Neat Book List

I've many books in my personal library I haven't read yet and hope to read this summer. There are also books in my parents' extensive library which I wish to read this summer. Then there are the books none of us own which I'll have to borrow from the library to read this summer. Yet, for some reason, I'm always on the look-out for lists of books I should read. So, when I saw the list below on "Oh, Blog, Where Art Thou?" I thought, Must follow this list this summer! Not that I will, most likely, but I thought I should put it down here and mark off, like the exceptionally well-read instigator of this checking off of lists of books and Mlle. Dorkart do, in bold what I've read already.

The Book Meme

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel *
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett *
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson *
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett *
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist *
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden *
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett *
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett *
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
Perfume, Patrick Süskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot *
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson *
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough *
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson *
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy (1/2-way done)
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Hm. If I counted correctly, that's 47 books read (one listed is a trilogy). Much better than I would have thought, considering. Perfume is exceptionally good, by the way. It was assigned in an Ethics course I couldn't get into at NYU. It was one of those books I could not put down even though my eyes were crossing I was so tired. I just heard Paulo Coelho being interviewed on NPR this past weekend, so I was planning on reading his book before I'd seen this list. Gone With The Wind sucked ass, as does the movie. Why? Because Scarlett is the most unlikable character I've ever read about in any piece of fiction. I kept hoping she'd died of syphillus, as she so very much deserved to do, but she didn't. She didn't even get beaten with a stick, as I so very much hoped she would. No, she lived to fight another day. Ugh.

Anyway, some of those I've read I liked, some I didn't, most which I haven't I'm not interested in (I don't like Pratchett and I get bored with Dickens very quickly). We'll see how I do, especially since a couple of these are on Mom's shelves. I never did read Anne of Green Gables, which my mother gave me for Christmas when I was in junior high or so. I didn't think it could be as good as the Canadian production they showed on PBS all those years ago. My eldest sister read Memoirs Of A Geisha and said it sucked badly, so I really don't think that one will be checked off any time soon.

*not bloody likely, friend!

I Got The Horse Right Here

I might get in trouble for this, but I wanted to make sure everyone got to read today's installment of "NYC," a column written by Clyde Haberman for The New York Times Metro Section. I really enjoyed it. Hope you do, too.

* - * - * - *
It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Horse?

By CLYDE HABERMAN

GENUINE New York heroes have been in short supply lately, whether in government, politics, business, law enforcement, sports or — need it be mentioned? — journalism. So wouldn't you know that when a hero finally does come along, it's a horse.

Well, why not? Humans, for the moment anyway, are not exactly providing great role models.

The animal in question is a 3-year-old gelding with the funny name of Funny Cide. Two and a half weeks ago, he became the first horse bred in New York to win the Kentucky Derby. On Saturday, in Baltimore, he won the Preakness Stakes by so many lengths that the rest of the field looked as if it were in a different time zone.

Now Funny Cide is back at his home track, Belmont Park, on the border of Queens and Nassau Counties, getting ready for the Belmont Stakes on June 7. If he can win that grueling race, too, he will become the first horse from New York to win racing's coveted Triple Crown, and the first horse from anywhere to do so since Affirmed in 1978.

In racing, for those of you who think a furlong is a winter-coat size, the Triple Crown is the holy grail. It's the World Series, Super Bowl and Stanley Cup rolled into one. It's an O'Neill drama, it's Whistler's mama, it's Camembert. It's the top.

For many New Yorkers who follow the horses — and whose horses may follow the horses, to steal from Joe E. Lewis — the prospect of having a homeboy reach such heights is dizzying.

It may strike some as fatuous to invest so much emotional energy in a horse. But it has happened before.

A similar phenomenon occurred when the incomparable Secretariat captured the Triple Crown in 1973. As with Funny Cide's race with destiny, that feat had not been accomplished in 25 years. Secretariat simply blew away the competition, winning the Belmont Stakes by an unbelievable 31 lengths. If he'd gone any faster, they would have had to name a NASA rocket after him.

America in 1973 was a nation in trauma. The Watergate scandal had reached full bloom. The Vietnam War lurched toward an inglorious end. The economy stumbled. One national institution after another came under fire.

Then Secretariat showed up, a tonic on four legs. One woman told the sports commentator Heywood Hale Broun that after all the turmoil, this horse was what restored her faith in mankind.

New York could use a little restoring itself right now. These are not days of glory for the city.

The police, lionized with firefighters for their Sept. 11 valor and pain, have been tarnished by a disastrously flawed drug raid in Harlem a few days ago that appears to have scared an innocent woman, literally, to death.

The politicians in Albany spend more time fighting among themselves and posturing for the cameras than producing a budget that is genuinely balanced, not flimsily held together with more than $4 billion in borrowing that will leave their grandchildren to pay for the mess.

The civic nobility displayed after the attack on the World Trade Center has yielded to squabbling over government compensation for the victims' families, with everyone saying it isn't about money even as they demand more money.

SOME of the city's leading business executives are accused of criminal behavior or, at the least, sordid finagling.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is found by a judge to have misled New Yorkers about its finances, the result being an extraordinary court order to rescind new fare increases on subways and buses.

On New York sports teams, the two-legged athletes look far more ragged than heroic. Even the supposedly invincible Yankees seem suddenly, if perhaps temporarily, frail.

As for journalism, is there anyone in town unfamiliar with the crisis at this newspaper, brought on by the fabrications and plagiarism of a rogue reporter?

To the rescue, piercing the gloom, comes Funny Cide.

Winning the Belmont Stakes will not be easy. It is a long race, a mile and a half, and it has a history of making losers of sure winners. Indeed, Funny Cide is the fifth horse in the last seven years to approach the Belmont as a Triple Crown contender. None of the others made it all the way.

But many knowledgeable racing people believe Funny Cide has a good chance.

In the Preakness, by the way, he ran in a field that included an entry called New York Hero. That horse finished sixth.

The lesson, perhaps, is that it is not enough merely to be called hero. This is one label that you have to go out and earn.

A Tip For Those Driving Through The State Of New York

My mother rarely gets ticketed. I don’t think she received a ticket until she was in her forties. She is one to notice bad patches, like the entire state of Pennsylvania if you have New York plates. (This has been confirmed by others. Also, it seems to be in effect for those with Maryland plates as well.)

I bring this up because there is a stretch of the highway/thruway/whatever going through midstate New York which is pretty much a speed trap.

Watch out for New Paltz. My mother has pointed out this town as the zone where folks are liable to get pulled aside for speeding more so than elsewhere on the road between Albany and New York City. She has shared this with me, and I now share it with you.

Beware of New Paltz. Slow down. Keep an eye out. This means you, “Speed Racer” SheepBoy.

Entertaining Oneself Whilst Riding Shotgun

If my mother and I want to do, well, anything at all, really, we generally have to drive a long way from Albany, as, Dear Reader, you well know by now, nothing at all ever happens in Smalbany. During these car trips, I can entertain myself by looking out the window at the passing countryside, which is generally very lovely (more on that in a later post, I suppose). When we come to strip-mally places, places where the flags are larger than the entire plot of land where my parents’ house stands (moving straight past patriotism into tacky advertising) there’s really not much to look at other than the other cars (though I do enjoy watching clouds). Lord knows I don’t want to talk to my mom, and sometimes we really aren’t in the mood to listen to Pepys’ diary on tape. Anyway, most folk do the VW Bug game, tracking which color Beetle (or old Bug) you see. Or maybe they guess what vanity plates mean or make up words from the regular plates, deep meaning from the random digits. Road trip games to pass the time, centered on the one thing you’re bound to see a lot of: other cars (at least in the more densely populated Eastern Seaboard; I’ve no idea what car games folks on empty road would play).

In December, around Christmastime, I noticed there are a heck of a lot of people from far-away states driving around the Great State of New York (“Excelsior!”), so I started keeping track of the states. I remember that the trip during New Year’s weekend, I saw Hawaii and Alaska in the tri-state region, which astounded me. During the past couple of trips, I’ve taken to writing down the states (and provinces), even keeping track of how many from each state As I haven’t posted for a while, I’m going to post my results, which will both make for a nice, long post and clearly indicate how fecking boring my life really is, or maybe of how boring I am, depending on how self-analytical I feel like being tonight.

Please note I wrote down both lists using the state/province code (DE for Delaware, for example), of which I am very proud as not a lot of people can remember them all. Shout out to the data entry clerks! Ho-oh! Data clerks represent!

First Trip: Saturday, May 10th.
Where: New York City (natch).
Why: We were going to Books of Wonder to meet Eoin Colfer and have him sign copies of the latest Artemis Fowl book for my nephews (and me!). Mom thought it’d be a good idea to catch X2, which she was eager to see once she’d seen all of X-Men. The theaters in Manhattan are very much better than anything we have up here. So are the audiences. (Mom missed the last 25 minutes or so of the movie because she had to get the car from the lot before it closed, so we have to go see it again. Aw, shucks.)
States/Provinces (number in parenthesis if more than one):

• California (6)
  
• Colorado
  
• Tennessee
  
• Pennsylvania (several; meaning, eventually more than I felt like counting)
  
• Québec (6)
  
• Ontario (spreading their SARS south of the border)
  
• New Jersey (hell, it’s ‘Jersey; there were lots more than I’d ever care to count)
  
• Vermont (4)
  
• Maryland (4)
  
• Virginia (7)
  
• Maine (2)
  
• Florida (8 ;one Marine corps plate, one plate with the space shuttle on it! Cool!)
  
• New Hampshire (2; I’m going to miss the Old Man Of The Mountain …or was it “In”?)
  
• Texas (voted best car seen: packed to the gills like a college student was moving away from the dorm; among the luggage was a Rice-A-Roni box accidentally prominently displayed in the back window; best feature: many Scooby Doo stickers covering the back end)
  
• Connecticut (this was a definite “oh, fuck it, there’s lots” state)
  
• Delaware (2)
  
• Ohio
  
• Rhode Island (5; they have the waving sea on their plates—pretty!)
  
• Massachusetts (9)
  
• Mississippi
  
• Washington, D.C.
  
• Illinois (Lincoln’s head plate)
  
• North Carolina (3)
  
• South Carolina (2)
  
• Louisiana
  
• Kentucky
  
  also
  
  
• two Diplomat plates.

Total States: 23 out of 50, not including the state in which we drove, New York, plus the District of Columbia, which actually has “Taxation Without Representation” as the plate logo. All of New England states covered, as well as both Carolinas.
Total Provinces: 2.

Second Trip: Friday, May 16th.
Where: New York City, then suburbs of Philadelphia.
Why: Mom and I were going to get our hair “done” by our hairdresser on 17th Street and then heading down to my sister’s for my nephew P--‘s 9th birthday that weekend. (My hair looks very good now, which distracts me from my major faults when I see my reflection.)
States/Provinces:

• Connecticut (lots)
  
• Illinois (2)
  
• Vermont (3)
  
• Ohio (4; I saw lots of Ohio plates during my weekend in Pennsylvania for some reason)
  
• Idaho (!)
  
• Maine (3)
  
• Massachusetts (20; I almost stopped counting them, there were so many)
  
• Ontario (6; if you’re coughing and have a fever, New Yorkers, now you know why)
  
• Québec (4)
  
• California
  
• Florida (11)
  
• Delaware (3)
  
• Georgia
  
• North Carolina
  
• Virginia (15; after a point, I started to wonder why so many Virginians were north of the Mason-Dixon)
  
• Rhode Island (2)
  
• Maryland (9)
  
• Michigan
  
• South Carolina (2)
  
• Washington, D.C.
  
• Colorado
  
• Wisconsin
  
• New Hampshire
  
  plus
  
  
• an Indiana pick-up with a Georgia trailer
  
• a Budget rental truck from Oklahoma
  
  and
  
  
• three U.S. Government plates
  
• a New York Assembly plate

Total States: 22 out of 50, not including the states in which we traveled, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, plus the non-state District of Columbia. All New England states represented, as well as both Carolinas. The original thirteen states covered, as well as all states which are on the Atlantic coast (please correct me if I’m missing any).
Total Provinces: Just the two. Canadians represent! (That shout-out was just for you, C--!)

Don't Mess With a Texas Ranger

My brother's been keeping the family updated on this: "Democrats Flee Texas, Freeze Legislature" (AP). It's hilarious. God bless Texans.

Happy Things

I've been posting many whiny posts, so I'm going to list the good things about today:

• The sun is out and the sky is deep blue and the clouds are that pretty, puffy white.
  
• There is a cardinal couple nesting in our yard and they are both super-pretty.
  
• Due to the indecisive weather yesterday, we had a gorgeous and brilliant double-rainbow over our house.
  
• There is a new episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight which will supposedly feature Buffy kicking some ass.
  
• Spike.
  
• The next episode of 24 is tonight, so I'll know what happens next to my favorite television president.
  
• I'm not the person who gave Angry Rabbit's phone number to a stranger.
  
• Angel got renewed and Spike will be on it.
  
• The Yankees are still leading the AL Eastern Division.
  
• Moose is pitching tonight.
  
• Jeter's back tonight for the first time since opening day.
  
• Evelina is not a horrible book, but actually a half-way interesting read, even if it is about an idiot of a girl.
  
• I'm getting my hair cut this Friday in NYC at my favored salon.
  
• My cats love me unconditionally.
  
• I don't have to pay rent.
  
• I get fed.
  
• I'm no longer working at either CSFB or Towers Perrin.
  
• My mom said she'll take me to see X2 again.
  
• Both of my sisters welcome me in their house and let me mooch off of them.
  
• Both of my sisters have great kids who still think I'm kinda cool, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
  
• Mom lets me use her digital camera without any fuss.
  
• This blog is free.
  
• My photoblog is free, too.
  
• I don't have cancer, AIDS, ebola, or any other deadly disease.

Okay, so the bottom half or so is more of a long-term good things list. But, see? I can be positive.

Please note I was writing and editing this when I should have been working on my critical analysis papers. Fucking. Idiot.

Damned Lucky Fucking Idiot

I took a graduate-level history course this spring. It was fascinating and I learned a heck of a lot and expect to continue to keep up on the subject outside of my courses. However, it required a level of analytical writing which I found, ah, intimidating. Meaning, I froze like an oppossum on the highway. My professor had a talk with me a couple of weeks ago about this complete lack of papers turned in. I had no idea how to say I've no idea how to write like that. After all, I'm in college. I'm an adult. I'm half-way decently educated. I should know how to do this. frozen 'possum! Anyway, he told me he'll give me an incomplete, which is the equivalent of the car swerving around my frozen, furry 'possum body. I'm hoping that offer's still up 'cause I'm having the same damned problem with the final paper. If it isn't, I'm looking at an F.

And then there's the criticism class. I am absolutely no good at writing criticism. I can be critical, but in that stupid, shallow way. I can't write anything of organization and depth. Again with the I'm a college student and decently educated and I should be able to do this. Again with the frozen 'possum. In this case, I'm one of a bazillion students, so the prof didn't notice. Nor is he that inspired to care. He gave me an extra twenty hours to get my papers in, that's it. Which, when you look at it, is very generous. He could just grade me on my midterm and final (I completely blanked on everything during the final—I'm not expecting a very good grade on that at all) and dock my grade for the missing papers. That would result in an exceedingly sucky grade. Which I deserve for being such a fucking idiot I can't even write two critical analysis papers (one on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, which was due after spring break and is now very late, and the other on Frances Burney's Evelina, which is due today at three and is drving me up the wall).

In all, my professors are being super-nice to me. I'm not sure why, though my history prof claims he thinks I'm very smart and deserve a smart-person's grade. I now have that sickening panic feeling in my chest which I haven't felt in years. Oh, boy, I'd better get my frickin' act in gear, so I can live up to the trust these guys are granting me.

Political Humor, Courtesy of a Former CSFB Co-worker

Attorney General Ashcroft is visiting an elementary school. After the typical civics presentation to the class, he announces, "All right, boys and girls, you can all ask me questions now."

A young boy named Bobby raises his hand and says, "I have three questions: 1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore? 2. Why are you using the U.S.A. Patriot Act to limit Americans' civil liberties? 3. Why hasn't the U.S. caught Osama bin Laden yet?"

Just then the bell sounds and all the kids run out to the playground.

Fifteen minutes later, the kids come back in class and again.

Ashcroft says, "I'm sorry we were interrupted by the bell. Now, you can all ask me questions."

A young girl named Charlene raises her hand and says, "I have five questions: 1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore? 2. Why are you using the U.S.A. Patriot Act to limit Americans' civil liberties? 3. Why hasn't the U.S. caught Osama bin Laden yet? 4. Why did the bell go off 20 minutes early? 5. Where's Bobby?"

Moooooooose!

Mike Mussina rocks! He pitched another beauty against Seattle last night, earning his seventh win of the year (he's now 7-0 on the season! wow!). Especially impressive considering the crap fielding last night.

I realized last night that my favorite thing about Moose is how you can see him thinking over every pitch while he's on the mound. Dark eyes glowing with intelligence. Intelligent, thinking men are sexy! Woo-woo! 'Course it also helps that he's tall with dark hair and dark eyes and nice lashes and pitches like the devil for my Yankees. But the thoughtful intelligence makes it. He's sexy and he kicks opposing batter ass. Mooooose!

P.S. Huzzah for Nick Johnson, playing as well as I knew he could in spite of having a rocky season last year. I defended Moose and Johnson after their sub-par seasons in 2002, saying it was just a phase, they were both great players who would work out of it this year, don't trade 'em!, and I was right! Look at me, suddenly knowledgeable baseball person. Yay! Go me!

An Update From The Fucking Idiot

Well, I finished the three papers. The first one I finished was too long, but I didn't feel like doing major textual editing, so I tweaked the language a bit and...the printer ran out of ink.

Ha! Ha ha ha! Ha a hA ha Ha HA ha hA Ah! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

I had a twenty minute panic attack, then sent an e-mail to my prof saying I had run out of ink, didn't have the money to print on campus (the cheapo bastards CHARGE!), and was unsure if I'd get the papers printed before class. I then wrapped up the second paper and went to bed. That was, um, three thirty in the morning. Something like that.

I got up at 7:30 AM, looked at the clock which was beeping so rudely at me and realized my arm was too heavy with sleep to turn off the alarm. "Well," I told myself, "you're not going to get very much written in that state." So I managed to turn the alarm to 9:00 AM and went back to sleep.

At nine, I got the third paper finished and polished up the second paper as much as I could by only reading it on the screen (I'm most definitely a hard-copy editor). I woke Mom at 9:45 AM to buy some ink. I hated the third paper, so I began to rewrite it. Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Because of rewrites and Mom putting paper which already had stuff printed on it in the printer, I didn't get to class with the three papers until twenty minutes after it had started. I didn't have the journal, but reassured myself by looking at the syllabus: the journal's only worth 10% of the final grade. I'd gotten A's on most of the rest of the stuff. It'll be cool. (HA! HA HA HA HA HA!)

I didn't have the journal for the other class, either. "Don't worry," I told myself. "It's not that big a portion of the final grade. You just have to get a C in this class and everything's fine. Just make sure you ace the final on Thursday and turn in not only the final paper but the paper you never turned in because you couldn't figure out a way to articulate your thesis. He'll accept it late. Suuuuure he will." (HA! HA! HA!)

I submitted the final online entry for the third class during a break between classes. I'm crossing fingers that the prof will still accept it.

Oh, yeah. I'm just doing grrreat.

(Please note I am writing this entry in my blog rather than studying for tomorrow's final. Like I said, I am a fucking idiot.

Is this what they mean by self-implode?)

Gag! Hack!

Allergies suck ass.

I Am A Fucking Idiot

I have three papers due today, along with two journals I should have been keeping all semester. I've started all three papers, but only finished one of them. It needs a lot of editing, but I think it's going in as-is. The other two...well, I got a good start on them, but I got frustrated, again, and have spent the rest of my time watching television and reading blogs and taking pictures and uploading pictures onto my photolog.

This is intensely stupid behavior. I am only fucking myself over. My entire grade depends on these papers, especially considering I won't be handing in a journal. (I have this thing about journals. This blog is okay, but assigned journals give me the hives.)

And, oh, fuck, I just remembered that I had that online assignment due this past afternoon. Oh, fuck.

Yeah, I'm just super-good at screwing myself over, ain't I?

Maybe I'll just go to bed now and then get up early and see what happens then.

Ha.

That's Disgusting, Sugar Kat

I am suffering from allergies this year. I've never really had to deal with that. Mostly it's a stuffed and runny nose, with occasional itchy eyes. Mom says it's 'cause I've moved from one region to another, which is possible. I was in Fairfield County for fourteen years.

I can't stand the nose stuff. Not only is it running, but there's post-nasal drip. Thick, icky mucus surrounding the pollen or whatever, slowly sliding down the back of my throat, making me gag and cough. Sometimes it gets stuck where the gagging is strong enough that I make those weird, hacking noises. Then I have this lovely wad of thick goo in my mouth, tough enough I can cut it with my incisors and it still holds together. I am thoroughly grossed out by this. I think I'd rather have the mucus stuff not working and let the pollen and whatnot do its thing. I suspect that that would just mean more coughing, and I've really had enough of that. Yet, I've had more than enough of the mucus wads making me gag and winding up in my mouth. Ugh. Bodily fluids are gross, but solids are far, far worse.

"Yu-Gi-Oh Cards For Sale"

I didn't mind the Pokémon craze. The card design was interesting, the toys cute, and the cartoon not too horribly animated. It even had characters I liked. The video game was a fun way to pass time in the airport.

Then my nephews in Philly got into Magic: the Gathering. I was in turns slightly repulsed by the severe dorkiness and mightily amused that Magic was now a game played by eight-year olds. And the cards were cheaper.

Now it's Yu-Gi-Oh. The show, the cards. It wouldn't be so bad if the show weren't so damned ugly, the characters so unlikeable. If there was an enjoyable GameBoy game. Instead, Yu-Gi-Oh appears to combine the worst of Pokémon and Magic. And the cards cost more.

Still, they expect Aunt Sugar Kat to provide booster packs on birthdays. Man, it makes me pine for the days of that brief flirtation with the Harry Potter card game.Those were super-cheap cards, and I like the books. And I don't wouldn't have to deal with hours of Yu-Gi-Oh being played on my sister's TiVo whenever I visit. Bleh-phooie.

Color and Light

Spring has finally, finally come to Albany. The rainstorm on Friday knocked down all of the blossoms on the two blossoming trees in the backyard before they had a chance to be pretty, but the tree in the front is covered with white blossoms which glow softly in the bright sun. The azaleas are dead or dying after the rough winter, but the rhodedendron are lush and purple with flowers. Tulips are popping up all over Mom's plantings, left over from the massive tulip garden of the original owner and half-wild. It's impossible to take a bad picture of a tulip.

I've been running about the yard snapping picture after picture of the flowers and blossoms with Mom's digital camera. I've also been trying to take decent pictures of the cats. It's easy with Floof, but my friend D. in L.A. is right: black cats don't photograph well. Oscar looks very strange in his pictures. Doesn't help that the flash insists on going off in indoor photos, even when I set the camera to museum. Ah, well. I took a very goofy one of Oscar which makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Now if only my photo log would load up pictures. .sigh. I've also found some nice pictures from last fall in the files which I'd like to upload. Very frustrating.

I should be writing my final papers for my classes right now, but I've been writing all morning and my brain is shot. I want to take pictures and upload them and share them, not analyze the teaching of writing or set up an outline for a critical paper of Evelyn. Blah. Oh, there's just way too much to do.

And I still haven't seen X2! Augh!

Not So Evil

I continue to be pathetic compared to my friends. (This, in spite of my foodie status and less-than-stellar attitude about myself.)

*-*-*-*-*
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test.

*-*-*-*-*
Please note, however, that if I ignore the fact that I have been going to Church ceremonies with my nephews (auntly duties), I wind up in Level 7 (High). That's pretty durned evil, isn't it?

Xander

I'm still upset about Xander's eye. It's just so wrong. Willow's the one who winds up in the hospital bed, not Xander.

I'm still waiting for them to kill off Kennedy. I hate her most of all, though the rest of the Slayettes are, on the whole, shaping up to be whimp-ass whiners worthy of an even more thorough ass-kicking than Caleb gave 'em last week.

On the reality front: I'm supposed to be a writing tutor this afternoon. I'm very much freaking out. I'm trying to comfort myself by reminding myself that many first-time teachers get the jitters, but it doesn't help. Someone, please, wish me good luck.

Lighter Note

Dude! That's totally like that Nathan Lane movie, Mouse Hunt!

Tim Robbin's Speech About Free Speech

Moby kindly transcribed the speech into two journal entries, part 1 here and part 2 here. It's a good speech. Small, rhetorical problem at one point, but overall, a good speech. (Too bad the typing's so bad!) I'm linking to it because, no matter how much you may dismiss the "political extremism" of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, they are very much right in this case.

Please note that the radio stations which led the boycott against the Dixie Chicks are owned by companies with strong ties to the Bush II adminstration.

Dixie Chicks

When I went to Corpus Christi with ET and SheepBoy, we took a cab to the battleship museum a ways up the shore from our hotel (it was a little like the Intrepid, but with less stuff and fewer people). This cab was driven by, naturally, a native Texan, who teased us about being from New York by quoting a Pace salsa ad and was, in general, a nice, funny, and friendly fella with the heaviest Texan twang I'd heard in ages. We expressed tentative dismay at the prospect of President Bush II; he said he was happy to be rid of him. He was glad of the prospect of kicking then-governor Bush out of Texas. He claimed Bush II had done nothing good for the state. This was not some knee-jerk liberal. This was a guy who made his living driving a cab in a fading town on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. (In case you're under the mistaken impression that Mexicans must be Democrats, the guy was white. Middle-aged and white.) He expressed a dislike of Bush II.

A lot of Texans I have met have expressed a dislike of Bush II. He shat all over their state while he was governor. Why shouldn't they dislike him? Especially considering he's not a true Texan, but a carpetbagger who thought his career would go better in their state.

The Dixie Chicks were partially quoted. This partial quote has led to one of the most retarded boycotts (outside of the boycott of French products; you're only harming yourselves, people, by refusing to drink the best wine in the world) I've ever heard of. The Dixie Chicks are one of the very, very, very few country acts I can actually stand listening to. (Ack! Ending two sentences upon a preposition! What's happening to me?!) If you really want to protest, write retaliatory songs. See whose songs are better. I'll bet for damned sure it'll be the Dixie Chicks. Their music is very good. I enjoy watching them in concert. They are three immensely talented women. And they look way better nekkid the cover of EW this week than any of the boycotters would. (I take it they're boycotting EW, too, now, in retaliation for allowing the Dixie Chicks a forum to speak?)

So they are ashamed of Bush II. Most Texans, I suspect, if you looked deep in their hearts, aren't too fond of that Connecticut blue blood either. The Dixie Chicks said, immediately after they expressed their shame of Bush II, that they support the troops. Was this quoted? Of course not. Instead, many copies of good CDs were crunched under tractors. Yeah, that's giving it to 'em. That'll show 'em for actually saying anything against the jackass in the White House.

Idiots.

Pictures

Fotolog has decided it doesn't want to upload my pictuers right now. I'm not entirely sure when it'll calm down, but I hope it's soon, as there are about six more photos I want to put up there right now. sigh

Purchases

Ever make an online service purchase then realize a month later you really will probably not have a chance to use the service? Probably not. Most people are more thoughtful than I am. But it was supposed to help me get discounts at hotels and travelling so I could visit people! sniffle Anyway, they're being a tremendous pain in the petoot about removing me from their lists. Grr. They keep this up, I'm going to use the my-brother-is-a-lawyer card.

Finals

I'm so damned screwed.

Ew

I was going to post on the meeting I had with my very understanding Historians and Witchcraft professor on Tuesday night and the troubles I've been having in general with my classes this semester, but I just discovered that Mom apparently bled all over the keyboard earlier and never cleaned it up. Ew. Ew, ew, ew.

Today's Flash

This is my favorite flash today: The Cheese Family in "The Zoo of Danger and Mystery".

Enjoy.

Noise

Three boys can make a hell of a lot of noise. I'm talking actual boys, age-wise, not men who decided never to grow up. Kids ranging between seven and nine years. Boys.

They are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, and these ingredients are glued together with massive amounts of noise, which is emitted every time they move and meet together. Incoherent screaming. "Aaaaaaaaaaah!" Then laughter and giggling. "Heh-ha-hih-hih-hih!" Then some yelling. "Aah! My lower portions! Aah! You're killing me! Aah! That's not the rules! This is the rules!" Purposeful bad grammar and bad math in loud voices. Thump-thump-thump of small feet attached to skinny legs attached to bodies you can still lift, so how the hell can their walking and running make such a huge amount of noise? Thump! Thump! Thump! Crash! Bam! They throw themselves about the room. Plastic swords flash about, slamming into other swords and soft body parts and walls and furniture.

How the heck am I supposed to read while this is going on downstairs in the basement? My two nephews and one of their friends, being boys.

My third nephew, the one living in that "freedom" country, generally isn't as noisy. He's going to be twelve this year and is focused on other, not-so-boy things now. It's kind of depressing. He's not a kid anymore. Not really. He'll be a teenager very soon. He'll hit that growth spurt and get furry and his voice won't be that high boy-tone but deep and manly. He'll no longer be anywhere near the baby nephew I used to carry and sing "Winnie-the-Pooh" to and bounce 'til he giggled. He won't be the toddler who pointed to the sky and said, "Moon! Moon!" because it was such a beautiful surprise to him. He'll look at me and see old fart Aunt Sugar Kat and not know what to say anymore.

I don't mind the noise so much, as it means these two are still young. Eventually, soon, they'll get quieter and whisper instead of shout because they know a grown-up female's in the house and they don't want that to be overheard. Still, I like looking at their faces and seeing the change. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of what they'll look like when they're teens. When they're men. I feel proud when I catch that glimpse. As they grow older, the glimpses are more frequent and last longer. It's sad. It's amazing. It has happened trillions of times before with trillions of other boys. It's not special, but it is. It's wonderful. I can remember when they had to crawl from place to place. I can remember when they couldn't speak words. I get to watch as they grow up. This is very cool.

Expecially since, as their aunt, I don't have too many responsibilities. I just get to watch them grow and spoil them rotten. That's my job. It's a good job. But I'm not getting much homework done. I'm too busy watching them play three-way hockey.

Thank You for the Warning, C--

Um, if you haven't seen this past Tuesday's Buffy, then SPOILER ALERT.

Thanks for telling me about the Buffy plot rumors, C--. If I had not known about Xander losing his eye in a violent manner, I would have been completely freaking out Tuesday night. I'd still be freaking out. As it is, I'm very surprised how upset I am about a fictional television character having his eye poked out by a creepy preacher.

How? How could they let that happen to Xander? I can see Willow or Anya or Buffy or Spike or Wood, as they all have or have had at some point a certain kick-assness about them. Xander's...Xander. He's the loser/dork with a heart of gold. He's the guy living next door. He's the bestest friend. He's Xander. He's completely lacking in kick-ass powers, other than snappy one-liners and good hugs and, apparently, motivational speeches. It's so wrong for him to be the victim. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Especially considering Slayette Kennedy barely got a scratch on her, in spite of the many chances the bad guys had to off the most annoying character who ever dated a Scooby. Dammit. I kept hoping they'd kill her off. If she survives through the end of the show, I will be most upset. I hate her. Hate. Grr! Die, Kennedy, die! Why couldn't she have her eye thumbed out? Or an appendage chopped off? Like her head?

Please note I didn't get to watch tonight's Angel because I was travelling unexpectedly and didn't have a chance to set up the VCR or ask my sister to fire up the TiVo. I am most upset. Arg! The world is against me! Arg!

"The Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator"

Brougt to you by The Brunching Shuttlecocks. Description here. Generator here. Sample entry:

Shrug

Nothing seems important. My life's been generally boring. Basically nothing exciting happening lately. I haven't gotten much done recently, but it's not important. Current Mood: phlegmatic No Comments

Share and enjoy, fellow bloggers.

Gee, There's a Surprise

Find out which Peanuts character you are.

Saddam's Shag

"Troops Discover Lush Saddam Hideaway" (AP report).

The doors of the town house opened to reveal a playboy's fantasy straight from the 1960s: mirrored bedroom, lamps shaped like women, airbrushed paintings of a topless blonde woman and a mustached hero battling a crocodile.

[...]

"This must have been Saddam's love shack," said Sgt. Spencer Willardson of Logan, Utah.

[...]

One of the airbrushed paintings depicted a topless blonde woman, with a green demon behind her, pointing a finger at a mythic hero. From the tip of her finger came a giant serpent, which had wrapped itself around the warrior.

Another showed a buxom woman chained to a barren desert mountain ledge, with a huge dragon diving down to kill her with sharpened talons.

The home's 1960s look — parodied in the series of "Austin Powers" spy spoofs — inspired a round of imitations from soldiers slogging door to door.

"Yeah, baaabeee," said Carter, doing his best imitation of actor Mike Myers' character.

"Shagadelic," another soldier shouted.

Indeed, the carpet was navy blue shag.

Please note deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is into bad fantasy art (mysogynistic and portrays many powerful pseudopenises, like snakes and dragons).

To Boston CHEAP

I spoke with my good friend, C--, today. He's the super-awesome cook who lives in Boston. We talked a bit about my coming for a visit. I haven't seen him in ages! Not since, what, last spring? And I haven't been to Boston to see him since July, 2001. So I thought I should check out bus fares. Ick. $78 round trip. That's no good. Especially considering that's nearly $100 for many hours spent on a stinky bus. Then, on a whim, even though I know from having memorized the train lines when I had a map pinned to my cubicle wall that there's no Amtrak line between Albany and Boston, I checked to see what the train fare might be between my home and his.

Thirty-eight bucks. Round trip.

Yay Amtrak! I love trains! I love Amtrak! Yay! I don't know if that was some sort of Memorial Day Weekend special, and I should probably check to make sure it wasn't, but that's a butt-load cheaper than round-trip to NYC ($93!). Yay! Now I can go visit C--! Yay!

REFUND!

I'm getting money back from two governmental bodies this year. State of New York and federal. What am I doing with this boon? Saving it for my trip to DC this fall? Saving it for tuition and books? Investing in a buyer's market? Why, no, of course not. This is me, Sugar Kat the Round-eye, remember? I'm pre-spending it (meaning spending the money before it's deposited in my bank account) on things like the hardcover of Michael Chabon's Summerland and the boxed DVD set of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am very stupid with money, but I'm happy in the short-term.

Go Go Godzilla!

Hideki Matsui saved Jeff Weaver's white-trash ass, once again providing the drama and magic when he hit a bottom-of-the-ninth single to bring in the winning run. Please join me in celebrating the thunderous arrival of Godzilla in New York. Grr! Stomp-stomp-stomp! Grr! Boom!

Read

Right on, Huey.

Aggressive, Abrasive

My favorite public policy ad campaign: thetruth.com.

Oh man

Freedom omelette at |get your war on|.

National Poetry Month

Among other things, April is National Poetry Month. Yesterday, the one day I didn't post, was supposed to be the day everyone carried a poem in their pocket and shared with the poem with as many people as possible. Poetry as STD. Anyway, other than the STD part, I thought it was a good idea and wanted to share a poem with you, Dear Reader, yesterday, but I was busy reading many things and watching a Powerpuff Girls marathon, so here's the post, belated.

Here's a poem by Dorothy Parker, the sentiments of which match my own thinking so very well.

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

Books of Wonder

I got this e-mail today from Books of Wonder. Thought I'd let you know.

Dear Friends and Customers,

We are very pleased to announce that Newbery Award-winning author SUSAN COOPER will be making a return appearance at our store on the 19th of April! Mrs. Cooper is the acclaimed author of the now-classic Dark is Rising Sequence which has just been released in a new set of matching hardcover editions with cover art by Caldecott Medalist David Wiesner! [YAY! Now I can get a matching set for my nephews!] Mrs. Cooper will do a reading at Noon and then answers questions, greet fans and sign copies of all of her wonderful books.

We are very excited to announce that at the end of this month we will be hosting our annual Newbery and Caldecott Celebration! Appearing on April 26th we'll welcome both of this years medal winners: AVI, who won the Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead and ERIC ROHMAN who won the Caldecott Medal for My Friend Rabbit. In addition, three of this year's honor winners will be on hand. Jerry Pinkney (winner of a Caldecott Honor for Noah's Ark), Peter McCarty (winner of a Caldecott Honor for Hondo and Fabian), and Patricia Reilly Giff (winner of a Newbery Honor for Pictures of Hollis Wood). The event will go from Noon to 2pm with each artist greeting fans, answering questions and signing copies of all of their wonderful books. Please join us for this rare opportunity to meet five outstanding, award winning authors and artists!

http://www.booksofwonder.com/Events

[...]

Finally, we will be attending the New York Antiquarian Bookfair this week! The fair runs from Thursday night to Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory at Park Avenue and 67th Street. We will have a booth overflowing with a substantial offering of books and artwork for sale! Stop by and visit us at booth #D29. We'd love to see you! To find out more information about the fair visit:

http://www.sanfordsmith.com/nyabookfair/

Upcoming birthdays include: Hardie Gramacky (born on the 12th) and Garth Williams (born on the 16th). Happy birthday to them and to all of our other friends and customers with upcoming birthdays!

That's all for now, have a great week!

Books of Wonder

Drunks Sporting in the Water

This is a rant. Skip this entry if you don't feel like dealing with my incoherent bitching today. [4/14/03: Please note I've changed the title so I don't draw the porno crowd. Well, more of the porno crowd.]

I feel like an old woman. Some stodgy old bitch. I cannot get excited by the prospect of hundreds, if not thousands, of drunken college-age students splashing around in the campus fountain and pool. Today is Fountain Day, the day they first turn on the fountain and fill the pool in the center of campus. Apparently the tradition is for students to get drunk out of their skulls, starting the evening before, and then continue drink heavily as the countdown to the opening of the fountain commences at 12:15 PM. When the water starts up, the inebriated students take off clothes and splash about in the pool and dance through the fountain.

I am tired of drunks. I am tired of potheads. Okay, so these guys are young and getting this out of their system. I've, what, nine to twelve years on these kids. Still, I don't have the patience to deal with them gushing about how wonderful it is to get so smashed you can't even see straight. I am in a completely different world from my fellow undergrads. I can't even begin to try and socialize with them. Their idea of a fun weekend is so very far from mine. And what the hell is with the focus on pot? Pot is the drug of choice, and these kids smoke it like tobacco. Constantly. They talk about how they have to smoke pot before they can write, then turn in half-coherent, trite garbage. Half the time the kids in one of my classes come in buzzed. It's annoying. I can't even be amused by it anymore. Enough of it already. I can still count on one hand the number of times I've gotten drunk. I was embarrassed by the number until I came here and discovered that a vast swath of the population gets shit-faced every weekend like clockwork. I haven't smoked pot because I've never felt the need to fry my brain like that and pot appears to be the center of their social life.

They smoke and stink to heaven. They drink to incapacitation and tell repetitive stories of their weekends. They get high and sound like brain-damaged cheerleaders in class. I know they have brains. They occasionally come in to class without hangovers and without a buzz and say insightful, intelligent things. It's just compeltely stupid behavior. And they don't have to be this way. Do they? Or, maybe having little else to do up here, this is all they can do. That idea makes me miss New York City all the more. But I still can't help but look at these kids frying their brains out and seeing complete fucking idiots. And feeling like an old fart because of it.

If you haven't been reading the BBC Reporters' Log, you're missing out

From today's entries in the BBC NEWS | In Depth | Reporters' Log: War in Iraq:

Qatar, CentCom:: Dominic Hughes :: 0345GMT

Regarding the journalists who have died over the last 24 hours, coalition forces point out that they repeatedly warned journalists that Baghdad would be an extremely dangerous place to be if the coalition engaged the regime in combat.

So on the one hand they make these statements of regret which I think you have to take at face value as genuine but they are also saying in some way: "We told you so."

Grrr! Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Atta boy, Matsui! The Yankees' new left fielder, Hideki "Godzilla" Matusi, finally hit his first home run of the season, his first home run in pinstripes, in the Yankee Stadium home opener this afternoon. In style: a grand slam in the fifth inning. Go! Go! Gojira!

I'm so very happy. I like Matsui. People say he's overhyped, but I like his swing–very compact–and he's more of a line-drive hitter than a home-run hitter, which means he'll be getting the ball into play rather than trying for the long ball and striking out. This is good. He'll be getting things done, getting on base, getting the run in. This is the way to win games. Home runs are very nice, though. Very nice indeed. A grand slam is a beautiful thing. I knew he'd hit his first homer once he got to Yankee Stadium. That place is a lefty hitter's paradise.

MLB Updates

I happen to know a young woman whose very nice boyfriend works at MLB.com. You know, site design, etc. Anyway, she knows who she is and therefore, if she's reading this, I just want to pass on the word that if he's one of the folks who spiffed up the yankees.mlb.com website, he did a very good job. I say this as someone who spends maybe a little too much time at the yankees.mlb.com website. Obsessive Yankees fan, that's me.

Speaking of which, may I just say that I'm completely at a loss as to what to do with myself today because of the home opener game being postponed until tomorrow? I. Want. To. Watch. My. Yankees. Stupid, stupid snow storm. I'd be willing to be completely snowed under up here in Albany if it meant I'd been able to watch the Yankees play the Twins this afternoon. Instead we'rebarely supposed to get anything and loads of things are being cancelled and closed early in NYC. That's just stomp stomp stomp stupid! pout

Dangerous Beauty

Me: "Look outside. Everything's silver. Isn't it pretty?"

Mom: "Ugh. No."

"What? Why?"

"It's dangerous. It's destructive beauty. mumble: Just like a woman."

laughter "Wh-what? Did you say 'Like a woman'?"

beat "Yes."

"So, what. Helen of Troy weather?"

"Yes. Yes, that's it, exactly."

* * * * *
The sun is out. The sky is a deep blue with thin white clouds speeding across. The ice on the trees and bushes is shimmering madly. It's blindingly bright outside, so, naturally, I spent an hour outside taking pictures with my mom's Nikon Cool Pix 2500. I went back inside, briefly, to tell Mom to wake up before the merecurial-tempered weather decided to change again and I could barely see. Everything was blanked out because of the temporary damage I did to my cones by staring at the millions of tiny, brilliant suns reflected at me from every tree branch and the white ice on the ground.

The sun is warm, melting the ice bit by bit in spite of the freezing temperature (oh! so cold!), so that there is a constant crackle-shush of ice falling from the tree tops stories above. There are fallen branches everywhere. Large ones. Ones of a size which, when landing, could do serious damage to a car or roof. I don't think anything has landed on our roof yet. Both my car and Dad's, which are parked in the driveway, are covered by a protective coating of ice but nothing has tested the effectiveness of the ice-armor yet. The branches land in large, shattered pieces, and the leaf buds on them are (were, now) about to open. I've a feeling our spring is not going to be very lush. Mom is very upset that this ice hit when her roses were beginning to bud.

"They're ruined," she says. "I'll never get any roses now."

Commenting, Ice and Serial Killers

Enetation is down right now, so comments won't be working for a bit. I've been told I should switch to another commenting service, but I've decided I like these Brits, so I'm sticking with them for the time being. I can't reach them to see what the problem might be as their entire server seems to be out of commission.

Perhaps they, too, have been hit by an unseasonal ice storm which has knocked out their power. Power's been on and off here since last night, actually going down right when I was about to hit the "Post & Publish" button. Grr. Lost my post. Not that it was monumental, but there were some descriptions in there of which I was rather proud. Naturally, I can't remember them, nor can I write anything to equal them, so I'm leaving it be. Silly thing is, if I'd just bothered to write the entry in WordPerfect, like I've been doing of late (except for this one), there would have at least been a partial copy from back-up.

Speaking of things I can and cannot do with my blog, I really wish I could put up pictures here so you guys can see what the trees and bushes look like up here. Everything is coated with a little less than a third of an inch of ice. You can hear the ice cracking and falling from the higher branches. Sometimes it's the branches themselves. A lot of power lines have gone down here. We haven't been without power for a period longer than maybe forty minutes. They're very good at clearing those messes up.

I don't envy the power line guys, though. They haven't had a break since the frozen rain started falling Thursday night. It turned to sleet and hail Friday. We got a little more frozen rain today. There is an inch-thick layer of hail and ice on the ground. It looks like snow, but you can tell it's not when you step on it. The flags finally melted today, but are soaked through and aren't flapping properly in the wind.

The ice coating everything is very pretty. My mom told me to take her digital camera and take pictures of the dogwood outside the kitchen door. Its slender, fragile branches and round leaf buds now remind me of reindeer antlers. They are so heavy with ice they practically scrape the ground. The tall trees next door are swaying heavily, like women in mourning, some of them leaning on each other for support.

Because of the overcast, the night is not entirely dark; the ambient light from the city of Albany turns everything a strange, disturbing, dirty orange color. This erie light didn't help last night, when the power first went out. The electronic equipment made strange noises of distress throughout the house and my mind instantly went to the hours of documentaries on murderers I'd watched earlier that day. Mass murderers and serial murderers and cannibals. It was fascinating at the time, but I had planted a seed of freak-out in my suggestible mind, and called out for my mom, loudly, when the office went pitch black. My excuse was that I couldn't see and needed a flashlight, but we both knew that I could see by the orange Albany glow from the windows.

If only they hadn't ended every half-hour episode with some sort of phrase like "they caught these men, but there are countless others still on the loose, preying upon the innocent for no other reason than the thrill of the kill!" Oh, if only I could be addicted to the Food Network like any other, normal cable-viewing person. No, I must be a History Channel junkie. "Just like Tony Soprano," my mom told me. How wonderful. My viewing patterns are similar to a fictional, violent-tempered mob boss.

Gag Reflex

My brother, to thank me for forwarding a dancing Meatwad Flash game to him, sent me this link. Seeing as the Weight Watchers cult is claiming more and more of my friends, I thought you all would enjoy. My "favorite" is the Hot Wrap Ups.

There, I also found these freaky-ass diet plan suggestions and this site of equally freaky-ass mid-century non-weight-lossy cookbooks. (My mom has the cookbook referred to in the "Meat! Meat! Meat!" section. It's somewhere in the basement in a dust-covered and probably mildewed box. I suspect that it, too, is stained with ancient meat-juice. Mm-mm-mm.)

snicker

There is, perhaps, something wrong with me, but this very simple flash video cracked me up.

UPDATE Just went back to that link to see if it was just a one-time giggle. It still cracks me up.

A Night With Mr. Roxbury

Please laugh with me at this video of an angry Welshman in his skivies. (Full story here.)

Frozen

It was very noisy outside last night. I couldn't have slept even if I had gone to bed before four. It sounded like the wind was blowing everything not stuck in the ground across the yard and back. Rattling, scraping, banging, thumping all night long. I looked out the window this morning to check the damage and discovered it wasn't the wind blowing things about making that racket last night, it was falling ice. We had an ice storm. It's still– I'm not sure what to call it. Icing? Not as heavily, but I hear the wet, clicking rattle of the falling ice. I've never been in a proper ice storm. This isn't a very big one. I can tell because there are no trees lying in the road and no branches in our yard. The snow from earlier this week is entirely gone, but now everything is covered in a layer of ice. Branches are encased and shimmering starkly. Everything looks fragile. The flags are covered with ice, too. If I'd known there was going to be an ice storm, I would have brought the flags in, but now I don't want to do anything to them for fear of breaking them in pieces. They're not shifting in the wind, but I can tell they're moving because of the cracking sound they make. The flag pole lines are coated in ice and sticking out at sharp angles, looking as though a good tug of breeze could snap them. Everything is brittle. It reminds me of the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. A cold, slightly forbidden, frozen world.

Honey

The wall between the outdoors and the kitchen cabinet is not very well insulated. As a result, the honey in the cabinet has crystalized in that sticky, funky fashion honey crystalizes. This is annoying, as I like to use honey in my green tea.

It is even more annoying because I'm drinking even more green tea than I usually do because I heard green tea helps accelerate one's metabolism. Faster metabolising means less excess flesh. Hyper-metabolisms lead to super-skinny size-one types who complain that they eat and eat and just can't gain a pound, which is a very irritating yet enviable complaint.

I'm sure adding honey is not helping the excess weight problem any, but it takes the edge off the bitterness of the tea. I'm a round-eye. This is what I do.

Still, the honey is crystalized and refuses to come out of the large squeeze bottle. Frustrating. So I nuke the honey bottle. The honey is now willing to come out of the squeeze bottle, but there's a problem. Not a real problem, but an issue nonetheless. The honey, post-crystallization and post-nuking, now comes out of the bottle like serious diarrhea. This, you can imagine, is unappetizing at best. Squeezing diarrhea into my tea is not a pleasant idea, even if it's sweet, honey-flavored, golden diarrhea. I still use it and I still drink the tea, but it's a good thing the tea has to sit and steep for a while, as those few minutes of steeping allow me time to forget the sweet, sticky, gold diarrhea I just poured into my metabolism-raising tea.

Lurking Is Good

Of course, I'll feel like a complete ass when someone tells me "That's not the right word, Little Trooper!" There you are, though. Anyway, it's good to lurk on the blogs of those you don't know or know of or know but not particularly well. This is because you can find many nifty things, like this. Please note I have used my full moniker, which is a very different result from my name (if I used it, I'd be a Man-Eating Attack Monkey with a kick-ass battle rating of 9.1; my writing name is a somewhat less kick-ass Brain-Eating Skeleton Monkey with a still-respectable battle rating of 8.0; my full name is a pansy-ass Gruel-Eating Jungle Monkey with a measily 2.6 battle rating). My partial web moniker of Sugar Kat is a Poison-Eating Killer Monkey with a pathetic 3.7 battle rating. (I'm not cheating, I'm being thorough, so ;-p. You'll probably kick my LTSK ass, anyway.)

Little Trooper Sugar Kat is a Potato-Eating Space Monkey ...with a Battle Rating of 5.6 To see if your Food-Eating Battle Monkey can defeat Little Trooper Sugar Kat, enter your name:

Please note the following battle results:

• Buffy v. Spike
  
• Buffy v. Angelus
  
• Xander v. Dark Willow
  
• Buffy v. The First
  
• Buffy v. apocalypse
  
• Wolverine v. Sabertooth
  
• Jean Grey v. Dark Phoenix
  
• Batman v. Superman
  
• Spiderman v. Batman
  
• Marvel Girl v. Wonder Woman
  
• Obi-Wan v. Darth Maul
  
• Ben Kenobi v. Darth Vader
  
• Gandalf v. Dumbledore
  
• Harry v. Frodo
  
• Harry v. Draco
  
• Eowyn v. Arwen
  
• Kenny v. Cartman
  
• Professor Farnsworth v. Dr. Zoidberg
  
• Meatwad v. Master Shake
  
• Desi Arnaz v. Brak's Dad
  
• Yankees v. Red Sox
  
• Ireland v. England
  
• Cantonese v. Mandarin
  
• Barnes & Noble v. Amazon.com
  
• Our President v. Gore
  
• Democrat v. Republican
  
• liberal v. conservative
  
• late v. early
  
• Mom v. Dad
  
• chocolate v. vanilla
  
• tea v. coffee
  
• cat v. dog
  
• God v. Satan
  
• SheepBoy v. E.T. ...it's a tie!

IMPORTANT NEWS

This is not actually important news to anyone but Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, and that particular group probably already knows about this, but I thought I'd quote SciFiWire here, anyway:

Final Buffy Eps Slated
UPN will wrap up Buffy the Vampire Slayer with five new episodes, starting April 15, featuring the return of former series regulars David Boreanaz (Angel) and Eliza Dushku (Faith) and guest star Nathan Fillion (Firefly). Subsequent episodes will air April 29, May 6 and May 13, with the series finale on May 20.

This five-episode story arc will pit Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) against her most insidious and evil opponent ever, Caleb (Fillion), a depraved operative of the First. A final battle to the death will decide whether good or evil will prevail on Earth.

Also found on SciFiWire are these pieces of info:

• Bruce Campbell makes his own cheeze-fest film, to star himself.
  
• Dude! A Battle Chasers movie! (Film Cynic sez: it either won't get made or it will and it'll suck.)
  
• Interesting cast signed up for a sequel to the very good Pitch Black.
  
• A reference in the news briefs to an Ain't It Cool News piece which revealed that the guy who played Mickey Mantle so very well in the HBO film 61* is going to be The Punisher in the upcoming film of the same name.
  
• In the why-god-why? file, Edward Furlong is getting prepped for his role in yet another crap-ass Crow sequel.
  
• An idea was bandied about a couple of months back that UPN was going to dump Buffy's ass, anyway, no matter what SMG decided.
  
• And, finally, in the laugh-your-ass-off rumor pile, there's this piece about David Boreanaz, our soul-full Angel, signing up to play Superman in the film currently struggling through development. Come, laugh with me. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Those Brits are so damned gullible.

Here's a nice thing Buffy fans can do: Nicholas Brendon, a stutterer himself, is chairman of the Stuttering Foundation of America's Stuttering Awareness Week. Okay, so this reads a bit like a joke, but James Earl Jones is a stutterer, too, so you'd best not be mocking the Voice of Darth Vader. Anyway, apparently Xander fans are trying to raise funds for the foundation in honor of Brendon's birthday on April 12th as well as to thank him for seven years of Xandery fun and goodness.

Or, if you don't like Xander in particular, but are a big, honkin' Buffy fan, you may wish to check out the Buffy Thank You site.

Household Hints!

Though I've read in many places that the best thing to do to get rid of bloodstains is to run the stained material through cold water, I find that very, very hot tap water works best.

Rinse the blood-stained cloth with water as hot as you can get it from the tap. Then rub the stained spot with directly with bar soap. Rinse with the hot tap water again. The stain should, at best, be completely gone. You may have a faint yellow mark where the bloodstain once was if the bloodstain was not quite fresh. If the stain is old, it will take some extra time to clean out and you will probably still be left with a faint brown mark where the stain was. Once you've done as much as you can in your sink, you should immediately launder the item to remove the remainder of the stain. Now that nasty bloodstain is all gone!

That Song Has Me Confused. Is This Ironic?

Because it wasn't homework, I decided to take a stupid test on AOL regarding how good a date I am. I got a 16 out of 20. And I quote: You must be in high demand on the dating circuit. You have a knack for making men feel at ease. Enjoy yourself, girl!

They couldn't possibly be more wrong. I am Sugar Kat the Dateless. I haven't been asked out by a non-drunk in about, what, seven years? Drunks (reason: beer goggles) and jokes (reason: obvious) don't count. Drunk asking was last year. Joking request for a date was four years ago. Both smushed my ego just that much further. And my mother wonders why I don't wear more feminine clothes (I'm a jeans-and-tee-shirt kind of gal nowadays, usually wearing the flannel shirt I stole from my brother over the tee). Why bother? Ugh.

So's you get some context on the silly response, here are the quiz questions and my responses (along with ubiquitous LTSK commentary in brackets):

1. How long does it take to decide how you feel about a guy?
   · I can tell within the first few minutes of meeting him [not unless there's something obviously wrong with him, I can't]
   x A few hours of conversation [this is prelims, like, do I think I like a guy or not, is he second date material, etc., so, yeah, a few hours of conversation should do it]
   · Two dates
   · Sometimes months
   
   
2. What's a first date dealbreaker for you?
   · The way he dresses [snooty bitch]
   x Unpleasant odors
   · Showing up without a gift [what kind of demanding bitch expects a freakin' gift on a first date?!]
   · Staring at your chest throughout dinner [heck, that happened all the time at the office. There's roughly a foot of space between my eyes and my admittedly largeish chest. I can tell. I can always tell. Eye angle. But it's the first date. I'd write that sort of behavior off to hormones. So long as he's not trying to grab them and makes occasional eye contact.]
   
   
3. On which subject do you demand the full story during the first date?
   · His previous relationships [that's just stupid; why wander into that dangerous territory on the first freakin' date? Especially considering he might just start whining unpleasantly about a total bitch of an ex. Do I need to hear that, even if he is a great guy?]
   · His future career plans [he can tell me if he wants to, but to ask about it makes it seem like I'm concerned about how much money he's making, which sure isn't my main concern]
   x His hobbies and passions ["demand" is an overly strong word, but, yeah, I generally want to know what the heck the guy is interested in. You know, if we have anything in common, or if he's into something I can't stand (I should imagine vice-versa).]
   · His feelings about marriage [Jesus! Stalk much, superfreak? Hell, I don't want to think about marriage. Why would I bring it up on the first freakin' date?]
   · None [almost chose this, simply because of the "demand" (who am I to demand anything at this point?), but I'd be very much interested in the hobby stuff, so I chose that]
   
   
4. On a date, do you ever envy the other couples having fun on their dates?
   · Yes
   x No [what the hell do I care about the other couples?]
   
   
5. How far do you push him to do something he doesn't want to do, like dancing?
   · Two or three whines, then stop
   · Until he complies
   x I don't -- I ask what he'd rather do [not to say I'm a wussy, compliant non-entity, but this is the first date. We're looking for neutral territory where we're both comfortable. If I met a chick like the two answers above, I'd probably smack her.]
   · I don't, but then I make fun of him to my girlfriends [again: bitch!]
   
   
6. What do you always compliment a man on, even if it's not true?
   · His smile
   · His clothing
   · His choice of date activity
   · His kissing
   x I only compliment if I mean it [I hate false compliments. They're lies. Why start off with stupid lies that will lead you to trouble later? They always do.]
   
   
7. How do you bring up the subject of a second date?
   · 'That was fun'
   · 'So what are you doing next weekend?'
   · 'Give me a call sometime'
   x Wait for him to bring it up [I'm a coward. I'm not going to presume any desire on his part to see my sorry self again. If I had a good time, I'll say so, but not to lead into anything.]

That all seems pretty reasonable to me. I guess. But I think I give off some sort of cooties!/Ebola!/rabies!-vibe. Or something. Or maybe I'm ugly. Or too tall. Or too fat. Or maybe it's this flannel shirt. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm Dateless because my social circle's now a bunch of kids nine or twelve years younger than I am. But, considering the duration of time, I think the age range can be ruled out. It's probably the height/weight/looks thing. (And maybe the boobs are, like, scary.)

Baby Eaters

Um...huh? I think this can go in the "what the fuck?" propaganda file. I thought calling your enemies baby-eaters had gone out of vogue. Guess not.

(excerpt) Marines in south-central Iraq offered food packets to wary civilians yesterday. [...] One Marine said a prisoner of war told him "they'd heard to be a Marine, you had to eat a baby or kill someone."

I'm sure everyone knows that, according to late Medieval/Renaissance diabolist theory, witches flew to their giant sabbats, danced about naked, kissed Satan's ass as a pledge to honor and obey him, had orgy sex (which was pleasureless because of Satan's cold, hard flesh (ew!)), and made mock-Host out of babies which had been roasted/boiled during the sabbat. Because witches, as societal scapegoats, were supposed to be deviant from the societal norm, the idea of the witch snatching, cooking and consuming babies is very common through much witch myth. The invading marines are deviants not to be accepted by good Iraqis, therefore the marines are called baby-eaters. It's stupid and medieval, but it works, especially on a panicked populace kept ignorant by its leaders. (Remind you of anything?)

While I Was Waiting For Buffy...

I decided to hit the Daily Show website and look at their videos. I really, really hope you can watch this one, as I've yet to read, see, or hear a better response to the Haliburton thang the administration pulled on us.

Auugh! (part two)

Yeah, I know I posted on this already, but I'm upset. Extent of Jeter injury still unclear:

(excerpt) Derek Jeter still isn't sure how long he will be out after suffering a dislocated left shoulder on Monday, but early estimates have the All-Star shortstop out at least four-to-six weeks.

Auuugh! Auuugh! Shit! Fuck! Auuugh!

I hate this useless feeling, not being able to do anything. Yeah, okay, I don't even know Jeter. But, still. Shit! Fuck! Auugh!

My apologies to those who are offended by the coarse language. Today's posts has been rated NC-17.

(Also a pisser is that Mom brought home all sorts of yummy food from Trader Joe's and I can't eat it 'cause I'm all sickly from my meds. Grr! Auugh!

However, just so you know, sipping hot white tea is a good way to settle an unhappy tummy. I recommend plain ol' Emperor's White Tea, as extra stuff like melon or jasmine might make the settling tummy waffle on the settling bit.)

Auugh!

It's snowing again. What melted away this morning in the early spring sun has been replaced with more cold whiteness. It's still lovely, but it's spring, dammit! It's beautiful, but I want to plant tulip bulbs!

I'm now concerned for the songbirds which were making such lovely noise a few days ago but are now silent. Frozen? And what about the robins? The first one showed mid-February, and I'm positive his little skeleton will be found behind a bush somewhere while we're clearing out the hedge, the giant, black crows in our neighborhood having cleaned off the edible bits a month ago. There were robins in the front yard last week, making it feel even more like spring. Now they're nowhere to be seen. I hope they grew sensible and flew back south until the weather up here is more reasonable to worm- and bug-eaters.

"Hey, it's Spring! snow snow snow April Fool's!"

Then again, I'm sure Frau Baker, my German teacher in high school, is very happy. She, her husband and her two children were all avid skiiers, weekending in the mountains well into the spring and telling smiling stories the Monday following of whatever jump or slalom her family went over. I miss Frau Baker. She was so nice. (And I was the best student in her class, beating out my class' valedictorian and my brother's class' valedictorian every quiz and test! Woo! I'd always get 100% plus all of the bonus points. During verbal quizzes, I'd finish so quickly Frau Baker and I would chat for a bit about languages before she sent me in to get the next student. Ah, the glory days of my youth.)

It's A New York Times Kind Of Day

If you haven't signed up to read The New York Times on the web, then do so. It's free, for pete's sake. And you can use a dump e-mail account (like "myself_nyt@yahoo.com") if you're concerned about random spam (which I haven't had a problem with). Anyway, today's entry is going to be about stuff I read in the Times, with links.

Jeter's Shoulder Dislocated
Some of you could give less of a shit. I was seriously ill last night and listening to the season opener game over the radio because watching television was making my head/stomach that much worse. I heard about the collision when it happened, leapt out of bed and ran to the T.V. They played the colision over and over and showed them trying to reposition his shoulder while his teammates looked on.

Derek Jeter does not wince. He never shows any sign of pain. That's just the way he is. Except last night, when he was obviously crying out in pain. The picture shown in the link isn't the same as the picture on the front page of today's sports section, which is of him on the ground, fully baring his teeth in a grimace. I nearly cried while watching this last night, and I'm still worried. This is my team. I can't think of anything that would work so my tiny readership would understand how I feel, except maybe if Michael Jordan dislocated his shoulder during his prime with the Bulls. But then, that only works for one of you. Ah, well. Just know I was upset enough last night to watch television until I puked and am still upset enough today to get myself on the computer, in spite of still being wobbly, health-wise.

NYU Raises Fees 6.3%
I read this and was super-pissed off. The education at NYU isn't even worth what they're charging now. They're one of the most expensive private institutions out there, and the name does not yet merit the cost (you don't get instant-hire for being an NYU alumni as you might for being a Harvard alum). I know there are people who feel they got a decent education there, but I think the quality of the teaching and the requirements here at U-Albany is, in some ways, superior to what I experienced at NYU. For pete's sake, they have an actual historian running the Medieval & Renaissance Studies program here, as opposed to an ignorant French professor who knows next to nothing about the course of study. And, to be honest, considering what they charge, the students should be getting far more than a decent education and the occasional good professor.

NYU has squandered their funds for years on unnecessary projects. My dad got angry with them some years ago for putting more emphasis on money for themselves than educating their students (he was in a position to know).

Grr! Arrg! Anger!

Paul Zindel, Writer of a Lot of Teen Books, Dies
I read a bunch of his books when I was in junior high and high school. They were left over, mostly, from when my sisters were that age. In some ways, his books were very 70's, but they were mostly timeless in the angst and weirdness which teens face. They were mostly suburban tales and I'm not entirely sure the folks reading this blog would like Pardon Me, You're Stepping On My Eyeball as much as I did, but Zindel's books are a part of my childhood and I feel I should acknowledge his passing.

(As for the play mentioned through most of the obituary, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, it mostly stands out in my memory for the description of a girl's method of obtaining a cat skelleton. Ugh.)

Daniel Patrick Moynahan, Former New York Senator, Buried At Arlington Yesterday
He was an amazing man. I'm not sure how much the folks when spent their youth up in New York State heard about him during his years in office, but he was on the television almost daily during my years outside of D.C. His obit is here. The details on his funeral, here. Again, I feel the need to acknowledge this important man's passage.

Interesting bit at the end of the description of yesterday's ceremony: "[Maura Moynihan, the Senator's daughter] explained later that she chose the verse ["Do not go gentle into that good night"] because her father knew Mr. [Dylan] Thomas and sometimes drank with him at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village." Now I want to go to the White Horse Tavern.

Finally, Investigation Into 9/11

(excerpt) As witness after witness addressed the commission, several gnawing questions were either articulated or implied: Who, if anyone, would ever be held responsible for failing to stop the attacks? Did the commission have the authority to truly make changes? And would a world focused on the latest war have the stomach, or the attention span, to listen again to the facts surrounding Sept. 11?

"I am convinced that this tragedy did not have to happen," said Stephen Push, a spokesman for Families of Sept. 11, which pressed for the establishment of the committee. "Too many politicians put re-election over national security. There were people who failed us on 9/11."

[...]

Afterward, some family members, while encouraged with the initial opportunity to have their say, expressed a queasiness over whether their words would stick, or whether political considerations would eventually erode their concerns.

Really, there's not much for me to add to this article. Just read, but be prepared to be angry.