News You Can't Use

Before I go home today, I wanted to snag my favorite news posts of what caught my eye today.

- Apparently, it's not a good idea to go streaking on a bicycle, but I'm sure most people would've known that before now.

- Another lesson to stupid criminals: If you're going to steal fuel, don't leave your personalized drill behind. These lessons are like warning labels for the criminally stupid; someone has to screw this up first before the warning is put out there.

- How does one hold up a store with a banana? Apparently, you don't do it well when your opponent is armed with a knife. A bad pun lurks on the site, so don't slip when you find it (sorry!).

- Here's a three-for-one. A man named "Bubba" lives up to his name (liquoring up teens and beating up people in their own homes), famous last words of someone looking to "keep [their] butt out of trouble", and more food items used in assaults (to go along with their last report of a "plate of chicken" being used).

- Just in time for wrapping up Gay Pride weekend: A couple in Richmond, Va may be facing misdemeanor charges for getting married because the "bride" was not a woman. I wouldn't bother with the charges, but this does demonstrate a serious problem with how transgendered people are handled in this country (read: inconsistently). Even the courts are divided on this one.

- The Church of Sweden will be performing drive-by weddings. Get hitched in 7 minutes or less. Take that, Vegas!

- To quote Billy Idol, "It's a nice day for a moose wedding." I should be ashamed of myself.

- Maybe they should stick to local sign hangers: A crew from North Carolina came to South Carolina to hang signs and managed to send people away from the attractions they were supposed to be directing people towards. Next time, stop and ask for directions.

- The man who decided to auction his life away was disappointed that he didn't get more money for his life. What an arrogant tool. What made you think you were going to get a lot anyway? Suck it up, cupcake.

- In movie sequel news, "THIS IS STUPID!" (sorry for the shouting, but if you've seen 300, you'll get it.)

- I'm more insulted that these people think they have what it takes to run a school, but Will and Jada Pinkett are opening a school based on Scientology principles. Leaving out my objections to the "principles", I'm offended that so many celebrities seem to think that they are now the foremost authority on education and can open schools. Just shut up and do your jobs, already! I'm still pissed with Jada for essentially throwing her career away for the clown prince of rap himself.

- And this is just wrong: A Swedish school confiscated a boy's birthday party invitations because they wanted to "ensure against discrimination". Apparently, your children no longer have the right to not invite people to their parties. And when you consider the reasoning behind why they aren't invited, I wouldn't force him to invite them either. Maybe he could've mailed them to the kids' homes to avoid this mess, but it's still making something out of nothing. Life isn't fair, and everyone needs to learn that sooner or later [What you hear is the ice water flowing through my veins].

I was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago, so I'm bouncing out of here. Peace out!

My First Pride-Fest

This won't be that long of a post (I hope), but I did manage to make it to the local Pride-Fest this year. One of my husband's co-workers was singing in a choir at the event, so he managed to talk me into going. It's not that I didn't want to go before this year; it's just that we also have an event called ComFest at the same time and I've been so dumb that I never knew they occurred on the same weekend [My uncle, however, found this out years ago when he got approached by some hustlers while out for a walk that Saturday night].

I had a great time. I took lots of pictures that I hope to get uploaded soon (if I can get them up within a week, I'll be impressed) and I even took a picture of a guy who came over to touch my parasol. I'm not supposed to be out in the sun for too long, so I used my parasol and got many a compliment about it (another reason to love gay men so much). This one guy came over and touched the fabric and said that it was very nice. I laughed (because I laugh in all situations) and he told me that his boyfriend told him not to come over and touch it...but he just wanted to feel it because it looked so nice! He and his boyfriend were really cute, but the fact that I got them on camera was the exception to my otherwise bad-luck on photo-taking Saturday. Every time I would turn off my camera, male hotness would walk by. It was very frustrating (and it makes me feel like I failed a little as a photographer), but I hope that I got some decent shots.

I ran into another of my husband's co-workers who brought his partner. This guy is really into bears and I am waiting to hear how the "Wet Fur" contest turned out that night (my husband will dutifully report this story to me when they meet up again Tuesday). The singing co-worker was the stage manager for a Drag King show at Wall Street (a lesbian bar downtown) and reports are that it was a "fun" show. The reportee said that he had seen better "kings" but that this show was entertaining.

We had a long way to walk to and from the event, so it took a little toll on me for the rest of the day, but we had a great time. I just wish we had had time to take pictures of the restored cars that were on display. There was some great craftsmanship on display, and I'm pretty sure the cars looked great, too.

Funny enough, though, when we went to ComFest the next day, I actually had someone laugh at me for carrying a parasol. ComFest is supposed to be the hippie-commune festival but there were some judgmental people who carted their sorry behinds all the way out from suburbia to park-up the neighborhood and laugh at anything that wasn't what they considered normal (so why come?). We only went for the Catfish Boat sandwiches, but other than that I would've stayed home and not gotten rained on (we missed the rain at Pride-Fest on Saturday, but got soaked trying to get into the car from lunch). Maybe next year we'll spend more time at Pride-Fest and a little less time with the not-so-communal ComFest. I'll probably have more fun that way.

On the Outs with Best Week Ever

I've been a loyal reader of the Best Week Ever.tv blog for a long time, but it may be time for us to part company. I'm getting way too tired of the constant gushing over a certain CG-Animated film (and let my cynicism slip out on the site), posts over people's reactions to losing get comments where they are just made fun of, and even the "funny" posts just aren't cutting it.

I've not been a fan of computer-animated films because I prefer actual animation. I also prefer my movies to use real voice-actors instead of celebrities because I want to see a good story and not hear the same voice that I could've heard in a live-action movie that I'd rather not see. These movies may be good. This most recent movie may actually be good (I won't know until it comes on cable), but don't insult my intelligence by saying that sometimes a movie that is given gushing praise isn't part of a hype machine but is just great. You're grown; watch movies meant for your age-group already.

I can't help it. I'm a cartoon snob who prefers to see movies with good plots and not to "ooh" and "ahh" over the graphics. If I want to look at something worth staring at, I can go back home to the Cleveland Museum of Art and look at all of the pieces I want...and do it for free.

I'm not in the mood to argue, so I refuse to see what hellatious responses I got for my comment, but I think it's time I find another sandbox to play in.

Au revoir, Best Week Ever.tv. I will take you off of my list once I know the separation will be permanent.

"I'm Victory-Challenged!"

That lovely line was from today's SinFest webcomic. I have a lot of days when I feel like a loser, but now I have a new term for it and I'm excited.

I'm going to soldier on with the rest of my interesting/random articles and try not to be too uninteresting (:-P), so let's get started.

- A burglar was thwarted by a worker with a cell phone that he pretended was a gun. The robber was trying to steal a dirt bike and the worker sat on him until help arrived. When asked what kind of weapon it was he said "Oh, it's just a cell phone", and the worker laughed, and the firemen laughed, and the burglar died a little inside (line courtesy of Family Guy).

- Do bank robbers not drive anymore? This guy was caught after hailing a cab after a bank heist. He had gotten a bag of cash with a dye pack which, of course, exploded and got on his clothes. Someone noticed that he got a cab after dropping the dough, and they tracked him to his house. Wow.

- This is proof that criminals do not watch Cops after all: A man borrowed someone's car to buy crack, and then stole the car. He promised to come back and split the crack with the car owner, so naturally she called the cops when the car wasn't returned. This was covered on an episode of Cops; everyone goes to jail in these scenarios. This is why drugs are bad: They make you stupid.

- Whoops! NYC cops tackle the wrong guy in a chase. The super was chasing a criminal who called out to the cops that someone was trying to kill him. The super got tackled (in pjs, no less) and the criminal almost got away.

- When you're leaving jail and you are offered clothes, take them. Don't assume that they are stolen (really?) and opt to go naked instead. You'll just end up right back where you began; in jail. Dumbass.

- I'll admit that I've had heated arguments in the car before, but nothing that would drive me to jump out of a moving car just to get away from the fight.

- You deserve jail time if you are caught speeding 22 times in 45 days. There's no reason to think that the cameras won't catch your stupid behind constantly speeding (topping out at 92 mph), so why the rush?

- Drew Carey was feemin' for some pizza from home, but I think having 45 pizzas shipped from Parma to L.A. is a bit much. Antionio's is good, but not that good.

- Some kid golfers got a little sex ed with their lunch when a group of strippers showed up to the clubhouse. The timing was bad, and some of the kids had uncomfortable questions for their parents, but nobody went completely naked in front of the tots.

- On a more serious topic, the NBC show "To Catch A Predator" settled with a woman who claimed that the show caused her brother to kill himself. The decedent was the Dallas prosecutor who had police show up to his house because he failed to show up to the sting. Considering that most of the cases that the show covered have been in limbo or thrown out, I know they were happy to settle this one and move on.

- I'm going to close this one out with a comic from the strip Curtis, acknowledging the groundbreaking work that both Obama and Hilliary did this election year. I have actually met the artist, so I might get around to telling that story (but I want to send him another e-mail to let him know what I've been up to lately).

My head is getting a little foggy, so I'm glad to be done for today. Stay hydrated in the heat, everyone.

...this sucks

I am feeling a little sous le météo today, so I'm not sure what I'm going to end up posting or when. I found some more articles, but I'm going to have to wait and see if I can come up with witty reparté to go with it. I'm just glad I'm going to be going home early.

I'm more worried about my asthma than anything else right now (because the baby is up to its usual kicks, so that's not a worry) because my back has been very tight lately, making it harder to breathe.

And I'm mad at myself because I was going to do a new recording for The Sims SingStar last night, but I heard the sirens go off at 11:30 before a severe thunderstorm hit hard in the area. The sirens prompted me to go online to find out that we were under a tornado warning, and I ended up spending part of my night in the bathroom.

I hate to admit this, but one of the things that manages to scare me is a thunderstorm. I hate hearing the thunder, seeing the lightning crack near my window freaks me out, and I'm always afraid that the power is going to go out. I know a lot of people who love thunderstorms, but they all turned out to be afraid of needles so they can't lord my fear over me. My husband called me from work to make sure I was O.K. and I sounded even more like a baby than when I was by myself.

I don't like to show any signs of weakness, but I've not been able to get through a thunderstorm without being at least a little scared. I would even wake up just before one would hit, and I can sleep through just about everything else.

Hopefully, I'll feel better soon.

I Had To Post This One

It's a Tom Tomorrow comic strip about the recent spate of non-racist discourse in our media today. I'm bothered by this strip, but not because of the subject matter. I'm bothered that there are people out there who think that calling a well-educated, married black woman a "baby momma" is not offensive. I'm also blown away by the idea that the fist bump (which my uncle pointed out to me is derived from the Wonder Twins) is considered a possible terrorist sign. How? Seriously, how the holy hell does this even come into someone's mind as being real?

To get a little deeper into the fist bump, let's go back to the late 1980s when people would "hit that rock", which was taking your fist and hitting the top of another person's fist. It was a play on the handshakes that black people seem to like to do so much [I'm pretty sure that I could go back to the 70s and look at the whole soul movement, but that would require research as my memories can't go back further than my own existence], but it was pretty harmless. Jumping in time to the period of SARS, people were trying to come up with alternatives to the handshake to keep from making others sick, and hitting the rock started to come back. It was mutating into the "fist bump" but was now becoming a high-five replacement over the greeting that it used to be. Really I'm just talking out of my ass on this one because this is as far from scientific as I can get, but the point I'm trying to make is that this is an American home-grown concept that doesn't have a basis in terrorist activities.

The point of the comic is to say that the racists don't see themselves as such, and even Tom has a little trouble trying to make their current behaviors fit his strip.

Review: "Wipeout" and "I Survived a Japanese Game Show"

I actually manged to sit through both "Wipeout" and "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" and I have come to the conclusion that one of these two might get watched again. The other will be avoided like the plague because it just wasn't that good.

Wipeout takes the concept of several of the Japanese physical stunt shows (i.e. MXC) and puts them together in a format that gets a little slow and isn't as much fun when you know someone is actually going to walk away with $50,000 in the end. It's not as much fun when compared to Ninja Warrior, a show that is so difficult that you actually root for someone to win, nor is it as funny as Takahashi's Castle (brought over to the U.S. as MXC on Spike TV) which eliminates people in hilarity-enduing stunts to win a paltry $8,500. The point of those shows isn't so much to win the money but to actually succeed in all of the stunts and make it to the end. Ninja Warrior is a more physical show which requires contestants to not only finish without missing a beat, but also needs to be completed before time runs out. Takahashi's Castle is very bizarre but with such high-spirited people making fools of themselves (which is the antithesis of the staid, Japanese persona), you can't help but laugh as they try to complete numerous stunts without failing. Why couldn't Wipeout follow the same format of using 100 people and seeing who makes it to the end? I mean, as much as I love John Henson, it felt more like the two hosts were narrating a golf tournament, and the field reporter just isn't as funny as the persona of Gi on MXC. It didn't work for me, and I won't be back. Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there who will love this and make it a hit.

I Survived a Japanese Game Show has elements that I don't like as well (I hate smack talk, and the way some of these people acted about being in Japan was embarrassing for all Americans), but it's actually a real game show that these contestants are put on, which makes it somehow that much funnier than Wipeout. This show was stolen from the Simpsons episode where they were in Japan (natch) and had to go on a game show to win tickets home. It's funny because the Japanese are crazy when it comes to their game shows, and half the time the American contestants don't even know what's being said about them. I didn't really want to watch it, but I might tune in next week to see if Miss Perfect (the self-absorbed contestant who takes forever to get ready) gets eliminated.

I think the idea that the Japanese do this kind of stuff for pride is intriguing as it may explain why it is better as an import than a remake. I would take it in a different direction, however; because we're always doing things for the money, we take the soul out of the competition. And that's why these things are never as good as the original.

Late-night News

I really should be asleep, but I wanted to post these stories that I read today before I forgot about them. I had a meeting that ran over and I had to proofread an article that will be published in a scientific journal in September, so work had to come first (I feel like I got something done, so yay!).

- For anyone in a wheelchair, take this as a warning that you can get a ticket for drinking and wheelchairing.

- With all apologies to Mr. Rogers: "Don't you be mine, please don't be mine, don't you be my neighbor. Don't you be, with crossbow aimed at me, please don't you be my neighbor." Seriously, don't shoot your neighbor over what kind of dog breed your neighbor has. It's not worth the jail time (and it forces me to make musical messes to describe it).

- Yesterday, they were closing the gates of Hell. Today, God is selling cocaine near a church. When God has to turn to drug dealing, we are all screwed!

- And Dino, I'm sorry but I've got to steal another line from "Pennies from Heaven."
You'll find your arestees falling
all over jail
Be sure that your dumb inmates
receive no bail

- Forget Cops, I want to be on this 70-year-old-woman's crew as she followed a criminal who tried to rob her and made sure he got arrested. You go, girl!

- I wonder if the criminals in Britain are all this stupid? This brain-damaged specimen is caught, on camera stealing (what I believe is) a GPS system from a bait car, six weeks after getting out of jail for the same exact thing. I don't know who was worse, this guy or the one who stole a necklace and tried it on in front of the camera.

Now moving on to celebrity news and other non-criminal behavior pieces.

- Someone needs to tell Christie Brinkley that continually dredging up your husband's affair wins you no fans. I know he cheated on you, but to make the other woman come to court and to constantly flout it to the press doesn't make people want to support your side. It just makes you seem bitter.

- I'm happy that the Velvet Teddy Bear is getting married. I hope for all the best for him and his new bride.

- Paris wants everyone to believe that she didn't try to get a dog just for a photo shoot. Yeah, right. Whatever.

- Poor Heather Locklear has checked into a psycological treatment center. And unlike Kirsten Dunst, who allegedly checked into rehab for depression, this is actually plausible. I hope she gets better soon.

- To counter the dangerous underwear story, we have a tale of a woman's sports bra saving her from being stranded in the German Alps.

- Rounding out this late-night snack of a post is news about Anne Hathaway's ex getting his bail set at $21 million for bilking numerous investors out of money. Apparently, she Got Smart enough to leave before the damn on this blundering fool broke.

I'll reserve that right...

I was looking over the patient's rights webpage from the hospital where I'm supposed to have my baby and found an interesting item on the list that I apparently have a right to:

"The right to complain"

I am so amped right now! I don't really like to complain (even if I do vent on a regular basis), but I like knowing that if I do have a grievance with the hospital for any reason, I have been given permission to complain about it. The catch is that they have a list of patient responsibilities, one of which was really interesting:

"Accepting consequences"

So if I screw up, I have to own up to it. Fair enough.

This whole hospital thing is a big deal for me because I've never had a major procedure done before, and the only time I've spent in the hospital has been in the emergency room for asthma attacks. I've never broken a bone, received stitches, or have been admitted (but I was given way too much albuterol by the nurses and doctors who lost track and that stuff will make you really high), so I'm kind of freaking out about this hospital thing. Especially after my grandmother's death in January, where she died within hours of getting to the hospital, those places freak me out. I didn't go see my mom when she was admitted over Mother's Day weekend in '06 (I had a class, but I wish I had just gone), and when my grandmother got sick when I was in high school, I spent the whole time in the hospital wanting to leave.

I now feel guilty about that, too.

I'm not going to have my family around me when I have my baby, and that makes me feel a little sad. They all live 2.5 hours away and unless the drivers [my crazy aunt and my douche-bag dad] want to make the trip, the others can't get down here.

I'm supposed to have a baby shower soon, care of my church, so I hope my mom can make it. I really want her to be here for that.

I never thought I'd say this with any level of sincerity, but I want my mommy.

I can't help it

It's been a rough 24 hours with the loss of George Carlin and Dody Goodman joining Cyd Charisse in shuffling off this mortal coil, so I'm going to post more of the Overheard in New York quotes I read today. I have also added a new random quote generator to the bottom of the blog where everyone can get a little NY in them.

A lot of these are rather dirty (nasty, really) and I think some can quibble with the last one, but I think my favorite of this bunch is the "Hag Recruiting" one with "Glass Slipper" being a close second [some can say I chose the "intellectual" type, but I don't act ignorant around him].

He'll Give Me a Glass Slipper. I'll Think It's a Hat. We'll Laugh and Laugh

Black girl #1: I wanna date a white boy. One that looks like a skater.
Black girl #2: No, not me. I want an intellectual, so I could act all ignorant around him and he'd still love me.

--158th & St Nicks

Overheard by: jay r.

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

Love Is Nothing Fancy, Sweetie

Girlfriend: And ya know what? Just fuck you, okay? If that's what you think, fuck you!
(Boyfriend sneezes)
Girlfriend: Bless you.
Boyfriend: Thank you.
Girlfriend: Awwwww... that's the nicest conversation we've ever had!

--Central Park

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

When My Fingers Have That Problem You Call It a Crime

Teen girl on cell: Yeah, I have a problem keeping my fingers out of my vagina.
Guy friend (to her back): Wow. You have never been hotter.

--Madison Square Garden

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

Martin Luther: Really?

Loud teenage guidette: He doesn't date!
Ugly teenage guidette: Yeah, he's gay or something. I heard---yeah.
Loud teenage guidette: No, no, he's protestant---like religious. They worship this Chinese guy...
Ugly teenage guidette: Oh, I heard about that! They don't date?
Loud teenage guidette: They don't date white people.

--Starbucks

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

But It Was Her Deathbed Request!

College student #1: Yeah, I pissed on her, but she was old.
College student #2: It doesn't matter! You fuckin' pissed on a girl!
College student #1: But she was old!
College student #2: Old... young... It doesn't matter! You pissed on a bitch!

--Canal St & Church St

Overheard by: Kenny Gay

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

And Thus, the Backwards Cowgirl Was Born

Girl: What do you want me to do? I can do anything, that's why I get acting jobs.
Boy: I can't think of anything.
Girl: I can do anything; I can do anything you want me to do and I can do it well.

--69th St

Headline by: Moon

Runners-Up:
· "And Yet, You're Not on Your Knees..." - Katie Darling
· "Before You Pick Up the Hooker, Have a Plan" - CV
· "Kim Possible Breaks Out the Dirty Talk" - john
· "Like Getting Me a Drink Menu?" - phox
· "Looks Like I Just Might Finally Get My Roof Fixed" - engsci
· "Portrait Of the Densest Boy on Earth" - samson
· "Sally's Gaydar Works Again!" - Sara Irene
· "Save It for the Next Election, Hillary" - NR
· "What Does a Girl Have to Do to Become a Fag Hag Around Here?" - rudy valahan


Click here to see the new Headline Contest

via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

How Children Learn to Stop Giving Warnings
Small child: I'm going to bite you, mom!
Mom: No, wait till we get off the train.

--1 Train
via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

After Experimenting, Goldilocks Finds a Religion That's Just Right
Guy #1: Y'know, I really just need to get it through her head that there's nothing wrong with waking up naked in a Jewish synagogue.
Guy #2: Yeah... I feel that, man.
Guy #1: I mean, now that it's happened more than once, she really needs to realize that it's okay.

--NYU Gallatin Elevator
via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

So Many Possible "Jam" and "Spread" Jokes--The Mind Reels
JAP #1: I hate boys who won't kiss you after you go down on them.
JAP #2: Yeah, I know. But I don't kiss boys after they go down on me.
JAP #1: That's awful! If he can handle it, you should too.
JAP #2: But it's so bitter! I'm just saying: if they sold a jam the flavor of my vagina, I would not buy it.

--27th & 5th
via Overheard in New York, Jun 22, 2008

Hag Recruiting Starts With an Attack on the Candidate's Self-Esteem
Flamboyant NYU guy: Oh my gosh! I haven't seen you in so long!
Ditzy NYU girl: I know, right? Oh my god!
Flamboyant NYU guy: This is, like, so weird! I was just thinking about you!
Ditzy NYU girl: Aw, cute! When?
Flamboyant NYU guy: I was all alone at home on Friday night and feeling really depressed and then I realized you probably didn't have any plans either! That made me feel better!
Ditzy NYU girl: Hah... Wait, what?

--W. 4th & Greene St

Overheard by: jon
via Overheard in New York, Jun 22, 2008

According to the Best-Seller How to Be Fat and Live in New York
Skinny girl: I may see if she can drive me to Target later.
Friend: She has a car?
Skinny girl: Yeah, it's the only way to be fat and live in New York.

--Williamsburg
via Overheard in New York, Jun 22, 2008

Crazy News Today

All of the crazy things I found today make me want to scratch my head and wonder why I read them...and then I remember that most of this crap is funny and I feel better.

I'm going to try to keep these short of opinions so that they read faster. It also forces me to be more creative (I want my writing to improve), so let's get started.

- This should be a lesson to all gas attendant employees to not take the law into their own hands and jump into a car to stop a criminal. Especially when you're only 21 and, apparently, still able to be yelled at by your mother for doing so. Good effort, though.

- Gross! The guy who put his hair in someone's steak pled guilty to food tampering. The chef and his co-worker were fired when a man who complained about his steak was offered another one by the manager, but the cook felt like the man was trying to get away with free food and implanted pubic and facial hairs in the steak. Remind me to never piss off a chef.

- This is a thief who tried the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed approach to robbery and made a fool of himself trying to steal an ATM. Sadly, the ATM thing was the second attempt at getting money at this place. He finally got some cash, but there's video of his exploits so feel free to point and laugh at him. You know I will.

- If you've already gotten in trouble for grabbing a cop by the short and curlies, what makes you think it's a good idea to break your probation by getting drunk? She can do upwards to a year in jail for violating probation, but she deserves jail time for having the nerve to be an up and coming model (because those lips are not cute).

- Every time it rains
felons from heaven
Don't you know each ceiling contains
felons from heaven? (Thanks, Dean Martin)

Now onto the strange and stupid.

- New York apparently has the power to shut down the Gates of Hell. I wonder who left them open?

- Some gas station was getting a jump on Christmas gas prices by charging $9.09/gallon at a station here in Ohio.

- Why is someone trying to play Where's Waldo with a Hulk statue? He's eight feet and has no feet, so he shouldn't be hard to find. Too bad it's proving to be more popular than the film itself.

- For all my Chicago readers, watch out for the blackbirds!

- I'm mad that I have to post this, but we must all do our part to keep Avril Lavigne from having more YouTube views than Evolution of Dance. Considering that "Girlfriend" is a rip-off of a Josie and the Pussycats song (great bad film), I can't let this one go.

- A tiny island off the coast of Scotland has declared his independence and will only answer to the crown. If it weren't too far away from everything, I'd consider moving there myself (to get away from "iars, thieves and tyrants in government"). I could take or leave the "crown" thing.

- It's been covered, but this heifer (I've seen her; this fits) is suing Victoria Secret because of faulty underwear. You have to be doing something really stupid to make a piece on the side fly into your eye. That, and those weren't her size. She was kidding herself and now wants $ from her own stupidity. Bitch.

- Cute! A cinnamon bear decided it wanted to go swimming in a hotel pool. He got in, had a little fun, and moved along. I wish there were pictures.

- When hunting woodchucks, don't mistake your foot for the woodchuck. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A whole lot more since blowing a hole in your foot & not a woodchuck, fool.

- Are people so clueless that they don't know what WTF means when it's on their license plate? Yes. And I can't really fault the woman as much as I fault the DMV for not catching the WTF, LOL and NME combinations that they've released on the public. Personally, I would love it if my plate said any of those things. Ohio's so puritanical that someone would force me to remove my plate once they figured out what WTF meant. Ah, good old-fashioned paranoia.

- The Emmy awards have declared that "You Can't Stop The Bitch" by awarding Tyra(nt) Banks an Emmy for Best Talk Show, Informative. Why, God, why is this woman awarded for self-centeredness?

- A Jamie Lynn article that made me laugh: A member of The Cheetah Girls hopes for the best for mother and child, but what cracked me up was her response to the possibility for motherhood for herself.

"100 percent, I will be married when I have my first child," ... "I know that is a pretty big statement, but my mom would murder me. I come from a super religious family."

It was the "Aw hell no! I ain't havin' no baby now" answer that I loved so much. At least there are some young people who want to go the traditional route still out there.

- To round this out, I'm linking to a Janet Jackson is surprised by baby plans article with one which list Celine Dion's AC/DC cover voted the worst cover of all time. I love you, Janet! Celine, not so much. But the Celine article also lists Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" and I love Jimi (I mean love Jimi) so that makes the article cooler.

One more Overheard in New York quote for the road:

There's Always Something New to Say About Boobs
Guy: I hate coming-of-age stories.
Girl: Why?
Guy: They're boring.
Girl: Yeah, but this one has boobs in it.

--F Train

Overheard by: kim
via Overheard in New York, Jun 23, 2008

Olympics News

Let me start this off by professing my love of sports. I am a huge fan of the Cavaliers, the Browns, and the Indians, but you can pretty much put on any sport and I'll get into it. It makes my trips to see my hairdresser all the more entertaining because we'll be screaming our heads off and everyone else looks at us like we're insane. I never played on a team because I was too busy being a Singing Angel to do a sport, but I love playing basketball whenever I get the chance.

How much of a fan am I of my three teams?
- My favorite player growing up was Mark Price, a leading three-point shooter in the NBA (major crush).
- I still don't like Michael Jordan simply because we would have to play the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs (Team 1 plays Team 8) and we rarely had a shot of getting past them. I'm a fan; I'm not reasonable (Sorry, Chicago...I'll acknowledge his greatness someday, but I'm just not ready yet).
- I still relish the time Chicago sportscasters ranked all over the Cavs, predicting a complete shutout as we were scheduled to play in Chicago for Game 1...and we actually stunned Chicago with an away game win. It didn't matter that we lost the series, that one win was enough for me.
- I recall with anger the three bad calls made against the Browns vs. the Broncos in 1989 that kept us out of the Super Bowl. I remember where I was, who I was watching it with, and I still get boiling mad over it. Even today, pundits on ESPN have acknowledged that those were bad calls.
- If I hear one more person say "But the Browns did win the Super Bowl...they were called the Ravens" one more time, they are going to get an ass-whuppin' in the middle of the street. Not funny!
- I've been on the field of old Municipal Stadium and remember cheering the Indians on to "victory" when we wanted them to lose to get into Guinness. It was still a great season.
- And we'll never know if the Indians could've won the World Series due to the 1994 strike.

What is my point? I'm excited to see that there is something to look forward to in this year's Olympics. I love gymnastics and wanted to be Nadia Comaneci but was way too tall for the sport, but I haven't known anyone's name on the women's gymnastics team since 2000. My favorite gymnast from that era (making the 1992, 1996, and 2000 teams) was Dominque Dawes, a powerhouse performer who was overshadowed by Shannon Miller and Dominique Moceanu but was the first black woman to win a gold in gymnastics nonetheless. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any real build up to the Olympics so I don't know who the new girls are. We came in fourth in 2000 and were abysmal in 2004, so I was happy to find an article about the two girls who made this year's Olympic squad. There's going to be a clinic to choose the rest of the team, but Karolyi and company are gearing up for a great outing. I am hoping to find an online broadcast of the trials because I missed seeing them last night (I didn't know they were on!), but I really hope we can be on top again. I really want to beat China on their turf.

And in Olympic basketball news, it looks like we're going to have a really good squad as well. Back in '04, the only top player who wanted to go was LeBron James (gotta love kids) and they stayed on a cruise ship instead of in Olympic village...and ended up with the bronze medal. They're bringing a lot of top players and it seems like they really want to take this seriously, so I hope they can bring it in '08.

If you've noticed that I haven't mentioned being a fan of OSU football, it's not that I'm not a fan, it's just that I would get so stressed out watching the games that I worried that my heart would give me fits. Besides, my husband is a much bigger fan of college football than I am. I'm just a big old fan of sports, period.

Hey, don't hate on my obsessions. Put yourself in my shoes as a fan whose had to watch her favorite teams go down in a blaze of glory for so long that many others would've given up hope. I call those people quitters.

Back to Overheard in New York

This is a website I used to love visiting all of the time, but because I do not have a feed set up for it, I tend to not read it anymore. I decided to visit today and found this lovely gem:

If You Don't Share with Him
(mom yelling at six-year-old son playing with several magazines)
Mom: Eric, let's go now!
Eric: But Mom, I want one!
Mom: For Christ's sake! Just take one and let's go.
(Eric takes Gay Life)
Mom: Your father is going to kill you.

--80th & 2nd Ave

Overheard by: Schatz
via Overheard in New York, Jun 22, 2008

I may post a few more in a separate post (I want to chose some instead of just listing them all) but this one made me lol in my cubicle. I had to play it off like I was coughing...and now I can't stop. Oh well, it was worth it.

It's because of Overheard in New York that I want to move to NYC even more.

Crazy Criminals, Pregnant Teens, And the Rest

I was going to post when I got home yesterday, but I ended up zoning out and not feeling too well. I've rounded up some of the more interesting news bits today, and I am declaring right now that the pregnancy articles (yes, I have the nerve to have more than one this time) are going to be reserved for the end.

- Let's start with some good old-fashioned criminal stupidity. A guy drove to a meeting with his parole officer in a stolen car. He actually went to a dealership and "test drove" a car without returning it. I don't know where people get the stones to do stuff like this, but I know of another criminal who did something similar, and I may post that once I have a chance to go back and find it (missing a day just threw everything off).

- A man tried to rob a store armed with a palm frond. To be fair, this is a "Spanish bayonet" which is like running around with a living knife, but it is pretty bizarre (and this article comes with pictures!).

- A thief broke into a donation box to only get away with fake money. This box has been broken into before, so the fake money (that was black and white with no serial numbers) was used to cover up any real cash that may be inside. Unfortunately for this moron, the box had just been emptied of the "real" cash, so he gets nothing! He loses! Good day, sir! [Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory moment]

- Just a warning to any pot-smoking males out there: If you get arrested for any reason, make sure you mention the nine grams of marijuana wrapped around your penis before you get to jail. I've watched "Jail" enough times to know that you can get into serious trouble if you bring drugs into the jail population. It's just a thought.

- Now onto I-don't-know-what-to-think news, charges against an elderly man for stealing an apple pie have been dropped. It's hard for me to decide if this man is truly a bad criminal who has shoplifted from the Publix before, or was this a simple mistake of forgetting the pie in the cart (and the cashier missed it as well). By the way, I went to a Publix when I was in Atlanta last year, and I thought the little grocery store that could was really cute (and small). I have a story that goes with that, but I'll have to save it for another time.

Anyway...

- In unexpected animal news, I've got two for you. The first is that someone needs to get this motherf*cking skunk out of this motherf*cking plane. They don't know how it got there, and it sprayed the plane when they tried to remove it (I have another skunk one that I will have to unearth later). The second is that someone needs to get this motherf*cking snake out of this motherf*cking mailbox. It wasn't poisonous, but I did give me a chance to do a one-two punch with a tired catchphrase. I won't vow to ever use it again, but I will hope to not use it ever again. Man, this was my worst post yet.

- In bathroom-esque news, another two-fer. The first recalls to mind the threats my uncle used to make about having me get married in a paper dress. I didn't even believe that they existed until I got an old Josie comic and read the article about it. Well, somebody won a toilet paper dress contest with an entry I wouldn't have been embarrassed to walk in. Considering that there was someone who made a beautiful dress out of toilet paper at my bridal shower, I'm not that surprised. In grosser stories, a Russian town is celebrating enemas with a large sculpture of an enema bulb held up by three angels. To each his own, I say. Well, what the hell else can I say about it?

- The Oscars will be limiting the number of songs that can be nominated from the same movie to two entries. But after reading this article, it appears to me that multiple entries from the same film didn't help anyone win one, so whatever.

- It's what I said should be required reading. A Tom Tomorrow comic should not be ignored. Besides, Tinkerbell is such a scamp, she's even getting a star on the Walk of Fame.

- Oh yes, the 25 recipients of the 2009 Walk of Fame includes Tinkerbell, the Village People, and Cameron Diaz, but not poor Cheetah. He lost out again! How can they do this to a Tarzan icon? But William H Macy made the list, so all is forgiven.

Now to the pregnancy news.

- I had a hard time choosing an article about Jamie Lynn Spears, so I'm going to go with the one that actually made me mad: A costar of Ms. Spears talked about how she knows Jamie Lynn will be a "great mom." Seriously?!? Dammit, I'm 30 and about to have my first child and I'm very paranoid that I'm going to be a bad parent and I'm supposed to believe that a 17-year-old is going to be a better mother than I? Bullshit. The only thing she has over me is youth, she's in the age range that is prime biologically for having children, but that's about it. I'll be damned if some 17-year-old having children out-of-wedlock is going to be a better parent than me.

- Which brings me to my next post: 17 Massachusetts high school girls are pregnant in a "pregnancy pact". I chose to link to the BestWeekEver.tv story about this article instead of the original post to soften the blow a bit. I don't know why anyone would think that having a baby is something to toy around with, but these girls all thought it would be great to have babies at the same time and raise them together. What gets me about the original article is that the school is being criticized for wanting to give the students birth control, but that it's okay for them to give 150 pregnancy tests in the school. My school never gave pregnancy tests. All I got was a sex-ed class that helped us sixth graders know that it's okay to say "no". It also helped that we were in a school (4-12 grades at the time) that had a number of teenage girls who had babies who were the examples of what we did not want to happen to us. The bwe.tv article does sum up the weirdest part of this story with the picture of the hobo because one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless man.

They are concerned that there are bigger issues to this than just a crazy pact. A recent graduate who had given birth her freshman year had a number of students say that she was lucky to have a child to raise, but she had this to say: "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," ... "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m." They even have daycare in the school and the school is proud(?) that they allow their students to continue their educations, but maybe that (along with the bleak conditions they live in) contributes to more girls wanting to have babies. I knew of at least one school in Cleveland that had a daycare center, but this was also a school that focused on vocation and used the daycare center as one of the vocational fields that a student could train in for a future job (and it might have been originally created for the teachers to have daycare), but the school wasn't proud of it. It wasn't something you touted because it would allow the media to paint the picture of tons of urban black students having children out of wedlock.

I wish we still had shows like Rikki Lake on t.v. because these talk shows did a lot to show young people that having a baby to have someone to love you is not a good idea. My graduating class that had sex-ed in sixth grade only had one person get pregnant in high school, and she didn't get pregnant until a few months before graduation. I bring this up because there were roughly 6-10 girls who had children in the grades before and after us, and we were the only people to get this education that can be interpreted as successful (but I think we were a test-group and there was no money left to implement it again). I see the concern that people may have in giving out birth control to students, but I am troubled by the mayor saying that the school nurse and a local pediatrician "have no right to decide [to offer birth control without parental consent] for our children", because it wasn't as if they were forcing the students to use the birth control. They wanted to make it available without parental consent (and the long trip that students would have to take to get it themselves), which may be overstepping the parental boundaries, but this isn't a decision made "for" the children. The mayor is saying that people advocating birth control had no right to say these children should be using birth control, but that they still have to offer free pregnancy tests. Pregnancy tests are not cheap, so I'm surprised that the school had that kind of money to do 150 of them in a year.

I'm not really sure I know what I'm saying about this issue anymore. The school actually encourages teen parents to use the daycare center, but I don't hear anyone telling these kids that having a child while in high school is a difficult thing to manage. You can't say that giving the kids birth control will encourage them to have more sex, considering that there's enough encouragement by getting in pacts and being envious of your child-having classmates. Well, I guess the argument could be made, but I think there is really a problem here.

This is making my head hurt. I try to avoid truly controversial topics because I don't like trying to argue with people, but this is bothering me because I know that there can be things done to educate young people to find better things to do with their time than have children while in high school.

This went on for entirely too long, so if you made it to the end (or just skimmed it), here's a really funny Pearls Before Swine comic featuring the predator/prey relationship between Zebra and his neighbors the Crocodiles.

Just Dropping By

I haven't had time to post anything, so I'm going to put up one post that is sure to please some: Ladies and gentlemen, a Mario Lopez retrospective.

I am hoping to post soon about my doctor's visit as well as some of the crazier news stories of the day.

Take care

Firefox 3: Going for Guinness

This is a quick post to let everyone know that Firefox 3 is now available, and they are trying to set the Guinness World Record for the most downloads of a single product in 24 hours. If you really like Firefox (and ever wanted to get into the world record books), now is your chance. The link is the first box on the right just in case you haven't had a chance to download it yet.

In order to count for the record, all downloads must be done by 2:16 p.m. EST Wednesday, June 18th.

Even if you don't install it, the download counts for the record. I would do it at work except that a) I don't have administrative rights on my computer and b) by the time I get done with my doctor's appointment it will be too late.

If only I hadn't busted my laptop. Oh well.

Oh yeah, if you do the download you can get a nifty certificate. I must be tired because I said nifty.

I'm going to stop before cool beans becomes a regular part of this post. I'm out, y'all.

I'm a punching bag (not in a bad way)

I haven't really talked much about my pregnancy lately, which is surprising since this child is determined to make sure I know when he or she is awake by kicking me like a one-person kung-fu movie. I'm about 28 weeks along (thanks, BabyCenter for letting me know), and I'm only just starting to look pregnant and not just fat. It's becoming more obvious as I've had to switch out my normal clothes for maternity outfits that have to be purchased online (because it would be just silly for a local Lane Bryant to actually have this stuff in stock), but I'm keeping up my current level of sophisticated dress just the same.

The only thing I am really griping about is just how exhausted I am. I've never been a fan of sleep, but after a second trimester of almost normal levels of tiredness, I'm back to passing out nearly every time I sit. And that applies to everywhere except in the car. I can usually make it home before I feel it. I still don't get enough sleep and now I don't even get to work until noon, which sucks because it means I have to stay until 5 to work a full shift. I'm a part-timer in the most laid-back department of my company. This can be a good thing for most people, but since I suspect that I may have ADD, this is a bad thing because it's hard to stay focused on my project when I don't have a myriad of other things going on at the same time (I can only work at my best if I have a lot to do, and deadlines just help it along). I wish I could stay on track, but then I get into my RSS feeds, then I want to post, and it snowballs.

Anyway, I'm just saying I'm tired. I guess you can call that a complaint. I hate complaining.

At least I haven't fallen asleep at work lately. I have used the nap room once, but I ended up sitting there in the dark trying to unwind from being really stressed about something.

I've got my second ultrasound tomorrow. I still don't want to know the gender (because it's making everyone around us crazy, which is funny to me), but they want to make sure there are no problems. This also means that I probably won't post about the news tomorrow (I honestly don't know how long I can keep up the pace; maybe I'll be able to trim it to fewer posts soon). Wish us luck!

What is going on today?

The stuff I found today goes all over the place. Some of it is impressive, some of it is dumb, and the rest...well, let's just get it started.

- When you're busted with over $300 grand, don't say you were just trying to buy banannas unless you are Chikita Banana or something. At $1.65 a pound, you could buy all of the banana trees in Costa Rica (and you can keep them!).

- If you see a young man "acting strange" in the bushes, he may not be a Peeping Tom; he may just be putting on his makeup in the morning sun. Honey, they sell makeup mirrors that come with different lights so that you can put on the appropriate makeup for daytime and nighttime excursions, so you don't have to go outside.

- In what's-your-lazy-assed-problem news, a man kidnaps his ex-girlfriend to make her iron his clothes. He better be glad it wasn't me he did this to; he'd have some burned clothes, broken dishes, and a sore ass from the whippin' he'd get from me.

- Not that I would expect anyone to know this, but apparently it's illegal to keep beehives in your backyard in Denver. A woman is facing possible jail time for keeping three beehives despite passing a course that would, presumably, have warned her that this was illegal if that is the case. I'm a city girl who freaks out every time I see a bee near my door, so I wouldn't be the least bit interested in this hobby, but why send someone to jail if she's not harassing the little buggers?

- If this one sounds familiar, it's not the same guy I swear! A man gets arrested for DUI twice in one hour. The last guy I reported on got nabbed twice in the same day; this numbnut didn't make it an hour before getting caught again. How someone gets behind the wheel immediately after (I assume) his friend took him home is a testament to the sheer determination to get yourself killed. Way to try to take yourself out of the gene pool, guy.

- This was a lucky day for both man and his dog, as they both survived driving off a cliff! The man was thrown clear of the wreckage and suffered two broken legs. The dog, however, managed to get out of the wreck unnoticed and was found huddling under the kitchen table. Aww, it's not like you did it Rover! I'm just glad they survived. What? I'm not that mean. Okay, so I am, but only when it's funny.

- I actually remember this case, so it's nice to see follow-up. A restaurant in New Zealand was fined for serving two women dishwashing liquid instead of mulled wine. Victims can't sue for damages in New Zealand, but they are getting a payment for the emotional distress this caused. I think they're getting somewhere around $700 a piece, so it's not like they were going to rake in millions on this one.

- Apparently, I'm not the only one who suffers customer service problems. Michael Musto had to name drop Time Warner just to get Verizon to stop jerking him around. I'm not touching that, so come up with your own punchline.

And now, on to the celebrities!

- Someone was paying attention to whom they were speaking when they told Paris Hilton that she couldn't buy a puppy simply because it would be cute for a photo. She threw a fit and still didn't walk away with the Yorkie. Good for you, pet store owners!

- At least it's not her fault this time: A court has determined that a paparazzo "had only himself to blame" for his foot getting run over by Britney Spears. None of the evidence supported his initial claim, so I am going to shoot this guy with my rubber band gun if I ever meet him for making me say this: "Leave Britney alone!"

- In what-is-she-thinking news, Miley Cyrus has a picture of herself on a bed with a 22-year-old male on her MySpace page. This article gets a mention not because of the subject matter, but for one of my favorite lines from an article anywhere: "She says she does it all for Jesus, but even Jesus is now like 'enough already, you’re not helping.'" I love it whenever anyone makes a reference to God or Jesus and how they don't want to be referenced, so of course I thought this was great. Then again, I loved the MadTV sketch from it's early years when Jesus shows up to an awards show to scold rap artists for thanking him for saying "bitch" and "ho" in rap songs. It's no "Suck it, Jesus," but I'm not a red-headed non-practicing Catholic with her own show either.

I want to be a red-head, but that's another matter altogether.

- These are celebrity-like people, so in they go: TV Guide has published a list of the top reality TV villains and there's no surprise at who's number one: Omarosa Manigault-Stallwort. A woman who causes nothing but trouble, and was so annoying her own husband had to walk away, so I hope she's proud of herself. Other "winners" were Spencer of The Hills fame (but not his Heidi) and Puck from the Real World, an entry that should make us all feel a little old if we can remember who he was and why he was thrown out. Boy, was he nasty!

- And now here's a blog looking for people to add to the list of most difficult actors to work with in Hollywood. They use the term "All-Strop" but I don't know what the hell that means so I've translated it to what I can understand. I had nothing to contribute to the list, but the comments had some real winners.

- Hey, remember Glamour Shots? Well I'm pretty sure this guy wishes we didn't because he's all the rage on the page. I think people have taken to calling him Hot Carl, and I inadvertently kicked off a "thing" where people want to get together to create a cheesy dance video (see the post's comments to see what I mean) at an amusement park. Man, I can't go anywhere without starting something.

- I'm sorry to say that Stan Winston, a man who was known for his visual effects in movies has died at 62. I don't always report these things (I was horribly remiss on Tim Russert coverage; he seemed like such a nice guy, and that always chokes me up) but this was a man who made special effects and makeup look really good without relying on computer graphics to pull it off, and I respect that.

- I wonder if George Takei is registered anywhere? I ponder this because George has just picked up his marriage license (the first in West Hollywood, btw). I wish I could say I remember when I got my license, but I was being tortured by my grandmother about tales of how much she enjoyed sex as she's driving me downtown to get married (my mother had a great time at my expense as I tried to jump out of a moving vehicle on rt 315) and my husband picked up the license with my uncle. I just hope George doesn't get the hippie witnesses that I had during the first ceremony (have I ever mentioned that I've married the same person twice?) because they made me want to laugh. Good luck and much happiness to George, his partner, and all of those embarking on the road to matrimony.

- I think this is it for today. I've been reading the reviews of The Happening and wanted to share the most spoiler-laden article I could find, because if the movie is this stupid, I have to do my job to keep as many people from seeing this at full price as possible. Surely, The Happening can't be this bad, can it?

And that's what was reported today. Not much on the funny side, but a lot to chew on.

By the way, I have to say I adore Janet Jackson and see her current body type as something that might just be achievable.

Peace out!

Now on with the funny

There wasn't a lot of good news of stupid criminals and the like, but I do what I can with what's available.

- A crazy Illinois man has changed his name to In God We Trust. Really? Do you think that's cool? I know that he's doing it to show how God has helped him through the rough times, but this is just being weird for the sake of weirdness. And he's an artist, go figure.

- Apparently, it's not enough to ban someone from Wal-Mart, but this guy tried to rob the same Wal-Mart he was banned from and was escaping in his wheelchair with some stolen meat. I don't know why anyone would willingly go to Wal-Mart (my snobbishness is showing!), but to go back to the same store and try to rob it again is a sign of stupidity.

- This is a guy who had it all planned out. He had the disguise, and he had gotten the money, but he failed to have an escape plan from the bank! This is what you get for taking a cab and not having an alternate means of getting away. I hear bicycles are popular...

- Let's say you're thinking of being a drug mule. You're trying to think of a way to smuggle heroin into the country. A good idea of what not to do is to carry the heroin in your diaper. 257 grams is a lot to try to smuggle in a diaper. And don't think they won't check due to being grossed out; I've watched Cops and they are more than willing to go digging all up in your stuff to find your hidden drugs. It's only worth it if you're into getting felt up by strangers (and then put in lock-down).

- In more bank robbery news, it apparently pays to be stubborn when faced with a well-dressed robber. If he's dressed nice and has no weapon, you may get him to go away by telling him you won't give him the cash.

- In Celebrity I-don't-buy-it news, Tony Romo says that rumors about friction with Jessica Simpson's dad is "laughable". It took him too long to respond, and after my previous post where Joe Simpson doesn't exactly deny his part in the rumors, I don't accept this as anything more than trying to squelch rumors. Stick to football, kid.

- I'm not using the bathroom at Home Depot out of fear of getting stuck to the toilet seat in an adhesive prank. I don't care who is in the right on this one; I'm too far along in this pregnancy to risk a Home Depot delivery.

- In not quite funny, but interesting news, Top Chef will be hitting the road and doing interactive shows in various cities, one of which is the city in which I currently reside. Will I be trying to go see them? Probably not, because I don't want to go and find out it's all of the cheftestants that I couldn't stand. It would be kind of cool to be able to report from the even on July 12, so I'm going to have to let that simmer for awhile...

- I didn't know they could do this: A judge has reduced the trust fund for Leona Helmsley's dog from $12 million to $2 million. The rest is going to Helmsley's charitable foundation. So maybe it's not a dog's life anymore.

- I've been saving this article for last, because it's a four-four-one extravaganza of strangeness. It begins with a story about a guy with a California license plate on the front of is truck...and a Florida license plate on the back (because criminals have got to rock stupidity like that). We next encounter a story about people stealing fire hydrants, and the author's puzzlement at how people can manage to sell these things without the scrapyards questioning the legality of possessing such items. The third article is about a guy who gets assaulted with "a plate of chicken", and the last article is about a woman who threatens children not with a stabbing, but with "cutting them deeply" and she's willing to show them the difference. Wow.

I would like to finish this posting with three links that have little to do with each other, except that they are interesting. Best Week Ever.tv did a post on the five most depressed comic strip characters, but it kind of missed the mark since it didn't cover Charlie Brown (but I forgive the guy for his first post). This led me to what has to be an apt description of my life at times when Jon Arbuckle complains about his toster and life in a Garfield without Garfield strip.

And finally: Fun with boob products!

Thank you, and goodnight!

Why I can't take a compliment...

What those new to this blog will discover is that I'm rather honest about everything, and I tend not to shy away from topics that are less than fun. I had to respond to the compliments that I got from boldly going where few heavy girls have gone recently, because my reaction to the comments was all over the map.

I was embarrassed and made my husband read all of the comments for me.

I wanted to hunt David Dust down for doing a special post on me [I believe I called my husband at work and said "Honey, I'm going to have to go to New York to kill a gay man." He laughed at me, and then I laughed at myself]. He didn't have to be so nice...I would've liked him anyway (Sorry! Lovin' Spoonful quote moment!)

I wanted to accept the compliments, but I find that hard to do. I was never considered "pretty" growing up. I was a bean pole until high school, and I still wasn't fat until college (thanks to Asthmacort and other steroids, I gained 75 pounds in college that won't go away), but my weight only bothers me when I'm in pictures. I see myself in the mirror, or just looking down at myself and I don't see the obese person that my BMI claims that I am. I'm not bothered by being fat; I try to embrace that part of myself so that the weight I do lose is not in an attempt to make myself feel better, but to be healthier. I see myself in pictures, especially with other people in them, and I look twice as large as everyone else and then I get upset.

When I was in junior high, I was friends with many of the boys in school because the girls were way too catty and not to be trusted. They would always sit around and talk about who the pretty girls were and who the ugly girls were. Unfortunately, the conversation would always make its way to me, and they would say that I wasn't pretty, but that I wasn't ugly either.

Why couldn't they have just skipped me instead?

I managed to keep a boyfriend from the end of junior high through high school, and not all of these guys were worth it, but I took whatever I could get. With the exception of my 11th grade prom date (which is a great story, but I might have already told it), I stuck around with guys who were willing to give me the time of day but may not have had my best interest at heart.

I have image problems from years of abuse from someone who married into the family (long since divorced), several attempted assaults, and one...assault that wasn't just an attempt. I have also been teased about my looks and have a natural inclination to distrust people, especially when they say anything about my looks that's positive. I tend to have an overpowering sense of disliking myself, and my weight is the least of my problems (unless I'm photographed; then I'm just complicated for the sake of being a headache).

So all of this attention is almost more than I can process.

I think it's because people actually mean it when they say I'm pretty. And I know this, now.

Sorry to get a bit maudlin, but I don't hold back. I wanted to put this out there before I moved on to my more interesting news articles, because I really needed to address it.

And, thank you all. I don't always believe it when anyone says it, but I'm no longer going to dismiss it as people being "mean" or "wrong" either.

P.S. I suspect that my husband made the anonymous post on the last entry. He's sneaky that way!

Ladies and Gentlemen...SailorAlphaCentauri as Herself

I have decided in a bit of delusional stupor to dig up a couple of pictures of myself to post to this blog. One is to show the ridiculous uncanny resemblance of myself to my avatar, and the other is a full-length shot because big girls can't be ashamed of who they are forever.

I wonder if opinions will change once these are shown....





I can't believe I have so few pictures of myself alone. I like to be behind the camera...I'm much more comfortable there, and I tend to be photographed with others (or the pictures are from waaay back in the day) or in costume (as a pirate or in one of my corsets).

So, here I am.

"And now here's something we hope you'll really like!"

Points (and a mention) for whomever knows where this quote is from.

In the interest of being completely embarassing, I have decied to start publishing my karoke recordings from The Sims On Stage website. Why? I am a glutton for punishment, I guess.

I have a good singing voice, and while the recording probably doesn't capture that, I did have fun doing this song. I did "Army" by Ben Folds Five, and this was done on the first take, so it's not bad for a song with no run-through. I may not be willing to show my face, but you'll at least know what I sound like.

Rate this performance at The Sims On Stage

And on with the rest...

I've got more crazies to report on today. Let's get it started:

- We have a candidate for dumbest criminal: This guy used a stolen credit card at a store and turned around and applied for a job at the same store. I love it when they make it easy.

- Across the pond, we have another "genius" who tried on the jewelery he just stole from a teen in front of the CCTV camera. Sadly, they still haven't caught this guy, so the joke may be on us.

- A woman admitted to defrauding her company by spending over $40,000 on items from eBay. She bought some Longaberger baskets, and those things are stupidly expensive, but not worth robbing your company over.

- In not-every-criminal-is-stupid news, a man who didn't have a ride to court on a DUI charge walked the 25 miles to court. The judge cut him a break and will sentence him later so that he wouldn't try to walk back in the heat (and end up in the hospital for dehydration again). And he scored a ride home. See, Mr. School-Bus-Thief, this is the way you handle transportation problems.

- A man in Japan got away with driving firetrucks and ambulances for 20 years without a license. He only got caught not because of an accident, but because he was hesitant to show his license during an inspection. And since Japan is the country all about honor, they feel that they dishonored the people in the area by having him drive and he has since been fired.

- Apparently, there is a town in Utah that has to revise it's policy on bikinis at pools because the ban was placed on all bikinis and not just the ones that can be offensive to others [like the string bikini or the g-string bikini]. And while I was a little troubled that this is a "community where the council passed a resolution in 2006 to favor the 'natural family' consisting of a working husband, a stay-at-home wife and a 'full quiver of children,'" at least they realized that banning all bikinis was going too far. Besides, it could've been worse: There are countries that ban swim wear for more ascetic purposes (meaning that you can't wear these items if you're unattractive).

- Now in tasteless Fox News stories: The anchors have taken to calling Obama's wife his baby mama. There are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to start. I give full credit to the best week ever bloggers for covering this one, because I can't seem to get my head around it. I don't care what your position is, this is just crossing the line of taste.

- I haven't seen the video, so you'll have to draw your own conclusion on John McCain saying that bringing our troops home from Iraq is "not too important".

- This is something I should be concerned with: a guy who fell on the floor laughing in his apartment got arrested for failing to cooperate with the police. Seems his neighbor was worried he had "taken ill" and called the cops. If his dumb ass had just given the police his information, they would've left him alone [the cops can be reasonable like that], but because he decided to fight, he went to jail.

- I love unicorns (it's one of my few girly failings), but I'm not sure how I feel about this unicorn. I think he's adorable and is closer to the Peter S. Beagle description of a unicorn than the equine-horned variety (his unicorn looks like a cross between a number of animals; check out my copy of The Last Unicorn in my LibraryThing library for a cover image). It's certainly a huge step above the abomination that the Barnum and Bailey Circus ran around with in the late 80s.

**Seriously, Beagle is a really nice guy and gave me a hug when I burst into tears upon meeting him last year. And his birthday is one day after mine...how cool is that!

Okay, gushing over.

- And, finally, since I'm not in the business of writing on Top Chef, here are some articles for those who want to know who won last night. I saw the last 10 seconds, so I know who won, but I have to wait for David's recap (which you can clearly see is up, but unread by me at this very second) to find out what occurred. His blog is way cooler than mine, so read up!

That's it. I'm done for the day. At least, with the News of the Strange.

Ciao!

...can I say it's over now?

I feel like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween when she thinks the danger is over...when Michael Myers sits up in the background. My hope is that Time Warner will stay down this time.

My husband went to the Time Warner office to hash out all of the problems we had been having. He found out that we were considered a "business" by some of the operators because having both of our names on the bill used up too much space for the personal account line [I never changed my last name when I got married, so I had to add him to show that he does have the right to discuss the bills with them]. They acknowledge that they screwed everything up, but that there would be a problem in getting the check back because the technician would've taken it directly to the bank (which is why I do not regret writing "Extortion" in the memo). He ended up having to call in to a higher-level person when he got home, because our bill cycle apparently cycled today, so now the part of the bill that wasn't past due is past due...but we'll be fine as long as we pay it by the beginning of next month (giving us the chance to stabilize our finances).

In the phone call that he made when he got home, we found out that the supervisor that he spoke to Tuesday [he had called the independent contractor's customer service when we got our disconnect door-hanger] is going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble, because he blatantly lied to us when he said that our contact with him would stop all collection proceedings. The woman on the phone was also the most sympathetic to our situation (and, I think we actually did get an apology out of it; my husband insisted upon it) and was even concerned about the financial hardship the check could cause us [I had finally acquiesced on the whole getting-the-check-back issue this morning because I don't want to pay the stop-check fee and I'm sick of the stress]. He filed a formal complaint about this whole issue, which the woman said will ensure that higher level people will have to look at what transpired (so for all of the people who treated us like sh*tty deadbeats...look out!).

The result of all of this was a baby scare (the child stopped its regular movement for a few hours and I panicked, but the movement resumed eventually and I was able to relax), my husband had to be the diplomat and apologized to the technician because, as he put it, the guy was just doing his job [and while I agree with that assessment, I was serious when I said I was going to stab him if he came in my house], and we are no longer getting the highest level of high-speed internet [saving us $10/month] and we are no longer going to get that waste-of-money channel guide that we never read anyway [$4.95/month]. When the woman told my husband that we would be getting a $6.95 late charge [it's gone up over the years], he told her that after Macy's shenanigans, this charge is nothing.

*For those who have not had the joy of a Macy's card, there is an automatic $28 late fee if you are even one day late on your card payment. Fortunately, I have not been late, but I've had to run out to the store to make the payment because they will charge you a $10 processing fee if you do it over the phone, and the payment will still be two days late if you do it on the day it's due. All this over a $5 payment [it's almost completely paid off; the only one of my three store cards in that arena (like Macy's has stuff I want to buy; the last thing I got was a watch)].

Things should finally settle down now (I hope). But hear this now, if anything happens to my baby as a result of this sh*t, I am burning that new building of theirs to the ground.

P.S. As much as people know Halloween (I'm about as old as that movie), the film I had seen a ton of times is Prom Night. It's Halloween, but with a revenge angle that is actually deserved. The remake has nothing to do with the original, and I like it even if it is a bit cheesy.

It's like living a nightmare...

I am so sick of these damn Time Warner people!

Today's saga (day three of the TW Siege) began when we got a knock at the door around 6:30 pm with a guy claiming that he was here to either get a payment or pick up the equipment from our house. This, despite the fact that we have called not once, but twice about the arrangement we made for Friday. My husband (the more calm of the two of us) explained to him the arrangement and this guy claims that the order to disconnect was never canceled. My husband offered to call the cable company again, but chump-o decided to cut off our services from outside anyway and would be back to pick up the item. The only thing we have is the modem.

My husband calls the company and the first thing I hear is "We're not a company....What do you mean we're a company, we're an apartment," which makes me think that Time Warner has gotten things even more screwed up than I realized. I don't know what all was said since I sequestered myself in the bathroom to keep from stabbing the technician, but it boiled down to this: Time Warner acknowledges that they screwed up, so all we had to do was write a check for the amount owed and the tech would turn our stuff back on and hold onto the check until Friday. I agreed to this...until my husband asked the guy what we owed, and he said "$201" and I went ballistic! We are only late on $47.72 worth of payments, but the guy was trying to get all of the money today. I told my husband that I would be damned if I'm going to give him that much money and that he wasn't going to get the modem back. He tried to tell me that this could result in disconnection fees and all this other bullshit, but I wasn't buying it. He went back outside and negotiated it down to $110, but I still refused to budge. I wanted to know how we all of a sudden were late on even more money, but we would have to go down to the office and find that out, and that office closed at 5 [of course]. Then he tells me that he can give the guy the check and contest it in the morning, since Time Warner knows that they f*cked up royally. I agreed to write the check, and I wrote "Extortion" in the memo and told my husband that if we did not get the check back tomorrow that I was going to stop payment on the check.

I'm not having Time Warner do to me what AT&T did years ago when I sent them a check. I sent them a check that they lost in their system, so I payed the bill again with my debit card and got an assurance that if they got the check they wouldn't cash it. They did, and I almost bounced my rent check as a result. When I called to complain, they said they couldn't send me the money back and that it would count as a credit towards future charges. I think I gave that operator the reaming of a lifetime, because I was a college student who didn't have money to spare. Needless to say, I left AT&T because of sh*t like this, and now TW is pulling the same stunt. Well, they're going to learn pretty damn quickly that I'm not one to f*ck with, especially when we made an agreement and they can't get their system straight to even know what the hell we have in services and think that we are a company [really?].

I'd say this is the last of it, but we've got one more day before Friday when I was going to give them the original amount that they came to collect. I just love how the guy thought he could strong-arm us into paying the whole thing; cable is not a necessity, and we can make do with a slower internet connection until at least when I start school, so they can take their sh*tty service and shove it up their asses.

Hey, Time Warner: F*ck you, and the horse you rode in on.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we actually got a competent operator towards the end who was making sure to stay on until our connection was re-established and before she turned everything back on on her end, she made sure that by turning our phone back on that we wouldn't be assigned a new phone number. This needs to stop before the stress takes its toll on me and the baby (because if something happens...I will be making the news in a very bad way).