Sorry I have been missing in action for so long. I hope to get back to being a better blogger soon!

In the mean time, if you are interested, you can download Madonna’s newest video, “Celebration,” for free right now (as of September 1, 2009) on iTunes. Nothing earth-shattering…a Madonna-esque dance song, but if you like Vadge, you will probably enjoy it! Get it for free while you can!

Hugs!

Oy! Have you seen Fox’s new show “Mental”??? Hands down it is awful. Not because the acting is bad or because the sets are bad or anything, but simply because it is completely unrealistic as far as the mental health aspect of it goes! I watched the first episode and I thought “oh wow…this is pretty bad, but maybe it will get better.” Then I suffered through the second episode which was even worse than the first episode! Seriously, if any network was to depict any other group of people like they are doing with mental patients, they would be sued in zero seconds! But, it isn’t like it is just painting the patients in a bad light. It is basically making a mockery of the entire mental health system and the psychiatric profession. Not exactly being anti-psychiatry about the mental health system either, but it is like the writers have NO IDEA about anything related to mental health, so they are just making EVERYTHING up!!! Get a clue people! This show bites hard!

(And by the way, the clip above is from one of the more realistic parts of the show…where the psychiatrist gets naked! lol)

I have some horrible news to report. If you don’t already know (I announced this on youtube and my facebook page) my beloved and super-amazing cat, Kiki, died a little over a week ago. :( Of course, I was devastated, and still am. He was a wonderful companion and friend. I couldn’t have wished for a better cat. A couple of months ago I rushed Kiki to the hospital, because he was very ill. He almost died then, but managed to survive somehow. We thought maybe he had swallowed some medicine or something, but then the other day he had the same symptoms. We now kind of doubt the medicine theory and believe that he may have had a stroke or some kind of neurological problem. I only wish that I had been there with him, so he didn’t have to die alone at the vet. I also never got to say goodbye or hold him one last time. We got him cremated and I now have a small box with his ashes inside. Not the way I wanted him to come home, but at least he is  home now. If only you could have known Kiki, you would have loved him too. I will always miss him.

I just wanted to tell you guys about this cute website that I found! If you are into Kawaii and cute stuff, read on. If not, sorry to bore you! :) They have all sorts of goodies for sale and a lot of cute handmade stuff! I got a couple of bracelets and some earrings and a couple of cute rings from them as well! Spending thousands of dollars? OH HECK NO! These treats are reasonably priced and so so adorable for the kid in all of us (or just for kids)! I’m including pics of my two bracelets. For more cuteness, click on this GirlzLyfe link and have fun! :)

I recently (April 24th) turned 36! Yay for me, I made it another year! Well, my mom and I made cupcakes for my birthday and I took some pics. I hope you enjoy them…and yes, the cupcakes were delicious! More photos on the next page!

I just watched the documentary “Welcome To Macintosh” which I purchased for $19.84 (plus tax and shipping from filmbaby.com) and I have to say that it was pretty great. Okay, they couldn’t get an interview with Steve Jobs, but whatever. And, well, probably only Mac people would be so enthralled by this movie, but since I’m a Mac lover it brought me joy! What can I say? I’m not that hard to please! Why do Apple lovers love Apple and love to love Apple and love to talk about how they love Apple? Cult much? Meh! I’m not into cults at all, but I love my computer as much as it is possible to have a fondness for inanimate objects! I’m sorry. I can’t help it. My Mac is my portal to so much joy, you have no idea!

Oh, there are some good quotes in this movie. I love it when one of the people being interviewed (I can’t remember his name) said that engineers are basically brain dead and they need to get girlfriends…he went on to say that he was trying to become an ex-engineer! lol To be fair, he was talking about a time when the engineering department made a computer with a huge magnet next to the hard drive that was linked with the sound in some way so that every time a sound was played the entire drive crashed! OMG! And they SHIPPED this product!?! CRAZY!

Well, this film didn’t really interview the head honchos or anything. As I said, no Steve Jobs. Also no Steve W. or a host of other top people. Mostly they interviewd people who work/ed there and were/are fans of Apple.

I have to admit that I really don’t like PCs and Windows and people who are all wild about Linux are just computer geeks and like to type a lot I think. Well, actually, I think that Linux users are people who generally like to really customize their computers and want every piece of software for free. Windows users just don’t know any better and Mac users know that design matters. PCs have gotten better over the years, as have Macs, but Macs are still by far and away my favorite. And well, I have to admit that Apple’s decision to go with a unix-based OS with OS X was a brilliant decision! OS X is ten million times better than any OS before it! Macs are simply a joy these days. I get hives from PCs.

Anyway, I wanted to write this little bit, because when I was watching the movie I remembered when I first unveiled my G5 iMac to my parents and they were like “So, where’s the computer? Where’s the big box?” It was brilliant! Now, I know that Apple still makes a big box G5 and everything, but I had to chuckle when I said “There is no box. This is it. This is the computer. The whole thing is in this giant screen.” My poor parents. They looked at me like I was on Mars. They try so hard with computers, they really do. And you know, just when they really get to understanding something about computers something weird will come at them like: There is no computer there, but that there is the computer! lol “What do you mean the computer is in the screen?!?”

Okay, so they seriously think I am crazy with my computer gear. My dad has nicknamed my Airport Extreme Base Station “The Airporter,” and my family is still wondering why I haven’t thrown away my Beige G3 that is sitting around collecting dust. I can’t bear to throw it away. I was planning on getting stuff off of it, but never really got around to it. I’d still like to fire the thing up, because I’m pretty sure it works.

Let’s just say that my fondness for computers goes way back. I think I was in 5th grade when I first played with an Apple computer. It was the greatest thing ever! I even went to a brief computer camp when I was young and they taught us to program little things with BASIC. It was sooooo much fun, but I never really learned to program after that until I took a couple of programming courses in college that really have served to make me appreciate engineering and CS jokes a lot more! Since my mom worked for the school, they allowed her to check the computer out on weekends so we could play with it at home. I really can’t believe she lugged that thing back and forth for us so much! Thanks mom! Anyway, I always wanted a computer, but we could never afford one. Then it must have been 1995 when I got my first computer–a notebook PC clone thingy. I think it still runs too. I have it around here somewhere. You can’t do much with it, but it had a 2600 modem and I thought I was really rockin’ when I could telnet! It was before web browsers were readily available and I remember that someone sent me a web e-greeting and I didn’t know how to retrieve it. I don’t think I even knew what a web browser was!!! lol Kids today would just laugh at that I know!

Ah, my first notebook was cool at the time, but it was a black and white display and I don’t know what brought me to turning to the Mac. Maybe providence. Or the fact that the school bookstore was selling Macs at discounted rates! lol So, I remembered all of those fun days back in school with the Apple computers and I decided to go for the Mac. I fell in love again and I really don’t want to ever go back to a PC! Why? Because the world isn’t made up of big boxes, Virginia! There really is a Santa out there and Santa uses a Mac! lol

Okay, boys and girls.

Here is the link for the saddlebacking website: http://saddlebacking.com/

Basically, this term has been coined in protest to Rick Warren, a cowering homophobe, having been invited to speak at the presidential inauguration. For more background on the coinage of this term, see this link and scroll to the bottom.

I hope that you will help by making this term popular! Enjoy! :) hehe

I just wanted to show off this great hat that my mom just finished knitting for me. Isn’t it cute? The color is a tiny bit washed out in this photo, but it is pink with grey checks and it has three tassles—two pink with grey bobbles on the end and one grey with a pink bobble on the end! My mom is so amazing and sweet! I helped her design the hat by suggesting the tassles with bobbles and picking out the colors, but she made it all happen! Yay! I’m so excited!!! What a great new hat, and perfect for this cold weather we are having. :) Knowing my mom made it with love makes it all the more warm and toasty!

Waxing nostalgic am I? Sure. I just love the Madonna Black and White “Vogue” video! It is so beautifully shot. I think it is timeless—beautiful and inspirational today as it was back in the day. I do love the song as well. Now, Madonna isn’t the greatest singer or song writer in the world, but she is some kind of wonderful.

Please check out the video if you can. Suffer the 30 second ad and the video will show up after.

http://video.aol.com/video/madonna-vogue/1102475

I have to confess that I have a long streak of love for pop music running down my spine. I hope you enjoy this retro-inspired Christinia Aguilera video. I know, I know…I should shun all this pop garbage, but alas, I cave. And, okay, I totally dig this video! Sue me!

Darn! I can’t embed it, so try the link instead I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ_7srmo5cE

Well, I just opened up a cafepress store apparently. heh.

http://www.cafepress.com/kristinbell

I wanted to share my Kiki images with the world! Actually, I was looking at Hello Kitty flip video cameras and then I found out that I could design my own, so I designed one with Kiki on it. Then at the end it asked me if I wanted to open a cafepress store with my design, and I thought: what the heck! Why not? I don’t think people will really be interested in buying my design with Kiki. They probably want their own cat on their own camera if they are getting one. But, if anyone wants a flip camera with Kiki on it, feel free to buy it from my cafepress store! I get a small part of the sale. It would of course be great to earn some mula! I hope you don’t think I’m a greedy, evil sell-out or anything!

A few more snow pics to share…actually some ice too!

It seems we can’t ever just get snow. Eventually we end up getting ice and ice rain and it makes a huge mess of things. If people only had to drive in the snow that would be one thing, but the ice is impossible. They actually have to close freeways and bridges around here when it gets too bad. If you are wondering why your packages are late or your friends and family can’t fly out of the Northwest, then one look at the ice-covered leaves might give you a clue! Even when people are driving carefully it becomes nearly impossible to stop a car on ice-covered streets! And, actually, that is why everyone freaks out about the winter weather around here and why you’ll hear stories of school cancellations with a trace of snow on the ground! hehe. Yes, it is true. Everything pretty much starts to shut down with even a bit of fluffy snow, because we all know that where there’s snow there’s bound to be ice! Not only does the ice cause mayhem for drivers, but it is heavy on tree branches and tree limbs begin to snap and break off. Sometimes the limbs hit powerlines or sometimes the powerlines and phone lines are so laden with ice themselves that they crack and fall down too! Oh yah, and forget about trying to open a locked car door when it is icy! Grrr. They do have de-icers you can spray into the locks, or another trick is to light your key with a match. Sometimes dumping warm water on the lock will work, but sometimes it just freezes too fast and your lock becomes even more frozen!

Still, it is beautiful and fun as long as we have electricity and as long as we don’t really need to be anywhere on time!

The above photos are bird footprints in the snow! Weird!

Okay, I know this isn’t exciting to many people, but it is pretty exciting around here when we get snow! We’ve had our first real storm of the Winter here in the Pacific Northwest and even down here in the Portland area Banana Belt, we have gotten almost a foot of snow!!! It is cold and thank goodness the electricity is still working (knock on wood)! Hopefully we don’t really have to go out too much. Now I think we are even getting a layer of ice, which is kinda bad.

Still, it is beautiful and always a breath of fresh air. I thought I’d post some of the photos that my mom took today and yesterday. I hope you enjoy them! Happy Holidays! :)

Hey Everybody!

I wanted to let you all know about my friend, Issa. Issa and I worked together in the computer labs at school for years and he is an awesome guy with a lot of ambition and talent. He’s been pursuing his music dreams and is about to hit it big! His music has been compared to Justin Timberlake with a hip-hop vibe and he also has an international flare! He’s from Senegal and speaks a number of languages, including French and English, so he pretty much can tap into the African, European and American markets!

I hope you can check him out. He’s been performing a lot lately, especially in Portland. He is even on the BET website! I really hope all of Issa’s dreams come true, because he totally deserves it! He’s a total suave guy who is a sweetheart to everyone! Check him out at www.issamusic.com!

I’m just going to say it: GOD DAMN DEPRESSION!!! It is so horrible that words cannot describe it, right? You know what I am saying. And, at this moment, I have no idea how many people out there are thinking about or attempting suicide. It is the great loss, the tragic loss…every suicide. I’ve tried wrapping my head around it. Tried thinking of it as someone’s way out of pain, but the truth is, each attempt, every moment spent toiling over it: TRAGIC.

I know that it feels like the only way to relieve the pain. Looking back on my own suicidal ideation and attempts, I can only wonder: WHAT WAS I THINKING!?! Okay, I know what I was thinking…tired. tired of being tired. tired of having this huge pain that I couldn’t really describe, this unending sorrow swallowing me whole. Tired of being a failure, and broke, and stupid, ugly, horrible, disgusting, friendless, and every other bad thing I could think to call myself. But, I don’t know, mostly I didn’t even care if I lived or died. These few pills will take away the pain? Okay, I’ll be dead and it won’t matter anymore. My big dillema was getting rid of my body without horrifying other people. That was always a problem. Nobody wants to see someone dead from suicide and I didn’t want to hurt anyone in that way. Not really realizing that it would hurt everyone more if I had gone out like that.

I know the temptation is strong. Sometimes you just WANT TO HURT YOURSELF! Why we are seemingly propelled in that direction I don’t really understand.

You just need to take suicide off the table as an option. I am always saying that, but it is what you MUST do. It is like you really need an organ transplant, but there are no organs available. You have to figure out a way to deal with things without the possibility of the suicide attempt/completion. Because, I don’t know, the more you think about suicide, the more you start to obsess over and fantascize about it.

You are probably like: fuck! I’m not going to stop thinking about suicide. It is all I have left! No it isn’t! I desperately need you to read my blog! You keep me going! Without readers I am just out here with my ass blowing in the wind! It would be so sad! Okay, you aren’t going to live for a blog, but listen…I can’t have everyone who might possibly understand me in some way drop off the planet!

I don’t care who you are. I seriously don’t want you to die! Because, even if I don’t know you, I *know* that there is at least ONE person who would be devastated by your untimely demise and that one person would never be the same again. You can’t live for other people, but sometimes you have to hold on to them to get through the tough times. So, maybe you are thinking: well, I don’t even have ONE single person in my life who would care! Don’t be stubborn! You know that is NOT true! You may not know it, but to someone you are everything! And to other people, you are someone special.

I am reminded of this group therapy I was in years ago and one of the women in the group killed herself. Didn’t she know we cared? And even though we were only in group together, I naturally blamed myself. Not that I was responsible, but wasn’t there something I could have done differently? Was I too busy yammering about my own life?!?

I don’t know. You just have to do whatever it takes to push suicide out of your brain. You don’t want your death going out into the world like that, because it will ripple through people like you don’t even know.

If you can’t stop thinking about it, call someone up. Call up a crisis line or call a friend. Is it the middle of the night? Even better! Call someone! Tell them you need to talk and get this suicidal stuff out of your head!

I know, it is easy for me to be all anti-suicide now. I am feeling better and thinking better. I am just realizing how it would have totally devastated the people in my life who care about me. When I was there, in the middle of it, obsessing day and night, alone in my apartment or wherever I was, I knew it would hurt people, but I did not really get it. I just didn’t understand or know or allow myself to know how horrible it could have been. I hardly even took it seriously!

You must allow yourself compassion. I say, just DON’T do it, because it is as simple and as hard as that. You cannot do it. You have to take it out of the possiblity pool.

Anyway, I’m sorry for being redundant.

I found this website that I hope can help if you need help. And if you do need help: keep reaching for it.

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/