Question: Why does Florida exist?

Answer: To give us news stories like this....

I have been following the story about the group of teens who beat up another girl in Florida since the beginning. I know that violence happens everywhere, but for some reason the headlines that really grab my attention lately have been occurring in the Sunshine State. There's the guy who videotaped his grandma holding a gun saying she was going to shoot "all the pigs." Then there is the father who started beating on his daughter because she wouldnt pray.

The argument of who is to blame with all the violence will last an eternity - video games, movies, television... I really dont know which i would debate against, because none of them are ever going away.

P.S... As a follow up to my previous blog - Because she will not admit that her controversial abortion project is fake, Yale has decided not to allow the project to be displayed.

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I just got done reading about the Yale student who is preparing an art exhibit about her self-induced miscarriages... I am completely and utterly disgusted. Now, i am like 98% pro-choice (with the 2% exclusion just because of women who abuse abortion as birth control) but this is just ridiculous. There are some who claim that it is a hoax. Whether or not it is - and i doubt that it will ever be proven - doesnt matter to me right now. I am just appalled that an obviously bright, well-educated student would consider and actually complete a project like this. You'll have to read the article to get her reasons for doing it. I am upset over so many things. She is practically laughing in the face of every woman who cannot naturally conceive on her own. Not to mention women who want an abortion but cant afford it or the expenses occurred when getting one. And her lack of concern over the potential long-term harm she has done to her own body... I might feel less heated towards it if she had openly admitted she was doing it for shock-factor. But she doesnt. She claims she is trying to "spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body." Ok crazy, launch your naked body covered in menstrual fluid you've collected for nine months onto a canvas made out of woven human hair. There, you've accomplished your goal without proving that you are a masturbatory attention-seeker.

Hmmmmm, maybe not.....

April Fools

In the past Zieak and i have come up with some pretty extravagant ideas for April Fools jokes. This year though, we went with one that i had heard about years and years ago, when the mural downtown first went up. A guy i knew said he would love to stick up South Park characters all over the thing, since it looked so cartoonish. So i printed out a bunch of high-res images of Stan, Cartman, Kyle etc and we brought some duct tape downtown that morning. The original plan was to do it at 4am when we would surely not be seen, but then we realized that there arent a lot of people around at 7:30am either. Here is the finished product, i think they stayed up for a couple of days before someone removed them. Yeah, you can BARELY see them in the center bottom. I envisioned much larger images covering more area of the mural, but that would have been too much work (and ink, which is NOT cheap.) If you click on the picture you get a better view.

OMG! NKOTB!

Friday could be the biggest day of my life. NKOTB is appearing on the "today" show to announce their reunion album and tour! Of course with no tv I won't be able to watch the phenomenal event, but that's what youtube is for. Now, in case you don't understand the level of obsession I exhibited for these guys in my pre-teens, here is what my bedroom looked like: one entire wall covered in magazine clippings of the most awesomest boy band ever. I even went so far as to find a small black & white picture of myself, crop some lucky fans face out of a promotional picture of the band and swap it for mine. I lied to my closest friends about its authenticity. My friends and I (you know who you are) would take pictures of the tv screen when one of their music videos was on - only to be thoroughly disappointed when we got the 110 film developed and all the prints were just a washed out flash bouncing off the screen. Some privileged actors (river phoenix, christian slater, jonathan brandis) got their space on adjacent walls, but no one got the honor of a whole wall except for my new kids.

I am really hoping that one of their tour dates coincides with the road trip we are planning this fall - that way i wont have to shell out for a plane ticket!

We all had our favorite one, and i am sure some scale exists somewhere that tells you what type of girl you are depending on which new kid was your favorite. Mine was Jonathan (aaaaaaah Jonathan) the shy, quiet one. In my mind, we were going to be married one day. According to the wiki, he now works as a real estate developer quietly living in Massachusetts. No mention of marriage. Hmmmmm.....