Likes: Sarcastic uses of the trademark symbol, Obama, and long walks on the beach.

--I'm finally back home!  Sadly, the past 48 hours haven't been all that great; I've been extremely tired and bleary-eyed, and as much as I love my family, I hate having to be in the same house with them.  :P  We did go to that awesome Chinese restaurant last night, though, so that was good.

--This makes me tremendously happy.

Historians will see this health care bill as a masterfully crafted piece of legislation. Obama and the Democrats managed to bring together most of the stakeholders and every single Senator in their party. The new law law untangles the dysfunctionalities of the individual insurance market while fulfilling the political imperative of leaving the employer-provided system in place. Through determined advocacy, and against special interest opposition, they put into place numerous reforms to force efficiency into a wasteful system. They found hundreds of billions of dollars in payment offsets, a monumental task in itself. And they will bring economic and physical security to tens of millions of Americans who would otherwise risk seeing their lives torn apart. Health care experts for decades have bemoaned the impossibility of such reforms--the system is wasteful, but the very waste creates a powerful constituency for the status quo. Finally, the Democrats have begun to untangle the Gordian knot. It's a staggering political task and substantive achievement.

More awesome articles here and here.

I'd be much more enthusiastic, if a.) it wasn't for the aforementioned bleariness, and b.) I hadn't gotten so burned out on the issue last summer.  >_>;

--This is also awesome.

--Watched episode 11 of Durarara!! on Saturday.  HOLY SHIT IT'S JUST GETTING BETTER AND BETTER.  XDDDDDDDDDDD  Now I'm going to be in complete and utter suspense until the next fansubs come out.  Fuck.

--Speaking of which, I'm thinking about starting a Durarara!! friending meme.  Which is craziness because I don't normally do things like that and I prefer being a lurker in any sort of fandom, but I'm slowly starting to get really involved in this one silly show and I don't know any other fans I can talk to/squee with (except maybe dreams_of_all, but that's mostly because I apparently sort of got her hooked?  Maybe?), so it might be a good idea.  I checked durarara, and there's already been four friending memes, but the last one was over a month ago, so I guess another one shouldn't hurt.  Thoughts?  :3

--lgbtfest is taking prompt submissions for this year's contest here.  I really like the concept of this fanfic contest, and the few fics I've read that have come from it I've really liked -- even though I have to admit that some of the prompts have been rather, shall we say, strange.  O_o;  Though I really, really, REALLY hope someone does these prompts, because they sound SO UTTERLY AMAZING:

( Well, I think they sound good.....D8 )

--You know what really sucks?  I found out that The Twilight Sad is going to be playing in Milford (about a half-hour drive away from where I live) on May 29th; they're touring with Mono, a post-rock band that I'm not a huge fan of, but I can certainly stand.  Here is the listing (scroll down to the second-to-last listing and you'll see it).  And I thought to myself, This is perfect!  It's a Saturday night, it's not too far from where I live, I'll be home by then so I could totally go, and it's one of my favorite bands ever.

Then I checked the info.

It's a 21-and-over show.

Guess when I'm turning 21?

June 8th.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Oh well, it looks like Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are playing there June 18th, and that's an all-ages show.  I hear they're pretty good.

But........still.  DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDX

--A couple of things I saw on the Friends of Friends list really pissed me off lately.  I want to rant about them, but it'll have to wait, considering I'm not all that coherent right now and I need to actually figure out what it was about them that pissed me off.

--In addition to having to get schoolwork done this week, I have a dentist appointment on Friday, and on Tuesday I'm going into work with my mom, where I'd be filing and doing office errands for $10/hour.  I might be working one or two more days there this week, depending on how things go.  I need the money to survive me another six weeks at college.  But.....I'm on spring break, for fuck's sake.  All I really want to do is sleep in late and marathon all the shows and movies I've been putting off for so long.  Is that really too much to ask for?

--Songs I've been obsessed with lately:

The Twilight Singers -- "When Doves Cry" (Prince cover)
Future Sound of London -- "Papua New Guinea"
Working For a Nuclear Free City -- "Kingdom"
The Replacements -- "Alex Chilton"
The Box Tops -- "The Letter"
Silversun PIckups -- "Panic Switch"

--meaisin_caoin , do you remember the questions you asked me here?  Well, it's been over a month, and I'm finally getting around to answering them.  :P

1. Reply to this meme and I will give you five words that remind me of you.
2. Then post them in your journal and explain what they mean to you.

( 1. Japan )

( 2. film/short films )

( 3. studying )

( 4. Transformers )

( 5. music )

--There are some other memes I want to catch up with -- I still owe twilit_wanderer and atelierlune something, but this post has already gone long enough as it is (even for me), so I'll call it quits for now.  :P