Business


Saturday I was busy. I was working. I mowed the lawn, I did the laundry, I filled and emptied the dishwasher and then I supported the arts, twice.And then it was time for lunch!

I had to schedule. I knew that the laundry had to get done and the earlier I mowed the lawn the better, but one fo the arts things was held outside and the earlier I went there the better too, art event number two was inside and was billed as an “Arts and Crafts” sale. “Bedazzled forks, over priced Recycled Jeans and Crap” is what it really was, but I guess that was too much to put in the ads. More on that later

Okay. I had a long list to get through and I was going to get through all of it. Damn it. The weekend end is not for relaxing, the weekend is for seeing how much stuff you can get done in the least amount of time and still sleep past 8am. I slept until 9:30. I’m that good.

Dog was fed, kitty was placated and laundry was started. I decided that since no one else was mowing their lawns yet, that it was not up to me to get the late sleepers up and around before they were ready - they pay a lawn man to do that for them, why step on his gig?. So first up was the outside art.

The Larkspur Party

Or “The We Have A Ginourmous Garden and We Know You Want to See it For Yourself But We Hide it Behind Pampas Grass to Thwart you Party And Art Show and No You Can’t Have Any Seeds.” . It’s very nice. Its also very nice that I can find it and even though it’s a little bit of a drive, it’s a straight shot from my house. The garden was of course as lovely as ever and made me hate my yard just a little bit more. I’m going to start Operation Lawn Jewelry as soon as I can work up the courage to delve further into the Shed Of Fear and rescue my genuine folk art butterfly and get it up on the fence where it belongs. They had a lot of gorgeous yard art at the show.


This would look nice if I had $300 to spend on my yard art. I do not. But it was very pretty. I had to mess with the colors to make the metal stars stand out more, there were a lot of “lawn sculpture” there and most if not all of them would have photographed better then this did, but I had been out in the sun for a while and my judgement was impaired. Sue Me.



Okay, there would be an image here of a large metal wind sculpture thingy but for some reason the server hates me, it could not possibly be my fault.And if it magically shows up later, it will be because of my awesome code fu.

After the show I went home and mowed the lawn. At Noon. I told you, my judgement was impaired! After that I was off to the Craft Show. I define “crafts” as what you do in your spare time with your own hands. It’s your cousin Cindy’s bead earrings or your brothers workshop wood projects. It does not include anything made by Cousin Cindy Inc. Or Brother’s Woodshop Co. Humph. I would have been happier if anything I saw there was made by the people actually manning the booths. I don’t want to buy things from the store you work at, I want to buy the stuff you work at. Whatever. It was air conditioned. I wanted hand made, one of a kind NORTH CAROLINAcentric “stuff” to send to my friends at home for Christmas! if I can’t find that sort of thing at a Craft Show, where the hell am I going to find it?!

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!

Gas Pri$es

One of the pirates at the corner lowered the low end gas to $2.06! I paid $1.99 at Sams Club, oddly, Wal-Mart is at $2.02.

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!

Friday Cat Blogging
guest kitty edition

Cutest. Babykitty. Ever. 


This is one of Sabrinas' little ones. You can see more of them and read their blog here

TGIF


This week in The Dianaverse….


Bad Boys?

I came home from work the other day to be greeted by two cop cars parked in front of the drug dealer’s house. One of the cop cars was blocking my driveway and caused me to have to park in the street. If there are going to cop cars in front of the drug dealers’ house I would prefer that they be in front of the drug dealers house, not so much blocking my driveway ya know, in case of flying bullets or other projectiles or whatever, I want my car to be hiding far up in my driveway out of the line of fire – there wasn’t any gun play and maybe the cops knew there wasn’t going to be. The cars didn’t have their lights on or the sirens going and another neighbor said the cars just showed up. There is the chance that the drug dealer called the cops himself… it could happen. I just wonder if he let the cops into the house. Once inside they have probable cause, and don’t need a warrant, perhaps they cleaned up before hand. If I’m going to come home to a blocked driveway I think I would prefer the drug dealer, Mr. Drug Dealer no longer blocks my driveway ands causes me to park in the street – and if there was going to be two cop cars in the neighborhood they could have at least told us why, came door to door, something…because, one cop car? Totally your business, two cop cars? You really need to send a memo around.

Bad Dog

The neighbors across the streets run a ‘way dog, ran away again. I did only a cursory search for it before I remembered that it is not my dog. I did did through Doggers stuff and found a leash I don’t like I could part with and put it permanent loan to them.

Me – ( grumble, grumble, stoooopid people don’t deserve a nice dog like that one, I can’t believe they let him get away again, those people need to go to dog owner school, if I see one of them we are going to talk and there might be a quiz, a ha! There is one now) Here. This is a leash. USE IT.

Neighbor Kid – Oh. He had one of these but he ate it.

Me – Don’t let him eat this one. The next time he gets away he’s going to get hit by a car and be dead in the street. Your dog has a very small brain and needs you to think for him. You are a smart guy, don’t let this happen again.

Bad Morning

Thanks in part to the A/C I slept really well the other night. Really too well. I woke up at about 5:15 and went blissfully back to sleep. Kitty didn’t need me, Dogger didn’t greet the paperboy and there wasn’t any irritating alarm to disturb me. So I slept. It was lovely. It was also a work day. I woke up again at 20 minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off. I looked at the alarm and took for granted it was going to be like 5:50, another popular time for me to wake up. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the clock and it was considerably later then 5:50. I couldn’t believe this! I never over sleep. I hardly remember what my alarm clock sounds like anymore! I’m so tightly wound I wake up before it goes off – its better to wake up early than have that thing startle me awake anyway, it’s worth a little lost sleep. But. I hate over sleeping. I hate being late. It wasn’t going to make me late to work but it severely curtailed my morning paper reading the rest of my written in stone morning routine. Grrrrrr. It messes up the whole rest of my day.


So, TGIF.

Child's Play

I have the most disturbing conversations with children. A couple of summers ago I talked to a little boy who told me that his Mama was going to get him a puppy like mine - as soon as his Daddy got out of prison. Today I had two fun conversations with children.

Convo 1 - I am trying to walk Dogger. Dogger doesn't want to or she wants to go to the post office, she's being a pain. We stop and talk to the little herd of kids that live around the corner from us. We're chatting about the size of Doggers feet, how big her eyes are, what nice fur she has. Dogger doesn't care but its good for my ego, anyway. There is a guy further up the street and he hollers that wants me to go and talk with him and his friends. They are like larger versions of the herd of children, we talk about the exact same stuff. I'm thinking about going down there to check in with Doggers adult fan club and one of the little girls, maybe seven, eight tops - says "No!No!No!Don't Go!" and I'm thinking WTF? She goes on "He's drunk! He's beats on his wife! He tried to kidnap some kids! Don't Go over there! Don't talk to strangers!! go the other way!". Dogger wanted to go home anyway and I followed her lead.

Convo 2- Little kids who live at the drug dealers or next door to them, I don't know, they are very tiny and they like dogger. They are in my drive way and we are again talking about Dogger and her total beauty. We are also talking about the neighborhood cats. The very tiny boy says he beats on cats, he hates cats. The larger tiny boy says the other boy does no such thing. We then move on to cops.

The very tiny boy likes cops and wants to be one. I turn the conversation towards the recent cop visit. It turns out that they sent two cop cars because it was a domestic dispute. His uncle was fussing at his aunt, his uncle picked up a knife and the cops had to be called. The kid is, four, maybe.


Childhood in my neighborhood is not kid stuff.

Our Fatherland, whom art...

The Bush is my Shepard, I shall not want to know the truth.
He maketh me to swallow his lies.
He leadeth me into deep shit.
He selleth his soul and mine.
He leadeth me to the dead-end of self-righteousness for his ego's sake.

Yea, though CNN walks me through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for we are clueless.
The Karl and thy Staff comfort me.
Thou preparest a fable before and makes me many enemies.
Thou annointest my dead with oil, Halliburton's cup cost-runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall elude me all the days of my life.

And I will dwell in the house of cards until it tumbles down.

sent in by Alert Reader Tony.

Is is breezy in here?


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army appears likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal for the first time since 1999, raising longer-term questions about a military embroiled in its first protracted wars since switching from the draft to a volunteer force 32 years ago.

Many young people and their parents have grown more wary of Army service because of the likelihood of being dispatched on combat tours to Iraq or Afghanistan, opinion polls show. U.S. troops are dying at a rate of two a day in Iraq, more than two years after President Bush declared that major combat operations had ended.

here

Which leads us to ....

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call

"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said. What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.

Desperate times do not call for kidnapping


from CNN.com and The Daily Kos

Growing Wild

Because I actually had to work at work - today's entry will be a modified photo blog.

There is a field near my house.



And the last time I was there, it was covered with flowers.



By the time Dogger and I came back it had been mowed




Fortunately, some flowers escaped. I added the Daisy.



We toured the rest of the field. We saw the plot that the neighbors keep every summer. Its very nice. I like watching it grow and thrive.



It was hot so we headed for some shade



Where there were some more flowers



And these.A delicates bag full of clothing, a hard cover book and an over due insurance bill.



I opened the book The Comprehensive Analysis Of The Bible. Published 1922.



I left it there. I hoped someone who needed it would find. The next day the bag and the bible analyis were gone, They tore up the bill and left it. Someone owes their insurance company $1978.

The GOP sold shit, and Ohio fed it to their kids

Ohio's abstinence programs faulted
Case study cites use of false data

What they told the kids:

HIV can be transmitted through “tears and open-mouth kissing. WRONG!!

Contraceptives are to blame for mental health problems in teens. WRONG

Taking the pill will increase a girl’s future chances of infertility. WRONG

Students should just “follow God’s plan for purity". In the PUBLIC SCHOOLS!? WRONG

If, God forbid, in a few years the public schools are full of pregnant 14 year olds and the clinics full of high school aged HIV/AIDS patients , I hope the people of Ohio know where to lay the blame.

stolen from Atrios, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Something is funny in Ohio


The investments with MDL are unrelated to the bureau’s coin funds managed by Mr. Noe, a prominent Toledo-area coin dealer. But the news of the MDL losses were revealed just a day after the Ohio Ethics Commission reported expanding its probe into whether bureau employees complied with state ethics laws. Earlier yesterday, before news of the MDL losses were reported, Inspector General Tom Charles confirmed that his office was investigating other bureau investments. (MDL is Ohios unemployment insurance)

Jeremy Jackson, spokesman for the bureau, would not comment on whether the Noe investigation uncovered the MDL losses.“There are investigations going on, including the [Ohio] inspector general,” Mr. Jackson told The Blade, which first uncovered the bureau’s rare-coin investment on April 3.

Go here for the rest of the story.


That little bit of money laundering by the GOP was begat by this:

Columbus - Auditors were stunned Wednesday to discover that money from the state's $55.4 million rare-coin investment has been spent on "an enormous inventory" of collectibles, such as autographs or other valuable papers.

Read more here


from Atrios

Just Chilling

I’m going to have to turn the A/C on. I was trying to fight it but it has come to the point that it needs to be done, the breaking point was, as it is yearly, when my lipsticks turn into lip puddles. I’m going to have to close all the windows, lecture Dogger on the importance of not having to open and close the doors as often as well as retrain both of us in the use of the basement door as a point of egress.

To keep my mind of the heat and the animals’ pleadings (“even our lips have fur!!!”) and my melting make up, I spent yesterday evening researching my various subscription renewals. I get entirely too many magazines. I get Entertainment Weekly and Us which is like getting the same magazine twice – the only difference between the two on a weekly bases is that one will feature Jessica Simpson on the cover and the other will have Paris Hilton. Inside they are the same magazine – except that Us seems to use more paparazzi shots then Entertainment Weekly - and that alone should be an easy choice - I should ditch Us. And I’m going to, at least I tried. I wrote them a little email and told them to get stuffed more or less but maybe something a little more polite, but I told them I could no long afford them and goodbye. I also ended up with Movieline – Hollywood Life, which is confusing because I never ordered Hollywood Life. It just showed up. I did order Movieline years ago, which magically stopped somewhere along the line and they started to send Hollywood Life in its stead. And I’m pretty sure that they are not the same magazine – because you can subscribe to HL for $1.50 and Movieline is at least $6.

About a year a go I learned that I do not need to pay full price for a subscription. (Insert Singing of Angels, Mozart music and general hosannas) I had been going through the publishers every year like a good little subscriber, for years and years and years and by this time, hundreds and hundreds of dollars ordering my magazines from my magazines. This is stupid. This is also expensive. While it is less expensive then say, buying from the newsstand, it is still very expensive and unnecessary. And stupid and why didn’t anyone mention this to me years ago? I don’t know but they suck and they should have.

Learn from me. Go to Ebay.com or Amazon and enter “magazine subscription” or “magazine subscriptions” or even better, go to Google and enter the same thing and don’t forget to check out the sponsored links as well. Search for your favorite magazine and then kick yourself when you see the prices. Almost everything, including weeklies can be found for much, much, much less then you are paying them now. I got a year of Movieline for $6, I got a year of Texas Monthly for $9, I got Entertainement Weekly for $25 – although, I am pretty sure I paid less last year, the asking price for a year through the publisher is $55! I am still debating Us because even through the discounters is like $35 and I don’t like the magazine that much. I don’t even remember ordering in the first time around but I think I got it as part of a deal, because Movieline also just appeared one day too. I had to move fast on them because they conveniently reup themselves every year with out my participation and it cost a fortune. I get my VISA bill and there is this huge payment and I’m always shocked and wonder what the hell I charged. I wanted to not be shocked this year. I’m not going to be thrilled with all the magazine subscriptions showing up as it is, but they are all, added together are less then the price of just one of those same subscriptions had I gone through the publisher to get them.

I know it’s wrong and kills trees and adds to my mail carriers bad back but I really, really, really like having stuff around to read. Right now, I’m trying to decided if I want to replace Us with The New Yorker, I have many, many, many choices.

The Bush Boeing Bailout?

Interesting...

stolen from Atrios