Disappointment abounds lately.  Did not like U2's new album.  Did not like most of Buck-Tick's new album.  Did not really like the ending to Battlestar Galactica (Deus ex machina?  LITERALLY!?  That's all the writers could come up with!?  Don't even get me started on the various issues with abandoning all technology and settling in to live in a parasite-infested Africa one hundred and fifty thousand years ago.)  Did not like the beginning play of P4 and set the game aside in favor of something not quite so slow-moving.

So it's time for another round of recommendations.  Books, music, movies, TV series, anything you can think of.  I'll listen to almost anything but sopranos (high notes = instant migraine of DOOM), death metal, and experimental discordant noise "music".  Music not in English is absolutely wonderful.  I tend to prefer sci-fi/fantasy or mystery books (ESPECIALLY things like Sherlock Holmes), but I do read biographies, history books and non-fiction science-related things from time to time.  As for movies, chick flicks, comedy and most serious dramas leave me bored out of my mind - I'll take things blowing up over girl-talk or slapstick humor any day.

In return, give me a genre, language (assuming I have a song that fits), letter of the alphabet, random word or something else that strikes your fancy and I will do my best to post a song somehow related.

I finally got off my lazy bum and started a Flickr account.  Now, since I'm stupid, I uploaded the newest stuff first.  This means the oldest stuff is what's actually displayed on the front page.  Ooops.  Ah well... the Crüxshadows fans on my friends-list should appreciate the snapshot of Rogue playing the violin.

The main reason I mention the Flickr account is because it's likely the only place I'll ever upload the few pictures I took while in Maui.  Well, except for the panorama - Flickr resized it to 1024 pixels wide and GREATLY diminished its impact.  That one I'll repost here.


This sucker was stitched together from eight different photos (from a pool of twenty photos, taken on a very windy evening with no freaking tripod to steady the camera).  I have since learned my lesson about attempting to stitch together photos with things like clouds and waves in them.  Frelling waves.  (Click the photo for the 3115x768 size.  I was a good girl and didn't upload the original 10125x2346 version - mostly because Cox doesn't give me that much webspace. =P)

I usually poke at CNN and/or BBC news in the morning to make sure nothing has blown up while I was sleeping.  I prefer BBC, but I usually don't have time to wade through all the politics and war stories before I head off to work.  CNN is light, stupid reading - avoid the celeb-stories and small-town-news "my dog saved my life!" crap, and you usually only have ten minutes worth of actual news to go through.

Today, one of their top stories is about a lady who lost 110 pounds and is once again feeling healthy and enjoying her life.  Well good for her!  And then I read the small print - she's 5'9" and now a size 4.  Comments to the story include one from another 5'9" person who lost weight and is now 110 pounds and wears a size 2.

I am 5'9".  The only time I weighed 110 pounds at that height, I looked like a poster child for anorexia.  Don't give me that bullshit about "big bones vs tiny frame" - I'm about as tiny as they come at this height.  5'9" and a size 2 means YOU ARE DANGEROUSLY UNDERWEIGHT.  Size 4 chick isn't doing much better.

Even though I am more attracted to thinner builds (wherein "thin" actually means "healthy weight and exercises occasionally"), this sort of bullshit makes me sick.  Now even our news sources are pressuring people to be ridiculously thin.

Fuck you CNN.  Fuck you.

One of my mother's former coworkers - a sparky older lady who reminds me strongly of my own grandmother - is in the process of cleaning and moving out of her house.  I was in search of wine glasses, she had plenty of wine glasses she wanted gone - match made in heaven!  After an hour I walked out with 20 glasses of various shapes and sizes, one cut crystal punch bowl and over a dozen bottles (most unopened) of various liquors and liqueurs.  Despite almost doubling the contents of my liquor cabinet, I'm STILL missing some of the more important bits.

Do any of you have preferences for:
- gin
- bourbon
- scotch or whiskey/whisky
- liqueurs and/or mixers

Also: favorite cocktails, mixed drinks or otherwise?

There is this bitter taste in the back of my mouth, a slow burning sensation in my chest.  My throat is tight and I find it hard to breathe.  But I'm not sick.  I am angry.  Infuriated.  Appalled and disgusted.  I feel tainted, dirty, VIOLATED.

You see, I have this thing where I try to be open-minded about religion.  Beliefs are sacred, and should not be used to judge.  There are not enough words to describe the rage I feel when someone dares to condemn another based on what he or she does or does not believe.

Let me get this straight.  I could devote my life to eradicating disease, give up every free moment to volunteer-work, donate every last dollar I could ever possibly earn to charity, and sacrifice my life for the greater good of humanity, but if I don't believe in and do it in the name of someone's chosen god, then my eternal soul is damned to endless lifetimes of misery and torment in an unimaginable hell?   That is NOT love, that is NOT respect.  That is a wanktastic desire for ego-stroking obviously created by Man and not by a loving God and I will NOT have it in my heart.  NO.

If that means I'm just as close-minded as the next religious freak, so be it.  Fuck you and get yourself the fuck out of my journal.