Adios 2008

What's to say about the end of 2008? It was a year that started out sorta crappy (He Who Shall Not Be Named & [edited so that no one comes after me legally, physically or otherwise] then turned liberating (Dobby Colleen is freeeeee!) then was fun (roadtrips to North Carolina) then depressing (not having a job for more than 2 weeks made me bored out of my mind) then fun (yay finding a job again) then depressing (moving out of Astoria & back to Long Island meh) then super fun (the cruise & the rest of my AWESOME summer, including but not limited to the James Taylor concert, 4th of July, the wedding on July 5th, my parents' surprise 25th anniversary party, working from home as gas prices were out of control, Comic Con, randomly flying to Raleigh just to see "The Dark Knight" in IMAX, etc.) then stabled out (starting a new job in August & settling into the day-to-day life with trips to Raleigh every 2-3 weeks).

It certainly was just as action packed and roller-coaster a year as 2006 & 2007 were. Geez, I can't remember a stable year since before I graduated college. But I've had some amazing things happen the past two years, so I can't complain (much).

So what does 2009 hold for me? Endings and new beginnings. Things that I've been doing for years just aren't fun for me anymore and it's (heartbreakingly) time to move on. Stuff I thought I wanted to do (career-wise, as one example), I don't know if it's for me anymore. Everything new that I've got planned (more details to come!) is exciting and friggin' terrifying at the same time.

Since we're leaving for our annual New Years' Eve family dinner in approximately 4 minutes and I have yet to brush my teeth, here's my summary for what I have learned from 2008:

There will always be tough times & things to worry or freak out about - and with my personality, I'll probably magnify each time about 29,000 times worse than need be - but there will always be those great times that are staples. Like big family parties and upcoming weddings (I'm going to be a bridesmaid in Sara & TJ's wedding on September 5!!!) and Comic Con and beach trips and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years. And the fact that I finally got Jay to start reading "Harry Potter" last night. And those are nice things to always have, no matter how shitty things may seem. Life is livable.

Wait, When Did PostSecret Become So Greedy?

I'm back from California and I've got a huge post to talk about it, but first, I'd really like to finish a thought/post I started more than a week ago. As you may know, I am a huge fan of PostSecret. I have two of the books and bought my boyfriend another one of them last year for Christmas because we both love looking at this genius website. I don't think that 25% of them are real, but I do believe that 100% of them relate to someone in some way. From time to time, I'll even repost one on here that I like & want to share (find the category "PostSecret"). Like she usually does with most of the things I've come to love (cough cough Fiona Apple cough cough), Cassidy sent me in the direction of this site probably a good 2 or 3 years ago. New "secrets" are posted each Sunday on the website linked to above. I actually sent in one myself earlier this year, but it was never put up. Perhaps I should keep trying.

But anyway, my love of the website has been thrown out there. And that's what makes me so disturbed about what I found when I visited the site bright and early on Sunday, December 7, 2008:

Seems innocent enough, right? Until I started thinking. Why would a website that's hosted by BLOGGER a FREE Google-owned blogging website that I host THIS very blog on need to start begging for donations? I absolutely love this website, but right now, I'm starting to feel like this is the blogging website equivalent to the Catholic Church's Bishop's Annual Appeal. To make matter's worse, every 5 postcards or so, these appeared:

Frank originally claimed to be wanting to donate money to the suicide prevention hotline "Hopeline," but why would he need to beg for money to keep a free website running? They don't even have archives on PostSecret; sometimes you'll get lucky and the previous week's "secrets" will be up, but most of the time, if you don't catch them within the first week, you're out of luck and have to wait until the $30 book is published. And as someone pointed out in an email he posted to the website, "I would prefer any cash donations be directed to the suicide prevention hotline; HopeLine (not PostSecret)."

I can't help but get the suspicious feeling that Mr. Warren is really only trying to pay for his book tours. We're in and have been in for the last 12 months a bonafide recession. These are tough economic times and someone who spends their week reading postcards with people's darkest secrets and deepest fears and insecurities on them should realize this, too. This almost seems silly to question, since the answer is 98% "DUH!", but is Post Secret really just a business opportunity for Frank Warren?

There is truly nothing wrong with asking for help, but trying to guilt someone with the excuse, "I am desperate to keep paid ads off this site..." is really shady. Do you get some sort of tax break if it comes from donations and not from paid advertisers?

I guess there really is no such thing as a completely unselfish act and Frank Warren & PostSecret are swept up in the money-making tide. But why am I complaining? I'm still gonna visit the site every Sunday and probably buy the books I don't have eventually.

The Airplane Curse Continues: Why Our Country Is In a Depression and Other Assorted Rants & Realizations

And the curse continues.

I'm sitting here at LaGuardia, paying for Internet, because my flight is delayed indefinitely.  11:55am flight and it's a beautiful freaking day outside.  Today was supposed to be my non-stressful day where I didn't have to work at all for once until Monday morning and could finally have a non-work-filled weekend with Jay.  And it really did start in a relaxing manner.  Got up, watched "Grey's Anatomy" online (it was actually quite fabulous), had plenty of time to get ready and leave with 2 hours to spare.

Then I hit standstill traffic on the Cross Island Parkway and was delayed for over 30 minutes.  It finally cleared up and I went to the bagel store in Astoria that Jay loves and got a ton of bagels.  There was a long line, which I expected, so no surprises there.  I get to the airport finally and the parking lot is closed, of course.  I manage to get a pretty good spot in a different lot and run inside to security.  It's like 11:10am at this point.

Here's an actual somewhat humorous part:  The family traveling ahead of me on the security line managed to EACH set off the security metal detector AND all have to have their bags checked for having liquids that were too big, etc.  No, they were not black or Arab.  They were just plain ignorant dumbasses.  The girl was arguing over contact solution.  I felt like screaming at her, "Let it go!  Buy the travel size for a fucking dollar when you get to where you're going, bitch."

But moving on to the funny: The guy looks at me strangely after he checks out my bag.  I know exactly what's up and I go, "If you're wondering who would bring bagels on a plane, it's me."

He goes, "Yeah, I was actually.  Why?"  I explain that I'm bringing NY bagels to Raleigh, where they don't have good bagels and I promised to bring them down.  He started laughing a lot and let me go through.

So I get through security and into the terminal and I find that my gate has changed, but no one had told me this originally.  So I trek all the way back from Gate 7 to Gate 1 with my heavy bagel-filled bags.  It's 11:30am.  I see that we're not boarding yet and McDonalds is right near the gate, so I go get a fountain Diet Coke (who can resist fountain beverages, seriously) and get back to see boarding has begun.  I get in line and I see people coming back off the plane.  I inquire why and some gal tells me that it's because they said something was wrong.  The woman at the gate tells us that they've been informed by the crew that there's a "maintenance problem" and they have to wait for maintenance to come and look at it and then fix it.

The woman sitting next to me is an older version of me.  She immediately started bitching about how she's been here for 2 hours and is positive that the plane has been sitting here for at least that long, so why on Earth would they only decide to check it NOW, 20 minutes before take-off?  She's got a fabulous point.  And I'd bet my next plane ticket that they didn't check the plane earlier because they didn't want to do work before they absolutely had to.  Not to get controversial, but that's the fucking problem with this country today.  No one wants to do work, to work hard.  No wonder the economy is how it is.  There's a bunch of lazy assholes in this country.  I work 7 days a week and I have nothing to show for it, yet someone who doesn't work at all and has no drive or desire to can just open their hands.  After 9/11, people wanted things and they got it, regardless of whether or not they could pay for it and now we're all paying the price.  I'm talking about everyone, lest anybody think that I'm picking on the lower income people.  You invest your money in the stock market, it's still paper money.  You get caught spending money you don't have in the first place on second homes and what not and then whine about how life's not fair.  I see people who come into my job with worker's compensation injuries and some continually make excuses to not be able to go back to work.  God forbid you got into an elevator with crutches or had to limp from your desk to the bathroom.  God forbid you have to go back to working for a living.

You're either lazy or you're greedy.  Greed is the head of a Wall Street corporation who still takes his $500,000 bonus for the year regardless of all the jobs that have been lost because of how shitty you ran your company.  Greed is constantly taking, taking, taking and not putting back into society.  And I'd say that 90% of the people I know and am associated with are NOT like that.  So it's not all hopeless, but there's a large faction of people in this country that are like that and it's not fair to the rest of us who are losing money, jobs, etc.  And as I've bitched about before, we all treat each other like complete shit.  Even the ticket agents here are being nasty over the loudspeaker and I have not heard one person - myself included - who has confronted them in a nasty way (or at all) yet.

So at least this delay hasn't yet brought on a fit of crying and swearing yet  I've just decided to take it out on my fellow Americans.  The update since I began writing this post about 45 minutes ago is that they're going to try to change planes.  We have to wait for them to get another plane, then bring it to the gate, then have the crew change planes themselves, then prepare the cabin, then maybe get it checked out by maintenance to see if it's good to go, then we'll get our boarding time.  Joy.  I love spending my supposed-non-stressful-Saturdays waiting in airports for a problem that could have been detected hours ago to be solved now at the expense of everyone else.

Maybe I'll go update "The Plane Truth" while I wait.  Or go network and try to find someone who lives/works in Raleigh now to find me a job there so I can move and not have to ever wait around in airports twice a month again.

Hey, Colleen! How've you been?!

It's been a really long time since I've actually written a "how I'm feeling/doing" post vs. the "what I've been up to" post. I figured now was as good a time as any, since it's one of those very rare moments where I don't have anything to do within the next 15 minutes.

I'm...exhausted. My life is getting up, doing work for job#2, which is a content writing gig I did full time all summer on a project by project basis. It ended the day before I went to San Diego in July and when I got back, nothing was going on and I got a new job that's actually outside of my house and around people and legitimate in that we all know where all the money comes from and none of my bosses have 'questionable' past endeavors that I know of and it has benefits and means I have to actually shower every day. 2 weeks after I started job #1, which is working as a medical receptionist in shithole Riverhead (the traffic gives me rage every morning. 15 miles from home and I have to leave 30-35 minutes early grrr), I got approached from job #2 about another 6 week long project. I figured, "Hell, I want to move to NC and I want as much money as possible beforehand, so why not take on 2 jobs that require 40 hours a week each?" So I get up early, do job #2, go for a run, shower, do any loose ends from job #2, leave at 10:30am for job#1, take my break there 2-3pm and do work #2 during that time with Internet that I steal from the parking lot, go back in for work #1 until 7pm, when I go home and work on job #2 from 7:45pm until I'm at a stopping point for the night. The rest of my life is filled with airports and podcasting and weekends that go all too quickly, where I'm actually still spending a decent amount of Jay & my's "down time" doing work for job#2. And the 6-week gig ended the first weekend of Oct, but now there's more to do again.

So yeah, that's how I've been. Busy, exhausted, and getting more wound up by the day. Add into that friends who make me feel like absolute shit because they think I don't like them anymore no matter how many times I explain that that's what my life is right now. Everyone is busy and works a lot; no matter what the state of the economy is, I know that everyone feels that way at some point. But I don't like the million "Wow you're alive" comments, like I don't know/feel stressed out as it is that I don't get to see them as frequently anymore. I'm tired. I really don't spend all of my other weekends hanging out with other friends you think I like better than you & I need you to understand this and cut me some slack here. I spend it doing work (like the literal 27 hours I logged in from Friday night to Monday morning on a new project that I was told would be like a one day thing) or traveling. I need a good 2 weeks notice for things nowadays. I'm trying to keep track of plane ticket prices and balancing my schedule to actually make time to get my car fixed, go to the denist and doctors and gyno and all those things I haven't done in way too long. I'm trying to keep track of apartments and job openings in Raleigh so that when the time comes that I feel like I can go, I know exactly what's what. I was supposed to start writing my book series back in effing JULY & nothing's been done since like the third week of August. I have too many things on my mind and it makes me uptight and tense and I just plain have forgotten HOW to relax in general and I see it happening and I hate it. I've gotten bitchy and boring and not really much fun at all anymore, but that's just how it is.

The only reason I haven't totally cracked by now is because I know that it'll pass. It's just not passing fast enough, haha.

The Universe's Easy Target

So upon waking up to learn that this is the 4th straight week that we have a problem with MetroBuzz that may require re-recording (at least it wasn't my computer this time lol), I check the weather forecast for the weekend. I'm flying out of Islip on Long Island to Raleigh late late late on Friday night and guess what? Yup, it's supposed to rain in NY, Philadelphia (where my layover is) and Raleigh, where I'm supposed to arrive at 12:19am. If I were flying from LGA, I'd automatically plan to be delayed or cancelled, but since I've yet to fly out of Islip, I'm remaining optimistic...somewhat. I tell Jay about the yet again screwed up podcast and the bad weather and - pairing this up with my still missing ring ("St. Anthony, St. Anthony, stick around...") and some other news that we got yesterday morning that bummed us out - he goes:

"I think the universe has the most fun fucking with you because you have the best reactions."

Yeah. That's probably true. I should work on that.

Angelina Jolie is Mother-of-the-Year

I'm bored. At the risk of being a little bit of a Perez-copycat, I just had these thoughts while I was killing time looking at this magazine in the bathroom before (you know when you have nothing to do, so you just finish looking at whatever's staring you in the face when you sit down even though you're already washed-your-hands-done?) & had to take a picture of the cover and add my own things:

1. Congratulations to Angelina Jolie for actually being a mother and being exhausted after taking care of her children. Let's all give her a Noble prize for being such a fucking saint. The only woman in the world to be exhausted after dealing with 6 kids under the age of 8. Duh.

2. The thing that is wrong with Madonna's face is that she's old, she works out too much, and she's had about 19 too many plastic surgeries.

3. I'm cranky, but let's call it feisty.

The Real Reason the Airline Industry is Dying

On my way to and from Raleigh this past weekend, I had yet another round of airport HELL. Since last April, I have been on an airplane almost every month. April, June, July, August, September, October, November, January - skipped February & March by driving in order to AVOID flying - May, and June. Starting with Katie's wedding on August 4, and every subsequent time (with the exception on one trip), I have had a problem. Hell, even on the months I didn't fly - December, end of May - there were problems. Jay's flight on December 27 was canceled and when we tried using JetBlue in May, it was also delayed 2 hours. And this past weekend, particularly Friday evening, as my flight was delayed 2 hours, then canceled, then re-instated 20 minutes later for the original 2-hour delay time, then pushed back, then moved up to an even earlier time, then delayed 3 MORE times after that. And they canceled like 6 other flights that day that weren't re-instated. Then we had a flight attendant who told us that (paraphrasing) "Yeah, who knows what the delay was? Could have been weather [that's what they told us at the airport as we looked out at the bright, sunny sky], could have been something else. Who knows really? You guys are lucky you're flying today."

Lucky. To get a service we paid for to actually deliver? And that woman sounded bitter to be working. Well, we were all bitter to be jerked around and inconvenienced. We weren't getting paid to be there, either.

See here's my opinion on the whole airline industry going out of business:

Everyone is saying that it's gas prices. They're raising fuel prices, tickets cost more, less people flying, forcing airlines to charge to check your bags, etc.

Well guess what? Gas prices are up and people are still driving places that they have to drive to. Maybe they curtail some trips or carpool but they're STILL driving, there's still a TON of rush hour traffic. People who have to fly places, be it for business trips or to see their significant others - we're STILL gonna fly, even if it's expensive. Cause if not, we'll just drive and that's just as expensive.

The problem, as I see it, is the airline service and lack of reliability that your plane's going to take off on time. When you leave LGA, it's a "suggested leaving time" - if it leaves at all. And anywhere else, at least from my experience & I know it's happened to Jay several times too, you're lucky to leave within the same hour. SO many people missed their connecting flights this morning and this week is a HUGE vacation traveling week. To get mistreated by the staff who are there to help you, to be told you're "lucky" a service that you paid a lot of money for is actually happening (albeit 3 hours later than you paid for it) - yeah, that's a slap in the face. The airline industry is going out of business because they're unreliable, they treat their customers like utter sh*t, and they're just poorly run businesses. Paying a lot of money is one thing, but that's how EVERYTHING is right now in this economy. But why should you pay that much money when you're just barely getting what you're paying for. If you even get it at all.

The people in charge don't give a crap at all. They don't care enough to impose policies that show their customers they care or to enforce any type of Passengers' Bill of Rights. Rather than good customer service, you get made to feel like you should be thanking them for doing THEIR job, because it's a "privilege." Well, lower the airline prices to $100 round trips and then we'll suck it up and get what we paid for.

The gov't gives so much money to the airline industry; they can't offer incentives to hire more people, so at least the staffing problems are fixed? So Christmas-time isn't ruined when a crew refuses to fly because they've gone over their flying hours for the month? Maybe we could actually fix something in this country for once. And btw, not being able to bring a water bottle past security is also a scam. Who wants to pay $3.75 for an 8-ounce bottle of really cheap water? Could a terrorist also just buy a bottle of water and go to the bathroom and put in whatever substance they want to use to blow up a plane?

I just hope Southwest starts to offer more flights out of different airports and that they're direct, since as far as I've seen, it's REALLY rare to find a direct flight from Southwest to anywhere that's not Baltimore or Philly and there's only like 4 flights out a day. Then again, Islip is a really small airport on LI, so that could be why there's not many choices.Everything but Southwest is going to go out of business soon, starting with Delta. And I say good riddance.

Today, My Grandparents Have Been Married 53 Years

...And they're still happy & gallavanting through Hungary, Germany, Austria & The Netherlands right now. Word.

You know that you're tired when you put Neutrogena Facial Wash in your hair thinking that it's shampoo despite that fact that you've already washed your hair moments before.

Cruise to St. Thomas, St. Maartin, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico tomorrow! Be gone June 5 - June 14.

Talkshoe Wouldn't Let Autism Speak Today

After months and months of planning, my boyfriend Jay and his dad Jack of "The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack" had their 25-hour-marathon live podcast. It started yesterday (Saturday March 15) at 3:30pm & was scheduled to end today (Sunday March 16) at 4:30pm. They were raising money for the charity Autism Speaks. I followed along the donations that were made to PayPal and all in all, they raised $2,625 (and counting!). I was there for the entire time, minus an hour and a half it took me to drive home to my parents house. I've been awake since 8:30am yesterday morning. It is now 10:36pm.

The show started off with the Married Man Podcast, a podcast about relationships, etc. that Jack does with his friend Dale. It's hilarious. After MMP, Lost star Jorge Garcia (Hurley) stopped by for a good 3 or 4 hours. However, the company that was hosting the live podcast, Talkshoe, had issues (as usual it seems) & poor Jorge was left waiting for almost an hour til we could get it started again. Jorge ROCKS though & after the guys were done deciding who the Top 10 Coolest, Toughest Guys in Movie History are (I think Han Solo won in the end), he spent a while answering questions from fans. Talkshoe allows people to participate in big group calls or podcasts. You have one administrator (in this case Jay) who can mute or unmute anyone who is there in the chatroom with a microphone. I asked a question; Jorge, Jack & I made fun of Jay. It was grreeaaattt.

The rest of the 25 hours was filled with other awesome guests, such as Ryan & Jen Ozawa from The Transmission podcast, Jimmy Aquino from Comic News Insider podcast (he's the guy responsible for Jay & I meeting Michael Emerson), Ralph from the Dharmalars/'Lars & Cue the Music podcast (for a good 5 hours, including while I was driving, so I didn't even miss much of it lol), and a whole lot of other Lost podcasters such as Kurt from Black Rock, Josh from Josh Meister, and a lot of others whose names I feel genuinely terrible about not remembering at this 40-straight-hour of consciousness. Our good friend Clif was on. John Norton & I were set up to at the end, from 3-4pm. Lost actor Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) was going to go after us from 4-4:40pm. I know, right? FUCKING AWESOME! Jay and I were looking forward to a MetroBuzz meets Jay and Jack verses segment (we were all going to take one of the Indiana Jones movies and debate which was best, then leave voting open to the public). Seriously, we were so excited for it, especially since we both had been up and involved for the entire show. The only thing more perfect for us than such a FUN way to end such a tedious event was for Daniel Dae Kim to show up and talk. Oh yeah, wow, cool. Look at that. DDK was going to. He had only from 4-4:30pm to talk because he has such a busy schedule filming Lost now to make up for the time lost during the WGA strike. But awesome of awesome, he was still willing to do it. HOLLER.

Guess what? At 3pm, JUST as John & I were about to call in and record, Talkshoe, which had been running adequately since the Jorge Garcia event 18 hours before, decided to COMPLETELY CRAP OUT. Not just a "malfunction" but a total crash that they called an "error in their coding" that would be fixed within 30-60 minutes.

It was not fixed within 30-60 minutes. Everyone in the chat room waiting for us to start was so patient and wonderful. It was stressful to not know what was going on, to have no control over the situation, to know what was at stake. Daniel Dae Kim (and I call him that bc I have never spoken with him; I call Jorge by his first name because I have now officially spoken with him one time lol) was so gracious to continue trying to access the chat room until his free time was up. We waited from 3pm until 5pm to no avail. Talkshoe never went back up and Norton & I never got our chance to play with Jay and Jack. Jay & I were so disappointed that we never got to do that section together after using that as the way to get through the rough 25 hours to stay awake & sane. I was really excited to do the live show and interact with everyone. I hope that Daniel Dae Kim doesn't think badly of them because the issue was TALKSHOE'S FAULT, NOT THEIRS.

That's the thing. Talkshoe sucks. They're a company that, according to their website, "a new way to create live group calls, conversations, discussions and interactive podcasts." Basically, Talkshoe markets themselves as a company that specifically caters to large groups. Jay & Jack's Autism Speaks podcasting marathon was a big deal. It was "official." The charity knew that it was happening and expected donations as a result. Talkshoe let us all down with its numerous service errors. As a result of these errors, Autism Speaks suffered. The errors resulted in a loss of donations from potential listeners who were turned off by the lack of the interactive podcast that is the main aspect of Talkshoe's service.

Here's what I propose to all those who participated in Jay and Jack's live marathon podcast and to anyone who is a supporter of Autism Speaks. Let's start a campaign to get Talkshoe to rectifiy their mistakes by donating money to Autism Speaks. This will make up for the loss of time and donations that the charity suffered as a result of THEIR continually technical issues.

Make blog posts, comments on a website, or email a complaint to Talkshoe at support@talkshoe.com. This may not seem like it, but to anyone who was involved in this event, it really was a big deal to us & Talkshoe has let us down completely. Urge them to make a donation to make up for the donations that were lost because of them.

If you'd like to make a donation to Autism Speaks, you can do it through PayPal, by sending it to LPDonate@gmail.com OR you can send checks made out to Autism Speaks to the following address:

P.O. Box 40716
Raleigh NC. 27629

Thanks. Hopefully we can do something. The theme of this weekend seems to be making a difference in lots of different ways. And thank you to everyone who came by during the 25-hours and helped Jay & Jack raise $2,625 electronically. Can't wait to see the total number after the checks come in :)

Peel out the watchword

What kind of world is it when these are the top headlines on PEOPLE.com?

Also, I just read in amNY, the free daily newspaper you get at train stations, subways, etc. that the New York City Council is looking to adopt a "symbolic" ban of using the N-word.

"I'm hoping this is the beginning of a move forward to a place where the use of the N-word is simply unacceptable," Councilman Leory Comrie (D-Queens) said after presenting a website called http://www.abolishtheword.com/.

Not that anyone cares, but to throw my 2 cents in: Just when exactly in present day society has it been acceptable to use that word? Not for nothing, but maybe Councilman Comrie should target the black communities to get them to stop throwing the word around because I don't know any white people who aren't Eminem, Paris Hilton or Michael Richards that use that word. Yet I was waiting for the subway last weekend & heard a group of young black men using that word like they were gonna get a dollar every time they said it. Maybe NY is more progressive than most places or the diverse world I grew up in gives me a reverse ignorance of sorts. While I'm not condoning the use of the word, isn't that ban somewhat contradicting that a little thing called the 1st Amendment? The N-word shouldn't be used because people make the conscious decision to stop using it because they find it morally wrong, NOT because a city council tells them they can't.

Don't go across the tracks

Ok, so last weekend, I went into the city again to party it up with the divas (Amanda Giordano, Julia, Allison Caruana & a no-show Meg Donoghue). A lot of fun, but it was an adventure & a half from the start of the night.

I get to the Hicksville train station & discover that all trains except my own are delayed because of "track conditions." One train was even delayed 62 minutes. I would've freaked out. But I stayed calm; my train ended up only being about 8 minutes late. Get on the train, it's moving somewhat slower than usual, but at least I'm moving. We were all supposed to meet up around 6:30pm at Ali's apartment in Chelsea. At this point, I'll get there only about 15 mins late. No biggie. Then we get to the Hillside facility. At Hillside, they tell us that our train is going to be delayed "indefinitely" & we could get out, walk around, whatev. I'm thinking, "Grrreeeaaat!" But I was still uncharacteristically calm & unbothered. Luckily, it only 10 minutes before our train started moving again. (Naturally, I stayed on the train so I could continue rereading Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets.)

We start moving & all's well in that glorious 6 or so minutes it takes to get to Jamaica, a big station where most lines run through & you can transfer, etc. The train stops & without warning the conductor announces, "Train service between Penn Station & Jamaica has been terminated. All passengers must get off the train."

Everyone's confused. There's another announcement: "Anyone who wishes to continue to Penn Station at this time can board the train to Brooklyn & take the subway up to Penn Station." That was it. No "Sorry for the inconvenience on this disgustingly muggy, misty evening!"

So I got on the train to Brooklyn with about half of the other confused passengers. I ask around & find out which stop will take me to a subway line that I needed to get to Ali's. Because I'll talk to anyone, I make friends with this 48ish-year-old woman named Kathleen because she was talking about how she was supposed to be doing a table reading of Taming of the Shrew. She ends up being a minister who had family members go to Marist & genius kids ages 18 & 23. We chat til I get to my stop. Or so I think. The train kept on going. Turns out, the A-line skips 8th & 23rd - only the C & E take you there. I had to get off at Penn Station. I was so impatient at that point that I just walked the 12 blocks/1 ave to Ali's. I got there, drenched in sweat. My newly cut hair was unfortunately frizzed & ruined. It was gross.

My parents saw on the news during my endeavors that someone had been hit by the train. It ended up being a 12-year-old boy who snuck through a hole in a fence down ONTO THE TRAIN TRACKS TO DO GRIFFITI & ended up getting hit. His parents are now screaming at everyone about how it's MTA's fault for having a hole in their fence. No, fuckers. It's YOUR FAULT for not teaching your kid that while defacing public property is wrong, playing on the fucking train tracks is just plain stupid. 13-yr-old boys will be 13-yr-old boys, but at 13-yrs-old, one should know that playing on the train tracks will get you a one-way ticket to the Darwin Awards.

As I was recapping my story that evening, it was still when we thought that someone had jumped on the tracks. I have come to the conclusion that committing suicide by jumping in front of a train during rush hour is probably the most selfish thing that you can do. It's how Randy would kill himself. It could even be more selfish than stealing from the poor box, I don't know. You're not only inconviencing yourself/loved ones by dying, you're also now affecting thousands of commuters who just wanna get where they're going. Could you BE any more selfish? Granted, someone who's trying to kill themselves probably isn't really in a very logical frame of mind, but as Gob would say, "Come ON." Don't make everyone else suffer bc you think your life isn't worth living. If you thought no one cared about you before, certainly no one will care about you after you've made them wait 5 hours on a train while police clean up your gallbladder from track 2. If you really want to do the train thing, get a razor, find a bathtub & go down the tracks that way.

That is all. More on the weekend/pictures later on. Ali & Amanda posted up pictures on Facebook, though. Ali did my make-up that night & I really don't look like myself at all. I think I'm just gonna stick with my eyeliner & mascara & call it a day.

Still seeking my source for some definitive

It's hard to believe that it's Dec. 20 already. It does NOT feel like Christmas is 5 days away AT ALL. I realized this last week & figured out why:

For the last 17 years of my life, Christmas time basically was characterized with everything winding down. School projects, tests, classes ending, teachers/professors/bus drivers/etc. giving out candy canes, holiday parties, all that stuff. But now, everything's just going on the same as it's been. Seriously, not being in school & still living at home while working at damn Ann Taylor really feels like I'm on perpetual summer vacation. It's just strange. It really doesn't feel like Christmas. I miss Marist.

P.S. Since Bobby's not having his annual New Years Eve party for the first time since forever, I have no clue what I'm doing for the first time since forever. So if anyone has any ideas they want to shoot my way, let me know. I think I have to house/dog sit for my aunt in Mt. Sinai again cause she's going to visit people in Buffalo for a few days, but I'm open for suggestions. I wish I could do that open bar Julia & Allison are doing in the Village, but it's waaaaay expensive & I know I'm going to have to end up working on New Years Day. :(

(Happy 23rd Birthday. -

12.20.83-5.17-98

*Nothing ever so common*)

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday

It's ironic how my last post got accidentially deleted, but I supposed that it's for the best. I'm sort of calmer now, though I still meant exactly what I said. It's still on the Facebook as of right now, but I'm probably taking it down since I got it out of my system for the time being. It's funny though since that's the one post that I got a ton of people responding to lol.

Anyway, it's lovely what 4 hours of sleep can do for the randomness of a person's thoughts. Especially when you know that you could've gotten a good 6 hours in and chose to ignore the time, so you can't even use the "I had so much work/I had so much MCCTA" excuses! So yes, random thoughts from this morning:

• I went for a run at like 7am & started wondering whether or not Pluto not being a planet anymore has any major astrological effect on your hororscope. I mean, seriously, it's got to have some consequence, right? WTF am I supposed to do NOW when I get to that page in the paper every morning? Just ignore the fact that the rest of my cosmic life has been just one big lie?! 50 minute run on 4 hours of sleep, people. Just keep that in mind.

Moving on, here's another thought I had while driving to work this morning (I need to just not think anymore):

• "London Bridge" came on the radio (I've been doing my bimonthly attempt to catch up on what's going on in non-Alanis/Fiona/Tori/Counting Crows-land). First, I almost crashed my Rav4 in disbelief that I turned on the radio & heard a song that wasn't "SexyBack" playing. After that inital shock subsided, I started to wonder why Fergie Ferg, Crystal Meth Princess of Nice Abs Wasted on an Ugly Face, decided on "London Bridge" as her euphemism of choice. Being involved in V-Day & The Vagina Monologues for 4 years at Marist (as Managing Director of ETG, I acted as liasion for MCCTA/V-day for 2 years) & having directed the show junior year, I have that freaking script memorized. Add in 3 years of living with Sarah & Amanda (& 2 with Sara), I think that I'm a pretty good authority on words used in place of vag. I'd even go as far as bragging that I could hold my own in a categories of Kings against Eve Ensler, Chris Rock, Ellen & Howard Stern (George Carlin would probably own me though). But LONDON BRIDGE?! I don't get it, I'm sorry. Someone please explain it to me.

I'm stopping myself now for everyone's sake or else I just won't stop. I do have one last pondering:

• There were these out-of-control kids in the dressing room at work today and the poor parents were doing everything to control them. My thought? "My kids aren't going to be like that." In years past, even last summer, I'd see or hear screaming children & say, "That's why I'm not having kids." All of a sudden, I'm assuming that I will. When did THAT happen?! I've been doing it without realizing it for a little while now. Even all summer at the beach with Cassidy, I joked about how cute little kids are when they're at the beach & how it's the one place that I don't mind loud children (public pools are a whooooole other story, however. There's no way to escape when a 5 year old pisses in a pool). They were cute, playing & making sand castles & all that crap that they do (it was the anorexic looking dumb 16-year-olds & their club hair boyfriends that we took such pleasure in making fun of. Trust me, some of their convos were HYSTERICAL). Ok, that's besides the point. I'm not saying that I'm going to run out & procreate anytime soon, so the world IS safer from me spreading my particular brand of insanity for a while. I've got other things to do; Chris Golio & I are going to take over the world.

I was just kidding. I have one other quick thing, a PSA of sorts:

• The Dane Cook podcast blows. As did "The Black Dahlia." So just keep that in mind if you're the type of person who values the precious minutes of their life.

That's all. Peace out.

maybe a bright sandy beach is gonna bring you back

Being that I had almost the exact same "conversation" today with two different people, I feel the need to include the away message of Brian Sabella, the second person to bring the 'not-going-back-to-Marist' topic to my attention today (not that it wasn't already on my mind/brought up by almost everyone i've ever met in the past few weeks).

StamosIsLife: Finishing up packing for Marist...

Oh wait, Im old.

You little bastards better enjoy it.

Muffin is right. Katelyn actually said to me the other night, "You know, it's really scary that you graduated. I don't like it. It makes me realize that it doesn't last forever." Damn right it doesn't. I'm not going to get into it now cause it's late, but sometimes you really don't know what you've got til it's gone. But I was lucky. After a somewhat rough year (that had good moments, I'm not complaining), I had a very, very, very, very awesome last month of school. Starting with Festival then Banquet then Riverfest then Yuck then Senior week then Senior Formal then graduation; I feel incredibly lucky & blessed that I ended my time at Marist on such a high note.

I guess that's why this has been such a frustrating summer for me. Some things that I wanted to last...didn't and some things that I wanted to happen...haven't. But that's neither here nor there & this is not the time/place to analyze my summer. Maybe another time. Life is funny. I'm a very intense person but I'm an understanding person & not unforgiving. People never give me enough credit: I'm good at brushing things off my shoulders simply bc I don't want the weight of being angry or hurt or hating someone/having them dislike me. It's not worth it. Ok, shut up, Colleen. Just shut up.

Anyway, I did a first for me today: went to the beach by myself. Now, I absolutely love going to the beach but it's been the one thing that I've never really considered doing before. I've seen movies by myself (working at a movie theater desensitizes you to that), eaten by myself (granted, not at a restaurant, but I've gone into places like Panera or Dunkin Donuts or Quiznos, etc al & eaten alone), i've sat at concerts by myself (even if I had friends who were there, just sitting in a different section - DMB @ SPAC 2003 for example) and i've gone to see plays alone. Bottomline: I don't have a problem with a little 'me' time. Anyway, I've never considered going to the beach alone & especially this summer with certain 'circumstances' - so to speak - have caused me to always feel it necessary to have a beach buddy. Cassidy & Claudio have gone to the beach by themselves before & it's quite relaxing & peaceful & gorgeous there, so it shouldn't be a big deal at all. Soooo after an absolutely AMAZING day yesterday at the beach with Julia, Brian, Chris Golio, Ian face & Joe Matero, I decided I wanted to go again today. I woke up and it was gorgeous out so I thought to myself, "Self, just go do it."

So I did. And I relaxed with a book then walked around for over an hour. Said a hello that wasn't as awkward as I thought (I guess? from my POV but what do I know about anything?). Oh yeah - I also saw an old naked guy pissing into the ocean.

Basically, at Smith's Point, if you go all the way down to the right, there's a nude section. I remember walking down there in like 11th grade or something with either Claudio or Tricia or someone bc when you're like 16, the idea of naked people at the beach is still funny. Anyway, I remembered it being alot further than it actually is. At first I was like, "Ok, that dude's naked. Don't stare, just walk a little bit further, it's not crowded." I'm an idiot but I didn't feel like turning around and going back yet. So then I walk about 3 more minutes & see more saggy ballsacs. This time, I'm kinda getting the feeling (especially when I see some naked fat old lady) that it's time to go back. The clincher was when I look up from finding a song on my newly created playlist & see some guy standing by the sea. "Ok, Colleen, don't stare," I say to myself. Then I notice that he's NOT JUST STANDING THERE. NOPE. OLD GUY. NAKED. PISSING INTO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

Yup. That was great. I did not go swimming after I got back from my walk.

Ok, this post is long & I have to go find stories for StarkedNY.com for tomorrow since I have work at AT 3-close & I have to go back to the mall so shit's gotta be done early. Thanks to everyone who's been going there & reading it. I really, really appreciate it.

P.S. Snakes on a Plane was awesome. Just awesome. Audience participation. I got to say, "Oohh, what's a trouser snake?" when the guy got bit in the crotch & Matero yelled out, "It's a trouser snake!" My favorite part (other than *the* line) was some guy from the audience yelling, "Why isn't William Shatner in this movie?!"
P.P.S. I'm going to put up videos from the Counting Crows concert as soon as I figure out how to load shit onto YouTube. Adam Duritz is fantastic.

*I finally unloaded like a month's worth of pictures from my camera; this is one from Aug 2, when Danny & I went with Brian to his gig in Hartford. We met up with Bri's friend, Tim, watched Brian play, then stayed up all night playing in Tim's pool, drinking & then having an insane game of "Never Have I Ever." But to kick off the night - aka Happy Hour - Brian bought us all pints. Look how tiny I am next to Danny & the pint haha.

M. Night to Direct Harry P?!

I love it when I find out news a month too late, especially when it’s news that’s just begging for a comment. Apparently M. Night Shyamalan (HA, I only had to look up the spelling of his name THREE times, suckers!), the man behind the awesome Sixth Sense and not-so-awesome Lady in the Water, has been telling everyone who’ll listen that he’s considering directing one of the last two Harry Potter movies. The director claims that he is “haunted” that he passed up the chance to director The Sorcerer’s Stone and if given the chance, he would be the “greatest protector of [the] author’s stuff.”

Now, M. Night doesn’t strike me as the type of director who adheres to necessary little things such as what another author intended the storyline to be. I can see it now: Dumbledore suddenly starts walking around, interacting with Harry, completely unaware that he’s dead. Then in an attempt to keep Death Eaters out of Hogwarts, new Headmaster McGonagall boards up all the windows/doors with some strong ass plywood and gathers all the students in the Great Hall, where everyone gets to conjure up their favorite last meals! And in a “completely unforeseen twist,” we learn that Hogwarts is actually located somewhere in the Dagobah System. Yoda appears and finishes where Dumbledore left off, teaching Harry how to defeat Voldemort using the force (who needs Legilimency & Occlumency nowadays, anyway?). To reward himself for being such a genius, M. Night creates a whole new member of the Order of the Phoenix for himself to play, completely forgoing all of J.K. Rowling’s well-crafted mythology in favor of his own, updated storyline, which he will then try to pass off as “something that happened a long time ago…really…”

This rant has been brought to you by Colleen. Anyone have anything to add? Any M. Night fans in the house who want to tell me I’m overacting slightly?

My Modest Proposal

Being a journalism major, I’ve spent the past four years learning about the First Amendment and the wonderfulness that is free speech. Thanks to this little addendum, any American can supposedly go out and say whatever they want, whenever they want and chances are they’re protected under the Constitution of our great country.

Thus said, I’d like to briefly share with you all a little proposal of an idea that I came up with back in high school. This idea is so brilliant that I’ll probably one day win a Nobel Prize for coming up with the solution that’ll bring about world peace, or at the very least, bring an end to every day headaches. So what’s this miracle idea? Speech quotas.

Think about it. How many times have you been sitting in class or standing online at Target or stuck in a room with your family and simply wished that there was a way to shut everyone up? It’s brilliant. I’m not saying to silence the dumb drunk girls you hear conversing in the bathroom at Darby’s; I’m proposing that we simply limit the amount of unintelligent banter.

I realize that it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. Here’s how it would work. Periodically, everyone has to take a test that will determine the amount of time that they’re allowed to speak a day. It does not need to be based on intelligence. Can you imagine how much better classes would be if your professor just got to the point of their lecture, rather than trying to fill up an hour and fifteen minutes with filler? Several factors will be taken into account, with the criteria including common sense (or lack of), an ability to understand and tell jokes, the amount of purely ridiculous things said in public and political parties. Hell, based on my own criteria, this column would have been over about two paragraphs ago.

There are several purposes and advantages to having a system of speech quotas. First, there’s the obvious: it would save a lot of hassle by preventing the waste of time that it takes to listen to such ridiculous verbalizations as “Katie Holmes and I are really in love!” This would prevent the annoyance these declarations cause and we’d all be in a lot better moods. And think about it. With less time spent sitting around and talking, more time can be devoted towards physical activities, resulting in increased national health as well as ability in sports.

Such a system would also serve the interests of politics. Bleeding hearted liberals and compassionate conservatives can unite under this solution. How so? Well, limiting the amount that a person is allowed to say each day will not only save them from the embarrassment that results from them opening their mouths, but will also increase the time they spend thinking before they do it again. Then we’d be spared from hearing things such as “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” or “Iraq has weapons of mass destructions.”

Even celebrities would probably benefit the most. Ashlee and Jessica Simpson would have been silenced a long time ago and people would still think that Kanye West was intelligent. The world would never have to hear from Dr. Phil or Alec Baldwin again.

Of course, the increased time spent thinking would better the chances that when someone actually speaks, it will be a worthwhile contribution to a conversation. With each sensible sentence, there will be a chance to raise the quota. Periodic reviews will allow people to move up in rank.

I’d like to finish up by sharing with you my two favorite celebrity quotes from this past month. The first one is from Robbie Williams: “Courtney Love went to me once, ‘I was asking my friends who I should sleep with when I visit England and they said you. But I can't sleep with you because of the pop thing.’ And I went, ‘Well, I can't sleep with you because of the ugly thing.’”

Personally, I’m not a fan of Robbie’s music. However, I must say that this may be one of the most genius retorts I’ve heard in a long time. Granted, it’s not difficult to make fun of Courtney Love, the woman’s a walking train wreck who’d be granted no speaking time at all, but good job, Robbie.

And finally, I’d like to end with my personal favorite quote and possibly my strongest piece of evidence for why there should be limitations on speech. It comes from our good friend Paris Hilton. Enjoy! “I think I’m sexual in pictures and the way I dress and my whole image, but at home I’m really not like that. All of my ex-boyfriends would be like, ‘what’s the matter with you? You’re so not sexual.’”

Yes, Paris. And Lindsay Lohan's never inhaled.