Kickazz peeps!
Strongbad!
Ah, politics!

 
RIP Columbia :-(

Goodbye, Columbia! I'm just having problems with the assumptions of terrorism already before there is any evidence in... And I'm worried also that the space program will be just another 20th Century memory. This administration doesn't strike me as being particularly rational about any policy options. The first thing is to always REACT! before there's any evidence in about anything. Strip away civil liberties with no proof that security will improve as a result, because of a single successful incident of interational terorrism within what the DOD calls CONUS (Continental U.S.). So with a grand total of two space shuttle accidents in the space of 20 years, I'm worried that the space program will totally go down the tubes...

If there's anything that has even a remote chance of saving us from planetary extinction, it will be space research and space travel. But, I've been worried as I've seen cuts in NASA's budget in the last few years, and the almost complete cessation of manned space travel or research toward further manned space travel, that we're doomed. At the current rate of ecological destruction, I think this planet maybe has another 20 or 30 years before the collapse of the ecosystem and the beginning of mass die-offs of humanity. Space travel or the technological spinoffs of this sort of research might help us to reverse these global trends toward ecological collapse by providing 1) a way out or 2) technology that will be less destructive or 3) restorative technology that might help repair the ecosystem.

Damn, I'm getting a little speculative here, aren't I?

Anyway, RIP Columbia! You and your crew will be missed...

 
FYI, I'm this British


I am 95% British, just like
HRH Prince Charles
Though you'll never be king you certainly know where your castle is.

Take the Brit Quiz at
www.darrenlondon.tripod.com/britquiz1.htm
Quiz written by Daz

- Elizabeth, 9:55 PM

 
I want to talk about football even less than yesterday

So I'm gonna whine about stuff-- Lizzie's Whine List:

1) Got a hostile couple of e-mails from my favorite biotch

2) My extraverted neighbors were even more extraverted than usual

3) Some dipshiznit destroyed the bookholder on the elliptical I was signed up for

4) Get stuck in line between a bunch of invasive people who kept smooshing me and jabbing miscellaneous items like purses into me, and had to listen to a bunch of loud fat stupid people blabbing slowly and nasally behind me.

5) When I got to the register, the stupid dipshiznit fatsos let their retarded kid cut me off and socialize with the dingbat behind the register.

6) Five minutes after I sat down with my salad, some rude couple sits with their whiny 3 year old in the booth behind me, and I hear alternate whines and cussing, depending on the vocalizer.

Actually, that's it for now...

 
I'm not in the mood to talk about football

So I took this test instead:

I'm How British Are You?!

I know the differences between Brits and Americans, and I'm just so glad to tell you all about them. I won't say too much, though, or I'll exceed my daily bandwidth limit. Again.

Click here to find out which test you are!

 
More reasons to love football...

Well, crazed gunmen roaming around or not, I'm kinda glad I live where I do now. It's amazing how when there are riots going on about three to four miles down a street that's a block away from you, you don't even have the faintest clue they're going on. I should have guessed when I heard the Raiders took a major slamming that there would be repercussions, or concussions, or explosions. But I figured the riots were for winning behavior only. How naive am I?

So, three or four miles away, not a mile and a half away from the last place I lived (I was about 3/4 of the way up 35th from E. 14th), there was an explosion of restlessness, violence, and insanity, not one week after the Raiders won, and the same neighborhood exploded the first time. But this time it was major-- 250 cops spraying teargas, buses nearly stopped by rampaging mobs. Damn, it's almost like being in LA! Which, if I had my druthers, would be where the Raiders would have stayed instead of coming back and messing up the best seats in baseball with that horrid cement monstrosity not-so-affectionately dubbed, "Mt. Davis." But again, this is irrelevant.

I slept really well last night. There was no traffic backup on the way back from the bookstore after I managed to get around the massive accident on the 580/238 split. It was almost a miracle drive. I was listening to my XM radio, singing along with channel 81's Top 33 dance countdown, bopping my head in blissful ignorance of the city erupting literally five blocks away from where I was on the freeway. I had no idea, until I hopped on this one message board I love that there were any riots at all. In fact, I thought that O-town had been spared, thanks to the loss. Naive, naive...

I've had an odd affair with football. When I was four, five, six, I used to watch the Niners and the Raiders with my dad, and I wanted to be a quarterback when I grew up, a very realistic goal for a five year old girl. I loved it! We'd take funky bets on each team, and would switch back and forth which team we were betting on. After he died (I was 7), I didn't watch it again. In fact, when I'd be at someone's house where a game was on, I'd deliberately tune it out. Hell, my mom hated the game with a passion, much as she hated all sports, including my favorite, baseball. My ex's family kinda got me a bit into football, and I even watched the Superbowl a couple of times, along with attending the East/West Shrine game one year at Stanford. I haven't watched it since, tho', and haven't really had that much interest, beyond despising the Raiders for what they did to my Holy Temple of the A's.

There's something strange about football. Maybe it's the violence. It's horrible, but it's contained and ritualized. Boxing is pretty ritualized as well, but there's no real secret that the point of the sport is violence and fighting. Football pretends to be something else, a game. Even hockey, which is equally violent, isn't quite so oblique about its violence. I think of hockey, in fact, as boxing on ice, with a little puck action and skating thrown in for variety. Maybe that's why I like it so much ;-) Hockey isn't particularly ritualized. Fights break out, and fists fly. Gangs jump on each other, tackling, pummeling, hooks and uppercuts flying, and it's only stopped after it seems to take up several minutes of the period. There's no pretense of civility in hockey at all, which to me, makes it more honest and respectable. Baseball isn't violence-- it's ritual, and the chance to achieve both as an individual and as a team. It's a very intellectual sort of a sport, and a wonderful way to pass a Saturday, Sunday, or evening. But no violence. I can respect that also, which is why it's my favorite. It's honest!

Football ramblings continue tomorrow...