G'porium

Pants on Fire

2008-09-22T16:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the Malator, the Major and I were hanging out eating wings and watching TV. All was fun and games and omnomnomnom.com until the commerical breaks came on. We saw 2 John McCain ads -- something about being the original mavericks and another about energy policy. Almost every claim the ads made was a lie.

I'm not talking about misrepresentation of facts or presenting information selectively -- I'm talking about bald faced lying. Lies that even the main stream media has noticed and debunked. That's pretty gutsy and also insanely stupid and insulting to voters. But I guess McCain has to resort to lying -- it's the only way he can jibe being a "Maverick" with voting with Bush and the Republicnas 95% of the time.

live from the ipod

2008-09-20T00:49:00.003-04:00

Coming at you live from the new and improved ipod it's blog 2.0 or something like it. The major let me buy an iPod touch today, and all the new features are rather amazing. I'm loving the fact that I can IM, blog and surf the web. I know that I could have gotten all this plus a phone - but I honestly don't want my phone to also be my mp3 player. Anywho, I think I'm really going to like having a small, lightweight gadget that is essentially an ultraportable laptop. I'll keep you all posted as to my ongoing adventures and impressions.

Book Meme -- Ganked from Jen

2008-09-10T13:08:00.004-04:00

*bold those you’ve read
*italicise started-but-never-finished
*add three of your own
*post to your blog

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery (in French)
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter’s Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter’s Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman’s Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic’s Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic’s Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion’s Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith’s Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hil
l321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russel
l324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic’s Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O’Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
365. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
366. The Moor’s Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
367. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
368. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster loved
369. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
370. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
371. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
372. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
373. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
374. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
375. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
376. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
377. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
378. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
379. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
380. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
381. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
382. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
383. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
384. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
385. Jhereg by Steven Brust
386. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
387. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
388. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
389. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
390. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
391. Neuromancer, William Gibson
392. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
393. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
394. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
395. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
396. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
397. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
398. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
399. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
400. The God Boy, Ian Cross
401. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Laurie R. King
402. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
403. Misery, Stephen King
404. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
405. Hood, Emma Donoghue
406. The Land of Spices, Kate O’Brien
407. The Diary of Anne Frank
408. Regeneration, Pat Barker
409. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
410. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
411. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
412. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
413. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
414. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
415. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine L’Engle
416. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
417. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
418. The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey
419. Girl Meets God, Lauren Winner
420. Traveling Light, Max Lucado
421. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
422. Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
423. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

OMG PANIC!

2008-08-18T15:51:00.003-04:00

In post 9/11 America, security is the new catchword. Everyone's focusing on how to make things more secure and how to survive if Horrible Calamity X happens. I'm all for emergency preparedness, but there comes a point when the discussion is no longer rational -- If a dirty bomb goes off, sealing part of your office off with plastic sheeting and duct tape isn't going to make that much of a difference. It's simply not realistic to think that's an effective strategy to keep yourself from getting irradiated.

Now, in order to make my suburban office building complex safer, we're going to be issued new security cards for the building. New photo security cards. New photo security cards that we'll have to use to enter the building every single time. Photo cards that we'll wave in front of a reader that can't possibly tell if the person in the photo matches the person holding the card. It seems like a horrible waste of time and money. We already have security guards and visitors are required to sign in. It would make more sense for us to use our existing security cards to activate the elevators (something we already do on the weekends). I guess I just don't get the need to be 'doing something' especially when 'doing something' isn't particularly effective and costs a lot of money.

You Pay Now

2008-08-11T16:10:00.003-04:00

The Great State of Virginia has a total hard-on for me right now, and it's definately not in a good way. For some unknown reason the tax department keeps sending me bills saying I owe more money for past filing years. I've got bills for FY 05, 06 and 07 right now. Granted they're all for smallish amounts (say around $100) -- but the whole thing is just pissing me off and confusing me. I have no idea where they're pulling these numbers from and there's no explination of why these bills have been sent to me. To make things even more confusing one of the bills says that my tax refund for one of the past years was applied to what I owed. If this makes sense to anyone, please let me know, because I'm totally stumped.

In addition to all the tax nonsense that came in the mail, I also got a Jury Summons the same day. I'm sure that'll be highly entertaining. I just can't wait to see what Virginia sends me next.

Bacon?

2008-07-31T16:58:00.000-04:00

BACON!

Baa, Baa. I Have No Wool.

2008-07-29T17:04:00.002-04:00

I’ve always tried – the best I know how – to be a good son, grandson, uncle and family member. Sometimes I mess up really bad. I’ll freely admit I’m not that good with birthdays. I may call late, but eventually I remember. I usually don’t send cards or gifts, but I know how to do Christmas. It hasn’t always been that way, but now I’m no slouch. My parents frequently accuse me of being too extravagant where my nephew is concerned. The Major also gives me warnings every year not to spend too much money. So, you might only get a call (belatedly) for your birthday, but you can count on a nice Christmas present.

I’m seriously trying to love the parents I have, and not the parents I wish I had. But it’s getting really difficult these days. It seems like they always need a black sheep in the family, and I’m the new one. From my point of view, my parents’ tendency to play favorites is the crux. My sister has always been their favorite. This hasn’t always been the easiest thing for me to deal with, but I have been more or less able to overlook it. It’s been harder since my niece was born. As she’s grown, she’s become the apple of my parents’ eye and my nephew has become a very distant second fiddle.

I’ve seen my parents fawn over my niece, but only offer negative feedback to my nephew: “sit down over there and play quietly,” or “not now, I’m holding the baby.” They’ve babysat her every workday, to help my sister out, but they haven’t made much of an effort to see their grandson. Unfortunately, my nephew and his mother have noticed this trend and are understandably very upset. It’s getting pretty bad; my sister-in-law is getting to the point where she doesn’t want to have anything to do with my parents.

In the interest of family unity, I’ve tried to explain to my parents how their behavior is perceived, which they have dismissed. I’ve made my trips home as much about my nephew as possible; I want my nephew to know that he’s got at least one family member that hasn’t forgotten about him. My parents have told me that I’m just spoiling him.

I’m completely at my wits end here. My parents have made their granddaughter so much the center of their lives, that any discussion on the matter puts them immediately on the defensive. Any perceived slight to the baby is met with retalition; they didn't send me a birthday gift this year because I hadn't done anything for my niece's birthday. I truly wish that they could see that this isn’t about right or wrong, my opinion or their opinion; it’s about one child being lavished with praise and attention and another being criticized and ignored. My niece isn’t old enough to be hurt by this behavior, my nephew is.

Addendum to the Booksplosion

2008-07-23T15:08:00.002-04:00

In the great list of books I've read to keep me from going crazy 2008 edition, I completely overlooked one: Marley and Me. Everyone should read this book. Part biography of a young family starting out, part memoir, part story of the world's worst dog, this book was so good I read it in one sitting. Even if you're not a dog lover, you will be extremely touched by this book. Grogan adeptly captures and relates how dog-owners feel about their 4-legged fur children. You'll laugh at Marley's exploits, you'll groan with embarrassment at some of his more public misdeeds, and you'll share the overwhelming grief that comes from having to say good-bye to a loved pet. But I think most importantly, Marley's story will have you fondly (and probably tearfully) recalling memories of those pets that have came and brought so much joy into your lives.

Extra! Extra!

2008-07-23T14:27:00.002-04:00

Somehow, despite all the crazy that has been going on my life lately, I’ve been on a major reading jag. Since the start of my trip to LA on June 25th, I’ve worked my way through quite a number of novels.

The Well of Ascension: Second in a trilogy, what I liked best is that the characters are very well realized. Also, Sanderson uses standard fantasy elements but they don’t yield the standard fantasy result. This bodes well for A Memory of Light, which Sanderson has been asked to write due to the untimely demise of The Wheel of Time’s Robert Jordan.

The Last Oracle: A good, but not great action/adventure novel. It’s got a great premise, but it’s not as well realized as some of Rollins’ other books and ideas. Still, Rollins is one of my favorites, so it made for a fun summer read.

The Innocent Mage/The Awakened Mage: This was a great find, and I’m glad Tor Books has been bringing Australian and Canadian authors to American audiences. Great world, interesting ideas. What I liked best was Miller’s revealing of plot secrets – elements that could have added a mystery-like feel to the novels she reveals to the reader almost immediately, while holding off on other more explosive elements (that you can’t see coming) for quite some time.

The Wheel of Darkness: An OK entry into the Agent Pendergast series of novels. Another good summer read, but nothing to really write home about.

Infoquake: Sci-Fi isn’t my usual thing, and this novel didn’t exactly set the sky on fire for me. However, I can recognize that this is a superior example of the genre. It’s like Donald Trump got set loose on the Virtual Reality Internet of the future.

El Juego del Angel: Ok, I know most of you probably can’t read Spanish, but luckily for you this is the 2nd novel in Zafon's Library of Forgotten Books series. (It’s not so much a series as stories taking place in the same world.) What this means for you is that you can read The Shadow of the Wind (his first novel) as it’s been translated into the English. Just do it, these are easily 2 of the best books I’ve read in years.

Finally, the Malator has gotten me hooked on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. I’ve read Twilight; I’m halfway through New Moon, and I’ve got Eclipse waiting in the wings.

Oh, I’m also reading Watchers and The Host. If only I could have read this much during Grad School.

200th Post - From The Depths of Doom

2008-07-21T16:15:00.001-04:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know there’s been a lack of posting going on here lately, and I’m sure you all are well nigh sick of staring at the cat that swallows souls. Although, it is kind of cool to start scrolling up and down as the image loads so you get cat eyeballs streaks on the page … Yes, I really am that easily entertained.

While I’ve been off the grid, incognito, skulking about in the shadows and generally just not being around, there’s been a whole lot of crazy going on. I got the flu in the early part of June; vomiting at the Pentagon Metro/Bus Station was definitely one of my life goals. I had a minor neck relapse in the middle of June that was easily remedied with some flexeril. I finished the month out with a 10-day business trip to Los Angeles.

The trip to LA was just crazy. All I did was work, eat and sleep (in that order.) I also got to see some of my co-workers behaving rather poorly. I won’t go into great detail, but I will say I was completely mortified by much of the behavior I saw. Oh, and I accumulated 40 hours of ‘overtime.’

I flew back to DC on the 4th (yes, there’s yet another story there that I’m not going to touch on.) And to account for the rest of my missing time, I somehow managed to throw my back out. I have no idea what I did or how I did it, but after 5 days of intense pain I finally got over myself and went to the Urgent Care. Their bedside manner could use a whole lot of improvement – I read my diagnosis on a sheet of paper they gave to me. However, they sent me home with Valium and Vicodin. As you might suspect, the last couple of days have been a smear in my memory. But I’m healthy, sober, and calm now so regular blogging will resume.

Dead By Dawn

2008-06-19T14:56:00.000-04:00

more cat pictures

Supernova Suicide

2008-05-27T16:33:00.002-04:00

This Primary season has been particularly painful to watch. Partially because it’s been drawn out unnecessarily (like the results of Dancing with the Stars or Idol), but also because we’ve been witness to the implosion and self-immolation of one of the Democratic Party’s top luminaries.

Sen. Clinton never had my support in this Primary. As much as I might have respected her, I had deep concerns about her electability. She, unfortunately, is the most polarizing Democrat out there. Republicans may not be all that keen on Sen. McCain, but they will definitely go to the polls simply to vote against Sen. Clinton. Throw in her vote for the Iraq war, the Flag burning amendment and her tepid response to gay rights and she became a candidate that I didn’t want to support.

I’m not sure at what point in the campaign she went from being a serious candidate to a hollow parody of her former self, but I deeply regret and am very ashamed of her actions in this Primary. Politics can be a very dirty business when you’re in it to win it, but there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s been painful to watch a Democrat actively courting and being proud of getting the racist vote. It is even more painful to watch a Democrat say “I’ve still got a chance – if my opponent is assassinated.” But I think the worst thing in this whole situation is watching a very capable and respected woman destroy her credibility, reputation and future. Especially when it's clear -- and it has been clear for quite some time -- that the race is over.

Free Lobotomy with Movie Stub

2008-05-27T15:38:00.002-04:00

Holy crap on stick, the new Indiana Jones movie is awful. The Major says it’s not as good as 1 or 3 but better than 2. I say it’s the worst of the lot.

Cate Blanchet and her Hair Piece of Doom are absolutely ridiculous as the ‘bad guy.’ If you can ignore the fact that she’s some super secret Soviet psychic spy (who can’t even read Indy’s mind), you probably will be able to get past the fact that her ‘accent’ is all sorts of wrong. Sometimes she sounds like a Russian, sometimes she sounds British, the rest of the time she sounds like a Briton trying to speak with a Russian accent. At any rate, we’ve seen the template for this villain before – and it was done much better in The Last Crusade.

I’m not going to bore everyone with a detailed break-down of archaeological and historical problems with the movie, but NOTE to Speilberg: The Maya lived in Mexico and Central America, the Inca lived in Peru. The people that lived in Amazon were not Inca and they certainly didn’t speak any dialect of Maya. And they also weren’t known to build temples, and most definitely not temples that look like Chichen Itza got dropped into the rain forest.

There’s not much of a plot, and what there is isn’t very compelling. They’ve also seemed to do away with any and all real world physics. Surviving a nuclear blast in a lead-lined fridge that gets rocket launched across half of Nevada. Really? Didn’t Punky Brewster have a special about killer fridges? Super magnetic items (made from non-magnetic material) that are selectively magnetic and attract other non-magnetic metals? WTF? Is that you Mo-Dean, inter dimensional outer space being? As an added bonus we’ve got really pissed off BulletAnt-ArmyAnt hybrids attacking and a car chase that looked lifted from the chase scene on Endor – I was seriously expecting Ewoks to pop up singing “yub-yub” while slinging rocks at things. Finally, the last time I checked a constrictor snake of any stripe is not going to take well to being used as a rope.

There’s only so much good actors can do with a crappy script and premise. This movie had the potential be so much more … all the elements are there. But it seems someone left this in the blender on puree for way too long. Indy 4 is a real lemon of a movie, and there’s no lemonade to be made from this very, very bad thing.

One Bad Trip

2008-05-14T16:21:00.001-04:00

It’s official: topamax is the Devil’s drug. For the last month, I’ve been taking it as a migraine preventative – and it works well. While I was on the medication, I didn’t have a single migraine. This is a great thing, because as I’ve gotten older my migraines have become a lot more frequent; a typical month for me averages 3 to 5 migraines.

BUT, and this is a very large but, the side effects of this drug totally outweigh any benefits I’ve gotten from it.

Short-term memory loss: I’ve found myself forgetting words, and things that I’m supposed to do. Often, I’d find myself staring into space wondering why I was somewhere and what I was supposed to be doing there.
Insomnia: Most people experience the exact opposite while on topamax, and have problems staying awake. I, however, frequently had many sleepless nights. For someone who already has difficulty falling asleep, this side effect really pissed me off.
Depression/Apathy: I really just didn’t give a crap about anything while I was taking this medication. Wake up 50 minutes late? Whatever. Big deadline at work? Meh, I’ll do it tomorrow. I was also very uninterested in things that I normally enjoy. In short, I just didn’t feel like me anymore.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather deal with the migraines than be forgetful, constantly tired depressed space ranger. I think it’s time to go back to the doctor and try something else.

Descontroladas

2008-05-04T20:36:00.001-04:00

Hot Track? Check!
MerenBooty Girls? Check!!
My new favorite song? Check, check and Check!

Thievery!!!

2008-04-24T15:26:00.004-04:00

While surfing the nets, this little nugget of goodness revealed itself to me. In the spirit of my love for bad sci-fi and fantasy television programs, I thought I'd have a little fun with this 'news' item and make it the basis for an episode of various programs. Consider this my contribution to your ongoing education and the "The More You Know" program.

Supernatural

Dean: Dude, so we've totally gotta chase these Penis Sorcerors down and nail them.
Sam: Do you think we should use a demon trap?
Dean: Yeah, that's a great idea. I'll stand in it and be the bait. When the demon sorceror comes you waste it with the salt shot gun.
Sam: Why don't I stand in the trap and you shoot it?
Dean: Well, because, I'm the more obvious candidate.
Sam: Dude, my penis is so larger than yours.
Dean: Uhn-uh.
Sam: Is too.
Deam: Isn't.
Penis Demon: *poof* Et voila, now yew both 'ave no penises!
Dean: This is all your fault.
Sam: No, it's yours. If you hadn't been so emo over Dad's death for the last season, ...

Charmed

Phoebe: I like totally had a vision that some Sorceror is running around shrinking men's penises.
Piper: We should go check the Family Cookbook to see how to banish this thing.
Paige (aka: pantywaste): (orbs in from stage right). OMGWTFBBQ! My boyfriend's penis is missing. I was totally doing him and BAM! it just disappeared. You gotta help me ... I mean him.
Piper: We were just going to check WikiWitchcraft for a spell. Come up to the attic with us.

Phoebe: You better search faster Piper. It looks like your Leo just lost his wang too.
Piper: Here's something, let's try this.

Halliwells together: By the power of three, leave the penis be.
Pantywaste: By the power of my slutty red hair, return the penis to me!

Piper & Phoebe: That should should have done the trick.
Pantywaste: Eh, whatever. I think I'm going to dump my boyfriend anyway. Did you see the hot delivery boy?

The X-Files

Mulder: (voice over, typing report) I remain convinced that these disappearing penises are the work of a goverment conspiracy meant to cover up the presence of aliens on earth. I myself was a victim.

Scully: (voice over, typing report) After having conducted a through examination of Agent Mulder and the other 'vicitims', I have found no evidence of any alteration, be it chemical, physical, or genetic. It is my opinion that they have been suffering from some form of mass delusion.

Note: Credit for the penis snatching find goes to an intrepid co-worker of the Scorpios. Blame Scott accordingly.

Bender

2008-04-20T22:53:00.003-04:00

I decided to go on a shopping bender today. Some people go on drinking benders -- I used to be one of them until I found out that a) alcohol gives me migraines and b) I'm not allowed to drink alcohol while I'm taking my migraine preventative -- I have to think of other ways of blowing off steam.

It's been a craptactularly rainy day here (we were woken up at 8:30 by a massive lightning bolt/thunder clap right outside the condo, and it hasn't let up since), so it was a good day for it. I hauled the Major to the mall -- and let him feed first so he wouldn't be too whiny. Then I proceeded to overhaul my wardrobe. Even better, I didn't buy anything that was red, and I only bought one blue shirt. I'm branching out and exploring new colors and new options. The Scorpios will be happy to know I bought a grayish/tan guayavera looking thing with blue vertical stripes on the front.

Anywho, I'm so exhausted now ... but that's not going to stop me from reading porn to the blind.

A Dog's Life

2008-04-20T22:44:00.002-04:00

Roxy is very happy about the new kitties next door. Every time I go out on the balcony, Roxy just has to go to look at the neighbor's balcony to see if the kitties are outside. It's rather funny to watch her jump-bounce her way over there. [Bosco is pretty interested in the kitties too. He likes to sit, stare and meow at them. I took him out there to meet them, and contrary to what the shelter people told me, Bosco actually gets along with other cats.]

Kitties aside, Roxy has been pretty miserable today. It's been raining all day long, and she absolutely hates the rain. She won't walk in it, she won't go out in the balcony in it, she just doesn't want to have anything to do with it. She got all excited for her walk this afternoon, and then when she got downstairs and realized it was raining, she quickly peed and made a beeline for drier climes. Definately not the labador genes there. At least she got a new bed today.

Pet Emporium

2008-04-20T22:23:00.002-04:00

Our next door neighbors got 2 new kitties this week. This is relevant because our 'balconies' are separated by a black psuedo-fence. The neighbors have put up plastic chicken wire to height of about 3 feet on the fence, so they can let their kitties outside without having to worry about the cats running away.

One of their new kitties likes to come over and visit us. Friday night, I caught her sitting on one of our deck chairs, staring in at our living room and meowing quietly -- twice. After giving her a bit of love (she likes to roll around on the ground at your feet), I gently returned her to her side of the fence.

Saturday, I saw my neighbors and told them about their kitty's adventures. However, kitty is very quick, and very sneaky and 2 times in less than 2o minutes had snuck back over to visit Bosco and Roxy. Kitty is now confined indoors.

Vatican Vacation

2008-04-16T11:20:00.002-04:00

The Pope had this little nugget of wisdom to share with us all yesterday, which quite honestly baffles me. I would argue that pedophiles can indeed be priests; they've been priestifying for quite some time here in the US. But that's really just semantics. I think the Pope meant "the church won't allow pedophiles to be priests." But this just doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Pedophiles don't advertise that they're pedophiles. I can only imagine the screening process to weed the pedophiles out of the candidate pool.

I don't understand why the Pope didn't say in very strong language that the church condemns this behavior. That it also condemns those parishes, dioceses, etc., that knew of problematic priests and still allowed them to minister. That they will suffer none of this behavior. It begs the question "What are you going to do about it?"

From the Vaults

2008-04-11T15:17:00.002-04:00

Here's an oldie, but goodie, from back when Mad TV was teh awesome:

Home Improvement

2008-03-25T16:38:00.002-04:00

I'd love to have a more exciting life -- at least until I try to jump over another dumpster and herniate another disk. As it stands, I've been spending a lot of my time working, HTMLing things and other items that just aren't all that interesting to anyone but me.

The most exciting thing I have to report is the mini-makeover the Condo got this weekend. We had to replace a toilet seat that inexplicably cracked, the Major is working on fixing a slow drip in the shower, and presumably is also going to recaulk the shower. Amazingly, in the process of repairing things nothing else got broken, no wrong parts were bought and everything went smoothly.

Oh, and I can't talk about it much, but we're definately moving within the next year.

2008-03-17T16:32:00.002-04:00

I know I've mentioned the Ele-visions at work more than once here. Today's post is courtesy of said Ele-visions. Today's 'Daily Poll' was this:

Is OK to smash your car door into another car that parked too close to you?

WTF? That's like asking "Is it OK to punch someone because they stood too close to you on the metro?" Anyone that answers yes to that question needs to have their driver's license permanently revoked.

This And That With AJ

2008-03-13T15:54:00.004-04:00

Could you please not eat like a goblin? Roxy's been a happy girl lately. She's played a lot with her doggie friends, tried to bogart a puppy and got some nummy gravy on her food last night. Om, nom, nom, nom!

On being irrelevant: When I get old(er) and have completely lost any hip-ness or relevancy that I might have once possessed, I totally want to go on a racist tirade like Geraldine Ferraro. Besides, she looks like someone took a pure-bred Kimodo Dragon and tattooed eyebrows on it. Look at the good she does.

Voice-overs are cool: (This contains some NSFW language.)

Going To The Dreamtime

2008-03-06T19:11:00.003-05:00

Can't we just fast-forward to Jan 21, 2009? Please?

I've been following the primaries/caucii with some interest, and I realized that I just need to stop. I can't do anything about it, and we've already had our primary here. (I didn't get to vote because I was trapped on the bus during an ice-storm until almost 9p.)

I'm so completely over watching the Democratic Party tearing itself apart. I've had Obama supporters tell me that they'd vote for McCain before they voted for Clinton and I've had Clinton supporers tell me the opposite. There's so much bad blood between the 2 groups, it seems like everyone's forgotten the goal of this whole deal is to get a Democrat elected to the White House.

It especially seems like the candidates themselves have forgotten this. Hillary's 3am phone call ads giving McCain ammunition to use against Obama -- if he were to win the nomination -- were rather dispicable. I think the both of them should rise above negative politics; they need to realize that tearing each other apart is only helping to demoralize and splinter the party while simultaneously providing the Republicans with everything they need to make sure McCain wins the General Election in November.

Like I said before, I'm done following this whole fiasco. Wake me up when we have a nominee, because I don't want to end up being so disgusted by both of them that I can't in good conscious vote for either of them.

La Sandwichera

2008-02-28T15:47:00.004-05:00

Study abroad should be one of the best experiences of your life. You should have a great host family that adopts you as one of their own, looks out for your welfare and teaches you about the country and its culture. You should come out with a good mastery of the local language. However, it looks like things went horribly wrong for this kid. His parents sent him off hearty and healthy -- he came back looking like Karen Carpenter.

From personal experience, it seems like this kid got placed with a family that uses the Exchange Program as a means of additional income. It's pretty obvious from the host father's comments that it all boils down to money. There's nothing inherently wrong with this -- as long as you provide your exchange student with enough to eat and a safe place to live. Indeed, I like the idea that both parties gain something from the exchange experience. However, there's a serious difference between mutually beneficial, and pocketing all the money for yourself.

I hope that the kid mentioned above had great experiences outside of his host family, and is able have some good memories of his time there. Hopefully, he'll be willing to do another exchange in the future. And hopefully, he'll get a much better family.

[Note to BMC: Does this remind you of anyone?]

Dogs Rule

2008-02-25T14:37:00.001-05:00

I’ve discovered another reason why Roxy is the best dog ever. I was eating dinner and watching Firehouse Dog on HBO, basically just vegging out. Roxy was curled up next to me on the floor, most likely hoping for a scrap of potpie. The onscreen firehouse dog was running back and forth, yipping, barking, whining and having a grand old time. That’s when I noticed that Roxy was actually watching TV with me. Her doggie head was moving back and forth tracking the firehouse dog. Her ears pricked up at every onscreen doggie noise. How cool is that?

Alphabits

2008-02-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

It’s rare that I directly comment on here about books that I’ve read. Yet, I’ve recently finished a handful of books that I’d seriously recommend to other people. In no particular order:

La Historia del rey transparente: This was a very interesting read. The author, Rosa Montero, takes significant liberty with historical facts; historical figures that lived almost 100 years apart are present with the 40-or-so-year lifespan of the protagonist. Interestingly, this adds to the fantasy-like feel of the novel. Of particular interest is the character of Nyneve – who may, or may not be, Morgan La Fey. Fantastical elements occur side-by-side with realistic elements, which creates a very unique and compelling alternate-history of Medieval France (circa the Cathars). Also of note is the story-within-a-story of The Transparent King. It is responsible for some odd happenings in the novel, but it is only related in full as an appendix to the novel. Even then, The Transparent King’s story ends in mid-stride leaving the reader to supply the answer and determine the significance it has for the novel.

Midnight Tides: It took me a long time to get into this novel. Much like Erickson’s first novel, The Gardens of the Moon, the beginning of this novel was a struggle for me. This is due, in part, to the fact that this book – the 5th in the series – introduces an entirely new set of characters, in a new location, with no obvious ties to what has happened in the rest of the series. Another factor is that Erickson meticulously lays the foundation for the events in the latter part of the novel. With the exposition concluded, somewhere around the 300 page mark, things get very interesting indeed. The previously unrelated threads combine for a pretty fantastic finish. Erickson, in my opinion, is probably the best epic fantasist currently writing. However, his style is initially somewhat inaccessible; you have to invest time and thought to fully grasp and familiarize yourself with his world. Midnight Tides is a good read – but the pacing and some lackluster scenes towards the end of the novel keep it from being as great as the previous novels.

Vellum: This book is definitely not an easy read, but it is one of the most innovative and compelling works I’ve read. While you’ll find this novel in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of your local chain bookstore, it really deserves to be in the General Literature section. This is Literature with a capital ‘L.’ There’s a war brewing in Heaven, and it’s being fought everywhere and everywhen. Myths are layered one upon the next and expertly woven together. Past, present, and future exist simultaneously, as do multiple ‘versions’ of each character. By no means am I doing this novel any justice; the words just don’t exist. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Kleen Howse, I haz it.

2008-02-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

The house got a much needed cleaning. The laundry is done. Grocery shopping is complete. I don't know about you all, but my mental health gets a real boost from having a clean house, clean clothes and a full pantry.

The Major does well with the pantry part -- we're still working on the clean house part. He'll never be as compulsive as I am, but I'm hoping we can downgrade him from a Class 5 Hurricane to a tropical depression. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Primary Blues

2008-02-04T16:33:00.001-05:00

Super Tuesday, blah blah blah. Only a handful of states have primaried/caucused, but the field has been winnowed down to 2 candidates on each side. Granted, not everyone who was running was a viable candidate -- but I think every person in the country has the right to chose from all of the contestants. Instead most of us are left with:

McCain: This guy has changed so much from the "Independant" rogue that I liked in the 2000 election. I get the feeling that he's just saying anything and supporting anything to get the nomination.

Clinton: Sweet. Jesus. No. I'm so completely over partisian politics. W has been one of the most divisive figures in modern U.S. politics. Hillary is at least as divisive as W. I also don't trust her, and she also says whatever she thinks will get her elected.

Romney: Ugh. He flips, he flops and he was a total train wreck as the Governor of Mass. But what makes him total slime was the story about his family vacation. Dude put the family dog on the hood of the station wagon in a crate and drove to their destination. Apparently, it was real funny that the dog got so scared it lost control of its bowels. I can't help but wonder, which Americans are going to be treated like his family dog.

Obama: He's young, relatively untried. People like to call him "Osama." I'm not sure he's got policies developed. But of all of them, he's the only one that actually gives me hope that things might just get better.

Because you know for sure with the rest of them it's going to be more of the same -- and we definately don't need anymore of that.

Ho Down

2008-02-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

In the light of Super Tuesday tomorrow, I've decided to have a Primary that everyone can get behind -- no winners, no losers, just fun. The topic: Ho-iest Hoes of the 80's. Your candidates are:

Samantha Fox
Stacey Q
Lita Ford
Madonna*
Cher*
I don't see my favorite ho on the list, but I'd like you to consider ______.

*Note: You can only consider Madonna and Cher as they were in the 80's. Because if you were to consider their Ho opus in tota it'd be a landslide. Madonna alone had the Sex book, and the simul-bation in Rome just to irritate the Pope.

Discuss

2008-01-30T13:28:00.000-05:00

Thesis:

Office Manager is not synonymous with mother.

Corollary:

Administrative ______ is also not equivalent to mother.

My Gay Agenda: World Domination

2008-01-21T13:22:00.000-05:00

7:15 Wake up, take shower, dress
7:40 Feed dog, kiss el Mayor goodbye, leave house
7:56 Wait at bus stop
8:02 Get on bus, notice I’m the only rider
8:11 Arrive at Metro, get on train
8:24 Attempt to transfer to Red Line, wait for train
8:34 Waiting for Red Line
8:44 Still waiting for Red Line
8:54 Red line arrives
9:30 Get to work
10:00 Make web pages
12:03 Finish web page, go to lobby for lunch
12:07 Someone’s hellspawned crotchfruit pulls fire alarm
12:29 Fire alarm over, eat lunch
1:00 Resume web pages
4:10 Have asinine conversation
4:55 Leave work
6:20 Meet Majorkins for dinner
6:53 Finish dinner, wait for check
7:21 Get check, leave for home
7:36 Walk dog, freeze fingers off
8:02 Relax
9:27 Make popcorn, read
9:30 Fire alarm sounds
9:31 Get dog, wallet, phone, go outside
10:02 Fire department address alarm, lets us know a burst water pipe set the alarm off
10:03 Go back inside
10:04 Fire alarm still ringing
11:03 Fire alarm stops ringing
11:05 Read
11:18 Dog bays at people walking in hallway
11:19 Calm dog down
11:40 Dog barks at people in hallway, again
11:41 Calm dog down
12:07 Cat pukes on desk, clean up desk
12:40 Go to bed

Media Mayhem

2008-01-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

I came across the following headline via the Elevision this morning:

Bush to be first president in nearly a decade to visit Palestine

The headline struck me as ridiculous and misleading for many reasons.

1) Being the first to do something implies significance. You know, because no one's ever done it before. But someone already did -- a decade ago.

2) Use of the word decade: It means exactly 10 years. It doesn't mean less than 10 years or nearly ten years.

3) If we consider the 'decade' to mean1998 - 2008, then Bush has been President of the USA for 8 of those 10 years. If you consider it's really 'nearly a decade' -- call it 8.5 - 9 years, then what we're really talking about is the fact that this is the first time since Bush has been in office that he's visited Palestine.

The last President to do it before Bush, was Clinton -- his predecessor. But the headline reads as if it's been ages and ages since an American President has been to Palestine, and Bush is doing something fantastic and should be lauded for his efforts. The only problem Bush has had 7 years prior to this one to do something about Palestine. He shouldn't be lauded for doing something he should have done ages ago. It's like praising your kid for finally cleaning his room after already asking him 7 times.

While it is regrettable that Bush has waited so long to visit Palestine, my real problem lays with the media's presentation of this. It's the spin to make it look like he's doing something, he's being the Decider. A more accurate headline would be Bush makes first visit to Palestine.

[I did a lot of research online to find the source of this story and it appears to be from the AP . I saw the headline on the televisions in the elevator at work via Captivate. There's been some minor differences across headlines, but they more or less say the same thing.]

Man v. Machine

2008-01-09T19:27:00.000-05:00

Things have been a little crazy lately. After recovering from the Family Flu And Cold (2007 edition), I haven't had a nice, normal, quiet day at work. It's been non-stop, go-go-go, get this done NOW! Fortunately, it's enjoyable work. Unfortunately, I haven't really had time to do anything else.

After 2 nights of very little sleep, it all caught up with me this morning. I was happily sleeping in my bed and woke up to pleasant sunlight. I enjoyed it for a couple of moments and then I realized: there's sunlight! OH CRAP! WHAT TIME IS IT?!?!?! A quick glace at the clock let me know it was 9:30 and that I'm now going to be at least 3 hours late to work. [Don't you just love non-rush hour bus schedules?]

I made the best of it, worked like a dog and got a lot done at work. My work groove was running smoothly, but little did I know that the Paper Shredder had other plans for my afternoon. Foolish mortal, don't you know you don't make me shred 4 pages at 4:30? To thwart you I will jam up and force you to use mini screwdrivers to pry little bits of paper out of me. For 30 minutes. Maybe I should have just stayed in bed this morning?

2007 Wrap-up

2008-01-01T19:04:00.000-05:00

I survived the trip to the tundra, but only just barely. No one acted-up, misbehaved or was otherwise nasty. With the exception of one minor tiff, it was a very pleasant trip. I got to spend a lot of quality time with my nephew who staged a Christmas Pageant with his matchbox cars: "Hi, I'm motorcycle. Let's go to the North Pole."

My loving family did send me home with 2 wonderful gifts: the flu and a head cold. My nose starting running like faucet somewhere around mile 109 on the Ohio Turnpike. The flu induced fever hit shortly after I got home. For reasons that I'm going to leave unwritten, I had to drag myself into work on Thursday and Friday.

By the start of the weekend, I was completely out-of-it. Saturday to Wednesday is a giant blur in my mind. I do know Princess Hot Muffin, the Malator, Assley, the Mayordomo and I had a great meal at my favorite Thai place on Saturday. The rest of the time I was asleep or taking up space on the couch. 2007 went out the way I started it: sick and strung out on meds. I sure hope this isn't some portent that 2008 is going to be more of the same.

2007 -- without a doubt -- was the worst year of my life. I had some good times and reconnected with some old friends, one of whom I never thought I would speak to again. But The Great Nexorcism effectively made 2007 a great steaming pile of mierda. I figure I'm due for some good karma in 2008.

I hope everyone out there in cyberlandia had a great holiday and an even better New Year.

Going To The Tundra

2007-12-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

Cookies have been baked. Presents have been bought and wrapped. House has been decorated, tree is up. Christmas cheer has been spread. I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty much set. All I have left to do is wrap one singing, talking, obnoxious stuffed "Learning Puppy" for my niece.

Tomorrow, I shall be making the great, yearly sojourn to the frozen hinterlands of Toledo, OH. Always a fun and pleasant drive. I'm looking forward to the holidays, and I'm hoping it will be a great time. I'll probably come back with many crazy stories to share. Until then, the best of the season to everyone.

And a special shout out to Pisco for watching the furbeasts! Little does he know, but they'll bring him hours of fun-filled excitement.

Juvenile Humor

2007-12-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

I am not a morning person. I pretty much hate everything about getting up, getting ready and going to work. It's probably because I don't get enough sleep, or maybe I'm just hardwired to be happier at night. However, there is one part of the morning that I look forward to. E-mail.

I love looking at all the spam e-mail. I never open any of them (I'm not that stupid!), but the titles alone provide hours of entertainment. Things had been getting a little boring: Cialis, Hoodia, Megadick, Megadik, Small Cap Stock, Ciali$, Pharmacy. I'm always amazed at all the inventive ways spammers come up with misspelling words to get around spam filters. But even that's getting a little boring.

My spammers came through for me this morning. The must have known I was bored with all the e-mail inquiring about my penis. So they started sending me spam asking about my coworkers' penii. You know, stuff like "Betty, worried about your tiny dik? Don't be ...." or "Josie, this'll give you a large JohnSon!" Apparently, I work in an office full of trannies.

Finally, if anyone can tell me what exactly "Natural Male Enhancement" means, I'd be very appreciative. I've seen billions of Enzyte commercials, but I have no idea what that product actually does. I do know if you order now it comes with a free pack of Vazomyne. So call now, operators are standing by.

Lard-HO!

2007-12-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

I've long had this theory about the intersection between junkfood, healthly living, the economically disadvantaged, and the general fat-assery in the US. The general premise behind my super-scientific idea was that it's cheaper to buy crap than it is to buy things that are good for you.

Anywho, the wonderful folks over at the NYT posted this. They conducted a much more thorough investigation and actually used methodology and whatnot. You know, things that I just can't be bothered with. Turns out, they agree.

There's something really wrong when 1 red bell pepper costs as much as a family size bag of Doritos. Or what about $8.00 for 2 chicken breasts? $8.00 will also get 2 frozen pizzas at Target. Marginal utility says the pizzas are a better deal. Am I the only one that thinks it's ridiculous that you have to be "rich" to eat healthy?

More Mayhem

2007-12-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

While Pisco contemplates the finer points of theology and religion this morning, I'll take a more mundane approach to life. (I don't think or write as eloquently as Pisco does, so I'll try to corner the market on banalities and let the grown-ups handle things that are actually important.)

Walking to the bus stop this morning, I watched a car bobsled down the ice covered hill and sideswipe another car. Bonus: The car that got hit had just been involved in a different and unrelated accident. So it was like a 2 for 1 special. It made for a interesting change of scenery from the frozen crow sticking up like a lawn dart, hub cap, belt and dog poop I usually pass to the bus stop. Fortunately, no one appeared to be seriously injured. VDOT seriously needs to get to plowing or salting or something because the entire street was a 4 lane-downhill sheet of ice. I digress.

Of course, I missed the bus by that much, and the next bus was late. But what really has me intrigued is what was going on with Metro this a.m. They were single tracking trains through the 3 busiest stations on the Red Line due to a "sick" customer. Metro took great pains to make sure no one stood on the platforms on the 'closed' sides. Every 30 seconds or so they announced loudly that everyone needs to be on the opposite platform. I didn't feel like wading into the mosh pit, so I took a slight detour on the Green Line. Finally, 2 hours after I left my house, I make it to work. At the price of $4.00, that's like seeing a matinee show at the discount theater! Thanks WMATA!

As a side note to metro, if your "sick" customer forces single tracking in 3 stations, "sick" isn't the appropriate term anymore. Critically injured, awaiting medivac, or radioactive are all better descriptors for what's going on. Passengers don't need to know everything, but a little more information might keep everyone calmer and more collected. Otherwise, we're going to be thinking "Unless the "sick" person hosed 3 stations down with toxic waste, there's no need for this."

Snow? Snow!!! SNOW (#*$^#$!!!!

2007-12-05T15:20:00.000-05:00

It's snowing in the greater DC-toilet-bowl area today. It's the first snow of the season, so I'm pretty happy about this. I'm happier than I was last night, because the weather forecast called just for snow showers. We're now supposed to get 1 to 3 inches.

My happiness has been pretty short lived though. I forgot to factor in what snow does to the commute. It's so bad that if people hear that it's going to snow -- it doesn't have to actually be snowing -- traffic gets all snarled up. Seriously. Traffic was at a standstill on parts of 395 this morning and there was no snow in sight. Metro placed speed restrictions on all their trains. I bet there's going to be a run on bread, milk and toilet paper at all the grocery stores tonight as well.

I love snow. I love living in DC. I don't love the 2 of them together. It's like the difference between online stats and real-world reality. Where it might take 12 inches of snow to shut down Columbus, Ohio or Igloo-Sur-La-Lac, Montana, the mention of a possible 1 inch will do the trick in DC. You'd think it's a blizzard outside.

This was the requisite moan and whine about wintertime in DC post. We all do it every year. Because we've had 9 months to forget about how heinous it is.

Farewell, Oh Ye Political Giant

2007-11-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

The Elevision (that's the TVs in the elevators y'all) let me know yesterday that former CongressCritter Henry Hyde has made the one-way journey to the Great-GOP-Bathroom-Stall-In-The-Sky. Let's all take a moment to remember the man that helped bring us the great 3-ring circus that dominated the political landscape in the latter half of the 90s: Bill's Blowjob Impeachment.

Those were simpler days when all a President had to do was get a quick hummer from the Skank of his choice to provoke a political firestorm. Well, I suppose it didn't help that he also lied about it -- but seriously, if you were married to Hillary and got some action from the Creature From The Blue Dress Lagoon, wouldn't you lie too? Ah, if only Willy had loftier goals like Angelina Jolie or even Margaret Thatcher, but I'm betting they've got a deal that only allows nookie with certifiable swamp donkeys.

Anyway, let's all thank Mr. Hyde for putting Presidential Misdeeds into perspective for us. May he have a rewarding after-Congress!

Victory Is Mine!

2007-11-21T15:47:00.000-05:00

I had a knit pair of slipper boots/mukluks in college that were my favorite things ever. I wore them everywhere, including on rounds. They even went to Mexico with me. Sadly, they died a rather violent death by dog mauling.

For the past 10 years or so, I've been looking for a new pair. I've scoured the internets, tried every variation in search engines and came up empty handed. I could have planned a trip back to OU to go to the store where I originally purchased these, but I'm not going to take a 7 hour trip (one way) just to buy a pair of $20 slipperboots.

Today, I finally found a site that sells them -- just as I remember them, leather soles and all. You know the first thing I did, after I got over the initial shock, was click on the "Buy These Bitches Now" button. I should have them in my greedy bootslipper loving hands in 3-5 business days. Pictures will be posted. Seriously. And maybe I'll even post the pictures of Roxy and Ginger that I was supposed to have posted months ago.

[If you doubt my love for these boots, there is at least one semi-regular commenter that has witnessed these boots in all their glory. They even went on rounds with me in said boots. I'll let you all figure out who s/he is.]

Oooooh, Barracuda

2007-11-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

Do you like to rock? Do you like guitars? What about hair bands, indie punk rockers, and KISS? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then maybe you should come over to my Bitchin' Condo and play some Guitar Hero.

On a whim, the Mayordomo and I bought Guitar Hero III and 2 guitar controllers. It's been non-stop rockin' at our place since Monday. Mayordomo particularly likes "Barracuda" and "I Wanna Rock 'n' Roll" -- or whatever that Poison song is called. I'm more partial to the alternative songs: Social Distorion, Sonic Youth, and the like. Of course, Mayordomo hates this when we play together because it gives me an advantage. He never got into college rock, indie bands, or alternative music so he has never heard these songs before. Whereas, while I've never been a huge fan of heavy metal, you don't grow up in the 80's not knowing these songs.

And for some bizarre reason I've got "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas stuck in my head. It's been there all week. The last time I actually remember hearing that song was over the summer when I was watching Supernatural. (You can laugh all you want, and I'll agree: The show is nothing but eye-candy.)

I've gotta go practice my power stance now. If you need me, I'll be in the 'concert hall' (OK, fine game room/guest bedroom) rockin. Just knock before you come in -- I might have some groupies in there with me.

Please, Recompete

2007-11-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

We've got some serious issues with our property management company. Unfortunately, our Board decided that we're going to stick with them for at least another year. This despite the fact that there is wide-spread discontent with the antics of the property management company. (I know there were some compelling reasons to hold off on the recompete, but seriously ... )

Things got pretty interesting this weekend. Without any advance notice, we were advised that our garages are going to be power-washed, "effective immediately" and starting on Monday. A schedule, by level, with poorly written instructions followed. The notice finished with a disclaimer that all cars will be towed -- at the owner's expense -- if they are not removed prior to the power washing, and that the Association is not responsible for any damages.

Never mind that Monday was a Holiday. Never mind that many people had already left for a long weekend. Never mind that there aren't enough guest spaces to accommodate 5% of the cars on any given parking deck. Never mind they knew about this for 2 weeks prior to the event. We won't even talk about how ridiculous it is to clean a garage right before all the salt and grime of winter is going to start accumulating. And, finally, never mind that the Board was never asked for approval of this project.

There are going to be some seriously pissed off residents/owners when they discover their cars are missing from their assigned parking spots. Hopefully, this will be the last nail in our property management's coffin, because they are getting seriously out-of-hand. Someone needs to remind them that they are not running an apartment complex, so heavy-handed mandates from on high are not acceptable. They need to be reminded that while they exist to manage the complex and to a certain extent enforce our by-laws, at the end of the day, they work at our discretion. As far as I'm concerned, these people are going to find themselves out of a job.

Grab Bag

2007-11-08T15:33:00.000-05:00

In the frenzy of the last few weeks, many things that I wanted to post about escaped my attention. So to make things easier, here's a bulleted list. That's

folks, cause that's how I HTML.

Taxi Drivers throwing a hissy fit: The area taxistas have been all bent out of shape about a proposed plan to do away with the crazy-as-hell 'zone' system in favor of the never-before-heard-of meters. Pro: no more getting ripped off by dishonest taxi drivers. Con: people who rely on taxis to get places would end up paying more. Personally, I think a hybrid system could work well. Give customers the choice of using the meter vs. the zone system when they enter the cab.
Pilot Project: Within a few days I hope to bring the Emergency Douche-cast System live.
Crazy Lady On Metro: Nothing says all primped up for a job interview like wearing a business skirt-suit set 2 sizes too small, and grabbing the waistband of your pantyhose from the outside of your skirt and hiking them up and letting the elastic snap satisfyingly. All in plain view of everyone on the metro. Repeatedly. I'm still not sure what the walking backwards out of the train and on the platform in high heels was all about. However, and I say this in all sincerity, I hope you're OK, and that you got the job.
Visitation By The Unnamed
Clean House 2007: Sunday was super-hyper cleaning Robobo-Gobobo CLEAN! day. Clean House: Let me showz you it.

I'm thinking I need to go out and do something exciting this weekend. There's only so much of sitting on the couch doped up on Vicodin and muscle relaxants drooling on myself that I can take. I'm gonna take this show on the road.

Nothing New of Note

2007-11-08T15:18:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not dead, in hiding, suffering from a disfiguring skin disease or anything remotely like that. But the project that ate my life 2007 edition, is almost over. My portion is complete, and it has entered the testing phase. Within the week, the website redesign should go live. It's kind of cool because I'll have something 'concrete' to point at and say "I did that." Of course, I now have a new massive project. Which also involves HTML, CSS and all that fun web stuff. So, it looks like I'll still be dreaming in HTML code for at least a few more weeks.

Outside of work, I'm happy to report that we have done away with Fall entirely out here. We moved from the hot and humid 85 degree weather of Extended-Summer-In-October directly to the 45-50 degree I-Hope-You-Own-A-Parka-Early-Onset-Winter. Two weeks ago, lows were in the mid-to-high 60's, now it's about 37. Granted, I love wintertime ... but I like Fall better, and I'm a little annoyed it didn't really happen this year. On the positive side, this means I get to wear my new red hoodie sooner than expected.

Unexpected Bounty

2007-11-08T15:13:00.000-05:00

To make a very long story short: I was perusing the company intranet calender yesterday, and I discovered we now get Veteran's Day as a paid holiday. Granted, that means we lose our 'floating' holiday -- but I usually forgot to take that anyway. I am so looking forward to this unexpected 3-day weekend!

Redux > Redux > The Final Verdict

2007-10-24T16:46:00.000-04:00

I had the honor of going to the PT people on Monday for a follow-up visit about my Cylon neck. I met with the PA and she was really on the ball. I could tell that she had really reviewed my case file. We talked about the specifics of my case; she poked and prodded me to see if she could cause me any pain [she could]; she had me move my neck around and around and around.

The good news is all the deep-tissue and bone issues appear to be resolved. This means that the pain I'm experiencing isn't because of a problem here. The PA did note that I'm still having a fair amount of problems with the muscles around my neck and left shoulder. She said that's perfectly normal at this phase of the recovery. To combat the muscle spams and tightness in my neck she sent me home with 90 Flexeril and 90 Vicodin. Narcotics: Let me show you them. I don't need to schedule another follow up, and unless I'm still in a lot of pain 2-3 months from now, I'm completely done. So, pop some pain killers with me and toast to my almost completed recovery!

Busy, Busy. We Must Be Busy

2007-10-24T16:37:00.000-04:00

The dearth of posting is directly proportional to the amount of busy at work. I've been working a lot lately. We're in the middle of a website redesign and I've been tapped as the Constructomatic. I've even been dreaming in HTML code and CSS style sheets. Fortunately, I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel. All the major construction has been completed; we should be entering the fixing minor coding problems, editing content and making sure graphic elements are displaying where they should be very soon.

I spent most of this week entering data into the database that's going to back-end the search feature on the web site. This was a pretty tedious exercise, but it also gave me the chance to spot several problems with the new site. Looks like I'll be doing more work at home this weekend.

Lest it sound like I complain too much, I really enjoy this project. It's been challenging, and I've learned many new skills. I've also had many of my opinions listened to and favorably added into the redesign. So, while I'm tired, busy and have no social life -- I'm actually kind of happy and content.

Memory Lane

2007-10-17T14:52:00.000-04:00

I don't remember much about 3rd grade. Most of my memories are rather vague; I remember being really happy that I had Mrs. Hellman because she was the super-cool teacher that everyone wanted to have. I vaguely remember some lesson about candy that involved us making red lollipops. And for some odd reason, I also remember that I did really well in the spelling bee, but I lost because I couldn't spell 'palomino'.

However, there are 2 very distinct memories that I have. The first happened during a story-lesson. We were all sitting on the floor kind of like a 20 kid pile up. A girl that lived a few blocks away from me was sitting in front of me. I noticed that she had just gotten her hair braided, complete with the hairbeads that were everywhere in the 80's. My 8 year-old mind was fascinated by this, so I reached out to touch her hair -- just to see what it felt like. Predictably, Christy wasn't happy about this and screamed "He touched my hair!" I was really super embarrassed. Mrs. Hellman said something along the lines of well your hair is different, and he was just curious about it. No harm, no foul. I didn't get in any trouble, but Christy was very upset. I wanted to apologize, but I really didn't understand what was going on. Since I saw Christy after school many days and played with her, things got sorted out.

My second memory is about month later during the ever popular snack time. We'd sit around the tables, and eat whatever snack our parents had packed for us. The class rich-bitch bully had decided that she and her posse were going to sit across from me. Betsy kept taunting and daring me to touch her Little Debbie StarCrunch. Mostly because she knew that we didn't really have the money to spend on snacks like that. After about listening to her for 5 minutes, I had enough of her and her stupid StarCrunch. Figuring that I'd gotten away with touching something I shouldn't have touched before, I jabbed my finger at the StarCrunch.

Betsy started crying. Mrs. Hellman treated me like the 3rd grade version of the AntiChrist. I tried to explain what happened, but I got read the riot act, was made to publicly apologize and I had to bring a whole box of StarCrunches to class the next day and give them to Betsy. Properly chastened, I came to school the next day and gave Betsy her demon treats. She responded that she didn't really want them and she just wanted to see if I'd actually touch her damn food.

Confused by the conflicting messages Mrs. Hellman sent out, I decided it was best not to touch anything that was not mine or physically attached to my body. But I couldn't help but realizing: It's apparently OK to touch the equally-as-poor-as-me black girl's hair, but it's NOT OK to touch the rich, white, blonde girl's snack. Growing up at the lower end of the middle class in a very rich suburb made me accutely aware of all the things I didn't have at a very early age. But without even realizing what she had done Mrs. Hellman had taught me something about how society in this very rich suburb worked: Rich White Girl > Poor White Boy > Poor Black Girl. Fortunately, that equation never took for me.

Christy and I remained friends until my family moved across town when I was 15. Betsy got steadily more stuck up and nastier as the years progressed. The last time I ever saw her was at the end of 6th grade. From what I heard, she was one of those popular rich tyrants in high school. Which of course means that everyone hated her.

Gettin' Jiggy With With

2007-10-11T16:38:00.000-04:00

As Roxy and I were riding the elevator up to the Condo last night, it stopped on G1. A very nice Russian (or from one the former Soviet --stans) lady got in the elevator with us. We started talking about Roxy (*wag**wag**wag*), and what a pretty girl she is (*wag,wag,wag,wag,wag,wag*), and how social and full of energy she is (*tailexplodes*).

Now, I was a little unsure what this lady was doing in the elevator with us, because I told her that the elevator was going up and she clearly stated that she needed to go down. As we exited on our floor, a man entered the still up-bound elevator. As I was putting my key into the door I heard the following conversation between the Russistani and the Guy.

Russistani: OH! This elevator is going up?
Guy: Yeah.
Russistani: Oh, OK. I'll ride you.

Here's a little tip for you nice Russistani woman: Prepositions like "with" are not really optional in English. Because, I'm sure you really didn't mean what you said. But, it was funny and the highlight of my day.

New Links

2007-10-09T16:40:00.001-04:00

Ashamedly, I have to admit that I'm a big fan of the LOLcat meme that's been going around for the last 2 billion years.

I can haz cheezbergur? No, not yourz, kitteh.

But now I've discovered 2 new sites that make me happy:

Stuff On My Mutt (for the dog lovers) and
Stuff On My Cat (for those that love the pouncing hairball factories.)

Enjoy.

AJ & Ebert

2007-10-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

I hauled the Major and Princess HotMuffin to the movies on Saturday. Unfortunately for all of us, I took us to see The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. Now, this should have been a totally awesome, crap your pants, squeal with delight movie. It's based on one of my all time favorite novels, The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper. I read this book when I was around 10 and it's stayed with me throughout the years.

I went into the movie with an open mind. The idea was to accept the movie for what it was and not compare it to the book. Normally, this would be a good strategy, but they should have really put a disclaimer on the movie: This movie is VERY loosely based on Susan Cooper's novel, and by loosely we mean almost not at all.

About the only things that remain from Susan Cooper's wonderful book are character and place names, the search for the signs, and the general Light vs. Dark theme. This movie is so different from the book, it could be qualified as an entirely different story. Kind of like fanfic written by 12 year old with a penchant for fire and explosions. With that in mind, I have to say that the movie is your typical, Hollywood-style pablum for the masses. There are plot holes big enough for the old Star Jones to fit through. There is little to no explanation of why Will Stanton needs to search for the Signs -- or indeed what each Sign is. Will's supposedly got a bevy of powers at his command, but the only thing he really does with them is set stuff on fire -- torches, cars, trees. For some reason Will travels through time, and ends up in a 17th century cockfight, a Viking invasion, and a church infested with snakes (apparently, St. Patrick hadn't been there yet.) The dialogue is craptacular, character development is non-existent and I just don't buy Francis Conroy as an rapier-wielding ass-kicker. (Just where did she pull that epee from anyway?)

But my main problem with this movie is that the book provided such excellent source material there should have been no reason for it to turn out like Britney's new hit. I honestly get updating the story and adapting scenes so they work well on the screen. But if you're going to throw almost the entire original story out, why even bother making the movie? Bottom line: if you haven't read the book you'll probably enjoy this as a rental. If you have read the book, skip it or you'll rage and start blowing up cars just like Will in this movie.

Weekend Update

2007-10-02T15:46:00.000-04:00

I would love to say that I had a super-hyper-productive-monkey-force-go! weekend, but it was pretty lazy.

Friday I headed out to Thaiphoon (lame name, great food) with a couple of friends. This is a good thing. Thaiphoon is one of my favorite restaurants -- the cashew chicken is superb. It also doesn't hurt that it's located next to the Pentagon City Mall Super Complex Of Fun Shopping. I broke my rule about going into a GameStop, but surprise I couldn't find the game I was looking for.

Saturday was more of the same. Princess HotMuffin came up to visit me, and I'm happy to report that she's completely over her many illnesses. We had planned to go to several stores and run some errands, but we got as far as AC Moore and decided we were too tired. We went back home, ordered Chinese food and watched Dr. Who on DVR. (The muffin claims that Dr. Who is Dr. Who-ier at my place.) I did 'come alive' around 10 and did some chores around the place, but that was short lived. By 10:45 I was in bed watching Bones Season 2.

I managed to be a bit more productive on Sunday -- a few loads of laundry, got several errands run, took out the trash. I also got a new quilt. It's green. And plaid. And I love it. The best part is that it's lightweight, so the Major can't complain that it's too hot. He's happy sleeping with nothing but the sheet in -10 degree weather. I like a nice comforter in 70 degree weather. This should solve that problem. Other than the insomnia on Sunday night, I had a very restful and relaxing weekend.

Conundrum

2007-09-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

It went down like this:

Last weekend an upstairs neighbor came down, and pseudo-introduced himself. But he wasn't coming down to borrow milk or a cup of sugar. Instead, it was a more of a diatribe barely staying on this side of civility. He asked me if I smoked and I responded in the affirmative. He then went on a tear about how the smoke wafts up to his unit, and he hates the smell, and his wife is pregnant, and the moon is going to fall from the sky and kill all the cute ducks in the pond. Not really. He did demand that I no longer smoke on my balcony and go somewhere else. I looked at him and said "whatever. It's nice to meet you." and closed the door.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm very conscious of the smell of smoke and I try my best to minimize the smell and smoke to others around me. I try to be very considerate. However, this asshole is the same neighbor that I caught spitting and throwing water on Roxy from his balcony. We've also found nails and some weird jello-like substance on the balcony. Somehow, I can't seem to make myself care about this idiot when he's terrorized my dog. Also the Major and I own the place. How dare he tell me what I can and can not do on my own property?!?

Now I understand that one gets into a tricky spot with issues like this. He should be able to keep his windows open and enjoy the fresh air if he choses. Just like I should be able to smoke on my balcony if I so desire. Personally, I hate the smell of smoke (cigarettes and cigars), but if the windows are open and our nextdoor neighbors are out on their patio smoking a few cigars, I close my windows or I deal with the smell. I realize that living in a multi-unit structure means there are somethings you just have to put up with.

Anyway, this guy was so much of an asshole, the Major -- who has been screaming loudly for ages that I need to quit -- told me "you should go out on the balcony and smoke a whole pack right now."

It's Official: The Bitch Is Mine

2007-09-27T16:11:00.000-04:00

Shortly after the Major and I moved into Condoland, we decided it was finally time to get a dog. The idea was that since I 'picked' the cat, he would be the one that got to 'pick' the dog. (Anyone who's ever adopted an animal from a shelter knows that you don't choose the animal, the animal chooses you.) The Major's reasoning was that he wanted the dog to be primarily bonded to him, much like Bosco bonded to me.

But there was a flaw in his cunning plan: we adopted Roxy when the Major was better known as the Hobblenatrix. (This is a another story in and of itself, but the long and short is that he had a broken ankle.) For the first 2-3 months, I was the one that played with the dog, walked her, potty trained her, and taught her other commands. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. Just come over to our house and watch what happens when we let Roxy out of her crate. She'll make a bee-line straight for me and ignore everyone else. Eventually, she'll notice the other people, greet them and play with them. Eventually.

Roxy declared her allegiance openly and officially last night. When I fell asleep last night, Roxy was sleeping in her crate and the Major was preparing to sleep in the guest bedroom. (He's not in the doghouse, he's sick and didn't want to spread the love.) Around 4 in the morning, I tried to roll over, but there was something pressing against the back of my head and shoulder. I thought it must be a pillow because I was only about 1 foot from the edge of the bed. I soon realized that it was Roxy. She had balled herself up as small as she could make herself and wedged herself between the edge of the bed and my head so she could be as close to me as possible. As I was processing this information, she gave me the "it's not time to get up yet Dad what are you doing" look. I slid over to the other side of the bed, and Roxy spread out a little bit -- just enough so that some part of her was still touching me. She could have slept on the empty half of the bed, or on the empty half of the bed with the Major in the guest bedroom. Instead, she decided she wanted to sleep more-or-less on top of my head. Sorry Majorica, this is Brandi -- the dog is mine.

Offroading

2007-09-24T14:44:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been a little incognito of late. I had a touch of the flu earlier in the month. Then my neck really flared up and I had to get all my meds refilled. (And I was doing so well, and not taking any painkillers at all. le sigh). And to round out the triple play, I came down with a severe chest cold that was probably bronchitis.

Also, I've been working on some RL projects that have been absorbing a lot of my time. Way back when I was just a tiny AJ, my grandfather taught me the joys of cross-stitch. Everytime I'd go over to their house he was working on some piece, and it intrigued me. He won many awards at fairs for his works. I've kept with it over the years because it reminds me of him, and it's also one of the few 'arty' things I can do. I didn't get the drawing/painting gene that my grandmother seems to have. And I only got a moderate dose of the musical gene. That being said, I've been working on some Christmas presents -- hopefully, I'll finish them before December 25.

Finally, I've rediscovered the joys of Tad Williams' series Otherland. I'd forgotten how much I loved these books when they came out. So, I've been reading them. Oh, and I finally rounded up Bones Season 2 on DVD ... so I've been watching that.

Tricksy Sneaky

2007-09-13T13:05:00.001-04:00

You've really got to keep an eye on those hurriwhos these days. For what seems like the billionth time this season, I've went to sleep and woken up to discover that a small tropical depression has marshalled it's forces and become a hurricane. Of course, this pleases me because I'm all about the edutainment. But it's also a bit scary that storms are intensifying this rapidly. I'm sure if hurricane Hermione or whatever the H-named storm is hadn't been so close to shore, it would have gotten stronger.

I am waiting patiently for depression #8 to form into a nameable storm. Because then we'll be that much close to seeing my namesake becoming a hurricane. Granted, for those of you that know my real name, the name will be misspelled ... but I can deal with that. I'm hoping it becomes a massive nasty evil storm that takes out everything from South Carolina to Mississippi.

The Art of Being Ridiculous

2007-09-13T12:45:00.000-04:00

It looks like there are some people out there who don't understand the definition of hate speech. Apparently, the concept of satirizing/mocking all those people who give their award speeches and thank God and Jesus now qualifies as hate speech. At least in the eyes of people who think Kathy Griffin shouldn't have said the things she did.

Personally, I think it was funny. I've often watched award shows and thought to myself why are all these people thanking God. It's not like the majority of them go to church or are particularly devout in their faith. It just seems like that's what you say when you win an award. Much like complimenting all the others who were nominated in your category and didn't win. Puh-lease. You know if you win the award you're thinking "I'm the best, that's right bitches" and if you lost you're thinking "damn, how did that no-talent heifer beat me."

I'm also angry that people would equate Kathy's words with hate speech, because they just don't get it. When you hear "homos are evil" and "you'll burn in hell" and "all fags should die" on a daily basis, you kind of get a good idea of what hate speech is -- and what it isn't. Kathy didn't hate anyone, she just made fun of a perceived hypocritical behavior. I think these idiots just need to get over themselves. Kathy's words would have been nothing more than a flash in the pan, but now that they've been highlighted it's sure that everyone is going to know about it.

She's Bringing Sexy Crack

2007-09-10T18:13:00.000-04:00

AJ and friends went misadventuring this weekend. The 'Malator and her friend Ashley wanted to go out dancing. I rounded up the Major and we went and got our tipple on. At the club, we caught the tail end of a drag show. There was one performer that was working the place for all she was worth as Patti LaBelle. She even went down on the floor and imitated speaking in tongues. I guess this was a gospel song. The other performer we saw didn't check herself before she wrecked herself. I vaguely recall some home-made mix of songs she cobbled together (P!nk, Sweet Dreams (original & remix), etc.). She also looked like turkey crossbred with a potbellied pig who then decided to wear a spangled catsuit and a hat with a giant orange feather. It was not hot.

Then the dancing began. By the 3rd song (P!nk -- U + UR hand), Ashley christened herself with a new hot dance move that really shound only be performed by professionals. That's right ... Ashley became Assley. A little bump-n-grind to the floor resulted in a very torn pair of pants. Right up the crack, whole left cheek hanging out, because Assley was rocking the commando look that night. After a little panic, the Major came up with a solution. He lent Ass his boxer briefs, and the party resumed. Good old Assley didn't mind the the rip, so much as she minded her bare butt hanging out. So once she was decently covered it was game on!

I even got to use my powers for good. Some random guy grabbed Ashley from behind while she was dancing and she politely asked him not to touch her. He got really embarrassed and responded with a death threat. I took it to the next level and went and rounded up the manager on duty -- who I've known for many years. Skeezy dude got chucked from the club just like that.

All in all we had an awesome evening. And as much as I just made fun of Ashley, she's one of my all time favoritest people in the world. I don't get to see her that often, so this was a great treat. Ass and all.

Beware! The Killer Fans Are Here

2007-09-05T13:08:00.000-04:00

I was trolling the internet the other day when I came across this little bit of joy. Who knew that we've all tried to commit suicide at one point or another? Who knew that the killer fans are among us, ready to do us all in so they can inherit the Earth? This reminds me of the Maya end-of-days mythology. All of man's tools will rise up against him and kill him. Discovery even had a special about it with cheesy re-enactments. Mom got taken out by the renegade waffle iron. Sister went up in a blaze of glory from the blender. Little brother was mauled by the Christmas tree, and Dad was killed by the paper shredder. No one expects the Korean Fan!

Crime Trifecta

2007-09-05T01:16:00.000-04:00

My sister and family need all the well-wishes that they can get. On Saturday, their house (which they bought about 1.5 years ago) was burgled. The theives made off with their TVs, jewlery, some cash and many other valuables. To add insult to injury, the lowlives poured some type of acclerant all over their house and then set the whole place on fire. Then as one last parting gift, they found the spare keys to my sister's car, stole it, drove off, dumped the car somewhere in the greater Toledo area and then set the car on fire.

Burglary, Arson, Grand Theft Auto.

Unfortunately, the car is completely destroyed. Fortunately, the acclerant burnt itself out and only caused smoke and soot damage to their house. Unfortunately, almost everything in the house -- appliances, furniture, clothing, carpets, mattresses -- is unuseable. Fortunately, their cat escaped the house, and no one was hurt.

Also in the plus column, the insurance adjuster has already been out to their house. They've been given money to buy new clothes and their insurance has already approved a cleaning company. They'll be on site starting tomorrow. It also looks like they're going to be able to replace everything that was lost/stolen from their house.

I wish my sister and her family nothing but the best. These next 3 months or so are going to be very difficult for them as they get their lives and their house back in order. My parents are watching my 1 year-old niece while all this gets cleaned up. All my love and concern go out to them. And any other help I can humanly provide.

Three-day, Free-day

2007-09-04T12:04:00.000-04:00

It was a very busy, if not relaxing, holiday weekend chez Condo. All I really wanted was to spend some time doing absolutely nothing. Somehow, we were on the go all weekend long. I’m conflicted because I enjoyed everything we did, but I do wish that I would have had a bit more time to just chill and do nothing.

Saturday we spend the first part of the day giving the place a much needed cleaning. It was one of those thorough cleanings where you move furniture that you normally don’t move. Six hours and seven bags of trash later we were finished. We then called up some friends – including a friend we usually don’t to too much with – and headed to Micro Center so Le Major could browse all the techie stuff. Then it was off to a wonderful Japanese place for a nice dinner. Conversation and food flowed and all were happy.

Sunday was a little lazier. We took Roxy over to the park for a cookout with our next-door neighbors. We had a good time socializing and Roxy met some new dogs. Five hours in the sun was enough to tire Roxy and I out. I did catch part of an interesting documentary about what would happen if a super comet smashed into Earth. In case you’re wondering, just about everyone and everything dies.
Monday we went out to the National Air and Space Museum with our friend the ‘Malator. We saw many planes. I’m not all that into aviation, so the place lost appeal after awhile. The Major and The ‘Matalor had a great time though. We got back to the house, ordered pizza and watched TV that will rot your brain. Oh, and I did about 4 loads of laundry.

2007-08-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

Because I couldn't seem to motivate myself this week, I get to take work home this weekend. It like totally blows chunks, Heather, that I have to spend time working at home. On the positive side, it's something I actually enjoy doing.

Granted, I probably don't have to this. However, I want to be able to surprise the bossman when he gets back from vacation on Monday with a fully completed project. So while you're all out there enjoying the 110 degree weather (what's up with that anyway? From 75 to 110 in 2 days?!) think of me sitting at home building a website from the ground up. And cursing at my laptop because I can't get the HTML or Javascript to work the way I want.

Tagged and Bagged

2007-08-22T12:01:00.000-04:00

Pisco has tagged me. The mission, should I choose to accept it is to list the joys and trials of my belief system. I don't really have a cohesive belief system; it's actually more of a nebulous intersection of many ideas that I've run across in my life. I was raised as a Methodist, gave that up and have since explored ideas from New Age religions, Paganism, and religious philosophers like Eliade and Freud. (Yes, Freud did write at least 1 book on the nature of religion.) In sum, I'd qualify myself as an Optimistic New Age Agnostic (with Atheistic leanings).

Rules
1. You have to use your own belief system for the meme. No fair using someone else’s to make a joke or satire. Being humorous about your own religion is encouraged!

2. You have to have at least one joy and one trial. More are encouraged. And no, they don’t have to be equal in length, but please be honest.

3. You have to tag at least one other person. More are appreciated!

4. Please post these rules!

Joys
1. I can be as much of a magpie as I want. Any idea/belief that I come across that dovetails nicely with my belief system can be incorporated and adopted.

2. My beliefs are constantly evolving. I don't feel tied to any particular belief, because I know that at any given moment I could be proved wrong, or find a new way of understanding something.

3. Each person is divine. We all have the spark of the Infinite within us.

4. No monolithic organization telling me what to think/do/act breathing down my back.

5. Rejection of the idea that humans are inherently flawed and sinful beings and should spend their whole lives atoning for this. I'm not perfect, but I strive to be the best person I can be. If I make a mistake, I learn from it and move on.

6. Karma.

Trials

1. Not having anyone else who shares my exact belief system. I do miss the sense of community from my Methodist days.

2. Having to explain the difference between agnosticism and atheism. For some reason people think the 2 words are equivalent.

3. Tolerating people's disbelief and ridicule when I state I believe in ideas like karma, reincarnation. Also having to convince them that I'm perfectly happy not being a hard-core Christian/Muslim/Jew/whatever.

4. What if I'm wrong? I like to think that if there's a God s/he'll be forgiving of my skepticism and realize that I've strived to be the best person I could be. But there's that old-school Old Testament indoctrinization in the back of my head that goes off and says "what if God really is that vengeful."

5. Karma.

I'm tagging the Scorpio(s) to play this game.

Monster

2007-08-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

Have you seen the latest satellite images of Hurricane Dean? That thing is gigantic! I'm don't know the exact measurements of the Yucatan (and I'm too lazy to go look them up). I can say that I've lived in the Yucatan. I know firsthand that it takes a LONG time to drive from Merida to Cancun -- about 7 hours at roughly 60 mph. My point being that the Yucatan is big. And Hurricane Dean is more than covering the entire landmass of the Yucatan. This storm is going to tear that place up.

Fashion Faux Pas

2007-08-21T10:17:00.000-04:00

I spent most of my weekend hanging out with my friend Joy. (Except for Sunday when I retrieved the Majordomo from the airport. He was kind of whiny, but we can't hold that against him because he did have a very long week. And a long flight.)

Anywho, Joy and I found ourselves at the DSW, which probably wasn't too smart of an idea, because we both have little self-control when it comes to shoe shopping. I didn't spend too much and I walked out with 2 pairs of shoes. Later in the evening, I took a pair of the shoes out and I noticed that the leather where the eyelets for the shoelaces are were 2 different colors. Closer examination revealed they were also 2 different leathers: suede and hard leather.

I went back to DSW the next day to exchange the shoes for a matching pair. The cashier was very pleasant and let me do the exchange no problems. The interesting part of the experience happened when the cashier called her manager over to ask what should be done with the mismatched shoes.

Manager: Oh, this is really just a fashion thing. Put them back out on the shelf.
Me: [staring incredulously at manager] Are you kidding? Those are 2 different shoes!! There's 2 different types of leather on those shoes -- one's suede and the other's dark leather.
Manager: I was just kidding, couldn't you tell?
Me: No.
Manager: Well I can see why this would bother you. Maybe after a few drinks out on the town you'd look down at your shoes and be all like 'hey, these don't match.'

At this point I just stopped talking to her altogether. The exchange finished, I walked out of the store. I get that she was trying to be funny after a what we'll generously call a failed joke. And I wasn't drunk when I noticed the problem, nor had I worn the shoes at all. You can bet from now on I'll thoroughly examine shoes from now on. Because you know the minute I left the store, the manager put those shoes back out on the shelf.

Double Swirl Fun

2007-08-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

I was seriously beginning to think that my edutainment was going to suffer this year. But then out of nowhere, the Atlantic kicked it into high gear. We've currently got Tropical Storm Dean (soon to be Hurricane Dean) playing out near some islands. It may even make landfall in the States. Then as a bonus, out of nowhere, Tropical Strom Erin just popped up in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, Erin's aiming to take out parts of Texas.

I was making due with the antics of Hurricane Flossie -- who has been downgraded, but is still intent on causing some damage to Hawaii. It's just not the same when they're over there in the Pacific. I like my storms to be from the cold, nasty waters of the Atlantic. And now there's 2! Hooray for edutainment!!

Oh, and why is it that any time the media reports on a hurricane said hurricane is 'swirling' towards something? They always 'swirl,' although sometimes they do 'churn.' I think someone needs to send the AP a thesaurus.

They're coming

2007-08-14T16:34:00.001-04:00

I know I promised a few weeks back, that I'd post some pictures of the fur-childrens' slumber party. I was actually going to do it this week. That was until the Major galivanted off to Europe and the Middle East with the camera. (Did I mention I'm a lazy punk and I hadn't offloaded any of the pictures yet?) If it's any consolation, the Major hied off with the camera without taking the charger. And he discovered the battery is pretty much dead. So be patient my little treats, and I'll post pictures of the demonspawn when the camera gets back.

xoxo

The All-Spark's A Dud

2007-08-14T16:07:00.000-04:00

The Transformers movie was half a hot mess. I finally got around to seeing it this past weekend with a friend. We laughed at the 'Satan's Camaro is chasing me' line. There were a number of other really funny lines. Parts of the movie really worked well and were very entertaining.

But somewhere, somehow, the whole movie just fell apart. It wasn't until the credits were rolling that I realized that the movie was much less than met the eye. It wasn't quite blowbots in disguise, but it comes awfully close. I can't quite pin down what went wrong. I do know I didn't like any of the robot models, and the CGI was a whole hot mess. That's not to say the CGI was poorly done. It wasn't. It was poorly executed. When any of the transformers transform, you're left staring at the screen having no clue what you just witnessed. Is that a robot arm? Maybe it's a robot leg? Robot heart? Hole should have wrote a song for this. And I'm seriously annoyed that Bumblebee's head and torso look more like Johnny-5 than a supercool Camaro.

I had such high hopes for this movie. The Transformers were one of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid. I had many of the action figures. (I loved the ones that you combined to form a bigger, badder robot.) I left the theater somewhat disappointed, because it had the potential to be better than it was. I think it would have been easier leave outright hating the movie.

PS. Jon Voigt looks like a bag of moldy suet in the movie. Who left his face out in the rain and let it get all melty?

Disaster Planning

2007-08-14T16:02:00.000-04:00

Without getting into all the boring details, someone’s been acting like a spoiled princess at work. It’s run the gamut from making assumptions, to failing to specify exact details, to miscalculating dates, and ending with a series of spiteful e-mails. The net result has been an exceptionally crappy start of the week for me.

I’ve already had to bring the smack down twice. And that’s never pretty. Especially when all I need to do is outline the facts, and someone ends up looking like a total idiot. I’d be inclined to be gentler if someone hadn’t cc-ed half the company on the crazy. Here’s to hoping tomorrow’s quieter, because I’d actually like to get some work done this week.

Because I'm Shameless ...

2007-08-09T16:17:00.000-04:00

... I ganked this from Pisco.

And your Harry Potter Alter-Ego Is?

You scored as Remus Lupin, You are a wise and caring wizard and a good, loyal friend to boot. However sometimes in an effort to be liked by others you can let things slide by, which ordinarily you would protest about.

Hermione Granger

80%

Sirius Black

80%

Remus Lupin

80%

Harry Potter

70%

Albus Dumbledore

70%

Ginny Weasley

65%

Ron Weasley

60%

Severus Snape

60%

Draco Malfoy

50%

Lord Voldemort

10%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

Call for Cards

2007-08-09T15:54:00.000-04:00

My friend Princess Hot Muffin is having a very bad week. A very bad last 2 weeks, to be more exact. Her Hot Muffinness was supposed to come up and hang out with AJ, but she called to let me know she wasn’t feeling well. Mz. Muffin went to the doctor and came back home the proud owner of (1) a vicious sinus infection and (2) a rockin’ case of pink eye.

Apparently, this wasn’t enough for our Royal Muffin. In a bizarre mouth-burning incident (that may or may not have involved hot pizza), a third friend has invited itself to the party – Shingles. So, everyone should send Princess Hot Muffin their love and well-wishes for a speedy recovery.

PS. I would have mentioned that Mme. Muffin was helping me steam clean my carpet, but then this whole post would have came across as some type of coded lesbian porno.

And Yet I Still Live

2007-08-06T10:56:00.000-04:00

Last week was heinous. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, I had worked 56 hours. I'm still not in any condition to physically handle that much work, so I was combating physical exhaustion all last week. Predictably, I got a good nap in Saturday afternoon and slept pretty much all day on Sunday.

For the most part, last week's meeting was a success, and there was very litte friction amongst the participants. On the other hand, I had huge handfuls of nasty dumped in my lap while I was trying to make sure the logistics for this meeting came off without a glitch. There is only one real job function I have that I truly hate, and the powers-that-be decided that I would be spending the better part of last week doing that.

On top of having a bunch of people in the office and dealing with the Task-I-Hate-More-Than-Anything, I was informed that my timesheets have been reviewed back to my start date in 2002 to get an accurate picture of how much vacation/sick time I have or don't have. This is apparently what the company does when one has to take leave due to a serious illness and/or surgery. It's going to be a hot mess, and I'm less than pleased about it.

Anyway, that's where I was last week. This week isn't looking too much better. Something about an arbitrary deadline being moved to the end of the week.

Fuzz Overload

2007-07-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

Watch this space for some pictures. We're dog sitting our friend Joy's Shih-tzu this weekend. Roxy and Ginger are great pals, so we're going to have to take pictures of the cute-overkill that's going to be going on at our place this weekend.

Function In Progress

2007-07-27T14:19:00.000-04:00

Gamestop is now officially on my list. They were previously just 'on notice,' but they've been upgraded. Or would that be downgraded? Semantics, I suppose.

I was out running errands the other day and I walked into my local Gamestop (Bailey's X-roads for anyone's who's interested). The salesperson said hi to me when I entered and that's the only thing he said to me for the 15 minutes I was in the store. I tried to find the game I was looking for on the wall, but the place was such a mess I couldn't be sure that they didn't really have the game. I walked up to the counter to ask the salesperson about said game -- he was in the middle of an exchange. While I waited, a little rug rat ran up and started talking to him then ran off. Also, the salesperson's friend walked in and they started having a little powwow about how he wasn't going to work open-to-close tomorrow, and complaining about work in general. He finally finishes the return, the crazy rugrat runs back up cutting in front of the now 5 people waiting in line (I'm at the head of this line). The salesperson finds the other person working and tells him to man the register because he's going outside to hangout with his friend for awhile and then walks out. (I didn't even know there was another salesperson in the place because this guy looked like he was shopping for games.) Finally it turns out that his 'friend' is really the manager of another Gamestop in the area.

I was so fed up at this point, I just walked out of the store. I will not be shopping at a Gamestop ever again. It's really just the last in a long string of bad experiences I've had at Gamestop (notably, salespeople lying about release dates, lying about their available stock, trying to sell me damaged merchandise, trying to sell me used games as new games, and my favorite trying to scare me into pre-ordering a copy of a game with them because "you won't be able to find it anywhere else if you don't pre-order it with us.") From now on, I'll be buying all my games online or at Best Buy. I'll miss being able to pick up some used games on the cheap, but it's not worth it to me to do business with such a poorly run company.

In The Life

2007-07-27T14:12:00.000-04:00

Netflix delivered Another Gay Movie to our house yesterday. After watching Who Wants to Be A Superhero the Major slapped this little bit of raunch into the DVD player. It's a few parts American Pie meets a few parts Date Movie meets ... In other words, it's a gay take on all the popular movies and spoofs that are out there.

All I have to say is that if you ever meet Graham Norton dressed up as a Dom Top and he happens to be calling himself 'Rodzilla' -- you're going to want to tell him that you definately do not like Belgian Chocolate.

Lazy, Hazy Lay-in

2007-07-23T09:42:00.000-04:00

It was a very lazy weekend chez Condo this weekend. We didn't stir until at least 2, and we got lots of much needed rest and relaxation.

Friday night I went on an adventure to the Giant around 12:10 to buy allergy meds to combat the itchiness from the the percocet. While I was there I noticed I nice big pile of Harry Potter by customer service, so I helped myself to a copy. I am happy to report that it is an excellent book. Easily the best in the series. I may change my mind when I'm finished with the book. For now at the 200 page mark, I'm very pleased with it.

Saturday we took a trip down to the outlet malls. I picked up some new work clothes at the Ralph Lauren store, and they weren't too terribly expensive for once. Majorkins decided he wanted a palm tree while we were roaming Ikea, so we got one of those as well. We also spent a good deal of time at Best Buy. The Major bought a lot of stuff -- so I donated my $50 gift card to the war effort. And did you know that you can 'add memory' to Vista machine with a flash drive? I didn't, but I do now. My Vista laptop got a 2 GB boost to its memory thanks to the inventiveness of a certain special someone.

Sunday was pretty lazy too. We did manage to make it to a cook-out at a friend's place. We had a great time and it was nice to just relax and hang out with friends. And it helped that the food was really good. (Note to self: be sure to get invited to more parties at this place again.)

Given that we were so lazy this weekend, I'll have to do laundry sometime during the week. And get my car detailed. And get the oil changed. And get it washed. And I should probably clean the house too. I've let the Major's mess get completely out-of-hand.

Gen X for the win

2007-07-18T16:17:00.000-04:00

I was reading this article the other day about how the boss-men are all irritated with Gen X and Gen Y employees. Basically, we're the worst 2 generations of ungrateful brats that have ever graced the planet. We're lazy, we're disloyal, we feel entitled, we're too informal, we're disrespectful, we dress like slobs and they don't want to hire us. [I'd look the article up and link to it, but yeah, I just can't be bothered to do that.]

Beside the obvious comment that every generation has said this about the generation that comes after them, there is just so much wrong with this. I'm like totally fer sure that all Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers are exactly the same. We all belong to a great hive mind that tells us when, where and how to irritate our higher ups. I don't know about you, but I get that information beamed into my head every night when I'm sleeping.

The way I see it is, I'm not lazy (although I can be). I prefer to work smartly. I'm not going to put in a ton of hours in the office for no compensation. I'm of the work to live camp, and I have a life outside of the office. I'll admit that I'm not particularly loyal to any employer. That's becaue I know they're out to get the maximum amount of work out of me for the least amount of money. And when push comes to shove, they'll can me if it helps the bottom line. Why should I be loyal to a company that isn't going to be loyal to me?

Don't get me started on ties and formal office wear. Wearing 'nice' clothes does not affect my ability to do my job. The only time this comes into play is when one is dealing with clients and the expectation is that you look nice. I'll dress up for that -- but to sit in my office and mess around with HTML? I'm not getting all dressed up. Also, don't expect me to respect you just because you have a great title. I'll respect you when you've proven to me that you're worth being respected. I'll treat you politely, and I expect that you do the same to me .... but I'm not going to lick your boots because you're the Executive Vice-Assmunch of Development and Tossed Salads.

Basically, what it boils down to for me is that some people are really mad that on the whole Gen X and Y have completely rejected the established idea of how the workplace should be. We don't want to put up the crap our parents had to put up with, we've seen that there is a better way to do things. I don't want to spend the best years of my life slaving away for a company and sacrificing things and then when I've retired enjoy myself. I want to be able to enjoy my life now, and I want to be able to enjoy my job. Which means that I'm aware of how much I'm worth, and I'll jump ship the minute any sort of crazy comes down the pike. I'm not a bad worker, or afraid of hard work. There's just a limit to how much I'll actually tolerate.

Shelter In Place

2007-07-18T16:08:00.001-04:00

I am getting really sick of all the Harry Potter headlines all over the internet these days. Specifically, the headlines that say "ending leaked" or "entire text posted on BitTorrent" or "click here for spoilers" or "Who lives? Who dies?". Am I going to have to stay off the internet all together until after I finish reading this book?

I understand that some people just don't get the Harry Potter thing. I also understand that some people are just anti-social punks that like to ruin things for other people. But come on, these books have gotten pretty much the whole world to start reading again. Not to mention that J.K has made herself a very wealthy woman from the power of her imagination, and 10 years ago she was dirt poor and struggling. These idiots need to show some respect or I'm going to have to get a posse of people and go around clubbing punks in the crotch with the bristly end of an ice scraper.

Rollover

2007-07-16T16:07:00.000-04:00

Today's been a pretty good day. In no particular order:

--I purchased 3 new albums yesterday and I've been listening to them at work. So far, I like the Fey album the best.

-- I also downloaded a song from iTunes on Sunday which is now my new favorite song. It's "In These Shoes?" I heard it when I was watching Kinky Boots with the Major and really liked it, so I had to make it mine. And now it is mine. mine. mine. mine.

-- Neil apparently had a cheeseburger. He can has cheezebuger. Hope it was good Neil. LOLNeil is happy. I missed his IM because,

--I got free lunch at work today.

--And finally, my age is now divisible by 17 and 2. It was divisible by 11.

Pop Culture/English 101

2007-07-03T23:20:00.000-04:00

What makes a case of diarrhea epic? I would argue that it's when it starts off as a head cold, that becomes a chest cold that morphs into a pseudo-sinus infection and then takes on qualities of the flu before hitting your lower GI tract that keeps you running to the restroom every 15 to 45 minutes for 2 days. Neil says that it's only epic when it hits 3 walls. Which begs the question: whose aim is that bad?

Certainly, I've felt like Frodo going to battle Sauron in Mordor the last few days every time I've shamefully walked into the bathroom. And my stomach has most definately been Reloaded and has had it's fair share of Revolutions, but you could argue that The Matrix really isn't an epic. I've certainly spent enough time in the potty parlor to have watched or read all of Gone with the Wind. So, if it's not epic, what is it?

Maybe it's something along the lines of The Canterbury Tales, The Heptameron, or El Conde lucanor. You know framework stories where there's a new tale each time but the idiots are still basically doing the same thing. Maybe it's episodic like Don Quixote. Today we're tilting at windmills, tomorrow we're wearing a pot on our head, but we're still having that pesky problem with our ass.

Most likely, as I'm blogging about the fact I've been sick as a dog and living in the restroom it can be qualified as a postmodern saga. Beowulf meets The Devil Wears Prada -- although that's really more a bildungsroman. Anywho, I'm off to take some Immodium and vanquish Graendal.

Grow Up Already

2007-06-30T22:50:00.000-04:00

I don't know what Isaiah Washington's problem is, but I know he's not making things any better. Last week, it was all T. R. Knight's fault (mmm, yeeeeah. Let's blame the victim.) Or was it the gay mafia out to keep the black man down? I can't keep the crazy straight, so to speak.

Before that it was all the mean ABC's fault. I mean he did everything they wanted him to do so he could keep his job. Bzzzzz. Wrong. Thank you for playing. The correct response here should have been "I did everything in my power to show my regret and remorse over my actions." not "I did everything in my power to keep my job." As they say in crime, motive is a factor.

This week we finally get the racism card. The trump card that is supposed to excuse all bad behavior and make everyone in the U.S sympathetic to what he's went through. I'll be the first person in line to admit that black people in the U.S get a raw deal. Bigots abound, and life is probably 10 times harder than for a white person. However, this whole incident isn't really about race. People aren't scared of Isaiah because he's a tall, dark, non-submissive black man. People are scared of him because he's a crazy-ass pyscho that physically assaulted a coworker. Does he not realize how lucky he was that ABC let him finish out the year? Does he not realize how lucky he his that no law suits have been brought against him for attacking Patrick Dempsey? (Talk about creating a hostile work environment.)

I can't wait to see what the excuse is going to be next week. Maybe it will be flying pig-beasts from Mars. Or maybe body thetans. Yeah. I'm going with Scientologists for next week.

Walter Mercado Says ...

2007-06-29T23:31:00.000-04:00

I was checking my AOL mail this evening and came across this article on AOL. The main point of interest to me is

Cancer is usually sensitive, family and home oriented, helpful, and nurturing. These nesters need a great family room. Cancer wants everyone together, and perhaps the best idea is a basement remodel for the whole family: a game room/teen hangout/tv room/home office. Whatever best suits your family. No basement? This is a perfect home addition because everyone will want to gather in the new space. That's what it's all about.

Um, yeah. I'll get right on that. I'll let the people who park below our condo know they have to give up their parking spaces because us Cancers need a basement addition to be happy. My AOL astrologer told me so. While we're at it, I'll also need a conversation pit to keep someone else happy -- since we're already digging down there. I don't really know what a conversation pit is, but I assume since it contains the word pit it would have to be below the main living area.

Not Suitable For Underage Consumption

2007-06-28T21:17:00.000-04:00

Ganked, shamelessly from Jen's:

Mingle² - Online Dating

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

pain (7x) , gun (3x) , steal (2x) , gays (1x)

I first did this at work at it ranked my blog as NC-17 earlier this afternoon, but now at home I'm only an R. The word ranking is exactly the same. Personally, I liked the NC-17 rating better.

Confidential to 13

2007-06-28T21:10:00.000-04:00

Not to happy with the results I gave back to you, huh? Looks like you made some serious heavy duty mistakes, huh? So instead of looking into the mistakes I reported, your solution is to have me go back and double check my work?!!? Because you couldn't have possibly have made all those errors? What makes you think I wasn't thorough when I went through that train-wreck in the first place?

Confidential to x11

2007-06-28T20:59:00.000-04:00

Don't throw a hissy-fit just because I did exactly what you told me to do. It's not my fault that you don't remember the specifics -- I do because I wrote them down. [I wasn't trying to show you up when I pulled out the documentation to prove my point, I was merely demonstrating that I did exactly what was requested of me.] Additionally, it's not OK to change your mind about what you want after the fact in a lame attempt to make me look bad. Finally, don't act surprised when I throw a bit of attitude your way about your behavior. Seriously, who taught you it was acceptable to treat people this way?

Whipping Boy

2007-06-27T19:26:00.000-04:00

I don't know what I've done to offend people at work, but I am now the official office pariah. Nothing I do passes muster these days. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because I've been sticking up for myself lately. In the past, I'd just grin and bare it. Now, I call them on their shit. I think it really started when then neck went all WWE and busted itself and I decided to do whatever it took to take care of myself. The boss wanted me work PT around what was convenient for him, I decided that wasn't going to work and did what was in my best interest. I know he's royally roasted that I'm back at PT again -- he's made it clear he thinks PT is a waste of time. However, just because he's thrown his back out and refuses to see a doctor, doesn't mean I'm going to suffer the same way. I'm quite over living in pain, thank you very much.

They're also into this whole let's treat AJ as if he were a mental deficient thing. Now, I have my moments, but by no means am I stupid. If I don't understand what you're asking me to do, chances are the problem lays with how you explained it to me. My personal favorite this week was an argument over my timesheet. I don't remember what the hell I had for breakfast today, so I'm certainly not going to remember if I got to work at 8:40 or 8:50 last Monday. We're all salaried anyway, so it's not like it really matters. Also, despite the fact I've been asking, nay BEGGING for work, they haven't been giving me anything to do. So I fail to see how it really matters when exactly I arrive at work. Either way they're paying me to nothing. They may hate the fact that they I'm being paid to do nothing, but it's their own damn fault. To wit:

Of my own accord, I started reading some compnay documentation and one of our products so I could be of help down the line. When people saw what I was doing I was told that a) it was way too complex for me to ever be able to learn and b) it was a waste of my time and c) that I should stop immediately. I was a little amazed at this reaction, because I was sure that surfing the internet would qualify as a waste of my time, but apparently I was wrong.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was given a project a few weeks ago with a totally arbitary and unreasonable deadline that I was unable to meet. I couldn't meet the deadline because the project was riddled with errors and I had to stop every 2 minutes to document said errors. Yet somehow that equated to me sucking at my job.

I know this will get better when they get used to the idea of me standing up for myself, I just wish they would grow up already before I snap and go all Jerry Springer on them.

Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah

2007-06-22T22:29:00.000-04:00

I don't want to jinx myself, or bring any further bad luck raining down upon my head like firey thunderbolts from hell, but I think I'm finally in the clear.

The past 3 weeks have royally sucked here in AJ land. It started around Memorial Day with the first of 9 migraines. Four of them happened last week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.) Needless to say, I wasn't very amused. I got in to see the doctor and he's put me on a migraine preventative (topomax) and relpax in case I actually get a migraine. He also wants me to get a CT scan to make sure the E-Z-Bake AJ brain isn't cooking up any shrinky-dink tumors or anuerisms.

Outside of the pharmacy to pick up the Topomax, the [insert deity of your choice] delivered the knock-out punch. The crown on my right front tooth just up and broke off at the gum line -- as in it took the post it was attached to. I spent about 12 hours looking like something off of Hee-Haw before the good dentists managed to fix me up. My dentist is seriously the best dentist evar! Using Terminator-Technology, he reconstructed the inside of the tooth above the gum line and fixed the crown. I now have a nice titanium stud in my tooth to match the titanium screws in my neck. I'm the pseudo-bionic-boy. I should make sound effects when I walk down the street now. I've already decided the theme music from Bones is my traveling music so I think I'm set.

Iron Chef: Spinach

2007-06-04T15:06:00.000-04:00

There has been a new ingredient added to my list of foods to avoid at all costs: spinach.

Most of my triggers are usually chocolate + (fruit/vegetable). As long as I eat them within 48 hours of each other, it's an insta-migraine. The two notable exceptions to this equation are cranberries and alcohol; they're enough by themselves to send me running for the bed turning off all the lights in my path.

Some well-meaning people brought me breakfast Sunday morning, and it was quite tasty (even if it did have spinach in it). The spinach gremlins left me to my own devices all day yesterday, but they planned a blitzkrieg for 7:21 am Monday morning. I woke up (late) this morning to the sight of a pre-migraine aura dancing in my left eye. To top it all off, the last of Tropical Storm Barry decided at 7:25 while I was walking the dog to go from 'light mist' to 'torrential downpour.' Of course, the dog doesn't like to walk, much less, pee in the rain. Monday just isn't Monday with out something like this to start it off right.

For the record: spinach, cranberries, strawberries, any citrus fruit, chocolate, peanut butter and alcohol.

Rainy Day Swag

2007-06-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed some 'improvements' to the side-bar over the past few days. Some of them have been to organize information, others are more self-indulgence. I've been hanging around the internet for so long that I get used to things being a certain way, and I don't really explore anything new. So, I did a little investigating to see what was out there.

In other related news, I've been extremely unhappy with my Vaio laptop. It's been behaving rather unlaptoplike -- it looks like the battery exploded or something, and the net result is that it has to be plugged into the wall at all times if I actually want to use it. The onboard wireless internet card died a long time ago (and if I accidentally turn it on, it will eventually crash XP and then this long nasty reinstallation of the OS is in order.

Today I had enough, and with a little help from the Major, I replaced the Vaio with a brand spanking new Toshiba Satellite A205. It was on sale at Best Buy for the low-low price of $750, and it's pretty cool. You'd never know it from the way I speak, but I am actually quite savvy about technical specs. The new laptop is pretty tricked-out and I'm quite happy with it. So, I shall be having new happy blogging time experiences to bring to the entire world.

AJ in pictures

2007-06-01T16:08:00.001-04:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Asshat Thy Name is TB-patient

2007-05-31T16:33:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sure you've all seen the news about the asshole who's been continent jumping while carrying around a nice X-x-x-tremely drug resistant case of TB. Turns out that:

He's a lawyer (go figure)
His father-in-law studies TB for the CDC (i-r-on-y!)
This little bit of gallivanting was for his wedding/honeymoon

Call me old fashioned, but if I was diagnosed with TB I'd call of any plans and get myself treated. This asspirate knew before he left that he had a drug resistant strain of TB. But, because assmunches know better than their doctors, assknockers think they know that it's a-ok for them to travel all over potentially spreading TB-goodness to the masses. If a global pandemic of extremely drug resistant TB breaks out, I want to be first in line to cockpunch this assnugget.

Faith

2007-05-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

I'm currently reading 2 novels -- one in English, the other in Spanish. [Labyrinth, La Biblia de barro] This wasn't anything intentional on my part, but both explore alternate histories of what happened in Christianity's past: Labyrinth deals with the Cathars in Southern France and La Biblia de barro explores the idea of a 'Bible' written on clay tablets (i.e., a written history prior to the scrolls that compose the Old Testament.)

I find both of these novels to be very intriguing. They flesh out what Christianity is to me. My experience with The Da Vinci Code was similiar. It didn't destroy my world view, or bring the basic tenets of Christianity crashing to the ground. It simply added another dimension to what Jesus was like and who he was.

Neither of the books I'm reading now are anywhere near as controversial as Da Vinci, but they do make me wonder about why some people get completely bent out of shape about books like these. I know I'm a day late and a dollar short to this particular discussion, but I honestly don't see the 'threat' behind the idea that Jesus was married and had children. It doesn't change his message, nor his mission here on Earth. If anything it makes him more real, somebody I can relate to better. The same holds true for the tenets of the 2 novels I'm currently reading -- they add nuance, expand my knowledge and make me think. So, it makes me wonder why some people's faith can be so shaken by novels like these. As I learn more and expand my horizons it becomes easier for me to believe that people in the Bible actually lived and they weren't just fables or legends. And I truly feel sorry for those people that see books like these as heretical and threatening.

Kamakazi

2007-05-21T13:59:00.000-04:00

I am very irritated at my upstairs neighbors. Last Thursday, I was out on the terrace having my before-bedtime-cigarrette. Roxy was roaming back and forth seeing if the neighbor's cat was out on her terrace so they could stare at each other through the fence. We were just quietly enjoying the cool evening.

Then I noticed Roxy jump back. A few seconds later I heard some water hit the concrete (and my dog). I walked out from under the roofed in section of our terrace and looked up. There were our neighbors on the 3rd floor -- trying to bomb Roxy with squirts from their bottles of water. They stared at me, I stared at them and said "NOT COOL!" They continued to stare at me, and never said a word. It was this weird lifeless stare, kind of like they weren't even alive or maybe they were possessed by zombies.

At any rate, I've been very leery about letting Roxy out on the terrace because I'm not sure if these buttheads are going to try to throw more water on her, or worse solid objects that could seriously hurt her. I've been debating telling property management about them; I'm relatively certain it's against our bylaws to throw anything off your balcony. However, I don't want this to devolve into some pissing match and have the upstairs neighbors on the 3rd floor retaliate. The dog would most likely bear the brunt of the retaliation, and I don't want her to get hurt.

Any ideas, because I'd like to be able to go out on my balcony-terrace and not have to worry about the idiots on the 3rd floor.

I Need A Y-wing Fighter Up In Here

2007-05-14T15:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my friend J. and I were tooling around town. One of our stops was to the local grocery store. As we were walking out of the store and meandering back to the car, I noticed that this guy made a really random face at J. as he checked her out. I couldn't tell if he approved or disapproved of what he saw. So, I told J. that some crazy guy just checked her out. She turned around and said something, and we started to laugh.

We got back to the car and started to get in when the woman in the car next to us rolled down the passenger-side window and yelled over at us: "I saw you laughing at that woman. You all shouldn't be sos ig'nant. Get some culture." This crazy woman assumed that because she saw us laughing we had to be laughing at Darth Burka who was walking into the store about 10 feet ahead of the guy that checked J. out. (I know I shouldn't call this arabic woman 'Darth Burka' but she was all covered from head to toe in cloth with only that Cylon strip of an eyeslot to see out of.)

OF COURSE, J. and I noticed her -- it's hard to miss something like that. J. was thinking "wow, she must be really hot under all that cloth." I was thinking "holy crap. It's amazing that a woman's ankle or wrist or any part of her body is so subversive that the men in her culture have to keep her all wrapped up because the power of her pussy is so great that they won't be able to control themselves if they see even a bit of her pinky toe."

We ignored the crazy woman in the car next to us hurling insults at us, which she continued to do while we got into the car, loaded our stuff in and got ready to leave. Finally, as we were pulling out she screamed out the window "That woman was about as funny as you being fat." (J. is a big woman, and this lady had a real beef with J. In fact, all of her rants were directed at J. and not me.)

J. was really bothered by this woman's insults. I told her that it didn't matter what we said, this woman was going to have a negative impression of us no matter what. J. eventually got over the parking lot terrorrism, and we went on to enjoy the rest of our day.

To the crazy lady that cussed us out (if you ever read this blog):

before you accuse someone of being culturally insensitive, you might want to be sure you know what you're talking about.
before you call someone ig'nant, you might want to actually learn how to speak proper English.
J. was engaged to a muslim for 3 years.
It's not particularly smart to sit in a car with the windows cracked just a hair on a hot day in the middle of a sunny parking lot. It's even less smart -- ignorant even -- to have your baby in the backseat.
I would assume that being a black woman you would be fed up with people teasing you and thinking less of you because of your most obvious physical trait. Therefore, it was really uncool for you to go for the gold and insult J. on her most obvious physical trait because we were ignoring you and not wanting to start any fight with you.
Mind your own business.
That is all.

Choose Life

2007-05-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

I ran across this site a few weeks ago, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Every time I play with my dog, thoughts of what happened to that dog cross my mind. I've lost pets before, but never have they been forceably taken from this life.

What stuns me the most about what happened to Marbles is that Gee's first choice of action was to get a gun and blow the dog away. Not only killing, but in this case the gun she used was the equivalent of taking out an anthill with a nuclear bomb. Why didn't she fire the gun in the air to scare the dog off?

I've read every article and link at the site. One thing that is abudantly clear to me is that Gee's story is wildly inconsistant. The only fact that she consistantly states is that she shot the dog. Gee seems oblivious to the fact that she killed a living being, and she's stated that she would do it again. Death is not the only solution.

I don't know how Marbles came to be on Gee's property. Maybe part of the electric fence was broken. Even so, a pet owner shouldn't have to fear that their dog will get shot dead by their neighbors. My heart goes out to Marbles and her family. I know it's never easy to lose a pet, but to lose one in this manner seems unbearable.

Postscript:
I had a really hard time writing this entry. I wrote, edited, rewrote and removed entire passages. I finally decided to focus on 'killing as a means of first recourse.' I want to be charitable towards Gee as we'll never really know what happened. To that end I removed a lot of text about her behaviors (i.e.: why were her children playing outside apparently unattended? among other questions I had.)

My final thought on the matter is that dogs will continue to escape their yards and roam around. We can't really change that, they're dogs. We can build better fences and keep a closer eye on them, but there will always be that one time the dog gets free. To that end, we can change how we react to a strange, possibly threatening animal on our property. We can chose many other options that don't involve killing the animal.

Reduxing The Redux

2007-05-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

I'm back on the meds: percocet, flexeril, celebrex (and because it's allergy season claritin). I've been having increasing amounts of pain that have leveled off around the 4 mark on the pain scale (1 to 10). Most days the meds make life tolerable, but there are days when everything seizes up and the pain rockets up towards a nice 7 and I'm so sore and stiff I can barely move.

All in all, things are getting better. But. It's been 3 months since I've had surgery. I've called my surgeon and he wants me to go back to PT to help with the pain. He thinks that some massage, etc., will help calm everything down and knock out the last of the pain that I'm having. The bad news is that my PT doctor's first available appointment is June 6. I'm on the waiting list to get in earlier, but I doubt that will happen.

In all seriousness, I think PT is exactly what I need. The great majority of the pain is coming from muscle soreness in my shoulders and neck. Hopefully, they'll be able to rehabilitate me and get everything back to normal. Until then, I'll still be posting smacked out on the good meds.

Rolling It Out

2007-05-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

Everyone give a warm welcome to the great big world of the bloggerdom to my friend Jolie. She's a little messed up with her 3 personalities and such, but that's why I keep her around. Normal people are just so boring. That and we have illegal amounts of fun making fun of the stupidity of others.

We've known each other for many years now. We've been co-workers, party animals (I'm thinking of that crazy-as-hell foam party), roommates, pet sitters and many other things during our long friendship which is now bicoastal. So, greetings to the web's newest terror out in Seattle from the gayest gay boy in flipflops in DC.