Cosmic Temptation is Always Worth It

an open letter I posted on CL but I'm still angry and since I don't want to waste any favors on this jerkface I decided to do the emoy-high school thing and post it everywhere I could think of until I feel a lil bit better...

Are you kidding me? You really expect me to return phone calls to you? You are f-cked up, buddy! Next time you lie to a girl to get her out with you then turn the situation into a date, you really shouldn't call her three times the next week then act all pissy because she didn't return the messages. Here's a little checklist from me to you as to just why I have the right to be a little more angry at you than you have to be angry at me: 1 - I don't check my messages all the time (thus my telling you I don't check my messages all the time), so should you have really gotten all pissy that I didn't return each message that night? 2 - If you know I don't even keep my phone on most of the time, you don't order me to keep my phone on. The only person I take orders from is my boss and she pays me a significant amount a year to do that. 3 - Baby has a name. If you knew me at all you would know that I do NOT take kindly to those sappy lil nicknames - although you apparantly don't know me at all even though you have apparantly been watching me for two years and planning this lil effed up scenario for two years. 4 - Even if I had agreed to an actual date with you it would not be a good idea to ask me about what kind of lingerie I own multiple times after I deterred the question. Similarly, constantly singing the vocals to a song with the main hook being "I wanna make you whine" might just be a bad idea. If I didn't respond favorably after that first chorus, I'm probably not interested. 5 - I get that you own your truck for work. That's great. It's nice to see that a middle-aged man with multiple children and multiple ex-wives can keep a job. 6 - If you ask me to grab dinner with you to devise a strategy to help one of the afore-mentioned off-spring maybe you shouldn't mention that you haven't talked to him in two months because he wants nothing to do with you - not that I can't understand where he's coming from. 7 - When you have a girl out on a date (whether or not you actually asked her on said date) do not insist on paying the bill and then show it to her to have her do the math on a tip for you. I don't care how much you're spending - I offered to pay for myself. If you think knowing how much spent will get you into my pants faster, you are sadly mistaken. You will not be getting into my pants ever, and knowing that you spent $40 on me is not going to change my mind. I didn't ask for you to pay, I didn't expect you to pay, and I'm not going to care that you paid. Oh, and adding in the fact that you couldn't figure the tip on your own at your age, really didn't help your cause any. At all. 8 - Just because you think you're set for life with a high school diploma and your current *illustrious* career, don't belittle me for working to better myself. Pardon me if I want multiple degrees and a high level position in the career of my choice. It's really not the best move you could make to laugh at my plan for myself. 9 - Don't get all pissy at me for not knowing who's on the other end of the phone when you've just woken me up and you have one of the statistically most common names in New England. I have several Michaels and Mikes in my phone. 10 - Dont get all pissy at me for not waking up fast enough when you call. If I had been fully awake, I would have hit the ignore option. 11 - Don't lecture me because I'm sleeping at two in the afternoon on a Saturday. Some of us have lives and didn't get home until this morning. 13 - If you wanted to take me out on a date, you should have asked me out-right on a date. I know it can be hard to do, but we could have avoided this nonsense and saved you your precious $80 if you had just asked me. Although I am somewhat flattered (but mostly disturbed)that you employed the ruse of your son needing help with his CD, and I can appreciate the amount of planning you must have put into it (2+ years is a long time for planning for one night), I would have told you in a much nicer way that I was not, am not, and most probably will not be interested in dating you. 14 - Even if I had been interested in a relationship with you, you would have lost me completely when you said the following: "I like a woman who can eat. You look like a woman who can eat." I know I'm not the tiniest girl, but I've had to come to the conclusion that a size ten isn't too bad. No girl likes to hear that she looks like an eater. Particularly not me.
In conclusion, you are by definition an asshole. You have no right to say the things you said to me. The things you said when you thought you were being nice are enough to make me feel like I have the bad kind of dirty all over me. Whenever I see one of your company's trucks coming I turn down another street and hit the gas. You freak me out. Leave me alone, you dirty old man.

Fighting my own nature may just be the death of me.

Why is it that the job that pays is the one that I do the least at? It drives me insane that I have all this stuff to get done, but I can't because I'm at work where I can only do one or two things at once and generally just sit around on my duff clickety-clacking away on my keyboard. Arg!! And now I want to add a second job? While the extra money is my drive behind this urge, when the monkeys am I going to find the time to do this and the time to get my show together? I guess it's truly time to give up sleep. Why can't the day just be 32 hours or something more useful than 24 hours. 24 hours is not enough time at all.
In other news, I went to the most fabulous Judy Jetson's Salon and Spa over the weekend to get my hair done and talk corsets with Miss Jess. My hair looks great -yay! and I'm ordering corset supplies this week. We also discussed possibilities for hair and make-up styles to go with my line. I wish she had more than just Sundays off. It's going to be pretty damn hard to schedule a shoot on a Sunday.
Oh crap, here I am bitching about time and I've wasted like ten minutes fucking around on this computer. I need le coffee.

First female space tourist blasts off By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer
Mon Sep 18, 6:52 AM ET



BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - An Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur took off Monday on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, achieving her dream of becoming the the world's first paying female space tourist.

Anousheh Ansari was accompanied by a U.S.-Russian crew on the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule, which entered orbit about 10 minutes after liftoff from the Russian cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Ansari reportedly paid $20 million to become the fourth private astronaut to take a trip on a Russian spacecraft and visit the station.

"I'm just so happy to be here," she said ebulliently as she entered the rocket Monday, watched by about a dozen relatives.

As smoke billowed below the rocket, her relatives gasped and her mother clasped her hands in front of her chest.

Ansari's husband, Hamid Ansari, watched the liftoff stoically, but her sister's face was streaked with tears and her aunt jumped up and down, shrieking and pumping her arms in the air.

At Russian Mission Control, NASA flight director Robert Dempsey said Ansari's presence was a plus to the mission. As for the propriety of sending tourists into space, he said: "My personal feeling is I wish it could be me."

The Soyuz TMA-9 capsule took off less than a day after the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis pulled away from the orbiting station and began its journey Earthward.

On board with Ansari were Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who were to join German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the station just over 48 hours after liftoff.

Ansari, 40, was due to return to Earth on Sept. 29, along with cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and astronaut Jeffrey Williams, who have been on the station since April.

On Sunday, Ansari defended the role of "space flight participants" and said she viewed herself as an ambassador for attracting private investment to space flight.

"In order to make great leaps in space exploration ... private companies and the government need to work together," she said at a news conference at the cosmodrome in Baikonur.

Ansari gave $10 million in 2002 for the naming rights to a prize awarded to the first successful privately financed manned trip into space.

Ansari follows in the footsteps of Britain's Helen Sharman, who flew to Russia's Mir Space Station in 1991 as a tourist as part of a lottery system called Project Juno.

Astronaut Lopez-Alegria said just a few years ago he was skeptical of private tourists. But he said now it was clear that the Russian space program needed such investment — and that without the Russian space program, the U.S. space program would suffer.

"If that's the correct solution... then not only is it good from the standpoint of supporting the Russian space program, but it's good for us as well," he said. Ansari's presence in space "is a great dream and a great hope not just for our country but for countries all around the world."

Cosmonaut Tyurin called Ansari "very professional" and said he felt like they had worked together for a decade.

Ansari said she expected seeing Earth from space would alter her view of the planet.

"You'll see how small and how fragile the Earth is compared to the rest of the universe," she said. "It will give us a better sense of responsibility."

Earlier she said she was eager to see Iran from space — she hasn't been back since emigrating to the United States — and hopes to inspire girls in her homeland to study science.

Ansari and her family left Iran a few years after the Islamic revolution, in part because the opportunities for a young girl to study science were becoming limited there.

Speaking no English when she arrived as a teenager with her family in Virginia, she went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering within a few years.

She and her husband married in 1991 and later moved to Texas to start a company that made signal-switching software for phone networks.

In 2000, at the height of the telecommunications boom, they sold their suburban Dallas company to Massachusetts-based Sonus Networks Inc. for $550 million in Sonus stock.

The value of those shares slid from $40 to under $5 as the telecom industry collapsed but her husband said they had "enough opportunity to sell enough shares to earn financial independence."

The timing of some stock sales led to shareholder suits against Sonus and nine people, including Anousheh Ansari. The plaintiffs accused her of illegal insider trading in the sale of $26.3 million in Sonus stock.

A spokeswoman for the couple said the Securities and Exchange Commission never accused Mrs. Ansari of insider trading.

Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria are to join Reiter as the construction at the space station is picking up pace. On the agenda for the four days following the departure of the Atlantis: The station's current crew will shift a Progress supply ship to a different docking port to make way for the Soyuz; Atlantis will land back on Earth; and the Soyuz will dock at the station.

During the six-month tenure of Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria, four space walks are planned, with as many as three to be conducted in January to help set up the station's permanent cooling system. Another will take place earlier to retrieve and install experiments on the station's exterior.

_____________

AP reporter Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this story from Mission Control in Korolyov, Russia.

Arg.
Arg!
ARG!!

Again, I am lost at this whole concept of love. Why can't I want it? Sometimes, I feel like if it was love that I wanted then life would be so much easier. Maybe I'm not really understanding what love is. Is being alone so wrong? Isn't love really just having someone else fill in your blanks? Would someone who is truly and completely happy with themselves want or need love?
Why does our society contruct this paragon of love? Why is love always the hero of the plot? Like the right person comes along and wham, bam, thank you ma'am, suddenly everything is all right. All the messy chewed up and spit on pieces of life's puzzle miraculously fall into place. Fuck you, John Hughes.

Maybe I shouldn't watch Pretty in Pink anymore when I've had this much coffee.

I definately make the worst coffee ever. Someone, who makes good coffee, should start a coffee delivery service. Like an ice cream truck, but coffee.

So, last night was a pretty messy night here at the Villi di Lilla. Apparantly more construction starts today that requires the cleaning out of closets. I think it's all a charade of my father's to get rid of junk. At any rate, due to the mass amount of stuff in my closet that had to come out and go someplace, I couldn't sleep in my bed. We know I put me on the floor before I put my clothes on the floor, and that's just what happened. I'm going to blame sleeping on the floor for the crazy dreams I had, because they weren't crazy like weird and funny, they were crazy in a what-the-flip-is-my-mind-up -to-now way. Apparantly I have a huge fascination with Dave. As in JJ's best friend. As in boyfriend of boring chick whose name I can never remember. This could lead to some awkwardness on my part. I can't ever remember liking someone when they were taken. Is my little moral fiber wearing away even more? Good thing there's no booze allowed right now.

Tim and I went to see the Devil Wears Prada tonight, and we discussed fashion and work ethics at length. It's good to know that someone in this world thinks that I am entirely capable of becoming everything I want to be. Sometimes I think I never will, that I will be in the same place for the next ten years, and that is my biggest fear. It's just nice to know that someone thinks more of me than I do of myself. It makes me want to work harder. I will work harder. MUCH harder.

I just wish it were more along the lines of affordable insurance, education, or environmental concerns... maybe it will be one step closer to ending American obesity..


BOSTON - It’s creamy, it’s sweet and it’s become a staple of lunch boxes for generations of New England school children.

Now, the beloved Fluffernutter sandwich — the irresistible combination of Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter, preferably on white bread with a glass of milk handy — finds itself at the center of a sticky political debate.

Sen. Jarrett Barrios was outraged that his son Nathaniel, a third-grader, was given a Fluffernutter sandwich at the King Open School in Cambridge. He said he plans to file legislation that would ban schools from offering the local delicacy more than once a week as the main meal of the day.

The Democrat said that his amendment to a bill on junk food in schools may seem “a little silly” — but that school nutrition is serious.

His proposal seemed anything but silly to Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein, a Democrat whose district in Revere is near the company that has produced the marshmallow concoction for more than 80 years, Durkee-Mower Inc.

The official sandwich?
She responded with a proposal to designate the Fluffernutter the “official sandwich of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

“I’m going to fight to the death for Fluff,” Reinstein said.


Click for related content
Williams-Sonoma sued over use of ‘Fluffernutter’



An aide to Barrios insisted the senator is not anti-Fluff and even plans to co-sponsor Reinstein’s bill, although he still believes schools should cut back on Fluffernutters.

“He loves Fluff as much as the next legislator,” aide Colin Durrant said.

Fluff has a long history in Massachusetts. The treat was popularized by H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower, who cooked up the concoction in their kitchen at night and sold it door to door during the day.

Durkee and Mower purchased the recipe for Fluff for $500 from another Massachusetts man, Archibald Query, and also sold it door to door before wartime shortages shut down his operations. Query lived in Somerville, which is part of Barrios’ district.

The company didn’t immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

Since its invention, legions of New England kids have grown up on Fluffernutters. Parents have used the sandwich as a food of last resort for finicky eaters, sometimes adding banana slices to complement the protein of the peanut butter.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Below is an article bulletined by JJ Blades and copied by yours truly. I love coffee as much as the next guy, probably more, but we needed the Muni more than I ever need another cup of coffee.
Catch JJ @ Arkadia's Saturdaze this Saturday night for the littlest, tiniest taste of the Muni's flave.


courant.com

January 10, 2006
Goodbye, Muni
Someone, surely, will call it progress. But it's not. The Municipal Cafe, the venerable restaurant/performance space/dance club on Main Street in Hartford, is gone, to be replaced by the 21st-century version of urban blight: A Dunkin Donuts.

This galls me as a Hartford homeowner and taxpayer, and as a music writer, for largely the same reasons. New England's alleged rising star isn't going to rise very far unless it starts giving people a reason to come downtown -- and not just any people. Hartford needs early adapters, it needs young, creative people with some foldin' cash. A Dunkin Donuts isn't going to attract those people. Neither, for that matter, will a city-wide wi-fi network or most of Mayor Eddie A. Perez's other hare-brained schemes.

Vibrant cities all share certain characteristics, one of which is having a first-rate concert scene. Unless you're into metal or pop-punk, Hartford doesn't come close. The city's one dedicated live venue, the Webster Theatre, does as good a job as it can. But the Webster is the lone bright spot in the super-sketchy Barry Square neighborhood, where the theater is besieged by crime, indifferent cops and politicians like Mayor Chain Store who don't recognize the theater's value to the neighborhood, and to the city as a whole -- until it's time to hold fundraisers there, of course.

There was talk a few years ago of the Webster relocating to the still-stalled Front Street development opposite the convention center. Or of building a new Webster as part of the Civic Center redevelopment downtown. Both those ideas seem to have died. As has the Municipal Cafe.

Yeah, the Muni had been shuttered for a while, which was a shame in its own right: the venue once hosted concerts by the likes of slo-core band Low and soul veteran Bettye LaVette. In more recent years, DJ JJ Blades held dance parties that were literally and figuratively underground, in the basement under Spiritual Emporium, the record store he ran in the building adjacent to the Muni. Now Blades has moved his operation to Manchester, depriving Hartford of an independent business (two, if you count the dance club separately from the record store) that attracted exactly the sort of people this city needs to survive as anything more than a bifurcated monument to failed race relations.

Instead, we get a Dunkin Donuts. Consider that in the context of the drug store going up on Wethersfield Avenue where Carmichael's restaurant used to be, and the new strip mall on Flatbush Avenue, and you get a true picture of Hartford's future: A city filled with crap you can get everywhere else.

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."
* Drew Carey


We can thank my lil cuzzle for that quote. So, the apartment hunt continues, and continues to utterly depress me as well! Realizing that I work my butt off for what amounts to minimal loot stinks like big fat monkey butts. And as a bonus, I've been to tired to work on my OWN stuff. Arg! The pirate in me is craving some raucous and rowdy times to somehow alleviate this guilt that I've become absolutely entrapped in. The cherry to my lil sitch? Blackout Jen showed up last week. Of course I wasn't around to see or hear or remember her actions, but I'm getting it in little snippets and just hoping I didn't offend anyone. Never have I felt more like slamming my head against a wall for such a long period of time. Ah.. life! You tricky minx! I shall bite you someday, when you least expect it, and shower rays of happy days all over the world.
I have acquired a book entitle: How to Rule the World.
Oh, and...Tim...yeah. Still fucking fucked on that one!
Who the hell is this girl wearing my shoes and where did she leave my pants?

I used to get this feeling on road trip or at clubs. That 3AM feeling where one forgets to think about living and what to do and how to do it and just DOES without thinking. That feeling when you stumble and fall - the weightlessness of conscious choice as you glide through the air. Those little moments of movement and living - wholely and completely living and alive. That's my fucking life right now! I'm not even caring about how hard the ground will be when I hit it, I feel like I'm really living again. I'm so ready to do everything. I can't believe I'm going to be the HEAD FUCKING DESIGNER for a clothing label! I am going to work my ass of to make this happen, then in three years I will take the history of the company to a bank and get myself a loan to start my conglomeration of me. I'm going to be the next Dior - start out working for someone else and use that to make myself. Like I wasn't enough of a work-a-holic already, now I get my dream job? I meet with the photographer and the head of marketing on Sunday to discuss layouts and present my first sketches. I can't believe that sentence actually applies to me.

What is the proper procedure for punishment of someone who thinks it's okay to put 125 year old fishnets in the dryer along with cuban toed stocking from 1942? It's got to be more than just a plain old ass-kicking. Someone please point me in the direction of an apartment where people do not feel the urge to be "helpful" and do your laundry.

Hutning for roommates again. That oughta learn me not to make pacts with hippies. If anyone knows anyone in search of a place to live with a cat and me, please let me know ASAP! My cat is making my dad sick, so we need to find a new place to be.

Every now and then I realize how much of my life I spend working on a plan or working towards a future or a life and it depresses me when I feel that I haven't been doing enough. Other times, when I've been working on what I want to do and letting myself have fun as well, I realize that I'm not drowning in work, that I'm swimming through it (oh me and my metaphors...)and getting closer and closer to being where I want to be.
On a completely different note, my belly button hurts. I find this terrible distracting.

PIERRE, S.D. - Gov. Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman’s life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest.

Planned Parenthood, which operates the state’s only abortion clinic, in Sioux Falls, has pledged to challenge the measure in court.

Rounds issued a written statement saying he expects the law will be tied up in court for years and will not take effect unless the U.S. Supreme Court upholds it.

“In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society. The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society. I agree with them,” Rounds said in the statement.

The governor declined all media requests for interviews Monday.

The Legislature passed the bill last month after supporters argued that the recent appointment of conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito have made the U.S. Supreme Court more likely to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“This is proof-positive that Gov. Rounds cares more about politics than about the health and safety of women in South Dakota,” said Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood regional operations for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, said in a statement Monday. “In every state, women, their families, and their doctors should be making private, personal health care decisions — not politicians.”

South Dakota’s abortion ban is to take effect July 1, but a federal judge is likely to suspend it during a legal challenge.

Abortion opponents donating money
Rounds has said abortion opponents already are offering money to help the state pay legal bills for the anticipated court challenge. Lawmakers said an anonymous donor has pledged $1 million to defend the ban, and the Legislature set up a special account to accept donations for legal fees.

Under the new law, doctors could get up to five years in prison for performing an illegal abortion.

Rounds previously issued a technical veto of a similar bill passed two years ago because it would have wiped out all existing restrictions on abortion while the bill was tied up for years in a court challenge.

The statement he issued Monday noted that this year’s bill was written to make sure existing restrictions will be enforced during the legal battle. Current state law sets increasingly stringent restrictions on abortions as pregnancy progresses. After the 24th week, the procedure is allowed only to protect the woman’s health and safety.

About 800 abortions are performed each year in South Dakota. Planned Parenthood has said other women cross state lines to reach clinics.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Did you ever have that feeling that you were being watched? Like you could never get away? These people can forget about playing hooky. They can forget about leaving their job without any permanent scars. Tagged for life. Is anyone else feeling the paranoia? Is this going to be Bush's next move in watching his constituants?

Identity tags implanted under workers' skin
Tiny silicon chips work like an access card you can never lose
CINCINNATI - Tiny silicon chips were embedded into two workers who volunteered to help test the tagging technology at a surveillance equipment company, an official said Monday.

The Mexico attorney general's office implanted the so-called RFIDs — for radio frequency identification chips — in some employees in 2004 to restrict access to secure areas. Implanting them in the workers at CityWatcher.com is believed to be the first use of the technology in living humans in the United States.

Sean Darks, chief executive of the company, also had one of the chips embedded.

"I have one," he said. "I'm not going to ask somebody to do something I wouldn't do myself. None of my employees are forced to get the chip to keep their job."

The chips are the size of a grain of rice and a doctor embedded them in the forearm just under the surface of the skin, Darks said.

They work "like an access card. There's a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door," Darks said.

Darks said the implants don't enable CityWatcher.com to track employees' movements.

"It's a passive chip. It emits no signal whatsoever," Darks said. "It's the same thing as a keycard."

CityWatcher.com has contracts with six cities to provide cameras and Internet monitoring of high-crime areas, Darks said. The company is experimenting with the chips to identify workers with access to vaults where data and images are kept for police departments, he said.

The technology predates World War II, but has appeared in numerous modern adaptations, such as tracking pets, vehicles and commercial goods at warehouses.

After Hurricane Katrina, as body counts mounted and missing-person reports multiplied, some morgue workers in Mississippi used the tiny computer chips to keep track of unidentified remains.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO - City officials are hoping to harness the power of dog doo. San Franciscans already recycle more than 60 percent of their garbage, but in this dog-friendly town, animal feces make up nearly 4 percent of residential waste, or 6,500 tons a year — nearly as much as disposable diapers, according to the city.

Within the next few months, Norcal Waste, a garbage hauling company that collects San Francisco’s trash, will begin a pilot program under which it will use biodegradable bags and dog-waste carts to pick up droppings at a popular dog park.

The droppings will be tossed into a contraption called a methane digester, which is basically a tank in which bacteria feed on feces for weeks to create methane gas.

The methane could then be piped directly to a gas stove, heater, turbine or anything else powered by natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.

Methane digesters are nothing new. The technology was introduced in Europe about 20 years ago, and more than 600 farm-based digesters are in operation there. Nine are in use on California dairy farms, and chicken and hog farms elsewhere in the United States also use them.

Neither Norcal Waste spokesman Robert Reed nor Will Brinton, a Maine-based recycling and composting consultant, knew of anyone in the United States who is using the $1 million devices to convert pet waste to energy. But Brinton said some European countries process dog droppings along with food and yard waste.

Challenge: Getting other cities to follow suit
“The main impediment is probably getting communities around the country the courage to collect it, to give value to something we’d rather not talk about,” Brinton said. “San Francisco is probably the king of pet cities. This could be very important to them.”

San Francisco — the city named after Saint Francis, patron saint of animals — has an estimated 240,000 dogs and cats.

Some experts believe methane digestion must become more attractive economically before it gets popular. Landfill space is relatively cheap, and natural gas and electricity also remain fairly inexpensive.

Reed points to San Francisco’s groundbreaking food composting program, which began 10 years ago, as proof an unusual idea can work in this forward-thinking city. A Norcal Waste subsidiary collects 300 tons of food scraps per day from homes and restaurants and converts it into a rich fertilizer sold to vineyards and organic farms.

“Now, the city’s asked us to look at dog waste specifically,” Reed said.

Because animal waste contains disease-causing germs, composting it at home with yard waste and food scraps can be unsafe.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Oh sure, they have no problem just giving it to a giraffe, but I have to go to a clinic.


Jerusalem zoo puts giraffe on birth control
Family planning introduced in order to curb fertile female


JERUSALEM - Staff at Jerusalem Zoo have introduced birth control in a bid to curb a giraffe population boom.

The number of giraffes has tripled to nine in recent years, outgrowing the zoo on the edge of the city, according to officials and a 5-year-old female has been mostly to blame.

The most fertile female, Shavit, has now been injected with birth control hormones, delivered by dart, after giving birth twice in four years.

Although zoo keepers admitted the babies are cute and that female giraffes make good mothers, there just isn’t enough room for anymore. There are also concerns about inbreeding.

The hormones injected into Shavit will prevent her from getting pregnant for at least a year. During that time she will be monitored and Jerusalem Zoo will share the information with other zoos around the world, including those in Berlin and San Diego.

“What we are using is actually a hormonal implant that we inject into the female. The hormonal activity changes and she is not supposed to be in heat," said Noam Warner of the zoo.

Warner explained how the implant is intended to “mess up” the female giraffe’s hormonal system so that the male giraffes are not interested in her. ”They won’t copulate with her and she won’t give birth,” he said.

The zoo recently moved two giraffes to a zoo in Singapore, but American and European zoos don’t want animals from Israel because of the risk of foot-and-mouth disease, and it’s difficult to transport giraffes overseas.

Other zoos also administer birth control, but dart delivery is unique, said Dr. Nili Avnimagen, the head vet for the zoo.

“It is a very short thing, almost no foreplay,” explained Warner, seemingly trying to soften the blow to the giraffes' personal life. “So, I don’t think they miss too much when they are not doing it.”

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

I just read a bulletin on MySpace, and it got me thinking. Lately, I've been really missing the past. Who I was, who my friends where, where we hung, what we did. And this morning, it just hit me: all this wallowing in the past isn't doing anything to help me with my future. How can I become all the things I want to be if all I ever do is think of the past? I'll save that for when Alzheimers kicks in. To this end of change, I am working on an agenda, and a mission. I think it will be called Mission: Exploration. I'm going to try as many new things as I can, and go to as many new places as I can, and meet as many new people as I can. So long as they're not crawley. Cus that's just gross.

I wish I had just gone last night, but then it would have snowed, and I probably would have gotten into an accident because that is how fate works. As a result of my staying in, my room is the cleanest it has been since I moved the rest of my stuff home. I dusted everything, vacuumed everything (except for closet #1), flipped my mattress, located my new sage sheets, put said sheets on my bed (not as pleasant as the gold ones), changed the cat's box, re-organized my bottoms dresser, finally put away all my Christmas bits (though it broke my heart to do so) and bought a jack daniels belt buckle on ebay. Tomorrow, I plan on organizing and vacuuming closet #1, finish refinishing the floor of closet #2, finish re-reading my small business book, and completely gut the trunk of my car because apparently the seal no longer is good and the interior is ruined. So this is what I can accomplish when I'm not hungover. Who knew? I've still imbibed the standard weekend's amount of caffeine and ephedrine, so I may get started on tomorrow's list today and sew all day tomorrow.

I finally figured out what that little nagging anxiety in the back of my mind has been. I completely forgot that I'm going out with Tim to the annual Boston Barcrawl. This should be good. Hmm.. guy I'm in all probability still in love with, who I know is still in love with me, and we're adding copious amounts of alcohol, winter and minussing clothing (everyone wears summer clothes) from this equation? Why does this not seem like the best idea I have ever had? Oh, me... I had better get Julie or Chris to run blocker for me, or I could possibly get me into a touch of trouble. I know the easy answer is "don't go", but I miss being around him. Oh, fuck. I'm fucked and that's about all there is to it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.