Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in render's LiveJournal:

Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
9:47 pm	The Church I never remember to read this thing, much less post. Shame on me. Anyway, I was wondering... is anyone in Austin going to the Church at La Zona Rosa next Thursday? (I'm going with Lance and his friends... and we have one extra ticket as well.) http://www.lazonarosa.com/index.cfm?Fuseaction=EventDetail&EventID=4051 (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 5th, 2005
1:44 am	Wtf You scored as Justice (Fairness). Your life is guided by the concept of Fair Justice: Everyone, yourself included, should be rewarded and punished according to the help or harm they cause. "He who does not punish evil commands it to be done." --Leonardo da Vinci “Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.” --Dwight D. Eisenhower More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... </td> Justice (Fairness) 80% Hedonism 75% Existentialism 75% Utilitarianism 70% Strong Egoism 55% Kantianism 30% Apathy 20% Nihilism 15% Divine Command 0% What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com Current Mood: peaceful Current Music: Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
7:45 am	I want to cry. There is no way we're getting through 4 more years of this without him packing the Supreme Court with bigots, setting the country back a good 30 years of civil rights progress. Not to mention continuing the momentum of Iraq as a terrorist breeding ground and uniting the rest of the World against not only our government, but We the People. As cynical as I an, I honestly didn't believe there were so many complete idiots out there. I'm not even sure Jon Stewart and Bill Maher can get me through this with some semblance of sanity left. How much is real estate in Vancouver? Current Mood: crushed (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 14th, 2004
5:56 pm	Paris in the Rain The weather here is crazy; it's very Texas-like. It's been cold and rainy one moment, and sunny and borderline hot the next for the entire time we've been here. The rain has kind of put a crimp in our sight-seeing. Which may be all well and good... I think I'm about museum'd and monument'd out. So far we've seen the Orsay, the Louvre, the Pompadou (Modern Art), Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Arch d'Triumph, Notre Dame, and I probably left something out. Current Mood: drained Current Music: some weird French rap (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 10th, 2004
11:22 pm	Nice Well, Nice is nice, but as usual, we won't be here long enough to see much of anything. All the restaurants here are more expensive than we were used to from Italy, but surprisingly, the hotel was dirt cheap (45 € for both of us), and is reasonably nice considering the price. There seems to be a little more of a criminal element here than Italy, and Bern is scared to walk around at night, so we're just hanging out at an Internet cafe near the hotel. Just had the most wonderful Lebanese food at this place called Marmaris. I don't think I've ever had Lebanese food before... it's Middle-Eastern, of course, and a lot like Greek or Persian, but it was very spicy and flavorful. And it had the best rice I've ever had in my life. I thought it was some other kind of grain at first, like an exotic couscous, but it was just a perfumed rice. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the answer when I asked the guy what kind it was.. he spoke really fast. You know, it's a lot harder to get by here than Italy without knowing the language, surprisingly. Much fewer natives seem to know English, even though the city is heavily touristed. Still, people have been fairly nice. I think the language barrier is intimidating Bernie, though. He just does not have the knack for speaking French, even just reading phrases out of the book. Imagine Peggy Hill's Spanish, but without the false confidence. :) It's cute. Bullet train to Paris (TGV) tomorrow morning. Wheeeee. Au revoir. Current Mood: chipper (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 8th, 2004
10:32 pm	Firenze Ok, I only have 7 minutes left according to the annoying little always-on-top box in the corner of my screen at this Internet cafe,so this'llbeshort. Oh, and thespace bar sticks. Whee. Why doall Internet cafes in Italia use Winbloze 98?? Anyway, sucky Internet cafes notwithstanding, Florence rocks,and I wanna move here and live here forever. I wish NI did Sabbaticals. Observations: 1) Even bad food in Italy is good. 2) Italian men can get away with wearing capri pants in a way no straight American guy could. 3) There is no third observation. 4) The whole country has a powerful gaydar-jamming device in effect. All Italian men dress well, or if not, they look good dressing badly, and they don't avoid eye contact. 5) I have 1 minute left, so I guess the next entry will be from Nice. 6) Ciao. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 6th, 2004
10:26 pm	Ciao Bella As promised, my first entry from my European vacation. This keyboard is strange. Look at all these weird keys I don't need: ìèéòçà°ù§. But I can type £'s and €'s. Oooh. Ok, so traveling 22 hours straight really sucks, because I absolutely cannot sleep on planes. But, nothing went terribly wrong, really, just a bunch of minor annoyances, like waiting 45 minutes for our luggage to come out at Gatwick when we had to be at the other airport, 70 miles away, to catch our plane to Rome. So we took the Gatwick Express train to London, and road the Underground to another train station (difficult because the direct line was unexpectedly closed for repairs), and then road the Stansted Express to Stansted airport, where we sat next to some charming mullet-wearing, Beck-beer guzzling (8 am on a Sunday) lesbians. We got there just in time, but wound up sitting in the plane for an hour anyway while they fixed some minor electrical problem (a bad monitor, apparently). It's now obvious why Ryan Air is so cheap - no free anything on the plane; everything is à la carte, at crazy prices like 2.50£ for a cup of tea. They should've at least given us free drinks while we waited. But the 3 male flight attendants were nice eye candy, or they would've been if I hadn't been up for 24 hours. And actually, in America I'd probably go to jail for saying that, because they were really young - they couldn't have been out of high school... I guess Ryan Air also saves money buy paying salaries only high school students would work for. Anyway, we made it to Roma Ciampino airport, and after a bus and a long metro ride carrying really, really havy packs (why the heck did I pack all that crap!?), we made it to Roma Termini train station, which is to be our home base in Rome. But when we finally got to the hotel we had planned to stay in, the door as locked and we couldn't get in, so we had to scramble to find another one at the last minute. But it all worked out, the one we randomly picked is very nice and was only 30 €/person. So this morning we overslept from jet lag and missed the Vatican tour (turns out the travel alarm doesn't have a snooze, who knew). And then we panicked when our American Express Travelfunds cards didn't work at the ATM, er, bancomat in the train station, and spent quite a while figuring out how to call American Express collect from a payphone, only to eventually find out the ATM just didn't take AMEx. We walked down the street and it worked fine. Woohoo. So, enough complaining... everything else today went swimmingly, and Rome is a really incredible city. Colliseum, Roman Forum, Parthanon, Trevi Foundtain, good food... But my Internet Cafe time's almost up, and Bernie's waiting, so you'll have to wait for the next entry for details. Buone notte. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 30th, 2004
11:44 am	First Post Ok, so I've had a live journal account for years now, and never posted anything. Here I go. Is this thing on? Bernie and I are about to go to Europe for 2 weeks, so maybe I can keep a journal on here via Internet cafes. It worked for Souxsie and Sheena, and I know there's no way I'm keeping a paper journal. My hand cramps up just paying bills (the 2 or 3 I still do by paper check)... Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (8 Comments |Comment on this)