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And we inch closer and closer to a literally Orwellian society. Where the fuck can I escape to?
September 2010
Monthly Archive
September 30, 2010
September 29, 2010
JOURNAL: YARD SALES: 20100925: 2010 Expedition #13: Wasn’t even going yard saleing, and got all this stuff!
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Hobbies & Activities, People, Yard SalesLeave a Comment
We got up around 1PM, sore, hungry, and ears ringing after the Atari Teenage Riot concert — followed by drinking and watching f’ed up TV with John The Canadien until 5AM. It turns out John had left his keys and had slept in our front yard a bit, and had just called us asking us to wake up. (Indeed, hearing the phone from the other room accelerated my rousing slightly.)
On our way to Taco Bell, we saw all these signs. We stopped at a few sales before going to Taco Bell. Then we went to Taco Bell. Then, afterward, we took a bunch of various circuits back to our house. Turns out I had an expired registration AND expired tags AND I was leaking break fluid — breaks stopped working later that day.
We ended up out until 3 or 3:30PM or so, for a total of maybe 1.5 or 2 hours of actual yard saleing. We’ll say 1.75hours, since it’s a guess.
A lot of stuff was free. Yard sales were closing out since primetime is 8AM-12NOON, and we were out around 2-3PM. One lady was taking down signs for a community yardsale. I asked her if they were all over. She said, “There’s a truck down the street by the pool, just take whatever you want out of the back of it.” That was interesting. I felt like a thief. Found a hot-shoe camera flash for “real cameras” which we gave to John The Canadien.
Other yardsales were completely abandoned, with “free” signs in front of piles of stuff. I grabbed a 50 cd changer and stereo just sitting on a curb at a totally different yardsale. The only room in the house that you can’t hear our “central music” from as easily is the foyer/living room where we play Guitar Hero — what the hell, I’ll set it up there and see if it actually works as a CD changer. It’s been almost a decade since I had a working cd changer.
Total spent $14.75 plus ~$3 gas for (a random guess of) 15 miles of driving, for a total cost of $17.75.
We bought ~ 21 items – including a duplicate of something I regretted passing up previously, a quesadilla maker, $5 when I passed it up, and $5 this time – for a total estimated value of $262.34, leading to a profit of $319.59 (though there’s no way in hell we’d ever be able to sell it for that, of course, as most of this stuff was literally TRASH).
To earn that much after taxes you’d really have to earn $456; money saved (by not having to spend it) is actually worth more than we realize when the government’s cut is taken into consideration. Anyway, this works out to a “wage” of $182.62/hr as a couple or $91.31/hr per person.
- $7.00: MOM DON’T READ [highlight for spoilers]→ vase with twigs, the type my mom decorates her house with[highlight for spoilers]→ (EV:I dunno, gonna guess $10)
- $6.00: 2 white fur rugs, $3/ea (EV:$78)
like this, but fluffier
- $5.00: quesadilla maker (EV:$22)
- $1.00: ice bucket, insulated, with lid (plastic inside, metal outside, plastic handle, gold and 1970s looking) (even brand new, it doesn’t come with tongs, though) (same as one on left in the picture) ($19)
but not red
- $1.00: light, fiberoptic flower, broken – light comes on, but doesn’t cycle, includes music box. Gold colored base case. (EV:$16, but since it’s broken, we’ll say $3 – It still lights up, just doesn’t cycle. Maybe fixable.)
- $0.50: light, touch (EV:$1, they have these at the dollar store) (these are useful for behind stereos and such, where you don’t necessarily have lights, but need light to see when you’re wiring things up. Or when you’re fixing your computer.)
- $0.25: sanding discs, 5 5″ discs, 3M cat no. 9154 (2 fine, 2 medium, 1 coarse) (EV:$2.09)
i've used them before... i'll use them again
- FREE: book, Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, 1981 (EV:$4)
- FREE: books, Cooking With Betty Crocker – 4 books – Betty Crocker’s Cookbook (EV:$60! Who pays that?!?!)
- FREE: books, Cooking With Betty Crocker – 4 books – Betty Crocker’s Dinner For Two Cookbook (EV:$16)
- FREE: books, Cooking With Betty Crocker – 4 books – Betty Crocker’s Dinner Parties (EV:$3.50)
- FREE: books, Cooking With Betty Crocker – 4 books – Betty Crocker’s Good And Easy Cookbook (EV:$5)
- FREE: haunted house, porcelain, lights up (EV:$45, and totally not worth it)
- FREE: game, Deluxe Uno (seems half the cards are missing) (EV:$36 originally, but I’m just saying $1 because it’s Uno, it’s at the Dollar store if I’m not mistaken, and we just kept the deck and threw away the box anyway)
- FREE: game, Friends Trivia Game (EV:$20) … Yeah, we’ll play this at least once!
- FREE: jar, Planters 1983 (haha! we successfully googled… A JAR!.. There should be a pointless reward for that) (EV:$4.75)
- FREE: magazine, Family Circle Great Ideas – Best Ever Chicken Recipes, May 1976 issue (EV:$2)
- FREE: stereo, 50 DISC CHANGER, 200W, Sony, model HCD-MC1, 200w, Manuf. 2000/01, s/n#8226989 – (EV:$40, but that includes remote and speaker wire, so we’ll say $30)
- FREE: speakers for the Sony stereo, Model SS-MC1, s/n#8126090 (EV:covered in the item above)
- FREE: sun catcher, Stained Glass decoration (EV:$5)
- FREE: television, portable, Alaron 5″, Manuf. 1994/05 Model#TV-672, S/N#4232018546, Tuning range: TV 2-13ch(vhf), 14-83Ch(uhf). Power consumption: DC 13.5V 18w (needs ac adapter) (EV:$20, but the missing AC adapter will cost $14, so we’ll say $6)
- FREE: camera flash, Canon, Hot Shoe (EV:$5, cause it’s old)
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).
September 29, 2010
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"I don't like what goes on in this privately owned establishment, even though I am not forced to go there. I shall petition the government to make them stop what they are doing, because I don't like it. " The smoking ban / tyranny of the majority / government intervention crowd rears its ugly head again. LET PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY WANT. Nobody is forcing you to go there!
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I gotta start doing this.
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Here's another article the vegetarians will love, but this is, again, another example of corporate negligence. It's not the meat itself that's bad, it's the way american industry handles it for maximum profit. MRSA sucks!
The FDA does not have jurisdiction over meat products?!?!! What the fuck? Isn't that what we appointed them for? Shithole EGYPT tests for this stuff, but WE don't???
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Not because meat is inherently bad, like vegetarians want us to think. But because meat companies use a color fixer called sodium nitrite, to make the meat look more fresh. I'd be perfectly willing to eat nasty looking meat if it's the EXACT SAME MEAT WITHOUT A CARCINOGEN ADDED.
This traces back to people generally being superficial and overcleanly and snobby about appearances.
I guess they'd rather have cancer.,
The USDA tried to ban this in the 1970s, but our corporate overlords ruled the country instead. So also file this under: corporations and corpratism.
Fortunately we don't purchase beef in any form in our household. Ground turkey is a perfectly acceptable substitute, and it is considered a white meat. But I wonder where it lies on the health spectrum here.
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YES!!!
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Fuck, so much for having 20/20 vision my whole life. I'm testing 20/25 on both eyes on this chart. Carolyn's testing 20/25 left, 20/20 right, so she beats me by 1 eye.
It's kinda weird – because my display is so big, I had to stand 24 feet away. On my spiral stairs. You gotta take a ruler, measure the letter A, and do some math to see how far you must stand away, since everybody's computer is different.
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No force is justified on a house call like this. If you're invited into someone's home for non-criminal purposes, you should not use criminal tactics. What the fuck?
Diedra Forte, feel free to leave a comment!
Ain't it funny how the child victim is named, but not the public servant paid for by our tax dollars?
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This is obvious, but I hadn't thought of it. The US govt forced manufacturers to include backdoors in technology (CALEA law). So of course authoritarian regimes want the same phones that WE forced to exist. Great job, assholes.
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Several layers of ridiculous here. Of course the kids weren't white… They were even charged — for having a lighter: "Possessing smoking paraphernalia." How dare you have fire!
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I don't see how this could possibly suck. Two things I like: Reznor and HBO/
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Those of us paying attention have seen how this has worked in other countries that have tried it: Wikipedia being blocked for showing album covers with young naked girls on it, sites criticizing the blacklist showing up on the blacklist itself, etc. etc. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMETHING, SURF TO ANOTHER PAGE.
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Read this, parents.
September 28, 2010
JOURNAL: DREAM: 20100824: weird party / Oranjello stuck in a tree — definitely not a cheerleader
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, Dreams, Journal, Nathan G, PeopleLeave a Comment
Dreamed we went to some party.
The location was my uncle Duke’s house [which comes up in dreams all the time for some reason]:
It was here...
Except that, as is often in the case of dreams, you know things aren’t how they really are. Despite this being the house above, it was also simultaneously my parents’ final Woodbridge house [they weren’t there] as well:
...except that 'here' is really here
The people attending were goth scene/DC clubber types, except I didn’t know any of them. They were particularly unfriendly in this dream, compared to in real life.
dramatization of a gateway to a dreamworld goth party
I looked for intoxicants and couldn’t find any.
I also looked through my cousin Nathan‘s files on his computer, which was in my mom’s original writing room.
I'm sorry I pilfered your files in dreamworld.
Eventually everyone left, and we were going to go to sleep in my old room / Britt’s old room / the upstairs bedroom of my parents’ final Woodbridge house. Then I noticed somebody sitting really really high on a tree branch. I thought it was a cheerleader. “Why is a cheerleader about to watch us sleep?”
Help! A creepy cheerleader is stalking me!
But closer inspection revealed it was Oranjello, so high up in a tree that it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to get down without hurting/killing himself.
way, way, way, way, way higher than this...
So I decided to reach out and pull him in through the window, but the window didn’t really open. So instead, I vertically pulled him in between the panes of glass. I mean, scrunching him to like 1-2 inches. I was really surprised he fit through, but he did. It was like he was a liquid kitty.
“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
– Xavier:Renegade Angel
(more…)
September 28, 2010
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"The report confirmed what the Obama administration already knew from the autopsy report on Dogan, but the administration has remained silent about the killing of Dogan."
"Bilgen was shot in the head with a "soft baton round at such close proximity that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the chest from above.""
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All the rights of human beings, but none of the responsibilities. Corporations have morphed into an entirely different beast from what they were when it was first established.
What did this particular case do? It allowed an oil company (Shell) to get away with having people EXECUTED, FUCKING EXECUTED for protesting them.
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I don't know how many times I have to explain that WordPress is the best blogging platform….
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It's about time. Hopefully the pigs will stop arresting people for this type of bullshit. IF YOU CAN TAPE US, WE CAN TAPE YOU.
September 27, 2010
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It's much easier to oppress another people for 70+ years if your children grow up indoctrinated to only one side of the conflict's narrative. This reminds me of something they'd do in Texas or Kansas.
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This is the exact same shit as Bush. Spying on Americans, making it so that your constitutional right to privacy no longer exists. The govenrment wants to ensure that no matter where you speak, they can place their ear next to your mouth and listen to what you said. In light of the recent raids on antiwar protesters, the Obama Administration is continuing to look more and more like the Bush Administration.
So, did voting Democrat bring your privacy back? Stop wiretapping? Didn't think so.
Isn't it funny? The constitution guarantees that our papers and effects cannot be searched by the government. But because phones didn't exist when the constitution was written, the government argues that they are not protected. Of course, if you brought the founding fathers to our current time — they would disapprove of this. Their point was that people had the right to privacy. This right was not supposed to disappear when new technology came around.
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A review of the Atari Teenage Riot show Carolyn & I went to with John The Canadien and AE last Friday. It was AMAZING!!!!!!!
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Will Israel shoot Jews dead this time? I doubt it. Some are even Zionists. One of the activists says: "I am a Zionist, I still believe I have a right to be here, but not to rob Palestinians from their land and steal the rights of 1.5 million people." Well, that's a nice compromise. One that I think most people would have been fine with this entire time. Too bad some bad apples always have to ruin it for everyone else…
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Yup. Obama's so-called transparent government of change and hope includes killing secret people in secret, and never talking about it. Hope? Change? Transparency? Bullshit.
This is state sanctioned murder of American citizens without due process or any form of legal recourse whatsoever. This is NOT cool.
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Another Food Party site!
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FoodParty.tv, another food party site!
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Even if she was not listening to cops and trying to flee, there is no statute in any lawbook stating that police can kill someone for running away. NOR SHOULD THEIR BE. Capital crimes include murder, treason — NOT running away from the cops for non-violent drug crimes.
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Of course he used the excuse of "I thought he was going to run over my partner, therefore i was saving his life", but let's face it, most people are going to consider this to be murder. Even his partner initially told investigators that he "couldn't believe that shots were fired in a situation like this."
Of course the shooting was found to be justified. If a cop thinks you are a danger to someone, they can get away with murdering you, EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T A DANGER TO SOMEONE.
Using deadly force to save a life is valid, but taking such things on the good faith of "Oh i thought it was valid but it wasn';t really" should not be an excuse that can be used by TRAINED, taxpayer-funded professionals.
The guy quit to "pursue his love of sailing". Or maybe he realized that every breath he takes has been stolen from someone who wasn't really a threat to anybody. I hope his sailboat sinks, with him on it.
What started this all? It was "suspicious" for someone to pull their car over!
September 25, 2010
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Because she called for help for a kidnapping, she was shot by police. Cowardly police that shoot any dog that runs towards them. Funny how when police are the perpetrators, it's the victim that gets named, and not the one shooting someone.
September 25, 2010
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: 17 Again
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[8] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] *Watched in 720p HD.
PEOPLE: Matthew Perry (aka Chandler from Friends), but then he gets all young and becomes Zac Efron. Melora Hardin (Jan from The Office) as Principal Jane (see what they did? Jan? Jane?). Hunter Parrish (Silus from Weeds; it took a long time to recognize him) as the douchebag bully. Leslie Mann (Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, The Cable Guy) as the love interest. Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy The Vampire Slayer). Thomas Lennon (Hancock, Memento, Reno 911, Viva Variety, The State) as the rich geek best friend.
QUIRKS: Contrary to some belief, this is *NOT* a body-swap movie *OR* a time-travel movie. He literally becomes a 17-year-old version of himself in the present day. Which actually makes this a unique gimmick in the “body swap comedy” genre.
There is also some great geekism depicted in the movie, between the rich best friend and the principle. “You can plunder my dungeon any time.” “I’ll bring my longbow.” Then they start talking in what I think was Quenya.
MORALS: This movie deals with regret — having regret for your past decisions, and learning to work through them. It’s actually kind of therapeutic to watch.
I’ve often questioned that if I could travel back to high school and re-inhabit my 10th grade self… Would it be worth having all the work I’ve done between now and then destroyed? Imagine having to re-buy all your albums, and sit through almost 20 years of new movie releases that you’ve already seen. Imagine everything you’ve ever written no longer existed; every picture taken gone; every file processed not processed, every dollar you earned now gone. Would it be worth it? And if so, is the only reason merely that it would extend your perceived life by 20 years? Or is the reason deeper than that?
Part of me thinks I would know every correct decision to make, and would repeat none of my mistakes, while realizing in advance who to make friends with, when to go, when to wait, and when to act. Another part of me couldn’t bear to part with everything that’s already here now. This movie, however, takes the two ideas and smooshes them together. You’re in high school — now, 2009 — and are getting a second chance to do things. The only bad thing is that he didn’t get to stay young forever (is this a spoiler? obviously in every movie where someone’s body changes, they are always reverted by the end!). But that’s what he wanted. The movie gave him a form of personal growth that he couldn’t have experienced otherwise.
CONCLUSION: It’s not quite fair to call this a body swap comedy, since there is only one person involved. But this was both funny and endearing at the same time. They actually made something somewhat inspiring out of the gimmick.
RATINGS: Clint: IMDB: 8/10. Netflix: 4/5 stars.
Carolyn: IMDB: 8/10. Netflix: 3/5 stars. I keep saying 8/10 is too high for 3/5!
RECOMMENDATION: My recommendation is somewhat neutral — Did you like what you just read? Than see it. Is seeing a High School Musical star star in a high school movie beyond your tolerance? Then don’t see it.
MOVIE QUOTE: Principal Jane Masterson: “Are you peacocking?”
COINCIDENCES: (Less Than Zero, 17 Again) Within a few days of watching Less Than Zero, 17 Again has a scene where he talks about someone reading Less Than Zero. (more…)
September 24, 2010
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Rookie Officer Marvin Esson sounds like a douchebag of the highest order; somebody who should immediately be fired and placed on a national Do Not Hire registry for police. (As if such a registry would ever exist…)
Of course the guy was black! We don't want no porch monkeys hanging on their porches. (That's my imitation of what I think the officer must have been thinking.)
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I used to do this all the time as a teen. Did this to my cousins, friends. My sister went unconscious and fell in an arc such that her head slammed into the floor. I thought I'd killed her. Then she started laughing maniacally, telling me a Toyota commercial had played in her mind, and it was the "oh what a car" — everyone jumps up, it freeze-frames — "Toyota!" commercial. My cousin Nathan did some freaky open-eye-but-unconscious shit when we did this. My friend Sam had a dream that lasted 2 days long and took him 20 minutes to explain — and it happened in only a few seconds. Funny to see this in the news.
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The minority that control the majority don't like it when the majority has the power of information. The pen is truly mightier than the sword — and much harder to fight. But fight they will.
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This can only be good news!!! Also, the guy who plays Black Dynamite was in some of the Toxic Avenger movies!!
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Land of the free? Home of the brave? A great constitution? Not if a prosecutor wants to prosecute you.
And of course, plea bargaining works against this. People who plea bargain and are innocent pretty much piss their chances of future review away.
And the prosecutors who put innocent people away by knowingly suppressing evidence that could help them out (in violation of law!)??? They don't lose their jobs or face any substantive punishment. One guy had to take a 1-day ethics course. Whoop de do.
Bruce Hinshelwood is an asshole; he should not be practicing law anywhere; he should be disbarred.
September 24, 2010
JOURNAL: DREAM: 20100920: dream within a dream?, secret room in our house, party at Tiffany O’s, 3rd “secret room” dream this year
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, Dreams, Journal, People1 Comment
Very strange dream where the upstairs floor of my house was a combination of our house in real life, and something akin to Uncle Duke’s downstairs house.
I don’t know why his house comes up in my dreams so often; maybe it’s because my whole family lived there for a month in 1983 in between houses.
why is this house always in my dreams?!?
Anyway, I had a problem with the door to Carolyn & my bedroom. As the repairman was working on the hinges to our door, he noticed that there was another set of hinges facing the other way next to them. He then had me come over and was like, “Look at this!” He pulled the wood paneling off the wall, and lo and behold, there was a second door to the left of our bedroom door! He opened this up, and there was simply another door there. Like, touching it, but opening outward instead of inward.
A door... in my house... where it doesn't belong?!?!
We opened that, and there was this huge room there! What the hell, we had a whole huge room we didn’t know about?!?!! But to make things even stranger, a bunch of our belongings that we had forgotten about were in there. Apparently, we’d gone into this room in 1999 when we first lived in our house, and had settled into it. But somehow we blocked it off, and forgot our stuff was in there! It was almost as big as our main post-addition TV room is in real life, but had concrete floors and sparse furnishings.
This was WAYYY more festive than the room in my dream.
I think this is a combination of my real-life desires to always live in a house with secret passages, and the real-life experience of cleaning out my attic this week, and finding all kinds of our stuff I had forgotten we had. (In real life, I had remarked to Carolyn that cleaning out our attic was kind of like going to a yard sale–finding all kinds of neat stuff.)
always an adventure cleaning out my attic
The room was mostly square, but it had a hallway — and a 2nd washer and dryer were in there. Damn, now we can do laundry twice as fast! But that hallway ended at ANOTHER door. That door — also a double door — went to public restroom — a good 10 toilets or so on both walls. I think this restroom was from another dream I had long ago, where I kept getting lost in these endless locker rooms.
Public restrooms. Yuck. (Private > Public!)
Apparently, these were bathrooms in the white house or something. Later, I opened them up while people were in there, to see if the Secret Service agent (who was John Glaser’s original bodyguard agent in season 1 of the show Delocated) would shoot me. He pointed his gun at us, I laughed at the thought that he might shoot us, and then he didn’t shoot us. I got into a discussion with the staff there about whether I could force them out of the bathroom, because it’s really part of my house and not their property. I think I decided I didn’t want to maintain 10 toilets, so it might be best if we share.
That's his hand on the left.
DREAM WITHIN A DREAM?
Later, I was walking around in the mall — or was it a mall shaped very much like my high school(?) — and I ran into Eve C, and told her about this dream I had. Little did I know I was in a dream within a dream.
ANOTHER ONE?
Still later, I managed to stumble upon a party that my old friend Tiffany O was throwing. I got there late — like 1AM — and there were lots of drunk girls around. I sorta hit on / befriended one girl, who’s name was “Amit”. I thought she said Amy, but no, it was Amit. At some point we walked outside somewhere, but she wandered off or something. I crashed at Tiffany’s house and slept. When I woke up from my night’s sleep, I was really fuzzy. I couldn’t remember if this was X-Day weekend, or even what month it was, or where Carolyn might be. I was about to get in my car and drive to New York, as if I had simply taken a 1-day break from X-Day, come all the way back down to Virginia (8hr drive), and then was going to drive 8hrs back to X-Day. I couldn’t even remember what month it was, I was so f’ed up from the night before. (Even though I don’t remember drinking in the dream.) Finally, I managed to remember, “No, it’s NOT July,” and simply drove home to my normal home. The end.
“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
– Xavier:Renegade Angel
(more…)
September 23, 2010
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Why was I not informed there was a 10-yr "reunion" special for PowerPuff Girls?!?!
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Police fucked up the paperwork. They had a whole investigation because he dropped his heart medicine at Bluewater Fitness And Wellness Center. This wellness center called police on its own clients, and caused its own client to sit in jail without his medicine. How's that for wellness? If you go there, you should cancel your membership because of what they caused to happen to a client of there's.
HERE'S THE KICKER — A field test showed the substance to be cocaine. These are the same field tests DEMONSTRATED TO CONGRESS to give positive cocaine test results to *AIR*. AIR!
IT GETS WORSE — Later, a proper test determined it was NOT cocaine. But several months later, he was arrested for it anyway!
The ensuing lawsuit is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel…
This is what the war on drugs does. It doesn't make drugs go away any more than prohibition made alcohol go away. It simply robs the liberties of Americans, making us the least free country in the world by jailing rates.
September 22, 2010
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OH I hope they make this! But it better be a 4-slice toaster and not a 2-slice toaster, or I probably wouldn't want it!
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INCREDIBLE assholery from the Denver Police Department here. This guy should not be compensated $4,000, he should be compensated with a duplicate of his car, at the expense of the assholes who knowingly SOLD STOLEN PROPERTY.
Wow. The gang and the government are no different.
September 22, 2010
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Cemetery Junction (2010)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video1 Comment
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Ricky Gervais? I’m in.
PLOT SUMMARY: A coming-of-age dramedy about 3 British youths growing up in the 1970s. Sounds pretty dry, eh?
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): The UK is full of losers.
PEOPLE: Co-Written, Co-Directed, and starring (in a lesser role) Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office, The Invention Of Lying. The other co-writer/co-director of this movie is Stephen Merchant — Ricky’s co-star in the Ricky Gervais Show. He is also in the film for a brief second. He *totally* looks like the cartoon version of him from the Ricky Gervais show. Instantly recognizable despite the fact that I’d never seen more than 2 seconds of his live-action self. :) Karl Pilkington is in an uncredited cameo, and unfortunately we missed him.
The main 3 characters are played by TV actors Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes, Jack Doolan. I should mention that Jack Doolan is pretty much the British answer to Clark Duke (Sex Drive, Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine). They both play the “fat kinda douchey kinda retarded annoying guy”. Compare this to this. And, of course, many might consider Clark Duke a poor man’s Jonah Hill. Thus, Jack Doolan is a British knockoff of an American knockoff. Jonah Hill -> Clark Duke -> Jack Doolan. The love interest is played by Felicity Jones.
Also starring Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort from Harry Potter, Clash Of The Titans remake, In Bruges, The Hurt Locker, Red Dragon, Sunshine), Matthew Goode, Emily Watson (as the love interest’s mother) (Red Dragon, Punch-Drunk Love, Equilibrium, Corpse Bride), and Steve Speirs (Flatnose from Inkheart, Capt. Tarpals from Star Wars 1:The Phantom Menace, Pirates Of The Caribbean:Dead Man‘s Chest) as the ‘good’ cop.
QUIRKS: Drinking, fighting, working-class mischief, police brutality, insurance sales, old-money, douchebags, racism, sexism, decreasing levels of comedy, depressingness.
VISUALS: Bleak, depressing 1970s UK.
MORALS: Sometimes you have to rise above your friends’ bullshit, as much as they want to keep you down. Start your life anew. Realize what you already have going for you. Leave town and get a life.
POLITICS: Society is not set up for the working class to succeed. UK sucks.
GOOD STUFF: Ricky Gervais‘s influence.
BAD STUFF: It’s not really a comedy, it’s a drama-comedy / dramedy. Heavy on the drama. Especially at the end. There’s a moment where all jokes stop for the rest of the movie. However, in its defense, there are some HOWL out loud moments of laughter worth catching.
MISTAKEN AS BAD is the racism, homophobia, and sexism. This is the 1970s. If you want an accurate film, you need to portray people like they were. People getting mad over this are revisionist: They want movies about 1970 to reflect 2010 values. They want to forget awkward history rather than acknowledge it. Political correctness is an enemy of art!
CONCLUSION: It was good for what it was, but it wasn’t what we wanted. I still enjoyed this, but it was a mostly depressing film, with decreasing levels of comedy. Ricky Gervais fans might be disappointed, as you expect to laugh your ass off with anything Gervais related. And while our asses were laughed off a few times, the laughing stopped mid-way, and it became a more generic drama movie. The entertainment value decreased and decreased until we got to our “happy” ending, which wasn’t even *that* happy. I’ve seen this movie a million times before, and it’s called “life sucks”. At least The Invention Of Lying was fresh, unique, and funny.
RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.4/10 (a high 6).
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.2/10, Netflix: 3.5/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.3/5 stars).
RECOMMENDATION: For Ricky Gervais completists only.
SIMILAR MOVIES: This kind of reminds me of Judd Apatow‘s Funny People. Not by it’s plot, but by the fact that it’s an occasionally funny drama, disguised as a comedy, from someone who pretty exclusively has made comedies.
September 21, 2010
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Conviction reversed. That is to say, legally, he committed no crime. But he sat in jail for 14 months before the conviction was overturned. So much for the right to speedy trial guaranteed by the constitution, eh? So much for innocent until proven guilty, eh? If a cop says you're drunk, you're drunk, even if there's no evidence. go directly to jail. Do not breathalyze. Do not pass go.
Oh yeah, I forgot. A lot of people think criminals or people on probation have no rights. Fucking idiots don't understand how freedom works. Too bad they can't get caught in the web of their own design.
OH HE WAS BLACK. I get it now. The appeals court said he never should have been sent to jail. But when you're black, courts will do things that aren't even legal, and people will let it slide because they assume black == guilty. If you think race had nothing to do with this, you're naive.
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At this point, I'm pretty sure that when Obama directed the Justice Department to not raid medical marijuana dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal — that he KNEW it was lip service. Compounded by the fact that he nominated the Bush-Administration DEA head to continue with her existing legacy, this is simply another way in which Obama is all talk and no real action.
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Whoa. This is not at all what I would have expected. No wonder I'm a SubGenius. This "Absurdism" meshes with me way more than existentialism. I think I've found my philosophy.
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Police seize phones for "evidence". Of course, officials woudln't go into detail on whether it is legal to seize evidence without a warrant. Gee, I thought the establishment could afford its own cameras…
And don't get me started on criminalizing the feeding of the homeless. It's like they want to FORCE homeless to resort to crime to feed themselves! How fucking stupid. I have the right to give food to whoever I want. This is a basic human right, nto something any government can take away.
This also falls under my standard "Freedom from permits and licensure" rant. Permits and licenses are to protect people from fraud and unsafe products. However, people who don't want that protection should have that option too: Government interference in our private life should be an option, not an unbreakable rule.
What next — arresting people for having yard sales because they don't have a business permit? Arresting me for babysitting my sister, because I don't have a child care permit?
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I wish I was making this up.
So, have we won the war on drugs yet? Have we gotten a return on our investment of sacrificing our liberty and money yet?
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"Grant also quoted from Justice Louis Brandeis, explaining the most important constitutional right is the right to be free from governmental interference in our private lives. "
No shit. If it's YOUR OWN PROPERTY, then you should be able to have whatever behavior you want in it. This is no different than outlawing sex at a club. Nobody is being forced to attend these functions. Basic freedom here.
I thought this country rebelled from Britain because they were sick of the government interfering in their private lives. But we, the American people, sold out our own freedom, no the basis of what we, individually, do not like or approve of. Tyranny of the majority: The ultimate flaw in democracy. It's why we had slavery, it's why women couldn't vote, it's why interracial and gay marriage have been illegal.
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Found via addressbook search, since I have emailed Liz Enthusiasm in the past. Neat.
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Amazing how the officer, of course, is not named. But the victim is. What bullshit, what total bullshit. The officer needs to be named, fired, citizen arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed. He's already been reprimanded in writing for wrongfully arresting people on battery in the past — this guy has a problem being touched. And, apparently, a problem with overreacting.
Also sounds like the grocery store owners are douchebags. "Don't let the bar people use our parking lot, it's costing us business." Funny, I've never heard of anyone deciding to not go to a grocery store because people from a bar are using the parking lot. Towing peoples' cars out of non-full lots is assholey.
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People want to know what they eat. People elect a government to implement their will. Government refuses to do so, working more for corporate interests than for the interests of the people it's supposed to represent. Too bad we can't overthrow the FDA, huh? Where's Obama during this?
At least Kucinich is on our side.
September 21, 2010
JOURNAL: ANECDOTES: msg received from Carolyn (at college; I’d graduated) on 10/5/1997
Posted by Claire CJS under Anecdotes, Carolyn, Clio, Dave N, Dave O, John The Canadien, People, VickyLeave a Comment
10/5/97 5:01 AM Carolyn: CLINT! evyoone is drunk now!! sen's puknin i my bsathrom.. and vikcy is dso durnk. adn dave is mad beuase jimie wa sin hter.. and s o he and john evacuated the area nad whent to walmatt and now soekm orthjre people shoewed up and im runk fom what ficuky made me.. i think this isn't makeing sine. 10/5/97 5:01 AM Carolyn: iufin' hsbr s ptor i didn't have aproblem sending to you!@@
September 20, 2010
JOURNAL: DREAM: 20100910: living in hidden rooms
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, Dreams, Journal, People[3] Comments
Some strange kind of crisis where Carolyn & I didn’t want to get caught. I ended up finding a secret room in my parents’ house (which wasn’t anything like any of their houses in real life). For some reason, I couldn’t let my parents or anybody else know. Literally, this room was just a cave at first. But the dream flashed forward several months, and after months in hiding, we had somehow managed to get a few amenities into the room, and expanded it. It kind of reminded me vaguely of the hidden room’s I would find in my dad‘s dad’s house, past the bar, in previous dreams. We lived in hiding for quite awhile. Eventually Dad found out we were there. My parents weren’t my enemies in the dream, but for some reason, it was crucial to our lives that they not know we were there. I don’t really remember what this all was about.
“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
– Xavier:Renegade Angel
(more…)
September 20, 2010
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What a fucking cunt Scalia is. I can't wait for him to fucking die. Douchebag, douchebag, douchebag.
"You do not need the Constitution to reflect the views of current society." Traitors should fucking die. I wish cancer on you. Cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer.
September 19, 2010
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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. And now: Ignorance is strength.
The law was designed to make public officials accountable for their actions, and now 6 out of 7 judges have used it to make precedent in the exact opposite fashion. Land of the brave? Not anymore. The establishment protects its own.
Police, paid for by the public taxpayer moneys, will now create records that the taxpayers cannot see. This is govt of and for the people?!?!
This is also going to make freedom of press harder to achieve, by making it cost more money to get the same info. That's a way of quashing freedom by technicality: Simply make it prohibitively expensive. Protest permits work that way, too. Ever seen a protest of homeless people? Didn't think so.
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Douchebaggery from Apple, as usual. They're far more evil than Microsoft ever was. I miss the 1980s apple. They were cool when their logo was the rainbow apple.
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Wow. This is in part due to Canada having much weaker freedom of speech laws than America. But *even in Canada*, libel is almost always handled in civil court, not criminal. This is some overreaching police bullshit, basically. Hopefully they lose, which will then make the police look that much stupider.
September 19, 2010
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Hoodwinked (2005)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[7] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Been meaning to watch this for a long time, but have only been psuedo-interested in it.
PEOPLE: Anne Hathaway. Glenn Close. James Belushi. Patrick Warburton. David Ogden Steirs. Xzibit (wtf?). Anthony Anderson. Andy Dick. Tom Kenny (the PowerPuff Girls narrator!). Kevin Michael Richardson (Principal Lewis in American Dad, Principal Davis in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Black Mantra in Batman:The Brave And The Bold, Bishop in Wolverine & The X-Men, The Boondocks, Chowder, Codename:Kids Next Door, Mr. Hudson in The PJs, Bill Cosby in Family Guy, etc etc etc), Tara Strong (another PowerPuff Girls voice, also in National Lampoon’s Senior Trip).
QUIRKS: It is basically a comical re-telling of a Little Red Riding-Hood story from the viewpoints of several different characters. Who’s been stealing the goodie recipies?
VISUALS: 3-D CGI done in a cartoonish way.
SOUNDTRACK: Meh.
BAD STUFF: This movie was kind of painful at the beginning, especially with the songs. We deliberately watched this the day before camping, when we really didn’t want to watch anything too serious or heavy. But it kind of HURT at parts.
CONCLUSION: While the beginning was painful, the mystery angle grew increasingly interesting as it was told from each successive character’s viewpoint. This ultimately saved the movie by making it ever-so-barely entertaining.
RATINGS: IMDB: 5/10. It was way below a 5 at the beginning (3/10), but got more interesting at the end (6/10). Alcohol helped. This gets 3 stars on Netflix because in the end it didn’t leave us feeling terrible, but really this is more like 2.5/3 star material that has been rounded up to 3 stars.
RECOMMENDATION: If you need to watch something with your kids… This might be good. Adults? Well.. You really gotta be in the right mood to even be able to tolerate it.
SIMILAR MOVIES: It’s actually a psuedo-remake of some old 1950 movie that recalls a crime from the viewpoints of each person.
COINCIDENCES: (Icebreaker, Hoodwinked) 2 movies within a week or so that had someone trapped in a cable car/gondola with dynamite/a bomb about to blow up.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Benj really liked it. Metinee didn’t like it. (more…)
September 18, 2010
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"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
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Chris Ford is a dick! She's a 50yo woman. They charged her with using profanity in public. Uh, freedom of speech? Hello?
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Ridiculous, not based on real science, and completely negligible in the face of all the industrial and automobile pollution every city person breathes every breath. Just an excuse to take away more peoples' rights.
Glad to see 95% of commentators agree this is some bullshit.
Of course, people can still drink in bars…
Claire's blog 