I'm a Convert

I just bought a MacBook Pro yesterday. The little Acer Aspire One netbook I've been using for a couple of years was just unable to perform some of the tasks I've needed, especially since I got a really good high-def camera for Christmas. My oldest got an iMac for Christmas and ever since I've been pondering the MacBook. When my daughter dropped her ipod touch (also a Christmas gift) and shattered the glass we took it to the Apple Store at West Town Mall to see if they could fix it. (I probably should add that I further damaged it when I took it apart to see if I could fix it myself.... after all I have replaced broken laptop screens by myself and thought maybe I could do the ipod too, ha.) They said they could trade it out for $149 but that she should take it home and synch all of her music and stuff before trading. So we went back yesterday for her to trade it and they surprised us by replacing it for free! Well, that kind of customer care was enough to sell me the MacBook. Even though Apple products are more expensive than their competition, those little things can make a big difference. Anyway, I do like the Mac very well so far. (Not to worry Windows/PC, I still like you too.)

Ghost of Toolshed Present: Busy, busy, busy

This picture intrigues me with its sense of work and industry and the shadows and shapes. It's some painting by a Depression Era artist who was paid by the government as part of the New Deal or something. There's a post about that here somewhere. The Lego-looking men are almost comical, but I guess their form also suggests the dehumanization of the world at that time. And who doesn't love Legos?


The present is the shortest period of time we experience because it's gone in a flash. All of a sudden it's the past, so it's really hard to justify spending too much of that precious present on talking about it instead of actually living it.. Time flies when you're having fun - or when you're too busy to know if you're having fun or not. Anyway, the future looms with its deadlines, responsibilities, and potentials that fuel the present. Speaking of presents, it's only 10 days until Christmas and Santa has lots of work to finish.

Merry Christmas to all!

Ghost of Toolshed Past

Heh, time has flown by - I blame the accelerating universe. Or is that now an outdated idea? Anyway, revisiting the toolshed I have to admit it's a pretty funny little spot in the cyberverse. I did alright.

Blogging has fallen by the wayside as I have used my limited time on many home improvement/maintenance projects. It's amazing how so many things in a dwelling need attention. I've been ripping out carpet and putting down new flooring, installing new light fixtures, repairing minor plumbing leaks, tiling the kitchen walls, repainting rooms and ceilings, and some other things I can't recall at the moment. Well, it's all part of being a home-maker. And I just didn't even think about documenting it all with pictures and blogging. Ooops.

But above all of that, mothering my children has been the primary focus of my life. The oldest is now a high school freshman and is the "beast" of the quads (tenors) in the high school drumline. My daughter is now in middle school and has thankfully so far avoided the middle school problems her older brother had.
And the youngest is in 4th grade, and he is still full of many potentials that are yet to be cultivated.

So that's just a very brief review of the passing time.

Economy Blogging

There just hasn't been much time for blogging this year, mostly due to the economic situation. It's really a simple equation: less money = more work = less leisure time.

There are just a few quick things I'd like to say.

Hypocrisy is so prevalent these days that it is nearly impossible to trust anyone. It surprises sometimes me when the honest truth is so hard to find and when honest, truthful words are suppressed or punished even by those who claim to promote them.

There are just flat-out mean people in the world and no amount of empathy or sympathy will help them.

For a large majority of people the more complicated questions of existence are trivial. This is just a fact and not some indictment against anyone or anything. Their time and energy are concerned with survival and living. (And that is why they are sometimes too easily manipulated by the "elites" who want to control them through fear and oppression.)

It is not "anti-science" to acknowledge the social realities and truths of our world. Just because something is sociological in nature does NOT make it less valuable or important. (Unless you live in a cave or other fantasyland and never interact with the real world.)

There is a lot of angst all around these days, but sometimes I doubt that it is really any more than there was at other times in history. There have been much worse times in the world than now.

Priceless

There is a lot going on in real life these days that has kept me from blogging very much. You see, unlike the Stimulus Zombies, we have to actually work and take care of things in our lives.

Like Thoughts Inside a Dream

I haven't been a good blogger so far this year. There just haven't been a lot of words or something to say... Not that there isn't plenty going on in the world, but somehow it's been better to be insulated from all of that and to concern myself with more immediate and provincial matters.

Anyway, I'm just in a quiet phase, I guess kind of like the sun sometimes, but maybe there will be some new activity soon. I wouldn't mind a little warming myself... ;-)

I've Seen Better Days

The dust never settles. If that's what anyone is waiting for then it will be a long wait. Might as well take a deep breath and go. Shit or get off the pot, as the old folks said. And Mae West once said, "He who hesitates is a fool." Sure, that goes against that other famous saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to go, but not all of us are angels. ;-) And for some of us, life has conditioned us to be "jumpy" (quick to act/react) with a constant stream of big events.

2008 has been an absolutely brutal year. I hate to sound like a whiny cry-baby, but objectively looking at it all it's pretty obvious that life has been hard. Not the average hard anyway. But I don't really want to revisit all of those details.

On the other hand, life's been good, and I really shouldn't complain too much. I guess it's a matter of finding some balance between feeling grateful for an interesting life and feeling beat up and permanently scarred from so much excitement. Well, it's just a fact of life. I've seen better days...




May we all have a peaceful and healthy 2009. Happy New Year!

SSDD

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(same shit, different day)

Nobody volunteered to help me with my coup d'etat. Pussies. (I guess now I'll have to get started on that clone army.) ;-)

I like using bad words now because the Odiogo podcast voice is so serious and proper. It makes me laugh.

I wasn't joking about my blood pressure being very high. It really was, and the other day I thought I might be about to die so I went to the doctor. The medicine he gave me has dropped it back to its normal level, but the huge change has caused some weird things too. It's a bit of a physical mystery because all my other tests and things are fine and normal so far. Of course, like most Americans I need to lose some weight, but it is actually lower than a year ago so it doesn't seem like the culprit. Can I please go through 6 months without some big illness or other trouble? That's not too much to ask, is it?

I worry that my husband is going to trade me in for a younger, healthier model. He seems to be annoyed and inconvenienced by all my problems. Well, I can't say I blame him. I'm pretty annoyed too. Sorry, all these things just happen. It's not like I have any control over people dying and all these other things. It's exhausting for all of us. But the last thing I need right now is to feel resented and defective...

Okay, is that pitiful enough? ;-)

Wake Me Up When December Ends

Sorry that I seem to have lost my sense of humor lately. It's been such a tough year and everything is worn out from it. While the holiday season is supposed to be joyful and fun, the pressure to be joyful and fun can kill what little joy and fun that tries to emerge. This morning I woke up with a horrible, splitting headache as well as an irritable bladder, which means pain though usually not from a UTI. Often it is stress induced.

One good thing today was that the Titans won again, beating the Cleveland Browns.

It has been unusually cold here for a while, and today the temperature never got above freezing at our house. Manmade global warming/climate change my ass. We have roughly 30 year cycles of warming and cooling.

It sounds like they are going to give the auto companies billions more dollars. Well, I was thinking yesterday about all these economic "theories" that the "experts" are trying to make work in reality. Sorry, but it just doesn't look like any of them are working so well. Why is it that some people are so attached to theory and their own expectations and demands of how reality should work? Theories are fine and great sometimes, but too many people can't accept when reality does not agree with their own ideas. This is true in economics and "climate science." Neither one is really accurately predicting and describing reality. Enough with it already. And stop trying to make reality fit the theory. Change the fucking theories instead. Again, this year's Economics Nobelist comes to mind. He apparently won for his ideas about the US auto industry. Isn't it ironic that this very industry is collapsing this year too? Well, it just doesn't look so good for the Nobel people when they give awards to stupid people whose theories are failing in real time.

We were watching some shows on the science channel last night and one did make me laugh. They don't have the video up on their website yet. Too bad. Anyway, this guy has made a roach driven robot, yes, seriously it is driven by a roach bug. Actually, it is pretty cool, but somehow it just cracks me up that someone's life has been devoted to such a project. Imagine how it would sound to a girl who meets him and asks what kind of work he does. Or imagine how a girl might tell her friends what her boyfriend/husband's work is. It would be a funny thing on The Big Bang Theory, I think. There are many women in the world who would never be able to appreciate a man whose life work is building bug-driven robots. Likewise, there are also many women in the world who could never appriate a man who lives only in the theoretical. I'm not placing judgment on these things, just noting that they usually aren't as important to the functioning world as the guys who are doing them think they are (or should be). It's just a fact of life that most people don't care about theories so much. They only care about what actually works. And the cold, harsh truth is that real life and reality are much, much more difficult, challenging, and unstable that some "elegant" and comfortable theory in someone's head.

I didn't really mean to go off on that tangent, but whatever. I'm just trying to make it through the day and the rest of this month and year. If I could go to bed and sleep through it I would.

Stuck in the Middle (Age)

I guess it's to be expected to see a bunch of old people shopping at JCPenny's on a Tuesday mid-morning. And maybe that's why I was there too. ;-) Well, I figured it was safer to go with the old people than later in the day since there have been at least three shootings at the mall in the last year, most in the afternoon or evening. Anyway, old people, bless their hearts I hope I live long enough to be as old, are so slow when they are paying for things. I shouldn't complain. What's my rush? Maybe they are just as lost in this world of expanding technology as I am finding myself.

It's like I'm stuck in the middle between these old people who barely get around and hardly know how to use a debit card and the younger people who are constantly texting friends on their high-tech phones while negotiating all sorts of other gadgets and whatnot that are intimidating to me. While my cell phone can receive text messages, and all I get are spams, my service does not include allowing me to send text messages. I could add that option, but not that it really matters because it seems like texting is mostly for people who need to sneak around about their communications. Okay, not really, but isn't it easier just to call?

One of my reasons for shopping was looking for a cute phone for my daughter to put in her room so she could answer her own calls. Not a cell phone, but a nice old-fashioned land-line phone. There were none to be found. Anywhere. Not cute ones anyway. Man, I'm getting old and behind the times. See, where we live cell phone service is still kind of iffy sometimes, so I don't think it's a good idea to eliminate the land-line like many urban/suburban people are doing. Besides, in some circumstances a land-line is more reliable and possibly more secure (though I don't really know about that for sure.) I ended up buying a plain phone and will just "bling" it up with some rhinestone stickers.

Then I went to Hot Topic because my kids are at the age of liking that kind of stuff. The music was too loud and there was way too much stuff. Sensory overload for a middle-aged momma, so I had to ask the nice young guy working there to help me find things. Pathetic.

Just in the last couple of weeks I've been fretting over getting older and all the things that go with it. It sucks! I'll never be the cute little 20 year old or even 30 year old I used to be. And what really sucks is that I didn't even really know I was cute then and therefore didn't actually enjoy it as much as I now know I should have. Yeah, it's a mid-life crisis thing. We get to an age when we regret our stupidity and wasted youth. If only we knew then what we know now. These cliches are hard and real. I can't even look at myself in the mirror sometimes. Who is that fat old lady I see?

I have to admit that I offered God a deal after my mom died nearly 12 years ago. I told him that I would accept whatever aging brought me as long as I got to live much longer than she did. And then after my dad died earlier this year I realized that I've certainly been paying on my deal already and wondered how much more I owed. Mom died shortly after her 54th birthday. Daddy died a few months before his 71st birthday. Both died about 10 years after their appendices blew. Averaging their ages at death is 62.5. Adding ten years to my approximate age when my appendix blew is 50. Those numbers probably don't mean anything, but when you're feeling old already they don't look so good.

Sorry if this is a downer. Maybe next time I go shopping I'll be adventurous and go at night. ;-)

Surviving Cancer

I think I can now officially proclaim myself a Cancer Survivor, not only for surviving the cancer deaths of my parents but also of my own little skin cancer. Today we got the pathology report from my second biopsy that was done last week, and all of the bad cells have been removed. :-)

So it's time to celebrate.

The Tragic Religion of Rationality

Scientists (and some others) like to tell us that ours is a world that can be understood and experienced through rationality alone. Well, you know what? They are wrong. Our world is not purely rational and to expect it to be is some kind of delusion of grandeur and narcissism. Some scientists have discovered that our universe does not actually behave as they expect it too according to their "laws" and principles, and some therefore imply that the universe is somehow behaving "unnaturally" or something. Okay, maybe I really am that dumb, but I would think that if your laws and principles don't match your experience then it's not the experiences that are faulty. It is the expectations that are faulty. You see, human "rationality" is not infallible and it is not ever going to completely agree with the whole of reality. Okay, unless you decide to create strict little conditions, that is, which severely limit all the possibilities. But that is a very unnatural (and tragic) way of looking at big complexities in the same way as some tiny little speck of energy or whatever.

So where does the religion of rationality fail? It fails when the scientists' observations and experiences fail to match their expectations. Why doesn't the world unfold in the exact way that they demand? It's because their "rationality" is limited by its inability to account for irrationality, unexpectedness, and other surprises. They just cannot reconcile the "quantum" nature of life with their strict "standard model" of what is supposed to work and what they want to work. It's all about them and how they want the world to conform to their expectations. Guess what? It is irrational to expect the world to always look, feel, respond, or behave in the way you have decided is the only right way. And it will only lead one to a very lonely and unsatisfying life if one thinks he can reject all things that don't agree with his expectations and "rational" conclusions.

Why is this religion of rationality tragic? Well, because it causes people to limit their options and possibilities by defining something "irrational" which can mean anything from "unlikely" or "untenable" or "impossible." I do believe that anytime someone limits his experiences in life because something will probably require some extra effort and "faith" that it will work out it is a tragedy because there is no growth/progress/learning without trying new and possibly difficult things. Did the Wright Brothers stop trying to fly just because it was "irrational" for men to believe it was possible? Did John McCain give up when he was beaten, broken, and near death in a prison camp just because survival looked impossible and irrational? Do men and women stop falling in love and marrying just because the survival of a marriage is statistically unlikely and "irrational" because their biological makeup is designed for something other than lifelong monogamy? Fear is the rational response to many situations, but sometimes people don't rely on that rationality and instead decide to fight against the odds, even if the odds are very much against them.

I've seen a "proof" that equality is an irrational concept because it has no real physical basis. I find that a tragic conclusion because it does not allow that human beings can transcend their "purely physical" biology. It only looks at some discreet measurements of human bodies and brains but it does not look at the deeper value of life itself. Do we decide that some human lives are less valuable than some others just because of some somewhat artificially determined measurements of their biologies? I don't think that is really and truly a moral, or even rational, approach. Equality exists in the human mind that can actually see more than just the sum of the parts. Maybe some people just cannot conceive of something being greater than the sum of its parts, but thousands of years of human experience have illustrated very different conclusions. Does that thing that is greater than the sum of the parts actually exist? I think it does even though we haven't yet found a way to measure it in some "real physical" way. Is that irrational?

I think that the religion of rationality fails to account for the way that rationality isn't always exact and unchanging. What we see as rational options now might have been seen as crazy fantasies hundreds of years ago. How does that change? It changes because some people are willing to reject strict rules of "rationality" to imagine the "impossible" and to actually have the courage to try to make it possible. To borrow a phrase from Obama, et al, it is the "audacity of hope" that drives many instances of transcending the "rational."

Of course, some rational things can't be changed, just like the omnipotent God trying to convince the immovable object to move. That immovable object keeps telling the God that it is irrational to listen to an irrational God at all and that it is too difficult to try to move anyway. So the God just keeps on making circles around that object so that they are stuck in some swirling "singularity" of conflict between the known and unknown, the real and the imagined, the rational and the irrational, much like the Yin Yang symbol:

Free Photos

Well, of course, all of this is just a bunch of irrational mumbo-jumbo, but it is that irrational mumbo-jumbo that has really and truly propelled humanity to transcend its perceived physical limits, and I think it will be truly tragic if humanity forgets its "divine" nature and relies only on what it sees as "rational". Honestly, how many times has it changed the world for the better when people chose to limit themselves to what they believed were the only "rational" options?

Quick Random Notes

Example of good "defensive treaty":

Neighborhood Watch Programs. Only threatens the people who want to break the laws.


Boltzmann Brains:

Impossible except when trying discuss things in the weird dimension of the internet. What I mean is that a normal intelligent brain can somehow create a disembodied piece of junk that only superficially appears to be the same as the actual physical brain.


Racism:

It's only racism when it's an American who is supposedly "wrong." But everyone else in the world can say whatever insults against Americans that their Boltzmann's brains can create and that's okay and not racism.


100% agreement/consensus:

Impossible except in the Boltzmann's brains of those who aren't Americans and those who believe in global warming.


Wishful Thinking:

The delusions that keep hope alive.


Optimism:

The road to disappointment.


Pessimism:

The nasty reality that hope really does fail and that the world is probably being overtaken by a bunch of Boltzmann's brains (disembodied pieces of junk).


Precautionary Principle:

Hurricane evacuations are NOT an example of misapplication of the precautionary principle because the danger of not evacuating has been clearly demonstrated to be worse than the inconveniences of the evacuations.


Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Technical Note

I just wanted to clarify that sometimes I use the second person narrative as is common in the style of sermonizing. I am not necessarily addressing anyone in particular, so no one should take offense when I make statements about "you." Perhaps using the second person is confusing or sloppy grammar, but if you've ever been a church-goer "you" know that preachers often use it in their sermons.

So, just remember this, just because it says "you" doesn't mean that it's always about you. ;-)

Why Americans Distrust Russia

I really bothers me when Americans are dismissed as "stupid" and "ignorant" in regards to their ideas about foreign relations. It's very unfair and short-sighted because it reveals its own kind of ignorance about why Americans think the way they do. Maybe it doesn't occur to foreigners that most of us Americans over a certain age were educated in the Soviet era in which we were not allowed to know anything about the Soviet Bloc, and any attempts to learn were met with lies, propaganda, and denials by the Soviets et al.

The Soviets wanted us to think that all of the USSR and its "bloc" were completely homogenous culturally and socially, etc, because that implied that Communism/Socialism erased all differences, boundaries, and conflicts among what in reality turns out to be a bunch of different types of people.* Imagine growing up having to accept what was fed to you and not being allowed to learn any different or having to make assumptions about places and people because you weren't given any information. This explains the "ignorance" of many Americans about the constituents of the former Soviet Bloc. They did it to us because they wanted us to be ignorant, much like the wanted their own people to be ignorant of how Americans really are.

Also many American adults grew up during the Cold War in which there was a fairly constant fear that the USSR would try to attack us or any of our allies or that they would support some other country that wanted to attack us (like Cuba). While some might view that fear as irrational paranoia they should recall that it was actually part of the "defeat" of Communist aggressors. I think that many of us retain a sense of paranoia and distrust of Russia because of its history as the "center" of the USSR, and it looks like their current leadership isn't really all that different from the Soviet leadership. Personally, I'm still paranoid and distrustful of Russia and its motivations. If that makes me "stupid" or "ignorant" then show me why I should trust Russia...

Okay, so it's true that policy makers and good journalists should educate themselves about the things that were hidden from us before, but it's pretty unrealistic to expect this to happen instantaneously. And who do you trust now? Do we believe the new versions coming from Russia or do we trust the previously suppressed people who are seeking their own new freedom and independence? Americans have been bred on Freedom and self-motivation and self-determination. It's kind of hard for us to understand why anyone shouldn't be allowed to separate from their previous political, social ties. Precedent is important, but must it be the primary factor in determining how things should be? Sometimes precedent has been very wrong (like slavery, limitations on sufferage, etc).

This American world view might be problematic, but Freedom is never easy. The more degrees of freedom the more possible deviations can occur. Maybe Freedom isn't for everyone. But let the ones who want it have it. I don't perceive Russia as a great promoter of Freedom. And if I were living in a previously Soviet bloc country I would be pretty paranoid about Russia deciding that it wanted that territory back and invading in order to get it. Maybe that's just too far-fetched, but maybe it's not. Maybe having a lot of Freedom does cause people to have an underlying paranoia of the motivations of others because of knowing that Freedom is always vulnerable to attacks by those who want to control more than just themselves.

No, I don't have any solutions or practical wisdom to the conflicts in the world. But I do hope that people will try to see things from other than their own point of view.


*Watching the Olympics it is apparent that China also wants the world to believe that all of China is homogenous and harmonious because of its Communism. Well, little good their 300,000 security cameras all over the place did to prevent an American from being murdered there on the first day. Maybe it was a government hit meant to test the American response. Also why was the American anthem cut off during Michael Phelps's gold medal ceremony? Maybe it was just another subtle(?) disrespect towards America. And the statements of a Chinese gymnast were very revealing about the nature of life under the Chinese Communist control. He said that Chinese athletes carry a "heavy burden" and are not self-movitated. He implied that the consequences of disappointing performances were excessive, and the scene of Chinese soldiers overseeing every aspect of his training was concerning and a little frightening.

08-08-08

I don't know if there is any mystical significance to today's date, though 8 on its side is the same as the symbol for eternity. Triple Eternity. Trinity. Oh, whatever. I'm having some problems with my brain this week. It wants to confuse me about what is a delusion and what is only a possibility but not necessarily a probability. Are you confused yet too? ;-)

Well, I always got a "Bill Clinton" vibe about John Edwards, and I'm sure that I mentioned it to someone back when he was stilling running for the Dem. nomination. By "Bill Clinton vibe" I mean, "adulterer." I know I predicted to at least one person that such a scandal would come out about him before the election, but she might not remember that I said it. Okay, so adultry isn't the worst thing a person can do, except maybe when his wife is suffering from cancer... Anyway, I knew this about him from one of my "bizarre intuitions" and I have to admit that I do feel a little vindicated about it.

Another prediction/intuition I've had that has turned out to be even more accurate than I first imagined is that banking is corrupt and causing lots of the problems in our society. Well, look at the mortgage mess and all the reverberations. Correct again, if I may say so.

Those are only two examples of how spontaneous insights that seemed far-out at first ended up being true. There are others. There are always others that fade from memory until some random news reminds me that I knew that already. This is a curse. I used to wish that I knew the future and could read people's minds, but we really must be careful what we wish for because when we get it, it never looks the way we expected or hoped. Like the Shadow who "knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men," I can see the internal Pitch Forks. ;-) Yes, maybe I'm just another crazy with delusions of grandeur, and to be frank, I hide about 90% of my "bizarre" thoughts from my friends and family because I fear their perception that I've completely lost my mind. But really, more often than not they are true. I just know things.

Being right most of the time makes it especially difficult to talk myself out of some new bizarre insight or intuition or delusion or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes things look so obvious and sensible, but of course there are some times when they really are completely false and unfounded. What percentage of time does being right overcome being wrong? How do I know unless I look for explanations and ask questions, sometimes really weird and maybe even disturbing questions? My husband isn't too surprised or bothered anymore when I ask him some crazy question to check myself. And for his willingness to endure this I am very grateful, and more sane.

I guess those of us with faulty brains just have misfiring neurons or some other neural events that cause us to create wild ideas. Sometimes creativity is great, but others it is very problematic. No one wants to listen or take seriously or deal with anything out of the ordinary, and so much of it is suppressed or otherwise hidden. Blah, blah, blah. I'm just trying to explain what goes on in a crazy mind.

Next week school starts so we'll be busy with all of that. I really don't care for the school schedule these days because they get out too soon in May and go back too soon in August.

"Right Place Wrong Time" by Dr. John

I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing, but I must have used the wrong line
I been in the right trip, but I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a bad place, and I'm wondering what it's good for
I been the right place, but it must have been the wrong time
My head was in a bad place, but I'm having such a good time

I been running trying, things get hung up in my mind
Got to give myself a good talking-to this time
Just need a little brain salad surgery
Got to cure my insecurity

I been in the wrong place, but it must have been the right time
I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong song
I been in the right vein, but it seems like the wrong arm
I been in the right world, but it seems wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

Slipping dodging sneaking creeping hiding out down the street
See me life shaking with every who I meet
Refried confusion is making itself clear
Wonder which way do I go to get on out of here

I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing, but I must have used the wrong line
I'd have took the right road, but I must have took a wrong turn
I'd have took the right move, but I made it at the wrong time
I been on the right trip, but I took it in the wrong car
My head was in a good place, and I wonder what it's bad for.

No Sense of Humor at the IRS

Me, waiting on hold for an IRS employee on the phone:



The worst part was that the music playing was about 5 times too loud and they only had two songs, a Nutcracker thing and some other famous classical piece that I can't think of the name now because my brain has atrophied in my now bare skull. ;-)

When finally a lady spoke to me I tried my vicious momma best to be light and funny about why I was calling, but perhaps all these IRS employees have already lost their humanity and are now humorless zombies or skeletons because she was as unmoved and as lively as a rock. And on top of that she had no answer for my question. Agh!!

By the way, the reason I was calling was because I wanted to see if they had received my second quarter 941 form which is a quarterly report of the payroll taxes that we have withheld and paid to Uncle Sam. I'm about 96% sure* I already mailed it at the middle of July (it's due by the 31st) because I think I remember thinking to myself, "I'm sending this early to get it over with, but I'll probably forget that I did it early because I'm in a hurry and haven't printed out a copy for myself." (I was trying to get everything done before leaving for our vacation.) The biggest clue that I most likely did actually mail it already is that the official envelope for mailing it is gone, and I am 99.5% sure that I did not misplace it.** Anyway, the phone call was no help because she said that it takes 6 to 8 weeks to process a form. ;-) We decided that I should probably go ahead and mail another one just to be sure, but Jesus Christ, why did I have to waste my life on the phone to hear what I already knew? Our tax dollars at work!


*That's not a too bad percentage but my memory just isn't what it used to be. And sometimes that 4% uncertainty is pretty significant. ;-)

**It occurred to me that I should probably explain the difference between the 96% and the 99.5%, although really, they aren't too dependent upon each other. In case it's not clear enough, the 96% is a more overall sense and the 99.5% pertains to only the presence of the envelope and is kind of included in the "calculations" that make the 96% total. Well, it might be better to completely ignore any of my attempts with numbers because the possibility of imprecision and errors is even higher than 96%. ;-)

Summertime Blues

Blah, blah, blah.

Comic Relief

It's all the Curse of the (Dead) Black Widow In the Jar, at least according to my husband's jokes. Spider Karma or something.

I heard a funny joke about a sperm being the most intelligent cell in a woman's body. Of course, a feminist would say it's the egg since it's the one that chooses which sperm to let in. ;-) But I also thought it could be a come-on: "Hey, baby, I need an intelligence injection..."

Oh, and in response to Earth Day, I think we "climate realists" should start celebrating an annual Carbon Dioxide Day.

I keep thinking of things to write but can't get to the computer before deciding that it's not that interesting anyway, or just plain forgetting what it was, which means it really wasn't that interesting after all. ;-)

Real life has been intense, heavy, and difficult over the last several months. When that happens I sometimes turn to frivolous things to help lighten things up. I've really gotten into watching all these reality shows on Bravo. First it was Project Runway, but it ended so then I started watching Top Chef. It's pretty interesting, but surprisingly I've gotten pretty engrossed the The Real Housewives of NYC. Well, it's just funny and interesting to watch people who are so different from me. They aren't what I'd consider "real" housewives in the same sense that I am, but maybe I'm more a homemaker than a housewife. Not that it matters anyway. It's just for comic relief.

The Universal Language

Music, that is. Although my Lyrics of the Moment blog only averages less than 50 hits a day, they come from all over the world:




Just the other night I was wondering if more than a just a handful of people ever really read any of this. By far, most hits to this blog, as well as the Lyrics one, are from Google searches for various, sometimes terrible, things. Some posts here probably never have been read by anyone, except me. I guess that's okay because it's mostly for my own entertainment, but still, it's kind of a bummer to know that so few other people are entertained too. Maybe there are some who read the feeds. I have no way of knowing if they never actually visit the blog itself.