:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 ::

heading out tomorrow
Well, this is it. Tomorrow is the first time I'll be driving off on my own without my parents for four days. I've had them drop me off at the airport before, as well as drop me off at a friend's house to catch the car to the airport, and the 'we're taking different cars, but still traveling together' thing, and the day trip by myself with friends thing, but I've never actually driven myself off somewhere away from them before for this long.

It's going to be so cool.

Yes, I know. I'm twenty-five, for crying out loud. So, I was a little sheltered as a child. Being an only child and a girl makes it really hard for your parents to let you stretch your wings. Let me tell you, it sucks being the only one in the group with a curfew. Especially when some of the members are younger. Twenty-two years old and I had to be home by midnight simply because I happened to have driven in my own car by myself that night.

So, I'm a little excited that they're letting me do this. Of course, it helps that the car I have now is about a million times more reliable than the last one. I just have the check the oil in a few minutes before it gets dark out.

itinerary
Early morning tomorrow. I have to get up around 5:30 or so. Make sure everything I need is packed and ready to go. Then, I want to leave here by a quarter to 7 the latest. I have to be up to Ridge, get Aly loaded up, and be back down to the LIE by 7:30 to meet up with Charsie and the Mirabelli's. We're meeting at the coffee truck on the service road before we head up.

Once there, it's all busy check-in stuff, mixed with rehearsals and lunch before opening sessions on Thursday night. At opening session, we do our formal opening ceremonies, introduce everyone, have a few speeches and some reports, and then the Majority degree. Missy's getting her Majority this year. Then we informally close for the night. I think tomorrow night's dinner is the one where we have to wear our district costumes. Yay...

Friday starts off with the Grand Rep session in the morning. We hear the reports of the Reps about Rainbow around the world, and then have speeches from visiting dignataries from other jurisdictions. Visiting Reps and Grand Worthy Advisors, mostly. Then, there's more rehearsals and free time activities (and the Grand Cross degree for Grand Cross members) before Initiation and Retiring on Friday night. We have the GWA's closing address and more speeches. Saturday morning has more rehearsals and then Installation of the new officers for next year that afternoon. We have our big banquet, awards ceremony, and formal dance on Saturday night. Sunday morning is church service and check out (not to mention a lot of cleaning up and packing of things) before we all hit the road for the drive home.

feelings
I think I'm more excited about what this whole trip represents than the actual trip itself. I mean, it's a step for me in life and my relationship with my parents. While I'm not thrilled about Grand Assembly as a whole this year, there are certain high points in that as well. Aly's being installed as a Grand Rep. Missy's getting her Majority. Perhaps getting the choir to sound good this year. ^^;;; Yeah. Seeing my Rainbow friends from around the state.

I just have this terrible feeling that I might end up being like an extra wheel. And that's a horrible feeling.

things to do
Of course, I will have my Net Lab & Troubleshooting midterm with me. Unfortunately, I won't have internet access or even a computer up there, so I'm going to have to do a ton of research Sunday night and Monday during the day for my C midterm. With everything that I've been doing this week (well, minus the other day of doing nothing, bad me!), I really haven't had the time to do it. Plus, I've finally started getting closer on that stupid match program that I've been working on for most of the class time.

speaking of which...
I got it working! I have it changing colors and stuff, everything's in the right spot, it works! Now, he wants me to add a fancy ending when the player wins. But, now that I have the big part of the program working, the fancy ending should be "P.O.C." Piece of Cake. Dr C, my math teacher, always said everything in class was 'poc, piece of cake'. He's very Italian, accent and all. He's a cool teacher, extremely good at math. Unfortunately, half the people in the class shouldn't have been in there. Taking 16 weeks of pre-calculus and cramming it into 8 wasn't easy on the students or the teacher. He had a schedule to keep, but they weren't able to learn it fast enough.

Lucky for me, I've taken a lot of math and physics. I had quite an extensive background already walking in there, so I wasn't intimidated in the least. It helps if you're not intimidated by it. You can go in with a more relaxed feeling and you're more open to accepting what's being taught. It makes it easier to learn the subject.

laundry buzzes
I'm being called. I must go to it... {{spaces out and floats to the laundry to finish}}

blah
I can't sleep, so I took a quiz.


You're normal. Normal?! NORMAL?! Oh SCREW YOU!You
KNEW you were normal when you came here, you
FREAK. GET OUT! GET OUT! *throws you at a bus*


How Depressed are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Riiiiiight. {{doesn't like being thrown at busses}}

hmmm...
And people wonder why we're there... This says a lot. After all, a picture's worth a thousand words, right?

I found a black and white version in Newsday here at home along with a couple of letters.

---

The photograph of a mural at an Iraqi military building that shows a jetliner crashing into a high-rise building should have been the cover of the newspaper that day ["A Desert Reminder of Sept. 11", News, March 27]. Perhaps the headline could have read, "Is There a Link?" or, "Hmm, Could This Be Proof?"

As I walk past the houses in my community of parents who never made it home that sad day in September, my resolve grows ever stronger to assure that no one is ever again at the mercy of fanatical hatred.

No one is "pro-war". Unfortunately, the peace we have taken for granted all these years had to be fought for by our fathers and grandfathers.

Eileen Bellini
Manhasset, NY

---

The next time anti-war protesters tie up traffic in New York City, throw bottles at police officers, and question why we are at war, they should be handed a copy of that photograph of the mural.

Bill Scheu
Shirley, NY

---

Thursday morning while reading Newsday's coverage of the war, I was sickened to see the mural of the two high-rise buildings -- with one airliner smashing into it and another about to. Then I turned the pages and read in disbelief that Ikhlas Aljazani is outraged that Muslim and Arab immigrants are being questioned by the FBI ["Interviews Cause Outrage", News, March 27].

I, too, am outraged. My husband fled the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. These immigrants fled tyranny. They should consider it their civic duty to answer questions and provide any information they think will be helpful to the war on terrorism.

L.W. Trotta
Kings Park, NY

---

There were very few people who weren't touched by what happened one and a half years ago. Two friends of Mom's from the SCCA were on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. I'm not "pro-war", but I understand that peace only comes after you struggle and fight for it. I'm not willing to sit back and wait to see if Iraq was going to pull a nuke out of its butt and use it on us. I'm not in support of taking the risk of another attack as bad as (or, God forbid, worse than!) 9/11. No thank you. I saw it once. I'd much rather see it prevented from happening again.

cos-players rejoice!
J-List has books on how to make Japanese High School uniforms! They also carry all sorts of Japanese snacks, like pocky! I can finally get my hands on the stuff and see what the big hype in the anime community is all about. lol

J-List is run by Peter Payne, an English teacher in Japan. He has a Japanese tutorial on his site as well. I'm determined to figure out what that weird guy on "Iron Chef" is saying. ^^;;

update
Just added a couple more 'blogs of note'. ^_^ {{points}} Go look!

Jessi-Lynne is a Coconut-Eating Ninja Monkey ...with a Battle Rating of 8.8 To see if your Food-Eating Battle Monkey can defeat Jessi-Lynne, enter your name:

I have no idea what this is, but somehow I beat someone. Go ahead, do it! I dare you!

:: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 ::

bloggers of the world, unite!
Looks like someone found us worthy enough to write a story about.

Diary of an Internet user

He has several blogs that I've noted here, and some others as well. I just hope all my day-to-day ramblings about how boring things can get doesn't earn me that "Cheese Sandwich" Award. {{shudders}}

Take The Test!

Well, I wouldn't say I like the dull and tedious, but I do have a rather overactive imagination that often deals with some sort of rediculously dangerous and untrue scenario. Hence my obsession with RPing Gundam Wing. ^^;;

Of course, an odd thing happened as I was taking the test. The window popped open and Norton went nuts saying I had a virus and that it didn't do anything about it. If my computer goes all whacky, I'll let you all know from class.

kinzey report
Bert Kinzey is a former Army officer who became an expert in military aviation and has authored literally dozens* of books, principally aimed at the aviation enthusiast and scale modeler, and that are definitely apolitical.

However, with his research efforts on military subjects he has gained a wealth of contacts within the U.S. military, and is one of the premier authorities on military subjects in this country.

Please read what Bert has to say about CNN.

---

Subject: The Kinzey Report

Hello, Everyone, As many of you know, although some do not, I wrote a book about the Gulf War shortly after it ended in 1991. It was published by McGraw Hill, and was titled, "The Fury of Desert Storm, the Air Campaign." While that book's primary focus was on the air war, much of it also addressed the news coverage of the war. I pointed out how there were two big losers during that war; Iraq and the news media.

Both the news media and Iraq had many things in common, one of which was that they brought their problems on themselves. I explained how the news media, particularly CNN, inaccurately reported the war, misstating the facts, and in many cases deliberately telling outright lies. I dedicated an entire chapter to a dishonest CNN report about the B-1 bomber and evaluated its inaccuracies line by line. I illustrated that the report was full of lies, and these were about clearly established facts and not about someone's opinion. I spoke in person to the people in the Pentagon that CNN had been interviewed and filmed for that report, and they told me how CNN edited what they said to make it seem like they were saying exactly the opposite of what they actually said. I spoke with CNN's people here in Atlanta and at the Pentagon, including Wolf Blitzer, and he admitted he knew nothing about the military. A CNN employee in Atlanta admitted to me that they did not care if they got their reporting accurate. They only wanted to get it on the air first and in the most dramatic manner possible.

Their primary purpose was to make money by selling ad space, not reporting the news. The story goes on and on.

Unfortunately, twelve years later, the situation has not improved at CNN.

I have watched them as well as other news sources recently, and their lies and inaccuracies are even more common than they were in 1991. Their bias is also beyond belief. They are showing almost exclusively an anti-war stance by people who are so delusioned that they believe that peace is merely the absence of war. While everyone, including news organizations, have their own bias, it is neither professional nor honest to concentrate almost exclusively on one side of an issue, particularly one so important as this. To do so presents an inaccurate and dishonest view of what is actually happening, and this does not allow viewers to form informed and valid opinions.

For example, CNN concentrates almost exclusively on those few nations that are against us in this effort and makes almost no mention of the many more that are supporting us. They ignore and do not report on our success in Afghanistan where we have returned women to classrooms and professional occupations and where people are returning to that country with expectations for a bring future free of terror, all thanks to America.

Before we drove out the Taliban, people were fleeing Afghanistan.

CNN also makes the viewer believe that those who protest the war are in far great numbers than those who are supporting it. This is clearly not the case, and even CNN's own surveys show that 66% of Americans support military action to disarm Iraq. (ABC and FOX surveys place that percent in the upper 70s.) For example, this past Saturday, over 3,000 people turned out in Atlanta, the home of CNN, to support the war on a dreary and rainy day. At the same time, there was an anti-war rally in Atlanta that was attended by twenty-two, that's right TWENTY-TWO protesters. Anyone care to guess how CNN covered it? I recently heard the percentage of students that protested the war at universities across America, and in almost every case, it was less than one percent. That means that ninety-nine percent did not protest against the war, and in many cases the number gathering to support President Bush and our troops far exceed the number who protested against it. But who does CNN report? Clearly, all sides need to be presented in a balanced manner, and CNN skews their coverage extremely in one direction. In my view, their coverage with its inaccuracies, lies, distortions, and blame America first bias is nothing short of criminal.

CNN has seldom reported much about the continuing atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein throughout his time in power. Here is a man who has attacked his neighbor to the east and his neighbor to the southeast.

Here is a man who has fired missiles at his neighbors to the southwest and the west. Hussein has gassed his own people and habitually tortures those that disagree with him. He has had the wives and children of dissidents brought in and tortured, raped, and killed those family members before their very eyes. Here is a man who would destroy oil wells and dams to create ecological disasters and kill the Iraqi people. On the other side of the coin are the Americans who will bring freedom from this oppression to the Iraqis, who will bring food and medicine to them, who will protect Iraq's infrastructure, and who will treat Iraqi prisoners who surrender in a humane way. But CNN makes America out to be the bad guy! How does that work?

If you are like me and believe that the freedom of the press carries with it an obligation to be accurate, fair, balanced, and honest, I ask you to do two things. First, please pass this e-mail on to everyone you know so that they may realize what CNN is doing. Second, I ask you to stop the lies, turn off CNN, and send them an e-mail that you are doing so. I ask you to look elsewhere for your news coverage. I find the FOX News Network, The News Hour on PBS, and MSNBC to be far more fair. Sure, there is some bias anywhere, but it is not so extreme nor calculated. On these networks I hear both sides about equally. I hear about France like I do on CNN, but I also hear about Japan and Australia as well as the many other countries that are backing us in so many ways. As of today, three countries in Europe are against us, and twenty-two have come out in support of us.

Most of the twenty-two have never been mentioned on CNN, but representatives of France and Germany are on CNN almost hourly. So please take a look at several news choices and find one that is accurate, fair, and balanced.

It is only that way that you will get an honest view of what is going on.

I am not telling you which one to choose, I'm only asking you to turn off CNN.

It is not in my present plans to write another book for the general public on this war. But that may change. I am so sickened by the reporting of CNN that I may just do so. If I do, I will not focus on the air war this time. Instead I will simply state the facts that clearly prove that CNN is lying and distorting the news about our country, our leaders, and our military.

Finally, I would like to remind you to do a third thing. As most of you know, I have a son who is a Navy pilot and who has been flying missions in the Middle East since last November. So, as the father of one of our deployed military personnel, and as a former Army officer myself, I ask all of you to remember our troops, support them, and pray for them even more than you usually do in these critical days ahead. I know many of you also have family members or friends who are over there ready to do their jobs in support of our country. It is those troops who keep us free, and who are ready to lay down their lives to protect our country. It is not the movie stars nor the news reporters that have ever protected us.

For those of you who pass this on to your friends, I thank you for your help in spreading the word about CNN.

God bless America, Bert Kinzey

---

*If you don't believe the "dozens of books", check for his titles among the authors at just about any book seller. For example, Amazon.com currently lists him as author of ninety five available titles.

new jewel single
I like it! I like it! Check out Jewel's new single, "Intuition", off her new album. It's due out June 3rd! Yay!

new link
Yes, I know. I complain a lot about Dragon Ball and how overplayed on Cartoon Network, but I added a link in my anime section to the Official Dragon Ball GT Website. That was *so* out of character for me...

Which MegaTokyo Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

O.O;;; Hm... I guess it would help if I've read MegaTokyo.

yada yada yada
Today I did... NOTHING!!! Well, not really. I emptied the dishwasher. It's just been such a crappy day weather-wise, it rubbed off on me. I just couldn't get out of bed this morning.

I did go digging through my room for stuff I'll need this weekend though. That's always a good thing. I just can't find the adapters for my portable CD player. I have a little bag that has mini-speakers, a car stereo cassette adapter, an AC adapter, a cigarette lighter adapter, and those tiny ear-bud headphones. I just don't know where it is. I was going to bring some CD's to listen to over the weekend, but I'm not going to go through my collection to pick stuff if I can't find the bag with the adapters in it.

pin & fafsa
I requested my PIN from the US Dept of Ed so I could renew my FAFSA, but they didn't send it back to me last night. Which means my application's going to be late. I don't know if I'm going to take any summer classes anyway. I have to think about that. Next week is Pre-Reg. Hopefully, I can register. Dad didn't sign the co-signer forms for Sallie Mae, yet, so I know the school didn't get paid the balance I owe them. I had a problem last semester with registering because I had a balance due. What a pain that was.

:: Monday, March 31, 2003 ::

Mystical Ball Mind Reader

I found another one. I think it works almost identical to the first one.

yawn
I'm bored...

opening day
Well, today was Opening Day for Baseball Season. The Mets got killed 15-2 by the Cubs. The Yankees are currently holding Toronto in a shut out 8-0, but Jeter got creamed at third by their catcher, Huckaby, and dislocated his left shoulder. He's out indefinitely. {{sobs}}

class
This program in C is actually a huge challenge for me. I've got to do some research on strings to finish it up. I'm having some issues with it being a pain in the butt about printing stuff on the screen with the colors I want.

I *will* win. I will not be bogged down by some silly game program! {{makes vow to finish}}

assignments
I also have to do research on those palm pilot and phone emulators and see if I can get them running. I need to finish those up before I leave, since I don't think I'll be too excited about doing programming after driving home on Sunday. I also need to work on my taxes (hopefully Dad didn't print on the back of my instruction booklet again) and finish up my FAFSA tonight. Then, I have two days to work on my assignment to hand it in Wednesday night. It's due Thursday, but I won't be here, I'll be at Grand Assembly.

grand assembly
Aly and I are meeting Lisa, Missy, and Charsie at the coffee truck at like 7:30 in the morning. That means I have to pick up Aly around 7 or so, which means I have to leave my house at a quarter to 7. x.x;; Early-ness... Lisa and Missy have to be up there early on Thursday for rehearsal with the flag tribute and Aly has a Page meeting right after lunch, so we need time to get our stuff settled into our rooms. Plus, I have choir rehearsal right after the Page/Go-Fer meeting. Most of the Go-Fer's are in the choir, so we have the choir meeting/rehearsal after their meeting.

I just have this horrible feeling I'm going to be so bored...

game update
Toronto just scored 2 runs... {{grumbles}}

bored
Of course, I'm bored right now. This class is like nothing. I'm going to bring my book and my midterm with me to Grand Assembly. It'll give me something to do on all the down time I think I'm going to have. I have to call Aly after class tomorrow and see if she wants to do the poster Wednesday night or if she wants me to do it. I don't remember when we have to hand them in by. Maybe I can do it Thursday morning before lunch if Aly can't. Or, the two of us can work on it together at that point. I should get silver star stickers and dark blue oaktag. It'll cut down on the amount of work that we have for our idea.

We also came up with a variation of the poster to use for our door. I just have to find a large tissue paper ball in blue. I have plenty of rainbow colored ribbon, so that's not a big deal. We'll also need to do paintbrushes. This year's theme is "Paint the World with Rainbows" and the Grand Assembly theme is "It's a Small World". Each district was assigned a country that they had to dress up as for dinner Thursday night. We got Bolivia. {{shrugs}} Oh well. We always end up with the weird ones. For the Disney theme, we got Pinnochio. The last time we did countries it was for the Olympics. We ended up with Brazil. For the "Under the Sea" sessions we did last year, we were seals.

Maybe Suffolk's just got bad luck when it comes to picking things like that out of a hat.

I'm an irredeemably eejitous, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, pathetically simple-minded, dribbling child!
See how compatible you are with me!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

I'm a liberal? Stupid quiz.

:: Sunday, March 30, 2003 ::

yawn
I'm sleepy...

my cat ate my title
I-CON was pretty fun. Dad and I weren't really prepared for what was there. There were a lot of different events to go to, and walking in blind is a bad thing. But, we now know what to expect for next year if we can go. Heck, I might even sign up to be a volunteer next year.

We hit the dealer's room first. Basically, that was the place to walk around and have your costume seen (if you wore one) and go looking for merchandise. There was a guy selling SD Gundam models for like $5 or $6, but he didn't have an SD Deathscythe/D-Hell/Custom. {{sobs}} There was an SD Wing Zero and an SD Shining Gundam that I seriously considered getting one of them, but I wanted to look around and see if anyone had a Deathscythe. So, we walked around a bit more. I was specifically looking for a Starfleet Academy sticker to put on my car, but I only found a Starfleet Medical Academy sticker. I ended up going back to the guy with the models, but he had a really cool poster for Wing 01 all shot up with the other four Gundam Wing pilots in small screen shots down the side. That was $2 instead of the $5 (plus added time to put it together) for the model. I got the poster.

Next, we looked at the schedule and tried to think of different events to go to. There was one that was "Pewter Casting in Soapstone". Now, we thought it was going to be a demonstration. Not quite. It was a guy standing in one of the classrooms giving a lecture on how to do it while he drew diagrams on the chalkboard. We left early. On the way out, I saw pictures projected on the screen in one of the lecture halls, so Dad and I stopped in there. I was a woman from NASA giving a demonstration on some of the things seen with the Hubble Space Telescope. There were some really cool pictures and stuff, of which she had printed copies to give away, so we grabbed a few of those after the show ended.

We checked out the computer game room, but it was too crowded and there was a line to get in, so we left campus and got dinner. We went back afterwards and stopped by the game demo room. The guy was giving away free game demos, so we grabbed a couple and watched the demos he was running on his laptop. Then we checked in on the "Build a Gaming Rig on a Budget" track. Again, not what we thought. No parts or anything, just two guys on a panel discussing the anecdotes of buying computer supplies and telling Staples tech support horror stories (both the techies and the customers). We left a bit disappointed.

Our last stop was in a room for a thing titled "Monty Python: What Is Your Name? What Is Your Quest? What Is Your Favourite Colour?" This intrigued us immensely, so we sat down. People signed up to read scenes from... you guessed it... Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The others in the room provided music and sound effects, much to the amusement of all, and the judges then presented the best three groups with prizes.

"I wish we'd stopped by this room first," Dad said. I couldn't agree more.

But, at least, for next year, we now know what to expect. There were also several anime viewings that I wanted to go see, but I didn't really want to drag my dad into them. I don't think he truly understands my obsession. ^^;;;

charity bowl
So, as I was hoping to sleep in today, it didn't happen. ^^;;; Cathy called about 11:30 this morning and asked me to go bowling with her at 1:30. Her mother apparently couldn't go, and they had reserved 8 spots for this charity bowl at Sayville. Cathy's mom said she'd send the money since she had originally wanted to go anyway. A 10-year-old local girl has leukemia and Sayville Lanes sponsored a day of bowling (well, two games) where you got everything you needed for $15. They were also selling raffle tickets (I bought one for each drawing, a $3 door prize ticket, and a $5 bowling ball ticket for one of the four bowling balls). They raised over $5000 for the fund, which I thought was a great success. Plus, it was a fun thing to do. They did it 'Midnight Bowling' style with the DJ, black lights, and colored head pins that you could win a free game if you got a strike. They had other games going on, like "Name that Show" where they played the show's theme song, and other things, too. It was pretty cool.

double yawn
Of course, I'm exhausted now, and I still have homework and taxes to do. ^^;;; Unfortunately, I can't finish printing what I need to print while Dad's playing Delta Force on his computer. Our printer drivers aren't really good for the network, and it kicks him out of whatever it is he's doing to flash an error message on the screen of his computer. But that's only when I print from mine. One of these days I'll get my own printer. {{dreams}}

weird weather
When we first got to I-CON, it was sunny and warm. SUNY SB is a big campus and the convention was in several different buildings, so it was nice to get out. However, I was glad later that I didn't try out my idea for a Lady Une costume when it started pouring rain. I did catch a cool picture of a rainbow over the Indoor Sports Complex, though, before the rain really started. But, it got terribly cold, and Dad and I were soaked by the time we got home. Luckily, we drove to a few different buildings, so I was able to leave my poster in the car so it wouldn't get wrecked in the rain.

Today was cold and rainy when I went to the bowling alley. Later, while we were eating dinner, we had hail. Then that turned to snow when I went out later to get the ice cream we wanted with desert. O.O;;; I thought, 'oi... I'm getting ice cream and it's snowing'. We even started to have a bit of accumulation. I don't know if anything's left right now, tho'.

Figures...