to quote the Olsen twins, age 2....

..."How rude."

Seriously. WTF is it with people who, upon seeing someone unfamiliar to them, don't just smile, say hi, and introduce themselves and shake hands?

Yet again in the last few days, instead of doing that, someone said to me upon first meeting, "Who are you?"

I'm not naming the culprit. But it's happened to me with other people who should have known better, such as the CF school district HR person, when she was new and attending her first board meeting. Couple others have done it too.

It's not flattering, folks -- to YOU, not to my ego. Be an adult, or at least follow standard social conventions. They're conventional for a reason.

WHEW.

1 major holiday down, 1 to go.

I'm exhausted and I am SO ready to have my own space again. But, I survived, and it wasn't all that bad....really.

I had to laugh, though: On the way to Madison, where I met up with sis and BIL to join them for the rest of the trip, I counted no fewer than 4 cars with bike racks attached to the top. But there weren't bikes on them. There were gutted deer.

I heart Wisconsin.

Oh well -- at least they were tied down! It's the ones who don't even get that far who bug me. Well, and the ones who put the poor Bambis upside down, so their little snouts and such are facing asphalt instead of sky.

Thank god this is the beer-drinking capital of the United States, if not the world (Munich probably wins that one). I need one!

yupyupyup....

This is why people like me don't have jobs anymore.

good riddance, ya egotistical jerk.

ASHWAUBENON, Wis. (AP) -- Brett Favre's suburban Green Bay home has been sold for $445,000.

The longtime Green Bay Packer quarterback was traded to the New York Jets last summer after changing his mind about retirement.

Realtor Micoley and Company confirmed that the 3,000-square-foot home in Ashwaubenon sold after being on the market for about seven weeks. The asking price was $475,000.

things that just ain't right, part 2

-- Christmas lights not only up, but functional, before Thanksgiving.

-- Being completely ineligible for social services because I am not a 20-year-old hood rat with 9 kids under age 10. Or, for that matter, because I not only graduated from high school, but got TWO college degrees. Or, for that matter, because I have generally managed to work through my mental health "bad times" and fooled everyone into thinking I'm functional. Can't catch a break from a shrink now to save my life when I try to insist I'm *really* not doing well, and there have been multiple times over the years I haven't been doing well and just plodded through it because I had to.

I bought in bad to the "more education is better" myth, and now I'm out both a job and an industry and meanwhile, two sales guys I know who got canned along with me both already have jobs. Sales doesn't take training, it takes extroversion. Hell, electricians don't require too much training, and they permanently have jobs and make a helluva lot more than I was. "Blue collar" turns out not to be so horrible. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for raising me in Johnson County, where those words were not to be spoken, thus completely skewing my worldview at a critical developmental point!

-- People thinking that $10/hr is a living wage. All the people who tend to think that also tend to have spouses providing another income. I had someone today tell me $10-11/hr was "pretty good." I refrained from asking, "in what universe?" Probably in someplace like Sri Lanka you can live like a king on that. But this is America, 2008, and it ain't happenin'.

-- U.S.-based job sites that require you to input the country you live in, then make the list alphabetical. Do you know how many countries there are in the world? Did you pass 1st grade, where we all learned how to alphabetize? Then you know what a PITA it is to scroll alllll the friggin' way down to get to "United States." Put it at the top and be done with it. I'm seriously doubting someone from Azerbaijan is looking for a job in Wyoming, knowwhutimean?

No doubt there will be more to come, but probably not tonight. So, /rant.

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Now playing: Matt Nathanson - Bulletproof Weeks
via FoxyTunes

link lurve

Handiest aggregator-type-thingy EVAR: All My Faves. Up at the top, click on "weekly faves."

30-Second Bunnies -- Bunnies recreate famous movies in 30 seconds. Not to be confused with Bunny Suicides, which are rather amusing, if you have a black-as-night sense of humor like me. Also not to be confused with Greg the Bunny, which is kind of X-rated Muppets (and also very funny, and occasionally sacrilegious).

random rant

Things that annoy me (in no particular order):

-- Hormones (especially the sort belonging to middle-aged women)

-- My complete inability to stop stuffing my face with fat- and sugar-laden things as soon as it gets cold

-- "Health food" that is expensive and tastes bad, but is "good for you."

-- "Isms" (ageism, sexism, racism, etc)

-- Narrow-minded people

-- Bad coffee

-- Organizations that claimed they would help you, then failed to do so, then have the audacity to ask you for money! GRRRR!!!! (I'm looking at YOU, MedicAlert!)

-- Constantly being starving and cold, despite eating nonstop, wearing multiple layers of sweats, and staying under a billion blankets. Hell, I'm sitting here in a zipped-up jacket, even.

Anyone wanna add to the list, feel free.

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Now playing: Paolo Nutini - Rewind
via FoxyTunes

I love you, Roy.

Dude has nads of steel. I did a story on him, and actually attended the SOA vigil in Ga., several years ago. It was an experience I will never forget, on so many levels.

On the one hand, it does seem kind of stupid to speak out, because nothing's ever going to change while repressed old white men are in charge. On the other, though, gotta give the man credit -- as well as all the women who speak out as well, and all those who work for social justice in ANY form. That's what Catholicism USED to be about, and what it needs to return to.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois

my stuff (see the links in the blue box on the linked page for 2 other stories)

a voice cries out in the wilderness....

...and it's mine. Asking, "WHEN WILL IT END????!!!!!"

This afternoon I attended a workshop for "displaced workers," as we are so charmingly, euphemistically called by the government.

Two things:

1) THE FARKING TV STATIONS SHOWED UP TO FILM.

But wait! There's more! They had the audacity to ask if any of us WANTED TO GO ON CAMERA TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Oh, yes, thank you -- none of us is terrified, depressed, angry and embarrassed -- we'd LOVE to show our faces throughout the entire region talking about our inability to maintain employment.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

2) It keeps happening!

At the end, the woman sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder and said my name. I turned, she introduced herself and said, "I'm a Leader-Telegram subscriber, and I always really enjoyed your stories. I'm really sorry to see you here."

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy compliments as much as the next person. But DANG, if ever there were a good time to have an anonymous job, this would be it. I went to a book reading/signing Monday night, and once a former mayor "outed" me, there were as many people in line to talk to me as there were to talk to the author! And, since the paper buried its "workforce reduction across the company" in a 2-paragraph brief somewhere near the classifieds, nobody saw it, so nobody knows I'm unemployed. It's awfully awkward!

Add in the gray, rainy day and I really should have just stayed in bed.

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Now playing: Beastie Boys - Funky Boss
via FoxyTunes

fun fact du jour

I have this thing for old newspapers. I mean, REALLY old newspapers. Like, CENTURIES-old newspapers. It's fun to get lost in them and imagine what the times they record must have been like to live in. (I'm a geek. So sue me. I spent a week at Notre Dame holed up with microfilm of their American Catholic newspaper collection for my thesis and the librarians started asking if I were sleeping there. But when the damn microfilm machines worked, it was fun!)

Anyway, Paul at "Recovering Journalist" mentioned some goodies he found at an exhibit of early newspapers at the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. This is my absolute favorite:

The weekly newspaper report of London deaths in 1680 included 57 people who died from “griping in the guts,” 29 from “teeth” and 2 from “evil.”

:-DDD

My guts gripe all the time! Although when I saw my internist this morning and discovered that in 6 weeks, I hadn't lost ONE FREAKING OUNCE (I had it coming, but still), I was griping AT my guts. Well, and at my laziness for not doing what I need to. And then, after that, I pissed off my therapist for the 2nd week in a row. It's been just an absolutely ducky day!

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Now playing: Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
via FoxyTunes

it's snowing, people.

Snowing, as in sticking, as in no wimpy flurries, as in the roads are going to ice over and people are going to freak out because we all temporarily forget from winter to winter how to do this.

Snow -- northern Wisconsin -- kind of expected this time of year. You would think. However, guess who doesn't have a brush? (They come in really handy when you run into the store for 5 minutes and come back out to find a 3-foot drift on the hood of your car.) Guess who can't find her gloves? Guess who has such nasty Swiss cheese brain that she forgets where her trusty Marquette wool cap went 3 seconds after she put it down? Guess whose heat isn't working and whose space heater (brand new out of the box) gave up the ghost after one day's use? I was hoping to avoid having to get my landlady involved, because my place is a dump and she's yelled at me about it before. So off I trotted to my local hardware store. The lovely old gentleman's advice? "Call the energy company."

Thanks, bud.

Blah. Blah, blah, blah.

I did get my flu shot today, so there's something positive. Also, crappy weather is a perfect excuse to huddle under wool blankets and veg, and I do have a nice, shiny new book (2 of them, actually, but one is a present, which may or may not prevent me from reading it first, LOL). But all in all, this sort of thing always comes way sooner than I'm ready for and lasts way longer than I like. Wish I had enough money to be a snowbird!

OTOH,...

From "too much" to "waaaay too little" in one easy post.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you...what's left of Posh Spice.

My issues with "Ruby"

Let me say that I would not have known about, nor watched, this show without hearing about it from someone I know and trust who is both a journalist and has weight issues.

The Style channel is running a "reality" show following a woman named Ruby. Ruby started out at 700 lbs. and when the series starts, she is down to around 500. It is planned to be an 8-week series, but I don't know how much time will be compressed into that timeframe -- months, I assume.

While I was appalled that Ruby's friends said "oh, we don't want her to die because she's so fat" and then let her sit reclining in a chair while they served her and fed her every fattening thing on earth, what really disturbed me -- well, two things.

1: They showed her and her skinny, super-fit friend (blonde and cute, of course) taking a walk in the park. Ruby brought her dog. In a stroller-type thingy.

Honey, if you don't even let your damn DOG walk, do you wonder how you got here? I mean, I can't really be judgmental -- although I am nowhere near 500 lbs., and I've been losing, I probably still have 50 to go, and I don't exercise as much as my doctors would like. But honest to god, isn't part of the point of having a dog to make you take it out for walks? Does the dog pee in the stroller?

I understand the movement and flexibility issues that come with overweight. I know it's got to be horrible for someone that size. My point is that her whole life seems to be permeated by people who claim to care, but then sabotage her instead, and then she turns around and does the same to a critter.

2: They taped and showed part of her session with her shrink.

Now. I assume both of them signed every release known to man to allow that to happen. But as a therapy veteran, I gotta tell you, there is no way in hell I would let anyone tape my session for broadcast on national TV. For their own use in supervision, sure -- my current T does that; former one audiotaped. Fine with both. But does it make you a masochist, a narcissist, or both to allow it to go out to an entire country?

Ruby says she is doing this to bring awareness and help people. That's admirable, if true. But I have to wonder if it is. Maybe somehow she's avoided the shame that is at the core of most morbidly obese people (speaking as one, at least until I get my BMI down another point). Believe me when I tell you there is shame in sitting on a chair and breaking it....in not being able to get a seatbelt around yourself....in sneak-eating in the car and then throwing the trash in a dumpster somewhere so no one you live with sees it...in the rude remarks people don't think twice about making, assuming, I guess, that you don't have functioning ears. I have been there, done that, and got the Tshirt. If she's managed to avoid having a complete lack of self-esteem because of it, I applaud her. But I'm not convinced.

More info: Ruby

why I hate this time of year

1. Pitch black at 5 pm? SO uncool.
2. Invariably, in this part of the world at this time of the year, I end up on the road behind some farmer with an IQ of 12 and a 50-year-old pickup truck, with a dead deer stuffed in the back -- untied down.

Let me tell you, if you haven't had that particular pleasure, that it is bad enough seeing some poor deer staring vacantly at you while you're trying to concentrate on your driving. But when you add in the fact that said deer may actually fall out of the damn truck, onto the road in front of you, it's that much creepier. I'm not even going to get into the fact that when people hit deer on the road here, they call the cops -- for a tag, so they can take the poor things home. Yes, venison is tasty, if you don't mind risking getting chronic wasting disease. Yes, a reasonably sized deer, cut into steaks and chops and whatnot, can last a year or so. But damn, people -- there's just something inherently wrong about eating roadkill. Uncivilized, you might say.

In other news, I want Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson fired, now, please. And whoever the defensive coordinator is. Anybody know how the Jets did today? :-\

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Now playing: Duncan Sheik - In the Absence of Sun
via FoxyTunes

another goofy test

Which classic arcade game are you?

I was hoping for Centipede -- my favorite after a few (then-illegal) beers ;-) -- but that's not what I came up with.

You are Robotron. To spend a lot of time trying to save your family from the dangers that come at you from all directions. Maybe you should lay off the caffeine.

Here's the link: which classic arcade game are you?

a must-read

inspirational post at TPM

Amen, and god bless America.



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Now playing: The Jayhawks - Blue
via FoxyTunes

It'll do!

Way to go, Americans!!!

I'd really like to see a woman POTUS before I die, but this works.

CNN just called it for Barack.

Take THAT, you racists and haters!

Maybe now the country can reclaim some of its credibility with the rest of the planet.

no shite

I haven't been this excited about an election since 1992. That was the same kind of deal -- years of being effed by Republicans, with a chance for youth and change.

Of course, I spent Election Night 1984 (my first being able to vote), after having campaigned my butt off for Fritz and Tits, watching returns and sobbing because the American people were so freaking stupid as to re-elect frigging Ronald frigging Reagan. That was the slap-upside-the-head, the-American-people-can-be-farking-idiots moment that has jaded me ever since.

Mostly. :-)

I am the LEAST patriotic sort you will ever meet -- I won't say the pledge of allegiance -- for the last 8 years I have been ashamed of my country. But we have a chance to start digging out of the mess that f*cktard Dubya has got us into and get our credibility and our honor back.

Do the right thing, America.

happy birthday, Tom Servo!

MST3K -- one of the greatest TV shows of the last 30 years, at least. Today is the bday of the guy who voiced Servo. So in celebration, I'm sharing a little clip with you. :-)

United Servo Academy Men's Chorus

rednecks

'tards are everywhere, I guess....

First of all, if this isn't a hick name, I don't know what is:

{McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds}

Yeah yeah, Tucker Carlson, but he's also a Republican, and with his last name, it doesn't sound vaguely obscene and born-in-a-barn-ish.

Second, my "overheard in Walmart" moment for the day:

Behind me is one seriously beat-looking couple, as in we're hardcore alcoholics/partakers of herb and nicotine beat, with an approximately 2-year-old girl in the cart. Said girl drops her baby doll on the floor in the frozen food aisle.

(presumptive) father says: "I'm gonna call social services on you for hurting your baby! They're gonna throw you in jail for messing up your baby's face!"

This is going to be a remarkably well-adjusted child. I can just tell. Give her another 15 years and she'll be a fixture in Chippewa County courtrooms....

Third, as I opened my door to get my mail, I saw 3 teens walking down the sidewalk. The one in the middle was on a skateboard. The two on either side had day-glo green casts on one leg: The one on the left had the cast on her left leg, and the one on the right on her right leg.

Somebody please explain the thrill of skateboards to me? It's always struck me as a terribly inefficient method of transport. Also, if I'm going to injure myself or die, I'd rather do it in something enclosed, not open-air.

Quite the interesting day....

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Now playing: Jamie Cullum - A Time for Love
via FoxyTunes