Money, get back, I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack.

So, I click on the internets for my daily morning web romp, and what do I see on the front page of Yahoo other than poor Randy Couture, complaining publicly about not getting bonuses above and beyond his contract with the UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championships. My god, what is wrong with people?

This man is slated to make 3 million this year in various fights, and 15 million over the course of his contract. Hey, Randy- there are people starving in the streets, people who rely on food stamps and government food pantries to survive rises in heating costs, and you're quibbling over a 500,000 bonus?

What the hell has happened to human humanity?

In other news, Pennsylvania is still dealing with the repercussions of the shady legislative pay raises for General Assembly members in 2005- 17 legislators were defeated in the elections following the scandal, and any legislator who didn't return the pay raise or who wasn't directly involved is on the chopping block. Currently, 66 legislators are being targeted for defeat in the upcoming elections, and NPR is predicting retirements.

Ironically, "Sell out" by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones is on the radio as I'm writing this.

More people are going to college, and more people are vying for relatively high paying white collar jobs, and more people are looking for jobs for a year or more, and working at stop-gap jobs just to get by.

I myself keep 3 or 4 jobs at any given time just to get a little ahead so my husband and I have some money to put down on a house when we buy one, and are able to pay off our mounting credit card debt. I wasn't able to afford to put any money in my 401K until last year... and my husband only started participating this year, with the influx of more money coming in from my extra jobs. We are lucky in the fact that our parents have had the forethought to put money aside for us to give us a starting point for buying a house- friends of ours have had no money to put down at all, and have financed the entire amount, or have had accident money/401Ks which paid for their houses. I don't know a single person who saved enough from working alone to put down the required 20% on a house. I don't know anyone who doesn't live paycheck to paycheck who didn't have some other source of income other than their main job.

Heating/Electricity costs are rising, food costs are rising, gas costs are rising, everything is rising, and it will never stop. The working poor greatly outnumber the richest 1% of the popluation, the CEO's and business execs of the world. The middle class is quietly dissapearing and making way for dual income familys struggling to work, raise children, keep the very best clothes on their backs to avoid bullying in school, healthy food on the table to avoid obesity and toxic pesticides, and maintain their outrageously priced 250,000 dollar 3 bedroom bungalows.

People wonder why life isn't what it used to be, why violence and the culture of terror exists when it was unheard of 50 or 60 years ago to even get a divorce, much less shoot a kid in broad daylight for their shoes, or destroy an entire classroom full of children and teachers just to get noticed in death. Overpopulation and pressure has broken our society down, public injustices, scandals, and leaks uncovering how government and corporate America REALLY works has demoralized the people to the point of zombie-hood.

What can be done in this money-obsessed society, but build our own environmentally friendly houses, plant our own organic gardens, volunteer, and get "off the grid" as it were, and ride our bikes to work to show the government that we are the humans we always were before conveniences- we were created to adapt.

Al Gore won the Peace Prize!

I have read loads of news articles out there saying that Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", had incorrect statements, and loads of general grumbling about this being a political move, but this is a big win for environmentalists and anyone who's interested in helping to lessen the effects of global warming.

The Academy Award win was impressive- but the Nobel Peace Prize really makes the statement that this is an important issue that we should all be paying attention to, not just other countries.

In other news, I have taken up my Japanese studies again, requested the help of penpals from Japan- I have lost so much in the couple of years since I last studied...

However, as the Japanese say- ganbate! I will do my best.

So I made this list...

Of things I'd like to do in life. One of those things was trying to live an organic lifestyle and do more to support local farmers in these parts, because I know it's tough for them, and if they have the gumption to grow things without pesticides and hormones, well, that's something that MUST be supported to continue.

So, I heard about co-ops a couple of years ago, and it's a pretty interesting idea: join a co-op and get yourself fresh produce from the farm in increments, usually weekly or monthly, depending on the setup. Sometimes you pay for the year, sometimes, upon delivery. Some co-ops sell meat as well- it's a pretty cool idea if you're interested in giving money directly to the farmers, as opposed to the grocery store taking their cut.

there is a co-op I am reading about in Voorhees, NJ that I'm seriously considering joining- for 30-70 dollars or so, depending on the size of your family, you can have a box of organic local fruits and veg delivered to your doorstep every week.

check it out if you're at all intrested in co-ops or organic food in general.

http://www.suburbanorganics.com/door/

Sunny and 67 :D

Well, just finished up a busy and wonderful weekend with the husband.

Friday night I saw Spidey 3 with the mister and a bunch of friends at 9:00 p.m. after a delightful dinner at Fuddruckers. I won't put any spoilers here, but I thought it was ok- probably the least good out of the series, but isn't that almost always true of the third in a trilogy?

Got out of the theater at 11:30, got back to the apartment at around 12:30, I went to sleep and woke up at about 4:30 to get a shower and drive up to meet my buddy Mike Staff and his pop for a day of manual labor in the Poconos at a not-for-profit summer camp. Had a delightful time, good food, met some great people. I was tuckered around 2:00, we rode home, I went straight back to the apartment, collected my thoughts, and rode right back out again to see my friend Keiichi off before he begins work in Chicago. He is being sponsored towards his permanent citizenship there, so I say, sad as it is, it's good for him in the long run- and good for me, too- I want him to stay in America!

Me and the husband cooked burgers and dogs for a while, then played some pool and had a great time. We left there about 9:30 p.m. as I was passing out, and when we got home, I went right to sleep.

Sunday morning, we went out to a diner for breakfast, and then went food shopping. We went home after and he finished installing VIsta on my computer and reinstalled World of Warcraft so we could play with friends while I made brownies for my good friend and manager at Game Crazy.

I can't complain- probably one of the best weekends I've had in a long, long time.

Good weekend.

Friday night, went right after work to the mall to get my hairs dyed- yes, all of them. Now my white trash roots have been all taken care of. Afterwards, my lady friend and I went to the Outback Steak House where a couple sitting behind us threatened the waitress, and had the manager apologizing all over herself for some errant mushrooms that had found their way onto the lady's plate. What kills me is that the manager asks, "Would you like me to have your food remade?" "No," they say. "So, you're not going to eat this, then?" "Oh, no, we'll eat it." So- you wanted a free dinner, then. Why didn't you just say so?

Then, Saturday came and I was up at 7 to workout and eat breakfast, then went in to work to see a couple of shiny XBOX 360 Elites. Naturally, I bought one. Now, we've dealt with more problems with Microsoft products than you might imagine- we've gone through three XBOX 360's, and I had to return the HD-DVD player I bought for my husband for Christmas immediately. Well, guess what? The Elite wouldn't recognize it's own hard drive and I had to return that, too. I mean, seriously, folks...

Other than that had a great weekend with the mister- no World of Warcraft since he sent his video card back to the manufacturer to upgrade it for a better one, but we went out for dinner and hung out and had a good time.

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning this Friday and another round of therapy dates are threatening to make me crazy, but this Wednesday will be the last real class for me of the spring semester, so I'll have a summer break from that. Not that I'd like a break: if I had my druthers, I'd teach every semester, but I'll have to have a chat with the director of Computer Graphics at the college about that.

Not too much happening on the news front of note, other than more New English states legalizing "Civil Unions" for gay couples- why they have to separate it from marriage, I'll never understand- admittedly, if it gets it passed, I won't quibble over language too much, but, it really is a shame that something that won't affect anyone negatively is so hotly contested.

Tut Tut it Looks Like Rain.

Well, dear readers, it's raining again. The ground in this area is so sodden already, people that have basements must be sighing heavily in unison right about now.

I heard a co-worker say that someone had pumped 30,000 gallons out of their basement to date. That's a swimming pool-full.

In other news, the democratic candidate debate was pretty mild, wasn't it? no one wants to ruffle any feathers just yet, it would seem; the only points of contention is whether one voted for the war in Iraq at any point, or whether one voted for the recent spending bill. Someone argued that voting FOR the bill was hypocritical when we aren't supposed to be in Iraq at all. Fair enough. Some of these democrats are all politicians to their gills, against abortion rights but voting for them, but all of them seem to understand the importance of problems here at home: environmentalism and healthcare. Some are even threatening to revolutionalize the healthcare industry by allowing a government employee-like buy-in system. Say what??? About frickin time SOMEBODY was thinking about healthcare and the environment. I mean, I know with the sheer amount of scandals to be buzzed about around the water cooler, these less juicy topics go by the wayside, but, the future, she is a-comin', folks.

The only good news to come out of the government, in this region anyway, is that 10 million in uncollected lottery winnings will be applied towards the school system. That's awesome, I haven't heard news that good in a long time.

It's a good thing that congress has been shaken up. It's a bad thing if it doesn't matter because politics are so political nowadays, it really doesn't matter WHO is in congress.

Time will tell which of the above statements turn out to be true.

Ugh!

Well, still sick, but getting better. I've got this nagging sniffle and sneeze problem, which may be partially due to pollen-things JUST started sprouting full time around here due to the wonderful 70 degree plus weather.

Well, the layout class I teach at the college is almost finished- only two more weeks left in the semester. I feel really good about the teaching I did there- many of the kids understood more about layout than when they started the class, I think. I fulfilled my syllabus, and I am confident to turn in the good grades the kids that attended my class earned. I hope very much the lady that runs the program asks me to return in the fall.

But please, please, let me teach Illustrator!!!

It's a shame, though, most kids that take these classes are just seeing if this is something they'd like to do with their lives. I started with 16 or 18 kids, and it dwindled down, down, to about 10. I spoke to them last night, and they are all going through the same struggles I did- they are artists, want to do somethng creative, but dont want to "waste" 4 years of college money on something that won't get them a job they'd be ok doing. What writer wants to make technical manuals forever? what artist wants to design employee handbooks, what musician wants to play weddings, or what photographer wants to take pictures of people at Sears?

I suppose today's kids worry more about practicality than anything else, at least in Community College. Maybe that's the nature of the beast.

Eh, a Short One Today

So, I know I said I'd update Monday through Friday, but work actually trickled down from the muckity-mucks last week, and I had to do it. But that's not the worst thing to happen last week, no, not by a long shot. One Typhoid Mary (I refuse to mention names) walked in last Thursday and sent a plague rolling down the stairs into the basement where us lower folks dwell, gollum-like, in our prison cells.

My art director was out at 11:00 am Friday morning, and I caught the bug amidst the stunning 80 degree weather Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday languishing on my futon, watching a special on E about celebrity fashion faux-pas through heavily shuttered eyes.

I tried desperately to sew up a sweat jacket I've been working on for a month, but laziness crept into my joints and made the task impossible for me to complete.

I did my exercise today, though my husband would yell at me for it- I was a good girl Sunday and yesterday; today my muscles cried out atrophy! atrophy! and could no longer be ignored in good faith.

I'm hungry. I'm always hungier when I'm at work and I'm not sure why- I'm gunna go ahead and guess boredom, plain and simple.

Well, I'll leave you here, dear readers- hopefully I'll have another rant in me tomorrow, though the wires have been quiet of late. Only our pals Wolfowitz and Gonzalez have anything to fear these days- seems Bush's boys have lots to answer for.

I Promise Not to Dwell on This

But how can I help it?

Images and video were released last night of the VT gunman Cho, made up in the finery of disaffected youth: khaki military style vest, backwards black cap, and gangster-style guns. His eyes peered through the audience, burning with bitter vinegar, and he held the firearms out at his sides, in a Christ-like pose. One can imagine how like a martyr he felt. How like a god.

Although I know no amount of pain or suffering can make up for brutally butchering a room full of innocent people, I cannot help but feel compassion for him. He was another voice lost in the system. They did try. They sent him to a counselor and signed him up for involuntary evaluation. I read an article that said that he had to be tutored because other students were afraid of him. The teachers even kept a warning system to alert each other if he did anything too weird when they were alone with him.

I wonder what he said to the women he sent emails to. I wonder what would have happened if they had responded instead of calling the police. No matter how sullen or friendless someone is determined to be, it is important to understand that everyone needs love and a sense of belonging or they cannot survive. I myself have much experience with this phenominon in people I meet while playing online games, lonely people to whom the online community is all there is.

I cannot help but believe he thought it impossible to let his parents or siblings know how badly he hurt, how alone he felt. You cannot have children if you are not prepared to listen to their cries of help. Not everyone has enough strength on their own to live the life they are told they are supposed to live. I heard a man NPR that writes and talks publicly about his dealings with cancer say something that seemed so true and sudden I burst into tears. He said, "We are only given those burdens that we can bear". I suppose when for whatever reason we cannot bear those burdens, this is the result. People are far too worried about their own lives, their own business, no one has the time or energy to devote to helping someone who obviously needs it.

I cannot forgive him for the way he handled things, but I do understand, in a way- now, in death, he has all the attention he needed in life, all at once.

Therapeutic

So my therapist told me many things last night, the most important of which was that I should keep a journal. Well, here it is.

Yesterday was a wash at work, not much to do, really. We've been slow for about 3 weeks straight, so much so that my art director has taken to carpentry-all of a sudden everything has a raised platform or a rolling shelf.

I'm sure that all of you reading this have had moments where you sit at your desk and wonder- how did I get here? What was I thinking when I was a senior in high school? I remember what I was thinking- I want to do art for a living, but I don't want to languish away in a 4 year art school only to become freshly minted boil on the back of society, creating avante garde heaps of garbage featuring religious figures and food.

So what are my choices? Ah, graphic design. These days, graphic designers without the extra wonder twin ability to make web pages IN CYBERSPACE are becoming less and less useful to companies who can get their secretaries to create something in Word. Not only that, but designers are a dime a dozen, they pop out of technical schools faster than companies can hire them, and so you have a glut of money-hungry 20 somethings who will take less and less just to have some kind of job so they can pay the college loan hounds breathing down their necks. Not exactly a good combination for job security.

I should have been a writer, should have majored in English and written pithy and lofty papers on the connection between and relevance of religious figures and food. Then again, I think I could enjoy a staff writing position for the Gloucester County Times just as much. I try to stretch my creative writing muscles by writing poetry, but the mood really has to strike me. I would love nothing more than to write about video games, and I have made strides in this general direction, but I can't help feeling that I need to do something BIG if that is what I really want with my life.

You know what I want with my life? I want a job I can do from home to spend more time with my friends and family. If there are steps I need to take before I have kids and I can't work long hours every day any more, I am ready to take those steps. I want to make a magazine, that's what I want. I know printed media is going down the tubes, that's ok, I'll come up with something. I want a magazine about video games that doesn't look like a Highlights. I want it to be grown up and funny. I want it to be what I would read if I was looking through the magazine section at Barnes and Noble.

I can do it. I just have to figure out how.

Unbelievable Tragedy

After I heard the news of the terrible massacre that happened yesterday, I went online to read about it and was greeted with chilling statistics: the highest body count ever in history on a school campus was in Texas, and made by a gunman on a tower sniping students below. He killed 16 before the police shot him down. The highest body count not on campus in a single incident happened when a man drove his truck into an eating establishment and then shot and killed about 23 people.

The cowardly wretch in this case killed 32 before he blew himself into oblivion. 32. That's double the next highest. On NPR yesterday, I heard an eyewitness account from a janitor, speaking in the rolling colloquial tones of Virginia, describing how he had seen a body in a pool of blood on the floor, approached to try and identify it, and looked up to see the gunman himself, with an automatic handgun, in a hat, hooded sweatshirt, and blue jeans. This seems to be the uniform of the bad people of our times, as opposed to a black top hat, cape, and twirling mustachio. The gunman shot at our janitor, and missed, but the narrator described feeling the bullets whizzing right past his head. He ran, and was able to get downstairs without taking any injuries. The tale shocked me.

Are we to make our institutes of learning fortresses, complete with SWAT teams in full uniform prowling the campus, ready for action? What is it that is missing in our society, what plague that creates these monsters? Some people would say that some people are just born bad. Maybe you could blame it on a chemical imbalance, who knows? and at this point, we will never know for sure. But I can't help but wonder what his friends or parents ignored that could have changed this whole situation. How does a person amass an arsenal in secret? What pain in his soul could only be mended with the destruction of everyone in his path?

Every day in the media, massive tragedy is spoken of in mildly sympathetic tones, read off of thousands of pieces of paper in thousands of television journalist's hands. Violence is nothing more than a daily occurrence on a bulleted list. Teenagers are raised by television and video games, taught nothing of moral standards by their exhausted parents, who must work as long as their bodies can handle just to pay their hefty sub-prime mortgages and credit card bills. There is no time. No time to tell them no, no time to explain. Our generations water themselves down in terrible school systems and weary tenured teachers. The sense of community has been wiped from the face of America, it's each man for himself. The search for the American Dream continues, but the people who are searching lack the tools and tenacity of our fathers.

Something must come, some alarm buzzing on a global scale. We are slowly devolving. Somehow, our collective pride must be lowered a notch, and we must perceive others as being as important to us as ourselves.

You heard me right- it's snowing.

After a wet weekend frought with wacky World of Warcraft playing, I opened my eyes at 6:00 am, took a wonderfully warm shower, went downstairs to let the dogs out and start my coffee, looked out the window, and blanket of white covering the back lawn looked back. Is it just me, or is April 16th a little behind the times weather-wise? I bundled my lunch together, put on my heavy top coat and gloves, scraped my car, and headed off to work to greet- absolutely no one. Nobody was here yet. I won't deny thoughts of flight entered my mind. I could pretend I'd never been here, could pretend my car broke down. But alas, I have never been comfortable with or good at bending the truth, so here I sit.

Today is a full week. I have work tonight, so that makes my day 8am-9pm, then I have therapy tomorrow after work, 8pm-9pm, then the basic design class I teach, 8pm-10pm on Wednesday, then Thursday back to therapy, then Friday just regular work hours. Saturday I work 9-3, Sunday is the day of rest.

I know it seems crazy, but amongst all of this, I intend to write an article about the state of electronic Role Playing Games today, and I'm also trying to follow a master list of core beliefs and goals daily. As long as I have things to work towards, I can make it through the toughest of times.

I went to the grocery store last night and bought many organic items, and Im making sure I recycle all the plastic, metal, glass, and cardboard I use. One of my many goals is to practice what I preach in the environment department, and Im going to try to keep a record here from time to time of my successes.

Off to work now, perhaps I'll be able to check in later for any comments- keep them up, kiddos!

What happened to prioritizing?

You flip on the morning news, and I don't care what coast you live on, or which news channel you watch, but you see and hear nothing but Don Imus Don Imus Don Imus and I can't help but wonder- why does this story deserve a solid week of front page news?

Sure, America has positioned itself as the most moral and stand-up country in the universe, which is absurd, but really, I think there are better things to talk about. Yes, what he said was insensitive, and perhaps he deserved to be fired from his network job, and maybe join his fellow free-speech shock jocks on satellite radio, but all of that information could have been reduced to a single 5 minute blurb. Is Don Imus the VOICE OF HIS GENERATION? I think not.

There is still a war. Global warming is still happening. People in Africa are still dying of aids and starvation and being massacred in civil wars. It sickens me the way Iraq stories are presented: A suicide bomb went off in Parliament today. No AMERICANS were killed. Oh, well thank goodness. I was worried for a second there.

Anna Nicole Smith was on pills. You think? Britney Spears is in rehab. For what, for shaving her head? for suffering through numerous PUBLIC divorces and getting pregnant and hearing 100,000,000 comments about her weight and looks? getting pictures taken of her crotch as she exits a limo plastered all over Good Morning America? You'd be in rehab too.

But none of this trivia is news.

If you want to hear anything about what decisions are actually being made about the running of the country or how World Bank Pesident Wolfowitz is cutting aid to impoverished countries because of corruption when he went and got himself involved in salary negotions for known friends of his, you have to go to talk radio, or by goodness- READ NEWSPAPERS.

It seems to me very few people actually try to find out more about the world than the talking heads on tv spoon feed them in the 15 minutes between their showers and morning coffee. People don't vote, and if they do vote, they are uneducated votes along party lines or by name recognition alone.

Priorities, people- celebrities come and go, public figures say stupid things, and make and ruin careers in a matter of days. Big things are afoot that will affect you and your children, and you won't even know.