So I cant sleep, obviously. Took a four hour nap might explain something though.

Today is the 4th of July and I am so not up to go to the fair. Espicially the fact that my parents want to spend ALL DAY there. I mean its fun...but after going every year its now getting old. Plus I kinda dont wanna run into friends that I really dont care for.

I am sick of my old high school friends. Some I am still close with but the ones that are the closest to you just all drift off. It really irratated me when I came out and said I had depression and their reaction was "..oh" and then went back to the subject of weed, raves, drugs, and how AWESOME all that is. Their absoulutely pathetic and I never knew why I was friends with them in the first place.

I'm leaving for LA on Tuesday and I still feel unprepared. What to wear, how my scripts go, how well my walk is with converese boots. Bllahhh >.< I realllly wanna do welll this time and actually feel prepared.

I hate peer pressure. And even if your out of high school you still get it. Its soo anoying how many times I have said no and yet they keep on going on it. Grr.

Well work is still going pretty good tho. Next week after I get back from LA I work 6 days straight before I leave for Idaho. Which is a good thing since my manager wants me to have a decent pay next pay day and want me to get the hours.

Funny how I work at a Cupcake/Cookie bakery and yet I still lose weight and CRAVE cupcakes when I'm not working. Guess from all that running around at work. I still enjoy being there and the people there are all great. Just wish that I could have more time to see some friends that I do give a damn about. Its like I hafta scedule them in or it just happens to be a lucky day and I'm free. My hours arnt that bad, all mornings and off for the rest of the afternoon. But its hard to spend all day with a friend when you know you have another morning shift the next day at work.

I guess I should TRY to go to bed and not stress too hard. Woo for the fair :|

happy america day.

happy 4th, everyone! i feel so weird being in another country for this. my entire family is down in redwood city (where i grew up) watching the parade as part of our tradition and here i am stuck in the UK waiting for a couch delivery LOL but hey, i wouldn't have it any other way.. well, maybe one way! i'd like david to see how we celebrate :)

in other news, david and i went up to the wyvern club last night again since we've become members now and he tried his luck in a scratch card machine! hehe well, david's not really one to do that, he'll play fruit machines when he's really drunk or bored, but never scratch card things.. we won £300! that'll go great for the hamster buying and the beer festival tomorrow :)


♥ gina

I'm SO sorry about the long absence... my life has gotten CRA-ZY!

• 1 Ashley Tisdale
• 5 Vintage Couture
• 1 Chris Trousdale & Anna Sundstrand
• 6 George Harrison & Pattie Boyd
• 4 guest. (http://www.myspace.com/guestlive)
• 3 Joe Jonas
• 5 Pattie Boyd with The Rolling Stones

EXAMPLES


Under the cut!

Any real estate agents in the house?

A few questions that I hope aren't too crazy or stupid:

1) I feel VERY uncomfortable about the fact that our agent (as buyers) is the same as the listing agent of the house I like the most. We suggested that the house needed a minimum of $20k work to make it both functional and not an advertisement for 1970s wood paneling (supported by a contractor estimate using the cheapest materials, which we would not use), and we flat out asked the agent if we were to put in an offer, would the appropriate move be to put an offer at $20k below asking price? She said they'd say no way and reject the offer. (Of course, all I can think of is that she'd TELL THEM to say no.) Helloooo conflict of interest.

2) Can anyone tell me the difference between the assessed value of the house and the asking price? This particular house has an assessed value of 2/3 of the asking price according to the documents, assessed in 2007. (Disclaimer: these houses are NOT in Portland. We're sadly leaving state for employment reasons). I'm not giving monetary numbers on purpose, but I'll tell you that a mere 5 or so years ago (before the crazy housing surge where even dogs and fetuses were qualifying for mortgages) houses in this same neighborhood were selling for less than half the current asking price.

I love the current house because it's HUGE, but it does need a bit of work. It has an apartment attached to the upstairs which brings in the equivalent of about half of what our monthly mortgage would be. I am NOT happy about a renter (and we've been told the renter is on a lease until next June) but IF we were to buy this house and (once the renter's lease is up and not renewed) we were to gut the second and third floors and pull them back into the main house, I'm told that the market for a single-family house of that size in that area is not high, and we'd be hard pressed to recover what we put into it. Apparently even if we keep the renter and the apartment upstairs (and we are NOT social people, so we do NOT relish the idea of suddenly being landlords) we may still be hard pressed to recover what we put into making this house match what's in my brain in 5-10 years when we sell it.

We're obviously new buyers, but we're relatively smart folk. That last paragraph was background info for anyone who wants to offer extended advice, but I would really appreciate answers to the 2 questions. They both leave me really unsettled and they're out of anti-anxiety drugs to prescribe to me already.

My train to my parents' was seven hours late.  But when we were pulling out of one of the small Midwestern towns, dusk, there was a little boy maybe five or six in a red t-shirt and blue shorts waving a sparkler running along the side of the train, waving goodbye.

When we pulled into Chicago, ten PM, the John Hancock was lit red white and blue atop all the other city skyline lights I love so much -- fireworks over the lake going off between buildings, adding millions of sparkling glittery lights to the hundreds of millions of the city...

And there's a light on in Chicago.

Favorite Arrested Development quote! And...go!

Mine: "I don't want no part of your tight-ass country club, ya freak bitch!"


Old clip, but...AWESOME.

Whee!

It was pretty humid but also quite warm as I was riding home yesterday - and then, all of a sudden, it was pouring! It had already let up by the time I got home, though, so it wasn't all that bad.

This morning, it was sprinkling when I was getting ready to go, but I've been telling myself that I'll get a reward if I bike every day this week (it's tough to do this every week because of softball, but there's no softball this week), and we had Friday off, so I just went ahead and biked anyway. I did learn one lesson, though - I wore contacts instead of my glasses, as they got lots of raindrops on them in yesterday's rain. Of course, it started pouring again about half a mile from home and rained pretty hard for the rest of the ride in. It wasn't really all that bad, but I wished I had a dryer at work, because my riding clothes were still pretty damp when I needed to change back into them to ride home. Luckily, I always have an extra pair of socks at work (I usually wear heels but will switch into the socks when I'm sitting at my desk for long periods of time because my feet are always cold), so at least my feet were dry.

I think I've chosen this as my reward. They have something similar for only $6 at Circuit City, but none of the reviewers really liked that one. One said, "It is okay but sucks," which I think may be the best review ever.

For the Fourth of July tomorrow, I think I'm going to make some hot dog-type thing for lunch, and we've talked about walking down to Coulon Park to watch fireworks. It might rain, though, because it's Seattle, and I don't really want to walk that far in the rain.

this is happening again! saturday, noon - 4pm, peninsula park!

YouTube Ordered To Release User Data
Viacom Had Sought Access to Database In Copyright Battle

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 4, 2008; Page D01

A federal judge in New York this week ordered the video-sharing site YouTube, the world's third-most-visited Web site, to release data on the viewing habits of its tens of millions of worldwide viewers.

Tuesday's ruling, which amounted to only seven paragraphs in a 25-page opinion that was mostly about programming code and other matters, alarmed privacy advocates, who said it ignored laws meant to protect peoples' viewing habits.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/03/ST2008070304015.html

Some of my favourite people are American.

That really kinda says it all, doesn't it?



Have a safe and happy holiday...and take lots of embarrassing pictures for us Canadians to laugh at over the weekend, please!

Moggy

Still in China, but I've just discovered that livejournal doesn't seem to be blocked at my new office . . . something to do with the servers being in Paris.


Happy 4th of July!

And happy birthday, to me. I'm now officially in my mid-20s and it's a wee bit scary, but I'll cope.

For you Cancer & Leo DPer's with July birthdays...

Which one are you? And, if you're curious to inquire about some of what your page says, comment w/ your July Bday there and I'll look some up for ya. Happy July Birthdays! :)

The days of JULY...
1) Emancipation
2) Disconnected unconscious
3) The Commemorator - zogblog
4) The Group Representative - catpowerurfree
5) The Showman - poeticajasmine
6) Magnetic Desire - panofelia
7) Imaginative revelations - pundigrion
8) The Dark Pragmatist
9) Wonder - adamsbja
10) Passive-active duality
11) The Unsolicited Opinion - "zeeba_neighba
12) The Persuasive presence - ritzcrackerman
13) Taken Opportunity
14) Convincing Storyteller - antayla
15) Material Inducers
16) The Rising Tide
17) Career Concerns - adamisahippy
18) Conviction
19) Controlled Movement
20) Ups and Downs
21) Tragicomic controversy
22) Occupational fluctuation - neolamarie & freakyboo
23) Uncertainty resolvers
24) Exciting instability - katlyn
25) Quixotic Exploits
26) The Symbolic Herald
27) The Decision Makers - 13skeletoras
28) The Winner - frankiecat
29) Cultural Assessment
30) Tangible Presence
31) The Human Portrait

Off topic: I just looked out my window and saw a lady carrying a giant plastic ear. I think it was a snack tray? But enjoyed the "keeping Portland weird" aspect of it and thought I'd share.

Damnportlanders rally!

Recently a friend of mine was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. Her name is Jules, and besides being a very cool person, she's also known as the founder of an international mix cd exchange and has had a documentary made about her, which won Best Soundtrack at the 2008 International Documentary Challenge. She will be in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments this month and will need as much financial help as she can get to help pay for it. Benefit concerts are being organized in at least three different cities (including Portland), but if you have anything at all to spare, I hope you would also consider donating to a Paypal account that's been set up, which will go directly to her.

Thanks y'all. Cancer sucks, let's help kick its ass.

So the old LJ will be more active again. I've started cross-posting from my kris dresen draws blog. Because, really, you can't be in too many places at once.