Are You Kidding Me?

I was unable to find the originating story, but I think the image ‘splains it well ’nuff.

HOW RUDE! What is Wrong With “You People”?

I recently reinstalled 2 of the 3 Dennis family computer systems. I have yet to disinfect the teenager’s system. But I did get the main desktop computer hoooked up with DSL once I performed a format / reinstall.

Two days into their freshly installed (here’s the biggest problem–Windows) system, they have already disregarded everything I had to say about Spyware, AdWare, Virus prevention, Firewalls, and everything else related to SECURING a home network. Especially one that is ALWAYS connected. They are getting popups, which both the built in pop-up blockers in the (again – Microsoft) browser and the Firewall are ignoring, as is the Adware/Spyware software. They ignored my speech about “free” software – telling them that it very often comes with spyware or ad ware – which caues popups. Yet they complain, “Why isn’t the popup blocker working”? What they have given themselves is a nasty little adWare prog called MidADdle. Incase you missed the KEYWORD in that program name… The name is case sensitive and appears exactly as I typed it… MidADdle. So I obtain the information about how to eliminate it. (boy this should be fun).

So as I am sitting there RE-EXPLAINING about spyware, Mrs. Dennis starts asking, “So, we cant go get the cursors from that site if you remove that? So leave it there.”

“Do you really want to keep the pop up ads?”, I ask.

NO i dont want them!

“Then you have to remove the spyware or they wont go away.”

“But I want the cursors!’

So, then she says, “well i must be stupid so explain it to me in idiot terms.”

I never said you were stupid please dont make me feel like i implied as much.

Then her (moron of a) husband starts trying to explain it and she gets mad and walks out of the room.

hHer husband says, “I made her mad! I’ll be back.” and follows his wife.

(Now, these people fight all the f–king time, right in front of me (or anyone else who is present). I have told them that I don’t like to see it, and don’t want to hear it).

Its EXTREMELY rude.

so I said “Hey, I gotta go”

Her husband says, “Oh, please don’t leave! !his wont take long.

I said well I dont care. I don’t want to be here for THIS. I’ll see you later– I GUESS. (Being that I’m supposed to go to dinner with them later.)

SO i just left. aAs I am pulling out of the drive way, Dennis comes out and Waves like an idiot.

Stupid idiots.

I’ll Be Racer-X

The weird kid on our street was always spying on us through the hedge as we played. His name was Sean, and he lived next door to me. That day, I was tagging along with the kids that lived in the house on the other side of us. Sean was weird, we all came to this conclusion when we would watch him run in circles around his yard with a towel on his neck like a cape, or he would put on some relative’s huge Charles Nelson Riley style glasses and ride in circles on his BigWheel in the driveway. While these behaviors are neither uncommon nor abnormal… he would occasionally stop, run over to the hedges and “spy” on us.

One summer day he was crouched in the bushes, sorting what looked like strips of paper. He would count four or five strips and stop, look at us and continue counting.

“Hey, Sean!” One of the older boys yelled (pronouncing the name SEEN instead of Shawn, to be spiteful). “Whatcha got?”

Sean yelled back that it wasn’t our business and he stuffed the papers into his pocket, strolled across my yard to inform us that it was “top secret” and only members could know what was on the paper. Then he told us that he was Underdog and ran back to his yard.

We devised a plan which involved me as a double agent. My mission was to approach enemy camp and befriend “Seen”, win his trust, steal the strips of paper and return to headquarters. I was happy that the older kids thought I was worthy of such a mission. Afterall, I was seven and they were eight and ten years old. If I could show them that I was cool enough to pull this off, maybe they would be friends with me.

I walked across my yard, through the hedges and out the other side onto Sean’s driveway. He looked as weird as he acted. He had blonde hair that was the same length all the way around his head (known as a bowl cut). His eyes were too close together on his face and he had a small chin. He had green snot coming out of his nose. (this was constant, and occasionally he would wipe it on the back of his hand or lick it off.)

I looked at him as if he was an alien, and having seen too many Star Trek Episodes I quoted Mr. McCoy and said, “You! What planet is this?”

Sean promptly informed me that I had landed on Earth, and I could remove my space helmet and breath the air normally. I told him I was concerned about germs and would rather leave it on. He wiped his nose and offered his hand in a friendly gesture of greeting. Reluctantly, I shook, remembering that my purpose was to gain his trust and steal his top secret papers in order to win over the acceptance of the older boys.

Sean decided that he would rather play Speed Racer and told me I was going to be Racer X. (Which was alright with me, Racer X was very cool). After about ten minutes, he told me he had something to show me. We walked over to his water meter, lifted the heavy for it’s size manhole style cover and pulled out a stack of paper. He had written numbers on the paper, most of them backwards threes, and faces. It was “funny money”. Sean’s grandmother called him inside for lunch, greeting me with a warm smile and asking me if I’d like to join Sean. I politely declined, explaining that I had already had lunch, but thank you.

Once Sean was inside, I opened the water meter cover, lifted his “cash” and slipped back through the bushes. Just in time to see the older boys walking towards the park with their football pads and helmets.

Transient Insomniac

“It’s probably a guilty conscience,” she said to me. This is one of her stock answers, the ones she always reserves for my visits. I visit her every Sunday, after church. On occasion, I’ll drop in during the week. The conversation follows a vicious pattern, which I think is intended to show concern or interest, but which only succeeds in making me wish that I was there because I was hired to mow her lawn or trim the trees and shrubs.

In her mind, everything comes down my guilty conscience. This was the answer my mother gave me when, at the age of fourteen, I began having heart burn. This is her mother-knows-best reply to the insomnia that frequently torments me. The problem with that theory is, she began to suggest that it was a guilty conscience when I was six years old.

The mere suggestion that GUILT was what was preventing me from sleeping only gave my young mind something else to worry about. At least it gave me something to think about while I lay awake at night waiting to fall asleep.

Guilty? ME? Of what? What have I done that I should be out apologizing or asking forgiveness? I’m only in the first grade. Maybe it was because I threatened Stephanie with that earthworm on the park, telling her I was going to put it in her hair and making her cry. Maybe it was because I forgot to do my homework and I copied off of Greg’s. Maybe it was because when I couldn’t chew mom’s roast beef because of the gaping hole where my two teeth used to be, I slipped the pieces of meat under the table, feeding them to the dog.

I think around the time I was eight, the nature my crimes had progressed and I would be haunted by the five or so pages I had torn from mom’s JCPenney catalog; specifically from the women’s lingerie section; having stowed the creased pages carefully in a coloring book. I guess I do have a lot to feel guilty about. Oh. I forgot all about that. Surely I will never get into heaven.

I can’t help but stand by my argument that the insomnia is not caused by caffeine; since I was not allowed to have caffeine very often as a child when the sleepless nights began. Not much has changed as far as sleeplessness is concerned. Nothing has changed as far as my mother’s theories as to why I don’t sleep.

“You look tired. Are you sleeping well? You know what it is? It’s because you have stopped eating sugar. Your body needs sugar. Do you want something to eat? Let me make you a sandwich. You look hungry.” I sit at her kitchen table, helpless while casts a barrage of questions and theories in my general direction.

After about a week of sleeping an average of 3-4 hours in a twenty-four hour period I am sure that I begin to show obvious signs of mental exhaustion. I can only assume that after two weeks the normal people who do sleep seven to eight hours or more at night see me, and staring in amazement, they think, “Whoah. A real-but-not quite-alive-but walking Zombie. You don’t see that every day.”

Figure Four-is Half of Eight

Behind the‘Eightball’ is a highly uncomplimentary slang word standing for a rather objectionable character (‘gold brick’, ‘goof’). The word owes its origin to the billiard game where the number 8 ball has some restrictive associations which make it an object of disapproval. Namely, in a pocket billiard game, popular in the USA, the player loses if he directs the eight ball into the pocket. Hence, the phrase ‘be behind the eightball’ (in trouble).

Popular? Do people still say “I’m behind the eight ball”?

___

¹ - quoted from miljokes.com, although the image came from somewhere else.

Stuff I Read Somewhere

(recommended reading)

Instead of sitting around bit… complaining and whining about having nothing interesting to write about, I thought I’d toss a few links your way so you can read interesting stuff by other people.

I Nod in Agreement. Jason Love had a nightmare in which commercialism was trying to kill him. I originally found this site thanks to (Randomness of) Lori.

Oh, Look — an MP3 blog.

A Maze game with eerie sound effects (that means sound ON). Sent to me by Tim.

Directions are on the screen

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Random Observation:

I think (much like myself), Kermit needs to consider the possibility that he may just be drinking too much coffee. I had four cups this morning; last night I drank three, and right now, I would really like a Latté.

Allergy Season has Descended Upon Me

The path of the allergy-suffer is beset on all sides by the inequities of the environment and the tyranny of an over-responsive immune system.

With summer ending, I still have a lot of stuff I need to get done before I am actually ready for the cooler weather. With fall sneaking up on me I have been having allergy issues. I wake up every morning sneezing and watering eyes.

My dilemma lies in that taking Sympathomimetics (such as allergy medications, cold remedies and nasal decongestants) can interfere with my blood pressure medication by making it less effective or by raising blood pressure further – and I can’t just take something for the allergy symptoms. In fact, documentation that comes with my blood pressure prescription specifically mentions use of allergy and cold symptom relief being very dangerous.

Other things to consider are the “potential side-effects” of most prescription allergy medicine, which include but are not limited to: headache, ear infection, sore throat, trouble sleeping, and upper respiratory infection, and other various symptoms such as: dizziness, mental/mood changes, fast heartbeat, fever, fainting, irregular heartbeat which to me sound much worse than the allergy symptoms I would be attempting to relieve.

Dear Dennis and Spouse: You Do Have a Choice.

You could spend a few minutes once a week to update your virus protection software, check for security updates to your operating system, and run a few maintenance related janitorial tasks to keep your software and hardware running smoothly and efficiently; or keep handing me sixty to one hundred dollars (or more) each time I have to appear at your home to fix the problems caused by viruses resulting from your not doing so. It is your decision.

Despite my constant badgering and occasional e-mail alerting you to critical security updates that are available, and the fact that any time I talk to you I inquire about your updates; you have seemingly managed to neglect this simple duty. This would be why your desktop (family) computer reported NINTEY ONE virus infected files. This is also why the three day old laptop Dennis recently purchased is infected. Not to mention your teen’s computer, which meets the qualifications to be classified as a Paleolithic artifact, has a virus from the Ice Age.

Is it me or have I said all of this in the past??

Always Follow the Directions.

That is Why they Exist.

As I was transferring my clothes from the washer to the dryer, I couldn’t help but notice that the liquid-fabric softener (LFS) dispenser had accumulated a thick gloppy mess of LFS on and around the holes where the LFS is to be poured. The sight of this caused a spark in my obsessive tendencies. I

pulled the LFS dispenser out of it’s holder and carried it to the sink, where I ran HOT water through it, shaking it vigorously in order to dislodge any clots of LFS residue causing it to function below it’s full ability.

During this cleaning process, I decided I would finally get around to attempting to clean out the liquid chlorine bleach (LCB) dispenser. The problem with this is, it was dysfunctional due to problems caused by Tim pouring LFS into the dispenser that was intended ONLY for LCB.

I then wiped down both the washer and the dryer with a damp sponge, drying it with a paper towel and scowling at the scratches that have mysteriously appeared, blemishing my fairly new appliances.

My Recycle Bin Runneth Over

I have a huge stack of collapsed cardboard boxes, now empty, stacked and bound for pickup. While these things are taking up space, they are an improvement over how things were. Richard Garriott once said, “Chaos and Order are not enemies, only opposites.” As a general rule, I tend to lean towards “order” in almost every aspect of my life.

Some of my friends, since they live in apartments or otherwise have no storage space (that they are willing to pay for), store stuff in my garage.

This week, I finally managed to drag Tim over here to get him to help go through all of his boxes of -(uh)- STUFF that has collected in my garage over the past four years. These towers of dilapidated cardboard boxes lurked, sagging and rotting along the wall of my garage for so long that many of them were falling apart.

For him, this task was like Christmas. He opened each box with the enthusiasm of a little kid seeing his stuff for the first time after being away at camp all summer. He still kept many items, claiming he may use them someday. The pile of “treasure” is a little smaller, my garage appears a LOT neater, and a little easier for me to live with.