Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

On Thursday morning, as I was checking mail from my in-laws’ house, I got an end-of-auction win notice from eBay. The problem is that I didn’t bid on any $250 PSP. Around that time I started getting a bunch of email bounce notifications. Apparently someone hacked my eBay account, which I guess had the same password as my email account, and not only placed bids with one, but sent out thousands of spam mails with the other. Both were shut down. A frustrating situation once we got to the ranch and I only had access through my cell phone. Hopefully have it cleared up now. Happy Thanksgiving to you too, you stupid Nigerian spammer.

Apparently 8 years old is when the body issues start. Jo lost a bracelet off her arm tonight. She was already tired, and it was the last straw.

“I want bigger arms! I don’t like having little thin arms!”

It’s all downhill from here. 🙁

Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own.

Don’t forget to watch the video.

At about 42 seconds in, I swear that Ackbar says, “Oh, crap!.”

There’s an ad in one of my magazines about talking to your kids about drugs. One of the little bullet points is something like, “But I did drugs when I was a kid. How can I talk about not doing them? OMG hypocrite!”

The response mentions that drugs are so much worse now than when you, the reader, were a kid. Because now they have things like Ecstasy, crack, and methamphetamines.

Guess they missed the part where you could buy Ex legally in Dallas nightclubs in the 80s. Or the crack epidemic in the same time frame. Or that doctors used to prescribe methamphetamines for weight loss in the 50s.

And are they ignoring heroin, LSD, and other drugs?

Sure, talk to your kids about drugs. But if you’re running an ad campaign, don’t come up with silly disinformation and hyperbole when the facts can work just as well. Go into the legal “designer” drugs that some basement chemist formulated by ripping off a molecule, where absolutely nothing is known about the effects but kids take them because they’re legal, or because they’ve been substituted for something else. And die from them. There’s plenty to be concerned about with drugs without pulling stuff out of your ass.

One of my communication professors has recently published a book on the subject of Powerpoint presentations. Having had him for two classes, I can testify to the awesome-tude of his Powerpoints. Check him out if you get a chance. I’m not making a dime off this; just passing on something helpful:

Save Our Slides by Dr. Billy Earnest

Caroline has this thing about loose teeth. They totally squick her out and she’ll moan and complain about them, but refuses to pull them. When it gets to the point that they’re completely sideways and/or backwards in her mouth, I basically have to tie her up and pull the damned things.

Tonight was one of those nights. Two teachers from her school commented to Hub about how Caroline was grumbling about her tooth, so I coaxed her upstairs and pulled it out – minimum of fuss this time. Then I put the tooth on the kitchen counter and we headed out to dinner.

After we got home, one of the kids sat on a barstool and I heard something fall to the floor. Something little. No synapse fired in my brain to indicate that it might be a tooth. A little later, the puppy was under Hub’s table, apparently chewing on something. Hub couldn’t figure out what it was, and he said (and I quote), “Damn, dog, what the hell are you chewing on? Your own teeth?”

Guess whose teeth he was chewing on. Lucky for us, we found it and didn’t have to write a “Dog ate my homework” excuse for the Tooth Fairy.

A friend of mine messaged me tonight – he had this log of an instant messenger conversation from May of ’05:

me: I just had a dream about you
me: you had kidnapped my husband and were driving a hay ride around my neighborhood
me: and I couldn’t tell whether you were your right age or 12
me: you told me there were 6 keys to success in college
me: a sound mind
me: a strong heart
me: intestinal fortitude
me: something something
me: and one big old titty for either hand
me: then I woke up
me: and said WTF