Bottle blond

I have decided to finally take the plunge and go back to high-maintenance blond hair. I'm not going to go quite as blond as I used to be. I want to have really dark blond hair, more like light brown with gold in it. It will be nice because it won't be that different from my normal hair color. I haven't seen my normal hair color since 2003 so I don't even really know what it is anymore.

Black hair is nice, but I'm so pale that the black hair makes me look even paler. I'm probably going to regret it the next time I see a picture of me and a bunch of Asians, but whatever. I've been working on accepting adulthood, and part of adulthood is letting other people do your hair and tell you what looks good. Mike's mom and sisters were talking about me while I wasn't there during Christmas, and apparently they like me with blond hair?! My grandparents also told me that I look more Asian than American, and I told them that was the point and that I was trying to assimilate into Asian culture.

This is probably going to cost a lot of money, as they'll have to take the black color out, slightly bleach, and then add in the color I want. It's going to take forever too. I'm going to bring my first day assignments with me so I can do something productive rather than read fashion magazines.

I have spent the majority of the past two days sitting around daydreaming. And I don't mean I've just been unproductive, I've been actually daydreaming. I have so much work to do, I don't know why I'm so retarded. My note first draft is going to be a piece of shit. But I have listened to 60 or 70 songs off of "Best of 2009" album lists. WTF. I'm sorry, but Animal Collective has never written a song I could listen to. It's fucking boring! I've really tried. So many papers and websites have put their album in the top lists, but every time I start listening to a song, I can't even force myself to complete it. God, it's dull. What is wrong with hipsters? I have seen quite a few mentions of Kid Cudi's album and White Rabbits' album too, so at least something good made it in.

I know music is a matter of taste and opinion. Tons of people like their steak medium-rare, but if I take a bite of anything less than medium-well I want to gag. Maybe Animal Collective is just the medium-rare steak of the music world. Critics would smugly look down upon a steak cooked more than medium-rare, and would savor their Animal Collective album. I listen to it and it makes me question the taste of most Americans. "Most" Americans are also obese pigs who can't tell the difference between steak and hamburger though, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Writing

I read a book at Barnes and Noble today about habits of successful writers. I decided to actually start writing. I'm working on character descriptions and plot points now, and I'm just going to brainstorm plot and dialogue for a while. Even just while writing the character descriptions, I began to get flashes of ideas for the plot, so at least it's starting out well.

I don't want this book to be too autobiographical, but I'm afraid that it will be. I'm also afraid that when I let other people read it, they'll assume it's all true and I'll ruin my life. My primary concern is that I only want to work on this now to procrastinate working on my note. I know that's true, but I can't regret the fact that I'm finally writing. Writing something long-form is one of my life goals, so once I finish it, it's one more thing I can check off. Getting my J.D. is on the list too though, and I hope to actually have a career as a result, so I should probably prioritize correctly.

Tomorrow I'm just going to bake a lot of cookies and try to stay away from the shopping frenzy. Nothing brings out the worst in people like holiday shopping. I hate Christmas so much. I'm so happy it's almost here because then the worst time of the year will be over. Also, new year's eve will be coming, and that is one of my favorite holidays. It's pagan, you get to do awesome things like bang pots and pans, sweep your doorstep and shout at your neighbors, you get random group texts from your fake friends and people who have your cell phone number but think you are someone else, it's one more excuse to dress like a slut and make out with random guys, you get to eat guacamole, drink champagne, play compatibility and the jesus game, you wait in anticipation for Dick Clark to drop dead at midnight, the list can go on forever. What does Christmas have? Presents you don't like that people are forced to buy you out of obligation and a stupid baby in a manger. New Years is so much better! Fuck Christmas.

Snow

First real snow. I wish it had happened earlier, or later. Good thing it's happening on a Friday night so people can freak out only slightly tomorrow instead of sliding into each other on their way to work. I downloaded a lot of cold music today. Songs that remind me of when I was 18 and lived with my mom during the last winter of high school. Songs that I listened to while walking in the snow, sharing cigarettes and headphones with the boy I had an incredibly repressed crush on. I think being really cold makes raw emotions come out...I touched on this last year when I hypothesized that frostbite could be a form of self-harm. When I'm feeling particularly fucked up in the winter I like to walk barefoot in the snow. It usually involves tequila though, which is cheating.

I went to a get together tonight that was 80% law students, and although they are my friends, it annoys me that they talk about law school the entire time they are together. I think we managed to talk about Harry Potter and Twilight for about 20 minutes. The rest was law school. Which was unfortunate for the 4 boyfriends of law students who could not care less what we were talking about. But I warned my boyfriend it would be like this and gave him the option of not going, so he only has himself to blame I guess. Pretty sure I was the only person there who is not on main journal, which means it was truly the biggest dorks of them all (which I say lovingly of course). Part of the reason I wanted to be on JDR was that I thought it would be slightly easier to become editor in chief. I overlooked the fact that most of my friends are super-nerds. Oh well.

As pathetic as I know this sounds, part of the reason I am mad it's snowing is that I wanted to go to school tomorrow and I don't want to have to drive in this crap. I hope it gets plowed up so I don't have an excuse. I'm having separation anxiety from school. It's been 4 whole days since I have done work inside the building, and I really feel unproductive and am regretting not doing much the past few days. I did manage to spend 185 dollars on shirts from j crew today and 200 dollars on books for next semester, so I did my part to improve the economy.

Trying to go to bed before 5, which means I have to start reading now to lull myself to sleep.

Short North Tavern

I had never been to this place before, but now it's become something magical. I might not be able to go back, in fear that it can never be as great as it was the first time. And that's despite the fact that this jealous cunt kept knocking my coat on the ground. Actually that's part of what made it magical. It's hard to match the feeling of fucking around with a random person's emotions just to see what happens. Fake flirting is a favorite past time of mine, particularly when the object of the illusion is such a piece of shit. Also, you can't beat two guys telling you how hot you are all night, even if you know it's for show.

The hangover I had today was very slight in comparison to the amount of fun I had. It almost made me believe I could start going out more often. I know that's not true though, I just got lucky. Normally I would have been completely out of commission today. With exams over, I just wanted to go out and be happy. I'm extremely lucky to have met people who I can have fun with, because at this time last year I would never have predicted that.

It's like 4am though. I need to get back on a more normal sleep cycle. I'm such a night person. I love being awake when everyone else is sleeping. It's peaceful, and I like how alone I am. Even on facebook, no one posts at 4am.

This year is almost over. Usually I am sad to see years end, at least when they've been ok. This year was ok, but I'm not trying to hang onto it. I think I'm rushing to finish school, even though the end of school means the beginning of honest to goodness adulthood. I've been putting it off for so long. If I had been born a hundred years earlier I would have been married at 18 and had a 9 year old kid by this age. Living back then would have sucked. I love delaying the responsibility of a real job. Add to that the fact that it's winter and I always want winter to go as quickly as it can. Romantic snowflakes are the only good thing about winter, and even those turn into disgusting 5 foot high piles of dirty ass snow in a parking lot pretty soon. Let's get this year over with, because I am ready for the spring thaw.

Stories

Writing down all these stories has been really cathartic for me. While most of the stories make me sound like a whore, asshole, or both, reading them makes me realize they are just things that happened. I'm not different from any other person, I've just done different things. And I've always known that most people are whorish assholes inside anyway, they just cover it up better than I have.

It's exam time, and I'm in my usual procrastinating mood. I know I'll get a lot done tomorrow, I think I just felt like I deserved one day of not working that hard. That and some group of old cunts kicked us all out of Lou's so they could have some clitoris-painting party. It threw off my studying. That's just an excuse, but seriously, when I have more people looking at me I study harder. Being in the journal suite with no one around gives me an opportunity to dick around on the internet without anyone noticing.

In excellent news, Mike got a letter in the mail CC'd from the Franklin County Prosecutor, informing Joe Chen that his application to participate in a diversion program has been denied. So hopefully that stupid mother fucker will have to do some actual jail time. He probably got denied because he already has a record for ripping off Citibank. So now he ripped off National City in Mike's name and they're seeing a pattern of douchebaggery. Westerville police really did not give too many details as to why his case was dismissed to begin with, but I'm guessing it was dismissed conditional to him being enrolled in this diversion program and now he's shit out of luck. Suck on that Joe Chen, you stupid fuck. I'm glad your stupid store Au Moda finally failed and closed its doors too. I hope your wife leaves you cause you're a worthless piece of shit. Can you tell I hate Joe Chen? I hope I meet him some day so I can put Visine in his drink.

Asshole

I talked to an ex-boyfriend the other day, and it made me realize what a fucking jerk I used to be. I dated him for my own twisted reasons and then when I didn't need him for that anymore I broke up with him. Of course, we didn't date long enough for me to have actually broken his heart or anything, but it was still stupid of me.

I have always blamed the way I acted back then on the fact that I hated my life. If the same situation occurred today though, I would probably act the same way. That just proves I'm an asshole deep down and it doesn't matter whether I have an excuse for the things I do or not.

Maybe I'm just trying to "pay forward" all the asshole things people have done to me.

On that note, I plan on getting really drunk on my birthday. The last time I was really drunk was probably sometime in 2007, so this should be really entertaining.

Kid Cudi

I finally found some new music that I think has merit. That is, I don't fall asleep when I hear it. Kid Cudi. First, he's from Cleveland. He's not the best rapper I've ever heard, but his songs are 10x more musical than the average rap. His song "Pursuit of Happiness" is credited to himself, Ratatat, and MGMT. I believe his song "Soundtrack 2 My Life" also involves Ratatat. Anyway, that's all I've been listening to today.

Muse's "Undisclosed Desires" is still getting regular play, even though I think the rest of the album is mediocre. I don't care since I only like songs and not bands.

In other news, I have recently risen from a super-terrible bowler to averaging about a 105. Since I think it's unlikely I'll be winning any awards or getting 100's this semester, I'm going to cling onto that small victory.

Mads McCann

Garrett posted a great link on my facebook to a Mads McCann age progression.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33599391#33599391

She not only got uglier and older, but turned part African American.

Which reminded me that my favorite cookies at Starbucks, madelines (which I lovingly refer to as Mads McCanns) are now available in Chocolate.

This is not a coincidence.

OBX=Loser

So, no offense to anyone who has visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a vacation, but I've come to the conclusion that it must be a trashy place. I have seen a few stupid international code car stickers that say "OBX." Ick. International code car stickers are trashier than ribbon magnets.

At the Pumpkin show, I saw two people sporting Outer Banks sweatshirts. I can't deny that I have bought things with place names on them, but it's usually for kitsch value. If the Outer Banks of North Carolina is an exotic locale to you, then you need to get out of Ohio more often.

On a not-trashy note, today our tax professor asked the class if anyone played the lottery and not one person raised their hand! I was so proud.

Tomorrow is trick-or-treat. I bought one giant bag of candy. If that's not enough, fuck those little beggars. Half of them don't even say thank you. If any little obese kids come up, they're only getting one piece.

Albums

I've been on a music download binge for the past 2 days. And I'm still not even to 3gigs on my ipod yet. I don't think I'll ever get to 8, so I'm glad I didn't get some 128 gig massive ipod. I realized that the problem is that I hardly ever like an entire album. I've been going through lots of albums on amazon to remember which songs I want to download. There are about 10 albums that I might ever listen to in their entirety (or need to have all the songs to).

Both of Girl Talk's good albums, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Sublime's 40 oz. to Freedom, Outkast's ATLiens, Dr. Dre's Chronic 2001, and Justice's Cross. That's 7. I also have all of Buddy Holly's greatest hits album, but that doesn't really count.

Also, I never hear anything new that I like. I probably complain about it all the time. I really want to find new music I can get excited about, but I can't. The only current music I download is rap because it's entertaining, not because it's good. Maybe being into music was just a young thing for me and I'm growing out of it. That would be sad.

I'm feeling a little weird. Probably just because I'm tired and I worked on some mind-numbing editing for about 5 hours. I feel crazy, kind of similar to how I used to feel when I did stupid things all the time. This might have been caused by the one beer I had last week.

This also happens to me whenever I don't have any money and I'm incredibly stressed about life. For some reason our loans have not been disbursed. So, my classes started on Monday and I owe OSU about 6700 and....no loans. And everyone is in that situation. I'm seriously in debt up to my eyeballs, and if my professor tells me tomorrow that I have to be work-study eligible to be his RA I'll probably cry. It's a nothing to lose kind of situation I'm in right now, which always leads to me doing irresponsible things. I'll probably end up drinking instead of working on my writing and editing.

I have class at 10am but I'm still up at 1 doing some stupid internet shit. Goodnight forever.

Chinese Movies

Yesterday I watched "Raise the Red Lantern," a Zhang Yimou directed movie starring Gong Li when she was really young. I thought it was pretty good. It was based on a book which I could tell was much more involved than the movie. At the end they make some references to a dead person haunting the house. Knowing Chinese movies and literature, I'm sure there was an overriding ghost theme throughout the book, but it only showed up in one scene in the movie, so it seemed pointless.

I realized that if I had seen that movie before seeing a lot of other Chinese movies I would probably think it was much better. Once you get to know a director's style though, their usage of certain devices becomes a little boring. Old Chinese architecture is really grand and simple and makes a shot really beautiful. After you do it enough it's a little played out. I think it's Zhang Yimou in particular; Wong Kar-Wai mostly focuses on how emo people can look while smoking a cigarette.

I also watched "The Visitor" which is about a man who lives in CT and comes into NY for a conference, only to find a couple squatting in his apartment. They are illegals, and long story short, he gets caught up in their lives because he hates his own life. Other than being fairly predictable, it was really good. All the acting was good and the ending didn't try to be too perfect or cheesy. 4/5 stars.

Exams almost over

I am done with 2 exams, only one left. It is available to take now, but once we download it we only have 28 hours to complete it, so I'm waiting until 28 hours before it's due. My exam on Monday was an 8 hour exam that I took at home. I spent 7.5 hours on it. It really sucked, to the point that I had migraines for 2 days afterward. I think I got an A though.

My exam yesterday didn't go quite as well because I second guessed myself. I will probably get a B+ but considering I taught myself the entire subject in a week, that's not bad. I really don't want my ranking to slip but I'm pretty sure it will. My attitude at the beginning of the semester has ended up really biting me in the ass. That and having the worst property professor of all time coupled with a legal writing class that required 30 hours of work per week.

I have a new obsession with Netflix so it's a good thing the semester is almost over. All I want to do is watch every movie it suggests to me. I first received Gosford Park which I've been wanting to see for years but it's never at the video store. It was just ok. I was partially not paying attention while watching it because I was wearing my glasses which make me unable to differentiate between similar looking characters (seriously, my eyes are that bad). Ryan Philippe was playing this valet who was supposedly Scottish. He had the worst Scottish accent of all time. *Spoiler* Later in the movie you find out he was just pretending to be Scottish because he's an actor from America who is going to play a valet in a movie. So I guess he is good at doing a shitty Scottish accent, I underestimated his talents. The next movie I'm watching is Let the Right One In, which is about vampires. Ryan and I went to see it but were tricked by the shady Drexel theater by an early start time. We'll see if it's better than Twilight. I doubt it, unless the main actress is able to close her mouth, and that's a really high standard.

So this blog might turn into more of a movie journal during the summer while I'm only taking one class. Most of the super annoying people in my class are going to Oxford for the summer so I luckily won't have to deal with them. I'm looking forward to a peaceful summer full of not-tanning.

Law school update

I'm a week away from my first exam for this semester. So in 2.5 weeks I will be done with my first year of law school. It is really frightening how fast it's gone. I've been so busy that I haven't noticed. I'm really looking forward to being mean to new 1Ls next year. Not so much mean, but reveling in their misery. Laughing when they get their 1st semester grades and consider suicide.

Oh, in case I didn't brag about it to you yet, I won the skydancer award for best memo in my legal writing class. By skydancer award, I mean that I won an actual toy from 1995 NIB. I probably spent about 200 hours on the memo, so that means it cost at least 40,000 dollars in lawyer terms. In the real world, you would get fired if you spend that much time on a memo. But since it's the first one, and we suck, spending that much time gets you an award. If you get one of the top 2 grades in your legal writing class you "grade on" to a journal. You would think since I wrote the best memo, I would be confident, but I'm not. The memo was 30% of our grade and our brief was 60%. My brief was not nearly as good. Once again I have to cross my fingers that other people in my class suck more than I do. It's not a good feeling.

Last week I participated in PILF trivia night. PILF stands for "public interest law foundation" not "people I'd like to fuck" although some of them are. There were 6 people on a team and you could also have professors on your teams. We signed up under some professor we didn't know, but he turned out to be really valuable because he is old. I was proud of myself for naming 2 nascar drivers whose names are Kyle (Busch and Petty). My team came in 3rd out of 10 or 11 teams, so I didn't feel too retarded. Our team name was Michael Scott Paper Company. We got beat out by Somali Fisherman's Local 503. They definitely won best team name too.

I am procrastinating right now instead of studying. Hopefully I still get A's so I don't come back here and cry when I read this a year from now. Ok, I'm motivated now.

Attention whore #2

Just when I thought that one attention whore in my section was the worst, I experienced the true annoyance of Attention whore #2. I'm not going to post her name, but I am going to post a link to her hilarious website which is hernamedotcom, so if she has any kind of webskillz (doubtful) she will be able to find this blog.

Anyway, as an intro, she has a super-annoying laugh. Worse than that, if you say anything which could be mildly construed as funny, she will laugh for at least 5 seconds longer than is appropriate. So when she decides to talk to anyone in the library, it ends up with me getting a private study room so I can't hear her pervasive twattering.

Someone else made a derogatory comment about her the other day and it made me a bit curious. I have always noticed that her facebook pictures are very model-esque (in a high school picture kind of way) and so I googled her. I was not disappointed. She apparently holds herself out to be a model with extensive experience; such as the advertising of smokeless tobacco, being a girl who dances at a bar, and the Iraq, and the Africas, and such as. I won't link you to the main page, because it has as much character as she does, but here is her pictures page. Click on the main page though, so you can understand her true essence.

I hope she doesn't take any of the same classes as me next year. Library and assembly proximity is about all I can handle.

OMFML

I told Mike (somewhat with the intention of stroking his ego) that I figured out why I think Nate Archibald is so cute. It's because he reminds me of Mike, or Mike reminds me of him. I think if Mike were white, and 6 feet tall, that's what he would look like. Nate Archibald is pretty like a girl, and so is Mike.... I mean, they are both handsome.

So when I told Mike that he reminded me of Nate Archibald he took the analogy a little further. Back when we were planning a GG party he said he would be Nate Archibald and I semi-scoffed at that idea. He said, who would I be then? And I said maybe Eric, since he's short and has darkish hair. Mike said no, definitely Nate. Because they both have great hair, and they get all the girls, and have fabulous futures, and they're both rich. That's when I started to laugh, and made Mike mad.

On a completely unrelated note, I have had 4 migraines in 4 days. I actually started feeling suicidal, and not just in the way I usually joke about it and say I'm going to kill myself because my DVR didn't record LOST. I started worrying because if stress causes my migraines, and I'm going into a stressful career, it seems that my entire life is destined to hover around a 6 on the pain scale.

On a related note, if I used an online pharmacy, could that be tracked to me? Is it just a way for terrorists (Canadians) to steal my credit card number? If it was that easy, people wouldn't be buying Vicodin on the street, right? I really just want my neurologist to prescribe me some strong painkillers, but that's not the first option, so I have to try all these other weak-ass drugs first. It's exhausting.

4Fast4Furious is coming out tomorrow, and Mike's birthday party is Saturday. I'm looking forward to the party because it gives me a reason to clean the house, an excuse to eat hot dogs, and also see people I haven't seen in a while. I'm kind of like Serena throwing whatever kind of party I want instead of the chili and board games that Jenny wanted. We are going to the Movie Tavern to watch the movie. Ryan sent me a gchat the other day which said, "Does the Movie Tavern serve alcohol?" I didn't have time to make fun of him for that question, so here it is.

Happy World Autism Awareness Day!

OMFGG

Gossip girl tonight was so awesome. Nate and B? God, I hope so. They are both so beautiful, and V is so trying on the eyes and ears. The music was a bit lackluster in this episode though. MGMT 'Kids'? That is stale.

After GG I watched the J&K+8 season finale. They made the preview look like Jon was finally going to kick that bitch to the curb or walk out. No, he just expressed his lack of enthusiasm for continuing the show. They probably should, before the fame goes to those kids heads. I mean, on the second to last episode they went and sat courtside at a Harlem Globetrotters game, then had a meet and greet at halftime, then had a satellite interview with Oprah the next day. Those kids are going to start doing blow and putting their friends in the ICU from their drag-racing accidents soon. There was actually a blatant product placement in the last episode where I almost just turned off the TV and gave up on the show. Jon was sitting at his computer and he was like, "I talked to my Allstate agent today and he wanted me to look at some stuff online." And then they show the Allstate website home page twice, for waaaay longer than necessary. WTF J&K+8? If I want to watch commercials, I will stop paying for DVR! I watch your show to see your adorable halfer kids, especially Aiden. I do not want to know what kind of fucking spokesperson deal you got this week. Go back to writing books and whoring yourself out for "your children's education" AKA shopping sprees and spa trips.

Kate says, "I love my job." Of course you do! You have a husband you can talk shit to all day, a personal assistant to help you with your kids, a million dollar house, and fame. I mean, who cares if your husband is totally miserable and your kids will end up with heads almost as fat as yours. What a cunt. That show has quickly spiraled into a Kate-centered trainwreck.

It's spring break. I watched a lot of TV today.

J list is ridiculous, please do not order from them

This is not like my normal rants about companies with poor customer service. This one is funnier. J list is a company which carries Japanese porn along with many fun Japanese items. I have ordered from them 3 or 4 times (fun items, not porn). They are based in Japan and have a distributor in San Diego.

In February of 2008, I ordered a Hello Kitty ice tray, some bento sauce containers, and a book on learning Hiragana and Katakana characters. The ice tray and containers arrived pretty quickly, and I got an email that the book was backordered. Whatever.

At the end of March, I tried to contact them about the book through their website and I got no response. I sent an email directly to someone whose email address I got from the site. No response. I forgot about it cause I didn't care that much. In October, I got a mass email saying that they had noticed I hadn't ordered in a while (?) and if there was any reason. It mentioned they had problems with some of their emails and notification system. The email came from "Peter". I'm using their real names because all of this is true so I can't be sued. I responded:

Peter,

Funny you should ask, as in my last order I never received a book that I paid for. I wrote multiple times to all email addresses I had available for J-list and used the feedback form online, but never received any kind of response. I don't know if there's any way that you could actually make this up to me, as I now have zero belief in the reliability of your service.

I doubt you will respond, as no one responded to any of my past requests.

He surprisingly wrote back and said that he checked the order and yes, they hadn't sent the book through some kind of mistake. He offered to send me a refund or the book. I responded that they could send me the book. Good thing I didn't hold my breath, as the book still did not arrive.

So the other day I was thinking about it, got a little pissed that they still had my money without giving me the book, and reported them to the BBB (in my experience, the BBB is awesome, companies always rush to cover their ass when reported there).

I got a response two days later from a woman working at the distributor in San Diego. She apologized, had me check the site to confirm the book I had ordered, and told me she would ship it right away. I was happy I would finally be getting my book.

Then this morning I received this ignorant email from some other Japan-based jlister.

Hi Rachel,

This is Dennis with J-list. I wanted to inform you that we did receive an email from my manager in San Diego regarding your purchase and want to apologize for any inconvenience that you're experiencing with the order. I wanted to send you a response incase someone hasn't contacted you yet. This is going to sound very strange, but upon investigation of this order, I was unable to locate a charge for this order, and yet find an email was sent to you stating that the order was paid for. I tried searching several times with various search queries and still have not been able to locate the charge. I also found that the "A Guide To Learning Hiragana & Katakana ~ First Steps To Reading And Writing Japanese" which should have been entered into our shipping database for San Diego to ship out was never entered, which I find also puzzling. I have a feeling that it was a late night, and whoever was processing the order didn't realize their mistake and just sent out your order as being paid, when no transaction actually took place. I would like to know if you were able to locate a transaction on your credit card statement, one that was charged sometime around 4/13/2009 for the amount of "$34.64" and if you could send me a scan or screen shot of that portion of the statement to help me get to the bottom of this situation. From there I can get this straightened out for you and get you the remaining portion of your purchase. Again, my apologies for the trouble.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Dennis

Instead of describing my anger over this email, I will just copy the email I sent back to him, CCing the poor woman in San Diego who has to deal with these fuckups.

--------------
Hello,
I was charged on 2/27/08 (I placed the order on 2/11/08). Here is the screen shot. The woman from San Diego claims that she has already sent this book, so I know you don't actually need evidence that I paid to send me the book. It seems like whatever responsibilities you have on your end have been completely ignored, while the unfortunate people who work for you in San Diego can't do business properly because you can't get your stuff together. I shouldn't even send you this screen shot since it's your own problem that you can't manage your business, but I don't like your insinuation that I didn't pay or wasn't charged. If I wasn't charged, I wouldn't be so angry about it or be wasting my time with your worthless company.

I also don't buy that someone was entering this order "late at night" since you are 14 hours ahead of me. I ordered it at 6pm, which makes it 8am your time. If that is late at night for your workers, then it's no wonder you have a problem.

---------

I attached the screen shot of my checking account statement entitled "idiotjlist.bmp". The San Diego woman replied that she was sorry and embarrassed. I would be too, I feel bad for her. Hopefully she can use this evidence of their retarded antics to cut ties with them.

If those Jbastards reply, I'll post it, but I doubt they will. They've probably brought shame upon their families and will be doing seppuku tonight by swallowing a frisbee (that is a ninja guide joke).

When I get my book in the mail, I'm going to use it to write a nasty letter about the mothers of jlist employees.

Retarded children

No, this post is actually not about the kids who live on my street.

I went bowling Wednesday night with Mike, Ryan, Lynn, and Doug. After a little while, Ryan pointed out this girl sitting with an older lady about halfway down the lanes. The little girl was eating something and just sitting there. Ryan informed me that the little girl used to have some crutches and a back brace or something like that. She wasn't wearing them anymore so he thought maybe she had been cured.

A little bit later, we saw the little girl coming our way. Crawling. She went over to the claw arcade machine and was pushing a button but she hadn't put any money in so obviously nothing was coming out. Even if she had put money in, I'm sure she couldn't win a prize anyway. So she was getting upset that there was no prize coming out and she began to ram her head into the machine. She did that 3 or 4 times. Ryan astutely commented that she was not cured. Later we saw her walking a little and she definitely leaned to the side. I know scoliosis doesn't make you mentally retarded, so I think she had a little something extra on top of a crooked spine. God works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?

I don't know why, but retarded kids really make me laugh. Then later I think how much it would suck to have a retarded kid. Even a non-retarded kid is a huge burden that might not be worth it. In some ways, maybe retarded kids are better, cause you don't get your hopes up that they're going to be president or secure your comfortable retirement.

I used to work with a guy named Luke, who once told me that he had always wanted to work with retarded people. He only wanted to work with them so that when he came home at night he could tell whoever he lived with, "Oh my God, they did this today."

My bowling name was Blair Waldorf, Ryan was lonely boy, and Mike was Edward Cullen. Doug did not know who any of those people were.

My life's philosophy

This was a response to my aunt's blog about my cousin not going to church, and it got too long, so here it is.

My sister, brother, and I are all agnostic or atheist, depending on how you define those terms. We were all forced to go to church every week growing up, and I was told that my grandma (o'neill) would be very disappointed if I wasn't confirmed, so I was. When Ian picked me as his confirmation sponsor, I told him if he didn't believe in God he should tell the priest that during their meeting. So Ian did not make his confirmation. I think religion is important enough that if you don't believe, you shouldn't pretend just for the sake of having a religion.

I also don't think that being religious or having faith in something higher always helps when you're in a tough spot. If anything I think that sometimes it can give a person a feeling of hopelessness because they think they can't control their own destiny. Or they sometimes blame a higher power for their terrible circumstances. Sometimes crap just happens and it's random. If you're constantly looking for an outside explanation for things, I think it distracts you from focusing on how to fix problems yourself. People often need help, but you can get that kind of help from family, friends, the government, or medicine.

Often I find myself wondering how religion even came about to begin with. Why do people have to explain everything? When you see geographical formations or how animals reproduce, why does that have to have a great big meaning? Can't it just be how it is? I mean, there are lots of good reasons to study the earth, particularly so we can predict what will happen to it in the future, but does it have a greater meaning? I don't think so. I don't think there's anything terribly wonderful going on with the earth or with people. Maybe something great is happening somewhere else in the universe but I doubt that too. What's the greatest thing you can imagine happening? World peace or an end to poverty or disease? Leaving aside the fact that eradicating disease would create overpopulation and more war, would any of these things matter?

The only things I can say that really matter are the things that affect me, because I'm the only person that I have control over or whose life I can directly change. I don't say that in the manner of, "Fuck everyone else, I'll throw my cigarette butts on the ground if I want," I just mean it in a practical sense. Do I care if over a third of Americans are obese? Only because it directly raises my insurance costs. If they want to kill themselves with overeating, it's not my concern. If we found a cure for obesity, I wouldn't sleep any better at night. If I were the one responsible for curing obesity, what would that get me beyond a big salary and some fame? Nothing. Because there's no goal in life. Whether you save millions of peoples lives or spend your whole time on earth mopping bathrooms in a high school, you die the same way.

If you think that something happens after you die, then my philosophy does not apply to you. If you are a person who believes in heaven or hell or reincarnation, then maybe what you do in life makes some difference later. There are a lot of people who believe this, and if it's true, then someone else is making the judgment call on how "good" my life was. Whoever it is, I have no way of knowing what they consider "good" or "bad" and so I think people who believe in an afterlife should still just be doing what they want.

Anyway, that's my life philosophy. Do whatever you want to the extent that it doesn't harm other people. Harm is also a relative term. If you're in sales, you're probably causing people to buy things they don't really need. It's debatable whether that harms them or not. I'm just going to do what makes me happy (with a future benefit to current cost analysis) for the rest of my life. If you're not doing what makes you happy then you should change what you're doing. If you can't change what you're doing then you should kill yourself and save yourself the misery of being alive. If saving the world makes you happy, then try for it. If working in customer service makes you happy, then do that, and don't be ashamed of it. Just don't pussy out and act like you have no control. Oh, my boss sucks, I hate my job, well then change careers, switch departments, take a pay cut to be happy, don't be a miserable asshole your whole life just for some job security. When you're about to die you'll just regret your life, and you don't get another one.

Grades

Grades came out, as promised, on January 30th. I wanted to post so no one would worry that I got a C. I didn't get a C. My grades were a little better than I expected, and I might find out shortly where I stand in our class ranking. Based on previous years' curves I would be in the top 10%, but since our letter grades have been inflated I will most likely be lower. Unless our class is full of inconsistent people. We'll see. So at least I know I don't have to grovel and try to make myself look better than my grades. I can just get hired somewhere based on my grades, which makes it a lot easier to interview.

We did not get our Contracts exam grade (which is a mid-term worth 25% of our final grade) even though we took that exam on November 24th. Our Professor has had bronchitis with a partially collapsed lung. Even so, if he had done one exam per day he would be done by now. We got an email from him on Friday telling us that he should have them done Monday..... and it's after 6pm right now so I'm not going to hold my breath or anything.

Everyone I've talked to is disappointed with their grades, even the ones who got some A's. I guess I'm not friends with any of the geniuses who got straight A's. I have to finish this stupid annotated outline to figure out if an old lady in Ohio has a cause of action against her employer when the employer has less than 4 employees and therefore isn't an "employer" under anti-discrimination statutes. So in case you want to employ some people and discriminate, just make sure you don't have more than 3 employees and you can fire them because they're black or old all day long.

I have to actually work now so I can make it to RPAC sometime before it closes. Byeee.

law scam

I just thought I'd post this, because I realize it's the only thing so far that I wish someone had told me before law school.

How god damn long everything takes. You take your legal research exam at the beginning of October. You don't find out your grade until the end of January, if you are lucky. The rest of your exams are taken in mid-December. You also wait until the end of January for those. A 2L told me that their 1L first semester grades came out in February.

I decided that I think it's partially a scam, partially a clever way for them to ensure that people who get good grades don't get screwed. Let's say you're a lackluster student but want to try your hand at law school. You figure you'll work really hard at first, see how your grades are, and then maybe drop out if you suck. Joke's on you! You don't get your grades until after the drop date for second semester, so even if you got all C's, the school already has your money. Might as well finish your first year. After your first year is over, it's all downhill, so you might as well just finish up. This is how shitty lawyers are created. If all those crappy students found out their grades and dropped out, your "top 20%" rank would probably drop to top 25% or 30 or whatever, so in a way I'm glad they do it that way. Since I plan on being at the top, not getting C's.

Our grades are projected to come out on January 30th. If you don't hear from me, it's because I got a C.