i hate the news
Hello, I'm Nancy Grace.
You might recognize me from your cable news networks. I'm on TV a lot. I'm a very important lady, and my opinions matter more than yours. Oh, what's that? You don't like my hair? Don't mind my hair; it's just Satan opening a portal from my brain to the outside world. Yes, I'm the physical embodiment of pure evil. But really, none of that matters because you know when you see my mug on TV, something big is going down. A lot of people don't appreciate my work, but they don't understand just how insightful I can be. When I asked this little girl how she felt when she was kidnapped, and she replied, "I was scared," I showed America how terrible kidnapping is. Because of me, no one will ever be kidnapped again.
But enough about Nancy Grace. How about some real news?
Ever wish you had 20/20 foresight into the stock markets? CNBC can tell you everything you should have known 4 hours ago!
Would you like to catch up on the latest celebrity gossip? HLN (featuring Nancy Grace!!) has got you covered!
Do you wonder about minor tragedies happening in states you don't live in? CNN brings you these exclusive stories!
Did you know the government is completely dysfunctional? FOX NEWS hosts exclusive opinionists during prime time!
No, seriously. Do you want proof our elected officials are worthless? C-SPAN has LIVE coverage of your tax dollars being flushed away!
Have you tried all of the above and still not found news? MSNBC will cover a little bit of all that nothing!
Just put down the remote, and go to bed. There's nothing on.
Wait, TMZ is just starting again. I lied.
juice boxes
Juice boxes are to blame for my irrational thirst.
There is no other logical explanation for my un-tamable desire to consume beverages beyond my typically allotted portions. It has evolved from an obsession to inhale as many of my unlimited refills as possible at a restaurant, to a full-on stare-down with competitors at the dinner table. If you want to see me mad, challenge me for the last serving of water from the family Brita pitcher. That's the easiest way to ruin my day. If there is one thing I demand from another in a social setting, it is that they surrender "shared" beverages to me should I desire them. Continue to gorge yourselves on your yams and water lilies with your inefficient chewing motions; my throat will be curdling in ecstasy as I effortlessly suck down cool refreshments.
But no, I don't think it was always like this. In fact, it wasn't. As I greedily count my remaining Capri-Sun pouches, ensuring no one has been tampering with my Mountain Cooler cache in the fridge, I recall the days when this action was what dreams were made of. I cannot remember why I was limited in my juice box lust throughout my childhood; I just know that it was. I don't blame anyone for it, at least not openly, but many-a-night has my pillow endured my salty, dehydrated tears.
Juice boxes bring back the good memories-- the moments where I, like a hummingbird, would rupture the circular foil seals with my angled, plastic straws to get at the sweet nectars inside, and the days when I traded away my lunch for a second drink-- but it also brings back the bad. The moments of unchecked jealousy I endured when someone had a juice box at school, and I didn't, are fresh in my mind. And the seething hatred I harbor for people who were unable to finish these 6.75oz love-boxes is a burden I will carry from this world to the next. Aside from the times I spent collecting ants in the bushes, all I remember about elementary school are my feelings for juice boxes.
But there is still hope for humanity. My esophagus aches for the future day, when upon arriving at a host's house, his/her fridges are brimming with juice boxes of all varieties, which they will reveal to me while dropping to their knees, bemoaning past ways they have thirstily wronged me, and between broken sobs they will cry, "these are all for you, and when you finish them, I will provide you with more." And if you think you have always satisfied my thirst, well, you haven't, and I'll be happy to point out your liquid shortcomings. Repent, you cottonmouthed fools!
Now excuse me as I resume my worship of the Egyptian water-God Nu. And also as I go downstairs to ensure thirst-gremlins haven't been meddling with my juice box supply. I hate those guys.
my room
My room still looks like a 5 year old lives in it. Starting with the walls:
Wall 1:
framed hockey print featuring the uniforms of the "next six" NHL teams (including the Penguins and North Stars)
1987 Twins v. Cardinals world series pennant
Pittsburgh Penguins team pennant
homemade baseball card display featuring my collection of Jacque Jones autographed cards (and my Jacque Jones promotional fishing lure)
a sports illustrated editorial about NBA player Alonzo Mourning's kidneys
a full size poster of the Mac g4 cube, and 20 inch monitor (circa 2002)
a cross stitch of a moose my mother made for me
Wall 2:
a poster saying "Antarctica: they were here first" featuring the Antarctic ecosystem (especially penguins)
a yellow, full-size "ferret crossing" sign
a cross stitch of 2 ferrets my mother made for me
a framed photo of a 10 year old me posing next to a dog (I have a thing for other peoples' dogs)
Wall 3:
2 full size posters of Carlos Valderrama
a poster featuring the original 150 pokemon
a frisbee with a Tom Brady picture glued to the top of it which my father made me
a StarTribune promotional poster of former Twins player Luis Rivas
a magazine centerfold of the ps2 game "GTA: Vice City
3 Hamtaro pictures which I colored myself
a poster of 2 Javelinas (my favorite wild pigs)
a cloth hanging featuring the rugby nations of the world
a hanging mesh basket containing roughly a dozen stuffed penguins
Wall 4:
the Post Bulletin front sports page from 2001 when the Patriots won the Super Bowl
a 12 by 12 watercolor I did in 12th grade of a set of keys
2 posters of my favorite indie band Ozma
a Winnie the Pooh calender from 2002
a bulletin board with an assortment of tacked on photos of my childhood
and the closet doors on this wall are covered with SI for Kids "Future Stars" posters of mostly irrelevant soccer players
All this crap makes me feel good. It is cluttered? Absolutely. Do I ever consider updating it? Sure. But then again, I'd be lying if I said I had outgrown this stuff. I loathe houses where the inhabitants have all sorts of decorative crap that just looks good, yet serves no representative function. It's like walking into a museum. People are mismatched, and our homes should reflect this. What a sad, lonely existence people must live in their professionally decorated homes. When people look at their walls before going to sleep, the absolute most comforting thing they could possibly see are a pair of wild pigs.
goodbye iowa
iowa highway
is this a windmill tour?
bye windmills. hi farms
one two three four five
oh god a station i like!
if my amp had wheels
my lungs are tired
a peaceful easy feeling
i know all the words
I just passed a cow
and I asked it how
it liked its grass green
and it was like "wow"
the field is brown
which does make me frown
but oh soon enough
the corn has a crown
i gotta hold it
i gotta hold it
oh please oh please
mile 217
modern rest area
my post-iowa release
a long time coming
There is an abhorrent amount of waste in the medical system, and the latest BS legislation passed by our dysfunctional federal government won't change a thing. Sure, it's a noble goal to allow everyone health care: the chance to stay alive. It's not a right, or it shouldn't be, but it seems that for the standard of living we enjoy in the good ole USA, it's something which is ethical, and is a sensible use of money.
Obamacare is what it is; a complete and utter waste of time getting either excited or angry about. Health care reform? Hardly. More people participating in a completely broken system? Yes, that's more like it. The health care bill is exactly what is wrong with this system: it addresses the symptoms, but not the cause. It does nothing to lower the cost of health care. Someone is still paying thousands and thousands of dollars, even if it's not the patient. We're still feeding this money into a system that doesn't know how to use it, and most importantly, we're not getting our money's worth out of the healthcare system.
Quality of life should always come first. Always. We dump a huge amount of dollars into expensive procedures that don't provide a quality return. I don't place a lot of value in life expectancy figures (because living better is, in my opinion, more important than living longer), but this is hard to ignore:
Somebody shoot me. Look at the Americans way out there, wallowing in our own stupidity. And I'm not just saying that. I live it.
Why does this matter to me? Because I am living as a captive of the American medical system right now. In addition to the 12 hours a week I am forced to spend at the hospital, I have quarterly or semi-annual health checkups, and they all go like this. Every. Single. Time.
me: "here I am."
them: "how are you doing?"
me: "oh the same as last time, as if you couldn't tell by my charts and the fact that I spend half my life here."
them: "ok, glad you're doing well! see you in another few months so we can repeat this conversation!"
I repeat this exchange with several well-paid experts in separate appointments. Wow, what a great use of my insurance policy's time and money. I don't need people asking me how I'm feeling when they have data right in front of them, and it sickens me to know that every answer they provide for me could have just as easily been charted out in a spreadsheet someplace. I know there are hospital policies that have to be followed, but they're excessive and redundant. In an effort to protect the best interests of patients, hospitals created a prodigal time and money sink that reduces my quality of life, rather than increasing it. But hey, they're getting paid for every appointment I am forced to attend, so what do they care? (hint: they don't)
Oh, did I mention money? There's this pressing issue in my medical undertakings in which my doctors insist on me spending thousands of dollars (a week) on an invasive treatment that I object to, instead of allowing me to get something that will a. save money, and b. INCREASE THE QUALITY OF MY LIFE. It defies all logic. Shouldn't treatment be patient-centered? Now I'm not saying patients should be allowed anything they want because that would be silly, but when the options are pretty clear-cut like this, it doesn't make any sense to be spending literally 10 times as much money on a terrible alternative. Well, unless you're the hospital.
I, or more specifically my parents + insurance company, are paying the hospital money to perform a service, and they're not doing it. My doctors act like they're doing me a favor. This isn't a charity. I don't want their sympathy, and I don't care what they think is "in my best interests". I know what is in my best interests, and it's not what they're doing. I wish I were making this up, but they have group meetings-- which I'm not allowed to attend-- where they determine what medical procedures are in my best interests. Funny how they always choose wrong, too. It's interesting how simple decisions are when it doesn't matter one way or another to you, isn't it doctors? I would love nothing more than to force these clowns to live a year under the decisions they've made for me. That would be sweet, sweet justice, and it would be the only time I would laugh at someone else's pain. And I wouldn't just laugh. I'd point and laugh and remind them of the fact that 20% of dialysis patient die in the first year of treatment.
finals week!!
Man, finals week. This is the only time of year where I am assured of my level-headed sanity in relation to the rest of these stress-mongering campus goers. It has always seemed to me that finals week is bar none the easiest week of the year. Why?
- my class attendance is nearly perfect. I haven't wasted the previous few months of my time telling everyone how awesome of a hangover I have. I know things. I know so many things! I mean, I only spend a few thousand dollars a semester to learn things that are readily available for free other places, but I figure a listening to someone else tell me what facts are worth points somehow validates myself in the minds of prospective employers.
- studying is simply an ethical form of cheating. If I didn't learn something the first go-round, chances are I'm not going to remember it in a few days, weeks, or months anyways. Going over my notes a time or two about does it for me, and I feel that gives the most accurate representation of my accumulated 'knowledge'. It would make sense if students could reach a common agreement to not study for finals, so that we could prove that we haven't put much of anything in our long-term memories. Of course, something like that will never happen as long as we have people justifying their existence on an arbitrary set of letters.
- the main challenge of school is figuring out a test. I get a kick out of going into tests unprepared, and using my knowledge base to solve the problems these tests present. That would probably explain why my performance on essay/short answer tests is absurdly reputable, while multiple choice tests are generally a crap-shoot. I'm also pretty good at placing well deserved praise towards the great race of lions in my writing, a love of these safari heroes which most instructors can relate to.
So that about does it. Here is a pie chart documenting my finals week existence:
prisons
Scandinavian countries are socially so far ahead of the rest of the world.
Norway builds world's most human prison:
Political rant incoming:
Unfortunately I can't see something like this working in the United States. We have no culture here. Our penal system focuses on making criminals worse people by putting them in cement cubicles with other convicts, saying they aren't allowed to be humans any more. Placing someone in captivity and telling them, "you're not going anywhere regardless of how you change" is entirely stupid. It's just dumb. If you take away hope, what's to stop someone from giving up? People who commit crimes need help, not punishment. The object of removing a convicted criminal from society should be to protect the rest of us, not to punish them.
If somebody kills me, I want him to get some help. I don't see any justification for holding someone in prison for 50 years, and especially see no point in executing anyone. There are plenty of people that have been safely rehabilitated in prison, and there is no reason they can't be re-integrated back into society. Part of me dies a little every time I hear about some 70 year old man who has been in jail for most of his life. It's a completely different world than it was when he did his crime, and he's a completely different person. It's a simple drain of our resources to keep that kind of person locked up.
There's a reason Scandinavian countries live a higher quality of life than us. Yes, part of it is their population is well established and relatively homogeneous, but they also treat each other humanely. We shouldn't necessarily forgive someone for a crime they've committed, but how does punitive imprisonment make us any better?
m/w/f bagel days
I just want to be known. Three times a week I walk into the local Bruegger's Bagel Bakery at 9:15am and order a plain bagel with egg and cheese. Three times a week the same lovely lady accepts my order, and repeats the the same sequence of motions, always asking me if I'm sure I want a plain bagel. And just like every other day, I furiously nod my head and assure her that a plain bagel will be great. I'm beginning to suspect her axons are not fully myelinated.
Just once I'd like to walk in there and see some sort of recognition from her face that I was a regular. I mean, spending $9.60 a week on the same item should at least get me a smile and a, "hello again." I'm not even asking for a, "hello again!!" with any enthusiasm. Show recognition that we share a tri-weekly bagel bond, damnit!
The bizarre thing is that I'm actually a fairly recognizable figure. On several occasions I have instructors call me by name during the first week or two of classes-- instructors who I have never dealt with before. I sit on the sides of lecture halls to get out of harm's way, too. Once, when I was attending a 7pm chemistry lecture, I was unable to keep my eyes open, and was woken up by the instructor asking me, by name, if I was enjoying my snooze. There were probably 200 people in the room, but no, she had to pick me. I was going to reply about how my hemoglobin was too low, but wasn't in the mood for a debate on whether or not my rest was justified, so I just said, "yes ma'am, thanks for asking."
On the walk home today, I saw two dead birds by the sidewalk. One of them was in pristine condition, and actually looked quite beautiful in death. Where have the neighborhood dogs been lately?
