Giant Penguins!!!!

In high school I had a fun and crazy friend named Wendy. We were around one another enough to have people mix our names up and it wasn't long before I responded to the name Wendy and the other way around.

We had this running joke about penguins, how they were diabolical birds that used their seemingly adorable appearances as a clever disguise. It went so far as to say that, yes, penguins are a growing evil that are now planning world domination and the enslavement of the human race.

That could have been true 40 million years ago (had we been around) Check this out-- bloody five foot tall penguins. Scientists found these skeletal remains of penguins in Peru. According to the first article, this could be the third largest bird to have ever existed.

Here is a CNN news linkfor a little more info, it's just too crazy of a story to buy into to one source. It seems like something that belongs on those National Enquirer magazines you find in the super market.

lol

71% Geek
71%

Mingle2.com

"being awake is swimming around in a lake of the undead"

Strangeness is beginning to bubble up again. Like my mom becoming speechless and screaming bloody murder for an entire minute at the sight of a squirrel nearing the house. This only made me believe there could only be a mutilated corpse in the backyard seeing how alarmed she was. She never screams like that even before she thinks an accident is about to happen because of my dads driving, she didn't even scream as bad as that when she fell on her shoulder that was healing from big operation.

I'm told this squirrel is very over-sized, but even so I don't understand the hype. She's wanting to get rid of this squirrel no matter what and has asked my brother a favor. He is eagerly awaiting the day he can purchase a gun and obtain a hunting permit and gladly volunteered to get rid of the squirrel. My dad had to tell him no son you can't eat the squirrel, being as he wants to eat one of every animal. He has plans to skin the little thing and hang the pelt on his door. I've told him I will go all out hippie if he attempts to do so.

I don't really see the need to kill a harmless squirrel, it hasn't entered our house or bitten anyone. A few years ago if I saw a squirrel it was like seeing a Zebra. We would all stop and point "oh my HECK it's a SQUIRREL!". I've always thought they were adorable, not the blackest of creatures from the abyss. If I am able I would like to catch this squirrel and let him go somewhere. It's better than the little guy getting skinned.

I've also decided that factories are still miserable in modern days. I worked for one last week and hell, it's not worth it... I was excited to work for a bakery again, but this wasn't the case. I was packaging bakery goods. I got a green hard hat slapped on my head, a flattering hairnet that put on like 5 years, ear plugs, and thick shoe covers. Anyone who has done a single repetitive task will know what I am about to explain. IT bloody hurts. I put packages into boxes all day using the same movements and it creates a lot of strain. Two hours in my whole back burned and I continued for four hours after. I'm sure after a while you adapt, with a bodily cost of course but damn. I could not lift my arms above my head, and when I mimicked the movement my arms wanted to snap off.

I loved seeing all the psychotic machines, I watched muffins come out of the wall all day through a conveyor belt. There were conveyor belts and large steel machines everywhere with big metal arms and other huge devices all about. There has got to be a zillion ways to lose a hand there. I felt like a kid watching these large contraptions at work.

Factories suck and squirrels don't eat people.
That is all

Ahh, shit

43%

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

Statues in the Park

I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square,

you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.

A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, meant the rider had died in battle.

If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds;

and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case--
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--
it meant that the man on the horse,

this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.

In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--

pedestrians who could no longer
place on foot in front of the other.

I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone bed,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,

statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
and murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.

And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shad trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,

down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.

-Billy Collins

surfing

ha. Fun little article right here for Wii, Nintendo, and gaming fans alike.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6189553.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

The best miis ever

http://miiplaza.net/user/2682732585897970/

Can smell it from here

INTERNET EXPLORER FOR MAC NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and is not providing any further security or performance updates.

Accordingly, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac is no longer available for download from Microsoft. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to *more recent web browsing technologies* such as Apple's Safari.

***

It's not as forward as some would have it but you can pretty much see the scathing undertones of a long fought rivalry between the apple and the windows. Beautiful! While staying politically correct, paper thin sarcasm still found it's way in there.

I love it. lol

trying as best as I can

With every visit to the doctor I only get more frustrated, instead of comforted. I don't have the energy for it but I recognize that it's worse to be in the dark. It's a hard process for me and I usually go in a bit scared or flustered. After each time I realize that I have less and less faith in so called professionals and have to remember when it comes down to it- I'm just quizzing them on subjects they studied once upon a time in school and they may or may not be up to date.

I've been trying to come up with what to do for a job in the present. If I part time it and land an underrated job under 20 hours a week- hey guess what I get to still get funded for college. If I full time it and actually go a for a job I can feel proud of - I have to solo it for school but can get insurance amongst other things and might be able to move out again. There was a deep seated reason why I moved out in the first place and I am reminded of that at certain times.

I've decided that this time around I am going to need to be able to drive which will be quite the step to make. I'm 19, when you're expected to have that all covered by 16. I never got a whole lot of experience behind the wheel at that tender age of 16. I have my reasons for it and have done pretty well without driving. It has it's place still, so when the time is right and finances permit I'll be looking into getting a vehicle.

In the mean time I'm trying to resume what I'd do if I was feeling well anyway. It can be a challenge, just a day at a time I guess. I notice sometimes though that I spread my energy too thin and still do more than I should. It's something I need to watch, yes, but it keeps me going and it's the right adjustment to make overall.

I really appreciate the one who has been there for me through all of this, without a real reason right away. I know very well I can tackle most anything alone if I will it and yet you stubbornly persist in trying to help. No simple thankyou could communicate the gratitude I feel.

I bought new shoes tonight when I was wandering around town. I've been putting it off, but it got done when it seemed like the symbollic thing to do. I figured I needed something sturdy to walk on.

front page this morning

Utah County GOP delegate links illegal immigration to Satan

By Deborah Bulkeley
Deseret Morning News

The devil is sticking his pitchfork into the nation's immigration politics.
At least that's what one of Utah County's Republican delegates thinks.
Don Larsen, a district chairman, has submitted a resolution equating illegal immigration to "Satan's plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion" for debate at Saturday's Utah County Republican Party Convention.
Referring to a plan by the devil for a "New World Order ... as predicted in the Scriptures," the resolution calls for the Utah County Republican Party to support "closing the national borders to illegal immigration to prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion."
In part, the resolution states, "There are ways to destroy a nation other than with bombs or bullets. The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nation the way open warfare does but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness."
Larsen did not immediately return Deseret Morning News phone calls for comment.
"I don't think you'd find very many Republicans to suggest that the devil is involved in the immigration issue," said Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, who is serving as convention chairman. "I don't think you'll find much support for that sentiment."
Bramble said the resolution is the only such proposal that was submitted before the deadline to be debated at this year's convention. It's at the end of the agenda, and Bramble said sometimes it's hard to find a quorum of delegates at the end of the day.
However, Bramble — who in 2005 sponsored a then-controversial measure to replace drivers' licenses of illegal immigrants with driving privilege cards that can't be used as state identification — said the resolution could be brought up.
If that happens, Bramble said, it likely would spark a discussion among delegates about how they'd like to see the party handle the issue of immigration.
"I think you'd find the majority of Republicans, and frankly the majority of Democrats, saying illegal immigration is not healthy for this country, the immigration system is broken and Congress has been an abject failure," he said. "The debate is how to address illegal immigration in the country, what is an acceptable proposal for a solution."
Joe Hunter, chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, declined comment on the resolution. Cannon, whose district includes Utah County, has been drawn into primary battles on two occasions because of his vocal support for comprehensive immigration reform.
One of Cannon's key critics, Mike Sizer, a convention delegate and spokesman for the anti-illegal immigration group Utahns for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, said, "The vast, vast majority of the delegates are very logical. They are concerned about the issue. They don't want amnesty. ... I've never heard of (illegal immigration) as far as Satan's plan."

article can be found at http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660215179,00.html
*****

Quite the conspiracy coming out of the one from the right wing there, eh?

graves of public places

We've heard of high school shootings. It's not so hard to picture when you take into account out of proportion teenage angst added with some kid's negative environment. Today's news was hard to identify with because when I think of a university I think of a controlled atmosphere where matured minds are plenty and welcome. At Virginia Tech, the death toll made it up to 33 people.

There is only so much the rest of us can say about our reactions. Big events like these always seem like movies, but then again we are all watching it on t.v. lounging on the sofa. In the end it can affect us but we still can turn off the television. I've been trying to focus on this as a serious event and not just walk away and forget it with the next day. As much as it's natural to feel that it has nothing to do with me, it was something that may as well of happened across the world, I want to do my best to see it as a reality. Because some people can't just turn it off.

I imed a friend about it earlier all we could say were adjectives like "horrible" "terrible" and "unimaginable". It all felt so quaint to say. The newscasts showed the school's colorless buildings along with light slow falling snow which did something to seal the image for me. It even appeared to be a transformed environment. It's hard to grasp that a man would kill multiple people, people he never had a reason to hate.

After seeing the lives lost today, I was surprised by the tears that came and held a small vigil on my own. There are just some events that make you see little humanity in the world for a small amount of time. Discussing it helped, in these situations there are no easy answers. Especially since a murderer is also a victim, one can only guess at the instability he was facing. My deepest sympathies go out to all in the Roanoke communities.

should seem basic

When I look at my fingers striking different arrangements of keys in just seconds it amazes me. It's largely controlled by neural input and output, but still now and then it just catches me. I operate these hands.

When I was a kid I had a hard time understanding that I was alive, as funny as that sounds. I realized yes I was alive and had a living body like everyone else but it didn't feel that way. I was reminded of it when I felt pain but aside from that it didn't feel as if I were in a body. I felt like a spectator watching everything pass before me. Even now thoughts like that appear where I have to step back and remind myself. I think of it differently now after a recent scare of my own which I can't confirm or deny. A body feels basic, but so complex when it turns against you.

On the news they showed A.J. Walker, a person who was injured in the trolley square shootings. He had a tutor sitting with him at a table. They would flip over little cards with pictures on them, a panda, a rock, a train. After every time he pointed a finger at a card a silence would follow. Sometimes it would catch up with him and he could name that panda or that train. Other times it would take longer.

Even though in most aspects he was fine, I felt a sense of injustice seeing a grown person reduced to that. "How about this picture?" There are somethings that I need to see as given to someone, but even the most subtle but needed things can be stripped away. No one should ever have to face that. It still happened, and life seems all the more fragile.

When I delve into it there is so much more that that which gets to me. I understand I am still young and only know but a fraction of the world. I've sought comfort recently focusing on the fact that I'm not the only one having to fight a battle. I knew that there was so much worse out there.

I watched on the tv these brown starving eyes watch her mother wilt to her end from aids, shut away in the corner of some dilapidated shanty be unprepared to be an orphan. On another programming I saw a handful of children born with a disease which ages their little bodies beyond reason, four year olds plagued by arthritis, heart complications, strokes, and all ailments you only see at a very old age. With a more recent, local happening, that poor husband who watched as his house exploded with his wife and new baby. When I was younger I would notice but it seemed like it was happening in another universe, now I am able to understand the grave reality of it.

I think back on darker times in history, the holocaust, Mao's reign in China, the black death and so on. I know human suffering is not new. It breaks my heart to know of these things especially knowing that in all of these situations someone was there still pleaing for change with their nerves cut off. No matter how charged their will they couldn't save anyone. I've had a very different outlook lately.
In the end I am able to impart from these things but it is difficult to know that it is indeed there, while the rest of us go on like normal.

I'd do anything

I came to know
when
I locked my
hands around you
in protective circle
the thin bands of life
the tragedy of fragile.

then was knowing that even
if I had the will
of ages
still you could fall
still the Gods would laugh

at the walls of breath
at the shields of skin

and for pagan tries
at meaning.

to not remember

I managed to jump into a conversation the other day. I accidentally laughed out loud when a real estaste agent on the bus told the man across from him. An officer gave him a dui while riding a horse. He talked a bit about the court and the legal trouble. Whether it's true or not, it still has a lot of humor.

I talked a little to the old man who sat across from the real estate guy after he got off. This man was very eloquently spoken and cheerful. We talked a bit about busing and the driving population.

He mentioned an accident he was in and went on to the next thing. I stopped asked him a little about it. The details don't matter so much when you can't get them straight so I won't try to remember specifics and write them. On I 15, go figure, he got rearended by some guy going 80 or something. The car frame got all mangled, the drivers seat hit him in the back of the head. No one bothered to look for a body given the condition of the car and how it also looked empty. The tow truck man found him hours after it all. I really admired how this man could talk about it like he did, impartially summarized it all while treating it as real but without pity.

He said he lost a lot of memories. "It's just the little things that went missing, is all. There's just enough gone for me to notice." I think that's the only time he stopped from smiling.

I think I'm going to start a new notebook or something. Jot down every basic memory possible like empty road outside a window or a park from childhood. I can't imagine what it's like to lose large resources of memory. It's uniquely yours no one can ever restore it completely if something happens so that you lose some of it or time erases it. It's an idea at least.

" I want to have good news to report
everytime I come up for air"
- Ani DiFranco

blue and white

What is it with men and Ketchup? The bottled substance came up in conversation with my brother. He likes the stuff on cheetos. The connection seems clear - all the hard core ketchup fans have all been male. Next question- Does this statement make me sexist?

These weeks have been simple routine to wrap it all up. The biggest accomplishment : getting to the end of my game but haven't nuked the boss just yet. Wow, don't over do yourself there. Sheesh I really need to apply myself to something. How bout I jump on those plushies I've been talking about making?

I've had little to no ambition as far as the job hunt goes. I'm taking my time, the experience at sams was just too much.

I realized a little more the attitudes that I have ever since moving back in. I guess it doesn't help to be in an underparented atmosphere where whoever throws the biggest fit gets away with things. It makes me feel like theres not a whole lot I can do when a problem comes up simply because I'm not allowed to. I haven't been perfect, in fact I've just been getting worse, there are times when I am less than decent to my family, and its something that needs to end.

And more it bothers me that I haven't been asking myself how I can improve anymore and don't reach out as much. There are a few things I need to change.

One thing I do like is being up this late or early you choose to ask myself how I feel and what I think of things.

trails

Most things of this nature come to me in bleak and quiet hours of the morning. Night is when I think the most, which explains my staying up well past midnight. It's when there is more to be found on a subject that I go mad and spend hours tapping into it.

I love having the time to do this.

I feel a little like Galileo and his writing backwards to conceal his findings. My circumstance isn't so much life and death as his. The mode of questioning he was in and the rejections to that questioning state could be alike on a smaller level. All was done alone, and in silence. Everything that I found that I felt was valid was written down in an old math notebook.

There are fewer and fewer broken links from what I see. Still it's only beginning to connect. There is just so much you can mask under the banner of meaningful organization.

It's a start at least and definitely a better channel for all these unrelated current issues that rage on in my mind.

death to all computer liar thingys

I got stubborn with trying to install Diablo today. It says specifically that it is Mac compatible on the package but gets messier as you go along. I've been wild goose chasing all over the internet tonight. I am glad that my internet isn't down, I thought it was earlier.

So much for using the basic system requirements or above... I open the installer, and my computer tries to use a lite program called Classic. Classic is supposed to be used for OS version conflicts so you can still run the old programs they threw out. It all looks like they threw even the baby out with the bathwater after OS 9.

It's not set up properly, you have to have OS 9 handy to use Classic right. It notifies me when I click on the installer that there is no OS 9 system folder and asks for OS 9 to be installed. I went online to try and configure Classic and get an OS 9 reference for it. Couldn't find anything at apples website for the download. My $70 Apple support doesn't cover version conflicts. The forums say it's not even an extension, I have to download an installation copy of OS 9. Even better the link that it gives me to download is now expired. How consistent of you Apple, no really thank you.

I could get over it but then the mac read me says: " Diablo has a minimum requirement of System 7.5.5 or greater. Due to improvements in Apple’s System software, Diablo will perform best with System 7.6 and better. "


will perform best with System 7.6 and better..?!?!?!?!! Ahem? OSX 10.4.2 isn't going to be better?

Grrr...

I'm glad I looked at the Diablo mac support link again. I completely missed that it asked for users using Mac OSX need to email them specifically.

I'm going to get to the bottom of this, because if you say you're mac compatible, you'd better be mac compatible. What is frustrating is that Diablo II works and has a separate install for OSX. So Diablo II can work but not Diablo I? One comes before two! *sniffle sniffle*

yeah...

I had the weirdest dream about soul snaring circus leaders telling the newly dead to eat their old friends.... Moral of the story: don't go to the post office.

I miss the working the bakery already. It felt so good to work back there, keeping busy, in a lesser supervisored area. I loved doing something so straightforward and productive. Great for a temp position...Now I'm being shuffled off to the cafe, and so far haven't left the best impression as an employee.

My little sister and her friend are begging for the computer (PlleAssee!!! We need to talk to BOYS!).

Ha. I posted however simple.

do compare.

iMac G5:



Wii:



Now:







Logos anyone?