Random Ramblings

Nowadays it seems that everyone and their mother is a huge fucking fan of Rachael Ray. Everyone loves to say that she mentioned their product on her show. It is irrelevant whether I like or dislike Rachael Ray. I could seriously care less. But come on fucking idiots, if you are going to say on your website or your advertisement that Ray promoted your product on her show, you might actually want to spell her name right. Otherwise it is obvious that you are an absolute bullshitter. It is not Rachel Ray. Nor is it Racheal Ray. Rachael Ray. Get it? Got it? Good.

Today was a truly historic day: the first African American president of the United States sworn in. A bit more than ten years ago 2Pac said, “We ain’t ready to see a black President.” Today, that has changed. I feel really optimistic about things. Maybe we will be seeing some changes soon, positive changes I hope.

As of recently the media has also been rather optimistic. The good majority of the time I hate whatever the media is reporting. Either overhyped depressing stories that make me wonder why the heck I read the news, or just frivolous bullshit that I could care less about. I honestly don’t give a shit if some celebrity is now sleeping with another celebrity, what diet Rachael Ray is now endorsing, or if nutjob Angelina Jolie is pregnant yet again. Thankfully the media has caught ahold of a good story, an optimistic story. The one of Chesley Sullenberger III, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549. A truthfully good story that one can read and feel good about. Right now people worry about things, about money, whether they are going to have a job in a few months, with the economy like it is. Tension seems to be running high. Thanks Mr. Sullenberger, we needed this. We needed something positive to smile about. The fan worship of an entire country may be a bit overwhelming I’m sure, but you sir, are a hero… and you gave us all something positive to believe in. When it comes to planes, New York City still has an open wound, which I don’t forsee healing for quite a while… but this plane was different. Everyone on your plane survived. Each and every soul on that flight was in your hands, and you led them all to safety.

I raise my glass to you Mr. Sullenberger, and to you President Barack Obama. Here’s to hoping for some more good things in the rest of this already historic year, 2009.

The last time I posted I mentioned that I was reading a book about Centralia. I finished it rather quickly, in a day or two, and moved on to requesting more books from the library about the subject. My brother and I even talked of going to Centralia next summer. At the time I certainly didn’t know that my father was planning on taking a drive to Pennsylvania to see a friend, within an hour’s drive of Centralia. So today we got up at 5 in the morning, and headed to Pennsylvania. I was strangely excited, like a kid waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or something. Throughout reading everything I could find about the town, about the people, I felt like I had made some sort of emotional connection… I prepared myself beforehand, drawing up my own map of the town based on everything I had read, overlaying the old abandoned streets over a more current map of what remained. I knew where some of the houses still stood, and the names of the people that lived there.

Upon entering the town, we noticed several cars parked up near St. Ignatius Cemetary. We did a quick drive through, and then parked behind the other cars. There were no Borough of Centralia signs, nor any signs warning of the mine fire, as I had seen on the internet. But then again, plenty of people on the internet told about those same signs getting stolen. So it was really the St. Ignatius sign that I saw and was like, “Wow. I’m really here.” I walked down to the abandoned portion of Route 61, which I knew was situated above the fire. It was sort of sad to walk down the road, not so much because of the state of abandonment — trees started growing in the middle of the road — but due to the graffiti and trash left by so many others. I suppose that separates me from some of the other visitors… I was interested in the history, caught up in the sadness of the town’s abandonment, it seemed like a pilgrimage to pay my respects. I suppose it was merely a novelty to all the others that found it fun to tag perverse and racist remarks on a cracked and destroyed road, while it belched out plumes of steam. In fact when I reached the major cracks a short walk down the road, I found a person with a spray paint can in hand, leaving a mark behind. It made me angry to see it.

After taking many photographs of the cracks, I headed back up the hill to take a few more pictures in the town. I would have loved to explore more, but my father was eager to leave, considering the long drive we had to get back home. Before leaving, I took a short walk through St. Ignatius Cemetary. There was a specific person I was looking for, I didn’t think I would find her, but by coincidence I happened upon her grave. I’m hardly a religious person, but I observed a few moments of silence in lieu of a prayer. It was the grave of Helen Womer. Of all the people that I had read of that lived in Centralia, for some reason I found her story to be the most interesting. I read a review by David DeKok, the author of the current book I am reading, about the book I mentioned before, “The Day The Earth Caved In,” written by Joan Quigley. He claims that the book failed to explain Womer, and that the focus on the people downplayed the facts about the actual fire.

My only observation was that although both books dealt with the subject, they each sought to answer a different question. DeKok’s book was a historical account, ultimately explaining why the town of Centralia was abandoned, and the failures of the state and government that led to that outcome. Quigley’s book was purposely focused on the people, almost an attempt to get inside their heads. The question it sought to answer was why are people STILL LIVING in Centralia. By the end of the book, I felt as if I knew. I spent so much time hating Helen Womer, that by the time I got to the end, all of a sudden I thought I understood why she did what she did. Certainly I did not agree with some of those things (hiding/ignoring facts in the hope of saving the town from abandonment/destruction), but in a way, I understood them. And I recognized the times in my life where I almost wanted to do similar things. Clearly not on the same scale, but I felt as if I knew what that woman felt.

If I ever go back to Centralia, I plan on leaving a flower on the grave of Helen Womer.

You can see pictures of my trip to Centralia in the gallery.

It has been quite some time since I felt it necessary to make a blog post, or have been too busy to say anything much. Last month I vacationed with my family in Chicago and then later Ohio, and had a spectacular time.

I’ve also been reading some great books, I picked one up at the library today, a nonfiction book titled “The Day The Earth Caved In,” which is about the mine fire in Centralia, PA, which still rages after all these years and has left the town nearly a ghost town. Ever since finding out about Centralia on the internet I’ve become very interested in learning more about it for some reason. I also have the strongest desire to go there. I also have a strange desire to go visit Prypiat, Ukraine, which probably isn’t the best idea either.

For any Star Trek fans I highly recommend the recently released books in the “Myriad Universes” series. It’s been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across countless alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a prism — broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been…is what actually happened. It sort of got me thinking about other might-have-beens in our own history. The cliched example is what if Hitler’s Germany won World War Two. Instead, I wonder what would have happened if Hitler instead achieved his goal of attending art school and became a painter or architect as he once dreamt…

Anyways, I have a terrible confession to make… that is, I look forward to reading my spam mail folder every morning. There of course are the usual mails trying to get me to buy viagra, or increase the size of the penis that I don’t have. But some, some are downright amusing. Some are so absurd and barely make sense. I have collected a small list of them:

Britney Spears Confession: ‘I’m the Father of Anna Nicole Smith’s Baby!’
Britney Spears’ vagina attacks warder and escapes rehab
Britney Spears’ New Hair Extensions Are Lindsay Lohan’s Pubes
Miracle Hero Justin Timberlake Teaches Britney Spears To Sing Again
Britney vagina transplant to erase fools’ memory syndrome
Paris Hilton’s vagina bites mailman!
Paris Hilton caught sucking a Fisherman’s Friend
Paris Hilton sells her special taco!
Britney Spears quits rehab with failing grades
Photographer shot by Britney Spears’ chewing gum
Spears baby to be named T-Bone
Britney Spears’ judge takes custody of the US away from Bush
Paris Hilton to open rehab facility
Paris blames hexed vagina ahead of transplant
Paris Hilton’s prison sweat to be sold on eBay
Paris Hilton has wrong size electronic tag
Paris Hilton selling her ‘used’ underwear on eBay
Obama Talks of Mixed Parentage, Admits Zeus Was His Father

I would have to say that my personal favorite is the one about Britney’s hair extensions.

I’ve been reading this article, and the comments posted along with it. The essential idea behind the article is that the author feels a little “uneasy” with the fact that veterinary medicine has improved, and thus the length of a pet’s life can be increased, often with a large price tag. “I think I’d be a better person to let my animal die naturally and then give $1,000 to combat child poverty, or even animal abuse.” And many of the comments, at their core, reflect the sentiment that people deserve advanced medicine, while animals do not… as well, people are better than animals.

Somehow I feel that it is necessary to respond to this in some sort of way, as many of you are aware from me telling stories, my cat has had extensive surgeries, at a cost of upwards of three thousand dollars. And since the surgery he has been required to eat a special diet of prescription pet food. At around four years old, my cat was diagnosed with Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease. He was unable to urinate due to blockage, and was brought to the vet several times to be catheterized, in order to empty his bladder, and to clear the blockage. Unfortunately these measures were unsuccessful, and we had to bring our cat late in the evening to an emergency veterinary facility in Hartford, a forty-five minute drive. We were told that toxins were building up in his system, death was imminent, he might not even survive the trip to the hospital. At the hospital we had to make a decision: emergency surgery, or euthanasia.

Let me just say this: if your child needs surgery, there is no way in hell that you are ever forced to make a decision for surgery based on economics, you either pay for it, or we let your kid die. I suppose this is where the issue gets touchy. Euthanasia is acceptable for pets, it is not for people. I will say that I don’t totally agree with that idea. For an old, sick, animal, (or for that matter a person) with a low quality of life, I see euthanasia as an acceptable option. However, my four-year-old cat hardly fit into that category. The average lifespan for an indoor house cat is around fifteen years, and so I reasoned he had significant time left to live. Ending a life, any life, due solely to economics seems wrong to me.

We opted for an emergency perineal urethrostomy: the necessary surgery to save my cat’s life. His penis was removed, and his genitalia were reconstructed to prevent future blockages; he essentially had a sex change. I attempt to explain this to people and generally they think I am a dipshit and I don’t quite understand what happens when a cat gets neutered. I do wonder about what exactly would happen if my cat were to go missing and I made a poster… list him as a male, or female? Nomatter, my cat is now celebrating his tenth birthday. He has lived six years since his surgery and is in wonderful health. There is no doubt in my mind that he will live many more happy years.

As I sort of draw my little quasi rant (that likely no one will read) to a close, I will step away from the possible open door of making a statement about religion; it tends to be my experience that people who clearly view human life more important than anything else as religious. I will also ignore the “normally intelligent” comment by the author, which seems to imply that they view pet owners that believe that the value of a pet’s life with the same respect as a human life, as stupid.

Was it worth spending more than three thousand dollars for a surgery to prolong my cat’s life? I say, hell yes. I view the life of my pet and his right to live equal as that of any person. Would it be acceptable to allow a person to “die naturally?” What in the heck does that even mean anyways? If you want to get right down to it, if we lived “naturally” I’d have died as a kid, picked off by predators. I’m scrawny as heck, with horrible vision. If we lived “naturally” I’d be dead, and not ever have the chance to reproduce: the “better” humans would. We don’t live naturally, we do, however, live based upon our morals. Failing to give medical care I just don’t think is morally right, human, feline, canine or otherwise.

Lets give a huuuuge thanks to Fox News for reporting that young adults suffer from “news fatigue” and have “trouble accessing in-depth stories.” Riiight. Most news is bullshit nowadays anyways. If we are having difficulties accessing these stories, it is a high likelihood that it is because you fucking idiots are not reporting it very well. I truly wonder wonder whether I was just oblivious in the past, or news really has gone to shit recently.

There is the obvious stuff you can find on the internet, beating this subject like a dead horse. CNN headlines = FAIL. Britney Spears news trumps earthquake coverage. Etc… But even watching local TV news I feel that it is being sensationalized and exaggerated to get more viewers. Controversy is created when none exists. And bullshit continues to get reported as if it were news.

But seriously though, news fatigue? More like fucking sick of this bullshit people pretend is news. I’ll just continue reading “it’s not news it’s fark.com.” NOT news. Drew Curtis is an expert on that subject, and apparently doesn’t bullshit us like the rest of them.

I went to Wal-Mart today with my family. Actually, it was yesterday, since it is now 1 am. Anyways, as I walked past the fitting rooms, there was a woman in one of the rooms trying some clothing on, and shouting rather loudly to a friend looking at clothes out on the racks.

“WHAT KIND OF PANTIES GIVE YOU YEAST INFECTIONS?!?! THE COTTON OR THE SILK?!?!”

I LOLed.

I was also unfortunate enough to run into my old roommate. The… disturbed / psychotic one. I will not elaborate further, however, when I saw her I intended to shout out something stupid like, “Well now, look who it is!” … except I failed because I shouted it out in Portuguese. Do other people that know multiple languages have issues like this, or am I just a nutjob? I find that when I get very emotional, I stop thinking in English. Most times though, random Portuguese words find their way into sentences, or better yet, I attempt to conjugate Portuguese verbs in English (or vice versa). In fact, I think this annoys people. Well shit, it annoys me too sometimes. Fail.

Before going to work today, my sister made it a point to ask me if I happened to have my period, while I was looking for something to eat for lunch. It was a random question I wasn’t expecting, and I assumed that she was about to get mad at me for stealing some of her tampons or some other thing that she has fabricated… (though in this case I had actually stolen some tampons, so I thought I was busted). Of course I played it cool and asked back, “Why do you ask?”

She then informed me that there was blood in the bathtub, which she thought was from someone’s period. Even if there truly was blood in there I reasoned that it could not possibly be mine, as at least two people had showered after me and if there were any, it would have washed away by that point.

Of course, there was no blood, and I had a good laugh when I went to go and inspect the shower. The first picture shows the “blood” and the second one is to show scale, my hand is at shoulder level…

Needless to say, if that was my blood, I would have some issues… Because I would most certainly need a geyser in between my legs to shoot period blood that high. I never did tell her that it was my brother’s body wash… maybe I should do that??

I’ve discussed this several times with Liz, and she finds it rather odd. When she sees a baby, she always thinks it is so adorably cute. It doesn’t matter whose baby, even babies she sees in public. I, on the other hand, think they are terribly awful looking creatures. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. Babies are NOT cute. I think Liz somewhat accepted this about me, although she thought it a little odd. But I have now determined that I even find *snakes* cuter than babies. This is a slightly disconcerting thought to me.

For you see the picture above, is my snake Cas (short version of Cascavel, the name of a city I lived near to in Brazil, and the Brazilian name for a species of South American rattlesnake). If you were to ask me a few weeks ago if I would ever keep a snake in my house, I would seriously think you nuts. But now I find myself taking care of a snake, and also finding this snake CUTE. Perhaps it has to do with the situation in which I acquired the snake: he was found during a rainstorm, caught in a deep trough full of water, accompanied with a larger snake (which my brother assumed to be his mother), near drowning. Unfortunately, the larger snake did in fact drown and was dead. Cas was near dead, and we took him in.

I took the initiative to scour the internet for information on caring for snakes, my sister on the other hand worried about how the snake was going to live without it’s mother’s milk. I attempted to explain the whole mammal/reptile thing, but she didn’t pay much attention, and had moved on to giggle about whether mother snakes had “boobies” or not.

But seriously, Cas likes to hide in corners and dig little holes for himself. He frequently pops his head out of the hole, looks around, and then ducks back in. I find this very cute. Most likely this is further evidence that I am “animal lady” in the future… fifty cats and maybe a couple snakes… hmm…

I just received an email from futureme.org/… Actually, to clarify, it was an email that I sent myself, scheduled to be delivered one year in the future. And today was that day. It is most definitely an intriguing way to look back at the past, reading your old thoughts, some of which were buried and you didn’t quite remember.

I think I will be sending more emails to my future self later today.