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Monday, February 22, 2010

"Alleged Victim", Witness, it's a bunch of hooey

As some of you may already know, I was a victim of domestic violence just after Thanksgiving.  My boyfriend, who I believe to be bipolar, was drinking a lot (I was drinking as well), and he got mad at me and beat the crap out of me, even knocking out two teeth.  He is not aware of most that happened that night, and I think that's wrong.  I want us to heal, and for him to receive treatment for things he has never had the privilege of addressing before this incident, in spite of numerous close calls.  I refuse to let something like this happen to me without there being a positive outcome.


What bothers me the most is that I have absolutely no say in anything related to this case.  I have no representation, and the defense and the prosecution can freely volley my name or classification (alleged victim or witness if they don't use my name) an no one is there to represent my interests.  They can say whatever they want about me, and I'm not there to tell my side, or defend myself in any manner whatsoever.  I am merely a pawn for the prosecution or defense.  Something is horribly fucking wrong with that scenario.  


Why does our justice system allow for no protection for a victim?  Why don't I have an attorney who is there to ensure that nothing unseemly is said about me, and to protect my interests?  To keep me from being the proverbial tennis ball lobbed from side to side...she was drinking, so her statement doesn't hold as much weight. Well, if he was drinking, then his statement doesn't hold weight either.  So where does that leave everyone?  Oh!  I know!  It leaves the defendant covered and the witness (VICTIM) standing naked in the wind.  Uncovered, unprotected.  Is that really justice?

Monday, February 15, 2010

Entertainment I can't live without

It's the old stranded on a deserted island game.  I was looking through my CDs, DVDs, books, etc., and tried to think of what items of each I could not live without.  I figure all of this would have to be housed on my Droid with some sort of solar charger, so I hope they come up with inexpensive 32 GB micro SD cards and a solar charger before I am stranded.

Not limiting myself to any particular number of any items, because in some cases I couldn't live without an entire catalog of a particular artist or an entire series.  And you can fit a hell of a lot of stuff onto 32 GB, and is my damn world, so I'm taking as much as I can!

Aimee Mann.  It was reading her tweets and realizing her music has not left my side in over 20 years that made me think of this in the first place.  I can be incredibly down, and just to listen to one Aimee Mann song (whether through Til Tuesday or solo), can take me to a different place entirely.  Her music is as ingrained in my life as any of my memories along the way.

Nelson DeMille.  Entire library.  There has only been one book by DeMille that I didn't thoroughly enjoy, and it was a follow-up to one of my favorite books of all time, The Gold Coast.  Really, he should have left it alone. I think that with so much time in between the original and the sequel, his life took just a different direction and where the characters would have ended up earlier was not where the ended up later.  But so many of his books I can read again and again, that I would choose his to accompany me on my Droid.

(I must interrupt this post to tell you how much I despise the freecreditreport.com commercials. I'd rather be water boarded.)

Movies and TV are pretty easy to determine.  I just did this, theoretically, by purchasing new Blu-Ray discs of movies I already had on DVD.  I'll just list them.  You can read into it what you want.
Final Destination series
Supernatural TV series
Friday the 13th parts 1 and 2
Live Free or Die Hard
Twister
Halloween
Cast Away (tips!)
Just Married
Charlies Angels (entire series not currently available, but its my world)
The Bionic Woman (I have it downloaded from some other country, so I'll take it!)
Marilyn Monroe (all)
In Bruges
Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series

Ayn Rand. Entire library.  It might not seem as relevant and important to me if I was alone with my entertainment, but her philosophy speaks so well to what I believe she should make the trip.

Counting Crows - August and Everything After

Theory of a Deadman and Three Days Grace catalogs.

I find myself entirely bored now.  How pathetic is that.  Right in the middle of a stranded island and I peter off. Since I don't think I'll be stranded any time soon, I figure I can finish this up later.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Qik - Laughter a go go by Carissa Pavlica

Qik - Entertainment @ Pageant by Carissa Pavlica

Android Apps I Can't Live Without - Part Deux

FLYSCREEN!!!

I seriously cannot believe that when I started out on my Apps post I was thinking of Flyscreen, and by the end I completely forgot to mention it.  I guess it's because I don't have to DO ANYTHING to use it.  My screen locks, and instead of just a worthless blob of plastic and metal, I have things to do!  I use it for Gmail, Twitter, entertainment and news sites (must keep up with the Charlie Sheen case since my case as victim is in the same courtroom with the same DA and same Judge!) and Icanhascheezeburger...  There are so many different things you can do with Flyscreen.  If you have an Android phone, I highly recommend trying it out.  Love love love!!!

PS - you can also follow them on Twitter!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Android Apps I Cannot Live Without

Yes, I am well aware that everyone and their brother is babbling on about their favorite Android applications.  So stop yer bitchin'.  I'm obviously not the first to annoy you!  I'm writing this because after reading about what everyone else loves, I am surprised that my list doesn't have what I expected.  Please note:  I'm too damned lazy to included links, but if you type in the title to the Android Marketplace, you'll find these pronto.

Music Related


Tunewiki - I've tried so many music applications.  Its not that I didn't like the one that came with my Droid, because it does a fine job.  I just like extras.  An application that provides me with the lyrics of songs and allows me to blip to Twitter wins.  Not only does it do that, but it seems to "read" the file properties of songs better than other players.  I don't have near the "unknown artist" issues utilizing this library than I do with other programs that I've tried and deleted.  I was going to name them for you, until I realized that once I decided on Tunewiki, I deleted the others and my old mind flushed them to make room for more information!  Oh - I almost forgot, right from the program you can choose to make any song your ringtone.  Nice.

Shazam- Shit - this is the coolest application ever. I used to take pictures of my favorite songs and new bands on my satellite radio to remember what they were.  Now I just press Tag Now and with the exception of TWO songs, it finds the song, artist, and will try to make the connection to YouTube or AmazonMP3 to purchase the song.  I use this program more often than any other on my Droid.  It has actually made an impact on my life.  Seriously.

Album Art Grabber - It is so frakking annoying when you download something and the album art doesn't come with it.  Or if your player doesn't bother to search the web for your art. Album Art Grabber actually give you an assortment of art to pick from.  If I don't like the original cover, I can use one that was for a single.  I like options.

MP3Tagger - since I sometimes get music from online "friends", it doesn't always come with the proper labeling to be seen in the right spot of my music library. This handy dandy tool lets you change the properties of MP3 files only so you can find the little buggers.

Other Stuff


I still haven't settled on a lot of things.  For texting, I tried HandCent which seems to have a good rep, but there was just something annoying about it.  I have now moved on to ChompSMS, but I'm not really sure what it is supposed to do. They want you to buy something or other (points??) to completely use their product, but other than that it just reminds me of HandCent, minus the bugaboos.

Tweeting was previously done with Twitdroid, but the free version doesn't support bit.ly, which is my favorite URL shortener.  Today I switched to Seesmic, and it seems to be doing exactly what I want.  If it falls by the wayside, I'll let you know!

I use Ringdroid to create ringtones from my library of music.  You can pick whatever part of the song you like and trim it and make your ringtone.  There were a couple others I tried, but this one works perfect every time, so I can't figure out why I would bother with anything else.

I use Jetflicks! (and you have to pay for it!) for TV and movie viewing.  They have whole programs to view and when I'm at lunch or just hanging around the office being bored, I can watch a program.  Yay!  What could be bad about that?

There are a lot of other choices, but nothing that has been life altering.  Not Android specific is Google Voice.  The best thing about this is the voice mail transcription.  I absolutely hate using the phone if I don't have to, and I really like receiving transcribed voice mails.  I also like that I can record a call at the press of a button, that all of my other Google services are all tied together, etc.  Android is fabulous when you actually utilize the Google products to the extent I do.

So there you have it.  My contribution to the Droid application wars.  Whoopthefuckindoo.