I would have ruled this world too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Friday, December 31, 2004
TENDRILS AND TRIBUTES

brendalove@gmail.com

After feedback received, the high speed folks have no problem loading the blog but the dial-ups do. So I've set the front page for 7 days worth of posts because I don't want to leave the dial-ups out in the void of space. Dial-ups deserve Planet priviledges too! LOL. Now its your duty to let me know if this thing loads any easier for you.


I had the most awful dream last night. I dreamed I was hanging around the house, just doing my own thing, when my legs became very uncomfortable-feeling. What could be wrong, I just shaved my legs! So I sit down on the couch, pull up the legs of my jeans and there, on my legs, instead of spontaneous hair growth, there was spontaneous vegetation growth. Kind of like celery or something. Lush tendrils of green growing out of the pores of my legs.

*SCREAMS*
I had become a human Chia Pet! I rushed to the doctor who informed me that I shouldn't worry, it was only a virus and all I needed was a lot of rest, plenty of fluids and a good lawn mower.

What inner workings of the forgotten corners of my brain manufactured this particular dream? Insanity cannot be far behind. I might need some therapy or something. Do guys have freaky dreams like that?


Here's a tribute to all the bands I saw live this year:

Appetite For Destruction - our fake G'nR tribute band, complete with bad wigs.

L'artiste Extraordinaire - Prince - probably the best show this year. And I'm not kidding you.

A Perfect Circle - We had a good time at this show.

Burning Brides - they liked me because I was jamming out while everyone else was standing there like frightened deer caught in the headlights.

Sebadoh - I love these guys and always will. I'm glad I caught them on this tour because I don't know that they'll ever tour again. Sparkle was not impressed with them, though.

American Hi-Fi - Saw them twice.

Butch Walker - saw him twice. Very, very good show.

Wilco - this was a great show too. Weirdness and all.

Velvet Revolver - Tiny club, front row...it rocked out. All you could see were abs.

Guided By Voices - a gloriously drunk band, a beautiful night. Thanks for the memories, guys.

Judas Priest = Heavy metal. You got a problem with that?

All the Ozzfest bands this year. I ain't posting all those pictures.

Local H - just say "JAMMING"

Wish List for 2005 -

Autolux

H.I.M.

The Mars Volta

Tool

Sweetie Pie - in whatever incarnation he chooses.

Also - Queens of the Stone Age, Fiona Apple, The Distillers, Nine Inch Nails and Sleater-Kinney.



Thursday, December 30, 2004
DENIAL, NOT JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT

brendalove@gmail.com

DENIAL


I have gotten over the initial shock of the tsunami, now I'm in the denial phase. My mind cannot comprehend the numbers of the dead, I can't imagine the horror and suffering these people are going through. I find my brain is almost shutting down on the subject....I can't take anymore in right now. Like Miss Kitty is doing in the above photo, I just want to hide and wish it never happened. I got this way after the 9/11 tragedy too. I was so numb from the shock that I didn't watch any TV for days and I missed a lot of the coverage of it. I finally sat down about a year ago and watched that DVD they put out about it and cried like it was just happening all over again.


So I am going to blog about something trivial.....like....my blog. I have gotten some feedback since the new look and I want to see what you guys think.


Everyone seems to like to the new look but I have been told that the smaller print is a lot harder to read. This is a real concern for me because I've been to other blogs (especially young teenager's blogs ) where the print was so tiny I just pushed the "next blog" button and moved on. I am going to change the size of the print for this post and see how this looks.

Some people are having problems with the new blog taking awhile to load. It doesn't take long for me but of course I am on Road Runner. So I would be interested to know long its taking to load for others out there. Also, if any of you who have Advanced Computer Skills would like to offer any advice on anything I could do to make it go faster, please do tell. In simple English, please.

I'm thinking about just wiping out the archives. Does anybody ever read archives? Who has time? Plus I do have a picture hosting limit (believe it or not) so once something hits the archives I do away with the pictures. And maybe just having 10 or 15 days of posts on the front page. That would help with load time, I bet.


Google Images seems to be down so here's another picture of Miss Kitty for you to look at.

Last of all....some people are saying Haloscan is working well for them. They just can't get in to comment at all. I've noticed that sometimes it stalls out on me. Any feedback you can offer will be read, thought about carefully and fretted over.

I just found out today that my favorite band o' the moment, Autolux, is coming March 1. I am soooo there, I really like their CD a lot. Nice hairdo, too, Girlfriend.

Thank you and....GOOD NIGHT!





Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Tsunamis Suck

brendalove@gmail.com


The death toll from the tsunami now stands at almost 60,000. I hardly know what to say anymore. Once a tragedy becomes so large it just goes beyond anything you can say. Silk is okay, Kit says his family okay but Enigma http://mymusingz.blogspot.com/ has not been heard from. She lives in Bangalore, India. Silk said there was no news on Bangalore but at an area just below there that was hit there are about 8,000 dead. I studied a map of India and Bangalore is way far enough inland that I think Enigma might be okay....but if she doesn't blog in soon it looks like another yellow ribbon will be posted on this site.


All of this has me thinking about life and death and the Unknown. When you're a kid you don't think anything will ever happen to you, you don't think about death at all. But once you get to be an adult and especially after having kids, you start to realize that hey, even I, the great ME, will die one day. You start becoming aware of just how tiny and insignificant your life really is. Compared with all the other lives out there, you are just another grain of sand on the beach, baby. And then when you think about all the hundreds of millions of lives that came before you....well, it can be a bit overwhelming to think about.


I'm opening myself up to some ridicule here but I do believe in reincarnation. I have read so much about it and it makes so much sense. The first argument people come up with when you say you believe in it is that if reincarnation is true, how can you account for there being so few people on the Earth back in the day compared with how many people are on the Earth now. Well, I don't think everyone is reincarnated. I'm sure new souls arrive on the scene all the time. As a matter of fact, I think the whole thing is probably more complicated that we could ever dream. Like maybe you can combine souls and reincarnate together as one. Or maybe a soul gets split. I firmly believe there are people with no souls at all.


And this little story has nothing to do with anything I've been talking about at all but I am compelled to tell it anyway. When I was at college in the Appalachian Mountains I went hiking up on the Parkway with a boyfriend. We had gotten a good distance into the wilderness when we came up on a cow pasture. There were cows there but no farm in sight. We found some rocks in the corner of the pasture and sat down to rest. We're just sitting there, chilling out, looking at the mountains and smelling cowshit when it suddenly occurs to me that hey, we're sitting on these big rocks in the middle of this pasture. These rocks are totally out of place looking. I jumped up and inspected my rock and there were etchings all over it, kind of like the picture above, but the rock was much, much bigger. I started looking at the other stones and they were all etched too. We had found an ancient graveyard! We tried our best to make out anything at all on those stones but we couldn't. The stones were very old, I would guess these graves were at least 1700's. We wondered if it was an Indian graveyard but there's no way to know. It was so cool though, I felt like we had discovered something no one had paid any attention to for many, many years and it felt like sacred ground.

Being the teenagers we were, we tripped out on it for awhile and then we left. I didn't bother noticing how we got there, how we got back, or where we were exactly on the Parkway, which is HUGE. But I think of that place often and wish I knew how to get back. Its possible no one has even been there since we were there. But I'll never forget.

Unless I get Alzheimer's. But that's a whole other blog entry on another day.



Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Just Down And A Little Bit Out

brendalove@gmail.com


I am very sad. There's so many people dead from that earthquake. The last count I saw was 26,000. That's a lot of people. And probably a whole lot of kids. I'm going to try to dig up some cash to donate, it can't be much but at least might help someone, somewhere. Maybe my job will have something we can all contribute to, they are usually pretty good about being there for disasters. Please bookmark my friend Silk's site http://silkstress.blogspot.com/ She lives in this area of the world and will be able to tell us firsthand what is going on there. Also, a prayer for my friend Enigma http://mymusingz.blogspot.com .... who has not been heard from yet. Enigma is in Bangalore, India....I have no idea how bad things are there. Silk do you know of any news from Bangalore? Also, Kit from http://thurpentyne.blogspot.com/ is in the U.S. but is from Malaysia and hasn't yet posted any news from his country, so I am praying for his family and friends too.

Geologist Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology was quoted on CNN as saying that a quake of that magnitude is enough to jolt the planet's rotation. "It causes the planet to wobble a little bit, but it's not going to turn Earth upside down," he said. Well, it may not turn the Earth itself upside down, but it sure turns everyone's life upside down.

I just feel really helpless.

I think I might have that seasonal disorder too. Winter has barely gotten started and already I am feeling like I've been cooped up forever. When I leave work at 3:30 the sun is already starting to slip behind the trees. I've been feeling sluggish too. I am start taking a break at work and go outside and try to get some sun....and of course a little exercise wouldn't hurt either.

My EX sister-in-law has me down too. She is hopelessly addicted to drugs and she called me up because she was out of whatever and she was sick and would I please, please, please give her a ride to some guy's house so she can score? So what did I do? I gave her a ride. And why? Because the girl is a hopeless case....she's been addicted for 20+ years. When she doesn't get what she needs then she will stoop to lowest lows a woman can go to, and has many times. Tough Love is not going to work with this girl. The only thing that is going to stop her is to chain her in some kind of castle dungeon.

I would much rather contribute to her problem by giving her a ride than I would for her to end up in some shitty motel room getting screwed by 5 or 6 or more guys for drugs. Once some guys were actually holding her "prisoner"....they continued to give her drugs that she had to "pay off" and was under a death threat if she tried to leave. Her family had to go to drastic measures to get her out of that one.

It's the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life. I had always heard about people like her, knew they existed, but never actually knew anyone like that till she went downhill. And she's not dumb....she's an intelligent college-educated girl. Of course, her brain is pretty much destroyed now....she's not the same girl I first met years ago. The whole thing just kind of gets me down.

So what do you think? If you were me would you give her a ride sometimes? Or tell her to fuck off and just let her sink to the bowels of the earth? Don't you think there should come a time where unconditional love should override any judgements I might make about her lifestyle? She's NOT going to get help. She's also NOT going to live a real long time. Still, she was my family once. What would YOU do? All opinions welcome.

P.S. While searching for the dungeon photo, I came across some really kinky websites. Good Heavens!



Sunday, December 26, 2004

brendalove@gmail.com

The blog wasn't hacked! It was just one of those internet thangs and don't ask me to explain it. You may as well ask me to explain how the universe functions, because I probably understand that better. I'm telling you, if you have an internet ignorance problem, you can't go wrong with the Web Divas. Once again, that's Web Divas.... http://www.web-divas.com/ I'd pay them a small montly charge just to have them on call when I'm having a problem. Hmmmm...maybe I should pitch that idea to them!


There's been a terrible earthquake in Southeast Asia. 11,000 dead. Thank goodness my friend Silk http://silkstress.blogspot.com/ is okay! But please if you can please say a prayer for the 11,000 dead and for those that loved them.

I'm really kind of tired tonight so I am going to cut it short. Back to work for me tomorrow! If I can cram in 8 hours from Monday to Thursday I can be off Friday, though.





The Hacking of the Blog

Brendalove@gmail.com


SOMEBODY HACKED MY BLOG! I logged on and there it was all screwed up. Thank God I was able to get my old version back because I kept it. I would be extremely mad if I only understood what had happened!



Saturday, December 25, 2004
Christmas Edition

brendalove@gmail.com

I hope everyone's Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Whatever was ALL THAT! Mine went pretty well....I went to do the Christmas thing with my sister's family on Christmas Eve. Then Sparkle and I came home and did our thing together. Look at what she gave me:



Super Dooper Nice! This is an actual painting someone did, too, not a print. It has a Japanese signature on it. I'm like, "this HAD to be expensive!" and she just smiles. I am thinking of going back through the police files and seeing if there were any art thefts in the past three weeks. There's a lot of glare on my photo of it, but you can see for yourself how nice this is.

Sparkle got 2 H.I.M. shirts, one Motley Crue shirt, one Nightmare Before Christmas shirt, one Butch Walker shirt, one Butch Walker hoodie, and an assortment of "real" shirts from Old Navy. She got a "Nightmare Before Christmas" belt buckle (I forgot to get a belt....whoops), season one DVD of Viva La Bam, season one DVD of Wildboyz, a Breaking Benjamin CD, a 100 CD capacity CD case, a CD scratch fixer-upper-thingie, make-up, make-up remover, make-up brushes, a H.I.M. calendar, a belly-button ring, jeans, socks, intimate apparel, and 2 absolutely disgusting Steve-O "Don't Try This At Home" videos which I am pissed off that I spent a couple of hours salary on.

Without a doubt, one of the most disgusting men on the Earth. HURL! I think these videos even changed Sparkle's mind about ol' Steve-O just a little bit. I consider myself to be a fairly open-minded individual but holy shit! This guy goes way beyond pushing the envelope.

Bitchard gave Sparkle a Game Boy SP. She gave him a Corvette Calendar and some kind of goth looking mirror. Here they are from this morning:


We lit the Christmas candles in honor of those we love, who have passed on and who are still here. This is something we do every year now. We use a small knife and etch names in the candles....parents and friends and everyone we can think of. Chances are if I know you, your name was on my candle today. Then we wish them all a Merry Christmas and fire 'em up. We do it on Halloween too, but only for the dead people we know. I was told that this is something Pagans do but I didn't realize that when we started doing it. Well, some of my best friends are Pagans and if I want to do it, I can.

The only thing I didn't get for Christmas that I wanted was a White Christmas. If only a couple of flakes had fallen, I would have considered that a White Christmas. I don't need inches and inches of the stuff (snow, that is) to be satisfied. Here's a pic of a Kitty who got his white Christmas:

I think his name should be Kitty ColdPaws.

Here's my real-life kitties. Paws in Snow? Don't make them laugh....

Kitten says "why be out in the snow when you can stretch out in front of the heater? My eyes match the carpet. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."


Miss Kitty says "why be out in the snow when you can stretch out on your very own printer? Well, its not really MY printer, it belongs to my mom, but whatever."

Here's a Christmas card someone sent me in honor of my hitting a deer:

I appreciate the thought...but....SMARTASS! :-P

Now make sure each of you tells me at least ONE thing you got for Christmas and if you feel like it, post the entire list. I also want to know what your pets got for Christmas, too.