2009, You Can Kiss My Ass

It’s only a few hours left until I enter into the new year. I can say that I am happy to leave this disaster of a year behind. I’ve spent most of it recovering from a nasty broken leg. Both of my parents have had their own health scares requiring surgery and hospital stays. Our living costs have risen and our job security has gone down along with our financial assets. There has been a constant stream of things needing repair and crying out loud, why isn’t there anything good on TV anymore!

Now that I’m done griping, I want to share the good things:

I still have a job. I have survived multiple waves of layoffs and it is a good
thing too as this region of the country is one of the most economically
depressed.

Babies. One of my best friends had a little boy and how
can anyone not appreciate something like that?

Another set of friends
got married.

There were three awesome trips: One to Washington, DC,
another to Chicago to check out the top of the Sears Tower, and the last to Six
Flags Great America.

The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of
the United States. Not because I support him but because our government
continues on even while changing hands and this
time, I don’t think it could have occurred in a more beautiful way.

MSU totally rocked in basketball, winning the conference and making it
to the championship in Detroit (suck they didn’t win it but ya know…)

Oh! And there’s the new puppy. :-)

I hope that everyone of you have a great new year.

The One Day

I haven’t been having the greatest Christmas ever but I don’t want the day to end. For just this one day, I can be at home with family (although this year, without my dad) and not have to worry about the world around me or my role in it. Tomorrow reality will come back and I’ve got a number of things to juggle. Most of it is money problems. Just when I seem to stamp out one problem (medical debt), another pops up (automotive repair). I’m sending out another batch of resumes in the next couple of months in hopes of getting a bite. Wish me luck.

Do Elephants Like Pumpkins?

I have never heard of a White Elephant gift until last week when a K.S., a coworker, organized an exchange that occurred today. We had to bring in something that was not wanted at home. As you may remember in Pantry Purge, I had a can of pumpkin from U.S. government. I had told some other coworkers about the story and they suggested that I wrap that up. So I did. K.S. ended up drawing my gift. We’ll all have to be careful if she shows up one day with baked goods!

I didn’t bother taking a picture, but I ended up with a bag containing a variety of “goodies.” Two empty candy boxes, three glue sticks, a pen, and one of those clock signs that reads “I’ll be back at___.”

A.K. ended up with mouse traps. She’ll have to set them up to see if anything gets caught.

G.W. probably got the most normal one. He ended up taking home a gift basket containing pasta, a jar of sauce and some other things that make up pasta dinner. However, considering the how mummified the bread sticks looked, I doubt it was put together within the last year.

Meet Tiger

This ugly pup is Tiger. He’s ugly. He’s stinky. But he’s so cute. This is going to be my mom’s dog. Earlier this year, my Grandma took in a stray. A while later, my Dad noticed that the dog was getting larger. Turns out she was pregnant. I guess Dad and Mom got hooked on the little things because when Mom asked for one, Dad didn’t put up a fight.

My Dad is taking my Grandma down to Disney World for Christmas. I’m still here at home taking care of the dogs—which I hate. Maybe I’d love it a little more if they were mine and if one in particular would shut up. That damn dog is nocturnal. Sleeps all day (on rocks) but then spends all night barking at things in the back field. Tiger and his mother are pretty quiet although Tiger is a big whiner when he sees me.

I tried training the dogs a little. Tracee, the one that is constantly barking, can walk really well. At first she would pull and tug ahead, but have correcting her, she’ll walk beside and around me. She learned really quick that when she tugs, I will stop and the only way she’s going to be comfortable is if the leash remains loose. But I can’t get her to shut up! I’m tempted to use those shock collars but I couldn’t do that to an animal. Trixie is the opposite, she’s quiet but she so slow on the walking. She so bad that she will choke herself. I’ve tried the stop position and tried that with stop-and-reverse. After two days, she’s a little better. Still I don’t walk very far because I’m constantly going in one direction and then the opposite. Tiger isn’t an issue. He sticks by me or the one of the other dogs.

Oh and one weird thing that I noticed is that they don’t like the doggy treats that I have. I’ve been breaking into my Dad’s stash of beef jerky but that’s just between you and me. ;-)

Why, yes I do.

There’s going to be a “cookie day” next Wednesday. Everyone on ops is supposed to bring cookies--preferably home made. It doesn’t have to Christmas (sugar) cookies because, let’s face it, they’re not going to be offloaded if there all the same type. I have quietly decided not to bring cookies. Instead, I'm bringing something more important. I will be there when the inevitable question gets asked.

Got Milk?

I’m going to be a hero.

What will I do for free dinnerware?

Even though I have been avoiding fast food pretty well, I stopped at McDonalds because I forgot to bring my lunch. (Not that I’m broken hearted about leaving a PBJ on the kitchen counter.) I was about to get my usual, quarter pounder without cheese, when the speaker lady asked if I wanted to make it a large and get a free Coke glass. I said sure.

If you’ve seen me, you might not believe me when I say that I do not upsize my fast food orders. This was not so in the high school days when supersizing was a measly 39¢ and I was constantly hungry. When I went to the Philippines, I had to do start upsizing because their regular sizes, are our kiddie sizes. Seriously, their drinks were like bloated Dixie cups. I wish I had taken a picture of it but to get an idea of just how small Filipino portion sizes are, check out this photo:
That’s their largest size of coke next to TWO meals. Total cost: $1.62. Loved living on the cheap there.

Anyways, I went ahead with the large McDonalds meal and when I was through with it, I just wanted to crawl under my desk and take a nap. It was the fries that did me in. I swear there must’ve been an equivalent of three potatoes sliced, fried, and salted. Blech.

But I did get my coke glass.

What happens when you live in an area lacking in diversity.

This is the second year in a row that the post office has given me Kwanzaa stamps. For those not in the know Kwanzaa is a holiday that celebrates African culture. It was created in 1966 by Dr. Ronald “Maulana” Karenga and based around African harvest celebrations and meant to extol African culture. The post office include Kwanzaa in a set of holiday stamps that include series for secular holidays for all, Christmas for Christians, Hanukah for Jews, and Eid for Muslims. Personally, I think that the post office is trying to push off their low demand stamps onto people who will accept them. I guess there’s something about me that suggest that Kwanzaa stamps although I think that Eid might have hit closer.
Like I said last year, I don’t really mind. I only care insomuch that I wonder if the recipient would be offended. I know some staunch Christians that detest the secularization of the holiday and what they perceive as competition from other religions into Jesus’ birthmonth. But I pay more attention to the cards that I send out making sure that those staunch ones get their religious cards. Like most people, I think, I stick with the secular to secualrish cards and then tailor it to the individual with a short message. I think it works out just fine.

Not all Christmas music is happy and peppy.

With the darkness and blowing snow out tonight, here is a Christmas carol that seems to fit my mood:




h/t to Ryrod for posting the vid.

Anyone think the UN is effective? Raise your hand if you can.

I Got It. Umm… Anyone else?

Do you have Google Wave? If you can imagine a mashup between email, online forums, blogs, and God knows what else, that’s Google Wave. The simplest way that I can describe it is a piece of paper sitting on a table and around it sit people who can write on it, glean info off of it and more. Google’s new product has some great potential. I like it but I’m not using it.

Like Gmail that came before it, Wave was a limited release. Wannabe users had to score an invite, either from Google itself or from a user who already has it. The difference with Gmail, though, is that use of Wave is limited to people who have Wave. With Gmail, you got the product and could correspond with people who didn’t. Not so with Wave.

Yup. That’s what I see when I log into wave. Not a whole lot. Very few of my friends have gmail accounts to begin with and even though I put out a message on facebook saying I have invites, not one person wanted to sign up. That leaves me with no one to wave with. That list in the picture is deceptive. Wave will scan through every contact you’ve ever emailed and let you know that they have wave too. Doesn’t matter if you still talk to them or not. The first one, I have waved with so he’s the exception. #2 down on the list is a coworker that I only talk to every once in a blue moon on facebook. #’s 3,4, and 5 are old and former bloggers that I haven’t heard from in ages. And the last one is actually the person I begged off my Gmail invite from.

I like wave but if none of my friends jump in with me, it’s really no use to me. I have to wonder where Google will be going with this.

See, the arrow? It means turn to the next page.

WNDU reported that four people were arrested in Berrien County over meth. Articles that deal with criminals being caught tend to attract commentators that seem hell bent on delivering their own sense of justice--usually with having the person either frying in an electric chair or allowing them be raped in prison. These commenters have weird hang-ups of their own and I worry about them.

So anyways, here's a gem that convinces me that not only are these people not right in the head, what little they have up there isn't that reliable:

Posted by: shoppy Location: oc on Dec 5, 2009 at 05:24 AM

If their locked up for fifty years they cant deal right? We need elected judges

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Shoppy is from Michigan despite his location being "oc" which makes no sense to me. The only thing that I can think of is Orange County and if that's true, what the hell is that person doing on this news site?

So shoppy, here's my response just for you: If they are locked up for fifty years they can, indeed, still deal. Prison is not drug-free you know. All they need is connections and resources and prison doesn't necessarily cut you off from them. And since you don't know, we do have elected judges. They appear on the non-partisan portion of the ballot. You know... towards the back.

Pantry Purge

I got a gift card for my hiring anniversary and since I needed to go shopping anyways, I decided that I would use it.  I don’t usually by $100 worth of groceries at one time so I called up my parents and asked if they needed anything.  My dad said they didn’t so I tried to help him by asking him if they had this or if they had that.  He always came up with an, “I don’t know.”

The pantry is filled up but I have no idea what is in there or what isn’t so when I got home, I pulled everything out.  I suppose I have to mention that my family buys in bulk and a good deal of kitchen, basement, and mudroom space goes to food storage.  You can see some of “fridge porn” here.

You can probably guess what some of our staple meals when you count, 27 dry sauce packets, 14 cans of mushrooms, 8 cans of tomato paste, and 11 cans of tomato sauce; also 3 cans of bamboo shoots, 5 cans of bean sprouts, and 4 cans of water chestnuts.

But there were a few surprises like 8 cans of tomato soup—I can’t even recall the last time anyone ate that.  A package of mung beans—eww.  3 jars of peanut butter but only one of jelly?  3 mystery cans.  1 can of pumpkin courtesy of the U.S. government (when did we receive food aid???).  I also counted 7 boxes of oatmeal and 7 boxes of pop tarts, about half of which were opened. 6 boxes of cake mix.  Twenty something boxes of jello and pudding.  A 10lbs box of sugar packets (WTF?). The oldest thing I dated was the refried beans from 2002.  The most disgusting thing I found was a moldy and bug infested brick of mung beans but the opened and exposed block of cooking chocolate that is more than a year old, might bump it from first place since Dad says he still intends to use it.

I threw out what I was allowed and cycled up the older stuff so that it would get used first.  Hopefully it will help them out the next time they need to find out what they need to buy.  Although, I suspect that if canned mushrooms go on sale for 25¢ again they’ll still buy a case of ‘em.

Cute Little Kid In a Big House

Earlier this year, I saw that there was a popular ringtone download. It was Filipino so I clicked on it and it sounded like a cute kid song. I liked it enough to download it for my phone but I had no idea what the song was about since I don't understand the language that well. I did manage to find where the sound clip came from and it was from this commercial:



Cute huh? After getting over the cute though, I couldn't help wonder how the average Filipino would view this commercial. I'm sorry but I have never ever set foot inside a home or a neighborhood that was even remotely like this in the Philippines. In my mind, this is a fantasy land that is only real for the uber-rich. So I have to wonder, is there a burgeoning upper-middle class going on in the country and that his commercial is making an appeal to them. If so, awesome, but I just didn't see it when I was there.


h/t to krystabegnalie who posted this vid.