I have all sorts of things to talk and complain about today. I think it’s the weather, this bitter cold has got me into a tired mood. Weather, I’ll start off with that.

It’s been cold. When it first dropped into the 20s I laughed at the news people who were going on and on about the “bitter cold” I mean come on, I’m from Maine! In January the temperature barely rises above 20 %) Then it started to get REALLY cold, today I woke up and it was in the single digits outside, and windy, so we had a wind chill of about 10 below. *Shiver* that’s cold! But at least I’m not up north any further, I was talking to crypticreign yesterday and he said the temperatures are even lower up in Boston. Now I’m not usually one to complain about the cold, even when it’s this cold, but when I have to wake up at 5 am the LAST thing I want is to have to suffer in the miserable cold as well, cold and tired do not mix well %)

I ended up cancelling the Philly Chix meeting last night, getting down there around 8 probably would not have been too horrible, but by 10 or so I think the really low wind chill would have been something we wouldn’t be able to handle and be happy with, especially if we were unable to get parking close to the bookstore. We’ll resume the regular meetings next month.

But it could be worse, I heard on NPR this morning that in the White Mountains of New Hampshire the temps hit -44, with wind chills around -100. Gaah.

Maine is north, I bet it’s cold there too. My 14 year old sister is up there and I got a chance to talk to her yesterday, she had all sorts of interesting things to say:

$sister: have u heard anything yet?
Leia26: no
Leia26: about what?
$sister: about me getting aresseted and shit
Leia26: no o_o
$sister: wow dude i got lik 3 court dates now
Leia26: what did you do this time?
$sister: heraament…cimual conduct..asalt..tampering..trettening

At least she spelled tampering correctly. She wouldn’t tell me what exactly she did, I’m not sure I wanted to know. I really don’t understand how she’s become such a problem child %( maybe my other sister and I stole all the intelligence and “good girl” genes and didn’t leave her with any. Then again, she did have quite a difficult time growing up, she’s always been active, then my parent’s divorce, me leaving (we were VERY close when she was younger, I was “Bethy Mommy”), and her lack of disapline following the divorce (she lived with my mother, but they both wanted to stay on her good side by being the “nice parent”). It’s sad really, I hate to see my sister throw away her life like this. It’s not like I can do anything about it though, so I just sit down here in PA and sigh.

My other sister is in Alberta seeing her boyfriend. I sent her a quick email this morning to see how she’s doing up there.

So the football team here in Philly is apparently doing good, some championship game is on Sunday, do you know what that means? For the past two weeks at least 50% of each local news broadcast has been stupid football stuff, 45% about the cold weather, and 5% of other local junk. I can’t believe how mind-numbing the local news has become. Have you ever seen these interviews with football players? Especially after a game, they mumble about fate and how things were “meant to be” and how important football is, yadda yadda yadda… I can’t stand to watch it for more than a couple minutes because I’m just overwhelmed with the stupidity of it all, it really pains me to watch these idiots. They move between football and weather the whole broadcast, inevitably “showing” how cold it is by having some poor tiny weather person standing in the windy cold to report while they shiver. Are we really such a nation of sadists that enjoy watching this? Why on earth do they do it? And then they interview cold people on the streets “Boy it’s cold!” No kidding, can we move on? “Sure! THE EAGLES are headed…” *groan*

And then the national news at 6:30, it doesn’t matter what channel it is (CBS, ABC, NBC),
we usually choose NBC for whatever reason. Not only is it VERY US-centric and hardly ever covering anything but popular stories (Michael Jackson and our soliders dying in Iraq), but it’s riddled with commercials! The last 15 minutes of the half hour program is nearly all commercials, it very difficult for me to watch. I HATE commercials %)

I think I am going to give up trying to watch any of this news. I can get all my news via the internet and news radio anyway.

Do I have more to complain about? Oh yes! After this whole mars rover news we learned that Bush plans to put into action all sorts of new space plans. It’s no a coincidence that it’s an election year. How stupid does he think we are? Are we this stupid? All Bush has done during his years in office is spend money and cut taxes, does he live in the same economic world as the rest of us? It makes me so angry. Why not come up with a plan that’s remotely sane, say… “I’ll give every US Citizen health insurance” at least I could support that, even if I know he’ll never actually do it.

So now you may wonder, am I a Democrat or a Republican? Who am I voting for in November?

Neither. And I don’t know who I’m voting for.

Apparently most of my views are quite Republican/Conservative (in those online quizzes I always fall into this category), and I’m not a fan of big federal government, I don’t think illegal immigrants should have any sort of government benefits, I am loudy opposed to affirmative action, and I think all law-abiding citizens should have the right to a gun if they want one.

But I do hold many views that would generally be considered Democratic/Liberal. Separation of church and state is VERY important, I believe gays and lesbians should be able to marry and benefit from the same services as straight couples (as a committed yet unmarried woman myself I know all too well the benefits such couples lose out on), I’m pro-choice (I’d never have an abortion myself, but I don’t believe it can be effectively legislated), I don’t think cutting taxes is the answer.

Oh and I hate politics, but I think most everyone does.

Enough complaining for now. I’ve been bringing my laptop into work this week to listen to music. It’s been working out very nicely, not exactly the size of an iPod, but it’s cheaper :D And hey, I need a workout carrying this to and from work, since all my other excercise plans have fizzled and died this winter. *pats the good laptop mp3/ogg player*

More good news, we pretty much have all the paperwork and meetings done for getting our house! Insurance in place, mortgage rate locked in and all ready to go, it should be smooth sailing for our expected closing date of January 29th. YAY! %)

I guess I’m going to work on some things on my website, I am sort of in a design mood, so I’ll probably work on fixing some existing pages to make them prettier.

Take care everyone, and stay warm %) *wanders off*