Well, I've decided it's time to get serious about finishing a full length book. Because I still can't get the internet at home, using the material I've written and archived on this site is, at present, out of the question. So I've decided to assign myself a routine (I want to have the book on the campaign ready to shop to Publishers by late July-early August and have it ready to go immediately after the election). I can't measure my productivity in time spent at the computer each day, as 152 gam...
I hate telemarketers. But yesterday marked a new era in telamarketing for me. Fortunately, my remedial abilities in conversational Spanish pulled me through. I answered the phone and there was a bunch of shit I didn't understand. But I got the last part: "para informaccion, (something) nueve". OK. For information, press 9. We're good so far. A live operator comes on the line, says something I don't understand. I answer: "No Comprende. No Hablo Espanol. Habla Ingles?" After a pause: "No"...
First of all, I want to apologize to all the women I offended with my "panty-waist" comment. They don't deserve a stain like Bud Selig on their gender. But when I weighed it against "Pansy-ass", I decided that it would look better in the sidebar. Bud Selig suspended pitcher Randy Johnson for five games for throwing at a Cleveland batter in a game recently. Not for hitting him, mind you, but for throwing AT him, in obvious retaliation for Cleveland's pitcher hitting Yankees catcher Jorge Posad...
To my father: Thank you for abandoning me when I was young. By being a coward and eluding your responsibilities, you freed me from inheriting your self destructive tendencies and allowed me to become myself. Thank you for the child support checks never sent. By denying our family the money that would have given us a better lifestyle, you caused me to develop a solid work ethic by working to bring more income into the family as early as I could so that by the time I became an adult it was p...
As many regular readers know, I am a part time blogger. I blog from the library. Once upon a time, there was an unwritten rule that you didn't carry on loud conversations in the library. Thanks to cell phones, that time seems to be past. As I write this, there is a cell phone user sitting across from me, yakking away with a family member over mundane details I'd rather not be privvy to in someone I don't know at all. The library has a policy against cell phone use in the library, of course, b...
"I talk to the trees But they don't listen to me..." So, Darryl Hannah was caught up a tree (my take on that is different than you'd actually think...but you'll have to go to my blogspot site to check it out. I couldn't post it to JU when I wrote it so I posted to blogspot, and I try to wait a couple days before syndication). This makes the second celebrity tree climbing incident that has made headline news in the last couple of months (the first being Keith Richards, leadi...
IN LW's list of 50 facts that most people didn't know about her, she shared that she had dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, and later took her GED. I didn't drop out in the 10th grade (such an action was COMPLETELY unthinkable in my upbringing; the one value for which I will give my parents full credit), but it was at that point I pretty much quit trying. In my first semester of 10th grade, I was getting a failing grade in gym. For those of you who don't know, that's pretty much in...
Some time ago, I wrote an article on "the deaths that don't matter", noting that EVERY "body count" that has been released has focused on deaths in Iraq while virtually ignoring the conflict that continues in Afghanistan. I saw it continued on Memorial Day, when a church in the area listed military deaths in the "War on Terror" using only the deaths of those service men and women in Iraq, and it continues further today as the Pentagon announces 2,500 dead in Iraq. The servicemembers in Afghan...
It was a hot, dusty July day when I set out from my home in Oklahoma. I was supposed to be enlisting in the US Army, but a few short days prior, the recruiter had called and told me that the psychologist in Oklahoma City felt I had not fully dealt with my feelings regarding the death of my half brother 2 years earlier, and that I needed to wait awhile before enlisting. Not wanting to face my foster family with this quite embarrassing news (this was the first time in my life I had experienced fai...
When Jeff Mortensen came home one day last November, he was in a less than cordial mood. He had received a call from school about his son's bullying behavior, for the fourth time, and he was at a loss to explain how it happened. The family had always taught their children to love and respect others. Jeff shortly received an explanation that satisfied him. As he entered the home, he heard the hard driving metal soundtrack of another of his son's PS2 games. He immediately removed the console an...
When Jeff Mortensen came home one day last November, he was in a less than cordial mood. He had received a call from school about his son's bullying behavior, for the fourth time, and he was at a loss to explain how it happened. The family had always taught their children to love and respect others. Jeff shortly received an explanation that satisfied him. As he entered the home, he heard the hard driving metal soundtrack of another of his son's PS2 games. He immediately removed the console an...
I'll let the following Yahoo! News article speak for itself. Still think government subsidized disaster relief is a good idea? By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 14, 3:38 AM ET WASHINGTON - Houston divorce lawyer Mark Lipkin says he can't recall anyone paying for his services with a FEMA debit card, but congressional investigators say one of his clients did just that. if (window.yzq_a == null) document.write(" The $1,000 payment was just one example cite...
I hope y'all understand, I'm not being a poor sport in not having put up a "tagged" article, I'm just having a hard time coming up with five embarassing moments. So, to keep with the spirit of the tagging movement, I'm going to change the rules just a smidge to still give you a little bit of insight into who I am, but not burden you with some less than pleasant memories. This is about having a bit of fun, after all (I'll get in at least one embarassing moment, though, to keep with the whole spir...
It was bound to happen. When the government began creating a welfare state, it was inevitable that that mentality would be extended to insist on a middle class standard of living as a "right" that the government was obligated to provide to the poorest of the poor, at the expense of those who make more money. Not only is there no such right, such right was never intended by the founding fathers, and, in fact, has no place in a free society. Here are a list of some of the "rights" we DON'T ha...
With apologies to Cheap Trick, here's my comments on the current CSPI suit against KFC (for more info, see terpfan's blog): The food police, say "don't you eat that white bread". The food police, say "trans fats will knock you dead". The food police, theyre coming to arrest me, oh no. You know that talk is cheap, and those rumors aint nice. And when I open my fridge I dont think Ill survive the night, the night. cause theyre waiting for me. Theyre look...