Quizes: Yes, I'm Bored
What Type of Soul Do You Have?

You are naturally born with a gift, whether it be poetry, writing or song. You love beauty and creativity, and usually are highly intelligent. Others view you as mysterious and dreamy, yet also bold since you hold firm in your beliefs.


What Type of Soul Do You Have ?
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Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You?

Congratulations! You're Legolas!


Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
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What Movie Do You Belong In

Matrix!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
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Role Playing Stereotype





Find your Role-Playing
Stereotype at mutedfaith.com.

Merry Fucking Christmas

Friday Five
1. List your five favorite beverages. Mountain Dew Code Red. Irish Whiskey Punch. Earl Grey tea. Bacardi Silver Raz. White Russian.
2. List your five favorite websites. Elfwood: the best place for amateur fantasy art. WTF Comics: A great comic about EverQuest. If you don't play, you won't get it, though. PVP Comics: A great comic about a gaming magazin company. Sinfest: Another great comic. Nuklear Power: A pixie comic based off the graphics of Final Fantasy 1. Funny stuff!
3. List your five favorite snack foods. Ice cream sandwich. A small bowl of cereal. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Doritos. Yogurt.
4. List your five favorite board and/or card games. Haven't really played board games in ages, but I used to with my mother. I always loved playing games with her and my grandmother. We used to play Sorry!, Husker Du, Yahtzee, and Battleship. We both like to play Mah Jongg on the computer now, too.
5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games. I could cheat and say EverQuest, EverQuest: Ruins of Kunark, EverQuest: Scars of Velious, EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin, EverQuest: Planes of Power, and EverQuest: Lost Dungeons of Norrath... but I won't. Anyway, moving on: EverQuest. Arcanum. Baldur's Gate. Final Fantasy. And um.... Mah Jongg.

Ooooo Excuse me while I go melt into a puddle of fan-girly glee. What a great movie. *Squee!* Needed more Legolas though.

*Squee* Got my tickets to the opening night of LoTR:RoTK. Go me! Legolas is still the prettiest.

Friday Five
1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays? I really prefer cold to hot. After all, if you're cold you can bundle up more, but if you're hot, there's only so much you can take off. If I could choose though, I enjoy the fall, not quite cold yet but not warm either.
2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect? I really don't care for holiday celebrations. I just go to them for my parents.
3. Do you do have any holiday traditions? Ever since I was a kid, the adults always open their presents on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning, the kids open the presents from Santa. This is followed by Christmas Breakfast. That night the whole family heads over to my aunt's house for a huge Christmas dinner with tons of relations that I haven't seen since the last Christmas dinner, and would've been fine not seeing at all. Ah, family.
4. Do you do anything to help the needy? I am needy... Help me. Don't think we're going to be able to get my stepdaughter much for Christmas this year besides the clothes she needs.
5. What one gift would you like for yourself? Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers Special Extended Edition DVD

God How logical are you in your belief of God's existance? Take the Battleground God test. If you contradict yourself then you have to "bite the bullet" or "take a hit" to find out how "healthy" you are when you reach the end.

Mmmm again... Another "Oh. My. God." painting of Legolas by the same artist as the one I linked yesterday. Tasty.

Ummm... I saw these products at the pharmacy while I was waiting for my meds today. Wallets and purses made out of... duct tape. All I could think was... WTF?

Mmmm... "Orlando Bloom is outside my apartment." Now, this statement is right up at the top of the list of "things I'd love to be able to say," right underneath "Orlando Bloom is in my apartment." This is also a statement that one of my friends said to me tonight. The guy lives in Westwood, and the theatre that the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was premiering at is right by his apartment. He refused to knock Orlando out and ship him to me. Wanker. I'd do it for you! Okay, well maybe not... but I'd think about it. And then keep him for myself. I promise to feed him, and bathe him, and give him a nice comfy bed. Oh pleeeeease!

Speaking of Orlando Bloom. May I just say Oh. My. God.

A side note about the Elfwood pictures I linked above. The pictures are copyright of their owner, etc etc. I couldn't find anything about not posting links to pictures, so I figured it was okay since I was linking to the page and not just sucking the image off the site. Also, I recommend the LoTR tours that feature the pictures, they're great. Especially the "Lighter Side of Lord of the Rings" tour.

Friday Five Okay so I've missed the last two Fridays. The first one I was on vacation with my husband, and the last one I was busy being miserable and sick. So, here am I, catching up. Better late than never. I've actually spent some time thinking about these, so it's even later than it would've been.

First, from the 21st:
1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year. The end of this year? Nothing, really. It's only a month away, give me a break. I'll just be happy getting my Christmas shopping done to my satisfaction. But five whole things? Yikes.
2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again. Again, I'm not going to have five people that I'm dying to hear from again. I do miss my two friends from high school, Tiffany and Casey. They came to my wedding, but I haven't really heard from them since then. There's some people I wouldn't mind hearing from, because they were cool and I didn't ever get to know them as well as I would liked to have in high school though, since I was, I think, rather quiet. Donnie, Colin and Shawn. I won't name last names. It's not like they're going to be visiting my website.
3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do. I'd like to learn how to crochet. It's silly, but I've seen my sister doing it, and it looks like it would be rather relaxing. There's something that I think would be cool to know how to do, but I'm not actually going to be doing it... and that's flash animation. I can't really think of three more things I'd like to learn how to do, but if I do I'll edit my post.
4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit). Go to Ireland. Go to Holland. Pay off my car. Get a house. Buy lots of books!
5. List five things you do that help you relax. Read a book. Listen to a calming CD. Light a candle or incense. Take a bath. Take a nap.

And now, from the 28th:
1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not? Not really. I love book shopping. I hate clothes, grocery, and shoe shopping. For shoes and clothes... I'm picky, and hard to fit. Grocery shopping... I just don't like to cook. You spend all day in the kitchen and it's gone in half an hour. Not my idea of fun.
2. What was the last thing you purchased? Lunch. :-P But I doubt that was what the folks at Friday Five had in mind. The last thing I bought that wasn't gas or food... would be my grandmother's birthday present. She's over 90 years old, and doesn't get out much, but she has a lava lamp that she likes to sit and watch. Well, it stopped... lavaing. So I got her a new lava lamp.
3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why? I prefer an actual store. Especially when I'm buying books. I like to be able to see what I'm buying. I like to browse my books. Check out the first chapter. Read the back. Run my fingers over the shelves and just pick out a book that looks cool to read the back of. Checking out the covers on line just isn't the same.
4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it? Sometimes. I don't remember how much it was. It was never a constant thing. It was a... keep your room clean and you'll get this much, sort of thing.
5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing? I can't think of anything at the moment. Nothing comes to mind that I've thought, "Damn, I wish I never bought that." I guess... my last car. But my parents picked it out while I was at work, since they were paying the downpayment and my dad was co-signing on it. I do wish I had never seen the damn thing though.

Cat Quotes Here's some cat quotes that some kind person emailed me. Thank you!

"Our words should be purrs instead of hisses." -- Kathrine Palmer Peterson

"To me, the best holistic remedy for high blood pressure, is a purring cat on your lap." -- Kathrine Palmer Peterson

"I always find it curious as to why I take such great pains to keep my cat's dishes clean when I know I'll look out the window and see her happily carrying a dead mouse in her mouth." -- Fannie Roach Palmer

Fire Drill Last week at work our fire alarm went off. Rather than just darting off in a panic, I gathered my laptop and shoved it in my bag, zipped it up, grabbed it and my purse, and got up to leave. Imagine my surprise when I stood up and saw that a few people from my department were just... standing there. One of them looked at me and goes, "Do you know what's going on?" Now let's take a minute to look around. The other department in our room is leaving. The alarm is blaring. The flashy strobe light things that say "FIRE" above them are flashing. Hrm. Let me think a minute. "It's a fire.... you need to leave." *sigh* Some of my cow-orkers scare me.

Atlanta Daryl and I left Friday to head to Atlanta for an anniversary vacation. We stayed at a Radisson. I was, frankly, very disappointed. Daryl called and asked before we left if they had high speed internet, and they said they did. However, when we got there, there wasn't. There was no breakfast available. The wallpaper was peeling. The carpet was threadbare and coming up at the edges. The carpet in our room was stained, and so was the floor in the bathroom. The tub drained slowly when we showered. The room wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound, but for a Radisson, I expected a lot better. Plus, every night, and Sunday morning, there were church services in the Ballroom on the first floor of the wing we were in... and Sunday morning we woke up to the extremely loud sounds of bass coming from their service, all the way up to the forth floor. The first day when we drove out there, we just had enough time to get some supper, and get settled in. We had dinner at The Italian Oven. That night we watched a few episodes of the first season of Coupling on the DVD player we brought with us. The next day we went to the Little Five Points community to go around to the shops and such. That night we went to a comedy improv show at Dad's Garage, which was a lot of fun. Sunday we packed up and came home. All in all it was fun. The whole point was to have time alone with each other, away from family and home. Mission accomplished.

Interesting News

Toni Lynn Lycan, 44, of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, was playing music when her neighbor, Allen M. Haines, 27, banged on the ceiling to get her to turn it down. Lycan allegedly yelled that if Haines had a problem with her music he should come up and talk about it. But as he climbed the stairs to her apartment Lycan leapt off her bed and slammed down onto the floor, apparently to "bang" back at him. The impact broke both of her legs. (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, Vancouver Columbian)

I wonder if I bang on my ceiling enough to get my neighbour and her demonspawn child to shut up, if she would eventually do this...

And here's an interesting article I found from mid-October:

Joseph Alan Logan, 46, of Pinson, Ala., was mighty upset when the University of Alabama football team lost a game 34-31 in double overtime. Then his son, Seth, 20, asked him for a car. Investigators say Joseph, still in a rage, put a gun to Seth's head, said he was "going to blow your [expletive] brains out" and pulled the trigger. He missed. "He claimed he was just trying to scare his son," a sheriff's spokesman says. "I know we take football serious in the South, but that's crossing the line." (Birmingham News)

I'm not even going to comment on this one. It speaks for itself.

Drug Raid I know its a bit old news, and I meant to mention it earlier... but I was pretty outraged by this news article. Basically, armed police officers and the K9 unit burst into a high school, weapons drawn, and ordered students down on the ground, hand cuffing some, while they searched for drugs. And they didn't find a thing. No drugs. No weapons. No arrests made. All of this over alleged marijuana dealing in the hallways. The principle and the police officers involved all think that bursting in on scared students with weapons drawn was a justified reaction.

No Comment...

What Makes You Sexy? by eva71
Name/NickName
Gender
Sexy Body Part Is	Your Eyes
Special Talents Are	Blow Jobs
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

Friday Five Wow this is going to be hard...
1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space. Noisy.

2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer. Distant. Non-profit.

3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime. Addicting. Entertaining. Time-consuming.

4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day. Lazy. Last-minute. Eternal. Computer-generated.

5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life. Affluent. Indolent. Unaccountable. Hedonistic. Journeying.

Now a little explaining. For the first one, by noisy I'm referring to my upstairs neighbours and their little demon child. In the second one, by distant, I mean far away, not like... uncommunicative. For the third one, I am, of course, describing EverQuest. For the forth, by computer-generated, I mean that most everything I do is on the computer. And finally, the last one, I mean I want to be rich, lazy, do whatever I wish, and travel around the world. And by hedonistic I don't mean the pervy way, I just mean the pursuit of pleasure in general.

Glenn Fine, you want your honourable mention, here it is! Friday night Robbie and I popped over to the place that I happen to know Glenn works, a couple miles from my house. I spotted a guy that matched what I knew, and I knew for sure when I saw his name tag as we checked out. As we left I stopped and leaned on the counter and said, "I know you." That got me a weird look! Then Robbie goes, "And she knows where you're from!" I said, "Yup, you're from Pennsylvania, aren't you... I knew it." I think we freaked him out. Fun times!

Mulligan's I was pleasantly surprised when we went to Mulligan's Thursday night and Larry Diemer from The Don't Be Brothers was there. It was a fun night!

Friday Five
1. What food do you like that most people hate? Ummm... I don't know. What do most people hate? I know what my step-daughter hates that I like. Mushrooms and tomatoes. Hrm. I like tofu. Not just plain tofu, but like, cooked in stuff. I like spinach and turnip greens.

2. What food do you hate that most people love? Watermelon. I hate watermelon. Nastiness.

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you? There's a lot of them, but the first one that comes to mind is that Sex in the City chick. I think she's fugly.

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find attractive? Hmmm... I don't know. This is going to sound silly, but when I was in high school I used to like Drew Carey. A sense of humour has always turned me on more than anything else.

5. What popular trend baffles you? Oh my god, there are so many. Just glancing over the friday five responses are making me go "amen!" to what a lot of people put. Most "popular" music these days baffles me. You know, the boy- and girl-bands. SUVs; I hate SUVs. People that drive while talking on the cell phone; Yes, I do it sometimes, but I try to pay more attention to driving than talking, and I'd rather not talk and drive unless I'm stuck in traffic. People that live their lives by their cell phone; It's like it's attached to their hand. Get the fuck off the cell phone! White boys (from small towns especially) driving around with bad (is there good?) hip-hop blasting out of their radios and saying shit like "Sup dawg" and "bling bling" and who knows what else. Reality television; My god, will it ever end. And like so many other people that answered the friday five... big baggy pants down around your knees. What. The. Fuck. I just don't get this. Personally, I think it makes you look like a tard that doesn't know how to put on your own clothes. But that's just me.

Friday Five Yeah, so it's a bit late. I was busy that night.

1. What was your first Halloween costume? I don't remember for sure, but I think it was when my mother used to dress me up as a clown when I was a kid. White face paint, red nose, and everything. Bleh.

2. What was your best costume and why? I don't think I've ever had a really great costume or anything. But I think my favorite is, of course, kitty ears and a tail!

3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat? Nope.

4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.) When I was a kid my mother used to always make such delicious pumpkin. I don't mean pumpkin pie or anything. Just pumpkin diced, and cooked in a pot with lots of butter and lots of sugar. So bad for you and oh, so very good.

5. Share your favorite scary story...real or legend! Definitely The Bell Witch, from right here in good ol Tennessee, and from the very county I live in. Even Andrew Jackson is caught up in the tale. The descendant of Mister John Bell, is, I believe, the owner of Austin & Bell funeral homes, right here in my own little home county. Check out the site. I've always found the story pretty interesting.

Asshole! Today, Robbie and I went to Opry Mills to see Lee and Maggie. Lee is in Job Corps now, and they had sent him and some of his fellow job corps friends to the mall for a day out. Unfortunately, I had the distinct displeasure of seeing Dave, Maggie's husband, again. Dave. I can't describe Dave in one small blog entry. He's mental. I mean, he thinks they are after him. He's definitely an authentic paranoid. He's also been arrested, once, for spousal abuse. I think that was the only time he ever hit her, but I'm also sure that he's mentally abusive. Anyway. Today, after most people had left, it was just me and Robbie, and Maggie, Dave and Lee. Robbie's never met Dave before, and I bet he wishes he hadn't met him still. Lee was talking about winning a CD player, and the conversation turned to winning, and Robbie said something about "well, Bush didn't really win the election" or something along those lines. Dave proceeded to call him a "communist bastard" and told him that if he "wanted to live off the government," he should move "over there". Where, exactly, "over there" is, I'm not really sure. Then he also said that he bet we voted for Clinton. Barring the fact that when Clinton was elected, neither of us were old enough to vote. God, I hate that guy.

RHPS Halloween night Robbie and I went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Belcourt Cinema in Nashville. That was my first time to actually see it on the big screen. I've seen the movie. I know a lot of the audience parts. I've seen the stage production of it. But I haven't seen it in the movie theatre. So I guess that makes me a virgin. But I still refused to go up to be sacrified. Nyah. The actors that played it out, on the stage in front of the screen, I have to say were not that good. For one, Doctor Frank-N-Furter was a woman, and a rather chubby one at that, totally unlike Frank. What the hells the point of a female dressed up as a female I ask you! Riff Raff also was a woman. The person that played Columbia couldn't dance for shit. She just sort of... stumbled around stage. And the girl that played Janet... was about 3 times the size of the Janet in the movie. The guys that walked up and down the isles shouting the lines for the audience were good, and one of them was also Eddie. Well, even though they were not that great, they had fun doing it, and that's the important part. We had a lot of fun there, and I enjoyed seeing it that way for the first time.

Friday Five I know, I know. I said I would be doing a Friday Five on Friday's but... well, there hasn't been one posted. So nyah. But hey, at least I made an effort.

Grrrrr I'm soooo pissed. I got up this morning to go to work and someone has fucked up my driver's side door. There's like 3 or 4 dents, and wide, inch-long scrape of white paint on the door. And I'm not talkin' little bitty dents. I'm talkin', someone slammed their car door or something into my car. That took effort. And of course the neighbour who's parking spot that is next to mine totally denies any knowledge of it. I didn't really expect her to go, "yeah, that was me, sorry, I'll take care of it" or anything, heh.

Buzz & Click On Saturday night, Daryl and I went to a local CD release party/live show. One of our friends, Pimpdaddysupreme, was going to be there performing and we wanted to see him. It was a party celebrating the release of the new CD Area 615 on Discrepancy Recordings label. It's a compilation of local electronic musicians. I have to be honest here. Most of the music, and I'm using the term music loosely, that I heard was just not my thing. A lot of it was, to me, just noise. A lot of it was very vague in that it had no discernible beat, or melody. The ambience was rather lacking as well, since most of the "bands" consisted of guys sitting with their laptops and mixer boards hitting buttons. To me, a lot of it was rather boring, or made me want to just fall asleep. The more interesting (not interesting sounding, but interesting in the weird way) was the guy that appeared to be playing a piece of driftwood and springs, and the "band" that played underneath a black tarp, and weren't even on the stage. In my opinion, Pimpdaddysupreme's show was the best one of the bunch. He was definitely interesting to watch, all pimped-out in a bright red satiny suit, with a shimmery black shirt. He was into it. He danced, he talked to the audience, his music was fun. He even rapped about the kids in small towns that have low-riders and listen to bad white boy rap, with snippets of Garth Brooks' "Low Places" mixed in. He even had a hip-hop group from his neighbourhood that he's been producing in his basement do another "country" rap, that was a play on "Sweet Home Alabama"... "Sweet Home Grown Chiba". All in all, it was a fun night. It was cool seeing Pimpdaddy again, and even the music wasn't my thing, I'm still open to experiencing other peoples art.

As The Flame Burns: Episode Next Robert's back. He left Florida to come back to Nashville (because he missed his mommy, and his hag) to be homeless. He didn't know until he got here that his father said he couldn't come back. Charming. He's currently seeking employment, but it will be a moot point after the 20th since then he'll have a warrant out for his arrest because of shit involving Chad. I told you so. We're going to Mulligan's tonight while we still can. Of course, since he's jobless and moneyless, he's making me pay.

For What Does It Profit a Man, If He Shall Gain the Whole World, and Lose His Own Soul? Apparently it would profit this woman about £8262. That was the quote given to me by the good folks at Wewantyoursoul.com. And apparently, 84 percent of people have a purer soul than myself.

Friday Five As a way of... sort of forcing myself to update my blog... I think perhaps I'll start answering the Friday Five. Starting now. Even though the subject of this weeks is something I rambled about not that long ago. Feel free, and in fact, consider yourself encouraged to, answer these yourself in my comments!

1. What vehicle do you drive? A 2003 Chevy Malibu. Much love for it. Of course, it's infinitely better than the PoS I was driving.

2. How long have you had it? A wee bit more than a month.

3. What is the coolest feature on your vehicle? To me, the CD player. Neither of my two previous cars had CD players. Mmmmm.

4. What is the most annoying thing about your vehicle? Okay okay, I know it's silly... but I miss the little reading lights in the front that my last car had. The dome light just doesn't cut it at night. And there's no handles inside above the door. Of course, since most of the time I'm driving, I don't notice it. But Daryl sure does!

5. If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now? I would be chauffered around in a nice limo. And not one of those stupid, annoying SUV limos, pickup truck limos, jeep limos, or Hummer limos. Yuck. But if I were to be driving myself around... I don't know... probably a Corvette. Or something ridiculously expensive and fast! Like a Corvette...

Mulligan's I miss Mulligan's. I haven't gone since Robbie left me. I miss the music. And the potato soup. Mmm. But mostly the music. I can't really explain why I love the music so much. It calls to me. I have most if not all the songs that the band plays on CDs, but it's not the same as seeing it live, hearing it live, feeling it live... I wish I had friends in the area I could go drinking with and hang out at the bar like I did with Robbie. I don't really know anyone in the area though. Which is rather sad, since I've lived here most of my life. Daryl first took me to Mulligan's, but he hasn't gone in ages. He doesn't seem to like staying up that late anymore. And I like to go on Thursday's when it's not so loud, so I can hear the band better. And Robbie needs to come back! Yes, NOW I say.

As the Flame Burns Robbie wanted me to write up a new episode of As the Flame Burns but honestly... I just couldn't be buggered. So here's a brief summary of the current episode. He's in Florida, he's out, and he's on a quest to get men. Or boys. Or is it bois? I don't know, whatever. I'm sure Robbie can elucidate on it himself in the comments if he so desires.

TPOH Goodbye, tpoh.org. Hello, thisistheshit.org. Yes yes, I know it spells TITS.

Doug Stanhope I heard a quote from Doug Stanhope, a comedian, that caught my fancy, that I wish to share.

This country sucks, ladies and gentleman. That's what I'm saying. Don't believe all the fucking patriot bull-shit they blew up your ass in high school. This is a fucking nit-wit, dip-fuck, no seperation between church and state, fucking hell hole. This might be the greatest country in the world, but that's like being the prettiest Denny's waitress. You still have a lot of work to do. Being the best doesn't necessarily make you fucking good.

What's Your Battlecry?

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Rampaging through the tarmac, attacking with two hardened pitas, cometh AllieKat! And she gives an ominous scream: "By Odin's mighty spear, I carve into flesh like the world's mightiest bad-ass!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

Male or Female Someone came up with a charming little algorithm that supposedly predicts based on a writing sample, whether the author was male or female. Simply enter a block of text into the The Gender Genie and see whether you write like a guy or girl.

Yar!

Awwwwww!

Comments Comments are borked. Try back later.

Car Well, I did it. I finally got a new car. My godfathers son is a mechanic, and he and another mechanic both told me I needed to get rid of that car before it was totally borked and I couldn't get anything for it as a tradein. So Wednesday, I absconded with my father, and we went to try to get a decent deal on a car. I'm really happy with what I wound up with! Gonna mostly copy this out of an email I sent out, since I'm too lazy to type it all out again. Anyway, Saturn's are one of THE worst cars on the market. I owed 5k on it still. It was only worth, tops, 2k. I got 1.5k for it because of all the shit wrong with it. Anyway, I had to go to a dealer, because that's the only way I would get rid of my Saturn. Plus we had to find a dealer that would deal with a 3.5k up-side down turnin, and be able to finance me for the amount that I'm able to pay per month. The first place we went to, the sales guy we talked to was someone my dad knew from being a preacher. The guy was a district speaker or something in the church. So my dad was just like, here's what we need, can you do it? And the guy showed a few things, told us what he could do, and it wasn't enough, so we left. We just stopped and looked at the price range of a couple other places. Then we came to the Chevy dealership. My dad walks in, told the guy we wanted a new car in the 12k-13k range, did they have it? And the guy said no, but we have some nice pre-owned cars that would fit. And we acted like we *really* wanted new, but let the guy talk us down to pre-owned. ;-) Then the guy like, sat us down and goes... "Let me tell you what I can do for you" and my dad just laughed. Then my dad goes... "Look. I've been a salesman all my life. You can't bullshit a bullshitter. Here's what we need. If you can't do us, don't waste my time." And of course my salesguy.... (His name was Knut. His first name. And the K isn't silent. It sounded like K-newt.)... was all like, oh no sir, I'm not going to bullshit you, etc etc. My dad's just great, hehe. I wouldn't have gone without him. I think car dealer types are trained to take advantage of women. So he took us over to the pre-owned lot and showed me this 2003 Chevy Malibu. So much love for it. It just *looked* nice. It's silver. Has a cd-player. V6 engine. Automatic lights, windows, doors, brakes. Cruise control. Four door. Tinted windows. Keyless entry. 28k miles. He said it was probably a lease turn-in. And only 10 thousand dollars. My dad's first response was... what's wrong with it? They just got their 2004s in, and all the 2003s were on sale. NEW that car cost a bit over 20k. Used, it would've cost like 14k. On sale... 10k. Tack on the 3.5k from my car... perfect! Car payments went up a little more than I was used to by about 25 dollars. And I'm sure my insurance will go up. But I think it's totally worth it. It's a *really* nice car. Unlike my PoS Saturn, that was slowly breaking down around me. The automatic windows didn't work, and the back two would just... slide down for no apparent reason. The moonroof didn't work. The paint was peeling off the spoiler. The transmission was borked. One of the mechanics said the transmission would keep getting borked because the computer inside it was feeding in too much information or something, so the computer inside was borked and would cost WAY more than the worth of the car to fix. The wind-shield was cracked all the way across. And it really wasn't air-tight. Driving, lots of air leaked in around the doors, and when I took it through the car wash, water leaked in. This one is so quiet inside when I drive, and the stereo's nice... *sigh* So happy! I doubt I'll be happy when I'm still paying on the damn thing 6 years from now though. ;-)

This Episode Robbie and Chad and Robbie's dad went to the gas station for something. Chad got mad at Robbie and tried to slam his arm in the door. Robbie's dad pulled him off Robbie. Chad started attacking Robbie's dad. Robbie had to pull his gun on Chad to get him off. Now Robbie's looking for a place to stay where Chad won't know where he is. I had to tell him no. I can't risk having that insane crackhead showing up at my house endangering my family. Now his cell phones been disconnected, and I haven't gotten any response to the voice mails I've left at his parents. He's quit his job. What happens now? Who knows! To find out, keep tuning in to... As the Flame Burns!

Last Time Last episode recap: Robbie was dating Chad, an idiot crackhead. Drug dealers are showing up at Robbie's house damanding the money that Chad owes them. Robbie has a severe asthma attack, most likely due to extreme stress, his lungs constrict, he passes out and has to go to the hospital. The next morning, Chad is mad at Robbie. Chad had to spit out a 20 rock of crack to give Robbie mouth to mouth. Robbie comes to my work to talk to me because he's all sad (why?) that they broke up. An hour later, they're back together again. Robbie thinks Chad will be okay if he goes into rehab and gets off the crack. Will Robbie come to his senses? Will Chad go into rehab? Will Robbie pay back the money he owes everyone? Find out the answers, and more, on the next exciting episode of... As the Flame Burns!

Um Yeah.

Nothing I really feel like saying. Indeed.

Robbie Again Robbie called me the other night for the first time in a week (after he stood me up!) to ask to borrow some money. I guess the paying back the debts that Chad accrued thing isn't going so well. Why am I not surprised. I talked to him yesterday, and he sounded pretty tired of the bum. But I doubt he'll kick him to the curb. He said Chad's been staying with him at his parents house, and his sister and her husband and kids were coming over for dinner, and Chad said he wouldn't stay, that he'd go over to someone elses house, presumably his drug-dealer, and smoke dope instead. Charming, eh? Apparently he can't get into rehab yet because all the beds are full and he has to wait for an opening. Doesn't sound much to me like he really wants rehabilitating though. I've said it before and I'll say it again. This guy isn't good for you Robbie! Of course he's been so busy lately, he hasn't even been calling me that much, let alone reading my blog...

Neighbours Our upstairs neighbour is being just as annoying as always, but now we have the resurging annoyance of the neighbours that share a wall with us. We've had a problem in the past with the teenage son playing his music so loud it makes the pictures on the walls vibrate. It started off that we could knock on the wall and he'd turn it down, but then it got to where we'd knock on the wall and he'd turn it up. Maybe his parents aren't home or something when they were before. Now, on Friday, the little bastard let the air out of the tires on one side of his car. Of course we have no proof that it was him. But no one else in the apartments would have a reason to, and the little snot and his friends were in the parking lot that night. The manager said he'd talk to them, but it's not like they're going to admit it. That's okay. He'll get his. Next time I smell him smoking pot behind the apartments he's in trouble! *snickers*

Robbie Robbie is frustrating me again. Ya know, I kinda long for the days when I could say something like that here, and he wouldn't know about it. *wink* But there it is, all the same. A lot of things have happened though. It turns out the person that stole Robbie's checks was really Mikey, the guy that kept buggering off. The guy in the Mazda in the car chase really wasn't Chad, but just a weird, freakish coincidence. But he still wants to give him a second chance even though he is on crack ("supposed" to be going to rehab) and was a totally asshole. Bah. Just... bah. I just have a bad feeling about the whole thing. Dating a crack addict can't possibly be healthy.

Guestbook Entry Just wanted to take a minute to make a few points on the last guestbook entry that was made.
1. Attacking my looks personally just means that you don't have an argument to fall back on. If you did, you wouldn't have to resort to personal insults, trying to get at me through a lack of self esteem. If you fall for the media's view of the way people should look then I have no respect for your opinions anyway, which I don't since you resort to leaving rude comments in people's guestbooks. Your attitude makes you disgusting.
2. It may be a list of people I don't know, but they message me. I post them on my website because it amuses me, and because I can. It's funny. And guess what, there's a lot more comments of people finding it funny, than of people thinking I'm wasteing my time. Just like the reason I'm responding to your post, altough I usually prefer not to feed the trolls. It's my website, I'll do with it what I will. That hardly makes one a loser. It's not like I go out trolling for people to put up. They find me out of the blue. If you don't like it, piss off.
3. I don't care if he's going to be rich or not. He's still an ass. Am I supposed to care that he's getting money handed to him on a silver platter? Just because an ass gets money, a business, a respectable position... a presidency... by inheritance doesn't make someone any less of an ass.
4. Again, you resorted to personally insulting me, but the fact remains that guestbook entries are emailed to me automatically, and I receive them when I check my mail. Oh dear heavens, I checked my email before I went to bed. *gasp*
5. Get back to me when you have the balls to leave your email in a guestbook entry so that I can respond to the shit you leave in it, instead of tiptoeing in and leaving a guestbook entry with no way to get back to you.

Pervy Hobbit Fancier

Frodo's my fancy!
What's your fancy? Click here and tell the world!

Another Loser! Here's a transcript of a loser I recently got. I will make it more presentable and add it to my losers page later. The line about my "copious abundant darklife" made me giggle.

--------------------------------------
ICQ History Log For:
107612709 Dinno
Started on Tue Jul 15 03:00:26 2003
--------------------------------------
Dinno 7/15/200 2:15 AM do u know, I better than u

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:16 AM um, good for you?

Dinno 7/15/200 2:17 AM thank u! Im so happy

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:17 AM wonderful.

Dinno 7/15/200 2:19 AM thank u again! I think u should have medical
treatment because I bette than u , u know!
u'll turn kinda crazy!

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:19 AM mmhmm.

Dinno 7/15/200 2:20 AM I waking u up right!

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:22 AM One, I didn't realize I needed waking up...
two, i've yet to see any evidence to your
theory of your being better than me... and
three, I rather doubt that I am the "kinda
crazy" one in this conversation.

Dinno 7/15/200 2:28 AM hehehe One, First Illness symptom!
Negation! Two, u probaly practice Shintoist
religion! and Three u could be a brazen
person! maybe

Dinno 7/15/200 2:29 AM totally shamelessness

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:33 AM Um yeah. Whatever you say. You don't even
make sense. It's really hard to hold a
conversation with someone that doesn't make
sense.

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:33 AM It's also hard to hold a conversation with
someone that says they must be better than me,
because I *probably* practice a religion,
without any knowledge of me whatsoever.

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:33 AM In fact, telling you that you can't be better
than me, because you are arrogant enough to go
around telling complete strangers that they
are worse than you... worse at what, who
knows... is, in its very method, making you
worse than someone minding their own business.


AllieKat 7/15/200 2:34 AM You're one to talk about shameless. Telling
utter strangers you know *nothing* about that
you are better than them. Totally elitist.

Dinno 7/15/200 2:40 AM I'm not elitist! u r elitist! u said first!
u r just jealous! trying to suppress your
copius abundant darklife!

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:42 AM Riiiight. I seem to remember "I am not, you
are!" arguments from elementary school. By
the way, using the phrase "copious abundant"
is rather redundant.

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:42 AM I'm going to go back to the real world now.
Have fun inside your head, where everyone is
"worse than you".

Dinno 7/15/200 2:52 AM pelt skin!

Dinno 7/15/200 2:53 AM mad? :-@ *DISGUSTED*

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:55 AM You're still here? Be gone. I've had enough of
your prattling.

Dinno 7/15/200 2:58 AM that was only the preface!

AllieKat 7/15/200 2:59 AM Sure. Buh-bye now.

Robbie Robbie called me tonight to tell me an interesting tidbit of information. Apparently someone, most likely Chad, had stolen some checks out of his box of checkbooks in his room, and has been writing bogus checks. Lovely. The other possibility is that it's Mikey, his new fling, that keeps buggering off without a word. Like, Robbie drove him to a relatives one day. Mike called the relative, went in the building... and never came back out. Robbie waited and waited. Finally, he called the relative, and the person had no idea where he was. He didn't reappear until something like the next day. Then he buggered off again on ... Thursday I believe, and he hasn't heard from him since. Robbie did call his mother and told her to have hm call her, so that they could discuss the missing checks and false checks that are being written on his account. So now Mike's mother is super pissed at him. The other possibility is that both of them are writing false checks on his account. Just keeps getting better and better, eh?

Sexism On Friday, Robbie came to my work to inspect his guards, since he's a supervisor for the security company that does my office. As I was leaving I walked with him out to my car to inspect the guard that drives the shuttle van from the office to our remote overflow lot. After he inspected the guard, Karen, we started walking off, and I said that I was going to go ahead and leave. He goes, "Okay, see you later" and I start to walk off. Then he shouts, "Bye, chickie!" which is what he always calls me. After a few minutes he calls me, and says after I left, Karen called him and said "You're in trouuuuuble!" Turns out one of the women in the van that was being taken to the remote lot heard him call me chickie and was offended, and wanted to call his supervisor. It's amusing and annoying to me. Annoying because it just displays the tendency in the south of people to stick their noses in other peoples business. I'm perfectly capable of saying if something offends me. He was talking to me. Get your nose out of my conversation and piss off, mate. Bugger off, you bastard!

Chad There is a long story about Robbie and this guy, Chad, he was (emphasis on "was") dating up to about a week ago, and how the guy was literally on crack, and was violent, and stole his cell phone and other fun, interesting things that I'm too lazy to go into right now. I should have put up something about it then, but it was just such a mess, I didn't feel like it. Anyway, they "broke up" when the guy was an ass, stole his cell phone, and Robbie called the police on him, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, now, on a tangent, yesterday two police officers were killed in the Nashville area in a car chase, when two police officers were putting out severe tire damage strips and the car, a Mercedes that was stolen by a 21 year old woman hit and killed them. Today, on the news, there was another car chase on the news. This one involving a Mazda and a young man. The "suspect" hit one of the police cars, and kept driving, in the course of the chase, and the police called off the chase, saying it was too dangerous to the public. So Robbie calls the police dispatch, and says he wants to ask about the police chase involving a white Mazda such and such model. The dispatcher or whoever he was talking to said something along the lines of, "How did you know it was white? We didn't release that information." To which Robbie replies, "I know a lot of things about it," and process to list them. So guess what? You guessed it. It was, indeed, this ex-boyfriend crackhead asshole. Someone's in a lot of trouble!

Front Page News This just in. A young woman in the Middle Tennessee area snapped and killed her upstairs neighbours. The victims were a young mother and her two-year old child. When the police showed up the suspect was continuously banging on the ceiling with a large staff, probably bought at the local RenFaire. The suspect was quoted as saying "The thumping and screaming! Dear god, stop the noise! AHHHHHH!" She's being held at the local mental institution until the trial, where the defense is suspected to be total insanity.

Comments I think my comments are fooked. Robbie left comments and they're not showing up. I tried to test some comments and they didn't show up. I had someone else tell me comments weren't working. Bah.

I've since looked at my ftp server, the comments are there but for some reason they're not showing up when you click on the comments link. I think it has something to do with Blogger, which is what I do my little weblog through. They recently updated their software, and since then, my comments haven't been working. It seems like on all the posts I made before the change, the comments are working, and all the posts after the change, the comments aren't working. I hope I can figure this out. Bah again.

New Loser! The new loser now should be up and available for you viewing pleasure. Just go to the losers area and scroll down to Golgi Apparatus.

Sigh Don't you hate it when someone is doing something stupid, and they know they're doing something stupid, but they keep doing it anyway, and you know something bad's going to happen, again, and you just want to say, "Fine, do whatever, I don't care," but you do care because it's someone you love, and you can't just not care?

Yeah... me too.

New Loser! Finally, after many many days of sitting in wait, available for random chat, on ICQ (which is going pay, by the way... bleh) I finally had a chat with someone I deemed amusing anough to find a place on the esteemed loser list! I wasn't going to put him up as a lose until he made a comment about how he has nothing against intelligent conversation as long as it leads to a "score". I'm not at home so I don't really feel like formatting it and posting it at the moment, but when I tried to post it here I got a... um... "big post" error, whatever that means. So you'll just have to wait.

Laptop I love the laptop I bought from Robbie. Yay! I'm sitting at Cafe CoCo in Nashville typing this, and using the wireless card I bought it to connect to their wireless network. And the post I wrote prior to this one I typed while I was at work listening to mp3s on it. Woo woo. :D

Parents I was sitting at work thinking today... Yes, you would think I should be consentrating on my work, but trust me... after you do optical character recognition editing for long enough your eyes and fingers take over and your brain can just bugger off and do whatever it wants. Anyway. I was sitting at work today thinking about parents. Specifically... can parents be friends? Now yeah, of course they can be friends. I consider my parents my friends. I like talking to them now that I'm an adult. I'm thankful for the wonderful relationship I have with them, but I mean, can they be friends just like any other friend. Can you tell them anything? I can't. I think that parents, when they are raising a child, want to be that child's friend, but is it really possible? Say, as a teenager, the child wants to have sex with their boyfriend, or try pot or something. Can they *really* talk about that with their parents? Some could I suppose... but I never would have felt comfortable telling my parents that. Or say they *did* have sex. Yeah, they'll talk to their friends about it openly, but are they going to tell their parents? Even my mother, when I was talking to her yesterday, was saying that her mother was like a sister to her after she went to college, and that no sister could have been closer, but she didn't tell her everything, just almost everything. Of course, I didn't ask my mother what it was she didn't tell her. I think there is a line drawn between parent and friend, and a parent can be a friend, but there's still a part of the parent that can't go over into being totally a friend. Even now my parents still have a way of making me feel like a child about things. What am I trying to say? I don't know. Just rambing I guess. But... I love my parents. :)

Updates I added a whole lot of pictures to the.. uh... yeah, you guessed it... the pictures area of my site. I added pictures of Robbie from RenFaire, pictures of my family from our Memorial Day get together, and a couple of new graphics I did. I also basically redid all the html on that page so that instead of being taken just to a picture, you're actually taken to a webpage.

Farscape Support the effort to save Farscape from being cancelled. I only recently discovered the show during our trip to Holland, and quickly became immersed in it. I couldn't watch it at home since we do not get the SCI FI channel, nor does our cable company have it available. I have been unable to watch it since we left Holland. Help keep this wonderful, engaging show alive. It sure beats the hell out of a lot of programming these days.

Campaign information quoted from the savefarscape.com site:

On Friday, 6 September 2002 at 9 PM Eastern, Farscape executive producer David Kemper, writer-producer Richard Manning, and series star Ben Browder appeared in an online chat hosted by the SCI FI Channel and announced that the network would not be honoring its earlier commitment to air a fifth season of Farscape.

By disclosing this information, the Farscape production team placed themselves in the position of "scooping" the SCI FI Channel in announcing the cancellation well before SCI FI planned on announcing it themselves. Kemper, Manning, and Browder appealed to fans to get the word out and somehow try to affect a change in the decision.

On Monday, 9 September, SCI FI was forced to release an official statement confirming the cancellation news. An anonymous SCI FI representative cited Farscape's inability "to grow beyond its core fan base" and "the extreme and growing cost of production" as the reasons for their decision. In other words, according to the SCI FI Channel, Farscape's current ratings did not justify its cost to the network, and they did not expect the ratings to improve. However, media-savvy supporters of the series have taken issue with these claims.


Visit their site to find ways to help support the effort to keep the show alive.

To find out more about Farscape, visit their website.

Annoying Churchgoers As you know, if you know me, or have spent any time at all looking at my site, my father's a pastor, and I am a musician. My father often asks me to his church to do the special music, and I do it, because he's my father and it makes me happy to make him happy. As soon as I walked in, one of the ladies in the choir accosted me and goes, "Oh good, you're here. Sarah's sick today so we don't have a song leader." Sarah as in the song leader, not my step-daughter Sarah. I just looked at her and said "Um... I'm... sorry?" Apparently she thought I didn't hear her. She repeated, "Sarah's sick. We don't have a songleader." Again I looked at her, shrugged a little and said "I'm... sorry." "Well... aren't you doing the special music?" At this point I'm looking at her with a strange expression... something that says "Are you going somewhere with this?". "Yes, I'm doing the special music." "Well, we don't have a song leader." I'm standing there wondering, does she expect me to see some connection between my doing the special music and their not having a song leader? I'm sorry you don't have a song leader, and I'm still doing the special music... and you still don't have a song leader. Tired of the conversation I finally shrugged and said "I don't do song leading" and walked off to say hello to my dad. I told my dad about it at lunch afterward. He asked me who it was and I told him and he said, "I told her before church when she asked me to ask you that there was no chance that you would lead the songs." She should've listened to him.

Neighbours I hate, hate, hate our new upstairs neighbours. They've only been here about a week, and I'm already surprised the floor hasn't caved in from all their stomping. Not to mention the spawn of Satan that runs around, jumps, bangs and generally does everything possible to make loud noises on the floor. And it seems to be that one of them is awake all the time. Early in the morning, thuds. Late at night, thuds. All damn day, thuds. One night they were being so loud, Daryl banged on the ceiling with my staff (from RenFaire) and they banged back! One night I was watching X-Men, and I didn't have it up that loud because Daryl was trying to sleep, but the bass was being a little rumbly, and they banged at me! It wasn't even that loud. Especially compared to the heard of elephants their raising in their apartment. We've left notes, we've complained to the manager, we've tried to be polite, but nothing's working. Save me from my neighbours. That reminds me. A couple nights after they started moving in, I was going out to rent a movie since Robbie was coming over and noticed they had left the interior lights on in their car. I thought maybe it was those time delay lights that go out after a few minutes, but they were still on when I got back. I went upstairs to their apartment and knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again, louder. A kid started screaming at the time of it's demonic little lungs. I could hear people in the living room. No one answered. I knocked again and still no one answered. I shrugged and went back downstairs and told Daryl what happened. He asked if I rang the doorbell and I said no, since it was 10 at night I didn't want to wake someone up if someone was trying to sleep, and there was someone in the living room, I could hear them. He went up there and rang the doorbell. No one answered. He rang again. Finally someone came to the door. But they didn't open it. They just shouted through the door, "Whosit?" . "It's our neighbour, your lights are on." "Whut?" "Your lights are on." "Lights're on?" "Yeah." "Aight." When Robbie came over they were still on. I think we're freak magnets.

Friday I had a rather rude, yet interesting awakening on Friday. It was about half an hour before I normally get up for work. I heard someone come in and woke up. I figured it was Sarah. She had a field trip that day and I thought maybe it was just a half day or something. Or maybe Daryl wasn't feeling good, which he hasn't been lately, and came home from work early. A little while later, the bedroom door opens, the overhead light is turned on, a man's voice says, "Ooops," the light goes out, the door is shut. I called Daryl's name a few times to no response. I got up, went into the living room, and there was no one there. About this point, I'm really freaked out. It took me about half an hour before I realized, with Daryl's help, since I called him, that it was the pest control man being an idiot and not ringing the doorbell before he came in for the scheduled maintenance, or knocking on the closed bedroom door before barging in. Blarg.

Memorial Day Today my family got together at Barren River Lake in Kentucky for Memorial Day. My parents and grandmother rented a cottage til Thursday and my brother Robin and his kids are staying with them. My mom was really excited, as this was the first time that all her children, her children's spouses, and her children's children were all together in one place. From top left to right: Daryl, me, my mother, my brother Robin, my brother Victor, Victor's wife Dawn. On the chair at the left, my aunt Francis. In the chair, my grandmother. The kids from left to right: my stepdaughter Sarah, Robin's kids, Hannah, Elizabeth, and Christopher.

Request I was requested to put up this comment about the guy on my losers page by the name Overdoz. I'm going to refrain from comment about it because I don't really know what to think about it. The person leaving the comment requested to remain anonymous.

My comment: you put him in pervert but you should warn people not to have any contact with him for any reasons because he can be much more dangerous than he looks like. I know a person that suffers from harrassment from him quite bad !!!

Couldn't Resist I liked this picture, so I couldn't resist putting it up tonight.

This Weekend Wow. Busy, busy, busy. What a weekend. I'm so tired right now, I could just lay down and fall asleep I think. I have pictures, but I'll have to put them up tomorrow, since the Paint Shop Pro program to edit them to a decent size is on the lap top and Daryl has it somewhere else.

Saturday - Mulligans Good and bad. Really good once we were drunk. Saturday morning Robbie called and reserved our usual table at Mulligans, a two top by the stage. A brief word on the format of the area we sit in. There's the stage at the corner of two walls. There's a two top, a four top, a six top. Against one of the other walls is a bench, with three two person wide tables in front of it. The bench is against a halfway, and over the halfwall is a bar area to sit at, and past that is the actual bar. The other wall from the stage isn't a wall, just a waist high partition with a couple of stairs down, to a slightly lowered dining area, with tables and booths and such. Robbie and I like sitting at the two top right next to the stage. And I mean *right* next to the stage. Robbie props his feet up on it. Anyway, we had that table reserved, but when we got there, they put us in the lower area, in a cubby between the partition to the stage area and a fireplace. They had put all the tables in the upper area together for a huge birthday party. Now, we were pissed not just because it was a crappy seat, and not the one we had reserved, but mostly because they didn't tell us when we called that the table we reserved was already booked, therefore, they must have bumped us down just because of this party, instead of pushing tables together in the lower area for them. I'm sure this is annoying for the band too, having twelve or fifteen people sitting right in front of them being loud and not even listening. They had to crank the volume up pretty high. Robbie couldn't even see the stage tucked back in the corner as we were. They sounded great as always though, and on the busier nights like Saturday they do more upbeat and fun songs, while on Thursday they usually do the pretty ballads. So it was fun because of that. And during the last set, after the party had cut up and distributed birthday cake, the waitress went around asking the folks that had been there all night if we wanted birthday cake. So that was good, too. We got home about the time the sky opened up and all hell broke loose.

Sunday - Ren Faire Sunday morning we were *supposed* to get up at 830, out the door by 9, Ren Faire by 10. But because of the storms, the electricity went out and I just slept til I woke up and saw by my watch it was 915. Oh well. We got there at 1130 or so. As always, Ren Faire was a lot of fun. All the shops selling interesting jewelry, or clothes, or swords, or just whatever you could possibly think of to want at a ren faire are so much fun to browse. The costumed people and actors are great, and the shows are fun. I know Robbie enjoyed oggling all the men in tights. We talked to a few of the actors: one that Robbie knew since he had picked him up when the guys car broke down while Robbie was on duty one night, one that was the "room mate" of the guy Robbie picked up, and the village idiot, Stewart Pidd. I scared away Stew Pidd with my digital camera. He told me I was a witch and ran off, but not before giving Robbie a sign on a string to hang around his neck to indicate our friendship with Stew that said "I'm with Stew Pidd." We didn't stay for many shows, since we see them every time we go and they rarely change. We sat down and watched Isaac Fawlkes the Magician (I'm here to Mag-ish for you. Aren't you glad I'm not a wizard?) and one of the Garbanzo brothers (The world-famous Flying Garbanzo brothers, apparently) juggling razor sharp flaming swords of death(!) and for the joust (No one was unhorsed. Bah. Although one knight did punch another in the helm until he fell back flat on his horse, heh heh.). I bought a silver necklace with a celtic pattern charm on it that I liked. Robbie and I both bought horns. Once the lady tied it on and I covered the string with my hair, all you could see were the two little black horns coming out from my head. Robbie got twisty looking black horns, and his hair mostly covered it. We also bought staves. Thick hickory sticks, about shoulder high, with decorations on the top. Robbie's is a brass eagle and a clear "pimp" ball. Mine is a clear egg-shaped crystal. Robbie wants to dress up next year. Afterwards, we went out to a nice italian restaurant for dinner. We kept getting the weirdest looks. I can't imagine why. Do you think it was the horns?

A Few Observations and Comments Made While Driving Today

• The signs that they put up along the interstate that displayed "Booze It and Loose It" for New Years and have done nothing ever since are *finally* displaying traffic information. Yay!
  
• People that ride their cars on my cars bumper when I'm not in the fast lane, and there is plenty of room to pass me on the left suck and must be punished.
  
• People that ride their cars on my cars bumper when I am in the fast lane, but there's cars in front of me prohibiting my going faster, and there are cars on the right that are being passed, but insist on veering back and forth behind me, and then jumping into the right lane thinking to pass me and try to get in front of me have no chance in hell of me letting them over.
  
• If someone rides on my ass in stop and go traffic because I'm leaving a couple car lengths between me and the car in front of me are just going to find me going even slower, since now I have to give myself enough room to stop, *and* make sure that the person behind me isn't going to rear end me.
  
• People that drive slow in the fast lane all the time, never getting over, no matter what, and get in the fast lane as soon as they get on the interstate need to just die.
  
• Tennessee interstates are made and being "improved" upon by Satan incarnate.
  
• When it starts raining or snowing people in Nashville immediately forget how to drive like normal people.
  
• People with Jesus bumper stickers that say things like "Never Drive Faster Than Your Angels Can Fly" that drive like idiots anyway deserve their own special place in the Hell they believe in.
  
• I know people in Tennessee have a tendency to speed up if you put on your turn signal, but just remember, turn signals are our friend.
  
• People with stupid patriotic slogans plastered all over their vehicles to prove just how patriotic they are also suck and must be punished.
  
• People with stupid patriotic *and* religious slogans in one plastered all over their vehicles to prove just how patriotic *and* righteous they are, such as "America Bless God!" also need to just go die.
  

We got DSL yesterday. I'm a happy gamer! Yay!

One more comment. Sarah has a friend, that calls my cellphone... a lot. I've told her countless times, over and over again, I do not get home until around 7. If she calls me and asks for Sarah when I'm at work or driving home, she ain't getting her. It's my cell phone, not Sarah's. And yet, she calls and calls and calls. I'm talking, she'll call, hang up, call again, hang up, call again. She woke me up one morning when Sarah was off from school by calling and calling until I answered. My cell phone was in the living room, but I could hear it a little in the bedroom. I can ignore once, but after like four times of her calling and letting it ring a gazillion times, I was going nuts. One morning she called my cellphone until Daryl turned it off, and *then* her mother drove her over to our house! I'm not going to blame the mother though, because the kid probably told her something like, they must have the phone off, let's go see if Sarah can come over. I do think the mother gives her WAY too much leeway though. But it's not my child, and Sarah likes spending the night over there, so I don't block the number from my phone. Of course, I couldn't do that anyway, since every time she calls it seems to be from a different number. On the plus side, now that we have DSL, our phone line can actually be used for it's intended purpose, and she can start calling the house and Sarah can answer it, instead of calling me at work. Yay!

Granny My granny went to the hospital last night. My mom called me at 1030 pm and said, "Grandma's fallen and is hurt really bad. The ambulance is on the way." I went to the hospital as soon as I could. I beat the ambulance there. I left as soon as my mom called, and the ambulance hadn't got there yet, and still had to get her stabalized or whatever, and in the ambulance. My mom said three patrol cars, and a fire engine showed up. They were questioning my poor granny, lying there in her own blood, to make sure my parents didn't do it to her. She fell in the bathroom and hit her head. She opened an artery, and lost a lot of blood. She had to have stitches, and she's being treated for a concussion. The CAT scan showed everything normal. She also broke her shoulder. She looked so frail and pitiful lying there, her hair matted with blood, and flecks of dried blood all over her face, haloing her head on the pillow... just... everywhere. She'll be okay we think. Sore as hell, since they can't give her anything but tylenol, but okay. She was coherent. She looked at me and said, "It's good to see you." I said, "It's good to see you too, but not here!" And she replied, "Well, I didn't know the last time you saw me that the next time you saw me would be here." She was worried about her hair. She wanted my mom to fix her hair for her. My granny's pretty amazing. She's 94, and while my parents live with her, does everything for herself mostly. She walks with a cane that she doesn't need and usually leaves standing somewhere. She has better vision than the rest of my family, and only really needs her glasses to read, which she loves to do and does a lot of. She's even started drawing and painting for fun. She writes little poems for people she cares about. She can't hear for crap, but hey, no one's perfect. Her memory is as sharp as a tack for past events, but is a little iffy on recent things, but for 94... damn. My parent's take her to church most every Sunday. She cooks her own breakfast and lunch, and always cooks something for dinner. To her dinner isn't dinner unless she brings beans to the table. Years and years ago, probably 20 years or more, she fell down the stairs to the basement and broke her back. She has a bit of a stoop now, and sometimes it hurts her, but she's pretty spry for her age. She's had half her colon removed because of colon cancer. She broke her arm falling in the living room a few years ago. She's been through a lot in her 94 years. When she was younger she was the school teacher in a little one room school house. When my mother went to college, my grandmother went back to college, too. She taught for years and years in White House, going from a one room schoolhouse to near what it is today, and almost anybody that went to White House schools while she taught there will remember her fondly. She was married to my grandfather for over 50 years. I don't remember how long exactly. He died almost 10 years ago. She's the only surviving member of her extensive siblings. She had 13 other brothers and sisters. She's definitely an amazing woman. Cheers to you granny!

People Suck: Episode 3 The most annoying thing happened to me today. I should start by saying that I look forward, with great pleasure, to the time in my day when I can lock my computer at work, grab whatever book I'm reading at the moment, and go to the cafeteria at my work with a bag of chips or a candy bar, and read in relative peace and quiet for fifteen or so minutes. Normally, around 4 o'clock, it's empty, or if it's not empty, it's very quiet. I'm currently reading a wonderful book I picked up in the Netherlands. "The Discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch, published in Dutch originally as "De ontdekking van de hemel". It's not a religious book, but a philosophical one. It starts with the meeting of two individuals that are thrown together by fate, through the interference of heaven, to help produce a boy that is responsible for getting the Ark of the Covenant back to heaven. Because of free will, the angels responsible for retrieving it cannot directly intefere and must arrange things so that what they want has a better chance of happening. I know, it sounds religious, but I really enjoyed it, and my very very religious mother and father absolutely hated the movie. Probably thought it was sacreligious or something. It's quite a wonderful movie as well, beautifully done, taking you all over Europe. Read it, watch it, enjoy it. You'll be glad you did. Anyway, I'm immersed in my book, and two people, a man and woman, and come in, laughing at talking *very* loudly about... you guessed it... the Bible. I don't really like hearing or discussing the Bible at the best of times. But these two individuals must fill up the intire room with their innane babbling about how other religions are wrong because this book that Christianity is based on says so. And of course, instead of sitting on the other side of the room from me, they get a table right near me. Blarg. People suck.

Pictures! Pictures from our trip in Holland are now available in the pictures area of my site.

Our Friends! On request (of Robbie), I've uploaded some pictures of our friends from Utrecht in the Netherlands, David, Erik, and Dennis.

Erik, David and Daryl


Erik


David


Dennis and Erik


David, Dennis and Erik

Pictures I have pictures to post, but I don't have PSP installed on this computer yet to edit them to a decent size for uploading and viewing and stuff. But there's one picture I just hafta post. It's big, but oh well.

That was in the Sex Museum in Amsterdam. And here's one of me lookin all cracked out that I just kinda liked.

Blog I haven't been able to update my blog while I was on vacation because I was a dork and forgot my password, and I was unable to check the email address I signed up under until I got home to get my password reminder. Anyway.

I'm so glad to be home. Of course, as I type this, I'm not at home. I'm at the airport in Amsterdam. Waiting. But I won't be posting this until I get home, so... I'm glad to be home. This has been a HORRIBLE day. We missed our flight. Oh yes, everything was conspiring against us. Our plane left at 1045. We left our apartment at 730. We should've had plenty of time. Our train was late. But that wasn't so bad. We got to the airport at around 900 or 915. We went to our gate, and got in line. That's where the problem was. There was a HUGE line of people, and only 2 people working the ticket counter. A lot of people missed their flights because of it. Fortunately for us, the airline realized the error of their ways and rescheduled us. So instead of getting home around 600 in the evening as planned, we should, I hope, be getting home around 10 or 11. The only problem is my ride. As I write this, it's still 5 in the morning at home. I hope I'm able to call them before the plane leaves, so they aren't waiting at the airport freaking out.

It's been a lot of fun, but I'm ready to be back in my own home. The apartment was great, spending time with Erik, David, and Dennis was a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed spending time with Daryl. But all good things must come to an end, and I want my own bed and my own computer and my own... STUFF. I'm antsy to go home. Our new flight doesn't leave here for another 2 hours at least. I don't know what I'm going to do until then. This new flight is longer than the one we were supposed to take as well. The one we were supposed to take was only 6 hours, with a stop-over and then another couple hours to wait for the flight to Nashville. This one is over 9 hours, going straight to Memphis. I hope I have some drugs that make me drowsy in my carry-on or this is gonna be a LONG ass flight.

Follow Up Yes, it WAS a long ass flight. But I'm home now. Spent Tuesday relaxing, and now I'm leaving for work. Ta!

Holland You'd think after having been gone for... uh... what is it now, almost a week?... that I'd have something interesting to report, but really, I don't. We haven't really DONE anything besides just be relaxed and groovy. (Relaxed and groovy? No no no!) The plane ride was, as expected, long and horrible. The food was bland. The movies were lame. (The Tuxedo and I Spy) Our friend from Utrecht, Erik, met us at the airport, which was a surprise. We sat and talked to avoid rush hour, and eventually headed to our apartment. Our apartment, is, by the way, wonderful. It's about a mile and a half FROM anything, so walking anywhere is a little annoying. (A little, hah.) The apartment itself is wonderful, spacious, and even better than I would've imagined. There's a full sized kitchen, with a small table to eat at. There's 2 bedrooms with 2 beds. There's a living room with a leather couch and loveseat and a balcony, and a full size dining table. The bathroom is huge, with a big deep tub AND a seperate shower. The bed's are wonderfully comfy, and there's down comforters to get cozy under. And the apartment couldn't be more ON the water. If we stand on the balcony and look down, there's water. I think we're on the edge of one of the five big lakes in the area. On the other side from the water, is beautiful, lush, green countryside, complete with fluffy sheep and chickens (and even a pimped out lookin rooster). We haven't really done much touristy stuff, but we're doing what WE want to do, not what is the norm for tourists. That is, like I said, relax and sit back and enjoy ourselves. We've hung out with Erik and David at their apartment, where their brother Dennis cooked us a wonderful meal. We walked around and explored the town we're staying in... Breukleyn or something like that. Walking to town and back was a BITCH for me, since I don't do a lot of walking... and then suddenly walked three or four miles all at once. When we want to go to OTHER places we can just order a RegioTaxi, which will pick us up in front of our apartments, and drop us off at any address, for a set amount per "region". We've been to the shopping area in Utrecht with David, and we came to Utrecht today to stock up on "stuff" and visit the internet, which I've missed sorely. We don't really plan on doing a lot of touristy stuff anyway. We'll do some when my cousin Michael comes because I know he wants to do some touristy things while he's here, since he's only here for 3 days. I'm having fun, but at the same time, I miss home. I miss socializing with my real-life and online friends. ("Friend" in the real-life department I suppose. Might as well be honest.) I miss EverQuest too, but ... not in a way where I'm dying to play again, or that I'm even missing playing... I just miss talking to my EQ friends. And I miss the little things like... people talking English. Being able to READ a restaurant menu. Not having to walk every bloody where, or having to hire a taxi or something to get anywhere. But I don't want it to sound like I'm not having fun. I am. I even lost track of days, I thought we had a lot of time before Michael was due, and then I wake up and realize, oh shit, it's tomorrow! I'll have some pictures to post. I'm not sure when though. Can't connect the camera to the computers in the internet cafe. We have a ten hour credit at this cafe now, and it's pretty easy to get a RegioTaxi here, but at 14 euro a pop, I don't think we'll be going out JUST to get our daily dose of internet. So I don't know when I'll be able to post again. But since we're just taking it easy, we DO have almost a month here after all, there's not a LOT to report.

And Now It's Time for Another Installment of "People Suck"! Since when do customers get reprimanded for treating staff poorly? Hm. I guess I should back up a bit. Two weeks ago, Robbie and I went to "our" pub that we go to to listen to Irish music and enjoy the food and hang out like we've been doing every other week or so lately. We're getting to be regulars there. The band knows us, at least. Now, Robbie and I are generally really relaxed and easy going with our waiters or waitresses, and since we're there for four hours or more, we really don't run our server ragged with orders, and we leave tips that we feel is appropriate for the services rendered. Okay so, the night in question, a *large* party of drunken idiots came and sat in the area we were in right by the stage. They pushed tables to the side, up against *our* table so that we were mostly blocked in, with just a small area to get out if we needed to get up for something, so that they could have a dance floor, despite that the pub doesn't have a dance license and could get in big trouble for them dancing. After that, the waitress hardly came to us at all. Granted, it wasn't easy to get to us, but it *was* possible for her to come around one side and bring us drinks and such. But for the majority of the time that group was there, she would go around and ask everyone how they were but us. And if we wanted something we had to flag her down. At one point, after we hadn't had service for like thirty minutes, Robbie even picked up his cell phone and called the front and asked if they would mind sending our waitress back when she had some time. He even said something like, look, I know it's really busy and she has a lot to do, so just whenever she has time is fine. He wasn't rude about it or anything. And when we saw the waitress we had said, yeah we know you're really busy, so just take your time. Also, twice, our orders were wrong, but we didn't complain about that either, we just laughed and told her it wasn't what we ordered, and she replaced them. Anyway, at the end of the night we had spent about 90 dollars combined, and we only left her a ten dollar tip, because we felt that she didn't do that great a job. A good waitress wouldn't go around and ask everyone how they are but us, and et cetera. Anyway, yesterday Robbie called to get our reservation at our accustomed table by the stage and the owner answered. He placed his reservation and the lady said to him, "So are you going to treat my staff better tonight?" "Excuse me?" was the surprised response. Apparently the waitress complained of our treatment of her and our ten percent tip. Nevermind that we were totally polite and easy going, and that we didn't complain at all, even though there was plenty to complain about that night if we so desired. Of course the waitress is going to have her version of things and probably told the owner we were fuckers or something. But we weren't the ones pushing around tables, acting like drunken idiots and spilling beer all over the floors. Robbie was told that the waitress was a "professional waitress" and that she barely "breaks even" on ten percent tips. Well excuse me, but if she's a professional waitress then 1) she wouldn't have ignored us most of the night 2) would realize that you don't always get a 15 percent tip, especially when your job was done poorly and 3) made more that night that I did all week. And if the lady is sooo concerned about her waitress not breaking even, perhaps she should pay her more. And if they're going to reprimand the *customer* over the tip size, perhaps they should make the tips mandantory 15 percent and add it to the tab. It wasn't like we didn't leave her a tip at all. We left her an adequate tip for an adequate job, in our opinions. Robbie was then told that if the waitress was there we should "kiss and make up." What a load of shit. He was pretty pissed, and didn't want to get into an argument over the phone, so he figured we would talk to the owner that night, and he called me to tell me about it so I could be pissed off with him. After several hours though, we were relaxed and easy going again, and when we got there we decided if we got into an argument or even a polite confrontation with the manager, it wouldn't make any difference. It would be us against them, and she's going to side with her staff, obviously, if she's so readily jumping to their defense and saying what was, in my opinion, rather rude things to regular, loyal customers. They wouldn't miss us if we left, except for perhaps the band, who would miss having people that actually *listen* to them. Their pockbooks wouldn't be any lighter for our not coming every other week. But we would loose our favorite pub, our favorite place to hang out, our favorite band, and the best potato soup *ever*. So we resolved not to say unthing unless they came to us. And we had a good night. The waitress we had was one we'd not had before. She did an excellent job, and once, when she was too long in bringing our drinks, told us they would be free. It was a total about-face from what we were expecting, and our service two weeks ago. Even the manager, who is surly at best, and had also complained to the owner about us, since it was her that had answered the phone when Robbie called in to get our waitress to come to our table, actually *smiled* and was very polite, and even went so far as to shake our hands when we left. Knock me over with a feather. Who is this strange person that looks like the surly manager that I'm accustomed to? Our waitress received a *large* tip. Robbie felt kind of bad for her, since she had to deal with a party of ten to fifteen heavily drunk soldiers that, by the end of the night, were edging towards violence. And she really did do an excellent job. She got a thirty dollar tip... from a 75 dollar bill. I suppose next time Robbie calls, they're going to ask him if we're going to treat the staff *less* well, because we spoiled her, and now she always wants an almost fifty percent tip.

Get Fuzzy This is so me.

KITTIES!




Kitties are cute. War is not. Kitties win! Yay!

Image and Slogan copyright: My husband!

Birthday As my birthday approaches, I'm forced to think that people go about celebrating birthdays all wrong. Everyone gives presents to the person whose birthday it is, and wishes them happy birthday... but why? Do I really need to be congratulated on living another year? Or another day? I really didn't have any plans to do otherwise. I didn't do anything on this day however many years ago it was that I was born... in my case, on the 28th, 23 years ago. I'll get presents, and cards, and my mother is having a dinner and cake and such. And I didn't do a thing except manage to not keel over yet. Looking at the celebration of birthdays, it seems to me that it's the *mother* that should be getting the accolades. Thanks for giving birth to me. Thanks for raising me to be who I am. Twenty-three years ago you went through hours and hours of labor so that I might join the world. Yet on my birthday, I'm the one getting congratulated, for doing nothing, while the one that did all the work is the one buying me shit and cooking me an elaborate dinner. Of course, that's what Mother's Day is for, and I'm not going to turn down presents, or my mother's wonderful cooking. But really, once you hit 21 here, birthday's don't really mean anything except that you haven't died yet. So, hooray to me for still being alive after 23 years.

People Suck Last night Robbie and I went to an Irish pub downtown to listen to the band that plays Irish music there on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We stayed for the whole show, which ends when the bar closes at 1 in the morning. We walked back to our parking garage and were standing at the elevator waiting to go up to the level my car was on. We were talking about something, I don't remember what, and Robbie quoted a line from a Brittish sitcom, "Let Them Eat Cake," that was something along the lines of, "Well he's a homosexual isn't he?" About that time a group of several guys, and one woman were walking up. When Robbie said that one of them stopped and said rather loudly, "He just said he was a homosexual. I don't want to get in there with him if he's a homosexual." Robbie didn't hear it, but he's very unobservant, especially went he's tipsy. I very much wanted to say something like, What, are you afraid you won't be able to resist him if he tries to charm you? Or even a basic, So what if he is? He won't bite unless you ask him to. I even could've pointed out that no, he didn't just say he was a homosexual, since he wasn't talking in the first person or something like that... but I didn't, since Robbie didn't notice and I didn't want to get into an argument with a rude, drunken, close-minded bigot at 1 in the morning and it wouldn't make a difference anyway. Anyway, my point is... people suck.

Neener Neener *chants* I'm going to Amsterdam, I'm going to Amsterdam, I'm going to Amsterdam...

"Exotic" Food My grandmother gave me pig's brains once. We were talking to my parents the other night about going on a trip to Holland again this year, and somehow the subject turned to food. Daryl was talking about when he went to Lithuania with his ex-wife and was served a thinly sliced meat that he found out, thankfully prior to eatting, that it was raw, sliced cow's tongue, and was a delicacy in their country. Now Daryl is certainly no picky eater, and we'll try almost anything once, but he wasn't *that* adventurous, and as it was an expensive delicacy to them, he gladly left them to it. This brought to mind how my grandmother used to, and still does I suppose, make pig's brains. Born and bred on a farm, with 12 (I think, maybe 14, I can't remember) brothers and sisters, I suppose they had to make use of *everything* for food. Anyway, when I was younger, my grandmother made and served something that looked like scrambled eggs but not... quite. She gave me some, told me it was good, eat it. In my family you ate what was put on your plate, so I really had no choice in the matter. I asked what it was, and she wouldn't tell me until *after* I ate it and had already told her it was good. Of course, once I found out what it was, it wasn't quite so good. The way she's make it was she'd take the pig's brain and scramble it with eggs. Gross, huh? What's even worse is when you get a piece of bone. Ugh. I would be just fine when she made it, as long as I didn't think about it, until I got a piece of bone. You know how disconcerting it is when you're eatting clam chowder or something like that and crunch on a bit of sand? This was even worse, because... well... it wasn't sand. Talk about your immediate loss of appetite. If you had an appetite after learning you were eatting pig's brains that is. I figure if I've eaten pig's brain and survived, I can try almost anything. But I'm with Daryl on the raw cow tongue. And at least my grandmother never tried to make me eat mountain oysters.

Freaky I was sitting at work today... working, of course... when I got a call from my mother on my cell. She doesn't usually call me at work, since technically we're not supposed to talk on the phone at work unless we lock our computers and go in the hallway, but I heard it beep, so I answered it anyway. Everyone does, so it wasn't like I was going to get reported. Anyway. Across and a few yards down from my parents house, within visual distance at least, there is a Union Planters bank. This is about... a mile, a mile and a half from where Daryl and I live. There is a teller there, named Brenda, that I knew. Not a friend, really, but an acquaintance, and when I used to bank there I would to talk to her. My parents knew her, too, so she'd always ask me about them, and how I was, and to tell them she said hello. She was a generally nice, sweet lady, around 40. My mother was calling me to tell me that my father just called and told her that this morning, Brenda got to the bank before anyone else, and shot and killed herself. No one knows why yet. You hear about stuff like this happening all the time, but when it happens to someone you know, just down the street from you, in a small town... it's weird.