Inject a little sobriety

  • May. 17th, 2008 at 2:18 PM
This page allows you to search casualties of the Iraq War. When you scroll over the casualty marker, it shows you a picture and tells you about the person who died.

I did a search on girls 19 and 20 years old. Significant because in my mind they are just leaving childhood, they haven't had to much experience in anything that I take for granted - like having a drink, commitment, home ownership, independence...

Love (And I mean the long term and profoundly changing love - the "we've been together 10 years" kind)

Sex (that boat sank in sight of the dock - no one is done exploring their sexuality at age 19).

Outside of the military barrack, had they ever lived alone - had their own place, made their own way?

Thats a lot of dead young girls. Now, do the search again, but look for both male and female under 21.

(http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-13-iraq-casualties_N.htm and click on the interactive database).
I went to bed early last night, just to tired after a week of not sleeping that well. A very very full Sunday so I may just rest at home tomorrow. Where rest includes a fair amount of cleaning.

Fordham Summer Forcast, Ale with Red Rasberries

There is bananna in my beer. This is a light and sweet fruity beer, but is actually a bit too sweet for me, and I a not a fan of bananna - not in beer at least. I can taste the rasberry and if you like friuty beers this one would be a good one to try. I like fruity beer but it is too much for me. It is not bad, but not a buy again for me.

WARNING!! For anyone SELLING on EBAY!!!

  • May. 17th, 2008 at 11:56 AM

Now when you sell something one EBAY and go to leave feedback about the person you have sold to, The following message appears:

Important changes to Feedback
Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers.
You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.

So.. now there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY for bad buyers from EBAY. 

In response I have decided to close our ebay store and cancel any plans to sell anything through ebay.

Voting this week

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 8:35 PM
This is usually  where I post a vote link: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/159465.html?view=12268265

Of course, I appreciate your votes!

But here's the unbelievable thing: I got immunity AGAIN. 

That is correct: I made it to the top 5 in LJ Idol.

Holy Cow.

So please, vote for me, or not, or vote for anyone else you think has an awesome entry. All of the entries are there in the poll, and everyone is a remarkable writer, so go enjoy some good writing and vote for your favorites.

And if your favorites happen to be mine, I won't mind the extra ego boost :-D

*mwah!* Thank you to everyone who got me this far, MANY Thank yous to the jury. 

Holy Cow.

Towards the New You

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 3:44 PM
Nameless tension

Unmentioned but now explicable tension
It has recently come to my attention that there is a gap in the self-help market. While there are plenty of weighty tomes with titles such as Life After Separation: Coping with the fundamental meaningless of existence, or DVDs like I've been smacked in the balls with a sledgehammer - what now?, these are all aimed at what one might diplomatically call the completely losing side of the leaver/left divide.

However, there appear to be no such works designed to assist the leaver of a relationship in coming to terms with the inevitable and dramatic emotional trauma that such an experience involves. This is because they are far too busy swanning about having the time of their lives to read a book.

So, leaving no bandwagon unjumped, my vast wealth of professional experience in the fields of separation and heartbreak allows me to offer the following handy hints for those who suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves single after many years of domestic bliss underscored by a nameless, unmentioned but now explicable tension.

May. 16th, 2008

  • 10:17 AM
On the T last night, there was this woman. I'm almost certain she was younger than me. She reminded me a great deal of [info]saxchicbeth, only more buxom. She was obviously tired, so I showed her a seat when it opened up. She had a cute green ipod sock for her cell phone. I talked to her a little bit. She had a sort of energy to her even when she was that tired, and she was witty. She had cute fidget actions.

I wish there were some way I could come up with as a male stranger to tell someone, "I barely know you but I think you're beautiful and in the little interaction we've had I've found you intriguing so I'd like the chance to communicate with you again". (I feel like that runon sentence wants a "kthnx" at the end.) But whenever I think about doing that in person, my brain shouts me down, reminding me how I just look like another intimidating sketchy guy. And now I remember seeing that she had a name badge of some kind, and I wish I'd done the stalkery thing and memorized her name. I also now wish there were some way to track her down that wasn't even sketchier. But therein lies the problem... I'm not sure there's a way to actively find her again that wouldn't be even more sketchy. I just have to hope that serendipity puts us in the same traincar again. And that just stinks.

Linky Linky

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Here's a freakonomics blog post on how we maybe value American suffering of a few far more than foreign suffering of many, how we almost certainly spend more according to how often we're told "people are dying", and how women solicit donations way better than men in our culture.

Another quick'un

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 1:15 PM
 I may have my problems with Germany but it does have some wonderfully redeeming features, z.B. they have a TV programme called "Wildes Kinderzimmer" which is essentially an hour of cute baby animals doing cute things. It really calms the rage...

Now moot in California

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 6:31 AM
So...

If a man and woman get married in a non-gay-marriage-recognizing state, and then one of them has a sex change, are they still legally married?

I suppose I could Google this, but I'd much rather leave it open to speculation among my flist.

cat TV

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 10:57 AM

He still hasn't realised that we have a fish, bless, but Dritz does seem to have passed through his fear of Little A'Tuin and into fascination...

 I enjoyed the Wave Gothic Treffen  ( http://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/ ), even if all we do is work.  We share a stall with Lucy and Mark who are fun to work with.  They sell Cybergoth/punk clothing and this brings in all the bueatiful cyber people.  This year we had MaryLittleGoth working with us and she is really good company.  Mary introduced me to lots of yummy Meads and summer wines which she bought from all corners of Leipzig.  One of the wines was a Rose/Turkish Delight flavour, yum!.  The plan for next year is to take time off to see some of the bands, events, cafes, bars and meet up with a few people.

There are wonderful costumes and dress, chatting with friends that stopped by was great and the last night in the brick built fort Moritzbastei was excellent.  I love that building.

I think I will avoid the camping that some people do and stick to the hotel.

I met two new Vampire Fang makers, one a German sculpturer whom has offered to sculpt fascinating items for my jewellery and the other gave us information for a Halloween Dark Bazaar at the Endless Nights in New Orleans, YAY! and RAH!

We spent a whirlwind day visit in Berlin, where neither of us has been to before.  We needed much more then a day to visit everything.  We particularly enjoyed the Salvador Dali gallery, the incredible ruins of an old church and the ice cream palour!.

Sleep early, but first -

  • May. 15th, 2008 at 10:52 PM
He'Brew - The Chosen Beer: Genesis Ale

I admit I bought it for the name. I had to, and it was worth trying. For me, not again, because it is a rather hopping he'brew. Enough so that I kinda went, oh dear hops as I finished my first pull. But aside from that, quite good. ShepJoe and all who like hops I bet will like this one. JM does like hops and she did. A good example of a style I just don't care for. But I would not want to scare off anyone who liked that style, I think it would be good if you did.

They have another kind I got as well which I will try later.

(Online reviews I read after writing the above were pretty positive.)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  • May. 15th, 2008 at 9:33 PM
Gay marriage is legal in Calafornia.

THESE ARE BIG STEPS. IT'S A BIG STATE.

Yesyesyesyesyes.

we made it safely to Temecula

  • May. 15th, 2008 at 8:33 PM
We somehow managed to get on the plane this morning despite running late and hitting long lines. Winter kept saying not to worry but I was really in a panic.

Then sometime during the flight I nearly had a repeat episode of that incident from January 2005 when I went to Studio Theater with Winter (and ended up staying in a hospital emergency room overnight). I managed to avoid passing out and took a lot of deep breaths and it seemed to pass, but the symptoms were similar. Crap, maybe the diagnosis was wrong after all. Something I might have to check into when we get back to DC.

Anyway the B&B is very nice so I'm glad we decided to stay here. We can't make it down to San Diego tonight though.

This town is so full of wineries I don't know where we will start tomorrow. There is a tour from 10:30am-4:30pm. Otherwise we're on our own. Might want to go check out Old Town at some point. There is a place that boasts 200 kinds of root beer and another place that specializes in jerky (brochure says: "beef, turkey, venison, ostrich, buffalo, salmon, alligator and other exotic jerky").

Sight seeing in London

  • May. 16th, 2008 at 12:35 AM
 

We had a great visit in London with Bex and her boyfriend for a night, including a poll dancing session in her lounge! I had to prove I could climb to the top and hang on backwards with my thighs at least! 
Our sight seeing consisted of...........
1; Tutankhamun and the Golden age of the pharaohs exhibition.  We finally got to see this before it closes and promised ourselves an Egyptian holiday to the pyramids and
Cairo museum. We met Lisa for lunch which was lovely.  I am glad we caught up with her this time

 

2; The Medical Man, The forgotten museum of Henry Wellcome.  Very worth while seeing.

 

3; Camden.  The shops and building that were burnt down in Camden and a visit to Cyber Dog because I have an inner secret Cyber-punk and love their clothing.  I have decided I might wear it more to the clubs and even Thomas is buying cyber dreads/hairfalls! Cool!

 

4; The Great Frog, Carnaby, London for hand made jewellery.  We still have not found an engagement ring that we like.  Then afternoon tea in Liberty's. Very nice

In Love? Would You Like A Free Portrait?

  • May. 15th, 2008 at 5:53 PM
The amazing J.R. Blackwell (who did the portrait that adorns this journal) is offering free portraits to the first 8-9 couples to contact her and will also do portraits of poly groups (for the first group to contact, portrait also free!)

You must be able to get to Philadelphia.

Her work is amazing and utterly worth the trip (NYC folks, Philly folks, Baltimore folks, I'm especially looking at you:))You will be pleased.

Information is below.Drop her a line, if it is your will.

Read more... )