the quizzes...

( Zhe quizzes... )

The rant...

I'd like to take a moment away from my typical blog entries and discuss an issue I feel (possibly disproportionately) passionate about.

The fifth (can you believe it?) anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is close at hand.

A lot has happened in five years--I mean, when I think back on the day, it doesn't seem like all that long ago, but then I realize I hadn't even started college, my best friend was still living here in the States, I didn't have my driver's license (permit only), I had never really had a job. I look at the art I was working on at the time (yay me for dating my pics!) and it looks bad to me even though I was pleased at the time (double yay for improvement!), I've rearranged my room at least four times, I've gotten a college degree... I could go on, but my point is that life is completely different for me, and I daresay in a five-year timespan it's different for a lot of you, too. Just think about where you really were five years ago and I bet you'll be surprised with your progress, too.

And honestly, I think that the most fitting tribute for this anniversary would be for the major news networks to catch up with all of us who have moved on, dealt with our 9-11 issues, and let it go into the history books.

Yes. That's right. CNN, Headline News, even Fox News (who I thought was smarter than this whole thing): hear my plea.

REMOVE THE STUPID CRAWLER FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN.

You know, in the first days (even weeks, really) after the attacks, it made sense--they had a constant stream of which businesses were destroyed, numbers you could call if you had family members who might have been there, etc. It was a good way to get all that kind of information to the ones who were concerned. I actually thought it was kind of cool to look at all the businesses, because I never realized how much trade went on in the World Trade Center.

But then, see, time passed, but the networks felt that they had to leave it. I mean, yeah...when is it a good time to take it away? What kind of cutoff date should you put on it? I was ready about six months after the attacks, but maybe that was a bit hasty. There was still 9-11 stuff going on that was relevant.

But now, five years later? Now it is the single most annoying thing in the whole world. Seriously. I try to watch the O'Reilly Factor if I'm home for it, but at least three times during the broadcast, I find myself looking up at the guest and realizing I have no idea what was said in the last ten minutes because I was reading about how someone just set the world record for most coffee consumed in a minute, or how someone famous is doing something ridiculous again, or how someone signed an endorsement or a book deal, or whatever. The stuff they put on there is absolutely pointless because they cover the actual news during the actual broadcast.

The only remotely relevant thing on there is what color the terror alert currently is, but you know what? It changes so little anymore that I think we could just stick that in the broadcast, too. "Hi, I'm Jane Smith with your headlines tonight, the terror alert is back down to yellow again." (On a side note, I don't know about you, but I don't do anything differently whether it's yellow or orange and I figure if it gets to red and I really do need to worry about my safety, I'll hear about it one way or another.) I'm sure that if you really felt unsafe without a terror alert update every minute or so, you could find a website that monitors it. (Oh, hey, look, I just did. Yay google. But why aren't the colors in order?? Green and blue are backwards!)

The crawler gets so annoying that I'm seriously tempted to leave a roll of masking tape by the TV and just put a strip of it across the bottom of the screen every time I watch the news, so that I can actually watch the news without getting distracted.

So yes. I really think that the greatest way that America could signify to the world that "yes, we've taken a blow, but yes, we have also moved on and are living our lives normally again" would be to remove the crawler from all news networks, effective 11:59 pm on September 10th.

If anyone is with me, we should start a petition or a protest or SOMETHING. As it is, I'm writing an email to Bill O'Reilly and sending him a link to this entry.

And now, back to the entertaining blog you are used to.

The pics(pam)

Before I get too far along, I'd like to point out that there's something funky with the computer I am working on, and it has these odd one-pixel-wide aqua-colored vertical lines appearing over white spaces, and so it looks like my computer screen is made up of a sideways piece of notebook paper. XD I keep expecting to see a pink horizontal line and some holes if I scroll down far enough.

Also, I just thought to myself the other day that Orlando wasn't going to stay with Kate Bosworth forever, and that eventually I would be getting this story in my email...I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon! Meep! Maybe I am a little psychic. So long as I only have premonitions of good stuff like this, I don't mind so much!

And now for the long-awaited glamor shots! All pics are click-to-enlarge. ^_^

the GREEN series:
  
(note the Elven Brooch, the hat, and the fact that I am winking in the second one, not dealing with my eye swelling shut, lol)

the PURPLE series:
         
(that last one is me hiding behind a copy of The Stepford Wives that has a cover which is an extreme closeup of a face. In the next-to-last one, Nico was all, "Pretend like you've just been made President of the United States!" Maybe that's why I look like Condoleeza Rice--I don't like that one particularly, but it gets good reactions so I included it. Whatever. Nico took a lot of this series without warning, saying stuff to make me laugh and then snapping. He said it was the most versatile outfit.)

the SWEATER series:
   
(the first one is my favorite pic of all these and will soon be my default image on myspace. The last one is Nico in my sweater, and I'm not quite sure that I'll ever forgive him for looking better in it than I do!)

the CHERRY pic:

(If you don't get it, I'm not explaining it.)

the SK8R series:
  
(get a load of that fauxhawk! I think I like the last one best. And I so borrowed the shades, and they gave me a headache like tinted lenses always do, but they look cool.)

the URBAN series:
  
(we had to run into town for fresh camera batteries, and ended up doing shots in town, and got this series and the following one.)

the LAURIEN series:
  
(That last one is just to show that despite his obvious photo-taking genius, even Nico makes mistakes. I've titled that one "Ten Points for Nico!" XD Yay me for thinking to give her a bath.)

the GREY BOOTS series:
  
(the pose from that last one was actually taken from a random poster on Nico's wall and was really hard to hold, but it came out so well!)

The house in the first two of the urban series is in Mountain Home. We thought about taking pictures in the cemetary across the street from it, but the only suitable monument we found (a white marble angel) had a cocoon hanging from its nose and something was trying to get out of it, and I wouldn't let Nico kill it or help it out. (Fellow Lost fans will get why I had qualms about messing with a cocoon, right?) So he pointed out the awesome house across the street, and I was oohing and ahhing, and we realized that the owner was mowing the lawn, so we went and asked if we could take pictures on his courtyard. Not only did he say yes, but he came over and turned on the fountains in the yard and was very accomodating. By sheer luck I was still wearing the red shirt and it all worked out incredibly well.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the original house was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright's, which is just plain COOL.