| (no subject) |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|01:57 pm] |
I visited Ireland for the first and only time during the first week of July 1999. I remember clearly that my sister's birding friend was excited because a Baltimore Oriole had been recently sighted in the village of Baltimore, the first known occurrence in Ireland. The was a rather geeky coincidence, Baltimore in Baltimore, so it stuck in my mind. Now I'm doing some random internet searching last night and discover the that only Irish occurrence of a Baltimore Oriole was indeed in Baltimore but that it happened on October 7th-8th 2001.
Good grief. I know memory is faulty but this is ridiculous. |
|
|
| Memories |
[Sep. 29th, 2008|04:12 pm] |
From the blog entry: http://jezebel.com/5056295/wsj-writer-conservative-colleges-save-young-women-from-sluthood
"Says Samelson, 'The posters on the walls in my all-female freshman dorm at Tufts offered information about eating disorders, what to do if you think you have been sexually assaulted, and suicide and depression hotlines. The Hillsdale walls that I saw were covered with advertisements for quilting clubs, charity opportunities and a listing of local churches.' This can't be because Hillsdale's environment discourages open discussion of assault and mental illness. No, Hillsdale girls just don't get raped, because they are ladies."
From the comments:
"the only person I know who went to Hillsdale left after 2 years, questioned her entire belief system, moved to Boston and proceeded to go off her freakin rocker to the tune of 3 suicide attempts and alot of crappy abusive relationships. The girl had the worst self esteem of anyone I have ever met."
Well, yes, giving people a sense of moral and/or intellectual superiority does tend to make them douche bags that crush the weak. The environment at Hillsdale certainly is a punishing crucible for those who don't fit its mold. It is hard to say if Hillsdale's environment is better or worse than outright Sodom and Gomorrah. Personally I certainly made far more hideous life choices while at Hillsdale than at a school where I was allowed greater freedom to live my own life. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 11th, 2008|12:51 pm] |
Donnie Darko Sequel????
*Fingers in ears, I can't hear you, head desk* |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|09:56 am] |
|
I love the high metal prices and low dollar. I went to the gas station with four bucks in my pocket to get a gallon to hold me over until payday. I accidentally put in $4.07. The cashier was willing to accept four dollars and a pop can. She even gave me a little zinc back because of aluminum prices. Never thought I would live to see the day where I could barter at a gas station. |
|
|
| Brain Hurts |
[Jan. 18th, 2008|09:00 pm] |
On this page: http://www.tva.gov/employment/index.htm
"Internet access
If you do not have your own computer, here are several possible sources of access to the Internet:
* Public libraries
* Regional career centers, which also have accommodations for hearing- and sight-impaired persons.
* Local colleges and universities
* Copy and print businesses (there may be a charge for usage)
* Friends and neighbors." |
|
|
| Do tortoises dream of electronic folliage? |
[Jan. 15th, 2008|11:54 am] |
Weird dream last night
We had a tortoise crawling around our house which I'm presuming we were keeping to eat. I noticed how it clawed at the place where we kept the lettuce and the action struck me as a canine mannerism indicative of intelligence. To ascertain its intelligence, I took the tortoise to a library to upload its conciseness unto a computer. On the screen flashed images of sandy beaches, blue skies, and always in the foreground a tantalizing piece of foliage. From the plants I was able to deduce all the places around the world it had lived while it was wild.
Anyways, Gopher Tortoise Stew http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92476&page=2
Gopher Tortoise Stew
Also known as the "Hoover chicken," the gopher tortoise was a staple in the diets of Minorcans, Florida natives, and Depression-era families. The exact composition of Gopher Tortoise Stew depended on what ingredients were available at the time, but this is a typical recipe. Today, the gopher tortoise is a protected species, but you can substitute alligator or pork.
Cut meat into 2-inch pieces and simmer in salted water until tender. In a large Dutch oven, fry some salt pork until crisp and the fat is rendered. Add meat and brown. Add a generous amount of chopped onion, some chopped bell pepper, minced garlic, diced tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes.
Then add the water the meat was cooked in, some diced potatoes, a few bay leaves, salt and black pepper to taste, and a fresh datil pepper or a dash of datil pepper sauce. Simmer for 1½ to 2 hours over low heat. If necessary, thicken stew with a little flour dissolved in water, or some mashed hard-boiled egg yolks. For those that could afford the luxury of dry sherry, a dash would be added just before serving.
Serve piping hot with rice and corn pone. |
|
|
| wow |
[Nov. 16th, 2007|12:47 pm] |
|
I saw what appeared to be a Mobius strip of steam about 1.5 meters long drifting over Mission before dissipating. Wish I had a camera with me at the time. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 27th, 2007|05:02 pm] |
While this news story does not entirely surprise me, I am shocked about the harsh measures being undertaken. Wanting to seize a house that housed a small personal pot growing operation is just greedy. I thought they were decent teachers. Brett brought in a replica sword one day. It had no edge but did have enough mass to rearrange the proportions of someone's head. I have no idea how he ever got permission to bring it in. In most schools even to suggest bringing in a sword would get you disciplinary action.
KALAMAZOO -- High school teachers Brett and Keri Johnson were nervous about buying marijuana. So they set up a grow operation in their basement.
Until the police showed up on their doorstep in January.
Now the Johnsons have lost their jobs at Gull Lake High School; they have a felony drug record, and they're at risk of losing their teacher's certifications and their home.
The Johnsons, both 34, resigned from their jobs in August, the same month they pleaded guilty to manufacturing marijuana, a felony with a potential sentence of four years in prison.
They were sentenced Monday by Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Pamela Lightvoet to six months probation. Prosecutor Jeff Fink said that is a typical sentence for first-time offenders.
Brett Johnson had been an English teacher at the school for 11 years. Keri Johnson spent 10 years at Gull Lake as a Spanish instructor.
An anonymous tip led officers from the Southwest Michigan Enforcement team to the Johnsons' Kalamazoo home on Jan. 3.
According to the police report, officers asked the Johnsons if they grew marijuana, and the couple acknowledged they had a small amount for personal use. When officers asked to search the house, the police report said, Brett Johnson responded: ``Absolutely. We'll do anything we can to cooperate with you.'' Johnson then said to his wife, ``Let's give them everything.''
Police found a grow light, 16 marijuana plants with the leaves removed and 18 plastic bags with amounts of marijuana varying from five to nine ounces.
The report said the Johnsons told police they grew it themselves because they didn't want to buy it. They also said that they never had given away or sold the drug.
Keri Johnson told police it was the couple's ``dirty little secret,'' the report said.
The law requires law-enforcement officials to notify school districts of felonies involving Michigan teachers.
A notification also went to the Michigan Department of Education, which will decide whether the Johnsons will keep their teacher certifications. A department official said that such situations are decided on a case-by-case basis.
As for their home, Kalamazoo County has filed a civil suit to seize the house under a state law that allows for the forfeiture of property used for drug operations. The civil case is still pending.
The house is near Spring Valley Park. According to Kalamazoo city records, the couple purchased the home in 1997 for $84,000.
The Johnsons could not be reached for comment, and their lawyer, Edwin Hettinger, declined comment. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|11:26 pm] |
We are terrified to see flesh putrefying even as it sits talking and eating sandwiches. The young flesh in the act of insurrection, cells turned mutineers.
We are animals who see the weak one in the herd and sprint letting it fall behind, letting the lion get it. Sprinting, we dare not turn back and it lying there, convulsing on the veldt, eyes beseeching the sky.
We run.
Some creatures can suppress this impulse long enough to care: to stop, and---even when the whiff of death is as strong as hairspray---to sit and stay. Some creatures can. I am a wildebeest, a halibut.
Anneli Rufus-The Farewell Chronicles
(On the death of her apartment manager, Jihad the gay crossdressing Egyptian, from AIDS) |
|
|
| The Journey to the Beav |
[Jun. 5th, 2007|02:09 pm] |
I spent the night before in Charlevoix at a hotel watching the Discovery Channel. Saturday night was a rather long special on the sinking of the Lusitania and they broadcast the Deadliest Catch episode where one of the fishing boats sinks on sunday morning.
The ride over was overwhelming just because I was not used to being close confines with people I would have to interact with eventually. There were about 65 students going over in all and it is a 2 hour boat ride. I just closed my eyes and tried to not have a panic attack. It is hard to walk to Ric's when you are in an hour away from shore.
The Islanders travelling with us where an interesting lot. Two of them where working their way through a 24 case of beer on the first passenger deck. I walked by them thinking, "Well at least its not the captain." One of them turns to me and says something like, "ha, ha I know right like Who is driving this thing?" I'm very sure that I did not say anything outloud. However, I do not want to live in a world populated by drunk redneck mindreaders so I'm chalking that one up to coincidence.
There was a young mother with her daughter who was about six years of age. The girl was wearing sandals and capris despite the cool temperatures. They carried with a lilac bract and another more common flower, carnation or lily? They were standing near the bow on the way into the harbor. The little girl kept asking her mother, "If I fall in will I drown?" The mother was not disturbed in the least by this question but could only answer "no". The little girl kept asking as all little kids do, "Why?" Lacking a good answer, the mother tried to change the conversation to the aunt who was waiting for them at the boat dock. At one point the mother to emphasize the no said something like, "No, my sweet, you will not drown." The context in which and the way it was said made it one of the most beautiful things I ever heard. The two where in touch with the ways of the world and had no fear of death. I never meet the rest of the family but I'm willing to bet they are sanest people on the planet |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 7th, 2007|11:30 pm] |
Stupid brain is trying to give itself PTSD. I had a vivid dream this morning where I woke up with a guys hand in front of my face. I could feel the weight of his arm on my neck and the dip in the bed where he lay inches away from spooning. I just couldn't move and kept drifting back to sleep in the dream and waking back up to the damn same hand in front of my face. That dream served me right for going back to sleep after waking up early. Is it possible to get a restraining order against your own psyche? I feel so violated and dirty. If any Freudians out there shout latent homosexuality they are getting shot. (After I design a barrelless gun because barrels are dicks)
I suppose it did not help that I spent the night drinking with Joyce Carol Oates.
My first wakeup this morning was so much nicer. I woke up with an epilogue idea which might make an adequate resolution to the story. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 4th, 2007|11:20 pm] |
"Nothing is so notorious as human memory, Josie. Brain cells are ninety-nine percent saline solution-it's a miracle we remember anything at all. Neurons are forever discharging, synapses are being severed like rotting twine. It's believed that brain activity is electricity flashing like lightning in area of the cortex, than another. You know how idiosyncratic lighting is. You can't track it, predict it. A blink of an eyelid, you'd half expect everything in human memory to be erased. When a person says, 'Oh yes, I remember,' be sure that he or she is already inventing. The instinct to tell tales is located in the same part of the medulla as the instinct to reproduce the species."
Joyce Carol Oates-First Love |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2006|01:57 pm] |
|
There is nothing better to do on a saturday than to drive to Chicago and people watch at the O'Hare international arrival gate for an hour. My family is not very good at gambling. We figured that since Amtrak was booked up, my sister would need a ride. After leaving several voicemails on her cell phone, my bother, my father, and I set out to Chicago. By the time that my sister called home, she was an hour and a half away from Battle Creek on the train. This was half an hour after we had given up and left the airport. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Dec. 18th, 2006|12:04 am] |
Something has been bothering me. I walked up to the post office friday to mail a package. I was walking along listening to my ipod when I spotted a homeless man coming towards me. He was wearing a cheap radio which hung at the middle of his chest. It was some ungodly color like pink or orange and he did have batteries in it. This was like looking at some sort of evil circus mirror which showed a degraded me five years in the future. (I would make a Dandelion Wine reference here but I don't remember the book well enough.) A dollar store radio and an ipod are really not that different because they serve the same function. Andy really is right on the spot when he says that portable music is really artificial schizophrenia. Our capitalistic society has actually managed to make a commodity out of a mental illness.
We glanced at each other as we passed. I quietly said, "hi," and crossed the street to go into the post office.
Damn it all. I'm starting to come down from my chocolate high. My body is starting to shake. Jason is trying to kill me by giving me a kilo of columbian gold...I mean ghirardelli dark chocolate. I polished it off and ate some cheap baking chocolate straight to substain myself. I need help, serious help. The knife slipped when I was breaking off a chunk of the good chocolate. It was just a small cut but I didn't feel any pain. |
|
|
| The Art of Cat Killing |
[Dec. 16th, 2006|12:09 pm] |
I do not normally object to animal rights activists except when they set free animals that cannot survive in the wild or BRUTALLY KILL THEM
Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat (2004)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423969/
"What it tried to do was portray a completely neutral balanced view of an event where three men decide to brutally kill a cat." -Taken out of context from a users comment.
http://www.roughage.org/ --> documentaries
"Jesse Power, ex-vegetarian, was an art student when he conceived a new project. In May 2001, he enlisted two friends, Anthony Wennekers and Matthew Kaczorowski, to help him kill a cat. The intention was to make a video that protested the unthinking consumption of factory-slaughtered animals by killing, cooking and eating a cherished domestic pet - a feline posthumously named Kensington by animal-rights activists. Alerted by an outraged roommate, the police found the skinned and decapitated cat in the beer fridge. Kaczorowski fled and was apprehended in Vancouver two years later. All three eventually pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and mischief charges." |
|
|
| Tin Foil-Handsome Family |
[Dec. 10th, 2006|12:22 am] |
Late New Year's Eve, paper hat on your head, it's hard to believe you'll ever be dead. But that dream where you're falling you've had since you're five is a bird on your shoulder who whispers goodbye. Evil Knievel shot up from dead grass. I loved him better each time he crashed. Liza Minnelli spent a month in her bed certain that Skylab would fall on her head. One night I dreamed that I dug my own grave and climbed down inside to patiently wait. Down in the ground I breathed the warm air and blackbirds flew down to nest in my hair.
What is moving will be still. What's been gathered will disperse. What's been built up will collapse. All your dreams fulfilled |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Dec. 9th, 2006|01:52 am] |
large mass of humans
Rounds corner tightly
to touch is to absord
to become as one of them
booze falls down
oh fuck shit
bad luck place
matt flees
should have never gone
will be hiding
must pee then sleep |
|
|
| Death to Everyone - Bonnie Prince Billy |
[Dec. 5th, 2006|10:01 pm] |
I am here, right here
Where god puts none asunder
And you, in black dress and black shoe
You do invite me under
Go on, go there
You can see me aging
Stars turn, balls burn
Coming kids are raging
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
La la la ...
Every terrible thing is a relief
Even months on end buried in grief
Are easy light times which have to end
With the coming of your death friend
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
La la la ...
So strap me on and raise me high
Cause buddy I'm not afraid to die
But life is long and it's tremendous
And we're glad that you're here with us
And since we know an end will come
It makes our living fun
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
Death to me and death to you
Tell me what else can we do die do
Death to all and death to each
Our own god-bottle s'within reach
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lostsynapse's journal