Gay marriage

One small step. How long until the President holds a press conference and makes it void?

A minister married two men outside his Iowa home Friday morning, sealing the state's first legal same-sex wedding. Less than 24 hours earlier, a judge had thrown out Iowa's ban on gay marriage.
The Rev. Mark Stringer declared college students Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan legally wed.
"This is it. We're married. I love you," Fritz told McQuillan after the ceremony on the front lawn of the Unitarian minister's home in Des Moines

and here it goes:

County attorney John Sarcone promised a quick appeal, and he immediately asked Hanson for a stay that would prevent gays and lesbians from getting marriage licenses until the appeal was resolved. A hearing on the stay request is likely next week, said Camilla Taylor, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization.

Can't we all just get along?

Drug Scandal

Drug scandals are not just for sports teams anymore:

Stripping away opera's glamour, singers are increasingly speaking out about a more sordid side of their world -- increased drug and alcohol use sparked by relentless pressure to perform often and well.

Most performers continue to avoid the pitfalls of substance abuse and no figures exist documenting the extent of such behavior. But insiders agree that heightened competition, unyielding sponsor demands and the weight of stardom are leading to excesses that invite comparisons of opera to sports tarnished by doping scandals.

doing scandals ... in the opera house

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beauty queens

She's not doing much to help out the beauty queen stereotype:



She mentions "US Americans" and "the Iraq". Hey, she still came in third runner up! Wouldn't you be pissed if you were fourth runner up and THAT girl beat you?

office drinking

This article first started:

After eight days in a coma and a life- saving liver transplant, Laura Bates was warned that continuing to drink alcohol could kill her.
But the 19-year-old is apparently so caught up in the binge-drinking culture that she has refused to heed medical advice.
Claiming that she would feel 'left out' if she gave up alcohol, the student had her first alcopop a mere two weeks after being released from hospital.

Then followed up with my favorite part:

Last week, it emerged that young women who work in offices are twice as likely to drink themselves to death as the rest of the population and a study last month revealed that teenage girls regularly drink more than boys.

I'm screwed.

smoking

This made me (and other office peeps) giggle:

An iron-lunged pensioner has celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigerette from a candle on her birthday cake.

Winnie Langley started smoking only days after the First World War broke out in June 1914 when she was just seven-years-old - and has got through five a day ever since.

Excellent. I'm starting tomorrow, however I missed those first few days of the Iraq war ....

finding jesus

Why does being a criminal always make you find Jesus? Vick is the just the most recent criminal to claim they have now found Jesus. Am I supposed to forgive you now for killing dogs by throwing them against electric fences and beating them to death with baseball bats?

Interesting point brought up today at work:
Everyone is furious and making a huge media storm about the beating and killing of dogs, but would we be making the same if he was just beating his wife? How many countless players have been arrested and charged with domestic battery, but do they get suspended from the NFL and have their signing bonuses taken away? Not that the media covers ....

Story

spa day

Yesterday I took the day off of work and went to the beauty school with my Mom and her friend Jenny for a spa day. I was hesitant at first because it was at the beauty school, I expected to get my fingernails cut too short and get my face horribly burned or something during my facial but I was totally wrong. We started with pedicures, then facials and manicures. I of course chose the most obnoxious color of nail polish possible. I was very excited to get a really normal looking girl who was very sweet and had possibly the world's longest eyelashes. The pedicure was very good, the feet rubbing superb, and then, the facial. It was quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me. I was so relaxed I could have fallen asleep. Later Jenny asked one of the other girls who was the best at facials and she said the girl who I had, and I believe it. The manicure was great too, same color as the toes. So overall it was a superb day, I want to go get a facial everyday for the rest of my life. If you go to the beauty school ask for Danielle, she's amazing, but you have to hurry because she graduates in October ...

colbert

I love Stephen Colbert. I love his show and he cracks me right up. As you may or may not know depending on whether or not you watch the show, he broke his wrist and has started "wristwatch" raising awareness about wrist injuries. He has also made a wristband like the Livestrong ones. Now he is auctioning off his cast:

Stephen Colbert will auction the cast that helped mend his broken left wrist to benefit the Yellow Ribbon Fund.

The cast will be auctioned on eBay after Thursday night's "The Colbert Report," Comedy Central said Wednesday. It has been signed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric, NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor" host Bill O'Reilly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., NBC "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.

Who is going to chip in with me?

He also has delicious ice cream.

stray bullet

Mostly I thought this article was interesting because of the last line:

A bullet fired from a police gun range hit a military veteran as he stood outside a car dealership almost a mile away, officials said.
“It felt like someone hit me with a ball bat or like a bird struck me in the side,” said Bill Bolechala, who had served 24 years in the military including a stint in Vietnam without being wounded.

Bolechala, a city councilman from nearby Burns Flat, said he has no ill-will toward the police, who told him they will pay medical bills related to the shooting. He said he has no plans to sue.

No plans to sue? Now thats hardly American, we sue everyone for EVERYTHING!

cute animals

Somehow on my "MyYahoo" I got signed up for cute baby animal pictures. Examples:

segway

What was the crazy thing I got to do today at work you ask? No I didn't watch anyone get tazed, and no we didn't have any eating contests, and no they didn't make me cook anything for the whole office, BUT I did get to ride around in the parking lot on a segway. Yes, they are considering getting them for the officers or enforcement guys to toodle around campus in instead of wasting gas in the trucks. I don't know how anyone could take them serious though on one of those things. They sure are fun though, we all were scooting around the parking lot, some took them off road or into the office, it was a fun time.

I looked at least three times cooler than these fools ... mostly because I didn't wear a helmet, yeah, I'm badass. Oh we took a shit ton of pictures too, I just wish I had one of the officers on it, it was a slice of hilarious. I wish I had the one of me on it too. I'll have to cruise the shared files at work looking for them later ...

science

It's like Maury is coming to real life!

A state forensics scientist who said she tested her husband’s underwear for DNA to determine if he was cheating on her has been fired.

Ann Chamberlain of Okemos testified in a March 7 divorce hearing that she ran the test last September on the underwear of Charles Gordon Jr. Asked by his attorney what she found, she answered: “Another female. It wasn’t me.”

Seriously, at least it wasn't a paternity test ...
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recap

Ok, a brief recap of the last few days:

Went to Spokane to visit Mel, we hung out with her friend Big Mike a couple times, watched a few movies (stranger than fiction, catch and release, and superbad), and ate out a lot. It was a pretty fun weekend. Then on my way back to Bellingham I took a pit stop in Cashmere and hung out with my parents and Katie Owen for a day. I managed to eat at my two favorite restaurants in the world El Camino Real, and The Wok About Grill, delicious.

Yesterday I get a call at 4:30 from miss Gaby, her question? Wanna go to Canada and play laser tag for Zach's birthday? My answer? Psh yeah! Driving up there was hysterical. We were at the truck crossing, then the other car turned another way, so we tried to follow them but drove five miles down I-5 in the wrong direction, then finally took a wrong turn and crossed in Sumas. It took us a couple hours to get to Langley which is not so far away at all. In any case, once we got there it was reallllly fun. It included: Gaby, Joanna, Me, Tar tar, Meerkat, the Birthday Boy, Derby, Steve and little Doug. We played three games almost in a row and we all got so fucking hot it was unbelievable. Derby soaked his shirt through and everyone else was completely soaked as well. After all was said and done (around 10:30) we just wanted something to drink, so we stopped and the other cars took off to leave our crazy car to get lost, AGAIN! I have never laughed so much in the car at being lost. It was great, no one got pissed or frustrated and we all just laughed and laughed. In any event, good trip and happy birthday to mister Zach!

weekend

Reading that last entry just makes me laugh hysterically. Mostly because all of it is true. One note: tar tar was dancing with some weird chick who ALWAYS finds him at 80's night and I went over and got in between them and she pushed me out of the way. She literally PUSHED me away. That tar tar, fighting them off with a stick! And all he did was just look at me and laugh. Boy oh boy.

I'm headed off to Spokane here in about an hour to spend time with my sister and her troop. I am taking today off of work and also Monday but I will be back at the PKO on Tuesday. I'm a little nervous about driving over there, I have not looked at a single map or mapquested or anything, I'm flying blind. Not the best idea I've ever had.

Ok, gone.

drunk

i'm drunk. i danced with weird dudes and i liked it. tar and tar and meerkat didn't protect me, and zach and steve don't care. josh left us with enough cash to pay for cheeeeesey fries. i'm drunk at three thirty eight. fuck it.

gossip

I'm human, I enjoy a good trash mag every now and then, and yes I will read tmz.com if I see that someone else has on a computer ... I'm only mildly ashamed. I've found a new and delightful source of celebrity gossip crack though. Introducing .... Perez Hilton. He's the devil, he's mean, and I eat that shit up like dinner. Pretty much my favorite part is that he (and by he I mean him and his minions, there is no way he is on there posting 25 times a day by himself) takes pictures of celebrities and then draws on them, it's a slice of hysterical. I've included both a picture of him, and a picture where he has drawn on it. Yeah, I'll admit it, I love the site, and I check it often. (Pictures are Paris Hilton with Perez Hilton, and then a pretty tame picture they have on there of Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen).

PS, I'm in love with Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen

Perez

religious insights from our president

Oh boy. My favorite blog highlighted this article and I couldn't help but do the same. I find this absolutely hysterical and absolutely scary at the same time. Here are some highlights from the article that tickled my fancy, or just pissed me right off:

"I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."

"God bless the people of this part of the world"

"I did denounce it. I de- I denounced it. I denounced interracial dating. I denounced anti-Catholic bigacy... bigotry."

"We say in our country, everybody matters, everybody is precious in the sight of an Almighty." (except those who don't believe in an almighty ....)

"And I just -- I cannot speak strongly enough about how we must collectively get after those who kill in the name of -- in the name of some kind of false religion."
(and clearly he's the one who decides what a "false religion" is)

"It's also important for people to know we never seek to impose our culture or our form of government. We just want to live under those universal values, God-given values"


oh dubya, you make me angry.

new tattoo

I've been itching for a new tattoo for quite some time now (pretty much since the ink on the first one dried) and I think I've found the next design. I've been kicking around lots of ideas in my head, but cruising one of my favorite blogs today I think I've got it. Now I distinctly remember having a conversation with my Mom about how any tattoo that I get has to be deeply personal and really mean something to me, because I don't want nonsense crap on my skin when I'm an old lady (though those could be good stories for the grandkids ... I'll think about it). Now clearly NOTHING is more personal than my ANATOMY!

Anatomy Tattoos

bottled water

I was mocked. I was made fun of for saying this. I was called a hippie liberal environmental weirdo. Ok maybe not. BUT I feel legitimized! Bottled water is bad for the environment and you should try to just drink tap out of a reuseable glass, or nalgene if you are trendy (or camping).

Bottled Water is the Devil

sick

I'm home sick today from work so what better to do than blog. Here is a list of what's been up so far today.

7:05: Woke up so I could call Jason and tell him I'm not coming in. He said, "Sounds good, feel better", he's so heartfelt that J-Kitty.
8:00: Woke up again, put on a disc of Seinfeld to watch in bed. Popped some ibuprofen for the paaaaain in swallowing.
9:45: Woke up because I can so distinctly hear my neighbors having sex through the window.
10:00: Decided to get up for real, mostly because I had to use the bathroom and my Seinfeld episodes were over.

So I have been doing my normal internet checking of the different sites I look at everyday including this one blog that I always look at and found the picture that is above. The blog I read posted about ANOTHER blog that's all about giant things, including food, cook wear, appliances, animal statues, even a huge rubber stamp sculpture. It's actually kinda funny.

Comically Large Things

church

I always knew churches were dangerous places:

A gunman opened fire in the sanctuary of a southwest Missouri church Sunday, killing a pastor and two worshippers and wounding several others, authorities said.
The gunman ordered all the children out of the church before he started shooting and briefly held between 25 to 50 people hostage before surrendering, McCracken said.
DANGER

And clearly Christian Boot Camp is dangerous:

Authorities charged the director of a Christian boot camp and an employee with dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run.

Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp for at-risk teens, are accused of tying the girl to the van with a rope June 12 and dragging her, according to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday.

Flowers, the camp's director, ordered Bassitt to run alongside the girl after she fell behind, according to the affidavit. When the girl stopped running, Bassitt yelled at her and pinned her to the ground while Flowers tied the rope to her, according to the affidavit.

MORE danger

Makes me glad I will never be in either one of those places ...

sore throat

I have a sore throat. It all started a couple days ago when it hurt on the left side of my throat when I swallowed. Then last night and this morning it hurt so bad that I couldn't sleep. So I got up and called my Mommy like any self respecting 21 year old does and tried to get her to help me find a doctor to go to. Well my stupid insurance has a phone number you can call and give your symptoms too and they are supposed to tell you if you need to go see a doctor or not. So I called but their office was closed, so then I just tried to have them help me find a doctor to go to, but they were still closed. I was almost in tears. I had to resort to the phone book trying to find a walk-in clinic in Bellingham to go to. The only one I found was way the hell out on Northwest and didn't accept my brand of insurance. I went anyway. I was pretty convinced that I had strep because it hurt like all hell just to swallow. I waited in the little room for 2o minutes for the doctor, who was not so nice and without even looking in my throat told me that he would "bet a nickel it's not strep". So he ran a strep test even though I'm sure he didn't want to, then looked in my ears and told me to stop using q-tips that I have an ear wax problem in my right ear, but the left is fine, and told me to follow my grandparents instructions of nothing smaller than my elbow in my ear. Thanks, I had never heard that before. Then he felt all along my neck lymph nodes and told me they were "swollen, but nothing impressive". He told me to take ibuprofen and drink tea with lemon and honey. He was in and out in five minutes and after the test came back I really didn't have strep. This is easily the third time I've been to the doctor in my life thinking that I had strep and didn't. I might be a baby who can't handle pain. Then I had to go pay. Now this was the first time that I had been to the doctor and couldn't use my insurance and just had to pay it, and for a whole lot of waiting and kind of a cold doctor I paid 120 bucks! That's insane. Universal health care keeps looking better and better.

yikes

Well 80's night is back! I was extremely excited to have the beloved Nightlight 80's night back this last Thursday. It has a tinge of sadness though because it was miss Emily's last night in town for some four months while she heads off to Washington DC for an internship. I think it's safe to say that we will all be missing her quite a bit. The night was a ton of fun, it was great to have everyone out especially people who are hard to get out (ehem KEELEY), and even those who were not feeling so hot (Meerkat). This does however bring me to the point of my post: Technology and alcohol do not mix ... well.

I'm a drunk dialer, I'm a drunk texter and as anyone knows who reads this blog, I can occasionally be a drunk blogger. Sometimes however all of this backfires. You will say something via text or in a drunk dial that you will regret regret regret the next day. My 80's night had a lot of this involved. The funny thing is, that you can only play off your indiscretions via alcohol to a point, at what point to you own up for your actions and stop blaming booze? Now, I know I wouldn't smoke ciggies if it wasn't for alcohol, but would I still text an ex and tell them I miss them? Or would I tell a friend it's ok to have another drink even though I know they have had enough? It's a tricky little situation and now I find myself dealing with the aftermath of another one of these situations. So when do you ignore the things people do as them "just being drunk", and when do you have to respond and view them as truth supplemented by too many drinks?

I think the Tootie Pop Owl said it best, "the world may never know".

Underwater Advertising

Ever since I found out that Keeley plugged my blog on her blog I feel pressure to have amazing blogs! Even though I'm pretty sure that Keeley is the only one that read this anyway because I've never actually told anyone about it. SO this gave me a giggle:

Out in the Stockholm Archipelago, a half-tonne billboard was anchored to the seabed, five metres below the surface. The billboard carries a message to all divers that they can book a week in the divers' paradise of Hurghada in Egypt through the Ving travel agency.

Madness

snakes

Oh boy. Prosser. I do know a few people from Prosser and I'm from the Eastside so I guess I don't have a ton of room to talk but:

A man was bitten by the decapitated head of a rattlesnake on his property near Prosser.Fifty-three-year-old Danny Anderson and his son saw the five-foot snake Monday evening while feeding horses. They pinned it with a pipe and cut off its head with a shovel.When Anderson reached down to pick it up he says the snake head twisted around and bit his index finger. He says if felt like his hand was in a fire pit.

Yikes

sleep

This summer has been crazy so far. And by crazy I mean drunken. So Tuesday after a pretty hard night of partay-ing, meaning I drank too much at Uisce's playing trivia and then against my better judgement went to the royal and sang kareoke, oh and I yelled at the DJ that my name was not Dana, it was Diana. All while I ran up to the stage waving my arms. Rachel told me he said, "well excuse the fuck out of me" because apparently I was mad. I don't remember this. In any event, I got home that night at about 3:00 and got asleep at about 4:00 to wake up at 6:30. I got up at like 6:10 because I was paranoid I would fall back asleep if I didn't just go ahead and get ready. So I did and then fell back asleep totally dressed for half an hour. I went to work, hung over and severly tired. On my lunch break I choked down a hot pocket and then fell asleep for 45 minutes. I went back to work where I'm sure I was a huge bitch because frankly I was so tired I couldn't function. I would have just said I was sick, but there were no extra students and I had to work the afternoon in the VC. So when I finally got off of work I got home at 4:10. I then woke up at 9:45, giggled to myself that I slept that long, took my contacts out and then went to bed. I woke up again at 6:45. I slept my life away yesterday and I loved every second of it. I didn't even turn on my computer at home yesterday, something I do the second I get home. I check my email obsessively and I didn't at all. Then today we had nacho bar at work for lunch, so on my lunch break I just went home and napped on the couch. Afterall I had to save up energy for the shit show that will be tonight for Emily's last night in town. Nightlight 80's, here we come!

fruit and such

I had my first plum today. I know what you're thinking, "a plum Diana? How could you have gone 21 years without gracing your tongue with the presence of plum!?", well dear friends, I'm from apple/pear/cherry country, thats how. In any event, I liked it quite a bit. Now since I've never had a plum I don't know if I had a good or bad one, a too soft or too firm one, a too white or too red one, I have no idea, but the plum I DID have, was delicious. I'm still unsure about the dried variety, something about the change it makes turns me off. Next step, learn to like "dried plums" aka Prunes.

On a completely unrelated note: There is a giant moving truck in the parking lot of my apartment and it is blocking traffic and my parking spot. So I was forced to park in the overflow spaces which are for guests. I feel bad because those spots are coveted by both guests and tenants a like and I'm taking one up while my perfectly good reserved spot is blocked by a giant moving van! Sometime I feel like the only person who gives a shit about stuff like this. Maybe it's the parking nazi in me coming out ... who knows.

camping

I went camping this weekend and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I went with Rachel, Erin, Emily and Evan. I worry a lot about stuff, and when we found out that the one campsite we were going to use was full I started to freak out a little bit. So we ended up going to a campground about two hours away in Newhalem. We had a rocky start to the trip with packing and getting everyone ready and finding out that we would need to drive two cars instead of the planned one. Then when we were driving out there we saw signs about burn bans, and it was so far out in the boonies I had myself convinced the trip was doomed. When we got there however it was a nice campground, we found a site really close to the bathroom and right next to this little clearing with was nice. Everything went really smoothly and we had a ton of fun. We consumed somewhere in the vicinity of 80 beers I would guess between the 5 of us and we made an emergency run to the store at one point to get two more cases which we barely touched. It was full of lots of card games, cribbage, watching the funny nature shows that the socially awkward ranger interns put on and walks through the woods looking at the funny sights in Newhalem. All in all it was a really good weekend, full of lots of inside jokes, funny games and shananigans.

Things I learned on the camping trip:
1. Woody Woodpecker was a Pileated woodpecker.
2. It's good to always have at least one boy on camping trips to perform "man duties" like building the fire, opening jars, 'protecting' us in the tent, and building our wizard staffs.
3. Always pack bug spray, eating utensils, lighters, and flashlights when going camping.
4. Nature shows from socially awkward ranger interns are much more entertaining when you're 8 beers into the night and take two with you.
5. Volleyball while drunk in a clearing where you can't see the ground can be dangerous, but putting cold apples on your ankle instead of ice is just as good to help keep the swelling down.
6. When you say 'pack light', this includes, cribbage, volleyballs, books about how animals have sex and at least two 30 packs of busch light.
7. Busch light is the 'healthiest' light beer on the market.
8. Belly button UHHHHH
9. I will tell the most disgusting and embarrassing stories when I'm drunk.
10. Starting drinking at 4:00 is a good idea if you want to be trashed by 9:00 and not keep the rest of the campground up.