» Best Graffiti Ever

it's quite the sight to behold.
i live outside of washington, DC; and nearby there is a very large mormon temple. when you're driving on the highway, this is what it looks like as it rises above the treeline.



here's another view from the highway, driving west:




you can't see it here, but on the second bridge in that picture (that greenish bit, it's a CRX railroad bridge) there's usually some graffiti spraypainted to look almost like a large banner spanning the highway that reads "FREE DOROTHY" or "SURRENDER DOROTHY". one year a particularly enterprising vandal managed to write out "WELCOME TO OZ". the bridge has to be repainted several times a year.

edit: i didn't realize there was a wikipedia article about it!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_Dorothy
(Fri 4th May 2007, 18:06, More)

» Now, there was no need for that...

Insurance bastards.
Bit of a story, but last June I started losing vision in my left eye. Thought I'd just scratched my cornea putting in a contact lens, so I went to my optometrist. Begin long line of referrals from opto to retinal specialist to opthamologist to neurologist. Keep in mind I had NO INSURANCE at the time, was paying for all visits out of pocket, because my company that I worked for were a bunch of wankers and fucked up my paperwork. I had to wait until September for my insurance to take effect. Once it did, I had EP testing and an MRI done and enough blood drawn to float a boat and some other tests, which under my ins. plan were covered 100%. In November I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which was really hard to deal with - my mum has it too, and hers is pretty advanced. I've watched here steadily decline since her diagnosis 10 years ago. Then I got this sweet little letter from the hospital saying my insurance company hadn't paid for any of my testing, like they'd sent me letters saying they would. I said 'WTF'? And called them... turned out they've ruled I had a pre-existing condition (which is illegal, by the way, since I didn't have ins before I started their coverage) and they didn't bother to inform me of this. My debts that I didn't know I had to pay were sent to collections.

So to sum, paid $1,000 for what I thought was a contact lens mishap, got diagnosed with MS, while reeling from that was told 'Sorry, sucks to be you, have fun paying that $9,000 that we were supposed to cover - in addition to your meds, that will be over $12,000 per year.' And now my credit is fucked.

Fucking twunts. (Also, while I did not have to listen to Dido during my MRI,(they wouldn't let me have music! i asked!) they fucked up my IV and I bled everywhere, and the valium I took so I wouldn't freak out didn't kick in until after they took me out of the machine - and the techs were making fun of me for being skurred of needles while i was gushing blood all over the floor.)
(Fri 17th Jun 2005, 19:06, More)

» On the stage

i used to study opera. now i'm an automotive engineering student.
i am 24 now, and spent roughly 12 of those years studying classical voice. as a classical vocalist, you're supposed to do your own translations, study the poetic idea of a song to really get the feeling, etc. some of the books i studied out of were printed by a publisher named alfred, and those books made everything easier. on the page before each song, it gave the translation, the poetic idea, and the history of the song. nice source of information, saves time and much pawing through books and dictionaries, etc.

what this all leads up to is i was giving a recital after a particularly stressful season, so i trimmed down my program to only do three songs each in italian, german, and french. my voice teacher decided it would be a nice idea, to fill some of the time that would have been taken up by other songs, if i shared the poetic idea of each song before i sang, as my friends and family and most of my public didn't speak a work of any of the languages i was to be singing in. i looked down at the page before my first piece and hissed at her 'i can't read this!' she hissed back 'yes you can, go ahead!' she sat at the piano, waiting for me. i couldn't very well start the piece with no accompaniment.

so, i told my audience (including my lovely mum) that my first piece was titled 'An Chloe', and it was about the moment when the two lovers, slicked with sweat, feverishly climax together and cry out in ecstacy. i've never been so embarrassed in my life. i looked back at my voice teacher and she had paled, considerably. she had NO idea what it was about. a bunch of the people in this audience also helped determine my scholarships, whether or not i got more performances hosted in the concert hall, etc. needless to say there were a few scandalized faces.

Another time, i had been selected to attend a solo vocal artist workshop at princeton university, culminating in each student performing one piece from their repetoire at a large recital at the end of the workshop. since i'm short and a bit square, i wanted to appear much taller (since i was only going to be onstage for one song, comfort wasn't an issue) so i wore this RIDICULOUS pair of platforms that brought me up to about 5'4 from my usual 4'11. as i walked on stage, the corner of the carpet under the grand piano was turned up. i caught my heel and stumbled, and the concert hall of 400 people gasped. i caught myself without falling, which i thought was pretty rockstar, so i threw the audience the horns. whoops. so much for stage poise and elegance. (i kicked ass on the piece i sang though, so awesome.)

apologies for most everything.
(Fri 2nd Dec 2005, 18:46, More)