Christopher Street

Sad

So I was at Best Buy last night--picking up my replacement laptop for the one that died--and it occurred to me that it was, indeed, November 16th. Buffy Season Seven! Yay!

I literally ran to the DVD section and there it was! The end of my journey, the holy grail of DVDs. Finally, I could delete the rest of the Buffy's that have been hanging around on my TiVo. Now, I can truly have Buffy-on-demand. Finally, my collection is complete. And then, as I was standing in Best Buy, literally hugging the damn box to my chest like some freak, it hit me.

My collection is complete. There is no more Buffy. This, this right here--this is the end of the line. Nothing else to look forward to. Your Buffy experience is officially finis.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

It's been a minute since we did a meme

Courtesy of Sunday Brunch dot org.

1) What is your favorite flavor of M&Ms? Plain. I'm a purist.
2) Is there a special edition of candy that you wish they would
make a permanent item on the shelves? ooh, ooh-- I love the special edition white chocolate Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Oh, God. Yummtacular.
3) What is your favorite flavor of Hershey痴 Kisses? I'm a Hugs girl.
4) What is your favorite candy bar? Snickers, baby. All the way. Snickers and a diet coke. Breakfast of champions.
5) Do you prefer milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white
chocolate? I love good milk chocolate but, truth be told, I am more of a white chocolate girl. And not just in the actual chocolate eating--I love white chocolate flavored things. White chocolate mousse, white chocolate pudding, white chocolate cheesecake. Strangely, while I like milk chocolate very much, I don't like chocolate things very much. I don't really like chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream. I like chocolate milkshakes, but only if they're made with vanilla ice cream and Hershey's syrup. Same with chocolate milk.

Learn

Read. Listen. Write. Learn.

That's what I said a couple of days ago. And I meant it. So, I have started my political journey to 2008 by subscribing to some worthy mass market and independent news sources. From now on, I will know what's going on. Can't change the world when all you know is that Madonna favors ashtanga yoga or that Julia might name the twins Walt and Patty, after her dad and Danny's mom.

I mean, it's important to know those things, too, if you're me. My daily Entertainment Tonight habit will not go quietly.

But, it might be important to know other things, too, she admits reluctantly.

So, I subscribed me to some news. Time, Newsweek. Mother Jones. The Utne Reader. The Nation. The New Republic. The Week.

I also gave some money to the ACLU, in the form of a purchase of some logo merchandise from their website and to Salon, cause I think they do good work. And I bought stuff from the HRC, of which I am a Partner Member.

And I wrote to my senators and urged their support on funding ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program).

Good week. :)

If we can get these bills enacted, we won't have to fight, state by state and county by county, to preserve democratic elections. --verifiedvoting.org

Speaking of writing to your congressman, if you have a minute, you might look at HR2239, the Rush Holt Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. Basically, it is a piece of legislation which would require all voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper trail. Doesn't seem to be much of a downside, unless you consider fair and verifiable voting to be a downside.

The more things change

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. But If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

--Thomas Jefferson, June 4, 1798, in a letter to John Taylor after passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

One more thing

What is going on with my Steelers? Suddenly Jerome Bettis is 25 again? Ben Roethlisberger thinks he's going to be rookie of the year? The team thinks that it's going to be a contender down the stretch?

Well, apparently, yeah. :)

As I told someone at work this week...you can take the girl out of Pittsburgh...

:)

2008: Looking ahead

Anyone that is reading this probably already knows this, but just in case, here goes:

I AM A DEMOCRAT.

Whew. That's a relief, getting that off my chest. :)

As a democrat, I gotta tell you. It hasn't been the best week.

If you had asked me four years ago what we needed to do to defeat W. in 2004, I would have told you nothing. And I believed it. I thought that in four years, his general incompetence would be so obvious that there would be no way that he would be reelected. I thought, all I gotta do is get through four years. Then he'll be out and the world will be right again.

So, for the past four years, I didn't do much. I fought with some crazyfolk on the internet, and I had a fight with my mom, but that's about it. I assumed that I wouldn't need to do anything, that our common sense of right, of smart, of good would prevail, with or without me.

Boy, I don't think that I could have been more wrong.

So, for these next four years, I am not going to be quiet. I am not going to assume the collective goodness, righteousness, intellegence of the people. I am not going to trust that someone else will carry my sign, or sign my petition or write my congressman. I am going to have to do those things for myself. If we are going to change our situation, we are going to all have to be in the fight.

So, democrats, I beg you. Get in the fight.

Things you can do:

Remember the pain

My dear, dear friend Sally told me once that after her daughter was born, she would take a minute every day to think--really think--about the pain of childbirth. She said that she wanted to remember so that she wouldn't make the capricious decision to have another child. If she were going to go through it again, it wouldn't be through a rosy haze of remembered discomfort but with the clear memory of the searing, unbelievable, cutting-you-in-half with a hacksaw pain. So, let's take a lesson from Sally. Let's take a minute each day to remember what it felt like to lose this election. Let's remember it so that we don't make the same mistakes again next time. Let's remember so that we don't get lazy. We need to stay on our game.

Read. Listen. Write. Learn.

Read progressive publications like The Nation or Mother Jones. Listen to Air America--it is free to stream to your computer, 24x7. And, if you have XM, it's on channel 167. :) Write your congressperson. Often. Get on a first name basis.

Engage those who are less progressive.

Talk to people. Have facts. Share your story. Become the left-wing equivalent of a testifying Christian. Witness for the good guys. Sure, you'll get on some nerves, but do you really want *8* more years of this?

Get mad.

Here's a start:

(from the aforementioned AirAmericaRadio.com)

DeMint (R) South Carolina
"If a person wants to be publicly gay, they should not be teaching in the public schools."

Coburn (R) Oklahoma
"I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life."

Burr (R) North Carolina
"The conflict [in Iraq] has bought the U.S. time to regroup. The president bought us 14 months where every terrorist has been focused on killing Americans in Iraq."

Couple Things

First, I guess welcome to loripiper.com. I know, it looks an awful lot like TiVoGoddess.com, doesn't it? :)

See, the thing is that the attack on my website continued to continue, so we had to put the old girl down. TiVoGoddess.com is no more, and will likely not be again.

I'm sad, because it was a name that meant something to me, but loripiper is also a name that means something to me--duh!--so onward, ho. We've been completely offline for almost 5 weeks, while I decided what to do. In the end, I guess I just decided to do nothing, in the sense of nothing new. I guess that that was, in and of itself, a decision.

Doing nothing new means that I kept the same colors and graphics, which is okay for now, but may change in the future. As a first step, I think that I will look at the logo. The old logo is still there, acting as a placeholder-- but, as it says 'tivogoddess' and I ain't she anymore, I will need something more... differenter. Suggestions?

Strangely, I don't think that there is a second. I could retitle this message "One Thing" but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.

:)