New neighbors

In this age of rather sterile "who the heck lives next door to me?", I've taken to identifying inhabitants in my complex with the vehicles and/or pets they own. For instance, I was quite familiar with the big beautiful dog who lived across the way until recently, but never saw his (her?) owner ever. And now, a Hummer has moved into our complex.

The Hummer is all black, and is huge; I imagine someone of my size would need a ladder to get into it -- the size you find on a fire-truck will probably do the trick. It literally takes up two spots on the first floor of the garage; while the owner is inconsiderate enough to drive a tank in the face of rising gas prices, I do have to give him (her?) props for a) parking on the ground floor so the weight of the Black Beast doesn't crush all the cars on lower levels and b) for parking next to the often stinky dumpster since no one else wants to park there.

Still, I can't help but wonder what possibly must be going on in the owner's mind that he (she?) feels the need to drive around the city in a hummer? Granted, this isn't Mr. Rogers' neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn't think it was so bad that even going to Target these days required such armament! Every time I drive past that vehicle (we-HICK-cahl in the military) on my way to work, I wonder what exactly does the owner do in his (her?) spare time that necessitates a hummer? Since it's hopefully not to make trips to Target, I'm forced to concoct romantical adventures of the swashbucking and bodice-ripping variety -- though with more leather and steel than your standard romance novel allows for.

One option is that Hummer!Owner is searching out various potholes, traffic jams, and closed intersections. In cases like this, it makes total sense that this person needs a Hummer -- intersections are quite frequently closed here for traffic, usually at major highway interchanges -- and driving over the cars in your way would be a good way to get out of such a pickle; in fact, it's probably something the emergency service workers ought to try. I know I'd feel a lot safer if I was being driven to the hospital in a tank rather than a tin can. Probably get there faster too.

The other option is that Hummer!Owner is interested in covert operations, though how you can be stealthy sneaky in a hummer is beyond my comprehension. I suspect if indeed Hummer!Owner is in covert operations, he (she) works at night. I deduce this because the hummer is black, not camuflauge, in color, and beyond that, we don't have much in the way of trees in this part of the world -- well, except where the rich people live, but that's another story entirely. So if you're going to be sneaky, I'm not sure the Hummer is the way to go, but it's one explanation -- the armor is certainly there.

Plus, the Hummer is always there when I leave for work around 8:50 am, so this also leads me to believe that either a) Hummer!Owner sleeps in because he (she) has been saving our city from either Those Who Walk In the Dark or Potholes/Traffic James, or b) Hummer!Owner is completely depressed by rising gasoline prices and realizes that he (she) has to take out a small loan every time he (she?) wants to drive the tank around.

Your thoughts on why people would drive a Hummer are greatly appreciated. And if you tell me to go to Target or Wal-Mart, I'm going to hurt you. Anyone who has the money to spend on a gas guzzling Hummer really ought to be shopping at say, Tiffany's or Saks Fifth Avenue. I'm just sayin'.

Write about it

I just wrote an email to Colgate Oral Care about their new toothpaste completely decimating my mouth, wah! This is not the first time this has happened and A. very kindly suggested I should start writing down the names of toothpastes I have allergic reactions to so I do not buy the the toothpaste again. Currently, my symptoms include botox-style lips, tiny tiny ulcers all over my mouth, and skin burned off my newly enlarged lips. I have switched back to regular Colgate; if the past is any indication, it'll take about a week for this situation to heal. In the meantime, I've discovering that eating and drinking is my new form of masochism -- nothing like a burning tingle every time you eat a piece of bread or drink wine!

Home sweet home

So I'm back! I'll give further details about the Boston Meander of 2004 at another time, but suffice it to say, I wandered my way through the cow paths -- in 10-inch platform shoes, no less -- and still managed to avoide getting smushed by the T. I also had the honor of meeting the Mac, which undoubtedly would be the highlight of any trip to Beantown.

However, it's getting home that's interesting because that's when you find out what's been going on while you were incommunicado. I was feeling sorry for J. Lo because of her break-up with Ben Affleck, but I shouldn't have worried -- J. Lo has gotten married again and this time to singer Marc Anthony. And oooh, there are reports of Baby Lopez too. Wedding pictures, for the curious, are here. Don't worry about not being able to see J. Lo's face clearly or at all in these photographs and don't despair that her wedding cake-style dress is not described in enough detail to get one of your own; wait six months, and no doubt, Jenny from the Block will be giving nupital bliss a fourth go around. Lucky for Jennifer Lopez, three strikes and you're out doesn't seem to apply to marriage.

Leaving on a jet plane

Jemima wants to know, "Is planning with Seema always this complex?" The answer is yes, but tentatively I have plans. It's all still complicated and messy in my head because nothing can be simple, not in Seema!world. That being said, I'm really looking to get away this weekend and just forget about stuff. My stuff and me will be wandering around Boston for the next few days. Your regularly scheduled blog programming will resume on Tuesday evening.

Good things come...

So right, the apartment odyssey is officially over and not a minute too soon. I was really, really looking forward to some good news, and just having something good happen, y'know? And I came home today, fully prepared to cough up the increased rent amount and voila, note on my door and voice mail on my machine -- they are renewing me at the same rate I've been paying for the last nine months! Whoohooo! I so didn't expect that considering just how far below market value I am, but they came through.

So glad I waited, so glad I didn't jump the gun and sign another lease on Saturday at one of the less superior apartments. And also, so glad I didn't get a free moment yesterday to call up and say I'd rent at the higher rate for 6 months. By waiting, this all paid off handsomely. Very, very nice and I'm thrilled to pieces -- I love my apartment and I love my area; I had no idea how much until I was forced to look around and just see how lucky I was. More importantly, I don't have to move in the month of July. This, my friends, is big.

And now, I must sleep, because I'm no longer as young as I once was and staying up all night (seriously) and then finally deciding to try and sleep at 6 am only to wake up at 7:30 to go to work -- well, it's not quite the lifestyle I can handle these days. It's all Rocky's fault (tm).

Lost in translation

Tonight was my placement test. I was actually pretty calm going into it, even when they handed me the 60-question examen and then said there would be an oral en francais component. I figured that the oral would be a piece of cake, that I'd stumbled on the written part. For, you see, writing in French has never been my strong suit. I managed to avoid grammar for my last two years in high school by going into the literature track. Which means I can read 16th century French lit and speak well, but cannot write to save my life.

Well, it was the exact opposite. I did fine on the reading and better than I expected on the written part. The meltdown came during the oral part of the examination. I lost it about thirty seconds after Madame said bonjour and it was all downhill from there. It was frankly quite embarassing. Especially the part where I couldn't remember the word for brother. ::facepalm:: The word for sister? Right there at the very tip of my tongue, but not brother -- frère, yes, yes, I've got it now, but what good does it do me now? If I'd had half a brain, I would have invented a soeur on the spot.

Trust me. It gets worse. Much worse.

I couldn't remember the word for 'little'. Couldn't remember 'petit' to save my life -- I was fixated on the same word in another language. Every time I tried to come up with a word, this other language which I most recently heard yesterday came to the forefront and gained ascendency over poor French. Madame was staring at me in a mixture of horror and pity. I thought about talking about the war of languages in my head, that one language was fighting for supremacy over the other and was winning, but then she'd think I was psycho and I'd end up kicked out of the program and across the street at the World Famous Medical Center (tm), with a padded room to call my own and a wardrobe entirely consisting of white garments with lots of buckles being the uniform du jour. See? I can so come up with the right words not under pressure. ::nods::

I honestly think it should be okay, in foreign language classes, to substitute words from other languages at a moment's notice when the right language doesn't come to mind. I'm just sayin'. The results come out on Friday, I think, and I'm a little pensive about what it all will mean.

It was... so not good.

Rest, relaxation and retail

Given that this the 1,200th post to this blog, it seems anticlimatic to talk about what I didn't do on Memorial Day and trust you me, the list of things I should have done was quite long -- somehow, I just melted from the heat and just never got going on some of those things.

Instead, I watched an episode and a half of the X-Files, took a nap, went out at the hottest time of the day for a walk, and then I watched some really bad reality television. And oh yes, I cooked for tonight and tomorrow night's dinners, and I may have done some dishes in between -- not quite sure. It's amazing how when you live alone, you find yourself lapsing into "Oh, I'll do that later," because honestly, unless company is coming over, there is no incentive to clean anything immediately. Unless, of course, you've created new life forms -- which I have done in the past -- and then out comes the Lysol etc.

I did go shopping today and I bought three new skirts. It's summer here and the skirts are a necessity. I don't really wear shorts except to the gym, so I needed something more casual than what I wear to work. All three of the skirts are knee-length and two are black and one is an olive green. One of the black skirts has a funky cut-out design on it over a white underskirt and the other one has a nice lacey fringe at the bottom of it. Both are linen. The third skirt is just your run of the mill khaki skirt. I was wearing a khaki skirt today and noticed that no matter where I went, that was the skirt de jour. I think it's one of those things when you've got a heightened sense of something, you see it everywhere.

I also drove down to the big university, my brother's alma mater, as a matter of fact, to check out where my placement test will be. There's something really awful about university maps. I swear, they forget to label half of the streets and it's not to scale, and there are no signs saying, "This is the Continuing Studies building." So I kept driving around in circles and finally found it about 10 minutes later. Now the scheduling of said-test is a little dicey, but we'll see if I can work something out with the boss tomorrow.

This completely rambling nonsensical blog has been brought to you by the letter S. I can't promise more intelligent commentary tomorrow -- go see jemima for that -- but I plead debilitating heat as my excuse. Uh-huh.

About that relaxing weekend...

So far, so busy. After putzing around this morning, I went to renegotiate my lease. And once again, no go. The manager wasn't in, so I still don't have an answer on whether I'm coming or going. After that disappointment, I walked down to Walgreen's, looking for hair dye, hair ties and toothpaste. By the time I hoofed it back, I was absolutely dying from the heat and I had a nice shiny perspiration glow to me.

I relaxed a little bit after coming back, watched the rest of "3" (X-Files, season 2) that I had started yesterday and had a couple of hard-boiled eggs for lunch. Then it was off to look at apartments. I looked at a total of four complexes this afternoon and in between, stopped randomly to get my hair cut.

The apartments I looked at were mostly super nice; I say 'mostly' because one was on the older side with a microwave oven from the 80s and the landscaping was dodgy, compared to other places I've been. What I have learned is that apartments comparable to mine are way more expensive than what they're offering to renew me at. The truth is, I have to make a choice here. I can pay less and get a smaller place and potentially have to pay extra for the washer/dryer, or I can suck it up and pay the extra $70/month.

For the most part, I'm very pleased with my apartment, with the floorplan, etc. Some of the apartments I looked at today have a laundry room that opens on the bathroom, which I would much prefer compared to mine -- which opens on the kitchen. All of the apartments I looked at today had kitchens the same size as mine, whereas the ones earlier in the week were smaller. None of them had a gym quite as nice as the one here, and one was downright tiny, as if it were an afterthought.

So, the jury is still out. I'm supposed to talk to the manager on Tuesday -- I think it comes down to who blinks first. Now that I've seen a total of seven complexes, I realize that I got very lucky here and that even the increased rent is less than what other places are asking for.

And oh yes, I came home and baked a blueberry coffee cake and watched some of "One Breath" (X-Files, season 2). Now, I'm going to get ready to go out for an overnight, with a stop at IKEA on my way. Will be back sometime tomorrow afternoon. See you all then.

A roof over my head

So in a few minutes, I go to negotiate with apartment people for my lease. After seeing three apartments in three days, I've got a fairly good idea of what the market looks like and damn, if I didn't get an awesome deal with this apartment. After calculating the costs, etc., I've come up with a resistance level -- in other words, it doesn't make sense to move if I don't save at least a certain amount of money. If moving and the rent increase are approximately equal, then there's no reason to move. Right now, the way the new rent is, it's cheaper to move. But if I get them to come down even $30, it'll be cheaper to stay.

Costs associated with moving include the usual phone hook-up and in this area, satellite television hook-up. That's $100 right there. Application fees average around $35 (I've seen as high as $50). There's a new 'administrative' fee two of the apartments I looked at require, so that averages to $100. One apartment complex is waiving the deposit, another is saying half-off on the refundable part of the deposit, and a third is not budging. The average of all that is $112.50. That's a total of $347.50; granted, the last item may change depending on the apartment, but I figure I need to calculate in the potential expense.

And for simplicity's sake, I'm rounding up to $400, because there may be other expenses I'm not considering. Moving isn't a real expense -- I'll either use Move for Free or my boss and a co-worker have offered to help me; gotta figure in pizza and beer for them, if that's the case (g). Pro-rate that over 12 months and it equals approximately $34. So theoretically, I can take an increase of about $34/month and that'll be breaking even between this place and a new one. An increase of more than $40/month, I'll move.

Wish me luck!

This and that

I've looked at two apartments so far and the two I've seen so far just convince me of the vast superiority of my current place (g). It's getting hot here and I'm just not ready for the summer heat this year. It could be because I can't see an end to Crazy RL until the end of July; if only this apartment situation would resolve itself! If it's not one thing, it's another. But then I remind myself of my blessings and it keeps me thankful and grateful for what I do have; all of these are just road bumps.

I wrote a lot of emails tonight, believe it or not. Mostly to people who probably have given up on me and don't ever expect to hear from me again. In all of the mess that has happened in the last few months, I sorely neglected many people -- either by email or telephone -- and I feel bad about it. Sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming trying to keep up and I'm amazed at how other people do it. I'm not going to promise to do better, because well, I know I should, but right now, I don't think I can make those kinds of promises. I'm just going to do it as I can and hope people understand.

And did I mention that it's hot here?

Tonight, I also installed the latest version of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware since my computer sorely needs to be cleaned. After running Ad-Aware, I discovered my computer is crazy infected with something called Wild Tangent. You can read more about that here. I haven't decided whether to delete the files or not yet, mostly because I either got it from AIM or Lemonade Tycoon. I could switch over to Trillian and Lemonade Tycoon is rather dull, so maybe it's no big loss. If any of you have any advice, please let me know.

Exit Strategy - How to leave Iraq in three simple steps. By George Saunders -- And now you know.

The Seattle Times: Local News: Why the Puget Sound area pays more at the pump -- This is good article on why gasoline prices fluctuate etc. Yes, it's geared for the Puget Sound area, but the philosophy/theory/causes are pretty much universal.

Miscellany updates

I've been using the Google toolbar at work to block pop-ups on that insidious piece of software called Internet Explorer, and along with allowing me to search google directly from the address line, it also allows me to blog any article that I see that I think is worth blogging. Which is kind of cool and convenient, because the old method required me to come to blogger, log-in, and then blog the article. I know, I know. In the old days, you had to write your own blog software.

I haven't been writing much lately and in an odd way, I'm not missing it. This is a completely weird feeling to have, just because I used to feel lost when I wasn't writing. Now I'm just in one of those long blah spells where the muse just won't cooperate and I have little to no story ideas and even less motivation to get the writing done. I was sad about it earlier, but now I realize it's wrong to force the muse. She'll come back when and if she wants to come back. So, yeah, no updates on writing projects any more -- the WiP list just stresses the muse out.

For Memorial Day, I plan to just laze around and, among other things, renegotiate my lease. If I can't get my lease renegotiated, most of Saturday will be spent trying to find a new place. I'm inclined to stay right where I am, but when my renewal letter arrived yesterday, they had raised my rent by $70. I did the math -- even with moving expenses (and I plan to use Move for Free), it'd be cheaper to find another place in the same neighborhood. So I'm going to call the complex this morning and ask them to reconsider -- I think they're more afraid of losing me as a tenant than I am to move.

BTW, the apartment people are very insidious also, with their renewal letters. I went at the beginning of the month to talk about renewal and they said they couldn't talk until I got my letter. So I waited and waited and yesterday, as I was leaving work, I told my boss that I was running out of time -- 60 days notice would have to be given this Sunday if I decided to move. Well, then I came home to find the letter stuck on my door. Which gives me less than a week to negotiate and see what else is available in the neighborhood. Part of the problem is, I was misled into thinking that my rent would be the same by the apartment people, so I didn't use this past weekend to go apartment shopping. Big mistake. They purposely, I think, did it that way so I'd be forced to pay the higher rent without knowing what else was going on in the market.

So this Saturday, I'll go and check out two or three places in the area and see what they're going for. It really comes down to how much the rent difference is between places. But I'm hopeful I can get these people to come down on the rent. This neighborhood is lousy with apartments and I know I can get a good deal just across the street. Wish me luck!

Yahoo! News - Vermont Named Among Most Endangered Places. I can attest to this as my hometown stores have pretty much gone out of business due to "category killer" type stores that have sprung up in the next town over. It was very sad to go into the neighborhood bookstore where I had shopped all of my life and seeing most of the shelves empty because the owner could no longer compete. As much as I appreciate "category killers" for their low prices, I also have a strong sense of nostalgia and feeling for the mom-and-pop shops that go out of business.

The sound of music

I took a break from being a Very Bad Lemonade Tycoon to go and work out for about an hour or so this afternoon. First thing, I have to say it's super-hot out and it doesn't help that our gym looks out on the pool. I'm just saying. Second thing, when I flipped on the television, I ended up on VH-1's 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Countdown. The show has that same tongue-in-cheek "I'm too clever for you" vibe that the "I Love the 80s" series had, but still it was faintly amusing. Some of the song commentary made me laugh, but other times, I was shocked that my taste in music tends towards the Awesomely Bad.

I do 'fess to liking very much "I'D Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)", "You're The Inspiration", "What's Up" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I'm just amazed though that they selected Lionel Ritchie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" as a bad song; "Hello" has to be much, much, much worse than that and the video was much, much creepier. And please, "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" is a worse song than "Achy Breaky Heart" and "Ice Ice Baby"? With "Ice Ice Baby" and "Hangin' Tough" (the original boy band, yo!), I was so back in middle school again. (I'm also surprised Kylie Minogue's "I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind" didn't make this countdown, not to mention Leanne Rimes' "Life Goes On", which includes the lyric: "You're still thinking you're the daddy mack." I rest my case).

And now, I'm contemplating the heat and whether I want to go out and get some food for the rest of the week. And you can be sure that I'll be playing some Awesomely Bad music as I bop around town; the only thing I'm missing is the big hair and the convertible.

The Apprentice

Tonight I spent much time playing Lemonade Tycoon and failing miserably. Yes, I might be an MBA, but I cannot sell lemonade to save my life. Wah! The first time around, I eventually had to declare bankruptcy because I didn't even have $1 to buy cups so I could sell more lemonade to get myself out of bankruptcy. In challenge mode, I started out with $250, but somehow within a few days, was scrapping rock bottom. You all laugh, but it's harder than you think it is! Really!

The thing about this game is that you have to get the recipe right to match not only the venue where you're selling (in my case, the suburbs), the weather, and set the price accordingly. I have yet to figure out the appropriate recipe -- I just know that what I'm using doesn't work and I sell between 5 to 15 cups a day. Which means I'm so not getting rich fast; the ten-year old down the street is doing better than me!

I will keep you appraised of the situation as time goes on. If you're interested in playing this game, downloads are available at Yahoo! and MSN; note the free version is only good for 60 minutes. After that, you need a serial code which will cost you $19.95. About the latter, email me -- I might be able to help you out (g).

Hee!

I got this from today's Dear Abby:

I'M NOT MARRIED BECAUSE:

(1) You haven't asked me yet.

(2) Because I just love hearing people ask me that question.

(3) My fiance is waiting until after the parole is granted.

(4) I'm still hoping for a shot at Mr. America.

(5) I already have enough laundry to do, thank you!

(6) I'm afraid my parents would drop dead from sheer happiness.

(7) What? And lose all the money I've invested in personal ads?

(8) I'm married to my career -- although recently we have been considering a trial separation.

(9) If I married, I'd have to forfeit my $10 million trust fund.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back from Denver and I'm seriously dead tired because dude, I walked like miles in two major international airports lugging around the World's Heaviest Laptop, as well as my backpack. And being the sado-masochist I am, I skipped all of those moving sidewalk thingies. Now I realize that those moving sidewalk things are the airport's way of tell passengers tactfully: Your Gate Is Very Far Away, You Idiot (tm).

Plus, y'know, it's the whole thing of sleeping in a strange bed. I was staying in a very nice hotel in Denver and at $139/night, it was very luxurious and comfortable. Even so, last night I tossed and turned and ended up watching an episode of "LA Law" at 3 in the morning. This was odd because Monday night I slept extremely well and was surprised that Tuesday night didn't go so well. And then, you know how this story ends -- I fell asleep, deeply, as a matter of fact -- and then there's the cheery wake-up call, complete with weather forecast.

Anyway, the whole conference went really well. I learned a lot, schmoozed a little bit -- or as much as I can possibly schmooze. One guy did ask me why I looked so miserable, and I managed to back out of it by saying I was contemplating. He didn't believe me, but he was friendly enough, turned out he does business with my company, so there was an easy schmooze there and business cards were exchanged. I wonder what's going to happen with all the cards I handed out; I'm wondering what I'll do with the ones I collected. When working for Very Big Insurance Company, all of my business cards went into "Win a Free Lunch!" baskets (I never did, but it wasn't for lack of trying!), so the fact that I was actually trying to use my cards for the purpose they were made for is actually rather... different.

Other things I should mention: The Denver Airport has bunny rabbits and also, there was a man, a chainsaw and a block of ice. You can draw your own conclusions. Me, I'm like a tired child who is very cranky and knows she should go to bed but is resisting every step of the way.

Fan the Vote

There's a community called Fan the Vote where fan artists/writers/betas are getting together to offer their services in exchange for a donation to the John Kerry campaign or MoveOn.org. Since I live in a state where my vote is pretty much moot, I have decided to let my pocketbook vote for me. So I've already made a contribution to the campaign and in return am receiving a story from a very talented writer.

I was thinking of offering my services as well, but wasn't sure I'd have to time to write anything, especially since my muse has pretty much keeled over from exhaustion and stress. But... I can never say no to a good cause. So if you are interested, I am offering the following:

* Editing services -- $1 per 100 words. So a 1000-word story beta means you'll donate $10 to either of the organizations above.

* LJ icons of your choice -- $1/icon

* Book cover for your story -- $10/bookcover

* One short story between 1,000 - 3,000 words in the following fandoms: any Trek except TOS, JAG, X-Files, X-Men, and Gladiator. Your choice of pairing, either slash or het. $10

Leave me a comment if you're interested. Please note, it's illegal for non-US residents to contribute. Also, I need all requests and donations made before June 30. You can read more about this cause here.

Have you voted today?

Spoilers ahead for tonight's American Idol, but first, a public service message. First, I agree that gasoline prices are crazy high, that they are at record levels. I know this. I see it at the pump and I watch the exchange every single day for 9 hours (and you thought your job lacked excitement?). I keep reading about price gouging etc, but let me assure you -- this is not the case. There are about a gazillion factors driving the crude oil market right now, but the main driver is 'fear', believe it or not. We can directly tie in price spikes to events in the Middle East -- it's crazy. Add to that OPEC curtailing production, ramping down of refineries for regulatory and profit reasons, and you've got record high crude prices.

And btw, the $40/barrel that they're talking about as being highest prices since 1990 is in absolute dollars, not 1990 dollars. To buy that same barrel of oil today would be about $64, not $40, if you consider an annualized period of 14 years and an inflation of about 3.5 percent. So that $40/barrel of oil is still cheaper today than it was in 1990. Just something to think about. Also, that you probably still pay more per gallon of water/milk/juice than you do for gasoline.

And now, spoilers for American Idol ahead.

This is where you turn back if you don't want to know. With only 15 minutes left in the West Coast edition of the show, I'm not going to 'white out' the spoilers. So go! Go away now if you don't want to know what happened.

But can I just say, that while I enjoyed Jasmine's voice, how can they keep her over LaToya London? How does this happen? It's like John Stevens redux. Boot Jennifer, keep John. And Jasmine! Jasmine looked as if she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She's got another week, but God, did she really deserve another week? I honestly didn't think she was that bad on Tuesday night and did not deserve a skewering from the judges, but LaToya... oh LaToya was my favorite! The one I wanted to win! So now that means I've got to give my support to Diana DeGarmo because Fantasia? Uh-uh.

I'm getting way too invested in reality television.

Have you voted for Shii-Ann/Rudy/Richard yet? (see here -- "Excercise your right to vote"; my permalinks are still messed up and I haven't figured out how to fix them. Grrr....). Go vote! Even if you don't know what I'm talking about, go vote! Now! Seriously! Don't make me come over there!

Oooh, shiny!

There are lots of new features at blogger now, but I'm not taking advantage of any of them. Usually I love jumping on the new tech wagon, but I'm not sure I like the way the new commenting system is set up, especially since you can't really customize the look and feel of them like you can with YACCS. The new templates are really tempting, but I don't like the fact that they have little profile sections and I'm not sure I want a profile. It might mean the reintroduction of the Scary!Purple!Seema -- if you don't know what I'm taking about, it's probably for the best.

This is my 1,186th blogger post. I'm such a navel gazer. I'm going to have to come up with something interesting for the 1,200th post. Suggestions are welcome.

Excercise your right to vote

I hereby petition all of you who read this blog to go vote for Rudy/Shii-Ann/Richard for "America's Tribal Council". While undoubtedly Rupert is going to walk away with the $1 million, let's at least make it somewhat suspenseful. Plus, Richard and Shii-Ann were totally non-bitter and kicked butt at Sunday's Tribal Council and Rudy is 70 years old. Seventy years old! I think gumption should count for as much as grunting, don't you?

Boob Tube

The one thing about watching "Survivor: All Stars" tonight is that along with all the filler material, I got to watch the same promos and commercials over and over again. Thankfully I missed a bunch as I muted the television to talk on the phone first with Sheetal, and then my mom, but the last hour was simply nails on the chalkboard awful with all of the promos and commercials. Oh the lack of variety! Oh the reptition of it all! You have missed the ad for Navy NCIS and whoa, the CSI event of the season, so let's play it again!

So help me God, if I never ever see that promo for "Helter Skelter" again, it'll be too soon -- movie event of the season, my left foot; as if a ghoul like Charles Manson really needs any kind of screen time. And much as I love Dick Van Dyke and am absolutely thrilled that there'll be a 'new' episode on Tuesday, I honestly needed to be told only once or twice. By the 25th time, I was dying. And then the local news was going insane over some shot that will help you lose weight -- "Stay tuned for video at 10!" -- and of course the awful problems the new tollway caused over the weekend; you can always count on our local news to bring the doom and gloom!

However, I did realize that life does not end for Star Trek actors when their ship sails off into the wormhole of syndication. Patrick Stewart has found himself second life doing voice-over for Crestor, that's Kate Mulgrew pushing Plymouth Voyager, and yup, Terry Farrell is talking about Medicare. It's hard to miss those voices on the 80 millionth reiteration during a 45-minute time period.

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Blogger's got a new look, whee! I looked at the shiny new templates and I'm so tempted, so very tempted! And comments! From Blogger! I'm contemplating switching over from YACCS, which has provided the commenting service for the last few years. I'm very loyal so it'll be tough to make the switch. So for now, I'm sticking with YACCS, but I like the idea Blogger will email the comments to you, which YACCS doesn't do. Stay tuned for further updates on this very important issue.

How much do you love your toast? This much?

Linkage

Here's an IQ test for you: IQ Tests. Just a little bit of fun to lighten up your day. Don't be fooled by the credit card screen that comes up after you press submit -- if you provided a valid email address, your IQ score will be emailed to you and you can just go elsewhere after clicking submit. Have fun!

This moment brought to you by Eyemasters

So due to the massive storms we had over the weekend, my apartment got very, very clean. BTW, it got clean because I was stuck at home most of Saturday because it was too dangerous/scary/freaky to go outside and I got bored and cleaned the place silly. It doesn't even look like my place it's so dang clean. But I cleaned to the extent that this morning I stumbled out of bed and could not find my glasses, as they had been moved -- inadvertantly -- from their usual resting place to somewhere mysterious to me during my mad cleaning frenzy.

My morning routine consists of the alarm going off (Sarah Brightman's "Harem Tour" CD) and I listen to the first three songs ("Kama Sutra", "Join Me" and "Imagination"). Then I literally roll out of bed (ouch!) and stumble into the kitchen where I put the kettle on. And then it's into the bathroom to brush my teeth and that's when I locate my glasses and put them on. And then, back to make the coffee.

Well, this morning, I stumbled around in a fuzzy haze, checking every possible location for my glasses. Now, I'm not terribly near-sighted. I can actually function quite well without any kind of corrective lense in the sense I can discern objects and have a vague idea of what they are. I can even read without glasses, no problem. However, I need glasses for driving as I'm unable to read street signs without and I also have a serious lack of depth perception and occasionally, I am unable to make out separate shapes if they are all jumbled up together. But. I digress.

So I'm running around looking for my glasses and time is running out. I haven't had my coffee, haven't eaten my bowl of Cheerios, or gotten dressed. After running over in my mind where my glasses must be, I decided that the most likely location was in the drawer in the bathroom. I kept opening the drawer and didn't see any glasses. I took some objects out -- box of Q-Tips, lotion, the occasional bottle of perfume, a wide assortment of lipsticks -- and peered in more closely, but still, nothing and by then, I was having a full-scale Seema Panic Attack (tm) (don't try this at home, kids!). Did I accidentally throw my glasses out in my feverish attempt to rid myself of the piles of paper I've accumulated since August?

Finally, in exasperation, I put my contacts in and armed with my mug of coffee, I continued the search. Only to find the glasses in the drawer, exactly where I had assumed they would be. (sigh). They were actually on top of my small jewelry box and without corrective lenses, I was unable to discern the shiny frames from the piles of necklaces and other assorted pretty objects.

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In other news, I saw "Finding Nemo" yesterday. What a totally adorable and sweet movie! I love it! Ellen DeGeneres as Dory is a hoot. I recommend this movie to everyone and anyone. Very cute.

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Also, to clarify in my below post, there is absolutely nothing wrong in using the first person POV -- I use it myself quite often and enjoy writing it, however, there are certain situations where another POV is probably better utilized. In the end, it really does come down to what works for the story and there are no hard-fast rules for writing, despite what people say and you'll never find two people who totally agree on anything.

In my muddled-headed way, what I was trying to say is that the following example isn't well-served by a first person POV:

The blood rushes out of my nose and I feel the world going dark. I smile one last time and then there is indeed darkness.

The narrator is dead. There is no one left to tell the story. First POV narrative would require the story to either end before the narrator died, or have someone else tell the story. Hopefully, using an example -- completely fictitious and made-up on the spur of the moment -- will clarify what I was trying to point out. As always, take anything I say with the proverbial grain of salt.

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Also, this column is a good example of why I heart Ellen Goodman so much.

On writing

I was going to write up a post on self-editing and my great big epiphany last week that was mostly jemima's fault, but that I have yet to share with her or any of you. However, given the lateness of the hour and the relatively fluffiness of my brain that ensues as the clock approaches bedtime, I will instead discuss death and POV. There are two things I bet you never expected in the same sentence, huh?

Today I read an X-Files story where there was a lot of dying. When I say a lot of dying, I mean a lot. My issues with all of the dying and angst will probably fill another blog entry, but I mostly took issue with the perspective of one of the parts of the story. This was another one of those pieces where the POV changes from part to part; first it's Mulder's 3rd person narration, followed by Scully, then Skinner, and whoa, now we have Mulder's first person narration in the form of a journal, and so on so forth.

My issue is with first person narrative. There are some very good reasons to use first person. For instance, you can get inside of the head of the main character, look at things from his/her perspective, describe feelings and settings from one consistent POV. Some people think first person POV is relatively easier than the others to write because iit is possible to write the character from within rather than without. I don't have a firm opinion on what POV people should use in their stories -- whatever works best for the story you're telling and for the character who is telling that story, that's what I would recommend.

The only exception is if there is character death and the character dying is the first person narrator. If the character is telling the story from a retrospective, then okay, that'll probably work. But having the first person POV actively telling of the death of the narrator? That doesn't work so well. First of all, if the narrator is in the act of dying, who is telling the story? How in the very short time preceeding realization of death does the narrator manage to squeeze out all of his/hir story and then still have time and clarity of mind to talk about it while dying?

As with most things writing-wise, this is my personal opinion and I honestly don't think there's a wrong way or a right way to write anything, but some ways make more sense than others. If your main character is going to die at the end of the story, I would suggest a third person narrator or a telling "in retrospect."

Write in it

I'm still in serious disbelief over Virginia, but it's past my bedtime and I'm not sure I have anything coherent to say about that subject except I'm glad I don't live in Virginia (not that I live somewhere much better on the tolerance scale), and I've always been proud to hail from Vermont, home of civil unions.

Today's regularly scheduled blog entry is about writing, mostly because I realized that I'll find out tomorrow the results of a contest I entered back in February. I don't have high hopes at all because the story was mediocre at best, the writing fairly juvenile (compared to my style now), and the plot very weak; only Rocky's last minute suggestions made it a somewhat decent entry.

However, I'm now facing a June 15 deadline for another magazine. This one is called "Cafe Irreality" and it's dedicated to surreal fiction. I'm a huge fan of surreal fiction, ever since the summer I spent in Amherst reading nothing but South American writers and International Sudden Fiction (btw, I highly recommend the anthology to all of you -- it's a gorgeous collection of styles, voices, gimmicks, and the art of telling the very very short story. It's one of my all-time favorite books). So, back to the subject of surreal fiction. I always think this genre as the type of stories that would emerge if Dali used words, not paint. I have two stories already written and in need of editing and some revising, and I should make the June 15 deadline fairly easily.

Following on the steps of the June 15 deadline comes the October 1 deadline for SNW. Yes, I plan to enter SNW this year and I have a few ideas in mind. Only one, however, is completely formulated -- the other two are just a scene or two and I'm having a hard time spinning plot, conflict and resolution into 7,500 words. Still, the opportunity is too good to pass up and so I've decided to discipline myself and actually plan out two of the ideas I have and see what happens. Usually, the way I write is pure Napolean's Battle Plan: "We show up and then we see what happens." (Astute readers will recognize this line from one of my favorite "Sports Night" episodes and if you read that transcript -- and you really should -- the second part is my absolute favorite ep.). I'm curious to see if my stories turn out better if I inject organization and thought into them before the fact, rather than the whole "let's throw some ideas and words at the screen and see if something sticks!"

Yes, I'm horrified by my writing process as well.

I'm contemplating finding an other contest that will fit in nicely between the June 15 and October 1 deadlines. My goal is to enter at least four contests this year. That may not seem like a lot, but writing is not this thing you can do just by thinking you want to do it. It takes time, thought, and effort, and there's a lot of frustration to it. You have to think about character, about setting, plot, conflict, resolution, and even if you've got all of that, the muse may not cooperate. Or perhaps you write the whole thing and realize it just doesn't work and you have no idea why. Sometimes I push through that block and other times, I just let it go. So that's where I am right now -- I need one more publication to submit to before the end of the year in order to meet my resolution. If I can get 5 in, that'll be great.

And, on that note, good night all, good night moon.

Some links

Virginia has just passed a law that severely restricts the rights of homosexuals, come July, and it really makes me sick. There's more about the bill here and here. More indignation later.

Suffer the children

Link of the Day: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

So I was reading this article about homosexual marriage (link courtesy of jemima), and it occurred to me, from the POV of this article, that marriage is all about the children. In which case, if you do not plan to have children or cannot have children, you shouldn't be able to get married at all; a signed contract to reproduce ought to be a requirement before one marches up to the altar and swear eternal devotion to someone of the opposite sex who obviously shares this intense desire to also reproduce. Adding paperwork to the bureacracy of marriage should not be too difficult. After all, the desire for spawnlings is a powerful and intrinsic motivation -- who wants to be the dead end on the human family tree anyway?

One size doesn't fit all

Yesterday I went to IKEA to buy a few plant stands for my plants which are currently living on my dining room table and would like a home of their own -- not to mention, I'd like my table back. I never did find the plant stands, but I did find a nice ironing board with a green and white plaid cover that I liked. I need an ironing board because I used to use my dining room table for ironing purposes, but now that my plants living on my table, something had to change. So, I got the ironing board.

I got the ironing board to fit into my car after a brief struggle. Mind you, it was pouring out -- have I mentioned this is the soggiest city on the planet? And so anyway, I got the ironing board in, and drove blithely on with the rest of my day. The interesting thing happened when I got home and 'undressed' the ironing board; I was briefly motivated to iron last night and so I hauled out the two loads of laundry I'd done on Saturday, stared at it, and then at the unassembled ironing board. Finally, I set up the board (after about 20 minutes of contemplating and watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". I love me my reality television). And that's when I realized...

IKEA designs its products for tall, Swedish people.

No, the ironing board is not hip level, or waist level, but comes somewhere up against my chest! Woe! As someone built low to the ground, I will need an apple crate a la Gillian Anderson to use the board. I suppose if you're a tall, Swedish person, it'd be the right height, but me not being a tall, Swedish person, it's very high and possibly may cause me injury since I'm no good at the ironing thing. In a way now, I'm glad I didn't get the plant stands -- what if those too were made for tall, Swedish people? And then I couldn't reach to water my plants?

I do have to say, in my defense of not being a tall Swedish person, I'm just the right height -- my legs do reach all the way to the ground. Eh, when I'm standing. Not sitting. So, if any of you have an apple crate you're willing to get rid of, please send to me, thankyouverymuch.

And no, I didn't actually end up ironing yesterday, though I did fold laundry. One thing at time, folks, one thing at a time.

Miscellany

My RSS feed is broken and I don't know how to fix it, wah! In the meantime, this is a great opportunity try out the atom feed, which is apparently working.

Yo, you can go

Photographer fired over pictures of American-flag draped coffins. My question is, why the photographer? Why not take action against the Times which actually published the photos? Or is that coming later? but I'm not unsympathetic to the Pentagon's POV on this (though, I don't think you can get more anonymous than flag-draped coffins).

Second, my writing idol, Ellen Goodman comes through with this column on Bush's recent press conference.

This is all for today, but I'm sure I can summon up more righteous indignation later on this weekend.

Real Life

Those of you who know me, know that I suffer from an incurable addiction to reality television. There are very few reality shows I don't like; well, that "Gay or Not" show was just stupid and the second "Joe Millionaire" was a trainwreck at best. Oh, and I wasn't thrilled by "Hot or Not" or "I'm a Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!" and I think "Big Brother" is akin to watching paint dry.

That being said, on the reality shows I do like -- "Survivor," "The Apprentice," "Fear Factor" -- I like the real life drama that comes out of being put into an unnatural situation and I'm fascinated by the way people act even when they know that their every move is being watched and taped. I mean, Omarosa on "The Apprentice" and Trish on "The Bachelor", for instance -- have they absolutely no shame? Did they lose all sense of reason and dignity the minute they were cast? For heaven's sakes...

But. My rant is about neither of those shows, but rather about "American Idol." For God's sake, what are the voters on? Seeing as how that episode hasn't aired on the West Coast yet, I'll try to keep my righteous indignation to a low roar, but for God's sake, this is a talent competition, people! A talent competition! But then again, since we're not especially capable of managing to elect a president without help from the Supreme Court, why should it be any different on "American Idol"? If this keeps up, I may have to start watching "Enterprise" instead. "Enterprise"! What does that tell you about my current level of digust?

Calm, calm, calm.

Bjorn pointed me to this link about Princess Diana and being a few hours ahead of him, I was already aware of the special "48 Hours Investigates" and while I'm a fan of English royalty, I chose to skip this programme tonight for a pure and simple reason: the woman is dead, let her rest in peace.

Also, I've signed up for a gmail account. It's not like I really need another account, but my seemag1@yahoo.com account has been overrun by spam and it might be nice to start moving my internet activities to another account. We'll see. It's mostly that I saw that it was shiny and I hit "Sign me up!" I'm so easy sometimes.

On Iraq

Liz Logan provided me with a site that tells just how much that war in Iraq is costing you, the American taxpayers. I'd say international here, but who are we fooling? It's not really an 'international' coalition, no matter how much the current administration wants to paint it that way; one figure I found shows the American presence to be around 140,000 troops, with other nations contributing 23,000 soldiers. (Other figures estimate the Americans at 135,000). The Spanish troops number around 1,500. That's less than one percent. The Hondurans, God bless them, are even less than that at 350; but one could argue that at least they showed up to contribute and see what happened -- now they are going home.

Regardless of the monetary cost or the number of troops each country has contributed to the occupation, the human cost is way too high for what we are accomplishing over there and because of that, I can say that the loss of life is senseless. I point to the Madrid bombings last month and the subsequent withdrawal of the Spanish from Iraq as a prime example. Two hundred people died on March 11 in Madrid in what is probably the work of Al-Qaeda and in response to Spain's staunch support of the Americans in Iraq. By withdrawing now, Spain has shown terrorists that yes, terrorism does work. The time for Spain to withdraw was months ago, before March 11, when the pulse of the population was against the war.

A country cannot give way to the murderers of 200 people, and if anything, Spain should have been more resolute to stay. I'm saying this with a grain of salt -- I never believed Iraq was a prime breeding ground for Al-Qaeda prior to the war compared to other countries (Hello, Saudi Arabia!), but I certainly believe it is now. If this international war on terrorism is to be won, it requires devotion and dedication from all parties involved; giving in to the terrorists means now means Al-Qaeda has won one more battle; let's hope they don't win the war.

You can now add the 200 dead in Madrid to the list of war casualities, as well as Iraqi civillians, at least one hostage, and of course, our brave coalition troops -- bless all of them, whatever country they come from.

Places to go, things to see

Two quick links:

Peep Research. Witness the amazing contribution these little creatures have made to modern science.

Pity the poor Nigerian astronaut. Won't you please bring him home? Link courtesy of Bjorn who recognizes my weakness for the poor, poor Nigerians.

Everyone's a blogger these days

The thing about blogging is that you have to come up with something new and original and interesting to blog about. This is a lot harder than one might think. And as you might have guessed -- and those of you who know me in RL know for sure -- I have a hard time staying on any one subject for any length of time. So I'm sure there are people who stop by and find a topic here of interest and then are forced to flee when they realize I'm back to the shallow, superficial type stuff.

There are a lot of things on my mind and most of them could probably find a home here, but I have to weigh what I'm thinking or feelings against other considerations. First of all, I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog. A few of you leave comments regularly or are RL people; the RL people already know the important stuff and the same goes for the longtime virtual friends. So I leave most of the private stuff out. You're not going to find too much incriminating stuff here. Exploding eggs and chair building stories, yes, but nothing more racy than that.

Actually, I'm quite boring. Exploding eggs is really as good as it gets.

I've realized that one should never post work-related stuff in a public forum. The Internet isn't as anonymous as you might think it. You never know who is passing by. So, only in the vaguest terms will you find work-related stuff here.

I try to avoid politics. Some of you who stop by are of different political persuasions and it's all good. I really don't want to inadvertantly insult someone and I'm also not that interested in having a political debate. I have my beliefs, other people have theirs, and I respect that. Every now and then though, I reserve the right to bash the politician of my choice.

Which leaves me with links. Linking is always safe because you can always come up with something interesting that people will like and it's amazing how much free time some people have on their hands (or wish they had something to do with their spare time). And in the spirit of going with the link, this one is for Bjorn, who has recently discovered "Sports Night." Go forth and enjoy.

Who comes a knockin'?

I was going through my site stats today. Those of you who have go through stats regularly know just how scary this can be. There's the "Whee! People are visiting!" euphoria, quickly followed by the "Oh no! People are visiting!" panic attack. I've pretty much out-grown the latter and just hope no one leaves here with bleeding eyeballs. However, I do wonder where some people come from and how disappointed they must be when they end up here.

For some reason, Paris Hilton keeps showing up in my site stats. In fact, several Paris Hilton sites show up as referrers. If you're here for the Paris Hilton tape, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Nothing to see here regarding Paris, unless you want my rant on how a completely spoiled, self-involved woman can suddenly become, well, someone worthy of attention, despite having done absolutely nothing; that's America for you, people!

On that same token, no nude celebrities here either. Honestly. The only images on this site are the book covers I've painstakingly made in Photoshop. No one in any of those pictures is nude and no, I'm not going to Photoshop heads to bodies thankyouverymuch. So, those of you looking for nude Paris Hilton? Again. Wrong place. (Though the question begs to be asked, why? Actually, don't answer that. This is a family blog).

Those of you coming here from Al Sharpton's website, I wish your man good luck in his campaign, if indeed he's still campaigning and actually, until all of you started coming here, I didn't know Al Sharpton was running for president. Sorry, sorry. I get a wee bit muddled with all the inexplicable John Kerry adoration. Speaking of the plastic man, those of you finding your way here from Kerry's campaign site, are not going to find much in the way of props for your man here either. I'm one of those "Anyone but Bush" people and I live in a state that's pretty much "Everyone for Bush," so don't expect any political activism here.

Those of you who came here look for content about Australia? Again, I must apologize. I have no idea how I got listed on an Oz site. I've never been to Australia, but I do know Miss Barr and ChristineCGB (links on the sidebar) and so if you want to know more about the land down under, I suggest you talk to one of them. I'll probably just feed you stereotypical stories about wombats and coral reefs and poisonous snakes. Or something.

However, if you are here from the No War site, you've come to the right place.

These things remind me of you

I was poking around an Amazon.com gift list today in search of a gift for a particular individual who shall remain nameless. Gift lists are great -- you don't have to think about what a person might want because they're telling you what they want, and then all you have to do is click a button and voila, it's done. What could have been a mind-wracking ordeal is over in a matter of minutes. And I admit, I use registries a lot -- find them oh so convenient, especially if I have to ship a gift for a wedding or an anniversary; it saves me time and effort to get online, pull up a registry, and the only energy expended are mouse clicks.

But -- you did know a 'but' was coming, didn't you? -- I also find the idea of a registry awfully materialistic; in the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that I also have an Amazon wishlist myself. I made it a few years back, judging by some of the dates on the items I selected -- obviously done while I was going through a short-lived Eleanor of Aquitaine phase (I found her annoying after a while and could sympathesize with poor Henry who finally locked her away) -- and then promptly forgot about the darn thing until recently. So now that that hypocritical note is out of the way, I feel more prepared to talk about registries.

Recently, my parents received two wedding invitations. One included four cards -- four! -- to the various stores where the bride and groom were registered. The second kindly asked that guests not bring any gifts at all. While I appreciate gift-giving as a traditional part of a wedding, a way of getting a couple started in their lives, these days it's not as important, at least not in my experience. People are getting married later, they have jobs, they accumulate stuff, they live together, etc. As a result, a lot of registries are filled with the more extravagant "wants" rather than the more basic needs.

More and more, I'm turning into an anti-registry person. Why? Because it feels like an obligation, that some events exist solely for the purpose of bestowing gifts and in some cases, the recipients are more excited about the gifts than the fact you attended their special event (this actually happened to me and because it had been a financial burden to make the trip to attend, it was a wee bit hurtful as well). You're no longer giving gifts to the new mother because you want to but because she is registered at Babies R Us and so the expectation is written in black and white. Granted, registering makes it easy when you want to give a gift and I'm guessing that for most big events, we really do want to give something as a token of the celebration, and hell, why not request it?

But back to my original bottomline: I think it was so very cool of that couple to request no gifts on their wedding invitations. I think it was cool and classy and it showed they were inviting you, not because they wanted your gifts, but they wanted you. Compare that to someone who enclosed four registry cards in her invitation.

Gets you where it hurts

Here's an article on the spiraling cost of textbooks. I think $900 is about right for texts, and it's wonderful when you get $200 of that back; I actually did okay by selling many of mine on Amazon.com and a few that I couldn't, I donated to textbook programs going to schools in Africa.

Speaking of Africa, since our media does not seem to want do its job, I wanted to alert you to the current situation in the Sudan. Given that this is the ten year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, what's going on in Sudan would be a perfect opportunity for the world community to prove that it has changed and it is commited to making a difference and saving lives.

However, this doesn't seem to be the case and all we have is a lukewarm statement from the President, in which he condemns the atrocities, but once again, does not call it genocide à la Clinton, nor does he promise military help. The situation is serious and warrants being taken seriously, yet it seems the world powers have once again forgotten their vow of "never again."

Internet sweet internet

My connectivity problems have finally been solved, after driving me batty for the last month or so. Of course this means my collection of emails etc is, well, staggeringly large, especially those in the Yahoo! account, because most of the timeouts happened -- you guessed it -- in Yahoo (and also the local library).

So, am a little behind but I hope to catch up slowly over the next few days. It doesn't help we've been down a person at work so I've been busier than usual.

Google bomb

I wasn't planning on blogging today out of respect for what happened in Rwanda, but I discovered that the word Jew had been google bombed to what can only be described as a 'hate' site. I can't think of a more appropriate topic to blog about on this day than who is a Jew and point people in the right direction to learn about Jews. Whoever set up this google-bomb has a sick sense of humor and if you blog/LJ, please do what you can to make sure that the google-bomb about Jews is pointing elsewhere. We should have absolutely no patience for this kind of thing.

And just for good measure, Jew and Jews. Take that, google bomb!

The April that would not end

After blogging about shameful consumerism, it feels shallow, almost disrespectful to address something on the opposite side of the spectrum: the shameful neglect of the genocide in Rwanda. The ten-year anniversary of that particular holocaust is upon us and it's probably a good time to ask how the world could so ignore the slaughter of thousands in just a matter of days? In case you want some statistics, that's 800,000 people in 100 days, 250,000 people in Kigali alone. This was a planned and determined extermination by the interim government in order to remove opposition. Rwanda is such a clear case of genocide, and still no one did anything, despite that in 1945, after the fall of Germany, so many said, "Never again."

You can talk about Iraqis needing saving all day long, but that's just changing the fundamental reason for a war we never needed. When you put something under the title of humanitarian, it becomes much more palatable and justifiable. We're in Iraq because Saddam was a bad bad leader and he killed lots of people and looky at us, we're liberating them. And yet when the government of Rwanda did the same thing -- in plain sight of the world -- no nation of the world felt particularly humanitarian enough to say, "Whoa, let's go do something about that." It makes you wonder how the political process determines who we will save, who we will help, and whom we will leave alone. We all agree that there is value in life, that we value all life, yet it becomes increasingly apparent that some lives are worth more than others, hence, more worthy of saving than others. It's how that calculation is made that disturbs me. If saving Iraqis from the brutal regime of Saddam is the main and only consideration (currently as there are no WMDs) of the war there, then surely the Clinton administration should have applied that same line of thinking to Rwanda.

An excerpt from HRW's Leave None to Tell Their Story:

U.N. troops, in Rwanda under the terms of the peace accords, tried for a few hours to keep the peace, then withdrew to their posts—as ordered by superiors in New York—leaving the local population at the mercy of assailants. Officers opposed to Bagosora realized that a continuing foreign presence was essential to restricting the killing campaign and appealed to representatives of France, Belgium and the U.S. not to desert Rwanda. But, suspecting the kind of horrors to come, the foreigners had already packed their bags. An experienced and well-equipped force of French, Belgian, and Italian troops rushed in to evacuate the foreigners, and then departed. U.S. Marines dispatched to the area stopped in neighboring Burundi once it was clear that U.S.citizens would be evacuated without their help. The first impression of international indifference to the fate of Rwandans was confirmed soon after, when the Belgians began arranging for the withdrawal of their troops from the U.N. peacekeeping force. Ten of these soldiers, a contingent different from those of the evacuation expedition, had been slain and, as the organizers of the violence had anticipated, the Belgian government did not want to risk any further casualities.

You can read more about what happened in Rwanda in April of 1994 here. There will be a moment of silence at noon tomorrow in rememberance of the Rwandan slaughter.

In which much money is spent

Today, V and I demonstrated our mastery of the capitalist system and excercised our right to go shopping as if all of the stores on the planet were going to be sucked into outerspace tomorrow. We basically hit a Very Large Mall With Many Outlet Stores and went to town. People, we had an action plan. How scary freaky is that?

The last time I went shopping, I came home with outfits in red, black and white. This time, my shopping involved pretty pastels, including pink and baby blue. I was getting all excited about the girly girl pink and I even was persuaded to try on a gentle yellow sweater, but ended up not getting that. My haul, for those of you who care about the nitty gritty details, was: one pair of low-rider khakis, one baby blue cable knit sweater, one baby blue stretch button down shirt, one pink sweater, two tank tops (one beige, the other red) and one pair of yoga pants (the new term for sweat pants). V's haul was much greater than mine and I was in awe.

We had so many bags at one point we were falling all over ourselves. Add V's large diet Coke and two handbags and we could barely keep things from falling out of our arms. Finally, we figured out the magic of organizing ourselves and putting bags inside of bags (V actually tossed one of hers out) and that made it a little less crazy.

All in all, a very good day. It's nice to have some color in my wardrobe, and we both agreed that we don't have to go visit the temple of capitalism again until the fall. Whew! To be honest, I really, really don't like shopping, but with good company and comfortable shoes, it can be bearable.

Squee!

My school just went way way way up in the US World & News ranking. Which is even cooler when you realize that the ranking is based on my graduating class. In other words, we rocked. When it comes to the MBA, the higher the ranking, the oh so better the results you get for your MBA. And even better, we're tied with the Big University to the West! Whoop!

::happy dance::

Music

I've finally changed the CD in my alarm clock. After weeks and weeks of Lorenna McKennit, I switched over to Sarah Brightman's "Harem Tour" CD, courtesy of T'Other Logan. I have very specific requirements for the type of music I like to wake up to, thanks in part to a rude, rude awakening to Tejano. Tejano is the kind of music you think, "Wow, accordians! Peppy!" and then you switch the station really quickly. (I'd go about radio DJs too, but I'm running out of time).

Like I said, Liz sent me Harem Tour. I'd heard rumors at the concert that there was a special CD available for sale, but never quite chased them down. Plus, I was pretty sure this tour CD would end up being another Classics disappointment. Luckily for me, Liz and her friend are more devoted fans than I and so I got my hot little hands on the CD, with All!New!Songs with the exception of A Question of Honour, which has been around for absolutely forever. So far, My Imagination is my favorite; it's got that pop, light-hearted sound I enjoyed so much about Dive.

In fact, as I was telling Liz, Sarah's sound is very different on this CD. You can tell it was recorded quite some time ago, because several of the songs also have an Eden vibe to them. Plus, her voice sounds a lot less, I don't know how to put this, but pure? Maybe untrained? Harem is a good CD, but she sounds a lot more affected than ever before. I think this tour CD captures Old!Sarah perfectly and while there are some things that just get better with time, nostalgia also can be meaningful.

****

Don't you hate mystery books when about 100 pages from the end you figure out whodunit? Gah. I still stayed up until about 12:30 last night to finish off the book. It was Steve Martini's The Arraignment, and no, I don't recommend it; the suspension of disbelief was almost too much to take, not to mention the whole crazy mystery and obviousness of the suspect. Martini is the type of anvil-dropping author, which these days makes me absolutely nuts. He's so fond of writing something and then telling the reader what it means. For example, Martini will write an exchange very similar to the following:

"It is raining," Harry tells me. He's talking about the weather.

Read 300 pages of that and it'll slowly drive you insane. And I'm probably not one to criticize the first-person/present tense method of writing, but Martini is not particularly good at that either. He overuses the phrase "tells me" or "tells him" and I think, to make his thrillers more literary in value, he adds tons and tons of metaphors and similes. Add on top of that, his OC Paul Madriani is a self-righteous, smug Mary Sue who is absolutely insufferable. It's never a good sign when the reader is rooting for the hero of the novel to be dropped off the edge of a Mayan pyramid.

Next up is Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake."

Google is hiring!

Check out the opportunity of a lifetime here.

And here's a link especially for T'Other Liz, but others might get a kick out of it too.

Campaign 2004

I got this from a co-worker, and thought it was way too funny not to blog. What, you were expecting Henry VIII? Consider this the gratuitious political post of the month.

2004 GOP Bumper Stickers

Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
BU_ _SH_ _!
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough
Bush/Cheney '04: Apocalypse Now!
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a time
Bush/Cheney '04: Or else.
Bush/Cheney '04: The economy's stupid!
Bush/Cheney "04: The Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: It takes a village idiot
George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There>
Bush/Cheney '04: God Save the King!
Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude"
Vote Bush in '04: Because dictatorship is easier
Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer!
Vote for Bush & You Get Dick!
Bush/Cheney '04: WWJB: Who Would Jesus Bomb?

If you have read this far, under Section 17 H(2)a.3 of the Patriot Act, you are under arrest

All good intentions

I meant to blog tonight about Henry but I kind of lost track of time between making pizza dough for tomorrow night's dinner and playing Civilization. I only meant to play Civilization for a couple of years -- I'd started the game yesterday and retired after about 30 minutes, so I didn't think I'd be enthralled today. Ah, but that was before I discovered the power of the right click button! And oooh, I finally figured out how to do the espionage thingy! And I have a culture overflowing with... well, culture. I kept playing thinking, "I can stop anytime." Well, no, no I can't. You'd think after a decade of playing this game I would know better. My delusions and I will be sitting right over here doin' just fine.

So no Henry VIII for you people tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

I still have my cold, but it's now a liveable cold rather than "I'm going to die" cold. Just so you know, OTC drugs are wonderful, wonderful things.

Just passing through

I've got the cold (or something) from hell. A bowling ball sized lump settled in my throat and chest last Sunday and stubbornly refuses to leave.

Two things: here's a a study on how too much sleep is not a good thing and second, results from the World Figure Skating Championships.

In the next few days, I shall have my thoughts for you on "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George. Yes, my time with Henry has finally come to an end and on a day when I'm feeling less tepid, I will let you know what I thought about this particular novel.

Nothing to see here, folks

Literally. Nothing. Reminds me of a skit I did once when I was in middle school where I played a librarian. My entire part consisted of walking out on to the bare stage, standing in front of the audience and then shushing them and walking off. That was the entire skit. Call it a one-woman show. Seema the Librarian!

At any rate, what I'm saying is, I'm offline for the next few days. Enjoy your weekends, be safe, and I hope to have fun and clever things to report to you.

Philosophy. Maybe

So there is an article or two about why people blog. It's all fascinating stuff, but it's all about the journalism, baby, it's not about the people. In B-School, they taught us to come up with a mission statement, something that defines who you are. For instance, part of the mission statement for Very Big Insurance Company included the word's "to be the first and best choice for the customer."

I surely don't intend to be your first and best choice because God knows, there are 80 million screaming blogs out there on the Internet and I'm amazed that you found me and that you stick around to read. So I thought, intead of having a journalist tell you why I blog, I'm going to put some of that B-School knowledge to work and tell you myself.

I blog because about two and a half years ago, my brother sent me an email that said, "Blogger. You should do this." And when it comes to tech stuff, I usually listen to him. So I got the blog and then it was like, "Oooh, scary, what do I say?" Just for the record, this whole blogging thing is pretty darn scary becuase you start out with the theory that no one is reading and it's all fun and games until when you look at site stats and realize "Ohmygodpeoplearereadingme!"

But I digress (I do that a lot).

It took a while to figure out why I blog and what I blog has a lot to do with the why. Over the 2 1/2 years I've had this blog, I've meandered through my day, reviewed books, gone off on televisions shows, occasionally lambasted politicians (This blog is a W-free zone!) and whinged about Stuff (tm). But that's an inherent lack of focus. So starting from today, I'm going to run this blog like a corporation, with a mission statement and everything. The action plan comes later, but the mission statement is first and foremost the most important (after the logo, of course; nothing succeeds without a cool logo. And oh yes, a catchy slogan rocks too. But. I digress).

In a nutshell, I like to laugh. I like to see the ridiculous and I prefer the ridiculous over the serious. If an egg explodes in my face, yeah it sucks, but when I take a step back, I realize it's damn funny. There is humor in everything and I use my blog to try and take myself -- and life -- less seriously. If there is something I cannot poke fun at, chances are I'm not going to blog it here. I don't want to whine and I don't want to complain. That's not what the blog is for -- navel gazing, yes, but a pity party, no.

So that's what this blog is really here for. I like the funny and I want to bring the funny. I'll try to keep the politics and intelligent stuff to a minimum. That's right, this is the shallow!blog. For the most part, you're going to get exploding eggs and chair building stories; if explosions and random burnings aren't your thing, you can find the dull here. Politics are here.

I am Seema, hear me roar!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I built a chair. Yes, yes, I did. Now some of you playing the home game might say, "Well, that's no big deal, I build chairs all the time." Those of you who are impressed that I built a chair without inflicting any bodily harm on myself might lose that respect when I tell you it was from IKEA (especially my brother and Bjorn, who apparently have furnished their entire living space from IKEA; just to clarify, my brother and Bjorn do not live together). As for me, I've never built anything before. Except a wheelbarrow. But that doesn't count because I was helping my dad and iirc, I screwed something in backwards. My dad is the only person in the neighborhood with an upside down strut assembly (or whatever it's called). But I digress.

So I built myself a pretty new chair. Specifically this chair. I chose white because I have as of yet not bought a sofa and I thought white is a nice color to go with any sofa I might choose to buy in the future. However, it took me 8 months to buy this chair, when I'd decided in August that I wanted it. Who knows when I'll buy a sofa? (Though I did see one I liked a lot when we were at IKEA; btw, we were at IKEA for five hours yesterday. Isn't that a very, very long time to be at IKEA?).

But. Back to my story. So it took me 90 minutes to build the chair. I know, I know, really long time, and those of you handy with tools? Stop. Laughing. But I have a good excuse, honestly. For about 20 of those minutes, I was on the phone with my cousin. For 30 minutes, I was distracted by "Sports Night" and really, the hard work all took place in the last 40 minutes; my thumbs will never be the same again; they are still feeling all tingly from their wrench work.

Thankfully, IKEA provided the wrenches for the job, so I didn't have to purchase any tools. Granted, teeny tiny wrenches, but whatever. There was also a pretty diagram with very clear instructions made so any person who has never built a chair before can follow and absorb. However, despite the pretty diagram and very clear instructions and the supplies provided, the crucial missing element was another person. I think theoretically, you can build this chair without another person; I obviously did. But it'd be a hell of lot easier if someone else was there, if for nothing else, to hand you a beer when you can't figure out why something won't screw (while on the phone with my cousin, I realized I was using the wrong screws in the wrong place -- hence, My Issues (tm) and why I wasted almost a half hour -- the "Sports Night" half hour -- trying to get the supports put together).

Plus, building this chair means you have to contort your body into very interesting positions, some of which I had not thought physically possible. In addition to my sore thumbs, I have muscles creaking at me, muscles which after 28 years of living in my body are just now making their presence known. And I had the blinds open which means, I'm pretty sure, the lady across the way with the big beautiful dog, probably had a great view of me going through the IKEA workout. I'm hoping it was raining hard enough that the view was obscured. Either that or she was too busy playing with that big beautiful dog to pay attention to me. Why, yes, I do think the world revolves around moi.

Anyway, I finally got all of the pieces assembled; the chair comes six pieces. That's a lot of pieces! And there are a total of 10 screws. That's a lot of screws! And all of the screws are labeled with numbers like 00324X and even the wrenches have numbers -- this is for easy matching and so you know whether you have the right parts or not. I was able to figure all of that out and only screwed in the wrong screws once (and it took 30 minutes to figure that out, but whatever); I'd like to say it wasn't my fault because eight of the screws bore startling resemblance to each other and are probably related by factory.

What I found most difficult was actually figuring out how to get all the pieces to line up so I could screw them together. Because of the way the chair is shaped, it's not easy at any time to lay the thing down flat. The most extreme hardest part was screwing the actual sitting part to the support, because of the awkward angle. This is the part where it would have been very helpful if IKEA had included another person in its packaging. As it was, building this chair would make a good challenge for Survivor. Especially if you withhold the wrenches.

But all in all, life is good and while I don't have a sofa, I now have another very comfy chair in the living room so I can actually have people over to watch movies etc. And, before you ask, yes, I have sat in the chair and no, it did not creak or fall apart. So there. I am so all over this IKEA thing. Rah!

When is a story not a story

I've been thinking more about what ails me concerning "Lost in Translation." I complained about the pacing -- utter slowness -- and the overwhelming feeling of despondency in the movie, punctuated by brief bursts of humor or insight. But in general, I didn't like it, Sam I am.

I think Bjorn hit the reason on the head when he noted that "Lost in Translation" was not a story, but rather than a character vignette. Granted, I've been struggling long and hard with how to write a story, because as a writer, that is my shortcoming. The stuff I put out? Not really a story.

But even so, I'm going to say one thing I do know for certain, is that a story involves change. If nothing changes -- ie character, situation -- or we don't learn anything new about a character, it's not a story. Call it a vignette, a character sketch or a portrait of a situation -- there are tons of phrases out there -- but it's not a story.

A story involves a journey of some kind. The journey can be external or internal, can be action-orientated or character-orientated. In the end though, the journey means the story started at point A and ended at point Z. There may have been detours or backpedaling, but in the end, we the readers end up at somewhere other than where we began. That is a story. And in "Lost in Translation," nothing happens.

Two strangers meet up, they find their perfect "right now" opposite and they spend time together, and then voila, at the end of the film, they back to being the people they were before they met. I had no doubt, at the end, that Charlotte would return to slinking around in her underwear and Bob would continue to fax his wife. These two characters had a relationship (platonic), it didn't work out for many very good reasons, but bam! All of that sushi-eating, karoke-singing and mutual despondency had no effect on either Charlotte or Bob. Neither of them learned anything or accepted anything.

In the end, "Lost in Translation" failed for me because I didn't learn anything new, nor did I feel any sympathy for either character and I certainly didn't have any hopes for their future. I admit it's a good film if you're interested in the here and now without the prospect of a pay-off in the future. There are subtle nuances that are well-done, bits of dialogue that are snappy and clever, but in general, it's not a story, but a vignette about two very, very depressed and boring people.

My brother is a man of his word. He says he won't talk about gay marriage any more in his blog, so he has passed the baton on to me. Here are 12 reasons why you shouldn't support gay marriage. I'm especially concerned about the possibility of dogs getting married. I hereby propose a Constitutional amendment to limit marriage to only those who have no more than two legs, however that would include birds as well. So dang it, a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to home sapiens sapiens only (the extra 'sapiens' are just in case an erectus or habilis is suddenly discovered in the White House).

Come to think of it, I think the amendment should limit marriage to those born only on this planet; this is just in case the Daily World News (found at a supermarket near you) is correct and there are indeed skulls and other Martian remains littering the red planet. Heaven forbid if a Martian wants to marry an Earthling!

I have now completed my sisterly duty.

I spent the weekend as a mad party girl, flitting from one place to another. Somewhere in there, I managed to get time to see Lost in Translation, which I've been dying to see for just about however long it's been out. I was ready for high class, deep, moving, light-hearted fare; the last movie I saw in the theater was Freaky Friday and I was ready for a film not aimed at the Disney audience.

But, was I ready for Scarlett Johanssen in her underwear? High brow film this may be, and possibly the reason why I. Just. Didn't. Get. It., because I've spent too much time digesting mall movies and aforementioned Disney flicks. There are three characters in this film, along with their supporting props: Tokyo, and there's Scarlett in her almost see-through underwear and then there's Bill Murray with his whiskey. Bill plays Bob Harris, a famous movie star who is doing commercials for a Japanese whiskey company for ::gasp:: $2 million. Scarlett plays Charlotte, who has been married to John for two years, but acts like she just met the guy at the bus stop (in all fairness, Hubby flirts with Cameron Diaz look-alike in front of Charlotte).

Both of Bill and Charlotte's relationships are tenuous. Bob forgets his son's birthday, talks to his wife via fax (and the obligatory cell phone) and she sends over samples of carpet for his study. Charlotte mopes, sits around in her underwear a lot (at one point, I was screaming, "For God's sake, you're in Tokyo! Put on some pants and go out!). So our depressed and morose heroes meet up in (surprise) a bar and form some kind of connection, built of mutual detachment. If these people were any more out of it, they'd be orbiting the planet.

They bop around Tokyo, sometimes together, sometimes not, and they share long silences and meaningful conversations over alcohol and sushi; the pacing is unbelievably slow and yes, there are a few funny moments, but they are far and few between. You have to sit through a lot of oddness and weird scenes to get through to the good stuff, and meanwhile, you're still wondering about the prostitute who shows up at Bob's door asking him to "lick her stockings."

There are a few obligatory karoke scenes, a beautiful scene of a Buddhist temple (don't ask me the significance -- I have no idea), and lots of flashy, bright photography. In terms of acting, can't complain. Murray is great. Johanssen does a fairly good job as well. The problem was, I didn't like either of these characters, didn't feel a connection, and just wanted them go away.

The fact that the relationship remains platonic is a Very Good Thing (tm). Neither of these people knows what they want or how to get it; the crux of this movie is that these two people are perfect for each at this very moment. Not in the future, but now. It's an interesting idea -- not all relationships are meant to last forever, and all relationships have their sags, where people drift apart briefly and find someone/something else to get them through the rough time. I'm just not sure whether that requires two hours of film.

You can test your WPM here. I average between 84 to 92 words per minute, and believe it or not, I'm more than 80 percent accurate. The Huckleberry Finn test was the hardest for me; I kept correcting Mark Twain's grammar and Huck's speech, and that's no good. I did the best on the competitive analysis piece and fell apart on the tiger thing again, mostly because I kept spelling words like "the" wrong and inserting random punctuation.

But still, much fun. I think one can type much faster when it's all in your head, versus copying something out, because there's that whole brain-to-fingers lag time.

Two things

First, one of my favorite short stories of all time is Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway. Sparse prose, careful attention to necessary detail, atmosphere and character conveyed through choice pieces of dialogue, and of course, a gradual unveiling of the conflict between the two characters.

Second, Elmore Leonard talks about writing and while some people aren't happy about his stance about adverbs or "book-saidisms," it's got to be said. And I'd like to add to the list to avoid paragraphs talking about a character's boredom (the worst story openings are the ones the begin with "Mary Sue was bored because she had nothing to do) and also a reduction in the use of the passive voice, ie the verb to be.

That is all.