A place for me to work stuff out and to post things that interest me.
Most of us can, if we choose,
make this world either a palace or a prison.
~Lord Avebury
I choose a palace.
~TKF
Do not let your fire go out,
spark by irreplaceable spark,
in the hopeless swamps of the approximate,
the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.
Do not let the hero in your soul perish,
in lonely frustration for the life you deserved,
but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle.
The world you desired can be won.
It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
~Ayn Rand
The democratic society's mythology of equality with its
attendant erasure of difference is an impossibility
in an actual, lived sense.
Therefore, according to this view, this
imaginary erasure cannot achieve an
actual democracy, because a sense of
community can only come with the recognition of difference.
~Slavoj Zizek, as paraphrased by Catherine M. Soussloff
Links!
A brand new link! Check it out!
deviantART
I thought the place was very cool. Oh, and all you Alias fans, you can find a very nice wallpaper there--
or rather, here--and a gorgeous Evanescence one, too!
Watcher's Diary
Slayage; The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies
Convert just about anything
Comes in really handy when you want to convert fahrenheit to celcius and vice versa!
Links to 100s of free calculators online
Everything from your due date to how much a house payment would be to a regular calculator
Reference Guide to Chicago Manual of Style
Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Atlas & Almanac
Quotation Search Engine
Complete HTML True Color Chart
Epicurious Recipes
Inn Recipes; Recipes for all Occasions
JobStar-Resumes & Cover Letters Advice
Overstock.com: Up to 80% off most items
Ediblenature.com
Things My Girlfriend & I Have Argued About
(Trust me--you'll be laughing outloud!)
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Beyond the Invisible
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The tale of the world is like a tree.
...
Sturdily rooted in the past, the tale's branches spread out through the days that come. The many stories that make up its substance
unfold from bud to leaf to dry memory and back again, event connecting event like the threadwork of a spider's web, so that each creature of the world plays its part, understanding only aspects of the overall narrative, and perceiving, each with its particular talents, only glimpses
of the Great Mystery that underlies it all.
~Charles de Lint, Moonheart
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
White Smoke Indicates Death, Right?
As Daniel reminded me again tonight, I have really bad luck with cars. New cars, used cars, it doesn't matter. I can't seem to hold onto a car for more than 3 years without some major mechanical failure or a spectacular accident (only one of which was my fault) that renders the car inoperable.
This one wasn't really luck, though, and it's not actually my car, I just use it a lot since it's the only car that Jerry and I have and our only way to our respective jobs (unless I want to get on the bus at 5:45am to get to work by 8am). The car has been gradually falling apart since I've been here and it's been getting steadily worse. First the passenger door refused to closed properly and had to be taped shut. Yes, I said taped. Then the headlights began to, occasionally, when it seemed the most inoportune time, to flash on and off when they were supposed to be on. The engine began to rev too high most of the time. Then it began to accerate on it's own when you were driving it--there were times that I made the trip through town to pick him up without ever having to step on the gas. I only had to stomp the brake, really hard, in order to stop for lights and other cars. The temperature gauge would occasionally leap into the red and then back out. Tires would go nearly flat for no discernable reason, even after we changed the tire. Then, today, on the way home tonight, the temperature gauge shot into the red and smoke began pouring out from under the hood. NEVER a good sign. Nor is it a good sign when this is followed by a loud *POP* from under the hood before you can get through the intersection and off the road. This was followed by 45 minutes of waiting in the middle of the road in the cold for a ride and a tow truck while cars honked and pulled around us impatiently. Ironically, barely 20 minutes before, while in the grocery store, J had mentioned taking the car in for a tune up and I said, "Taking that car in for a tune up is like taking a guy that fell off a cliff in for a band-aid. The car is going to die sooner or later. I'm just hoping it's later rather than sooner."
So I called my new boss to ask for paid time off tomorrow and Jerry's taking time off, too, and we're going in search of a car payment we can afford. Unfortunately, car payments tend to be more than $50/month. Given that, I hope we can find a car payment we can barely afford if we cut out the extras and trim the grocery budget back a bit.
Stupid cars!
2:21 AM
(1) comments
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Good Thing Global Warming is "Just a Myth"!
Like the title says, good thing global warming is just a myth or I might be seriously worried about the weather around here! Take the next few days: today (Tuesday) it was in the upper 50's for most of the day, with the temp dropping to the 30's by the time night fell. We're currently under a winter advisory and we're supposed to get snow showers by noon tomorrow. Then, on Thursday, it's supposed to be 58 degrees again! On top of that, it's been raining all day and I HATE it! Going to and from the car meant getting rained on all damned day. Personally, I hate getting rained on (the idea that walking in that stuff voluntarily is somehow romantic as opposed to cold, wet, and annoying has never made the slightest bit of sense to me). I feel the same about walking in snow (driving in it is even worse!) and getting splashed at the pool. BAH! With very few exceptions, "wet" sucks!
This insane weather pattern has been the norm for the past several weeks. In the 60's one day and the 30's the next day! Okay, so Kentucky weather has always been somewhat wacky, but this is beyond wacky, even for us! We had tornado warnings in December, for god's sake!
Frankly, I hate being cold almost as much as I hate being wet. As much as I hate being cold, though, this being yanked back and forth between shivering one day and walking around in a sweater the next is harder than if it just stayed cold until it was Spring.
12:01 AM
(2) comments
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Good, The Bad, The Somewhat Irritating
I got the job! I got the job! I don't have to work at Nex-hell anymore!! joyous dancing and mad shrieking ensues
Okay, after two days, I still barely have an idea of what I'm going to be doing. It's medical insurance billing research and we act as a middleman between the provider, the host insurance, and the home insurance. If that made sense to you, you know as much as the rest of us that began yesterday. To be honest, I'm only really going to get a grip on what we're doing after I actually start doing it. That said, I work in a pretty building for really nice bosses. I make more money. I work Monday - Friday, 8:00-4:30. They have a realistic policy about having to take time off and even if they have mandatory overtime, they never work more than 10 hrs, which was my standard shift at the other place. There are NO phones!
I haven't had a major IBS attack since I started. Okay, it's only been 2 days, but I'm used to being in pain every night!
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I tried to quit smoking and I was doing really well. Then I caved. I've smoked three cigarettes today. sigh I can't believe I'm so weak-willed! I truly didn't think it would be that hard to quit and it really wasn't particularly hard the first 3 days! I don't know what the hell happened!
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Nikki called last night. Her boyfriend's dad has been really sick and in the hospital since before Christmas. Yesterday, Phillip got the call to come back up to Tallahassee because his dad didn't have very long left. Nik said that Phillip called her from the road (he's in college about 2 hrs south of her) and he sounded completely distraught. He was crying pretty hard and said that he was sick to his stomach and had already thrown up. She told him that if he needed to stop, she'd be there for him. He did stop. They went to lunch and pushed some food around and then talked in her dorm room for about 30 minutes and then he left for Tallahassee. She said that he called her a couple of hours later from the hospital. It turns out that he missed seeing his dad by 20 minutes. She was understandably upset. She hurts for her boyfriend, who is shattered, and she feels like it's her fault that he missed seeing his dad before he died. I tried to make her understand that it's not her fault. Phillip made the choice to stop. He made it because he was sick with grief and needed some comfort and who's to say that if he hadn't stopped that he wouldn't have been so upset while driving that he had an accident himself? It's not like she dragged him off the road and forced him to spend time with her instead of his dying father. But I know that's easy to say and even believe, intellectually, but it's not easy to feel. Meanwhile, I feel so helpless because she's sad and she says that she feels all alone and completely disconnected from her own family. She says that she never sees her parents and feels that she barely knows her brothers and that she envies her friends who are obviously very close to their families. What am I supposed to say to that? I can't afford to go there or bring her here and I don't know when I'll be able to actually see her in person. I don't want her to feel alone but what do I say or do, other than I love you and I'm sorry? I told her tonight that we should sit down and plan some time together and if she doesn't want to come here, maybe we can plan a weekend trip together somewhere. If we plan far enough in advance, we can save for it and it'll be cheaper. I know that isn't much, though, and she didn't seem particularly enthusiastic.
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I took away Daniel's internet last night and I don't know when I'm giving it back. The one rule I made when I set him up was "No internet after midnight on a school night". I don't feel that is especially strict, but he keeps breaking that rule, so I told him that if I caught him once more, I was taking his internet away indefinitely. I went to bed at 11:30pm last night and I said, "Off the computer by 12! I love you! Goodnight!" He said, "Okay, love you too." I got up at 1:30am to go to the bathroom and, sure enough, he was on it again!
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There is a certain person on WD right now that is a complete moron! Sadly, he thinks that he's very intellectual when pretty much everything he writes displays his complete inability to form a coherent, cohesive sentence, let alone participate in an intelligent debate. He rants. He raves. He is the written equivalent of an epileptic fit. The thing is that it's so sadly pathetic watching him flail about, it's nearly impossible to be angry at him. It's pretty easy to find him almost as irritating as one of those yappy micro-dog, though.
11:58 PM
(6) comments
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