Reileen van Kaile

Shit, I just looked at the links I collected over the past few days and realized how much of them have to do with religion and politics. Oops. Although I suppose it's only fitting, in light of the DNC and the fact that McCain has chosen Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his veep. There's definitely a lot to be talked about there, even from the point-of-view from someone as politically unsavvy and out of it as myself. Debating on how much about this to post later, if anything at all.

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Here's an article describing what it feels like to die, from a scientific point-of-view.

Death comes in many guises, but one way or another it is usually a lack of oxygen to the brain that delivers the coup de grâce. Whether as a result of a heart attack, drowning or suffocation, for example, people ultimately die because their neurons are deprived of oxygen, leading to cessation of electrical activity in the brain - the modern definition of biological death.

If the flow of freshly oxygenated blood to the brain is stopped, through whatever mechanism, people tend to have about 10 seconds before losing consciousness. They may take many more minutes to die, though, with the exact mode of death affecting the subtleties of the final experience. If you can take the grisly details, read on for a brief guide to the many and varied ways death can suddenly strike.

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Tales of Vesperia, another installment in Namco-Bandai's immensely successful "Tales" series, was released in North America three days ago. This game is seriously making me consider begging on my hands, knees, and whatever other bodily appendages I have for an XBox360 come Christmastime. I've been waffling on asking for one or saving up for one because of my sporadic gaming habits, which would have resulted in $400+ of plastic and other components that I'd never get around to overheating.

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A sparkly text generator. With bonus sparklepeen font in honor of Twilight. Seriously.

While we're on the subject of Twilight, Fandom Wank (where I learn everything that there is to know about life) reports on Stephenie Meyer taking her toys and going home after finding out that 12 chapters of Midnight Sun, the re-telling of Twilight from Edward's POV, were leaked.

On the one hand, it was classy of her to actually make the leak officially available. On the other hand, that entire entry on her website (linked in the FW write-up) basically reads to me like a mediocre BNF going: "I AM VERY DEPRESSED NOW AND I WILL NOT WRITE ANOTHER CHAPTER IF I DON'T GET AT LEAST X AMOUNT OF REVIEWS." I'm not saying that she doesn't have a right to be upset at whoever leaked the book, but judging from her entry, she's dealing with it in such an amateur, unprofessional manner - which is why this ended up on Fandom Wank.

What really cheeses me off is the fact that Meyer is apparently directing a music video. What the hell? Why is it that an amateur, hack writer like her has a trilogy/quadrology of best-selling books, a dedicated and zealous fanbase, a movie deal or two, a Twilight guide coming out, and a job directing a music video? If there is any evidence that a higher power hates the world or has a really twisted sense of humor, this is it.

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Making Light reports on a Firefox extension that filters unsavory YouTube comments. Wow, Internet. Wow.

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wyld_dandelyon posts about
preserving the balance between development and wilderness in today's world. In a similar vein, ysabetwordsmith compiles a number of links to help keep cities and other urban areas beautiful, livable, and positive.

While I'm an urban girl at heart, I definitely wish there were a lot more greenery and wildlife for public visitation in my area of the Chicago suburbs.

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"Baby Got Book" is supposedly a Christian version of that song we'd all love to hate, Baby Got Back. No, f'rreal, f'rreal.

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I got into a conversation with dantaron recently about our preferred breakfast foods. I mentioned that one of my favorite ("favorite" meaning that this was what I tended to eat while still living on-campus) breakfast meals was a can of Mountain Dew and RAWBERRY strawberry Pop-Tarts, but that lately I've been craving more fruits and other such light things for breakfast. He responded that my sudden thirst for the fruitilicious goods was a good things, since the nutritional value of Pop Tarts was pretty much zip, zilch, and zero.

So when I went to pop open a can of sliced peaches for early morning nom nomming, I checked its nutritional information against the box of Pop Tarts in the pantry.

IN THE BLUE CORNER: Strawberry Pop-Tarts with no sugar frosting

Total Fat: 6g
Saturated Fat: 2g
Sodium: 180mg
Total Carbohydrate: 37g
Protein: 2g

And then there's 10% of daily serving of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, and other stuff.

IN THE RED CORNER: Kroger's canned peaches

Total Carbs: 22g
Vitamin A: 2%
Vitamin C: 2%

...

...

...yeah. I think I need to have a word with my parents about the kinds of canned fruits that they buy. (Those peaches didn't even taste much like anything - no surprise there.)

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I also seem to have discovered my long-lost emotional/mental twin. Sure, he's the wrong gender, two years younger than I am, and living on the West Coast, but those are minor details. He even shares the same obsession that I do with Bomberman 64: TSA, which is a miracle in and of itself.

-Reileen
is anybody here I know?