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Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Sit back and enjoy the crashing waves of wrongness.
And now, for your viewing pleasure, I present Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO, in case you are like me and one of the last people on the planet who hasn't seen this.
*If you are of delicate constitution, you may wish to skip this one.*
Incredibly funny and actually cute in my humble opinion.
h/t to BlowFuzzy von Sassy
*If you are of delicate constitution, you may wish to skip this one.*
Incredibly funny and actually cute in my humble opinion.
h/t to BlowFuzzy von Sassy
Where are you?
Yes, I'm at a really cool party in a Victorian building with a lovely man in new glasses. Life is sweet!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Let's start a movement: UN-ASS WALL STREET, YOU FILTHY HIPPIES
I propose we bring a booger to a booger fight by infiltrating the Occupy Wall Street movement. I think it would be terrific if just regular folks walked up to these Hoovervilles and waited for the likes of Michael Moore or whomever to start out-gassing and that would be the ideal time to whip out the Vuvuzelas to *wink wink* show our support for the whole movement by honking mercilessly. Be sure to tuck into your range bag first and bring some good hearing protection, and maybe take some reading material for while you're standing around, mindlessly tooting your horn.
If your local Team Occupy is in a non-residential area, it might be fun to have flash-mob convergences of UAWSYFH at 4:20 AM, wade through the clouds of pot smoke to blast Vuvuzelas to athletically support the Occupy crowd and get their day off to a good start. I think it would mean so much to them to know how much we really care.
And isn't it time we toot our own horns, instead of letting them continue to use them as funnels??? Honestly.
You can join Un-Ass Wall Street, You Filthy Hippies over here on Facebook.
If your local Team Occupy is in a non-residential area, it might be fun to have flash-mob convergences of UAWSYFH at 4:20 AM, wade through the clouds of pot smoke to blast Vuvuzelas to athletically support the Occupy crowd and get their day off to a good start. I think it would mean so much to them to know how much we really care.
And isn't it time we toot our own horns, instead of letting them continue to use them as funnels??? Honestly.
You can join Un-Ass Wall Street, You Filthy Hippies over here on Facebook.
May I present Jazz In My Pants:
I love the idea of a UK-based Dixieland style combo lead by a guy with a red plastic trombone. And then they had to go and cement my eternal affection by calling themselves Jazz In My Pants. If that makes me strange, then I shall wear that mantle with pride.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Their other stuff is great, ranging from delightments such as Harry Potter to Dick Dale to a neato St James Infirmary Blues that goes all wonky-skifflesque in the middle. CLEVER!
FWIW, this is filmed in the city of Durham in North East England. Go there, if you ever have the opportunity. The cathedral is quite lovely, and sits atop a great hill, and the town's high street is one of the most dramatically slanted of any I've ever seen. Tiny shops along the road seem to have entrances several feet higher and lower than the ones flanking it. But be sure to wear your walking shoes, darlings. Then again, platforms are great equalizers, so long as you walk back downhill backwards.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Their other stuff is great, ranging from delightments such as Harry Potter to Dick Dale to a neato St James Infirmary Blues that goes all wonky-skifflesque in the middle. CLEVER!
FWIW, this is filmed in the city of Durham in North East England. Go there, if you ever have the opportunity. The cathedral is quite lovely, and sits atop a great hill, and the town's high street is one of the most dramatically slanted of any I've ever seen. Tiny shops along the road seem to have entrances several feet higher and lower than the ones flanking it. But be sure to wear your walking shoes, darlings. Then again, platforms are great equalizers, so long as you walk back downhill backwards.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Hero father brings his daughter's murderer to justice
30 years after a teenage girl was sexually abused and killed, her father kidnapped her murderer and brought him into France where he has been turned over to the authorities to stand trial for his crimes. Apparently, previous attempts to have the authorities extradite the murderer from Germany to France had been fruitless, so the father engaged goons to kidnap the accused and bring him into France. The father will be prosecuted for the kidnapping, but I can imagine that seems a small price to pay.
I love that Charles Bronson-style mettle, that he stuck with it and would not just let it go as long as his daughter's murderer walked free. I think no one would have blamed the father if he had simply put the man down like a rabid dog, so kudos on the restraint of having merely left the bastard bound and bleeding in the street after tipping off French police to pick him up.
Here's hoping the court goes easy on the father for his actions, and brings their most severe of punishments to the other.
I love that Charles Bronson-style mettle, that he stuck with it and would not just let it go as long as his daughter's murderer walked free. I think no one would have blamed the father if he had simply put the man down like a rabid dog, so kudos on the restraint of having merely left the bastard bound and bleeding in the street after tipping off French police to pick him up.
Here's hoping the court goes easy on the father for his actions, and brings their most severe of punishments to the other.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Look out for fidotoxicity on your pampered lawn.
This is a serious problem that some lawns may be susceptible to:
Personally, I'd have no problem forgiving Fido.
The Dirt Doctor- Howard Garrett - Dallas area organic gardening guru. Howard Garrett has a radio program called "The Natural Way" which is fantastic He also has a whole raft of fabulous videos related to gardening over on YouTube. If you garden at all, definitely check out his site and videos. He has some great recipes for natural pest and weed control, and they are almost always cheaper and way less toxic than the storebought chemical versions of same.
Personally, I'd have no problem forgiving Fido.
The Dirt Doctor- Howard Garrett - Dallas area organic gardening guru. Howard Garrett has a radio program called "The Natural Way" which is fantastic He also has a whole raft of fabulous videos related to gardening over on YouTube. If you garden at all, definitely check out his site and videos. He has some great recipes for natural pest and weed control, and they are almost always cheaper and way less toxic than the storebought chemical versions of same.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
This may be a little sick, but...
**UPDATE - it's too late for me, I can't UN-hear this song-- SAVE YOURSELF - don't watch the video below**
I can't stop giggling at it. I've only watched it about 20 times.
EVENING UPDATE: FWIW - I hate myself for having listened to this. I heard it in fevered dreams last night and I can't get it out of my head.
I can't stop giggling at it. I've only watched it about 20 times.
EVENING UPDATE: FWIW - I hate myself for having listened to this. I heard it in fevered dreams last night and I can't get it out of my head.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
next up: free healthcare and money growing on trees!
I recently ran into a former co-worker in an electronics store. For about a year, we worked together in a call center for a health insurance company. Back then, he'd talk occasionally about how healthcare should be free and Obama would fix everything and insurance companies are evil and sometimes he just talked about moving to Canada. Mostly, though, he talked about his belief that healthcare should be a free-for-all entitlement. I knew he-- I'll call him Shaggy-- had some pretty anti-capitalistic ideas, but I couldn't help notice that he fell in with the ranks of the rest of the paycheck whores to collect his piece of that "morally bankrupt" pie. I wonder why he didn't refuse the pay on the moral basis that people should be doing customer service in the healthcare industry for free?
Shaggy left the company about the time I did, and when I saw him at the store last week, I asked how he was and what he was doing now, and isn't it great not to work in that pressure-cooker setting any more. He started talking about how it was terrible, the insurance companies in general, and that he's doing much better now, making more as a part time sales person and going to school full time with expected graduation in May. I asked his field of study, and he said it's marketing. He also made a point of saying that he'd sucked up to influential people at the insurance company-- whether he liked them or not-- so that he'd have politically well-placed people in his corner, should he need backup. I realize that is pretty typical-- to align oneself with the perceived power in a situation-- but I found that wildly hypocritical, considering his general stance was that HE has a higher standard of ethics than your average company (or ANY insurance company) or individual. I also sort of pictured him putting his marketing know-how to use with 12 monkeys style propaganda and attempts at social engineering, because it's hard to imagine him actually doing something constructive with relation to marketing.
I can't believe that anyone with more than two neurons firing in their brain can say that all healthcare should be free -- how do they propose that all the millions of nurses, medical assistants, janitors and lab techs be paid? Do they think that these people-- like all doctors-- should act purely out of altruism and with no personal regard to finances or securing their own futures and that of their families? Do they want to pay extra thousands per year on their utility bills to fund the utilities of health care facilities? Where the hell do they think all that money will come from?
And if healthcare should be free, then what about all the other fabulous crap in the world-- why should anyone have to pay anything for anything? The idea of anything being an entitlement is pretty much unsupportable, in my opinion.
My sister says that insurance is all a gamble-- you are gambling you will need insurance, and the insurance company is gambling you won't need it. I'm not saying everyone should have it free, and I'm not saying everyone should be forced to buy it for themselves.
I am saying that I want the power to make career choices for myself in the marketplace based on the availability of health insurance as part of a benefits package between me and my own private employer. There is a price I pay in that this has an impact on what I am actually paid by my employer and I take that into account when making career choices. For me, this is worthwhile and I am willing to pay that premium, but I sure as hell don't want to pick up the tab for the premiums for the self-indulgent wastrel gangbanger thugs or the ne'er-do-wells who are content to sit idle in a park in some sort of Occupy brand of bushwa.
And as for the marketplace and capitalism-- that potential to make money on inventions or techniques of treatment has been one of the greatest incentives for people to develop new drugs and new technologies related to the medical field and is one of the primary reasons why the USA was the cutting edge of medical advancement for most of the 20th century. In nearly all cases, these same great scientific and engineering minds belong to people who are not independently wealthy and need to make money to support themselves and their families-- why should some addle-witted hippie's moral (in)sensibilities dictate that these brilliant people should be prevented from profiting (or even just making a living) from their efforts in the medical field? Else, why would they bother with the medical field at all -- they can make money elsewhere with less red tape and social pressure. Thank goodness anyone still feels inspired to enter that field.
So, to try to gather all this mud back up into a ball-- I don't want the healthcare/insurance choice made for me, and I don't want to spend thousands of own money every year on health care and insurance, only to have more of my money confiscated by the government to cover the healthcare for someone who spent their thousands on spinning rims or a crunked grille. I'll stand by my choices, and I expect other people to have to stand by their own, as well.
Is that so much to ask?
Shaggy left the company about the time I did, and when I saw him at the store last week, I asked how he was and what he was doing now, and isn't it great not to work in that pressure-cooker setting any more. He started talking about how it was terrible, the insurance companies in general, and that he's doing much better now, making more as a part time sales person and going to school full time with expected graduation in May. I asked his field of study, and he said it's marketing. He also made a point of saying that he'd sucked up to influential people at the insurance company-- whether he liked them or not-- so that he'd have politically well-placed people in his corner, should he need backup. I realize that is pretty typical-- to align oneself with the perceived power in a situation-- but I found that wildly hypocritical, considering his general stance was that HE has a higher standard of ethics than your average company (or ANY insurance company) or individual. I also sort of pictured him putting his marketing know-how to use with 12 monkeys style propaganda and attempts at social engineering, because it's hard to imagine him actually doing something constructive with relation to marketing.
I can't believe that anyone with more than two neurons firing in their brain can say that all healthcare should be free -- how do they propose that all the millions of nurses, medical assistants, janitors and lab techs be paid? Do they think that these people-- like all doctors-- should act purely out of altruism and with no personal regard to finances or securing their own futures and that of their families? Do they want to pay extra thousands per year on their utility bills to fund the utilities of health care facilities? Where the hell do they think all that money will come from?
And if healthcare should be free, then what about all the other fabulous crap in the world-- why should anyone have to pay anything for anything? The idea of anything being an entitlement is pretty much unsupportable, in my opinion.
Life is not fair, nor should it be. No guarantee of all the same opportunities will ever guarantee uniformity of outcome, because we each will make different choices in the exploitation of our opportunities in life. Shaggy may choose a part-time job based on lifestyle flexibility and-- presumably-- no drug-testing, whereas I need the stability of a full-time job with some access to the communal benefit of a shared group insurance pool. Call it whoredom or whatever you want, but I have to base my choices of jobs on what I know about my own life and my own needs. If I were very young and extremely healthy, then maybe health insurance wouldn't be such a high priority, but then again, I made sure I had insurance throughout my twenties, so I suppose it was a priority then, too.
I'm baffled by the general ignorance of people who don't understand how insurance companies function, and it's even more dazzling when you consider that some of those people have worked for insurance companies. A group of people- generally with a common employer-- pool their resources to make an insurance group which negotiates their own allowed rates with doctors and facilities, and in that way, there is a mutually beneficial arrangement. The drs and facilities know that working with individuals in this group and giving them a discount will offset the lower pricing by a lowered risk of not being paid for those services. Likewise, this insured group will have lower rates for premiums and services in part because they are statistically unlikely to be running around and getting involved in drive-by shootings and streetfights and holdups at the liquor store. Low risk, relatively speaking. Want lower premiums and lower rates on your insurance? When applying for jobs, act like a professional, use proper English and deodorant, eschew facial tattoos and don't apply for companies that hire gang-bangers or other reprobates and you'll be half-way there.
My sister says that insurance is all a gamble-- you are gambling you will need insurance, and the insurance company is gambling you won't need it. I'm not saying everyone should have it free, and I'm not saying everyone should be forced to buy it for themselves.
I am saying that I want the power to make career choices for myself in the marketplace based on the availability of health insurance as part of a benefits package between me and my own private employer. There is a price I pay in that this has an impact on what I am actually paid by my employer and I take that into account when making career choices. For me, this is worthwhile and I am willing to pay that premium, but I sure as hell don't want to pick up the tab for the premiums for the self-indulgent wastrel gangbanger thugs or the ne'er-do-wells who are content to sit idle in a park in some sort of Occupy brand of bushwa.
And as for the marketplace and capitalism-- that potential to make money on inventions or techniques of treatment has been one of the greatest incentives for people to develop new drugs and new technologies related to the medical field and is one of the primary reasons why the USA was the cutting edge of medical advancement for most of the 20th century. In nearly all cases, these same great scientific and engineering minds belong to people who are not independently wealthy and need to make money to support themselves and their families-- why should some addle-witted hippie's moral (in)sensibilities dictate that these brilliant people should be prevented from profiting (or even just making a living) from their efforts in the medical field? Else, why would they bother with the medical field at all -- they can make money elsewhere with less red tape and social pressure. Thank goodness anyone still feels inspired to enter that field.
So, to try to gather all this mud back up into a ball-- I don't want the healthcare/insurance choice made for me, and I don't want to spend thousands of own money every year on health care and insurance, only to have more of my money confiscated by the government to cover the healthcare for someone who spent their thousands on spinning rims or a crunked grille. I'll stand by my choices, and I expect other people to have to stand by their own, as well.
Is that so much to ask?
Monday, October 24, 2011
On the mend...
Still sickly, but improving. I went back to the dr on Saturday and got a steroid shot to reduce inflammation and hopefully unswell my eustachian tubes so the fluid could drain out. Also, they xrayed my lungs and I have inflammation on the right lung. I won't be terribly surprised if they call me tomorrow when the radiologist is in and tell me I have a mild case of pneumonia. They also gave me an injection of rocephin. I looked that up and it's a prime treatment for gonorrhea among several other ill-health issues. Goody. Any the who, I am much improved now, despite a sleepless night on Saturday. I blame the insomnia entirely on the steroid shot. Wired to the gills have I been these past 36 hours. It's nearly 1:00 on Monday morning and I have to be to work in 6 hours. Here's hoping I can cram in at least a little sleep.
Meh.
The good thing is the cough has been productive and I'm feeling generally better. I'm desperately eager for the fluid to drain from my ears, though, because I'm having to ask people to repeat things because everything sounds as if I'm hearing it from down a tunnel. I'm tired of this illness, and as of tomorrow, this will be two full weeks. I'm just glad I went to the dr on Saturday, rather than waiting until Monday.
Made some incredible turnip and rice soup, an Italian dish that is a favorite of mine. Bacon features heavily in this relatively simple dish, and it's very soothing. The recipe is nearly identical to this one, except that you put in chopped up bacon with the butter in the first step, instead of olive oil. You can also use pancetta, but bacon-bacon is more readily available, and I've never been unsatisfied with the results. They also say to slice the turnips very thinly, rather than cubing them as called for in this recipe. I find the slices are easy to coat with the bacon/parsley/buttery goodness, and they are pleasingly soft in the soup, and probably take less time to cook properly. This is a simple meal that's quite savory, and very satisfying. I recommend it highly, but not without the bacon!
Have a great week!
Meh.
The good thing is the cough has been productive and I'm feeling generally better. I'm desperately eager for the fluid to drain from my ears, though, because I'm having to ask people to repeat things because everything sounds as if I'm hearing it from down a tunnel. I'm tired of this illness, and as of tomorrow, this will be two full weeks. I'm just glad I went to the dr on Saturday, rather than waiting until Monday.
Made some incredible turnip and rice soup, an Italian dish that is a favorite of mine. Bacon features heavily in this relatively simple dish, and it's very soothing. The recipe is nearly identical to this one, except that you put in chopped up bacon with the butter in the first step, instead of olive oil. You can also use pancetta, but bacon-bacon is more readily available, and I've never been unsatisfied with the results. They also say to slice the turnips very thinly, rather than cubing them as called for in this recipe. I find the slices are easy to coat with the bacon/parsley/buttery goodness, and they are pleasingly soft in the soup, and probably take less time to cook properly. This is a simple meal that's quite savory, and very satisfying. I recommend it highly, but not without the bacon!
Have a great week!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday, Puppy Sunday: puppy posteriors in repose
Teh puppehs make no bones about the fact that they take a dim view of me staying up past sundown, and to that end, sometimes they just give up on me and go to bed without me. I found them in bed this way last night and had to snap a little photo. I know I'm biased, but I thought this was so incredibly cute!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Sitting in the dr office lobby (yes, again)...
...it strikes me that shows with laugh tracks of supposed studio audiences pretty much make my skin crawl. One-liner hell. It was one thing when the show was "The Honeymooners" or somesuch, but the dross tv churns out right now looks, from this small sample, like the death-knell for a civilization.
Meh.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Meh.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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