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Jul. 13th, 2009 @ 08:46 pm (no subject)
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I swear to god, I stumble on things way late.

How did I go through the last ten years without listening to The Gossip? Christ, they're fucking local.

Between frantic rough drafts of my lit review, I have been shaking my ass to this:



And it makes me SO happy. I love kinda edgy dance music where the girl can SING. SO HAH-PEE
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failboat
Jul. 11th, 2009 @ 08:54 am (no subject)
God, I really need to stop trolling the internet.

I found my new favorite site this morning.

http://www.sexypeople-blog.com/

I don't know why, but I find old family portrait photos to be marvelous things.

And yes, part of me wants that Diego t-shirt.

*sigh*
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failboat
Jun. 29th, 2009 @ 04:54 pm Unemployment/Internship: Day 1
Slept in 'til quarter to 7. Not too shabby. Made coffee, and immediately started looking up peer-reviewed articles.

It's been a beautiful day. Nothing really beats hanging out in the apt or out on the deck, leisurely working on school.

Ate breakfast with Rosario. Sweet potato pancakes are marvelous creations.

Ran to the library to print off journal articles. Was annoyed at undergrad schmucks milling around the printer, printing off mapquest instructions and such. I am pretty sure that there are student computer labs available for those who want to look at youtube videos and print out Lady Gaga's current set list. This is the research library... I don't want to have to rifle through all the crap in order to get to my print outs. Tomorrow, I will do the responsible thing and seek out the segregated Grad student lab. I'm already done with staring down shiftless, 18 year old kids.

And a note to the library maiden who handled the paper jams that occurred with great frequency: I did the responsible thing and informed you of the mishap, instead of monopolizing the other two printers churning out paper. I don't appreciate you criticizing the amount of print jobs I had. Matter of fact, the first two times I mentioned it, they weren't even my print jobs. I was taking one for the team, and your unwarranted ridicule made me want to set your face on fire.

I got home and used the gym for a good 45 minutes. Then, read articles and made crockpot curry somewhat haphazardly. My crisper drawer is clean, and my kitchen smells wonderful. I'm still sort of playing around with my routine... do I want to work on school immediately upon waking, or do I want to work out to get it out of the way? Do I want to do research at the library first thing in the morning to avoid undergrad menace? We'll see.

So far, this unemployment thing ain't bad. Must live on the cheap. No frivolous vintage buys, kid. Look all you want. You have bills to pay.
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failboat
Jun. 26th, 2009 @ 12:01 pm (no subject)
My last day of work.

I'm eating Cinnamon Life cereal for lunch. Because I didn't bother with any sort of preparation yesterday.

In many ways, I am grateful for getting laid off. I start my internship on Mon, and my schedule is very flexible, albeit unpaid. But I should FINALLY acquire my Masters in Sept. Which is totally made of win.

But, I'm planning on becoming the budget master for the next two months. I have 3000 dollars saved up, and that's going to cover rent and my student loans... easily two thirds of that money. I'm thinking a lot of cheap, summer fun. Such as:

-Happy hour menus upon occasion
-long, aimless bike rides
-more rooftop gardening
-crafty projects
-berry picking
-trips to the bins, (ie the Goodwill store where you buy shit by the pound... last time I checked, clothes were 1.39 a lb.)
-misc. writing
-cheap, casserole-style cooking concoctions, inspired by the midwest.

And of course, 200 hours devoted to studying the recently-released, previously-encarcerated elderly population, and assess their health needs.
Yay!

Then, starting late August/early September, I will concentrate on acquiring employment. Which may be a whole other bag of tricks, as Oregon is currently sporting 12% unemployment.
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failboat
Jun. 13th, 2009 @ 11:09 pm (no subject)
There is something very therapeutic about restoring your computer to a previous setting (and quite possibly, the original factory settings.) Not only did I tweak out and service the keyboard with something akin to a toothbrush, but I also cleansed the hard drive of whatever misc. funk had built up from my unrepentant music/media downloads. Sure, that slew of ipod videos sounded good for the plane, but you can only rely on the integrity of strange sites for so long...

Yes, my laptop has done some slutting around for the last two years... And the consequence has been a slow decline in productivity and general weirdness. So instead of herpes, my computer decided to contract mild to severe dementia. Or, perhaps untreated syphilis... to keep with that whole STI train of thought.

I wiped that shit out, and I'm very happy with the finished product.
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failboat
Jun. 7th, 2009 @ 08:47 am (no subject)
Is it just me, or do french bulldogs look like rabbits? Photobucket

I will be starting my final internship project in a few weeks... I'm going to finish up over the summer, and be ready to finally graduate in September. Thank Christ.

Andrew is going to cook Sunday breakfast for myself and our friend, Mike. The only problem is treading water until he gets here in an hour. I like to eat immediately when I get up, so I'm munching a bit on fridge detritus to tide me over for the next two hours. Sometimes, I wish I could sleep in. But I don't think I've slept past 8am in months.

I am looking forward to berry season. We didn't do the traditional berry harvest at Sauvie Island last year, as we were in MExico. I want an obscene amount of strawberries this year.

While I dream of food, I have discovered that the path to glory is eating corn on the cob with lime, chili, and valentina sauce. Sweet jesus, I don't know how I went so long without it. IT's not even corn season here, but I'm reaping the food miles by buying the Iowa corn for all its worth. My hippy tendencies take a tumble, but I make appropriate allowances. In theory.

Friday night, the sibs + respectable company went on a gay club agenda. It was the first time I'd been to Silverado's,(is it possessive? I'm still not sure.) I think I've met my quota for cock ring-clad male dancers. I was proud to have stayed conscious until 2am. The little old lady in me needed to be put to bed. It didn't help that I had started off the evening with my first boxed wine purchase... the conversation at Trade Joe's was something like, "I'm looking for the biggest bang for my buck," wherein the gentleman informed me that despite it's compact size, said boxed wine purchase was the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine.

Sold!
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failboat
May. 20th, 2009 @ 11:54 am (no subject)
It's funny. I check my flist pretty regularly, but often forget to contribute to my own musings until I realize it's been a month.

Of late, Miss Jess has been indulging in:

-expired Starbucks sandwiches that Andrew has gallantly provided for my work lunch. I do not scoff at free food, particularly if it means one less thing to do at 5am.

-Pollinating lemon tree. I have taken to engaging in sweet, passionate tree sex with a small paintbrush, so as to encourage the proliferation of meyer lemons.

-sacking garage sales in the ritzy Lake Oswego suburbs. It's getting to the point where I need to talk myself out of acquiring senseless kitchen appliances that I will never use, e.g. breadmaker, espresso machine, ice cream machine.

-I have resisted acquiring more than one credit card since I was 20 or so. I now want to check out my options for one of those airfare miliage programs, so that I could have enough for a trip a year from now. Jordo, you should do the same, if we're serious about this European venture next summer.

-I seriously go through 3-4 audiobooks a week. I need to acquire some new recommendations, so I can have a little vault on my hard drive as I churn through those fuckers.

-I think I have a mad crush on Rachel Maddow. She gives me the vapors.

-I have two tomato plants in topsy-turvy contraptions. We shall see if they yield an adequate crop.

-I am beginning to sport some trashy 80s roots. Must needs find someone to attend to them.

-Andrew and I are attending the folklife festival in Seattle this weekend. It will be good to get the fuck out of the Portland element for a bit.

Meh. That's about all, folks.
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failboat
Apr. 24th, 2009 @ 12:03 pm New pre-summer project
Tags:
There is an old, unused apartment space in the basement of my building. It used to have a tenant, but it's now just this sort of extra space for storage.

I had a chat with my awesome landlady, Miss Kelly, and she was willing to let me convert it into a small gym for the building. Which is fabulous, as I will be losing my job in June, and didn't want to fork over monthly gym dues if I could help it.

I have visions of massive craigslist exploits. I dream of a wonderful elliptical machine, and a treadmill as an alternative. I want a bench for free weights, and some of those puzzle piece foam mats for the floor. I found a lady in Lake Oswego who will sell me some mirrors for cheap. However, there are some preparations to be had before I can start zipcaring around the city.

I need to clean and paint the shit out of that room. I should probably look into some better lighting.

But again, this girl is not made of money, so I'm trying to make it a gradual process... something that can be improved upon given better resources.

It will need a name as well. I joked about calling it Club Chub, but perhaps that's too self-deprecating. Perhaps a more "Recession Gym" is in order.

I'm going to team up with my Dad on weekends throughout the months. He's an avid garage-sale kid, so we're going to harass the suburban housewives with their semi-annual household purging.

I really want to find some motivational posters from the 80s. Like the kitten hanging on a clothesline, with the tagline of "hang in there."

It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Marge says, "hmm... copyright 1973. tough or not, that kittie is long since dead." Or something to that effect.
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failboat
Apr. 20th, 2009 @ 12:19 pm (no subject)
Dear immune system,

I know you're threatening to revolt. I know that you don't particularly care about how lovely it is outside, and that you'd rather have me all phlegmy and miserable and watching Battlestar Galactica.

And perhaps I even deserve it. I didn't properly disinfect my work keyboard/mouse the last couple of mornings, so I'm probably contaminated with someone else's work germs.

I know I have to woo you back to complacency. Have some lemon zinc pills and some hot Passion tea. The hibiscus tastes good, my friend. Then, just settle down until I get home, and I'll dig out some cans of salty, tasteless soup, and we'll kick it inside for a while... maybe take a hot bath with that lovely philosophy Apple Cider shower gel.

Deal?
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failboat
Apr. 8th, 2009 @ 12:09 pm (no subject)
Sometimes, I can gauge how lazy I am by the quality of my work lunches.

Case in point with today. Evidently, the effort involved in making something as simple as, say, a sandwich, was far too arduous to contemplate. So, I threw in a plastic bowl, a spoon, and two packets of instant oatmeal, as well as the contents of the crisper drawer in the fridge.

Yay, lazy lunch. I really need to make a Sunday habit of baking casseroles or large currys in the crockpot, so that I can just throw shit in tupperware and be good to go.

I'll end up ravenous by the time I get home, but I like to eat early and hit the sack early. Like the boring child that I am. Is there anyone between the ages of 12 and 60 that goes to bed at 8pm? I don't think that was my childhood bedtime, either.

Oh well.
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failboat
Apr. 2nd, 2009 @ 07:00 pm (no subject)
I just had a milkshake made with green tea ice cream.

All it took was four dollars to completely change my life.

I don't think anything could possibly top it.

That is all.
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failboat
Mar. 25th, 2009 @ 12:12 pm (no subject)
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This has been an awkward day.

Not entirely negative, mind you. I feel pretty chipper, and work has been progressive of late. However, my morning began with the following conversation.

"So, do you put anything on your..." she gestures to the lower part of her face. I immediately feel like I'm 20 again, ashamed of the cystic pock marks that marr my skin. That was the time where I hardly glanced at a mirror; quite possibly the lowest self-esteem I ever possessed.

"My acne?" I offer, wondering how this was ever a safe subject for conversation. Then again, time has passed, and I suppose it should be a relatively benign subject matter.

She nodded. "I've been working out, and I'm starting to get them here." She points to her forehead. It is practically flawless, though if I wanted to be cruel, I'm sure I could generate something scathing.

But I couldn't think of a work appropriate response. "I don't see anything," I finally replied, walking back to my seat.

Maybe I should back up.

I guess if someone I liked had actually brought this up, I wouldn't be half as annoyed as I am. But this was the girl who had basically made it her mission to converse along the following guidelines: working out, her hair, calories, and "how they do it in Europe."

I am not kidding.

And, it's not an outright malicious thing. At least I don't think so. She's older than me by a few years... maybe mid 30s, tall, tan, thin. She dresses well, and has made mention of a few of her "model friends," which is about as middle school as you get.

But it's not a big deal, really. It's work. It's eight hours of mostly independent processes, and I do a decent job of tuning out her monologues that revolve around her daily life. I've given myself pep talks regarding my annoyance, and I've realized that she's not mean or necessarily a terrible person, but she's BORING.

And not in the geekish tendencies that I can relate to or empathize with. She's boring in the way literature would be if gleaned through abridged daily digests in the back of magazines. It's as if you drained all the curiosity out of a person and fed them nothing but apparel brand sponsered history. It's one thing to have a guilty pleasure, and it's another to subsist on it utterly.

Anyway. So, that's Ms. It Girl.

The other awkward semi-encounter was made in the patient restroom down the hall. There was a woman taking an especially smelly dump while conversing on the phone. I could hear the other conversation on the other end due to the volume level being sufficent enough to be heard through the cacophony of this woman's ugly bowel.

Well done, madam.
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failboat
Mar. 18th, 2009 @ 07:06 pm (no subject)
You know those words that you read and know, but have never really pronounced out loud?

I had a really hard time trying to sound out "circuitous" without sounding like a knob.

Evidently, the correct pronunciation is "sir-q-it-us." Who knew?

In others news:

Jordo, Andrew, and I polished off Resident Evil 5 last weekend. It has been an ongoing family tradition between my brother and I. I am a sucker for that survivor horror series, and we basically dedicate a chunk of time to submerge ourselves in gratuitous violence and questionable dialogue. I'm not the biggest video game whore, but you best believe I will play the shit out of any of the games in that series.

And having it over the weekend worked out pretty well. I was desperately trying to avert the fiendish clutches of a cold. Unfortunately, it's a well known work-related casualty, as multiple people use the computers, and not everyone respects the hand sanitizer. I woke up one morning with phlegm and general throat unhappiness. So I made a pilgrimage to Whole Foods for the hippy sickie bullshit, which was something in the order of lemon zinc lozenges, vitamin c powder, grapefruit/pomegranate/blue juices, and herbal decongestant(the sleepy kind.) So, these things + about ten hours of video games = the resurrection of my immune system.

I've been getting back into novels of late. I was hellbent on a love of nonfiction for a while, but now it's novels from the library, and audiobooks for work.

By the way, I don't know where I was when they were handing out audiobook enthusiasm, but my god, those things are awesome! Instead of being fashionably late to the party, I end up walking in when the host is in bed and/or porking his wife. Awkward.
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failboat
Mar. 7th, 2009 @ 10:02 am (no subject)
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So, I was updating my "to read" list earlier this morning. It's in a Word .doc, and I had left it open while I was attending to my morning shenanigans.

I read it two minutes ago to find that it had been updated by Andrew. And here are some of his suggestions:

Everybody Poops

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

I Learned How To Pee From My Dad by Anne Frank

Microeconomics in Bed: How To Fuck Like a Banker by Jules Verne

Beans, Planes and Suicide: The Official Biography of FDR

Dolly Parton’s Tits On Fire

The Hardy Boys in the Case of the Traveling Anal Rapist


Is it weird that I kind of WANT to read these hypothetical (with the exception of Hitler) books?
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failboat
Mar. 6th, 2009 @ 11:46 am (no subject)
So, I'm at work. And listening to a podcast reading of "Anne of Green Gables."

Which was one of the only things that I could download quickly this morning.

And oh my god.

When did I turn into a huge, hyper-emotional softie?

Because seriously, I almost started tearing up at work. I was listening to the "you don't want me because I'm not a boy," crap, and I was about to sob like a bitch with skinned knees.

And irrationally enough, the scene where Marilla is teaching Anne how to say her prayers brought back this childhood memory of when my Mom would have us recite our prayers. And it was often verbatum every night.

Granted, I'm pretty much in doubt/nonchallant when it comes to the existance of God.

But there was something very comforting about those childhood prayers. And the succession of blessings.

THAT made me want to cry even more.

So, I'm going to have to chalk this up as post-menstrual madness. That, or the power of turn of the century Canadian novels is not to be denied.
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failboat
Mar. 5th, 2009 @ 07:11 pm (no subject)
I am such a knob.

I have become obsessed with podcasts. You know, like four years after they've been out.

I tend to either jump on these things late, or miss the bandwagon complete due to an inept leap.

As I pretty much spend my workdays with earbuds in, I have been playing around with different podcasts.

News
downloaded audiobooks from the library
Kevin Smith's smodcast
misc. mixtape (mix cast?) music
Film commentaries
Savage Love
"Things you missed in History class"

etc.

Now I want in, damn it.

It feels like a couple steps above recording your voice through a shitty cassette boombox, singing made up radio jingles with your best friend.

And yes, I have one of those floating around somewhere. I wish I had it on me. Hell, I wish I had a cassette player sometimes.

But I digress.

I want to contribute to my own egocentric, nonsensical rambling medium. I want to talk about these hypothetical mythical battles between narwhals and say, caribou. I have a general idea of the format for one, but I think I need to firm it up a bit more.

Perhaps, the greatest mistake Amazon ever made was selling Miss Jess a twenty dollar microphone. Christ Almighty. We'll see.
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failboat
Feb. 9th, 2009 @ 06:23 pm (no subject)
So. Call me a toddler, but I get a kick out of hearing President Obama curse. Sure, it's from his audiobook reading of "Dreams from my Father," but it's comic gold, I tells ya.

http://www.aprilwinchell.com/wp-content/cache/supercache/www.aprilwinchell.com/2009/02/05/barack-obama-is-tired-of-your-motherfucking-shit/index.html

My favorite line?

"You ain't my bitch, nigga. Buy your own damn fries."
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failboat
Feb. 8th, 2009 @ 02:58 pm Another candidate for "Lousy Movie Night."
"American Anthem" is an amazing film. I recalled watching the last fifteen minutes of some 80s gymnastics film when I was a kid. Eventually, I stumbled on the title, and began a frantic search for a copy.*

Turns out it's not on dvd. I had to dig out a vhs copy from the library. The last person had ignored the "be kind, remind," sticker; a significant annoyance that I had forgotten about since the advent of dvd.

So. Imagine you're a good looking football player-turned gymnast who had his arm broken by his abusive, unemployed dad. You're trying to get back to the gym, but you're constantly distracted by your motorcycle-building career, and by that lithe, blond, strumpet who likes to rock out to synthesized music.



Yes, this sets the tone for a wondrous piece of cinema. Obstacles include passive agressive mothers, suicidal younger brothers on ATVs, condescending Russian coaches, and for good measure: weirdo shut-in keyboard composers.

And the beauty of this movie is that the number of montages tended to weed out any actual characterization or dialogue. I mean, why bother when you can just show gleaming pictures of this guy:

Photobucket

Yes, that Mitch Gaylord is quite fetching. Evidently, he was on the US Olympic Team in the early 80s, and has a number of "dismounts" named after him.

As for the broad, she went on to marry Wayne Gretzky. Way to go, sweets.

This movie is up there in terms of perfect social viewing. Next to Road House and Showgirls, you can actively talk throughout the course of the film and it won't deter you in the slightest.

*(And yet, if I had looked a little harder, I would have realized that it's on fucking youtube. If you have an hour and a half to kill, watch that shit.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B43p1Vv3TL4
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failboat
Jan. 17th, 2009 @ 08:25 am (no subject)
My thoughts upon waking this morning were something like this:

"Did I buy plane tickets to Amsterdam last night?"

Because really, wouldn't it have been kind of awesome to know that my drunken priorities were to purchase airline tickets to a country I've never been in?

Evidently, when neighbor Jane bought her ticket, she had paid a thousand-something back in October, and now they're half of that. Something like 5-6 hundred. I thought I could get behind that. Screw over the best laid plans of school, work, and whatnot.

But let's back up. Because that last entry warrants a kind of shameful explanation.





So, we had been meaning to have neighbor Jane over for some time, as she's an avid Zelda fan, and Andrew has been steadily focusing on the one for Wii. However, as of two days ago, we are now in the possession of Amir's glorious xbox, which has all these emulators for old school gaming systems... including arcade versions and weird Japanese games that were never released in the US.

I usually go for the games that were in the Sega master system archive, as that's the system I grew up on before we got a genesis.

My night proceeded from a glass or two of leftover red wine to the sparkling wine that Jane brought over. I don't even LIKE sparkling wine, but I guess I was on a roll. Plus, my ability to button mash on Ultimate Fighter increased with each glass (or so I thought at the time.) Then, because we rarely keep booze in the house, I opened up a bottle of champaign that had been sitting in the back of the fridge for the last year and a half. It was from my sister's wedding, and we'd been saving it around for a lazy and indulgent Sunday morning of mimosas.

Cut back to last night. I still hadn't had dinner or anything, so Jess was on a roll. But I mean, who decides it's a good idea to open whatever alcoholic beverages in the house? And then proactively go out to the neighborhood store and buy MORE wine. Which I did. In my shorts in January.

I also thought it would be a good idea to A.) consume the leftover chips that had been around since New Years, and B.) Light up my shisha, which I had not smoked since we moved. So of course, this morning's cotton mouth also tasted like tobacco. Citrus tobacco. Bleh. I now know way it had been shoved up in the top pantry cabinet. And really, isn't it a little hypocritical to be advocating public health issues while maintaining an indoor smoking apparatus?

Long story short, wine + champaign + more wine and chips + tobacco = rambling, incoherent lj entry.

I could go further and say that the above equation + bath + boyfriend = sexy results, but in all fairness, I was probably really lousy. So let's say partial sexy results.

I woke up at 8, happy that I didn't not spend five hundred dollars on an ill-advised European vacation, and trying to put the kitchen back together.

I also had a craving for grapefruits, but I was too impatient to eat them with a spoon, so I started gnawing at them like a wolverine. Or a cult member with a human heart, I guess.

Please regard me kindly.

PS Was I really that drunk @ 6pm? Jesus.
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failboat
Jan. 16th, 2009 @ 06:13 pm (no subject)
dso,this is not my laptop. It's actually from the boy I live with. But that's okay. I am fairly well in my cups, I have put in my fucking hours at work for school and life, and I just want to pay off my life circurmstance. And by that, I mean pay off my student loans, my rent, and whatnot. I have had several cupts of my friend merlot from Australia. As far as I know, I only know one friend from Austrialaia, and that's livejournal firend, and that's fucking suspect. I think the last drunken bitch entry I made was in a fucking unha[p;pyu manipulative relationship when I was 22 abnd fucking gradualted from college. For some reason, I expected good things from a degree, and I eneded up with a manipu;lative boyfriend, and I needed to escape.


So... hernce, my current perdicament,. if you can translate my mispellin bullshit, and pretend I can speak four lanugages (whiuch I? can NOTY) I am at work sometime,s and I'm like, fuckl. Why the hell do I exist? Ther are so many people that [rpobably want thje privleges that I have. And I can't even spell privleges.

Is that what this nation re[resnteS? RESPRESENTS? Thek kind of place where you don't reallyt need to work hard, yoy just need to be in a palce where it LOOJS like you're putting your heeart and soul into something, but it's totally privleged.

hmm... I think I'm fucking tgrashed. To the [point where my livejournal buddies are like, "you're fucked up, weirdo." yes, you're probavbly right. But thin kof the apolegy I can write when I'm sover, and I'm like, "jesus, I'm so sorry. Christ, keep me away from the Austrialian merlot."

Ha!
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failboat