A bit weird out of context

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

Opening Credits: All American Rejects - "Move Along"

Waking Up: Matchbox 20 - "Unwell"
( Read more... )
Okay, so my soundtrack is the most disjointed, confusing soundtrack EVER. Although I do love the Flashback song.

1.The phone rings. Who do you want it to be?
Stephanie, saying she's taking me out to dinner

2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
Yeah

3. If you had to kiss the last person you kissed, would you?
I don't remember the last person I kissed--no significant other at the moment, so it would have been family

4. Do you take compliments well?
Not really, I'm kind of embarrassed to say

( Read more... )

Saw it on duchesspariah's LJ, wanted to fill it out.

01.Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
King Nolan did not feel--nor had he ever felt--bossed

02. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can...what do you find?
Nothing

03. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Whatever I was watching on Holy Saturday when Steph, Andrea, and I got into a fight

04. Without looking, guess what time it is?
11:00 pm

05. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
10:45 pm
( Read more... )

Before I begin, I would just like to thank Stefanie for alerting me to the fact that the University of Minnesota's mascot is the Golden Gopher; minervacat for writing the wonderfully entertaining story "Steal the Thunder from the Sky" in which the Golden Gophers were mentioned and beloved by Jack O'Neill; duchesspariah for celebrating with me; and God, for granting the prayers of all the True Blue UK Wildcat fans.


Tubby Smith, the head coach of the University of Kentucky men's basketball team for the last 9 seasons, has accepted the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota. Orlando "Tubby" Smith was the assistant coach under Rick Pitino, and led the Wildcats to an NCAA basketball championship in 1998. The Comeback Cats beat Utah after a double-digit deficit going into halftime. Most of these players were recruited by former UK head coach Rick Pitino.
This was the last championship title we won while under Tubby's coaching.
We have now spent the longest amount of time the program has ever gone without a Final Four appearance. But now, the winds of change, they are a-blowin, and a breath of life is once more blowing through the Cats fans who have despaired at ever getting rid of Ten Loss Tubby.
Free at last, free at last, thank GOD ALMIGHTY, WE ARE FREE AT LAST!!

Ha ha, Gophers. SUCKERS!! Have fun shelling out $2.5 million a year to a man who hasn't brought the winningest team in the nation to the Final Four in the last 9 years.


I pretty much knew he was leaving after our second-round tournament matchup against Kansas. Tubby's m.o. before that game had been to pace up and down the court, yelling at and encouraging his players. He'd strip off his jacket, yank his tie to half-mast, and run frustrated fingers through his hair, in an effort to will his players to win when we were doing poorly, and to keep them going strong when we were ahead. (It didn't work, usually; during the '06-'07 season, the Cats became masters at the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.)
However, when playing Kansas, Tubby sat sedately in his chair. No pacing, no visible frustration, the jacket stayed on and the hair and tie stayed neat. He was either planning to leave, or commit suicide-by-proxy when legions of UK fans killed him for the disgrace of not even trying to coach his players to victory during the NCAA tournament.

But now, he will stop bringing shame to the Wildcat legacy. And it is shame, have no doubt. UK basketball has one of the proudest traditions of winning, of being a national powerhouse, especially in the Southeastern Conference. And having established this tradition, it is not uncalled for that the fans expect our coaches to continue to uphold our tradition of excellence. The fact that Tubby has not held up his end of the bargain he entered into with the fans at the end of the 2005-2006 season ("We'll never have another season like this one"--13 regular season losses in '05-'06; we lost 12 in the 2006-2007 season. Woo. Big improvement there.) is the reason that UK fans will be celebrating Minnesota's new head coach.

Made this for miriel, partly because she posted a request to her livejournal for a ninja!Miko icon to this effect, and partly because she was having a rough night and I wanted to make her feel better.

Here's the original.



The women in the icon are as follows:

Women 1-4: Manami Hara, first as herself, and then as Dr. Miko Kusanagi on Stargate: Atlantis--the screencaps are from Episode 1x17: Letters From Pegasus.
Woman 5: Hello Kitty.
Woman 6: A performer in costume as Tomoe-gozen, a legendary female samurai.
Woman 7: Aya Ueto, as Azumi in the film "Azumi" (or perhaps "Azumi 2: Death or Love"--the screencap wasn't clear as to which film)
Woman 8: an unknown woman from this website.
Woman 9: Kelly Hu, as Lady Deathstrike in the film "X2: X-Men United".




And now, here's the one that can be used on Livejournal.




Save it to your computer, then upload it from a file--it can't be uploaded from a URL.

Anyway, if you take it, please credit it to me.

Because I just finished reading telesilla's "Five Tracks on Rodney McKay's iPod", it got me in the mood to do this little quiz.
*puts iPod on shuffle, presses play*

Ten Songs on Laura's iPod: A Glimpse at Me through My Music

1. All-American Rejects "Dirty Little Secret"
Back in August of '05, I wrote an entire blog entry for this song for my Discovery Seminar class--you can read it here if you're so inclined.
It's on my iPod because it's a fun song, because you can be angry or snide or hurt or happy and still sing this song. It's on my iPod because I'm tired of people doing things that make me angry and hurt, tired of people who use me and then pretend that nothing's wrong. It reminds me of mistakes I've made in the past, mistakes I've avoided, and mistakes I never want to make.
Also, it's fun to scream these lyrics.

2. Darryl Worley "I Just Came Back from a War"
duchesspariah introduced me to this song not too long ago--it reminded her so strongly of Rankar Sirach that she sent it to me on Google Talk (since I'm the one who writes Rankar Sirach). And it's heartbreaking and sad, and a little angry too, and it's just like him. I Just Came Back from a War is the song that goes through his head every single time he sees or thinks about the people he went to other countries to fight and kill and maybe even die for on the news, knowing that his sacrifice doesn't mean anything to them, just because of who he is.
This song is for me, too. When people who haven't seen me for years remark that I've changed, they hardly recognize me, and they aren't just talking about physically. I'm a lot different that the girl I was a few years ago, because I've been through things that are like wars at home, against myself and against other people.

3. Zager & Evans "In the Year 2525"
This song is NOT recent--the album I downloaded it from is called "Radio Hits of the 60's". I heard it on the radio in my dad's car while we were talking about many things, including NPR, global warming, and how much we hate this administration. This is my "I'm a very liberal Democrat and I want to do something to change the world before it's too late" anthem.

4. David Arkenstone "Storm Cry"
Celtic music. I like to listen to this when I read any of my Celtic-themed fantasy books ("The Watchers Trilogy", "Chronicles of the Cheysuli"), or any story with really extensive world building. I don't know why I listen to Celtic for world-building, but this is one of the songs that I listen to when I want to think, when I want to write, when I want to lose myself in words. I do know why I listen to this song for that--it's completely instrumental, so there're no words to distract me from the picture the words in my head are building.
Also, the name of this song is appropriate for me.

5. Panic! at the Disco "Build God, Then We'll Talk"
Fuck, I love the name of this song. Steph bought me the Panic! CD for Giftmas, and a significant majority of the song's titles are tongue-in-cheek or blatantly sarcastic/provoking. If you look back through my entries since Giftmas, this song pops up in my "Music" entry more than any other--partly because I'm on a Panic! kick at the moment, and partly because really, Build God, Then We'll Talk. Is there a better song name out there on the planet for me?
I spent a really long time believing what my parents and teachers told me I was supposed to believe, until I suddenly didn't believe it anymore. And I've admittedly got a bit of a grudge against the Roman Catholic Church in particular and organized religion in general, and I like to argue with people who try to convert me.

6. Miranda Lambert "Mama, I'm All Right"
I've got two moms--Mom, the woman who gave birth to me, and Mommy, the woman I chose and who chose me. Mom doesn't understand me, a lot of the time, and it hurts me (a lot more than I let on) that she doesn't understand what I've been through, why I can't stand for her to treat me like I'm her little girl when she stopped paying attention when I was in junior high. And it's not that I want to hold it against her--I am aware that six years have passed since my junior high graduation, thanks--it's that she completely skipped the phase in my development that had the strongest influence on who I am today. It's like she's trying to force me into a pattern I don't fit, because she missed all the edge pieces and some of the middle pieces of my puzzle.
Mommy... I don't see her a lot. We have been known to not see eye to eye. But Mommy met me for the first time (this time) when I was already 15 years old. There's not such a huge difference in Laura at 15 and Laura at 20, and she's managed to keep up. She doesn't baby me--at all. I'm 20, I should be able to handle it, and she expects me to do so. She doesn't let me hide from anything, because that way lies madness. She's protected me, and she's taken care of me, though.

7. Everclear "White Men in Black Suits"
I am a loser geek, crazy with an evil streak. She is just a girl, she is doing what she can. She is such a pretty girl, happy in an ugly place, watching all the pretty people doing lots of ugly things.
This is my "You know what? I'm a little crazy. And if I can deal with it, then you can't give me any shit over it. It's all I can do to make it out alive, but I'm trying, and succeeding more often than not" general fuck you to the world. So I'm weird, kind of geeky, and I don't fit the image you held of me before (or maybe I fit perfectly into the slot you've made for me). I'm going to live the way I want to live, and you can stay along for the ride or not.

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd "Free Bird"
Why yes, I am from the South, however did you guess? Any playlist of mine would not be complete without Free Bird. It's a boat song, it's a Mr. Z song, it's a ME song. I've got such vivid memories of May of 2000, sitting in my desk by the window in Mr Z's room, my hand flying across the page as I kept pace with the guitar solo during freewriting time. I ended up with two and a half pages the first day he played this song during Journal time, my relatively neat handwriting degenerating into a hastily-dashed scrawl as the music flowed around me and the words came like there was a direct line from my thoughts to my pen. I can't even really articulate what this song means to me, just that there's so much of my life that's tied up with this song and with my memories of it.

9. Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright "Set the Fire to the Third Bar"
Slow, kind of sad, still beautiful. "You're beautiful when you cry" is what this song brings to mind right now. It makes me think of missing people, the people who made me whole not being here anymore, or never being here in the first place. In a distant way, it makes me think of looking for my soulmate: "I touch the place where I'd find your face." This song is gray, on the seldom occasions when I see sounds in color. It's winter bleeding into spring, when you still feel the bite of the wind every time you step outside. When snow and ice and rain are all equally likely on a given day.
This song is February, to me--lousy weather, stupid Valentine's Day, and Imbolc - one of the few bright points of the month for me. It's starting to see the sun through clouds, but knowing the clouds are still there.

10. Heather Alexander "Wind's Four Quarters"
There was a period during my junior year when I listened to this song all the time when I was on the computer downstairs; it's comforting, even though it's nothing like soothing. It's filk, too, so it tells a story at the same time as it's music. More specifically, it's filk written by Mercedes Lackey and sung by Heather Alexander, and it's a Shin'a'in prayer to the Goddess. If it weren't for the fact that it's a prayer to a fictional character, I would almost use it for myself. (Well, that, and I don't actually want my aching heart sheathed in ice, and don't think wishing death on my foes would be a productive avenue of prayer.)


So there you go. You may or may not have learned anything about me from the 10 random songs from my iPod, but I had fun in the process, so it's good enough for me.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
The West
Philadelphia
The South
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I actually get a lot of "Are you from the Midwest?" and "When did you move to Kentucky?"
I also mess up Linguistics experiments, because I'm from central KY (which is more Southern than anything) and yet I don't talk like someone from around here. "Cot" and "caught"? I can hear (and pronounce) the difference between them. I was in a spelling bee once and the judge asked me to spell "hornet," except I had to ask for it in a sentence because she pronounced it "harnit."
However, it's not a soda, or a pop. It's a coke. It may not be made by the Coca Cola Company, but it's a coke.

Ah, finally. I stayed up until 6:30 or 6:45 typing up my Anthro paper, finished as much as I could, turned out the lights, slipped out of my jeans, and collapsed for the next hour and a half, until 8:20. At which time I hurriedly stripped out of my old clothes, changed into new clothes, shoved my feet into my shoes, grabbed my hoodie, my keys, my wallet, and my backpack, and headed out the door.
Once on campus, I made a beeline to Intermezzo for the buying of coffee--Hazelnut coffee with Irish Cream and French Vanilla creamer, plus some milk and two packets of sugar. I started drinking as soon as I finished stirring, was drinking as I paid for it, drank while walking to CB's computer lab, and guzzled the remaining four ounces of liquid before plopping my ass down at a computer terminal to edit and print my paper.
From there, to Anthro itself, where we took a few brief notes on applied anthro, and then we watched a movie about a Canadian man's struggle to fund HIV/AIDS research and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.
Here are a few of the facts that stood out to me about The Value of Life: HIV/AIDS Revisited in Africa:
[*]Six thousand five hundred (6,500) people DIE EVERY DAY in Africa of HIV/AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses (typically TB or a similar infection, after HIV/AIDS destroys their immune system)
[*]In RWANDA, five hundred thousand (500,000) people have HIV/AIDS
[*]Of the five hundred thousand (500,000) infected people, only seventy-five thousand (75,000) will receive treatment, either because they cannot afford the Anti RetroVirals (ARVs) or because their government refuses to acknowledge that HIV/AIDS is a problem.
[*]In 2003, there were eleven million (11,000,000) orphans in Rwanda. This number is expected to more than double to twenty-four million (24,000,000) in 2010.
[*]In SOUTH AFRICA, five million (5,000,000) people have HIV/AIDS.
[*]Six hundred (600) people DIE EVERY DAY from HIV/AIDS or HIV/AIDS related illnesses.
[*]For years, President Umbeki refused to acknowledge the existence of a link between HIV, AIDS, and the appalling death toll in his country. As a result of this refusal, he denied the right to distribute ARVs to humanitarian groups. For two years (from 2001 to 2003), the United Nations did NOTHING to stop this atrocity.
[*]Two hundred fifty (250) children are born with HIV every day, because their mothers cannot afford the drugs that prevent the transmission of the disease from their body to that of their unborn child.
[*]There is one (1) death from HIV/AIDS or HIV/AIDS related diseases every minute (60 seconds).
[*]In KENYA, seven hundred (700) people DIE EVERY DAY from HIV/AIDS or HIV/AIDS related illnesses.
[*]There are two million, two hundred thousand (2,200,000) orphans in Kenya.
[*]Until 2002, the government denied that HIV/AIDS was a problem.
[*]Eighty percent (80%) of the population is HIV positive.
[*]In UGANDA, the infection rate has been reduced from twenty percent (20%) to six percent (6%)
[*]In the 1980s, the president of Uganda recognized the threat of HIV/AIDS and brought the problem to public attention, leading to the improvement in the number of HIV/AIDS victims in the country.
[*]There are two million, two hundred thousand (2,200,000) orphans in Uganda, out of a total of twenty-five million (25,000,000) people in the country.
[*]Of all the HIV/AIDS humanitarian aid money raised by the UNITED STATES, two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) is mandated for abstinence education. Not medicine, which is proven to save lives and improve the quality of life of those suffering from HIV/AIDS. ABSTINENCE EDUCATION gets TWO BILLION DOLLARS ($2,000,000,000) instead of MEDICINE and RESEARCH.





On a brighter note, as of posting time at 8:16 pm EST, my SGA is 95% complete.

Italian midterm? WILL KICK MY ASS SO HARD MY WHOLE FAMILY WILL FEEL IT.><

You scored as Utilitarianism. Your life is guided by the principles of Utilitarianism: You seek the greatest good for the greatest number. The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. --Jeremy Bentham Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible. --John Stuart Mill More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... </td> Utilitarianism 80% Justice (Fairness) 75% Existentialism 65% Kantianism 55% Divine Command 50% Hedonism 50% Apathy 45% Strong Egoism 25% Nihilism 0% What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

Okay, to start off with a little bit about me.
I read a lot, but I mostly read fantasy. I like historic fiction, speculative fiction, alternate history/present/future stories, and children's books from the Victorian era. This is only the smallest sampling of books that I've read and remembered, because frankly, I can't remember all the books that I've read.
So. On with the show.


1. One book that changed your life:
Good Lord, how do I choose? Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic: Tris' Book, because it deals with how you never really know your kin, and how you can save your friends and your home, and still lose part of yourself. C.E. Murphy's Urban Shaman, because you can only run so far from yourself before you hit another battlefield. Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen because that's the book that really got me started on fantasy. How to Write Sci-Fi and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, for the fact that I learned more about world-building and setting up a plot from this book than I learned from any creative writing class.

2. One book you've read more than once:
I've read LOTS of books more than once, but here's a short list:
The Bookstore Mouse by Peggy Christian. It was just so well-thought out, and written and printed in a great style.
The Juniper Game by Sherryl Jordan, which is probably the book that I've read most often--at least fifteen times.
The Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens quartets by Tamora Pierce. I've actually learned as much about control and ways to work energy through those books as I have from Mommy.
Magic's Price by Mercedes Lackey, because it broke my heart.

3. One book you would want on a desert island:
Something from the Nightside, Agents of Light and Darkness, Nightingale's Lament (all by Simon R. Green). I love the universe, I love the characters, and I love the way that the author writes--dark and funny, and the focus is on the mystery and the characters.
The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop, because I get more out of those books every time that I read them.
The Tir Alainn Trilogy, also by Anne Bishop, for the same reasons I want the BJT.
The Jungle Book and related tales by Rudyard Kipling. Yes, he was a condescending ass, and gave us the lovely concept of "white man's burden", but the man had a real talent for storytelling.
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, even though I did my senior research paper on these books. I could still read them over and over.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. There's something about this book that grabs me every time.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Agents of Light and Darkness, because the interaction between John and Suzie cracks my shit up.
Street Magic by Michael Reaves--the main characters interactions with one another were excellent, and I'd never read anything like it when I picked it off my sister's shelf at 11.
Gypsyworld by Julian F. Thompson--they're kidnapped and taken to an alternate reality by gypsies, for god's sake.

5. One book that made you cry:
Julie Reece Deaver's Say Goodnight, Gracie
Death Be Not Proud: A Memoir by John Gunther
Magic's Price, Arrow's Fall, Burning Brightly, Take A Thief all by Mercedes Lackey. Especially Burning Brightly.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells. The movie was good. The book is ten thousand times better.

6. One book you wish had been written:
A book written by me--the story of Avali, Soldar, et al, preferably.

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Mein Kampf. A lot of things could have potentially not happened, had that book never been written.

8. One book you are currently reading:
Patricia McKillip's Od Magic. I'm not sure if I like the book, but it challenges me; I don't particularly like the style so far, but I want to know what happens.

9. One book you have been meaning to read:
Wars of the Irish Kings by David W. McCullough
This Land Was Theirs by Wendell H. Oswalt
Any of my books by Llewellyn or Scott Cunningham.
Divine Right's Trip by Gurney Norman, my creative writing professor. He gave me the book as a gift after our session talking about my stories, and I'd really like to read what he's written.

10. One book you wish you had never read:
All of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time saga. I despise Robert Jordan, because in my opinion, he's sold his integrity as a writer to make money (not a bad goal) at the expense of the quality of his writing.

11. One author you believe everyone should read at least once:
Orson Scott Card, Laurell K. Hamilton, Jennifer Roberson, Kelly Armstrong, C.E. Murphy, Chris Crutcher, Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis

12. Five to ten books you would recommend to others:
Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card--most people have never heard of this book, but it's a really worthwhile investment if you do read it
The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip, because it's a beautiful story
A City in Winter by Mark Helprin--I read it without knowing that there was a book before it, so it stands on its own fairly well.
Earth's Children series by Jean M. Auel. The books are long, and they're filled with detail, but the author painstakingly researched the series, and the work really shines through.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey--This is one of the few fantasy stories by Piers Anthony that I enjoyed.
Tatham Mound by Piers Anthony--I really enjoyed this look at speculative Native American history.
Urban Shaman and the sequel Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy
Staying Fat for Sarah Burnes by Chris Crutcher
Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells