You know what though? I carried it to the nearest Apple store in my backpack and the whole time I was kind of nervous because I was afraid the battery would burst and kill me. Like in the Dead Zone. At this point, I don’t remember much about the book EXCEPT for that scene with the car battery bursting, killing someone. So my shoulder blades tickled the whole way there. Then the Genius or whatever (after he telling me he couldn’t help me) said that I should not put the battery back in the laptop since if it leaked it might damage the electronics. Aarrgghh! Okay okay, how was he supposed to know that I read some book like a million years ago and developed a battery phobia? But still, never mind the laptop, what about my spine?!?!?!

And yesterday on my way home, some dude was working on his car, and he had a huge car battery on the sidewalk and I had to walk right by it and OMG! I was kind of nervous; he was in his car, but someone was walking behind me so I had to pretend to be normal as I walked by his car and that battery. :p

I should write him a letter:

Dear Stephen King,
You have scarred me for life! I have phobias that I can trace directly to your books. Thanks a lot!

I wonder if he gets a lot of these letters or if I’m just particularly wimpy.

Standings:
CT: 77 (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ant: 71
Lew, YB(!): 69
Al: 68
mim: 66
Lingo: 65
Jimyo: 64
yut: 63
POTUS: 62
misa, YuHK: 56
SpeK, Steve: 54

If you’re paying attention to it, the Collective Wisdom bracket is at 71 points, and sadly, if you’d just picked chalk, you’d be at 72. But nevermind all that! CT is back at the top of the standings! Seriously what’s going on?! Is this really the year that her Sims method (where she picks a team to win based on her The Sims characters and family names and then randomly picks whatever else — I think) shows its dominance? Well it’s not set in stone yet, but… scary. You know what I think is set in stone though? I think K is gonna get beat by most of us, and definitely by Lew. And I am pretty sure that Steve is gonna get beat by most of us, and definitely by YB. Yup it’s a fight for last place! K vs. Steve! Special (K) vs. Super (Fly)! Ok, but when you’re last, your score gets reported in color and bold, just like if you’re in first place. So at least there’s that, right?

Sadly, I don’t think there’s going to be a repeat. In fact, I think there’s going to be a brand new winner this year, cos NONE of the previous winners are doing that well. I think a quote from Scarlett O’Hara is is in order here, “after all, tomorrow is another day” of basketball! :p

Here, look for yourselves:

Let me say again, whaaaaaaa?! She missed one game! ONE! Actually though, as a group, we all did very well; the lowest score was a 12, which in previous years has been the high score.

The standings:
CT: 15
mim, Special K: 14
Lew, Yut: 13
Al, Ant, Jimyo, Lingo, misa, Supafly, YB, YuHK: 12
Barack (the POTUS): 11 (haha)
And I put together a “collective wisdom” bracket too, basing the picks on whatever team got picked the most, like a popularity contest for the picks, kinda like on ESPN’s National Bracket but just for our pool, and that one got 13 points.

Normally, I would be making all sorts of comments about K being tied with me and in second (surely worth a few !!!). And about Yut and Lew, doing well and tied — this has happened before, right? But honestly, I’m having too hard of a time with CT’s standing to concentrate on the rest. Anyways, the only thing I can say is, CT’s done this before (2007 and 2006), if not quite so impressively (ONE game!), but she hasn’t won yet. Gawd, I am mean, can’t even let her just savor the moment. :D

I love crafts fairs and handmade things in general, but it’s hard to help buying something, which is really the only problem. I got this frog phone charm from a lady (Eri’s Studio) who makes metal and stone bracelets and rings (really cool stuff, I wish I brought my camera, only I didn’t know about the crafts fair ’til we got to the farmer’s market) and also knit hats of all types. Cute, and I’ve been meaning to get a new charm for my phone since the old one broke. It’s also completely one of a kind cos she said that there were way too many little pieces and she made one and decided not to make anymore. So wohahahaha! :p

BUT (and there’s always a but, no?), there was this one part where someone needs information from someone else and OF COURSE the way to get this information was to beat his fingers with a mug. I am starting to wonder if shows on Fox have a contract where they are supposed to show some sort of torture or physical duress and have it Save Lives at least once per season. In the last season of 24 there was a scene that was so gruesome I could not watch it, but Jack got the information he needed in the time available, so I guess I’m supposed to think it was ok. Yes in Fringe, it was just a mug banged a couple of times, but really? This is ok?

The difference between Fox and other stations is especially stark because when other networks broadcast instances of torture or brutality, there are usually consequences that show that this sort of behavior isn’t ok, or doesn’t work. Like (speaking of Star Trek), when Captain Picard was captured by the Cardassians (Chain of Command, parts 1 and 2): after they realized that Picard wasn’t going to give them any strategic information, the Cardassians nevertheless kept asking him how many lights were on a particular fixture, and insisting that there were five when there were really four lights. Despite the torture, Picard truthfully said that there were four lights every time. Towards the end of the episode, he was offered a choice: the torture could stop, all he had to do was to say that there were five lights or the torture could continue, if he was obstinate. He later admitted that, “I was ready to tell him anything he wanted… anything at all.” Picard had proven his own point, that “torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control.” Even if Picard had given them information, it would have been useless — he was ready to say that there were five lights, even though there were four.

This episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation aired in 1992, but I remember it pretty well. And I think that’s the insidious thing about the shows that are airing on Fox. They are portraying torture as a legitimate means to an end in the case of an emergency, and in the instances that I can think of, there are NO consequences for these actions, or maybe even some amount of admiration for the people willing to get their hands dirty, and Do the Hard Thing to Save Lives. Yes, it’s just a tv show, but to some degree television is a reflection on our culture, which makes this trend disturbing.

On another topic entirely, I’m trying out disqus for the comment system. It allows for threaded comments and whatnot, which might be cool, although I’m not totally sure that I have enough comments to really need a system. Anyways, let me know how you like it in comparison to the regular comments.

This is the part where I was laughing uncontrollably, which made Julie crack up. You can’t tell from this picture, so why I’m telling you, I don’t know. :p Also, I don’t know if you can tell, but my feet are pretty red from the hot soaking in the water with the jets.

Anyways, it’s been 2 weeks now and my toes still look perfect. It’s like my toenails don’t grow or something. My fingernails have grown like a millimeter or something (based on how the polish looks) and I dunno, I guess I’m harder on them. So yeah, happy. Now if the weather would just go back to that nice sunniness from just a week ago so I can wear flips everyday again, that’d be awesome. Sadly this past week has been all rainy coldness instead. But it’s winter, so I really can’t complain too much about rain after a two week reprieve.