Mary

28/365

2010-01-29T19:44:24Z

28/365, originally uploaded by Mary Funk.

emptystarbox @ 2010-01-14T15:29:00

2010-01-14T23:29:22Z

, originally uploaded by Mary Funk.

emptystarbox @ 2010-01-04T01:20:00

2010-01-04T09:20:23Z

Sunday Fog, originally uploaded by Mary Funk.

If it's like this tomorrow, and I hope it is, I may have to take advantage. Jump in the car and go scouting around the area for shots.

Waikiki at night.

2009-12-23T23:13:35Z

Waikiki at night., originally uploaded by Mary Funk.

Happy Thanksgiving! ^_^

2009-11-27T00:02:40Z

Little Sneak.

2009-09-08T08:54:49Z

Little Sneak., originally uploaded by Oh, Apathy...

emptystarbox @ 2009-09-03T21:46:00

2009-09-04T04:47:00Z

, originally uploaded by Oh, Apathy...

emptystarbox @ 2009-09-01T12:54:00

2009-09-01T19:54:50Z

Taken a few days ago.. I finally got off my lazy ass to upload it.

Pictures!

2009-06-26T20:43:51Z

Click the picture to head over to my flickr account for the rest of the pitures. :)

Is it October yet?

2009-06-21T05:31:08Z

If only I found out sooner..

2009-05-29T08:02:40Z

I just came across this not even an hour ago. :\ Had I known about this sooner, I would have thought about sending something in. Or sending it to a family member or friend near by to see about taking it in.

Maybe next year.

Or if anything else comes up.. preferably before the end date.

This is the reason.

2007-06-23T01:59:39Z

"Why is it easier to pick up the pen when I'm not happy? Why is dilemma the aphrodisiac of the writer. I want to be happy. But I want to write. I am finding that when I'm content, I have less to write about. Why is this.

Paradox!

Can there be a middle ground? And if so, will I find it?"

- Brandon Boyd; White Fluffy Clouds, Pg. 29

emptystarbox @ 2007-04-02T23:36:00

2007-04-03T05:36:17Z

"It's not belief I'm interested in but freedom. Writing can give that, I've found.

And I know that sometimes it works that way -- what you write down sometimes leaves you forever, like old photographs left in the bright sun, fading to nothing but white.

I pray for that sort of release."

Everything's Eventual ("The Man in the Black Suit"; pg. 45) by Stephen King

emptystarbox @ 2006-12-12T15:41:00

2006-12-12T22:41:03Z

Harry Potter Books Remain In Georgia Library

ATLANTA -- A hearing officer is recommending that Georgia's state Board of Education uphold a decision by the Gwinnett school board to keep Harry Potter books on library shelves.

The officer said a parent who worked more than a year to get the books pulled at her children's school didn't back up her claim that the novels indoctrinate children in pagan religion.

The state board is scheduled to vote on the hearing officer's report Thursday.

Gwinnett County school board officials have said that banning all books with references to witchcraft would mean mainstays such as "Macbeth" and "Cinderella" would have to go as well.

- Source

Haaaha.. What a douche.

ETA: Potter to stay in Georgia schools.

This is seriously FUCKED UP.

2006-11-16T20:15:15Z

Chinese Hide Dogs to Escape Crackdown

BEIJING (Nov. 16) - Elaine Loke is shutting down her dog boutique and will spirit her golden retrievers Hippy and Bally out of Beijing to escape the city's sweeping anti-rabies campaign.

Dog owners like Loke have been scrambling to hide their pets in the face of a new crackdown which allows only one dog per household and bans breeds taller than 14 inches. Fears have been fueled by graphic Internet pictures and witnesses who say police are beating to death strays and dogs that run afoul of regulations.

"I can't believe this is happening," said Loke, 33, who keeps the curtains in her first-floor apartment drawn to ward off prying neighbors and walks her dogs in an underground parking lot. "It's so stressful. In the morning, I hear dogs barking and people talking outside my home and I think the police are coming."

The pressure is so bad that Loke is returning to her native Hong Kong and closing a business she has had for two years.

In China, dogs have long been seen as a source of meat as much as companionship. But the current crackdown has touched a nerve in the rapidly modernizing capital, especially among its burgeoning middle class.

"What kind of rules are these? I don't expect everybody to love animals. But I do want to have my rights to keep pets," said Clare Xiao, an account manager at an advertising company. She sent her larger Brittany to a kennel run by a friend and kept her Pekinese, a stray she found on the street.

"What the government is doing is just disappointing, cold and emotionless," said Xiao.

Many of the prohibitions have been on the books since 2003, but only sporadically enforced. The city of 13 million people has 1 million dogs, half of them unregistered, according to state media.

A sharp increase in rabies cases nationwide has prompted the renewed vigilance. Only 3 percent of China's dogs are vaccinated against rabies and the disease is nearly always fatal in humans once symptoms develop, though it can be warded off by a series of expensive and painful injections.

Officials have extended the 2003 rules to cover not only Beijing's center but some outlying areas. The clampdown, announced Nov. 6, gave owners until Thursday to comply or the dogs would be seized and the owners fined.

One owner Zhu Qiao has moved three times since 2001 to find areas where her black-and-white dog, Gou Gou, could be raised safely and within the law.

"He's part of my life, he's my friend and family," said Zhu, 30, a television producer. "If you want to impose a law, you have to get the opinion of dog owners and experts. You can't just take them away."

"I can't move again. There's no option but to hide him and if he gets taken, I'll go with him."

Another owner had his Labrador retriever taken away Wednesday because she was too big.

"She is a very amicable dog. She never barked," said the owner, a businessman who would give only his surname Yang. "If they don't allow me to raise her here, I will find another place. I will get her back."

Witness accounts and photos on the Internet have shown dogs being captured in nets and pummeled with wooden and metal sticks. But authorities have vowed to carry out a "strict but civilized" campaign that police hoped would not anger dog owners, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

"I have never heard of dogs being culled after they were caught by police. Dogs are a man's best friend and we treat them as friends, even when we have to lock them up for the sake of public security," Xinhua quoted a Ministry of Public Security official, Bao Suixian, as saying.

Many owners have sent their dogs to kennels outside the city. Some are handing them over to friends and family.

Joyce Wang gave one of her dogs to her sister and is keeping Ding Ding, her fox terrier, close by her side. She said she had heard that the government was offering $25 to people who reported on rule-breaking dog owners.

"I'm scared and worried. Now I don't take him outside during the day," Wang said. "Even in the evening, we will take a detour if we see people in the compound we live in."

Source: AOL News

emptystarbox @ 2006-06-27T21:08:00

2006-06-28T03:08:15Z

"It's not that I'm crazy and can't remember things but rather that the past doesn't seem worth remembering. It takes such an effort. Everything takes a tremendous effort and it's hardly worth the trouble -- everything except staying in my little cell and looking at my little window."

"I have a confession to make. I was not quite honest yesterday when I pretended not to know you. I knew you perfectly well. There's nothing wrong with my memory. It's just that I don't like to remember. Why shouldn't I remember you? We were best of friends, in fact inseparable if you recall. It's just that it was quite a shock seeing you after all these years. No; not even that is true. I noticed you in the cemetery day before yesterday. Still I hardly knew what to say to you. What do you say to someone after twenty years when you have already said everything?

It bothers you a bit too, doesn't it?"

Oh, hello.

2003-07-23T21:07:56Z

Just in case if you haven't caught on by now, this journal is friends only. The main reason being I get paranoid real easily & we just can't have anybody reading these things, that'd be suicide.

Entries consist of, well if you want the truth, nothing. Seriously. Every now and then there'll be picture posts spamming your friends page, not to mention schizophrenic entries (they're all sorts of randomness and pointless to others but something to me) & rants about my boring uneventful life -- so don't say I didn't warn you. Other than that, you won't find much else.

If you're adding me to your list for a bigger number and the attention (YOU ATTENTION SEEKING WHORE! Yeah, I said it.) then don't bother. You don't have the patience and I don't have the time. I don't read or comment on every single entry nor do I expect you to with mine. Sometimes I just never know what to say or how to say it.. so I don't. And if I take you off my list, don't take it so personal. It's mainly because you never update. I mean, come on! I need something to read while avoiding anything of greater importance.

So there it is.

Happy trails. :)