Freaky Friday

Damn, my eyes are messed up this morning. I wish were going out of town next week, but we're not. Not the week after that either. Maybe after that.

I forgot to print the Google search list earlier this week, so I'm probably missing a giant penis or a diet drink or something.

Someone found me by Googling soloflex infomercial. I didn't have anything to say about them. Just someone left me a comment that I was probably going to see dumb stuff like that while I was spending all day watching cable TV.

Someone else was looking for the Marie Callendar semi-annual pie sale. There just doesn't seem to be any info on it. I just happened to be there at the right time last year, in the middle of October. Maybe I'll luck into going again this year.

Someone was looking for Dennigers foods of the world. I know nothing about it. Again, it was a comment someone left for me.

A search for Jimmy Dips Mexican lead someone to my blog. But Jimmy Dips was a Chinese restaurant, so that didn't help.

One reader was looking for the time traveler's wife and journeyman. I wish people looking for that sort of thing would leave comments, but so far they haven't.

Someone whats to know what to do about stolen motel towels. I'm sure I was not of any help there.

I had the usual searches for giant penis, diet drinks, buckets, and Rudy's BBQ. Someone must have really liked the diet drink review, cause they read it twice. I wrote a new post about Rudy's BBQ just for these people, but unfortunately they are still being directed to the older posts.

Someone was looking for expensive tree houses. I happened to see some expensive tree houses at the Dallas Arboretum. They looked like the transpods from the remake of The Fly.


Okay, here's the count for this week:

Giant Penis--1

Buckets--2

Diet Drinks--8

People going to hell--0

Rudy's BBQ--4


And the top twelve keywords are now--going the costume giant diet hell how penis husband for what much.

Art class

I still didn't win the lottery. Oh, well. I didn't really want last night's jackpot anyway. Friday night's Mega Millions is going to be like a third of a billion dollars, so I guess I'd rather have that than 18 million.

Monday night's art class ended early, as I'm sure most of them did since it was only the first day of school and most people don't have their supplies yet. But it ended even sooner than it was supposed to. Professor had planned a slide show so that we could see what people did in the class two years ago. But when the projector was delivered to the lab, he didn't notice that there wasn't a computer with it, and the "slides" were on a disk. The office that loans out the projectors and computers and such had closed for the day, so no slide show. We talked for a bit and then class was dismissed.

So last night, just to be on the safe side, he brought his wife's laptop. Only it still didn't work for some reason. So again, so slide show.

But he did come up with a hundred pounds of terra cotta and enough earthenware for us to do our first project without having to buy clay ourselves. So that's always nice to get free stuff. Then we rolled out slabs for our relief sculptures. Then we selected our patterns and went to the next building to get them enlarged.

Only the copy center had already closed for the day. I thought that mine was big enough, and he didn't argue. But most of the other students needed to go to Kinko's or something before they could have their patterns ready to trace.

So no slide-show, and no copy center. So class was dismissed early again. And we don't have class next Monday night, because of the holiday weekend.

I took my slab and some extra clay home. If I can find a place to work, maybe I'll have the thing done by Wednesday and can get started on another project.

Finding a place to work here isn't going to be as easy as you'd think. The place is quite a mess. More so than usual, because I moved a lot of stuff and just dumped it in the living room and dining area while I worked on the floor elsewhere in the house. But now that the floor is mostly done, I can move most of the stuff back to where it used to be.

Before I left class I got to talk to professor about upcoming projects. The paper cast project is pretty much the same as last semester's molded tiles. I haven't got the patterns picked out yet, but I'm probably going to do three small things like shells and starfish. It will look good with the shell and the sea turtle stuff I did last time. And the rubber mold that we're going to make to cast plaster or cement is going to be the same pattern that I used for the dragon relief sculpture before. The sculpture in the round fool the eye project is probably going to be a jack-o-lantern, or maybe two. I wasn't allowed to do that last semester because he wanted me to copy a real pumpkin and none were available at the time. And I have a better idea on how to get started on the glass casting project, so I can be looking for designs for that. It will probably be a small dragon, and the carved soapstone might also be a small dragon, but that's like the last thing and I've plenty of time to decide that later.

So that just leaves two projects that I don't have a clue about. The second project is made from wire, and I don't have any ideas about that yet. And I have to make a sculpture from found objects. I'll have to ask if that can be a toothpick sculpture.

Now if I could just figure out how to make my eyes stop hurting, everything would pretty much go back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for me around here now.

Rudy's BBQ

Well, seeing that I've had a few people reading my blog looking for Rudy's BBQ, I thought that I should say a few words about it.

Rudy's is not the kind of place where you sit down and have a waitress bring you a menu. This is the kind of place where you go and buy a half pound of brisket or a half pound of smoked turkey and take it home and make a sandwich. Not that you have to take it home. You can eat at Rudy's, at some really long picnic tables with red and white checkered tablecloths. And you don't have to have a sandwich. You can order ribs or a whole chicken, and you can have a side order of creamed corn or beans or coleslaw.

If you can't decide between say brisket and turkey, they'll give you a little sample of each. Probably, you should go ahead and buy both. If you still can't make up your mind, don't get upset if someone else is served ahead of you. At least you've been politely asked what you wanted by some friendly college kids. A lot of good BBQ places some old black guy asks what you want, and if you don't give him an answer quick enough he'll look at you like he's going to chop off your fingers.

Possibly you didn't plan to order very much, but with the sodas and the side orders and everything, two people very quickly spend twenty dollars or more. But that's usually okay, since you probably didn't eat the whole chicken or the half pound of brisket. You probably bought enough stuff to take home and make sandwiches the next day. Don't forget to take some extra onions, extra sauce, and a jalapeno pepper with you.

Sometimes they also have something called green chile stew. I am not a big fan of the green chile stew. It has too much black pepper for my taste. It's a good idea though. No need to waste all the little bits of smoked meats, just add some green chiles and a few other vegetables, and then you can sell it.

If you've never been to Rudy's before, and you turn where you see the sign, you find yourself in front of a big red gas station and wonder if you're in the right place. Don't worry. There's usually a gas station and a convenience store in the front. Just walk through the convenience store and there's a big dining room behind it.

Here's a menuhttp://rudys.com/menus/index.html

There are a few Rudy's here and there, but most of them are in Texas. The nearest one to me is probably in Denton, though we more often end up at one in Waco or near Austin. Most of my readers are either up north or across the pond, so they're just out of luck.

Well, I guess that I should write a bit of a catch up post.

I did not win the lottery, again. Tonight Mega Millions is going to be like a quarter billion dollars or something. When it gets that high it's fun to buy a few extra tickets and plan what you'd do with the money if you won. But I can't buy any extra tickets cause I haven't got any damn extra money. I took out twenty dollars for the regular lotto stuff and just in case I have to pair up with someone in art class to buy supplies. I spent ten dollars on something else art related, and I forgot that I had to buy gas. So that leaves me like five dollars in the bank. I know that things have been slow, and that in another week or so we'll be caught up with the bills and such, but this week it really sucks. I bought a box of cereal and some milk and a box of cookies, and I'm really trying not to spend anymore money til Saturday.

My eyes are killing me. I don't know what the deal is. They were mostly better for the week we were out of town, but now they are bothering me again. And I haven't much been working on the floor, so that's probably not the problem like I had thought. I am greatly annoyed with all of these little ailments. I don't know if I'm still upset over what happened last year, or if something is really wrong with me and I should see a doctor, or if I am just getting old and this stuff would be happening anyway.

I should finish that last little bit of the floor today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll feel better once I get something done.

Art class started last night. We had worried that there wouldn't be enough people for a class, and now the class is totally full. In fact, the entire art department is full. Unless someone dropped something yesterday, there are no empty seats in any art class on that campus.

After all this waiting, now I'm like, why did I want to take art this semester. I mean, it was all good news, no written exams to screw up my schedule or my grades, but my eyes are a bother and I suddenly felt so tired just thinking about all of that work. I'm sure that I'm going to like about half of the assignments, and by the time we get to those other assignments I'm sure I'll think of something good for those too. And since I've already taken a class from him he probably won't care about me working at home once in a while. But just for a moment I was like, maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

We have been given the option of trading a few things. Like we can skip a certain project and work with a nude model instead. I have no interest in that whatsoever. But the other students want the nude model, so I'm pretty sure that we're going to get one, at least for a few hours. The other thing we might trade for is welding. I don't think I would do that, though I'd be more interested in having that experience. It probably isn't that much scarier than soldering, but I haven't done that in twenty years. And if my eyes are still bothering me, I don't want to add to the problem by playing with torches and such. I've been warned that it is very messy.

We're probably going to cast some glass. I have never worked with glass. I have no idea what that would be like. We have one metal project. And we have to carve some soapstone. The rest of it is stuff I have either already done or am looking forward to learning. We are going to make a rubber mold to cast either plaster or cement, and we are going to cast paper.

I'm sure it's all good. I'm just suddenly realizing how much work I'm committing to. I get tired just thinking about it.

Well, I don't think the elaborate Halloween costume is a good idea now. I'll have too much to do for class. People are wanting to do fairy tales gone wrong or something. I've been toying with the idea of something like little red riding hood, not wearing very much, and partially having the hood made out of the wolf's fur. Other than that, I'm wondering if I could knit a costume.

Now there's a rumor that we might be going to Kansas City in a few weeks. We love going to Kansas City in September and October. There's at least four really big haunted houses. We've been to The Beast and The Gates of Hell on previous trips. http://www.kcbeast.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1Those are excellent, but maybe we should try one of the other company's this year. And of course we love the ren fest. http://www.kcrenfest.com/

I shouldn't get my hopes up. But I should work ahead in art class just in case.

Monday Morons--As if the problem weren't bad enough

Well, I have been meaning to blog about Homewrecking-sluts. Not her in particular, but just them in general. There was something in particular that I found out, which perhaps doesn't really go with the Monday Morons theme, but I was going to blog about it anyway.

But then I got something in the mail that made me mad. And I remembered that I got something similar about a month ago. I meant to blog about it then, but I guess I forgot.

So the Homewrecking-sluts can wait. Unfortunately, they are not going away anytime soon.

For the past year or so we have heard on the news about some odd thefts. People are destroying air-conditioners and refrigerators by cutting off the copper tubing. They then take the stolen copper to a scrap metal place and sell it.

Since they get paid by the pound for the stolen copper, they like to steal from big places that don't have much in the way of security. Churches and charities are often the victims.

Destroyed air-conditioners are expensive to repair, but the destroyed refrigerators and freezers are even more upsetting. People walk into their churches to find that fifty gallons of ice cream have melted or two hundred hotdogs have gone bad. So not only do they have to pay hundreds or thousands to get their appliances repaired or replaced, they either have to buy more food or cancel whatever they had planned for that weekend.

I think this is a very strange crime to get involved in. Without even getting into the morality of stealing, stealing stuff by the pound is odd. Stealing money I can understand. Stealing cars I can understand. Stealing jewelry I can understand. But this makes about as much sense to me as stealing nails from Home Depot or bin stuff from Whole Foods. You'd just have to steal tons of it before you'd make any money.

But stealing copper tubing just seems to be the thing this year.

And if the problem weren't bad enough already, now there are coupons. We get this thing in the mail called Valpak, which is a blue envelope full of coupons. Most of it is useless to me. There's an ad for acne medicine, and coupons for carpet cleaning and for roof repair, and stuff like that. But there's usually four or five coupons for Sonic and a Chinese restaurant and a couple of BBQ places, so I always open the envelope just for those.

Last week we got the usual stuff and a coupon for an extra ten cents a pound on any copper we could sell to a certain recycling place.

????

Freaky Friday

The Freaky Friday feature itself now has turned up in a few odd searches. Last week's post was listed third under freaky naked people.

Someone found me by searching for erotic sex blogs. I guess I must have been pretty far down the list.

Someone else was looking for 5 gallon buckets. This time they Googled walmart paint five gallon bucket.

A couple of people were looking for the nutritional value of Rudy's BBQ. People need to grow up and quit listening to Dr. Atkins. You just don't eat BBQ for it's nutritional value.

Someone else was looking for Underwood's BBQ. If my memory of the stuff is accurate, you just shouldn't eat that stuff at all.

The usual people were looking for diet drinks, giant penis costumes, and people going to hell.

Someone found me after Googling "Come out, Neville!" I am looking forward to that. I hope I am Legend is better than The Invasion.

Someone was looking for "My husband once asked" joke. That lead them to the favorite restaurant meme, so that probably wasn't what they were looking for.

Yesterday I was number six for how to attach the Ultimate Sweater Machine to the table. I hope they didn't do quite what I had described in Wednesday's post.

Someone Googled do something nice for my husband. Whatever.

This has been fun. One of you is so embarrassed about reading my blog that you've decided to use something called Anonymouse. I bet it was the hairy nurse.


Okay, here's the count for this week:

Buckets--1

Diet Drinks--3

People going to hell--2

Giant Penis--2


And the top 12 keywords are now--going the hell costume giant husband penis for how diet red big

School starts Monday

Well, I guess that I can quit worrying about art class getting canceled due to lack of interest. I checked this morning, and there are only 2 seats left. So unless a bunch of people drop the class tomorrow, we're finally going to have a sculpture class.

I finished a Doctor Who scarf yesterday, except for the fringe. I should buy some more green before doing that. The scarf looks a bit longer than I remembered. I should go to Walmart and buy a tape to measure it.

There's a Hufflepuff scarf on the knitting machine at the moment. I don't think anyone particularly wants a Hufflepuff scarf, but I've got the time and I've got tons of leftover yellow yarn. And I could be wrong. I accidentally made an extra Hufflepuff last year and someone wanted it.

It will be good to go home tomorrow. This place is really boring. I didn't even go for a swim. The swimming pool is tiny, and no one else is using it. And it's just out in the parking lot, with both a view of the interstate and the gas station across the street. I think I'll pass.

Taking it easy in the middle of nowhere

Well, here I am in the middle of nowhere Texas. I often find myself in the middle of nowhere Texas, but this particular town is new to me. There is nothing here really. I just came along to get away from the mess I left at the house.

To keep myself from going out of my mind with boredom, I brought some knitting. I have something called the Ultimate Sweater Machine. I don't actually know how to make sweaters. I'm making Dr. Who type scarves.

Saturday afternoon my club had an auction to raise money for the Halloween party. I offered a scarf. The winner of the auction could have either a Hogwarts scarf or up to $80.00 off a different scarf. When I asked the winner what kind of scarf he wanted, he said that he wanted a Dr. Who scarf. He wants the one with the blue and bright colors.

I was not aware that there was a Doctor Who scarf with blue and bright colors.

His son has this long scarf that someone said was a Doctor Who scarf, and it has blue in it. So he's just sure that Doctor Who wore a scarf like that one. I don't think so. I've never seen a picture of Tom Baker wearing a scarf with blue stripes. Maybe it was one of the other doctors, but again, I don't think so.

So I am making a Dr. Who season 12 scarf. And I am also making something that is the same length as a season 12 scarf with blue and bright colors. I'll see if he likes either of them. If he doesn't, that's okay. I'll have examples to show other people.

Anyway, so I am here in the middle of nowhere Texas with the Ultimate Sweater Machine. It is almost four foot long and has to be clamped to a table. Since not all tables are four feet long, I have the thing clamped to a board, and then I clamp the board to the table.

Well, this motel room didn't come with a regular table. The room is okay, but there's just the one chair and a coffee table. It's too hard to make the knitting machine work on a coffee table.

But I was not giving up. I filled the van with yarn, and I was going to knit something. So I thought maybe I could make the coffee table tall enough if I put it on top of something else. So I moved both of the nightstands and put the coffee table on top of them. That didn't quite work out. It was too tall, and the coffee table leg didn't quite fit on top of the nightstands. So then we turned the night stands on their sides and tried again. That seemed to work okay.

I'm sure the cleaning ladies are having a good laugh.

That's one of the nice things about going away for a few days, even to middle of nowhere Texas. You go to lunch, and then usually when you come back the room is cleaned and there's fresh towels and all of that.

Getting towels at a motel can sometimes be a bit odd. There are two of us. There are two bath towels, if what you get at a motel room can be called a bath towel. And then we have one washcloth, even though there are two of us. And then we have either a hand towel or a towel for the bathroom floor, but for some reason never both items on the same day. What's up with that?

But the place is okay. I might think about walking to DQ and getting ice cream later, but probably not. Those scarves aren't going to knit themselves.

Monday Morons--Me

Last week we had temperatures in the 100+ range and red ozone alert days and everything. You're supposed to stay inside unless absolutely necessary and drink lots of water and all of that. Ideally, you should go watch a movie or stay home and watch TV or read all day. Don't do anything strenuous.

So what did I do last week? I moved furniture. I ripped up carpet and smashed tiles. I mixed cement.

Okay, so that wasn't so smart.

I've set myself a deadline for getting done with this business of getting the carpet out of my house, and ozone alert days or not, I'm getting it done.

So this is what I've been doing. First, I take everything off of a couple of bookcases. Next, I move the bookcases away from the wall to someplace very inconvenient, like right up next to the bed. That all took a bit of work, so then I have a bit of a rest and watch some TV. Then I have to put all of the stuff back onto the bookshelves. Then I put on some latex gloves and remove the carpet and the padding that was along the wall where the bookcases were. Have a bit of a rest and watch more TV. Then put on eye protection and get a hammer and remove all the tiles and the rotting wood and the nails. That part is hard work, and I usually can't do that all at once. More TV. Have a soda. Then I sweep up the broken tiles. More TV. Then it's time to scrub the floor. Watch more TV while the floor dries. Then I put on another pair of latex gloves and apply a coat of something sort of like glue. More TV while that dries. Put on another pair of gloves and apply a second coat of the glue stuff.

So that probably took all day, if I had all day to devote to the project. Sometimes I just do half of it after I've gone somewhere with my husband, or sometimes there's some other errand that has to be done first.

The next day I mix this cement-like stuff that fills in the cracks and the holes left by the nails along the wall. That's probably all that I have to do about the little holes. Some of the cracks are probably due to problems with the foundation and I'll have to "fix" them again in a few years.

Mixing the cement doesn't seem like a lot of work, but then it's an hour and a half later and I'm exhausted. But the tools have to be cleaned right away or they'll be ruined. There's nothing else I can do for the rest of the day but watch the floor dry. The next day I put on more latex gloves, apply something on top of the cement, wait for it to dry, and then apply a second coat. I'm probably supposed to wait a few days before this step, but I really haven't got the time because I've got to move the bookcases back where they were and move a desk or something else and start the whole thing again.

Any normal person wouldn't do it this way. Any normal person would move all of the furniture out of the room and do the whole floor all at once. And if you want a nice smooth floor that is the way it is supposed to be done. Except that I haven't got an empty room to move all of the furniture to, and with the weird weather and such I'm afraid to move the stuff outside, even for a week or so. And there's really no way to get the bed out anyway. It's a wonder we got it into the room in the first place, back when we first moved and the rest of the house was empty. I just don't think that I could do it now.

So now I've done this to all of the floor in the bedroom, except for the floor that is under the bed. So the plan now is to move the bed into one corner of the room so that I can get to most of that, and then when that is done move the bed again so I can get to the rest of it. So we'll be moving the bed today, and then I'll do some of the work and then

Then we're going out of town for most of the week. This is a lot of work, and I need a break. But the end is in sight, and if moving the bed goes okay I should be able to finish everything up the week after we get back. The floor won't look pretty, but I'll worry about that later. The important thing is that the mold and such will be gone and I won't worry about that anymore.

Body Snatchers

I went to see the fourth version of Jack Finney's story today. I didn't think it was too bad. Most people didn't like it that much.

The second version is still my favorite. It was the first one that I saw, so that was the only time I went in without really knowing much of the plot. There are no real surprises after that.

And the second one has Jeff Goldblum worrying about his poetry. Donald Sutherland is worried about a man who was run over by a car, and everyone else is worried about people who don't seem to be themselves, but none of that seems to matter as much as the fact that Jeff Goldblum isn't getting the recognition he deserves. Everything else in the second movie is somehow creepy, even if it's just a janitor cleaning the floor.




***SPOILER ALERT***



























If you didn't know, when Jack Finney started writing his story he imagined the scene of a dog getting hit by a car. He wasn't sure where he was going to go with it, and for a time he toyed with the idea of finding out that the dog was actually a robot. Not too far off from where the story went, but not quite it. Dogs play a part in The Invasion too. The dogs are smarter than we are. The dogs know something is wrong, and we're not doing anything about it. The dogs start attacking people who aren't people anymore.

And we still don't get it.

You know, everyone in the movies is dumber than you, except for the dogs. And maybe a cat.

First person who doesn't get it, a scientist from the CDC. Okay, maybe Robin Cook's Invasion isn't required reading in Atlanta, and maybe when you're taken to see the broken pieces of a crashed space-shuttle Jack Finney's Body Snatchers isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But surely someone with his job has at least heard of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain? Apparently not. Right after being taken to the crash-site to see the spore-like growth on the wreckage and being told that neither the cold of space nor the heat of entering the Earth's atmosphere did anything to slow down the whatever it is, he is handed a piece of the wreckage that has the stuff on it and cuts his finger. His response is to just drop the piece of wreckage and get in a car and leave.

????

Wash your hands. Cut of your finger. Grab the kid and go back to the quarantined area. Do something!

But no. He goes home, goes to sleep, and wakes up a whole different being.

Second person who doesn't get it is his ex-wife, psychiatrist Dr. Bennell. Veronica Cartwright comes to see her. Poor Veronica just can't get away from the damn aliens, can she? Anyway, this woman has been one of Dr. Bennell's patients for four years. For four years she has been listening to this woman talk about how bad her husband treats her and how depressed she is about the situation and how she's afraid that someday her husband might physically hurt her. So now she's come to tell Dr. Bennell that he's finally snapped and he's killed the dog.

Dr. Bennell adjusts the woman's medications.

Adjusts the woman's medications? Again, even after hearing that "my husband is not my husband" maybe you don't immediately come to the conclusion that Jack Finney's pod people are taking over. But do something! This woman is living with a man who's become violent. Call the police. Call the Marines. Call a locksmith. Call a battered women's shelter. Call a lawyer. Do something!

Can't. It's Halloween. Time to take the kiddo trick-or-treating.

Now we have another dog that is acting strange. But instead of turning off the porch-light or putting up a sign that says "Beware of Dog" or "We've gone to bed, help yourself to candy we've left outside", the dog's owner opens the door and tells the kids that they should look for candy somewhere else. So the dog gets loose and tries to kill one of the kids. It's scary for a bit, but the kid isn't hurt and it doesn't seem to occur to anyone to call the police or anything. But they do find this odd globby thing that wants to attach itself to Dr. Bennell's kid.

Okay, any idiot can see that this is some kind of alien blob, and if you've ever seen a movie you know better than to touch alien blobs. Dr. Bennell puts it in a plastic bag and takes it to her boyfriend and a buddy who work at a hospital. At first, the other doctors tell Bennell that it doesn't look like much of anything and the thing probably came from Walmart. The thing is clearly moving, possibly growing, and has veins.

Not from Walmart.

Apparently, people in the rest of the world are starting to wonder about an alien organism. But the country that's just had a shuttle crash and found alien spores is too busy worrying who gets the contracts for producing the new flu vaccine.

The buddy at the hospital puts it all together and spells it out for everyone. Dr. Bennell gets worried and goes to get her son away from the ex-husband, the CDC guy. Did she have any concerns before this that her son might get a serious illness from spending the weekend with a guy who investigates diseases for a living? After hearing that "the flu" is from outer space does she go to save her son from the zombie-like creatures having a meeting at her ex-husbands house?

No. She's still pretty much doing the mundane I don't like my ex thing. She doesn't grasp that she's in real danger, she doesn't notice that she's outnumbered, and when she doesn't immediately find her son she goes about packing his things.

Yes, what we really need to worry about right now is whether or not the kid has his backpack and some clean underwear.

The ex-husband pushes her to the floor and spits alien goo on her. Then she gets scared. Then we have a lot of chase scenes.

After getting her son back and doing a lot of running and killing the ex-husband, she hides in a drugstore and takes a lot of stuff that is supposed to keep her awake. Then the now alien boyfriend shows up and gives her the speech from The Faculty about the world being at peace after the aliens take over.

But the aliens don't take over. Some people are immune, including Dr. Bennell's son. If they can just get the kiddo to a military base in time, everything will be alright.

I have heard that this started off being a totally different movie, and that parts of it were shot later, after the movie was supposedly finished. Maybe when the DVD comes out we'll get to see the original version or some alternate endings.

Freaky Friday

I have regular readers from the United States, the UK, and Canada. In addition to that, people from eighteen other countries have now looked at my blog. This week someone from Saudi Arabia found my blog after Googling capri price in the hot tub - not going out with this booty!

Someone else found me after Googling superbowl 2011 tickets. I'd like to tell everyone what they can do with their superbowl tickets, or anything else having to do with football, but I'm a lady so I won't do that.

Then some fellow crafters and artists stopped by. One wanted to know how much should I sell a knitted scarf for, but I've been wondering the same thing myself. Another person Googled plaster mold vase sale, and I wasn't of any help there either.

Now here is a craft that I was not familiar with. How to make a mould of penis with home bought materials. Well, I hope at least the penis came from home. It's not something that they sell at Hobby Lobby. What do you think? Should I try that?

As usual, we had several people find the diet drink review. Does Big Red soda have caffeine? Are there any drinks with 10 calories or less? People also Googled benefit of drinking nonfat milk, calories in regular black coffee, and vernors nutritional value.

Someone Googled nude photographer's wife, and then I momentarily went into English teacher mode. Nude photographer could mean a photographer who takes pictures of nude people or a photographer who isn't wearing any clothes. So then a nude photographer's wife could be a woman who is married to a photographer who takes pictures of nude people, or a woman married to a photographer who isn't wearing any clothes, or a woman who isn't wearing any clothes who is married to a photographer. So I don't know what this person was looking for, but the search took them to my post about the woman with the violin up her a**.

"Pop tart" "factory tour" lead someone to my post about the Coke museum in Atlanta.

Someone was looking for an apartment behind Rudy's BBQ in Denton. I guess they really like Rudy's BBQ. Sorry I wasn't of any help.

Now we have a new category. Someone wanted to know why do buckets stuck together when you stack them? Someone else was looking for 5 gallon buckets, dallas texas. Others Googled some day I'm going to, and 3 gallon buckets for sale. All of these people were lead to a post about the multiple ways that five gallon buckets are later used and how I wished that I had bought some at a garage sale for a quarter each.

Okay, here's the count for this week:

Diet Drinks -- 5

People going to hell -- 0

Giant Penis -- 2

Buckets -- 4


And the top twelve search words are now -- going costume the giant hell diet for how what have husband penis

I guess I haven't had much to write about

While I am having just tons of fun with the blog tracking thing, I guess I haven't really done much blogging recently. In fact, I've just seen that except for the Monday Morons and the new Freaky Friday feature, I have only written four posts this month. So this will be one of those boring catching up kinds of posts.

After I got back from Shreveport I went to hang out with some Klingons. That was nice, but somehow not the elaborate party I was expecting. Not that I'm up for elaborate parties that often anyway. The Halloween party is just over two months away, and I'm certainly not ready for that. Anyway, one of the Klingons gave me a fish or something, which has died now. That was to be expected, since the things only live for maybe a month or two, three at the most, and it was already three weeks old when I got it.

Halloween is just around the corner, and I haven't got a clue. I think that it is too late for a big elaborate costume. I'm still toying with the run around in my underwear idea. But probably not.

Yesterday I dropped an apothecary jar. And since I'd just ripped up the carpet, that's it for the jar. It was a silly thing, but I had kept all the shells from stuff we ate during one of our trips to Maine. I guess the shells are okay and I can put them in something else. It's just one more annoying thing that happened.

I don't suppose that any of you have friends in Texas who are moth experts?

My husband will be out of town for the next two weeks. The plan is to go with him one week and stay home and get some work done the next week. Neither week is anyplace interesting. One week is the middle of nowhere Texas, and another week is the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. But it would be good to get out of the house and maybe work on a scarf or two.

I had the dates for art class wrong. School doesn't start until the 27th. I still don't know if we have enough students signed up. But I can't transfer to ceramics now, because all of the seats are taken. And nothing else that is open interests me. I might have to go to a different school or forget about the idea for this semester.

I am still working on the damned floor. I have given up trying to make it look pretty. That can be a project for another time. While I am resting from the hard work of ripping up carpet and smashing tiles and such, I am watching some DVDs my brother loaned me. Last week I watched Buck Rogers, and this week I'm watching V. V the series, not V the first mini-series or the sequel, but what they tried to make into a weekly show. I forgot how bad some of it was. They kept using the word lizard, and it just didn't work. Willie seems to have forgotten most of the English that he learned from his two years on Earth, and all the aliens decided to try out having sex in the human costumes. Not that I doubt that would happen, since I'm sure there are plenty of humans that have tried having sex in alien costumes, but I just don't think that would become the norm. And the eighties hair, with the glitter in the hairspray.

I still love Willie, even if I didn't like what they did with the character.

And I'd forgotten about Howard K. Smith. I'd forgotten that most of the shows started with the news from the Freedom Network and that Howard K. Smith would tell us how the war was going. When the show was on TV, I'd forget, and I'd see Mr. Smith reading the news and I'd wonder who was attacking Yuma or the Alamo or whatever. Mr. Smith caused me a few moments of panic during the eighties, since that was probably the most realistic part of the show.

I've now heard a rumor that Kenneth Johnson will be making another V story. And, since he didn't like the series and most of the second mini series, he's going to pretend that they never happened. The story is going to be the same war, twenty years later. I hope the rumor is true. I look forward to seeing it.

I watched the second episode of Masters of Science Fiction. I still liked it, but somehow I didn't like it as much as the first episode. I guess I've seen Vorlons before. I even had drinks with one, but I've already written about that. Don't forget that the third episode is Saturday night.

I guess that I should get back to work now.

Monday Morons--Who Cheat

No, it's not about them.

I usually don't blog about the thing that everyone is talking about on the news, but this is just too much. This idiot is suing the florist after his wife found out that he sent flowers to his girlfriend. He wants to be compensated one million dollars for "breach of contract."

He doesn't seem to get it that it's his own "breach of contract" that is the problem.

Now the man is complaining that everyone is talking about him without knowing him or the situation. Sorry, but that's what people do when you file a frivolous lawsuit and sue for one million dollars. They talk about you, and they don't say anything nice.

He goes on to say that they were already in the process of getting a divorce when his wife received a copy of the bill for the flowers that he sent to the other woman. His wife then asked for more money in addition to some amount that they had already agreed on. If she hadn't found out about the flowers for the other woman, she wouldn't have done that, so he thinks the florist owes him money.

On the other hand, he says that he and his wife were trying to reconcile, and that they had gotten back together before, but now that wouldn't happen.

Sorry, if you were trying to work things out with your wife, sending flowers to the other woman isn't the way to do it.

And I don't think that you can make both arguments in court. Either you are complaining that the divorce you were definitely getting has been delayed because the wife wants extra money, or you are complaining that your attempts to get back together with your wife were ruined. I don't think that you can make both arguments at the same time. If you were getting back together, it doesn't matter how much money she was asking for. If you're upset about the money you have to pay in the divorce that you were definitely going to get, then you weren't really trying to get back together with your wife.

And with either argument, it's still his fault for cheating on his wife in the first place. Yes, we are all out here talking about you. And we're still going to talk about you, even though we don't know you and we don't know all the little details of your situation.

The only way anyone with half a brain is going to feel sorry for this guy is if maybe this guy sent the flowers to the other woman with a note saying that it's over cause he's getting back together with his wife.

Raise your hands if you think that's what happened.

I don't even think that they mentioned he was probably in contempt of court buying the flowers in the first place. Buying stuff for the other woman is not a regular household expense, and it's not a business expense, and it's certainly not a legal expense.

Sorry this was so late. We were out shopping.

Freaky Friday

Okay, here it is. The first post of the promised new regular feature. Not sure if it will be every week or every other week or what, but here we go.

As I said earlier, I have recently had a tracker added to my blog, and I'm having a bit of fun with it. I haven't figured out all the stuff yet, and I probably won't bother with it. The tracker keeps up with all sorts of information that doesn't matter to me, like whether or not the reader is using Windows. Stuff like that. Who cares?

But it does tell me the country the reader is from. And it tells me what Google searches lead the readers to my blog. And that's the part that I'm having fun with, the Google searches.

I had already mentioned the really interesting Google searches in this post--http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/07/200th-post-taking-look-at-my-blog.html
And there were a few more interesting one is this post--http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/08/science-fiction-on-tv-blog-tracking-and.html
So of course the week I plan to write about Google searches, they are not quite as interesting.

I guess that I'm allowed to repeat one I mentioned earlier from last Friday. Someone found me after Googling tied and masturbated. Again, I said that I was not tied up, so the reader probably did not find what he was looking for.

Two people wanting to know who is going to hell found me this week. I am now the top Google search for almost everyone is going to hell. Isn't that nice.

People are still getting some use out of the diet drink review. Someone wanted to know can I drink crystal light in my water and have the same benefits, and another person typed in my husband drinks too much pepsi.

And, of course, I was found again this week with both a search for a giant penis and a giant dick costume.

Someone found me after Googling "power steering pump" "pass inspection" texas. I'm pretty sure that whatever they were looking for was not found in my blog.

Someone actually Googled insidioustruth llama. I can't imagine why.

Someone meant to search for "the invasion" "invasion of the body snatchers" remake. I do have a blog post about that, but so do a lot of other people and you'd never find it from Googling that. Unless you misspell snatchers without the "t", and then I am third on the list.

I few people actually found me by typing in other sci-fi stuff. Someone was looking for Altrusian, and someone else typed in "come out neville." Two people wanted to know about "A Clean Escape" from Saturday night's Masters of Science Fiction, and two other people wanted to know if there was a connection between the upcoming TV series Journeyman and the novel The Time Traveler's Wife. Unfortunately, none of these people left comments.

I was momentarily interested to see that I'm getting a few more flags on the geo-tracker, and that I'd gotten two comments from someone in India. But the comments from India turned out to be spam. Someone in India must have been hired as the human spam-bot, but it was a waste of money in my case since not only do I have no money but I've done nothing to my blog to prevent the use of a regular spam-bot, or whatever they are called.

Speaking of the geo-tracker, this week someone in the Philippines read my blog. And they came specifically looking for me, not diet drinks or giant dicks or anything else. So that was a bit odd. Of course, I do know of a blogger who went there this week, and that person might read a blog or two from there. But I just find it odd that I would be a priority this week. And this person is known to drink alcohol, so I would have thought the first thing this person would do after getting off of the plane would be to find a bar. Or maybe to see about getting laid. No, I take that back. The first priority would be to find a restroom and deal with all the alcohol this person drank on the plane, and then find a bar. Then see about getting laid. Never mind. It's nice to be remembered.

Okay, so count for this week:

Diet drinks--2

Giant penis--2

People going to hell--2

And the top ten keywords this week: costume going the hell giant diet what husband everyone dick

If you have a tracker on your blog, tell us some of your more interesting Google searches. Have a bit of fun. Leave comments.

I did not win the lottery last night

Nor did I win the night before. This is becoming a pattern. So, at some point, I should think about getting a job.

Okay, thinking about getting a job is about as far as I get.

But I hope to finish with the floor before art class starts, and I should start looking for a job then. I have already blogged a lot about jobs that I have had and mostly didn't like.

http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/02/jobs-i-didnt-like-part-i.html
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/02/jobs-that-i-didnt-like-part-2.html
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/02/jobs-i-didnt-like-part-3.html
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/02/jobs-that-i-didnt-like-part-4.html
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/02/international-wildlife-park.html

But basically what it amounts to is that between going to school and trying to work around my husband's weird schedules, I have spent a lot of time either unemployed or doing jobs that are mostly done by students and pay very little. Usually, they just aren't worth doing, unless there is a reason other than money.

Like the Halloween store. The first year I made about a thousand dollars, minus taxes and such, and after I spent money on gas and such there didn't seem to be much left. The second year, I started the job sooner, but I took a week off, and I only made about seven hundred. Anyway, I'm trying to find out what schedule I could work, just in case they call. But since my old manager probably won't be working this year, I don't think I'd want to work there either. I have no intention of filling out an application. I'm just trying to think of what to say if they call, which they probably won't.

The only job I had that actually paid enough money to pay the bills was the traveling sales job that I did with my husband. I won't be doing that job again. Being in sales just made me feel evil. And the traveling bit is out of the question now. I only did that cause my husband already had the job, and I really didn't want to do it even then. I wouldn't take a traveling job by myself. And you just can't have a life and a traveling job at the same time. Even when you are home you miss stuff, because people forgot to tell you that while you're in town you should come with us and do this and that. Everyone else already knew about it, because they heard about it at the last thing, but you weren't at the last thing because you were out of town.

The main job that I have wanted is to work at a library. I did work at a library one summer, but that was just as a page and you don't make any money as a page. But I took it cause I was under the impression that it would lead to being a clerk within a few months. Wrong. Anyway, I would like to work at the library at school, and I imply for the job every time there's an opening, just in case. I apply at other libraries too, but I wouldn't like them as much because there is more weekend work. But the other libraries never call anyway because they usually want someone who is bilingual.

I have really had it with the bilingual crap, but that's another story.

So basically I am trying to think of anything else I could get a job doing that would pay the bills. And while I am waiting for one of those jobs to come along, should I get some other kind of job? It is just that getting another job like the ones I've had in the past would probably not be worth it for the money, and then it would prevent me from doing all the little things that make me happy. I'd probably have to give up most of the stuff I do with the club, and it's unlikely that I'd be able to go out of town with my husband. Not that he gets to go anywhere interesting that often, but it's nice to go out of town once in a while. And if he did get to go anywhere interesting it would probably be on short notice, which would make it even harder for me to get time off from whatever I'm doing.

He has asked to go to Kansas City next month if anything comes up. We love Kansas City in the fall.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/10/cool-stuff-in-kansas-city-this-time-of.html I can't be expected to miss that just so I can ask if you want fries with that.

Thinking about selling my art

I am thinking about selling some of my art. I don't know how much I should charge. I have already discussed some of the problems here. http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/12/attempting-to-get-rich-on-ebay.html

In case you already read that post and were wondering how the machine knit scarves came out, they don't look too bad but they still take seven hours to make. Somehow I got it into my head that they would take about three or four hours. But now that I know they take seven hours and I'd have to charge about eighty dollars per scarf, I don't think that I'm going to be selling many scarves. Eighty dollars is a lot better than three hundred thirty that I'd have to charge for the hand knit ones, but I still think that's a bit high.

So now I'm wondering about ceramics. Some of the problems are the same. How much to charge for my time, and I have to charge for the materials, and if I'm shipping the art somewhere I have to charge for the shipping and the packing materials, and should I charge for the extra time of going to the post office, etc....

Right now I am wondering if I should sell one of my class projects. I like most of my class projects and want to keep them. And if there are a couple that I don't like, well, no one else would want those either. But for the most part I do like them and it is not one of those situations where someone sells their class projects cheap just to get rid of them.

The class projects for last semester were a coil vase (made from terra cotta) that was burnished and saggered (fired in a popcorn tin to turn black), a box (pylon shape), a stained plate made on a hump mold (sea turtles design), a series of 4x5 tiles (sea turtle design) using plaster molds we had to make ourselves, a painted mosaic tile piece (a picture of Moody Gardens in Galveston), a hollow sculpture in the round (big sea shell design), and a relief sculpture in terra cotta (dragon head design). In addition to the required pieces I made another coil vase, three extra sea turtle tiles, two more plaster molds and two more 4x5 tiles (Stargate design and animal/Celtic knot design), and part of a plaster mold for another sculpture (sleestak head design).

So there were nine required pieces and one required plaster mold, but I ended up with six extra pieces and three extra plaster molds. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the school provided a lot of the materials, except we had to buy most of the clay. But that doesn't exactly make the provided materials free, since I paid almost two hundred dollars to take the class. We were required to buy about three bags of clay at about ten dollars each, and I bought two extra bags, and I spent eleven dollars on an extra bag of plaster, and about fifteen dollars on underglaze that wasn't required but I think made my mosaic tile look better, and then I spent ten or fifteen dollars on paint and such for the big sea shell. So the required amount of money is two hundred ten dollars divided by the required nine pieces equals an average of $23.34, and the actual amount I spent was two hundred fifty-five dollars divided by fifteen pieces equals an average of $17.00.

But probably neither of those figures is fair to charge for materials, since the only piece I am considering selling at this time is one of the 4x5 tiles. I think that I can get five or six tile molds from a bag of plaster, and maybe twenty tiles from a bag of clay, and maybe I could glaze twenty tiles from one jar of glaze if I made them all the same color. I'm not sure how much casting slip costs. But I think that making a plaster mold would cost two dollars worth of plaster, and that I could make twenty tiles from it using materials that would cost between twenty and forty dollars. So that would make it about two dollars of materials per tile, if I were going to make that many of the same tile. Which doesn't sound too bad. Except that if it's not a class project I have to pay someone to fire the tiles, and each tile has to be fired twice. I'm guessing that would be about five dollars each time, so I've now spent about twelve dollars per tile, and I haven't yet figured in my time.

There are all kinds of books to help you figure this stuff out, but they don't really help if you don't keep accurate records. To make a plaster mold for a tile, it takes about a hour to make the mold around the model tile. But I don't know how long I spent making the models. Actually making a tile after you have a mold only takes about an hour or so, not counting drying time and firing time and all of that. But it's not like you just stand there and wait for things to dry, so I shouldn't count any of that time. If I have to drive to Fort Worth to have things fired, I will have to count that time, but for class projects I didn't have to do that. I had to drive to class, but I had to do that anyway even if I didn't sell anything.

Right now I am thinking that I could charge about between twelve and fifteen dollars for small tiles that get made in class, but I probably won't sell any that don't get made in class, cause I'd have to charge at least double that.

I rarely sell anything I make. I sold two eggs at a store that took stuff like that on commission. One was sold around Christmas time. Someone who worked at the store broke another one, so the store had to buy that one, and the store decided that they didn't want to sell my eggs after that. I can't think of any other art work that I've sold, except for one scarf that a friend needed for his Hogwarts costume. I've made things for other people, but I gave those things to them as Christmas gifts.

About twenty years ago, someone saw me carrying around a large painting of the Horsehead Nebula. I wasn't planning to sell it, so I'd never really thought about how much it should cost. But the nice lady asked, and I told her this was a school project, but she could buy another one like it. Hopefully, the second time around it wouldn't take quite as long to make, but maybe it would, and with the canvas and paint and other supplies it would probably cost around five hundred dollars. The lady thanked me for talking to her, but she did not even leave her phone number, and I never saw her again.

For some reason people either don't expect artists to charge for their time, or they just don't realize how long it takes to make something. And if you're not an artist yourself, you have no idea how much supplies cost. So a lot of people think that they are going to get a painting for a lot less money than the artist would have to charge, and they are often surprised that the amount of money they had in mind wouldn't even cover the cost of the materials.

Last year I donated a scarf to a charity auction. The scarf was one of the handmade ones that took more than thirty hours. The winning bid for $43. That person is the same person who bought the other scarf for $80, and right now I think that is probably the only scarf that I'll sell, but I'll probably donate a few more to auctions and make a couple more for friends. There's another auction in two weeks, and I plan to donate one of the $80 scarves and see what happens.

Or, at least, I'll be donating that scarf if I finish the fringe on time. I just hate doing fringe.

Monday Morons--Liars

I hardly know where to begin.

I just don't get it. I don't understand why people lie so much. It usually hurts someone, and it makes things so complicated.

Lies are not something that I deal with very well. I have trouble even with the little white lies that keep people from feeling bad about their new haircut or the clothes that make them look fat. I think that I am a bit better at the lies we tell around someone's birthday or Christmas and such to hide surprises, but I suppose I could do without them as well. If I could give up all the nice surprises in return for never having to deal with lies, that would be a good deal.

I can understand why a person might lie to get out of a difficult situation, if the person lying thought that the lie wouldn't hurt anyone else. It's still wrong, but at least I can understand what might make a person do that. But I think that a lot of those difficult situations could have be avoided to begin with, and a little common sense before would have been better than a lie after.

And then there's people who are so convinced that they are going to get something out of lying that they don't care that someone else is going to get hurt, so they go ahead and lie. So that's just evil, and I don't see how those people live with themselves. But I didn't think that I had to deal with people like that very often.

Turns out that I'm having to deal with that sort of thing a lot. People aren't just lying in a few situations when they can't figure out anything else; lying is their whole way of life. They just lie on autopilot, and for no reason.

Some times it's just dumb stuff. Sometimes they're new in town and they have to convince everyone that they had a lot of friends where they used to live, or they had a lot of dates in high school, or whatever. I don't know why someone would feel the need to lie about that sort of thing, but usually no one gets hurt, except maybe the people telling the lies. But in the past few years I've had to deal with people who lie about all kinds of important things, knowing full well that someone else is going to have to deal with the lie. People lie about stuff at work, and people lie about relationships, and people lie about health issues, and people lie about money, and for some reason people just tell lies about other people.

I've had mechanics and other repair people lie about when they could fix something and such. And it totally makes no sense, because if the repairs are not going to be done at a certain time or for a certain price, I can't hire you. I've had bosses lie to me about when I'd be expected to work or what kind of work I'd be expected to do. And if you hire me to do a job and then expect me to work at a time I'm not available or for a job that I'm trained for, I can't do the work and you'll just end up having to get someone else anyway, so why not get someone else to start with. And I've had co-workers say that they would switch shifts with me, and then I've made plans accordingly and then they change their minds and don't want to switch shifts and I have to find someone else or change my plans again.

And I'm not even going to go into the other stuff people have lied to me about. Some of it is painful to think about. And it would take too long anyway.

What's really odd now is that I'm having to deal with people that I know have lied to me in the past. And the lies caused all kinds of damage and didn't do them any good either. But okay, we all know you lied, and now I'm going to ask you something and don't lie and make it worse. It's bad enough that you lied the first time, but we're trying to do damage control here, so don't lie again. And lying won't do you any good anyway. Telling the truth might help someone. And in any case, if you lie, in a week or two we'll all know that you lied, so there's really no point in it anyway.

So of course the person lied again. And the really weird thing is that the person not only lied about the question, the person also repeated a bunch of lies that were already known to be lies. I already caught you lying about that, and I didn't even ask you about that, so why would you say that?

According to my religious beliefs, that person will be punished in time. But it just seems like something should be done to this person in the here and now. More people will get hurt. I'm pretty sure that more people are being hurt at this very moment, but I do not know these people personally, and I can't imagine how I would get in contact with them. And I wonder that people who know this person don't just warn everyone that no matter how concerned this person sounds, the person is lying about something very important. It's a small comfort to people that have been hurt by lies that the liar will eventually be punished.


On a not so serious note, I am trying to decide what to tell the people at the Halloween store, just in case they call next month. I do not think they will call, but they might, and I want to have an answer for them before they do.

So let me back up and say a bit about working at the Halloween store. Many years ago I got a job at a theater in a mall, and one day while I was in this mall with a co-worker we noticed this temporary store that sold Halloween stuff. And the manager of the store asked if we wanted a job. Sure. And we both worked there and it was boring sometimes but mostly it was a lot of fun.

Since I remembered this job being a lot of fun, I applied for similar jobs almost every fall after that. Or, at least, I applied if I didn't already know that I was going to be out of town or something like that. It's a bit of extra money, and it's fun.

Except that I rarely even got called back after I filled out the applications. Halloween is usually a busy time for me, especially since about 1999 or so. And I always write on the application that I'm not available to work the Saturday before Halloween, or that I have to finish work by four or five that day, and then if I have another job or school I write down other times that I can't work. So even if I have the whole month open except for that Saturday, I usually don't get the job, because they don't like to hire people who can't work that weekend.

So a couple of years ago, which is like fifteen years after I had the job at the other Halloween store, I filled out an application to work at a Halloween store. This is not the same company as the first store. So far as a know, that other company is no longer in business. So I got all dressed up when I went to turn in the application, cause these people are very busy getting the store opened and often they try to interview you right then and there if they are interested. But that didn't happen, and I went home.

But I did get called back for an interview, and I did get hired, but for a bit less money than I am used to. But I so remembered working at the other store being a fun job, so I took the job anyway. And I made sure that the manager had read all the stuff I wrote on the application about when I could work and time off and all of that. And she said it was no problem.


So I was very surprised to see my name on the schedule for that Saturday night that I'd already said I wasn't available. And they like to individually talk to all the employees about a week or so before Halloween and make sure that they're going to work when they are scheduled and all of that, and if they do then they get a fifty cent raise or something like that. So I'm in the manager's office, and instead of signing this paper that says that the bonus plan has been explained to me and I promise to be on time for all of my assigned shifts, I'm telling her that I won't be at work on Saturday night and maybe it's best if I just left at the end of the shift.

So she takes out my application and reads the stuff on the back, and somehow it still doesn't sink it that it means I have no intention of working that night. And she reads it again. And I can't imagine how she didn't understand, cause that's the first thing that I wrote down, in capital letters, and underlined, etc.... So it's really starting to make me uncomfortable, and I start to get up and say that maybe it's best that I leave right away. But she says no, and she changes the schedule. I sign the paper and everything seems fine after that.


The job was not as much fun as I remembered, and I did not make much money. It's a big store, and I get tired. For the money, the job just isn't worth it. But there is some fun stuff, I do like helping customers with that sort of thing, there's sometimes free haunted house tickets, and there's an employee discount. Not that I should keep spending my money on this sort of thing, but I usually do anyway, so getting a discount is nice.

So I made like a thousand dollars, but between the gas money and the money I spent in the store and the money I spent on fast food while I had the job, I didn't really take home that much of it. Whatever was left I spent on Christmas stuff.


So after Halloween when we are putting the leftover stock in boxes for next year, we are all taking and a lot of the people were saying stuff like "It's been nice working with you" and "I'll see you next year." And I thought, next year? And it turns out that a lot of the people will work at the store for many years. And I just thought, why? Hopefully I'm going to have a real job next year, or I might go to school next year. I just couldn't imagine that I would have enough time to work there again the next year.

But then the next year came, and the manager called and asked if I could work. And I had a lot of stuff going on, and I told her that. And I was going out of town a lot, and I told her that. And of course I still had stuff that I do with my friends and I still don't work the Saturday night before Halloween, and I told her that. And I had applied for a lot of other jobs, and if I got hired for any of those I would not be able to keep working for her, and I told her that. And she said she was fine with all of that and she was fine with me starting work a week later than she asked for because I was going to be out of town.

I've got plenty of blog entries last year about what happened. Basically, I needed a distraction, and the manager was willing to schedule around all of my stuff, so I took the job. And she would check with me before she wrote the schedule, and when my husband's schedule changed and I went out of town, she did not get mad she just changed the schedule for me. And I was still very upset about everything back then, so it's a wonder that I was any help to her at all, but she never got mad or suggested that I should quit.

So I went out of town for a week, and when I came back the manager had quit because of a family emergency. And this district manager was trying to take over, but he kept making mistakes. But it's a temp job and most of the stuff I just decided I'd do anyway. But that last Saturday night isn't up for discussion. And I left a note reminding him that I would either just be working til three that day, or I wouldn't be working at all. So of course he scheduled me to work until six. And I tell him that's not what I agreed to, and that if he really wants to make me feel bad he can insist that I work til four since that's what I wrote on the application. He had read the note and ignored it, but he hadn't bothered to look at the applications to see when people could work. And he kept trying to show me in some manual where it says that all employees must be available all weekend before Halloween. Who cares what it says in your manual. I didn't write the manual. I didn't sign anything saying I agree to work that weekend. I worked a lot of the shifts as a favor to the manager. Just because someone is willing to do a favor for the manager does not mean that they are going to do the same favor for you, and they are certainly not going to do extra stuff for you that was never part of the agreement.

So never mind, we don't need to have this discussion. Not only will I not be here Saturday til six, I don't want to be here now either. I have stuff I'd rather be doing, and it's not worth getting upset like this. I need time off to get ready for the party, but I was going to go ahead and work this week because that's was I agreed to do before I realized going out of town for a week would put me so far behind schedule.

And the district manager finally gets it through his head that I am not going to work his schedule, and he says that I can have the rest of the week off if I'll work til four on Saturday, which is what I originally agreed to do. So that worked out okay, but I was tired from working before I went to the party.

After that, he wouldn't let people get their schedules over the phone. I went to the place twice to get the schedule, but after that I decided to stop wasting time and gas. He could call us after he figured it out. I never got a call, so I didn't work any more shifts.


So I doubt that I'm on the list of people they want to call back this year. On the other hand, I was surprised to get the call last year. Even if you don't plan to work many hours, they still have to hire a bunch of previous employees who sort of know what to do just so that they can get the store open. They hire a bunch of new people after that. They hire new people almost every week. When the store is first open, there aren't many customers, and except for the unloading the truck and putting out the new stock, you don't have much to do and you're not scheduled for many hours. The last two weeks there are a lot of customers and a lot of work to do, and after everyone is working as many hours as they can, that still isn't enough and they still need more people, even if it is just for a week or two.

So if the manager is hired back, I'd probably work for her. If someone else calls, I don't quite know what to say.


Okay, I probably won't work a lot of weekends. If I work the Saturday before Halloween, it will only be from 10-3. I'll say this week I can work these hours on this day, and these hours on this day, etc...and if that's helpful to you put it on the schedule, and if it's not helpful I just don't need to work that day. Don't put something else on the schedule. And that doesn't mean that I can work the same hours the next week. The next week I'll go through the whole thing again and say I can work these hours on this day, etc...and if that's helpful you can put it on the schedule. And sometimes it will all change Friday night if my husband's schedule sends him out of town, and once in a great while his schedule will change with even less notice than that. And of course, if I get sick or if the library wants to hire me, I'm going to quit without notice.

I could tell all that to my old manager, and she could make all of that work. If someone else calls and says the schedule could be made that way, I don't think I'd believe it.

Science Fiction on TV, blog tracking, and few other thoughts

Okay, this is Monday, and I should be writing Monday Morons, which I will get to a bit later.

Also, I am having so much fun with this tracking thing I think that I might start a new regular feature that lists the most interesting Google searches that have led people to my blog. I think I will call it Friday's Freaky Links, but that's still in the planning stages. Anyway, whatever it's called, it will probably start this Friday, and everyone is invited to tell me the interesting Google searches that have led people to your blog.

For example, last week someone found me while looking for stuff about the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Only, they didn't spell out Minnesota, and they didn't leave a space between bridge and collapse. So they ended up reading my post about the 2011 Superbowl being a bad idea, since the new stadium isn't finished yet, and for all we know it's going to collapse. Someone else found me by misspelling Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And they're are still a few people searching for a giant penis.

Also, someone found me me by searching for tied up and masturbated. I guess that they were disappointed, since I said that I had not been tied up. Sorry about that.

Okay, let's get to the science fiction. I hope everyone got to see Masters of Science Fiction. I seemed to be the only one in my group that remembered to record it while we were out. I wish that I could tell you that if you missed it you can watch it online, but I just checked abc.com, and it doesn't seem to be there. But, it is ABC, and they have been nice about that in the past, so maybe check again. While you're there, watch DayBreak if you haven't already, and if you were watching The Nine earlier it is back on, and if you missed last week's episode you can watch it now.

Saturday night's episode was called A Clean Escape, and it was based on John Kessel's short story. I liked it; my husband didn't. I can certainly pick the thing apart for you if you want, but I'm still going to say that I liked it overall. I won't discuss it right here, just in case you haven't seen it yet.

I HATE spoilers.

I was looking forward to a new show in the fall called Journeyman. So someone was saying how it was just a rip-off of Quantum Leap, but so far it doesn't sound like Quantum Leap at all, other than the obvious time travel. I suggested that it sounded more like the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. After looking at the website, I'm afraid it looks more like the British show Goodnight Sweetheart, which I liked at first, but then it just got to be about a guy two-timing his wife.

While I was talking about The Time Traveler's Wife, someone mentioned that they'd heard it was going to be made into a movie. Sure enough, it is scheduled for a 2008 release. I doubt that it will be as good as the book, but I'm sure I'll watch it anyway.

If you haven't read The Time Traveler's Wife, let me recommend that you do. Though, if you are like me, you'll want to see the movie first and then read the book. If I read the book first I usually don't enjoy the movie as much. But if I see the movie first, I still enjoy reading the book afterwards and getting to see if the movie was even close and what things they had to leave out to squeeze the novel-length story into a two-hour movie.

The Time Traveler's Wife is about a guy who travels in time a bit, but not with a machine or anything else I've ever heard of. It's just sort of a birth-defect. He is the first person known to have the time traveling gene. And this isn't something that he does by choice. He's just minding his own business, and then he finds himself naked in a different time. Usually, it is some other year in his own lifetime, and he often visits the same place and same people.

The first time his wife meets him, she is six. Later, when he is in his twenties, he meets her for the first time. She knows all about him, and he knows nothing about her. They have a very interesting relationship.

Back to television.

We'll also be getting a new version of The Bionic Woman, which I expect to be about as much like The Bionic Woman as the new Battlestar Galactica is like the original Battlestar Galactica. And speaking of Battlestar Galactica, I saw the actress who plays Starbuck in a clip of The Bionic Woman. I probably won't like it as much as the original, but I'll probably watch it anyway.

There's going to be a new series about a vampire on CBS, and I've heard a rumor that a cable channel will be doing another version of Kindred. Not quite sci-fi, but I like it anyway.

Speaking of vampires, it's August now, and I haven't even started on my Halloween costume yet. What the hell is wrong with me? So I'm trying to decide between creating something elaborate like I did last year, or just getting some fangs and/or horns and running around in my underwear. I've bought a few things just in case I choose the later, but none of them are perfect, so I'm still looking.

It might be time for a trip to the Sluts R Us store.

Back to the Masters of Science Fiction.

I think that it's time for a ***SPOILER ALERT***













































Okay, now we can talk.

A Clean Escape starts off with a woman finding out that she has terminal breast cancer and that she probably only has a few months or even weeks to live. Then we see her going to work. She's a psychiatrist. And she seems to have a very important patient. The patient has memory problems.

We learn things about both the patient and the psychiatrist. The patient is head of a company that creates top secret weapons, and he has thought about going into politics. The patient has a wife and two children. The psychiatrist has a husband and two children. Except that the psychiatrist's children are dead, and at some point she accuses the patient of killing them.

We learn a bit more here and there. Finally we learn that the patient is the President of the United States, there has been a nuclear war, and the only known survivors are the 871 people who live in this underground bunker. And they have spent most of the year trying to get the President to admit that all of this is his fault and that he remembers doing it.

I like the story, and I thought that the acting was good and all of that. Like I said, my husband didn't like it. The story is decades old and the cold war is over and the story is dated. I'm not sure that the threat of nuclear war is over just because we like the Russians now. And the weapon mentioned in the story was not a traditional nuclear weapon anyway.

So I could pick the story apart if I wanted. Why did they waste so much time getting the President to remember? Did the people need to hear that before they could put him in jail or something? There was talk about dropping the whole thing, because it was a waste of resources, but what resources? The resource being wasted seemed to be the psychiatrist's time. Did that mean that she never saw any other patients? Did she just sit in that office all day and wait for the President to drop by? And why is he still the President? Do the people just like him a lot? Why is a mentally ill President just allowed to roam about anyway? Do we still need to bother with things like impeachment? If there are only 871 people left, wouldn't we have different laws and make things a lot simpler? And if having the President talk to a psychiatrist is such a waste of resources, why does it end the way it does? After he remembers, that should be the end of it, right?

So, yes, I can find all these little things to complain about if I want to. There are entire books that pick about Star Trek episodes, but that doesn't mean we don't like them. Future episodes will have stories by Heinlein and Ellison. I'm going to keep watching.

August 3rd

Okay, this is another day that is supposed to pass without anything dramatic changing in my life. Of course, I also thought that about June 7th, and that didn't go as planned. Hopefully, the idiot lawyer will get it through his head that he made a mistake and rap things up without me going to court this morning.

My husband is pleasant enough to be around as long as I don't actually expect him to do anything that he's agreed to do. If I mention that he's supposed to be doing something or that we're supposed to be in counseling, that just leads to a fight. He either tells me that he's already done something (which I know is a lie), or he promises me that he will do it later (which I'm pretty sure is a lie), or he tells me that he doesn't need to do it (which not only isn't true it isn't his decision to make now since he's already agreed in writing that he would do it.) The rest of the time we go somewhere for lunch before he has to go to work, and we go out of town once in a while, and from the outside it looks like we're just like we always were.

In a few weeks, I should be back in an art class. That is one thing that's been agreed on that he's actually doing (so far). I'm sure I'll feel better then. Until then I'm still working on the floor, but just a few feet at a time. I was starting to regret that little project, but now I'm glad I got started with it. I've found mold or something near the closet. Good-bye mold.

I had more to say earlier, but it's not really related to subject of getting through this day in one piece, so I think the rest can wait til next week. Working on the floor does make me rather tired.