There are a lot more houses, but I don't find the house-photo thing very interesting because pictures of houses don't feel like houses feel. Also, because I didn't think about it, there aren't actually any pictures of the fronts of the houses. Use your imagination. Also, I'm almost sure I had more pictures than what got uploaded so I may update this tomorrow if I can figure out what happened.

House Hunters: Chattanooga

I said I was going to have house pictures today but I let my mother borrow my camera battery and I don't know where her camera is. This is my fault because she's let me borrow two of her batteries and they're both somewhere in storage now. Don't let me borrow things while I'm moving. Anyway, I'll hopefully have them tomorrow and we can play House Hunters: Chattanooga Edition.

In other news, NaBloPoMo is almost over, which means I've almost totally rocked it. I think I liked the themed stuff from last year because it kept me from having those blah days with nothing to say. To be fair, though, I never did a post that just said Rar rar rar rar rar. And I was totally tempted.

It's impressive how much riding in a car can wear you out, even when all you're doing is sitting. But we're back in civilization Georgia. I'll post house pictures tomorrow.

Greetings from Mississippi! The internet is very wobbly here. Yesterday I tried to post but I couldn't get the computer to cooperate and then Dad took it over for most of the day (we always update my grandfather's computer while we're here). Before I knew it Granddad had gone to bed and I hadn't posted anything. There's no cell signal in the house and we only get one bar outside, so I sat in front of the window and waited for the pages to load to update the blog on Daniel's iPhone. I still think they're too expensive, but it did come in handy. I've gone too far in NaBloPoMo to let lack of internet stop me. So even though yesterday's post sucked it still counts.

The offer on the house was countered, so I countered back. They have until Monday to respond since it's the holidays and all that.

This house has a huge bedroom upstairs for the grandkids--there are four beds. The trouble is Nich uses a cpap machine and when it slides off his faces it makes this awful snore-fart sound. And then one of us (me or Daniel) has to get up and fix it. Fixing snore-farts does not a restful make.

In other news my mother is talking about giving my grandfather weed brownies. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Will tell you tomorrow if I can. But I totally posted today. Yay for brothers and iphones.

In seven minutes I need to be down the hall and dressed and packed. We're going to Mississippi to see my grandparents. It's going to be, well, it's going to be a trip. It'll be good to see everyone. I like my grandparents, all things considered. And I'm pretty tired from last week and this weekend (the switch from having nothing to do to having everything to do is jarring) so it'll be nice to have nothing to do. Because there is nothing to do in Mississippi.

Medical Breakthrough

Nich had horrible hiccups today. He gets the same kind painful, achy hiccups I get so I always feel really bad when he has them. Mom suggested giving him a peppermint and telling him not to eat it (otherwise he'll chew and swallow it). So I did both. He sucked on it a while and then started making this awful noise, his face turning a deeper shade of red with every gasp. I started beating on his back while trying to get him to stand up so I could do a proper Heimlich. It was some combination of the thwacking and leaning forward that caused the mint to dislodge, which pleased both of us. Also, the hiccups were gone.

And it is with pride that I suggest my breakthrough theory in hiccup cures: choking.

Am posting from Megan's apartment. We had a party last night--it was surprisingly fun considering I'm not really into parties. Since it was too far to drive back I stayed on her couch. Neighbors also partying. The way their bass vibrated the walls was oddly soothing. Jimmy, the cat, occasionally sat on my head in an attempt to get affection. He's a nice cat. Anyway, a pretty good night all in all. People are coming over to make pizza soon, but we don't have anything to bake it on except tin foil. We'll see how that works out. I'm sure it will be delicious.

Did you know it's already November 22nd? November's almost over. Weird. It doesn't seem like its been that long. Time always seems bigger when it's coming up.

In other news, I'm currently in the process of putting an offer on a house. As in waiting for my agent to fax over the contract so I can sign it. Cross your fingers. I probably won't get it, but I can hope.

A confession

So about a month ago a friend of mine asked me for a favor. The gist of it was she wanted to invite me to a free game and if I stayed for three days she'd get extra points. So all I had to do was log in once a day for four days and everything would be good.

Except I can't stop. I should just walk away but there's something about it that's oddly appealing. The ponies, you guys. This game is called Ponystars and despite my feelings that I should not be playing a game called ponystars I kind of enjoy it. On the plus side it's a very low-maintenance game and you only have to log in once a day. And you get to breed ponies. Colorful ponies. And as dumb as it is, it's kind of relaxing. Like a sand garden without the mess.

So what I'm saying is, let me know if you want to play and I'll send you an invitation. That and I am the lame champion.

I. The thing with the biscuit in in was an apple sundae, witch is partially why I wasn't going to get it--not a huge fan of apples in desserts. However, I am a big fan of bread in desserts (except for bread pudding--weird) so this one turned out to be a winner. And cheap to boot.

II. We do trivia at a restaurant, not a bar. And we don't have a normal place because our normal place closed. So now we're experimenting.

III. The mice in the house are already dead, (un)fortunately. I like mice, but I don't think I'd want them in the house. But the fact that the dead ones are in the house and making it smell works in our favor. Still, it's sad to see them go.

IV. The possible dead guy is a plus for us too. The agent speculates that the lady's husband died in the house, which is why she's not living in it now (she apparently moved out very quickly). So the house is sitting empty and she's hoping for enough money to move home. I hate to be all "Yay! Let's benefit from her sadness!" but a good deal on the house would make my life considerably better.

V. I actually don't care for those traffic accident memorials at all. It's like, for some reason, dying on the side of the road warrants a wreath/cross/whatever but dying anywhere else doesn't. I get that you're sad, but I bet you're going to remember where the accident happened anyway. There's no need to put a marker there.

VI. Alien House: There's a three bedroom, two bathroom house in Chattanooga that looks like a spaceship. Not kidding at all. The front steps were even retractable at one point. I really wish this house was in my price-range and on the market, even if it is on the mountain.

VII. Alien Cars: Tennessee has this traffic accident response team of trucks that are neon green and have various sizes and functions. All of them have light boards that fold up and down on top. They move synchronously and block traffic while one of them goes to help the damaged car. It was a really cool thing to watch, despite the fact that it made me late.

VIII. I feel like this posts lacks anything interesting but my fingers are really cold and I don't have much else to say. That's what NaBloPoMo is about: writing when you have nothing to say.

Went house-hunting again today, making two consecutive days of driving to and from Chattanooga. 85, at least the part that goes through Georgia, is way more interesting than 75 although I couldn't say why. I have pictures but they're not off the camera yet. I may put an offer on a house, but it'd be way low. There's another house that's actually an old duplex that was "converted" into a house that I'd consider too, because then I could change it back to a duplex and rent the other side. But it needs a lot of work and Zuki would have to live in the side yard and it has a big front yard and the washer and dryer (not included) are in the kitchen.

The idea of getting custom cabinets to hide the washer and dryer and therefore having secret laundry is kind of appealing to me. But the idea of whoever rents the other side having to do their laundry in my kitchen is not so appealing.

Anyway, provided we don't win the lottery this week, I think the one house is the best I could do in my price range, mainly because it's not actually in my price range but the owner really wants to sell it. Also it has mice. Also someone may have died in it.

I had like 8,000,000 things to tell you about today but I'm so tired. Remind me to tell you about the alien trucks. And the alien house. And the mountain. I'm gonna go to bed now. Big day tomorrow.

Went to team trivia tonight with Dorian and Lauren and Dorian's friends. We took third on a guess about Rod Stewart. So, you know, yay for Rod. I hadn't been in a while...maybe a month...so it was a nice change of pace. If I go too much I start to feel anxious about the people there. Also, the dessert I ordered (I always eat with my family before I go since it's so late) had a biscuit under the ice cream. It was apparently in the description but I hadn't intended to order it--they were out of the thing I wanted--so it was a surprise. Delicious.

I also went to the dentist today. Dude, score one for dental insurance--I can get all my teeth fixed for $211. That's ten fillings--and the white kind too. The insurance is paying like $700. And the dentist was super nice, as was the assistant. Plus my gums are still excellent. So win all around.

Ashley's post made me remember something interesting I read a while ago while I was waiting for my mom at the doctors office. Did you know that some doctors consider prenatal screening to be a eugenics-based practice? It's not totally an unfair statement considering that an average of 90% of Down syndrome pregnancies are voluntarily terminated. I don't have any sources on that figure, mind, but it was in the magazine. Anyway, they say that's why some people refuse prenatal screening, and some doctors can recommend against prenatal screening. The whole idea seemed really bizarre to me.

On one hand I can understand not wanting to know if something was wrong in the vein that you're already invested in this baby and it's yours and you're going to love it no matter what. Or maybe you don't want to stress yourself out any more than you have to. But I think I'd like to know as much as I could about what's coming up. Boy or girl? Husband's or boss's? As much as I appreciate the idea of being surprised I think I'd want to know if the baby I was carrying was going to have complications. Of course, I've never been pregnant and I don't really plan to be.

It does give you the chance to opt out. As much as I'd like to say I don't think you should, raising a special-needs child is hard. And expensive. And I can see where you might want to just try again. It's a big decision. And not screening saves you from making that decision. I guess the better decision would be to adopt, since you don't have to go through all the bloating and stuff. If there's supposed to be a biological need to hold your own offspring I guess I haven't felt that one yet. I've never understood why people get so dead-set on having their own children. Why pay $10,000+ for fertility treatments when you could spend that on a guaranteed kid? Are your genes that impressive? Michael Phelps, perhaps, but otherwise I really don't understand the appeal. And it's not even one of those I-could-choose-to-understand-but-I'm-acting-like-I'm-above-the-concept things. I honestly don't get it.

Stolen from someone I knew in high school.

Three things you've done in the last 33 Minutes:

• Microwaved my tea.
• Put the dog outside.
• Started writing this.

Three things you like about yourself:

• My advanced spacial-reasoning skills.
• Good baking instincts.
• The color of my eyes.

Three things you dislike about yourself:

• My nails.
• Sense of humor.
• Phone anxiety.

Three things you're afraid of:

• Silverfish.
• Windows at night.
• Heights, but not really. They mostly make me uncomfortable, not really afraid.

Three things you're wearing right now:

• Red Shirt
• Reasonably clean jeans.
• Socks.

Three everyday essentials:

• Computer.
• Toothpaste.
• Jeans

Three important objects

• Edwin (the Laptop)
• Conrad (the iPod)
• Ramona (the GPS)

Three of your favorite bands/artists

• Guster.
• Barenaked Ladies.
• Semisonic.

Three ways to be happy:

• Appreciate little things.
• Move to Japan/Mexico/Austria.
• Don't live with your family.

Three of your favorite songs at the moment:

• Starless Heaven (Guster)
• Evergreen (JMB)
• Left and Leaving (Weakerthans)

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:

• Being a home-owner.
• Being in Mexico.
• Having a real job.

Three things you regret:

• Not being a better student.
• Letting my parents talk me out of American Samoa.
• Not moving out sooner.

Two truths and a lie:

• I don't like the color teal.
• I love pickled beets.
• I sent Clinton a valentine.

Three things you just can't do:

• Whistle.
• Steal things without feeling horrible about it.
• Like the way Ben Folds sounds.

Three things you miss from your past:

• Japan.
• Junior year.
• Camp.

Three gifts you'd like to receive:

• An ice cream maker.
• A cabin on the Mayercraft.
• A copy of the album Parachute from when Guster was still Gus.

Three of your favorite hobbies:

• Traveling.
• Concerting.
• Cooking.

Three things you want to do really badly right now:

• Finish this.
• Make muffins.
• Go somewhere.

Three places you'd like to visit:

• Egypt.
• England.
• Brazil.

Three cartoon characters:

• Rocko (RML)
• Norbert (TAB)
• Arnold (HA)

Three things you want to do before you die:

• Visit all seven continents (3/7ths of the way there!).
• Make my own wine.
• Hang glide or sky dive.

I would post something real, but I'm tired and reading a book. And it's in an interesting part so I'd like to keep reading but I caught the clock and it's almost tomorrow so I had to post. So here. I'm posting. Ok. Back to reading.

Five Good Memories

I. When Guster played at Erskine College in May of 2007 (I think...), Keri and I waited almost eleven hours in front of the venue--not because it was a hot show or anything, but because we had to check out of our hotel in Greenville by 10am and we had nowhere else to go. There is nothing close to Due West, South Carolina. Anyway, we waited on the front steps in the damp, until it was time for the doors to open and were told by the security people that we had to sit in the seats. So we sat in the seats. Then people stood in front of us and no one did anything about it. We were annoyed, to put it mildly. But as the front row got more and more wasted, gaps opened up and we managed to stick ourselves front and center, right on the bass speakers. It was a great show, and then they played Jesus on the Radio, acoustic, three inches from our faces.

II. I used to suffer from dog jealousy because I expect my little dog to love me more than anyone else and for a while I wasn't sure if she even knew that she was my dog as opposed to a general family dog. But when we go to the vet she never wants mom to take her in--she gets very distressed when I start to go sign her in. :) She likes me best, even if mom gives her more treats.

III. My first trip to Sapelo Island. There were only six of us and no one knew each other and the island was empty and cold and gorgeous. We ate dinner with a local family and slept out by the beach so we could see the sunrise over the water. I've never been colder in my life but the beach was lovely and you can only pull off that kind of stupidity when you're young.

IV. Getting a ticket to the Star Wars premier when I went to Cannes. I'd been waiting for a while and the normally steady flow of extra passes was more of a drip. Then a really nice guy with a media badge asked me how long I'd been standing there and gave me his ticket. I don't remember much about what he looked like, except that he was smiling. We were both smiling.

V. Ships and Dip I. From the beginning (driving the longest I'd ever driven to room with someone I hadn't met in person on a trip my parents didn't know about) to the end (coming back to Rutherford to find that no only were my friends hanging out in my room while I was gone but they'd added furniture. Their answer? They didn't think I'd be back until the next day.) the whole trip was a blast. Ships and Dip III was excellent as well. I have high expectations for Ships and Dip V.

The problem with NaBloPoMo is that sometimes you don't have anything to say. So I'm just going to answer questions you've left in the comments this month. The Queen does this in her comments, usually within 24 hours of the original message. She is much better at this than I am.

The Frazinator asked what the dog's name was. Her full AKC (if I ever mail the papers in) name is Sweet Azuki Bean, unless I can think of something better. We call her Zuki, although mostly I just call her Zookers or Little Dog. Mom calls her Zuki-Lukey or however you'd spell that.

The Queen asked if escarpment was a well-used Canadian term. I have no idea, but there's that Sarah Harmer song about blowing holes in the escarpment. And I think she might mean that one. But I'd never really heard the word until I heard the song, so it's definitely not a well-used Georgian term.

The Freshman asked how we got the dogs to take that picture. Lots of patience and quick shutter speeds. Those dogs don't stay still for long, especially not when Daniel's laying on the ground holding a fun new chew toy/very expensive digital camera. He also asked if I was house hunting exclusively in Chattanooga. Mostly, yes. There's a city near Chattanooga called Soddy Daisy, and I'm not opposed to living there just for the name.

The Freshman then asked if I wanted to go to the Tallulah Gorge over Thanksgiving, which reminds me that I need him to text me the days he's going to be here since I lost all my text messages when they fixed my phone.

Actually, all the rest of these are from him, so we'll cover them all together. The Guster video? No outer context. That was all filmed for that video. We didn't get individual grades for things in creative writing (actually, the only CW class I took where we received scores on individual assignments was also the only class in which I failed every single paper I turned in and still made an A) but I got a solid A in the class. And I'm looking for a house with two or more bedrooms, two or more bathrooms, and under the 80,000 mark. Also, you know, good neighborhood/fence-able back yard/not rotten. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Remind me to write something valid tomorrow.

It was a good day today. I got a lot of stuff done. One of those things was making an appointment for Zuki to be spayed which was surprisingly difficult. Not in the appointment-making itself but in that makes me really sad. I'm not against fixing animals--in fact I am squarely for it, and it isn't the actual procedure I'm apprehensive about so much as leaving my puppy at the vet and having her put under and her waking up in a strange place hurting and scared. Now I know she's a dog, and she probably won't be as traumatized by this as I imagine, but she's my puppy. She gets freaked out by tickle-me Elmo and those dancing hamster dolls. And I'm going to take her to the vet and let them cut her open and leave her there overnight? Her first night by herself ever?

I'm still going to do it, of course, but I still feel really bad about it. My poor little dog. But thinking about all the poor little dogs--including puppies--they put down while I was volunteering at Athens Animal Control is enough to make me feel good about the decision. I still feel bad for my dog though.

I don't have anything to say today, so I'm going to link you away again. Maybe that's my theme for this Nablopomo. Not feeling like writing and therefore linking you somewhere else. To be fair, though, I've written a good bit. Just not tonight.

Gregory Corso may be my favorite poet. Like, him and Edgar Allen Poe. I don't know, I have a hard time picking favorites. But this is a link to a page with links to his stuff. The two I'd recommend are Marriage and The Mad Yak. I don't think I could articulate why I like them.

It's really the concept I liked the most.

In honor of my being in a pretty spectacular bad mood tonight, I'm going to do something I'd kind of decided against.

This was my final project for creative writing. It was supposed to be 100 boxes but it ended up being less because I ran out of time and inspiration and scrapbooking glue (the kind that comes in the same dispenser as that correction stuff that feels a lot like PVC tape but is supposedly superior to white-out because it's never wet). Also, I re-used an old story because the story I was writing hit a huge bump, which is to say that I started writing it before I knew how it was supposed to end--a death sentence to anything I write. So if you knew me in high school you'll probably recognize some of the content. But the content isn't what it was about so much as the method of delivery. This is what it looked like in action

The boxes were stacked up on a table in our reading or whatever it was, and the intention was to go through the collection until you reached the guestbook. Since the boxes are constantly being shuffled and re-arranged, the net box you open is as random as these things can be. Some of the boxes link to other boxes directly, some of them reference other boxes, some stand alone. Some have writing, some have pictures, some have stuff. One of them had a finger puppet, which pleased me greatly.

I love the idea. What I forgot to take into account is that no one actually cares what the other people in their class did, so no one looked at my project except for my friends from Rutherford who could have seen it in the dorm. It was really disappointing, but that whole pre-graduation was kind of a sucky time anyway. Also, when you chop things you've written into 3.5" squares you notice every single grammar error.

But despite the crap story and the crap outcome, I still think it's one of my better ideas. I'd like to do it on a larger scale one day, with colored box sets. Like I'd ever have the motivation. Told you I was in a crappy mood.

TIDL: Number 1

I always think it'd be fun to make a list of things that I don't like, except I always forget the thing that inspired me to make the list in the first place. So I'm going to start now and try to add on things when I remember.

1. Bank fees.

It'd be one thing if I were getting something for my money, but giving them cash just because I'm letting them loan out mine to other people? Are they aware that ING pays me for the privilege of loaning out my money? Because they do. I've always refused to pay my bank fees (they tried to charge me $12 a month to keep my checking account--no) with the exception of the first time my credit card payment was late (I wanted it to be sent in on the 2nd but instead of 02 I hit 20 and didn't check it again until it was too late). I felt like such an awful person--so irresponsible and ashamed and why do they even let me have a credit card? So the $25 was my stupid fee, and I've double-checked my dates ever since. Except I've stopped using my Visa lately because my Discover is so much better. Seriously, Discover gives me 5% cash-back on gas (although I probably should have taken the cash-back on travel card instead), e-mails me when my statements are up, when I'm nearing my credit limit, and they e-mail me if the payment is due soon and I haven't paid it. Which would have been a fantastic feature for my Visa card to have, because I had to use it in Canada* at a gift shop. So after two months of not having a balance, I had $6.60 on my statement, which came in the mail today. And is due tomorrow. So I just had to pay $12.00 to do an express payment so it wouldn't be late because tomorrow's a Sunday.

Why is it due on a day when they don't accept payments anyway? What is that? I tried to do a phone payment, but that costs $15. WTF? Why should I have to pay them to take my money? I'm so mad about this that I'm tempted to cancel the card, except I've had it since I was 18 and it has enough bonus points on it for a free horse or something (I have a shameful number of points. I can't believe I've spent that much money). You can be sure that I, and this is an I that hates to talk on the phone, will be calling to request the $12 be removed from my balance. Because, seriously? You want me to pay you to take my payments? No.



*Another reason why Discover trumps Visa: I used my Visa in Canada and they didn't convert it into US dollars, so I paid like 3% more than I had to, plus they charged me a foreign transaction fee. I used my Discover and they just charged me the amount it would have been in US dollars. Discover wins. Also the card is cool looking and my number was easy to memorize.

House of Wax (Paper)

Today we made candy. If you know my family, you probably know what kind of candy I mean. It's white chocolate and peppermint chunks. Some people call it brittle. Some people call it bark. Most people just get anxious when it's two days before Christmas and why hasn't Mark given me my candy yet? Did I upset him? Am I not getting it this year? Maybe I should send them a gift basket.

When I was in high school I helped my mother make it. It was usually a three-day project because we gave it to just about everyone. All the family. All dad's coworkers. Everyone at the bank. Teachers, friends, faux neighbors, firefighters, bus drivers, postal carriers, and dentists. It was a lot of chocolate.

Then two semi-related things happened. I went to college and my family was in a car accident. By accident I mean they were hit by a middle-aged woman who was so drunk on a Sunday afternoon that she continued to try to drive her Honda after it had totaled my family's four-ton Ford Excursion and flipped onto its side. My dad and younger brother were both largely unhurt, just cut and bruised pretty badly. Nich was also banged up and developed OCD, something that is relatively common for people with Down syndrome who experience a trauma. My mother shattered four discs in her spine and continues to have back pain.

It's been a strange re-adjustment period, and one of the things that had to be re-worked was the candy. The amount of candy she made has slowly decreased, and last year there was no candy. I don't even like the stuff and it didn't feel like Christmas. So this year when she mentioned making it again I tried to remember how. And spent an afternoon cutting wax paper into 2-foot pieces, cutting a third of those in half and then taping the half-sheets to the whole ones.

Wax paper is vital to the candy, see, because it keeps it from sticking to the pan. Wax paper is one of the only things chocolate won't stick to. Unlike the microwave, the sink, the floor, the counters, the drawer faces and my clothes, wax paper peels right off the chocolate. So once I had our magic paper bases finished, which I managed this week, we were ready to knock out some candy. By some I mean all. By all I mean 180 pounds of molten chocolate. It sounds fun, but it gets sickening pretty fast. There is such a thing as too much chocolate, and I can tell you that it's somewhere in between a milky-way bar and 180 pounds of white chocolate wafers.

But you can rest assured that Christmas is coming this year. It's already in my kitchen, in large thirty-pound boxes. Now all we have to do is scrub all the drippings off the kitchen floor. Oh boy. Did I mention I can't wait to move out?

I half-way feel like telling you about all the suck that's been going on but I don't really feel like it. Living in this house exhausts me. It's so hard to be positive here. Remind me to talk about house hunting one day when I feel like being negative. Not that I'm not totally excited at the prospect of buying a house, just that I really, really wish it were moving faster.

Instead, I'm giving you a music video. Oh, and a joyous music video it is. Seriously, I can't think about it an not smile because it's such a great combination of awesome and horrible. Mostly in that it's so randomly horrible it's awesome.




No really. They were completely serious. That's the actual video for this song.

I love those boys. I really, really do.

I. There is part of me that is so amazingly happy about the election results. I know that his race is not listed among the qualities that will (cross your fingers) make Obama a good president, but I'm still really proud that, considering we're a country with a history littered with racism and prejudice, we elected him. It's progress. Not enough to counteract the predicted outcome (they're still counting absentee ballots) of California's proposition eight, but a significant step nonetheless. My parents are handling the loss well and pretty much avoiding the issue. It's pretty nice.

II. Ok, so this whole gay marriage/abortion/individual rights thing. What upsets me, aside from the obvious, is that these issues are still around. Because, seriously, Roe vs. Wade was settled by the supreme court. Remember that branch of government? Yeah, they figured out what the right answer was. Great, we're done. I feel like the chances of RvW being overturned are relatively slim, but it's being used as a way to draw party support based on emotion. Gay marriage is a slightly different issue since it's not currently legal--again, at least in California, the supreme court had spoken. Now I'm not saying the supreme court is without fault, but just maybe we could consider their point of view before we try to take away individual rights? Maybe? Anyone? I may be being optimistic about this kind of stuff but I don't think the supreme court just flipped a coin on the issue.

III. My suggestion for this whole gay marriage debacle is as follows. Nationally, all current government issued marriages should be re-classified to domestic partnerships without a change in rights or benefits. So just a different name. Individual churches, organizations, whatever, can marry you. Thus, your "marriage" is from your church which you personally subscribe to and therefore (hopefully) share views with and has nothing to do with a government backed by prejudice and exclusion. Domestic partnerships (which may need a new name because it's kind an unfortunate acronym) can be for everyone, marriages can be something you do on your own.

IV. In response to the complaints that a marriage between two people of the same gender is and attack on "traditional" marriages, I say: Dude, if that's an attack on "traditional" marriage then it's the lamest attack I've ever seen. I'm not opposed to launching a real attack: Marry a Stranger Day. Potentially dangerous, sure, but we can pass out rock-solid pre-nups at the door. Later that year we can do National Divorce Day, in which you can divorce your stranger-spouse for free.

V. My thoughts go to Bristol Palin and the father of her fetus. It's bad enough to be pulled into the international spotlight, and to have that woman as your mother, but to have it all be for nothing. Sucks and a half, I bet.

If I ran elections we wouldn't do all this projection stuff. We'd announce the winner at 9:00 am on November 5th, after all the districts everywhere had reported their numbers. Tuesday night TV would be safe. I just think it's a little brazen to give states a color when only 1% of your precincts have reported. I mean, yeah, it'd be crazy for California to become a red state, but we could still wait until everything is official.

But then, if I ran elections the race would be a lot closer because every state would split their electoral college votes. Mind you, I don't have that great of a grasp of the electoral college system, but I don't think I'm really a fan of giving all your cookies to one candidate. Since it's working in my favor now I'll allow it but one day we should re-draft that stuff.

I'd also include a rule banning campaign commercials. Signs, sure. Debates, absolutely. Phone calls from humans? Knock yourself out. But no television commercials and no robo-calls.

Good luck to California with their quest to keep equal marriage rights. And, seriously, thank goodness. If would have had trouble sleeping for the next four years knowing that Sarah Palin was one pretzel away from the oval office.

Following yesterday's theme of things I've been meaning to share, I have videos from Japan that I rushed to upload and then never really linked to. There's actually a bunch of them, but we'll just cover my favorites.


It wasn't the best hostel we stayed in, but our room had a balcony and a great view (see!) and the staff was super nice. I'm in love with that carrot building, by the way.


The toilet at our hostel in Beppu was connected to the light switch, so it turned on every time you turned on the lights, revealing the secret to the Toto Toilet's spraying system. See, usually you're sitting down when that happens.


That's how a kaiten zushi works. I love these. Granted, the sushi we had at the non-rotating sushi place was better, but these were always way cheap and delicious, with the added bonus of not having to order anything specific and a rotating belt to keep you entertained.


Daniel, dancing on a train. Sideways because I didn't think about video not being able to be rotated. Damn technological limitations.


I admit that this is not the most exciting video (none of these are, really) but Akihabara was a neat place. And full of flashy lights.


I really wish I lived in a place with street performers. This girl tried to catch all the bowls on her head six or seven times, but never managed to do it. It was impressive and sad at the same time.

There are lots more videos on my youtube account that are equally as enthralling as these. Which is to say, not very. But it's still little slices of Japan. I don't think I've ever missed a place as much as I miss Japan. It was so nice there. If I were better at languages I'd learn Japanese and move there.

Niagara Falls: September 24-29, 2008

It was a good trip. I wish we'd had time to go to Toronto, too, but I'm content with our decision to save it for another trip. I'd like to point out that it's taken me over a month to do the captions for these. Here's the key: for the first month and three days I tried to caption them before I uploaded them, which is apparently not an effective way for me to caption pictures because I only managed to get 1/3 of the way through and a good bit of those were blanks where I'd decided not to caption. I uploaded these and captioned the rest online in like ten minutes. And I was more wordy. And Firefox corrected my spelling. So what we've learned from this experiment is that I'm too unmotivated to caption pictures while they're still on my computer and even if I weren't, my spelling sucks so bad that it wouldn't really be a worthwhile venture anyway. This, however, does not explain the 600+ pictures from Europe that have been sitting in that photo account for two years, still uncaptioned and unshared. Dunno what happened there.

I bet you thought I wasn't going to do NaBloPoMo this year. And that was a good assumption, since I haven't updated since July. The problem links back to living with my parents--I am most productive at night, and they turn into pumpkins at 10:00--if I'm not in bed by midnight I get yelled at. So my output has basically been zero since came back from Japan. This is not to say that I haven't done more traveling, because I have. But as far as uploading pictures...we can leave it at the realization that without deadlines I would never have graduated from college. Actually, considering I got the grades I did, I must be goddamn magic. I majored in procrastination with a minor in active laziness.

Sadly, I think a degree in procrastination would probably be more employable than my B.A. in film studies. At least procrastination is a life skill.

Since I posted last my little dog has gained thirty pounds and is now almost as tall as her mother (although she still looks like a miniature version of Max). She's fully registered and vaccinated and stubborn and cute. If they don't already make a card that says, "I like you so much I pee a little every time you come over." they totally should.

I went to Baloonfest in South Carolina to see the Wallflowers. It was a really good show, and Jakob Dylon asked Keri for the words to a song in the middle of the show. It was pretty exciting. I also went to Niagara Falls to see BNL, which I will tell you more about when I have the pictures ready. Oh, and I saw Matt Nathanson in Atlanta earlier this month. His music is good for a sweet-singing guy, but he was great live as far as stage banter goes. He also sang the only song of his I have on my computer at the request of a girl in the front row (it's a kid's song, so I don't think it's something he usually plays).

I also went house-hunting in Chattanooga, but someone bought the house I wanted. So now I'm back to looking again. Hopefully I'll find something this month. I really need to be out of this house.

So that's what's up. I'm currently bogged down in insurances, as I had to buy both car and health insurance this week. Actually, I'm still looking for a good deal on car insurance. This whole finding-your-own-insurance has only led me to the conclusion that insurance companies suck, which means they might be good to work for. Think about it. They're charging you up the ass for the privilege to fight you over weather or not they should pay for something. Like your family, but expensive. I could totally get paid to tell someone I won't pay to fix their car.

More tomorrow. And the rest of the month if I can keep my willpower up. In the meantime, the dogs: