First off, goodbye Bidgette, moving on to fairer pastures. I wish you godspeed and clear skies, with a dash of sparkling blue ocean! Bon Voyage!

Hey MK! [inlink]mk,97[/inlink]

The DaVinci code is pretty good. I try not to read too many bestsellers, cuz they're usually cheesy, but it was worth it, if only for the neat concept. I borrowed it from Maria (paul and mike's mom) and still have it, so if you wanna ask her I'm sure she'd be happy to lend it to you (I think it's been at my house for half a year or so now, so she obviously doesn't miss it much). Snow Falling on Cedars was good too (I read it in 11th grade so it's a bit foggy now). It is a murder-mystery but also involves the detention of Japanese during WWII and is a pretty powerful reminder of the atrocities even we "civilized" people can commit in the name of national security.

Maidencateyes [inlink]maidencateyes,38[/inlink] is right though, that the libraries have all of these books and you can get them for a month and a half at a time. Support the libraries! They're also really good about requests. You just go to their website search the catalog and hit request and you can pick them up from the nearest library. If you haven't already, you just have to get a PIN number to use the service (also available through the website).

I love to sing!

funny link to a "game" about contracts in Iraq:

First the Lackawanna Six and now Steve Kurtz; Buffalo is getting its share of the headlines. It just goes to show that things that affect the whole country can ultimately have severe local effects. Bush used 9/11 and the War on Terror to codify draconian domestic surveillance programs (through passing of the USAPATRIOT Act). And now we're seeing their effects on our doorstep. One of our own members has been intimidated enough that they removed their journal. Whether that was the right thing to do or not (especially considering that just hitting delete doesn't do all that much in the cyberage [inlink]ajay,43[/inlink]) is debatable, but it still sucks that it has gotten so far that such a reaction is even thought of. Beware what you think and for god's sake don't write it down. You just might be a terrorist and not even know it yet! Julie, if you're reading this, good luck over the next trying days/weeks and I'm thinking of you. Hopefully this will all blow over, and it will be just one more reason to hate Bushco.

We went to the Artvoice street festival thing today. Lots of walking (somehow managing to always end up at an empty stage) back and forth. There were tons of vendors this year which I'm not that hot about (though I guess it matches the magazine's ever-diminishing content/advertisent ratio), do we have to have kitsch-for-sale at every possible social gathering. My next party will hopefully be sponsored by someone and will have little booths throughout to catch you up on the latest useless trends in fashion/lawn decor. Kettle corn is delicious, just don't buy the big bag. The gathering last night was fantastic, or at least the parts I can see clearly. Most of my thoughts are fuzzed over with musical aftershock; at one time there was music playing with altered chipmunk voices (played very aptly by paul and chris) and the casio at full strength in the next room. Best(?) moment must've been walking into blasting technoish music to a room full of riverdancing loonies. I thought the floor was gonna cave. I, of course, decided to join in and was promptly elbowed in the eye for my efforts (thanks Keith: but really no hard feelings, doesn't hurt at all today-and we have no downstairs neighbors!). I took it as a sign to toodle-oo.

-sidenote: this is kinda funny
Republican Survivor
link to full-size .swf file without website

I would be into a dodgeball experience. I just wonder if the other teams won't be burly dodge-ball pros. In response to floppydonkey I would like to play basketball, but haven't for ten years or so and wasn't even very good then. Not that I'm terrible, I know how to dribble and can probably make a basket or two... So maybe if 2 or 3 other not-so-good players were to get together I could show up... the balls in your court (pun!) to find those people to help me not feel like a total loser though.

And if you know me at all, that's something special. There is a long-lost boy in town, Namens Chris. He went out last night so someof you lucky peeps met him. Fun time. He has a hat that's called a stingy or stinger (with a soft "g") or something. It is called that because it is rather small. In other words, it has a stingy brim (is that what it's called, stingy-brim, wtf?). I think he may only own black clothing, which seems to suit him (that's an unintentional pun). I need some tunes...that's better! I like to open itunes and just hit play (and then next next next next next next next) though it's sometimes hard to find a good one, what with three of us sharing 4000 songs; I settled on Cake: Going the Distance. Any song that talks about 'trembling bowels' gotsa be good. At this point you, my humble reader, may wonder what the point of this particular entry is. Sadly, I have no answer. I generally try to keep these things pertinent to world affairs and stuff or at least somewhat entertaining, but I'm taking the cue from the rest that sometimes it's best to just type.

Lately I've had two dreams about work. This is disturbing in itself (my job definitely deserves no extra time in my head), but more so because they feature me doing poorly and/or being evaluated poorly by my manager. Now granted I tend to slack off exactly as much as I can get away with (which I will admit is way more than should be), but I have never received anything less than significantly above average in my managerial reviews. So I slack but am just not caught basically (it helps that pretty much half of my co-workers are either really dumb or over 60) and I really have no qualms about it because I do as much actual work or even more than average. ...but maybe I do have qualms after all, and now my societal ethics are kicking in through my sleeping mind. The solution is probably that I should get a new job that I can feel good about, or at least like I'm not totally selling out. Why can't I just dream about fairies and elf queens all the time?

Zoar valley was nice today. A nice dusting of plutonium does a body good. I wonder what my mutant power will be this time? I hope it's not melting eyeballs again. I'll never make it on the X-Men at this rate.

Does anyone trust enough to do without money as an intermediary? What if none of us can really make anything at this point? What have we to barter with? Only our labor? Is that what socialism is? Anarchism without skills? Can you say that one is born with "abilities" and "assetts", giving both terms equal weight and philisophical merit? I think not, but reality has already played the cruel game of allocation; what to do now, at this late stage? Should we even strive towards equality, or perhaps if not, towards equity? Or are both words without real substantiation? Is there any basic reason that anyone deserves more than they are able to secure for themselves? Fuck philosophy. Makes me sick, twisted riddles in place of real answers. Who cares what the people in the "original state" would do? What about the poor fuckers starving everywhere? They most certainly don't give a flying fuck about any "original state" or for substantiating morals. Do we need to find the "basic reason" to be kind (even if you name it god, you're still looking elsewhere)? Enough. There's a 40 to finish.