Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Wow, what's with all the non-posting… I feel like I bounce between monstrous amounts of output and very little. Anyway, so Blair comes by yesterday because we were going to try and record a few hours of text for his book (then basically converting interview to normal prose), so at around two in the afternoon, he, I, and Marty sat down for a pitcher and some snacks. Well, the pitchers kept coming, and while I think the camera did get turned on at some point, I don't think anything got recorded. Phil joined us at I think around 4:30 when he'd wrapped up work for the day.

We stayed there until I think about six o'clock (with a pitcher always full). Then we walked across the street to the bar in Phil's building, and continued the process… I think Jon, much bigger Jon, CJ, Kelly, Tom, and maybe other people showed up as well? We stayed until last call (I think that means 2AM?), so it brought back memories of the old BBQ days where I'd drink a two-four and then fall off the roof of my truck — or worse yet, drinking a bottle of vodka as a teenager and going gravelsurfing. For those of you who aren't hillbillies, that's when you either hold onto a rope tied to the bumper of a car or just the bumper, and go tearing down gravel roads… It's kind of like waterskiing for people who are afraid of the water but otherwise have no problem with fear (to be clear: I love waterskiing and gravelsurfing).

Anyway, I see CJ woke up with a smashed up face with no recollection of how it happened, and I wiped out on a bunch of oil. Honestly! Not a drunken wipeout! Although maybe that would have been better because I think I kind of slid along this oil patch on my knees, and got one of those really light scrapes that takes for ever to heal (and I imagine the oil — which was intensely painful to wash off with eucalyptus soap — didn't help). And Blair, well, he had a close encounter with death (seriously, it's a small miracle he's alive) that he said I can't repeat here or no one will ever drink with him again.

Tattoexpo Gothenburg photo by Zolish
(Also check out her traditional Samoan tatau and serial number tattoo)

But seriously, as fun as yesterday was I think it actually signals a self medication problem. I have my next doctor's appointment on Monday. I missed one because I got the dates mixed up so it's been a while and I'm basically on a very low level drug to control seizures and help me sleep. I don't feel suicidally depressed like I did in the past, but I definitely feel down and feel like I might be controllling it “unofficially” in ways that while a lot of fun, are not neccessarily productive. I felt really good for the brief period I was on SSRIs, but I guess I was getting a little “too happy” so that got cut.

Anyway, I'm just finishing off a big update (including the piercing one from last night that was postponed) so that'll be up later. And I have a lot of water to drink today to get re-hydrated because right now my brain feels two sizes two small and is rattling around the inside of my skull, earning one concussive impact after another. “I'll never drink again”… Yeah right.

I've just posted a BME update with a bit over a thousand images each in the members areas and the piercing sections (so it's today and yesterday's updates put together). Um, other than that, I got a bit of an upsetting phone call this evening, but there's not much I can do about it right now so I'm going to try not to get stressed over it.

While I'm talking about depressing things, the last time the US dollar was as low as it is now was 1992, after the Reagan and Bush era. Then Bill Clinton was elected, and the US dollar climbed steadily and leveled out strong against both the Canadian dollars and the Euro. Then George Bush got elected and September 11th happened.

After 911, the US dollar stayed strong, until the “Axis of Evil” speech at which point the Euro started to climb over the US, although the Canadian dollar stayed even… but then the US sent troops to Iraq, and the US dollar began to drop against both the Euro and the Canadian. It rebounded temporarily after the “Mission Accomplished” speech, but started to decline steadily as the troops deaths increased. After the Iraqi Assembly got elected, it rebounded temporarily against the Euro, but not against the Canadian dollar.

CLICK TO SEE THE TIMELINE

One of the things that means is that if you are selling a non-American product in America (for example, if you're a Canadian business that exports), is that the change represents a loss in profit (assuming you don't increase your pricing) of about 33% (at a minimum — it is often much more, depending on the business's internal structure). I don't think I've changed BME's pricing since 1997 or whenever it was first set, but especially with bandwidth getting more expensive (due to the move to Canada after US laws became more conservative and pushed the site into likely illegality), I keep agonizing over whether I should increase it a little to compensate…

But independent of how it affects Canadian businesses, I really hope that Americans take these changes seriously when they next vote… Remember that the US can not produce enough of it's own oil, let alone enough of it's own fresh water and farm produce! I don't even want to think about how bad it could get if this economic collapse continues… fingers crossed that Bush doesn't do too much more damage (let alone invade someone else), until President Gore starts fixing things in 2009.

I've managed to get an experience update posted; thank you as always to everyone who helped out. I'm sorry I haven't got other blog updates posted, I've just been so exhausted and generally wiped out and stressed that I haven't been able to find the time, and I don't want to push myself any harder than I already am.

Other than that, here's a few more tourist photos.