Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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On behalf of Riverside County...
21:21
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...I would like to apologize to the voters of California. Riverside County is one of those counties that has a lot of votes outstanding. You see, Riverside County decided that it would be TOTALLY AWESOME to jump on the electronic ballot thing, because all the cool kids are doing it. So they sunk an assload of cash into buying shiny new machines for everywhere. And then....well, then a group decided to raise the issue of "with all the allegations of voter fraud, are the actually not going to fuck up?" And rather than let that group force them into investigating, they took the initiative. And decided, oops, that was a bad idea. Let's switch to paper ballots. Last minute. And we don't have any money to hire more ballot counters because we spent it all on the really expensive paperweights. So...Riverside has a lot of counting to do. And 6 people to do it. Riverside County? Also where Palm Springs is located, and you may or may not know this, but there is a rather healthy gay population in Palm Springs. You may have heard about the White Party? |
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Prop 8 has NOT passed yet.
18:09
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My vote probably hasn't been counted yet. As well as 2 other people I know voted no on 8. I'm still not thrilled it's so close- but it isn't even officially passed yet. stolen from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} maxmin who stole it from reichmarshall:According to the office of the California Secretary of State, Prop 8 has not yet been called. They are still counting ballots... and we will not know the results until December 13th. All media has announced a victory for Yes on 8. THIS IS WRONG. Based on turnout estimates reported yesterday, we expect that there are more than 3 million and possibly as many as 4 million absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted. Roughly 500,000 votes separate yes from no on Prop 8 – out of 10 million votes tallied. Also: Today’s California Constitutional law discovery: Any amendment to the constitution, before being submitted to a vote, is required to be reviewed by the legislature. Guess what wasn’t? The ACLU has filed an initial writ petition this morning to block proposition 8 from altering the Constitution. http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationsh "The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid." It's not over yet. |
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
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Damned if you do...
15:33
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I voted for Prop 2. I think Prop 2 will win. I'm not sure that's a good thing. This is one of those either way it goes, we lose situations, I fear. No on Prop 2 equals no change in how our farm animals are treated. And that is pretty crappy, because the big megafarms, especially, are pretty awful. Yes on Prop 2 means the cost WILL get passed down to us as the consumers. Our country's farms are already struggling with the competition from, in particular, Mexico. Mexican goods are cheaper, and one of the huge reasons for that is a losing situation for us: they don't have the same standards and restrictions we do. It costs less for them because they don't have to institute the same protections against salmonella (and, hi, that's bitten us in the ass more than once) or other dangers to our health, nor will _they_ have to follow this humane farm animals act. And, let's face it, even when our economy isn't on a great downward spiral, people do not want to pay a reasonable amount of money for their food. They will buy the cheap stuff, especially now. We have already seen what a dependence on foreign resources does to us- and by not buying American food, we are undermining what farming infrastructure we still have. We NEED to be producing some of our own necessary goods here, otherwise it's just yet another money bleed as we have to import everything. Plus, rampant dependency is never a good idea, just in case something happens you want to be able to deal with the problem yourself. The problem here is not really Prop 2. The problem here is a much greater and more serious problem to do with how we approach the necessities of life, and our consumerism as a whole. |
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I voted a couple of weeks ago
13:23
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I wish I had enough faith in the American people at this point to believe they won't make the wrong choices. But, well. The last 8 years have sucked a lot of that out, as has McCain's inching forward in the polls, and how _close_ some of the important decisions are today. Presidentially, I believe this may be the most important election in our lifetimes. Palin terrifies me. For a lot of reasons...but the whole religious whackjob who believes that she will see Jesus in her lifetime, and that is it her _duty_ to bring about the end of the world? Yeah...running off the Canada isn't really a solution, as I do honestly believe there's a decent chance she will bring about the end of the world. With certain things I've heard about McCain, he really doesn't strike me as being any sort of decent idea either. Aside from all that, Obama will be a pretty damn huge historical first, in the history of our country. The fact that we might actually have someone reasonably competent in office again isn't too bad either. As for Prop 8....I'm a bit disappointed in you, California, that it's this close. I thought you were supposed to be a progressive state. But no, apparently there are a lot of bigotted idiots- I just hope not enough. I've yet to see one reason that doesn't come down to "I'm an easily misled (possibly closetted) homophobe." I have had a great desire to burn crosses on the lawns of everyone with a Yes on 8 sign. Prop 4: could you just stay off the ballot in the future? We keep voting your nasty ass down, and I really don't want to give you another chance to try to prove that, again, California as a whole is easily tricked into making bad choices. The whole Supreme Court FDA thing too...that is also pretty damn terrifying. Especially considering the climate of our Supreme Court. |
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
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Yeah
05:56
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Good news: we got the final inspection. All the stuff in storage was delivered last week. Well, aside from the desk they tossed even though they were told repeatedly not to, and the rug that they confused with someone else's and now the dry cleaner doesn't exist any more. The house is full of boxes. Soooo many boxes. But after they're unpacked, maybe I can come home. Less than good news: I'm still ill, after 2 years. No, I don't know what's actually WRONG with me, after a couple of doctor's visits (the most promising "oh, I find weird and exotic things" doctor didn't even bother to contact me with test results. I assume he would have actually answered any of my attempts to find out the results if I did have thyroid or other assorted problems I was tested for). Talking about it...pretty much depresses me further, which is a huge part of why I haven't bothered to update LJ in, oh, forever. |
Friday, March 21st, 2008
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So, yeah
02:09
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Building continues. The roof is watertight, although not roofed entirely (there were a couple of days of rain on plastic and drying out the interior of the house in there). They've been kicking ass on the lath and plaster inside, as well as starting to paint the overhang. The electrical is all replaced, and the kitchen has walls again. So, great things. Less great, I'm still dragging around and feel like I've got a constant cold/flu. Not awesome but better than it could have been, my mother slipped and fell in a parking lot yesterday, her leg smacking into the corner of the curb, and landing hard on her right arm and nose. She was unable to bend her elbow, and we finally convinced her to go to the ER (which, well, she has reasons not to like them, as on a previous fall they didn't treat her properly and her ankle's never fully healed properly from it). X-rays taken, and "we think she may have a hairline fracture of the ulna" and a velcro trainer cast thing put on her leg, and arm in a sling. Today, after a radiologist looked at it, "the leg's not broken, but we think there are hairline fractures in the elbow" (however, the recommendations on that were still just to keep it in a sling, no cast or anything, as we peeked), followed by a doctor('s assistant, because no proper doctor had an opening, grumble) who said "nah, nothing's broken." I looked at the x-rays, and everything does look ok though. But, I am not a doctor (as I repeated to her over and over). |
Friday, January 18th, 2008
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Progress.
15:38
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So, basically this place is murder on my allergies, I can't get over the sinus infection and whatnot it's causing, so I'm still dragging around something awful (also, living this long with them is making me ever so cranky). However! BUILDING PERMIT. The last architect was still a fucking idiot and we had to fight with the building inspector (wait, why are they requesting you replace the foundation? The walls are all intact. Here, let me resubmit those for you- not that it helps that the county sends things off to a firm in Long Beach who are just in it for the extra fees), but a couple of days before Christmas we got a permit finally! They're started demolition (the roof is gone, and half the underpinnings as well- unfortunately rain is forecast for next week and the stuff isn't coming in until Friday to replace it all, so they'll be covering the place in massive plastic sheets), and are actually starting to get around to fixing things already! It was pretty surreal before they'd gotten this far, with a wheelbarrel on the roof. Now it's just a wood skeleton jutting up, ribs broken off at the kitchen end. The bathroom...had a leak in the wall from taking the sink out, but thankfully that was easily fixed, although there's still a hole in the guestroom wall from fixing it (and furniture moved in front of it so as not to have to deal with it right now). The whole house has sweet, wonderful heat, with controllers for each room. The wall is mostly wall-like. The block is all up, unpainted, and the brick just got in yesterday for the top of it. The fences are on order, and the place needs to be leveled, but it already looks a lot nicer. The pergola behind the casita has been torn down (before it fell down), and the new one is edging on completed as well. It just needs more roofy like stuffs on top, the basic structure is all there. |
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
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Merry Xmas
14:21
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It still doesn't really feel like Christmas, and I still haven't even started on any of my knitting, and I'm still sick. Dammit. Right now I'm filled with bourbon laced eggnog and possibly going to pass out at any moment (the dog barking at the neighbors all night for the past couple of nights hasn't helped), so all and all, not too bad though. And so! I send you off, a bit late, to my eggnog recipe! This year I used healthy Omega 3 eggs- the whites fluff way up, so do not make more than half a batch (I had to use just about every dish in the place to shunt bits off to to make it manageable, but I come by it honestly, my grandmother regularly used every dish and got spagetti sauce on the ceiling). However, it's stayed good and kind of chunky longer than usual (yes, I hear you going ew there, and trust me, it's not actually ew. It's tasty, with the whites still not totally mixed in). This year I used a nice round one bottle for a full batch, and that seemed to do it pretty well. Merry Christmas everyone! |
Saturday, December 15th, 2007
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So tired of this
15:00
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One course of antibiotics later, and I'm still well into 3 months sick. Dammit. This is what it was like growing up, although this long lingering sick isn't as debilitating. I also have had no heat (which, ahem, may have contributed some to the never getting better) and a completely wrecked bathroom for that past almost a month! The gas got switched off when they turned off the water, and the parents took a "well, we're getting a new heating system soon, so why bother?" (mind, _they_ have heat next door, it's just me out in the cold), and the heating system only just came in yesterday, and they put more in on Monday...maybe by then some of it will work. At least I have space heaters, but still, it's fucking cold out here, and they only heat up small areas. The bathroom...leak inside shower wall = toxic mold. Take out wall...replace bathtub while we're at it, have the slowest tile guy in the world retile (at least the tiling's done finally, again as of yesterday, so I have a floor back, as well as a tiled shower- none of it, including the sink which she decided to replace while he was here, are plumbed yet), and Monday, maybe, I get the wall replastered, and either a plumber is coming out or I am plumbing the damn thing myself. If I'd felt better, I would have done it today. I have stockings to knit. I need to get a start on them, I've just not felt like that, either. (So, please forgive if they get to you late :/ ) |
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
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Meh.
19:26
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So, it's going on what, 7 weeks? 8 weeks? of this long lingering sick. Yesterday I went to another doctor, who said "you have sinus infection, here are drugs" so maybe the antibiotics will kick it out. Mind you, of course, the drugs are making me feel waaaay worse. And the antibiotics are the evil little bloo pills (Ceftin) that leave a bad taste. But still, maybe, someday, I won't be sick anymore. I'm not sure I remember what it's like. |
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
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Ow.
19:58
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So I've been sick more than a month now. Yeah, my immune system sucks. I think I was getting over a cold when I went to the Halloween party...just to get another one there. *sigh* I've been coughing so hard I've pulled a muscle in my chest so it feels like I've been kicked in the ribs...and coughing/sneezing/breathing/moving hurts. Fun. Can I not be sick now? Please? I think I'm getting over it. But still, @#*$%! Why am I always sick for Halloween? Bleh. In return for listening to me whinge, here's a song with samples from Portal for you. |
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
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Gathering of Ghouls
00:43
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For the party, I was a Venetian lady who had snuck out to attend a scandalous event she couldn't be seen at- so I wore the bauta. I masking taped the lenses from an old pair of glasses to the inside of the mask so I could see- my eyes were so dry I couldn't even get the contacts in to begin with. Oddly enough, someone else showed up in a bauta as well. ( Cut to save your friends page ) |
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
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Gathering of Ghouls
17:52
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At about 4am this morning I figured out my costume for the party tonight (I drove back yesterday. I've still got a bit of the horrid cough, but now I can blame it on all of the smoke. I'm quite thrilled it rained today though!). I probably ought to be bringing printouts to hand out to people to explain it...it's a little obscure. I shall have to make sure someone I know gets a picture. I've also had insanely massive insomnia recently, and haven't slept much at all in the past three nights (admittedly, the two before last night also had a "hopped up on Benadryl so I'm groggy but can't sleep" part to them), so here's hoping I don't pass out at 9pm. |
Sunday, October 21st, 2007
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Fire
16:53
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Today I was awoken by a panicky phonecall about a fire on SR Road (the one and only way out of the area, as well as, you know, close to the house) from the parents, as they were most of the way back to the desert and heard about it on the radio. We'd coming back yesterday for the 70th (surprise) birthday party of one of her friends, and I'd arranged to be able to stay the week since there was the party next weekend, and maybe I'd actually get a chance to do Halloween things. Instead, I grabbed Lisette and threw her in a carrier, and drove out to see what was up, since I couldn't find anything out on TV (not even a peep, it was all Malibu fire). Clusters of fire trucks hanging out at the entrance to the housing area, cops not letting people in...yeah. So, still unable to hear anything other than "there's a fire" since all the coverage is on the Malibu, I ended up driving to the desert. If I hadn't had Lisette with me, I might have stayed, but she's very difficult to get in the carrier, and I don't like to leave her in it longer than necessary. And, really, I'm a fair bit more concerned about fires now than I was a little over a year ago. I was able to find out, finally, once I got here, from the internet because they still all are just talking about Malibu, that the fire is 30% contained, and a building further down my street burned. At this point I don't know whether I'll be back for next weekend. |
Sunday, October 7th, 2007
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Look Around You Module 4- Ghosts
23:36
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Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
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16:06
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I have no idea whatsoever what to do for Halloween. This is a Problem, as the yearly gathering is happening as usual. Bleh. I suppose I'll just end up half assing something last minute this year. Dust off one of the witch hats or something. The window guy just left- this was the second day in a row of windows (he was supposed to start Monday, but had a job run over that he had to complete), and he needs to come back for half a day tomorrow. This has been a very very long time in coming, but he's an utter flake when it comes to answering his phone, checking his voicemail, letting us know his phone number has changed... However, he's the rep for our brand of windows, so we were choiceless. Didn't help the way we had to order the windows and all that either, and especially didn't help the whole being at the desert all the time. But damn, when he does show, he goes to work! He's taking out every double hung window in the house, replacing one pane of about half of them (and both of a couple), and replacing the cords that hold them up for all of them (30 years old, and they've been snapping, so even the few that aren't broken we wanted replaced with new, since it would just be a matter of time before they snapped when trying to put the window up...which ain't fun), which requires disassembling the entire window anyway. Not only is he quite no nonsense about doing it all (it takes about an hour a window, since he has to disassemble the frame), but he also actually cleans up after himself. Unfortunately he has found a number of windows that didn't get ordered that should be replaced, curses (I wish he would have noticed this stuff before! We even had him out to look at all of them twice! But admittedly, one problem was due to having to take a window apart because it wouldn't budge, so the liner got messed up). ( Read more... ) |
Monday, October 1st, 2007
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Trick or Treat, smell my feet
21:42
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Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
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Silence
18:30
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I've been quiet recently, mostly because there hasn't been much to say. Still waiting on finalized plans, still mostly tied to all that rubbish. I did get to attend saraicat and kchrist's wedding, which was absolutely lovely, and very very them. Hats were required, so I took the opportunity to wear my grandfather's fez, which worked quite well. I did get a couple of "where did you get that"s from the relatives ("Usually you have to roll one of them for one").And to at least give you some reason to have spent the time reading thus far in my unexcitement, I give you this, which is one of those lovely little cgi-as-stop-motion shorts, that you may not have seen before. And for a dose of the bizarre, Dr. Seuss warning GIs about the evils of malaria. |
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
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Thank you Nadav!
22:23
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nadav rocks. Yesterday when I went to find out why the mailman was playing ding dong ditch, I was greeted by a large envelope, with adorable little critters drawn on it. ( And inside... )
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Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
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Continuing in our tales of true crime: Jimmie Rogers
21:42
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I just got back from dinner across the street from the house that maybe we are getting plans for this week(!). We eat most nights at D's, although often it's just her and us, sometimes she'll invite others over. Tonight was a big dinner part of 12, including the cowboy (who, really is- he lost one of his fingers roping, for instance, and he was in the pilot for Deadwood when the director wanted some people who looked like they'd really belong in the background in a barroom brawl) and his wife, one of the big builders down here and his wife, the owner of one of the long established restaurants and his wife, and Mary and Jimmie Rogers. Mum was Jimmie's tax lawyer, ages ago, and we sort of randomly found out they lived right next to the cowboy these days (and apparently moved there just a year or two after they'd lost touch, after keeping track of each other for years when they moved to...one of those Arkansas Tennessee states). We'd seen them once soon after they found that out, and Jimmie looked pretty sickly. You see, in 1967, Jimmie Rogers was pulled over for something innocuous, dragged out of his car, and beaten half to death by a police officer. He's had a huge steel plate in his head for 40 years, with constant surgeries for maintaining it because you aren't supposed to have an enormous chunk of metal covering half your skull, as well as constant infections, and recently he'd been plagued by constant headaches from the thing. After finding all these doctors who refused to touch it, he finally found one and had the whole thing removed, a month and a week ago. Once they opened him up and cut a couple of the connectors, it popped right off, because the bone has grown back. So yeah, it needed to go. Some of it is still soft babybone, but so long as nasty stuff doesn't happen to his head (he has a helmet for playing golf), he's golden. They did some sort of stem cell application (his own) and sped up the healing dramatically (ahem, our political overlords, you hear that? That's right, that's the sound of stem cell research being a really good idea you fuckwits. I mean, hell, you're all old men, you should be all for this stuff), and damn. He looks incredible. There's no more scar now than there was before, his hair's grown back quite a bit, and he's standing up straighter, has more colour, and looks like he's 20 years younger than he was last time I saw him. He was the guest of honour, but he's a very soft spoken man (he can't sing any more), so the rest of the group had to shut up before he could tell any stories- they were all rambunctious, and I was at the other end of the table, which didn't help. He stopped by at some deserted bar and was just singing to himself while his friend played at the piano when their piano player went on break. The owner heard him, and asked him to sing louder, into the mike, and put the speakers outside. This place that never had anyone in it was packed, and Jimmie sang from 10pm to 2am, and got a job from him for $10 a night, and free food and drink (he started out not being much of a drinker, before he left he could drink people under the table. He's since quit). Later he moved to New York and couldn't get a job (back then Union ruled the city, and he didn't know he needed a Union card), so he couldn't get his car out of the parking lot or pay his hotel bill, and he ended up sneaking into the Arthur Godfrey talent show with the band, and then lied his ass off to get on the show. He won $700 which was a lot of money back then, but still, that wasn't enough to live in New York, especially as his wife was very sickly. He ended up seeing Roulette Records setting up, and played Honeycomb for them (which he'd learned from listening to while he was still working at the bar), and ended up recording the song for them. However, he never heard back from them, and New York was too expensive to live in, so he left the city to go back home. Roulette distributed the single to all the radio stations, and had the disc jockeys follow it with the request that the singer, Jimmie Rogers, get in touch with Roulette because they were looking for him and couldn't get in contact with him- he eventually heard it, and signed with Roulette staring his career. In 1959 he was slated to be playing at the concert that wasn't, but he had pneumonia and had to cancel. Otherwise he might have been on the plane in the place of Ritchie Valens, when it went down killing Valens, the Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly. |
tasha
- User: goffchick
- Name: Tasha
- Web: flowersforthedead
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