A Little Bit of Random

T-eight and a half hours

2004-08-13T09:22:00.000-06:00

This is My LaSt DaY oF wOrK, and thus my last blog. It's been a good time.

PEACE, SUCKAS!!!!

I HAVE A DORM!!!

2004-08-12T17:06:00.000-06:00

Yay! I'm in Stearns!!! Look how pretty!!!!

YAYAYAYAYAYAY

COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE

2004-08-10T16:29:00.000-06:00

So apparently, I just don't want to research things today for the blog. SO, I'm going to write about COLLEGE, and my dorm sitch. Yes, sitch.

So, I had been put in a dorm called Stewart (wtf? Is he following me everywhere?) with a core class that I uber did not want (Russian Literature crap), and then the housing department called me and said, "hey, we can put you in Newcomb with air conditioning, but there are none of the core classes that you want"...so I said, "Heyl no, keep me in Stewart". So then the lady calls me back and tells me the core class (previously mentioned russian literature crap--I didn't know the class before), and I'm upset, because I neither want to be in the creepy ex-boyfriend dorm or a class with people who I won't have anything in common with. So my mother (yes, my MOM) talks to the head of the department, and he explains the whole deal. So NOW I can be in one of these three dorms.

Stewart- PRO: Newly rennovated, in high demand. CON: No air conditioning, named after an uber creepy ex-boyfriend, a class that I have no interest in, will have people that I might not have much in common with (econ, politics, english--obviously I'd like the english geeks tho), farthest away from stuff.

Stearns- PRO: Closest to the student center (food) and the theatre, I'd be in a class I really want to be in, architecture is cool. CON: No air conditioning, the roommate is the least best match out of the three (has that ever stopped me? Should I be worried about that?)

Braun- PRO: Air conditioning, I'd be in a class that I kind of want to be in. CON: oldest and the least "fresh"

I think that's the whole Pro/Con list. Anyway, I'm excited. I think I want to be in Stearns. No, I DO want to be in Stearns. Excited excited excited excited. Now if that one spot in the class in Stearns is open, then I'm in. YAYAYAYAYAYAY COLLEGE!!!!!!

Carrie

2004-08-09T15:09:00.000-06:00

DAYS OF WORK LEFT: 4

So, Chad told me that I should write about acrobatics today, and maybe I still will, but at the moment I just don't feel like it. So here's what I'm writing about instead:

Carrie.

K. Carrie is absolutely fantastic. I mean, there's just nothing else to say. She's amazing. She's like this little bundle of love that is practically a carbon copy of me, and uses phrases in every day life like, "PS" and "For the record" and "PS I love the record book". Etc. etc. You just can't even describe Carrie because what makes her so fantastic is the essence. Yes, the ESSENCE. Carrie essence is like everything you could imagine that you love. Like, cookies, and ice cream, and steak, and pretty flowers, and puppys, and action movies, and love (not necessarily all together). There's just absolutely no way to describe her. She's fantastic. And fun as hell to hang out with. She's going to BU in the fall, but we're gonna try and see each other. Hopefully that'll work out, but we'll see. Love the Carebear.

FattyMcFrowny

2004-08-06T14:38:00.000-06:00

COUNTDOWN TO LAST DAY OF WORK: 5

Yes!

So, I started this stupid diet again. This is actually something personal, and something I'm trying to sort through, so talking about it might help.

I eat. A lot. And yeah, it's all well and good when people joke about it--because the jokes remind me that if I actually were fat, they wouldn't be joking about it. ....But recently, the jokes have stopped. That I don't like as much.

I find some sort of sick satisfaction in knowing people think I'm attractive. I don't know why I feel that need, because I am completely happy with myself as a person and could really give a shit what people think. I mean, at least I've always that I could give a shit about what people think. But maybe, maybe it's just not true. Maybe I'm totally full of crap and pretend that I am what I say I am when I'm really just this faded reflection of what I want to be. I don't like that. The fact that I don't know enough about myself to know whether or not I am who I say I am scares me. And yes, this all sounds extremely convoluted when put into words, but it's actually what I think. This flip-flop thinking is what comprises the majority of my thought process: I can contradict everything I think with something else, so that in the end, I am completely neutral, and have not moved anywhere except to a place where I have spent a lot of wasted time dwelling on something that's not going to be important in the end anyway. ...so I wish I knew more about myself, and more about the world. It's frustrating. I know absolutely nothing.

....so I totally got off track with what I actually wanted to say..... I eat a lot. And I eat simply because it makes me happy. I mean, it's seriously like a drug to me. I'm addicted to food (a good thing as it keeps you ALIVE, but I take it further); It's just something to do. When I'm bored, I eat. When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm sad, I eat. When I'm happy, I EAT. There are just so few things that someone with my kind of lifestyle can do with pleasure but eat. But is boredom then to what this relates back? Do I eat because I'm bored with my life? Possibly, but I think it actually stems from this natural insecurity that is hidden really deep somewhere inside me. I've learned to live with a mask to the world, that says that I'm outgoing, and secure, and I don't give a shit about other's opinions, but when it really comes down to it, I have absolutely no security and am basically completely helpless. I can't do anything myself. ANYTHING. I need constant approval from those who I love, and constant advice, and constant handholding, and everything. I just cannot do anything by myself. So I eat because it fills this void that exists when others aren't there, and somehow I think that it will give me all of these answers when there aren't people there to do that for me (I've never thought about this before, but I realize as I say it that it's all true).
But what's weird about all of this is that I know I'm totally stubborn as well, and refuse to get help when I actually need it...my willpower is intensely strong and steadfast to the point of being annoying. If I want something really badly, I will not stop until I get it. So then why am I so insecure deep down? It doesn't make sense. And furthermore, because I'm so insecure inside and with such a hard exterior, I run the risk of really hurting myself and thinking that it's okay because I believe I would get help if I actually needed it. But I don't know if that's true. If I were really sick, I probably wouldn't ask for help, because I would have talked myself into the fact that I could handle it by myself. So when is it okay to ask for help, and when is it not? All I ever do is ask questions, because I thought that no questions were ever stupid--but at this point, the extent of mine must be.

So I'm starting this diet again to prove to myself that I can do it, and to be happy with my body for me. And, you know, if people think I'm more attractive then, then our society just proves itself again to be amazingly shallow and I prove myself to be a product of it. I miss cookies already.

...Man, I'm going to regret this post....

TOYS!!!!!!!

2004-08-05T09:16:00.000-06:00

So, I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to write about Care Bears. However, I'm going to combine it with toys from my childhood....

CARE BEARS
www.care-bears.com

	Cheer Bear You're the Care Bear cheerleader! Your spunky personality and optimisim lifts everyone's spirit. Though you want everyone to be happy, you stand your ground on issues you feel strongly about and this can bring disunity among your friends. Despite this, you are a true believer in working together.
*Take the Which Care Bear Are You?* Quiz!**

I should have known. Stupid Cheerfulness.

HISTORY:
Toys—Care Bears became "America's Teddy Bear" with over 40 Million Care Bears toys sold between 1983 and 1987 alone.
Movies—The Care Bears Movie was a huge box office hit. Three successful sequels followed it.
Television—The Care Bears starred for two seasons on an ABC television network series. They also starred in their own syndicated series and two specials.
Publishing—Care Bears appeared in children's books, comic books, coloring and activity books. Over 45 million books were published.
Audio—Care Bears collections of children's songs were best-sellers in their category.
Greeting Cards—American Greetings sold over 70 million Care Bears cards in the 80s.

ABOUT THE BEARS:
Laugh-a-Lot Bear- There's always something funny going on wherever Laugh-a-lot Bear is. This silly bear gets everything mixed up but turns her little misfortunes and mistakes into lots of laughter for others. Her symbol shows what she really is—a star at giving others the giggles. Color: Orange. Best friend: Love-a-Lot Bear.
Champ Bear- hamp Care Bear is a real sports star. He's great at every sport, but he's even better at sharing the real prizes of sports-fun, fitness, friendship and learning to be your best. He even shows this with his symbol—a golden trophy with star.
Color: Blue. Best friend: Good Luck Bear.
Bedtime Bear- Bedtime Bear stays up nights. He's the special bear who helps people get a good night's sleep and makes sure that they have sweet dreams. There's no better bear buddy for a goodnight hug. Bedtime has a symbol that says what he's all about—a sleepy-faced moon. Color: Blue. Best friend: Wish Bear.
Cheer Bear- Cheer Bear is a very happy Care Bear who helps others see the bright side of life. She will sometimes even do a cheer to help make someone happier. Wherever she goes, Cheer Bear wears a symbol of hope and happiness—a rainbow.
Color: Pink. Best friend: Wish Bear.
Friend Bear- Need a good friend? Friend Bear would love to be your best buddy bear. She's the perfect example of a friend, too. She's caring, likes to play with you and she's fun to be with. She has a friendly symbol on her tummy—two smiling flowers! Color: Peach. Best Friend: Love-a-Lot Bear.
Funshine Bear- Funshine Bear is the Care Bear's class clown. This playful bear really knows how to be funny and to have fun. Funshine Bear works hard to make sure that people have a good time. "Enjoy each day" is Funshine's motto and it's shown on the bear's symbol—a smiling sun! Color: Yellow. Best friend: Grumpy Bear.
Good Luck Bear- Good Luck Bear is loaded with luck and he loves to share it with anyone who can use a little more good fortune. You'll almost always find this bear with a big smile on his face. Even the symbol on his tummy is lucky—a four-leaf clover! Color: Green. Best friend: Funshine Bear.
Grumpy Bear- Grumpy Bear frowns a lot—that's his way to show us how silly we look when we frown too much. He also shows that it's okay to be grumpy sometimes. But even when we're grumpy, we're still loved, and we're reminded of that by Grumpy Bear's symbol—a rain cloud with heart-shaped raindrops. Color: Blue. Best friend: Funshine Bear.
Love-a-lot Bear- Love-a-lot Bear believes in the power of love, but is not afraid to help it along. She's a pretty and perky bear who loves everything about love and tries to make it grow wherever she goes. Love-a-lot Bear loves her tummy symbol too—two hearts! Color: Pink. Best friend: Friend Bear
Share Bear- Nobody knows how to share like Share Bear. She is a friendly bear who knows how much fun it is to give some of her good things to others. She thinks that sharing is such a treat, that she shows it with her symbol—two heart-shaped lollipops! Color: Lavender. Best friend: Tenderheart Bear.
Tenderheart Bear- Tenderheart is a loving and lovable bear who knows lots about helping others share their feelings. By helping people show they care, Tenderheart Bear helps spread love and make it grow. He wears the perfect symbol for his job on his tummy—a heart. Color: Brown. Best friend: Grumpy Bear.
Wish Bear- Do you have a wish? Then Wish Bear is the bear you should wish for. She knows that sometimes wishes come true, and that even when they don't, making wishes can be a lot of fun. She shows this with her tummy symbol—a smiling wishing star. Color: Aqua. Best friend: Cheer Bear.
Do-Your-Best Bear- Do-Your-Best Bear is a Care Bear who dreams big and never gives up. Like his name says, he helps others put their best into everything they do. He's an upbeat bear who's always ready to say, "Great job!" His "aim high" attitude shows in his tummy symbol—a beautiful kite. Color: Light Green. Best friend: Champ Bear.
Harmony Bear- Harmony Bear helps others get along. This peace-loving bear knows our differences are something to be celebrated, not something to keep us apart. When differences are brought together in harmony they create something beautiful. That's the meaning of her symbol—a smiling flower with different colored petals. Color: Lavender. Best friend: Friend Bear.

There are also a buttload of Care Bear friends...they're all animals like Braveheart Lion, and there's a penguin, and a bunny, etc. I can't find information on them. Meh.

POPPLES

The Popples was a 30-minute cartoon based on a series of toys created by American Greeting Cards & Mattel. The show aired from 1985-1987. These fuzzy, magical creatures could pull anything out of the pouches on their backs from a hammer to an elephant. They also flipped into their pouches to become balls of fur to bounce around or hide. The name "Popples" came from the popping sound they made when they sprang back out of a ball to normal.

The Popples only revealed themselves to two children, Bonnie and Billy, whose attic they lived in, and later to their neighbors who wound up living with the Baby and Punk Rocker Popples. At the beginning, all the Popples names started with "P", including the original 9 Popples, Punk Rocker Popples, and the Pufflings. However, the Baby Popples and the Sports Popples do not have names that begin with "P". Popples repeat the "p" sound for words beginning in "P". For instance, Party will say, "P-p-popples love to p-p-party!"

The basic plot of every episode was that the Popples follow Bonnie and Billy somewhere against the childrens' wishes, make a HUGE mess right when an adult walks away, and they must clean up their mess before the adult returns. Many times, the Popples will ask the audience to lend them a hand too.

One of the amazing things about the Popples is that there are no evil villians in the show and it still held an audience.

Characters: P.C. Popple, Party Popple, Pancake Popple, Prize Popple, Puzzle Popple, Puffball Popple, Putter Popple, Potato Chip Popple, Pretty Bit Popple (Those are the original nine. There are a bunch more called the Punkster Popples...but they're just not as neat.)

POLLY POCKET

Polly pocket was this fantastic toy when I was little that was in the shape of a circle, or a heart, or a shell or something, and when you opened them, there would be these teeny little parts. There'd be Polly, and like a dog or some kind of animal, etc. Now when you look up Polly Pocket it comes up with this weird cartoon character. It just sucks now.

MY LITTLEST PET SHOP

Oh my God, Amie and I used to play with these all the time when we were in 2nd grade. It was amazing. The Littlest Pet Shop was a popular toy series in the 80's and early 90's. I believe it is owned by Hasbro. It features miniature animals and their homes, as well as many accessories. These accessories include: blankets, saddles, food and water bowls/containers, bales of hay, trophies, and much much more.

MY LITTLE PONIES

I think My Little Ponies may have been my favorite toy growing up. Maybe that's not true, I just can't remember. But I do know that I like them a LOT now. I mean, what a brilliant idea. They're just fantastic, that's all there is to say. However, they did make these stupid really skinny ponies for awhile, but they were just not as cool. The fat ones are, hands down, the originals, and just plain fantastic. The way you can recognize them is by the symbol on their flank. Yes, flank.

these were the set of rainbow ponies made in 1983. They're my favorites.

BEANIE BABIES

K. Who doesn't remember these? For awhile, I had almost every one, and I should have sold them when they were worth thousands of dollars a piece. But nooooooooo, my pack-rat mother wouldn't let me. Damnit. I could have so much money from those god damn things!!! Anyway, the way they work is that they're put out to be sold, and that's when they're called 'current'. When the TY company stops making them, they become 'retired'. As simple as that. The retired ones were always the ones worth thousands of dollars. I'm so bitter. Now they make stupid children, and big beanie babies called Beanie Buddies, and a bunch of other crap. Stupid TY company. We wasted hundreds and hundreds of dollars on those god damn things.

Dinosaurs

AMERICAN GIRL DOLLS

I grew up on these things. It was a huge deal to have one, because there were all of these sets that you could buy. I still think this to be one of the most ingenious children's creations ever made, because not only could you continue to have fun with them by buying the new stuff, they taught you about girl's lives in different points of history or culture. They were awesome.

Here are the girls:

Molly: Molly McIntire® is a lively, lovable schemer and dreamer growing up in 1944. The world is at war, and she misses her father who is overseas caring for wounded soldiers. Molly® doesn’t like many of the changes the war has brought, like rationing rubber, eating turnips for dinner, and not seeing Dad on Christmas. But she learns the importance of getting along and pulling together—just as her country must do to win the war!
Kirsten: Kirsten Larson® is a pioneer girl of strength and spirit growing up in Minnesota in 1854. After a long, dangerous voyage with her family from Sweden to America, Kirsten® finds it difficult to get used to a new country and a new way of life. But as she makes friends and discovers what her new land has to offer, she learns the true meaning of home—and that love is the same in any language.
Samantha: Samantha Parkington® is a bright, compassionate girl living with her wealthy grandmother in 1904. It’s an exciting time of change in America, and Samantha’s world is filled with frills and finery, parties and play. But Samantha™ sees that times are not good for everybody. That’s why she tries to make a difference in the life of her friend Nellie, a servant girl whose life is nothing like Samantha’s!
Felicity: Felicity Merriman® is a spunky, spritely girl growing up in Virginia in 1774, just before the Revolutionary War. Felicity® grows impatient doing the "sitting-down kinds of things" that colonial girls are expected to do. She much prefers to be outdoors, especially riding horses! Felicity learns about loyalty and responsibility—to her family, her friends, and her country—and what it means to be truly independent.
Addy: Addy Walker® is a strong, courageous girl who escapes from slavery with her mother in 1864. Together they embark on a dangerous journey to the North, hoping one day to reunite their family. Addy® learns to read and write, makes new friends, and discovers what being free really means. Throughout it all, she holds on to her love and hope to get her through the worst of times and keep her dreams alive.

....those were the ones that were going when I was into American girl dolls, but there's also Kaya, Nellie, Josefina, and Kit now. Stupid time. It ruins everything. The company also started to get into other weird stuff, called Bitty Babies, and you could order a girl that was made to look like you (weeeeeeird), etc. etc.

RAINBOW BRITE

Rainbow Brite used to be known as Wisp. She was brought to a world of grey in order to restore color and cheerfulness to the land. She has a rainbow belt and rainbow crystals that are used to spread color throughout the land.

Her friends are the Color Kids. They are: Shy Violet, Red Butler, Patty O'Green, La La Orange, Indigo, Canary Yellow, and Buddy Blue. Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids each have a friend that's a Sprite that they get to play with. They are: Twink Sprite, IQ Sprite (belongs to Shy Violet), Lucky Sprite (Patty O'Green), Romeo Sprite (Red Butler), OJ Sprite (La La Orange), Spark Sprite (Canary Yellow), Hammy Sprite (Indigo), and Champ Sprite (Buddy Blue).

There's also
Strawberry Shortcake and Smurfs, but I just don't feel like writing about them.

And this site is just fucking funny:
http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/index.html

Boobs and Cheese...

2004-08-04T11:58:00.000-06:00

This title implies that I will be discussing boobs and cheese. Which is true. Except for the boobs.

So there's actually a lot history behind cheese, like it was thought to have begun in the Middle East 6000 years ago, and carried around in animal skins. The legend is that when it was carried around in young animal skins on horseback, the jolting and jumping of the horse, as well as the coagulating enzyme called rennin, the milk separated and curdled to produce cheese. The Jews made cheese, the Romans made cheese, and when the Roman empire fell, cheese-making oozed all over Europe and became a big thing. But as with a lot of things, no one really knows for sure.

Here are some rough dates for when some cheeses was created.

Gorgonzola 879 c.e.
Roquefort 1080 c.e.
Grana 1200 c.e.
Cheddar 1500 c.e.
Parmesan 1579 c.e.
Gouda 1697 c.e.
Gloucester 1697 c.e.
Stilton 1785 c.e.
Camembert 1791 c.e.

And some types of cheese:
ddar can have a diverse selection of tastes that range from mild to sharp. This is dependent upon the age of the cheese. Mild Cheddar is perfect for sandwiches because it has a mellow balance of flavors. Sharp Cheddar is great for cooking because its flavor is released when heated and it shreds well. This cheese tastes best when it reaches room temperature before eating and also blends very well with other cheeses.

COLBY
Colby is similar to Cheddar, but it is a softer, milder cheese that contains more moisture and has a shorter curing process. Colby has a mild and slightly sweet taste, but it can also be sharp and tangy.

MOZZARELLA
Mozzarella has a mild, milky taste and is more of a cooking cheese than a cheese board cheese due to its good binding properties, moist texture, and ability to melt. It is a "stretched-cured" cheese meaning that during the manufacturing process the curd is pulled, kneaded and shaped while it is still pliable. Therefore, it absorbs the flavors and juices of the ingredients surrounding it and is perfectly designed for cooking. Mozzarella is also low in fat; therefore, it is ideal to use even when dieting.

MUENSTER
Muenster is a semi-soft, mild cheese that has an almost a sweet flavor. It usually has an orange-yellow rind with a straw-yellow color inside and is produced in a loaf shape.

SWISS
Swiss cheese, which is also known as Emmentaler or Schweizer, is a firm cheese with a sweet, mildly nutty flavor. This cheese is known for the holes that develop as it ripens. These holes or eyes range in diameter from 1/2 inch to 1 inch and begin forming when the cheese is about 3 weeks old.

MONTEREY JACK
Monterey Jack is a member of the Cheddar family and is a mild, white cheese aged only three to six weeks. The texture of Monterey Jack cheese depends on the type of milk used. If whole milk is used, the cheese will be semi-soft; if skim milk is used, it will be harder and can be used for grating.

PROVOLONE
Provolone is usually a smoked cheese, ranging in flavor from mild to sharp, with a smooth texture. The mild ones are younger and used as table cheeses. The sharp ones are older and harder; therefore, used in cooking. Traditionally, it is pear-shaped and bound by cord.

BRIE
Brie has a delicate and creamy texture and its rich, sweet taste can vary from buttery to mushroomy. This cheese has a thin, edible crust and becomes even more delicious with age, tasting best when served at room temperature. Brie was first made in France and is usually made from cow's milk. Its quality depends upon what milk (whole or skim) is used.

CAMEMBERT
Camembert has a soft texture with a buttery taste and mushroomy smell. It tastes best when it's at room temperature and the center becomes soft.

EDAM
Edam is a semi-soft to hard cheese that is similar to Gouda in its mild and buttery to nutty taste. It has a firm, crumbly texture that is free of holes. In the United States, Edam is covered with a tight red wax coating.

GOUDA
Gouda is a semi-soft to hard cured cheese that becomes spicier and more robust as it ages. It is similar to Edam in its mild and nutty to buttery taste, but Gouda is aged longer and has a richer flavor.

BLUE
There are two major types of Blue cheese: soft/white - mild, with a sweet taste of herbs and firm/hard - crusty outside with a sharp, tangy taste and smell . Blue cheese has a veined appearance within a white interior. This cheese ripens from the center to the crust. It is desirable that the veins be dispersed evenly throughout the cheese. Blue cheese continues maturing briefly after being made; therefore, when storing this cheese, any cut surfaces should be covered and a small opening should be left at the rind so the cheese is able to breathe.

FETA
Feta is a soft, sharp and salty, crumbly cheese containing small holes. Since it is ripened and stored in brine (water saturated with salt) it is called "pickled" cheese. Feta also has a low fat content.

PARMESAN
Parmesan is a hard, grainy textured cheese varying in shape and size. It's used mainly as a grating cheese on many different types of foods and is a good cooking cheese because it does not form threads as it melts. Parmesan cheese will keep for years when it's whole and will continue improving with age. In the United States, this cheese is produced primarily in Michigan and Wisconsin.

BRICK
Brick is a mild, but also pungent, sweet tasting cheese. It is a semi-soft cheese that slices well without crumbling. Brick has a reddish-brown rind and its inside is yellow-white in color with many small holes. This cheese is said to be named for its brick-like shape.

And I tried to look up Betsy's favorite kind of cheese, l'ecir de l'aubrac, but all the websites that came up were in french. Love you Betsy!!!!

Grrr.

2004-08-03T16:50:00.000-06:00

This day is stupid. And awful. Stupid awful stupid awful stupid awful. Hmph.

But on the upside, Betsy likes cheese and this is her favorite kind: l'ecir de l'aubrac. I'll write about cheese tomorrow when I have time and feel better. Stupid stupid day. I hate days like this.

Surfing

2004-08-02T12:54:00.000-06:00

So I learned how to surf when I was on my trip in San Diego. It was wicked fun, and I think I'm going to start surfing when I move out to Cali. So not only will my fear of the ocean slowly be dissipating, I will start to get tan!!!!! (.......right.) But anyway, Michelle came up with today's blog, so here is the history of surfing.

HISTORY
No one knows for sure exactly when surfing began, but it was perfected by the kings and queens of the Sandwich Isles before the 15th century. So as very little is known about the origins of the sport, there are many speculations regarding how it may actually have come about. Some ancient petroglyphs of surfing date back as far as 1500 A.D., so it may be possible that surfing began even earlier. However, what is known is that in Hawaii, surfing was part of the 'Kapu system of laws'. Kapu kept the chiefs of the land in command over the commoners, so surfing became a means of competition to maintain the hierarchy over their people. "The Kapu system also determined how, why and with what materials surfboards were to be made. The type of wood used in making a board depended on the future rider's status in society. Class distinction in old Hawaii was as apparent in the ownership of surfboards as it was in all other aspects of the culture. If shaping the board for the alii or ruling class, a lengthy surfboard between 14 and 16 feet long was superiorly crafted using premium wood. ""The other board, called an alai, was normally intended for the commoners and was made smaller, 10 to 12 feet, with a heavier and denser wood, koa. After the craftsmen selected the wood to be used, they prayed and placed a ceremonial fish, kumu, in a hole near the tree's roots. Only after this ritual was completed could the tree be cut down. They then hauled the tree away and chipped and shaped it to size with a bone or stone adze. When they achieved the general shape and size of the board, they took it to the halau, or canoe house, near the beach for the finishing touches. With pohaku puna (granulated coral) or oahi (rough stone), craftsmen would remove the adze marks on the board's surface. After the board had been sufficiently planed, they applied a black finish to its surface with the root of the ti plant, hili (pounded bark) or the stain from banana buds. Sometimes they acquired the dark stain by rubbing the soot from burned kukui nuts into the wood. Once this black stain had dried, the board's surface was treated with kukui oil, giving it a glossy finish. When the surfboard was finished, its creators dedicated it before its first voyage into the sea. After each use, it was habitually treated with coconut oil and wrapped in tapa cloth to preserve and protect the wood. Through all this laboring detail, the surfboard became a valuable and revered part of Hawaiian culture. " The ritual continued until the late 1800's, when missionaries from New England settled and started preaching against surfing as they believed it to be hedonistic. By 1890, surfing was almost extinct. In 1905, a teenager named Duke Kahanamoku and his friends began a club called Hui Nalu or 'The Club of the Waves'. By this time, the missionaries' influence over the island had begun to decline, freeing up an avenue for the reintroduction of surfing in Hawaii. Duke and his friends later became known as the famous "Beach Boys of Waikiki" and are credited with the rebirth of surfing in Hawaii.

NAMING
"He'enalu" (wave-sliding) is a Hawaiian term for surfing adopted by ancient poets. It is full of what the Hawaiians call 'kaona' or hidden meaning. For example, 'he'e' can mean "to change from a solid to a liquid form, or to run as a liquid"; the second part, "nalu" can refer to the surging motion of a wave, or the foaming of a wave. In other words, there is no exact translation of 'he'enalu', for the indigenous Hawaiian people regarded the ocean in very much the same vein as the eskimos did with snow; there is not just one kind of water, or one kind of ocean, or one kind of wave.

BEGINNING TO SURF

Surfboard Bits And Pieces

The first thing to note is that the Nose of the board is the bit that faces forwards. The Surfboard sits in the water with the fins facing down, bit less about all that as I am sure that you have already figured that out by looking at the Surfing Lessons.

The Thruster, Malibu And Fish

Thruster?, Malibu??, Fish??? For a moment there you could be fooled into thinking that we have strayed off the surfboard subject but you would be wrong. There are basically four types of surfboard design. The first is the Shortboard, also known as the Thruster. This is the type of board that is pictured above. It is a board used to perform quick manoeuvres on waves and is the most popular type of surfboard design. The size of these Shortboards is generally from around 5'8'' to 6'10''.
The next type of board is the Longboard or Malibu. The main difference in design is that the nose of the Longboard is rounded. Other than that there is no real difference, other than Shortboards tend to have 3 fins and Longboards tend to have a single fin. Before we get lots of e-mails from twin fin and other surfers we should say that surfboards can have as many fins as they like, it is not a standard thing. Mini Mals range from the 7'2''-9'0'' and Mals are 9'0'' upwards in length.
The Fish is the next type of board that we will look at. The Fish is very similar to a Shortboard but is smaller in length. The lack of length is made up by an increase in the width of the board, giving it a slightly more rounded shape. Fish are generally between 4'8'' and 6'0''.
The Gun is a bigger version of the Shortboard and is used in the big wave arena. The increased length of the board makes it possible to paddle into bigger waves. The Gun can be anywhere from 7'2'' in length to over 12' for the really big waves.
The best Surfboard For The Beginner is a Malibu. Why?, because the bigger, thicker Mals are easier to catch waves with and are more stable to stand up on The ideal board should be at least 9' long and be made of foam. Foamies as they are called are the ideal board to start on and are used in surf schools to learn on. A Pop-Out is a surfboard that is made on a production line and is a cheap alternative to a custom made fibreglass surfboard. The Pop-Out is made of foam covered with thick fibreglass and are practically indestructible - great for running right up to the beach! The Pop-Out is a good beginners choice because of their cost and the fact that they float really well (they are a little more chunky that your average Thruster).

KELLY SLATER
.....this guy is hot. And apparently extremely good. He's the 6X world champion surfer.

...since you can't really see his face, here's another one.

Nummers.

www.surfart.com
www.coffeetimes.com/surfing
www.surfing-waves.com

Bans

2004-07-30T14:04:00.000-06:00

I hate this job. I mean I reeeeally hate it. Not only do I feel as if I'm worthless because I don't do anything, but my superiors treat me as if I have the brain cells of a peanut. But you know, it's not all bad, what with putting up with admonishment for doing something wrong because I just don't give a flying fuck, or listening to the vice president of the company bitch about how things are not exactly the way he would like them, or making coffee and cleaning every piece of glass in the office every morning, or taking out the trash, or running out to get clients bags filled with their lunches and then going to go get mine, or being so bored that I want to tear my hair out, or being their bitch. Really, that's not that bad.
Eh, two weeks left. I'll survive. And it's good money that I need, so unfortunately, that's my incentive for staying. I hate justifying things with money. It feels like I'm blackmailing myself. Fuck.

I had the weirdest night ever last night. I really wanted to take a nap, but I didn't get out of this fucking place until 7, so by the time I got home, I had 45 minutes before I had to go meet people at Marakech, so it wasn't worth it. I watched a little bit of that movie "Abandon" that was made a couple of years ago with Katie Holmes and that no one went to see because it looked like a piece of shit. It was. Then I headed out to Marakech to meet Bets and Michelle. When I got there, they were both there as well as Matt and Chad. That was super, because clearly I love Matt, and I'm really starting to like Chad. So we all walked in and got a hookah and the most fantastic tea made in the history of mankind. Then, Misha's friends from work showed up (Mike and Kean) and we got another hookah. I talked to Jeff on the phone and he said he would come meet us, so we were all chilling and talking while Bets and Chad played Craps. I learned how to bet in Craps, which wasn't something I knew before. Then, totally randomly, Tim, Grant, and their two friends showed up, so they hung out with us for a while. I always feel totally awkward around Tim because I just can NOT figure out if he's an asshole. I'm so god damn naive. So we were all chilling, and practically everyone that walked in one of our group knew. Then Jeff came, and I went insane. Like, got straight up hyper and just started introducing myself to everyone that one of us knew but I didn't. I met more people than I have in months. So, about 9:30 people started to head out, so Jeff, Mish and I went to Starbucks. At Starbucks, I ran into my Mish's and my dance coach from school. Totally weird, but I got her number (I don't know why the hell I did that...it's not like I will EVER call her or she will EVER call me). And then I ran into Michael O'Halloran who I haven't seen for years.
So THEN came the weird part. Mike and Kean had left at Marakech to go to their friends party, and Mish and I told them we'd meet up with them later. So after Starbucks, Jeff, Mish and I all head down to this party. It was chill, you know, people drinking and playing foosball, and smoking and whatever. So we're all playing foosball for awhile (YAY! I learned.....I'm awful) and then Jeff had to leave, so it was just me and Mish and all of these dudes. Whatever, I can chill with that. So, we're playing Tekken and watching snowboarding videos, and talking and stuff, and all just chilling. So Mish decides she needs to leave, so clearly, I was going to go too (there was no way I was staying in a house full of strange guys), and Mike and Kean go with us. So we're walking away, and all of a sudden, Kean freaks out. He starts straight up crying and trying to hide in and like walking away from us so we won't see him. But when we go to see what's wrong, he starts talking about his ex-girlfriend, and sobbing. Totally weird. So we ask him if he wants to talk about it, and he mumbles while crying, "I don't want to feel this way any more......" and he's just sobbing. It was the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen. He was totally sobbing and Misha was just sitting there scratching his back and giving him hugs, and then we'd switch, and then Mike would come over and say, "Dude, she's totally not worth it", and he'd go from being like, "I just want to have fun. Let's go have fun." So Mike would suggest going to go get food or something, and Kean would start crying again. I had absolutely no idea what to do. So it turns out that where we were all parked, there was this playground a block away. So we all go down there to try and make Kean feel better. Mish and Mike are just chilling, and Kean and I go to go swing while he's stumbling around and running into shit. So we're talking and all he keeps saying is, "I just love her so much, I just want her back. I just want to love her and give her flowers, and take her to dinner, and make her dinner, and hold her, and ::::starts crying::::". I mean, what the fuck do you do when someone is in love and really hurting? You just can't do or say anything that'll make them feel bettter. So I end up talking to this guy who I had met 5 hours before for another two hours until like 4 in the morning. We're just straight up sitting on the rocks in the playground talking about this girl and what went wrong, and all he keeps saying is that he wants a girl to love and hold and take care of. Fuck, I want that too, but it's not something that just falls in to your lap, as I am slowly finding out. This poor guy.....I hope he's okay. I'm sure he has a fucking bad hangover today......

So, that was a bad story, and badly written, but I've just been thinking about it because it was so god damn weird. I feel so bad, because he's such a nice guy, and he was just like, "what wrong with me?? What did I do? Why won't she love me?". It was the worst thing I'd ever seen. ......that's not true, but it was close.

OKAY, SOOOOOOOOOOO..........
Today's topic is banned books and movies.

from www.bloodletters.com/banned

All these books have been casualties, at one time or another. They've been the targets of protests, they've been pulled off library shelves, barred from going through the mail. Called "objectionable." "Lurid." "Obscene." "Profane." "Vulgar." All by people who want to protect you — who think they know better than you do, think they have the right to decide what a free people should be allowed to read.
They're wrong.
All of these books have been casualties — but all of them still survive. You can go out and read one today.
What's stopping you?

***** "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. Banned for being racially offensive.
*****"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain. Banned for being "full of racially charged language".
***** "Always Running" by Luis Rodriguez. A " vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants". Banned for its depiction of gang life, for being sexually explicit, violent, racist, and unsuitable for teens.
***** "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. Banned for presenting a racist view of white people and for being a "how-to manual" for crime.
***** "Beauty's Punishment", "Beauty's Release" and "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Rice. "Beauty is sold into sexual slavery and forced to obey the orders of the Captain and Mistress Lockley." Banned for being pornographic.
***** "Beloved" by Toni Morrison. "A woman brutally kills her infant daughter rather than allow her to be enslaved. The woman is Sethe, and the novel traces her journey from slavery to freedom during and immediately following the Civil War. ... Part ghost story, part history lesson, part folk tale, Beloved finds beauty in the unbearable, and hope in the horrible." Banned for being violent.
***** "The Bible" by ........................................................... Banned for being "obscene and pornographic," and said to contain "language and stories that are inappropriate for children of any age," including tales of incest and murder. "There are more than three hundred examples of 'obscenities' in the book."
***** "Blubber" by Judy Blume. Banned for offensive language and being innappropriate for its age group.
***** "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. "Veteran actor Michael York gives voice to Aldous Huxley's famous tale of three citizens of a future world who gradually awaken to its true nature -- bleak, homogenized, and drugged-out -- and are determined to escape its control." Banned for being centered around negative activity.
***** "Candide" by Voltaire. Banned (seized by US Customs) for obscenity.
***** "Can Such Things Be?" by Ambrose Bierce. Tales of horror and the supernatural. Banned (removed from library shelves in 1918 by the War Department) for having disturbing and pacifist themes.
***** "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer. Banned from the U.S. Mails under the Comstock Law of 1873 for being indecent and obscene
***** "Carrie" by Stephen King. Banned for its language, its violence, and its sexual descriptions, and for its 'Satanic killing' sequence.
***** "The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies" by Vito Russo. The portrayal of homosexuality in film. Banned for encouraging and condoning homosexuality.
***** "Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships" by Ruth Bell. Banned for undermining parental authority and depicting sexual relations in explicit and vulgar language.
***** "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier. Banned for being sexually explicit.
***** "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean Auel. Banned for it's hardcore graphic sexual content.
***** "The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm" by Jacob and Wilhelm K. Grimm. Banned for excessive violence, negative portrayals of female characters, and anti-Semitic references.
***** "Confessions" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Banned for being injurious to public morality.
***** "Crazy Lady" by Jane Leslie Conly. "Increasingly alienated from his widowed father, Vernon joins his friends in ridiculing the neighborhood outcasts Maxine, an alcoholic prone to outrageous behavior, and Ronald, her retarded son. But when a social service agency tries to put Ronald into a special home, Vernon fights against the move." Banned for offensive language.
***** "Daddy's Roomate" by Michael Willhoite. "A young boy discusses his divorced father's new living situation, in which the father and his gay roommate share eating, doing chores, playing, loving, and living." Banned for being a skillful presentation to young children about lesbianism/homosexuality.
***** "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio. Banned from the U.S. Mails as "indecent" and "obscene" under the Comstock Law of 1873.
***** "Fanny Hill" by John Cleland. Considered obscene for its sexual depictions.
***** "Forever" by Judy Blume. Banned for being a sexual 'how-to-do' book for junior high students. "It glamorizes [sex] and puts ideas in their heads."
***** "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Banned for being violent, sexually explicit, for using offensive language, and for its use of infanticide and euthanasia.
***** "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. Banned for using the names of God and Jesus "in a vain and profane manner".
***** "The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher" by M.C. Escher. Banned for nudity and "pornographic," "perverted," and "morbid" themes.
***** "Jambo Means Hello: The Swahili Alphabet" by Muriel Feelings. Banned for denigrating white American culture, promoting racial separation, and discouraging assimilation.
***** "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies? Banned for containing profanity and sex.
***** "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou. Banned for being pornographic, containing profanity, and encouraging premarital sex and homosexuality. "A lurid tale of sexual perversion."
***** "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak. A little boy's dream-fantasy in which he helps three fat bakers get milk for their cake batter. Banned because "The little boy pictured did not have any clothes on and it pictured his private area."
***** "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan. Explores the tender and tenacious bond between four daughters and their mothers. Banned for having conflicts with values of the community.
***** "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence. Banned in England and the United States up into the 1960s for obscenity.
***** "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. Banned for explicit language.
***** "A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein. Banned for Promoting disrespect, horror, and violence.
***** "Live from Golgotha" by Gore Vidal. Gore Vidal's corrected version of the story of Jesus. Banned for being offensive and pornographic.
***** "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Banned for being racially offensive.
***** "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes. Banned from the U.S. Mails as "indecent" and "obscene" under the Comstock Law of 1873.
***** "Manet" by Edouard Manet. Banned for nudity and "pornographic," "perverted," and "morbid" themes.
***** "The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare. Banned for being anti-Semitic.
***** "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville. Banned for having conflicts with values of the community.
***** "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe. Daniel Defoe's extraordinary chronicle of a determined young girl's courageous rise from her poverty-stricken beginnings in 17th century England to a position of prosperous respectability. Banned from the U.S. Mails as "indecent" and "obscene" under the Comstock Law of 1873.
***** "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. Banned for the profane language, moral statement, treatment of the retarded, and the violent ending.
***** "Native Son" by Richard Wright. Banned for profanity and images of violence and sexuality.
***** "One Hundred Questions and Answers about AIDS: What You Need to Know Now" by Michael Thomas Ford. Banned for encouraging sexual activity.
***** "Private Parts" by Howard Stern. Banned for being obscene.
***** "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Banned for having conflicts with values of the community.
***** "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles. Banned for having graphic language.
***** "The Sound of Waves" by Yukio Mishima. Set in a remote fishing village in Japan, "The Sound of Waves" is a timeless story of first love. Banned for being crude, vulgar, degrading to women, seductive, enticing and suggestive.
***** "State and Revolution" by Vladimir Lenin. Banned for being subversive.
***** "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Lee Harper. Banned for having conflicts with values of the community.
***** "The Story of Dr. Dolittle" by Hugh Lofting. Banned for having racially-offensive content.
***** "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare. Banned under a "prohibition of alternative lifestyle instruction" — for its depiction of a woman dressed as a boy.
***** "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Banned for its use of racial slurs.
***** "Ulysses" by James Joyce. Seized by U.S Postal Authorities in 1918 and 1930.
***** "Voodoo and Hoodoo" by Jim Haskins. Banned at the Clearwood Junior High School in Slidell, La. (1992) because the book included "recipes" for spells.
***** "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. Banned for undermining religious beliefs.

There are a bunch more at this site. Humanity is stupid. No, society is stupid. And people are ignorant. Grr.

And apparently, Matt's favorite movie/book (at least I think it is his favorite), Battle Royale is actually not banned in America. "Banned" implies a decision by the government to make exhibition, distribution or sale of the film against the law; technically, the U.S. government does not do that, leaving the responsibility of censoring or choosing not to distribute certain films to the movie industry itself, under the auspices of the Motion Picture Association of America, which assigns ratings to the films. A distributor can even choose not to let the MPAA review their movie and release it unrated; it makes it extremely difficult to put in the multiplex, but an unrated artistic movie can surely get an arthouse screening somewhere, and the distributor can always release it on DVD. So it's up to a distributor to come to an agreement with Toei, the Japanese company behind the movie Battle Royale, and get the rights to release it in some format (theatrical and/or home video) in North America, and this has not happened. Oh, and Matt, apparently there's a Battle Royale II.

Wow. We certainly live in the land of the free... :::awkward cough:::

www.unamerican.com

This is a great website that Misha found. They have a lot of really cool bumper stickers like these:

and and

Iiiiiiii Want Caanday!

2004-07-29T14:48:00.000-06:00

Mmmmmmmm....candy. Carrie came up with today's blog. I do love a carebear. Oooh! Carebears! That's a good blog for another day.

So, here's a short history of candy for you:
1854: The first box of Whitman's chocolates is debuted.
1868: Richard Cadbury introduces the first box of Valentine's Day chocolates.
1880's: Wunderle Candy company creates candy corn. (P.S. Does anyone else thing candy corn is weird??)
1893: William Wrigley Jr. introduces Juicy Fruit and Wrigley's Spearmint gum.
1896: Tootsie Rolls debut.
1900: Milton S. Hershey introduces the first Hershey milk chocolate bar.
1901: The King Leo pure peppermint stick candy was developed and trademarked.
1901: NECCO wafers first appeared as an acronym for "New England Confectionary Company"
1902: Necco makes the first conversation hearts
1906: Hershey's Kisses chocolates appear in their familiar foil wraps.
1912: Life Savers, the candy named for its ring shape with the hole in the center is introduced in peppermint flavor.
1920: The Baby Ruth candy bar is first sold, named for President Grover Cleveland's daugher, not the famous baseball player.
....it continues like that for a while. Basically, a new candy get's made every two years, the M&M/Mars company takes over Candyland, and every child in the world is happy. Nummers.

And apparently, within the next couple of months, these new candies will be able to be bought:
Baskin-Robbins Sugar Free Sherbert Hard Candy
Heidi Klum My Favorite Candies
Toxic Waste - Reeeeally sour candy
Pop Rocks Bubble Gum
Flakito Bar- Made from corn flakes covered in milk chocolate (apparently the Egyptians really like it) (You want some flakitos?)

How are Chewing and Bubble Gum Made?

Every type and brand of gum has a specific formula. The ingredients are cooked in large steam jacketed kettles at high temperatures until it is as thick as maple syrup. Then the liquid mixture passes through filters while it maintains heat. First, it is filtered through mesh screens and then moves to vacuum strainers. After that, the liquid mix is poured into a machine with slow revolving blades. Here sugar, corn syrup and flavoring are added to sugar gums. For sugarless gum, sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol or other sweeteners are added instead of sugar.

The liquid mix now moves to a cooler, which will drop the temperature of the mix and get it ready for the extruder machine. This machine will manipulate the texture of the gum. After that it goes to rollers where it is flattened. The thinnest sheets make stick gum. The thicker sheets make candy-coated gum. The stick gum goes to high power machines to be wrapped, but the candy-coated gum needs more work.

Candy-coated gum is cut into pellet pieces and sprinkled with powdered sugar. The pellets are set-aside for up to 48-hours. Finally, large revolving machines coat them until they reach the required thickness. Then they are moved to high-powered machines to be wrapped and shipped.

::::drooooooool::::

Useless Facts

2004-07-28T13:47:00.000-06:00

Today is useless fact day!! WHOOOOOOO!!!

1) Yogurt intake among North Americans has quadrupled in the past 20 years (wonder why...'cause yogurt's just bacteria...is it really that healthy??)
2) A Cesium atom in an atomic clock beats 9,192,631,770 times a second.
3) If you divide the Great Pyramid's perimeter by two times it's height, you get pi to the fifteenth digit. (For those who don't know, pi is 3.14)
4) A piece of paper can be folded in half no more than 9 times.
5) The RAM required to run WordPerfect for Win95 is 8 times the amount needed aboard the space shuttle.
6) Whitby has more doughnut shops per capita than any other place in the world (OH MY GOD I'M GOING THERE)
7) The life span of a taste bud is ten days.
8) Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
9) A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink (hehe...flink flink flink flink)
10) Alligators cannot move backwards (....I have a fantastic visual right now. Tee hee.)
11) Flamingos can only eat with thei heads upside down.
12) Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes. (FANTASTIC)
13) A gold fish's memory span is three seconds ("Hi. I'm Dory.")
14) The average North-American will eat 35,000 cookies during their life span. Anna will eat over 1 million.
15) Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a bellybutton (WEEEEEIRD)
16) Approximately 16 Canadians have their appendix needlessly removed every day (f-ing Canadians)
17) 400 quarter-pounders can be made out of one cow (Oh Bessie!)
18) The largest apple pie ever baked was 40 x 23 ft. That's a lot of Jason Biggs humping.
19) The armhole in clothing is called an armsaye. Or the armhole.
20) The end of a hammer, opposite the striking end, is called a 'peen'. Hehehehe. Peen.
21) Spat-out food is called chanking.
22) Between 25% and 33% of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light.
23) The first audio CD manufactured in the US was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA'. What a fantastic song.
24) A human's mucus membrane, used to smell, is the size of a postage stamp; a dog's mucus membrane is the size of fifty postage stamps.
25) Those stars and colours you see when you close and rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
26) The human brain stops growing at the age of 18.
27) 40 people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute.
28) Most car horns beep in the key of 'F'. I beep in the key of fuck you. ...I don't even know what that meant.
29) Most hamsters blink one eye at a time
30) Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously (I totally know people who would do that)
31) The most common name in the world is Mohammed
32) A human has 60,000 miles of blood vessels in their body.
33) The average person over fifty will have spent one year looking for lost items, and five years waiting in lines.
34) November 29th is National Sinky day; a day to eat over one's sink and worship it. I hate humanity.
35) The toothbrush was invented in 1498
36) A sysygy occurs when all the planets of our Solar System line up.
37) A golf ball has 360 dimples. Matt's ass has 17.
38) 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year. (BRILLIANT)
39) By the time they reach grade 12, an American will have been in school for about 17,000 hours. Damnit. That's 17,000 hours that I could have had to nap.
40) In California, it is illegal to eat oranges while bathing. (I'm moving there. Awesome.)
41) If done perfectly, any rubix cube combination can be solved in 17 turns.
42) In Jasmine Saskatchewan, it is illegal for a cow to moo within 300 km of a private home. What the fuck???
43) A duck's quack has no echo.
44) There's a systematic lull in conversation every 7 minutes.
45) Every single hamster in the U.S. today comes from a single litter captured in Syria in 1930.
46) All porcupines float in water. I want to try it. Now. Right now.
47) Cat's urine glows under a black light.
48) A group of officers is called a mess. How true.
49) Picasso's full name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso. Beat that, Paul Joseph Bruno Murphy IV.
and
50) The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that it breaks the sound barrier. The "crack" of whip is actually a tiny sonic boom. Neat.

So yeah. There are 50 totally useless facts that will never get you anywhere in life. What an uplifting thought.

Here's where I got these (there are TONS more there): http://www.doiv.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/useless-facts.htm

Tired Tired Tired

2004-07-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

Today is stupid. Stupid. STUPID. I want to go to bed, but I got a lot of sleep last night, so I don't really know why I'm tired. So, stupid. Pah.

I feel like my blogs are always so boring because I don't do drugs. Well, fuck. I mean, a love a Betsy blog because they're like, "I went here and smoked a blunt, and then I went here and smoked a couple of bowls with this person, and then I met up with so and so and we had sex and then smoked. A blunt." Whereas MY day consists of this: "I get up and go to work, where I smoke nothing, and then I go home and maybe take a nap and smoke nothing, and then I meet up with maybe Michelle or Roger or Amie or Betsy or maybe all of them, and we smoke nothing (unless I'm with Betsy), and then I go home where I do not have sex, and smoke nothing". Sweet. My life sucks. Why is my life so boring? Seriously? Why can't I stay out until 5 in the morning every day and have a lot of sex and go racing and do a lot of drugs? Because that would make me happy--minus the drugs. But honestly, I'm so bored with my life, and I would like some God damn excitement for once. And not drama. I'm tired of drama. I want some straight up fucking excitement.

....and to continue with my boring life, here is the preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. I really just like it.

"The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth-century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth-century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing is own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point f view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless."

Love it.

Dumb dumb dumb

2004-07-26T17:27:00.000-06:00

...Matt's right. I'm totally retarded.

It's Greek to me. ....well actually, yes, it is.

2004-07-26T12:28:00.000-06:00

So I really like languages. I'm planning to take Chinese when I get to school, and I've been trying to teach myself a little bit of Sanskrit and Greek. I think the idea that a symbol can stand for a word is amazing, and the fact that we don't even go through the mental process of noticing our symbols in english to write is incredible. I mean, a little line with a dot over it can substitute as a word for the first person, "I". What is "I"? Why, a little line with a dot over it! Seriously, isn't it weird?

So...what I actually mean to say is that I like symbols, because at some given point, it has a meaning to someone in the world, when it could just be a line with a dot over it to someone else. Everything is perspective in this world, and depending upon which perspective you have, you see and understand things in an entirely different light from someone else.

Humans base understanding upon senses, for without senses, we would have no mode for reception. Crazy. So, in the end, I think it's always a bit better to expand one's sensory intake, for maybe when we've reached the limit of input, we can find a way to understand things when they are not based upon senses. Like love. ....I'm stupid.

So, anyway, to the main point....here are some interesting Greek facts/basics.

Here is how the greek alphabet goes:

cool, yeah? I KNOW! Our letters come from this alphabet--obviously ours are just updated a whole lot though. Languages go through transformations over hundreds of years (kind of like evolution), and what we call 'a' now, might be something l like a.....some kind of......squiggle in a couple hundred years. ....most retarded sentence ever.

Anyway, there's some greek. Sorry I couldn't give more extensive information, but I just don't know greek. Yay.

FRIENDS

2004-07-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Here's my list of people according to how Matt's site says it should be done. Love you Matt!! I don't think I left anyone out.....

1) What can I say about you that you don't already know? You are my best friend. I have never known someone with such an amazing heart as you, and you always make me feel better when I feel like crap. You've helped me through so many hard times that I can't keep track of them all, and you never ever ask for anything in return. There is no way I can ever repay you for what you've given me. You are amazing, and I will miss you more than I think I even know. I hope we always stay in touch and remain friends, and if we don't, I'll never forget what we've shared. I love you so much.

2) I've known you for twelve years. And that twelve years has obviously not been long enough. We've been through our rough times, and through changes, and what not, and you are still a best friend. You're silly, and hysterical, and we fight like we're married, but it doesn't matter, because we always come back to where we are. Your endurance has taught me I can trust you, and that's saying something.

3) Sweetheart, oh my GOD you are fantastic. I've never known someone as cheerful as you or as upbeat and excited about life. Nothing deters you, because you know that there are more important things. I could take a couple of lessons from you. And what's more, you know exactly where you stand on everything, and that's amazing. Your courage is astounding, and I respect you more than I can ever say, for being so steadfast in your beliefs, and without regret for any of the things you've done. You're awesome.

4) Little. You're small, and you're like me, yet not like me at the same time. I just don't know what I'd do without you. I'm really annoyed that we've gotten as close as we have so soon to leaving, because that just blows. I always worry about you, but you are nevertheless upbeat, exciting, happy, and hysterical all at the same time. You don't find many people like you. You truly are original, and a blast to be around. I don't want to lose touch when we leave.

5) Your passion for life and love is amazing. Although you've changed in the last couple of months, I still think of you as my big teddy bear to whom I will always be secretly attracted. Your smile and laugh make me smile, and I know that whatever happens, you will always be there. Always strive, because you are one of the lucky few that understands the beauty of it.

6) I'm so mad at you. I don't know why we couldn't have just made things work, because it was really incredible there for a while. You are amazing, and funny and warm-hearted and you understand everything, but you have the maturity of a 5 year-old. All of the things I ever wanted to say to you I couldn't, because I was afraid you'd get scared and run away. And then you ran away when things got too serious for you. And then I went and fucked things up because I thought you considered things over too, and apparently that ruined any chance for us to even be friends. I fucked up, but honestly, punishing me forever is not the way to make yourself feel less angry about it. Let's start over, 'cause this just sucks. Fuck.

7) K. What the hell do I say about you? You've been with me all the way through our creative endeavors. And although you are totally dorky a lot of the time, I couldn't love you more. I think we can both respect the choices that we've both made, and that's awesome. You're family, man. I know that we probably won't stay in touch, as tends to happen in our field, but I know that whatever you do, you'll be amazingly successful, and I'll always love you.

8) You know why you're this number, babe. I love you so much I can't stand it. You are one of my favorite people to hang out with, and I've known you forever. I think it's amazing we've come this far, and we still can find things to talk about. You're always there to laugh with, but also there to be serious when we need it. I couldn't ask for anyone as cool as you. You 'da bomb. I know we'll stay in touch, and fly across the country to see each other (at least, I will to see you, you bum)

9) Man, I don't know what I would do without your sardonic humor. You put me in my place, which is something I definitely need. I know that when I'm around you, you'll make sure I'm not bullshitting anyone, because you can see through it in an instant. You are hysterical, and albeit sometimes totally mean, you are fantastic and I love you. Imma miss you a buttload.

10) YOU. Dude, I thought you were different. We've had the most amazing times together, and I really thought that whatever was going on between us was real. But as God only knows, I guess you just needed some ass. I was teaching myself to just go with the flow, and then this whole thing happened. Never again. I have no idea if you are actually truthful anymore. So screw it. You guys will always be happy together, and I will be the one that you think tried to break you two apart.

11) I miss you so much it hurts. I wish you hadn't decided that you couldn't be friends with both of us. I mean, I saw it coming all along, but now that it's actually happened, I don't quite know what to do. We've been through some of the best and worst times together, and I'll always cherish them. I'll never understand why you need his constant approval, or why you just kind of stopped talking to me. We were brother and sister, man, and I just hope you know that I love you.

12) Dude, you are fanastic. You fly by the seat of your fucking pants, and I love that. Nothing is ever too big of a problem, because it can always be fixed with you. We can talk about anything under the sun, until the sun comes up, and that's fantastic. Whatever your purpose is in this silly life, I know it's an amazing one.

13) You restored a lot of my faith in the world and in religious striving, you're beautiful, you're funny, and I miss you. 'Nuf said.

14) Where have you guys gone? We used to spend so much time together, and now I'm lucky if I see you once every 4 months. Oh, theatre. I miss you all.

15) Hi! Here you are! I love you a lot, and I hate you a lot, but that's okay, because that's how it's supposed to be. ...and you smell.

16) You ruined my life there for a while, and I didn't really know if I would ever come back from it. Thinking of you now makes me physically ill. But I'm a better and stronger person now because of you, so I have to thank you for it. I really hate you, but on the other hand, I have this ridiculous weak spot for you, because I had both the worst and best times of my life with you. I feel really sorry for you, and so sometimes I think I want to talk to you and see you again to see who we've both changed to be, but then I wake up from that nightmare and slap myself in the face.

Website of the day! http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=HommedeZizi
Yay Matt's site!!

VROOM DEUX

2004-07-22T14:34:00.000-06:00

So, I was just thinking about this. You know what's weird? Most of the super cool car companies have animals as their mascoty symboly thing. For instance: Ferrari-horse, Lambourghini-bull, Jaguar-Jaguar, Porsche-there's a lion on the shield, Ford Taurus- ...Shit.
And this is the other thing I was thinking about. If I ever start a car company (what??), I would name all of the cars after great philosophers, writers, or history's most influential people. Like, The Da Vinci, or The Plato, or The Copernicus, or The Macchiavelli, or The Hitler...no, that one's probably a bad plan. But anyway, I've always thought that would be a neat idea.

I suck.

So, here's installment 2 of the cars. Today's cars are Jaguars. It would have been Ferrari, but I'm having trouble with the official Ferrari website, so this is the back up. But Jaguars are cool, yeah? I mean, they're smooth, and sleek, and pretty. Ha. Most of the descriptions of the car double for the animal. That makes me laugh.

Okay. So here's the information.

You know what? I actually don't feel like giving any of the information. So here's a picture instead.

Pretty. And here's the website of the day:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/20/brf.inmates.beer.run.ap/index.html

...And one from yesterday:
http://www.local6.com/news/3545383/detail.html

Worried about my goose.

2004-07-22T11:17:00.000-06:00

...So I didn't post yesterday. I'm not quite sure why, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I was still angry about having lost my Porsche blog, and I had to leave lunch-time ish to go get a physical. Whoo. So I'll do two blogs today.

K. Here's what's on my mind right now:

I'm really worried. Worried about a really good friend of mine. She reads my blog everyday, so I really don't know if I should be talking about it, but I think it's something worth mentioning. This girl, is, there's no other way to put it, amazing. Straight up amazing. She is one of the smartest girls I've ever met in my entire life (like she qualified for national merit from her SATs, never went to school and still got a 4.0, etc.), she's little and beautiful (she's got these teeeeeny little legs of which I'm entirely jealous--and NEVER burns), her art is fucking incredible, and she's hysterical. I mean, I love to hang out with her, because she's totally chill and sweet and funny and FANTASTIC. We've become pretty good friends I would say in the last couple of months and have been hanging out, which is sweet, but it sucks too, because we're both leaving for college soon. Sucks, yeah? And what's even worse about that is she would be exactly like me if it weren't for one thing (well two since she's not my 'color'...................was that racist? I didn't mean it to be...I'm just trying not to reveal her identity...not that people wouldn't be able to guess. FUCK.): she does a lot of drugs. Well, I mean, it may not be that she does a lot, since I don't know how much a lot is, but it seems like a lot. She's a champion when it comes to drinking (she can throw down two bottles of niiice vodka in one night and still be walking totally straight), she smokes a lot (which is fine, whatever, I can deal with), and...other stuff. She tells me about her exploits, so I kind of have an idea of what's going on.

Though sometimes I don't think I do.

I mean, I assume that she tells me a lot, but if she doesn't, that means she's doing a lot more than I would ever imagine is possible to do and still be alive. She writes about how she worries about herself and how she's afraid that some day she won't be able to handle her extreme lifestyle, but when I see her, she's, you know, how I know her, and fantastic and funny and all of the things previously mentioned. I mean, sometimes I wonder if that's actually her, or if it's just drugs. I'm 98% sure it's her when I see her, and she doesn't seem high or drunk when I do (I mean except, you know, when we're doing it together). And it's scary. I feel like a hypocrite doing things with her, but she's also the only one I trust to teach me about them (not that I want to do some of the scary ones, but I feel like it's better to know before I go away to a place where there are probably untrustworthy people). And she knows her shit, so I feel safe (as far as safe goes in this situation) with her. So I just don't know. It scares me that one day she might die accidentally from something and I wouldn't have been there to help her. Because I know she won't call me if she needs me. I wouldn't know what to do even if she did.

So, what do I do? Do I continue to let her do these things? It's not my place to preach to her or tell her to stop, and she knows I worry, which is about all I feel I can do. So the only idea I have left is this:
It's an extreme to live without drugs. There are thrills that don't involve drugs (some in which you're already involved)...Wouldn't it be exciting to try?? I love you.

Hmm...sad blog.

ANNA ANGRY

2004-07-20T14:05:00.000-06:00

So I wrote a really good blog. About Porsches. It was really exciting, happy, I liked it, and I spent an hour on it. It's gone now, because I'm stupid and just clicked out of it. Yup, just clicked out of it. Like that. Snap.

Poop.

Anyway, the jist of it was that Porsches are great, and my new favorite car is, thanks to Bets, the Carrera GT. There was a picture too. But it wasn't just that! There was brilliance involved!! BRILLIANCE!!

Here's the website of the day. It's fantastic.
http://www.maximonline.com/hometown_hotties/voting/index.aspx

VROOM

2004-07-19T11:13:00.000-06:00

It's monday morning, and I'm running the show today, because Sarah's out of the office. So far, it's been pretty uneventful, but I can only count on that lasting for so long. And I have to stay here all day because IF something goes wrong, I'm gonna have to fix it. Joel's back, which makes things much better. Joel's the big boss...he's kind of like a big huggable teddy bear. Fantastic.
So on saturday night, I went to Misha's house and met up with Justin Underwood (what??) and Betsy and Tom and Chad and the girls etc. I smoked a bowl with Betsy and to my pleasure, discovered that I am NOT allergic to weed! Yay! Well, not that that means anything, since that's not particularly my scene. But I got high...and I'm sure it was funny to watch. I got really paranoid and thought that Justin and his friend were talking about me all the time. I'm sure they were messing with me, but I really have no idea what actually happened.
And I'm bored. Not just necessarily right now, but with life. I need something new. Hmm...
Okay, AND...
Random Item of the day is: Lamborghini

Betsy and I were discussing what kind of car she's going to get with Alan over e-mail, and it made me really excited, so now the topic of the next couple of days is cars. And nice cars. The uber kind.

1) Lamborghini
A man by the name of Ferruccio Lamborghini started the Lamborghini company. He was born in Renazzo, Italy on April 28th, 1916, making him a Taurus according to the zodiac (which would later inspire the symbol on all Lamborghinis: The Bull). He showed interest in mechanics and technology from a very early age, and during World War II, he was able to use his skills as leader of vehicle maintenance in Rhodes, Greece. When he returned home, he began to buy old military vehicles and to convert them into the much needed tractors for Italy. These tractors were such a success that he bought a workshop in Cento in 1948. In 1959, the production company was extended to burners and air conditioning units. He desired to make helicopters, but the governments refused to give him a license, so he turned his attention to cars. In 1963, he opened a car factory in Sant' Agata. Things went extremely successfully until 1972, when Ferruccio was forced to sell 51% of the company to a Swiss businessman, Georges-Henri Rossetti, and in 1974 he sold the other 49% to a friend Rossetti.
The Lamborghini company then went through an extremely difficult time, peaking in 1977, when strategic mistakes were made, and shareholders were extremely difficult to find. The company was placed into receivership by the Bologna courts and remained in that state until 1980. In 1986, the company took off again, and the demand became so large that it was impossible for individuals to back it properly, and so Chrysler became their partner. After going through a hard financial period in the mid-90's, an agreement was reached between shareholders of Lamborghini and Audi, and on July 24, 1998, the complete take-over of the company occurred. With a respected and strong automotive owner, Lamborghini has been thriving ever since.

Hi Pretty.
This is the Lamborghini Murcielago. Say hello. It has 12 cylinders and a V12 engine. My car has maybe 8 (?) cylinders and has a V4 engine. It's body is carbon fiber and steel, it's top speed 330 km/hr (roughly 205 MPH). It has 6 speeds, and the transmission is a permanent 4-wheel drive with a viscous traction system. Base price: $279,900. I don't know what the rest of the specs mean, so I won't put them up, but you can check the rest out here: www.lamborghini.com

And Website of the day, courtesy of Betsy is:
http://www.pieman.org/stealthisbook.html
It's awesome, and as Betsy put it, it's all about fucking the system. Joey, you'll like it.

Sleeping

2004-07-16T13:36:00.000-06:00

Today is the most worthless day ever. I woke up at 8, as usual, but for some reason, I just could NOT get up. It was awful. I had left my light on from the night before as I was reading before bed, my alarm clock was blaring right next to my head, and I woke up to, "ANNIE! TIME TO GET UP!" I wanted to die. Have you ever noticed that you learn to absolutely abhor the sound in the morning that wakes you up? It's as if the sound belongs in the 9th circle of Hell with Lucifer, or in the most deserted place ever so that although it makes a noise, no one will ever hear it--like the tree falling in the forest syndrome. That's how I feel about the 1) noise my alarm clock makes....BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP 2) How my mother wakes me up (SWEETHEART! IT'S 8 O'CLOCK!!!!) and 3) How my father wakes me up (Ahhhhhhhhhhhnnnnuhhhhhh, time to get uuuuuuup!). --There's also a specific amount of time that it's good to sleep, but if you wake up anywhere in the wrong time section during the night/sleeping cycle, you wake up totally pissed off. Here are my findings: 1) Anything under 3 hours just sucks. It's a fucking nap. Not a night of sleep. ...Not that I dislike naps, because I LOVE naps, but if that's all the time you're functioning on, you want to die. 2) 3-4 hours is actually pretty good, you can function pretty well for a couple of days on 3-4, but then after like 3 days you just have to pass out for hours. I sometimes like this choice the best. 3) 5-7 hours BLOWS. That's what I'm on today, and I want to kill everyone that makes a sound or talks to me. 5-7 hours is rather like being really hungover. 4) 8-12 hours, AWESOME. These are like the friday nights when you get home really late/early and just sleep until like 2 in the afternoon on saturday. I think that may be the best when you've had a really rockin' night. ...Yes, I did just say 'really rockin' night'. and 5) Anything past 12 hours is awful--you wake up feeling more tired than you did when you went to sleep. That makes me angry. It's like putting in a lot of time on a job to find out that you're getting paid $3 an hour. Not that that's ever happened to me, or anyone, I just thought the analogy worked. ...No, it was just stupid. So, scratch that.
Yeah. So those are my thoughts on sleeping. I want to go to sleep right now. RIGHT NOW. But noooooo...I'm sitting here at my stupid desk in this stupid office at my stupid job writing a stupid blog about how much I want to go to sleep but can't. Hmph. I'm angry.

And as long as we're on the subject of being awakened by stupid noises, here are a few:

Question: In a recent psychological study of annoying sounds, the winner was a scraping sound made by dragging a knife across a cast iron skillet. Great experiment! But, another annoying sound might have won if the experiment had included it. Which one?

- Me singing "Amazing Grace"
- My suitemate attempting to sing an opera
- In "Dumb and Dumber", Jim Careyπs most annoying sound
- Fran Drescherπs laugh
- A high- pitched, nasal female voice with a Midwestern accent
- Chalk on a blackboard (3 people)
- Nails on a chalkboard (18 people)
- Feet in socks on a carpet
- Long fingernails down denim jeans
- The brush of corduroy pants or jeans between full thighs
- Drops of water on a dry metal surface
- My mother
- Car alarms (those not designed to frighten car thieves but rather to drive them out of their minds)
- A fire alarm at 9 am in the Barnard dorms. (It may cause TTS) (3 people)
- Drilling at 6 am across from where you sleep
- Squeaky Styrofoam
- The amplified sound of a pencil on paper
- A knife scratching between the prongs of a fork
- A knife slipping when cutting meat and scratching the plate
- Biting a metal fork while eating
- An iron knife and a chalkboard
- Dangling tin cups or blow horns
- A child from the Toddler Center screaming down the hallway
- A girl complaining about being fat

http://www.columbia.edu/~remez/annoying_sounds.html

And here's a site where you can rate annoying sounds (Who the CRAP decided that would be a cool website?!?!):
http://www.rateitall.com/t-2535-most-annoying-sounds.aspx

...Oh, I am so angry now. Reading that list totally pissed me off. Eh, monday's blog will be less hostile and better.

Boogers

2004-07-15T13:24:00.000-06:00

So, topic of the day is boogers. Although this might sound rather gross, it's actually quite fascinating. So, read up, 'cause here comes some intellectual fun about the stuff that comes out of your nose when you pick it. Ha ha. Yay.

Your body has mucus membranes in all sorts of places: The stomach, intestines, nose, lungs, eyes, mouth, and the urinary tract all contain mucus membranes that secrete mucus.

Mucus contains mostly water and mucin (during a sinus or lung infection, it also contains dead white blood cells that have been working on the infection -- see How Your Immune System Works for details). It is the mucin that makes it sticky.

Mucin is a branched polysaccharide. If you have read How Food Works, then you know about saccharides -- they are sugar chains. Starch, for example, is a polysaccharide. As you've probably noticed, if you mix corn starch or flour with water, you get a sticky substance. Mucin is doing the same thing. Mucus is essentially a thin paste made of mucin and water.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question81.htm

There's some information, and here's a recipe for "Boogers on a Stick". ...some people just have waaay too much time on their hands. ... Like me.

      ounce   Jar cheez whiz
                        Green food coloring
25 to 30 Pretzel sticks

                        -----TOOLS-----
                        Waxed paper
                        Long handled spoon
                        Platter

1) With an adults help, melt the cheeze whiz in the microwave or on top of the stove, according to directions on the jar.
2) Allow the cheese to cool slightly in the jar.
3) Using a long handled spoon, carefully stir about three drops of green food coloring into the warm cheese, using just enough to turn the cheese a delicate snot green.
4) To form boogers: Dip and twist the tip of each pretzel stick into the cheese, lift out, wait twenty seconds, then dip again. When cheese lumps reach an appealingly boogerish size, set pretzels, booger down, onto a sheet of waxed paper.
5) Allow finished boogers on a stick to cool at room temperature for ten minutes or until cheese is firm.
6) Gently pull boogers off waxed paper and arrange on a serving platter. Serves 5 to 6 booger buddies.

Sicko Serving Suggestion: Place a bowl of chunky red salsa in the center of the platter so that guests can turn plain buggers into bloody ones.

http://bertc.com/boogers.htm

...I don't know how good that would be even if it didn't have a name like "Boogers on a Stick"...but whatever. Yeah. Funny funny. Boogers make me laugh. Just say it out loud. Boogers. Or Snot. Snot. Or anything to do with noses.
Aren't noses just funny? Seriously. Because, not only do they look funny, funny things come out of them! Like boogers! And Snot! And Bugs! ....I'm retarded.
But look!!!

You see why I like noses????

Stuff

2004-07-14T10:05:00.000-06:00

So, I got this neat test off of my friend Matt's site. I dunno how accurate it is, but it's fun. These are my results:

Cattell's 16 Factor Test Results

Warmth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Intellect	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Emotional Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Liveliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Dutifulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Social Assertiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Abstractness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Introversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	74%
Openmindedness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Independence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Tension	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%

Take Free 16pf based Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

The Yara-ma-yha-who

2004-07-13T15:46:00.000-06:00

So apparently there's this little creepy creature named the Yara-ma-yha-who existed in aboriginal cultures. Here's his myth:

In aboriginal cultures, there was a vampire-like being, described as a little red man, approximately four feet tall, with a very large head and mouth. It has no teeth and swallowed its food whole. Its most distinguishing features were it hands and feet. It tips of the fingers and toes were shaped like the suckers of an octopus.

The yara-ma-yha-who lived in the tops of fig trees and did not hunt for food, but waited until unsuspecting victims sought shelter under the tree. It then jumped down and placed its hands and feet on the body. It would drain the blood from the victim to the point the person was left weak and helpless, but rarely, to cause the victim to die. The creature would later return and consume its meal. It then drank water and took a nap. When it woke, the undigested portion of its meal would be regurgitated. According to the story, the person regurgitated was still alive, and children were advised to offer no resistance should it be their misfortune to meet a yara-ma-yha-who. Their chances of survival were better if they let the creature swallow them.

People might be captured on several occasions. Each time, they would grow a little shorter until they were the same size as the yara-ma-yha-who. Their skin would first become smooth and then they would begin to grow hair all of their body. Gradually they were changed into one of the mythical little furry creatures of the forest.

The story of the yara-ma-yha-who was told to young children who might wander from the tribe, and to naughty children to scare them that it might come and take them away

This is what he might look like...beware.

http://www.pantheon.org/areas/bestiary/articles.html

Back From a Strange Land

2004-07-12T13:39:00.000-06:00

So I've been gone. For a week. A week spent with two of my favorite people in the world: Misha and Amie. We took a road trip to Misha's dad's house in Solana Beach, CA, and basically laid on the beach for five days straight. Literally. And these two girls are really tan to begin with, one of them being Lebanese and the other being an all-american blonde lacrosse player, so it's not really a big deal for them, to sit in the sun all the time, but I am an albino. Yes, an albino. Well, not really, but I may as well be according to how well I react to the sun--which is, needless to say, not well. The first day I sat out in the sun, when it was cloudy out, let me repeat, CLOUDY out, I got ridiculously burned. And then, because one day is obviously not enough to get two already tan girls tanner, I spent the rest of the week laying in more sun on the beach to get even more burned. So, here I am, back at work on monday, still burned, peeling, and tan. My body hates me. But I am suprisingly tan based on the porcelain color I was to begin with. And I learned to surf, which was really cool. Plus, I'm afraid of the ocean, so learning to surf was a big step for me. All in all, I didn't really get to do anything I wanted to do, because I'm a pushover, but laying on the beach and meeting people was fun, and it didn't matter, because I was with the two people in the world I love the most.

But this trip really did have its high points. For example, on the drive back from California, we stayed in Las Vegas for the night at a hotel called the Sahara. It was, by far, the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. Sketch-o-rama. We walked in, after having driven for five hours, threw our stuff down, and I, naturally, went to go to the bathroom. Big mistake. As I walked in, a strange aroma of food filled my nostrils, and as I looked over to my left towards the counter, I see a styrofoam box. Interested, I opened it, and there, in all it's glory, was a half-eaten cheeseburger complete with cold, soggy fries. Nice. There was also a nicely damp washcloth left in the bathtub, a trash can full of tiny, empty liquor bottles (most in different flavors, like watermelon or orange), and a strange crusty substance left on one of the sheets. I'm pretty sure they just didn't clean the room. Maybe they secretly knew that we were going to stay there, and just to spite us, after having driven such a long way, they decided to make a mess of things. So after we called to complain, because apparently the "customer is always right" (according to Mish), they could not give us a refund or a discount because we had made the reservation through hotels.com (also awful, by the way), and they could not upgrade us because they were sold out (what?!?), so, they gave us two (yes, two, even though there were three of us) passes to their buffet, which turned out to be like a three mile walk through the hotel, and a piece of crap place to eat. I think I may have new buggys living in my system because of some of that food. And there were people having sex next door. If I had been having sex, it might have made staying there better--but no. It was really just a hilarious situation.

Here's the website of the day, thanks to Betsy who found websites for me while I was gone. I love the Wetz.
I got a 44 on this test.
http://www.naute.com/stories/test.phtml

Homeless Bear

2004-07-02T11:24:00.000-06:00

My friend Chad, Chadwick, Chadley told me a story. I thought that I would impart this brilliant story to the world.

So Chad walks to work every day from his car parked about seven blocks away from his building. And on the way, he passes all kinds of restaurants and shops and things on the 16th Street Mall of Denver. Now, one particular store (a store which will remain nameless) possesses a stuffed animal about three feet tall in the shape of a bear. This store has been kind enough to clothe said bear with a ratty old t-shirt so he does not get too cold in the winter when blizzards are blowing their harsh cold winds down the streets of Lodo. They seem to believe that a t-shirt will shield him from all natural disasters, while in their ignorance they sit in their place of business munching happily on as much chocolate as they can get their little paws on, and, compassionately, they give this poor bear none, and he is reduced to whoring himself and begging for money so he can eat one meal a day. Although he is smarter than the average bear, Homeless Bear (as Chad has so affectionately named him) must reduce himself to a cub-intelligence level to ask rich passerbys for any spare change. This, as could be imagined, creates within Homeless Bear the feeling of worthlessness and no will to live. So alas, instead of helping his situation, he sits in front of this store looking down at nothing in particular, and holds his arms out to grasp the life he will never have.

The story is actually really funny when Chad tells it (perhaps it's because Chad does a perfect impression of Homeless Bear), but for some reason, when I tell it, it's totally depressing. Hmm...

This is what I imagine Homeless Bear might look like, just without a sad dirty shirt that says, "I 'heart' NY" or something:

And to make this blog a little bit happier, here is a recipe for a cake!
INGREDIENTS:
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
2 cups sour cream
1 cup melted butter
5 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 10 inch Bundt pan.
2
In a large bowl, stir together cake mix and pudding mix. Make a well in the center and pour in sour cream, melted butter, eggs and almond extract. Beat on low speed until blended. Scrape bowl, and beat 4 minutes on medium speed. Blend in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3
Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Wombats

2004-07-01T11:59:00.000-06:00

Wombats are the topic of the day!

http://www.wombat.echidna.id.au/animals/wombat1.htm

Okay, so I really don't know anything about wombats, but I think they're cute and cuddly, so they automatically get put on to the list of things that I love/really super like. James came up with them for today. I like James a lot. He's married, but is still totally upbeat and happy and funny, which I like. That gives me a little more faith in marriage, not that I'm even thinking about it. But watching people like my parents grow old together totally destroyed a lot of that faith, so James makes me happy.

And, I just spent like an hour and a half looking up food items at kingsoopers.com for our delivery order, and it made me really hungry. I was sitting there looking at things like cupcakes, and jello, and weird yummy random crap like that thinking how much I wanted every item. Hungry. Hungry hungry Anna.

Lastly, here's what I've learned about wombats so far.
There are species entitled the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latrifrons) and the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii). There are species named after their HAIRY NOSES!! Fantastic. I wonder then if my high school advisor Doc Hogan falls into that category. He had a pretty hairy nose. Loved him though.
Sexual maturity is about three years of age. .............I still haven't reached sexual maturity.
"They are frolicsome and will play with what seems like inexhaustible energy"....is frolicsome a word? Because I love it.
"First rule of Wombat keeping - never get between a Wombat and a source of chocolate biscuits" THAT'S JUST LIKE ME!

Anyway, those are just a few interesting tidbits, but there's more at that website. Who knew...wombats are really interesting, and apparently really smart. Oh, funny funny large rodents. I want one.

The Twinkies Project

2004-06-30T11:41:00.000-06:00

Okay. Website of the day: www.twinkiesproject.com/

First: It's hilarious. I spent maybe two hours looking at it yesterday at work. Why? Because there's nothing to do here!
Second: I spent most of that two hours reading the letters that people have sent. Freaking hilarious.
Third: Betsy sent me the link, and as we've already gone over, I love Betsy, so that works out. And Betsy loves food, and this is a site about yummy food!
Fourth: TWINKIES. Those disgustingly yummy packages of cake-like things in which no one knows what ingredients exist. I mean, technically, you could look at the ingredients, but who the hell knows what things like polysorbate-32 are? I sure as hell don't. And even if I did, I don't know if I would want to eat twinkies anymore...because what if it's something like knowing what's actually in hot dogs--like rats or something? It just takes the fun out of it. Long story short, I'd rather just not know.
And P.S., what about twinkies in general isn't just hilarious? They're phallic and filled with white creamy stuff, with which obviously you can make any kind of joke, they're made almost completely of sugar (and other things, but as previously stated, I have no desire to actually find out what else is in them), and they're called twinkies. Twinkies. Twink. ies. tw-in-ki-es. Twinkies. Singular: Twinkie, Plural: Twinkies. Twinkies. I love it.

Rodin of the Day

2004-06-29T14:23:00.000-06:00

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/rodin.html

So, I asked my friend Joel to come up with a word, preferably a noun or a proper noun, and he came up with Rodin off the top of his head. I like Rodin, and I like Joel, so that was that! Rodin was a sculptor in the late 1800's, and one of the most famous and influential sculptors of all time at that...he did classic work, mostly involving mythology or historical figures of the 12th and 13th centuries. Anyway, you can read all about him at this neat site, or if you're like me, just look at the pretty sculptures. This sculpture that I have posted is called "The Kiss", and it's one of Rodin's most famous pieces. I chose to put this one up because it's so intensely sensual, and because I like kissing. Seriously, who doesn't like to kiss? It's the best. Check out "The Gates of Hell", which is absolutely gorgeous and is based off of Dante's "Inferno".

So, seriously, back to Joel...who is intelligent enough to come up with Rodin of the top of their head? Like, if someone asked me to say the first noun I could think of, I would most definitely say, "cookies", or "poop" or something stupid like that, but Joel's first thought is "Rodin". Don't get me wrong, I love Rodin and could sit looking at his sculptures all day long, I'm just totally not intelligent enough to come up with that as the first thing I think of. I suppose it depends on your train of thought..... But seriously, Joel is most definitely one smart cookie (there's that word cookie again--maybe I just want one), and sometimes we stay up late online (usually only online, which is weird--but we both have stuff going on) and just discuss philosophy, or things we love, or poetry, or things that make life beautiful. Joel is one of those rare people who appreciates the beautiful things in life, and that's why I like him. Obviously though, that's not the only reason I like him...he also called me 'honey sprite' today on a whim, which is exciting, because that's the kind of thing I would say. And he's been dating my best friend in the world for four years (that's a freaking long-ass time). He's great.

A Funny Website, and a Thought Provoking One

2004-06-28T17:16:00.000-06:00

This is sort of funny, but you need patience to find it humourous at all, otherwise it's just retarded. Take a closer look at the pictures...

http://www.geocities.com/sotto-voce/caribou.html

I like Lord of the Rings. It makes me happy. Mmm...boys in hobbit costumes... No, that's just weird.

And this one is powerful, thought-provoking, and beautifully made. Here's the site:
http://photomatt.net/2004/04/07/mosaic/

This is my favorite comment from it:
"This is the problem with discourse in the US today. You comment on the ineptness and fallacy of the president you are no longer permitted to call yourself an American. It is also assumed that your opinion is invalid because you belong to one political party or the other. Folks, its not the party, it is the idea that matters. America is not a political party it is an ideal built upon ideas.
There are republicans that criticize Bush, and just because I criticize him does not mean that I am a democrat or bound to vote for Kerry. There is no logical tie between countries pulling out of Iraq and me voting for Kerry. I am not going to take the bait and try and defend Kerry’s record on anything or try to speak for the man, that is his job between now and the election.
I think the recent public polls in the US prove my point. It is not a majority of Americans that want to vote for Kerry, it is a majority of Americans that want anybody but Bush, something that seems to be lost on BOTH the major parties.
You can not dismiss my ideas by labeling me democrat, republican or whatever political group you do not belong to, if you are going to do it, do it with the brilliance of your thought not the stigma of your label."

Today

2004-06-28T16:30:00.000-06:00

Today I had lunch with a friend named Betsy. Betsy is little and likes to eat, just like me. That's why we're friends. We don't do a lot of the same things, but we pretty much like all of the same things. She pointedly has made the observation a time or two that we both like mini things, funny sounds, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and food. How we love the food. That's really the only reason I'm signed up with Blog now, because Betsy mentioned it. Over food. She told me how neat it was, and how it doesn't matter what you post, and yadda yadda-but it sounded cool because she had a mouthful of yummy looking pasta as she was telling me about it, and a brick-sized rice krispie treat next to her, which is cool in any country. So props to Betsy for getting me started, and props also to Betsy for eating a yummy lunch. ...that was weird. I don't know why I said that.
...So hopefully I'll put something random up every day, or until I get bored with Blogs, and something that Betsy might like. So in tribute to Betsy, this blog is called "A Little Bit of Random", because that's what Betsy and I are.