Why is this question all over the place all the sudden?!
Geez, it's like the focus for the Gaia main forum board, question of the week in GaiaPolls, plus mentions on the forums of Mistica and Neopets...

.
To answer: being able to be invisible while flying.

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Mike and I watched Becoming Jane the other night (no, he didn't want to, but did for me - he gets some brownie points for that).
Definite references to many of the characters who populated her novels. Of the ones I'm familiar with, I recognized:
* The entire Bennet clan, including Mr. Collins
* Mr. Darcy and Lady Catherine
* Mr. Wickham
* Mr. Willoughby
* The Dashwood sisters
* Colonel Brandon
Some of these characters were in one person, rather than each character being represented by a separate person.

This is all I can write for now: it's 2am and I've only seen the movie once. Just wait until I can get a copy of it for myself!

For now, though, I leave you with this quiz:

Which Jane Austen Character are You? (For Females) Long Quiz!!! created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Elinor Dashwood As Marianne's older sister, Elinor lives at the other end of the emotional spectrum. She rarely reveals her intense feelings and is more concerned with being honest and loyal than having what she deserves. Even though her intentions are pure, she sets herself up for loss by constantly placing other people before her own needs. Overall, Elinor is gentle and rational but is just as capable of radical emotions (despite her withholding them) as her sister. Elinor Dashwood 88% Emma Woodhouse 59% Elizabeth Bennet 56% Marianne Dashwood 53% Charlotte Lucas 53% Jane Bennet 50% Lady Catherine 16%

. . . yet another staple icon of our times.
George Carlin

Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station for a few short years, voice of reason for more decades than I've been alive.
His voice will be missed, but all the while he'll still be laughing it up at us from the other side.

RIP, buddy.

Okay, so during my days I usually compile a list of things to blog about.
By the time I get home?
My mind has been washed clean, and all I want to do is crash.
Now, my definition of "crash" is slightly altered from yours.
It still includes "fall into bed and sleep."
But before that:
1) Eat a satisfying dinner and/or dessert while watching one of my favorite TV shows
1.2) Watch Dad putter around getting ready for work while watching TV Guide channel
2) Change into PJs (and out of that damn restricting bra! Gods curse whomever invented them)
2) Check up on my websites (which are linked to in my profile)
3) Watch more TV (possibly while eating dessert if it hasn't been devoured by this time)
4) Bed

So here I sit, after step 2, checking up on blogland.
Still not able to summon enough energy to read through all of your posts and comment.
And I want my dessert.
Off to TV.

I've been away from LJ for God knows how long, and all I have to show is two memes stolen from peacefulraven.
( Memes )

I can't quite bring myself to believe she's gone. I keep expecting to wake up and everything be fine. I feel like I'm in some - twilight zone bubble. This is all just some horrible dream.

She was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago, when someone noticed her skin was yellow.
She was diagnosed with cancer: a tumor was growing in her bile duct.
But first she had a problem with her heart- one of her arteries was too narrow. Soon as they opened her up, though, her blood pressure started dropping like a stone. So they had to close her up again and wait it out until they could operate.
In the meantime, though, she finally got tired of medicine. In and out of the hospital so many times, she was finally fed up with being connected to tubes and wires. She didn't want to live like that anymore.

Two days later, she died.
I kept expecting to wake up from this nightmare.

When you grow up, you begin to understand death, and you know it has to come to us all.
You just never quite expect it to happen to those you love most.
Mom keeps saying that she's probably playing with our dog now.
Whenever Mum-mum came over, the dog would always "talk" to her. It was this kind of sound, almost like a human rolling their tongue. If you're a dog owner, and your dog "talks", you know what I mean.
Well, Mom says that maybe now when the dog talks, Mum-mum will be able to understand her.
My uncle, at the service, said that he believes that we regain our youth when we go to Heaven. Who knows if it's true? But I believe the same.
Now Mum-mum is young again, and more beautiful than any of her pictures ever made her, and with renewed vigor, she's playing with all the animals she knew in life, and socializing with all the friends and family who went before her. In between, she'll be looking down, and cheering us on at every small achievement, and every littlest happiness.
She'll always be with us, until we're ready to go to her.


"...and I shall sleep in peace until you come to me."

A three-carat diamond, if it were in my possession, for a week at a spa.
Hell, even one day.

Get my hair washed and trimmed, wax everything, a facial, mani/pedi, full-body massage, good, healthy food...

Yeah.
Whoever could make that possible, would earn my lifetime gratitude and devotion.


For now...

::wishes a Hershey kiss had enough caffeine, crashes into bed::

Possibilities.
I definitely need to get the transmission done in my car, which will cost around $100.
...
Make the payments on my car and phone for two months.

Open up a savings account to be used strictly for gas money.

Spend it all on my car...
I need to get a major tune-up done.. as well as the transmission.

I think I'll wait until I get it, then figure it out.

For Marisa:

Rowling goes to court

States may free inmates to save millions

This can't be happening.
Since when did money matter more than human lives?
Oh, sure, the sex offenders and murderers won't be let free.
But the drug dealers will.

What, are you naive enough to believe that a drug dealer won't kill? You think he won't try to find the snitch who sent him to jail? You think the dealer won't kill him out of revenge?
Oh, and let's not forget about the wife-beaters. Yeah, they won't go after their women again. Nooo, they'll leave their women in peace and go about their lives as if nothing had happened. They served their time so they're all cured of their violent tendencies.

All those criminals that you let go?
Will all come flooding back in when they get caught repeating their crimes.
Then you're back at square one again.

Cause guess what? Some of them actually get a better life behind bars than on the outside. Cause on the outside? They're homeless.
Because?
Your shelters are overcrowded. So no home. No way of knowing whether he'll get food. No one to depend on.
In jail? A bed. Three square. State foots the bill.
Yeah, beats homelessness.
So he commits a crime just to get thrown in jail for a while. You think getting kicked out matters to him? It's easier to get in than it is getting out.

What.
the FUCK.
are you morons thinking?!

The drug dealers will go back to dealing drugs, which kills people - whether or not they did it directly.
The wife-beaters will hunt down the women who sent them to jail and beat them to death.
The homeless will continue to do whatever crime presents itself just to land themselves in jail again.

This is THE most.
ASS faced.
Moronic.
Bullshit.
Idea I've ever heard of.

Hm. Well, I had a list that I'd made around when I was 19. But . . Well, that list no longer suits my life.
There are a lot of songs that I listen to, so it's hard to pick out a handful from probably well over 200 songs.

One of the songs that definitely makes the list is "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Reason #1 is the movie night of Elizabethtown. It will be played at themarisa's funeral. But reason #2 is also that, if a movie were to be made of my life, there are two places in that movie that it would be played.

"Hand In My Pocket" by Alanis Morissette
"I Saw the Sign" by Ace of Base
"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day
"The World I Know" by Collective Soul
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day
"A Sorta Fairytale" by Tori Amos
"Fighter" by Christina Aguilera
"When the Sand Runs Out" by Rascal Flatts
"The Boys Are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy
"Low Rider" by WAR
"Megalomaniac" by Incubus
"All I Want Is a Life" by Tim McGraw

These are just a few. There are likely many more, but my memory can only call up so many titles at one time. Whether singly, in pairs, or threes, they all represent periods in my life as well as a bit of the diversity of my taste in music.
I may just keep adding songs here as time progresses.
We shall see!

There's a lot of shit that I haven't been writing about.
Mostly because by the time I get home from wherever it is I was at, I'm too fucking tired to even turn the computer on, let alone post.
And right now, I'm too sick to give a shit.
Sick as a fucking dog.
My entire body aches and shivers constantly, I have a headache, my nose keeps reminding me that it needs tending, my stomach decided it didn't like what I gave it-
So why am I writing here?
Because I'm just on THIS side of being comatose.
Someone give me something to push me over that edge?

I watched because I was bored and had the house to myself, so had the peace required to watch (reading a book during commercials and boring parts...).
themarisa got most of them right; I bolded those.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will be Blood"

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Barden, "No Country for Old Men"

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"

Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

Best Director: Cohen Brothers, "No Country for Old Men"

Best Adapted Screenplay: "No Country for Old Men"

Best Original Screenplay: Juno

Best Movie: No Country for Old Men

Best Original Score: Atonement

Best Original Song: 'Falling Slowly' from "Once"

Best Costume Design: "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"

Obviously there were other categories which got awarded, but I put up the ones that most people pay attention to.

Side note: The gowns were gorgeous!

Mom and I died over this.

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I need a pattern for a cell phone cozy/holder/whatever you want to call it. Preferably a free one, that doesn't require making button-holes. I detest button-holes on a cell-phone cover.
Does anyone have any recommendations?

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Yarn pr0n!

Pics under the cut > ( Cut )
What to knit them into?


x-posted to novice_knitters and 20sknitters

A man who GETS it!
A paraphrased summary of a male friend's entry:

What a woman values
1. Being an equal partner. She is not your master, NOR your slave. She is your equal in every way.
2. Kindness
3. Being respected
4. Being cherished
5. Being thought of
6. Consideration. Pay her some attention during the day, and she will pay you consideration at night.
7. The knowledge that you see her as beautiful
8. When you value her values.
9. Remembering special dates
10. When you show her that you love her. She already knows it, but a reminder of it never hurts.
11. Simple, non-sexual touching. When she comes home from work, give her back a rub, then sit her down and cuddle for a while.
12. When you realize she's smart enough to figure out her own problems. She just needs to talk herself to a solution, so listen while she talks about her day, without interrupting to TELL her the solution. Maybe while you're cuddling.
13. When you don't take her for granted. She could be with someone else right now, but she chose you. Respect that!
14. If you have children, HELP her get them out of the car!!

The Earth Rat, to be precise.
I'm a Wood Rat, so it'll be interesting to see where this year will take me.

Here's a little summary of the year ahead, courtesy of Chinese.Astrology.com.
( Summary )

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Yeesh. I haven't checked my email for a couple days, so when I signed in today, I was greeted with 29 updates in Lj alone. I haven't read a single one of them yet, but I promise I'll be getting to it soon (by 'soon' I mean 'by the end of the night').

---

Sunday night I watched Bush's last SoU address.
Kudos to him for finally bringing home troops without sending replacements.

...

I never thought I'd be saying kudos to Bush.

Anyway, IT'S ABOUT DAMN FUCKING TIME!! So the kudos are revoked for extreme lateness.
One thing I noticed during the address?
Every other sentence he uttered, the entire right half of the room's occupants gave him a standing ovation. In the entire duration of the address, only twice did the left half join them. The first time, I forget why, but the second time, it was to applaud him for the announcement that, altogether, the first withdrawal WITHOUT replacements will number up to 50,000.
It doesn't make up for the thousands who were needlessly lost.
But it sure as hell will make a lot of kids, spouses and families a LOT happier.

READ. This.
.
What a CUNT.
C Close-minded
U Uneducated
N No-brained
T Trash

I just.
No.

I was out driving in my car just now, listening to AM radio, when I heard, "Oscar-nominated actor Heath Ledger has been found dead in his apartment in New York."

It took the wind out of me.
Oh my God.

It's not true, it can't be.
Oh my God.

I can't believe that he was doing any kind of drugs... but they said a number of sleeping pills were found next to him. Could it be suicide?
But why? His career was up and coming...
But then, that proved nothing for Owen Wilson either.

I swear Heath was on the path to being a great actor, like Johnny Depp or Patrick Stewart.

Oh, the loss that we have suffered. The world will never know.

link

Mona Lisa's Identity Confirmed
Burglar finds corpse, calls police

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Okay, so on Mistic.
I was going through the forums, reading up. A while ago, someone started a thread about their favorite TV shows.
And wow. Cartoons. The memories.

Wanna see the list of all that I remember watching?
I'm gonna make a meme out of this, based off the book meme.
Bold what you've seen, italicize the ones you saw a couple episodes of, strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an *(asterisk) to those you loved. Underline those you heard of but never saw.

Alvin and the Chipmunks*
American Bandstand
Babar
Beetlejuice
Bewitched
Captain Planet
Care Bears
Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers*
Dennis the Menace*
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
The Flintstones*
Garfield and Friends*
George of the Jungle
Ghostbusters
Inspector Gadget
The Jetsons*
Looney Toons*
Mighty Mouse
Muppet Babies*
Paddington Bear
Pebbles and Bamm Bamm
Pee Wee's Playhouse
Pink Panther
Popeye*
Richie Rich
Schoolhouse Rock*
Scooby Doo
Sealab 2020
Smurfs
Snorks
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*
ThunderCats
Tom & Jerry*
Winnie the Pooh*
Woody Woodpecker*
Yogi's Gang*

This one holds me, for some reason. It holds my attention.

The Hanson-Roberts card is a man holding one rod, and the other eight rods behind him looking almost like a picket fence arrangement, as if there are rods lining the entire road the man is on.
It looks like he's been captured in motion, walking forward and at the same time taking a moment to glance backward. At what, I don't know. Perhaps just at the road behind him. That's the feeling I get, at least.
The entire card makes me think late summer. There's a sunset behind him, blazing orange and yellow, and the man's tunic is orange and yellow with a brown belt.

So......

It's probably mid-summer, and this man is taking a hike, traveling somewhere. He glances back at the road behind . . . just because? Or is there something that caught his attention?

What's behind him?