Category Archives: ranty

A *great* way to start the day

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My phone rang at about quarter to eight. My first thought was, “No one I know would call at this hour.”

I checked the number, and I didn’t recognize it…except for the fact that the same number had called me yesterday.

Around 8:30, the phone rang again. Same number. This time, they left a message.

The message was from an angry man telling me to stop calling him. 

I was, um, confused. I called him back, to tell him that I have never called him in my life. This does not placate him at all. He says, “the only way I GOT this number is that it’s been ringing my phone for a week.”

He angrily suggests that I call the phone company (as if it’s MY fault somehow), to which I say “fine” and call Verizon.

Verizon can tell me nothing, but they offer to change my number.

Sigh.

School board meetings (PORN! Part 2)

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So, I remembered that the Depew School Board meeting was last night, so I had to check the paper to see what happened. As expected, a bunch of people showed up to talk about John Green’s book, Looking for Alaska. Some of them were in favor, others were opposed. the board will review the book and make a decision next month.

Reading this story made me SO HAPPY that I am no longer required to attend school board meetings. I did this back in PA for a couple of years, and briefly covered Sweet Home for the News.

Of course, one of the people who showed up to bash the book was a member of the taxpayers association:

Jan Wiercioch of the Depew Taxpayers Association called the novel “disgusting.”

Back in my hometown, we always had a member of the taxpayers association ON the school board. “Taxpayers Association” should be code for “I’m a raving lunatic.” Basically, his job was to make sure that the district never spent money on anything. Seriously, I think that guy voted no to everything that came before him.

My favorite quote was this one, though, from a parent:

“Would any of you read this aloud at a board meeting?” Miller asked the seven-member board. “What’s next? Free condoms and unisex showers?”

Incidentally, this was from the parent of a 9th grader. The book is being proposed for 11th grade English.

I cannot wait to read this book.

Don’t forget to visit John Green’s webpage.

My day so far…

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Keeping in mind that it is only 11 am my time.

Didn’t work today. Could have worked today, but turned down sub job because I had a dentist appointment at 10 am.

Got up early to start dinner (slow cooker beef barley soup).  Ran out to the store to get a couple of items I forgot when I was shopping yesterday. Got everything going, then headed out to my appointment.

Arrived at the dentist’s office at 9:45. Discovered that I don’t have a dentist appointment today. I have one tomorrow.

Call substitute teacher calling person to let her know that I *can’t* in fact work the half day she gave me for tomorrow, because, um, I have an appointment that I thought was today. Feel sort of stupid.

Head to JoAnn’s to pick up some crafting supplies. Stop at random jewelry store to look at wedding bands.

Head home. See piece of chewy ginger candy in purse. Eat ginger candy.

Feel something crunch in my mouth that shouldn’t be there. Panic. Pull over to side of road to spit out candy. Look in mirror.

Discover that ancient silver filling has fallen out. Panic again. Call dentist’s office. Receptionist assures me that I should be fine until tomorrow, so long as I’m not in pain.

Sigh.

On the bright side, it’s a good thing that a) I went to the dentist recently, b) I have to go back to the dentist to have two small cavities filled, c) this happened before and not after my appointment, and d) I still have dental insurance for a few more days.

Still, pretty crazy.

Did I get drunk and order stamps again?

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A big WTF over here.

Over the weekend, I logged into an online banking site…several months ago, I changed banks, but neglected to close the old account. I saw several charges made to the account that I did not make.

I promptly called the service # to report my card lost or stolen. (I thought I had destroyed the card…)

TODAY, I got two packages which I did not order. One from the Columbia House TV club, the other from the book of the month club.

The charges match two of the charges to my bank account.

Um, what?

I DID NOT ORDER THESE.

So, someone got hold of my old bank card, ordered stuff, and had it shipped to me?

I’m confused. And so not in the mood to deal with this crap.

Wedding Wednesday–the blogs

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I have a love-hate relationship with wedding blogs. Well, it’s mostly hate, but for some strange reason, I cannot seem to look away.

I don’t even read that many of them…I saved a couple in Bloglines so that I could come back to them every now and then. Every once in a while, I see something cute or clever or fun, which is apparently enough to keep me coming back.

Mostly though, they’re just symptoms of this all-pervasive bride culture I’ve complained about before. Girls going on and on and on about their dream weddings and dream photographers and dream cakes and so on. Making it seem as if it’s altogether reasonable to spend $200 on shoes. (I guess for some people $200 for shoes is entirely reasonable. I am not one of those people…)

*Speaking of shoes, I was recently chided for not updating the masses on my shoe decision. That would be because there hasn’t been a shoe decision.  I didn’t send the Skechers back. I’ve decided that I’ll wait and see how they look with the dress, and if I don’t end up wearing them, I’ll just have a cute pair of summery shoes.

Anyway, some of the things that bridey bride brides agonize over just make me roll my eyes. Shall I (gasp!) print my envelopes, or must I hand address? Who cares? I’m of the “do what makes you happy” camp (unless, of course, what makes you happy is being a bridezilla and making everyone you love hate you). I suppose there are etiquette sticklers who do care, but really…have you ever changed your opinion of someone because of the way their wedding invitation was addressed? I know I haven’t…and what’s more, if anyone I knew changed their opinion of ME over something so trivial, well, I’d kind of prefer they stayed home anyway.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I have lots of bloggy catching up to do…and I will get to it, eventually. I want to write about some of my Christmas loot, and some of the crafty things I did, and New Year’s Eve. I hope you all were able to ring in the new year in a way that made you happy. I know I did!

(pssst…guess what? We’re getting married this year! Whee!) 

Thursday Thoughts

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Well, it’s the first day of NaBloPoMo, and the thing that’s been most on my mind this week is the general asshattery that is to be found on the Internet.

As you may recall, my good friend Eden has gained a certain amount of notoriety over the whole YouTube/Universal Music Publishing Group/Prince kerfluffle (aside–I luuuurve the word kerfluffle…). You can read the Washington Post story here, or the ABC News story here (or you could read about it on her blog, if I could get the darn thing to load…).

For those not in the know, here’s the quick sum-up…Eden posted a 29-second video of her son dancing on YouTube. Said video had the song “Let’s Go Crazy” playing in the background. Universal ordered YouTube to take down the video. They did. Eden filed a counternotice, and the video went back up. Eden got the Electronic Frontier Foundation involved, and a lawsuit was filed.

I’ve spent more time than I really should have this week reading comments on the various websites the story has been posted on. Many of the comments boil down to “prince sux!” Others are somewhat more intelligent. Many of the commenters are siding with Eden, but every now and then…

People have criticized her for posting a video of her child on YouTube at all. People have accused her of being a famewhore, of “just being after money” and even worse. Some of the trolliest comments have attacked Eden’s and Baby H’s looks. But that’s not even the worst part…the worst part is the other people who clearly don’t know how to deal with trolls.

I desperately want to put everyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection in a room and say, “Listen up, people. Do not, under any circumstances, feed the trolls. Stop it.”

So, trolls annoy me. People who think they know everything about everything and can’t be stopped from posting on public websites annoy me. Actually, lots of things annoy me, but that’s neither here nor there.

Before I ramble on any further, I just want to point out how proud I am of Eden for standing up for her principles this way. She shows so much more grace and courage in the face of asshattery than I ever could. Go Eden!

Annoyance

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So I was going to upload some photos I took over the weekend, and then some more I took tonight at a Big Brothers/Big Sisters event, but the internet is being dumb. It’s taking three times longer to do anything at all. Blergh.

Anatomy of a losing scrabble game

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scrabble game

current score: Thomas-382, me-112 

Your tray for the entire game has consisted of one-point letters, except for one G (2 points) and one C (3 points).

Your opponent plays both a Z and a J in the first three (or so) rounds, both on multiple word or letter scores.

Your opponent plays a word using ALL of his tiles on a triple-word score.

You now have an entire tray of nothing but vowels.

Seriously? Is this fair??

*UPDATE* Message from said opponent:

amazing game – not my usual luck

1) I’ve never had a word that used my whole tray of letters (50 point bonus)
2) I seldom get a triple word on a long word
3) but 2 triple words? lucky me

Lucky him, indeed. 😉

An open letter

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to whoever keeps leaving the front door to my apartment building propped open:

For the love of all that is holy, please stop it. Seriously. If you’re going to move things in and out or whatever, just shut it when you’re done. You’re letting bugs in. I know we all have our own individual doors and all, but you see, bugs can get through that little space under the door.

I don’t like it when there are bugs in my apartment. K?

Shut the door. 

Thanks,

erin-go-blog!

Oh, baby…

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Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding people. Via a link I clicked to through another link this morning, I read an article by a woman who decided on adoption after trying fertility treatments, and then a long discussion about infertility and adoption and various options in response to the article.

The insensitivity and rudeness astounds me, of course, but these comments really got under my skin:

It is important to understand that it is easier to conceive a child when both male and female are younger (below 30). That is how nature created us.

So it’s important to settle down in life and have a child sooner in life rather than waiting and exploring science (IVF etc).

For the life of me, I can’t understand what is wrong with the world. A woman has the best chance of having a “healthy” baby if the baby is conceived prior to age 30. With each year that passes 30 the risks (for mother as well as child) begin to pile up. I don’t know what they are teaching in school these days, but when I was in school in the 60’s this information was taught in “health” class. So, if a young woman had the idea that someday she’d like to be a mother, she was armed with the facts. If she ignored those facts, she was at least aware of the consequences that might be hers. This is the fact of the matter. A woman over 40 certainly may conceive, but if she does so, her health and the health of her baby will be at risk (not might be: will be). SO. With all the helpless, homeless babies out there in the world, who Need a home, and who Need someone to love and care for them, why on earth would a woman (who has, by her own choices, blown by her healthy childbearing years) not consider adopting one of these most needy children??

(emphasis mine)

As a soon-to-be 33-year-old woman, I can’t help but take statements like these personally.

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