Meandering Musings

Belated Happy Easter?

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:22:05 GMT

I'm so neglectful of my livejournal, it's really sad. I say this has to do with our RaiRo obsession and the fact that we've become like, hermits and spend most of our time in the office playing. To think just a few weeks ago I was ready to quit Rai again, but things have been going so well with the guild and stuffs I'm reinvigorated to the point of farming, working at capping Aana and Morg and getting ready to trans my dancer. Saturday night's WoE was probably the funnest I've had in a while (I'm sure a good chunk of that had to do with spending a lotta time defending Reph and sitting preemp bullshitting with Lion, Ashes and Sinister Monk). I e-called at one point when Mint was kicking our ass and 14 people popped through that warp and I almost cried happy tears. XD WoG represent...I don't know if its a happy day or a sad day when we're repping more people in the WoE party than GS/LN combined.

Spent some time last week chit-chatting with Greg. Haven't talked to him in an age. He's addicted to WoW, so no luck convincing him to join us on the dark side and roll up a class we need. I should really like, get off my ass and call Jay and Bob and see how they're doing. I miss my bros! I never even called my family yesterday, I'm like a bad daughter or something. I spent most of the day nomming the candy out of my easter basket and floating between the kitchen getting stuff ready for our Easter dinner (carbtastic!) and playing Rai/IMing with Strago while he worked on a paper for class.

At least the weather is getting warmer, maybe we'll be less anti-social once summer hits. Last summer was full of days spent outside with cold beer, the grills going, campfires at night and our neighbors, who are the bomb. I just can't wait, really. I want to go camping for reals, and spend some days at the lake or beach. At some point this summer my folks want to come up to visit, which is exciting. They've never been to New England. I've been pondering all the things I want to show them/places to take them. I know at least one trip to Boston is in order and it's not like it's a long drive...used to do it every day for work. We really need to get down to KY and see Ben's family too, he's homesick and I don't blame him. KY is so beautiful and it feels like home. I'll be glad to get back down there and visit. And hell maybe we'll stop by and see Rid while we're there, he's only like 2 hours from Ben's family farm. We're trying to convince Strago to come up for a visit, he just might. We're not that far apart at all. Skie lives less than an hour away when he's home from school, maybe we should try to hook up for dinner or something once he's home. (Geesh, always comes back to Rai)

Sharon's moving soon. It makes me sad, but I'm happy for her. She's totally in love and I'm sure she'll love living in Cali. It's not like we won't see her from time to time. Maybe a flight out there is in order sometime next year? I've only been as far west as Colorado, so that would be awesome!

Quite honestly, it's time to stop being lazy and start saving up for a wedding. I'm still of the opinion we go to Jamaica for a week at an all-inclusive and get married there, then have a party when we get home. Ben wants a "real" wedding with our families there. At this point I'd be happy with a JP in an alley. I mean, we've been living together with joint everything for over four years now. Would anyone really be shocked to find out we'd tied the knot? Nope, not really. We honestly considered doing it right before New Years just to file jointly on our taxes for the tax breaks. So who knows, maybe I'll come here and post some day soon that yeah, we did the deed and it's all official now. ;)

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:43:21 GMT

I had such high hopes for the day. Then the drama llama showed up and now I'm ready for bed. -_-

Five Things

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:54:33 GMT

Mkay, you comment and I give you 5 things I associate with you, then you write about them. My 5 things are provided by myuumaster - Comment if you want some, then do it so I can comment and get 5 more things from you! XD

1.) Ragnarok - So I plays me some Ragnarok Online on two private servers. My main server is RaiRo. :D Ben and I play together there, and the bulk of mah friends is there. We've played on Rai through a wipe and for like, gosh a few years now! We have our own guild, Wings of Glory, and Ben's main character Dorlan is our Guild Leader. Aanaren is my 'main' a level 103 Sniper and she and Dorlan (capped 115 Sage-Professor) are married (wedding system rocks - I think I posted wedding pictures further back in my LJ). Morgaine (high mage, soon to be high wizard) is my secondary, she's married to Vodimier (97 Paladin) and they have one baby (yay for adoption system) Heimdall (baby thief). The other character I play the most is Eliza, my baby dancer.^^ Eliza's parents are Eliot (Vodimier's priestess) and Haichang (Theroff's wizard). Eliot and Haichang are also in Wings of Glory. Eliza is in the baby guild, Backward Compatible. She's freaking adorable!!! I also play on eRO, which is a high rate server. My sniper there, Aana Fairleaf, will be transcending to Ranger soon (they have some 3rd classes). Theroff totally power-levelled her through trans with his Rune Knight in like two hours! XD

Olive Garden - I love Olive Garden! Ben and I eat there when we get the chance. Their Zuppa Toscana soup is to die for, and I cloned it by piecing together different clone recipes for one that tastes pretty spot on:

1 - 1/2 lbs. bulk italian sausage (I had links, so slit them and removed the casing)
1 medium onion, finely diced
4 large potatoes, peeled & cubed
1 large bunch of kale, washed, stemmed and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
10 cups chicken broth or stock
3/4 cup half-n-half
salt & pepper to taste
2 - 3 tbsp. olive oil

Brown sausage in stock pot or dutch oven, remove to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Add olive oil to the pot (enough to coat the bottom) and saute and onions and garlic until the onions are translucent and tender. Add the broth and potatoes and bring to a boil. Boil until potatoes are fork tender. Turn down to a simmer and stir in the sausage, kale and cream. Add salt & pepper to taste. Simmer until heated through.

Try it, it's teh awesomesauce!

3. Laundry (Of the clothing kind!!) - So glad she specified! Laundry of the non-clothing kind is kinda an inside Twilight Dawn/Wings of Glory joke. XD I call it "Mount Washmore" because it's ever-growing! Ben's more apt to do the laundry than I am. Now that we've had the battle where I convinced him that its more efficient and just fine to wash everything on cold except for towels and stuff of that nature! He's a color separating pro! Plus, the washer and dryer are in our basement and I'm wicked short, so carrying the laundry up and down two flights of stairs is haaaard when you can't see over the basket!

4. DC Comics - I started reading Batman when I was 8 or so.^^ I've read my way through a lot of Batman, Robin, Nightwing (was soooo happy when Dick finally got his own comic), The New Teen Titans (not really new anymore!), Young Justice, Justice League, Outsiders and various others. I'm just a DC Comics kinda girl. XD! Ben grew up on Marvel, so it leads to some arguements of who would win vs. who. The most Marvel I've read is X-Men, 'cause Wolvie is teh hotness (it's all in the attitude girls).

5. Needing moar RP! - I RP Morgaine and Eliza, happy fun times! Most of the babies RP, and most of them are in the baby guild, so it makes for epic lulz. Eliza is a curious and precocious child, much to Daddy's dismay. She's a total Daddy's girl, and normally a stern look is enough to keep her minding her manners, but she's been getting in progressively more trouble these days. She's not necessarily bad, she's just testing her boundaries. Daddy is coming down hard to keep his little girl toeing the line, as much as he doesn't like to do it. Daddy has spies, and her Uncle Darien Stormhand has been keeping a close eye on her and keeping her in check. Mommy kinda indulges and dotes on her. Her Uncle Theroff definitely does. She has a secret crush on Erin Eldric, and she loves Marty (baby priest). Obviously, he's a priest like Mommy and they both have blush and toast so they were meant to be together! Hence why they run around Pront Square giggling and blowing kisses. He asked her to marry him, so now they're going to go 'play wedding' in Lutie.^^ Baby love, so cute! For Morgaine she's madly in love with Vodimier and she's fumbling her way through child-rearing. I need to bring Eliza out to play with Lion and Lomi more often. It will be epic win!^^ We're also talking about getting a long-distance table-top together with Theroff and a few others. Probably via Skype.

The Plague

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:35:34 GMT

It's descended on our house and my place of work apparently. Last Friday I was feeling pretty darn horrible. I drug myself out of bed and said to myself I'd go in for about an hour or so, just long enough to get some pressing things done. Then I look outside and realize I had to clear snow off my truck and said forget it and went back to bed. I spent most of the day drifting between playing an hour of Rai here or there and napping on the couch having crazy fever dreams. I remember a few of them vaguely, mostly bits and pieces. Some of the highlights being:

- Tanking Valkyrie's with the baby and yelling for faster swall spam.
- Continuously mobbing Niff without anything dropping, at all.
- Pushing Theroff off his peco and going to ride away with him running after me yelling "That's my peco!" and me yelling back "You don't deserve her! She's not a peco peco, she's a chocobo!!"
- And a really strange one with lots of people in it, mainly Aana, Lomi, Lion, Vodi, Seil, Strago and Dorlan sitting in a circle staring at each other while Driftwood ran around yelling "you're full of shit" killing Dracula in east Pront.

I blame playing Rai between naps. But I'd wake up with a headache and know if I went back to sleep it would be much worse. Plus daytime TV really kinda sucks. After watching GMA & Ellen there wasn't much else aside from flipping through FoodNetwork. I lucked out with some What Not to Wear on TLC and a few episodes of A Haunting on Discovery and that's about it. I see Cartoon Network is still running marathon sessions of Johnny Test during the day...bring back The Grimm Adventures of Billy & Mandy g'damnit!

Now Ben's sick as hell. He stayed home yesterday and had crazy fever dreams too. This morning I couldn't help but laugh when he was flailing around dreaming and I was trying to wake him up to see if he'd make it to work. He fell out of bed and made this strange moan/grunt noise that had me laughing. He crawled his way back in saying "yeah, laugh it up." Turns out he was dreaming about black bears that could (surprisingly) talk, and they were having a conversation. I thought he was dreaming about ManBearPig or something by the noise he made. XD

Kate was out sick yesterday and Anne's out sick today. The big boss thanked Kate and I and we said it was Anne's fault...she started coughing first. I think he's going to follow us around the office all day with a can of Lysol. Everytime I have a hacking cough that sounds like a lung is coming up he pokes his head in my office an makes an O.o face.

I seriously need to clean the house tonight and tackle Mount Laundry. I think I'll make Zuppa Toscana soup for dinner, I need to stop for chicken broth though. How the hell we ran out of chicken broth is beyond me, I'm like a squirrel stock-piling nuts when it comes to keeping the pantry full. We're out of roaster chickens in the freezer too, grah! Not that it would help much with stock today. I think I'm still confused from being sick, that's my excuse anyway!

Oh yes, there's a dairy that sells raw milk, cheese & farm fresh eggs that's on Ben's way to work! How exciting...I need to slip him some cash and tell him to stop on the way home sometime. Ok well first I need to be nosey and check it out. I miss real farm eggs! We brought two dozen home along with a ton of produce when we went down to visit my folks this summer. My mom's taken to buying produce from the really nice Mennonite couple who have a farm down the mountain. Not sure where she's getting her eggs from with the family uproar and all, but they were darn good...yolks so yellow they were almost orange, and out of two dozen I had 3 double-yolk eggs. That's a baker's dream! I kind of want to look into a CSA share for this season but they're sooo expensive and I'm honestly not sure we'd use all the vegetables we'd get especially since we want to expand the garden this year. I'm hoping for a better crop of tomatoes. With all the rain last year the few heirlooms that we got were too precious to eat any way but raw, so I didn't get a chance to can any. The cucumbers died off on the vine from being water-logged. It left all my canning plans in ruin. Blech.

Stolen from Becky - Book List

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:40:03 GMT

The BBC alleges that the average person will only have read 6 of these books. I must be an overachiever or something.

Bold I've read, italics I started but never finished.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (Yep, I've read it cover to cover a few times)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read 4 or 5)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (uhh...isn't this covered under The Chronicles of Narnia??)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (Brilliant book)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (I loved the movie, think I should pick this up)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (This was one of my favorite books as a child, I've probably read this at least 25 times)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A lot of the ones I haven't read are already on my personal reading list. I should like...play less Rai and read more. I used to read a minimum of two books a week, I don't think I've read a book since Christmas.

Random Rairo Screenies

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:49:15 GMT

I've post these across the NPF and guild website, thought I'd throw some up here. :D It's image-heavy, so putting it behind a cut to save f-list.

Weddings...

Random-osity

Hehe...wow

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:45:07 GMT

Go to Google, and type in "$your first name & needs" - remember to put just your first name, and include the two words in quotation marks. Look at the resulting Google Search results, and list the first ten needs.

Jessica needs coffee (I totally agree!)
Jessica needs to hit the gym
Jessica needs a friend
Jessica needs to stop dressing like a slut (lol!)
Jessica needs a bigger Al-bra (wtf is an Al-Bra???)
Jessica needs our matchmaking skills
Jessica Needs To Dress Better; It's Not Like She Has Talent To Fall Back On (wow, harsh!)
Jessica needs HALP (yesh, yesh I do!)
Jessica needs a new manager
Jessica needs to eat.

Bucket List Meme behind the cut

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:59:11 GMT

Things you have done during your lifetime:
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
(X) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
(X) Made prank phone calls.
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans (NEVER been to New Orleans!)
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain-naked
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles.
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
(X) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
(X) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(X) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disneyland/ Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
(X) Seen whales in the ocean
(x) Been to Niagara Falls
(X) Ridden on an elephant
(X) Ridden on a Camel
(X) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
Adding:
(X) Been to a professional symphony concert
(X) Been to a professionally produced ballet
( ) Kissed a chimp
(X) Saved someone's life

The Pale Blue Dot

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:09:45 GMT

One of the girls on the stretcher posted this. Very beautiful.

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:16:34 GMT

Holy cow...is it the weekend yet?!?

Just...WOW

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:37:42 GMT

Ok so there are people actually believe that President Obama was elected because the masses were manipulated into voting for him? Wow! That's kinda "put on mah tin foil hatz so the gov'ment can't put stuff in mah brainz" crazy, isn't it? Well then again these people also probably thought Sarah Palin was the epitome of feminism, so yeah...woohoo whack-a-doodle!!

I mean seriously. Obama won, McCain lost. Ummm...stop being a sore loser and get over it?

Sorry, I about laughed myself to tears of this one. Yowza.

The White House: Now Under New Management

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:30:35 GMT

""The message that we are sending the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so vigilantly and we are going to do so effectively and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals," the president said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_suspected_terrorists

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:50:58 GMT

This article came up in a thread about video games on NPF and I thought it was well-written and very interesting: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_142/3052-The-Myth-of-the-Media-Myth

Quote: "Alexander Sliwinski, Contributing Editor at Joystiq.com, attacked the myth at the core of the image problem. "The thing I love people saying is that videogames as a whole are violent. Mature rated titles made up only 6 percent of the rated games in 2007. If there's anything remotely over the top with one or two of those titles, it'll receive 90 percent of mainstream media's videogame attention for the year. Not only that, but many mainstream media stories pick up on games that aren't even rated and are 'outside the industry' like Super Columbine Massacre or JFK: Reloaded. It would be like the film industry being blamed for people making snuff films or amateur bedroom porn."

For David Edison, Associate Editor at GayGamer.net, the "image problem" has affected him personally, as it also affects me. "There's certainly a prevailing antipathy against gaming out there," he told me. "I'm a gay man living in lower Manhattan - in other words, I've got a pretty open-minded support network! And yet I've been rejected on dates for being a gamer, lost the respect of 'mainstream' friends by working in games media and spent more brainpower and tongue-time justifying the participation of adults in the videogames industry than I'm willing to admit. And almost without exception, those non-gamers who do accept games as a valid, mature, interactive art and entertainment medium do so only after having their standing biases challenged."

I knew that there were video game haters out there, but I thought it was a minority, not a majority. I find the sentiment that video games are for children to be absolute hogwash, along with the fact that video games make children violent, lead to obesity, etc.

I'm an adult and I'm a gamer. I'm also a female gamer. I've been playing video games since I was 12 years old, along with my mother! I have fond memories of coming home from school to a snack and several rounds of Mortal Kombat against mom; or the day we celebrated with pizza for making it through the end of Smash TV and Ms. Pacman on two-player mode together in the same night. Ben and I play console games together, and we game online in an MMO together. I certainly don't consider myself a violent person, yet I've played video games from a young age and not all of them were roses and candy lets save the puppies kind of games. My brother played GTA when he was 13 and still loves ruthless games, and he's about as passive as they come. I've never even heard him yell or raise his voice before, let alone have a tendency towards violence. (And to make a point, my ex and I had a copy of GTA that my mother played through before she bought it for him because it was rated mature before deciding he was mature enough to handle it - because she's, ya know, an actual parent).

All in all, I agree with one of the experts who believes its just a matter of people fear what they don't understand. I'm shocked that there are so many people in this day and age of technology that seem to loathe and fear video games! Why not sit down and play with your child and see what it's all about? If you're worried about them wasting too much time, set a limit on the amount of gaming they do a day. And hey, if you're that worried about the games, why don't you set a limit for TV in general and make your kids do other activities? There's room for fun and creativity you know.

It reminds me of going into GameStop during the holidays at the Burlington Mall a few years ago. The line was huge, Dad gave the kid the money and he stood in line. The game was rated M, so the clerk had to have the father come over and tell him "This game is rated M for Mature, and I need you to agree to understanding that prior to allowing your underage son to purchase it. Its store policy." Bravo for Gamestop and the clerk! The man was livid yelling about how he just wanted to buy the damn game. In other words, he doesn't give a damn what his son does. But I bet if little Johnny goes out and shoots someone at his school, well it was the video games fault! Not because Mom and Dad didn't actually monitor and parent, but because they gave him what he wanted, sat him infront of the electronic babysitter, and never bothered to discipline or provide a true sense of right or wrong.

Don't blame the games because you can't be bothered to be an actual parent and involved in your child's life. Don't assume that video games are evil until you've sat down and played them yourself.

Yay! I R Smart!

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:51:24 GMT

Your result for Could You Win The National Spelling Bee Test...

National Spelling Bee Champion

(Spelling)% Spelling!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Wow! You got all answers correct, making you The National Spelling Bee Champion! Brilliant Job!!

Take Could You Win The National Spelling Bee Test at HelloQuizzy

A Wonderful Article by Jimmy Carter on Israel/Gaza

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:07:34 GMT

http://www.truthout.org/010809R

It's sad that former President Carter has done more to bring peace to this conflict than our current President.

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:53:18 GMT

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:23:22 GMT

Merry Christmas - God bless us everyone, or something like that. :)

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:13:40 GMT

Wow I haven't even had a chance to read my friends list in a while, we've been so busy with Christmas stuff, especially now that the power's back on! I spent most of the day (from 11:30 a.m. to 10:45 p.m.) on Sunday baking cookies. I'm almost finished with the cookie tins. Ben finished shopping for his family, now he just needs to finish my shopping and he plans to do that Friday since we have snow today and his company Christmas party tomorrow night right after work. I need to remember to have him pick up a $10 B&N Giftcard when he's down in Newington for one of the neighbor kids. Need to finish all the rest of the baking tonight so I can get the packages sent out UPS tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to my "vacation." I'll be off work from 12:45 p.m. (although we have a luncheon afterwards) on Christmas Eve and won't go back until January 5th. Yeah I'm totally going to sleep in late and play RaiRo for like three days straight. Totally.

Merry Christmas, ya'll!

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:35:48 GMT

Got up at 4:00 a.m. and hit the Black Friday sales. Ben's parents are done. I still need a sweater and Xbox360 game for my dad & brother. I'm working on mom's presents (she requested homemade - making a lap quilt/wall quilt and pendant necklaces). I have two more things to buy for Ben plus a few things for his stocking and he's done.

Time to eat some Thanksgiving leftovers and convince Ben to lug the tree and Christmas decorations out of the basement. ^_^

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh yeah...random meme:

Your rainbow is shaded red.

What is says about you: You are a passionate person. You appreciate energetic people. You get bored easily and want friends who will keep up with you.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Whoops!

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:29:12 GMT

Guess I hurt someone's feelings on the Stretcher boards. Finally a good conversation and suddenly the thread is gone. I guess pointing out the fact that all Muslim's aren't terrorists, and that there is much in common as Islam was taken from the Christian faith didn't sit to well with the Christian fundies.

Or maybe it was the fact that I pointed out that Fred Phelps is a zealot? Oh noes! Guess what folks, we get zealots and pyscho's in every religion! Christianity is just as bad, if not worse, than many other faiths for breeding fundamentalist whackos.

I just really find it hilarious. Heaven forbid we question, right? If the Pastor says the sky is green than surely he is right! If the bastardized King James Bible says so, it must be the truth. Lets not look into the history of the changes to the religion, we'll just all be mindless drones. Lets pretend the books left out don't exsist, every other relgion is automatcially wrong, and we're right 100% of the time because Pastor/Pope/Reverand says so. We don't want to rock the boat with contradiction.

Bring on the hate mail, its already started. Today should be entertaining!! :) I've been thinking about leaving those forums for a while now, too much fundamentalist close-minded right-wing Republican thinking for my taste. Thinking this might be the straw that breaks the camels back. If you get offended over one silly little post because it lumps Christianity with other religions and the whole thread needs to be taken down, you got bigger issues than I can solve for you.

Aaaahhhh...the world is so full of sheeple!

It's That Time of Year Again

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:29:21 GMT

I know I say this every year. When considering your charitable contributions this holiday season, please keep the Child's Play Organization in mind.

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

The creators of http://penny-arcade.com have teamed up with hospitals to help create wish lists for children who will be spending the Christmas holiday in the hospital. Some of these children are in very bad shape and will be spending Christmas, what should be a really joyful time, in a children's ward alone.

Fellow gamers, I'm specifically looking at you. This charity was created by the gaming community to bring the joy of games to sick children.

For those in the Boston area, the Boston Children's Hospital's wish list for Child's Play is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3BI2LVVRH4KZG?reveal=unpurchased&filter=all&sort=universal-price&layout=compact&x=10&y=7

If you can't afford to buy an item but still want to help, its time to look through your closets and see what you can offload. Child's Play is also an e-Bay Giving Works member. You can sell items on e-Bay and have the proceeds go directly to Child's Play.

If you'd like to hold a fundraiser for Child's Play, you can PayPal the funds to them here: childsplaycharity@penny-arcade.com.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:02:18 GMT

Ok, no more fabric purchases for a while. Between three charm packs of designer squares and some scrabble tiles I've spent $42 today.

Good thing most of it is going towards making Christmas presents. A quilt or two, some coasters, tile pendants, hoping I can grind out a tree skirt for us too with the Moda It's Snowing charm pack and still have enough to make a lap quilt for mom.

Time to get that sewing machine set-up and figure out how the hell to thread it and set the tension. Ugh mom, why do you have to live 9 hours away! You should move up here and set-up my sewing machine.

Did You Vote??

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:01:04 GMT

I got up super early (for me) today so i could get to the polls before they opened and vote before I had to go to work. I really didn't want to wait until after work, because I know the lines here in New Hampshire are going to be mammoth and I want to be home before 9:00 p.m.!

Polls opened at 7:00 a.m. I got to my polling place (the local nursing home) at quarter of and was about 80 people back in line, not bad. I thought it would be much worse! By quarter after I'd cast my vote and was headed back out to the car. Although I will admit I'm used to touch-screen electronic voting, so filling in a blob with a Sharpie and slotting it into a machine was a new experience for me!

I was pretty disappointed that they had already run out of "I Voted" stickers by the time the box sucked up my ballot. I wanted my sticker, dammit! I save them (yes that's probably weird).

Ben's going after work. It shouldn't be as bad for him since he gets off at 3:30, he should beat the 5 o'clock rush.

If you don't plan to vote please rethink it! I don't care who you vote for (well I do, but that's beside the point) so long as you go out and vote. Many people across the world have fought and died for the opportunity to vote, and those countries still don't have free elections. Think about that when you sit at home instead of taking the five minutes to cast your ballot.

It is not just your right, it is your responsibility.

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:31:20 GMT

Being a Christian, it really irks my nerves when people who claim to be Christians spew hate about homosexuals. The Bible commands various things about tolerance. "Judge not lest ye be judged" is the first that comes to mind. It isn't our place to judge anyone. There are countless others along this vein, such as:

"You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

"When they persisted in questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."

Or how about "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" That one happens to be one of the 10 Commandments.

Frankly I find it disgusting when "Christians" cherry-pick what they want to follow from the Bible, and immediately call someone else a "disgrace" for pointing out that their intolerance goes against the tenants of the faith. If Jesus felt that way, why would he have eaten with tax collectors and prostitutes?

The thing that ticked me off the most about this interchange was "the same God of our founding fathers" as a claim that we should change our laws to reflect a "Christian" point of view. So which God of our founding fathers are they referring to? Thomas Jefferson was a dieist. Benjamin Franklin was an atheist.

Our country was supposedly founded in the quest of religious tolerance. Granted, I think the Pilgrims were a little whack-a-doodle in their beliefs, but hey, whatever. That doesn't mean that religious tolerance wasn't the point. The Constitution also states that "All men are created equal." Not "Only heterosexual Christians are allowed here."

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:14:48 GMT

Someone asked me why, being that I was a Republican, I would vote for the unknown instead of the known. Am I not worried about the unknown?

Of course I'm worried about the unknown. I'm more swayed by the known.

We know that Bush's policies haven't worked, and we know that John's voted with him 90% of the time since he's been in office. We know that John said "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." We know that John's promised us another 100 years in Iraq if necessary. We know that Plain is involved in her own ethics issues. We know that she would counsel a 14 year old girl who was raped by her father to choose life. We know that women in Wasilla, AK would have to pay for their own rape kit if she had her way. We know that the movers and shakers of the GOP have courted the far-right conservative Christian vote and left the rest of us to flounder with no middle ground. We know that McCain was that middle ground, but now he's preaching to the right-wing choir.

So what am I voting for?

Better foreign policy. Better schools. Better opportunities for the middle class. A safe withdrawl from Iraq. Credits for clean energy. Tax relief for companies that create jobs for clean energy, automobile efficiency, etc. Equal rights for all Americans to include homosexual couples. The right to make decisions regarding my own body.

Maybe if the Democrats win in a landslide the GOP will need to rethink and go back to their original purpose, not just pandering to the extreme Christian right. That would be my hope anyway.

I also know KG is the shizznit, and that Pierce shouldn't be ashamed for crying when he got his ring last night. He deserved it and it was a long time coming.