Tuesday, February 28, 2006

On This Day

1854 About 50 slavery opponents met in Ripon, Wis., to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party.

Imagine, can you remember the last time the Republican Party members were righteous instead of self righteous? Today the founders of the party would be considered the fringe of fringe of the left wing fringe groups.
Back To Life

The Olympics are over. Sigh. I watched a lot of it too. I even watched curling! But, I was getting a little over them too, you know? As much as I really like The Olympics, I think I’m good until next time. Does anyone else need some time away from Bob Costas and Dick Button?

It was getting a little ridiculous. I felt like I was cheating on the games if I switch the channels for a minute, like they would notice… Okay, NBC, I’m sure noticed, but not really because I’m not one of those un-American Nelson families that watched everything but the games and I bet they didn’t feel guilty about it at all. Fickle redstaters. Like anyone else actually felt guilt because they watched Grays Autonomy instead of the men’s downhill whatever. I was a good American and I watched anything they wanted me to watch during prime time. I did cheat a little; I taped other shows and then watched them real fast before the games came on but it made me feel like I was sneaking around behind the games back.

But the games are over and guilt free prime time viewing is back! I have actually missed CSI Miami! Do you know how sad that is? I mean, CSI Miami? Ew. I get two hours of Law and Order on Wednesday and I’m looking forward to sitting there and watching both hours guilt free and with out Bob Costas making me feel bad for not caring enough about some downhiller’s back-story. I mean, one of them is a rerun and might not watch it all the way, but the other is new and I’ve all ready set my VCR to tape the game delayed CSI- NY. I am very pathetic. Shut up, I want my routine back.

I’ve really missed NBC. I’ve missed all my little pretend TV friends. I mean, when was the last time E.R was on? Forever ago, that’s when. No My Name is Earl… I have seen many, many, many commercials for Conviction, which honestly, looks really dumb - The average age of blah blah is 28 years old!. So? Locally they just swore in a new judge, he’s 29! So you can suck on your piddly little 28 year old lawyers!

What else?

Now that I can watch whatever I want on TV, I’m going to celebrate by not watching it! Netflix is my new best friend! I know they kind of suck over the long haul, but I’m in the honeymoon stage with them right now and they are so totally at my beck and call – and becking and calling is what I am all about. I have 10 movies on my little list and I am going to be all about keeping that list moving. I did learn however that Netflix does not beck as well when it is about TV shows on DVD. One DVD at a time! I don’t want to watch the first four hours and then have to wait for the next 4 hours. I want all the episodes all at the same time! If I wanted to watch TV in real time, I would and sadly, do, but hey, I’m paying to watch those TV shows and I don’t want to wait. I thought briefly about adding Hogan’s Heroes season 2 or even season 3 to my list (since I spent oh, 5 hours watching my first season DVDs) but I think I'm going to want to own them too. Sadly, TPTB are very proud of those seasons DVD sets and I might have to end up putting them on my list for Santa.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Yay

Is 'Fear Factor' Finished?

After six seasons of bug consumption, rat cages and multistory freefalls, "Fear Factor" may have wrapped up its last gross-though-profitable challenge. Staffers on NBC's longest-running reality series are said to have moved on to their next jobs, which means newlyweds and Playboy Bunnies interested in having their heads buried in frogs for the chance to win 50 grand will have to look elsewhere. An NBC spokeswoman said production for the current season has been completed and the network has not decided whether to bring "Fear Factor" back for 2006-07. But fear not, "Factor" fans: NBC still has original, unaired episodes that will run during the summer. -Christopher Lisotta


TV Week
Rich Man/Poor Rich Man

The New York Times reported that Lay's stated net worth is now less than $650,000, down from as much as $400 million before Enron's downfall in 2001.


From CNN.com
This weeks World Peace Puppy



Gabby

dognapped from The Daily Puppy
Learning Curve

This weekend instead of walking the dog I took the time to learn about what you can and can not launder.

For example, you can launder your winter coat. This is easy. It is dirty, you put it into the machine and viola and it is clean . It is very nice. On the other hand, your shower liner is dirty, you put it into the washing machine and viola, it is in pieces. Actually, it is in shreds. You should learn from my mistakes. Some things that are mostly plastic, like a winter coat for example, are perfectly washable. Other things that are plastic, like a shower liner for example are not.

I had no idea that so much of my shower liner was not washable. I would have thought that something built to be wet most of its life would not shred in the washing machine. I would have thought that in the washing machine the shower liner would have found sho0wer liner nirvana. Sadly for the shower liner it found shower liner hell.

Now that I have no shower liner I need a new shower liner. Maybe one that is not so given to I don’t know, falling apart when it gets wet! Did you know that shower liners do not like to be wet? That for some reason, while they are made of the same basematerial as rain coats and winter coats and umbrellas, that shower liners are not set up to be wet? It was a shock to me as well. I thought since they had shower in their name that perhaps they might have some attributes that might make them somewhat water tolerant. I did not know that having “shower” in the title was only an honorary thing - I mean I know that “Dr. Breaks” doesn’t really hold a degree in breakology... But really!

I now know the truth about my shower liner: my shower liner was really a table cloth that ran away from home to escape the family business and tried to turn its back on who it really was.

I went to Wal-Mart to buy a new shower liner. I didn’t cheap out and get the $2 grocery store “ I started life as a table cloth” version, I went to an actual shower curtain liner isle in the bathroom section and splurged on a “heavy weight commercial grade” shower liner! With little suction cups to prevent leakage, I went hard core on this. According to the blurb on the wrapping, they promise that my new shower liner is the next best thing to slapping a bunch of maxi pads to the back of my shower curtain. There should be no leakage and my bathroom floor will be able to wear white shorts whenever it wants to! and will never, ever have to have any self conscience about those “not so fresh feelings” the other lesser curtain obviously suffered from. This shower curtain is commercial grade and it comes with enough anti-bacterial mojo that I won’t have to get a flu shot for the next three years.

I also learned that the next time I want to wash my shower liner I will not use Clorox, I will limit myself to plain detergent.

What else did I learn? It is getting light much earlier in the morning than it has been. Like at 6:15ish it is light out. By 6:45 it is very light out. If Dogger wakes me up early all I have to do is shriek at her and she will stop her work, at the very least she will stop what she’s doing long enough to forget what she was doing in the first place. The Kitty however, does not stop what he’s doing when I shriek at him to stop. He does not recognize shrieking as a form of communication and he most certainly does not pause from his work to see what I am upset about. I think he processes shrieking as cheering.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!!!

Saturday, February 25, 2006

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging

Busy Busy Busy

I should be very busy right now. I should be in the middle of copying a bunch of license applications for this pushy woman who called yesterday and requested what she said would be the licensure for the last five years for fourteen facilities but in reality turned out to be more like twenty three facilities. And I would be very busy right now except the copy machine ran out of paper – which I could deal with except the woman whose desk the key lives is at lunch and I don’t know where in her desk she keeps the key. I could paw through her desk looking for it but I don’t think she would appreciate it. So. Also? We keep a guy in the office for the heavy lifting and he’s away from his desk. He’ll be back.

I wasn’t turned away from the copy machine totally empty handed. I did get one facility completed and I am going to call the pushy woman and tell her that the request for her project that “She wanted to go the extra mile for” is going to cost her. I’m thinking, a lot and maybe she might want to scale back the request or decide that what she wants isn’t on the licensure anyway. Because it isn’t. We don’t care about facility staffing or turn over. She is going to be annoyed.

But whatever.

Tonight is the big ice skating extraganza! Which I might miss because Brosky wants to try out a new BBQ place –It would also be helpful if they would list exactly when the ladies skating was going to air. I know its going to air tonight but I want to know when. How long can I stay at dinner? Will I have to order out? Should I leave the house at all? I mean these are real problems.

At least ther won't be long lines, according to Dick Ebersol ``This, without a doubt, is shaping up as the most competitive night in the history of American television.". Okay. So the last two election cycles weren’t all that competitive? How about the Super Bowl? I hardly think that lame entries such as The Love Boat Dancers really should count as any kind of competition any way. What do they win anyway? Does it mean their agents will return their calls? Maybe if they’re lucky they can get a spot on a Lifetime movie? Whatever. I also still hate Survivor.

Okay, that is a little sad. But then I don’t watch reality shows, and I don’t really see how any of them are strictly “competitive” in nature. It makes me sad that NBC would think that. I blame George Bush, first for giving our ports away and than for the whole reality TV thing. I have no proof but I think it’s all a neocon ploy to dumb down Murica. Yeah, I know it all started during Clintons second term, but really, the neocons were all ready there and I know the whole thing is their idea. It’s very Rovian.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Back In Time

What was the number one song on the day you were bron?

U.S

U.K

For me the #1 single in America on my birthday was "People Got to Be Free" by The Rascals, and the #1 in the U.K on that day was The Beach Boys - "Do It Again" .
Motivate yourself

Make your own Motivational posters! or mock them! For example:

Boing

Referring to debate over foreign operations of U.S. ports, President Bush says "people don't need to worry about security."


from CNN.com
Kvetching for Gold


So tired. So stupid to stay up and watch the skaters. So stupid to stay up watching the skaters when I all ready knew the outcome.

So not smart.

So now, so tired.

I keep up with the medal counts, some would say “Obsessively” others like myself would say “shut up”, so why bother keeping my self up later watching the contests when I all ready know the results? Because I want to see what they are wearing!

I want to know if the costumes were outrageously awful or only Project Runway style awful. I mean there is a wide variety of awful skating costumes out there and I want to see all of them. All the varieties of awful. I can’t skate, ski, curl or anything else they do at the games but I can criticize the clothing they wear when they are doing all those things I can’t do. Those who can, do, those who can’t, criticize.

For example, I don’t understand ice dancing and why it isn’t the same as just pairs skating – other than the pairs skaters wear better costumes and the ice dancers costumes all looked like they picked them up at a discount from an road show off brand ice capades. Is it a JV v. Varsity thing? If you skate really, really well you can be a pairs? But if you only skate well you have to be am ice dancer?

The men skaters in the ice dancing seem to get better costumes, but only for one dance, they wore something that looked like tuxes then they went back to looking like they got their costumes from an off brand road show ice capades. The men's singles also have no taste, why must they try to dress like swans? Or road signs? What’s wrong with a little lack of creativity? How about not wearing your inner thoughts! Johnny Weir? You’re here! You’re queer! Get Over It! Gawd. Put on a nice spandex tux and shut up.

The women-girls are a little bit better dressed in the woman’s singles, not a whole lot but better over all. They showed a little more restraint with the be-dazzler and the illusion fabric. I thought I liked the wearing pants thing but they wear cat suits and I can’t say that is a good look for people with enormous thighs. I formally changed my mind on the whole costume thing: I want them in traditional ice skating outfits with little flippy skirts and I vote against the body suit thing. The girls in body suits have the same problem as the men: the bedazzling just doesn’t look right and they want to bedazzle the ass and no one needs to see an ice skater with a bedazzled ass, male or female.

Other Olympic gripes. I don’t care for Davis the speed skater either. I am tired of him and his poor sportsmanship and I want him to go away. He and the other guy, Lewis, behaved like asshats the other day at some press conference and now they both need to go away. Far away. Dan Jansen wasn’t a diva and I can’t think of another US speed skater off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure that diva behavior doesn’t run in the sport. The other skaters showed up and and won, or didn't - whatever the outcome, they didn't whine about it or snark at their team mates.

And big bummer that Bodie turned out to be a nonstarter. They really need to do a better job of figuring out to over hype. It’s like a curse; the more they pre-hype the more the hype-y winds up a big zero. Maybe they should just wait to see who is performing well and then start to over hype them, let them win something before they curse them.

Another gripe.

I want to be able to tell what country whoever it is that is doing whatever it is playing for. I would like to see standard universal patterns or colors or something on what the athletes are wearing that could allow me to tell at a glance that the down hill skier/ice dancer/skeleton/ luger is from Austria or Norway or Canada or where ever. If a uniform is too uniform, how about slapping their flag on a bib or something? A uniform would go a long way to removing the neon and the bedazzler and the cariboo feather nonsense. If they are supposed to be athletes, it would be a nice start to make them dress like athlete's.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Yay

Action is coming to DVD!
More on the bad port deal

NY Daily News

Why does the Bush Admin heart this deal so much? how can it be in the best interests of the nation to put the UAE in charge of our ports? I could see as it would line the pockets of the United Suits of Bushco, but how exactly is it going to aid the actual United States?

Washington - The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.


from Atrios
We do not live in Virginia

It didn’t snow. They all but promised we were going to be for snow and nothing happened. All weekend I kept waiting for the snow to start and it didn’t. I even went out and panic bought dog food! It did end up snowing but it snowed on Virginia. I want a refund.

I mean, I hate the after effects of snow, the traffic, the kids being out of school again, the general bitching of how hard we all have it now that the ground is white instead of green - but over all, I like it when it snows. It makes everything pretty. The local weather guys were all very excited about the snow. They started last Wednesday telling us that the snow was coming and we were all going to die. No, really, every time there is any weather on the way more advanced than partly sunny skies the local weather guys start to prepare us for Armageddon! Folks, we want you to be ready for this weather system; it’s going to be a big one. We are forecasting the possibility of clouds! We may very well encounter some overcast weather and we want you to be ready.

Hurricanes come through and we are updated minute by minute how we are most defiantly going to get the full force of the storm, regardless of the fact that it is aiming itself at Mexico and no one east of Houston is even going to get rain out of it - we are all going to die.

In the weather guy’s defense, we do get Hurricanes here and it is always best to be prepared for them. It is important that we stock up on milk and bread in case we lose power and there is no other way to defend our encampments except for our caches of spoiled milk and our stale bread reserves. We also buy up all the C batteries so we can tease our cats for entertainment; gawd knows flash lights aren’t the ideal light source for the long run. When I lost power a few years ago for four days, my flashlights were not the biggest help. I was like an inept cat burglar in my own home. Its wonder they manage to steal anything of value by flashlight light - I had a hard time telling the difference, consistently between my own shoes and the cat. My radio was going to be my friend but it used D cells because no one else was panic buying D cells so I didn’t think I needed them – I was a storm newbie; So after the first day or so I ended up cold, in the dark and with out anything to listen to except the wailing of my sump pump telling me over and over for hours that the power was still off.

We do need winter though. I need a hard freeze that lasts for at least a week to make sure that the little buggy things that live in my basement die off.

Nasty Beasty Posted by Picasa


Nasty Beasty Facts

It has been so warm that the beasties are turning up again and I want them dead. I think a few days of snow and ice would kill their young – I really hate those bugs, they look like a cross between large spiders and even larger crickets - where is Shrub? These beasts are evil and they take over my basement for months at a time and I want them all dead. Kitty does what he can but these monsters can be bigger than him and I don’t want to go down there one day and find bits of fur all over.

Those beasties would do it too. I (and Kitty) need a good killing freeze to add a little environmental population control into the Nasty Beasty world, at least for a while. They could survive a direct hit from a nuke, the house wouldn’t but they would find a way. They would be there, gently glowing in the dust that was my house, but still there.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Some Arabs are less arab than others

President Bush on Tuesday strongly defended a deal that would let a United Arab Emirates-based company run key U.S. seaports. "If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward," Bush, who has yet to veto a bill during his administration, warned that the United States is sending "mixed signals" by attacking a Middle Eastern company after the American ports had been run by a British firm for several years. Lawmakers who have called for the deal to be blocked need to "step up and explain why a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard," he said.


Because the British aren’t major supporters and exporters of terrorism? Because the 9/11 terrorists were from the U.A.E.? Suddenly he likes arabs? Oh, just special arabs.

CNN.Com
Sigh

One Thousand and Sixty-Five Days To Go
Walkies!

I believe that Dogger had the best weekend she has ever had, or at least the very best Sunday on record.

Sunday morning we toured downtown, which was fun and opened up new territories for her to first sniff and then pee on. Dogger loved getting to check out the new construction and I enjoyed the chance to window shop – Yes, in downtown Raleigh!, window shopping! True, it was literally window shopping, but that was my doing. I could have gone to look in the window of this other cute store but I don’t want to reward the cute store or torment myself since the cute store is only for only open Monday-Friday 10-4 because that means that I will never be able to shop there myself! I am hoping once they get the whole Fayetteville Street thing together that that will provoke some of the other stores down there to have more reasonable hours.

Dogger doesn’t care about cute stores though. Dogger wanted for the restaurants to be open, yes, there are restaurants downtown! I know! I was surprised too. Again, they weren’t open for lunch because Gawd forbid that the chamber of commerce and the restaurants operators try to bring anyone downtown on the weekends.

The best part of Doggers day came later. Dogger and I went to Brosky and Alphagals , if you noticed a disturbance in the force, it’s because Alphagal went to Spain with her Mother. Join me in a brief moment of sheer green eyed jealousy
.
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Alphagal in Spain
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Okay, moving on.

Anyway. Broskey, Nephdog, Dogger and I went for a walk in their woods. Dogger was so happy! The woods are full of deer and all make and model of other, smaller stinky critters and Dogger was just thrilled to be in the same airspace as all those good smells. She was even leashed most of the time and she was still the happiest dog ever.

And then, then she went off leash.

New heights of Happy Dog! She ran! She tussled with Nephdog! She smelled new smells! Oh Joy Oh Rapture! She didn’t care it was cold! She didn’t mind that her sweater is too small now and was bunching up in a very unflattering way - she was just having a blast and she hadn’t even discovered the creek yet.

Dogger was having such a good time bounding around she hardly thought about the creek at all. Then she saw Broskey and Nephdog jump the creek. They did it easily (Dick Buttons and Scott Hamilton would be proud of their synchronized leaping).

I thought I was going to have to help Dogger across, what with her countless fears, I was afraid she might decided that Death From Above would also count as Death From Below when she saw the water in the creek . I also wondered how I would get across the creek myself, as I was still in my Michelin Man Goes To Vladostock outfit and it is not an outfit that is made for jumping creek beds. It is an outfit for greeting dignitaries in outdoor dignitary greeting facilities and touring vast, unheated tractor factories – not so much for fording creeks.

She didn’t have a problem with the creek bed. She jumped it! and when she saw what she had done, she jumped it again! And again, and again and again. She was like a big furry pinball! She was like I did it! Let’s see if I can do it again! Oh! There I go up and over! Wow! This is the best thing ever! I wanna do it again! Oh I did it again! Oh one more time! Wow! Okay, three more times!

She was having a great time until she made one jump too many and fell into the creek. She couldn’t get out on her own, despite her very best efforts of valiantly trying to scramble up the higher- than- she- thought- bank. It was really sad, there she was chest deep in cold water and the poor baby could not get herself up and out. She tried really hard though. Broskey had to pull her out by her collar, which wasn’t fun for either one of them. We went home, she had a warm bath and it was still her best Sunday ever.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Too late

Do you remember back in college when someone told you not to order pizza from Dominos because the owner was strongly anti-choice and gave big dollars to the anti-abortion crazies and if you bought pizza from Dominos you were funding the anti-abortion crazies yourself? today that wack job fundy - Yes, you can be Catholic and a wack job fundy at the same time! that same wack job is trying to build his own town in Florida, where the drug stores will have to agree not to sell birth control...
This weeks World Peace Puppy




Maddie the Weim

stolen from The Daily Puppy
Cold

Sunday was one of those days that when you open the curtains for the day and the sun is streaming through the windows you it is so bright and gorgeous and sunny outside that and you think to yourself "Wow! It is absolutely beeeyutiful! I need to go outside right now!! I think I'll do some weeding and sweep the front patio and I could wash the exterior of the windows! I could ride my bike!" and suddenly you’re belting out show tunes O What a Beautiful Morning O What a Beautiful Day Everythings Coming Up Roses! Everythings Going My Way". It is so bright and sunny and gorgeous outside that you temporarily forget that it is also February outside.

You don’t think about the February part until you run face first into a solid wall of COLD. It is at the this point that I changed my plans for the day, "Hmm. I wonder if there is any Curling on and at some point today I will have to glue my nose back on."

I was still thinking about the cold/sunny conundrum as I was driving home from church and I noticed that it was National Walk Your Dog Through The Inner City Day. I saw three or four different folks walking their dogs, I rarely see any one out walking their dogs when you can be outside with out worrying about your exposed parts falling off and now on a day when your exposed parts could fall off and everyone is out walking their dogs. I decided to join them.

I got home and changed into my The Michelin Man Does a Personal Appearance in Vladivostok outfit and tried to get Doggers' sweater on her .

Me - I need to put this on you.
Dogger - I need you not to.
Me - I really need to put this on you.
Dogger - I really need you to do something else.
Me - It’s really cold outside.
Dogger - I really have thick fur.
Me - We have to go for a walk!
Dogger - You have to get a grip!


I eventually won and we went for our walk - or actually, I won and we got into the car and drove to where we started our walk. Don’t judge me! it was, very, very cold!I noticed when we got out of the car that Doggers’ sweater and my coat are the same color. I hope no one else noticed. I almost announced "If you look closely, my coat is kind of lavender while her sweater is blue. It’s the light, we aren’t really matching". . I think I should have handed out cards.

I also have to tell you guys the secret to winter happiness. Ski Pants. Ski Pants are the secret to winter happiness. Better than a warm puppy, more effective than long underwear, Ski pants are our friends. They are not figure flattering, they are actually quite figure fattening, but I tell you what, ski pants allow you to be outside and do whatever it is that you need to get done and lets you get it done with out feeling cold. I love my ski pants.

For my local folks, the convention center implosion was successful. It is very flat now, it looks squashed - not so much from the front where it still looks like it has for the past several weeks but from the rear it looks like it’s back is broken. I would have taken pictures but my camera had some sort of digital stroke or something the other night and I had to send it back for its 5000 picture check up.

Dogger and I walked up and down Fayetteville street and the store fronts and facades are in good condition, they all need to be power washed and painted but they look really nice. If Raleigh had a film commission I think large swaths of Fayetteville Street would do well as a location for movies looking for an old fashioned downtown setting. I mean, really, most of it looks like it stepped out of a postcard. Except for the really, really, really Gawd awful ugly City Bank building that looks a lot like a three story black accordion.. Blech.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Failure to separate State from Church

In N.C., GOP Requests Church Directories

The North Carolina Republican Party asked its members this week to send their church directories to the party, drawing furious protests from local and national religious leaders.

During the 2004 presidential race, the Bush-Cheney campaign sent a similar request to Republican activists across the country. It asked churchgoers not only to furnish church directories to the campaign, but also to use their churches as a base for political organizing.

William Peaslee, the party's chief of staff, told the Greensboro newspaper that Republicans also gather lists of gun owners and military families. "In doing voter registration, you always go to where you base is," he said. Peaslee did not return messages from The Washington Post yesterday.
Failure to separate Church from State

Conservative evangelist Pat Robertson accused of damaging movement he helped create

NORFOLK, Virginia - Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern and even open criticism over evangelist Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the hip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club."

"He is in a very visible leadership position and comments such as recent ones related to Mr. Sharon and so many others are misinformed and presumptuous and border on arrogance," said David Dockery, president of Union University, a private college affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention.

"It puts the evangelical movement in a bad light when that happens because people make broad generalizations, rightly or wrongly, all the time," said Dockery, who also is chairman of the board for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Robertson, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press.


Shocking.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging

Fine Things

Go read one guys many lists of Five Things. Try coming up with five funny things every day.
Solving problems

I was having a real problem getting my morning paper. A oersistant problem, as you may recall, I had a whole interpretive dance I did about it and I started to think that if I had to do that dance any longer I was going to apply for an NEA grant. I finally got tired of the computerized complaint lady and the dance and so I sucked it up and requested to complain to a real person. The real person and I talked about my past bad experiences getting my paper, we talked about my getting the paper when I had expressly asked to not get it and I told him about the brief period of time that my morning paper experience was really good experience as it was on time and on my porch!. That real person sent me to another real person who is my delivery guys' boss.

We bonded. We agreed that a morning paper was a morning paper and since I pay for that morning paper that I should get it in the morning. We laughed we cried, it was a Hallmark(tm) movie in the making. He told me that he would make sure I got my paper on time. And I had to call again the next day.

This got his attention. He had sworn to me that he was going to get on the delivery guy and find out what his damage was and fix it. Fine I said. Fix the problem, kill the paper boy - it’s all the same to me if I am not getting my paper on time or if I am having to mount search and destroy missions to find it in the event it does arrive. I don't need these problems in the morning.

Yesturday morning my phone rang at just after my alarm went off.

Me - Whut?

Paper carrier - Your paper is in your yard, I just wanted to let you know it was here so you wouldn’t call again...

Me - Good.


I chose too see that as helpful and not at all as mildly threatening. If he calls me at 6am on Saturday, I will be the one behaving in a threatening manner. The calling is a little much but at least I know that the boss guy I talked to must have had a Come to Jesus meeting with my delivery guy after the boss guy and I did the whole Hallmark(tm) thing together.

edited to add, Friday morning my paper was late again.
edited to add pt. 2, my paper boys' boss just called me to tell me that hje "doensn't know what to do with that carrier" but that he is going to tell him the paper needs to be there at 5:30. Well. I whn I have talked to him or whoever was him be fore he was him, that my paper was supposed to be there at 5am. But anyway, I just want it there before I leave for work.

Mini kitty has stopped being such a bitch. She finally let me touch her for the first time Wednesday! The thing with Mini is that she has the softest fur ever - just to be near her is to want to touch her. No creature, outside a fancy European rabbit breed and possibly some designer goats have fur and soft as Mini’s. To touch Mini is to immediately want to do a face plant right into her - so it was really hurtful that she was being such a bitch and withholding her wonderful fur. Here she was, I had her all to myself and she was selfishly keeping her fur all to herself! She has this amazing wonder fur and a leetle pink nose and she’s just as cute as a button and she wouldn’t let me near her! She’s like kitty crack and she was biting, scratching and cursing at me. I wanted purring and I got punched.


Well after forty eight hours she finally thawed out or gave in or decided she had been abandoned and might as well make the best of it and she let me properly worship her furry perfectness - in that she refrained from drawing blood and when she growled at me you could tell it was only half hearted and really more like her boiler plate growling. Did I mention her tiny pink paws? On Thursday she packed up her wonder fur, her leetle pink nose and her tiny pink paws and went home.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Reminder


I want to remind my local Wake County Democrats that this evening is your annual precinct meeting, if not this evening some are scheduled for the 20th but whenever your's is scheduled, go here for more information.
Real Literacy

Now that you can play historical triva like a champ, improve your literature literacy at the Gutenberg Project. You can download whole books, it's amazing.
Cultural Literacy

You know "I have a dream" and "Four Score and Seven years ago" , but what about the rest of the speech? There is more to them than the first few words. Go here to American Rhetoric.Com and become more culturally literate.
useful

The Citation Machine creates citations for your papers, those of you in school.
Rrrwwwrrzzspz!


Dear Mommy and Daddy,

I don’t know what they told you about this place but whatever they told you it was a lie! The food is awful! I was homeless and I managed to eat better than I do here. It tastes cheap and you know how much I detest the taste of cheap.

I also thought that you had arranged for a single. I have had to share a bed the entire time I have been here. This is outrageous! Not only having to sleep on a bed with a human, but also with another cat! I am sure we talked about this before you made reservations. I can be sure that this must be a mistake on their part. I know you wouldn’t make me share a bed with anyone. You respect my need for privacy and alone time, my deeply held believe that my personal space is more important than yours, this is a very important distinction for me - mine is important, everyone else’s is negotiable.

There is no such respect accorded to me here. Am I being punished? You are also aware that I don’t care for this kind of behavior from you. When you have forgotten about this little visit and have moved on. I will have not moved on. I do not move on. It is then that I will unleash my fury. Don’t let my fluffy exterior and pink nose fool you. I am a gray belt! Not quite as deadly as a black belt but far deadlier than a brown belt.

The birds here are also terribly uninspired. A very plebeian assortment of sparrows and other unworthy breeds. I have of course lodged a complaint with the person about this. The birds also do not come close enough to the windows. I want something done about that and I am afraid the person is not as interested in my desire for close up birding as they should be. Did you check the persons references? I feel you were misled.

The other cat is certainly NOKD. I mean, really. It insists on spending time with the person. I am truly ashamed to be called a cat. The creature had the nerve to come to the persons defense when I was calmly explaining how I would like my bedding prepared for the evening - I explained over and over that my rug was to be in the exact center of the bed and that I was the only one who would sleep on that bed. It is my way. The person sat on the bed and then turned down the bedding - which I at first thought was the first nice thing she had done for me, I thought she was adding to the padding under my rug. Instead she wanted to use my bed too! Again, I was outraged!

I told her what I expected and she ignored me! I was about to make my point more clearly for he when the other cat jumped in the middle of our conversation and interrupted us. It remained on my bed for the rest of the evening! I of course, claimed the larger part of the bed! This bed sharing is unnatural. I would hope that this situation will be remedied before this evening - but I sorely doubt it.

I also believe that there is a dog here. I have not seen it, as it is hiding, most likely to kill me! And yet, no one is alarmed! The other cat turns a deaf ear to my concerns about the dog. First it sides with the person and now it belittles my concerns about the dog. I am going to report the cat as soon as I get home. Which will be soon...?

Oh, by the way, if the person says anything to you about allege wounds I may or may not have “inflicted”, for the record she punctured her own hand with my teeth that she used with out my permission. I may have been drugged! off the record, between you and I, I am writing this is her blood.


Love,

Mini

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Dick


"You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

On Saturday, Cheney accidentally shot Whittington, 78, a prominent Austin lawyer, on a farm near Kingsville, Texas, southwest of Corpus Christi.

Cheney's office did not disclose the shooting until Sunday afternoon after a member of the family that owns the ranch told a Corpus Christi newspaper about it

Asked whether it was appropriate "for a private citizen to be the person to disseminate the information that the vice president of the United States has shot someone," McClellan said, "That's one way to provide information to the public."



Keeping in mind of course, it is not the right way...


CNN.Com
The House Guest

Finally! @#$%^ servers!, you know it is always first thing in the morning somewhere...)

The Kitty has an undeserved reputation for being a bad cat, hence his nicknames of “Bad Kitty, Mean Kitty, Devil Kitty”. In reality, The Kitty is actually a real pussycat.

He sits on my lap while I watch TV in the evening and at night he curls up on the pillow and purrs into my ear. He’s soft, he’s furry and he likes to be picked up. He is really a nice little guy. He and I get a long, it took awhile , six or seven years, but we worked it out; in the fullness of time we were getting a long so well that I was even able to integrated Dogger into the household with limited blow back.

The Kitty and I communicate.: when he wants food, he lets me know this by tipping over light weight items I have left out in the kitchen . I feed him and he stops tipping things over. If he gets hungry at night he knows exactly what books he needs to put off the shelves to best express his hunger. He pulls them off and I feed them. Some may see this as a sick turn on behavior medication but I see it as inter-species communication.

It hasn’t always been easy: everything I own now is plastic or wrapped in bubble wrap, but like all good relationships it’s been worth the hard work.

I am baby sitting Mini Kitty AKA The Most Evil Cat Ever.

This is from his MySpace page:"This is me telling you to back the meow offPosted by Picasa


She has been in the house for a day and so far the nicest thing she has has had to say to me was when she asked me to go to hell. The other times we’ve spoken she has told me to go to hell. There are other things she’s said to me but they defy human language and sound more like RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!! I‘m not sure what this means but I’m sure it’s something ugly.

Me - Hiya Mini!!
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Damn!
Mini - HSSSsSSSSSSS! type b, my favorite!!

At this point he runs upstairs and I tend to my wounds and do some chores

BANG

WHAP

THUNKATHUNKATHUNKA

I go up stairs to investigate and The Kitty is sitting on the his cat tree looking stricken.

Me - Kitty? Are you okay
Kitty - Get. Out.
Me - What’s wrong baby? Your eyes are huge!
Kitty - NOW!
Me - What’s going on up here?

At this point The Kitty grabs me around the neck and says

Kitty - I’m begging you! Get Out Now! Save Yourself!!
Me - This is my house.
Kitty - Did Eddie Murphy teach you nothing? When you are told to GET OUT NOW you GET OUT NOW!!

I decided at this point I need to go to the source.

I find “the source” hiding under the futon.

Me - Mini?
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Mini! little baby kitty! Come on!
Mini- RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Ow. That hurt my feelings. I’m hurt.
Mini - Come any closer and I’ll show you “hurt” (at this point she pulls an iron file suitable for executing a prison escape and begins to work on her claws) You killed my people.
Me - My Gawd! (she has talons like a Ming Dynasty Empress WTF)They went on a trip! They’ll be back.
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!! I want my Mommy and Daddy!
Me - OW! hurting me is not going to bring them back sooner.
Mini - What if I smother you in your sleep? Will that bring them back?
Me - No! It most certainly will not!
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Ha! Missed me!
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Can you come out from under the futon, my back is starting to hurt.
Mini -Do you take me for an idiot?
Me - No!

(Time out for grooming. I brush my teeth, she sharpens hers)

Me - Fuzzy baby! Come here honey! Come see me!
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!!
Me - Ow! I just wanted to pet you!
Mini - nasty, sing song voice “Oh, I just wanted to pet you, I just wanted to violate your personal space, I just wanted to take advantage of your size, I just wanted to TOUCH you”... I’ve heard it all
Me - Bu-
Mini - RrrrrwwwHIIITHRAPZZZZ!!! GET OUT!!!

I did listen to Eddie Murphy, this stupid white person doesn’t need to be told twice.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Man shot and wounded by Vice President Cheney suffers "minor heart attack" after birdshot becomes lodged in his heart, hospital spokesman says.

go to CNN.com

Full story here
Valentines' Day: Wake Us When Its Over



Before we took to our beds, the animals forced me to torment them with my camera. These are the results.

Dogger

The Kitty

Monday, February 13, 2006

DICK

Bush Admin. spent over $1.6 Billion on advertising and P.R. since 2003, GAO finds

Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. George Miller, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office report finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.

Billions to defend himself but not one red cent for education, health care or social security .
Cutest. Thing. Ever

Teh Cuteness
Gold Medal in Couch Surfing

I was sitting there at traffic light Sunday morning and I noticed that the SUV in front of me was not tricked out the way other SUVs/Minivans/1994 sedans I see sitting at lights in my neighborhood typically are. This one also had what looked like the same interesting graphics as the other cars I see, but it wasn’t until I read them that I understood that this was not you average SUV in the ‘hood.

This SUV said Crime Scene Investigation in script across the tail gate and graphics I was impressed by on the sides identified it as property of the State Bureau of Investigation. It appeared to be full of stuff. I am choosing to believe that it is full of stuff because the SBI employee driving it was moving this weekend and borrowed the SUV. The back of the car wasn’t full of actual evidence it was full of his stuff. You truly do not want to see CSI in your neighborhood. I do not want there to be any crime scenes for them to investigate in my airspace.

I also noticed while I was waiting on that light ( worlds longest light) that it was snowing. Not real snow, more like dandruff snow. It’s being doing it on and off all day. It seems that once I notice what it is doing , it stops. So far our snow, unlike the snow the rest of the east coast is getting, has been limited to a rather passive aggressive snowfall.

On our local news over the weekend they were pimping out to us encouraging us to watch a feature they produced called “What To Do If You Have Top Get Out Of Your House In Ten Minutes And Most Likely Will Never Be Able To Return”. I can’t imagine why they did that. We don’t get tornados here unless we do and with hurricanes we have days advanced notice before hand and there are no levies here to fail. We do however have a nuke plant. I can’t think of what other huge, dangerous thing that could happen to us here in Boondocks, NC that could cause such peril. What do they know about that they aren’t telling us!? They can’t say out right : “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! WE ARE ALL GOIN’ TO DIE ON TUESDAY!!!” so instead they show us the most efficient ways to flee? This does not make me feel at all secure. I want my local news shows to keep me updated on the best places to see fall color or where not to eat lunch. I do not want them telling me how to flee.

Have watched much Olympics? I’m still doing my warm ups. A little down hill, a little pairs skating. I’m trying to pace myself. I don’t want to burn out too soon. I need to stay rested and on my game; To do this I am ready to make sacrifices, I am willing to skip curling and any races over 1500 meters. I have to do what I have to do, it’s a long two weeks and I need to stay at my best.

The Olympics mean that my shows aren’t going to be on. I was okay with this until I realized that Sunday night Law and Order -CI and Crossing Jordan wouldn’t be on. It winded me, have to admit. It was tough but I moved on to other things; Alpine skiing, speed skating, ski jumping, snowboarding and luge. Lets see Vincent DeOnfrio try to luge.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Queen of Denial

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that violent protests in the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad could "spin out of control" if governments refuse to act responsibly.

“Could?” She is comfortable with her use of “Could”? What are they now? I had no idea the rioters were using Roberts Rules of Order as they riot. “Could??"

CNN.com
Right.


Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter


WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.

I would have thought that Cheney became a made man years ago...

I will personally work for the recall of any Democratic pol who says "That poor man! He (Cheney) must feel terrible".

What the Democratic machine should be saying is "People are saying that Cheney is really not fit for office. What are the charges we could, and very well will see see coming against the Vice President over the next days? And if we don't see these charges, are we looking at a cover up? Up next: Elderly hunters? should they be armed?

The democratic party movers and shakers need to stick its senses of humor and sympathy up their asses and start seeing this as an opportunity. You can be damn sure that the Republican Noise Machine would be all over this if it had happened to a Democrat.
HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!

Saturday, February 11, 2006

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!

Friday, February 10, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging

The Olympics

What To Watch during The Olympics

And its from Zap 2 It. COm, so you know its, um, well, it's a viewing guide.
We The People

I have learned from reading lefty blogs. We, and the Democratic Party to which we donate money to, are a diverse lot. We're all about diversity. We stand for ever' body.

"We need people for the commercial, people who look like the Democratic Party -- workers in hard hats, moms with kids, men and women in business suits, hippies, young and old, all colors, enviro types, college professors, young women, someone in a wheelchair, etc. "

And:

"if you're the party on the outs and you say we can do better, you're going to win.He adds, if it were up to me, I'd be tougher and meaner. But you're trying to unite a diverse party.

The Dems attempt to get their shit together

We don't need a thousand page message we need a few good sound bites! We need to concentrate less on our party diversity and celebrate Party cohesiveness.

How about trying to be more about a message instead of being a political Tower of Babel? And even better, making the agenda of the party be what is important and not trying in vain to satisfying the agendas of every special interest group that falls under the democratic umbrella. Why not let the Vegans for Peace or the Left Sided Hemisphere Stroke Victims for Cleaner Water speak for them own damn selves? On their own damn time? It is not the Party's job make the agenda of every wack job special interest group that donates money to it, it's own .The RNC, however makes this work for them, why?

The Republicans have plenty of poor white trash in their followers and yet The GOP doesn't spend a lot of its advertising budget braying about how much they love POOR PEOPLE. They don't have to, they planted the seeds of their marketing strategy years ago under Reagan, they went to the churches and talked business. Democrats go to the churches today and talk diversity.
I want to see the Democratic Party identifying with people who are not destitute, I want to see the democrats stop being so damn hypercritical and do ads featuring doctors and lawyers and people with money saying "I Am a Democrat". The constant reliance on the poor and disenfranchised hasn't helped anybody become less poor and more franchised. It's easy for the GOP to look down on the democrats and send that message to their masses "that the Democratic Party is made up of the guy who panhandles from you at the corner and the unwed mother who makes the line at the grocery take forever because she's screwing around with her 11, 000 coupons. The party must associate itself with success and successful people as well as the "diverse".

"Oh, but the Democratic Party is the party of Diversity! We Love Everybody! Everyone has a say in our positions!! We are so fair and open minded! We are the party of the oppressed and denied! And we love the earth and water and the every little animal (vertebrates and the vertebrate challenged!) that makes their homes here! We love the downtrodden and the weak! We Are The Party of Inclusion!!"

We are the party that can't get elected. We are the party that fails to get a plurality of the vote at all levels. What does this tell you about the Party? We love everybody and yet nobody loves us.
We need to stop the hugging and swaying and the hand wringing and group hugs and start thinking like winners. We need to stop being needy and start being demanding. Less talking, fewer words and more fear - and not Global Warming fear or destruction of the rain forest fear. We need a fear that has a direct impact on day to day life, even if they appear ridiculous and unfounded. We need an enemy! And not just "The Man". The GOP didn't get where it is today by worrying about their manufactured fears appearing ridiculous and unfounded.

And I am not saying that we should jetison a huge part of party faithful, what I am saying is we can't just limit ourselves to those who feel or are rejected by the republican party. We need to widen our net and let more people know what the democratic party can do for them not just limiting ourselves to the folks the republican party has done to.

We need to go back to the old time democrats, the ones we disavowed in sixties. We were uncomfortable with their bigotry and their assbackaward mindset and they were not part of the New Democratic Party. Speaking of racists, have you ever read Nation Of Islam paper? it's racist crap - but, hey, we accept their intolerance because they are such good Democrats. Nobody is innocent.

We need the NASCAR Dads and the Soccer Moms and we let them turn into fodder for the GOP. We need to get back these people.

The Democratic Party needs to drop the NOKD attitude and teh elitist mindset and start showing up at NASCAR races and Christian concerts and everything else we perceive as being a lost cause to us. We need to rehabilitate this enormous voting block; we should never have allowed them to be sucked up by the republicans because they didn't fit the mold. These Dixicrats, these poor, these blue collar, these poorly educated, these hyper religious; These people should be ours. We need to show them that the Democratic Party isn't just for Wicca’s and Unitarians and everyone else that isn't like them. We allowed the GOP to blame the Democrats for their marginalization while their buddies in the GOP broke their unions and took their jobs away and kept them down.

We need to treat them better, We need to stop using them as the butt of our jokes. That is bigotry, boys and girls and that is costing us elections.

Thursday, February 9, 2006

Fake News

terrorists wanted to blow up LA skyscraper, but were thwarted

...And where are these terrorists now? Do we have them in custody? did we arrest them? Have they been tried? Who are they? Did we let them get away to attack us on another day? The terrorists have not been fragmented, the terrorists have been educated. . I want these murderers found and tried and executed. I want us to put their heads on pikes and parade them through the city streets. I do not want them to be thwarted.

The plot was set in motion by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, a month after those happened, Bush said. It involved terrorists from al Qaeda's Southeast Asia wing, Jemaah Islamiyah.
Al Qaeda's Southeast Asia leader, known as Hambali, had recruited Jemaah Islamiyah operatives for the plot, Bush said. Hambali was arrested in 2003 in Thailand."Rather than use Arab hijackers, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed sought out young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion," Bush said


Okay, the management level bad guys are somewhere, but what about the worker bees? where are they and who are they working for now? and dayum this happened in "early 2002"? it's early 2006!!


Edited To Add:

Atrios and our crack White House Press Corp, ask how exactly they were going to blow up a skyscraper with a shoe bomb?


CNN.com
News

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Is The National Journal a reliable news sourse? Because this makes me want to have their babies.

The National Journal
It came from 1987

I get a lot of email from Classmates.com, most of them breathlessly informing me that a someone from the past, usually not my past has updated their profile on the site. I don’t spend much time wondering what happened to The Class of 83 and as time passes. I don't really think much about the people from The Class of 87 either.

I should feel more curious about them; after all I went to school with some of them for 13 years. My graduating class had many of the same people I went to kindergarten with – all be it I graduated from a class of something in the neighborhood of 436 and my kindergarten class topped out at 18 – the rest of them went to my same Junior High and that still makes for six long years of enforced togetherness. These are people know entirely too much about each others puberty. There should be some law, written or unwritten forbidding them to ever have to speak to or be in the same space with each other again. .Oh, yeah, he’s hot now, but you should have seen him in 85! Whooo! Flock of Seagulls all the way! or Oh, yeah, she has great taste in music now, but back in 83? huge Men at Work fan!. Maybe if we could just get a gag order?

We spent some of the best Gawd No!, meaningful I don’t think so!,longest! years of our lives together – we watched each other get tits or not get tits, grow beards, fail to grow beards, change voices and learn about the fine art of camouflaging bad skin, bad hair, all while learning how not to properly use base – all this and living through the eighties! Without the benefits of hard drugs! Can you imagine spending the eighties and both Reagan terms sober? Those things bond you together.

The nice thing about graduating was not just that we had successfully navigated our childhoods together and made it to the other side – graduation meant we never had to see each other again! - Which sounded great at the time… Fast forward a few months and the idea of seeing a familiar face, even one of those faces would have seemed like heaven - 20,000 people and I don’t know any of them!? until we all releized with all those people blessedly far, far away we could transform ourselves from the person they knew into the person we wanted to be.

I got an email from 1987.

My classes’ foreign exchange student dropped me a line to ask if I remembered her.

I said “Of course I remember you! You were our foreign exchange student. And you cried when we lost homecoming that year”.

But that was all I remembered about her.

She asked about other people we went to school with and I came up with nothing. “I know about X,Y,Z but oh, wait! Robby Van Winkle was in our class and he turned into Vanilla Ice”.

She asked after this guy Doug, she went to the Homecoming Dance with and I couldn't place him, I needed more - "Third degree burns?, Oh, wait! Yeah. Did you go to Homecoming with him? Wow, his name was Doug?"

We emailed back and forth a few more times, she lives in the states now full time and said she'll be at our reunion next year. I didn’t even know we were having a reunion!

I checked with a friend and she says she hasn’t heard anything about a reunion, except she also takes for granted we’ll have one. We had a 5 year and a 10 year but skipped the 15. I guess we were busy.

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

News

For my local readers: This is probably old news by now but at 6:36 pm the Helping Hand Mission on Tarboro was on fire. It looked like it was up in the attic or second floor area but it was clear the whole building was involved. . There were many, many, many firefighters on the scene. I just started a new detective novel today at lunch and one character said you can tell how close the disaster is by how fast the sirens stop. I heard the sirens and idly thought "Hmm. Just like the book. They did stop fast." I learned that when the sirens are really, really close by, you don't hear them at all. I had a neighbor go out 911 late one night and I never heard the sirens despite the fact they were right across the street. So anyway, The Helping Hand Mission is going to need a helping hand.


Sorry for the light posting today but I got served not once, not twice but three times today and I've been busy.

The Dance of the Butterfly

Next week I am going to have a house guest that is not Nephdog! Next week I get to host Mini-Kitty!

I’m excited because Mini –Kitty is just the sweetest little thing evah. She is however, the second coming of Houdini and I fear that since she puts so much emphasis on her breaking out skills she may have not spent as much time as she could have studying the finer points The-Person-Has-Gone-To-Bed-For-The-Next-Eight-Hours-So-It-Must-Be-Time-For-Everybody-To-Go-To-Bed-For-The-Next-Eight-Hours-As-The-Nocturnal-Life-Is-For-Animals-That-Do Not-Require-Outside-Assistance-To-Feed-Themselves chapter of the book of life that my animals have finally mastered.

Mini-Kitty has embraced the nocturnal lifestyle in a way that my animals have not. This might be a problem

I’m not sure what The Kitty does during the day although I have my suspicions he keeps himself both busy and awake doing things that may have something to do with money laundering and questionable email schemes. The Kitty sleeps like a log at night, obviously out of exhaustion. Dogger who does nothing but sleep all day gets really cranky if I keep her awake past 10pm.

MK also has a bad habit of sneaking out doors. I have a lot of doors and my outdoors boasts features that hers does not. My outdoors has pit bulls, city busses and morons that don’t understand that the street has no outlet.

I can all ready tell that life with Mini-Kitty is going to involve a lot more care me paying attention to what is going on around me than life with Nephdog or The Kitty. I wonder if Mini-Kitty would mind being fitted for a glow in the dark smock and an itty bitty GPS unit. Would a cat have a problem with showing up for roll call?

I’m kind of hoping that the reality of sharing close quarters with a huge, inquisitive dog will be enough to make Mini-Kitty really excited about spending most of her time upstairs hiding under the bed, behind a door and not trying to sneak out the door while I am taking Dogger our for her constitutionals . It is times like these that make me want to kiss my little old house with its formal entry ways and numerous sticky doors. I am also banking on the fact that Mini-Kitty doesn’t know how to open doors, unlike The Kitty who could star inOceans’ 17.

Speaking of Doggers morning outings, when I took Dogger out this morning, my paper was there! It was there and it was dressed appropriately for the weather in a snazzy little plastic coat! I was floored. Lately if the paper comes at all before I leave for work I have to play hide and seek with it or spend my morning standing in front of the window waiting for the paperboy to finally come down my street. I now have the My Paper Did Not Arrive line on speed dial. I have memorized the little computerized speech and to keep myself alert at 6:10 am while it goes through its little spiel I am working on my own interpretive dance to go along with it. The Kitty provides the beat by yowling at the imaginary cats that live inside the kitchen window.

For English Press 1 Jump on one foot
If You had a problem with the delivery of your paper press 1 Shimmy, Shimmy, Running Man, Running Man
If You did not receive your paper today, press 3 Its dark! I’m trapped in a box! Be an Unhappy Butterfly! Be an Unhappy Butterfly!
If you would like to register a complaint press 1 Go Butterfly, It’s your Birthday! It’s your Birthday.
Would you like to have your paper redelivered and register a complaint, press 2, if you would like your subscription extended and to register a complaint, press 3 Break free of your prison Butterfly! Flutter! Flutter Little Butterfly!
Your complaint has been registered and your subscription extended, Thank you!

Bow.

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Cops-Raleigh

On cop shows when they show somebody getting arrested, it seems so tidy. They pat the suspect down, declare him "clean" or get all in his face because they find something. It happens really fast. Find guy/pat guy down/read rights/put into waiting cop car. The end. If they are trying to for gritty, they might slam the guy on the hood of the car before they, breifly, search him.

In real life, and I've seen guys get the pat down/rights read/into cop car thing. They spend a lot more time with the patting down part and the searching/tearing suspects car apart part. The bad guy is on his knees or on his face or sitting on the curb in cuffs for a long time while they are removing everything from his vehicle and going back and forth to the cop car and at least here, there is usually more than one cop car involved with the arresting.

On cop shows they always tippy toe around searching suspects cars or they impound them or whatever. Not here. Here we search folks cars and go through their belongings in front of Gawd and everyone.
Forget Sanctions

This Puppy could bring on world peace.

from The Daily Puppy
And who would man this "intervention"?

US leaders are openly discussing the looming conflict. A recent poll showed that 57 per cent of Americans favoured military intervention to stop Iran building a bomb.

Times.Uk

That "57%" number is the same percentage of Americans who think putting magnets on their cars is "is the same level of support for the war effort" as joining the armed services.* The only way this country could for lack of a better word "staff" yet another front for an unlimited period of time would be to start the draft.




*-pulled out of my ass, much the same as the Times UK did with their poll numbers.
Because educated people make him nervous

BYE BYE BIG BIRD? In his 2007 budget, President Bush requesting that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting be cut by $157 million over the next two years, threatening educational programming like Sesame Street and National Public Radio so he can make his tax cuts permanent.

Let them know you know what they are trying to do and than

House of Representatives
The U.S. Senate

...bitch, bitch, bitch about what the RNC and Shrub are trying to do to the children of this country, also remind them of those pesky midterm elections that are coming up...
Pink Furry Flounder

Oh goody. It’s not Monday anymore.

Now its Tuesday, which differs from Monday in that it is the second day of the week, or the third, depending if you are of the school that counts Sunday as the first day of the week instead of the more correct last day of the week – if you are going with “first” day – that means you have bad math and need to seek remedial tutoring in the days of the week. I can’t help you, I’m busy.

My big project for Monday evening was to both bath Dogger and stay awake through CSI Miami. It’s a challenge. I would have forgone bathing Dogger so to make it easier to stay awake for CSI Miami but the office has developed somewhat of a haze and I don’t think it is because of my smokin’ hot wardrobe choices. Dogger and everything she touched needed to be laundered. Bed included.

Thus far Dogger has not eaten much of her new bed. She has limited herself to nibbling on a few swatches of fabric and to moving the bed away from the way. She knows enough to feel very, very bad about both of those things. I know she had started to snack on her bed when I came home the other day and she would not get off her bed. She just lay there looking very flat and following me with her eyes. Hall and Oates did not write “Lying Eyes” about a dog. Dogs eyes are literal the windows to their little doggy souls and they are very clean windows with no dog nose prints on them. You can see right through them and they can not lie to you.

I walked into the room the other day and said

Me – Dogger! Wanna go for a walk? Why is your bed in the middle of the room?
Dogger –I’m not here, I’m not here, I’m not here
Me – What did you do?

looking around to see if anything looked destroyed

Dogger – Don’t see me, Don’t see me, Don’t see me
Me – What did you do!
Dogger – Nothing to see here!. (Now lying on the bed doing her best impression of a flounder)
Me – Did you eat something? How did you move your bed? I have a hard time moving your bed and I have thumbs.

The curtains seemed to be unmolested and the same condition as they had been when I left in the morning, the computer looked okay, the VCR cables were unchewed, the wood work looked wretched, but it has looked wretched since I painted the room over a year ago and decided it was just too much work to tackle the wood work at that time (lazy, lazy, lazy!) and so I would “do it later”. It has been later for a very long time and the woodwork still looks like ass. I could not find what she knew she should not have done. Dogger all this time while I was mentally flogging myself over the state of the woodwork was making herself flatter, and flatter and flatter. She was doing her damndist to merge her large orange self into pink bedding.

She never took her eyes off me.

Me – Did you eat your bed?
Dogger – Blink, Blink.
Me – You aren’t invisible you know.
Dogger –See how pretty my eyes are? Have you ever seen such pretty brown eyes?
Me – You look guilty. What did you do? Get Off the damn bed!
Dogger – I love my bed. I want to live here. I want to be my bed.
Me - What is that? WHAT DID YOU DO!!!

“That” was a scarp of fabric that had been very carefully shorn from the bed and left on the floor, damp and chewed on.

Dogger – I’m the worst dog in the entire world! I suck! Kill me now!
Me – Gawd Damn It!
Dogger – Just don’t yell at me or try to discipline me in any way!
Me – You can’t have nice things!
Dogger – I know!
Me _ If your doggy brain is allegedly too small for you to remember what you did three minutes ago, how is it that you are feeling guilt over something you did hours ago?
Me – Oh! You’re mad now! Loud noises now! I hate it when we fight! Let’s go for a walk!

SIGH

Monday, February 6, 2006

Why Does George W. Bush Hate The Elderly?


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush is sending Congress a $2.7 trillion spending plan that provides big increases for the military and homeland security but squeezes many other government programs in an effort to get soaring deficits under control. The AP

For Example:

More than 700 Dallas County senior citizens living in poverty have been cut from a federal program that provided them with 25-pound boxes of free groceries each month. The local seniors were among 59,000 people nationwide who lost assistance from the Commodity Supplemental Food Program on Feb. 1.
Dallas Morning News
There are three horseman up on the hill

Full House's Stephanie dicusses her meth addiction.
How red is Canada?

Can the President Order a Killing on U.S. Soil?"

According to Bush Administration staff, Yes.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Bradbury questions about the extent of presidential powers to fight Al Qaeda; could Bush, for instance, order the killing of a Qaeda suspect known to be on U.S. soil? Bradbury replied that he believed Bush could indeed do this.

In the reality based community, such an act, even againts a bad guy? it is still a class A felony.

§705-512 Grading of criminal solicitation. Criminal solicitation is an offense one class or grade, as the case may be, less than the offense solicited; provided that criminal solicitation to commit murder in any degree is a class A felony. [L 1972, c 9, pt of §1; am L 1997, c 149, §2]


If you or I wanted to have someone else kill a person for us, we would depending on where you live, go to jail forever or be put on death row. The Imperial Presidency strikes again.
Super Blah Weekend

There were so many things I could of and should have spent the weekend doing.

Instead I spent Saturday:

9:30 - Woke up.

9:45 - Put Dogger out to pee/fed Dogger/ took Dogger out to pee/Put Dogger in yard/Noticed it was raining/brought Dogger in.

10:30 - Watched Fridays Monk I taped.

10:45 - Heated left overs for lunch.

11:15 - Watched 2 hours of taped 15 year old Miami Vice and ate lunch.

12:50 - Fast forwarded through two more hours of a couple of 15 year old Miami Vice reruns after deciding I had most likely all ready seen these but still watched them to see if these episodes were just very similar to other 15 year old Miami Vice reruns or if episodes I had not actually similar but not the same to all ready watched 15 year old Miami Vice reruns I had all ready watched. Sadly, I had all ready seen these. This gave me opportunity to ponder if the show used same stock footage of the lieutenant giving his "Get Out Of My Office And Back To Work and Stop Bothering Me Before I Kill You With My Super Secret Laotian Mind Meld, Why Yes, I don’t have any other facial expressions, why do you ask?" death glare, interspersed with shots of the lieutenants’ standing in his office with his trademark stance of "Ask Around, I Eat Babies and I’m Bigger and Better Bad Ass than Thou get back to work you pastel suit wearing pansies". I also thought about if the lieutenant wore the same black suite for the entire run of show or if they just inserted stock footage of the "death glare"/"Bigger and Better Bad Ass Than Thou" into show as needed to cut down on expenses and if producers just got rid of the lieutenant actor after the first season to free up funds for the prettier members of the cast wardrobe and hair product expences.

1:20 - Needed change. Watched DVD of Betsy's Wedding. Lusted after very young Anthony Lapaglia, wondered when he started to get so chunky bulk up and whatever happened to Ally Sheedy?

2:30 - Decided that these were questions best left for the ages. Got dressed.

2:30 - Took Dogger to post office to mail bills.

2:45 - Got in car and went to Grocery instead, with mind to buy butter and sugar and then mail bills.

2:48 - At grocery, stressed over what exactly “Shed Spread” is and whether it counts as a margarine or a “sandwich spread”, wondered if I had been using “sandwich spread” all along and not noticed. Asked self what “sandwich spread” is anyway. Closed eyes and grabbed a tub of something that may or may not be yellow and hoped it was something in the margarine family.

3:30 -Decided I might want to bake a cake. Bought cake mix, icing, fake eggs, new chewy bone for Dogger and card for friends soon to be 6 year old.

3:45 - Stood in parking lot and tried to decided what 6 year olds want for birthday gifts. Remembered that other friend had a child with a birthday last week that went unremembered by me. Decide that existing card would be adequate and more or less marking of event.

3:50 - Mailed bills

4:15 - Decided cake backing scheme was bogus. Ate frosting out of tub.

4:25 - Gathered laundry.

4:30 - watched HGTV.

5:15 - Tripped over laundry on way to fed Dogger

5:16 - attempted to make Dogger want to eat dinner.

5:17 - Dogger more interested in new chewy bone, told me she would get back to me later on dinner plans.

5:25 - Checked Email.

5:27 - Fed Dogger.
5:35 - Sorted Laundry, discovered that laundry didn’t need to be sorted.

5:45 - Tormented Kitty with digital camera with time saved by not needing to sort laundry.

5:55 - Put Dogger in yard.

6:00 - Took laundry to basement.

6:15 - Remembered that HGTV show I liked was on.

6:16 - Realized it was one I had all ready seen.

6:20 - Checked Email.

6:30 - Trotted out new George Foreman. Enthusiastically prepared boneless/skinless chicken breast for dinner.

7:20-7:35 - Tormented Kitty with digital camera.

8-10:00 - Law and Order -Criminal Intent does two hour ripped from the headlines reworking of the story of that chick who went missing in the Caribbean.

11:30 - SNL.

Sunday.

Much the same except for no Miami Vice, Monk or Betsy's Wedding. Filled time instead with actual chores. More work, less fun - spent most of day waiting for Puppy Bowl to commence.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!!

Saturday, February 4, 2006

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!

Friday, February 3, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging



Speaking of little animals, here and meet the puppies who are playing in the Puppy Bowl this year. There are games and video clips as well.
No Fishing Zone

Message to Lawyers at large: If you want documents from my office all you have to do is ASK. It is not necessary to subpoena me. It is even more unnecessary for you to subpoena me for items that are public record. If you still feel comfortable subpoenaing me for crap you should have just requested in the first place, make sure that you are available to answer questions pertaining to the subpoena when I call, if you want my attention, I need yours first. While your little lawyer subpoenas do get my attention they aren’t real subpoenas and slapping one in my face annoys me, unlike a real subpoena from a judge that scares me.

Jerk.

Addendum I:

If you claim to “want to stay on my good side”, the best way to do that is to simply request the documents that you need, requesting “everything I have” is not the way to my heart. I love you even less when I realize that you are going to want a four foot stack of documents. Causing this office huge time/manpower/tree consuming clerical jobs to satisfy a litigious fishing trip on your part is not the way to my good side. By the way, I have no good side.

Dick weed.

Addendum II

Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part

Gawd.

Anyway. I am reading a new book at lunch. I was reading another book but I disliked everyone involved, up to an including the people I was supposed to feel sorry for. It was also veddy, veddy British and it hurt my head trying to translate the text to Murican. And it was about politicians and tabloids. Conservative British politicians and the scary British tabloids that scare them and bored me. If I was a better person I would use the book to educate myself regarding British government and policies and …. Or I could just pick another book.

So I did.

Now I’m reading the very, very Murican Dave Barry. He wrote and actual novel and it’s all right. Dave Berry is no Carl Hiaasen, but he’ll do in a pinch. Speaking of Carl Hiaasen, why do I not have his most recent book? I know it’s out there. I blame bad, selfish people who buy the book and than fail to sell it back to my used book guy so I can buy it for $3.75. I thought in this post 9/11 world we were supposed to work together. If people won’t come across with their used books, how can we make it work?

I am enjoying the story though, so far, 36 pages in that I am. I would be further in but Dogger’s little dish is empty and I needed to go to the store to pick her up some more food. Let it be known, 22 pounds of new food was purchased for Dogger on 2/2/06. I want to see how long it takes her to eat 22 pounds of food.

Speaking of animal food. I’m waiting to see how long it takes the feral cat friends cum lately around here to notice that our resident kitties have a new food. The Cat Food Providing Powers That Be have cut the kitties’ food budget off like a Republican congressman cutting financial aid to the post-born. So, I bought new food. New Cheap Food. Really, really, really cheap food. I know these bleeding paws around here are going to be clutching their pearls about the quality of the food “Oh our poor kitty! You mean he’s eating store brand cat food! Oh The Horrors!! Shit. He ate Sam’s Club house brand for years and he survived, thrived even. Next time I’m going to make them pay for the food, better yet, the next time I’m going to let them supply the food themselves.

Addendum III

The public would stop taking their chances with the litigation lottery if it wasn’t cheaper to play and easier to win than your average scratch off game.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Ask a pharmacist

What Meds.Com. You have questions about your prescriptions?, they have answers and they list generic equivalents.
Hee!

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chosen House majority leader,CNN has learned .

Now the GOP has chosen a real boner to lead them.
The GOP needs an intervention

They simpley can not stop cheating.

House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting. Stay with RollCall.com for updates. Roll Call

from Atrios
Gah.

Eat The Rich
May they rest in peace

2,247
CSI-DC

The Pentagon has formed a team of nuclear experts to analyze the fallout from a terrorist nuclear attack on American soil in an effort to identify the attackers, officials have said.

The team, which can draw on hundreds of federal experts, uses such tools as robots that gather radioactive debris and sensitive gear to detect the origins of a device, whether a true atomic weapon or a so-called dirty bomb, that uses ordinary explosives to spew radioactivity.

The objective is to determine quickly who exploded the device and where it came from, in part to clarify the options to strike back, the officials said. The government also hopes that terrorists will be less likely to use a nuclear device if they know that it can be traced.
(from The New York Times)

New Team Plans to Identify Nuclear Attackers

Jerry Bruckheimer strikes again.
Compensation

Ow, Ow, Ow. I tripped over a box on my office floor and now Ow. It’s not like it snuck in here and camouflage itself while I was at lunch. I put it there. It and its two friends, which I think I also, may have tripped over while I was flaying around tripping over the other one. I don’t know.

They boxes aren’t even in a bad place. I, on purpose, with a mind toward workplace safty, put them right in the middle of the walk way so that I would not trip over them. How was I going to trip over them when they are so out in the middle like that? Hard to miss like they are. But No. I have to trip over one or all every time I go down that way. Stupid.

I bet that workers comp doesn’t pay for injuries sustained at work due to the workers own special brand of stupid. I temped at a insurance company that did workers comp pay outs and I am almost sure that worker stupidness can work against the worker when he/she is making a claim, for instance, if you are using your hand to push wood through a buzz saw instead of say, the tool that is designed to slide wood through a buzz saw and you shockingly manage to cut your hand? This is stupid and they woudn't want to pay your claim.

There were people at that office whose jobs it was to holler at stupid workers when they called in trying to get checks cut for their stupid injuries. I think the insurance agency was down with Darwin, the insurance company didn't to reward stupidness and thus allow the stupid to stay in the workplace/nature and be able to spread the stupid. It's better business to not reward the stupid early and hope it dies after running into a wall head first. There was a lot of stupid person hollering at going on at that office. I think they rarely got calls from workers who had walls fall on them or who were victims of their work places stupid – it was always stupid worker v. himself. It made me think that stupid people hurt themselves at work more often than the non-stupid. I think I was right.

So. Ow. I sprained my whole right side tripping over a box. I must be brilliant.

Changing the subject.

I came home from work yesterday after being a good little respondent to the transit thingy. I wrote on there the address of the restaurant I had lunch at and really thought about whether I should figure out the addresses of the post office and the dollar store I walked to while I was there. I decided since I did not drive to the post office or the dollar store that I could leave them out of the work sheet I was filling out. The people who sent me the worksheet were supposed to call me that night so I could report on my comings and goings – Frankly, who are these people? The NSA? Anyway. They never called, which mildly annoyed me as I had been good all day about checking when I arrived at a given place, what I drove there, why I was there and how long it took me, Frankly, it was kind of a pain in the ass and they didn’t even bother to call me about it.

Whatever. If they do call me I could totally screw with their findings if I wanted to. I could go all creative writing assignment on them. I won’t but I could – if they don’t call me soon, I might get bored or feed my work sheet to the Kitty or let it fall to the ground in stead of mailing back to them, I could have a slip and fall and it would be their fault. Hmm. Volunteer Comp?

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Can't carry a tune in a bucket?

Are you Tone Deaf? I scored 21 out of 30.
Omigawd

Aren't liberals cute when we get all outraged? and than trot our naiveté out? 'cause there is nothing scarier than bunch of naifs.