I received my first birthday present last night… from eryx_uk (great timing, by the way!) It’s something from my amazon wish list. Thank you so much! I’ve admired the book for quite a while!

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It’s Official! *No* New Bummers or sadness throughout February… and no saving ’em up for next month, either.

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Bailed on work yesterday.. I was feeling pretty poorly, bu I think I’m ready to attack today before having my b-day off tomorrow. Brother came by and visited for a few moments, I got his disability info sent off.

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I think I’m about due for a redesign of my journal… at least the background. Something to ponder while I chew on any new mage fooling in the future.

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A Daily cup of tea – Cute orisinal game. an interesting twist on the old burgertime vibe.

I really like high too… delivering flowers to heaven, but I think my favorite recent one is wake up.

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Some pretty nifty mashups in mp3 format – I’m partial to Rapture Riders (Mixes Jim’s vocals from ‘Riders On The Storm’ with Blondies ‘Rapture’, beefed up with a few breaks and maintaining elements of the Doors solo’s and Debbie’s rap sections.)

Beatleg bootles is pretty nifty, too. (but sort of chubby at almost 22 meg) Contains ‘How Does It Feel To Be Rich, Man?’ / ‘Sloop For No One’ / ‘Razor Smile’ / ‘Daytrip To Never Never Land’ / ‘Karma In The Life’.

Hm. Dating a singer and music fan has had the nice side effect of opening a few doors off on the right hand side of the brain left fairly dormant the last year or four.

Mel’s guaranteed to raise a smile. Like Sgt. Pepper, only she doesn’t wear those cool doorman/military jackets. She has trouble understanding why I like cartoons and kid shows, though.

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I’m amazed how much stuff has high-teched since I was a kidlet. When I was a kid, Vinyl was what you listened to music on.. better than those Edison wax cylinders, to be sure, but I love that mp3s are so portable now.. and that sound/images can be mixed and edited so much more freely.

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Mel was downright peppy yesterday. I think that she’s flung off all but the last dregs of her sickies. That’s a good thing… that tells me a birthday journey is certainly in the cards.

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Moment of Lyric –

Well now, I get low and I get high,
And if I can’t get either, I really try.
Got the wings of heaven on my shoes.
I’m a dancin’ man and I just can’t lose.
You know it’s all right. it’s ok.
I’ll live to see another day.
We can try to understand
The new york times’ effect on man.

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You scored as Artistic. Congratulations, you scored Artistic. You’re looking for the unique movie in the bunch. You’ve probably watched a lot of movies that nobody has ever heard of, and good for you. You also know good film making when you see it. You just get it, no questions asked. Check out: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie, Garden State, Lost in Translation. Artistic 65% Drama/Suspense 55% Mindfuck 55% Sci-Fi/Fantasy 50% Romantic Comedy 50% Sadistic Humor 40% Mindless Action Flick 25%

Movie Recommendation.
created with QuizFarm.com

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Bookseller magazine has released its annual list of oddest book titles.

Bombproof Your Horse joins a gallery of past winners which ranges from Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality, How to Avoid Huge Ships, 227 Secrets Your Snake Wants You to Know, Celtic Sex Magic: For Couples, Groups and Solitary Practitioners, Design for Impact: 50 Years of Airline Safety Cards, and Hot Topics in Urology.

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If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalized in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of job seekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job center telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realize that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centers must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job center, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centers that refuse to penalize people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry,” said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specializes in such cases. “The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centers had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job center in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a “nude model”, and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centers, a move that came into force this month. A job center that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued.

Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job center for recruits.

“Why shouldn’t I look for employees through the job center when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?” said Miss Ulyanova.

Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job center withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them.

Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalized in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organized crime.

Miss Garweg believes that pressure on job centers to meet employment targets will soon result in them using their powers to cut the benefits of women who refuse jobs providing sexual services.

“They are already prepared to push women into jobs related to sexual services, but which don’t count as prostitution,” she said.

“Now that prostitution is no longer considered by the law to be immoral, there is really nothing but the goodwill of the job centers to stop them from pushing women into jobs they don’t want to do.”

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1 year ago – word association poll, top 100 movies, Trapping Jehovah’s Witnesses in forcefields, Division of Forestry, Farewell KB!

2 years ago – Happy New Year!, palm-cam pics, e-texts,

3 years ago – moon/Menstruation connection(or not), dreamy-dreams, elephant talk, pictures, including Newt in a box. Man lives in an airport for 11 years, cousin stuff

4 years ago – Got Birthday arranged to be off, dreams, schedule, shrunken head apples, my first b-day card