Hope you don't mind a break from all this VP talk.
A few weeks ago I got an email from my college's financial aid office.
Dear Student
Your lender is no longer processing loans for us so you need to complete a new promissory note. Please contact the Financial Aid Office for help with this.
I didn't think much of it, other than it was really inconvenient, and I hoped that it wouldn't delay my aid. So, the next day I called the financial aid office and got the instructions for completing a new master promissory note. It was when I was finishing up my promissory note that I realized something was hinky.
Five years ago I came to a really tough decision in my life. I gave up on my dreams of becoming a professional screenwriter, packed my bags, and left LA. I had just been laid off from my job. There was no way my unemployment was going to get me through even one month in LA. The decision was a hard one, one of the most difficult I have ever made. It's not easy to give up on a dream, but the truth I just didn't have the right attitude for a Hollywood career.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a great screenwriter. I've won multiple contests and was a Nicholl semi-finalist last year. My problem is an inability to self-promote, and especially to ask for favors. I would do all the right things, go to the right parties, talk to the right people. I made loads of friends in the industry; producers, actors, directors, other screenwriters. People who were successful and could have helped me, but I was never able to ask for help. It just felt so wrong, dirty really, to use my friends like that.
Woo! I am now officially two weeks smoke free. So far I have saved up $42 worth of cigarette money to send to Barack at the end of the month. Today I tossed an extra $10 (all I actually have right now) his way just to celebrate this milestone. I've posted a couple of tips below the fold.
Update [2008-8-17 0:50:57 by ThatPoshGirl]: Oh, I meant to say. Last night was the first night I dreamt about smoking. I kept waking up from smoking dreams. It was a rough night, my stomach was bothering me a lot.
Hey, I'm working on an Anti-McCain graphic for maybe a poster or something. I'm not particularly good at this type of thing so I would love some feedback on how to improve it. Find it below the fold.
A lot of people think that Hillary is going to be on the nominee list because she has twisted Obama's arm or something. People are suggesting that this is an attempt to tear apart the party. I totally disagree. Let me just say that I am no fan of Hillary Clinton, at all. But, I think this may actually be a brilliant move by Obama. Follow me across the jump for an explanation.
I stumbled on to an interesting article today. It's a Washington Times article from 2002, Nightmare of crack nicotine. What is crack nicotine?
...Farmers have been using nicotine sulfate insecticide since the early 1800s. To make it, all you do is boil tobacco leaves in water with a little sulfuric acid (the same acid as in a car battery).
If you mix the resultant nicotine sulfate extract with a common alkali like lime, then add a solvent such as ether, pure nicotine alkaloid - or free base "crack" nicotine - will float to the top dissolved in the solvent which is then evaporated off. A trivially simple procedure that anyone with a high school chemistry course can perform, it is the same process as making free-base cocaine from cocaine hydrochloride powder.
The claims have surfaced in eight counties in Alabama, and they include allegations that absentee ballots were sold and traded for cash, crack-cocaine and even piles of driveway gravel.
...
Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a Republican, seized absentee ballots from three primarily black counties after allegations of vote-selling surfaced in the June 3 Democratic primary.
I thought I'd give a wrap up Olympics diary a try. We'll see how it goes.
The Beijing Medals have a little Chinese flair with inset rings of Jade on the reverse side of the medal.
It's not unusual for countries to add their own twist to medals, although the summer medals tend to be more uniform. Keeping with tradition the obverse side of the Beijing medals feature Nike, the goddess of victory.
While the Summer medals tend to follow a traditional model, the winter medal designers like to be more creative.
A curious thing happened the other day. Someone in a forum I frequent asked for advice on improving his or her grammar and reading skills. Now, you may not be able to tell from reading my diaries here, but I am something of a grammarphile. So I rattled off a few books that I felt would be helpful to the poster: Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss; Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Conner; and How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, edited by Charles Van Doren. I headed over the Amazon.com to grab the links to the titles I had recommended, and was surprised to see that a new book from Charles Van Doren had recently been published.
Van Doren's new book is called The Joy of Reading: A Passionate Guide to 189 of the World's Best Authors and Their Works. I was aware that Van Doren was alive and well, living in New England, but it has been over 15 years since he published a book, so I was surprised to see a new work from him. I decided to Google Van Doren and discovered that just over a week ago Van Doren broke his 40-year silence on the "Twenty-One" scandal.
As you may or may not know, I quit smoking almost a week ago. It didn't seem too hard at first, but I have to admit that yesterday and today have been killers. It isn't any kind of constant craving, it is just that when I do have a craving I feel like I am coming unglued. Supposedly the nicotine is out of my system, but these cravings are so strong I can't think about anything else.
In a particular moment of weakness I began to wonder about "herbal cigarettes." These are cigarettes made with various non-addictive herbs. I was thinking that maybe substituting the cigarette with something that isn't addictive would help me get over the physical addiction before having to give up the psychological addiction.
Herbal smokes leave out the nicotine, but leave in the dangerous tar and CO2.
Of course, in reality this would be pretty stupid. Herbal cigarettes have the same health consequences as regular cigarettes. Afterall, the tar and CO are the killers, not the nicotine. But then I stumbled onto something else: e-Cigarettes.
In a state that at one point may have been considered a Republican stronghold, Democrats are outperforming Republicans across the board. In January the Democratic caucuses turned out over 100,000 voters, compared to 44,000 voters in the Republican caucuses. And now the RGJ is reporting that Nevada Democrats are outraising Republicans like crazy.
I just stumbled on to this. It is what happens when you quit smoking. I vaguely recall seeing this same thing the first day I quit, but I was kind of confused that day and don't remember a lot of details. Anyway, here it is:
In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.
In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.
In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.
In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.
In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.
In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.
In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.
In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.
In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
I would like to see Obama use the right's ridiculous tire gauge attack against them. This is his opportunity to make saving money now his issue. I see it done as a series of ads that go something like this:
Open on Obama in jeans and a t-shirt talking to the camera.
OBAMA
I'm Barack Obama and as President I will push to reduce dependence on foreign oil and provide a $1000 tax cut to middle class families. But Americans like you need relief at the pump now. Unfortunately, the current administration has failed offer real solutions, so in the mean time here are some tips on what you can do to save money at the pump.
I diaried a couple of days ago about quitting smoking. It's not the first time I've quit, I'm not even ready to say it will be the last time I quit, but I can say it is the most determined I have been to quit. Before quitting I smoked a pack a day of Camel No. 9 Menthol (these are light cigarettes). In the past, though, my smoking habit has been much worse. For a couple of years I was smoking nearly two packs a day of full strength Camel Menthol. Of course, it's also true that once upon a time my smoking habit was two to three cigarettes a day. I was 15 then and didn't think a couple of cigarettes a day was a big deal. No matter what, though, my habit has never been as bad as this guy's:
My dad is a Vietnam veteran. He was in Vietnam on Admiral McCain's ship when John McCain crashed. My dad has a lot of respect for Admiral McCain and that respect passed on to John McCain. No matter how many times I have tried to tell him that John McCain is not who he thinks he is, he has continued to think he is the bee's knees.
Well, today hell must have frozen over. Why? Because my dad actually said, "I don't like that new attack ad that McCain is running against Obama."
I quit smoking today. I thought this would be a good time since I just had my summer biology final and my fall classes don't start for three weeks. I just hope three weeks is enough time to get my head straight.
I started bupropion two weeks ago, but I don't feel like it has been particularly helpful. I've tried to quit smoking before, and have even been fairly successful on a couple of occassions (6 months once, a year another time). It has never been the cravings that get to me. It is that feeling like I am suppose to be doing something, and then I realize what I am suppose to be doing is smoking. I'm thinking about picking up some hard candy, that might help.
Take a moment to listen to John McCain's response to a question about reducing urban crime. He made this statement in front of the National Urban League.
MCCAIN: And some of those tactics — you mention the war in Iraq — are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control.
Nothing about education, better jobs, improving transportation, fighting poverty, or any of those silly things. Just invading and clamping down.
