April 2007 Archives

The Boy and his friends made this for a school project. Had to seriously compress it to upload it to youtube so the quality is not quite as good as it should be but the intent is still there. I suppose if they were in a school near Chicago they would all be in jail now. Oh yeah, that's only if you insult the teacher and her cookies.

There I was giving Eric a hard time about using up all of his bandwidth for the month and I get home and can't get to my own site as I have reached my bandwidth limit. Damn that sucks.

They have fixed it for me within minutes of arriving home, but it is certainly humbling to look like a dumb ass.

I managed to get to bed about 11:30 last night. Finally got everyone staffed but damn I am not particularly happy with that one guy. I will only have him for a few days anyway so I will just let it go I guess. He's the manager that is quitting. The are supposed to be putting a lady in there who just finished training recently, which will be OK. The one guy that has been up there the longest, I trained a couple of years ago, so he knows what my standards are, and the other guy I finished training him and although I am apparently going to get to spend some quality time with him, he can be taught as well.

It sounds like all of the other districts and divisions must be off today, as I have to get sales and staffing for six stores this morning and make sure they are all OK. It's going to be a long day.

...for Damage, Inc.

Damage, Inc.

Dealing out the agony within
charging hard and no one's gonna give in
Living on your knees, conformity
or dying on your feet for honesty
Inbred, our bodies work as one
bloody, but never cry submission
Following our instinct not a trend
go against the grain until the end


Blood will follow blood
Dying time is here
Damage Incorporated


Slamming through, don't fuck with razorback
stepping out? You'll feel our hell on your back
Blood follows blood and we make sure
life ain't for you and we're the cure
Honesty is my only excuse
Try to rob us of it, but it's no use
Steamroller action crushing all
Victim is your name and you shall fall

Blood will follow blood
Dying time is here
Damage Incorporated

We chew and spit you out
we laugh, you scream and shout
All flee, with fear you run
You'll know just where we come from

Damage Incorporated

GO!

Damage jackals ripping right through you
sight and smell of this, it gets me goin'
Know just how to get just what we want
tear it from your soul in nightly hunt
Fuck it all and fucking no regrets
Never happy endings on these dark sets
All's fair for Damage Inc. you see
step a little closer if you please

Blood will follow blood
Dying time is here
Damage Incorporated

Damn.

I agreed to get staffing and daily numbers from my new district this past Thursday afternoon to take some of the pressure off of my fairly new division manager. Everything has been pretty much OK through the weekend, at least up until this evening.

I was fine at my store, and two of my new managers called me with their sales and staffing. I still haven't heard from the other manager yet. From what I was told at nine 'o clock shift change they were short a waitress and nobody was there cooking. The waitress I spoke with said that if the cook had not showed up ten they were supposed to call me.

What the fuck?

I'm not even the district until Thursday. Christ, I have to be at my store in the morning to cook the day shift.

Apparently the cook works another job and isn't scheduled until ten but I just found this out. The problem is that nobody else is that the dumbass schedules his second shift cook to leave at nine, and THEY LEAVE. I finally arranged for somebody to go in if this guy didn't show up, but he did, and then the waitress calls me and lets me know that both waitresses are scheduled to get off at 2AM and they are leaving as scheduled. Doh! Got that one covered to, but this dude that can't be bothered to call and get his sales and staffing at nine PM? That shit's going to get fixed first thing tomorrow.

...and that is a lot of folks at the stores are going to be doing some serious hating on me next week. Not a fucking one was in uniform in either of the two stores that I went into today and I am sure that the other one is just as bad. The first one I stopped at there were three waitresses and a cook. The cook was in uniform, except she had her apron folded down in some sort of halfway thing leaving her nasty assed shirt showing. None of the waitresses had hats or head scarves on, which is a health department violation and one of them had a ring through her fucking lip. Oh hell no. This is going to be interesting.

The other one I stopped in at had two waitresses and a cook. They were all sitting on their asses at the low counter with no hats or aprons when I came in and one of them didn't have a name tag. Both of the stores were shitholes as far as cleanliness goes. I think I will be hiring several new employees over the next few weeks.

...and it damn sure isn't because of summer. I did get confirmation of my promotion from my AVP today and found out who my replacement is going to be. One of the district managers from Alabama who has been there twice and stepped back twice will be taking my store. This is the guy that was trying to get transferred back to Georgia to that district. They told him that he could either honor his commitment and stay in his current position, or take a demotion. He does have the potential to be a great operator, and is much better with the customers than I am, but he doesn't have the stability and commitment to stay in the job long term. I think that they are looking to fire him anyway, but that's just my own opinion anyway.

I spent a couple of hours with one of my new managers this afternoon and all I can really say is that I have my work cut out for me. It looks like at least a month or two of twelve hour days are ahead of me and it is probably going to take me six months to get all three stores right. What a PITA. Then I find out that we probably have an outing coming up in May or June, which means spending the weekend at some bullshit retreat with all of the upper management. Woopee. That should be interesting.

I haven't had a chance to go to a baseball game in a few years now and it would be really nice if the wife and I could have a night out to go see the Braves play before the season is over. I usually try to get tickets through a guy that works in our corporate office but have also found that I can usually get a good deal on baseball tickets online as well. It's faster and definitely much more convenient, and even if they are a couple dollars more expensive, the time savings makes it that much more worth it.

I love going to New Orleans. I have been many times since I was about sixteen in the company of friends on short road trips, to conventions, and this last time in the Spring of 2005 with the wife. I have already posted these photos at least once, but I love the architecture in the French Quarter and wanted to revisit. I took these the last time we were there.

This one was taken on my phone at the Court of Two Sisters.

This is the two of us in Jackson Square.

I was just thinking the other day about how good the Queensryche concert was last year when the wife and I took the Boy. We had a blast. That is the last concert I have been to and I am itching to get some concert tickets again and go see some live music even if it is a small show in a bar. There's nothing to compare to a band that puts on a great show. You can tell almost immediately if they are a concert band, or if they are just putting out albums and touring to support their last bit of sales.

Tuesday is my last day in my current store. Six months there. I am taking Wednesday off and picking up three stores in my general area on Thursday. It should be interesting. Out of the three managers that I will be getting, one has already given his notice and Tuesday is his last day, one of the other two is very shaky and in need of a lot of direction and tutelage and the other knows what he is going and will be the only thing keeping me from pulling out all of my hair.

The meeting didn't last quite as long as I thought it would so I did manage to get home for awhile. The wife is napping and I have to be back at work around sevenish so I thought I would relax for awhile and post a couple of things.

My current boss is f'ing pissed off. Not necessarily at me, but they may be leaving her without a manager as well, so she is fit to be tied. It should be a fun four days with her before I check out of the store.

This is pretty cool. Engtech has come up with a program that you can use and will automatically add to your favorites anyone that has favorited any of your blogs. Since I have been trying to increase mine to where it shows up in the top 100 favorited list, that is a sweet deal, as being on the list helps to bring in more traffic. You can find the program and engtech's blog here.

This has been cross-posted at Shadowscope, theapp.net, and Miles Business Blog.

It's time to go...

I just wanna say no...

didn't want to wake today...

it all seems so fucking gay...

if I hear one more thing about the race.

i'm going to punch you in the face...

Beautiful. It'll sell millions. Perhaps you would like me to write your product jingle.

How about some of these after dinner snacks. Yummy. Just a wafer thing mint.

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The video sucks and is laggy, but it's one of my favorite songs.

And here's the song itself. http://www.shadowscope.com/files/01_-_21st_century_schizoid_man_including_mirrors.mp3

I like Deep Purple but King Crimson, ELP, and Yes were my introduction to psychedelia. Here's Emerson, Lake and Palmer doing Knife Edge circa 1970.

While not something that I listen to everyday, I have almost everything ELP has ever released including stuff from the last two decades where they have seen a few reunions and partial reunions. None of it is as good as their early stuff, but I do enjoy listening to it occasionally.

It is officially race weekend. I talked a bit about it last night and unless you are a serious race fan or live in an area effected but the race it's hard to understand. People that live near the Atlanta raceway or any other track around the country understand and avoid having to get out and drive unless absolutely necessary. Something like 140,000 people will attend the race on Sunday and a large portion of them have been traveling from around the country all week in their motor homes and campers and setting up shop at the International Speedway.

The traffic on I-20 past my town (and my restaurant) is almost unbearable, and starting this morning they will all be stopping for gas, a break, and food. Of course we have saturated almost every exit between Atlanta and the state line now but at one point up until about ten years ago, we were the only game in town. Where there are now ten restaurants there used to be three and ten years ago you really KNEW it was race weekend. It was actually busier than Christmas week, which has traditionally been our busiest time of the year as a company.

I like being busy, but honestly they can keep this shit. It's too hard to double your staff just for a three day period. It's certainly not worth it to me or to any potential employees just to waste my time and money training them for a couple of days. I get paid off of employee retention, so I am only going to hire people that I am relatively sure that I am going to keep for quite some time.

...and these guys look it too, but damn I love them.

I constantly write about different vacations and places I would like to go. It's gotten to be sort of a habit and part of it is wishful thinking, but part of it is missing the time when I would travel a lot. I certainly haven't been everywhere in the US, but I have seen a pretty large chunk of it, and would like to go back.

One of the companies that allows you to purchase vacation packages is vacations.net. Right now they have packages available where you can save up to 50%. The biggest moneys saving offers that they have are all-inclusive resort packages.

If you get the chance to check out their web site, there is quite a bit of useful information over there including lots of pictures and virtual tours, information about local customs, and ratings from prior customers, which is always important to me.

Never one to follow a trend this is a good one.

Damn. I don't know why I am even posting this except that most of you will see it in the morning and blow that first cup of coffee. hehe.

This looks to be pretty cool. The Mixed Martial Arts League Total Fighting Alliance is sponsoring the broadcast of TFA's War on the Shore over the Internet for free. It's this Saturday from 6pm to 9pm Pacific time and is being held at the Santa Monica Civic Center. You can Visit TFA's Official Web site Here!

Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection (preferably broadband obviously) can watch, you just have to go Download the FREE video Player! You can also watch pre-match interviews right now until the broadcast.

NFT (Network Foundation Technologies) is partnering with the Mixed Martial Arts League to bring this to fight fans everywhere. They are starting to become a very big player in the realm of broadcasting large, live events to Internet audiences world-wide and this promises to be a pretty big show. I like watching martial arts matches much more than any sport and this should be a good one.

I stole the links from their site. Hopefully I won't be stuck at work Saturday night, but chances are I am going to miss this one.

Who is Bobby Pickett you ask? None other than the guy who sang the "Monster Mash" back in 1962 and kept on singing it on the way to the bank every Halloween since. Rest in Peace dude.

Damn. You people will watch anything as long as it's on a TV.

I just set up the extended entry script on here and needed a reason to test it out. What a cheap thrill.

This is the weekend. Tons of NASCAR fans are starting to converge on the raceway in Alabama. I started seeing mobile homes and trailers headed that way on Monday morning and the number has been increasing steadily all week. By tomorrow morning the influx will be in full flow and of course I will be getting hammered at work. Not drunk unfortunately, just hammered with business. It won't slow down until Monday and if the race is rained out and they have to run on Monday then I will stay busy until Tuesday.

Even though it meant a farther drive, that is one of the things I didn't miss about being off of I-20. Race weekend is almost as busy as Christmas for me at work, perhaps busier since it lasts longer.

Tomorrow I will cook most of the morning, do a waffle party for Pete's class from 2-3PM, then have a meeting from 3-6, and have to go back and cook from 6-?. The question mark means I don't have a fricking clue when I will get out of there. I really just don't have enough help to get through the weekend unfortunately, at least not cooks.

I'm sure I will get a bit of time at home between now and Monday and will get online for awhile when I wake up and before I go to bed. All of my associates are excited because it means more money for them, but I would be completely OK with not doing any business this weekend.

I didn't post quite as much yesterday as I normally would for a day off, I was extremely busy most of the day. I did spend the greater part of the morning doing the ads and whatnot, and managed a couple of posts, as well as trying to get my template fixed.

I spent a couple of hours in the yard as well. I planted several more Elephant Ear bulbs, a Dwarf Spruce, Confederate Jasmine, a Mandeville (sp?) Vine, four more bougainvillea and a couple of small trellis in the front, three hostas, a coffee plant, and I think that's it. I had to clean the pond pump as well. That pump is pretty darn strong and the filter pretty small, so I end up having to clean it every couple of days or it just won't let any water get through. I am considering hiding a large Home Depot bucket over there somehow, and submerging the pump in that to pull water out of the pond so that I don't have to fool with getting down in the pond to clean the filter. I will have to come up with a decent plan before I go to fooling with that stuff though.

Normally on Thursday's I have meetings, but I think that my division manager is having it tomorrow which is pretty damed stupid. This is race weekend and we are going to be extremely busy probably starting today as people travel to Talladega. I also have to do a waffle party for one of the local schools tomorrow afternoon as well.

As you can see, I have most of the template finished and working correctly. This afternoon when I get home I will mess with the fonts and get those right.

I got an email about the site a little while ago and have been checking the site out for the last little while. Although I don't use a Mac currently I have several friends that do and my brother does also. This may or may not be of interest to them.

Basically Mac Poker Online is a news site/blog that provides information about online casino games for Macintosh users. There are links to several available sites, saving you a bit of time searching for a site that you can use. Not even remotely poker related, I did find a cartoon of Bill Gates Vs. Steve Jobs that I haven't seen before that made me laugh for a few minutes.

There are several different areas of the site, including one that goes into the rules of Poker. While I have played extensively, this is a must read for folks that haven't but are interested in playing whether on or offline. Some of the links that I looked at were Pacific Poker which is currently a featured room, as well as Poker Stars.

Overall the site was pretty cool. The design is green, reminiscent of a card table and there aren't an over-abundance of advertisements which is always nice. There is quite a bit of "industry" related news, and while I am not big into card playing, they are well written and I found myself reading through them pretty thoroughly.

There is also an option to get the newsletter emailed to you as well, which is always a nice feature. Just make sure to list the domain on your non-spam list in your email client or it might get caught there.

One thing that I was not aware of (I told you I didn't do a lot of online gambling) is that you cannot use your paypal account to play with, and most sites actually ban US players because of our laws. There is at least one site over there that does though, so if I were to ever start playing at least I know now where to get my information.

This post has been sponsored by Mac Poker Online.

Just damn -If I could put a little copyright sign here I would :)

Pete's softball team is down to eight players now. Just the minimum to play. There were some issues earlier in the season with the coaching and several of the parents, us included, complained about it to the Mayor as well as the rec department. It wasn't even so much the coach as it was her family members that attended, although she could be quite sharp at times. She was good at what she does though. Apparently she won't be back coaching any teams in the foreseeable futre.

Pete hasn't been feeling very well lately. As a matter of fact she had to stay out of school Monday due to the fact that she felt so bad. Hopefully she is a bit better today.

Anyway, she went ahead and played last night, which was good because if she hadn't they would have had to forfeit the game. As it was they had their asses handed to them and lost 18-0. That is probably the worst game they have played in the last two years. Pete did manage to get a hit but was caught out before she made it to first. She is hitting better though, and I know that helps it to be a bit more enjoyable. Now if she could just learn to throw and catch a little better she would be kicking some serious butt.

The big thing is that she seems to be having more fun. We won't let her quit, once she decided she wanted to play she has to finish the season, but if she decides not to play fall ball or play next year that's OK.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but each of my posts going down the main page is progressively smaller and smaller. I am using tables, but I have my MTEntries stuff INSIDE each table, so it shouldn't be duplicating those. I may end of switching back to a purely CSS driven page after all. I am just not that good at coding it. It worked fine on my test site, but here it is starting to look extremely weird.

I guess I need to break out that CSS book and take a look at it or something. I have a couple of computers to look at today and some posting to do, as well as the fact that I want to go outside (imagine!) and work in the garden but maybe this evening I can fix it up. It only took me a couple of hours of fiddling to actually get the comment posting fixed, so maybe it won't take too long to get this right as well.

Since I am back at work from my last vacation of course all I can think about is the next one :)

One thing we have looked at is something that a good friend of mine did a few months ago. Her boyfriend works in Mexico, so he flew her and her kids down there and they all stayed in on of those Condo Hotels. They are actually pretty reasonable when you consider what you get. If you have the kind of money to spend it's much better than a timeshare and are usually managed well when you aren't staying in your suite.

I could see living in a few different condo hotels year round and just traveling to where ever the weather happened to be nicest at that time of year. Caribbean or Baja in the Winter, New York or Canada in the summer. The freedom would certainly be nice.

Most of the time I spend thinking and planning vacations in exotic places but once the kids are a bit older I would like to explore so other areas of the country as well. I have only been through the mid-west a few times, and that was usually on the way to the west coast, but there are some really beautiful places there. Branson Missouri is supposed to be the "Live Music Capital of the World" and that in itself is enough to get me thinking about going to check it out. The Ozarks are supposed to be really nice, and it would be kind of nice to spend some time during the summer in the mountains rather than sweltering at the beach someplace.

My wife and my son are Catholic although they are not practicing. Actually my son, although he was christened, has never been a practicing Catholic and doesn't believe in any kind of higher power. Her family is also Catholic, and most of the older members are very devout. One of the things that I never understood about the Catholic religion was the heavy use of rosaries and what they meant.

I do have a very good friend who went to seminary school who finally explained some of it to me, and he used to talk a lot about the mysticism involved in religious objects, and their use. Even though it's just not my thing I have always found it extremely interesting and I like to hear and read about it.

I had almost forgotten about this. Once I take that district promotion in a couple of weeks I need to go get some business cards printed up. Since I will have three stores it's not a simple matter of telling people thy can get in touch with me at my store, I need to be able to give them my email address and cell phone number. There are other ways to get the info to them, particularly if they use an electronic gadget, but not everyone does, and one of the simplest oldest ways is to make sure that I carry a few cards around with me just in case, particularly since a big portion of my job is going to also be recruiting new managers.

Two of the people that went to the blogmeet in Helen have their own yacht and ever since I talked to them about their trip to Belize last year I have been really interested in taking at least one vacation and just sailing somewhere in the Caribbean. I would be really cool to just ship the kids off to relatives one summer and take one of those yacht charters with the wife for a couple of weeks. Possibly in the next couple of years, but it probably won't happen this year.

Even though I am very much into gadgets and home theater, our setup is very "retro". My cabinet is this huge hulking behemoth of wood with doors on the top with the TV and a few IR inputs behind it, and doors on the bottom that hide my HTPC when it is hooked up, my receiver, DVD player, VCR, wireless router, and a few others. I really like the setup.

Along with the theater cabinet all of the furniture is heavy wood, big wooden tables, and lamps to match. The only thing that I really want in here that would complete the setup is a grandfather clock. Clocks are just one of those things that no matter how much technology changes and gets better (and in some cases worse) they pretty much stay the same. They do their job. Might as well have something attractive as well as functional.

Well, I was going to try and see if I could afford getting plane tickets for the wife to go to Kerrville TX next month, but at this point it doesn't look like she is going to make it. That kind of sucks, but it's just one of those things.

We have been making lists of some things that we need to get before we go on our next vacation though, and as much as I hate spending money we need to get a new set of luggage. I have always pretty much been fine with just using my old canvas carry on, but for any kind of traveling where we have to pack heavy, that just doesn't work well.

...for the day if not the entire week. This whole week has just been completely FUBAR and I feel like ranting and cursing so for those with delicate ears, don't bother reading the extended entry.

This has probably been the least amount I have posted in months. I worked for awhile on my template, moving the sidebar to the right hand side of the page, which was more of a pain in the ass than it would seem.

I've found that using the divs in CSS is screwy in some browsers. Most of the templates that I have used throw the sidebar to the bottom of the page in IE 6, or if the person is using a low screen resolution although the work fin in Firefox and IE 7. I set the new page up using hard-coded tables so that they would display the way I want them to. I'm not very good with tables so it took awhile.

I've also tweaked a bunch of the javascript that I use on the site thanks to the help of Eric. I have the comments pop-up working correctly, as well as a live preview of each comment and when you post the comment it throws you back to the listing. If you commented here when I was using the popups you know that once you hit "Post" it would take you to the individual entry page in a little 500x400 window which looked really stupid.

Anyway, I decided to just take the day off from blogging. I haven't even read or answered any comments. I may get the chance tomorrow afternoon, otherwise I am off Tuesday and Wednesday and will get around to everyone's comments and links then.

Pete hasn't been feeling very well today, so we just had kind of a low key evening with the kids as well.

Couldn't let the day go by without at least posting once, nothing major, just wanted to say hello before I went to bed.

Hello.

What do you know, I am #7 on the search for "Custom Hookahs". Perhaps I should go into business for myself. Yesterday WAS 4/20 after all. That's kind of what I figure all of the hullabaloo at the schools was about. Some stoner decided that he had enough and needed a bit of smoke so started some rumors to get school shut down for the day. It worked too, at least until the catch him.

You know, when I have a serious boo-boo and the normal bandage just won't stay on with all of the grease at work I always ask for Jesus Bandages. Just the thing when you get a hole in your hand or something like that.

* Photo courtesy of Archie McPhee toys, gifts and novelties.

They have some really cool stuff over there such as the Jesus action figure and the Last Supper lunchbox too. I want the Jesus action figure. I looked for Satan and couldn't find him, but they do have the Pope Innocent III action figure, that's almost as good as having Satan himself.

1. Make sure that you let the person that you are using KNOW that you are using them as a reference.

2. Tell them whether they are a personal reference or professional reference.

3. Don't give people's phone numbers out without performing step #1.

4. If you don''t follow steps 1-3 expect to not get a good reference or none at all.

5. Don't call and be rude to the person that didn't give you the reference when you don't get the job because you don't have the common fucking courtesy to follow steps 1-3.

This is a fictional example. In no way is it meant to resemble the stupid horses ass that might have worked for me fifteen years ago (It's been so long I can't remember) and woke me up fifteen minutes into my nap wanting to know if I would call them back and give them a good reference. Yeah, I see that shit happening.

I had originally planned on coming home and working on some posts as well as a couple of other things that I have going on, but today just plain kicked my ass. The wife is picking up all of the kids today so I think I am going to snooze for awhile. Maybe I can post later when I am a bit more coherent.

Even with going to bed early I still feel like stomped on dog poop and that's a pretty bad feeling. I can't be too mad at the guy. He is going to have to drive (or at least ride) immediately to Florida when I relieve him in an hour or so and I really appreciate the fact that he came in to work at all. I guess I might have had to call in myself, so that was pretty darn dependable of him.

I just hate having my schedule get screwy all of a sudden, particularly when my other cook has decided it is in his best interest to quit.

I can already tell it's going to be a long day. I am pretty much just writing aimlessly now so it's time to shower and get ready to go.

...but I managed to get out of bed nevertheless. Now if I can just wake up a bit I will be alright. Coffee. check. smokes. check.

I awoke to several text messages this morning, for a minute I thought that maybe work had called and I missed it. Three of them were from youtube sending confirmation for videos I had uploaded from my phone. Crap, that was three weeks ago. They must have a serious backlog of video processing or something. When I check out my account though, nothing shows up. That's pretty damned irritating.

The last one was from my cook that has the pending sexual harassment claims against him. He has decided to resign. Although that is a major pain in the ass right before race weekend it is for the best. They will still do the investigation though because if it is decided that he was doing that stuff, they will put him on a company-wide discretionary hire list. That doesn't mean that someone couldn't hire him, but his paycheck would tap the division manager directly if someone put him to work. It's a quick retardant to keep people from working that shouldn't be.

I'm feeling pretty blah tonight. Very tired. I ended up staying late last night when I went in for the shift change so didn't go to bed until after midnight.

It still looks like I will be picking up the three stores at some point soon but I have no idea when. I am just sort of playing it by ear right now and doing my job.

Tomorrow is going to be a pretty long day. I am slightly shorthanded due to one of my cooks being accused of sexual harassment. I've pulled him off of his shift and the only time he is going to be able to work for awhile is if I am there at least until the investigation. Even after that he may need to go somewhere else, I just don't think I have anyone on the night shift that will work with him should the company decide to keep him. That's a decision I pretty much have no control over right now.

My other night shift cook had his Aunt pass away today. He was calling to let me know, and that he would still be at work tonight but has to leave for Florida at five AM. I told him I appreciated it and am getting ready to go to bed. It takes me awhile to wake up so if I have to be there by 4:30 I need to get up by 3 or so. I'm pretty tired and boring tonight anyway so sleeping shouldn't be a problem.

Sorry about the lack of anything cool over the last two days. Maybe I will talk about the time I duct taped my children into a trash barrel and rolled them into traffic some other evening.

Valkyrie Angel brought this meme up in the comments to one of my other posts, I guess she is participating right now and is trying to get readers to participate at well, so I am recycling this post from March of this year since I am too lazy and it was so recent that nothing has changed.

Another book meme thanks to Jenn at Everyday Randomness. This one is even bigger than the sci-fi meme I did recently.

Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you've read.
Italicize the ones you want to read.
leave blank the ones that you aren't interested in.
Movies don't count.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I saw some news reports on this and have already signed a petition as well as sent letters to my congressmen but I received this email today and felt like it was important enough to post. Even if you don't listen to Internet radio, this is an important issue and you should head on over and do what you can. Thanks

Technorati : Copyright, Music, Pandora, Radio

But if you don't want to listen to people making fun of your Christianity don't click play. I just thought that they were so appropriate. I guess if I were a true Christian I wouldn't find them so funny, but they are SO true. There are several parts, I am going to torture you and embed them all.

This is part two (duh)

part three

part four

...but I still don't have a time line. I spoke with my Vice President this morning at length, and while the conversation sounded pretty positive you can never tell what's going to happen with them. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone with my company has lied to me.

Later on in the day one of the guys in Alabama that might have also taken over the district called me up for a reference and to congratulate me. I guess that my VP had also visited him today and told him that had I not been wanting the district they might have pulled him back over here, but they were putting me in it instead. Good damn deal. That's at least a $20k raise, possibly more once I have been there a few months.

They still have to fill my position and there are a couple of possibilities there, so it might be two days or two months, although they aren't going to leave it open too long, and thanks to some changes that my company made this past year the only way that they could feasibly fill the spot and NOT promote me would be with a transfer, a lateral move putting someone from a different area into the spot. Since I hold the senior position on their promotion list (I've turned down four districts so far in the last year) they HAVE to offer it to me first.

It does mean that at least right away, posting may be a bit lighter, but for me light posting means one paid post and three or four normal ones anyway :)

I will probably take some time to write on my days off next week and save some of them as drafts for a few of those 20 hour days when all I want to do when i get home is to pass out.

I will end up with the three stores in the Villa Rica area, including the one where they arrested that dude for filming people in the bathrooms. I guess I need to leave my cameras at home.

Here's what the new site design is going to look like once I finally get all of the bugs out. Let me know what you think.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pull a big old plug out and have some brain matter come out with it? Me either.

I am getting a new template ready for the site as I have been fairly unhappy with my design for quite some time. It is not 100% complete as it is from a normal web page template, and I am having to code it to work with my blog platform, but I would like some feedback if possible. It is currently located at http://www.shadowscope.com/gothtest/testindex.php. Don't leave any comments there as I have only gotten started on the main index page thus far, but any feedback would be appreciated.

One of my older posts that I had submitted over at Indie Bloggers, "Growing up With the Boob Tube" was approved over at Indie Bloggers. They must really be running dry to have my crap up. ;)

Actually it was one of those posts that I really thought was well done and well thought out. 99% of what I post is whatever crap happens to be flying through my head at that particular point during the day, but some of them I really make an attempt to entertain, inform, or at least make your head explode from the insanity of what I might be thinking about.

There are some pretty good writers that post over at Indie bloggers, so go check it out if you get the chance. I may start submitting some more cross-posted stuff if I have the time. It had been so long since I had anything approved I was starting to get a complex.

Technorati : TV

Back when I was nine or ten (before I knew any better) I used to like Barry Manilow. OK, so the secret's out now. I have just become a social pariah among my peers. Anyway, the shadowscope mom used to love Barry Manilow, so I got to listen to quite a bit of it and I liked him. I think at that point in my life he reminded me of Gene Wilder, who I loved as a comedian. I don't know why. I just did.

Mr Fabulous has a stunning re-write of Copacabana over at his site. In order to get the full hilarious effect of the song though, make sure that you listen to the audio portion at the end of the post. Oh, and go vote for him as funniest blogger at the Blogger's Choice awards (it's linked in the post).

Technorati : Barry Manilow

...Perugia?

One of the things that I really enjoy doing when I am writing some of my reviews are the posts about vacations in different places, particularly in foreign countries that I have not been able to visit. I was checking out hotelclub.net tonight because you know, that's what I do :) and I came across a listing for Discount Perugia Hotels.

Where is Perugia you say? It is the capital city in the region of Umbria which is in central Italy right near the Tiber river (or so Wiki tells me). Hey, and they have a chocolate festival in October. Italy and Germany in October. Sweet. Chocolate and Beer, two of my favorite food groups.

Anyway, they only have one listing for a five star hotel in Perugia but there are several four stars available such as the Castello Dell'Oscano Hotel Cenerente, which is probably more in my price range.

Check out this postcard from Perugia.

Looks like a really nice place to visit actually.

That one is the Fontana Maggiore which is at the center of Piazza IV Novembre. I was built as a monument to celebrate the success of the completion of the aqueduct which carried water into the main square back in 1277. Pretty darned cool hydraulic system seeing as how it was designed 730 years ago.

This is my Friday, thank goodness. I've worked about 60 hours over the last five days once you figure in the time I've also spent at every single shift change this week. I am not too particularly happy about that but it had to be done. Generally Sunday is my longest day of the week and when you add in the fact that I am also off tomorrow, I will be lucky if I only work 15 hours today.

I almost overslept, not getting up until five this morning (that's late for me). I was going to spend some time writing something worthwhile this morning, but why mess up a perfectly good first thing in the morning bitch-fest with legibility and things that make sense?

I will have a bit of time tomorrow so want to catch up with writing about that trip along with a few other items as well. Maybe I will get to sleep in the next couple of days.

I still haven't heard anything from my bosses about that district position coming open, but the new division manager is now aware that I want it, so I will just have to see how it goes this week. They may just transfer a guy back in who has been working in Alabama for the last couple of months. I lateral move means that they don't have to offer it to the next person in the list and certainly wouldn't be the first time I have seen them fill a position with a piece of crap, nor will it be the last.

I did finally break into the bottle of Maker's Mark yesterday that Zonker brought over a couple of weeks ago. Damn good stuff actually. Had myself a few sips and immediately napped. Damn good stuff.

That's about it for this morning. My brain is moving almost as slowly as my body today.

I've been having problems with my cell phone for about a year now. I'm on my third battery since I got the LG and it is starting to get real irritating. The last one would go dead after a couple of hours, but this one just shuts my phone off at inopportune moments and I don't realize it until several hours have gone by. Rather than dealing with Verizon this time I may just get a couple of extra batteries from the place where I got my last cordless phone battery. They have replacements cheaper than I can get them at Verizon, at least the last time I checked. I only have a few more months and I can get a new one anyway.

When we pulled out of Dallas the next morning we headed north into Oklahoma City and took I-40 west back into the panhandle and into New Mexico. We drove most of the day with just bathroom breaks and a couple of meals. We did get to Route 666 in western New Mexico that evening and had to stop and get our pictures taken under the highway sign. Since it was twilight and I had left my flash at home they are pretty shitty pictures. The only thing that shows up on one is the sign that says 666, and on the other my friend Chris' body is there, but his head is a blur.

Driving through the Rockies was wild. We hadn't had much sleep and quite a bit of the trip is a blur. We kept on driving through the night after that. At some point early the next morning we stopped at the Grand Canyon and slept for awhile in the car. We crossed the continental divide at some point either before or after our stop there. Except for a brief stay in Dallas we had driven two days straight. Once the sun came up we got out and looked around the Grand Canyon, took some pictures, and left.

After the Grand Canyon we drove straight to Las Vegas, or our only other overnight stay. We spent most of the afternoon and evening hanging out in Vegas. Since I wasn't 21 we got thrown out of Caesar's Palace :) and ended up hanging out at the Holiday Inn which in Vegas is still a casino. If I remember correctly (it's been 20+ years) it was some kind of circus theme, a little more family oriented than the rest.

Once again it is time to start getting ready for work. I think perhaps I will sit down this afternoon and try to remember the time-line better, because the entire trip at least out to Vegas is one big blur. It would help if I didn't type these right after I wake up. Even if I don't remember properly I will write more about the trip later. This is my Open Track-back post for the weekend of April 14th-16th.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Is It Just Me?, The Virtuous Republic, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, , Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, 123beta, Maggie's Notebook, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, , Jo's Cafe, Conservative Cat, Allie Is Wired, Faultline USA, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

This Post is Sponsored by Data Deposit Box.

I'm glad that I came across this because it's been a couple of months since I made a good backup of my computer. That's one of those no-brainers that a lot of people just don't seem to do as often as they should. Sometimes the things that are easiest to do are the hardest to do and backing up data is one if those things.

If you've ever had a system crash where you lost all of your data, you know what I am talking about. It sucks to lose everything that you've worked on for months. I'm sure for some people it would even be longer than that. There are several different choices when making backups. Now that I am running Vista it is even easier, but most people still run Windows XP or something older, or perhaps a Mac. Backing up data is not that easy, and restoring it is even harder. I don't trust anyone else to do it for me either. There are places, "Geek Squads", that you can take your computer and have them back up your entire computer, but they won't give any kind of guarantee that all of it is saved or even accessible for that matter.

Backing up over the Internet is one more option. Online backup is easier than you think. Usually you can get set up withing five minutes or so and it's pretty cheap. Generally speaking it's pretty cheap as well, about $2 per gig of data. That's particularly nice if all you are backing up is documents and really important stuff. That's generally what I do. The operating system and everything else I can restore from DVD and then my docs are kept in a separate backup as well.

I am getting ready to make a backup of my web site as well. I have most of my blog entries archived, at least up through the 1st of April but the mp3s and pictures are not. I should be able to save most of the site offline so that if there is a system crash I can get up and running again pretty easily.

If you don't make regular backups, you need to ask yourself what would happen if your hard drive were to die right now. What would you lose?

...with an aching in my heart.

I may have posted about driving to California at one point or another over the last few year, but I can't get online right now to do a search and don't care anyway. If I have I am going to rehash the subject. Writing about ex-girlfriends got me to thinking about my last trip out there and how surreal it was.

My friend Chris who passed away last year was home on leave and decided that he wanted to drive back home but didn't want to try it by himself so I agreed to go with him and then would fly back. The fact that I didn't have a driver's license didn't particularly bother me. He did quite a bit of the driving due to that and I would take over when he was just too damn tired to drive and he would crawl out the little window into the back of the pickup and sleep for awhile.

We left on Sunday morning at about eight and went straight out I-20 west to Dallas, which was out first stop. The longest part of the drive was damn Louisiana. Nothing but damn swamps all around, but it was cool as well. I don't remember how long it took to get there, but it was dark. We ended up getting a hotel room there and crashed for the night. Nothing exciting really happened there, but I do remember that they had a radio station that played nothing but Heavy Metal. That was cool as hell and nothing like I experienced here in Redneckville. I wasn't even aware that there were radio stations that played nothing but the music that I listened to.

I didn't realize quite how late it was, I have to get ready for work, but will post more about the trip this afternoon when I get home. Sucks being left in the dark, don't it?

I had this all typed up and ready to post but never did, so here it is.

That was weird. My site's been down for I don't know how long. I guess that was my Friday the 13th surprise. It did give me some time to take care of a few other items though. I have one more girl to do taxes for once I finish this. I guess she decided at the last minute it was time to file. Whatever.

One of the three district manager with my company out here is leaving. Monday is apparently going to be his last day. I just found out about it today. Since I've turned down the last few promotions that they offered me I don't know if they are even going to talk to me about this one, but if they do I think I am going to take it. It's three stores that are local to me. I think the farthest one is about nine miles from my house. It means more hours but it's also about a $20-30k increase in pay. That would help out nicely right now. I don't think they'll make any changes for a couple of weeks anyway as my boss goes on vacation Tuesday. They aren't going to leave a store without a manager and a district.

If the site happens to go down again, it is on the same server as my other two sites, so I generally post on a myspace blog. I think I have maybe posted about 15 times there in a year. It's nothing particularly spectacular but I set it up initially to keep an eye on my son. If you have a myspace account stop by and say hello. My main space is http://www.myspace.com/shadowscope.

One of the things that I was so upset about when I got home was the fact that due to my high food cost that I just can't seem to get down lately I have to go in for drawer change every night. Those of you who have done anything in the restaurant business know what I am talking about.

The reason I dislike it so much is that I get up between four thirty and five every morning, and go work for eight to twelve hours. Then I come home and am busy for several more. I am tired and ready to be a vegetable by nine o' clock or so but now I have to go back out and be in my store from eight thirty until nine thirty or ten and go back home. Just to be a presence. It is not necessarily a waste of time, but it is still a pain.

When I started with the company twenty years ago, that is what it was like. We worked six days a week and got an off day or two if we had the store covered, the money sucked, we had to be in for every single drawer change every single night. The burnout rate in restaurants was awful. I know maybe a handful of people that are still with the company. The last few years we seem to be heading toward a bit of an easier time. Managers are guaranteed two days off every week, although we still work six and then have two off so that we get an occasional weekend. I get three vacations a year, one of which is ten days. The money certainly isn't terrible, above average for college graduates, of which I am not one, and supposedly the support from upper management has gotten better. That's kind of a hit and miss proposition, it just depends on who you are working for.

This drawer change every night stuff seems like a return to the bad old days to me. I will do it, because I was told to, but I can almost guarantee that maybe three of us out of ten are actually doing it and there won't be any repercussions against the ones who aren't. That's one of the bad things that has happened with changes in the business world. They are so scared to lose managers and keep retention levels high that when someone is actually doing a piss poor job nothing is done. It might take years before they are fired.

I received a call earlier this afternoon from my Internet provider. Automated of course, but cool nonetheless. Charter will be doing maintenance in my area from midnight until six AM tomorrow morning, so if you email or post a comment it is very unlikely that I will respond until tomorrow evening particularly since Thursday is my meeting day and I might not get home until late.

I was tagged for this meme several days ago and just had several other things that needed doing, and then once I started writing completely skipped it. Vicezilla tagged me with this earlier in the week and I apologize for being remiss on getting it posted but here it is.

The premise of the "Gotta Get Goals" meme is to post 5-10 of your most over-the-top goals that you want to accomplish before leaving the earth. I'm not tagging anyone with this, but if you want to participate, just send me a trackback or link to my post.

As Vicezilla did, when I first started writing this I thought it would be easy but it's not. For the last twenty years I have basically lived, or rather, made my living for my children as I will for the next twenty or so and as a result some of my goals are very selfish.

1. I want to take five or ten years and just travel the world. Heck, I could take ten years just to travel to all of the places that I have been or want to go in the U.S. I want to go to Hawaii and Scotland. I want to go check out Europe before it is overtaken entirely by the Middle Eastern societies. Europeans already dislike Americans anyway and it's not going to get any better. I want to go to Tahiti and Australia. I want to see Japan. I even want to go hang out in the Great White North and have some brews with Bob and Doug, eh.

2. I don't want to be filthy stinking rich, although that would be nice. I would like to not ever have to worry about finances or what I am spending this week and how it's going to effect paying my bills next month. I suppose though if I were filthy stinking rich that would help along #1.

3. I want to be a writer. A REAL writer. I consider my brother a writer but I don't know if I have the stick-with-it or even the ability to accomplish this. I really admire some of the bloggers that I read that just sock 'em dead with their posts. I read them and think "damn, I wish I could do that".

4. I want to quit smoking. This is at times much more attainable than the other ones and at the same time just as far-fetched. I want to be able to run around and play with my children's children's children. My wife's parents are both dead partially as a result of smoking and my father is the first male on his side of the family to live past 50 and I figure that is only because of the advances in medicine and awareness that we have made over the last 50 years.

5. I want to have a huge honking penis...Fucking Ron Jeremy huge...So that I can stand there and go Aaarrgghh like a pirate over my victim...Actually I couldn't think of anything else but the mood around here has gotten much to somber and I had to lighten it up a bit. No, really. I'm fine with my teeny tiny white man penis...

...most of the time.

....no really.

I don't know if he has posted this on his site yet or not but I assume so. Just got this email over at MySpace from Charles...

Sounds Like a pretty cool deal. Go check it out.

I received my proofs from Wallhogs via email today. They look like they are going to kick ass. I think once I have approved them (I have already) they print them out and it takes about three days or so. I guess if I went over there and looked I could tell for sure, but that sounds right.

The original post I did is down the page a bit, here they are with the background removed. I have done that stuff in Photoshop before and it is extremely tedious to get right. This is going to be pretty cool.

I think I am going to stick them on the bathroom wall so I can think about them while I am taking a dump.

Technorati : Wallhogs

Amy Jo over at The Bellclapper's Garden is asking everyone to share what their favorite book when they were a kid or teenager. Pretty cool deal.

I have been reading since I was about four. By the time I was in the first grade I had already gotten well into the Hardy Boys series of books. Even though I now have many favorites that would come before them, I would have to say that any of them would be my all time favorite. I read them all probably fifteen times as a kid. When I moved out of the house as a teenager my parents traded them in at the trade-a-book place that used to be in Doraville and I really regretted losing them, so a few years back they somehow found most or all of them and gave the series to me for Christmas one year. My children don't seem to enjoy them as much as I did, but they are also not quite as voracious readers as I was either.

My nine year old daughter was reading one of them the other day though, and I was very pleased to see her enjoying a book that is over 50 years old as much as I did.

I am not tagging anyone in this meme, if you want to participate in it that is cool. Just link to the main page of the site here and leave me a comment that you have participated and give us the link to come visit and I will also link to you from the body of the post.

Christine has her post up now.

Michelle has also joined in.

...I was actually able to get some last night. I went to bed shortly after nine PM and didn't get up until about 4:30. Heck, that's more sleep than I have managed to get in the last couple of weeks at one shot. I may actually have to try that again tonight. I have been just exhausted every day and that is part of it.

I get busy doing stuff in the evening and forget that I need to hit the sack at a decent time. There need to be several more hours added in to each day just so that I can finish.

I was hoping to possibly get that big $1k opp this morning, but such is the luck. Time to get ready for work.

...as opposed to the ones that just grab a wad like myself.

Technorati : Shit Blogging

I've finished that girls taxes and am cooking dinner. Before opening up those PCs I needed a quick break. I actually posted this last year, today but it was semi-funny so here it is again.

I have to poop.

Smile for the camera.

Get off me, I'll do it myself.

This is your first time...right?

You're almost as good as my ex.

When is this supposed to feel good?

I thought YOU had the keys to the handcuffs!

I was so horny tonight i would have brought a sheep home.

Keep it down, my mother is a light sleeper.

Hey! My friends were right! You ARE good.

I'm starting to sober up and you're getting ugly.

But everybody looks funny naked!

Do I have to pay for this?

No, you're too fat to be on top. You'd kill me!

Actually, your sister likes it like this.

What's your name again?

Hold on, let me change the channel.

It's nice being in bed with someone i don't have to inflate.

Uhhh...I think the condom broke 10 minutes ago.

Remember the Six Million Dollar Man? I loved that show when I was a kid. My friends and I as well as my brother would act like we were the Bionic Man all the time. Apparently there is a sci-fi convention related to the Six Million Dollar Man and it's spin-off, The Bionic Woman. For the Bionicon 2.0 Official Website Click Here. If it were being held in Atlanta I might even be tempted to attend. It sounds pretty cool.

It's being billed as a Science Fiction Celebrity & Autograph Convention and is taking place June 29th - July 1st this year and apparently is the second one. I didn't even realize that the had had one previously. That's what I get for not paying attention. It is being held in Los Angeles at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel & Convention Center and tickets range from $20 - $60. That's not too bad. It's been a few years since I have attended a sci-fi convention but it's about comparable.

Might be a good place for some geeky bloggers to get together and have some brews as well. Just sayin'.

Some of the confirmed actors and stars that were involved in The Six Million Dollar Man and other sci-fi endeavors are Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks, Gary Lockwood, Kenneth Johnson and Malachi Throne.

Technorati : Bionic Woman, Bionicon, Sci-Fi, Six Million Dollar Man

I found this somewhat interesting. I occasionally track my traffic (although not as much as those guys at iTalktoomuch think) and found this stuff out tonight.

I am #1 in searches for the blogger's choice Awards right now and #3 for Youtube Porn. I am also #14 on Yahoo for Watch Deleted Youtube Videos. So what's it all mean? Not a damn thing. I just found it interesting. Unless you are into SEO and rankings and all of that junk none of it means anything. It does to me obviously because I have been making a little bit of money off of the site, so getting hits from Google on some of my older posts is a good deal. I have also found that occasionally I get a new reader or two as well, which is particularly nice.

Technorati : Blogger's Choice Awards, Google, Pornotube, SEO

...for at least another 43 minutes anyway. Thanks to that online Porn Star Chickie Carmarthen I found a new site to start visiting. It's called "Emails from Jesus" and it's pretty damned funny. You can also email Satan if you have pertinent questions such as whether pissing on your feet gets rid of athletes foot or not.

...not really, but I just realized that I had managed to post three out of the last four entries that could be construed as being offensive to Christians, Gays, and Turks.

Vewwwy intewesting...

Actually most of the I did yesterday before I even left for work because I knew today was going to be a long day. I wonder what was up with me yesterday.

For my next trick I am going to try and piss off Republicans, Buddhists, and Democritters...

That should really improve my reader demographics...or at least my hate mail.

Just a quickie before I leave for work.

...and my favorite so far. I am so going to hell for this one.

Technorati : Easter

The Addams Family (make sure that you listen to this while you read the post).

I have a member of the Addams Family working for me, and the entire family hangs out in my restaurant. I suppose with all of the build-up I should elaborate a bit.

I have this one seventeen year old girl that has been working for me, oh..about six months or so. She works the graveyard shift. Her entire family has always reminded me of the Beverly Hillbillies sans money. Serious trailer trash.

A couple of days after I came off my vacation this girls has brought some pictures with her and brings them back to me in the office during shift change. She's cooing over them, hands me one and says "Isn't she beautiful?"

Hesitantly I took a look. There is this chick holding a baby. The baby looks like someone beat it with a fucking stick. Seriously. Being the sensitive guy I am and not wanting to repeat my thoughts out loud for fear of losing my job I replied "yep, all babies are beautiful in their own way". Personally I thought that was a wonderfully diplomatic answer. What the fuck do you say when it looks like the baby you are holding looks worse than an opossum that's been run over by a tractor trailer?

Out of her sweet little retard mouth comes the punch line "She's dead".

Shit, what do I say now? I just held my tongue.

Long story short, apparently this girls aunt was seven months pregnant. Her husband beats her in the stomach causing her to go into labor. I don't know the specifics of whether she was DOA or if she lived for awhile in the hospital or not. I didn't ask. She goes on to tell me about the fact that her aunt had told her this but she was afraid to say anything and that her aunt was not going to report it either. Wouldn't the doctors be able to tell something like this?

Then she shows me the rest of the pictures of them cradling the baby, including one with the father holding the baby just fucking smiling. That's the one that makes me the angriest.

You know, it can cost thousands of dollars and time spent "training" just to adopt a child and these fucking inbred morons get to make them for free. What do they care, they can make another miserable little redneck any time they want?

Last night my waitress was sitting at the counter with her mother getting ready to come on the floor for her shift and her MOTHER starts showing me the pictures, acting the same way, as if this was the best thing since peanut butter.

One of my day shift waitresses called them the Addams Family today, thus the connection for me. It is just very surreal. Most times I am completely capable of minding my own business when it comes to child beating, wife beating, ice, crack, and all of the millions of other stupid assed things my employees do but I don't know if I am going to be able to this time.

Perhaps a little Alice Cooper would have been apropos but I think I will stick with the original mp3 I posted.

Thanks to Ms. Kat and this extremely short post I am now 5th on Google for Beef Curtains. What? I had never even heard the term until shortly before that post. One good thing has come out of it though. If it weren't for that particular search I never would have found Muffy's World of Vagina Euphemisms.

Technorati : Beef Curtains, Camel Toes

This is something that used to be very relevant in my life when I was in my teens and early twenties. As I get older it isn't quite as much of an influence as it used to be with one exception. Driving. I have read that reports have been done that show people tend to get more speeding tickets when they are listening to loud music. I haven't gotten a speeding ticket since 1994 but I tend to drive much faster when listening to certain bands. If I am listening to something such as AC/DC, Megadeth, or Metallica I generally crank it up and drive faster. I suppose at least that part of the report is true but who really cares except for people that think they need to be in control of every little facet of my life and want laws passed that won't let me listen to music over a certain volume in my car. Asshats.

Yeah.

Anyhow I was thinking specifically about this one show I went to with my friends. Back in my teens a bunch of us lived together and hung out together. Occasionally we would actually work but more often than not we just fucked around hunting for "strange" and getting in trouble. One of our favorite things to do next to going to shows was camping out for them. We would spend literally days camping out at the Omni and occasionally at the Turtles in Peachtree Battle or at the one by the Majestic. I think that was a Turtles anyway. If you are from Atlanta back in the seventies and eighties you know what turtles was.

Back in the eighties Heavy Metal was at it's peak in the south. Nowadays if a Metal band tours you are lucky to get them to come to Atlanta and if they do they usually play a club rather than a big venue. Not that clubs are a bad thing. Some of the best concerts I have been to have been in clubs. I've seen Megadeth, Queensryche, Joe Satriani, SOD, Motorhead, Savatage, and countless other bands in clubs and it is so much better being right there rather than stuck up in the nosebleeds or in the middle of a mosh pit with a bunch of dumbasses, particularly now that I am 40.

Anyway, I don't remember what show it was that got me to remembering. I think it was Iron Maiden on the Piece of Mind tour, or perhaps Powerslave. Anyway they headlined at the Omni and about twenty of us had seats within the first five rows. We were doing the headbanging thing and just really getting into it when some dumb redneck shoved one of my friends. As a matter of fact it was the guy that I wrote about recently that got busted for running the gambling place up in Flowery Branch earlier this year. The guy that got shoved, not the shover. I lost my shit. I must have jumped over about five people, grabbed the guy off his seat and started bashing his freaking head into the floor. About the time I realized what the hell I was doing I also realized that security was making their way toward me. Man, I ran like a bat out of hell.

I did manage to work my way back around the floor and got back into the front row, but what has always stuck with me was the fact that I lost it so easily. I don't normally go around bashing people's heads in, at least not unless it is truly warranted. Before you make the assumption that I was toasted or anything I was completely sober. I don't drink much anyway and at that point I had quit doing all forms of drugs about two years prior to that. Now, I certainly won't say that the music "influenced" me to beat the crap out of that guy, that is like the fools that say Judas Priest caused kids to commit suicide. It does however have an effect of facilitation. I figure that I was already pre-disposed to serve out an ass whipping and the music just helped get me in the mood.

When my brother came down this past weekend he left several albums for me to listen to, all by Lacuna Coil. To me they seem to be a cross between Evanescence and Queensryche, which is a good thing. The have two EPs and two full albums out, about 29 songs total. I have been listening pretty much non-stop for the last two days, at least when I am here at home. Here's their biography from the Karmacode home page. The Karmacode is their latest album, released in 2006.

Hopefully they won't mind my pulling that off the page, if they do I will be more than happy to take it down. They are playing the Tabernacle in Atlanta on Monday. I would love to go to the show but as that is my only day off next week I probably won't make it.

Technorati : Lacuna Coil

Sweet. Just came across this at Youtube. It's the new trailer for Die Hard 4, one of my favorites. Bruce Willis just kicks some serious ass.

Cross-Posted at theapp.net

Technorati : Bruce Willis, Die Hard

...and it didn't go too badly. I always hate going back to work after a nice vacation and this one was no different particularly after having been off for ten days. Everyone was excited that I was back in my store, probably more so than myself. My boss had everything up to date as far as the paperwork. I have worked for her before and I should know by now that she would have it complete, but you never know. I have worked for some complete asshats in my time there and always expect the worse.

I did get to meet the new division manager today and my visit went very well. I am still not quite sure why everyone hates him so much. I think that the biggest part of it is that most of the management team in my area has never worked for anyone but the guy who quit/got fired so they don't know what to make of him. I on the other hand expect change. I have worked for forty or fifty different people over the last twenty years and the only thing that stays the same in the restaurant business is constant change. Sometimes it only happens once or twice a year, but sometimes there are several changes all at once. Either way, he seemed OK. I have to go to the Thursday afternoon meeting with him tomorrow, so once that is over my tune might change.

Amazingly enough I managed to get out the door by 2:30 which is pretty much unheard of for me coming back in after so much time off. I am extremely happy about that. Once I am finished posting this I think I will lie my happy ass down and take a nap until the Wife and Kids gets home.

By the way, since I have been crapped on about it, which theme do you guys prefer? This one or the last one? Or does it matter. I have pretty much decided that rather than using one of the pre-made themes that I have been using I am going to make my own custom theme but it would be cool to know what you all like. As if it matters. Oh, I mean it matters a bunch. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

Time for this slacker to get a move on. I still have to shower and I need to pick up my cook this morning at 6 AM. Looks like I might be slightly late in getting him, but not too much. Hopefully I will be a bit more awake this afternoon. There are several things swimming around in this cesspool that I want to talk about, but not yet ready to put them down yet.

Somehow I have managed to drag myself up and out of bed this morning. The alarm went off about 40 minutes ago so I started coffee and lay back down on the couch until it finished. I just woke back up again. Luckily I set my alarm on the cell phone to wake me up or I would still be snoozing away. I hate going back in having no sleep like that. It makes for a very crappy first day back. I will have to make sure and take a short nap this afternoon when i get home.

Even as a teenager my sleeping habits sucked. Although I would have an occasional day where I would sleep until very late in the day I was normally the first out of bed among my friends. Once I get to sleep I am OK, but if I am awakened for any reason I have the hardest time getting back to sleep for an hour or two, occasionally even longer.

If it weren't for the fact that I have to go in a little early today I probably could sleep longer for a change. I can barely keep my eyes open this morning, which is one of the reasons I am working on this as an exercise to wake my mind up. Something along those lines anyway.

I haven't looked outside yet to see if it is still raining or not. It was storming pretty heavily when I was up earlier, but it sounds as if most of it has moved on past. Just checked the weather and we are supposed to have rain (duh) and turn into just a partly cloudy day later. That works for me. It means it won't be too hot. My plants all need the rain anyway. The flowers and other things are starting to look really nice and this will only help.

Ten days of vacation. Man. I do not want to go back to work today at all. I will probably get to meet the new division manager today. My boss is off so I am supposed to help out one of the new managers with closing out her paperwork. It is shaping up to be a long day already, but perhaps I can get out of there at a decent time.

The Wife and kids are out on Spring Break until next week. She has to go back on Monday and the kids go back Tuesday. Luckily I get next Monday off so will spend the day with them. Unluckily I only have one day off next week because it's a holiday.

Some of you will remember my post last week about the Chocolate Jesus:

I particularly enjoyed Mr Fabulous' comment in my entry:

No doubt. What I was not aware of at the time is what a damn fuss was just starting to go on about another Chocolate Jesus as reported by the Zero Boss as well as a shitload of other bloggers and news sites. Damn, I wish I had thought about this one first. I would melt down the Easter Bunny in a heartbeat to mold my own savory savior. I was back over at The Zero Boss this morning looking at the Sugar Rush and came across this site called the Chocolate Deities Oh my. A veritable godly amount of theobromine just for me.

Megadeth - Holy Wars:

Brother will kill brother
Spilling blood across the land
Killing for religion
Something I dont understand

Fools like me,who cross the sea
And come to foreign lands
Ask the sheep,for their beliefs
Do you kill on gods command?

A country thats divided
Surely will not stand
My past erased,no more disgrace
No foolish naive stand

The end is near,its crystal clear
Part of the master plan
Dont look now to israel
It might be your homelands

Holy wars

Upon my podium,as the
Know it all scholar
Down in my seat of judgement
Gavels bang,uphold the law
Up on my soapbox,a leader
Out to change the world
Down in my pulpit as the holler
Than-thou-could-be-messenger of god

Wage the war on organized crime
Sneak attacks,repel down the rocks
Behind the lines
Some people risk to employ me
Some people live to destroy me
Either way they die

They killed my wife,and my baby
With hopes to enslave me
First mistake...last mistake|
Paid by the alliance,to slay all the giants
Next mistake...no more mistakes|

Fill the cracks in,with judicial granite
Because I dont say it,dont mean I aint
Thinkin it
Next thing you know,theyll take my thoughts away
I know what I said,now I must scream of the overdose
And the lack of mercy killings

I am so tired of having slow loading times because of other people's crappy servers that I will spend some time this afternoon copying any images that are supposed to be hosted remotely to my server and host them here, with just the link to the other site, and then remove some of the items that are holding things up at load time. Some of the code I have to keep unfortunately, but it still should help out.

I can keep several of the items such as my blogroll on a separate page and then have them load via a lightbox so that you never leave the page. That should help things out a little bit anyway.

Just checking out some of the sites this morning and over at Blue Star Chronicles I came across this post: Rosie’s Flying a Flag and Backtracking. Apparently Rosie has a new post up at her blog backpedaling from her support for all of the 9/11 conspiracy wackos.

The whole post is up over at BSC and you can also check it out at Rosie O'Donnell's (sp?) site as well. Comments are closed. I suppose whe doesn't want any of her wacky readers calling her out for the chicken-shit she is. Now I certainly don't have anything against stepping back from a certain view and changing your tune when you are wrong. When something is wrong it's wrong but it this case it is obviously wrong from the start so if you are going to spout idiotic convictions you should at least stand by them.

I put together several of the posts for today first thing this morning, and scheduled posting seems to work OK except for the fact that when Movabletype publishes the post it doesn't bother re-indexing the site and so the post doesn't appear until I have done another one or someone comments on a previous post. Very weird.

Updated - OK, I just needed to add a cron job in my cpanel to run the periodic tasks. I've never done that so it was sort of weird.

...is now up to listen to over at Charles' site. If you haven't had the chance to listen to the podcast you really should go check it out. Here is a little blurb on it from Charles' site and a couple of reviews:

Luckily I have a copy (a couple actually) but it has been at least a couple of years since I read it, so listening to the podcast itself is like reading it again.

Technorati : Charles Sheehan-Miles, Prayer at Rumayla

I find it interesting that the older I get, the more "history" that I see. When I was young I used to sort of envy my great-grandmother. She was born in 1883, so had seen all kinds of changes in her life. Things coming into common usage. Automobiles. Airplanes. Telephones. Televisions. Great wars. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam among others.

What got me thinking about it, was that I came across a short post that I put up on April 2nd, 2005. Pope John Paul II had died. The post itself was nothing major or ground shaking, just a quick observation that a religious leader had passed away. My wife's family is Catholic so it means a bit more to them than it does to me. The Pope is just another guy to me. Yeah, one with influence over millions of people world-wide in many different countries, but just another guy. The Pope has a lot less influence over politics and other things than he used to though. I think that a lot of people have become jaded about organised religion. Not nessecarily God or anything, but religion itself.

My personal opinion is that it's all a crock of shit anyway, but that's my opinion and we all know about opinions. Not only that but I would never deign to force my opinions on anybody else. My daughter for instance, loves to go to church, loves Jesus and all that other stuff that goes along with it. When she talks about it you can just about see my son's eyes bug out of his head because he has a lot of the same beliefs as I do but he has a much harder time minding his own business and holding his tongue.

Oh yeah, I was talking about history, not religion. I've seen eight presidencies since I was born. Some good, some bad, some laughable. I have seen the public's respect for the office slowly erode away, particularly over the last 15 years. No longer is it President Bush. Now it is Mr Bush or Mr Clinton. By god, whether you like them or not, they are the President of the United States and the office needs to be shown respect whether the men that hold it respect it or not. The mainstream media is guilty of it as are both sides of the political equation. That just depends on who is holding office at the time as to who shows the least amount of respect.

I have also seen eight Georgia Governors as well. Although I have visited many states I have always lived in Georgia and love it here. I have seen many changes as well. The area north of Atlanta where I grew up has changed immensely. I grew up in the Sandy Springs and Roswell area and when I was a kid there were all kinds of dirt roads and "country" areas. You would be hard put to find a dirt road in the area now.

I had some other stuff that I wanted to add, but I have kind of lost my train of though, thus the Part 1 in the title. Maybe I will come back to it later.


Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Mark My Words, third world county, stikNstein... has no mercy, basil's blog, DragonLady's World, Pirate's Cove, The Bullwinkle Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and LaTogaStrappata®, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Since the actions that I took concerning trackback and comment spam didn't work, I am using a plugin called Spam Firewall to curb the spam load here. Actually the comments and captchas worked just fine, but I got too many complaints from people.

Renaming the trackback script worked for all of about 24 hours before it was back to business as usual.

I don't know how well Spam Firewall is going to work with trackbacks and the open trackback alliance, so if there are any problems, please let me know. In theory it should be just fine, I know it does what it is supposed to but I am concerned that it will block legitimate trackbacks as well.

I am also using a plugin called Blog Janitor (how fitting after the last post) to close all comments and track-backs on entries that are over 45 days old. I still get the occasional comment on the Natalee Holloway posts, but that is just not worth the hassle.