Daily Archives: August 14, 2001

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thenas for reminding me of the http://www.antispin.net/~martine/cgi-bin/insanity.cgi?scottobear tool. (change the username at the end to make other mixes)

I want to her, tonight, I must. I know things
That I woke up in Middle schools. Is random?
And other little or have bothered to them and I
admit don’t know how they were wearing an
international police probe into my head
completely might be rewind my laptop,
sweetheart before even long as firehouses is
significantly longer than yield to set; Up: to
those found on how many folks just do it
vanity that he only mention it because of the
moon this foreign borrowing remain current:
doesn’t taste? Uncertain origin, possibly from
middle name, to him, and solid one of hair,
maybe even long unenforced laws against to a
full change.

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I’m just babbling, rambling pod. Don’t mind me.

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It occurs to me that I’m expected to be surprised by things that don’t… and it happens frequently.

I observe, but really don’t react negatively (or positively) to items of minor change. Stuff like someone at work (or a cab driver I see frequently) shaving their head after having a full head of hair, maybe even long hair, hippie style. Folks confuse my lack of comment on things like that for a lack of awareness of same. Truth be told, I’m likely to think the person who shaves their head completely might be undergoing some sort of chemo-therapy or whatnot, and I don’t want to be the 50,000th person to comment on it to them… likewise, if they did it to get attention, I don’t want to feed that characteristic about them that drives a person to shave one’s head. (for example). The same can be said for drastic weight gain/loss, a new car, or some other change in the environment. I usually don’t bring it up (unless the person is a dear friend, Like Danny, for example) when someone just looks different. I figure folks just do things for a change, and they’ll let me know. Is it vanity that causes them to be upset when I don’t mention something I’ve seen?

This goes against my normally very inquisitive nature. (Inquisitive… nothing. I’m nosey.) I love to tally facts, figures, and other little tidbits of knowledge about everyone I see.. not to an OCD level… but close. I couldn’t tell you a person’s lisence plate number, but I could tell you the color of their eyes after talking to them once. I wonder how many folks could reliably describe a person to a police artist? describe the clothes they were wearing an hour after seeing them? I note that kind of stuff.

That’s part of why I like polls so much. I want to know things… silly stuff, form what handedness you are or your middle name, to more general things like what makes you remember a person happily, or what irrational acts can make a person angry. I am, as I’ve said before… a pod person. I know my motivations are similar to yours, but they’re certainly not identical. I think that the environment I grew up in promoted observation, adaptation and a general sense of being… I’m not sure how different that is from the norm.

It strikes me as odd that many people don’t observe the world around them, generally. So many people don’t go out for walks in the park, or people-watch, or even read a book regularly. I don’t understand that… Do they just watch TV, sleep and get up in the morning to repeat the process? Is that stimulating to them, or have they grown to accept looking at a beige wall with a blank mind as a way of life? Don’t get me wrong, I watch well more than my fair share of TV, getting comfort from old shows, cartoons, documentaries, comedy. Sitcoms are mostly lost on me, as is reality television.

I wonder what percentage of people able too have bothered to look at the moon this year, or a blade of grass, or looked at another person and actually wondered what made them tick, (not for the purposes of using them… just to know how they think).

I look at people, and wish that there was a way of looking inside them and see how they think. I think in images, and feelings… the aforementioned Dan has told me that he thinks in more concrete terms, actual words in his head. Aside from the how…I want to know the why, too. Why is dark green one of my favorite colors? I don’t know… it’s a soothing thing for me.. but I have know idea what process makes it so. I’d love to be able to rewind my head… look back, and find out if there’s a reason back when I was much smaller than I am now for it. Why are my tastes in food different than Dale’s? we both have similar tongues… shouldn’t everyone like oh, I don’t know… chocolate covered raisins? Why do some folks like ’em, and other folks not? Same goes for music… clothing, the list goes on and on. How does culture change taste? How much is random?

Just pondering… was going to write some fiction, but instead just decided to say what was on my mind at the moment.

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evil news, yes indeedy. Word of the day, too – arrant

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Today’s evil news is brought to you by the color brown, the letter schwa, and the number 2012.

But first, the Word of the day.

arrant AR-unt, adjective:
Thoroughgoing; downright; out-and-out; confirmed; extreme; notorious.

Arrant was originally a variant spelling of errant, meaning “wandering.” It was first applied to vagabonds, as an arrant (or errant) rogue or thief, and hence passed gradually into its present sense. It ultimately derives from Latin iter, “a journey.”

And now… the evil news.

Boy Sentenced To Life Without A Crappy Job
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Shawn Barker, 16, was ordered to not seek employment in the food-service industry.
Using a police officer’s soft drink as a spittoon will cost Shawn Barker 100 hours of community service and a letter of apology.
But he won’t get detention, a court ruled yesterday.

Fighting a Real World
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The time, 10:53pm, shines in luminous yellow light against a Lite Brite-blue background on the A.Z. Zenith Currency Exchange sign. Next door, what has become the infamous “Real World” house stands like a de facto king’s castle, the Friday-night-trafficked North Avenue its moat. Across the street, a crowd has been gathering for about forty minutes. Somewhere between 300 and 400 people congregate here. A curious mix of activist types sporting cut-off shorts and shoulder bags, cherub-faced alternative boys and girls who could easily be seen in a suburban mall, a handful of clubbers poured into skin-tight tank tops and requisite black pants, and patrons from the bar next door (in Structure shirts and Dockers) commingle, watching the house as if it were a giant television. In the currency exchange lot, a dozen cops, with arms akimbo or folded, survey the crowd. “You call this a protest?” one officer wonders aloud. “You ever see that show ‘Jackass’?” another officer asks. “I’d like to see some of that.”

The article has much more, its really long and brings up many good points.

Morons Left To Come Up With Own Ways To Hurt Themselves
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MTV’s controversial stunt show “Jackass” is no more.
The show’s star, Johnny Knoxville, whose real name is P.J. Clapp, called it quits late last week for a career in movies. The last original episode of “Jackass” aired Sunday night.
“We told [MTV] we would do specials down the road,” Knoxville told the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “But this is enough. We have done enough.”

Korean Pinky Protest (it bears repeating…)
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Draped in national flags, 20 men each chopped off their little finger Monday in anger over Japanese textbooks that allegedly gloss over atrocities by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
South Korea is upset by failure in those textbooks to mention the many Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Heavy Metal Fans To Be Medicated
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Malaysia will medicate youths it says belong to a Satanic heavy metal music cult, a newspaper said today.
About 150 alleged “Black Metal” members from 15 schools would begin a program used for drug addicts from Tuesday, the New Straits Times said.
“A private company will sponsor the treatment program. The medicine has been tested on drug addicts and found to be effective in stimulating their thinking,” said Fadzil Hanafi, an official in northern Kedah state.

Reading Writing Burning Alive
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Teachers in the eastern Indian state of Orissa are being urged not to use suicide as a means of protest against educational reforms. Seven teachers were badly burned on Friday when they tried to set themselves alight in protest at being made unemployed.

Trying to Set a Breastfeeding Record
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Did you know there’s a world record for the most babies breast-fed together?
Susan Spencer didn’t, until her 9-year-old grandson received a copy of the latest Guinness Book of Records for Christmas. Listed under the Teamwork section between blurbs on teeth cleaning and sign language, the published record for Most Babies Breast-fed Simultaneously was set two years ago by a group of 388 breast-feeding mothers in Adelaide, Australia. Reading that gave Spencer, who works for a breastfeeding coalition here, an idea. With August being World Breastfeeding Awareness Month, why not try to break the world record?

Me Bum Went Psycho and Children Can’t Read About It
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A new children’s book called The Day My Bum Went Psycho has been withdrawn as the drawcard of the annual campaign to inspire children to read and write.

It’s just a baby’s bottom and what I find really disturbing is that somebody would find that disturbing.

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well, now I know.

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ketch·up (kchp, kch-) also catch·up (kchp, kch-) or cat·sup (ktsp, kchp, kch-)

n.
A condiment consisting of a thick, smooth-textured, spicy sauce usually made from tomatoes.

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[Probably Malay kicap, fish sauce, possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) k-chap, equivalent to Chinese (Mandarin) qié, eggplant + Chinese (Mandarin) zh, sap, gravy.]
Word History: The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that can take place in borrowingboth of words and substances. The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kchap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sailors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. But it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. All three spelling variants of this foreign borrowing remain current.

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Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight… hmm. Having a wonderful time.

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Good morning!

Only got about 4 hours of sleep last night… if that. I’m doing ok though, just had a touch of the ‘brain sleeping-body awake’ disparity which sometimes comes over me. (and its just as evil but opposite fidget body, numb-brain hits me too, sometimes)

A yummy breakfast set me right… I decided to eat hearty today. A breakfast very similar to those found on commercials! (I really only mention it because of misspriss‘s poll… bowl of honey-nut cheerios, a massive dose of OJ, and honey-wheat toast with strawberry jelly. a nice mix of hot/cold, wet/dry, crunchy and soft. I quite enjoy textures and temperatures when I’m eating…. I think that’s why I don’t like some foods… Tomato (for example… I don’t think I’ve had it in raw form for *years*) I enjoy as Ketchup (Catsup? How do *you* spell it? New poll.)

anyhow… I dig sauce, sun-dried tomato, and fried… but raw tomatoes are icky yucka to me.

Note to self, sometime today, post a Wally story, or a story from when I was in High School. Maybe the tale of Michelle Millet.

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Like any other type of relationship, employee/employee relationships can become abusive. If you analyze the reasons why people stay with particular companies or in particular jobs, and compare them to the reasons women stay with abusive men, the similarities are disturbing. To whit:

Many abusive men play on the woman’s self esteem; I’m the best you’re going to get, who else is going to accept you the way you are, you’re lucky to have me, where else are you going to go?

Some companies do the same thing; where else are you going to find a job in this field, you don’t really know how to do anything else, are you really up to competing in today’s job market against people younger/smarter/more educated than you?

Abusive males also typically have some sort of financial hold over the women they victimize. The women can’t afford a place of their own, or even a bus ticket. They feel they can’t leave, even if they want to, yet conversely feel some degree of fear that the man will throw them out onto the street.

Abusive companies do the same; who’s going to pay you what you’re making now? Who else offers these sorts of benefits? Can you afford to quit? What would happen if you got fired? How will you pay the bills?

Many companies, like abusive spouses, often offer incentives to get you to stay and boost your morale; a free lunch, swag like t-shirts and baseball tickets, even kind words and pats on the back. But these are typically empty promises. One day it’s a tender kiss that takes you back to the days when the relationship was new and full of promise, the next day you’re back to getting smacked in the mouth.

Unfortunately, while there are several organizations available to help women escape abusive relationships, there are none that I’m aware of set up to assist employees fleeing abusive employers. Sure, employment agencies will help you find a new job, but they won’t shelter you until you’re back on your feet; that’s like a battered spouse seeking help from a dating service. And if you did ask for that type of assistance, you’d likely get a snide response along the lines of “You’re an adult, no one’s making you stay, why don’t you just quit?“, words the same people might find shocking were they uttered to an abused woman taking flight.

And people wonder why I’m glad Wally’s gone. It’s like the abusive boyfriend of a good pal (Most of the upper management, really) had just been kicked out, and gotten a restraining order. I’m mighty happy about that.