Well, happy Canada Day everyone.



I have pretty good plans for this weekend, and decent plans for next weekend. This summer has turned out to be surprisingly full of good company. Maybe it sounds slightly pathetic to be this surprised, but I've kind of been content with my semi-hermit bachelor lifestyle for a while and now all of a sudden I'm being social every weekend. I was even hungover last weekend. Scandalous!

My vile landlord is sitting in the backyard, just staring at nothing. She's not listening to music, reading, feeding the birds, writing a letter, nothing. She's just sitting and staring, probably feeling her life slip away one heartbeat at a time. It's truly wretched.

I NEVER want to be like that. If my life ever turns into that, I'm counting on my friends (hopefully I'll still have them) to point out that I'm being useless. I'll just book a journey into the Amazon and disappear into the jungle. That's my plan.

Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. WHAT IS GOING ON THIS WEEK?

And then there's, y'know, AN ENTIRE ELECTION REVOLUTION going on in Iran.

I follow the Boston Police Department on twitter, and sometimes their blog has snarky headlines, which tells me that someone is trying to have fun between blogging about carjackings, bank robberies, and homicides.

RECYCLING BINS ARE FOR RECYCLING ONLY

At about 2:55am, on Friday, June 19, 2009, officers from Area B-2 (Roxbury) responded to a radio call for two males fighting in the street in the area of 97 Hillside Street. On arrival, officers observed several City of Boston Recycling bins and their accompanying recyclables (plastic bottles, glass bottles, etc) strewn all about the street and sidewalk. According to the caller, he was awakened by several loud noises and, then, upon looking out his window, he observed two white males engaged in what appeared to be a physical altercation. Caller says he also observed one of the individuals picking up and throwing several recycling bins.

Gotta get this dream down, because it was so intense.

I was on a plane-shaped shuttle with a bunch of other passengers; I don't remember much of what came before landing on the planet, except that we were searching for a new home. The first place was a trick.

The second place, we could see lush plants and buildings through the windows, but we'd been tricked before, so I went to the airlock to peek outside. Of course, in my dream, I didn't need a suit or anything, I just went to the hatch and took a really deep breath. Outside the airlock, Jennifer Beals (or Bette Porter?) opened the door--and it was all real. We were on a hilltop overgrown with bushes and flowers and we could see a town laid out below us, with gridded streets in the center and larger buildings on the edges. I remember I started crying in the dream. Also, in the back of my mind, I kept checking the architecture for pieces of our ship, or anything reminiscent of our civilization.

I called for one of my friends to come see so we could have a look around, which is when a native found us. They looked human, except on a larger scale. This one was a woman, and greeted us cheerfully. We thought we would be allowed to settle, so we started offloading passengers by row, from the back first. The woman gave me a boost back up to the airlock, proving she was much, much stronger than us as well, and we speculated it was because of the planet's higher gravity.

When I was back on the plane, I headed aft to find Chase from Legend of the Seeker and Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting down and having a conversation. I was like, hey guys, your turn to come outside, which was when we heard screams and cries. The natives were killing the people already outside, and then one them boarded. She had an invisible pocketknife and kept trying to stab me with it, and each time I managed to push her off. I tried to break her fingers, but she was way too strong.

And that's when my alarm went off.

There was also a part where I was doing standup and I forgot a joke, but that wasn't nearly as scary.

You guys have seen this, right?

A Republican member of the US House of Representatives is facing a storm of sarcasm from the Twitterati today after he compared the violence and political unrest in Iran to his battle with Democrats over an energy bill.

As congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan read the Tweets from the chaos in Iran, he sent this message to his beloved followers: "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House."

-- guardian.co.uk

First, even the Brits are laughing at Hoekstra. Second, Hoekstra Is A Meme.

When will overprivileged white men in positions of power stop comparing their ~suffering~ to, say, hardcore Iranian revolutionists?

I suppose I do know how Hoekstra feels. Just today I got a rock in my flip-flop; now I know how Jesus felt being nailed to the cross.

Me, to myself: "I wish that ice cream truck would start coming around again."

Ice cream truck: *jingle jangle jingle jangle*

Me: "OMG, I THINK IT, IT HAPPENS."

My lactose-intolerant body: "Oh shit, here it comes."

Anti-LGBT Bills On The Table In Louisiana

House Bill 60, which would change Louisiana law regarding birth certificates for adopted children, providing that only married couples or single individuals can be listed as parents on the birth certificate. This bill would mean that out-of-state same-sex couples, and other unmarried couples, adopting Louisiana children could not both be listed as parents on their child’s birth certificate. This is legislation that, first and foremost, threatens Louisiana children in need of adoption. It’s also a discriminatory measure that would prevent same-sex couples who cannot marry in their home states from being identified as the parents of their adopted child. This bill has passed the House, has passed a Senate committee, and may be voted on by the full Senate at any time.

House Bill 517, which would threaten access to health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. HB 517 would allow healthcare providers to refuse to participate in certain health care services that violate their religious beliefs or moral convictions. This legislation would set a dangerous precedent by establishing the principle that health care providers may cite religious belief as a basis for refusing to treat people in need of health care. This bill has passed the House, passed a Senate committee, and may be voted on by the full Senate at any time.

---

517 definitely outrages me the most. Any doctor who refuses to treat a patient based on "religious beliefs" is a coward and a hatemonger and certainly doesn't deserve the title of "doctor." If you become a doctor and swear the Hippocratic Oath, then either stand by it or GET THE FUCK OUT OF MEDICINE. You can't treat LGBT people as if they're less than human, as if they're somehow less deserving of health care. Where would it stop? Could Jewish doctors turn away people who don't keep kosher? Could Muslim doctors turn away people who don't follow a certain dress code? Could gay doctors turn away STRAIGHT PEOPLE?

...no, actually, because it's obvious by "religious beliefs" they mean "the religious beliefs of Christian straight people." Everyone else is shit out of luck in the discrimination lottery.

A = Still hung up on a girl I haven't seen in nearly...nine months.

B = Pride Week in Boston, so tons of women hanging about, getting in each other's business. Or biznass, if you will.

A + B = bitter longing keeping me up.

But I have already exhausted my "get drunk and moan about it" cards, so...that's what livejournal is for?

I'm really not sure what my deal is, and why I'm not over it yet. All I do know is that Pride makes me go "Ahhh, fuck" a lot.

I think someone at hulu is trying to tell us something.

Still, Rachel Nichols in all that fitted body armor...

Two U.S. Journalists Sentenced to 12 Years in North Korea

SEOUL, June 8 (Reuters) - North Korea found two U.S. journalists it has held since March guilty of illegal entry and sentenced them to 12 years hard labour, its official KCNA news agency said on Monday.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV, were arrested while working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. Their trial opened on Thursday.

*

This is unbelievably fucked up. It's just...there must be some diplomatic solution, if there can't be some stealthy-commandos-with-guns solution.

I just saw a story on the news about a restaurant called Kogi in LA. See below.



BRB, LOLing forever. While I pine for Korean/Mexican bbq.

I like how calamities just pile on top of each other. Except not at all.

I was on time this morning, despite having to get up at 8am to coach a 9am soccer game. There I was, leaving the house at 8:40 on my bike, for a soccer field approximately five minutes away...by bike. Carrying a soccer bag full of equipment, it was more like twenty minutes on foot. I knew everyone would already be there, because they were taking pictures (which should be taken after games, by the way). But my bike felt floppy, and I realized before I was out the door that the rear tire was completely deflated. Not just flat, but loose on the rim, as though the inner tube had popped. I didn't have time to pump it up and see if the tire held, so I checked out a zipcar (yay for zipcar!) for two hours and drove over to the field, where I was promptly unable to find parking. That's why I take my bike in the first place (also, my bike is free).

So I circle and park and get there a little after nine, only to find they aren't done with photos, the other team still has to go, and the ref hasn't arrived. Great. We get it all done and start the game half an hour late, which sucks, because I only have the zipcar until 10:30 and it's 9:30 now, the start of an hour-long game.

About this time I realized I left my wallet in the car, along with the access card that unlocks the zipcar. I call zipcar at every intermission, get put on hold every time, and finally reach a rep around 10:40. I'm told I will get charged for the extra time, plus the inconvenience to another zipcar customer who had the car checked out after me. I tell them this customer has tried calling them repeatedly for an hour. They say, take it up with billing.

Anyway. I get home, congratulate myself on getting the car back in five minutes due to some terrific speeding on my part, and then get a call from zipcar asking where's the car? Because I, like a dummy, parked it in the wrong spot, two blocks away from its original spot.

And that was my morning. It's not even lunchtime yet.

We lost the soccer game too, on a PK. FUCKING PENALTY KICKS AND HANDBALLS IN THE BOX.

You are smoking outside. You see a runner approaching.

You
A) Blow cigarette smoke in their face
B) Do not blow cigarette smoke in their face

If you chose B, congratulations! You are a human being.

If you chose A, FUCK YOU YOU SCUMSUCKING ROAD WHORE. I'm going to shatter your kneecap so you have to have it replaced and you'll walk forever with a limp on that leg and every time you go to the store to buy MORE cigarettes the cashier will say "What's going on, gimpy?" and snicker at you so every time you smoke you'll be REMINDED OF THE DAY I HAD MY VENGEANCE.

Accident, Mass. Ave. by Jill McDonough

I stopped at a red light on Mass. Ave.
in Boston, a couple blocks away
from the bridge, and a woman in a beat-up
old Buick backed into me. Like, cranked her wheel,
rammed right into my side. I drove a Chevy
pickup truck. It being Boston, I got out
of the car yelling, swearing at this woman,
a little woman, whose first language was not English.
But she lived and drove in Boston, too, so she knew,
we both knew, that the thing to do
is get out of the car, slam the door
as hard as you fucking can and yell things like What the fuck
were you thinking? You fucking blind? What the fuck
is going on? Jesus Christ! So we swore
at each other with perfect posture, unnaturally angled
chins. I threw my arms around, sudden
jerking motions with my whole arms, the backs
of my hands toward where she had hit my truck.

But she hadn't hit my truck. She hit
the tire; no damage done. Her car
was fine, too. We saw this while
we were yelling, and then we were stuck.
The next line in our little drama should have been
Look at this fucking dent! I'm not paying for this
shit. I'm calling the cops, lady. Maybe we'd throw in a
You're in big trouble, sister, or I just hope for your sake
there's nothing wrong with my fucking suspension, that
sort of thing. But there was no fucking dent. There
was nothing else for us to do. So I
stopped yelling, and she looked at the tire she'd
backed into, her little eyebrows pursed
and worried. She was clearly in the wrong, I was enormous,
and I'd been acting as if I'd like to hit her. So I said
Well, there's nothing wrong with my car, nothing wrong
with your car...are you OK? She nodded, and started
to cry, so I put my arms around her and I held her, middle
of the street, Mass. Ave., Boston, a couple blocks from the bridge.
I hugged her, and I said We were scared, weren't we?
and she nodded and we laughed.

I'm not going to any barbecues, though I suppose I could just throw some food on my own grill. But I feel like if you quizzed a random selection of people, half of them wouldn't be able to articulate what we're actually supposed to be remembering. I mean, I see people who don't put their hand over their heart for the anthem, who don't take off their hats, who don't know anything about how to treat the flag.

So.

Support Your Vet.Org

An article I've linked before: Final Salute
A fantastic, Pulitzer-Prize winning piece on the Marine Corps' tradition of notification of family and laying to rest of its members.

There are a lot of people fighting out there. Their passing affects all of us. Don't click on this picture if you don't want to start crying. But then again, maybe a little bit of crying is okay today. But that picture was too sad to post without a warning.

Last night, for a while, I was Starbuck, but on Earth. Bombs had just gone off in all the major cities and me and Helo were running around trying to get our shit together. We activated a beacon for a raptor to come pick us up and get us to Galactica, but then me and Helo got separated and I fell in with a group of survivors in a suburban neighborhood. I thought I might have to stay if the raptor came, but I wasn't with Helo, and I distinctly remember promising a little girl that we could go raid the closest supermarket together before everyone else had picked it dry.

But I did find Helo, just as the raptor came for us, except it totally looked like a shuttle from Firefly and not a raptor. I got onboard, but Helo changed his mind at the last minute. He said he had to stay, and I pretty much played out that scene from BSG where Boomer leaves Helo on Caprica, except I was waving goodbye through the open rear shuttle hatch and trying not to cry. That big dumb hero.

My dream self never made it to Galactica; my brain put me back on Earth, though as myself this time. Everyone was trying to continue on as normally as possible despite the y'know, near-apocalypctic worldwide bombing. We were trying to rebuild, so I guess it couldn't have been that bad. I got a phoen call from someone at a party in Phildelphia, because Philly only got bombed twice, so now it was this gleaming cultural jewel or something. There were also horses? And I was driving in my minivan somewhere, but I couldn't stop reading this book, and then my legs wouldn't work, and then I couldn't wake up, and when I did I think I got hit with some sleep paralysis?

I really did have the hardest time getting up this morning. It hurt my brain, when I kept trying to open my eyes in my dream, but I thought was awake, so I couldn't do it. Ouch.

Items currently in my bed:
old college comforter (reversible!)
all of last week's pants
iPhone
Calvin & Hobbes Lazy Sunday collection
PS3 controller
quite possibly about six pairs of socks that I have yet to find
some crumbs
cat with bug bites all over her neck

Items currently NOT in my bed:
a beautiful woman

...but I feel like I got sprayed with a hetero hose and now I need to re-gay myself. You know you've spent too much time watching nothing but lesbian media when you find straight people unsettling.