LiveJournal Project - August 2005

Here comes the big 3-0 !

Date: 2005-08-01 17:07
Subject: defcon or bust(ed) - or ... "sir, how fast is 'pretty fast'?"
another year, another defcon. while i would say that overall i had a good time and learned some things, as is the usual, DC13 definitely had a different feel to it than previous years. for one, it seemed that the crowd was much smaller. certainly, i have no concrete data to base this on, but unlike the past couple years, i didn't find myself having to stand ridiculously long lines out in the heat in order to get into the talks i wanted to see. also, the nighttime pool action was a lot quieter. i recall years past where we would go out and sit by pool 1 and there would be people everywhere, conversing, computing, and progressing through various stages of drunkenness. not this year. i sat at a table talking to a guy who had remembered me from the previous year for about two hours on saturday night and it was pretty dead. we hypothesized that DC attendance probably has its ups and downs like any other subculture event, and we both agreed that it seemed like something was missing. who knows - maybe everyone decided to eschew the pools in favor of private in-room parties out of fear of being tossed in or the promise of free-flowing alcohol.

scott and kevin and i had originally planned to enter as a team into hacker jeopardy, but kevin decided, due to financial reasons, to just hang out in the room and not buy a badge, so my chances of competing were looking rather bleak. however, on saturday night a team that only had two members was chosen to participate and they looked to the audience for a volunteer to be their third, and i was the lucky winner. if i had had even the slightest thought that such a thing might happen, i would have gone to the liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka for the occasion. (for those that don't know, hacker jeopardy works just like real jeopardy, except that when you get things wrong, you have to drink. DC provides free beer for the event, and each bottle consumed is worth 100 points going into final jeopardy.) i hate beer, and as one of the guys on my team said in reference to the open bottle of corona in front of him, "dis ist not bier" (think german accent). anyway, given that the third member of our team wasn't drinking (i don't know if he was underage, doesn't drink at all or what) it fell to stefan and i to pick up the slack. i tried my best to take one for the team but could only manage to choke back 4 full beers. had i a bottle of effen black cherry and vanilla vodka, with an equivalency of one shot == one beer, we would have gone into final jeopardy with an overpowering lead - just ask anyone that saw my alcohol consumption during 'leetest link at DC12. funny thing, though, even with only 700 beer points (the other teams had racked up something in the neighborhood of 1500-1800 beer points), we were still ahead by 500 going into the final question. that's right, bitches, we don't need your stinkin' beer points.

as it turned out, all 3 teams got the question wrong, but the 2nd place team didn't wager all their money so they ended up being the best of the worst and we came in second. apparently scott had googled it and was trying to signal me the correct answer from his seat in the audience, but i never bothered to look up at him, and even if i had, i don't know if i would have been able to make out the hand signs for "jobs" - as in steve jobs. ah well, it was still a good time to be had by all (well, perhaps except for the three contestants that puked and the other contestant who was trying to cheat and had his blackberry thrown in said bucket of puke, an event which almost led to a hacker brawl on stage). the DC organizers actually got a cute (actually, she was damn hot) vinyl vanna (vinyl vanna helps run the board and also removes an article of clothing whenever a team correctly answers a daily double) this year; if i were wearing a hat, i would tip it to them.

so, yeah, we didn't make the finals. but congratulations to billy_goto for having the winning team and beating that assclown in the stupid hat.

in other defcon news... i had a chance to briefly chat with jennifer granick from stanford law school about the way in which she handled graduating from an undergraduate institution that does not assign letter grades (i went to the same place for 2.5 years) in her law school applications, and surprisingly, she said that it didn't matter. i asked her if she submitted any of her evaluations as part of her apps, and she said "fuck no!" overall i suppose that this is a good thing, but i have quite a few evaluations which are really good, so i may still get in touch with the law schools and ask if they'd like to see a "representative sample" or something.

and then, the absolute highlight of the trip... the drive back. between kingman and the hoover dam lies a stretch of about 60 miles which is generally flat, straight, and sparsely populated - in other words - it's the perfect road for someone with a fast vehicle to see just how fast said vehicle will go. in all the times i've driven this road, i'd say i've seen cops five times or so. unfortunately, sunday was instance #6. we're going along, doing anywhere from 90-110, (i still don't know just how fast my car will go - and now i'm going to be too chickenshit to find out for the next two years) and as we come to the top of a small dip - boom, there's a porker off to the side of the road. i slam on the brakes, hoping that maybe i can get it down to something reasonable where he won't nail me before it's too late, but as we fly past his position i notice in my mirror that the little piggy is pulling out of his sty and rapidly accelerating in my direction. bloody hell. i pulled over even before he turned his lights on, which in the end may have saved my bacon. he asked me the standard question - do you know how fast you were going, and my answer was "pretty fast". turns out i got clocked doing 90 (in a 65 zone) - that's criminal speed - can't go to school, gotta pay the fine, they can take you to jail if they really want to. the cop wrote it up as a civil violation, though, so i can do the traffic school and not have to worry about insurance and such. but the funny thing he said to me was that going 20 miles over the limit increases your chance of being involved in a fatal accident by 8 times. the mathematician (and smart-ass) in me wanted to say "so what's the base statistic?" i mean, if the odds of being involved in a fatal accident under normal conditions are only, say, 1 in 10,000 (i'm just making this up) - increasing that by 800% isn't really anything to be concerned about.

unfortunately, i did not take my camera to DC this year, so i have no pics. however, if anyone's curious, you can check http://www.defconpics.org over the course of the next couple weeks as people post links to their galleries. here is a shot from the start of hacker jeopardy. it makes my head look rather oversized. =O

Time: 19:43
Subject: boredom and sleep deprivation make the blackbird do surveys. stolen from djsimmy
ANGER

1. Who did you last get angry with? Myself
2. What is your weapon of choice? Depends on the target
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex?
4. How about of the same sex?
   If you make the mistake of taking a swing at me, you can expect retaliation. XX or XY, it makes no difference.
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? I don't know.
6. What is your pet peeve? Stupidity.
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let things go? Depends on the severity of the offense.

SLOTH

1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you have not done in a long time? Floss?
2. What is the latest you've ever slept in? 18 hours or so.
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't: Ben, Mike G.
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? My dog ate it. (pretty lame, given that i have no dog)
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through? No.
6. When was the last time you got a good workout in? Last tuesday at kung fu.
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? One.

GLUTTONY

1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? Water
2. Do you eat the skin off of chicken? If it's fried chicken, hell yeah. Otherwise, no.
3. Have you ever used a professional diet company? No.
4. Do you have an issue with your weight? I'm trying to get rid of some, but I don't have a complex about it.
5. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? Yes.
6. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought, lunch? Uh, no.

LUST

1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family/Passer Byers)? Who knows?
2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)? See above.
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of the opposite sex during a normal conversation? Who hasn't?
4. What is your favorite body part on the opposite sex? It's a tie between b00bs and brains - if a girl has both, we say hubba hubba!
5. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? No.
6. Have you ever gotten tested for an STD or pregnancy? Yes, I'm not infected.

GREED

1. How many credit cards do you own? 3
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? Fry's Electronics, I suppose, although I don't spend a lot of money.
3. If you had $1 million, what would you do with it? Turn it into $10 million.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Rich. Much better to be the puppetmaster that no one sees.
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? Perhaps, but not for too long.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? Yes.
7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive? ~160 gigs.

PRIDE

1. What one thing have you done that you're most proud of? Nothing. I'm still looking for something that I feel is worth being proud of.
2. What one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of? All kinds of shit - but I guess that's what parents are supposed to do.
3. What thing would you like to accomplish in your life? Right now, I'll be happy with an admission offer from stanford law school.
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? Second place is the first loser.
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill? Yes.
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? Yes.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? Nothing.

ENVY

1. What item (or person) of your friends would you most want to have for your own? Chuck's bank account would be nice.
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? Nobody.
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would it be? Why would I want to be someone else - I'm still trying to sort out my own issues, I don't need to be starting over with an entirely new batch of problems.
4. Have you ever been cheated on? Yes.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? Sure.
6. What trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? See #3.
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? Don't kid yourself.
8. Finally, what is your favorite deadly sin? Lust.

Time: 19:53
Subject: i should really shut up and get some work done.
but instead, i bring you another in a long series of displays of stupidity available for viewing on CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/01/toned.teens.ap/index.html

"Eight percent of girls and 12 percent of boys surveyed said they used supplements in striving to become more buff. Protein shakes and powders were the most commonly used, but teens also listed steroids, growth hormone, amino acids and other potentially unhealthful products among those they'd tried in the previous year."

wow, if that isn't a loaded paragraph, i don't know what is. last i checked, amino acids were rather critical to the continued functioning of the human body, not "potentially unhealthful products." =/

Date: 2005-08-02 02:42
Subject: to sleep... perchance to dream, or something like that.
going on 40 hours of wakefulness now, something that i really hadn't intended but nonetheless am in the process of enduring - i'm at the point now where i'm trying to stay awake until i'm so bloody exhausted that when i finally do climb into bed i'll just pass out and not have to contend with the usual can't-shut-brain-down insomnia.

anyway, the thought of the day (or at least the last hour or so) centers around the complexity of life and the differences and similarities that exist between people and their experiences, their wishes and desires, hopes and fears and all of that. i think that from time to time we all like to believe that we're, to mis(?)quote fight club, "our own unique snowflakes" - that the things we've gone through in our lives are of such great import (to us, anyway) that no other person could ever hope to understand. i know i've thought this on many occasion - but then every once in awhile i run across someone whose experiences - no, that's not the right word - um, fuck - the word i want to use is "zeitgeist" but that doesn't seem applicable to individuals, and i really don't want to use the word "aura" and sound like i'm frothing out some new age crystal-hippy claptrap - hm... essence? eh, fuck it --- the overall impression that i derive from encountering these sorts of people is that they just feel like they're different incarnations of me or something. if i'm ravyn 1.0, then someone that fits the general outline of what i'm trying to describe here would be ravyn 1.0A or some shit. anyway... it isn't very often that i encounter this kind of feeling, but that could be just as attributable to the fact that i don't go out of my way to encounter new people to begin with. i digress...

where am i going with this? it isn't my intention to say that people are all the same and that there aren't idiosyncracies that make us each different from one another - but every time i come across someone that i might consider to be, for lack of a better term, a sort of kindred spirit, i wonder if we're all more alike than our egos would allow us to admit. don't worry, i'm not going to sit here and proclaim my conversion to buddhism, denying the identity and the self and finding a oneness in everything - because i don't think that's any more an accurate representation of the Way Things Are(TM) than is traditional western dualism. i suppose it's the taoist in me that's calling for balance - a sort of combination between monism and dualism (one-and-a-half-ism) - wherein there exist universal commonalities but our individualities are still maintained and not illusory. it's as if, to use a CS metaphor, we have one basic Human object from which a very large, but finite, number of subclasses are derived, creating an exponentially complex web of inheritance relationships.

ok, time to sleep before i really start rambling incoherently. to those of you that i consider kindred spirits, whether you read this LJ or not or even know that it exists, thanks for reminding me from time to time that life is not just, as thomas hobbes once said, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Mood: thoughtful

Time: 16:06
Subject: and people wonder why america has a bad name?
on my way home from class today, i saw a bumper sticker on the back of a red nissan pickup that contained an american flag and the words "USA! Kick their ass! Take their gas!"

aside from the obvious irony found in the fact that such a vehemently pro-american-fuck-the-rest sticker was found on a foreign car, i got a good laugh out of the fact that the sticker itself points out a rather egregious lack of intelligence even before we consider the message. "they" have "assES" - not simply one ass, and it is not gas that comes out of the ground (unless we're talking about natural gas, i suppose, although i have a hard time giving the designer of said sticker credit for enough intelligence to know this) but OIL.

idiots.

and as a total non sequitur, my ass feels pretty raw. i just paid my fall tuition bill.

Date: 2005-08-08 09:33
Subject: mini-update
thanks to some asshole that seems to have a hard-on for malice_bd and has taken it upon himself to try to spam/flood people on her friends list with malware-infected sites, i've updated my settings to only allow comments from people on my friends list. this sorta defeats the purpose of having an LJ, but so few people actually read this shit in the first place that i don't expect any great cataclysm to befall the world as a result. carry on.

Time: 09:58
Subject: mini-update 2.
taken from my DARS report:

WWW.ASU.EDU/interactive to request your degree audit             
Your official major/catalog year on file is:                     
    POLITICAL SCIENCE              FOR 2001-2002                 
Your official major/catalog year on file is:                     
    MATHEMATICS                    FOR 2001-2002                 


      ALL REQUIREMENTS IDENTIFIED BELOW HAVE BEEN MET            

what's that mean? it means that i can finally graduate and get on with my fuckin' life. woo.

i'm kinda pissed off that i didn't get the A+ in japanese 202; either i completely bombed the final or i overestimated my "homework and participation" grade, because by my calculations i only needed to score in the low 90's on the final to A+ the class. - as it is, just getting the A in a 5-credit course raised my cumulative GPA from 3.67 to 3.68. the instructor is off at some conference this week sans internet, so i'll have to wait to find out what went wrong.

Date: 2005-08-09 22:49
Subject: a step beyond the river.
cory and i watched the series finale of "queer as folk" on monday night, and while there's no need to go into any great detail regarding the show or the characters, there was an interesting comment made by one of them at the end of the episode in reference to growing older, the progression of life, and reaction to the idea that at some point we have to leave behind the things that made us who we are: "some things aren't meant to change". cory mentioned raving as something which was a part of her for a long time and was instrumental in shaping a large part of who she is today. ryan talks about his experiences in the army with a lot of the same tone.

where am i going with this? well, it seems that lots of people can trace the core of their personality to a specific time period, or specific activities which took place during said time period, and whether or not they still completely identify with the people that they used to be, they're still left a sort of personality-core from which a large portion of their beings today are derived. part of it, too, i think comes from the general human desire to belong to a group, leading to all sorts of self-imposed or externally-acquired classifications and categorizations - i.e., i'm a raver, i'm a goth, i'm a democrat, i'm a republican, whatever. i would suppose that this is generally a healthy thing - provided that one maintains a certain sense of individual identity throughout the process, there's probably nothing wrong with identifying oneself with a particular set of groups and/or ideals.

with all of that said, though, i start to wonder about the people who don't have this sort of personality core and who don't firmly identify with any particular groups or ideals. what do we make of them? are they the accursed members of society, condemned to pass through life in a state of perpetual alienation and unable to form lasting bonds with people out of the sheer fact that they have nothing concrete to bond with? or maybe it's not so bad - if you accept the idea that out of emptiness, all things are possible, then a person with this attribute would find him/herself able to adapt to almost anything, changing aspect to fit life's situations as they arise, but always stuck in some sort of perpetual impermanence. (now there's an oxymoron for you.) of course, if you listen to the buddhists, these are the people that may best have their shit together - once you lose the illusion of self, you're well on your way to enlightenment.

i suppose that the weight of my impending 30th birthday is starting to get rather oppressive, and as a result i've started thinking about all sorts of standard "big questions" as they pertain to my continued existence on this rock: "who am i, where am i going, and why am i in this handbasket?" when i think about the statement "some things aren't meant to change" i think at an intuitive level there's a certain kernel of truth to it, but everything that i've ever believed to have some measure of permanence in my life has turned out to be one giant ball of flux, just waiting for the right time to evolve, devolve, or evaporate completely. nothing lasts forever.

and in totally unrelated news, i just heard the singer on this track say "too many people... procreate too much." ah, the musical gems that can be found on the internet. it's too bad they're using so much distortion on the vocals - i can't make out all of the lyrics, but i think there was something in there about abusing the welfare system.
Music: Diverje - Stupid People Shouldn't Breed
Mood: contemplative

Date: 2005-08-12 02:12
Subject: of echoes and ripples, action and reaction
i've never really been all that impressed with statements such as "six degrees of separation" and the theme that it refers to (and apparently neither was the rest of the online world, given the failure of www.sixdegrees.com) but maybe there really is more to it. in reading a reply to a comment left to something i said in someone else's journal, i happened to take a glance at that person's userinfo, and in his/her friends list, i saw a username which looked familiar, a moniker belonging to someone that i used to have the occasional ICQ chat with many years ago. if my memory is still functional, i believe we'd originally met on an internet dating site - i don't recall if i was living here in AZ or in FL at the time, but i think she was from GA. i don't even remember how long ago it was - more than 5 years, i think. well, anyway, curiosity got the better of me and i clicked on userinfo, and hey, what do you know, the ICQ numbers match.

whether or not she remembers me is irrelevant - it wouldn't be the first time that my brain has demonstrated a one-sided penchant for hanging on to seemingly useless information - but i do think that there's something kinda cool about those random interconnections that materialize out of nowhere, although i suppose that in a different sense i shouldn't be surprised. after all, most of the people that i've interacted with over the last 10 years have been online in some fashion or another, whether via AOL whatnot, so it would seem only logical that the more computer-savvy among them (at least among those in my age group, i would guess) eventually find their way to places like livejournal, myspace, or whatever.

the social web is a very strange place.

Time: 21:26
Subject: nihon ni ikimasu!
that's right, kids, the tickets are purchased, _purpleglitter_ and i are going to japan from august 28th to september 4th. i'll be missing a week of school, but since it's only going to be the second week of the semester, i'm not terribly concerned, and i can't imagine that my jpn 313 professor will be too upset with me since i'm going to actually be in japan using my acquired japanese language skills.

wooooo! (see, ryan, i can get excited about something, even if it's only in text)
Mood: bouncy

Date: 2005-08-14 11:28
Subject: surprisingly accurate.
Hey, it's quiz time! - Ed.

You demand a free and unattached life for yourself that allows you to determine your own course. You have an artistic bent in your work or leisure activities. Your urge for freedom sometimes causes you to do exactly the opposite of what expected of you.

Your lifestyle is highly individualistic. You would never blindly imitate what is "in"; on the contrary, you seek to live according to your own ideas and convictions, even if this means swimming against the tide.

Date: 2005-08-15 02:30
Subject: the daily moron, from CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/14/justice.sunday.ap/index.html

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- America's most powerful judges are "unelected, unaccountable and arrogant," Focus on the Family founder James Dobson told the thousands of people who packed a Nashville church for "Justice Sunday II," a rally televised for broadcast to churches across the country. The goal of the rally was to educate evangelical Christians about the U.S. Supreme Court and get them talking to friends and elected officials about what they want from the justices, said organizer Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council....

what anyone should want from supreme court justices is intelligence, wisdom, moral clarity, and adherence to the values that we're all told that america stands for. these theocratic fuckwits only have a problem with "activist" judges when judges do things that they don't agree with. if judges were out there proclaiming that prayer should be mandatory in schools, that would be judicial activism, too, but you can bet your ass that james dobson wouldn't be decrying it.

Dobson evoked the framers of the Constitution, saying: "These activist, unelected judges believe they know better than the American people about the direction the country should go. The framers of our great nation did not intend for the courts to have absolute and final power over us."

mr. dobson, did you fail your american government class? the courts do not have absolute and final power - any supreme court decision can be rendered null, void, and unrepeatable via constitutional amendment. that's where final authority lies, dumbass.

that said, i do think that some changes need to be made with the supreme court - the most important one being that judges should not serve for life. think about it - if 50-year-old bush appointee john roberts gets put on the court, he could potentially be there for 30 years or more, and the only ways to get him out are impeachment, death, or retirement. that's just too damn long for an unelected official to hold office, particularly one that has as much power as a supreme court justice. members of the federal reserve board of governors only serve 14 year terms and they cannot be reappointed - why not a constitutional amendment to institute something like this for the high court? presidents appointing justices would still know that their appointees would remain on the bench after they'd left office, but the justices wouldn't sit there for so long that they start to grow roots. the constitution is supposed to be a "living document" - and what better way to interpret a living document than via a lens which is also dynamic and more reflective of contemporary society?

Date: 2005-08-17 07:54
Subject: do the humpty hump.
t-1.5 hours to the GRE. funny, when i was getting ready to take the LSAT, i was pretty anxious, but the GRE doesn't seem to instill any kind of worry in me whatsoever. i don't know if that's because i think the GRE is easier than the LSAT (it is, provided that you don't get unlucky with the vocabulary parts of the verbal section) or if it's because i think the odds of me enrolling in a traditional PhD program are considerably lower than the odds of going to law school (also true, at least at this point).

in a sense i think i'm taking the GRE as a formality - just to say that i did it and to have a score should i decide to go that route. even if i match my practice test scores, it doesn't mean all that much - i'm still lacking the most important thing that one needs for grad school - a reasonably clear sense of what you want to do once you get there. and we all know how i am about knowing with any sense of specificity what the fuck i want to do with my life. =/

i believe the numerical scores are given to you as soon as you're done, so if that's the case, check back in a few hours for a score report.
Music: Alternative Control - Hijacka

Time: 15:00
Subject: see, i told you the GRE was easier than the LSAT.
i got about what i expected, so i can't complain: 720 verbal, 800 quant. - won't have the scores back from the analytical writing part for a couple weeks, but i probably got a 5 on the first one and a 5.5 or a 6 on the second.

overall, i'm pretty happy with that score, although i'd love to know which questions i got wrong on the verbal section. i got lucky in the sense that i was familiar with all of the vocabulary words, but on some of the antonym questions i felt like all of the answers were wrong and wasn't terribly confident in my choice.

of course, i still don't know whether or not i'm even going to go to grad school, but at least now if i decide to apply, i've got a decent GRE score.

Date: 2005-08-19 05:02
Subject: baaaaa
Fun with quizzes... -Ed.
1.~How did you meet spacekadette? at a poetry slam
2.~What would you do if you had never met deejay_mykill? missed out on a lot of good cybertrance
3.~What do you honestly think of madd_dogg_coley? known her for quite awhile but wouldn't say that we know each other very well.
4.~Would or did katryn and psylence go out? no, i don't think so
5.~Have you ever liked wellregulated? yeah, we've been friends, but we don't talk much.
6.~If obtrectation died tomorrow, what is one thing that you would need him/her to know? the president's penis is missing.
7.~Would theklute and wyldthyng make a good couple? i think she's a little too freaky for him.
8.~Describe stormshadowsong in 3 words: 3 words aren't enough.
9.~Do you think ryanjamieson is hot? well, if i were gay, or a girl, i might think so, but since i'm not, well, sorry, ryan.
10.~Would obtrectation and _purpleglitter_ make a lovely couple? no, that would require me to kick someone's ass.
11.~What do you think of when you see psylence? sushi and raving (when raving was fun)
12.~Tell me something humiliating about wyldthyng: i don't know if such a thing exists. she has no shame. =)
13.~Do you know any of desideroamor's family members? no.
14.~What's deadasleep's favorite color? i don't know.
15.~On a scale of 1-10 how cute is irma_vep? i can't remember - we've only met once.
16.~What would you do if valenfor just professed their undying love for you? i'd wonder what his wife thought about that.
17.~What language does katryn speak? english?
18.~Who is miss_jag going out with? nobody, as far as i know
19.~Is nichiyume a boy or a girl? he's a dude.
20.~Would descendingbabe and valenfor make a good couple? his wife would say no.
21.~Who do you think monkeypen would be great with from this list? what, as a side dish? why are all these dumb questions so dating-related?
22.~When was the last time you talked to ryanjamieson? online, a couple days ago.
23.~What is wellregulated's favorite band? don't know.
24.~Does theklute have any siblings? i think so, but i'm not sure.
25.~Would you ever date desideroamor? no, there's that whole gay thing again.
26.~Would you ever date stormshadowsong? well, given that i was once married to her, yes, i suppose i would.
27.~Is monkeypen single? actually, monkeypen is two people.
28.~What is deadasleep's last name? i think i knew this at one time but i forgot.
29.~What is descendingbabe's middle name? don't know.
30~What is madd_dogg_coley's fantasy? something involving snowboarding? i don't know.
31.~Where does nichiyume live? in a house
32.~Would you make out with spacekadette? if i did, cory would beat my ass.
33.~Are deejay_mykill and desideroamor best friends? i don't think they've ever met.
34.~Does stormshadowsong like deadasleep? i think she did at one point.
35.~How did you meet descendingbabe? on the internet - i believe it was yahoo.
36.~Is ryanjamieson older than you? no.
37.~Is _purpleglitter_ the sexiest person alive? if i don't say yes, i'm going to be in trouble.

Time: 12:00
Subject: tora!!! abunai!!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/18/tiger.attack.ap/index.html

MOUND VALLEY, Kansas (AP) -- A Siberian tiger attacked and killed a teenage girl who was posing for photos at a family-run animal sanctuary Thursday in southeast Kansas, authorities said.
The Labette County Sheriff's office identified the victim as Haley R. Hilderbrand, 17, of Altamont. A statement from the office said Hilderbrand was at the Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary posing for photos with the 7-year-old tiger, which was being restrained by its handler, when the animal turned and attacked her.

....

how large is a siberian tiger? oh, what do you know, these things are the largest members of the cat family, coming in at somewhere between 500 and 700 pounds. the story says that it was being restrained by its handler. um, what? unless you're the incredible hulk, the idea of standing between a 600lb cat that's capable of eating 100lbs of meat in one sitting and believing that you have the capability to restrain said cat from taking a bite out of said meat is completely ASININE! even more asinine is believing that someone else can do it while it's your 100lbs of meat that's posing for photos.

hello, darwin awards?

Date: 2005-08-21 11:05
Subject: sorry kids, no substance today.
random #1. although due to the onset of alzheimer's, he doesn't remember me anymore, and i don't believe that any of you have ever met him, i'd like to take this moment to send a birthday wish to my grandfather, ernest rocco. happy 88th.

random #2. 7 days to japan! there's so much shit i want to do and see while i'm over there that i've got enough ideas for a whole slew of trips.

random #3. i got screwed in jpn 202. my final grade came out at over 97%, which should have been an A+, yet an A+ i did not receive. yes, i am going to fight for a grade change. .02 on my cum. GPA is a big deal at this stage in the game.

random #4. when a cat that meows a lot to begin with suddenly starts meowing even more, chances are he's trying to tell you something. listen to him.

random #5. my knee hurts. bleh.
Music: Faithless - Donny X
Mood: blank

Date: 2005-08-27 15:52
Subject: postcards from the edge of the world.
anyone who wants a postcard from japan, leave a comment with your address sometime today. comments are screened in case you're worried about giving your address to the world (or at least the small subset of it that reads this journal).

ryanjamieson - you're covered, i wrote yours down yesterday.

time to get packin'... t-16 hours.