Gerrrrrrrrmany So I'm stuck at my dad's house in Germany. and what do I do when I'm cooped up in a country where I don't speak the language with a father I don't really know? I get on the internet of course.
It occured to be I haven't been on this thing with regularity for probably a year now. So I thought I'd pop back in. Why not eh?
I guess it will be your typical lj entry- a bit wistfil, a bit self indulgent, a bit emo-refic. Such is the life..
This livejournal is a strange experience. Its all kinda fun and always random and often sad to see who comes and goes from the highways and byways of posting and commenting. When I first got on of course it was mostly new comers- finding people I already knew who happened to be on lj too, and the decent numbers of people signing up like me for the first time. But lately (or not so lately, for a while now, as the case may be) its seems most people are taking the exit ramps. Thats probably one of the reasons I let my production slide- trying to following the herd as usual.
Because I think lj at heart is a communications tool, and much like a fax machine in the 80's or a pager in the mid to late ninties, it's only useful if a critical mass number of your friends has one as well. Otherwise, you've just submitting messages into the inky black void- and thats what pen and flesh and paper journals are for. So I guess it was the dwindling numbers that led me away from lj, left mentally in the pile with my old nokia brick phone- "I really should get around to recycling that, or something, one of these days". (I know you all have been anxiously waiting with labored breath, to finally hear this decreased lj use confession).
But that's only half the story. The other half of the explanition rests, as it so often does, with a girl. We used lj, on a completely unspoken level -which always amazed and slightly amused me- to communicate. It was just another avenue to keep in touch about the mondane and major, the if's and when's, along with our phone calls and facebook. It had an interesting place in the hirarchy- on the one hand everyone else was usually freely invited to keep up as well, but it was also somehow often the most personal. You could draft and word the world you wanted to convey just right. Anyway, when that ended, I think the withdraw from lj was inevitable. It almost seemed wrong to post for a while. And then past the mourning, when there was no longer a special someone to communicate to, and not near as many semi-special someones left actively on the friends list, its place in the recycle heap seemed complete.
But hey, now I feel like communicating again apparently- a ping to the outside world.
Maybe next session I'll share my thoughts on growing up a bastard child... but not likely (I know, sorry, you had your fingers crossed), because soon I should have some company. The kind I used to communicate on here with... Its a bit of a crazy world out there- and I guess this entry is just trying to do its part
ah shit, an actual post! I'm home sick from work, so I thought I'd hop here on for the first time in a while.
It's amazing how many different 'Judge: Blank' shows they have on the air these days, and for how many hours during daytime they show them. I feel slightly dumber for having it on in the background.
Last night I went with David's family to watch the British Television Ad awards (they're british, so I'm pretty sure tickets just show up in the mail for them unasked). And it really struck me how much a 30 second to two minute 30 second video clip can impress you, make you feel, and affect your habits. It also struck me how thousands of people (they're showing the awards every night for two weeks at the Walker) are watching and celebrating these products and services, just because they are marketed so well. Like advertising at it's pinnicle- its done so well that it replicates itself into the public sphere, and becomes a topic of discussion. It did make me feel a little better that a bunch of them were really powerful public service annoucements for the public good. Including the anti-landmine ad that I drunkenly wrote about on here so long ago- I had completely forgotten about it untill I saw it again last night. Anyway, I won't try to get too deep on you. I posted my favorite rugby ad on facebook already, but this was probably my favorite of the night. It helps to imagine it as I saw it, on a large screen in the dark, hi-def- but even on the small screen I think It's pretty amazing. I especially like the soundtrack.
I'm in a bit of a moral delemia. My mother calls me un-quaker like. I can tell some of my friends think its over the top. And I kind of do too...
But thursday I finalize the loan and take possession of a 1997 528i BMW. It is nice. it is pretentious. It is about to be all mine.
Mostly here I'm just trying to distract myself from homework.
In other, more important areas of the world, The democrat's new life makes me very happy. I actually thought things wouldn't turn out that well this past week, when Bush was campaigning everyday and momentium seemed to be shifting back towards the republicans. I guess just because everyone thought they might choke didn't mean the democrats couldn't pull it off for once. hoo-rah.
Our house got interviewed for the Macalester school paper yesterday. The kind of ditzy school reporter wanted us to tell an uplifting happy story about times we were all together as a house and having fun. All we could come up with was drinking and making fun of each other. She seemed confused.
its been a long week I went to my first funeral in years friday night. I missed Annie at work today.
Tonight I opned the paper to see Trevor Marsh's name. I played rugby with Trever my senior year when he was just a wee one. I coached him this past spring when he was almost a man. They found him dead on the banks of the mississippi river with a gunshot wound to his head.
RIP Trever Marsh. you were a good kid.
They say death comes in threes. I'm hoping it stops before the trifecta.
Wednesday, October 25th, 2006
3:22 pm
..... My favorite manager at banana republic died over the weekend. she was 27. apparently it was suicide.
I just got woken up from a nap by a call from human resources letting me know. I can't really believe its real.
She was my favorite because we got shit done and had fun at the same time, everytime. She was always full of energy and had a really funny and fun sarcastic streak. She never wore appropiate work shoes on the floor. I never saw it coming.
RIP Annie Fuchs
Current Mood:...
4:05 am
this feels like hendrix I'm in the library right now, not doing work. A combination of redbull and cigarettes has left me unable to focus on the nessacary equations for compounding growth of nation's GDP's. But I really need to do this homework because I didn't do the first two...and unlike last semester I can't not do any of the homeworks and still get an A. fuckers, who do they think they are? I should mention I'm in the Macalster library, where I don't go to school. Not that it really matters, but it makes me feel extra redicious. hhmmm. thats about all I got. maybe I'll see you again 4am ish, when victory will be in the air.
Current Mood:Per capita GDP growth rates Current Music:low murmurs
ah I got nothing. I've ment to be on and commmenting on here. but I've fucked that up ( funny how 61.5 hours work and 2 midterms in a week will do that) So I'll try to get better about that. in the meantime, I believe I am ment to do this:
Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.
1. my left foot is bigger than my right. probably by a good half size.
2. (as a general rule) I don't like tattoos.
3. when I feel shitty/depressed I don't wear my seatbelt
4. I put the bottom half of a manician in david's bed last night
5. I like the point when people's eyes widen when I tell them I work at banana republic
6. New Zealand and Cuba are tied for my favorite countries in the world.
anyone who hasn't already done this, if i am supposed to/allowed to tag folk
I hate my new house. well I don't hate it. I'm not happy there. It doesn't feel like home. I spend as much time away from it as possible. the truth is I haven't been happy living somewhere since I left my mothers house (or since I got back from new zealand rather). 2936 portland was good when people were over, but when it was just me or the three of us I felt out of place. that's how I feel here. I feel like it might change. I want to work really hard at being able to live with other people. I'm just not good at it. I'm not good at much when it comes to dealing with people I've decieded. Monica put it as I'm difficult. I guess that begins to describe it. I'm really really good at putting up bounderies between me and other people I guess, even when know I want to get to know them better. I can't help it. I guess it's some sort of self defense mechanism. but I don't know how I got it. I can't remember getting burned that often. or that badly. I think maybe I inharited it to. No body's parents are perfect, and my mom passed along a negitive trait or two down to me as well, to go with the hundreds of good ones. I don't know what to make of this coming semester. I really like working with my boss Billy, and I really like the world of possibilites that come with working for a small business. and somehow I like banana quite a bit in the end, and feel like I'm really a part of something there. and of course the family and elders in my life want me to go to school at least part time. and I think i can juggle them all, but it won't leave much time for friends. and that's probably what I'll need most of. everyone is/will have left with the summer, and it will be me and a house full of macalster students I probably won't be relating to. Because I work so much to keep myself numb, but maybe if I spend more time doing what made me happy or with people, or even better both, I wouldn't need to be numb. but numb is comfortable. and at this point, work is easy.
I kind of feel like this journal has run its course. I don't know what to do with it. I'm thinking of starting a new anyomous one, to use basicly as a journal. because I've gotten used to typing instead of writing such things at this point. they say an odyssey takes you right back to where you began right? well here I am. full circle. Maybe I'll do one of those phased withdrawl things. keep reading friends pages and commenting with this, and in the mean time figure out what I'm doing. sou
Subject Entry: I can no longer walk around the apartment without shoes on. While wearing shoes, particularly in the kitchen, where the keg was, steps involve the extra step of peeling your sole from the floor before each upward segment of the stepping motion commences. We move out monday. None of us has touched a moving box. Tomorrow is going to suck. suck balls in particular, with the 7 am republic shift thrown in. I felt like I had more to write about but now I'm not sure that I do. The kegger was successful in many rights -the keg got floated, nothing was stolen, and vomit appears to have stayed in the toliet and/or a trashcan in Jon's room. It did end up, kinda from 2 till sunup, a friends of Tom's friends party though, which got a little akward for Jonny and I. luckily enough had been drank to make sleeping easy, even with shouts and 50 cent still emerging muffled from the living room at 4:30 am. I saw little miss sunshine last night. It was really good. and the atmosphere was really good too- I can't remember the last time I sat in a mostly full theater where no one talked (nor a cellphone rang), everyone laughed hardily together at the same time, and at the end everyone clapped and left happy. It's quite possible that this is because I don't go to enough movies anymore, but whatever the cause it was a refreshing experience. yyesss for california beauty pagents and sucidal proust scholars, if you've seen the flickering screen.
wwoo-hhoooo I/we are -80% probability- throwing a moving out of the hood kegger this friday night. You should come. Plane ticket expenses will be split for those of you who live in those darn far flung states.
I knew it! by LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Mon Aug 7, 12:51 AM ET
CHICAGO - Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.
Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.
Songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.
Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.
Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little or no sexually degrading music.
Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh. Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects, he said.
"We think that really lowers kids' inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful" about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret, he said.
The study, based on telephone interviews with 1,461 participants aged 12 to 17, appears in the August issue of Pediatrics, being released Monday.
Most participants were virgins when they were first questioned in 2001. Follow-up interviews were done in 2002 and 2004 to see if music choice had influenced subsequent behavior.
Natasha Ramsey, a 17-year-old from New Brunswick, N.J., said she and other teens sometimes listen to sexually explicit songs because they like the beat.
"I won't really realize that the person is talking about having sex or raping a girl," she said. Even so, the message "is being beaten into the teens' heads," she said. "We don't even really realize how much."
"A lot of teens think that's the way they're supposed to be, they think that's the cool thing to do. Because it's so common, it's accepted," said Ramsey, a teen editor for Sexetc.org, a teen sexual health Web site produced at Rutgers University.
"Teens will try to deny it, they'll say 'No, it's not the music,' but it IS the music. That has one of the biggest impacts on our lives," Ramsey said.
The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the U.S. recording industry, declined to comment on the findings.
Benjamin Chavis, chief executive officer of the Hip-Hip Summit Action Network, a coalition of hip-hop musicians and recording industry executives, said explicit music lyrics are a cultural expression that reflect "social and economic realities."
"We caution rushing to judgment that music more than any other factor is a causative factor" for teens initiating sex, Chavis said.
Martino said the researchers tried to account for other factors that could affect teens' sexual behavior, including parental permissiveness, and still found explicit lyrics had a strong influence.
However, Yvonne K. Fulbright, a New York-based sex researcher and author, said factors including peer pressure, self-esteem and home environment are probably more influential than the research suggests.
"It's a little dangerous to just pinpoint one thing. You have to look at everything that's going on in a young person's life," she said. "When somebody has a healthy sense of themselves, they don't take these lyrics too seriously."
David Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the Family, said the results make sense, and echo research on the influence of videos and other visual media.
The brain's impulse-control center undergoes "major construction" during the teen years at the same time that an interest in sex starts to blossom, he said.
Add sexually arousing lyrics and "it's not that surprising that a kid with a heavier diet of that ... would be at greater risk for sexual behavior," Walsh said.
Martino said parents, educators and teens themselves need to think more critically about messages in music lyrics.
Fulbright agreed.
"A healthy home atmosphere is one that allows a child to investigate what pop culture has to offer and at the same time say 'I know this is a fun song but you know that it's not right to treat women this way or this isn't a good person to have as a role model,'" she said.
A day in the Life So I come home from work yesterday, bit exhausted, and after the normal post work stripping of clothes down to boxers routine, go to get on the internet. and as I go about this, I think to myself "I'm pretty sure there used to be a cable modem right here." "yep, pretty sure.. oh yeah, plugged right here into this coxial cable is where it normally is" "and wasn't there an ethernet cord I plugged into my laptop or something?" (I pretty much thought these things to myself ver badem, since I was a bit tired after two jobs, and just generally, you know, nuts). So then I get to thinking, Maybe it stopped working and Jonny took it in to geeksquad. "but wait. Jonny was on sitting on the computer contendedly before I left for work. and his laptop's still here.."
It was quite the saturday evening mystery.
Earlier that day, I learned a life lesson. the why you should do yard work in closed toed shoes lesson. To be fair, I already knew of this lesson, I just didn't have sutiable work shoes at my apartment and so decieded to mow the grass and work in my choco's, as I've gotten into the habit of doing recently. That was a bad idea, because I weedwackered my toes. Just mostly my left big toe, but the one beside it got a little weedwacker love too. I weedwacked the top 4th or so of the toe nail off, and opened a nice little gash next to it. It actually isn't/wasn't that bad, but turns out hitting yourself with nylon rope spinning really fast makes your toes sting real bad for a minute or two. Luckily I didn't also learn the lawn mower section of said lesson.
This morning, with Jonny in bed and me going to work, the internet mystery was still in full effect. but anyway, new story. as I walked to my car, I knew my seat was going to be wet, because I had left all the windows down the night before and had been awoken by really really something-just-colapsed-next-door loud thunder at about 3 in the morning. But the part that I wasn't expecting was that someone had apparently slept (or maybe just rested) in my passenger seat in the night. My first clue was the seat reclined as far as it would go, which was defintely not how I had left it. the second was the mess of the onion (the free saterical paper, not the vegetable, for the record) which had formerly been somewhat neatly arranged on the passenger floor. and the third clue was the dome light that wouldn't go off, even after I opened and shut my door repeatedly. The strange part is though, despite the rain, whoever my mystery nieghborhood guest was, they didn't roll up any of the windows. So they went to get out of the rain, but declined to crank the handles on the car door to get even further out of the rain. so I'm guessing crackheads. Or a baby dealing weed, if you know what I'm talking about.
Oh and ben solved the cable modem mystery. (Because my roommates and I don't actually communicate that often aparently) I asked ben if Jonny had mentioned why our modem was missing. Turns out Jon locked himself out, called adam, who still has keys, so adam comes by, lets him in, takes the cable modem (which he had paid for) and kept his keys to the apartment. mystery solved. and puts me back in the checkin' mail from the ma's or coffee shop grind.
and I'm out. I think tomorrow marks 5 strait days at the republic, and I'm tired from consectutive days of banana picking.
oh and PS. sorry for sweeping you Rachel. mrhahahahaha.
surfurmnaguste tom just came home to change his pants and then left. I have erased everytihng else I had typed/wanted to say. just doesn't seem to fit.
i may be drunk. i may have gotten my hair cut today. I may have read 3 different magazines start to finish and thouroughyl enjoyed myself. David may be keeping my car at his house unitll I awake tomorrow morning so that I didn't drive drunk. this makes me feel both naked and good. I had a non alocholic beer (way back when I had been designated the designeated driver) that tasted like watered down vomit. the watress removed that from our tab. life was good.
today four unmarked squad cars had pulled over a vintage chevy 40 feet from my apartment. they had the interior ceiling peeled down like they were looking for drugs. I had never seen a MPD undercover intrepid before. see [learn] something new everyday i guess.
it is hot as balls. i mowed a lawn today. it was also hot as balls then. luckily I had my oversized marine corps water bottle that I had won no strings attached for completing so many pullups. at the time i was going for the tshirt, but today a water bottle turned oout to be much more handy.
individually wrapped, placed in neat little rows becoming a piece of everything that grows some numbers, a plan to indicate that you played the game came empty handed and left the same
Current Mood:quite possibly drunk Current Music:fans, homie
I think I'm going to quit the republic. I had drinks with my former boss at gophergrocery.com last night (the 2 beers section of yesterdays liver workout), and he offered me a job. 30 hours a week, close to 2.00 more an hour than I'm getting now and stock options. oh yeah, and a fancy title- "Director of Operations." I'm excited.
The reason for the 4 am 'freak' curtain call was hoez. Adam brought by 3 new ones last night, and the mini party that apparently commenced after they had returned from basketball and I had gone to bed awoke me at 3 am. After being verbally acosted by prosituties and/or cracked out women while walking around the block, I decieded to just stay up for a little bit.
Trials and Tribulations at the Republic I took a vicidin before work today (left over from the car accident). I caught this cold thing yesterday morning, and figured that one vicidin pill would be more effective and last longer in effort to not make me feel like shit at work, rather than 3 (or Jordan style 4) ibprofens.
This turned out to be kind of a bad idea, since they threw me on registers with no formal training and about a 45 second tutoral (I should mention vicidin makes me sweat a lot). I stressed and sweated alot, but luckily only made one woman beep while walking out the doors because I had forgotten to de-arm her tags. I had never felt so excited to retreat to the safety of the stock room basement before.
Right after than I transfered in about 50 thongs (amoung 350 other things) from the mall of america store. It was kind of a surreal experience. they just kept coming out of the box, lacy ones, plain ones, tiny how does this fit on a person ones. My only male boss found it pretty amusing too, as he walked in on me concentratedly hunched over a large box, pulling ladies underware out very methodically and scanning them, one by one.
that kind of rounded out the day. I also took out the trash, which I also enjoy (no, seriously). You have to disable the emergancy exit buzzer and walk down a long seedy badly lit hallway. The other guy I work with thinks people shoot up herion back there, but I think he was just raised in the suburbs and parinoid. We do work in Edina after all; I'm pretty sure if there was any drug use in the dim hall it would be cocaine being vacuumed up into eager cooks of crocus hill employee noses.
Since I've started I've always felt wierd about working in a place where basic clothing items can run 150 dollars, and prissy women drop hundreds (somewhat often over the 5 mark) of dollars on things that really, they probably don't need. But the real 'what the fuck is wrong with america' cringing moment came two days ago. A man walked in with his two children; a boy of about 10 I'd guess, and a daughter slightly older, probably around 12. The daughter went back to try somethings on (which struck me as wierd, since we don't have a childrens section, and she was defitintely still in the young adult/children sizes), and the dad idly turns to his kid and says in a loud voice, "your sister is really shopping up a storm today!" To which the kid replied, "oh really? [whats] she been doing?" The dad, with what I detected to be a hint of pride or admiration in his voice, again loudly said "yeah, she's spent at least 600 today so far I'd say!" To which the kid, rather noncholantly, considering that crazy number, said, "oh wow".
Serious, what the fuck is wrong with people(?). 600 dollars in one day on a 12 year old? from the neighborhood and the fact that they were in our store I can only guess that that was mostly on clothing. what the shit. Maybe you should teach her how to give to charity or save, instead of encouraging the behavior, especially to your other impressionable child. Anywho, I think not long after that I retreated to the sanctity of the basement again. crazy suburbnities...
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