Dust and Probablity
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Colleen's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, February 13th, 2009 | | 11:06 am |
Not yet dead.
Mreorw. I'm still here. Figured I should probably post something. In early January my mom slipped on some ice in the DMV parking lot and hit her head. She's ok, but she didn't go to the hospital (whcih I think she should have), and she's been dizzy ever since. It could be inner ear damage, or it could be post-concussion dizziness. She's looking into getting a neurologist, so maybe we'll learn more at some point. Some days she can't even bend over or take the stairs too many times, and most days she can't drive. Needless to say, I've been taking her a lot of places, and doing a lot around the house. This has eaten up a lot of my time, and unfortunately, one of the first casualties is my keeping in touch with most of my friends. I'm sorry about that. If anyone is feeling neglected or forgotten, I'm sorry for the former, and promise that the latter isn't the case. Between taking care of mom and looking for a job, I've had a lot going on, and so e-mailing and livejournaling hasn't been as easy. So if you want to get a hold of me, feel free to call or write, or respond here, or just bear with me a little longer, and I'll be back in touch when I get a chance. And happy valentines day, everyone. Don't know if I'll get around to composing a valentine poem this year, but if I do, I'll post it. ~Coey | | Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | | 12:10 pm |
It's my Birthday! I'm 28. I'm fairly happy about this. Current Mood:  pleased | | Monday, December 29th, 2008 | | 1:32 pm |
IMPORTANT
Hey guys. I don't normally do this, but in this case, I feel it's necessary. The ACLU is getting hit big time by the Madoff scam. Two foundations that make generous yearly contributions to the ACLU have been caught up in it, and the ACLU is going to lose almost a million dollars in support. This is a very big deal for them. I've sent them $10.00. It's not much, but it's more than they'd have had before. Now I'm asking everyone who reads this journal to do one very simple thing. Go to their web page, and read about what they do. Really, if you don't know about what the ACLU does for this country, go now and have a look. It might surprise you. Spend 10 minutes on their site, looking at the issues they tackle. That's all I'm asking. Seriously. Take ten minutes and educate yourselves. The ACLU has a lot of enemies who love to demonize it, and that only works because people don't know what they really do, and why. But every time someone blames the ACLU for something and no one speaks up in their defense, their work and their mission get undermined just a little bit. When they're facing a major financial crisis like the current one, public opinion and support are crucial. So please, just go and read. Even if you're already favorably disposed, catch up on what they're doing now. A few minutes of your attention isn't a lot to ask, and I think you'll be glad that you did. www.aclu.org/ | | Friday, October 3rd, 2008 | | 2:42 am |
I'm not dead, I swear. I'm dealing with a relatively unhealthy level of domestic chaos right now. Just thought I'd let everyone know that I'm thinking of you, and maybe someday I'll be on here a bit more. Till then, I'll try not to be a hermit, and actually check LJ from time to time... ~Coey | | Sunday, July 13th, 2008 | | 4:03 am |
New Journal
Hey all, Just thought I'd let you know that I've started a new journal for writing about ancient philosophy. I intend to use it to make myself read and reflect on some of the works I've been swearing that I'll get around to reading someday... If you think you might be interested in reading my thoughts on Plato and Aristotle (and eventually other very interesting people too), please feel free to friend me and read along. I love discussing stuff with all of you, and I'd just love it if something I write gets you interested enough to read a classic piece of philosophy or two. Even if you don't think you'll read the writings themselves, friend my new journal and discuss the commentary. You can find it at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) pandora_lucia. I just wish I could still make basic accounts and avoid all the add nonsense. Oh well. If it goes well, and I use it, and people actually read it and comment on it, maybe I'll pay for it so it doesn't look like crap. That's all for now. ~Coey | | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 10:23 pm |
Amused
So... I work at one of the Champaign Smoothie Kings, as most of you know. The two Champaign stores are owned by Paul and Pia Byron, who are both awesome people and great bosses. Paul doesn't really do much with the store these days, which makes me sad, because he was a lot of fun to talk to. But that just means that Pia is running things now, and she's just as cool and just as much fun to talk to, so I can't really complain. Today Pia tells me what Paul has been doing with his time since he's been staying home with the kids. He's trying to get on reality TV. Aparently, CBS I think, is putting together some summer program called Jingles, where groups will compete to write the best jingles for actual products, which will then be used in comercials. Now, advertizing irritates the hell out of me, but if someone I know is participating in something like this and having a good time, then what the hell, why not? Aparently, Paul and his buddies had to make a web site, which can be found at www.jingleberries.com, where they made up a few songs about fake products. Aparently, they have made it past the first round, and are now waiting to see if they make it past the second. If so, then they might be off to LA for further competition. Mostly I'm amused by the website because I knew Paul was a music guy (the first thing he asked me when I came to work my first day was if I liked Carlos Santana's new stuff), but I'd never heard him sing. He actually has a great voice. He's the one doing most of the singing in the videos. I hope he and his friends make it further in the competition. Pia says he's really excited. I really loathe reality tv, but I'll probably watch it if I know someone on the show... ~Coey | | Saturday, June 14th, 2008 | | 12:23 am |
I love the Government.
Sometimes the absurdity of the day to day operation of our government is hilarious. Case in point: I have about $20,000 in student loans I'm attempting to pay off. I don't think that's too bad for having been in school off and on from 1999 to 2007. The government rates might not be fabulous, but they are really goddamned lenient about giving out forbearances and stuff (in my experience) so long as you make a good-faith effort to not default. Since I consolidated through the government and not through a bank, I can still take advantage of all that. Since I declared all of $2800 in income last year, and I'm going to be doing good to break $7000 this year, I'm trying to get on the Income contingent repayment plan, since that could drop my monthly payments significantly, and according to their calculations will actually drastically reduce the amount of interest they charge me. To do this, I have to give the Department of Education permission to access my tax information on file with the IRS (which confuses the hell out of me because I thought tax information was a matter of public record). So I sent them the release form to give to the IRS with my name and social security number on it. I should have known there would be trouble when I noticed my name was miss-spelled on the form I printed out... But I thought it would be ok if I just corrected it manually. It asked for my name as it appears on my tax return, so I wrote that out, and as that's the name on my social security card, and everything else, I figured that they'd figure it out. I vastly overestimated them. They sent me a letter saying that I have given them the wrong name. I have not given them the wrong name, I made sure to give them the right name. But the right name doesn't match their records. However, if I give them the wrong name, it won't match the IRS's records. I think this is hilarious. I tracked their correspondences with me back to January of this year, and I found that between the 9th and the 16th of that month, my mail started being addressed to Miss Marroran-Beebe. I don't know why my name suddenly grew an extra "ra" right then, but apparently it did. I just didn't notice till now. Monday I get to call them and try to convince them they screwed this up. Chances are they'll fix it for me, but I wonder what kind of proof I'll have to give them that my name is in fact the name they had on file for years, and not the mutant name they created for me 5 months ago. I also wonder if they'll insist I send them the form I already sent them, of which they sent a copy back to me, telling me my name was wrong when it clearly wasn't. If they want me to send it again, I'll be kind of peeved, because they obviously already have it, as the mailed me a copy of it. If they want it back, I guess I'll send their copy back to them, and see what they say then. They'll probably tell me they don't need that form mailed back, they already have that one (obviously), and can I send them a new one that says exactly the same thing. Hopefully they won't, but I wouldn't be surprised. This isn't the first thing they've screwed up either. I'll probably lose my rebate because my first payment was late, only because their on-line system failed to actually register the payment I set up on-line, even though it told me it had. I set the payment up a few days in advance, since I wasn't sure a check would get there in time, but their system failed, and now it has me recorded as making the payment 2 weeks late. I called and complained, and they said they put a note in my account to the effect that I called and reported the error...but as that was my first payment back in March, now get this, they told me to call back in one year (one year!) to talk to an account person around the time they actually review the account to see if they'll still give me my rebate. Maybe God really does love America. I don't see how we could have lasted this long if we didn't have some kind of long-suffering divinity keeping our stupid asses from starving to death and poking our eyes out with our golf clubs and drowning in small puddles and shit. Current Mood: cynically amused | | Thursday, April 24th, 2008 | | 11:53 pm |
Something cool my friend wrote.
A civilizing oath:
I am not you. You are not me. All of us have a right to exist and to go about our business unmolested.
We can go on from here without being assholes to each other.
I will not pretend that I know a damned thing about total strangers based on any aspect of their appearance.
I will not publicly humiliate people by 'informing' them that they are too fat or skinny when it is perfectly damned obvious to all and sundry what they look like, especially the person I was about to tell off.
I will not buy or encourage the blatantly obvious bullshit that addicts of any stripe "just need to get over it."
I will not buy or encourage the blatantly obvious bullshit that the mentally ill "just need to get over it."
I will not sneer at the homeless or unemployed that they should "just get a job."
I will help the homeless, the mentally ill or anyone else that I have the urge to assist in a manner that actually helps them, or I will mind my own Damned business.
This I say and this I swear: I will no longer be a useless fuck in public.
Copyright 2008, glynis k. long Posted on cafepress here on shirts and posters. Current Mood: amused | | Monday, March 31st, 2008 | | 11:48 pm |
Wanderlust...
Man... I don't know what's with me tonight... I've been listening to Arabic music on YouTube (instead of finishing my midterm), and it's really reinforcing this desire I've lately been feeling (really strongly) to get out and see the world, really see the world. I don't even know how I would begin to do it short of getting into a graduate program and studying abroad. And that's not a bad way to go in my opinion, but not knowing where I'm even likely to get accepted, I have no way of knowing what my options are. I think I want to go to the North African and Mediteranean regions. I want to see Greece and Turkey, and Spain, and Algeria and Morocco, Egypt, and more of Italy. I'm finding I'm most interested in places where Islamic culture has mixed interestingly with other cultures...and speaking of which, I'd love to see India and Pakistan too. My Eastern Religions class is waking up my interest in places like Tibet and Thailand (always liked Thailand anyway), by the way. Maybe if I ever find a way to make some serious travel and study happen, I'll get out there. (Waves at Matt Lufcy) I'd love to spend some time in Iraq and Iran someday, but I have a feeling it could be decades before that's really a good idea... Saudi Arabia scares me, and I wouldn't be able to go to the cool places like Mecca anyway, unless I convert to Islam, and that's not going to happen (although I hear that going on the Hajj is a fascinating experience...). Maybe someday when I get into a grad program, and get closer to a degree I'll find a grant of some kind that would make this possible. I wonder how hard it is to finance a semester abroad when you're a grad student. I wonder how often I can leave the country for a while and still make a degree happen before I'm 40. Current Mood:  contemplativeCurrent Music: Various songs by Cheb Mami that I found on YouTube | | Thursday, March 6th, 2008 | | 2:10 am |
Books.
So, I just finished reading Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility, and I fucking loved it. I never thought I would like Jane Austin, but wow... That women has a wicked sense of wit. And I don't think I've been as in love with a character as I am with Elinor Dashwood in quite a long while. The last novel I read before this was Clive Barker's Galilee, which is way more typical of what I normally read, so this was a nice change. Love story + genuine humanity + awesome vocabulary + social commentary + vibrant satire = Awesome Yay for something different! Thank you Beth for lending it to me! ~Coey PS, I now fully understand how truely brilliant Emma Thompson's screenplay is, and why she so totally deserved the Oscar she won for it. I only wish that Miss Steele's character could have come through in the movie a little more clearly. Oh yeah, and today's word is "approbation". hehehehehe... Sorry, it's 2am, and high time I found my way to bed. Night all! | | Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 | | 7:14 am |
Nintendo Update.
I rock. I did more research on-line, and I found a page which explained how to disable the lockout chip on my NES. So I opened the thing back up again, found the chip, and popped the pin out of it. I figured, what the hell, it doesn't work as it is, it's not like I can do harm by breaking it... And it works now. Well, as well as a Nintendo this old can be expected to work. It takes some finessing to get it to read the cartridges, but it's not resetting every second anymore, and if I'm careful, I can get it to read most of the games I have. No luck with Super Mario 3, which is what I wanted to play (that one and my Legend of Zelda, which has NEVER worked, I got used, so their crappy condition is not my fault), but the rest seem to work if I coax them for a while. Got the original Super Mario game to work... I had forgotten how rewarding the 1up sound was. So now I just have to see if I can convince the thing to be less pissy and more consistant. And maybe if I have spare money at some point, look for more games cheap on e-bay. Then I guess I just have to ask people over to play it with me. :) By the way, extra thanks to Kyle for essentially telling me what was wrong with it. If you hadn't pointed me in the right direction, I'd probably have given up and forgotten about it for another 2 years. ~Coey And yes, I have stayed up till 7:00 am playing video games. At least tonight it wasn't World of Warcraft. Current Mood:  accomplishedCurrent Music: the music from Dragon Strike, mostly... | | Sunday, November 18th, 2007 | | 1:20 am |
Anyone know how I might go about getting an original Nintendo fixed? I've had mine since sometime in the late 80's, and it worked just fine till about 3 years ago. It's been in a box since then, but I took it out tonight and tried to get it working. I even took the think apart and cleaned the bits that read the cartridges, but no luck. It was remarkably clean inside, so I didn't really think that would fix it, but it was worth a shot. If it's not a matter of cleaning it though, I'm in the dark. This is the only non-hand-held video game system I have ever owned, and I'll be damned if I let it go without a fight! If anyone has any advice for me, leave me a message. ~Coey | | Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 | | 5:55 pm |
For some reason, today I really, really, really want to play Mao. I wonder if I can find my cards and enough people to get a game together sometime soon. ~Coey Current Mood:  curious | | Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 | | 1:44 am |
| | Sunday, September 16th, 2007 | | 5:55 pm |
So my family made the 5:00 news today. Local news, but who's complaining? My uncle Joe, who is a farmer down near Taylorville, has recently been diagnosed with cancer, and has been pretty sick lately, as in for the past couple of weeks. My cousin came up from Dallas to see her dad and brought her kids with her, and they were sick, and you know how it happens... Anyway, The corn is ready to come out, and there's just no way Joe is up to taking it out right now. So I guess someone put the word out that my uncle needed help taking his crops out, and there were so many volunteers that showed up at the elevator wanting to help that not only did they have to turn people away, but the local news came out and filmed it and played it at 5pm. My uncle is a genuinely good guy who has helped people out his whole life, done a lot of favors and pitched in whenever he was was needed. I just thought that for once you all might like to hear about people coming together to give a good guy a hand. All of us are quite greatful that so many people turned out when my aunt and uncle needed the help the most. And on a completely unrelated note, I just watched the trailor for Elizabeth: The Golden Age on youtube. It looks so fucking awesome I will be counting the days till it's in theatres. I have not been this enthusiastic over a movie I was anticipating in quite a while... Mmmmm...don't care if the movie is historically inaccurate...Cate Blachett in plate mail...god she's pretty... Ok, that's enough for now. | | Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 | | 12:17 pm |
Stolen from demure_carp: Go to imdb.com, post some keywords from ten of your favorite movies, then see if people can guess what they are based on the keywords! These are mine. 1. Boat / Back Stage / Coin Toss <---Nagash594 2. Surrealism / Cannibalism / Bed Spring <---Nagash594 3. Bee / Hook / Folklore <---Nagash594 4. Holy Child / Private Detective / Tibet <---Devomatt 5. Asylum / Pornography / Fight the System <---Epona42 6. Dancing / Gimp / Devine Intervention <---Devomatt 7. Serial Murder / Loss of Wife / Religion <---Devomatt 8. Death of Protagonist / Pedophile / Red <---Demure_carp 9. Crying Baby / Coming of Age / Doorknocker <---Devomatt 10. Pirate / Kidnapping / Island <---listed by Epona42, as it is "Nate and Hayes" (Note, number 10 was not made within the last twenty years, and I probably should not have included it, as its ksywords were really, really crappy. If I could devise my own keywords, they would have been Missionaries / Human Sacrifice / Public Execution or something like that. It's still one of my all-time favorite movies, and one of the formative movies of my childhood. I wonder if it has ever come out on DVD?) "Moaka, please do not refer to the Reverend and I as Big Man God and Mama Jesus Christ. You're putting your soul in jeopardy." Edit: Couldn't help it, took this quiz thing, found it really entertaining. Don't get so carried away with it that you don't make movie guesses though. ;) | | Monday, September 3rd, 2007 | | 2:04 pm |
Well, I think I can be absolutely sure I know what's wrong with my computer speakers. They are in fact picking up radio signals...I know this because they are quite distinctly playing Evanescence right at this very moment - very softly, but I can clearly hear a woman singing "...wake me up inside..." under all the static an buzz. Grrr. I want nice, quiet speakers again! Current Music: Evanescence apparently | | Friday, August 10th, 2007 | | 10:49 pm |
So I totally have a year off of school. Yay! What will I do with the time, I ask myself. Then I get the brilliant idea - I can take classes! I think I am addicted to school. I have re-applied to Parkland as a non-degree seeking student, and I think I can pretty much register for anything I can afford at this point, so long as its not in one of the restricted medical profession catagories. So Im about to sit down with the course book and look for something fun. I am thinking seriously about retaking Arabic I and maybe trying to get in two semesters before I possibly go off to gradschool, so that I can have some actual functionality in another language which is usefully connected to my field of study (Arabic not a bad one for the study of religion and philosophy of religion in todays world...). Too bad Parkland doesnt offer Latin or Ancient Greek, as I could pick one of those back up. Japanese would also be fun, but I think Ill do more with Arabic in the long run. That or I could take a math class, maybe start back in with Calc I or Calc II. Math is fun too. So many possibilities. I just cant keep away from institutions of higher learning. I am such a geek. ;) ~Colleen P.S. What is up with LJ not letting me use apostrophes? I didnt leave them out on purpose - when I type them, they dont show up... Its not like Ive decided I hate punctuation or anything... Tonight they just refuse to appear. Guess they took the night off. I didnt know they could do that. | | Thursday, July 19th, 2007 | | 1:29 pm |
Quote from Rollins which I found interesting...
From an interview with Henry Rollins published in the Omaha World-Herald: Q. What's the biggest change in how you viewed the world back then to how you view the world now? A. I see it as a smaller place now because I've been across more of it. As young person not getting fed all the time I was concerned with the next meal, the next show, meeting a girl if I could — the basic young man's concerns in a starving, hard-working music band. Now as an older guy who's sailed the seas, I kind of look around at everything in a perspective of places being seven to 30 hours away from me. I view it as I can get to Calcutta in 30 hours. All the travel and study of other cultures has made the world much smaller and my role in it much smaller as well, which has given rise to a feeling of civic responsibility, an idea of doing something for someone other than yourself. That never would have really occurred to me when I was broke or to a young person who is missing meals. When I was young it was "me, me, me" and as an older person it's become "us, us, us." *** Something about it appealed to me this morning, so I thought I'd share. ~Coey *** And... I really hate Bill O'Reilly. This is why. | | Sunday, June 17th, 2007 | | 12:46 pm |
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