Oh!! Awesome!! Totally Awesome!!

This is so neat, I'd like to thank the folks at halfbakery.com for pointing me to this, and I am seriously telling you, if you are interested in names CHECK THIS OUT!!!!

As for the rest of it, I have been having a pretty good week. Been sort of busy, y'know in the way that a person can be busy without getting anything of substance done. We bought an iPod on Monday so I've been trying to figure out how to get the stuff I want on it. Specifically movies. We have a set of DVD's that are comprised of all the music videos of the band we like and would love to get some into our iPod, so we could watch them ALL the time, because I honestly would. So wish me luck on that. Have a great weekend!!

I Love Books.

Just introducing you to a new link that will be appearing shortly over there --->. It's pretty neat so far, you can keep track of books you have read. It's free for 200 books,but after that you gots to start paying. If I like it enough I might start asking for the lifetime subscription. But not yet. I ain't committed yet.

LibraryThing Catalog your books online

This Isn't Popular.

Human rights are important. I fully believe in the rights of every person in America I believe that any person is equal to any other person. That being said I also believe that just because you are gay/lesbian/straight, Christian/Muslim/Jewish/Atheist, white/black/asian/ hispanic you doesn't mean that you are any more open-minded than anyone else. I base this assumption on what I see on TV. Particularly TV that caters to 20-somethings, like, say, MTV and their news guy Gideon Yago.Today as I was flipping through the channels I was that the story MTV News was reporting on was about a bus full of modern-day freedom riders. When I say freedom riders I say it is the most incredulous tone I can muster because although that is what it is reminiscent of, this isn't at all what civil rights are about.
What I see it as being about is oppression. The interesting part of this is that these kids also see it as being about oppression. But that is where the commonality of our thoughts diverge. What they see as freedom from what they think is oppression, I see as the oppression of religious differences. Let me explain:
It is a bus of kids who are travelling to right-wing conservative schools to protest the fact that these schools don't allow gays and lesbians into their programs. Not only that, but if a current student "comes out" that student is expelled. Now, I don't entirely agree with that position, but I do think that these schools have every right to expell any student that doesn't embody the values that these schools hold dear. That is what I mean by oprression of a right to freedom of religion. Because the religion that these schools are founded on is also expressed in the rules and ethics the school places on it's students these kids are protesting. Now I don't have any problem with protesting, I think it is a good way to fight something you think is wrong, but I don't like double standards.
To me double standards are when something is wrong for one person, but is right for another. Take this for example: 50 gay people show up at a bible college that disallows gays and gather in an open area. They then give speeches, shout slogans, have demonstrations or whatever. How is this any different than 50 of Jerry Falwell's follower showing up at a place that is predominantly gay or atheist or whatever they don't agree with and doing the same thing. It is good that the gay protestors stood up for thier rights but how dare those crazy right-wing Christians oppress people!
I would feel different if these schools were public, state universities or what-have-you, but they aren't. The people attending these schools know from the start what they are getting themselves into. They aren't attending Jerry Falwells' Libery School (which, I do realize, is an ironic name under the cicumstances) because they are sure that THAT will be the open-minded place to grow as a person. No, they are deciding to attend a college that is quite famous for its right-wing philospohies.
I am not saying that gays and lesbians don't have a right to the same education, and I am not saying that they shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else (that is a whole other blog-post!), but I don't think that it should every be open season to protest a person based on what they believe, do, look like, or want. To me that means that if Jerry Falwell's private university (keyword private) doesn't want to accept gays and lesbians, that is fine. If BYU wants to expell Julie ( you remember, from the Real World) for not following that specific university's rules, that is fine. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that religious university's have rules, regulations, morals, and ethics that are not going to make everyone feel welcome. And if it does, well, maybe you should research your next school a little better.
Basically I get frustrated when people assume that one way of thought is the correct way of thought. I myself am pretty conservative, I don't agree with gay marriage (although I don't agree with alot of straight marriages either), I don't agree with all abortions (please, explain to me, a person who can't concieve why you wouldn't want to give a child up for adoption), and I don't agree with the ERA (although this isn't republican of me, I just don't see hiring a woman or a black man because you HAVE to as particularly equal). I think that for America to truly be free people have to be able to do or think exactly as they please. I relish the right that I have to speak my mind about hings like this, just the same as anyone else. Because I am republican doesn't make my ideas any less valid or open to discussion, just as your democratic ideas (or whatever they are) aren't any worse or better than mine.

Mothers.

Seriously, does every woman on the planet have a problem with her mother? I mean I read it in books, on blogs and experience it all the time with my own mother. I have not been able to have a reasonable, friendly chat with her since I was like 13. Worst part? I think it is because we are too alike. Neither of us wants to concede defaet. But they arent loud drawn out fights about my hair or anything like that, they are mostly based on our 2 differing realities.

In her reality it is entirely inconceivable ( makes me want to watch The Princess Bride now) that each and every one of her 9 children aren't the best of friends. She doesn't seem to comprehend that I am 20 years younger than most of my siblings. This means that when one of them gets married for the 3rd (or 6th, or even 2nd) time I don't see it as one of my sisters (or brothers) getting married. I see it as a friend of my parents getting married. I simply don't feel much family attachment to my most of my older siblings. Is this weird of me? I mean out of 8 brothers and sisters I really feel like a sister to... 2 of them. Both of them are my sisters too. I guess age doesn't really have anything to do with it, one of them being 20 years older than me, it has more to do with our relationships. One of them I grew up with, and has actually been my sister all of my life, and the other really started to feel like my sister when I started baby-sitting HER kids. Which seem weird, in hindsight.

The others, I don't really count as siblingsfor a variety of reasons, the main one being I don't really know them. I mean I know their ages, and for the most part their birthdays ( I at least know the month), but really we don't speak all that often, and the ones I have had good conversations with, it still doesn't seem like they are siblings, because the conversations either didn't continue or only happen when they want to tell me how to run my life. I am going to tell a story now, one that is kind of 2nd hand. Here goes.

My oldest sister (48, I think) was having a conversation with my youngest brother (34 or something) and he told her that he didn't feel like she had ever been there for him, when he needed her. That she had never been a big sister to him. I thought that was kind of sad. Then a couple of years later it occurred to me. He had never reallly been abig brother to me, why should he have had the benefit of an older sister? He didn't seem to take any interest in my life. I remember only 2 times when he did, the most recent being when I was getting married. He invited me out to dinner and then spent almost the whole time trying to convince me not to get married. And since then, I think we have spoken like twice. I think that is really sad.

I don't know what my point in typing this out was. I really don't. If someone could please tell me it would be really helpful.

Sorry Folks.

I am so bad at things like this. And when I say things like this I mean blogs, journals, diaries, things like that. It is a pretty consistent pattern: I discover something that everyone else is doing, and I try to join in, then after a short time I get tired of it annd give it up. I am afraid that is what is happening here. I just don't have interesting things to write. I mean my days are pretty much the same all the time.

On another note, I have one of those "the Onion" desk calendars that gives something different every day, and todays says that "1 out of every 37 U.S. adults has been in prison, giving our nationt he highest incarceration rate in the world." I was thinking lets see...if I take the 19 adult members of my family (spouses included, but not all the multiple ones, only the multiple ones that I can picture in my mind, leaving out a good 60% of them) I figure that at least 5 of them have been in prison. And that id only because I don't know my siblings' spouses that well. That sure is a high ratio. It just adds to my theory that there is only a specific number of circumstances to go around, i.e. marriage: There is a specific number of marriages in the world at any given time, and everyone get an equal amount, to start off with. then as other people get married first, or get married mulitple times (not at the sme time, that is a whole other blog), your number of marriages goes down. So my brother, who has been married like 6 times, has taken other people's oppurtunity for marriage, with out them even knowing it. But not to fret: all the confirmed bachelors and spinsters, people who never get married, make your numbers go up, because not only do they not take other people's potential marriages, they give theirs up, possibly to you!

This isn't a perfect theory and I only really apply it to marriages so I don't know how it stands up to other circimstances. If you think on it and find something else that works, let me know.

Oh For Pete's Sake!

This is kind of a 2 parter, ever since I gave it that title. The First part ( the original part) was going to be a pet peeve of mine (because I know you are totally interested in my every thought, mood change and just the general goings on) so here goes: This week it's those STUPID talking ads you find on some sites <coughcoughMySpacecoughcough>. The ones where if you move your mouse into it's area it YELLS at you, because now your emoticons can talk! YAY they can say banal things like "He say WHAT?" and "Awww shucks" and "Oh no he dih'ih". Actually I don't know what they say, but I am sure it is irritating, and rest assured(all my IM buddies) that I will never plague you with talking emoticons.

The second part is kind of another pet peeve mixed with a memory. The pet peeve is one that applies to me, in that I do this and I am kind of embarassed. It's the person who repeats the joke 4956759 times because you laughed once. I do this. I don't do it so often, now that I have realized how irritating I am when I do. The first time I really overused something was with a friend in high school, and middle school I guess. When we were in like 8th grade together I was sitting nearby when someone said to someone else " Oh for Pete's sake" and I said, "Yeah do it for Pete!" She (the original sayer) laughed and repeated my little funny. Cut to 3 years later when I was still doing it. Only without the lead in line of "Oh for Pete's sake" I would simply say (only to Erin, who sort of started it all with her exhortations)"C'mon, do it for Pete"still hoping for a laugh. I have heard others do it from time to time like the guy who kept repeating something about bacon because he thought, no, wait, he KNEW, that if we heard his joke we would all laugh uproariously. Only he stopped after about 5 minutes. My pet peeve is when it goes on for much longer. Like the way I dragged it out for years. But don't worry. I made up for it eventually by buying Erin a lot of muffins. And they were good muffins too.