The Neon Nurse's Charting

Also its other weekday friends???

I guess it partly got sucked into me starting work on what SOUNDS like a simple project -- make a master sheet for printing out a postcard to mail to all the Dems in our county, and also mailing labels. Naturally, the course of tech stuff never runs smooth, so it took longer than I figured. Also I am not quite done yet, since we are waiting to hear back with ONE detail from ONE speaker for ONE event. I guess since the data total is nine such items, that's not so bad. And I have until Sunday afternoon to finish....

I had two funny things to share yesterday, but ran out of day/energy. But that's okay, they are still funny today.

I ran onto this one via Dave Barry's blog:

Everglades National Park (FL)
Rangers Remove Python From Visitor’s Car

On Tuesday, January 15th, visitor Ron DeLong stopped his car on the main park road in order to watch a crawling, six-foot-long, exotic Burmese python. As DeLong stepped out of his Ford Explorer, the python began crawling underneath the vehicle and into its engine compartment. DeLong attempted to grab the python with the curved end of his walking cane, but was unable to stop it. After several failed attempts to remove the snake, DeLong decided to drive 15 miles to the main entrance station for assistance. When ranger Willie Lopez, wildlife biologist Skip Snow, biologist’s assistant Alex Wolf and firefighter Henry Delvalle checked the Explorer, they found its hood open, with only the tail end of the python visible – the rest of the snake was coiled around various parts of the engine and undercarriage. Several attempts were made to pull it out through the top of the engine, but failed because the snake tightened its hold on the car. The four responders then discussed their options. Snow reported that there had been several published articles about the successful use of tasers to loosen the tight grip of constricting snakes, so that was tried. Unfortunately, it resulted in the python contracting and excreting bodily fluids all over the responders. They then decided to disassemble parts of the Explorer’s undercarriage in order to get to the python’s head, which was then covered with duct tape. The snake’s head and body were uncoiled and maneuvered through the engine compartment, then pulled out the top of the engine. Since Burmese pythons are exotic, prolific and aggressive, the snake was euthanized and taken to a lab to be studied. DeLong’s car was then put back together. [Submitted by Willie Lopez, Pine Island District Ranger]

This one was made even better for me because it happened in Springfield, Missouri, where I once lived. It does not surprise me in the slightest.

Woman With Tattoo From Homemade Gun Got Sick

I think I am going to get up off this chair now and go do something else for a while.

The whole 'get more stuff done' plan has been going pretty well around here, except for one glitch. Although I am not necessarily SLEEPY after 11pm or so, my brain seems to feel it has done quite enough for one day, thank you very much, and I can't always get it to spew out interesting posts.

So I am going to try the communicating thing at some point during the day when it's quiet (coincidentally when Mike is at school...). Not that it is TOTALLY quiet, because the pets are always rumbling around going about their furry business.

I got to thinking that if we want Smiley to become more socialized, she needs to be out and around us more, rather than in her crate and out of trouble but probably Making Pesty Plans. The downside of this is that she and Climber are sort of competing for who will be Alpha, so it bugs Climber to have to be around her more. Last night they got into a pretty big fight. Mike got nicked helping to break it up, and Smiley actually chipped a tooth. They are both being a lot nicer around each other today, though, maybe because I roared the roar of Really Pissed Off at both of them afterwards.

Oh yeah, Sandy's operation went without a hitch and she has forgiven me today. So that's all right.

Just for fun, here is one of the things I am trying in order to help me get more done. I've always marveled at how effective even an imaginary reward is for encouraging certain behaviors. These people at chorewars.com have come up with a way to combine boring daily chores with the excitement of role-playing games!

This is me:



What is really fun is adding adventures. My contributions so far are "Cleaning the Catbox of Doom" (Ritually cleanse the Box of Cats of all dark (or clumpy) materials), "Tiny Tasking" (Little things that don't fit into other adventures--fighting a gum demon attached to your footwear, casting out a dark wight from your wight-fixture, that sort of small but tedious nonsense.), and "Cat-herding the minion" (Doing what it takes to make the minions do the MIN of what they got hired on for!).

It was cloudy and snowy today, which I guess we can blame on Stock Show Weather (a Colorado tradition!), and once the moon came up there was a weird icy fog all over the place. Pretty, in an unsettling way.

This trying to be efficient and get lots done is making me even crazier than usual, I think. I have a bunch of lists and I still keep forgetting stuff. Also all the animals have been insane today. Oh, well, it's almost Groundhog Day!

Okay, here's something fun. I found this in a box of books I was processing the other day:



The headline over the blurb on the back says Countdown for Love!

No, I'm not going to spoiler the book and tell you which guy she ends up with! But it's SOOOO a book of its time and genre, you gotta love it! (And BTW, for a mere $2.99 and postage, it could be YOURS to treasure!)

Today has been a good catching up day, and I needed it. STUFF just kept piling up all last week, insisting it really HAD to get done. You know how it is.

I don't think I mentioned it, but we didn't get to take Sandy in to be spayed last Tuesday. I was up and ready to do it, but Mrs. Vet (the office manager) called to ask if we could postpone a week. Seems Dr. Vet had suddenly come down with a bad case of being on crutches. He was insisting he was fine; she thought he should stay off his feet as instructed. You probably know how that is, too.

Of course I agreed to reschedule. As if in karmic reward for my thoughtiness, Sandy suddenly decided she didn't want to be in heat after all. So THAT worked out okay.

Even better, Mike stopped his reflexive questioning, "What's WRONG with my cat?? WHY does she want a boyfriend???" He likes to go over new information from every possible angle, you see, but his means of starting a conversation is to start from the familiar and ask a question he feels comfortable with. Over and over and over and....

But I finally thought to bring up the old classic line that distinguishes between Wants and Needs: '...like a fish needs a bicycle.' "A fish doesn't NEED a bicycle," I explained, "even though she might WANT one very much."

He thought about this, then asked, "What if it was a boy fish?"

For a boy fish, we decided, he might WANT but not NEED a motorcycle. And then Mike was content.

(I don't usually cross post stuff from my political blog, codeneonblue.net , to this one, but I couldn't resist....)

I really wish I could be up in Denver for the Stock Show when they hold the contest for "the most beautiful and photogenic ass of the bunch as party mascot for the 2008 Democratic Convention."

Seriously, how much fun is that?

I don't think the Republicans will be joining in, even though they do have a sure-fire winner for the BIGGEST ass, right here in Colorado. Of course I am referring to Doug Bruce, who topped his own remarkable career in weirdness yesterday by KICKING a photographer right there in front of God and everybody as the House session got underway.

I say it was in front of God and everybody because he did it during the opening prayer.

To teach the photographer the right way to act in public.

Seriously.

Do you WONDER why people like me get hooked on politics like it was chocolate-coated crack??

And I only went to the Land of Boring Chores, so I didn't even have that much FUN not posting for a few days!

Tomorrow I FINALLY take little noisy Sandy to the vet. I guess I could use lack of ability to concentrate as an excuse for the non-posting too. Not because of her yowls, but because Mike kicked up his personal micro-manage setting to MICRON-manage level. At least, he seemed to expect us to spontaneously create something that would allow us to translate the noises Sandy was making, giving him an answer to his oft-repeated question, "What does my cat WANT?!?"

At least today he had a different complaint. He told me he could not sleep last night because of Sandy making too much noise.

I don't see how he can tell. We have to struggle every night to get him in bed and asleep before 10, and yet, sometimes I hear him get up not all that long after I have called it a day at 2 or 3 am! It's unnatural, I tell ya!

He doesn't even use an alarm clock. He just...WAKES UP!

We all know about Nature being red in tooth and claw, but Kipling never warned us about the other aspect she's famous for...well, except for pointing out about the deadly females....

Mike's kitty girl Sandy is Growing Up. She has been having fits of prowling around chirping and calling, fits that are getting closer and closer together. I blame the wacky seasons which have been swinging wildly between winter and spring. Just yesterday I saw three HUGE flies buzzing around the screen door!

Anyway, I had been explaining to Mike just tonight that Sandy is being so noisy because she wants a boyfriend to have kittens with. He was very indignant. "She already has Paws!" But Paws has had The Operation, I explained. So she wants an OUTSIDE boyfriend. Which she won't be getting, because now she has an appointment herself, next Tuesday.

So we come to the barnacles. As you may or may not know, this word is a favorite expletive of SpongeBob SquarePants. Mike often reprimands me when I say one of the Bad Words, and tells me to say, "Barnacles!" instead.

But now I am not going to be able to, at least not with a straight face. I had the happy idea of looking up barnacles on Google, so Mike could see what they look like. And as one does, we got sucked into reading a couple of pages about them. Did you know the newly hatched barnacle babies cannot eat? They have to glue themselves down somewhere first. Which made me wonder in passing exactly how the babies get produced in the first place, if the adults are glued down....

Then I saw it. And I can never unsee it.

(Note: I am altering the technical term here because I really don't need to be showing up on Google searches for these particular words!)

How is works is that the male grows an insanely long p***s, many times bigger than his own body (!!!), and sends it out groping around the neighborhood cluster until it finds a female.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to Mike, "That's disgusting!"

All I could do was tell him that Nature sometimes is.

And maybe the barnacle would think the same thing about HIS p***s.

First global warming, now this.

I was a zombie. For some reason I couldn't sleep when I went to bed Sunday night, even though it was 4 am (about an hour later than usual). I managed to suck in enough caffeine to keep going through the day Monday, but my brain was totally off the clock. So I went to bed REALLY early last night (10:30 pm) and stayed there until 9:30 today. I feel MUCH better!

Another good thing about today was that Mike was back in school after two weeks of holiday. He was actually glad to go, in a way, because he wanted to show off his NASCAR jacket. Unfortunately he came home quite upset because he found out his best friend is moving away to Seattle. There's so little a mom can do about things like this. They HAD been drifting apart a little, and it could be the friendship wasn't going to last anyway. But ripping off the band-aid hurts as much as pulling it slowly. It's just a different kind of hurt.

OK, how about something more upbeat? My new camera came yesterday! The old one is four years old, and getting hinky. Some type of loose wire it's apparently prone to. I can still bonk it or boot it while hooked up to the computer and make it go, when need be, and so it is going to be our Semi-faithful Back-up Camera.

BUT when I go to blog the streets and parties of the Democratic National Convention next August, I need a RELIABLE one. (And oh yeah for my business too....) So now I have the New Kid:



He is a Canon PowerShot S5IS, with 8 megapixels and a 12x zoom, plus the ability to swap on fancy lenses if I want!

In the pic above, he is posing with my laptop, who is showing a screen from Dave Barry's blog. That's the masterful political reporting style to which I aspire, so it seemed like a good choice. (Is it wrong to take a pic of the new fancy camera with the old one he's replacing? Oooh, angst!)

One more thing, for funsies. HERE is a quiz where you try to name a celebrity from a picture of said celeb as a kid. As I told you yesterday, I'm not too hip with the pop culture -- I got less than half right. And I would probably not do TOO much better naming the celebs from a current pic of themselves. But maybe you will find it fun, and you will almost certainly score higher than I did!

The trouble with this New Year Getting All Busy And Organized deal is that...it's boring to talk about. When the topics you have to work with are things like What Mike and I Carried to the Basement Today, it's hard to make them entertaining.

The Toilet Seat of Exquisite Evil continues to defy my attempts to make it fit right. On the plus side, I finally got the right size screws to replace the ones where the phillips-head slot got stripped out, and THAT'S okay now. But there is still a problem caused by the size difference between the 1/4" seat bolt and the 1/2" hole where it's supposed to go. I found rubber grommets, and they helped, but not enough. I think I am going to have to get a pair of the plastic bolts from an old toilet seat and drill a hole through them to stop the wiggle. Luckily, since we never throw anything away around here, I'm sure we have some...somewhere.

And now, for your viewing, um, entertainment--toilet pics!



Here I was trying to show the lovely metallic blue color, for those who asked. It's hard, because it's so reflective!



I think you can see the problem we are facing (well, okay, not FACING) with the seat not wanting to stay in position. You can also see the problem of me not having gotten very far with the renovation project yet.

I also have a report in Spam News, or The Dumb Stuff I Read So You Don't Have To.

The latest meme for spammers is to make one long subject line word, using three randomly generated terms. For the male enhancement type of spams, you get a name (strangely, both male and female), and variations on terms for the actual body part in question, plus synonym for words meaning 'big'.

As you can imagine, hilarity can ensue. The 'big' winner for today was:

ArnulfoBodypartCosmic

So far the only size term I've seen to beat 'Cosmic' is 'Bouffant'. The mental images this generates are somewhat disturbing, though.

But I might go to bed early, because I've been weirdly tired and sore all day. And grouchy.

It wasn't that bad a day, really. I got some stuff done, though as usual, not everything I MEANT to do.

One thing we did from our list of fun holiday activities was go out to eat at the buffet at Pizza Hut. They only offer it at lunch on weekdays, so we can only go as a family during school holidays.

If we hadn't been seated near the TV, I might not have even known there was a new breaking news story in the saga of Brittney. I'm not much into celeb stuff, you see. But later on, I ran across a random link on a blog I read, where someone was seriously speculating that Brittney shows some of the signs of Post-natal Depression, which can lead to some pretty bad ends if not addressed.

I have to admit I sometimes need a reminder that the many people I hear or read about on the news who annoy me are not behaving foolishly JUST to annoy me. They're real people, and sometimes maybe they are making stupid choices because they can't figure out how to make better ones. It's not always a good excuse, but it IS a reason.

Co-incidentally, I had saved this cartoon from my comics feeds today!



Maybe herds of these ladies are just what our society needs!

Whew!

I did (most of) a long overdue project today, to get off on a good foot for 2008. Back in September when I was switching over from my old computer, I had trouble synching up email programs. So today I finally got around to bringing up the old Thunderbird, going through what had been in storage there, and transferring it over to the Eudora I'm using now.

In doing so, I am sad to have to admit I...discarded a lot of things I had fully intended, once upon a time, to answer or comment back to. I had dozens and dozens of funny, warm, cogent, friendly emails and comments that were more than worthy of a response. But here I am, admitting I just can't do it all. So if you ever wrote something to me and wondered why you heard nothing back...it wasn't you. It was me being a slacker.

I will try to do better with the 167 things now currently in my current inbox.

Okay, as promised, pics of the Burning of 2007 Evilness.

I liked the expected special effect of the strings of light seeming to curl away out of the fire. And if you look close, you can see some places I wrote "2007" with the marker.



Here's a bigger one showing the tower of fire at full force!



In conclusion, something I ran across in my mail sorting I thought was a great thing to post for the New Year.

Take this quiz: mentally

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name ten Olympic gold medalists.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Easier? The lesson?

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.