Views From Betwixt and Between

Brokeback Bed

2009-11-20T21:56:00.000-08:00

A long-time friend passed away last Saturday, and his funeral was Wednesday, down in Corpus Christi. The plan was for Mom and me to go down to Corpus Tuesday night, making the visitation if possible, then attend the funeral on Wednesday before coming back home.

Except that I didn't get off work till after 8, making attending the visitation in Corpus, which lasted from 5 to 8, impossible.

I have several rescue dogs. I can leave some with my housemates for a day or two, but Thumper is a special case. Thumper is vision-impaired and comes from a bad background, and has aggression issues with people he doesn't know well. In fact, he's got aggression issues with just about everyone but Jerry and me. So there are few people who I can ask to watch him while I'm away.

The plan was that Jerry was going to download some stuff onto a laptop while I went home and packed. I would take the laptop and work on some work that needed to get done. I would then bring Thumper to Jerry's, get the laptop, meet Mom in Pleasanton, and drive down to Corpus.

Thumper and I got back to Jerry's around midnight. I was tired. No, exhausted. I had bags under my bloodshot eyes and I was dragging my right leg---a sure sign of exhaustion (my right side was partially paralyzed due to a head injury as a child; one of the few residual signs is that I drag my right leg when I get very tired.) So I called Mom and said that driving to Corpus Christi (by the time I met up with Mom and got going, a good 3 hours or more) that night was not in the cards.

Now, 2 years ago, Jerry adopted Cleo from me. Cleo is a teacup Dane whom I got off of death row at Huntsville. She is extremely shy---for the first 10 months Jerry had her, her tail was kept tucked firmly between her legs. ZuZu taught her how to play; she likes playing with Dana as well, and the dog park was fun even though she kept close to our side.

Buddy came to me a few weeks ago. Buddy is another teacup Dane who had been through 2 or 3 homes in his 2 or 3 years. Buddy has irritable bowel disease, which causes him to have bad diarrhea unless he's on a special diet. Jerry offered to foster him, as it's easier for him to keep Buddy on his diet than it is for me with all my dogs here. We have him on a herring and sweet potato diet, which makes him smell a bit fishy. To make things easier, Jerry is feeding both Cleo and Buddy the diet.

So Thumper and I went over to Cleo and Buddy's house. Cleo and Thumper have met before, but Thumper has never met Buddy, and we were a bit uncertain as to how the two neutered males would take to each other.

When Thumper came to me, he didn't have a name. His owners had moved and abandoned him; the neighbors fed him for a few weeks until they were moving, at which time they gave him to me. Like many dogs I get from bad situations, Thumper was not neutered, and was, well, rather amorous towards anyone and everyone. He got his name because he humped everything in sight. Mark (then-housemate) called him Humper; I wasn't going to call him Humper but decided Thumper was okay. Since he's been neutered, he's kept his ardor in check.

Until he met Buddy. I mentioned we weren't sure how Buddy and Thumper would get along. Well, we needn't have worried about fighting. No, fighting wasn't the issue. Now, both male and female dogs will engage in mounting behavior as a sign of dominance, but they usually work things out and figure out the pack order, and after initial dominance displays, there's not a lot of humping amongst altered dogs. Well. I'm not sure that all of Thumper's humping behavior was dominance-related. I think Buddy was quite willing to cede Top Dog status to Thumper. But Thumper was, er, well, _intent_ on Buddy. Being so tired, I lay down on one side of Jerry's bed. For the next several hours, Cleo tried to sleep quietly in her spot in the middle of the bed, while Buddy kept jumping up on the bed to escape Thumper, with Thumper jumping up after him, not wanting to let his new boyfriend get away. Now, a queen bed is plenty big for one person, big enough for 2 people, and even tolerable for a Great Dane and 2 people (except that Cleo likes to stretch out across the bed). But a queen size bed just isn't meant for 2 humans and 3 Great Danes, 2 of whom are spending the night in sexual passion. I didn't get much sleep, and at one point I woke to find Jerry on the couch. He had tired of the dogs jumping on him, especially on areas that guys don't like to be jumped on.

I left the next morning for Corpus. I didn't get back to the ranch until midnight Wednesday and, being too tired to drive back to San Antonio, spent the night and helped Mom the next morning. When I came back to Jerry's late Thursday, Thumper's desire for Buddy's backside had not abated.

Thursday night was another lovely experience, but I'll save that for a different post.

Recycling=Rocket Science???

2009-11-13T22:03:00.000-08:00

When I was a child, we didn't have trash service out on the ranch (we still don't.) We burned our trash in a trash pit, in which we had to light the trash then get away fairly quickly. We kind of tried not to throw away pressurized aerosol containers, but it happened. You could hear a high-pitched whistling noise before the container exploded.

Back then, just about everything got thrown in the trash---cans, bottles, newpapers, you name it.When the pit got full, we shoveled the debris---charred glass bottles, soot-covered cans--out and took it and dumped it on the creek. When we got rid of big stuff, that too was taken down and dumped. The place where we dumped stuff was a veritable gold mine of Rusty Old Stuff---a hopping singles bar for tetanus, where tetanus bacteria came to party like it was 1973, get drunk, and randomly procreate with other tetanus bacteria, leaving lots of homeless baby tetanus bacteria in their wake, tetanus bacteria which lurked around on old rusty metal, just waiting for the day a mammal scratched up against it.......

For really big stuff, there was the City Dump. Now, technically, we probably weren't supposed to use the City Dump, because we lived outside the city limits so we didn't pay city taxes. The City Dump was what the city used before they had trash pickup. People dumped their garbage in the dump, which was a U shaped large pit in the ground, where people backed their pickups up to the hole and threw in their garbage---which sometimes included the pickup, if it was in such bad shape that even baling wire and duct tape couldn't keep it held together. (Lots of vehicles were held together with baling wire.) There was a fire going in the pit at the City Dump, constantly. The fire was always burning.

I guess they filled in the Dump around 1975 or 76, 'long about the time they got people to come to people's houses, pick up the trash, and cart it off to be dumped somewhere else, presumably somewhere where small children couldn't escape their parents' notice for long enough to wander off and fall into the Pit with the Eternal Fire.

Anyway, in case y'all haven't noticed, I said nothing about recycling. That's because, at least in this part of Texas, there warn't no recycling back then, 'cept maybe automotive recycling. That's where you took the door off the 20 year old car and put it on the 18 year old car that had gotten a dent, or when you took the truck bed off the pickup with the blown engine, and cut it to make a trailer out of it.

We weren't opposed to recycling, it's just that there was no place to take it to and nothing for them to do with it if there was.

Somewhere around 1976 or '77, aluminum recyclers came on the scene. You could pick up beer cans and take a bunch and sell them and get enough gas money to get to the recycling center. Boy howdy!

So whatever recycling I did was pretty well limited to aluminum recycling until about 1985. However, there are 3 parts to the reduce-reuse-recycle equation. When you don't have a lot of money, you don't have a lot to spend on stuff you don't need (though, actually, we did okay in that category). When your dad grew up during the Great Depression, and for 7 school years, you live with your grandmother who got married in 1929 and raised her family during the Great Depression, AND you live on a ranch, you learn not to throw stuff away. Ever. As those who lived through or grew up during the Great Depression die, their loved ones are left with houses chock full to the gills with......stuff. You know, stuff like string, rubber bands that long ago lost their elasticity and will break if stretched, rags from clothes that haven't been work since 1962, paper bags, old newspapers, loose screws, you name it. People who were forced to live on nothing, don't generally buy and throw away a lot of stuff. My grandmother never used a trash can larger than a small pail.

So, I started recycling in earnest only as an adult. For the past 15+ years, I have had a household that is committed to reduce-reuse-recycle. Before curbside recycling, or when I lived in places that didn't have it, I hauled things to Ecology Action (9th St. and I-35, Austin.) I've brought recycling up from the ranch, brought it home from places like offices and friend's apartments that didn't recycle, carried empty soda cans to my car instead of throwing them away like everyone else at whatever gathering I was at.

I make it clear to all my housemates that we recycle. I have one trash can in the kitchen for trash, and another can for recycling. In addition, I have a container for paper recycling.

So why do I find recycling in the trash, and trash in the recycling?

Really, now. I'm pretty sure that 5 year olds can distinguish between plastic wrap and plastic milk bottle, between cat turds and tin cans, between.... (trying to think of what I actually throw away, as opposed to recycle....some things, but not much.) I'm pretty sure that a 5 year old can grasp that you can recycle paper like letters and junk mail and newspapers and stuff like that, but you can't recycle wet, dirty paper towels. (they may not understand why you can recycle one and not the other, but I'm pretty sure they can grasp the difference and, once taught, reliably say which bin item should go in.)

So if a 5 year old can do it, what's with men in their 30's? What the hell?

Not only are the 2 guys who live under my roof unable to grasp the concept of the difference between what is "recycling" and what is "trash", but they also seem to forget which bin is which. I don't get it. I really don't think this is rocket science. Furthermore, they aren't the only clueless morons that have lived under my roof. With Mark (age 36), Pete (in his 50's), Craig (late 20's), and others...... the distinction seems to be lost.

Do men just have a fundamental inability to function on their own? I mean, I'm sure there are capable, competent men out there, but....where are you, and what's with all these clueless dumbfucks? Are they educable?

I sometimes say that Great Danes get their brain implants at 18 months. Despite the rule of thumb that dogs mature at 1 year of age, that's really more of a teenage animal, like 13 or 15 in human years. A lot of dogs don't really get their brains until they're about a year and a half (some don't really mature until 3 years), when they start to calm down, remember rules like Thou Shalt Not Chew Shoes or Barbies (Just Say No To Crippled Barbies), they start to remember the meaning of that 3 letter word (the one that starts with s and ends with t) or that 2 letter word (the one that starts with n and ends with o) that they've heard about 1500 times. But, you know, even 1 year old dogs can do well in agility and obedience. Just not consistently---after all, dogs have a kind of ADD. If something else seems more appealing than doing a sit-stay, well........

I used to think that human males got their brain implants around age 25. Let's face it, the mission and goal in life of human males aged 13 to 25 is to see JUUUUUUSSSSSTTTTT how close they can get to killing themselves, without QUIIIIIITTTTTEEEE doing it. (And when they do manage to achieve that end, people go, "Wow, I never thought that would happen!!!) The Darwin Awards are good evidence of this.

But now I'm wondering when, or if, human males ever get their brain implants. In fact, I think I'm going to try to get into some kind of talk on neuroscience, raise my hand, and ask just that question.

Datewrecks

2009-11-10T04:21:00.000-08:00

For a long time, I didn't really see the purpose of blogs. People yammering on about all sorts of topics. Indeed, this one is a type of journal, and I don't particularly expect other people to be interested in my naval gazing. I don't have time to keep up with the mail in my inbox, much less spend time reading other people's ramblings, so I rarely read blogs.

There are some, however, which give me my daily dose of hilarity. I don't check them daily; rather, I tend to look at them on occasion. In addition to, of course, icanhascheezburger.com (though when did cats start craving cheeseburgers? That's more of a dog thing) and ihasahotdog.com, there is yousuckatcraigslist.com, whose moderator's comments are great (as are her main readers') and cakewrecks.com, awkwardfamilyphotos.com, and datewrecks.com. Oh, yeah, and peopleofwalmart.com. That's funny in a sad white trashy, do people actually do this? pathetic sort of way. You know, like you shouldn't stare and you shouldn't think it's funny, but you do anyway.

Datewrecks----if anyone for a moment doubts the paucity of sane, decent, intelligent, sensible men, and the overabundance of obnoxious, narcissistic, crazy, insane, idiot men in the dating world, one need only look at datewrecks.com. While the occasional woman does make her way onto datewrecks, the men.....oooooh, my eyes....... We're not talking their appearance. We're talking the entire package. If you wonder what we women have to contend with, read datewrecks.com

Here is one that, as one commenter says, every woman has had a similar experience (except that not every woman is an ex-narcotics cop who goes out on a blind date with a drug dealer).
http://datewrecks.com/2009/10/date-report-the-mutha-effin-coppas/

An excerpt:
We meet up for dinner and drinks. He seemed like a nice guy, but as the dinner went on (with him drinking like a fish) he begins to puke out his sad life story-mainly on how brutal his father abused him by sending him away to school. and never coming to any of his LaCrosse games. Ummm, great-I mean what can you say? Then he changed the subject to those “Mutha Effin” cops and his psycho ex” who conspired together to do a bogus drug raid on his house, even though he only deals 420 to his close friends. The Mutha Effin cops raided his house not once, but twice in a week! I sit there, not trusting myself to say a word without laughing-I’ll explain that reaction later.

He then carefully, painfully, thoroughly explained how he is now broke due to the legal fees and would I mind buying my own dinner? Then he wants to know if I would like go back to his place, smoke a joint and have some sex. Yeah. Wow, what a way to sweep a gal off her feet!

I chose that moment to ask him if he was interested in what I used to do for a living before my current career. As I was flipping cash on the table for my half of the bill and getting up to leave I explained that I was a cop for 14 years-and that I used to work on the narcotics squad, and that I still work as a reserve police officer-all true by the way. Of course I made sure he saw my ID badge in my wallet.

Me again. So what's really pathetic about this is what one of the commenters said:

And again I say, my life must really suck, if I don’t even find this very bizarre…pretty much on par with most of my first dates. At least he wasn’t wearing an ankle monitor…been there.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this----THIS----is what we have to contend with.

I'll share some of my own datewreck stories later. For now, duty beckons, since I didn't get anything done yesterday, thanks to AT&T.

If Capitalism Works so Well, Why Do So Many Corporations Suck????

2009-11-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

One of the concepts behind capitalism is that the market can deliver goods and services to the public much better than any kind of collective economy can. Companies owned by investors (whether individually or collectively, as in a corporation) are supposed to be more responsive to consumer demand and needs than are companies owned and operated by the government.

So let's look at this major corporation, AT&T. I've been having a lot of problems sending email from my AT&T Yahoo service. I've gone to their web site several times and have done all they suggest. Occasionally I can get it to work for a while, but it goes back to having the same issues. So today, I glanced over the suggestions to verify that I had done all they said to do, and looked for some kind of "contact us" link. I found a "having problems sending email?" link, and it send me to a page which sent me back to the page I had been on. I finally found a "contact us" link which sent me to 2 more links, both having to do with the iPhone. Now, I don't have an iPhone and don't have cellular service with AT&T, just phone and internet service. But I clicked those links, hoping I could find someone who could help me. No. If you click on iPhone support, you get taken to a page where.....they try to sell you iPhones. But they don't give you any way to get support for them if you're having a problem.

I finally ended up on the investor relations site, because that's the only place I could find a phone number to "contact us". The other links for "contact us" just led to more web pages that had links to click on if you were having problems, which led me back to the web pages I had been on. Apparently, AT&T has gone into the federal witness protection program.

The investor relations dude I finally got to talk to (after pushing '0' numerous times because it wanted me to enter my account number or my social security number before it would let me talk to someone. The man with whom I spoke said they are investor relations but they aren't even part of AT&T, they are a separate company with a contract for investor relations.) But he was prepared for my issue, because apparently I'm far from the first. So he gave me a phone number, 800-288-2020, to call.

I called that number and got......drum roll please.......Dish Network. Or maybe Direct TV. Anyway, it had to do with TV. (I think I first got a "what are you calling about" and of course the options were "pay my bill" or "new products and services". Again, they don't want to help you solve their screwups, they just want money from you. I kept saying "technical support" and finally got transferred to the Direct/Dish TV thing. I got a person there. He told me to call 800 288 2020 to get AT&T internet services. Um, that's the phone number I called, and I got you, sir. He put me on hold so he could transfer me to internet services. Then I got transferred back into the queue that wanted me to enter my DirectTV account number. FAIL.

So then I hung up and called 800 555 1212, and asked for AT&T. Guess what number I was given? 800 288 2020!!!! So I called that again, and I think I got back into the TV queue. Or something. I'm not even sure what division I got, but it wasn't the right one. At least this time I got an Indian fellow who apologized for AT&T's utter, complete idiotic incompetency (well, he didn't use those words) and he put me on hold to transfer me to tech support. Actually, first he said we could fix it by fixing my settings, which of course are already the right settings because I've gone to the AT&T/Yahoo web page 10 times over the past week for help on this precise issue.

Oh, and-----I was calling from my cell phone. The call was clear, no problems hearing----until I got transferred to his division. Then it was staticky as hell. He came on, and we couldn't understand each other. I got him to call me back on my home phone, which he did, promptly. Good thing I bought a new home phone last night (my previous one just quit working, just like that. Yeah, I could have replaced the battery, but I didn't like it much anyway, and it had battlescars from when it looked just too much like a chewtoy, so I just got a new one.)

The man I spoke with---I wish I had gotten his name----was very good. He kept coming back on the line to apologize for the lengthy hold time and to tell me that someone would be with me shortly. He finally got me through to the Macintosh support people, came back on the line to tell me I was being transferred. I heard a faint voice on the other end, then.....we got disconnected.

So I called back, 800 288 2020. It asked what I was calling about. I said "technical support." It said, "You said (I forget which option, but it wasn't tech support), is that right?" "No." "I'm sorry, please state the reason for your call." "Tech support". "You said [something else entirely], is that right?" "No. Technical Support". "I'll transfer you to Sales and Service." I swear, these people don't want to fix problems with the things I'm paying for, they just want more money out of me.

So then I get a nice lady in Sales and Service, and I ask to speak to a supervisor, because by now I want a credit on my bill. She says she can transfer me to technical support, and she will stay on the line until I'm connected, and she puts me on hold. She finally gets me to a tech support guy. He tells me to do all the things I've already done.

I run through all the settings. As if he hasn't heard me, he wants me to go back and read them all again so he can check them off on his little check box. I would think that if you've been doing this for any time, you'd know that the smtp port is 465 and the pop account is 995, that they're both SSL protected, and that you've got to have the entire email address. I would think that you could check those quickly. Apparently not.

I tell the guy what version of Mac OS I'm running, what version of Mail. I tell him I've downloaded a completely different email program called Postbox, yet I'm having the same problem with Postbox. I can't connect to the smtp server, or can do so only intermittently.

So then he asks what version of Windows I'm running. Windows 84 version 10.4.11, and he asks what mail program I'm using. Sigh. 'Scuse me while I rewind the tape I was just playing.

He wants me to do various things, all of which I've already done (and in fact just told him I already did). He wants me to delete my pop account. The only problem is that every time I go to delete my pop account, it says that if I do delete that account, I'll lose all my messages in that account. I don't want to lose all my messages, many of which are saved only on my computer and not on any server.

So I'm going through this with him, and.......we get disconnected.
FAIL.

It is now 2 hours after I first started dealing with this problem today. This is not counting the 5 hours I spent one night puzzling over the ATT webpage, trying to solve this problem. I think it's time they solved this problem. My neck is getting cramped from holding the phone.

Every time I call AT&T for tech support, I get a survey. The tech support agents really rely on these surveys for their promotions, raises, and even continued employment. But the problem is not with the customer service agents, almost all of whom are exceedingly friendly and nice and do their best to be helpful. But if you're dealing with a pile of shit, no matter how nice you are and no matter how many layers of gold paint you put on it, it's still a pile of shit. If your corporation is systemically broken, a lowly customer service agent is not going to be able to fix it. But AT&T doesn't care about their broken system, how hard it is to find contact numbers on their web page, the fact that their phones disconnect me, their voice interaction system (whatever you call those things that ask you to speak your phone number, tell them what you're calling about, etc) does not work, the fact that they have a problem they seem not to want to fix----AT&T doesn't care about any of that. They just care if they can give some lowly customer service person the boot for not making me happy, when I'm furious because I've now spent 2 hours of my day, when I SHOULD be at work, trying to reach them and get them to solve a problem.

Unfortunately, AT&T is not the only major American corporation with this problem. The company I work for does a lot of business with Coca-Cola. I kid my boss about his $1500 per week Coke habit. When I call Coke about a billing issue, I get a call center and am told that billing will call me back within 48 hours. Fine, except the delivery guy is standing here right now, and we need to resolve this problem right now, and I don't think either his boss or his wife is going to be too happy if I make him hang out here for 48 hours. Plus, what if I'm out of the office or unavailable when they call back? Then I call them back and wait another 48 hours?

It's not only billing. I've called and asked to speak to our sales rep. No, they can't put me through to her, but I can leave a message and she should get back to me within 48 hours. Can you give me her company-issued cell phone number, the one she's given me in the past but I can't find right now? No, but if you leave your name and number and a message, I'll have her get back to you within 48 hours.

This is our SALES REP. This is the person we call if there's a problem with our order, if we need something special, if we need something expedited, etc. Sales reps are supposed to be halfway on call for you at all times, not "we'll get around to getting back to you when we feel like it". They're supposed to WANT our business, and the corporation is supposed to WANT our business and work to retain it. But they don't, because they're a virtual monopoly and know they're pretty much the only game in town. (We have now established an account with Pepsi, and, despite the fact I'm not a big Pepsi fan, are pushing their products more.)

American corporations don't care. They sneer at us instead of working and competing for our business, then when any whiff of regulation or rules is in the air, they scream about how free market capitalism is supposed to be the best of any possible system, and regulation will kill their business, etc etc.

No, guys. Regulation won't kill your business. Your incompetence, ineptitude, and total lack of concern for how well your product works, will. Regulations come about because people are not doing the things they ought to do. So by being incompetent yahoos, you force the government to take action.

Having said that, capitalism does occasionally work. Some years back, I bought a telephone at Circuit City. It did not work properly, so I exchanged it for another. Now, a telephone is not an overly complicated piece of equipment, so when the second phone also proved defective, I was annoyed, and returned it for an exchange. When I had to take the third phone back, I expected some sort of profuse apology. I did not get it. I received an air of impatience, as though I was imposing upon them. When the fourth phone did not function correctly, I asked to speak with the manager, but he didn't have time for me. I did not exchange it for another, just my money. I wrote a letter to Circuit City headquarters, detailing my experience with defective merchandise and poor customer service (it was hard to get waited on or helped on those places, too.) I fully expected some sort of letter back with profuse apologies. Nothing. No response, nothing at all. Well, hell, if they don't care about their business, why should I be expected to???

So I didn't shop Circuit City again, until their going out of business sales. I asked to see a laptop computer that was all boxed up, no display items. I was asked if I wanted to buy it (for almost full-price, maybe $30 off). Well, I don't know, I need to look at it first, I responded. Nope, sorry, if I wanted to buy one, let them know, otherwise they didn't have time for me.

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. Circuit City deserved every last penny of bankruptcy. They deserved to fall into the depths of corporate hell.

Unfortunately, I hear Best Buy is just as bad, though I've not had defective product problems from them (then again, how much have I bought there?). But other people have had a litany of poor customer service and bad merchandise. But Best Buy is almost the only game in town, having run everyone else out.

This morning, when I should have been at work, I spent 3.5 hours on the phone with AT&T, getting routed to departments that have absolutely nothing in common with my problem, being disconnected, and ultimately speaking to people who asked me for the information I had just given them. (This happened several times. I'd say, "the POP server address is pop.att.yahoo.com" and they would say, "Okay m'am, now if you look where it says, "address" you will find an address for a POP account there. What does it say?") Finally, the last man with whom I spoke opined that the problem is in my computer. The problem replicates using 2 different email client programs and 2 different email addresses. But he thinks that the reason my computer isn't talking to their server, despite having all the setting set correctly, is because my computer has some sort of flaw or bug or something.

This still should not have taken 3.5 hours. I should have been able to speak with a living, breathing customer service tech support technician within 15 minutes of dialing, not routed all over AT&T hell, and the tech support people should have listened to me instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other and asking me to repeat what I had just said 4 times.

Good Christian Men, Rejoice....with heart, and hands, and garrotte

2009-11-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

On Skeleton Stories or something like that, one of those now-discontinued forensic science shows that I like so much, there was mention of one Danny Hobart, from Missouri or Kansas or somewhere like that. He was a good Christian man who was a lay leader in his church. And, he killed prostitutes. Note to self: research this a bit. I'm pretty sure, from what I heard, that he blamed the evils of the world on prostitution, so instead of doing something about the men who seek out women for sex, the men who LEAVE THEIR HOMES and go trolling for sex, or, worse yet, those who BRING WOMEN BACK TO THEIR MARITAL BED when their wives are away, he hunts down prostitutes and kills them.

I've lived in some dicey neighborhoods---in fact, I lived right next door to some crack ho's and their benefactor---but I can unequivocally state that a prostitute has never knocked on my door, asking if I or anyone therein wanted to pay for sex. In fact, while I have indeed seen streetwalkers, and I've seen them ask men if they were interested, I've never seen them accost johns. And most places where men are lured by prostitutes, are places that men have to go to in order to be lured by prostitutes.

You know, I really detest pawn shops and pay day loan places and other businesses which prey on poor people, especially when they advertise heavily and go out of their way to seduce people in. They're not offering a helping hand in time of distress, they're encouraging poor people to pay, in some cases, 100% interest. I think that businesses like this, and even banks (credit card companies, mortgage companies) that operate in like ways, luring people who can't afford it, instead of offering a service for those who can, are nigh criminal. I believe they cause great distress and misery. However, I'm pretty sure that the legal system would not take it kindly if I were to walk into such a place of business, offer to engage in a transaction, and then strangle the clerk, or even the owner. I'm also pretty sure that the legal system would not take it kindly if I pre-emptively killed misogynistic, asshole men who do everything just short of (and oftentimes including) rape----like plying a woman with drinks, assuring her that he'll respect her and won't do anything, then, when she's too drunk to resist, he has his way----and he plots this all along. I've known lots of men like this, but their actions are shrugged off, and the rape is blamed on the woman. If I hunted these men down and killed them, why, I'd probably be dealt with as Aileen Wournos (the victim of a great deal of domestic violence who became a prostitute and killed men) was----in the electric chair (or was it death by injection?)

But apparently, Christian men, once again blaming women for men's sins and vices, lay the blame of prostitution at the feet of women, and if we could just get rid of all the prostitutes, we could....what? force women to do our will, because they wouldn't even be able to prostitute themselves to escape our cruelty? (Yes, many women have prostituted themselves in order to provide for their children, or to keep a roof over their heads, especially when they left an abusive partner. And many more women live with a man who beats them and treats them badly, because they cannot afford to leave him. When they do leave him, a significant number of these women have, at one time, prostituted themselves.)

So not only are they usurping the role of law enforcement for a non-violent crime, they are also playing god. Because doesn't the Bible say things like, "Judge not lest ye be judged"? and it talks about God being the final arbiter, the one to dole out punishment and reward? Yet religious men like Danny Hobart are taking it upon themselves to mete out punishment.

And lest Christians cry out in anguish, as they often do when it's pointed out just how anti-Christian they're actually being, yeah, Muslims do it, too. And you call them on it repeatedly, saying it's wrong (which it absolutely is). So why is it right for you to do it? Women are people, with all the rights and privileges thereto, regardless of whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Atheist, or whathaveyou.

Why do Republicans have no sense of humor?

2009-11-07T03:50:00.000-08:00

Why is it that, even though conservatives keep saying that liberals have no sense of humor, that conservatives don't get humor? Especially parodies (must be above their level of understanding.) Nothing is funny except the hatred of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity. But when a more liberal person pokes fun at the right, suddenly, "That's not funny!"

Jon Stewart did a great parody of Glenn Beck the other day. http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/glenn-becks-appendicitis-scare-inspires-jon-stewart-to-artfully-parody-him--763

Unfortunately, conservatives didn't get it. They glorify the inane overracting idiot that is Glenn Beck, but get all huffy when a mirror is held up to him.

Surprise in the Cupboard

2009-11-05T00:55:00.001-08:00

I have 2 housemates. Actually, this one guy is renting a room from me, and the other is someone I had just recently met. He helped me with a dog adoption day, I helped him get a part-time job, and then he called me up one Friday night. He had moved here from up north and was staying with his mother and mother's husband, but they had some kind of falling out, and this man needed a place to stay. (It turns out that he has a history of problems with hard liquor, and his mother's husband found some beer cans, and they blew up. Apparently, the agreement was that he was not to drink while he stayed with them.)

The one who I allowed to stay with me for a bit definitely has alcohol problems, but he is actually working (albeit just a couple of days a week) and he cleans up after himself, at least in the common areas.

The other one. Oy, vey. Sometimes I'm amazed that he knows how to wipe his own ass. My dad had a saying that someone "didn't have the sense God gave little green apples". Well, take 1/4 the sense God gave little green apples, and divide it by 5, and you might get as much sense was what my roommate Mike has. My friend Jerry has a saying. He rarely asks someone this to their face, unless it's in jest, but when someone does something which shows a distinct removal from common sense or intelligence, he'll say, "Did your parents have any children that lived?" You know, it's harsh, but hey, sometimes it fits.

Mike's been living in San Antonio 5 months and hasn't yet found a job. Of course, in order for most people to find jobs, they have to actually get out of bed and go look for one. I've known people who applied for jobs sitting in front of their computer in their underwear, but I've never known an employer to go bang on your door, offering you a job if only you'll get out of bed. Mike's dad is paying his rent, and Mike feels no real compunction to end the gravy train and support himself. So he goes downtown to "apply for jobs", aka hang out with other losers. After 2 months of me offering him a ride to Texas Workforce Commission (he thinks he's too good to ride the bus), he finally agreed to go. I tried to tell him some things on the ride---I had to pull the earphones away from his head, where they were blaring noise loud enough to be annoying to me, even though they were in his ears. When he got out of the car, instead of heading into the building, he sat on the curb and started playing with his phone or mp3 player. I went and got some kolaches, something to drink, etc. I was gone at least 10 minutes----long enough for him to have smoked a cigarette prior to going inside. I drove back by the Workforce Commission office, to find Mike maybe 50 yards from the door, walking away from the door, talking with a man who didn't look like he had anything to offer in terms of a job. The person who was with me opined that Mike was looking to score some drugs. My POV is that while I do not know the other man, and I could not hear what they were saying, and thus cannot state with certainty what Mike was or was not doing, that the assumption that he was trying to buy drugs was certainly consistent with the facts, and in any case, Mike was not putting forth any effort towards even registering to find a job, much less finding one.

I've come home at least 4 times in the past 5 days to find the refrigerator open. The door has lost some of its "magnetism". It holds once it's closed, but you need to make sure it closes, and if there's food sticking out at the bottom it keeps the door from closing (it was built for drawers, but those drawers disappeared before I bought the house, so we just put stuff on the bottom). So this is no big deal, and honestly, if I found the door open every once in a while, I wouldn't spaz about it. But it's half the times I go to that refrigerator, I find it open. Moreover, Mike passes by the frig every time he goes to the bathroom, so he sees it more often than I do.

Anyway, this past weekend the water was shut off because I had a broken pipe under the house and it took us a while to fix it. I filled containers with water, and we eventually filled the bathtub with water so that, even though we couldn't shower, we still had water to flush the toilet, etc. Of course, during this time, I washed dishes. Humans have lived for 99% of our existence without running water, and in most times and locations, had to actually haul water some distances from wells and rivers. Hey, all I had to do to get water was to go turn on the water at the meter, fill some jugs, and turn off the water. I've gone backpacking in the desert and the desert mountains. When you have to haul all the water you have up a mountain, and water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, you conserve the water you have (humans require at least a gallon of water per day; more in extreme heat.) So I know how to wash with minimal water.

We got the water back on, so now there's no excuse, right? Tuesday morning, sink overflowing with dishes. Wednesday morning, sink overflowing with dishes. Came home Wednesday night, found the refrigerator door open. I asked Mike about it, if he knew the door was open. He said he hadn't opened it. So I just started pulling out the food that was keeping the door from closing, and left it on the floor. Not my job to constantly rearrange someone else's laziness. Mike eventually got up and did something with the food. I told him he needed to wash dishes. He grunted. I told him several times he needed to wash dishes. No response.

The dishes were bugging me. Ideally, I like to go to bed with an empty, clean sink, but I'll settle for a few dishes and glasses. But a sink overflowing with dirty dishes for 2 or 3 days----no. Not acceptable. Also, the stove was coated with grease. Mike fries everything, and he uses 2 or 3 times the amount of grease he needs to use. I've given him a splatter cover, but I don't think he uses it. I've told him to clean up after himself, but every time I use the stove, it's covered in grease, and he got grease into the pot of tea I had made.

It was late, and I had to be up early the next day, but screw it. I washed the dishes, then took all the plates, bowls, coffee cups, pots, pans, and skillets, and sequestered them away where he effectively can't get them. I'm applying the "if you can't take care of your toys, you don't get to play with them" principle. I've talked to Mike numerous times over the past 2 months about washing dishes and cleaning up after himself. This is a guy who took a bag of trash and left it on the front porch, where of course the dogs got into it and scattered it. He was too lazy to walk it the 15 or 20 yards to the trash can. So I told him to clean the mess up. He picked up a few things. I told him once again to clean it up. He still did a half-ass job. I'm tired of telling him to wash his dishes and wipe of the stove. He's obviously not listening. So he doesn't get to use the pots and pans and dishes. (I did leave drinking glasses.)

Folks, we're not talking about an 18 year old fresh out of Mommy and Daddy's house. We're talking about a 32, 33 year old "man". Or 6 foot tall boy, 'cause that's all Mike is. Fucking clueless, he is. People don't understand what I mean by that until they meet him.

I've decided I need to be a little less passive-aggressive with Mike and confront him, sit down and have a talk. The problem is, he's always asleep or in his room with the door closed. I rarely see him. He was on a benzodiazipine; I told his dad (who takes him to the doctor and buys his medication) to get him off of that. But his dad told me that Mike needed something so he can sleep. I told him I didn't think you needed to help someone who sleeps 12 to 20 hours per day, get more sleep, that 12 hours is more than sufficient for any adult. Mike was sleeping 12 to 20 hours per day, and even then, not doing anything when he was up. He wanted me to let him use my car to drive a block and a half (a SHORT block and a half) for fast food. He does not need a drug that will knock him out or even "calm him down". The object is to make him less comatose than he already is. Now that he's off the benzos, he's doing better, but he still sleeps until 11 am or noon (or occasionally 4 or 5 pm), gets up, is drinking coffee into then night, and never engages in any kind of physical activity, just lies in bed all day. Yet he tells his dad he can't sleep. Hell, the problem is, he never wakes up! Or he never really gets his body going and doing anything, and he uses stimulants (caffeine) until the wee hours. This is not rocket science. I told his dad, who's complaining that he can't afford whatever drugs Mike has been prescribed, that the problem is not medical (there may be some mental health issues, but they can't be discerned because of the behavioral issues.) Mike should not be given drugs until he gets on a routine of getting up by 7 or 8, getting out of the house, looking for work for at least 6 hours, getting some form of exercise (even just walking), not using caffeine past 2 pm, eating decent meals (he eats crap), and preparing for bed at a decent hour.

If his dad wasn't paying his rent, he would have been out long ago.

But I need to quit sniping by leaving the food on the floor and removing the dishes from the kitchen. I need to sit down and talk to him. On the other hand, words have fallen on deaf ears, and he needs to be taught that actions have consequences, and inaction has consequences.

I wish I could say that Mike is a total anomaly. Unfortunately, he's not. He's somewhat extreme because he has someone else supporting him, but in my experience, there are very few adult men in the world. There are, however, a lot of 6 foot, 200 pound irresponsible boys that need to be sent to their rooms (or maybe sent to mow the lawn, or something) because they're so fucking irresponsible and clueless. They leave all the chores to others, and don't pull their own weight in the world. I've been accused of hating men. I don't. I rather like men. It's just that there are so few of them, and so many irresponsible jerks.

Those Comment Sections

2009-11-04T06:28:00.001-08:00

I miss reading newspapers. I used to like to spread the paper out on the table before me, drinking multiple cups of coffee while reading the paper.

But I never had enough time to read the paper, but didn't want to throw it away until I had a chance to read it. The resulting piles of unread newspapers was a bone of contention between successive roommates and myself.

I don't subscribe anymore. If it goes directly from the little plastic wrapper bag into the recycling bin, what's the point? So I get my news from NPR and from reading online newspapers. I used to get headlines from the New York times delivered to my inbox each morning, and did quite a bit of reading of the NYT online. Something happened and I no longer get that, and I keep saying I'll resubscribe to the headlines just as soon as I read all the emails in my inbox (currently 5200 unread) and delete or file them appropriately.

Most newspapers and media sources have a space for comments after each article. I only sometimes read the comments, and find them occasionally insightful and informative but usually crazy and even downright stupid. Sometimes they make my blood boil enough that I want to comment on the comments, but usually it's too much effort to sign up or sign in (the San Antonio Express News/KENS 5's website is especially cumbersome for some reason) to comment.

One disturbing trend I've noticed amongst those who comment is paranoia, xenophobia, and ignorance bordering on outright lunacy. Lots of racism, sexism, and hatred amongst those who take the time to comment on news items.

A friend pointed me towards this interesting website: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/06/who-is-the-40-year-old-virgin.html which talks about adults in the 25 to 45 year age range who self-identify as virgins (according to this, homosexual men are 11 times more likely to be virgins than are heterosexual men. It's entirely possible that there are a lot of gay men who have never had sex with men or women---they are gay but celibate.) As usual, the comment section has a few insightful comments, a few stupid ones (like the guy who said people don't know if they're gay or straight unless they've had sex-----so how many men did he have to sleep with before he decided he wasn't interested????? I've known a number of gay men who knew they were attracted to men, or at least to Superman/Batman/Robin/etc at age 6 or 7, and I certainly hope they were not having sex with anyone at that age, much less grown men wearing masks and capes. Sexual orientation is hard-wired for almost all of us, although it's certainly possible for the "mechanics" to work with a person of a gender we're not that attracted to----hence the legions of gay men who married as a cover, and lesbians who denied their attraction to women and married men because surely the roles of wife and mother would make them straight.)

Anyway, then there was this gem of a comment by "G.Anon" in June of this year:

This is due to western females. They can leave school early with no qualifications and reproduce with teen hooligans. Any offspring are maintained through government welfare. The offspring grow into troublesome types like their fathers. The idea that single teen mothers are due to poverty is a lie, designed to turn such females into victims. Of course they would choose to reproduce with more responsible males if they were in genuine poverty. Instead, they deliberately reject such men as being “too nice” and choose to breed with unsuitable types to show that they have the power to decide to live off welfare.

Other females study at school and become feminist professional types. They are "too busy" with their careers, so have children late in life or never at all. They have no concept of sexual attraction toward men, only for having children and money for buying fancy cars, to make ludicrous statements of superiority toward other women. Men who want sex are branded as “typical men”, while the women then complain that a man is no good at sex or they want men with larger penises.

Women make a mockery of civilised values, because their choices mean prisoners and low-IQ types are just as likely to have sexual relationships (and pass on their genes) than law-abiding or intelligent men. Women are to blame for abortion, because they are getting drunk in night clubs and choosing to have unprotected sex with sleazy types because they find it sexually arousing, and they are experimenting with their bodies to see how easily they can conceive, but they don’t have the maturity to become mothers.

Modern media, such as films, trashy women’s and girl’s mags, pop music videos promote the idea that criminality, smoking, drunkenness drug, abuse and violence are cool and sophisticated, encouraging teen girls to copulate with males coz they have groovy hairstyles, drugs, trendy clothes, piercings, tattoos, motorbikes, knives etc. They then watch tv shows like “Big Bang Theory” and get the idea that any civilised man is an unsophisticated loser. Modern society with its welfare payments and panders to the feminist idea that women are the victims of men, and the welfare means women have no motivation to be careful who they copulate with. Women prefer to breed with teen layabouts, fat slobs, and macho posturing types who like to hang out in bars looking mean.

These things make a mockery of family values, education, respect for others, contributing to society and self-improvement. All of this nonsense results in more single people, violence, unwanted kids, people dying alone, etc.

Wow, maybe this guy's a virgin because......he's a blooming misogynistic asshole who completely hates women and doesn't deserve a peek at a pussy, much less to experience one in any other way???? Hey, G. Anon, I haven't "bred" with anyone yet. I'm 42 years old, and know what? Your gender is characterized by fucking clueless morons, G. Anon!!!! That's another post for another day, but I find myself surrounded by clueless, lazy-ass jerks. Of which, judging from your writing, you are probably one. It's pretty clear you're not "too nice" for any woman. Also, G. Anon, for your information, many, even a majority, of pregnant teens are pregnant by men considerably older than they, men in their 20's. Women don't decide to try to make ends meet with a baby on $600 or $800 per month. It's not a great way to make a living. I hear conservative retirees bitch and moan that $3000/month is not enough to live on (even though their house is paid for), then turn around and scream that welfare mothers are living high on the hog----apparently they view $700 or so per month to feed, clothe, and house 2 or 3 people as "high on the hog", whereas $3000 per month is "poverty level" when it comes to themselves.

Next paragraph:Other females study at school and become feminist professional types.

Yeah, I guess we're just downright evil if we want an education and the same rights and privileges that the other half of the population has, huh? First we choose to be lazy welfare queens, then we choose to work but that too makes us evil.

Anon:They are "too busy" with their careers, so have children late in life or never at all.

Earth to Asshole: Lots of women have careers and children. You know, those single women you hate? Many of them marry relatively young, but the child they're married to is much more work than the children they gave birth to, so they get rid of the guy who's taking the grocery money and using it to drink and chase other women.

And where's your opprobrium for men who are too busy being children and making and blowing money, to settle down and commit to a woman and raise a family? Nowhere do you criticize men for not staying home and raising a family. So what gives? It can't be.....that you're a raging misogynistic asshole, can it?

Anon:have no concept of sexual attraction toward men, only for having children and money for buying fancy cars, to make ludicrous statements of superiority toward other women.

Earth to Asshole: Hahahahahahahah!!!!! OMG, are you really that clueless???? Dude, you owe me a new computer, 'cause I snorted tea all over my keyboard and computer!

Okay, let's see:
1) Men are by far the major consumer of "fancy cars". Women tend towards practical cars. Even when you see married couples with children, if there is one vehicle that's a fancy 2 door, 98% of the time, it belongs to the man. The woman is driving the un-sexy minivan.

MEN are the ones who view cars as penis extensions. MEN are the ones that make ludicrous statements of superiority via their vehicles.

Dude, my vehicles: 1981 Honda Civic wagon, bought in 1986 for $2300. 1985 VW Quantum wagon, bought in 1990 for $3500. 1994 Toyota 4wd pickup (my sexiest vehicle ever), bought in 1996. 1984 VW Rabbit Diesel, bought in 2004 for $150. 1991 VW Jetta Diesel, bought circa 2002 for $2300. And my latest, 2003 Hyundai Elantra with dented passenger side, bought in current (damaged) condition in 2008 for $2000 plus trade in of the 1984 Rabbit with a shredded timing belt (and thus blown engine.)

Oh, yeah, I have no concept of sexual attraction for men because I'm spending all my time making love to my sexy cars that I'm blowing lots of money on!!!!

Also, if a woman "has no concept of sexual attraction for men", it means she's a lesbian. If she's heterosexual, she will be attracted to men. If she totally lacks sexual attraction for men, she's either lesbian or (very slight possibility) asexual. But it's not because she's got the hots for cars.

G. Anon (aka "Clueless Asshole"): Men who want sex are branded as “typical men”, while the women then complain that a man is no good at sex or they want men with larger penises.

Well, if a man who was as completely stupid and clueless and filled with as much hate towards women as this writer seems to be, approached me and wanted sex from me, yeah, I'd probably brand him a "typical male" (actually, this guy is plumbing the depths of masculine assholery). And yes, regardless of the size, shape, or other attributes of his equipment, he would be no good at all at sex, because 90% of sex is between the ears. And no, stupid, I'm not saying you hold onto her ears while she sucks your dick. I'm saying that to make love with a woman, you have to make love with HER, her mind, her emotion, her personality, not just her vagina.

And the larger penises bit? (Jeez, has this man ever actually been with a woman? I'm thinking not.) Penis enlargement devices are and always have been and always will be marketed at men. It is not women who are obsessed with the size of the penis, it is MEN who are obsessed at the size. For the most part, most guys are average. They may be on the small side of average or on the large side of average, but most men are average. One of the best lovers I've ever had, also had one of the smallest penises I've ever seen on an adult male----but he had phenomenal hands. Conversely, if a man is too large, he hurts, and sex with him isn't much fun. Like, "oh, dear, we've already done it once this week, I need a few days to mend before we do it again." Who wants that?

Let's look at Clueless Asshole's next paragraph: Women make a mockery of civilised values, because their choices mean prisoners and low-IQ types are just as likely to have sexual relationships (and pass on their genes) than law-abiding or intelligent men. Women are to blame for abortion, because they are getting drunk in night clubs and choosing to have unprotected sex with sleazy types because they find it sexually arousing, and they are experimenting with their bodies to see how easily they can conceive, but they don’t have the maturity to become mothers.

I see. WOMEN make a mockery of civilized values because MEN are prisoners, have low IQ, are shiftless and irresponsible and aren't willing to commit and quit running around drinking and chasing women in order to support and spend time raising children. Of course. It's always the WOMAN'S fault.

Okay, I know many law-abiding men. But not as many law-abiding men as I know law-abiding women. There aren't as many good men out there as there are good women. But obviously, this too is women's fault.

And apparently, all abortion is due to getting drunk in nightclubs and having sex with sleazy men. It's never due to failed contraception, or lack of use of contraception amongst sober people, or lack of money to pay the $90/month for birth control pills. Oh, no, that's never the cause. It's always drunk women having sex with sleazy men they met in bars.

Except......has this guy ever been in a bar? I have. While yes, I realize that women DO go to nightclubs, in the bars I've been in, men outnumber women about 4 to 1. At least 2 or 3 to 1. Which means.....there's a lot more men hanging out in bars, getting drunk, than there are women hanging out in bars, getting drunk. But I'm sure that women are to blame for that fact, too.

Honestly, the bit about "they are experimenting with their bodies to see how easily they can conceive, but they don’t have the maturity to become mothers" chaps my ass. How DARE he, how dare ANYONE, claim that women who get pregnant are "experimenting with their bodies to see how easily they can conceive"????? Does he have ANY idea what an abortion is like? Does he have ANY idea how much thought goes into having an abortion, even for the most ardent pro-choice woman? OBVIOUSLY not. The attitude he displays towards women is so condescending, so hate-filled, as to be beyond the pale. Nowhere does he hold men accountable. From what he himself says, it's quite obvious that the world abounds with sleazy men, but he's saying that the good guys can't get laid because women are self-serving bitches who "have no concept of sexual attraction to men" but they get "drunk in nightclubs" and choose to have "unprotected sex with sleazy types because they find it sexually arousing" and then want to experiment with getting pregnant but then have abortions because they're too immature to be mothers (as opposed to all those mature teenagers who purposefully get pregnant because they want someone to love them, but they don't actually want to be responsible for the baby 24/7 and have to deal with it all the time).

Clueless Asshole has more to say, but why bother refuting him. My point in posting all of this (besides to vent some rage at the Clueless Assholes of the internet) is to show that no, the need for feminism is not dead. I hear people (like, mostly white men, but also a number of "protected" white women) claim that we're all treated equally now and there's no need for feminism and reverse discrimination and equal opportunity, etc. But then, in almost every comments section of every newspaper, and even in the comments sections of some journals read mostly by educated, even intelligent people, you will find comments such as these. Comments and attitudes and beliefs such as those espoused by G. Anon, aka Clueless Asshole, demonstrate all too plainly the need for continued proactive messages and treatment for disadvanted people.

I grew up in South Texas. We girls were given the message, subtly and not so subtly, that the reason for our existence was to please men. It was our fault if we had any sex drive whatsoever, but once we married, we were to bend over backwards pleasing our men. This complete eats at a girl's self-esteem---and then we are criticized for having low self-esteem. No, the need for talking about sexism is far from over. Attitudes such as Clueless Asshole's are far too common.

As for Clueless Asshole, I hope he dies a virgin. It's the most he deserves. Frankly, I think he deserves the loss of both hands, because a man with attitudes like that doesn't even deserve the love and caring that his right hand can provide. But that's probably too much to hope for.

Why Blog

2009-11-04T01:07:00.000-08:00

I've been using the internet since July 1990, when Hal, this guy I met at Kerrville Folk Festival (the first time I attended) told me about it as a cheap way we could "chat" via computer between my home in Austin, where I was working at and about to become a student at the University of Texas, and College Station, where he was enrolled in pursuit of a Ph.D. in computer science. Back then, my desktop Mac (the first one I had didn't even have a hard drive, I loaded the operating system and maybe some rudimentary word processing program with one floppy, then had another floppy to save my work on) was a dummy terminal, connecting to a much bigger computer at the University of Texas via a SLIP account. I think the mainframe was Uncle Walt, and the computers we dialed into were various Disney characters (Donald, Daisy, Mickey, et al.)

Hal talked me into signing up for an account. I had never heard of this thing, but it was free by virtue of me being a student. I was one of the first liberal arts majors to get an email address and an internet access account. Hal and I could then use the Unix command TALK to talk to each other---totally non-graphic, just text. Hal also showed me Usenet. He had been using Usenet back when it was possible to keep abreast of every Usenet group, back in his days as a math major at the University of Rochester, than a programmer at the Naval Research Labs. Later, I learned to FTP and how to use this program called Fetch. This was hot shit in the research world---you had to know the address and where and how to find it, but you could look up information on another computer thousands of miles away.

In December 1993, I left for the UK, where I had a 6 month work visa. I worked at the Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. CTVM was out away from the city of Edinburgh some 4 or 5 miles---it was maybe a half mile from where Dolly the first cloned sheep was, er, conceived. The University of Edinburgh proper had internet access, but CTVM was just getting it when I was there, and I found myself the unlikely candidate for Resident Email Guru, since I knew more about how it worked, and had used it much more, than anyone else there (kind of scary, considering how little I knew).

When I returned to Texas in July 1994, Hal sat me down in front of one of the big Sun workstations at Texas A&M University, where he worked, and fired up this program called Mosaic. He then introduced me to the World Wide Web, which seemed to have sprung up in the 8 months I had been away. He went to one page, clicked a link, clicked on another link from there, and..... it was magic!!! Suddenly I could look up information on the computers at the University of Cardiff (Wales) without knowing the exact FTP address of the files. It was amazing!

Suddenly, everyone who was any kind of computer geek had to have a web page. The problem was, there was really nothing to put up. People posted their resumes, and web pages about themselves, talking about how wonderful their fascination with Van Halen was, or talking about their farts, or..... it was almost all completely juvenile, puerile, and pointless. Very few web pages said anything of any real interest worth saying. I never learned HTML (which I regret) because I wasn't narcissistic enough to fancy that people actually gave a shit about the minute details of my life.

Fast forward to 2009. There are so many blogs (web logs) that we have the "blogosphere". People seem to substitute interest in other people's doings for interesting things in their own lives. People live virtual lives instead of real ones.

So what's a ruminative woman to do? I sometimes post journal-type writings to an email list I'm on, the Unofficial St. John's College Alumni List, but it's an email list, not my own personal journal. So finally, in November 2009, I decided that I would join the narcissistic hordes and create my own blog. Read it or not, as you please. It's a free country and a free internet.