exciting, informative, snarky, and very likely fabricated tales of life as an american expat in london

more rage

by J at 4:04 pm on 4.09.2005 | 2 Comments
filed under: rant and rage

whoa. Louisiana state senator accuses bush of faking levee repairs for a photo op

this goes beyond incompetence. this is criminal.

there are very few people i truly hate. but this president has, in the 5 years he’s been in office, taken me from white-hot fury to the depths of despair more times than i can count now. i have long since run out of words to describe the intensity of emotion i feel at the way my country, my countrymen have been run into the ground. i have tried numerous times, to adequately depict my loathing and utter contempt and rampant anger at the sins he has committed against other countries and their people. i have always come up short.

but the failure is one of language. there simply is no vocabulary yet invented which encompasses the breadth of what I feel. if there were a word which meant “more than irate hatred and bilious disgust” that would be what i would say. and i would say it ceaselessly, unendingly, until he died. then i would dance on his grave with joy.

hundreds, if not thousands, of americans died like stray dogs in the street. babies died from lack of water. people were left to rot nameless and unclothed in gutters of waste.

because of *him*. he had the personal power to save them. he’s finally decided to rescue the last survivors in a great show of bravado. like magic, troops and food and water and boats and helicopters have appeared en masse.

i wonder how i would feel if my survival came down to praying to george w. bush for help?

i hold him personally responsible for every single one of those deaths. every baby that died of dehydration. every man woman and child who died hoping the president would save them.

there’s a word for people without a conscience: sociopath. i would ask bush how he sleeps at night knowing those americans died on his doorstep, on his watch, on his say-so… but I already know he couldn’t care less.

may you rot eternally in hell, you evil mutherfucker.

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desperation

by J at 4:02 pm on 2.09.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

new orleans mayor pleads for assistance, lashes out at what his city has been reduced to.

…they’re feeding the public a line of bull and they’re spinning, and people are dying down here

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overflow

by J at 4:00 pm on Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

I’ve reached my limit.

there is only so much horror and loss and desperation and fear i can absorb.

it makes me feel so helplessly panicked inside. yet i can’t ignore it the way other people can. other people can turn their heads and hearts away. they can read it or see it on the news, then simply turn off the television and go to bed. me: i see people suffering and i get that fight-or-flight response. but i have nothing to fight with, and i can’t run away. so it just sits there like an aching heavy stone in my stomach.

fury blinds me.

i’ve reached my limit, and now i’m spilling over.

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Racial profiling on the tube

by J at 11:04 pm on 2.08.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

any of you who know me, know that I can’t even begin to tell you how irate this makes me. foaming at the mouth *mad*.

what I don’t understand is why there is not more *fucking outrage* over here!?

i think the brits lay down for far too much intrusion and invasion by their government, and i really can’t understand it.

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my neighbourhood – officially dodgy

by J at 5:34 pm on 28.07.2005 | 1 Comment
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

Lordy.

Garratt Terrace is a little side street around the corner from my house that we use to cut through to the High St and Tube station – walk up and down it a minimum of 2x a day, sometimes more. It’s not even a half a block away from my house.

This morning, on my way to the Tube, it was blocked off from end to end with police tape and about 40 police there… And then I read this. My work colleague confirmed that one of the arrests took place there, and another just around the corner.

This is getting really freaky now. It’s one thing when the terrorists are “somewhere else”, but when they’re right around the corner from my house…taking busses on my street… using my daily Tube station… when I am carrying my groceries past terrorist hideouts – well it’s all just a little surreal now.

walking home, there are all kinds of tv cameras up and down the street. it’s all very unnerving.

in other news, Senator rick santorum, the third ranking party republican and potential prez. nominee for 2008 – the same senator who equated homosexuality with man-on-child and man-on-dog sex, said that boston’s “liberal” atmosphere made priests molest children, and equated democratic blocking of judicial nominees with adolf hitler - has decided he’s sticking to his guns. no wishy-washy backpeddling for him, nosiree!

read what my journalist friend mike blanding has to say about the illustrious senator

i’m going to go hide under my bedcovers now…

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roll with the punches

by J at 6:38 pm on 22.07.2005Comments Off
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

it just keeps coming, doesn’t it?

I had a meeting first thing this morning out in west norwood. i was definitely on edge getting back on the tube, but arrived at my meeting feeling much better. on my way back from the meeting, i am waiting, waiting, waiting for the overland train, and they keep saying “cancelled”, so i call the office and they tell me that a suspected suicide bomber was killed by police in a tube station, shutting down half the system, again.

Never thought I’d be relieved to heard about someone getting killed… Never though I’d be coming down on the side of “justifiable deadly force” by a police officer.

finally made it to the office by bus. then had to get home by bus. sitting at the top, i was impossible not to look around at my fellow travellers, eyeing them up.

it has been a long and tiring week, my nerves are frayed, and i am going to go have a tall stiff drink.

have a good weekend everyone. be safe.

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panic stations

by J at 9:29 pm on 21.07.2005Comments Off
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

I can’t deal with any more panic stations…

Seriously, now. I’ve had enough. I’m tired of getting that sickening, sinking feeling in my stomach wondering what the fuck is happening to the world, who is trying to hurt people, and who is getting hurt.

I am tired, and angry that people can make me feel like this. I hate the fact they can pop my happy little bubble in an instant, and make me cry for no reason.

I am tired of having to make phone calls to ensure my loved ones are okay, and to ensure them that *I’m* okay.

I’m ranting here. But I was panicked, and then relieved, and now I’m furious and exhausted at the same time, and there is *nothing i can do about it********

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live through this

by J at 9:37 am on 8.07.2005Comments Off
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

observations:

the british stiff upper lip really comes in handy at a time like this. most of the reaction i’ve read can be summed up as “is that the best you can do? i fart in your general direction.”

cheers for getting the tube and buses running again. but most people I know want nothing to do with them today. myself included. My manager decided we could all work from home today, and even though it seems pathetic, that’s what I’m doing. i see no need to stress myself unnecessarily with trying to take the tube.

very strange how everything is supposedly “back to normal”. as if nothing of note happened. it’s almost a little *too* normal. i mean, jesus, we were bombed by terrorists, not sneezed on. I think that deserves some pause for thought.

the choice of targets seems a bit strange to me. while king’s cross, liverpool and the others are all big central stations, why nothing at victoria, waterloo, or clapham junction?

but i suppose life doesn’t stop for anything, so we might as well just get on with getting on.

so that’s what I’ll go do now.

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the aftermath

by J at 8:13 am on Comments Off
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

it’s such a strange feeling: to have something so big happen, and have so very little to say about it. in many ways, i feel very numb. i’ve expected something like this to happen since i moved here, and to find it finally happening before my very eyes feels almost anti-climactic. there’s a sense of “oh yeah, that’s what i thought.”

i’m not putting this very well.

instead, i think what i originally wrote about the madrid bombings is very poignant in hindsight, so i’ll just reprise it here:

I’m scared. I’m scared and so deeply deeply sad for the fathomless capacity of man’s inhumanity toward man. There no longer seem to be any limits to what we will do to each other, in a time when causing pervasive fear and random chaos has become the ultimate tool of any group with a political agenda or an axe to grind. In a climate where recognition and respect for an otherwise fringe cause is proportional to the size of the violence it can perpetrate.

it makes sense when you apply it to al qaida or eta or the ira. but try it on for size with bush and israel and zimbabwe, and see whether the shoe fits as well?

and I am so fcking *mad* with the u.s. we pay all sorts of lip service to wiping out global terrorism, and yet constantly, insistently perpetuate it through our actions, leaving people bewildered as to why our “war on terrorism” is so clearly *not working*, failing massively, in fact, and at a mind-numbing loss as for what other approach to take. we don’t know any other way of thinking about it.

i don’t know how to live in this kind of world. *no one* knows how to live in this kind of world. and that’s why the strategy of fear is so effective. that’s why walking down the street in a major metropolitan city feels like being at the center of a giant bullseye. that’s why daily goddamn news reports of suicide bombers and masses of civilians dying barely register a blip on our mental radar. that’s why it’s so hard to remember that we didn’t always have that small permanent gnawing knot at the pit of our collective stomach.

there’s got to be another way to live. it’s just a matter of how long it will take people to wake up and cry out for something more than *this*…

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hitting home

by J at 5:16 pm on 7.07.2005Comments Off
filed under: londonlife, rant and rage

london was bombed by terrorists today. it’s been a surreal and scary day, with overtones of deja vu. there was crying and sadness and fear and chaos and sirens everywhere. i don’t really know what else to say about it at the moment, because it’s hard to process. right now, i just want j to be home, but unfortunately with transport at a standstill, it looks like he’s going to have to walk the 8 miles so won’t get home until late.

i can’t wait to see him and hold him tight.

it’s a crazy fucked up world.

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what a goddamn suck-ass week

by J at 7:17 pm on 1.07.2005Comments Off
filed under: like a fish needs a bicycle, rant and rage

In the states at the moment, but am well and truly pissed off.

O’Connor resigns: goodbye legalised abortion. As the key swing vote on upholding a woman’s right to choose, I predict dire days ahead for women’s rights in the u.s.fucking-a. I can’r even put words to my fears.

zimbabwe continues to steamroll people – literally. and south africa won’t take a stand. this is not because they agree with what’s happening, but more because they are afraid to undermine any political pull they might have with mugabe, by being seen as a puppet of western coutries. in the meantime, they continue to provide massive amounts of zimbabwe’s electricty, yet refuse to consider using that as leverage to bring about change. primarily, because they fear the potential for a destabilising civil war, and the implications for s.a. as their neighbour. this article is spot on

right, going back to trying to enjoy my holiday now… where are those earplugs and blindfold?

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reason number 743866 the u.s. sucks sweaty dirty donkey balls

by J at 9:32 pm on 17.05.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

nice. federalized national id cards. fuck fuck fuckety fuck. because i trust the government with my personal information about as far as i can throw george bush. and it’s gotten almost no coverage whatsoever in the press, as it was passed on the back of an “emergency spending bill”. of all the sneaky dirty low-down tricks. this homeland security shit is spiralling out of control like a wild carnival ride, and i am powerless to stop it. we are powerless to stop it. it’s all done and dusted.

of all the 9/11 effects, the acts that day basically started in motion a chain of events designed to strip ordinary american citizens of their right to privacy. i cannot and will not live in a culture of personal invasion and fear tactics. where’s the difference between the u.s. and the dictatorships we so revile?

read what i am so het up about here

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i read the news today, oh boy

by J at 6:27 pm on 11.05.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

i read a lot of news. the thing is, often i come across stuff that i just can’t process. i don’t know what to think, or how to feel. it’s easy when i’m outraged, or sad, or gloriously happy. but there’s life in this world that just makes me feel all mixed up inside. where i know i *should* feel outraged, or sad, or gloriously happy, but instead, it just all washes over me in a confusing wave.

african widows’ “cleansing” ritual in the shadow of the aids epidemic

“Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband’s funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband’s relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. “

the horrifying photo which captured the vietnam war

“Even now I call her once a week – she lives in Toronto, Canada. We are like a family now.”

south africa – democracy ten years in

“It’s an old truism that South Africa is a land of two realities. It has never been more than a short drive from lush gardens and shopping malls to tin shanties and open sewers. Today, the contrast remains blatant…”

And specially for J: see, government *is* the people, and we are the government. the problems inherent in government are not the result of some externally imposed evil. the problem is us. we impose them. and if our governments are too often tools of oppression and corruption which kill and starve, they are equally a symbol of hope. they *can* change, because we can change them. we can change ourselves. power to the people, man.

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as if you didn’t already know

by J at 5:45 pm on 6.05.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

more proof the us is going to hell in a handbasket:

evolution is overrated. I won’t even show this to j – we disagree on the whole descended from apes thingy (and you already know which side of the fence *i’m* on)

texas thinks being gay makes you evil and dirty and unfit to be a parent.

“Republican State Rep. Robert Talton of Pasadena, a Houston suburb, sponsored the amendment because he thinks children raised by homosexual foster parents were more likely to be gay.

“There’s a risk that more of the children will go into homosexuality because it’s a cultivated and learned behavior,” he told reporters.

Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, praised Talton’s amendment.

“This is in the best interest of the children. Anyone can see that a child is better served by having a male and female role model,” she said.

Adams said children cared for by homosexuals were more likely to be sexually molested. And she agreed with Talton they were more likely to become homosexual.

“Homosexuals cannot procreate, so they recruit,” she said. “

Where do they *find* these people? in caves? under really big rocks? somewhere in the vicinity of nuclear fallout???

bah – it’s friday, I can’t even bother to waste the energy on a spleen vent. besides, there’s positivity here about a lesbian couple who’ve fostered 80 kids. So go read that instead, and get a nice warm fuzzy for the weekend…

enjoy y’all!

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the good, the bad, and the ugly

by J at 6:54 pm on 28.04.2005Comments Off
filed under: like a fish needs a bicycle, rant and rage

feckin’ hell!

Now lollapalooza was the shit, back in the early 90’s. those of us old enough to attend when it was actually cool (rollins band, nirvana, NIN, jane’s addiction, rage, primus) are now edging into the mid 30s. however towards the late 90s, it was pretty much a teen-fest worthy of/subject to much derision (A perfect circle?!?!). You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who got pierced at lollapalooza. last year, it collapsed due to lack of interest.

but this year, it’s back with a fucking bang – it looks like they’ve gone back to their core audience (y’know, the 30 somethings with cash). the lineup includes:

pixies
weezer
dinosaur jr
cake
dashboard confessional
death cab for cutie
liz phair
g.love and special sauce
and you will know us by the trail of dead
widespread panic
the arcade fire

i’d give my left nut to be there (okay, fair enough, i don’t actually *have* nuts… but i’d donate something pretty important. a spleen perhaps?)

on a less amusing note: republicans once again making life difficult for girls. In this farcically shortsighted episode, they take aim at teen girls crossing state lines to get abortions without parental consent. it never occurs to this misogynistic group of white numbnut baldies that if a girl is ready to trek across the border to get an abortion, there must be some pretty hefty reasons she can’t do it at home. parental abuse/incest, religious fanaticism, fear of being kicked out, etc. whatever the reason, if a girl is willing to go to those lengths to avoid telling her parents, it’s generally because doing so is a *more horrific* option than going through the incredible fear/deception/expense of having an abortion alone in a strange state. so instead, the alternative is to basically force girls to endure whatever abuse or consequences telling their parents brings, and, if their parents refuse to consent, to carry the pregnanancy to full term, then a) giving the baby up (where the vast majority of children then spend 18 years in foster care being bounced around the system like stray dogs, then turned loose without any family, home, or resources, often leading to crime/drug abuse/homelessness**see below), or likely dropping out of school (so the mother has few employment options, is often dependent on benefits or living below the poverty level, is much more likely to end up in abusive relationships, and has less maturity and experience to bring up a child she didn’t want in the first place). *these* are seen as preferable options?!?!?

sometimes i feel like just walking around washington with a big 2×4 and smashing every morally superior white male i see. if men could get pregnant, there would be no abortion debate, and that’s a fact, jack.

that is why i will always vociferously, staunchly, passionately, ragefully fight for abortion rights.

**tangentially…to all these fucking pro-life crazies: adoption is not the answer.

these statistics make me so mad, i am shaking:

– There are approximately 520,000 children currently in foster care in the United States. Of these, 117,000 are eligible for adoption. (US HHS, 2000)

– only 20,000 children were adopted in 1995. (US HHS, 1997)

– 27% of children in foster care spend 5 years or more. (US HHS, 2000)

– After aging out of foster care, 27% of males and 10% of females were incarcerated within 12 to 18 months. 50% were unemployed, 37% had not finished high school, 33% received public assistance, and 19% of females had given birth to children. Before leaving care, 47 percent were receiving some kind of counseling or medication for mental health problems; that number dropped to 21% after leaving care. (Courtney and Piliavin, 1998)

in other words, we fuck up these children’s lives, scar them permanently, and then wonder why they get pregnant/addicted/incarcerated. do you see the circle!!!??

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can I just say this about that?

by J at 8:04 pm on 26.04.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

… can I just say, I am tired of the fact that all my friends with kids never bother to keep in touch anymore? because god forbid, my life should revolve around something besides pablum and diaper-genies.

…can i just say, how tired I am of getting dumped on at work? sure, i’ll take that new post. no, no, don’t bother re-assigning any of my other responsibilities, i’ll just do the work of two people, for the salary of half.

…can I just say, how tired I am of the post office fucking with my dvd deliveries? i don’t care how sad it is, i look forward to coming home and relaxing with sam, toby, leo, jeb, cj, and charlie, even if they are just characters on the “west wing”. screenselect is gonna revoke my membership pretty soon, all because the post office can’t keep from losing the “frasier” i sent back more than a week ago.

…can i just say, how sick to fucking death i am of waking up in the morning and saying, “goody! another rainy day! cause I can’t get enough of that!”, then getting to work with sweat running down the crack of my ass, because it started out freezing, then switched to early summer, somewhere around noon?

…can i just say, how much I hate the fact that i can sleep through *3* alarms, and then have to run around, completely discombobulated and pretending to function until 11 am without any caffeine?

…can I just say, how much I hate this shit-brown text colour, and I don’t give a flying fig how “readable” it is or isn’t, I am changing it, full stop, end of story. suffer in silence.

…can i just say, who on god’s green earth cares what the hell gwynneth paltrow has to say about the state of the world? the woman doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. she named her daughter apple. that’s all anyone need’s to know about gwynneth’s world.

…can I just say, the us wouldn’t need so much flippin’ oil if every billy bob joe and amber didn’t drive tank sized pickups and “family” suv’s, which the self-same president helps subsidize through tax incentives! there, i said it. curse me, revile me, i don’t care. life will go on if you don’t pack three strollers in the trunk every time you take baby emma madison out to costco for pallets of disposable nappies.

…can i just say, first cooper minis, now vespas – the newest fad in urban america. though given the rant above, I suppose I should be happy americans are trying to be more european. too bad I don’t think anyone’s actually *trading in* their oh-so-necessary escalades, for scooters. related: the death of the smart car?

anyway, I’m just getting myself more wound up. as you may have guessed from the above, I’m having a very bad day, so i’m going to stop there, go have a bottle of wine or four, and hope that, in the immortal words of that psychotically cheery little orphan, “the sun will come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar…”

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a banner week for the good old u.s. of a.

by J at 7:25 pm on 15.04.2005Comments Off
filed under: like a fish needs a bicycle, rant and rage

The US seems to just become a more and more hostile place for women under the current administration. Pharmacists apparently have the right to not dispense birth control based on their religious beliefs. Isn’t that a little like signing up for the army and then refusing to shoot a gun? Would they to refuse to sell condoms to a man? They elected to work in this profession – you cannot then pick and choose which parts you want to do. You’re choice of employment does not give you the right to pass moral judgement on those seeking medication. In any other job, they would be fired. But in the current “culture of life” bush purports to encourage, they are supported by millions of right-wing pro-life voters, whose elected officials play slave to their whip. It’s disgusting and abhorrent, and they should all go become pharmacists at the Vatican. fucking moral majority.

in further police state developments, if you didn’t read about the volunteer “minutemen” patrolling our border and keeping our homeland safe from boogeymen, here’s some patriotic pics of them in action, guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings. I particularly like the one called “spotters”. get a gander at the license plate.

Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, a supporter of tougher border enforcement, praised the group, telling them: “You are not vigilantes, you are heroes in my book.”

ready to sign up? they’re looking for recruits.

fucking redneck xenophobes.

and to everyone’s delight, bush has nominated an ambassador to the U.n. who thinks that the u.n. “is valuable only when it directly serves the United States” , and a director of national intelligence who undermined central american peace and promoted the war against the sandinistas. meanwhile, His deputy wants to make sure the intelligence agencies “push right up to that line” under privacy laws.

“We all know that the enemy may be inside the gates and that Job 1 is to defend the homeland,” General Hayden said in an opening statement. “But we’re also to ensure the privacy rights of our citizens…”

like we believe that.

fucking bush cronies. fucking bush, for that matter.

as his good deed for the day, bush want to clean up baseball. because that’s not our esteemed pot-president calling the kettle black. didn’t hear you crying about it when the ‘roids were lining your pocket!

fucking bush. and fuck bush some more for good measure.

in the “two steps forward, two steps back” category, connecticut has passed a law allowing civil unions (hooray!) but also attached the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (booo!). And Oregon invalidated 3,000 gay marriages as unconstitutional (hissssss!).

fucking homophobes.

that’s all the news that would be fit to print, if I hadn’t liberally sprinkled in the “fucks”.

catch me in a better mood next week.

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in all seriousness

by J at 8:50 pm on 21.03.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

It’s sickening – the way that the terri schiavo case in the states is being used for political posturing by republicans trying to pick up extra votes amongst the right wing demographic. a human being incapable of conscious thought is being pulled back and forth like a chew toy between two dogs.

Shrub says we must err on the side of life. Make no mistake – machines can keep the body from growing still, but they cannot bring back one’s mind.

Is that life?

they can create artifical intelligence and organs, but they cannot imbue them with the essence of what it means to be human. no matter how often the plastic heart beats, without a conscious brain to go with it, is that life?

and even with a conscious brain, and a heart that rhythmically contracts of its own accord: without the ability to experience the things that make us ourselves, or to participate fully in our own chosen existence – i would argue that’s not life either.

there are plenty who disagree with me. because the bottom line is, we each define for ourselves what makes each day worth getting up for, and we each set our own criteria for what keeps us going. how can you decide what validates another person’s existence?

Yet this is exactly what our government is trying to legislate. they can’t even decide who won the 2000 election, yet they are entrusted with deciding this woman’s fate?

The idea of being kept alive against my will is terrifying for me. To be stripped of my ability to control my mind, and exert any last act of independence, would, if I were aware of it, be a horrific nightmare. I believe thought, emotion, memory and personality combine to make up a person’s soul – once these have left the building, the orchestra hall is empty, and it would disturb me greatly to know that the shell of my body was standing in as a poor substitute for the real me. And parts of my body could still serve to keep alive people who are truly *alive*. To miss that opportunity is a far greater tragedy than turning off the machines that give false hope in the imitation of life.

All of which underscores the importance of a less-than-pleasant task: identifying a health care proxy, whilst still healthy and sound of mind. Given how strongly I feel about quality of life and right-to-die issues, I did this a while ago. If I were ever in a state where I was unable to make my own medical decisions, my mum knows and has the power to decide what I would want done on my behalf. And she’ll probably stay my health care proxy, even though I have a husband now, as Jonno has said he might not be able to make the decision to pull the plug, should the need ever arise. As much as I love him and trust him, I need to know that someone would be willing to do for me what I could not do for myself, no matter what their own feelings.

Grown up enough for ya?

Grim topic, I know, but as this case has shown, to *not* think about it, or pretend it can’t happen to you, is to trust your fate to strange doctors and the highly imperfect legal and political system. Put my trust in the governement? Huh -uh. I like to think I deserve better than that. Terri schiavo certainly does.

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oil, taxes, and other life-affirming stuff

by J at 6:30 pm on 18.03.2005Comments Off
filed under: rant and rage

oooh, this makes me so angry i could spit: drilling in alaska – again. perhaps if we took some of the billions funding our various wars and ineffectual anti-terorist measures (leading to our 400+ billion deficit, anyone remember the surplus???), invested it into alternative energy source development, there would be no need to fuck up one of the few pieces of pristine wilderness left -in our own backyard, no less. isn’t it bad enough we’re spilling oil and blood all over the rest of the world already?!?

nearly d-day in the states. taxes must be filed by 15th April. ridiculously enough I’m still expected to file from the uk, and if I earn more than $80,000, pay taxes to the US on it! never thought i’d being saying this, but thank god i earn nowhere near that (though my paltry £32K annual salary, at the current exchange rate would put me not so far off from the danger zone, which is just laughable. it’s not as if i have the lifestyle of someone supposedly making equivalent $60,000+!! gimme a break – i can barely afford new underwear). and the PAYE system here is a fucking miracle as far as I’m concerned. however, I was supposed to file last year (earnings in the states from the beginning of 2003 before I came over) and never quite got around to it, since I had to get a p60 here first, then tried to read about filing abroad and somehow procrastinated for a year. come ‘n get me, i say! bring it on, mr. taxman.

i have very strong opinions about this: government legislating personal life choices. i don’t think this would’ve had a prayer if jeb bush wasn’t the prez’s bro, which means w is dictating the law according to his own peculiar set of “morals”. how he sleeps at night, i’ll never know. but interesting how the rightish leaning media call it a right-to-life case rather than a right-to-die case.

living next to a hospital. pro: if god forbid anything ever happened… con: when the medical chopped flies right past my window, it feels like it’s about to land in my living room. in case you’re curious, the chopper is “virgin” owned. I can tell you that because I can see the bright red logo about ten feet away from me. the pilot has blond hair. no kidding.

why i could never play fantasy baseball: i’m too attached. i’d feel like I was cheating on my boyz even if it was only virtual. guilt is the worst human emotion.

most interesting economics article i’ve read in a while: why the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. apparently it has something to do with atoms and gas.

cool photojournalism site

enough, already! watch this space.

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driving me up a wall

by J at 6:14 pm on 15.03.2005Comments Off
filed under: mundane mayhem, rant and rage

can i just bitch about how difficult it has been to renew my driver’s license?

went to renew online, only to have the transaction refused. called to find out why, and no one seemed to understand that I was called from outside the country. they said I had outstanding excise tax from 2001 (bullshit, but of course, i don’t have the cancelled cheque to prove it), so rang a different number to find out – $120. *and* an outstanding parking ticket from the MDC. Which of course is not a state agency, but a federal agency, as it is the parks department, which means they could not provide the phone #. at least it *used* to be the MDC. now it has combined and become some other department, so i tracked down an enquiries email, who provided the phone #. Called them – $60. So I sent chques to these bloodsuckers (on my us acct.). and 12 weeks later, i *still* can’t renew my license. i have a sneak suspicion they make people get clearance letters and go down to the RMV in person. which of course, i can’t do.

bloody hell.

anyway, some interesting tuesday links:
ca is the next ma
david hasselhoff does “hooked on a feeling” – video
new ridiculous sport – ski-jumping pairs. two people, one set of skis, or as the site describes it, “an event of fantasy which deserves to be called torture”

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frustration

by J at 8:44 pm on 8.03.2005Comments Off
filed under: blurblets, rant and rage

stoopid piece of shit computer!!!!

I just spent 45 minutes putting together a hilarious blog.

hit “publish”

got “cannot find server” page

my masterpiece has disappeared into the ethernet…

fuck.

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