a swift kick does the trick

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:31:57 GMT

Possible Soupstone covers:

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:29:09 GMT

Elena's Boutique & Consignments
1807 Commerce Street
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

I did these for The Voice, Dana Hamilton is writing an article about the store. Comments/criticism? Suggestions as to which I should put in The Voice?

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 05:53:36 GMT

My claim to fame from last year's photo class:

just two

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:24:13 GMT

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 02:58:11 GMT

the dumb thing where you can only answer with song titles:

1. Choose a band / artist:
Sufjan Stevens

2. Are you male or female:
Super Sexy Woman

3. Describe yourself:
You are the Rake

4. How do some people feel about you:
They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!

5. How do you feel about yourself:
Size too small

6. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:
Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

7. Describe current boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse:
John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

8. Describe where you want to be:
Tahquamenon Falls

9. Describe how you live:
A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
Let's hear that string part again

11. Share a few words of Wisdom:
Say Yes! To M!ch!gan!
also
Enjoy Your Rabbit

12. Where Do you Live?
In the Devil's Terrirotry

13. Now say goodbye:
All good naysayers, speak up! Or forever hold your peace!

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:00:27 GMT

Keara and Emily.

I was going to put your heads on some stupid picture which would be both insulting and hilarious, but I realized that wouldn't be necessary while looking back in emily's journal for a picture of keara.

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 05:13:59 GMT

the band names for your username thing:

lcd soundsystem
iron and wine
modest mouse
enya
jethro tull
ooioo
u2
rammstein
nin
air
led zeppelin

yes, ooioo is a band.

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:06:35 GMT

Pbthththththththth @ willie

Hey limejournal,
Your mutual friend lifeofwillie has noticed that you last updated your journal on LiveJournal 3 weeks ago. Be a friend and go post. (http://www.livejournal.com/update.bml)

Sincerely,
The LiveJournal team

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:40:02 GMT

This is the first draft of my paper for SUPA english. Comments and criticism please!

There's really so much I could add, but I've been doing this the whole day and I am tired.

About a year ago, out of a combination of some voyeuristic tendencies and sheer curiosity (with an element of boredom), I signed up for an account on Myspace.com, everyone's favorite social networking site. I then proceeded to do what members of internet forums users do so well: I lurked. From one person's MySpace, I found the MySpaces of ten other people I knew, and from each of those ten more. I even found a community made up of people from my high school who had accounts. Soon I could point out people in school who I barely knew that had MySpaces, and even people who I didn't know that had MySpaces. I was surprised about how much I could learn about a person just by looking at their MySpace and I was surprised at how much people would reveal about themselves.

Freaked out yet? You should be. Before you classify me as a stalker, I'll explain myself. I memorize faces extremely well (I wish I could say the same for names), so my MySpace lurking was mostly an extension of what I already did in the real world: match personalities with faces. With MySpace I found that I could determine a personality without even talking to someone (i.e. a chat program like AOL's AIM), rendering me as a complete third party. With the information I found out using the website, I could very well be a cop, an FBI agent, or a forty year old pedophile. Of course, my lurking was harmless and I certainly wasn't using whatever I found out for government surveillance or for whatever pedophiles do. Part of the reason why I kept lurking was because the website was very addictive for the reason that when I went to one person's MySpace, I would follow the links to other peoples MySpaces. When you have that kind of opportunity at your fingertips, a lot of curiosity kicks in. Now the danger is apparent. What if I was a pedophile? What if I was a stalker? MySpace and the internet in general renders a mass of knowledge just a click away.
This research aims to determine why blogging and social networking on the internet are such popular activities given the inherent dangers in the activities. There are a number of factors at the root of why a person creates a weblog. John C. Dvorak names one of these factors: ego gratification (Dvorak 2). People have an innate desire to feel good about themselves and the blog and social networking site can easily satisfy this desire. There are factors that contribute to ego gratification and reasons for blogging that fall under the category of ego gratification, but it itself is at the root. Also at the root of blogging and social networking is the search for an identity (Chandler 3). Blogging and social networking is a way for people to connect with others, especially others who are different, and in doing so discover their own identity.

There is an intense peer pressure especially apparent in adolescents to join MySpace, as there are over 40 million profiles on MySpace (“MySpace” PAGE#). If there are no users with two accounts and no foreign users, then roughly 13% of the U.S. population has a MySpace (“US and World Population Clocks”). In my own experiences, many of the people I know have accounts on MySpace and have pressured others to create accounts (Miley).

There are obviously other ways to satisfy the ego and discover one's identity besides blogging and social networking websites, esepcially because the internet has only become a mainstream phenomenon in the last decade or so. The differences between the internet and methods for ego gratification and identity searching in the real world are what has caused the explosion of blogging and social networking. To many people, the internet seems of a trivial nature, that is, its realness is lessened by the fact that with the flip of a computer switch, blip-- the internet is gone. If anything goes wrong on the internet, flick, you can turn it off. There are dangers inherent in this thinking, because behind the facade of the internet, real people exist. There is a person behind each MySpace, and a person behind each IP address that visits a website. 62.48.56.198 is a person. 139.205.12.35 is a person. So, the relaxed nature that blogs and social networking sites create makes an environment easy for people adept at discerning personality and sleuthing information to join in without being “seen.”

Method of research
Having an account on MySpace has certainly helped with this research, because members have access to features that non-members do not. I don't actually update my account on MySpace, but I have an account on LiveJournal.com (a similar site with an emphasis on blogging rather than networking) that I update frequently enough for me to be considered part of the culture. In doing a research on blogging, Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker both created their own blogs, which legitimated them with the subject and gave them credibility within the blog culture, or a kind of “street credibility” (Mortensen and Walker 250-251). For this research I also created a Facebook account, which required the invitation of a current Facebook member belonging to my high school. Facebook only lets someone sign up if they can prove they are from the specific university or high school that they have signed up for (i.e. they have an email address from a university).

What is a blog?
Wikipedia defines a blog as a “website for which an individual or a group frequently generates text, photographs, video or audio files, and/or links, typically (but not always) on a daily basis” (“Blog” 1). Physically, this is what a blog is. The concept behind this format, according to pioneer blogger Evan Williams, is made up of “frequency, brevity, and personality,” and the important thing about blogging is the format rather than the content (Turnbull 1). Essentially, blogging is someone posting content on a website at a fairly frequent rate. Blogging is usually open to the public, though private blogs do exist. A blog can be read by anywhere between a small few and thousands of people. What blogging has done is give people a tool and easy venue for personal publication, regardless of the amount of people that actually would want to read it. Blogs are usually free and free to read.

There are differences between what is considered a blog and what is considered a social networking site. This research will use LiveJournal as an example for a blogging site and MySpace and Facebook as examples for social networking sites, with MySpace as the primary example. Blogs place an emphasis on writing and posting text with the occasional image. LiveJournal, for example, only has a space for posting text. Social networking sites on the other hand, are more akin to a dating service. They typically have a blog space, a space for posting text, but the space is not the focus of the webpage. On a specific MySpace or Facebook profile, a picture of the user is placed on the upper left hand corner, usually the first thing that is viewed when coming to the website. The three sites have a space for users to post their like and dislikes, a space for posting pictures (in addition to the picture in the top left), and for posting various information about themselves such as the school they are attending. Of the three mentioned social networking sites, MySpace is perhaps the most versatile. It allows users to manipulate the HTML of their page, either directly editing the text, or by using an HTML editor. MySpace allows users to place images (still and moving), video, and sound clips on their profile pages, which can lead to extremely long pages due to the amount of pictures and content that someone may post.

One of the most important aspects of Livejournal, Facebook, and MySpace (they all have this feature) is the friends page. On MySpace and Facebook, the friends page is a list of pictures and names of all the people you add to your “friends list.” Clicking on a picture will bring you to that person's profile, hence the social network. The friends page on LiveJournal is slightly different; it contains the most recent journal entries of each person you add to your friends list and is used primarily by the owner of the journal to read his or her friends' journals.

The original purpose of MySpace was as as a place for little-known and new bands to gain publicity and make some of their music available for listening. From the beginning of the website, however, membership was not restricted to bands; anyone could make an account.
A blog survey was conducted by Fernanda Viegas in 2004. Out of 486 respondents, 63% were male and 36% were female. 46% were between the ages of 21 and 30 and 28% were between the ages of 31 and 40. A 59% majority had college/university degrees, and 36% had been blogging for over two years. 78% described themselves as caucasian (Viegas, 3-4).

Privacy in webblogs and boundary between public and private
LiveJournal, Facebook, and MySpace have varying degrees of privacy options built into the websites. Facebook is has the most options, as it only allows a user to create an account by being either an alumni or current member of a high school or university. To join as a university member, users must have an email account from that university, and to join as a high school member, users must be invited by an already existing user from that high school. Within this restriction, Facebook offers a number of privacy options. You can set who you want to be able to search for you, who can see your profile, and who can see your contact info. It even offers an option where you can block users you don't want to be able to see your profile. Facebook does not allow users under the age of 13 (“Terms of Use” 1). However, on the internet it is easy to say you are older (or younger) than you actually are. Cyberstalkers are an example of this, and people have actually been murdered as a result of cyberstalkers (“Cyberstalkers”).

In The Fall of Public Man, Richard Sennet argues that there is no longer a tension between the public and the private because the private has become part of the public. As an example, he says that the sex life of the president has become too publicized. We know too much about their private life, he says, and not enough about their thoughts, ideas, and decisions (Sennet). The same is true for blogs. The private thoughts and relations of an individual now have an avenue to become public, so the boundary between public and private has become somewhat muddled.

Facebook may be the most secure of the three websites, mainly due to the extra steps to ensure you are from a specific school during the sign-up. LiveJournal and MySpace do not have such options and anyone can create an account providing they have an email address. MySpace has a minimum age requirement of 14, and LiveJournal does not have an age requirement (“Terms and Conditions” 2). Each of the sites, however, has a list of content that you may not post within their terms of service, and they reserve the right to delete an account that has material on it in violation of the terms. MySpace restricts users from posting material that “promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual; ii. harrasses . . . another person . . . is false or misleading or promotes illegal activities . . . exploits people under the age of 18 in a sexual or violent manner” (“Terms and Conditions” 3). Members may also not “include in your Member profile any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses” (Terms and Conditions” 3). On MySpace, members have the option to make their profiles available to the public or only available to those on their friends list, though the latter option is used far less frequently. As is with Facebook, if a non-member of MySpace clicks a link on a member's profile, they will be prompted for a login, as they cannot view such information without an account. Again, the only difference is that anyone can make a MySpace account, while Facebook has specific requirements. LiveJournal gives its members the option of making their journals private or public. Private journals are only viewable by members on that person's friends list and public journals are viewable by anyone. LiveJournal has no age requirement, but it has requirements similar to MySpace's and Facebook's.

An interesting rule on each of the sites is that a member may not impersonate another person. LiveJournal's terms of service states that members may not “Impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a LiveJournal.com staff member or volunteer, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity” (“Terms of Service” 6). A quick browse on MySpace (which has similar terms) will assure you that this is not being followed, which raises the question of how much these sites are being policed. Common sense says not much. With 40 million users on the site, the only policing that's going to be happening is self-policing and other users reporting violations. It is the nature of the internet that allows for these minor “identity thefts.” On the internet, it is possible to make up a completely different identity for yourself that has seemingly no bearing on your life in the real world. Adolescents especially are affected by this because they are typically the ones at search for their identity. There is no better way for an adolescent to achieve that and to explore their possibilities than by an online profile that they can experiment with. For the first time, they have control over something. Oriana Monarca White references Clara Rappaport's idea of the boundary between child and adult:

According to author Clara Rappaport (1981), prior to that time, children were considered 'little adults,' and received special care only up to the age of three or four, and thereafter participated in the same activities as the 'grownups.' The first attempt at treating children differently occurred around the seventeenth century, when the church developed schools whose prime purpose was to teach religion, handicrafts, reading and writing. (White 1)

Though the the trend of children being considered “little adults” at a later and later age has continued, the internet and the presence of social networking sites has done some work to reverse the trend by giving adolescents the ability to have control over an online profile and interactions with others through it. It is also easier to develop an online identity because of the amount of time and therefore thought that can go into making it. Daniel Chandler notes this and says that in face-to-face interaction it is difficult to determine information about an individual, and therefore it is difficult for an individual to portray information about themselves. He references John Buten, who said that the internet might encourage “conscious and deliberate social practices of self presentation” (Chandler 4). Adolescents learn to present themselves better in real life through the practice of creating and browsing social networking sites and blogs.

In Fernanda Viegas' blog survey, 76% of 486 respondents did not limit access to their blogs. 66% “almost never” asked permission to write about people they know personally and only 9% said they never wrote about people they know personally. Viegas concluded concluded that despite bloggers believing that they are responsible (liable) for the content that they post, they don't think that people can sue them for what they write. 36% of respondents had gotten into trouble for something they wrote on their blog, and 12% had gotten in legal or professional trouble. Viegas suggests her results reveal a naivety on the part of the bloggers regarding how the internet operates, because information on the internet is being constantly cached (Viegas 1-2). Facebook even states that they are caching user information when someone visits their website: “When you enter our Web Site, we collect the user's browser type and IP address” (“Facebook: Privacy Policy” 1). Web trawlers such as the Google robots, which create indexes of websites for Google searches, are another example.

Gratifiying the Ego
John C. Dvorak names five factors for why people create Webblogs: ego gratification, antidepersonalization, elimination of frustration, societal need to share, and wanna be writers (Dvorak 2). Ego gratification is the only factor he mentions that is actually at the root of blogging, even though he states that this factor is the least likely. All of the other factors fall under ego gratification. Using Freud's definitions of the Id, Ego, and Superego, Ego gratification would be better defined as using the internet to satisfy the Id. If the Ego is the mediator between the Id and Superego, then in Dvorak's model, the “Ego” is Freud's Id, and the “gratification” is Freud's Ego. “Ego gratification” is a combination of the two, or the method of which the Ego satisfies the Id. The Superego retains most of its original purpose in Dvorak's model, it is the morals behind the blogger that determine what and what will not be posted. The Superego, in this model, through negotiating with the Ego gratification creates the distinction between what is public and what is private.

The other reasons Dvorak names are conscious reasons for blogging (whereas Ego gratification is unconscious). Dvorak's elimination of frustration, which says that people blog as a way to relieve frustration (i.e. complaining) is a factor within ego gratification. To satisfy themselves and therefore their ego, and to make them feel better about themselves and actions they may have committed, they “eliminate the frustration” by complaining in their blogs. The societal need to share also falls under Ego gratification, because sharing will satisfy the Id in that it implies praise (but also criticism) by others. Antidepersonalization and wanna be writers are related in that they both result from the blogger wanting to be heard and a desire to feel important, two factors which are part of Ego gratification.

It's sort of unfinished. I'm considering adding two more sections:

What can be determined from a social networking profile
Something about censorship

I need more on the implications of blogging, and probably a little more on the roots of why it occurs

Works Cited“Blog.” Wikipedia.org. 18 Dec 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/blog>. Chandler, Daniel. “Personal Home Pages and the Construction of Identities on the Web.” 1998. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/documents/short/webident.html>. “Cyberstalkers.” BBC World. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_06_2001.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3>. Dvorak, John C. “The Blog Phenomenon.” PCMag.com. 5 Feb 2002. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,12899,00.asp>. “Facebook: My Privacy.” Facebook.com. 18 Dec 2005 <http://hs.facebook.com/privacy.php>. Miley, Zachary. Observations. Nov and Dec. 2005. Mortensen, Torill, and Jill Walker. “Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool.” Skikt-Researchers Conference 2002. . “MySpace.” Answers.com. 17 Dec 2005. <http://www.answers.com/topic/myspace>. “MySpace.com” Wikipedia.org. 18 Dec 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/myspace.com>. Sennet, Richard. The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knoppf, 1977. Subrahmanyam, Kaveri, Patricia M. Greenfield, and Brendesha Tynes. “Constructing sexuality and identity in an online teen chat room.” Applied Developmental Psychology. 25 (2004): 651-666. “Terms and Conditions.” MySpace.com. 18 Dec 2005. <http://myspace.com/misc/terms.html>. “Terms of Service.” Livejournal.com. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml>. “Terms of Use.” Facebook.com. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.facebook.com/terms.php>. Turnbull, Giles. “The state of the blog.” Interview with Evan Williams. 28 Feb 2001. “U.S. and World Population Clocks – POPClocks” Census.gov 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html>. Viegas, Fernanda. “Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability.” alumni.media.mit.edu. 2004. 18 Dec 2005. <http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/survey/blog/results.htm>. White, Oriana Monarca. “Investigating teens. Verbal techniques and imaging techniques.” Europmean Society for Opinion and Marketing Research. 1997.

Works Consulted
“Ego, Superego, and Id.” Wikipedia.org. 18 Dec 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ego,_superego_and_id>. “Freud's Structural and Topographical Models of Personality.” Allpsych.com. 18 Dec 2005. <http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html> Hacker, Diane. A Pocket Style Manual. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. “Structure of Mind: Freud's Id, Ego, & Superego.” Wilderdom.com. 18 Dec 2005. <http://www.wilderdom.com/personality/l8-4structuremindidegosuperego.html>.

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:50:48 GMT

hello thar!

http://hedgehogclub.com/gallery.html

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:19:01 GMT

Hot sauce is hot

Actually, this is like, stupid hot. ie, want to die eating some sauce?

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:54:13 GMT

So, my brother actually took this picture, I just photoshopped it:

My pumpkin:

My brother's:

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 05:41:26 GMT

I heart the beginning of Brahms first symphony. Yay thumping bass line.

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 02:44:08 GMT

[] I am bisexual
[] I am homosexual
[] I've run away from home
[X] I listen to political music. (saul williams all the way. fuck you, emily)
[] I collect comic books.
[x] I shut others out when I'm sad (probably even when I'm not sad)
[] I open up to others easily
[] I am keeping a secret from the world
[x] I watch the news
[] I own over 5 rap CDs
[x] I own something from Hot Topic
[] I love Disney movies
[x] I am a sucker for hair/eyes (I don't know what that means)
[x] I don't kill bugs
[ ] I curse regularly
[] I have "x"s in my screen name.
[] I've slipped out a "lol" in a real conversation.
[x] I love Spam (as the food) (I bought Taft a can of spam in Binghamton. No, I don't really like spam.)
[x] I bake well
[] I would wear pajamas to school.
[] I own something from Abercrombie
[] I have a job
[] I love Martha Stewart.
[x] I am in love/like with someone
[x] I am guilty
[x] I am self conscious.
[x] I like to laugh.
[] I smoke a pack a day.
[] I loved Go Ask Alice.
[] I have cough drops when I'm not sick.
[] I can't swallow pills.
[] I have many scars.
[] I've been out of this country
[ ] I believe in ghosts. (I have no idea)
[] I can't sleep if there is a spider in the room
[x] I am really ticklish.
[x] I love chocolate. (but only chocolate candy, I don't like chocolate ice cream or cake. heh)
[x] I bite my nails
[x?] I am comfortable with being me. (things like this are more complicated than a stupid internet survey!
[] I play computer games/video games when I'm bored (not anymore, I have linux)
[] Gotten lost in the city
[x] Saw a shooting star.
[] I had a serious surgery.
[x] Gone out in public in your pajamas (if you want to count wenbo's house)
[] I have kissed a stranger.
[x] Hugged a stranger.
[] been in a fist fight with someone of the same sex.
[] Been arrested.
[x]Laughed and had milk/soda come out of your nose. (maybe milk? I don't drink soda)
[x] Pushed all the buttons on an elevator (heck yes 37 floor hotel in the city on the Columbia trip)
[] Made out in an elevator.
[] Kicked a guy where it hurts.
[] Been skydiving.
[] Been bungee jumping.
[] Broken a bone.
[] Played spin the bottle.
[x] Gotten stitches
[] Drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour.
[x] Bitten someone.
[] Been to Niagara Falls.
[x] Gotten the chicken pox.
[] bike crashed into a car
[] Been to Japan
[] Ridden in a taxi.
[] Shoplifted.
[] Been fired.
[x] had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.
[x] Stole something from your job. (it wasn't really stealing)
[] Gone on a blind date.
[] Had a crush on a teacher/coach
[] Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[] Been to Europe.
[] Slept with a co-worker.
[] Been married
[] Gotten divorced.
[x] Saw someone/something dying.
[x] Driven over 400 miles in one day.
[] Been to Canada.
[x] Been on a plane.
[] Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[] Thrown up in a bar.
[x] Eaten Sushi.
[x] Been snowboarding.
[] Been skiing.
[x] Been ice skating.
[x] Met someone in person from the internet. (uh, just people that were like friends of friends that I only talked to online)
[] Been to a motocross show.
[x] Going to or have gone to college. (that's sort of a stupid question)
[] Done hard drugs
[x] Taken painkillers.
[] Cheated on someone else

So I just pushed a roll of t-max 400 to 1600, and it came out awesome. Yay.

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 03:02:57 GMT

http://www.godhatesfags.com

http://www.godhatesamerica.com/

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 03:01:24 GMT

5 Snacks I enjoy:
1. Chocolate chips, straight out of the bag. When my mom asks where the chocolate chips go, I tell her the chocolate gnomes ate them.
2. Ice cream?
3. Italian ice?
4. random crap.
5. see above.

5 Songs I know all the words to:
1. I don't know, I don't usually memorize songs, except maybe some songs by Adam Green and also the Moldy Peaches, because they're catchy. (downloading porn with davo! downloading porn with davo! Put a latch on the door so mamma don't know that I'm downloading porn with davo)
2.
3.
4.
5.

5 Things you would do with 100 million dollars
1. start the most random organizations ever, like "Satanists for Clinton" or something like that
2. Make a movie, and buy the judges at Cannes if it's not good.
3. buy insane photography equipment.
4. Live in Japan. and other places as well. (maybe also learn japanese?)
5. Philosophize about money and charity

5 Bad Habits:
1. Prostitution
2. Marijuana
3. Heroin
4. Killing babies
5. Lying

(hah hah)

5 Favorite Toys:
1. I have been playing a lot of game boy tetris recently.
2. computer?
3.
4.
5.

List 10 things that bring you a moment of joy:
1. Sibelius concerto
2. Classical music in general!
3. Playing music.
4. uh, listening to music
5. photography
6. Sarah
7. Linux
8. liberals
9. Sarah, fresh air is also a radio program on NPR (lol), so NPR brings me joy
10. movies that make me cry (I just saw a japanese movie called Nobody Knows (or Dare mo Shiranai if you prefer the japanese. It didn't really make me cry though)

Tag 5 friends to do the same:
I don't want to impose, you see.
but anyway Emily, fill it out.

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 02:57:12 GMT

( ) Slept all night in a bed with a person of the opposite sex
(x) Slept all night in a bed with a person of the same sex
(x) Slept for more than 12 hours
(x) Missed a week of school or more
(x) Put chapstick on more than 5 times in an hour

(x) Kissed more than one person in a day
( ) Created a myspace survey
( ) Eaten a worm
(x) Jumped on a trampoline

(x) Ridden a unicycle
(x) Done something special for someone else
( ) Paid more than $50 for food at a fast food resturant
( ) Got caught for cheating on a test
(x) Talked on the phone while going to the bathroom
( ) Brushed your teeth while on the phone
(x) Written a poem
(x) Randomly called people out of a phone book

( ) Been on a yacht
(x) Put bananas in your cheerios
(x) Lied to a friend to make them feel better
( ) Dated someone more than 2 years older than you
(x) Eaten frosting out of the original container

( ) Had a dream about a livejournal friend
(x) Fallen in public
( ) Had your pants rip
( ) Recently had a PB&J sandwich
( ) have your parents meet your principal

(x) Killed an animal - I almost killed a possum driving the other day
(x) Been prescribed to 3 or more medications by a doctor (uh, not 3 at once)
( ) Wished you were an only child
( ) Used your friends razor with out them knowing
(x) Been unproud of a decision you made

(x) worked for a family member (that is how I got all my jobs. heh. )
(x) Been told you were too young
(x) Made out in a car
( ) Kissed a friend, then their best friend
(x) Been to a concert.

(x) Gotten away with a lie to your parents
( ) Been dumped the night of a dance and left with out a date
( ) Been cheated on
( ) Gone out with a person one of your parents set you up with
(x) Hated to admit you are wrong

(x) Ridden on a shopping cart
( ) danced in a Mini Mart (wtf?)
( ) Went into a mini mart in socks
( ) Worn a tiara
( ) Been in a play

(x) Gone to church temple more than 2 times in a week
(x) copied more than 30 CD's in a day
(x) Made a movie
(x) Dressed "gothic"
(x) Worn 2 or more layers of clothing

(x) Had a stalker
( ) Been to California
( ) Lived on a house boat
(x) Swam in clear blue water (does a pool count?)
(x) Sat in a doctors office with a friend

( ) Run across 6 lanes of traffic
( ) Made fish lips
( ) Hit on a waitress/waiter
(x) Taken pictures with a stranger
( ) Been to Busch Gardens

(x) Made a public speech
(x) Been on television
( ) Choreographed a dance
( ) Felt used
(x) Made a smoothie or milkshake

(x) Had fun at work/school
( ) Watched Desperate Housewives
(x) Watched a movie/TV Show so often you could quote every word.
( ) Listened to an old NSYNC or Backstreet Boys CD more than once in a day AFTER they were popular.
(x) Kept something from a past relationship
(X) Given someone else flowers (I gave sarah origami flowers, does that count?)
(x) Talked in a foreign language
(x) Gotten to school at 6:15 in the morning (fuck yes ..)
(x) Laughed for no apparent reason

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 05:12:12 GMT

Why is this true, it's creepy.
I mean, the results aren't that vague that they could apply to anyone

took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Seeks success, stimulation, and a life full of exp..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 17:20:09 GMT

I feel really disconnected from the whole deal in New Orleans. It didn't even get that much publicity initially, and the initial government response was not nearly vigorous enough. Which, by the way, Bush has admitted, and plenty of conservative media outlets are criticizing his handling of the crisis.

Anyway, I feel disconnected from the crisis. Maybe it's because it's not occuring nearby, as did 9/11 (and I didn't feel disconnected from that), but there are plenty of world events that I don't feel disconnected from. I didn't feel disconnected about the tsunami a few months ago.

Here's a couple quotes from the world press:

"New Orleans may go down in history as the first major city in an advanced country to be lost to the process of global warming... We sincerely hope that the Bush administration will take the call from Hurricane Katrina and reconsider its energy and environmental policies and replace ostrich-like escapism with leadership in the global effort to deal with the crisis of global climatic change. "
- Taipei's Taiwan News

I like this one:
"This Katrina hurricane is a 'warning' by God over President Bush's reactionary behaviour on the Kyoto Protocol. The US government should wake up from this big disaster, truly take up its responsibilities as a great nation, and become the forerunner in protecting the global climate."
-Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao

"The American meteorological service provided real-time precise information but the leadership failed in preparing for the anger of the weather...What is scary after Katrina is to see the biggest superpower in the world helpless, even if temporarily."
-Israel's Ma'ariv

"The disaster could become a trump card for the White House if it allows the Iraq war and its opponents to fade into the background. "
-France's Le Monde

So let's talk about gas prices. 20 to 25% of the oil consumed by the US is produced in the Gulf region. That said, what's happening now is price gouging. The oil (gas) that's being sold now was bought at the old prices, so why should be sold at exorbitant prices? It brings up the question of federal (or state) regulation of prices. I think states have the power to control prices, to an extent. That's why gas is more expensive in New York than say, Maine. Usually the fact that there are different oil companies keeps prices down, competition doesn't help when all the companies are gouging prices. Anyway, regular gas was $3.04 at Hess when I drove home from work yesterday, and this morning it was $3.29.

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 21:57:48 GMT

I am back then;
Just thought you'd like to know.

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 17:47:43 GMT

Hidden sex scenes hit GTA rating

Prior to the investigation the game had an M for mature rating that meant it could be sold to those aged 17 and over. The Adults Only (AO) rating means only those over 18 can buy it.

You know, there's really not much of a difference between 17 and 18, so it seems kind of stupid. Later, the article mentions that certain stores do not stock Adults Only games, so I guess that could be seen as why the system exists.

Following the decision by the ESRB, Senator Clinton said Take Two had "gamed the ratings system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of children".

If a child has access to the internet, then they can 'get their hands' on pornographic material, it's that simple. With GTA, it's not like kids can get their hands on the game that easily. You would theoretically have to be over 17 (excuse me, 18) to buy the game. Hillary Clinton is a little wrong there, she should have said "Take Two has gamed the rating system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of 17 year olds," because anyone over 18 is no longer a child and then can view 'pornographic material.' Yes, of course, someone at a younger age could get someone older to buy the game for them, but legislators don't have a history of talking about things that actually happen. Besides, if a young kid is going to get an older person to buy them games, what's the difference whether they ask a 17 or 18 year old. If they want to change the rating on a game, the justification should be the namesake, and that is enough. If it has a certain level of 'adult' material in it, call it 'Adults Only'. That's justification enough.
In conclusion, if legislators wanted to get pornography 'out of the hands of children' then they should target other areas, like the internet. The only thing is, the internet should basically be completely free of restrictions, it's the internet, one of the last bastions of free media. Actually, they have legislated something about pornography on the internet, something like pornography websites have to have pages of records for each pornographic picture they host online. That is kind of silly, and I believe in complete freedom of the internet. Blarg. If you don't want to deal with US restrictions on the internet, you can always get hosting in Europe or someplace else. Then US restrictions do not apply!

In [another] conclusion, parents need to be the ones who protect their children from questionable material, not legislators. Legislators can only make broad laws which are difficult to apply to every case. Better parenting is the best solution.

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:19:06 GMT

I was driving through Peekskill today and there were all these kids walking around cleaning up the streets and watering the plants. It was really moving.

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:58:00 GMT

So I was listening to NPR yesterday and one of the music interludes that they play between music sounded familiar. Uh, so I found out who it was now using this. In summary, it was "First Breath after Coma" by Explosions in the Sky. So uh, you should check them out, especially if you like dull indie, like me. *cough*

Uh yeah.

What wonderful news.

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:07:52 GMT

CIA agent's husband attacks Rove

UK Muslim leader barred from US

Lawyer sues US over false arrest - A US lawyer wrongfully arrested over the Madrid train bombings in 2004 is suing the US government.

I don't know what to do anymore.

subject subject

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:55:45 GMT

new journal.

hello.