Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I don’t usually post silly online quiz results, but this was a good one…

The Dante’s Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Test

The message board situation exists, I was one of the donors. The only acknowledgement has been a throwaway one-sentence line (like “I’m not being evicted now, thanks to some people here) in the midst of a longer post about other things.

I’m not asking anyone to bow down and lick my toes, but thank-you notes serve a dual purpose. First, they let the giver know that their gift arrived and was received, and isn’t just lost in the mail somewhere. Second, they express gratitude for the gift, which is just common etiquette.

This is the third (and probably last) time I’ve gotten “whatever”ed at when I tried to help someone out. It will affect my actions in the future. If it’s too much effort to drop a short email, then it’s too much effort for me to help you out. Since it seems to happen frequently, I feel that I just shouldn’t even bother.

For what it’s worth, every charitable donation I’ve made in the past year has netted one thank you note, and sometimes two.

See what Baghdad Bob has to say about Featureprice.

Here’s a situation. You’re in dire financial straits. You’re a regular on a message board. Others on the board learn of your problems and send you a bunch of money ($100 per person, in some cases). Do you:

a) Thank each contributor personally
b) Thank each contributor publically
c) Make a blanket thanks publically without mentioning individuals

Just wondering what the etiquette is.

Well, maybe I won’t redesign totally, but I’m cleaning up the sidebar and adding in some coolio tags I found on The Girlie Matters. I’m also pondering skinning the site, since I think I’ve pretty well got content and style separated other than the banner graphic, which I can just pop into the style sheet… can’t I?

However, I am thinking of changing the site name. When I first started this blog, it was primarily links to other sites, but it seems to have evolved into an online journal, so the name “Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time” as well as the description “A melange of freshly culled weird/fun/disturbing/silly links and personal mutterings.” are both slightly inaccurate. The problem is that I haven’t a clue what to change it to. Perhaps the old standby, “Addlepated”. Whatcha think?

I’ve been browsing other blogs and seeing some really pretty layouts. It’s inspiring me. I hate to be inspired, because it means work is coming. Don’t be surprised if there’s a redesign in this blog’s future.

We’re closing on the old house tomorrow, so we’ve been busy cleaning out the accumulated junk from the garage over there. There was stuff from storage, stuff from my grandmother’s house from when she died, stuff we threw in boxes and raced out there when the septic tank flooded the house, stuff we didn’t know what to do with, and so on and so forth. I found some interesting things like my mom’s charm bracelet, old scrapbooks and diaries, a $25 chip from The Mirage (you bet your bippy I’m using it as bet fodder for our upcoming trip), baskets and jars of change (ditto!)… we ended up filling up a huge dumpster with crap.

That was the first house I ever bought. We made two babies over there. I lived there for 4 years, through happy times and sad times. It’s the house we came home to live in after our honeymoon, and that my first daughter came home to from the hospital. Even though it’s been sitting vacant for nearly 2 years, the impending sale makes me a little misty.

But it will be nice to have the money!

This boils my blood.

One woman was considered a terrorist for breastfeeding her 4 month son on an airplane.

This woman was brought up on charges of child pornography and had her kids taken away from her after she dropped a roll of film off at an Eckerd’s for processing. One of the photos was of her 18 month old nursing.

What in the hell is wrong with people!? Holy shit, God gave women breasts in order to feed their children. Mary and Jesus did it. WWJD? He’d breastfeed, that’s what! Why do we have to put all this stupid-ass moral weight on exposing a boob, a specialized sweat gland, whose whole purpose is to provide nourishment to a baby. It’s not put there for men, nope, sorry guys. Go obsess about something else.

I’m so freaking pissed off about these stories. Even though C. weaned herself early, my La Leche League leader told me I’m always welcome there. I’m going to re-up my membership with them right now, and I suggest to any other person who thinks that women should be able to feed their kids what God (or nature or whatever you believe in) provides, I highly encourage you to sign up as well. La Leche League is the main page, the page for membership is here, and if you would just like to make a donation, do it here.