Consumer crush

Izze sparkling juice.

The bottles are really pretty (I'm a sucker for packaging) and all the flavors are super-tasty. And if it's not actually healthy, it's at least pretending to be.

Bumper sticker

"The only Bush I trust is my own"

While I applaud the general sentiment, what exactly does this actually mean?

Why politics makes me hate everyone # 3

Drilling ban lifted.

Offshore oil drilling will not make your gas any cheaper.  Jump off the bandwagon, people.

Why politics makes me hate everyone # 2

It's Nancy Pelosi's fault.

Really?  That's what you're going with?  "Nancy Pelosi made me mad so screw you"?   Yeah, that will teach everybody...

Back again...now in iMac format

So I wandered off for a while. Partly because I am sporadically lazy, but mostly because I got a new computer and I had to switch everything over and whatnot. But, my new computer is so very nice. Giant screen and all filled with Macintoshy goodness. I guess Justin Long finally wore me down. Anyway, now that everything is more or less set up, I'll start with the blogging once more. Although, at the moment I really have nothing to say. So, I will just leave you with these lovely photos of scenes I encountered on successive days while out and about.


Apparently people are not really down with following the instructions...

Scary products

Ok, so I’m minding my own business, doing a bit of online shopping, looking for a gift for my friend’s daughter’s birthday.  And then I stumble upon this.

Words fail me.

I don't know why I find this joke so damn funny...

...But I totally do:

Q: How many editors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: I can't tell whether you mean "change a lightbulb" or "have sex in a lightbulb." Can we reword it to remove ambiguity?

Pesky little devils...

So, apparently while I was at work today, my cats decided to spend their time busting into the catnip supply and getting stoned off their asses. When I got home, they were just lolling about the living room look quite pleased with themselves. Of course, this is how they normally look, so it's sometimes hard to tell the difference...

Why politics makes me hate everyone #1

Lipstick on a pig

It's a non-issue people.  Shut-up McCain campaign...

I'm skeptical about their usage of the term...

Ok, so this story was on the CNN page that my work computer defaults to:

Scientists cheer atom smasher success
Scientists applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived began today. The Large Hadron Collider -- designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang -- was switched on this morning. Skeptics claim the experiment could create a black hole capable of swallowing the Earth.

That last sentence, while alarming, seems wrong. I don't think "skeptics" is the right term. It's like the difference between "skeptics think ghosts aren't real" and "skeptics think looking for ghosts will get them all angered-up and cause them to cross back over into the earthly realm and kill you while you sleep" See the distinction?

In the atom smasher instance, skeptics would be people who just don't think the thing will work or who don't believe the particle they are trying to find is real. Thinking that the thing could possibly destroy the earth is something else entirely. They need a term other than skeptic, although now that I think about it, I'm not sure what it would be.

And also, could someone look into making sure that black hole thing doesn't happen? That would be great.

band names from life

Potential band name: Aspirational Whores

Origin: A tweet from this guy about the use of the line "I feel just like Pretty Woman, only, you know, not a whore" (from the new 90210, I believe) and how it is out of date..."surely today's kids have different aspirational whores?"

Snowman, you got your ears on?

Aww…Jerry Reed died. Weird, cause amongst my recent random iTunes purchases was East Bound and Down.

I always liked him. Of course I knew him from Smokey and the Bandit, but he seemed to pop up in lots of other random places too. I used to love the show Alice when I was a kid (I have no explanation…kids like weird stuff) and he was a guest star on that. And he was also on and episode of Scooby-Doo, where he sang that Pretty Mary Sunlight song. (It was The New Scooby-Doo Movies, actually, the one with the guest stars playing themselves. I digress here, but I love the one with the Harlem Globtrotters) That was enough to win me over. Plus, I always thought he was kinda hot.

And speaking of dead 70's icons, I watched The Wiz the other day (again, I have no explanation for my actions) and I found myself intrigued by Richard Pryor.

So, I've seen the film before, but not for a really long time. It was on one of those movie channels I get free with my digital cable…maybe because of Michael Jackson's birthday? I don't know.

Anyway, it was on, for some reason, and I watched it, for some reason. Actually, I tivo-ed it and fast-forwarded through quite a bit. I'm not a fan of Diana Ross (I find divas troubling) and a lot of the songs are boring, as are stretches of the film. I do love Nipsey Russell though. But the thing that stuck me most was the part with Richard Pryor at the end, when they find out that he's the Wiz and that he's just a guy and doesn't really have any powers. That is really Pryor's only scene in the movie, but his performance is not bad. When he's ranting about losing the race for dog catcher and all that, it's a bit much, but at the end when he's asking for Dorothy to help him, he plays it so sad and broken and lonely that it's quite moving.

And now, for your enjoyment, I offer you a random Nipsey Russell poem I discovered while looking up stuff about The Wiz . In honor of the homestretch of campaign madness:

The opposite of pro is con
That fact is clearly seen
If progress means move forward
Then what does Congress mean?

band names from life...

Potential band name: Sassy Hipster

Origin: Apparently, it's the name of the style of underwear I recently purchased. (Which was cotton and striped and girlie and not at all like this.)

Ambassador? Really?

So I had to reserve a room at a hotel today for a work conference. I went online and and found a room and I proceeded to fill out the required info on the reservation form. They of course, asked for first name and last name, but there was also a box in front of those two for title. This is where I would usually have selected Ms. I'm a big believer in the usage of Ms. Men don't announce their marital status in their title, why should the ladies have to? I even looked Ms. up in Garner's, just out of curiosity, and it was listed under the section on sexism. He agrees with me. See:

Anyway, I would have chosen Ms., but weirdly that option was not available on the provided drop-down menu. Doesn't that seem odd in this day and age. I mean, everyone offers Ms. as an option, don't they?

I would chalk it up to the form trying to save space or limit options or whatever, but the thing is that the drop-down list included like every other possible title in the world.

Here is the list from which I could choose : Mr., Mrs., Miss, M/M, Dr., Prof., Judge, Amb., Sen., Rep., Col., Maj., Gen., Rev. or None.

I mean, come on...Ambassador, Senator, and Representative made the list? And it's so arbitrary. Colonial, Major, and General, but no love for the Sgt. or Lt.? And Reverend, but not Father or Rabbi or Imam? What about that M/M option, which I assume stands for "Mr. and/or Mrs."? That makes absolutely no sense, since there is only space for one person's name on the form. So weird. Anyway, I was forced to select none. Stupid conference hotel.

Vacation

Here's some photos from my recent trip to Key West. I went with my dear friend Lady Byron and almost 5-year-old BiSH (poor daddy had to stay in the UK to bring home the bacon...and tomatoes and mushrooms and black pudding...all that freaky English breakfast stuff). He was greatly missed, but we persevered.

We were there the week before Tropical Storm Fay came along and required everyone to evacuate...that would have SUCKED. And it was good that I was back in Tally to deal with the biblical-style flooding.

We took the ferry over from Ft. Myers, which definitely seems like the way to go. Otherwise, you're looking at quite a drive. I would not, however, recommend coming home on a Sunday evening like we did. It's totally worth extending your trip a day to avoid a Sunday return. If not, you face a boat full of drunken weekend/daytrippers (and the boat has a full bar, so the party continues.) It's not pretty. Almost, but not quite, as bad as the time I took the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, on which the party of young men next to me had had the foresight to bring a case of Carling tallboys on board to see them through the crossing.

Anyway, despite being a lifelong Florida girl, I had never actually been to the Keys. In my defense, the Keys are really far away from Tallahassee, over 600 miles. If you drove north instead of south, you would make it through Georgia, Tennessee, and most of Kentucky in the same number of miles. I know you can fly there in no time, but it seems like if you are getting on a plane already, there are so many other, farther away places to see...

Anyway, the trip was fun. We saw all the sights (Hemingway's house, Truman's house, Duval Street, the Southernmost point, etc), snorkeled and swam, bought a lot of stuff, ate well, and enjoyed many a frozen drink.

This week in history

It seems like there are a lot of milestones this week:

Today is the 3^rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Oh and by the way, Bush administration, you know people are still trying to recover down there. It looks like they have to rely on celebrities and television shows at this point. At least there are a few people still trying to help out with the recovery. And hey, Gustav, how about you just leave them alone?

August 26 was the 88^th anniversary of women getting the right to vote. When you say something happened "a lifetime ago" it's usually to convey that something is really far in the past, but 88 years is literally a lifetime for some people and it seems crazy that women have only had the right to vote for that long. Thanks, suffragettes.

August 28 was the 45^th anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech, and Barack Obama accepted the presidential nomination on that day. Quite fitting...

Today is Michael Jackson's 50^th birthday. The man is 50 years old, people. How is that possible? Incidentally, Madonna, Prince, and Ice-T all also turn 50 this year.

It's also John McCain's 72^nd birthday (making him 2 years older than Reagan was when he became the oldest president) He decided to celebrate by selecting this nightmare as his running mate. I can't even discuss this right now...

Vote Obama people. I can not stress this point strongly enough.

Come on, these are all crowd pleasers...

So yesterday, for no apparent reason, I purchased the following items on iTunes:

It's Tricky-Run DMC
Check the Rhime-A Tribe Called Quest
The Weight-The Band
Carry On Wayward Son-Kansas
Don't Fear the Reaper-Blue Oyster Cult
East Bound and Down-Jerry Reed
The Gambler-Kenny Rodgers
Red Right Hand-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Bizarre Love Triangle-New Order
Technique-New Order (whole album)
Nevermind-Nirvana (whole album)

And I added a bunch of tracks from my CD's that I've been meaing to get to since my library ate them including: Operation Ivy, Life's Rich Pageant-REM, She's So Unusual-Cyndi Lauper, and some local stuff from those sweet boys from Gruel.

Random, I know, but generally quite catchy.

What did I ever do to you, Mother Nature?

Ok, so I mentioned that Mother Nature got a little het up about something a while back and decided to smite my house with lightning. But, I picked up the pieces, replaced the electronics, and I thought she was over it. I thought we had all healed from the horrible lightning incident and I planned to resume with the blog now that my computer had recovered and I was back from vacation. Then that bitch Fay showed up and derailed the plan a bit.

If you don't reside in Florida or parts of Alabama, you might not be aware of the absolute madness that has been occurring due to Tropical Storm Fay and her copious amounts of rain. Basically, it started seriously raining in Tallahassee at about lunchtime on Friday, and it didn't stop at all until Saturday night. It rained really hard for well over 24 hours...and it just didn't stop. The storm was huge and it was only moving like 3 miles an hour, so it basically sat on top of us dumping endless amounts of rain. In Tallahassee, it rained something like 20 inches over the weekend. Oh, God, the rain. And, it's still coming. It poured Sunday morning, and afternoon. It let up slightly, then alternated between light to no rain to random heavy downpours. Big thunderstorm on Monday afternoon and evening, and another one this evening.

So, the point of that story this: the reason I haven't updated the blog is that there was approximately 3 and 1/2 feet of water under my house. First off, the backyard looks like a lake. Here's basically what the yard looked like last Friday:

And by Saturday afternoon we had something more like this:

So, with the ground that saturated and the rain still pouring down, the water had nowhere to go but up under my house. The house is up off the ground a few feet and there is an access panel in my hallway that you can lift off to get to the air conditioning ducts and what not that are under there. Here is a photo of my father sitting in the hole:

The part under the access panel is the lowest ground under the house, and so that is where all the water accumulated. That is standing water under his feet. As you can see from the photo, the water level is about a foot under his feet. To let you know how deep the water was, when I stand in that hole, only my head is above floor level. It's about a four and 1/2 foot deep hole there. Lot's of water

Anyway, over the weekend there was scrambling about and trying to locate a sump pump, running hoses through the living room and kitchen, having no air-conditioning for 2 days in FL in August (it was not damaged by the water, thankfully, and worked fine once we made sure it was dried out) and generally being both freaked out and deeply annoyed.

Anyway, all is well now. It rained again today, and water is still running under the house, but my newly purchased sump pump is moving it right back out. (By the way, a sump pump is not something I ever envisioned needing to own in my life. Mine looks kind of like this.) And the lake in the backyard has mostly receded. I hope that Mother Nature and I have achieved Détente. The only problem is a fellow named Gustav...

Howdy, strangers

So, I’ve wandered away from the blog again. But, this time I have an excuse other than my short attention span and natural tendency toward procrastination. During the horrible lightning incident, my cable modem got destroyed. Also, my hard drive died. This could have been a result of the horrible lightning incident or it could have just been coincidentally bad timing (the computer was having issues already). At any rate, the accursed machine was off getting fixed for TWO WEEKS (don’t even get me started on why that took so long, I am totally getting a mac very soon). Then, the morning after I got the computer back, I went on vacation for a week and then I had to go out of town for work. After that (which brings us to this past weekend) I was in fact a lazy procrastinator with no excuse. But, now I have returned and will add some relevant data soon. Hooray!

Hey, I'm back

But more on that later...