I just watched "Elvis on Tour" on the TCM channel. It's some kind of documentary of Elvis's concerts from the early '70's. Not once in this documentary did you hear Elvis mutter any kind of cuss word. I think today's 'artists' should really stop and think about their behavior. Elvis had all that success and he still remembered his manners, calling people ma'am and sir and such. Also on this documentary I noticed a back-up singer I hadn't seen before, so I found her name in the credits and looked her up on the internet. Her name is Kathy Westmoreland and here is her website. She has some very interesting things to say about what she believed Elvis's true medical condition was during his later years. I find it suspicious that no one in the main stream media has ever mentioned any of this.

Check out this article by Arianna Huffington.

Dusty Rhodes' autobiography is due out 3/31/05 according to Walmart.com. I may have to buy it.

I don't know anything about Utah football and the bowl game, but this article was pretty funny.

Martha just hasn't learned to identify with Appalachian folks yet. Cranes might have worked in the Hamptons, but not in West Virginia.

Wonder if this story ties in with Rumsfeld's comments about the Pennsylvania plane being shot down on 9/11.

I just pre-ordered the Season 1 Box Set of The Pretender from amazon.com. I used the check/money order option, so I'm going to see how well that goes. Mom gave me her pre-paid mastercard to use, but since this is a pre-order and I have plenty of time to get my payment to them, I decided to go with the money order. I also have to order the Andromeda Season 3 box set. I may or may not use Mom's card for that one.

Getting Better.....

Your match is HBK Shawn Michaels! He's just a sexy
boy... Shawn may be getting older but yeah he
still rocks! I hope he lets his hair grow
longer though.


Which WWE Wrestler is your perfect match?
brought to you by Quizilla

This is the second time I've come up with Rob Van Dam in one of these quizzes. I fear what this could signify.


You'd definitely go with Rob Van Dam. You have a
degree in coolness and love to relax. You know
working the mind is just as important as toning
the body, and you really love being just an
all-around good girl. You can kick serious ass
in necessary...


Which WWE superstar would you date?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmmm... Interesting choice since I'm a girl taking the quiz

You are Triple H, your goal is to be the best there
is, and you're even ready to be with the boss'
daughter to do that.


Which WWE's RAW wrestler are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Alanis Morisette - Precious
Illusions



You have a vivid imagination, and probably find
yourself often in your own little dream world.
Your creativity knows few bounds - you were
probably one of those kids who spent all their
time in worlds of their own making, whether it
was dressing up in


What's Your Theme Song?
brought to you by Quizilla

Big News!!

I'm getting a bonus at work! All the people in our department are getting it. It's going to be $1000.00 before taxes! This is great considering probably half of the people who work in our department make less than $21,000 a year. See, government employees do not have cushy jobs. Some could say that I have already spent part of this bonus with the purchase of that dvd recorder, but I have some serious thinking to do about what I'm going to do with it. The logical choice is to throw it in with the house money, but I could take this opportunity to buy a couple of things that I've wanted for a while. I'm not planning for anything yet though. As sure as I start planning on spending it, my car will break down or I'll need to spend it on something else. But, it would be enough for a couple of AKC registered puppies.......................................

Top 10 Paranormal Events 2004

How to Mend It - I found this website while looking for a way to fix my broken vhs tape. Check it out.

I'm currently watching a show called Funniest Commercials of the Year. It's pretty funny. The SPCA commercial was good. Two guys were sitting on the couch. One guy was sleeping. So the other guy pulls him onto his lap and starts rubbing his belly like he was a pet. The tagline was "there are some things you can only do with a pet." Heeheehee...

Possibly the Neatest Picture You Will See for a While

Least Popular Baby Names of 2004

This Show Sounds Pretty Good!!

“Young Blades,” PAX TV’s fun-filled, primetime action adventure series will premiere Sunday, January 23 at 8PM ET/PT. This program is unlike anything else on television, following a new generation of swashbucklers inspired by the legendary Three Musketeers.

“Young Blades” is set back in time over 400 years where the budding and chivalrous swordsmen learn the tricks of the trade from masters, including Captain Duval (Bruce Boxleitner), at the Musketeers military academy. D’Artagnan (Tobias Mehler), the son of the legendary Musketeer of the same name, is a ladies man as well as a fighter. He is challenged to become an even better warrior after he learns that his fellow student, Jacques (Karen Cliche), a phenomenal swordsman, has a deep secret: Jacques is really Jacqueline, a young woman who masquerades as a man in order to escape a price on her head and avenge the death of her father and imprisonment of her brother at the hands of the evil Mazarin (Michael Ironside). The other Young Blades are the rebellious Ramon (Zak Santiago), a poet who was disowned by his aristocratic Spanish family, but now calls the academy home, and Siroc (Mark Hildreth), a precocious inventor who dreams up “crazy” ideas such as submarines and flying machines and then builds them, 17th century style. The Musketeers’ loyalty lies with their homeland and protecting France’s young King Louis (Robert Michael Sheehan) from the evil genius, Cardinal Mazarin.

Top internet searches of 2004 - WWE more popular than George W Bush and the IRS!

I've changed my mind yet again. Tonight I decided that I would get really, really ticked if I went all the way to P-Burg to look for that dvd recorder only to find out that neither of those walmarts had it in stock. So, I ordered it from Walmart.com. If it arrives broken, the website says I can take it to any walmart store and get a refund. Hopefully it will arrive in good condition.

Which Presidential Candidate Are You?
Rung from Rum and Monkey's very own liberty bell.

Government Cover-up

Okay, I read this story and the Rumsfeld quote and I don't think the writer of the story is really getting what Rumsfeld said. I read Rumsfeld's quote and it says that the people who attacked New York shot down the Pennsylvania plane on 9/11. Maybe he didn't mean to put it that way, but it certainly doesn't sound the way the writer of this story makes it sound - that the government shot down the plane because it had been hijacked and deemed a threat to National Security:

'Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be." '

I have decided to buy the dvd recorder. I went to Walmart today to buy the one that everyone on the website I visit recommends, but my walmart didn't have it. So, I put the money on a shopping card and I had planned to order it online. But, I've decided to drive up to P-Burg on Thursday to see if either of the walmarts there has it in stock. If I can get it there, then I think that will be better than having it shipped to me.

I fixed the cd player in my car. There is a button on the side of the machine that has a hold, resume, and off option and apparently, to have the cd pick up from where it left off, the button has to be on resume. I don't know how the button could have shifted over to the off option, but it was. I didn't even know the button was there. I couldn't have accidentally pushed it since it's on the side of the machine.

More Great News!!!

Season 2 of The A-Team is going to be released on DVD sometime in 2005!!!!! Can't wait for that either!!!

Yay!!!!

Great News! One of my favorite TV shows, The Pretender, is coming out on DVD!!! Season 1 will be out March 15. Can't wait. I've placed it on the Wish List so I don't forget.

Help please - I have a vhs tape with very important A-Team episodes on it and it appears that the tape has become separated from the little plastic wheely thing that the ends of the tape are attached to. I was rewinding it today and it made a really funny noise and then stopped at about the 6 hour mark. If anyone would know how I can repair this, please post a comment.

I am contemplating parting ways with some of my house money to buy a dvd recorder. There's a website I go to that has reviews and comments about various dvd recorders and it looks as though Pioneer makes pretty good ones. According to the website there isn't one brand that is as reliable as your average vhs recorder, but Pioneer gets pretty good reviews. I think I need to get one before I lose any more A-Team episodes.

There's something weird going on with the Amazon website. I searched for "Alias" and it told me there were 520 items for that word in the books section. So, I clicked on 'books' and it only gave me 6 listings. Not the 520. Somewhere, another tech geek needs smacked.

Whoooo!!!!!

Christmas at my house:

I got money from mom. Nothing from dad (as usual). My sister, brother-in-law and Jasmine got me the Ultimate Ric Flair dvd and the book Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda: Waystation. Right now I'm watching the Barry Windham portion of the Ric Flair dvd. Naturally, I went straight to that part of the dvd first. I got Mom a Freddy Fender cd, some sock like house shoes, some kitchen towels. I got Dad a classic tractors calendar and a Gaithers' Bluegrass Gospel cd. I got Mom and Dad both a fleece blanket and a portable cd player for the car. My sister, brother in law and Jassie got mom and dad something but they haven't delivered it yet. They are supposed to be down tomorrow. Christmas dinner was pretty good. Turkey, home made noodles, mashed potatoes, and more. Yum. Mom and Dad have cheesecake to eat later for dessert and I've got a chocolate cake.

*sigh* you just don't see wrestling like this anymore. Flair had some really good things to say about Barry Windham before this match began. That's good.

I had today off from work. I spent the day watching the History channel mostly. I watched something on Greek Gods and Goddesses and a show on the history of Christmas. Checked out the house listings. I'm almost considering a $125,000 house. I would be left with absolutely no money and a huge house payment, but it's brick and has about 2.5 acres with it. It's probably out in the boonies too. Most everything I've looked at has been out in the boonies. The portable cd player I have in my car is doing something differently. Yesterday I must have pushed the wrong button because now, every time I start the cd player, it starts playing the first song on the cd. Until yesterday, when I would stop it and then start the player again, it would pick up where it left off. If anyone knows how to make the cd player stop this, let me know. I have no clue where the little instruction sheet is that came with the player.

Does Cosby Help?

Most Disappointing Movies of 2004 - I disagree with their opinion on Van Helsing....

Mystery object orbits Earth.

Christmas movies for those who hate Christmas.

Mystery Martian Cleans US Space Buggy

Turning Water into Wine???

Tom Cruise at a Dairy Queen. Forget Elvis at the 7-11.

Check out: Drayton Hall.

Worst Space Song ever?????? You decide...........

Separated At Birth

John Davidson & Eric Bischoff

I only worked a half a day today. I had to take some time off before the end of the year or else I would lose my vacation time. So, I went to the bank and the stores after work and then came home. Dad forgot that I was coming home early so he got a surprise. He had let Fritz outside and went off into the house and then suddenly he saw Fritz there in the hall and thought for a second, "When did we get two Fritz's". LOL! My long time friend Jenny sent me a birthday card with a Walmart gift Card valued at $35.00. That was very nice of her considering she has a husband, two young kids and a stepson, not to mention tons of nephews in her family. She doesn't have much money for things like that. But I coincidentally sent her a Christmas gift of $35.00 a couple of weeks ago. Steffi is still having some tummy problems, but not as bad as they were. I think the medicine is helping.

I think I got the two Christmas presents my sister got for me. I don't remember having anything ordered from Walmart.com so I'm guessing that package and the Amazon.com package I got in the mail today are for Christmas. I didn't open them, just in case they aren't wrapped. I did put them under the tree. We can't put the wrapped presents under the tree yet. My sister's psycho cat would get into them.

I finished the Ric Flair autobiography a little while ago. The end was really touching. I just wonder when the Blackjack Mulligan or Barry Windham autobiography will be written.

I'm currently reading the Ric Flair autobiography. Here are a few opinions thus far:
1) Adults should avoid using vulgar cuss words. If you expect to be accepted by others as someone with intelligence, develop a vocabulary that will project that image.

2) Stop telling me about how you use razor blades and sandpaper to make the wounds we see. I don't want to know how David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear and I don't want to know that a chair shot to the head doesn't make you bleed.

3) So far there isn't a strong enough "Don't do as I do, do as I say" message coming through. Flair's partying ways are featured prominently in this book.

4) About half way through the book and Flair finally says something good about Barry Windham.

I took Steffi to the vet tonight. She wasn't eating well and she kept throwing up. This started Saturday morning after she ate something unidentifiable Friday night. The vet said right off the bat that given the way she smelled that she had eaten some kind of dead wild thing and that it had caused severe gastritis. She also had a fever. So the vet gave her a couple of shots and some pills. Hopefully she will get better. The vet says he sees a lot of this thing during hunting season.

Today was my birthday and I got a cute little plastic jar from April (she said it would be perfect to hold my gobstoppers). I got avon products from Connie, a woman at work with whom I'm not really all that friendly. But I do help her work the copier so I guess she was showing her appreciation. Julie bought me a candy bar yesterday for my birthday and my sister got me a Linda Eder cd. She sings Broadway show tunes and such. I confess I opened that present yesterday, but I didn't play it until today. "Don't Rain on My Parade" and "Man of La Mancha" never sounded better.

Today was also the Christmas Party at work. We actually got by without having to listen to Grace before the meal. Considering we are all paid with government funds, I object to having to be forced to listen to Christian stuff at work as organized by management, but I normally don't make a fuss over it. We are in the bible belt. Julie gave me another candy bar today for helping her and John get the right answer on a case they were working on. I took it home and showed it to my dad and before I knew it he had it opened and was eating it! I never said he could have it.

In Short....

Tony's cousin's dog won't have puppies until April.

I saw on some website that William Shatner was nominated for a Golden Globe. Yay!

Steffi's been sick. She threw up several times Friday night and Saturday morning. Didn't eat any solid food until this morning. We've been using a syringe to shoot melted ice cream and crushed up baby asprin down her throat. I think her problem now is maybe a sore throat or sore gums/teeth.

I got the Ric Flair autobiography in the mail today. I can't wait to start reading it.

I got my birthday present from my sister in the mail today along with my John Schneider greatest hits cd. Yes, he does have some great hits. I haven't opened my birthday present yet. The big day isn't until Wednesday.

Evil weather man who just can't hide his love for snow is predicting one to two inches of snow by morning. Why can't our weather people be sun worshipping beach combers?

Well, Mom is threatening to take the new puppy, if I get one, to the pound. I don't know what her problem is. I buy the food for the dogs, I feed them, I water them, I take them outside.

I may be getting a puppy! Tony said his cousin did have half miniature pomeranian, half chihuahua puppies and he asked if I would want one. Tony wasn't sure if his cousin had any left, but I told him that if he had females I would take one. Dad didn't seem so angry about it, especially when I told him that the dog is supposed to be all of 3 pounds when fully grown. Steffi has probably lost three pounds since being on the turkey diet so it isn't like we're getting more dog or anything. Mom said no a few times when I told her, but she's coming around. The only thing that worries me is Fritz. He doesn't watch where he goes and jumps and steps and runs over top of Steffi. So, I will have to make sure he doesn't get the little puppy.

What's That Song????

Weird Fortune Cookies

Golf isn't boring! I watched the Father/Son tournament this past weekend. It was really good.

Top Ten cheesiest movie lines.

Tonight I read this interview with the Nature Boy Ric Flair. He is one of the greats in the sport of Pro Wrestling and I wanted to post the link to the interview because he actually named WV as one of the places where he could have sold thousands of copies of his autobiography. It's good to know he has good memories of WV and that in his mind my home state was good to him. I know he got some of my money when I was younger. My grandpa and I went to a few matches and my sister and mom even went to some of them. Wrestling was great when I was a kid. Now it's more or less a soap opera.

This morning I got up in time to hear the opening credits for the Today Show. They opened with "breaking news" of an attack on US interests in Saudi Arabia - I think the embassy. But, instead of spending the first twenty minutes of the show covering this 'breaking news', the Today Show's first story of the morning was a discussion about steroid use in major league baseball. Maybe this will shed some light to those people around the world who can't understand how Bush won a second term in office. The majority of Americans are just shallow and care more about millionaire baseball players ripping off the common man than they do about our people being killed by terrorists overseas.

It's been one whole month since Topanga took his blogrest. He has the "How to Make it in Life" blog. I would tell you to check out the blog (the link is in the green box), but as Topanga is resting, there are no new posts since Nov. 6th. He is missed.

Pyramid of the Moon

Planet Swapping

KISS for Agriculture Council. LOL!!!

Look what I got In my Email

From: Ivan

Date: 12/02/04 15:20:35

Subject: From Mr. Ivan Poski.

>From Mr. Ivan Poski.

Dear Friend,

I am Mr. Ivan Poski, a member of the Ovasi Rebel movement. A rebel group secretly sponsored by late president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the embattled chairman, CEO of Yukos oil Menatap SBP Bank.

The Ovasi rebel group contributed immensely in the revolution that sent President Charles Taylor on exile. Beside our fight for equality and political stability in Liberia was the lusaka Diamond, we also had control over the Lusaka Diamond mines, which was a joint investment between late President Reagan and Mr. Khodorkovsky.

Diamonds were being mined and sold to French and Arabian dealers for many years. On 28th of may 2004 before the death of late president Reagan the sum of US$360million was realized from the sales of the Diamonds at the Lusaka Mines and as usual was disbursed according to the agreement among the war lords, the local chiefs and the foreign sponsors. The sum of US$25m and US$21m was sent to late President Reagan and Mr. Khodorkovsky respectively. All funds previously sent to them were usually done through a European security transport Agency. The Agency moves the money from London to Holland where it is delivered to one European broker who helps them deposit the funds in different Financial House in Europe. On this particular transaction I had delays in sending a confirmation of the arrival of the funds in Europe before the CNN announcement of the arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky with other members. Based on this counter, i immediately declare myself as a refuge and move to a refuge !

camp for my safty.

Right now the funds are still with the broker waiting for instructions on how they are to be transfer.

YOUR ROLE:

If you agree on my terms, I will give you every detail you require to present yourself to the broker as an associate or personal assistant to Mr. Khodorkovsky and they will send the funds to wherever you tell him Mr. Khodorkovsky wants it.

MY TERMS:

(1) I will take 70% of the funds when you get it.

(2) You will have to open a joint bank account of which I will be a signatory where the funds would be deposited.

If this is okay by you, notify me immediately either by phone or email in good time so that we can proceed.

Respectfully,

Ivan Poski

A holiday post

Check out: S.C.R.O.O.G.E

Well, blogger won't update my Manuscript Destiny blog. I'm getting tired of Blogger not displaying my posts. You'd think they would be better at this stuff.

I watched a few minutes of the Real Gilligan's Island reality show last night and was apalled by what I saw. One of the Skippers was apparently having a heart attack on the beach and I didn't see one medic come to his aid. That kind of irresponsibility should be punished by the FCC more than any 'wardrobe malfunction'. I guess the Republicans running the government care more about naked people than they do about saving someone's life.

Tonight on the Nightly News with Tom Brokaw they did a story about the son of the head guy at the UN making money from some company under investigation for some misdeeds regarding Iraq's Oil for Food program. Some Republican congressman said that Annan should resign from the UN because of his son having a job at this company. Well, I say when Dick Cheney severs all connections with Haliburton maybe someone can listen to this congressman who obviously has no clue about what he's saying. That's about as lame as Powell coming out and saying that the US wouldn't recognize the result of the Ukrainian election. Bush was all in a hurry to accept a flawed election result back in 2000 and now he thinks he can pass judgment on other countries election practices?

We had some strong winds over night last night. They blew over a tree in our pasture and it created two holes in the roof of an outbuilding we have. I'll have to see if we need to cover anything up in that building to protect it before we get more rain.

And for those of you who were waiting for the next installment of Manuscript Destiny - I've posted a few more words.

New Additions

I have officially added Michael Drayton, Detective Guy to the Blogs of Note section. I have also added Next in the Series: The Blog. Check them out!

Country Great Loretta Lynn has the 43rd top selling album in Norway. Wonder how well she's doing in America?

And President and Mrs. Bush said that stem cell research would not lead to people walking again. Hah! They were wrong.

Inflatable Space Modules

I got this from the Truth From Hell blog:

The George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator

Today I was in the basement getting out the 100 foot extension cord and I felt what I thought was spider webs clinging to my face. It wasn't until I was halfway done with the extension cord that I realized that it wasn't a spiderweb. My face where I had felt the contact was burning and swelling. I concluded I had gotten stung by something, but I didn't know what. I still don't know what because I didn't go back to look for the culprit. My dad seems to think it was some kind of stinging wooly worm. Thankfully, the swelling has gone down.

NaNoBlogMo

I've been meaning to do this for a while but with everything that's gone on this month, I haven't had a chance to until now. Check out Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. It's a really good story. The author is very talented.

For Ria

Phantom of the Opera Movie

Bondage

Now that I have your attention - LOL. Today, I'm watching some of the Thanksgiving Weekend Bondathon on the SpikeTV channel. James Bond Movies. When the movie goes to commercial break, they have one of those scenes of the woman in silhouette swimming along like in the opening montage of a Bond movie. Well, along with the woman swimming, they also have a silhouette of a turkey chasing her. LOL!!! That's funny.

Last night I watched the last half hour or so of Galaxy Quest. I wanted to see the movie when it came out years ago, but never did. Now, I might want the dvd of it. It was pretty good.

I finally got some good, or at least decent, ideas for what to get my brother-in-law for Christmas. So, I placed the order and the all the packages should arrive by or around Dec. 9th.

Jasmine, my niece, had her Christmas with us last night. She was pretty excited and thrilled to get what we gave her. She got Jay Jay the Jet Plane character toys, My Little Ponies, cd's of kids' songs, some play dough, a little stuffed dog purse, some boohbah stuffed dolls and I don't know what else. I played with her for about an hour last night after mom and dad went to sleep. She would open her Jay Jay presents and every time she saw what the toy was she would say, "Oh my goodness." It was the cutest thing. She's not even 3 years old yet.

How about the Senators calling for a "Full and Complete" reading of the bills before they sign them????

Since I last posted, my dad has had quadruple heart bypass surgery. He came home today and the first thing he did was to tell mom to get him a hamburger from McDonalds. We will have to ease him into a low fat diet. So, things will be getting back to normal now that he's home. I'll be able to get a little more sleep, and I'll be able to get on the internet more often. I had to stay off the web since we have a dial up connection. We needed the phone line free. My sister has come from Cincinatti to stay with us for a while to help dad out.

I logged into my email account for the first time in a couple days and it said I was receiving 65 new emails. LOL! Ten of them were filtered out, but a lot of them were spam that I had to delete.

Today I gathered up 5 big trashbags full of stuff from my bedroom to throw away. And it still doesn't look like I've done anything in there. I am a really good packrat. Who knows what I'll get into tomorrow.

No Way!

There is no way that the Sex and the City woman, Carrie Bradshaw, is the 11th Greatest TV character of all time! Ugh! Check out the list for yourself and watch the Bravo channel to see the top ten. I bet there will be more controversial picks.

Flying mini-cabs. Cool!

I hate computers

I haven't said that in a while. Today I got the wild notion to play the Flight Simulator game I have. I plugged in the joystick that I had unplugged from the computer back when I was trying to get the digitial cameras to work, and got nothing in return. The joystick doesn't work. I tried plugging it in to different ports, restarting the computer, nothing helped. See why I read books. Books work every time. I think I'm just going to have to get my own computer. It's ridiculous to have two and three computers at a cost of well over $1000.00 in one household because this thing won't work on that pc but it will work on this other one if you stand on one foot singing Yankee Doodle on third Tuesday of the month.

A quote

"Madness is rare in individuals-but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." --- Nietzsche

(Applicable to the recent election outcome, I think.)

A new installment of Manuscript Destiny (over in the green box under Blogs of Note) has been posted. It might take a while for blogger to actually allow everyone to see it though. For some reason, Blogger won't immediately display new posts on the blogs. It's kind of frustrating.

Legitimacy Lost

Here's yet one more story about the voting screw-ups during the election. I don't think I'll be able to trust the outcome of any election again. I wonder what the percentages would work out to nation wide for this kind of 'error'.

How can a communist country like China offer to pay children $12,000 to act as advisors in a toy factory??? Sounds pretty capitalist to me.

I just saw a guy who plays a correspondent on the Daily Show in an AOL commercial acting like someone who works for AOL!! It's true! They are all actors in those commercials!!! I bet this means too that when George W. Bush said in those commercials we had to watch for the last three months that he wanted to make America safer, he was just acting!!!

Space Story - Time and the Big Bang.

Check out this blog - apparently there's a picture of a Bush/Cheney supporter driving off with ballots in Ohio. Did they get counted??


And I got this from Chris over at Doik.net. Check out GlobalVote and see how the rest of the world would have voted in our election. If only more people in America were that smart.

Election Night Observation

Being the mathematically inclined accountant that I am, I can't help but be completely baffled as to how people can decide after only 3% of the vote has been counted who the winner is. What if the counters decided to count all the Nader votes first??? Or, maybe more to the point, what if certain sun tanned retiree pole workers in a certain sunny southern state 'conveniently misplace' ballots like they did last time?

I have spent the last four days working out and dieting. Yay for me. I also added the supplement CLA to my program. Woman's World magazine says it's supposed to help get rid of fat. I dusted off the treadmill today. I've been walking outside, but since it's supposed to get pretty cold by the end of the week, I thought I'd better get the treadmill ready. I also started writing the 'novel' for the NaNoWriMo event. Check it out over in the green box - Manuscript Destiny. I've been watching cooking shows lately. And I ordered one of Paula Deen's cookbooks. She cooks in a Southern style so I'm hoping there will be something good in there for me to make for Thanksgiving. I have a real urge to bake a cake, but since I'm doing the D and E thing, I figure I'd better not bake anything. Tonight I'll be watching some of the election returns and maybe staying up to watch the Daily Show. They are doing a full hour of election night coverage - it's bound to be very hilarious.

Two movies that sound pretty interesting:

National Treasure

After the Sunset

Hmm... you could always vote for one of these guys.............

Election Day

If you care anything about your future and the future of the country and the world, vote for John Kerry. On the other hand, if you want some dimwitted texan with a napoleon complex to continue to pick fights with other countries without provocation and kill thousands of our soldiers and risk all out nuclear war (reference Iran's policy makers declaring "Death to America" the other day), then vote for Bush.

Ria, Check out the comments regarding scary movies. I found the name of the movie you want to get......

This weekend I was watching Book TV on CSPAN and I happened to catch Jon Stewart and some of the others from the Daily Show. They were promoting their book, America. And I thought it was interesting that FCC rules about inappropriate language did not apply to them. They said the "F Word" several times, along with some other words that they shouldn't say on tv. I wonder why the rules don't apply to CSPAN. The only thing I could think of was that as it was Book TV, banning certain words would be a form of censorship. Still, the rules should apply to everyone equally. Either they all get to say the "F Word" or no one does.

Well, I've written a few lines for the Novel writing thing. They can be found by clicking on the "Manuscript Destiny" link over in the Blogs of Note section. Since I'm not looking to publish anything or win a Pulitzer, I don't care about any negative comments or any so-called constructive criticism. So, fair warning, those kinds of comments will be deleted.

I haven't seen the show, Location, Location, Location, on BBC America for a few weeks now. I know real estate is a at a premium in the UK, but surely someone out there is searching for a house.

NaNoWriMo

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a a contest of sorts on the web, called NaNoWriMo, in which people are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. The contest begins Nov. 1st. Tomorrow. I think I will try this contest, but I don't know how much I'll get done. I have limited time on the computer to actually write a novel. I have found a few blogs out there of people who are going to do this and they appear to have some interesting plot ideas. As the days pass, I may post links to their blogs on this one so you all can check them out.

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!

It just wouldn't be Halloween without the movie, Dracula: Dead and Loving It. And, oh happy day, WGN is showing it tonight. Just last night I was telling Mom that they should show the movie on a channel I could actually get.

On some message board, I saw a series of messages about people's scariest movies. There are two movies that really scared me. I normally don't watch scary movies, so the list of possibilities is small. But these two I caught by accident. One, was a Brian Denehy movie where he played the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I've been terrified of Denehy and clowns ever since. I think there were clowns in that movie. If not, it's getting the blame for it anyway. The other movie was a movie about a dead girl who couldn't be freed from here earthly spiritual bonds until some little china doll was rescued from a well or something. Still hate that movie.

Feel free to post a comment about which movies scare you.

I'm watching this show on tv about Hollywood's Creepiest Creatures, hosted by Elvira. Well, she just said something like: "In some cultures, rats are considered good luck. Or potluck." That just made me laugh.

Today at work we had our potluck lunch. It was really good this time. They had taco fixings (a first I think), pasta salad, potato soup, bunch of desserts and other foods that I didn't really notice. They made punch and it tasted ok, but it looked like the dirty water that comes from washing my car. John was there in the afternoon. It's been two whole days since I saw him last. I was beginning to miss him. LOL! Good thing I ate well at the potluck lunch since I didn't get home from house hunting until about 7pm. That is about three hours later than I normally eat supper. I think there will be some leftovers tomorrow. Yay!

House Hunting

First House - It had had flood water in the garage. Cross it off the list.

Second House - Doublewide, good condition. Back yard was cluttered and felt claustrophobic. Big Negative - the road to get there was a single wide, blacktop road, steeper than the driveway we have now. I'd never get out in the winter. Kitchen and bathroom were great though.

Third House - This one was thrown in by the agent. I hadn't asked to see it but they thought I should because it was supposed to be in really great condition. And it was. It was a 4 year old doublewide on one acre with a three car garage. The yard was again cluttered with landscaping and kids' stuff (sand boxes, toys, etc.) The bad part - They wanted $100,000 for it. I'm not paying that much for one acre and a doublewide. Kitchen was good.

Fourth House - The one I wanted to see with the 45 acres. The road to get there was barely gravel and narrow and was over two miles long. I could buy it, but I could never make the payments because I'd lose my job due to excessive absenteeism caused by not getting out to work in the winter.

So, bottom line is that I am still on the house hunt. The agent was trying to talk me into a little cottage house on a half an acre. She thinks I won't want to do all the maintenance and upkeep on a larger property. Which may or may not happen. But, I've lived on a 20 acre farm for 25 years. I can't go from 20 down to one half just like that. And we couldn't get in to see the inside of the house - the key wouldn't work in any of the doors' locks. What is ironic is that the owner of this house works for the Dept. of Highways. You'd think he would get better roads out his way with his connections.

I was driving through town this evening and I saw a sign advertising a haunted house event at the local nursing home. Two things struck me about this:

1. Considering all the old people who've died in that nursing home over the years, I wouldn't be surprised if it was haunted.
2. Is it really a good idea to have a bunch of scary stuff going on around old people with bad hearts?

Tomorrow evening I get to check out three more houses in my hunt for my future home. I'm more excited about these three than I was about the others. Two of them are real houses and one is a doublewide. I'm most anxious about one house that has 45 acres attached to it. It's also the most expensive and a bit out of my price range. But if I really like it and it's possible, I could always sell some of those 45 acres and use the money to pay down the mortgage. Tomorrow at work, we are supposed to dress up for Halloween. I will just be wearing my tiara and waving my magic wand. You know, what I do everyday. LOL!

Inspired Casting??

I should post this on my A-Team blog, and maybe I will, but I just had to post it here too. I came home from work and the store tonight to find the movie "Undercover Brother" playing on the tv. In one scene, Chris Kattan was yelling at some other guy about how a united people would be a bad thing or something and I watched it mesmerized because I realized that Chris Kattan could actually be good enough to play Murdock. There have been a lot of names thrown out on other websites about who could play the crazy pilot, but I really think Chris Kattan should be given serious consideration.

My Walmart Order

I got the two Andromeda books I ordered and the Diana Palmer book today. I think the mailman was a little miffed at us. Mom had ordered a bunch of stuff from some catalog and she got that today. The poor mailman had half of his vehicle filled with just our stuff. He's a good mailman for bringing our packages to us. Usually they will just leave a slip in the mailbox and we would have to go to the post office to pick up the packages. I plan to start reading the Andromeda books tomorrow.

I have tentatively scheduled an appointment with the real estate woman to see some more properties this week. Hopefully, I'll get to see them and find something worthwhile. I would like to save somre more money though.

Voter Fraud!!!!

Check out: Vote Watch 2004.
Here's one of the stories they had on the local news. See why I think this year's election will be hijacked, like last years'.

VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE 'MISLEADING'

Publication: THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: 08/20/2004
Page: 1A
Headline: VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE 'MISLEADING'
Byline: TOM SEARLS
tomsearls@wvgazette.com

For a mother of two teens trying to finish up college, $9 an hour as a
temporary customer service representative sounded good.

"I wanted to find something that would work around my schedule and be
flexible," said St. Albans resident Lisa Bragg.

After spending more than an hour with Charleston personnel agency
Kelly Services last week, Bragg was hired. "They wouldn't tell us at
first what this job was," the 37-year-old Bragg said Thursday.

Then she found out it was registering Republican voters at One Stop
convenience stores throughout the Charleston region.

But she won't be there today, the first day she was scheduled to be on
the job.

"I'm giving up a job that I need," she said. "It's the only decent job
I've found."

While the job was to last six weeks, the $9 an hour was far above the
minimum wage of $5.15 Bragg was offered for most other temporary
employment.

Bragg feels her employers were misleading the public, even if it's not
illegal. Employees were to approach One Stop customers and ask if they
favor George Bush or John Kerry for president. If Bush was their
answer, they were then to inquire if the person was registered to vote
and offer them a voter registration card.

If the person supported Democrat Kerry, they were only to say thank
you and give them a registration card only if asked.

If asked questions, employees were instructed, "Only state you are
there to conduct a simple field poll to see what neighborhood support
is ... a nonpartisan registration drive."

They were told to quietly listen to any person who becomes angry and
to remember, "The goal is to register Republicans and to remain
positive."

"Is this the way it has to be? People have to be sneaky to make $9 an
hour?" Bragg said.

Employees were also given the number of a Kelly Services employee to
contact if there are problems. Contacted Wednesday, two different
employees said they would have someone from Sproul & Associates, the
firm paying for the survey, answer any questions.

Later, a Kelly Services employee who would identify himself only as
"Rob" initially said a message had been left with Ben Decker at
Sproul's office. He said he had no contact number for Decker, then
agreed to release a Michigan number.

A message left with Decker was not returned.

"[Kelly Services] said the less you know about the company, the better
off you are, especially if the media would come asking questions,"
said Bragg, an admitted Democrat. "That made me more curious than ever
as to who's behind this and what's going on."

Sproul & Associates appears to be operated by Nathan Sproul, former
head of the Arizona Republican Party and a wealthy GOP activist who
has been involved in petition drives. An Internet search shows Sproul
has received some financing from national Republican groups, though it
was not clear who is paying for the West Virginia work.

Bragg, and another person working for the group, said they were told
the owners of the One Stop stores had agreed to allow them to conduct
the work on the stores' lots. Patrick C. Graney III and Michael R.
Graney are listed as the principal owners of 42 One Stop stores,
according to the state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration.
Messages left at One Stop's headquarters in Belle were not returned.

For Bragg it's an economic loss, but one she carries with pride. She
asked about registering voters with another organization - a group
that treats those of all political persuasions the same - and found it
pays only $5.50 an hour.

"I just don't want to be in my hometown and mislead people," she said.

To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5192.

A Great Idea!!

Check out Na-No-Blog-Mo. Do you want to blog your own novel in 30 days??? Well, a lot of the people associated with this site do. Probably a lot of very good reading here on this site. I might try this. I don't know how committed I'll be to it though.

"Corruption and Cronyism"

I'm watching a debate between the three candidates for Governor of WV. The republican candidate, Monty Warner, has said the phrase "corruption and cronyism" probably once every three minutes or so since this debate started. It would appear that Warner has no real platform or ideas for leading our state for the next four years. He is just obsessed with corruption and cronyism. Something he should know about since one of his brothers is the chairman of the State's Republican party (a party, by the way, which contributed $600,000 to a group who has been accused of not turning in voters registration forms which were completed by democrats) and his other brother is a US Attorney. Monty Warner spent 25 years in the military. I think he has listened to Dick Cheney's rosy outlook of the future (the nuclear bombs exploding in our cities if the 'wrong' candidate is elected president outlook) so much that paranoia has just paralyzed him. Right now, Warner has just said that he and Joe Manchin are friends. I don't know about the rest of you, but if a friend alleges that I'm involved in criminal activities and calls for investigations against me, I don't characterize that as an act of friendship. Just goes to show you how delusional Republicans are. I think I like the Mountain party candidate Jesse Johnson. He was excluded from the other debates, which I thought was extremely unfair. I'm not too sure about his capabilities as Governor, but he sure can refer to studies and facts and statistics. And he has great hair and a good speaking voice. None of the candidates mentioned any ideas for raises for state employees, but they loved to pour it on for the teachers. Oh those poor teachers with their special retirement plans and special raises and special health care packages. Give me a break. There should not be discrimination like that in state government. In his closing statement, Monty Warner has just 'humbly' asked for our vote. Please. During the debate I ate a few too many toll house pan cookies (yummy chocolate chip delights) and now Warner's comments are nearly making me toss those cookies, so to speak.

Happy Birthday Earth!!

Old Laws in England.

Today I found a mistake by Melanie, the 'supervisor' that we had a while back. I emailed about it and she didn't seem to think she had made a mistake. So, I will email again about it tomorrow to see just when I can do the audit on the case. It looks like I can't do it right now because what she was supposed to have done should have been completed about 15 days ago. There are deadlines for that procedure. She should know that I'm going to pull out the Policy Manual and quote it.

Mom and Dad are back in Cincinatti. I have the house to myself again. Yay!

Here's a story of a real Baseball Hero. Schilling should get MVP.

Star Wars TV Show???? I personally think it's a bad idea. It would only serve to make the Star Wars saga ordinary and mundane.

Shipment Update

Two other items have just shipped! Yay! It appears the only item I will have to wait for is the Alias: Shadowed book that I've had over in the Wishlist for months. It isn't due to be released until Nov. 9th, I think.

Speaking of Walmart, I checked on the status of my order and low and behold, they are sending out a book to me that isn't supposed to be released until November. It's already been shipped. But two others that have been released for some time haven't been shipped yet.

Well, Dad was a little wrong in his explanation of the pig project. Dad bought a pig from a guy and said that he would keep the pig at the former owner's house and then take it directly to the slaughterhouse on the day of his appointment to have the pig slaughtered. I came home tonight and followed Fritz around the house down into the front yard where Dad's truck is, and guess what is in the bed of the truck. Yep, cute old Wilbur is there snorting and wanting attention. I looked at him briefly and he had this look of glee in his eyes that someone had come to pay attention to him :( How am I supposed to look at those wrapped packages of frozen pork now???

So, they sell men's sports magazines with half naked women on the cover. They sell racy lingerie. They sell guns that play a role in how many deadly accidents and non-accidents each year. But Walmart won't sell John Stewart's book. I believe Stewart's bookcover is decorated with the American flag. Hmmm.........

Tonight I got one of those gift cards from walmart and ordered some books from their online store. That gift card is a wonderful invention. I also bought the Van Helsing DVD. I'm glad I did. I almost forgot how handsome Hugh Jackman was in that movie. Almost. I've had a headache almost all day today. I took three tylenol and two generic sudafed tablets and I still had the headache hours afterward. It's finally going away now. I'll have to update my Wishlist with some new things. Particularly, the new things I just ordered from walmart.com.

Last night was the last episode of the Search for the New Partridge Family show on vh1. All of the people I would have voted for won, so that's good. However, I can't find out when the actual Partridge Family show will air. The host of the contest show said "this fall" but that could mean NEXT fall since this fall is already half over. Maybe they will do a movie for tv for this fall and then judging by the response they will decide what happens from there? Who knows, but I would like to see Leland and Emily act together. They seem like they would be pretty good on screen. And the ones who didn't win can always guest star on the show as the neighbors or the school kids. They can even do a dream show in which one of the winners dreams he or she is in a different family and have the runners' up be that family. Tons of ideas for future appearances.

April had her monthly evaluation today and we were both surprised to see that it was pretty good. We both know she is an excellent employee, but the boss always sides with the new "pampered one" over in that other county (lydia), so we really didn't believe that justice would prevail. And today at work, we had no heat for about half of the day. The thermostats did not have any readings for most of the morning - I guess they were completely turned off. It was really cold. I think when we left it had reached a balmy 64 degrees. I had covered up with my coat for most of the day. We are having a team meeting next month and it's supposed to last 5 hours. Most of that time, by the looks of the agenda, will be devoted to me talking about how to refer cases for audit correctly. Yay, more public speaking. Not.

I was going to go to Walmart today to pick up one of those shopping cards or gift cards so I could buy some stuff online without giving everyone my account information, but it was raining. I guess that's a good thing. The Hugh Jackman movie, Van Helsing, is being released tomorrow on DVD so I could possibly get that while I'm out tomorrow.

Testing.....

The post button works! As does this edit link button blogger also has. Now I will just need to hide the post button from my visitors.

I have followed some blogger directions and created a personal post link for this blog and for my Andromeda blog. This means that I will be able to post directly from my blogs without having to do to the blogger dashboard and choosing to create a post. In time I hope to make this feature invisible to all the viewers of the blog, but since blogger still doesn't want to show me my freshly published pages, I will have to wait until the new changes appear and then go from there.

Check out the "official" Majestic 12 website.

Check out: The Majestic Documents

A Change in the Blogs of Note Section

Tin Foil Hat became The TFH Files. Now it's Truth From Hell. Check out all of the changes by visiting the blog!

Jon Stewart was on Crossfire. Check out the transcript.

Update on Martha Stewart.

For the last couple of days, my sister and Jasmine have been staying with us. The house is a mess and I had to play for hours with Jasmine. Tonight, I have the house to myself since mom and dad took my sister and Jasmine back to Cincinatti. I think the dogs plan an all-night barking concert for my benefit. They don't like it when we're not all where we are supposed to be.

My sister did get rid of the Begin2Search toolbar - YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April asked Lydia to prepare a case for audit on Tuesday and Lydia actually made a face at her. Yep, we are all grown-ups at work. Especially those who've been there 30 years. And somehow, April's going to be the one lectured. I just know it.

Everyone at work has been sick. I think they gave it to me, but I'm not completely convinced. I've doubled up on the Vitamin C so maybe if I do get it, it won't be so bad. Polly got one of those coveted flu shots yesterday. She told me today that she was so sick that one of the bosses was sending her home. Hope she passed the flu along to all the mean people up there before she left.

If Bush can't keep the Green Zone secure, how will he keep America secure? Vote Kerry!

'Superman' Actor Christopher Reeve Dead at 52

Visit..........
Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation

"Printing error", my foot! Someone is trying to steal another election just like Florida in 2000.

Kudos to Blogger Support

Although they have yet to email me back about the problem I reported, I just checked out the "known issues" section, or whatever it is, and it looks like they've added my problem to the list. Yay!!! I would much prefer they would take the time they would spend emailing me about my problem and just fix it anyway, so this is good. Hopefully, they will fix this problem soon. Maybe this will also fix the problem I have where I publish the blog, but the new posts don't appear on the blog when I view it. If not, I will have to report that one as well. That's really frustrating.

Today's shopping trip didn't really go as expected. I found myself unable to part with my money. I did buy a couple of christmas presents today. P-Burg has gotten so rude since I was last there. People in stores wouldn't get out of your way. They let their kids tear open products on store shelves. Drivers were rude. I had Keith Urban's Be Here cd playing in the car today, which was pretty nice. I don't get to listen to it very often. A little message to the people who put out that cd - the cd case fell apart on me. Spend a little extra money and distribute quality goods next time.

I saw on the Today show that the folks at Jibjab.com have created another Democrat/Republican cartoon video, like "This Land is Your Land", only this one, titled, "It's Good to be in DC" is done to the song, "Dixieland" (I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray, blah, blah, blah - yeah, that song) You can check it out at Jibjab.com or atomfilms.com. It was pretty funny.

I changed the name of "Tin Foil Hat" over in the blogs section to "The Trenchcoat Chronicles" because that's where the link took me when I clicked on it today. He's changing some things around so I'll probably be changing the name of the link in the near future.

Another new episode of Andromeda airs tonight on the Sci Fi channel at 7pm eastern. Check it out.

Let's hear it for Government at Work! Death to Spyware!!!

Sammy's Dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BOOOOO to Marvel Comics!!! They killed little Sammy in the X-Men comic. Sammy had befriended Juggernaut and found out that Juggernaut had 'betrayed' the X-Men by joining the evil new Brotherhood. I don't think Juggernaut really did join the Brotherhood, I think he was playing them and he was going to keep them away from the school, but Sammy didn't know that. Juggernaut went after the Brotherhood when they killed Sammy but it isn't looking so good for the X-Men right now. Maybe Sammy has some weird fishy mutant power that can bring him back to life or something.

Welcome Martha

I have tomorrow off from work. I'm thinking of doing a little shopping, but I've been telling everyone that I plan to go to Alderson to hold up a Welcome Martha sign to welcome Martha Stewart to WV. I really don't intend to do that, but you can bet there will be plenty of people there who will. I hope her time here passes quickly for her. It's ridiculous that she is already on her way to prison, but Ken Lay and those alleged Enron crooks were out and about for a couple of years before anything was ever done to them. I guess it does pay to be buddies with the Current Administration. Wonder who Martha voted for in previous elections? She must not have contributed to the right campaign.

Anyway, four whole days off and I can't wait. As I said, I might do some shopping tomorrow. I might give the dogs a bath. I hate to bath Fritz since he's lost so much hair already from the other baths, but he really needs one. Sunday, Polly, Scarlett and I are planning to meet for lunch at Pizza Hut and then check out an open house that the real estate agency is having for a doublewide that Dad and I drove by last weekend. It will be good to hang out with Polly and Scarlett. Next week sometime, my sister and brother-in-law will be by to eradicate the evil begin2search toolbar and other spyware from the computer. And then Mom and Dad will be going to Cincinnatti to spend a day or two with them later next week. Yay! The house will be all mine again for a that time! Hopefully Steffi won't cry as much as she did the last time when I went to bed and didn't let her in my room. She doesn't like to be separated from people.

I've been having trouble posting and publishing this blog. It's been taking forever and then the post doesn't even appear on the webpage for I don't know how long. I sent an email to blogger support for help because last night after trying to publish for 7 whole minutes, the thing timed out and I got some kind of error message. Hopefully, Blogger can tell me what's going on. My other blogs aren't having this trouble. I guess it could be the size of my blog, but I don't know if my blog is large, extremely large, average sized or what. Hmmm.............

Tony must have had some kind of flu or fever or something today. He actually went outside with me and April and started the Harley so we could hear what it sounds like. It's not like him to show off the Harley, but like I said, he must have been feeling sick. Of course I still had to remark on the unnecessary expense of owning the bike just for its brand name. I wouldn't be the Miranda he knows and tolerates if I didn't. But it was cute to see him so proud of his little scooter :) He's had some extra detailing work done on it so April and I were going to take a look at the makeover. I'm toying with the idea of applying for supervisor when the job is posted. I don't want the job, but I think it would be really irritating to the boss if I did apply and when they asked the question, "Why do you want this position?" I could say, "There's a deficiency in the quality of work that goes into audit referrals in the Rxxxx and Cyyyyyy offices and I want the opportunity to do something to improve it since accurate audit referrals are an integral part of ensuring data reliability." Data Reliability is a buzzword for "federal funding" so it's important. Heehee. That would really get the Ram mad. She can't stand for anyone to even question the workers in Rxxxx and Cyyyyyy. I'd be in the doghouse for sure after that. LOL!

Mount St. Helens Volcano Cam.

April and I have determined that John must be Foghorn Leghorn.

John has decided that April and I are Heckle and Jeckle, respectively. I think there might be more truth here than he expected. LOL!

Scarlett gave me her violet plant before she left for P-Burg. It's planted in a little silver tin pot. Today, I got the glittler glue and proceeded to decorate the tin with it. I have the green and blue glitter glue on there now and I plan to use the other colors to cover all four sides of the pot. It already looks pretty.

Tonight is Andromeda night on the SciFi channel. Can't wait. Looks like Trance makes an appearance of some sort. I posted a link to promo pics on the "The Earth Hath Skin" blog. Check it out in the green box.

I'm not sure how I like this Mozilla Firefox browser. Some of the pages look funny. But it beats that stupid begin2search thing. One bad thing is that the Animal Rescue Site webpage always has a popup for their shop and this browser blocks it. Oh well, I never buy anything from them, but some people do.

I Spoke Too Soon.....

I only had limited success with getting rid of Begin2Search. It came back today on our IE browser. So, I downloaded the Mozilla Firefox browser because someone said that this thing has spyware protection and pop-up blockers built in and that it might block the Begin2Search toolbar. Hopefully this will be the last we see of Begin2Search. My brother-in-law and sister will be coming in for a visit in about a week to a week and a half. Maybe they can innoculate our computer from whatever else is hiding on here. I was able to import our favorites into the Firefox browser so we are good to go there. Hopefully, I didn't import Begin2Search along with them.

Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After further research on the internet regarding the Begin2Search toolbar, I learned that the begin2search website had an uninstall button. So, I used that to remove the toolbar from my browser. It appears at this stage that it's all been removed. But I will have to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. And I also learned that some victim of this horrible thing has reported this to the FBI. Good for them!!!!!!!

Today was Scarlett's farewell party at work. She is transferring to P-Burg. I was in charge of the party, which is an unusual experience for me. I usually don't plan the parties. But today's was a nice one. We had pizza, no-bake cookies, and this chocolate mousse, whipped cream, cookie crumb dessert thing that April bought at Walmart. Tony's mom must think people eat a lot. She works at the pizza place so Tony called her to get a discount and she told him that for 9 people, we would need three pizzas (36 slices). Well, we had one whole pizza left over at the end of the day. I gave Scarlett half and I took half home. But I left the no-bake cookies. Everyone loves them more than pizza. Charlotte got a cookie when she came in and said, "Now, you don't bake these, right?" They aren't called no-bake cookies for nothing, you know. April and Julie got a kick out of her blond moment. Scarlett confided in me that she now shares a similar opinion of Melanie to the one I have. I don't know why other people feel the opposite of what we do for her. It's a mystery. But apparently Charlotte may feel something akin to what we do. April and I heard her on the phone to someone in P-Burg (presumably Luinna) and we heard Charlotte say, "Well don't tell Melanie."

I heard today on the news that apparently Martha Stewart is going to spend her five month sentence here in WV. The news people interviewed residents of the town and they were all excited that Martha could do a lot to help the community. Inmates at this facility are allowed out to do community service - anything from trash detail to singing in choirs. The residents on the news hoped she would have some good ideas about the flower beds in the town. It's a shame that her mother may have a more difficult time visiting her here instead of the two other facilities that she would have liked to have been assigned to. But hopefully, the time will go fast and Martha will be home before she knows it. And to satisfy the cynics out there, the news reporter stated that a nickname for this facility was "camp cupcake". So, she won't be working on any chain gangs.

I'm still suffering the effects of the Begin2search toolbar bug. It has hijaced my Internet Explorer browser. I don't know where we picked this thing up, but we can't get rid of it yet. I found some directions about deleting lines out of some kind of registry. But when the directions start out by saying, "Make a back up of the registry.", that sounds just a little bit serious, like I'm not sure I'm the one who wants to be touching the registry. I'll have to do some more research to see if there' s another way to get rid of this. If you have XP, I think there's a patch you can download, but I have 98.

The new season of Andromeda has begun. Check out my "The earth hath skin" blog for my comments thus far.

Congratulations, you're the paranoid boss.
All these people around you .. they're necessary, sure, but they need to be watched. They could rise through the ranks like a crushing army of office ninjas; highly skilled human resources, trained in the art of doing things well, ready to usurp you.
Be ready. Claim credit for their work. Squish them down at every possible opportunity. Screw them over. Don't give them enough money. Ensure your reign will last for a thousand years, but never, ever let them think they can compete.

Which Office Moron are You?

Mummy Lake's mystery is unraveled

Donny Osmond makes chart return - He's big in the UK.

Today at work April had emailed the ram to get clarification on some policy. Greg had completely overruled decisions made by the previous supervisor which in turn meant that April had to reaudit 4 cases. The ram called April and said that yes, Greg's actions were supported by policy and then she emailed April the policy that pertained to what Greg had done. The only problem was that the policy said the complete opposite of what Greg did. So, I followed up with an email back to the ram asking for the correct policy. Well, then the ram calls me and she says that what he did wasn't in policy but that it was the way she wanted it done. I have no problem doing things the way she wants them done, she just has to be honest enough to say that's what she wants. But by first saying that there was policy to support Greg's actions and then reversing herself in her conversation with me, it sends the message that she doesn't really want us to do our jobs correctly, she just doesn't want us to question Greg's actions. (Or Lydia's for that matter). The ram kept telling me "I don't know what you're asking for." It wasn't that she didn't know, it's that she didn't care. I mean it's hard to not understand the words, "you said there was policy. where is it?" So, the next time April has a situation like this, I'll tell her to go to our attorney, who can overrule anyone in our office. He will end up making Greg do 10 times more work. Serves them right.

Julie got back from her Florida vacation. She said she would have laid out on the beach, but there was no beach thanks to the last few hurricanes. It's good to have Julie back. April and I need another smarty-pants to joke around with.

Nashville Star competitor, George Canyon, has a cd coming out on Sept. 28th. Check out samples of the songs at Walmart.com. And check out his website over in the Green box.

Check out Peter Cincotti.

RIP

WWE's Big Bossman dead at 42.

Work was pretty quiet today. This morning, I used an orange napkin and scrunched paper to make a spider to hang in John's doorway of his office. Here's the long story that leads up to the spider: Scarlett sent an email to us telling us that because a spider bit her on the face, she was going to need a plastic surgeon and a cat scan because the spot that got bitten had become swollen. John responded to the email that he thought a spider had bit him on his stomach because it looked swollen (meaning he's gained some weight). So, I made the spider today and hung it in the doorway to tease him. Then April mentioned something about the Charlotte's Web book and how the spider had weaved messages into her webs. It was funny since our RAM is named Charlotte.

Also today, we received gift bags for employee appreciation week. The gifts were post-it notes. But the tissue paper that was stuffed in the gift bag was the real prize. I got mine and Tony's and wallpapered a shelf in my cube. It has a swirl and stars pattern so it goes great with my magic wand. Then later, April and I got John's tissue paper and April taped it to the file cabinet in my cube as sort of a table cloth. My cube's so pretty now. LOL! Oh, and April and I had some left over ice cream from yesterday's ice cream sundae even to celebrate employee appreciation week. Tomorrow is "hot dog it's Friday" for employee appreciation week. I'm not a big hot dog fan, too many Jay Leno jokes about what they are made of, but they are free so I will have to participate.

And Scarlett, my dad says he knows a guy who had a big swollen spot sprout on his cheek bone and it turned out to be a sinus problem. So, the spider bite might not be the culprit.

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Check out this website: Blackjack's Bar-B-Que. It is the official website of the famous wrestler, Blackjack Mulligan. He is the father of Barry and Kendall Windham (my favorite wrestlers of all time) and the father-in-law of Mike Rotundo, another accomplished wrestler. I might add this site to the links in the green box.

Home Sweet Home

Maybe not yet. I got to see the A-Frame house tonight. A very bad choice. We drove for miles out a paved country road. Then we turned off onto a gravel road and traveled even farther. Seeing a "Dead End" sign was not encouraging, but things looked even worse when we passed the sign and kept going. Finally we reached the house and encountered the driveway. It was straight up hill and the bottom half was gravel and dirt, then it turned left and had some paving. There is no way anyone could live there all year round. As for the house, it was ok if you didn't mind hitting your head. The basement had to have 8 foot high ceilings. The second floor had the slanted roof thing going. It felt very claustrophobic. The bathroom wasn't all that great either. Someone had built a closet in the middle of the bathroom. It wasn't the ideal spot for it. So, I wasn't all that happy with the A-Frame. Not all that disappointed because I figured it would be out in the middle of nowhere. I also got to see the house with the 5 acres and the horse barn. Scarlett should have been with me, there was a horse in residence. It was black and I thought it looked young. But I've never been around horses, so that was just a guess. Anyway, the horse was skittish and didn't come up to us to be petted. That house was ok. Small rooms, different carpet in every room. Propane furnace and gas range. Full basement, but the lights didn't work in the basement. The bathroom was ok, but smaller than the one I've got now. And the toilet didn't flush. I don't know what the problem was with it. The house is about 50 years old and it has a tin roof. The driveway is gravel, but not all that steep. The real estate woman and I walked out to the barn and she had to open the little 'gate' part of the electric fence. She said, "I don't even think this is on." Then, she touched it. Guess what. The electric fence was on. LOL! She didn't get hurt, just a little zapped. Heehee. The barn looked pretty good. Of course, Dad, being the wet blanket he is, had nothing good to say about the house with the barn. Even though he didn't see it for himself. I think I'm going to call up another real estate agency and ask to see some of their listings. They have less acreage, but the houses are newer and more spacious. I think I want to see several different places before I decide on one. This decision will probably have to do me for 30 years, it needs to be an educated one.

Check out: The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog.

Round 2

Well, I have a new real estate agent. The other chick had too much to do so she passed me on to some other woman. I'm supposed to check out a couple of places tomorrow evening. These two places are at the top of the list, so I hope I like one of them at least. And I hope the location passes the Dad test.

Found this website on the soon to be re-named Tin Foil Hat blog (check them out over in the green box). I think this Rowboat Veterans for Truth is something similar to the comedy sketch the Daily Show folks from comedy central did on the Emmy broadcast. It was funny.

I got the new Keith Urban cd today. So far it's pretty good. I'm only on song 5 of 13. I think April is getting a little weirded out - we do a lot of things alike, think alike and sometimes we even end up at the same store at the same time. Last week we both went to Walmart after work and parked in the same row in the lot, just a few spaces between us. Today, same thing. But she didn't go shopping. She saw me park and left. Hope I didn't run her off, but I wasn't not going to go to the store - I've had to wait months for this cd and I was going to get it.

I got a couple of magazines at walmart. One is a house decorating magazine. Too bad I don't have a house yet. That real estate woman never did call me back. The other magazine is a People magazine with Siegfried and Roy on the cover. And apparently, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are dating. They should both find people outside the business. Dating people in show business doesn't seem to be working for them. Hopefully, it will work out though. I bought the magazine for an update on Roy. I don't really have much interest in who's dating whom in Hollywood.

Well, I got the Alias Season 3 dvd today. And another Alias book. I plan to read the book tomorrow, but I've already checked out some bonus features of the dvd and watched episode 1 from season 3. Have I told you how much I love Jack? And how much I hated Robert Lindsey? LOL! Alias is such a good show.

Even better than the Miss America Pageant.

For those in the know - the A-Frame house came down $5000.00 in price this weekend, according to the website. And I haven't even looked at it yet.

Find Your A.Q.

I saw this website on a tv commercial so I thought I would check it out. Who knew it was for LandRover. Anyway, Find Your A. Q. (Adventure Quotient). Here's mine:

INWARD INSPIRATIONAL SEEKER

While your adventures take you to amazing heights, your mind always remains grounded. Our initial calculations reveal that you are an Inward Inspirational Seeker.

Your idea of adventure is not instant gratification or quick-fix thrills. You stay focused on your greater goals and never allow your thoughts to stray far from the purpose of self-improvement and fulfillment. Your adventures are genuine-you're not one for pretense or trying to impress others.

I would have gone on to the in-depth quiz, but with a dial up connection, it was taking forever for these questions to load. Notice, it doesn't say anything about patience up there in the IIS discription :)

Ivan Ho

It's raining cats and dogs here thanks to Hurricane Ivan. Too bad it isn't raining Tomcat or Barry. They are still MIA. I tried to give Neighborcat to Tony today. Even offered him $20.00 toward getting Neighborcat fixed. But Tony still said no. I think John needs a pet. I'll try next week to give Neighborcat to him.

I didn't get to see any properties today. The road on which one of the properties is located was flooded. Hopefully I will get to reschedule sometime next week.

I wonder how Polly's Wooten Manor is weathering the storm. She has had trouble with the rain in the past. If only she would POST on her blog once in a while, some people might know what's going on in her life.

Well, Neighborcat has pretty much run off the other cats. This will have to stop. I miss Barry, Curly, Tomcat and Satan. Lapcat was around today, but you couldn't really pet her. She was looking around for Neighborcat the whole time. Oddly enough, Shade is not concerned with Neighborcat. I told Dad that I think she and Neighborcat identify with each other because of their short tails. Both have had their tails removed. He chuckled at that.

I was supposed to view some properties tonight with a real estate agent, but she had to cancel. Her kid was sick. We're supposed to do it Friday, but with Hurricane Ivan bringing rain to our neck of the woods by the weekend, I don't know if we'll get to do it then.

I'm watching the Discovery Health Body Challenge: Hollywood. The contestants are actors and two of them were on the Brady Bunch - Peter and Cindy. It's interesting watching how they interact with each other as adults. Peter Brady is looking pretty good.

I just voted for Leland for the new Keith Partridge. It took forever to get to vote. I had to create an account at VH1 and then go to my yahoo email to activate the account. It was ridiculous. George W. Bush didn't need to jump through that many hoops to start the Iraq War.

Today at work, Angie came into John's office and said, "I have great news." And I said, "You've just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico." LOLOL!!! I love that commercial. John and Angie laughed. Her great news was that she won a $200.00 grill from Walmart. John's birthday is Wednesday. We might have to do a little something for him. He claims he might call in sick that day, but we will just celebrate without him.

I'm watching the Canadian Country Music Awards. Don't know half of these people. But I did see George Canyon, Nashville Star competitor, win the Rising Star Award. Good for him! Paul Brandt has apparently redone the song, "Convoy". It's a 1970's truck driving song that has been used recently in a car commercial.

Dad says my car insurance may skyrocket. He knows a man who has the same insurance and his went up $600.00 on two vehicles. That will teach my dad for changing our insurance. He needs to just accept that all insurance companies are crooked and are just out to steal money from hardworking people.

I like Leland

I'm watching In Search of the Partridge Family again. They are having all the potential Keiths perform. So far I like Leland - he sang Addicted to Love. But the first guy sang the George Michael song, Faith and he was pretty good. Leland's story is interesting though. He just met his biological mom recently and she had auditioned for the part of Shirley Partridge. And one contestant, Lucais, could win a Keanu Reeves look-alike contest. Maybe there will be a Bill and Ted sequel he could be in.

I thought since I was going to start house hunting that it would be nice to be able to take some pictures of the houses I would be looking at. So, I dug out my digital camera to try to fix the problem I was having with this computer back when we were having all the trouble a few months ago. I got out my digital camera software, reinstalled it and then took some pictures. When I went to download the pictures I got the same "camera connection error" message I got months ago. So, I unhooked the usb cable, restarted the computer, then hooked the usb cable back up and plugged in my camera. Again, I got the "camera connection error". So, I guess there just won't be digital pictures or cameras in our house from now on. It really stinks to have spent a total of $40.00 on these digital cameras to not be able to use them now, when they worked just fine a few months ago before all the computer trouble happened.

Quck! Run Outside!!

Check to see if the sky is falling! I actually posted on theMaltese Cow blog!!! Yes, after more than a month I returned to the A-Team blog. Check it out. And I also posted on the "Earth Hath Skin" blog too.

Guess what. I discovered that Amazon.com will accept money orders! Yay!!! I can buy stuff from them now without having my sister order it. But if I want stuff from marketplace sellers, I will still need my personal shopper :) And Mom discovered that you can shop at Walmart.com if you buy those shopping cards that they sell in the stores. That's great too since Walmart.com often has sales that the stores don't have and it often has items that are only available online.

Tomcat, our cat, not the neighborcat, showed up at the house today with a swollen front paw that he wouldn't put any weight on. I guess he broke something. I hope it heals up. I also hope he can get back to the porch to get something to eat once in a while. That neighborcat won't let any cats around the food these days. Except for Shade, my sister's cat. I think Shade and Neighborcat are sweet on each other. Neighborcat might have to be fixed so he won't be so aggressive anymore.

We are having a farewell party for Scarlett at work at the end of the month. She is transferring to Polly's office. I have been thinking of ideas for the party and gifts and such. I think she will be pleased. Usually, I'm not the one throwing the parties. I try to get out of all that kind of work because it usually leads to kitchen work. Yuck. But, I think because I'm the oldest of me, April and Scarlett, that I was silently nominated for the leadership role. Or else, someone thought my Goddess Tiara meant that I was some kind of leader. Hmmm.... Monday, April and I will be going down to the State Office for some training. I don't need the training but I'm going anyway since April has done her best to make everyone she has training with hate me. LOL. They hate me because I already know about the new programming and April has an easier time with her work because of me. It will be fun to be in the same room with all the other people. Barb and Angie from P-Burg will be going with us. It should be fun. I think we are all looking past the training to the lunch after. There's a much better selection of restaurants around the state office than we have around our offices.

I just saw a commercial for the Tony Danza Show, a new talk show on TV. Tony Danza is looking very old. He needs some botox or airbrushing or something. Digital tv will not be kind to him.

So, is this good or bad???

"Johnny Knoxville will play Luke Duke opposite Seann William Scott's Bo
Duke in "The Dukes of Hazzard," a big-screen version of the 1980s television
series that Warner Bros. Pictures is mounting in association with Village
Roadshow."

Taken from this website, the article also says that Jessica Simpson has screen tested for Daisy Duke. So, my question is, is this casting for Bo and Luke appropriate? Luke is supposed to be the smart one, but quite frankly, I haven't seen Johnny Knoxville in a smart role. And I don't know if I know Seann William Scott at all. If anyone out there has an opinion on the casting, please post.