happy halloween everyone... be safe.

i'll be in the library studying for orgo... i know... my life is FULL of excitement.

but this was too funny... and too true about people in the US (how is bush doing so well still in the polls?).

ok... back to physics... test tomorrow... orgo exam & anat & phys practical next week... yikes!

so i'm just adding another link to eminem's 'mosh'. credit goes to mara & josh... the first people i heard/read about it from.

the link's on music for america's site and is downloadable. check out the mfa site if you haven't already. 5 more days... hoping we have a new president come jan.

CONGRATS SOX FANS!

ok, back to physics...

is really wearing me down. i really do think it's the 3 labs a week... it's just a little too much. unfortunately there isn't another way around it... if i want to finish my prereqs sometime this century. i really don't want to extend this full time school business past my 32nd birthday.

so the sox won... that's a good thing... didn't get to watch the game though, was @ the library. rawr.

pat robertson (booooo!) interview calling sojourners 'semi-socialist'. of course to right-wing america, socialism=communism, and communism=the old ussr, and old ussr=the bad guys. here's some more of pat robertson on cnn.

any christians (or anyone in general) who have decided to support bush in this election please reflect on this theological statement drafted and signed by many theologians and ethicists.

some more information on the abortion issue. i am very much for a person's right to choose. you CAN be for a person's right to choose, but make it known (if you're a guy) to your partner that you were against an abortion if you were to personally be involved in a situation that required your input, as i think it is your right. you CAN also be for a person's right to choose, but personally not go through with an abortion (if you're a girl). everyone is their own person... as much as we try sometimes, we cannot make decisions for others.

anyways back to the point... the abortion rate is not just determined by whether it is legal or illegal. just like the link said, there's a connection between income and abortion. it's not surprising, a baby is an extra mouth to feed, an extra body to provide for. that's a lot of money in the long run. a more effective way to reduce abortions is to provide sex ed that teach abstinence and protection (which of course many christian conservatives are against). sex is going to happen, you can cover your eyes and ears and pretend like it's not there, or you can do something about it. so with the information in the article, if you're really AGAINST abortion, bush isn't necessarily a better person to have in office.

just a quick thought, so how come the proposed defense of marriage amendment doesn't ALSO defend marriage from divorce? why can't we make divorce illegal if the reason we're proposing the amendment is to DEFEND marriage?

so between when i'll have my prereqs finished, what classes i'll still have left to take, whether or not the school wants them finished by spring 2005 or summer 2005, app deadlines, my chances of getting in, etc. i think i have the schools i'll be applying to this year. of course the 2 i'm hoping to get into are: buffalo and liu. the other ones so far are, minnesota, wilkes, university maryland baltimore, mass college of pharm, and uconn. there are a lot of schools in philly... but i really don't like philly. there's also northeastern... but that's like nyu all over again... it's the most expensive of all the pharm schools.

the sox won tonight... woohoo!

the bills lost today... man those guys suck.

have to study more... it just doesn't end =[.

so my favorite coffee place here was torched this past weekend. the only coffee house-house i've been to. it wasn't even open that long, maybe a year. i hope they rebuild, that's all i can say.

the callalillie blog has some cute cat pics.
- olive
- irving

i visited this site by way of outlandish...


Which OS are You?

i also ended up being a .cgi extension... though i'd rather have been a php file rather than a perl file.

and just a friendly reminder to people of christian faith. this upcoming election is about more than abortion or gay marriage as the religious right and current administration would have you believe. this election is about the greater society and about our current state of the world. we must protect it because it's the only place we have and God has put it in our hands to watch over. we need to protect our families AND our fellow friends. think about the many working adults and their children that do not have healthcare, that are out of jobs, and then think about how bush's tax cuts benefit the wealthy. yes, you may have more money in your pocket, but are you really benefitting from it? let's look at a hypothetical situation with taxes pre-cut coming in @ 30% of income. if you were earning $30,000 and you had a 10% cut in taxes, that would give you an extra $3000 a year (your net income goes from $21k to $24k). it looks like a good chunk of change right? however, think of people earning $100,000 a year, and if you give them a 10% cut in taxes, they pocket $10,000 extra (from $70k to $80k). an extra $3000 will help cover expenses for a middle class family in a market where prices for day to day needs like oil are going up, but an extra $10k will get someone halfway to buying a $20,000 car. you tell me who this tax cut benefits.

sure, if you work hard, you (large income earners) should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but remember, you didn't get to where you are by yourself (even if you think you did). there are other people, who may have done things in the background you weren't even aware of that you do OWE your current success to.

it's for the greater good that we take care of each other, that is an especially important for christians to realize. it's also important that christians not judge others, and allow people to make their own decisions. God gave us free will, and it is not up to us to judge and force onto others our beliefs (which if you haven't noticed also run the gamut). it is NOT wrong to vote for kerry, it is NOT wrong to care about other people, it is NOT wrong to allow people to make their own decisions, but it IS wrong to judge and impose your own views on others, it IS wrong to put God in a box labeled 'republican'. if God is truly omnipotent, our man made labels cannot contain God. God is neither republican or democrat, but someone that cares about EVERYONE. i urge all christians to vote this election based on which candidate has the potential to bring about change for the most people, that includes our fellow citizens, and also our neighbors around the world.

-voteallyourvalues.org
-sojourners
-faithfulamerica.org

well, i broke my post about short posts huh? oh well... it's something that i've wanted to say for a few days now. though my blog doesn't get read by many people, i still wanted to say something from the perspective of a christian who is sick of the hypocrisy of the religious right.

wow i'm tired... ok... back to short posts now... maybe (you called it didn't you anika =]).

congrats boston... great alcs win over the yankees! history being made indeed! good vibes for the series! win it for all the underdogs of the world!

bills over dolphins: +
wisconsin over purdue: +

60% off theoretical yield of aspirin synthesis in orgo lab: -

i don't think my mastercard will fix my actual yield. my lab yields are always ridiculous.

this is seriously a short one. it hailed today. hail! i also don't think i'll have a chance to get to any one of these doors open niagara things this weekend... which i'm so bummed about. at least the weather is bad... so i won't feel so bad that i have to miss things.

my head is going to explode... why did i ever quit working? it was so easy to do!

so i have a lot to do between now and december, and i'm going to be really pressed for time, between the 2 labs report write ups i have to do every week, studying for the pcats, studying for my classes, going to classes, doing homework and reading, i won't have much time to post much of anything i don't think. i don't know if it'll get better after december either... just a lot to do... but hopefully everything will work out. so i guess i'm just here to say that i'll probably have some short posts every once in awhile in these next couple weeks.

yes... i'm still alive... barely.

oh... and the new rem album is full of goodness. it's interesting, they play around with the count in some songs adding a fun element... and in general, it's quite melancholy, which is my usual default mood.

You might have laughed if I told you
You might have hidden a frown
You might have succeeded in changing me
I might have been turned around

It's easier to leave than to be left behind
Leaving was never my proud
Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out

some good lines, courtesy of dubya.

We proposed and passed a healthy forest bill which was essential to working with -- particularly in Western states -- to make sure that our forests were protected. What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be -- they are not -- they're not harvested. They're not taken care of. And as a result, they're like tinderboxes.

how do you harvest a forest? i did not know we had to harvest our forests. wait, what exactly are we harvesting here?

That's why I proposed a hydrogen automobile -- hydrogen-generated automobile. We're spending $1 billion to come up with the technologies to do that.

that's news to me. i wouldn't have figured bush to be smart enough to come up with the initial proposal for a hydrogen automobile. balancing a budget should be a piece of cake comparatively if he came up with the hydrogen car right?

here's some more good stuff. maybe it'll make you feel better if you're having a lousy day.

oh... and i think will forte makes a pretty good bush. if you missed snl last night, the opening skit was brilliant. remember... sometimes bush goes in to work on saturdays... and sundays too!

putting off writing my orgo lab report...

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

i came across this cool googlefight.com site. you pretty much pick 2 opposites, and they fight it out based on google's search results. i'm saddened to say that buffalo lost against both miami and dallas... even though we have more character up here in the north... those fockers. speaking of fockers... isn't meet the fockers coming out sometime soon?

a little blurb about bad guitar solos and licks. thinking back... a lot of those cheese bands and metal bands had some pretty pointless solos that went on for way too long. i don't know why i used to like solos... perhaps the display of musical ability? my tastes have certainly changed since those days in the late 80s. i'm quite turned off by piercing guitar solos now... i'd much rather hear people and instruments working together in a cohesive unit, it makes the music sound so much more... full.

some other things i enjoy in the bands i listen to... whistling, clapping, horns. if used correctly, all three can add a totally different dimension, and inviting layer to a song. case in point... sloan's everything you've done wrong, or the lowest of the low's so long bernie. the horns and the whistling give it something that sticks out a little more... but in a good way.

so... some articles about the campaigns... pretty self explanatory. cheney's met edwards before, even though he said otherwise during their debate. cheney sends people to a wrong website. it's pretty impressive what the guys that owned the wrongly mentioned domain did. fox news sucks mah ass. michael moore doing some stunt to get college to vote. it'd be great if i could get the dems and republicans to pay me off to vote. incentives are great aren't they? job growth figures are lower than expected... not surprising.

here's one on the possibility of the US patriot act infringing on the privacy of canadian citizens. these issues could affect how businesses in each country does business with the other. here's another about protecting the great lakes from water being taken by other growing states, or even other provinces and countries. the plan would allow the states and provinces who run up to the lakes to control levels instead of the federal government. it's definitely a good time to act on this issue, as clearly in the future, with the population growing in more arid parts of north america water supply will definitely become an issue. the best way to protect the environment is when we don't necessarily need to go out of our way to protect it... before it becomes too late.

could the suburban sprawl cycle be turning around?

i must also add... that the new green day is pretty good. it's pretty fitting of the current state in both domestic and global politics. however, it's a good album in general so even if the situations change sometime down the road... it won't be chained to a period of time. man... it's been awhile since i've listened to anything by them.

a happy and safe long weekend/thanksgiving.

speaking of thanksgiving, i'm pretty psyched for our thanksgiving this year. ub has off from wed-fri... so i get a 5 day weekend! plus the low is playing 2 shows in buffalo! so you new york people... if you want to make a trip up... it's definitely the time to do it.

for dinner tonight... i went and got my first friday night fish fry in quite some time. it's a big buffalo thing as there are still a large amount of catholics here (plus people can't have wings ALL the time). we went over to the west side of buffalo and paid something like $8.00 each for this giant beer battered fried haddock with potato salad, cole slaw, and fries. yum.

big game tomorrow... between my adopted team wisconsin and ohio state. wisconsin can extend their unbeaten streak and move up the rankings. it'd be pretty sweet if they go unbeaten their next 3 games, and minnesota wins their next 4, which would set up the only 2 undefeated teams in the big ten with their annual game for paul bunyan's axe. go badgers!

it's so nice outside today. the temp is in the upper 70s, i wish i was in new york still, i'd have taken the day off from work and just walked around some. boy i certainly do miss people. guster's lost and gone forever is playing... fits my mood.

You Know You're from New York When . . .


You're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license.

You ride in a subway car with no air conditioning just because there are seats available. You and the other three passengers look at each other and know you have pure grit.

You take the train home and you know exactly where on the platform the doors will open that will leave you right in front of the exit stairway.

You know what a "regular" coffee is

It's not Manhattan; it's the "City".

You get upset that a cabbie is obeying all the rules of the road

You're willing to take in strange people as roommates simply to help pay the rent.

There is no North and South. It's uptown or downtown. If you're really from New York you have absolutely no concept of where North and South are.

You cross the street anywhere but on the corners and you yell at cars for not respecting the fact.

You move 8,000 miles away, spend 10 years learning the local language and people still know you're from Brooklyn the minute you open your mouth.

You return after 10 years and the first foods you want are a "real" pizza and "real" bagel.

A 500 square foot apartment is large.

Your co-worker commutes 45 minutes by train to a 2,000 square foot house in the suburbs that was the same price as that same 500 square foot apartment of yours that takes only 35 minutes to get to and you think he's a sucker.

You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas.

You are not under the mistaken impression that any human being would be able to actually understand a P.A. announcement on the subway.

You know who Dr. Z is.

You have at least 50 menus in your apartment, two thirds of which you have neither ordered from nor even heard of.

You wouldn't bother ordering pizza in any other city.

You know that off - the - shelf insecticides are just laughing gas to the superior roaches cohabitating with you in the 500 square foot apartment.

You get ready to order dinner every night and must choose from the 4 major food groups: Chinese, Italian, Mexican or Indian.

You're not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Your internal clock is permanently set to know when Alternate Side of the Street parking regulations are in effect.

You know what a bodega is.

You know how to fold the New York Times in half, vertically, so that you can read it on the subway or bus without knocking off other passenger's hats.

Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet.

You don't even notice the nice lady walking down the road having a perfectly normal conversation with her self.

You pay "only" $230 a month to park your car.

You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St. like the city in Texas.

The presidential visit is a major traffic jam, not an honor.

Film crews on your block annoy you, not excite you. (They take up all the parking spaces!)

You can nap on the subway and never miss your stop.

You look forward to riding the subway to read the next installment of "Marisol and Julio".

The deli guy gives you a straw with any beverage you buy, even if it is beer.

boy, i need to stop giving away points so freely and keep some to myself. i did pretty well on my orgo, and not so well but not horribly on my physics. i could've used some extra points.

anyways... i'm tired... but i thought i'd point you to 2 posts on 2 of the blogs i read daily.

on tien mao, the kingda-ka. this thing looks like a monster, just looking at the picture of it scares me. i'd probably pee my pants before even making it to the park... but... i'd have to try it out.

on callalillie, all about getting older. i think my clothes have come down 2 sizes, and diversified a bit in patterns, colors, etc. not just plaid flannel anymore.

Woke up today to everything grey
And all that I saw just kept goin on and on
Sweep all the pieces under the bed
Close all the curtains and cover my head
And what you wish for won't come true -Guster

and vote for your favorite pic in the nyc straphangers photo contest!

you ever have one of those days that you just want to point yourself in a direction and start walking until you get tired? i'm feeling that. i want to be lost in a sea of maple trees.

a couple days ago, i was driving to class down maple road and waiting at a light for a mother with bike in one hand and kid in the other to cross the street and walk over to the maple west elementary school playground. the best part about the whole thing... the kid must've been about 6 years old... but he was skipping all off balance and in a syncopated rhythm across the crosswalk. when was the last time you skipped? do you think if we just spent a couple hours of our day skipping around it would make us happier? maybe sometimes we just need to do something stupid for awhile. i've been having these urges lately... i'd like to do something to unwind.

there are a few people whose smile can totally make my day. if only i could keep them in a box or something so i could whip them out when needed... kinda like emergency smiles.

i was looking down the beverage aisle @ wegmans for some juice. i've noticed something though, i don't know when it stopped, but the supermarkets here don't stock clearly canadian stuff anymore, which i am kind of disappointed about. i don't know when it all went down... sometime in between my new york appointment of 6 years... but it all disappeared from the area. i wonder though if they do private label bottling, as i bought wegmans brand peach, kiwi strawberry, grape, and mixed berry flavored sparkling water tonight. the label reads that it's a product of canada and distrubuted by wegmans.

i'd like to take a vacation to a random place... either somewhere that i haven't gone in a long time (10+ years) or a new place.

i am out of things to say. the end.

2 posts in less than 24 hours... you guys must be special... or perhaps i just found some more random stuff to post about.

there's a quote from bush in this article that i laughed at. it's not really funny, but it is... well at least it was to me. it's about the repulican spin on democrats always wanting larger government.

"Instead, his agenda focuses on expanding the scope and power of government," Bush said in Columbus. "He's decided to put his faith in the wisdom of the government. I will always put my faith in the wisdom of the American people."

i find that funny because he used, 'put my faith', wisdom, and American people in the same sentence. firstoff, in general the american people aren't the brightest bunch if you haven't noticed. secondly, i find it odd that he puts his faith in a population that did NOT vote for him the first time around (remember gore won the popular vote in 2000), more people in this country did not put their faith in you in 2000.

here's a real interesting piece on the dividing views between evangelical christians in the US vs. the rest of the world. also from the same site, one about swaggart, and another about liberals banning the bible. i wish that more sites like this one were in existence to counter the extreme right in christianity. the religious right is loud, and are very effective at programming individuals.

there was something else... oh yes. ub won a game today... against ucf. not a big team, but they won. now if the bills can pull off an upset in a couple hours...

that's all... i'm going to sleep.

10000 bonus points to whomever gets the right band/song that verse is from. i'll give you a hint... it's the first verse.

so... i'm done with tests for 3 weeks or so. i think i did ok... we'll see how they come out.

some interesting stuff... cleaning out my saved bookmarks.

i'm glad to know that not everyone has their stuff figured out. it's quite interesting how many changes our society is going through currently. the changes seem to have pushed young people to grow up faster but also slow them down at the same time. in grade school, kids are pushed to learn more and do more with their time. they seem to be constantly busy with less time for kids to be kids, which i guess has its pros and cons. however, when we get around 20-30 many (including myself) don't seem to know what the next step to take is as there are many more variables in career/life choices now than in the past. career paths take a much longer extended commitment in education now as opposed to 30 years ago. i think that our generation is the first to realize that and it's causing us to think about life in a different ways then our parents did. i feel like i'm stuck in a limbo cause i have no one to kind of use as a guide. my parents weren't presented with these choices or options after they graduated from college... meanwhile i'm thinking about whether i want to change up careers, go for more schooling, go abroad and travel a bit, teach abroad, or even join the peacecorps. i don't want my life to be this static thing where i haven't experienced anything, but i also don't want to be some hippie bum who doesn't make a difference in anything. half of the things i'd like to do i know i won't be able to do, or at least it will be harder to do when i have a real career and/or a family. as much as people say that i'm still young and i can make changes, i feel that there's only a certain amount of truth to that because a year goes by so quickly and next thing i know, i'll be 30. i guess the point i'm trying to make is that there's only a small window available to get some of these decisions made and to actually go through with them and that's a lot to think about for anyone. in general, i'd say options are a good thing, but don't you ever wish that decisions could be made for you sometimes? it'd take a lot of the laying in bed til 3am in the morn thoughts out of my head so i could actually get to sleep! =]

speaking of hippies... here's an article about 2 ecologists hiking the west coast trail. i'd like to do something like this, maybe part of the appalachain trail that runs through new york state, or a section of the great lakes/st. lawrence seaway trail. it'd be something fun, different, and perhaps a once in a lifetime sorta thing.

when you're out in nature, you encounter... shrooms that's a pretty damn old fungus, 1000 years! i've never shroomed before, but i like mushrooms in my omelletes and on my pizza. i only like mushrooms if they're sliced really thin though. there are only a few places that do them right pizza wise.

so drugs... this sounds like one that can help a lot of people. i wonder what the side effects are, hopefully they're not so bad and doctors will be able to prescribe them to more than 30 people at a time. maybe we should stop prescribing painkillers for everything. we are a society that doesn't want to feel pain emotionally, mentally, and physically. sometimes pain can be good though, it's a visceral feeling that's very real. should we try to cover everything up so much so that we're all out in la-la land? i'm not sure i have an answer for that.

this is interesting. i think it's a pretty smart way of trying to detect cancer as dogs sense of smell is so acute. i don't know how dogs feel about it though, who knows? dogs might think urine smells like chocolate or something. afterall, whenever you walk a dog in new york, they also seem to go smell the nastiest thing lying on the sidewalk in their general vicinity.

one of my favorite topics... the american people. i don't understand how people can say they like one candidate over another and not know where the candidates stand on any of the issues? i just think people like to have opinions but they don't like to know back up their opinions with anything behind them. they like to seem knowledgable but they don't like to put the time into actually being knowledgable. we are such an apathetic lazy bunch concerned about the important things like watching football, or nascar, or whatever. i wish we as a society could bring an enlightened era where policies take center stage again. half the reason politicians get away with the stuff they do is because not enough of us are paying attention to what they do. remember, they work for US!

here's what bush's tax cut got you people... after that large jump in gdp, it's been lower than expected rises. i still don't understand how people can buy into a tax cut for the wealthiest 1%. if they get more money, how is that money going to trickle down to the middle and lower class? they buy a car, yeah! a factory builds an extra $50,000 car. they hire more help for their houses, which usually tend to be lower paying jobs a lot of times taken by illegal immigrants who are untaxed. if there's not any demand for goods, firms have no reason to hire more people, so they pocket the cuts and inflate their own profits. meanwhile, the consumer, the sector that makes up 2/3 of gdp gets and extra $300. woo-hoo!

perhaps crawford's paper has seen all the time bush has spent in texas and not in d.c. throughout his current presidential term. i mean, isn't the president supposed to work out in the nation's capital? this guy seems to take a vacation every other week.

so say i meet a girl, and she's pretty cool, and i think there could potentially be something there... but i want to make sure that any future together would be doable and worth it. all i have to do is take us as a function of x, and solve by differentiating? or is it integrating? boy that sounds abso-frickin-lutely romantic doesn't it? "andrea and i, we knew we were right for each other after we put each other through differential equations!"

lastly some funny, i can't remember if i posted this already... sent by t.c. jon stewart's commencement speech.

EDIT: oops, i forgot to link to the article i was referring to in that 2nd to last blurb. it probably didn't make any sense. here it is.

so here's a short one... cause i need to write up a physics lab and study for the midterm tomorrow. kerry did well yesterday... i'm glad. i guess the republicans aren't happy as some rules were broken yesterday. now why would you need a rule for that? i applaud fox news (hey there's a first time for everything) for finally doing something fair and balanced. we not only saw bush's reactions, but also kerry's... the reaction shots were very evenly distrubuted. bush looked like a total asshole in some shots... kerry kept composure. i'm looking forward to the next debate, i hope kerry comes out swinging.

here's something else that's kinda disturbing i just found. i wonder if there's a way to find out who sold these guys their mailing lists? letters should be written and a beat down should be in order.

ok... bye-e.

there are few things that feel as good as being able to concentrate when you study you know? it's like entering a zone or something... and it rarely happens to me for an extended period of time, but i'm in it now. i figure i'll do a little more... take a short nap and study some more... even though i'm scared of the nap as it may sidetrack me. i feel a little better about the orgo... but the physics worries are slowly creeping in my head. boy... it never ends does it?