Snowmageddon It

We interrupt the previously scheduled inaugural edition of Freaky Friday to bring you .....

.... a shit ton of snow.

47 years + 650 square feet of driveway + 18" of heavy snow = I'm too old for this shit.

The cats, on the other hand, don't seem to mind.

A kindred spirit

Rechelle over at My Sister's Farmhouse is currently going through the same journey I traversed a couple of years ago ..... from believer to atheist.


She's much more articulate about it than I ever was. She's also hilarious. And she lists all kinds of links for people who are questioning their faith.


There's nothing wrong with questioning. There's nothing wrong with looking for answers. There's nothing wrong with not being a Christian. Honestly, that was the hardest thing for me to accept: That by being an atheist, I was no longer a Christian. Because in the time and place where I grew up, not being a Christian was ...... well ..... you didn't even talk about people who were not Christian, because, OBVIOUSLY, people who were not Christian were out worshipping the devil and murdering babies and stuff. So! This has been quite a trip for me.



Rechelle, I hope you don't mind me linking to you. I just think you're doing a fantastic job of educating people through your own experiences. Thanks!



Oh, and apropos of nothing other than the fact that I'm linking to stuff, all my fellow former marching-band geeks need to click here.

Cool!

A massive dose of guilt can be highly profitable, Part Two

My boss has a long and storied history of forgetting work anniversaries. Back in 2007, my boss forgot my twenty-year work anniversary, and I reaped the rewards. I mean, come on, twenty years? Worth every makeup present I got, in my opinion.



So yesterday, when my boss yet again promised to take me to lunch for my work anniversary and then forgot about it in that massive time span between 9 a.m. and noon, I knew what to do.










Sorry for the fuzz-osity. That's my time sheet, and the post-it says, "Insert monetary amount here to make up for blowing off the 23rd anniversary lunch", with an arrow pointing to my Expense line.



I'll let you know how much I get.

Whut whut!

Today is ....... drumroll please ....... my twenty-third anniversary of working for the company on whose computer I am typing as we speak.

Hard to believe that I've been here for twenty-three years. Whoa. And it's not even my first job - I am actually celebrating (or mourning, depending on how you look at it) thirty years in the full-time workforce this year.

Holy SHIT I'm old.

Here's some completely unasked-for advice on how to survive working for twenty-three years for the same company:

1. Keep your head down. DO NOT get involved in office politics, no matter how tempting it may be. Loyalties shift, and you could find yourself out the door if you back the wrong pony.

2. Keep your head up. Make sure your boss hears about your accomplishments. If you don't toot your own horn, you'll get run over by more assertive employees.

3. Keep learning. Almost anything is job-related, when you think about it, so never turn down an opportunity to take a class or learn a new program, whether or not it directly applies to what you're doing at the time.

4. Have fun. If you don't look forward to going to work every morning, you don't necessarily need to quit, but you do need to speak to your boss about how to make your work more enjoyable. If there's simply no way to accomplish that, you're in the wrong place, and it's time to move on. I can honestly say that I laugh at work every single day, and I'm glad to be here. That being said, work is, after all, work. It's not always fun, it's not always easy, and keep in mind that you are there to serve the company, not the other way around.

So! That's all the advice I have for now. Happy anniversary to me! And hopefully many more.

In need of a little inspiration

A while back, I picked up a giant ceramic horse's-head chess piece at a thrift store. Because I don't already own enough crap, obv.



I thought I could make it into something different. Something cool. The first thing I did was give it some eyes, because it just looked creepy without them.






Yeah, my garage is a grungy place. Sorry.



I thought about making it into a zebra, but I've already got Mr. Z:






And I'm currently working on a tiger, so tiger is out. I thought about cow, but I'm afraid if I paint a bunch of cow-spots on it, it'll just look like a blotchy chess piece.



I wonder if I could make it into a T-Rex .......

Rocky

March 1992 - February 19, 2008

I still think of you every day, my friend.

Outsourcing

The other night, for the first time ever, I paid someone to prepare my income tax returns. And I can't even TELL you how this grieves me.

I've always done my own tax returns. Well, except for the year my sister Texas did them for me. Thanks, Texas! But this year, with the first-time-homebuyers' tax credit, and the credit I'll get for insulating the garage, and not knowing where to enter the mortgage interest and the property taxes and ........

.... I just was not up for it. But here's what kills me: I KNOW that if I just spent enough damn time reading through the instructions or using TurboTax or whatever, I could probably figure it out. I just didn't want to. It made me tired just thinking about it. STOP YELLING AT ME, okay? I don't like numbers. So sue me.

So the other night, I gathered up my paperwork and took it to an accountant and sat across the desk from her and let her figure it out.

And she saved me lots of money! At least seven hundred bucks that I know for a FACT I would not have figured out on my own. Which is way more than what she charged me to do the returns.

So it was worth the money. I just feel like a failure for not being able to do it myself. Which is ridonkulous, because there are lots of people (dentist, plumber, electrician) whom I pay for their knowledge without having a (major) cow over it.

Someday I've got to get over this fear of spending money. Oh wait, but that's how I was able to save up enough buy a house!

What about you? Are there some things you can spend money on, no problem, and other things you HATE to spend money on? Or is it just me?

Seven Pounds (of shit) continued .....

Okay! So, yesterday I flogged the first hour of Seven Pounds. Last night I suffered through watched the last half, so let's soldier on, shall we?

Warning: The rest of this post contains MAJOR SPOILERS about Seven Pounds. I am about to TELL YOU what happens in the end. Do NOT keep reading if you have any intention of watching this movie. Spoilers ahoy! Okay, don't say I didn't warn you.

I mean it!

Here we go: In Seven Pounds, Will Smith plays a dude who kills his wife, possibly his kids (not sure on that one), a bunch of people in a van, and evidently half the population of Los Angeles because he was ...... DUN DUN DUN ....... texting while driving.

Lesson for audience: Do NOT text while driving, or you will kill half the population of the planet. All at once.

So, yeah, pretty sure this one's not gonna be a musical.

Anyhoo, Will decides to kill himself because he can't deal with the guilt, but FIRST, he starts giving away little chunks of himself, like, part of his liver, and a bunch of bone marrow, and HOLY SHIT I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING HERE.

He decides to pick some worthy people to get the stuff they can't harvest off him while he's still alive, like, you know, his HEART and shit, and then things hit a snag when he sleeps with his future heart recipient. Oooops!

But! First he fixes her 1956 printing press, because he's an aeronautics engineer, and that's what they do. Totally plausible.

Then! He fills a tub with ice, and I'm all, like, okay, he's gonna try to lower his core temp so his organs which are going to be donated stay, like, FRESHER longer, before he takes the pills or slits his wrists or however he's going to off himself and at this point I can't even believe I'm trying to make SENSE out of this bullshit

and then he puts a jellyfish in the tub and HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no shit you guys, suicide by jellyfish, I SWEAR I am not making this up.

And then they harvest all his parts, and the heart transplant chick goes to meet the blind dude, and there's a children's choir singing a track they swiped wholesale off the Langley Schools Music Project CD, which I actually OWN a copy of because I am strange.*

Anyhoo, the movie ends, and while it was not the WORST movie I've ever seen, it was sort of god-awful, considering the big names starring in it. Which reminds me, I've heard that Valentine's Day is a pretty horrific piece of crap - anybody seen that one yet?

*A while back, somebody (I think it was Rob) (Hi, Rob!) commented on all the weird shit I have in my house. You know how some bloggers do "theme days" like Wordless Wednesday or Thankful Thursday whatever? I think I'm gonna start doing "F*cked-up Friday" and every Friday I'll, like, display some weird thing I have in my house. Coming soon!

Oh yeah, and does anybody know where I can buy a giant dinosaur model? Like, two feet tall, at least, and realistic, with scary teeth and stuff?

Movie Review: Seven Pounds ......

..... of shit in a five-pound sack.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Has anybody else besides me tried to watch this turkey? Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith? Will Smith, who is trying SO HARD in this pic to win an Oscar and he is just EMOTING all over the place and there is dramatic CHAIR THROWING and JELLYFISH in his room* and a girl who needs a HEART TRANSPLANT and BLIND Woody Harrelson or whatever the hell that bartender from Cheers's name was and

oh boy is it bad.

Has anybody made it to the end yet? Because I hit about Minute 50 and told myself I only had to watch ten more minutes and then the movie would be halfway over and I could give it a rest and only have an hour left to watch on another night and those were the longest ten minutes of my LIFE which I will never get back by the way thankyouverymuch Will Smith and

okay. I'll stop now. I'll let you know if I ever manage to claw my way through that last hour.




*I'm not even making that up. *sigh*

World Tour of Local Diners, revisited

Okay, I just have to add one more entry to the World Tour of Local Diners.

The Sunrise Diner on Clinton Street recently opened in an old Pudgie's. And I have to say, they have the best special going, by far, of any of the local diners we've toured.

Check it: Chicken-fried steak with sausage gravy, two eggs done any way you like 'em, toast or biscuits (the biscuits are HUGE), and home fries or grits, all for ...... drum roll please ...... $5.50!

Oh my God you guys, that chicken-fried steak is SO GOOD. And hard to come by, here in the Northeast!

I really can't speak for the rest of their menu, as Mom and I never make it past the special, because, really, why bother? That special is the best thing around. Yum.





Oh, and yes, I AM aware of the irony of following a post about working out with one about diner food. Hypocrisy is my middle name, folks.

30-Day Shred Haiku

Jillian Michaels:

The doc says knee surgery

Send a check, okay?




Seriously, my right knee feels like spaghetti. PAINFUL spaghetti. I was afraid I was going to end up shredding something, dammit.

HEY, KIDS, *mumble mumble mumble*

Okay, so while we're talking about music, let's talk about the KING of mis-heard lyrics, Sir Elton John!

I remember a few years back, hearing about how some parents were up in arms about Bennie and the Jets (which, really? That song came out, like, thirty-five years ago) because it mentioned kids fighting their parents.

And I was, like, it DOES? Because I'd been listening to that song since Hector was a pup and I'd never heard that part.

So, of course, I had to pull out my ALBUM (am old) and give it a listen, and sure enough, there it was, "We'll fight our parents out in the streets/to find who's right and who's wrong".

Huh. Never heard that before. Of course, any Elton John song is chock-full of words evidently spoken in some made-up language, because despite repeated listens, you're still going, "WHAT? WHAT did he say?"

And it's not so much that Elton John doesn't enunciate (unlike the late Kurt Cobain, who sang like he had a mouthful of marbles), it's that the lyrics make no damn sense to begin with.

May I submit an excerpt from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road":

"Back to the howling old owl in the woods/hunting the horny back toad"

What. the. f*ck. is a HORNY BACK TOAD, for Pete's sake?! And DO NOT direct me to the Wikipedia entry, because to be honest, that would just piss me off at this point.

And Elton John's already pissing me off enough for one day.

Pop Quiz!

On a dark desert highway

Cool wind in my hair

Warm smell of ---------

Rising up through the air







Fill in the blank!

Oh man, I never learn

So, I was reading this other blog



Note to self: Shut UP! Shutuprightnow you are going to get in trouble again for the love of Pete SHUT UP



.... ANYhow, I was reading this other blog, where the poster is talking about the Blue Buffalo kibble she feeds her dog, and someone comments in



SHUT UP RIGHT NOW DO YOU NEVER LEARN



.... someone comments in about how THEY feed THEIR dog Natural Balance Potato and Duck hahahaha I am not even kidding here (I feed my cats Friskies, which I guess is probably like feeding them the sweepings off the slaughterhouse floor )



hahahahahaha Potato and Duck? Ducks? Really?!



oh I am in trouble now.



Duck?! bwahahahahahahaha .......

Ya Lost Me

Last night, for the first time, I didn't watch the new episode of "Lost". And I didn't tape it* to watch later. And I probably won't watch it on line, either.

After how many years? Five? Six? I'm tired of never getting any answers, just more questions. I know, I know, it's the journey, not the destination, blah blah blah, but for the love of Pete I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHO LOCKE IS.

And now they've added alternate realities and they just keep piling on MORE MYSTERIES and all I want to know is what the hell is that smoke monster thing?! And what about the four-toed statue?!

So. No more Lost.

Oh! But in other TV news, I've developed an oddly disturbing crush on that dude on the Dirty Jobs show. And is anybody else watching American Pickers? Isn't that show the BEST? It cracks me up, because they basically go to hoarders' homes and tell them they were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT to save that bucket of rusty fence posts for all those years.

And here come the Olympics! Which ..... meh. Watching people out in the cold makes ME cold, so I probably won't be watching a lot of that.

Anything good on that I'm missing?






*Yes, I still use a VCR. SHUT UP.

It's like a bad Jeff Foxworthy joke

Oh, wait. All Jeff Foxworthy jokes are bad.

Anyway, the rumors are confirmed! A family member is dating his second cousin.

I think so, at least. This genealogy stuff is SO confusing.

Here's the deets: This particular family member was adopted as an infant by his uncle and aunt when his mother (his uncle's sister) was killed in a car accident. The aunt's sister is the mother of the woman he is dating.

So that's second cousins, right? Or is it?

ANYHOO, certain family members are skeeved right out by the whole holy-shit-they're-related thing. Personally, I'm more skeeved out by the ten year age difference (he's mid-thirties; she's mid-twenties), and the fact that this guy has been in and out of rehab for various addictions for his entire adult life. The woman in question is a babe in the woods compared to this thug. (Isn't my family fun?)

It should be interesting come family-reunion time, anyway. Sheesh.

Stampy, the Angry Deer

Remember the deer who was mad at me? Here she is, in all her foot-stomping glory:





Deer with 'tude.

Late afternoon

Best thing I've heard lately

Family member, bemoaning the fact that her brother is (allegedly) (possibly) dating his second cousin:



"I don't want the family tree to look like a telephone pole!"

Holy shit you guys, you're not even going to believe this ...

(Yes, I did put this up for a few hours yesterday, and then I pulled it. But f*ck it, it's too good to hide, so I'm bringing it back. Sue me. (not really) (please don't))


Okay, I'm burying this sucker in the comments because I don't want to get flamed on, so head to comments now (but be warned that I am about to get incredibly, meanly SNARKY on another blogger) ......

Movie Review - "District 9"

I didn't really have a lot of preconceptions about "District 9" - I knew it was about aliens kept in an internment compound, but that was about it.

It turned out to be a story about one person, and how that person's feelings change based on the reality he is experiencing, and it was really, really good.

Until about the last third, when it morphed into a bloated, shoot-em-up, CGI-laden extravaganza. I didn't like that part much, but I'm sure people who like that kind of thing loved it.

So? Sure! People who like a more "human" story will like the first part, and people who like special-effects-laden over-the-top stuff will like the last part. Everybody's happy.

Ten

Running the numbers: Number of cigarettes I would have smoked between April 3 and today, had I not stopped on that date: 9,000. *whew*


Amount of money saved: $1,605.00.

After going bowling (I KNOW) last Saturday, we stopped by the local bar that had sponsored the outing. And let me tell you, that was one smoke-filled bar.

I was not tempted.

I still want to smoke sometimes, especially when I'm stressed out, but now when I look at a smoky room I just think, "what was I doing to my lungs?" And smoke just smells chemical-ly now, not good. Oh, and I spent this morning taking dictation and listening to my boss (a smoker) cough. and cough. and cough. And then he'd light a cigarette.

I'm done. I've made it ten months, I can make it the rest of my life.

I can do it. I AM doing it.

30 Day Shred

STOP LAUGHING! Yes, I bought the "30 Day Shred" DVD. SHUT UP.

I tried it for the first time last night, and, okay, first off, I'm pretty sure I don't want to "shred" anything. I'm pretty sure that if something actually shreds while I'm doing this workout, I'm doin it rong. See also: Trip to emergency room.

Oh! And right on the cover of the DVD, in GREAT BIG LETTERS, with no asterisk, is the phrase "Lose up to 20 pounds in 30 days!" Which, really? Because I think the only way I could lose 20 pounds in 30 days is by cutting off an arm on Day 29. Or becoming anorexic. Neither of which is especially appealing to me.

Okay, and also, the "Level 1" workout, which is supposed to be twenty minutes, is actually twenty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds. F*ck you, Ms. Michaels, we ALL have counters on our DVD players. You're not fooling anyone, here.

All that said, first off, if you want to do this thing, you'll need hand weights. I started off with two pound weights, because I'm a wuss who has not worked out in, oh ..... ever. If the workout gets too easy (SNORT) you can always increase the weights (HA). And there are three levels of workouts, so you can increase your difficulty (OH PLEASE).

The twenty-seven minutes (see above) goes by pretty quickly, because the exercises change every couple of minutes. AND there's no dancing-to-shit-music-from-the-eighties bullshit, which is excellent, because I HATE that shit. Mainly because trying to dance and exercise at the same time is likely to result in embarrassing injury to myself, but whatever.

The backs of my legs were starting to emit little girly-shrieks by the time I finished, but I'm up and walking around today with no problem. Will I do it every day for the next thirty days? Probably not. Will I try to do it at least a few times a week, to try to get rid of the pinch-an-inch flab on my stomach? Probably. Is it worth the nine bucks? Definitely! Especially if I can bust it out twenty years from now and laugh hysterically at the workout clothes, which is all I do with my old workout tapes.

Oh yeah, and when I got done with the DVD last night, I had tacos and beer for dinner. Yum! Or, you know, oops.

I'm sorry, but that place smelled NASTY

So! I got roped into going bowling on Saturday.

The LAST time I went bowling, around twenty-five years ago, was, well ...... I'm trying to think if "debacle" is too strong a word and the answer is "no".

But! A good time was had by all on Saturday, and I didn't throw TOO many gutter balls, and I wasn't the WORST bowler there, which is all I could ask for.

I do have to ask, though, do all bowling alleys smell like ........ blech? Because that bowling alley smelled bad. Like gym-locker bad.

Open a window, for Pete's sake!