WeirdCurves
Must . . . defeat . . . procrastination!!! It is my greatest nemesis. For example, I wrote a travel article about my experience camping in a tree house. It took me several weeks to get the article on paper. I spent another several weeks looking for publications to which I would market my article. No need to do that anymore because someone else has published nearly the exact
article that I had written. Lesson learned: write fast and send queries out even faster. At least I know that I was on the right track with my idea for an article. I guess that's something. I'm still quite annoyed with myself.
The travel writing class that I will start on Monday should help keep me on a reasonable writing schedule. Maybe my weekend will give me material to write about. I'm going to North Carolina to see two people get married in a tree that is located behind a haunted house. That's got to be something worth writing about, right?
My company allows the employees access to a very powerful sinus decongestant. I took this decongestant a couple of hours ago. I am now stoned. Sinuses are all clear, but the brain is not so good. I hope that I’m in a good enough condition to drive home in a little while. I also hope that I can make it to the gym. A stupid cricket prevented me from going this morning, but that’s another story.
Why is it that gyms don’t harness the energy expended by the people working out? As people pedal away on the stationary bikes, their energy is going to waste. This energy could provide power to light the gym and to maintain the temperature. Heck, with enough people working out, a single gym could provide power to a city block. This is what’s coming after nuclear energy goes away—biological energy, the power of the people. We’ll be required to log a certain amount of kilojoules each month to provide energy to our cities and towns. Each of us will have a chip implanted in the back of our necks that will be scanned each time we get on a machine. This will record all of the data that you see now as you pedal harder to burn those 300 calories. If we don’t exert our minimum number of kilojoules, a representative from the Department of Homeland Energy will cart us off to a work farm where we will be forced to do aerobic exercise until our energy debt is paid. Go to the gym today to get in shape because the future is not far away.
Hell House has been in my Netflix queue for several months, but has been bumped from the number one spot many times. The documentary was on the Sundance channel last night, so I finally watched it. The production quality was a lot better than I anticipated. The filmmaker did a decent job of documenting this event without adding his bias about the content. The people involved with Trinity Ministries are scary enough on their own to show what a threat they are to young people. The scenes in the
Hell House are terribly disturbing.
The scene that I was most offended by was the rave scene where a young woman was pressured by her friend to stay at the rave, physically forced to drink a drug-laced beverage by a strange man, and then raped by an unknown number of men. The woman went home, committed suicide and was taken to Hell by the devil. Lesson to be learned: going to a rave will lead to eternal damnation. Where do I begin to define the flaws with this lesson? Let's start with the most offensive aspect of the scene--the rape. So, a man drugs a woman and rapes her, but it's the woman who has done something wrong and should go to Hell? Oh, right, she committed suicide--a sure ticket to Hell. What happened to the guys who raped her? We don't know. I guess the do-gooders at Trinity Ministries don't feel that a lesson about sexual assault is all that important. It does the youth much better to learn about evils of electronic music. I wonder what is so threatening to them about the rave culture. Is it the dancing? open homosexuality? drug use? Maybe the threat is that young people may go to a rave and meet someone who challenges the evangelical rhetoric that they've been taught? The scare tactics in this scene are too unreal to be believed by anyone who would go to a rave. It reminds me of the story that the drug-ed lady told my class in seventh grade about the girl who dropped acid with her boyfriend while babysitting the neighbor's kid, got wigged out, and put the baby in the microwave because she thought he was a monster. Did this stop any of my classmates from doing acid? Of course not. Just like this scary scene about what will happen to you at a rave will not stop anyone from going to a rave.
The other scenes included lessons about abortion, homosexuality, and the Internet--all of which will lead you to Hell unless you ask the Lord into your heart. What was most fascinating about this documentary was the revelation of how the scripts were constructed. The guy who was in charge of the rave scene revealed through his interviews that he actually knew very little about that culture. The Internet scene was written as the result of the grief felt by a man whose wife left him for someone she met in a chat room.
I could go on and on about the problems I have with Hell House (the thing, not the film). But I'll spare you. What I do want to emphasize is why I think this event is so dangerous to society. The people shown in the documentary were very sad people grasping at something to explain why bad things happen to good people. I really don't think that they intend to offend anyone or fuel the fire of hatred and abuse toward women and homosexuals. Unfortunately, that's exactly what they do and why I'm outraged that they continue to put this show on each year. Not only do they put this show on, but their success has inspired churches across the country to make their own Hell Houses. They are trying to teach young people what they think is right, but instead they teach fear and hate.
International A.N.S.W.E.R. has organized a demonstration on October 25th in D.C. to urge the Pentagon and the White House to bring the troops in Iraq home. I was excited when I saw the flyer on my way to work this morning. I was just complaining about not having a voice and here's a chance for me to march. But then I thought about the purpose of the march. I'm not convinced that bringing the troops home right now is the answer. I don't think that the
current state of affairs the answer either. I will probably go to the demonstration because even if the catch phrase of the day will be, "Bring the troops home," this will be an opportunity to tell anyone who will listen, "Hey, a whole lot of people don't like Bush and will not vote for him in 2004." I would rather march in a "Recall Bush" demonstration, but I'll take what I can get.
Just in case the Bush family hasn't pissed you off today, here's
56 minutes and 20 seconds that will make you angry or sad or both. It made me cry. It's nothing new, but the content needs to be reiterated as much as possible. I'm outraged everyday by what they have done to this country and to the world. My anger and sadness has had little release over the last several months. Everyone I know is outraged and they speak of it often. I don't like adding my voice to these conversations because I feel defeated. What's the point of rehashing these issues with those who already know them well? The protests and demonstrations I went to several months ago served as useful outlets for my feelings about my leaders. I felt empowered as I marched. I pray that everyone who is outraged speaks up in the next few months as the campaigns get underway. I hope that I have the strength and courage to speak up. I don't want to feel defeated. I don't want to feel sad about my country.
The Trailer Park Trash gift basket will be mine! Next time. I didn't win anything at Drag Queen Bingo last night, but still had a lot of fun for shelling out a mere $9 for the entire evening. The ladies put on quite the show. However, I got the feeling that the show is pretty much the same every week--including the same jokes. Most of the quotes from the queens in this
article were recited word for word last night. Regardless, I'll go again. I could have done with less gay porn (shown twice on several monitors that were set up throughout the club). I will avoid the Bacardi drink specials next time. I had some sort of orange juice, vanilla rum, sugar, cranberry concoction that tasted pretty damn bad. Blechhh! I hope to go back in a couple of weeks to celebrate
someone's birthday.
Pardon me while I wipe the drool off of my chin. I just saw that
this is coming out on October 15th. I want it. I want it in a I-don't-care-if-I-do-run-up-my-AMEX-balance kind of way. I love my film Rebel and have held off on going digital because I wanted the flexibility of an SLR. Until now, a decent digital SLR has been way out of my price range. But this baby is only $899 on
etronics. I want it I want it I want it!
Ding Dong Happy Hour tomorrow at Helix. I'm a little afraid of being overwhelmed by the sweetness of the Ding Dongtini, but I'm going to get one anyway. I need be home by 9:45 p.m. so that I can watch
Showgirls: Glitz & Angst.
"Rebirth of a Nation" was sold out. I was totally bummed.
The SPX Expo was a little overwhelming. Vendors from all over the country were there to display their comic wares. Some were incredibly creative and beautiful. Very few totally sucked. I talked to lots of nice people who seemed to truly love making comic books. It was inspiring to see so many people enjoying creating their art and sharing it with others. I bought way too many comics and ended up with several pounds of free stickers, books, and other art pieces.
While I missed DJ Spooky on Saturday night, I did get to see three pretty good bands at the Black Cat--Kittens for Christian, stellastarr*, and The Raveonettes. They were all decent garage/indie rock bands. I definitely liked The Raveonettes the best. Their encore songs rocked!
Looks like
Drag Queen Bingo is on for tomorrow night. I have been wanting to go to that for months! I can't wait! I hope that I win a sex toy.
Another event to add to Saturday's already packed schedule. But I have to see this. DJ Spooky's rescored "Birth of a Nation"--
"Rebirth of a Nation"--is showing at the Hirshorn on Saturday evening. Saturday is going to be filled with all kinds of artistic inspiration!
Apparently 8:30p.m. is too early to check out
HR-57 on a Wednesday night. I stopped by there after my meeting at
Project Northstar last night to relax and eat some yummy southern food. I walked by and saw that there were three or four people in there, but there were no musicians on stage. Since I was by myself and didn't feel like waiting a long time for the musicians to show up, I decided to bail. I might go back Friday night if nothing else is going on. Looking forward to
all that is going on at the Black Cat on Saturday.
The
First Ladies DJ Collective event at the Black Cat on Friday night was totally dope. I didn't know much about it and was pleasantly surprised by the talent exhibited by the DJs. Each had a very different style--hip-hop, electropunk, old-school and new-school rap, etc.--that appealed to the audience. There were a few hipsters there, but they certainly did not dominate the dance floor. It was a very cool event. I'm looking forward to Sept. 26th when the First Ladies battle the
Corruption Boys at the Black Cat.
Digital cable is the way to go. I was overwhelmed by it on Saturday. All of the choices were too much for me. It's been since 1998 that I have had cable. And even then I didn't have HBO (much less the array of HBO channels that I have now). The cable dude had some trouble getting the cable hooked up. See, no one in my building has cable, so the proper wires were not already hooked up as they would be where non-freaks who subscribe to cable dwell. Sean (cable dude) made a point to note that it was quite odd that I, nor any of my neighbors, did not have cable. Once Sean got me hooked up he gave me a tutorial on how to use my new system. I had no idea I would need a tutorial. But, oh yes, I did. There are reminders to set and favorites to program and I get messages from Comcast on a daily basis that kind of look like e-mail telling me how cool I would be if I chose them as my Internet service provider. I could really do without those messages. In case I forget any part of the tutorial, I can refer to channel 900, "Digital Cable and Me." Really. That's a real channel.
Sean left and I began flipping through my 139 channels (not counting iN DEMAND and the 45 music channels). I could not decide on one program to watch. I kept looking at the guide to see of there was anything better on. I stayed on "E! True Hollywood Story:Real World" for a little while. I did learn a little about quite a lot of topics--Dutch oven cooking, mating habits of coral on the Great Barrier Reef, how to check the clarity of fuel in a small airplane. I took a break in the evening and drove to Alexandria for a little while and ran a few errands, then plopped myself on the futon for the remainder of the night. There was a brief freak out when I couldn't decide whether to watch "Sex and the City" or "Iron Chef."
I had adjusted to the new cable lifestyle pretty well by Sunday. I even managed to turn the television off a couple of times. I had lots of fun at my friend's BBQ that evening. After reading a couple of articles about grilling fruit, I decided to try it for myself. I basted a couple of apples and pears with a mixture of melted butter, orange juice concentrate and vanilla, then threw them on the grill for five minutes. I Sprinkled them with brown sugar and served them. Delicious! I was really pleased with them. They tasted excellent on their own, but I imagine that they would be heavenly with a dolop of vanilla ice cream.
I bought a really funny comic at Beyond Comics 2 today--
20th Century Eightball. It made me laugh at loud several times. Unfortunately, I was in a public place each of these times. People looked at me funny. The guys at Beyond Comics 2 told me about an independent comic expo this weekend in Bethesda--
SPX: The Expo. This looks fascinating! I've always wanted to go to a comic book convention. They seem so uber-nerdy and underground. Just my thing. I hope I can muster the courage to go Saturday or Sunday.
