"New Yorkers, more than anyone,
don't like things they can't rationally
explain. That goes for non-native
New Yorkers as well."
- James Patterson
You've Been Warned
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Pinball Wizard
" Pinball is a metaphor for life, pitting man's skill, nerve, persistence & luck against the perverse machinery of human existance. The playfield is rich with rewards: targets that bring huge scores, bright lights, chiming balls, free balls and extra games. But it is replete with perils too; culs-de-sac, traps, gutters & gobble-down-holes which the ball may disappear [into] forever."
- Anthony Lukas
Bary' Alyssa's mind-blowingly perfect chocolate brownies. [to. die. for.]
INGREDIENTS
- 4 squares of Baker's unsweetened chocolate
- 1/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup flour
[optional]
- 25 Kraft caramels
- 2 tablespoons milk
DIRECTIONS
1. Make sure to preheat oven to 350 degrees first thing. Then grease a 13x9 inch baking pan.
2. Place 4 chocolate squares and 1 1/2 sticks butter in large microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until the better gets just to the melting point. Stir these ingredients continuously until the chocolate is completely melted.
3. Add 2 cups sugar to chocolate/butter mixture and mix well.
4. Add 4 eggs to the bowl and mix well.
5. Add 1 cup flour to the bowl and mix well.
6. Spread batter into the baking pan and place into the oven.
7. Bake brownies for 30-35 minutes - give or take - until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out with fudgy crumbles (Do not overbake or underbake! This timing part's a bit tricky - it'll come with practice)
AND OPTIONALLY - DURING BAKING:
- Place 25 caramels and 2 tablespoons of milk into a microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 1/2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute. Stir slowly until the caramels are completely melted and the mixture is well blended.
- Gently spread caramel mixture over brownies while they are still in the pan.
- Cool brownies in pan on wire rack.
- Store at room temperature in a tightly-covered container.
- 4 squares of Baker's unsweetened chocolate
- 1/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup flour
[optional]
- 25 Kraft caramels
- 2 tablespoons milk
DIRECTIONS
1. Make sure to preheat oven to 350 degrees first thing. Then grease a 13x9 inch baking pan.
2. Place 4 chocolate squares and 1 1/2 sticks butter in large microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until the better gets just to the melting point. Stir these ingredients continuously until the chocolate is completely melted.
3. Add 2 cups sugar to chocolate/butter mixture and mix well.
4. Add 4 eggs to the bowl and mix well.
5. Add 1 cup flour to the bowl and mix well.
6. Spread batter into the baking pan and place into the oven.
7. Bake brownies for 30-35 minutes - give or take - until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out with fudgy crumbles (Do not overbake or underbake! This timing part's a bit tricky - it'll come with practice)
AND OPTIONALLY - DURING BAKING:
- Place 25 caramels and 2 tablespoons of milk into a microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 1/2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute. Stir slowly until the caramels are completely melted and the mixture is well blended.
- Gently spread caramel mixture over brownies while they are still in the pan.
- Cool brownies in pan on wire rack.
- Store at room temperature in a tightly-covered container.
Enjoy!
-b.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Columbia-Yonkers Represent
A collection of quotes collected
during the summer of 2008
(when i worked for cumc - yonkers office)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Life; an uncontrollable disaster."
- Ms. Luisa Cerqua
"To live is so startling it leaves
little time foranything else."
- Emily Dickinson
"Life is just a chance to grow a soul."
- ?
"Vigilance is key."
- Tony
"Death before dishonor."
Jay-Z
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
and more of Luisa's musings...
"Do not dwell on the past. Concentrate your
mind on the present moment.
- Anonymous
A dream is an incoherent thought that doesn't
slip out of mind quite quick enough; it has feelings,
emotionsand images that only one could figure out; to
what isleft of a dream is nothing. quite simple so you see;
a journey to figure out what's true and false can end
an adventure of pain and love. A dream is little less
than a feeling but a little more than an emotion.
Can dreams really come true or are we just left in
the dark after the lights turn off?
- Luisa Cerqua
You've Been Warned
08/04/08
"Don, don't go!" she wailed in desperation. "Please!" the woman had begun crying. The tears were geniuine, true, but he didn't trust her anymore. He had decided no longer to rely on anyone's instincts other than his own. He ignored her tears and continued packing.
"I dreamed you died on that island!' She inched toward angry at that point.
"Then so be it," Don hissed under his breath.
"It's not safe," she cried.
"Let it go!" he bellowed, finally, eyes full of rage. "Let me go! You've changed so fucking much I don't even know you anymore. This is it for you and me. I'm leaving. We're over. Do you understand?"
She sobbed silently, nodding in pain. Feeling...no...knowing deep down she'd never see him again.
No one would.
-b.
"Don, don't go!" she wailed in desperation. "Please!" the woman had begun crying. The tears were geniuine, true, but he didn't trust her anymore. He had decided no longer to rely on anyone's instincts other than his own. He ignored her tears and continued packing.
"I dreamed you died on that island!' She inched toward angry at that point.
"Then so be it," Don hissed under his breath.
"It's not safe," she cried.
"Let it go!" he bellowed, finally, eyes full of rage. "Let me go! You've changed so fucking much I don't even know you anymore. This is it for you and me. I'm leaving. We're over. Do you understand?"
She sobbed silently, nodding in pain. Feeling...no...knowing deep down she'd never see him again.
No one would.
-b.
The Art & Tradition of the Hardcover
If he had any 3 wishes in the whole world what would he do?
Lord. Jesus. Jesus H. Christ. The world was in the palm of his hand. The cost? His integrity. All of the goals upon which he had built his life and personality.
But hard times are hard times. Self-preservation instincts strongly urged against this type of situation. He wanted so dearly to ignore them. But they'd brought him this far...
Something inside him told him to turn to God on this particular issue. He'd long ago stopped asking favors from the Big Guy in the Sky, but what the hell...
Lives rested on his decision. A whole lot more than just a few lives, too. Money. Family. Respect. Honor? What would his father do? He'd learned a lot watching Dad's mistakes and always noting where, how & why; why he seemed destined to fail at most things he'd delved into.
His only really success to date? A massive, immaculate library of books. Rare special edition copies. Bestselling novels. All hard-covered. He didn't much care for paperbacks.
Lord. Jesus. Jesus H. Christ. The world was in the palm of his hand. The cost? His integrity. All of the goals upon which he had built his life and personality.
But hard times are hard times. Self-preservation instincts strongly urged against this type of situation. He wanted so dearly to ignore them. But they'd brought him this far...
Something inside him told him to turn to God on this particular issue. He'd long ago stopped asking favors from the Big Guy in the Sky, but what the hell...
Lives rested on his decision. A whole lot more than just a few lives, too. Money. Family. Respect. Honor? What would his father do? He'd learned a lot watching Dad's mistakes and always noting where, how & why; why he seemed destined to fail at most things he'd delved into.
His only really success to date? A massive, immaculate library of books. Rare special edition copies. Bestselling novels. All hard-covered. He didn't much care for paperbacks.
La Familia
07.12.08
They gathered around him awaiting instructions like hunger pups. He had decided, for this one time to go with Her judgement, to deviate. Her input always seemed to wind them up in a heap of trouble, though. Mostly utterly useless nonsense. If it weren't for their family connections, he'd have cut ties with her long ago. She was a liability. Solely for the fact that, under the most extreme and dangerous of circumstances, she let herself be guided by heart and intuition first. Rumor has it, he doesn't have a heart to speak of. No compassion. No feelings. They'd faded away long ago. She knew these emotions were essential to the very nature of staying alive. She knows the value of compromise. He'd never much liked that term. That made things dangerous for him. She felt compelled to watch after him; ensure his safety. All he did was laugh when she offered up the odd bit of advice. She was a joke to him. An anomoly. Didn't she know the rules were not to be deviated from - under any circumstance? Obviously not, as he blamed her for today's situation.
He knew that they were awaiting his orders. If he couldn't damn well find a way out of this disaster, the Board Room would most certainly become the war room. But his mind was elsewhere. There was just too much to deal with.
"Maybe..." he thought to himself, "Maybe if I could get rid of her somehow, the concentration would focus elsewhere. Anywhere but here," he mused. He then brushed the idea away as quickly as it had come. He couldn't let anything happen to her. She was family. His older sister.
by: me (b.)
They gathered around him awaiting instructions like hunger pups. He had decided, for this one time to go with Her judgement, to deviate. Her input always seemed to wind them up in a heap of trouble, though. Mostly utterly useless nonsense. If it weren't for their family connections, he'd have cut ties with her long ago. She was a liability. Solely for the fact that, under the most extreme and dangerous of circumstances, she let herself be guided by heart and intuition first. Rumor has it, he doesn't have a heart to speak of. No compassion. No feelings. They'd faded away long ago. She knew these emotions were essential to the very nature of staying alive. She knows the value of compromise. He'd never much liked that term. That made things dangerous for him. She felt compelled to watch after him; ensure his safety. All he did was laugh when she offered up the odd bit of advice. She was a joke to him. An anomoly. Didn't she know the rules were not to be deviated from - under any circumstance? Obviously not, as he blamed her for today's situation.
He knew that they were awaiting his orders. If he couldn't damn well find a way out of this disaster, the Board Room would most certainly become the war room. But his mind was elsewhere. There was just too much to deal with.
"Maybe..." he thought to himself, "Maybe if I could get rid of her somehow, the concentration would focus elsewhere. Anywhere but here," he mused. He then brushed the idea away as quickly as it had come. He couldn't let anything happen to her. She was family. His older sister.
by: me (b.)
Story In Progress
They met on a bench in Central Park. The moment was magical; typical New York City wintertime with light snowflakes falling.
He was writing. She was reading. They were both Libras. Both under 30. Both lived way downtown and had faced the cold for some Central Park winter inspiration.
Her gloved fingers could turn the pages of her book, while his bare hands were frozen around his pen. They traded. Gloves for a scarf. They forgot to trade back later that afternoon. Each still keeps the other's article of winter clothing as a memento dear to their hearts.
She was reading a Russian novel of love & betrayal. He was writing a story of lust and mystery.
They began talking. They both hated math, loved the ocean, had never been to Australia (though his "Aussie" accent sounded quite real) and they were both attending college in the city. He lived alone in a loft in the Lower East Side. She lived (temporarily) with a rich girlfriend she'd gone to elementary school with...
TO BE CONTINUED...
-b.
He was writing. She was reading. They were both Libras. Both under 30. Both lived way downtown and had faced the cold for some Central Park winter inspiration.
Her gloved fingers could turn the pages of her book, while his bare hands were frozen around his pen. They traded. Gloves for a scarf. They forgot to trade back later that afternoon. Each still keeps the other's article of winter clothing as a memento dear to their hearts.
She was reading a Russian novel of love & betrayal. He was writing a story of lust and mystery.
They began talking. They both hated math, loved the ocean, had never been to Australia (though his "Aussie" accent sounded quite real) and they were both attending college in the city. He lived alone in a loft in the Lower East Side. She lived (temporarily) with a rich girlfriend she'd gone to elementary school with...
TO BE CONTINUED...
-b.
Echo.
06.11.08
His hoodie was Ecko (presumably). It was an inky black with thick white stitching around the hood. It hid his athletic frame, although making him look bigger than he actually was. His complexion was olive - either European or South American. He wore jeans and a brightly-colored pair of sneakers that had only been released in a small number. Less than 450 pairs had been made by a combination of the two most creative minds in the sneaker industry.
He did a double-take as he saw the chick he'd come for pass right by him on the sidewalk. "This is highly unusual," he thought to himself. He wondered anxiously if the situation he'd just encountered was another one of those damned coincidences that seemed intent on driving him nuts.
"Coincidences? God-sends? Warnings? A figment of my imagination?" he went through the various possibilities in his mind like a revolving door. He wished to God that his father was still alive.
He'd have had the right answers. Though the father/son relationship was particularly curious, the young man had come to rely on his old man's input, advice, words of wisdom, utter wit. His father; his best friend - gone before the relationship he'd belatedly fostered had a chance to evolve to a full-bloom.
A tear made its way down his cheek. His tattooed hand flicked it away quickly, before it had a chance to shatter his manly facade. There was a word that described the man's personality with pure clarity: machismo. He defined the word.
He decided then and there to take off running from this f**ked up situation, leaving the (actually) innocent girl to live her life. He knew where he was headed and knew, instinctively, that he'd be left alone there.
"Potential get-out-of-jail-free card situation," he thought to himself. "Peace out, Chi-Town."
He smiled while walking out on both the city and his cantakerous career.
-b.
His hoodie was Ecko (presumably). It was an inky black with thick white stitching around the hood. It hid his athletic frame, although making him look bigger than he actually was. His complexion was olive - either European or South American. He wore jeans and a brightly-colored pair of sneakers that had only been released in a small number. Less than 450 pairs had been made by a combination of the two most creative minds in the sneaker industry.
He did a double-take as he saw the chick he'd come for pass right by him on the sidewalk. "This is highly unusual," he thought to himself. He wondered anxiously if the situation he'd just encountered was another one of those damned coincidences that seemed intent on driving him nuts.
"Coincidences? God-sends? Warnings? A figment of my imagination?" he went through the various possibilities in his mind like a revolving door. He wished to God that his father was still alive.
He'd have had the right answers. Though the father/son relationship was particularly curious, the young man had come to rely on his old man's input, advice, words of wisdom, utter wit. His father; his best friend - gone before the relationship he'd belatedly fostered had a chance to evolve to a full-bloom.
A tear made its way down his cheek. His tattooed hand flicked it away quickly, before it had a chance to shatter his manly facade. There was a word that described the man's personality with pure clarity: machismo. He defined the word.
He decided then and there to take off running from this f**ked up situation, leaving the (actually) innocent girl to live her life. He knew where he was headed and knew, instinctively, that he'd be left alone there.
"Potential get-out-of-jail-free card situation," he thought to himself. "Peace out, Chi-Town."
He smiled while walking out on both the city and his cantakerous career.
-b.
Are we here to test each other?
They sat in disgruntled, yet startled frustration. They didn't understand. They thought they knew the job they felt responsible for. In fact, they had no idea. They felt like amateurs, not the geniuses they once thought themselves. The only problem was they were too foolish to admit it to themselves, let alone to each other.
-b.
-b.
"please put your seats and tray tables in their locked and upright position"
7.29.09
11:30 pm
11:30 pm
He whispered in her ear and she nodded. Her cheeks reddened. He made her feel absolutely divine. She pulled on her North Face fleece vest and he tied up his boots. She pulled her hair up and he escorted her out of their cabin. They were on their way to their favorite place in the woods. It was a short hike to the most beautiful waterfall either one had ever set their sights on. There was green algae growing on the rocks. He took her hand. They sat on their favorite log. He fiddled with his wife's wedding ring.
"Let's do it," she said. "Let's go to India!"
No Warmth In The Wintertime
- No Warmth In The Wintertime -
She stood in the darkest shadows in the bathroom late that evening. An evening that would go on to haunt her...but far worse would be the effect on the ones more closely involved. The nameless, faceless ones that would come to fill her life & her dreams with a horror she'd never have a chance to fully come to terms with...but a fear that would fuel the fire; sparking her inner survivor. A part of her personality she'd never even knew existed, a strength that would prove to pull her through the darkest nights, toughest days & an increasingly painful existence. She'd long preserved this part of her, solely to pull her out of the perils she foresaw - and to help her help those that weren't aware...didn't even have a clue as to what happens when people stop being nice (read: humane) and start being real (read: intolerable cruelty inflicted by those afflicted with a need for control, a lust for money, a deep-rooted desire for power and seeming lack of conscience).
Waves of terror smashed through the curiosity garnered earlier that Thursday. She sat, ears perked, shoulders hunched just below the open window...
She tried to listen through the scratching of the leafless tree limbs against the open pane for - what she could have sworn - was the sound of a close yet distant drill pushing through the siding of her home: 4 distinct & eerie sounds slicing through the night air.
She sat amidst the shadows for hours that night. She nervously moved to almost every corner of the room, spooked by the echoes of the outdoors & finding comfort within the shadows of the room, straining to hear the mechanical sounds again.
When she finally found the courage to peek through the window screen, she saw nothing but a glowing moon. Terror continued to course through her veins. Her instinct had each nerve standing on edge. Something was not right. Something was very, very wrong.
She'd never felt this way before. The terror was different than her childish fear of the dark. It echoed through her soul, leaving her short of breath and shivering. Her entire body trembled.
Her gazed crossed Larchmont, down in the direction of New Rochelle and further still - New York City.
At the time she had yet to comprehend what she was looking at...or for...that rainy night.
As Thursday turned into Friday, she eventually stopped trembling & the panicked terror eased.
She spent all day Friday wondering what exactly she'd encountered the previous night. She'd never felt like that before. The experience was a unique one and she didn't have words to describe the emotional roller coaster she'd unintentionally boarded that Thursday night. A ride that, it turns out, wouldn't come to a halt for years afterward.
She sensed her premonition had something to do with the somewhat controversial information she'd become privy to after spending at least a month as a library assistant for a law firm.
From Day One, her intuition seemed to have been awakened on some level, evoking an almost fight-or-flight response. Once her heightened intuition had surfaced, she foolishly fought to ignore too many gut feelings. She naively thought that by stamping out her intuition, she could ignore whatever it was that was nagging at her. It didn't occur to her that her intuition would become the most efficient tool in her intellectual arsenal.
However, she had been unable to ignore the previous night. Fear: Pure & Raw. Where the feeling came from, she wasn't sure. Not at the beginning, anyway. For some reason, she knew it wasn't the future of her own fate she feared, rather something told her it would come to affect a colleague she'd just started working with.
"It's Lee!" she thought to herself. "I know last night's episode was all about Lee! And I'm scared for Lee in a way I've never felt. Utterly helpless & frightened beyond belief," she noted to herself.
She spent much of Friday considering whether or not she should tell her boss about her fateful premonition. Literally, she agnonized for 8 hours straight about what to do...She had just scored the job and didn't want to come off as some crazy girl fresh out of the college dorms...nor did she want to scare Lee into cardiac arrest.
As the clock drew closer to the end of the work day, she closed her eyes & inhaled slowly. She knew what she had to do.
by: me
She stood in the darkest shadows in the bathroom late that evening. An evening that would go on to haunt her...but far worse would be the effect on the ones more closely involved. The nameless, faceless ones that would come to fill her life & her dreams with a horror she'd never have a chance to fully come to terms with...but a fear that would fuel the fire; sparking her inner survivor. A part of her personality she'd never even knew existed, a strength that would prove to pull her through the darkest nights, toughest days & an increasingly painful existence. She'd long preserved this part of her, solely to pull her out of the perils she foresaw - and to help her help those that weren't aware...didn't even have a clue as to what happens when people stop being nice (read: humane) and start being real (read: intolerable cruelty inflicted by those afflicted with a need for control, a lust for money, a deep-rooted desire for power and seeming lack of conscience).
Waves of terror smashed through the curiosity garnered earlier that Thursday. She sat, ears perked, shoulders hunched just below the open window...
She tried to listen through the scratching of the leafless tree limbs against the open pane for - what she could have sworn - was the sound of a close yet distant drill pushing through the siding of her home: 4 distinct & eerie sounds slicing through the night air.
She sat amidst the shadows for hours that night. She nervously moved to almost every corner of the room, spooked by the echoes of the outdoors & finding comfort within the shadows of the room, straining to hear the mechanical sounds again.
When she finally found the courage to peek through the window screen, she saw nothing but a glowing moon. Terror continued to course through her veins. Her instinct had each nerve standing on edge. Something was not right. Something was very, very wrong.
She'd never felt this way before. The terror was different than her childish fear of the dark. It echoed through her soul, leaving her short of breath and shivering. Her entire body trembled.
Her gazed crossed Larchmont, down in the direction of New Rochelle and further still - New York City.
At the time she had yet to comprehend what she was looking at...or for...that rainy night.
As Thursday turned into Friday, she eventually stopped trembling & the panicked terror eased.
She spent all day Friday wondering what exactly she'd encountered the previous night. She'd never felt like that before. The experience was a unique one and she didn't have words to describe the emotional roller coaster she'd unintentionally boarded that Thursday night. A ride that, it turns out, wouldn't come to a halt for years afterward.
She sensed her premonition had something to do with the somewhat controversial information she'd become privy to after spending at least a month as a library assistant for a law firm.
From Day One, her intuition seemed to have been awakened on some level, evoking an almost fight-or-flight response. Once her heightened intuition had surfaced, she foolishly fought to ignore too many gut feelings. She naively thought that by stamping out her intuition, she could ignore whatever it was that was nagging at her. It didn't occur to her that her intuition would become the most efficient tool in her intellectual arsenal.
However, she had been unable to ignore the previous night. Fear: Pure & Raw. Where the feeling came from, she wasn't sure. Not at the beginning, anyway. For some reason, she knew it wasn't the future of her own fate she feared, rather something told her it would come to affect a colleague she'd just started working with.
"It's Lee!" she thought to herself. "I know last night's episode was all about Lee! And I'm scared for Lee in a way I've never felt. Utterly helpless & frightened beyond belief," she noted to herself.
She spent much of Friday considering whether or not she should tell her boss about her fateful premonition. Literally, she agnonized for 8 hours straight about what to do...She had just scored the job and didn't want to come off as some crazy girl fresh out of the college dorms...nor did she want to scare Lee into cardiac arrest.
As the clock drew closer to the end of the work day, she closed her eyes & inhaled slowly. She knew what she had to do.
"Lee..." she started.
"Yes? Can I help you?
"Lee, I had a really bad feeling last night & um..well...um...this might sound weird, but can you please just make sure you lock all of your doors and windows this weekend?" she blurted out after having spent 8 hours weighing the potential outcome of this situation.
"Yes, I will," Lee responded non-chalantly, as though the young girls request was hardly a strange one.
She dropped her jaw in shock. Maybe she'd been too late to be of any help. Maybe Lee was covering something up.
She desperately wanted to explain the nature of this situation, which she assumed had to do with her recent research, but the old bat hadn't batted an eye...or the e-quivalent, during their Instant Message conversation.
So, what could she do? Hopefully she wouldn't arrive to work Monday morning to find out Lee had in fact been in danger.
This time would be different, the girl feared. It wouldn't be a broken shinbone or a fractured ankle.
For some reason, the word collarbone came to mind. She couldn't shake it. She would pray for her faceless boss. She'd pray for the voice at the other end of the phone line...the fingers communicating with her via IM. She'd have to pray hard. Harder than ever before. She just wished she knew exactly what it is she should pray for. Had she known what was to come, she'd have kept mum in the first place. What was coming would echo across the generations.
The End.
by: bary
Got Jokes?
"An old man is sitting on a park bench across from a little boy, watching him eat candy bar after candy bar. The old man says to the little boy," Son didn't anybody ever tell you that it's not healthy to eat so much candy?" The little boy looks at the old man and says, "Mister, my grandmother lived to 103 and my grandfather lived to 105. The old man asks, "What, from eating candy bars?" The boy said, "From minding their own goddamn business."
Quotes of the day.
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance,
but to do what lies clearly at hand."
-Thomas Carlyle
-Thomas Carlyle
---------------------------------------
"Good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension & nervous breakdown."
- Dale Carnegie
------------------------------------------
"Every girl needs a best friend."
- Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic & Sister
"Every girl needs a best friend."
- Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic & Sister
-----------------------------------
"If I die, the truth will be lost forever."
- Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code
"If I die, the truth will be lost forever."
- Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code
--------------------------------------
"People will do anything to survive."
- Steve Buscemi, The Island
"People will do anything to survive."
- Steve Buscemi, The Island
------------------------------------------
"There is a hunger associated with pain when you look at someone you used to love, and enjoyed loving and want to love again...though you know you can't."
- Nikki Giovanni
"There is a hunger associated with pain when you look at someone you used to love, and enjoyed loving and want to love again...though you know you can't."
- Nikki Giovanni
---------------------------------------
"I was 38 at the time. As the saying goes, if I'd known I was going to
"I was 38 at the time. As the saying goes, if I'd known I was going to
live that long, I would have taken better care of myself."
- James Patterson, Along Came A Spider
- James Patterson, Along Came A Spider
------------------------------------------------
"The truth is fleeting when you are competing with the devil
in disguise, who paints pictures of hope & love with lies."
- as axiom by Sarah Sparkles
----------------------------------------
"I'm paralyzed here! I'm a f**king amputee!!"
- Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
----------------------------------
"Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That's the Government's job."
- V For Vendetta
-----------------------------------
"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing."
- Kingsley Amis
-----------------------------------------
"Some people have no sense of metaphor!"
- Ani DiFranco
------------------------------------
"My motherf**king brain is IBM-compatible"
- Xzibit
------------------------------
"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do."
- Apple Computer TV Ad
----------------------------------
"One never knows what will happen if things are suddenly changed. But do we know what will happen if they are not changed?"
- Elias Canetti
-------------------------------
"Courage is to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends."
- Euripides
---------------------------------
"Never have so many been manipulated by so few."
- Elbert Hubbard
------------------------------------------
"Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt at being told that it is a fragment awaiting perfection."
------------------------------------------
"Beware the fury of a patient man."
- John Dryden
-----------------------------------
"You don't realize you're intelligent until it gets you in trouble."
- James Baldwin
------------------------------------
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all."
- George S. Patton
"Never underestimate those that you scar, cuz karma, karma, karma comes back to you hard."
- Lauryn Hill
"We are not humans on a spiritual journey, we are spirits on a human journey."
"The chances are one in a million and you can call me brilliance if I succeed."
- Ani DiFranco
"There's so many people who have turned out their porch lights, just so I would think they were not home, and hid in the darkness of their windows until I passed and left them alone."
- Ani DiFranco
"Nowadays gettin by is nothin more than an occassional meal and gettin high."
- DMX
"The point in history at which we stand is full of promise & danger. The world will either move toward unity & widely shared prosperity or it will move apart into necessary competetive economic blocs. We have a chance, we citizens of the United States, to use our influence in favor of a more united & cooperative world. Whether we do so will determine, as for as it is in our power, the kind of lives our grandchildren can live."
- F.D.R.
"Caesar's wife should be above reproach."
- Mark Hachman(my ex-editor), speaking to me via IM
"TV is, after all, the modern day roman coliseum; human devestation as mass entertainment. And now millions are jeering, collectively cheering, the bloodthirsty hierarchy of the patriarchal arrangement..."
- Ani DiFranco
"Heads you live, tails you die."
- Kiera Knightly, Domino
"We laugh to survive."
"...I climbed that road to your empty house, the anticipation was a turn-on...but you let me down. Cuz I stood on that empty stoop alone, I said 'I'm ready for my close-up now Mr DeMille,' I waited for the light but it never shone...
...and I wonder what you'll do with that expensive piece of land that overlooks a billion years of history - I have a sneaking suspicion you will never understand."
- Poe (songstress, not poet)
"...I hope you can't sleep and when you sleep I hope that you can't dream and when you dream I hope that you wake up screaming about me. I hope your conscience eats at you and you cant breathe without me."
-Eminem
"Once you've lost everything, you can do anything."
-Fight Club
"Because I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands & say 'this has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can'."
- Ani DiFranco
"1,600 scientists, including the majority of living Nobel Prize winners in the sciences have unanimously agreed on the following public warning:
'A great change in the stewardship of this earth
and the life on it is needed, if great human
suffering is to be avoided and life on this planet
is to be irretrievably mutilated.'
Similarly, a group of economists came to the same conclusion in 1997."
-The Future of Money
"What would you do if you had something [deadly] important to tell someone and you knew there's no way they'd believe you?"
-Deja Vu
"...He accepted the laughter and derision...with an embarassed charm and a touchingly astonished grace."
"Bill Gates says 'wait till you see what your computer can become.' But it's you who should be doing the becoming, not the damn fool computer...What you can become is the miracle you were born to be through the work that you do."
- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country
-------------------------------------------------
"Two eyes, only one gaze
hunger burns like fire.
Do you remember?"
---------------------------------------------------
"A great man once said that right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
- Kit Snicket, Lemony Snicket's The Pentultimate Peril
"He was crippled, but only his body was cracked. 'It's not simple, nor is it an easy matter to explain. Let's just leave it at that,' she says...and closes the holy book of lies. She covers her eyes, denying to herself what she thought happened."
- Thirteen
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While these tears are mine to weep,
they're mostly not for me.
They're mostly for my disappointment in humanity.
I'm just waiting for the world to catch up.
by: me
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Definition:
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility."
"You can spot a bad critic when he starts by discussing the poet & not the poem."
- Ezra Pound
"Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin."
- Willa Cather
"History is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privileges to leadership."
- E. Digby Baltzell
"The little girl saw her 1st troop parade and asked
'what are those?'
'soldiers.'
'what are they for?'
'they are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other as he can.'
The girl held still and studied...
'Do you know...I know something."
'Yes, what is it you know?'
'Some time they'll have a war and nobody will come."
- Carl Sandburg
"The sword of war comes to the world for the delay of justice."
- Jonathan Kellerman, The Conspiracy Club
Just A Few Lessons On Life
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you're sick. Your friends & family will. Stay in touch.
5. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree
6. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
7. It's okay to get angry with God. (S)he can take it.
8. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
9. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
10. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry, God never blinks.
11. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
12. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
13. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
14. What other people think of you is none of your business.
15. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
16. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
17. Believe in Miracles.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you're sick. Your friends & family will. Stay in touch.
5. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree
6. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
7. It's okay to get angry with God. (S)he can take it.
8. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
9. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
10. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry, God never blinks.
11. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
12. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
13. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
14. What other people think of you is none of your business.
15. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
16. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
17. Believe in Miracles.
Quote - for the rough days.
"Suicide is not chosen;
it happens when pain exceeds resources
for coping with pain."
let that one marinate...
Monday, January 25, 2010
An Issue You Should Know About. Seriously.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1930598,00.asp
By: Me and my ex-editor.
V-Chip 2.0 Turns On In March
By: Me and my ex-editor.
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