Squeeze the little stress ball, relax, repeat.

After dozens and dozens and dozens of messages sent out on both facebook and craigslist I am still homeless for the fall semester and fast approaching the point of panic. I remain way behind on my thesis and other summer projects, I have only two work weeks left in my internship and TONS left that I want to do before I report to the executives.

In other news, I gave blood last week for the first time ever and

1) It scared the living daylights out of me when the blood-taker guy slid the needle into my arm and joked, "Oh, you're bleeding."
2) I was loopy for most of the afternoon from losing what must surely be 1/8th of my blood supply, which was kind of fun.
3) Filling out the forms they make you sign before donating assuring them you don't have AIDS is much easier when 90% of what they're concerned about ("Did you have 'relations' with a man before 1973?") occurred in a time frame that elapsed long before you were born.
3) It was not nearly as horrible as I thought it would be and I plan on making it a regular habit.

The Finalists

Okay folks, after much thought and research - but without a test drive yet - the car search is down to its two finalists:

Volkswagen Jetta


Mazda3

Now, more depressing news:

There is a strong, strong chance I will not be buying a car until December. After thinking about it a bit, it seems that chances are fairly good I'll be able to get by this last semester without a car. And really, waiting until graduation will make the buying experience better because (a) It will feel more like a reward for waiting until I was done with college and had a solid job offer in my pocket, and (b) I will be able to put more money toward the down payment, which translates into a nicer car. And I want this to be a nice car.

So that's it.

Step Into My Cafe.

I am a cafe rat.

You've heard of mall rats - those people that spend every possible waking moment slinking around the mall looking for a new something to buy. Cafe rats are much the same - we slink, we linger, we sulk, we relax in our favorite cafes and consume ungodly amounts of caffeine whilst doing so. And goodness knows we love it. There is nowhere I love to be more than sitting in a nice cafe, sipping coffee, reading a great book or looking out a window at the waterfront.

This has led me to the conclusion that I should someday open a cafe. I wouldn't open one of those ridiculous hippie cafes, though - the kind that I, ironically, spend so much time in - no no. This would be a cafe for business professionals. It would have a clean, Scandinavian-inspired interior decor: dark hardwood floors, sleek, black leather furniture, and - in a departure from that theme for the sake of warmth - large, thick wood tables and chairs. No Bright Eyes or Wilco in the background - instead there would be jazz. Wonderful, relaxing, don't-distract-me-while-I-write-this-white-paper jazz. (I have recently become inexplicably addicted to 98.9, the Sooth Jazz radio station. It's heavenly, seriously, give it a try). We'd also - naturally - serve alcohol in the form of fine wines from all over the world, because (let's be honest here) what business professional doesn't need a drink? It would be outfitted with high-speed wireless internet and even have individual and group work rooms, in case the team wanted to get away from the office for a while and work somewhere a little less suffocating. We'd name it something totally pretentious like The Board Room. It would be wonderful.

For now, though, I am content to sit in someone else's cafe and drink my coffee.

Weekly Dose of Ann

I thought this week's column from Ann Coulter was particularly great. Enjoy!


For six years, the Bush administration has kept America safe from another terrorist attack, allowing the Democrats to claim that the war on terrorism is a fraud, a "bumper sticker," a sneaky ploy by a power-mad president to create an apocryphal enemy so he could spy on innocent librarians in Wisconsin. And that's the view of the moderate Democrats. The rest of them think Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks.

But now with the U.S. government — as well as the British and German governments — warning of major terrorist attacks this summer, the Treason Lobby is facing the possibility that the "bumper sticker" could blow up in their faces.

The Democrats' entire national security calculus is based on the premise that "we have no important enemies," as stated by former senator Mike Gravel. He's one of the Democratic presidential candidates who doesn't know he's supposed to lie when speaking to the American people.

Ironically, the Democrats' ability to sneer at President Bush hinges on Bush's successful prosecution of the war on terrorism, despite the Democrats. It's going to be harder to persuade Americans that the "war on terrorism" is George Bush's imaginary enemy — the Reichstag fire, to quote our first openly Muslim congressman Keith Ellison — if there is another terrorist attack.

So naturally, they are blaming any future terrorist attacks on the war in Iraq.

The Democrats blame everything on Iraq, but their insane argument that we are merely annoying the enemy by fighting back has been neurotically repeated since the failed terrorist bombing in London a few weeks ago. The venue of the terrorists' latest attempt, a hot London nightclub, might even shake up the young progressive crowd. Apparently their soirees are not off-limits, notwithstanding their dutiful anti-imperialism.

In anticipation of their surrender strategy becoming substantially less popular in the wake of another terrorist attack, the Democrats are all claiming that the threat of terrorism was nonexistent — notwithstanding 9/11, the Cole bombing, the bombing of our embassies, the bombing of the World Trade Center, the Achille Lauro, etc. etc. — until George Bush invaded Iraq.

In the past week, B. Hussein Obama said the war in Iraq has made us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Americans are "more at risk," he said, "and less safe than we should have been at this point." We would be safer with "better polices" — such as, presumably, Bill Clinton's policy of pretending Islamic terrorists don't exist and leaving the problem for the next president.

Hillary Clinton said we need to start "reversing our priorities. Let's stop sending troops to Iraq and let's start insuring every single child." Yes, that should put a good healthy scare into the insurgents. "Run for your life, Ahmed! All American children are getting regular checkups!"

Sen. Chris Dodd miraculously straddled both arguments — that the threat of terrorism is a fraud and that the Iraq war had increased its danger. He said "al-Qaida is insurgent again" because we've "turned Iraq into an incubator" for jihadists. But simultaneously with warning of a terrorist attack, Dodd also said he was "more skeptical than I'd like to be" of the Bush administration's warning of a terrorist attack. Damn that Bush! He's inflamed an imaginary enemy!

As with the Democrats' claim that the greatest military in the world is "losing" a war with camel-riding nomads, the claim that the war in Iraq is what created our terrorist problem — a terrorist problem that began about 30 years ago — has entered the media and is now stated as fact by the entire Treason Lobby.

CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux matter-of-factly reported this week: "President Bush says the central front in the war on terror is Iraq. But when the U.S. first invaded the country almost five years ago, al-Qaida had very little presence. But the intelligence report says that has changed. Al-Qaida not only has become a dangerous threat, the intelligence community expects the terrorist group will use its contacts and capabilities there to mount an attack on U.S. soil."

Say, wasn't the attack of 9/11 an "attack on U.S. soil"? How could that have happened since we hadn't invaded Iraq yet? What a weird aberration. How about the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? How about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? The taking of our embassy in Tehran?

Another CNN correspondent, Ed Henry, followed up Malveaux's report with the somber news that "the president was warned before the war in Iraq that if you go in and invade Iraq, you're going to give al-Qaida more opportunities to expand its influence."

Similarly, Hitler and Goebbels never had much to say about the United States — not, that is, until we started fighting them!

But as soon as we entered the war — taking the bait of Hitler's declaration of war against us, which Democrats are urging us to avoid falling for in the case of al-Qaida — Hitler began portraying FDR as a pawn of the Jews. Soon posters started appearing in Germany showing the United States as a country run by Jews and Negroes. Fake dollar bills with the Star of David were air-dropped over Paris.

According to the Democrats' logic, FDR's policies made the United States less safe. Had Germany attacked us at Pearl Harbor? No. Was Hitler able to use America entering the war as a recruiting tool? Yes. Fighting the enemy always seems to make them mad. It's as plain as the nose on your face.

Democrats think they have concocted a brilliant argument by saying that jihadists have been able to recruit based on the war in Iraq. Yes, I assume so. Everything the United States has done since 9/11 has galvanized the evil people of the world to fight the U.S. In World War II, some Frenchmen joined the Waffen SS, too. And the good people of the world have been galvanized to fight on the side of the U.S. The question is: Which side are the Democrats on?

I Need a Room. And a Car.

As the search for fall semester housing reaches a fever-pitch, work also is getting stepped up a notch. I have 3.5 weeks to finish my project before my presentation to all the executives, so it's definitely crunch time. I am confident I'll have some good results to show at the end though.

In other news, chances are good that I will be buying a car within the next month. The trouble is that I have no idea what TO buy. There is a constant balance to be struck between the car that I would LIKE to buy and the car that I feel I OUGHT to buy for practical reasons. Consider this: is it worth it to sacrifice 5-10mpg fuel economy for a car that is more fun to drive? Or how about this: would you rather have a car that bores you to tears and, statistically, is a MAGNET for break-ins and theft but has excellent reliability and low cost of ownership; or a car that makes you smile but only has good reliability and slightly higher costs? It is becoming painfully evident that one cannot, in fact, have it all. And so the debate rages on. Advice is welcome.

Hot Enough for Ya?

Never before has Uptown Espresso been this busy, even on a Saturday. I got the last seat in the house, which also happens to be the seat closest to the open doors, so there is a breeze coming in from outside.

We have had record heat in Seattle this past week I believe it was Wednesday that we hit an unbelievable 98 degrees. 98 DEGREES. In SEATTLE. For those of you who do not live here, let me tell you that 98 degrees in Seattle is far, far worse than the hottest of days in Arizona because we have 70% humidity all the time. It's brutal.

This weekend is - mercifully - much cooler, although still warm. The iced coffee I am sipping as I sit here helps.

Stupid Intersections.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
-1 Timothy 6:9-11

Life rarely comes with T-intersection type decisions. They're more like very, very narrow Y-intersections - subtle forks in the road that don't look like they're much different at first glance (maybe the roads intersect up at that next bend?) but that, in reality, can mean the difference between life and death. And I'm not talking about physical, literal life and death. Every so often, one of those subtle forks in the road emerges on your metaphorical walk through life's metaphorical forest. You know that feeling?

That's about how I feel these days.

Quote of the Day: Independence Day Edition

"Nothing of importance happened today."
-King George III of England in his diary on July 4, 1776