crash, bam, twist, kerplunk

are you a fan of car racing? do you think it's intriguing to watch car crashes? well, this one's pretty interesting -- the driver walked away, but it's hard to imagine how he managed that. to say nothing of the people on the other side of the barrier. i guess the gods were feeling favorable to everyone.

silly old bear...

upcoming movies that hep, good-natured, old people might enjoy: Super 8, Mr. Popper's Penguins, (the new) Winnie The Pooh, or Cowboys & Aliens.

it's almost here!

sci-fi is just about here. you can use a laser and printer to make clothes. well, a bikini, at least. this is so cool! it's almost like in the movies! (but gees, that model is way too skinny!)

free time

oh. and here's one more called seasons. it's nicely done (and succinct).

okay. i just can't quit watching. here's a short in which i really wondered what was going to happen.

music in black and white

do you like interesting, curious, strange, or totally weird music videos? if so, go here. if not, move along....

don't scratch it

so. you've had that little dark spot on your arm for awhile and you're not sure if you should go see a doctor about it or not? well, go ahead. might as well find out what's going on and do something about it.

if you're still not sure you really should go to the doctor, take a look at these pictures. you just really don't want to mess around with melanoma, and the other types need to be treated, too.

i have a couple of little places that i have checked every couple of years. they just say to keep an eye on it. hmmm, that makes me feel so much better??

what'd i say?

apparently the queen of england's husband is know for making very un-PC comments. if you've a yen for that kind of thing, read (and laugh) here.

make music!!!

THIS is absolutely the coolest thing in almost forever!!!  Google rocks!  And you can play it back! (on 06.09.11)

gees louise....

my cousin sent me this link -- http://www.wimp.com/vegetablemarket -- and i don't want to spoil anything, but you really need to see it to realize that some people live in crowded circumstances.

this is rich

you heard about the gal who went to a theatre in texas and was texting and they threw her out? excellent handling!

here's the article about what happened. the theatre people decided to use her phoned-in message to them (after the fact) as a way to let people know they don't tolerate that stuff. expletives not deleted.

way to handle the spoiled person! (and, if you're interested, here's a look at it from a business perspective.)

oh look! up in the sky ....

oh cool! we're going to be able to see the northern lights tonight! i'm not sure where i should go to get the best view, since they're supposed to be along the northern horizon and there are evergreens all around our neighborhood. i suppose i should just drive out into the country. of course that would be about 2 a.m. and border patrol would probably drive up and ask what i was doing. still, it would probably be worth it!

tolerance?

okay, we're supposed to be tolerant and even welcoming of the muslim religion, regardless of how different at least some of their tenets are? hmmmm, well, i'm having a hard time being tolerant of this idea of sex slaves.

i mean, nowhere does the article say this policy would work for women as well as men. what? oh, well, ahem, of course there are other objections, too, you know.

oh good grief

i think it's curious that the new-and-improved versions of ms updates are crap. i've got this ms office suite 2010 and it's got that new-fangled 'ribbon' on it rather than the old-fashioned toolbar. horrible. it's for mutton-headed people. you have to click all over the place to find what you need,and it's a time-waster, especially if the old way suited you just fine. i figure these new things are for whiners who want everything handed to them, but it really burns me up that it throws the rest of us to the wolves. 'we're just making it easier and more attractive to you' -- no you're not.

i don't know how far back any of you remember, but the computer we had back in 1995 had an excellent assortment of fonts. nowadays it's mostly crap. i mean, who in the universe needs calibri (which is the default for god's sake), batang, dotum, gungsuh, iskoola pota, leelawadee, nsimsun, shruti, or traditional arabic? get that shit off my computer and give me decent fonts i can use and play with. what good does it do to have a bunch of foreign-sounding fonts that look a lot alike in their milquetoast way?

just more of the business people thinking they know what's best for us, and that makes for a very unimaginative nation of people. not good. not good at all.

see and hear

so. you sit outside at night in your yard in the big city, look up at the stars and think, wow -- there are so many. but what you don't realize is that light pollution from the city lights is really obstructing your view of the sky.

if you've never been fortunate enough to look at the midwestern sky, out in the country, at night then you'll be awed by the videos this guy has put together.  enjoy. (and listen to the music, too)

it's just wrong

this is typical of the kind of crap that happens anymore in this country: since i lost my hard drive, i had a new one put in and a new ms office set of suites. i've always customized my programs so that the stuff i use most is at my fingertips. i also often go to the explorer tree to find things quickly or refresh my memory about something.

in this new setup, however, the 'tree' is all clogged up with crap that is simply annoying and unimportant to me. and for the first time when i look at 'properties', i can see it is set up to not let me change something. it says i need permission. WTF?!! so i asked my computer guy about it and he said microsoft got tired of people messing things up and blaming them, so they made it so you can't mess things up.

that just totally pisses me off. i've always been able to look at and change things, but overnight i can't. there's something wrong with the idea that a group of people are messing with things so everyone should be closed out. i've seen that attitude before and it's just disgusting. someone is afraid to penalize a few wrong-doers, so they shut something down for everyone. that's chicken. and lazy. and makes all of us into babies that have to be taken care of and protected for our own good.

that's a terrible paradigm and one that's frightening, too. i'm not sure where the following paragraph originally came from, but it certainly seems to accurately spell out the rise and fall of a country like ours:

The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

little ones

the husband and i just watched babies. i wanted to see it when it first came out, but it just didn't happen. that's actually probably a good thing though -- i laughed uproariously when hattie's dad put her on the slide and she rode her little car-thing down the slide and on away down the park until she upended into a sandpit. i don't know why i thought that was so funny. but anyone at the theatre would have given me really dirty looks and maybe called the cops thinking i was a child abuser.


that little episode aside, gosh! the husband and i are amazed that anyone in mongolia or namibia survives. or that their family jewels do, at the very least. what living conditions they have!! it wasn't unusual for the little boy in mongolia to wander among the cows, pants-less. and the kids in namibia were forever sitting in the dirt, pants-less. and the flies!


i'm just very very glad i had my kids where i did and that we have lived the way we have. blessed are we!

deliver this where?

Spaceport America, New Mexico. ever been there? ever heard of it? it's a place they're building from the ground up as the facility to launch ordinary (paying) people into space. richard branson is committed to the project, but everyone's wondering if the state's new republican governor will support it like the previous democrat did. the project has run into problems, of course, and i hope that's not how things will always work with this operation. someone needs to continue forward with a space effort and my hat's off to these intrepid visionaries.

i'm off!

FINALLY.

there's a company in new zealand who has developed a jetpack which can carry a person aloft. i'm excited about this since it was something all us young kids thought was really cool when we'd read/see/hear about it in sci-fi stories. more power to creative minds!

was it halloween?

did you see the new 'Area 51' theory? apparently the russians did it. that's a curious thought and believeable to me. what's funny is this quote: "In a novel twist, Clifford Clift of the Mutual UFO Network told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the linkage to German aerospace technology was too tenuous to be believed." ha. haha. hahahahahaha...... (rofl)

take cover!

if you aren't familiar with tornadoes and the damage they can do, take a look at these pictures. i was impressed with #13 -- it just mowed everything down. the rest of them are pretty disheartening. we have been blessed to not experience a tornado.

pretty!

if you like looking at pictures of the night sky, go here.

haha, haha ... huh?

here's an interesting website if you want to keep in touch with what the younger generation thinks. i got a kick out of a lot of the comics.

okay, okay, there was, uhh, one i didn't get.

and this website is very cute. i may have to bookmark it.

and this one will take some looking into. i particularly liked #363.

twirly, twirly

the husband is absolutely not a fan of beards or mustaches. there are a lot of beards around which i think are unimpressive, but sometimes i see one which looks good.

mustaches can be right (my dad, mr. poirot) or they can be dumb.

this slide presentation shows mustaches and beards which ... well, you'll have to look and see what you think of them. for me, some of them are right. and some of them .....

what price health?

i have felt stressed lately. not happy with things at work, and very not happy with losing my hard drive and everything which went with it. there have been other things -- i started using a treadmill at work and was really enjoying it until i realized it was making my body (the lymphedema) swell up, i was enjoying playing some games until it started affecting my computer, i haven't been happy with my bed for quite awhile, i get frustrated listening to the husband talk about the unfair things at his work.
it reminded me that before i was diagnosed with cancer i had experienced three or four major adverse life events. the stress i've felt in the last 10-12 months seems to be similar to those previous feelings. you just never know when it comes to your health, but i'm not looking forward to another round of chemo.

and i could retreive the info on my dead hard drive but it would cost between $2,000 and $10,000. the husband scoffs at the idea of paying that money. but i have to wonder .... if it relieved some of my stress, maybe lessening the possibility of a new cancerous situation, wouldn't it be worth it?

i want one!

if you were going to get some land and put a house on it, what better than to put one of these? i've looked at different types of modular houses and usually they're very expensive. and, yes, usually more expansive than these tiny homes, but gees, character-on-arrival!
i think i'll take three!

not very convenient

i have come back from the dead. actually, it was my hard drive that died. and it did not come back.

for those of you who have never experienced a dead hard drive, you cannot appreciate my angst this past month. i lost more than 120 passwords, more than 800 book titles, and more than 1600 music titles. to say nothing of my short stories, e-mail addresses, recipes, pictures, pretty much all of my life for the past 6 or 7 years.

so now i start the painful recontruction of said life. arrggghh..... i am probably going to be fussy for awhile. baby me.

the bad guys are still out there

as if there wasn't enough reason to dislike banks, here's another one: many of them are not complying with the Truth in Savings Act. they aren't telling us ahead of time about the cost of doing business with them. good grief. let's just close down the ones who aren't complying. what's the problem??

another dimension

3-D without special glasses? iPad is working on it. it's kinda intriguing, but seems a little limited right now. but hey, that's always the way it is in the beginning. anyhow, check this out and see what you think. i usually watch stuff like this with the sound off, so maybe they said something important. i dunnoh.

be underground where the aliens can't get you

do you have an extra $900,000 that you want to spend on a condo which is underground for when the aliens get here? if so, then you need to read this article.

houston ... we've got a problem

did you see the cool logo that google has today because of the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight? it's pretty cool! pretty disgusting that we haven't done much else in the last 50 years though. i mean, come on, we go up in space, we walk on the moon, and we build a space station. that's it? something got derailed somewhere.

bored? depressed? read this...

i was curious about the article talking about the space station and space junk. so i started reading it and... whoa! totally cracked me up! if you want a really good laugh, check it out.

wheeee ... uh ...

back to the skiing thing -- this looks like fun!! and this is a quick-look of it.

it's one of those things that if i were younger and had learned how to ski, i would totally love going off and doing that stuff. the fact that i'm afraid of heights might not have stopped me. after all, there was one time when i went up to snoqualmie pass to cross-country ski (no, i wasn't good at that either) and i decided to take the chair lift up because it was a sunny day and the lift looked like fun.

until i got to the top. it was pretty clear to me that i wasn't going to ski down. so i waited an hour for the next lift and rode it down. hanging on for dear life all the way. it was funny *blush*.

what are they thinking....

speaking of the budget, here are a couple of quotes:

"House Republicans intend to pass a 2012 budget in the coming week that calls for sweeping changes in the federal health programs for the elderly and needy families, and even deeper cuts in domestic programs to gain control over soaring deficits."

and:

"Unless we act soon, government spending on health and retirement programs will crowd out spending on everything else, including national security. It will literally take every cent of every federal tax dollar just to pay for these programs."



does anyone in congress ever consider cutting back the military and bringing troops home, rather than cutting domestic programs? i'm a little tired of supporting programs overseas when there are so many problems here. to say nothing of the illegal immigrant stuff. to say nothing of the sweet perks the members of congress have voted themselves which are held apart from any cut-back.

let's take a look at those kinds of things to reduce our tax burden instead of taking the knife to health and retirement. honestly, the fox thinks everything will be fine if he just kills all the chickens.

things change

well, fu ... sh ... cr .... dangit! it seems the $$ issue is fixed for now and i need to go to work on monday as usual. but i was soooooooo looking forward to being a dirty bum!

duuuhn, duh-duh duh, daaaaaaaaahh

i'm on furlough. i think. if the big bad boys in congress haven't solved the $$ problem, i am off-work until whenever. do i mind that? you've got to be kidding. i have pants to hem, books to read, a patio to make comfy, couches to lay around on, late nights to keep. i'm all grins.

i do mind that we have idiots in congress, but that's a whole issue fraught with anger, frustration, and incivility.

how-to see tiny

i forgot to say that if you're curious about seeing a chip and trying to find a message, this article gives a little more info. click on the circuit board with the red square and you'll have a picture of a full chip with circuits -- the tiny message is highlighted.

hee, hee ... a whole new world we didn't even realize was there.

teeny tiny coolness

and speaking of tiny things, this article was very interesting. even if you aren't very computer savvy, you are probably aware that the chips inside a computer are pretty small. and they have very small circuits and semiconductors on the chips. but did you realize that if there's any blank space on a chip that mischievous computer geek chip-makers can lay out their sense of humor?

you probably won't search out any humor laying around on your own computer chips, so take a look at this article and click on 'view all' so you can see them and go back to them and wonder at them. it's pretty neat and i have to think that if i were doing this job, that i would come up with stuff to put on the chips, too. i mean, way cool!

little bitty movies

i've seen a number of stop-action shorts in my life, and mainly i'm left thinking about the hours involved in making tiny moves, taking the shot, making more tiny moves, taking the shot. it must be painstaking.

this 7-minute short, however, is so absorbing that i didn't give tiny moves a single thought. you really have to see it -- a ski-resort in jackson hole. it's just so well-done ... litte bitty trees, little bitty people, little bitty building and mountains and ski lifts. the whole thing is riveting.

spoiler alert: it's real people.

healthy -- yay!

i just ran across an interesting article -- the rankings of the health of all the counties in the country. my county is really healthy -- #6 of 39, my older son's is a touch less -- #12 of 39, and my younger son's is number one -- #1 of 32.

i need to get ready for work, but later i want to peruse this site more and see what exactly they're talking about. how healthy is your county?

short-sighted, greed- and ego-driven stupidity

honestly, you just have to shake your head when you read about nuclear power. obama is pushing for more nuclear plants in this country, calling them a necessity (2 new ones are soon going to be built in georgia) and yet acknowledging there are problems (e.g., storage and disposal of nuclear waste).

in light of the problems in japan the last x-days, there can't be any doubt that there are many problems with this technology. "we don't have a lot of experience with this," says one guy. well, duh. and yet, let's insist on going ahead with plans even though they have problems and are missing solutions. after all, we'll figure it out at some point, right? let's not count on it.

there's even an article which calculates the earthquake risk of u.s. plants. the one with the biggest potential for trouble isn't in california -- it's in new york.

but really, after looking back at all the times that man has tried to improve on nature and totally messed it up (like, bringing in kudzu to the u.s. to control soil erosion and having it run out of control, or bringing in a toad in australia to control the sugar cane beetle and the toad becoming a bigger, poisonous problem), how can anyone with half a brain assume that nuclear power is a good answer? only after solutions to the obvious huge problems had been found, would i consider the technology might not be suspect. but we're not there yet, guys. not by a long shot.

oh, look at the boats .... no, don't look

and if you want something different .... go here. some of her stuff is (ahem) really different.

you know, you have to wonder .... what would one's sex life be like if we'd been born in another country. america is just so repressed.

a different way of thinking about it

So .... do you like these?

Daddy Long Legs

A Pair of Lovers

We Were Made for Each Other

Well then, you'll like all of these!  And you can find more on his blog.

sorta like pig latin ....

oh wow, this is beyond cool! have you seen these guys? i've never heard of them, but that doesn't mean anything.

watch this video first -- it's a riot, whether you have the sound on or not. then watch this one, which is the making of the other one. they're singing backwards!!! hilarious!

spring forward, fall all over the place

personally i think daylight savings time is stupid. the whole thing just suddenly appeared one day and i've never reconciled myself to it. (you go, arizona!) it's a lot like the metric system, only we were able to head them off on that one.

regardless, this article is interesting. and be sure to read the part about yawning. i was wide-awake until i got done with it.  :)

bring it on!

oh goody. there's a new movie (just shown at sxsw) which is a sci-fi thriller dealing in parallel worlds. it looks great and as much as i don't really care for jake gyllenhaal, i want to see it. it's called Source Code and it's directed by the same guy who did Moon. i didn't want to see that one since it sounded sad and frustrating, although the performance by sam rockwell is supposed to be beyond superb, but i'm really curious about this one. the director for both, duncan jones, is david bowie's son. whooooooaaa .... what must that have been like?

earthquakes and tsunamis and melting ... oh my!

a partial meltdown is underway?? what in the world does that mean for all the rest of us? i've never really bought into the nuclear thing. humans are notorious for screwing up nature and anything else laying around so it's a given that someday at some point someone is going to somehow mess up things nuclear. of course, who counted on it being mother nature? still .... you'd think someone would have thought about that possibility. let's just hope they're able to get things under control before more lives are lost locally or abroad. those people in japan are having a terrible time!

new book

i've been trying to buy the new book, Delivered to Eternity by Laura Yirak, and can't get it done. since we don't have a kindle, i downloaded the app 'kindle for pc' last night and it self-registered. but when i tried to buy it, the site said we didn't have any applications to play it on. so i figured it needed time to get its records straight and i tried again this morning, but it's still saying the same thing. i went through all the info the amazon site gives about the kindle for pc, but the information isn't the same as what my app shows. good grief. so i finally sent them an e-mail about it. who knew it would be so hard to spend money?!

moms and mars

and then there's Mars Needs Moms. i don't know about that one -- it looks like it's not quite as much my style as Rango. still .... it might be good. i guess i'll see it when it's at netflix.

wild western

did i already mention Rango? i saw it billed as an animation for adults, so i watched a couple of clips. this one is pretty dang good.

woo, hoo!!!

the daughter-in-law's book will be available tomorrow on amazon!!!

buy it!! you'll like it!! it will pull you right in to several story lines!!

look for Delivered to Eternity, An Alesta the Vampire Book by Laura Yirak.

you can't go wrong!

if someone had done that to my kids .....

did you read about the father who vows to kill his son's murderer when the murderer's released from prison 12 yrs before the end of his sentence because he's had 'good behavior'?

reading about it was just disgusting. what was rhode island thinking to put this guy in jail for 40 yrs anyhow? he killed a little boy and ate his flesh. the guy is a total sickoid and letting him loose in society is unjustifiable.

in all the articles i read, there was only 1 comment where someone said the guy should be given a chance. oh come on -- take off your rose-colored glasses. how old are you anyway? and what's your religion?

i agreed with the rest of the comments.

repeating and repeating and repeating ....

my maternal grandfather was supposed to have been a sort of math wizard. i, on the other hand, missed out on a semester of math when we moved, and never recovered. so even though i know that math has some beautiful things (tessellations, mandlebrot sets), i usually stay away from it if at all possible.

now .... i discovered this little thing about pi. it is three-plus delightful minutes and i wish you the joy of listening to it.

so silly

if you want to take 2+ minutes and watch something funny/silly, watch this -- jennifer aniston's sex tape (sic).

up and up again

and then there was the group who floated a house off into the sky with 300 helium-filled balloons. they wanted to see if they could duplicate the movie Up!

of course, the house was not a typical house and there were two hot-air balloon pilots installed within, but still ..... each of the balloons was 8' tall and took a whole tank of helium, but still ..... only 300 balloons? no, i don't care for a ride, thanks.

she could be a great, great, great, great, great, great, great .....

did you read about the 23 yr old woman who is a grandmother? she gave birth when she was 13 and her daughter gave birth when she was 11. they are gypsies and getting married young is normal for them.

M-class sun events

oh goody -- we're supposed to be able to see the northern lights tomorrow night and the next night. apparently it's a Kp=4 forecast. i know, i know -- it sounds like something i would make up, but no. at that designation, we should be able to see it along with people in spokane wa, great falls mt, grand forks nd, sioux falls sd, minneapolis mn, oshkosh wi, grand rapids mi, and ottawa canada.

oh pooh -- every single time we hear of a good chance of seeing it, we have cloud cover. we will have clouds and/or rain for the next 7 days. dangit!

her book

my daughter-in-law has written a book. she's never written one before. she tried to contact an agent, but didn't have much luck, then realized she could publish online.

i'm not sure how she's going to do it, but her mom and i have given her tips, i've done some proofing on it, she has a cover and artwork, and she's decided on a title: Delivered To Eternity, an Alesta the Vampire book.

the story is great! it has several things going on and is very well written. it's hard for me to realize it's her writing. not that it's HERS, but that she's never done anything like this before and it's just very very good.

i'll let you know when it's available.

and another one

on the other hand, i could probably afford the tata pixel. its 'zero turn drive' is a kick. and it doesn't look too shabby either.

this is the one

i have just found my ideal car -- the renault captur. it is so beyond any expectations of a cool car i might have envisioned, that i can hardly stand it. the fact that it is not in production, and probably would cost more than i could possibly afford, are minor details. i am totally in love.

how long???

let's talk about snakes. i know they have value and some people enjoy them as pets. i don't really care for them. i've always been terrified of water moccasins, probably because of mis-information when i was young, and rattlesnakes surely have a good side.

regardless, i'd rather live some place that didn't have snakes, than i would some place that did. take florida, for instance. i wouldn't want to live there at all, but then i saw this picture which went with this article and then this one.

and now i think, florida? no f-ing way in hell.

how does he do that and keep himself secret?

so, you've heard of banksy, right? i have seen his name lately, as i scroll past this headline or that, but finally i decided to check him out and see what the buzz was about.

go here to get a quick view of the guy. you can also go to google images to see more of his work. it sounds like he's quite the character and some of his stuff is really great. some of it left me wondering what the deal was, though. regardless, now you know about him and may even know more than your friends do.

there are many paths to success.

which one is the good guy?

we used to watch a lot of movies. i've gone to reading all the time, the last few years, and don't watch movies as often although the husband still watches them all the time.

yesterday he said he had one i would enjoy so we sat down with supper and watched Knight and Day. it was pretty entertaining, but i thought cameron diaz was wrong for the part. well, she was probably right for the part because she played her character well, but she's gotten too old, or had too much face surgery, or something because i kept being distracted by the look of her face. it was lumpy, or fat, or old, or something. i never could put my finger on it and hey, i don't have anything against age, but if an actor's appearance detracts from the role he/she's playing, maybe another person would be better. after all, there's no dearth of actors.

the little things

dear diary, i've probably never told you this before, but getting old sucks. it's not just that you're getting older but it's the little things. a new wrinkle to mar your soft skin. unexplained skin tags and moles that turn up. age-spots that aren't nearly as cute as freckles. your gorgeous hair thinning out in a most horrifying way. a hair on your chin getting coarse and obnoxiously long. your eyesight playing pranks. your legs not wanting to lift up your body after you've bent down. your teeth getting discolored which must be from the pop you drink since you've never smoked.

it's just sad, i tell you. sad and bad. and figuring out ways to handle the little things is a challenge extraordinaire, although i suppose a person does best by just accepting it and dealing with the reality. so, where's the instruction guide?

my brood

MOS and his family visited us last weekend. it was soooooo nice. the grandaughter is almost 3 1/2 and the grandson is14 months. they are so cute and smart, of course, and delightful handfuls to have around. we enjoy their parents too, it goes without saying, and their visits always make me wish we lived closer to them.

at the same time i wish we lived closer to MYS. it's a tough deal for a parent who enjoys her kids so much.

i know! they can all move in on my block! that'd work! well, for me, anyhow.

which color do you like?

MYS's fiancee is wanting to buy a motor scooter. it's an  inexpensive option for them and, in their small town, should work out well.  they told me where a dealer is and i checked out the website. too fun!! seeing the scooters again reminds me that we had considered getting one years ago and, really, it might be nice to have one now. after all, we live in a small town, too.... what? oh, yeah. we have quite a bit of rain. oh well, it's a neat trip down fantasy lane to check them out.

here it comes and there it goes....

oh, this is cool! from up in the air, watching a shuttle launch -- what a great perspective! it got me excited about the space program all over again!

these drugs don't make you look better

do you know anyone who needs to be warned away from drugs? the multnomah county, oregon sheriff's department has made a new documentary which they're hoping will make an impressions on kids. and believe me, it's yuck. i am soooooooo glad i never wanted to get in on the drug scene. take a look, but not while you eat.

what's that red mark?

i forgot to mention the drama that MOS had a couple of months ago. he has to fly to north carolina every-once-in-a-while for his job and after he came home from one trip, he awoke one morning with bites all over.

with all the hype about bedbugs, super-defense and pro-action took place immediately. they called a number of exterminators before deciding on someone who sounded like he knew what to do, then proceeded to clear out possessions and clothing. i drove down and took care of the kids while son and dau-in-law worked to get things under control, then she took the kids and evacuated to her parents so the exterminator could come in the next day.

when i got home, i took off my clothes in the garage and stuffed them into the trash -- jeans, shirt, shoes, socks, coat, everything. the husband vacuumed the car, then we figured we'd done what we could and left the rest to nature.

as it turned out, the exterminator couldn't find anything at all to confirm the worst and eventually MOS decided it was a false alarm. the husband thought maybe our son had gotten  into a nest of spiders somehow, and that the bites were from them. all i can say is, thankfully it wasn't bedbugs. that is strictly a nightmare scenario!!

those were the days...

the husband said, "i was watching some old commercials on a video i got at the library, and they had a commerical with ozzie and harriet advertising a gas air conditioner." "gas," i said, "how the hell did they fill it up?" "it was natural gas," he said. "oh," i said.

the better to see you with, my dear ....

nothing changes in the world of vision except the shape of eyeglasses frames, right? well, maybe not right. this article talks about a new type of glasses which YOU focus depending on how far away your chosen object is. interesting concept and hey, i totally love the shape! bring it on!!

it's the force ....

and now .... some outtakes from little darth vader's ad.

where does the violence come from?

you know, i just can't help wondering, where did we go wrong? what is it with the crass, hateful, hurtful stuff that's going on with our society these days? i don't watch t.v. and it's probably a very good thing or i'd always be throwing up. i used to think all this brainless stuff started with roseanne, but the husband and i talked the other day and decided it really started with all in the family.  archie was a jerk. and people loved watching his show. *sigh*

so have you seen the commercials from the superbowl? there are a couple of sites you can go to and check them out. i like this site, probably because you can rate them. and believe me, there are A LOT of zeroes there. go check it out. the lowest of the low (according to me) were Pepsi (several were violent, WTF?!!), Doritos (just gross! except i like the fish food one), GoDaddy (they were about sex. and were stupid), Teleflora (disgustingly dumb!), Snickers, Staples, Chatter.com, Mini, Homeaway.com (encouraging infant abuse?), Stella Artois (puh-leeze), Fox, and Wendy's (slapping strangers??).

but be watching for these which (i thought) ranged from pretty good to great: E-Trade (cute), Bridgestone (the beaver, but not reply all), CarMax (pretty darn good), Best Buy (droll), Careerbuilder (so silly), Chevrolet (eco and tommy, but not glee), and the best - Volkswagon's little Darth Vader.

i wonder about the age group of the people (in their respective companies) who made the decisions to go forward with these commercials. were any of them older than 55? i'm just curious.

grand kudos to google!!!

OMG! google has completely outdone itself today!!! you know how they have their logo done up in a particular style every once-in-a-while? well, today it's jules verne! quick! before the day gets away! go to google.com and see it! it's even interactive!!!

what to watch for ....

gnomeo and juliet!!

new fun!

i'm so excited for MYS!! they found a great apartment and have moved in. his car made it down there just fine and they have it now, too. he's getting things squared away at work and will soon be up-to-his-elbows in projects. they're having fun learning about life in los alamos, and i love hearing them talk about it. such an exciting adventure!!!

darth has the force

the superbowl's not my thing except maybe for some of the commercials, after. but this one's out ahead of time -- very cool!!

sooooooo soft!

i just had a nice experience with an online shopping company! i once bought a set of towels which were made from bamboo -- they are sooooooo soft and have become my favorite towels. so i went online to see if i could find more (they're kassatex) and i ended up at cassadecor. so i ordered a set and while i was at it, i ordered a set of sheets (because they were on sale) which were also bamboo, plus some pillow cases.

the box arrived today -- all seven things. PLUS an eighth! i thought, oh no -- they accidently got something else in my order, and then worried about needing to contact them and tell them about it. as it turns out, when i was unfolding and clipping the tags off things, i saw that the two pretty little kitchen towels which i hadn't ordered were a gift from the company for shopping with them!! well! how nice! and you can bet i'll shop with them again! here's the link to the wonderful towels.

spring cleaning ....

have you ever heard of frazzil ice? i had no knowledge of this trick up nature's sleeve until my cousin sent me this link to a very cool (so to speak) phenomenon. maybe we should have a family reunion there in late march or early april.

but what does it mean?

it looks like change is afoot at work. at least in our little department. word is that in another part of the country, our department got combined with two other sections of the agency. no info on what happened to the people in the new department, but it looks like we're going to be finding out, first-hand, how it'll work. it's just conjecture at this point, to us underlings anyhow, but it won't surprise me if the action does take place, and within the next few months. and why do i think it actually will happen? because last week someone from the field office was asking what kind of stuff i did in my job. when my boss mentioned the query, she said she had told the big boss a couple of things to add to whatever list he had. 'good grief,' i said, 'two things? nobody has any idea what i do -- why didn't anyone ask me?' this was just before i went home, of course. the next morning i e-mailed her a three-page list of things i do on a regular basis. and i KNOW there were things on there she'd forgotten i was doing.

it'll be interesting to see how they handle everything. are we going to be riffed? are they going to give our jobs to officers? are there so many people in the other sections that they will get rid of some of us and spread the work around to the rest? it's long been know that our office has the most work/vehicles/people-we're-responsible-for of any office in the region, and we do our work with the least number of staff. like the big boss says, life isn't fair. i'm curious to see how it all plays out. and i just keep repeating to myself the mantra that the universe is looking out for my best interests.

movie fun

if you're in the mood to take a ride in the way-back machine, take a look at this. it talks about the best special effects in sci-fi/fantasy, and it's a lot of fun. i never think about 2001-a space odyssey anymore, or the matrix, or ghostbusters, or hellboy. and i never saw some of those horror flicks, i mean, yuck! but this is a fun half hour or so and brings back memories of times not that long ago (20 yrs, 30 yrs, etc).

for better or worse, getting older makes everything seem like yesterday.

preggers?

are you trying to get someone pregnant, but just can't seem to get the job done? maybe you should make some adjustments in the way you deal with the environment. prevention magazine has some tips, e.g. never touch a cash register receipt, avoid canned food like the plague, turn off your heated car seat, and always go organic. there are a couple more, but really, it seems like good advice for all of us. well, except for the heated car seat ... those of us without testicles should be okay.

i love you but i hate YOU

and then there is the hormone which promotes feelings of love and trust. recently it was discovered it also seems to reinforce bigotry. i don't know whether to be surprised or laugh.

i'm going to do what i want and the heck with everyone else

have you noticed, lately, how many people are rude or downright nasty? when everyone gets tired of being cut out of line, or taken advantage of, or getting a ticket while others whiz on by, then it's really going to get bad.

honestly, whatever happened to decency and goodness and courtesy? there's a lot more of that kind of thing in the midwest (north dakota south to texas and a state or two on either side) than there is in the pacific northwest or the east and southeast.

but the latest thing that caught my eye was ms. huffington who talked on her cell phone the whole time she was on the plane -- takeoff, flight, landing. what about the rules? i, for one, am really sick of people who just decide they don't have to obey the rules. one person gets away with it, and then another, then the whole domino thing happens. and if anyone objects, he is vilified and reviled! all this 'me, me, and only me' is going to bring this country down. damn.

at least the vote showed that most people didn't approve of her display. that's reassuring.

dream house

oh god i love this place!! click on the 'see all 25 pictures' and try to imagine what it would be like to live there! it was made (built?) in 1969 (good year!) out of chicken wire, burlap, and polyurethane. it's a 2-bedroom, 3 bath, 4000 sq ft place on 8+ acres with lots of trees and blue skies for $194,000-- what's not to like??!!!

insurance in other countries

i don't remember how i stumbled onto this 'women only car insurance' ad, but it's interesting. and the second one is frustrating as well as interesting. then this third ad is just great! i laughed so much and i'm not sure why. i mean, you've got to be proud of her -- she worked up her courage and accomplished her purpose.

so ... enjoy. or not.

look out, look out, look.... *splat!* and items suddenly quadruplicate....

the picture at the beginning of this article is pretty amazing -- so much junk we have left in space to fly around our world! good grief -- will we NEVER learn??!!!

they've been dying without 'em for years

oh this is rich. we are to belive that long-term care insurance is good for us? right. this article can't seem to figure out why more people don't buy it. well, let's see .... how much is top insurance management getting paid? have insurance companies ever screwed people? are premiums high and do they keep raising them? do insurance companies have dictates which should really be under the perview of doctors?

so, duh. people are sick of insurance companies and want to be left to die without the aggravation.

christmas music

well, now ... this is pretty cool. i've never heard of the north point iband, but check this out.

i love the bells, in fact the whole first thing was very great! i didn't care for the second one -- it pointed up how much better real instruments are. but the third one was very fun! all of it done with iphones and ipads. and the little robot guy was waaay cool!

enjoy!

i think it's in ontario

say you were eating at a shopping mall and music broke out ..... (thanks, sister-in-law!)

giddy-up

you've got to read this really funny account of a guy stealing food and making his get-away in a motorized shopping cart.

getting old is partly adventure and partly horror movie. i went to the eye doctor the other day because i had noticed, a number of months ago, that one particular ‘floater’ was always there in the same place. i didn’t go immediately because i wasn’t in any discomfort, it’s so hard to get away from work that i wanted to roll it up with a regular visit, and because the insurance company wasn’t going to pay anything unless it was more than a year since i’d gone previously.

after the eye doctor VERY thoroughly checked things out, he said it looked like my retina may have torn a little, but that it looked like my body was fixing it. he wanted me to come back in 3-4 months so he could see the progress.

he mentioned that if a bunch of floaters showed up, or one showed up persistently, or if a dark curtain covered half my vision, or anything strange happened, that i was to see him immediately. he also mentioned that several years ago, cataracts had started, but they hadn’t progressed.

do you know what this means? i’ve been moved out of the people-who-will-live-forever category into the people-who-might-die-someday category. i mean, these eye problems are things which happen to old people who do eventually die. honestly, it’s just amazing to think that includes me! who would have thought?!

computer weather

cloud computing. it's been a buzz-word for several years and now it's being adopted by the federal government. gsa is going forward with google and usda is going forward with microsoft. i know the gov't is trying to cut costs, but doesn't this seem like a right-hand/left-hand type of scenario? maybe they're trying to stay away from a monopoly situation, and maybe it doesn't matter, but big problems usually start out small.

but i guess the thing that really bothers me is this statement:  "But are there any security risks to moving to the cloud? One observer, noting that cloud platforms can host data servers on foreign soil, raised the specter of data being stored on third-party servers based outside the United States."

gsa doesn't seem concerned though:  "But Coleman told Nextgov that 'Information security is about much more than where your server sits,' because, regardless of location, all of the security controls in the contract are still monitored."

oh, of course. my fears are unreasonable. the security controls will be monitored. *sigh* will they never learn?

gsa has been, and continues to be, at the top of my list. of dunderheads.

amazing diversity

some republican comments about palin:

former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough: "What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a resume as thin as Palin's would flirt with a presidential run?"


Mark McKinnon, a former campaign adviser to Republicans Bush and McCain: wrote that he admires Palin's "tenacity, her verve, her moxie and her pluck" but believes she is "perhaps the only Republican nominee who could lose in 2012."


Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak: "I think what's most worrisome is the uncertainty. She hasn't played the game at the national level like the others."

Jennifer Cross: "We just really like her. We think that she's down to earth, she's a mother and she's very intelligent no matter what others may say."

dumb bunnies

what do you think of this wikileaks thing? frankly, i think it's bad. i mean, anyone who discloses information like they've been doing should be thrown in jail.

FOIA was put in place to  legally get information, and there have always been moles and informants. but, gees, to get and distribute information which threatens our safety and way of life? i mean, does anyone really think these types of documents shouldn't exist? if so, you have no connection to reality!

trying to make everything the government does totally available to the public is just idiotic. you cannot run a large country by making every single thing public knowledge. do the terrorists operate that way? hell no. and have they been effective? pretty damn. do other countries honestly tell us what they're doing? hahaha.

transparency is a nice ideal, but get real. and people who expose sensitive and classified information should be allowed to rot in jail. without tv, books, computers, or yard time.

ah so ...

the husband and i went for thai tonight for supper. yeah, i know, we don't really like thai. i mean, lemongrass, cucumber, coconut, curry, and weird stuff like that -- yuck!!

but when we go there i get pad garlic. i mean, GARLIC!  yum!!! it's really great and it's fixed with chicken and spinach. just tooooo fabulous!

but that means i can't kiss the husband for awhile. he hates garlic.

turn here, no ... wait!

did you see how becoming a slave to gps might lower your brain function as you get older? i've just never gotten around to doing the gps thing. maybe my spiritual guide was keeping me away from something which wouldn't be good for me. i've worried along the way that maybe i was slipping behind in the 'knowledge of technology' area, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing. besides, i like doing the 'map' and 'getting lost' thing.

little green men? no.

it's amazing to me that these scientists are awed by their project of forcing microbes to assimilate arsenic rather than phosphorus. they have concluded, "If the claim holds up, it would lend weight to the idea that life as we know it isn't the only way life could develop."

well, duh. ego-and ethno-centrism at its finest.

i've always wondered when i've heard 'life couldn't exist there. it's (too cold, there's no oxygen, there's no water, there's no .....).' i mean, with the variety we have right here on earth, how could intelligent people NOT think life could appear in a variety of ways. *sheesh*

ca-na-ba-ru

able to last through extreme heat or cold! able to be used in shock absorbers or space craft! it's SUPer rubber!

entertainment!

some movies i think i want to see:

True Grit
Cowboys and Aliens
Tron: Legacy
Gulliver's Travels
The Tourist

no place like home

if you want to see a collection of interesting pictures of different places on our planet, go here. some of the pictures are interesting, some are cool, some are curious, some are icky, and some are beautiful.