Meth production for Dummies
A handy DIY tip sheet brought to you by the Department of Justice .
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Weenie
I didn’t go to the funeral. I could have, others in the office did. I am a giant weenie and I didn’t go. I went to one child’s funeral years ago and I pretty much decided that I really didn’t want to go to any others. Ever. Thus far it has been an easy to keep to that. Thank God.
I decided to rationalize not going by telling myself that part of my wanting to go was the fact that I have never been inside of a Mosque and I wanted to see one. I told myself that this was a very shallow and not totally respectful reason and it would be wrong to satisfy my curiosity at a child's' funeral. It seemed like it would be bad karma for me in the long run. It's also a big giant rationalization and I was a big chicken. I barely got through picking out the card, I didn’t think I could make it through the actual funeral.
Instead I spent my lunch hour at Poverty Barn buying bubble wrap to cushion the plastic tubs in the boxes they will be mailed in. Poverty Barn sells bubble wrap, if you’re interested. It’s not the heavy duty kind but I think it will be suitable for the job. The boxes I found at Sam’s Club turned out to be a leetle too long, not by much but enough that the tubs will need a little help sitting still during transit. I’m also going to utilize newspaper to further stabilize them.
That’s a lot of effort to make sure the cookies don’t get crushed through the mail. I mean, it’s just dog treats. But damn it they are going to arrive in the same pristine state they left in.
What else.
Did everyone watch the Charlie Brown Christmas show? I missed the Halloween one and I think I missed it last year too. I try to get the Christmas one at least because it’s so sweet and I love the soundtrack.
I’m in the middle of trying to get the temp up to speed on my job. I keep thinking that I have her at least slightly familiar with how to do the meat and potatoes part of the job when I think of something else I need to tell her. There is a lot to tell her. I held this position for 5 and half years, there are ambulance chasers out there that I've developed a bit of shorthand with over the years and they are going to be in for a rude surprise when they discover another voice on the end of the phone. They are going to have to learn to be polite to a new flunky. I hope they don't take advantage of her.
The good thing about no longer working with the lawyers is that at least now if I have an accident I won’t have to stress over hiring one of the ambulance chasers if I need one. I thought about that every once in a while, you know; would it be a conflict of interest for me to hire some one that I worked as a vendor for? Would it be preserved as showing favoritism? Could I deal with them in the future without it raising eyebrows? would they expect more from me? I know its silly, but I was concerned about that. I work with an awful lot of lawyers, many of them pretty closely and that kind of thing was a concern to me.
But, starting Friday, I can feel free to be as litigious as I want. Guilt free I can hire any low life attorney in the city, I can have a slip and fall at Wallyworld and feel good about calling any one of a dozen skeezy personal injury lawyers I know and sue the bejeeses out of them. Yay!
I didn’t go to the funeral. I could have, others in the office did. I am a giant weenie and I didn’t go. I went to one child’s funeral years ago and I pretty much decided that I really didn’t want to go to any others. Ever. Thus far it has been an easy to keep to that. Thank God.
I decided to rationalize not going by telling myself that part of my wanting to go was the fact that I have never been inside of a Mosque and I wanted to see one. I told myself that this was a very shallow and not totally respectful reason and it would be wrong to satisfy my curiosity at a child's' funeral. It seemed like it would be bad karma for me in the long run. It's also a big giant rationalization and I was a big chicken. I barely got through picking out the card, I didn’t think I could make it through the actual funeral.
Instead I spent my lunch hour at Poverty Barn buying bubble wrap to cushion the plastic tubs in the boxes they will be mailed in. Poverty Barn sells bubble wrap, if you’re interested. It’s not the heavy duty kind but I think it will be suitable for the job. The boxes I found at Sam’s Club turned out to be a leetle too long, not by much but enough that the tubs will need a little help sitting still during transit. I’m also going to utilize newspaper to further stabilize them.
That’s a lot of effort to make sure the cookies don’t get crushed through the mail. I mean, it’s just dog treats. But damn it they are going to arrive in the same pristine state they left in.
What else.
Did everyone watch the Charlie Brown Christmas show? I missed the Halloween one and I think I missed it last year too. I try to get the Christmas one at least because it’s so sweet and I love the soundtrack.
I’m in the middle of trying to get the temp up to speed on my job. I keep thinking that I have her at least slightly familiar with how to do the meat and potatoes part of the job when I think of something else I need to tell her. There is a lot to tell her. I held this position for 5 and half years, there are ambulance chasers out there that I've developed a bit of shorthand with over the years and they are going to be in for a rude surprise when they discover another voice on the end of the phone. They are going to have to learn to be polite to a new flunky. I hope they don't take advantage of her.
The good thing about no longer working with the lawyers is that at least now if I have an accident I won’t have to stress over hiring one of the ambulance chasers if I need one. I thought about that every once in a while, you know; would it be a conflict of interest for me to hire some one that I worked as a vendor for? Would it be preserved as showing favoritism? Could I deal with them in the future without it raising eyebrows? would they expect more from me? I know its silly, but I was concerned about that. I work with an awful lot of lawyers, many of them pretty closely and that kind of thing was a concern to me.
But, starting Friday, I can feel free to be as litigious as I want. Guilt free I can hire any low life attorney in the city, I can have a slip and fall at Wallyworld and feel good about calling any one of a dozen skeezy personal injury lawyers I know and sue the bejeeses out of them. Yay!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tree
My McDonalds doesn’t have its tree up yet. I call it my McDonalds because they are learning my order and only put cheese on my burger about half the time and once they caught the error before I did. Yay. They also seem to recognize me, which is both nice and sad. Nice that they remember a customer, sad that I am in there enough they remember me. My other McDonalds, my dinner McDonalds (now only putting cheese on my food 3/4s of the time!) has their tree up, but it isn’t lit. My lunch hour Burger Yucky has a nice tree, I haven’t been to my dinner Burger Yucky so I can’t comment. I’m surprised though that all McDonalds don’t have the same time table for their Christmas decorating. How unborglike of them.
Way, way, way back in the day when I worked at Jack-in-the-Box, we had lights for our tree, and I don’t remember any corporate decorating issues, but there may have been and I was re-dating day old salads in the walk in when the memos were read. I can’t remember what we decorated our tree with, but it was lit.
The video store had a tree and I think we decorated it with video boxes - I have a memory of some movie featuring a monkey and Harvey Keital but I can’t really remember and but think we used it as the tree topper – the box was yellow and looked star-like to us. We were pathetic; it was what we did with our down time, which there was a lot of, so we were very good at being pathetic. We were not a successful video store.
I don’t remember if the movie theatre had a tree, and I should remember that because I would bet that I would have been the one to decorate it - it would have been a “concession” job not a “door” job and most likely it would have been a “girl” job - I could clean the ladies room but I didn’t have to put together the lobby standees or know anything about the popcorn popper .I’m thinking we didn’t have a tree, it would have been in the way too much of the time.
We of course have one in the office. Last year was the first year that I was not a part of decorating it, and now I’m wondering if we ever put one up at all… It’s fun the first time, if you have the time to waste on it, and everyone offers to help, then no one will help – big with the comments and suggestions but no help whatsoever. I was glad I got out of the duty. I do not love decorating the tree. I enjoy doing my tree but the office tree is not my or my idea of fun, mostly because it also has to be taken down ( not a job I like doing at all, it doesn’t matter who has custody of the tree) and there is always drama about the lights, turning them on in the morning, turning them off after work. It all starts with getting the rights to plug in the extension cord and goes down hill from there. Stupid time wasting garbage. My lasting contribution to the office tree is its very lovely tree skirt. I made it, or really, Alphagal made it and I watched – but I was there.
My McDonalds doesn’t have its tree up yet. I call it my McDonalds because they are learning my order and only put cheese on my burger about half the time and once they caught the error before I did. Yay. They also seem to recognize me, which is both nice and sad. Nice that they remember a customer, sad that I am in there enough they remember me. My other McDonalds, my dinner McDonalds (now only putting cheese on my food 3/4s of the time!) has their tree up, but it isn’t lit. My lunch hour Burger Yucky has a nice tree, I haven’t been to my dinner Burger Yucky so I can’t comment. I’m surprised though that all McDonalds don’t have the same time table for their Christmas decorating. How unborglike of them.
Way, way, way back in the day when I worked at Jack-in-the-Box, we had lights for our tree, and I don’t remember any corporate decorating issues, but there may have been and I was re-dating day old salads in the walk in when the memos were read. I can’t remember what we decorated our tree with, but it was lit.
The video store had a tree and I think we decorated it with video boxes - I have a memory of some movie featuring a monkey and Harvey Keital but I can’t really remember and but think we used it as the tree topper – the box was yellow and looked star-like to us. We were pathetic; it was what we did with our down time, which there was a lot of, so we were very good at being pathetic. We were not a successful video store.
I don’t remember if the movie theatre had a tree, and I should remember that because I would bet that I would have been the one to decorate it - it would have been a “concession” job not a “door” job and most likely it would have been a “girl” job - I could clean the ladies room but I didn’t have to put together the lobby standees or know anything about the popcorn popper .I’m thinking we didn’t have a tree, it would have been in the way too much of the time.
We of course have one in the office. Last year was the first year that I was not a part of decorating it, and now I’m wondering if we ever put one up at all… It’s fun the first time, if you have the time to waste on it, and everyone offers to help, then no one will help – big with the comments and suggestions but no help whatsoever. I was glad I got out of the duty. I do not love decorating the tree. I enjoy doing my tree but the office tree is not my or my idea of fun, mostly because it also has to be taken down ( not a job I like doing at all, it doesn’t matter who has custody of the tree) and there is always drama about the lights, turning them on in the morning, turning them off after work. It all starts with getting the rights to plug in the extension cord and goes down hill from there. Stupid time wasting garbage. My lasting contribution to the office tree is its very lovely tree skirt. I made it, or really, Alphagal made it and I watched – but I was there.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Planned Parenthood Celebrates World AIDS Day with Free HIV Testing on December 1st!
More than forty million people are living with HIV throughout the world - and that number increases in every region every day. Planned Parenthood Health Systems will offer free confidential HIV testing services on Friday, December 1, 2006 in honor of World AIDS Day.
Planned Parenthood
More than forty million people are living with HIV throughout the world - and that number increases in every region every day. Planned Parenthood Health Systems will offer free confidential HIV testing services on Friday, December 1, 2006 in honor of World AIDS Day.
Planned Parenthood
Paper
We got some bad news regarding one of the women who works in my office. While the rest of us were coming down from a long weekend they were dealing with the death of a son.
It’s very sad and very sudden and another argument never letting your children near a gun. Never. There are no reasons for children to have access to a gun, ever. “But…” NO, you say “What about…” NO , Yeah, but..., NO. None whatsoever. No child “needs” a gun and now one child who had a gun has nothing and his family no longer has him.
Children don’t need to know how to handle a gun, they don’t need to know how to take care of a gun, and they don’t need to know how to use a gun. They don’t even need to know you have one and they most certainly do not need their own. Never, never, never, never. If your child does not have access to a gun they can not shoot themselves while they are cleaning it.
I went over lunch to go get the family a card. The email we got also suggested food prep too and I may do that – no pork though, which means my meat loaf is out – which is officially earmarked for Broskey and Alphagal but I think that death in the family trumps birth in the family when it comes to offerings of food. Moot point though, the loaf is porky.
Back to the card. I did not know the sympathy card industry has become so detail oriented; it’s been a while since I needed a sympathy card (Thank God) and I had a hard time finding a simple card expressing non-specific sympathy. There was “Sorry Your Grandma Died” cards, “Sorry your Grandmother Died” cards, “Sorry your Great Uncle Died” cards, "Sorry your Dad Died”, “Sorry your Father Died” and on and on. I also saw Sorry your Son Died but it was a little more reality based than I was prepared to deal with at the time and about enough to make me break down in the middle of the drug store and I didn’t want that. I also didn’t want to buy a cheap, drug store bought “Sorry Your Son Died” card, if you are going to be that specific about the loss, you should at least go to Hallmark.
In between the “Sorry your Blood Kin Died” cards were interspersed “Sorry Your Dog Died” cards. I love my pets as much as the next guy, but damn, it just didn’t seem appropriate to have a sympathy card marking the death of somebodies Gramma sharing space with a sympathy card marking the death of a Labradoodle. It’s just not right.
I think they needed to reorganize the section. I found it off putting and I have sent people sympathy cards for their pets.
Card over thought, bought, taken out to the car. I tried to address my card. I had the street address and her name but not the husbands. I went back to work after lunch and asked some one I thought would know and they did not.
Me – I was addressing the card and I didn’t have her husbands name. What is his name?
They – Um, Joe?
Me – What is Joe’s last name?
They – Um….And family?
I ended up deciding to just address it to “Sally Surveyor and Family”. I don’t like it that way though; it seems to disregard the husband’s loss. I would have preferred addressing it to either “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow” or “Ms. Sally Surveyor and Mr. Joe Blow”. I wish I didn’t have to address anything.
We got some bad news regarding one of the women who works in my office. While the rest of us were coming down from a long weekend they were dealing with the death of a son.
It’s very sad and very sudden and another argument never letting your children near a gun. Never. There are no reasons for children to have access to a gun, ever. “But…” NO, you say “What about…” NO , Yeah, but..., NO. None whatsoever. No child “needs” a gun and now one child who had a gun has nothing and his family no longer has him.
Children don’t need to know how to handle a gun, they don’t need to know how to take care of a gun, and they don’t need to know how to use a gun. They don’t even need to know you have one and they most certainly do not need their own. Never, never, never, never. If your child does not have access to a gun they can not shoot themselves while they are cleaning it.
I went over lunch to go get the family a card. The email we got also suggested food prep too and I may do that – no pork though, which means my meat loaf is out – which is officially earmarked for Broskey and Alphagal but I think that death in the family trumps birth in the family when it comes to offerings of food. Moot point though, the loaf is porky.
Back to the card. I did not know the sympathy card industry has become so detail oriented; it’s been a while since I needed a sympathy card (Thank God) and I had a hard time finding a simple card expressing non-specific sympathy. There was “Sorry Your Grandma Died” cards, “Sorry your Grandmother Died” cards, “Sorry your Great Uncle Died” cards, "Sorry your Dad Died”, “Sorry your Father Died” and on and on. I also saw Sorry your Son Died but it was a little more reality based than I was prepared to deal with at the time and about enough to make me break down in the middle of the drug store and I didn’t want that. I also didn’t want to buy a cheap, drug store bought “Sorry Your Son Died” card, if you are going to be that specific about the loss, you should at least go to Hallmark.
In between the “Sorry your Blood Kin Died” cards were interspersed “Sorry Your Dog Died” cards. I love my pets as much as the next guy, but damn, it just didn’t seem appropriate to have a sympathy card marking the death of somebodies Gramma sharing space with a sympathy card marking the death of a Labradoodle. It’s just not right.
I think they needed to reorganize the section. I found it off putting and I have sent people sympathy cards for their pets.
Card over thought, bought, taken out to the car. I tried to address my card. I had the street address and her name but not the husbands. I went back to work after lunch and asked some one I thought would know and they did not.
Me – I was addressing the card and I didn’t have her husbands name. What is his name?
They – Um, Joe?
Me – What is Joe’s last name?
They – Um….And family?
I ended up deciding to just address it to “Sally Surveyor and Family”. I don’t like it that way though; it seems to disregard the husband’s loss. I would have preferred addressing it to either “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow” or “Ms. Sally Surveyor and Mr. Joe Blow”. I wish I didn’t have to address anything.
Monday, November 27, 2006
What I did over my Thanksgiving Vacation
1. Shopped - Did you know stores are open on Thanksgiving Day? Yes, yes they are!
2. Ate. - A Lot.
3. Watched Football - Go Cowboys!!
4. Ate - Some More
5. Shopped - Some More, did not buy a 48" penguin.
6. Shopped - Call me Santa!
7. Ate - All that shopping makes you hungry.
8. Between eating and shopping, I took some pictures
9. Shopped - Sales! Everything is on sale! I saw a 48" penguin, I needed the 48" penguin, I got the 48" penguin!. If you buy too much stuff for other people, it can make you bitter. Make the world a less bitter place, buy the penguin.
True, the penguin might initially scare Dogger, but GLOBAL WARMING!! She might as well learn to live with my fake one before the real ones move in next door.
1. Shopped - Did you know stores are open on Thanksgiving Day? Yes, yes they are!
2. Ate. - A Lot.
3. Watched Football - Go Cowboys!!
4. Ate - Some More
5. Shopped - Some More, did not buy a 48" penguin.
6. Shopped - Call me Santa!
7. Ate - All that shopping makes you hungry.
8. Between eating and shopping, I took some pictures
9. Shopped - Sales! Everything is on sale! I saw a 48" penguin, I needed the 48" penguin, I got the 48" penguin!. If you buy too much stuff for other people, it can make you bitter. Make the world a less bitter place, buy the penguin.
True, the penguin might initially scare Dogger, but GLOBAL WARMING!! She might as well learn to live with my fake one before the real ones move in next door.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Then and Now
Then
On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.
Now
On Nov. 22, 2006, It's a sort of no-man's land, and no one's in charge out here. We keep a watch on each other," said Bob Goodman, who sells assassination-related newspapers at Dealey Plaza. "There are certain unwritten rules, and there's a sort of self-policing."
Then
On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.
Now
On Nov. 22, 2006, It's a sort of no-man's land, and no one's in charge out here. We keep a watch on each other," said Bob Goodman, who sells assassination-related newspapers at Dealey Plaza. "There are certain unwritten rules, and there's a sort of self-policing."
Hot and Cold
While I was shopping for the sweater, I started to wonder why we don’t do clothing drives for the homeless and needy over the summer months. Don’t they get hot too? When I see them over the summer they are always swathed with coats and sweaters and sleeping bags – ya know, because it’s not as though they have an extra closet to store them away in or access to under bed storage. They are their storage units. But. Which leads me to, why don’t we ever see suitcases- for-the-homeless- drives? We pledge blankets and winter coats so that these poor people don’t freeze to death but what about the resultant storage needs? Give a man a fish v. Give a man a fishing pole …
Doesn’t anyone ever think of them in August? It’s hot and the homeless are wandering around looking like extras from Gorky Park. Why, doesn’t anyone want to get them shorts and tee-shirts? Why don’t we have plastic palm trees set up the vestibules at churches with pleas to purchase sunglasses or flip flips for the disadvantaged?
I mean if they can’t get coats and sweaters on their own where are they supposed to get shorts and tee shirts? Do warm weather clothes drop from the sky while cold weather clothing must be formally requested? I don’t understand. Why isn’t anyone doing a bathing suit drive in July? It gets cold and all of a sudden we care about them? Why don’t we care about them when its warm and the spend the summer dressed like Eskimos?
At most public pools, they won’t let you swim in a snow suit. Some places won’t even let you swim in a tee shirt. How are the homeless supposed to cool down? If we ran into them at the pool are we worried we would have to talk to them? Are we afraid they would sneak home in our tote bags along with our sunscreen? Winter clothes make them more bulky and less likely to sneak home tucked away in our handbags?
“The homeless are all around us”. Yes, but the rest of the year we pretend they’re not there. We feel guiltier about them freezing to death than we do about the chances of them dieing from heat stroke?
I just thought about this the other day after I was looking for the sweater. I’ve never gone out looking for a pair of shorts or a tee shirt for the needy, but every year I’m off looking for inexpensive winter coats and other cold weather outerware, who supplies warm weather clothing and if there is a supplier out there, why don’t they also supply coats and gloves?
What is it about cold weather that makes us want to help our fellow man? I know I don’t feel the same push to help during the summer months that I do the first time I have to pull on a jacket - I’m cold! Somewhere out there someone else is cold! I must get them a coat!. In August when I want to die from the heat, I do not automatically think I’m Hot! Somewhere out there someone else is hot! I must get them a pair of shorts! . I mean, screw you if you die from exposure during the summer months, but in the cold weather you must be attended to immediately? Do we think that Gawd cares more about us when we are cold than when we are hot?
I guess I’m thinking about this because it got cold here all of a sudden. I woke up and it was cold. I went out over lunch, still cold, now raining - to buy packing tape – the dollar store didn’t have any! It’s not like this is a time of year that nobody uses packing tape. Whatever.
I was driving back to work (the grocery store had packing tape, I paid too much for it.) and I saw the guy that lives along Western Blvd. I see him a lot. He’s mean. Anyway, I saw him wrapped in a blanket, shouting threatening things at passers by at the sandwich shop he was leaning against and I thought Oh, that poor man! It’s so cold. But, I see him all summer shouting threatening things at passers by and I don’t think Oh, that poor man it’s so hot!. Why is he more sympathetic now? He’s scary during the summer months too and I don’t want to get him a tee shirt.
While I was shopping for the sweater, I started to wonder why we don’t do clothing drives for the homeless and needy over the summer months. Don’t they get hot too? When I see them over the summer they are always swathed with coats and sweaters and sleeping bags – ya know, because it’s not as though they have an extra closet to store them away in or access to under bed storage. They are their storage units. But. Which leads me to, why don’t we ever see suitcases- for-the-homeless- drives? We pledge blankets and winter coats so that these poor people don’t freeze to death but what about the resultant storage needs? Give a man a fish v. Give a man a fishing pole …
Doesn’t anyone ever think of them in August? It’s hot and the homeless are wandering around looking like extras from Gorky Park. Why, doesn’t anyone want to get them shorts and tee-shirts? Why don’t we have plastic palm trees set up the vestibules at churches with pleas to purchase sunglasses or flip flips for the disadvantaged?
I mean if they can’t get coats and sweaters on their own where are they supposed to get shorts and tee shirts? Do warm weather clothes drop from the sky while cold weather clothing must be formally requested? I don’t understand. Why isn’t anyone doing a bathing suit drive in July? It gets cold and all of a sudden we care about them? Why don’t we care about them when its warm and the spend the summer dressed like Eskimos?
At most public pools, they won’t let you swim in a snow suit. Some places won’t even let you swim in a tee shirt. How are the homeless supposed to cool down? If we ran into them at the pool are we worried we would have to talk to them? Are we afraid they would sneak home in our tote bags along with our sunscreen? Winter clothes make them more bulky and less likely to sneak home tucked away in our handbags?
“The homeless are all around us”. Yes, but the rest of the year we pretend they’re not there. We feel guiltier about them freezing to death than we do about the chances of them dieing from heat stroke?
I just thought about this the other day after I was looking for the sweater. I’ve never gone out looking for a pair of shorts or a tee shirt for the needy, but every year I’m off looking for inexpensive winter coats and other cold weather outerware, who supplies warm weather clothing and if there is a supplier out there, why don’t they also supply coats and gloves?
What is it about cold weather that makes us want to help our fellow man? I know I don’t feel the same push to help during the summer months that I do the first time I have to pull on a jacket - I’m cold! Somewhere out there someone else is cold! I must get them a coat!. In August when I want to die from the heat, I do not automatically think I’m Hot! Somewhere out there someone else is hot! I must get them a pair of shorts! . I mean, screw you if you die from exposure during the summer months, but in the cold weather you must be attended to immediately? Do we think that Gawd cares more about us when we are cold than when we are hot?
I guess I’m thinking about this because it got cold here all of a sudden. I woke up and it was cold. I went out over lunch, still cold, now raining - to buy packing tape – the dollar store didn’t have any! It’s not like this is a time of year that nobody uses packing tape. Whatever.
I was driving back to work (the grocery store had packing tape, I paid too much for it.) and I saw the guy that lives along Western Blvd. I see him a lot. He’s mean. Anyway, I saw him wrapped in a blanket, shouting threatening things at passers by at the sandwich shop he was leaning against and I thought Oh, that poor man! It’s so cold. But, I see him all summer shouting threatening things at passers by and I don’t think Oh, that poor man it’s so hot!. Why is he more sympathetic now? He’s scary during the summer months too and I don’t want to get him a tee shirt.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Sweater Weather
How was your morning? I started off by stepping on a dead rat. I knew it was a rat, I was taking Dogger out for her morning pee and I felt myself step on something and I thought that maybe it was a frozen turd and then I said to myself “It’s a dead rat. You stepped on a rat. You are going to have to dispose of dead rat before you leave for work”. I decided maybe I had stepped on a piece of wood.
On Doggers second trip out to pee it was light enough that I was able to tell for sure that what I had stepped on was not a frozen turd or a piece of wood. It was a rat. A dead rat but thankfully, not long dead rat. I’m so good at this now I just bagged it up like bagging up dog bomb – it makes it easier for some reason. In my mind picking up a dead rat is more gross than picking up a dog bomb. I do the same action and use the same tools and they end up the same place. It’s still gross though, it is not the start of the day you want. On the upside though, it was kind enough to die on the sidewalk and not in the grass. It is much grosser to pick up dead rat from the grass. There is disengagement involved with grass pick ups. This is something you want over fast. A scoop and run approach is the best outcome. The more time you spend on the dead rat the more time you have to think about what you’re doing. I am very close to a dead rat. I am touching a dead rat. There is a dead rat in my plastic bag covered hand rat. I am carrying a dead rat… .
And anytime you can get your dead rat issues taken care of while it is still early in the circle of life, the better. You really don’t want to have to go all CSI – Dead Rat at 6:20 in the morning.
My dead rat issues far behind me, I really wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch today. I mean, big time. But I couldn’t remember if they saw the light and started to take plastic or not and I didn’t have the cash handy to buy my lunch there if they hadn’t. I couldn’t risk it as the only other food at that shopping center is the worst Chinese restaurant on the planet. Really a Gawd awful place and I could have eaten the hour at Tuesday Morning, I really, really wanted to eat and not in a time waste kind of way.
I thought about it and I also needed to get gas in the car. That meant Sam’s Club. It also meant I could look again for the XL men’s sweater that I needed. I know that Sam’s Club is the same as Wallyworld, but they usually have better clothes at Sam’s. Isn’t that sad? You can get better clothes at a warehouse store than a Wallyworld. True, the clothes may smell like tires, but, hey, they are nice clothes that smell like tires.
I found my XL men’s sweater! It’s very nice. A little more than I had wanted to spend, but still cheap enough I can spring for long johns. I always go to a long johns place because I am always cold and I assume that other people must be as least as cold as I am, to be cold natured is to suffer in silence while the rest of the world opens the windows without asking. I’m too cheap to fully heat my house but other people can’t heat their homes fully because they can’t afford to. Mr. XL sweater is homeless or lives in shelter. I think he wants to be warmer.
I got good news today. I no longer have to keep an activity log! 15 weeks later and I am off the hook! And all I had to do was quit my job! If I had only known 14 weeks ago...
How was your morning? I started off by stepping on a dead rat. I knew it was a rat, I was taking Dogger out for her morning pee and I felt myself step on something and I thought that maybe it was a frozen turd and then I said to myself “It’s a dead rat. You stepped on a rat. You are going to have to dispose of dead rat before you leave for work”. I decided maybe I had stepped on a piece of wood.
On Doggers second trip out to pee it was light enough that I was able to tell for sure that what I had stepped on was not a frozen turd or a piece of wood. It was a rat. A dead rat but thankfully, not long dead rat. I’m so good at this now I just bagged it up like bagging up dog bomb – it makes it easier for some reason. In my mind picking up a dead rat is more gross than picking up a dog bomb. I do the same action and use the same tools and they end up the same place. It’s still gross though, it is not the start of the day you want. On the upside though, it was kind enough to die on the sidewalk and not in the grass. It is much grosser to pick up dead rat from the grass. There is disengagement involved with grass pick ups. This is something you want over fast. A scoop and run approach is the best outcome. The more time you spend on the dead rat the more time you have to think about what you’re doing. I am very close to a dead rat. I am touching a dead rat. There is a dead rat in my plastic bag covered hand rat. I am carrying a dead rat… .
And anytime you can get your dead rat issues taken care of while it is still early in the circle of life, the better. You really don’t want to have to go all CSI – Dead Rat at 6:20 in the morning.
My dead rat issues far behind me, I really wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch today. I mean, big time. But I couldn’t remember if they saw the light and started to take plastic or not and I didn’t have the cash handy to buy my lunch there if they hadn’t. I couldn’t risk it as the only other food at that shopping center is the worst Chinese restaurant on the planet. Really a Gawd awful place and I could have eaten the hour at Tuesday Morning, I really, really wanted to eat and not in a time waste kind of way.
I thought about it and I also needed to get gas in the car. That meant Sam’s Club. It also meant I could look again for the XL men’s sweater that I needed. I know that Sam’s Club is the same as Wallyworld, but they usually have better clothes at Sam’s. Isn’t that sad? You can get better clothes at a warehouse store than a Wallyworld. True, the clothes may smell like tires, but, hey, they are nice clothes that smell like tires.
I found my XL men’s sweater! It’s very nice. A little more than I had wanted to spend, but still cheap enough I can spring for long johns. I always go to a long johns place because I am always cold and I assume that other people must be as least as cold as I am, to be cold natured is to suffer in silence while the rest of the world opens the windows without asking. I’m too cheap to fully heat my house but other people can’t heat their homes fully because they can’t afford to. Mr. XL sweater is homeless or lives in shelter. I think he wants to be warmer.
I got good news today. I no longer have to keep an activity log! 15 weeks later and I am off the hook! And all I had to do was quit my job! If I had only known 14 weeks ago...
Monday, November 20, 2006
Back To Work?
How was your weekend? Didja get much done? I got everything done.
I did the laundry, raked the yard, packed for the holiday, made 10 dozen dog cookies, put the laundry away, planned my wardrobe for the week, went to the Wake County Book sale ( went overboard), went to church, watched The Davinci Code, and went to the Raleigh Christmas Parade ( 24 bands with attendant drill teams/flag corps/cheerleaders, 39 floats, 3 jump rope teams, eight community groups, multiple ROTCs, three balloons and four horses) . A major improvement over last years as they cut way, way down on the number of little girls dance clubs/cheer leader schools that had to stop the flow to perform for us.
Whew.
Well, that was on Saturday. On Sunday I slept in.
I didn’t want to do too much on Sunday. I needed tor est up, so I decided to take things easier. I thought that I could go get some of the pictures I took at the fair printed out and while I was in the neighborhood, I could go to Wallyworld and get my gift for the giving tree at the church.
This year I checked the tree early, while there was still a good selection. I looked at a lot of them. It’s really sad, a lot of people need a lot of things - most of which most of us wouldn’t even think of needing. We may want a new winter coat, but we all ready have one. It’s a matter of upgrading what we have. If we don’t get a new coat, we’re still warm. We also don’t think about sweaters or deodorant or any of the thousands of other things that people out there need. I ended up getting a tag for Adult Male Extra Large Sweater. I was glad this was the one that came off in my hands. I was worried it would be one like “Toy Train” or “Doll Baby” . Not because these would be hard or too expensive, but from the stand point of a chronic over planner, there are just too many variations on a theme out there.
I can handle a sweater for an adult male, XL.
So. While I waited on my pictures I went to Wallyworld. I also needed dog toothpaste for Dogger sop I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. I would be in and out of there.
Right.
The doggy toothpaste was easy. A fairly off the beaten path thing. You can’t buy doggy toothpaste everywhere. But Wallyworld stocks doggy toothpaste
Then I went to where I thought men's sweaters would live. I was wrong. I found many other XL men's things. None of which was on my list. I went to Wallyworld in the first place because I thought that I would get the sweater and then maybe look at thermal long johns or maybe a long sleeved shirt. It all rode on the sweater. It has to be a fairly cheap sweater in order to leave room for the extras. The extras I found no problem.
Did you know that Wallyworld didn’t stock men’s sweaters? None . In November they had no men’s sweaters. They had heavy duty overalls, they had flannel shirts thicker than mattresses, they had sweat shirts piled to the sky. No sweaters.
Shite.
It’s frickin’ November!
I went home and made 10 dozen more dog cookies. I also posted pictures from the parade.
Here are some I didn’t :
How was your weekend? Didja get much done? I got everything done.
I did the laundry, raked the yard, packed for the holiday, made 10 dozen dog cookies, put the laundry away, planned my wardrobe for the week, went to the Wake County Book sale ( went overboard), went to church, watched The Davinci Code, and went to the Raleigh Christmas Parade ( 24 bands with attendant drill teams/flag corps/cheerleaders, 39 floats, 3 jump rope teams, eight community groups, multiple ROTCs, three balloons and four horses) . A major improvement over last years as they cut way, way down on the number of little girls dance clubs/cheer leader schools that had to stop the flow to perform for us.
Whew.
Well, that was on Saturday. On Sunday I slept in.
I didn’t want to do too much on Sunday. I needed tor est up, so I decided to take things easier. I thought that I could go get some of the pictures I took at the fair printed out and while I was in the neighborhood, I could go to Wallyworld and get my gift for the giving tree at the church.
This year I checked the tree early, while there was still a good selection. I looked at a lot of them. It’s really sad, a lot of people need a lot of things - most of which most of us wouldn’t even think of needing. We may want a new winter coat, but we all ready have one. It’s a matter of upgrading what we have. If we don’t get a new coat, we’re still warm. We also don’t think about sweaters or deodorant or any of the thousands of other things that people out there need. I ended up getting a tag for Adult Male Extra Large Sweater. I was glad this was the one that came off in my hands. I was worried it would be one like “Toy Train” or “Doll Baby” . Not because these would be hard or too expensive, but from the stand point of a chronic over planner, there are just too many variations on a theme out there.
I can handle a sweater for an adult male, XL.
So. While I waited on my pictures I went to Wallyworld. I also needed dog toothpaste for Dogger sop I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. I would be in and out of there.
Right.
The doggy toothpaste was easy. A fairly off the beaten path thing. You can’t buy doggy toothpaste everywhere. But Wallyworld stocks doggy toothpaste
Then I went to where I thought men's sweaters would live. I was wrong. I found many other XL men's things. None of which was on my list. I went to Wallyworld in the first place because I thought that I would get the sweater and then maybe look at thermal long johns or maybe a long sleeved shirt. It all rode on the sweater. It has to be a fairly cheap sweater in order to leave room for the extras. The extras I found no problem.
Did you know that Wallyworld didn’t stock men’s sweaters? None . In November they had no men’s sweaters. They had heavy duty overalls, they had flannel shirts thicker than mattresses, they had sweat shirts piled to the sky. No sweaters.
Shite.
It’s frickin’ November!
I went home and made 10 dozen more dog cookies. I also posted pictures from the parade.
Here are some I didn’t :
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Guess what?
You’re saying “Why the picture of flying pigs? Did something good happen and I missed it?”, Well, Nancy Pelosi is the new speaker of the house, I think that is a pretty important thing and she’s the first female speaker of the house, that’s kinda a Pigs Flying moment, yes?
But it’s not the reason those pigs are flying.
Those pigs are flying because, drum roll please....
I
Got
A
New
Job
!
!
!
And the crowd goes wild
Yes, I finally had enough. 14 weeks of Daily Activity Logs, five years of stressing over filing. I’m done. I’m finished with it. I am ready for a change and I loathe change. I will and have put up with untold nonsense in the name of the status quo.
It’s a change but its not a huge change. It’s even in the same building. Totally different set of duties and people and boss - the very best change of all. I am out from under The Boss.
The Boss isn’t through with me yet though. I dutifully alerted my supervisor - she hugged me. That went well. We talked about my official last day, I learned that as an employee of state government I do not have to give notice. I can just leave. I did not know that. I also did not do that. I do have to stay in the building after all. It would not be cool to burn bridges I might have to still use from time to time. My supervisor and I went back and forth, she is going on vacation followed by some medical leave. I suggested I should wait until after she gets back, a total of closer to four weeks than the traditional time. She said no.
She said that was stupid, give my two weeks and be done with it. I said, that I could live with that. We looked at the calender and got the date. She said I needed to write an official notice. I said I could do that.
I did that. I also had to write a formal acceptance of New Job. I did that too.
Super.
I went back to my regularly scheduled duties. But I was happy.
Time passed I went to lunch, I came back. I went back to work. Still happy.
My supervisor came in. She was not happy.
As part of her duties, she dutifully called The Boss and told her I had accepted the new position and she told her the date that she and I and New Boss had agreed on. The Boss was not happy about this ( she is out of the office), she was quite ugly about it, she went into Worst Case scenario territory about the health of a co-worker and what would happen if Supervisor was out of town, I was in a different position and certain co-worker were to die. Yes, Die . The co-worker has some health issues, but co-worker is not dying. .
So. What I didn’t know was that New Boss had all ready told The Boss and the Bosses Boss that she was going to offer me the position. The Boss knew and still showed her ass. She could have just spoke to New Boss about it and suggested that she make my start date, say, after X-Date. You know, as a professional courtesy.
Instead she wanted me to give what would amount to a months notice! I’m a frickin’ file clerk! Don Rumsfeld didn’t give a months notice.
Whatever.
I want to be a team player. I said I could wait until after supervisor came back, after New Boss got back from vacation... which takes us up to Christmas week. Ridiculous, yes, but I was willing to do it. I’m easy, I don’t like change. Big Boss, New Boss, Supervisor and I met and talked it out. We decided to meet later.
But. I spoke to Supervisor and she gave me some advice: Screw The Boss. Give my two weeks and be done with it. I don’t have to give any notice.
The Big Boss, New Boss, Supervisor and I met later. I said my first day of the new job will be December 1.
You’re saying “Why the picture of flying pigs? Did something good happen and I missed it?”, Well, Nancy Pelosi is the new speaker of the house, I think that is a pretty important thing and she’s the first female speaker of the house, that’s kinda a Pigs Flying moment, yes?
But it’s not the reason those pigs are flying.
Those pigs are flying because, drum roll please....
I
Got
A
New
Job
!
!
!
And the crowd goes wild
Yes, I finally had enough. 14 weeks of Daily Activity Logs, five years of stressing over filing. I’m done. I’m finished with it. I am ready for a change and I loathe change. I will and have put up with untold nonsense in the name of the status quo.
It’s a change but its not a huge change. It’s even in the same building. Totally different set of duties and people and boss - the very best change of all. I am out from under The Boss.
The Boss isn’t through with me yet though. I dutifully alerted my supervisor - she hugged me. That went well. We talked about my official last day, I learned that as an employee of state government I do not have to give notice. I can just leave. I did not know that. I also did not do that. I do have to stay in the building after all. It would not be cool to burn bridges I might have to still use from time to time. My supervisor and I went back and forth, she is going on vacation followed by some medical leave. I suggested I should wait until after she gets back, a total of closer to four weeks than the traditional time. She said no.
She said that was stupid, give my two weeks and be done with it. I said, that I could live with that. We looked at the calender and got the date. She said I needed to write an official notice. I said I could do that.
I did that. I also had to write a formal acceptance of New Job. I did that too.
Super.
I went back to my regularly scheduled duties. But I was happy.
Time passed I went to lunch, I came back. I went back to work. Still happy.
My supervisor came in. She was not happy.
As part of her duties, she dutifully called The Boss and told her I had accepted the new position and she told her the date that she and I and New Boss had agreed on. The Boss was not happy about this ( she is out of the office), she was quite ugly about it, she went into Worst Case scenario territory about the health of a co-worker and what would happen if Supervisor was out of town, I was in a different position and certain co-worker were to die. Yes, Die . The co-worker has some health issues, but co-worker is not dying. .
So. What I didn’t know was that New Boss had all ready told The Boss and the Bosses Boss that she was going to offer me the position. The Boss knew and still showed her ass. She could have just spoke to New Boss about it and suggested that she make my start date, say, after X-Date. You know, as a professional courtesy.
Instead she wanted me to give what would amount to a months notice! I’m a frickin’ file clerk! Don Rumsfeld didn’t give a months notice.
Whatever.
I want to be a team player. I said I could wait until after supervisor came back, after New Boss got back from vacation... which takes us up to Christmas week. Ridiculous, yes, but I was willing to do it. I’m easy, I don’t like change. Big Boss, New Boss, Supervisor and I met and talked it out. We decided to meet later.
But. I spoke to Supervisor and she gave me some advice: Screw The Boss. Give my two weeks and be done with it. I don’t have to give any notice.
The Big Boss, New Boss, Supervisor and I met later. I said my first day of the new job will be December 1.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Looking around
Our second tornado watch of the morning! Earlier we misinterpreted the sirens ( three blasts of six seconds or six blasts of three seconds?) and thought it was a warning - which would have meant dropping everything and standing around in the hallway. This time we know its just a watch. We have been instructed to keep an eye out for a witch on a bike.
Well shit: A tornado kills at least five people in North Carolina, the Columbus County sheriff tells CNN affiliate WECT TV.
Our second tornado watch of the morning! Earlier we misinterpreted the sirens ( three blasts of six seconds or six blasts of three seconds?) and thought it was a warning - which would have meant dropping everything and standing around in the hallway. This time we know its just a watch. We have been instructed to keep an eye out for a witch on a bike.
Well shit: A tornado kills at least five people in North Carolina, the Columbus County sheriff tells CNN affiliate WECT TV.
I write Letters
November 15, 2006
Dear Mayor,
(you spineless worm)
My name is Diana. I lived in Farmers Branch for over thirty years. I attended My Elementary School, My Junior High and My High School. I grew up there and have countless happy memories about the city and the people. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I miss living there. When I went away to college I always told people I was from Farmers Branch and then explained where it was, it would have been easier to just say I was from Dallas, but I always made the distinction. I was proud of my home town and where I was from.
( I had to explain every damn time I wrote a check. "No, There are no farms!, it's near Dallas, no I don't live in Dallas. Near Dallas, not Dallas. Okay, Dallas. Happy now?")
Eventuality, I had to leave the area and I settled in North Carolina – I don’t love it, it’s not home. It is however, growing on me. In the time since I moved here I searched online for news of Farmers Branch. I even joined a yahoo group because it was about Farmers Branch, and I read the DMN daily to keep up with the old home place.
It was there I learned what has become to my old school mate at My High School, Councilman REDACTED . Initially when I learned he had been elected to the city council I was very proud, I was thrilled to see “one of us” in such a position of authority. I was sad I couldn’t vote for him. Imagine my shock upon reading what he has been up to! I don’t remember him being a racist back at school, perhaps he was then too, he didn’t brag about it as he seems to now.
( I was shocked to see how this issue had been raised. Yes, immigration must be addressed and changes must be made on a federal level, it is in no way up to Farmers Branch to do this! I thought at first the Councilman in question was someone else. It wasn't.)
Not only has REDACTED become a bigot he is taking my town with him. The yahoo group was thrilled about his plan. I was horrified. I was a minority – a bad thing to be, it seems in Farmers Branch these days .It is not wise to be not like everyone else .I am very worried the direction the city is taking. What group will REDACTED and his followers pick on next? Who will be forced out the next time?
( You give those people and inch and they'll take a mile. I'm waiting for the first Klan March through town and who will be next on the hate parade? How about the homosexuals? or the Catholics? Who will be the next group they turn on? Hate is Hate.)
The rules that passed on Election Day spell a very sad end to my love affair with the City of Farmers Branch. It is one thing to stage a sober and reflective discussion about federal immigration reform and quite another to disenfranchise and entire class of people. Those rules are going to make Farmers Branch a very attractive place for the type of people who hate. I fear that Farmers branch will rid its borders of one group of “undesirables” only to replace them with another, a much more dangerous and threatening group, I see marches and speeches, offensive literature left around, new groups tabling at events.. I would say the racists are coming, but they are all ready there. When the Klan or any of the White Pride groups asks for a permit to march, what will Farmers Branch say? And what are they (you) going to do with the crowds that come out to cheer them on? And they will, because they can and because they have been made to feel very comfortable doing so.
( It's crap like this that lets everyone think that southerners and Texans in particular are all racist crackers. It is why we are portrayed as backward and stupid. Thanks REDACTED! you !@#$%)
This isn’t about citizenship, this is about racism. REDACTED started it, others will finish it and any reputation that Farmers Branch ever had as a nice place to live. Its reputation as a hateful, backward, redneck burg is spreading. I would not choose to raise children in a place like that.
I am boycotting Farmers Branch, I will do no business there or with any business that is there. I lived there for a long time and I have a lot of business there still. REDACTED and my 20th High school Reunion is coming up, be sure I will not be visiting/eating in/shopping in Farmers Branch while I am there. Thank God My High School is in Carrollton.
Rein in Councilman REDACTED before he ruins your city.
(Rein in, stifle, tape his damn mouth shut, anything, keep that idiot out of the press and consult a PR flack ASAP. The whole world is watching.)
Sincerely,
Diana
November 15, 2006
Dear Mayor,
(you spineless worm)
My name is Diana. I lived in Farmers Branch for over thirty years. I attended My Elementary School, My Junior High and My High School. I grew up there and have countless happy memories about the city and the people. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I miss living there. When I went away to college I always told people I was from Farmers Branch and then explained where it was, it would have been easier to just say I was from Dallas, but I always made the distinction. I was proud of my home town and where I was from.
( I had to explain every damn time I wrote a check. "No, There are no farms!, it's near Dallas, no I don't live in Dallas. Near Dallas, not Dallas. Okay, Dallas. Happy now?")
Eventuality, I had to leave the area and I settled in North Carolina – I don’t love it, it’s not home. It is however, growing on me. In the time since I moved here I searched online for news of Farmers Branch. I even joined a yahoo group because it was about Farmers Branch, and I read the DMN daily to keep up with the old home place.
It was there I learned what has become to my old school mate at My High School, Councilman REDACTED . Initially when I learned he had been elected to the city council I was very proud, I was thrilled to see “one of us” in such a position of authority. I was sad I couldn’t vote for him. Imagine my shock upon reading what he has been up to! I don’t remember him being a racist back at school, perhaps he was then too, he didn’t brag about it as he seems to now.
( I was shocked to see how this issue had been raised. Yes, immigration must be addressed and changes must be made on a federal level, it is in no way up to Farmers Branch to do this! I thought at first the Councilman in question was someone else. It wasn't.)
Not only has REDACTED become a bigot he is taking my town with him. The yahoo group was thrilled about his plan. I was horrified. I was a minority – a bad thing to be, it seems in Farmers Branch these days .It is not wise to be not like everyone else .I am very worried the direction the city is taking. What group will REDACTED and his followers pick on next? Who will be forced out the next time?
( You give those people and inch and they'll take a mile. I'm waiting for the first Klan March through town and who will be next on the hate parade? How about the homosexuals? or the Catholics? Who will be the next group they turn on? Hate is Hate.)
The rules that passed on Election Day spell a very sad end to my love affair with the City of Farmers Branch. It is one thing to stage a sober and reflective discussion about federal immigration reform and quite another to disenfranchise and entire class of people. Those rules are going to make Farmers Branch a very attractive place for the type of people who hate. I fear that Farmers branch will rid its borders of one group of “undesirables” only to replace them with another, a much more dangerous and threatening group, I see marches and speeches, offensive literature left around, new groups tabling at events.. I would say the racists are coming, but they are all ready there. When the Klan or any of the White Pride groups asks for a permit to march, what will Farmers Branch say? And what are they (you) going to do with the crowds that come out to cheer them on? And they will, because they can and because they have been made to feel very comfortable doing so.
( It's crap like this that lets everyone think that southerners and Texans in particular are all racist crackers. It is why we are portrayed as backward and stupid. Thanks REDACTED! you !@#$%)
This isn’t about citizenship, this is about racism. REDACTED started it, others will finish it and any reputation that Farmers Branch ever had as a nice place to live. Its reputation as a hateful, backward, redneck burg is spreading. I would not choose to raise children in a place like that.
I am boycotting Farmers Branch, I will do no business there or with any business that is there. I lived there for a long time and I have a lot of business there still. REDACTED and my 20th High school Reunion is coming up, be sure I will not be visiting/eating in/shopping in Farmers Branch while I am there. Thank God My High School is in Carrollton.
Rein in Councilman REDACTED before he ruins your city.
(Rein in, stifle, tape his damn mouth shut, anything, keep that idiot out of the press and consult a PR flack ASAP. The whole world is watching.)
Sincerely,
Diana
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Mean People Suck
I was sitting here minding my own business, mulling over this weeks cat blogging choices and I hear sirens outside. I hear sirens all the time, but this time there were a lot of sirens and a car went chugging up my street honking his horn over and over. Asshole, I thought. Then I hear the sound of a cop radio. Bad Guy Asshole, I thought. I have learned that its not "Ask not for who the bell tolls", in real life it's "Ask not for who the police radio squawks for - if you can hear it - it squawks for thee".
I looked out the front window and there was the cop car. In front of the drug dealers house. Fan-tastic I thought. I put Doggers leash on and we went outside to investigate. Most of the cop cars were at the end of the street. Three clumped together and the one sitting in front of the Drug Dealers house. The nice neighbors were just getting in, they had watched the car driving up the street honking. We agreed it was a signal. We assured each other that we were all fine and the cops were not there on our accounts.
We think that maybe that one of the gas stations may have been robbed or thought they were being robbed or were trying to not get robbed. I've seen gaggles of cop cars down there from time to time and I never hear about robberies. Not that they would bother to alert the neighbors, I heard from my soon to be moving Dog Guru that there had been a number of daytime robberies up and down his street - Why isn't that kind of thing brought to the neighborhoods attention? Why do I have to know every lurid detail about some (sadly, tragically) dead White Woman from another part of town but I hear not one word about robberies in my neighborhood? I guess dead white girls are more newsworthy then any number of robbed black people.
All the cop cars are gone now, maybe it was a false alarm.
I was sitting here minding my own business, mulling over this weeks cat blogging choices and I hear sirens outside. I hear sirens all the time, but this time there were a lot of sirens and a car went chugging up my street honking his horn over and over. Asshole, I thought. Then I hear the sound of a cop radio. Bad Guy Asshole, I thought. I have learned that its not "Ask not for who the bell tolls", in real life it's "Ask not for who the police radio squawks for - if you can hear it - it squawks for thee".
I looked out the front window and there was the cop car. In front of the drug dealers house. Fan-tastic I thought. I put Doggers leash on and we went outside to investigate. Most of the cop cars were at the end of the street. Three clumped together and the one sitting in front of the Drug Dealers house. The nice neighbors were just getting in, they had watched the car driving up the street honking. We agreed it was a signal. We assured each other that we were all fine and the cops were not there on our accounts.
We think that maybe that one of the gas stations may have been robbed or thought they were being robbed or were trying to not get robbed. I've seen gaggles of cop cars down there from time to time and I never hear about robberies. Not that they would bother to alert the neighbors, I heard from my soon to be moving Dog Guru that there had been a number of daytime robberies up and down his street - Why isn't that kind of thing brought to the neighborhoods attention? Why do I have to know every lurid detail about some (sadly, tragically) dead White Woman from another part of town but I hear not one word about robberies in my neighborhood? I guess dead white girls are more newsworthy then any number of robbed black people.
All the cop cars are gone now, maybe it was a false alarm.
Good Things
They gave Studio 60 a full season pick up! Woooo! Am I the only one happy about that? I hope not, it’s really good TV. Watching it makes you smarter and weigh less, it also lowers your bad cholesterol and improves your long and short term memory. Prove it doesn’t.
They’re going to move it off Monday nights, but that’s cool. I’ve been having to tape CSI-Miami and if there is anything more embarrassing than watching CSI-Miami, it’s taping CSI-Miami. It means that I go out of my way to on purpose watch it! I make an effort to see it. That’s just so sad. It’s one thing to watch it because it’s 10:00pm on a Monday and, you know, after the dog has been bathed, what am I going to do? My Netflix movies don’t show up until Wednesday at the earliest and how many times can I read the current Entertainment Weekly?
I’m very excited about Studio 60. I’m hoping that moving it won’t result in them playing musical time slots with it, because that would suck. NBC doesn’t have a whole lot going for it right now anyway, so maybe they’ll be careful. I doubt it, but you know. They don’t want to piss off Sorkin, but he’s no Dick Wolf either. I think in a throw down Wolf would win. I’m pretty sure he’s drug free. Have you noticed that Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer own network TV? Everything on TV belongs to one or the other. I’m totally waiting for them to team up and make some Super Procedural. It would feature hotty cops and dashing Lawyers and really cute lab techs and maybe a few FBI guys, and sunglasses, lots and lots of sunglasses! It would have to take place in a warm climate - Bruckheimer needs bikini babes to tell his stories. They’d all be dead though, like in the first five minutes, Dick Wolf doesn’t do victims who make it out alive.It’s a casting issue, if they live they’re going to have lines and he’ll have to pay them more and it gets expensive when you have 45 shows on they all have a victim or during sweeps, victims of the week Can you picture a Law and Order that actually has a CSI team instead of just utilizing a bunch of of anonymous day players in scurrying around in “CSU” jackets? and who are most decidedly not cops? CSI-Law and Order. The ratings would be astronomical.
Did you know that Thanksgiving is next week? Like next Thursday? Really! It is. I was shocked too. We’ve all ready been issued our Holiday Party invite at work, it’s going to be the first week of December, RSVP or else and its going to be catered. It supposed to keep us from whining about who brings what and who takes home the heaviest doggy bag. It’s an issue.
All this catering means I won’t be making the famous chocolate ship pumpkin cake thing! This makes me sad. I really want to make it but I don’t want to have to eat the whole thing. I could be nice and bring it into the office out of the goodness of my heart though. I did have a conversation the other day about the dearth of food around the office and how wrong that is. I think in the past we had a baker and now we don’t. I blame George W. Bush.
If we want to stuff our faces with junk we either have to bring our own or use the machines, Candy Machine food? around the holidays? Ew, no. It’s just not festive enough. This time of year you want your calories to be festive calories. Eating the crap from the machine is just not festive! Its’ down right anti-festive! If you eat those three month old Doritos, the terrorists win! You want festive this time of year! If whatever you’re stuffing your mouth with at 2:30 every afternoon doesn’t have some cute frosted something somewhere on it or contains less then 1500 calories a serving - you might as well be out trying to trip Tiny Tim or mug a Who. It’s wrong.
They gave Studio 60 a full season pick up! Woooo! Am I the only one happy about that? I hope not, it’s really good TV. Watching it makes you smarter and weigh less, it also lowers your bad cholesterol and improves your long and short term memory. Prove it doesn’t.
They’re going to move it off Monday nights, but that’s cool. I’ve been having to tape CSI-Miami and if there is anything more embarrassing than watching CSI-Miami, it’s taping CSI-Miami. It means that I go out of my way to on purpose watch it! I make an effort to see it. That’s just so sad. It’s one thing to watch it because it’s 10:00pm on a Monday and, you know, after the dog has been bathed, what am I going to do? My Netflix movies don’t show up until Wednesday at the earliest and how many times can I read the current Entertainment Weekly?
I’m very excited about Studio 60. I’m hoping that moving it won’t result in them playing musical time slots with it, because that would suck. NBC doesn’t have a whole lot going for it right now anyway, so maybe they’ll be careful. I doubt it, but you know. They don’t want to piss off Sorkin, but he’s no Dick Wolf either. I think in a throw down Wolf would win. I’m pretty sure he’s drug free. Have you noticed that Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer own network TV? Everything on TV belongs to one or the other. I’m totally waiting for them to team up and make some Super Procedural. It would feature hotty cops and dashing Lawyers and really cute lab techs and maybe a few FBI guys, and sunglasses, lots and lots of sunglasses! It would have to take place in a warm climate - Bruckheimer needs bikini babes to tell his stories. They’d all be dead though, like in the first five minutes, Dick Wolf doesn’t do victims who make it out alive.It’s a casting issue, if they live they’re going to have lines and he’ll have to pay them more and it gets expensive when you have 45 shows on they all have a victim or during sweeps, victims of the week Can you picture a Law and Order that actually has a CSI team instead of just utilizing a bunch of of anonymous day players in scurrying around in “CSU” jackets? and who are most decidedly not cops? CSI-Law and Order. The ratings would be astronomical.
Did you know that Thanksgiving is next week? Like next Thursday? Really! It is. I was shocked too. We’ve all ready been issued our Holiday Party invite at work, it’s going to be the first week of December, RSVP or else and its going to be catered. It supposed to keep us from whining about who brings what and who takes home the heaviest doggy bag. It’s an issue.
All this catering means I won’t be making the famous chocolate ship pumpkin cake thing! This makes me sad. I really want to make it but I don’t want to have to eat the whole thing. I could be nice and bring it into the office out of the goodness of my heart though. I did have a conversation the other day about the dearth of food around the office and how wrong that is. I think in the past we had a baker and now we don’t. I blame George W. Bush.
If we want to stuff our faces with junk we either have to bring our own or use the machines, Candy Machine food? around the holidays? Ew, no. It’s just not festive enough. This time of year you want your calories to be festive calories. Eating the crap from the machine is just not festive! Its’ down right anti-festive! If you eat those three month old Doritos, the terrorists win! You want festive this time of year! If whatever you’re stuffing your mouth with at 2:30 every afternoon doesn’t have some cute frosted something somewhere on it or contains less then 1500 calories a serving - you might as well be out trying to trip Tiny Tim or mug a Who. It’s wrong.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Music
I think I figured out the second reason I couldn’t make the whole music “ripping” thing work with my computer. The first reason is that I am old and at this point I want all this new technology to just get off my damn yard! The second reason would be that the Windows Media Player version on my computer dated from the musical paleolithic era. I discovered that I had version 9 and the rest of the world has version 11. The version that actually uses the phrase “mp3". I was stoked.
I now have version 11. On my shitey dial up the whole thing only took two, three hours to down load.
But now, now I can rip my own music. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to ask some one else to rip Partridge Family music for you. Is that what it’s called? How do we conjugate “rip”? It’s one thing to ironically have in your possession Partridge Family” CDs, (yes “s”). its’ quite another to have to share with others which cuts are your favorite.
I’ve been going through my limited CD collection and I am wondering why for instance I have The Benzedrine Monks of Santa Domonica, okay, I know why, but did I have to buy it? I know I didn’t get it for free and it’s hardly the kind of thing I would have received as a gift, Oh, I saw it and it just screamed YOU, I had to get it! Merry Christmas!!, I don’t see it as something you get someone on a whim. You would almost have to be with the person when you buy it for them or at least have a note from the intended recipient. You don’t just spring a Gregorian chant version of Do Ya Think I’m sexy? on an unsuspecting person. It’s not nice. It could ruin Christmas dinner for everyone.
So. I’m going through my boxes of (two boxes, small) of CDs trying to decide which is the most worthy to take up the remaining limited space on the FauxPod. I’ve all ready decided to concede space to Tear Stained Letter and the big rousing show stopper from Joseph, a cut from the fore mentioned Partridge Family, but I think I have the CD I really want at work. Damn. Lets see, a cut to be named later from the Grosse Pointe Blank sound track - I just got the title of the movie! It’s about a hitman and the title is Point Blank!. Really! I just got it. I am so dumb.
I discover that I do have the two CDs of the Evita soundtrack, yes, you snobs, it’s the Madonna version! I thought I only still had the one but I have both. Yay! In celebration I pop one into the CD player and get to really be all multi-tasking 21st century: I was going to blog while Ripping! I go fetch the FauxPod and prepare to “rip” my musical cherry. I put the CD in. Nothing happens. The CD is CDing around, I can hear it working or thinking or whatever CDs do when they are in the CD player and they are supposed to be playing and they are not playing. I then bring up my new and improved WMP. Again. Nada. “Not Responding”. Bastards!
I can’t listen to or record from the CD player. WMP doesn’t seem to even know there is a CD in the player much less able to recognize which CD it is. I am online. I checked that first. It shouldn’t matter to the CD player what is up with my online status, it should play regardless. It is not playing.
I take a deep breath. I remove the offending CD from the player. Maybe the musical gawds really hate that soundtrack. I can live with that, you bitter queens. I have other CD players, bitches.
I think I figured out the second reason I couldn’t make the whole music “ripping” thing work with my computer. The first reason is that I am old and at this point I want all this new technology to just get off my damn yard! The second reason would be that the Windows Media Player version on my computer dated from the musical paleolithic era. I discovered that I had version 9 and the rest of the world has version 11. The version that actually uses the phrase “mp3". I was stoked.
I now have version 11. On my shitey dial up the whole thing only took two, three hours to down load.
But now, now I can rip my own music. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to ask some one else to rip Partridge Family music for you. Is that what it’s called? How do we conjugate “rip”? It’s one thing to ironically have in your possession Partridge Family” CDs, (yes “s”). its’ quite another to have to share with others which cuts are your favorite.
I’ve been going through my limited CD collection and I am wondering why for instance I have The Benzedrine Monks of Santa Domonica, okay, I know why, but did I have to buy it? I know I didn’t get it for free and it’s hardly the kind of thing I would have received as a gift, Oh, I saw it and it just screamed YOU, I had to get it! Merry Christmas!!, I don’t see it as something you get someone on a whim. You would almost have to be with the person when you buy it for them or at least have a note from the intended recipient. You don’t just spring a Gregorian chant version of Do Ya Think I’m sexy? on an unsuspecting person. It’s not nice. It could ruin Christmas dinner for everyone.
So. I’m going through my boxes of (two boxes, small) of CDs trying to decide which is the most worthy to take up the remaining limited space on the FauxPod. I’ve all ready decided to concede space to Tear Stained Letter and the big rousing show stopper from Joseph, a cut from the fore mentioned Partridge Family, but I think I have the CD I really want at work. Damn. Lets see, a cut to be named later from the Grosse Pointe Blank sound track - I just got the title of the movie! It’s about a hitman and the title is Point Blank!. Really! I just got it. I am so dumb.
I discover that I do have the two CDs of the Evita soundtrack, yes, you snobs, it’s the Madonna version! I thought I only still had the one but I have both. Yay! In celebration I pop one into the CD player and get to really be all multi-tasking 21st century: I was going to blog while Ripping! I go fetch the FauxPod and prepare to “rip” my musical cherry. I put the CD in. Nothing happens. The CD is CDing around, I can hear it working or thinking or whatever CDs do when they are in the CD player and they are supposed to be playing and they are not playing. I then bring up my new and improved WMP. Again. Nada. “Not Responding”. Bastards!
I can’t listen to or record from the CD player. WMP doesn’t seem to even know there is a CD in the player much less able to recognize which CD it is. I am online. I checked that first. It shouldn’t matter to the CD player what is up with my online status, it should play regardless. It is not playing.
I take a deep breath. I remove the offending CD from the player. Maybe the musical gawds really hate that soundtrack. I can live with that, you bitter queens. I have other CD players, bitches.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Playing by ear
It was so warm Friday and Saturday that it woke up the wasps that live in my walls. The wasps need a very specific temperature to wake up. It can’t be too cold , i.e winter or too warm, i.e summer. It must be spring and it must be a very short window of time in spring. Normally, it lasts about five days. One day I wake up, throw open the curtains and am greeted by nine or ten newby wasps.
Its not my favorite day.
It took me a while to figure out how to best kill my borders. They were going to have to die, I’ve had bad experiences with room mates and I took a Never Again oath. I tried spraying household cleaners at them, but it didn’t work and the drippings and lose spray wreaked havoc on my hardwoods, I tried smacking them with rolled up magazines - and while this was effective, it left me with lots of dead wasp bodies and ruined magazines. I tried leaving the dead around as object lessons to the other wasps, but wasps have very small, very primitive brains and they aren’t into the Godfather movies. They don’t get the reference. So.
They had to go and they needed to go body and buggy soul. I had an idea.
My friend the vacuum cleaner. The wasps don’t seem hugely interested in getting away, they don’t seem to be afraid of the noise and once in the vacuum cleaner, they don’t come out. It means that my vacuum cleaner has to sit in the middle of my living room for a while, but it’s worth it. I had put the vacuum away, but now it’s back. The wasps have gotten a little smarter. I’ve found them wrapped in the curtain and climbing on my silk flowers. I’m not happy about this. They are supposed to stay on the windows themselves, it makes it easier for me to kill them. All this outward bound business is annoying. I can still kill them just as efficiently, but now I’ve had to haul out a dinning room chair to the middle of my living room along with the vacuum.
It got colder today, I hope it stays that way. Saturday was lovely, bright, sunny, warm, perfect wasp hatching weather. It was also a great day for raking the yard. So I raked. The yard looked really nice until it started to rain during the night. I came out Sunday morning and all the leaves were back. Bastards.
I almost raked the leaves again, but I came to my senses. It was also raining. I decided that I could listen to my FauxPod while not raking the yard in the rain. Alphagal and Brosky loaded a bunch ( okay, a very small bunch, the FauxPod has a very small brain) of songs onto my machine and I decided to be all 21st century while I did my indoor chores.
It was cold and rainy and my new plan was that Dogger and I would watch a Harry Potter and spend the day curled up on the chair not working, or doing the indoor chores. I liked that plan, but, I remembered that every time I drive past Dix I comment to myself how pretty it is and how I really need to take my camera before the leaves all fall.
So, Dogger and I didn’t sack out on the chair and watch our movie, and after a while it wasn't all that cold and rainy and we still got to watch interesting things and we got more exercise than watching a movie and I got to listen to my FauxPod.
It was so warm Friday and Saturday that it woke up the wasps that live in my walls. The wasps need a very specific temperature to wake up. It can’t be too cold , i.e winter or too warm, i.e summer. It must be spring and it must be a very short window of time in spring. Normally, it lasts about five days. One day I wake up, throw open the curtains and am greeted by nine or ten newby wasps.
Its not my favorite day.
It took me a while to figure out how to best kill my borders. They were going to have to die, I’ve had bad experiences with room mates and I took a Never Again oath. I tried spraying household cleaners at them, but it didn’t work and the drippings and lose spray wreaked havoc on my hardwoods, I tried smacking them with rolled up magazines - and while this was effective, it left me with lots of dead wasp bodies and ruined magazines. I tried leaving the dead around as object lessons to the other wasps, but wasps have very small, very primitive brains and they aren’t into the Godfather movies. They don’t get the reference. So.
They had to go and they needed to go body and buggy soul. I had an idea.
My friend the vacuum cleaner. The wasps don’t seem hugely interested in getting away, they don’t seem to be afraid of the noise and once in the vacuum cleaner, they don’t come out. It means that my vacuum cleaner has to sit in the middle of my living room for a while, but it’s worth it. I had put the vacuum away, but now it’s back. The wasps have gotten a little smarter. I’ve found them wrapped in the curtain and climbing on my silk flowers. I’m not happy about this. They are supposed to stay on the windows themselves, it makes it easier for me to kill them. All this outward bound business is annoying. I can still kill them just as efficiently, but now I’ve had to haul out a dinning room chair to the middle of my living room along with the vacuum.
It got colder today, I hope it stays that way. Saturday was lovely, bright, sunny, warm, perfect wasp hatching weather. It was also a great day for raking the yard. So I raked. The yard looked really nice until it started to rain during the night. I came out Sunday morning and all the leaves were back. Bastards.
I almost raked the leaves again, but I came to my senses. It was also raining. I decided that I could listen to my FauxPod while not raking the yard in the rain. Alphagal and Brosky loaded a bunch ( okay, a very small bunch, the FauxPod has a very small brain) of songs onto my machine and I decided to be all 21st century while I did my indoor chores.
It was cold and rainy and my new plan was that Dogger and I would watch a Harry Potter and spend the day curled up on the chair not working, or doing the indoor chores. I liked that plan, but, I remembered that every time I drive past Dix I comment to myself how pretty it is and how I really need to take my camera before the leaves all fall.
So, Dogger and I didn’t sack out on the chair and watch our movie, and after a while it wasn't all that cold and rainy and we still got to watch interesting things and we got more exercise than watching a movie and I got to listen to my FauxPod.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Today we offically mark November 11th
On this day World War I officially ended, November 11 is known as Armistice Day marking the end of the war and honoring those who fought and died in its service.
Since WWII, November 11 is the date used to celebrate Veterans Day and honor all of those those who fought for and died in, service to their country.
So while you;re out shopping at the big Veterans Day blow out sales at the mall, remember why you have the day off and be grateful for a moment that your day will not include mustard gas or fox holes.
On this day World War I officially ended, November 11 is known as Armistice Day marking the end of the war and honoring those who fought and died in its service.
Since WWII, November 11 is the date used to celebrate Veterans Day and honor all of those those who fought for and died in, service to their country.
So while you;re out shopping at the big Veterans Day blow out sales at the mall, remember why you have the day off and be grateful for a moment that your day will not include mustard gas or fox holes.
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Falling on his sword
... It wasn't his fault either, Mehlman to step down . Odds of Cheney trying to get away too? Can an elected official "leave to spend more time with his family"? Does he have to serve out his term even if he doesn't want to? Might he want to step down now that the flying subpoena monster has come town?... Can an elected official throw in the towel?
... It wasn't his fault either, Mehlman to step down . Odds of Cheney trying to get away too? Can an elected official "leave to spend more time with his family"? Does he have to serve out his term even if he doesn't want to? Might he want to step down now that the flying subpoena monster has come town?... Can an elected official throw in the towel?
Shake, Shake, Shake
Well. Did we finally “do it” or did the rest of America finally “get it:? I’m not entirely convinced that the last six years of screaming, foot stamping and pot banging had anything to do with what happened. I think the RNC and the Rethuglican Hate Machine self destructed and I don’t think that our actions had any bearing on what they ultimately did to themselves. We can’t take credit for this. It was a gift and the electorate are notorious Indian givers.
The Democrats don’t have any time to waste standing around congratulating ourselves and doing booty shakin’ happy dances - although a little celebratory post election booty shakin’ is understandable, given our long history of post election tail-between-our-legs slinking . We need to shake it.
Shake it, shake it Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Show 'em how we do it now
Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Show 'em how we do it now
Peaches and Herb
The RNC has been shakin’ their collective ass at our faces for years. Those Losers!!
Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now
Okay., thangs sufficiently shook?
Good.
After years of merely shaking their asses at us, the RNC and their minions are going to start showing us their teeth. True, for a while, a few weeks maybe, they will conduct a purge. There will be blood in the water and the strongest Goopers will feast on the weakest. It will cull the herd. The victors will then start looking our way.
Do you remember the last time we had any authority? You may have to think back. A long way. Think early 90s. The Clinton years. Weren’t those good years? Well, not if you were a Democrat. Sucked for us then. Those were the years that “Liberal” became to mean “weak”. Remember Willy Horton?
We must stay focused. We can’t sit back and toast ourselves. We must do the work while we are there to do it. It is going to get hard. Everything that went wrong over the last six years is going to be our fault. We have to fix what can be fixed and we need to do it fast. We can’t just stand there with our hands on our hips and the wind wafting our capes and say “Here we Come To Save The Day!!”, we actually have to save the day.
In November of 2004, after a very different outcome, I pulled myself out of the dogs crate and wiped the tears from my eyes and I wrote:
Nothing has changed. literally, nothing. It's the same place as it was Tuesday morning. If you were all hot to change things, go forth and change things. The same shit is still going on, there is no need to regroup, rethink, redo - keep on doing what you were doing before if you believed in the cause then keep believing. Keep up the phone calls, and emails and petition signing. Just keep moving. Not a damn thing is different today then it was last week at this time. Bad guys doing bad things, stop them! Keep being the good guy, keep up the pressure.
It’s still relevant. There are still some very nasty, very wrong people out there wrapped in our flag and they are still a danger to our rights. The constitution that Shrub and his cronies shred over the past six years is still shredded. - the Patriot Act did not suddenly evaporate. The elections were a good start but they were hardly a giant re-set button. Bushco has dirty dealers everywhere an they are deeply entrenched, true Rumsfeld left on his own, and others will follow, emphasis on some not all. There are a lot of them left and they are going to work against us at every turn. We must all remain alert.
We must also pray that our new representatives don’t fall victim to the same forces that took out the Rethuglicans before them.
But in the mean time?
SNOOPY DANCE OF JOY!!!!
Well. Did we finally “do it” or did the rest of America finally “get it:? I’m not entirely convinced that the last six years of screaming, foot stamping and pot banging had anything to do with what happened. I think the RNC and the Rethuglican Hate Machine self destructed and I don’t think that our actions had any bearing on what they ultimately did to themselves. We can’t take credit for this. It was a gift and the electorate are notorious Indian givers.
The Democrats don’t have any time to waste standing around congratulating ourselves and doing booty shakin’ happy dances - although a little celebratory post election booty shakin’ is understandable, given our long history of post election tail-between-our-legs slinking . We need to shake it.
Shake it, shake it Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Show 'em how we do it now
Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now Show 'em how we do it now
Peaches and Herb
The RNC has been shakin’ their collective ass at our faces for years. Those Losers!!
Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah Show 'em how we do it now
Okay., thangs sufficiently shook?
Good.
After years of merely shaking their asses at us, the RNC and their minions are going to start showing us their teeth. True, for a while, a few weeks maybe, they will conduct a purge. There will be blood in the water and the strongest Goopers will feast on the weakest. It will cull the herd. The victors will then start looking our way.
Do you remember the last time we had any authority? You may have to think back. A long way. Think early 90s. The Clinton years. Weren’t those good years? Well, not if you were a Democrat. Sucked for us then. Those were the years that “Liberal” became to mean “weak”. Remember Willy Horton?
We must stay focused. We can’t sit back and toast ourselves. We must do the work while we are there to do it. It is going to get hard. Everything that went wrong over the last six years is going to be our fault. We have to fix what can be fixed and we need to do it fast. We can’t just stand there with our hands on our hips and the wind wafting our capes and say “Here we Come To Save The Day!!”, we actually have to save the day.
In November of 2004, after a very different outcome, I pulled myself out of the dogs crate and wiped the tears from my eyes and I wrote:
Nothing has changed. literally, nothing. It's the same place as it was Tuesday morning. If you were all hot to change things, go forth and change things. The same shit is still going on, there is no need to regroup, rethink, redo - keep on doing what you were doing before if you believed in the cause then keep believing. Keep up the phone calls, and emails and petition signing. Just keep moving. Not a damn thing is different today then it was last week at this time. Bad guys doing bad things, stop them! Keep being the good guy, keep up the pressure.
It’s still relevant. There are still some very nasty, very wrong people out there wrapped in our flag and they are still a danger to our rights. The constitution that Shrub and his cronies shred over the past six years is still shredded. - the Patriot Act did not suddenly evaporate. The elections were a good start but they were hardly a giant re-set button. Bushco has dirty dealers everywhere an they are deeply entrenched, true Rumsfeld left on his own, and others will follow, emphasis on some not all. There are a lot of them left and they are going to work against us at every turn. We must all remain alert.
We must also pray that our new representatives don’t fall victim to the same forces that took out the Rethuglicans before them.
But in the mean time?
SNOOPY DANCE OF JOY!!!!
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Sing it joyfully!
Dems Complete Election Sweep of Congress
Democrats Take Control of the Senate
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Dems Complete Election Sweep of Congress
Democrats Take Control of the Senate
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Breaking News
`1. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down, sources tell CNN.
(Bush Says Rumsfeld, Cheney Should Stay , should not will....)
2. President Bush nominates former CIA chief Robert Gates as defense secretary to replace Donald Rumsfeld.
(Remember the Iran-Contra business? Gates Does)
On a personal note, Gates came to my college to speak around the the time all of that was happening and he still managed to be so dull I fell a sleep in my seat
`1. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down, sources tell CNN.
(Bush Says Rumsfeld, Cheney Should Stay , should not will....)
2. President Bush nominates former CIA chief Robert Gates as defense secretary to replace Donald Rumsfeld.
(Remember the Iran-Contra business? Gates Does)
On a personal note, Gates came to my college to speak around the the time all of that was happening and he still managed to be so dull I fell a sleep in my seat
Damn!
Dallas County went Blue! Judges ran as Democrats and got elected! In years past it didn't matter if you were a yellow dog democrat and the president of the Democratic Judges, if you wanted to be elected you ran as a Republican, end of story.
Dallas County went Blue! Judges ran as Democrats and got elected! In years past it didn't matter if you were a yellow dog democrat and the president of the Democratic Judges, if you wanted to be elected you ran as a Republican, end of story.
Healthy Living
I think I got the blood donor thing figured out. If you don’t have enough naturally occurring iron in your body, you add iron to your body. Or if you are me, you kind of ignore the stated directions on the bottle and probably kind of over dose yourself - but your blood sinks like a stone and you are allowed to give blood. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
Those things are frickin horse pills; I wasn’t going to swallow those monsters and not get to give. It was awesome I watched it fall like a brick! The last time they let me give it kind of floated around like a dying gold fish.
Like a stone!
While my blood drop was making dropping like a prom gown, they were taking my blood pressure. It was high, it would have been high if I wasn’t medicated - in fact, it was back where it was pre-medication, actually. Almost exactly.
The phlebotomist blamed it on the rainy weather, and the drive. I knew the rain wasn’t an issue and I drove a grand total of three blocks in it with no problem. I knew what was stressing me.
So.
Post blood letting, I came home and watched the second of my Netflix DVDs that have been sitting around, actually, I watched the other one a couple of days ago but I didn’t send it back because I wanted to send them back together. It’s stupid. Anyway. I watched the first two of the 7 Up films, They are documentaries made about the same group of British school children starting at age 7 and now, I think their “up” to 49 or something close to it.
So far I am enjoying it and the children, although most of the children, especially the better off children, need to be slapped. One of the wealthy boys, I believe may have been born 45 years old. Very sad, that. I may just being a classist though, Gawd knows the film makers were. Some of the children were not as well off and a few were living in an orphanage. The less well off children were portrayed as being some what dirty, went to schools right out of Dickens, were poorly disciplined and messy. The rich children were tidy, enjoyed small class size, went to highly structured boarding schools where they learned to do as they were told in latin and to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
They also knew at age seven where they would be going to college. The poor children knew at age seven where they would be working. In the second installment, they are 14; the 45 year old seven year old was now in his sixties. Unpleasant child.
What am I not talking about? Oh, yeah, that. The thing. I’m not talking about it because I am not watching it. First I watched my DVD and then I watched House and then I wrote this and after this I’m going to go to bed.
I’ll find out tomorrow. I found put we did well! I am not the lucky charm to the Democrats that I had hoped myself to be. Perhaps I should get depressed and sit out more election cycles.
I think I got the blood donor thing figured out. If you don’t have enough naturally occurring iron in your body, you add iron to your body. Or if you are me, you kind of ignore the stated directions on the bottle and probably kind of over dose yourself - but your blood sinks like a stone and you are allowed to give blood. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
Those things are frickin horse pills; I wasn’t going to swallow those monsters and not get to give. It was awesome I watched it fall like a brick! The last time they let me give it kind of floated around like a dying gold fish.
Like a stone!
While my blood drop was making dropping like a prom gown, they were taking my blood pressure. It was high, it would have been high if I wasn’t medicated - in fact, it was back where it was pre-medication, actually. Almost exactly.
The phlebotomist blamed it on the rainy weather, and the drive. I knew the rain wasn’t an issue and I drove a grand total of three blocks in it with no problem. I knew what was stressing me.
So.
Post blood letting, I came home and watched the second of my Netflix DVDs that have been sitting around, actually, I watched the other one a couple of days ago but I didn’t send it back because I wanted to send them back together. It’s stupid. Anyway. I watched the first two of the 7 Up films, They are documentaries made about the same group of British school children starting at age 7 and now, I think their “up” to 49 or something close to it.
So far I am enjoying it and the children, although most of the children, especially the better off children, need to be slapped. One of the wealthy boys, I believe may have been born 45 years old. Very sad, that. I may just being a classist though, Gawd knows the film makers were. Some of the children were not as well off and a few were living in an orphanage. The less well off children were portrayed as being some what dirty, went to schools right out of Dickens, were poorly disciplined and messy. The rich children were tidy, enjoyed small class size, went to highly structured boarding schools where they learned to do as they were told in latin and to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
They also knew at age seven where they would be going to college. The poor children knew at age seven where they would be working. In the second installment, they are 14; the 45 year old seven year old was now in his sixties. Unpleasant child.
What am I not talking about? Oh, yeah, that. The thing. I’m not talking about it because I am not watching it. First I watched my DVD and then I watched House and then I wrote this and after this I’m going to go to bed.
I’ll find out tomorrow. I found put we did well! I am not the lucky charm to the Democrats that I had hoped myself to be. Perhaps I should get depressed and sit out more election cycles.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Keeping Track
Go here to keep track of your favorite races.
Wherever you are, it is critical that you get to the ballot box and cast your vote.
Once you get to the polls, remember your rights as a voter:
- If you have problems, you are still entitled to cast a provisional ballot.
- If you are in line before the poll's closing time, you are entitled to vote.
- You are entitled to view a sample ballot at the polling place before voting.
To learn more about your voting rights, or to report any voter irregularity problems, call the Democratic Party's toll-free national voter protection hotline: 1-888-DEM-VOTE.
Go here to keep track of your favorite races.
Wherever you are, it is critical that you get to the ballot box and cast your vote.
Once you get to the polls, remember your rights as a voter:
- If you have problems, you are still entitled to cast a provisional ballot.
- If you are in line before the poll's closing time, you are entitled to vote.
- You are entitled to view a sample ballot at the polling place before voting.
To learn more about your voting rights, or to report any voter irregularity problems, call the Democratic Party's toll-free national voter protection hotline: 1-888-DEM-VOTE.
Election Day or once bitten, twice shy
You know what I found myself wondering about the other day? What do penguins feel like? I mean if you were to hug an Empire penguin, would it be squishy and feathery feeling like a regular bird or kind of soft and fluffy like a cat? Or would it be solid, like hugging your dog?
Empire Penguins are big birds, big heavy birds, would it be kind of like embracing a person? Are EPs all feathers or are they mostly fat? Would a penguin want to be hugged or do they have personal space issues? Has any one asked? Tried?
I was watching the Hallmark Channel the other day and they were advertising their airing of March of the Penguins at the end of the month. I watched it in the theatres and I don’t remember if they addressed how the penguins felt about being hugged or what it felt like to hug a penguin. I also wondered if they smell. Birds nests really stink and Emperor penguins are their nests, so I would guess they would smell like a nest, in that case, maybe you wouldn’t want to hug them even if they were open to it, But maybe because it is so cold, there isn’t the same nest odor issues that present themselves as in warmer environments.
Well, penguin tangents aside, it’s Election Day. The big mid-term elections that we have been thinking about and plotting for since we got handed our asses two years ago. I worked so hard two years ago. I haven’t done jack this time.
I did make three calls for Moveon. Despite their best efforts to piss me off and turn me against them. I made my calls in spite of their heavy handed guilt tripping. I told them I didn’t want to do it and that I would be happy to write them a check instead, but noooo they wouldn’t take I-Don’t-Want-To or a $15 check for an answer. Fine. No means No, Moveon.
I was so hurt the last time. I had been all gung ho and going to meetings and getting up early on Saturdays and going out and knocking on doors and handing out literature and being so good. This time I didn’t do jack. I never even went by Democratic Headquarters. In my defense, the local Wake County people never called me either. I did notice a change this election cycle though, this time there was a lot of signage in my neighborhood and their was evidence that some one from the party had gone door to door. I bitched about the party ignoring the minority neighborhoods the last time around; I thought they were taking them for granted – which they were. The Democrats can be very stupid. I’m hoping they learned from their mistakes.
I can’t help but to think about how hard we all worked last time, how much energy was put forth, how many hours were spent working for the party and how hopeful and excited and happy we all were. We really thought we had a chance, and then we lost. Very.
It really hurt. It really hurt me, I did all that work and had a really good time doing it and then we lost. I couldn't get over how much fun we had and we still got beaten. I talked a good game afterwards but part of me died. I was too sad to get involved. It was like being burned by a bad boyfriend and being afraid to get out there again.
I think that’s why I didn’t do anything this time around. I’m not excited about being burned again. I’m paranoid that the Democrats good polling numbers and the Rethuglicans bad numbers are all a Rovian trick being played on us to get democratic voters complacent and hopeful and to light a fire under the rethuglican base, and to ultimately break our (my) heart(s) again. I don’t trust anything I see regarding our chances – good, bad or indifferent. I think the Rethuglicans are going to steal the election again and all the Rethugs being publicly outed as crooks and liars and pervs is just an elaborate form of a political purge. It’s like the Stalinist purges without the actual murders. It’s their political lives being snuffed instead of their actual lives. It’s a “lite” purge.
I want us to win. I want America to be okay again. I want to be able to fly my flag again. I want to believe again. I’m afraid I’m going to get burned again.
VOTE DAMN IT. VOTE A STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET. USE YOUR VOTERS GUIDE!!
edited to add - I was at my polling place when the does opened and I was the sixth in line and my ballot was the first one in the machine, Paper ballots tahnak you very much
You know what I found myself wondering about the other day? What do penguins feel like? I mean if you were to hug an Empire penguin, would it be squishy and feathery feeling like a regular bird or kind of soft and fluffy like a cat? Or would it be solid, like hugging your dog?
Empire Penguins are big birds, big heavy birds, would it be kind of like embracing a person? Are EPs all feathers or are they mostly fat? Would a penguin want to be hugged or do they have personal space issues? Has any one asked? Tried?
I was watching the Hallmark Channel the other day and they were advertising their airing of March of the Penguins at the end of the month. I watched it in the theatres and I don’t remember if they addressed how the penguins felt about being hugged or what it felt like to hug a penguin. I also wondered if they smell. Birds nests really stink and Emperor penguins are their nests, so I would guess they would smell like a nest, in that case, maybe you wouldn’t want to hug them even if they were open to it, But maybe because it is so cold, there isn’t the same nest odor issues that present themselves as in warmer environments.
Well, penguin tangents aside, it’s Election Day. The big mid-term elections that we have been thinking about and plotting for since we got handed our asses two years ago. I worked so hard two years ago. I haven’t done jack this time.
I did make three calls for Moveon. Despite their best efforts to piss me off and turn me against them. I made my calls in spite of their heavy handed guilt tripping. I told them I didn’t want to do it and that I would be happy to write them a check instead, but noooo they wouldn’t take I-Don’t-Want-To or a $15 check for an answer. Fine. No means No, Moveon.
I was so hurt the last time. I had been all gung ho and going to meetings and getting up early on Saturdays and going out and knocking on doors and handing out literature and being so good. This time I didn’t do jack. I never even went by Democratic Headquarters. In my defense, the local Wake County people never called me either. I did notice a change this election cycle though, this time there was a lot of signage in my neighborhood and their was evidence that some one from the party had gone door to door. I bitched about the party ignoring the minority neighborhoods the last time around; I thought they were taking them for granted – which they were. The Democrats can be very stupid. I’m hoping they learned from their mistakes.
I can’t help but to think about how hard we all worked last time, how much energy was put forth, how many hours were spent working for the party and how hopeful and excited and happy we all were. We really thought we had a chance, and then we lost. Very.
It really hurt. It really hurt me, I did all that work and had a really good time doing it and then we lost. I couldn't get over how much fun we had and we still got beaten. I talked a good game afterwards but part of me died. I was too sad to get involved. It was like being burned by a bad boyfriend and being afraid to get out there again.
I think that’s why I didn’t do anything this time around. I’m not excited about being burned again. I’m paranoid that the Democrats good polling numbers and the Rethuglicans bad numbers are all a Rovian trick being played on us to get democratic voters complacent and hopeful and to light a fire under the rethuglican base, and to ultimately break our (my) heart(s) again. I don’t trust anything I see regarding our chances – good, bad or indifferent. I think the Rethuglicans are going to steal the election again and all the Rethugs being publicly outed as crooks and liars and pervs is just an elaborate form of a political purge. It’s like the Stalinist purges without the actual murders. It’s their political lives being snuffed instead of their actual lives. It’s a “lite” purge.
I want us to win. I want America to be okay again. I want to be able to fly my flag again. I want to believe again. I’m afraid I’m going to get burned again.
VOTE DAMN IT. VOTE A STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET. USE YOUR VOTERS GUIDE!!
edited to add - I was at my polling place when the does opened and I was the sixth in line and my ballot was the first one in the machine, Paper ballots tahnak you very much
Monday, November 6, 2006
Be Aware
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department plans to dispatch more than 800 federal observers and monitors to 20 states to protect voting rights in potentially troubled polling locations, officials announced Tuesday.
That is a record number of federal officials watching polling stations in an off-year election.
The Justice Department is reluctant to make public plans for elections observers. One official said that is because observers are viewed, in part, as frontline collectors of data that could be used to construct cases against local jurisdictions.
Trust Issues
“Monitors” or voter intimidation? I don’t trust the feds in any way. There is no wrong doing or cheating that I would put beyond Bushco and its minions.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department plans to dispatch more than 800 federal observers and monitors to 20 states to protect voting rights in potentially troubled polling locations, officials announced Tuesday.
That is a record number of federal officials watching polling stations in an off-year election.
The Justice Department is reluctant to make public plans for elections observers. One official said that is because observers are viewed, in part, as frontline collectors of data that could be used to construct cases against local jurisdictions.
Trust Issues
“Monitors” or voter intimidation? I don’t trust the feds in any way. There is no wrong doing or cheating that I would put beyond Bushco and its minions.
Babe in Toyland
A couple of weeks ago I got a notice from one of the online shopping site that I go to. It wanted me to know about this “exciting” deal they had for me. If I so choose, I could have my very own MP3 player/bluetooth/phone/DVD player!, okay, actually, it isn’t a DVD player, but it is all those other things.
I said to myself “Wow! an MP3 player! I want one of those!”. I’m not really sure what an MP3 player is but I know that all the really cool kids have them. I want to be one of the cool kids too!
But.
I’m not a kid and I’m not cool. I have no experience with coolness. I wasn’t one of the cool kids when I was a kid. I was at very best one of the lukewarm kids. I didn’t actually do anything cool, but I knew the names of the kids who did do cool things. I used sun in on my hair, I made it damaged and orange. Not as cool as the kids who made their hair pink and some how not damaged . I was in remedial cool.
Being old sadly does not keep you from wanting to be like the cool kids, in fact, it makes the desire to be cool even more pressing because once you get old, you can’t be a kid again at all. All you can do is try to be cool. The cool kids will laugh at you, but at least you can laugh at the rest of the adults and say “Well, at least I know what a JoJo is”. This does not make you cool, actually it makes you a little lame, but not as lame as listening to Rod Stewart sing the classics.
So. My cool toy arrived and I opened up the packaging and discovered really fast that I didn’t have any idea what to do with any of it. It took me an embarrassing long time to figure out that reason it would not turn on despite the fact I put the battery in it, was because the battery needed to be charged. Oops. Once charged, I was able to make the little thing glow red. I could not make it do anything else.
I bagged it and all of its various bells and whistles up and made an appointment with Alphagal to make it work.
Alphagal kindly read all the paper work for me and made it work.
She explained to me how I could make it work. She even loaded music on it to prove that while my toy was cheap, it did have the capacity to do what it was supposed to. Kind of, a real MP3 player holds hundreds if not thousands of titles. Mine holds about two albums worth.
I went home feeling very smart. I felt so smart that I decided I wanted to start with a clean slate and put my own music on my toy. I searched the house for CDs and gathered some favorites. While I was tossing the house looking for CDs, I allowed the computer to put a new version of Explorer on.
This was a mistake, not only could I not do what I wanted, everything looked different too.
I told the computer what Alphagal told me. The computer laughed. I cried. Dogger whimpered, I yelled at Dogger, the cats knocked things over, I yelled at the cats, I yelled at the computer. I called Alphagal and talked to Broskey who did a good job of not laughing.
I think I’m too old for “ripping” MP3s. I couldn’t make it work even with expert advice. My computer didn't even know what it was supposed to do. We're both lame and neither of us seems to have the right vocabulary. I know there are fourth graders the world over who can do this and there are in all likelyhood toddlers running around with Playskool kIdPods jamming to Barney tunes, good for them. I think I'll go listen to a cassette tape my jam box.
A couple of weeks ago I got a notice from one of the online shopping site that I go to. It wanted me to know about this “exciting” deal they had for me. If I so choose, I could have my very own MP3 player/bluetooth/phone/DVD player!, okay, actually, it isn’t a DVD player, but it is all those other things.
I said to myself “Wow! an MP3 player! I want one of those!”. I’m not really sure what an MP3 player is but I know that all the really cool kids have them. I want to be one of the cool kids too!
But.
I’m not a kid and I’m not cool. I have no experience with coolness. I wasn’t one of the cool kids when I was a kid. I was at very best one of the lukewarm kids. I didn’t actually do anything cool, but I knew the names of the kids who did do cool things. I used sun in on my hair, I made it damaged and orange. Not as cool as the kids who made their hair pink and some how not damaged . I was in remedial cool.
Being old sadly does not keep you from wanting to be like the cool kids, in fact, it makes the desire to be cool even more pressing because once you get old, you can’t be a kid again at all. All you can do is try to be cool. The cool kids will laugh at you, but at least you can laugh at the rest of the adults and say “Well, at least I know what a JoJo is”. This does not make you cool, actually it makes you a little lame, but not as lame as listening to Rod Stewart sing the classics.
So. My cool toy arrived and I opened up the packaging and discovered really fast that I didn’t have any idea what to do with any of it. It took me an embarrassing long time to figure out that reason it would not turn on despite the fact I put the battery in it, was because the battery needed to be charged. Oops. Once charged, I was able to make the little thing glow red. I could not make it do anything else.
I bagged it and all of its various bells and whistles up and made an appointment with Alphagal to make it work.
Alphagal kindly read all the paper work for me and made it work.
She explained to me how I could make it work. She even loaded music on it to prove that while my toy was cheap, it did have the capacity to do what it was supposed to. Kind of, a real MP3 player holds hundreds if not thousands of titles. Mine holds about two albums worth.
I went home feeling very smart. I felt so smart that I decided I wanted to start with a clean slate and put my own music on my toy. I searched the house for CDs and gathered some favorites. While I was tossing the house looking for CDs, I allowed the computer to put a new version of Explorer on.
This was a mistake, not only could I not do what I wanted, everything looked different too.
I told the computer what Alphagal told me. The computer laughed. I cried. Dogger whimpered, I yelled at Dogger, the cats knocked things over, I yelled at the cats, I yelled at the computer. I called Alphagal and talked to Broskey who did a good job of not laughing.
I think I’m too old for “ripping” MP3s. I couldn’t make it work even with expert advice. My computer didn't even know what it was supposed to do. We're both lame and neither of us seems to have the right vocabulary. I know there are fourth graders the world over who can do this and there are in all likelyhood toddlers running around with Playskool kIdPods jamming to Barney tunes, good for them. I think I'll go listen to a cassette tape my jam box.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Friday, November 3, 2006
Am I insane?
I was tooling around Ebay the other day and I saw that Carl Haisson has a new book. I was thrilled! He needs to come out with new books more often, like weekly. Any way, there were all ready books up for auction, with the stipulation that they would be shipped after the publication date. Fine. I looked at several and bid on the cheapest one. It was a uncorrected copy, no cover art no nothing. I said fine, I don't need pictures to follow the story anyway.
Carl Hiaasen NATURE GIRL November 2006 ARC/PROOF - Bidding has ended for this item at US $36.88. You were outbid. .
No duh!
$36.88! or you could just go to Amazon and get it for about a third of that or you could go to your favorite real book store and still get out the door for less. Am I missing something here?
I was tooling around Ebay the other day and I saw that Carl Haisson has a new book. I was thrilled! He needs to come out with new books more often, like weekly. Any way, there were all ready books up for auction, with the stipulation that they would be shipped after the publication date. Fine. I looked at several and bid on the cheapest one. It was a uncorrected copy, no cover art no nothing. I said fine, I don't need pictures to follow the story anyway.
Carl Hiaasen NATURE GIRL November 2006 ARC/PROOF - Bidding has ended for this item at US $36.88. You were outbid. .
No duh!
$36.88! or you could just go to Amazon and get it for about a third of that or you could go to your favorite real book store and still get out the door for less. Am I missing something here?
Fear of a Blue Planet
The Democrats and the Republicans are so far apart that they can’t even agree on what day it is. I got these emails minutes apart on the same day:
6 Days
As of today, we only have 6 days left to help our candidates air critical last-minute advertising, as well as to contact, identify and turn out Republican voters in an unprecedented effort save our critical Senate Majority!
Although you and I have worked hard for our Republican candidates, the liberal special interests will do or say whatever it takes to win these tight races and take over the Senate!
Democrats win and gain a Senate Majority they will use to:
1.Raise taxes on you and all Americans -- and then spend your hard-earned
tax dollars on their elitist causes!
2.Grant amnesty to illegal immigrants;
3.Retreat on the War on Terror by cutting and running from Iraq;
4.Begin investigations against President Bush and his Administration.
Hmmmm. Let me check my super secret librul code book...
1. What “elitist causes”? Re-landscaping Barbara Streisand's back yard? Maybe global warming? Or assuring our troops have adequate armor? Or that our veterans get the support and services they deserve and were promised?
2.“Granting amnesty”? Just like Ron Reagan did? That old America hatin' pinko.
3.“Retreat from the War on Terra by cutting and running blah, blah?” Gosh, the last time I looked the majority of Americans were kind of in support of leaving Iraq. It’s hardly a radical concept. It's a concept that the GOP should have gotten behind before Bill Frist started to send panic emails. Shrub is the only one still happy to be there.
4.“Bringing Shrub to Justice”. Who's "soft on crime" now?
I wonder why? I also wonder why Shrub bought all that land in lovely no extradition Paraguay. Are the Rethuglicans knowing subverting justice here? are they asking presumably Law and Order Red America to knowingly allow criminals to go free? Are there laws being broken by our lawmakers? What exactly are they thinking about? How dirty is he? Could it be worse than we think?
I’m not sure that would be possible.
Bill Frist is worried.
And from the Good Guys:
5 Days
Karl Rove himself was quoted as saying that this year's conservative GOTV effort will be stronger and even more effective than their superior performance in the last two elections. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman shared Rove's confidence by stating that early indicators of their voter turnout efforts are more promising than in 2004.
We are aware how hard it will be to defeat the army of conservatives. The financial imbalance is daunting. But this challenge cannot go unanswered. Support our work by sponsoring a GOTV package today. Your contribution will go towards essential parts of our plans for the final push: vans, food and supplies for volunteers, and election protection work that is essential to securing the progressive vote. Please give generously today.
And on the other hand. The Democrats aren’t quite as naked in their fear. They should be terrified. We thought we had it sewn up last time too! and see how well that turned out. I guess fear of a blue planet is not really at the top of our list, it's hard to be afraid of yourself. We do get points for using the Karl Rove card and name checking Ken Mehlman ( am I the one who’s gaydar pings when he’s around?) We lose points however for not using fear as effectively as we could. Fear is a great motivator, it along with vote rigging got Shrub into office twice.
I don't think we're worried enough.
Okay.
Moving on. I was driving home from the dog park Wednesday. I was fooling with the radio and as I was flipping through I heard:
Have a holly...:”
I turned the sound down and counted to five. I turned the sound back up. I thought that I must have suffered an audio hallucination. Perhaps I should check my meds, maybe I suffered a head injury and didn’t know it. Maybe it was a mistake on the part of the radio station.
Oh My golly have a holly, jolly Christmas this year!!
No. No to all of the above. After Burl Ives made me question my sanity, they moved on to Bing Crosby. The local station that plays carols every year, normally starting 24 hour play around Thanksgiving, had started their carol playing. The. Day. After. Halloween.
Isn’t Christmas supposed to be special? I could deal with the half off Halloween sales before Halloween, I could even deal with the plastic skulls sharing shelf space with the plastic Santa's, but CHRISTMAS CAROLS the first week of November?
I blame George Bush.
The Democrats and the Republicans are so far apart that they can’t even agree on what day it is. I got these emails minutes apart on the same day:
6 Days
As of today, we only have 6 days left to help our candidates air critical last-minute advertising, as well as to contact, identify and turn out Republican voters in an unprecedented effort save our critical Senate Majority!
Although you and I have worked hard for our Republican candidates, the liberal special interests will do or say whatever it takes to win these tight races and take over the Senate!
Democrats win and gain a Senate Majority they will use to:
1.Raise taxes on you and all Americans -- and then spend your hard-earned
tax dollars on their elitist causes!
2.Grant amnesty to illegal immigrants;
3.Retreat on the War on Terror by cutting and running from Iraq;
4.Begin investigations against President Bush and his Administration.
Hmmmm. Let me check my super secret librul code book...
1. What “elitist causes”? Re-landscaping Barbara Streisand's back yard? Maybe global warming? Or assuring our troops have adequate armor? Or that our veterans get the support and services they deserve and were promised?
2.“Granting amnesty”? Just like Ron Reagan did? That old America hatin' pinko.
3.“Retreat from the War on Terra by cutting and running blah, blah?” Gosh, the last time I looked the majority of Americans were kind of in support of leaving Iraq. It’s hardly a radical concept. It's a concept that the GOP should have gotten behind before Bill Frist started to send panic emails. Shrub is the only one still happy to be there.
4.“Bringing Shrub to Justice”. Who's "soft on crime" now?
I wonder why? I also wonder why Shrub bought all that land in lovely no extradition Paraguay. Are the Rethuglicans knowing subverting justice here? are they asking presumably Law and Order Red America to knowingly allow criminals to go free? Are there laws being broken by our lawmakers? What exactly are they thinking about? How dirty is he? Could it be worse than we think?
I’m not sure that would be possible.
Bill Frist is worried.
And from the Good Guys:
5 Days
Karl Rove himself was quoted as saying that this year's conservative GOTV effort will be stronger and even more effective than their superior performance in the last two elections. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman shared Rove's confidence by stating that early indicators of their voter turnout efforts are more promising than in 2004.
We are aware how hard it will be to defeat the army of conservatives. The financial imbalance is daunting. But this challenge cannot go unanswered. Support our work by sponsoring a GOTV package today. Your contribution will go towards essential parts of our plans for the final push: vans, food and supplies for volunteers, and election protection work that is essential to securing the progressive vote. Please give generously today.
And on the other hand. The Democrats aren’t quite as naked in their fear. They should be terrified. We thought we had it sewn up last time too! and see how well that turned out. I guess fear of a blue planet is not really at the top of our list, it's hard to be afraid of yourself. We do get points for using the Karl Rove card and name checking Ken Mehlman ( am I the one who’s gaydar pings when he’s around?) We lose points however for not using fear as effectively as we could. Fear is a great motivator, it along with vote rigging got Shrub into office twice.
I don't think we're worried enough.
Okay.
Moving on. I was driving home from the dog park Wednesday. I was fooling with the radio and as I was flipping through I heard:
Have a holly...:”
I turned the sound down and counted to five. I turned the sound back up. I thought that I must have suffered an audio hallucination. Perhaps I should check my meds, maybe I suffered a head injury and didn’t know it. Maybe it was a mistake on the part of the radio station.
Oh My golly have a holly, jolly Christmas this year!!
No. No to all of the above. After Burl Ives made me question my sanity, they moved on to Bing Crosby. The local station that plays carols every year, normally starting 24 hour play around Thanksgiving, had started their carol playing. The. Day. After. Halloween.
Isn’t Christmas supposed to be special? I could deal with the half off Halloween sales before Halloween, I could even deal with the plastic skulls sharing shelf space with the plastic Santa's, but CHRISTMAS CAROLS the first week of November?
I blame George Bush.
Thursday, November 2, 2006
The Republican Culture of Corruption at Work
Rethuglicans at work, you can't trust even the most lowly volunteer. Does the RNC have How To classes for DYI dirty tricks? Are there symposiums? Another example why these people can not be trusted. Lesson to learn - BYO voters guides
Rethuglicans at work, you can't trust even the most lowly volunteer. Does the RNC have How To classes for DYI dirty tricks? Are there symposiums? Another example why these people can not be trusted. Lesson to learn - BYO voters guides
Hi, My Name Is:
I am totally into a dog cookie making place. It’s the weirdest thing. I told my dog walking friend that I would make him some before he leaves on November 22, and now I’m trapped in some sort of dog cookie making loop. So far I’ve made the meat loaf drippings flavor, peanut butter and now cheese. I’m going to Sam’s Club tomorrow and pick up some bacon pieces. I need to chill out on this because next stop is Christmas Dog Cookie land and I don’t want to peak too early.
It would be smart to bank cookies prior to that, but those cookies are in holiday shaped in nature and the cookies I’m making now are not. I know that bone shaped has a universal appeal, but not the same appeal that tree shapes or the word “noel” has. I mean, lets get serious.
So. My dog walking buddy is getting about half of them, Dogger is getting about a quarter and a couple of my doggy friends from the park are getting to split the rest. They don’t know that yet and I’m trying to figure out how to tell them. I’m afraid I’m going to seem creepy if I follow them out to their cars and force baggies of dog cookies on them. Not everyone likes getting unsolicited dog cookies from strangers. And we are strangers.
Today for instance, a woman I have spoken to a lot finally introduced herself. It’s nice to know the names of the people I see everyday. We all spend a good hour a day chatting with these people and I don’t know anyone’s names and I am not alone. I don’t think any of them know my name either, they don’t ask and I don’t tell. The woman who introduced herself today is a nice girl, we’ve been talking a few times a week for months. I know she works out of her home, she’s six months pregnant and her husband thinks hanging out at the park sounds boring. I know her dog, he greets me at the gate when Dogger and I arrive, well, he meets Dogger at the gate but he jumps into my lap. If the little dog could purr he would.
I don’t know how to not creepily hand his person dog cookies, especially home made dog cookies. Does that make me weird? Would you be creeped out if an acquaintance gave you food for your pet? I mean, I told her I was making them for my friend who is moving away, so she all ready knows that I make dog treats, would it be imposing if I offered her some? I just don’t want to be creepy. I worry about appearing creepy.
Part of me kind of likes the anonymous nature of the interaction at the park. No one really knows that much about each other, conversation is limited to dogs and dog related topics, it’s kind of freeing actually. I’ve over herd few huddled political conversations, we’re good liberals at the dog park - this doesn’t surprise me. When I was going door to door during the last election cycle the registered democrats’ front doors almost always had “Rescue My Pets” stickers for emergency personal. Rethuglican doors did not.
I did get a surprise the other day. One of the guys I talk to a lot, mostly about his charming dog and his near obsessive relationship with it, showed off a wrist band supporting the Duke Lacrosse Team rapists. I was horrified. I don’t know his name, but I thought I knew him better than that.
I am totally into a dog cookie making place. It’s the weirdest thing. I told my dog walking friend that I would make him some before he leaves on November 22, and now I’m trapped in some sort of dog cookie making loop. So far I’ve made the meat loaf drippings flavor, peanut butter and now cheese. I’m going to Sam’s Club tomorrow and pick up some bacon pieces. I need to chill out on this because next stop is Christmas Dog Cookie land and I don’t want to peak too early.
It would be smart to bank cookies prior to that, but those cookies are in holiday shaped in nature and the cookies I’m making now are not. I know that bone shaped has a universal appeal, but not the same appeal that tree shapes or the word “noel” has. I mean, lets get serious.
So. My dog walking buddy is getting about half of them, Dogger is getting about a quarter and a couple of my doggy friends from the park are getting to split the rest. They don’t know that yet and I’m trying to figure out how to tell them. I’m afraid I’m going to seem creepy if I follow them out to their cars and force baggies of dog cookies on them. Not everyone likes getting unsolicited dog cookies from strangers. And we are strangers.
Today for instance, a woman I have spoken to a lot finally introduced herself. It’s nice to know the names of the people I see everyday. We all spend a good hour a day chatting with these people and I don’t know anyone’s names and I am not alone. I don’t think any of them know my name either, they don’t ask and I don’t tell. The woman who introduced herself today is a nice girl, we’ve been talking a few times a week for months. I know she works out of her home, she’s six months pregnant and her husband thinks hanging out at the park sounds boring. I know her dog, he greets me at the gate when Dogger and I arrive, well, he meets Dogger at the gate but he jumps into my lap. If the little dog could purr he would.
I don’t know how to not creepily hand his person dog cookies, especially home made dog cookies. Does that make me weird? Would you be creeped out if an acquaintance gave you food for your pet? I mean, I told her I was making them for my friend who is moving away, so she all ready knows that I make dog treats, would it be imposing if I offered her some? I just don’t want to be creepy. I worry about appearing creepy.
Part of me kind of likes the anonymous nature of the interaction at the park. No one really knows that much about each other, conversation is limited to dogs and dog related topics, it’s kind of freeing actually. I’ve over herd few huddled political conversations, we’re good liberals at the dog park - this doesn’t surprise me. When I was going door to door during the last election cycle the registered democrats’ front doors almost always had “Rescue My Pets” stickers for emergency personal. Rethuglican doors did not.
I did get a surprise the other day. One of the guys I talk to a lot, mostly about his charming dog and his near obsessive relationship with it, showed off a wrist band supporting the Duke Lacrosse Team rapists. I was horrified. I don’t know his name, but I thought I knew him better than that.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Finally
H.R. 3858, the "Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006," which amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to ensure that State and local emergency preparedness operational plans address the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency.
Signed into law last Friday. No more bad press about dead puppies.
H.R. 3858, the "Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006," which amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to ensure that State and local emergency preparedness operational plans address the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency.
Signed into law last Friday. No more bad press about dead puppies.
November 1
So this is the time change. Who exactly needs it to be that light before seven in the morning? I mean was their a questionnaire sent out? Did I miss a memo or something? I have to say, I was getting a little tired of it being so dark that I was thinking of investing in a bite light so that I could actually find the key hole in my door – I find being able to lock the door makes for a more secure home environment – that and the burglar alarm and 100 lb dog, but it all starts with a locked door.
But I was okay with it. I could deal with the darkness. I liked it. It was restful.
Now? Now I am not happy with the darkness. Please don’t tell me that we revert back to this for the benefit of farmers or school children waiting at bus stops – because that would so very much annoy me. There must be some modern reason we do this. I can’t think of any reason why we should not stay on daylight savings year round. Is it important that it get dark at 5pm? Is there a vampire lobby that is exerting way too much influence over our government? And has for generations? Wait, don’t answer. I don’t want to know.
Dogger was very excited yesterday when I walked in the door after work and almost immediately walked out the door with her to go to the park. Dogger was at first really thrilled but she looked around and didn’t find any of her little dog friends and spent too much of our time there plunked on the ground next to me, fortunately, on of our friends arrived soon after and Dogger got her little exercise in. It is really going to suck though in a few weeks when it’s going to be really dark really early. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get home, change clothes and get Dogger out the door and to the park in enough time. In years past I have driven her to the baseball field and we usually got a good half hour or so of running around in. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get the same time in at the park.
My old dog walking buddy finally surfaced the other day. I hardly ever see him anymore since I abandoned Doggers daily walking routine. I found out he and his nice dog are moving back to South Carolina some time in November. This makes me sad. I made a batch of dog cookies last night and I’m going to walk Dogger after work to his house and try to drop the cookies off. They are a new flavor I’m experimenting with: “Meat Loaf drippings”. I’m hoping it will be a big hit in the “hunks of cheese” vein. Dogger taste tested them last night and she seemed to like them but Dogger seems to like everything and she may not be the best test subject. I’m pretty sure I could make her tin can flavored dog cookies and she would think those were swell too.
Tonight in lieu of more experimental dog cookies, I’m going to get to experiment with pilling Mini Kitty. I can’t wait! Mini Kitty hates me and won’t let me get closer than about a foot from her without drawing blood and making noises that would make the sound effects guy from The Exorcist blush.
I can totally see how she is going to be thrilled with the whole pilling experience and will no doubt turn over a totally new and previously unknown co-operative leaf as soon as she figures out what I am trying to do. It’ll be great.
I’m thinking of a dart gun to sedate her from a distance and then, maybe some four point hard restraints for when she wakes up and discovers she’s been had, and then the witness protection program for Kitty, Dogger and I for when she gets loose.
So this is the time change. Who exactly needs it to be that light before seven in the morning? I mean was their a questionnaire sent out? Did I miss a memo or something? I have to say, I was getting a little tired of it being so dark that I was thinking of investing in a bite light so that I could actually find the key hole in my door – I find being able to lock the door makes for a more secure home environment – that and the burglar alarm and 100 lb dog, but it all starts with a locked door.
But I was okay with it. I could deal with the darkness. I liked it. It was restful.
Now? Now I am not happy with the darkness. Please don’t tell me that we revert back to this for the benefit of farmers or school children waiting at bus stops – because that would so very much annoy me. There must be some modern reason we do this. I can’t think of any reason why we should not stay on daylight savings year round. Is it important that it get dark at 5pm? Is there a vampire lobby that is exerting way too much influence over our government? And has for generations? Wait, don’t answer. I don’t want to know.
Dogger was very excited yesterday when I walked in the door after work and almost immediately walked out the door with her to go to the park. Dogger was at first really thrilled but she looked around and didn’t find any of her little dog friends and spent too much of our time there plunked on the ground next to me, fortunately, on of our friends arrived soon after and Dogger got her little exercise in. It is really going to suck though in a few weeks when it’s going to be really dark really early. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get home, change clothes and get Dogger out the door and to the park in enough time. In years past I have driven her to the baseball field and we usually got a good half hour or so of running around in. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get the same time in at the park.
My old dog walking buddy finally surfaced the other day. I hardly ever see him anymore since I abandoned Doggers daily walking routine. I found out he and his nice dog are moving back to South Carolina some time in November. This makes me sad. I made a batch of dog cookies last night and I’m going to walk Dogger after work to his house and try to drop the cookies off. They are a new flavor I’m experimenting with: “Meat Loaf drippings”. I’m hoping it will be a big hit in the “hunks of cheese” vein. Dogger taste tested them last night and she seemed to like them but Dogger seems to like everything and she may not be the best test subject. I’m pretty sure I could make her tin can flavored dog cookies and she would think those were swell too.
Tonight in lieu of more experimental dog cookies, I’m going to get to experiment with pilling Mini Kitty. I can’t wait! Mini Kitty hates me and won’t let me get closer than about a foot from her without drawing blood and making noises that would make the sound effects guy from The Exorcist blush.
I can totally see how she is going to be thrilled with the whole pilling experience and will no doubt turn over a totally new and previously unknown co-operative leaf as soon as she figures out what I am trying to do. It’ll be great.
I’m thinking of a dart gun to sedate her from a distance and then, maybe some four point hard restraints for when she wakes up and discovers she’s been had, and then the witness protection program for Kitty, Dogger and I for when she gets loose.
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