april showers

it has been raining here nonstop for a few days now. gray and gloomy. i love rain, but this is ridiculous.

so i was going to send this to travis, but he didn't call me yesterday nor return any of my calls nor answer the phone when i called him, so he doesn't get it. it's done by Arierure on deviantart.

yeah...his nickname for me is Kitty. :rolls eyes: though if he doesn't call me today it's going to change to Hissing Spitting Very Pissed Off Mountain Lion.

hey Voo....i'm coming down to vancouver this weekend. can we hang out? er, could i stay with you?

i'm almost done with classes--one more assignment today, and then i'm good. i bought the software at student price (in case I haven't said what classes i'm taking, they're Illustrator and Dreamweaver), but because it's the new software that's just come out, it cost 835 big ones. holy sheet. and they (apparently) only work on windows, not mac, but i guess we'll find out if they do indeed work on Parallels when I get my mac, whenever that may be. it may not be for a year or so anyway, so i'm going with what i have--ie, a crappy pc.

in the land of money, things are as crappy as ever.

but i am going to california this summer to meet my online friends from witch.net. we'll be going to disneyland and shit and it's going to be so much fun.

and behold! the only assignment in illustrator that i got a 15/15 on the first try.

i know, i know--it's crap. but i'm proud of it.

and this, but it wasn't an assignment, just me fucking around when i should have been working:

look! it's aurora's dress!

if you didn't get that reference, then what are you doing reading my blog, heathen?

i would post recent pictures of moi, etc, but i cannot find the fucking cord for my camera-computer hook up and it's DRIVING ME CRAZY.

i must go, because i'm just procrastinating before going to school.

love!
|J|

remember the 25th

so.

i did not make it to 28. i got tired of playing and just had to quit. of course, it was last night that i discovered i could have gone back on and played till level 28 and then not played anymore, because my acct hasn't been cancelled yet by my acct-manager, ie travis, but i haven't gone back on because of my terribly addictive personality.

powell river is hicksville. but i still love it.

happy one-year anniversary, travis. you have until midnight to call me, at which point if you have not you are in big trouble.

this soup tastes weird.

and i've been meditating (word used loosely) on activism and what it entails. and being a force for change.

what if things must get much much worse before they can even begin to get better?

what if working for that future that we want when the revolution comes doesn't work? what if something else worse gets implemented, but everyone kinda goes along with it because after such chaos they want order? and at that point what if it would just be less selfish to go into hiding, so that when people really are ready for change then the ones who have the knowledge and power to make it happen are still alive?

what i mean is, when those who hate us who are different are in power, there is danger. would it be better, at some point (not right now) to hide, so we'll still be around when our time comes? so our knowledge will continue?

i read this book about a future where women are kept for purely breeding purposes and are called "fems". the rulers of that society are men, and they love one another, and homosexual relationships are the norm. the fems remember the truth about the past but never fight back, because their main concern is survival of the species.

maybe our main concern should be survival of the knowledge needed. survival of those who will lead us out of darkness.

i don't know, i'm just rambling at this point.

so signing off...to eat dinner.

|j|

miss independent

friend of mine on witch.net posted this....

I, the Penis, hereby request a raise in salary for the
following reasons:

1. I do physical labor.
2. I work at great depths.
3. I plunge head first into everything I do.
4. I do not get weekends or public holidays off.
5. I work in a damp environment.
6. I work in a dark area that has poor ventilation.
7. I work in high temperatures.
8. My work exposes me to diseases.
_______________________________

Dear Penis,

After assessing your request, and considering the
arguments you have raised, the management denies your
request for the following reasons:

1. You do not work 8 hours straight.
2. You WORK IN SHORT SPURTS AND fall asleep after EACH
brief work period.
3. You do not always follow the orders of the
management team.
4. You do not stay in your designated area, and are
often seen visiting other locations.
5. You do not take initiative - you need to be
pressured and stimulated in order to start working.
6. You leave the workplace rather messy at the end of
your shift.
7. You dont always observe necessary safety
regulations, such as wearing the correct protective
clothing.
8. You will retire LONG before you are 65.
9. You are unable to work double shifts.
10. You sometimes leave your designated work area
before you have completed the assigned task.
11. And if that were not all, you have constantly been
seen entering and exiting the workplace carrying two
suspicious-looking bags.

Sincerely, The Management

I haven't laughed so hard in...a while.

Starting tonight I quit WoW for 6-months. Maybe I can get to 28 before that happens.

and what d&d character I am (apparently)

I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Druid Ranger

Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Find out What D&D Character You Are, courtesy of Zinious Software corporation

precious things

created this in my spare time (read: sleep time) last night:



couldn't find any pics of Sorceress or Chief Lycan or General while doing so, nor Princess. so incomplete it shall remain. until i get more pics.

seal hunt is a slaughter. feeling terribly depressed to be canadian.

and not at all surprised at the cruelty of human nature.

so will go to bed with sleeping pills, and hope for no more nightmares.

hah. like that'd ever happen.

|J|

In my humble opinion....

When my mom was in high school up in Canada a school shooting occurred. It was whispered about as an 'isolated incident'. Now mom says she thinks it was early symptoms of a deeper sickness in humanity, most especially the youth.

I have a theory about this sort of thing: the "system", if you will, the ones with power-over in our hierarchal lifestyle, keeps pushing and pushing the already disturbed kids in school. I admit that I was one of those potential school-shooter kids in school. Except I would have focused entirely on administration, not any students. Revise that: not many students. Just a few.

By being cut off from that which spawned us, as we have been since the industrial revolution, and being cut off from each other and the presence in ourselves, as patriarchy teaches us to be (please not that I am not singling out men here--I am singling out patriarchy and hierarchy, which can just as easily be matriarchy and hierarchy--the problem lies in the latter word), we fall into endless despair. We reach out to anything to find what we've lost, but end up finding more nothingness. Some are able to fit in and play along at happiness by never analyzing the gaping void within their souls, but the others, the non-conformists, the freaks, get pushed by their peers, families, and the system for not being 'normal' enough.

I had about 6 nervous breakdowns during high school, all major ones, and the last one had me sobbingly replying "I don't know!" whenever someone asked me my name. I just thank the Goddess that I had Her incarnate in my Mom, otherwise I really would have snapped.

College was much better.

But there is still that underlying authority thing, that thinking of "Teacher knows best, because you are a stupid child, and that is why you are here--to be taught what you do not know".

I think a better solution to this problem (actually, to most problems) would not be to just throw the perpetrators into max-security prison (that is, if they haven't already killed themselves) and consider the problem over, but to actually address the root of this severely antisocial activity.

The root is our culture. We live in a culture of estrangement, of cutting off from what's right or natural. We're taught we have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom, to pee or poop, which are natural bodily functions. We're taught (if we're women) that farting, burping, and sex are done/wanted only by "bad people", and (if we're men) that those same things can be the subject of contests to see who's better in each arena. Tree-huggers and animal rights-activists are the "freaks" in school, and the "normal" kids are the ones who succumb to what's expected of them no matter how far it is off their own course, who develop eating disorders to maintain that 'perfect look', or who take steroids for the same purpose.

We are taught to deny our natural impulses, our natural beings, and our emotions, because they're not "appropriate" to "adult living". "Good" people don't feel anger. "Good" people don't want to kill others. "Good" women are obedient and submissive, and never show their "bitchy" side, and "good" men are aggressive go-getters, who are never allowed to be vulnerable or sensitive, lest they be considered gay. (Oh, what a tragedy that would be.)

As well, "good" people don't care about the environment, but only about furthering their own agendas—getting the most toys and riches, and being the most influential on the block. Only then may you rest, because you've risen to the top. But beware! One slip-up, one tiny thing that reveals you're actually a "bad" person who's been faking it all these years and BAM! You Fall, back to the gutter, back into Hell. Only Angels get good lives.

The truth is, Christendom never went away. It just became secular. Sure, we live in a secular society. Then why does everything close early on Sundays, why is gay marriage an issue when it's not a religious one, why is religious tolerance not the norm, why are abortion workers murdered by Christian fanatics who do then not get prosecuted, why does all our currency say In God We Trust, why are Wiccan or Pagan Veterans not allowed to get a pentacle on their gravestones, why are Easter and Christmas and all those other Christian holidays also civic holidays but not Halloween, why are there still some places where being a non-Christian can get you beaten to death, why is there a stigma to being an unmarried mom, why is prostitution illegal, why are naked bodies "shameful", why must we ask for permission to do what is natural for our mammalian bodies to do, why does the GBLT community have to even ask for rights that should be theirs on account of their being human, why has every single president been a white man, why is there no problem with See You At The Pole on school grounds but any other religious observation during lunchtime would bring about a stake-burning, why must we deny our natural lives—children, birth, death, love, marriage, grief, bodily functions, sweat—in order to "survive" in the "adult world" if this is truly a secular society?

I do not hate Christians. I repeat: I do NOT hate Christians. Some of my best friends are Christians. And they are the best Christians I have ever met. They are the ones who don't parade it about, who don't tell others what to believe, who don't "fight wars for Jesus" and who realize that there are different paths for different people. This is what we should ALL strive to achieve, an attitude to replace the current one.

This attitude of good/bad people and fitting the mold has been carried into Neo-Paganism, which is hardly hierarchical, with the notions of "good witch/bad witch" or "white/black magick". Like there could be a difference between white or black magick--saying there is only promotes racist thought. Magick is magick. A witch is a witch. Good and bad are matters of perspective--if you ask the villian in any story if he or she is evil, he or she will probably say "No. I'm just misunderstood."

School shootings, acts of "terrorism", etc, are just examples of people who are lost and confused in this culture lashing out with all the anger they've been taught to deny their whole lives, lashing out in very unhealthy ways because all they know is that it is unhealthy to feel differently, period, and that there is no healthy way to let it out.

Instead of just punishing people and leaving it at that, of teaching people that the punishment/reward system is all there is and they better be good, for goodness sake, or Santa will beat them with a stick, we need to re-teach people. We need to re-teach ourselves. And we need to foster a different culture, a culture of immanence instead of estrangement, a culture where we see each other and ourselves as part of a huge web, and all emotions as valid, so we can learn how to be healthy, body mind and soul.

Now, if these people were psychopathic personalities, which I personally believe are born without souls, then that's an entirely different issue.

Psychopathic personalities are completely sane and logical, lack any empathy for other beings, and are "never in the wrong". A psychopath can waltz into a school, shoot up a hundred plus people, and waltz back out never feeling that he or she has done anything wrong. He or she may even strike up a perfectly normal conversation with the cops if he or she is taken alive.

By the way: we have several PPs running this country right now.

School shooters kill themselves at the end because they're overcome with grief. Because they know they've done something wrong. Even if they couldn't articulate it, that's the emotion. That emotion thing again—what we're supposed to deny.

If the people running this country felt anything for other human beings, or other beings in general, they would have committed suicide long ago. The United States has now been involved in Iraq for longer than we were in World War II – perhaps the only just war.

What we fail to see is that we've become the new Nazis of the world—big bullies everyone's afraid of.

And they have a right to be: the US spends more money on "defence" (read: nuclear weapons) each year than the rest of the major defence-spenders on the list combined. Canada isn't even on that list.

You may say what you want about "influences" in youth's lives today, about how it's all that Marilyn Manson crap that they listen to, or how you can't understand how anyone could be so violent and cruel. It's easy to understand: look around you. Look at this country that you're living in, in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, turned into Land of Fear and Home of Death, and look at how it throws its weight around in the rest of the world. Look at its use of power-over to force others to do its bidding, the true definition of violence.

This is a country where I'm not even allowed to say something like this, because I may be "promoting terrorism." That is, if I fear them. That is, if I let them control me.

You can let them make an "example" of the few who stray, and stay safely locked in your pen, never hurt, but never living either.

Or you can fight back, and fuck the lot of them, because we're human, damn it, and we've been fighting for millennia, and you won't take us without a struggle. We will not go down peacefully.

Because if we do, no anthropologist will even care to document our history. We will be a speck in the history of the galaxy. Because we didn't care enough to fight for our good name—so why should anyone care enough to talk about us?

Kurt Vonnegut died recently. His words: "It's too bad. This country could have been something great."

writing or something

i have a gather account now, because i don't have enough things to keep track of. anyway, i figured i'd just publish anything i wrote there, indiscriminately, and if anyone cares enough they can read it there.

www.evlocke.gather.com

and in other news....

boys fucking each other is HAWT.

|J|

stop dying, people who are cool

and could all the psychopaths please drop dead? but not before you put me in your wills?

so kurt vonnegut has died, i hear. this makes me sad. and needing to pick up a copy of his memoirs, which talks about the bs that's going on in america right now. you can read an excerpt published on my other blog here. his memoirs are entitled A Man Without a Country, re: living under Bush.

i have been lax in posting, mostly because mom has been home extra long this past weekend so any computer time i got (which was little) was devoted to WoW, not schoolwork or blogging or anything. on the plus side i am now level 23 and have my poisons, and my bro bought me a bunch of new gear, so now i can beat the crap out of things in style.

though tis usually not my way, i have engaged in comment wars on this YouTube video, which everyone who considers him/herself to be my friend or who claims to understand me at all should watch. no questions, just watch. now.

and i love alanis so much. and especially that she's canadian.

fergie just got owned by a canadian! apparently fergie loved it and sent alanis flowers...you know alanis has pwned you when you thank her for it.

that's about it, i suppose. i'm not really coherent enough to talk intelligently any more, so it will have to wait.

as a note on what i did today and yesterday, as that is what blogs are, glorified voyeurism:

yesterday i played WoW all day. not kidding.

today i planted two trees and a rhubarb plant and then went to school and did no schoolwork. then i came home and played wow.

yesterday i also proceeded to have a conversation with travis which, on my part, i am less than proud of. because i didn't need to come to any realizations, i was happy in my bubble, but because of my own stupid neediness i did. this makes no sense and it's not intended to. let stand that i'm pissed off at myself for going past the point of no return.

until the same bat-time, same bat-channel,
you stay classy, san diego
|j|

kurt vonnegut

Custodians of chaos

In this extract from his forthcoming memoirs, Kurt Vonnegut is horrified by the hypocrisy in contemporary US politics

By Kurt Vonnegut

06/17/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, five hundred years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

We've sure come a long way since then. Sometimes I wish we hadn't. I hate H-bombs and the Jerry Springer Show

But back to people like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, each of whom have said in their own way how we could behave more humanely and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favourite humans is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana.

Get a load of this. Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was not yet four, ran five times as the Socialist party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, almost 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

"As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.

"As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it.

"As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools, or health insurance for all?

When you get out of bed each morning, with the roosters crowing, wouldn't you like to say. "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly George W Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

It so happens that idealism enough for anyone is not made of perfumed pink clouds. It is the law! It is the US Constitution.

But I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened instead is that it was taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'état imaginable.

I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that would really make your hair stand on end: "C-Students from Yale".

George W Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr Hervey Cleckley, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia, published in 1941. Read it!

Some people are born deaf, some are born blind or whatever, and this book is about congenitally defective human beings of a sort that is making this whole country and many other parts of the planet go completely haywire nowadays. These were people born without consciences, and suddenly they are taking charge of everything.

PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And they are waging a war that is making billionaires out of millionaires, and trillionaires out of billionaires, and they own television, and they bankroll George Bush, and not because he's against gay marriage.

So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.

They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilise the reserves! Privatise the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.

The title of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury's great science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451. Four hundred and fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury's novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.

I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published in early 2004, that humiliating, shameful, blood-soaked year.

In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African-Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appallingly powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.

In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as Nazis once were.

And with good reason.

In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanised millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.

Piece of cake.

In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanised our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.

Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.

Piece of cake.

The O'Reilly Factor.

So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.

Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed there were weapons of mass destruction there.

Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the first world war. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the first world war so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?

Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people, too. I am a veteran of the second world war and I have to say this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.

My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."

Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?

© 2005 Kurt Vonnegut Extracted from A Man Without a Country: : A Memoir of Life in George W Bush's America.

real emotion

so illustrator drove me up the wall today, like it has done every day since i started taking it. in frustration at the pencil tool and my shaky hand i ended up scrapping actually tracing the chick and gave her my own flourishes.



and that drawing effectively demonstrates how illustrator makes me feel.

shite day all around. nothing happened right or on time. back in agony all day. had nervous breakdown around 10pm. and have failed to get to bed by 12. because i am still waiting for major to return from his self-walk. i'm getting a bit worried.

while i was "doing class work" at school i found some stuff on cthulthu, including but not limited to these:


http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/22728499/?qo=23&q=cthulhu&qh=boost%3Apopular+age_sigma%3A24h+age_scale%3A5

they tickled me in a way that if loretta tickled me that way i'd be like oh, that's nice.

on the plus side--i may very well be going down to vancouver at the end of april/beginning of may. seattle and van. so voo! we shall hang out. and i may need a place to stay....*sheepish look*

oh fuck. enjoy the silence just came on. i must go into a corner and cry now.

things i wish:

• that i were rich
• that i had a job
• that said job was very flexible
• that i was independent, at least semi
• that i could see travis for either our year or 13-month anniversary. but i don't think that's going to happen.
  
• that i had more of this fabulous yarn, so i could finish this blanket.
  

and many others. that's it for now though.

remember kiddies:

Goodbye, Scotty

4 hours, 26 minutes ago

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - The ashes of James Doohan, the Canadian-born actor who played chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the original "Star Trek" TV series, have been loaded into a rocket that is set to launch in New Mexico later this month.

The remains of Doohan, Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and some 200 others were loaded into the rocket Friday by Charles Chafer, chief executive of Celestis, a Texas company that contracts with rocket firms to send cremated remains into space. "And we're ready to go," Chafer said after inserting the silver canister.

Jerry Larson, president of Connecticut-based UP Aerospace Inc., said the rocket will be launched April 28.

Families paid US$495 to have a few grams of their loved one's ashes placed on the rocket.

Chafer said he is aware of the dedication of "Star Trek" fans.

"There's no doubt that we'll find a way to accommodate fans who travel here and want to be part of that experience," he said.

Doohan died in July 2005 at age 85. He was born in Vancouver and raised in Sarnia, Ont.

The remains of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry were blasted into space in 1997.

Goodbye, Scotty. You will be sorely missed. Live long, and prosper.

this in the news today

Canada's East Coast seal hunt opens quietly in Gulf of St. Lawrence

2 hours, 10 minutes ago

CHARLOTTETOWN (CP) - The East Coast seal hunt quietly opened Monday in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where ice conditions were described as the worst seen in a decade.

Fisheries officials said they expect only a few boats from the Maritime provinces will take part in the first phase of the centuries-old hunt. About 40 boats from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are eligible, with most of the early hunting focused on the Cape Breton coast, said Fisheries Department spokesman Roger Simon.

"There are a few seals scattered from Sydney towards Canso but they are very sparse and the ice is broken and deteriorated," he said.

"What seals were in that area may be swimming back north and we know a higher proportion drowned this year."

One fisheries observer said only two boats went out Monday.

Newborn seals cannot swim in the first weeks of life and need solid ice to survive.

The total quota for this year's seal hunt is 270,000 animals. That's 65,000 fewer seals than last year, a change that was made mainly because of the ice conditions.

Simon said the largest concentration of Gulf seals is in the more northerly Strait of Belle Isle, between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

That area of the northern Gulf will be open to hunters beginning Wednesday.

Animal welfare groups are condemning the Canadian government's decision to allow a hunt in the southern Gulf where poor ice conditions have caused unusually high pup mortality.

"I've witnessed the hunt for nine years, and I've never seen ice conditions this bad," said Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States, a leading opponent of the annual slaughter.

"Even Canadian government scientists are estimating up to 100 per cent of the pups born in the southern Gulf died because of the lack of ice. It is reprehensible that the Canadian government would allow sealers to kill the few surviving pups."

Most of the seals will be taken in a subsequent hunt off northern Newfoundland in an area called the Front. An opening date has yet to be announced for the start of that hunt.

Sheryl Fink of the International Fund for Animal Welfare flew over the southern Gulf on Monday and saw only one sealing boat.

"The hunters were shooting seals," Fink said.

"It's so depressing. There are so few seals out there and these hunters are cleaning out what's left."

Aldworth and Fink are angry that Canadian fisheries officials denied observer permits for the first two days of the commercial Gulf hunt.

"The commercial seal hunt occurs in public space and observation is a right guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not a privilege to be arbitrarily granted by a government department," Aldworth said.

Phil Jenkins said the Fisheries Department is trying to strike a balance.

He said with so few sealing vessels in the southern Gulf and very little sealing activity, the department decided it would not be a good idea to hand out observer permits.

He said the decision to allow or prohibit observers is covered by marine mammal regulations. He said the permits are decided on a case-by-case basis.

Fuck, sometimes I hate being Canadian. Fuck you, Fisheries Department!

Of course, I feel a bit hypocritical for not donating when they asked. But then again, it's not like I had the money to donate in the first place.

So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has come to Powell River. I'm going to go see it tonight with my friend (can you believe I actually have friends up here? I'm like, WTF, mate?). I wanted to find a purple head band to go a cross my eyes, but... no money. So I'll just have to make do with wearing my TMNT hoodie.

I'm probably going to see it tomorrow night as well. We decided on tonight originally because I have Spoken Word on Tuesdays. Well, I just got a phone call from the place where I host spoken word saying it won't be going on for 3 weeks because they can't get anyone to volunteer shift for Tuesday nights.

This is the kind of resturant-ish place it is. People volunteer shifts.

IE nothing gets done. Nothing important to other people, at any rate.

I must admit I'm a little ticked. No, make that a lot.

First they make it not happen for 2 Tuesdays (tomorrow was supposed to be our first time back in 2 weeks), and now this. I'm thinking we should move locations.

But whatever. It's my mom's thing, not mine, and honestly the fact that it's off frees me up for school work or a social life. Or finishing those library books.

On that note, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein) is really quite good. So is Lady of Avalon, by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley.

My brother was telling me that he wanted to see a book out on Boudicca, the Iceni Queen who led one of the most successful revolts against the Romans. Her daughters were kidnapped, and she killed them with an arrow thru each neck so they wouldn't have to face being raped by Roman soldiers. I also would love to see a book out on Boudicca. She's one of my s/heroes.

There is more I have to say, but it's almost 2pm and I must a) shower b) walk the dog c) go to school d) go to my house and work on stuff. I don't really have enough time, as I said I'd be at my house by 3. Eh. I'll be late. Or something.

Ave atque vale
Jag

wow or something

april fools. i am a geek.

oh wait. you knew that.

here are some characters that belong to me. body and soul. *insert maniacal laugh*



that's my level 18 warlock on black dragonflight. he's my #1 alt.



zardria is my main on blk dragonflight. she's a lvl 22 rogue.



on shadowmoon i play alliance. this is plaavalaguna, my main hunter. draenei are soooo cute! in the background is her pet, crowley.

more later. maybe.