just don't blame me if it's not always chipper

Friday, December 26, 2003

i feel like i need to pick up the slack for my blogger-lazy compadres (that's you, alexis, i don't care if you're in colorado!)

i hope christmas was swell for all. mine was great - the weather was phenomenal, which i just can't comprehend. being up north, i feel like i should discuss the weather because that's just what we do up here. i'll fight the urge as best i can. oh oh, my brother got my a bottle of vodka for christmas! and it's not even that bald eagle shit...it's so high quality it comes in a GLASS bottle.

i worked at my little gas station the other day and some guy came in and shared a detailed account of his colonoscopy with me. i really shouldn't have found it as entertaining as i did. i'm one sick puppy.

i'm headed to the cities (oh no, the cities!) for a week or so meaning i will be neglecting my blog. i know...you all will miss me. try to fight through the pain. i'll be back before you know it.

Monday, December 22, 2003

this is what christmas vacation is all about. i was awake for 11 hours all day yesterday and i slept for 12 hours last night. could this be catch-up?

the good news for the day? my dog missed me too! we spent this morning jammin to ghetto superstar and dancing provocatively. she's a racy mutt, that lucy. soon she and i will tromp through the forest together. isn't it sick that most people like to go home to see their friends from high school and i'm like, yeah...hanging out with the dog, having a good time...

my mom expects me to make dinner for the family now that i'm home. what the hell is that all about? it's not like i even make dinner for myself, now i've got to cook for the whole famn damily? looks like they're getting chicken and rice-a-roni tonight. ha, they'll be happy to see me go...in a month...when i go...

Friday, December 19, 2003

so here we are, ladies and gentlemen. my last day in 335...and let me tell you, it's a sad one. i've been all by my lonesome since yesterday afternoon anyway, trying to pack up my goods and drag them down the hall. i helped chelsea and kelly haul their stuff out to their respective automobiles earlier...sure was sad to see those girls go! it's hard to think of what it'll be like without them here next semester.

i feel like i need to put good news in every blog (yes, german cock-eater trials are good news). the good news for the day is i have come to realize i can fully function on an hour and a half of sleep for an evening. i did it twice - yes, twice! - this week. more good news is the semester is officially over and i am now a senior!

i ate a can of tuna for breakfast this morning. i'm really starting to feel like one of those gross college students, even though i'm really into showering. i've been able to smell tuna on me all day. it's just not right.

the semester was capped off this morning with one of the shortest, lamest speeches i've ever embarrassed myself by giving. and i realized at noon...a full four hours after my final...that my fly had been down all day. what the hell are the odds? i wonder if anyone noticed. thanks for filling me in, alexis! i KNOW you were looking at my crotch but neglected to tell me i was revealing myself so you could snicker along with the rest of the class. after all, isn't that what friends are for?

Sunday, December 14, 2003

tonight, for the first time ever, i actually said, "i had a beer...i'm okay now." it didn't seem so bad saying it, but once i thought about it, it seemed somewhat...unhealthy.

for some reason the finals looming before me are really freaking me out. well, one final in particular. this isn't normal for me. i usually don't have anxiety issues with exams. i think it's the combination of slight test anxiety, the thought of moving all my possessions to the other end of the hall (!), and, of course, the token sexual frustration. in unrelated news, i miss my dog.

pardon the twin submissions from a few days ago. my computer crashed when i was typing them so i got to submit neither and figured i had just lost them. anyhoo, i felt the need to share this story with you since the link didn't work. it is...dun dun dun...cannibal man.


Chilling smile of a German cannibal
From The Times
December 05, 2003

An extraordinary tale from the dark nether world of cannibalism unfolded in a shocked German courtroom yesterday as a self-confessed eater of human flesh explained how he came to butcher and barbecue a computer software expert.

The trial of Armin Meiwes, a 42-year-old former soldier, is the first cannibal case in Germany since that of Fritz Haarmann, who killed at least 26 young men and drank their blood in the 1920s.

He was executed in 1925.

Meiwes, by contrast, is a thoroughly modern cannibal who used internet chatrooms to line up a parade of apparently willing would-be victims.

One, identified only as Matteo from Italy, wanted to be nailed to a St Andrew's Cross and have a flamethrower directed at his genitals.

Another wanted to be eaten in time for the Russian Orthodox Christmas.

A man identified as Andreas from Regensburg wanted to be collected in a cattle wagon, pushed into a cage in Meiwes's improvised attic "slaughter room" and given the chance to lick his bloodstained rubber boots.

An unidentified German living in London visited Meiwes and wanted to be handcuffed and have labels pinned to his body marking him out for butchery.

"Later we went to watch a film," Meiwes said. "I think it was Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney."

Some victims were rejected for being too fat. One allowed himself to be hung on a hook in Clingfilm awaiting slaughter. "He changed his mind and said it was too cold to be killed, so I drove him back to the station," Meiwes said. In the end, after more than 400 emails and hundreds of phone conversations, Meiwes settled on Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, a 43-year-old computer specialist from Berlin.

"I did nothing against his will," he said of his victim.

"He knew he could have stopped at any time, but he didn't. He wanted to die and to be eaten. He told me he had had the desire since he was a child to be slaughtered and eaten . . . he was very intelligent, and I didn't see any sign that he was disturbed."

Meiwes, a fit-looking man with a ready smile for the gallery in the Kassel courtroom, argued that he was an instrument of Brandes's wish to commit suicide. His defence is that he "killed on request" – effectively a mercy killing, which carries a three-year jail term. Prosecutors argue that he committed sexually driven murder, and is likely to demand life imprisonment.

Several reporters left courtroom D103 to vomit or splash their faces with water. There were gasps from the public gallery as Meiwes described in a flat baritone how he amassed his catalogue of potential victims. In the event, only Brandes was sliced up and eaten.

Meiwes said Brandes signalled during a long email relationship that he wanted to be eaten. Meiwes used the pseudonym "Franky" in internet adverts that read: "If you are 18-25, you are my boy", or "Come to me, I'll eat your delicious flesh".

On the day of the killing he had collected Brandes from the local railway station. Brandes swallowed non-prescription sleeping pills and they drank tea together in the conservatory of the killer's sprawling but rundown half-timbered house in Rotenburg, close to Kassel.

The two men had already agreed that Brandes should be "nullified". The increasingly drowsy victim laid his penis on the kitchen table. Meiwes chopped it but failed to sever the organ. Brandes screamed with pain and told him to find a sharper knife. The operation was completed, the wound wrapped, and Meiwes proceeded to cook the severed penis.

"We had agreed to eat it half and half, but he was growing faint and couldn't wait for his half to be cooked through," Meiwes said. "So he tried to eat it more or less raw and of course it was too tough. This made him furious."

Meiwes said he had filmed the dismemberment; the video may be shown to the court later in the trial.

"It was important to him that his member be cut off and that he witness it. It gave him pleasure," Meiwes said.

Brandes lay in a bath and partially recovered. "He got out and said, 'If I survive until the morning let's have my testicles for breakfast'," Meiwes said.

That statement could prove important as the case develops over the next month.

It could indicate Brandes in fact wanted to live and sought mutilation not death.

State prosecutor Marcus Kohler claimed Meiwes always intended to kill and that he exploited a mental disorder that left Brandes with a death wish.

"Spurred by sexual motives", Kohler said, Meiwes had laid Brandes on a bench, stabbed him and hung his body from a hook in the ceiling of his kitchen.

Judge Volker Mutze struggled to keep some dignity in the court and refused to give details of the cannibal recipes found in Meiwes's home. However, the German magazine Stern reported in July that these included "penis in red wine" and "breaded young man's liver".

Meiwes, however, simply sauteed Brandes's penis with garlic, salt and pepper.

Meiwes described his eating of some 30kg of Brandes – during a long summer of barbecues – as an almost religious event. He was "internalising" a loving friend. "On the night of the killing I had the hope that part of his body would become part of mine; it was like Holy Communion," Meiwes said.

The court is now adjourned until Monday, and the case will continue at least until the middle of January.

Saturday, December 13, 2003

the good news is i'm not dead. the bad news is i'm not studying. that's where blogging comes into the picture...power to you, whoever came up with this ingenious blogging idea.

i got to spend some time with the cutest little guy around today. no, not gary coleman...i'm talking about brody! beeb came over so the girls and i got to play with his silliness for blissful 5 hours or so. i resisted temptation to kidnap him and run away to...well, how far could i really get without a car? hmm.

all in all, it was a heck of a day despite quiet hours starting today. YOU try keeping a 21-month-old sugar addict quiet. what a kid!

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

i'm finally all caught up on the german cannibal trial and, sick as it is, i'm amused. i read the articles and i laughed, though i know i really shouldn't. i think this case's disgusting nature is just beyond my comprehension so i find it okay to laugh at. this seems like something i'd see on south park. but are cartman and the gang even that sick? yes...it's true...they are. i bet mr. parker and mr. stone are pissed they didn't think of the idea first.

in addition, does this publication, the australian, stop at nothing in its stories?! has it no decency? i doubt we would ever read such gritty details in an american newspaper. but it truly is nasty bits that really make this story entertaining (disclaimer: in a bad way).

maybe i wouldn't feel the same if i had a penis.

i've finally read up on the trial regarding the german cannibal. i hate to admit it, but i laughed at the scenario. it really is sad, but i think its disgusting nature is beyond my comprehension. it just seems like something i'd see on south park. and does this publication, the australian, stop at nothing in its stories?! i really doubt we'd read such gritty details in american newspapers. thank goodness for the internet though, because the nasty details are the most entertaining (disclaimer: in a bad way) part.

i suppose it'd be different if i had a penis.

Monday, December 08, 2003

pardon my dishonesty...the grammar quiz was only 5 pages. but what a heavenly 5 pages.

so, in case anyone is unaware, i'm a self-diagnosed manic depressive. granted, i usually tend toward the manic end of the continuum. or is there really a continuum? i suppose that defies the point of the disorder. anyhow, the good news is i spent the majority of the day in an upswing, likely because of the grammar workout. the bad news is i'm slowly coming down, likely because of this crap-nibbling feature article. oh wait...what do i want to do with my life again? ha.

i better hop to it. ten more classes left this semester. yeehaw! i'm dancing, believe me. you should see it...

Sunday, December 07, 2003

i had big plans for the weekend. big, big plans. i was going to learn a bunch of stuff...and i was going to write a bunch of stuff. and when it came down to it, i did neither. monday is sneaking up on me like a dog in heat on a most attractive leg. i just can't stop it, and when it rolls around, it's going to be so despicable on so many levels. i really do need a personal tyrant here to whip me whenever i stop doing homework. there is simply no other solution to this madness.

however, i did manage to spend a whole crapload of money this weekend. it's amazing how much can be justified with, "well, finals are coming up..." i even talked myself into a purchasing a new coat with that one, which wouldn't have been so bad had the coat been, oh, say...affordable. hooked on shopping. what is this and when did i turn into a girl?!

tomorrow i get to take a 7 page grammar test. sick as it may be, i'm looking forward to it. in fact, i anticipate it will be the academic high point of my week. power to peep. oh baby doll, you luscious thang, i'll add this to the list of reasons i so desperately want to make sweet, sweet love to you.

Friday, December 05, 2003

such pressure to blog. i come home and before aurora even says hi she's telling me to write a blog. "have you blogged? why haven't you blogged? you need to blog!" man alive, i can't take the stress. you know, it's funny...if people who didn't know me read this they just might think aurora's my girlfriend...

word has it next week is the final week of classes this semester. seeing as it's friday that means there is ONE more week of classes. that also means i have a pile of stuff to do in the next couple of weeks. final projects and final exams up the wazoo and then moving to top it off. it's down the hall with me...eight whole rooms away. it's on the more peaceful end of the hallway, at least. so if nothing else, i've got sleep to look forward to.

good news (for me at least): the broadcast feature final has been produced. thankfully the tape deck was not possessed by chipmunks this time around.

Monday, December 01, 2003

i'd like to give a shout out to my old man for shooting a tasty, tasty deer. when you're a poor college student, like myself, nothing beats free meat. as an added bonus, i get to go to the grocery store soon. this is already shaping up to be one hell of a week.

it's kind of pitiful that i look forward to a trip to the grocery store this much. something tells me i may not be living the life of the average college student. if you need more proof, it's been almost a week since i've had any form of alcohol in my system. and i don't even have the shakes. my brother would be so disappointed.

but hey...at least i'm not flunking out!