I hereby hate iPods.

Alright. So, I have a five or six year old CD player. Not ancient, but not brand new. It works just fine, but it's getting picky about one or two newer CDs. It doesn't like Gretchen Wilson's All Jacked Up, and it doesn't like Brad Paisley's 5th Gear. It's not picky about anything else, though, just those two. Well... and the occasional burned CD. But I got a bit sick of it taking a lot of poking to make it play Brad, so I decided that it's time for a new one.

THEY DON'T EXIST ANYMORE. You can't get boomboxes. From anywhere. Ever since the iPod showed up, people assume that no one listens to CDs anymore. That's ridiculous! I mean, I'm not dropping 300 bucks or more for some stupid little gadget that will be obsolete next year, anyway! GAH. I hate gadgets like that that assume they're the most important thing in the world, and that EVERY person in the world is going to own one.

So, here's what my day was like. Mom decided she wanted to go grocery shopping for some more snacks and stuff, so I decided to look at new CD players while we were there. I found a really good one for 35 bucks. Bought it, took it home... and guess what? Stupid thing was defective. It doesn't play CDs! The radio worked fine, but it had some problem where it thought the lid was up all the time, so it wouldn't play anything! So that went back to the store right after that.

So I went to Radio Shack then to see if they have one. Of course not! They haven't seen one of those in YEARS! Apparently EVERYTHING is digital music now. So stupid.

Then it's off to Best Buy to see if they have anything. No boomboxes, of course! Found one that was kinda.... meh. It was 20 bucks though, and the only one left in existence. So I picked that up, but went to look at the more expensive things, just because. And you'll never guess what I saw. Frigging Dead Man's Chest CD player. I mean that quite literally. It was the Dead Man's Chest. And it was a CD player. It was the COOLEST thing I've seen since my Elvis Purse. So I put down the $20 one, and I bought the Pirate player.

Got it home... it doesn't take headphones. That is my ONE requirement. If it doesn't take headphones, it's stupid, and it goes.

So I've gotta take it back tomorrow. GAH! So frusterated. And iPods are totally to blame.

Wow...

I don't even know what to say about this one.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_7243545

Here is the text of the article, in case it ever gets deleted.

Injured Bliss soldier's kids killed on way to hospital

Times staff, wire report

Article Launched: 10/22/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

Two children of a Fort Bliss soldier flown back from Iraq with combat injuries are dead and a third is on life support after a car accident on the way to visit their father in the hospital, Army officials said.

Army Spc. John Austin Johnson was waiting for his wife and three kids to visit him at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio on Oct. 13 when another soldier told him his family's car had rolled over four times on Interstate 10 about 12 miles east of Ozona on the gusty West Texas plains.

"He said, 'Two of my children are dead?' " Army Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Schmidt told the Dallas Morning News. "And we started crying."

Johnson is a member of Fort Bliss' 4-1 Cavalry, post spokeswoman Jean Offutt said. She said Johnson's unit has sent a noncommissioned officer to be with the family.

"They are being well taken care of by the unit," Offutt said.

Schmidt said Johnson has survived five brushes with improvised explosive device blasts during two years in Iraq.

The latest left him with a traumatic brain injury, and he speaks with a severe stutter.

Schmidt said Johnson's wife, Lisa, overcorrected the steering in her sport utility vehicle after encountering a blast of wind on the drive from El Paso.

The couple's youngest children, 2-year-old Logan and 5-year-old Ashley, died at the scene.

Tyler Johnson, 9, suffered massive head injuries and remains on life support at Children's Medical Center in Dallas.

He was listed in critical but stable condition Sunday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

"He's a fighter. Even the doctors are amazed he's still alive," said Schmidt, who says the family is too grief-stricken to speak publicly. "We're praying."

Lisa Johnson suffered bruises in the crash, but was released from the hospital.

Tyler remained at the hospital while their parents left for their children's visitation in Benton, Ark., the family's hometown. An anonymous donor provided five burial plots in the veterans section of Pinecrest Memorial Park in Alexander, Ark., where Spc. Johnson's grandfather is buried.

Another donor purchased markers for Logan and Ashley, whose funeral is set for Tuesday in Alexander. American Airlines provided the family seven roundtrip tickets, and other groups are helping the family take care of expenses.

"It's been a pleasure and an honor to help them," said Rehnda White-Brunner, director of United Services Organizations of Dallas/Fort Worth.

FirstLight Federal Credit Union has opened an account to help the Johnson family. FirstLight officials are encouraging the community to make donations to the account by visiting any of FirstLight's seven branches in El Paso and Las Cruces or by calling 1-800-351-1670 and directing your contribution to the Johnson Family Memorial Fund.

Branch locations:

-Kenworthy Branch, 9993 Kenworthy, El Paso.

-Lee Trevino Branch, 1555 N. Lee Trevino, El Paso.

-Marshall Branch, 1741 Marshall, El Paso.

-William Beaumont Army Medical Center Branch, 5005 N. Piedras, El Paso.

-Del Rey Branch, 3105 Del Rey, Las Cruces.

-Lohman Branch, 3791 E. Lohman, Las Cruces.

-Foster Branch, 300 E. Foster, Las Cruces.

One Believer

Because this is my FAVORITE song in the world, and it isn't on any CD, so this is an absolute MIRACLE that I found it!

Fan Films

I'm... floored. To say the least. I really really am.

http://www.atomfilms.com/film/forced_alliance.jsp

Todays news...

Alright people, never let this one be your obituary headline: "Dead Man Found in Avocado Tree".

And here's the sign that there really is some justice left in the world: "Florida Man Sentenced to Death for Leaving Child to Be Eaten by Alligators". That's brilliant. Anyone that does something like that should not be given life in prison. Good to know the death sentence is still good for something.

But then again, here's another reason why humanity is down the toilet. A Spanish horror novelist turns out to be a cannibal. They found bits of his girlfriends body in the fridge, and some of her muscle in a frying pan, with a bit of fruit seasoning. It's assumed that the novelist had killed two people before, in the same manner. The maximum sentence? 50 years in prison. Now, sure, by the time 50 years is up, he'll already be dead. But I mean... someone who cannibalizes his girlfriend and writes a book about it should not be allowed to live another second. He should be shot. No no... not shot.... crushed. Slowly.

The Karen Traviss in me wants to write a story about this. You know, she's right. You really can't make this stuff up...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301736,00.html

I must say this is fascinating. Is that horrible of me?

MIAMI — Unlike most boats returning from the high seas, the sport fisher Joe Cool had no tales to tell. Three days earlier, the 47-foot boat had departed for the island of Bimini, four crew members and two passengers aboard. A day earlier, it had been found, doing circles and dragging anchor, on a lonely stretch of the Florida Straits about 30 miles north of Cuba.

With no crew.

And no passengers.

As a Coast Guard cutter towed it slowly back into Biscayne Bay, a hush fell over its home, the Miami Beach Marina.

In the slips, men ceased buffing the pearly hulls of multimillion-dollar yachts. Dock boys stopped zipping about in EZGO carts. Even the Shih Tzu-walkers in their Gucci sunglasses and clogs paused as the white vessel glided without a murmur up the channel.

Along the docks and the palm-lined pier, "Everyone stood there and followed the boat with their eyes," Valerie Kevorkian, a dive shop operator and scuba instructor, recalled, "and then there was only emptiness ... a ghostly feeling."

Indeed, the Joe Cool had returned with no souls or story — only clues, tantalizing to be sure, to a high-seas mystery full of twists, discrepancies, revelations and contradictions.

As on an episode of "CSI," investigators would pluck from the vessel some valuable evidence: four 9 mm shell casings; a tiny key that might or might not unlock handcuffs; splotches of human blood, inside and outside the cabin.

They would also find, drifting in an orange life raft 12 miles north of the ghost ship, two seemingly incongruous men who had chartered the Joe Cool — a 35-year-old suspected thief on the run from police in Arkansas, and a clean-cut, 19-year-old Cuban-American training to become a private security guard.

They would interrogate these survivors, take down a story that three pirates had hijacked the boat and coldly shot each crew member, and then, for some reason, let these two go in a life raft with their luggage and about $2,200 in cash.

Investigators didn't buy the story. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged the suspects with first-degree murder in the high-seas killing of the Joe Cool's young, four-member crew: the captain, Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley, 30; Jake's half-brother, Scott Gamble, 35, and their friend and first mate, Samuel Kairy, 27.

What law enforcement would not immediately provide — may never fully provide, perhaps — are what the relatives and friends of the four most desire: Answers and, by extension, closure.

For a week after its return, the Joe Cool sat in dock at a Coast Guard station directly across the channel from the marina. No one was allowed near the vessel — except the forensics experts who combed it for clues — but the boat's graceful hull and vaulting flybridge were visible, and haunting, to all.

"This could have happened to any one of us, and whenever you looked at that boat over there, it reminded of you of that," said Greg Love, 51, who runs Club Nautico South Beach, one of the marina's five charter businesses.

Kevorkian, whose dive shop is next door, caught herself many times that week, gazing beyond the boat lifts at the tied-up Joe Cool.

"It just looked empty. Like a shell," she said. "There was no feeling, no soul in it anymore."

30 years for 52 cents

There's classic. So, there's this guy that's facing 30 years in prison because he stole a 52 cent donut. I mean, he walks into the donut shop, puts a donut under his sweatshirt, and ran out the door. Now that's just funny.

Seriously people, this is why you never commit a crime, no matter how small it is. Consequences can explode. So, find some legal fun, or look through the couch cushions to find that extra 52 cents. You can't possibly be *that* hungry.

Well, we can forget that modeling class CD now. I'm not going back to that class. I went there to learn how to stand up straight and without tripping over myself. I learned how to hold up my head and strut through Chicago making me look like I knew what I was doing there.

I did NOT, however, go to have someone tell me how to act in the rest of my life, what type of people to hang out with, what to wear.... no. Here are the rules of life: You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't send Sam Raimi to do Peter Jackson's job, and you don't tell Rio what to do. I mean, she started off by saying that we won't start being an individual until we're around 25. Apparently we won't have any life experience until then. I'm not even going to bother with that speech anymore. I've got life experience to spare, thank you, don't tell me that I'm not an individual yet. She said that we have to act a certain way to attract certain people to be our friends. We have to have an inner circle of friends, and an outer circle. Outer circle friends should never be allowed into the inner circle. Keep your friends separate. And only hang out with people who will 'better' you.

Thank you, but I pick my friends by who is fun to hang around with, someone who doesn't annoy me to death, and people that don't make me mad. If you fit those three simple criteria, then you can be one of my friends. It's really not hard to do at all. I will NOT have some lady who claims to know me telling me how to pick my friends.

That's the other thing. She says she's good at reading people, and that she can see as soon as we come in what we're thinking about and how we're feeling that day. I don't like people assuming that they know me by first impressions. When I walk into that classroom, I suddenly try to look like I know what I'm doing in that class. I put on high heels and pretend to know how to walk in them. I hold my head up and pretend like I'm supposed to be on that runway. You can't tell from that that I am a Sci-Fi geek who hates the Sci-Fi channel for canceling Stargate. You don't see that I love learning about other cultures. You can't see that I'm a computer geek. You don't see what sort of friends I hang out with, and you don't know why I like them. So don't presume you know anything about me just by the way I'm standing.

Classic. Just classic.

Okay, so I'm checking my blog feeds, reading the news. And one of the headlines was "OJ Simpson's Watch Isn't a Rolex".

Wow. Call the news crew. This is the biggest piece of news since "OJ didn't do it". (BTW, I want a t-shirt that says "oj did it")

Also, another soldier was killed today, but the news article didn't say what his name was. Really, I want to know who he was, where he came from, not just that he's another statistic. I want names, not numbers. Does that make sense?

Also seems that the biggest news of the day is that Obama isn't wearing a flag pin. Woo hoo. I mean, really, who cares whether he's wearing a pin or not? He can show his patriotism some other way. I think that's really cool. (Although, his coolness ends there. He's almost as much of an idiot as Hilary, and that's saying something.)

Oiy. This is funky. I can totally vote in the next election.... being legal age is odd. If I register to vote, though, don't I eventually get called in for jury duty? I hate courts...

Go ahead, try this....

So here's my challenge. I have a modeling class once a week, which means we need some good runway music. Apparently we don't have any good CDs around the school though, because the teacher is always begging people to bring in their own music. So, for the past couple weeks, people have been bringing in their music. All the songs have really good beats, but curse words every two seconds, and we've got eight year old kids in the class. So, last week I decided that I'll make us a modeling CD with songs that have good beats and no curse words.

Here's the challenging part. All I own is country music. So... I'm having to dig through Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson and Alan Jackson, trying to find something that doesn't sound too country. So far, I've got the Pirates Remix from the Dead Man's Chest soundtrack, a few Big and Rich songs, some Rascal Flatts, some Martina McBride, and a little Tim McGraw (it's the rap duet with Nelly), some Bon Jovi, Bo Bice, Montgomery Gentry, and some funky little song I have on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. I'm giving it a run through right now to decide if it's any good.

I've got about 45 minutes of music now, and the class is an hour and a half. Not too bad, actually. Twice through and it's time to go.

Track List:
1. He's a Pirate [Tiesto remix]
2. Radio (Big & Rich)
3. Who Says You Can't Go Home (Bon Jovi)
4. Me and My Gang (Rascal Flatts)
5. Over & Over Again (Tim McGraw & Nelly)
6. Fast Cars and Freedom (Rascal Flatts)
7. You're Everything (Bo Bice)
8. Holding Out For a Hero (who knows?)
9. High Five (Big & Rich)
10. Gone (Montgomery Gentry)

Is that too obnoxiously country or strange? Hm. I guess we'll see at class this week, won't we? It's probably too strange, considering that everyone in that room listens to rock or rap. But hey, the first week of class we listened to the Backstreet Boys, so anything I come up with can't be any weirder than that. (I almost put some Backstreet Boys on this CD, actually!)