Genius guys. Just genius. Some whackos in this insanely liberal town headed the amendment to remove gender identity or sexual orientation from the city of Gainesville's anti-discrimination policy. Apparently, Florida's Civil Rights Act already removed gender identity and sexual orientation, which pretty much makes it lawful in Florida to discriminate against gay people. There are enough signatures in Gainesville, of all places, to try and get the city to follow the state in this.

What the fuck. Did we just take a massive step backwards or what?

( more money than politics )

tl;dr: Bottom line, I think the CEOs of these banks and insurance companies should be fined and made to pay out of pocket to help fix the problems they caused in our financial systems.

Long time no see, bento!

We won't go into detail about the length of time during which I had no really interesting food for bento, or the period time in which I was only taking pringles with me to work, and just concentrate on the pretty pictures, shall we?

( Read more... )

I'm insane to be up this early on my day off, but I didn't stay up late last night, so I can't justify sleeping in. I guess it's just my bane to do all my journaling at 5 in the morning.

( politics - less about the election, more about education )

It's said that every one remembers where they were and what they were doing when the airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers.

I have a confession to make. I don't remember.

I'm lucky enough to have created this journal sometime in the summer of 2001. I did write an entry back on September 11th, 2001, that summarized my thoughts at the time. (I long ago private locked my old high school entries; they're not accessible.) I could go back and read it if I wanted, to refresh my memory. But I don't. Primarily because 2001 was not a good year for me; at seventeen I was not who I am now, at twenty-four. I was not a good person at that time.

I did not have anything good or bad to say; I honestly did not care. I had no feelings of horror, I did not cry, I did not feel anger. I do recall at some point one of my friends told me that a plane had been crashed into the Pentagon in New York, which of course I scoffed at; the Pentagon isn't in New York, dumbass. And later on, in... Economics? The teacher had CNN playing the whole class period, where they repeated the film of the airplanes crashing and eventually displayed the towers crumble. The only thoughts I recall was that I was irritated at the news and wished he would turn it off - it was distracting me with annoying sound to keep me from studying and doing my work.

It's a bit shaming to know how I thought then, compared to how I think now, though at the same time I should be proud at how much I've changed myself, whether deliberately or not. I grew up, and have the sense to see now what I didn't see then. I can't go back and be a more mature person, but 2001 was both a bad year and an important year, as that year marked all the worse mistakes I ever made, as well as the point where I realized (however subconsciously) what path I was going down and where I would end up if I didn't step off of it.

What's worse is that I do believe that many people had the same reaction as I did back then - that for every person who stood in line to donate blood, there was someone else rolling their eyes and complaining bitterly about how all this stupid news coverage was getting in the way of their football. That for every person to donated money, time, or effort, someone else was celebrating in the streets when the towers came down. (I do recall THAT particular story circulating about.) That the world is not made of goodness and light, and that these are the real people who are dangerous: not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not the crazy religious whackos, because these people all care in their own ways (even if we don't agree with those ways). The people who truly are dangerous are the people who don't care and who delight in the misery of others. Like I often did, when I was seventeen years old.

It's a rather sobering thought.

I realize that the politics has gotten insanely disgusting lately, as it does every election, with people's need to cut other people down with the righteous 'I'm right you're wrong' deal. I also realize that a great number of my friends use the internet and their flist as a means to be able to express their own less conservative ideas and to get away from the oppressiveness of their parents/family, who are (at least in description) conservative whackos who fall into the righteous 'I'm right you're wrong' category of asshole. Because of this, any political things I have to say I'm going to keep behind a cut, to save those who are sick and tired of the whole deal and also to save my more liberal friends from having to listen to my more conservative ramblings, if such ramblings come up. I personally hope to keep to facts, rather than opinions, but it's impossible to completely cut bias out of everything. Still, I'll try. And it's not like you have to read if you don't want to. :P

( cut for those who aren't interested )

me: Have you see the score for UF vs Hawaii?
Man, we kicked /ass/

Mina: I saw when they got to 42/0
what was the final
?

me: 56/10

Mina: OUCH.
XD

me: yeah. XD
it's not like it's too cold for them, or too high above sea level

Mina: Yeah

me: we even made it rain for them, about the whole time the game was playing!
they must just suck >>

Mina: XD

So I'm about 20 hours into Kingdom Hearts 2, and I want to write a review about the things I like (Tron, the reaction commands, Roxas) and the things I hate (Port Royal and Atlantica, the new way the camera is controlled, wtf Maleficent), but right now there's really only one thing I can coherently comment on:

CLOUD/LEON <3333333333333333333




That is all.

A meme that's right up my alley!

( the omnivore's 100.... though why there's only 99 on the list, I don't know )