wildsoda

The Purloined Spam

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:53:54 GMT

I just got an email that evaded Gmail's spam filter and ended up in my inbox. The subject line?

SPAM.SPAM?SPAMimSPAMimSPAM' 'SPAM#SPAMs

Oh, you mean kind of like a blog?

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:57:01 GMT

Thursday's quote of the day:

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
-- Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

PWNED!

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:33:38 GMT

This is why you stay away from kangaroos.

Also, Bill the Cat lives! Ack! Pbthhh!

Oh, yeah: Happy New Year, folks.

"Call it."

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:25:34 GMT

In observance of my Jewish heritage, I spent my Christmas night watching movies. I saw No Country for Old Men (in the cinema) and Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny (at M's house).

I'll leave it up to you to guess which was the better movie.

Bah humbug.

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:46:38 GMT

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when".
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
"Just the thing I need! How nice!"
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.

Hark the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wond'rous things.
God rest ye, merry merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky –
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.

— "A Christmas Carol" by Tom Lehrer

Now that's chutzpah.

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:59:21 GMT

Right next to the "Lobster for Passover" display:

Ham for Chanukah

There's a word for it.

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:23:00 GMT

You're going to have to trust me on this one, folks: someone who says that they're a "vegetarian but they eat fish" is not a vegetarian.

It's a very simple definition: a vegetarian does not eat animal meat. Easy, right? Then why do people still tell me that "crab [shrimp/fish/etc] is vegetarian – it's not meat"? Actually, yes. Yes, it is meat. "Meat" does not mean "beef", sorry. It just means "flesh".

Here's a simple test: Is crab in the vegetable kingdom? No. Does it belong to the animal kingdom? Yes. OK, then: crab is not vegetarian!

Got it? Good. I don't care whether you eat fish or not, that's absolutely fine with me – just please stop spreading this misinformation around, because it's making it hard for the (real) vegetarians to find stuff to eat.

Is it a full moon?

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:23:16 GMT

My grandmother probably would have blamed it on either that or asked if I was getting my period, but for some reason today has been filled with mishaps, accidents and broken things.

This morning, as I was trying to adjust the little metal prong on the retainer thing I have to wear for my recent dental implant, it broke off entirely. I was kind of upset, but at least the other side's was still intact, I figured. Thankfully nothing untoward happened at work, but as I was walking down the platform this evening to get to the far end of the train for my transfer at North Melbourne, my recent new scooter literally fell apart – it was hanging over my shoulder by the strap when the deck detached from the steering column and clattered to the ground. Apparently one of the pins had gotten loose (probably from hitting the irregular curbs here, which the site had warned against) and finally fallen out. I was kinda pissed but figured, well, it's under warranty, so I'll just have to get a new set of fastening hardware and deal with it. Fine, no big deal.

Just a minute later, as I was stepping onto the train with my New Yorker and my two pieces of scooter, I put my left foot into nothingness and my leg shot straight down between the train and the platform, causing me to tumble forward onto the floor of the train. Ok, now that was not so good – and fucking hurt, besides – and I pulled my leg up as fast as I could and crawled forward, further onto the train, so try to recoup from the shock and the pain. At least the train could now move without taking my leg off with it, but a bit of time passed before I could stand up and hobble to the nearest seat. (A few fellow passengers, it must be noted, kindly picked up my magazine and scooter pieces for me.) Pretty scary that I came rather close to breaking (or losing) a leg, considering that I still haven't sorted out my health insurance here. (It looks like I'm going to have to pay almost $200 a month, since I'm not eligible for Medicare; I wouldn't mind as much if they at least gave me a tax break on it, but they won't. Gah.)

I was due to meet M for a swing dancing class, and I wondered if I could manage it, but the pain eventually subsided and I lifted up my pants leg to see I was just a bit scraped and swollen around the knee. I made it through the dance class all right, and then we went back to my place. As I flung my sneakers into the hallway from my bedroom, one of them hit the corner of the cheap wooden shoe rack and knocked off about four inches of the outermost strut.

"Great, that's the third thing I've broken today, now," I said.

M's voice floated in from the living room. "Well, I'm definitely not having sex with you tonight, then."

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:42:05 GMT

Work is getting busier for me now. I'm about 3 weeks into editing my first book, and I ran my first meeting this morning, where the commissioning editor and I get together to discuss the manuscript and whatever issues we need to resolve before production commences. When I say 'get together' I mean it in the loosest sense, since she works out of the London office and we had to have a phone call at 8:30 am this morning, which was 9:30 pm her time – I had to call her at home. (We may have a global economy these days but you still can't get around the laws of physics, captain.) After that I had another meeting with the cartographer, the project manager and my managing editor (all on-site, thankfully) for more discussion of issues and schedules. I was kept busy pretty much the whole day with tackling this issue, emailing that person, checking off this bit from my checklist, etc. But I'm starting to feel more like I've got the reins in my hands and more of it under control, not like I'm just sitting there as it runs away with me. It's kind of scary, and kind of awesome, that I'm the one who's responsible for coordinating the production of this entire book.

I'm getting busier with exercise, too &ndash I used the (free, yay) gym at work yesterday, then had a lunchtime yoga class (not free but reasonably priced) and then a pilates session (definitely more expensive than the yoga) after work. I'm tired of being totally out of shape and I've gained a couple of kilos this year, so now that I have a regular work schedule I decided to start trying to get fitter. I really wish I could bike to work, but after 5 minutes on the bike in the gym my knees hurt a lot, so yeah, there's really no way I'm going to attempt the 10km (6 mile) trip to work.

Can't wait for Friday night – I'm seeing Blade Runner: The Final Cut at my favourite Melbourne cinema, The Astor Theatre.

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:49:33 GMT

I swear to god, it's like a fucking nature special in my house. The sugar ants are back in my bedroom (and yes, sometimes crawling on my bed), the ceiling corners of my bathroom have been converted into a subdivision for Daddy Longlegs, and I found another slug in my kitchen tonight. I grabbed a nearby museum brochure to slip under it to throw it over the fence, and it left slug juice all over the paper. Ugh.

In other words, how scarily true is this observation?

Bad Thing, Good Thing

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:18:28 GMT

Bad Thing: Hayfever
Yesterday it was so bad that I would go on long sneezing jags for a couple of minutes. I took two Telfast, one at home and one at work, and it was still terrible. It got bad enough that my manager even asked me if I wanted to take some work with me and go home. I never had hayfever in my life before I moved to Australia, and now I've had it the last 3 Novembers running.

Good Thing: Guitar Hero III for the Wii
It came out here yesterday! I took the train into the city after work and picked it up and brought it home. The graphics are worse in some ways than the last one (the drummer is off the beat a lot, which is ironically sad), but hell, it's all about the music. So far I don't like as many of the songs as much as GHII, but having it in my house (instead of trying to play it at my boyfriend's house) and having a wireless controller is teh awesome.

Ah - ah - ah...

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:47:30 GMT

Oh, another thing about spring: hurray, my hayfever is back.

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:08:48 GMT

It's supposed to be spring here, although you wouldn't know it by the weather – today was rainy and cold. We need the rain, though, so I shouldn't complain, but I'm tired of always feeling a chill in my bones here. I have a lot of problems with the housing situation in Melbourne, not the least being that most old houses have no central heating, just one wall heater in the living room. Apparently I'm a cold-blooded creature, because my body doesn't seem to generate any heat of its own; the electric mattress pad I bought a few weeks ago has pretty much been a lifesaver.

Things are going apace at work. I'm editing my first book, a country guide to a small Balkan nation which I know literally nothing about. Well, I'm about to learn a lot more about it, that's for sure. My role as editor means a lot of project management in addition to actual copyediting, and my experiences writing the guidebooks earlier this year should hopefully come to bear on it (at least, that's what I told them at the interview). The commute's a bit annoying – I have to take one train line, transfer to another platform, take another train line and then walk for about 10-15 minutes, so I don't get a lot of time to read – but it's a nice company to work for. There's a free gym for employees upstairs, for example, and the part-time trainer put together a little workout for me, which I can try to do during my lunch hour since there are also showers in the locker room.

Now that I've gotten a bit more settled at work, I'm trying to fix up my life here a bit. Everything I'd gotten here over the last couple of years was secondhand, pretty cheap or kinda crappy (or all), since I figured I might be leaving and there was no point in spending a lot of money on stuff that I might have to get rid of soon. So now I'm trying to get some new furniture (from IKEA mostly, since I still don't want to spend heaps of money), and I'm looking for a new (to me) car, since it would be nice to have a car that's actually reliable for once. (I knew my car was a bit of a lemon when I got it, but I was seduced by how cheap it was, and I was also just damn tired of running around looking for one.) I'm also trying to fix myself up a bit – I've signed up for classes at a pilates studio near my house, and am going to aim for using the gym at work at least once per week. It's free, it's on the premises and I can use it at lunch hour or after work, so I really have no excuses anymore. It's about time, too, because I'm really not fit at all (not to mention I'm getting a gut).

Damn, it's already 10 pm and I've got to get ready for bed. That's another thing about the job: I have to get up every morning at 7:30 am. Usually I'd be more likely to stay up until 7:30 than to get up then, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Sigh.

Unsettling In

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:50:56 GMT

It's the start of my 3rd week back and I'm trying to get back to 'normal' life, whatever that is. Work is going along all right; I'm not fond of the commute, which is a bit of a slog, but my manager is pleased with my performance so far.

This weekend I also had my first two parties since I've returned, a birthday party and a costume party, both of which had weird echoes for me. Today marks 2 years since Hamish's heart stopped, on October 22nd, 2005, which happened only a week after this same friend had his birthday dinner that year; the funeral was held on October 31st, which meant the costume party that other friends had been planning was cancelled, of course. Last year I wouldn't have been up to it even if anyone I knew had been having one, so this was my first costume party in 3 years.

It is amazing, if I stop to think about it, how much my life has turned around in a year -- I landed contracts to write 3 travel guides and got a job at a great company, not to mention I started dating a lovely guy who's awfully good to me. I still think of Hamish all the time, though it doesn't make me spontaneously burst into tears as it once did. But this month, especially this week, his memory looms even larger in my mind, and I find myself revisiting the past over and over again. I wonder about his family, too; his father said he'd write a better response to my last email ages ago, and there's been no word since, and his brother just ignored the message I sent him on Facebook. I suppose maybe I'm just a bad reminder to them, or the natural awkwardness of strangers eventually returned once the intensity and artificial closeness of a fresh, shared tragedy was eventually muted. It just still makes me sad. I had once hoped that maybe his family and I would get to know each other better, even like each other, so we could stay in touch and I could keep the tie going into the future, so it wouldn't just fall to the past. Wishful thinking, I guess.

But other unsettling things that happened in the past couple of days:

* At the costume party, a girl I was just introduced to suddenly said to me, "Is your hair real?" (I was wearing it down.) Then she leaned in and starting running her fingers through it. I stepped back immediately, and she continued to play with my hair, apparently completely oblivious to how upset I obviously was (as noted by M, who was standing there with me). It took me another few seconds to get over my shock, by which time she had relinquished my hair and I could walk off. You know, sure, I love having my hair played with, but only by people I know well. Touching, and especially stroking, my hair if you're a stranger – without even asking! – is just fucking rude. I wish I had had the presence of mind to slap her hand away, or at least say "Please DON'T" really loudly, but I also didn't want to make a scene at M's party and in his house. Gah.

* Today at lunch (my company has an on-site cafe), I picked the "Vegetable Lasagne with salad and chips". (That's French fries for my US readers.) After I'd eaten about a quarter of it, I noticed that there really weren't any vegetables in it -- it was just tomato sauce, pasta and cheese. Except for these bits that looked a bit like TVP (fake ground beef)... except I couldn't imagine the chef at the cafe even knowing what TVP was. I ran back to the counter – the word "Vegetable " was now crossed off, and the staff confirmed that it was meat lasagne, not vegetarian. Hoo-fucking-ray, thanks a lot, people. They did apologise (although not in the most contrite manner, I have to say) and they gave me my money back and a free carrot & lentil dahl with rice, which was the only vegetarian dish on the menu. So yeah, I ate beef today, for the first time in over a decade. Ugh. Yeah, yeah, I know it won't kill me, but neither would eating human-baby flesh kill anyone, and yet most people would be pretty damn upset about that. (And of course I also realise it was an accident. I just wish I had more options to go than the one on-site cafe, or that the cafe would have more vegetarian options.)

In addition to all the other craziness going on, my car will be in the shop all week and I called to switch my internet provider today (so I can finally get ADSL2 again after 2 years of contract-fulfilling hell), and that won't get turned on until next Monday, fingers crossed – so tonight might be the last night I have internet at home this week. So no internet or car this week, wow...

[UPDATE]
Another unsettling thing tonight. Well, not so much unsettling as a bit gross. The slugs are back – one got in under my backdoor and was chilling out on the hallway tile. Ugh. I scooped it up on some cardboard and released it into the back alleyway, over my fence. Oh boy, I can't wait until the sugar ants come back, too.

Welcome to the working week.

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:28:20 GMT

So I've spent the last week and a half trying to get used to the whole work-week thing again. It's been about five years since I had a full-time job that put me behind a desk from 9-5, so it's a bit of a change, to say the least. But it's going all right, I suppose. My new company is pretty easy-going and employee-friendly, a complete shock after my corporate serfdom in NYC in the 1990s. People actually leave work at 5 pm, sometimes earlier, can you believe it?

Highlight this week: Getting an aspirin from a pod-mate and not realizing that it was the kind you put in water to fizz up, and swallowing it instead. I was wondering why they made an aspirin so damn big and I threw it down my gullet anyway. I spent the next 15 minutes or so choking it down, with lemon-lime accompaniment.

Lowlight this week: Having my neck and shoulders suddenly seize up on Sunday night, forcing me to get a shiatsu massage on Monday from one of the masseuses who offer discounted rates at work three days a week (I told you it was employee-friendly); it helped a bit but I was still in too much pain Monday night to do anything besides lie in bed with a heat pack and try not to move. Upper back pain already? God, I feel old.

Crap. Already past midnight. I need to get to bed. That's another thing to get used to: waking up at 7:30 or so every morning to try to make the 8:20 train. At least if I miss it I can get the 8:40 -- except for today, since our crappy train line decided to cancel that train. Grr.

Well, as the bard said, I gotta do it till I'm through it so I'd better get to it.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 13:25:24 GMT

I arrived back in Melbourne on Thursday morning, not as tired as I usually would be thanks to the excellent seat in Business class – although you couldn't quite lie completely flat, it was still comfortable enough to get a lot more sleep than I usually can manage in Economy class. I got home to find a pile of mail, a lovely vase of native flowers (proteas, etc.) from my guy on the kitchen table, and my gas connection not working – which was rather unfortunate considering I really needed a hot shower after almost a day in transit.

I called the gas company to report the fault, and they said they'd send someone over to fix the line. Once that was done, I gave myself a quick towel bath, changed into clean clothes and took the train downtown to Immigration to get my visa label affixed to my passport. Amazingly, the entire affair took about 5-10 minutes, including waiting for my number to be called, and after I had lunch and went to the bank to pay my rent, all of my errands for the day were done. I walked around the CBD, amazed to be back in Melbourne after four whole months in the US. Everything was pretty much the same as I had left it, which is more than I can say for NYC, where every corner has a construction site for a new glass-and-steel building full of condos.

So there I was on the train back home, at about 1 pm, when I received a text from my boyfriend saying he was heading home from work and could get to my place by two o'clock. I texted back saying that I was headed home myself, just leaving Royal Park station, and that he could come over whenever. His next text then said, "I think we're on the same train -- stick your head out the door at the next stop?" Just as I was reading the words, I saw a man in a black jacket and a distinctive red bag stand up a few rows ahead of me. Guess who that was? I immediately started laughing out loud, causing him to turn around and finally notice me, sitting there a few rows behind him, laughing my ass off. It was such a nice coincidence that it made up for having no heat or hot water. I hadn't seen him since he left NYC back in August, which really brought home just how long I'd been away.

We were supposed to go to IKEA together on Friday to scope out some new furniture for my place – since it looks like I'll be here for a while longer, I decided to fix up my empty 2nd bedroom and turn it into an office/guest bedroom – but his little boy was sick with food poisoning or something like that, so I ended up going by myself. I haven't bought anything yet – it was simply an intelligence-gathering mission, but I hope to get some things in the next week or two, and finally start turning my house into more of a home. Saturday night I met up with some friends at a local bar, a nice little drinks night that M. had organized in honor of my return. Then this morning, we had a sleep-in, which was only to about 8:30 am for me since I always tend to get up early the week or two of jetlag after arriving back, and I drove over to Fitzroy to get some fresh bagels for breakfast, since poor M. has been missing them ever since his trip to NYC.

My four days of freedom have slipped by, predictably, all too quickly, and here I am on Sunday night, about to hit the hay in preparation for my first day of work tomorrow morning. I can still hardly believe that I got the job. Well, the melatonin is kicking in, so it's time to call it a night – have to catch the 8:01 to make sure I get to work early.

At the Airport

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:12:53 GMT

So I'm here at LAX, waiting for my flight home. I've had a whirlwind week since getting my visa granted: buying tickets, getting last-minute supplies, packing, saying goodbye to family and friends. My new pals Mike and Erik very graciously threw me a going-away party at their spacious midtown apartment, and a lot of folks showed up, which was very gratifying. There was food, there was music, there was Guitar Hero... a good night, overall.

Then I came out to LA for a couple of days to see my mother. I would have rather just gone straight home, except that she gave birth to me once and has never let me forget it ever since, so I felt I had no choice but to comply with her wishes. We didn't do much, just lunch at The Grove and a bit of window-shopping (clothes for her, Apple Store for me) and then out in Malibu (since I'd never been out there). But it worked out well in the end, since I got to the airport tonight and was informed by the ticketing agent that since the flight was overbooked, I was being upgraded to Business class because of my frequent-flyer status! Woot! I've never been spontaneously upgraded in my life, so this is quite a coup, and more than makes up for the fact that I couldn't get a direct flight to Melbourne and so I have to go through Auckland with a few hours' layover.

Man, it's crazy crowded at this gate. I can't believe I don't have to cram into Economy this time. This is my 10th long-haul flight between Australia and either Europe or North America in the past 4 years, so at least I know I've paid my dues...

It's ABOUT TIME.

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:44:32 GMT

At last, my long international nightmare is over – I've got a visa.

It came through on Monday and I bought tickets on Tuesday, so I'm finally returning to Melbourne. I get back on October 4th, which is 15 weeks and 4 days after I left on my 3-week trip. I knew there was a chance that I could have a little visa snarl when I left for Hawaii, but there was no way that I could have figured that it would take me almost four months to get back.

(I know another person waiting on a visa sponsored by his employer, and he's just been told that his application, filed 8 weeks ago, would take another 2 months to process, so perhaps I got lucky.)

I almost can't believe I'm finally going back. Being back in the overfamiliar surroundings of my family and friends in NYC, Australia almost seems like it was some kind of dream – except for the monthly payments for rent, landline, DSL and mobile phone I've had to make, not to mention gas and electric (which should at least be less since I haven't been there to use any of it).

Four days after I get back, I have to start work – my first job working business hours at a cubicle desk in about five years. Fuck. While I'm looking forward to a little bit of order in my rather chaotic life, sometimes there's such a thing as too much order. Well, I can't complain; it's a better job than I would have gotten had I come back to NYC and started making the job rounds here, I'm sure.

Who knew back then that Usenet would be forever?

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:25:33 GMT

"We used to have a system in which we forgot things easily and had to invest energy in remembering.... Now we're switching to a system in which we remember everything and have to invest energy in order to forget. That's an enormous transformation."

– from "The Advantages of Amnesia" by Jessica Winter

Pot calls Kettle black, invades Kettleland.

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:59:59 GMT

As reported in Salon.com:

White House: Obama too "intellectually lazy" to work here
This just in from the Irony-Free Department: A "senior official" in the White House of George W. Bush tells journalist Bill Sammon why Barack Obama won't be the next president of the United States: Obama is intellectually "capable" of the job, the official says, but he relies too much on easy charm. "It's sort of like, 'That's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters ... and a laziness, an intellectual laziness."

This is confirmation of the theory that they're just making up their own reality over there.

J'accuse!

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:48:25 GMT

Why have I not blogged here in weeks?

Blame Facebook.

Yes, I was weak. I fell for this interweb crack and I fell hard. I went through a few zombie/ninja/pirate memes, plus graffiti walls and super walls and three separate applications to show you where I've travelled, for fuck's sake.

Anyway, to sum things up from the last entry: yes, I finally got the Hawaii book done and shipped off. Losing those pages to the ether cost me another full day of writing, but I got it rewritten and finally done.

Other things that happened: my sweetheart of a boyfriend came over to the US on a 3-week visit and had a fantastic time being utterly enthralled by the wonder that is New York City, and I was offered an editorial job at the world's largest independent travel publisher. Which I took.

So I cancelled my tourist visa application and am now awaiting the results of a sponsored business visa application. Which was filed 5 weeks ago now ('average processing time': 4 weeks).

For the past month or so I've been staying at the family apartment in NYC, trying not to sleep too late, hanging out with friends, spending time with my family, and, of course, using Facebook. I even managed a trip up to Montreal with some folks for Labor Day weekend, which was a nice change from hanging out around the house.

Of course, I'm still paying for rent, internet access, landline phone, mobile phone, electricity and gas back in Australia, but at least I'm living rent-free here. And it's been really great to spend time with family and friends, of course, but at the same time, I left for a 3-week trip back in mid-June but have been living out of my small suitcase for 3 months now, not legally allowed back into the country where I've been living for 2 years, the current home of most of my worldly possessions.

As far as international refugees go, my lot is pretty cushy, of course, but this limbo keeps dragging on and on and it's getting tiresome. "Hey, how much longer are you in town?" people ask me, and my answer is always, "I have no idea until I hear about this damn visa." It could come tomorrow, it could come next week, it could come in two weeks -- I honestly have no clue.

The last I heard, all of my forms and medical tests were in and finalised, and the migration agent was just waiting for the case officer to formally approve the visa. Then she got an automated email from her saying that the officer would be away on holiday until October 2nd. Oh, hurray. The agent has written to the case officer's manager to request my application be handed over to someone else, but since it's now 5:47 pm on Friday in Australia, it looks like the visa's not going to get approved this week, anyway. Hurray for bureaucracy.

OMFG

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:56:30 GMT

I just went to look in my Molokai & Lanai chapter -- which I finished ages ago -- and almost all of the text is MISSING.

I save every 5 minutes. I back up every night. My backup has the same document.

Oh my god, I want to cry.

You're doing it wrong.

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:07:04 GMT

My mother (on phone to friend): Well, you know what Dorothy Parker said -- 'You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her drink.'

Me (from other room): It's THINK, Mom! THINK! ::sigh::

People Who Piss Me Off (#73 in a series)

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:06:27 GMT

"I'm so sorry you lost your boyfriend. But you know, everything happens in this life for a reason."

Actually, no. Hamish did not die "for a reason", i.e. so I could then go on and learn to truly live and love again in my life, yadda yadda yadda.

You want to know the reason he died? Because his heart stopped working properly. That's the reason. Has my life changed since then? Of course, because something happened and I reacted to it. But if you're telling me that it was pre-ordained that Hamish would get his ticket punched decades too early as some sort of grand experiment so that the people who loved him could thereby Learn Some Valuable Lessons From It All, well, about all I have to say to that is 'please go fuck yourself'.

Sheesh.

Little Miss Sunshine

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:34:54 GMT

Apparently, today a "life-like" child is no longer as attractive as one that looks like a ventriloquist's doll.

For more nightmare fodder, try this one, this one, or (holy fuck) this one

'Natural Beauties', yes sir.