About This Blog
A blog about my life, universe, etc. At any given time you might find something endlessly interesting or just me ruminating on something else, which no one (not even myself) finds interesting. That's the way blogs go, I suppose. Anyway, I was eleventh in line, and you weren't. Hah!

About Me
Name:
Sarah
Age:
26
Residence:
Columbus, OH
Religion:
LDS
Political Score:
5.00/-2.15
Job:
Temp @ JPMorgan Chase
College:
Ohio State University
Majors:
Political Science, International Studies
High School: Home Educated
Hobbies:
Reading, standing in line for things, writing, research
Resume:
HotJobs
Email:
lloannna@gmail.com

About My Family
My mom is a lawyer in Pickerington; my stepdad and dad are computer guys, and my stepmom (who works with my dad) is an engineer. My sisters are, in order of age, a photographer, an artist, and a person too young to have her own website. My brothers are, in order of age, living up north, and again, a person too young to have a website. At some point soon I'll be collecting links for my aunts, uncle, and cousins. ^_^

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Message Services
(Please see the notes below the Comment Policy before sending me a message)
AIM:
lloannna
ICQ:
29395930
Yahoo:
lloannna

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My CafePress Designs

Even More CafePress Designs

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Star Wars: Episode 3 Line (Hollywood)
My Star Wars Line page

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NaNoWriMo 2007:
My Novel: Cipere Lumen




NaNoWriMo 2006:
My Novel: The Manatee Conspiracy




NaNoWriMo 2005:
My Novel: Beyond the Cliffs of Kefira





NaNoWriMo 2004:
My Novel: sul Okyar tir taTz'ileea

 
A proposal I'd vote for   Election Season Extended -- Candidates, Voters Demand Answers

Columbus, OH -- The observation of Daylight Savings Time has forced the election season to be extended by an hour as of 2am this Sunday, thanks to an antiquated piece of World War I era legislation and an act passed by often-criticized then-President Richard Nixon.

"I can't believe I have to live through another hour of this nightmare -- that's probably worth ten or fifteen poorly made commercials filled with overblown and unprovable accusations, in the middle of my shows!" Ms. Keira Thomas of Gahanna exclaimed when we spoke to her, and other local citizens, at area malls this Saturday. "Why couldn't they have put this extra hour after the election?"

Why, indeed? Libertarian Franklin County Board of Supervisors candidate Shoshona Richards has joined forces with her Constitution Party and Independent opponents in adding this issue to their platforms: "Even if I lose -- which I mean, you know, is going to happen this time, I'm pretty sure -- you have to admit, it's a real problem. I don't ordinarily like letting government fix anything except their own messes, but you've gotta understand, this is one of their messes."

She and her fellow third-party candidates are pushing the front-runners in their race to pass a resolution delaying all future Daylight Savings Time changeovers to happen in such a way that they won't frustrate voters in Presidential election years. "It just says that in national election years, Daylight Savings Time within the county limits won't go into effect until 2am the day after the election," Ms. Richard's Independent opponent, Douggie Sandler, explained on Friday. Ohio's election season, which starts at the beginning of March, would be shorter by an hour each national election year if the national election happened before the Daylight Savings switch, instead of after, as it does now.

Backers are hoping that other counties in Ohio will follow Franklin County's lead before the 2008 election, which already promises to be contentious.

"It's going to be impossible to retain our sanity as it is, no matter who wins this year," political analyst Debbie Carson told us on Friday at her Columbus office. "If Kerry wins, the Republicans will go crazy, and we'll be looking at anti-Kerry ads two years before the election actually starts. If Bush wins, we'll have to sit through the nightmare that will be constant anti-Hillary Clinton attack ads. It seems small, but an extra hour added to that, right near the end, is enough to cause serious stress to the voting public."

Most of the Board of Supervisors candidates we spoke to said this proposal was necessary almost entirely because Ohio's a swing state, subjected to extra attention. All of them said they felt that the sheer amount of political coverage has caused real harm to Ohio's residents. Psychiatrist Rudolph Adams agrees.

"It's a perception thing, sure, but all of my patients were sick of this election a month ago. One of my guys has seven personalities -- we've made real progress this week, because they finally all agreed on one thing: this election has got to end as soon as possible. Of course he's got some problems connecting to reality, and half of his personalities have formed a rebellion; they insist that the election is already over, and won't do anything at all until the others agree. It's really a nightmare. My schedule is so full this week; the only reason I'm taking time out to vote is because if I don't, there seems to be a chance that we'll have to extend the election past this Tuesday to figure out who really won. Now, while I'd really like to be able to finally afford that yacht I've always wanted, I'm not sure my own psyche could handle another month of this."

The backers of the Franklin County proposal admit there are some problems with their plan. The Uniform Time Act of 1974 makes it clear that it is the state government that dictates whether it will participate in Daylight Savings or not. The time of observance isn't up for debate -- it's spelled out quite clearly. But the proposal's supporters just don't care. "They can say it's an hour earlier all they want, I guess," Ms. Richards conceded. "But we're just not going to agree. From the last Sunday in October, 2008, until the first Wednesday after the first Monday in November, we'll all pretend they're not talking."

Some members of the Board of Supervisors are concerned about the precedent such action might set: "What's next, are we going to just decide that some Presidential candidates aren't running for office, and take them off the ballot?" asked an annoyed staffer who asked to remain annonymous. "We can't dictate the terms of our reality. We have to submit to the will of the universe." The proposal's supporters remain unconvinced.

"That's just the rantings of an uninspired bureaucratic underling. The Peter Principle, remember that..." was the response we got from Independent candidate Sandler.

In general, most people we asked thought that putting off that extra hour of time by a half week was a great idea. "Every second we don't find ourselves sitting through a campaign commercial, talking to a pollster, or watching a demonstration or rally completely disrupt traffic, is a great thing," Westerville resident Sandy Gilbert said outside of the Easton Wendy's. "I almost feel like they're stealing my life from me with this adding an hour deal. Why can't they wait a week? The only people who'll be complaining are the guys who sell earplugs and antiacid."

The Democrat and Republican running for the seat Richards and Sandler are competing for declined to comment on the proposal, for fear of having to spend more money on last-minute radio spots on the subject. Regardless of how the proposal pans out, backers are already looking to the future. "If it can't get through the board of supervisors, we'll just take it to the state house. Or maybe a referendum or something. I don't care -- I just don't want to have to endure any more election season than is absolutely necessary." Backers are also looking into the possibility of having Ohio's election take place on the Friday before the Daylight Savings switch each year. "Whatever it takes," Richards vowed. "Whatever it takes."

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(yes, that was a parody -- but you try living in Ohio during a national election and THEN tell me it's not a good idea, darn it)
posted by Sarah at 9:58 AM. | 0 comments |

 
Difficult Choices   Ack! This evening I finished watching my tapes of last week's "Lost" and "West Wing" (I was at a NaNoWriMo Columbus meeting at the best Borders I've ever been in), finished my comfort food dinner. Now, I realized at around 4pm -- which was the time I woke up, more than 14 hours after going to bed the previous evening -- that it'd been more than a week since I had a day off from dealing with the world at large; considering the overall absence of nearly psychotic "LEAVE ME ALONE NOW I MUST GET AWAY FROM YOU PEOPLE STOP TALKING TO ME ARRRRRGHHH" thoughts and random comments form myself to other people yesterday I think I handled the social overload rather well!) since... well, at least my birthday (if you don't count my birthday as a real day off, it's more like 11 days), so I was rather overdue for some intense relaxation.

Anyway, I finished watching the tapes, put away the stuff I moved into the living room to watch them, washed my dishes -- and then, as I was getting ready to transfer back down to the basement for the evening, I got to channel 49 -- Spike TV -- and found "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes playing. Whoa, I thought, that's cool. A commercial came -- one chance to briefly scan around and see if anything more compelling is on -- and so I moved to Channel 50, TNT. Which had "Stand By Me" on.

Yes, that's right, I had to choose between awesome Wil Wheaton related Star Trek episodes, and awesome Wil Wheaton AND Jerry O'Connell filled Stephen King novella-cum-movie goodness. What a crisis!

In the end I chose "Stand By Me," because it comes on less frequently than Star Trek, and the Star Trek episodes on didn't have Wil in them. Would that all the choices we have to face this week were this inconsequential...

Anyway, that's what I did today. Very exciting, yes? Of course yes!

(I did other stuff, too, don't worry -- progress was made on the constructed language for my NaNovel, a title was selected, message board posts were made, etc. -- though really, my whole system apparently declared a vacation on me without any kind of a planning meeting or formal announcement, and I'd hardly call this evening spectacularly productive; about the only thing of consequence I've done since waking up is fill the car with gas)
posted by Sarah at 4:01 AM. | 0 comments |

 
Happy birthday to ME!   I'm now, officially, 24 years old.

Well, all right, fine. In about 14 hours and 25 minutes, I'll be 24 years old. I've been struggling not to say I'm 24 for the last ten months -- it'll be interesting to see if I try spending most of the next year trying to avoid saying I'm 25.

One year ago today I was performing as a dancer in "Store Search: The Search for the Next American Icon", at the Disneyland Stores Party talent show in Disney's California Adventure. I wore a Mickey Mouse "Happy Birthday" sticker as part of my costume for one number. That made me a lot more well-known within my department. ^_^

Tonight, I may go and see "Uncle Vanya" at CATCO. Stay tuned.
posted by Sarah at 3:19 AM. | 0 comments |

 
Candidate Match   So, I decided to take the Candidate Match thing at our local CBS affiliate's website:

10TV Candidate Match

Amongst the Presidential candidates, I got the following scores of agreement:

Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) -- 2,000
George Bush (Republican) -- 1,400
Michael A. Peroutka (Constitution) -- 1,400
John F. Kerry (Democratic) -- -200


As to the Senatorial race in Ohio, the results were similar:

George Voinovich (Republican) -- 1,150
Eric D. Fingerhut (Democratic) -- -200


And, for my Congressional district... (the Ohio 7th)

Dave Hobson (Republican) -- 1,850
Kara Anastasio (Democratic) -- -750



What's interesting to me? My congressional Republican candidate ranks higher than the President, while my senatorial Republican candidate ranks lower than the Constitution party Presidential candidate (!!!). More interestingly, the congressional candidate, Hobson, ranks closer to the Libertarian candidate (overall, though not much on the specific issues) than the President does. Weird. I have to wonder if the senatorial Democratic candidate, Fingerhut, has the same platform as Kerry. That would seem to me an unwise tactic, and there are other reasons to explain why he and Kerry have identical agreement scores (when compared to me), since of course this thing is based on calculating "distance from agreement" and then adding "how relevant to the voter" multipliers. In other words, there are many roads that lead to a -200 score.

And meanwhile, I don't feel nearly as bad about voting a "party" ticket as I usually do (it seems intellectually weak), as the agreement scores here are pretty straightforward. I have no intention of voting for the Constitution party candidate, and I feel that in this case, in this place, a vote for Badnarik would be irresponsible. It's mildly comforting that he and I agree overall, but when you look at some of the places where we disagree most strongly (i.e. where I said "very important" he said "not important", or he said "strongly disagree" to my "strongly agree"), it's quite frankly a matter of non-negotiable matters. I wouldn't go so far as to take a "single issue voter" stance ala InstaPundit, but I can't in good conscience take the Libertarian party seriously this year.

Last time around (my first election EVER) was different. We weren't at war. For crying out loud, look at what was dominating the news cycle from April 2000 to September 10th 2001. Doesn't anyone else remember how much airtime was being granted to Gary Condit? It was easy, and largely relevant, to sit in a nifty "debate watching" event with John Glenn and say on regional news networks that I didn't see any material difference between the two candidates, based on what they were saying. I see a difference now. End of story.

The fact that I agree with Bush so much more than I agree with Kerry is, quite frankly, icing on the cake of responsibility.
posted by Sarah at 2:20 AM. | 0 comments |

 
Best. Idea. Ever.   "Wouldn't it be cool if Sean and I did some book signings and things together? When I finish his book, I'm going to call him and suggest it."
posted by Sarah at 4:03 PM. | 0 comments |

 
Revising a Wish List   So. It's come to my attention recently that my Amazon wish list hasn't been updated in forever, and also isn't that useful, because it's too big and isn't prioritized particularly well. Okay then, says I, let's start over!

Entry number one is a bit pricey and isn't available yet, but has the advantage of being something I could really use:




I've seen what Glenn Reynolds did with his, and I LIKE this camera. So there.
posted by Sarah at 11:07 PM. | 0 comments |

 
State of the Novel Report 1   Ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, honored NaNoWriMo participants, beloved guests:

Today I stand before you a writer of... well, not much of anything, yet, because National Novel Writing Month doesn't start for another three weeks. And yet still I feel in my heart that great progress towards my ongoing project has been made.

Work has begun on pre-writing; why, this very day, we have successfully identified our heroine's goals, why we're writing this story -- even, in fact, the central point of conflict about which the entire work revolves! Do not say, "where is the first chapter," for that time is not yet come. Say, instead, "these are definitely writing exercises," for we have a ton of those. Each day we have produced a five-minute exercise on a random topic -- and for the last several exercises, we have gone so far as to write these exercises from the point of view of our main character!

Yet there is still much work to do -- there are as yet many maps, many diagrams, even many character biographies to produce. We have a limited amount of time, and blogging may be limited. But do not worry, as from this day forth there will be a daily word count of at least 3000 amongst all my published works, whether they be here on this blog, or at the LiveJournal, or in such articles and essays as we may, from time to time, make available on the internet. I cannot say that these words will all be good -- but they will be plentiful, as we are gearing up for the trial that is a deadline of 50,000 words written in a short 30 day period. And hey, isn't the blogosphere at least as much about volume as it is about quality? I know you know it's true.

In the next few days, look forward to seeing more information about the actual project at hand. Perhaps even new and interesting forms of content that are as yet in development. Weep not for the lack of words on this blog, for they are being sacrificed for a greater cause. And in any event this blog shall resume its undirected verbosity after the first of December.

Thank you, my friends, and good night.
posted by Sarah at 10:48 PM. | 0 comments |

 
Irregular Tuesday Song Lyrics!   Okay, this has been a perennial favorite of mine. It always manages to remind me not to be so gosh darned introspective (which I tend to be nearly all the time). It's U2's "Stuck in a Moment", which amongst other things was the theme I picked for Queen/Senator Amidala for the interactive speculative fiction project (isn't that a mouthful?) StarWarsII -- specifically from Obi-Wan's perspective (he thought she was way too introspective, too):

I'm not afraid of anything in this world...
There's nothing you can throw at me, that I haven't already heard.

I'm just trying to find a decent melody:
A song that I can sing in my own company.

I never thought you were a fool -- but darling look at you.
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight;
These tears are going nowhere, baby...


[Chorus]
You've got to get yourself together,
You've got stuck in a moment --
And now you can't get out of it.

Don't say that later will be better;
Now you're stuck in a moment,
And you can't get out of it.


I will not forsake the colors that you bring.
The nights you filled with fireworks -- they left you with nothing.

I am still enchanted by the light you brought to me.
I listen through your ears, through your eyes I can see.

And you are such a fool, to worry like you do.
I know it's tough, and you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need, now.
My, oh my.

You've got to get yourself together,
You've got stuck in a moment --
And now you can't get out of it.

Oh love, look at you now:
You've got yourself stuck in a moment,
And you can't get out of it.

I was unconscious, half asleep...
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep.

I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall --
It's a long way down to nothing at all.

[Chorus]

And if the night runs over, and if the day won't last...
And if our way should falter along the stony pass;

And if the night runs over, and if the day won't last..
And if your way should falter, along this stony pass:

It's just a moment;
This time will pass.

Now off to NaNoWriMo exercises and the rest of my Institute prep with me!
posted by Sarah at 1:54 AM. | 0 comments |

 
Some stuff that isn't on this blog...   While I haven't updated the blog since I left for Michigan (trip report is coming soon!), I HAVE updated the LiveJournal. Not only does it have a spiffy (and possibly grammatically correct) Latin title, it also has the first two NaNoWriMo exercises (five minute writings with single-word prompts) I've done. I'll probably do today's (Thursday's) early tomorrow evening. What's bizarre is that if I typed as fast and as determinedly DURING National Novel Writing Month (EXPANDED ACRONYM EXPLANATIONS GO!) as I have for these time-sensitive exercises, I could write the entire thing in three hours. Okay, okay, a little less than 12, actually. But still. A novel in a DAY? Might be worth a shot in, say, January.
posted by Sarah at 1:10 AM. | 0 comments |