The Because Everybody Has One Blog

December 7th

2009-12-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

ADVENTURES IN JOB HUNTING

A job posting showed up at Yahoo Hot Jobs in my field, so I sent in my resume. I should have remembered that every other job I've found at YHJ has been a scam, but I didn't. A week or so later I got a call from a man who told me that the jobs all required a credit score of 620 or above, and would I qualify. Sure! So, he scheduled a phone interview for last Thursday at noon.

Noon came, noon went, no phone call. Finally at 12:30 a woman called, (who sounded like she wasn't very smart) said that they were running late and could she call in 45 minutes. No problem. FOUR HOURS LATER she finally called back and we had a little chat. She said that the reason they needed to verify credit was that they were offering salaries of $200,000 (for a loan processor? $50,000 is more in line with reality!). She kept rambling on about how they were going to be approved to be a bank in all 50 states, how they were buying distressed properties to boost the assets, and a bunch of other irrelevant nonsense. Nothing about the job, about when it would start, just a lot of useless blather, IMO. Then she said that wanted to fly me to Las Vegas for "training". Uh, what? You want to bring me in for training without an interview? Backtrack. It's for an interview and to give me more information about the company. She said she would call Friday morning to set something up.

Again, morning came and went. She finally called at 5:30 and left a message that she wanted to schedule me to come to Las Vegas on Tuesday, and she would call "tomorrow morning" to set it up.

I didn't answer the phone on Friday, because in the meantime I had tried to find some information on this company and I wasn't ready to talk with her. A google search couldn't find a current website. The only internet presence was a gazillion ads posted looking for loan officers all over the country (including the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico). There was ONE yellow pages type listing for this company in Las Vegas. So, I looked further. The phone number of the guy who called at first is the business number for an answering service in Tacoma WA. The number the woman called me from is an unlisted land line in Los Angeles. The address and suite number shown for the company is the same as the address and suite number for PAGES of other companies. The phone number shows as belonging to a janitorial company. The company is not licensed as a mortgage lender in Nevada. There is a company with that name that was terminated as an FHA approved lender, but I don't know if that's the same company or not.

To continue the same pattern of not doing what she said she would, the woman didn't call Saturday. She finally called this morning-which is Monday. I started asking questions. She did give me an internet site (which has very little actual content, basically the company name and a couple of addresses), but she ignored my questions about why they were calling me from different locations. She claimed that their Nevada license is under a different name, but didn't give it to me. I then told her I wasn't feeling comfortable and would not be giving her any personal information. This is when she completely lost it and began screaming. "I haven't asked you for any personal information!" "You keep stressing that you need to check my credit, how would you do that then?" Silence. Then more screaming. I was "slandering" the company name, let me give you more information..." She just kept yelling and wouldn't shut up. I finally managed to yell over her that I was done, and good-bye. "You can't be done, you're slandering us. You need to listen to me."

I would think that if this WAS a legitimate company and a not some sort of scam she would have been a bit more reasonable. My experience with scammers is when you start to question them they react with indignation, as if they are going to change your mind with anger and threats. I finally hung up on her. She called back and resumed screaming. I hung up again. She called again but this time I let the machine answer. She left the name of "her" lawyer. "Hers", not the company's? That's odd. She told me to call them, that they held the license. So, I checked. Nothing under that name either. (Although a google search revealed that this is a huge firm, that doesn't have a stellar reuptation.)

I don't think I would want to accept employment with someone who screams at people, or who never once followed through with a phone call when she said she would, even if the company is legitimate. I don't think they are though, I think that it's two scammers looking to steal some identities.

November 13th

2009-11-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

MORE IDIOTS FOUND AT COSTCO!

Sometimes I'm convinced that people have to pass a Rude Moron test before being issued a Costco membership. There are always the ones who are so frantic to get a free sample of something that they park their butts and their carts right in the way of anyone who doesn't want a little bite of some random food item and just wants to shop. Yesterday's winner of the Rude Moron of the Day Award was a completely clueless woman who looked like she escaped from an East County trailer park without bringing her hairbrush. The vitamin aisle at Costco is usually the worst. People block the aisle standing next to their carts while trying to decide which bottle of Vitamin C to buy. Yesterday was business as usual, with the added thrill of this moron who was standing next to a cart yakking on a cell phone. Someone said "excuse me" trying to get through, and she didn't think that actually moving out of the way was a good idea, she just flattened herself against the shelf, and then stepped right back out as soon as that one person went by, despite the fact that there were at least three other people wanting to get through the aisle. I made a comment that she obviously thought that talking on the phone was more important than paying attention and getting out of the way. Well, Miss Trailer Trash didn't think that SHE was the problem. She started yelling "This isn't my cart!" Uh, so what? You're standing next to it blocking the aisle. "I'm not in anyone's way!" she yelled. So, I headed my cart right where she was standing and she finally decided that perhaps she WAS in the way and that moving was the prudent course of action. Well, she did keep yelling at me that I was rude. Okay, I'm rude. I did manage to escape the vitamin aisle though.

FOSTER DOG APOLLO

This poor guy has separation anxiety. He's okay in a crate as long as I'm here, but he freaks out when the front door opens. The other day I came home to find that he had escaped the crate and had pushed down the baby gate and had managed to get it wedged against the front door so that it wouldn't open. My key won't work in the outside of the side door. Fortunately I was able to get in through the back door. I got some melatonin to try with him. I'll give him one today and see if I can get him to stop freaking out when I open the front door. Poor guy even gets anxious when I get dressed.

November 2nd

2009-11-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

HAPPY ADOPTION DAY KIARA!

Six years ago today I brought my sweet girly-girl home to foster. She never left. She had been in a shelter and adopted, but was dumped back there four months later. Skin and bones, covered with fleas and with the staples from her spay surgery still there. They guessed at the time that she was 4 1/2. so that means she's at least 10 1/2 now. I can't find her old pictures, moved to a hard drive. New ones? I'm bad about taking photos of my own dogs. The cobbler's children have no shoes.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, OR NEIGHBORHOOD NUSANCE?

Church Bells taken to court

Okay, I'm all for freedom of religion. But, your freedom to express your particular religious belief stops at my eardrums. (Or at my front door, I am in no way obligated to open my door to allow you to save my soul. My soul is fine, thank you very much.) The church wasn't there first, so they can't argue that people moved to the neighborhood knowing that the bells would ring starting at 6 fucking am EVERY day. The priest, rector, whatever he calls himself came off as such an arrogant bastard in the news report (I have the right to annoy you because that's how I want to express my religious fanaticism) that I wanted to take his bells and shove them up his self-righteous butt. I'm glad that the court ruled for the neighbors. The priest, rector, whatever he calls himself probably was so annoying in court that the judge was more than happy to slap him with a conviction for disturbing the peace. There's nothing wrong with tasteful ringing of bells, but apparently this was recorded bell music that was so loud that people were being woken up by it with doors and windows closed, and that clearly interferes with people's right to quiet enjoyment of their homes.

October 3rd

2009-10-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

HOW TO GET COX COMMUNICATIONS TO STOP BEING SUCKY

At least partly anyway. First, do not ever, ever, ever try to get a rational response by calling them on the phone. Their phone people seem to have all passed a Bad Customer Service Test: Are you below average in intelligence? Do you have a bad attitude? Are you incapable of listening? Yes? You're hired! Add to that their completely horrible phone tree which will put YOU in a bad mood by the time you're finally able to reach one of the people who passed the Bad Customer Service Test, and the result will not be pretty. Second, write a blog post about why you are aggravated with Cox Communications. Third, send an email to them with a link to the blog post. It will take you a few emails to get someone to actually READ what you wrote and to grasp that this is on a very public blog and to actually use their brain to figure out what they should do, but email is much less frustrating than calling them. You will eventually get a response from the one rational human on their payroll.

I'm still not entirely pleased with CC, because that one human implied that they are doing me a HUGE favor by not charging me their "usual" $75 fee to come out and fix their screw up (how absolutely magnanimous of you!), but at least they're going to come and get their stupid box that they assured me they wouldn't send in the first place.

I may still call AT&T though.

September 16th

2009-09-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

QUICK UPDATE

I haven't blogged lately. My bad. After Durango died I fostered a young dog named Kirby. Sweet little thing, but I did the happy dance when he was adopted. He was still in the chewing phase, and I'm out one remote control and a couple of shoes. Now Apollo (handsome fellow pictured above) is hanging out here. Nice guy, much calmer than the Kirby-Monster. I hurt my back and didn't feel like doing anything but mope around for two weeks. Better now, need to get back out and take some pictures this week. Maybe tomorrow. The Tweeker-House has been completely untweeked, and is up for sale. I'll get around to posting a recap of the History of Tweeker House one of these days.

BUT NOW, I MUST RANT A BIT

Cox Communications SUCKS! I have more than one story to tell about them, and they have put me into a really pissy mood, so I'm telling.

My old TV had a broken internal tuner (wouldn't go above channel 10) so I had a cable box. When I moved here I was told to just bring my box with me and continue to use it. No problem. But, when the service guys came to hook up the cable they brought another box. I told them I didn't need it, but they said "Oh well, now you have two" and refused to take it back. No problem for a few years until Cox Communications (who suck, BTW) started billing me for two boxes. I called them, endured the most annoying phone tree system in existence, and finally was able to get to a real person. I told them the story, and they told me that in order to no longer be charged for a box that I wasn't using, hadn't asked for and their employees insisted on leaving at my house I had to go out of my way and bring it back to their office. Uh, no. I finally convinced them (although it wasn't pleasant or easy) that the proper and polite thing for them to do would be to come get it since it was their mistake that I had it. They did, but it took two more months, and two more phone calls and two more encounters with the most annoying phone tree system in existence for them to acknowledge that they had it and to stop billing me for it.

A few months ago that TV finally died completely. I wasn't going to complain about being billed for a box that I wasn't using, I figured that I should unhook it and take it back but hadn't gotten the enthusiasm worked up to do it. A couple of weeks ago I got a letter from Cox Communications (have I said that they suck?) saying that that old box would be disabled and that they were going to send me a new one, but to call if I didn't need it. I called immediately, and of course once again endured the most annoying phone tree system in existence. As is usual when calling Cox Communications (the cable company that sucks!) the reason that they told me to call wasn't one of their choices, and it takes five steps to get to talk to a person. Come on you morons! If I'm not calling to order new service the first two times I'm presented with a menu of irrelevant choices, what are the chances that I'm going to be calling to order new service when I get to the third, fourth or fifth list of irrelevant choices? Did I just forget the first four times, or are you hoping that if you keep asking I'll change my mind? So, once again I was finally able to talk to a human, and told her not to send the new box. According to her there wasn't even an order on my account to do that, and she was surprised that I had received the letter, but she assured me that the new box would not be sent. Of course, they wanted me to bring back the old one, but she did finally agree to send a return label for it because the letter said that they would do that.

Guess what's sitting on my doorstep? BINGO! The new box, that I don't want, don't need and was assured that they wouldn't send. Back to the phone, and the most annoying phone tree system in existence, and I finally get a person. I won't call this one human, she was a snooty bitch and when I told her so she hung up on me. Okay, now I'm really pissed at Cox Communications (who suck) because I have to endure their phone tree AGAIN. And, their "solution" for their screw up is for ME to take care of fixing it.

Uh, no. Your stupid box is sitting on my doorstep. You sent it after you promised you wouldn't, getting it back is YOUR problem. Hope the neighborhood hooligans don't make off with it before you pull your heads out and take care of your screw up.

July 20th

2009-07-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

RIP SWEET DURANGO

My affectionate, goofy and always entertaining foster dog Durango passed away suddenly yesterday. He was less than two years old, and I miss Mr. Trouble very much.

Let me tell you his story from the beginning. We got a plea from the local shelter to take a young dog. He had been turned in by his owners because he had chronic diarrhea, and "the pills weren't working." The medical staff at the shelter put him on the kill list because they didn't have the resources to fix the poor guy, so I went down to evaluate him.

There was no way I was going to let this handsome GSD die alone on a cold table in the shelter. He was very skinny, but I knew that I needed to help him. It turns out that he had a condition where he wasn't able to digest or absorb nutrients from his food, but the addition of enzymes to his meals would manage it and allow him to live a normal life. I broke my "no kibble crosses my threshold" rule for Mr. Rango-Bango. For him to eat raw I would have had to either buy very expensive ground stuff, or buy a strong grinder because the enzymes have to touch every bit of the food and sit for a while to work. Sprinkling them on a chicken leg quarter doesn't cut it. Didn't matter to him though, Durango loved to eat. Even some things he shouldn't, which may have been the cause of his demise.

He was a complete cuddle bug, and took it upon himself to chase all birds and flies out of the yard. One day a sparrow flew in my back door, and he caught it. He took it to his crate and let it go and it flew away. No sparrow dinner for you!

From what he went through in his final moments I think that he either had an intestinal blockage or his intestines twisted. My house is too quiet without him.

Hope there are sparrows for you to catch in doggie heaven Pudda Head.

June 22nd

2009-06-22T19:18:00.001-07:00

NO MORE KODACHROME!

Apparently it's big news that Kodak is discontinuing production of a film that has been made for 74 years. (Note to news people-please stop playing the Paul Simon song over and over and over. Momma done took the Kodachrome away already!) The thing that they aren't mentioning is that Kodak recently introduced a better color film using newer technology-Ektar. Kodachrome is just taking its place in history and going the way of the Brownie camera and 8 mm home movies. Yes, sales of film have declined drastically due to the rise of digital, but there are people who still shoot film. I'm not one of them, but my Uncle Ed tried a digital SLR a few years ago and didn't like it at all, went back to film. There are at least two people that I know of in the MeetUp.com photo group who shoot film, although one prefers B&W. Film isn't dead, it's just finding a different group of users.

I had a good outing with the meet-up group at the Glider Port yesterday. I'm still viewing and editing photos, I'll put them up in my Flickr Galleries when I'm done. It takes a while to go through 385 pictures!

June 1st

2009-06-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

A POX ON YOU!

This would be for the uber-rude, conceited arrogant butt head that I was supposed to have an interview with today. Another man who was almost peeing all over himself over my resume. My experience, my qualifications, I sound so perfect! He asked me to come for an interview at noon.

I got there on time. He was busy according to the receptionist (who was at least as old as me). I noticed as he ran back and forth between two offices that he looked at me and his lip curled up in disgust. Must be the grey hair-nothing else could be that noticeable from 20 feet away. I bathed, I put on make up, I was dressed better than any other person I saw walking around the office.

After leaving me sitting for a half an hour he came out and said that he had a sore throat and needed to go to the doctor, but he would call me later.

Of course, he didn't. He's an asshole. I hope he ends up hiring a mindless bimbo with dyed hair and fake boobs who will screw up all of the loan files. It would be even better if she embezzled money and offended all of his clients. I hope his karma bites him in his arrogant behind.

May 21st

2009-05-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

WHY CALIFORNIA IS GOING BROKE

The doomsayers (AKA the governor and the legislature) are crying poverty, and telling us that if we don't agree to pay more taxes they will cut services. But, here's a little example of what might be the REAL problem in California. According to their website, 76,000 Californians were potentially eligible to receive the latest federal unemployment benefits extension. Now, while the feds are paying the benefits, I'm pretty sure that the state is paying the postage, printing, paper, and for the employees at the EDD. So, they sent out notices to all 76,000 people with a claim form. Let's pretend that 90% of those people are still unemployed and filled out the form and sent it back. The state sent out checks, but WITHOUT the continuing claim form for the next two weeks. So, they had to send out the forms separately. If they had to send this to 68,400 people, at 44¢ postage each, the postage alone was $30,094! Not to mention the paper, the man hours (I'll bet that at least half of those people called to find out why they had no new form-because they couldn't take 5 minutes to post an announcement on the website), ETC! Yeah, I'll be thrilled to pay more taxes to continue to fund government incompetence.

May 15th

2009-05-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

MORON OF THE WEEK

I wonder why I find so many of my winners (or, should I say losers?) at Costco. This week's stand out:

A society type, with those ridiculous striped highlights in her hair and a designer purse, talking on the phone and wandering back and forth in the aisles. Completely ignoring people who were trying to actually shop. Just so, so self absorbed and getting in everyone's way. If I were the slapping type, she would have had a good palm print on the perfectly made up face.

MORE RESCUE ADVENTURES

Today I picked up a new dog from the vet and took him to the boarding kennel. I did the usual, hooked a leash to his collar and tethered the leash to something in the back of the car. I have this cool leash with a bunch of rings and hooks on both ends so it can be used in different ways.

Suddenly Silver (the dog) was in the front seat. Collar on, no leash. Somehow he unhooked it! Then he proceeded to climb in my lap, nearly crash the car, turn off the radio and roll down a window. I had to stop, get a slip lead on him, and put him in the crate for the rest of the ride.

Just a side note: For some reason the photo for this entry loaded in like two seconds. It usually takes a very long time. I wonder what the difference is. I know I didn't suddenly get high speed internet, unless the computer elves did it.

May 6th

2009-05-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

WHY DID I DO THAT?

Sign up for Twitter. I'm sure that nobody cares what I'm "doing right now". Okay, I signed up so I could follow Jen Lancaster, because she cracks me up. But, don't expect me to do a lot of tweeting. I also used my full, real name to sign up. Which means that I'll need to be very nice, polite and completely PC when I do tweet-especially since I'm still job hunting. I can just imagine a potential employer googling my name and finding me twittering on about picking my nose or calling a lying asshole a lying asshole.

THE PHOTO

Up at the top. It's a painted cow. I joined a MeetUp.com group for photography. They go places and take pictures. The first meet-up I went to was to take pictures of painted cows. I have mixed feelings about photographing works of art. If doing documentary photos then that's fine. Otherwise, all you have is a photo of someone else's artwork, and there's no real creativity there. So I try to create my own thing in the photograph, if that makes any sense.

May 2nd

2009-05-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

Another mortgage company. Not really interesting in and of itself since it's just one of hundreds of large companies, and probably thousands of small ones, that have vanished since 2006. What makes it interesting to me is that I applied for a job there and actually had an interview a few months ago.

The phone interviewer was very impressed with my resume, and had almost signed me up for training starting that week. When I got there for the face-to-face interview I was first kept waiting in the lobby for an hour past my appointment time. Then the person I was supposed to meet was "busy", so I was interviewed by someone else. Suddenly it appeared that they had hired all the necessary people for their first ramp-up. Maybe it was because I uttered a comment that the future of any mortgage business wasn't all that secure, and that it would perhaps depend on whether or not the various government stimuli worked, among other things.

"Oh no! We have built in leads from the loans we service. We have plenty of business, we will be growing."

Optimism in defiance of reality. This company used to be a big sub-prime lender. According to the interviewer they no longer did sub-prime, and all the new business that was going to be so big was refinancing their current borrowers. Uh-HELLO? You think that you can refinance your sub-prime crap into prime mortgages?

Yeah, right. You'll be going, not growing. And, in all honesty I probably didn't get the job because I'm not 20 something and my mammaries are no longer perky.

If employers want experienced and intelligent they may have to get over the mammary fetish. But, if I had gotten that job I'd once again be unemployed and no better off than I was before.

RIP-Jack Kemp

I just read that Jack Kemp has died. I was a big fan of his when he was the quarterback for the Chargers when I was little. In 1972 I lived for a summer in Bethesda MD (I was a government intern, but not in the White House) and the Kemps lived right across the street. Mrs. Kemp baked us a cake (apple spice) to welcome us to the neighborhood. I never actually met him, but I did get to watch him toss a football to his son out in the street. My father called me to the window. "Look at that! He's out there in the street doing for free what we used to pay good money to see in San Diego."

Maybe he can toss around a few footballs with my father now. Or, talk politics since they would have agreed completely with each other.

April 29th

2009-04-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T18:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

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?

March 28th

2009-03-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

IT LIVES!

The goldfish.

Okay, you need a bit of background.

Twice now I have turned on the water to top off the water in my pond, and forgotten about it. Too much water into the pond. The first time I found one dead goldfish floating the next morning. The next time there were TWO floating. I didn't look too closely at them, assumed I'd killed them. A little later I went out and two more were floating. Okay, I've killed them all, I am a fish killer. When I went back out to start recovering the bodies, two of them had recovered and were swimming happily around the pond, and the other two weren't quite dead yet. They were floating on their sides, but their gills were working. They were trying not to die. I took those two out and put them in a bucket with water that had been standing for a few days-hopefully the nasty fish killing chemicals had dissipated. (The authorities keep telling us that it's safe to drink this water, but it kills fish!) One of them died soon after. This was my last fish from the original six goldfish put in the pond in June of 2000. I'm surprised he lasted this long, he had a big nasty tumor growing on his head. He survived both assaults on the pond by a Great Blue Heron, but succumbed to my forgetfulness. The other fish didn't die, so I decided to put it back in the pond since the other fish had recovered and perhaps the toxic threat was over.

That fish floated on its side or on its back for two days. Little gills flapping, mouth gasping, not dying. I considered fish euthanasia, but couldn't quite bring myself to kill the fish, and decided to let it die on its own schedule. Of course, if the PETA and HSUS wackos hear of this I will be condemned and picketed for causing the poor gold fish to endure horrific suffering because I didn't have enough courage to kill it, and how dare I even keep those poor little creatures in captivity when they should be swimming free somewhere to be eaten by bigger fish.

This morning the fish turned itself right side up, and rejoined the other fish swimming around the pond.

So, PETA-suck my carp!

March 10th

2009-03-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

MORON STORY OF THE DAY

Today the clueless (and rude!) person was found working a check stand at Food4Less. I usually buy something called white squash instead of zucchini. It cooks and tastes pretty much the same, but costs a lot less. So, today when I saw the idiot checking me out looking for the code, and nowhere close to the right thing I tried to be helpful.

"It's white squash."

"No, it's listed as Italian squash", said the moron and entered that code.

"No, it's white squash. Italian squash is zucchini, and it's skinnier and darker green."

So, the moron looked at the list again, and said "Oh, white ACORN squash."

"No. WHITE, just plain white squash." I did not yell, but I will admit that I was talking a bit more loudly than my normal inside voice.

"You don't have to get loud", whined the moron.

"Well, apparently I did have to because you weren't listening to me despite the fact that I told you three times what the correct name was."

And then of course the moron couldn't figure out how to void out the incorrect item. Which she wouldn't have had to do if she had listened instead of being an argumentative, bitchy know-it-all.

February 27th

2009-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER FINE MESS!

And, I did it all by myself.

A bit of background. I was at the vet's office three days this week. First with Durango, then Chester, then Durango again. Now, vet offices aren't exactly the most secretive of places. The receptionist answers the phone within earshot of clients waiting in the lobby. There is a sign in sheet on the counter with the name of everyone who's come in before. Conversations can be overheard. So, on day one I happened to catch a couple of keywords that made me curious, and I wanted to find out what had happened. On day two in a casual, grown up type of conversation I asked if the dog's name was XXX, and was told that it was YYY. Dog YYY was one that I had done the adoption for (with a rescue that I don't really work with anymore, although I'm still fostering one of their dogs). I related that bit of information, and was told a bit more of the story but no real details, just a quick, simple personal observation from a staff member who is always polite and friendly. In no way was anyone meaning to gossip, spread stories, talk out of school or be at all irresponsible.

Well, since I asked someone involved with the rescue who I thought was still in the inner circle if they knew anything more (I do think I had a legitimate reason to be concerned since I had been directly involved with the dog) somehow another person either was told or deduced that the people at the vet's office were gossiping about their business. So, some poor person at the office got yelled at without deserving the tongue lashing.

I don't think that it would do any good to try to explain it either, but I do wish that someone would apologize to whoever got yelled at. It really wasn't their fault. I was curious and concerned, I asked questions. Did anyone die? Well, anyone besides the dog I mean. Honestly, if I had thought I was doing anything wrong I wouldn't have been so open about asking questions, but I guess I misjudged some one's level of animosity.

My bad.

February 25th

2009-02-25T19:05:00.000-08:00

IT APPEARS MY LUCKY STREAK HAS ENDED

I was doing so well at choosing shelter dogs that appeared to need expensive medical care and ended up not costing us anything. Willow-a young girl that the shelter thought had a torn ACL turned out to have Pano; basically "growing pains" that go away on their own. Missy-another young girl thought to have severe hip dysplasia turned out to have had a broken pelvis that is healing correctly.

Then there was Durango. Diarrhea? No problem, or so I thought. Poor guy, nothing is helping. We tried pancreatic enzymes, and his poop is the same. Some good poop days, some cow patty poop days. This is a good thing because the enzymes are expensive and very few people want to adopt a dog with a condition that is costly to manage, but bad because we still don't know what's wrong with him. Tomorrow he starts getting weekly B-12 shots to see if that will help him absorb nutrients and gain some weight.

And now Chester. The shelter called about a dog with a limp. (Bonus points if you figure out why I named him Chester.) Everyone thought it was either congenital (paw and lower leg are under developed) or an old injury. It's the latter-broken ulna 5-7 months ago, but he needs surgery (which might not even work) and still risks losing the leg.

Oh well. Batting .500 is not too bad.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SAY "HUH?"

I have an escrow account with my mortgage-I pay 1/12th of my taxes and insurance every month and then the lender makes those payments. They have to review the account every year and make adjustments to make sure you aren't overpaying and that there isn't a shortage. This year I had a surplus, so they sent me a check for $66.14, and then raised my monthly payment amount by $1 to avoid a shortage for next year. Gotta love the logic!

February 5th

2009-02-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

YOU KNOW YOUR LIFE IS BORING WHEN...

...the most exciting thing you have to report is that you found gluten-free pretzels at Windmill Farms.

I haven't tried them yet. I found the pretzels after I had already grabbed unsweetened banana chips, raw cashews and dates, so I was overwhelmed by snack choices. Not to mention the bag of regular ol' Lays potato chips that I bought yesterday. I have really missed pretzels since I discovered that I can't eat wheat though. Maybe tomorrow I'll get the mustard out and have a pretzel-fest. Or maybe the p-nut butter. Pretzels and p-nut butter are a really good combination.

January 25th

2009-01-25T19:19:00.000-08:00

MEET DURANGO

We got an email from the county shelter last week. A family had surrendered their young male GSD because he had diarrhea and "the pills weren't working". The shelter vet staff wouldn't allow him to stay, so either he had to go to a rescue or be put to sleep. We evaluated him, and he passed his dog-to-dog and people tests, so I took him. He is a complete sweetie pie. He loves my other dogs, loves me, loves being alive.

He reportedly had a history of giardia, which is a parasite that can keep coming back, so the shelter vets put him on Flagyl. It's not even the best thing to kill the parasite but vets like to hand it out for any little case of runny poo, so I will give him the rest of the pills. I have him eating raw chicken, and am giving him probiotics and slippery elm bark powder. He's very skinny-you can see every rib and feel every bone in his spine.

After less than 48 hours with me, sweet Mr. Durango took a good, solid poop.

If anyone saw me they would think I was absolutely loony for doing a happy dance over dog shit.

January 17th

2009-01-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

In the jungle...

FIXING THINGS

Usually my attempts to repair things don't work out. As a matter of fact, many times I make things worse. So, I was quite upset with myself for breaking one of the nose pieces off of my glasses. Having to get a new pair right now wouldn't be good for my finances. But, I thought I'd at least try. I carefully observed how the nose pieces attached, and noted that the part on the frame was still intact. I went to the store and bought some cheap sunglasses that had nose pieces attached with screws. Removed one, and attached it to my glasses. It worked! I'm quite pleased with myself. Until the next time I try to fix something and totally mess things up anyway.

GRAMMAR GRIPE

Transition is a noun! You can make a transition, but you cannot transition. The new-speak nonsense where people say things like "As we transition into the new business plan..." is just plain wrong. Also, breath is a noun, not a verb. I want to strangle people who write "I couldn't breath." That's like saying "I couldn't chair."

January 10th

2009-01-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

MY LATEST FOSTER

Lightfoot is an almost perfect dog. Housebroken, mellow, doesn't chew things up. He is a counter surfer, and he needs some work on his leash manners. But, he's pretty much an all around good boy. He has a family coming to meet him tomorrow.

And this is Missy. I got her out of the shelter yesterday. The shelter vets thought that she had hip dysplasia. Turns out she has an injury, probably was hit by a car. Her pelvis was broken, but is all in place and is healing. So, we got a very beautiful GSD, obviously with show line breeding who we will find a wonderful home for.

THE FUNERAL IS TOMORROW

I am mourning the death of the adverb. Even advertising professionals (who you would hope have a college education and a basic grasp of proper grammar) come up with things like "Change begins small." Small is an adjective, and the sentence would only be proper if it was "Change is small." Of course, that doesn't make any sense. Unless Change is a person of diminutive stature.

And, the one that truly drives me crazy in many variations: "eat healthy". Healthy is an adjective and cannot be eaten because it isn't a thing. The adverb is "healthily", but I'll admit that's awkward. So, it would be correct to say "eat healthy food", but trying to eat healthy would be like trying to eat blue. Unless you had a cow and named it Healthy, then you could eat Healthy.

December 28th

2008-12-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

WHERE'S THE BANDWAGON?

I need to climb on.

Let me back up a bit. I've been a Charger fan for a very long time. Since they came to San Diego in fact. My father was an Assistant City Attorney at the time, and his signature is on the lease for the Chargers to use Balboa Stadium. As a very young girl I had a serious crush on Lance Allworth. The day that Buffalo picked up Jack Kemp on injured waivers was a sad day for me. (Although many years later his wife baked me a cake, but that's another story.) My brother still has an authentic (as in worn by him) Keith Lincoln jersey. The "kids" got to go to at least one game a year, my parents had season tickets as long as my father still lived here. Even after he got the big time gummit job and moved to DC he still loved his Chargers. He died one year before their first (and so far, only) trip to the Super Bowl. Even when I lived in Los Angeles (during the time that the Raiders were there) I was a lone blue and gold dot in the sea of black and silver.

Anyway, four weeks ago they were as good as done. Toast. Season over, officially in the crapper. Except they started to win, and Denver started to lose.

They're in the playoffs.

So, I am a fan in search of a bandwagon. I hope there's still some room.

December 26th

2008-12-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR AND BAH HUMBUG!

That ought to cover it.

I didn't do anything for Christmas. No stress, no mess. This works for me.

SAY, WHAT?

There was some guy on one of the news programs talking about how to avoid catching nasty bugs during the "cold and flu season." He said to cough into your elbow instead of your hand.

WTF? If I'm coughing that means that I'm already sick, so what good will it do me to cough up a big ol' wad of phlegm onto my clothes? I'm not really inclined to soil my clothing so that someone else doesn't get sick.

December 18th

2008-12-18T20:09:00.001-08:00

WHAT'S THAT RACKET?

I'm sitting here at the computer, minding my own business, trying to organize the potential dog adopters who need to be contacted and meetings arranged. Then I hear a noise. And, there it is again. There is quite a ruckus going on over my head. The pitter-patter of little feet running back and forth, and back and forth. Except it's paws, and it's more like a rumble than a pitter-patter. Hoping that it was ON the roof, and not in the attic (I had a nice batch of roof rats at the old house) I went outside with a flashlight to investigate.

Two lovely black cats are having a party on my roof. They aren't fighting, they're just chasing each other all over the place.

At least they didn't cross my path. There aren't any bad omens associated with black cats over your head, are there? I don't need any more bad luck.

December 13th

2008-12-13T18:41:00.001-08:00

TIMBER-THE ENFORCER!

This is my current foster dog. Handsome boy, no?

He's a really great house guest. Goes potty outside, sleeps quietly on the dog bed, walks well on a leash and rides nicely in the car. He earned the title of The Enforcer because he doesn't like any trouble. If one of the other dogs starts picking on another one he pushes into the middle and tries to keep the peace.

SNIFF, SNIFF

I woke up with a cold. Scratchy throat, runny nose. I took two doses of a homeopathic remedy, so I'll see how long the crud lasts. I still have the scratchy throat, but I feel fine. Good thing I have an ample supply of chicken soup. We have an adoption event tomorrow, and it's going to be cold. I'll bundle up, wear a hat and gloves and maybe hit Starbucks for some hot chocolate. Hmmm, maybe I should snag some peppermint schnapps. It goes very well with hot chocolate.

I'll report back as to whether or not the remedy made a difference. I used to joke about OTC cold remedies-"That should cure that cold in about ten days!" So, if this lasts fewer than ten days I will consider the remedy a success.

December 7th

2008-12-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

THE TWEEKER HOUSE-OVER AND OUT!

Quick recap: The house back in December while Tweeker Dude and Tweeker Dudette were still in residence:

Tweeker House after the Tweeker Family left, without taking their tweeker crap with them:

Slowly things began to go away. First the used-to-be-a-motor-home. Followed by the non-operational vehicle. Then, the cavalry came. At first just a work crew and a big dumpster:

When that proved to be ineffective, they brought in machines:

They filled up at least six of those big dumpster things. And, this is the aftermath of the Reign of Tweekerdum and Tweekerdee:

Yes, there are broken windows. The clean-up crew ripped down the fences to be able to get the mounds of junk out. There is no floor covering. It's a POS.

There is a "For Sale" sign in the yard. We'll see what happens next.

November 28th

2008-11-28T17:20:00.001-08:00

WON'T HURT TO TRY IT

I signed up for an account at a site where people can purchase prints of my photos. The link is over there --->

Since it's free, I guess it's worth a try. Not that I'm expecting to get rich or anything, but it would be exciting to actually sell a photograph.

Edited to add: I discovered a little secret about the art sale site. If you start to purchase something it will automatically take you to the "Custom Framing" option, where the smallest print will cost $90+. Stupid! (Especially since I don't make money off of their outrageous frame prices, just the prints.) If you click on "Change Product Type" you can buy a print, and take it to someplace cheaper (in other words, reasonable) to have it matted and framed. There is also an option to purchase note cards.

CHANNEL 10 GRAMMAR GOOFS

Since the two worst offenders are no longer there I haven't been picking on the news team much lately, but I have saved a few gems.

Random wrongs:

“This is how it looked like.”
“the no alcohol ban.” If “no alcohol” is banned, does that mean everyone must drink at the beach?
“...a very public safety issue.” (From an anchor person.)
“Behind me you can see some sirens.” (Michael Chin, the dramatic reader.)
“Both men lived together.”

And, from anchor-person KH:

“The man behind the wheel of a deadly bus crash...”
“A man with a bullet still launched in his face....”
“Puppy mills is a flourishing business...”
(All of course delivered with perfect diction. Bad grammar, but perfect diction.)

November 12th

2008-11-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

I suck as a blogger lately. Okay, here's what's been happening.

I had a foster dog.

He got adopted. (By a really nice woman who RAW FEEDS! I wish all my fosters would be so lucky.)

I'm picking up a new foster dog tomorrow, but before he comes home I'm meeting someone who wants to adopt him, so he may be gone before he gets here.

There were actually two jobs advertised in my field this week. I applied for both, but haven't heard anything. I imagine that mine was just one of 10,000 applications.

I'm going to have another glass of wine now.

October 26th

2008-10-26T19:40:00.001-07:00

I LOVE A PARADE!

Some of our rescue volunteers walked some dogs in a neighborhood Halloween parade yesterday. I love parades. Especially the marching bands. I can do without the beauty queens and celebrities in convertibles, but everything else is fun. Yesterday the crowd was just as entertaining as the parade.

October 11th

2008-10-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

NOTHING NEW TO REPORT HERE

Same old shit. No glimmer of hope that mortgage jobs will be coming back. That county job that I applied for in February came up again, I applied again, I meet the requirements again. I fully expect to not hear any more about it again. What's that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Some well meaning people tell me to expand my resume, stress accomplishments. They don't get it. If I stress my accomplishments the words mortgage and loan will need to appear. Those words cause resumes to hit the circular file without further ado. Wouldn't matter if I had won a Nobel prize, an unemployed mortgage worker is the new object of blatant discrimination in hiring. I guess I need to hope that my equity line doesn't get frozen and that I can hang on until things turn around.

Some people are bothered by the fact that I'm living off of my home equity loan. Gosh. Got a better idea for someone who's been unemployed for over a year and, despite sending out a gazillion resumes, has had four responses; only two of which resulted in interviews? One was for a temporary job that had over 100 applicants, the other was for a position that was just imaginary. The guy thought that the first economic stimulus package was going to cure the mortgage biz and he was going to get busy. Glass half full type there. The glass has since been knocked over, spilled, and is empty. We're waiting for a new glass, and a water boy.

I did treat myself to a trip to the zoo for my birthday. So, I will share my gift with some photos.

And now I'm going to go watch Iron Man, simply to bask in the hotness that is Robert Downey Jr.

September 28th

2008-09-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

LIFE'S MILESTONES

You know, the turning points, the major moments and accomplishments people celebrate.

I am happy to report that in April of 2006 I bought this computer and began playing Free Cell games in order, beginning with #1. Today I won game #10,000.

I knew you'd be impressed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's my sister Janet's birthday today. Have a good one!

September 25th

2008-09-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

SHOCKED! SIMPLY SHOCKED!

Clay Aiken is gay? Who woulda thunk it?

WHOO HOO!

Thursday night is once again something to look forward to. Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy are back. When Lost starts again I'll be even happier.

September 14th

2008-09-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER CRANKY BITCH!

This week to be found at Costco. I bought two large plastic storage containers, and I put them on the belt first because I wanted them to put the rest of my stuff in them. The cashier was so busy yakking that she didn't notice that they had bumped into her register and broke off a piece of plastic. When she finally stopped talking and looked at what was going on she snapped at me "Next time leave the big stuff in the cart!"

Uh, you want to yell at ME because you weren't paying attention and doing your job? Okay, fine. Cranky bitch.

RIP Sweet Dino

2008-09-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Dino with his friend Aria

I wrote about Dino back in March when the rescue first discovered that he had lymphoma. It went into remission, and he was a healthy happy dog until last Friday when he had some swelling in his leg. Apparently he developed some sort of auto-immune disease (which the medicine pushers will never admit was most likely caused by the use of prednisone!) and had blood clots in his spleen. Last night he was wagging his tail and eating like a horse, and then laid down and quietly passed away.

He was a sweet, sweet boy and he had lots of friends who have cried many tears today. He never got adopted, but he spent the last months of his life in a loving foster home, and didn't die alone in a shelter.

September 8th

2008-09-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

I WENT TO THE BEACH

This probably won't seem like a remarkable event, since I live in San Diego and the rest of the world thinks that we spend all of our time lounging on the sand and surfing. But, I'm not all that fond of the beach. Damn sand gets into everything. There are THINGS out in the water-like jelly fish and sting rays and slimy seaweed. And now you can't even have a beer. Boring, uncomfortable, and for the most part, why bother? But, I've been playing photographic scavenger hunt, and the hunt for that day was "water", so I figured that the beach was as good a place to find it as any.

You can see my hunt results so far here: Photographic Scavenger Hunt

APOLOGIES TO THE ZONIES

Not only is it time to leave the beach and return to the desert, our moron TV weather man is following you. Now it's your turn to listen to him talk about the weather like an over-emoting actor, never have a Thursday again (it will be "the eve of FRIDAY!!!" from now on) and have to hear him misuse the word forecast daily.

Unfortunately, the defection of the moron to Phoenix might drive more Zonies here next summer so that they can listen to a normal human deliver the weather forecast.

September 1st

2008-09-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

A friend and I were having a bit of a chat about some mutual acquaintances (okay, we were being really catty about some people we know) and she came up with a great observation about one of them: She's not at all smart, but she's too stupid to even know it. I love this! I see it all the time-complete morons who don't even know how ignorant they are. If they had a clue they wouldn't spout ridiculous statements, or send out emails to big volunteer or business groups with grammar and spelling errors that someone at a sixth-grade reading/writing level wouldn't make.

Or, in business. This is from a real ad that showed up here: "Effective Way to Keep Squirrels Off Bird Feaders." I don't think I'll be buying a bird feeder from someone who doesn't know how to correctly spell the name of their own product! The problem is, whoever wrote that probably has no clue that they're stupid and should ask someone to proof-read their ads.

TILLY HATES EMU MEAT

Since I bought 40 lbs. of the stuff I've been feeding it a couple of times a week. Kiara loves it, she'll eat anything. Chance will eat it, but only after sitting outside and barking for an hour or two. Bentley will eat about a pound and then give up. Poor Tilly won't eat even a bite, no how, no way. She went without eating for three days before I finally let Kiara eat her emu and fed her pork instead. (Tilly has a few extra pounds to spare, so please don't threaten to report me for animal cruelty. It's perfectly natural for a canine to skip eating for a day or two.) I guess I'll just feed the emu to the other dogs and give Tilly chicken or pork on emu nights.

August 21st

2008-08-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

JURASSIC PARK?

There's an emu rancher near here. He raises the big birds for his emu oil business, and is now selling the meat to be fed to dogs and cats. I bought some, 20lbs. of "meaty bones" and 20 lbs. of trim (just pieces of meat). When I was putting the bones in the freezer I came across a bag with emu feet, so I handed them to the dogs for their chewing enjoyment. Unfortunately the dogs have no interest at all in chewing on emu feet. Maybe they're scared:

I probably would be if someone came towards me with one of those. I'm thinking they're going to end up in the trash; strategically placed on top to discourage the trash scroungers from looking any further through the refuse in the can.

Edited to add:

The more I look at this picture the more I wonder if the phrase "flip the bird" derived from the physical aspects of emu feet.

I once knew a parrot named Flip.

Get it? Flip, the bird.

Never mind. I should go to sleep now.

August 17th

2008-08-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

FUN DAY TODAY

I went to an adoption event with a different rescue than the one I usually deal with. Oh yeah! THIS is why I wanted to do this! People who are there for the dogs and are polite to each other.

But, why did I think I didn't need sunscreen when I was going to be out in the sun for four hours? I did manage to stay in the shade most of the time, but my face is a little pink.

August 10th

2008-08-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

Strange Alien Vine

(I didn't alter the color on this.)

THE OLYMPICS!

I love the Olympics. Well, except for track and field. And boxing, wrestling, weight lifting. Okay, I love gymnastics and diving. Swimming, volleyball and soccer are tolerable. So, I'm going to be glued to the TV for a bit. It's always uncomfortable getting unglued though, especially when I use Crazy Glue.

August 6th

2008-08-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION!

You are about to read something that you will very rarely (and may never again) see written here.

I WAS WRONG.

About the unemployment thing. Yes, you are eligible to open a new claim a year after you opened one. Yes, the wages from the last quarter I worked would have counted. But I missed one teeny tiny little sentence. The one that says I had to have worked sometime during the claim year and made a minimum amount of money. Crap! Oh well, I do still qualify for the half-assed federal extension.

Half of something is better than all of nothing.

August 2nd

2008-08-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Have a warped sense of humor? Then you should rent Death at a Funeral.

ANOTHER OF MY FAVORITE BLOGS

In keeping with today's theme of Things to Enjoy If You Have a Warped Sense of Humor:

Fake Interviews With Real Celebrities

July 28th

2008-07-28T21:46:00.001-07:00

IS THERE A BIRD SEED SHORTAGE?

I was running low on wild bird seed. Those birds can get mean if I don't put something in the feeder for them, so I went to the store to grab a bag of seeds. I went to Vons. No bird seed. Went next door to the Sears-that's-really-a-Kmart. No bird seed. Albertsons. No bird seed. I finally found some at Big Lots. Now, back in the day when they put marijuana seeds in the song bird mixtures I could understand a run on bird seed, but I don't see people buying it up for sunflower and millet seeds. (The poppy seeds you could buy in the spice aisle used to be viable seeds for opium poppies too. Now I think they treat them so they won't germinate.)

July 25th

2008-07-25T18:45:00.001-07:00

WEREN'T YOU LISTENING?

Phone rang, I answered it.

"Hello, this is a moron from the (Major Political Party) National Committee."

I quickly interrupted. "If you're calling to ask for money, stop right now. I'm living on borrowed funds, I don't have any extra money to donate to anything."

But he kept on reading (badly) from his little prepared spiel, so I assumed that it wasn't about money.

"Important election year, blah blah blah, need your support, blah blah blah, and can I count on your contribution of...."

WTF? "I said not to ask for money, but you did anyway. Are you nuts?"

"I'm just trying to do my job."

Here's a clue. If someone requests that you don't beg for money, say "Thank you for your time", and hang up.

Am I pissed off enough to vote for the other party's candidate?

No.

I can't in good conscience penalize the entire country for one moron who can barely read, much less listen.

July 24th

2008-07-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

I'VE BEEN RELEASED!

From Blogger spam-jail. Thanks to the human who did the deed, whoever you are.

MY FAVORITE BLOGS

Some of them are listed to the right, but there are lots more that I read. I'm going to now-and-then tell you about one of them, and why I like it. Let's start with New York Shitty. Here the delightful Miss Heather regales us with photos of dog poop, abandoned mattresses, and horrible examples of cheap condo conversions (most done without permits). She also examines the history of her 'hood, posts photos of cute cats that need homes, and other fun stuff. Even if you aren't a New Yorker, Miss Heather's tales of Life in the Shitty are quite entertaining.

July 23rd

2008-07-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!

Actually, it was yesterday-one year since my first blog post. I didn't notice at the time that it also happened to be my father's birthday. He would have been 86 years old.

It's rather odd also that today something occurred that ties to two old posts. First, my whining that "I never win anything". A couple of weeks before that I mentioned an artist I'd taken a class from.

Today I actually won something. Two tickets to an exhibit at the art museum of photographs by Eleanor Antin.

TWO WEEKS!

It's been two weeks since I asked for a human at Blogger to decide that I'm not a spammer, but I still have to type in the not-a-word to publish a post. Maybe the robots killed all the humans.

July 16th

2008-07-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!

The members of Congress have finally pulled their heads out and authorized an extension of unemployment benefits. But, this might not even matter to me, and here's why. It's half of your original benefit, so for me it would be 13 weeks. In a week and a half I will be eligible to open a whole new claim, and should be able to get a full 26 weeks of benefits. If I take the extension now when it runs out I would be past the time frame where the last full quarter I worked would count towards my benefit amount.

So, members of Congress.....

Thanks for nothing! (Unless that extension will still be there in six months and I still haven't found a job.)

The sad thing is that there are probably many people who have been out of work for a year that didn't read the information and have no clue that they can file a new claim, so they're all probably jumping for joy at getting half of what they could get if they would bother to read the directions.

I have an idea for something to try with my resume. I have redone it to emphasize my computer and communication skills, but the experience part still shows that I've worked in the mortgage business, and I've never received a response for a job in a different field. SOOOOOOO, I'm going to eliminate the words "loan" and "mortgage" entirely. I won't say "loan processor", I'll say something like "Client Information Specialist". And, the company names-instead of "Blah Blah Mortgage Corp.", it will now be just "Blah Blah Corp." Nothing will be a lie, just two words will be abolished. It will at least be interesting to see if I get any responses.

DAY FIVE AND COUNTING

It has now been five full business days since I sent my request for a human at Blogger review my blog to verify that I'm not a spammer. No action-I still have to type in my best guess at a nonsense sequence of squished together letters. And there doesn't seem to be any way to contact anyone at Blogger to get to communicate with a human. Phooey!

July 13th

2008-07-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

EAT YOUR FRUITS AND VEGGIES!

These are a couple of the photos I took at a little "Farmer's Market" close by. I used the quotes because I'm not sure that there were any real farmers there, but the food did look good. Since I neglected to bring a lot of cash (I am truly a plastic money person, I use credit cards for everything and pay them off every month so that I can get the rewards) the only thing I bought was a jar of olives.

Greek olives. REALLY good Greek olives, and I'm not usually a Greek olive fan. Most of the Greek olives I've had have a really nasty bitter taste. These were being sold by a charming older Greek man who told a customer "Greeks don't need psychiatrists, we have Ouzo". We had a discussion about the Greek man I lived with many years ago, when I told the olive seller that my Greek was from Patras he had one word to say. "Spoiled." Oh boy, was THAT right on the nose.

Just in case anyone wants some of these wondrous fruits, he has a website: The Olive Man (I hope the blogger anti-spam bots don't think I'm spamming by posting this link. I won't make a penny if anyone buys some olives-I just really like them.)

July 10th

2008-07-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

Duck!

Squirrel!

Oh, that's not right, is it? Okay....

Goose!

ME? A SPAMMER?

Yesterday I noticed that when I wanted to add a post that I had to do one of those annoying word verification things first. I investigated further, and it seems that Blogger has some ill-tempered bots that for some reason decided that this blog has the characteristics of a spam blog.

They define it this way:

Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

Irrelevant? Nonsensical? WTF? I do know that sometimes I tend to express complex concepts, and some people don't get the concept so they focus on the words and they misinterpret what I've said. But, nonsensical?

Not to mention that the "word" I have to verify looks like this. Not only is it not a word at all, it's a bunch of letters all squished on top of each other. What looks like a "d" could just as easily be a c and an l having a very close encounter. For instance, in the example-what's that third letter? An o? A c or an a partially obscured by the u? It took me five tries to guess the correct not-a-word in order to publish my post.

NEW ATTITUDE!

I think I will stop letting people who lie, act like simple minded idiots, are rude and play silly junior high school clique games hurt me and make me angry. From now on I will just pity them. I mean, how sad is it that someone feels that they have to lie, twist facts or conceal reality in order to get people to do what they want? Or that some people are so unable to think for themselves that they get defensive when someone tries to help them learn something? People who play little who-hates-who-and-you-have-to-think-like-I-do-to-be-one-of-the-in-crowd games can't be happy, because they have to constantly make sure that the in-crowd is thinking correctly.

What was that old song..."She is more to be pitied than censured"?

Yep, that's my new atti-tude.

July 9th

2008-07-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

MORON OF THE WEEK AWARD

It must go to the guy on I15 yesterday. Speeding in a little souped up red car, passed me and a bunch of other people on the right, then swooped across three lanes. Ended up right in front of a Highway Patrol car. Talk about making it easy for him!

SOME PET PEEVES

Liars! People don't usually get away with lying to me for one thing. I have a really good memory, and I'm pretty good at putting things together to figure out what's truth and what's a lie. This includes people who tend to twist the truth to justify their method of doing things.

Rude people! For instance, a group of volunteers, all putting in time and money for a common cause, and one person decides to go off on another because of some little thing. Especially when the person being told off puts in a lot more time, mileage (so therefore gas money) and caring that the rude person who thinks that they are better than others and can boss them around. (It's even worse when the rude people are stupid and uneducated about things they spout off on, but refuse to read or listen to proof that they're wrong-getting argumentative and defensive instead.)

People whose emotional development is stuck in junior high school pretending to be grown-ups! You know the type-"I don't like her, so if you want to be in MY in-crowd you can't like her either". Grow up!

July 3rd

2008-07-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ADOPTION DAY CHANCE!

You can see a photo of Chance the Dog over there ---> He's the big handsome boy in front.

It's been five years since Chance came to live here, and I've learned a lot from him. He would go berserk shortly after eating crap-in-a-bag dog food, so I learned about raw feeding. He had a bad reaction to a vaccination, so I learned about the true nature of immunity (and it has nothing to do with vaccines). He was cured of his panic attacks and horrible skin condition with homeopathy, so I learned that modern medicine mostly controls symptoms and does nothing to restore a body to a healthy state.

When he came here he had the name Louie. That was the name of an old boyfriend who dumped me.

Twice.

His name was changed immediately.

THE TWEEKER HOUSE SAGA CONTINUES

Back in December I posted a photo of the Tweeker House, complete with motor home in the front yard and the attractive grey plastic tarp fencing. To refresh your memory, here it is again:

Since then the inhabitants of Tweeker House have been evicted and the house is for sale. Of course they left a ton of junk behind (including the motor home) because, well, they're tweekers.

Earlier this week I came home from moving dogs around and saw that the motor home was gone, and (oh, silly me!) thought that perhaps someone was finally getting around to cleaning up the mess. The next day I saw what had been done to the motor home-it was simply pushed to the end of the block and abandoned in the street. Late last night someone hooked it up to a big truck and hauled it BACK. So, there it sits. Along with the lovely collection of Tweeker Trash.

June 23rd

2008-06-23T15:11:00.001-07:00

U HAZ FUD!

HOW I FIXED MY PHONE

Not the actual phone, the jack. The little plastic part that keeps the plug in there broke off. Probably because the dogs like to get under the desk where the jack is and have little doggie squabbles, and they kept pulling the plug out of the jack. So the cord kept falling out, and I wouldn't notice it for days because I'm not a big fan of telephone conversations. One day I found myself in a store that sells phone jacks, so I bought a replacement. I didn't rush to install it-sitting on the floor under a built-in desk with a flash light trying to get the right itty-bitty colored wire attached to the right itty-bitty connector part wasn't real high on my list of Fun Things to Do. And now, of course, I have no idea which safe place I put the phone jack so that I would be able to find it when I finally got tired of getting on the floor under the desk to put the cord back in the jack and slap another piece of duct tape on it to try to get it to stay plugged in for longer than 10 seconds.

However, I did fix it.

I stuck it in with super glue.

Which should work until the next under-the-desk doggie squabble, when they'll probably manage to pull the jack off of the wall completely. And then I'll have to remember which store it was that had the replacement jack and buy another one.

June 20th

2008-06-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE WHO HURT MY FEELINGS

I think you know who you are. I just want to ask one thing. Do you have any idea how hurtful it is to have something you said completely twisted and taken out of context and every attempt to explain yourself met with more personal attacks?

I have noticed the little sarcastic jabs that are still going on. I imagine that you are all getting a big kick out of yourselves in your off list back chatter. Go ahead, have your fun. I just want you all to know that you've made me cry more than once over this. Are you trying to be so mean to me that I'll leave the email list? Why not just be honest about it?

June 17th

2008-06-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

GROCERY STORE KARMA?

I did my weekly grocery shopping today, and when I was done it was apparent that there were way too many people waiting to cough up their money (except for the W-I-C freeloaders, but more about them later) and too few (like one) check stands open, so I hung back a bit trying to sort out where the end of the line was. It was far away, past too many cranky looking people, and pointing in the opposite direction from the other check stands. Meaning, when the clerks finally pulled their heads out and opened additional stands the end of the line would not be strategically placed to get into a new line. So I just stayed where I was and sure enough rather quickly they opened a stand pretty much right in front of where I was standing. There was a young girl (early teens I would guess) in front of me who politely waited for the people who had been in front of the other line to go first, and then got in line behind them. Well, until this big, rude bitch (who was busy sending text messages on her phone) loudly announced that THIS line was for people coming from the OTHER line and physically pushed her way in front. The girl (her mother had gone to grab that one last thing) wisely let her in. No sense getting into an altercation with a well balanced (a chip on both shoulders) bitch. Just as the BLB (big, loud bitch) was putting her stuff on the belt they opened another line, and the polite young lady and her mother were first in that new line. I followed them because of the three lines one had a couple buying stuff with W-I-C coupons and one had two people with lots of stuff.

I try to avoid lines with W-I-C people. Every item has to be rung up as a separate transaction, and the price written on the coupon. Not to mention that the coupons are very specific, and the morons who have children that they can't afford to feed also seem to be unable to read, and they never get the right things so the line is held up while someone goes to the back of the store and gets the right kind of milk, and cheese, and juice and p-nut butter for them (one at a time, of course).

This is the karma part. The line that the BLB was in was the one with all the problems. The girl, her mother and I got a good laugh out of the fact that we were all rung up and done and on our way out of the store, and the BLB was still waiting for the person in front of her to finish arguing about the price of oranges.

Moral of the story-don't push to be first in line. Rudeness doesn't pay.

June 15th

2008-06-15T20:39:00.001-07:00

THAT WHINY RASPY VOICE THING

The Father's Day (buy more shit) commercial for Ross really aggravates me. The woman who whines in the raspy voice at the end “We're definitely going to Ross.”

Contrary to what some women seem to believe, that voice is not sexy! It's annoying. I used to work with a woman who talked like that. She also walked through the office flipping her bleached blond hair and swishing her flat ass. In other words, she wasn't nearly as hot as she thought she was. Her raspy, whiny voice was a complete put on. When she wasn't thinking about it she didn't talk that way. She wasn't very smart either. When she quit she left a whole pile of problems she had been given to fix that were the result of her sloppy-ass work that someone else ended up having to clean up.

I guess I don't need to say that we weren't BFFs.

June 13th

2008-06-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

Cute Overload!

THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Just sing the song, please! I hate it when people jack up the rhythm and throw all sorts of extra notes in there to demonstrate their vocal prowess. If you want to warble and wail, go sing opera. The latest bad example was the guy who sang the anthem before game four of the NBA playoffs. He had me screaming at my television set.

How can I show proper respect for my country and the flag when I'm screaming at the narcissistic moron who is mutilating the national anthem?

Just saying.

June 10th

2008-06-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

SOMEDAYS I JUST HAVE TO WONDER...

What WAS I thinking? I often scribble down ideas for blog topics. Usually when I go back to actually write the story I find that I have no idea why I thought that bit would be even remotely interesting. The ones that would be interesting would probably result in someone getting really pissed off at me it I posted them here.

I had a really interesting idea for today. But, on second thought, never mind.

June 6th

2008-06-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

JENN GOT THAT PART RIGHT!

Over at the Jennsylvania blog she titled a post Pimp Up, Bitches. Basically, she told her readers to pimp their own blogs-post a link in the comments. Now, since I was in one of my optimistic moods, I thought that the purpose was for the readers to SHARE. To read each others blogs, expand our horizons, get a few laughs, see what other kinds of people like to read Jennsylvania. So, I posted a link, and went and read ALL THE OTHER BLOGS! Some were good, some were moronic, some were dull, but I checked them ALL out.

Want to guess how many people used the link I posted to check out mine?

One.

Exactly one. (I wish I knew who it was, I'd like to thank her personally for getting into the spirit.)

The rest of the bitches can just go blog themselves.

June 4th

2008-06-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

I AM CRUSHED!

Devastated, disillusioned, distraught.

A little blurb from one of my favorite blogs: (Jennsylvania):

“Also, here's some advice if you ever plan on being rich/famous/in the tabloids - BE NICE TO THE GUY DRIVING YOU. I learned over the past few weeks of getting rides to book events that limo drivers are the new Page Six and all it takes for them to spill the dirt is sliding into their backseat wearing a conservative sundress and pearls and asking, 'So, which famous people are assholes?'
And I swear I'm not making this up, but want to guess who's universally hated? Yep, that's night. Rachael Ray. Like we didn't see that coming.”

Rachael Ray is mean to the worker bees? Perky, cute, seemingly everyone's BFF Rachael Ray? Make life better with a dribble of EVOO and a squeeze from Mr. Honey Bear Rachel Ray?

I wonder if she's rude to waiters and doormen too.

I guess from now on I'll admire people who don't pretend to be nice. You know, the kind of people who own up to being assholes.

June 2nd

2008-06-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

I don't really have anything worthwhile to say today, so I'm just sharing some photographs.

May 31st

2008-05-31T18:22:00.001-07:00

"I think that elephant just pooped on my head."

MORONS AT THE FORUMS

"yes poor woman, she must of got the same lawyer and judge that setenced that amrtinez moron who caused the fires a few years ago near ramona supposedly he was hunting deer, yeah sure, he should of been sentanced to replanting all the trees and more, no sorryness for neither losers"

"Over the years I've paid for drivers education schools for teenagers that I've known to help them become better drivers. Along with the understanding that they must go to traffic court 3 times before they get there drivers licence. So they can see for themselves just what the consequences are fro there actions, and how much money it will cost them not only in fines but the increase in there auto insurance.
I've done this with 5 kids, there all adults now, some with teenagers of there own. I receive letters from them telling me, there doing the same for there kids.
Like the these 5 kids and I, we all have spotless driver's licence's, and hopefully so will there children." I hope you can drive better than you write.

May 29th

2008-05-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

"I got a Nikon camera.

I love to take a photograph.

So mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

Yes, I bought a new camera. I now have to justify the purchase by attempting to actually make some money taking pictures.

I already have some people lined up for free photo shoots in return for being able to use the photos to set up a website and use as examples of my remarkable ability. Okay, I've been told that I take good pictures, but I won't claim that my ability is remarkable.

If I don't make any money, at least I can say I tried.

And, I'll still have a really cool camera.

May 27th

2008-05-27T10:13:00.001-07:00

I LIKE POSSUMS!

Possums are good to have around. They eat snails, slugs and small rodents. They clean up road kill. Their body temperature is too low to incubate the rabies virus. And, I think they're cute. Especially the little ones. However, I would prefer not to find them in my kitchen.

Apparently one of the canines decided to play squeaky toy with a baby possum, and brought it into the house. I found it on the kitchen floor, playing possum. Cute little thing, and it was still warm so I put it out in the side yard (where the dogs couldn't get to it) and it was gone in the morning. Kiara was not happy with me for stealing the new toy, but she got over it.

May 25th

2008-05-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

HERE COME THE MORONS

Channel 10:

“Alaska has the most expensive gas of any country in the state.”

KH: “A mother's emotional plea to find her killer's son.”

Photo Caption: “Balboa Park Bridal Trail”. Except, it was originally for horses, not for newly married women.

And, from the network (ABC) “The 92nd Indy 500 telecast.” Not possible, unless television has been around for 92 years. It should have been “The telecast of the 92nd Indy 500.”

Morons posting to the UT forums: (Honest-these are verbatim. I couldn't make this up!)

"I'm for getting rid of prop 13, seems to benefit exisiting property owners as the expense of new property owners. The big spikes in property taxes are caused by the boom and bust nature of California real estate. I think this is the root cause, and is what should be addressed. We can start off by making califorrnia a lender recourse state. This will discourage speculation a little bit when people know that lenders can pursue other assets of the debtor. They won't be so inclined to making wild bets and taking loans the can't repay. Prop 13 moved taxes away from property taxes and into income taxes in their place. From what I understand, the icomes of the people who pay the most taxes vary wildly, might make $10,000,000 one year, and nothing the next. Kinda makes it hard to budget for the state if they're in the habit of spending everything they take in."

"This is so funny it is pitiful. Let me help the ones who don't know history. Republicans CUT EVERYTHING that has to do with helping people get better lives and cut ALL Taxes for the things that make RICH PEOPLE RICHER.
Sacrifice all the poor public ed kids because their kids get PRIVATE educations so YOUR KIDS can work for THEIR Kids.
Democrats get a Bum Rap for HELPING people and fixing what the republicans screw-up and or to REFILL the treasury after they have spent and given away to their buddies all of the countries wealth.
Get it now??"

"You sound like a VERY angry, racists person that will probably pass away ed off at the world when the time comes."

"what kind of poor article writing is this? can someone at the union tribune teach this people how to write interesting stories. besides the city of san diego has got the worst reputation in structural building designs coupled with poor permit department planning period. has anybody here ever visited orange county?" Maybe after someone teaches YOU how to write a sentence using proper grammar.

May 21st

2008-05-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

CatBastard

FROM THE SHOEBOX BLOG

"An animal behavior expert has developed a personality test for cats . If yours is moody, demanding, disobedient, and given to wild rampages followed by long periods of lethargy, then yep, you've got yourself a cat."

THE FINE LINE

The one between what is appropriate to say about someone else, especially in a blog that's not anonymous. I think that public figures are fair game for ridicule and criticism, but the situation gets a bit tricky when it's people that you know personally. My new rule is that if it's something that I wouldn't mind someone reading, and knowing that I was the one that said it I will put it in this blog. Some things people should read about themselves, but I wouldn't want to be known as the messenger-those things won't go here.

Now that I've straightened that out, I am going to talk about my brother.

He used to be grumpy. Everyone agreed on that. Unfortunately, what was once slightly annoying grumpiness has morphed into outright meanness, rude bossiness and downright cruelty. I guess he thinks that he is so freaking perfect that he has some sort of right to harshly criticize everyone who doesn't meet his standard of perfection-which appears to be everyone but himself. And, if anyone has the illusion that they are exempt from the type of bad mouthing he does about other people, they are deluding themselves. In his opinion, nobody is worthy of being in his company.

And, I am really pissed at him for a little stunt he pulled last night. I plainly explained to him before my mother got here to visit that, since I'm living on borrowed money, I wasn't going to be able to pay for restaurant dinners. I thought I made it clear that if I was going to go out to eat someone else needed to pay. Now, it's not like I didn't contribute anything to the visit. I drove my mother around, drove everyone up to Del Mar for the balloon ride-using over $40 worth of gasoline, contributed a beef tenderloin for a dinner, bought HIM a freaking six pack of expensive beer, etc. He called and invited me to go to dinner at a Mexican restaurant last night. (And, HE ordered the most expensive item on the menu!) AFTER we had eaten he announced that HE decided that the three children should split the bill evenly and pay for our mother's dinner. Wouldn't it have been polite for him to tell me BEFORE this that this was HIS plan so that I would have had the choice whether to go or not knowing what the payment plan was? Of course, I couldn't object at the restaurant without looking like some sort of freeloading cheapskate, and it's not going to break me, but I think it was just an example of how selfish, bossy and rude he has become. If I ever have to go out with him again I'll be sure to clarify what His Assholiness' plans are for the group beforehand.

May 20th

2008-05-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE....

May 15th

2008-05-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS THE LESSON HERE?

It's entirely possible that things happen in order to teach us lessons. Whether the teacher is the Universe, cosmic forces or your deity of choice is up for debate.

I found the lost remote control, under the covers way down at the foot of my bed. Fortunately it showed back up before I broke down and bought a new one. So, what could the lesson be?

Never give up hope?

A remote control is not a necessary accessory?

In order to find something you must stop looking?

I should change my sheets more often?

Yeah, that's probably it.

May 14th

2008-05-14T19:37:00.001-07:00

FROM THE "YOU LEARN SOMETHING EVERYDAY" FILE

I had no idea that a lot of newer cars have a little triangle next to the gas-pump icon on the gas gauge. The triangle points towards the side where the gas cap is located. (Not to be confused with the old urban myth that the side where the hose is the side with the gas cap. That one is true only half of the time.)

And, keeping with the automotive theme; I always thought that the yellow spots we get on our cars was tree pollen. It's not. It's bee shit. I'm not sure that this is something I really needed to know.

SPOTLIGHT-CHANNEL 10 MORONS

The weather idiot started a blog:

Get to Know 10News Weather Guy, Jimmy Q!
Posted on May 14th, 2008 by Sofia
Hey Everyone!
This is the beginning of my Blog. My first Blog. I am very excited about sharing my life and job and my thoughts with you. I don’t know where to start. Ok, from the beginning. I Started working for 10 News about 10 years ago. I can’t believe how fast time has gone bye since I first arrived here. They say time flies when you are having fun and this applies to my life here in San Diego. I feel very fortunate to come into your house’s every day and personally give you the weather. I used to live out in Texas. Completely different weather. So hot and so humid. I feel very blessed to live in a place like this. I just love the cool ocean breeze. Except when we don’t have one and it gets hot and feels like Texas again. Don’t get me wrong. I love Texas! It’s just hot.
I will keep blogging and I invite you to ask questions or to make any comments and I will always do my best to answer questions about myself, work, weather or life. So we begin the journey. Take care my friend and have a great day!
Submitted by James Quinones, 10News Weather Forecaster

I will refrain from calling him a moron on HIS blog, and keep my comments here.

For some reason, Channel 10 has decided to hire a few reporters who can't even say the word "news". They have two right now who end their mangled language news bits with "My Name, 10 NOOSE". NOOSE? Oh yeah, the thing I would like to strange you with for being a moron. That noose.

May 13th

2008-05-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

I HAVE NO IDEA!

Why someone stole the tee-pee cover.

I took this at the home of my mother's friends. They said they used to cover it with sheets in the summer and their grandchildren would sleep in it.

I drove my mother up to her friends' house today, and got some nice photos out of the excursion. These people lost their house in the 2003 Cedar Fire, and you can still see the effects on the landscape. The best photo spots unfortunately were in places where there was no spot to pull off the road.

NOT JUNK MAIL? WANNA BET?

Received this one yesterday:

"Marilyn - You Have a Secret Admirer in Spring Valley (this isn't junk mail) This message has been sent to you by a Secret Admirer! No Joke: Your Secret Admirer is a real person, maybe a friend or colleague, who knows your email address. Is the feeling mutual? To find out if the person who sent you this message is someone you like Go Here. Good Luck!"

The problem? It says that my "admirer" is a real person who knows my email address. This was sent to the address I only use to register on web sites, and nobody that actually knows me would also know that address.

I didn't click on the link.

May 9th

2008-05-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

Jump Banjo, Jump!

JUST CALL ME GRUMPY

But, I shouldn't write blog posts after arguing with idiots. Especially idiots who refuse to believe that they could be wrong about something.

May 4th

2008-05-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

IT GREW LEGS AND WALKED AWAY!

I am speaking of the remote control for the TV in my bedroom. It has disappeared. The logical answer would be that it slipped behind the bed onto the floor. It's not there. It's not in the bed, or on the bed, or on the floor on the side of the bed. I suppose I could have carried it somewhere and laid it down, but that's not very likely. I doubt that a dog ate it-the only things besides raw meat that are in danger of being eaten by my dogs are paper and cardboard. (My dogs really would eat my homework if I had any.) Of course, as soon as I go out and buy a new remote the missing one will magically reappear. I just like to have the TV on when I go to bed and turn down the volume as I fall asleep. I guess I'll have to turn off the TV and read myself to sleep for now.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER

The baby of the family turns 50 today. This makes me feel old.

AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR MORONS:

Channel 10:

“Greeted by the media's flashing lenses....” Oh, how sad it is that this little nugget was uttered by the woman I once thought was one of the only intelligent reporters at Channel 10. I must now come to the conclusion that they are all complete and utter morons.

“...waiting to hear about the dangers of pool safety.” Huh?

Craigslist:

“This position is commission only. In life the risk you take gives you the results you have. We do not settle for less. We seek ambitious,highly motivated individuals expanding their thoughts to take it to the next level. Billion Dollar Company from Scratch.
Commissions can be lump sums, Sale 1 House make $10,000-$50,000. Commissions can be residual $500 per week for a year for closing 1 Client. This is 1 client, can you close more than 1??????”

"....... Photographers Needed ASAP ...... Fast Passed Hip Unique Fun"

April 28th

2008-04-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

MY SWEET GEORGIE GIRL

In the rescue biz there are dogs that you become more attached to than others. The ones that you pull from the shelter, or foster, or that just worm their way into your heart for one reason or another. I transported this sweet girl from the shelter and found her a foster home. Today she got adopted by a really wonderful woman, who I know will love her as much as she deserves to be loved.

THE BACHELOR

A contender for the title of The Stupidest TV Show Ever. I don't watch it, but I do watch the shows that come on before it (Dancing With the Stars and Samantha Who-Christina Applegate is a brilliant comedic actress!). So, I usually leave the TV on and just go do something else.

What would be the best moment ever on TB? If one of the women grew a set, and when asked "Will you accept this rose?" would say: "No. You're an arrogant, conceited asshole. Stuff this rose!"

I can dream, can't I?

April 25th

2008-04-25T19:49:00.001-07:00

BIG OLD BLOCK OF FROZEN MEAT

I don't feed commercial dog food to my dogs. No crap-in-a-bag crosses the threshold here, my dogs are fed a raw prey-model diet. Half a chicken (yes, with the bones), a slab of pork ribs, organ meat, eggs, etc. I order a lot of my food through a buying group and get whole cases of things. For this month I ordered 30 lbs. of pork hearts because they're a nice size to hand to a dog, or to add to a meal that may be too bony. I got sixty pounds instead of 30, so I had to do some creative freezer cramming to get all the food in. (I still had to put a bunch in the cooler and will have to rotate that with stuff in the freezer for a week or so.) The problem with cramming in semi-thawed pork hearts (even if they're individually bagged) is that they then freeze together like a big meat puzzle, and it can be a challenge to get them back out of the freezer. And, while I was wrestling with frozen meat this afternoon Kiara (the girl dog who will eat until she explodes) stole a whole pork brisket, which is two days worth of food for her. She'll get fed very light meals for a few days to compensate for her gluttony.

SHARK ATTACK

Nothing funny about this. A man was attacked and killed by what they think was a great white shark just up the coast from here. I feel sad for his friends and family. It's a very rare thing-more people win the lottery in California than are killed by sharks-but it's still scary.

April 23rd

2008-04-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

THE PROBLEM WITH NOT BEING ANONYMOUS

I can't talk about most of the things that piss me off, because they involve people I know. And, even if I'm pretty sure those particular people don't read my blog, other people who know me and know those people do, and sometimes tip them off. So, unless I have an interesting story about random strangers, this blog has to be pretty innocuous. "Look, a bird!" "Look, a flower!" "What nice weather we're having." Frankly, being nice is boring. Well, being nice when people hurt my feelings or are complete morons and I can't rant about it is boring, and frustrating. Maybe I'll make another blog. An anonymous one, so I can tell it like it really is. The freedom to truly speak my mind is an intoxicating thought. The problem is, I can't link to it from here, because some of the people who read this are either the people who hurt my feelings, are complete morons and deserve to be made fun of, or know those people and might rat me out. I wonder if it's even possible to have a completely anonymous blog. Hmmmmmm.......

THE BATHROOM KEY

I mentioned that I had a little temp job at the end of tax season. The office was in one of those buildings where the bathrooms are kept locked. The bathroom key at this office was kept by the door on a BIG beaded, dangly key chain. On the last day of tax season I accidentally forgot to take it out of my pocket, but fortunately that was the night that we went to dinner so I found it and gave it to the tax guy to take back since I thought that I was done working. I ended up going back for two days this week to help mop up-putting client copies of returns and their original forms together to mail, etc. On Monday the three guys who work in the office went out to lunch and left me working. I needed to pee-and found that the big blue dangly key chain wasn't there. No problem, I thought I would just use the one that's on the key chain with the mailbox key. AGGGGGGHHHHHH! That one was also missing! Now, I am of the age that holding my pee for any longer than a few minutes once I need to go is not really an option. So, I went out to the hallway to consider possible courses of action. Fortunately a nice young man walked by who had a key on him and I was able to make it to the toilet in time. When the guys got back I asked if they were purposely torturing me for stealing the key the week before.

Turns out that one of the guys had used the key before going to lunch and left it in the men's room, and someone took it. He also had taken the mailbox key home over the weekend and neglected to return it. So, the next day he made a sign for the bathroom describing the key chain. The best part was the end: "Please return. We haven't urinated in two days. Sincerely, Three Guys in Suite 218"

April 17th

2008-04-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

SOMEBODY GAVE ME FLOWERS!

Unfortunately, not a secret admirer. Or even a non-secret one. I did a little temp job for an accountant for the last four days of tax season. My job was to mostly keep people away from him so he could get his work done. His girlfriend is also an accountant, and on tax day they traditionally take all their employees out to dinner. So, I worked for four days, got paid rather well for what they expected me to do, got a nice dinner and a lovely bouquet of flowers and a balloon that says "Thank You". Way more than I expected, so it's all good.

THE MORON COLLECTION

I had these gems from the morons posting to the UT forums saved, so I guess it's time to share them.

"hypocrite if the highest degree
BTW, this guy put into jail guys just like he is"

"I'm sure she will try and take full advantage of this but I don't see her doing anything with it besides making herself look even more opportunistic and desperate. If I had that kind of cash your darn right I would fork it out to sleep with her for an hour so I don't blame him at all. But she is no better than Lewinsky other than she is a hell of alot better looking! both desperate loser with absolutely zero dignity. I would rather be a nobdy with my dignity than a loser with none. That's just me..."

"For everyone prostitute who voluntarily goes into the business and can quite anytime she wants, there probably are 10-20 who were either sexually abused as children, are druggies, are abused by their pimps, or are/were the victims of the international sex trade. I'm sorry, but the line about "two consenting adults engaging in an arms-length negotiation and contract formation/execution" just doesn't apply in most cases, when the above factors are considered."

"As far as the Madonna wanna-be (Alexandra, er Kristen, or whatever the h3LL), she should easily turn this media circus into a quick million bucks, just like Paris (and Kim K. if she's smart). It ain't moral, but the scum do tend to rise to the top in this world of loose morals and Soddom-Gomorrah lifestyle."

"She belong in TJ with the other whor' , build a fence."

"your totally wrong about everything and my screen name reflects my leftest political view i am a progressive see why assuming things makes an ASS-ume out of you! And of course I make enough why you would love to think if i was a woman of color that i pay for all of it and live in eastlake with welfare money wouldnt you or ohh maybe i sell drugs..pathetic really!" No, what's pathetic is that you can't write a coherent sentence. Leftist? Is that the political view that thinks that it's not important to use the language properly? Oh wait, maybe Bush is a Leftist under that definition.

"I didnt ruin it just when people start saying oh if your driving 50 mph in the slow lane your mexican and stuff like that it just pains me to see people really to think stuff like that is funny life has so much more funny moments then to joke about someones race that is the breading ground for people to step in and say really racist things its how it gets started everyone should be uncomfrotable with stereo-typical comments its not a good thing."

"I dont even know why I am on here I am going back to democraticunderground.com where real news is this newspaper just prints news like this to keep people distracted from the shambles our government and country is in. Uhhhh" Real news? At democraticundergound.com? Or, the news that completely agrees with your radical views? I wonder if they can use the language correctly.

"here come the bigoted hateful anti-christian trolls (see above) lol. I'm glad the US constitution says we have a right to practice our religion." And, apparently you also have a right to post illiterate comments on public forums.

April 13th

2008-04-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

HOT!

It's 5 pm, and it's 92º on my patio (in the shade). It was hot yesterday too, and that might have been a good excuse for a couple of the other rescue volunteers being rude to me at the adoption event, except that they're always rude to me. Frankly, I'm not sure just how much longer I want to donate time and energy to be treated badly.

THE MASSACRE AT GOLDFISH POND

I went outside the other morning to find that something had murdered some of my goldfish (I think four of them) by the side of the pond. Fish scales and guts were left behind as evidence. I think this happened at night because whatever it was pulled the hose for the waterfall off of the pump, and I'm pretty sure it was working the evening before. So, it probably wasn't the murderous Great Blue Heron returning, but some nocturnal marauder. The only animal I've ever heard of doing this is raccoons, and I've never heard of there being any of those around here. Could be though. Which is why I'm glad that it's been warmer than normal the past few days, I left the patio door open for the dogs to chase off any nocturnal visitors. They were all riled up by something in the yard last night, so maybe whatever it was will remember that big, mean dogs live here and go do their fishing in someone else's pond.

FINALLY!

My Dog.com order arrived, a mere 30 days after I placed my order. After sending four emails that were never answered I gave up and (knowing that I might lose my temper) called them. They cancelled the first order (which according to the tracking information is STILL sitting in Los Angeles) and resent the stuff via FedEx with no shipping charge. Well, they sent most of the stuff. One dog toy that I really wanted was out of stock, so I didn't get it. And, I got no apology or discount, or even a free cheap dog toy. No "we're sorry for the trouble, here's a GC towards your next order", nothing. I doubt I'll ever order anything from them again, there are other places with better prices, and hopefully better customer service.

April 8th

2008-04-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

JUST A QUICK COMMENT

YES! Adam, who is not funny and can't dance, is OFF DWTS! I hope that Jimmy Kimmel gives him a big old ration of shit tonight on his program.

I have a rather warped and dark sense of humor myself, but in order to find it funny I need humor to be intelligent and not offensive. Like I said, Adam is not funny. Also: not cute, not intelligent, and not a good dancer. He apparently can ride a unicycle, but that skill might get him a job in a circus.

April 5th

2008-04-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

I HAVE A SYNDROME!

I was reading an interesting article today about an area of San Diego where they once did missile testing but have since abandoned all the structures, and for some reason started looking at a page of display ads. All of them were searching for people to participate in drug studies. "You may be compensated for your time", they say, but they don't say anything about compensating you if you die from their experimental drugs. Anyway, I was particularly amused by this one ad:

ARE YOU A NIGHTOWL?

Do you go to bed at a late hour?

If so, you should know about a research study of an investigational medication for the treatment of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS)

I kid you not! Now being a night person is a syndrome, that someone (read-money grubbing drug companies) has decided must be cured with some sort of medication. Never mind what the horrid other effects of this medicine might be-your liver will fail, you'll never take a poop again (that is, unless this medicine causes uncontrollable diarrhea), you'll turn into a raging maniac and you may commit suicide, but this medicine will make sure that you never have to suffer through another episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live ever again!

Personally, I would rather see a drug that would cure the annoying morning people. There's nothing that makes me want to slap someone more than a freaking cheerful person before 10 am.

April 2nd

2008-04-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

WISTERIA

STILL NO DOG.COM ORDER!

It's getting ridiculous! The package has now been sitting in Los Angeles for THIRTEEN days. Not to mention the six days it took to get there in the first place. I have sent two emails to dog.com, and they haven't even bothered to respond. I'm afraid to pick up the phone and call them-the complete lack of customer service here would make it hard for me to be a grown-up when speaking to someone.

MESSING WITH SURVEY TAKERS

It sucks that politicians, charities and pollsters are exempt from observing the Do Not Call rules. So when survey takers call me I like to aggravate them as much as they aggravate me by calling. If you will actually think about the questions they ask they are designed to get the answers they want. Any other answer would be absurd, so they slant their polls with carefully worded questions. I pick the questions apart. For instance, I had one recently ask if I thought that things "in the county" were going well. I asked if by "the county" they were including the city government, because obviously that wasn't doing well, but the county itself didn't have any real problems, and the question was rather poorly worded, could they clarify please? The woman who was taking the survey hung up on me.

March 28th

2008-03-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP...

Dog doo. I do have this nice rose blooming in my yard though.

WHY PEOPLE DON'T USE THE USPS MUCH ANYMORE

I ordered some stuff from dog.com. Mostly some slip leads (the kind that slip over the dogs head and are a collar too) for emergencies. Here is the tracking information on my package as of this morning:

Shipping Method: SmartPost
Carrier ID: 02113004068101917446 Manifest ID: 2585576

Status: Sortation Center Arrival

Est. in Home 03/24/2008
March 20, 2008
1:07 PM
Sortation Center Arrival
LOS ANGELES, CA
March 19, 2008
7:35 AM
Sortation Center Departure
DALLAS, TX
March 17, 2008
11:40 AM
Sortation Center Arrival
DALLAS, TX
March 15, 2008
8:32 AM
Sortation Center Departure
EDISON, NJ
March 15, 2008
12:14 AM
Sortation Center Arrival
EDISON, NJ
March 14, 2008
5:58 PM
Pickup
HAZELTON, PA
* indicates data from USPS

First of all the "estimated delivery date" is a bit off, since that was four days ago. And, "sortation" isn't even a real word. The package has been sitting in the "made-up-word" center in Los Angeles since LAST THURSDAY!!!! That's at most two hours away from here! The nice people at dog.com couldn't even get a reasonable answer from USPS as to why the package hasn't moved in over a week. Their reply was "it can take up to 15 days, and we haven't gone over that yet." What happened to the customer service maxim: "Under promise and over deliver"? What happened to plain old giving a shit about making people happy? Obviously USPS still thinks that it has no competition. I only took this type of shipping because it was free, which of course brings up that other saying. You get what you pay for. Next time I order anything I'll pay the extra and get UPS or FedEx delivery.

JUST A NORMAL DAY IN THE RESCUE BUSINESS

I pulled a new dog (Arlo) from the shelter today. Poor guy-he's shedding badly and has tufts of fur coming out all over. They had owner information on him, but his people never came so we're finding him a home. I picked him up and then ran him over to a new boarding kennel close to my house. I handed over the vaccination records. The kennel worker looked at all of it, I looked at all of it, and there was no rabies vac. (For those of you that know me, no-I don't believe in vaccinations for any living thing, but the shelter pokes dogs with everything before they let them out of the door so I can't help it.) Of course no one at the shelter was answering the phone, so Arlo and I drove all the way back. Actually, Arlo rode nicely in the back, I drove. I'm sure that makes you feel better. Turns out the the medical staff neglected to update the computer when they gave him the shot and his microchip. Got the corrected records, back to the kennel. I think the poor boy may be coming down with kennel cough-he was hacking a bit when he pulled on the leash. Which goes to show you that the KC vaccine is useless. I'm going to take my homeopathic remedy kit with me to the event tomorrow. Maybe I can keep the drug pushers from pumping him full of antibiotics and screwing up his stomach.

I have to fight the battle constantly with some of the other volunteers. One guy takes his job of feeding the dogs very seriously. Whenever I bring a foster dog to an event I have to fight him and his crap-in-a-bag off with a stick. All the dogs at my house are raw fed, and I don't clean up kibble poop. Some of them want to slather all the dogs in flea poison, shove antibiotics down their throats "just in case", and other things. I keep trying to educate them, but so many of them don't want to hear it. Oh well.

I have signed up for a very comprehensive homeopathy course-supposedly I'll know enough to be a real homeopath when I'm done. A few miracle cures might get some people to pay attention. Or not. Some people will never accept a new idea because that would mean that they would have to accept that their previous way of doing things was wrong, and some people just can't be wrong about anything, ever.

March 26th

2008-03-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'M SURE THEY MEAN WELL

All the people who have offered suggestions regarding my employment woes. Apply for another type of job! Re-do your resume, highlight transferable skills! Apply at a temporary agency! I've done it all. I'm not being lazy, or even all that picky. I do want to be treated like I'm worth something and not like an ignorant peon, but otherwise I'll take almost any job. Some people act like I must not be really trying to find a job, because if I was I would have found one. So, here's some vindication:

News Article

No Mortgage Workers Need Apply

I don't want to be a whiny, poor poor pitiful me type, but I really do think that people need to know that I have tried to find a job and I will keep trying, but in the meantime I want to buy a few voodoo dolls and start sticking pins in them. If you are an HR person who has tossed out my resume simply because I have a mortgage background and you suddenly feel a sharp pain in your gut, don't bother to call the doctor. Call a voodoo priestess. Or better yet, hire me and I'll pull the pins out.

I HAVE BEEN NEGLECTING MY MORONS

Not that they need me coddling them to be their sweet, little moronic selves, but here's some contributions:

OUR FRIENDS AT CHANNEL 10:

JN: “...armed with weapons.” I thought that "having weapons" was the definition of armed. “...you do not need to be alarm at this time.” And, you apparently do not need to be proficient in the English language, have a pleasing voice, or even look nice to be employed at Channel 10. Lucky you!
“...except for a few belonging the residents are trying to savage.” Rape and pillage your dinnerware?

KH: “...would have faced much more stiffer charges.” Well, at least she LOOKS nice.

March 25th

2008-03-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

YEAH, YEAH, I'M THE TAXMAN

I owe the federal government $417 more in taxes. It's because they are taxing my unemployment benefits. This kind of sucks. They oh, so generously give you a little bit of money that isn't anywhere near enough to live on, and then want a big chunk of it back at the end of the year. The good thing is that the state of CA doesn't tax it, so I'm getting more back from the state than I owe to the feds, so Arnold will send me money to pay Sam.

I'm already finding myself tempted to buy things with the "extra". I need to get it in my head that since I have NO income, NOTHING is extra. Frugality will be the mode of existence until I either win the lottery or find a job. Sadly, it's beginning to look like winning the lottery has better odds of happening. My resumes are still apparently being sucked into the same big black hole where all the resumes of the unemployed mortgage workers are going.

I did buy a plant today. The grocery store had marked down all the Easter plants, so I got a nice, healthy purple Calla Lily for $1.88. Now, I just have to plant it in the ground before I kill it.

March 22nd

2008-03-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

Gimme some tongue!

March 21st

2008-03-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EASTER!

I decorated those eggs myself. I used the Ukrainian method, but my own designs.

This is the earliest Easter since 1913. Did you know that the word "Easter" came from the name of a pagan goddess, Oestre? The eggs and the bunny are pagan themes too. I guess that early Christians decided that the best way to convert the pagans was to just appropriate the holidays, symbols, deities and places of worship so that the people weren't actually doing anything differently than before, but the people in charge could now call them Christians.

THUNDERSTORM

We don't get many thunderstorms here. Not too much of the cold air hitting the warm air action going on. We had one Saturday night. I woke up to Bentley looking at me like a scared little boy, and Chance barking at the Thunder Monster. Kiara didn't even wake up. The boy dogs spent the rest of the night in bed with me. With every clap of thunder Bentley got closer and closer until he was almost laying on my head, and Chance stood up in the middle of the bed barking. I think that Kiara was the only mammal in the house that got a decent night's sleep.

I HAVE A MORON MAKING SIGNS FOR ME!

It's better as a VISUAL .

THE MORONS KEEP POSTING, I KEEP MAKING FUN OF THEM

Until a remedial English class is a requisite for posting in the UT forums, the idiots with computers will continue to give me blog fodder. Here are some people commenting on the story about the school board scare tactics (threaten to lay off teachers to get the public riled up enough to agree to higher taxes), proving the public education in this country can't even teach people how to write correctly now. And they want MORE money to continue to do a bad job?:

"I feel for the educators. But, when it comes to teachers, no one describes their benefits as "Cadillac" like. Even though City employees supposedly has them. Fact is, teachers have way better benefits."

"another sad part of this is that since the teachers are part of a union many good teachers will be let go and many poor teachers will remain. simply because of tenure"

"contrary to popular myth the other options (yes we do have choice) are home-schooling and private school. and both (especially home-schooling) are very affordable and actually more effective than public.

"Remember, the stock market bubble--it crashed----so Uncle Sam(republicans/democrats/libertarians/ green party Etc.)---they decided to keep mortgage rates low(almost touching the ground)for a long long time----thus creating housing bubble(I new these home values were going to crash since early 2003....so did Uncle Sam and the Banks......in America you have 2 camps, capitalism with no regulation and capitalism with regulation......so don't blame the illegals for any sour times that everyone is about to experience----you idiot!....i hope to God, your one of those greedy little jerks that is losing their homes....that is what you deserve you idiot!!!!!"Not only is this guy an illiterate moron, his comments had nothing to do with the article or the ongoing discussion.

"Maybe,if we changed our attitude towards giving people welfare and to other parts of the world....at the same time teaching kids to protect themselves and giving them the resources to do just that.....kids might learn to be a bit more responsible...."

i left Chicago in 1995 and now live san diego-----(there wasn't any work)-.....every town has their ups and downs -----so stop claiming that Chicago or any other city is better or worse than any other.....I will say this thogh....when i moved to california ...i'm thinkin, if i am going to be rich or poor what better place than San diego"

"Solution: Pull the troops out of Iraq, send 1/4 to Afghanistan to fight the only place we should have been in the first place. Have a fraction of the left over Federal dollars being wasted on Iraq distrubuted on the state level for education. Too any body who says "it isn't the Federal Govs responsibility to fund education" I say I just paid the IRS and I would much rather have my hard earned money go to Education than Bush's ego War."

"Hey, pres reagon--gave amnesty to illegals because the jerk is a union buster-------you dont want illegals---stop hiring them to cleans your toilets and why don't you try cleaning your crap once in a while!"

“The board chose to slash teaching positions not because it was the most prudent and efficient decision, but for political reasons. Go down to the Eugene Brucker Education Center, walk around to every office on every floor and note how employees are there are how few have real work to do. The district could make cuts there, but the parents the community would never notice. Slash teachers at schools, and then you have angry taxpayers unleashing on the state legislature."

"Can't tell me a handful of guys from the maintenance department sitting in their trucks for a few hours reading the paper at a school couldn't be cut. Can't tell me every school needs 3 or more ladies doing clerical work.”

“RECALL AH-NULD!!!!
Go back to "acting" - oh wait... isn't that what he's doing now as governor....! What a JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

March 19th

2008-03-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

SMART THING TO DO? TIME WILL TELL I SUPPOSE

The truth of the matter is, the only thing that is keeping me and the dogs fed and housed is the line of credit I took out on the house before I needed it, just for a situation like this. However, I have begun to worry that my lender will freeze the line like some others have done (meaning, not allow any further draws of money). The news reports are saying that if a lender hasn't done this yet they will, so this is not an irrational fear. This scares the crap out of me. Without the line of credit I would be really, really broke, and that would not be a good thing. So, I just wrote myself a check for a big old chunk of money from the HELOC. That means that I'm going to be paying interest on money that I don't need right now. In a different time this would not be a wise thing to do, but if my lender freezes the line of credit in the future at least I will have enough money to live on for a while. Actually, if I'm very, very careful (no more $40 dinners with the rescue group, no new clothes, nothing I don't truly need to survive) I should be able to last a year. I will still be job hunting, but in seven and a half months I've had exactly TWO job interviews, and no offers. I've even stooped to applying for work at Home Depot, but haven't had a nibble there either. Maybe I should make myself a sign and stand on a freeway off ramp: UNEMPLOYED MORTGAGE WORKER. WILL DO YOUR LOAN FOR FOOD.

DANCING WITH THE STARS

Yippee! It's back! My personal observations after week1:

The man I would most like to dance with: Christian (with an accent mark over the a). Yeah, baby!

The people I would most like to go out drinking with: Penn and Marissa.

The person that needs to shut up: Adam.

The person who needs to have her face thawed out: Priscilla. (She did well at the foxtrot, but I don't expect her to excel at the more athletic dances. And, if she smiles her face might crack.)

Who will be first to go? My picks are Adam and Monica. (I feel so sorry for adorable little Julianne getting stuck with Adam. He can't dance for shit, and he's obnoxious. I don't see how he can be Jimmy Kimmel's best friend, because Jimmy is funny. I think that he and Sarah would be fun to go out drinking with too.)

Who will win? My upfront favorites are Mario and Kristie. But other possibilities are Christian, the football player, and perhaps Marlee. She's likely to get a lot of votes because she's a nice person with a handicap, and she can dance.

WHY THIS MORON IS SCARIER THAN MOST:

'That is crazy. I am a teacher in san diego. I make about $31 an hour for a 35 hour work week. I work 5 hours on average per week. You do the math. Who makes $44 an hour. I want to go there."
"JohnnyVegas,poor uneducated fellow. I have been teaching 6 years. I make approx. $31 an hour for 35 hours a week. I work 50 hours a week. My benefits are roughly $12,00 per year. I believe I do fine and I am happy with how I do. I earned every penny. But you have really poor facts. Go exagorate on some other site"
"But Vegas,I'm not gonna lie, we do all right. I agree, we get other perks than just money. Vacation"

That's right-this illiterate drivel was written by a TEACHER! No wonder so many public school graduates can't write properly!

March 17th

2008-03-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

I'll be hanging out at home. I am drinking my wine spritzer from a green glass, that's as close to celebrating the day as I'm going to get.

DINO UPDATE

Dino has had his first chemo treatment, and is doing well. So far we've raised enough money to pay for the initial testing and two treatments. He needs five altogether, so we need to raise at least another $1200. Please, if you can help sweet Dino use the donation link to the right, or donate directly through the rescue's web page:
Dino's Story

THE BULLY STICK INCIDENT

I sometimes give my dogs Bully Sticks for chew treats, since I don't do artificial crap like raw hides (cured with chemicals) and Greenies. Bully sticks, are, well, dried bull parts. Yeah, the parts that resemble sticks. We had a Bully Stick day last weekend. After a few minutes I noticed that the boy dogs were no longer chewing. A brief check revealed that Kiara had stolen all the sticks and had them in the corner of the garage where she always takes her dinner.

Can I call her a bitch? Oh yeah, I can. That's the proper term for a female dog. I redistributed the dried bull parts, and carefully supervised the rest of the chew session to make sure that the thieving bitch didn't snatch all of them again.

THE INTERNET. ISN'T IT GRAND?

You get all types posting to email lists and forums. I pick on the language manglers all the time, so today I'd like to rant about a few other types:

ME! ME! ME!
People who only post things about themselves, good or bad. One list I was on had a woman who I'm convinced made up horrible stories about things that happened to her. As soon as the sympathy party quieted down something else bad would happen. Then there are the people who never, ever respond to anyone else's stories or photos, but only show up to talk about themselves. Then there are those who go missing from a forum for a year, come back and loudly announce their return, and after everyone has fawned all over them welcoming them back, they disappear again.

THE COMPLETE, UTTER BITCH
People who never seem to write anything that isn't condescending and rude just make me want to crawl through the monitor and slap them silly. There is one particularly bad actor on a list I'm on. Not only is she rude, she's stupid. Nothing she posts makes any sense, but she acts like she is some sort of wise woman. When the moderator cautioned the list that some of the posts were becoming too argumentative, I sent this email privately:

“Whaaaaa! I want someone to make "the complete, utter bitch" shut up! She's a moron! Please, can't I insult her just one more time?”

I got this reply:

“Sorry dearie, there's a line, you'll have to take a number and wait your turn.”

Guess I'm not the only one.

WHAT TYPE OF ACCENT DO I HAVE?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Yeah, that's pretty much true.

March 14th

2008-03-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

HOW TO GET RICH

Many years ago when I lived in Los Angeles there was an advertisement for a book that was always in the LA Times. It was a How to Get Rich book, and I finally gave in and bought it. The first part of the book described how you should visualize what you want-big house, fancy car, whatever you desired that lots of money could buy. This actually makes sense. Not in the magical sense-if you desire it and pray for it the cosmic forces or some deity will give it to you-but in the motivational sense. If you plant those desires firmly in your mind when it comes time to make choices you are more likely to choose the path that will get you what you want. Even little choices, like whether or not to call in sick when you're not sick.

The second part told you to write a book about how to make money and sell it to people like yourself.

TODAY'S MORONS-POSTERS TO THE UT FORUMS

"Liberals tend to have taste, while Republicans tend to think it's ok to reward their kids with McDonalds." Really? My parents were Republicans, and my mother wouldn't even serve us TV dinners because she thought children should eat real food. I didn't have a fast food meal until high school and my friends and I would ditch school at lunch and spend our lunch money at Jack-in-the-Box. I think this dude has it backwards.

"All you folks talking about conserving electricity...as you sit there on your electrically powered computers blogging. Says a lot doesn't it. I say we just hope hope hope hope that they change change change there plans for yes we can power lines then we all just get along and keep hope alive yes we can."

"Also, I want to emphasize, (1) He is no person one month ago. And now he is the person. Within one month, he has no credentials adding to his part, except his campiagn keeps pumping: endorsement, polls and empty copied speeches. Doesn't that sound like "The Emperor's new clothes"? One endorsement, more endorsement? Obama supporters, wake up. (2). It's easy to critize Mccain and Hillary, because they have more experience, and it's easier to find a dark spot. But just becasue of no history, because he spent some childhood in Indonesia doesn't mean he is a better candidate. Do you really trust such a person as a president? Even with his short political carrer, he managerd associating with a corrupted agent. How are you sure he won't have more dark spots than HIllary and Mccain? (3) It's my general feeling a person who grows up in a middle-class childhood is more open, and more democratic prone. A person like him, growing up with splitting family, financaily insecure, may be driven, but definitely not fitable for a big country's president. Even his wife, who grows up in middle class, claims for her long adult life, she loved America for the first time. You can imagine these people are not physically healthy to run. He spends his private moment only with the black people, his wife, and his Kenya sister. He doens't trust the whites." Huh?

"Well, I bet if there is a substantial amount of Muslims living in the US, Hillary will say she is Muslim just to get the votes. Why would I say that? She fakely cried just to get women votes. She, all of asudden, like Hispanics. She played the victim game yesterday and many days before. One thing I like about Obama is that he gets votes based on his beliefs...that is why he didn't go to the black gathering a few days ago. Now that is bold and he has self-conviction!"

“good post but I disagree with some parts. EQUALITY OF OUTCOME I think is not right. I think JUSTICE is a better word. The goal is a level playing field, not a tie score.
Also AT CONSERVATISMS EXTREME you end up with CORPORATISM and even FASCISM. You cant use socialism to describe one extreme while not using fascism to describe the polar opposite.
Unless your on talk radio.”

"as for the hotel del, they always had a coachroach problem, I worked there in the 80;s and 90;s, just go to the torerooms below the main kitchens, as for the error with the bartender, it does happen sometimes, but that wasa isolated incident" Another keyboard without a shift key. Apparently this one is missing the period key as well.

March 11th

2008-03-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

THANK YOU ROBIN!

My friend Robin made a very generous donation to help Dino, and I want to thank her. If you're into daylilies or irises, check out her business: Earlybird Daylilies

I've purchased daylilies and irises from Robin, and I've been really happy with her plants, selection and service. I have a bunch of irises that will be blooming soon, I'll take pictures. I killed all the daylilies. I have killed every daylily that has ever come into my yard. I don't know how, daylilies are said to be like cockroaches; they will be here after all the people and other plants are gone. Just not the ones in my yard I guess.

Disclaimer: Robin did not bribe me with a donation to say nice things about her business. However, I will accept donation bribes to promote your business, blog, whatever, as long as it's not distasteful or illegal. I'm not a public official, I can accept bribes. But, speaking of public officials in trouble.....

THE GOVERNOR OF NY

I don't care that he got caught doing prostitutes. I do somewhat care that he presented himself as a moral watch dog, and took others down while being a sex addicted scum bag. But he got caught, it's over, he's going down. However, I did take notice of one little bit of information about the prostitution ring involved. The top-of-the-line whores commanded up to $40,000 a day. $40,000 a day? $40,000? A day? My mind is boggled. What would a woman have to look like, and what would she have to do to have some rich sex crazed idiot pay $40,000 a day? Hell, Julia Roberts only got $4,000 for a week.

SAN JOSE

A renowned Vietnamese activist is refusing to eat unless San Jose leaders agree to name the city's Vietnamese business district “Little Saigon.” Okay, we should care if this moron starves himself to death because....?

JUST A MINOR RANT

I hate that commercial! The “poop medicine” one. “People with chronic constipation are on the move” is a ridiculous slogan for one thing. Add to that the fact that it doesn't really make people regular. The optimum is to have as many outputs as inputs-and this medicine says you can go “as many as six times a week.” Fine and good if you only eat six meals a week, otherwise it's just another toxic substance (the ad says it can damage a fetus among other bad effects on the human body) designed to manage symptoms rather than create health. What ever happened to good diets? Eat some fruits and vegetables, maybe some black beans! That would solve a ton of health problems, and help you poop. Besides, I hate the perfect couple in the ad, and their stupid perfect house and their stupid little yappy dogs.

March 8th

2008-03-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

THE $806 PLUMBING WEEK

I had to get a new water heater. The old one was leaking so badly from a big corroded hole in the top (yes, the top!) that I could no longer even get enough hot water for a bath without flooding the garage. With installation, permit fee (WHY do I need a permit to replace something?), and a new 40 gallon heater it came to $741. As soon as the water got hot I washed my hair, and then I ran the dishwasher. In the meantime my main sewer line got clogged, probably because I wasn't running enough water down it; the clog was mostly toilet paper packed into a big sogging mess. The poor guy who came to clean it had a hard time, but he stuck to it-and it only cost me $65. (Anyone in the San Diego area, if you need a drain cleaned call Baird's Drain Service.) So, after he was gone I flushed my toilet. Many times, just to hear it flush. As long as I'm spending money I don't really have, I think that next week I'll have a real plumber come in and fix the kitchen sink. I'll have to come up with a new excuse for not cleaning my kitchen, but have faith-I'll come up with something.

THE COUNTY JOB

I mentioned a week or so ago about going to the County Administration building to get a job application. I knew that I could do the job (Tax Payment Enforcement Officer), but my past job title didn't fit what they had listed as being required. I made a nice bulleted list of the job duties I had as a Quality Control Officer, which actually fit very closely to the description of the duties of the TPEO job, and hoped that my application would fall into the hands of someone who could actually read and think, who would see that I was qualified.

When I got home today I found a message from the County HR department in the mailbox. It was one of those tear the end off and open up flimsy official things, so I was pretty sure that it was a notice telling me that I was completely insane for ever imagining that I was qualified for that job. I opened it anyway.

I passed the evaluation with a score of 88. Now I just have to hope that there weren't 3,000 people with a score of 89 or higher.

Sweet Dino Needs Help

2008-03-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

I put a fundraising button up over there ------->

Dino is the sweetest dog I've met in a long time, and he has lymphoma. I've made a donation, but I can't help as much as I'd like because Congress sucks and won't extend unemployment for mortgage workers, I'm still not getting any response to my resumes and I'm pretty broke, so I made a donation page for him.

March 3rd

2008-03-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

I WISH I HAD SCRATCH-N-SNIFF

The jasmine is in bloom, and the smell is awesome. Well, it is if you like the smell of jasmine.

PARKING LOT SCAMMERS

Here's a little rule of life: If someone approaches you in a parking lot or gas station with a sob story about being stranded and needing to borrow money to get home, it's probably a scam. Someone just wants money and finds it easier to lie than to beg honestly. I ran into a new one today-and it was quite elaborate. I walked out of Henry's and there was a woman on a cell phone. Talking loudly, so of course I overheard. She seemed to be talking to her mother-her car wouldn't start, the manager said she could leave it there overnight, but now she had no way to get “her father” home. (Red flag #1-people talking to their mother's usually say something like “Dad”, not “my father”.) But, being a nice person I slowed down to listen and see if I could help. But, I soon decided that this woman was bad news, and I walked to my car. She followed me, still talking. When I started my car she rapped on my window. I rolled it down, and she kept up with the sob story. “I'm about to cry, my car (pointing to the car parked right next to mine-what are the chances?) won't start, my father just had the tip of his finger sewed back on and I stopped her to buy some antibiotic cream (which they don't CARRY at Henry's)....” I interrupted her to ask if she had AAA. She said she did-so I wouldn't offer to call for her-but they couldn't help her because she had a short. Bullshit! They could have towed her car two blocks to the Auto Electric shop. And she said she lived in Temecula-which is an hour away-so that I wouldn't offer to drive her and her father home. So, she needed to “borrow” money to take the Coaster home. The Coaster goes to Oceanside, which isn't on the way or even near Temecula. When I got home I called Henry's to let them know they had a scammer working their parking lot.

MORE BOO BOOS FROM CHANNEL 10

Jackie Nguyen: “The family of XXX is at loss for words.” And of course, this was followed immediately by an interview with a family member, who had plenty of words. So, not only does Miss Nguyen not know how to SAY the phrase, she has no clue what it means.

Other person with a news reporter job for no apparent reason: “...16 cases of violations of professional misconduct.” If someone violates misconduct, doesn't that make it correct conduct?

March 2nd

2008-03-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

A PHONE IN TOWN HALL MEETING

I got a phone invitation to join in a conference call type thing being put on by my Representative in Congress-Susan Davis. I opted in because I wanted to perhaps ask her if she planned on doing anything to help out the unemployed mortgage workers whose benefits have run out. I had to hang up after less than five minutes. That woman's voice is so shrill, and her comments are so moronic, that it was either hang up or murder my telephone. I like my telephone (now that I paid $25 to replace the chewed through power cord), so I hung up.

WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?

Another wacko-radical car, spotted in the Food4Less parking lot. The theme of this one was “Impeach Bush”, and “the war sucks”. One particularly weird sticker: “How many bullets has your magnet stopped today?” with an image of a yellow troop support ribbon. WTF does that mean? I would have taken a picture, but the radical wacko was sitting in the big honking SUV (I guess she's only a political extremest, not an environmental one) yakking on a cell phone. Perhaps she was planning her next wacko political uprising. I didn't want to risk being mistaken for the FBI or something by taking a photo.

One of these things is not like the others...

MEET THE MORONS

Thanks to Sandee for sending me these lovely bits from eBay, (and for reading my blog-I think that makes two loyal readers now):

Camera body shows sign of use as some light scratches on front of camera and some alluminated marks on LCD cover

Q: What do you mean by "alluminated marks on LCD cover"

A: It means some scuffs marks on surface of LCD cover.The LCD itself isbuild inside and nothing affectsa to LCD functions. THAT'S what it means? Wow, someone must be using a different dictionary than the rest of us.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Q: Do you combine shipping? If so, what would shipping costs be for two pair of earrings?

A: Yes I can combine shipping, for the total cost of the two pairs of earrings I have listed will be what ever the winning bid will be on each not one certain amount.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

PRODUCT INFORMATION

a.. This item was purchase in U.S and it will be ship from U.S

a.. Brighton Tin isn't included unless it stated otherwise.

a.. Guarantee Authentic & Brand New with price tag.

a.. Style #J46177.Silver-Swarovski. It's REVERSIBLE!!

a.. Details:So beautiful, it brings tiers...glowing Swarovski pearls are surrounded by rose colored stones and rhinestones.

a.. 16" adjustable with lobster claw closure

a.. We pack all our packages with care to ensure that you receive theperfect merchandises

Dude-YOU bring me to "tiers".

Just for fun-go search eBay for “rod iron”, (I got 32 hits on 2/29) which should be “wrought iron”. There actually is such a thing as rod iron, but it's cut from flat bar iron in a slitting mill to provide the raw material for nails, not used to make decorative items such as “candle operas” (only five hits, but one was made from “rod iron”, so that's a double!)

Headlines from the online Union-Tribune:
"San Mateo mother jailed for lying about sexually assault" Hey! There's an adverb! Unfortunately, it should have been an adjective instead.
“San Francisco girl home after she disappearing for more than day"

February 27th

2008-02-27T15:15:00.001-08:00

OSCAR OBSERVATIONS

I haven't seen any of the movies yet, so this is about the show. I don't do movie theaters; I don't like hanging out with a bunch of strangers in dark rooms. Not really, but I've just never been fond of theaters. I much prefer to watch movies in my living room.

Jon Stewart is really funny.
Javier Bardem is very good looking when relieved of the bad hair. Although, I think that they borrowed a wig from Gene Simmons.
The Coen brothers are just fucking awesome.
Cameron Diaz needs a good stylist. That poof on the back of her dress looked like a tote-along poop bag.

BABIES GOING TO SCHOOL?

This falls squarely into my I Don't Get It category. I randomly stumbled on one of those completely annoying family blogs; the Perfect Family with the Perfect Toddler Doing Oh-So-Perfect Things, and Look At Our Pictures of Our Perfect Selves type. This particular Perfect Family had a little boy about 18 months old, and almost every post was about a CLASS that the little angel was going to. WTF? Classes? For an 18 month old? Gymnastics class, music class, enrichment class, etc. I guess I missed it. That moment in time when children's imaginations and natural curiosity went away and had to be replaced with structured learning before the age of two. Now, if anyone bothered to send their children to classes to learn the proper use of English I might get it, since so many young adults these days seem to have completely missed those lessons in school and are probably raising children to say things like “Seventeen building permits has been issued...” (As uttered by Kimberly Hunt on Channel 10 news.)

SPEAKING OF LANGUAGE MANGLERS....

The usual suspects posting on the UT forums:

“Food is good here but to bland. I find it hard to find anything exceptional. SF had China town. East coast has good everything. We are so middle of the road. If anyone knows a really really good Chinese place that let me know.” That what?

Stingaree is also losing business because of the Ivy Hotel and the new Hard Rock Hotel have gave people other (and better) options. Like the person above said, the restaurant with value and reputation will all survive. They have before. And we all know whcih restaurants those are. Relsucks obviously doesn't know which one those are.

I don't know how most of these owners that don't sell any alcohol make any money? Food costs are soaring wages and workers comp is outragous I can not see how on a small margin they can keep the doors open. I love the Cohen group in San Diego, clean and moderate price. Most major chains bring the food prepared in each day and sell as made in back! Wrong! All soups and ribs are made else where. Support the local chains first they keep us well fed let's feed them back by support. Eat out less and eat better when eating out! Who stole all the commas? Please join me in mourning the death of the adverb.

its shameful to see you people change this story into something else. you want to hate america and what it stands for, then by all means do it in the right forum. if the article actually talked about political issues than i can see you going on your rampage. I have a feeling that they are making keyboards that are completely missing a shift key.

“dandre77, this is a story about meant (It was about meat.)- not politics. Please keep your ill-thought, rediculous "Lineral vs conservative" and "Nazi" propogranda to yourself. Day after day you have to poison these blogs with your rants regurgitating directly from Rush Limbaugh in any story you can find
You come across as a lonely, bitter, ignorant individual” And YOU come across as an uneducated moron. Which is worse? And, it's a FORUM, not a blog.

“Maybe you three can have some alternate "anti-Hollywood" gala at one of your trailors?
Perhaps it could be a black-overalls even with only the finest domestic beer and some cheese-doodles or pork-rinds to round out the gala?
Maybe one of you can pretend to be MCing the Oscars and you can do anti-liberal jokes while you honor Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'relliy whole smashing beer cans on your head?” Well, they may be trailer trash, but I'd bet that they can at least SPELL it right.

However, the real change - the kind (apparently someone stole the "of" and put it with all the commas) change that might actually do something to prevent or slow global warming along with the many other major environmental crisis's we currently face can only come from the politicians and big business who control the major policy changes that would allow for such things as increased funding for solar power and decreased fossil fueled energy sources, alternative fuels or significantly reduced carbon emissions from cars, laws such a banning plastic bag use and other wasteful plastic packaging - the list goes on and on. And so do your sentences!

February 25th

2008-02-25T20:54:00.000-08:00

A TRIP TO THE COUNTY BUILDING

I've been trying for days to apply for a job with the county using their online system. I may not be a computer geek, but I am a pretty sophisticated user, and their &^%$! site doesn't work. I tried both computers. I tried IE and Firefox. I used the control button when clicking on links. Nothing worked-I kept getting a blank page instead of the application. So, I got into my car and drove down there.

Figures. Today was the day that they were having a hearing about a proposed big power line running through the desert. Here's the type of vehicle that was hogging all the public parking:

I finally found a parking spot and made it into the building and got my job application the old fashioned way-a piece of paper. Now I have to fill it out and take it back down there. Hopefully the non re-entry radical types will have somewhere else to be that day.

I haven't been inside the county building for decades. I was very happy to see that they hadn't ruined the inside. Wood trim and floors, original light fixtures, the old fashioned doors with glass and transom windows-all intact. I didn't take any pictures inside, I don't like to make the security personnel in government buildings nervous, but I did get a few of the outside.

The building was a WPA project, built between 1936 and 1938.

Some history about the building.

February 22nd

2008-02-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

GLUTEN FREE LASAGNA

I've mentioned before that pasta made from rice flour tastes like wallpaper paste, so I refuse to use it for lasagna. I had a brainstorm though. (I'm sure I'm not the first person who has thought of this, but that's okay.) I used eggplant instead of noodles. I peeled two eggplants, sliced them 1/4" thick, and cooked them in a frying pan with a little EVOO just until they were slightly soft. Then used the eggplant slices instead of lasagna noodles. It was really good, and I'll make it again. I'm not going to bore you with the entire recipe, everyone has their own favorite way to make lasagna. I will say that I borrowed an ingredient from the best lasagna I've ever eaten that a friend made-red wine in the sauce.

I DON'T GET IT!

People constantly express amazement at the really nice German Shepherds that we find in shelters-many of whom are in danger of being killed. I am amazed myself. Why do so many people think of dogs as disposable items? Look at this really pretty girl that we sprung this week:

A few weeks ago we pulled a pregnant mom-and now we have puppies:

February 19th

2008-02-19T17:20:00.000-08:00

Silly Flowers-They Think It's Spring!

WATER IS NOT MY FRIEND

Well, not water itself. The things that bring water, hold water, keep water out of the house and take water away are not my friends. First my sewer pipe broke, and I had to have the yard dug up and a new pipe at a cost of $4200. Then I had a slab leak. That was covered by insurance, but it turns out that for what I've had to pay in increased insurance premiums I could have just paid for the repair myself and still been ahead. When I had some rude, moron plumbers replace the frozen main shut off valve so I could turn off my water if needed they ruined my pressure regulator, so a bunch of stuff in the house sprung leaks. I couldn't get their plumbing company (American Leak Detectors) to admit responsibility, so I paid to have the regulator replaced, and the leaks fixed. Unfortunately that plumber wasn't able to fix my kitchen sink problem. I have one of those foo-foo spray thingies, and mice chewed through the hose. So, every time I turn on the water it leaks under the sink. He couldn't even cap off the stupid thing, so I'm living with that. Meaning-I try not to run water in the kitchen sink, I fill things up with water from the bathroom. Cleaning the sink and counters is problematic, and requires logistical planning. Now my toilet is leaking. Badly. It won't be easy to fix either. The Previous Owners installed a shelf/cabinet thing over the toilet. It has a shelf that's so close to the top of the tank only Flat Stanley would be able to get a hand in there to make any repairs. They obviously installed the shelf before the toilet, because they bolted it to the wall which prevents it from being moved without demolishing it, so the only way to fix the toilet is to pull it out from under the shelf. Since removing the toilet scares me-visions of having to poop in a bucket when I can't get it put back by myself-I have turned off the water source and am flushing the toilet using water from a pail. My roof leaks and has damaged the ceiling in the bedroom. And now, it appears that the hot water heater is leaking. Apparently I have greatly displeased the plumbing gods. What would be an appropriate sacrifice to appease them?

SAY AGAIN?

It's hard to read, but the third line says "Remove caused touching stains by alchohol." I think that the box designer maybe got into the alchohol.