Small town life . . . enough to make a shy, bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder
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Ask Questions for God
at the Blue Pyramid.
| PARENTAL |
| ADVISORY |
| CEMETERYGATES CONTAINS EXPLICIT LYRICS |
visited *loading* times
Happy New Year
I haven't made one resolution and I probably won't stay up until midnight, but Happy New Year's anyway! I did roast chicken and artichokes and peppers and onions with lemon and olive oil and herbs for dinner.
Vatican outraged
Nativity tableau at Madame Tussaud's waxwork museum featured David and Victoria Beckham as Joseph and Mary.
"This is worse than bad taste. It is cheap," an official Vatican source said.
But the Anglicans reassure us.
"God is not going to worry. He is going to cope - but it is a bit depressing."
Small town life
There's a new law in California that will require drivers to turn on their headlights when they use their windshield wipers. I saw an elderly client today and she asked me if I had heard about the law yet. At that point I hadn't. She told me that the law required drivers to turn on their windshield wipers whenever they turn on their headlights. She was very upset about that.
Being old's a bitch
A 94-year-old woman who won the Massachusetts lottery is suing to get her winnings in a lump sum. Instead of receiving payments for 20 years.
'"I would like the money so I can do what I want to do with it," said Outing, who said she wanted to make sure her relatives can afford a quality education. ''I think I'm entitled to it. I won. So I don't understand why they don't give it to me. They took my money, so they should give me what I got."
She also wants to visit Bermuda.
''I've got plenty to do with it," said Outing, who has already cashed one check and spent most of that fixing up the home where she has lived for the past 80 years.'
80 years? Now that's amazing.
Warning
On the Prehistoric Sea Monsters kit my daughter got (they're really triops). "Never drink water from the aquarium. Do not eat the fish food, sand or fish eggs."
Just plain strange
I never knew e-bay has a funeral and cemetery section. There are cemetery plots, markers, urns, and headstone cleaners for sale. As well as adult cadaver body bags and accessories, including toe tag. "Never been used."
Small town life
People sometimes ride their horses down Main Street. How quaint. Today I went for a walk. Someone had not only ridden his/her horse down Main Street, but down the sidewalk, leaving piles of horse crap every few houses. Merry Christmas!
How asinine
Nudity (in your own home) is now illegal in Villahermosa, Mexico.
"Pulido said she was confident that citizens who catch a glimpse of offenders would report them to police though the law also threatens jail for peeping Toms.
The city on the southern Gulf of Mexico is noted for its swelteringly hot, humid climate."
Holiday fun
Christmas urban legends. My favorite: The name of Boxing Day comes from the need to rid the house of empty boxes the day after Christmas. Okay, I had never actually heard of that before, but it's funny. And now I know the truth about candy canes.
Best spammer name
I've seen in a while: Fannie Holder.
My new daily obsessions
Required reading
Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.
That's the end. Here's the rest.
Annoying customer of the day
A woman who got mad because I didn't know what time the KMart opens (in a town half an hour from here). Sorry, but my hat does NOT say "I know everything."
One hell of a Christmas pageant
Yet again
The Little Drummer Boy. With Bing and Ziggy.
'Bowie and Bing met the morning of taping, rehearsed for an hour, and completed the song in three takes. Bing gave Bowie his number, told him to call if he ever needed anything, and in an interview four days later said that David was ""a clean cut kid and a real fine asset to the show. He sings well, has a great voice and reads lines well. He could be a good actor if he wanted."'
The transcript from the show is pretty funny.
Working like a dog
I've worked every day since the day after Thanksgiving. People who are coming into the store are starting to get cranky. Especially old people who want the unbelievably disgusting seafoam candy and ribbon candy. I will be glad when the fat man flies.
Annoying customer of the day
"I don't think this is the drink I want. My wife tasted it and I tasted it. Would you taste it and check?" What can I say? It was the drink he ordered.
Annoying customer of the day
"I was up here on vacation last year at Christmas. I bought a drink that cost $2.50. Do you remember what I bought?"
Kids these days
I was looking for the lyrics of This Land is Your Land for some young people who only know the first verse. I was (only slightly) shocked that they had no clue that Woody was such a commie. They were shocked at the idea that a song evolved.
I did find these lyrics, which were the ones I was thinking of.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
and this:
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people --
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
[God blessed America for me.]
and I also found this with later lyrics:
I'm a-chasin' my shadow out across this roadmap
To my wheat fields waving, to my cornfield dancing
As I go walkin' this wind keeps talkin'
This land is made for you and me.
I can see your mailbox, I can see your doorstep
I can feel my wind rock your tip-top treetop
All around your house there my sunbeam whispers
This land is made for you and me.
Small town bumper sticker
Volunteer fire fighter. My time and my gas to save your ass.
Small town life
We've had lots of heavy rain and high wind lately. A couple nights ago the fire department siren kept blowing. There were calls from all over town for them to come check power lines that were arcing. We were listening in on the scanner (a must-have accessory for small town living) and heard one guy saying "I'm standing right under the lines and I can't see anything happening here."
I love chocolate
but there are limits. You must check out Who Would Buy That.
Annoying co-worker of the day
I overheard one woman (19 and just had her first baby on her own) tell another that she had never had a real date. And that her new strategy to meet guys was to sit in the library at the community college (sans baby) because then guys will think she's smart. She's not enrolled there.
Election reform
Great blog to learn about election law. I ended up there after reading Dan Tokaji's article about problems with provisional ballots, long lines, punch card machines in Ohio.
Holy rabble rousers
You have to keep a close watch on those cunning Quakers and Catholics.
'In Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 10 states and Washington, D.C., the ACLU sought information about the FBI's use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces and local police for what it called political surveillance.
It pointed to some documented examples of task forces' involvement in the investigation of environmental activists and anti-war protesters.'
Oh, and it would probably be a good idea to watch all the shifty UUs too.
'One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism — a coming which he anticipated and cheered — Dennis declared that defenders of “18th-century Americanism” were sure to become "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights."
So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.'
Evil, I've come to tell you we're evil, most definitely
Solvij (10) and I went to the toy store today. There was a long display of musical dancing Boobahs. First we started them up sequentially. After a while we got them all started in pairs, then all together. Repeatedly. Boobahs really are evil.
What goes around
And the reason I was at the Miami Herald was this story about Eric Scott Kaplan (Dr. Kaplan's Lifestyles of the Fit and Famous) and Bach McComb. Both are in the hospital, along with wife and girlfriend, apparently from bad botox.
'But authorities stressed they had no results yet and could not say what the four had been injected with or even if they had botulism. They consider that their primary theory because some of the victims told doctors they had received what they thought were injections of Botox at the clinic. A purified form of the food-borne botulinum toxin, which can cause death by paralysis, is used in small amounts in the drug.
Investigators also aren't sure who gave the injections. Authorities said it would be illegal for either man to dispense the drug because McComb, who had worked at the clinic, was unlicensed and Kaplan was a chiropractor unauthorized to administer it.'
Creepiest of all,
'McComb's aunt, Audrey Widmer, said he was communicating by writing notes.
''I saw him on Friday and he had trouble talking. His face was a little puffed out,'' she said, adding that the former high school football player still looked good and his face had ``no wrinkles.'''
Don't bug me
One thing I love about bugmenot.com is the names and passwords people use. I just used it to get into the Miami Herald and the name was crockett at tubbs dot com and the password was miamivice.
Really old movies
Ones that Thomas Edison made, organized by style. There's even the classic How a French nobleman got a wife through the New York Herald personal columns.
