Life and Other Things I Don't Understand

2005-12-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Ahem...

Mrs. Languageperson (apologies to Dave Barry) is annoyed.

Just what the hell is a 'babydaddy'? What ever happened to 'father'? Maybe it's because the mother doesn't expect that the male parental unit will actually be in the child's life unless he's forced to pay child support? Or maybe it just sounds nicer than 'sperm donor'...?

You may now go back to your lives...

2005-11-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

Lep Trick, Albuquerque 11.02.05
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What a lovely vacation I'm having!

Can you feel the sarcasm? I knew that you could.

Sunday, the water pump in my ancient washing machine broke. The dryer's on its last cycle (literally, it only works on one heat setting now) and it won't stop tumbling unless I shut it off manually. Tosses lots of socks out onto the floor when I want to see what's dry. So we spent Sunday appliance shopping. *shudder*

Monday, I had an appointment with the dentist to get my one remaining wisdom tooth pulled, and to see if we could save two cracked molars by building them up for crowns. They'd cracked too far, dammit. Right below the gumline. So, long story short, I've got two healing spots on the right side, one on the left, and I'm saving up for the bridges I get to have done once the gums are fully filled back in. I'd like to go back in time and just smack the crud out of those protesters who kept the flouride out of the water when I was a kid. Flouridated water wasn't a communist plot! It was so Steph'd keep her teeth! They just wanted all of us gumming our food like they knew they'd have to when they got older.

Sipping smoothies and eating scrambled eggs and dreaming of meat, that's me. Positively craving a green chile cheeseburger. Mmmmm...

I'm glad there were no small children at the laundromat on Monday when I lugged in all my baskets... I looked kinda scary with all that bloody gauze in my mouth, and unable to keep my totally-numb lips shut. But I had no choice. I have to wait for Best Buy to bring me laundry bliss on Friday.

I'm off to suck on a cookie...

2005-11-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

Still Hoarse

Joe Elliott, Albuquerque, Nov. 2nd
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I mean me, not Mr. Elliott there. I'm sure he didn't shred a vocal chord like it sounds like I did. Maybe if I didn't talk for a living, or had been able to take a vacation day yesterday... ah, well, I'm on vacation for a week starting tomorrow, so maybe if I just don't talk much (hah! like that'll happen!) the voice that makes customers tell me I'm too young to know much about banking will come back. Meantime, I sound kinda like Kirsty Alley after a screaming match.

I was blown away, as usual, by this band that's stolen my musical heart. And for once, the Albuquerque crowd's response didn't disappoint me. They're usually soooo damn laid back. But on Wednesday, even I was feeding off the energy in that arena. I just wish I coulda snuck in my Nikon. As it was, security wasn't too thrilled with my little digital Canon, but they let me keep it. And let me up to the barricade a couple of times to shoot a bit. Not my best, but I'm not too disappointed. At least most of the pics don't have the backs of a crowd of heads in 'em.

I'll tinker with a couple of them that were paled by the smoke machine and the spots and have a couple more up here soon. 'Til then, I'll just be wishin' I could afford to take a Lep Trek. One night every two years is seriously NOT nearly enough.

2005-10-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm Still Breathin'

What's life without having too much to do and no time to do it? I swear, my to-do list has outgrown the post-it it used to reside on. And the index card, the 6x9 legal pad page and just a single sheet of notebook paper. I refuse to write it all down. I know damn well what needs doing around here and I sure as hellfire don't need a list to make me feel guilty about not doing it.

I've hardly turned the computer on lately. Once, maybe twice a week... of course, having to reformat the hard drive (again!) and reload everything did have something to do with that. See, I hate (detest, abhor, find repugnant) Windows XP. That's the main reason I won't buy a newer, faster computer with buckets of memory I'll never need. I'll go as far as WinMe, and that's it. But I digress. Sort of. In early September, Mason (who has his own computer) chose to peruse his system CD on my computer and leave it in the drive. I checked emails and turned it off, never knowing what was lurking in the bay.

Ed turned on the computer the next morning. He got a message on the screen that had the word 'Image' on it. Thinking I'd bought a new photo program, he let it do its thing. Which was reformatting my hard drive in 32-bit NT-style compression. He woke me up shortly before five, wanting to know what he should do next, because the computer was 51% done reformatting and wanted the next disk. I was not a pleasant person when I got out of bed that morning. Picture Medusa with bed-head.

I tried letting it finish, resigned to XP if I didn't want to lose what I hadn't bothered to save in a backup copy. It didn't work. And the only way to get XP/NT-style compression off the drive is to... you guessed it! Wipe the drive with a repartition and reformat, then start the reload. Then download the patches for the drivers and download the service packs (I swear I saved these, but the damn system refuses to acknowledge that what's on the CDs is actually usable material). I took it slow, as I wasn't missing out on much, and it was a nifty way to punish both of them for daring to use this computer as anything more than their internet appliance. Three weeks worth of slow.

Meantime, my ancient car was dying and I was hoping to receive the info about my retirement account from Walgreens, of a mind to spend it instead of reinvesting. I called corporate, wondering where said documentation was. They told me I was still employed. So... I also had to stop in at my former employer and terminate myself in late August. The boss was on vacation and nobody else knew how to do it.

Long story short, papers came, then check came, then Steph car shopped on the nights and weekends she wasn't reloading the computer, and now Steph has a very paid-for and very lovely black 1999 Firebird. Which is not the car we're driving to the Def Leppard concert next week. Don't want any dings, ya know. I only managed to score 16th row, but I'll survive. After all, it's Def Leppard. Time to break out the Joe Elliott coffee mug again (Ed thinks he hid it from me, but I know it's in the very back of the cupboard... heh heh).

2005-08-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Pointless Rambling

Ever have one of those stretches of time that feels like your skin just doesn't fit? Restless, edgy, cranky at anyone and nothing in particular, happy one minute and ready to pound something the next, triggered by nothing you can put your finger on and say, "AHA! That's it! That's the culprit!" I'm having one of those fortnights. Maybe it's the paper cut I got on my lip from sealing an envelope that keeps cracking back open. Or maybe, if you believe in astrology, you could point out that Mars is retrograde until the seventeenth, and has been for a couple of weeks. If that's the reason, I can't wait 'til the bitch is back and moving in concert with the other astral bodies. I may not last until Wednesday without taking a hammer to something and just pounding the living crap out of it.

I can't sleep, but Ed's monstrous snoring may have something to do with that. He doesn't usually snore, but lately... sheesh. The man could keep me awake when I'm trying to sleep on the living room couch. With the bedroom door closed.

I could swear we bought a Golden Retriever in February. He's now tall enough to rest his chin on the kitchen table. Without stretching out his neck. And he's not a year old until December 3rd. I guess I finally got that pony I wanted when I was five.

Where did the summer go? Mason's back in school tomorrow. Way earlier than when we were kids, I know. But they take time off for no discernible reason now. I'm waiting for them to declare National Fart Day and have the kids take that Friday off, with a Monday off on the other end for 'Teacher Inservice Day.' In service doing what? And where, exactly, are they doing it? If you go by any given school on one of those inservice days, the parking lot's as empty as McDonald's on Christmas. (insert crickety noises here...)

Maybe it's just me, feeling time-compressed like a movie on TBS and doing a split screen complete with voiceover when the not-part-of-the-entertainment parts are zooming past. I wanna be a full-length feature on HBO instead, in my full glory, left to laze around and wallow through two closing theme songs 'til my credits are done rolling slowly by. Once or twice a month is all I need to recharge, just a full day of doing nothing and not even bothering to change out of my loungy pajama pants.

Too bad my next days off are really aren't... laundry and errands and stuff on Saturday (I'm behind on both, so I gotta), Mason's dental appointment way the heck across town on Thursday (thanks, more local dentists, for not signing up to join Aetna's DMO), and next Saturday taking Mason to the eye doc for an exam, during which he'll get his pupils dilated and spend hours griping about how he can't see anything. I'm so looking forward to the weekend two weeks from now when I'll be off for two days running and there's nothing planned and no way to make any appointments for a Sunday...

TTFN. I'm off to endeavor to fall asleep to the lullaby of a growling bear with asthma.

2005-07-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Fun Food Network Fact

I just discovered that my birthday, December 8, is National Brownie Day.

Ed thinks that I somehow had a hand in this declaration.

2005-07-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

I Just Had To Go And Say It

Wow, posting twice in one seven-day span. I'm going for a personal record. Recently, at any rate.

I just had to go and mention cracking the coffee pot into the side of the sink and smashing it, didn't I? And guess what I did on Sunday?

Go ahead. Laugh. And call me Grace while you're at it. (Why not? That's what I called myself yesterday when my heel slipped off the back of my high-heeled sandal and I landed face-first on the floor as I exited the ladies room. After all that time in flat tennies, I guess I need training wheels...)

Anyhoo, I got a brand-spankin' new Stephanie-proof coffee pot. Shiny, chromey insulated metal carafe and a timer to make it start the brewing without me.

And I polished off the latest Harry Potter last night. I don't just read books, I devour them when they're tasty. (Yeah, yeah, some of you finished it sooner, but I didn't get my hands on it 'til late on Saturday, after which we took in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and went out for dinner. Sunday was Sam's Club, other errands, swimming, laundry, and some clothes shopping... leaving little time to really delve into the book until Sunday night.)

Life is good.

Now, let's see if Blogger freaks on this post and gives me bucketloads of header space again...

2005-07-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

This space is most definitely not intentionally left blank. I don't know what Blogger's up to, but, after much editing and re-editing, I can't get the damn post to stop publishing halfway down the page. So I give up and here's the funky off-kilter post.

*sigh*

2005-07-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Back From The Cone Of Silence

Well, howdydo and much apologies for the silence. Life’s been busy, I’ve been falling asleep at the ungodly early hour of ten-thirty, and really, for all its busy-ness, life’s been rather uneventful. As long as we ignore the weeklong muscle spasms (triggered by, of all the stupid things, menstrual cramps) in my back that’ve been giving me the posture of a question mark, that is. Thank god for Motrin, muscle relaxants and those squishy little blue icepacks. I’m nearly back to normal (if you could ever call what I am ‘normal’). I'd hate to think that my warranty’s nearly up and I’m gonna start falling apart now. Spare parts for Irish-Hungarian-Welsh-German women are kinda hard to come by.

... three days later...

Cripes, I can’t even finish more than one paragraph at a time! When I started this post, it was the morning of the last day of formal classroom training. One day out from going live on the phones and applying what I’d spent four weeks learning. There’s so many systems, so many regulations... so much spinning through my head that I’d planned on whining and carrying on about how I’d be sure to louse it up, sound like a moron, and basically give people the wrong information.

Well, now it’s Thursday night, I’ve spent most of the last two days (and half of Tuesday) manning the phone lines... and I’m amazed that I actually know what I’m doing! Well, most of the time, anyway. And when I don’t, we’ve got five (usually) smiling coaches swarming around the twenty of us to answer questions (or, in most cases, telling us where in the various reference systems we need to look to find those answers). I congratulated myself for only having to ask them two questions today (and they were for obscure stuff that wasn’t in the reference system... like, “If my husband and I hold a safety deposit box, and we want to add our daughter to it, do both of us have to be there to endorse her signature card?” The answer is “Yes,” in case you were just dying to know).

Well, it’s nearly collapse-into-bed time, and I haven’t prepared the morning’s life-giving caffeine infusion so I can just switch it on when the alarm goes off too damn early (I learned my lesson one day last spring about waiting ‘til morning to fill the coffeemaker when I accidentally smacked the pot into the side of the sink and shattered it, leaving me decaffeinated and butt-draggy).

Have a fantabulous Friday.

2005-06-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

Reprieve!

Not only has our little performance at work been postponed for a week (it's been a busy week for Customer Care, as the first phase of the Fleet Bank buyout/customer merger began this past Monday), but I'm no longer the main voice (whew!). As everyone has warmed up to the idea of singing, they've gotten more confident and now it'll be more or less a group effort (a few people refuse to sing and plan to just stand there...)

Yesterday was Silly Hat Day (I love this place for doing stuff like that!) and I wore a little pooltoy basketball hoop on my head... I wonder if I'll get a Spirit Prize for it (some of the stuff is really cool). I'll let ya know, and post a photo if I get a copy and I don't look too awful in it.

2005-06-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

A Loud Flat

Long time no blog. I apologize.

My brain is Jell-O by the end of most days, but at least my feet aren’t hurting and I get to pee whenever I actually need to, instead of waiting for hours until there was a break in customer traffic. And I’m dreaming that I’m in training class. Which can be looked at two ways. Either that’s a good thing, and I’m getting it locked into my memory banks, or it’s a bad thing, ‘cause there’s five weeks of training to go and by the end of it, I may be looking downright scary with dark circles no amount of makeup could possibly hide.

I can’t say specific things about the training, as confidentiality precludes me, but I can say that it’s actually a lot of fun, very interesting, and I’m learning more about banking, types of accounts, and the Federal Reserve than I ever thought I could cram into my brain. But I promise that just because I’m becoming a banker, I won’t ever become boring. Nobody there acts like they’re “a banker.” Which surprised the hell out of me. I’ve also been elected to sing the lead in our training class skit/cheer, which also surprised the hell out of me. We had to come up with something bank related for a song, cheer or repetative skit. We elected to rewrite the lyrics to “I Got You, Babe.” Lucky me gets to sing both Sonny
and Cher’s parts, with the class doing the chorus of “I got you, Bank.” I don’t think I’m all that hot of a singer, but the other nineteen people in my class do, so I got the job.

Oh, lucky me. I generally don’t sing above a whisper except in the car (alone!) and at concerts where I can blend in with all the other loud and equally flat voices. This past Friday when we were going over our song, I was dumb enough to sing kinda loud (everyone else was mumbling, so my loud wasn’t really all that loud) and I won the audition that I didn’t know I was having. Serves me right for having that Frappucino with lunch.

Except in grade-school chorus, and once when I was drunk in a club and the band’s lead singer stuck a microphone in front of my face, I’ve never sung in front of people before. Never kareoked, even Ed’s never heard me really go at it full gusto. I’m gonna be so red-faced. But since we’ll be performing it this Friday in front of all the center’s managers and supervisors, I don’t think I can get away with just squeaking it out. We’re supposed to be showing our enthusiasm here.

I’m gonna try not to be mortified.

Maybe I’ll just pretend I’m in the car.

2005-06-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today, My Head's In A Sunny Place On A Warm Beach

I got the job!

Starts Monday, which means I'll most likely be working Sunday (my normal day off) to cram as much training in for my replacement as head of the department (a person who has yet to be named, but will most likely be a great and talented guy named Thomas).

Thanks for the good thoughts -- they worked!

My feet are so very happy.

2005-06-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Now we can afford that Lexus...
Posted by Hello

2005-06-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

In My Head, It's March in Cleveland

I don't want to go in to work tomorrow.

And I don't mean that in a "just don't feel like working" sort of way.

It's more like a "it's a cold and rainy Sunday afternoon and there's nothing but crap on TV, I've read every book in the house at least four times, the newspaper's soggy, I'm alone in the house and the fireplace sits empty because I'm all out of firewood" sort of way.

And it's beginning to feel like that every single workday.

*Sigh*

2005-06-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

Trolling

Well folks, I think I’m fed up and I’m leaving my job of nearly nine years.

Five weeks ago, I responded to an interstore notice that they were interviewing for
assistant managers, as a few were retiring, a few were being promoted, and several more were just plain leaving the company. I’ve been in retail management at other companies before (with no blemishes on my records there), my file with Walgreens is nearly spotless (once, I was written up because a customer overheard me swearing when I dropped a heavy roll of photopaper on my foot, and one year, I took more sick days than I could get paid for and got a write-up for it, but every other year, I’ve banked at least two sick days out of the six I get, and this year, I’m still working on the three I banked from last year, so we’re more than even), and all I’ve ever gotten was an automated response. No calls to my manager, no inquiries to me personally; it’s like I’m not even in the running for the courtesy of a human response. It’s more than disheartening.

Frankly, things were looking rather bleak in the employment front for Ed, so the wage
increase for me was looking pretty necessary (I hated being a manager, back when I was one, mostly because of the bizarre hours and having to work around teenagers who didn’t feel like showing up to work, either on-time or, oftentimes, at all). So apply I did, and hoped for the best. Or at least for an interview.

Things changed for the best for us in those five weeks. Ed submitted more apps and
resumes, and got that magic call... followed by three interviews, a typing test, and a boy-this-is-a-happy-day call to schedule him for training.

Ed started his new job this morning. A lovely, office-type job as a customer service rep in the Bank of America telephone service center. His training wage is a dollar more an hour than I’m making after eight-and-three-fourths years where I’m at, and when the training’s done, he gets a two-dollar-an-hour increase.

They’re still looking for more full-time folks, too. Daytime hours to boot. And since my store is so close to the customer care center, we see a lot of their employees at lunchtime. They’re always smiling (I would be, too, if I could sit on my butt and solve other people’s problems for what their starting wage is) and telling me I ought to apply. (Why? ‘Cause I’m the queen of “The Customer Is Right,” that’s why.)

So, this weekend, I sent my resume through their online app site (the only way they hire). ‘Cause I can’t see myself developing other people’s pictures when I get to retirement age, and I guess getting any further ahead in this company’s not in the cards for me. My feet and all their tendon problems will thank me, the vericose veins in my knees will thank me, and I won’t have to swelter in the summer while the print processor blows out 180 degree air all the live-long day. And I’ll get to wear jeans and, if I feel like it, non-arch-supportive shoes and (gasp!) some of those big fat stacked-heel shoes I bought and can’t wear at work so I hardly wear them at all.

I spent seven years working as a customer service supervisor at JCPenney’s catalog
ordering phone center, so this sort of job’s not unfamiliar, and actually, of all the jobs I’ve had, I liked that one the best. People only called when they had a problem, I finagled a way to fix it, and everyone hung up happy. It was rewarding, in its way, knowing from personal experience how one only calls when something needs fixing; the feeling of relief that that one gets as a customer when their “this-is-my-out-of-control-problem” gets personal attention and got solved because I wanted to help made me feel like I’d accomplished something worthwhile.

Wish me (and my aching feet) luck.

2005-06-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Another Favorite...

Yet another calender page, this one from July 14, but I just couldn't wait that long to post it.

Our beloved G.Boo, discussing the decline of the French economy with British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur.'"

I can't make up shit this funny!

2005-05-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

G.Boo-ism of the Day

Quote taken from my calendar page for Tuesday, May 31:

President G.W. Bush, speaking at the President's Economic Forum:

"I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."

So is that plausible deniability in action, then?

2005-05-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Your Taxpayer Dollars at, Well, Something

What is this crap I’m hearing about lately that Medicaid is paying for prescriptions of Viagra for sex offenders? What kind of taxpayer-financed, twisted enabling is this?

I’m not against Viagra, per se. Although I do think medical research dollars would be better spent finding cures for more serious diseases and disorders. Like leukemia. Diabetes. Cancer. AIDS. Whether or not an old man can still get it up really shouldn’t be priority one. Listening, pharmaceutical companies? Sigh. Probably not.

Now, I understand the usefulness of a drug like Viagra. Grandpa won’t be so
crotchety any more, and that can only be a good thing. Or maybe the incidence of
Alzheimer’s in men will go down (perhaps they’re lost in reminiscing about the decades of their lives when getting rid of an errant obvious attraction was necessary, and when actually getting to use aforementioned equipment was never in question, and today it won’t even wave an unenthusiastic “Hey, howzitgoin,” so they don’t wanna come back). So, seriously, Viagra could be good for a man’s mental health. Or at least his emotional stability. Everybody wins. (‘Specially Grandma.) Whatever prescription plan they’ve got is fine by me.

But in my opinion, allowing a sex offender to keep his equipment at all should have them grateful. I’m one of those who thinks saltpeter should be sprinkled liberally on everything they ingest, rubbed into their bars of soap, injected into their deodorant... you get the idea. So, maybe the doctor didn’t know a patient was a sex offender, and responded to his request for something to, er, help his situation. So it seems the real problem here is letting doctors, pharmacies, and most of all, the Medicare/Medicaid system, know who the sex offenders are, and not giving them something... hell, not allowing them to purchase under any circumstances whatsoever... any substance to help ol’ Little Dickie stand and deliver

2005-05-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

"And How Does The Defendant Plead...?"

I hate returning stuff.

Which ought to be weird, ‘cause I have to do it all the time.

Or maybe that’s why I hate it.

This morning, we discovered Ed’s tennies suffered a major blow-out in the heel, and the gel disk inside is bulging out the side of the shoe. I got them exactly thirty-one days ago at Target. I know this because I bought them, along with some other stuff, and forgot the superglue which is what I went to Target for in the first place (one of the hazards of bringing along a talkative thirteen-year-old). So I had to go back inside and get the glue and it got its own receipt.

I can find that receipt.

The receipt with the shoes on it has made itself scarce.

I’ve got receipts out the ying-yang, everything from groceries to underwear, and can’t find the one that I need today. I wish I didn’t have to keep them all. But since nothing lasts like it should, keep them I do. And get to hunt through them (I file them by month, since I have to fish them out again so often) to find the one elusive receipt that’ll show up in some obscure place a month from now.

I’ve had to return milk for being one step shy of cottage cheese and I’d just bought it the night before (probably some thoughtless person decided not to purchase it and left it on the detergent aisle, and an idiot store employee came along hours later to find it and put the now-warm gallon back in the front of the refrigerator where lucky me was the one to buy it once it was all nice and cold again), I’ve returned cryovac-packed pork because it smelled like a morgue when I opened the package, and you don’t wanna know how many times we exchanged one couch for another when there were either frame defects (like two of them were missing pieces of wood under the right arm) or the fabric wouldn’t outlast the Scotchguard Two-Year Stainproof warranty (I think we and our eight sofas were single-handedly responsible for Montgomery Ward going out of business).

Today’s project is exchanging shoes without a receipt at Target once I’m done with my
doctor’s appointment. Target’s bad when you don’t have a receipt. Suspicious looks and twenty questions that’ll make me feel like a shoe-swapping criminal. I know they’ll still return them, and the guilt-trip they toss out for doing it won’t cost me an extra dime.

*Update*

They wouldn't take back the shoes. They wouldn't even if I could locate the receipt, they said. Why?

"Because they've been worn."

Okay, and how am I to know if a shoe has been made poorly and has a defect if I don't wear it?

So, that means that one must determine if a shoe from Target is crap without so much as putting a toe into it.

We're going to Big 5.

2005-05-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

So Reverse Works, But...

I heard this radio ad today:

"We back up every car we sell at CarMax."

Yeesh.

2005-05-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

Me? I Prefer Rollercoasters...

I clearly heard a new line yesterday in the legalese that follows new car ads on the radio.

“Airbags are not meant to replace safe driving practices.”

At first, I thought this was a stupid, obvious thing to mention.

Then Ed told me about the newest ‘thing’ in car thefts; apparently, thrill-seeking youths are stealing cars with airbags (and especially love the more expensive cars with side-impact bags), joyriding in them, then crashing them into things to make the airbags deploy. For kicks.

Oh, and then they’re just getting out and leaving the wrecked vehicles wherever they
happened to come to rest.

Apparently, ignition interlocks (where the car won’t start without a ‘valid key,’ whatever that means to the ignition system) aren’t preventing the theft.

I’ve got a suggestion for the automakers. Fuck the ignition interlocks. If a car isn’t started with the so-called ‘valid key,’ then cut off the airbags. Lock the seatbelts on the hidden rollers so that they can’t be used, either. Then, when the car is boosted, announce in that soothing female OnStar voice that all safety restraints have been deactivated, all the external and internal lights will now begin to flash, the horn will sound off at random, and the GPS locator under the hood has been turned on.

Maybe lock all the doors so that they can’t be opened or unlocked, either, and lock out the power windows. Magnetically lock the seatbelt latches so that, if the thieves had put them on, they can’t be undone. And don’t let the car outta first gear. They can either creep along, flashing and honking, or burn out the transmission trying to get somewhere fast where they can attempt to break out of the car.

Heh heh.

2005-05-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Want Ads

I don't know if any of you watch The Tonight Show... I don't. Except on Monday nights, when Jay Leno does "Headlines." (Stupid things that made it past editors and into print.)

Ed found one in the Sunday Help Wanted section (yes, he's still looking for a job *sigh*) and we sent it in yesterday. So if you see Jay reading one for an 'Inflatable Delivery Driver,' you'll know where it came from.

2005-05-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

From The Just Because We Can Department

"My what smells like what?"
Posted by Hello

Now just what good is a soothing lavender-scented handle on a razor? I can't think of anywhere I'd be shaving that I could be able to smell it.

Maybe it's supposed to smell up the shower stall so that when I open the curtain, I get assaulted with the 'soothing scent' of lavender?

Or maybe whenever I get stressed during the day, I can just sniff my right hand and it'll make everything all right again.

Yeah, that won't make me look weird.

2005-05-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Wordmeister’s Latest Shudder-Worthy Slaughtering of American English

(I’m feeling a little ornery this week, and I don’t think it’s just the cold I’ve been wrestling with since Sunday. It’s just been a bad spell for good language skills here.)

They’re not Crayolas. They’re crayons. Not Crayon-brand Crayolas and store-brand Crayolas. Crayola is the brand, and crayon is the item.

VCRs are not the same as videotapes. A VCR is a video cassette recording device, not
the tape it records on or plays. Call ‘em videotapes, VHS tapes, or VCR tapes, but please don’t call them VCRs.

It’s soda, pop, sodapop or a soft drink. There’s no such thing as Pepsi Coke, 7-Up Coke, or Root Beer Coke. Not everything’s a Coke. Unless maybe they were looking for designer-type, flavored cocaine, and retail stores don’t sell that. So quit asking already.

Maxell does not have a W after the X. You’re annoying me.

If you ask me for winnerce, and I haven’t the foggiest, don’t scowl when I ask you to repeat your request. (He wanted wieners, and no, the rest of his speech didn’t seem to have any sort of accent.)

It’s a Sony Ericsson phone you’re looking for a charger for, not a Sony Excursion. Each letter in a word has a purpose. Please don’t add any in or take any out.

Cell phones and cordless phones are not the same things. Try to stuff your cordless into your purse and see how far you can get from home and still make a call. And no, you can’t use the GE cordless with your Virgin Mobile account.

And heard Friday on a morning radio show, in which they asked listeners to call with their biggest etiquette pet peeves, since this past week was National Etiquette Week:

Caller: “I hate it when people snort their mochas. It’s so disgusting.”

Comments from the morning show crew: “Yeah, slurping, even when the coffee’s hot, is just so obnoxious.” And “That’s why I add a little milk, to cool it down enough to sip it.” There was also something mentioned about slurping soup.

Caller: “No, when they snort their mochas instead of getting a tissue and blowing their nose.”

A long moment of baffled, dead air followed before one of them quietly asked if she meant mucous. She hung up without answering. (Me, I’m wondering what she asks for when she goes to Starbuck’s...)

2005-05-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

Have a Double Rainbow Sort of Weekend

That pot of gold would be somewhere on the way to Santa Fe...
Posted by Hello

The rainbows are still fading as I type this. One of the few things that makes living in this middle-of-nowhere state less sucky.

2005-04-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

Them's Fightin' Words

We finally got word from the Court regarding the attempted theft of Mason's laptop back in January. The transcripts of the correspondence follow, as a scan of the letters wouldn't be very readable (Hello blurs photos, and is even worse with type). Besides, then I'd have to find a way to cross out his name, as he's a juvenile and I don't wish to invite legal trouble.

Some words of warning: if you don't like lies, don't read the apology letter. And if you don't like sarcasm, don't read my reply to the Court.

Cover letter

As part of their Teen Court sentence, many offenders are required to write letters of apology. Enclosed is a letter that (name deleted) has written regarding an incident that happened on January 19, 2005. You do not need to do anything other than read the letter, but if you should have comments or questions please do not hesitate to contact me at the above address and phone.

Sincerely,
(name deleted)
Teen Court Coordinator

The Letter of Apology

Dear Mason Kilner and Parents,

I am writing to you to apologize about the events that took place the day you thought your laptop had been stolen from the Mid High. I picked up the laptop when I found it on the floor of the cafeteria and Mason was no longer there, thinking that it was lost. I am sorry that I didn’t go to the office immediately to turn it in to lost and found. I now know that I should have taken the time to return it before I went to my next class. Please believe me when I tell you that I never intended to keep the laptop.

Since this day, I have had a number of challenges to deal with such as five days of ISS, my grades dropping dramatically as a result of ISS, and having to quit baseball in order to bring my grades back up. I also have never had any experience that has made me deal with the Juvenile Probation System or Court System. This also affected my entire family. I never want to have to go through anything like this again.

I take responsibility for causing your panic and frustration, and know that it was my laziness and not making the right choices that day that caused these problems. I am sorry. I regret the whole incident and hope that you will forgive me.

Sincerely,
(name deleted, since he’s a juvenile)

My response

Re: (name deleted)'s letter of apology

Dear Ms (court officer),

Oh, where to begin?

Firstly, I’m assuming that the Court has retained a copy of this letter, so that you can share my joy in seeing that our last name has been misspelled. (First rule of a formal apology... get the name right.)

I wish that someone at the Court had contacted us, as most of what (he) has written in his letter to exonerate himself is patently and completely untrue. Not only is there video from the cafeteria to refute his claim that he ‘found’ the laptop, but there is at least one girl who witnessed him take the laptop (ask at the Mid High, I’m sure they can provide you with the name of the girl who turned him in and claimed the hundred-dollar reward we had to offer to get someone to come forward with his name). Additionally, when it was announced that the laptop was missing, and he, er, found it, why didn’t he turn it over to a teacher immediately and proclaim his innocence then? He certainly found the time to pass it off to a friend to carry for him.

I received a frantic phone call from Mason shortly after the laptop was taken. I called my husband, who was at home, and we both converged on the Mid High to start to search... trash bins, outlying areas of the courtyard, under stairwells... anywhere we could think of that might hold a laptop and its case. We heard the PA announcements and waited, hoping. No one came forward.

We offered a hundred dollar reward, and continued our search, this time inside the building. We were looking in the bathrooms near (his) classroom when the female student came forward with his name, and we stood to one side, just outside the door, as he was removed from his class. We heard what he said about the boy he passed it to: "I wasn’t gonna carry that thing around all day." So he had time to pass it to a friend, but no time to turn it in to anyone in authority? Even handing it over to his third block teacher would have made him look more innocent than passing it to a friend to lug around for him until they could meet up after school and decide who got to keep it.

The friend he passed it to also had ample opportunity to turn in the laptop after the announcement was made concerning its state of unknown whereabouts. There were no witnesses to him taking it, so if he were to just pop out of his seat after that first announcement and say he found it laying somewhere, no one would have been the wiser. But again, neither one of them did something even remotely resembling what one would do if he were innocent and had merely found a valuable item.

I am generally a kindhearted person, and very forgiving; I’d prefer to believe that one can make mistakes and learn from them, and that all persons go about their lives with the best of intentions. When the evidence of something to the contrary is glaring at me and breathing right in my face, however, I must adjust my Pollyanna view and realize that some people, at some times, do the wrong thing, the dishonest thing, and for all the wrong reasons.

(He) committed a felony. Pure and simple. What you’ve chosen to do with that child with the dishonest tendencies is, apparently, out of our hands. What you do need to know, in dealing with him, is that he’s compounded his crime by lying, both to you and to us, in a very transparent attempt to exonerate himself. Yes, he made a mistake. Yes, he was caught. From the words (he) wrote to us, it seems the only mistake (he) thinks he made was in getting caught, and is now trying to lie his way to a lighter punishment. He must have known you either hadn’t talked to us yet or that you had no intention of doing so before his sentence was handed down.

We incurred a loss here, regardless of the laptop being returned. In order to get the name of the thief before school was out for the day, we had to offer money. I lost two hours of pay. The laptop was damaged and had to be sent back for repair; the DVD drive no longer functioned, the cooling fan stopped working that same evening, and the hard drive quit the very next day. Luckily, it was still under warranty and the manufacturer, while stating that it was due to improper handling of the laptop, repaired all of the damaged parts free of charge. Still, I had to bear the cost of sending it back for those repairs. Is there anything in place for reimbursement for these expenses? Or do we have to bear the cost ourselves because (he) claims he made an error in judgment?

I’d love to do as he asks and forgive the boy for making a bad, dishonest decision as young people sometimes do. But first, he has to ‘fess up to his lack and own his mistake and the punishment that follows. He hasn’t done so in this letter. Forgiveness follows repentance, and I’m not seeing any of that here.

Please call me at your earliest convenience. I’d really like to discuss this in more depth with an officer of the Court.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Kisner

Grrrrr.....

2005-04-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

Something Twisted This Way Comes

Luck? Spirit guide? Guardian angel? Whatever you call it, mine’s definitely got a kink in it somewhere.

Most people, when they have battery trouble with a car, just have a worn out old thing that won’t hold a charge any more.

Me, I get the positive terminal falling out of the battery and the battery cable dangling uselessly inside the engine compartment. With the positive terminal still attached to the cable and a great big empty on the battery where said terminal post used to reside.

Now, I could look at this two ways: bad luck that it happened at all, or good luck that it happened while the car was in my garage on my day off when I was going out to warm up the heater before I took Mason to school.

It could have broken off the night before, when Ed was driving back from the far side of Albuquerque in a rainstorm. It didn’t.

It could have broken loose after I’d started it and we’d gotten under way, shutting down my totally computerized car in morning rush hour traffic. Again, it didn’t.

It could have waited for me to start my errands (bank, drop off electric bill, drop off water bill, return something at Target, go to Sam’s Club for gas and dog treats, then finally to Super Walmart for the bulk of the grocery shopping) and leave me stranded somewhere. Or cut out when I was driving down the long curving hill (with the 55 mph speed limit) that takes me to Sam's and SuperWallyWorld. I'd have had no brakes and no power steering. Once again, none of that happened.

It got Ed home just fine Sunday night, then simply refused to start Monday morning. Running late for school, we just took the other car, leaving me to investigate the inactive new car when I got back home.

Ed was up when I got back, and the first thing we did was check the battery connection. One light bump to the cable was all it took to send a shower of plastic fragments to the concrete floor of the garage and to leave the positive terminal of the battery dangling in the battery cable.

Did you know that, no matter what the guaranteed life of the battery (in this case, 6 years), the warranty on a factory-installed came-with-the-car battery ceases to exist once a new car is out of its bumper-to-bumper warranty period? I didn’t. No pro rata for me from the manufacturer (AC Delco), nor from the dealer. Even though the stupid casing rotted apart.

I could see if it wouldn’t hold a charge and they thought I’d abused the battery or something. But no. The little green eye indicator on the top showed a good charge. And I could swear I heard it humming the nanny-nanny-boo-boo song at me. ‘Cause it had a full charge and I had a car that needed the power, and no way to get the two of them together.

For some people, good luck is bad things never happening at all, and they get to go blissfully through life, never knowing about the awful things that almost happened but didn’t.

For me, good luck (or a watchful guardian) means that the bad things gotta happen, but they’ll happen under the best, least harmful of circumstances. I still learn the lesson that the bad occurrence had to teach me, but with the least amount of damage.

I’d rather think of it as good luck with a twist.

2005-04-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

Some Thoughts on Dusting

First, a little sideways thought: Shouldn’t that be undusting? I mean, my house is already dusty enough on its own; why would I want to take on a task that’d make it even dustier?

All the painting inside the house (Mason’s room is the only one left) has shown me just how much dust lurks in overlooked places. Like the baseboards behind the furniture, the top of doorframes, and that layer of silt on my doorbell was just plain gross. I’m not a tall person, so that’s my excuse for those hard-to-reach places, but I can’t think of one good reason why I’ve neglected those baseboards. Lots of bad ones, yeah, but not one really good one. (If anyone can come up with a really good one, I’m asking you to share...)

Now, on to my revelation.

I’ve decided to dust my house with the television set.

Damn near every speck of dust within a ten-foot radius gets sucked to the thing and glues itself on, so this seems like it would be the most efficient tool in my cleaning armature. Nothing in the world holds dust like a TV screen. Except maybe ceiling fans. But they’re too hard to take down.

Nope, I’ll take the twenty-seven inch flatscreen Swiffer on steroids. It’s far more portable.

Now, I admit, it won’t be the easiest thing to lug around, but I’ve got strong arms. And then maybe the house’d be dust-free for more than an hour.

Haven’t figured out how I’m gonna get it close enough to the ceiling fans to do a thorough job, but there’s gotta be a way...

2005-04-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

After Four Years of Looking

I've finally been handed the nickname for our president that is absolutely perfect. At least in my opinion. Feel free to disagree. At least know this: now you won't have any doubts as to where my politics lie (lay? I never could remember that rule. Is it 'people lie and stuff lays'? So then what does politics do? Oh, the hell with correct grammer, I think lie is more accurate.).

Anway, I'm gonna call the prez G-Boo.

Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

(Kudos and other assorted credit goes to comedienne Carol Liefer)

2005-04-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

A Really Stupid Thing Made Me Happy This Week

Finding Saran Wrap.

This might sound really dumb, but it truly did make me smile. See, I’m plastic-wrap impaired and am forever fighting with the stuff to keep it from wadding up. Why does it stick to itself so well but never to the bowl or plate? Anyway, the new Saran Wrap package comes with this tiny little paper cutter thingy that just zips across the wrap and lets it stay flat while you cut the piece from the rest of the roll. So I can pull the wrap out, stretch it across the bowl first, and then cut it off and it actually will be useful the first time. No more throwing out a wad or three before I get one that cooperates. The cutter looks like an itty-bitty Exacto blade, just like the one in my paper cutter on my desk. So add ‘package of Sara Wrap’ to the list of other sharp and potentially lethal things (like nail clippers) that you can’t take on an airplane.

2005-03-31T20:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, Somebody 'Splain This To Me

.
Posted by Hello

Sorry that you have to click on the image and bring up the larger photo to see what I'm talking about here, but the smaller-sized pictures that Hello posts on the actual blog page are awfully blurry. Sorta like an overgrown thumbnail (sounds painful, don't it?)

Look at the second claim under the name of the product: Help Prevent Accident.

Er, how?

"No, Officer, I don't have car insurance any more. I bought an Ionic Air Purifier..."

2005-03-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

Paint Fumes, Income Tax and A Dustcloud

Strenuously avoiding doing our tax return, ‘cause I thought we were going to have to pay this year:

.
Posted by Hello

Yep, we started repainting the house. That’s seven coats of paint there, and one full evening and the next morning and afternoon’s work (mostly on Ed’s part). Cool, huh? It’s on the wall that had a gawd-awful wallpaper that we inherited when we bought the house (some popular-during-the-eighties-splish-splash of pastel colors; why it was even still around in ‘94 to be inflicted on the wall is still beyond me). The rest of the living room, hallways, entryway, doors and ceilings are all a nice, even white again. Painting a vaulted ceiling sucks, even with a power roller, but I still think sitting down with TurboTax sucks more.

Turns out that we’re getting a refund after all. I haven’t decided what to spend it on yet... a Happy Meal? A couple of rolls of those blue shop-towels to make clean up easier after we paint the next room? (probably Mason’s, and it’ll be two shades of blue). Gee, three whole dollars just can buy so much.

Def Leppard recently announced some tour dates, playing with Bryan Adams. Nothing very close to me, either. Dammit. Mesa, Arizona is nearly nine hours away, and El Paso isn’t a whole lot better at five-ish hours. Either way, we’d have to spend the night, and that’s just not feasible with two puppies and Ed getting Unemployment. Dammit again. I wish they’d scheduled something for Albuquerque. We’ve got a brand-spankin’-new minor-league stadium, too (home of the Isotopes, formerly of whatever Springfield it is that the Simpsons live in). Well, I can always hope for a date here after the mid-August wrap-up of this paired-up tour. Sigh.

In the meantime, I’ll occupy myself with not smashing things in a fit of pique or not going to lunch one day at work and just never going back. My job shouldn’t be stressful. It hasn’t been for years. Sometimes insanely busy, but that’s still not a stressful sort of busy. Just busy. But lately... let’s just say that if stress was a visible substance, my boss would look like Pigpen at full dustcloud. And try as I do to put up personal barricades, it still leaches through and infects the attitudes of everyone there, including me. Maybe we’ll all get lucky one day and his head’ll just implode or something. (Another sigh.)

2005-02-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

We've Gotta Be Nuts

Milo and His Royal Bitchiness (aka Brick)
Posted by Hello

Yes, we are insane. Certifiable. Two puppies at once. The primary puppy and the accessory pup. It’s like having two toddlers in the house, with one a bit more learned in the ways of not looking guilty and covering his butt to deflect all correction and discipline toward the furry Golden Retriever known as Brick.

I couldn’t figure out what to give Ed for an anniversary gift; there’s so many things he wanted, and the ones I could afford (small motorcycle parts), I knew I wouldn’t get right (like I’d order something for a different style of ‘75 Sportster or something), and the rest of what he’d like to have (big motorcycle parts) were just too expensive.

Ed solved the problem for me. He bought me years of love in a small, fuzzy, peeing-every-twenty-minutes package. It’s a shared gift, he said. He gets the affection and I get to clean up the puddles. Okay, okay, so it’s really not that bad, he cleans up his share of the puddles too, but I get to buy the carpet cleaner, wash the puddle-cleaning rags, search out the industrial-sized bag of Purina One Lamb Puppy Food for two growing babies (‘cuz the chicken-based puppy foods generate the worst smelling gas from the wrong end of those two puppies)...

So that’s where I’ve been these past two weeks instead of posting something here. It’s hard to hold a coherent thought with constant back-door duty and puppy sniff-watching. But it’s also been a blast to watch the two puppies play, rolling around what used to be my grass (sniffle) and just going at each other. And watching the wheels in his fuzzy little head turn as he figures out something new (like how best to steal whatever it is that Milo is chewing on), and as he watches my feet move in my leppardpaw slippers (they’re huge but very warm), watching for just the right moment to pounce and gnaw on one of the glittery toenails.

It may be even more sporadic to see new posts here, since I’ve never been known to be short-winded, and decent posts take longer than the time between letting Brick out and then answering the call of His Royal Bitchiness when he barks to come back in. Or he barks to get on the bed with Milo. Or he barks to get back down. Or he’s barking because someone is daring to snack and not share. For a male dog, he sure is bitchy.

But he’s so damn cute.

2005-02-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

Amusing Myself (Again)

Or, How To Turn A Sunfish Into An Angler Fish...

What were they thinking?
Posted by Hello

Okay, I just saw these boxers at Walmart, and about died laughing over the, uh, strategic placement of the fly...

2005-02-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

Wedding Bells and Weekend Plans

Well, it seems the only thing consistent about this blog is my inconsistency in posting to it. My sincerest apologies to those who check in to find that there’s nothing new yet again. My mind’s constantly picking up stuff and examining it for blog-fodder worthiness (got quite a stockpile in my head, actually), but the time to actually sit down and write about it is sporadic, at best. Damn real life...

Anyway...

This Sunday marks my and Ed’s seventeenth wedding anniversary. We haven’t killed each other yet, so we must be doing something right. No, really, as I’ve said before, I love that man to pieces and back again. He thinks I’m pretty, for one thing (poor, blind man). And he gets my sense of humor. Not everybody does. Sometimes people just look at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. (Hey, now wouldn’t that be useful! Anyone who knows me has heard me say that I’m not really all that intelligent, my head’s just cluttered with information that I have no use for. It just goes in and never leaves. So a second head, for all those purposeless bits, would be handy. Kinda like having an external hard drive for all that crap that you don’t want clogging up your real computer.)

But I digress. (And since when is that something new?)

I’m still not sure what sort of gift to give Ed... He recently was approved for unemployment, and all of the back checks arrived last Saturday, so, for now, money’s not a big problem. I actually could get him something without guilt. I just really don’t know what (all he really wants is Harley parts and a grinder so he can do some more customizing)... but to mark the occasion, I’m taking the Saturday prior as a vacation day. I was just gonna laze around, then maybe spend some time doing nothing in particular, but life had other plans. Instead, I’ll be spending it getting our puppy testicle injections.

See, when we adopted him from the pound, we agreed to have him neutered within two months (if we don't, first comes a fine, then comes Animal Control to take him away). That’s February tenth. The more we talked about it, the more I just couldn’t stand the thought of having him castrated. To me, that’s unnecessary mutilation, plain and simple. The dog goes to sleep, then wakes up thinking, "Holy moly, my favorite licking spot is sore! I think I’ll just make it feel better and lick my... where’d they go?! Who stole my balls while I was sleeping?! When I get my teeth on the shit who did this..."

So I’ve spent the better part of the last month trying to find a vet to do a vasectomy. Nature intended for male dogs to have testosterone for many reasons, sperm production being only one of them. It keeps them playful, makes them more of a home guardian, and, to some degree, shapes their personality. And I love Milo’s personality. He’s grown from a somewhat timid and fearful ‘pound puppy’ into a full-blown normal pup. Tearing around the yard, ripping through the house, barking at the doorbell, snagging belongings so we’ll play ‘try and get them back’... and snuggly and affectionate, with full-body-wagging greetings when we come home from being out. I don’t want to change that, and I don’t want to harm his trust by taking him to the vet to spend the better part of a day, first going to sleep, then waking up in pain and in a kennel cage like he was left in at the pound. I didn’t want to have to win his trust all over again.

Not one vet in the area performs vasectomies. Sure, vasectomies’re not unheard of, but try getting a vet to do more than snip, yank and stitch. It ain’t happenin’.

A call to the Albuquerque Humane Association, hoping they might have a reference or two for vets who will sterilize without mutilating, netted the perfect solution. And best of all, it’s free this Saturday. I called the sponsoring organization (SNAP - Spay/Neuter Assistance Program) and made an appointment for ten o’clock Saturday morning at the AHA complex (which just happens to be about the furthest point in Albuquerque from my little house in the suburbs... but my options are nonexistent, so away we’ll ride, Starbucks in hand and Def Leppard in the stereo).

There’s a sterilization drug that’s been on the market for just a few years, and it sterilizes without fully destroying the testes. It’s called Neutersol. One injection in each testicle and it’s over in five minutes. There’s going to be some swelling for about a week, and I’m sure Milo won’t be all that pleased to have a needle stuck into such a sensitive area, but if he only knew the alternative, he wouldn’t mind at all. The drug, a zinc compound, shrivels the testes to (eventually) about 1/3 to 1/2 their normal size. Testosterone production isn’t completely eliminated, but it’s suppressed to the point that sperm production is virtually nil. So he stays a male in all senses of the word except for his ability to reproduce.

Anniversary, maybe an evening just for two, and protecting my puppy’s nuts. What a weekend I’ve got planned.

2005-01-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

Sleep Deprivation

Gawd, I feel like sludge.

Sneezy, achy, drippy, snotty, stuffy... what other unwelcome little dwarves are there? Oh, yeah. Sleepy, too.

The spring winds have come early this year, stirring up the fall pollen and making me miserable. Allergy season (season?!) has arrived about six weeks too soon and it's landed squarely on my face.

I wish it was a cold, but I know it's not (cold's don't make the roots of my teeth itch and have my nose running twenty-four seven like a fifty year old hose spigot). ' Cause colds are finite. They have a definite lifespan and then they're over. Could be seven days, might wind up being ten if I rebel and don't go to bed extra-early like my body wants to, but they do end.

Instead, I'm left wondering who was driving all those Mack trucks that ran me over when I wasn't looking.

If my allegy 'script wasn't up to nearly fifty dollars per refill this year, this wouldn't really be an issue. But with Ed out of work and the unemployment office dragging its feet, fifty bucks is a bit too dear to waste more or less pampering myself. I'll live, the body aches'll go away in another day or two (they usually only last a week or so) and my nose will develop The Allergy Callus once it's done cracking and peeling from all the blowing and running.

Sleep, however, might still be rather elusive. My nights consist of a few hours of solid unconsciousness (til the Nyquil wears off) and then a series of short naps (I keep waking up to either blow my nose or stuff a Kleenex up it before something nasty makes it all the way down to the pillow).

I have a point... somewhere. I'm sure I'll meander my way to it, once I remember what it is (with snot-for-brains, this could take a while). Oh, yeah... my sleep-deprived brain and how it keeps scampering off on tangents in those 'tween times when I'm dozing off again with a gull's wing of Kleenex hovering above my lip). Courtesy of the scraps of television I catch while I'm waiting for sleep to visit again.

A few of the ones that have managed to stick in my waking brain (with all that goo in my head, the sticking really isn't a problem, I suppose):

What's with the names of the newer prescription drugs? Lipitor sounds like a Transformer action figure (Halt! I am Lipitor! Hail the Exalted Emperor Lipitor!)

And Zelnorm? Where did they get that from? A dying robot's misfiring brain rambling out throught its voicebox? (Zel... Norm... Zell... Normmmm...man... Norman...) Doesn't strike me as the obvious choice for a gastric muscle relaxant.

What kind of dough is the Pillsbury Doughboy made of? Yeast or quickbread? Looks like yeast to me, all smooth and yeast-puffy. But since he hangs out in all those warm kitchens, shouldn't he be swelled up big as a bowling ball? Who punches him back down to normal when he gets all poofy? Doesn't he ever get moldy? And is he Sourdough by now? After all, his dough's older than I am.

The makers of Ortho-tricyclen really ought to change the theme song on their commercial. It's just tacky. (There she goes... there she goes again... she's a slut again...) Or are they trying to imply that taking their birth control pills will guarantee having sex?

I really need more sleep.

2005-01-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

Long-Winded, But I Have A Point

My son’s high school is soooo much better than the middle school he went to last year. (And we all know what I thought of that middle school’s administration after The Sobe Vending Machine Incident...)

A bit of preface:

His classes are much more challenging and fast-paced than before. Lots and lots of copying down notes from the blackboard and from overhead projector sheets.

His handwriting is, and always has been, atrocious.

He gets lost in the note-taking when he looks away from the board to watch what his hand is doing when he’s writing in his notebook. It’s a gift from his ADHD that just keeps on giving.

His typing, however, is spot-on and pretty darn quick. At the suggestion of his guidance counselor, we let him take an inexpensive laptop computer to school to use for note-taking. It worked quite well, and his sense of being inundated with information that he couldn’t take time to understand (and later, when he couldn’t read what he’d written, he still didn’t understand) began to fall away. It was such a success that he began doing most of his in-class assignments on it, as well.

That, however, sucked big rocks, as the ol’ Compaq was so old that it didn’t have USB ports, so hooking up my printer to print out those assignments was impossible. We tried saving them to floppy to transfer to my ‘puter and print, as it had a floppy drive, but the laptop’s floppy drive began to make odd noises and saved the data only when it felt like it. Which was becoming less and less often.

As an early Christmas present, and as a replacement for his aging Dell desktop, we bought him a brand-spankin’ new ECS laptop from Walmart online in October. As stuff goes, it wasn’t cheap (nearly seven hundred bucks), but as laptops go, it was a bargain.

I know it's not the best idea for a kid to have a computer at school. They're expensive. They're breakable. But it really has helped him keep up with the work, and his teachers can now actually read his papers. They've encouraged its use and helped keep an eye on it during class if Mason had to leave to pee. He’s been very responsible with it, keeping it locked to his desk during labs in class, close at hand or under the watchful eyes of friends at a cafeteria table when he couldn’t take it with him into the bathroom or something, but today...

His best friend was in the boy’s bathroom when Mason decided it would be okay to step away for just a minute and throw away his lunch trash.

Bad move.

In that short minute or two, somebody stole it, case and all.

He was frantic. He found a security staffmember in the cafeteria and told him what had happened. Meanwhile, the lunch dismissal bell rang and the crowd in the lunchroom began to disperse. By the time they could access the closed-circuit camera tapes, the next bunch of kids had entered the cafeteria.

Mason called me at work, nearly hysterical. My first thought was, "Oh, holy fuck!" My next thought, and, actually, all the ones that followed, were pretty much the same. I didn’t chew him out, though. I sure wanted to, but what good would it have done? He felt pretty wretched as it was. And neither of us wanted to be the one to call home and tell his dad. We both thought he’d blow a cork.

Still, I made that call. He was in as much of a panic as I was. No anger, just worry and a touch of fear. Three thousand kids, one laptop and case, and a handful of security and administrators to locate it in less than three hours before the kids headed home for the day. I took a long lunchbreak, as the on-site police officer at the school couldn’t fill out a theft report with a minor as the complainant. Ed or I had to do it. Plus, we could assist in searching trash cans and scouring the outside grounds to see if it had been stashed for later pick-up.

We both converged on the school at about the same time; I filled out the report as Ed spoke to the 8th grade principal to find out where things stood. That turned out to be on pretty shaky ground. There were three witnesses that came forward, but, amazingly enough, nobody knew the culprit’s name. They knew his face, had ‘seen him around,’ but didn’t know his name.

Yeah, right.

The images on the tape were too grainy to make out a face from a distance, but they clearly showed a boy in a black hoodie grab the laptop case and shove it up under his jacket and head for the cafeteria door that lead outside.

We asked them to make an announcement of a reward; whoever came up with the name of the thief would get a hundred bucks. That sure seemed to jostle some brain cells and a name was given within minutes. By, at last count, seven people. They'll have to split the C-note as the administration sees fit. I'm not gonna get involved in that. Sorry.

We watched as a boy (heretofore known as The Jock) was removed from his classroom and questioned, his backpack and sports bag searched. Surrounded by three security, one police officer, and two principals, he confessed, but said he’d passed it off to a friend (who shall be called The Dimwitted Cohort), because, and I quote, "I didn’t want to be carrying that thing around for the rest of the day."

The Dimwitted Cohort was hauled from his classroom, and he immediately handed over the laptop case and computer. He claimed that The Jock said he didn’t want to have to keep an eye on ‘his computer’ while he was at practice after school, so The Jock asked him to take it home for him and he’d pick it up later.

The CD/DVD drive no longer works. Probably as a result of being jostled around too much, or maybe even dropped. I’m gonna try to get the manufacturer to fix it as a warranty problem, but if we’re charged for repairs, those two kids (or their parents) are gonna foot the bill. I know they’ll pay.

How do I know? Because those two committed a felony, and were placed under arrest before we left the school. Even if we chose not to press charges, since the laptop was recovered so quickly, it’s out of our hands. The police report’s been made and the culprits were caught red-handed and ‘fessing up to school authorities and the school’s on-site police officer.

How utterly stupid. Not just to make such a bad decision as to steal something, and in a crowded room no less, but to not even try to hide the damn thing. Hell, if it was me and I’d just stolen something of high value and unhidable size, I sure as hell wouldn’t just cart it around with me for the rest of the day like a total doofus. I’d stash the sumbitch and come back for it later. And this is coming from someone who can’t lie without giggling.

There. I feel much better now. Adrenaline overload pretty much gone. And I can’t say enough good things about this high school’s staff. When push came to shove, they were right there, both reassuring us and hunting down The Jock and The Dimwitted Cohort. They also know the difference between real theft and getting two-for-one from a defective vending machine.

2005-01-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

No Job Skills Required

Er, hello?
Posted by Hello

Hell, don't even bother to show up. I don't think anybody'll notice.

Hmm... twenty-four hour technical support for your desktop telephone. So... you are to call them, on your phone, if your phone doesn't work, then, right? Or dial them up if you don't know how to dial the phone, perhaps?

Oy vey.

2005-01-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Persnickety Wordsmith

Bad grammar in action:

Instant Flavored Oatmeal (spotted in the weekly Albertson's ad) - Exactly what does Instant taste like? Is it sweet? Spicy? Or is the flavor just fleeting? (Hey! Did I just almost taste something?)

Real Margarine (in that same Albertson's ad) - Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, here. Margarine is fake butter, right? So this is real fake butter? Is there some fake fake butter out there that this needs to be distinguished from, then?

My boss, speaking to the Pepsi distributor: "So we can't have that much overstock. See, what will happen is, my boss came by the store yesterday and he about went through the roof with all the overstock." So, is (was?) he speaking of a future event, or a past one? Maybe he's got a time machine and has been bouncing around in it. That'll mess up a person when it comes time to determine which tense(s?) to use in a sentence (Did it happen yet? Or was that yesterday...?). Guess that's why he gets the big bucks...

Access to Sav On Church (a sign on a road under construction) - You Catholic, Protestant, Baptist or Sav On? Say Amen, brother! (These are two different establishments; the church is situated behind the drug store.)

Oh, and if by chance, you open a restaurant called Heaven Dragon (Fine Chinese and Cantonese Cuisine), make darn sure that the n in Heaven on your lighted sign always stays lit.... (Seen while enroute to the aforementioned Albertsons this evening, but not to get any of that instant-flavored oatmeal. We just needed plain old milk-flavored milk.)

2004-12-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm A Spoogehead

Hi. I'm Milo.
Posted by Hello

I like wood. Clog soles, old discarded fence pickets that nobody knew were hiding in the bushes in the back, tree roots, green young branches from shrubs, bed footboards... doesn’t matter the source. I like wood.

I also like slippers, dirty underwear that missed the laundry basket, extension cords, electric blanket cords, video game controller cables, and cashews. I especially like it when the can is left open and on the low table next to the couch. Then I like lots and lots of cashews.

I don’t like Iams puppy food. Well, actually, I like it, but my family doesn’t. It makes them all run away holding their noses when I make funny sounds from under my tail. So now I get to like Purina One. My mom says it smells like saddlesoap, but I don’t mind. It tastes almost as good as wood.

I hated living at the city pound. I’m sure glad my mom let me snuggle into her sweater when she saw me there. She knew I picked her to live with, and as soon as those people at the pound let me, I went to live with her and my new family. I love my family. And they must love me, too, since I chew everything under the sun, trying to get rid of these pesky baby teeth, and they just take it away and tell me I’m bad. I feel awful about it, but these teeth make me feel worse. I’m glad they understand and still love me anyway.

They love me enough to teach me how to be a good dog, since I’m gonna be a big boy when I grow up. I know because my mom tells me that all the time when I try to crawl into her lap or sleep on her feet. She says I can't be a lap dog 'cuz I'm gonna grow up to be big. So I settle for snuggling close to everybody instead.

I’m part German Shorthair Pointer, part Labrador Retreiver (my brother, who got left at the pound because we couldn’t take him home, too, looked a lot more like a Lab than I do), and just enough Pit Bull to show in my ears. My brother’s not there any more. We checked a few days after I came home, and they said he’d been adopted by somebody, too. I hope his family loves him like I know I’m loved here.

I’ve been living here for almost three weeks now, and you know what? I hardly remember being anywhere else. I’m still a little afraid of riding in the car, but if you had gone for a ride down a dirt road and then got shoved out the door in the middle of a desolate, dry mesa, you’d be a little untrusting of that noisy rolling machine, too. Bad car. Bad, bad car.

Well, there’s an old patio chair’s cushion that’s calling my name (they haven’t discovered that I discovered it yet), so I’m gonna go taste some more foam rubber. Mmm. Rubber.

2004-12-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Who Knew?

As I hear more and more Christmas music everywhere I go, my thoughts turn to Christmas lyrics I either misheard or totally misunderstood as a little kid.

I can't help it; I burst into giggles when I hear these songs (and strangers look at me funny, but I'm trying not to care):

Up on the rooftop, reindeer paws... I wondered why reindeer had paws and not hooves like regular deer...

Hark, Harold the angel sings... Well, that's self-explanatory, I guess. (Hark! Harold the angel is singing!) But I did wonder why he found it necessary to drive a little British convertible through the clouds (Find the Triumph in the sky...)

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, how very clean your branches... Shouldn't this be sung when you're undecorating the tree? I thought this was such a sad song...

Joyous Christmahanusolstikwanzukkah to us one and all!

2004-12-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Something Lost

Just wish I knew precisely what it was.

Maybe it's more accurate to say something was stolen. A line of code, to be exact.

Hubby downloaded Yahoo Instant Messenger to talk football one day last week. My computer doesn't like Yahoo. The one time period that I got their IM to work, it took five downloads before it stopped doing strange things to my system (like rebooting the computer for no discernible reason whenever I was online).

When I had to reformat a while back, I never redownloaded it. It wasn't worth the trouble. Besides, I have MSN Messenger, if I ever do find the time to chat again.

Long story short, Yahoo did just what I expected it to do, which was to not download/install correctly, and it wouldn't work. So I deleted it. It apparently overwrote something in IE and deleting the program took some crucial bit of Internet Explorer with it, and now I can't get into two websites. (IE shuts down with some crucial error message when I try to leave the splash page.) It might be just two sites, but one of them's a favorite place to be. No more Def Leppard dot com until I have the time to download and reinstall IE6.

I think I'd rather have a virus. At least that I know how to deal with.

Yahoo sucks.

2004-12-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

So That's How Car Dealers Make So Much Money

I just can't say enough good things about our (almost) new car. Goes like a bat outta hell while floating along soft as a cloud, all the while just sipping the gas. And it's truly been branded ours now. It, like every other vehicle we've ever owned, was hit by an uninsured driver.

A bit of preamble... The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the belt on my dryer decided to shred. I kinda figured it out when the old appliance just sat there, humming warmly and not moving. So I washed every load and put all of it into baskets to lug off to the closest laudromat for drying. Loaded the baskets into a car trunk big enough to carry a couple of bodies and off we went.

The time at the laundromat passed uneventfully, with Ed and Mason running an errand while I babysat our bank of clothes dryers. Just as they returned, the dryers began shutting off. They found a parking spot right in front of the doors and I told them to stay put, as I had only two more dryerfuls to put into the baskets and I'd be right out. How very nicely everything was working out, I thought.

Wrong.

As I'm bending over to pick up a full basket, Mason ran in, yelling for my cellphone. Someone had attempted to back into the empty space next to our car and apparently hadn't looked behind him... he scraped along the back side of our car and then tried to take off, hooking his truck's bumper into our wheelwell and damn near pulling the wraparound bumper off in the process. We were hopelessly locked together.

The police were called, they helped us get unstuck, and home we went with our drooping bumper to began the insurance claim dance.

The card the other driver showed to the police was for a policy that had lapsed last March. Thank God we carry uninsured motorist coverage with a low deductible (we've learned the hard way). Anyhoo, the dealer where we bought the car has a full body shop, so we took it there to be restored. That was on Monday, November 29. Just twenty-five days after we bought the car.

They told us we should have it back by Friday. One week of frustratingly small rental car hell later, we called to check their progress. "It's getting painted," they said.

Another week passed. Another call (we didn't want to be too much of a pest; much as we wanted our car back, we also wanted it done right and with a proper, dripless paintjob). yielded the same answer. I was beginning to wonder if they were painting it with a one-bristle brush.

Another Friday arrived. Another call. This time the answer was different...

"Mr. Kisner, we lost your car."

Huh?

It left the bodyshop for the paintbooth (both on the dealer's premises) and hadn't been seen since.

Oh, joy.

A few hours later, our car was found. On their used car lot.

Still had all our stuff in it. Except the gas. That was miraculously gone. With only two more miles on the odometer than when we'd dropped it off.

Ed went to pick it up and found several long, visible runs and drips in the paint. There was also paint overspray on the windows. It hadn't been washed yet, either. He asked that they buff out the drips and clean the windows.

They did as he asked while he waited, then brought the car out, still unwashed and now with buffing compound spattered everywhere from the rotating buffer, and smears on the windows from the solvent they used to clean off the mist of paint.

He asked them to wash it and to refill the gas tank. "You sure are being difficult to please," the tech told him.

Excuse me? I don't think it's too much to expect that your car doesn't get, er, misplaced on their used car lot for an extra two weeks after completing a repair.

Or maybe I'm just being too picky.

2004-12-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on turning 39 for the second time...

... microdermabrasion does help get rid of uneven skin tones. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser does a nifty job of microdermabrasion. If you don’t rub too hard. 'Cause then you get scabs in weird places. And strange looks and questions from your co-workers.

... a few silver hairs are no big deal. They prove that I don’t color my hair, for one. They’re also as thick as three of my regular hairs put together. They are also immensely curling-iron resistant and will stick out at all angles, just to make sure everyone can see them quite clearly and admire their silvery sheen.

... no matter what my age, I still can’t find women’s jeans that are cut with the intention of fitting the female figure. ‘Mom’ jeans, fad jeans, doesn’t matter. I could stuff a papoose, a forty pound bag of dog food or a couple of nice pot roasts in the excess fabric in the back of the waist.

... a new flatscreen television is a nice birthday gift. Just proves that it wasn’t my eyes going bad, it was the old, fuzzy picture tube’s fault. Yeah, that’s it. It was the old picture tube, and you can’t get me to say any different.

... chocolate is still the only cake flavor suitable for holding all those candles.

... Forty's just a number. I'm not over the hill. I'm merely cresting the wave...

2004-12-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Couldn't Resist

I saw it in the big baking tater bin at Superwallymartski last night, and I just knew it had to come home with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Butt-tato.

.
Posted by Hello

2004-11-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Gimme Some Duct Tape

So's I can start mending that broken heart referred to in the last post.

We're not going anywhere after all.

We got ourselves in the mindset that we're moving, checked into my transferring (only part-time was available right now), had a quick analysis done on the house for resale value, called the mortgage company for payoff info...

and with all that's involved with our move, the costs involved and the time we needed to be able to do so, it's not cost-effective for them to transfer Ed after all.

I'm not too pleased with his employer right now. Upheave my whole life, give us a few days to mull it over and look into how quickly we can be there, and then yank the whole thing.

Ooog!

Well, it did make me think about how much this home means to me, and to us.

Aaaaand I decided it was high time to really clean out the accumulated crap and either donate or have one helluva garage sale (anybody wanna buy an old Compaq laptop? Works great, but has no USB ports...) And I found that most of the repainting I thought I'd have to do can be avoided by using Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. But now I've got superclean spots on the walls, so I've gotta get more Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and do the walls completely. Still beats painting, though.

Aaahhh... home to stay after all. I think I'll go make a mess and not clean it up.

2004-11-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

Here I Sit, Brokenhearted...

Nah, it's not potty-time humor. I'm not gonna finish that...

I'd planned to finally catch up here with something about our new car (an '02 Impala), extolling its many luxuries (standard features, it turns out, on the car) and saying how wonderful it is(not really) to be putting three hundred dollars a month into a car payment instead of into a gas-hogging Suburban's gas tank; To say something about how it turns out that the guy who hit my car at Discount Tire had let his insurance lapse and now Discount Tire has to pay to fix my car, once I have the time to get an estimate so they can cut me a check for that amount; to just catch up on things in general and maybe wish our veterans (of which my husband is one) a happy Veteran's Day (but never did get to that post, and the reason why is coming up next)...

Ed's been offered a promotion, a substantial raise and a transfer.

To Las Cruces, New Mexico. Home of the New Mexico State Aggies and a a bunch of people who don't mind living in a small college town about a half-hour from El Paso.

I don't wanna fucking move.

New places are all well and good, I like checking out new areas and really, trading one small city for another really isn't all that bad an idea. Especially a small area where it doesn't snow (there's palm trees in Las Cruces).

I don't know if I can transfer. There's three Walgreens in Las Cruces, but until tomorrow, I won't know if there's any space for me in any one of them. So I may lose 8 years of seniority, 8 years of hard-earned (and still too little) wage increases, 8 years of vesting in my retirement fund, 8 years of earning stock options... shit.

Plus, I have a house to sell. To clean up and out first, to repaint the baseboards in, to clean the carpet in, to pack and... to say goodbye to.

The little stick we planted seven years ago is now a majestically large pear tree that produced more fruit than we could eat and could give away. The tiny shrubs that we picked out with such care at Home Depot nearly nine years ago, in their little three-for-ten-dollar pots, are now taller than the six-foot fence. Every bit of concrete that we've laid down has Mason's signature and his age at the time scratched into it. I have a feeling the new owners, whoever they may be, will want the concrete left whole and would object to us taking all those corners with us.

The strawberry garden is finally producing grocery-store sized berries. The wisteria bushes love us so much that they flower twice (and if you know wisteria, you'd know this is unusual).

And, of all the stupid things, I'll miss the smooth-top range and matching built-in microwave we put in six years ago.

The room I'm typing in used to be a patio. Seven years ago, we enclosed it with screen, then decided walls were nicer, and so were windows. So we did that, too. All by ourselves, with scrap from the homes being built around us, we made this room. I remember painting it, Ed and I, listening to the old CD player that was beginning to skip (Billy Joel's 'River of Dreams' and Def Leppard's 'Hysteria') and thinking that it was time to replace the CD unit of the stereo because the thump of the errantly-tracking laserhead was beginning to really annoy.

I remember painting the house before we moved in (the builder's paint was watered down and yucky), sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags with candles burning (the utilities weren't on yet, and wouldn't be for two more days) and living on fast food and soda from a cooler in the echoey kitchen...

It's tearing out my heart to say goodbye to this house. I'll have the memories, but damn...

Home is where my family is, and this place can't be home for us any more.

2004-11-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

On George Bush

I’m more than disappointed with the results of the recent presidential election. I was really hoping to get the current leadership out of the White House.

It’s not that I think George Bush is a bad man (with a capital B)... I don’t. I just don’t think he’s a particularly bright man. Intelligent enough, I suppose, but not of the caliper needed to run our nation. Nor is he evil, he’s not the antichrist... matter of fact, he’s not overtly anything. Left to his own devices, I think he’d come off only marginally better than, well, bland.

I think he realized his limitations as well. So, after becoming president after the election of 2000 (read into that phrasing what you will), he surrounded himself with a Cabinet and advisors whom he perceived as being smarter than himself. And they seemed to be... in a cunning, razor-sharp teeth sort of way.

What we’ve got is an average Joe with snake-whisperers in his ear.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t admit when he’s made a mistake... when one’s not sure what’s going on, when one’s not privy to all the details of a situation (or can’t grasp them all, or see the full picture of what all those details mean or can become if not handled properly), it’s difficult to admit to what part one actually played in a bad call of judgement.

Sure, you or I could easily use the excuse of not being fully informed, of being ill-informed, or just not being able to assimilate all the data and nuances and therefore did something we shouldn’t have, said something that would have been better left unspoken, or didn’t do what was really the best thing to be done. We can all cry, "But I didn’t know! I didn’t understand it all!" and get away with it. Our shortcomings would eventually be forgiven, the mistake would be corrected, fixed, or worked around, and we’d just get on with gettin’ on.

It’s not so easy when you’re the leader of America. Bad decisions wreak havoc on our lives and budgets. Weaknesses in comprehension will be pounced upon and completely exploited by the same sneaky bastards who thought to declare a war sideways against the United States by blowing up innocent civilians who were simply trying to earn a living.

It would appear that President Bush is rethinking his key staff and there’s talk of making changes. I desperately hope the people he chooses this time will be more of a mind of what’s best for all of America’s citizens.

December-born optimism is ingrained into every cell of my being, but I’m having a hard time convincing myself to hold on to that particular hope.

2004-11-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

People Who Can't Bother to Vote...

Have no right to complain about their government.

So go out and give yourselves the right to bitch!

See ya tomorrow, when (hopefully) we'll know who our next president is.

2004-10-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Words Not Necessary

.
Posted by Hello

2004-10-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Hallowe'en!

.
Posted by Hello

2004-10-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

Wee Spot o' Moonshine, Anyone?

Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance...
Posted by Hello
Funny, the original pic shows a few stars, too (which I was thrilled to be able to capture... the night skies here are magnificent). I guess Hello compresses things a whole lot (which would explain why they always seemed to appear more softly-focused on the blog, too).

Was that eclipse not an incredible sight last night?

2004-10-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

On Raising a Good Human Being

I got this email last night from one of Mason's teachers.

Stephanie,

I overheard a student talking about your son and I wanted to let you know what was said. Apparently that student did not have any lunch money. Since he and Mason were both in the nurse’s office, apparently they were talking. Mason gave the kid some lunch money so he wouldn’t be hungry. Wasn’t that a nice thing to do? I just thought I would share with you because Mason is really a generous person. Sometimes parents only hear bad things.

I hope this made your day good.

As much as he vexes me, as much as there are times that I wanna choke the living shit out of the kid for being such an acrimonius pain in the butt... I guess we must be doing something right, after all.

*happy sigh*

2004-10-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

He Had His Doubts...

.
Posted by Hello

...but I didn't. After all, the man was told he'd never walk unsupported again, either, and look at him now.

Sure, last year he set state records for his powersports lifts for his age group (40+), and this year (yesterday, actually), although he was kicking himself for not being able to quite meet those record weights, what he has accomplished post tendon-reconnection surgery still astonishes me. (Having a great surgeon, of course, helped tremendously. Thanks, Doc!)

For the third year in a row, my 'Big Ed' is the New Mexico State Powersports Champion for his age/weight category. Powersports are not the same as bodybuilding. Bodybuilding is about sculpting and how the body looks. Powersports are for what one can do with those muscles, and my favorite man is strong in both body and spirit.

2004-10-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

.
Posted by Hello

2004-10-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

Why Am I Not Surprised?

I patiently waited the allotted two business days for an adjuster from Farmer's (the other driver's insurance company) to call me... nada.

I called the national claims number Thursday and inquired; after all, they told me I'd hear from an adjuster within those two days. It was still an unassigned claim, I was told, and I'd be hearing from someone soon.

Well, soon turned out to be this morning. And it's not good news.

I was informed that there were 'coverage issues' (read it like the adjuster said it, with two hissing "S" sounds... doesn't sound too promising, does it?). He refused to reveal more than that about the standing of the policy. All he could add was that the issue (again with the hissy teeth) should be determined by Monday.

Methinks the guy wrote a hot check for October's premium and I may be stuck dealing with Discount Tire's as-yet-unnamed insurance company.

Smooth and easy? For me? Nope, I get the crunchy bits. *sigh*

2004-10-12T05:02:00.000-07:00

Want a Dent With That?

My car desperately needed new tires. Knowing how long it normally takes to get them installed, I stopped at Target first to pick up a few things and a new book to read while I waited. Along the way, I cruised through McDonald’s for a Diet Coke and some french fries (my idea of lunch).

Arrived at Discount Tire, picked out some tires, and settled in to happily munch fries and dive into that new book while they did their thing. Much to my surprise, just half an hour later, they tell me my car is done and it’ll be brought to the front door for me in just a moment. I rose from the steel mesh chair in the waiting area, looking at the tech as he explained the road hazard warranty, and followed him to the door.

Through the glass, I saw my car, stopped at a weird angle, like the driver had started to pull forward after backing out of the service bay and then stopped. I assumed he’d dumped the clutch and stalled the car when he shifted from reverse into first gear.

Wrong.

The first thing I heard when I opened the door: "Did I dent it?"

Seems that as the tech went from backing up to moving forward, someone had pulled out from a parking space behind my car and backed right into the rear passenger door.

It’s a small dent, and the door still opens, but still...

The manager sort of made himself vacant, telling me to exchange insurance information with the other driver. Huh?

My insurance should not need to come into play here. Besides, what could I tell them? I was reading a book when it happened and I have no knowledge? That I went in for tires and left $200 poorer and with a brand spankin’ new dent in my car?

Two hours of phone calls later (to the police, who wouldn’t come out to make a police report for the insurance company, because it was on private property, and the occupant of the private property wasn’t requesting the report; to my insurance company, to the other drivers’ insurance company, and finally to the district manager of this Discount Tire store), I’m home and have a claim initiated with the other drivers’ insurance carrier.

The fries were sitting like a clot of mud in my stomach and I wished I’d spent a couple more dollars per tire and gone to Sears.

2004-10-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Having a Looong Stretch of...

just wanna pull the covers over my head and stay in bed.

In the beginning of the summer, we got a new store manager (again! I think we're the training store... he's the 5th one in the four years since this store opened). He's not only overstressed and overwhelmed, he's got a real knack for tuning people out and insulting them in small (but obviously very intentional) ways. Nasty little nearly-mumbled offhand comments, such as the one he made when I told him I'd have to switch my come-in-extra-early day for doing processor maintenance from Wednesdays to Saturdays, as Mason has missed the bus on that day more than once because I wasn't there to make sure he was ready and out the door.

First, the maintenance day has always (before him, anyway) been the head of the department's choice... as long as it was one day each week and the machine cleaning took place, it didn't matter. I know of some photo department heads at other stores who just show up early one day every week at random and take care of it. We just work an extra-long day and that's that. Second, Mason has rather severe ADHD, and until those meds kick in, he's constantly off-track and has to be redirected to task over and over. Thirteen he may well be, but time-watching just has always been elusive for him. He can't help it; he gets distracted and off down the garden path he goes. It's far better than it used to be, but I don't have the expectations of him that one would for the average thirteen-year-old. His focus just isn't there yet.

I was informed that "he needs to grow up and be more responsible. It's not your responsibility to make sure he gets on the bus, and it's not your problem if he misses it."

WHAT??

Luckily, I was on my own time when this little discussion took place. Can't be insubordinate if I'm not on the timeclock, now can I?

I told the *ahem* that it was, indeed not only my problem, it was my responsibility, and one that I didn't take lightly. More or less a verbatim quote here: "Mason has severe ADHD, and he loses track of time until the Adderall kicks in, right about the time he gets to school. It'd start working sooner if he got up earlier, but that, too, is a problem, mostly related to the meds that get him through the day. The helpful effects wear off after about twelve hours, but it still keeps him awake far later than he ought to be, so he's hard to awaken in the morning. Furthermore, until he's an adult, he's going to be my responsibility, and his problems are my problems. This is not my career, it's just my job. I work to support my family, not to abandon it. But what would you know about that, being divorced for six years without custody of your two children? I can always find another job that better suits my schedule, or maybe transfer to another store where the manager isn't so autocratic."

I don't think he expected that. He immediately said that Saturdays would be a perfect day to clean and do machine maintenance after all.

I could go on and on, detailing how he asks me the same exact question six times in a day about whether or not a task has been done (I'm tempted to ask him, 'round about the fourth query, if someone has undone the work I'd finished the day before), or how he asks a question and then walks away as I respond... but that'll just piss me off even more, and I don't want to go to work in a lousy mood. This was enough venting for one day, I think.

2004-09-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

Uli Jon Roth's shadow. My favorite shot of the night. Blew this one up and hung it on a wall in my entryway.
Posted by Hello

2004-09-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Here, But Not

Sorry for the rare posts recently. Too much life, not enough time. Went to two concerts recently; one for fun (ZZ Top last night) and one as work-for-hire on the 2nd (Uli Jon Roth - an amazing guitarist; and The Michael Schenker Band). I've spent much of the last week tinkering with the MSG pics, as they were mostly digital, and mostly side- and backlit. Not an easy scenario to photograph. Even the ol' tried-n-true Nikon let me down on this one, and the digital shots weren't much better - all soft focused and sorta mushy-looking. So me and ArcSoft's PhotoStudio have been getting VEEERRY intimate. I didn't have much choice - Graham Central Station (the venue) wanted 8x10s to hang alongside the autograph sheets.

I did the best I could, but I'm not all to thrilled with the results. Uli Jon Roth (former Scorpions guitarist and self-styled Renaissance Man) was not only front-lit and easy, but almost made me forget to shoot - I've never heard Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' on an electric guitar and it was both exhilarating and astounding.

In contrast, I'll never be able to hear 'YMCA' without picturing a man sporting a palm-sized patch of hair in foot-long braids and tattoos all over his body (including the his shaved scalp) wearing nothing but a blue terrycloth bathrobe and boxer briefs singing lewd lyrics onstage in Graham Central's karaoke room after the show.

Mason's computer began to go spastic. We suspected the hard drive was failing (it's an 8 year old Dell, and it's seen better days) and we had to rescue what we could before it could quit altogether. We went computer shopping, and ended up with a nifty little laptop from WalMart.com for just under $700 with tax and shipping. He's thrilled, I'm broke, and his desk looks oh-so-much neater.

Cleaned out the mostly-dead garden, battled with grubs in the lawn and reseed before I can fertilize for winter, and had to shut down the hardly-used-due-to-summer-rains murky swimming pool.

I'll post some pics here (Damn! almost forgot, I still gotta email some to the Michael Schenker bandmembers, too) when I figure out where I put the blasted CD on which the tinkered shots are saved.

I'm tired. Can I have a bonus day off for sleeping?

p.s. Just did a spellcheck; it suggested that I replace "bandmembers" with "pandemonium"... Nah, I think they can do that all by themselves... he he.

2004-09-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

Tig's Okay!

I talked to Tig a little while ago and she and her family have weathered the worst of Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Big Ol' Bitch Frances. She's without power, her water's gotta come from a bottle or be boiled before using it, and Asha's not happy about having to pee in wet grass (she's a bit prissy, that dog), but all in all, they're doing fine. All her 'stuff' seems to have made it through unscathed, too. Car and home are still intact, just wet and lots of debris everywhere.

She'll be sharing her stories with everyone soon, once she's powered up again. Just thought you might like to know.

2004-08-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

A New Blogger!

Tig has decided it was time to have her own place to talk and (sometimes) vent. I added the link here a couple of days ago, and didn't mention her. Shame on me! Musta been that blow to the brain I got the other day...

Go on over and say 'hey!' She's got some big news to share!

2004-08-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

I've Got To Do Something About Those Eyebrows!

Better, but I still look crooked. Please ignore the silver hairs. I'm trying to.
Posted by Hello

But not today. Or for a few days, I think. My right one is still too sore.

Sorry, Julie. Nothing majorly gross here. It really looks much better today. Lots of sleep, lots of Keflex, blue gel coldpack 'til I had a right eyesicle all did their part. A little (okay, a lot) of makeup so I could go grocery shopping without feeling like a sideshow attraction helps, too.

Nice bags, eh? Even after twelve hours of sleep last night (and I rarely sleep more than six without awakening on my own) and the wonderful things it did to reduce so much of the swelling, I still look like I'm coming off a two-week bender.

What comes after yellow in a bruise? Whatever it is, I'll be seeing it in and around my right eye socket.

2004-08-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Sealed Up Tight

Yellow-green pus bubbles under superglue.

Doctor's office. Tweezers. Peeling.

Big ugly antibiotic pills.

Ugh.

2004-08-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Superglue, Plexiglas and a Temper

God, I hope I don't have a black eye in the morning.

I am not graceful, and I have a temper that simmers and usually dissipates without full ignition.

And I'm not too tickled by the store manager we're currently trying to, er, break in. He's completely lost his sense of humor with the stress of his new position, and, well, for some strange reason, I tend to get offended by people who walk away when I'm talking to them. Or who stop listening when I'm answering a question they ask.

So, my temper surfaced today, and unfortunately, it ungracefully landed square in my own face. Across the bridge of my nose, the bone under my right eyebrow, and my cheekbone, to be specific.

Circumstances (read: Suits from corporate coming to visit) dictated that I finish revising fifteen feet of electronics merchandise before I left today. Other circumstances (see rant above, plus it's been rather busy in my area) caused me to get only half of one three-foot section started before this morning.

I was almost done with the whole thing when I spotted some of the new merchandise on a top overstock shelf that hides behind a black Plexiglas header above the wall I was rearranging. I didn't know it had come in; someone had stuck it up there when we received our last shipment of stock. One of the packages had no business being up there; it didn't fit through the narrow space between the shelf and the plexi header. I tried turning it slantways to angle it out, and knocked a four foot long section of quarter-inch plexi loose and straight down onto my face.

Now, these headers never want to come out when they need to be changed. So why would a stupid clock-radio box bumping into it send it flying? Fate? I yanked it harder than I thought in my pique? I really have no idea. But fly it did, with my face to break its fall and keep it from shattering.

A trip to urgent care later, the space between my eyebrows is superglued back together, the bridge of my nose is swollen so that I resemble a lion, there's a nice knot in my eyebrow making my right eye look even more distorted than the bridge of my nose alone could do, and my cheekbone is a lovely shade of light purple.

And I think I yelled a loud expletive when the plastic connected with my face. I don't remember; I was worried that it cut my eye, since that's where the immediate pain was. Thank God it didn't. Plexiglas has nasty edges.

Squinting hurts. Smiling hurts. Sneezing, too. And to top it off, that's the eyebrow that likes to fly up on its own, and right now, it's been grounded.

I can't wait to see how it looks in the morning.

2004-08-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

Another Stupid Factoid

To date, 158 people have fallen out of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Maybe they didn't realize that the floors inside would be slanted...?

2004-08-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

Two Days in a Row

Squished his narrow ass good, I did
Posted by Hello

Found a smaller one of these on Saturday night in the sunroom, heading for the living room. Stomped 'im into the carpet. Twice. Just to be sure.

This one came to visit Sunday night, lumbering across the tile on his way toward the living room. Gave him the smackdown treatment with a spare flipflop and he lost.

I don't know how they're getting in, nor why, but I'll squish each and every one that does.

Nasty little land lobsters...

2004-08-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

Friday Factoid

The average American spends two weeks of his/her life at traffic lights, waiting for them to change from red to green.

Can I just camp out on the median at some intersection for a coupla weeks and get it over with? "But honest, Officer, I'm exempt from red lights. I did my time in the little crosswalk triangle at the corner of Juan Tabo and Montgomery a few years back..."

2004-08-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the Nikon may be a bit grainy, but at least he's got a FACE! (and a tattoo on the side of his head *yeeoowch!*)
Posted by Hello

2004-08-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

What a ca-ca shot... *sigh*
Posted by Hello

2004-08-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Ozzfest, Numero Dos

Gah! How time flies when you're not having fun... but enough about gearing up for today (the first day of school, and yeah, I think it's too early, too) and all the happy-crappy it took to get us here without somebody suffering a gory, stress-induced death...

I think I was talking Judas Priest on that day oh-so-long-ago when I foolishly thought I'd get back to blogging in the evening. Owa tagoo siam.

Rob Halford is back with a vengeance. I wish they'd have had more than seventy-five minutes to play. Lots of hits, but not enough of 'em. I was really hoping to do a full-house crowd sing-a-long to United. Especially after Halford had us all echoing silly little bits of tune (which got harder and longer as he went along, but we kept up quite nicely, thank you).

This was (according to one of the sponsoring radio stations) the very first time Judas Priest in its original line-up has ever played in Albuquerque. I have no way to verify or deny this information, but after the response they got here, I'm pretty sure they'll be back, regardless.

See the smile on his face in that picture from my digital cam? Oh, no, wait, of course you can't. 'Cause the resolution from this far out (rest your mousepointer over Section 7, and while you're there, check out the view from the stage *heh heh*), even with an extra-long zoom lens, sucks big monkey boulders with this particular camera. The Nikon was sooo much clearer. If I can only remember to load the film properly...

I couldn't tell you the setlist if my life depended on it. But the band was tight, the sound was crunchy and clear and Halford was in fine voice. Granted, he had to crouch down real low and pull that voice out of somewhere in his nether-regions when he wanted to hit those ol' high-high notes, but he did it, and it was wonderful.

I love rock concerts. 'Specially when the chemistry's right. The crowd feeds the band and the band throws it right back. Such a killer loop, 'round and 'round it goes and it just keeps getting stronger. I can ride that high for days afterward. Or at least until my ears stop ringing and constantly reminding me of what a great night I had.

Ozzy and Black Sabbath were good, too... but sort of a cool-down after the mainline energy feed of Priest. No well-known Ozzy solo stuff (I have yet to hear Crazy Train live, but I'm still a relatively young woman. Maybe next year...?) If you're a Sabbath fan, I guess this was your show. Me, I prefer the more non-dated classic Ozzy stuff. So nobody hit me for saying that a Black Sabbath reunion just didn't tickle my trigger. It all sounded so... nostalgic. Dated. Stale.

Some rock music never gets that way. At least to these ears. The overall sound doesn't reflect the time period in which it was created. Maybe because what to me sounds 'classic,' like what rock should just plain sound like, was the precursor/inventor of so much of what came afterward. Aerosmith never makes these ears cringe and want to change the station. Neither does the Who, most of the Stones body of work (with the notable exception of Emotional Rescue. Just never did warm up to that song...) And Def Leppard, of course, goes without saying (but hey! I said it anyway!)

It could also have been the total lack of friendly interaction between the band. As far as an outside observer could tell, these men had no history together. It looked kinda... cold. Then again, maybe it was just Ozzy's version of dancing with his mic that didn't enthrall me. It's no wonder he broke his leg a little while back. Jumping jacks on a stage wet from the bucket he dunks his head in can be dangerous.

Overall, Ozzfest really was one helluva show. Quite an experience to remember and smile. But in my mind, it was more Priestfest than Ozzy's shindig.

2004-08-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Wanna See Some Ozzy?

Ozzfest 2004
Posted by Hello

If you look really hard, you can see him all over the place. About 32 times, actually. That's how many shots it took for me to realize that the film had come unattached from the uptake spindle inside the Nikon. *sigh*

Tuesday Morning

First off, let me say that the school system here is weird. Every year, even returning students must re-register. So off we schlepped in nearly 100-degree sunshine, with humidity from the recent daily rains bringing us much higher than our normal single digits. Everything feels damp and sticky, the air heavy and oppressively still. We got to wait three hours in this (some of the time outside and some of it in - with the air conditioner in the building off except for the cafeteria downstairs, where all the staff sat at various numbered table stations) to verify all the information on the paperwork that was filled out before the end of the previous school year.

Mason finally got his class schedule, and he's mostly pleased. His first choice for electives was Yearbook, his second, the school newspaper. What he got was a class called 'Creative Publishing,' which he was told was what they renamed the newspaper class when they decided to make the class responsible for all of the student publications except yearbook. He's already decided he wants to be one of the staff photographers and is asking to borrow the Nikon for the year. Uhhh, no.

Anyway, after melting in the heat, we returned, ate, showered and headed out for the Journal Pavilion in the middle of the show. We really weren't interested in the second-stage acts (mostly speed metal), so we figured arriving late wouldn't be a big deal. For the show, it wasn't. For getting those backstage passes, it was.

They'd been, uh, 'overpromised,' meaning that by the time we arrived, the liquor vendor who was a sponsor of the show had already given out all the passes he had access to. No biggie, really (meeting Ozzy or Rob Halford would have been cool, but that wasn't why we wanted to go), but the film I'd bought was intended for shooting from the photopit at the foot of the stage. Not from the seats we'd gotten, centerstage but about twelve rows from the walkway separating the reserved section from the lawn seats. When I figure out how to post the rather crappy shots I wound up with all in one post (maybe tonight, after the Further Adventures in the Quest for School Approved Uniform Clothes That Fit), I'll get those here, too.

As we were patted down for weapons at the entrance, Ozzy came on stage to sing with Black Label Society. I honestly don't know the real name of the song, and since I'm typing this twenty minutes before I hafta leave for work, I don't have time to research it, but it's the one that's all over the rock airwaves right now, with the chorus of "I've waited here for you for so long." Great song, and a fantastic welcoming wall of sound into the show.

My ears are still recovering. We slouched around in the VIP area for a while (a patio-furnitured area for select ticketholders and guests - the promoter got us that far, at least), snacking on the catered chili and salad, slurping our $4 sodas while several bands we didn't care for played. We ventured out for Slayer (sounded kinda harsh in the venue proper, not very bassy), waiting for Judas Priest to take the stage.

Priest stole the show.

(to be continued after work. Sorry.)

2004-07-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Ozzfest

I wasn't planning to go to Ozzfest. It's on a Tuesday, when I'm normally at work. I like Ozzy, and Judas Priest, while I'm not a big fan but I do like some of their music, is doing a reunion tour on the road with the whole festival. But not enough to waste (as I saw it) a vacation day to see the show. Well, that, and the ticket prices are a bit daunting to just see a couple of artists out of the dozen-plus that are filling the bill. Multiply seventy-five dollars by the three of us, throw in the service charges and Ticketmaster's 'convenience fee' and it adds up to way more than seeing the show is worth to me.

Circumstances worked out so that I'm going anyway.

I ended up having to take the day off for Mason's Mid-High registration and school tour. That's over at one. Ed was given free tickets by one of the radio station people he works with regularly. And one of the promoters is someone he also works with on a weekly basis, and he told Ed to call his cell once we're through the gates and he'd escort us to the backstage area and give us all-access passes.

How can I turn down free and all-access? I might be a bit bent, but I'm certainly not crazy.

I hope the next time Def Leppard tours, I'll get this lucky.

2004-07-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

Thought For the Day

What has four legs, is big, green, fuzzy, and would kill you if it fell out of a tree?

A pool table.

2004-07-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

Shameless Product Plug

Anyone who uses a digital camera needs one of these. Doesn't matter what kind of camera, be it an SLR (*drool* and I'm envious) or one of the more automated, point-and-shoot style, like my Canon A60.

Imagine shooting a digital picture using your little LCD viewscreen as the viewfinder that you're used to with a traditional film camera. Anyone who's shot digital knows the wonderful advantages of the medium. And the drawbacks. Glare. Parallax if the little viewfinder at the top of the camera shows a slightly different angle of the image than the lens is receiving (well, we didn't really need to include the tops of everyone's heads, now did we?). Parallax is especially vexing if you're used to an SLR, where what is in the viewfinder is what is actually seen through the lens.

I like to shoot in the traditional way, holding the camera near my eye and clicking merrily along. Really, it's the best way to keep the thing steady if a tripod isn't handy (yeah, I keep one in my pocket all the time!) or if a tripod would just be ungainly and burdensome, making the whole idea of taking impromptu or casual photos no longer either one. I found myself comparing the views between the LCD screen and the viewfinder way too often, making sure the shot I wanted was the shot I was going to get. Blur from camera shake (those tiny little trembles that show up as huge movement in photos) was becoming a problem, too; I haven't had blur from that in years. It was beginning to make me want to tuck the digital away with my first automatic point-and-shoot camera that never sees the light of day any more (I just can't bring myself to get rid of any of my old cameras... I'm a camera packrat).

Then an ad in a photo mag showed me this nifty little collapsible soft rubber device that piqued my interest... so I ordered one. It was only twenty bucks, so I figured why not give it a go? The worst it could do would be to change nothing and I'd still be stuck right where I am.

It's beyond cool. The LCD screen is now my through-the-lens viewfinder. I can read all the screen settings (and change them) without moving the camera away from my eye. So I'm not only steadier, I've got more control over the shot in less time.

Check out a Hoodman. (Then try checking eBay, like I did, to find someone selling them new in the package for the same price but without any shipping charges). Ending the frustration is soooo worth it.

2004-07-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

The Joys of Summer

Just found the first uninvited guest of the season inside the house. There's always one (and rarely, another follows sometime between June and October). Don't know how he got inside; I swear the house was closed and locked all night long... Nasty little thing it was, too, trying to run off and hide when I turned on a light. Thankfully, I had still had my flip-flops on from watering the lawn, and I managed to chase him down and crush his nasty little butt into the carpet so he couldn't come back later and attack me, as some of his predecessors have.

I hate scorpions.

2004-07-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday!

An oldie, but a favorite of my number one son!
Photo posted by Hello

Happy thirteenth birthday to my Yankee Doodle Mason!

2004-07-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

A New Blogger!

The world of blogging has sucked in another one... this time, it's my great friend Ladynight (she's one of the two estie-besties who've been proofing and critiquing the novel I've been working on for a coupla years (and may never get around to finishing if life keeps up at this pace!)).

She's a writer herself, aspiring as I have been to write that Great American Novel (or at least that Great-Selling American Novel) and a damn fine one at that.

So stroll on over to Writer Wannabe and say hello!

2004-07-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

How I Spent My 4th of July

Billy Dean, playing "We Just Disagree"
Photo posted by Hello

(I wanted to post this sooner, but the photo-posting program had to be reinstalled first, and I had an absolute bugger of a time doing that without losing all my account settings)

The company Ed works for has an division that manages country music artists, and one of those artists is Billy Dean. Even if you aren't a country music fan (I admit, I'm not), you've probably heard his two biggest crossover hits, "We Just Disagree" and "Somewhere In My Broken Heart." And if you are a country fan, you've probably heard his latest, a remake of John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" that I think I like better than ol' John's original version.

While my other half spent much of the day riding around the outlying areas, playing tour guide with Billy and his manager on rented Harley Davidsons, I did the usual Sunday stuff... laundry, errands, etc. And getting my gear ready for the 4th of July concert and fireworks show.

They came back a little more than an hour before the show was to begin (blew off the sound check, they did), and then it was time for me to have my fun.

Before I go any further, I have to say that Billy Dean is one of the sweetest, nicest people I've ever met. And one of the tallest. He's six-foot four and I felt downright Lillipution.

I've never had an All-Access pass before. Kind of an interesting place to be. Not a great place to take photos though, backstage and from the wings. Too much camera shake and overall stage-shake to really get any decent shots. So I moved into the pit area in front, and started learning how to set the new digital baby to take concert shots. (Manual settings, ISO 400, vivid color and a shutter speed of 1/250 seem to work well, for anyone who gives it a try).

After the fireworks show, as the stagelighting rigs were being taken down and tucked away, I found Billy and my son sharing a funnel cake and shooting the breeze. Who'd've known a Grammy-winning artist could be such a nice, down-to-earth guy? I'm thoroughly impressed. And looking forward to his new album coming out in September... he played some (surprisingly crunchy, heavy) songs from it, and this guy really rocks... southern style.

2004-06-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

Living in a Sci-Fi Flick

My son asked me the other morning if, when I was his age, we could only record our favorite TV shows in black and white.

Once I'd recovered from trying not to snark my orange juice all over the kitchen (or out my nose), I explained that in 1977 we couldn't record television shows at all. Either we watched them or we missed them and hoped for the reruns.

I went on to tell him that Sony's Betamax was the first commercial home video format, and even that wasn't really affordable to many families until about 1982 or so.

He made a face, wondering what Betamax was.

He also asked what sort of videogames we could play (Atari, anyone? Oh, how I grew to hate that game in a big fat hurry - or maybe it was just because I played against my brother, who changed the settings mid-game - trying to chase that zippy little dot across the screen and hit it with my equally-tiny playing 'paddle').

How did we do school reports? he pondered. (encyclopedias and a typewriter, or my very best handwriting in *non-erasable* ink)

Man. Do I feel old sometimes.

A little while later, I was grocery shopping at SuperWallyWorld and for once I actually listened to and heard the announcements that are a constant stream of babble overhead.

Ten years ago, even five, what the announcer was saying would have been indecipherable sci-fi gobbledygook. He spoke of new DVDs, X-box and GameCube games, digital cameras, TiVo, XM radio and remote keyless car starters.

It gave me pause, thinking about how much technology has just exploded during my son's lifetime. When he was two, we bought our very first CD player with an income tax refund. It only played one at a time, and we didn't have any CDs, but we did want to be able to play them if we ever got any.

Now they're all over the house. Two in my computer, two in his, he's got a stereo that holds thirty and a CD player he can clip to his belt. There's an old CD boombox in the garage (it skips sometimes, but I won't throw it away), a CD-playing stereo in the car and in the Suburban, a Playstation in his room, the Mountain Dew X-box (thanks, Pepsi!)in the living room, two DVD players in different rooms, a flat CD playing stereo hanging on the bedroom wall, and our stereo now boasts a 25-CD changer that replaced the old first one that developed an odd popping sound several years ago. Oh, and there's a Walkman in my briefcase and a CD drive on that Compaq laptop that I complained (and ultimately boasted) about a few months ago when I had to configure it and load the hard drive.

All this technology, all this convenience... and to what end, really? There's still wars and boys fighting in them and dying way too young, still thousands of people slowly dying of starvation, still too many children in the world dying of diseases that you or I take a pill for and find ourselves better in the flap of a butterfly's wing...

Technology can't make nations get along, can't make plants grow much faster than Mother Nature intended so we can feed the hungry, can't get life-saving medications over rutted dirt tracks of road fast enough to cure, can't help people who've found themselves addicted to some form of slow death detoxified and able to work through the issues in their lives that made the drugs seem like such a wonderful escape...

So much has changed, and yet it really hasn't.

2004-06-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

I'm Baa-aack...

See? You're not so lucky as you thought you were. The computer's now functional as ever and I'm back to annoy.

Actually, it was functional Saturday, but I wanted to download all the updates/service packs/etc. for WinME (stop waving that cross around Rhonda Elizabeth, you can't catch ME cooties from a blog ;) ) so I wouldn't get infected with anything nasty. Seems using Win98 kept me out of harm's way somewhat, as nobody has really bothered to write anything truly nefarious for that OS in ages. But, first time I was online with the shaky and oft-crashing Win2K, I caught the Blaster worm. Never did get to receive more than one piece of mail per sign-in with that pesky platform before it'd shut off the power and reboot the whole system (now, isn't that a helpful little feature...?) so I don't know how I got it nor where it came from. And of course, it made Outlook eat all my other incoming mail (*burp*). So if anyone sent me an email, I'm sorry if you've not heard back. If I actually received it (only got one, from Tig), I was reluctant to send a reply, as every time I wiped out the worm, that oh-so-helpful Win2K put it right back. Seems I wasn't allowed to delete anything that's dot-EXE unless I deactivated the auto-restore, and I never could find that particular control panel.

I smashed the Windows 2000 Professional CD. Just to be spiteful and vent a bit of frustration. Now I know why my friend gave me her original copy.

2004-06-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

Updates and Upgrades

I have been dragged, like it or not, kicking and screaming (and *sigh* crashing) into this century.

Through circumstances that would be too twisty to explain in any sort of concise way, on Monday last week I found myself with a copy of Windows ME and Windows 2000 Professional.

Mason was thrilled; he upgraded to Win2000 before he went to bed the same night. And has spent the better part of the last week badgering me to upgrade as well. I didn't want to; I know the idiosyncracies of my Win98, the shortcomings, and the different ways in which it wigs out and how to fix them.

I know the enemy and it has been living in my computer for 4 years *heh heh*.

Finally, I decided (mostly because I wanted to change the 'working, please wait' mouse pointer from the boring eggtimer to a strolling dinosaur) to upgrade to ME. Wouldn't have to upgrade the memory or any of the drivers that way, and although I'd heard it has instability problems, the fixes weren't that far off from ones I used with '98.

Leave it to me to not do it myself. I asked Mason to do it Friday while I was at work, and to call me if anything 'sticky' came up, or if there were any options he was unsure of installing.

It seemed to go well; there weren't many phone calls.

*sigh*

He installed the wrong program. Just stuck in the wrong CD (oh, the joys of having a child with ADHD) and didn't realize what he was installing until it was too late and the basics of DOS were buried somewhere deep inside the program and converted to the NT-based filing system. In a nutshell, this means there's no downgrading... only reformatting and reinstalling whatever OS it is that I'd rather have.

It ate my saved emails. It ate my passwords. It crashes (alot). Well, not exactly crashes... it stays functional (mostly) but it refuses to go offline, it reboots on a whim (this is the third time at trying to enter this post... hopefully, the third time's the charm, as they say) and mostly is a big pain in my butt. I spent the better part of Sunday morning finding the most current audio driver for my soundcard and installing it, then had to go out and buy a new, bigger memory card so the system would stop lumbering along like the new dinosaur icon.

I suppose I'll learn to live with it. I don't really want to reformat and reload all those drivers and peripherals.

But if I disappear for days, know that I'm using a clawhammer for the enter key and am pulling out what's left of my hair, all the while hexing Bill Gates...

2004-06-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

An Old Favorite

Armageddon Sky... and I don't know why I called it that...
Photo posted by Hello

One of the oddest yet most awe-inspiring sunsets I have ever seen. I took this (and the rest of an entire roll as the colors and billowy clouds changed) almost five years ago. Never seen anything like it before or since.

Freaky, huh?

2004-06-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

June 14, Eight O'clock-ish

Photo posted by Hello

Last night's fiery sunset made me stop in my tracks and just stare, nearly forgetting to breathe. Took a few minutes for me to snap out of it and run inside for the camera...

2004-06-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

Incensed

Two days ago, a detective from our local police force came into the store where I work and handed a letter and some blank forms to the store manager.

The store manager then handed out the forms and requested that they be put into use immediately.

I've been seething ever since.

I refuse to do it.

The detective's request? To have us ask for state-issued identification, and then to copy down all of the information on the ID (including the ID number) for any purchase, no matter how small, of anything containing pseudoephedrine.

Sudafed.

Now, I know that this is what is used for making 'bathtub speed.' There's also a whole bunch of other nasty stuff in there, used to separate the pseudoephedrine from the pills, and then to stabilize it. Ick. Who would want to put something containing traces (or more than traces, depending on the speed-chef and his/her impatience) of paint remover and/or aldehydes into his body? Not this woman...

It's against our company's policy to sell more than three packages of anything ephedrine- or pseudoephedrine-based at one time to any one customer, and we keep all the ephedra-based products behind the counter, right next to the tobacco (an actual controlled substance, unlike its shelf-mate here). It's a sound policy, and had been run by our corporate legal department for assurance that it wasn't against any standing law to limit such purchases. (It's not, by the way.)

But to request tracking information, to then it hand over to the police on a weekly basis, is just a little too Orwellian for me. If the customer refuses, we are to flat-out decline the sale.

There is no court order for this invasion of privacy. There is no DEA involvement here. There is no law requiring the name, the address, and the ID number of anyone buying this over-the-counter allergy and cold medication. I'm not sure there's a law against it, either. However, I don't think it's within the spirit of the law as it's currently written. To me, it just smacks of too much of an invasion of privacy to ask for the verifiable personal information of anyone who buys even one little 12 pill package.

My conscience won't let me do it. I've conveniently 'lost' the forms every day since then.

On a side-note about my workplace, I swear, if I hear Neil Diamond singing about his Longfellow one more time... it's such a nasty song, if you really listen to the lyrics. (And I can't help but listen, it gets played once a day, in-between all the other sleepy, foot-dragging songs we're subjected to.) I don't know who decides the music programming we are forced to hear, but if the slow-tempo easy-listening stuff is supposed to make customers walk slower, stick around longer and buy more stuff, it's not working. Our customer base is rather young, and considers this to be 'old fart' music. So do we, the staff. I think it's more likely to drive them away (and so far, not running away screaming and clutching their bleeding ears, but then the programming is still relatively new...)

2004-06-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

One Cool Dude

I'm too sexy for my stripes...
Posted by Hello

2004-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

That'll Teach Me To Double-Check My Source

Maybe they changed their minds?
Photo Posted by Hello

I couldn't remember who named their child Apple (too rushed this morning to check), but apparantly, either they changed their minds after telling this name to the mag or Rolling Stone got it wrong from the start. I guess Apple is slightly better than Eggplant. Either way, though, poor kid.

2004-06-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

Animal, Mineral or Offspring?

Photo Posted by Hello

From the most recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine:

Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin and wife Gwyneth Paltrow recently had a baby girl.

They named her Eggplant.

What were they thinking?

What possible nickname could she use here? 'Eggy'? Or maybe 'Parmesan'? No matter how much money she grows up with, she'll never be able to buy her way out of the teasing. Kids'll be bringing little green cans of Kraft grated cheese to school and sprinkling it on her head.

Poor kid...

2004-06-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

In Case You're Not Into Flowers

Here's something else to 'pretty up' the place.

Phoenix; December 10, 2002
Posted by Hello

2004-06-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

Adding Some Local Color

Trying out BloggerBot, 'cause it's time to add some color 'round here (click on the photo for a full-sized version).

The barrel cactus flowers were in full bloom last week. Aren't they gorgeous?
Posted by Hello

This photo's actually about four years old, but the beautiful sight of the cactus in the yard's the same every time they flower. Too bad the blooms only last a week *sigh*

Hey, this photo uploading thing that Blogger recently added is soooo easy! (Thanks Rhonda Elizabeth for the nudge today to finally figure out how to add pics) I think this old blog is gonna see a whole lot more of this!

2004-06-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

VROOOM!

...But I'm still not going anywhere in the ol' gashog.

I managed to fight with the wind and get the bottom side of the engine compartment degreased and relatively clean. This was important because (a) it's easier to work on a somewhat cleaner engine and (b) the rear oil seal has a small leak and it's ickier than normal under there (gotta get that fixed next, when we've got $350 that's not doing anything special).

After getting my teeth sandblasted clean, and my legs spotted white with overspray and rinse-off mist, I'd had enough and decided to wait 'til morning to take off the starter.

Luckily for me, it was calm, Ed was up early, and he of the masive upper-body-strength took off the dead starter and put in the new one.

He went inside to wash off the grease while I tried out the new starter. It decided to keep on cranking and spinning, even after I turned off the ignition and took out the key (all that effort by the stupid thing and the engine still didn't turn over, either... grr...). I panicked. Nobody was outside but me, and I was a bit reluctant to just let it keep on going and run inside to either get help or to get the right socket to disconnect the battery.

I hit the horn, trying to get attention. This shut off the starter, oddly enough. Ed came back out at this point, wondering why the beast wasn't running. "Damned if I know," I told him, 'cause it wasn't for lack of trying on the part of the starter.

He shimmied his way back underneath, smacked the starter with a hammer, and realized that there was now a small drip of lovely pink fluid coming from the transmission line. From a tiny hole in the transmission line, with char marks outlining it. Apparantly, in its zeal, the starter arced to the transmission line and zapped a hole in it.

*sigh* But the bloomin' thing starts now. A call to the auto parts store yielded the offer to test the starter, in or out of the vehicle, and to replace it if it was, indeed, rebuilt poorly. But they don't believe me about the hole in the transmission line. And even if it did zap that hole, they informed me, the three-year warrantly expressly excludes incidental damages (but it does include free towing, should the starter ever fail in its duties and leave me stranded. I guess leaving me stranded at home doesn't qualify. Boo hiss!).

Ed had to leave for work, so no further repair could be done yesterday (I had no vehicle to fetch a piece of transmission line and the fittings, as the wind started up again and he couldn't ride his Harley to work, and even if I wanted to brave the wind, I don't know how to drive a motorcycle... one of those things I want to learn, but not with his Sportster. Oh, no. I will not be the one responsible for even the tiniest scratch. I'll learn on a dirtbike or something else that's meant to be dumped and look like crap).

Hopefully, by tomorrow, all will be right in my motorized world again.

But be warned, you still need to cover your ears. Ed swears louder than I do when car parts bite his knuckles.

2004-05-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

To Do List

Yuck. Awful wind, almost-but-not-quite-chilly outside today, and the most important of what I have to accomplish with my two days off is outside.

Things I have to do:
1. Laundry

2. Clean and dust

Things I have to do that I can't right now:
(More on this below)

1. Grocery shop

2. Get clarifier for pool (the green-brown murkiness is gone, but the annual opening-the-pool cloudiness remains)

3. Take back and exchange the solar cover we bought last year. It's rotting and my fingers are poking right through all the bubble-wrap-type pockets of air (I like popping bubble wrap, but not when it costs this much!). It's got a two-year unlimited warranty, and I plan to take 'em up on it.

4. Get mice to feed to the snakes so they stop trying to eat each other.

Things I gotta do and am trying to avoid but I can't:

1. Spray degreaser on the underside of the Suburban's engine area (not fun with a 'breeze' strong enough to make my hair blow into my mouth and whip sand into a frenzy by the front door). Then spray it off (ooh, boy, aerosol solvent breezing about (and most likely, most of it all over my legs))

2. The degreaser is to make it easier to take off the dead starter, and to make sure the contacts are all clean before...

3. Bolting on the new starter and crossing my fingers that that's the problem, since it wasn't the 20-month-old battery (which I exchanged yesterday).

The best part is that I get to do all of that in the street, as the Suburban's too big to fit into the garage. Well, actually, it could. If we didn't mind not being able to get out. And if we cut a strip out of the garage door to accommodate it closing over the trailer hitch.

I know how to work on the vehicles we have (don't like it, and I cuss up a blue streak doing it, but I do know how), and Ed works six days out of seven most weeks (today's day five of his workweek), so if I want to be mobile before Tuesday, I gotta fix it. Laying on newspapers and old towels to cover any degreaser residue left on the pavement (I am not in the mood to try to push that beast forward and away from the yucky stuff) with the sand swirling around my head and into my mouth and eyes. Ooh, boy.

Maybe I'll just remove the starter today (really, the easier part of fixing it) and let Mr. Popeye Forearms hold the new feels-like-twenty-pounds starter in one hand while he screws in the bolts with the other. He doesn't have to be in tomorrow 'til afternoon.

Well, I shouldn't put it off any longer. Sooner begun means sooner done, right? So off I go to cover my legs in solvent and chew some yummy sand... wish me luck and wear your earplugs (I swear LOUD when I'm frustrated!).

2004-05-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

I Got Got Got No Time

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Life's been busy but in a mindless sort of way.

Took the cover off the above-the-ground pool this week and found it to be a half-full murky green pond. Not enough of one chemical or too much of another last October, it seems. Or maybe it's just the late opening and the warm weather we've been having. In any case, one quart of concentrated algaecide and two bags of 68% chlorine shock treatment later, now it's a semitransparent brownish green and I think, if the pump and filter had a consciousness, they would hate my very guts for making them work so hard. Ah, well, too bad. I still hope to be swimming sometime this weekend.

After three years of refusing to get his hair cut, and fighting a slight trim of the dried-out split ends, my almost-thirteen year-old son decided to cut it all off on Tuesday. Over a foot of thick and lovely blond hair was chopped off in one massive ponytail. He's keeping it (for sentimental reasons, he says), but I'd sure love to make off with it and get meself a weave... *sigh* Now his head sports one-inch long spikes on the top and a scant three-eighths of fuzz all the rest of the way around. I hope he remembers to use the sunscreen on his neck, which has hardly seen a single ray in ages (even when he pulled the whole mass of it back into a ponytail - a daily thing at Mom's insistence - it still pretty much kept it covered).

That's it from Albuquerque for this week. Gotta go water the garden, and put water-remover into the gas tank of the Suburban (thanks, Shell, for the bad gasoline I'm still trying to work through my car's system some three weeks later...)

2004-05-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Opinionated

Women with more than a half-ounce of body fat really shouldn't wear stretch-denim hiphuggers that are one size too small. Especially with a babydoll tee that's short enough to show off a pierced bellybutton.

A car is not a phonebooth that goes seventy-five miles an hour.

Three-year-olds have better enunciation than a person with a fresh tongue piercing and a headcold.

The world at large does not care that you're wearing thong underwear, nor what pattern is on your boxer shorts. Pull up your damn pants.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Walk into a wall and they laugh harder.

The loudness of your neighbor's constantly barking dog is inversely proportional to the number of hours remaining until you need to get out of bed.

The sensors that automatically open store doors also emit a trip signal to your child's bladder.

Computer printers and photocopiers have secret built-in urgency detectors to spontaneously trigger paper jams.

2004-05-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Lesson Learned

This relates to a story some of you dear readers may have heard about last autumn. Anyone remember the boy who got suspended because the vending machine at school dispensed two Sobes when he'd only paid for one? That was my son. (The suspension came about because he had the audacity to use the machine for two days in a row and get four-for-two... like the entire school didn't know the machine was on the fritz... the line to use that sucker stretched wall-to-wall. Mason, however, was the only one to get any sort of reprimand, and that was because a teacher overheard him telling a classmate in the cafeteria, who was apparantly the only kid in school who didn't know, why he had two cans of Sobe stuck in the pockets of his cargo pants yet he was drinking the milk that came with his lunch. But I digress (sort of...))

He graduates from that middle school tomorrow. The other day, in one of his classes, the students were asked to share the most important thing they learned or the one thing they'll remember most from their two years there.

Mason's answer:

"Sometimes you get accused of doing something wrong that you didn't do. And you get punished for it anyway. When you prove that you were right and the people in charge were wrong, they get mad and find mean little ways to get back at you for it."

What a lesson to learn at twelve, eh?

2004-05-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

Full Moon? Sunspots? or Just Monday Morning?

Some days are just... days. Ho-hum get-through-’em sorts. And some rare gems are absolutely wonderful, starting out smooth and full of promise and somehow the day just keeps getting better.

Some of them, however, go completely overboard, disguising themselves as Mondays with fangs and jammed into overdrive.

You know you’re thick into a false Monday when:

Turning off the alarm, you drag yourself out of bed and into the kitchen to start the morning coffee, then schlep into the shower to wake up. Wet hair wrapped in a towel, it’s back into the kitchen for the java, stealing a glance at the clock on the wall. It’s 3 am and that damn alarm clock only went off in a (really bad) dream.

You roll over and crack open one eye to see how much longer you get to stay in bed. Cheeky red digits are flashing without meaning. Apparently the power flickered off and back on during the night and you find out the hard way that the backup battery in your alarm clock is dead and you’ve slept an extra hour and a half.

You only thought you hit the Snooze button (actually, you turned the noisy little bugger off completely). Run out door almost on time, barely dressed and having to pee.

The conditioner bottle pretends to be the one full of shampoo and you find yourself with a rich, creamy handful of what you put on your head after what you haven’t used yet.

The tiny sliver of soap pops out of your fingers and slithers down the drain. Mumble a colorful phrase or two and wash yourself with the last of the shampoo.

You forgot that you used up the last of the shampoo yesterday after the itty-bitty soap went spelunking in the drain. Drip your way over to the cabinet under the sink for more of both and discover that everything is in the linen closet down the hall.

Get half of your head done when the plastic tip of the curling iron falls off.

With eyes barely open and pants around your ankles, you realize that your butt is sinking lower than usual with no way to stop until warm skin meets cold porcelain...

Your hairbrush swandives into the toilet.

Try to put your toothbrush into the rack on the counter, somehow miss, and it drops into the open toilet. (Haven’t you learned to close that thing yet?)

Your blowdrier poops out with no warning and nearly sets your hair in fire in its overzealous death throes.

Forget to replace the hairdryer that died yesterday and now you have to deal with weird hair for two days in a row.

The nozzle on the hairspray bottle (which was just fine yesterday) grew a sticky clog. You discover this when the first pump shoots a stream into your left eye.

Realizing just before you sprint out the door that you forgot the antiperspirant, you run into the bathroom, untucking your shirt on the way. It’s the final bit of the solid stick and it flops out of the container, rolling a wide white trail down your pantleg before plopping to rest on the toe of your just-shined black shoe.

Wet mascara plus in-a-hurry equals uncontrolled sneezing. Now Tammy Faye Bakker doing A Clockwork Orange is staring back at you from the mirror.

Forget that you added a drop of SupraClens (an overnight enzyme treatment) to your soaking contact lenses last night. Take one from the case, give it the usual ten-second morning rinse and check it for any stray yucky stuff, then insert the lens. Your eye immediately begins to melt and the lid won’t open enough to take the searing bastard back out again.

The only clean socks are the ones with toe holes.

The morning is humming along perfectly. No oversleeping, had time to drink that extra cup of coffee... in fact, it couldn’t be going more smoothly. Even your hair’s cooperating today. Keys in hand, ready to walk out the door... and realize that it’s the weekend and you’re off today.

2004-05-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

What Are You Reading?

Got this from Lisa, who saw it on Mark's, who took it from Silja...(feel like I'm quoting the Bible, here... and Silja's begat Mark's, which begat Lisa's and Rhonda Elizabeth's... Oy. I'll just stop that now).

To get to the point:
Take the nearest book. Open it to page 23. Find the fifth sentence. Post this sentence on your blog (together with these instructions).

My closest books were the dictionary and a thesaurus. Not much help, sentence-wise. So I picked up the next closest one.

Accumulated chemical cues help the snake zero in on potential prey while approaching within its preferred striking distance of less than 8 inches (20 cm).

There. Pretty boring one, eh?

2004-05-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

Van Helsing

Wow for the special effects and moody scenery. This is a great showcase for what those wizards at Industrial Light and Magic can do now. A movie that absolutely has to be experienced on the big screen. It'll definitely lose some of the impact if you wait for it to hit home video.

All that mid-1800s atmosphere was almost enough to make me forget its shortcomings. It didn't have many, but there were some overacted moments and weirdness in the timeline that just tossed me right out of the fantasy. If I were rating it by the ever-popular stars, it'd lose one for that. But only one; it had enough realistic creatures and action to suck me right back in again.

Artistic license abounds here; if you're a purist about time periods and places for the classic horror bad guys, this movie will irritate like sand in your shoes. Just enough to rub you the wrong way, but not so bad that you'll end your journey. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were not menacing Paris just one year after Dr. Frankenstein was killed by an angry mob in Transylvania. In a nutshell, a bit weak in the storyline and dialogue.

If you can push that aside (actually, pretty easy to do with all the visuals to take in), it's worth sitting in the dark for just a little over two hours. If you go in expecting something on par with The Mummy (in my opinion, the best of the classic horror villains to be redone with a new-style storyline), you'll be just a little disappointed.

Instead, buy your ticket with no expectations but that this is a passable story with I-believe-I'm-the-character-I'm-portraying acting done only by the two leads (Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale) and knowing that the real star is ILM's special effects and backdropping, and you'll thoroughly enjoy the ride.

2004-05-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

Sneaky Peaky

Got tickets to tonight's preview showing of Van Helsing. I'll let ya know just how much it's worth (or not worth) seeing.

2004-05-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Tick, Tick, Tick...

Well, I've sent an email to Dr. Rock to let him know he's the latest recipient of the torch and gotten no reply. Not even a 'go to hell, I'm not answering those.'

Hmmm... I hope it's only that he doesn't check the email linked to his blogsite very often and not that he thinks I passed the questions on to him because of his stated viewpoint about why/how the game was begun. I meant what I said about it being an honest thanks for suggesting it. People who know me know that I don't play headgames and I'm not into placating squeaky wheels, either.

(Matter of fact, once I'd read the thread suggesting the Torch Q&A game, I didn't even visit that one a second time, having already formed my turned-out-to-be incorrect opinion about where it would lead... and didn't commit to memory who'd made the suggestion in the first place.)

To be fair, in case he hasn't checked his mail or he's taking his time formulating his answers, I'll wait another day before passing the torch to someone else. If there's no response from the Doctor, either by answering the questions or in the form of a 'no thanks, I'll pass' by Monday afternoon, you're all fair game in my sights...