Really Stupid Shit Part Deux

I know you’ve all been out there waiting with baited breath for a sequel to this really popular post because when you get right down to it, you just can’t get enough stupid shit. But I like to change things up lest I end up in a rut, so rather than favorite stupid shit – I think we’ll go with annoying stupid shit this time out.

Ready? Good. Here we go

Stupidest remaining Idol Contestant: Tie. Sanjaya the bad singer with the good hair and blindingly white smile – who couldn’t sing if his life truly depended on it. He is only still on the show because weeping pre-teens can’t tell the difference between love and their impending hormones. It’s sweet in a real icky kind of way. But I hate to break it to you folks, he is one of the Top Ten. Any arguments that maybe they should have stopped at season 5?

The other ‘idol’ vying for the title is Chris Sligh (Sly? Are you kidding?) who is the self-appointed “Taylor” contestant for this year. He acts like a dark horse (he thinks), sings the same songs/material as Taylor (tries to Christ-i-cize it?) and just goes off key and nasal, does the fro thang, strolls through the crowd but looks like he wants to slap them out of his way rather than interact. Oh and his fans are calling themselves the Fro-Patrol. Excuse me while I puke. This kid is about as sincere as Paris Hilton while she is hanging out with her girlfriends’ boyfriends unchaperoned. He is the biggest phoniest jackass of a contestant I’ve seen on the show. I’ll bet the voice isn’t really his – he probably pipes it in through his ass from some high tech Ipod mike accessory. Pass the barfbag.

Stupidest Title for a movie – Mimzy or some shit. I don’t CARE if it is good. You just don’t call a movie Mimzy if you expect anyone over the age of three to go see it. Hey Joe, see any good movies lately? Oh yah Marge and I saw Mimsy – it was really fabulous. Jeez – come on!

Stupidest Talk Show Host: Rosie O’Donnell. What her producers seem to be missing is that talk show hosts are supposed to encourage the guests to talk. Not to slap them, gag them and force feed them their personal, commie, leftie, eco-whacko, insane-o views. Or am I missing something?

Stupidest TV Show: Oh there are soooooooo many but let me pick one from the new batch of shows. Now, mind you I am not going after any reality shows since in my mind they really aren’t tv shows but more like amatuer contests that are televised. No, I’m going after real, shows that are supposed to be real. Okay – Studio Sixty. I mean, hello? What the frick are they thinking here? First of all is Amanda Peet really going to go for Bradley Whitford? The guy has a huge head, it’s even a little scary. Imagine that coming at you ladies for a little good night smooch. Oh yeah. And then Matthew Perry is so schizoid he needs at least 10 offices for all his personalities and the girl he is supposed to be in love with is just too normal to ever really be attracted to a malignant narccissist like him and all his self-righteous spewing crapola. And remember folks, this is supposed to be a comedy, which means funny, right? While really all they are doing is tripping over themselves to spout whatever political ‘message’ is cool and p.c. and see who can talk the fastest. In a phrase it SUCKS!

Stupidest Rock Star: Hands down Bono: Where oh where do I begin? Okay, first of all is he really even that good of a singer? He is ugly as sin – so ugly in fact, he has to wear sunglasses everywhere he goes so the ugly rays do eat the flesh from his face and that of his fans. But what really makes him suck is this pompous, sanctimonious world peace faux world leader act of his. Does he really think anybody (who doesn’t want to get free tickets to rocks concerts populated by other pompous egotistical rock stars) is even remotely interested in his world plan? Sorry bub, but you actually have to get elected by people who know they are electing you, in order to have a say in what my country is going to do about anything. And by the way champ, get the hell out of the U.S. and U.S. affairs, who the hell asked you? How do you get off even hinting at what my tax dollars should be spent on? How dare you take my tax dollars and take credit for what they buy. Kiss my grits, dude. Big time.

Stupidest shit people do to their kids: A picture                             

is worth a thousand words. It’s not bad enought that this child is probably going to be raised by some doped up biker dude and biker chick, they have to turn him into some sort of mini me before he can even learn the words to protest. This mirror image approach to child rearing is just another disease of the yuppified self-absorbed. They don’t want to have children for the joy of having them and raising them to be their own man or woman – but rather they want to raise little clones of themselves so that they will be immortal.

Stupidest phrase: Politically Correct. What in the hell is correct about talking gibberish. I mean under what set of rules, grammar or otherwise does any of this doubletalk even begin to be correct? As for politics – we all know politics are lies and run by the lying liars who lie to get into office. So if something is politically correct isn’t the translation something like perfect lying?

Stupidest Shoes: Those sneakers that are really skates, no they are sneakers no they are skates, no they are sneakers that are skates – they are two, two, two shoes in one. What they are is an accident waiting to happen. It’s bad enough some fool came up with the idea but people are putting them on 6 year old who barely have enough sense not to play in the street much less navigate skating shoes down shopping market aisles . Which of course they don’t and they run smack into you and glare as though you are the cause of all their unhappiness. Between junk food, computers, Ipods and the fact that poor little Johnny shouldn’t have to actually walk to anyplace in the world (not even bed) this ain’t helping in the fight against adolescent obesity.

Stupidest Disease: Again, sooooooooooooooooo many to choose from but let’s go after restless leg syndrome. I mean, come on is this really a disease? From what I’ve read it’s just a magnesium deficiency, which I’d guess you could fix by taking magnesium. Why does every little thing that happens have to be a disease or a genetic defect? Why in the hell isn’t there one damn thing that people are supposed to be responsible for?

Stupidest News Story: The paternity of Ana-Nicole’s daughter. Come on folks, is this really news? I mean are things out there in the big, wide world, so easy going and calm and uneventful that who fathered an aging sex symbol’s daughter gets the headline banner. Not just once but for weeks? Really? So, like world hunger, world peace, tornados, beheadings, none of that takes precedence? Just what I thought all journalists are pussies and idiots who didn’t get their parents’ moneys worth on those fancy prep schools they all attended.

Other things that are just plain stupid pisser offers:

1. People who are too afraid to drive their cars. These are the folks who cause accidents and claim to be in them.

2. Claiming the price of gas is all because of the evil oil companies, with no mention of the taxes, initiatives, regulatory fees and every other little piece of garbage that is added to the price of gasoline which is hidden. No…let’s not tell the truth, let’s blame the guy that provides the goods.

3. Property taxes. Explain something to me, if you own something why would you pay someone else a tax for owning it? What Einstein thought this one up and why the hell does anyone pay it?

4. Giving anyone too young to pay for one on their own, a cell phone. What is the matter with parents today? They give 8 year olds cell phones and Ipods and then wonder how they get hit by cars. Aren’t kids absent-minded enough, you really have to give them things that will completely blot out the world around them? Why not just invest in that Matrix Condo Development now?

5. That cashiers can’t count. You know a bagillion years ago I worked as a waitress and often had to take money at the cash register. So if the bill was $2.26 and they gave you a five so you would count their change back to them like this: 27,28,29,30, 40,50,75, $3, $4, and $5. These days, they take the receipt and pile the bills and the change on top of that and jam it into your hand while peeking at the register to see how much they gave you. Not to mention the fact that they expect you to get the hell out of the way because the guy behind you is about ready to explode because you want to put your change back in your wallet before you grab your bags.

6. Restaurant workers who don’t speak english or have such a difficult time speaking it you cannot understand a word they say – especially at the drive through window. Sorry, but if you’re in America I believe you must speak English well enough to be understood – because if you can’t speak my language do you really think I’m going to trust in the fact that you’ll get my order right or my change? Get real.

7. The cigarette police, the fat police, the second hand smoke police (take your pick) they are the self-appointed assholes who must save society from itself while getting a whole of power for themselves too. Personally, I’m holding out for the bullshit police. I’d love to have some yahoo come along and save all of us from the bullshit that we’ve had shoveled on us from day one. I mean, have you ever asked yourself why it is that despite the trillions of dollars that have been donated and funded into heart disease, cancer, AIDS and so on that there is still no cure for any of it? Don’t you wonder why? Seriously? I’ll tell you why – it’s because they are now cottage industries that hire tons of people who would actually have to find work if cures were found. Most of that money never gets to the level of those who honestly want to find cures or solutions – it gets stuck at the administrative level. Please go save someone who needs saving and leave me alone. I am willing to accept responsibility for my actions.

8. Social Security and Medicare: Is there anyone of my generation out there who has any dillusions that they will collect one cent of the social security and medicare we have funded over our working careers? Anybody? Cuz if so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might want to take a look at.

Alrighty then, that’s about all my wee brain can come up with today. Feel free to add to the list.

WC

It’s Official – They Hate Me

 

Okay, so you all know that the new job has been rough from the beginning. But today was the ultimate – one of my staff informed me that they all hate me. Just call me office road kill. Imagine my joy at the news.

Followed by the doctor getting in my face about something, followed by the consultant making fun of me for being upset. I don’t think I’m going to make it there.

 I think I am just the wrong person for the job. I have no one to talk to – and feel like such an outsider there it is just misery.

The worse part of it is – that my blogging has really sucked since I started the job too – which really pisses me off.

I don’t know what I’m going to do – I don’t even know what I can do. Tomorrow I have lunch with the doctor and the consultant – during which I expect them to get on me about whatever – so that will be a meal I won’t be eating.

I never knew I was so unlovable and in fact detestible. Gives one pause, you know? Sorry for the whining but it’s the only thing I can really think about right now.  Can you say, ‘head exploding’?

WC

Aren’t You Glad…

we gave control of Congress to the Democrats? Hasn’t life been oh so much better since then? Can’t you hardly wait til Baraka or Billary is Prez?

WC

American I-Dull

 

Boy does that say it or what? Now, I’ll admit I was an AI virgin last year and I suppose I got swept away with it all. But this year sucks so bad already I’m pretty sure I won’t be watching it anymore. It’s too painful to watch the slow slaughter of popular music that way. And frankly watching paint dry has more twists and turns.

Clearly, there are only 3-4 people who can actually sing. The best singer has absolutely no personality. In fact, when she isn’t singing it’s as if she doesn’t actually exist. Which is kind of spooky and makes me wonder if she is a virtual contestant or something. They can do everything else, why not that? And wouldn’t that, after all, be the epitome of the perfect contestant according to Simon Scowell?

I really am bummed though. When I watched last year I had so much fun being a fan. All of them had some talent and they were all interesting and had their own personalities to project. Even when the bad ones (like chicken little) were voted off I was a little teary-eyed. They were all so easy to love or ….hate. It was a thrill a minute and no one looked forward to Tuesday and Wednesday nights like I did. What’s happened?

Was last year a fluke? Pretty much all the losers from last year could beat the contestants of this year. Will anyone actually stay awake long enough to see who wins this snoozer? I can’t even remember any of their names. Or what they look like. Or even sound like. The guys are pretty much clones of one another. The most original one – the asian guy in bare feet (and sadly it was the bare feet that made him stand out) is gone. And I’m alarmed that it will take weeks and weeks to eliminate all the other bad ones, which by my calculations is about 20 of them.

Maybe the thrill is gone and Idol is now just more bad reality t.v. like all the others. There is a season for all things and a time for all things to come to an end. Could this be Idol’s time? Is that why they are starting that lame camp thing? To distract from the fact that out of hundreds of thousands of people who auditioned they came up with this crap as the best of the best? Are they fucking kidding me?

Dull, dull, dull, dull. I may give it another couple of weeks on the off chance someone with a pulse will actually end up on camera – but I’m pretty sure none of us will be jonesing for Idol this year.

What a waste!

WC

Boomer Truths

 

I am one of the annointed ones. You may know my demographic as baby boomer. Yep, I’m a boomer. When you say it like that it sounds kind of like a skateboard champion or something, doesn’t it? Or something equally arrogant?

I have to tell you I am sick of us. I am sick of the boomers. I sick of the generation who thinks it rules the universe from now until eternity. The mantra of never getting old, never passing the torch is pretty irritating.

I remember when I was a kid I was barely in the demograhic, just managed to squeak in there. By the time I was a teen, I was pert near in the middle of the range, now I imagine I’m somewhere in the subgenre of silver or maybe bronze baby boomers since the ‘goldens’ are about to retire and single-handedly destroy social security by sucking it dry. (Funny, I thought Congress had done that 20 years ago. They must be boomers too. )

It’s like the generation that will not die. The generation of generations. The one time in human history that super humans were born. I mean think about it. Look what us boomers have actually contributed to society. The Anti-War Industry; Global Warming/Cooling industry; Catalytic Converters; Economy Cars; An entire economy for Japan and subsequently all Asian nations; Anti-Smoking laws; Anti-Honesty (political correctness); Illiteracy among high school graduates; Institutional Anarchy; Mind Control drugs (psychotropics which alter the chemistry in the brain, all in the name of controlling mental illnesses which by and large are invented); the U.N. (which is supposed to stand for United Nations but really stands for Unbelievable Ninkompoops); they helped us lose a war we actually won (Vietnam) and therefore sentenced millions of people to the killing fields(don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up); they killed class and sense; were able to turn a white trash president into the first black president; botox; plastic surgery; liposuction; cloning; stem cell research; abortion on demand and many other things. Feeling proud? I know I sure am.

To be fair there have been other contributions which were good – and I don’t think all baby boomers are bad – but the bad ones are so bad, so arrogant I want to scream and the good ones no one seems to listen to. But the thing that is so funny to me and maybe is a secret that I’m not supposed to tell is this: Their real thing and what really motivates them is that they don’t want to get old. They will do and say anything rather than get old. Their whole lives revolve around looking and acting young. Ponce de Leon has nothing on these folks – cuz they are never, never, never, never, ever going to get old.

They will build hearing aids into their Ipods, sew Depends into their designer capris, wear their hair extensions to their caskets; laser out their wrinkles; dye what hair they have left; liposuction their fat bellies and asses and drive Corvettes forever. Just so you don’t know how old they really are.

Me? Personally I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to look good or feel good, or have healthy habits – but I am getting older. So what? That is a mantle passed from generation to generation, it is a medal from life that is earned. The joy of getting older is that you find you don’t have nearly as much to prove as you once thought; you have experience; you gain wisdom and can determine really what is important. I find it very freeing and delightful. I wear my wrinkles proudly and the sun damage and the silver (ultra blonde) hairs and all the rest. Maybe if a lot of my fellow boomers would relax and accept who they really are, the world wouldn’t be such a bizarre place. Or maybe it would. Hard to say.

WC

Wrong on Climate Change?

(Here is a compelling article published in the Times Online, that challenges, conventional wisdom on the issue. WC)

February 11, 2007

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change

Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

Oh For a Scotch and a Pack of Cigarettes

 

Okay folks, so you want a story about my new job? Let me just tell you about my glorious day.

I got up early and got ready – determined to get there ahead of everyone else. New schedule, new commute still trying to hit it just right. And yesterday I was broiling in the office because I wore a sweater, so today just a cotton turtleneck and trousers.

Out the door and the air is like ice – 39 degrees – in California mind you. That’s really cold for us out here. Already I’m rethinking the cotton turtleneck but there’s no time so I jump in my little Chevy. But wait, what’s this? Why did it practically take two hands to turn the ignition? No radio, no heater, no lights, my ABS light is stuck on and there’s this funny smell….

Okay, clearly not getting in ahead of anyone. Drive straight to the mechanic (who I only just saw last week for one of those delux tune-up jobby-do’s) – but only the non-english speaking mechanic guy is there. The manager will be back in an hour – the owner who I’ve known for a bagillion years had just left. Nice big cold wind coming up. Hmmm…who can I call at 8:15 in the morning who won’t want to kill me? Why Zelda of course. Call home phone. No answer. Call cell. No answer. Decide to call work to tell them I will be late. No answer.

Yay, Zelda calls back. Yes she will take me to work. Be there in a few. Now with Zelda a few minutes can mean anything from 5 minutes to an hour. More standing in cold office and cold parking lot at mechanic’s. Finally Zelda arrives, I get in the car, which isn’t quite as cold as outside but not doing much to thaw me out. See Zelda doesn’t like heaters – in fact, she runs the A/C pretty much year round. So I keep my shivers to myself since she is doing me a favor.

Now I’m dreading how many bagillions of dollars it’s going to cost me to fix the car. I have visions of redoing the entire electrical system and various other stomach-churning possibilities. Enough. I throw myself into work. The place is a mess. There is stuffed crammed in every nook and cranny. Old papers, old envelopes, parts of equipment that no longer exists. Magazines, notepads, broken clipboards, Halloween decorations – pretty much everything but the fricking kitchen sink. So I spent most of the day going through all that crap. It did warm me up though – so I suppose that’s the upside.

Then I needed to talk to the bookeeper which took forever because she had to do this or that or whatever – long story short, I finally got a few minutes with her and got her on Quick Books tutorials. During which I discovered she doesnt’ know much about Quick Books and really pretty much computers. Cool, so it’s going to be a long road there.

Then the soon to be ex office manager had a fit because she didn’t get her overtime and she’s going to walk out and ooh, it’s such a drama. I mean we’re talking about $20. Right? So I told her I’d talk to Zelda cuz she was the one who put the kabosh on that – don’t even ask. So I just got off the phone with Zelda and she’s all pissed. And the other one is all pissed and it’s all on my plate anyway cuz well, it just is.

The good news is my car only needed a $50 part – a relay? And it works just fine now. I’m still alive, that’s good news. And there are only two more days left to the work week. Also good news. But Friday we’re having a little party for the ex office manager whom everyone hates and can’t wait to have go – but any reason to have cake and coffee, right?

Right now, a scotch and a pack of cigarettes would do a lot to improve my mood. I gotta tell you I’m not sure I’m cut out for this kind of crap. It’s all stupid and petty to me. I’d rather be writing. I’d rather being reading. I must be out of my mind. Oh well, maybe it will be better next week.

Though the 2nd night of American Idol tryouts is on tonight. I think I’m having a bad day? I’ll betcha there will be others who have a way worse one than me after all is said and done.

Later.

WC

The Blog Gods Are Angry!#$%@&*!

First of all let me just say this is all Bill Gates’ fault! The dawg!

Okay, I’ve been blogging for a little while now- I think I’ve learned the ropes more or less. Know how not to crash my hard-drive, or blow up my computer, can’t write code but sort kinda know what it is, right? Right. Got a photobucket account, just like my mentor told me to – learned how to download pics so they don’t look like you’ve just had a hit of acid or something. Can tag surf, check my comments, response to readers in bold, add links and blah, blah, blah. Right?

So suffice to say that given the glorious ease that WordPress gives you in blogging – I can function within the normal confines of blogging. I’m not a blackbelt or anything – but I know my way around the ol’ blogosphere. And yet….

In my adventures as a blogger I have had to actually shut down a blog and reopen it under a different name because one day I just couldn’t add categories to my posts. For you layman out there, those are ‘tags’ ‘keywords’ that people use to find subject matter on the net. I tried and tried. But there was clearly no way to trick the system – even tech support was baffled. So – okay, no big deal transfer the blog over and start again.

Then I’ve had posts just disappear. Now you see it now you don’t. Again, some sort of glitch in the cyber universe, as I’ve commiserated with others whose posts have vaporized as well.

I’ve had code that simply refused to be deleted and finally won because after two hours you just say uncle. Which resulted in half the post being in one font and the other half in another.

I’ve had regular readers end up in the spam box, rather than having their comments posted and spammers doing pingbacks, making nonsequitor posts and happily running down the halls, spraying graffitti everywhere.

Not long ago, I added a bright new blogger to my blogroll. He’s bright, funny and a pleasure to read. And I thought, what the heck, I like this guy and I’m linking him. No problem, right? Well the weird thing is that whenever I click on the link I get redirected to some weird admin link and one of those insipid messages that says basically ‘screw you, you’re not getting in.’ I’ve recently discovered that if I’m logged out I can sometimes actually access his page. Sigh. So, I’m trying Chris.

Then today – well I had this cute little post all set up about snow in L.A. and a great little vid to go with it. But nope, wasn’t going to happen. The last two hours have been chewed up trying to make it work and it just goes into download hell and never arrives.

Poor tech support, I’ve emailed them so much lately that surely I’m in their permanent spam list – and pain in the ass file. And who could blame them? I feel like that little old lady who is always bringing stuff back to the store insisting it doesn’t work but of course it works for everyone else.

So, now I’m sure of it. It is simply the Great Blog Gods in the sky. They are pissed at me. They are making me pay. They got an email from Bill Gates telling them I refuse to download yet another version of his piece-of-shit IE browser and they are conspiring against me. They’re all up there smoking cigars, counting their money, drinking beers and laughing their asses off. Trying to figure out how else they can screw with me. The rat bastards!

Well, I will not relent! I will not download that hideous browser. They can torment me all they like. I still refuse to be herded like cows into their mindless one-world order composed of all of those who must obey! (Can you hear the trumpets now?)

Give me liberty or screw you! I have not yet begun to bitch! I will prevail!

Phew…I feel better now. Have a nice day. 😉

WC

Oy Carumba, the Guilt!

Recently I’ve mentioned problems on the job front – the company I worked with for almost 3 years was having trouble. Well, I’m sorry to say that the trouble didn’t end and I have left what I affectionately called The Land of Fun.

It was a fun, easy-going place to work – since we made movie props and I guess were sorta kinda in show business, there was no end of make-believe going on. But I guess there is more than make-believe needed to keep a business going.

No worries about me, as I’ve gotten another job, which I start Monday. It’s a far cry from the Land of Fun and it will be a brand new adventure for me – or them, I guess we shall see who experiences the most surprise. 😉

I felt kind of guilty leaving my old job. We’d all become such comrades it rather felt like deserting the ship – but I had to admit that I needed to take care of me first and so left I did.

Now, I could have started my new job this week actually. I could have just jumped right into the fray and let the chips fall where they may. But, I decided (since the folks at Land of Fun didn’t require me to work out any notice) to just take a few days off.

I reasoned that there were lots of stupid, little things that needed to be done that I never seem to get around to doing. That I was some time to decompress and chill out. I wanted to go to my new job, fresh and relaxed. That I deserved a break. Because truth be told I don’t take vacations. Oh sure, I went away for a few days over Thanksgiving and as much fun as it was to see my friends, it was work. Try tagging along with a mother of three ages 9, 2 & 1 and you’ll know what I mean. Hell, I needed a vacation after the vacation.

So, okay, I’m having a little vacation. I’m catching up on sleep. Reading. Doing things around the house. Reveling in the solitude (did I mention roomie got a job?) and silence. I’ve been taking long walks with the dog – collecting bouquets of wild flowers – taking long showers, tweezing my eyebrows. Really important stuff.

Yet…the guilt. After a day and a half I started feeling like I was committing a crime. I felt like I should call my new job and confess that I was goldbricking for a few days before I decided to come in. I’m blowing off that idea the consultant had about going in on Saturday to get a little orientation. I’m not answering the phone for fear it might be someone who might want me to do something. I peer through the kitchen curtains to see if the Job Police are cruising my neighborhood, looking for layabouts.

I’ve parked my car a few houses down from mine, in case somebody I know drives by won’t think I’m home. When I go out I wear dark glasses and slouchy clothes so I won’t be recognized. I haven’t called any friends because I don’t want them to know I’m slacking. WTF is wrong with me? I mean, why the guilt?

I’ve been on my own and working for a living since I was 17. Even when I lived with my parents, I worked, bought my own clothes and textbooks, was always doing something. I’m not wired to lay around and do nothing. I mean, not that I’m doing nothing – I’m doing stuff. And it’s stuff that needs to be done but…I still feel guilty.

If I’m not out somewhere doing something, or writing about something or reading about something then I feel like I’m letting my fellow man down. Why can’t I simply enjoy my sloth week? Why can’t I revel in being bad. In being lazy. In doing nothing? Why????????

Do you think it has anything to do with being raised Catholic? I man people always say that the Jews have the corner on guilt but maybe they haven’t had any run ins with the Nuns. The ones who give you the look. You know the look? The one that can put a crease in your slacks, while you’re wearing them? The one that can make you pray for forgiveness even if you haven’t done anything? I’m telling you – the guilt, the guilt, the guilt. I can’t take it anymore!

Gotta go…somebody is lurking outside my house and I’m afraid they can hear the keys tapping.

WC

Writer Chick Predicts…

You know when I was a kid I used to love to read or hear about all the crazy, whacko predictions the psychics of the day would make about the coming year. What was really hilarious was how they would (later) try so hard to make the facts of something somehow mold into a prediction they’d made.

So in the spirit of that – I, Writer Chick, shall also make a few predictions sure not to come true – and if any do, it will be purely accidental.

I predict that in 2007:

1. Fat people will be outlawed in NYC and if apprehended with a box of oreos, booked for possession of trans-fats.
2. Teddy Kennedy will become the new spokesperson for Jenny Craig (maybe Kirstie will lend him her old body shapers?).
3. Global warming will cause hot, fresh pizzas to rain from the skys during hurricanes that rail for 30 minutes or less.
4. Britney Spears will create her own underwear line called Now you see it – Now you don’t.
5. In a tell-all book, Madonna will reveal her favorite moisturizer is embalming fluid.
6. Al Gore will invent a hybrid vehicle that runs on gas and electricity and call it the Priestess.
7. The ACLU will file a class action lawsuit against the State of Texas in behalf of beef cows, citing slavery and wrongful death as key points.
8. Apple will unveil its latest innovation, the BlogPod.
9. Stem cell researchers will successfully replicate a conscience and offer it to Hillary Clinton for beta testing.
10. Arnold Schwartzeneger will ‘come out’ as a Democrat.
11. Rosie O’Donnell will admit on Oprah that she is the victim of a botched sex change operation.
12. The first transexual Miss America will be crowned.
13. The New York Yankees will win the World Series – by accident.
14. Scientists will discover that land masses and ice masses surrounded by water experience erosion, thereby diminishing the size of said mass.
15. Inexpicable accidents and scandals will befall any opponents to Senator Clinton in the bid for the Democrat candidacy.
16. Barak Obama will blame his ears on President Bush (why not? everything else is his fault.)
17. In a daring move, CBS will replace anchorperson Katie Couric with Barney the purple dinosaur – hoping to capture the heretofore untapped demographic of oversized stuffed animals everywhere.
18. The medical community will unanimously agree that living is dangerous to one’s healthy and Congress will pass a law that all newborns henceforth will be tatooed with the Surgeon General’s warning of same.
19. Michael Moore will premeire his first film based on fact in his biopic called Fat Like Me.
20. Maureen Dowd will marry Jim Gilchrist and become a born again Libertarian and start her own newspaper called North of the Border.
21. Bob Woodward will admit on 60 Minutes that everything he has ever written is lies and promote his upcoming book, All I know is I Can’t Tell the Truth.
22. In an attempt to increase environmental awareness, major designers will develop a machine that can make fabric out of matter recovered in landfills. And use the fabric in their new spring lines. (clothes pins will be issued to all attendees at the Spring showing.)
23. Jimmy Carter will become the new spokesperson for Jiff peanut butter, making the claim that it has a little known use as mortar (as demonstrated in the habitat for humanity model homes).

and finally….

We’ll all be going to Hell in a handbasket. 😉

Okay, those are my predictions…anyone care to offer some of theirs?