I'm still sick. The sore throat is gone, but the sinus congestion has returned, and now I've got fits of dizziness and nausea. What sucks most is that this weekend, I was going to go to Salem, OR, with the band to hang out with Pooky for the weekend. Well, I'm not. I'm here at home, and everyone else has gone down south...

Sucks to be me.

I thought I could make it. So close... but not close enough. I was sure I was going to make it thru the winter without getting a cold, but no... here it is, 2 and a half weeks til the end of winter (thanks Phil for the 4 week extension) and I get a little tickle in my throat, and suddenly wham!

Sore throat, chest and sinus congestion, neck and shoulder stiffness. Plus, I'm having trouble thinking straight (and that was before I took the Sudafed)...

The SHAWRK is back.

This morning was filled with errands, mostly tying up the final loose ends relating to getting my '69 pImpala back to where it was before April 3rd, 2003. Last night I got her back from Maaco, but someone there had klepto'd the 'C' from the CHEVROLET across the front of my hood...

So, this morning I fueled her up, went to Maaco where the missing C was located in someone's toolbox, then went to Hoover Kia (where my air-fuel mixture and locks were fixed) to have some streaking on the driver's door's window looked into (they're having me back in on Thursday to figure out what is the cause of the black streaks that they couldn't clean off). Afterwards, I drove back to Olympic Autobody to have the chrome and detailing put back on the car. They were nice and reattached the C for me while they were at it. Finally, the car - she is done!

Now all I had to do was get my car insurance back the way it was before all this crap started in the first place. As you may recall, because they totalled my car over cosmetic damage, they pulled collision and comprehensive (whatever the hell that is) off my policy. Off to State Farm I go. There I ask to have my policy reinstated, and was informed that because they considered the car a total loss and had paid me the value of the car, that was simply not possible. I told them that the agent, as well as my representative at the claim's office had both told me after everything was fixed I could have my policy back. After a couple of phone calls, they came to find out I was right.

All I gotta do now is take a copy of my title (and the receipts for getting it fixed - just to be safe) to them so all their paperwork is set. And, I'm done! The car is beautiful, and all mine again.

Special thanks to Heather McIntee and Micah Raphael for making this all possible. Bastards.

Where's the line?

I was just over on Cranky's site catching up on the bits of his life and experiences and nuances that he thinks are interesting, and followed a link to The Register on some sort of registration law or something that was trying to be passed or something... I don't know. I tweaked out in the middle of the article and had to post.

Some jackass is quoted saying, "There are billions of illegal file downloads every week... We can all agree that it is wrong to walk into a record store, put a CD in your pocket, and walk out. It's just as wrong to illegally download a song from the Internet. But many people do not recognize that these actions are one and the same."

I have a pretty morally grey character. Anyone who works with me would definately agree. I know right from wrong, and in all of my actions, I stay to the white side merely so I don't ever get fucked in the ass by Bubba.

I know that if I walk into Sam Goody and grab a disc and bag ass, that's a bad thing. I've got years of teaching, nurturing, and experience to tell me that.

However, since we've been on the Internet (1994 for me) we've been taught, like small children, that it's okay to download things. At first we were cautious, climbing up on the counter, watching mommy intently as we scooted over to the cookie jar. She just watched, but didn't say anything. She could definately see what we were doing. We open the jar, still watching mommy with wide eyes, as she just smiles at us... we slowly grab a cookie, pull it out, take a bite...

Unless we were scolded, that was teaching us that it's okay to do. So, for years and years we were putting things online, having others download it. We were all sharing... being nice to one another... having fun without being scolded. New people showed up and we taught them what we'd learned. Soon, everyone is eatting cookies from the jar, and mommy's still just standing there vacantly smiling at us.

Then it becomes illegal to download. Well, technically we kinda already knew this, because we were cautious about it to begin with. Then there was the slight loopholes: It's okay to download something if you have a licensed copy. It's okay to download something if you get rid of it within 24 hours. It's okay to download something if you watch/listen/interact with it once and then get rid of it.

Of course, record of the file being downloaded is still there, so if you couldn't prove that you got rid of it within 24 hours, or after 1 use, or that your old Duran Duran CD is in a box in your parents' basement but you swear to god that you own it... you're fucked. There's a digital record that you downloaded it.

Of course, what Mr. Jackass of Texas failed to mention, is that some file downloads are legal. I wouldn't go so far as to say most, or even half of all of them, but if I were to guess, I'd go with around 40%.

Flash animations that people make to share with their friends and possibly get some internet fame. Music that unsigned bands playing the local circuit have self-released and want a million people to download (like my band does). Images that people made in Photoshop from a scanned picture of them naked... Actually, with having said that last one, I'm changing my guess - I'm saying over half of all file downloads are legal.

So, where do we draw the line between a legal and illegal file to download? We sure as shit can't tell when we click the link unless we're blessed with the knowledge that that file right there at the end of my cursor just happens to be bound by some hideously thick copyright agreement, and that without license I blah blah blah... Un-fucking-likely.

Personally, I'm not going to stop downloading files... Not as long as there are no stipulations that let me know beforehand that the cookie jar is off limits.

I'm cool.

Well, apparently I was cool enough to be invited to Orkut, at least. It reminds me a lot of SixDegrees.com, back when that site was booming during the... you know, cliche dot-com era. blah blah blah

And, I'm sure for now, it'll be just as cool, and in 6 months, it'll fade into obscirity as all of our email addresses are solicited to the lowest bidder as Orkut (in affiliation with Google) goes tits up and needs some emergency revenue.

I'm not holding my breath, but it's not like I'd notice any increase in Spam.

M'lady has updated her weblog.

Formerly the Happy Bunny Page she has changed the name of her page to the Underbunny page. This was partially because it is a more fitting term, what with her being a Funeral Director & Embalmer, but also that we were litterally inundated with thousands of searches for Happy Bunny Merchandise which, well, you certainly wouldn't find in her blog.

Anyway, this has all been taken care of, and her new page is much swankier, if I do say so myself.

Gah! I can't believe it's almost 1:30am... well, that's what I get for screwing up my hours.

Saturday, m'love and I went to Vancouver, BC, Canada to see Hayden play at a pro-choice benefit concert. We caught a nice 1:40pm ferry, had dinner, and enjoyed the drive up and didn't get lost too badly. We didn't even have any trouble at the border.

The concert was great, intimate, and I really enjoyed myself.

We left at 12:10am (that's shortly after midnight), and started driving home. We ascertained that there was no way in hell we would make it to Edmonds or Seattle in time to catch the last ferry. We would have to drive around.

She was tired, so when we stopped for gas, I volunteered to drive her sexy Onyx Green, 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser Limited Edition w/ Chrome Package. About 30 minutes later, I was dying. I was so tired... so I took the rest stop.

There, the sherrif and WSP were combing the place looking for "Tina" and were really quite rude. After the switch, we left, this time, she drove.

I slept. For 1h 30m I slept, waking only a couple times when turtles made a racket, or there seemed to be a lot of light or swerving. In Tacoma, she let me know she was out of it, and we switched again.

At 4:25am we got home. For some reason, we didn't get to bed for 2 more hours. And then we woke up around 10am.

All day I've been trying to stay awake to go to bed at the normal time... but NO, here I am writing an essay to nobody in particular at 1:32am.

Work's going to SUCK tomorrow.