DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE

Eskisehir is my new love. With a beautiful canal running through downtown, it's known as a liberal city with lots of cute cafes, college students and polite people. Also, lots of fans of Eskisehir spor.  Road trip win!  It's also made me want to go to about a zillion other places in Turkey (!), which is something I'll happily do this summer with full report backs.

Some more stuff about the nun inquisition that's going on. Grr!

Huh. Homophobia may actually stem (partially) from self-hate...

A tale of escape by a blind human rights lawyer under house arrest!

Google's evil takeover of the world has begun!

As odd as it is, bison are one of the things that I think are really, really, really interesting. It probably stems from a lecture of one of the professors in residence at the Humanities Center at Wayne State, "Buffalo Soldier." Except that one was about Bob Marley and the American museum, focusing on the representations of buffalos. It was ridiculous. And now I have that song stuck in my head... But, to me, the bison themselves and their history were the fascinating part.  They're bison gone wild!

I love that Joey Harrington is listed as one of the worst failures in NFL draft history.  My most vivid memory of him was during a pre-season game, watching him successfully lose 10 yards after fumbling the ball not once, but twice in a row, accidentally dropping it behind him when he went to throw it. The article's actually quite interesting and about picking those most likely to succeed - or how to predict who will be successful, focusing particularly on education and teachers.  I remember getting into an argument with some grad students once about a particularly horrible professor that I had, who stared intently at the ceiling while delivering his 2 hour lectures to a 20 person class in a college where many, if not all, of the classes involved a lot of active student participation. The grad students were in awe of him because he liked to go fishing and read Heidegger, or some crap like that -- which had nothing to do with his being an effective teacher.  GVSU, on the other hand, as a non-research institution focused so much on teaching that I could not even describe the difference and excellence of the classes I took there in terms of ease of learning and understanding.

Read about this Iranian photographer's photo and history as the only anon. winner of a Pulitzer. And another tale of modern Iran, a country that I have wanted to visit for years and should do this summer.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY

POST TWO (I don't want to mar the beautiful number up there 140 140 140 140 140 look how nice it is! with a POST TWO)

This is a really great video that I encourage you to watch about the Roland TR 808 Rhythm Composer. And Juan Atkins! He's so fun to see in concert live, along with my fav ever, Derrick May. So many Detroit techno folks I <3 dropped in here! Speaking of which, I saw a bunch of posters in Berlin last week for Magda, whose private show in Detroit (she was touring with Richie Hawtin/Plastikman) I can safely say was the weirdest I've been to thus far.  In an old, abandoned dentist office, we walked in to discover people doing coke off the little tables where they normally put the dental tools. I think it was a private Ghostly party since there were only like 20 people there, there were a lot of red lights, there was very little to no dancing, there were a lot of hipsters, before there was the term hipster, it was no-glow, and there was a homeless man who sat next to me. He said a series of unintelligible things before putting his hand down my shirt, at which point I was just very, very confused (aside from the red light, there were almost no other lights in the place, so I couldn't even tell the person was homeless) and after which he got very, very kicked out.  Semi-private DJ set, DJs I thought were cool, a super creepy (in an awesome way) place, and a homeless dude. Ew. Grubby cold dirty hand. Speaking of which, Hollaback Istanbul's having a meeting for street harassment coming up. Go! 

Oh, and also for those of you Googlers out there, Liz Deluca sex blog. Now hopefully two posts will come up number one on Google. Actually, there are going to be more once I start my fake blog called LIZ DELUCA FAKE SEX BLOG which will chronicle the fake nightly adventures of an office wench and her faux cross-training activities.

And I forgot the BIG NEWS! It's official: I have a nemesis! I am terribly excited. However, of the nemesis, I was told:

I do have to say I think you can pick a more worthy adversary. He seems to be more of a cheap, petulant, entitled child who thought it was his right to not only have a place to stay and be entertained but to be liked as well. We meet people all the time and some like us and some don't, but I have never thought it was my right to have people like to hang out with me. I say you continue your search for a real nemesis but use the young [NATIONALITY REMOVED FOR SUSPENSE PURPOSES] as target practice to keep your skills sharp for when the time comes and a real nemesis emerges. 

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY

THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!

I'm not sure why but 140 is one of my favorite numbers ever.  If I had a lucky number, which I do, 140 is it.  This bodes well for the road trip that I'm about to embark on tonight. KONYA AND ESKISEHIR MOFOS! 4 girls, a guy and a dog - and maybe if we're lucky someone will adopt a duck - travel Turkey, learning about the country, its cities, and ultimately, about themselves. 

Cool things about the number 140: it's the twitter limit, for those tweeters out there (maybe I should have stuck on that bandwagon when I joined 4 years ago? But I hate twitter). It's an abundant number, meaning that its divisors added up are BIGGER THAN IT! And it's just all around a really nice number! When it's doubled, which it probably won't ever be in this blog (inshallah) judging from my predicted end date of ZE JOB, 280 is also a really nice number! 280!

Today my assignment consists mainly of hole punching - HOUSE MD WATCHIN TIME

I'm kinda hyper right now. Favorite number day. Art show opening day. People I know DJing day. And that all before the ROAD TRIP! also 27 is a pretty good number too, so the day date is awesome. 9x3 is pretty rad. 3 cubed. SO MUCH AWESOMENESS! And I took cool naps today. One was under a table, then one was on a couch/bed. I also had a three-way chat which was awesome and I got SO MUCH MISH that you, dear reader, cannot have! Or can you!?

Sometimes I wonder whether rich liberals have something better to worry about...

But, I gotta say, I do like this one about Samuel L. Jakson.

Step one through numerous when I move back to the US or move to England is for me to: make an organic garden (or get a plot at a community garden), get two chickens and two ducks! Tour de coups!

HYPER HYPER HYPER 140!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE POST THREE

I hate that the stupid new blogger interface makes it so my blog looks all stream of consciousness with separate paragraphs being combined into one GIANT MUSH OF THOUGHTS even though I want them to be distinct.

So apologies to those attempting to read my difficult to wade through blog!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE POST TWO

Azealia Bank's 212 has been my song on constant repeat for a few weeks now. I've started learning all the words to do it at karaoke, but even knowing what the words are doesn't mean that I know what they mean. It's odd - the phrases clearly are not just random words, but I really don't know the slang that's being used. I decided to look up the lyrics and meanings and found this website. I've also learned a lot of words that are apparently used primarily in NY... And read this article about her. I'm seriously in love. Today was an important protest for Pussy Riot. The demographics of the rally were astounding: 100% Canadian, and in Istanbul no less, 30ish, female. Weird!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE

Well, a bit of family drama last night as my 93 year old grandma absconded to Vegas with an enormous wad of cash, avoiding a doctor's appointment she had yesterday that may have helped investigate some of the senility issues she's having. Upon waking at 7 am, my grandfather discovered her missing, and within a few hours the police had located her fleeing on a flight through Dallas to Vegas, but couldn't stop her, so she's currently in sin city living it up. i desperately want to go caving in a well in a friend's living room. i also re-read THE GOD OF CAKE, a website that has some absolutely hilarious tales of a girl's childhood. This is the website that started the meme about CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! And, of course, the alot. I know I blogged it before, but I love this song so much. And of course, banjos! And resonator guitars! I'm sinking into a love-filled obsession listening to this band over and over, so must end my blog entry for today since I can't focus on anything but this music.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT POST FOUR

Love Pigs Toy at PagePlugins.com

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT POST THREE

Custom Glitter Text

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT POST TWO

On calling women crazy, or why that's just a way to put people down and silence them... And a real winner of a guy's tales of doing so. Jezebel, of course, has some commentary about it that's worth reading. This is amazing - don't drink the dirty water!

I bet he thought The Scarlet Letter was a fun book about life in a small town and a woman who learned a gentle, fair lesson about keeping her pantaloons on.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT

Last night one of my friends brought up Benford's law, which is really interesting. It's about the statistical distribution of numbers, with one being much more likely than any other number to begin a number, and nature having a deep and ingrained preference for things beginning with 1, then 2, then 3, and so on. I like this part of it:

In 1972, Hal Varian suggested that the law could be used to detect possible fraud in lists of socio-economic data submitted in support of public planning decisions. Based on the plausible assumption that people who make up figures tend to distribute their digits fairly uniformly, a simple comparison of first-digit frequency distribution from the data with the expected distribution according to Benford's law ought to show up any anomalous results.[6] Following this idea, Mark Nigrini showed that Benford's law could be used in forensic accounting and auditing as an indicator of accounting and expenses fraud. In the United States, evidence based on Benford's law is legally admissible in criminal cases at the federal, state, and local levels.

Then there's the Radiolab broadcast, where I first heard about it. The Radiolab broadcast also is about Erdos, who is a famous mathematician from whom all other mathematicians (and others) trace their six-degrees of Erdos, kinda like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. But, if you wanna get really, really real, try the Erdos-Bacon number.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN POST TWO

This is an adorable story about an invented character played by a man and acted out over the the last 40+ years, ending last month.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN

long time no blog. i only have a few stories about berlin:

I accidentally took my pepper spray on the plane. It wasn't confiscated during any part of the plane's security screening. It was, however, taken at a club in Berlin. There was a large map of the city created out of foodstuffs at a party (mmm), which also had drummers playing along to djs. People stay out really late, the city is really relaxed and there is amazing food. The people who live there, including former Lansing folks and former Istanbul folks, are absolutely wonderful. It would be cruel to Istanbul to even attempt to compare the two.

Upon our return, a mass (probably around 40) of Turkish folks pushed officemate and me repeatedly because they kept going into the wrong lines at the airport and, instead of walking around, decided to attempt to cut by sneaking through us to another area of the airport. After both of us asked them to please stop pushing us, one of them kicked officemate. A grand return to this lovely country and city, with an extra impetus to continue studying math(s!) and Turkish. Lots of longform articles that are cool! This one is about homeboy industries, run by an awesome Jesuit priest, with a tiny shoutout to Eli Broad and his first company (sort of). I wonder if the Catholic church thinks he's spending too much time on poverty and not enough yelling at women to stop using abortion because God wants hoards of little Catholics running around? Hmmm. This one is about over a million gallons of diluted bitumen derived from tar sands spilling into the K-zoo river. Horrifying. I had no idea that happened. However, I will say that the article had some sentences that I was confused by:

With the national jobless rate still high, more and more Americans are willing to accept the environmental and health risks associated with pipelines that carry tar sands crude.

What? Jobless rates have to do with environmental and health risk acceptance levels?

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX POST THREE

Bhindi masala from Taj Mahal: not so good. Quite greasy, not very much bhindi in it (I don't even like okra, but once had this dish and thought it was delicious, though that was a home-cooked version). Very disappointed with it overall. I will rate it 3 stars out of 10 for Turkish Indian food (0 out of 10 for US Indian food) because it's not inedible, but I am really jealous of officemate's choice in my normal dish, pakora curry. Alas!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX POST TWO

the new blogging interface sucks - it won't save the inputted titles at the top, making it harder for me to figure out what day the blog is on. monique has been responsible for some of the most ridiculous quizzes i have taken in a long time. BUT, i got a badge from one of them to post proudly!!!

Boy Crazy Quiz from Quiz Rocket!
Quizzes: Customer Engagement

I'm reading about John Wayne Gacy Jr and listening to Sufjan's song about him. As the comments to the video make clear, it features clips from Boys Beware! Speaking of which, the Vatican came out against a group representing 80% of the nuns in America, saying, basically, the group focused way too much on ISSUES THAT ARE TOTALLY UNIMPORTANT AND DON'T MATTER, like "focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice" while promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” Those wild and crazy nuns, with their radical feminism!!! And from the article, when have inquisitions like this been done before? Only in the most dire of circumstances, like those nuns are putting the Catholic faith in now:

In the wake of the priest sexual-abuse scandal, the Vatican ordered a visitation of American seminaries. It is now conducting a visitation of the Legionaries of Christ, a men’s order whose founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, sexually abused young seminarians, fathered a child and was accused of financial improprieties.

Sister Act and crap like this makes me want to read Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX

It's almost like the author of this piece was me:

Toward the end of February, a friend spent a miserable week thinking she’d been shunned by her top choice program because an anonymous user on Grad Cafe reported an early acceptance from the same school. My friend was heartbroken—until her own acceptance arrived.

Remember when I got that horrible website banned as social networking, but before doing that, posted a bunch of fake results just to screw with everyone reading the worst, most horrible website of all time? Although, I will say that I think I disagree with her use of the term "gunner", which, as far as I am aware, is less of a grad school specific and more law school (or, apparently, med school as well). Oh! Looks like they caught me:

While such sites offer fellowship to rejected applicants, they often contribute to the misinformation already swirling around graduate admissions, hinting at a supreme secret behind the curtain that Williams says isn’t there.

Yesterday all I did was research cultures where homosexuality is ritualized. Officemate was slightly horrified. Am I the only one who finds this description of "mature student" absolutely horrifying? Mature students

Main article: Mature student A mature, non-traditional, or adult student in tertiary education (at a university or a college) is normally classified as an (undergraduate) student who is at least 21–23 years old at the start of their course and usually having been out of the education system for at least two years. Mature students can also include students who have been out of the education system for decades, or students with no secondary education. Mature students also make up graduate and postgraduate populations by demographic of age.

The soguk su saga continues, but will be broken up by what is going to be, by all accounts, the most amazing weekend of my life. Ever. Hands down. Not that I'd have high expectations, or anything... But I am terribly excited about the Ethiopian food!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE POST THREE

Listening to this all day: You.

Stacey shared this with me quite some time ago.


And this one, which I could listen to repeat all day.

And finally, not my favorite likke li song ever, but one of my favorite of her videos:

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE POST TWO

I now identify with Dilbert. This is sad. But at least related to my posts about animal attacks last week.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE

Huzzah! Word has come that a person has adopted the nickname by which I and certain others know him! A reporter on the ground reported that he did, indeed, refer to himself as Larry last night. I met Larry some months ago when he introduced himself as such, immediately backtracking and profusely apologizing for falsely identifying himself. We're all glad Larry has accepted his proper name and shed the false one he was given (I assume) at birth. THE IDENTITY HAS TAKEN OVER!!

I find myself very distracted today, unable to focus. I have, however, read a lot about the 10 Downing Street official mouser. I read some about the Westermarck effect. I read about English As She Is Spoke, and I want to read it now. I read this blog: 1000 awesome things. The post I read was about friends who are gone, and thought of friends of mine (read it, it's really sweet). I watched videos of Kanye, both being a douche and being hilarious. I have also been reading a lot about negging, a strategy I dislike and that I've seen increasingly deployed by douchebags everywhere, and was subjected to last night. The previous time this happened to me, I was nearly immediately asked on a date. I just do not understand how men think this transparent and offensive tactic works. I also read about Dave's Insanity Sauce, which I put (along with curry) in some mac and cheese I made last night - delicious. Things that I have not done include studying, unfortunately.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR POST THREE

I'm writing articles about oil for an unnamed person, though the article's gotten to be fairly boring so I'm going to blog for a while. I've already written the article, basically, so just have to trim out unnecessary facts. It's amazing how quickly I lose interest in doing repetitive things - though I must say that while cleaning my house during the (what turned out to be a tornado!) i remembered how meditation-like/zen-like doing dishes or basic tasks like rearranging my closet (discovering where Hatice had been hiding my underwear --- all the way in the super far back, under the shoe rack) can be.

officemate found cien anos de solidad, a book which i lurv in english. the espanol es un poco dificil but i think it'll be a lot more interesting to get back into the groove with telenovelas and libres interesantes instead of DESTINOS, the most ridiculous book ever created. Though, to DESTINOS's credit, i now know how to say blood vessels.

AND OH MY GOD HAVE YOU USED ATATURK'S FONT YET??!?!?!?!???

"The documents were Xerox copies, which in forensics is a dead end—nothing can be proved, or disproved, without an original." Tell that to backdated documents with an invisible time stamp embedded on each page.

i'm so excited about my new technology!!!!!!!!!!!!!! really, really excited!!!!!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR POST TWO

wow, that was a crazy wind storm! i keep wishing that i actually had twitter, because would have been able to post some of the first reported news on certain things involving Taksim square riots, Libyan protests outside the consulate, the fire at the parking garage, and today, some of the craziest wind i have seen in a long time. sad i didn't take pictures, but i was too focused on not getting killed. the wind sheared off a part of a building on my walk home and was so severe that they closed down two streets adjoining my house including Akarsu, where it looked like they were afraid a building under construction would collapse and Anahtar, where something major was going on, though I couldn't tell what. I almost got hit by a car dashing across Siraselviler to avoid a flying sign. a two hour lunch break involving me hiding from windows later, the hurricane-like forces have calmed! and, as a bonus, i finally set up the iPad!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR

What's a man to do with too many prospects? Well, this guy figured out ... a solution. Maybe not the best, but it's one. a quote from the audience:
ANON: 1) you and SUPERSECRET had the EXACT same response
Sent at 9:47 AM on Wednesday
me: haha really
ANON: 2) I am simultaneously appalled and intrigued. I feel like my list needs more excel clarification!
me: i would make an excel list but then i'd be afraid it'd come into the wrong hands
ANON: well - tip! don't send it to your current suitors
me: or past
even
ANON: or anyone!

and another quote:
"I need a husband. I don't even have a potential husband! Not one single person I would marry."

I really like reading about the Merry Pranksters which today is focusing on Neal Cassady. And I want to see this about his wife!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE POST THREE

I always love me some xkcd. Forgot to link to the most recent comic, which was about tumblr (sad sad sad): it'll eclipse blog soon. and i love this one as well, though i prefer to think less of signs, and more of BLINK (a term coined quite some time ago):
Jim: says mags
helo mags
i am big
sign
Jim: blinking
blink
blink
see me
sign
blink

although to be fair, most of the blinks are blinky enough to get their own code names differentiating them from normals. i love you guy, (the original) blink, pisser and alien boy... no flags yet. i wonder what someone would have to do to have flag in their title?

Work today has been exceptionally slow, which I am going to blame on the copy machine which keeps jamming every 2 pages. However, on the plus side, I've gotten quite a bit of other stuff done that doesn't involve copying. I've also re-learned how to do standard deviation! Shot off some emails regarding Berlin! Was recorded for a documentary during lunch! Purchased nice and healthy veggies to make a dank sandwich!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE POST TWO

A PLEA TO OPEN TUMBLR TO OUR EVIL EVIL COMPANY IN CHARGE OF BLOCKING ALL THE COOL WEBSITES THAT EXIST IN THE WORLD

RE: newsweek.tumblr.com
It appears that tumblr accounts have been banned as "social networking." This is unfortunate, and seems to ignore what tumblr is: a way of transmitting data. It is not just social networking, and as far as I can tell, judging by your definition of social networking, is not even social networking at all (it is very unlike facebook or myspace). Please see the following websites for reference: http://msnbc.tumblr.com/
http://newsweek.tumblr.com/
http://frontpages.tumblr.com/
http://theatlantic.tumblr.com/
http://today.tumblr.com/
http://newyorker.tumblr.com/
http://officialssay.tumblr.com/
http://life.tumblr.com/
http://huffingtonpost.tumblr.com/
http://nprfreshair.tumblr.com/
http://npr.tumblr.com/
http://theeconomist.tumblr.com/
http://www.utne.com/about.aspx
http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/

:(

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE

What's it called when, after brain drain, people come back? Brain circulation.

What's a good thing to do to an unarmed bicycle protester? Slam a huge gun into his face! Or at least that appears to be what the IDF thinks. Interesting that most of the people attempting to go to the conference in Israel were put on a no-fly list.

Continuing with the theme of my past posts about solitary confinement: two men who have been in solitary for 40 years.

I continue to be harassed by the Turk Telekom folks. Today I was told by someone who was saying random English words that didn't make sense in a row that he spoke "little English" that was "so-so". His definition of "so-so" and mine were clearly different, though I'm not sure that he understood what I meant when I told him that. I wish there were consumer protection laws here like there were in the US. I think now for fun, and to practice my Spanish, I'll just speak in Spanish to them.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO

HOLY CRAP berlin is gonna rock! fantastic friends! from what i hear, wonderful city! will report back after this weekend! will eat ethiopian food there! mmm!!!

men and fashion (and sometimes, just fashion):

In this way fashion is a language of its own. We speak with our clothes. We use them to convey a picture of who we are or maybe more importantly, how we want others to see us. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alison Lurie draws out this connection in The Language of Clothes, where she writes that just as we have our own personal flourishes when we speak, we convey personality, emotion, and back story through our fashion choices. But while we use language as a way to express our inner thoughts and feelings, we also use it to make ourselves legible to other people. She writes, “If clothing is a language, it must have a vocabulary and a grammar like other languages.”

a response from david mitchell.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO

Daggering: a dance style that is both confusing and also apparently popular. Coming this summer to a themed party for Istanbul! The best part is the ladder, clearly, but be careful!

And the slut drop!

I discovered one of my friends owns a banjo last night, which is terribly exciting! Speaking of which, Earl Scruggs died last week - he revolutionized banjo playing with the picking style that is now most commonly heard. I think it's fascinating that before him, banjos were just a comedic prop, a lesser guitar. Men who have banjos and know how to use them! Bluegrass music is one of my favorite styles ever, particularly the songs featured in O Brother Where Art Thou. Riding the rail!

Last weekend I got to hear some much-needed guitar playing, including this song. So sad and so pretty.

Am I the only one who thinks that perhaps cig kofte places shouldn't be labelled vegetarian restaurants? I know they TECHNICALLY are, but I'm a little wary. And ew, the corbaci soup bar, with some of the most sub-par food i've ever had in this city, including rotten vegetables in the salad bar.

I think that people involved with couchsurfing must speak more than the 365 languages mentioned here.

Officemate's been diligently finding mixes of 212. I need to get on memorizing the words for kareoke night.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE

Operation RT (rich turk) often involves going to places that are kind of expensive to meet people. Rich ones. One of those places is the InterNations meetings. InterNations is one of those rare breeds of websites without a wikipedia page, so I'll have to go to the sources itself for a brief description:

Mission
InterNations is the first international online community for people who live and work abroad. As a network based on trust, we enable our members to interact with other global minds in a similar situation, with comparable interests and needs. InterNation users can keep in touch with friends and business contacts; they can exchange reliable information on expat-specific topics, both on a global and a local level.

Members
InterNations reaches out to the international community: diplomats, members of IGOs and NGOs, foreign correspondents, expatriates employed by multinational companies and their family members. We also cater to the interests of local residents with strong ties to this community (e.g. journalists).
Our network is represented by more than 250 local communities all over the world - the perfect platform to exchange opinions and information on local particularities.
Membership is strictly invitation-based: You may join the community only after receiving an invitation from a current member.

This weekend, InterNations is holding a Mad Men-themed party at the Conrad Istanbul. There are currently 372 attendees going to the party. Two years ago, when I first joined, I got a frantic email that messaged to everyone to stop inviting Turkish people since they were overloading the group. That worked - kind of - for a bit.

BREAKDOWN BY THE NUMBERS:

Guests from Albania (1): 1 Turk
Guests from Australia (1): 1 Turk
Guests from Azerbaijan (1)
Guests from Bangladesh (1)
Guests from Belarus (1)
Guests from Bulgaria (3): 2 Turks
Guests from Canada (4): 2 Turks
Guests from China (1)
Guests from Spain (2)
Guests from France (14): 5 Turks
Guests from United Kingdom (17): 7 Turks
Guests from Germany (21): 12 Turks
Guests from Greece (1)
Guests from India (3) (all indian!)
Guests from Iran, Islamic Republic of (5): 1 Turk
Guests from Italy (3)
Guests from Jordan (1)
Guests from Japan (1)
Guests from Kazakhstan (2)
Guests from Kyrgyzstan (1)
Guests from South Korea (1)
Guests from Latvia (1)
Guests from Libya (1)
Guests from Lebanon (2): 1 Turk
Guests from Netherlands (4): 2 Turks
Guests from New Zealand (1)
Guests from Pakistan (2)
Guests from Peru (1)
Guests from Philippines (2)
Guests from Palestinian Territory, Occupied (1)
Guests from Romania (3)
Guests from Russian Federation (6)
Guests from Singapore (2)
Guests from Slovenia (2)
Guests from Sweden (1)
Guests from Syrian Arab Republic (2)
Guests from Turkmenistan (2)
Guests from Turkey (227)
Guests from Ukraine (4)
Guests from United States (25): 9 Turks

That puts the grand total of this 'international' community at: 372 attendees, 270 of whom are Turkish, or about 73% of the people who have RSVPd. I found myself getting happy when each nationality was comprised solely of individuals actually from that nationality. Of course, the determination of who was Turkish or not was based solely off of Turkic names (and I did include a few marrieds in there, but they looked boring anyway), which may not accurately reflect cultural upbringing. But whatever.

I thought I found a googlewack, but it turns out that it needs to be two REAL words, not just two fake words like confobulication and malefficacial. Which, by printing, I have now destroyed their status as Googlewhackblatts! Two in one! I wonder if these people wrote the page with that in mind: communucatoid is another googlewhackblatt. demicoherent only has 7 hits, but that's 6 too many. Three destroyed!

And does this sound like the dorkiest turn-based-role-playing-game ever or what? BUILD A DICTIONARY!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY POST THREE

NEWS FLASH! uncut protesters to host street parties! with the US-version's last FAQ filling in some information.

This article raises some interesting points, like that the average woman cries 47 times a year. Does this count crying at sad movies, or crying because of non-movie/book factors? That number seems shockingly high - this coming from a person who has, on occasion, cried due to a particularly emotional hallmark commercial. and sometimes house md. Well, it looks like this article indicates that women do cry about 60 times a year, though this number ALSO seems insanely high, though I guess it's because I only get so upset that I cry a few times a year, really.

the best, most scientific article ever, reporting findings from "a" married man. "a" meaning singular. a single case study. am i alone in thinking perhaps that the use of a labor-inducing drug by men functions as a kind of viagra-like substance shouldn't be reported until the effects have been tested on more than "a" man?

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY POST TWO

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS SONG WHICH I COULD LISTEN ON REPEAT FOREVER AND HAVE LISTENED TO THREE TIMES IN A ROW. she's going to work with lana del rey probs! that second link has another song with diplo that's a little less catchy but whatever, i still think she rocks.

healthy cooking, healthy living! as part of the year of herkes on top, i have to start cooking dinner more frequently. guess i'll start tonight with some sort of tomato curry and roasted cauliflower! and tadka daal! and zucchini yogurt! and i have heard rumors of a coconut carrot curry also being made.

let's all remember to check out the blogs that rock on the right side of the screen, mostly because they rock.

canadians have colonized cuba??

ahh, good ole air sex. this is actually better than the 'sex scandal' that was featured in clicking again, but is about on that level of 'scandal'.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE POST TWO

data, data, everywhere, and not a thought to think. this is going into nonfiction book club's coursepack for sure, with its examination of nonfiction, particularly the rise of literary nonfiction:

But information alone, like technology alone, won’t lead us into a promised postpolitical land of enlightened technocracy. Ideological battles must still be won or lost: “The Tigers of Wrath are wiser than the Horses of Instruction.” (It’s another fact that at current rates of attrition the last wild tiger will die in 2023.)

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE

No big deal or anything, but I took a shower with a duck yesterday. Not the rubber kind, but a real live little duck. It really liked the shower. It was pretty much the most adorable shower I have ever taken. Waddles, Duck, or Deefer (still divided on the name) is an adorable pet. I just wish I had a garden so I could rescue her and have a pet duck forever. If only there were other American attorneys in the city with really nice backyards primed for an awesome pet duck which can lay eggs and one day provide a delicious meal for whoever slaughters her!

this friday is friday the 13!

a story by dr. x about 1939 germany.

if you haven't read emails from an asshole, you really should.

hey! it's true! calvin and hobbes coming through again.

hey! game of thrones season 2 started and OMGOMG i <3 the show! maybe i'll even start reading the books!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT POST TWO

PREDICTION CHECKING TIME!!! well, there are two days left, but so far, only one thing has been incorrect out of a very specific and detailed set of predictions (something like a series of eight predictions, many of which were predicated on earlier predictions) of what would happen. I give myself a resounding A-.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT

Wonderful weekend in Istanbul! I'd like to start a poll here, which is how many people think that a good sitcom setup is a man and his two ducks? i thought it'd be great, which is why i started one of my friends on that path with a pet duck purchase, which had been agreed to, but was then shot down - would have been okay had the idea been shot down BEFORE rather than after the purchase. anyway, no big deal, but if you'd like a pet duck, it's living in rachael's bathroom for the time. a friend told officemate and me a story last night about his suburban LA ducks and discussed at length how they are the coolest pets ever. they follow you around like a dog! right now, it looks like this, but when it grows up it's going to look like this.

ducks are cool!

longforms got a bunch of articles about animal attacks. ROCK. and orwell's to shoot an elephant. it's amazing to me that one single individual was able to completely change facial hair styles, making some nearly completely impossible to wear given the political implications of doing so. a tale of mustaches and men.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN POST THREE

last post was kind of unclear about hair cut. unfortunate interjections and all. ponytail would be hair on my head. ew. officemate! head gutter out!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN POST TWO

weird, last post went up without a title OH MY GOD THE BLOG MAY END ITS PLAGUE AND WHATNOT (or just me being lazy)

LASER LASER EPILATION starting tomorrow! it's going to rock and take care of the laziest of laziness that is me. next monday i'll be able to blog about it. spell check wants me to change epilation to jubilation, which it kinda is. rock! AND imma get my hair did up maybe and MAYBE even a hair cut. i am torn between a radical hair cut kinda like that except my hair's way more poofy

[interjection - i glanced over at officemate bc i was considering asking her about which hairstyle to do, but the fallout after not telling her why i was glancing at her was so much better bc she thinks i am talking about her. which i am, now, and she just came out with this shining beauty in regards to the discussion of what the ultimate tramp stamp could be: tramp stamp, pierced nipples, etc.]

"i mean isn't the ultimate tramp stamp showing a man your vagina? and so it doesn't matter what else he sees, except maybe a pierced labia."

OR just a trim and keep on growin out my hair. maybe i can donate it to locks of love again, except this time not just lose it somewhere like i did last time (and i still sincerely apologize to whatever unfortunate soul finds that ponytail).

i'm so hungry that all i can think of is when it is socially appropriate to order pide to work. damn you monique with your reintroducing me to the deliciousness of a ton of cheese on bread in a non-pizza form!

i think i may be articled out. i'm actively bored by the fascinating articles i'm reading. maybe i should re-get-into learning java? or listening to oi polloi? turns out i continue to like anarcho-punk as much as i like art and poetry for the sake of itself. but FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE!!! who i have seen live. but where?! where?

although i typically quite dislike vice and websites along its lines, i have discovered an amazing video: slutever, a wonderful advice video. if you know me, you'll know my three favorite parts, which, for the sake of leaving you all hanging, i won't post here. equally cool is her blog, which contains some equally amazing advice about dating. i feel like i know her so intimately after going through 55 pages of her blog.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX POST FOUR

i think this is one of the most adorable videos that turns into such a sad video! love is an arrow. i also really like their song summer's gone. which again is an adorable sounding depressing song. guess i forgot how sad they were! mumford & sons instead! local natives!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX POST THREE

also apologies to those who had blogger spew out like, a zillion posts that made no sense. they were past unpublished posts :( and were not meant for public consumption, though much of this blog is not fit for it either, so oh well. as an apology, listen to this song.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX POST TWO

nerdy boy he's so slow tuesday we started Foucault he's still stuck on the intro? he's a no go. has to be my favorite line from a song, ever.

non-fiction book club's got a book - in cold blood, and i've gotten some articles about subjectivity, objectivity and cultural criticism for the associated article club. it's amazing how much written about new journalism comes from a journalism background, laying out how to *use* new journalism in a career, rather than, for instance, examining why new journalism arose during the 1950s/1960s as a literary form.

BOOK REVIEW TIME!
WILLIAM BRIDGES: Creating You & Co: Learn to Think Like the CEO of Your Own Career
This book was helpfully provided to officemate by her mother. Published in 1997, the book begins with a helpful thought which hopefully guides how awesome this book will be:
"This is not a book about finding a job. No, there are enough of those." Although later paragraphs seem to indicate that the "those" is referring to books, the author probably should have questioned whether the statement was clear enough. Amazingly, someone has already owned this self-help book and highlighted useful passages. So far I'm on page 9, but it's been too boring for me to read it. Dejobbing seems to be a term of art it uses for something, though I don't know what yet. However, I am most impressed with the book's view of the future, and, in particular, the prior user's rating of whether they had heard some particularly xenophobic statements. Actually, this book is way too boring to read so I've given it back to officemate. This concludes the second book review. It sucks. It's boring. Don't get it, unless you can get a previously owned copy and are just getting it to see what kinds of idiots are out there.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX

I love toothpaste for dinner. i have a problem and don't want to be a normal human being about it.

A few times a week, this lovely old man with an accordion walks by the office. Recently, he's been traveling with a singing man, which I don't like as much, but it's still pretty cool to have live accordion music weekly.

2012 NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS FINALISTS: ESSAYS AND CRITICISM - The Loading Dock Manifesto. I love it. I will say that so far, it's over 4 hours into work and I've had a difficult time clicking with anything I've read. I've gone through criminal law reports, which are usually fascinating, reports on cults, postsecret, and a host of other websites in addition to REAL WORK. This is the only article that's really drawn me in about a writer in Cleveland who works menial jobs. I sent a similar one to a former housemate last week about a non-profit employee who is addicted to waitressing, in which we don't do coke in the bathroom of the restaurant.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN POST TWO

i love tsunami bomb: throwback to riding around in liz's car. mushy love song and its polar opposite, lemonade, which is a song that i truly love.

as predicted, work is hella boring without mish. i demand everyone reading this blog get gchat and chat me up. but i got invite

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE POST TWO

THIS IS AWESOME

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE

"one story after another! like you, but boring!"

Watch me spit, classic lit, epic poems that don't rhyme AN AMAZING VIDEO

with a follow-up cartoon!

holy crap, this dog is cute.

bear stops lion attack!! who cares if not true?

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR POST TWO

although i'd love to let the beauty of my logic statements stand alone today, i feel i must write about yet another brilliant change in american criminal law: strip search party!

the supreme court recently ruled that strip searches are okay after an arrest for any offense. breyer and lower courts helpfully laid out some of the offenses:
-violating a leash law
-driving without a license
-failure to pay child support
-riding a bicycle without a bell
-failure to use a turn signal
-driving with a noisy muffler

kennedy, in a spark of brilliance, noted that some of the most dangerous, dangerous criminals were first arrested for minor offenses. the example he chose to give? timothy mcveigh. of course, that makes sense, since mcveigh was - as we all remember - responsible for sneaking a bomb into the oklahoma city federal building after an arrest. hmm. for some reason the wikipedia page doesn't really say that. it says he was stopped for driving without a license and carrying a weapon, then quickly was identified as a suspect in the bombing, which was carried out via a truck bomb.

am i alone in thinking that: just because one dangerous criminal was later stopped for a somewhat minor offense (along with an offense that actually WOULD give police reasonable suspicion of a weapon) does not mean that ANY person arrested for a minor offense would then have the same propensity to have committed a dangerous crime? breyer does point out some pretty horrible offenses that people did to deserve being strip searched: trespassing! and by a nun no less! and in protest of the iraq war!

Kennedy does not stop there: "One of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before hijacking Flight 93,” Justice Kennedy added.

Kennedy! how brilliant. i should have considered that possibility. had the police just arrested him, strip searched him, and found nothing on him, then... well... uh... 9/11 wouldn't have happened? how is this a justification for strip searching people for minor offenses?

but, let's say he's right: people can be strip searched for minor traffic offenses. if they can be arrested and strip searched for failure to use a turn signal, they could surely be arrested and strip searched for causing a four-car pileup on a highway, no? and, even more egregiously, an individual who was arrested for theft, attempted destruction of property (id.), or drunk driving - such a person should - nay deserves to - be strip searched. because, clearly, the past minor arrest history of an individual guides whether they will turn out to be a terrorist (though, to be fair, i must say that if that's what kennedy's arguing, i have chosen two examples that kinda fit...).

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR

in terms of behavior, it's sometimes pretty easy to predict what those who you know well will do. there are relationships and patterns that repeat ad nauseum. life is not really so much random things happening to random people, in my opinion, but events that, when contextualized, have a definite coherence and pattern.

i have used this to predict a series of actions that will take place over the next two weeks. i put it under my computer monitor, which is where all important life documents have gone for the last few months (to sit and think on). in ten days time, the extent of my predictions, i will remove it and highlight how many things i predicted to happen have. i'm not going to go with the straight up report-back on accuracy, but instead will count it right if i got the general gist of the 10 days (so, if i have something in the wrong order, but the general idea is there, i'll give myself that point). subsequent to writing this, i have issued a series of further predictions, which are more like formal logic chains:

Logical Chain 1
A ⇒ B
B ⇒ C
D ⇔ C
¬ A
¬ A
¬ A
(last three lines are a command)

Logical Chain 2
¬E⇔F
¬F⇒E

Logical Chain 3 (not so much a chain)
G ⊤

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE POST TWO

officemate's doing the central asian squat right now, after falling off her chair a couple of times. now, she's just doing yoga. now, she's just laying on the floor reading. i wish i had a camera.

we're starting a non-fiction book club which i thought was supposed to be a theory club, but unfortunately the club seems to think that de certeau's practice of everyday life is too heavy and that makes me sad because that's like... not at all :(

i have bir yeni cep telefonu and it doesn't work very well. as far as i can tell, the browser is so slow that it won't download anything at all.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE

I have an idea for these mid-to-early-twentysomethings: don't date douches. this new york article, linked in, is much better and more interesting, and integrates a favored threat: "Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck kind of stupid porn have you been watching? Did you just smack my kitty? Dumbass!" I vote that team vagina bump adopt the vagina slap as a threat.

This article breaks my heart. What kind of horrible mom is telling her young child that when she's skinny she's a different person?

i don't know if i blogged about the treyvon martin debacle going on back in the US, but a faithful reader sent in this article about hoods, which, as we know, are a totally valid reason for killing an unarmed 17 year old kid, but only if he's brown or black. these articles make me so sad, and then i start reading about other hate crimes against kids, so best you all do your own research.

An article about neurotics bemoaning the loss of our woody allen-like friends brings up some changes in the DSM as evidence they're disappearing. I got into a debate with someone once who obviously knew very little about actual mental health issues, who tried to argue that aspergers wasn't real (and wasn't on the autism spectrum). citing the dsm, i was asked how psychiatrists would know anyway... had i been the one to argue against it, i would have probably cited something like this article (and others) demonstrating the changing nature of psychiatry - removing terms, recategorizing and removing illnesses. or, in fact, the prime example that until 1973 homosexuality was listed as a mental health illness. fun story: when i was in high school and went to calvin college to use their library for research for my debate case (which was to pass a law banning harassment on the basis of gender affinity/sexual orientation), the books about being gay were all in the mental health section. eep.

i wonder whether nicholas kristof got this article idea from the change.org email sent out by alissa? i need to get off those stupid lists.

this post is not very cheery. fear not, i'm also reading about data havens and rogue, tiny, kinda-fake nations and will blog about that sometime soon.