OOh, James

I am a much bigger dork than most of co-workers. I relish this fact. When I saw the release date of the new Bond movie, I told the Honey we were going for my birthday (He's really not a movie theatre guy, but loves movies, it's weird).

Last night my co-workers met me for drinks and mexican food, and then bailed out before the movie.

I'm not spoiling things, I'll just say we really enjoyed it. Here is my grumble:

At the end of the last movie and the beginning of this one, it felt like a giant game of mousetrap with the stunts. I know it's Bond, but a few gadgets in place of one or two steps in the stunt sequence would have fixed this for me, I think. I miss Q. 'Cause I'm a dork that way.

Um, but I still think Roger Moore should shut his pie hole. Moore was the Bond I was raised with, but he would have screamed like a girl at the things Daniel Craig does. I love Craig as Bond. I think he's a much more likely assassin/spy than any Bond since Connery.

***************************

On.My.MorganFreeman.

One more thing to add--the haircut on the villain's second in command? Was he a failed monk? The latin version of dumb and dumber? The necklaces were really bad, too.

That is all.

Mmmmmm...books

Who was I kidding? This was never going to be the year I dove into NaNoWriMo. Facebook scrabble keeps me from blogging, let alone devoting hours each night to typing. Are we sure we couldn't move it to January? Seriously, I've got NOTHING in January.


The true death knell of my NaNoWriMo delusion, though, was a fabulous bag of hand me down books from SQT at the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog.

The first one I dove into was this:

I reallly enjoyed the premise of the book, that aliens have come to earth but want an agent to make them palatable to the human race. It's a clever book and I would have sold the bejeebus out of it, were I still selling books instead of trash. My only complaint, and I'm not even sure that it IS a complaint, was that the cussing seemed a little over the top sometimes. That's a funny statement coming from me, because away from my kids I have the mouth of a gutter rat, but at times it seemed a little forced or over the top. I think what I was reading is an advanced copy, so maybe an editor got out a red pencil and cut out a few...I can't pinpoint why they caught me, because if ever there were an occasion for a high stress vocabulary, meeting a sentient sewer scented jello shooter would do it, but it got to the point that it pulled me out of the story for a minute. I dunno, The book was phenomenal and I can't wait for the next one out of the bag...

tee hee

Even if I were voting WITH them, this would have made me laugh.

I'll buy THAT for a dollar!

Can you tell me what movie that's from?

As the mother of a long haired five year old girl, I gotta tell you, I suck. I don't know how those Mexican mamas get those laser sighted parts in their daughters' hair. My poor girl is the frizzy braided, slightly off center one in the class pictures. I'm sure all of her teachers suspect I'm a drunk. But my one ray of hope has been the dollar store. You kind of have to dig for them, but they have some cute clippies and pins and things, and I can buy enough of them that it's okay when Little O loses them all.

(I kind of picture her on the playground like the witch that chased bugs bunny, hairpins flying. Crows must love her. )


On slow days, I'll wander the REST of the dollar store, and my goal is to someday be able to compose an entire blog post like this:



Easy to be dry after delegating
no peculiar smell
becteria are hard to live.

So very true.....


******************

On a side note, I'm geeked out that Annie left me a comment, because of all the things in the blogosphere that I covet? One of Annie's buttons for the Gaggle of Whiny Whores is at the top. I love that she posts the code and lets you claim it if you want it, but I fear that I just don't have the chops to put one on my blog--Dog knows I've got the whiny thing down, but I think I found her through IT2M, and I was waaaaay too chicken to ever toy with them. I like my paperthin ego intact!

But I think the Gaggle of Whiny Whores is much better suited to me than the Thinking Blogger ever was....

;)

sunday quizzez

You Know a Lot About Christmas

You got 6/10 correct You know tons about the history and traditions surrounding Christmas. When you celebrate the holidays, you never forget their true meaning - or all the little fun details. Random Christmas fact: "Jingle Bells" was originally written as a Thanksgiving song.

How Much Do You Know About Christmas?

What Star Trek Species Are You?
You scored as a Federation
You Are The Federation, You prefer to be alone and learn. You enjoy helping people and know how to talk things up. You would help people into the spotlight before yourself
Federation
75%
Vulcan
50%
Cardassian
50%
Borg
45%
Klingon
45%
Ferengi
45%
Dominion
40%
Romulan
30%

What Trek Species are You?




Are You Damned?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

You can laugh at the silly superstitions of the religious, safe in the knowledge that we are only dust and lies. All that will be left of you after you die is a slow decay and some fading memories in the minds of your friends. Hope you're enjoying your life at the moment- there's nothing better to come.

Happy Birthday, Rosanna Huffman!

Where ever you are....

 

Rosanna was my best friend in the first grade, and our friendship was cemented when we learned our birthdays were only two days apart.    Years later I found Rosanna at the local JC and you know what?  I may have been bitter, and slightly baked, but Rosanna was still a neat person that I could have hung with (had I not been completely wrapped up in my loser stoner boyfriend).  I think of her every year.

********

Everyone send fabulous recovery vibes to Chuck, who's having her lady parts *ahem* reworked. See, now it sounds like she's having plastic surgery, instead of having them rip it all out. sigh. I have no tact, but I'm thinkin' of ya, Chuck.

I like it!

Lovin the Dove...

I stole this from Faking Good Breeding. I haven't seen this on TV, but we don't have cable.

Have you noticed that I have been stealing things since I moved? I...I... I got (ahem) a slightly faster internet connection. I can finally watch things that MOVE, without waiting for a three day download. I'm tasting honey, people.

The Honey is, I think, underwhelmed that cable did not get ordered simultaneously.

Oops.

Sunday Quizfest

NameThatDisease.com - The disease test

That one was cheerfully stolen from Trauma Queen.


Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Rabies? That one is on me.

A lovely feature has popped up that the fonts on my computer are frequently microscopic, so I couldn't READ any of the quizzes on blogthings to take one, so I guess it's just two today. Mert, I know you can tell me how to fix this...

*********************************

On a totally unrelated note, while investigating the annoying noises made by the toity, I have learned a terrible fact. They say that the lovely bleach based drop in products used to cut down on actual scrubbing, will eventually destroy the innards of your toilet. Which makes sense, but--but--I am torn between the reduction of work NOW and the gradual replacement of all those PARTS in the toilet tank. Can't.stand.the.dripping. No more drop ins for me (Sob!)

hmmm.... I may need a life.

If Greg is dead and Chuck is gone, where will I get my Profanity?

CHUUUUUUUUUCK!

Don't leave me, Chuck!

I swear I'll curse more!

CHUUUUUUCK!

FUCKING don't leave me here, Chuck!!!!!!

hmmm... now sounding very needy.

(sob!)

Kim is obviously going to have to post more often.

I need my fix. The mother of a preschooler and a twelve year old doesn't get to use her (ahem) more extended vocabulary very often... brace yourselves, my friends.

Why can't I title anything?

Links:
I've added several blogs that I have been stalking for a while, and then just reverse alphabetized the whole thing, so if you notice that I've stopped visiting for a while, it may be that I have lost you in the shuffle.

Okay, seriously, why can't I title anything?

We've got a whole lot of nothing going on--oh, except that I just got a call from a realtor who is representing my property owner in the sale of my home, would I like to buy it? If I could tack on another bedroom, sure, I'd love to. But my credit sucks ass, and there is no way in hell I'm going to be able to get into anything on this side of town for the bargain rate I'm paying now. Not even to rent.

I do not want to move in with the Honey's mother, as much as I like her. I went down that path with my first marriage, and living with Mama Dina would mean essentially living with all of them. I can't do it.

I don't want to go to the TOUGH side of town--BIg O is NOT prepared for that. Little O's preschool is right before I get on the freeway to go to work. I am beautifully situated, even if my four year old sleeps in our room. I can suck it up for this zip code, but my finances can't. I want to cry.

It's good for the Soul...

I have a confession.

In this journey of self discovery we call life, there are times when you have to face certain truths about yourself.

Sometimes they are not pretty.

I am a handbag whore.

I'm not saying that I'll spend thousands on a Coach bag. No, no. That would make me a high class call girl kind of handbag whore.

I am like a crow with shiny objects. I am simple. I am called by a shape, or a design element, and if it's more than forty bucks, I'll touch it one more time and regretfully move on... I do not need one more bag, certainly not another one that is more than I spend on my son's shoes.

But oh, I have discovered a crack in my willpower armor.

My daughter has five purses. She is four years old. That's averaging more than a purse a year.

To be fair, one is a vinyl Hello Kitty that her daddy got for her when I sent him out to get her a lunch box (I could have kissed him, and it really is the right size for a preschooler's lunch!). One was given to her by her favorite auntie, for her birthday, with a matching hat. One came from the demon Target dollar bin.

Here's the shame...

One is a cute little brown and pink corduroy barrel bag from the gap. I loved it. Little O? meh.

Friday we went to the dollar store. After lecturing my sweet girl that she only got ONE dollar, and she would have to choose her treat carefully, I saw it.

Little O could have cared less.

I was forced to admit that there was no way we were leaving the store without that bag, and told my girl she could pick one more thing.

That's her Strawberry Shortcake doll sticking out of the top. She likes this one more than the last one, and is already using it. But she could have lived without it. It would have caused me physical pain to leave it behind.

Oh, the shame...

Fame

Once agan, Pendullum has an awesome tale.

My only brushes with the rich and famous?

1. That drunk Bastard, Merle Haggard, tried to play chicken with me in 1990. Now I will admit, Redding has some of the craziest one-way, no two-way!, now back to one-way streets ever to tangle a traffic pattern. But if you find yourself going the wrong way down a suddenly two way street, don't honk and scream at the chick following the traffic laws, MOVE YOUR DRUNK ASS OVER.

2. Steve Perry (of Journey fame) caused heart palpitations all over the Hanford Mall when he strolled through. Now we used to tell people that Hanford had the three big C's--Cows, Cotton, and Convicts. (Corn belonged on that list too, but it messed up the flow.) In that horrifically flat central valley Ag community, you were a farmer, you were related to a farmer, or you were living there to be closer to daddy. There are three major prisons in the area, hosting Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan among others. My best Jen and I were spending another barely-above-minimum-wage day at the bookstore and two guys came in with a kid about eleven (?). They kicked it at the counter and chatted us up for a while, gave us bizzarre advice on our jewelry, and eventually meandered on down the mall. They were entertaining in an otherwise boring day, but whatever. The thing that made it memorable was that on my lunch I went shopping, and the big girl behind the counter at Lane Bryant was hyperventilating.

She could not believe that she had missed STEVE PERRY (another bout of panting). Ooooooh, THAT's who that was. Yeah, he was pretty funny.
(SQUEEEEEALLLL!) Ohmigosh, did he sing for you?

What? Did he SING for us? WTF? I understand hostile celebrities after meeting that girl. I would be hostile, too.

There will be a book post soon. I got a free book (squeee!). But it arrived after my tax check, and I had just invested in a fat stack of Sci-fi that I had been dying to read, so book post soon, I promise!

Here's one for ya...

the scandal of the starving baby
Originally uploaded by Djuliet.

File this under super-dorkfession, agonizing admission of my own idiocy, or AW CRAP. (Okay that may have been funnier with the original typo of aw carp)

Several months ago the link on my blog to Locus Magazine, the alpha and omega of sci-fi book news, geek central, was advertising for an administrative assistant. You must understand that books used to be my life. My life's work. I quit school because working in the bookstore was so much fun. I was lured away from books by filthy lucre (and not much, at that), and I have pined for books ever since. To have even a slight chance to work at a magazine dealing with (presumably) articulate and thinking beings, and have a job that did not involve a panic button and a plexiglass spit shield was too much to pass up. I did not care that it involved a commute to the bay area and, by extension, less money than I make now (how is that possible without a paper hat and a nametag?). They asked for a cover letter describing your interest in sci-fi. I think I tasted honey.

I agonized over that cover letter. It couldn't just be a list of books, but how to narrow it down? Who did they want me to like? What if I mentioned the author they hated? Should I 'fess up that I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't geek out if Raymond Feist or George R. R. Martin called? I finally got my letter down to the basic loves of my sci fi reading. I confessed, not my fear of hyperventilation faced with certain authors, but rather my absolute disinterest in Manga or old-school hard sci-fi. I thought they should know. If they hired me, it would become evident that certain names made my eyes roll back in my head.

I fretted over e-mailing it to them, worrying that I'd screw it up somehow, and reveal my dorkiness. I bit the bullet and I pressed the send button, and gave them every one of my e-mails so they could choose where to reply. Can you see it coming?

I got brave and told my mother that I had taken this huge daring step (for me) in applying for a dream job. I know I tell you all how close my mom and I are, and how I adore my parents and we have this perfect relationship. Let me now reveal that she is still my mother, and we have a very real relationship. Her response was, and I quote,

"Jenny, that's just stupid. Why would you apply for a job in the bay area. It can't pay very much, and you think you could commute?" blah blah blah. Fill in with more of the same. Thanks, mama-san. sigh.

But I faithfully checked my email accounts, and listened to the crickets chirp. I used the canned air on my keyboard so I would be ready to reply. In my cover letter I acknowledged that I might be too far away to commute, but that I'd like to discuss the possibility--damn! I shot myself down! I would like to thank Bre for listening patiently while I agonized back and forth about what I might have done wrong. She's very patient anyway, but that stuff HAD to get old.

Then it happened. The ad was taken down. My dream was over.

Life goes on. At least until you remember a thing called the answering machine, something gathering dust in the corner because it's always full of mortgage re-fi pitches that chap my renter's hide. Every once in a while I clear out the messages to make room for more re-fi con men, but it's a pain in the ass because you have to listen to each message. There are also a ton from my ex, telling Big O to pick up. Annoying to listen to him in person, let alone in memorex. Oh, and a message from Locus Magazine asking me to give them a call.

They called. I never checked my machine, it never occurred to me that they would CALL, when everything had been via computer up to that point. They.Called.Me.
And they hired someone else, without ever knowing that I was the one they really wanted and needed.

There is my deep dark Saturday Dorkfession. I will be a little old lady rocking myself in a corner, slapping my forehead, saying "Check your messages." Maybe I'll get the golden trash can award for a life's work in garbage. Maybe I'll snap and threaten to dump MY garbage on THEIR porch if they don't shut the hell up and listen to me. Locus Magazine called me and I was too dorky to check my messages. LOCUS MAGAZINE. Worst part? I can't tell my mom they called, 'cause then I'd have to fess up the rest.

I'm off to beat the concept into my children that they WILL go to college, they WILL NOT quit for a shite paycheck in a fun retail job.

hermna nerfa bloggna spagetti

I made spaghetti for dinner.

It rocked.

I owe it all to Paul Newman's Sockarooni.

That is all.

Error

Go here and make your own!

er, um, oh gawd.

I was just bored and hitting the "next blog" button, which usually takes me to kids from brazil and malaysia--but I found a lady who just got a ping pong table--I am actually very jealous. BUT I DIGRESS...

A few more clicks, and where do I find myself? At someone's SecondLife blog. Now I admit that I am generally pretty far behind the trends anymore, because, well, my REAL life gets in the way. I haven't been blogging for a full year, yet, and I had to ask my sixteen year old niece to show me how to text on my cell phone--which I promptly forgot. I am by no means up on the new things. I am intrigued by Sarah at Still Life with Soup Can's forays into Oblivion.
But this other lady has started a blog for the "photos" of her modelling jobs for her SecondLife persona.
Am I more forgiving of Sarah because it's sci-fi fantasy themed, so I GET it more? Because Sarah doesn't strike me as odd at all, but this lady completely freaked me out. Maybe it's that Sarah writes about real life, and the other blog was made up almost solely of this lady's modelling jobs? I don't know. I am embarrassed FOR her.
Maybe I am just hopelessly un-cool.

Anybody read Sookie Stackhouse books?

You scored as Vampyre. You are Vampyre, The oldest and wisest of all breeds besides the wolves. You and the wolves get along famously despite the rumors and fights over the ages. Not only are you wise but you are very mature for your age. Beautiful, strong, wise and mature. You've got the whole package!

Elf 67% Vampyre 67% Faerie 58% Wolf 58% Goddess 58% Sorceress 58% Drow 58% Dragon 58% Shadow Spirit 42% Zombie 42% What ancient breed are you? created with QuizFarm.com

I got this from Canada, who was a goddess. I'm all right with the description of a vampyre, as long as we avoid the blood-sucking bat people/Anne Rice super-goth descriptions. The illustration was interesting with a Boris Vallejo body (and yes, I DO have a nice rack, but does anybody really have a boris vallejo type body naturally?) but one of those creepy little girl-anime heads. ugh.

So there you have it. Another pointless Sunday quiz.
I may go back to bed.

Hellooooo, Guilty Pleasure.

I heart the bitchy review site IT2M.

They are brutal. They are particular. They hate Mommybloggers, people who whore out their blogs (um, PayPerPost, anyone?), and black backgrounds. Okay, mine is a very dark grey, but still... I am constantly amazed that people submit their blogs to this site and are mortally wounded/deeply offended/completely psychotic about the reviews that they get. They (the IT2M crew) only truly like about one in twenty.
I am sure that there are loving supportive blog review sites that offer constructive criticism and cheerleading for the blogs that they deem less than top notch. But IT2M is NOT that site.
I know enough to NEVER submit my blog to them, because I like my fragile self esteem and reed-like ego intact, thank you. They are how I found Death's Door, which I read faithfully now. He was one of the few that they liked, even with the black template of Doom (or is it Death?). What is it in people that makes them submit to a site like that? Because some of them are, really, pretty bad--do we all think that we are hysterically funny, and we all need to be smacked? Is it really the same thing that makes you blog in the first place, and my sense of self importance is going to balloon out of control the longer I blog? Or are they just the blog variation of the same pinheads who steroid up their car stereos until they can be used to remove loose fillings? Crazy. That's what they are. But the reviews of their blogs can be entertaining.

I got tagged! I got tagged!

Sheesh! Step away from the computer for two days and what happens? Kim not only posts something, she posts a meme and tags ME!!! (Yay)

It's the Mastercard Meme, or The Priceless 5, or, um, yeah. The meme.

Very simple meme, take the numbers 1-5 then priceless while matching them up with number type things in your life (you could go to 10 if you want to, I don't feel like it at this particular moment in time).


5... The number of people the Honey would like to have in our little family. Favorite Sister-in-law (and we may have to re-think that title) has planted it in Little O's head that she is getting a baby brother for Christmas.

4... The number of times I have skipped Thursday Thirteen since I started...but the original blog that I stalked, Casual Slack, has started occasionally doing TT's, so I figure it balances out, cosmically speaking.

3... The number of dryers I have gone through since moving into my ghetto duplex. Number three was finally installed this week--no more laundromats-yay! What am I doing to kill them?

2... Lifetimes worth of laundry I have to catch up on this weekend. ugh.

1... aneurysm I thought I was having--my wireless keyboard finally needs it's batteries changed. I thought my typing had suddenly gone to hell, but I knew I was hitting all of the keys...

Priceless... Shopping with Little O and realizing that she talked nonstop for three hours, and that it's exactly what I used to do. If my parents never stuffed a sock into my mouth, I guess I have to resist the urge as well. Good thing she's entertaining!

I am tagging CRSE, as soon as she is feeling better, Sayre, and The "Mind". I'd also like to tag Jenny in CA, but I know she's got a full plate right now.