Lost...Arrrrggghhhh!

OK, seriously. What fresh hell is this???

#1 - Michael's whole flashback stuff. Why? What was the point? I thought it was spelled out really clearly last season that 1) he loves his kid, 2) his ex was a raging bitch and 3) eventually she manipulated him into giving up his parental rights so her new hubby could adopt him. So what was the whole frigging point of this flashback? That he gave Walt a stuffed polar bear? Jesus H Christ.

#2 - WASTE OF TIME, folks. All the little bits they re-showed from last week? Why couldn't they have just made the season premiere last week be 2 hours long? Oh, yeah. Because they wanted to have 23 (!!) episodes this season.

#3 - Waiting all damn hour to see Jin. I was getting pretty worried about him, actually. And the tailaways? Not exactly stunning, y'all. Not when it's been spoiled left, right & center.

#4 - Jack is still an unsufferable ass.

But on the plus side:

#1 - Numbers resetting the countdown thingamajig. How much you wanna bet that if Dezzy doesn't reset it in time, Lostzilla starts yanking trees underground?

#2 - Ooooh, what's with the patch? Eagle-eyed TWoP'ers saw the exact same logo ON THE SHARK!!!! WTF????? (I totally missed it, but will re-watch tomorrow.) Must be more of that loverly "island security system." Shark scenes were very tense overall; I liked that bit.

#3 - Kate & the Kandy. I was hollerin' at her to "go on, girl, get your chocolate on!" Hee!

The decline of literacy

I'm disgusted. I've come to expect poor spelling and grammar from the vast majority of online personal ads. I cringe at (but am not particularly surprised to see) the horrible spelling and poor sentence structure in the little local community newspaper. But I found at least three spelling errors in a single article on CNN.com. CNN!! I am just...aghast. I cannot believe how far the level of literacy in our country has fallen.

Dammit, pick up a freakin' book and READ, y'all! Expand your brain a bit!

My little artist

Rugrat is such an amazing artist. He just keeps on surprising me. Kid has got some mad skillz! This is one his most recent creations:



Seriously - check out the gnarly skeleton on the flaming skateboard! I love his expression - the hand position, the forked tongue sticking out...it just rocks. And the angry sun & moon in the upper corners - so cool! Not sure what to make of the flying/boarding dragon/cobra though, LOL.

Carpet is done!

Looks FANTASTIC. Feels silky soft and super-cushy too. Yay!

God, I'm so freakin' tired. I just want to sleeeeeeeep. I have been having serious insomnia the last week or two, and haven't been able to fall asleep until at least 1 or 2 AM. I'm just exhausted, y'all.

Stinky

My carpet is being installed. Dude, it smells AWFUL. What is that crap they use to glue down the pad? Toxic waste?

Sittin' outside on the patio trying to squint & see my laptop screen. Glare sucks.

Lost!! Squeee!!!!

OK, how big a dork am I? I am so excited about the Lost season premiere tonight that I am literally bouncing around the house. Yes, I need to finish moving stuff out of the bedrooms before the carpeting guys come tomorrow. Yes, I should be working for the next half hour. But all I can think about is...just a few more hours 'til Lost!!! God, I am SO that show's bitch.

OK, here's my wish list for this season:

• Kate gets ripped to pieces by Lostzilla so I don't have to look at her whiny bitchface anymore
• Sawyer has RHMS with someone (but not Kate, because she'll be teeny tiny bits of gore splattered around the jungle)
• Jin & Sun get jiggy
• We find out how Locke ended up in a wheelchair
• We find out what is down the hatch...REALLY SOON
• We find out what the deal is with the Others
• We find out what the deal is with the Numbers
• We find out what the deal is with Craphole Island in general
• We get answers...any answers...to any of the big questions. And we don't have to wait all damn season for those answers.

Please, God, let it be so.

Tile is done!

Well, it's not grouted yet (we decided it needed grout after all - the tiles are way too irregular to try and do it groutless). But it's all stuck to the ground. And it looks freakin' fantastic! Here's a picture of Babydaddy laying the tile yesterday.

Carpet is being installed on Thursday. I am so excited! My house is going to look SO much better. :) Of course then I'll want to gut my kitchen...

Rest in peace

A good friend of mine died last night. I never met him in person, but for the last seven years he's been a part of my life, each and every day. He maintained a bulletin board that I visit almost daily. For seven years, this board has been a constant source of comfort, joy, support, love and hope. When Rugrat had his toothbrush accident, I got cards from people all over the country (and Canada), as well as gifts and prayers and good wishes. Whenever there is a tragedy, the board rallies around and takes care of the person in need. When something wonderful happens, we tell the board, and everyone rejoices with us. Daily frustrations, parenting questions, recipes, television show recaps, movie reviews, high-profile criminal trials, jokes, games, pictures, poems, songs...we share it all. When our "board babies" pass a milestone, everyone marvels at how fast time flies. When politics is the dominant topic of the day we all choose sides and argue - sometimes getting a bit out of hand - but we come back "home" after we've cooled down and taken a breather. In other words...we're friends. We're there for each other. We are a huge "virtual" support network and I am blessed to have found the board. MikeyD made it possible for us to have a place we could come to online, anytime, to find a friend.

RIP, Mike Helton. Your RT HO's will miss you every day. :'-(

New carpet!

I ordered new carpeting this weekend, finally. And what the hell is wrong with me that I needed to get the absolute most expensive carpeting in the whole freakin' store?? Over $5 per square foot! Thank goodness for the Home Depot 20% discount sale -- but even that didn't bring down the price too terribly much, because I've got stairs to carpet (you know they charge extra for each one) AND I asked them to move the furniture. Do you know how much they charge for moving furniture? For two bedrooms? $350! I couldn't believe it! I'm going to call back and tell them I'll move my own damn furniture for that price, and give me back my $350.

Sheesh.

On the plus side, me finally ordering carpet has galvanized Babydaddy, who (in a fit of generosity that I never expected or asked for) offered to install new tile in my entryway. So last night he took out the old tile. Only took about half an hour - I would've thought it would take longer than that, but he was lickity split. We're going to install the new tile this weekend, which means I better get my butt out and buy it. Heh. I'm doing slate tiles, since it's such a tiny area (about 30 sf) - and that means we won't have to grout!! YAY! No grout! That's the most irritating part of tile installation anyway.

Whew! No evil spirits...

...in my garage. ;-)

Turns out it was a problem with the remote control that was hooked to the visor in my car. There's a little metal thing inside it that sends the signal to the opener when it's pressed down. Since the opener & remote are so darn old, the metal thing isn't as "springy" as it used to be. The garage door guy bent the little metal thing and put the remote back together and now all is well.

My garage door opener is POSSESSED!

Holy crap! My garage door opener just went batshit. I was upstairs, working in the office and I heard the door open, and thought that Babydaddy had come over with his nephew to mow my lawn. But then I heard the door shut...and nobody came to the front door. And then the garage door opened AGAIN...and shut AGAIN. Finally after about 3 full cycles I went down to find out what was going on and walked into my garage and saw the garage door just...open by itself. And then it shut partway, and then it opened partway...and then it shut. I tried punching the button on the wall and it didn't seem to do anything. But then a few seconds later it opened again. The HELL????

So I placed this panicked call to my home warranty company and they are sending out an emergency technician to look at it tonight. Man, this is freaky as hell, though!

My doctor

Look, I really like my doctor. I do. He's very thorough; he keeps track of what's going on and doesn't let shit slip through the cracks. He's not stingy with prescriptions if I need 'em.

But he runs SO far behind. Like, hours behind. If I have an appointment for 10 AM or later, I can guarantee that I'll be there for three hours; two of those hours spent in the freezing waiting room.

This morning I had a follow-up appointment at 8:30 AM. Just a "quick" appointment so I could give him my blood pressure record (kept track of over the last two weeks) and he could give up and put me back on HCTZ. So after about 5-10 minutes in the waiting room, they called me back. I thought, "Cool, I got right in. I'll be at my desk by 9:15". Forty-five minutes later, I was still waiting to see the doctor, but in the freezing exam room instead of the freezing waiting room. FINALLY at 9:30, the doctor came in. I was seriously pissed. I mean, at 8:30 in the morning he was already an hour behind schedule? What the HELL?

Anyway, as I predicted...back on HCTZ. I suppose at 31, with intermimittent blood pressure issues over the last five years, it's time for me to finally acknowledge the fact that I will be on medication for the rest of my life. It's not awful stuff, I mean, it doesn't have horrible side effects or anything, but it just sucks that I'll be popping pills for the rest of my life. Why does this bother me? I've been taking birth control almost continuously for the last fifteen years. Another tiny little pill shouldn't be a big deal. I guess I just don't like the idea that I'm getting old. No, 31 isn't old. But high blood pressure? That's pretty much an old person's disease.

Just shut the fuck up, part 2

This one is aimed at C's hubby (Rugrat's uncle). Oh, and C herself. Because I am fucking pissed at the way she dragged me into her shit and I'm pissed at him for putting me on the spot.

Here's how it all went down: remember the night a couple weeks ago when C & I went out? Well she had told her hubby that she was going out with people from work. Why? I don't know. She seemed to think that he would be more "OK" with her going out with them, than with me. Whatever. But then she got trashed. And, since I was the designated driver for the evening, I had to drive her home. Which is fine. But she left her car at my house and then had to come back early the next morning to get it because she had an appt for something (I forget what). So her hubby had to drive her to MY house to get her car. Which looked kind of fishy, since the original story was that she went out with work peeps & then "ran into" me in WC.

So, fast-forward to this weekend. C has told her hubby that she wants a separation. Hubby goes out with his brothers, gets all riled up about shit. C has gone to Oregon to visit her brother & "clear her head." Whatever. C's hubby calls me like four times in the space of a half hour on Saturday morning. I finally give up on the whole "sleep a little longer" thing and pick up the phone. And there he is, asking me what exactly went down when C & I went out that one night. He wants to know if it was planned between the two of us in advance. He says he has phone records, blah blah blah. He wants me to tell him the truth, because his wife obviously is lying to him, blah blah blah bitchcakes. He says he wants to know so that he can decide how to proceed with the whole separation thing, because he thinks she's just stringing him along and she's not really working on saving their marriage. I told him I did not want to be involved, that it was their problem and they needed to work it out themselves. And he started getting upset, saying that I *was* involved because my rugrat is their kids' cousin. I said yes, I am a part of your (collective) lives, but that doesn't mean I'm involved in your marital problems. He starts badgering me some more, and I said that we did talk beforehand about possibly meeting up in WC, because we were both going to be there. And he just jumped all over that: "Well then how did her car get to your house, huh??" I didn't say a word. He starts freaking out, asking me if she's "doing something she shouldn't be" and I'm like, "No! Look, chill out..." and he says, "Are you telling me to chill out?" and that's when it really started getting uncomfortable. So I told him that I wasn't going to put up with him talking to me that way, that I wasn't a child, and that the conversation was over. And then I hung up.

So now, I am like the world's biggest bitch because I wouldn't give him ammunition for his next fight with C? Dude, fight your own fucking battles. Don't pull me into this shit. I don't need the aggravation. And seriously, if you think your wife is lying to you, and you don't trust her to tell you the truth? If you believe she might be screwing around on you? What could I possibly fucking say that would make you feel better?

And fuck C for asking me to lie for her in the first place. Dammit, that shit is NOT cool. I can't always be remembering her latest fucking fairy tale.

Just shut the fuck up

God, I HATE it when Boss is being a complete dumbass. How many different ways do I have to explain something to him? Jesus H. Christ. And the doctor wonders why my blood pressure is so high? Yeah, this is part of it. Stupid people. In fact, stupid people that I have to deal with every FUCKING day.

I had to explain to him SEVERAL times why we went over the estimated hours. For one thing, what was requested of me originally (when I was asked to make an hours estimate) is NOT what was in the specs. And what they put in the specs is fucking impossible. They somehow wanted a URL to magically appear on the server, and homie don't play dat. Basically I tried for half a day to mess with the 404 processing on the dev server to "catch" these stray URLs, and it simply is impossible. Oh, and for another thing, they changed the fucking requirements halfway through the project. And even with all that, we're not over the hours by much.

I hate feeling like I need to scream at him to just shut the fuck up already. He's all, "But I don't understaaaaand...." Well, then live with your ignorance. Because I'm not going to explain it again. OK, I think I officially hate my job.

But, on the other hand...I have been quit for 4 Weeks, 2 Days, 15 hours, 34 minutes and 41 seconds. I have saved $98.82 by not smoking 459 cigarettes. I have saved 1 Day, 14 hours and 15 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 8/7/2005 12:30 AM.

I have nothing against gay guys, but...

I don't want to date them. Seriously, I don't. Yes, it may seem that every guy I'm hot for ends up being gay, but it's not on PURPOSE.

I met a guy on Friday night when I was out with the girls. He seemed nice enough; he's in the IT field, which means we had something in common. He's Italian (looks a lot like a young DeNiro, actually), right age range, a few inches taller than me, nice bod. It's all good, right? So we went out on Sunday night to dinner. Nice dinner, great food, he definitely dropped some cash on the meal, etc. Afterwards we walked around downtown WC (it was late, everything was closed). We talked quite a bit about home decor, since we're both kind of into that. And he pointed out some great stores I hadn't noticed before (I had no clue there was a high-end store selling Jimmy Choo shoes in downtown WC). We were VERY comfortable with each other, and found lots to talk about...and yet, he seemed very preoccupied with making sure that people didn't think he was gay. I suggested going to a certain fabric store & having a pillow custom-made for his extra-deep couch, and he said he didn't want to go in to the store by himself because people might think he was gay. That sort of thing came up over & over in the course of the evening.

So, at the end of the night, he walks me back to my car & we say our goodbyes. He kissed me: once, twice, three times...and each time, it was like kissing a family member. Not at all like kissing a DATE. No tongue, for one thing. No passion AT ALL, for another. It was just...meh.

He is so, so gay. Shit.

New Orleans

What the HELL? Why is it taking so damn long to get help to the people down there? It's a disgrace. For four days now, they've been stranded with no food, no water, no electricity, inadequate medical assistance, and ineffective law enforcement. And to top it all off, the weather there is in the mid-90's with high humidity. Can you imagine being outside in 90+ degree heat all day, with 75% humidity, with no water and no possibility of going into a nice air conditioned building? Now imagine that, surrounded by garbage, dead bodies, and crap. Literally, crap. It's disgusting and horrifying.

Bush, get off your ass and get some fucking help down there NOW! We keep hearing that "help is coming" -- but it's been FOUR DAYS. And the help that gets through is woefully inadequate. Not enough troops to restore order. Not enough buses to evacuate people. Not enough food and water and medical help to keep them alive until they CAN be evacuated. People are dropping like flies down there. And the ones that aren't dying of starvation or dehydration or for lack of medical attention are getting raped and shot by roving gangs of thugs, desperate to impose some sense of control on their world. I've been crying for days, hearing about the mess down there.

And New Orleans is probably gone for good. Which is a damn shame, because that was one seriously FUN town. Even if they do rebuild the city, it will never be the same. And I don't think it's a certainty that they will rebuild, considering how much it will cost and the likelihood that a catastrophe like this might happen again. I mean, the whole town is below sea level. If it were me, and I woke up one morning to find my house underwater and I knew that it could easily happen again, and that I'd be stranded for days with no help? I'd move my ass to higher ground, y'all. All the jazz and beignets and bananas foster and lagniappe and beads and hurricanes (the libation, not the natural disaster) in the world wouldn't induce me to live there.

I'm in mourning.

Ouch!

Here's a riddle for you: Who's stupid and clumsy and typing only with her left hand? Yes, me!

I made tuna casserole for dinner tonight. I pulled it out of the oven just fine with the potholder, then set the potholder down and reached for the 350° handle. Stupid? You betcha! Got what is likely a second-degree burn on half my hand. Hurts like hell, y'all.

Oh, and: I have been quit for 3 Weeks, 4 Days, 19 hours, 41 minutes and 26 seconds. I have saved $83.26 by not smoking 387 cigarettes. I have saved 1 Day, 8 hours and 15 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 8/7/2005 12:30 AM