On my way home from work today, I saw a "Protect Lake Tahoe" license plate affixed to the bumper of a Ford Explorer.

If that doesn't reek of irony, I don't know what does.

--

In related news, is it wrong for me to harbor the urge to key every SUV I pass by in parking lots? I mean, really key the hell out the self-indulgent, asshole-driven, environmentally-baneful pieces of crap...

Maybe.
But then again, how fun would that be? Oh yes...

Time for another Deep Dark Confession:

I love the song "Dixieland Delight" by Alabama.
And by love, I mean, love. Open-mouthed smiling, head bobbing, toe-tapping, southern-drawl resurrecting love.
And I always have. I can deny it no longer.

There are reasons. Trust me.

I had imagined it another way. I said, "If you know what I mean..."
There was a nod, followed by an exhale, like the letting loose of all the armies of disappointment you'd held back for hours.

The air was cold, filled with miles of silence compacted into nine short inches.

Mister Rogers is dead.

...with that Jenny quietly packed away her rainbow brite dolls and Chutes And Ladders and faced the cold reality that she's no longer six years old.

Bye Mister Rogers. Hope you find someone to be your neighbor... where ever you are...

Salon.com: Not-So-Clean Cars

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars are the future, but only if we can find a clean way to get that all-important hydrogen. That means more determined research into renewable energy. ...Not according to G.Dubya...

When will someone invent a self-replenishing refrigerator? Before I lived without parental care-taking, no worry need ever be taken about a well-stocked fridge. Now I have to drudge through grocery shopping, enduring screaming children and pushy housewives. "Do we need this? Better get that." And it comes around every few weeks. Now that we're lving in the twenty-first century, I demand the abolition of grocery shopping. Bring on the food-replicating refrigerators damnit.

It has been raining nonstop for the past ten hours.
If you live in the desert, you know how insane that sentence sounds.

I'm beginning to think I may have to start building an ark.

Americans have yet another reason to be ashamed of our government. Yes, on top of the senseless war-mongering, the enviroment plundering, and civil rights dismantling, we have yet another reason to scratch our heads and wonder, "Wait, what country is this again?" An international anti-tobacco treaty that has been in negotiations is at risk of failing before it even takes a step. The Bush administration, with knotted ties to Phillip Morris, has been working to undermine an action that could possibly save the lives of countless people around the world by stopping tobacco's death march in its tracks.

Living in the state with the highest percentage of adult smokers, I know first-hand who Phillip Morris' customers are: the elderly (who grew up watching game shows that gave cigarettes away as prizes), the poor, and the uneducated. Any person with a college education has to have stumbled across the knowledge that, "Whoa, if I smoke this shit, I'll be hacking years off my life and endangering those around me." So it's no surprise that the tobacco industry would want to maintain a tight grip on the uneducated markets in developing countries that have yet to wise up to them. According to a report issued by the Harvard School of Public Health, this strategy is part of a decades-long shift in marketing to the poor and uneducated: Since 1970, global cigarette consumption has increased two-fold to 6 trillion cigarettes per year while consumption in developed countries has fallen concurrently. There-fore, the rapid expansion of the cigarette market can be attributed primarily to expansion among developing countries, where consumption is increasing by about 3.4% annually. International studies have found that populations with high rates of poverty and illiteracy are also likely to have high rates of smoking.

An international anti-tobacco treaty has the potential to save millions from the unconscionable cancer-pushing of the tobacco industry. While the smoking rates have fallen in America, due in large part to increasing awareness of the dangers of the act, the undeveloped countries of the world have not fared as well. This treaty would begin the firsts steps to freeing the rest of the world from the tobacco industry's choke hold. Yet Bush Inc. has decided to stick up for its campaign contributors rather than think about what's best for the world. America has less to gain from the treaty than, say, Guatemala, and yet, our government has found it necessary to be the bully who keeps the rest of the world from throwing a life-saving "fuck you" to Phillip Morris and its partners in crime.

A representative from Thailand said, in response to US threats to revoke its anti-tobacco campaign funding, "It's very arrogant. The US has the technology and sophisticated tobacco control programs and yet they are behaving like this toward the rest of the world." Arrogant... that's the word I was looking for.

I only hope for the rest of the world's sake that we learn to stop being so damn arrogant and start saving lives instead of destroying them.

there's a poetry calling
it's not a desperate sound
but a muted brass bell
ring, ring, ring

and all who hear it may choose to ignore it
they can try to sleep, enjoy their food
make love and come three times
but that bell rings on

it's not an ominous clank, mind you
it's more like a clock chime
every minute
on every hour
for every day that they will ever know

and me, i don't have a bell
i only hear serene silences
the whistling winds
the seagull cries like children
on the beach walking towards sunsets and loving arms

there's no war in my world
there's no war in my world
there's no war in my world
there's no war in my world
there's only the anarchy of stillness

and someone who will never forget my name
someone who will never forget my name
someone who is gonna write it in their book a thousand times
and someone who will ever stand in line after i die
and take care of my pets
and mow my lawn
and file my CDs alphabetically
and pay my taxes, yeah
and clean my flags

it's sad that one day i will have to leave this world
it's sad that one day i will have to leave this world
it's sad that one day i will have to leave this world
'cause i really wanna help
i really wanna help
i really wanna help
each and every man and woman
find and destroy that bell

i think i know where all the bells are
i think i know where all the bells are
i think i know where all the bells are
they go ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring, ring, ring, ring
ring those fucking bells
ring those bells

Zwan - Ring The Bells

Exhibit B

So I've been told that I have to get a real job... and soon. I currently work three days a week, four hours a day, and you know, that's just about perfect for me. But I know that as far as money is concerned, I'm just not pulling my weight. So this wage slave has to start considering new income options. Of course, I'm open to suggestions, so here's a quick review of my skills and demands:

What I'm looking for in a job
No more than 20 hours a week - My psyche needs a minimum of seven free waking hours a day to remain healthy.
Solitary working environment for 90% or more of the day - I don't play well with others, and false chit chat is tiring.
My choice of background music that can be played at a reasonable volume - Which means, Pumpkins, Soul Coughing, and funky indie bands you've never heard of, up loud enough to drown out all other sounds.
A commute of no more than 10 minutes - Any more, and I'll think I'm back in college.
If it cannot be avoided altogether, a minimum of customer contact - One of the only things I hate about my job now is when customers show up.

My skills
An astonishing ability to do nothing for hours on end with no lapse in mental acuity
Highly organized to the point of anal retentiveness - That's right, my closet uses a color coded hanger system.
When necessary, I can feign interest like nobody's business.
HTML tables - Enticing, no?
An uncanny knack for spotting crap and a desire to bitch about it - That has to come in handy somewhere, right?
Can balance on one foot for near-limitless amounts of time

So there you go. We need more money, so I'm ready to rock when you are. With job skills and interests like mine, how could an employer lose?
....
I'm screwed.

Ever stumble upon a sentence, saved somewhere - in a notebook, a file - that flips a switch in your brain that you didn't think was still there? Ever wonder where you're supposed to cram that new buzzing energy? I like letting it out into the world in indecipherably small chunks. You know, because it makes me feel mysterious.

Cryptic one-line exerpt from a conversation I was never meant to be a part of:
"...stop stalling and go over before it gets too late."

I'm all pregnant pauses and false positives.

At the risk of sounding banal and revealing that, yes, my life truly has been this boring over the past few days, I'd like to pose the question: Isn't frozen yogurt one of the best inventions of the past few centuries? I'd certainly say so. I mean, what better reason to brave wilting salad bars and nasty man-handled buffets than the shining frozen yogurt machine at the end of the line, glistening with the promise of a tasty, low-cal dessert. And don't even try to tell me that you don't just love ribbons of fluffy vanilla and chocolate swirled around one another in a taste-treat tango of delight - because you do. How do I know? I'm psychic. Yeah... Try that one on for size.

Once upon a time, I was a house fire, burning to the ground with a brilliant heat. You couldn't stop me, so you just watched me blaze. On those nights, the world was flames, and I was all that I could ever be - wrapped in the vacuum of my insatiable need. Sometimes I think I burned too long. Sometimes, the ashes are too cold a gray, and all I can see is those flames, long-since extinguished.

I asked my brain last night, in the midst of a long pause, "Why have you been so quiet lately, anyway?"
It answered with more silence.
"I see how it is," I retorted angrily. "You're just going to abandon me because I expressed apathetic sympathies?"
My brain remained unmoved.
"Fine. Whatever. I don't need you anyway. I can come up with semi-witty things to say all on my own. Just you watch."

....

Sigh.

Should I be so convinced that my cat's futile attempt to catch an uncatchable laser dot is symbolic of the absurdity of my own life? Probably not. I can be so negative.

Lazy List O' Links.
Yep. I did it. Just links. Take it or leave it.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?
Very Very Happy clears things up.
"People come to my town to forget about wars."
Rockout #35: Giving me number 3 on my list of eye-gougingly disturbing sights.
Anti-Telemarketing Counterscript
Jack's cartoon counterpart

Is it ignorant or self-involved to want to ignore the war every few days? At this point, I just don't care if it is.

I want a middle ground, where I'm conscious of media puppetry but can afford to not give a shit at times. It seems I surround myself with either one or the other - "Wasn't Friends great last night? ... Uh, politics? No that's boring." {or} "We have to get out there and make a difference now. The world is crap! ... Uh, life? No, I guess I don't have one of those." Isn't there a middle ground? Something flavored with social awareness but basted in personal concerns? That's what I want.

But I usually find myself floundering between one or the other. Politics on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Life on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. For a bi-polar manic depressive with schizophrenic tendencies this isn't that difficult. It's just getting old.

{Yawn.}

"I played all my fears into alchemy's ears, and she's deaf to my every asking. "
Rose Polenzani

Can I tell you all my secrets? Just lean forward. I'll do the rest. You see, I need you to really know these things. Can you feel them? Take it between your fingers and roll this new knowledge. I've been lying here naked on the floor waiting for you to come home. Isn't that dramatic? You don't know the lengths I'll go to. Not yet. But you will.

{Begin final computer implosion rant.}

I knew that I was absurdly dependent on my computer, but until it was taken from me, it didn't know the half of it. Here I sit, clicking away on this laptop keyboard in the living room as my once proud desktop sits silently on my desk. The absence of a computer's hum is more deafening than you might think. My latest diagnosis of the situation has put the blame on the hard drive itself: I think the poor thing just couldn't take it any more. It had to be about three years old...

(Shaking head and pursing lips)

That just doesn't seem old enough for a physical failure.... Who knows? I'll be okay as long as my media drive can hold on until back-up action can be taken. If my music and my pictures and my videos get taken from me, I may have to become a mass murderer. You know, 'cause everyone needs a hobby.

Alright. This is the last you'll be hearing about my hard drive woes. Laptop life just takes some getting used to, and Tony even set up a user account for me so I could at least think I'm at home on this thing. These tiny speakers, on the other hand, are just never going to cut it.

Oh well.
Such is life.

{End final computer implosion rant.}

Blue Screen Of Death Update:

Operational Status: Functional
Current Operation: Full system drive format
Losses Report: Irreplaceable documents saved, as well as cookies, favorites, and passwords file. Media drive untouched (SUPER YAY!) Store of kept and important emails lost in initial Windows recovery, as well as entire address book, and program configurations.
Losses Status: Unfortunate but acceptable. In other words, what can you do? It'll work.
Report On Possible Causes: No clues uncovered as to where the BSOD originated. Tempted to blame sadistic (and bored) alien species.
Emotional Status: Frayed but working through it. Looking forward to a clean install.
Temporary Solution: Still using laptop. Crossing fingers.

The following message was found scrawled in anxious typeface on Tony's laptop. We can only assume that Jenny meant for it to reach the world.

I came home to one of the most depressing sights I could have imagined: a blue screen of death...

I don't know why or how or how it can be fixed, but everything's gone wrong. Windows has flown the coop. Only blackness lies beyond the start-up screen. And Windows setup whispers tidings of corrupted hard drives...

I would cry if tears could solve software problems.

I just don't know...

Damn.
Damn.
Damn.

Tony's easily influenced by movies. You can see it in the way he drives for weeks after a Bond movie's been released. So it was no surprise that after seeing Daredevil today, he says decidedly, "That makes me want to learn how to use my asp like that... {random kungfu chop at the air with imaginary stick weapon}"

"Yeah, yeah. You're not going to want to go out and fight crime are you?"

He stares at me for a moment and laughs.

"Oh you mean like I have to do on Monday morning?"

...Yeah, I need to use my brain more often. It's getting rusty with disuse.

meme: a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

You're being controlled by some meme or another right now. These building block ideas that are pounded into your head by society pull the strings of your brain. The only way to think independently is to see the memetic stew of your beliefs as what it really is (true, false, or creatively twisted) and then overcome it.

Now if only I could get my parents to believe that...

Whether I've wanted it or ignored it, Valentine's Day has always been horrendous. With or without a significant other, this damn day demands more than any day should, with the exception of some grand overblown wedding. But just like self-indulgently traditional weddings, Valentine's Day doesn't really mean anything to anyone. Sure everyone spouts the standard refrain, "Oh, the day of love! Show how much you care!" But does anyone actually accomplish that display of affection? Really?

You might be thinking, "Look at the sour, lonely girl complain... The rest of us who have love in our life really know how to appreciate this day."

No, I have a boyfriend, and no, there's no way to appreciate this day. There's nothing to appreciate. You can see it in the desperate, empty eyes of people rushing into stores tonight at 8 PM, looking for that last minute little something so that they don't have to sleep on the couch. Tonight, as Tony chugged gas into his car, I watched man after man after woman walk out of that convenience store with one of those scented fabric roses. I saw a few guys trudging back out to their cars with red and pink "special edition" bags of their "sweetie's" chocolate o' choice. This is what people mean by showing how much you love someone? "My love for you is boundless, eternal, ...uh.... I think all I really mean to say can be summed up by this 99 cent rose."

Valentine's Day is like a 90 pound, 5 foot 8 model. Sure, it exists, but not for anyone I know.
So you can keep your Hallmark-stamped, cheap rose-scented, chocolate-covered farce of a holiday.
This is the last year I'll even pretend to care.

Magic Eight Balls need love too.

Jenny: Aren't you just loving this weather?
MEB: My reply is no.
Jenny: Why not? It's gorgeous... The clouds, the fog hanging softly over the mountain, the smell of water in the air... How can you not love this?
MEB: Outlook not so good.
Jenny: Outlook for what?
MEB: As I see it, yes.
Jenny: It's amazing you still see anything at all. You're getting up there in years.
MEB: Cannot predict now.
Jenny: That's exactly my point. You're losing your edge. I may have to replace you soon.
MEB: Very doubtful.
Jenny: Aren't you a confident little bubble-filled five year old eight ball...
MEB: My sources say no.
Jenny: Whatever. I need to go outside to give some love to the great outdoors.
MEB: Signs point to yes.
Jenny: At least you haven't been monotonous today.
MEB: As I see it, yes.
Jenny: Nevermind.

Clearchannel's ready for war. Are you?

"If War breaks out after 10AM M-F please make sure that we call Joe and Jack to come in and take KSTE into long-form as well."
"After a major terror attack or after the war begins take all presidential addresses and public appearances."

This kind of evil is surprising even for Clearchannel (the operator of nearly every radio station on the dial... "Oh that's why all radio sucks... Yeah...") "If War breaks out after 10AM..." Like it's a goddamn lucheon impediment or something.

"Don't get hung up on being 'local.' Just be the BEST."

That's good to know. As thousands are dying or giving their lives, Clearchannel's going to be out there giving 110%. Go team.

If I set that damn alarm off one more time, I'm just going to have to resort to smashing it to bits with a baseball bat. I can't even open a door to check on the precipitation status outside without unleashing the most annoying siren noise ever devised by man or evil demon midgets.

No sir, I don't like it. And I'm beginning to think my safety is worth forfeiting for just a day without having to worry about that fucking thing going off.

It's raining outside - a break in our drought. It's the best thing I've seen in months... And it almost feels like it's enough to wash the rest of the world away. I hope it rains for days.

Sometimes I feel compelled, myself, to pull the blanket higher, to hide under its threads. Some things you would rather not know about. At times, I wish I only watched sitcoms and listened to what the radio gives me.

The world is too fucked up to handle every day. This country is in shambles. We teeter on the edge of nuclear holocaust.

I'd rather not know about what I can't stop.
I know it's not healthy, or reasonable, or right... but it's getting too painful to think about this mess.

Cooking with grease is a scary, messy thing.

Fun with scissors.

Bush has called on the religious broadcasters across the country to "rally the armies of compassion." The armies of compassion.

God, the more I hear from that man, the more I believe in my heart that every person who voted for Bush should be tried for treason and sentenced to ten years in welfare housing under a "compassionate conservative's" administration.

So Little Georgie has called on his Christian army to rise up and support his "faith-based initiative," which provides funding from tax payers to churches and religious organizations who provide charity services - allowing them to discriminate and deny those services to those who don't adhere to their beliefs. What of separation of church and state, you may ask? How can the government subsidize organizations that make religiously-based discriminations and condemnations?

Apparently, the Bush administration can do whatever it wants. I can see it now. Bush wagging a finger at us under an enormous, face-shadowing Stetson. "Shut yer liberal piehole and praise Jesus I don't send Ashcroft to kick your unamerican, atheist ass."

{Jenny scowls.}
Yeah, I want every one of you Bush supporters to apologize for ruining our country. Right now.

Dubya has said that Iraq is a threat to our nation and our allies. So off he goes, striking first without evidence, without the world's support, without his people's support. Even before he was handed his gift-wrapped presidency from his brother in Florida and cousin at Fox News, he had determined to carry out this war. Even though Iraq's UN representative, again today, has vowed complete cooperation with inspection and disarmament and despite the growing rift between the US and its UN peers, Bush is marching ahead with an unstoppable, unreasonable war cry...

I will not be surprised when France or Russia or Germany release a statement saying:

The United States poses a serious threat to our nation and our allies. They have disregarded UN resolutions, attacked smaller and nearly defenseless nations, and in their violent, warmongering arrogance, have shown themselves to be incapable of maintaining peaceful relations on the world stage. We cannot allow them to continue unheeded. Our nation calls upon the UN for military action to halt the United States' internationally destructive war path.

I will not be surprised. And then I will move to Mexico.

On a sunny suburban day.
I kept my sister's puppy, aptly named Kiwi, occupied as bathroom renovations indoors attempted to break up the monotony of an otherwise white-walled existence.
There was green grass, a blue sky, and a little red ball too big for a small dog....

My cousin's 22 year-old husband has been ripped from the beginnings of his teaching career to fight in "some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution." Instead of enlightening minds, he'll be helping to destroy them. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that turn of events. In my stunned incomprehension of this world, I only know a few things: George W. Bush is not my president, war with Iraq will only create problems - not solve them, and America will crumble if something doesn't change soon.

"It is the duty of a patriot to protect his country from its government."
Thomas Paine
Anti-War Action
Peace.Protest
United For Peace
Democracy Now!
Voice Yourself

Impeach Now
GWBush
Vote To Impeach
Call For Impeachment (Audio)
Impeach Bush

I don't know exactly what magical powers are held within the world of the mysterious Margarita, but that voodoo they do does me so well... Yes, I'm babbling. And after only two of the things. They're simply marvelous. Favorite drink survey? Oh, do humor me - it'll be good fun!

CheapHostOnline.com finally drove me away. Yeah, I was only paying 2.99 a month for it, but that meant I only got 2.99/month service. After this last bout of offline shenanigans, I decided to call it quits. Let's hope CPHosting.com does a better job...

{Crosses fingers.}

I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't care.

Of course I do.
If I didn't, I'd be asleep by now.

Time: is relative.
Feeling: Poofy. I probably have more hair on my head than Woodstock. I can shake my head and bam - instant clown wig.
Craving: Fatburger.... awwww (drools)... Diet be damned!
Swallowing: Among other things, aspartame, phosphoric acid, caramel color, and caffeine. I'm a veritable science lab.
Being Amused By: Jack flipping around the room like a Mexican jumping bean strapped to a ground bloom. Cats are so easily entertained by small round objects.
Number Of The Moment: 12! Yeah, that's right 11. Buzz off.
Poking:a small stuffed penguin
Flashbacking To: A moment at work that reaffirmed my belief that the customer is rarely right.

This shaky-handed, elderly man asks me, "How much do I owe you?"
"It'll be ten dollars," I say, leaning in a bit as he fumbles through his wallet.
He looks up at me with a pained expression, and raises a hand to cup his ear. "What was that?"
"Ten," I repeat, over-emphasizing the word to make sure he could hear.
"Oh, six dollars." He begins pulling out a five and a one.
"No, sir," I begin to say as I push the ticket toward him on the counter, "It's ten dollars."
He looks up at me as if I had slapped him, and then with a scowl, "Why'd you say six then? (indistinguishable grumbling)"
As he throws four more dollars bills in my general direction, I make a point of saying, loudly and clearly, "My apologies, sir. I don't know what I was thinking. You have a nice day now."
Sometimes I despise old people.

Ever notice that sometimes, everything is against you getting a good night's sleep? First it's the smoke alarm's whiny, dying battery. Then it's the cat who's decided that if he's bored, you need to be awake.

A girl can barely get a decent dream in edgewise...

Time for yet another site recommendation. Why? Because it's Monday, I'm tired, and I only have a few minutes left before leaving for my daily dose of capitalist enslavement. Here you go.

Orcinus
Read just a few of these posts and you should come away feeling educated. The writing is thoughtful, cohesive and consistently impressive. Check out these posts in particular:

Programmed ignorance?
Boy-god Bush
The Orcinus principium

At Tony's convincing, I agreed to accompany him to the Boulder City gun and rifle range.

The road out there is a simple dirt road, dotted with small rocks and twisting through the desert hills just past the city's dump. I suppose if you're going to have a gun range, behind the dump is where you'd want to put it. To be fair and before I go on, I should preface this by saying that I think the gun-toting subculture is a dangerous, unthinking one that only adds gasoline to an already burning society. But on the way there, bouncing along the curved dirt trail in Tony's Alero, I promised myself that at the very least, I could get a new experience out of the visit and maybe have my opinions challenged and changed.

We rounded the last hill, and with my very first glimpse of the place, I realized that opinion changing was just not in the cards.

Six vehicles lined the unpaved parking lot, and all six were pickup trucks. I was immediately filled with a sense of impending doom. Yet, I thought, "There's always the possibility that these people were simply just really outdoorsy types who needed the four-wheel drive and appreciated being able to help their friends move large furniture." And then I got a look at them. At the tailgate of one of these mammoth, mud-colored trucks, a small folding table had been set up. At it sat two well-fed men, steadying what seemed to me to be obnoxiously oversized rifles and chewing on what I could only assume was some kind of trailer-park cud.

I took a quick survey of gun range apparel:
Shirts sporting a nationalistic or bald eagle theme: 5
Dallas Cowboys football jerseys: 3
Acid-washed jeans: 2
Mullets: 4

These were frightening numbers, even without considering that these people were all holding very large, phallic-shaped weapons of death.

"So, are you even going to try to shoot once?" Tony asked as he approached my open car door after we had parked.

I looked up at him from the safety of the bucket seat and peered out onto the sun-bleached field of tires and paper targets. A cloud of dust flew up behind a cardboard square and the sound of a ricochet bounced off the hills behind us.

"Uh uh," I uttered, shaking my head vigorously.

Tony tilted his head with disappointment at my back-tracking (I had agreed to get off at least one round during our visit), and turned to prepare his Glock for some vigorous paper-killin'.

Cowering in the passenger seat, silently packaged in the closed-up car, I waited for Tony to exhaust his ammo. I watched an older man hand a rifle to what looked like an eight year-old boy and point vaguely off toward a discarded beer can. I watched the folding table shooters load up again and again: both with bullets and Budweisers. I watched two teenage boys yell at a sour-faced, large girl as she hurried to unpack more targets from their pickup's cab. I saw things that only reinforced every negative thought I had in my mind pertaining to guns and all things Charlton Heston.

Maybe there are people out there that can prove me wrong, but until I see it...

When the apartment falls quiet and I'm left with just these headphones, tattered with wear and buzzing with bass, I find myself wondering what the day could have been. This or that or these or those, I wonder why it wasn't them. The silences of night are treacherous like that.

So I turn the dial, until it nearly hurts, and drown the silence before it can speak.

Outside the wind is howling a steady 21, and from inside, you can barely see the lights through the trees. I drove the road home with the air whipping heavy around me like the quicksand of some unsaid emotion. By the time I reached the highway, I'd already decided what was wrong. The radio fought with the wind for control of my thoughts, but through the dust, the only thing I could see was what wasn't there...

They say it's gusting up to 35, but you wouldn't know it from in here.

With every visit to the movies, I loathe the human race a little bit more....
Maybe that's wrong, but it needed to be said.

Two reasons for it tonight:

1) Apparently, movie theaters are courtesy-free zones. Check your politeness at the door and throw on the rude, because, baby, fuck everybody else - we're here to have fun.

2) Tonight I heard a Pumpkins song in a preview for what looks like an inevitably wretched movie. That makes me sad beyond words.