You Get What You Pay For

Thanks to the modern marvel of spam, er, email, I am often approached with all types of interesting products that I had sadly been unaware were missing from my dreadfully hollow life and can now move a step closer to becoming a complete and whole person. This cut-n-pasteful I discovered today was hiding nervously in the corner hoping to be overlooked as it fidgeted shiftily from foot to foot.

The section I highlighted should speak for itself, but just in case your brain is mentally rewriting it so that it makes sense while you read (which is an extremely common phenomenon that you will likely do several times today without realizing it) it starts the sentence with an extra letter in the first word (why: obviously for this cheap pun, or so I hope) then proceeds to imply that it will do nothing to clean your clothes.   

You just really cannot make this stuff up, um, because I would hope that I am capable of creating something much better than this, and if not, then I might just have an untapped successful career in advertising.

(Afterthoughts)
All your base are belong to us...

That's Right…Live With It

Brain Slug

For those who do not have me on Facebook (don't worry, you are not alone, I axed 160+ people a few weeks ago) this is my current profile picture. I managed to get this snapshot of my brainslug before it exploded after making the mistake of attaching itself to my mind. I'm going to be picking slimy tentacle out of my hair for a week, and while that may be erotic in an anime/porn type way (nobody beats the Japanese for casually presented weirdness) it is quite less pleasant in real life.



(Afterthoughts)
A less pleasant reality does not necessarily make the fantasy itself pleasant by default, but anyways, I guess someone must like that sort of stuff otherwise it wouldn't be so damn popular, right?!?

MCMLXXIV

Three years shy of four decades ago a legend was birthied upon this great grand land of America. Even as a child she stood spittin' distance from a mile tall and wandered this wide land far and, um, wide, with her giant blue ox Babe planted apple trees in every state (except Alaska and Hawaii because they were inconvenient to walk to), stole a chunk of glacier from Canada to make the ice sculpture of four leader's heads for the blueprint rough draft of Mt. Rushmore (which melted before they finished the monument and had to leave off the bitchin' fighting dragons that made up the background), taught sharks how to swim up the Mississippi River in order to fight with alligators for her amusement, traumatized the firefly species so badly that they lost their nerve to stay lit up and could only nervously blink flash their light forever afterwards, and wore boxing gloves made of live piranhas to every gun fight she was challenged to and subsequently won because anyone tough enough to to wear those is not bothered by eating a few bullets to win a fight right before being crowned the beauty pageant winner.

Her name is Elizabeth Amber Sheetz, born on Mother's Day, May 12th, 1974, and turns 37 today. Wish her a Happy Birthday .... if you dare, MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

(Afterthoughts)
Um, what more could I possibly add at this point and still remain humble and modest...

Card Games

The cardsharp pony always had an ace up her sleeve while winning chips against the poker playing dogs and never broke a sweat staying cool as a cucumber being Secret dry which works great on women whom it was made for and with which it's effectiveness is obvious since it also worked so well on a horse.

(Afterthoughts)
I had that thought running through my mind when I woke up in the middle of the night and it was interesting enough for me to scribble down on the notepad I leave beside my bed. Still is random nonsense however.

Bootleg Bootylicious

If you can't afford the delicious goodness of a PS3 then here is your cheaper alternative. It looks just like a Dr. Evil tiny clone version and I want one just because it is cute even if it is virtually unplayable.



(Afterthoughts)
By cheaper I meant that you should just grab the cash out of your purse and set it on fire because the flames will give you more entertainment and enjoyment than playing that game will, er, or so I have heard...

Jackpot

Now the title does not mean that I won the lottery (unfortunately) because like the ads say, "y'all gotta play ta win." What it does refer to however, is a game the middle child nephew (2 of 3) invented. It is a ball catching game that takes at least 3 people to play (rules to follow shortly).

The player configuration for everyone to be located is with the ball thrower to be at the apex of a triangle shape with the potential catchers at the base. Before tossing the ball, he must yell out a couple of variables. First is either 'high' or 'ground,' meaning that it will be in the air or rolled along the ground (simple). Next is 'mystery box,' 'points,' or 'jackpot.' The points are essentially arbitrary, but the mystery box (which is the most often chosen) has 2 results which are not revealed unless the ball is caught which are 'mummy' and 'glue shoes.' Mummy means that for the next round you have to hold your arms straight out in front you, palms up, with your arms stuck together and have to try to catch the ball like that (which is rather hard from personal experience). Glue shoes means that your feet are stuck to the floor for the next round and you can not move from the spot where you caught the ball. Now if you catch the 'jackpot,' that means that you are now the jackpot which is what the ball thrower is called and now you toss the ball and decide what the ball value and prize is going to be.

All in all, not too bad of a game for an 8 year old to invent.

(Afterthoughts)
Stop sitting around, go grab a ball and 2 people and start playing!!!

Game Break

I've been sick as hell for the past couple of weeks so since I don't feel like writing much when I am sick, here are video reviews of the weird (really really weird) video game I bought to entertain myself while my body heals like a good little bitch.





(Afterthoughts)
I guess to get the whole story you have to play the game through 3 times, or just look up the answers online.

Is It Really A New Year???....

In a sense it is not a new year as much as it is in a more conventional sense. By which I mean that when you spy a calendar the date has changed over to 2011 from 2010, but if you consider the actual chronological meaning of the time frame of a year, then for most of you it is not. For a new year to start in the more real sense, that would actually occur upon your birthday since another year of clock time has passed when reaching that point. This is just simply calendar time which we have clicked over on now.

Now there is a tradition that occurs at this time which I strongly disapprove of called "new year's resolutions." If you have fallen pray to making such a thing, I feel sorry for you because they are pure rubbish. My reasoning for that description is not because they are worthy changes to make in one's life, but I see them as such for a more valid line of reasoning.

If you have an important change to make in your life, then you just simply need to make it. Waiting until a new calendar year begins is nothing more than a form of procrastination and an excuse to signify the change with an arbitrary date. Everyone has stuff they want to change about themselves unless they are a megalomaniac, so why not start right away at fixing that instead of using the excuse of waiting for January 1st. That is a two-fold excuse since it is common knowledge that most resolutions eventually fail from people not following through with them. By setting such an important life improving decision at that particular date, you have given yourself an excuse for failing since they are not taken seriously and defeated yourself before even giving it a real chance to succeed.

Granted that there are stories from people that you know who managed to pull off their new year goal, but those are grossly overshadowed by the number of people you can personally point out who have utterly given up and failed in the exact same circumstance. When you are ready to make a change to your life, there is no better time than then to do so, and if you are not, then saying that you are just because of the date in the year has doomed you to failure before you even start.

(Afterthoughts)
Don't give in to the pressure to attempt to commit to a change you are not ready for because when you do, you are simply conditioning yourself to accept failure and a sense that you can not change for the better when you really are capable of doing so when the time is right and not just because you had to buy a new calendar.

NUMB3RS

It is not often that I complain about Facebook, er, OK I actually complain all the time but rarely write about how annoying that site can be because if I did it would quickly turn into a book instead of this sweet, humble blog. The last time I did so was several months ago about the "Boobquake Idiocy." (It's a good post, click the link and read it too.)

The most recent derangement is a fun (assume I wrote fun sarcastically because, um, that is exactly what I did) little game where you email a person with a number and then that person will post an anonymous comment about what they really think about you using the number as an identifier as opposed to something clear, such as an actual name. On the surface, it sounds about as much childish pointlessness as passing a note saying "check this box if you like me, or check this box if you want to rip my guts out with a rusty spork." Then the reality of the game sets in and we start to see where it all goes wrong (even without a rusty spork).

First off, this game can be fun if you are in that same category of people that passed the above-mentioned notes. For the rest of us it is the same as listening to one of our friends chat away on their phone, only being able to catch one side of the conversation. Granted that you have to expect to get stuck reading some of that kind of posting from time to time, but now with this game going on I have to scroll through at least a couple pages of posting in order to maybe (maybe maybe maybe) catch a post that I actually want to read (and those are always hit or miss on a normal day). Might as well call it McFacebook because most of what it is feeding me is worthless fattening fluff with no nutritional value. Sure, some of the juicier bites might taste good but it is only putting unhealthy weight onto your karma and turning your mind into a lethargic lump.

Second, if we assess the game within it's own value system and pretend that it is a valuable and productive pastime, it still breaks down even within it's own rules. The main point of it is that you can receive either validation or refutation about your character anonymously, yet still in a public forum to give it a sort of voyeuristic quality. However (always seems to be a however) the majority of the posts I have seen (and I have seen way too many) have also been "liked." So out of curiosity to see if my suspicions were correct, the people who "liked" those posts were always different people for each of the postings (the few exceptions I found to that were from people who tend to click "like" for everything that people post and were easy to filter out). However (hmmm, another however can't be a good sign) there are a lesser number of people who actually then comment a reply to these posts. While there is no way to be 100% sure that people are giving up their secret identities by doing such replies, it is a safe bet that a high majority actually are because that is how stupid human nature works. If you happen to be playing this game as the poster of secret comments to numbered people I would love for you to read though your posts and count up the number of people who outed themselves compared to the ones who did not and leave me a comment with the totals (even though we wouldn't be able to be sure that you are not "adjusting" your numbers because you obviously like the game and may want to falsify support for it, or not and give us accurate numbers, but who can say for sure with things being so "anonymous").

Thirdly, for playing such a game on what is supposed to be a social site, it is really more of an anti-social game. While games meant for only 2 people are fun for them, it gets rather boring and tiresome watching people play tic-tac-toe, and even more so when you only get to see one persons side of the game.

Fourthly, I have only seen 2 negative posts out of about 100 in the last 2 days. While this does make sense because most people are not Facebook friends with their enemies, it tends to turn the game into more of a sad cry for validation and it seems that they are receiving just that.

(Afterthoughts)
If you need validation that bad, buy a damn puppy!!! (And I am still giggling about the phrase "McFacebook.")

Merry Christmas, or else....

(Afterthoughts)
If I had a child that is what I totally would expect...

Repeat... repeat... repeat...

This post is a repeat. That doesn't mean I have written this before but refers instead to something that those who are more tech savvy can only think about with a twitchy eye.

Exactly one week ago, we finally got our internet upgraded out here at my Mom's farm homestead. We were using a usb internet stick from a cell phone company. Now I totally hate those things and did everything I could to talk interested people out of purchasing those when I did my prison time at the AT&T call center (cell phone division, customer service via Alorica), but it was a bit faster than our other option of dial-up (and satellite is too expensive with all the usage restrictions they pile on you). We now have wireless internet, actual wireless internet (not talking about wireless home network) that is kinda like a totally landlocked satellite connection (tower on our house gets a signal from a tower in a town 5 miles away). It's not quite up to what I consider high speed but is still a hella lot better for being dsl's clumsy little brother.

My biggest gripe with it is that I am stuck with a NAT 3 rating when I go online with my PS3 which means online gaming is petty much suckier than a dockside whore. And there is no way to fix it through router reconfiguration cause I have wasted several hours trying. I have not however attempted plugging directly into the system yet since that means moving the PS3 into a different room & I am lazy, but I did attempt wiring directly into one of the wireless routers which theoretically should have given me a NAT 2 rating and still failed to satisfy {insert lame boyfriend joke here}. While disappointing {add a 3rd bad sexual pun} I do have enough toys to keep my happy {enough sucky jokes because 2 is company, 3's a crowd, 4 is too many, & 5's not allowed}.

Now time to address the repetition alluded to earlier. Our internet is piped into the house in a room upstairs. That room is kinda like an entertainment room mostly for my nephews (it's actually my old bedroom) and has directv, a PS2, a Wii, and a computer (tower version). Wiring up the computer to a wireless router (small room, short cable) was simple. Picking up a wireless signal was no trouble for my laptop & PS3 down the hall in my bedroom either. My Mom's computer downstairs is where the trouble began. It is easily within range of the wireless router IF we lived in a more modern (i.e. cheaper built) house. Instead we live in an old farm house built when they made walls by cutting an entire tree into a long rectangle and stacked & mortared them together to make walls before bricking them in to add some polish to the design. While that means that this house will lose its roof several times over before any walls will fall down, it also means that a wireless signal gets kicked in the shin and laughed at for trying to do anything. So the problematic side effect is that I can't get enough of a signal to Mom's computer.

So although I was already using a Belkin N wireless router, there are a few more powerful options that might broadcast stronger, faster, and able to leap multistory building 2 out of 3 attempts. So a couple of trips to Radio Shack buying and then returning the best routers they carried (screw you Netgear) with unsatisfying results, I decided that using a repeater was going to be the best option (see, told you this would be about repeating). Of course no place actually sells those locally, but the max range Netgear (I still hate you Netgear) has a repeater funtion built into it. That was great because otherwise I was going to have to flash software (DD-WRT) to my other Belkin G wireless router to get it to do that and I didn't really want to run the risk of bricking the damn thing if I screwed up a step during that process.

So basically after hours of feeling like Netgear's products would work just as well whole as when smashed into bits from a hammer, I did several more hours of troubleshooting research to discover that wireless repeaters are a pipe dream for a home network due to the lack of standards wireless routers use. The best chance you have is to use the exact same brand and model of routers throughout your entire network, and even then it is still going to be iffy. Hell, even different models of the same type of brand will fail more often than not so using devices manufactured by different companies had me screwed before I even started.

At that point I was ready to flash dd-wrt to my old G router but as luck would have it, the version of the model I have is not compatible with that program (although several other versions of my model actually are, grrrr). Now the Netgear was compatible with that program and although it already did have a setup for wireless repeating (which wouldn't work for me), dd-wrt would work. But that also meant that I would not be able to return it to regain my money and there was a chance I could break it by forcing new firmware into it's spiteful guts.

Last chance I had was to run a cable from the upstairs to the downstairs (which is frowned on in this household) and in order to be clearance from the household boss to do that I had to find a way to get the G router to work as a wired repeater and have it stashed out of sight under a cabinet in the room next to Mom's computer. It took a few different configurations in the router settings (I don't even remember what they are after trying so many different ones on multiple routers) but finally victory was mine, and it only took 5 days to grasp it.

(Afterthoughts)
1) Screw Netgear, 2) If you manage to setup a wireless repeater, immediately go buy a lottery ticket, 3) Screw Netgear.

Zack Attack, er, Dedication

There once was a man named Zack,
Who tried to teach ducks how to quack,
He had quite a cow,
When they only would meow,
And this story is totally fact.

So he went on a great big attack,
Drove over them in a semi named Mack,
We got quite a laugh,
When he cut them in half,
For their insides were really part cat.

(Afterthoughts)
Dedicated to all the Zacks I know and the ones I don't (whether I want to know them or not).

Riding The Rails

After a long 3/4 of a year bumming around on unemployment the time has come to hop the train and move to a new city. My decent job options are pretty much burned out here in Terre Haute so much to my family's joy and excitement I am moving back to them (which Mom has been begging for every week for the past 3 years lol). I start with the 1st of X amount of trips transporting my possessions 180 miles away (3 1/2 hour trip each way) beginning this very morning.

My decision to make the move is 2 fold:
(1) My job potential is better in that location due to the much higher amount of machine shops in the area mainly due to a few of the world's biggest orthopedic manufacturers having their corporate headquarters in the small city of Warsaw.
(2) If I have not obtained employment by the time my unemployment runs out in a few months, the money I have saved on rent will be enough to support me for a while so that I can take a contracting job again in a different state which will earn me a much higher paycheck than working anywhere else.

So while I have enjoyed my time here in T.H. the time has come for me to adventure on back to my old stomping grounds while I wait to turn the page to the next chapter in my pretentious life ;-)

(Afterthoughts)
Woo Hoo, new record set for the length between blog posts.

Danger In The Schools

I read an article in Time today warning us of the newest dangerous hazard to the very lifes and souls of our poor under-protected schoolchildren. If you are a parent you had best drop whatever you were planning on doing after reading this and march straight up to your kids room and search it with a fine tooth comb, for their own good of course. Our innocently misguided youth have once again shown us sensible adults that kids need to be watched and monitored better and thanks to the high and mighty reactionist school systems for knowing the deadly better then us. This terrible evil from the 7th, er, maybe it was the 8th circle of hell itself has creeped under our very noses and it goes by the name of "Silly Bandz."

Don't think they sound so evil, just ask Jill Wolborsky, a fourth-grade teacher. She has the foresight to ban them in her classroom before the school finally dragged their feet into making them contraband and she fearfully and elegantly proclaimed their inncessant evil by stating, "It's a distraction." I say well said Jill, if that isn't a good enough reason to give in to the fear of Silly Bandz devouring our children's souls, then you must live in a world that is blind to the most simple and basic of common senses.

It makes me lament the struggle I personally had to endure as a schoolchild where teachers would borrow pocketknives off students when they had forgotten to bring theirs in with them that day. Being forced to witness students wearing all manner of clothing that was not a uniform, and the nearest metal detector was not even at the local courthouse, but all the way over at the county courthouse. How any of us managed to make it through school without dying from paranoia at the open freedoms our young and impressionable minds were forcibly exposed to I will never know.

Thank God that we have such outstanding protectors monitoring today's kids with high surveillance equipment, armed guards, daily searches, metal detectors around every hallway corner, roaming packs of dogs, titanium locks, high tension electrified barbed razor wire, automated gun turret guard towers surrounding the schools perimeter, and school administration staff who realize the importance of actively seeking out the latest threat to our kids well being which would prevent a normal upbringing instead of actually bothering with the whole process of actual education.

(Afterthoughts)
*sigh* if only I could have been born 30 years later and been allowed to have a proper school experience.

Suck On What !?!

While I'm not a girl who has the typical cliche lust for chocolate that so many others possess, I do still have the subconscious "turn of my head" or "hey! eye's up here" reaction of it catching my notice. Therefore this tasty number that combines two great tastes that you sure as hell hope taste great together when that shaft of hard candy slides in and out of your mouth had me licking my lips and softly moaning in anticipation. While it is not something you can find on just any street corner, such things are always available mail order due to the wonders of modern internet technology. If you think that this is what your lonely life is hollowly missing and will fill the void in your life that needs itched, drop on down to make the acquaintance of Chocolate Bacon Lollipops!. Or just hop right on into the back of my van *wink, wink*



(Afterthoughts)
Personally the Caffeinated Maple Bacon Lollipops are the ones who's thoughts of make my toes curl.

Apology

Sorry, I've been rather non-rantic lately. That is what happens when I spend too much time hidden away in the secret lair avoiding the world which tends to spark my anger. Hmmmm, maybe unemployment isn't such a bad thing after all.



(Afterthoughts)
The picture is a clip from The Order of the Stick #724.

Happy Birthday to Me

In honor of surviving this messed up world among you crazy humans for officially and exactly 36 years as of today, here is a birthday related video. I have recently gotten hooked on this guy, The Angry Video Game Nerd, and love his reviews of the old crappy video games. And he drinks and swears while playing them for his reviews which are 2 things I often also do myself. Plus he is also really cute.



(Afterthoughts)
Oh yes, he is hella cute, meow!

Zombie Loan

An old series I started rewatching that you can download here.

Michiru Kita is a special girl who possesses Shinigami Eyes, a power which allows her to see a person's nearness to their destined death by seeing a ring, invisible to normal people, around the person's neck. When a person is marked to die, a gray ring appears, which darkens over time. Once the ring turns completely black, the person dies. Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, two boys in her class, both have black rings around their necks, but to her surprise, they are not yet dead. It is revealed that after a tragic accident that was supposed to kill them both, the two boys made a deal with a secret loan office called the Zombie-Loan. In return for keeping them alive, the two have to hunt zombies for the loan office. When Michiru gets involved with them, she finds that her life has just become more complicated.



(Afterthoughts)
Life is boring & all I have been doing is watching anime and drinking (alternating cups of coffee then rum & rootbeer). Hmmmm, that actually makes life sound pretty damn good.

Boobquake Idiocy

Seriously, boobquake is being passed off as an "experiment" to show that just because a woman decides to dress a hair's breadth away from the very real legal crime of indecent exposure, it will not cause earthquakes. When you feel the ground shaking and hear the rumbling sound of a cattle stampede, that is merely from the large group of men rushing their way to "scientifically observe" the latest participant in this ridiculous experiment. I could rant a bit more on the topic but if it is not blindingly obvious where I am going with this then (A) you are observing the experiment or (B) you are one of the special (education type, not talented typed of special) participants.

So instead, here is some little known background info for y'all to wrap your brains around about the event. Boobquake was not the original name for the event (is it even worthy of being called an "event"???) Other names initially considered were :
- Breastploitation
- Sponge Goatee For Men
- Back Pain Awareness Day
- Squeeze Into A Bra 3 Sizes Too Small Challenge
- Photoshop Nipples Away
- I'd Never Guess You Had Surgery From Such A "Natural" Size
- Let's See How Gullible, Stupid, Shallow, And/Or Slutty Women Are
- Who Needs X-ray Glasses
- How Dare You Say I'm Size 8 When I Fit In A Size 2
- Men Don't Need To Blink
- It's The Only Way I Can Breathe While Wearing My Grade School Daughter's Clothes

And those are just the ones that fall within titles of decency, even I had to stop and reread some of the worse ones because I thought I had seen them incorrectly, and I wish that had been the case (my eyes . . . they burn . . . THEY BURN!!!) I honestly feel ashamed to be a woman after witnessing so many of my gender jumping on such of a bandwagon.

Just one more important thing to add, this experiment response to the Islamic speech if it were even based on a legitimate theory would still be pointless. Here is the direct quote from the speech : "When promiscuity spreads, earthquakes increase," Hojatoleslam Kazim Sadeghi said. For those without a dictionary handy, that means having sex with lots of people. Being a slut and flashing yourself, while still wrong, is a hella lot different.

(Afterthoughts)
For those women out there who say they always dress like that, I guess we now know who is keeping the pepper spray and rape hotlines in business.