mr. O’Reily, that is Donald Rumsfeld and, in case you’re interested, he is our Secretary of Defense."

So today I was greeted with Bill O'Reily and, as I am want to do when I hear his abomination of a program within earshot, went off to find the individual who had the audacity to start my day off that way. The defense? "You have to listen to what the enemy is saying or you don't know what you're up against."

In truth, it's a valid point. If you fall to the left and you aren't aware what the uber right wing is saying, you are no better able to convince them to buy your most recent line of bullshit policy than to sell them a stove, but I think, as time goes on, i'm discovering what the real fallacy that people are afflicted by in this country.

Bill O'Reily is not the enemy.

(Yes, you can add that to the list of words you never thought you'd hear me say.)

Frankly, Bill O'Reily is pretty much nothing. He's press. He's media. He doesn't do is radio broadcast and his TV show for the good of the public benefit. He does his radio broadcast and his TV show to sell advertising and books. Now, don't misunderstand me, i'm the last person you would hear arguing that doing a job for profit is bad. All the more power to Mr. O'Reily, but what he's doing is coming at the expense of his party and the American Public.

I would venture to guess that, short of the 15 minute time blocks, broken up by commerical spots and patented O'Reily rants, he has no reach or input into the daily runnings of this country or major policy decisisons of the right wing. (It's a stretch, huh?) People - people like my Mother, an albeit reasonably intelligent individual who has a quite average grasp on the political climate of the country - have walked happily into the trap of a belief that, whatever system they ascribe to, it's people like Bill O'Reily and Stephen Colbert that they're fighting when these people bear no relevence to the world around them whatsoever. They produce politics, they don't run it. (The difference between the two of them being that Stephen Colbert holds no illusions.)

True, they may sway and shape the opinions of the American public but, contrary to popular belief, the American public doesn't hold a great lot of a sway in Congress. Yes, that's right, I said it, no one in Washington gives a shit.

If you'd like to know what the enemy is saying, watch your Congressional proceedings - read committee reports and really look at the process of your government. Don't fool yourself into believing that you're a part of the ever dwindling aware and balanced citizenry because you spend a half an hour listening to Temperpedic matress plugs and bad talk radio.

Saturday, December 3

Harley's From Hell

Okay, now I'm not one to generally get peeved about motorcycles. I don't get the appeal behind catapulting yourself down the road at 85 miles an hour with nothing but leather to protect you from the road, the other cars, trees and other things that one should generally just avoid colliding with, but I can accept that some people apparently find it terribly exciting. Whatever. Have more sex and that need will probably go away.

Anyway, yes, so Jeff, my neighbor has been out there revving that cursed thing for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. 20 minutes of listening to him throttle it in his drive way. Jesus christ. I know that bike makes you feel like a man but a real man would actually get the balls up do to the afor mentioned life threatening activity rather than just playing with it in the driveway.

Again, I repeat - don't buy the toys that make the noise!

New Skin

Just giving it a quick test here becuase it seems as though I have no content and that is prone to scaring the crap out of a girl like me :)