http://shop.ebay.com/lemonwitch/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

Junk for sale, all of it nerd oriented! Please bid, because, you see, I needs me some munnies!

Thankies!

The Christmas zombie within me RIIIISES! MWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!

I already have Christmas music on my iPod. The urge to decorate.. it drives me...! IT DRIIIVES ME!!!

Does anyone have any opinions on the Nikon CoolPix L20 10MP digital camera? I'm considering getting one, but have never bought a digital camera before. Any help is appreciated!

I wore my roller skates for the first time yesterday in about oh, easily 10-12 years. Lucas wore his roller blades and we wobbled together around the drive way for about an hour. He fell repeatedly (he was swathed in pads, though. He did comment that he felt he needed a "butt-pad", but I told him that's what butts are for.) and I frequently used the garage as my means of stopping, but we're gonna do it again today!

I dont know who needs a nap more, me or Lucas. He's 5 and I slept for three WHOLE hours last night, so the whining is pretty profound here at Chez Spooky.

Maybe if I throw a temper tantrum I'll get coffee?

Those who read comics, even on a periphery level, is aware of the Girls in Refrigerators Syndrome. That's usually where some hack, convinced he's the next Raymond Chandler, kills off a super hero's girlfriend, usually in some appallingly torturous method and her mangled corpse is discovered in some hideous locale, like a refrigerator.

Well take this, bitches:

www.somethingpositive.net/sp12272007.shtml

EDIT: Myn the Mighty showed me the follow up strip: 

www.superstupor.com/sust04142008.shtml

Happy birthday to my Georgie! MWAH! Have a happy one, hear?

Holy. Crap. www.saveliam.org

Three things of note!

1. We'e been busy little morbid bees over at Creepy Kitch, please give us a read if horror/ spooky is your thing! I recently posted a love letter to the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, and Cins has a poll going on which you find scarier, werewolf or vampire. Please feel free to share which you think is worse, and why! creepykitch.blogspot.com

Bevin has started a general pop culture blog, taken from a female slant, and has been kind enough to tap Cins and myself to contribute! She recently did a great article on the femme fatale, and I just posted an article in praise of Sita Sings the Blues. This is a new blog so please go take a look and give us some feedback, will you? Bevin's a film major so she's all smart and junk; I mostly just make stupid puns. fanfatales.blogspot.com/

And lastly, I'm so poor right now that I can't even afford to buy a gumball, let alone a packet of ramen. I've got stuff up on eBay, with more coming as I add it. Please take a look, and if so inclined bid, if not so inclined, could you spread the word if not too much trouble? shop.ebay.com/merchant/lemonwitch_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZ

Thanks, guys!

i realize now i do not fear death... i fear my daughter will not be free when i die

- From the Twitter of an Iranian medical student

"If it bothers you so much, then why don't you stop watching?" seems to be the question of the last few days from my friends and family who know how invested I have become in the cause of the Iranian people (as I have explained in great detail here) The answer is simple: one day of caring is not enough. We must be the voice for the people of Iran who would otherwise be silenced. They are without reliable news sources, they are without mobile phone calls, text messaging, facebook, twitter, youtube, AIM, Yahoo, Google, and pretty much every other useful outlet for information you can think of. Yet they persist on the streets and on the internet in any way they can. The least we can do, whether we are across continents, oceans, or time zones, is spread their words safely.

My death is irrelevant.Wht is important is that u do not forget my words.We want freedom.i will die 4that

- From the Twitter of a protester in Tehran

Right now, brave men and women in Iran, both young and old, are sacrificing their lives for their voices to be heard. They must fear not only the police, but also the Basij -a force of men loyal to the government who plant themselves among crowds in plain clothes in order to discretely attack protesters and incite chaos.The protesters are peaceful. They mass together in crowds that are reported to grow in size every day. At night they have very few, if any, safe places to stay. Houses with satelite dishes were attacked by the Basij tonight, and during the 50 minutes of Twitter's maintenance, another university was attacked.

140 characters is a novel when you're being shot at.

- From another Iranian Twitter

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

1. The most obvious thing to do is stay informed. Keep an eye on reliable sources on Twitter, refresh blogs and news sites that are covering the stories.


2. If you are on twitter, retweet information from reliable twitters, but REMOVE THE USERNAME if they are in Iran. People have died because of the lack of responsibility by fellow tweeters and the media in this front. They can be tracked down by the government of Iran.


3. Spread the information elsewhere. Repost this article or write your own on Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, or anywhere else you can think of. If you write your own, make sure you are concise and accurate. Link to your sources for people to learn more.


4. Change your location on Twitter to Tehran or Iran, and your time zone to GMT +3:30.


5. DO NOT auto-refresh and take down websites, even if you are asked. It slows down the internet for the rest of the people in Iran.


6. If you make a proxy DO NOT post it publically, otherwise it is useless. Send it in a direct message to a trusted source.


7. DO NOT spam the hash tag #IranElection with useless things to "confuse the government". This does not help at all.

USEFUL SITES TO FURTHER HELP

Cyber War Guide for Iran Elections

Green Revolution - How to Help

Anonymous - Why We Protest - Iran

STAY INFORMED!

Follow on Twitter: @ProtesterHelp and @StopAhmadi

(REMINDER: DO NOT REPOST PERSONAL TWITTERS OF THOSE INSIDE THE COUNTRY, EVEN IF THEY ARE RELIABLE!)

Chronology of events

Live-blogging by Andrew Sullivan

General information from a poser on Fark.com

Live-blogging on HuffingtonPost

دنیارابگوییدچطورآنهاانتخاباتمان دزدیده اند
Tell the world how they have stolen our election

- original article by one_hoopy_frood on LJ

Adorable is your five year old nephew playing in his bubble bath and humming "This is Halloween" as he does so.

Hilarious is your adult female roommate getting treed on the back of the couch by four pounds of feline fury. A tiny black cat potentially nibbling in on her toes was enough to make her lay across the top of the couch while Salem dominated the cushions below.

What makes me happy today is the thought of Samara from the Ring throwing down against Gage form Pet Semetary.  Go cast your votes, wouldja?

 creepykitch.blogspot.com/

And read a bit while you're there!
 

After the first night in Honduras, things got a LOT better. The food, tragically, got worse, but that was because of how our camp was set up-- we had no permanent refrigeration, so what we could eat was limited to things that, of course, needed no cooling. We also got meet the local people who sort of looked after us at the camp. Mario was the sort of guard/ night watchman, and looked almost exactly like Alphonso Reibeiro. He was really handsome, as far as I was concerned. ;) He was there because of what would be our first eye-opening experience in Trujillo: most of the local people made so little money per annum that the funds we had brought with us could seriously have supported families for some time. Some people would be driven by poverty to try and take it, and I cannot blame them a bit; I would have done the same. So to help, we agreed to spend as much as we all could in town, to support local shop keepers and artisans. I got some REALLY neat souvenirs there that I still use every day!

We also met Maria who (I think?) was Mario's mom. She was our head cook, and though she spoke no English and I spoke no Spanish, she would still crack me up. Occasionally we would go to a local resort to swim at their beach (and not buy their pop, because holy shit was it expensive), and a little girl would come around selling pan de coca, or coconut bread. This stuff was. So. Good. It was sweet, and fluffy, and that little girl was so cute that we'd always buy her out while we were there. Her parents must have loved to see us coming. ;) Well I was washing dishes on one of the days when I had kitchen duty, and was chattering at Maria in my broken Spanish (I can't help it; I MUST TALK.) and told her that "Pan de coca is muey delicioso", or something similar. She got a sly look on her face and said "Pan de boca?" (I think it was boca, can't remember the exact word now.) I knew what that meant. That meant booger bread, and dammit, that's just gross! I hollared "EEEEEEEWWWW!!" which apparently is universal in any language, and she busted up. For the rest of the day if she saw me she'd start laughing, and everytime afterwards she'd ask me "Pan de boca?" just to see my reaction. ;) 

But that second day was full of all sorts of interesting experiences, many of them hilarious now. For starters, our camp had three little pick up trucks that were camp property. Two we used regularly, one I never saw do anything other than hemmorage oil on the grass. We would travel from place to place by herding as many of us as possible into the back of each truck, and one of the councellors would drive us to where ever we needed to go. We wanted to be as friendly as possible, so where ever we went we would wave at people, and shout "Hola!" at folks. Part of the reason for this aggressive friendliness was because we were there on mission; we were going to be building roofs, laying foundations, and going around to local schools to teach about hepititus prevention. We wanted to come off as eager to work, not as Paternalistic McGringo. (Amusingly, we had several black kids as well as white kids; we were all gringos, and in at least one instance from a cranky old woman, 'locos americanos'. Maybe we were TOO friendly.)

We also wanted to be nice, because Trujillo at the time had an infant tourist trade coming to life, and from what we saw, almost ALL of the tourists were fucking RUDE to the locals. For some reason all of the tourists we met (and were sneered at) were German. I have no idea why it was so popular with Germany as a destination site, but there you go. There was also a lot of scuba diving done in the area, and we met some AMAZINGLY rude Americans that way, as well. So there we are, driving like a bat straight out of hell and with no intention of going back, yelling "Hola!" at anything that moves, and waving and grinning like only idiotic teenagers can do. We stopped in Trujillo at one of the shops, and met the shop keeper who had been an exchange student in America (I think), and spoke really good English. He asked us all where we were from, talking to each of us in turn. He was an interesting guy named Emanuele, and had the most gentle spirit I have ever meet. He very kindly told us that it was great that we were trying to be friendly, but we needed to be saying "Bueno" in greeting, isntead of "Hola". Now, we were a pack of teenagers; is there a group on the planet that could know more than we did? We thought not! "But Emanuele," we argued, "'Bueno' means 'good', not hello! 'Hola' means 'hello'!" He smiled sweetly at our naivite, and whispered that prostitutes locally would call out hola to let men know they were available for business.

Now, let's take a step back here, and look at this spectacle through local eyes. Can you imagine how STRANGE we looked, a million giant American teens, dressed in bizarre colors (more on that in a minute), jammed in the back of a pick up truck, bacically screaming that they were available, male and female alike? Really, us? Really? The bizarre color scheme came courtesy of our churches at home; many of the congregation had made sun dresses for the girls to wear over there, since shorts and tank tops really didn't fly with local culture, and we weren't there to shock folks. While we spent the year earning our funds to get to Honduras, a lot of the older women in my congregation had been making as many sundresses as possible, which we would then leave behind for poorer families to use as they wished. We usually threw them on over shorts and tank tops, which we wore around the camp. It was SO kind of them to make these dresses, from their own fabric reserves, and for nothing, to boot. Cost us not a thing. But there were some WILD prints in there. Half of my dresses had Christmas print, and another had neon frogs, all lines up in never ending rows. What I had that wasn't Christmas WAS obnoxious in color (I did this on purpose; I was mad that I had to wear dresses, since at that time I think I had a grand total of three dresses to my name, and decided that if I had to suffer so did everyone else! I was a spoiled brat, what can I say? So of the really strange fabrics I would chose the strangest.). Can you imagine the truly bizarre show we must have presented? Several of our dresses were made in neon hued camoflauge print, which seems to have defeated the purpose of camo, but whatever. Any time we passed something bright, those of us in the camp would press against it and declare that no one could see us because we were camoflauged. Haha, funny.

Sadly, almost immediately into this trip, my digestive tract headed south, straight to hell. I think it was in large part because of the heat, the water situation, and the fact that we ate a lot of fiber with each meal. Me and most of the camp (with the exception of the counsellors) got Montezuma's revenge in a BIG way. I'm sure stress didnt help matters any, either. For all of us this was our first trip outside of the American sphere, and it was a good one to have, because man did we learn that what we had was a LOT. We learned that not everyone was like us, and that there were much, MUCH worse things in the world than being pissed off at your parents for not letting you buy that slutty blouse or date that asshole. This was an enormous culture shock to us, and the first time you do it, it's really, really scary being in a place where most of the population speaks a language that differs from your own. What if we got lost? What if we got sick? What if someone got bit by a snake, a very real fear to have? What if the fighting came tothis area of Honduras? Did we leave? Did we stay and help? After getting to know so many kind people, could we leave, under our own standards of ethics? We were scared a lot of the time, because this was our first entry into a world much bigger than ourselves, and that's terrifying the first time it occurs. So it was no surprise we all had the squirts.

Now, I was a particularly nervous teenager, for reasons I've gone into in the past, and tended to carry all of my stress in my gut, anyway. I spent hours in the bathroom, in pain, on the toilet. Hilariously now, I was able to poop in front of people with minimal concern; the bathrooms were gender specific but communal, and none of the toilet stalls had doors. No one was in the least concerned with what the other's bowels were doing; it was just a fat of life. There is no way in hell I could do that now. The bathroom was interesting all in its self. It reminded me of the locker room in a pool, showers on one side, toilets on the other, and benches that were perminently attached to the floor in the center, sinks were off on the end by the door. For some reason scorpions and spiders LOVED that bathroom. The first time I ever saw a scorpion in the wild was on the wall in that bathroom, and the spiders had declared the shower stalls their own. We fianlly conceeded to the Arachnid Over Lords and just bathed in the creek that ran behind the mess hall. That same creek fed the showers anyway. They were also home to some amazingly delicate and beautiful tropical freshwaterfish. It was neat, bathing with these little fish that were worth some exhorbant fee to exotic fish keepers, and having them dart forward and nibble on your skin. They were cute, and pretty, and it was a sort of magical feel to it.

One of my favorite things to look at in Honduras was the fireflies. Those and the food were the only things I missed about Louisiana, and it was so nice to see them again. I would sit, either on the steps of my cabin, or in the pavilion in the middle of camp, and just watch them ghost on and off. It was really pretty against the tropical plants that grew naturally around us. That was the only place I ever picked an orange and ate it, or picked lemons to eat with sugar on them. That was also the first place I had a green coconut, and it was delicious.

Next time: Ghosts from Louisiana, The Meanest Boy Band Ever, and Butchering Spansih!

Happiness today: it's FRIDAY, need I say more? Got my C.S homework done, so other than history readings this weekend is gravy for moi! I am also happy because I am drinking a grape Crush. I never outgrew my true love for grape pop. :)

All of my friends know I went to Honduras in the summer of 1995, just after high school graduation. But a question from [info]themeindzeye made me realize that I've never actually written down any of those adventurous two weeks. It's a long, often sweaty affair, so I will break it up into snippets. :)

I was seventeen when I went, and it was something I'm still glad I did, though I have no interest in going back. For starters, I hate the heat, and I especially hate humid heat. I lived in Louisiana for a few years before this and was miserable the whole time. We flew from Sea Tac to Dallas/ Ft Worth, and from there to La Ceiba, and drove from La Ceiba to Trujillo, where our camp was. The minute I got off the plane in Tegucigalpa, the heat hit me, and I suddenly, vividly remembered what living in Louisiana felt like. I was drenched in sweat in the five minutes it took to cross the tarmac from our plane to the "airport". We had to wait for the baggage handlers to finish going through our stuff, I don't remember why. Might have had something to do with the civil war that was going on in parts of the country, far removed from us. It was a little weird and a lot upsetting to see grown men I didn't know handling my panties, let me tell you. We had been warned before hand not to pitch a fit: apparently some of the handlers liked to try a rile incoming tourists, so we all put on our poker faces and endured. It was scary; I'd never seen guards hanging out with automatic weaponry. Casually. My poker face was then made of concrete. This was also where we discovered that about half of our luggage (including mosquito netting for our beds at camp) was missing. Lost by the airline.

Then came the bus ride to get us to our camp in Trujillo. That was a freakin' bus ride, let me tell you. It was a giant, rusted, formerly yellow, decommissioned school bus. The seats were all starting to rot out, and I really think the rust was all that was holding that beast together. Our driver was local, and spoke no English. This worked perfectly because none of us spoke Spanish. This man had two speeds: full blast, and off, and he charged ahead with more gusto than sense, as it took us (I think?) six hours to get to Trujillo, and it should have taken us three. Yep. He got lost. And then the bus broke down. I gave up and fell asleep at this point.

In the interim of this trip was my first terrifying culture shock: Honduran toilets. Did you ever see Trainspotting? If you did, then you know exactly what scene I'm referencing. I have no idea if this was actually the worst toilet in Honduras, but it was the worst I saw the entire time I was there. The toilet was contained in an ill-constructed shack, the door had no latch, and it was wet. All over, it was SOPPING. The toilet, the floor, all of it. I am notoriously unshakable, yet this was the first time in my life that I ever did a hover pee. I also discovered after I had peed, unhappily, that the toilet paper was all gone; all that was left was a lonely, wet cardboard roll. When I departed, I discovered that there was no sink, with which to wash my hands. Then I went to eat dinner! I'm not sure where we were when we stopped to eat-- it was a roadside stand next to the dirt road we were cruising on, I'm guessing designed specifically to appeal to travelers. I'm guessing not many Americans came through, because the cook, her family, and everyone else in the area came to stare at us as we ate. It was hilarious, honestly. It was also hot. We were in a junglish forest, or maybe a foresty jungle; stuff like hardwoods and banana trees, all entwined. That was actually really cool; I'd never seen a banana tree doing it's thing before!

Most of the road was paved, but there were big strips of it where it was just dirt, and once we hit that, the ride was actually sot of fun! The bus had no shocks to speak of, and there were some impressive ruts and boulders in the road; I'm firmly convinced that bus caught air at least once. I know my butt certainly did, which, like I said, was fun!

Finally, sometime late, we found the camp that we would be calling home for the next two weeks. It was small but charming, and several of us girls ended up bunking with the female counselors for that first night; for some reason some of our bunks weren't ready yet. That night I saw a spider with a leg spread easily as wide as my hand. Creeeepy.

Tomorrow: Heat, Mosquitoes, and Diarrhea!

I've decided I like this posting about happy thing, and will try to do it on a daily basis. It makes me happy.

Today I am happy because I got to talk to my geography professor about being in Honduras. He was impressed that I knew where Trujillo was, let alone did mission work there for two weeks.

I'm also happy today because of more writing! I'd forgotten how nice it was to write just for me.

And to wrap it up I made chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies. Yum!

What made me happy today: Got off of work a half an hour early so I can make it to an extra credit dealie tonight, yay! I don't wanna gooo, but I'm glad for the opportunity.

Listening to Lucas tell me all about "the spiderman costume I had when I was a baby that was black but not like the bad guy one, and had red webs and blue over my eyes and had real webs and I shot them and went up on the roof, then I wore my baby costume to the Fair.." The only thing I can think of remotely like that is last year's Fair when he had his face painted like Spider Man. There was certainly no actual web slinging involved, though there WAS glitter.

He is SO strange sometimes. :)

I am happy because I don't think I have a leak in my fuel tank.

However, I'm angry because I think someone may have siphoned my gas last night. Seriously, WTF does that?!

I am also happy because I got a B on my paper, and I soooo did not deserve it. I'm peeved because dammit, I usually do A papers, but a B's nothing to sneeze at, either. I'm also pretty sure I aced my map test in geography, so it's all gravy, baby!

I am also happy because I have a whole pot full of zupa toscana currently! Yum!

Sorry, forgot to post last night! I'm sure you were all up, wailing in agony, gnashing teeth, rending clothes, ashes, tears, blahblahblah.

SO! Yesterday I was happy about: William's birthday party-- I hooked him up with SpongeBob Legos, and he seemed really stoked. This is great because I was in a serious rut about gifts for him-- he's entering that weird phase that boys all go through. I was also happy because it was Saturday, and I got to sleep like a brick for as long as I wanted! Ahhhh! I ALSO got my official welcome to the History program at my school-- my major is officially declared, hooray!!

Today I am happy because I started washing my bedding, got all caught up on C.S homework, emptied and washed out the cat boxes, and I'm also going to do dishes and some vaccuuming. Housework is fun if you're in the mood for it! And I am, OH I AM! Mwahahahaahaaaaaaa!!

I am now going to drink my chai, watch some cartoons, and when I feel recharged, I am off to complete my other tasks!

Today I am happy because again, I wrote! I haven't shown this to anyone, and maybe I never will! Maybe it's just my story! HA!

I'm also happy because a total stranger tried to help stop me from driving the wrong way down a street-- it was very nice of her!

I am also happy because I finally got off my butt and bout dental floss, so I can quit bogarting my roommate's (sorry Bevin!).

And lastly, I have a very small black cat sleeping on my slippered feet, in front of the space heater. Bliss!