Like wading through molasses.

Time has been going very sloowwwwly for me lately. Or so I thought. But then I looked at the date of my last entry and my mind is officially boggled - August 3rd?? Was it really that long ago? Is August really more than half over already? This morning there was a distinct chill in the air as I was leaving for work, signaling the proximity of Fall. I love Fall. I love the chill in the air - I feel more alive when it's cold. When it's hot all I wanna do is eat ice cream and lay around trying not to sweat too much. Fall makes me want to move faster and get more things done. Except I hate it when it starts getting dark at 5.

I've been saving this Huffington post entry from Larry David for a while. I think it's quite hilarious. I'm going to try a stream-of-consciousness (wow, that word looks wrong, but I don't think it is) post sometime. Of course, I'm always thinking and promising new things concerning my blog, but I'm bad with the follow-through. We'll see if I get around to that someday....

Must.... update....

You know what? I really have nothing to say. My life is uber boring right now. Unless you want to hear about how crappy the traffic was this morning. Or how I really need a haircut. Or how funny my fat cat looks when he tries to jump up onto the couch - slippery wood floors are hell on a fat cat's equilibrium.

I suppose I could talk about a movie or something. I saw Wedding Crashers the other night. It was surprisingly hilarious. Both of the main actors annoy the heck outta me, but I really really enjoyed the humor. I wish I could remember the parts that I laughed the hardest at, but I don't. I know I laughed hard enough to squeeze out a few tears at one point though. I'll have to check it out again soon to refresh my memory. Go see it.

Of course, I've also spent a lot of quality personal growth time watching Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the last week. I think Season 5 might be my favorite of all of them. Spike's character gets developed, Buffy-bot gets made, Riley gets dumped (w00t!), Glory ROCKS, Dawn enters the picture, Buffy dies (oops - spoiler alert), Giles takes over the magic store, Xander and Anya are so cute together, Willow becomes powerful, Tara gets more good screen time, and other stuff happens too. The quality of character development in BtVS will never seize to amaze me. To quote a popular sentiment of the episode reviewers on Sunnydale Slayers - "Ave Joss".

My motivation to do important things - wash clothes, feed cats, change litterboxes, get off my increasingly large ass - has dropped severely since being sick. So I just sit and watch Buffy. Again. My life goes in cycles - life without Buffy, life when all I can think about is watching more Buffy, life without Buffy - ad infinitum. I bet that Buffy craving signals some sort of psychological change. I used to do the same thing with silly romance novels. Oh well, at least it's not ice cream or booze.



MMMMmmmm... bloody, dark, sensitive Spike. You know, if I just look at pictures of Spike, he's not that great. But man, do those two (Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Marsters) have some great on-screen chemistry... Season 6 next *shiver*

Hey, did someone say "Buffy"?....

Sexy phlegm indeed.

I have an affinity for Google Image Search. So I GISed "sexy phlegm" of course. Alas, nothing came up... but here's what popped up for "sexy mucus":



Just what are they doing to that poor elephant?? It came from this page of this site. Sexy elephant protein indeed.

I want to thank everyone for their input on the newest London news. I read a good Op-Ed in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago after the first bombings, and I happened to find it mirrored on another news site. I think it quite accurately sums up the problem. And, of course, easier said than done. Opinions are a dime a dozen - solutions, not so much.

You know what? All this bad news makes me kinda want to stay sick longer so I don't have to face the cruelty of the world we live in - it's easier to hide and pretend it's not happening than to face it. I'm a big wuss. It also makes me not want to have children anytime in the near future. How do those of you with kids feel when things like this keep happening, and it keeps looking like the world is continuing on its downhilll course? Do you fear for their futures? How do you keep that fear at bay?

I know that there have been horrible moments in the world in the past, and that the events of today are no worse than _______________________ (fill in the blank with the crappy historical incident of your choosing). But it seems to me - and I know I'm prejudiced since the present now is "my" time, but I can't really see a realistic way to get around this particular prejudice - that things are way worse now than they have ever been. And a lot of that has to do with the technology that I love so much. I can be eternally optimistic and so can billions of other people, but the sad fact of the matter is that, the way we have things set up now, all it takes is one deranged lunatic to adversely affect millions of people. Be it releasing biological warfare on an unsuspecting nation, planting a virus that steals millions of identities, or suicide bombing the hell out of buildings full of people.

It's really quite scary, no matter what we say to the contrary.

We can be brave and try not to let it phase us too much, but it's still terrifying to think that at no other point in history has one person been able to so radically affect the lives of thousands of unsuspecting people using the technology at hand. In the past it took years of build-up and an army to do it (Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan). Now it just takes one person crazy enough to strap a bomb to his torso or fly a jumbo jet into a building full of thousands of people. Unfortunately it seems that there is a never-ending supply of these individuals.. although surely that couldn't be the case, could it??

I'm still optimistic about technology's ability to bring the world together. But even that is terrifying because then what happens when everthing in the world is controlled by the internet? - someone has got to own the servers, which control the internet, which controls the world - therefore it becomes just another position of power that can easily be corrupted. (I read this BADASS Wired article today and it made me happy and scared at the same time - read this article, it's grrrrr-eat.)

Okay, I've got to stop thinking these pessimistic thoughts. I think the sickness has made me a manic depressive - joyously optimistic and happy one day... terribly pessimistic and cranky the next - what oh what mood will tomorrow bring!? Blech. I think we all need to have a good smoke (of the good stuff if you know what I mean... hint hint, nudge nudge - or maybe a little absinthe, eh MM? *wink wink*) together and then the world would be a much nicer place to live in - I declare a World Smoke-Out Day!! Then everyone will wake up the next day ready for diplomacy, cooperation, empathy, and compromise - yippee!!!1!!!eleven



Ta-ta...

Being sick is super annoying.

I haven't been able to surf the internet for the past 10 days or so because I couldn't even focus on the screen. I got a nasty case of bronchitis from someone at work - damn them - which was most likely enhanced by my lack of nutrients, as I always seem to skip meals and forget to take my vitamins. I have been suffering very horrific dizzy spells and coughing fits. Not only could I not focus on the screen, I also wanted to avoid spraying phlegm and mucus all over it.

Lovely mental picture, eh? Sorry about that (well, not really).

Needless to say, not being "plugged in" has left me feeling like I've lost a limb. I've just said to Hell with trying to play catch-up, what's lost is lost - and I have definitely lost the last 10 days of my life. I didn't even watch the news, I just vegged out and listened to the new Harry Potter book on CD. And tried to watch some Angel and Buffy, but couldn't really concentrate. I still just feel like sleeping all the time. Not good.

Therefore I totally missed the news that there were some more attempted bombings in London. I haven't read anything about it even now - I just heard from my mother in an email worrying about my safety if I did decide to travel to London in August. I have, in fact, cancelled my trip - not because of the bombings - I'm not afraid - but because I just don't have the money. I never did find a good deal on plane tickets, so oh well. My friend, who I was going to volunteer for, wasn't too upset when I told her. She has people more than willing to take my place. So I don't feel too bad.

As for the attempted bombings, are the authorities aware if it's the same group of people who made this attempt as the ones who were successful a couple of weeks ago? Like I said I haven't read or heard anything, as I've been stuck in the house for 10 days. It just makes me wonder - something went very wrong in this attempt, which leads me to suspect that maybe it wasn't the same group. I hope they find out soon, and I very sincerely hope that there are no more attempts in the future. My thoughts are still with all the Londoners out there.

That's enough for now, gotta get my energy back...

The internet lovin' just keeps on comin'

To continue on the thread from my last post, How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet. What he says about your age when something changes or is invented having a huge effect on how you accept it is so true. There are a few older people who have really embraced new technologies, not just because they were forced to because of their jobs, but because they truly love it (my father being one of them). But they are mostly in the minority, in my, admittedly limited, experience.

I'm still avoiding the London topic, but I do want to point to this blog entry and the comments especially. I don't know why I'm so infatuated with the world wide web lately... it must be a phase I'm going through. I'm not 30 yet, so I'm still capable of ebracing the change with all of my being :)

On a more personal note, I'm quite excited about the 2005 San Diego International Comic Con starting tomorrow. I have never actually been to the biggest Con ever (they're expecitng 100,000 people this year!), but I always enjoy all the movie and comicbook excitement that comes out of it. Plus the live coverage courtesy of Sideshow is always awesome and has, for the last 3 years, made me feel as if I am there and experiencing it all - plus it helps make the workday positively fly by. Live webcams, crazy chatters, celebrity guests, and free stuff. What more could I want for 5 days straight? Maybe a life, but there's plenty of time to deal with that after the Con is over.

This has GOT to be a joke. Right? That spacecraft/comet crash was really badass. It's like a movie. And now we know that we'll never have to suffer through Deep Impact since we can hit a comet and most likely knock it off its trajectory if we want. Now THAT would be a cool job.

Now, I know that a few posts back I promised no more Star Wars links. But I couldn't resist this one: Tom Cruise Kills Oprah. Everyone reading this has most likely already seen it, but it's worth seeing again. When I first saw it, I couldn't stop myself from watching it over and over again. Hysterical. The look on Tom Cruise's face when he laughs - creepy! How it fits perfectly with the Emperor's laugh - even creepier.


Someone got paid to do this?? Just to spice up their conference room for a couple of days? I want that job.

To close: it pains me to say it, but No, I'm not keeping up with your blog, and I am really very sorry. There's just not enough time in the day lately. Rough time of year at work (event planning industry - and it's wedding season). You know which blog I REALLY miss keeping up with? LifeHacker - I LOVE that site. There are some really great tips every single day. I haven't checked my Bloglines in so long that I'm afraid to open it. There's going to be like 4000 unread posts. Urg.

Goodnight....

Pondering a definition quite often leads to unplanned ruminations on life.

After receiving a short but thought-provoking question in the comments of my last post, I decided to copy and paste my response (deleting it in the process because there's no need to waste space saying the same thing in two places). I decided on this course of action mostly just because I don't have anything else to say. I don't have any desire to talk about the bombings in London. Although my thoughts are with our friends on the other side of the pond, I just don't feel that I have anything worthwhile to add to the countless cyber-conversations already taking place everywhere I look. I'm the type who needs to fully digest the facts along with my feelings before even trying to talk about it.

So, here's the question, which came from jedith:

"By 'crappy-assed-people' do you mean prejudice people?" (If you remember, I had said that there definitely were some "crappy-ass" people out there, but that I believe the internet has the power to lessen their influence.)

And the answer:

Well, first off, I enjoy any excuse to use the word "crappy-ass". (I'm a big fan of adding "ass" to my adjectives in order to put more stress on a description.) I think I originally intended "crappy-ass" to mean people who try to take advantage of other people's ignorance - ignorance which usually stems from their lack of access to information outside of the small circle of their lives. I firmly believe that the more people who take the time to participate and open their minds in online forums and blogs and Craigslist-type sites, the less influence those "crappy-ass" people will have over them. The more free-flow of information between people in all parts of the world, the better. I know that I for one have learned countless things that I NEVER would have learned without the internet... not because I wouldn't have WANTED to learn them, but because I never would have had the chance to even find out that those things were out there, just waiting for me to learn them.

Using this definition, yes, "crappy-ass" could definitely be construed to mean people who are prejudiced - for instance, say there's a kid who's parents are extremely prejudiced against people who eat red meat - they had always told him that every person who eats bacon is BAD. So this kid gets on the internet and joins a discussion group, carrying with him his parent's prejudice against red meat eaters, which is all he knows. But then he really starts listening to what other people have to say, takes their opinions into account, questions his own worldview, and realizes that, hey, there are some really cool red meat eaters out there! What his parents told him was WRONG! He starts thinking, "Hmmm... maybe I should stop hating someone for reasons purely based on what they eat..."

Granted, the internet is not the only way to open your mind - college is great for that... not so good for getting jobs it turns out, but great for expanding your worldview (if you let it of course, which is the key for any of this growth stuff) - but it is a LOT more expansive than just going off to a university. Where else can you find out in less than five minutes what people in Japan think about a movie that you just saw, or what people in Africa really think about the Live 8 concerts?

"Crappy-ass" could also be defined as people who are just plain mean and like to start rumors or take advantage of other human beings' kindnesses. I also believe that the more we interact with one another across national and cultural barriers, the more we learn about human nature and can further adapt to the curveballs that life throws at us - using other people's experiences to help guide our own choices, thus employing the group's experience as a whole to one's individual life in order to avoid nasty situations and to question the world around us. The capacity for researching an idea and forming your own opinion on that idea has never been greater. You have the world's knowledge at your fingertips, literally.

"You have the world's knowledge at your fingertips" - I know that seems like an obvious thing, but if you just sit back and let the importance of those words sink in, it's absolutely amazing. One of my only worries is that people will start to take it for granted and forget to realize what an incredible communication aid the internet can become - if we let it AND if we commit to connectivity and education on a planetary level. Plus I worry about those in power who fear losing that power - the power of information control - to the unwashed masses (which is why what's going on with the internet smackdown in China - and now also the recent Department of Commerce ruling - saddens me more than a little).

Man, I love the internet. And yet it is still in it's childhood, only just on the cusp of puberty. I can't wait to see what new and exciting comminicatory wonders will arise from its depths in the next 10 years! We just need to get over these few rough patches...

And maybe, just maybe, I'm being ridiculously optimistic about human nature... but I truly hope not.

Blogging: a fickle master indeed.

Just enjoyed a nice long weekend. Unfortunately it was packed to the gills full of obligations and responsibilities that I could not shirk in order to blog. But I do find that "the blog" is always at the back of my mind during daily activities. And then I see something cool, or hear an interesting conversation, or have an exciting thought and decide, hey, I should write about that! But I never fail to forget that feeling that it originally had inspired in me, and by the time I get around to writing I decide that it's just not as worth it as I thought - or else I end up forgetting it entirely.

So, I'm interested in knowing how you guys out there in blogland remember what it is that you want to write about? Do you keep notes? Do you have a voice recorder that you lug around with you everywhere so that you can just say a few words about it and listen to it later for inspiration (something I've been wanting to try)? Those of you who take lots of rad pictures (yes, I just said "rad") - do you also lug around your digital camera everywhere you go?

The problem with all of these solutions for me is that I have a great fear of toting lots of baggage (both physically and emotionally). In fact, I found this article to be very much how I want to live my life regarding baggage.

But this leaves me at a conundrum. I am a female of the species, therefore I automatically seem to have more baggage (of both types, funnily enough) than your typical male. Plus, our girly outfits don't always have pockets, and I am fighting a losing battle against carrying a purse. Plus I am hit by inspiration at very random times, and more often than not, find myself without a way of recording said inspiration.

Basically, what do you guys do when inspiration hits? Do you just drop everything and blog right then and there? What are your information-recording secrets??

To lighten things up, here's a funny picture of a cat:



And some information for internet addicts - who live in China. Do we have anything like this here in the States? I would really be interested in signing up for a session or two. "Hello, my name is Ms. Marvel and I've been an internet addict for nearly 10 years..."

CNN was on a role last week in regards to their reporting about the internets - I absolutely adore Craigslist - even more so after reading that article, as I am very much on the same page as Mr. Newmark - "People will realize that people everywhere are OK. You've got to be a little careful, but people are OK." Sure there are some crappy-ass people out there, but I truly believe that the more the internet brings people together, the more those crappy types will lose any influence they once had. At least that's what I believe.

And oh yeah, Happy (late) Independence Day to everyone....