Am I the only one who’s got her knickers in a twist about this weekend? I just re-read all the Harry Potters in anticipation of the release of book 5 on Saturday. Amazon had a deal where you could order it before June 17 and they will have it at your door on Saturday. Meanwhile I’ve found a couple of spoilers, the most important of which is Dudley Dursley gets the dementor’s kiss. (highlight to read) Boggle!
I sent the picture of the mystery bug to Dr. John A. Jackman, a professor of Entomology at Texas A&M. He emailed me back today to say:
That is an adult male of a glow-worm. The family is Phengodidae and the genus is Phengodes.
The females are wingless, luminescent and look like larvae rather than a beetle.
The larvae are predators on other arthropods.
Thank goodness that’s cleared up! Here’s another picture of one.
I’m in a very quiet mood. The sort of mood that’s masking a very bitchy mood. Where I know that if I’m not quiet, I will end up being mean. The problem is that with 2 kids and a husband, it’s pretty impossible to be as quiet as I would like to be. If I lived alone, this weekend would be one where I would lock myself in the house, unplug the phones, and read books for 2 days, perhaps remembering to eat some chocolate occasionally. And sleep for 14 hours at a time.
Instead I have to corral kids and pets (the gd dog ate all the bread again) and husband and keep an iron grip on my hormonal rage tight enough so that I don’t transfigure into a raging hairy red-eyed slobbering spitting beast when I’m asked, for the 30th time that day, why I’m so quiet and what the matter is.
Sometimes I realize what it is that makes people put their fists through the wall. The scary part is that it’s hard to control. It’s not like I can stop the hormone rush, and the hormones make me feel like I’m… not me. Normally I’m the kind of person who fusses at other people for making mountains out of molehills. Life’s too damned short. I hate feeling like this. My stomach hurts. Just a couple more days…
Someone – anyone – please help me identify what kind of bug THIS is, because it’s seriously freaking me out!
Check out this recent FARK.com Photoshop contest, featuring the Pope. Some of my favorites are TV and movie references:
– Star Wars
– The Prisoner
– Ferris Bueller
– Saturday Night Live
We have an 18 month old and a 3 year old, so it’s pretty much a given that we watch Noggin all day long. My kids watch entirely too much television, and they eat crappy food. Yes, I feel guilty, but there’s only so much you can do, right? Right??
Anyway, there’s this show on Noggin called Oswald about a giant octopus. Oswald is voiced by Fred Savage, former Wonder Years star (his friend, the dog, is named Weenie which I find unaccountably funny and insist on calling it “Winnie”). His penguin friend is voiced by David L. Lander, formerly known as Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley.
Then we’ve got Clifford the Big Red Dog, starring John Ritter. Neil Morrissey (Bob the Builder) from Men Behaving Badly. Is this where old TV stars are put out to pasture?
By the way, there’s something that’s always bothered me about Pulp Fiction. At the end, when Jules is reciting the verse from Ezekiel to Ringo… how did Vincent know not to open fire?
Some dumbass came over and decided to spam my comments with a sales pitch for products she sells. People, rest assured that if you come shit on my blog, I will track you down and report you to your ISP. It’s fine to have a difference of opinion or whatever, but I refuse to have people advertise. Grow a brain. That is all.
I’ve been reluctant to post this since I’ve had bad experiences with coming out with it too soon in the past. It’s sort of like when you’re pregnant, and you don’t want to tell anyone until after your first trimester.
I started a diet last Friday. I have an awful lot of weight to lose. Back aroun 1995 or 1996, I took Depo-Provera shots for a year. Every time I got a shot, I gained 20 pounds. After the year was over, I weighed 80 pounds more. I’ve tried Jenny Craig (gained weight!), Atkins (stayed the same), Weigh of Life (stayed the same), plain old exercise (worked well until the whole wound thing happened), and never been really pleased with my results.
Now I’m drastically restricting my calories to 1000-1200 a day, with the help of a medication called Phentermine. It was one half of the dreaded Phen/Fen combo, but not the one that people had problems with. Basically, it’s like a high dose of Sudafed. Distressingly it has the same major side effect on me that Sudafed does – boy does my scalp itch and tingle.
Anyway, the decision came when I realized that I couldn’t get health insurance. I’m going to have to apply to the Texas Risk Pool, who isn’t allowed to turn anyone down. People with major medical problems are insured via the Risk Pool, like diabetes, AIDS, kids with Downs syndrome. Those people can’t change their medical conditions, but I can. So I decided to do whatever it takes to lose some weight.
The cutback on calories has been tough. I’m eating something like one third of what I’m used to, and I’m a little grouchy, a little spacey. I’m getting more used to it, and yesterday I went to the grocery story and bought a buttload of stuff that I can eat. I draw the line at skim milk or fat free mayo. Ok, so I did get Brummel and Brown spread (it’s not bad) and fat free sour cream (ditto), but I can’t deal with fat free mayo. I’d rather spend my calories on small portions of good food than big portions of crap. Yesterday I tried taking a can of tunafish, putting some teriyaki sauce on it, then eating it on a white cheddar rice cake. If you were thinking about doing this, I would advise against it. Cat food.
Anyway, I revived my other blog, Fitter. Happier. More Productive. and have been posting my calorie counts over there. I’ll be posting some other stuff to it and updating the layout, too. If you’re interested in following along with the diet stuff, that’s great, if not, that’s great too.
Oh, the weight loss for the last 7 days? 7 pounds. I’m sure a lot is water weight, but it’s nice to see results on the scale.
