Sheri’s blog

Why do I have to have these constant reminders of how my family upsets me?  And this email is from the one aunt that I actually like:

...is opening around the corner from me:

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/locations.html

I'm super excited.  I visited them in NYC, and it was pretty awesome.  They're a vegan cupcakeria (yes, I just made up that term) who also make gluten-free cupcakes.  They also have vegan donuts.  I am so excited, I can't tell you.  And what are the chances that they would open a west coast shop literally right around the corner from me?  I can walk to get donuts in the morning in my pajamas.  Assuming that when the bank forecloses on my building, that I'll actually still be able to live there.  But that's a different topic.

Speaking of my building, H&R Block shot a commercial there last night, and for the past week, the lobby has been different stages of a fake office.  For all of my inconvenience, I received $150 cash.  I'm quite okay with that.  The first $100 was for the inconvenience.  The $50 was for putting my blinds up and turning on my lights yesterday from 4 PM to 10 PM.  Which was totally fine.  Please, shoot something complicated every week. 

Crap.

What's the longest you've ever waited in line?

Isn't life just like one long line? 

Something to think about. 

Or not.

I think the thing that haunts me the most about my trip to New York back in June are these:

Oobject_15_housing_projects_from_hell_coney_island_0905_small

Giant, monolithic housing projects.  On the train from Manhattan to Brooklyn, they dot the landscape.  One after another after another.  Sometimes, in big groups.  It's one of the most depressing things I've ever seen, and somehow, this is acceptable in the United States.  I understand low-income housing is shitty, but this seriously gives me the chills ever time I see it.

I'm also really curious about them.  What are the people like who live there?  How many people live their entire lives in these?  The next time I'm in New York, I want to photograph the projects.  Now, I don't want to get too too close, but I'm thinking that I can get some pretty good shots from train platforms and such.  I especially like this photo because of its Holga-ness.  It makes it look even worse.  Coney Island looks pretty dingy on its own, but this photo succeeds in making it look even worse.

How many rappers are from these housing projects?  Hmm.

In my search for acceptable photos, I came across this site (which is where I snagged this photo from):

Depressing Housing Projects

Now if I could only manage to develop the photos from my last New York trip...    

Maine voters repeal gay marriage

Can anyone tell me why equal rights keep getting put up to a popular vote?  Anyone?

Ooh, pie chart time again:

ChristianHelp

Stuff I gotz for my birfday:

A co-worker pointed this out to me, and I just finished watching all 13 parts:

Zeitgeist: Addendum

Some of it is a little hard to swallow, but it's really interesting.  When you type it into the search browser on youtube, you also get a lot of videos refuting it.  Both of the Zeitgeist films attack religion on the notion that it's an outdated, limited explanation on how the world works, and prevents the progression of human society.  I would have to partially agree.  If so much hatred and so much violence didn't come out of "religious faith," I wouldn't feel this way.  But even having to walk down the street last week at the AIDS walk in Los Angeles with various Christian groups protesting the AIDS walk because, as we all know, AIDS is a gay disease, and being gay automatically sends you to the burning fires of hell, (which, by the way, you deserve to go to) made me less inclined to ever really subscribe to any mainstream religion that's based in blind faith.

The way to collect followers is not through blatant judgment and persecution.  Just a tip.

Also, what is with evangelicals that feel the need to make videos like this and/or picket dead soldiers' funerals, and their inability to spell and/or use correct punctuation and/or capitalization?

God, that was a terrible sentence.

I'm about halfway through Food Inc., and it's fucking depressing.  It's nothing that I didn't already know, but it's enough to make me wonder how anyone could continue to support big meat industry.  And most people have absolutely no idea what they're eating, let alone what they're supporting, when they eat a hamburger.  It makes me really happy that I eat lower on the trophic level.  And even if I didn't, I can't imagine eating chicken that's been soaked in chlorine or beef that's been treated with ammonia. 

There's one scene in the film where a family of four go through a drive-thru and feed everyone for a little over 11 bucks.  In the next scene, they're at the supermarket, trying to fiscally make sense of paying 99 cents a pound for fresh pears.  At the same time, the father is overweight and diabetic.  He pays somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 every fifty days for his medication. 

The documentary also touches on corn, which Michael Pollan writes about in his book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma."  Cows, for example, are not designed to eat corn.  They're designed to eat grass.  But corn is cheap.  So when you're eating cow, you're eating corn.  When you're eating chicken, you're eating corn.  When you're eating fish that's farmed, you're eating corn. 

Food Inc. covers a lot of ground, and if you're curious at all where your food comes from and how the corporations that produce it behave, it's worth watching.  Or if you just have a thing for watching farmers get effed in the A over and over again by the corporations they either work for or are competing against.

Y'know, I like money just as much as anyone, but most of our food is produced by horrible, unethical people that value money and power above all else.  When you're producing our nation's food supply, shouldn't you have some sort of ethical or moral compass?

I know that's ridiculous.  

How are you financially planning for your future?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.

Thank you, QotD, for reminding me that I can barely make ends meet, let alone save money for this so-called "future."

Bastard.