Ever wonder what a rehabilitation-oriented prison system would look like? Norway gives a small clue.
* Visit to a high security prison, which includes Internet access.
* Photos of a low-security prison
* Eco-prison, actually modifications to an existing open prison
* More on what open prison means. It looks luxurious, but it's actually rehab for prisoners nearing the end of their sentence; they start in a more traditional closed prison. (With Internet.) They retain the vote, even in prison, and there was a teleconferenced political debate between politicians and prisoners. 21 years is the maximum sentence. More
* Stats on who ends up in prison. Unsurprisingly: low education, unemployment, mental problems.
* For Fanw: a secular German coming of age rite.
* the missing Republican women legislators
* Anonymous whistleblower says IEA has been lying about oil production, peak oil is nigh.
* Pro-choice Democrats voting for the Stupak amendment
* Failure breeds failure, success breeds success
* Long essay on US high-speed rail. China's pulling well ahead of us. Amtrak's Acela is "high-speed" only by our primitive standards.
* Dangers of the paranoid takeover of the GOP.
This week is going to be totally crazy; the buses aren't running tomorrow for the holiday so I think I'm going to try to work from home. But I also got in late today (stupid pest control - or, well, stupid me, I really need to learn to not go back to bed even if I still have 20 minutes before I need to get up) so I'm going to stay late tonight to catch up, since I don't have to run. I had this weird dream this morning though, which I can only partly remember, but I think it involved Jake from Hannah Montana. Like, we'd accidentally body-swapped or something, and we kept trying to get back to our own bodies but nothing we tried worked. XD; That's pretty fail, brain.
Friday and Saturday is STARS (including a scavenger hunt and ahaha, I don't know my way around campus! ::diiies::), and Sunday is Disney. I'm actually really just looking forward to going to Epcot, plunking myself down in one of the countries, and sitting for a nice long while with a coffee or something. Since I'll likely either be by myself (or hopefully with
Also, to all you NaNo people posting snippets, I keep meaning to read everything you've posted up so far and I haven't gotten to do it yet! But I will! It probably doesn't help that all my spare time is spent plugging away at my own crazy epic PJO fic or reading 501st, which I am about halfway through and really don't want to put down. I'm going to be so sad when it's done (but at this point I am still hopeful that there will still be more to come!). Also, it really makes me want to write a clone fic. You know. In all my spare time. >>; (But seriously. I <3 Niner. Niner needs more love. Lots more. <3)
Okay, off to enjoy a few more minutes of "lunch break" before getting back to work. I want to have some final-ish tables by tonight, I can do it!
- Mood:
busy - Music:talking to Tyler...
( Entry #2 in '20 Scenes of Domestic Bliss' )
- Mood:
tired
- Mood:
guilty - Music:人心无穷大 - Liu Huan
I just realized that the latter paragraph might be too much information to give out. orz.
Nothing to say about work, because work is hell as always. No cosplay for me because they just gave me work on weekends. O_o; I can mention that I'm speed typing what looks like a Weasley AU in between calls. I don't think while I write it, unlike all the unfinished HikaGo that needs focus to work on.
( a collective of pictures I may or may not have shared here before )
- Mood:
bouncy
- Music:Sting - Englishman in New York
I'm new to this community. I rewatched Nodame Cantabile (first season) and was so attached to Elgar's Violin Sonata which was played by Nodame and Chiaki when they went to visit his uncle in Episode 15.
Does anyone have this piece?
Would appreciate your help. Thank you in advance.
- Mood:
ditzy
Some things that are pleasantly distracting:
Fuck You, Penguin
I Can Has Cheezburger?
Daily Squee
I didn't make a bingo for
I just kind of want to crawl into bed and sleep forever, but the coughing manages to somehow become even worse when lying down. I did not think that was possible. Yet somehow it is.
This entry was originally posted at http://everysecondtuesday.dreamwidth.or
- Mood:
[bouncy] - Music:Kim Carnes -- Bette Davis Eyes
- Mood:
accomplished
hi lj! it's good to see you and update you today! a small update about life and work and stuff that go in between :)
a) work's picked up again and the slump we suffered mid-year is now gone and replaced with a lot of deadlines and travel. DENR bought our software and it's up to the teams to go to the provinces and train LGU users. this is so exciting and i think they are considering me to accompany some of the training teams. my organizational skills do come in handy sometimes!
b) went to makati medical center yesterday and sat in for a co-worker. the meeting is about interface and is pretty much a nifty but tedious topic for developers. anyway. it was tiring, mostly because it took a while and i had absolutely no idea how far they've gone in their production. i hate passing through mmc's backdoor. the chemical smells are horrendous.
c) had major burnout last night and i told friends i was going to NAP but ended up sleeping in an epic snorefest way. i slept around 845 and wok up at 430 in the morning. some nap, huh? hopefully i can stay awake longer tonight. but then again i keep yawning and yawning some more as i type this!
d) my fic for the 80/S community is slowly getting done. i never thought it would be this difficult to write them. i think it's because i am conflicted and i like 80/27 too, i have to moderate their interactions and stuff :3 i want it to write itself. and sakura addiction has come and gone - and i came up with what hm ONE contribution for it blahaha! oh well, when inspiration does not strike...then it doesn't XD
e) sent out emails today for our early xmas meet-up. GUYS please read your emails and please pass on the message to other famiglia. my bugging has just begun!!
f) my eye is once again infected. i really need to see a specialist why it's ALWAYS this eye and why we can't seem to find a solution to this problem. bad timing too because i'm writing an installation manual and haha it's a pain having one eye bandaged.
h) ate a lot of meat yesterday. BAGNET. BAGNET. oh my god. then i felt sick afterward. will eat veggies today and try to remember that i am not as young as i used to be and consuming that much unhealthy stuff will kill me in my sleep. i think i was channeling ICEPICK because he loves meat. a lot of it! for those who do not know ICEPICK is a character i own/made over at a chat-place called TinierMe. he's on mini-hiatus at the moment - anyway this is what he looks like. a manly man!

for the yuletides id like to write fic for him and hoodlum and .44 magnum and balisong - you know just background/backstory drabbles of where they came from and who they are! i will one day make a crossover with our characters from
i) a lovely person named
- Mood:sick
- Music:am i wrong by love spit love [original cut]
- Mood:
peaceful
After the show on Saturday, I happened to catch the conversation the pair next to me were having:
"And the one in blue--he seems like he'd be in *pnish*, but he's actually not!"
"EEEEH?"
slfdiusdhlfiusdf SEE, OTHERS THINK IT, TOO. NOT JUST US CRAZY SHIPPERS. He'd fit in so fucking well ;_;
*needs to make a 5th member icon stat*
- Mood:
amused
I'm not too far into the game but it really gets to you. And to think that I can't read much japanese at all.
Summary from 1UP.com
As far as the game itself goes, it's a story-heavy, overhead-view adventure set within two towns and the surrounding countryside. A new girl, Nanami Yoshida, has just moved in to your neighborhood, and apparently she's being targeted by a local band of ghosts and ghouls. It seems this has something to do with a pair of sakura (cherry blossom) trees that dominate the landscape of both towns, one slowly withering and another one blooming deep into the summertime, as if to make up for its weaker sibling. You, a normal boy, decide to get to the bottom of both mysteries, talking to people and unlocking new story episodes as you go along.
Now what really tugged the strings of my heart is that Toru's dad, Kaname, likes Nanami's mom, Takako. Toru's mom, Haruka, is very upset about this but can't do anything about it. Instead, she confides her feelings to their family cat, Traumelei. And Nanami, who recently moved to town, has only her dog, Reinford (ラインホルド) who will listen to her.
God, what is this game doing to me? ; A ;
This is the last of my posts for the day! =D So, the final stop for Saturday (it was a full day!) was the Vampire cafe! Yeah... the Vampire Cafe.
Which is... exactly like it sounds! A kitchy cafe decorated to look all dracula and bloooooooood. Something a lot of people I know back home would like XD
Honestly, it was interesting, but.. well, too smoky. I would gladly go back if it was nonsmoking, but since that isn't going to happen and it was utterly miserable from the smoke of the drug-addicted girl behind us (they ARE drugs), and the chain-smoking guy next to us, I won't be going back.
However, whenever Tokyo is made smoke-free, I am so coming back! Here's to the future!!
( But some pictures Dracula himself would (not) be proud of XD )
( The Touch )
I was inspired by the book that I’ve read entitled “The Touch” by Steven Altman. In a way it made me appreciate that I was alive and that there’s no disease that could deprive you upon having skin to skin contact. It was also a reflection of our society’s misconceptions in some diseases like AIDS, cancer, and the like.
I think I've committed some errors here please inform me if you spotted them. I want to improve my writing. Thanks.
That’s all..I guess..n_n
- Mood:
calm - Music:numb
You know how you hear about all of those random strange vending machines in Japan? Well, this one sells canned soups. Canned ramen, oden, curry, chicken soup.... all sorts of strange things!!
( Read more... )
It's in Akihabara, by the way... Think you can find it? It's kind of hiding in plain sight ^_~
I wouldn't have even known about it myself if it wasn't for my friend Patrick, from Otaku2.com! He introduced it to us when he guest starred on Pop'n Press! I HIGHLY recommend his book, too!! The Otaku Encyclopedia!! It's full of nearly everything that an Otaku would want to know! I really loved it!! (I'll do a really good review of it eventually!)
Just wanted to ask if anyone know of any decent CCs (good server connection, keyboards and mouse not all koyak, not too expensive) near the KLCC area (where I work) or near the PJ-Jalan Gasing area (where I live) that has the following games?
- Bionic Commander
- Left 4 Dead
- Killing Floor
I was volunteering in Akihabara, and we had a reservation for a place in Ginza that evening, so Adele and I decided to walk.... I took a lot of great pictures of the city!! Sorry in advance, but I have a lot of posts to make and only tonight to make them (studio from tomorrow on), so I'm going to make a lot of posts all at once! ^^ Sometimes I don't like doing that, because it discourages people from commenting, (I love comments!!), but I've gotta post while I can! ^^
( +10 pictures of buildings and pretty sights in the city ^__________^ )
I'm starting a new tag, Conbini Life, just to post about weird things or just things that I find in japanese convenience stores (and of course, other ones when I travel!). I'd really like to post more about the "normal" (as much as my life is) parts of living in Japan... at least what I experience living in Japan, since everyone is different!! So without further ago, a few more pictures of convenience store-ness! Guess I'd better take as many as I can right now, in case I suddenly get my break and am too famous to get away with taking pictures! (lol, well you never know! It would be nice, ne? ^___^)
( +6 conbini pictures, +5 berry cafe... )
I would like to wish good luck to all the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) participants! I look forward to your novels.
I had ideas for a new fanfiction, and thought about working on it for NaNoWriMo 2009, but things, especially school, are just keeping me so busy that I wouldn't even have time to visit and login to the NaNoWriMo site. That's why I decided to progress with my unfinished fanfics for the month instead. However, even that is starting to become impossible with school, holidays, and other things coming up. They are even making replies to your entries and comments impossible as well as stressing me out.
- Mood:
stressed - Music:Season from TeniMyu
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
- from East Coker
Evening links:
* Rosy memories of Communist Hungary</i>. See comments as well.
* Libertarians and climate change denialism
Older links:
* Heroic blacks on TV: bald head and goatee
* Female urination device
* GOP as group therapy for fear? Though it often seems like they feed on fear. Fear the Muslim/liberal/socialist/PC/feminist...
* Sexism in Holmes (author, not Sherlock) D&D supplements
* glass armonica
* The lost generation of growth
* "All Christian" prison
* Is New England like Europe? Nationalism vs. piety.
* Does exercise work for weight loss?
I just realised that for the entire month of September – including the week of Aussiecon 4 — I’ll be in Malaysia at this hospital, doing an internal medicine rotation.
This definitely rules out the chances of any happy skiffy fannish reunions for me. Urgh. So much for my malevolent plans.
[This entry originally posted at AETIOLOGICAL LEGENDS. You may comment either there or here]
Happy birthday, Kobayashi Ryoko~! You're 20 years old but still adorable as ever. Keep eating and stay beautiful; I'll probably support you forever~
( in which there are pictures )
In other news, I am done with Degler and still dying. /D;;
- Mood:
[anxious] - Music:White Tie Affair -- Take It Home
I'm glad that everyone likes the random pictures! ^___^ I've been taking a lot more so that I can post them on my lj soon. =^-^=But in the meantime, I went volunteering again the other day! This time, Adele came with me, so it was easy to get into things, and as always (lol, this is only the second time), I had a fun time!
We volunteered for 2HJ, which is basically a food bank, and on Saturday they have people come in and help and go feed homeless people in the park. We only helped for the preparations, because there were too many people signed up for the park part (which was my favorite part before, too bad). That's the only bad thing, I suppose... that to sign up to help, you have to be kind of competitive! I'd rather just help out in a more relaxed manner.
But at least we got into a rhythm, and so 'work' went fast. We met a lot of really nice people, too. I always love talking to volunteers!! I'm going to look for more places to volunteer, if there are any (let me know if you know of any!), and see if I can find something that really matches my personality. ^^ I don't want anything that has to do with money, or asking for money. I'd rather work directly with people or animals that need help. We'll see!!
I did take a few pictures, though not many since I can't show the volunteer's faces without permission (aside from mine and Adele's) ( Read more... )
Going to open inspections this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Both places have nice gardens. I'm really hoping to get either one of them.
I should probably start on the Big Bang fic soon, since the deadline is looming. Not sure how this will work with my internet the way it is. Maybe Lynn will get more panicked text messages in the near future. XD
Biking into the sunset provided new experience of the usefulness of headlights. I could see cars coming at me, but they were dim... easy to miss if your attention drifted. Which it shouldn't while on the road, but we're all imperfect, ne? Headlights are a lot more attention grabbing. I hope mine helped, though given the directions my taillight was probably more useful.
I had the Runcible Spoon's coffee straight for once, without sugar or cream. It was nice, and not bitter.
Links since yesterday:
* US growth before and after Reagan
* Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice, weirdly edited, an essay to a post-Terror French Revolutionary government on the equal right of humanity to natural property, and the justice of an inheritance tax to fund starter funds for those turning 21 and a pension for those over 50. (When people talk about how liberal/left/right/whatever past people were, and not judging them by modern standards... Paine is one Founding Father who'd come comfortably on the left even today, though I think he's weak on feminist advocacy. Not necessarily openly sexist, but not something he wrote about.)
BTW, his opinion of conservatism, in the sense of arguing from tradition, in The Rights of Man:
"The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed on, we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from the hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him."
* Justices weigh life in prison for juveniles who never killed. Whole bunch of them in Florida.
Anyway I spent pretty much this entire weekend watching/listening to random interviews and stalking Baidu bars and I've more or less figured out the stupid split issue behind Kyuhyun's Chinese name. That is, his name is Guixian, and everyone sane (see: interviewers, emcees, Siwon) who talks to him calls him that, except Zhou Mi and Han Geng, who are both utter morons and use Kuixian. I dunno why, they just do. When an emcee uses "Guixian" Geng will immediately switch over, but otherwise I think he defaults to "Kuixian." I don't think Zhou Mi ever calls him by his actual name lolol
I've been trying to make an iPhone wallpaper without success for the past couple of hours because Photoshop keeps crashing. Google tells me this is a display card issue, and in response to this I respectfully thumb my nose at Adobe.
Also f(x) remains the cutest girl band like, on the planet. :|
Someone give me something to do fskaljf I am so bored. And in pain. And.
- Mood:
bored as hell
Then this Sunday, water starts mysteriously seeping through the tiles under our desks. =______= We have no idea why or how to fix it, so for now, I have to occasionally sop up the puddle. I have no idea what's going to happen when we go to sleep.
*deep breath*
RAWWWWWWR.
Will post up the Halloween tricks in a bit and the massive Singapore post I should do soon. But for now, I'll settle with being disgruntled.
- Mood:
cranky
I'm thinking I ought to send some suggestions to my state's two senators in Washington... the bill is going to them next.
The health care reform bill made it through the House of Representatives. No Republican support except for this one legislator from New Orleans, and even some opposition from conservative Democrats. Doesn't surprise me; the Republicans tend to set themselves up as the party of What We Are Not, and part of What We Are Not is 1.) lower socioeconomic status (too "poor" to simply buy whatever health care one needs) 2.) young (all the elderly are entitled to free Medicare, but by god, some of them don't wanna share it with us whippersnappers, although they're perfectly happy to leave us the bill, and yes, Medicare is deducted automatically out of everyone's check) and 3.) nonwhite (many whites can't afford good healthcare either, but it really hurts minority groups disproportionally) and 4.) small business (I've always worked for small businesses here, and they don't have the bargaining power of big business for good healthcare discounts. So yours truly has never gotten any help from her employer to pay for health insurance.)
My father is self-employed (my mom keeps the books for him), so he's pretty much screwed if something major happened to the family (I think he has disability, though). My mother's mother had diabetes, and my mom is on meds for high blood pressure and has to avoid salt and such. She exercises and tries to eat right, but she's dealing with post-menopause too so that makes it difficult for her to lose weight. BlueCross rejected her for insurance. Basically, a health insurance company would rather accept a person with a history of heart attacks than diabetes, or at risk for diabetes, 'cause a heart attack might just kill you outright, whereas with diabetes you are unlikely to die that quickly, so you will need lots of care. And that's the goal of health insurance: to turn a profit, not take care of people who might actually need it.
This is bad, considering how many Americans have or are at risk for diabetes. I guess the Republicans just want them all to die or suffer if they can't afford care / can't get insured / or declare bankruptcy? (Half of banruptcies are due to medical bills.)
Right now I'm uninsured. I was insured the last time I was in the states, and I had InterGlobal while in Japan. I'm young, female, and overall quite healthy, and I paid BlueCross $130 / month for their "BlueSaver" plan (that is, basically just "if something bad like cancer happens, we'll help after your super-high deductible is paid.") No routine check-ups, no eye care, no dental. That was all I could afford. Now that I am a waitress, my income depends on tips from customers: it's highly variable.
And with the economy sucking, people are really cutting back on eating out. All the restaurants in town are suffering. And there isn't a restaurant I know of that offers any benefits to its employees. Every now and then I get into a discussion about this with customers or friends, and some of them basically seem to think that: "If you want insurance, get a better job." Which is really... not fair. Even in white collar industries, young people are attractive to companies in part because they can often hire us for lower salaries, without benefits, and we don't really have much bargaining power.
I guess I'm just disillusioned. When I was young, I believed if you worked hard, you could take care of yourself and your family, especially if you worked hard at your education. This is proving to not necessarily be true. It's more like: "if you have the right connections, if you were born with a certain amount of privilege, if you get into the right field, then you have a better chance of success, but even then, watch out."
I caught a cold yesterday too. My throat is swollen. :sulks:
Maeraku
--during the OP with Nataraja, Pasupata, and Shiva, usually Nataraja dances in front with Pasupata and Shiva doing their own little cute stuff behind him, usually bumping asses and being very girlfriend-y. For both shows today, though, they did kind of a thing where they moved in one of those circles behind Nataraja, like Exile does and whatnot :P
--to distract the guards, Tuti'd been miming a woman entering the castle, and demonstrating how wild it was driving everyone by pumping his hips like...well, you know :P Today, though, he took it to another level...AND WRAPPED HIS HAND AROUND HIS PHALLIC ELEPHANT TRUNK WHILE HE THRUST HIS HIPS. Good GOD man.
--Daiki had a bruise on his right shoulder, a pretty big one :( It looked old, though--was already yellowing. *random*
--miokuri was Tuti, Nagayan, Wasshi, and Mako-chan :D -- so they closed the first two of three Nagoya shows with 2 sets of 2 pnish members meaning...
Senshuuraku
--WE GOT A FULL PNISH MEMBER SET AT SSR MIOKURI! Aaaaaand as if that weren't enough? THANE, TOO. Not gonna lie, I almost completely ignored the pnish members because Meg and I were all, "sdfliushdlifsd IT WAS AMAZING, DUDE. AGAIN." at Thane and he was all, ":DDDDD zomg thanks for coming! Again!!" and it was in English and that was way fun and sdlifushdlfisf
--We were waaaaay up in the nosebleed section (really badly angled 2nd floor, geez) and had a horrible view...but when it's your 13th time seeing something, how much are you worried about missing? XD;;; Anyways, it gave us a perfect angle to see wtf Nagayan was doing with his left hand behind Tuti's back during the ass-massaging scene: ...RUBBING IT UP AND DOWN TUTI'S BACK. Like...yeah.
--@ the slaps, they were all going at each other, and Nagayan repeated what he'd apparently done at Tokyo senshuuraku, where he ordered Nataraja to slap Shiva 3 times, which he dutifully did in Tokyo. Here, though, he changed it to 2 times, then stepped back to watch the magic happen...and Tuti stepped over and started hitting him instead, with a big grin, and Nagayan spazzed out going, "sdilfsidufsd NOT ME, DAMMIT."
--We called them all back onto stage with applause after they left from the first curtain, but unfortunately there were no cast greetings (wtf)--however, Daiki did ask one person to speak: THAAAAAANE! Meg and I were pretty much bouncing in our seats (I wish we could've had Nagayan talk, too, but A THANE IS FINE, TOO)--and...I was totally expecting him to bust out in Japanese, because it's hard to remember he's foreign at times under all that makeup and costuming, and he starts off--IN ENGLISH, GOING AT NORMAL FAST NATIVE-SPEAKER PACE--"First of all, I'd like to say what an honor it's been--" at which point the entire audience busted out laughing, Nagayan started having a fit next to him, and all of pnish was like, "sdfiushldfis NO ERM NO DDDDD:" except for Tuti who--god, I love this guy--calmly stepped forward and explained (in Japanese, admittedly), "Thane-san--you'll have to do it in Japanese. Otherwise I'm the only one who'll understand."
I DIED laughing. Arrogantprick!Tuti is something I desperately love, especially when it's about shit like being able to speak English, which--if you're so confident hon--SAY MORE THAN "THANK YOU" WHEN YOU SEE US.
After that little display, Thane of course delivered an absolutely perfect ending speech which I desperately hope he'd practiced or it's really going to depress me in my own Japanese studies :( You're not allowed to be that good
I leave you with the following zomgawesome pics, which are likely just the beginning of hopefully a stream of cast pics!
Pasupata solo (I love this shot--AND I NEVER REALIZED HIS RIGHT BRAID WAS YELLOW *____* WHY?! IT GOES WITH NOTHING IN HIS COSTUME.)
Nataraja+Pasupata+Shiva = <33333
More NataPasu+Shiva rabu
Group shot from the zoo yesterday
- Mood:
drained
To kill even more time, meme! Stolen from
Let others know a little more about yourself! Re-post this as your name followed by "ology".
( Roseology )
PS: Hina's dokkiri is a;lgjdkfdl awesome. :DDD

tired
sleepy
contemplative
chipper