chocolate_jen

Watching The Thick of It is pure joy. The show is conflict after conflict until everyone is completely annihilated emotionally. It's twenty-nine minutes of absolute abuse and it couldn't be more fun to take in.

I'm selling some rare Coheed and Cambria stuff on ebay right now!

Check it out!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320445364831&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

I'm getting a tattoo next Sunday, but I have had to switch my appointment on my artist about eight times. Normally I'm not so flaky, but two people have quit at work and I needed to pick up the hours since everyone else is still in training. Then I got sick, and had to do two rounds of antibiotics. Ugh.

I've been staying "in the rules" at the shop as far as switching the dates go, but I still feel terrible. I don't really have the extra money for a better tip, but would cookies for the shop be ok? Is this totally weird or would it be cool to be like, "I suck and I really appreciate you guys dealing with my crap because I know I've been a pain in the butt and I'm totes sorry."

Originally published at The Thoughts of Chairman P. You can comment here or there.

Last Tues, Wed, and Thur, I was working in London. This meant travelling down by train each day. Probably the worst part is the morning rush hour tube journey. I’m a big guy and being wedged in is particularly uncomfortable. Not fun for others either!

I spent most of my time cleaning out air con units, checking drive belts etc. The guy I was working with was fitting manometers to the units. Wherever you have a filter in an air con unit, the air pressure will be lower on one side than the other. As the filter gets dirty, the difference in pressure increases.

In all, not a bad week. Strangely tiring, but that’s probably due to the travelling. I took some photos from the roof of the buildings I was working on, and have put them in a previous post.

There is some GREAT art around here, and I'm hoping I can get some help :)

I have discovered my bank account a little bit fuller than I was expecting so I would like to get one of my planned tattoos. I think "to thine own self be true" is better suited to the life phase I'm in, but I'd love some suggestions for font and placement. I don't tend to like anything too "Gothic" or scrolly in nature - I like a sans serif font.

As to placement - over my heart seems to make the most "sense" ... but how was healing? I'm a big girl with boobs to match, and I'm wondering how much the bra makes things worse :s

Also, is there any imagery that comes to mind that reinforces this idea? I'd be okay with text-only, and I could add imagery later... just thinking out loud I guess. Stylewise I'm a little bit in love with this artist, after discovering his page 5 mins ago ;)

Placement: how about the wrists? it's a lot of text for one, but I could put "to thine own self" on one side and "be true" on the other...? I dunno.

Thanks in advance for all your input! And if you read this far, I'll give you a not-so-text-only treat: my back and my right calf. 2 of the 6 tats I have currently, with plans for 3 more (including this one).

Also sorry for the crossposting ~blush~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/8347697.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8347697.stm

Tottenham Hotspur striker Jermain Defoe loses an appeal against a driving ban for speeding on the M11 in Essex.

So awesomesauce, I got the Caffé Nero job :)
I had my three training days Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this
week and I've got to do a couple of full shifts over the weekend which
I'm slightly intimidated with but I'm hoping I can manage. I quite
enjoy the work, the only thing I'm having trouble with is remembering
all the orders and being fast enough at the same time as being
accurate. But I think it will probably develop over time.
In other news, I've been under 85kg for a couple of weeks now. I can't
really see any difference at all, but I do feel like it's easier to
walk it's just less effort.

This is a rather general heads up that I might be around rather less
than I should like. I'll still update twitter and facebook statuses but
probably rather little else with any kind of frequency.
Still hoping to work on my webcomic though.

I've been thinking about doing this for ages and finally got around to it. I think it turned out pretty well XD
So here is my take on what happened with the Gyromancy (which, according to wikipedia, is a method of divination in which a person spins around inside or walks the circumference of a circle drawn on the ground, the perimeter of which is marked with the letters of an alphabet.)

( Dahlia's Gyromancy... )

I've been thinking about doing this for ages and finally got around to it.
So this is my take on what happened with the Gyromancy (which, according to wikipedia, is a method of divination in which a person spins around inside or walks the circumference of a circle drawn on the ground, the perimeter of which is marked with the letters of an alphabet.)

( Dahlia's Gyromancy... )

Paul bro you gotta stop falling for lesbians bro

I just received an e-mail from Kucinich and Dingle that pretty much puts to sleep any chance of a fair hearing for Single Payer as the House crafts its bill. This is really no surprise as the handwriting has been on the wall ever since the President condemned the effort for Single Payer with faint praise.... he was for it, if he was starting from scratch, but political realist that he is, and wanting "reform" he is willing to settle for something that he can get through a very divided and hesitant congress. After all, what can one truly expect from politicians who exist in a world of necessary compromise?

The situation in health care is very bad. But most people are healthy. So, it's someone else's problem. Leadership requires the ability to focus disinterested, denying people on a problem that doesn't immediately affect them, and in our society, we live through our frontier, independent, John Wayne image, fed by pervasive materialism that is our society and its values.

This view could lead to depression, existential depression, if one ruminates. I am professionally pre-occupied with health care, largely individual, which I can do something about, but never, almost never, enough. The act, itself, is therapeutic for me. In my battle with existential depression, I must wage the fight, and I do. As a physician, I'm very happy in this mission of social good, and personal survival. It's philosophical and psychological, and for me, not religious if religion requires theism.

PNHP, Single Payer, T.R. Reid, Maggie Mahar, and now, change.org have provided me with enlightenment and inspiration, and change.org is very provocative as a forum of largely like-minded and thoughtful progressives. Orange County is not overflowing with such folks. So I find myself, while I'm focusing on Health Care as a political issue, in fact, a timely imperative, turning more to change.org, than the wonderful community of Live Journal. At LJ, I can rant and rave... like this... about Porsches, and college football, and an occasional movie, and WW II history.

But, I wander from my topic. I agree with William Tsaio, Harvard health economist, when he says: "Before you can set up a health care system for any country, you have to know that country's basic ethical values. The first question is: Do people in your country have a right to health care? If the people believe that medical care is a basic right, you design a system that means that anybody who is sick can see a doctor. If a society considers medical care to be an economic commodity, then you set up a system that distributes health care based on the ability to pay. And then the poor are pretty much left out."


He's right! And that's it in one clear paragraph. Guess where every other industrialized nation is and where we are, and that's why we just popped up as #30 in an assessment of infant mortality.

If the first question is one of ethics and morality, who better than to consult then the clergy. So I did, and I turned to a most liberal rabbi, the rabbi of the synagogue to which Lin and I belong, because of our ethnic tie to the Jewish community and our Jewish heritage. This is the synagogue and the rabbi that accept Jewish atheists.

This is a start:


Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:00 PM
To: civilliberty.guide@about.com
Cc: Rabbi Arnold Rachlis; Michael Malouf, M.D.
Subject: Health Care as a Moral Imperative

Inspired by this column s Universal Health Care a Human Right?
By Tom Head, About.com and by T.R. Reid: “The Healing of America; A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care.”

Going beyond the definition of a right, I feel that health care, universally accessible and available to all residents in our country, is inferred in the social contract of our participation as human beings, as social animals, mammals that live in a group, and protect our young. We extend the biology, as reasoning creatures, to justify our values, and we create social institutions to advance our common interests. I’m a member of one of those bodies, the profession of medicine, which I entered, truly, to help my fellow man. I’ve been doing it for 45 years, never questioning the value of helping my fellow men in distress.

I’m a secular humanist atheist, but I have values.... Human life. I’m surrounded by a nation of church goers, and I wonder why the guardians of morality aren’t in the forefront of this fight for health care justice. Where’s the clergy and the evangelists? If this isn’t right vs wrong, I don’t know what is, but where are those folks who quote the scriptures?

Help! Where do I find the members of the clergy to ask this question?

Inspired by this column <http://civilliberty.about.com/od/equalrights/f/health-care-human-right.htm>

Laurence Lewin, M.D.
Santa Ana, CA

.... and this was the response:

Dear Larry,

In general, you are right, but there have been ads and letters that I've signed along with hundreds of clergy. We also talked by phone with President Obama to give him support, as well.

Thanks for writing.

B'shalom,

Arnie

Now what does he mean, "in general"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8340234.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8340234.stm

Sunderland are left to rue a host of missed chances as Tottenham return to winning ways with a victory that moves them back into the top four.

Hi. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with consultants for applying to grad school in the UK. Two of the university's I would like to go to recommend the companies I am using or say to contact them for any information regarding the school. Both are free and I do everything online so no sending anything through postage (at least not yet). My sister went through one for Australia and it went fine. I was just wondering if anyone had an experience or what you think if the school has them listed on their website. The schools I am looking into are Falmouth, Bristol, University of Chester and Sunderland for TV production. The schools that use the agents directly are Bristol and Sunderland and the companies also have the other two schools on their site.

So I got these both yesterday(under the cut), the one behind my ear is fine so far, but the one on my forearm is already bleeding ink. My arm is also swollen and I was wondering if anyone has asked their artist about using an ice pack on a swollen tattoo?

( tattoos here )

Is there a kind of health insurance I can buy in the UK that will cover me traveling in the US for a couple of months, say?

EDIT: How good/reliable is it, and can anyone recommend a company to go with?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/football/teams/y/yeovil/8345415.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/y/yeovil/8345415.stm

Yeovil Town extend the loan deals of Tottenham trio Jonathan Obika, Ryan Mason and Steven Caulker until the end of the season.