What? My House Isn't Worth 80 Gazillion?

Apparently in my copious spare holiday time I have a lot to complain about and one of those things to complain about are the stupid people that bought houses that cost them a gazillion dollars and either signed a contract to only pay the interest for a few years and now they find themselves unable to pay an actual mortgage, or the morons that bought bought houses thinking they’d be an investment in later years.

Ok, raise your hand if you were fooled into thinking that a house you bought 10 years ago for $150,000 suddenly jumped in worth to $300,000 and you actually refinanced it for the $300,000 and now find its only worth $150,000? Please note that I’m not raising my hand.

If you didn’t rip down said house and built a McMansion to raise the appraisal price of said house, then you are so screwed. How screwed? Really screwed. Why are you screwed? Duh, because who is going to buy a house worth $150,00 for the $300,00 worth of mortgage debt you need to pay off? I hope you really like that house because you are so totally stuck with it until you pay off that whopping mortgage on it, or people lose their minds again and we have another boom, but I doubt that.

Another question I have is why the government feels compelled to bail out stupid people that bought houses they couldn’t afford? Sure there are stipulations to which people they’ll bail out, but generally you’re still stupid if you thought you could buy a house and only pay the interest on the mortgage and not get screwed later down the road. Oh, I’m sure those people thought that the fixed interest rate would bottom out and they could refinance without any sort of penalty... because they either didn’t read the fine print of their existing mortgage, or were incredibly stupid to think the rate would get any better after everyone realized they had been screwed by greedy mortgage places.

What ever happened to the incredibly simplistic creed of “if its too good to be true... it usually is”? Why do some people still fall for that easy money, cheap mortgage, living large and paying later, except when they can’t pay later, here comes the government (aka: my tax dollars) swooping in to save the idiots. Nobody will ever learn a lesson if they are continuously bailed out by my tax dollars. They will just keep doing stupid things, getting bailed out, and going out and doing stupid things. Let them lose their house and suffer. That’ll teach them for being stupid or not finding a smart person to keep them from doing something stupid. We just perpetuate stupidity by allowing people to be stupid, saving them from themselves and only the smart suffer. Well, the smart stopped breeding long ago, so enjoy your world of stupidity. Pretty soon the smart will stop working as well and then where are we? Yep, totally screwed.

Good luck with that.

Why My Head Will Explode Part 2

I work my butt off until I’m 75 (or whatever the new and improved retirement age is... frankly by the time I get there it’ll be up to 100), I retire, and I get to sit back and enjoy my retirement years, the golden years, years where I can relax and do the things I want to do, thanks for working my butt off for most of my life.

Not exactly. Apparently seniors are being faced with the bloated assessments of their houses, which in turn bloats their property tax rates, which in turn leaves them destitute because Social Security only pays them enough to buy Little Friskies cat food to eat with crackers.

The solution? Make them work to pay off their property taxes! What a wonderful idea! Make them go back to work after all of those years of working just to retire, they can now spend their retirement... WORKING!

Can nobody else see the problem with our tax system when our elders have to freakin take part time jobs just to pay the taxes on their paid off houses? They earned a salary, which was taxed. They spent their money on goods and services, which are taxed. Their house, even though its paid off... still taxed. We are taxed coming, going, and after after we die. Nothing but taxes, money stripped out of our hands.

I gotta ask what the incentive is for me to work? It use to be that around 65 I could retire and travel and do cool things with the retirement money I got from wherever I worked. That turned into having to put money into a 401K fund and hoping the idiots managing the fund didn’t learn business 101 from the Enron people. Then they bumped up the retirement age, and bumped it up again and again, and now I get to look forward to sitting in my paid off house, HOPEFULLY with some retirement money from my 401K and getting a job so I can pay my taxes and not lose my house.

WHY BOTHER?

Why am I working hard just so I can get a job at Walmart greeting people? What is there to look forward to? Seriously, why bother? Why not just say screw it and suck off the system for the rest of my life if that’s all there is to retirement?

Why My Head Will Explode

The recent attack by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo is both shocking and unexpected. Unexpected only because the animals are suppose to be kept well aware from the public not only for the public’s safety, but for the safety of the animals. Having a tiger escape and manage to attack three people, one of them fatally is certainly not unexpected under the circumstance. It is a tragic accident on the part of whoever was responsible for ensuring the tigers were secured in their cages, but a free range tiger does equal death to someone or something.

What really makes my head explode is CNN’s little video feed: “Tiger had history of violent acts”.
The reporter says it “broke free”, then “stalked” victims. “It wasn’t the first time it showed its killer instinct”.

Um... ITS A TIGER!!! All tiger’s do is kill, eat, poop, breed, and sleep. That’s what tigers do, that’s all that tigers do. Why is it a surprise that when a wild carnivore got loose it killed something? Why is the news trying to make it seem as though the tiger was jailed for other crimes, perhaps burglary. Using a spoon, the tiger found a way out of its cage and with cold, calculating precision, stalked (perhaps crank called) and killed some people. “... the first time it showed its killer instinct”... ITS A TIGER!!! Why is it news that it attacks people? Its what they do! That’s why its behind bars, a moat and concertina wire, its a tiger, it will eat people.

Frankly its a shame that the only safe place from poachers and idiots stripping land to build crap is a zoo for these majestic beasts and all other animals in zoos. Its a shame that we can’t ride in a nice tank through some habitat and see things as they should be, instead of a polar bear playing with a fake iceberg in its painted blue water pool. Until we realize that we need to stop using the earth as a construction set and let nature do what nature does best, we’ll just have to take our chances at the zoo, and hope that some other wild beast doesn’t have a spoon.

Charlie Wilson's War

Ok, I’m just a middle american, semi educated, technical writer that makes pretty good money and was born with a common sense gene. I don’t proclaim that I’m “in” with politics and know the ins and outs of all the things going on, but I smell something a bit rancid in this whole “Charlie Wilson’s War” movie coming out now, or at all.

The synopsis on Internet Movie Database reads in part: "Good-Time Charlie" Wilson, a flawed and fun-loving Congressman from the piney woods of East Texas, deftly operates the levers of power to funnel money and weapons to the Mujahedin of Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of their country in late 1979.”

My, they make it sound like a romping comedy, don’t they. Until it creeps into your brain... hey wait a minute!

First of all, flawed and fun-loving Charlie refuses to answer questions about his alleged cocaine use, and is an admitted drinker, seemingly portrayed in the movie trailers as a constant drinker (your tax dollars at work there). He was a womanizer and in interview with ABC news “didn’t keep count” of all the women he slept with.

He, along with your tax dollars, and the help of the CIA, funneled weapons into Afghanistan to help the “freedom fighters” ward off the evil communists. The movie trailers make it seem as though Charlie’s actions were solely responsible for the Berlin wall being knocked down and the fall of communism itself. Hardly.

I’m sure the general public will cheer the drunken, womanizing Charlie on in his antics, saving the brave freedom fighters from the horrible communist hoards without realizing that the money he used to help them came from their pockets. In some cases, if not all, Congress and the Senate weren’t told what they were voting on because the whole thing was so covert, they weren’t allowed to know, just that it was for “a good cause”.

It sure was a different era back in then. Apparently arms for the fall of communism is much different than arms for hostages, and by the Iraq war we’re just plain sick of war for democracy. Nowadays a drunken, womanizing Congressman is shamed and rightfully thrown out of office. Back then he was given a covert mission and all the money he wanted.

Of course the producers of the movie and everyone interviewing “Good Time Charlie” now tip toe around the very fact that the “freedom fighters” he helped back then went on to form the very same terrorists that attacked our shores, killed our people. Oh sure, there was no way for him to know that back then, and it shouldn’t be his fault... or should it? He admits that the U.S. pulled out once the Soviets did, and no effort was made to help the Afghanistan people rebuild after years of war. Once again, we used another country to get what we wanted and threw them away like a kleenex. No wonder they’re a bit pissed off at us.

So go ahead and see Charlie Wilson’s War. Go see just how sneaky the U.S. can be with your tax dollars, perhaps not supporting causes you truly believe in, or even perhaps supporting the “bad guys”. The good guys of today, as we’ve seen, can turn out to be the bad guys of tomorrow. When you leave the movie theater... think about what else the U.S. is doing with your money that you don’t know about, because its too “sensitive” to tell you.

The Saviour of the Earth

To the right we have a picture of Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Vice President Al Gore doing some work in his Tennessee home (according to the caption that accompanies this picture on the Time Web site ). What do you see wrong with this picture?

Here is a man that is screaming that the inhabitants of the earth are wasting its resources and will be the cause of its demise. Leading by example, we see here that Mr. Gore is undoubtedly using some kind of electrified overhead lighting (from the shadowing near his desk). Mr. Gore has not one, but amazingly THREE very large computer screens, has the very nice flat screen tv on, and is surrounded by piles and piles and reams and reams of paper.

Gee, how many trees had to die in order for him to print or purchase that much paper product? Wouldn't those trees have contributed to the making of oxygen? Does he REALLY need those three humungous computer screens? Why is the TV on if he's not watching it? He's got some pretty nice ambient lighting going on from outside, why not shut off the overhead lights?

By the way, nice fake gigantic tree frog on the wall, hey Al, did you really need that little decoration or perhaps could you have forgone that little decorative piece so that the factory that's polluting the streams and lakes with toxic wastes and sucking all of our precious electricity while stomping a carbon footprint the size of Antarctica wouldn't have to operate?

eh?

My Weekly Rant List

Throughout the week while I’m stuck writing boring technical documents and listening to CNN I write a list of topics that really irk me with the intent of writing pages and pages of ranting (complete with footnotes and URL references). By the time I get home, work has sucked the life blood from me and there’s no rant to be had.

Since I’m off on fridays I’ll start a weekly rant, where there is no guarantee that it will be a long rant, nor even a good rant... just a rant, but at least you’ll know what has tortured me this past week.

Diversity:
We’re suppose to accept everyone’s race, religion, cultures, etc., well that is until their race, religion, culture, etc., offends someone with some power... like women.

Case in point, the father that strangle his daughter for not wearing a headscarf. Fine, its not a mainstream belief that its fine and dandy to murder your kids if they don’t follow your faith, but there are sects out there that do believe that its ok to do that. There are beliefs out there that says if the husband dies, the wife (still alive) has to plop her butt down right next to him while they burn his body. We have traditions that make women walk behind their husbands, doesn’t allow them to go out alone, to drive, that make them get their neck stretched or wear HUGE earring things, bind their feet and that whole female circumcise thing. All of that shouldn’t be tolerated. Why?

Isn’t diversity all about tolerance? Accepting beliefs different than your own, except we hear all sorts of screaming and gnashing of teeth when those beliefs go against women. Men get circumcised every freaking day and nobody has really started a whole movement to stop that. Nobody says how horrible and disfiguring that is, but there are groups and activists against female circumcising.

Tolerance is tolerance, and if you want us to be tolerant of race, religion, and culture then it should be all cultures and all things... not pick and choose. If it is pick and choose then don’t point your finger at me and call me a racists and not diverse because I don’t like curry (it gives me gas).

World War II vet gets $725 in back pay
This was a curiosity of reporting to me. Fox reported that a WW II vet was wrongly accused of stringing up an Italian prisoner of war and was imprisoned for some time and got a dishonorable discharge. The Department of Defense reviewed his case after a book was written about the incident and the DoD gave him $725 (his pay while he had been imprisoned) and honorable discharge. Ok. Turn to CNN who not only reported this as a racist incident, but figured out for its audience what $725 was worth in today’s money, how much $725 would have netted the guy in a retirement account (which weren’t around back then, but hey, what’s a little detail like that), and what the DoD SHOULD have done instead of what it actually did. What happened to reporting the who, what, where, when, and how of a story? Kudos to Fox for reporting, and WTF CNN for your commentary, which you should have prefaced by saying it was a commentary.

Forbes Most Influential Baby List
I see that Forbes has gone the way of the National Enquirer and other tabloids. Thankfully I now know that celebrity infants control the world, which explains why lately all I want to do is crap my pants and cry at the stupidity that surrounds me.

Kanye West’s Mom
According to the 911 call, she reportedly threw up black stuff before she stopped breathing. I’m going to guess that during the tummy tuck they perforated a bowel or stomach and she was bleeding internally and that’s her cause of death. Not a rant, just wanted to get my ghoul pool guess out there.

Global Warming is a Bunch of Crap
Its not just me anymore! A whole slew of influential scientists are now saying its a bunch of crap, but the other scientists kicked them out and won’t let them play anymore because the scientists that agree with Al Gore are getting government money hand over fist and if the general public finds out that this whole global warming scam isn’t true, they won’t get any more money. Don’t believe me? Just wait until they start taxing your pretend carbon footprint, and hey... did you catch that little bill that just passed into law saying you have to now buy those “environmentally good” lightbulbs and not the regular lightbulbs. How much does a regular bulb cost compared to those others... yeah, they’ll get you one way or another.

Survivor
I don’t watch it, because its a show that rewards people for being back stabbing, lying scum, but I caught a news story about how a losing contestant claimed to have been given a really crappy janitor job on her return to her job after the show... so the shows producers gave her a butt load of money. Except she lied, never happened, she still has the same job she had before the show. There’s talk about getting the money back but hey, why should they? It just proves that they taught her well on the show, and lets hope our children follow the lead of these amazing survivors.

Don’t Use That Shampoo!
I saw some tips on how to conserve energy while staying at a hotel. Turn off the lights and heat/air when you leave the room, and don’t use the hotel supplied little bottles of shampoo. Ok, fine, how about you stop providing that crap and make the room a lot cheaper then. I’ll bring my own shampoo and creme rinse, but knock off $20 from my bill. Have you noticed the trend in “conservation” where we’re asked to go without, and yet still pay for what we use to be able to use? Global warming = money making scam! Just mark my words.

Taxing High Fructose
San Francisco’s mayor wants to tax high fructose drinks because they cause the epidemic of obesity in our nation. Once again, making laws and taxing things to keep the stupid from hurting themselves. Who really pays for these things? Yes, EVERYONE including those who don’t glug down a gallon of the crap and weigh 500 pounds. High fructose doesn’t cause obesity... stupid people who drink it by the gallon causes obesity. If they’re so concerned by obesity, maybe we should be taxed by the pound!

Coming to a Theater Near You
Is there a new law that says that every year there must be a movie on Queen Elizabeth? I’m holding out for Elizabeth II, Electric Boogaloo.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia
I’ve just about had it this year with the Chia Pet commercials. Thankfully they are only sold around Christmas for some reason and not all year long. This year we also get the Chia Herb Garden and Chia Cat grass. I bet you didn’t know that you can actually eat the chia plant that sprouts, its suppose to be high in Omega 3 and other nutrients, so go ahead and graze. Next year is the Chia private parts.

Another wonderful gift this holiday season is the Healthcare gift card. Nothing says “I know you’re poor and can’t afford to get those nasty teeth fixed” like a healthcare gift card... for those who have everything except that new kidney.

Loved one got their stoma? Well then how about a nice gas card as a gift! Nothing says festive like a Citgo card. I’m sure they’ve been looking through that speedy cup window at that ice scraper they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford. Send the very best when something decent isn’t enough.

Minor Baby Bump in the Road

Its in the news, yet another Spears member is preggers and boy is there talk about this.

Seeing how the younger Spears is the star of the kids tv show “Zoey 101” its a bit embarrassing for a show about boys and girls at a formerly all boy boarding school to turn up preggers at such a tender young age. I’m sure she’ll lose that gig.

What I don’t understand is that the young Spears is 16, and her live-in boyfriend is apparently 19. According to California Penal Code Section 261-269:

261.5. (a) Unlawful sexual intercourse is an act of sexual
intercourse accomplished with a person who is not the spouse of the
perpetrator, if the person is a minor.

For the purposes of this section, a "minor" is a person
under the age of 18 years and an "adult" is a person
who is at least 18 years of age.

Shouldn’t said boyfriend be behind bars and labelled a sex criminal by now? Why is this being plastered all over the news as:
1.) look, yet another Spears kid is a mess up
2.) The book on parenting that the Spears’ kid’s mother wrote is on hold

There doesn’t seem to be anything on why a 16 year got pregnant by a 19 year old, regardless of who that 16 year old is. There were plenty of these cases where it was just some kid in some small town that was plastered over the headlines about how someone could let their small child get pregnant by an older guy and have the gall to take them to another state to get married. Why are the people in the small town treated like scum and this whole Spears thing seems to be just some amusing soap opera where nobody has to face any consequences for breaking a law.

I’m waiting for the entertainment shows to report on her baby “bump” (a new term that I find incredibly nauseating). How about we lock up the perv boyfriend, trot her out for everyone to see with a big ol scarlet A on her clothes, throw her in the pillory and teach our children that breeding right after they get their first period isn’t the path to success, despite what hollywood wants us to think.

How about a nice poster that says: “stay in school, keep your legs closed, and have a life before you bring another one into it”

Beware that Subliminal Stuff

So, apparently there is some hoopla over the whole Huckabee Christmas ad (oooh, I said Christmas! I’ll probably be beaten to death now).

In his ad, Huckabee clearing states that “... what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends.”

When I heard there was controversy over the ad, I figured it was the reference to the birth of Christ, and frankly if that’s what the guy believes in, why can’t he say it? I mean come on, I don’t yell at people who wish me a Merry Christmas or even a Happy Holiday because I’m a Neo-Pagan and I don’t celebrate those things. Its not like anyone can look at someone and tell what religion they are, and frankly who cares what religion THEY are, it matters what you believe in. So those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, if someone says to you “Merry Christmas” then respond back with your special greeting... good lord don’t they teach common courtesy in school or at home anymore.

Anyway, I digress.

Imagine my amusement when it turns out that Huckabee’s use of “the birth of Christ” wasn’t the controversy. Oh no, it was the subliminal bookcase! A bookcase deviously shaped like a cross that sent out a hidden message that disturbed people!

Um... was this guy so intent on gazing at the background subliminal images that he totally missed the whole “birth of Christ” thing? Why on earth would someone need to plant a subliminal message in the background when they pretty much come out and say what their beliefs are.

Frankly, the only reason I back Huckabee is because he says he’ll totally get rid of the IRS. I don’t agree with his religion, I don’t agree with some of his views, but frankly if he got rid of the IRS and then required us to wear robes and rubber phallic appendages on our heads... pass me the robe and rubber phallic appendage.

The whole religion thing, and his views on abortion and the pill and all that, well frankly the President doesn’t have a whole lot of say in that stuff anyway thanks to that piece of paper called a constitution and those people that make up the Supreme Court (none of which are in the retirement stage or likely to up and croak in the next 5 years). I’d also like to point out that those idiots in the Congress and the Senate or the ones that are generating these outlandish, ridiculous, and totally insane bills that become law, so its a bit more important that your congressional and senatorial puppethead is actually doing what he’s there to do, which is REPRESENT YOU! They’d like you to think that the President is the bad guy and the one with all the power so they can continue getting their cushy health care that they get for free, and all of their perks and under the table bribes from special interest groups.

So stop worrying about what religion each Presidential candidate is... start worrying about those greedy congresspeople and senators who are hoping that everyone will be so involved in picking a President, that you don’t notice them sliding in a new law that says they get more money and you get less of everything... except taxes.

Our Tax Dollars At Work

So, Scientists think they have figured out why pregnant women don't lose their balance and topple over despite ever-growing weight up front.

Yes, our hard earned tax dollars at work, not studying ways to stop cancer, or any of the other horrible diseases that kill people, no, lets find out why pregnant women don’t fall over like weebles when they’re pregnant.

Why are scientists wasting their time studying something so incredibly worthless and inane as this? Why aren’t they working on more important things? Why are we paying these morons to study this? Did anyone ask me when I filed my taxes and wrote that big ass check to the IRS if I wanted my money to go to a bunch of nose picking scientists to figure out why pregnant women didn’t walk on all fours?

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????

Where are my pet rights?

The 2007 “U.S. Pet Ownership and Demographic Sourcebook” published by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) was released today.

As most child-free homes know, there is a stereotype that women who don’t want children have pets, and generally dress their pets up in outfits and enter them into beauty contests where they force them to smile and look pretty. Ok, that’s not child-free people, that’s actually people with kids.

Seriously, there is some sort of strange thought pattern that when a person says that they treat their pet like a member of the family, the person being told this immediately envisions that the dog or cat is dressed up like a kid, fed at the table, and treated like a baby. Stop envisioning that you morons.

Treating a pet like a member of the family generally means that they live in the house with the family, are taken on family outings and vacations, get the same amount of love and attention as any other member of the family. Family members aren’t chained to a dog house in the yard and ignored... unless you mean my mother-in-law, and no, we’ve never actually chained her out in the yard, but we’ve thought about it.

Yes, my dogs sleep on our bed, and sit on our furniture, and get to pick what to watch on tv (ok, they don’t, but they do like shows where audiences clap for some reason).

So, what does this have to do with the AVMA survey? Well, 60% of americans own a pet. two-thirds of those pet owners own more than one pet. Here’s the demographic that I laugh at: 35% of americans have kids. Hey! We pet owners are now the majority! Apparently children aren’t the “in” thing anymore, so why are they getting all the rights and attention?

Where’s my time off for caring for a sick pet? Why don’t I get time off for adopting a dog when parents get time off for adopting a kid? What about bereavement leave for when my pet dies?

Pet ownership has so many more rewards than raising a kid, its not even funny. No outlandishly expensive child care expenses (although doggie day care is getting pricey... hey, where is my tax credit for doggie day care?), no babysitter, none of my dogs have ever asked for the keys to the truck, although they do try climbing into the driver’s seat when I take them places. I don’t have to save up for college, or a ridiculously expensive wedding. I do have a savings account just for my dogs, as health care for pets is pricey for my family members, and most pet insurance policies suck. I don’t get a tax write off because I can’t claim them as a dependent, although a dog and cat couldn’t be any more dependent on me than a kid is.

So, child-free pet owners, I think its time we stood up and demanded that we get fair and equal rights that parents of human children do... after all, we’re the majority now! AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

Solar Arrays In Space

As usual I'm listening to the news at work and was distracted from my very interesting technical writing crap by a scientist who is proposing that the solution to the energy crisis, and for ridding the U.S. of its dependence on foreign oil is to build solar arrays in space.

I'll pause here while you laugh hysterically and wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes like I did when I heard this load of crap.

Solar arrays in space? Yes, this scientist says that we can simply build solar arrays in space where there is no night, those arrays will just sit up there and collect energy from the sun and beam it down to the earth to some sort of energy collection device.

Um... wasn't that something I read in I, Robot? Wasn't that the "god" the robots were defending in space? Are we now pulling "solutions" from science fiction books written in the 1950's? What next? We breed tiny people with furry feet to live in holes in the ground?

Ok, so maybe having solar arrays in space is a possibility, but just WHO is going to build that? Its not like we can depend on our rocket scientists here in the U.S. to build those. They can't even fuel up a shuttle without messing something up, and we send that outdated sucker into space with a tool kit full of duct tape and spackle to fix the holes in it from lift off. Lets not forget that little glitch in math that had the Mars probe bashing itself to death on the planet. Yeah, they're great candidates to build the solar array.

I'm sure this little announcement had nothing to do with Al "Mr. Largest Head In the World" Gore's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize for his Academy Award Winning Slide show of doom. Yeah, that's a nice little medal you got there Mr. Gore, but nobody seems to talk about the gazillion dollar prize money you also get with that.

These wonderful, and truly mind boggling expensive "solutions" to a problem that nobody has yet to actually provide tangible, plausible evidence is yet another way for rich people to get richer. We poor, hardworking tax payers will, in the end, get screwed by all of these companies popping up to "solve" global warming by creating new and expensive things that make our earth better, when they do nothing of the sort. Its only a matter of time before we're taxed on our carbon footprint (a measurement that's made up by whoever can profit the most out of it), and we're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the ultimate eco friendly futuristic mode of transportation (a new invention where one sits on a seat and pedals a vehicle that has two rubber wheels).

People! The earth has a fever... bend over and take it.

Oprama Oh Brother!

It wasn’t surprising that the media immediately named the Oprah/Obama “tour” a one-namer. Those who gave us TomKat, among others, are now touting the talk show host and politician as a one-namer, and frankly I’m disgusted. Not only because of the one-naming, but because of the headlines this “union” is generating:

Time Magazine: Attention Women of Iowa: Oprah!!!
CNN; Can Oprah turn a hug into votes?

There are approximately 1,200 other articles similarly named, all shooting for that one demographic that truly calls to Oprah: WOMEN.

Like some kind of freak show, this political season is getting wackier and wackier by the minute, what with Romney explaining his religion, Hillary... well, she’s just being Hillary and planting her minions in opponents’ audiences to ask difficult questions, and the myriad of other strangeness going on. We don’t have to wait in anticipation of a Monty Pythian “Silly Party” to announce its candidacy, because they’re already running.

But lets go back to this whole Oprah thing. I’ve never really understood the draw to this woman. She started out much like Jerry Springer, but dumped the shocking and bizarre for more “personal” stories. She’s used her gazillions of dollars to build a school in Africa (personally I think we need more schools here in the U.S. but she chooses what she wants to do with her gazillions), and she gave a whole studio audience cars... then got egg on her face when everyone in the audience started complaining about how much they would have to pay in taxes for said cars. No good deed.

People (women actually) seem to look up to her, admire her and will buy just about anything she hawks on her show, including a made up piece of memoir by some guy that claimed to beat addiction. I’m sure that 99% of these woman aren’t as rich as Oprah, and yet they just go nuts over her “favorite things” lists and have to have these things.

Lets take a look at some of Oprah’s 2007 “favorite things” and see what we need to buy in order to “be” just like Oprah:

Toywatch Crystal Watches for a mere $150 - $325 you can have a watch. Of course, you could get a watch for $25 bucks that will tell time, but these watches are the ones Oprah approved, so screw the car payment and go get a nice watch.

Samsung HD Camcorder for a mere $800 you can get this cool camcorder to record you wearing your expensive watch. Who needs to make a mortgage payment, Oprah wants you to have this camcorder.

Melamine Bowls Yes, from the same crap that China put in your dog and cat food and killed them, one of the cheapest of Oprah’s favorites at $14.00 you too can be poisoned by your own cookware.

Perfect Ending Cupcakes Why make them yourself when for $60 you can order 9 cupcakes to be delivered to your door. We all order cupcakes from Williams and Sonoma, much like we have our cooks fix us dinner every night and our maids do our dishes.

Clarisonic Skin System Spend $200 on a daily skin cleaner from the makers of the Sonicaire toothbrush. Hey, here’s a thought, just save the money and scrub your face with your toothbrush.

Ciao Bella Blood Orange Sorbetto $40 for 4 pints of sorbetto, not including Fedex charges? Seems reasonable to me. After all, its not like there’s a grocery store within a few miles of your house that sells sorbet for a few bucks, so its worth the money.

Rachel Pally clothing $300 for a mumu?

My total favorite:
LG HDTV Refrigerator I mean come on! Who wants a fridge that isn’t HD ready? At a mere $4,000 you can sit and watch the weather channel in high def as you eat your expensive cupcakes and sorbetto, which is the only thing you can afford now that the credit card companies are repossessing everything else, except the Melamine bowls because the FDA is coming in hazard suits to pick those up.

So you see, Oprah is JUST like all of us, so we should all vote for Obama, because Oprah says so.

Rude, Just Plain RUDE

I see it all the time, and its about the rudest thing I can think of. Well, ok, I’m sure there are more rude things that happen, but this is just incredibly rude!

I was out alone on my monthly buy as many groceries as possible so I don’t have to suffer through grocery shopping for a month trek. I hate grocery shopping. Even with lists, I forget crap that I didn’t put on the list but would remember (and don’t), or buy half of something I need to make a recipe and don’t have the rest so I’m forced to go out AGAIN to a grocery store and get the rest of the crap.

I started out at Costco for the whole bulk meat thing. I have a food saver, love it, but don’t ever buy the ready made bags, because the box that I last bought, half the stupid things were defective and had a leak somewhere, so while they sealed just fine, they were still full of air, defeating the entire purpose of sucking the air out of them. Then it was off to Safeway for the little things I don’t like buying in bulk... like who needs the cafeteria-sized jar of mayo?

I got everything on my list, stopping once in a while to realize that there were one or two things I should have gotten at Costco, which consisted of me stopping in the middle of the aisle and hissing DAMMIT! and stomping a foot. I do this so people will leave me alone and park their freakin carts out of my way. It usually works.

I picked a good line, not the line with the guy that looks like a dark haired version of Louie Anderson who is always in a horrible mood because his life is very tragic for a Safeway checkout person and he loves telling you why his life sucks. The line with the very funny and cool trannie guy was really long. I love having that guy check me out, he’s very funny, upbeat and efficient, probably why his line is always long. Its very entertaining to get checked out by him. I picked another line where some chick in front of me had 4 things, thinking this would be a nice, quick checkout.

What I didn’t see when I got in line was that this chick had her 4 things still in the cart, even though the conveyor belt was empty and the woman in front of her was paying for her already bagged up items. Why was her stuff still in her cart? Because she was talking to someone on her cell phone. Totally oblivious to the world, she was deep in very important talks about... her car and her boyfriend. Little miss matching coat, slacks and designer bag began to slowly, and with one hand, put her items on the conveyer belt one item at a time. The designer bag was one of those overly clunky bejeweled monstrosities that serve no purpose other than looking all expensive and designer.

After putting her stuff on the belt, she then proceeds to try to unzip the designer monstrosity bag to get out her credit card. By this time the cashier has already rung up her stuff and is waiting for her to swipe her card. She swipes the card then says “oh, I have a store card”. Neither the cashier nor I know if she’s talking to the cashier or the person on the phone. Of course the PIN pad allows you to tap in your phone number if you don’t have your card with you, but she’s too busy continuing her conversation, so the cashier has to ask her TWICE what her phone number is, which she finally gives. Then she has to swipe her card a few more times, while talking, then finally gets her receipt and then spends another few minutes putting the credit card and her receipt back into her stupid bag before slowly walking away... still talking on her phone.

It took EVERYTHING in my being not to grab that phone and throw it across the store.

After she wandered off, I asked the cashier how she was today and then told her how rude I thought that was. I even told her how I had wanted to throw her cell phone across the store, and she laughed and nodded. You could tell she wanted to do the same thing.

I am totally amazed at how self-absorbed and downright rude people are these days. Makes me thankful that I didn’t bring a child into this world because I’m sure its just going to get worse.

Nothing Ever Works Right

The other night hubby and I were watching the show Life which is a really great show, great writing, great characters, and the plot is all twisty and you can’t figure it out 15 minutes into the show. Therefore, it will be cancelled really soon. Most good shows are. If they don’t explain every little detail to the stupid viewers, or makes you think... they’re doomed for cancellation.

Anyhoo, we hadn’t seen the episode before this season finale one, so we started watching that one on our Tivo (love the Tivo), to catch up, then we would watch the season finale right after that. We never watch anything “live” anymore so we can fast forward through the annoying commercials.

Ok, so we’re caught up and started watching the current episode... except the Tivo locked up. GASP! Our beloved Tivo had an aneurism and was locked up... with 10 minutes left in the current show!!!! OH MY GAWD!!!! After it rebooted, we started watching the show, and sure enough, the pivotal end of the show didn’t record. The last 10 minutes that wrapped up what was going on... not recorded. You’ve got to be freakin kidding me!

This, in general, is the story of our life. We’ve embraced technology to the point where it even answers our phones and directs telemarketers to a confusing mass of buttons to press until they give up, or sends them to a rude message telling them to put us on their “do not call list” as we’ve recorded their phone number and business name and will report them to the FCC thanks to a cool program called Phlink.

We have computers up the ying with various and sundry back up devices, UPS, and other gadgets, and invariably... something vital dies despite our attempts to back up, save, and redundant ourselves to death. No matter how we try to make sure that things continue to work, and if even they don’t we have some kind of back-up, we are thwarted in some technological way.

The Tivo is one example. We have two Tivos actually. One upstairs and one downstairs. The one downstairs is a specially configured Tivo with a gazillion hours of record time and it records two channels at once. Do you think that it would record Life for us and catch the last 10 minutes? Of course not. We hadn’t told it to, but it knows what we like to watch. Instead of recording Life, it was recording some Lifetime movie of the week about some woman that was wronged in some sort of way and she seeks revenge by killing a man. Isn’t that all Lifetime movies? They need to change that channel to “Women who hate men” channel. It also recorded something else stupid, but not Life.

Fine, this is the 21st century, lets just go up and watch it online. NBC does have a halfway decent interface that allows you to watch their shows online (which is the whole bone of contention with the current writer’s strike), but of course... 10 minutes after the show aired, it wasn’t up yet. Ok, that’s stupid, but fine, I’ll wait until tomorrow to find out what happens.

Tomorrow comes and sure enough, the episode is now available on the NBC site. SWEEET! I click on the episode, and then on the chapter, because I don’t need to watch the whole thing, just the last 10 minutes. I’m graced with a notice that says that I’ll be able to watch the show with limited commercial interruption. Spiffy, that’s just what I want. I’m then treated to the annoying Zales commercial that has that REALLY annoying piano song on it by Vanessa Carlton a song truly that will make you want to poke your eardrums out after you’ve heard it a zillion times on commercials this fine festive holiday season as Zales tries to convince you that your loved one will hate your guts unless you get her some really expensive diamonds.

Ok, I suffer through the commercial and sit anxiously waiting for the episode. Firefox dies. SONOFA... I reload Firefox and go back to the site, pick the episode, pick the last 10 minutes and yes... fucking Zales commercial again. Sigh. Fine, sit through it again and the episode starts... and stops for no reason. GAWD DAMN IT! I sit impatiently waiting for it to start again, it doesn’t, and no amount of clicking gets it to start, so back around to the start again, and the dreaded I want to kill someone by now Zales commercial. I’m convinced that they put these glitches in there so by the time you get to see the episode, your ready to go out and shop for diamonds for complete strangers.

I FINALLY get the last 10 minutes to play and after all of that anger and frustration of trying to get it to play, the whole end of the episode was diminished somewhat. I hate Vanessa Carlton for selling out to Zales, I never want to see a diamond in this house and I chain smoked half a pack of cigs in frustration.

Speaking of commercials, why is Johnson & Johnson sucking up to nurses? That song on that commercial is truly annoying as well, as are most commercials songs, but I was just wondering why they blow all that money to tell nurses that they are wonderful. What’s in it for the company, I wonder.

Next up: my experiences with quitting smoking using Chantix. Hubby quit about two months ago using and didn’t experience hardly any of the cool side effects (vivid dreams, homicidal tendencies) so I’ll be ranting about the fun of nausea and giving up smokes.

Snow, Among Other Things

This morning I woke up to the local weather people gleefully screaming about snow falling. In Maryland, where I live, snow is a big event. The mere mention of snow can send thousands of people running to the store to buy: bread, milk, toilet paper. I’ve never figured out this combination, but those are the three staples that disappear out of stores whenever the hint of snow or hurricanes are mentioned.

Even though no snow had touched the ground when I woke up, I dutifully dialed the snow line. The place where I work has an actual phone number to call to see if the place is closed due to bad weather. I was hoping they were anticipating the worst and had closed the building for the rest of the year, but no such luck. I had to trudge into work. Of course the moment I got in my truck, it started snowing.

It was a pleasant walk from the parking spot into the hole. The hole is what I call the place where I work. Parking is about 3 miles from the hole (ok, its not THAT far, but when its cold, raining, or snowing it feels like it), walked in the building and down the stairs and followed an amazing trail of dried coffee all the way to the door of the place where I work. At first I thought someone had a major coffee leak going on, then realized that the cleaning people must have carried out a bag that had a full coffee cup in it and a leak. It was dried, so apparently the cleaning people don’t really “clean”. Now I have a wonderful trail of dried coffee stains to follow to my office place. It’ll be there forever, nobody will ever clean it up and most likely they’ll wax over it, preserving it for eternity.

I had a momentary heart attack when the page to the CNN feed wouldn’t load. Weeping uncontrollably, I clicked refresh until it got fixed. Its the ONLY thing that keeps me from going insane in that place. Its sorta like my security blanket of sanity.

Mid-way through the long, dull morning I felt a hair tickling my nose. Owning three northern breed dogs that shed 365 days a year, I’m use to having fur and hair all over me, so I tried to pick it off... but it wouldn’t come off. Momentary panic thinking it was attached harkening back to the day when I was standing for a graduation picture and realized that I had a gigantically long chin hair. I’m a woman, I shouldn’t have chin hair, what the fuck is this growing on my chin. My mother neglected to tell me about the cruel tricks that hormones play on women. I just thought that the women I had seen with horrible moles with fur and chin hairs were an anomaly. I began to panic, thinking that I would now be saddled with shaving the chin hairs (the one spread to another, now I have two that sprout at a moment’s notice) but I’d be plucking mutant nose hairs... then it came out, thankfully. It was a dog hair.

The snow had begun to accumulate by the time I got home, so a 15 minute drive took 30 minutes, mainly because I got behind some moron that needed to drive at 40mph on a highway. Generally, it was a crappy day all around, with more crappy expected tomorrow when the snow freezes and I drive to work on an ice skating rink.

Could you BE any more sensitive?

So today (like I do every work day) I had the headphones on listening to CNN (watching only the interesting parts, which there were none) and heard a “breaking” report about a small plane crashing in Delaware.

Ok, so I looked at that, only because the puppet head news readers were making such a big deal about the carnage and burnt track the plane left. They almost seemed as though they were slathering at the ruins of the plane. It was at this point that the guy puppet head nearly screeched “we’ve just been told that there was one victim of this crash, and that person BURNED TO DEATH”. He almost seemed gleeful when he said it. Then he said it like 7 more times as he explained over and over and over again that a plane crashed and one person BURNED TO DEATH.

I’m all for getting the news out there in a timely fashion and all, but do these morons not realize that the deceased person’s loved ones may be waking up, drinking their coffee, watching CNN only to hear that a small plane (which daddy/husband/brother was flying) has crashed and he BURNED TO DEATH? Did I, or any of the other viewers really need to know that this poor soul BURNED TO DEATH? Did puppet head guy even know the poor person BURNED TO DEATH? They barely could figure out that a plane crashed, didn’t even know how many people were in it, but seemed pretty confident that one person BURNED TO DEATH during the accident. How nice.

I didn’t get to hear any updates on that story because the puppet headed vultures realized that parts of Washington State and Oregon literally washed and blew away last night and there was good footage of death and destruction, so the poor guy that BURNED TO DEATH was old news.

I’m sure his loved ones don’t think so.

Its The Most Expensive Time of the Year

I hate Christmas-time. Not only because I’m a neo-pagan surrounded by the festive people running into each other for a parking space at the overly crowded mall, and people getting into fist fights over the last Guitar Hero box for their loved one.

No, I hate Christmas-time because every December, something major breaks in our house and causes us to delve deeper into debt.

Notable things that have broken in December:

1.) Squirrel electrocuted itself on our power line and took out our old fridge
2.) Dishwasher opted to spew its water onto the floor instead of clean our dishes
3.) Stove began to spark and flame shortly after thanksgiving (no pumpkin pie that year)
4.) A rat that was sitting on the exterior heat pump intake let his little tail dangle into the fan, so that when the fan turned on, puree rat and dead heat pump.
5.) Our dog ruptured his disk and required $7,000 surgery (he’s fine now, thankfully) on CHRISTMAS DAY.

So, when I let our dogs out this morning and heard drip, drip, drip, it came as absolutely, positively no surprise to me that one of our copper pipes had sprung a leak. Why now? What could have possibly happened right this very second to cause a copper pipe that worked perfectly fine when we went to bed to now spew forth with water? Who knows, other than its December and these things happen.

Since it was 5am we opted to be nice and not call the 24 hour plumber that charges by the job and not by the hour, we decided to wait until a more sane hour to call. Apparently we should have been assholes and called because now they’re going to try to “squeeze us in” between noon and 4pm, as other people not as nice as us have already called about their pipes bursting for no reason and now we don’t know if we’ll even get it fixed today.

In a normal house, all we would need to do is turn off the water that goes to that pipe (its apparently one of the main intake pipes, of course), but in our house, the house that was built by morons that did everything on the cheap, we hardly have any shut off valves to anything, which means if one pipe goes, we generally have to shut off the water to the whole house. Which is what we had to do.

Shutting off water to the entire house means no water, period. Of course, the very second we shut the water off to the entire house I wanted coffee, which requires water. The dog bowls were empty, which require water. Flushing the toilet requires water. Its a never ending requirement of water. We put a few buckets down to catch the leak water, turned the water on and filled up bowls, pitchers, coffee pots and everything else that would hold water, then shut it off again. Hubby immediately flushes the toilet after that and curses. Its going to be a good day.

One nice thing is that I truly have a reason for not doing laundry or the dishes. Unfortunately without that task to do, I’m forced to do some of the other things that I’ve been procrastinating on for weeks and using the “must do laundry and dishes” excuse. Sonofa...

Our Trip to Hell.... House

Hubby is a freelance photographer, so most weekends we plot out a place to go shoot (and in Maryland, when you say that in public you quickly add the word PICTURES to the end of that sentence).

After some Web investigation, we found a place called Hell House, which is purported to be haunted and have some sort of cryptic satanic past. Cool, that's a place for us, lets go!

Armed with the nav in the 4-runner, off we went in search of Patapsco State Park, where the infamous Hell House resided. We made a minor stop at McD's for something to eat because we were starving. Starving is the ONLY reason we stop at McD's, and its cheap, although you can buy a nice can of dog food at the supermarket cheaper than a "meal" at McD's and I'm sure the dog food is tastier and more nutritious (as long as it isn't produced in China and contains fillers such as laminate from plastic, even then it probably passes easier than a McFish).

As I have a perpetually runny nose, and our truck contained a woeful lack of kleenex, I was confident that the 6,000 lbs of napkins usually provided with a McD's meal would suffice, except that the idiot at the drive through didn't give us any napkins. I was faced with a choice of snorfling or blowing my nose on the food receipt. The song Aqualung came to mind, but I digress.

The handy nav in the truck guided us to the Patapsco State Park, and we found a parking space under a railroad trestle. After taking some pics of an old abandoned looking factory, we saw parts of an old building up a very, incredibly very steep hill. I, like a fool, thought I could scramble up there, but gave up half way up and slid back down on my butt dragging my Kate Spade bag behind me. I totally don't respect my Kate Spade bag and I like that I don't respect it. I see some people carrying these pristine just out of the store looking black messenger bags and mine is covered in dog fur, dirt, scratched up, and most likely I've blown my nose on it and dripped McFish tarter sauce on it. I've been contemplating cartooning on it, but I have to find the right pens to do it first. That will make some women blow a gasket, I'm sure. But once again, I digress.

After walking around for a bit we discovered... STAIRS. How handy! You mean you don't have to climb up a cliff to get to it, somebody conveniently built stairs to the building? What a concept, so up the stairs we went. I'm guessing that back in the day they weren't very handicapped accessible because I was wheezing and my thighs ached half way up. Fine, I'm not in the best of shape to begin with, but I'm sure I could get up there faster than someone in a wheelchair, so shut the fuck up.

Once up there, we found another windy path and yet more stairs (good lord), got up there and lo and behold, there was Hell House... except now it was Hell Pile of Bricks. Our Web investigation should have led to one more site that explained that the whole place was knocked down a year ago. DAMMIT!

We followed another road and found some kind of religious shrine that had been summarily tagged by graffiti people, and what appears to be a fire place of some kind, and that's about it. All that walking for nothing, but here's a picture of the shrine thing for your viewing enjoyment.

The Art of Procrastination

Why is it that I can spend all day at work thinking of things that I’d rather be doing at home, write extensive lists of all the things that I should or could be doing, then get home and have absolutely NO motivation to do any of it.

When you are at work, cleaning up dog poo is more appealing than sitting in an office. I can be so productive thinking of lists of things that I have to do when I’m at work, then sit and stare at that list when I get home and find no motivation to do any of the things that seemed like a good idea, or needed to do. This means that the list continues to grow, which leads me into a whole panic because now I have this big list of things to do that I’m not motivated to do.

Sometimes I take the coward way out and just cross the stuff off, deeming it not essential to the continuance of life. Some of the things are stupid things and don’t really need to be done, or don’t actually need to be put on a list. Laundry, for example. You always have to do laundry, so why bother putting it on a list. Dishes, the same thing, there’s always dishes. Sometimes I think of the whole futility of housework. It never ends.

Ok, so its really hard to rant when you’re watching Eddie Murphy “Delirious” on Youtube while you are trying to rant.

I hadn’t seen that in a zillion years, and by coincidence, something happened that made me look on youtube to see if they had it. Here’s the coincidence:

I read on someone’s blog about the Black Friday stampedes and there was a link to a video where some poor older woman got knocked down in the stampede and she lost her wig. I sent the link to some friends, one of which responded: “Oh lawdy, lawdy, I’m falling down the stairs... my wig”.

That made me go to Youtube and sure enough, some kind soul had uploaded the whole thing in sections. Now I’m watching it again, and you know what... STILL FREAKING FUNNY!

Ok, so I can’t even begin to rant about how I’m obsessive compulsive about writing lists of things to do that I never get around to doing, then feel like a failure because I don’t do the things that I write on my list.

Thanks Mr. Murphy (I don’t know you well enough to call you Eddie) for making me forget that I’m a failure.

Where Did All This Crap Come From?

I just spent a few hours in our cluttered back room. Ok, cluttered isn’t the right word for it, its more like a hoarder’s dream room. Boxes and boxes, piles and piles, stuffed, crammed, and over-flowing with junk.

We haven’t used anything back there in years, so I have no idea why its back there. Oddly enough, we have a storage room that we rent that is also full of crap that’s never been touched in about 5 years. Why?

I DON’T FREAKING KNOW!!!!

Every time I walk through there to let the dogs out back I think “I need to purge this stuff”, and then I’ll walk back into the house. Well, enough is enough. It got to me today, and I spent a good 3 hours ripping the guts out of computers, and stacking broken non-working monitors into a pile. How did we collect so many computers? Where did this stuff come from? Why are we keeping it?

I suspect that my husband is a hoarder, as none of this stuff is actually mine. I’m a minimalist. I have clothes, I have one laptop, everything I’ve bought fits on one bookshelf, and the rest is his. I’m currently surrounded by 5 other computers, a printer (that doesn’t work with my mac) 2 filing cabinets full of stuff that isn’t mine, 5 wall shelves filled with junk that isn’t mine, and frankly I’m getting claustrophobic.

Dear hubby always says “we can sell it on ebay”. Um, who is going to want a viewsonic 15 inch monitor that doesn’t work? Who is going to want a container full of computer parts that we really have no idea what they are? I’m sure that 9600 baud modem will go for a lot, maybe to a museum, but museums typically expect you to DONATE things to them, not pay for their exhibit materials.

Purging all of this junk is tricky when it comes to circumnavigating a hoarder. First he wanted to “inspect” each computer before I took it to the dump. Why? Don’t know. I tried to hook up an old printer to my mac, but it wouldn’t even turn on, so I tossed it in a contractor bag and hauled the bag to the curb. He got mad that I was throwing HIS stuff away. It doesn’t work... would you like me to make it into a bookend? That thought has crossed my mind, taking the bin of computer parts and welding it into something artistic like a swan.

Little by little I fill up a garbage bag of junk and take it to the curb, disguising it as common household garbage. On Fridays, when I’m off and he works, I giggle fiendishly as I drag bag upon bag, load upon load to the local dump. I do have to be careful that I don’t toss something that he may actually want later on. “Honey, what happened to that Windows 3.1.1 video card we use to have for a proprietary computer that was bent into the shape of a “U” that I need for something right this very second?” Yes, its happened before, that look of a deer in headlights when he asks for something that I know full well went to the dump one friday. Usually I guide him to the back room and point to the precariously piled plastic boxes that will tip and crush a human at the slightest touch and say “I think I recall it being in a bin on the bottom in the back”. That usually deters him from trying to get it. Then he’ll make some snide comment about cleaning up that room, and it takes everything in my being not to bash him in the head with the weed whacker I just uncovered after 4 years of being buried beneath the pile of junk.