the everyday happenings of ada

Is anybody interested in a pencil cactus? My pencil cactus (the one I planted where Harry is buried) seems to have sprouted a new plant, which needs to be extricated and re-potted separately. Assuming I can do this successfully, I'm fine with giving it a new home if anybody's interested.

Also, I hate migraines. A lot. Just FYI.

Desperately seeking a fold-out couch, or failing that, another futon. (I'm gonna start lurking the Orlando Freecycle too, but figured I'd ask here.)

This is actually a lot funnier than I expected it to be.

So I just skimmed through the transcript of Sarah Palin's resignation speech.
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ
I want to hit her, and whoever transcribed it, and whover approved this transcript for public release (if it wasn't run by her at all) with this... over the head... a bunch... until it sinks in.

"In the words of General MacArthur said..." (AAAGHHH WHAT)

Someone should also tell her that she's got an infestation of unnecessary commas, and that her caps lock key seems to be randomly TOGGLING itself.
I seriously just want to go through and red-pen this whole thing. I'm expecting the next headline to be that Sarah Palin's high school English teacher hung hirself.

(For the record: Yes, I know, I don't follow grammar/punctuation rules in my own LJ. But if I was writing something professionally, ESPECIALLY something that would be read by millions of people, I would clean up my act just a bit.)

Goddamnit Sarah Palin, I swore to myself that I was done blogging about you. I know that once people stop paying attention to people like you or Rush Limbaugh, you'll just GO AWAY. But this is just too much.

All right, I'm doing some more proofreading tonight, and I'd like to consult the other grammar nazis on my list.
Now, obviously, you normally use "a" before a noun that starts with a consonant and "an" before a noun that starts with a vowel, like "a cat" or "an armoire".
I'm trying to figure out if there's a rule about words that start with actually pronouncing the first letter itself and the pronunciation starts with a vowel sound, like "X-wing". You would say (or type) "an X-wing", not "a X-wing", wouldn't you? The particular case I'm trying to decide on is "a L x L grid" versus "an L x L grid". I'm inclined towards the latter, but I wondered if there was an actual rule about this, and I'm having trouble Googling it because I'm not sure exactly how to phrase my question.
I figured somebody on my f-list would be able to confirm this for me.
In thanks for your help I offer you silly videos.

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First video is the Beer song by Psychostick. TBQH the song is funnier without the video (I'd recommend listening to just the audio first) but the video is definitely worth a view. Thank you, yukihoshino , for introducing me to this amazing song.



The same band also has a really cute parody of "Bodies" called "I Can Only Count To Four". Heh.



George sent me this one. What if all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were just saying "Hey!" (Reminds me of the old Far Side cartoon about the dogs...)



Finally, here's a new fan video for "Never Split The Party". I still like the Lego one better, but this one is really cute. (I especially like Jonathan as the "damn thief".)

In honor of Sarah Palin's resignation, I propose every city in the nation celebrate with fireworks tomorrow.

I really don't know why this is so funny, but it is. I had no idea this was even a meme, but there's a bunch of them. (There's also a similar video where Hitler finds out he's a YouTube meme. OH GOD I CAN SEE FOREVER)
Can somebody tell me what movie the original clip is from? I'm really curious.

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Also, completely unrelated, but I CLEARLY need to be watching more tennis.
FFFUUUUCCCCKKKK
The only thing that really doesn't do it for me is the heels. Eh, to each her own.

So I've recently discovered that I really, really love 311. In particular, this song has become one of my very favorite songs, for reasons I'll probably never be able to verbalize (at least not to anybody sober). Thank you, bunnylucious , for introducing me to this song.



This one... nope, not gonna explain this one.



Also, Keyboard Cat!

ARGH WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY INTERNET CONNECTION I HAVE TO RELOAD EVERYTHING LIKE FIVE TIMES DX 

ETA: Actually, it might be just Chrome. WHAT THE HELL CHROME YOU USED TO BE SO RELIABLE NOW YOU'RE MAKING ME TYPE IN ALL CAPS 'CAUSE I'M SO FRUSTRATED

"I will see you again, in the place where no shadows fall."

That line always makes me cry. Like, seriously. That's all it takes.
I'm becoming SUCH a softie as I get older.

I don't inherently have a problem with your dichotomy; it's your religion and you can practice it as you see fit.
However - - PLEASE quit insisting that the whole world views (and has always viewed) the moon as female and the sun as male, or that reversals of this are rare. It's simply not the case.
Hush now.

Silken tofu looks like a yeast infection.

Still watching Babylon 5; it's almost the end of season 4. You know the part I'm talking about.
You guys I'm gonna cry =(

So I've been working a bit on my own websites lately, and I've been thinking of making an actual blog, to supplement or replace a lot of what's on my LiveJournal. TBQH I've become less and less fond of LJ over the years, but I've stayed here because I want to stay in touch with all my friends who are on LJ. I'm thinking I'd like to keep my LJ for posting only things about my personal life (therefore it would become strictly friends-only) and use the other blog for posting about cooking, politics, current events, whatever... basically I want a blog I can share and advertise that doesn't have all my personal junk and whining on it.
So I figure I have a couple choices:

* Post only my personal stuff here, and arrange an RSS feed so that people on LJ can follow my other blog if they so desire. So basically you can follow this LJ if you want to just keep up with me personally, and add the feed for my other blog if you want to read about my cooking or current events stuff or whatever.
* Post my personal stuff here and also mirror any posts I make on my blog, but have these blog posts public instead of friends-locked. So basically it would still look to you, the reader, exactly as my LJ does now, but people who really don't care about my personal stuff can just add the other blog if they only want that stuff.
* Post my personal stuff here, and maybe once a day or once a week post links to whatever I've posted in the other blog that day/week/whatever.

Opinions? Better ideas? Does it really make a difference to anybody?
Incidentally, I haven't set up any RSS stuff for LJ yet, but the new blog will be at http://www.the-witchs-brew.com/lovelace/ .

Abortion Doctor Is Shot To Death In Kansas Church

This guy had had his clinic bombed, had been _shot_ before, and he kept going. God bless 'im.

Speaking of...

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

Old but still good.

On the subject of late-term abortions... I'm extremely pro-choice, and have been since I was old enough to make objective decisions about such things, though I used to have some reservations about late-term abortions. However, since I've been reading more and more about these procedures and how, at least in the US, they're performed very rarely (even more rarely in Canada) and they're almost always performed to save the life of the mother or end an already unviable pregnancy... no, I don't really have any reservations about it any more. I don't think a woman should have to feel guilty about having an abortion to save her life or save her child from a very short, agonizing life. And, to be honest, while I think that there are rare cases where such an abortion is not medically necessary and the mother may have less laudable reasons for doing it, I don't think abortion should _ever_ be illegal, even if it's a case where I think the mother's decision is unethical, and I don't think we should be making legislation to make it harder for women who _need_ these procedures just to stop the small handful of women who would act in a way we may feel is unethical.

Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

I don't even know what to say on this one.
People have been saying for years that they were raping and murdering people over there, but nobody seemed to care. I've talked to an unsettling number of people who insisted that we were just humiliating them, and they deserved it anyways. They were all terrorists, so they had it coming, right? And Rumsfeld said they were "abused", not "tortured".
So what now? Do people deserve to get raped or tortured to death too? We're torturing people, raping people, slaughtering women and children by the thousands... how far can we push this and still have the moral high ground?
And until we get details, I don't believe Obama for a second that "appropriate actions" were taken against the people who committed these crimes.

I'm so ashamed right now I want to cry or vomit.

Is rape going to be just another "advanced interrogation technique" now?

More photos at the Sydney Morning Herald if you want to get a look at what we've been doing over there. They're not as bad as what's been described from the unreleased photos, but they're still pretty NSFW, obviously.