okay, so i have had a brilliant idea and i am basically on the brink of becoming a millionaire.
here's where it came from...
shannon and i went out to dinner at a mexican place we used to eat at all the time but then stopped going to. immediately upon finishing the meal, it became clear why we never eat there anymore...it makes shannon ill.
oops.
so i thought, 'sometimes you eat something and wish you hadn't a kinda want to take it back...'
and VOILA!
you guys....vomitoriums!
wait for it.
yeah! I KNOW!
so, here's my thinking, just spit-balling...
ladies are out for a bachelorette party.
they want to eat a giant steak dinner, with baked potatoes and bread and rolls and everything. YUM!
but they also want to go out dancing afterwards and no have to deal with post-meal sluggishness or bloated food bellies.
so, they come to my upchuckery!
they rent a group room.
they check in and trade their clothes for some robes and slippers. (no terry cloth. getting vomit out of terry cloth is a nightmare. i think.)
they waddle into a large tiled room, with showers and stalls and troughs and sinks.
they do their business.
they shower, if they feel so inclined.
they leave the room and head into the powder room, where complimentary water (cucumber, lemon, fruit, bubbly, flat, cold, warm...so many types!) is available. also saltines.
there are sinks where they can use toothbrushes (which we sell, and which come with free toothpaste and mouthwash!), wash their faces, reapply make-up, use some perfume from the perfume bar, and get ready to go out again.
maybe they want to lay down a solid layer in their tummies so they can drink a bunch!
we have a cafe that serves tummy friendly foods!
chamomile tea, papaya enzymes, chicken soup, grilled cheese, salads with mild dressings, ginger ale...
so they eat some, get gussied up and head back out, skinny and smelling better, but having enjoyed a lovely dinner!!
IT CAN'T FAIL!
so, that's one market.
maybe we have a ladies' night package.
obviously the bulimic are an option, but we can't count on them. they're not going to be our bread and butter. (get it?)
another market is drunk people.
either they want to keep drinking, or they're too drunk and want to start sobering up somewhere that isn't a bar bathroom. either way, we're there for them.
we'll have private rooms (NO SEX!!), semi-private rooms, and public rooms.
you check your clothes at the door, and they're returned to you, smelling better.
maybe we have sober up specials, where you can rent some of those capsule sleeping pods that they have in japan for a couple of hours to help sleep it off, and then we'll throw in a free breathalyzer before you leave. overnight parking, for a fee. free shuttle with certain packages? (just riffing.)
obviously we'll open our first branch in las vegas, because where else will there be so many stupid people doing stupid things they wish they could take back, right? from there, we'll see. i'm thinking...the marina? hollywood?
my only problem...a name.
ideas? the upchuckery isn't going to sell itself. we need something less barfy.
Showing posts with label FUNNY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FUNNY. Show all posts
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
the world, and what it's coming to.
* i know capital punishment is a little stiff and an eye for an eye and blahblablah. but still. shouldn't there be a more serious response to this stuff?
* at least there's SOME good news. we should have civil war there all the time! (just kidding, they already do.) what kind of a monster would kill a fucking gorilla, by the way?
this actually brings me to something i have been pondering lately. both of these stories do, really.
are there some things, some behaviors, that are so heinous that they are deal breakers and deserve execution? killing someone in the heat of the moment doesn't count, to me. i've done some pretty heinous things to inanimate objects in the heat of the moment, so i can't judge. plus, there are totally cases where i feel like someone kinda needed killing. dude's beating his kid to death...should the mom/other kid/neighbor call the cops and wait, or should they just hit the dude in the head with a shovel, or shoot him or something? duh. (well, to me, duh. maybe not to you.) if it's a life or death situation, defending yourself is okay, i say. serial killers, though...
so most serial killers are so fucked in the head that it's unlikely that they will ever be rehabilitated. so, maybe we should just kill them, right? if there's 100% solid evidence, not based on anything debunkable, aren't we all safer if they're just put down like rabid dogs? you don't blame a rabid dog for being rabid because it's not his fault, and i think the same thing about serial killers. it's not their fault, they're just too sick and dangerous to live. a friend referred to it as 'weeding the garden.' if you let the weeds take over, they'll do it. they're not bad, they're just doing what weeds do, but if you want your garden to be harmonious, you gotta get those opportunistic, serial killing weeds outta there. that makes sense to me, though is a more cosmetic metaphor than is really accurate.
what about child molesters? should they be executed? most of them have been molested themselves, and, much like alcoholism, molestation is a gift that keeps on giving a lot of the time. molestation seems like an impulse control problem. i really want an expensive purse, but i'm not going to take it because it's illegal and there are consequences that i'm not interested in accepting. i think about being single sometimes, but i don't act on it. when mykhail is driving me crazy, i day dream about a tranquilizer or ether soaked rag, but i'm not going to take those thoughts beyond idle pondering. IMPULSE CONTROL. we can't help what pops up in our heads a lot of the time. maybe you're a person who has some criminally disgusting stuff popping up in your head. that's maybe not your fault. but when you act on it, THAT is your fault.
(side note: are the people who come up with torture porn movies like 'saw' and stuff monsters? again, you can't necessarily help that some seriously unpleasant ideas pop into your head, but making a movie out of them and then making jillions of dollars by spewing that into the mainstream of culture? pretty monstrous, i think. i know there's a market for it, and if they're not making it someone else will and everything else. but still. *i* think those people are gross and are possibly contributing to the slow and steady slide of our culture into total depravity. i also question what is wrong with someone that they would find those movies enjoyable to watch. i know some totally-mostly-normal people who enjoy them, but i am still concerned. is your head okay? are you a sicko inside? because indulging that kinda stuff doesn't seem healthy to me.)
so, impluse control. i think that we need to have more room in our culture for people to be open about deviant thoughts, if only to encourage them to ask for help. i'd rather a person be going to therapy to address their pedophile thoughts that skulking around in shame, being lurky and having no support in resisting the urges. are there support groups for that? there should be. LET IT BE SO.
i think that finding sexually deviant things arousing would be pretty distressing. i am taking it as a given that people can't choose to be, gay, which some feel is deviant sexuality. if you are from a community that finds homosexuality deviant, the social pressure to NOT be gay is so strong that it's inconceivable to me that anyone would decide willingly to live a lifestyle that possibly alienates them from their friends and family. sorry, that makes no sense. so, i think the same thing applies to being a pedophile, though i am in NO WAY implying that they are equally deviant. AT ALL.
as a culture, we have an agreement that children are not sex objects. (though the child beauty pageant people are waffling on that agreement, i think.) other cultures in the history of humankind have not had the same agreement, but we, in the western modern world think that, say pre-pubescent kids are absolutely not to be sexualized. so imagine the horror with which someone would realize they were having such deeply taboo thoughts. this is not the sort of thing they would choose willingly. but there it is, in their heads. how frustrating for them, to be forever completely unable to act on such a strong impulse. like being a black slave who realizes he's not really attracted to black women and just wants to marry a white lady. totally not ever going to happen. not your fault, but let it go. the frustration. but, given the rules of the time and place we live in, you are just destined to have to live without forever.
up until this point, i can sympathize, in the sense that i can really imagine that would be very painful. you didn't ask for this, you don't want it, but it's in your head and it's not going away. tragic, really.
but if you DO act on it, either in pursuing the acquisition of child porn or being pervy in other ways that don't include actual molestation but do cross into actively indulging your desires, i say you're guilty and that's on YOU, not your messed up head.
so, in that case, should the person be allowed to have another chance to work on their impulse control? should they be allowed back into society? let's use the best case scenario and have a sex offender who is genuine remorseful and absolutely does not want to repeat their behavior. should they be allowed to struggle with their potentially deeply damaging urges, or should we, as society, just say, 'sorry, man, not worth the risk' and, like, chemically castrate them? or should we manually castrate them, just to be sure? the ACLU says chemical castration is cruel and unusual punishment, and while i tend to agree with them and am all for rights, i think i might have to beg to differ.
this sort of gets into another issue. obviously other cultures have very different ideas about what rights humans inherently have. in cultures where there is tremendous poverty and overpopulation, people seem to have a 'swim or sink' attitude about each other. human life is a lot less precious than it is here. i think we can afford to think that each human life is precious, because we're living our lives much further from death than the majority of the world. but it seems like in much of the rest of the world, people are seen as darn-near disposable.
"whatever, it's another orphaned toddler huffing a glue soaked rag in a doorway. pesky kids. i'm gonna throw a rock at them!"
as opposed to:
"holy mary mother of god, that toddler is filthy and starving and is possibly huffing glue! that child is in danger and needs to be taken care of NOW! I'M ON IT!"
it's easy for us, in wealthy nations, to judge the inhumanity of another culture's attitude towards their less fortunate. (though we shouldn't be too smug, considering the state of our inner cities, which are barely better than shanty towns.) but this idea that each person is a unique, magical being who deserves to be allowed to pursue its destiny in freedom is based on the assumption that people have the luxury of thinking about their destiny and their heart's desire, which is a HUGE assumption. most of human history is paved with millions of people who lived at subsistence level, at best, and died hard deaths. they lived hard, died hard, and no one knows who they are or who they were. even US history. industrial revolution. westward expansion. the eradication of the entire indigenous people's population. those weren't places or times where people were spending much time questioning their heart's desires. their heart's desire was to not die like a dog in the street and most of them didn't achieve even that meager goal.
so who says that we suddenly deserve this? i'm not saying we don't, i'm just asking WHY we think we do now? because it's a pretty unrealistic expectation. the idea that we all deserve true love, deeply fulfilling lives, total self-determination... those are ideas we are lucky to be able to expect. certainly religion makes the pill easier to swallow, with a 'do your best now, it'll all work out in the after-life/next-life' rationale for waiting out the crappy parts.
but this is all human logic applied to circumstance.
what is true is that some people will live satisfying, joyful lives. some of them will be rich and some of them will not be. a lot of people will live lives in which they feel powerless, hopeless, loveless. they may or may not get another chance to work it out. this might be their only shot at living.
so, by letting a dangerous person muddle along, doing their best, but maybe making mistakes that ruin other people's lives, are we saying that the destiny of that one person is more important than the destiny of all their potential victims? i mean, there's not guarantee that they will be repeat offenders, though recidivism among sex offenders is discouragingly high. is preemptively punishing them cruel, because it doesn't give them a chance to NOT do it, or is it smart because it doesn't give them a chance TO do it? i don't have an answer, i'm just wondering.
there was a scene in the last season of 'the wire' where some kids are pouring lighter fluid on a stray cat, obviously getting ready to do some gnarly fucked up stuff. let's not get into how upsetting it was that the writers and directors had this be in the scene, though it was deeply upsetting to me and shannon, and how unnecessary it was to include it, though i think it was totally unnecessary. let's just say it's a real thing that happens, since it is. what is wrong with a culture that raises kids that think that way? or that raises adults to see street gangs of orphaned kids as no better than stray dogs?
there is a famous ethnography called death without weeping. it addresses what i think is the central cause of these levels of cruelty, where people live such grindingly difficult lives, without any tenderness at all, that the softness is just seared out of them. even in shannon's town, i see some of it. if you and everyone you know has been raised by alcoholics and meth addicts and you had the crap beaten out of you by your parents and older siblings and everyone who was physically able to beat the crap out of you, and every dog you've ever known has spent its entire life on the end of a 5ft chain in someone's yard, all year round, it's not hard to imagine you'd end up a hard person. no one ever did anything kind for you, so where would you learn that kindness was even a thing that existed?
so, those monster kids who were getting ready to burn that cat, are they basically destined to be future criminal and monster adults, given that they have been allowed to develop that kind of mentality? can people change?
again, i don't know. i'm wondering myself.
* on a lighter note, is "greasy bear" the best/worst nickname ever, or what?
* at least there's SOME good news. we should have civil war there all the time! (just kidding, they already do.) what kind of a monster would kill a fucking gorilla, by the way?
this actually brings me to something i have been pondering lately. both of these stories do, really.
are there some things, some behaviors, that are so heinous that they are deal breakers and deserve execution? killing someone in the heat of the moment doesn't count, to me. i've done some pretty heinous things to inanimate objects in the heat of the moment, so i can't judge. plus, there are totally cases where i feel like someone kinda needed killing. dude's beating his kid to death...should the mom/other kid/neighbor call the cops and wait, or should they just hit the dude in the head with a shovel, or shoot him or something? duh. (well, to me, duh. maybe not to you.) if it's a life or death situation, defending yourself is okay, i say. serial killers, though...
so most serial killers are so fucked in the head that it's unlikely that they will ever be rehabilitated. so, maybe we should just kill them, right? if there's 100% solid evidence, not based on anything debunkable, aren't we all safer if they're just put down like rabid dogs? you don't blame a rabid dog for being rabid because it's not his fault, and i think the same thing about serial killers. it's not their fault, they're just too sick and dangerous to live. a friend referred to it as 'weeding the garden.' if you let the weeds take over, they'll do it. they're not bad, they're just doing what weeds do, but if you want your garden to be harmonious, you gotta get those opportunistic, serial killing weeds outta there. that makes sense to me, though is a more cosmetic metaphor than is really accurate.
what about child molesters? should they be executed? most of them have been molested themselves, and, much like alcoholism, molestation is a gift that keeps on giving a lot of the time. molestation seems like an impulse control problem. i really want an expensive purse, but i'm not going to take it because it's illegal and there are consequences that i'm not interested in accepting. i think about being single sometimes, but i don't act on it. when mykhail is driving me crazy, i day dream about a tranquilizer or ether soaked rag, but i'm not going to take those thoughts beyond idle pondering. IMPULSE CONTROL. we can't help what pops up in our heads a lot of the time. maybe you're a person who has some criminally disgusting stuff popping up in your head. that's maybe not your fault. but when you act on it, THAT is your fault.
(side note: are the people who come up with torture porn movies like 'saw' and stuff monsters? again, you can't necessarily help that some seriously unpleasant ideas pop into your head, but making a movie out of them and then making jillions of dollars by spewing that into the mainstream of culture? pretty monstrous, i think. i know there's a market for it, and if they're not making it someone else will and everything else. but still. *i* think those people are gross and are possibly contributing to the slow and steady slide of our culture into total depravity. i also question what is wrong with someone that they would find those movies enjoyable to watch. i know some totally-mostly-normal people who enjoy them, but i am still concerned. is your head okay? are you a sicko inside? because indulging that kinda stuff doesn't seem healthy to me.)
so, impluse control. i think that we need to have more room in our culture for people to be open about deviant thoughts, if only to encourage them to ask for help. i'd rather a person be going to therapy to address their pedophile thoughts that skulking around in shame, being lurky and having no support in resisting the urges. are there support groups for that? there should be. LET IT BE SO.
i think that finding sexually deviant things arousing would be pretty distressing. i am taking it as a given that people can't choose to be, gay, which some feel is deviant sexuality. if you are from a community that finds homosexuality deviant, the social pressure to NOT be gay is so strong that it's inconceivable to me that anyone would decide willingly to live a lifestyle that possibly alienates them from their friends and family. sorry, that makes no sense. so, i think the same thing applies to being a pedophile, though i am in NO WAY implying that they are equally deviant. AT ALL.
as a culture, we have an agreement that children are not sex objects. (though the child beauty pageant people are waffling on that agreement, i think.) other cultures in the history of humankind have not had the same agreement, but we, in the western modern world think that, say pre-pubescent kids are absolutely not to be sexualized. so imagine the horror with which someone would realize they were having such deeply taboo thoughts. this is not the sort of thing they would choose willingly. but there it is, in their heads. how frustrating for them, to be forever completely unable to act on such a strong impulse. like being a black slave who realizes he's not really attracted to black women and just wants to marry a white lady. totally not ever going to happen. not your fault, but let it go. the frustration. but, given the rules of the time and place we live in, you are just destined to have to live without forever.
up until this point, i can sympathize, in the sense that i can really imagine that would be very painful. you didn't ask for this, you don't want it, but it's in your head and it's not going away. tragic, really.
but if you DO act on it, either in pursuing the acquisition of child porn or being pervy in other ways that don't include actual molestation but do cross into actively indulging your desires, i say you're guilty and that's on YOU, not your messed up head.
so, in that case, should the person be allowed to have another chance to work on their impulse control? should they be allowed back into society? let's use the best case scenario and have a sex offender who is genuine remorseful and absolutely does not want to repeat their behavior. should they be allowed to struggle with their potentially deeply damaging urges, or should we, as society, just say, 'sorry, man, not worth the risk' and, like, chemically castrate them? or should we manually castrate them, just to be sure? the ACLU says chemical castration is cruel and unusual punishment, and while i tend to agree with them and am all for rights, i think i might have to beg to differ.
this sort of gets into another issue. obviously other cultures have very different ideas about what rights humans inherently have. in cultures where there is tremendous poverty and overpopulation, people seem to have a 'swim or sink' attitude about each other. human life is a lot less precious than it is here. i think we can afford to think that each human life is precious, because we're living our lives much further from death than the majority of the world. but it seems like in much of the rest of the world, people are seen as darn-near disposable.
"whatever, it's another orphaned toddler huffing a glue soaked rag in a doorway. pesky kids. i'm gonna throw a rock at them!"
as opposed to:
"holy mary mother of god, that toddler is filthy and starving and is possibly huffing glue! that child is in danger and needs to be taken care of NOW! I'M ON IT!"
it's easy for us, in wealthy nations, to judge the inhumanity of another culture's attitude towards their less fortunate. (though we shouldn't be too smug, considering the state of our inner cities, which are barely better than shanty towns.) but this idea that each person is a unique, magical being who deserves to be allowed to pursue its destiny in freedom is based on the assumption that people have the luxury of thinking about their destiny and their heart's desire, which is a HUGE assumption. most of human history is paved with millions of people who lived at subsistence level, at best, and died hard deaths. they lived hard, died hard, and no one knows who they are or who they were. even US history. industrial revolution. westward expansion. the eradication of the entire indigenous people's population. those weren't places or times where people were spending much time questioning their heart's desires. their heart's desire was to not die like a dog in the street and most of them didn't achieve even that meager goal.
so who says that we suddenly deserve this? i'm not saying we don't, i'm just asking WHY we think we do now? because it's a pretty unrealistic expectation. the idea that we all deserve true love, deeply fulfilling lives, total self-determination... those are ideas we are lucky to be able to expect. certainly religion makes the pill easier to swallow, with a 'do your best now, it'll all work out in the after-life/next-life' rationale for waiting out the crappy parts.
but this is all human logic applied to circumstance.
what is true is that some people will live satisfying, joyful lives. some of them will be rich and some of them will not be. a lot of people will live lives in which they feel powerless, hopeless, loveless. they may or may not get another chance to work it out. this might be their only shot at living.
so, by letting a dangerous person muddle along, doing their best, but maybe making mistakes that ruin other people's lives, are we saying that the destiny of that one person is more important than the destiny of all their potential victims? i mean, there's not guarantee that they will be repeat offenders, though recidivism among sex offenders is discouragingly high. is preemptively punishing them cruel, because it doesn't give them a chance to NOT do it, or is it smart because it doesn't give them a chance TO do it? i don't have an answer, i'm just wondering.
there was a scene in the last season of 'the wire' where some kids are pouring lighter fluid on a stray cat, obviously getting ready to do some gnarly fucked up stuff. let's not get into how upsetting it was that the writers and directors had this be in the scene, though it was deeply upsetting to me and shannon, and how unnecessary it was to include it, though i think it was totally unnecessary. let's just say it's a real thing that happens, since it is. what is wrong with a culture that raises kids that think that way? or that raises adults to see street gangs of orphaned kids as no better than stray dogs?
there is a famous ethnography called death without weeping. it addresses what i think is the central cause of these levels of cruelty, where people live such grindingly difficult lives, without any tenderness at all, that the softness is just seared out of them. even in shannon's town, i see some of it. if you and everyone you know has been raised by alcoholics and meth addicts and you had the crap beaten out of you by your parents and older siblings and everyone who was physically able to beat the crap out of you, and every dog you've ever known has spent its entire life on the end of a 5ft chain in someone's yard, all year round, it's not hard to imagine you'd end up a hard person. no one ever did anything kind for you, so where would you learn that kindness was even a thing that existed?
so, those monster kids who were getting ready to burn that cat, are they basically destined to be future criminal and monster adults, given that they have been allowed to develop that kind of mentality? can people change?
again, i don't know. i'm wondering myself.
* on a lighter note, is "greasy bear" the best/worst nickname ever, or what?
Friday, January 16, 2009
grab bag, miscellany.
this is our new doctor!
* um...ew. just...ew.
* my homeboy (in my head), gabe, at videogum, breaks it down about new reality show, bromance.
* i seriously, strangely, love me some posh spice, but this is just excessive.
* i dont get many chances to use my 'val kilmer' tag.
* i've been feeling so excited about obama lately, but i felt kinda sad for GWB and his final presidential address. being a lame duck must be a terrible feeling, after being the aggressive male duck of the walk for so long. don't get me wrong. hey, GWB, don't let the screen door hit you on the way out of office, 'kay? but still. i root for the underdog, even when the underdog totally destroyed the country and encouraged policies that dragged the entire world into financial catastrophe. he has feelers, too, guys! (i like the part in the second article, where he says, basically, "you might not agree with the tough decisions i made, but you can't say i didn't have the guts to make those really bad, horrifying decisions that everyone in the world thought were appalling." it's both funny and true, because (a) i don't agree with your decisions and (b) i can't deny you made those decisions.)
* it's so lame that someone as gross as this guy gets to have a bunch of money while people who work hard can't make it happen.
* i bought this for you for your birthday. or christmas. i can't decide which to use it for.
* um...ew. just...ew.
* my homeboy (in my head), gabe, at videogum, breaks it down about new reality show, bromance.
* i seriously, strangely, love me some posh spice, but this is just excessive.
* i dont get many chances to use my 'val kilmer' tag.
* i've been feeling so excited about obama lately, but i felt kinda sad for GWB and his final presidential address. being a lame duck must be a terrible feeling, after being the aggressive male duck of the walk for so long. don't get me wrong. hey, GWB, don't let the screen door hit you on the way out of office, 'kay? but still. i root for the underdog, even when the underdog totally destroyed the country and encouraged policies that dragged the entire world into financial catastrophe. he has feelers, too, guys! (i like the part in the second article, where he says, basically, "you might not agree with the tough decisions i made, but you can't say i didn't have the guts to make those really bad, horrifying decisions that everyone in the world thought were appalling." it's both funny and true, because (a) i don't agree with your decisions and (b) i can't deny you made those decisions.)
* it's so lame that someone as gross as this guy gets to have a bunch of money while people who work hard can't make it happen.
* i bought this for you for your birthday. or christmas. i can't decide which to use it for.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
ugh, i'm such a fan dork.
new gabe and max video, you guys!
i laughed so hard i felt like i was going to throw up.
this is HELLA my favorite one.
i posted all of them a little while ago (october 21 blog) so please feel free to watch them all, because they're pretty much all really good, but this one...
ohman, this one...
i laughed so hard i felt like i was going to throw up.
this is HELLA my favorite one.
i posted all of them a little while ago (october 21 blog) so please feel free to watch them all, because they're pretty much all really good, but this one...
ohman, this one...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
oh, the onion.
Cindy McCain Claims She�s �Just Like Any Other Female Human�
i'm not saying john mccain shouldn't win, i'm just saying that it's true that cindy mccain seems scary and maybe like an alien.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
grab bag.
* feeling sad for jennifer hudson
* feeling impressed with myself because my internet crush said my comment was the best one of the week. also deeply embarrassed to be so pleased with myself.
* found a hecka cute diaper bag. seems premature to buy it since we are not actively trying to make babies, but it was tempting. too early to buy it for zoe? diaper bags are too personal to buy for someone else. i have already begun imagining my possibly endless search for the Perfect Diaper Bag. i'm probably going to show up at my kid's wedding with it, having just finally found it.
* i would for reals like to live here. the website is full of information and links and stuff. i love it.
* i've been searching the internet for chord tableture for mom's autoharp. so far i haven't had much luck, though. since the autoharp has set chords, you can't use any chords other than what they offer you, so if the song you want to play has lots of minor chords in it you're pretty much screwed. so, no depeche mode. i've had the best luck with cat power songs. also some james brown and a saves the day song. should be an interesting repertoire.
* tried some new foods when i grocery shopped yesterday. here are my reviews:
- rice yogurt: completely disgusting. too sweet. too watery. really, really icky.
- cassava chips: super tasty. i got the bbq flavor but i'd like to try the sea salt ones.
* i've been fretting a little bit about the election and my concerns about how jacked up this election could get because of how big the turn out will be. i worked the primary and it was a nightmare, and that wasn't nearly as big a deal as this election is going to be. but mostly my fretting was idle, because working the last election sucked so bad, i didn't want to do it again. except a lady called me the other day to ask me to work a polling place that was down one person, so i said yes. again, the precinct captain has never been the captain before and isn't going to know what to do, which is exhausting. there is one other person who has worked the polls before, probably the guy named harvey, because it's mostly senior citizens who do it. it's nice to have some good old people ju-ju, but it was hard explaining the newer stuff to them last time...you know...like electricity. (i kid.) they give each polling place a palm pilot that we can use to find voter info, if we need to. the very cranky old lady i worked with last time was deeply suspicious of the palm pilot, resentful that they changed the system that she felt worked fine, and also dead set on us showing her how to use it, even though she wasn't ever going to get it and she totally didn't need to know because other people could have done that. is it patronizing to feel like it's not work her effort to master technology she will probably never use? possibly. so, i'm working the polls. at least i know now what i need to brush up on because the accounting at the end of the day is fucking HARD and our group messed it up a bunch because we didn't know what we were supposed to be doing. i'll go to the info session again this time to brush up and i'll stay the WHOLE time and then basically have to run the precinct, but that's fine. it'll be like a group project in college, where you just assume everyone else is lazy and stupid so you do it all yourself.
* a couple of weeks ago shannon vivisected my laptop. my optical drive was all messed up, so my man took lappy to work and removed the old one and put in a new one. he also stoked me with more storage (like, 10X more) and more RAM (like, so much more) AND gave me leopard! basically, my good old lappy came back a brand new computer! i have pretty much every application open that i can think of right now and you'd never know it because it's working FINE. awesome.
* bought some new lip gloss. the color combo i go was daredevil and sandpiper. the picture on the website really doesn't do it justice, though. the daredevil color is really a red-pink. very berry colored. and the gloss is a nice shiny nude, which takes the intensity of the red-pink down a bit. i'm lovin' it. also was given a free DELUXE sample of some other lip gloss that i am loving. i got a sample of this stuff a while ago and i liked the smell and taste and consistency, but it was clear with silver sparkles which isn't super useful. this new one is 'dolly' which is pretty much my lip color, but a smidgen more oomphy. i highly recommend this brand.
* been hitting the gym again. stoked on it. not gonna talk it up too much, just saying: i'm back, i'm happy, i'm sore from training.
* feeling impressed with myself because my internet crush said my comment was the best one of the week. also deeply embarrassed to be so pleased with myself.
* found a hecka cute diaper bag. seems premature to buy it since we are not actively trying to make babies, but it was tempting. too early to buy it for zoe? diaper bags are too personal to buy for someone else. i have already begun imagining my possibly endless search for the Perfect Diaper Bag. i'm probably going to show up at my kid's wedding with it, having just finally found it.
* i would for reals like to live here. the website is full of information and links and stuff. i love it.
* i've been searching the internet for chord tableture for mom's autoharp. so far i haven't had much luck, though. since the autoharp has set chords, you can't use any chords other than what they offer you, so if the song you want to play has lots of minor chords in it you're pretty much screwed. so, no depeche mode. i've had the best luck with cat power songs. also some james brown and a saves the day song. should be an interesting repertoire.
* tried some new foods when i grocery shopped yesterday. here are my reviews:
- rice yogurt: completely disgusting. too sweet. too watery. really, really icky.
- cassava chips: super tasty. i got the bbq flavor but i'd like to try the sea salt ones.
* i've been fretting a little bit about the election and my concerns about how jacked up this election could get because of how big the turn out will be. i worked the primary and it was a nightmare, and that wasn't nearly as big a deal as this election is going to be. but mostly my fretting was idle, because working the last election sucked so bad, i didn't want to do it again. except a lady called me the other day to ask me to work a polling place that was down one person, so i said yes.
* a couple of weeks ago shannon vivisected my laptop. my optical drive was all messed up, so my man took lappy to work and removed the old one and put in a new one. he also stoked me with more storage (like, 10X more) and more RAM (like, so much more) AND gave me leopard! basically, my good old lappy came back a brand new computer! i have pretty much every application open that i can think of right now and you'd never know it because it's working FINE. awesome.
* bought some new lip gloss. the color combo i go was daredevil and sandpiper. the picture on the website really doesn't do it justice, though. the daredevil color is really a red-pink. very berry colored. and the gloss is a nice shiny nude, which takes the intensity of the red-pink down a bit. i'm lovin' it. also was given a free DELUXE sample of some other lip gloss that i am loving. i got a sample of this stuff a while ago and i liked the smell and taste and consistency, but it was clear with silver sparkles which isn't super useful. this new one is 'dolly' which is pretty much my lip color, but a smidgen more oomphy. i highly recommend this brand.
* been hitting the gym again. stoked on it. not gonna talk it up too much, just saying: i'm back, i'm happy, i'm sore from training.
Monday, May 23, 2005
being a chick is silly.
Current mood: mellow
i got dressed up last night to go out for a friend's birthday in the city.
she's in a sketch comedy troupe (killing my lobster - funny!) and they performed at a comedy night at a.c.t., along with a few stand up comedians. the last comedian fucking sucked and i would have pelted him with trash if i could have. he seemed like a total ass-face. he looked vaguely familiar to me, and it turned out it was because he used to work on the morning show on channel 2 (whatever the local fox affiliate it.) he felt like that made him a celebrity, but he was mistaken. i couldn't care less about him.
(p.s. it's buggative when people say that they 'could care less' because, like misusing the word 'literally', when you use it wrong, you're actually saying exactly the opposite of what you're intending. david cross has a funny thingie about 'literally' and it's misuse. funny! anyway.)
we then went to some shitty bar up the street from the theatre. the bar was so fucking lame. so much so. the drinks were lame, the people were even lamer and there was a shitty blues-hammer-esque bar band that made me sad. also making me sad were a very drunk couple who slow danced/lambada-ed to most of the songs, and attempted to eat each other's faces and remove each other's clothing. it was heinous and depressing.
being a girl is so weird. i mean, i got dressed up, specifically to look 'hot' but i have a boyfriend who wasn't with me, so i am not on the hunt, so to speak. so, who the fuck am i dressing hot for? all the guys who i have no interest in humping? why bother? why don't i just wear my pajamas, then?
i accidentally made eye contact with some guy. filled with dread, i desperately looked to both sides of me to see if i could quickly join a conversation, but i wasn't fast enough and everyone was leaning away from me. basically, i was like a lamb to the slaughter. he zeroed in on me, circling, and then swooped. it was a bummer.
i am very careful to be friendly and polite, but i am not down with the pointless chatting with random bar guys.
i chatted with him for a few seconds and then, very politely and not-at-all snottily, i told him that i have a boyfriend and i am not really interested. i informed him that he was welcome to walk away, rather than invest time in something that won't bear dividends. being a bar guy takes some time and some energy investment, and i would think that it would be nice to be able to go try with someone else, rather than take time to 'get some' from me, when i know it's not going to happen.
so, whatever, i told him, in a non-jerky way. (seriously, i know that i can be.... caustic... from time to time, and i have been a total twat to hapless bar guys in past lives, but i was really nice and not laughy or teasey.) and, as sometimes happens with this approach, the guy, for some reason, feels like he can't admit that he was just coming over to hit on you, so he pretends that he just wants to chat. um... duh.
do i look retarded? because that is the stupidest, least truthful thing i have ever heard. yeah, because we're going to become good friends, weird bar guy, and you and me and my boyfriend are all going to hang out, right? yeah, no. dude, just walk away.
but no. 'oh, in my country, we don't just talk to people because we want to sleep with them. if we see someone in a pub who looks interesting we'll just talk to them.' (oh, he was from england.) anyway, again, i smell a rat, bar guy. i was under the impression that hitting on girls who dropped their 'don't talk to me' cloaking devices was pretty universal. maybe it's just an american thing... yeah, no.
i just wanted to push him away. dude, leave me alone. i don't care about you. i am sure you have lovely things in yourself, and some person will be very glad to find you, both as a friend and a boyfriend, but i am not that person. i don't really give a shit. please leave me alone.
so, he waited what he felt was an acceptable length of time to not look like a sleazy bar guy jerk, which he was anyway, and then slunk away. finally.
i know being a guy is tough, and being expected to 'cold call' chicks all the time must be really scary and annoying and tiring. i understand that.
being a girl is weird and tough, too, though. i mean, was i asking for it dressed like that? i think straight people need a rocker rag/bandana code language like our gay friends.
pink ribbon in my hair means i have a boyfriend and am just along for the ride.
blue ribbon means i'm a cheating-ass bitch, so bring it on.
white ribbon means i'm single and i like kittens.
yellow ribbon means i want you to pee on me.
or something. just some ideas.
that would make things so much easier for everyone involved.
Currently listening :
Arular
By M.I.A.
Release date: By 22 March, 2005
i got dressed up last night to go out for a friend's birthday in the city.
she's in a sketch comedy troupe (killing my lobster - funny!) and they performed at a comedy night at a.c.t., along with a few stand up comedians. the last comedian fucking sucked and i would have pelted him with trash if i could have. he seemed like a total ass-face. he looked vaguely familiar to me, and it turned out it was because he used to work on the morning show on channel 2 (whatever the local fox affiliate it.) he felt like that made him a celebrity, but he was mistaken. i couldn't care less about him.
(p.s. it's buggative when people say that they 'could care less' because, like misusing the word 'literally', when you use it wrong, you're actually saying exactly the opposite of what you're intending. david cross has a funny thingie about 'literally' and it's misuse. funny! anyway.)
we then went to some shitty bar up the street from the theatre. the bar was so fucking lame. so much so. the drinks were lame, the people were even lamer and there was a shitty blues-hammer-esque bar band that made me sad. also making me sad were a very drunk couple who slow danced/lambada-ed to most of the songs, and attempted to eat each other's faces and remove each other's clothing. it was heinous and depressing.
being a girl is so weird. i mean, i got dressed up, specifically to look 'hot' but i have a boyfriend who wasn't with me, so i am not on the hunt, so to speak. so, who the fuck am i dressing hot for? all the guys who i have no interest in humping? why bother? why don't i just wear my pajamas, then?
i accidentally made eye contact with some guy. filled with dread, i desperately looked to both sides of me to see if i could quickly join a conversation, but i wasn't fast enough and everyone was leaning away from me. basically, i was like a lamb to the slaughter. he zeroed in on me, circling, and then swooped. it was a bummer.
i am very careful to be friendly and polite, but i am not down with the pointless chatting with random bar guys.
i chatted with him for a few seconds and then, very politely and not-at-all snottily, i told him that i have a boyfriend and i am not really interested. i informed him that he was welcome to walk away, rather than invest time in something that won't bear dividends. being a bar guy takes some time and some energy investment, and i would think that it would be nice to be able to go try with someone else, rather than take time to 'get some' from me, when i know it's not going to happen.
so, whatever, i told him, in a non-jerky way. (seriously, i know that i can be.... caustic... from time to time, and i have been a total twat to hapless bar guys in past lives, but i was really nice and not laughy or teasey.) and, as sometimes happens with this approach, the guy, for some reason, feels like he can't admit that he was just coming over to hit on you, so he pretends that he just wants to chat. um... duh.
do i look retarded? because that is the stupidest, least truthful thing i have ever heard. yeah, because we're going to become good friends, weird bar guy, and you and me and my boyfriend are all going to hang out, right? yeah, no. dude, just walk away.
but no. 'oh, in my country, we don't just talk to people because we want to sleep with them. if we see someone in a pub who looks interesting we'll just talk to them.' (oh, he was from england.) anyway, again, i smell a rat, bar guy. i was under the impression that hitting on girls who dropped their 'don't talk to me' cloaking devices was pretty universal. maybe it's just an american thing... yeah, no.
i just wanted to push him away. dude, leave me alone. i don't care about you. i am sure you have lovely things in yourself, and some person will be very glad to find you, both as a friend and a boyfriend, but i am not that person. i don't really give a shit. please leave me alone.
so, he waited what he felt was an acceptable length of time to not look like a sleazy bar guy jerk, which he was anyway, and then slunk away. finally.
i know being a guy is tough, and being expected to 'cold call' chicks all the time must be really scary and annoying and tiring. i understand that.
being a girl is weird and tough, too, though. i mean, was i asking for it dressed like that? i think straight people need a rocker rag/bandana code language like our gay friends.
pink ribbon in my hair means i have a boyfriend and am just along for the ride.
blue ribbon means i'm a cheating-ass bitch, so bring it on.
white ribbon means i'm single and i like kittens.
yellow ribbon means i want you to pee on me.
or something. just some ideas.
that would make things so much easier for everyone involved.
Currently listening :
Arular
By M.I.A.
Release date: By 22 March, 2005
Saturday, May 14, 2005
ohmygod.
Current mood: annoyed
this is the email correspondence that has taken place within the last several days between me and my astronomy group, and, specifically, that crazy woman. there had been nothing but drama. please read it and comment. am i being a big jerk and not even realizing it? or, just comment on what a fucking nut she is.
hey helen!
here's the draft. i emailed david to see if he could answer some
planetary questions for me, and i still need to name it.
did the guy at your work get the drawings done? i want to make sure
that it gets done, and if i need to do it, i need some time.
thanks!
xoxok
"The creature, XXXXX, is the only known organism to live on the environmentally hostile planet of Venus. Through evolutionary ingenuity, a life-form has evolved that is perfectly suited to Venus and its rigors.
XXXXX has a long, rippling, ribbon-like body structure to facilitate movement in the lower atmosphere of the planet. Viewed from above, below or straight on, the is almost invisible, having almost no thickness to speak of. Only when viewed from the side can it be somewhat easily observed. From the side, one can observe the remarkable adaptations that are all in place, like it’s downward-facing gill-like breathing slits. With small recessed eyes and a large mouth filled with a baleen-like filtration form, the is not an attractive or cute creature by our standards. To protect itself from the high sulfuric acid content of the atmosphere, the has evolved a rubbery, leather-like skin, like a cross between rhinoceros and an eel, and a pronounced overhanging brow-protector, that acts as a “visor”, to direct the sulfuric acid rain it encounters over its face and down. Its lack of width also helps to protect it from that rain. The lives in the lower atmosphere of the planet, above the scorching temperatures of the surface, but below the upper cloud cover that rockets around the planet at a sped faster than the planet itself rotates.
XXXXX survives through a newly discovered process, called chemosynthesis. Similar in theory to the process used by the tiny organisms that inhabit deep sea vents, and, for now identically-named, the XXXXX is able to metabolize inorganic elements to create carbohydrates, and thus fuel itself. Also like many deep sea fishes, the tiny XXXXX has evolved specifically to survive the intense atmospheric pressure of Venus. With an air pressure of 90 atmospheres, the XXXXX survives in an atmosphere similar to that of deep sea fishes, aside from the acid and intense heat!
As the only organism on the planet, the has XXXXX no predators and are presumed to be solitary creatures. Very few specimens have been observed, and those mostly from afar, in grainy video sent from space crafts, however it has been proposed that the uses hermaphroditic reproduction. It impregnates itself and, after an unknown gestation period, gives birth to a live litter of hundreds of miniscule XXXXX. Because of the harshness of the environment and the lack of shelter, the vast majority of the baby XXXXXs perish before reaching maturity, but due to their reproductive abilities, which don’t require them to ever meet another creature like them their entire life cycle, the few that survive can live out their short lives in relative peace and freedom."
-kira
**************
This is from Helen, the crazy chick.
Kira,
Here is the text as well as the sketch of the creature. I haven't had a chance to integrate the photos and sketches into the body of the report yet. It takes a while to scale that stuff. I'll probably get that done tomorrow or Friday and will email it. I have a photo of the Venera 11 spacecraft with a couple of scientists examining it. I also made photos of a piece of glass that I have that looks like a windscreen. I put some fabric glue in a few places with some bits of thread to look like the splats. Turned out pretty good.
I also made a crude model out of vellum and red making tape eyes that we can attach to the poster board. The only problem is that it is very difficult to do a transparent model that looks good. Can we make it a color? That way I won't have to worry about the scotch tape and stuff.
Report text so far......
"Theoretical Life Forms presented by Kira Fisher, astrobiologist
Although life has not been observed directly, scientists have speculated that life forms are living within the thick atmosphere on Venus. This theory is based on previously unreleased evidence from the failed Russian probe, Venera 11, which also sent back data that reportedly prove the existence of lightning within the Venusian
atmosphere.
Earlier this month, the Russian scientists put on display a windscreen taken from the probe that had several centimeter-sized splats, very much like what a car windshield looks like after driving along I-5 through the central Valley in California during peak growing season.
The splats appear to show a long, ribbon-like creature with a near transparent outer shell, a long whip-like body, retractible eyestalks, and a primitive mouth and digestive system. The remaining undamaged pieces of the dead creatures were combined to form what the scientists believe a fully formed adult animal looks like. The Estonian biologists working with the Russian experts have released a description of an organism that spends its entire life cycle in the thick atmosphere. They speculate that it originally developed on the surface of the planet when water was abundant. As the greenhouse gasses accumulated and the trapped heat boiled off the available water
supply, the creature, dubbed Sulfoacidolobus venerisi, adapted. It did this by becoming smaller, thinner and less dependent on water for its survival. It developed a leathery coating that resembles chitin, a substance that is able to withstand a highly acid environment, similar to Earth's deep ocean inhabitants that live near thermal vents.
As the planet's surface continued to heat up through the runaway greenhouse effect, s. venerisi began to float up into the densifying atmosphere. It developed an ability for chemosynthesis, a process that manufactures carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using chemical nutrients as the energy source, rather than sunlight. It is
speculated that it metabolizes inorganic compounds in the atmosphere by oxidizing (removing electrons) from trace amounts of sulfur"
-helen
*************************
this is from me to her.
what is that the text of?
that isn't what i wrote, and the animal that you wrote about isn't really what i described. this makes me angry, helen. i am not prone to letting other people do my work for me, and i really don't like you doing my entire section for me. i have done my
own research, come to my own conclusions, developed my own ideas, and to have you send me back something that barely resembles with i have put a lot of time into makes me upset. i am not a stupid person and i don't need you to polish my ideas up, they're shiny enough.
i understand that you want to help, but this is my section and i'd like it if i wrote it. the text i sent you is my initial draft. it isn't a suggestion, it's what i wrote, and it isn't very far from what i intend to present to the class. i am not stoked about you changing it. the drawing that your co-worker did isn't what i envisioned and it isn't really what i described. i am not an ex-imagineer for disney, but i think that i will just draw my own creature. please thank your co-worker for me.
i don't say this to be rude, but i want to make sure that i am clear.
i appreciate all the work that you're putting into the project, because none of us could do this without you, but i would really like it if you let me do my own section, with minimal editorial input. i haven't edited the drafts you sent us, because i don't feel like it's my job or right, to change your section, and i'd really like it if you
could do the same with my section. i have already met with alice about what is required and i feel confident about the direction i am headed in.
again, i am not at all intending to be rude, or to show any lack of appreciation for the work you're doing, but i don't want to be represented in a group paper by work that i didn't do and that doesn't represent what i want. i also don't want to have to memorize someone else's ideas and talk about them in the presentation, because i like
my own ideas. i don't love the windshield idea and i don't want to get into the evolution or creation of the creature from the beginning of time, mostly because alice said that there was no need to go that far into it. please leave my section to the things that i wrote. if you think you'll have a problem getting a final version of the paper updated after friday, please email it to me and i'll do the final draft of the whole shebang and bring it. i understand that you're limited to work time on this, but i also hope you understand that up until two weeks ago, i was under the impression that i was doing culture, so i did all my research on that, and had to start from
scratch on the creature.
not to beat a dead horse, but i really don't want this to be construed as me being nasty to you, because that is not at all my intention. in writing things can come off as harsher, or even just different, than intended, you know? thanks for your creativity, but i'd just like my section to reflect my work.
thanks,
kira
**********************
this is from another girl in our group, in response to the email that the crazy lady sent to everyone but me.
Everybody,
I do not feel comfortable commenting on what to do about the creature because frankly, unless you need my help, this sounds like it is between Helen and Kira.
However, let's keep in touch about what we need for Sunday.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
david, aimie and elsie,
I just got this rant back from Kira. I took what she sent yesterday and started with the text of the creature section. I also took her description and interpreted it into a visual form from what she wrote. I do not think I did a bad job here and have put a great deal of time in on the written portion of the assignment.
What would the rest of you like to do at this point? I'm at a loss and given how close it is to the time when this gets turned in, I will not have much more time to devote to this. I have attached the sketch and Kira's original document. I think the creature comes pretty close.
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
hi everyone!
sorry about this confusion. me and helen will figure it all out.
xoxokira
**************
this is from me, to the crazy lady, in response to the crazy email she sent to everyone else.
helen,
i am a little confused why you sent that email to everyone else, and never replied to the email that i sent you.
what exactly are you needing input on from the rest of the group?
i think i was really clear about my communication, specifically that i really appreciate your help and all the work you've put into the project. i just would like the text that i wrote to be what is used in the project. i feel like that's a fair request.
i really didn't want to hurt your feelings, but it seems like i might have, though i would have appreciated it if you'd talked to me about it, rather than involving everyone *but* me.
does this request seem unfair or unclear to you? i'd like to be in communication with you about this, because i really didn't want there to be any weirdness between us, but now i feel confused, being forwarded an email exchange that was clearly not intended for me.
i'd like a response, helen. i have no beef with you, and i don't want there to be tension, to make us uncomfortable, or to make the rest ofthe group uncomfortable, though i think it might be too late for that.
thanks, kira
**************
this is obviously from the crazy woman.
Apparently there is no purpose to my meeting with you on Sunday. See you Monday in class
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
wow.
okay, well, i still plan on meeting everyone at aroma, to go over everything. i will have my images chosen then, though not on the transparencies. i think i am the one who is drawing the creature now, and that might not be done yet, either, but i'll bring smaller sketches to show everyone. did we agree on five images each, on
transparencies? that's what i am going with, so, unless anyone has any objections, how about we all do that, for our respective sections?
helen, does one of us need to print out the big version of that cool landmark-naming table that you found? i'll bring poster board, but i wasn't planning on printing that thingie out. should one of us, or are you going to do that?
so, we're doing three poster boards, one with my creature stuff on it, one with that table thing on it, and one with miscellaneous pictures of venus on it. would someone else be willing to bring some big color pictures of a few views of venus? i am thinking one of the pictures of the rocky surface taken on the shuttle landings, a couple different ones from space, and.... something else?
xoxok
****************
this is from that same other chick in the group, again, in response to another crazy email sent by the crazy woman to everyone but me.
Okay, I am really confused about how this suddenly escalated into Helen leaving the group. I understand that there were some creative differences regarding the creature, however, what about the project as a whole? I will appreciate any thoughts from the group.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
I'm sorry Dave, but I will be doing only my section from now on. I intend to bring my own visuals to class and have expanded the naming section of my own report to include a number of features on Venus to fill my 2 minutes. I will be turning in the paper as my own work product and have removed all other names.
After Kira's vituperative email and her childish and unprofessional attitude, I have decided to withdraw from the group and intend to send a email today to our instructor stating my reasons for doing so. I also plan to email Alice my version of the report that I have worked so hard on and will turn that in as my own project. Since Kira stated that she had spoken to Alice about it, I feel it is my only remaining option. Go back and reread the forwarded email. I believe she offered to do the final version of the report. Just be sure that she does not plagiarize mine. It will probably get you marked down, as the report will be turned in today as mine.
I don't know what effect this will have on the presentation, but my guess is that it will be very little since I was not doing one of the vital sections that was included in the original instruction, those being the physical aspects of the planet, probes and a theoretical creature.
If Kira had actually provided her work in a timely fashion and if we had more time to work out the differences, there would have been a different outcome. If she had looked at what she provided by the stated deadline, perhaps she could have realized that she was not clear in her description. For one thing, the link that was provided did not
at all resemble her own words. I decided to go with her typed words describing a 'long, skinny, whip-like body....almost transparent...long ribbon-like shape...small eyes facing outward'. Her response to that effort was condescending, untruthful, narcissistic, and temperamental.
For future reference, you may find the following link regarding working in groups useful. It is too bad that we were given the group project at such a late date. I had a feeling that this would happen when Kira demanded to see everyone's work before she would release any of her own. My suspicion is that it was simply a cover-up for not having done the assignment.
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/student/responsibility.html..unproductive
Helen
On May 12, 2005, at 10:20 PM, David Benson wrote:
> Helen,
>
> So if we don't meet Sunday I was just wondering what we are doing
> about the visuals
> do I need to make some sort of poster with physical information on it
> or do we have enough visuals already.
>
> - Dave
***************
this is from me to everyone else.
i am a little bit in shock.
obviously my interpretation of what happened is different from helen's. i am not used to this sort of interaction, so i am at a loss to explain how things escalated to this point.
from my perspective, i sent helen an email asking if the text in the report could be the text that i sent her. i was very careful to repeat several times that i really appreciated all the work she was putting into the project and thanked her, but i asked if the section on the creature could stick to the things that i had written. i referenced a conversation that i had with alice about how in-depth my creature profile needed to be. i was concerned about my limited knowledge about biology, so i checked in with alice about her expectations. she said that keeping it to the basics was totally fine, i.e. what it eats, what it looks like and why, where it lives, the very basics.
in the email that i sent to helen, i told her that if time was a problem, she could email me the draft of the paper and i could add my stuff in myself.
i don't know anything about anything else.
i feel like i have done everything in my power to keep this from getting messy. i sent an email to helen asking that we communicate about this privately and apologized if i had hurt her feelings or offended her.
i have received no response, except what she has sent to you guys and that aimie has sent to me.
i dunno, guys. i haven't done anything that, in my opinion, warrants this kind of response. i would be more than happy to forward on the email i sent helen. maybe you guys feel that it was out of line? i am not the sort of person who just says mean, hurtful, careless, angry things, so i find it hard to accept the responsibility for this fiasco.
i certainly sent an email to helen, but it wasn't one i feel i was crossing any moral or ethical lines by sending...
helen, i am sorry that you feel that way. i haven't ever had a problem like this with anyone i have ever met, but if i have behaved poorlyand i am unaware of it, i am sincerely sorry.
rest of the group, what the fuck are we going to do?
-kira
***************************
um..... what the fuck is going on? am *i* the one who is crazy? i feel like it's her, but this drama is SUCH a bummer and i am really pissed that she is taking it out on everyone in the group now. vituperative?!
people, read this, and tell me if i am missing something, please.
this is the email correspondence that has taken place within the last several days between me and my astronomy group, and, specifically, that crazy woman. there had been nothing but drama. please read it and comment. am i being a big jerk and not even realizing it? or, just comment on what a fucking nut she is.
hey helen!
here's the draft. i emailed david to see if he could answer some
planetary questions for me, and i still need to name it.
did the guy at your work get the drawings done? i want to make sure
that it gets done, and if i need to do it, i need some time.
thanks!
xoxok
"The creature, XXXXX, is the only known organism to live on the environmentally hostile planet of Venus. Through evolutionary ingenuity, a life-form has evolved that is perfectly suited to Venus and its rigors.
XXXXX has a long, rippling, ribbon-like body structure to facilitate movement in the lower atmosphere of the planet. Viewed from above, below or straight on, the is almost invisible, having almost no thickness to speak of. Only when viewed from the side can it be somewhat easily observed. From the side, one can observe the remarkable adaptations that are all in place, like it’s downward-facing gill-like breathing slits. With small recessed eyes and a large mouth filled with a baleen-like filtration form, the is not an attractive or cute creature by our standards. To protect itself from the high sulfuric acid content of the atmosphere, the has evolved a rubbery, leather-like skin, like a cross between rhinoceros and an eel, and a pronounced overhanging brow-protector, that acts as a “visor”, to direct the sulfuric acid rain it encounters over its face and down. Its lack of width also helps to protect it from that rain. The lives in the lower atmosphere of the planet, above the scorching temperatures of the surface, but below the upper cloud cover that rockets around the planet at a sped faster than the planet itself rotates.
XXXXX survives through a newly discovered process, called chemosynthesis. Similar in theory to the process used by the tiny organisms that inhabit deep sea vents, and, for now identically-named, the XXXXX is able to metabolize inorganic elements to create carbohydrates, and thus fuel itself. Also like many deep sea fishes, the tiny XXXXX has evolved specifically to survive the intense atmospheric pressure of Venus. With an air pressure of 90 atmospheres, the XXXXX survives in an atmosphere similar to that of deep sea fishes, aside from the acid and intense heat!
As the only organism on the planet, the has XXXXX no predators and are presumed to be solitary creatures. Very few specimens have been observed, and those mostly from afar, in grainy video sent from space crafts, however it has been proposed that the uses hermaphroditic reproduction. It impregnates itself and, after an unknown gestation period, gives birth to a live litter of hundreds of miniscule XXXXX. Because of the harshness of the environment and the lack of shelter, the vast majority of the baby XXXXXs perish before reaching maturity, but due to their reproductive abilities, which don’t require them to ever meet another creature like them their entire life cycle, the few that survive can live out their short lives in relative peace and freedom."
-kira
**************
This is from Helen, the crazy chick.
Kira,
Here is the text as well as the sketch of the creature. I haven't had a chance to integrate the photos and sketches into the body of the report yet. It takes a while to scale that stuff. I'll probably get that done tomorrow or Friday and will email it. I have a photo of the Venera 11 spacecraft with a couple of scientists examining it. I also made photos of a piece of glass that I have that looks like a windscreen. I put some fabric glue in a few places with some bits of thread to look like the splats. Turned out pretty good.
I also made a crude model out of vellum and red making tape eyes that we can attach to the poster board. The only problem is that it is very difficult to do a transparent model that looks good. Can we make it a color? That way I won't have to worry about the scotch tape and stuff.
Report text so far......
"Theoretical Life Forms presented by Kira Fisher, astrobiologist
Although life has not been observed directly, scientists have speculated that life forms are living within the thick atmosphere on Venus. This theory is based on previously unreleased evidence from the failed Russian probe, Venera 11, which also sent back data that reportedly prove the existence of lightning within the Venusian
atmosphere.
Earlier this month, the Russian scientists put on display a windscreen taken from the probe that had several centimeter-sized splats, very much like what a car windshield looks like after driving along I-5 through the central Valley in California during peak growing season.
The splats appear to show a long, ribbon-like creature with a near transparent outer shell, a long whip-like body, retractible eyestalks, and a primitive mouth and digestive system. The remaining undamaged pieces of the dead creatures were combined to form what the scientists believe a fully formed adult animal looks like. The Estonian biologists working with the Russian experts have released a description of an organism that spends its entire life cycle in the thick atmosphere. They speculate that it originally developed on the surface of the planet when water was abundant. As the greenhouse gasses accumulated and the trapped heat boiled off the available water
supply, the creature, dubbed Sulfoacidolobus venerisi, adapted. It did this by becoming smaller, thinner and less dependent on water for its survival. It developed a leathery coating that resembles chitin, a substance that is able to withstand a highly acid environment, similar to Earth's deep ocean inhabitants that live near thermal vents.
As the planet's surface continued to heat up through the runaway greenhouse effect, s. venerisi began to float up into the densifying atmosphere. It developed an ability for chemosynthesis, a process that manufactures carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using chemical nutrients as the energy source, rather than sunlight. It is
speculated that it metabolizes inorganic compounds in the atmosphere by oxidizing (removing electrons) from trace amounts of sulfur"
-helen
*************************
this is from me to her.
what is that the text of?
that isn't what i wrote, and the animal that you wrote about isn't really what i described. this makes me angry, helen. i am not prone to letting other people do my work for me, and i really don't like you doing my entire section for me. i have done my
own research, come to my own conclusions, developed my own ideas, and to have you send me back something that barely resembles with i have put a lot of time into makes me upset. i am not a stupid person and i don't need you to polish my ideas up, they're shiny enough.
i understand that you want to help, but this is my section and i'd like it if i wrote it. the text i sent you is my initial draft. it isn't a suggestion, it's what i wrote, and it isn't very far from what i intend to present to the class. i am not stoked about you changing it. the drawing that your co-worker did isn't what i envisioned and it isn't really what i described. i am not an ex-imagineer for disney, but i think that i will just draw my own creature. please thank your co-worker for me.
i don't say this to be rude, but i want to make sure that i am clear.
i appreciate all the work that you're putting into the project, because none of us could do this without you, but i would really like it if you let me do my own section, with minimal editorial input. i haven't edited the drafts you sent us, because i don't feel like it's my job or right, to change your section, and i'd really like it if you
could do the same with my section. i have already met with alice about what is required and i feel confident about the direction i am headed in.
again, i am not at all intending to be rude, or to show any lack of appreciation for the work you're doing, but i don't want to be represented in a group paper by work that i didn't do and that doesn't represent what i want. i also don't want to have to memorize someone else's ideas and talk about them in the presentation, because i like
my own ideas. i don't love the windshield idea and i don't want to get into the evolution or creation of the creature from the beginning of time, mostly because alice said that there was no need to go that far into it. please leave my section to the things that i wrote. if you think you'll have a problem getting a final version of the paper updated after friday, please email it to me and i'll do the final draft of the whole shebang and bring it. i understand that you're limited to work time on this, but i also hope you understand that up until two weeks ago, i was under the impression that i was doing culture, so i did all my research on that, and had to start from
scratch on the creature.
not to beat a dead horse, but i really don't want this to be construed as me being nasty to you, because that is not at all my intention. in writing things can come off as harsher, or even just different, than intended, you know? thanks for your creativity, but i'd just like my section to reflect my work.
thanks,
kira
**********************
this is from another girl in our group, in response to the email that the crazy lady sent to everyone but me.
Everybody,
I do not feel comfortable commenting on what to do about the creature because frankly, unless you need my help, this sounds like it is between Helen and Kira.
However, let's keep in touch about what we need for Sunday.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
david, aimie and elsie,
I just got this rant back from Kira. I took what she sent yesterday and started with the text of the creature section. I also took her description and interpreted it into a visual form from what she wrote. I do not think I did a bad job here and have put a great deal of time in on the written portion of the assignment.
What would the rest of you like to do at this point? I'm at a loss and given how close it is to the time when this gets turned in, I will not have much more time to devote to this. I have attached the sketch and Kira's original document. I think the creature comes pretty close.
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
hi everyone!
sorry about this confusion. me and helen will figure it all out.
xoxokira
**************
this is from me, to the crazy lady, in response to the crazy email she sent to everyone else.
helen,
i am a little confused why you sent that email to everyone else, and never replied to the email that i sent you.
what exactly are you needing input on from the rest of the group?
i think i was really clear about my communication, specifically that i really appreciate your help and all the work you've put into the project. i just would like the text that i wrote to be what is used in the project. i feel like that's a fair request.
i really didn't want to hurt your feelings, but it seems like i might have, though i would have appreciated it if you'd talked to me about it, rather than involving everyone *but* me.
does this request seem unfair or unclear to you? i'd like to be in communication with you about this, because i really didn't want there to be any weirdness between us, but now i feel confused, being forwarded an email exchange that was clearly not intended for me.
i'd like a response, helen. i have no beef with you, and i don't want there to be tension, to make us uncomfortable, or to make the rest ofthe group uncomfortable, though i think it might be too late for that.
thanks, kira
**************
this is obviously from the crazy woman.
Apparently there is no purpose to my meeting with you on Sunday. See you Monday in class
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
wow.
okay, well, i still plan on meeting everyone at aroma, to go over everything. i will have my images chosen then, though not on the transparencies. i think i am the one who is drawing the creature now, and that might not be done yet, either, but i'll bring smaller sketches to show everyone. did we agree on five images each, on
transparencies? that's what i am going with, so, unless anyone has any objections, how about we all do that, for our respective sections?
helen, does one of us need to print out the big version of that cool landmark-naming table that you found? i'll bring poster board, but i wasn't planning on printing that thingie out. should one of us, or are you going to do that?
so, we're doing three poster boards, one with my creature stuff on it, one with that table thing on it, and one with miscellaneous pictures of venus on it. would someone else be willing to bring some big color pictures of a few views of venus? i am thinking one of the pictures of the rocky surface taken on the shuttle landings, a couple different ones from space, and.... something else?
xoxok
****************
this is from that same other chick in the group, again, in response to another crazy email sent by the crazy woman to everyone but me.
Okay, I am really confused about how this suddenly escalated into Helen leaving the group. I understand that there were some creative differences regarding the creature, however, what about the project as a whole? I will appreciate any thoughts from the group.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
I'm sorry Dave, but I will be doing only my section from now on. I intend to bring my own visuals to class and have expanded the naming section of my own report to include a number of features on Venus to fill my 2 minutes. I will be turning in the paper as my own work product and have removed all other names.
After Kira's vituperative email and her childish and unprofessional attitude, I have decided to withdraw from the group and intend to send a email today to our instructor stating my reasons for doing so. I also plan to email Alice my version of the report that I have worked so hard on and will turn that in as my own project. Since Kira stated that she had spoken to Alice about it, I feel it is my only remaining option. Go back and reread the forwarded email. I believe she offered to do the final version of the report. Just be sure that she does not plagiarize mine. It will probably get you marked down, as the report will be turned in today as mine.
I don't know what effect this will have on the presentation, but my guess is that it will be very little since I was not doing one of the vital sections that was included in the original instruction, those being the physical aspects of the planet, probes and a theoretical creature.
If Kira had actually provided her work in a timely fashion and if we had more time to work out the differences, there would have been a different outcome. If she had looked at what she provided by the stated deadline, perhaps she could have realized that she was not clear in her description. For one thing, the link that was provided did not
at all resemble her own words. I decided to go with her typed words describing a 'long, skinny, whip-like body....almost transparent...long ribbon-like shape...small eyes facing outward'. Her response to that effort was condescending, untruthful, narcissistic, and temperamental.
For future reference, you may find the following link regarding working in groups useful. It is too bad that we were given the group project at such a late date. I had a feeling that this would happen when Kira demanded to see everyone's work before she would release any of her own. My suspicion is that it was simply a cover-up for not having done the assignment.
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/student/responsibility.html..unproductive
Helen
On May 12, 2005, at 10:20 PM, David Benson wrote:
> Helen,
>
> So if we don't meet Sunday I was just wondering what we are doing
> about the visuals
> do I need to make some sort of poster with physical information on it
> or do we have enough visuals already.
>
> - Dave
***************
this is from me to everyone else.
i am a little bit in shock.
obviously my interpretation of what happened is different from helen's. i am not used to this sort of interaction, so i am at a loss to explain how things escalated to this point.
from my perspective, i sent helen an email asking if the text in the report could be the text that i sent her. i was very careful to repeat several times that i really appreciated all the work she was putting into the project and thanked her, but i asked if the section on the creature could stick to the things that i had written. i referenced a conversation that i had with alice about how in-depth my creature profile needed to be. i was concerned about my limited knowledge about biology, so i checked in with alice about her expectations. she said that keeping it to the basics was totally fine, i.e. what it eats, what it looks like and why, where it lives, the very basics.
in the email that i sent to helen, i told her that if time was a problem, she could email me the draft of the paper and i could add my stuff in myself.
i don't know anything about anything else.
i feel like i have done everything in my power to keep this from getting messy. i sent an email to helen asking that we communicate about this privately and apologized if i had hurt her feelings or offended her.
i have received no response, except what she has sent to you guys and that aimie has sent to me.
i dunno, guys. i haven't done anything that, in my opinion, warrants this kind of response. i would be more than happy to forward on the email i sent helen. maybe you guys feel that it was out of line? i am not the sort of person who just says mean, hurtful, careless, angry things, so i find it hard to accept the responsibility for this fiasco.
i certainly sent an email to helen, but it wasn't one i feel i was crossing any moral or ethical lines by sending...
helen, i am sorry that you feel that way. i haven't ever had a problem like this with anyone i have ever met, but if i have behaved poorlyand i am unaware of it, i am sincerely sorry.
rest of the group, what the fuck are we going to do?
-kira
***************************
um..... what the fuck is going on? am *i* the one who is crazy? i feel like it's her, but this drama is SUCH a bummer and i am really pissed that she is taking it out on everyone in the group now. vituperative?!
people, read this, and tell me if i am missing something, please.
Friday, May 6, 2005
mercy killing.
Current mood: homicidal/suicidal
someone come to 680 8th street, ste. 240 and either kill me, or the woman in the showroom next door. if i have to listen to alice (the radio station) for another entire day, i'm going to fucking lose my shit.
i hummed along to evanescence accidentally 5 minutes ago, people. it's getting critical
someone come to 680 8th street, ste. 240 and either kill me, or the woman in the showroom next door. if i have to listen to alice (the radio station) for another entire day, i'm going to fucking lose my shit.
i hummed along to evanescence accidentally 5 minutes ago, people. it's getting critical
Friday, February 4, 2005
slasher!
whoa! i just had a little episode from a teen horror film!
i was taking a shower, singing wham! at the top of my lungs, because no one is home, and i hear this weird thudding noise. so, i cut off my singing and am straining to hear outside. there's what sounds like footsteps in the hallway and what i think is the sliding door to the bathroom opening. i ask, in a quavering voice, "he-hello?" silence. there is, over the next 30ish seconds, a whole bunch of mysterious noises (scrabbling, thudding, swishing... you know. mysterious and onomatopoetic...) i start thinking, "um... what if i didn't close the front door securely? anyone could just push the door open. i am crazy vulnerable, naked in the shower and such... holy crap..." but nothing happens. so, to fortify myself, i move along to the next song on the wham! album, and re-double my singing.
i'm dressed now, so, obviously no one was in the house to kill me, because what kind of a psycho killer would wait til i was dressed to kill me, right? everyone knows that much.
it was still pretty weird, though.
Current mood: refreshed
Currently listening: Make It Big By Wham!
i was taking a shower, singing wham! at the top of my lungs, because no one is home, and i hear this weird thudding noise. so, i cut off my singing and am straining to hear outside. there's what sounds like footsteps in the hallway and what i think is the sliding door to the bathroom opening. i ask, in a quavering voice, "he-hello?" silence. there is, over the next 30ish seconds, a whole bunch of mysterious noises (scrabbling, thudding, swishing... you know. mysterious and onomatopoetic...) i start thinking, "um... what if i didn't close the front door securely? anyone could just push the door open. i am crazy vulnerable, naked in the shower and such... holy crap..." but nothing happens. so, to fortify myself, i move along to the next song on the wham! album, and re-double my singing.
i'm dressed now, so, obviously no one was in the house to kill me, because what kind of a psycho killer would wait til i was dressed to kill me, right? everyone knows that much.
it was still pretty weird, though.
Current mood: refreshed
Currently listening: Make It Big By Wham!
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
My dream neighborhood.
I'd live on the end of a cul-de-sac. My neighbors on the sac would be: Bill Murray, Anthony Hopkins, David Cross, Steve Martin, Ian McKellan, Drew Barrymore, Pam Anderson and Paul Reubens. We'd have BBQs every Sunday, and every year we'd have a big neighborhood yard sale.
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