This has been a weird week, and yeah, I know it's not over yet.

Spent a day at J's dog-sitting---she was over in Orlando and the neighbor who usual acts as doggie-butler has her own drama going on and was unavailable. I got to sleep in a/c, which was sweet. Came out to a dead battery and had to wait for J's return and a jump-start---my own fault: The door didn't latch properly, the light stayed on, which wasn't noticable when I got there in broad daylight.

My lights got turned off for non-payment. I have the money, but because I've been nervous about how fast it's shrinking, I delayed paying, which led to me sitting in the heat for several hours after I made the payment, which cost me an additional service charge. *facepalm* Yes, I know it was stupid of me, please let's not rub my nose in it.

I heard about Ray Bradbury's death and was startled, as I *thought* he'd already passed. I may have confused him with Kurt Vonnegut, both of whom I considered somewhat subversive in high school. IDK. Anyway, good-bye, Mr. Bradbury. You were a great American writer.

Speaking of writing, I'm really pissed with ff.net, which is on my last frackin nerve. It doesn't want to load---it takes multiple attempts every time. I hate their new log-in. I hate that they no longer give you the option to block ads. And I'm livid about their "reiteration" of their ratings policy. I'm about ready to jump ship for AO3, which annoys me mightily; I've been over their for about eight years now. I have a shitload of stuff posted there, including some major multi-chapter works, which it'll be a four-star pain-in-the-ass to crosspost, because AO3 does NOT make it easy. Grrrr.

My sleep schedule is back to being buggered up; I'm never quite sure of what day it is unless I check my phone. I hate it, but sleeping during the day is more bearable than being awake for it. Lots of cold showers either way.

Watched Rosalind Russell in "Sister Kenny" the other day. I figured Roz as a nun dealing with an epidemic would be a triple-play as far as my kinks go...alas, no nuns, but it was still okay. Saw "Walking Tall" (the Rock remake), which I'd seen when it was in the theater...prime case of "I didn't know he/she was in that!"...in this case, the love interest was Aisha in Dark Angel and Emily in Jericho. One of the minor villains was also in Dark Angel (Joshua), and the factor that sucked me in as I was flipping channels, Neal McDonough as the uber-villain. Justified just won't be the same without him next season!

Apologies to jdsgirlbev and gwyilliondream, both of whom had birthdays earlier this week. Hope they were awesome like you!

Hope it gets better from here on out. I cracked my neck a little while ago...sounded like my head was about to fall off, which wouldn't surprise me.

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Sons of Anarchy, you tore my heart out and stomped that sucker flat. ( Spoilers under the cut. )

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Knock wood, Hurricane Irene is going to slide by offshore and miss us. Meanwhile, it's raining fish at the moment. The TV has lost the cable signal (In mid-F-Word, thanks so much) and there's booming and banging going on. My folks used to refer to it as "giants bowling", which I could easily imagine as my dad was a terrific bowler. He was also an excellent golfer.

You see, he'd been scouted by a major league baseball team while still under-age. However, his father, a staunch Lutheran minister, refused to sign for him because horror of horrors, it would've meant he'd be playing ball on Sundays. Small wonder that one of Dad's oft-repeated messages to his children was, "Nobody ever made a living doing what they like."

Me, I'd just like to make a living. My dad worked for the same company (Gulf Oil) for 35 years. He got service pins, a watch when he retired and all that. In those days, that was normal. These days, companies have no loyalty whatever to their employees, and working at one place for one's entire career is a complete pipe dream.

You've worked for us for five years? Too bad, so sad---we're shipping your job offshore---to India! To Guatemala! To wherever we can gouge the most profit out of our workforce!

It makes me furious, it really does. Things like, the medical billing office I used to work for has been outsourced---which makes me very uncomfortable when I think about the protected information like birthdates and SSNs those accounts contain. Gee, you think that stuff like that might help terrorists and other unsavory individuals create fake identities? Me too! So why the fuck are we allowing it to leave the US?!

Grrr. I wasn't planning to go off on this tangent, but rant happens.

Yesterday at church, I don't remember how we got onto the subject, but I told someone that I really hate being bombarded with the question, "Why?". As in, "Why is your house such a mess?" "Why don't you lose some weight?" Whywhywhywhywhy---? (GK, who is very analytical, does this all the time.)

She agreed with me. The person who asks may have the best intentions in the world, but somehow, it always seems to come off as critical. It's like being poked with a stick. Either I get defensive, or my self-esteem takes another hit.

Sometimes the defensiveness is because the answer doesn't reflect well on me, or it's flat-out embarassing. Why does your house smell? Because I put off taking out the trash, the bag was only half full. Why didn't you go out for that job I told you about? Because I can't physically do it, I can't stand for long periods. Why do you whine so much? Because mama never told me there'd be days like this: She never said I'd wake up at fifty alone, broke and living in the hood.

*sigh*

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I powered up my laptop and was glancing through the "news" stories on my default homepage, AOL, and I ran across this, with the title of "My Birthday Wish: A Kitchen Makeover" (One writer explains why all she wants for her 50th birthday is an updated kitchen, even if her friends think she's a bore.).

Okay, I thought. Here's a gal who's my age, with one of the very same problems I've got, a crappy, outdated kitchen.

Then I clicked on the article and got a look at the kitchen she's bitching about and began to *headdesk*. Her cabinets are at least 20 years newer than mine, she has easily twice the counter space I've got, her fridge is probably from this century and her ceramic cooktop definitely is. Oh, and she has those cute little display nooks above her cabinets.

My circa-1960 kitchen has brown mock-walnut laminate cabinets, a white countertop that was originally glitter-flecked but is now just speckled and grungy, the appliances are 20+ years old and semi-functional (I have burners that don't work and the fridge is tempramental.), about three feet of functional counter space and there's not a goddamned thing cute about it.

Our little domestic diva does on to say, oh no, she doesn't want diamond jewelery or a fantastic trip for her 50th, not even a face-lift or "body work", no, *just* the remodel.

Lady, can I just slap you? Your sense of entitlement really ticks me off.

At this rate, I'm going to dent my desk.
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Dear Boyd,

I need your help. My quiet, elderly neighbors have departed for the final destination of the elderly, and recently, their house has been occupied by less desirable folks. Not elderly and not quiet: They have several screaming kids---I haven't taken a headcount, but at least two, plus a baby. They have two dogs that bark for an hour if a squirrel farts on the next block. Their cars are rolling boomboxes and they come and go at all hours. I suspect the worst about that.

Please don't say, "Love they neighbor." --- although if you did, I probably couldn't hear it over the thumping bass from their damn rap songs. I'd love these individuals a whole lot more if they were someone else's naighbors, preferably someone in another state. Like Alaska.

I want my nice, quiet neighborhood back. To that end, won't you please come to Florida and bring your rocket launcher? Blow the damn house to Kingdom Come and I'd be eternally grateful. (The dogs are always out in the yard, I can call Animal Control for them.)

I look forward to hearing back from you, and even more to hearing "Fire in the Hole!".

Praise the Lord --- and pass the ammunition,

Vanillafluffy



PS --- On second thought. I'll let you know when I'll be gone for movie night at church, so you can blow up MY house. I'll collect the insurance and go live on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. That works.
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The houses on either side of me have been empty for quite a while. The house to the east of me just got occupied---rather like Germany occupying France. They have kids: Noisy little fuckers. (There haven't been any kids on the block in ages, and I haven't bloody missed them.) They also have a yappy dog. What a treat this is going to be! Why, oh why, couldn't the Asshat's house have been the one to be rented? That's on the far side of my living quarters. This tribe is right next to my bedroom window.

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(No, I *won't* apologize for the metaphor, I'm tired of being politically correct, of being civilized when what I really want to do is slaughter all the barbarians that are lowering the tone. And numerous people who should know better.)


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It began with this poll about whether we are living in the future sci-fi predicted for us.

( And I commented at length. ) Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the subject is sticking with me.

In some respects, I think we thought too small---or maybe I should say, not small enough, when you consider that today's average cell phone is about a third the size of a Star TrekTOS communicator. Or that the computers that got us to the moon are dumber than the calculator the average tenth-grader carries to math class. I remember taking computer classes back around 1980, where the first thing they talked about were bits and bytes and our programming assignments consisted of stacks of punchcards, which I never could get to work properly. I remember TRS80 computers, plugged into an old TV with a cassette player as the memory drive. I remember floppy disks giving way to diskettes. I remember when a Commodore 64 was the height of technology, being excited to get a 14400k modem and a couple years later, having Megs of memory, which was a Big Thing. Gigs? Srsly? Now that's old news and we're talking terabytes. Or have I fallen behind and it's something bigger now?

In light of the predicted smart homes, robot butlers and jet-packs it's tempting to say that the technology has failed us. We don't have flying cars, we're not vacationing on Mars, or even the moon. Our society has more problems, not fewer, than we did forty years ago. Unfortunately, it's true that those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. Today it's the Middle East, forty years ago, it was Southeast Asia. Rising gas prices and a move to dump gas-hog vehicles? 1973, folks.

Technology hasn't failed us, we've failed technology, because we've been too busy bickering among ourselves about our own petty agendas. We may have mandated equality in education and employment, but not in healthcare. A wealthy hypochondric can have test after test run to soothe their fears, whereas a genuinely sick person of low income will go to great lengths to avoid expensive medical treatment, perhaps to the point that it's too late to cure them. We didn't have diagnositc MRIs 40 years ago, but if 6 out of 10 people can't afford to access them, is that really progress?

The 70s saw the first proponants of alternate energy sources trying to catch the attention of the masses---I remember a book I checked out from the library numerous times about building energy efficient homes (this was when I was dreaming of a career in architecture), advocating solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal energy. These things were possible, if somewhat costly then. They're still somewhat costly because we haven't troubled ourselves to make the technology more affordable---but the question we should ask ourselves now is, can we afford NOT to?!

We have a lot of nifty technological bells and whistles these days. While we're playing with all these funky new toys, though, let's not get so distracted that we lose sight of the global picture. Microwave dinners won't cure world hunger, a Wii won't save your ass in a war zone (and if I'm wrong, please explain this one to me), and for that matter, cancer, AIDS and H1N1 aren't going to be impressed by your paper-thin computer, your Smartphone or your iPod. People are still killing each other over religious differences, and we don't have an app for that.

The future? Today is the tomorrow we were worried about yesterday.

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Speaking of tomorrow...edited 1/8/10 to add (because it must be zeigeist):

An article from Slate about the future as predicted by Omni magazine
and a vid from YouTube about Fiskars luxury hybrid, the Karma (which ain't cheap, but it sure is sweet).
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Ever time I see a news article where they say, "Calls to Whoever were not immediately returned", I always imagine some reporter sitting next to the phone with a stopwatch, going, "Hey, it's been two minutes! They haven't immediately returned my call, I'm gonna write it like they're guilty! Woohoo!" They post their story 90 seconds later, and within five minutes, Whoever is on the phone with the facts.

Ooops, your bad---you should have called immediately---we don't care if you were taking a leak, stuck in traffic, donating a kidney to your twin. The news waits for no one!

To the driver of the dark green Camry I encountered yesterday:

How do I loathe thee, let me count the ways: First there was the fact that you were doing fifty in the lefthand lane of US1. Next time, get your ass into the slow lane where you belong. Second, what the FUCK were you thinking when you got to Barnes Blvd? I was able to stop for the light when it turned red; you were BEHIND me. You certainly could have stopped, but no, YOU sped up and blew through the RED light like you finally learned to tell the difference between your asshole and the accelerator. I thought that would be the end of it, but NO, you must've stopped for a couple of the other lights between there and Suntree because I was part of the pile-up you almost caused because clearly you haven't grasped the concept of a turn lane (and possibly turn signals---I couldn't tell if yours were on because I was too busy trying not to goose the minivan in front of me). You were in a great big hurry to make it to the Pineda BP station---what, you were speeding because you were afraid you might run out of gas? I think you're a moron, you have no business behind the wheel, and I hope that I get to drive by and snicker when the cop your kharma deserves pulls your ass over.

I just pray that your idiocy doesn't take anyone else with you.