You Know

I am really beginning to hate the words, "you know." People use this term in everyday conversation and it really drives me crazy. For example (and no, Honey, I'm not picking on you, yours is the only one I can remember right now), my husband was trying to tell me something last night and between the "um's" and "you know's" he wasn't saying a damn thing.

"I saw this thing, you know, on TV about, um, a woman, talking about the, um, oil companies and, you know, the gas hikes."

NO, I don't know, and if I did you wouldn't need to tell me about it, would you? It's not just my husband, society on a whole seems to think sentences are enhanced by these useless little nuggets. They do not help your story and in all honesty, after the second "you know" I've stopped listening to whatever it is you're trying to say. And yes, I am guilty of this myself, but I try my best to keep it to a minimum.

If you can't put your thoughts in order enough to convey an idea than just keep your mouth shut. This is why I prefer writing.

Memories

One of my fondest memories is me as a little girl, I guess I was about 7, sitting on the concrete porch of my house with my very best friend, Nicole. We lived in Louisianna. It was a nice warm day, we didn't have school, and we were playing and listening to the radio.

"He rocks in the tree-top all a day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' that song
All the little birds on J-Bird St.
Love to hear the robin goin' tweet tweet tweet"

Nicole and I knew every word to that song and we sang it at the top of our lungs. I love this simple memory not for what's in it, but what's not. We were so innocent, we didn't have a care in the world. We didn't know anything about debt, politics, or the day-to-day struggle it took our parents to make sure we had food on the table and roofs over our head. We weren't worried about our future. We weren't afraid of anything except our parents getting mad at us. It's a pure childhood memory and I am sorry to say that today's 7 year-old will probably never know how it feels.

Now our children have to worry about predators. They have a war looming over their heads. A lot of 7 year-olds have had to deal with mommy and daddy never coming back home. Their lives are affected by high gas prices, pollution, and gangs. They can't leave their houses without worrying about getting kidnapped, raped, beaten, or recruited by the military. They are so much more aware of this world than we were at 7 and it's so, so sad. Today's 7 year-olds worry about the image and whether or not to do drugs or have sex. They are in therapy. They sprout words like global warming and mass destruction in their everyday conversations. They have to worry about being sued if they break anyone's window with a baseball. TV, video games, and computers have stolen away their imaginations. They can't even listen to songs on the radio without having to hear "beep, beep, beeeeeep."

How hard parents must work to keep their children sheltered. And today you can't really shelter them that much without doing even more harm. There are things children have to know now, unpleasant things. It's so sad.

What happened?

Guilty Pleasures

Okay, I watch a lot of TV. I was sucked into Rockstar: Supernova this year by my co-worker and I have to say that the quality of contestants that show had last year was top notch. There were 6 really, really good singers on Rockstar: INXS, after the rest went home it was a knock-down, drag-out competition that I loved (Jordan singing "Man Who Sold the World" nearly made me burst out in tears). This year?

This year they scraped the scum off the bottom of the singer barrel and put it on stage. After a few beers I could sing better than all but one of these losers. There's the guy who growls everything, the guy who flops around on stage like a fish, and a girl who manages to hump the mike stand every chance she gets. These people are so bad that I now Tivo the show just so I can fast forward through most of it. Tommy Lee, Jason Newstead, and Gilby Clark are the judges and how they can keep a straight face through most of these performances, well, they all deserve Oscars. All I can think is this show was put together in such a rush the producers took any and all street performers they could find, put them in ridiculous 80's wanna-be punk rock clothing, and pushed them on stage. Awful.

But that ball of refuse is nothing compared to a show I saw last night - The Messengers. It was touted as some eye-opening, heart-wrenching show about people who go out into the world and live another person's life for a day, then come back and change our lives with what they experienced. NOT!

This show is a competition to see who wins a book deal and gets their own show. That is all these people care about, that is all the producers care about, and that is all we as the audience are supposed to care about. Last night they dumped these 10 people onto Skid Row, the largest homeless area in CA, and left them there for 24 hours. The show spent 12 minutes on this section of the show. 12 whole edited minutes.

When one girl was asked why she was there, (let's face it, homeless people do not wear Prada), she said, "Oh, I'm on this show and we have to stay here." The homeless guy chewed her a new asshole and she couldn't figure out why. And this is a person who is supposed to inspire me? What an idiot. The editors managed to catch a few people yelling and screaming and this is how they chose to represent the homeless.

The rest of the show was dedicated to the competition. They went out and found the two gayest, ugliest, most clueless people around and made them judges. Each contestant had 2 minutes to talk about the chosen topic, charity. After their time, these two morons would critique them. "Your voice didn't project enough, you were too quiet." "I liked your style but I didn't understand what you were saying." "I thought you did a great job and look forward to seeing more of you." Um, hello? What happened to the homeless and charity? What happened to "changing our lives?" What is the message here?

Greed, that should have been the topic. Greed, cluelessness, and apathy. The homeless were forgotten the moment the show went back to the nice, clean stage filled with it's upper-class audience. Do you think one homeless person was invited to the show? Did the show give anything to the community of homeless once it dumped their pawns there? No. Homeless, what homeless? I was so disgusted with it that I couldn't even watch the rest of the show. It is a terrible representation of what people will do in order to 1) become TV stars, and 2) get cash and prizes.

I felt sorry that the homeless had to put up with these 10 assholes for 24 hours. Their plight wasn't important. Their situations weren't helped by this show. They were used and discarded like garbage. I was embarrassed to be a TV viewer.

I've decided to make a heap of sandwiches and go out and give them to the homeless here in St. Louis. I don't want a camera crew to follow me around, either. I want to give back because those 12 minutes made me understand just how screwed up and pathetic this country and it's priorities are.

Zzzzzzz, huh? Whaszit crown...pretty banner....zzzzzz
 

The banner says WHAT? 

Now you can kind of see the damage. 

The tree that fell. Half of it is still upright, so it doesn't look that bad from here. 

It's Gettin' Hot in Here (uh-huh) So Take Off All Your Clothes

We survived! Someone up there must still like me because not only did my house, car, and neighborhood receive little damage, my sister and I never lost any power. My sister lives six blocks from me. On her street she and one other house had electricity while everyone else was out. My little cul-de-sac had power and no one else. We are so extremely lucky and thankful. We also found that Beo does not like storms in the slightest and can hold off going to the bathroom for a looooooong time.

Kitty just hid somewhere until it was time to eat.

Yesterday was unbearable for many reasons. We could not find a gas station or grocery store near us that was open. None of the traffic lights work and if you live in St. Louis you know many people don't know how to use a 4-way stop. We saw adults, children, and the handicapped sitting outside under trees because it was cooler than their brick oven houses. The people in wheelchairs got to me, especially this one old lady sucking on an oxygen mask. Then there were the sirens. They went on all day long. It was very hot and I know some of those ambulances carried people who aren't going to come back home.

We do have a tree that needs to be cut down. A huge branch fell off and landed on my car, but the end of the branch landed on it and not the beginning. I can deal with leaves and twigs. A big foot and a half block of wood would have broken some things.

I hope all of you who had to go through this survived with minimal damage. My job never lost power but a good 70% of my fellow employees are looking (and smelling) a little rough.

ZZZZZAP

We are having electrical problems at home. It all started in the master bedroom. The light began to flicker. We changed the bulb but that did not solve the problem. Then the light in the master bath started flickering, and then a light in the basement underneath the bath and bedroom began flickering, too. See, the lights flickered at the same rate and with the same pattern. Logic states that all three lights must be connected and being effected by the same problem, right?

Not according to my husband. According to my husband it was the ground wire in the master bath and once that was fixed the other two problems would mysteriously fix themselves.

So he turns off the breaker to the bathroom and *gasp* all three lights are on the same breaker! What a coincidence. He discovers that there is nothing wrong with the ground wire, therefore it must be the breaker. Nope, not the breaker, either.

Let's state a few facts here:
My husband does not have a degree in electrical engineering.
I do not have a degree in electrical engineering.
Our house was not build by us, so we have no idea how it was wired together.
The ground wire and breaker appear to be just fine.

So, my conclusion is to throw in the towel and seek help. His dad knows a lot of people who know a lot about electricity. My husband's conclusion? A couple of months ago I was getting dressed and lifted my hand into the path of the bedroom ceiling fan. (Yeah, it hurt.) That small jarring must have pulled/loosened a wire and that is what's causing the lights to flicker.

Uh-huh.

Let me just tell you something about my husband. He does not listen to logic sometimes. Sometimes he is so damn stubborn that he will not listen to anything anyone says and has to find out that they are telling the truth by trial and error. Enter into evidence Bushka, my old red Celica. She had lived a hard life and was dying a slow death. I came home one night and said to hubby, "Something is majorly wrong with Bushka."

"Oh, now honey, I'm sure it's nothing. I'll drive your car to work on Monday and prove to you that not only do you know nothing about cars, but that you are overreacting to some silly little problem." Pat, pat (that's him patting me on the head). So Monday rolls around and hubby drives car to work. That night he comes home and says, "There is something majorly wrong with your car!" Color me surprised.

He does this all the time.
Me - "The dohicky is broken."
Him - "Oh, it's not the dokicky, its the thingamajig."
Me - "No, its the dohicky."
Him - "It's the thingamajig, I know it." ~time passage~ "Hey, it's not the thingamajig!"
Me - "No, it's the dohicky."
Him - "Hmmmm, then it must be the whatchamacallit."
Me - "It's the dohicky!"
Him - "No, no, let me just get this...oh, it's not the whatchamacallit."
Me - "No shit! Maybe that's because it's the dohicky."
Him - "No, it's not the dohicky. Let me get this, see...it's not this. Well, let me try that. Hey...oh, it's not that either. Okay, I'll check the dohicky just to show you that...oh, it is the dohicky. Wow, who would have guessed."

If I were single I would have called in a professional now and had the problem fixed. Alas, I am not single and I must wait until my husband has exhausted all other illogical conclusions before he bites the bullet and admits he doesn't know what's wrong and he can't fix it. With our luck I just know, KNOW that it's going to be something expensive.

If by chance my hand can cause major electrical problems by merely touching a ceiling fan I will publicly apologize to hubby in this here blog.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

These are the people who make up our society. God help us all.

Cell Phone Helps Kill Woman in Front of Children
(If this isn't a good argument for outlawing cell phones in cars, I don't know what is.)

Cell Phone no Help with Driver
(Always helps to know where you are.)

Children Raised to Believe Nothing is Ever Their Fault
(This is how making excuses for your children's behavior can backfire on you.)

FUCK MODOT

The Missouri Department of Transportation can kiss my ass!

They have closed off a major road that I use to go to work. Fine, I started taking the side roads. Then they closed those. Fine. I started taking farther side roads. Now, they've closed those, too. What the fuck am I supposed to do, fly? These cocksucking assholes don't give a shit about the turmoil they cause, all these greedy bastards care about is the money all this USELESS construction is generating. Tomorrow morning I expect to wake up and find a ROAD CLOSED sign and a couple of orange barrels right outside my driveway.

I curse you, MODOT. I curse your industry, your company, your employees, and all their families. I hope you die slow, horrible deaths that involve a lot of bodily fluids and pain. I hope your children die before your eyes in horrible, painful ways. I hope you come home to find your spouses screwing other people with fatal diseases. I hope you bleed from your eyes and ears and have great, open sores all over your body. And when you die I hope you burn in hell!

If I had a gun permit there would be a few less construction workers this morning.

Review Time

I love music videos. Which is a shame because the music channels don't show them anymore. At least, they don't show them like they used to. Now those channels are full of reality shows and people sitting around talking about music. If you want to be on MTV you have to be a rap artist because that's all they ever show anymore. FUSE is pretty good but they never show the whole video. They start it late and cut it off early. I hate that. So when I get to see a whole video that isn't rap and actually tells a story instead of having a bunch of hoochies dancing around I get excited.

Nickelback is not one of my favorite bands, I don't even own any of their albums. I like the song "Savin Me." I saw the video for it the other day and I have to say bravo. There is a definite story to this one. It's an easily followed story, too, not one of these obscure stories that only the artist and the director understands pieces o' crap.

In case you can't or don't want to watch the video - It opens with a man in a trench coat looking for something among a crowd on any street in a big city. Another man appears talking on his cell phone when trench coat man saves his life (talking on the cell phone, not paying attention to a big, fat bus that's about to run him over). Trench coat guy disappears. Cell phone man starts freaking out, stopping people and trying to touch something above their heads. Finally we see that he sees timers on top of their heads. Obviously he is freaked out by this and doesn't understand what it means until he sees a woman being put in an ambulance and watches her timer run out. Ah-ha! He then sees a woman walking toward her car and realized her timer is counting down really, really fast. He pulls woman away from car just as a big statue is dropped on it. Then cell-phone man walks away and the car lady starts to freak out looking at the top of people's heads.

I like the theory, you know, passing the torch and all that. I really like the way it is explained. With a concept like this it would be really easy to get it wrong and confuse the audience. However, the director took careful steps to explain what was happening. Man gets saved, gets confused, find an answer, solves the problem, then goes about his day. The video also goes really well with the song. Whoever did this had his thinking cap on and I liked it. It's one of those videos that makes you think about it. What if we could see how much time we or others had? Would we choose to save a life, or let nature take it's course? At one point he tries to see his own timer but can't. I could write a whole paper on that concept alone.

Till next time.

Writing Fool

I've been trying to build a web site for my writings. Since I took that Dreamweaver class in June I feel I am the s**t. Bad part is I looked over my past writings and realized I have a LOT of editing to do. Please forgive me if I seem occupied, but I really want to get my stuff out there. Not even my family has read much of my stuff. For so long I was too chicken to share it because taking criticism is not one of my strong traits. So once I get it done I'll give you the address. Until then...

...you just can't make this stuff up.

*Sigh*

My friend Alissa is having a terrible week already. While we were on vacation one of her co-workers took it upon himself to stir up a big o' pot of shit. Now he's on vacation. Well, Alissa had gotten a very big fan and is about to turn it on.

I know I only hear one side of the story, but she works with a bunch of lazy assholes. They don't do their jobs and she has to catch the run-off. Alissa is not afraid to stand up for herself and tell these jerks to screw off when they need it. Because of this she has been deemed "confrontational." Why is it when a man stands up for himself he's deemed "bold, aggressive, a real go-getter, " but when a woman does it she's labeled a "bitch?"

Alissa is the glue that holds that office together. I don't understand why a couple of her co-workers are so anxious to get rid of her. If she leaves that place is going to fall apart. I say let it, they deserve to get screwed, but then Alissa is out of a job and that's not good. The good news is that her boss is on her side and is very angry at what happened while she was gone. That is a huge advantage. On Friday Alissa will get to bend these jerks over her knee and deliver a well-deserved spanking.

Oy.

Meanwhile the cops are crawling all over our department. It seems 2006 has been a banner year for theft on this campus. The cops really, really want to catch a bad guy. Thankfully I was on vacation last week and have a solid alibi for the dates when things were stolen.

Back from the Voyage

Miss me?

My vacation was fun. I got to relax and give myself a massive sunburn on my back and shoulders. I'm peeling as I type. I enjoyed Branson, MO. I haven't been there in 24 years. It's changed a bit. Alissa and I mesh really, really well. It's so obvious why we are best friends. I loved being able to spend so much time with her.

The trip would have been perfect if my best friend's boyfriend, M, had not been there. M is a nice guy, don't get me wrong, but he's the A-typical party boy. Party boys are fun to have around when there is a party. They laugh, they goof around, they make asses of themselves for the entertainment of others. However, when a party is not happening they are selfish, greedy, immature, and lazy. This is why most women will screw a party boy senseless and then move on. Party boys are not the type of men one chooses to settle down and have a family with. Why? Because party boys don't do settle down and raise a family, they PARTY!

My husband had to leave early in order to work, thus I had to leave early. Yeah, I know, it was supposed to be our VACATION. I was really sorry to leave Alissa, our little cabin, and the great view of the lake. However, neither of us were sorry to leave M. Every morning he was pissed about something. He never cleaned or cooked or even tried to help with the cleaning and cooking. He couldn't even make his own drink. Nope, all M wanted to do was party, party, party, party, and party. Why Alissa stays with him we'll never know. We had hoped that spending some time with him would help us make sense of why they're together. Now we're even more confused. As far as we are concerned he has no redeeming qualities.

We did manage to see Pirates of the Caribbean II - SPOILER! If you don't want to know anything about this movies, skip this paragraph. Okay, what did I think about the movie? I was P-I-S-S-E-D! If I wanted to spend 2+ hours watching a build-up for the third movie I would have waited for it to come out on HBO. Nothing was solved, nothing! Davey Jones wasn't vanquished, his ship wasn't destroyed, his heart is now in the hands of a bad guy, Will didn't get revenge for his father, we don't know what happened to Elizabeth's father, Will saw Lizzy kissing Jack and doesn't know why, Lizzy is in a tizzy about killing Jack, (is he REALLy dead? Don't know), they didn't get married, and now they bring what's his name back from the first movie. Nothing was solved. I hate movies that cut themselves off in the middle. They could have given us one, ONE ending and I would have been happy. As for the movie itself it was less humorous and fun than the first. They should have made this movie a sequel and been done with it. Why is it Hollywood has to make 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 movies of the same damn thing? Damn Lucas and his Star Wars. (Although, at least in Star Wars we had endings - Guy gets the girl, bad guy gets killed, so on. You could have taken a lesson from Lucas, jackass.)

So we got our boy back and he is a changed dog. Yesterday he slept almost allllll day. He's a boxer, boxers don't do that. He's been more subdued and calm than we've ever seen him. I'm hoping he is just tired from one week of constant rough-housing with two other dogs. I want my jumpy, curious, and frenzied dog back.

We have had a rash of robberies here at work. It appears a thief has found himself a master key and is robbing us blind at night. There isn't anything in my office worth stealing, but a lot of student's laptops and cell phones are gone. I hate thieves. If I happen to catch one I'm stringing him up by his ankles off the roof. Then I'm cutting into the rope. If he moves too much he'll snap it and fall to his death. Yeah, that'd be a good thing.