"People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people."
Charles Kettering

Bought What?

Today, my husband bought Crap. Deliberately. I was trying to buy Crap... in fact I've been trying to buy Crap, unsuccessfully, for a year. I had my order in first. My card processed, a dollar a Crap, for three Craps plus shipping. You can't buy more than three. In most cases, you can't buy just one either, as there are 50,000 others trying to buy Crap at the same time you are. It's a real crapshoot. Out of 50,000 (or more) wannabe Crap buyers, any number up to 4500 will get Crap, depending on the quantity each person ordered, so as few as 1500 could get Crap if everyone ordered three.

Husband and I were monitoring the Crap site, but we somehow were not paying attention when the actual Crap came up (as opposed to the other crappy items, most of which could conceivably be described as crap, lowercase descriptive). However, he must have seen it right as it appeared, because as soon as he yelled CRAP I was on it and actually got my order in and confirmed in less than 20 seconds. This is, of course, when the crappy Crap servers did their thing; that is, they crapped out. They always crap out during Crap sales. Once the site came back online, half an hour later, I found to my dismay that my confirmed Crap order had disappeared, possibly eaten by flying monkeys. This also happens regularly during Crap sales. This, though, was the first time in many attempts that I *had* a confirmed order... usually I get stuck in processing when the servers crap out and my order never goes through.

This is when my husband calls out, casually, that he's got an order in for three Craps. Somehow he managed to get to the order page, change the amount wanted to three, input his account number, and get it all through processing, payment, confirmation, and verification faster than I did, *and* before the servers crashed. Rather than ponder the absolute impossibility of this task, I chose to be thrilled that, finally, we are getting Crap!

I will post photos of the Craps when they get here. I don't know what they'll be yet- no one does- that's part of the Crap experience. Usually, it's crap. Sometimes it's cool crap, and sometimes (rarely) it's non-crap. Once it was a fifteen-pound anvil; once it was a washer-fluid heater; once it was a Nintendo Wii. Bottom line is: we actively sought out, fought for, and paid money for unknown, random Crap. I can't wait till it gets here! Craptastic!

Today In History

I share the birthday with Mother Teresa, PeeWee Herman and Downtown Julie Brown.

The day started off with a mysterious bag left on the kitchen table... I approached warily, as I do with anything pastel-colored. There were flowers on the bag as well, generally a sign to have weapons at the ready just in case it explodes into a big ball of feminine cutesiness. Pastel + flower motif = high danger level.

After poking and prodding at the bag, and thereby determining that it wasn't going to get any worse, I examined the contents. It seems the Husband, knowing my tendency to recoil at anything pink, had cleverly disguised a gift much to my liking inside the girly crap.

Chrome portholes for the car fenders! W00t! *happy dance* Three for each side, no less. I did mention that the car didn't have enough chrome... not that I was complaining about it, I'm just a chromaholic... and he knew I admire pretty much any car with porthole accents. Thoughtful guy, that one is!

My friends online left me some nice messages, and I'm holding out hope for a cake later this evening (or I'll be in town buying one myself... it's a Cake Day, dangit! I look forward to celebrations that call for cake.) I got a great surprise from another friend, who offered to get me tickets to a particular celebrity appearance and a meeting with said celebrity afterward (!!!), when she learned I'd be in town for the event.

I'm also officially old and fat, as determined by my efforts to purchase a pair of jeans yesterday. The stores were full of tweens and high-school girls whining about not being able to find their sizes ("but the threes are soooo baggy!") and giggling about the granny-panties on the hangers (for the record, they were bikini briefs, for crying out loud... one step away from thongs). There were no pants in the store to fit short women with apple butts and narrow waists. Yes, I know about the Apple Bottoms brand, I'm not THAT old, but I have never been able to make myself pay that kind of money for jeans. In fact, yesterday was the first time I bought new jeans in ages... usually the Salvation Army gets my business, and I don't have to break in new denim. Anyway, when I did find a pair that fit- not great, but they fit- I bought 'em and got the heck out of there, away from the shrill cellphone ringtones and like, Rodney is like, such a hottie, lawl and the microsizes and macroprices and thong underbritches and smells like teen spirit really means adolescent sweat and Clearasil and bubblegum.

Ellen Degeneres had a spiel on her show this morning about how nobody has long attention spans anymore. I forget why she said it was. Maybe she didn't; I was looking at her shoes. But as a tie-in to the earlier post about the iPhone bill, Ellen showed hers off to the audience... 900 pages, to the tune of $4300 for one month. Add an iPhone bill and that's about the total cost of my rent... for an entire YEAR. I think, even if I were rich, that kind of spending would shock me. Sometimes I'm happy to be oblivious to how much it costs to live on the greener side of the fence. Would Ellen be thrilled to get chrome portholes for HER birthday?

Actually... something tells me she would...

Bohemian Medley

This is hilarious! And the guy's not half bad either...

I smell... bacon!

perpetualkid.com
Here's a nifty gifty site I ran across recently. I haven't looked at *all* the items yet, but some of them are amusing, like the pack of office stickers that includes "I ♥ Marker Smell!" The site has schlocky stuff- USB-powered heated slippers, marshmallow guns, fake tattoo bandages- but I have to give props to any store with a whole section listed as "Bacon."

Earth to iPhone: Ouch!

In all fairness, this is not the fault of the iPhone itself, but of the phone service providers attached... see what happens when an AT&T user gets her first iPhone bill.

Count the Rings

Living on the fringes of technology like I do, sometimes I wonder if inanity like this can be real. Apparently, it is, and she isn't the only one to get a bill of this nature.

In other modern-technology news, I got a singing hamster for my birthday. Thanks Mom!

Slices of Southern Pie

I Smell Bacon...

We were driving south from Charleston SC on Highway 17. Suddenly my husband swerved into the other lane and back. I saw something running away to my right.
"What was it?" I asked.
"Pig."
"What?"
"Pig!"
Sure enough, it was a little black pig, going as fast as his tiny hoofs would carry him across the road and into the woods. I'm used to seeing all manner of critters on the road: coon, possum, turtle, squirrel, groundhog, skunk, pheasant, peacock, and chicken, and once an armadillo (a live one!) but this was the first pig. Not a pot-belly pet either. It looked to me like a young wild ham on the hoof, but even if it was just an adventurous farm oinker, it was good for a laugh.

Seen In Charleston

West Ashley Bait & Tackle
Cold Beer, Hot Food, No Bait, No Tackle

(!)

T-Shirt

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!"

(Charleston Flea Market)

Disturbing Trend

Substituting spaghetti noodles for lo mein... saw this for the first time at a "Chinese Buffet" in Georgia, and again the next day in Harrisburg, PA. As a huge fan of (real) lo mein, I hope this doesn't catch on.

Perspective

When I was a kid, it seemed to take forever to climb to the top of the lighthouse. It's a lot shorter than I remember. Of course it's still 175 steps like it's always been, but I have (marginally) longer legs now!

Bated Hooks

I see it so often lately.
It's my latest writing peeve.
I really want to ask those people if they were munching on earthworms, or if they prefer minnows... perhaps squid or chum? Have they caught anything?

I'm talking about all those folks writing that they are/were waiting with baited breath for something or other. Hopefully they're waiting for a shipment of Listerine...

To clarify, for all those wannabe writers with bait-breath:

bate beɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[beyt] verb, bat·ed, bat·ing. –verb (used with object)

1.	to moderate or restrain: unable to bate our enthusiasm.

2.	to lessen or diminish; abate: setbacks that bated his hopes.

–verb (used without object)

3.	to diminish or subside; abate.

—Idiom

4.	with bated breath, with breath drawn in or held because of anticipation or suspense: We watched with bated breath as the runners approached the finish line.

Please correct yourselves and stop teasing hungry fish. Thank you.

7-11

Today is 7-11, and I really want a Slurpee...

Have I gone off on my nostalgic fondness for 7-11 before? I don't think so. At least, not here; I know I have in conversation on many occasions. I haven't seen a 7-11 in years. I know they're out there, and I know that a dozen of them are currently masquerading as Quik-E-Marts to promote the Simpsons movie, but this rave concerns the 7-11's of my youth... the ones that really were open from 7 AM to 11 PM.

The store I remember best was right at the edge of the military base housing area, on the "civilian" side. We lived on the military resident side. In order to get on the base, one had to drive up to the guard station and wait to be waved through after your credentials (window sticker, or on high security days, military ID card) were verified. To leave, one had to drive past the same guard shack. I was seven, and obviously I didn't drive; moreso, kids didn't have the same notions about protocol and security that adults and the US Marine Corps did. Thus on more than one occasion I took a shortcut along the cement drainage ditches that ran the length of the housing areas, crossed under a road through a sewer culvert, and followed a narrow path through the woods that bordered the base, finally emerging behind the 7-11 two miles from my house... barefoot, more often than not. (My mother thought I was out playing with friends. Those were the days when parents might see their kids twice between cartoons and supper- once to bandage a skinned knee and once to dole out lunch or a snack. They knew, if there was a problem, another mother would call them.)

Finally, I could spend my hoarded quarter or fifty cents, or more if I was lucky and had visited a generous relative lately. Back then, fifty cents bought a small brown paper bag of "penny" candy (which by that time cost 3 to 5 cents) or four to five more expensive items. For example, 10 cents for Gobstoppers. They used to be much larger and came in cellophane twin packs, usually two different colors per pack. I would dig around until I found either a yellow/orange combo or, very rarely, an accidental yellow/yellow pair. (Although they all tasted the same, I had a thing for yellow candy. I still do!)

Other 10-cent goodies included Lemonheads and the other Ferrara Pan boxed candies, like Jawbreakers, Boston Baked Beans, and mini Atomic Fireballs. Lemonheads were one of my high-ranking favorites. Banana and grape Laffy Taffy (5 cents) were up there too, along with Gobstoppers and that powdered candy that came in fruit-shaped bottles. I also loved foil-wrapped chocolate footballs (bottom shelf, in bins, 3 cents) and Charleston Chews (25 cents).

If I happened to be there with my parents, I would beg for Dukes of Hazzard trading cards. As I recall, the stick of gum inside was horrible-tasting but of little importance to me. I wanted a whole set of Dukes cards! I never did complete a set (was missing two), and a handful of the ones I had sort of wandered off someplace, but I still have a battered display box full of singles. I remember when the cards went up to 50 cents a pack and my mom stopped buying them for me... that ended my Dukes collecting, but there were other, cheaper cards to be had. I was also a sticker fanatic so anything that came with adhesive backing got my interest, especially Wacky Packages. There was another kind of pack that came with all stickers, including cards with nine oval word-balloons ("go away" "groovy" "crazy" etc) and I haven't been able to find or remember the brand. I have some of the cards, stickers intact, stashed away and someday I'll dig those out to check the name. I'm sure I saved at least two wrappers. I always did.

While Mom wouldn't let me have a large soda, sometimes I'd be able to get a Slurpee. I'm sure it was the Slurpee cups that occasionally had promotional items or prizes stuck under the bottom of the cup. Round trading cards, maybe, or contest game pieces. My memory is fuzzy on that one (blame it on the sugar buzz at the time.) Anyone else remember?

Our 7-11 had permanently sticky floors and smelled weird, like a cross between refrigerant and leaf mold. It didn't seem to do a lot of business; military residents frequented the base mini-mart just past the guard shack, which was cheaper and had a playground for the kids next to it. Not many people lived in the area then, so patrons were usually the few non-military locals or people running in after the base store had closed for the day. I vaguely recall when it closed down, then later reopened under some non-chain name, then eventually closed again after going through a few more owners and several pieces of plywood to replace the broken windows. The last time I went by the site was a small engine repair shop.

If I run across one, I'd like to go in a 7-11 and buy a Slurpee and a pack of Garbage Pail Kids cards. Just for old times' sake. Meanwhile, here's a neat link to some 7-11 factoids.

*Supposedly, July 11 is "7-11 Day" whereupon the stores give away 7.11-ounce Slurpees to 1,000 patrons.*

5 Years

July 1, 2002 - July 1, 2007

"You had me from Howdy"

So Much for Art History

It's Baby Critter Season

Every year, I watch the geese show up and wander around until they pair up. Then I start looking for the goslings a few weeks after. Every year I notice that geese share babysitting duties with other geese, and it's not uncommon to see two big honkers followed by a dozen short ones and two more adults bringing up the rear. The group above crossed the same piece of road in front of me three or four times within two minutes. Were they lost? Confused? Trying to convince me to take their family portrait? I finally did stop watching them long enough to grab the camera, and of course the nice drill-team-style parade line broke up just then.

Also seen lately:
baby cows
baby horses
baby groundhogs
baby birds
baby muskrat (just one)
baby humans

Spoiled.

I sure feel spoiled...



We went to the Ford show this weekend... lots of great cars and trucks as usual, including ours. *snerk* Ordinarily we love pitching our tent and crashing outside, but this time I was quite happy to "wuss out" and book a room. It was hot hot hot and we're both burnt burnt burnt. Then the storms came through. So it was either 140 degrees with 85% humidity, or 140 degrees with 100% humidity. Just two straight days of haze. I was enjoying the chlorinated 100% humidity of the hotel swimming pool, myself. (We did one of those last-minute-online-booking things and lucked out. My only request was a swimming pool; we got the Radisson.)



On Saturday night we went to dinner and the Comedy Zone and had a good time, although the two bachelorette parties in the nightclub next door were in attendance at the show, and were obnoxiously loud. *shrug* I wish I could be a fly on the wall when their husbands-to-be check their phone messages... one of the comedians took the gals' phones and left some rather "interesting" messages for the guys. Dinner was great but not spectacular; breakfast the next morning made my day though.

On Sunday we decided to be kids again and went to Hershey. It was raining so Hersheypark wasn't an option, so we went to Chocolate World and took the tour. It's changed quite a bit since the last time I was there. But the chocolate smell is the same! YUMMMM. I don't even care for Hershey chocolate much (I prefer imported... which Hershey will be in the near future... that's another story) but there isn't a chocolate-lover in the world who wouldn't have at least considered jumping out of the tram and sticking their finger (or face) in that giant vat of melted chocolate.



We hit Fuddruckers for ostrich burgers for dinner, grabbed a brownie for the road, and headed on home. I gained 5 lbs, I just know it. I'll just have to work out a little more, that's all. SO worth it!

Like, radical, dude! Fer sure!

Happy Friday the 13th!

What a great day! it really is a great day, isn't it? The big ol' bright sun isn't glaring in my eyes, and the colder weather is keeping the aroma from that dead skunk in the road from getting too bad. And we haven't had enough snow yet this year; hearing there's more on the way is nice. I just finished doing our taxes and we owe a little bit, so no refund, but it could be worse, right? I don't know why we ended up having to pay in this year but it's a lesson learned for next year. I'll just have more deducted from my paycheck voluntarily. I sure love knowing that I'm helping my government, by letting them use my hard-earned money to fund all those necessary and important programs, don't you? Seriously, we'd never know just how damaging cow methane really is otherwise, and learning is half the battle. Oh, my husband is in the hospital, but that's okay too. He's getting his gall bladder removed. We didn't know there was anything wrong with it until this week, so it's a good thing they're taking it out! He might have had another attack later, like after he signed his official papers for his permanent state job and secured his health benefits. That was supposed to happen in 2 weeks, but he can't work for the next 4 to 6 weeks. I'm sure they'll hold the position for him. All those people waiting to get in, like he did, certainly know how hard it is to get a good state job and I know they'll be happy to wait just a little longer while he recovers. People are inherently good, you know. I'll be off work for a few days too, taking care of hubby when he comes home next week. Missing two days so far, and having to buy gas to go back and forth to the hospital, is eating into our finances but I'm not worried. Nothing matters but knowing he is going to be okay. And he will, of course, because it's Friday the 13th, and that is a lucky day! It always has been. Ask my grandfather, who said until his dying day that it was lucky. He died on a Friday the 13th. How fortunate is that, going on your lucky day! Wow. Just can't get any better around here, so I'm going to go back to bed. I hear Saturday the 14th isn't too bad either.

Excuse me, where is the lieu?

ARGH!

You know how I am about misspelled words, especially from a business standpoint. (Right now there is a sign on the main office door at work that begins "During the peek season, please use this office for office-related duties only." Um, okay, so that means... no photocopying your butt in case someone's peeking?)

That isn't what I'm going off about today, however. Today it's my otherwise-intelligent, college-educated boss's continuous misuse of the phrase "in lieu of." No less than three times a day (that I personally hear, so it could be more often) he will say a variation of the following:

"In lieu of the fact that the sun is shining, you should plan on watering all the petunias."

Not "in view of" or "considering" or "due to the fact" but instead of... which makes zero sense. Today he said "In lieu of what you have planned to water today, please keep an eye on the water level." I wanted to ask him "So... if I'm not using the water, you really think it'll go down?" Sadly, he wouldn't get it and I'd have to explain and I'd be the one looking like a nitpick for correcting him on a triviality in the first place. But it drives me crazy!

This is just one of many common words or phrases that get mangled on a daily basis. I might use a few myself, but in most cases it's deliberate and spoken with a wink. My boss, as I said, is a very smart, knowledgeable guy; it bothers me to see him inadvertently demean his intelligence in front of his superiors. It also bothers me to think that someone is peaking at me when I'm making copies...

It's the last Saturday in March.

Already!

Random observations:

• I want to adopt a Greyhound! Maybe two or three. I thought they were one-way dogs but after getting the chance to love up on one at an outdoor expo, it turns out they aren't. Their fur is softer than I expected, and -get this- they're LAZY. The woman running the booth called them "45-MPH couch potatoes" because they'd rather lay on the couch and sleep all day than go running around chasing things. I've wanted a Greyhound for years; oddly, this was the first time I took the opportunity to learn more about them.
• Britney Spears articles are a waste of media. However, props to FedEx for somehow managing to come off smelling like a rose. Sure, it's a Fresno rose, which has an underlying aroma of cow manure, but overall he's being lauded as a good guy. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.
  
• Speaking of stranger things... Michael Jackson made an appearance during daylight hours and without a veil, dashing rumors that he was once again attempting immortality not by way of a hyperbaric chamber this time but via vampirism.
  
• Many years ago I got my left ear pierced. I didn't want to do both in case I didn't like it; easier to get it done than undone, and I could always go back for the other one. (I'd always heard that if you didn't wear the earring or piercing stud the hole would close over. Here it is, fifteen years later, and although I've worn an earring for an hour or two perhaps five times total, the piercing never did close or give me any trouble whatsoever.) Last night I finally got the right one done, for a matched set. Never let it be said that I make hasty decisions.
• My husband received an inheritance from a family member's estate. He spent it on the complete set of Dukes of Hazzard DVDs.
  

If you're surfing over from Branded in the 80s, thanks for dropping by. Shawn was nice enough to give a shout-out... he also came up with much more information about my stickers than I ever knew or would have even thought about researching. Totally awesome, dude!

Wearin' O' The... White?

We had a white Valentine's Day and now a white St. Patrick's Day is coming... a white Easter is never out of the question, either.

A storm came through today and it's currently in the process of dumping 4 to 10 inches of snow upon us. After work, I was cleaning off the truck and dreading the slippery drive home... glanced at the road to see how bad it was... and there, in the middle of the road, hunched over, with his feathers puffed out and a very annoyed expression on his face, was a robin. No doubt he was disgruntled due to the sudden weather change from the warm temps we enjoyed last week. I saw what was surely this bird's brother back in February, the day after the Valentine's storm subsided, perched on a tiny tuft of grass surrounded by snow and looking just as pissed-off as the one today.

Of course, robins look angry all year round. They're the pompous jerks of the bird world. The one in the road most likely thought to his little bird self, "Oh, that is IT! I have HAD it with this weather and it better change RIGHT NOW because I am SO not getting that nest built for Matilda until it warms up and if she doesn't get a nest I will NEVER hear the end of her squawking about it. I am protesting RIGHT here RIGHT now and I will STOP TRAFFIC until the sun comes out!!!"
vroooom *AWK!*
"...I will sit over HERE and GLARE at traffic until the sun comes out. Ahem. Don't want to get my feet muddy, you know."


Image by Richard Bradbury,
www.rsbp.org.uk

Smells like... adhesive?

Today I was linkhopping and came across Branded in the 80s, a great nostalgia site. There's a section on 8os-era stickers; most of the ones showcased weren't ones I collected (although the name Panini brings back semi-fond memories) until I read the Scratch n' Sniff posts. I *loved* scratch n' sniffs. After viewing the pictures on that site I did some surfing and found more... all those "smells" came flooding back, almost as if I had my sticker books in front of me.

For the past few months I've been wondering how to capture a scent to sniff later... not creating it like perfume, but saving the smell of an early mountain morning or the vinyl interior of a vintage VW beetle or the aroma from a certain pizza parlor. These are scents I want to keep and re-smell, but it just isn't practical (or sane!) to fly 3,000 miles to sniff some pizza, or to visit a junkyard and ask the proprietor if you can smell his Bugs. I'm sure there's a way to do it, right? Maybe not a cost-effective, simple, or reasonable way, but if someone can make stickers that still smell like pickles and cotton candy 25 years later, surely it can't be impossible!

January, my foot!

Wow, was my last post ever off! It is not cold. (Yet.)

I'm outside today and I'm seeing ground. Dirt. Grass. BIRDS!

I'm seeing the head guy in my department come to work in shorts. I'm scrounging around in my bag for my sunglasses. I'm watching my new winter coat gathering dust while I wear sweaters... and sweat in them. And, of all things, I'm opening the kitchen window during the day to let air in because it's stuffy! This past week I was hanging out of that window, feeding the birds below me.

It's January.

According to the Farmer's Almanac, we should have been knee-deep in winter by now. Instead we've had some rain, three snowflakes, and a lot of crisp, bright days that feel more like late April than early January. I know it will get here though... we're going to have a slushy, mushy spring and snow for Easter, I betcha.

Another error in my prior post: Believe it or not, I have been upright AND conscious for both sunrise and sunset for two weeks. I have photos to prove it, for those of you who know me well enough not to believe me. The powers-that-be at work wanted everyone coming in at the same time instead of staggered like we were, and sunrise was hitting its peak colors just before 7 AM, so... there you go. Or there I went. After the first day and the first blood-red sunrise, I hustled out of the house not so much to get to work on time, but because if I was running late I wouldn't see the skyshow. How's that for incentive?

The twin nieces are healthy and beautiful. They're fraternal and have different personalities already. I was unable to visit over the holidays, due to work, but I sure hope to see them and my older niece and nephew soon! Everyone lives too far away and none of us want to move. :-P

New post at Alter Ego, link to the right --->

Finally, I said I had photos... here's one from this morning of a nice sun pillar. It was also the last photo I took with my camera before the battery-cover hinge broke.