Reading

The Lorax. Oh, shut up you fucking Lorax. I read this book to Nora every single day and she still wants more. She cluck-clucks over the glop in the Humming-Fish pond, she sighs with despair over the smoggy sky, she scolds, "No! You do not do that!" at the sight of axes felling Truffula Trees. Should I just order her Greenpeace sweatshirt now? I'm down with the environment and all, but repeated readings of The Lorax have made me want to go shoot a panda, load it in my Navigator and drive it to a national park, and then set fire to its corpse with gasoline.

HIPT

Go buy the new Our Lady Peace release "Healthy in Paranoid Times." Now. It is absolutely AWESOME. My friend got it for me as a birthday gift (yay thanks!!) and I've been listening to it non-stop ever since. It's insanely addictive. It's not OLP's greatest album, but it's certainly not another "Gravity" either. The lyrics in the album focus a lot on social justice and the apathy that exists around the topic, but there's also a lot of hope in the songs. They're really awesome. Any album that can rock out, then make me cry a little bit, then rock out some more is pretty high on my list. The CD I got also contains a DVD on the flipside that has a little "making the album" documentary. The guys in the band said that if they got chills listening to a song, they knew it was good. I think it was a good indicator. The CD only has one song that I'm not absolutely addicted to already, and I'm sure I'll be addicted to it pretty soon.

I will give a more detailed song-by-song description if requested, but I don't want to bore my less OLP-minded readers :) Go buy the album. Even if you're not an OLP fan. Or if you want to try before you buy, go to iTunes or some other music download site and listen to Angels/Losing/Sleep. Easily the best song on the album. But it's a good indicator of the record's vibe. There's even a song about GW Bush! Can't beat that with a big wooden stick. Laters! :)

Vacation

Um. Does the President have a job? Cause he seems to vacation A LOT. In fact, everytime something happens he's on vacation. Unless he's reading about pet goats. Still.

Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, more than 1 million residents remained without electricity, some without clean drinking water. Officials said it could be weeks, if not months, before most evacuees will be able to return.

Emergency medical teams from across the country were sent into the region and
President Bush cut short his Texas vacation Tuesday to return to Washington to focus on the storm damage.

Cutting short your vacation? Way to sacrifice GW.

Voicemail

Dad: (softly) Hey Samantha, it's your Dad. Your Aunt Mary* has passed away.

Mom yelling in background

Dad: Well, okay, we're not sure if she's dead. Anyways, we need you to go to her house and check. I mean, knock on the door and pretend like you're just coming to visit her and Tommy**. You know, if you walk in and she's sitting in a chair, don't scream or anything. Just be subtle. You know what I mean. Then report back and let us know if she's still around. Anyways, call us back and I'll give you directions to her house. Love you. Thanks. Bye.

---------------------------------------
*Aunt Mary is over 90 years old, approximately 4' tall, and mean as a snake. She has a big wooden cane and she hits you with it. She doesn't really get up anymore, but back when she was mobile, that lady was dangerous. So, don't feel bad when Dad's a little mean about her. Honest to God, totally beats people with her cane.
**Tommy is her son who's about 70 years old. He will talk you to death. Or at least until you pray for death...kind of loudly under your breath. He's monotone and wants to tell you every minute detail about everything that's ever happened in the history of the world. Ever.

My Book Meme

Brad over at AIDS Combat Zone tagged me for a meme. Here are the questions and my responses:

1. The total number of books I own.
I could not even tell you. Including textbooks I probably have about 100 in my apartment at the moment. However, I also have several boxes of books in my parents' garage and shelves-full in my parents' den.

2. What was the last book you bought?
I just bought several hundred dollars worth of textbooks, but that's the boring easy answer. The last book I purchased for myself was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I just had to walk to my living room and check the name of the book. There are so many of them that I've completely forgotten the order.) More often than not, I just borrow books from one of my friends rather than buying them.

3. What was the last book you read?
A novel called "Middlesex." It was really interesting. A story about the life of a hermaphrodite. I couldn't put it down. :)

4. List five books which have been particularly meaningful for you.

1916, 1921, and 1949. I put them all as one because they're actually a trilogy. They're historical fiction set in the Irish rebellion. I love these books and reread them all the time because they're beautifully written. The author is meticulous in her research of the history behind the Irish rebellion but then just inserts fictional characters into the story. The result is incredibly moving and really makes you feel as if you were there.

Mountains Beyond Mountains. Most public health and medical students have read this book (in fact it was required reading for last year's medical school class at UAB.) It's a biography of Dr. Paul Farmer and talks about his work starting a clinic in Haiti. I love this book because it really made me realize how well medicine and public health could work together. It's been my experience that public health likes to stand on its own two feet, and the same is true for medicine. They don't like to act like they work together. PhD's bad-mouth doctors all the time and I don't understand why. I actually got to meet Dr. Farmer because he was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the conference we had on global AIDS. It was crazy though because when I told my Dean of public health that he was coming, he got kind of huffy. Why? Because Dr. Farmer had created a primary care clinic. Which is Soooo not P.H. (public health.) So, not everyone's as excited as I am about the melding of public health and medicine. Oh well though :)

Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS. I got this book after our conference from the friendly folks at Physicians for Human Rights. It's a great book to read if you're at all interested in HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue. It gives you a lot of facts so that you're armed for serious discussion on the topic. This book also made me realize that Brazil is my hero and that George W. Bush doesn't value human life any more than he values intellect or spelling skills.

Fast Food Nation. I know this isn't as life-changing as the other books, but it really did make make me think a lot more critically about fast-food. I became a vegetarian (sort-of cause I still eat seafood) about a year ago...but I did it mainly to cut fat out of my diet and because I'm scared of catching mad cow disease. (yes, i know it's dumb...hahaha let's all laugh at Samantha now and get it out of our systems.) I should say catching bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It makes it harder to laugh at. Anyway, I didn't give up meat for any moral or animal rights reasons. It was purely self-preservation. But after reading this book, it's hard to even think about eating fast-food or most meats. The way that animals are treated, the way that fast-food corporations treat their employees and franchisees, down to the way that the meat industry treats workers in the slaughterhouses is just wrong. So, it made me really happy with my decision and made a lot of my friends give up McDonald's. :)

The Scarlet Pimpernel. This book is fiction and not really life-changing. But I couldn't think of another serious book and this is probably my favorite book of all time. I read it over and over and over again. It's exciting and romantic and awesome and you should read it. :) Nuff said.

I'm not sure who I know that will do this, so I'll just give it a go. I'm tagging: Johnny over at AMAZO; Daniel at The World as Seen Through Coke Bottle Glasses; and Tom at Weblog. If you guys do it, post it on your blog or leave it in my comments section :) (Also, Carolyn I would totally tag you if you had a blog!!! GET ONE!!!)

Reading

steveslist > los angeles > missed connections

how do you like them apples?
Date: 2005-08-29, 1:11PM PDT

I know you'll never see this, but we met in front of the apple bin at Ralphs' Supermarket in Studio City. You let out the sweetest giggle when we reached for the same apple, but i was too shy to talk to you.

If, by chance, you do read this-- i just had to tell you... I really wanted that fucking apple. I hope you choke on it, you selfish whore.

Yet Another Reason to Go Vegetarian

Brazil is the leading exporter of cooked and processed meats to the United States. Beef from cattle raised on land cleared by slave labor can end up in products such as Con Agra's Mary Kitchen corned beef. Typically, commodities produced with slave labor in Brazil get mixed in with commodities produced by its legal workers. By the time they reach the United States, it's almost impossible to determine whether a shipment is contaminated. U.S. companies, do, however, import products from areas of Brazil where slavery is widespread.

My Boss = Moron

I work in a job procuring tissue for transplant. We mostly work at night because that's when operating rooms are less busy with live patients and we can have a room. So tonight I go into work and start packing a cooler in the tissue stockroom to go on a case. We have a whiteboard in that room. Someone had written "Have a Good Day!" on the whiteboard. Whatever. Under it, our boss wrote "Tissue = night. Have a good night!" followed by his initials. I laugh, because the message is really stupid. And I point it out to my co-worker who replies, "You think that's stupid? The man wrote it in permanent ink on the whiteboard." Sure enough, it won't rub off. I laughed so frikkin' hard. What an idiot.

So our whiteboard will forever have "Tissue = night. Have a good night! (boss' initials)" written in the middle of it. My co-worker suggested that someone write "(boss' initials) = short bus" but neither of us were brave enough to do it :) Would have been funny though. God my boss is an idiot.

In other news, someone keyed the word "Herpes" into the car of one of my co-workers. I think that is the most cowardly thing ever. Don't key cars. If you're mad at someone, pick a fight with them, yell at them, throw a kiwi or a fishbrick at them, but don't key their car. As my co-worker said, "Just have some balls! Or if you're a lady, grow a damn ovary! Whatever it takes! Damn!" hahaha... Good night all :)

Tennis, anyone?

In the quest to find exercise that I actually enjoy doing, a friend and I began tennis lessons today. Today's lesson: Anna Kournikove I'm not. My friend and I decided to take lessons from this guy who C's friend had recommended. So, we called him and turns out he'll give us a cut-rate since C's friends with his other client. Sweet. Other sweet part of the deal? He's apparently hot and foreign...with a cute accent. So of course I said sign me up.

First lesson was this morning. I felt pretty prepared. I had my tennis racquet. That's right. I own a tennis racquet. I was actually pretty proud of the racquet because I found it in a dumpster during freshman year of college still in its wrapping. What luck! Yeah right. So we get there this morning, I'm wandering around with C and my racquet looking for our instructor. Here he comes. He's tall...he's dark....wow. He's totally not handsome. At all. He did have a cute little accent though. Still. Not what I bargained for. Whatever though. Then, we walk to the court, and I have my racquet out, and C has her racquet she borrowed from the club. He looks at me and says, "You can't use that racquet." I said, "Why?!?" thinking there was some racquet-discrimination going on because mine wasn't from "the club." Yeah. Again no. "Um...because that's a baby racquet." Huh?!?? "That racquet is for like a really small child." Nice. So, my dumpster-diving did not get me a free racquet. It got me free humiliation. What a deal. :-p

We ended up splitting the hour-long lesson in half, which was cool. I apparently like to swing my tennis racquet like a baseball bat. Not cool. Hard habit to break. Also, I like to backhand with one hand (must be all those years of smackin' my bitches up) which is apparently wrong. Also, I like to launch tennis balls into space (due to my apparent lack of follow-through.) Which makes it hard for my opponent to hit them. Also makes it hard for me to get any points. So, I have a lot to improve upon. And apparently I have to buy a non-baby racquet. ;) laters!

Loonatics?

Look what they've done to the Looney Tunes!!!

I find it seriously disturbing. And trying to foist it off as an "homage to the original characters?" Not buying it. Totally. not. buying. it.

How to Make Me Happy

Recycle old parking tag colors. Every year UAB milks millions of dollars from its student body in parking tags, and what they don't reap there, they more than compensate for in tickets. Even if you buy a parking tag, chances are you won't have a parking spot because they oversell the lots like hell and you'll still get a ticket. Every year the parking tag looks the same except they change the tag's background color. It was gold three years ago, then green I think, then black. I haven't purchased a parking tag for the past two years because I would rather walk a mile to class than have to pay for parking that I probably won't get anyway. I am pathetic because people in larger cities are paying WAYYYY more than I am in Alabama, but it's the principle of the matter. I think if I pay for a tag I should have a spot with my name on it. NAME I SAY!

So, back to the story. I was walking to class yesterday and while passing a parking lot, I noticed this year's parking tag. It has recycled! It is once again gold! And my lazy ass that never took the parking tag off my rearview mirror over the course of the past two years is now being rewarded!! So today, I came to school five minutes before class, pulled leisurely into a parking spot, and be-bopped across the street to school. Such joy. Take that parking Nazis!!! Muahahaha!!! I know my former and present schoolmates will appreciate the blow I've struck against injustice. Laters!

Watching

The music video that incorporates postcards from the PostSecret website with a good song and a pretty lead singer. Woohoo! :)

News from the South

It is this frikkin' hot outside in Alabama right this very second:

Also, I want this dog...to win season five of American Idol. I'd totally vote for him...because he's muy cute. (Maybe I'll learn the word for "cute" in Spanish class tomorrow.)

That's news you can use for this afternoon...thanks for tuning in. Laters!

Quit Spamming ME!!

Why am I generating spam IN MY COMMENTS SECTION?!??? What the heck!??

I Heart Anthony Bourdaine

Anthony Bourdain is flippin' hilarious. If you have cable, you should watch the Travel Channel on Monday nights at 9 PM central. His show is called "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" and it makes me laugh until I hurt. He always has a couple of things that just kill me. Carolyn and I have officially designated Monday as "Anthony Bourdain night" during which I come to her apartment and watch the show with her on her nifty-keen digital cable. Gems from this week's episode in Vietnam include:

(Italicized words are him whispering to the camera...regular words are words he said to other people.)

Tony: They appear to be preparing some sort of animal in there, but I can't figure out for the life of me what it is. So, what are we having?
Guide: Hmm...what is word? Squeasel?
Tony: Ah. Sounds good. What the hell is a squeasel?!??
A Minute Later...
Tony: Here comes the meal. *takes a bite* My God! How old is this squeasel!??! I think there's a bone in mine. *Pulls a spine out of his mouth* OH! It's porcupine!! I feel MUCH better.

Later in the episode, he's trying to drink a Communist chairman person under the table and ends up hella drunk himself. Then he's told he's expected to do a dance that involves jumping over moving poles. He really doesn't think he can do it...particularly in his present state. But, he ends up making it okay and as soon as he makes it, he turns to the camera and says, "I'm Fred motha-fuckin' Astaire biyatch!" Hi-frikkin-larious I promise :)

So, this little recap has done the show no justice, but you should watch it. Really. Laters!

No Surprises Here

Shocking, huh? :-p

American Cities That Best Fit You:

75% Chicago

70% Washington, DC

60% New York City

60% Philadelphia

55% Boston

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

The Itsy-Bitsy Spiders

If I go missing, search my apartment. Because chances are, the spiders have finally grown weary of my presence and cocooned my ass. Last night I was lying on my sofa watching television and I kept seeing things move out of the corner of my eye. Spiders! Spiders everywhere! I killed 3 in the span of about 10 minutes... I think they finally got the message when they saw their buddies' carcasses lying out on the killing field. I must have a ton of bugs in this apartment because I have a gajillion spiders to feed. But I never see bugs in here. So maybe I should stop killing the spiders cause they're obviously doing a good job with the pest control. But I think I need to keep doing it just to remind them who's in charge. Otherwise they might mutiny and do the cocoon thing. I think that was the scariest part of "Lord of the Rings"...you know, when the giant spider cocoons Frodo. Not cool at all. Anyways...enough of my early-morning ramblings. Laters!

This is why we're friends

Sadly I closed the window containing our IMversation (I am an idiot!)..but I'll paraphrase..and make it understandable out of context.

Samantha: I think it was that same cute guy from the other night!
Carolyn: Girl, you have so many options*
Samantha: Uh huh.
Carolyn: The world is your man-oyster!

A few minutes and some strange segues later...

Carolyn: I hate Killer whales. They eat penguins.
Samantha: However, they do tear the hell out of some seals. Which is a newly endearing quality (since seals also eat penguins.)
Carolyn: Yeah, but Killer whales also eat dolphins.
Samantha: Oh. Well then, Killer whales categorically suck. We should go on an Alaskan cruise and throw rocks at them.
Carolyn: Agreed.

*um. yeah, whatever carolyn. :-p

It could be the sleep-deprivation, but I thought our whole conversation was pretty amusing. I've had to work the past two nights straight...so things are funnier than they should be, food tastes better, and light hurts me. Sleep deprivation blows. With that, I'm off to bed.

I know they did not...

Cancel Law & Order: SVU to make room for the Miss Teen USA Pageant. They wouldn't do that to me. Surely Christopher Meloni would not be replaced with a girl who describes herself as "fiercely competitive, but I mean, not in a like, mean way or anything." Please God put on SVU. Soon.

I'd rather be at the beach

But I'm back. You guys don't really deserve any new posts, since my last post's request for comments was met with crickets (except for Brad...yay him.) So, I guess this post will be for Brad. Because he comments. That's all I'll say about it.

So, I went to Mobile (which is technically not the beach) with my sister for a few days. The goal was for her to see her boyfriend who lives there, and meet his parents. I would have been terrified if I were her, but luckily she doesn't have my complex about parents. Jessica baked them a blueberry pie, a la Martha Stewart, and that pretty much gave her a lock on the parents. They loved her. Her boyfriend's Dad said that Jessica was "the kind of gal Pete could marry." How scary is that? Jessica was happy though. :)

The first day was pretty uneventful...we got there...checked into the Motel 6... *Note to self: Never stay at a Motel 6 again* then went over to Pete's house. Pete's a nice guy. A complete goofball...but that meshes well with my sister who is also a complete goofball. They're cute together (don't ya think?)

The first night we went to Pete's friend John's house. He needed help lifting a bed onto the truck he was rebuilding. There we met John, Michael, and Stephen. Well, I did...cause Jessica already knew them I think. John's a mechanic and a really nice kid. Kind of hyper, but nice. Michael is Stephen's older brother, pretty quiet, and a lifeguard at the military base in Biloxi, MS. Stephen is the youngest of the group, likes to do handstands, is really built, and stands at a reasonable 6'4 inches tall. Pictures of everyone are on my Flickr Account.

The next day was the trip's crowning glory. Pete, Jessica, Michael, and I drove to the beach. It stormed almost the entire time, but we got about an hour of nice weather in the water. I wish we could have stayed longer. But, we had to get back to Mobile, because we were in a sailboat race! WOO!! I had never been sailing, but Jessica's boyfriend teaches sailing so he wanted to take us out on the boat. It was raining when the race started, so only 5 boats competed. Sailing is the most fun thing to do ever. I LOVED it and would do it every day if I had a body of water and a boat to put in it. Also if I learned to sail. It was insanely beautiful, so much fun, and I saw a dolphin. That's right people. I saw a frikkin' DOLPHIN swimming near the boat!! No one else seemed as psyched about that as I was, but it completely blew my mind. I lived in Hawaii for 4 years and saw plenty of whales, but I never ever saw a dolphin. And then I'm in dirty old Mobile Bay and up swims a dolphin. Crazy I say! I was given the job of "mascot" and "cabin bitch" during the trip...meaning I stood on the front of the boat holding on to the mast with John who entertained me (see pics on Flickr)...and occasionally fetched sodas for the crew. Kind of sad, but true. Jessica got to use a tool. There was much jealousy. We ended up with 3rd place in the race, but I'm sure they would've done better had Jessica and I not been in the way :)

Then that night we went to Pete's house and had a bonfire. Of course, everything was soaking wet so the fire was exceptionally hard to start. But leave it to a bunch of young boys to start a fire. They'll get it done. Between the napalm bombs, and the homemade flamethrower, I would have called it mission accomplished. We also had a boombox out by the fire, and there was a lot of dancing. I don't know the last time I laughed this hard. The boys had an interpretive dance to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." It was HI-FRIKKIN-LARIOUS. I mean, that is a long-ass song...but they had pre-rehearsed moves for the whole thing. Stephen was particularly hilarious because the kid obviously had no problem looking like an idiot. SOO funny. They also had a dance to the Sugarhill Gang's "Apache." Again. Gold. Solid comedy gold. There are pictures of Stephen doing the dance on my Flickr account. And one of them video taped it...I'm hoping Jessica will send me the video clip and I'll figure out some way to post it.

So, the trip was boatloads of fun...I want to go to the beach and go sailing again. We're planning on going back to Mobile in October to go to Bayfest, and maybe we'll get to go sailing again then.

And I'm Off

I'm leaving in the morning to visit my family for the day, and then leaving the next day for the beach. I'll be gone til Friday, so try not to miss me too much. I'm hoping I won't come back looking like Tom or like this guy. While I'm gone, talk amongst yourselves...here are some topics:

1. John Bolton or Michael Bolton- which is a bigger plague on humanity? (Bonus topic: Which is sexier? That is a tough one to call.)

2. How much is this movie going to rock? (By the way, the answer is a lot. I mean, seventies music, Lil Bow Wow, and rollerskating? How could it go wrong?)

3. This website is a little bit disturbing and heartbreaking sometimes, but for some reason I think it's really cool. What are your thoughts?

4. Have you read my links? If not, what's wrong with you? Do you think you're too cool for my links? Do you want to be one of my links? Let me know :)

Anyways...that should keep you occupied for a couple days. I expect some deep and profound comments upon my return. Back Friday evening. Laters!

My boyfriend's back and we're gonna get married....

Well, kind of. Mainly not really though. Because:

A) He's not my boyfriend.
B) He's not really back...he leaves for another year in China in 2.5 weeks.
C) We're not getting married.

But, I might get to see him tonight, so I'll take what I can get. :)