Tuesday, November 30, 2004

TG In Sunlight



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Another damn cat picture?

Sorry, I just haven't had the time to photograph more. I have way too much to do right now. Not the least of which is my lit review on the history of urban renewal. I have a stack of books on the computer desk with titles such as House By House, Block By Block: The Rebirth of America's Urban Neighborhoods... Urban Renewal: The Record and the Controversy... How The Federal Government Builds Ghettos by the National Committee Against Discrimination In Housing... Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design...
I am just really focusing on the tip of urban renewal and I mention just a few issues in my review such as racism, gentrification, and flawed housing designs. If I had more time, I would have focused on the design aspect. I'm really interested in how housing design affects the residents. Why did some urban renewal projects work and some (more infamously than others..see Pruitt-Igoe or the Robert Taylor Homes or Cabrini-Green) were just more awful than the buildings that they replaced?

Sunday, November 28, 2004

TG at the window



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Friday, November 26, 2004

Up The Nose



Happy turkey day...or the day after, I suppose.

I didn't have any thanksgiving themed pictures that I could post... just a cat that acts like a turkey sometimes. He and his brother got plenty of turkey and gravy yesterday.

I want to take the time to thank everyone who's been reading my blog as well as commenting on it. It feels good! I appreciate each and every comment.

I got a "first" yesterday too! Someone had linked my site on his. How wonderful. Now, if I could only figure out how to do the same on my sidebar, he and the other interesting blogger folks would get linked up on my site.

I have a feeling that my photos and postings are going to be a little sparse and sporadic the next few weeks. I have one regular week of classes left and one week of finals and then a week of full time work before I fly home for Christmas. Right now, my time is spent hunting down every article ever written and posted on the Internet about the history of urban renewal back to the Federal Housing Act of 1949. I am writing a literary review that discusses the history of urban renewal in the 20th century and I am evaluating the subsequent issues that arose from the government's intervention and what they and society have learned since then. Sounds thrilling, don't it? I haven’t been able to put the topic into a handy-dandy thesis title yet either. But I do have 13 days until it’s due.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Under The Bleachers


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Monday, November 22, 2004

Mosaic


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Sunday, November 21, 2004

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" -Gandhi


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Saturday, November 20, 2004

I Was Going To Post This On My Own Blog...

but Alder beat me to the punch.

Click on his name now and give him a little traffic!

It's a trippy map showing the true representation of the voting block for the election and the size of the states represents the electoral votes. One of my professors showed these maps, available here from the University of Michigan (I think), in class last week as he was introducing us to GIS (Geographic Information Systems). I feel kind of bad cursing all those red states now. There's a good deal of intelligent people all over the US. And as for those who voted for Bush, I will only say that they are misguided and fearful and they need to stop watching Fox News.

Saved The Best For Last


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This is my favorite photograph from last weekend.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Corn USA


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Uh, don't ask. I just thought it was funny looking. I don't think I could eat corn that was wearing spurs. I have a hard enough time with the little pokie things that you stick in each end to eat without getting messy. We're talking sharp, pointed metal here, people. So close to my mouth too....

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Old Portland


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Wednesday, November 17, 2004

First Christian Church


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Eagle


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Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Portland


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Portland Fish


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Monday, November 15, 2004

Soul


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Dandelion went to the vet on Saturday. It's his "once every two years trip because mommy can't stand to listen to him howl all the way there and all the way home" visit. That cat is a screamer! People stop and stare cause they think I'm killing him. I have to drown his yelling in the car with the radio but he just gets louder when he thinks I'm not listening to him. Where is the technology for the Star Trek transporter when you need it?
He's been itching himself little bare spots all over his body (his nickname is now patches) for a few months. His belly, ankles and face are the most tore up. I had to photoshop out the worst scabs on his face for this close up. You can kind of see some pink areas if you look closely.
The doctor determined it's not a bug (TG doesn't have it either, so that wouldn't make sense for one to have mites and not the other). She thinks it's an allergic reaction to something, either food or a cleaning product. She gave him a pill prescription for prednisone to calm the itching. I hope this helps.
The doctor asked if there had been any changes in the house lately. I couldn't think of anything till I got home. We added Gain fabric sheets to the laundry. It doesn't seem like a big deal until you consider that Dandelion is a laundry cat. Always, ALWAYS on the laundry or a blanket or a pillow. He rubs all over the warm laundry when it first comes out of the dryer. He sleeps in laundry baskets on top of clean or dirty laundry. I bet anything that he's allergic to Gain. I can't say I'm broke up about it, I wasn't too impressed with the smell of Gain anyway. I'm going to experiment and see if it's just the Gain or if it's all laundry detergents and scents. If it is, I'll have to go back to using Arm'n'Hammer non-scented detergent. Hopefully this is an easy fix to an itchy problem. I can't photograph him until the hair grows back in. He deserves to look his best.

Portland Church


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Sunday, November 14, 2004

Where Did I Go Today?

You've Got One Guess...

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Saturday, November 13, 2004

It's Supposed To Be A Photoblog!

I'm going back to the photos and I promise no more republishing of any interesting articles...

Let me make good on my promise right now:

Parking Lot Beauties

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Got Values? Republicans Apparently Think They Do

by Susan Reimer
Published on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 by the Baltimore Sun

My Friend Norine has come up with a way to turn the disappointment of last Tuesday's presidential election into cold, hard cash.

She is putting the finishing touches on an ad campaign she is calling "Got Values?" and I am putting all my Starbucks money behind it.

There will be T-shirts, bumper stickers, magazine ads and television spots, and instead of a milk mustache, our celebrities will have their foreheads marked with a cross of ashes.

We are banking on the fact that the lesson of the presidential election is: "It was values, stupid!"

We figure that because it was the Republicans teaching this lesson, there has got to be a way to make money on it, to keep that money from the poor and to protect it from taxes.

And I think my friend Norine may have found it.

We just have to figure out which values.

Apparently, if you are more worried about a Super Bowl halftime show than about the fact that the United States invaded a sovereign nation without provocation, you've got values.

If you are more offended by two guys kissing than by the fact that 100,000 Iraqi citizens have died while being liberated, you have values.

And if you care more about a single, fertilized egg in some deep freeze somewhere than about all the children with diabetes and all the grandparents with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, you have values.

If you care more about your exclusive and personal relationship with God than you do about his admonition to care for the poor and the weak, you have values.

The right values, anyway.

Apparently, if you "believe" that the United States has clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al-Qaida; that we have found those weapons of mass destruction; and that the majority of world leaders backed our decision to invade Iraq - "beliefs" held by nearly 70 percent of those who voted for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland study - you believe in the right things.

If you believe that "under God" must remain in the Pledge of Allegiance; if you believe that the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes should be on display at courthouses; if you believe that simply telling teenagers not to have sex will guarantee that they do not, you have the required credentials to run for public office.

If you believe that we need to junk up the Constitution with an amendment designed to punish the people who might be so greatly moved as to burn a U.S. flag, you have passed the new values litmus test and you are eligible for the Supreme Court.

If you don't believe that the preservation of the environment is a relevant part of any discussion about the sanctity of life, you are eligible for my friend Norine's ad campaign.

If you believe that a 3 percent plurality is a mandate; if you believe that the 55 million Americans who did not vote for you don't count, you can serve in the Bush administration's second term.

And if you think that you can just start talking about God more often or trot out Southern Baptist candidates like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter who are comfortable with such talk, then you are a Democrat.

Sound bitter?

I am.

And that might be the start of our next ad campaign.

© 2004 Baltimore Sun
found on Commondreams.org

Rusty


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Materialistic Madness

by Derrick Z. Jackson
Published on Friday, November 12, 2004 by the Boston Globe

The biggest moral value of all was on display in a parking lot in Hershey, Pa. Five cars, four of them SUVs, were clustered together. All of them had the yellow ribbon magnet in support of our troops in Iraq. The ribbons glowed against the grayness of a drizzly fall day. Circled by fallen leaves, the hulks were an impenetrable metallic forest resting on asphalt soil.

This forest spoke as powerfully about our moral values as the debate over gay marriage and Iraq. Americans are still voting for denial. The SUV forest thickens. The real forest thins. America voted for the asphalt jungle.

That is the moral value that most threatens America. It is consuming itself with consumption. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, even though Republican President Bush is a stunningly convenient symbol. This is the president who, when faced with telling Americans what their responsibilities were in the days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, went to Chicago's O'Hare Airport and urged Americans to fly to Disney World.

Three thousand Americans were killed by terrorists, we were about to send soldiers off to die, eventually by the hundreds, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all a president could ask of civilians was to have a photo taken with Mickey Mouse. You cannot be more escapist than that. Had Democrat Al Gore been presented with the same Wall Street pressure to get commercial aircraft up in the air, there is a good chance that he would have done something just as Goofy.

The return of Bush to the White House and the failure of challenger John Kerry to offer a bold, clear alternative is the culmination of a half century in which the early 1960s presidential rhetoric of equality at home and ending poverty abroad faded into an escape from those challenges with Richard Nixon's "law and order" campaign in 1968. Pretty much ever since, Americans have sought out leaders who made them feel good about walling themselves off from those left behind or being global gluttons.

The only one who arguably tried, Jimmy Carter during the oil crisis, was drummed out of office. His chagrined successors have charted a steady course away from individual responsibility for consumption, no matter how much they preach it to attack mothers on welfare and black prisoners. America has come to be seen as the nation of me, my SUV and eye-popping portions of greasy French fries.

Since the 1970s, our cars, homes, and stomachs have become the biggest in the world. The mayor of Washington, D.C., wants a publicly funded $530-million baseball stadium a half year after the city slashed 285 teachers. Little about daily life in America has changed after 9/11 except for long lines at airports and allowing fear to become an excuse to cling even more desperately to cash. That must be why Americans cheer for a few hundred dollars out of a trillion-dollar tax cut while public education becomes a fossil.

We went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq saying we're promoting freedom, democracy, and the American way of life. It is a lie to promote the American way of life as it is at this moment. The great Harvard biologist, E.O. Wilson, said in his 2002 book "The Future of Life" that if the rest of the world were to actually live like we do, it would take four planet Earths. Our promise is a recipe for mass extinction of animals and plants, massive wars by humans over scare resources. Do we not invite more terrorism against the United States by entities who will increasingly say we are stealing their energy, food, air, and water?

We all participate in this lie, Republican, Democrat, and independent, rich, middle class, and even a fair number of the poor. Somewhere on the checklist of big car, huge house, thundering television, wasted food, lights left on, packrat possessions, and paper thrown away, we can pencil in our share of the madness.

Forty-three years ago, John F. Kennedy said, "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Today, we returned to office a president who tells us our burden is to go to Disney World.

That is an unsustainable vision for an unsustainable society. The biggest test of America's moral values is whether we and our leaders find the courage to say that liberty for all means liberating ourselves from materialism before it drives us mad and makes us a target for the world's next madman.

© 2004 Boston Globe
Found on CommonDreams.Org at this page

(Thank you Rori... not only for being my cousin, but being a great person who is living life to her full potential, questioning the world around her, and ultimately making it a better place. I love you and I know that no matter what obstacles you face, you will prevail and become stronger because of it and because you are just that kind of person. I have deep respect for you. I wish I was there to be near you and your mom.)

Fishy


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You know you're bored when you take pictures of crackers!

Friday, November 12, 2004

Stray



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Do the eyes look a little too unrealistic? He did have gorgeous green eyes but not quite that shade. I just punched them up a little. Looking at it again a week later, I wonder if it looks too weird?

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Rock On


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Wednesday, November 10, 2004

How'd They Do That?

So I want a site with monthly archives that show small snippets of pictures every day like this cool site does... how do I do it?

I'm such a newbie dweeb.

Blah...

Willamette Hall


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I went up 3 floors to get this shot of the stairs in the Willamette Hall Atrium. It's up high enough that my legs shake and I have to hold on to the side railing going up and coming down. I don't have a fear of heights, but my body sure does.


I have an India Art midterm tomorrow. I need to know ancient places such as Elephanta and Mamallapuram plus terms such as Garbagriha and Dvarapala. The names just swim in my head. I need to buckle down tonight and go over the sacred symbolism of the north Indian temple and the differences between north and south Indian architecture. All the temples just look alike to me.

Chevelle Posterized


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Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Berries


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Monday, November 08, 2004

Untitled


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Here comes another Monday! I'm not very fond of them. Besides the whole fact that I have to go 5 days without a day off, Monday's suck twice as much because the phone lines at work are busy all day. There is no time to catch your breath. It's phone call after phone call. In a 10 hour day, I usually take 175 calls. Half the time, the calls are about things that could have been completed over the automated system, but hey, can't complain cause it does keep us in business and I'm guaranteed a job.

And I'm pretty sure that my job isn't going overseas. One of our collections offices started a center in India. You wanna piss off your customers? Have people with very little English skills call up American customers that are behind on payments to demand payment. It would be funny if more people weren't so pissed. That center has received the most complaints and it's easy to see why. The number one complaint is that the agents are not speaking clearly enough. I have to imagine that upper management has learned from this and decided against moving the whole call center operation overseas.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Goddess Banner


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Saturday, November 06, 2004

My New Lamp


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Dandelion


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Princess


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I clicked on this picture and printed it up full page (8x11) and it turned out to be really cool looking.

Attention Shoppers


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Friday, November 05, 2004

Willamette Hall Stairs


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My Apologies For Posting This..But I Really Need To Vent!

Even if I wasn't really angry, I don't think I could string enough intelligent words together to express my disappointment. Strong written communication is not one of my gifts. But I really liked the following email:

My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession.

I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.

I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. [Boos.] Now, now. Credit where it's due.

I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do.

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with family and friends. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"

More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where Al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.

Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.

It's not a "ha-ha" funny joke, I realize, but it's a joke all the same.

And I make this pledge to you today: Next time, there will be no pandering. We will run with all the open and joking contempt for our opponents that the President demonstrated towards the cradle of liberty, the Ivy League intellectuals, the "media elite," and the "white-wine sippers." We will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don't.

So that's why we're asking for your vote in 2008, America. I'm talking to you, you ignorant, slack-jawed yokels, you bible-thumping, inbred drones, you redneck, racist, chest-thumping, perennially duped grade-school grads. We know better, and I truly believe that we can help your smug, sorry asses. And may God, if he does in fact exist, bless each and every one of you.


By comedian Mark Fedler

credits to Diary of a Recovering Angry White Girl for posting this forwarding email.

I Have Been Grappling With The Results Of The Election

My main question always begins with "How did this happen?” When I begin to answer this, (in my not so intelligent and angry inner-voice), I always say that it was the damn "bible-thumpers" that did it. The damn UNEDUCATED bible-thumpers that weren't paying attention to all the facts of the last four years and chose to vote based on "moral values".

EXCUSE ME??

What the fuck is moral about denying a couple in love, the right to marry? Why did half of the country see fit to take a GIGANTIC leap backwards in our country and write discrimination back into state law??? Why don't we just get it over with and go back to Jim Crow Laws along with denying women the right to vote?!? Better yet, just go all the way back to the days of slavery... cause I don't see a damn difference here people. I really don't. And if I could bet on this, I'll bet the Christian God doesn't see the fucking point either.

What Would Jesus Do?

I mean, seriously ask yourself that. Wasn’t he the guy that hung out with lepers and those in poverty, those judged by everyone else and didn’t he love everyone no matter what?? Would he have thought discrimination in any form was acceptable??

Morality my ass…

It’s fear and the uneducated masses that decided this election.

I am proud to be able to say to my children some day that I voted for fairness over bigotry and intolerance and for good over evil. Even though evil won over good this time, it isn’t the end of the fight. I have peace knowing that someday, the world will be made right again. I also have peace knowing that my morals are more Christian than the Christians out there who voted Bush and fear and narrow-mindedness. Humph!

A Few Bad Apples...

So I had to take down my email address on my profile today.

I never ever get spam because I'm careful about where I use my email address and who gets it.
Apparently, spammers are looking for addresses on our blogs. I have gotten 4 spam emails in the last week.

Luckily, I have Yahoo Mail that has this great bulk feature where spam messages almost always go. I got a comment on a previous post that was spam and Yahoo Mail was able to detect that it was spam while it has let other comments come through to my regular box. Hip Hip Hooray for Yahoo Mail!

If anyone wants to email me about something, leave a comment here and I will email you my address or go to your blog.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

XL Palm


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Neon


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Wednesday, November 03, 2004

By Popular Demand...Photos Of Me

No, not really any demand.
But someone did ask to see a picture of me. Course, it was from the inner circle of special people in my life and they all actually LIKE to look at me. Go Figure.

Punkin

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Someone took these photos for me and the camera was acting up and I was feeling ugly anyways...so they aren't the best photos. Maybe someday I can stand in front of a camera and feel really good about any photo that's captured.

Fuzzy

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Skinny Me!!

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This is interesting. It's very blurry but I believe it to be a ghost of my future self with the skinnier body. Cool Beans. I'm gonna be there soon baby! I have "only" 50 pounds to go.

Reflections


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Congrats George, you finally won an election.

I only hope the sky won't fall in the next four years.

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one"

Petals


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quote for the day:

"Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turn'd..."


Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Late Bloom


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Pink Haze

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this one's a little more "photoshopped" than the picture above

Monday, November 01, 2004

Sourpress Series


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I like these tangerine sours by Altoids. They're not half bad. The tin is kind of cute too and it would make a great canister for geocashing or even to reuse at Christmas time. I'd much rather give and get homemade gifts this year. I read the Sunday paper and it was so full of Christmas toy ads. Thank goodness I don't have any kids. It all seems so expensive and fake and disposable. I was watching The 1900 House documentary from PBS this weekend. It is a reality show that followed a British family as they survived a house made to resemble a turn of the (last) century home. It's quite amusing. I like the episode where it's the mother's birthday and the kids make all her gifts and cake. Those items are filled with so much more thought and are so much more personal than anything that could be bought at Wal-Mart or Target. I'd like to do something nice and worthwhile, not to mention cheaper, for each person on my Christmas list. I hate impersonal gifts and I am really beginning to hate the aisles at Wal-Mart filled with those last minute holiday baskets and boxes of gifts. I bet every Wal-Mart has the same damn aisles too. And they’re just filled with thousands of plastic, throwaway gifts. How many coke glasses and cheerio bowls and Planters Peanuts cans can one nation really need? It seems to me that a much better solution is to reuse the stuff we have to create personal gifts. What a novel idea!

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I was supposed to be doing my homework...but lately I find the most boring objects interesting and I can't help myself. I'm going to have to lock the camera away tonight just to finish up my paper due tomorrow.