March 31

Raining, raining, raining.

Not an unusual state for Vancouver weather. Having a very mellow day today, doing some work on the sites, and generally goofing off.

The other night when I was chatting with an Erotimania member, he started talking about his sentiments on the war, his politics being pretty close to my own.  The thing that was really chilling, is that he felt unsafe disclosing his thoughts and opinions to his colleagues and people he knows.  He also felt uncomfortable accessing certain web sites for information, as he was worried his net movements may be reported if he visited sites that may or may not be considered 'anti-American'.  This person, like many American's who are against this war, does not consider themselves Anti-American.

I've seen little previews about our local news tonight featuring a news item about Madonna and Chris Rock - and that they may be labeled as 'anti-American', I'm going to listen to the news in the background as I write this entry, as it should be coming on soon, I'm curious to hear what they have to say.  There has been some discussion also in the media about Bush wanting celebrities who are anti-war to remain quiet about their sentiments.

On another serious issue in Canadian news is the outbreak of SARS, a clinic relatively close to me is now under quarantine.  This is a scary virus - it kills a lot of people who contract it, they speculate it may be a mutation of the same type of virus that causes the common cold - this makes me nervous.  The common cold is constantly mutating, and therefore evades any attempts we have to create a cure for it.  If SARS is a similar virus, it's frightening to think a number of deadly cold related viral mutations may be looming in our future.

What do I do when I'm stressed (no, I'm not talking about picking my nose now), I like to shop.  Thankfully a store close to us was having a massive sale today, and for 20 dollars I got a whack of clothes - 2 pants, 3 skirts, 2 tops, amazing.  

I now have a clothes surplus, and I'm going to go through the things I rarely wear and have out-loved, and am going to make a trip down to the funky fat chick consignment store on Wednesday and turn them in for more shopping credits... woo hoo! The store is called Bodacious, and it rocks, they're t-girl friendly too, so if you're local and a bio or t-girl of generous proportions, you may want to check it out, and if you have clothes that don't fit you but are in good condition, you can make an appointment in to bring them in for store credit.  Fun, fun!

Oh, and speaking of shopping, I've decided to put Amazon links off my main page here, it's the link that says...

It links to a page of things I like that Amazon sells, books and other miscellany things.  If you do any shopping via Amazon, think about coming and visiting my favorite page and clicking through to Amazon from the link on the bottom, or any of the items for that matter.  Then if you buy anything they give me a small percentage which I've asked to get in gift certificate dollars. 

It also means I can go and steal their graphics for books to show what I'm reading or what I think is cool, etc.  Since I'm big on photo illustrating.

I was actually impressed with their prices, I haven't really browsed through them before, but if you buy books, and I do... I'm thinking depending on the delivery charges and taxes - I haven't explored that far yet, it looks like it could be well worth doing my book and music shopping there.

Enough out of me, if you're looking for more... check out the...



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