April 29th

Seagull Porn

IS IT BETTER TO BE HONEST ABOUT BEING AN ASSHOLE?

Recent encounters with two different types of people made me think about this. I have decided that I have more respect for an "honest asshole" than a person who is polite to your face and will pretend to cooperate, but will bad mouth you and try to sabotage any of your efforts behind your back. I don't LIKE the honest one any better, but at least he's honest, and in-your-face with his nastiness. Of course, when the pretend polite person is putting the honest asshole up to doing her dirty work for her, that makes for an interesting dynamic. And, then mix in that the pretend polite person is known to lie about things to justify her way of doing things, so that the honest asshole is reduced to being plain old mean to people on her behalf, but lying about why so that she can continue to pretend to be polite...

Oh oh. I just gave myself a headache.

April 23rd

WHO'S THE MORON?

Today, it would be ME. I renewed my Zoo membership early because I wanted to beat the price increase. My new card came today, so I took that out of the envelope and threw the junk in the recycling bin.

Except it wasn't all junk. With a membership you get two guest passes and a bunch of discount coupons. I didn't even look at the papers before I tossed them. Fortunately it occurred to me later that the passes might have been in the envelope, and I was able to retrieve them. Bonus-they weren't covered in anything nasty because the recycling was picked up yesterday so the bin was clean.

SPEAKING OF THE ZOO

I went yesterday. I like the zoo, I get some good photos and it's one place that I will walk for a few hours. I don't like walking just to walk, but I will walk around the zoo or other interesting places.

I was at the gorilla exhibit watching the momma and her baby having a snack. The big male and what I think was a younger male were sitting with their backs up against the plexiglass, facing away from the people. The sky tram goes right over the exhibit, and someone lost (or threw) a baseball cap that came down right into the gorilla space. The two males both jumped up to go for it, but the young one got it first. The old male just sat back down and stared at him. The young one did his best to not look at the big male, perhaps hoping that he would go away. The big male just sat, and stared, didn't move at all. Finally the young male stood up, threw the cap on the ground and stomped off.

The big male inspected it, decided it wasn't anything worth keeping, and left it for the young male. When I left he was still carrying his prize around. It was really interesting to watch the interaction between the two.

It was also interesting when the baby got close to the edge of the drop off. The big male went over and gently guided him back to a safer spot. It was cute.

April 15th

EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S WINDY

The past two days have been really windy here, gale force gusts in spots. Today I was driving back from the grocery store and saw some big pieces of palm blow off of the tree. REALLY big fronds, they would have certainly put some hurt on a person or a car if they had landed on them. So, I was hesitant to drive under the spot where the stuff had fallen until I made sure that nothing else was on the way down. Some butt head in a big black pick-up truck with huge tires and a Raiders sticker honked because I was apparently preventing him from getting to the next stop sign in 2.3 seconds. I proceeded cautiously, dodging the big pieces of dead palm in the road. He sped right through the debris, went around me, and dammit if he didn't beat me to the stop sign a block away.

I then uttered my usual comment to men who drive the biggest, baddest vehicles at the fastest possible speed and act like arrogant assholes on the road:

Dude! Sorry to hear about your penis!

April 10th

DEATH OF A HEDGEHOG

Not a real one, a stuffed dog toy. Quite a while ago I bought a pack of three toys from Costco-a duck, a skunk and a hedgehog. They were pretty sturdy, the only stuffed toys that weren't immediately eviscerated by the dogs. The duck disappeared, and I confiscated the skunk when two dogs were arguing over it. The hedgehog was Chance's favorite toy ever, and today Durango killed it.

I've tried buying these guys tougher toys. Kongs? No interest. A toy made from fire hose? No fun, can't kill it. I tried one of those 'Cuz things, finally sent it off with a foster dog that loved it because my animals wouldn't touch it. If they can't rip the stuffing out of it and spread it over as large an area as possible it isn't touched by canines here.

April 6th

PHOTOGRAPHY

I'm trying to get out at least once a week and take photographs. Some places are better than others. The zoo is good, but I think I've got shots of everything worthwhile-including 3,000 different photos of meerkats because they're just so darn cute. Balboa Park is always fruitful, but I keep ending up in the Botanical Building, and have more photos of orchids than meerkats. Old Town is good too. Seaport Village is a waste of time and money (parking fee). I tried Presidio Park and didn't even get out of the car.

I need some more local photo ops. This week I think I'll go to a cemetery that has some nice older sections. And, a day trip to the mountains might be called for soon.

MEET WINSTON

My latest shelter pull. He's just too cute! Well, maybe cute isn't the right word. He's BIG! Most likely a GSD/Malamute mix. He looks wolfish. He was in danger of being put to death in the shelter because he had diarrhea. Yeah, that's a good reason to kill a dog. One day out of the shelter and his poop is just fine, thank you very much.

DURANGO UPDATE

Durango does have EPI (Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency). :-( this means that he'll need enzymes mixed with his food for the rest of his life. The ones the vet sells are $150 for 12 oz, which at Durango's dose is about $3.40 per day. I joined an email list for owners of EPI dogs (I am the queen of the email lists I think-I belong to over 20 of them) and found a substitute enzyme which is reported to work just as well that will cost less than $1 a day! This will be a big help in getting Mr. Rango-Bango a good home I think.

April 1st

NO JOKE, THIS IS THE GUMMIT'!

The feds have authorized funds to extend unemployment benefits for another 20 weeks. Of course, there are people out there who think that those of us who have been unemployed for this long are slackers who just love getting less than half of our previous earnings to sit on our butts and eat bon-bons. Well, maybe that would be true, if we could afford bon-bons. Most of us are lucky to still have a roof over our heads and Top Ramen in the cupboard. Not to mention that those of us with the stigma of having worked in the mortgage business can't even get hired to clean toilets, our resumes go directly into the trash.

This is from the EDD website about who qualifies:

"Federal and State law does not allow payments to be made on a FED-ED extension once you are qualified to file a new regular claim in any state, regardless of the benefit amount on the new regular claim. So if you’ve earned wages that qualify you for a new regular claim in any state, all payments on your FED-ED extension must stop. This means that, if you qualify for a new regular claim, you cannot continue to collect benefits on your FED-ED extension."

What does this mean? Someone who had been receiving the maximum benefit amount and thought that they were doing a good thing by taking a temp job, or took a job that didn't last through no fault of their own (another lay off) and didn't earn at least $11,674.01 during a quarter (not just any three months, it had to be during the period of Jan-Mar, Apr-May, June-Aug, or Sept-Dec) is now basically screwed. Let's say they earned $1500 doing a temp job. Instead of $475 a week they would now get $60. That's a $415 per week penalty for working. Sweet!

Another new thing. Back in the old days you weren't required to accept a job that paid less than your old one. Now, you will be disqualified if you refuse a job that pays at least what you're getting from UE. Since the maximum amount is $450 a week (they aren't counting the extra $25 Obama dollars in this requirement) it's possible that someone who used to make $100,000 a year would be obligated to put in 40 hours a week earning $11.25 an hour, and have the privilege of being treated like a peon on top of that. Anyone who has ever worked for low wages knows that you get very little respect from the people who earn more. Sad fact, but it's true. Frankly, if I'm going to have to continue to live on considerably less than half of my previous income, the prospect of working 40 hours a week and to still have to use borrowed money to pay the mortgage and buy food and to have to really agonize over whether to buy a new pair of jeans (much less fix the leak in my roof or the leak under the sink or replace the TV that quit working) isn't very appealing. But, the gummit wants me to believe that they're being oh-so-compassionate about the plight of the unemployed. I'd like to see whoever made up these new rules work for $11.25 an hour and see how compassionate that feels.

I NEED TO FIND SOME NEW MORONS

The former best contributors to my English mangling posts seem to have disappeared. The two worst offenders at Channel 10 are gone. The on-line paper has a new system for comments that requires at least half a brain to sign up for, so the comments haven't provided much material. I do have a few gems saved up though:

These are all from reporters and anchors at Channel 10:

"...was the destination of a helicopter crash.”

“...he was home at work.” Okey dokey.

“...the driver refused to pull over for speeding.” This would only make sense if the CHP officer was named Speeding.

“...the driver of a hit and run crash.” Is that an American made vehicle?

“What they saw when the wind started to burn.” Wow. Wind can catch fire?