Thursday, January 29, 2009

He's Been Gone Three Years

today.

I miss you every day. You were the best friend I ever had.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Possibly the Greatest Spam email Ever Received:

First off, was the subject line, which read: Last and Final Notice. Nothing like redundancy to grab one's eye.

Then there was this:

Attention,
I will like to start with reminding you that your unclaimed inheritance is still lurking around, up till now I am amazed at the way you have ignored all the notice I have sent out to you. This message will be the last notice that I will be sending out to you.Upon the receipt of this mail I will want you to reconfirm to me your details and also tell me the reason why you have kept quiet all the while; I do believe you should have a logical answer to that. I also will like for you to know that I have some new developments on ground which I believe will be good news to you.I will advice that you do not abandon this message and respond as a matter of urgency so that we can get done with your claim.

Best regards
Michael Graham Associate Solicitor.
Tel: +447031997793
Tel: +447024053610

I have to admit to feeling a little bad about causing the rather peeved tone Michael has taken in this email. And I can't help but think I should have a logical answer to why I have kept quiet all the while. Guilt through spamming--how brilliant.


Monday, January 26, 2009

Cold, Damp, and Raw

here today, which is the weather I think we were supposed to get yesterday. Which is cool, because I spent the day hunkered down in my office, digging through the inbox. I think I made some progress, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Reckon I'll go heat up some vegetable soup and try to warm up the bones.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I'm an

Obama gal, if you were having some difficulty figuring that out.

Having said that:

Ohmigod Media, take a breath. The minute to minute play-by-play is a bit much. I joked to someone at work today that I fully expected to hear a report that 'President Obama awoke at 5:18 a.m. this morning and hit the snooze button for seven minutes' any day now.

So I couldn't help but laugh when Le Boyfriend said one of the news shows this morning 'reported' that the lights were on in the residence before dawn this morning.

Surreal much?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Joseph Lowery Rocks!

And that Obama guy sounds like he's got some sense, too.

Snow Day!

And it's actually snowing! Downside-we'll have to make this day up, probably on President's Day.

However, guilt-free taking in of the Inauguration!!

And how cool is Bravo for showing The West Wing all day.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I Believe

It has warmed up from a chilly 'colder'n a well digger's ass' to a balmy 'colder'n a witch's tit in a brass breastplate' here.

Off to set some furniture on fire for warmth.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

My School District

was hit with an almost one million dollar budget cut today.

Beats all hell out of me how we'll deal with it.

Our buildings are crumbling, we're being constantly pushed to upgrade technologies with limited infrastructure to support them, and, oh yeah, we do need to attempt to beat back the frontiers of ignorance.


ETA: Our illustriuous Governor sees the current situation as an 'opportunity to curb government spending and growth'. Because he's an idiot.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Congress Actually Does Something!

In an unusual Sunday session today, the Senate passed a Wilderness Protection Act that has been languishing for at least a year.

From the AP:

The measure — actually a collection of about 160 bills — would confer the government's highest level of protection on land ranging from California's Sierra Nevada mountain range to Oregon's Mount Hood, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. Land in Idaho's Owyhee canyons, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan and Zion National Park in Utah also would be designated as wilderness.
Besides new wilderness designations, the bill would designate the childhood home of former President Bill Clinton in Hope, Ark., as a national historic site and expand protections for dozens of national parks, rivers and water resources.
Reid said about half the bills in the lands package were sponsored by Republicans. Most had been considered for more than a year.
"I am happy that after months of delay we will finally be moving forward," Reid said.

This is the part that especially cracks me up:

The bill's chief opponent, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., denounced what he called Democratic bullying tactics.
"I am disappointed the Senate majority leader has refused to allow senators the opportunity to improve, amend or eliminate any of the questionable provisions in his omnibus lands bill," Coburn told fellow senators.

"When the American people asked Congress to set a new tone, I don't believe refusing to listen to the concerns of others was what they had in mind," Coburn said. "The American people expect us hold open, civil and thorough debates on costly legislation, not ram through 1,300-page bills when few are watching."
Coburn and several other Republicans complained that the bill was loaded with pet projects and prevented development of oil and gas on federal lands, which they said would deepen the nation's dependence on foreign oil.


Translation: Democratic bullying tactics-means Democrats have a majority and they're not afraid to use it.

Translation: Asked Congress to set a new tone-means we want you to actually do something.

Translation: Complained that the bill yada yada yada-means that it's loaded with someone else's pet projects and we didn't get what we want.

I'll call you a waaahmbulance.*

*A term that is fast becoming almost as annoying as 'in the tank'.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Here We Go

The 'Sarah Palin Whine-a-Thon' begins, wherein she blames sexism, class warfare, and that mean ole, center of the universe Katie Couric for her Epic Fail.

She's interviewed by John Zeigler, whose premise is that the librul Main Stream Media was in the tank* for Barack Obama. She comes across as poorly here as she did in almost every other one-on-one media encounter during the campaign. And now she's blaming this round of 'poor performance/creative editing' on Zeigler, who is ostensibly making a documentary to prove her premise.

I remember the first season of 'The Apprentice' with Omarosa-who came across as a bigoted, insulting snob who believed the universe revolved around her. After the program, when she wasn't America's darling, she blamed bad editing. One of the other contestants (eventual winner Bill Rancic, I believe**) astutely said the editors couldn't create film of her that didn't exist.


*Can we retire 'In the tank'...forever? Please??

**I'm suitably intellectually embarrassed that I remember this-with no help from the Internet-just pulled this info out of my head.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Resolutions

I haven't made any in a long time, but here's one I'm putting on the table for all and sundry:

I resolve to go cold turkey in regards to the political/news-ish sites and blogs I became re-addicted to over the course of the election. They serve no purpose except to get me worked up about crap that has almost no bearing on my day-to-day life.

In fact, I'm tempted to go cold turkey on the news such as it is-I mean, John Travolta's son passing away is a tragedy, but I don't think it should be the fourth lead story on the freakin' Sunday Today show.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Nixonland





Fair warning: This book will take over your life. Yes, Perlstein writes about events 40+ years ago, but I swear, you could have changed the candidate's names in the book to McCain & Obama & not noticed much of a difference.

I started it in August/September, put it down and picked it up again in November and finally! finished it just after Christmas. Le Boyfriend kept asking me what was taking so long, because he's seen me hoover up most books in a day or two.

This is one of those books you can't read straight through for many different reasons, the main one being it is soo fucking depressing to read how these opportunistic bastards went about their little games. Also it's about 750 pages long, not including the notes & the index.

While Perlstein leans Left, he doesn't lack perspective and points out when the Dems are venal, inept, and tone-deaf, usually all at once.

There are shades of the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections in this book. One could easily compare McGovern to John Kerry, and in fact, that's why I had to put it down during the height of the election season because it was as if the 1968 election was replaying itself word for word and it was messing with my head.

Of the many things I've taken away from this book, a few really stand out. Such as,there really is nothing new under the sun--when you read the quotes about fighting them over there to keep them off our shores & have to remind yourself that they're talking about those Godless Communists in Vietnam & not Al Qeada. Another is that David Broder is at the very least an idiot and quite possibly mentally handicapped.

Home

In a sense.

I'm back in Tinytown, from an extended visit with Le Boyfriend. He lives about five hours from me-and it's not an easy five hours. I think I've said here before that when we first began talking and I realized just where in Georgia he lived, I told him "Can't get there from here."

I got home mid-afternoon yesterday, after a stop in Augusta for lunch, unloaded the car & piled up here on the sofa to sort through the mail and other detritus that piled up over ten days. I finally made myself go to bed sometime around eleven last night, way past my usual bedtime. I think I just didn't like the idea of heading off to bed alone, after almost two weeks of sleeping with a loving, warm body next to me.

Today, this house is quiet, and not so much in a good way. It was so nice to have that company, that...companion in the house. As with my dear, late husband, we didn't need to be in the same room, on top of each other (literally or not so much) in order to be with each other.

He'll be here in two weeks, when I have a long weekend off from work. I'm looking forward to the different kind of quiet in the house.