Amnesia

Oh hey! I don’t fucking care! Shut the fuck up!

1.) If you’re going to tell-off your significant other in the middle of the grocery store on your cell phone while perusing various cuts of meat, use words that are kid friendly, because I’m telling you right now, if my toddler starts uttering the phrase, “Fuck your Goddamn Mother” I’m throwing all the canned food I’ve accrued in my shopping cart, plus squishy vegetables at your head.

2.) I’ve come to the conclusion that 80 percent of the human race are disgusting pigs. For heaven’s sake ladies, it’s not that hard to wipe up after yourself and flush the damn toilet at a public restroom. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to pass a stall and then gag because someone decided they’d like to keep their work of art fresh for everyone else to savor.

3.) While at the beach, don’t throw your shit around and expect other people to clean it up. I mean, most people will clean up your shit, only because we’re tired of ignorant, lazy and entitled people screwing up our beach with their shit. Just don’t assume that we’ll save your ass and the environment at the same time, k?

4.) I really really really dislike people who use handicap parking spaces who aren’t really handicapped, or ninja’d the pass from an aunt with a hip replacement. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a nice young woman or man sprint out of their car while parked in a restricted space. If you can walk normally, you can park a few spaces back.

5.) The ice cream truck. It irks me. If I hear the “Turkey In the Straw” one more f’in time…well, you won’t like me when I’m angry.

6.) The fact that coffee, vanilla extract, and baking chocolate taste nothing like you’d think they’d taste like. Oh, the traumatic childhood memories!

7.) The fact that liver and onions tastes exactly how you think liver and onions would taste…like ass.

8.) Just because you could afford the big honking SUV, the boob and nose job, and the pretty house on Mulberry Lane, doesn’t mean that you are any better than me. The next time you look at me that way, out comes the squash. I mean it.

Bitch.

9.) If I’m already going abit faster than the speed limit and keeping up with traffic, and you flash your lights, ride my ass, or honk at me to move out of the way, expect the finger. A big one. Maybe two, because I will be driving with my knees and attempting to smite you with dirty looks.

10.) It bugs the heck out of me that corporations find it necessary to install toilet paper rolls that rip off one square at a time. If you’ve got an employee theft problem involving toilet paper, you need to hire better people. If you’re trying to save money, keep in mind that while people are taking 15 minutes to rip off enough paper to wipe their asses, you’re losing that time in which they could be productive.

That’s all for now. I will go be irked in private.

…at people who answer their business phones with a plain “hello.” A little panic button goes off immediately when that happens as if I ruined some little old crabby man’s day who couldn’t be bothered to answer his telephone because he was too busy watching Wheel of Fortune re-runs on the game show network.

Answer the damn line with something like; “Thanks for calling (Insert Business Name Here), (Insert your name here) speaking, how may I help you?”

Show the world you have some sense of cordial pleasantries or you’re not going to get my business. Yeah, town car service in Pennsylvania, I mean you.

My video reaction to the conclusion of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is below. It does give a spoiler, so if you haven’t watched it, don’t watch this. If you have, you’ll get exactly what I was talking about.

EDIT: Finally found a plugin that actually works! You should be able to see the video now, instead of downloading it.

Anyone who has children can understand how helpless you feel when your little one is sick. Perhaps it is high fever that won’t come down with a lukewarm bath or an ear infection that is keeping you both up in the middle of the night.

I had the unfortunate experience of taking my son to a children’s hospital ER over the weekend, (yes, he’s fine now as his “problem” has been resolved) and waited 6 hours in the middle of the night for tests only to be sent home without a diagnosis.

As we sat in the waiting room for a good hour around midnight, parents with children came and went. To my left was a woman who brought her entire family (including another adult), and called a nurse over who had come out looking for the patient next in line. She mused that her daughter had been seen by triage and was told she most likely had a mosquito bite upon her stomach. She then asked when she would be seen; putting two and two together and figuring out that a bug bite would continue to get bounced down the list as more important cases came in throughout the night. The nurse calmly told her to wait and that it would be useless to leave since she was already there.

She left.

There are two issues I found rather odd and frustrating in this scenario. My kids have had the usual slate of maladies associated with childhood. While I may rush my child to an ER should she have the croup and couldn’t draw a breath, or a fever spiked over my comfort zone and would not come down with alternating Tylenol and Motrin and a lukewarm bath; I would never bring my child in for a common bug bite unless she suffered an allergic reaction. Even before then, I’d douse her with some Benadryl and unless she couldn’t breathe or was swollen like a marshmallow; I’d call my doctor.

I don’t understand why this mother found it necessary to drag her whole family down to an emergency room in the middle of the night so that her daughter could be looked upon by a tired doctor and given some anti-itch cream.

Furthermore, when she was brought into the triage area, I am curious as to why the hospital found it necessary to make her wait. I guess that had I been the nurse, I would have ripped a doctor away, told him to confirm the diagnosis of a bug bite, give her the cream and send her home. I don’t suppose I’d last too long at said facility.

So you wonder why your insurance premiums are going up? This is a fine example. Parents: Please know when to take your children to an emergency room. Stop using your neighborhood hospital as your own private doctor. Find a free clinic if you do not have proper insurance. There are plenty of other options, here. Doctors: Please dedicate someone to send frivolous cases that come in through triage, back home, as to keep the patients with more serious injuries or sicknesses revolving in timely manner.

I hesitate to even mention that the woman and her family left without paying. How do I know this? They didn’t even grab our insurance information until we were settled in the room with a bed. By the way they handle the influx of families, I’m wondering if they aren’t specifically set up the way they are because, Ms. Bug Bite has a tendency of bolting before actually being seen by a doctor.

I don’t know what makes me more sick to my stomach.

****This will contain spoilers for “Battlestar Galatica”, so don’t read if you aren’t up to date on the show. ****

In the comment thread of my “I Hate Ron Moore” post, Vince asks me why I currently hate the man responsible for one of the best shows on television. I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on why last night was so disappointing, so with a deep breath to control my rage, here we go.

I’ve been on board BSG since the very beginning. I’ve seen friends and enemies alike air-locked, or killed in senseless battles and accidents. I’ve been Admiral Adama’s personal assistant and have watched him grow in both stature and wisdom only to see every strand of strength whittled away in the brief moments of deeply personal betrayal. I’ve stood next to Caprica Six as she’s talked and fucked a deranged and selfish Gaius Baltar. I’ve shared in the disbelief and wholly disturbing personal secrets of Col. Tigh, Anders, Tori and Chief. I too was shut away with D’Anna and let fear rule my decisions when I was “unboxed”. I’ve felt the intense passion that guides Leoben and the frustration and curiosity that make Kara Thrace. I’ve also counselled and questioned every decision Laura Roslin has made since the initial destruction of the 12 colonies.

I am a part of each person, each crew, each cylon and have been from the very beginning.

With all that said, you can imagine my joy, relief and disbelief when Felix Gaeda exclaimed that the constellations were a match. You can imagine the tears of those overwhelming emotions flowing like a cleansing river when Admiral Adama confirmed we had found our new home. I danced in jubilation with Lee in the CIC. I hugged my comrades in the hangar bay, and I wept with those who have lost so much and for the first time in years have had something for which to hope.

Yet the moment I bent down and held the soil in my hands with Adama, and heard the familiar tick of an active Geiger counter, was the moment my hope turned into rage and despair. Couple this with the fact that I am now frozen in time for an unknown period until the forces that be decide I can continue the rest of our journey, and well, it makes for a pretty pissed-off Kate.

I understand the need for dystopia when creating a show or writing a novel. Yet, if you are like me, you have invested yourself in watching, debating and discussing this show. With those countless hours, entitlement arises that you are owed a payoff for your efforts. You should be allowed to experience the most precious of human emotions; hope. 

Apparently, Ronald Moore believes otherwise. I feel ultimately betrayed in that despite the relevant social and economic issues the writers have sprinkled throughout the seasons, they found it necessary to remind us that we are hell bent on destruction no matter how much we try and redeem ourselves.

We are destructive. We’ve known this from the very beginning. We know this as we read our daily news and surf our internet.  I don’t see why it was necessary to offer another glimpse into what looked like nuclear holocaust when it was exactly what we were running from years ago.

So yeah Ron, would you kindly go fuck yourself. I wanted to hold onto my happy ending as long as possible and just as you took families and homes away from my friends and foes alike, you took the only driving force capable of bringing us back from the brink.

Right now, my hope is gone as I sit upon my Earth and look out upon a wasteland I so desperately wanted to call home.

Part of me is relieved the series isn’t over just yet, but part of me dreads where this will lead all of us in the year to come.

Unless you are using some sort of feed reader, you’ve probably noticed that Amnesia has changed her look. She was looking rather drab at parties and everyone kept sneakily commenting that it was the same plain dress that she wore last year; so we decided go with a bit of a change. Asking for richer fabrics this time, Amnesia was ecstatic to don rich burgundy and dulled lime greens, accented with burnt sienna and orange tones. Accessorizing her with some daisies and flower trim, she now turns heads as she walks into the room.

If you are joining us by some feed reader, please stop by the site and let me know what you think. It’s really my favorite theme so far and I won’t deny that having the daisies on the top don’t hurt as they are my favorite flower.

I’ve also reformatted the “Professional works” page. There are some new podcasts that were up on Pete’s site,  but that I hadn’t posted here, along with a much more structured podcast listing. Until I can get some version of ‘related posts’ working, this is the best way to get the serial podcasts in order. I have to say, I’m really proud of the work I’ve done over the past year with Pete and by myself, and am hoping it will pay off sometime in the future.

As always, comments and suggestions are always welcome and as always, thanks again for stopping by!

Can you feel it too? Every nerve ending in my body is waiting for something major to happen in the next year. Its sort of like a dog who can sense an earthquake, or horses going stir crazy when the pressure drops signalling a tornado.

I don’t know if its going to be another major terrorist attack or if the war with Iran will actually happen, but the famed biblical four horsemen are certainly saddling their horses. I really don’t like being a harbinger of doom, but if you look at all the strife happening about this entire world right now, the only thing missing is the sheer panic of an impending apocalypse. The western world is too busy gawking at their plasma screen TVs while the poorer countries are scrimping enough food together in light of the odd weather. My son came home from church this morning talking of the end of the world.

With the decline of the dollar, the current economic downtrend, inflation, the price of oil, the ongoing expensive cost of the war in Iraq, the earthquakes, the floods, the fighting, and the strife plaguing the globe, I’m surprised more people aren’t building bomb shelters in their backyards. At this point, I’d welcome an alien invasion. It might be the only thing that keeps the human race from destroying itself.

It’s almost as if apathy is going to be our biggest downfall. We’ll argue until we’re blue in the face that global warming does or doesn’t exist, and in that time we could have planted a few trees.

We cringe at the price of gas, and yet we still seem to need our full size SUVs.

Governments continue to send in their troops to an untenable war and as long as we have Starbucks and McDonalds, we’re content to debate instead of actually doing anything.

So in an effort to make you feel slightly guilty and kick your ass into action, here is what I did the last few days (while sick mind you.)

I gave my umbrella to a woman carrying a child in heavy rain. Four people watched as she stood at the bus stop carrying a 4 month old little girl with nothing but a drenched blanket to cover them both. The bystanders all had large umbrellas and I was the only person who offered my dry bright red sanctuary. Seeing that she’d have to walk further, I gave her my umbrella to keep.

I donated a turkey to a hungry family for this Thanksgiving this weekend. I sent an f-ton of books and toys and video games to the Boston Children’s Hospital via Child’s Play, so that kids who may have to spend the holidays in a hospital bed will have something to do by themselves or with their families.

I donated money to a bake sale for the food share program in my community. I even played the word game that donates rice to under-developed countries for every word definition you correctly select.

No, I’m not saying these things because I want to be recognized for my selflessness, I’m basically saying this to make you go out and do something. In fact, why are you still reading this? Stave off an impending apocalypse of apathy by helping someone, planting something or being an overall generous person today.

Please, because between you and me, I’d rather not hear the sound of approaching hooves.

Reverend Dollar rakes in the big bucks!

I consider myself a loving Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe in God the Father. However, there are some things that just scare me about organized religion. While some may find solace in its ritualistic embrace, it’s the Mediavangelists that really give me the creeps. On the rare occasion that I’m channel surfing on a Sunday, or oddly enough, late at night, it’s akin to the big top coming to town.

It looks like my fears are not that crazy either, according to the article linked above, some of the late night peddlers of God’s word are raking in the dough from generous contributions given by needy people.

The Good Reverand Creflo Dollar, (yes, that’s his last name) with the World Changers Church International raked in the moolah totaling around a cool 69 million last year alone.

Out of this article comes one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard from someone who claims to be a preacher:

“Without a doubt, my life is not average,” he said. “But I’d like to say, just because it is excessive doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.”

How is anything in that quote not hysterical? I’m hoping if we ever get to see the second coming of Christ, he beats and casts aside the almighty Dollar like the gamblers and debt collectors in the temples of old, and shoves that Rolls right up his…

Okay, that’s not becoming of a Christian. By the way, last time I spoke with the big man above, Creflo, there was no valet parking in Heaven.

There is however plenty of special valet parking in Hell.

I am only getting worse, health wise, so my promise of original content has to wait hopefully just one more day. Instead, read this piece I wrote for Pete.

Don’t Get in the Choppah!

I really don’t like to complain. I really don’t. I slept a total of 18 hours last night into today. I am pretty sure I either have the flu or the beginnings of bronchitis/pneumonia. Brain isn’t working and neither is the cough syrup.

Anyone got any good chicken soup recipes? You are up against my own terrific Polish recipe, so beware, I will be judging with quite the skeptic eye. Don’t you just love challenges in which you are up against horrible odds?

So what do I have for you today?

How about the $2 billion helicopter order that the US Government revealed has one teenie, weenie and minor flaw. It can’t fly in weather above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m not kidding you. Military vehicles are often made without air conditioning to improve on performance, cut down on weight and to save on fuel, so they’re going to have to go back and retrofit these choppers with some cooling. If the outside temperature is above the 80 degree threshold, the cockpit temps soar to 104, both dangerous for the pilots and soldiers riding along and possibly shutting down the vital instruments to keep the thing in the air.

One senator suggested we scrap the entire order at tax payer expense and just order Blackhawks instead.

Why aren’t we going back to the manufacturer and demanding they fix this stuff for free? The designs should have been a red flag to any experienced engineer and frankly if the helo can’t operate in temperatures found almost anywhere on the globe except maybe Antarctica, it should be their issue to fix them at their expense.

It’s time to hold military contractors responsible for their own mistakes instead of passing the cost of repairs or retrofits to the taxpayers. God help them if I were a contract consultant in Washington, half of the companies who do business with the US would be blacklisted.

Here’s hoping they do the right thing for once.