Oh, shit!

Heath Ledger is dead.

This news is so fresh I can't even find a link for it. I know this because my sister called me to tell me. I didn't like him as much as I liked Brad Renfro, but I am still shocked. I had no idea Heath Ledger was all fucked up. Plus, baby.

Posting into the void.

You know how there are those movies, in which a person dies, but they don't realize they're dead? Or invisible? And they don't figure it out until they start realizing that no one can hear them, and they're not affecting anything in the physical world?

I'm starting to feel like that, only, on the internet.

Did I internet-die and just not realize it?

The hell, people. The hell.

Oh, shit.

Brad Renfro is dead.

I am very sad about this. From the ages of 10 to maybe about 16, I nursed an occasional crush on Brad Renfro. Not just because I thought he was so dreamy, but because I really thought he was a wonderfully talented actor. I've never seen him in any role where he wasn't excellent. He had "it." I knew that in recent years he had had Troubles, like y'do, but this news was really shocking. I'm quite upset.

I got my hair cut.

It's pretty hot.

Unfortunately, since I can't seem to take a picture of it worth a damn, you'll just have to take my word for it. It's still ridiculously long, but now it has layers, and bangs that half fall in my eyes on purpose.

Not I'm going to go bop around to "Endless Sleep" by Jody Reynolds with my attractive hair. That's the kind of hot I mean.

Oh dear.

88% Dennis Kucinich
86% Mike Gravel
74% Chris Dodd
71% Joe Biden
70% Hillary Clinton
70% John Edwards
68% Barack Obama
64% Bill Richardson
37% Ron Paul
37% Rudy Giuliani
29% John McCain
21% Mike Huckabee
21% Mitt Romney
19% Tom Tancredo
11% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

And another thing.

I decided to start reading "The Stand" again. This conclusion was pretty inevitable, given the progression of things. As I've been revisiting this story, I've been reflecting on a certain aspect of it. This is something I've been thinking off and on about lately, but something that I had never thought of before.

The miniseries adaptation is pretty good as far as those things go. There's one aspect that it misses, though, something that's a lot clearer in the book. You don't really get a sense of how young these characters are. Seriously, most of the main characters are pretty young: Larry is 24. Nick is 22. Fran is 21. Harold is 16. They are so young.

Of course, when I first read the book, I was 10, and none of this made any impact on me. It wouldn't have mattered if they were 20 or 30 or 40. They were vastly older than I. It was so vague and distant and in-the-realm-of-fiction that I wouldn't have been surprised to see them do anything at all.

At Christmas this year, my sister's goddaughter (whom I will therefore call my niece), who is nine, proclaimed that I was still cool. This, she said, because, "it's not like [I'm] 27 or anything." The only response I could come up with was "Well. That is very true!" It is! It is indeed not like I'm 27 or anything. So I guess that's something.

It's just that this gives me a profoundly different perspective that I never could have imagined beforehand. I'm now reading about these characters, with less life experience than my own, going about doing these activities and having these things happen to them. They're not even as old as I am! They're so young.

And the weird thing is, there was no solid mark where I began feeling this way. There was no point at which I was able to know that I was on one side and these other people, these young people, were on the other. Actually, here's a good way of putting it. A little while ago, I was reading another book that I also, coincidentally, read for the first time in 1994: "The Vampire Lestat." Yes, I know. Shut up. (This was one of the books I replaced because it was falling apart. I'm not sure why; it wasn't that old. I had picked it up in the airport bookseller's before flying out to Mexico.) Anyway, in the book, Lestat becomes a vampire. Obviously. He is pretty immediately able to embrace the mindset that he is no longer human. He is what he is, and they have all suddenly become They. Nothing that dramatic happened for me.

Of course, Lestat was only 21 when that happened. So he was really young.

Is it St. Stephen's Day already? "'Tis," replied Aunt Helga!

I know that's not the line, but I'm rolling with it.

So, on the day before the day before Christmas (which in my reckoning is actually "the day before Christmas" - don't ask), I was watching most of Stephen King's "The Stand" on the Sci Fi Channel. Which apparently came out in 1994! So that's one mystery solved. I remember I watched it because my sister had read the book and wanted to see the miniseries, but she was going to be out and about. ... Every night. So she wanted me to tape it for her, which I did. It should have only taken four tapes, but I wound up utilizing five, because one tape malfunctioned right in the middle of Part 2, and I had to flounder around and jam in a new one. So my home-made set is missing most of Nadine's breakup message to Larry. It was weird getting to hear it again. I totally don't remember that part! At the end of the miniseries, I bound all the tapes together with masking tape, and decorated it like a box set. I gave it to my sister when she moved out, and I think she lost it.

Then I read the book: unabridged. My sister gave me her copy, which was alarmingly tattered. It was missing both the front and back cover. To this day, I don't know how the story ended, because the top right corner of the very last page is ripped off. Very disappointing! Even though I'm pretty sure I got the gist. One of these days, I will have to get a new copy of that book. I have a few books that are in various states of disrepair and lacking in a handful of pages that I am endeavoring to replace. This is both good and bad. Good because I can, you know, actually read the books if I want to without fear that they will fall apart, but bad because I ... don't like the new editions. I feel the need to explain my having the books, even if no one sees me read them. I used to have a much older version! Don't think I just got this recently! I mean! I did, but ... oh the hell with it.

Anyway, in "The Stand" there is a plague that kills 99.4% of the population. That sounds like it would be pretty much everyone, but if such a thing were to happen now, where the global human population is hovering somewhere around 7 billion, that would still leave some 42 million people milling about. For reference, this was about the size of the world's population about 5 thousand years ago, perhaps when the Greeks were beginning to get their shit together.

There's no point to this observation. Just a "... Huh." moment I felt like sharing with the internet.

This seems like a good time to bum people out.

I was mentioning to Pat, after my post about my grandfather, that I had hoped, with my next post, to write about a topic of great social and political import. (Not about the state of my automotive ownership, not unless a certain manufacturer starts producing hybrids.) Anyway, as you can probably tell already, I didn't do that, as I was occupied with other extremely important matters.

So, what would I like to talk about? Well, as I'm sure you know, for a while now there has been bad shit going on in the country of Sudan. That's right, Darfur. I'm not exactly sure what my point in posting this will be, or why I feel compelled to talk about it. The bottom line is this: The situation in Darfur fucks me up. I know I haven't mentioned this before. I haven't actually mentioned this to anyone at all. I don't do a lot of talking about things like this, even though, truth be told, I think about them frequently.

I've always been a bit fascinated with the African continent. After all, that's where the monkeys come from. But even before I was interested in monkeys, I knew that I had a greater interest than your average citizen of the Western Hemisphere. When I was in [insert year of school here, because I can't remember], I took one of three classes that took me by complete surprise, both with how much they taught me and how much they influenced me. This class was called Anthropology of Africa. (The other two were Geology And Human Evolution and Storytelling.) It was a cultural anthropology course, which may explain why I didn't have too much enthusiasm going in. (I tend to be more interested in dead people's clay pots and, of course, monkeys, than I am in ethnographies.) On the first day of class, we were immediately quizzed and challenged to write down the names of all the African countries we knew. Glancing around at my peers, it seemed that most of them were coming up with about 5-10. Maybe for some a few more. I got all but three: Seychelles, Comoros, and Lesotho. (The first two because I forgot their names, and the last because I, um, forgot it existed. Sorry Lesotho! Blame Swaziland!) Yes, I was a total teacher's pet.

But, you know, going in, all I had were names, things I had picked up from maps. A few details here and there, but that was largely it. Coming out, I was able to converse on pretty much any issue facing the whole of the continent from the time of colonization up to the present.

We didn't talk about Sudan. I'm not even sure if we knew it was happening at that time, though it was definitely happening. What we did talk about was Rwanda, and the genocide that took place there in 1994. Learning about this devastated me. Watching the news footage devastated me. Listening to the stories of the survivors devastated me. Watching President Clinton intone "Never Again" in front of the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum as a real live genocide was being committed devastated me. Knowing that the whole thing was basically ignored, devastated me.

It also allowed me to engage in fantasies about What I Would Have Done. Now, obviously, I was around when this was going on. But I was 10. That's as acceptable excuse as any. And of course, the American media gave it hardly any coverage, and I wasn't socially aware enough to seek out information on my own. I was 10. There's that. Then there's also, as you may have gathered, the uniquely personal events that made 1994 so devastating. Seriously, I don't remember much of what happened that year. There are periods of nothingness as if I had blacked out for months. So, I give myself a pass for this time. But if that were going on now? Why, surely I would be doing something. I'm not sure what exactly, but it would be impressively noble. It would be commendable. If it were, I would be.

And of course, it is. And I'm not. I'm doing nothing. I say that I am doing nothing. I have done some things. I have given hundreds of dollars to various humanitarian efforts. I have written to my elected officials and the United Nations impassioned missives on the need to do something. I support Amnesty International, who do the most. I haven't actually left my house. I have a hard time thinking that I've done anything but sit around and blink dully. Because that's all I have done. That's all it's amounted to. I have not done anything commendable. I have not done anything that would make a difference. Most of the time, I try not to think about this. I try not to think about the fact that I'm not thinking about it.

What's worse than devastated?

Best news ever?

You decide.

HOLY CRAP.

It turns out that my eyebrows have been crooked. For at least the last several years.

I fixed them! Don't worry! They are duly symmetrical now. But holy crap.

Again with this?

Today is my grandfather's birthday. (There are many Sagittarii in my family.) He would have been 99, but he died 10 years ago. When I was little, I always used to ask him what he wanted to do for his 100th birthday. He was old, you see. He laughed and said he wasn't going to worry about it unless it seemed imminent.

So, I'm 24 now, right? Or, as my grandfather would say, I'm in my 25th year. A few weeks ago, I found some things out about my grandfather: 1. His first name. 2. He served in the army.

Let's get back to that first one. I always thought my grandfather's name was Gerard. Turns out it's Thomas. Gerard was his middle name, and when he started school, he decided he liked it better, and went by such. According to some letters I found, his friends called him Gerry. I'm mildly freaked out by this news. (Do you see? Do you see how going by your middle name screws with people? Do you see?) Of course, when I think about it, it doesn't exactly break a pattern. You see, I didn't learn that my grandfather's name was Gerard until I was about ... oh, maybe 7? You see, up until then, I thought his name was Bud.

Apparently, it's the thing in Irish families to call a young man Bud, or Buddy, or some variant thereof. My grandfather was nothing if not Irish. Unless it was a Catholic, but that's the same thing. Or a Democrat. Anyway, he was Bud to his sisters and to his mother. I have no idea when or how I picked this up as a wee thing: my grandmother never called him that, nor did his children or my sisters. Somehow, though, he was my Grandpa Bud.

I also call my sister Bud. That's a completely different story, which, surprisingly, has nothing to do with my grandfather. At least I don't think. My sister loved my grandfather to pieces, and he loved her likewise. We've determined that this may or may not have something to do with the fact that she looks exactly, eerily like his mother. We have a picture of his mother, or rather, my sister does. We've got several people convinced that it actually is my sister, and that she went down the shore and had one of those Olde Timey pictures taken. Not the case.

When my grandfather got pneumonia, my sister went to see him every day. She was the one who told him, when the holidays were over, that it was alright for him to go. She was the last one of us to see him alive. It is entirely fitting that she is now Bud.

Of course, she calls me Bud, too.

My next arbitrary milestone is at 35.

I hope I have all my shit together by then, because I don't think I have one lined up for after that.

Please take this opportunity to celebrate me. I'll wait.

Et tu, Andrew Bird?

What is the deal with music in commercials these days? It's pretty common practice for advertisers to invoke some old standard, or some song that you kinda remember but never thought about how easily it could be tailored to a message of commercialism. That's the thing, though, the music was "pre-used," let's say. Whatever the song, it had its day, however long or brief, it retired to obscurity (or not) then got to make its ignoble comeback in a 30-second spot about blenders. Or more likely cars.

I'm not writing this with the assumption that it will be a revelation to anyone. More I'm just hoping for an ... open dialogue? Something to alleviate my confusion? I don't know. Something.

More and more, I am hearing music on commercials that I've never heard before. WHAT'S MORE, it's music that I would not be averse to hearing again.

Seriously, what is the deal with this? Is it really the case that advertisement has suddenly become a venue for musical discovery? I don't even listen to the radio. If I discover new music, it's because I found it through the internet, or a tiny publication, or on a friend's recommendation, or because I saw them in person. I'm not trying to puff myself up like this is cool or anything, but ... oh, come on guys, it totally is. If this isn't cool then there's no such thing. This is the way the snobs get their music, isn't it?

Meanwhile, television commercials are the epitome of all that I, as a young, self-aware, socially-conscious, filthy pinko must despise, aren't they?

It's okay, calm down. I actually don't care at all in the way I'm pretending to. All I really care about is that I found some music that I like. Whatever I may claim from time to time, I'll listen to music if I like it. It doesn't have to meet any standard; it doesn't even have to be good. I mean, within this very year, I have listened to Debbie Gibson's Out Of The Blue, and I am completely comfortable with telling you that.

But I would be lying if I claimed that this weren't fucking with my Weltanschauung just a bit. It's ... it's freaking my establishment, people.

There are levels to this. It is multi-tiered. There's that terrible song by Vanessa Carlton with the treacly piano that's everywhere, and that's okay, I don't care about that. That song was out for a while prior, and she's in the dominion of pop anyway. Then, and this is true, I was in the waiting room at a doctor's office when I heard from the background television noise what I'm pretty sure was "Banking On A Myth." True story. I actually looked up and muttered, "Seriously?" before I could stop myself. (When I'm in public I usually try to pretend that I don't have any emotions.) Then, of course, there's my central problem: the songs that I've never heard before. The ones that make me look up and say, "Hey, this song's not bad. I have no idea what it is, but it's not bad." Are these people sell-outs? And ... don't I have to know who you are before you can sell out? I mean, really. There must be a before-career before there can be an after-career. But wait. Does that mean that I am a mass-market consumer?? HOLY SHIT!

This entry was spurred by the fact that this evening I made a playlist on my iPod entitled "Music I Heard On Commercials." I've acquired enough that I felt I needed to make a statement about it. A pitfall of many successful gimmicks, though, even though I latched onto the songs pretty well, I can't for the life of me remember what they were advertising. Although, of course, if I said "iPods," I'd probably be right at least half the time. Oh well, it's another thing I can blame Steve Jobs for, I guess.

Some samples from that list:
"Dance With Me" by The Sounds
"1234" by Feist
"Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop" by Landon Pigg (he basically sounds just like Rufus Wainwright - I don't know if that makes me like him less, or more)
"All That I Want" by The Weepies

Turns out it was not the sweet potatoes.

Nor the stuffing!

Turns out it was the virus.

Not fun! Although, in related news, hooray for my delectable feast of crackers.

This was the perfect time for my health insurance provider to let me know that my coverage is going up again this year. By 250 more dollars.

Oy.

Oy.

Why did you hate me, Thanksgiving???

It's about 3:30 now, so I've decided that I should try eating something again. It is dry cereal.

Thanksgiving did not agree with me. Do not misunderstand: the food was sublime. We cut down on the dishes this year, so we actually only had the ones that everyone likes and eats. I had so much sweet potato. It was excellent!

However, somewhere in-between the soup and the nuts*, my body realized that it really only likes cereal right now. My stomach is actually sore, as if I had done many sit-ups. It's horrible.

*the cheese and the pie

42.

Today is my sister Karen's birthday. She would have been forty-two.



This is one of my favorite pictures of her. I'm sorry I couldn't get it any clearer. Please note the shirt.

THIS JUST IN: New Jersey has plants and animals!

So, you may or may not recall (because I may or may not have mentioned) that I claimed to have taken pictures around my house this summer. I finally got around to getting them online! They include some incidental pictures of my garden. In the Garden State. I swear to you I am not making any of this up.

Also, in September I went to Colorado, so I put up some pictures of that too.

Annoyingly, I cannot sort and structure and regulate the pictures as my obsessive-compulsiveness dictates that I must. This is because my free premium account has expired. Blast! I'll have to give them money or something! I'm sorry Christine. I mean, unless someone can recommend me a good alternative.

OK! Computer!

I actually don't like Radiohead, but the title still must be used sometimes.

Folks, I have an announcement. For the first time in nearly a decade, I have a new computer. Okay, there was that time when I went to college and I had my own computer, but then I stopped using it and switched back to the ol' junk bucket. That's not important right now.

What's important is that it's so sexy I want to cry.

Vista? It's not that bad. The wom-wom window effect might eventually give me a headache, but ... dear God. SO PRETTY.

When I was setting things up, I found myself, um, unconsciously stroking the console. It's just so smooth!!

But never mind all that now!

Oh, it's my blog! So, um, I did a whole bunch of stuff last month. No time to dwell on it! Also, I had a devil of a time coming up with something to blog about that didn't take too long and make me get tired and bored and stop. So instead, let me tell you about

Fan Videos I've Never Made, Part 2.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - The Warrior, by Scandal (or Skandal. Kirk: I'm still not sure.)
First, let me tell you that I cannot believe I forgot to mention this one last time. This is the song that first brought the idea of actually making fan videos to my mind. One, because it's for Buffy, the fandom that introduced me to fanvids. Two, guys, seriously, you have no idea. Aside from being totally perfect for Buffy in every way, the song also name-drops or overtly references at least 5 different episode titles.

Well isn't love primitive?
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me you stereo jungle child
Love is the kill
Your heart's still wild

Harry Potter - My Body Is A Cage, Arcade Fire
I recently got a chance to listen to Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. It was okay, but not great. The songs tended to mumble and run together, and while I almost liked several of them, it was, as I quipped to the boy, like trying to decide which was your favorite shade of blue. My favorite shade turned out to be the song above. The sound is dark, moody, and epic, and yet it's somehow also adolescent and kinda gay. Hence, Harry Potter. It would probably work better after the next two films come out, and there's more material to work with.

I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow

Lord of the Rings (Battle of the Pelennor Fields) - All Along The Watchtower, Bob Dylan
Now, don't get me wrong. I realize that "All Along The Watchtower" has been used for everything ever. However, I would use the actual Dylan version, and that makes me better than most people. Furthermore, how many of those things that feature this song have an actual watchtower, with actual princes all along it? That's what I thought, bitches.

You don't need lyrics, right?


Thanks for reading! Tune in next time.

I am made of science!

Well, sort of.

You may recall some time ago I told you about my harrowing involvement with the Genographic Project and the rage that ensued. To update you on that, a few weeks after all the kerfuffle, I received a rather unceremonious email telling me that my order was being shipped. !!!!

What the hell my friends!

Anyway, I received my kit of science! I swabbed the insides of my cheeks. I plungered the implements into little fluid-filled vials. I packed them and shipped them off. It was very AP Bio. Except for the mailing. And I didn't get to see my cells at 250X magnification afterwards.

Then ... I waited! And I waited. And I waited some more! What would my results be? What! My mother's mother's mothers have lived in the Western Hemisphere for many generations. We are generally known to be of Dutch stock, but who knows? Perhaps I am Lene Lanape! Perhaps I am Inuit.

Um. I'm not. In fact, far from it. I am a member of the super pedestrian and half-inclusive Haplogroup H! We make up half of Europe!

OMG you guys we are all probably cousins you guys OMG.

My mtDNA differs from the Cambridge Reference Sequence in only one position! I'm almost scientifically famous!

Like a dutiful nerdful member of society, I have submitted to include my data in the published study. One tiny datum, doing my part. In addition, I have been offered a chance to have the free services of Family Tree DNA the premier ... something or other, I'm not really sure. I'm going to discuss it with my mother and sister (who, sharing my genetic matter, share in my test results) and see what they would like to do before submitting my information. I mean, I'm not really that fond of most of my family. I don't know that I'd like to know any more of them.

It would be nice if the results had told me which of Haplogroup H's 32 subclades I belong to. As is, the results are a bit bland (my foremothers came from Western Europe!), and, to be honest, a bit of a let down after all the hassle.