Not Out of the Woods Yet

It might seem like I have a bit of a one-track mind lately - and you know what? I do. Normally, I don't like to know what's going on in the world. I'm kind of known for how rarely I pick up a newspaper, for my total refusal to watch the news on TV. That's because everything that is deemed newsworthy by the media is awful and not something I want to spend my time thinking about. If this makes me intentionally ignorant, then I guess I'll have to own to that and move on, because nothing, not even this mess in the Gulf of Mexico, is likely to change my mind about the rock I live under.

I first heard about the oil leak a few weeks ago, when it had been going on for a while. My brother and our friend Clayton were talking about it as we headed down to the river, and to be honest, I thought they were exaggerating. The more I heard about it, the more I realised that they weren't, that the situation was every bit as bad as they said it was. Right before the whole thing with the beach and the dead fish, I did some research and was totally horrified by the crap BP was dishing out. I was also more than a little freaked about the debates going on online - and the fact that most of them seem to surround the question of whether BP will end the year in the red or in the black. The more I read, the more I became convinced that we're screwed. By we, I mean the whole planet. I don't think that any giant boats in China are likely to save us this time, with Chiwetel Ejiofor's help or not.

What's weird is that even though I really believed this was the end (and I don't think we're anywhere close to out of the woods yet), I couldn't bring myself to do anything. I haven't been writing, because all I could think about is that there wasn't any point, that I might not even live to see another book published. I've spent the past couple of weeks on autopilot, not wanting to put any effort into anything. That makes no sense, though, because I should have been running around, working my ass off to complete everything on the semi-formed bucket list I've had in my head for my whole life, instead of just going numb and crazy, not wanting to work toward anything and at the same time, making plans for a future I didn't believe in.

I found out about half an hour ago that the top kill thing (basically pouring mud into the oil well) has kind of worked, ish, that they've significantly slowed the amount of oil flowing into the ocean. Now, I have no idea if this is true or if it's just another big load of shit from BP, but when I read that news, I literally burst into tears.

Now I just feel inspired to do stuff. All stuff. I want to work out, get a good body so I can get a tattoo or 80. I've always wanted one, and the only thing holding me back has been my fear, not of the pain so much as that my future self won't like it. Well screw it... my present self is more important; my future self might not even exist. I want to get a job and be able to afford to live the way I want, I want to reconnect with old friends, and get rid of the unhealthy influences in my life. I want to climb Burges and go on multiple-day hikes. I want to find true love, which means I want to believe in true love. Right now, I want to do everything.

A Day at the Beach

I was really, really excited to go to the beach today. I'd only been swimming once this year, on a day when it was really too cold to be swimming, so I was looking forward to spending some time in the water, if for no other reason than to spend some time not thinking about the problems we're having in other bodies of water around the world *cough*gulf*cough*. We drove to Turkey Point, stopping at a nice little cafe for cheeseburgers along the way (I shouldn't eat cheese, I know, but I love it too much) and arrived happy, if a little confused by the relative lack of activity on the beach. We parked the car and by the time we reached the actual sand, the calm of the beach was starting to make sense; it smelled absolutely foul. At first, we thought it was just where we were, gasses from a nearby stormdrain or something, so we moved. We moved twice before we decided that no, it really was the water. No matter, we thought, we would just sit on the beach and enjoy ourselves and try to ignore the overpowering stench blowing in off the water.

There were these neat little birds by the water, all black with white eyes, and I decided that I was going to sneak up on one and get a picture, so off I went. The smell from the water was awful, but I figured I would brave it. The bird flew away before I could even get it in focus, but the closer I got to the water, the more I realized that the little bits of drifwood and garbage floating on the waves were neither driftwood nor garbage. They were fish. A lot of fish.

Combine that with the thick, purplish haze hanging in the otherwise clear blue sky and you have what I consider to be a fairly horrifying situation. Add the fact that thousands of barrels worth of oil are spewing into the gulf of Mexico per day, that given their history, the situation on any given day is likely to be 1,000 times worse than BP is willing to admit, and I'm pretty sure we have the first sign of Armageddon. Lucky us.

What's really awful is that I've had a horrible feeling about this whole oil leak business for days, horrible, as in: time to pack up and head for the mountains - and I've been telling myself that I'm being paranoid or overreacting or something. Then I get to the beach and see this. We really are all going to die.

I think I'm going to be sick.

My family has been talking a lot about the oil leak the past couple of days. It's almost funny to think that the world really could end in 2012. If they don't do something to stop this, we'll all suffocate.

They is kind of ambiguous term. They are the people who have some sort of grasp of science, some idea of how you would even try to stop something like this... and for some reason, the they that are in charge of - if we're being realistic - the fate of the world are the same dumb bastards who caused this in the first place.

BP. I don't care how much overtime they were offering, what incentives they were giving, if I worked for them, I'd have jumped ship as soon as I found out about this. As if it's not bad enough that they've pretty well doomed the planet, BP's spokespeople seem content to lie repeatedly about the scope of the damages they have caused and the liklihood that they'll be able to fix them.

BP's publicised* estimates are that the leak is pumping five thousand barrels of oil into the water per day. Every non-BP estimate ranges from twenty to over approximately one hundred thousand barrels of oil leaking per day. BP has managed to recover a huge amount of oil. 5,000 barrels a day, as a matter of fact. So how is it that the oil is still leaking? Hmm, let us ponder. Could it be because their 5,000 barrel per day leak estimate is a big load of horse shit? Yes, I think it could be because of that.

Oh, another fun fact. BP won't let any independent scientists collect data from the spill itself, because apparently, how much oil is actually spilling into the gulf is irrelevant - in fact, knowing might detract from the effort to stop the leak. Now, it could just be me being dumb and blonde and uneducated and female, but I would think that actually having facts about the problem might help them figure out the best way to stop it.

I can just imagine the heads of BP discussing this:

Sir, maybe we should let some independents look at this, so they'll know what we're dealing with and be able to help. Are you crazy? Then they'll know what a colossal cock up we've made of this. What else have you got? Um... we could see if we could drill that relief well we've been planning since last month. No, wait. Better idea. We'll drop a big dome on it. Wait, that didn't work? Let's drop a smaller dome on top of the big one. Wait, the exact same thing happened as what happened with the first dome? No problem, we'll fill leak with mud. No, better: pressurised garbage. Sounds good to me. Let me know if nothing works and the species is about to die. No, better just call me if you stop it.

So there we go. I'm pretty sure we're all at least mostly doomed. Time to eat drink and be merry, everyone; tomorrow you might be dead.

*there's a lot to suggest that their internal estimates are much higher.

100?

Apparently, this is my 100th post. I don't know; that number seems low to me.

I feel like I should be making it a 100 best post, or a look back at all the things I've blogged about, but iunno. Maybe I'll do that with my 1000th post or something. Right now I want to muse about why, after going to bed post-4:00am, I woke up at 8:00 and then couldn't get back to sleep. It's not that I'm not tired. I had nightmares half the night (or half of half the night, I guess), but I managed to get to sleep after the last one that I remember, so I know it wasn't them keeping me up.

I'm super sore from my workout yesterday. For some reason, the area where I go to work out was swarming with preteen boys yesterday. I don't know if it was a youth group or what, but 30+ boys decended on the equipment and the area where I stretch, so as a result, I didn't stretch properly, then had to run to keep ahead of them... and now I'm in pain. It's nice that they're doing stuff outside; I just wish they were doing it elsewhere.

There are so many places to buy Aigaion Girl online now. There's even one site that's renting it. This makes me incredibly happy. Also, I found out today that copies not sold direct from Amazon.com can take up to 60 days to show up in my sales history, so I could (in theory, knock on wood and all that) have sold copies that I don't even know about.

Also, in A/G news, I gave it to my sister for the tour and she gave it to her boyfriend, who gave it to a friend of his. Her boyfriend said he liked it, but didn't like the pacing, and then didn't elaborate, because he said my sister would glare at him if he did, so I'm still not 100% sure what he meant. So far, he's the only person I know of who hasn't liked it, so my batting average is still pretty high.

Now, I'm off to watch some SVU before people start trying to use the computer... at some point today, I guess I have to apply for a bunch more jobs, too.

Ugh.

It's nearly three in the morning and I'm still up, mainly because megavideo is a jerk and constantly decides after about 55 minutes that I've watched 72 minutes of video and cuts me off for half an hour. And because I'm addicted to Law & Order SVU. I've got maybe ten minutes before I can watch the rest of my episode, and then I'll probably try to watch another one because I'm a glutton for punishment.

In other TV related news, OH MY GOD, HOUSE! Season finalle was SO much better than the SPN one, mainly because SPN's was sad and House's was AMAZING.

I applied for eight million jobs today. Hopefully I'll get one.

OH! Apparently, William Shatner, Michael Dorn and James Marsters are ALL going to be at FanExpo this year. Holy fucking god, people. If I actually meet Michael Dorn, I'm going to go all squee and fall down. I'mna have to make a Worf chibi now... and prolly some extra Kirk stuff.

Also, I've found the place where I want to have the Aigaion Girl signing party... I just need $150 to fall out of the sky so I can rent it, and to possibly borrow some industrial water heaters from my Gran.

Ookie, come ooooon, SVU. I'm tired and I wanna go to bed.

Did I Say You Could Stop Believing?

I just realized that I completely forgot to write the rest of my update on May 7th, and now I have no idea what I planned to say. So, a new update:

1. I'm still sick, but not as sick.

2. Aigaion Girl is available in 8,000,000 (27) countries around the world.

3.The A/G WORLD TOUR (not tm) started yesterday. Moloch and the book head to Mississauga and from there, who knows? (you can follow the tour's progress here, here, here or here.)

4. My Twitter searched itself for Justin Bieber; I swear to God. I should have taken a screen cap; it was so effing weird.

5. I'm babysitting the office today; getting a fair bit of my own work done.

6. Now that we have Interwebz back, I plan to update this site and Devereaux Court a lot more often, starting with a rather lengthy post about gender bias in the book market.

7. I don't have this many things; I just feel like I should stretch this out to ten points.

8. The stuff for FanExpo is coming together nicely. I'm still trying to figure out how many books to bring.

9. I'm madly in love with my chiropractor.

10. I don't really have a chiropractor.

Don't Stop Believing

I'm listening to that song right now. The original. The Glee version has its merits, but it's over-referenced.

Anywhom, a quick update, while I'm waiting for my ride: I'm still sick, though not as sick as I was at my last post. I had been getting better, but I got caught out in a kick ass thunderstorm, and very, very wet. Now I think I've got a cold on top of my chest infection, but I'm fighting it off.

I spent yesterday making bookmarks and stuff for FanExpo, as well as working on the instruction sheet for Aigaion Girl's WORLD TOUR(tm(not really))... and now I have to cut this short because my ride's almost here.