"sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will." (r. ebert)

there's quite a soundtrack for this

• ding*

new years eve is always a lot more contentious for me than i would hope. maybe some new year in the future it will work out. but i hope that you find yourselves surrounded by the people you want to be surrounded by. i'm sorry i wont be there, if i happen to be one of those people for you. have a wonderful beginning to 2004 and i will see you soon maybe

"
I die fast in this city
outside I die slow

everywhere i am is just another thing without you in it
"

years ago a friend purchased one of those very not legal tiny miniature turtles in the streets of chinatown. somehow it came to pass that she could not keep the turtle, so little turtle was handed over to the custody of my family. the poor thing, it turns out the turtle is suicidal. could it be the pressure of feeling unwanted? who knows. but little turtle got out of the tank that was eir home, and tried walking off the desk, plummeting to a certain death that wasnt so certain after all. little turtle lived.

but little turtle's fate is yet to be determined, for eir shell is misshapen beyond normalcy. we have a little hunchback turtle!

ok, the turtle isn't really a hunchback. but theres something quite strange going on with eir shell, where the body seems to have outgrown the shell but it's still attached, and is turning onto itself in some strange twisted way. when i can get ray and his digicam over here, i'll post a picture as testimony. what's one to do..

"Here's a fitting tongue-in-cheek tribute to a roller-coaster year, a time when the truth was often more bizarre than fiction. by Daniel Kurtzman, AlterNet"
(http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17451)

these two are the gems:

Four of these headlines appeared in the satirical weekly "The Onion." Which one appeared in a U.S. newspaper?

a) Bush Re-Election Campaign Creates Thousands of New Jobs
b) Bush Diagnosed With Attention-To-Deficit Disorder
c) Bush Bravely Leads 3rd Infantry Into Battle
d) Latest Leak: Bush Orders An End to Leaks
e) Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion to Help Fight War on Criticism



Walden O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc., one of the largest manufacturers of computerized voting machines, raised eyebrows when he said he was committed to what?

a) Rigging voting machines to ensure Democratic victories in 2004
b) Helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to President Bush in 2004
c) Utilizing an electronic version of the butterfly ballot to confuse Florida voters again
d) Installing software enabling voting machines to make helpful suggestions