new levels of boreditude...

Check this out....yeah, I need professional help.

bored still...

So now I've started setting up an online gallery. There are only a few pictures up at the moment, but I'll add more as I have time. You're welcome to look at them, better yet buy a print or two if you'd like. hehe

our stupid president

So, the president of the United States snuck off to Iraq to eat his turkey with American troops and I'm betting that the American populace won't even bat an eyelash at how stupid that was. In fact, they'll probably admire him.

But here's why you should be pissed:

The President of the United States, leader of the free world, and number one on so many of our nation's enemies' most wanted dead list stuck his neck out for a photo op. That's all it was. Did it possibly raise some morale in the military? Yeah, probably a little, but that morale boost will evaporate the next time a chopper is shot down or the tour of duty for troops is extended another month or four. You know it and so do I. The president does too, but he was looking for something to point to and say "see, I've cut their pay and ripped away their fringe benefits. I haven't attended a single funeral or even mentioned one of their names. I don't even acknowledge any attacks that happen to kill them by the dozen. I haven't done a thing to make it easier for them to collect their veteren's benefits when they come back...heck, I've made it harder. But gee, I went their to see them. Doesn't that make me a grand commander in chief?"

It makes me sick.

The leader of this country has no right to put himself directly in harm's way. He does not have the right to risk his life flying in and out of a hostile war zone in order to boost his own image. He does not have the right to do anything that might cause his own death, throwing this nation into chaos and setting up an opportunity for us to necessarily take action against a foreign nation as the killing of a sitting president would create. And he did. All to look good for the cameras.

I haven't looked at any of the republican and conservative websites, channels, and discussion boards on the internet, but I am willing to bet that there's a lot of praise going on for this. A lot of it. I don't get it, and it pisses me off that anyone would think that this is a good idea.

I don't like the guy -- anyone that reads this blog knows that -- but this goes beyond disliking the guy. This is an irresponsible use of the office of President of the United States of America. And don't think it's anything less...

i'm still bored

I'm going to do a bunch of my Christmas shopping at Amazon this year since I like buying books and music for people and I don't have a car so it's just much easier, not to mention I can get commission. heh. But in putting together links to buy stuff myself, I figured I may as well put some other suggestions up to help out my readers. If you want to check it out, it's here. It ain't purty or anything, but it's functional. Heck, even if you're not going to buy anything, you can take a gander at the types of things I read and listen to I guess.

...like I said, I'm bored.

I'm at my dad's for Thanksgiving and am bored out of my skull. So I've been online and waddled on over to HSX.com where there is voting going on a mutual fund based on the laminated list. For those that aren't watchers of Friends, it's basically a list of five actors/actresses that, even though you are in a relationship, you are able to sleep with. Now, i'm not in a realtionship myself, so I take it as a list of the top five hottest actresses -- those that I would be the hapiest to meet in real life and hit it off with.

So, with no further ado, my five:

1. Alyson Hannigan -- best known as Michelle in the American Pie movies and as Willow on the Buffy television show. Red hair and that little smile of hers...
2. Parker Posey -- The crown princess of independent films. Also one of the Christopher Guest crew. Is it odd that I found her HOT in Best in Show?
3. Franka Potente -- Lola from Run Lola Run (or Lola Rennt in the original German) and an up and comer having starred as Johnny Depp's wife in Blow and Matt Damon's girlfriend in the Bourne Identity. Tons of movies coming up. mmmmmm
4. Halle Berry -- Do I really need to say anything about this one?
5. Heather Graham -- You know, I've had a crush on here ever since the scene in Boogie Nights where she was naked on roller skates. If the rest of the movie would have sucked, that scene would've made it worth watching.

gobble gobble

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

i changed things a bit

The name of this blog is no longer "title of the blog" because I'm sick of that. It's now "pquesblog" which is just as boring, but whatever. hehe. I also added a banner to the top for Amazon because I got too used to seeing a banner when this thing was over at blogspot and for whatever reason the whole thing looked naked without one (and, of course, anyone's welcome to use it to buy stuff from Amazon...which gets me a percentage from them). I also got rid of the "how I feel today" thingy since I hadn't changed it in months, and it was too cluttery, especially with everything else I've cluttered the blog up with.

Oh yeah, and the half.com store link. No one's buying anything from half.com anyway... Oh well.

i went to court yesterday

...And won. Yay me. As I think I've mentioned, my old landlord was suing me for $2500 because of a few scratches on the floors. We didn't think they were that bad, not even enough to charge us the $400 or so that he did before he decided to quadruple the charges on his court filing -- and the magistrate agreed. Heck, the magistrate pretty much told him he was being a jerk (in not those words). HA!

The most inmportant thing about it though was that it was a huge adrenaline rush for me. All my shyness melted off while I was sitting there and I spoke up for myself and my roommate and controlled myself when I should have. I could not have asked for a better performance. I felt like I was in my element. It felt GOOD.

It makes my decision to go to law school fell that much more natural.

bumper sticker...

i'm looking for jobs and i see my future...

Heh, sometimes what you're looking for leads you to what you didn't even know you were looking for. This latest economic crisis I have found myself in has got me looking for any and every place that I could apply to...even minimum wage places. But tonight I was looking online for webpages of local bars, trying to study their menus and whatever to give myself some sort of edge. You know.

Anyway, in looking I ran across a page for Cooley Law School's new campus in my town (which is opening much sooner than I had heard it would...I thought it would be awhile). Now, a little about Cooley. Near as I can tell it is the second lowest ranked school in the country when it comes to admissions standards. Frankly, I would be in the top 20% if I went there. I want prestige, but given my financial situation, a couple other things dawned on me. One, not moving would be cheaper than moving. I'm comfortable where I am living now (I think I actually love my apartment). My friends are here, my family's here. And I wouldn't need to go very far to visit anyone. In fact, where I'm living now, I'm a mile or so from the campus that opens up in two months. It's all so damn convenient and would ultimately lead to cheaper in the long run. I think.

But the second part, and the more important one, comes in my being in the top 20% there -- scholarships. My lousy 154 on the LSAT would translate into an instant 50% scholarship off of tuition. Fifty bloody percent. No questions asked -- not even an application. It's automatic. How can I pass that up? I wouldn't get that somewhere where I'm average...only where I'm exceptional. And I would there.

I don't know, I want to get out of this town, but at the same time I don't. After years of complaining about the stupidity of the nightlife and the utter and complete boredom that is living here, I suddenly don't really want to leave. I like it here for some reason. And I can't leave my friends and family. For so many years I didn't really know anybody. Not like I do now. Not even close. It's only been in the last year or two that I have finally found people that I'm truly close to, that I can really trust, and that I can love. And to think about throwing it all away...it's put me on a fence in the last couple months I'll tell you that much.

But then I find this out about Cooley. That I can take classes a mile from where I currently live, thereby not uprooting my entire life and moving to a place just out of reach of everyone I care about and that I can do so for cheaper than any other school in the country. aaaarrrrgggghhhh.

advertisements added...

It's not that I want to add flashy things to this blog (to the left, underneath the archives where my panhandling button used to be), I like it the way it is, but I don't have anywhere else to put up some of the ad gigs I've found for myself. I envision a mall of sorts to be put up in the coming days (next weekend I won't be able to apply anywhere for a job being the holiday and all, so I may be spending a bunch of time working on the site), but in the meantime I need to put up something.

If you're looking at all into the need for webhosting or a new mobile service, then there are some good sites to visit. Or, if you have your own site, there's a link to the site that I found many of these affliate opportunities through. Anything you do through any of them helps me out a bunch. I'm not trying to press the issue, but at the same time I feel a need to.

In any case, please don't be mad at me for shilling goods and services. I promise that once I find some sort of job that pays enough to eat and buy heat and stuff, I'll take them down. At least off of this blog (the mall, I'm thinking, will remain up when once I get it put together). Thanks for understanding.

i am not going to be a victim

So I called the Unemployment people today and found out that I can protest my little hoopty-do, but in the process of protest, I will not receive any unemployment benefits until it's resolved. And, here's the kicker, it'll take three to four MONTHS for things to get resolved --either in my favor or not -- so I am destitute. Yay! The greediness and total lack of regard for human decency that my former employer exhibits. I mean really, to go and take away someone's piddly $200 a week because it costs them a miniscule amount in unemployment insurance or whatever. ...and it wasn't even my unemployment from them that forced me into the system. grrrrrrrrrr...my blood is boiling.

In any case, with all this going on, I am in desperate need of money. Since it's Friday night and no one I know wants to do anything that's free or at least dirt cheap and I don't want to spend what little money I still have on frivalous things, I have been researching affiliate programs on the internet. So I have a plan now, a way for people to help me out without actually having to do anything but spend ten seconds to go slightly out of their way to do what they were going to do anyway.

The plan is this: I am going to set up a page here (or someplace else, which I will then link to) where people can go to link to various internet places to do their Christmas shopping. By linking to their favorite sites (I have Barnes & Noble and Powell's books already set up -- but I've applied with Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and CircuitCity.com too) from my site, they will be able to buy whatever they wanted to buy anyway and I will get a small commission on the sale myself. It costs nothing to the person buying whatever, but it helps me out tremendously if enough people are willing to do so. I am especially looking forward to Circuit City's because it would allow people to buy through my site and then go to the store and pick it up. Buying a TV, go to my site, click through to Circuit City, and I get a penance for your trouble and the TV's already ready for you when you walk through the door.

I know that it's not really going to work. I wish it would, but I need to do SOMETHING. I am having absolutely no luck in finding a job or even finding anywhere to APPLY for a job. All because of that fucking pizza place. Anyway, every minute that I'm not doing something that will hopefully eventually earn me a buck or two (even though it may be in two months -- it makes it easier to borrow money when I know when I can pay them back, you know?) is wasted in my mind. I hate being in this position, HATE IT. Fucking-a.

Oh well, I guess the point of all this is if you're going to buy something online, please come through my site and see if I have a program set up with the shop. That's all I'm really asking for. Every little bit helps. Thanks.

today sucks

I just want today to be over with. I am so pissed off at the world right now. *sigh* Why does everything need to be against me? Why must life be nothing more than a series of hurdles to jump over, just high enough that you trip each time only to land flat on your face?

Nothing sound better to me than to erase my past and just move somewhere else with a new identity and start everything over. Seriously. I have no idea how I'm going to pay bills now that the state has taken away my bills, I have no idea if I can even apply to law school even like I had planned with all the application fees and LSDAS registrations and all the other utter and total bullshit hoops that they make people go through these days. Fuck. That's all I can say. Fuckity fuck fuck.

...it's been awhile since I've said that. :?

assholes

So I get this letter in the mail today...it says that I must repay all of the unemployment that I've drawn in the last three and a half months because my employer has decided that I haven't made myself available enough. And the employer is the place I worked as a pizza delivery guy for. And they know that I don't have a car.

So basically, because I tried to make it without unemployment by keeping a part time job, only to then be forced to quit because my car broke down and I was too poor to afford a new one, I am not only unable to receive unemployment but must pay back that which I had already received. Gosh darn it all the world is a fair place isn't it?

Who knew that your inability to work a $6 an hour job for reasons beyond your control would prevent you from receiving unemployment when work at your $15 an hour job dries up?

God bless America.

In any case, in order to receive money so I can continue to have such luxuries as food and a roof over my head (these things being less important it seems than a car in the eyes of the state of Michigan), I've decided to design and start selling t-shirts and the like to express my current opinions: unemployment sucks. If you buy around 125 shirts right now, I might be able to avoid becoming homeless.

it's a good thing i don't have a job...

People are getting fired for keeping blogs these days. Okay, that's an overstatement as there are plenty of companies that allow and even encourage their employees to blab on thier own blogs, just not when they're supposed to be working on TPS reports and the like...or when they take pictures that incriminate their employers. Oh well. Anyway, this is all just a segue to post this, another of Blogger's so-called "creative" tutorials, but one that I find funny (the first of these "creative" tutorials was the mom discovers blog story I last wrte about). Anyway, it's funny. You should check it out.

You know, that said, I was pretty much fired for saying something online once...well, not quite, but it made my two-weeks notice immediate and another guy in that particular group that I moderated did get fired for a supposed "threat" he had made. Oy vay. Lesson learned, never post a 1500 word anti-corporate manifesto on the internet and then use it as you two-week notice. But if I can find it, I'll post it here.

yup

The Onion is fake news as I think we all know, but this week it ran an article that pretty much summed up a lot of my fears as a blogger:

Mom Finds Out About Blog

Those of you who have been reading this awhile know that on many occasions I have purged a post either new or back in the archives for one reason or another and this is exactly why. Not that my mother would read it, that would be creepy, but that the wrong person might. It's one of the great fears of bloggers in this day and age. I mean, how much of what I write here do I not talk about in real life? Quite a bit...or at least I'm more selective when it comes to what I talk about and with whom. Here, it's all out there, and anyone can read everything and it's kinda sorta disconcerting on some level. Some things you just don't talk about certain things with certain people.

And so I've taken to not telling people that I know about this blog, or even my website's url, or even my handle. All in this fear that people are going to read more about me more quickly than I feel comfortable with...or even worse, have someone that I don't even want to know so much about me (a family member or a crazed stalker wanna be girlfriend for instance) find out so much about me.

Then, of course, there's the Ashcroft gestapo being able to read some of the things I've said and take me away to Gitmo. Of course, that seems way less likely than anything else. :)

Anyway, yeah, it's something that I've come to grips with and have made adjustments in concern to both on this blog and in real life (keeping fewer aspects of myself secret from people). But there's still that fear and that concern, and still that desire to only let those people that already know me really well or who I want to get to know me really well find out about this place. And yet I have absolutely no qualms with absolute strangers reading this. Is that weird?

w's numbers

Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief as it appears that Bush's poll numbers are once again in decline. CBS now puts him at 49% which is, obviously, less than half of America approving of his job. In related news, I'm sure the shooting down of the third and fourth helicopters which has brought the US death toll to 61 so far this month isn't helping him out much. But that last bit leads me to wonder why 49% of Americans still support a guy who's responsible for killing an average of 4 American soldiers a day so far this month for reasons that are yet to be explained? I just don't get it.

thank you

I am having one of those times lately where I am really appreciating the fact that people come here and read my musings. With the exception of one of my regular readers, I don't know any of you aside from your handles and occasional comments but I still find comfort in knowing that there are people out there who are interested enough in me to keep coming back. It means a lot, thank you.

And it has made me think a lot lately about some of the things that make me very upset about our society. I live, for lack of a better term, a rather ascetic existence and that is not something that is generally well accepted in our world today. For most, life is about vanity. It's about looking good and feeling good and stooping to whatever low, low means it requires to get there. That, of course, is the exact opposite of how I feel in that being well is infinitely more important than feeling good.

I think that that distinction is the fuel of my angst. Socially, it causes me to be repulsed by people stooping to ridiculous levels to be attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex as the case may be). It consumes them, drives them, becomes them. In the process their souls are lost to some social collective that communicates its desires through the media and ones peers. Life becomes GAP commercials and rumor mills, a person becomes what they own and who they sleep with, life becomes a cat and mouse chase to keep up with ever-changing trends, the ones that keep up most closely being the ones deemed most successful. And that success of the few leaves millions behind to fight like rats to dive overboard the sinking ship of yesterday's fashion, and many are obviously hurt int he process. What kills me is that it's usually the coolest people, the ones that don't belong there, that are hurt most often and most critically.

Politically, it sickens me in that politics is driven today (especially in this country) by fear tactics and "appropriate" countermeasures. Scream "terrorist!" and strip away a couple other civil liberties to comfort those that cower beneath their blankets at night. Vanity is found in the approval numbers of bad presidents that bomb the innocent or hand out tax breaks whenever bad news is flowing from the hoppers. And people fall for it because they put their own "safety" and finances ahead of everything else. The economy "isn't so bad" as long as you have a job and aren't paying too much in taxes. Terrorism is under control as long as the tens of thousands of innocent people that are dying because of it don't speak the same language as us and live on the far side of the world.

It's all do to vanity at some level -- the desire to put oneself ahead of all others, to hold on to those things that in the end do not matter, and to care about about how others see you than who you are. And it's completely the opposite the way that I am and it leaves me feeling very alone sometimes. But obviously if there are people reading this blog then I am not so alone and it is good to know that. It brings warmth to my heart. Thank you.

business idea

Just so you know, I am working on a few ideas for bumper stickers which I will be putting up for sale in the next week or so (hopefully). They will be political in nature and cost $4 a piece I think...I was wondering though if anyone that actually reads this blog would be at all interested though?

hehe, this site is funny...

reason #387 not to move to pheonix (unless you want to kill a man)

"Two out of three killers are getting away with murder in Phoenix this year as the city's homicide tally climbs toward a record. Through October, 216 people were killed in Phoenix, more than in all of last year. At the current pace, Phoenix will pass the record 241 homicides in 1994.

Beleaguered homicide detectives say they are so overwhelmed by bodies that, in some cases, they can do little more than just document the murder scene and move on to the next one.

As a result, the city's clearance rate has dropped to an unprecedented 31 percent. The average clearance rate last year was 58 percent for cities with populations greater than 250,000. In Phoenix last year, 48 percent of murders were solved."

-The Arizona Republic

death toll

There are finally some sort of numbers as to how many people have died as a result of our little camping trip into the deserts of Arabia: 22,000-55,000. That seems a bit low to me (and a bit too large of a spread) but then, what do I know? The civilian count by IraqiBodyCount (link on the side bar) is in the 8-9000ish range for an average and that's what's been reported in the news. I'm sure there are plenty of people that have just disappeared, not reported dead, no body found...plus the military deaths on top of them.

But anyway, just to put things into perspective here. We have killed between 8 and 18 people in Iraq (not including Afghanistan) for every person killed in the September 11 attacks. We have done so not being able to prove any connection between Iraq and thse attacks, nor any ability in the near future for Iraq to do so. We have built up so much rage that we had to go out and kill ten times as peple people as we lost...and in the process, I fear, created enough rage on "their" side to try and kill tens times more of us. That's the way things usually work at least.

God Bless George W!

i gotta headache

The Bush adminstration is going even further than sending American soldiers around the world fighting shadows and boogeymen and is now working hard to cut way back on the services (not to mention pay) that the soldiers receive back home:

Commissaries and the Defense Department’s stateside schools are in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters, and military advocates, families and even base commanders are up in arms.

Defense officials notified the services in mid-October that they intend to close 19 commissaries and may close 19 more, mostly in remote areas.

At the same time, the Pentagon is finishing a study to determine whether to close or transfer control of the 58 schools it operates on 14 military installations in the continental United States.

The two initiatives are the latest in a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty.

The roots of all these efforts reach back to the highest levels of the Defense Department.

From The Army Times

Bravo, dubya, Bravo. Let's teach those sons of bitches that they should have never been willing to sacrifice themselves to protect their country by sending them off to defend oil interests and your own personal pride and then butt-rape them when they come back by jacking their pay and their kids' educations. That's just fan-fucking-tastic. That's what that is.

When will they learn the best thing to do is get their daddies to sign 'em up for the air national guard and then go AWOL like you did?

...whew, sorry about that folks...a little sarcasm overload.

stuff for sale

I put a bunch of stuff up for sale on e-bay, you can check it out here and bid excessively and often...I still haven't heard about getting an extension on my unemplyment.

nice

I was sitting on my porch earlier today and it was just really nice. It was one of those fall days where it's not sunny or dry, but still wonderful in that way that autumn can be even on the greyest of days. There was no wind, is wasn't too cold with a fleece on, and it was quiet. Except for the kids.

I live a block over from a school, the playground being on the side of the building facing me. For fifteen minutes I sat there on my porchswing and just listened to the children play...not too loudly to be irritating, just right. It brought a smile to my face.

cheap shot

Know why Bush looks so happy in this picture of him posing with Flat Stanley?

Because finally there's someone in the White House with less depth than him.

vietnam part two

Iraq -- Another helicopter shot down, killing six, the second helicopter this week to crash and lead to mass casualities. This brings the Novemeber death toll to 33 for the US, that's almost 5 soldiers a day, a huge spike in the already growing costs that we are paying for Bush's ego-trip extraordinaire.

But does anyone really care? I mean, do any new people see this and say "you know what Bush? This wasn't such a good idea going in there. You lied to us and now our sons and daughters and friends and loved ones are dying by the helicopter load, and for what?" No they don't. The numbers of people approving this bullshit continue to stay astronomically high given the circumstances. Bush's numbers continue to hover around the slightly more than 50% mark and that's totally ridiculous. Why do people still support Bush? I DON'T GET IT. Perhaps it's because I'm unemployed and Bush hasn't done anything to create more jobs, perhaps it's because I don't like fellow Americans dying for nothing in desert sands half a world away, perhaps it's because I don't really appreciate being told lies around every corner, but Bush is the single worst president that this country has had sinceCalvin Coolidge back in the 1920's. And I'm being dead serious here. You come back to this website 100 years from now after history has settled in and reread that and just absorb the fact that I knew it before the historians were willing to fully place judgement. But that's the way it will be.

In the meantime my faith in America fluctuates with the approval numbers of George W. Bush.

okay

So I guess this thing is on the new server but that evrything posted up to the point of the move is still up on the blogspot server, so that's all good. I'm having problems with connectivity at this moment however, but I don't know from where.

website's up

Check it out at pques.net if you like.

last notice

I have my new homepage written and will be putting it up on the server within the next 48 hours, probably sooner. I only mention it because this blog will be going there with the rest of it, so this is your last chance to update any links or bookmarks to this blog.

I realize that I haven't been posting much lately. I've been desperately seeking work as well as working on my web-designing skills (which I think I'm getting good at which you will be able to judge for yourself very soon) so I haven't really had the time to post. Sorry. That should all change though with my uploading the new homepage as that will leave me with my ridiculous amount of web-browsing time to post here (or there, as the case will be). In any case, I hope to see all my regulars on the flip-side.

And, you know, it would make the switch a lot less nerve racking if people would post some sort of acknowledgement in the comments section. There are a couple of you which I have grown to really appreciate over the last year and I'm stalling all of this in the hopes that I don't lose you. So, please, just drop a line....thanks.

...see you on the flipside.

kyle.