Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I've finally finished it. And cried like a baby for the last fifty pages.

Bill Frist supports stem cell research

Not about politics, he says? Potential presidential candidate, eh? Realisation that the majority of the country supports stem cell research?

Yeah, it's all about principle, not about politics.

iTunes top 25

My musical world is so strange...

1. Lady Killer - Lush
2. Still Fighting It - Ben Folds
3. Ma vie à l'heure (La toune de l'Ouest) - Les Respectables
4. Désenchentées (Remix) - Mylène Farmer
5. Disco 2000 - Pulp
6. Like A Friend - Pulp
7. Common People - Pulp
8. Love You Madly - Cake
9. Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
10. Judy Is A Punk - The Ramones
11. I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
12. Zak and Sara - Ben Folds
13. The Boys of Summer - DJ Sammy
14. Last Day of the Miners' Strike - Pulp
15. I Will Survive - Cake
16. Hollywood Nights - Bob Seger
17. The Distance - Cake
18. Cocaine Socialism - Pulp
19. An Old Fashioned Wedding - Annie Get Your Gun
20. Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
21. Mrs Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel
22. Against the Wind - Bob Seger
23. Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Sugar Ray
24. American Pie - Don McLean
25. What A Wonderful World - Joey Ramone

Updates.

Haven't blogged in a few days...not since Harry Potter arrived, anyway. Plus I've been busy with work plus training for the new job.

Briefly:

200 pages left in HP.

Had my date with the EMT. Very nice guy. Probably a better friend than a boyfriend. Plus I think I'm pretty happy being single right now. Plus he's technically seeing someone else right now--although not super-seriously and it seems to be going south.... I'll definitely see him again, but I think I'll be sticking to just friendship.

Um...I have two more training shifts this week at the café--tomorrow and Saturday. Then Sunday-Wednesday are my last days at the resto. Next Thursday is my first full shift at the café. Friday I have my first opening shift. Ugh. This is not going to be fun. I'm going to be opening on Wednesdays and Fridays. 6am. This is going to hurt but I do get as much coffee as I want while I'm at work so that will hopefully soften the blow. The resto offered me what I'd be making at the café on Monday to stay but I told them that I thought I'd just be a lot happier at the café.

Tonight, I think I'm going to finish my current chapter in HP, go meet some friends for a drink and probably end up going out for some karaoke later if I feel up for it.

One espresso martini to get me going, please!

One has to wonder...

...who okays these ad campaigns. There was just a back-to-school ad on TV for Target using the music from 'Baby Got Back' but with different lyrics to sell backpacks. With little kids. Somehow that's just not right.

Still dreaming about social legislation

I'm watching the CBS Early Show right now which is doing a story on a small but growing number of companies who are allowing parents to bring their babies to work. One company that they are profiling allows parents to bring babies to work during their first six months and notes that it makes 'business sense' and that it has increased productivity.

Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than many other industrial nations. The favourite comparison is to look at the French, who work notably fewer hours and take many more vacations. Yet the level of productivity for the two nations is comparable. (If I were feeling ambitious, I'd find the numbers since I recently read an article about this--but I'm not feeling that ambitious so just trust me on this or google it for yourself.)

It seems so typically American to approach the problem by finding a way to allow people to continue to work full-time rather than allowing them more flexible schedules or giving them time off to spend with their new babies.

One of the women that they interviewed noted that it was so wonderful because it allowed her to keep doing her job while bonding with her new daughter at the same time. I should point out that this particular woman was the CEO of a multi-million dollar real estate development company. She could have easily taken six months off, I'm sure, or worked some kind of flex-time. But she chose not to. She chose to build a nursery next to her office and continue to work the long hours that she was used to working.

She says that knowing that her daughter is in a crib just in the next room makes her not feel guilty about maintaining long hours.

Work-a-holic nation.

Hard work is great and enjoying your job is even better but when will we realise that work is simply a means to an end, not the end itself? We all have to work in order to live but we really ought not to live to work.

I was here yesterday and this morning...

...it didn't suck, as you might imagine.





This Maine thing isn't so bad.

A few minor blog changes and some ramblings

Added Preshrunk to the Daily Reads. It's a blog about cool t-shirt designs.
Added Salty Sea Stories to Connecting the Blogosphere. It's something that doesn't look like it's going to get updated very often but based on the first post, probably a lot of fun to read.

I'm reading 'The Sun Also Rises' to tide me over until I get HP6.

And, for what it's worth, I've been listening to the Clash a lot recently.

Also, I have a tentative date with the EMT on Thursday. Um...I don't think I'd mentioned that here, actually, did I? Last Saturday, my roommate phoned me up to come meet her and another friend for a drink at the resto down the street where we know the bartender quite well (we had dinner there last night, incidentally, and were in for a drink on Thursday. Yeah, we're regulars.) In any event, I'd been pretty lazy all day and was wearing some crappy jeans and a crappy t-shirt pockmarked with cat claw holes. It's not totally gross, but not really something I'd wear unless I was going out just to meet some friends for a drink or something unimportant like that.

So I get there and first I was totally thrown off because we were apparently sitting at the opposite end of the bar from where we usually sit. That totally threw me off to begin with. And then our friend nods to a group of guys at the other end of the bar, where we normally sit, and singles one out and says that he wants to meet me. And I'm like, 'What?! I'm not dressed to meet anyone! Why didn't you tell me!?' Ugh. Girls. This would explain why my roommate had been so insistent that I had to come for a drink.

So, we did meet and we talked and an enjoyable conversation it was. He's sort of seeing someone right now and I think I made it clear that I'm not really looking for anything romantic right now anyway although he kept saying that he wished he'd met me two weeks earlier, before he started seeing this other guy. My response to that is that life always has its reasons.

We exchanged numbers but I decided that the ball was entirely in his court, even if this does just remain on the level of friendship, which would be fine by me. He phoned me on Tuesday, just as I was getting to work but I told him that I'd get back to him later in the week once my work week finished (I'm working at the resto Sun-Wed). I phoned him yesterday to see what his weekend plans were and he was fairly well booked though he said he might maybe be free this afternoon but, if not, the next good day for him was going to be Thursday.

So we have a tentative date for Thursday. An early dinner around 5. I'm not sure why so early, but as I have that day off anyway as of right now, It'll give my day some kind of structure. I find that I'm really not working enough right now to give my days a lot of structure or to even really give me a good sense of a week and weekend. I know I shouldn't complain about this but it does get a bit frustrating. That should be solved, soon, though, as I have orientation for the café job on Monday and a short training shift on Tuesday. I'll be working a few training shifts this coming week before I start full-time the first week of August.

In any event, I'm not sure what to think about the situation yet. I suppose that's fine given I've only just met him. He's rather older than I am and although I tend to go for older guys, it's usually only by a few years, not a few decades. If anything, that would be the major obstacle in my head to a romantic relationship with this guy. But, like I said, I'm certainly open to friendship. If anything, he seems to be a genuinely friendly guy, which, needless to say, are few and far between. Oh, and he's an EMT. I asked the bartender about him and she had nothing but praise for him and very strongly suggested that I just wait and see where things go.

I know I always think too hard about these things at the beginning so consider this post my thinking too hard about it and getting it out of the way and trying not to worry about it anymore.

*whine*

My copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince only shipped yesterday from the bookstore that I used to work at in Montreal. Which means I won't get it until next week very likely. Waaahhh.

I was in a bookstore yesterday and was SO tempted to open it up and start reading but I managed not to give into the temptation.

(For the record, all of my other HP books are the Canadian edition, so I want to keep the consistency as the American covers are different and they change the vocabulary for the dumb American kids who can't deal with British slang apparently. As if Canadian kids walk around saying 'Wotcher' and talk about 'taking the mickey'. Please.)

Settling in...?

I finally got rid of the two sticky notes on my desktop related to my move. One, my to-do list that I had started pre-move. I've added to it since although I still had a few things leftover. Two, the one with my new address and phone number.

Just thought I'd share.

Entirely unrelated: I watched Napoleon Dynamite today and fail to see what all the fuss is about.

Ugh consumerism

I just saw a back-to-school advert on TV.

IT'S 13 JULY!!!

Boo

I didn't get the café job. :(

Of course, this means that I can pester Casco Bay Books again in the next few weeks since they said that they'd be hiring towards the end of July. And that's where I wanted to work to begin with.

Meth: not just for the homos

The link at the bottom of this post is to an overly depressing NY Times article from today about the effects of the rise in meth use and production on the social welfare systems of the areas that it has hit hardest in the US: the Western states and rural areas in particular. It focuses especially on what is happening to the poor kids whose parents are meth addicts/producers.

The National Association of Counties a week or two ago released a report saying that meth is number one drug problem across the nation right now, asking the Federal Government for increased funding across the board in order to combat it. A number of states are considering bans or have already put into place bans on over-the-counter sale of the common cold medicines from which meth can by synthesised (along with other ingredients).

The Bush Administration, however, maintains that the number one drug problem facing the country continues to be marijuana.

(Go read the article and tell me if that makes any sense.)

I'm posting this mostly because it's such a soft story. It doesn't ask any hard question, especially the one that was on my mind the whole time I was reading it: why? Not why are the welfare systems being overwhelmed but why are these parents turning to meth use/production? Certainly the current problem needs to be dealt with and these kids need to be provided with care. But the overall problem also has to be tackled and only by understanding why people are turning to meth can progress be made.

I'm very tempted to blame it on a number of things like the state of the economy, poor education generally in the US (not to mention what it's likely like in rural areas), a sense of being trapped in a horrible situation with no real way out, an easy way to make some extra money....

I could continue, but I won't.

Just food for thought.

Ugh

Washing dishes sucks ass. I'm way too much a social person for this job. It is money and the people are great, but I really hope that the café job comes through!

Job interview update

Just got home from my interview at the café. It went really well, methinks. They're looking for a shift leader--oooh! something with *actual* responsibility. The girl who interviewed me was super nice and I have a very good feeling about this place and the company in general. She seemed very positive about how the interview went and said that she was going to phone my references and then get back to me in the next few days.

*fingers crossed*

Have they forgotten about the terror alert?

Tomorrow is Independence Day! I'm sure that must meen that the evil terrorists want to attack our land even more! Why haven't they raised the terror alert? Have they forgotten about it? Are they concerned about the mass panic it might provoke? What if an attack comes tomorrow and they haven't raised the alert, then what? People will be going about in their yellow-coded lives, and then *bam* nuclear holocaust. But if the terror alert were raised, people would be more vigilant and become more suspicious and maybe a potential attack might be stopped. Plus then the people would know that the government really was working to protect their best interests and that this wasn't all just a scam to generate mass fear and attempt to spur consumer spending. And then if an attack came and the alert level had been raised, the Dear Leader would be vindicated in all that he has struggled for in the past four years. And his approval ratings would soar like the eagle of American freedom and democracy out of the depths where they are now. And he would have no problems implimenting the rest of his crazy agenda over the next two years. And we would all link hands and sing his praise once we realised that he truly is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan.

Plus, I'd get to have an orange dancing banana on my blog!

Jeopardy vindication

I always feel good when I get the final Jeopardy question but none of the contestants do.

Category: Actors and Historical Roles
Answer: In the 2002 film 'Frida', Geoffrey Rush played this European firebrand during his final days.'

I got it and I haven't even seen the movie. :-P

Happy Canada Day

Canada has virtually legalised gay marriage. The bill needs only to be approved by the Senate where no major problems are expected. Spain has legalised it. Yay Canada and Spain.

In far more depressing news, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her resignation from the US Supreme Court today. I think I wrote about this during the election last year: the one really big and really scary issue that would be directly impacted by the results of the election was that there was bound to be at least one--if not many--Supreme Court justices retiring during this presidential term. The Court is very finely balanced right now but Bush has no reason to keep it that way. It's true that the Republicans don't have a large enough majority in the Senate to be able to nominate whomever they want but that doesn't mean that they won't try. Bush has nothing to lose by nominating some far right judge to fill O'Connor's spot. He's already a lame duck as the lack of any bounce in the polls from Tuesday's speech shows. The problem, of course, is that we're at the beginning of an election cycle for Congress and this is bound to dominate the early part of that cycle. There's little doubt that the Democrats are going to get painted as obstructionist again for trying to stand up to any hard-line conservative nominee that Bush might through their way. The GOP might even try to take advantage of the goldfish memory of the American public and claim that they had promised not to use filibusters against judicial nominations back during the nuclear option fight. The Dems of course, promised only not to filibuster a small list of select compromise nominations and did not say anything about any future nominations.

Appointments are for a lifetime and while there will likely be more appointments during Bush's remaining years in office, if he manages to get one more hard-line conservative on the bench then we're screwed. Good-bye thirty years of progress. Good-bye abortion, environmental protection, minority (race, sexuality, gender, etc) rights. If they can swing the Supreme Court then the Republicans would have control of all three branches of government. One can only hope for a limited time only. But a conservative court can stick around for quite a long time (O'Connor herself sat on the bench for 24 years) whereas Congress and the President chance much more frequently in comparison.

Daily Kos has a list of things you can do right now to get ready to fight for a compromise, centrist nominee: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/1/111447/3656

And, to borrow the words of Rob over on AmericaBlog, Happy 4th - your independence is on the line.'

PS I have a job interview on Tuesday! With this place: Coffee By Design! They're happy and socially responsible and support the local community, etc. What a nice change it would be from my last coffee-slinging experience at Starbucks. One would assume, anyway.