I am not impressed by Shawn Johnson. I don't care that I live in Des Moines. I don't like the girl. She was already overexposed for me before the games ever began, as I'm in Iowa, and for the last few months, you couldnt' watch a single show without seeing her face at least once. Watching Nastia Liukin these past couple of weeks, and I'm even less impressed by her. Nastia is an amazing athlete and she should have won a lot more gold after winning gold in the all-around. She was totally screwed in last night's uneven bars competition, and I'm pretty sure after I watch her on the balance beam in a few minutes, that I'll think she was screwed again. Unless Nastia falls, there's no way that Shawn Johnson deserved gold over her.

edit: I just watched it and ya know what? TOTAL fucking screwjob! Nastia deserved that fucking gold. Nastia is graceful and gorgeous on that beam. Shawn lumbers on there and has no grace whatsoever. Even just walking she's like a gorilla. Ugh.

I hate that the judges are all in Shawn's ass, as though she never makes a mistake. They point out everyone else's and hers they don't even mention. They just swore that she did no balance checks at all. I don't know exactly what they call a balance check, but I saw her wobble at least twice with no mention of it at all. She barely sticks her landings and they still say she's perfect. And once she returns home, there will be even more hoopla over her. Ugh! I'm tired of Shawn Johnson!

On non-gymnastics Olynpic notes: I'm still pissed off at Michael Phelps for laughing like a fucking idiot during his medal ceremony as the anthem was playing. They gave shit to Usain Bolt for basically enjoying his world record win before he got across the finish line, but nobody said shit about the amazing amount of disrespect that Phelps showed during that ceremony for the relay. I don't give a shit how many gold medals you win. You are representing my country, and goddammit, you better respect it.

I want to fucking CRY for Lolo Jones! She's an amazing athlete and when she clipped that hurdle, my stomach clenched. I can't believe after all she went through, she didn't even medal. I do, however, commend her for being strong about it. Poor Lolo.

So, apparently, because of the writer's strike (and fuck you motherfuckers, too, that ruined my television viewing and now my movie viewing because, in the end, you got fucking greedy) they're pushing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince... until fucking next goddamned summer!!!! And what makes it worse? Why do I say Twilight? My weirdy Twilight fan sister just said that they're moving fucking TWILIGHT into the Harry Potter spot. No fucking way that piece of fucking shit gets my Harry Potter date! ARGH! See? See why I hate Twilight? It ruins the world!!

Okay, I'm done ranting. I'm just really aggravated, because I was really looking forward to HBP, especially since it's the only book that I haven't read, which means I could actually watch the movie without coming in with any preconceived notions.

So, right now, I'm on my sister's computer, still trying to figure out how to fix my own. Basically, I have a BSOD and error message and I can't get it to go away. I've found a fix on the 'net that seems to work for everyone, but the problem is that I don't have an actual Windows boot disk to use. See, Crystal has one but hers is XP Pro and mine is Home Edition. I already tried to see if it would still work and nope, it won't fix it for me. The disk that came with my computer is an e-machines recovery disk and will not grant me access to just the Windows OS on there so I can run the recovery console. It only lets me reinstall and HELLO I don't want to do that until I can get my fucking LIFE back off of this damn hard drive.

So, what's the next step? Why, taking out the hard drive, of course. More specifically, remove the hard drive, slave it into another computer so I can back everything up, and then putting it back into my computer so I can reinstall Windows and go through the PIA process of reinstalling all of my programs.

Now, what's the problem, you ask, especially since I already know what has to be done? Well, that would be that I can't get the fucking hard drive out of the box!!! That's right. The way the screws are in there, I can't reach them because I don't have one of those super tiny screw drivers that will let me reach in it. So, I'm guessing that I need to just carry the entire thing over to the other computer, do it all with the hard drive still in the case, and then bring it all the way back to my desk.

Again, you may ask. Problem? Yes, I know what to do. The problem is that I need help to do it and even though it's after midnight, my sister who was going to help me still isn't home. After going to Adventureland with the family all day, she then had to go to the state fair with her friends, and her cell phone is off so I can't even call her to ask her a simple question. So now, I'm stuck. I know what needs to be done, have an idea that it will probably work and my life date won't all be lost, but I don't have the means to do it. I'm not going to go digging around in her computer without her here. Besides, she knows more about this stuff than I do.

I'm an overly emotional person. I know this. I've already been diagnosed with an emotional disorder. I can't control my emotions, literally, and they take me over. It was better for a while, but the last few weeks it's been getting worse and worse. Now, I'm just like, REALLY? I see all this stuff happening to me (oh yeah, there's more, I just haven't gone into all of it) and I'm just ready to cry. I feel helpless and useless and life hates me and yeah... I'm just gonna fucking cry and have a nervous breakdown. Those aren't fun.

Shit. I feel like my icon. And my mood thing.

/edit: So, I got it to work by running the chkdsk thing with the XP Pro disc, though it took like five or six hours to run. So, for the time being, I'm back up with my computer. However, I'm still thinking about backing everything up and then just reinstalling the OS anyway just to be safe.

( dear black people )

So the first guy in this letter came into the store today and, as it's kinda uncomfortable in the store with no air, I was already in not the greatest of moods and he just irked me, which spurned this little rant. The bible lady is a specific case, as is glasses guy, but the AA section people are many and they get on my motherfucking nerves. I AM NOT YOUR BUDDY!!!!

This is why I'm tempted to start a Black in Iowa blog. I watched pieces of Black in America and found myself rather annoyed. That doesn't represent me. And ya know what? I'm willing to bet that if I did a blog (which would include a lot less profanity than my angry open letter LoL), it would show more racism from the black side than from white people. That's what I've seen so far, and that's what I expect to continue to see. Stop seeing racism everywhere!! It's not there as much as ya'll like to claim.

1. Candy Girl by Diablo Cody (biography)
2. The Rising by Brian Keene (horror)
3. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (fiction)
4. Footfree and Fancyloose by Elizabeth Craft & Sarah Fain (young adult)
5. Gaspipe - Confessions of a Mob Boss by Philip Carlo (true crime)
6. The Last Godfather - The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino by Simon Crittle (true crime)