Category: general

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has been sitting on my desk for some time now. Tonight, I decided what the hell. I’d watch it. Couldn’t hurt, right? I’d passed judgement without seeing it, which is not the openminded thing to do. I should watch it. Since I had time, I’d go ahead and do it.

So I put it in.

And I watched.

For maybe ten minutes.

I watched as the main character and his lawyer walked out on a check, practically stole a rental car (or at least made it obvious that they were going to trash it), picked up a hitchhiker and proceeded to psychologically terrorize him–all, of course, while reacting in various ways to the drugs they’d brought with them.

When the lawyer got out a gun and started shooting into the air, I said, “Whatever,” and closed the window.

I told Sean I’d watched the first part and turned it off. He immediately told his friends on Ventrilo. From his side of the conversation it appeared that they agreed with Sean that I was being retarded.

“I’m closeminded,” I called obnoxiously from the closet, where I was returning the shoes I’d gathered from the office. “Maybe it comes from being [specifics omitted out of respect for all parties involved]. I just don’t care about watching people get stupid and abuse other people. It’s not my thing.”

I decided to take a bath, and as I started the water running I thought about my decision. I was right–it probably was due to that. After all, after being on the receiving end of that sort of behavior, when all you wanted was for them to shut up and leave you alone so you could go to sleep–

As tears suddenly burned my eyes, it occurred to me that I might have some unresolved issues.

The girl who does our news promotions videos, heretoafter referred to as Promotions Chick, has her office in a space, little more than an alcove, off the hallway leading to my second door. (My expansive office, now known as the Breezeway, offers quite the contrast.)

Promotions Chick has been working twelve-hour days to get out spots for sweeps stories, and when she’s finished she exports them to mpeg and sends them to me too. Today, suddenly, promo videos started filling my inbox.

Me (calling down the hall): I’ve got promos out the wazoo in here!

Promotions Chick: Eww, gross.

Me: (laughs)

Promotions Chick: That can’t be comfortable.

Me: I do what I can.

I have been informed that there’s a woman performing a striptease on the PETA website.

Yeah, that’s a good way to get taken seriously!

(I personally feel that animals should be treated well, from the time they’re born/hatched until the time they end up on my dinner plate.)

Grossman! Fries!

Via Merujo.

After unwinding with some Detective Conan, I snuggled into the couch with Sean, and we just talked and flirted for awhile. He talked about the new game and what a good job Sam’s doing organizing it. I told him about my day and complained about a few things and he weighed in. We held hands.

“There’s some rain coming, and a cold front moving in, so lots of schools have already canceled or delayed,” I told him.

“So we can expect some sleet, eh?”

“Actually, the chances of it hitting our area are like, zero.”

“Zero, huh? So tomorrow when there’s icicles all over everything and the roads are frozen, I’ll come back to you and say, ‘Zero’.”

“That would be awesome! If that happened, I wouldn’t even care that I was wrong.”

“That,” Sean said, “is what’s wrong with you.”

I responded innocently, “Is that all?”

Oh no! There’s a chill in the air!

Cancel school tomorrow!!

From Smallville 6.11, “Justice”:

Green Arrow and Cyborg are the only ones with decent costumes. Aquaman’s needs to ramp up a little, and Impulse (Flash) seems to just be wearing a hoodie. (And I don’t think those hoods he and Arrow wear are very conducive to peripheral vision.)

But still. Badass!

I know the rumors are that Clark will never fly or wear the suit in this show, but I hope they’re disinformation. Because it really needs to happen. Right now the excuse he gives for not joining Arrow’s team to stop Lex is that he needs to stop the rest of the Zoners. That’s all well and good…but what happens after that? Is he really going to go up against Lex as himself, with no disguise?

(If he does end up wearing the costume, will he start wearing glasses as Clark? And how in the world will Lex not recognize him? Maybe he will…that could be an interesting twist.)

When I said I was “built Ford tough”, I was referring to the fact that I can generally “handle” anything. Going back and rereading that questionnaire in the past couple of years, I’ve scoffed at myself for thinking I was strong.

But I am strong in one way, and that’s health-wise. Despite being obese (I’d like to call myself overweight, but that would unfortunately be inaccurate), I am able to function for the vast majority of any given year.

There are many people who get sick easily, or have terrible allergies or migraines or periods. I’m not one of them. When I have periods I have cramps, but they’re mild enough to think of as “annoying”. I’ve had a migraine occasionally, but they seem to only arise when I take in too much caffeine, so they’re easy enough to avoid. Since moving to Augusta, I have had to deal with allergies, but it’s only been crippling once or twice, and since then I’ve adjusted.

When I’m sick, it’s rarely enough to put me out of commission. I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll still be able to work.

Monday was one of the few exceptions–I went home after lunch feeling horribly nauseated. As I was a bit run down when I woke up yesterday, I thought to call in, but ultimately I went to work and felt better and better as the day progressed.

Today I feel perfectly fine, with just a little nasal congestion to remind me that I was sick.

Then there was that whole cancer thing. I can give the doctors credit for kicking it out of my system after six months. But it never came back. And I never had graft vs. host disease.

And now, even after being annihilated by chemotherapy, my ovaries are still trying to function.

So I suppose that in a way, that questionnaire response wasn’t a self-delusion.

Sean had me Netflix Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for him. As soon as I brought it home from the mailbox, he pulled it up on his laptop.

Afterwards he handed me the disc and said, “Very good movie. I might watch it again here in a bit.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve never used drugs, so I don’t know if those scenes were accurate,” he went on. “But I love his voice…his writing style.”

I finished watching a supremely enjoyable episode of Detective Conan, and then I looked the infamous Mr. Thompson up on Wikipedia. I found out who he was two years ago, and I really had no inclination to research him further, but Sean’s interest piqued my interest. Plus, I wanted to “prove” that Thompson did in fact die with his grandchild in the house and his wife on the phone.

Now I just feel tired.

My husband is a very intelligent man, and I don’t doubt that Thompson’s writing is interesting and funny. But I still balk at the idea of glorifying a man who lived and died the way he did.

I’ve never read a word the man wrote. Part of me feels like I should. Part of me really doesn’t want to, feels that doing so would violate my core beliefs. And then the first part comes back and says, well, isn’t life about paradigm shifts, learning, growing, accepting, changing, and coming back to yourself to find your core evolved and reaffirmed?

I don’t know why the quest for knowledge can be so tiresome. But this isn’t new. I’ve always found the idea of pursuing knowledge I don’t want to care about tedious. Is this the point where the enlightened soul pushes on? What happens to the person who just closes the book?

I’ve been trying to design a few things in the past few days, to no avail. Everything looks like crap.

Maybe it’s because I’m (still) sick. But whatever it is, it needs to go away. I don’t need the self esteem hit.

When I first got my phone, I changed the “Greeting”, which is the first line of text on the LCD screen, to “Hi Heather!” It stayed like that for some time, until one day I decided to change it to “Kyou Kara Maou!”

This morning, in a haze of I-don’t-want-to-get-up, I changed it again.

My phone now greets me with “Wakatta zo!”

This is one of the things Conan says when he’s figured out a case. I considered the other main phrase, “Yometa zo!”, but ultimately I decided to stick with a usage that people might recognize.

Too bad my phone can’t do Japanese characters!

Because the Augusta Visitors and Convention Bureau needs to hire them. I mean, wow. The commercial they’ve got on TV now makes Augusta look awesome.

So bishie!

:>