DAY SIXTY

fulltime got a break when a wicked something or other kept me home. but this is the LAST POST OF THE YEAR barring some sort of work emergency tomorrow. first, think i posted this, but it's a great quote and i lurv it:

THERE IS A PLACE I visit, where no one else goes. The rocks are slippery and sharp, the drop to the dark sea below makes me dizzy. The sun never muscles its way through the gang of clouds that hover overhead shedding a mist that plasters my thin hair to my head, makes me turn up my collar. No, you can’t go with me, I don’t want a sandwich to take, thermos of hot chocolate, though your asking may keep me home.

chinese buffet up in heeerre. second year running that the year ended/began with chinese buffet, which i've just learned is the cure to an upset stomach, oddly enough. wicked something or other take that!! meat patty explode the stomach!! "If you ever find yourself in Beijing and have a hankering for "ornamental doornail-head shaped pan-fried meat-filled buns and quick-boiled/fried tripe", a list of restaurants selling them may be found here."

It makes me sad when people cite false science as real. Ok, old wives tales and fake spiritual paths may have some placebo effect (which is good enough that doctors do prescribe it, especially in children with adhd), but that doesn't make it real. In Turkey, that comes out as things that we Americans find highly ridiculous - cold weather causing kidney problems, a breeze leading to paralysis, and so on. Last night, I learned that, very sadly, Americans have it too. Sigh. Milk does not affect your snot, and I cannot believe that you would think that.

We conclude that no statistically significant overall association can be detected between milk and dairy product intake and symptoms of mucus production in healthy adults, either asymptomatic or symptomatic, with rhinovirus infection.

DAY FIFTY NINE

illness has struck the city. everyone is ill. everyone. and i suspect that i have been the latest recipient of this illness. so full time may not be full time today when i go home to sleep.

i hate these people. how many people can complain about not getting an iPhone for Christmas, really?

Read about hapax legomenons, words that appear only once in a context or language. Aided by Zipf's law, there's a prediction for how often words will appear in a context. It's one of the bases for scholars to challenge authorship of works, along with a series of other tests.

Are you poor? Fuck you. The year of politics, in your uterus (and in the US).

DAY FIFTY EIGHT: SHIT GETS REAL - AYURKI EDITION

Shit got real when the person who put up an ad to have people kvetch to her for money found my blog. A very, very long and detailed blog post later, she has suggested:

"maybe you've done enough layering in your own life of past pain that you don't know reality from false."

"Everything I do is a way of life,not just knowledge gained by books."

"Maybe you have lost some of your innocence?"

"Each person has their place in assisting in someone's healing. If you are not familiar with holistic healing (working with a person as a whole, physically, mentally, emotionally, through the practice of spiritual principles)why comment at all?"

"You can cause unnecessary trouble with your posting and I would appreciate if you left my name and AyurKi out of your writing and focus on why this has annoyed you so much."

"Not having a license or being a non-practitioner? I'm not even sure why you would write such a lie. "

I challenge you, AyurKi lady, to demonstrate any sort of license you have.

It appears that AyurKi -- a 'spiritual' practice developed as a way of life with knowledge most certainly *not* gained from books didn't appreciate my review of her Craigslist ad.

Since apparently my first ad and cynicism directed towards it was not direct enough, let's discuss AyurKi a little bit more.

I'll keep it short and sweet because fulltimedoesn'tsuckwhenyou'vegotalotofworktodo:

Holistic medicine doesn't work. BAM. I know this is based off knowledge from books, but sorry. Beyond any sort of placebo effect (again: term from books), it. does. not. work. Perhaps I HAVE lost the childish innocence that was thinking that medicine is magic and magical 'medicinal' practices can somehow work. Until then, I still invite anyone who'd like to pay me to listen to them complain take them out to coffee. My own brand of psychological help developed after years of experiences allowing me to empathize with a lot and sympathize with a lot more:

Please note that such therapies such as Ayurki therapy have been developed by a single, unlicensed, non-practitioner. I have developed my own therapy, entitled "bitch, don't take no crap; get out of an effed up sitatuation; ain't no reason to worry about no thang; and you don't really need to be friends to everyone." It is supplemented by the "if you have problems, that's one thing; if you have clinical psychological issues, go to an actual doctor", which has thus far been completely successful.

DAY FIFTY SEVEN

OWS... ish.

love it.

DAY FIFTY SIX POST TWO

link roundup to get rid of some of the open tabs i've had for a while:

Australia gets drunk, wakes up in north Atlantic. Oldie but goodie.

This post is apparently supposed to be funny. I think it's depressing and yet another indictment of the war on drugs.

who is a jew? the wikipedia article.

THIS IS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT YOU LOOK AT IT. I want to do some of those, especially knit-bombing (or crochet bombing as it may be).

As featured on Neysa's facebook, christwire. What will the gays do next? One MI mayor is not happy about the gays either. Except she calls them 'the queers'. Please note that this website is called "Towle Road". I wonder how many Towle's there are, and if Amanda Towle is related to him? Or the other Amanda Towle? The name Towle has weird associations with it.

DAY FIFTY SIX

Today I find myself compelled to bring your attention to an important issue plaguing not just the nation of America, but the entire globe.

Sexual predators. This page used to pay the Law and Order SVU theme song but it doesn't appear to any more.

These sexual predators are a sign of the weakening morality of our nation. It is time that we band together to prevent such crimes.

I was assigned to find all the easter eggs that Google had to offer.

While doing so, I got distracted by Doodles. In particular, I love this one! There's also a ton of other fun ones, from playable games and a Mr. Potato-head-style Thanksgiving Turkey to some fun ones about people who I've never heard about before. Did you know that Calder invented the mobile? I had no idea. I always thought of him as "that artist who makes things out of big orange metal bits."

Beach themed iGoogle lets you sight the Lock Ness Monster at 3.14 every morning.

Google calculator lets you calculate and convert distances into smoots.

Google is available in such languages as "Bork, bork, bork", Elmer Fudd, Leetspeak, Klingon, Pig Latin and Pirate.

Google calculator will tell you the answer to life, the univerese, and everything, as well as once in a blue moon and horns on a unicorn.

Press Control Y in Picasa for a teddy bears.

Google maps will tell you to swim, jet-ski or kayak across bodies of water.

Google Mail spam folder features, not an ad, but instead, a recipe for something with spam!

Google search these terms: Santa Claus, hanukkah, kwanzaa, let it snow.

There's more and more and more and more, but that's all for now!

DAY FIFTY FIVE

I'm only going to post one post today, because you better read it.

Rhet/Comp Ryan Gosling.

JAMIETRONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

This blog is also dedicated to a shoutout to my friend Jim, who really needs to visit Istanbul. DeLuca lived here for over 2 years before I moved here, and then we lived here together for a while, and then she left, and then I lived here for over 2 years, and then she came back, and now we're all in the same city. All, that is, except for Jim. Jim has yet to visit, despite spending a great deal of time in the middle east. COME HERE BEFORE WE DO ALASKAN CRUISE 2025!!! 2012!!!!!!!! ISTANBUL REUINION TOUR!!!!!!!

DAY FIFTY FOUR

There's going to be some yarn bombing here in Istanbul soon. I'll hopefully be involved!

This shapecatcher is pretty fun. Draw something and see what character comes closest.


Slab city, a trailer park utopia. It actually doesn't sound too utopic, really, particularly the parts about theft. But it is interesting.

One teacher's approach to preventing gender bullying in the classroom. I love it, and it makes me hope/wish that all teachers did more of this.

DAY FIFTY THREE

To resolve a debate we had last weekend, there are definitely more native speakers of Esperanto than Klingon, and indeed, more fluent speakers of Esperanto. Also, even if your mother is a human, it really doesn't sound that bad on this planet to say so.

Among those who are native in Esperanto are George Soros, while the one attempt to raise a child native in Klingon didn't work too well, including the lack of terms for 'bottle' and 'diaper' in Klingon. The most widely-spoken constructed languages, not surprisingly, are various programming languages. Boring. The other ones are way, way more interseting, like Volapük.

DAY FIFTY TWO

Make sure to spread the word of a flat available, mostly after 29 December, with thanks to James Smart for advertising a non-existant room in our flat (3 yabanci girls looking for roommate), and hopes that he is able to find one for his via the above link.

Bill to ban insider trading suddenly very popular. Somehow not surprising that it's only popular after a very public expose.

Uhh... World record for eating a lightbulb.

Dishwasher wanted. Very funny. For those of you who I share my favorite links with, you may have read this before. Don't fear, though, over the next few days I'll post all of my favs from this person.

Woman refuses to move to the back of the bus.

I know very little about Havel but do love some of the things he said:

Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.

I really do not like Christopher Hitchens.

DAY FIFTY ONE

well, last night was fun!! i'm going to start going out in bougie areas a little more.

OH MY GOD CUTE ANIMALS OH OH OH!!

THE GOD OF CAKE AWAITS.

This is what happens when you try to get between me and cake - I silently challenged her to try again to prevent me from obtaining something I wanted. Just once. Just to see what would happen. It didn't matter how violently ill I felt, in that moment, I was a god - the god of cake - and I was unstoppable.

DAY FIFTY POST TWO

me: yay
i took off eye makeup
and can thus sit here
COWORKER: it isn't the best one but it is ok
what why
me: the eye makeup looks way better in the full light
COWORKER: didnt it look good
me: i'll just put it back on
figured it's ok to practice
Sent at 6:30 PM on Thursday
COWORKER: yay
Sent at 6:37 PM on Thursday
me: duuuuuuuuuuuude
it's going to be sooooooooo weird changing here
COWORKER: ask DUDE for tips
Sent at 6:39 PM on Thursday
me: no
i am not asking DUDE for tips
HI DUDE IM GOING TO CHANGE INTO A SLUTTASTIC OUTFIT
COWORKER: hahaha
me: CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO DO IT

Yes, indeed. Today I came to work wearing but a mild-mannered skirt and pink t-shirt (and awesome green forest boots), and I shall leave wearing some of my new clothes that I had left at various places, an actual pair of high heels, and a pair of tights that has fake holes ripped in it and a ton of makeup. SWANKY JAZZ DJ AND DINNER FOLLOWED BY VERY NICE SWANKY CAFE HERE I COME (ahh, the life of a yuppie). If it wasn't practically impossible for me to get ready eleswhere, I would definitely not do javascript:void(0)it: I felt weird enough walking 5 feet in just makeup, much less the whole getup.

DAY FIFTY!!!!!!

day fifty is the first post, i do believe, that gets its own set of !!!!!!s. ROCK ON DAY FIFTY, YOU'RE GOING QUITE WELL!!!

sad yall. afghanistan back in the day. sad yall too that the US was involved in screwing it all up back in the day with the cold war, screwed it all up with that little funding osama fiasco, and is continuing to screw it up.

i've had a ton of work to do the past week so you may have noticed that my posts are getting a little less link roundupy. i promise to remedy that because i think you probably all come here for a lil dose of ADD and i feel bad for denying you that right.

If I were a rich white guy: by a poor black kid. (Written by a rich white guy.)

DAY FORTY NINE POST FOUR

Write for Rights tonight at LeMan Kultur. Starts at 9 pm. Come and assist Amnesty International and keep pressure on governments and/or individuals that keep political prisoners/violate rights (or, occassionally, governments and/or individuals that are hurting a group's rights).

DAY FORTY NINE POST THREE

OH MYGOD BABY SEAL

The desert's daughters, a study on brothels.

I missed this from the NY Marathon, but it rocks.

DAY FORTY NINE POST TWO

It's not a weasel, it's a martin, says weasel-weilding intruder.

DAY FORTY NINE

FOR VARIOUS REASONS INVOLVING THE MAN TRYING TO KEEP US DOWN THIS PAGE HAS BEEN EDITED

some headlines from today's turkish news:

Zaman: The General Staff makes explanation about reports that soldiers in Edirne were given pork and horse meat: The army is not buying food from that company anymore

Hurriyet: Give my kidney back: Woman who donated her kidney to her husband files suit for divorce and asks her husband to return her kidney

Akşam: Cardiologist in Istanbul beats the anesthetist in front of the patient just before heart surgery

DAY FORTY EIGHT

turkey turkey! changing its mosques and everything, for the ladies.

turkish newspaper discusses the alleged armenian genocide. the readers respond:

I agree with the Turkish position regarding the Armenian and Turkish civil war.What the Turks should do is write about the horrors that the Armenians in Turkey inflicted in innocent Turks. I know families that have told me about their great grandparents being burnt alive by Armenians and or raped and killed by them. The World only knows the Armenian side of the story, it is time that the world saw the other side from the those Turks that suffered at the hands of Armenians.

and speaking of that, let's talk about the horrors that other groups have inflicted on humanity. i'm thinking mostly two of the worst here in turkey: kurds and gypsies. CURSE THEM!

david graeber: i think i'm in love.

huh. i was just looking at today's zaman and they've got a really disturbing picture of the Islamic Center of America (the largest mosque in North America, located in Dearborn). Dayna and I watched a rockin news blurb about Dearborn a few nights ago that I'll share when I have real internet access. It's the picture, on the side.

DAY FORTY SEVEN

Information roundup: Who knew that Nakusp had its own youtube channel??? Well, I'm now a faithful subscriber and will keep you all informed of the important promotional videos that come out of this riveting town. I also got to see the town's one (blinking) stoplight in one of the videos.

Boys will be boys.

SORRY THIS DIDN'T POST YESTERDAY BUT I WAS ACTUALLY QUITE BUSY SO DIDN'T NOTICE IT DIDN'T POST. NO FEAR, I'LL POST MORE NOW!!!!

DAY FORTY SIX POST TWO

rocking out to old school liz phair and academic research is a perfect way to end this week. coming up next: boots (do you wanna find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?!), christmas trees, ginger bread houses, christmas lights, and finally resuming turkish classes! and friends visiting from america! and buying violins!

DAY FORTY SIX

oh damn! vietnam!

mumia got off death row. this news is via zizi. i hope he stays in prison for a long time. WHY NLG? WHY MUST YOU CHOOSE HIM AS YOUR PRISON ADVOCATE INSTEAD OF AN ACTUAL INNOCENT PERSON?? IS THAT THE POINT?? THAT EVEN THE GUILTY CAN DEMONSTRATE INEQUALITIES IN THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM????? FINE, BUT THERE ARE REAL INNOCENTS BEHIND BARS!!

there was a question about the scopes monkey trial yesterday at pub quiz and it made me happy! and i researched clarance darrow before for speeches that changed the world. i believe in the law of lurrrrrrrrrrv! brits and americans think radically different speeches changed the world:

brits like to fight on the beaches, while americans have dreams. isn't it cute, the last time that country thought it was important?

DAY FORTY FIVE POST THREE

world famous violinist performs incognito in a DC subway station, playing a $3.5 million stradavarius, is recognized by only one person, and is watched by only 7 people, total. he earns $32.17. the only ones to show real interest? children:

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

DAY FORTY FIVE POST TWO

filmmakers go to arkansas to create a documentary about three sinister teen murderers, on a fluke, from a person clipping a short article on p. 31 of the NYTimes. One gets death, the other two life in prison. Eighteen years later:

"I really do believe," Damien told the filmmakers in 2009, "these people would have gotten away with murdering me if it would not have been for what you guys did, for being there in the very beginning and getting this whole thing on tape so the rest of the world sees what was happening."

However, I'm not entirely sure that the GQ article adequately explained an Alfred plea or the implications of such. Basically, an Alford plea is someone saying that they are innocent but there's enough evidence to convince a jury that they did it. It came about because someone was going to be tried for a murder -- which he said he didn't do -- and, if he pled not guilty but was found guilty, he'd automatically get the death sentence. He pled for a lesser degree of murder.

This article mentions nothing of the impact of them pleading guilty to murders that -- the article seems to strongly indicate -- they would have been let off upon trial for. Send someone innocent to jail for 18 years? Bad. Especially bad in terms of lawsuits against the state. Sentence someone to 18 years, time served, for pleading guilty to murder? Not bad. Says the prosecutor:

Ellington inherited the West Memphis Three. He took office less than a year ago, and he was in private practice when John Fogleman told a jury that Damien had no soul. Defending those verdicts now, after so many years and so much scrutiny? Maggot sandwich. Get it over with.

"I had one shot," he says, "one lucky shot, and that was: Get rid of the whole case. That Alford plea was a gift. A gift to me."

Ellington smiles when he says that; the corners of his eyes crinkle. He has sandy hair cut in a boy's regular, and big weathered hands. He's personable and friendly and, in the early autumn, visibly relieved. A month earlier, he was preparing for the December hearing, expecting to lose but willing to go down swinging. And now it's over...

Ellington flat-out laughs. "You're asking me to dissect a case to justify my position, when, really, thus far I feel like I've been about as lucky as anyone in the whole game," he says. "I kind of feel like I came out of this the victor by not getting my ass handed to me."

I'm willing to predict there was a lot stronger case against these three than the article would lead readers to believe and that the sanity of Damien -- great name -- was not the only justification for the plea.

DAY FORTY FIVE

live blogging was made for this. all the sudden the sky filled with smoke, and we may get to evacuate work. gumussuyu autopark's somehow caught on fire and monique says it's visible from cihangir.

DAY FORTY FOUR

If you only read two things today or this week, make it these:

The Symbolism Survey by Sarah Funke Butler in the Paris Review

and Settling the Colonel's Hash by Mary McCarthy, originally published in Harpers.

DAY FORTY THREE

I didn't realize that the Trojan war may not be true. Luckily, modern belief is it kinda happened, but not in the grand scale originally written about.

word on the street is ikea has awesome christmas decorations. i'm totally going to get myself some of that!!

i don't remember this, but i was really young. historical things that happened on this day: man fights feminism by shooting women.

i just learned that nobody ate my cornish pastie and for that i'm SO FREAKIN EXCITED!

this is really interesting: what happens when adults are forced to take standardized tests given to high school students.

i want to see this documentary: playing columbine. i also want to see moral kombat, with just one question: is it turbo?

DAY FORTY ONE / DAY FORTY TWO

so i missed one day of blogging because i was flying to/from ankara.

it is possible to be a police officer in the US as a non-citizen, but depending on the jurisdiction, it may not be possible or there may be a requirement that the candidate have applied to be a citizen.

horrifying holiday photo.

i love the blog the final sentence. that post introduced me to the sylvia plath poem -- which i hadn't read yet -- and now love:

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

more cheery than edge, daddy and lady lazarus, for sure.

i don't know how i got into looking up freebird, but apparently it took over for whipping post.

monique dinner tonight @ parsifal. be there or don't have delicious dinner, unless you're at tv night, in which case plz grab my pastie from rachael's hands. please??

DAY FORTY

good.is continues to amaze me. this one's via longform and is somewhat about some dude named max hardcore who i vaguely remember reading about for his criminal convictions before, but is mostly about a nice jewish boy.

From seattle weekly:
"Some monitoring agencies don't verify that a user reported to be sharing a file actually is sharing that file," Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Arvind Krishnamurthy write in their paper, Tracking the Trackers. They conclude that "practically any Internet user can be framed for copyright infringement today."

NOTE THAT THIS WAS COMPOSED YESTEERDAY BUT THERE'S NO WAY I CAN WRITE A BLOG POST TODAY

DAY THIRTY NINE POST THREE

OH MY GOD I GOT A RESPONSE TO MY COFFEE AD

Let's Do Coffee - a Listening Ear (Istanbul)

Özkan Kılıç ozkankilic@yes-english.com via craigslist.org to serv-xtfbq-271.

show details 5:55 PM (16 minutes ago)

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams


> Hi!
>
> I am an English teacher and director of studies at YES English Language School. We need a native speaker teacher for one of our students in Ümraniye. He will take lessons in his office before starting to work (from 7:30 to 9:30) -8 hours a week -weekday mornings and the compensation rate is 35 TL/hr.
>
> Please contact me ASAP at ozkankilic@yes-english.com with your recent CV if you are interested.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Özkan K.


http://istanbul.tr.craigslist.com.tr/lss/2715431940.html


iPad’imden gönderildi

This message was remailed to you via: serv-xtfbq-2715431940@craigslist.org
If this email is a scam or spam please flag it now:
http://www.craigslist.org/flag/?flagCode=31&smtpid=20111201155805-o8yQTUc4RGwSYX5Sdfpbw


Your message has been sent. Undo
Reply
More|
[Busy] Maggie Ryan to Özkan

show details 6:13 PM (0 minutes ago)

Hi Ozan,
I'm not sure how good your YES English Language School or your English speaking abilities are, to be honest -- it should have been quite clear that my post was a joke, referencing another lame ad that immediately preceded it. As my ad made clear, I'm not an English teacher... I really fear for the students at your school.
Cheers.

i really want to start taking turkish lessons again, but, barring that (since i've been waiting for months for them to have a weekend one), french lessons. basically nobody wants to learn turkish on the weekends. apparently there are self-study books, so i guess i'll start doing that and report back on my progress. in the meanwhile, i've been looking up words i see around all the time. i should probably start studying at work too. i guess. if i could focus.

i have been having the most frustrating day today trying to remember which stravinsky pieces i used to play when i was younger. i seriously cannot remember!

still love longform and here's an article about the fascinating castle o death in chicago. i've read a bit about this before but nothing so recently.

DAY THIRTY NINE POST TWO

sent to me by naoufel. it's making me cry. i'm a sixth generation Iowan and an engineering student at the university of iowa and i was raised by two women... we just hope for equal and fair treatment from our government... my family really isn't so different from yours. after all, your family doesn't derive its sense of worth from being told by the state: you're married! congratulations. no. the sense of family comes from the committment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones... it comes from the love that binds us. that's what makes a family. so what you're voting here isn't to change us. It’s not to change our families. It’s to change how the law views us, how the law treats us. you are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination into our constitution, a constitution that, but for the proposed amendment, is the least amended constitution in the united sates of america. you are telling Iowans that some among you are second class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love. So will this vote affect my family?

DAY THIRTY NINE

time really flies!!

go canada. "we are truly sorry for our government's stance..."

this one's goin out for my mom.

former seattle chief of police says he did it wrong during wto protests, and so are overmilitarized police in places like oakland. it's particularly interesting: i don't think i shared it, but there were a number of articles about how the rate of crime is lower now than ever before in the US, while the number of police and funding for police is higher and higher and the abuses and intrusions of police are more flagrant.

and i'd never read yesmagazine.org, but it's awesome. fantastic articles, like this one about the military's failure to properly care for returning vets and the actions fellow vets are taking.

this is really sad. shaken baby syndrome.

this is a funny name for a charity: mom's breastaurant.

DAY THIRTY EIGHT POST TWO

i'm so meta even this acronym


reading about plane crashes. scary stuff. i won't post it here but ah!

i think i successfully guessed jared's YO IS THIS RACIST question.

today for work, i looked up cheese balls. yes. fact. no other words for them i guess.

rough day - eye infection. on the plus side, my allergies have pretty much gone away!

DAY THIRTY EIGHT

silly. and i'd like to bring it back to disaster porn. WHAT IS THE WORST CASE SCENARIO?!?!?!

it's strange to compare how different childrearing is here than it is in the united states.

omg!! ok, this is weird. REALLY WEIRD. i saw this a few weeks ago and passed it around asking what it meant. except i didn't get it.

DAY THIRTY SEVEN POST TWO

i can hear clippy clippin around on my word document. i hate clippy.

DAY THIRTY SEVEN

awww, RIP squishy.

poor research skills from that blog. we all know that picture. and he did get money from it. pretty sure there was a nytimes article about it a while ago.

the second-largest sum ever paid to a living, working photographer.

grrrr john conyers what are you doing??

ok and i gotta say this webpage is really pissing me off. they have some of the most poorly researched articles.

The doctors and chief surgeons might get most of the spotlight on TV’s biggest medical dramas and comedies but just like in the medical profession, it’s the people that’s supposedly “under” them that deserve some, if not, most of the credit. Surgical technologists, surgical nurses and even anesthesiologists contribute a great deal of work and dedication to ensure their patients’ well being as the big-headed, ego dragging son of a you-know-what who’s just there to do the cutting and sewing when everyone else’s job is done.

i wonder if they realize that anesthesiologists are doctors? and i wonder if they realize that the average salary of anesthesiologists is higher than those for plastic surgeons? well, i'd say not.
from medscape:

A median annual salary of $325,000 makes anesthesiology among the most highly paid specialties among respondents to Medscape's survey. Only radiologists, orthopedic surgeons, and cardiologists earned this much or more

the critique of this article continues with the analysis of martha masters on house, md.

espite her initial misgivings and shyness, she still puts her beliefs and ethics ahead of her introversion and works to help her patients within the ethical boundaries of her practice.

yes, this is truly ethical practice: inducing bradychardia in a patient to convince the family that it's a heart block so they'll amputate an arm that the patient and parents have previously agreed not to cut off. if that is this author's idea of ethical, i worry about their current physician's treatment.

DAY THIRTY SIX

day thirty six is one day late because --- I FORGOT TO UPDATE MY BLOG YESTERDAY (!!) so here's a day thirty six... kind of.

this guy's shop featured in a nytimes article about quitting FULLTIME to work on a dreamjob is really cool.

heard a funny story about a turkish person i know who joined a group with some friends and totally lied about his name to make himself sound more like a native... gah.

guess he's not going to get into law school there... also, has anyone else ever noticed that lettersofnote often uses letters from the same folks? i've read so many vonnegut, einstein, and jimi hendrix letters. still, a great site.

DAY THIRTY FIVE

weekend workin yet again.

:(

and yes, that's how i feel. no links for today. no fun stuff to look at. this week at work has been stressful. and now i get to go -- after working 55-60 hours -- and do more stressful stuff... blah. i don't often get in bad moods, but i've been in a terrible one for the last week or so. if you want to come by and have a building party later, feel free. or a bed party. whatever.

DAY THIRTY FOUR POST TWO

there was a radiolab episode about this. dayna and lisa, RADIOLAB IS WHERE IT AT. listen.listen.listen. taste the words. or don't, but someone out there can.

stupid or awesome: buying a $700 phone. i'm leaning towards awesome, because i like pretty and shiny things. especially if i can play games on it. and touch it. and revel in owning a stupid, useless possession that is rather meaningless and is really just me throwing $700 away but it's all cool because SHINY AND TECHY. like my ipad. i'm leaning towards stupid because i tend to break pretty things faster than i do crap things. and it's a completely unnecessary $700 phone. i think i thought most of my piercings and tattoos over less than i've thought about getting an iphone. WHT TO DO?!

i lived in new york when there was a weird maple syrup smell in the air. it was strong. sugary. we noticed it. it went on the news. i think they figured it out a few years later. i don't remember exactly what it was, but i bet it was ghosts from this.

interesting. women and jealousy and catfights. this makes me feel bad because last week i was commenting on someone's short skirt. she was walking in front of us, wearing high heels and the shortest skrit i've ever seen, other than obvious prostitutes and that one woman in ukraine once (that was weird), but it was SO SHORT!! and it's WINTER!! i'll hope it was just the practicalities of the skirt i focused on rather than feeling challenged by her presence as a female and whatnot.

HOLY CRAP THIS IS SAD. one of my friends from high school's brothers died after being tased in EGR. read about it here.


i guess men are bad too? from annie oakley.

andy timmons coming through with the best picture of the day.

wow, i am out of it with what's popular with the kids these days (cuuuute). i do know that i want to get a robotic justin bieber for my niece because she'll TOTALLY DIG THAT.

thanksgiving sunday: i've started buying the food. i love this holiday. so much good food i''m going to make.... mmm..... can't wait to eat more.

DAY THIRTY FOUR

we reviewed a few of the early posts from my blog last night.

if you haven't read it yet, i'd highly recommend you read day two.

i really like good.is.

Remember that time the beer flooded all over and killed some people?

this is a good story about wanting to be wanted versus wanting to be needed. i love their dealbreaker series. and here's a cute comic about how you're not the light of my life and making you happy isn't my greatest dream.

oh! something that i'm pretty sure probably nobody else on my blog knows is story people! it's great. my favorite series of poems ever. some include (and this one goes out to kim harris for making a PHENOMENAL meal last night):

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

I'm just going to pick a few others I remember offhand, but there are so many great ones that are out there:

I have a friend who reads people's auras. He sees all sorts of colors like green & red & purple. He says anyone can do it. All it takes is forgetting everything you think you know & just looking. I've tried it & even though I haven't seen any colors yet, everyone I meet looks so beautiful when I stop knowing everything, that it's pretty hard to go back to the old way.

this one got me into them (i know, super sappy. but i <3 them)

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.

shoutout to caity beth (and let's bring that nickname back in style), who got me this print a few years ago as a gift

We lay there & looked up at the night sky & she told me about stars called blue squares & red swirls & I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.

and this

I leave it to other people to change, she told me. I spend my time just cultivating vices.

anyway i could go on with that all day. alls i gotta say is, i love this guy. and he's got some amazing art pieces. anyway, there's a handy collection of stuff he wrote in an easy to read format - but i still suggest you read the website. BIGRUSHOFAWESOMEPOEMSNOW:
“Don't you hear it? She asked & I shook my head no & then she started to dance & suddenly there was music everywhere & it went on for a very long time & when I finally found words all I could say was thank you. ”
“I saw them standing there pretending to be just friends, when all the time in the world could not pry them apart. ”
:( “I buried a nickel under the porch when I was 8, she said, but one day my grandma died & they sold the house & I never got to go back for it.
A nickel used to mean something, I said.
She nodded. It still does, she said & then she started to cry.”

anyways enough of that sappy crap.

there's a place that looks bomb ass (pizzzzzzza), and i really want to win this free night there, but i'll have to spam all my friends with email to win a free dinner. i'm halfway tempted to just do it, but only spam those folks that i either don't like or don't care about, and then just pretend it was a mistake. if you get are reading this and you got a message, it totally does not mean i don't like you or don't care about you... really. no i'm serious.

keep up the good work, turkey!

i like her work. except for this. and :( i sometimes prefer hearing about what happened afterwards from people like monique so i don't get worried about people i know who are there...

this is sick. i know it's old. but still. sick like ew, not like cool. mentioned in the headscarf one.

DAY THIRTY THREE

Fistful of Mercy. This one's going out to my family because I think they'll love it.

I love this art.

And I wish I lived in a city where there were routine and awesome shows.

I find it interesting that kidult says: "I don’t have anything against anyone; my approach with the spray gun aims neither to please nor displease." At the same time, earlier in the interview: "Agnès b. appreciated the first intervention and posted a photo and a thank you note on Twitter. I didn’t expect that reaction (it’s why I then did it a second time)." I wonder if the doing it a second time is because they liked it, or because it was liked to get a different reaction? My first gut feeling was that it was the latter, but it's possible he wanted to please them more?

Elsa - you gotta see this.

It's Miller Time!

Wow, I read a lot of webcomics.

This is one of my favorite websites. I think it's a fantastic way to showcase what makes Detroit Detroit. There's a petition to showcase photos from the site in GM's headquarters. Please sign up.

I <3 Google (I say, writing on my google blog. <3<3<3). What a beautiful graphical representation of data.

DAY THIRTY TWO

This video Amer shared is awesome - the history of English!! pickleherring! jobbernowl! fopdoodle! itneresting how animals come from germanic, while the names for the meats of the animals is french!

Heard something interesting about cracked.com - not a great website. it actually doesn't surprise me.

Reading the sartorialist makes me want to go shopping. reading the catorialist makes me smile.

omgomgomgomg makeup!

OH MY GOD TRAGEDY HAS STRUCK THIS COMPUTER. I'VE LOST WHERE I WAS ON XKCD. I FEEL ADRIFT IN THE WORLD. WITHOUT MEANING. guess i'll just have to start from the newest and go back???

but the day is saved! my favorite (terrible) blog has new entries!

i'm reading the kitchn and it's REALLY making me crave thanksgiving foods. now i want an apple pie, stuffing, stuffed squash, pumpkin soup, and about 1000 other foods. guess this means whatever cool parasites are swimming around my innards are looking to get fed!! though i suppose they probably subsist off of my blood or tissue, not the food that i directly consume. but maybe? for all my love of parasites, i got a lot to learn.

figured out the mystery of the missing earring. actually not that mysterious and makes sense. tried to pierce my ear last night but kept thinking about the horrible allergic reaction i was going to have to the crap painted metal, shuddered, and didn't do it.

DAY THIRTY ONE POST THREE

I'm going to add in that I'm a licensed professional.

DAY THIRTY ONE POST TWO

sometimes i get a bit mad at idiots online. for instance, this craigslist post:

Coffee Talk (Istanbul)
Date: 2011-11-12, 12:00PM EET
Reply to: figenbico@gmail.com [Errors when replying to ads?]
There is an expression in NY - Let's do coffee
This is usually a time for friends and acquaintances to meet up and talk about what is personal to them
Sometimes you just need to talk.
English based on your personal needs
More than speaking - the opportunity to express yourself
Your English speaking friend who is also willing to listen
Meeting for coffee or tea
50 TL per hour

Turkish New Yorker with holistic healing and communication background
Figen Bico
0531 835 1897

*A lending ear or general conversation on common solutions for common problems. If deeper issues arise, please note that we will have to discuss a more suitable approach for healing

My friend Rabia sent it, a bit confused about what it meant. Upon reading it, I grew angry. Most of the time, when I get angry, I end up getting companies to send me free things. I got a free flight in Europe once because BA lied about losing a veggie meal of mine. I got a *lot* of free Ben and Jerry's because a store in NY had messed up their ice cream and it was the first time I had eaten it in like 5 years because of the vegan thing and it was so sad and I was really upset. In the US, fine, rip off folks who at least speak English.

But this particular ad, for whatever reason, made me very annoyed. So, in retailiation, I posted my own ad. Everything contained within is true. I left out some of the more snarky responses to the other ad, if you can believe it:

Let's Do Coffee - a Listening Ear (Istanbul)
Tarih: 2011-11-22, 5:39PM EET
Yanıtla: serv-xtfbq-2715431940@craigslist.org [İlanlara yanıt verirken hata mesajı mı alıyorsunuz?]
Let's do coffee is a phrase that is common around the English speaking world and especially countries where coffee is frequently consumed. If people claim that it's a NY only phrase, they probably aren't from America, or are at least unwise enough not to unload upon. Signs that someone may only be good for a conversational class include leaving punctuation (periods) out at the end of sentences. If you read ads by other unlicensed, possibly non-ordained, non-doctorate holding individuals mentioning minds feeding off each other, please note that a mind feeding off the other feeding off of it (and so on) may be a sign of a neurotic individual.

I am an ordained minister and have two Bachelors of Arts and a doctorate. I don't have a holistic healing background, but I do read a lot of Psychology Today and my mom was forced to learn Reiki back in the day when nurses had to learn pseudo-sciences and I know a *lot* about energy healing. This interested started at an early age, when we used "light as a feather, stiff as a board" to magically lift individuals much heavier than us using only one or two fingers. I'm in a profession where I ethically must maintain client confidentiality.

Please note that such therapies such as Ayurki therapy have been developed by a single, unlicensed, non-practitioner. I have developed my own therapy, entitled "bitch, don't take no crap; get out of an effed up sitatuation; ain't no reason to worry about no thang; and you don't really need to be friends to everyone." It is supplemented by the "if you have problems, that's one thing; if you have clinical psychological issues, go to an actual doctor", which has thus far been completely successful.

I too can listen to you kvetch for an hour for money. To help subsidize my ministrial life, I ask for 40 TL per hour, plus one coffee.

DAY THIRTY ONE

It is a delightful note! From Gil Scott Heron.

Have I mentioned how much I love NYClean? Lets you read over the 20 article limit per month. It's a fantastic thing that just goes on the toolbar and when you open a locked article, just click it and the real article comes up.

It's not six degrees of separation, any more...

Also, I dunno, but I think the hairy hand is better than Hadley v. Baxendale. Then again, I hated contracts.

I think it's interesting the piece uses the example of this law review article "about the legal taboos of a well-known obscenity" as eduatinment. Yes, it kind of is -- and a recent article regarding a similar thing was in a blog featuring ridiculous legal articles (and many other similar incidents have been widely reported by news media, including one of someone rafting in water in MI) but:

One recent Internet
search revealed that fuck “is a more commonly used word than mom,
baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.”61

Read it - I don't think it's just edu-tainment. Or maybe it is but it's well worth it. Genderspeak! I particularly like the section on linguistic taboos and substitution words. Politics! FCC! And interesting law, like

And even though a Jehovah’s Witness can’t call
the city marshal a “damned fascist,” a Black Panther can call the police
“mother-fucking fascist pig cops.”

my dad says this all the time.

DAY THIRTY POST TWO

welcome UAE and (shockıngly loyal) russıan readers of the blog!!! point anyone you know from low lying island states thisaway!

turns out eating and listening to podcasts about parasites is not always the best idea. ew.

OH MY GOD I GOT MY NAKUSP TRIP UPDATE THINGY FROM TRIPADVISOR. Nakusp, BC, Canada. I love you. You are tiny. You are named a funny name. You have a suspension bridge named Brilliant nearby. You purposefully flooded over some of your towns and combined two lakes into one. You have hot springs. You have a really awesome Japanese gardens. Despite being on an earthquake fault line, your most recent memorable disaster was a tiny prop plane that went down (and that, I think we can all agree, was due to the return of one of your more hedonistic former residents bringing God's wrath all up in your grill), you have mounties, you have a radio program that features abbreviations like "CAN POP" for canadian pop, you've got a basement geographer, your entire village is about as half the size of EGR's combined school system (and you've gone through quite the growth spurt recently!), you've got some insane sport called heli-skiing, you are really pretty, you have mountain goats nearby, and you briefly flirted with changing your name to nakusp hot springs. You have (or, had) residents who try to run over mentally disabled people. You measured how bad traffic was based on how long it took one particular resident of yours to drive down the main strip. You have a main strip. Your website really seems to indicate that the hot springs committee is more important than the (volunteer) fire department. Your city's .com website features a hipster retro-shabby-ugly-is-beautiful 2006 design (please, Nakusp, don't tell me that you paid for that, especially not from *that* company) and numerous easily corrected typos. You and I are meant to be, and I shall befriend many of the members of your tiny, tiny populace before I move there. We are truly meant to be and one day, one day soon, we will meet in person.

Speaking of typos all oer the place, THY wrote back and said they were sticking with their current editor and needed no more help for their poorly translated in flight magazine. I was going to point out specific problems with the magazine (obvious sentences being cut off, mistranslated, 'interesting' choices of how to phrase... everything... etc) but the email back included an emoticon. yep.

an emoticon.

DAY THIRTY

how quickly time flies.

there was a big debate about kilts. definitely skirt-like. wiki says it, so it must be true.

did some major research this weekend on gypsies. gypsie comes from the derivation that people thought they were eGYPTIan. which makes a LOT of sense but I'd never though of it before. They were probably forced from their homelands by war, and started off as a VERY small group of people (now running about 2 million strong). One reason they were so discriminated against was that people thought they were Turkish back in the day (when the Ottoman empire was really expanding into Europe) People in Czechelslovokia were still forcibly sterializing Roma women as of 2001, which doesn't make sense. freed slaves in the Americas owned Roma slaves. England deported them to Norway. Irish travelers are a distinct gene pool from Roma, but Romanichals are not. follow hindu purity laws. so much i didn't know but which is so interesting!

Defenestration of Prague? Bring it! wow, and as an aside, i'm now really confused how bohemian royal lineage works. elected monarchies are crazy!

Ahh, language log. it's been too long, dear friend.

swoon. although law is cool too! really.

if you tell me you don't like radiolab, i will beat you up. for reals. this one's got stuff about how crazy cat ladies are sometimes crazy because there's a parasite that really likes (only works? i've just read the summary. listening now) cats, so if it gets into other animals -- like humans -- it changes their brains to make them like cats more. Parasites! Fear films. Social change. Man, that class where Liz and I got to just watch sci fi films and read and write about gender and fear rocked. Zombies. I think I shared that already. One of my fav blogs: parasite of the day. This radio program is FASCINATING! ZOMBIE COCKROACHES!

DAY TWENTY NINE

that's right, IN MY OFFICE ON A WEEKEND.

tonight there's a big party at club 17 and i hope all faithful readers of this blog come.

disaster porn. it's interesting because he takes a negative view of rumsfeld's speech which i've heard actually highlights a super important point in psychology. the point is getting less and less great with every zizek reference to the speech. ick.

modern warfare.

i dunno. hark, a vagrant! - opinions? i just can't get into it, but everyone seems to like it. it's kinda like that dinosaur comic which i hated for four years, but now love. love.love.love.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh damn!!!!! i just thought about NPR. weekends in the office are the BEST time to catch up on radiolab, cartalk, this american life and other fantastic goodies. snaaaaaaaaaap!

but first, it's decorative gourd season motherfuckers!

Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real.

wait, and shit got real?

sea cucumbers are really freaking weird.


and ohhhhhhhh my god this made me cry and cry and cry.

DAY TWENTY EIGHT

as predicted, i lost my earring. how is that possible? again? already? coming monday: another review of piercing my own ear.

i got a bunch of ppl in on tuvalu. and now i'm into the maldives.

tomorrow is BED BUILDING/MATTRESS BUYIN time! god it will be exciting. so exciting!!

went to THE DARKNESS again. that place is rather dark!!!

i hate the new google reader. hate hate hate. hate. hate. really hate.

i wanna go here. paris, 26 november.

this is cool and i want to do it.

i love thisisnthappiness.

tumblr: what is it? and who uses window's live? seriously?? confused. perhaps i should join this page. it seems like a mix between twitter, which i hate, and blogging. an awesome mix.

DAY TWENTY SEVEN

almost didn't post today. almost.

i hope i get sharp cheddar from the US. i had a dream of all sorts of delicious american foods. it was the best dream ever. i was so happy. i just kept discovering more nad more and more goods.

today was annual bar registration fee time and health insurance purchase time and it *really* bums me out. all that money which is necessary but sooooooooooooooooooo boringly spent. i could buy so much cool crap for the 600 lira i have to pay just to have the right to call myself esquire. which i do, all the time. i'd prefer if everyone i know starts referring to me as esquire. 600 tl is like... 120 articles of clothing at the t-town throwdown. a cool new phone. etc etc. :(

dalmation is not only a dog but ellis island used it as a race. weirds.

i should finally read snow crash. tried it like a bunch of times. maybe steampunk isn't for me. or postcyberpunk or whatever it is.

well, i guess you'll just have to be prepared to die. fantastic.

DAY TWENTY SIX POST TWO

ROBOT CARS MOFO

DAY TWENTY SIX

After an exhaustive pub crawl, which apparently only went to one pub (though, to be fair, I came in during the tail end of it), there has been a suggestion for a new place to go. For those of you who don't know, Baris is no longer at Ritim, so screw that noise. Instead, go to THE DARKNESS. THE DARKNESS lives up to its name -- it's kinda dark -- but it's pretty decent. Enough. Ish.

I got to re-pierce my ear at THE DARKNESS last night. IT HURT SO BAD. I swear, this is almost certainly not going to be the last time I have to do that. I need to get better earrings that stay on! This makes it the fourth earring that I've had to get.

I detectivized some stuff at the pub and it was awesome.

This weekend in fun times at my house, watch out for me trying to build -- wait for it -- MY BED!!!!!! ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh snap! it'll rock. planning on getting a mattress too, and then I can stop falling asleep anywhere but my room, where the mattress is tilted all funny and I don't like it and the cleaning ladies put a rug for god knows what reason on the bed and really, I should have just moved it but it seemed like a good idea to just leave it there and not sleep on the surface. AND THE WINTER CLOTHES COME OUT! ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! can you believe it? Can you believe it?!? Winter clothes are actually not exciting. Perhaps with my newly found wealth/yuppieness (yay fulltime) i should fill an empty, meaningless existence with CLOTHES AND PRETTY DRESSES?! yes. shopping tonight it is. i want a pair of fake uggs.

i have a pair of shoes that's not rabia's, but i thought they were. whose are they??? they look like the brown ones with studs here.

i want to see kaskade in person. cheerful happy music makes my day!

ows :(

i hate the new google reader.

DAY TWENTY FIVE POST EIGHT

omygod finally my mind has chilled out. That was weird! I mean like really weird! i wonder if perhaps in the future i should chill out on the coffee? finally seek medication for my quite-probably-there-adhd? THE PLOT THICKENS!!!

and this is a COOL name. GIGANTORAPTOR?!?!

i want.

This has to be as inaccurate as huntchat.com's claim that it's the "fastest growing network on the internet." though not as terrifying as the blind hunter. that website also notes that the fastest growing part of the internet is "www". am i missing something?

It's interesting what forces create the conditions for invasive species. Shipping, of course. But the international tire trade? Weird. Other fun invasive species - Banana Bunch Top virus (!!), the STARFISH??, the goat!. Remember that weird group that released each of Shakespear's animals in the US? I can't remember why, but startlings have destroyed purple martin populations. :( i want to have a purple martin house. and i want to have a purple martin-plumed face mask.

holy crap the common hamster is cute. hamster racing?

molly used to have this hamster. it would try to leap to its death every single time i held it. it's also like, the fastest running hamster EVER. now i want a hamster. and a kitten. and a dog.