Please stop shooting our children. Please stop walking into schools (the ONE place our kids should be allowed to roam and learn and grow without being scared and paranoid) and molesting, terrorizing and shooting our FUTURE.

10/02/2006: At least six killed in Amish school shooting

Three girls, all critical with gunshot wounds and ages 6 through 12, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told NBC affiliate WGAL-TV.

When you walk into a classroom and shoot a SIX YEAR OLD, you are not allowed to take your own life. You aren’t allowed to take the cowards way out. How dare you.

On Friday (09/29/2006), a 15-year-old student fatally wounded his school’s principal in western Wisconsin. A drifter in Colorado Wednesday (09/27/2006) took six female high school students hostage, molested them and then shot one to death and killed himself as police closed in.

How is it that we let people walk around who are so unstable that walking into a school and killing innocent children has happened TWICE in less than a week? How do students get so infuriated or frustrated that the answer becomes walking into a school and shooting the principal?

This is our future, OUR FUTURE. How do we go about saving everybody else in the World when our own house is in such a state of disarray?

I’m not even sure what to say about this. Seven children in less than a week. Seven families. Seven moms with broken hearts and who’s CHILDREN have been stolen from them. Seven children who had all the potential in the World to grow into flourishing and productive members of society… Seven kids who could have been my own.

I’m not which emotions is stronger. Sadness by the pain so many people are going through right now? Anger at the assholes who felt the need to kill innocent children? Fear of sending my daughter to school and assuming she’s okay and the future that seems to be unfolding before her…

I know that we have been spared so far. You have hit two block south, and just a few blocks East. Then you decided to fluctuate for 30 seconds earlier and even though it’s was 98 fucking degrees outside I felt the cool chill of death slide over me as I started to melt into a puddle in my computer chair.

Then, mercifully, you came back on. Thank you. Please, stay on. For the sake of the hot hot kitties. And my fever blister. If it gets any bigger I’m going to start dressing it and name it Sue.

-Me

I went 6 days having pretty much no wheat. I’m sure there were a few offenders that made it in there because I’m still learning what does/does not have wheat or wheat byproduct in it. Like soy sauce, who’d think that SOY SAUCE can cause a reaction to people who are allergic to WHEAT. So that pretty much cuts out ALL chinese food. Because even if you tell them not to cook using it, they aren’t going to clean an entire grill just for you so you are going to get trace amounts. I’m not even really sure if I can have “trace amounts” yet.

Anyway, I went six days. Then on the way to get the GTI smogged Friday I was SO hungry. I knew that I’d have to smog, get to AAA, drop off the GTI and pick up the M3 from home, get to my mom’s ACROSS the city (@ 5:00PM on a Friday kicking off a four day weekend) in two hours so my only chance to grab something was before the smog. I considered stopping into Starbucks for a shaken iced tea but I was REALLY hungry and that would not have held me over. I ended up at Taco Bell instead. Looking back this was really, really, really, REALLY not the smartest move. Had I been thinking (SEE: Not giving into the craving of having something I KNOW I shouldn’t because I’d been SO GOOD for SIX DAYS and what was ONE little tiny burrito really gonna do anyway?) I’d have gone to McDonalds and picked up a salad. At 3:30PM I sat down in the waiting room at Speedy Smog and practically INHAILED the burrito. So. Hungry.

At exactly 5:35PM, on the way to Tandori Bites with my mom and Cameron I realized I was itching and looked down to see my ENTIRE left arm covered in 10,000 tiny little hives. I got some plain tandori chicken (dry clay baked with onions and green peppers) and by the time we left there (6:30ish?) the hives were all over both arms and starting to crawl up my legs. They hung around pretty much all weekend and today they are kinda there but I think it’s more mental leftover itching.

So. I can’t really say that it’s the burrito that caused the hives. They use monster tortillas there so… I dunno. This week I’ll avoid it alltogether again and maybe eat something SMALL with wheat this weekend and see how things go.

Every time I dwell on the fact that I can’t eat SO MANY THINGS I start to get depressed. I LOVE food. I grew up in a the kind of family that double cooks. You know, you’re expecting 10 people so you make enough food for 20. I love good food, exotic flavors, well prepared dishes. But now I’m realizing that depending on the severity of this allergy, I’m going to have to all but cut chinese, italian, mexican cuisine from my diet. I’m hoping that since I’ve never had a serious reaction (anaphylactic shock) that it’s going to be something I can eat in moderation. Maybe I can build up an immunity with shots or something? I dunno. I’m supposed to start taking some meds to treat the symptoms (they can treat the itch but not the hive itself) of the hives and make another appointment for next week and see how I’m doing.

Bleh. I’m being whiney.

The kitten is doing well. We bought a laser pointer Saturday and he is SO FUNNY with it. I’ve uploaded some new video’s at YouTube but I’m waiting for them to authorize. I’ll post them when they do because they are fully of kitty cuteness.

Kris Linquist wrote a little rant/article on his site entitled: How to f’ing drive.

I was nodding in agreement the entire time I read it and wondering how much work it would take to replace those ugly little ‘Airbag Safety’ stickers they put on sun visors these days with this article instead. Because GOOD LORD YOU PEOPLE NEED SOME INSTRUCTION.

He pretty much hit on all my major peeves except one and that is people who don’t use turn signals. They are there to USE people, not to make your corners clear or add to the beautiful esthetics of your car. So…

If you want in my lane, all you gotta do is TELL me. If you use the blinker, 99.5% of the time I’ll let you in. Hell, on days were the traffic is busy, I’ll let TWO people merge in front of me just because I’m a nice person like that.

You don’t need to honk, you don’t need to glare at me, you don’t need to try and squeeze your H2 into the 1.15 car lengths in front of me in heavy traffic that’s moving 2 MPH. I’ll LET YOU IN, ASSHAT. Just let me know you want over.

For almost two years now, I’ve tried to convince Ben to let me install a blow horn on the front of my car. He’s veto’d the idea, FORCEFULLY, because he said that I’ll “abuse it”. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Anyway, go check out the rant. Even for those of you that don’t live in CA, these are common sense rules of the road that anybody should follow.

Women gain prominence in video game world

Beyond these stereotypical male fantasies, women were all but absent from the billion-dollar gaming industry. But that’s changing, thanks to a core female gamers who are increasing women’s visibility and influence.

I really hate articles like this for a couple of reasons.

One being the same reason I saw Danika Patrick get pissy with an interviewer the other day when he asked her how it felt to be a girl in a male dominated sport. Her answer was somewhere along the lines of, “I’m a female. I drive the car. They are men. They drive the cars. If that’s the extent of the questions you are going to be asking, we are wasting our time.” I had to laugh a little. (But at the same time, I think it’s a little hypocritical of her to be doing a feminine deodorant commercial where they play up the fact that she’s beating little boys at a racing game. If you are going to capitalize on the stereotype, don’t then get pissed when a reporter asks you about it.)

Anyway, so they are girls and they play *gasp* video games. Big deal. They just want to be “accepted like the boys” yet they will tout the fact that they are GIRL gamers every chance they get. Or simply to get SOME publicity. Don’t ASK to be equal with the boys, then play up the fact that you are girls.

The other reason it upsets me is because I can name off a slew of female gamers that have been doing so for at least the last 10 years… when these girls were still in middle school. But you know, they are totally setting the bar. They are guiding the way for little girls all across America… Whatever.

And P.S. girls, Microsoft didn’t pick you to demo games because you are girl gamers and leading the way for more girl gamers, they picked you to get more of the predominant 9 - 35 year old MALE demographic to spend more time in the booth. Bill Gates isn’t the richest bastard on Earth because he’s stupid. He knows how to cater to an audience. He’s a goddamn marketing genius and you were just another pawn to increase sales.

With Love,
Antigone