Random Fact of The Day

A roach can live up to nine days without its head.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath."

Stupid News Story of The Day

(I think it's time for anger management classes.)

Man Totes Rifle to Retrieve Towed Truck

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Angry that his truck had been towed, a 64-year-old man was arrested at a busy intersection while walking on his way to get it back — with a loaded rifle.

Savannah-Chatham County police said officers spotted Floyd Goldwire with the gun in his hand Thursday walking through rush-hour traffic at the crowded commercial intersection of Bull Street and DeRenne Avenue.

Two officers drew their guns and confronted Goldwire, police said, but he refused to drop his rifle.

"He just wouldn't give up the gun," said Sgt. Ashley Brown, a precinct shift supervisor. "He wasn't threatening anyone, but he wasn't going with the program whatsoever."

Goldwire finally dropped the rifle when officer Josh Miller, a member of the department's SWAT team, pulled a shotgun loaded with non-lethal beanbags from the trunk of his patrol car, Brown said.

"Seeing these officers with their pistols just wasn't doing it for this guy," Brown said. "It wasn't until Josh picked up that shotgun that it ended quickly."

Even after dropping the gun, Goldwire resisted arrest until an officer used pepper spray on him, said police spokesman Sgt. Mike Wilson.

Wilson said Goldwire told police he was upset because his truck had been towed and he had been on his way to get it back.

"He was a threat to everyone on that road," Wilson said. "That's bizarre behavior, not something you see every day.

TGIF!!!

It is finally a Friday and guess what? I have only 4 pending cases left out of the 50-60 something pending cases I began with and am down to 8 closed cases from the 90 something cases I began with. AMEN! I am so good - lol. I was stressing big time all week and all last week, but now I feel like I can finally breathe again. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

I am leaving work in about a half an hour, we got paid this week, and I have cappuccino jelly bellies to munch on, too. MMMMM. Life is good.

Random Fact of The Day

Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"According to his official biography, new Internal Revenue Service commissioner Everson used to be a vice president at a major company in the filed of - I am not making this up - airline catering. That is exciting news for taxpayers, because when it comes to customer service and satisfaction, the term "airline food" is virtually synonymous with the term 'Thanks, but I'll just chew on my seat cushion."

Stupid News Story of The Day

(Let's see. I think I'll do something stupid today.)

Man Crashes Car After Snake Attacks Him

NAPLES, Fla. - A man crashed his car after a pet snake he had wrapped around his neck began attacking him, authorities said.

Witnesses reported that Courtland Page Johnson, 30, of East Naples, was driving erratically and crashed his PT Cruiser into several barricades about 9 p.m. Tuesday. He got out of his car, wrestled with the snake and then drove off, reports said.

When authorities caught up with Johnson at his home, he told them he crashed into another car that had stopped short in front of him. After questioning, Johnson admitted he panicked when his snake bit him.

He had cuts and freshly dried blood on his body, but did not need medical attention, reports said.

Johnson was charged with leaving the scene of a crash.

Stuff, stuff and more stuff

Well, once again, American Idol has proved that people have lousy judgment, since they put Katharine in the bottom 3.....Katharine and not Bucky! WTF? Are people really that stupid? I guess so. I was right on who got the boot, even though I felt Bucky really deserved to be booted before Lisa, but since people seem to like Bucky (for some reason or another), they booted Lisa first. I still don't understand why Katharine was in the bottom 3. I thought that if she got booted, I would never watch AI again (which would probably be a good thing - lol).

Well, today is my parents' 38th anniversary. 38 years of bliss....or 38 years of misery (as my dad always jokingly says). Congrats to them. It seems long marriages are rare these days. I hope when I get married, it will last forever. I believe in marriage, but then I always had a good example to look up to. My parents just go good together.....like peanut butter and jelly (but I am sure they would argue on who is the peanut butter and who is the jelly - I am sure my dad would say my mom is the jelly - lol).

It is a mere 5 days before I turn 34. Ugh. Add yet another year onto my age and more wrinkles and some more gray hairs just for the hell of it. I actually am FEELING older and older lately. Is it age catching up to me or is it work? Probably both, though more of the latter than the former. Work is turning me old before my time. But I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, as more and more cases are disappearing from the drawers (I am a hard worker - lol). Maybe I will save my whole head from turning gray after all.

I did buy myself an early b-day present. I was in this store the other day, looking for a pair of pants, but ended up buying myself a ring instead. It is so purty - it is silver with a purple heart and 2 little crystals on each side. I don't feel bad cuz it was only $12 ($30 and 60% off - woo hoo). It is a little big, cuz all they had was size 8's and I am more like a 7 or 7 1/2, but I wanted it, so it is now on my finger. I love it!!! Cheap jewelry rocks! lol.

I also bought myself 3 DVDs.....The Wedding Crashers, Waiting, and The Constant Gardener...oh and I also got Sleepaway Camp- a VERY cheesy horror movie from the 80's, but it was like $4 and I love cheesy movies, so I got it. And the others were like $10 each. Gotta love cheap DVD's too.

I gotta get my ass back to work to crank out the rest of these cases, so I am outta here for now.

Random Fact of The Day

Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"Turbulence: This is what pilots announce that you have encountered when your plane strikes an object in midair. You'll be flying along, and there will be an enormous, shuddering WHUMP, and clearly the plane has rammed into an airborne object at least the size of a water buffalo, and the pilot will say, "Folks, we're encountering a little turbulence." Meanwhile they are up there in the cockpit trying desperately to clean water buffalo organs off the windshield. "

Stupid News Story of The Day

(Here's one group you'll never see me joining.)

Workaholics struggle to say "No"
to work By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sam used to sneak into his office before dawn so no one would know how many extra hours he worked. Charles goes on all-night work binges to meet deadlines, and Susan can't say no to volunteer projects, social clubs, bridge games, choral singing, lectures and classes.

Each one is a member of Workaholics Anonymous, a 12-step recovery program for compulsive workers based upon the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each one opted to keep their identity secret.

"It's been called the addiction that society applauds," said Mike, a physician and member of the group known as WA.

"People brag about it and say, 'I'm a workaholic,'" he said. "But workaholics burn out and then you've lost them or they become very dysfunctional and bitter and cynical in the organization and corrosive."

Workaholics Anonymous keeps no central count of members, but organizers estimate dozens of weekly meetings are held in the United States as well as in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Britain. The group also sells about 100 books about WA a month via its Web site, according to organizers.

WA's roots go back to 1983, when a New York corporate financial planner and a school teacher founded a group based on AA but designed to fight compulsive working.

WA identifies workaholics as people who often are perfectionists and worriers, derive their self esteem from work, keep overly busy, neglect their health, postpone vacations and overschedule their lives.

Workaholics don't even have to have a job; they can just be compulsively busy as they seek an adrenaline high, to overcome feelings of inadequacy and low self esteem and to avoid intimacy, it says.

DESTROYING LIVES

The weekly meeting in New York draws an average of a half dozen people in a city that might be considered a hotbed of workaholism. Such meager attendance invites the predictable joke that most workaholics are too busy to attend meetings, a quip that organizer Charles has heard a million times.

"People think it's funny," he said. "It's amusing until you hear the stories. There have been many people who have come, and work is destroying their lives."

Unlike alcoholics, who can measure recovery by their days of sobriety, workaholics have no quantifiable gauge of their problem, or their recovery.

"In my case, my boss was telling me I had to get my work hours down to 40 a week, and I couldn't do it," said Sam, a former senior project engineer in California's Silicon Valley.

"I was sneaking into work at 5 a.m. on a Sunday so I could get work done and be out of the place before anyone else showed up," he said. "I didn't want people to see how much time I was putting in.

"Now I'm more willing to try to do a mediocre job and keep my own mental health and sanity than to do the perfect job on everything I attempt," he said.

Like AA, WA uses a 12-step program for recovery from addiction. At meetings, members share their experiences and study the organization's literature and guidelines.

"It really forces you to look inside and say, 'What's really going on with me?'" said Charles. "A lot of people don't want to do that."

Even if workaholism is hard to define, you know it when you feel it, said Mike, who has left his high-pressure urban job for work at a rural clinic where cows wander outside.

"After a while one gets a feeling of what driven, compulsive working feels like," he said. "There's a tightness to it. There's a lot of adrenaline surging. There's a lot of worry.

"There's a lot of preoccupation, which is different from just waking up in the morning and saying, 'Wow, I really love what I do'," he said.

Childhood Survey

1. Are you a child of the 70’s 80’s or 90’s?
-- I am a 70's child

2. Where were you born?
-- In San Jose, CA

3. If you were born in another country how old were you when you came here?
-- N/A

4. What city did you grow up in?
-- King City, CA

5. Did you enjoy your childhood?
-- you bet

6. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
-- a veterinarian or a wildlife photographer

7. What was your favorite toy when you were little?
-- Barbie (wasn't she every little girl's favorite ? lol)

8. Name the first memorable vacation you took as a kid.
we never really went on any long vacations - I guess visiting my grandma in Sebastapol and stopping by the San Francisco Zoo and the SF Mint on the way there

9. What was your first best friend’s name?
-- Cyndi

10. Are they still your best friend?
You betcha

11.?
Hmmm, not sure how to answer this question!
(I'll go with you on this one Cyndi - lol)

12. how did u meet this person/people?
-- Girl Scouts - turns out she lived right across the street from me :)

13. Can you name all the schools you ever attended?
-- Santa Lucia Kindergarten (I think that is what it was called), St John's, El Tejon, Maricopa High, Cal State University Bakersfield

14. Who was your first crush?
-- Brent

15. Were you a shy quiet kid or a very wild and rowdy kid?
-- I was pretty talkative - lol (got in trouble enough in school for it, too)

16. When you were little, what did you do for fun?
-- played outside and built forts with my bro and Cyndi - reenacted scenes from Grease 2 with my bro and Cyndi and went hunting for critters (bug, lizards...you name it)

17. Were you closer to your Mom or Dad as a kid?
-- both

18. Do you have any embarrassing school stories to share?-- embarassing...not really - although there was this one time I hit a volleyball thru the window at school - that was kinda embarassing...oh and having to sit in the corner with the dunce hat on my head in 3rd grade and having the teacher throw chalk at me - lol

19. What was the first record, tape, or CD you remember buying?
-- The Police's Synchronicity (although I think my dad actually did the buying but I picked it out - lol)

20. How old did you want to be when you got married?
-- 21 or so - back then I thought that 21 was OLD - lol

21. How old to have kids?
-- never really thought about it

22. Were you scared of anything?
-- the "haunted" gas station on River Drive (where Mc Donald's is now - I wonder if it is Mc-Haunted, too)

23. What was your favorite class in school?
-- Reading

24. Did you buy school lunch or bring your own?
-- heck, at St John's we only had hot lunches once a week, so mostly I had to bring it

25. Broke any bones or had any freaky accidents as a kid?
-- broke my wrist in 1st grade

26. Were you a meanie head?
-- that is debatable - lol - ask my brother, and he will tell you I was soooo mean

27. Favorite board game of all time?
-- Candyland

28. Did you play house or pretend to be a super hero?
-- played house

29. Random memory from when you were a kid:-- being chased when I was like in 2nd grade by this 7th grader for singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song and teasing him and some girl - I ran and hid among the trash cans but he found me - lol

30. Seriously...are you still just a kid at heart?
- definitely

Random Fact of The Day

Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"In the 1970's, along came the bold food pioneer who invented the Atkins Diet: Dr Something Atkins. After decades of research on nutrition and weight gain - including the now-famous Hostess Ding Dong Diet Experiment, which resulted in a laboratory rat the size of a Plymouth Voyager - Dr Atkins discovered an amazing thing: Calories don't matter! What matter are carbohydrates, which result when a carbo molecule and a hydrate molecule collide at high speeds and form tiny invisible doughnuts. Dr Atkins's discovery meant that - incredible though it seemed - as long as you avoided carbohydrates, you could, without guilt, eat high-fat, high-calorie foods such as cheese, bacon, lard, pork rinds, and whale. You could eat an entire pig, as long as the pig had not recently been exposed to bread."

Stupid News Story of The Day

(And what did you bring to Show and Tell?)

Kindergarten Student Brings Gun to School

FIRCREST, Wash. - A kindergarten student was expelled for 10 days after he brought a .22-caliber gun to school, officials said.

The 5-year-old boy climbed from a chair onto a washer-dryer and got an unloaded pistol out of a cupboard at home, police said. He showed a friend the gun on the Whittier Elementary School playground, then put it into a friend's backpack, Police Chief John Cheesman said.

The boy never made any threat and told the principal what he had done Monday but was expelled immediately, said Patti Holmgren, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma school system. Police confiscated the gun.

School officials were investigating, classmates have been reminded not to bring guns to school and a letter on the incident has been sent to parents of Whittier students, Holmgren said.

The boy's parents tried to keep the gun out of his reach and did not store ammunition with it, so no criminal charges are likely, the police chief said.

"The boy now realizes he should not have brought the pistol to school," Cheesman added. "There was an understanding there that he shouldn't have done it and that what he did was wrong."

American Idol recap ( under the influence of a migraine)

Well, tonight's American Idol was just so-so. The first few people, Ace, Kelly, Lisa.....they were ok. Well, Ace sucked , but Kelly and Lisa were ok.

The best performances of the night were Elliot, Katharine and Taylor. Chris, who I like the best overall, was ok, but not the best. Even Mandisa, who I like alot, was just ok. She was basically just shouting the song and over-singing. I didn't much care for it.

The bottom 3 will most likely be: Bucky, Lisa and Ace. I think it will be Lisa who gets the boot though, even the other 2 are just as deserving of being kicked off as her.

So, I began the day with a headache, and it is ending the same way. And American Idol tonight didn't do anything to help it. It still hurts!! I even went home early from work cuz my vision was starting to go blurry and I was feeling pukey. And then I came home and took a nap and took yet another Advil, and the headache is still with me, like mold on a rotten tomato. Damned migraines!!!!!!!

Random Fact of The Day

Porcupines float in water.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"My daughter's Ken doll doesn't seem to notice that the Barbies are constantly getting naked. No, I don't know why the Barbies do this. I don't WANT to know. All I know is that often, after my daughter has been playing with her Barbies, I'll walk into her room, and there will be naked Barbies everywhere, and Ken will be displaying absolutely no interest in them. Lately, in fact, Ken has been off in a corner, sitting in Barbie's pink Jeep with Pinocchio. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Stupid News Story of The Day

(If you don't give me some meat, I'll set myself on fire. I really will. I'm not kidding. Look. I've got out the matches...)

Drunkard kills himself over meatless dinner

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - A jobless alcoholic burned himself to death after his wife refused to serve him meat for dinner, Indian police said Sunday.

Sixty-year-old Mithailal Ram Sanjivan doused his body with an inflammable liquid and set himself ablaze outside his one-room house in Ahmedabad, the main city of western Gujarat state.

Police said the victim, who had been without a job for years, and his wife, Geeta Sanjivan, 54, had a scuffle over the dinner menu.

The wife refused to cook meat as they could not afford it.

Irritated by this, Sanjivan locked her in the house before setting himself on fire outside.

SBC can kiss my ass

Always make your requests to stop a service...whether it be phone, PG&E, cable...whatever....in writing. Cuz lord knows if you tell them verbally, they won't get the picture. It seems like when you are on the phone with someone in customer service telling them you want to stop your, let's say phone service, their IQ immediately goes down by 100 points. They ask you questions like, "why," and then try to offer you some incentive to stay, and no matter how many times you tell them , "no," they seem to think you really mean, "yes." And then when you tell them to shove their phone service where the sun don't shine, they just offer you another incentive to stay. Then when you offer an incentive such as some vasoline to lube that phone service so that it goes up their ass easier, then they SEEM to get the picture. But they really don't.

Well, that is what happened with my SBC phone service, and why I am no longer with them. A while back, my phone was messed up. The phone would ring, and people could leave messages, but when I tried to dial out or to answer the phone, all I got was static. This went on for a while. I tried new phone jacks. I tried switching phones. And finally, when I could stand it no longer, I called the phone company to get someone out to take a look at the line.

Well, the first time I called them, a woman answered, and I am so pissed off at myself for not writing her name down. I explained my problem to her, and she ran some sort of test from there on my line. She told me there was a problem with the line and that she would send a technician out to look at it. Fine. Good.

Well, when I got home, all excited and expecting my phones to work, I picked up the receiver to check it out, and .....static...grrr. What the hell? There was no note on my door or anything from SBC and since it was after 6 pm when I got home, I couldn't call the customer serivce til the next day. More Grrrrr.

Well, when I called back the next day, I was told that there was no record of my phone call. At this point, the grrr was more like GRRRRRRRRR. I was so pissed! Well she supposedly ran some test on the line and said there wasn't a problem with the line but she could send someone out to look at it anyway. By this time I was confused AND pissed. Not a good combo.

Well, at work, I get a call from the phone company tech telling me that my line is ok, and that it is probably some internal problem inside the apartment which they are not responsible for. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!

A few weeks later, I get my phone bill and they had charged me $55 for the tech to come out to basically do nothing but play around with some wires and call me and tell me "sorry Charlie." Now, I was beyond pissed.

Well, after all this shit, I called the company back and told them to just stop my service altogether cuz I was tired of getting the runaround. Then she asked me "why" and offered me some incentive....and, well you can see how this turned out...hehe.

Welllll....I guess they didn't keep a record of that call either, cuz my mom called me today saying some credit service called them asking where I was cuz SBC had reported me to the credit bureau for unpaid phone bills (which I never got by the way) GRRRR!! So, I paid it, even though I am still pissed as hell. So.......to make a long story short, ALWAYS make your request to stop your service in writing, cuz you just can't trust the customer service people on the phone.

Maybe telling them to shove their phone service up their ass wasn't such a good choice of verbage on my part either.

But the vasoline part was a nice touch - lol.

Random Fact of The Day

A comet's tail always points away from the sun.

Funny Stuff From Dave Barry

"I'm not sure how I feel about the Barbie and Ken split. On the one hand, I can see why Barbie would not be satisfied with Ken. I have a young daughter, so our house has a thriving, teeming Barbie colony. This colony is serviced by one lone Ken, and frankly, he is not up to the task."

Stupid News Story of The Day

(...and that's a wrap.)

Film Shoot Mistaken for Hostage Situation

FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. - A movie set at the downtown post office turned all too real for a group of high school filmmakers. Members of the high school Spanish club were shooting a movie Thursday night when the police showed up believing a hostage crisis was going on inside the post office.

But apparently, someone saw the teens carrying toy guns into the building on Centre Street, which is the heart of the town's historical district. When they couldn't get an answer to calls placed inside the building, they assumed the worst.

Police cordoned off the block, cleared nearby buildings and surrounded the post office ready for a hostage crisis. When a group of students left the post office, they were ordered to get on the ground, face down.

Postmaster Ron Steedley had given permission for the school group to use the post office after hours to make a movie, "Rolling Thunder." Steedley said he didn't think the student's movie would frighten anyone.

Devon Menendez, the film's director, said his film career is over.

"I'm not accepting any more offers to direct a movie," he said.

No news is good news

Another Sunday night is upon me. Which means tomorrow it is back to work. I must admit, I did kick some ass at work on Friday (which was overtime). But it seems like the caseload is not getting any smaller. Ever feel like you are working your ass off to no avail? Well, that is how I am feeling right now...overwhelmed.

And it isn't just me. I think everyone in our division is feeling stressed. This is the first time in a long time where I have felt like I am in over my head. I told you I was gonna go gray!!! lol.

I didn't do squat yesterday. I felt like I just needed to take a whole day to rest. But today, I did go to the grocery store, which is something I hate doing. I just hate putting all that shit in my car and then having to take it out again when I get home and haul it all upstairs and put it away. If I lived in a downstairs apartment, I would probably have less of a problem with grocery shopping that I do now...but only slightly less.

My mom called me today and told me that my aunt Marge, her sister, is not doing so well. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer over a year ago, I think. I guess the CA test (or something - I forget what it was called) was way high, which isn't good, and they are running out of experimental treatments to try on her. Ugh. I just lost my grandma to cancer. I am just not ready to go to another funeral just now. My mom did say my aunt Helen was doing ok though, which is good. I am always worried about her being alone and all and in a wheelchair (she has MS), but I guess she has someone who comes to her house to help out with stuff a few times a week, which is good. She is the nicest person and never complains about anything. Knowing that my aunts are having to deal with such bad stuff kinda makes me feel like an asshole for complaining about my aches and pains.

Well, I am going to bed. Got another crappy day at work coming up. I can't wait.