I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

I'm not in a very good mood, tonight. Maybe I'll have something nicer to write about, later. Cheers.

...I never turn a hair when a foreigner pans my politicians/country...I mean, unless it's an obviously anti-American and/or personal attack, that is. I figure everyone's entitled to an opinion--as long as they're not including me personally, in that opinion, ha-ha.

I dis my own country--and fellow countrymen and women on a regular basis...some people take great exception to that--which I usually ignore and don't bother to read, because, hey--it's a personal journal, not a newspaper editorial, it's my personal thoughts, not a public condemnation...if you don't like what I have to say, then for f_ck's sake, go away and DON'T READ IT.

This is a journal, a doodle page, a place for me to just write what's on my mind...it's not the flippin' Gurardian or New York Times, for pity's sake.

I state the fact that I am enormously appalled and truly upset that a so-called "intelligent" Briton would make a mockery of a very serious, very real brain disorder--one which effects my own family, and which does reflect on me, personally---and suddenly everyone is dissing Bush and America and treating me like I've no right to feel the way I do--well, news flash:

I've more a right than any of you lot, who have NEVER personally had to deal with the horrible sitgma of a learning disability!

You lot cannot even one iota BEGIN to comeprend, how horrible it is for a person to have a learning disability. It's every bit as awful as having a mental illness--in fact, some people cannot seperate a learning disorder with a mental problem...and the pain and hurt and anger and frustration, someone with a REAL learning disorder has to live with--all of their lives...that IS torture! Don't any of you, who have never had a learning disability, even dare for one second, tell me it isn't! I'll call you a fool and an ignoramus, right to your face, if you do.

Emotional abuse is often the norm for some people growing up with learning difficulties. Being told by teachers and family members that you "can learn if you want to," when the reality is, NO you can't....it's invisible torture, to be made to feel hopelessly inadequate, year after year after year.

And, if I think that some MP from Manchester, is no better than George W. Bush, by saying that disabilities like mine arent' real---that's my RIGHT. I've earned it, got that?

End of discussion. Good night.

I read something in a UK paper yesterday which greatly disturbed me. I read that some MP actually called dyslexia a "cruel fiction." EXCUSE ME????

My newphew HAS dyslexia, it's NOT a fiction! What kind of utterly stupid human being makes a statement like that? It's not dyslexia that's "cruel," it's human beings like this MP! How horrid is that? I'm genuinely appalled that ANYONE would call a learning disability a "fiction."

As someone with dyscalclulia, I can say, I'd rather that I had a real learning disability, than go through the genuine living hell I've been through for the past 40 years, thinking I really was retarded, 'cos I couldn't do numbers. I can't tell you how relieved I was to learn I had a math learning disorder! My 8th grade maths teacher...even my own dad, told me I was stupid, 'cos I can't do simple division or multiplication or subtraction. And...what choice did I have, but to believe them? Now, I know they were wrong. Now some MP is telling the world that my dad and my maths teacher were right?

I'd genuinely love to become a British citizen--no really, I've always wanted that, for years, that longing is nothing new, but now...maybe not...not if you're politicians are proving themselves to be DUMBER and MEANER than George W. Bush. Jeez, I thought you lot were better than us, but...guess deliberate meaness and stupidity are universal. What a shame. As for the learning disabled being more likely to commit crime--how DUMB is that???

Learning disabilites don't discriminate between income, class, race or creed. Does this politician think that there are no MP's with learning disabilities? How much do you want to bet there's been at least one, in the last 100 years?

I'm really honestly hurt, angry and outraged at this ignorant little pissant's statement!

Don't they EDUCATE their MP's over there? This is the worst thing I've EVER heard coming out of the mouth of a British politician...someone seriously needs to slap this guy down and put duct tape over his mouth...he's giving the UK a very bad image in the world outside your borders.

I expect mindless drivel and petty meanness like this from my own polticians and fellow Americans--sewage spewed from the lips of the deliberately mentally lazy...but from a British MP? Wow, not that I'm naive about things over there, really I'm not...but that sort of gross massive stupidity...that's a bit mind-blowing, quite frankly. I had no idea things had gotten so...American, over there.

Hello all,

It's nearly 8am over here, been up a bit over an hour, had my breakie and am just sitting here listening to some music--started my day with "500 miles," which is a great way to start the day, if one has to, I think. It was followed by a song by a group fairly new to me...one I stumbled upon while listening to Pandora radio several weeks ago. The group is called the Fratellis..don't know a thing about them, but I really like their stuff that I've heard so far.

I really, really, really, really, really, really don't want to go outside this morning. It's (and I kid you not) minus 12 F out there...that's MINUS 24 CELSIUS. So for gawd's sake my British friends, STOP whinging about your "cold" weather! I have to blinking walk to work in that stuff.

Guess I'll be piling on the thermals this morning, extra pair of socks, etc. Damn. I didn't used to mind this weather, mind you. I used to work outside in it all day, go snowshoeing, watch local pee-wee hockey games, take riding lessons...didn't think a thing of it--well, except for when the wind is blowing...that's a terrible thing, a sub-zero F windchill...it IS painful, if you're wondering.

My feet are like blocks of ice...and I'm just sitting here in my living room, with socks on! Wow, it's gonna' be a miserable walk to work this morning. Well, it's only 10 minutes or so, so I think I can bear it. I'm feeling marginally better today, heartbeat's still a bit iffy, but I'm a shade less tired and light-headed than I was.

Well, I'm off to get ready for work. Cheers.

Billie Piper has shown she's got a very good head on her shoulders, in her response to the unveiling of the 11th Doctor. Says Piper:

Addressing the concern that Smith, at 26, is too young to effectively play the good Doctor, Piper notes, "The fans get so concerned about these things, and they should just relax. It's going to be fine. They're in good hands."

Piper pooh-poohs talk that a female — perhaps even herself — was being eyed to helm the TARDIS. "David [Tennant] has joked about me doing it, but ... I don't think the Doctor should be a woman," she says. "It's like going, 'Let's make James Bond a woman.' It's a man's role."

I can't comment on Smith 'cos I've never heard of him, but as I keep writing on here, unless they (bbc) doesn't do something really stupid (like a air-head soap oprea/American idol type sex queen as a companion instead of a proper actress), I will wait 'till I've seen all of 5.2, untill I pass judgement. It's what I did with Eccleston. (Tho' I'd never heard of Tennant, either, he had me right from the ending of of the Christmas special, he was just that brilliant).

But, I totally agree with Billie Piper about a female Doctor--it's NOT a woman's role and a female Doctor just wouldn't be consistant with the part...and, not being racist, but neither would a Doctor work of a different race--only because for 45 years, the Doctor has been a white male, to change that now would splatter continuity all over the place--even for a sci-fi programme, which has much more room for a looser continuity than regular drama...to totally turn the character on his ear and out of the blue, 45 or 50 years down the road, suddenly decide to make him a different sex or race, that would just be stretching things way too far, in my opinion.

In other news:

David Tennant and what I assume is his current girlfriend, partner, fiance or whatever, Georgia Moffett, dropped in on Peter Davidson's son's birthday party unexpectedly...to the delight of some party-goer's, but to the boredom of others. Here's the scoop:

Former Doctor Who actor Davison, currently starring in ITV1 drama Unforgiven, told Digital Spy: "My son Louis had a birthday party and Georgia [Moffett, Davison's daughter] was coming to his party and she turned up with David Tennant, and every other child in the garden was [shocked] - but my children were like 'I've met him before'."

Davison, who shared the Tardis alongside Tennant in the Children In Need special 'Time Crash', explained the reaction: "Well, they don't know any other world in which their dad is not in Doctor Who, so they're not as impressed as their friends are. We had David Tennant around... and they were almost unimpressed with him, I have to say! That was really extraordinary - it was almost like he didn't exist, it was very weird."

There! I always said Tennant was probably dull as dishwater in real life.

(Now I've probably left myself wide open to all kinds of slurs from the fan-girl's. oh dear. )

Yes, call me strange, call me odd, call me a nutjob..just don't call me late for dinner, but I grew up next to cemeteries, and actually enjoyed it.

The above photo was taken on the "middle ridge" of the Albany Rural Cemetery--a 367 acre cemetery outside of Albany, NY, which dates to 1841 and at one time really was considered one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the entire world. It was the model for the new concept of a "rural" cemetery--whereas cemeteries were usually plots on street corners and church yards...the unhealthiness of such plots..which in urban environments over here, often stank of rotting corpses once they began getting crowded--the park-like rural cemetery concept changed all that. The early Victorians made a big deal out of it, too, let me tell you. A committee was formed, and they selected the grounds, bought the land--which was largely vacant, being on a hillside divided by several deep ravines and two streams...the Kromekill and the Moordenaerskill, which fed into the nearby ocean-going Hudson River.

The cemetery concencration was a big deal, in the 1840's--they even had an enormous parade with marching bands and school children and local dignitaries, that went all the way from capital city of Albany, the couple of miles to the cemetery, with long speeches after.

In the photo you can see sort just how deep some of these ravines that divide the cemetery truly are. This particular ravine is the home of the Moordenaerskill. The cemetery had, at it's peak, some 32 MILES of roads winding through it. Most of them still exist, but some are shut off forever...including the roads leading through both the deep ravines.

Before there was a cemetery, this particular ravine housed a school house and an ink mill. I rememer, when I was doing research on the cemetery, reading the account of an old man who went to the school there. He made mention of how the boys used to all strip off their clothes on hot summer days, and ride down the mill race into the pond. Of course, the mill is long gone. There is still a dam there, though. You used to be able to skirt the old road--there once was an iron bridge that took you there, long since demolished, but still standing partly. There's even a mausleum down there, in the ravine, long since forgotten and abandoned...a place for spooks and drunken nightime teenage parties, when I was growing up.

As you come to the end of the short but very deep and dark ravine, following along the chuckling stream, here's a small waterfall--the remnants of an old dam, which was blasted away. I used to sit many a time, on the blasted chunks of rocks and concrete, eating my lunch and listening to the rushing waters, the bird song and the wind in the eastern hemlock and spruce boughs...and enjoy the quiet and solitute and serentity of a place...amazingly, there is a whole other world, just a few minutes drive from this beautful place--one with a steel mill and a major motorway, Burger King, Hotels, supermarkets, etc. It really was like stepping from the modern hectic urban world, back into a time capsule to another age, when I went in there.

Then, I'd carefully walk across the top of the falls--the flat concrete moss-covered spillway, where there had once been a pond, and walk again from dark to light, as I came out on what had once been billed as "Sulfur Spring Dell," on Victorian-era maps, but was known in my youth as "Time Flies." It was a small sunny open space, bordering a marsh (the former pond), surrounded on all sides by the steep sides of the ravine...with only one dirt road leading out to the top of the middle ridge. It was like discovering yet another new world. Time Flies got its name from another abandonded mausleoum...one topped with a winged hourglass...which I suppose is self-explanitory. There was a stone bridge..oddly, a bridge leading nowhere, only to this mausleoum. I used to sit on the bridge and fish sometimes--only caught a couple fish in the Moordenaerskill...but it was a good one, a real trout! First and only trout I ever caught. Oddly, I didn't even have any proper bait, only a piece of pepperoni cheese left over from my lunch (they used to sell at the local farmer's market, these cheese snack sticks with little bits of pepperoni in them..always went out with some in my knapsack.) The other fish I caught was a mystery fish--never saw one like it. It was around 5 inches long and silver...suspect, since this steam was so rarely fished (actually, as far as I know, I was the only one of fished here), but I suspect it was an overgrown shiner (sort of like a minnow).

The glade--for that's what is really is, more than anything, was quite pleasant to hang out in, very private and lovely. It had (and may still have) an enormous and truly beautiful old Chestnut tree at the bottom of the dirt road, and ancient old eastern hemlocks and spruce on the hillsides.

"CYPRUS WATERS" Aka: "Cemetery Pond"

This is cemetery pond. Mum used to take us here for picnics. It used to have (before it was allowed to become polluted by an uncaring cemetery supervisor in the early 80's) carp--koi? Well, those giant goldfish..which were also in the Hudson River, by the way. They were extremely hard to catch, though, very clever, those old carp. Used to frustrate the hell out of me. I was better off catching sunfish and perch in nearby Little's Lake. I pretty much stuck to feeding them bread, ha-ha.

I remember once though, mum took us there one spring on a little picnic lunch, and we got out of the car (why we never walked there, I don't know, unless mum didn't know the way), anyway, we got out of the car--and there were all these tiny little frogs! Blimey! They were the size of a fingernail! The only time in my life I ever saw frogs that had just grown out of the tadpole stage and come out of the water...amazing sight, one I'll never forget to my dying day---there were over a hundred of the wee things!

There are two interesting monuments near the pond. One is a contemporary stone--a sailor's monument, with a famous verse on one side, and a note on the opposite side, honouring the sea captain, whom, in the 1950's, saved passengers from a shipwreck during a raging storm.

Not far from the pond, is a tall monument, with two smaller headstones in front of it...and two sadder, more poingnant stones cannot be found in all the thousands of stones in all that cemetery. You see, they are the gravestones of a little boy and girl, who died of sickness...and on the back of their headstones? The last words ever spoken by the wee one's...so simple a testiment to loved one's, and never one more sad, in my opinion.

The Hill on the South Ridge:

This is the hill going down the south ridge, with the hills across the Hudson river in the background...the far-distant darker-blue heights of the Green Moutain foothills in Vermont, some 45 miles away, just barely seen. Ah, how I loved those hills--you should have seen them at sunset..especially in late autumn and winter, when those gray trees would turn the colour of rubies and roses with the setting of the sun.

To the left of this photo are some graves that bear noting...graves with a story. For instance, there's the grave of the first man ever publicly executed in the elecric chair in the state of New York, back in the 1900's. The man, a druggist by trade, stood accused of poisoning his wife. He proclaimed his innocence to the day he died, and supposedly a plate on his casket reads: "They would not if they had known."

There's an odd pyramid-shaped monument, the only one I've ever seen, it mysterously has a small rectangular square carved out of one side--about, if memory serves me, 2 or 3 inches in diameter, no idea what that was for.

And, there's the remains--the bare foundations barely seen, of a monument that had to be torn down--because in the late 19th century some theives tried to blow it up. I kid you not! Some rich woman named Hamelton, back in the mid-19th century, left insturctions that her tomb be made three-thicknesses strong, and then, after her body was placed in there, that the lock to the tomb be filled with hot lead, and the key tossed into the Hudson river....well, that story was too tempting for some, and a couple of shady blokes had a go...unsuccessfully, I might add. The damage was such that the tomb had to be torn down, and the woman buried elsewhere--no mention if any "treasure" was ever found inside.

On that same side is the boy and the Bee--a statue of a young man in knickers carrying his schoolbooks in one hand, and holding his finger out in another. On the extended index finger is a small lump--that lump used to be a bee, however, when the story was published in the newspapers, someone actually "stole" the bee. You see, the young man was alergic to bee stings, and the bee stung him on his way home from school and he died.

Also, on the brow of the hill, facing east, are two more children's stones--one of these is of a little girl, and bears the exact likeness of her straw hat and little lace up boots carved in stone.

At the bottom of the hill is the cemetery office, housed in a cottage registered (like the cemetery itself) on the National Register of Historic Places. Directly behind the cottage still stands the old bell tower. The bell used to toll for funerals, tolling the age of the person who died...but eventually that practice was stopped forever during the disasterous Spanish Flu epidemic of the early 1900's, as the bell began tolling almost constantly.

It was up this very hill, I might add, that I went with my mum for the last time, following behind the hearse, as she was laid to rest in one of our family plots. Up the same hill I drove with her, many a time--this is where she taught me how to drive a car, you see, and this is where mum spent much of her time, pursing her genealogy, as well. It was, and still is, one of the saddest days of my life, that final "drive."

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Creative
A creative job is most likely to be your dream career, so you probably shouldn't bother with formulas and bar graphs. You usually like the challenge of creative something out of nothing. It's a skill not everyone has. Maybe you'll design the world's fastest production car. Maybe you'll be a staff writer for a stereo manufacturer or create the first full-body airbag. Either way, your creativity will be the key. Making things, big ideas, new ways to do stuff, it's what you are best at. We'd tell you exactly what you should do, but something tells us you've invented some pretty good ideas already.

Meh...???

Well, I took a nap shortly before 3pm, and didn't wake until around 7pm...still feeling a bit..meh, but at least I got some rest. Made a quick meal of Jambalaya and corn fritters, and here I am...sort of.

I'd really love to have something riveting or deep or truly interesting to say, but...sorry. I'm in dull mode, tonight.

It's 10 degrees fahrenheight out there, and I'm warm and snug in here, so I'm afraid that's the best news I have, tonight. I woke with Boots snuggled in my arms, he's been staying right close to me, the last day or two...guess he either senses I'm not well, or he just wants to stay warm, ha-ha. Probably the latter.