Why You Should Not Blog and Eat At The Same Time

I just accidentally ate my fortune with my fortune cookie.

That's probably not very lucky.

The Boy

Since today is Poetry in Blog day, here is a Marilyn Hacker poem for you.

The Boy

It is the boy in me who's looking out
the window, while someone across the street
mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout
pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette?

(Because he flinched, because he didn't whirl
around, face them, because he didn't hurl
the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine!
he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . .)
He writes a line. He crosses out a line.

I'll never be a man, but there's a boy
crossing out words: the rain, the linen-mender,
are all the homework he will do today.
The absence and the priviledge of gender

confound in him, soprano, clumsy, frail.
Not neuter—neutral human, and unmarked,
the younger brother in the fairy tale
except, boys shouted "Jew!" across the park

at him when he was coming home from school.
The book that he just read, about the war,
the partisans, is less a terrible
and thrilling story, more a warning, more

a code, and he must puzzle out the code.
He has short hair, a red sweatshirt. They know
something about him—that he should be proud
of? That's shameful if it shows?

That got you killed in 1942.
In his story, do the partisans
have sons? Have grandparents? Is he a Jew
more than he is a boy, who'll be a man

someday? Someone who'll never be a man
looks out the window at the rain he thought
might stop. He reads the sentence he began.
He writes down something that he crosses out.

From Squares and Courtyards

Poetry in blog meme via Go Fish and Sarcasmo's Corner.

Waiting Is Done

So the boyfriend got here safe and sound, although about an hour late, which gave me plenty of time to talk with Em on AIM and come up with possible reasons for the lateness. (Including: Plane hijacked by terrorists, plane's engine falling out, plane sucked into Bermuda Triangle, plane shooting into space and then coming back, but in the passing time everyone on Earth has aged 60 years and/or the Earth has been taken over by apes.)

The boyfriend's video games, plane tickets to London, and work permit also all arrived safe and sound, each being delivered seperately and causing my doorbell to ring approximately fifty billion times yesterday. Once it rang while I was at work (our doorbell rings to my cell phone, for complicated reasons), and I had to call and wake up Phil and he was all groggy and confused and I'm still not entirely sure what ended up happening, but I think that probably whatever it was did not get delivered.

Now the boy is sleeping, and I am out here blogging, because I am worse than the cat, and if left alone with a sleeping person that cute, would have to poke at him and meow and generally cause trouble until he woke up and petted me.

My Indie Rock Week

Monday: The Magnetic Fields
Tuesday: Bought CDs - Clearlake, The Mountain Goats, Mirah
Wednesday: Josh Ritter
Thursday: Sleater-Kinney
Friday: I work the night shift and sing little indie rock songs to myself.

Waiting

My boyfriend gets here tomorrow, and I am like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. All I can think about is the shape of his hands and his hips and other presents I don't want to wait until morning to unwrap. I am filled with the kind of anticipation that makes you want to smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey and get kicked out of bars just to pass the time by. Instead, I go see Josh Ritter, who fills me with nostalgia for a midwest childhood I didn't have, and a midwest college Josh and I both attended.

The cat is going to be angry when she is replaced in my bed. I tried to vacuum, but my vacuum cleaner cost thirty dollars and is only marginally effective. The closer the time gets, the worse I am at waiting. There's dried blood in my hair from where I burnt my scalp bleaching my hair. Last Christmas, you let me open my present in the middle of the night and it snowed in the morning. I wish you were here tonight.

Cute Dog, Also Angry

I have made this dog my computer wallpaper at work, and now every time I minimize everything, I am amused and delighted all over again.

I think that picture neatly sums up what I am frequently like at work. Or perhaps what I am like all the time.

I Am The Biggest Dork Ever

I had an anxiety dream that I used a metal spatula on my non-stick frying pans and scratched them up.

Yes, that's right, I am now dreaming about using improper implements on my cookware. Thanks, subconscious. Can you bring back the indie rock sex dreams, please?

Apparently, I Look Sixteen

I had another fourteen-year-old hit on me yesterday. This one started innocently enough. There were three of them walking towards me (to give the benefit of the doubt, these kids may have been fifteen or sixteen), and one of them was like, "Nice hair," and I was like, "Thanks," and one of them went, "What color is it?" and I said, "Pink."

And then one of them was all, "I like your eyes." Which is okay, I guess, except I'm really not comfortable with strangers expressing approval over parts of myself that I have no control over. Like, "Thanks, I made them myself."

Also: I am twenty-four. I realize that I look young. But I don't look that young, do I? If you are in Junior High or High School, I'm not going to go out with you, dammit!

In a semi-related note, some guy (who was 27, not 12) told me that I "definitely look underage" a couple of weeks ago. Which would be fine, if he had not told me this in part of an attempt to pick me up.

Kinda Nice

Today (or technically yesterday, as it is 2 am), I got hit on by a twelve-year-old on my way to work. Not as exciting as yesterday's spectacular "I fell down and hurt myself" adventure, I know, but on the other hand, less bruising!

I was walking through this group of boys to go up the stairs to the El station. They all looked like they were probably in junior high, twelve or thirteen or fourteen. And one of them goes, "Miss, you're lookin' kinda nice today."

Only kinda nice? Thanks, kid, I'll call you when I decide to become a pedophile.

Pretentious

Me: I've started reading this book of poetry on the bus, and on the one hand it's really good, because poems are very short and it's easy to complete them before your stop. But I kind of feel like a pretentious asshole reading feminist lesbian poetry on the bus. Also, it's all about sex.

Ro: But you are a pretentious asshole who constantly thinks about sex.

Me: Well, I also like indie rock.

Courtney Love & Her Magic Pussy

I'm not really into Courtney Love as anything other than pure spectacle, but this Rolling Stone Article on Courtney is totally fascinating.

Is there anything in this world better than the quote "'I have a magic pussy,' she announces. 'If you fuck me, you become a king. I'm a kingmaker.'"?

Why no, I don't think there is.

(Found via clap clap blog)

I Fell Yesterday

I fell down my stairs on the way to work yesterday. Well, stair, really, just the last one before the sidewalk. I did this thing I do all the time, where I step on the side of my foot and twist my ankle. Except usually I just put my other foot down, and it hurts like hell for fifteen minutes and I keep walking and I'm fine. But yesterday there was nowhere to put my other foot because of the stairs, and so I just fucking ate it.

I scraped my palms, my elbow, and my knee, and bruised/twisted my left ankle. I lay on the sidewalk for a little while and didn't cry, and then I got up and limped to the video store (I had to return my Mandy Moore movie) and then the bus stop. My ankle hurt a lot at first, but after the first fifteen or twenty minutes the pain subsided enough that I wasn't worried about it being broken or anything. I iced it when I went to work. Today it's still kind of puffy and unhappy, especially when I turn it to the side, but it doesn't hurt when I walk anymore.

I do this all the time. I walk into walls, I trip on the sidewalk, I just fall down. It's like I have a bad connection between my body and my brain. Or maybe I just don't pay enough attention.

Drunken Skeeze

New skin. This one is called Drunken Skeeze.

Make Love, Not War

Vibrator Gun!!!

I almost bought one of these the other night when I was really stoned, but fortunately my roommate stepped in and was like, "Cynthia, you are way too high to purchase a gun-shaped vibrator on the internet."

I'm not sure whether to be delighted or terrified that I had the option open to me. Internet shopping: A little too easy in the middle of the night. Although you do have to be sober enough to read your credit card numbers, so that's something.

Just Be Good

We redecorated one of the walls in our dining room. Phil has pictures.

I like to think of it as Warholesque. And insurance that no one will ever have sex on our couch again.

Just remember: He knows if you've been bad or good.

Because I'm Doing Requests Today

Here are pictures of toys getting it on for Lara.

RSS Preachin'

A couple of people have asked what an RSS feed is. So if you know what an RSS feed is, skip this, but if not, here you go.

RSS is an XML format for syndicating sites that are frequently updated, like blogs and news sites. If your site has an RSS feed, it has a page where it's publishing either every entry or excerpts from every entry in the RSS format. Then I can use an RSS aggregator, such as Bloglines, which will check all the RSS feeds I'm interested in every hour, tell me which ones have been updated, and let me read all the feeds from a central location. Less clicking, more obsessive compulsion! It's a win-win situation.

And since both blogger and MT have built in RSS feed support, you have no excuse not to have one. The end.

PS. I hope that made sense. You should really just play along with bloglines, it'll make sense and make it easier to read ten billion blogs a day!

I Like To Cut

I have this problem where I'm continually misplacing the kiddie scissors I use for almost all of my scissor needs. So today at the drug store, I picked up a pair of child safety scissors to toss in with my knitting, and a pair of normal smallish scissors to keep someplace I would hopefully not lose them.

I also picked up a ten pack of razors and some anti-bacterial soap.

I was really hoping that someone would comment, so I could use my best deadpan voice to say, "I plan on doing a lot of cutting."

Fortunately, no one said anything, as I don't think, "I just thought it was a funny thing to say," goes over very well when they're institutionalizing you for your own good.

Things I Think Your Blog Should Have

• Archives by Month, not by Week. People, how am I going to go through your archives like an obsessive compulsive freak once I decide I like your blog if you don't do them by month instead of week? Do you know how much clicking is involved if you do them by week? And sometimes, there's only like, one entry in the entire archive. God. I hate clicking so much.
• An RSS feed. At this point in time RSS feeds are, well, basically my crack cocaine. And since even blogger offers one, you have no excuse not to have one. My own boyfriend does not have an RSS feed, and it makes me very sad. What about my needs?!? On the other hand, all I had to do was ask Frank from Can't Count Sheep to get an RSS feed, and he got one, just for me! And that is why Frank is better than my boyfriend.
• None of this nonsense where all your entries are in some weird little scrolly box in the middle of the page. Do you people know what I'm talking about? Like, they're all in a form within a table or some shit? It totally messes up scrolling, which makes me sad. Fucked up scrolling is even worse than too much clicking.
• Archives that don't look like ass. Just apply your main page formatting to your archives. It's not hard. And about half the blogs in the world have a perfectly lovely frontpage, and completely unformated archives. And that makes the Baby Jesus cry.
• Capitalization, Spelling, Grammar, etc. I admit that sometimes I spell things wrong, because MT has no spellcheck and my spelling skillz are less than leet. And sometimes I play a little fast and loose with the grammar. But it's not all AOL chatroom up in this piece, and that is all I ask.

Here I Dreamt The Decemberists Were In My Shower

Last night I had a dream that two members of the Decemberists were singing in my shower. The dream started with me interviewing them (Colin Meloy and Nate Query) in a sunny kitchen with a butcher block table, and then somehow they were suddenly sitting in the bottom of my bathtub with the shower on, singing "A Cautionary Song."

1. What is up with me having dreams about the indie rock? I am such a dork.

2. How great would it be if I really did get to interview bands? I can imagine my interview questions now. "So do you all ever get drunk and make out with each other? Cause you do in my head." "Have you considered doing Mountain Goats covers?" "Is it hard being the coolest band ever?" "How do you feel about kittens?"

Make Me Pretty

The lovely and talented Gwen has agreed to cut my hair again, and now I just need to figure out when I have time to get my hair cut (maybe next weekend?) and figure out what I want to do with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I want something about ear or chin length that requires very little product/effort on a daily basis, and looks good pink.

Can I Be Absolved Of The Shit I Don't Remember?

So I saw The Bourne Identity yesterday. And I have to say, I'm not sure exactly how Matt Damon managed to convince the nation at large that he's attractive, but boy, did he fool us or what? That is one unfortunate looking man, right there. If I had a dog that looked like that, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards.

But, Matt Damon's unnattractiveness aside (because he is, in fact, U.G.L.Y., and he does not have an alibi), the movie has flaws. The main one being (Spoiler!) that we are supposed to believe that a trained goverment assassin, when faced with having to kill some children, instead allowed himself to nearly be killed and was so horrified by the whole ordeal that he developed amnesia. People, he's an assassin. He kills people for a living. The idea that he has trouble with putting a couple of bullets in a moppet or two is ridiculous, even for this movie. Also, how funny is it when he's about to kill the dude, and then suddenly a kid pops up? And then . . . another kid pops up! And another! The children! They're everywhere!

And why just kids? I don't think Bourne himself kills any non-assassin/bad guy characters in the movie, but it's not as though he doesn't cause a lot of colateral death with his sudden decision to change career paths. Is he like one of those people who don't eat animals they think are cute?

Someone could totally write a thesis on anmensia as cleansing/innocence. Because just because he doesn't remember that he used to kill people for a living, the audience is expected to absolve him of responsibilty for it. It's as though he's been literally reborn. The movie just ignores the fact that he's the same person who used to be a cold-blooded killer. There's absolutely no moral ambiguity, no wondering about the possibility that he'll do something that wasn't the right thing, no explanation of how he developed a sparkly new moral code with his amnesia.

With his lack of memories or identity he becomes Everyman. He's a blank slate, without any sort of pesky personality to get in the way of the audience projecting onto him. (Although this might just be Matt Damon.) We can't blame him for the fact that he used to be the bad guy because he can't remember it. He's the perfect(ly boring) action hero - an complete innocent with the killing abilities of a trained assassin.

Except it's Matt Damon, so I just wish that he could be reborn as someone who didn't constantly confusing yelling with acting.

Yum!

I just made the most super-fantastic breakfast/lunch. (I would say brunch, but Phil says it's not brunch unless there's mimosas, and while we discussed stocking up on champagne, we decided it would be a bad thing.)

Tamales with fried eggs, topped with salsa and goat cheese. So yummy! Salsa and goat cheese is my new favorite thing in the world, and I would probably eat a piece of cardboard if it had salsa and chevre on top.

Knitting Dorkitude

My WEBs order arrived today, and oh my god, so much pretty yarn! (So. Much. Yarn.) So much blue yarn, actually. I ordered one skein of pink, but it's back ordered, so today I got a cardboard box full of various shades of blue yarn. So I guess I'll be knitting in blue for a while.

I want to start working with it all NOW! I don't care how many projects I have on needles (three, but one is almost done, and I hate those stupid kneesocks with a passion), I want to start working with this yarn! It's so pretty! And blue!

Maybe I'll just cast on a gauge swatch . . . a gauge swatch wouldn't hurt anything.

Oh, Crap, I've Become A Cat Person

I was going through the old pictures on my camera phone, and they are almost entirely of cats doing amusing things and/or looking cute.

Well, that and pictures of toys I found in my office arranged so it looks like they're getting it on.

Sick!

I spent yesterday in bed with a fever. Cause if there's anything more fun than being hot and cold at the same time, it's being hot and cold and groggy and tired and headachy. So I slept all day, and today I feel better.

I blame whoever decided that it would be awesome and sunny all week, and then rainy and disgusting on my day off.

Boy in a Dress! Yay!

Check out my boyfriend in a dress. Do you think I can get him to wear that outfit whenever I want if I pout enough?

Also, what does it mean when you give a boy a folder on your server? Is this the digital equivalent of him having a toothbrush over here or something?

Front Bottom

This discussion about what people called their genitalia as children on Dooce is utterly fascinating. Apparently everyone except me had some sort of weird cutesy name for their down south as a child!

Anyway, the comments are full of people both disclosing what they called it, and saying things like, "Think how cute a two-year-old will sound saying 'Labia'!" (Uh, I'd rather not, thanks.)

I'm personally against all the weird "hoo hah" "pee pee" "betweens" nonsensical words, because, well, even if a person is three years old, let's still call a vagina a vagina, dammit. It just all seems so ridiculous, and do we really need the vagina stigmatized any more in our culture?

However, there was apparently an incident in which I, as a very young child looking at a diorama of sheep in the Los Angeles Museum of Natural Science, inquired in a very loud voice, "Is that the sheep's pussy?" So all of this "boom-boom" bullshit probably has its advantages.

Got More Faces Than Cindy Sherman

I think from now on, when people ask me if I'm an art student, I'm just going to go with it, and try to convince them that I'm doing some sort of really insane art project. (Clearly, performance art springs to mind here, but that might just be too easy.)

I told a guy in the Midtown diner last night that I was a photorealistic painter because I found it "more challenging than modern art." I ended up giving him a fake email address because he was so adament about wanting to see my paintings.

People just seem to really want me to be an art student. So I say, give the people what they want. From now on, I do paintings of cheese, in the style of the Dutch Masters. Or do digital installations about lower class Victorian life. Or take photographs of historical markers. Or make "found art" sculptures.

Bonus points if I convince them to give me something/let me take their picture for my "art work."

(If I wanted to get all meta about this, I could do this, and put together an art installation of the pictures/objects I got out of this, and put them together with descriptions of the art project I claimed they were for. Art Students out there, this idea is yours for free!)

Hello, Bong!

Two different people have emailed me the Hello Kitty Bong link. I cannot even tell you how happy it makes me that people see "Hello Kitty Bong" and think "Cyn!"

So who's up for a field trip to Chinatown/crafts day?

I Get Down With The MP3s. Also, Sadness.

So I've finally started doing that whole MP3 thing that the kids are into. (I know, I know, I'm a bad geek. But my old computer didn't really have enough space to do the MP3 thing, and I am very, very lazy. To quote Garth from Wayne's World, "We fear change.") I've got the iTunes, I've got the limewire, I am digging it.

Except that I then decided to use this as an opportunity to finally listen to the ten cds of MP3s that Neal gave me about two years ago. I always meant to listen to them, but do you have any idea how much music is on ten cds of MP3s? It was just so overwhelming. Plus, it was my senior year of college, and I had a lot of drinking to do.

One of the problems with this is that the cds feature a lot of electronica. And while I was into the electronica at one point, it was a point where I was doing a lot more drugs than I am now. Also, electronica songs are like, ten minutes long! Ten minutes of beeping! So now, if I don't like a song within the first thirty seconds, and it's all beep boop bip, I just ruthlessly delete it. I've begun taking a kind of sadistic glee in sending the files to the recycle bin. Off with the heads of those who displease me!

There's also a lot of music by bands that I don't dislike enough to delete, but don't like enough to justify having the sheer volume of music by them that I now do. I like, say, Cat Power, just fine, but I don't necessarily like Cat Power two cds worth, especially when I only have about eight Decemberists songs on there. But I think the solution to this is for me to put all of my cds on the computer, because then my music will overpower the music I am ambivalent about.

The really bad part is that every so often iTunes randomly spits out some song I haven't heard before, something that's really beautiful and sad, and sometimes strangely apt. And then I have to have a little sad time.

So really, I've inadvertantly fashioned an emotional russian roulette game for myself. Unless I'm listening to my Uppers mix, in which case it is a russian roulette game where the bullets are Junior Senior.

PS. Tell me what to download, kids.

Links to Yarn Stores

1. If you are my mom, you might like this link, which lists many yarn stores in Los Angeles. There also seems to be lots of stitch n' bitch information on the main page, including stuff in San Pedro.

2. I just bought a lot of yarn from the WEBs sale. No, no, a lot of yarn. Enough yarn that I am vaguelly ashamed. I was actually hoarding this link until after I had bought my yarn, and not telling anyone about it, but now that I have gone on my shameful yarn binge, you are welcome to it. (My sloppy seconds! They are for you!)

The Classics Jokes! They Never Stop!

Has anyone else seen the previews for Troy, the movie based on the Trojan war? Cause it manages to be simultaneously the most gay and most straight thing I've ever seen. Who decided to cast Brad Pitt as Achilles? And just where is Patroclus? I want my Brad Pitt Man Love!

I agree with Orlando Bloom being cast as Paris, because I've always kind of secretly believed that I could take Orlando Bloom in a fight, and Paris is a whiny little bitch. (Random Aside: What is up with that mustache thing that Orlando Bloom has? Dude, your upper lip is dirty. Do something about it.)

Here's my version of the Trojan War and major players there in:

Paris: Meh, I love Helen! And I'm a big pussy!

Helen: Meh, I love Paris, and everyone else hates me!

Everyone Else: Uh, we're DYING, here.

Cassandra: I told y'all.

Hektor: No man can escape his fate. It is born with us, they day that we are born, and the gods let no man go before his time.

Andromache: Oh, fuck.

Special Cameo by Iphegenia in Aulis: But, Daddy, I don't wanna be sacrificed!

Clytemnestra: Agamemnon, you are so totally sleeping on the couch. And also being killed by my young lover.

Patroclus: Achilles is so dreamy.

Achilles: Patroclus is dead? Oh, no you di'int!

This One Dude In Emily's Classics Class: The Illiad? That's a fine piece of Greek!

Everyone Else: Pretentious Git.

Feminism Prevents Me From Enjoying Yet More Art

(Warning: Hellboy spoilers)

So I saw Hellboy yesterday. And it was good cheesy fun, which I enjoyed, right up to the final couple of scenes.

First, there was the part where the FBI boy throws Hellboy the crucifix and says, "Your father gave you a choice!" (This is the part where I bust out laughing really loudly. Because, seriously, "Your father gave you a choice"? Cheesetacular! With a side of obvious Christian imagery! I have taken to randomly saying, "Your father gave you a choice!" in a really melodramatic voice at innapropriate times.)

Second, and this is where the feminism comes in, there is, of course, a female love interest. Who is actually pretty cool, and kicks ass and saves everyone at one point. But at the end, of course, guess who is all passed out? Guess who the villian is threatening to steal the soul of if Hellboy doesn't cause the apocalypse? Why, it's the chick! Of course.

Which I could even, almost deal with, if not for the fact that the chick is all randomly naked. And she's not even sexy naked, she's just naked with a sheet tossed over her, for extra female vulnerability. No nudity for anyone else, just for the girl. For absolutely no discernable reason. And I'm like, guys, please, it's one thing to display women as being all helpless and in need of rescuing, but do we have to take off their clothes to do it? It's just so . . . tawdry.

Felted Marsupial Bag

This is Meema's Marsupial Tote, from Stitch n' Bitch. I made it with Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted, instead of Lamb's Pride, because my yarn store didn't have any Lamb's Pride Worsted. Possibly because of this, my gauge was completely off, so I ended up just guestimating a lot of the measurements. But since it's a bag, it really doesn't matter.

Pre-felting picture.

I felted it with Jill, at the super ghetto laundromat around the corner from my house. It's unattended, so no one was there to yell at me, and I figured this way if I ruined the washer, I could still do laundry in my basement. Also, it was only $1.25 to do a load! I only sent it through one cycle, and I didn't put jeans or tennis balls or anything in for agitation, so it didn't felt too much.

It didn't get much smaller at all, but I lost some stitch definition. You can't really tell it was double stranded any more - the two strands of yarn seem to have melted into each other. And the fabric definitely seems thicker and sturdier. I don't have to worry about stuff falling out of the bag, although when I had some knitting needles in it they managed to poke through it. I can't tell if it's just because of the color, but the brown seemed to lose a lot more stitch definition than the blue. I really love the way the brown felted up.

Close up.

The next time I felt something, I think I'll send it through a couple of more cycles to get it super-felted. But as a first experiment, this turned out really well. The bag is a very useful size, and has already been used to tote my knitting around and gone to a strip club.

Cunt Wristband

This wristband was actually Jill's idea. I had made Geek Wristband from Stitch n' Bitch, and when we went and saw Debbie Stoller, I was wearing it and Jill said, "You should make one of those that says 'Cunt.'"

And so mote it be.

Me, fighting the power in my living room.

I made it in a couple of hours while watching Buffy, out of some stash yarn. I'm not entirely sure what the yarns are, but I know that the pink is baby alpaca, and is super soft.

Lace Scarf

I made this scarf out of some incredible angora yarn I got from Elann. I got it on a whim, so I only ordered one skein. As a result, I made a very skinny, short scarf, as you can see in this picture of me wearing it. (Please excuse the fact that I look like ass in that photo.)

The scarf is just two repeats of the Narrow Cat's Paw lace pattern, which I did until I ran out of yarn. If I was going to do it again, I might just do one repeat to have a longish, very skinny scarf, but I like the way that the two repeats shape the space in between them.

My Furry Coworker/Cruelty To Animals

Can You Tell I've Got A Creative Writing Degree?

Me, complaining about the slowness of the database at work:

This is slower than a . . . really slow thing. It's slower than a turtle riding on a snail, and they get stuck in a tar pit. And there's a brontosaurus watching, who's extra slow because he doesn't exist.

Tell Me What To Do

I have a question for those of you who are either computer science people or have gone to grad school. (Bonus for comp sci grad students! Blow jobs Extra bonus for comp sci grad professors! (Provided they are at good schools, and not Fred's Computer Science Graduate School and Auto Repair.))

So, let's say we have a hypothetical situation in which a girl wakes up in the morning with a burning desire to get herself a comp sci PhD. However, this girl has no idea whatsoever what she wants to specialize in. She knows that she hates databases, and likes heigher level languages. She's interested in Human-Computer Interaction, but is worried that if she specializes in HCI, there will not be enough coding, and there will be too much graphic design. She likes the idea of robotics, but hasn't done anything with it, and might actually hate it if she does it. She likes the idea of AI, but found the one AI class she took horribly boring. (She's interested in psuedo-intelligence, though.)

What should she do? How important is it to know what you want to specialize in before applying to grad school? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF MY LIFE? (Please ignore the freak-out part of this paragraph. Thanks.)

Bad Ideas

I don't really want to get overly political with regards to the whole contractors killed in Iraq thing, because, well, it's tragic and I don't really thing I have anything great to say about it. (Newsflash: Sad!)

But I do have something to say about people who have been expressing opinions along the lines of, "Let's kill all the Iraqis, as clearly they are all responsible, it'll teach them a lesson, etc."

The people in Iraq, are, well, people. Some of them did something terrible. Should all of them be punished? Sure. Then let's punish everyone who lived in Oklahoma for the Oklahoma city bombing. And after that, we can kill everyone in DC for the DC sniper attacks.

I don't understand how anyone who's vaguelly human can even think of the idea of punishing the whole for individuals' actions. This isn't elementary school, where we all had to sit with our heads on our desks until someone fessed up. This is real people.

Vote (to Make Out!)

Dan said to post that I'm a "gay sex tequila vortex," although I like to think of myself as more of a catalyst for gay sex. Although boys never make out with other boys when I want them too. (If I could choose a super power, it would totally be the ability to make any people I wanted make out with each other. Think of the possibilities!)

Also (and this is mainly for my parents) I am all registered to vote! I got my voter card in the mail today. I am going to vote the fuck out of the next election. I am on the Anyone But Bush ticket like white on rice!