warweasel's Xanga

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:36:12 GMT

Well Now...

It's Friday! (For me.) All I have to do is get through this night and it's all good in da 'hood. I'm ready for the weekend. I need to get some wood pellets for the ferret cage, so I can clean that. Hopefully, Menards will have some in stock. (They're not a summer item.) I'm going to be annoyed if they don't. I can buy wood pellets at the pet store, certainly... $10 for a 10 lb bag. Therein lies the problem. At Menard's I can get 40 lbs for about... $4. So. Menard's better damned well have some in stock. (They did last year, but that doesn't mean they will this year.) If they do, I'll buy... 6 or 8 bags and be good till late fall.

If not?

Well... we'll have to come up with a plan B, I guess.

Work

Eh. Nothing at all happening there. They were kinda busy in the rest of the building, at least early on, last night. So nobody even came over to talk to me until 0130... and only then cuz I had to have control call Nick... #1, my radio battery was dead and #2, I really had to pee. (I wasn't paying attention to the radio, so I didn't realize they were busy until I called control. And the reason that I don't pay attention to the radio, unless they call me directly, is that I can't respond to anything anyway... so there's really no point.)

I watched Letterman who had Emma Watson from the Harry Potter movies on... (I believe Daniel Radcliff will be on tonight...) I'm not sure Emma knew what to do with Dave. He was nice to her, of course, but... this is Letterman, after all. She's going to turn out to be a pretty decent looking kid, me thinks. Then I watched... Ferguson... cuz he amuses me to no end. He had Julie Chen and Michael Ian Black on. (I really like Michael Ian Black... another kid that amuses me greatly. )

After the late night TV talk show business, I moved on to The Lost Boys. I love that movie. It's a vampire movie and I hate vampires... but they kill the vampires, so I love the movie. Besides that, it's a funny vampire movie. "Look at your reflection in the mirror. You're a creature of the night Michael, just like out of a comic book! You're a vampire Michael! My own brother, a goddamn, shit-sucking vampire. You wait 'till mom finds out, buddy!" How can you not like a movie with lines like that? Seriously.

The Lost Boys ~ My brother's a vampire scene...

After The Lost Boys, I started on the Springsteen's complete video antholgoy 1978-2000. (More correctly, it's about 1975 to 2000, best as I can tell.) I got through the first disc... guess I'll start the 2nd one tonight. After that I don't know what. I guess I'll have to find some more dvds to watch... or something. I dunno.

Tomorrow

Hopefully, I'll be buying wood pellets at Menard's at some point. Plan to stop at WalMart on the way home and get a 2nd controller for the PS3 and a game. Want to get a 2nd controller so me & Zach can play war games together. Go blow shit up and kill pixelated peeps. You know... all that bonding shit.

I asked him if he wanted to drive me into Menard's and he said he didn't know. Whatever. Thought he might like the chance to drive, for giggles. He seems more interested in sleeping in, though. Lazy bitch. Doesn't matter to me, but if I were 15 and someone was offering to let me drive somewhere, I'd have been all up on it... and I'd been driving for 4 yrs (not alone most of the time, but driving) by that time.

So. We'll see how strong the desire to drive is... he'll either drag his ass outta bed or he won't. I gotta go in either way, so it matters not to me.

Mom should get her truck tomorrow. She was supposed to get it today, but they didn't get it finished in time, so she'll have to pick it up tomorrow. I suppose she was probably disappointed... or maybe not... who knows. I know something like that would disappoint me... but we're a little different when it comes to vehicles, so there ya go.

Probably won't do much more than those two stores and clean the ferret cage before meandering off to bed. Kinda depends upon how tonight goes, I suppose. I've had a headache wanting to get started most of the day. There are storms popping up here and there and the humidity is through the roof. My body knows this shit even when I'm sleeping inside in the air conditioning. It wants to revolt. It's doing ok now... but shit can change.

The Rest Of The Weekend

Supposed to go out with Kate on Saturday to Red Lobster. So that'll be fun. Finally get a chance to sit down and chat with her a bit. We don't have a lot of opportunity to do that these days. Just get in a few words in passing in the mornings if we happen to run into each other and that's about it.

Man, I miss the days of working with/haning out with Kate. (And Brent, Brad, Malachi, Jeff & Levi... back in the day when the job was actually fun, despite it's retardedness.) Now there's just... no fun involved in the job at all. There was a lot of suck about the job back in the day, a lot more stress than at this new facility, but... we had so much more fun there. I miss those days quite a bit, honestly.

Other than hanging out with Kate, though, I don't really have anything on my agenda. Maybe me & the boy will just play video games all weekend. Save the free world and shit like that.

Vacation Photos

I didn't visit anyone last night cuz I wanted to get these damned photos finished so I could post them... and finish them I did! (amazingly enough!) I wasn't sure I would get them all finished last night... there were actually about 90+ photos more than I thought there were... eeeek. But... I got 'em all done. Expect photos for the next several days, aight? (Seriously... there are a few hundred of them.)

Here's the first (actually second, the first was posted a while back.) batch... enjoy!

Cavern formation... looks like a many toothed monster!

More formations... almost a column... but not quite.

They call this formation the lion's tail, for obvious reasons.

For some reason, this formation didn't have a name... it should have... I've named it The Boobie.

This formation was still forming... it was wet & slippery looking.

Cactus of some variety... I think this is the one that made flowers that taste like strawberries or some such thing.

Weird little cactus.

Larger shot of the weird little cactus.

Ocotillo! I love these things.

Odd vegetation, this ocotillo.

View from the Cavern area.

Same thing, looking another direction.

Little cactus flower.

A lizardy friend.

Same character.

A rather dead snake that my mom insisted I take a photo of... she was certain this was a rattlesnake. (It's not. Not even close.) I told her she wouldn't know a rattlesnake if it jumped up and bit her in the ass.

Yet more cactus.

What do you call these... milk weeds? I forget. I just thought they looked cool.

Today's Video

Magic Slim & The Tear Drops ~ Going To Mississippi

Peace...

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:43:30 GMT

Greetings & Salutations

Is it Friday yet??? Cuz... I'm feeling the need to be at Friday now. Seriously. Not that anything especially trying has happened or anything. I'm just... tired. Ready for the weekend and not having to do stuff on someone else's schedule. I like just being better than just being on someone else's time line. I'm funny like that.

Work

Nothing too much going on there. Sam's on vacation... so won't be seeing him this week. Not that I'm sad about that or anything, I'm just saying... he ain't there. Also found out of our part timers, Tyler, has thyroid cancer. He's just a young kid, too. I like him... don't work with him very much, but I do like him. Nice kid, nice looking kid... hope this is something they can get taken care of... cuz he's awful fucking young.

Our population is dropping at work, which is good. Had to inmate on inmate assaults yesterday. Nothing going on in my neck of the work woods, though. Only got 11 inmates over there right now.

Found out one of the kids in my area is the child of an old nemesis from way back in the day. Once I found out from whence this kid sprang forth... well, it's easy to understand why he's in jail. I used to work security at the state fairgrounds here back in the day. (mid to late 80s) One of our off grounds contracts was this property management company that owned a shit load of capped income housing developments. Apartment complexes and town houses. These places were filled with disabled peeps and despondantly poor peeps.

Oh... and the criminal element.

You see the drug dealers and what not figured out that if you don't have an "official" job, you're income is ZERO, therefore you qualify for housing... once you're in, it takes an act of God & congress to get you evicted and you can see your wares outta your place. (Seriously... there was a 19 yr old kid, who owned two Mercedes, who lived in this place. Got him busted out to prison though for possess/deliver/sell cocaine. Finally.)

Anyway...

This kid I have now... his entire family was nothing more than low life scum. His mom was probably... 16 at the time and his uncle 12 or 13. His father was like... 18, I think. (His mother married her own stepbrother... but at that time, they were just siblings... step siblings.) The grandmother & step grandfather were serious alcoholics. Those teens would just run wild... they harassed another tenants and stole shit and generall were a pain in the ass. After a period of time, they decided that I was their enemy (which I probably was, beings as I was there to enforce the rules and what not.) and decided that I needed to have my ass kicked.

They weren't the first peeps there to believe that.

I got another tenant (not the 19 yr old with the Mercedes, but a different guy) kicked out for dealing cocaine outta his girlfriend's place. (He ended up in prison, too, eventually.) This dude threatened to kill me more than once. I'm not sure he really would've... maybe. But I was pretty good at being very careful around that place.

That and I was waaaay smarter than these knuckleheads.

The boy I have now? His family? They were actively trying to catch me slipping so they could whoop my ass. They never did, of course. I out smarted them consistently, which wasn't that hard, truth be told. I drove an '85 Thunderbird Elan at the time... two tone care black/dark grey. These idiots found a T-Bird on the property one day, thought it was mine and bashed the fuck outta it with baseball bats.

Only problem? It was a solid grey car, not a two tone... so obviously not mine. Dumbasses. (And no... they didn't get into trouble cuz nobody could prove it was them.) I had long before that taken to hiding my car in the garages of empty townhouses when I had to do a walking patrol... so these knuckleheads couldn't find it.

Anyway...

I saw this kid in my area with that same name and looked up to see if he was related to those knuckleheads and sure enough he is... then I ran all his relatives names last night. All of 'em have rap sheets about a block and half long... which isn't surprising. They're not hard core criminals... it's mostly petty crimes. They're just scum.

What amuses me? They're all still living in the same house. Not the same house that they used to live in when I knew them... no... but I mean... they all still live together. Three generations of fuck ups under one roof. (Boy's mom works at a fast food place and the uncle doesn't work... they must mooch off the disabled stepdaddy and the alcoholic mom...) Amazing... 20 yrs later and they're the same as they were back in the day.

I don't hold out much hope for this kid I've got. Not like he's got any good role models at home or anything. Nobody in the family is worth two shits. Pretty doubtful that he'll be worth two shits any time soon. Being worthless tends to run in families, you know, and this is at least 3rd generation worthlessness...

Feel bad for the kid, though. It's not like he knows any different...

Home

Not much going on here. My mom's getting a new (different, I should say) vehicle. She has a '99 Chevy Lumina currently, which is a huge piece of shit. It's only got 88k miles on it, which isn't bad considering it's 10 yrs old, but it is a complete Heap O'Shit. I don't know how many times it's been to the shop... many, many... and it needs work now and probably will need more in the future.

She wanted to look for something newer, with less miles and in better shape. She wanted a 4wd or an awd, because of our winters here... just so she could get around better. And also a small SUV so she could haul junk around, cuz she's always buying shit that she can't fit in her car. She wanted an Ford Explorer or... for some strange reason, a Kia.

Egads. Now... if you're a Kia owner, don't get your panties in a bunch... but I don't want that shit parked in my driveway, thanks. Personally, I think the things are shit. Garbage... why she was so fascinated with them, I couldn't tell you. No idea. My cousin got one a year or two ago and has had nothing but problems with it... you'd think that'd be a clue... but, apparently not.

I took her around to several dealerships... she looked at several Kias and found one she liked. She ended up not liking it because it was a stick. So there ya go.

I looked around on the 'net and found one of the dealers a couple towns over had an 01 Explorer Sport with only 57k miles on it... and it was red. Mom really wanted red. So I drove up there to check that out. She'll be bringing it home tomorrow.

It's just like my truck (though mine's an 03)... runs great, just turned 58k mi (as we were test driving it)... the dealership's owner actually owned the truck for the past 4 yrs... probably why it's low mileage. My mom test drove it to my town (about 20 minutes from the dealership) and I drove it back. Truck runs great... I was driving at 65 and took my hands off the wheel... left them off for about 3/4 of a mile and the truck just ran down the road... only had to take the wheel again, when the road started to curve a bit. (Wonder what oncoming traffic was thinking as they passed me and both my hands were in the air??? ) The dealership was to put on all new tires (it needed tires) and work the brakes (change the pads & turn the rotars... didn't need it yet, but was going to need it within the next 10k miles or so... I just told them to do it now and be done with it.)... wasn't upping the price on it that much at all (couple hundred bucks) and my mom got a good, inexpensive 4 yr (or 48k mi) warranty that covers... just about everything... as well. All for... $180 a month for payments. Made moms quite happy.

She was kinda sad they'd only give her $800 for her Lumina. What'd you expect? I asked her... thing's a piece of shit. They won't even keep that damned thing on their lot, it'll go straight to auction, for sure.

Everything works on it and it's clean on the inside. Has some wear... but it's 8 yrs old, you know? It's got some scuffs on the body... but nothing serious. (Mine has too) Hopefully, it'll be a good little truck for her to drive and hopefully, the last vehicle she'll need.

Honestly...

Not much going on here at all. I've worked some on the vacation photos... more than halfway done, finally. Hopefully, I'll get them finished up soon and I'll be able to post them. Working on that many photos, quite frankly, gets tedius rather quickly. That and I seem to have far less patience for that part of it than I used to have... not sure what's up with that. I love taking the photos, but the other stuff just wears me down...

Anyway... I'm going to post this up and go get after some more of those photos... hopefully, I'll be done before too damned long! You all be good.

Peace...

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:08:39 GMT

Well...

The weekend was good... and longer than a normal weekend. But, alas, 'tis over now. Now I have to wait an whole 'nother year for my favorite holiday to roll back around. Oh well. Guess it gives me something to look forward to, right? Riiiiiight.

Anyway...

The holiday was good, as I said. Lots of hanging out, lots of eating, lots of blowing shit up. Had some lovely illegal big bad ass KABOOM fireworks. Bloody hell. Blew a smoking crater into my sis & bil's garden. Thing smoked for a good long while after, too. Made one hell of a boom... it was very fucking cool.

BBQ'd, drank beer and blew shit up... all without losing any digits (or other body parts) or any trips to the ER. I call that a successful holiday... how 'bout you???

To be perfectly honest, I think you have to be about a moron to harm yourself with the lame excuses for fireworks that they sell to consumers these days. When I was a kid, you want a lady finger firework to go off while you were still holding it. Now? Shit. While I wouldn't intentionally let one go off while I was still holding it, I have had it happen... didn't do a damn thing. Didn't really even hurt. Stung a bit, but that was all.

Anyway...

My dad, mom, sis & bil & the kids and me... plus our friend Bryan, who always shows up on the 4th. My brother was camping with his girlfriend in... Wyoming, I think. Just like last year. Making their own tradition now, I guess. ::shrugs:: Such is life.

We had a good time. Our former neighbor, Monkey Boy (who cut down my tree, you may recall), his girlfriend and her son came over for a while to watch fireworks, too. His girlfriend's lil one is absolutely precious. Just about a cut a kid as you're ever going to run across, me thinks. And very polite... all that in a 3 yr old body.

Didn't do much on Friday. I slept, I hung out with the dogs... went to bed reasonably early. (For me.) Saturday was up all day... tired most of it too. Went to the parade, then hung out all afternoon. It was a weird ass 4th, cuz it was cool, cloudy and misty the entire day. Weird... but a pleasant change from the normal heat of the season. Some in our group were actually wanting jackets when the town's fireworks were being lit. (Wimps! ) We shot off our fireworks after the town did theirs. Then we hung out until the wee morning hours. Bryan, my nephew, bil & myself were the last ones to call it a night. It was like... 0220 or so by that time.

Hung out outside most of yesterday. Didn't really do too much. Played with the dogs. Talked with my mom & sis while we were sitting out on the patio. Drove mom around to all the car dealerships, looking for a used vehicle for her... didn't really find anything. Came home grilled chow... probably made it to bed around 0300 or so.

Today has been more of the same, I suppose. I slept in until 1p or so. Hope that will get me through the night at work ok... and through IHop Tuesday tomorrow. If I get through all that, I'll be good to go.

Steve McNair

Former NFL quarterback, Steve McNair, was murdered over the weekend. Looks like his mistress shot & killed him and then killed herself. Though I'm not sure that it's officially been ruled a murder-suicide yet... everything points to that and it sounds as though the police aren't looking for any suspects.

Interesting.

I'm not saying he deserved to be shot & killed... but perhaps if he were at home with his wife and kids instead of being out bumping uglies with a (apparently nutty as fuck) 20 yr old, he'd probably not be dead right now. Who knows why she shot him? Maybe he was ending it? Maybe she really was just nutty as fuck. I have no idea.

And she wasn't even especially attractive. Not that she was ugly... but... if you got money & fame... you can do better than that chick. Seriously... if you're gonna die over pussy... let at it least be some hot shit. Not average shit. And... it'd be really fucking stupid to die over that if you're wife's better looking, you know? (I have no idea what McNair's wife looks like, I'm just saying...)

I don't consider myself old-fashioned or anything (hardly!), but... I tend to be on the side of thinking it's really not cool to cheat on your spouse. That being said... that celebrities are the one group of folks that... well, let's just say I'd be far more surprised to learn a celebrity did not cheat than to find out they did. Only because they are out there and just have tons and tons of people literally throwing themselves at them. You could be the most faithful spouse in the world and have the best intentions in the world... and get caught up, you know?

I'm not married for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that I don't need someone in my space 24/7/365. That wouldn't be good for me, certainly, and may end up being bad for the other person as well. One of the other reasons is that if I were married I wouldn't want to fuck around on my spouse... on the other hand... I'm not sure I could guarantee that it wouldn't happen.

And yeah, it might actually be different if I were married, but I am hardly a saint in any sense of the word, let alone in the world of sex & relationships & junk like that. I have always been monogamous in the relationships I've had (to date)... but you have to understand that my track record with long term relationships is very poor. I'm good for a month... maybe two... then I'm done with the whole thing. I'm reasonably sure I've never been with anyone much longer than that... maybe three months, tops.

And if I were? I'm not sure that I wouldn't go astray if someone more "interesting" (new, would probably be a better term, I suppose...) happened across my path. And that's just me... in my little exsistence. That's not some celebrity with... tons and tons of people... throwing themselves at me. I know I would go astray under those circumstances... no doubt in my mind.

Anyway... (yet again!)

I have run out of time. If I'm not too tired after IHop Tuesday, I'll be around to visit everyone in the morning. Hope everyone had a good weekend, holiday or not.

Peace!

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:00:31 GMT

Happy

Birthday

America!!!

Happy holiday wishes to my fellow Americans! Celebrate safely and have a great time!

And please... don't forget the reason for celebration...

Remember our troops, all over the world...

A tribute to American Soliders...

Whitney Houston ~ Star Spangled Banner (1991 Super Bowl)

US Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon

Peace...

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:28:51 GMT

Quiet

Much better night at work last night. The loonies weren't thinking the shadows were going to get them, attention seekers weren't threatening suicide and silly boys weren't trying to castrate themselves. Always a bonus.

Work was... ok. I did my paperwork, checks and watched the history of rock 'n roll on dvd. Cuz... it was something to do. I watched Letterman & Ferguson first. Denzel Washington was on Letterman, so that made that worth the effort. Ferguson amuses the shit outta me most days... so watched him. Not sure if I'll watch either tonight... I just might go right for the dvds.

In shift briefing, I let more of the real myself come out. You know... these people I work with... they just don't realize how much I self sensor and hold back while I'm in that building. I possess a caustic wit and a very sharp tongue which, in real life, I use quite frequently... but on the job? Yeah... I either keep it tucked away (as much as I can) or tone it down. (Unless I'm pissed... I lost the ability to self sensor when I'm really angry!)

And no... I didn't say anything bad to anyone last night.

I did, however, make Sam snort. You know... one of those laughter snorts? When someone hears something that just makes them bust out in laughter and a snort comes out right along with it? Yup. One of those snorts.

See... they've been striping the parking lot. And they've been taking a long ass time. It's not hot right now, not humid (well... today was a bit) and it's not rained in a week... and it's not like we have a huge parking lot. But... it's taken them all fucking week to do this, ok? And Sam was complaining about it... wondering if they were out there on their hands and knees with stencils and paint rollers or something.

My reply was that, while I was glad they were restriping the parking lot so that the parking spaces were clearly defined, I was annoyed by the fact that having brand spanking new lines didn't change people's parking habits a damned bit... the person parked next to me was parked ON the line, instead of in between them.

Then I told him I felt like printing out a bunch of business type cards to leave on the windshield of these knuckleheads who couldn't get their vehicles between the lines... and told him the card would say "If you fuck like you park, you'll never get it in."

Apparently, this hit Sam square in the funny bone.

Cuz, that's when he did the laugh-snort thing. Then had to cop to having just snorted. Ahhh... kids.

Not Much

Going on otherwise. Still have cable. Have no idea what was up with that stuff the other day. I'm amused by it, though, especially if they came out here and actually checked my line and I'm still getting it for free? Seriously. What the fuck? But... amusing, just the same.

Shouldn't be much at work tonight. Intend to watch more of the history of rock 'n roll on dvd. Made it up to the late 60s/early 70s soul music era... Barry Gordy & Motown records and the Motown sound. All that stuff. This is after having gotten through the beginnings of rock 'n roll... through the R&B guys who really gave rock 'n roll it's start (No... white America... Elvis is not where rock 'n roll started, but thanks for playing.), through the Elvis days, Buddy Holly, etc and so forth... on through the British Invasion with the Beatles... and everyone who followed hot on their footsteps... and the Beach Boys, etc.

I pretty much already know how the whole thing came about... so the history isn't really why I'm watching these things... it is the music. Man, starting from the blues guys and other "race" music folks... up to Chuck Berry, Little Richard and them... Elvis, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison... the "teen idols" that honky-fied race music into bubble gum pop style (Yes, Pat Boone... I'm talking about you.) Chubby Checker, Jerry Lee Lewis... then the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who... The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Beach Boys... then rolling through to folks like The Byrds, The Mamas & Papas... then off into soul music... Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson and all the Motown & other soul groups... Man... I rocked out all night long last night.

You get to hear all this fantastic music on this dvd set. I'll hear more tonight. Moving through the 70s... lots of good stuff there... then onwards & upwards.

Talked

To my nephew while I was out grilling burgers this evening. He had just come back from the pool. He said my dad and him had driven up to my aunt & uncle's to bring them back stuff from the condo. Zach was annoyed. It's probably because these are annoying people to deal with... he should know this.

They were supposed to be up there at 11a. Ok? So my dad starts calling around 0900 or so to confirm they're going to be there. Nobody home. Calls several more times. Nobody home. Now... this is AFTER they've already set the time and date... ok? Not like my dad was springing this on them or anything.

Zach said it was 230p before they finally got up there (which means nobody was home until around 130p... even though my dad was supposed to be there at 11. At least he was smart enough to call ahead...) and then when they got there and are unloading all this junk (furniture type stuff... dresser, microwave, etc) my aunt didn't know where she wanted it, didn't have any room made for putting it anywhere... causing Zach to have to stand around, holding heavy shit while she figured out what the fuck she wanted to do with it. This also involved Zach carrying something upstairs, then having to carry it back down again when she changed her mind.

Zach was not a happy camper.

Of course... this is how these people are. First lesson to all of the rest of us? The world revolves around THEM. Your schedule is unimportant, your life is unimportant... etc and so forth. They can't be bothered by little details like... being on time, having shit set up before you get there... they are IMPORTANT PEOPLE. (The world revolves around them, remember.) They have IMPORTANT things to do... like play golf and play the organ for church. They do not have time for such trivial things as finding a place to put their junk when you do them the favor of bringing it home for them. (My thinking is that they have so much of the grandmonster's shit in their house that they don't have room for their own shit anymore...)

Then Zach was saying how my dad was telling him that he wasn't going to say anything, he was just going to smile the whole time he was there and then curse them the whole way home.

Yeah.

That's what the fuck he always does because he doesn't have the balls to say anything to them. My dad... he talks big... he's going to do this, that or the other thing... but, in reality he is a big pussy. He is waaaaaay too fucking nice to people... and those people (especially the ones related to him like his brother & mother) take advantage and then fuck him over. And... he just keeps going back for more.

I do not have that particular problem. As I've written here before... if I never see those two (my aunt & uncle) and their kid ever again... I won't be sad about it. I won't miss them. I won't care. I mean... I don't want them to die or anything like that... I just don't feel the need or any desire to share oxygen with them. Ever.

Today's Video

As Tears Go By... written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards. Originally recorded, I believe, by Marianne Faithfull. I would've posted that version... but I don't like it. (Not a huge fan of female vocalists, generally speaking... unless they have a blusey or deeper voice. Women tend to sing in tones that hurt my ears!) This song, this version, was also used during the last... 4 or 5 minutes of the season finale of House. (You really didn't think I was going to go an entire post without mentioning House... did you??? )

The Rolling Stones ~ As Tears Go By

Lyrics for my hearing impaired readers...

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch
As tears go by

My riches can't buy everything
I want to hear the children sing
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
I sit and watch
As tears go by

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Doin' things I used to do
They think are new
I sit and watch
As tears go by

Peace...

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:20:11 GMT

Two More...

Nights to go. The question is... will I survive?

Oh yes. I suppose I will. It has been a long ass week, though.

Fox fucking with my reality and not showing House this week... at all. Water heater going kersplat... or whatever... not much sleep. Hoping my free cable doesn't go away (it hasn't... yet)... work silliness. Argh.

I'm ready for the weekend.

This is my favorite holiday, you know. Celebrating America's birthday with The Three Bs... Beer, BBQ & Blowing Shit Up. Seriously... what the hell could be better than all that??? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The good news, I suppose, is that I actually slept well today. Last night was kinda suckish in the lack of sleep, whoa holy shit I'm tired department. Fortunately, Black Hawk Down is loud & busy, so I stayed quite awake.

Last Night

During shift briefing Kelly tells Sam that Doug (one of those E-Vile 1sties) came to her and told her our head fixer upper guy told him that someone (feel free to insert MY name here) was still moving the TVs off the pod and breaking them. This pissed Sam off... apparently, he's had like... four or five conversations about this with admin... these TVs keep getting broken and they keep pointing fingers at 3rd shift. (Well... me, let's be honest.)

#1... Good thing Doug's dumb ass didn't think it was a good idea to say anything like that to me. Seriously.
#2... As I stated when this all came down months ago... It was never me breaking the fucking TVs in the first place, it's the fucking inmates... hello. You'd think that'd be obvious now, but... guess not.
#3... I work in a building full of absolute fucktards. Seriously.

Kelly & Sam (& Jake for that matter, even if he isn't a real supervisor) know that I'm not moving those fucking TVs. I haven't moved one since I was first accused (indirectly) of breaking them and asked to stop moving them. I used the wall mounted TV... now... it puts me in a bad position to monitor inmates... but, apparently, that's what they want... so there ya go.

Even better was that Kelly said when she told Doug that nobody on 3rd shift was moving the TVs, Doug replied with "That's not what the inmates are saying." Cuz you know... we always trust what inmates have to say... especially against fellow COs.

I swear to the stars... if all of the 1sties (except Kate & Jeff) fell off the face of the earth tomorrow, I wouldn't be a damn bit sorry. (Actually, I might be the one putting a foot to their ass to push them over. ) Bitch, piss, moan & complain about everything and then pull shit like this... cuz it's easier to blame 3rd shift for shit than accept the fact that maybe they (and 2nd shift) aren't watching the inmates as closely as they should be when they're messing with (hooking up video game systems, vcrs, dvd players, etc) the TVs.

At least Kelly & Sam seem to be pissed off by the fact that 3rd shift (ME!) is still being blamed for this shit. I'm not sure if it's because they don't like our shift being blamed for doing shit we're not doing OR because they're afraid someone's going to say something fucking stupid to ME and get me all fired up. They do not want to deal with me when I'm pissed off and they know someone saying something stupid to me (like what Doug said to Kelly) will set me the fuck off. Or maybe it's a combination of those two things, who knows?

Though Mal & I were chatting as I was leaving shift briefing last night (he's in 2nd briefing) he said something about his temper and I made comment about when I'm pissed, I'm really pissed and Sam was like "Nooooooooooooo..." Then when I gave him a look he was like "Oops... did I say that out loud???"

Craziness...

Since we no longer have a locked mental health facility in our area (the state closed it down... said it was wasn't necessary.) for teenagers, we keep getting certifiable fucking whack jobs into our facility that need to be in a mental institution and not in a jail. They're a pain in the ass to deal with and we don't have the... anything... necessary to deal with them. We don't have the medical personal, we don't have the staffing, we don't have a facility designed to deal with them.

Right now, we've got a pretty full house with whackolicious kids. We had the oncall mental health counselor out for three kids last night. A girl who was seeing shadows and freaking out (crazy as a shit house rat), one that is crazy, but just wanted attention last night (he's assualtive, sexually aggressive and exceptionally needy) and the third one attempted to castrate himself by ripping his sheets into strips and trying them (very, very tightly I'm told) around his scrotum. He did change his mind after a while... but had tied his shit up so tightly and he couldn't get it undone... so Sam & Todd had to go in there and cut the sheets off his nutsack. Fucking idiot.

I'm so very glad I'm back in my little hole and don't have to repond to shit like that. Seriously. I don't have the patience to deal with crazy fuckers. Crazy fuckers are not logical and I don't do that very well. At all. And there's nothing at logical about wanting to castrate yourself. You know???

It was pretty quiet after they got those three all squared away.

Today

Haven't done much, of course. I slept really well. I still feel a bit tired, probably cuz I've been running behind all week on the sleep quota... but I feel much better than I did yesterday. So that's something.

Had some chow, had some ice cream... looked at the email. Came here.

Downloaded some music. The Thrill Is Gone ~ BB King, My Lucky Day ~ Bruce Springsteen, Don't Bring Me Down ~ ELO, Ooh Child ~ The Five Stairsteps, Baba O'Riley ~ The Who, Tweeter & The Monkey Man ~ Traveling Wilburys, You've Lost That Loving Feeling ~ Righteous Brothers, Hot Stepper ~ Ini Kamoze, Boom Boom ~ John Lee Hooker, I Know You Want Me ~ Pitbull, End of the Line ~ Traveling Wilburys, Unchained Melody ~ Righteous Brothers, Hoochie Coochie Man ~ Muddy Waters.

Yes... I know. I'm all over the place with my music tastes. Eclectic. Most of my friends/family don't want me to bring MY cds if we're going on a road trip (the exception would be my nephew, cuz his tastes are eclectic as well) because I burn my own stuff and you never know what you're going to get. I may have Mandy Patinkin performing Send in the Clowns and right after him have 50 Cent banging some gangsta shit. (And yes... that is how I mix my cds. Occasionally, I'll make one that's all one genre of music or similar genres... but usually I mix and match. That music I downloaded tonight? It's now all burned onto the same cd. That's how I roll.

Tonight

Still have Training Day to watch. I'll have to find something else to throw in the backpack and take along... not sure what, though. I'm going to run outta movies eventually. Then what? Start watching House season 1 again, I suppose... since season 5 doesn't come out until August 25. I dunno. I'll think of something, I'm sure.

I'll have to poke through my dvd collection and see what I can't find. I have the history of rock 'n roll on cd and a video anthology of Springsteen's stuff... I could dig sitting and groovin' to that shit. Maybe Red Dawn... I love that movie... and I haven't watched in a while. Besides the usual suspects in that film, there's Brad Savage (he played Danny... he & the one girl were the only survivors in the movie.) and Brad is the bass player (and occasional vocalist) for my favorite celebrity charity group, Band From TV.

I dunno. We'll see what I can dig outta the dvd case for this evening...

Today's Video

I'm pimping Band From TV... again. Their CD/DVD combo is available exclusively on amazon.com. Click the link in the previous paragraph to check out the band, it's members and the charities they support with their music sales and concert revenue. Members include; Greg Grunberg (Heroes), Hugh Laurie (House), Bob Guiney (The Bachelor), Bonnie Somerville (Cashmere Mafia), Jesse Spencer (House), Jamie Denton (Desperate Housewives), Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Adrian Pasdar (Heroes) and Brad Savage. (This cd/dvd was recorded prior to Jesse Spencer & Teri Hatcher being involved in the band, however...) Other actors have performed with the band at live gigs... including Jorge Garcia (Lost), Zachary Levi (Chuck), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Wayne Brady (Who's Line), Joey Fatone (N'Sync), Lester Holt (NBC news)... probably a few more than I'm not aware of cuz they seem to have no problem sharing the stage with anyone who wants to gig with them.

Band From TV ~ CD/DVD promo (all clips taken from the DVD)

Peace...

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:06 GMT

Annoyed

So like... as if showing an American Fucking Idol rerun last night wasn't enough to fuck up my weekly mojo, Fox decided that they needed to show Legally Blonde tonight, instead of House. Fucking. Bastards. Now I'm all sorts of bummed the hell out. Good gawd damned thing IHop Tuesday wasn't cancelled or I'd probably have had a nervous break down. Jeezes.

Anyway

Watched movies at work. Reservoir Dogs... because I find it highly amusing. (Not sure if that was the intent or not, but... I think the movie is funny as hell.) Steve Buscemi. Need I say more??? Then I started on Black Hawk Down. Interestingly... I never realized how many non Americans (playing Americans) were in this film. I guess I just wasn't paying attention. Jason Isaacs and Ewan McGregor, I knew... had forgotten about Orlando Bloom being in the movie (just a wee spot, so not hard to forget) and Eric Bana... wasn't very familiar with Eric Bana (name was familiar, that's about it) and didn't know he was an Aussie until I watched the bonus material and he opened his mouth.

Everyone does a nice job on their American accents... mostly. Not real sure about Jason Isaacs' version of a southern accent... it just comes off sounding... weird. But then... I've never heard Isaacs speak with anything but his native accent before... so maybe that's why he sounded weird to me? I dunno.

Oh yes. Ewan Bremner is a Scot, Hugh Dancy's a Brit, Ioan Gruffudd's Welsh... I assume if I went through the entire cast, I'd find many, many more.

Wonder why so many non Americans playing American soldiers??? Not that it matters. I just find it curious.

Didn't have time to get through the entire movie. I watched Letterman & Ferguson last night before starting Reservoir Dogs... so by the time I got through that and it's bonus material... I just didn't have time for all of Black Hawk Down. I'll get through it tonight, though... then move on to Training Day.

After work...

Well... it was IHop Tuesday, of course. Had some of the breakfast... hung out with my friend for a while at her house... not long, though... maybe 20 minutes after breakfast, if that. Then off to home.

Water heater still leaking. Call the place on the label on the damned leaky and set up an appointment for someone to come out and look at it. My mom came home from work early to be here for that, so once I got all that set up, I was able to go to bed... which was good, cuz I was really tired.

Of course... that sleeping... or at least sleeping well... thing went out the window as soon as the water heater fixer upper guy came... had to have a new heater put in, which I had already suspected. That interupted my sleep for over two hours, off and on.

Because the water heater is, literally, about 2 ft outside my north bedroom door. So, this guy removing the old one and putting in the new one? Well... let's just say it's not the most quiet of processes. Though I do have to say, it wasn't annoying loud, either. I did manage to sleep, off and on, through the mess. But, I'm very tired now. Tonight at work is going to suck balls because of that. Hopefully, I'll be able to sleep undisturbed tomorrow, though... if not, I might die before the weekend gets here...

And then...

Thought we lost our free cable there for a while. I guess the cable guy came out and was messing around with our line... and then the cable went bye-bye... but now it's back. Go figure.

Now... understand, I didn't run a line up their pole and snatch their cable... I didn't do that. Wouldn't do that. The cable company was told, by the previous owner's of the house, to shut the cable off when they moved. But... they never did. Three years and change later? I still have cable.

This is a good thing. While I'm not fundamentally opposed to paying for cable... I'm kinda opposed to paying for the craptastic ghetto cable we have here. It is seriously bad... fuzzy upper channels (we're just talking basic cable here), channels that fade in out... channels that morph into each other. All kinda of crazy shit. (and yes, it's that bad even if you're paying for it...)

If they figure me out and cut me off, I'll pay of course. I won't be happy about it... and neither will they. See... I don't pay, so I don't have any right to complain about the craptastic ghetto cable service they provide. But if I pay??? Oh yeah. I gots me some rights and believe me, complain I will... cuz their cable sucks. (And they are the only game in town, so it's them or nothing...)

So. Now I'm just waiting to see if my cable magically goes away. I'm thinking... if they were on to the fact that it's not being paid for that they'd just shut it off and leave it off... but today they shut it off and then turned it back on. What the hell? Maybe they have craptastic ghetto cable because retards run the place??? I dunno.

Have nothing on my agenda for the rest of the week. My mojo has been tossed outta kilter by Fox, the fuckers. No House, at all, this week. The upside, I suppose, is that... I just have to get through tonight and two more and then I have a three day weekend.

I'm ready for that. First, it's my favorite holiday. Second, I need the three day weekend. I'm so fucking tired. Not that I'll sleep much, but... I won't be at work and that's restful all by itself. And that's likely to be my last three day weekend until September. Which sucks balls...

Today's Video

This song is being played on some TV ad (Pontiac? I think it's a car ad, but not 100% certain.) and it's such a catchy little tune, you hear it and it's stuck in your head. Been a long while since I'd heard it too, until that commerical...

Ini Kamoze ~ Hot Stepper

I'm outta time...

Peace!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:53:53 GMT

What The...

Blueberry fuck muffins is this shit??? American Fucking Idol for two hours and NO House??? You fuckers! Tribute to Michael Jackson... a two hour American fucking Idol rerun??? Argh. I think we've had enough of the MJ tributes and shit now. It's all good until it starts fucking with my reality. Gawd damn it.

Grrrrrrrrrrr...

They better not pull that shit tomorrow, the assholes. Fuck up my entire week. Now I've got to wait until morning for IHop to be in a more gooder mood. Not. Happy.

And yes... I'm going to pout. That shit helps me get through the stupid part of the week. Now my flow is all disrupted and shit.

And...

To make matters worse... my hot water heater has decided it would like to leak. I suppose that means I need a new one. Which, I suppose, means I have to call a fucking plumber tomorrow. Or... something. I have no fucking idea. That makes me so incredibly happy, as you can imagine.

Better yet, I get to listen to my mom flip the fuck out. She was ranting and raving and pitching a fit over it... slamming doors and shit. As if the fucker's going to stop leaking because she's pissed off that it's leaking. Dork. She was all "if I have to stay up all night"... I guess she thinks, if it's leaking, she should stay up all night and watch it leak? I have no idea. It's just a little leak... and if it becomes a big leak, what the fuck is she going to do??? Toss towels on it all night? Goofy woman.

Work

Not too much going on there. I haved decided, sorta, to see if I can't make Sam "twitchy". My old goal was to punch a dent into one or the other of my admin filing cabinet doors. After months of smacking, them I finally managed to dent one. (Fuckers are harder than they look! That and every good smack required two to three weeks hand healing time before I could whack it again.)

I pointed out my dent (it's just a little one... did I mention those doors are harder than they look?) to Sam and told him I punched it into the door. He freaked out. Not in a "bad War, no denting government property" sorta way but in a panicky, twitchy sorta way. He started acting all concerned, asking (in a nervous tone) if I was pissed off about something or what the problem was.

This amused me greatly.

Since I've already been told (by other supervisors and others) that I intimidate the pants off Sam... well... I've decided that making him so anxious in dealing with me that he becomes twitchy.

Why would I do such a thing? Oh... cuz I can. It will amuse me. It's like an experiment. See how twitchy I can get Sam without ever doing a single thing to him. We've never even had a single cross word and he's already afraid I'm going to beat him up... or something. Four hours to come talk to me about his stupid ass email he sent out six hours to come give me my evaluation. He does NOT want to have confrontation with me in any way, shape or form... and that amuses me.

I've got to find a new hobby there because my pandiculation/mirror neuron reaction experiments have been caught on to and I get yelled at for making everyone in shift briefing yawn.

Today's Video

Since the bastards didn't put on House, I decided to watch my own version. **Warning** season 5 finale spoilers... if you haven't seen the last ep yet, you probably wanna skip this. (And what's taking you so long???)

House

I've run outta time, so I'm outta here.

Peace...

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:50:42 GMT

Well...

It was an uninteresting, quick day. I didn't do anything. I slept in. Way in. Did some laundry, fixed my shower, played with the dogs, went out to eat, played keno (and didn't win), watched House with mom, played Sims 3 (I'm reasonably sure I don't like this incarnation.), checked out some stuff here and there on the 'net, read some email... doing this post.

Yup. 'Tis exciting being me.

Well. Nobody around. Dad, sis, bil & kids are in Colorado. My ferrety friend... well... haven't heard from her, I probably won't until IHop Tuesday. (Dead ferret and all, you know.) And... well... those are about the only people I hang out with on any consistent basis, so there ya go.

From Yesterday's Comment Section

You sound like you feel displaced in a sense. It's how I would describe it. There is no wrong way to mourn or "feel" i though hubby was the only other person besides me that really could live without the rest of the human race but maybe not lol.. ~ one_trached_momma Hmmmmmmm... interesting thought. I'm not sure that displaced is the right word, but I get what you're saying and I don't think I disagree. There is a "quote" from a John D. MacDonald book that has always stuck with me because it's quite often how I feel. The protagonist from the book, Travis McGee, says this in The Scarlet Ruse:

I am apart. Always I have seen around me all the games and parades of life and have always envied the players and the marchers. I watch the cards they play and feel in my belly the hollowness as the big drums go by, and I smile and shrug and say, Who needs games? Who wants parades? The world seems to be masses of smiling people who hug each other and sway back and forth in front of a fire and sing old songs and laugh into each others faces, all truth and trust. And I kneel at the edge of the woods, too far to feel the heat of the fire. Everything seems to come to me in some kind of secondhand way which I cannot describe. Am I not meat and tears, bone and fears, just as they? Yet when most deeply touched, I seem, too often, to respond with smirk or sneer, another page in my immense catalog of remorses. I seem forever on the edge of expressing the inexpressible, touching what has never been touched, but I cannot reach through the veil of apartness. I am living without being truly alive. I can love without loving. When I am in the midst of friends, when there is laughter, closeness, empathy, warmth, sometimes I can look at myself from a little way off and think that they do no really know who is with them there, what strangeness is there beside them, trying to be something else.

As for being able to live without the rest of the human race... well... I probably could. I've never understood why Tom Hanks tried so fucking hard to get off that island in Castaway, to be perfectly honest. I don't think I would've. As long as I was reasonably sure I wasn't going to starve to death or anything...

I'm am not a social person. I'm a very misanthropic person... not that I dislike humanity, necessarily, but I'm a little leery of them as a whole and most certainly distrust the vast majority of them. (Yes... I do have trust issues, always have... and then I got a career in corrections! If that doesn't make you distrust people on the whole, nothing will.)

I don't need (or want) vast amounts of interaction with other people. My mother lives in this house... that's almost more interaction on a daily basis than I can handle, truth be told. (But then again... in the grand scheme of things, we do not spend a great deal of time together during the week. Just meals...)

I've lived in this house for a bit over three years now and I can count, on both hands, the number of times I've had friends over. The last time I had friends over? Was last July 4th... if that tells you anything. (And these are my friends!) I do go over to my ferrety friend's place fairly regularly... but she is really the only one that I visit with any consistency. My other friends? Kate, Malachi, Brent, Mark, Jeff, Jeff & Lisa... (man... what a short list!) well... I'm going to hang out with Kate here in a couple of weeks. Our birthdays are a day apart and we always try to hook up for a dinner celebration at some point. Our work schedules don't allow a lot of hanging out time anymore, though. Malachi? Is my friend... but we do not socialize outside of work. (Neither of us is all that social, so it just works out that way.) Brent... doesn't live here anymore, I've seen him once in 3 years. I do email him on a regular basis, though. Mark? I have no idea what's happened to Mark... haven't heard from him in... forever. Jeff? Lives in the same town as me, but I never see him. Hell, I barely see him at work. Besides, he's got a family now and he's got military stuff, so he's always busy. Jeff & Lisa (my godkid's parents)... they live an hour away... it's been over a year since I've visited them... though we email every day.

The people I hang out with the most? Are my family. My sis & bil, my nephew. (Not so much my niece... we have absolutely nothing in common, other than being related, sooooo...) I haven't even hung out with my brother in forever. (Conflicted schedules, don't ya know...)

Sounds rather lonely, I suppose... but... I'm not lonely. I don't desire to have a multitude of people needing me to spend time with them. I like hanging out, but... like to hang out on my patio with my family, more than anything.

Yes, I know... I'm an odd duck.
QuackQuack!

Anyway

I've spent a goodly amount of time playing Sims 3... I don't think I like it. Which sucks, cuz I spent $60 on it. I don't necessarily dislike it... it's just... I dunno. It's not the way I want to play The Sims, I guess. I do like some of what they've done, but it hasn't nothing do with game play and everything to do with customizing.

What I don't like?

1) The little Sims peeps all look the same. Yes... you can customize them, but... they still look the same... and they're ugly. What the fuck? You can change their features and all that... but they still all resemble each other way too much. That bugs the shit outta me.
2) Having to run all about the place to build up skills. That is annoying.
3) I have no idea what I need to do to get promotions (I mean, I do, but there is no little meter to help you.) at your job and you don't make very much money. Poor fucking Sims in the poor house!
4) It is exceptionally difficult to make friends. Stand-offish bastards, these new Sims.
5) No "memory" or history or whatever you want to call it for your Sims. I had a fucking baby disappear. Have no earthly idea where she went. She was just gone. Don't know if someone kidnapped her (I was having a party at the time.), if social services came and took her (Did I mention I was having a party at the time?) or if the evil baby-snatching fairies took her. (I have no idea if there are baby-snatching fairies, I'm just saying...) The baby's parental peeps didn't seem to stressed out about the fact that their youngest child went missing either.
6) Too many peeps in too many places. As if having a disappearing baby wasn't enough... my teen Sim managed to drown at the swimming pool, the stupid fucker. I can only assume that while I was at another location, tending to the rest of the family's needs that teen boy Sim got exhausted and drown. Couldn't plead with the Reaper to save him, like in Sims 2, either, damn it, so the fucker just died. The teen's parentals were upset by the fact that his stupid ass drowned. Guess they liked him better than his sister. ::shrug::

Oh well.

Maybe the dumb game will grown on me. (I'm really thinking... not... but ya never know.)

In Case...

Anybody's keeping track... there are 2 months, 3 weeks and 3 days before season 6 of House. Jeezes that seems like a long ass way away. At least season 5 on dvd should arrive here on Aug. 26th... but even that is a long way away. I have to rely on rerun season 5 eps on Mondays & Tuesdays... which does give me something to look forward to, I suppose. But I'm ready to start the new season, damn it.

I'm really annoyed that it takes broadcast TV so long to go from one season to another. Yes... I do know this is how it's always been. But... you have to remember, I haven't followed (regularly) a broadcast TV program since The X-Files went off the air in 2002... so I'm a little outta practice at this waiting three months bullshit.

I need House to come back on because I have to know what happens next. I hate waiting and I hate surprises. (Seriously. I used to carefully unwrap Christmas presents when I was a kid... well before Christmas, then rewrap them. because I couldn't stand not knowing. Drove me fucking crazy.) Two months, three weeks and three days is a long ass time for an impatient soul such as myself. It would be far easier to deal with if they were giving out some clues as to what's happening next for House, the doctor. I have found out some little stuff... but nothing of consequence.

Actually... the one cool thing I did find out is that Andre Braugher will be on the show for a while, playing a doctor. I like Andre Braugher. A highly under appreciated actor, in my opinion.

I can't imagine Andre Braugher playing a character that would mesh together well with Greg House. He doesn't play namby-pamby push-over sorts... he plays strong-willed, strongly opinionated characters in most everything that I've seen him in. (And he's been around a little while. I especially liked him in Homicide Life on the Streets, where he played Det. Frank Pembleton.)

At any rate, I'm interested to see Andre's character (I believe he will be called Dr. Nolan) clash with House. I suspect there's going to be a lot of clashing. At least for a little while. Not sure how many eps Andre will be in, as he also has a new series coming out called Men of a Certain Age, which also stars Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) and Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond).

Today's Video

House being House... clips from all five seasons.

House, MD
Trouble ~ Pink

Peace!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:14:16 GMT

Some Random Thoughts

I'm installing The Sims 3 while trying to have a migraine because of the craptastic weather... or because I was nearly exsanguinated by a ginormous flying plebotomist, not sure which... and need something to do while waiting for the game to install or my brain to explode... whichever comes first.

So. Here we go.

1.) Dear media and journalistic type folks. May I have a quick word? See... we lost two celebrity entertainers yesterday... Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Y'all are doing a fair amount of coverage of both. Have no problem with that. My issue is this business with labeling Fawcett a "legendary actress".

Seriously. Stop.

I'm sorry the woman's dead. I'm sorry the woman died from butt cancer, of all things. Cancer is evil, trust me I know this. There are very few people in this world (but they do exsist) that I'd wish cancer upon... Farrah Fawcett was not one of them. She was a beautiful woman and probably even a decent person.

However...

Legendary actress? Seriously? Your standards must be waaaaaaaaaaay lower than mine. When I think "legendary actress"? I'm thinking along the lines of Katharine Hepburn... and others like her. Not Farrah Fawcett. Farrah Fawcett acted in 29 episodes of a seriously lame 70s T&A jigglefest called Charlie's Angels (not even good television)... then did some TV movies of... zero consequence. That makes her as much of a "legendary actress" as John Ritter was a "legendary comedian"...

Memorialize her, mourn her, sing her praises. But leave the "legendary" tag for someone who's actually... legendary.

2.) Michael Jackson dead at 50. Who'd a thunk it? I'm not glad he's dead or anything, but don't you think that, for some folks, being old just shouldn't be in the cards? Seriously? I mean... can you imagine a 70 yr old MJ?

3.) My ferrety friend's ferret didn't make it.

4.) I'm a heel. Well. Maybe not. But... I'm pretty hemmed up, when it comes to emotions. I'm not an emotional person (I'm a logical person and emotions are rarely logical so I don't bother with them much.) and I'm not very emotionally giving. If you're looking for a shoulder to cry on... I'm seriously not the person to come running to... in fact, if you come running to me looking for that, you'll probably catch me running like hell in the other direction to get away from you.

And... the people around me... my family & my friends, understand this. (I hope.) They seem to, anyway.

But.

I feel... guilty? No. Not guilty. But I feel... I dunno what I feel... but I feel like I should be more... supportive or there for people and it bugs me that I'm not.

You know, when my ferrety friend called and she was crying... I was... well, me. I put forth the facts. I said I was sorry that I couldn't do more to help. And then... it's well... bye. And I haven't spoken to her since. No email, no text messages... nothing. And I feel like I'm supposed to call or send an email or text or something. But I can't.

It reminds me of when my stepmom died. You have to imagine this scene ok? My sis & bil live right next door to me, right? My dad lives right at the other end of the block. My mom lives with me. (I can't remember if she lived with me when my stepmom died or not. I think so... but don't recall for certain.)

So... the day my stepmom dies... I finally drag my ass outta bed (had worked the night before, was supposed to work that night, but didn't for obvious reasons.) and I go out on my patio, plop down on a patio chair and light up a smoke, ok? I look over in my sis & bil's backyard... and there's a little gathering going on there. My sis & bil & the kids, my dad, my backyard neighbors (whom I've known for 40 yrs) and a couple of other neighbors. They're over there... chatting amongst themselves, right?

And me?

I'm sitting on my patio hoping like hell that nobody will look my way. Nobody will want to come talk to me... that the whole damn mass of humanity that's over there mourning together doesn't decide to come to where I am. I feel the need to be out there, I guess... and maybe even some need to be in their vicinity, if not their immediate presence (I could've gone in the house, after all, but didn't.), but I want to be seperate. I don't want them close to me and I certainly don't want them trying to talk to me or hugging on me or any shit like that. And I don't have a word to say to any of them.

But then...

I feel like I should be with them and not seperate and... whatever. Like I said, I don't feel... guilty. It's more like... I dunno. Guilt's the best word I have for it, but it's not guilt. It's like I know I should be there and do something but being there and doing something in those situations is so contrary to my nature... I just can't do it.

It's not easy being me sometimes.

It's not so much the not being able to do it that bugs me as it is the fact that I don't know why I can't do it. It seems to me like I should be able to do it. But I can't do it and I don't know why I can't do it. That bugs me. Seriously. Is it just a matter of how I'm wired? And how did that happen? Or why? Nobody else in my family is this way... so how did I get this way? I see it as an anomoly, I guess. And anomolies bug me... especially when they concern me.

5.) For the record, I'm not sure if I like The Sims 3. (I started this post this morning... but finishing it this evening. Sims3 has been installed and dinked around with a bit.) Interesting concept, I suppose... but I sorta like the old Sims2 better... at the moment. I may change my mind.

I do like the concept of making stuff like clothing, furniture, etc. more customizable... letting you choose your own colors and material patterns and the like. That's pretty cool. But actual game play? Undecided. But, as I said... I've only just dinked around with it a bit. Haven't actually set up a family and just played. Probably do that later tonight... or something.

6.) My noggin' still wants to hurt. (Been an all day thing, thanks to our lovely weather.) Fortunately, no brain matter has squirtted from my ears. Yet. (That I'm aware of, anyway.)

7.) Uhm... you media & journalist types? Can we have another word or three? Uhm... I get that Michael Jackson's death is pretty big news. Unlike Farrah Fawcett, he was a legendary performer... I get wanting to spend a lot of press time memorializing him and what not. I get it. Honest, I do.

But... an entire national news cast with nothing but Michael Jackson? I mean... I know it's a slow news week and stuff... there's not a bunch of folks being slaughered in Iran or anything... or South Carolina governor's jetting off to Argentina to hook up with their mistress on tax payer fundage... or... something.

Seriously.

ABC, especially. Y'all did a special last night. Sounds like you're doing a special again tonight. You really did not need to spend the entire evening national news cast talking about MJ. Honestly. A few words... I could probably even tolerate half a newscast (though I think that's entirely too much time as well)... but the whole thing? Seriously?

8.) I don't really have an 8. Or a 9 or 10. I feel like I should have, though. I don't know why.

Today's Video

Kickin' it old school with Peter, Paul & Mary from 1966, performing Bob Dylan's Blowin in the Wind live.

Lyrics for my hearing impaired friends...

How many roads most a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Peace...