I played the best Ultimate game today that I've played in months. Possibly the best in years. Nice, nice, very nice.

So I went to the Democratic Caucus today. I ended up acting as secretary for my precinct, and I'm an alternate delegate for the upcoming regional caucus. My precinct is sending one delegate for Kucinich, one delegate for Kerry, and three delegates for Dean.

Strangely enough, two of the other four alternate delegates also live in my apartment building. Gettin' to know the neighbors.

In other news, while I was out, someone apparently thought it would be nice to open up the dryer door in the middle of my cycle, so that I'd have to put more quarters in and restart it when I got back. What the hell?! Not nice at all!

Always, always, always I have so much trouble dragging myself out of bed during the week, and then I can hardly stay sleeping on weekend mornings. Saturdays especially.

The time alone is nice, though. I feel somehow more serene on Saturday mornings than I do at any other time of the week. Sitting here in semi-darkness, all alone, quiet outside, quiet in the rest of the building, all the rest of the weekend ahead of me. So much time before me to do as I please.

The Gender Genie also believes that:

• Mike is male (overwhelmingly so)
• Mary is female
• Laurie is female (grrr - I hate teendiary.com, but I still go because I love Laurie)
• Brian is male (high margin of certainty again)
• Bem is male
• Jeremy is male (quite certain here, as well)
• Jon is male (no question)
• Andy is male

That's a 0% margin of error. Very interesting.

I wanted to read about the algorithm, but the link to it off of the Genie page is broken. There is a working link to an interesting little nature.com article, though. And it quotes a few source articles. I'll have to go pick them up and read up more on the subject.

The Gender Genie, upon analyzing my blog text, thinks that I am female. Whew. Glad that's settled.

Tonight while I was driving to Ultimate practice, a huge raccoon ran out in front of my car.

Granted, I was way out in west Seattle, but still, you don't expect that sort of thing in the city.

When I first saw it dart out in front of me I thought, "Woah, what is wrong with that cat?" Then I realized it was no cat. Crazy.

WHERE'S MY CAUCUS?

If you are a King County resident who wishes to vote in the WA Democratic Caucus this Saturday and you, like myself, have misplaced your voter registration card, the following information will help you find your voting location:

STEP 1 - LOOK UP YOUR PRECINCT:

Enter your name and date of birth on the King County Elections web site. If you have trouble call 206-296-VOTE.

STEP 2 - LOOK UP YOUR CAUCUS:

Look up your precinct on the Washington State Democrats web site. Note that the first number for your precinct is your legislative district, so when the site asks you to enter your "precinct number" just enter the last 4 digits. If you have trouble, you can also check the web site for your legislative district for more info.

The caucus convenes at 10:00 AM. Any voter registered in the precinct who is willing to sign a statement declaring that he or she is a Democrat can vote. Other persons can attend and take part in the discussions, but are not permitted to vote on anything. Proof of voter registration is not required.

Happy voting!

Blogging and the New York Times:

There is now an amazing tool for bloggers that want to link to NYTimes articles! Simply enter the URL for the article you're interested in and it will return an alternate link for the article. The alternate link will allow access to the article, even after it has been archived, without requiring the viewer to pay any fees. This works for all NYTimes articles dating back to June of 2003. Pretty sweet!

Dancing robots! This stuff kicks some serious ass.

The Rice Milk Brothers are DJing at tomorrow night's One 'O Clock Jump. Sweetness! They got good stuff.

I haven't been out Lindy Hopping all that much lately... I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things at tomorrow night's dance.

If you mistype the URL for this site, leaving out the 's' in blogspot (i.e. http://nyrhtak.blogpot.com instead of http://nyrhtak.blogspot.com), you get a bible site. Strange, but interesting. Vewy, vewy interesting.

Well, maybe not so strange. I guess it turns out that just about anything .blogpot.com will take you to that site -- http://anythinggoeshere.blogpot.com, http://yourmomma.blogpot.com, http://iwanttolickyou.blogpot.com, etc. They're probably banking on people trying to browse to legitimate blogger sites and mistyping the latter part of the URL. Interesting marketing strategy.

Have you ever had an established friendship morph into something deeper? You already know and like the other person, and you're happy with the terms on which you relate, but suddenly you're connecting with them on an entirely new level. Note that this is different than an acquaintance morphing into a friend.

This has happened to two of my friendships recently.

I wonder -- how much coincidence is it? This morphing of friendships doesn't happen often for me, and it's happening in multiplicity right now. Am I putting out a different vibe? Relating to people in subtly different ways that are perhaps more inviting? Or is it really just an odd coincidence that the two instances happened so close together?

Whatever the case, I am glad for these particular instances. I look forward to the growth of our friendships, to exploring uncharted territory.

When I was a teenager, I drove everywhere with the windows down. Even in the dead of winter, in sub-zero temperatures. I loved the feeling of the wind whipping through the car, cooling my cheeks. It made me feel free.

A few years ago, I drove with the windows down because I was a smoker and I hated the smell. I was most compelled to smoke whilst stuck in traffic but couldn't shut myself up with the stinky, nasty cigarette, so I held it out the window whenever I wasn't taking a puff.

Now I don't smoke anymore. But at some point, I also stopped driving with the windows down.

Today, I drove to work. I rolled the windows down. I turned the music up. It felt so good!

I think sometimes that parts of my spirit have died over the years. Or, more aptly, have fallen dormant. So much of the time, I'm plugging away and doing my thing but... somehow, it's not really living.

Today, driving into work, the sun shining in my eyes, the mountains bright and clear and calling to me, the wind whipping through the car, I felt as if some part of me that had been long sleeping was just now waking up.

Finished another one. MSPaint Madness!



I'm a regular Monet of the digital age.

MSPaint Again:

I tell people I'd like to live in a country where nudity isn't stigmatized the way it is here, but at the same time I have issues surrounding my own nudity. I almost always sleep with clothes on. I feel strange walking around my apartment, outside of my bathroom, in any stage of undress, even though I live alone.

Effectually, I am okay with other peoples' nudity, but have issues with my own. That's a little strange, yeah?

Fun with MSPaint:

Roosevelt Auto Body Collision 1 - Super Awesome.

Someone side-swiped my car a while back and I just now got it into the shop to get fixed. I took it to Roosevelt Auto Body, because the other party's insurance was paying and it was one of their preferred shops.

When I took the car in, I asked if they would repair my passenger side mirror as well. I had banged it on a fence a while back, which cracked the casing, and then Mary nicked a dumpster later on, which finished it off. I was prepared to just suck up the cost for that since it had nothing to do with the accident, and it did sound like it might get a little costly. They can't order just new casing -- they have to order an entire mirror, wiring and all, which runs about $170. They could try getting a used part, but junkers like to sell off doors as a complete piece so they're unlikely to sell just the mirror casing.

So, anyhow, Roosevelt Auto Body finished work on my car today. I went to pick it up, expecting that I'd be paying about $170 out of pocket.

Not so!

They fixed the mirror for me! Bonded all the pieces back together, painted it... FOR FREE.

They did a great job fixing everything else, as well. And everything else was covered by the insurance. And they cleaned my car on top of that!

Sweet, sweet, sweet. I am in love with my auto shop.

My bus pulled up to the stop this morning while I was still half a block away. I ran toward it like a woman posessed, and... the bus driver waited for me. That never happens!

It turns out that, in my quest for better posture, I have been over-compensating and arching my lower back. Crazy. I hadn't even realized you could do that. It's like the anti-slouch.

These are the states that I have been to:


I counted states that I have driven through on the way, but not states that I have flown through / transferred planes in. (Effectively, I left out Texas. I spent approximately two hours in a Texas airport once, but I figure it doesn't count seeing as I never even exited airport security.)

These are the states that I have intentionally spent time in (does not count states that I drove through in order to spend time in another state):




There's a distinct bias toward the Midwest, eh? Interesting that I've seen so little of the west coast, especially seeing as I've lived on this coast for the last 6th of my life. I feel like I should go see more of the South sometime, also, although I'm not sure I'm quite as excited about that.

Create your own visited states map

I hate putting concentrated effort into something and not making the sort of headway I'd like. I'm used to being good at whatever I want to be, at being able to pick things up easily if I put my mind to it. It frustrates me when I am not able to do that.

I want to be good at Tango! I'm starting to be able to picture what I want my Tango to look like, what I'd like it to be, but I just can't do it. It feels like I'm hardly making any headway. Very frustrating.