Practical Penumbra

I try to use this power only for good

I have a confession to make. I am a flirt. I'm not sure if that's the reason for or merely a consequence of my womanly power over the male of the species, but the force runs strong in the females of my family. I just had to get that off my (currently braless) chest...

The Practical Penumbra Stupid Customer Story Open Results!!!!

The judges (Susie, Paul, Jennifer and Mr. Mouse) have spoken (well, emailed), the grades have been tallied, a complicated mathematical formula was discarded and replaced with a simpler one*, and a unique series of checks and balances was deemed unnecessary to identify the winners!

Honorable Mention to:
Brass, for the Ski Lift story
J Fielek for the Forklift story, and
GEBIV for the Carwash story

Second Place(tie) to:
Ensie for her Dinosaur Picture story and
KGB for the Spanish Translation story

And the WINNER is......

Rob!!! for the Waterpump story.

Now, two of my favorites didn't make the cut, so pity links to Pink Kitty, and LeeAnn--you ladies have my empathy!

Rob has his choice of any of the three prizes, and Ensie and KGB each have their choice of the second and third place prizes...watch for my email, you three!

Thanks to everybody who contributed!!!!!

* Each entry was assigned a letter grade by each of the judges, and the highest GPA was the winner.

OOPS! The entries are here. (Thanks, Harv!)

Hoist with his own petard!!!

Muhahahaha!!!!! Thanks to the efforts of Munuvians Jennifer and CD, and co-conspirators Tiffany and Nony Mouse (with a little help from their friends), Harvey must now accept the longstanding invitation to go munu!

We'll be gentle, Harv...(until you beg otherwise--and you will!)

A sign I've been hanging around with Harvey too much....

This week, The Alliance wants me to caption this picture.

Thought bubble: "I should have used two socks...."

It's not de ja vu, it's copy and paste

It's the final day for the Spirit of America fund drive!!!!! Check out all the offers below (via John of Augghhh!) who I think got this from Kevin the Wiz (but don't quote me)....

Collectables

How would you like to own a signed copy of this Day by Day© strip?

Click on the strip to go to the auction page. This is a serious
collectors item.
Update: Chris has thrown in this extra for the winner - pick
ANY other single toon from the archive and he'll sign it too.

Cox & Forkum are auctioning off an awesome original artwork with some extra
items.
The True Nature of Reality has the copy of the newspaper where the democratic party
asked for Rumsfeld to be shot.
Chief Wiggles has offered to come to your area and lecture at the location of
your choosing. The Chief is also offering a MINT condition Operation Iraqi
Freedom patch!
Sondra K is offering Limited Edition Campbell's soup cans, issued in celebration of the original Andy Warhol Tomato Soup print. She has also extended her official Baathist
Party notecard auction!

Services And Big Ticket
Items

Aspiring (or existing) authors - no matter who
you are or what you write, you need careful editing and an honest evaluation.
Gerard Van der Leun has an amazing auction offer for you: Professional
editing. He's got over 30 years of industry experience, which you can enlist in
finishing off your pet project. Go visit the American
Digest and start bidding; realize your "Great American Novel".
Hugh Hewitt is offering a
you a guest segment on any topic you want (8 minutes) on his syndicated
radio show!!!
She Who Will Be Obeyed - plane ticket!

Food/Dinners

Citizen Smash is offering dinner dates in San Diego and DC. plus other items here.
Venomous Kate is offering you a 4-course
gourmet dinner and a night of drinks on the Venomous Lanai.
Dorkafork is offering to come to you (if you are in Colorado) and fix you a fancy resturant quality shirmp dinner plus wine. He's also offering to design you a blog logo for $10.
Ken Wheaton is giving away invites to a barbecue at his house
for$20 donors in the NYC Metro area. His barbecue is out of this world
good, so you don't want to miss it.
Sean has Krispy Kreme's for you, now at an even lower price!!!
Marine Corps Mom has biscotti up for your consideration.

Bloggers At Your Service

It's Ask a Blogger Monday! - You ask, Michele answers. I'll be matching her dollar
for dollar, and should a question be addressed to me, I'll answer it there
as well. At last count there are 3 of us matching Michele's dollar per
answer.
If you'd like to help, ask a question or even better offer to match the $1 per answer donation! See all of her answers here.
Sean will wax poetic about Dems or dishonor his love for the Packers by donning Bears, Viking, or Lions gear.
Meryl Yourish is taking a page from Michele's book and offering answers for dollars.
Laurence Simon is offering dollars for cats(actually pictures/post for Carnival of the Cats).
Michele's challenge for lefties, Red Sox fans, and *gasp* Mets fans. Here is a link to all of her payoff posts.
Jim is auctioning a short story for the cause!
The Pudgy Pundit will make a contribution for every trackback to his post
Triticale has updated his Honorverse offer!
Aaron is going to pieces trying to raise money!
e-Claire is still working her two auctions - slogan contest
and photos!
Ilyka Damen is auctioning off poetry, interviews, card reading and $5 "you call its."
Mr. E. Poet will regale you with a special poem dedicated to you.

Hosting/Graphics/Design

Matt's amazing blog giveaway.
The Bartender at Madfish Willies is offering a blog remodel.
Pambie is offering a custom graphic to the highest bidder.

Clothes And No Clothes

Step in to the Wizbang celebrity porn closet, I've got boobies for you!
Da Goddess still has her lingerie/t-shirt offer going, and is also trying to dig into the minds of the Fusileers!
Raging Dave will create your own, personalized gun belt from scratch.
Val Prieto will blog for you
while dressed like a girl for every $30 donation, he'll wear makeup
with that for every $40 donation and if you donate $200, he will shave HIS
legs and post the entire agonizing process.

Music And Other
Items

Jim is offering a smoking hot remix offer.
Dizzy Girl will provide those that donate personalized audio messages.
TacJammer is offering up a Cluebat! A Castle Argghhh! Cluebat,
direct from the Imperial Armory's woodshop and the Armorer's Carpenter! TacJammer is accepting bids as you read!

Look for this symbol for exclusive offers from Team Spirit, where Quantity Is Job #1

>

Donate
via Castle Argghhh! Fighting Fusileers for Freedom!

Donate
via Victory Coalition!

Donate
via Liberty Alliance!

A new toy I didn't find at LeeAnn's...

From Ghost of a Flea via Eric, the Star Estimator compares me to Juliette Binoche and Judy Garland. Hmmm....

Laundry-Avoidance Blogging

I don't think I've fallen prey to the most recent epidemic of beal that seems to be making the blog rounds; I just don't have anything interesting to write about! Thankfully, the poltergeists at work are behaving themselves, and nothing has lately worn out, fallen off or disintegrated at the theater (knocking on wood to appease the druid tree spirits). While this is good for my stress levels, it reduces blog fodder. And although my next class in my seemingly-interminable quest for my MSM started on Monday, the professor is a sensible one I've had before, so I don't expect to have much to ridicule (although you may experience some whining as assignments come due).

There's still a few hours left to get a picture of me, if you are curious as to how stunningly beautiful I am...John of Argghhh! has been providing a round up of various auctions and offerings, and announced that the big push to make 50 K has started...please, donate anything to SoA that you can! Just click on the Donate link at the top of my sidebar....

My mom's birthday is Sunday and I haven't gotten her anything yet. Do you think a plaster cast of my hand is too retro?

Oops! Almost forgot: Link this post! Make the Pudgy Pundit go broke!

The Open is Closed!

The Practical Penumbra Stupid Customer Story Open has officially stopped taking entries, and the decision now lies in the hands of our judges....Winners will be announced on Friday, so stay tuned!

Scandal!

These days, its seems like the network news isn't "news" anymore because it's something the blogosphere has already reported, analyzed and commented upon. Take the UN oil-for-food program--bloggers were on it long before ABC. It's getting so that when I tune in the evening news I think, "Is this a rerun?"

Here are some startling revelations found in Iraqi documents that you won't see on the nightly news (yet):

Martin Sheen acted as a covert go-between for the Iraqi Information Minister and Oliver Stone during the filming of JFK. Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf secretly held the position of fact-checker for the movie.

In August, 1996, Saddam Hussein and the Clinton administration secretly negotiated to change the Oil For Food program into the Oil For Pizza program, but talks fell through when Madeline Albright learned that pepperoni was not one of the toppings under consideration.

Shortly thereafter, the US had to exercise its UN veto to stop a French initiative called the Oil For Pate program.

Stay tunned for further developments....

Good morning, Gill!

Thank you to everyone who offered their congrats on my blogiversay, and especially to Harvey who actually supplied a present!!!

This week's Bestofme Symphony is at The Owner's Manual, and Gary did a terrific job (Mmmm...beer!)

Contest reminder: Get your worst customer experiences off your chest here! Remember, confession's good for the soul, and ridiculing the stupidity of idiot customers is good for the morale....plus there will be a major award for the best story! Unfortunately, it's not a leg lamp...

Spirit of America fund drive continues! SondraK is auctioning an authentic (ex)Baath Party notecard. Claire is auctioning photos. And, it's also time to judge the taunts!

Wow! I'm one year old today!

The ever delightful and deliciously debauched Harvey of Bad Money has reminded me that today is my one year blogging anniversary.

It had completely slipped my mind, and I hate it when guests drop by and there's no Easy Cheese in the pantry! It reflects so poorly on my hostess skills. Well, I have one hour before I have to leave to begin my twelve hour work day, so perhaps I can whip something up out of this wilted lettuce and that half box of Trefoils before the guests start behaving like extras in Dawn of the Dead...

After one year, I still love Frank J. But my cyber crushes have grown to include just about every guy (and a few gals, too) listed on my sidebar. In fact, my "regular reads" have gone from about five blogs to near fifty, and it seems like every day a great new blogger comes along. There just aren't enough non-work hours in the day to keep up with my favorites and have a life in the "real'" world. Some days this makes me sad--all that wonderful writing going unread! Or, as often as not, read but uncommented upon...I wish I had the time and creative energy to compose a wonderfully insightful comment for every post I read, so the blogger in question knows I appreciate the effort they went to for me...

Blogging is not a solitary activity. It is a community activity that entertains, informs, outrages, enlightens and even improves the human condition. I am extremely grateful to be a part of such a group, and I owe my success, such as it is, to the single most thoughtful, generous, selfless, hilarious, brilliant, and geekly man I know, Pixy Misa of Ambient Irony. He rescued me from the Slough of Despond (aka Bogsplot) and the rest, as they say, is my own fault...

Now--where are my presents????

All I can do is think "Those sick f***s"

Bloodspite pointed me to this indymedia headline. I wish I had the Emperor's command of invective to properly characterize the loathsome reptiles that agree with that headline's assessment. File this one under "What is wrong with people??"

The Magical Mystery Makeover

Sometime this weekend munu is getting a makeover* and I won't be able to post, and y' all won't be able to comment for a while. I'd be more specific, but then there'd be no mystery, would there?

*unfortunately it does not appear to involve eyeliner and mascara; it's some kind of geek ritual involving squirrels...

The WR Challenge update

Well, I been busy sending my picture out to wonderful folks who've coughed up a donation to the Spirit of America challenge competition. So far, all the takers have been men! Don't be shy, ladies--I'm fully clothed! Plus, think what an ego boost it will be for you to discover that you are a much prettier blogger than I am! Just email me your donation receipt, showing you contributed through John of Argghhh!'s link, and peace of mind (that you are the fairest of them all!) shall be yours!

(Harv, if this doesn't work, I may have to offer that picture I have of you blogging naked...)

Oh--and if a picture of Susie isn't inducement enough, John of Argghhh! is auctioning (inert)munitions!

The Wind Rider Challenge: Put up or shut up!

Well, I am still considering Wind Rider's demand that I post a picture of myself that is not disqualified by the "Lake Effect Rule". Unfortunately, I don't have any from the current century on my computer, and my POS digital camera is not flattering. (Yes, I am woman--I refuse to post any picture of myself that is not flattering!)

I do, however, have a "recent" (i.e. within the last decade) photo that is somewhat flattering and still bears a vague resemblence to my current appearance (and would be even closer were I in the habit of wasting my money on Lady Clairol). So, here's the deal: Anyone who donates at least five dollars to the cause via John of Argghhh!'s link and emails me their confirmation information (gevkaffeegal-at-att-dot-net) will be eligible to recieve their own private photo of Susie via email.

Any takers?

Contest Update

We've got prizes!!!! Valuable prizes!!!! For my contest!!!! Yay!!!!!

The winners (should they choose to accept them) will receive:

3rd place Set of Six Greeting Cards

2nd Place Baseball Cap

1st Place Tee Shirt

all of which are emblazoned with the motto of the quintessential bad customer: "The Rules Do Not Apply To Me."

Remember, tell me your best customer service nightmare story in the comments here...
Hurry! Offer ends Tuesday! (Void in the Caymen Islands and Somalia.)

I will taunt you a second time

e-claire and SondraK have a competition going, and they need your help!

Here’s what you gotta do…
Come up with the best taunt you can think of. Anything goes. You’ll only be judged by its quality!

So think of a creative insult that our Marines in Falluja can lob at the "insurgents" and leave 'em in the comments either here or here...

Insert Robbie Burns quote here

I had a full day's blogging planned when, as per many a common axiom, my program was de-railed by a series of thunderstorms (the follow up to last night's tornados) which required me to do something that did not involve a computer and electricity.

So. I need to do my Alliance assignment, link to Physics Geek's post obituary on the Death of Common Sense, link to the Pudgy Pundit to make him cough up some more dough for the cause, talk about the terriffic prizes for my contest, and respond to Winder Rider's demand for some flesh a photo of myself...

All of which I will do at some later point in time, because activities which do not involve using a computer are somewhat exhausting...

A Call to Arms!! (or Legs, even)

Spirit of America!
Join the Fighting Fusileers of Castle Argghhh! and donate to a worthy cause!

Rally round, my readers!!! Help the Marines win the Peace!

Redirection...

The Bonfire is burning brightly, The Bestofme Symphony is soothing the savage breast, The King of the Blogs has retained his crown (again!) and today is my Friday---Yay!

Have Fun Stormin' the Castle!

Via LeeAnn, as always:

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Sign of impending old age #42

Don't you just hate it when you leave a comment on an interesting post, and then the next day you wonder if anyone responded so you decide to go see and you can't remember what blog it was? I do too.

A Contest!!!!!

Yes, boys and girls, I have decided to have a contest!!!!!! I know that many of my fellow bloggers work in either retail or tech support. And we all know that a surprising number of customers are idiots. May I present:

The Practical Penumbra Stupid Customer Story Open

Just tell your favorite stupid customer story in the comments to this post. You may enter multiple stories, but only one story per comment.
In order to be fair, folks who don't work in customer service are allowed to enter stories of stupid customers they have actually observed in action, but it must be a first-hand account--no hearsay allowed!

The deadine for entries is midnight EST (CDT) April 27, 2004, and winner(s) will be announced April 30th.

The decision of the judges (when I get some) will be final.*

There will be a prize of some sort (when I think of something), as well as valuable linkage to the top three finishers.

*I'm thinking about asking the Reverend Paul of Sanity's Edge, Jennifer of Jennifer's History and Stuff, and Mr. Mouse of Beyond the Black Hole to join me as judges because we all read Bill and thus are experts on stupidity. However, if any of them wishes to be a contestant, they will be excused from judging, and I'll try and find another of Bill's readers to take their place.

UPDATE: All three judges have acepted, and the prize thingie is under development.

Some days the hardest part is a catchy title

I'm starting to think that dealing with the great, unwashed masses (aka "customers") every day is making me petty and cynical. Take, for example, last night's poster child for "Huh?": After I handed an unsatisfied customer movie passes in lieu of a refund, she threatened "I'm calling my lawyer!" as she stalked off. Naturally I politely replied, "Please do!" to her retreating form.
Please, DO call your lawyer so he can charge you a couple of hundred dollars over $3 worth of movie tickets. Consider it a stupidity tax....

Oh, Denis, there's some lovely filth down here!

The oh-so-delectable Johnny Oh posted about a retail experience a few days (ok, it was weeks, now that I do the numbers) back, but I was unable to offer salient commentary at the time because of work-related time constraints. Since we've gone back to "normal" business hours, I now have the opportunity to toss my two cents on the fire.

The substance of Johnny's complaint was "what I object to is you automatically treat me as an inferior." And while in his instance it was a co-worker who assumed Johnny was an idiot and thus made an ass of himself, I would estimate that 85 to 90% of the time, it is the customers who
1) Assume retail workers are drooling trogs who can't pin on their own name tags
2) Behave idiotically

As a retail manager, the one thing that really frosts my Frito's is when a customer with delusions of grandeur insults or tries to humiliate my "kids." Even worse is when they behave as if a clerk is some sort of subhuman, low I.Q. servant/punching bag.
So you're having a bad day--big deal! Is that any reason to get bitchy with the 17 year old behind the counter (who has already been accepted to IU's pre-med program) because the large popcorn costs four dollars? She didn't set the price! She also doesn't need you to tell her how much change you should be getting (since she's a math wiz studying Differential Calculus this term), and YES she's sure that she gave you a diet Pepsi, not a regular one. No, it's not her fault you can't read the clearly posted signs indicating which theater has which movie and you missed the first twenty minutes of "Miracle" sitting in "Lord of the Rings 3"--although I'm sure we can all understand how easily someone as superior as you are could mistake Orcs for the Soviet Olympic hockey team. And no matter how loudly you insist that the newspaper said our show time was 6:30, that is not going to change the fact that it's actually 4 and 9, and our competitor has the 6:30 show.

Every day they have to be polite to stupid customers, and it gets wearing after awhile. And we really don't pay them enough to put up with the idiots. Unfortunately, we'd have to raise the price of popcorn to $10 a bag to give them raises, and then we'd go out of business.

/rant (for now)

All coffeed up and nothing to blog...

From Tiffany, Page 23, sentence 5: "Finally, all HR systems, including staffing, training, reward, and performance management, must support the speed-management philosophy."
Hey, my text was the closest book to the computer....

King of the Blogs grades:

Challenge:
#1 Walloworld: Best. Challenge. Answer. Ever!
#2 DGCI: Moderately creative
#3 Debra Galant: cute photoshop, but a non-answer

Overall Blog:
#1 Walloworld--still good after all these weeks
#1 DGCI--great reading
#3 Debra Galant--not my cup of tea

Well, now IE's gone batty on me and I lost the rest of this post! Thank goodness for my "save early, save often" philosophy! (I compose in IE because of the spell check, you see).

I think I had mumbled something about it being the start of my work week...ah, well--guess we'll go to press without whatever it was....

I Pledge Allegiance

to John of Argghhh! in his quest to vanquish Michele and Dean!

Anybody Else Wanna Negotiate?

While reading this week's Alliance homework assignments I came across a few interesting items. Over at Johnalism there's a great post called "The Idiot's Approach to Online Debate" (April 14th). Excerpt:

So let's say that yesterday it was sunny for the majority of the daylight hours but it rained for one of them. Therefore, I make a statement like this:

Me: It was sunny most of the day yesterday.

Other person: Oh yeah, real sunny...that's why it rained from 4 to 5.

Me: I said it was sunny *most* of the day, not all day. Quite a difference when you look at what I really said.

Other person: You are backpedaling.

We see a lot of this kind of thing when people are arguing an emotional rather than intellectual positon. Of course, the most common emotional position these days is "We hate Bush," although you occasionally get this discussing abortion, gay marriage, gun control and a few other "hot button" topics.

Taron at ISDL has a brief look at the State Religion of Indiana; the punishment for heretics is terrifying....

Chachi over at The JG Spot tells us How Bush Could Have Prevented the 9/11 Attacks. I wish he had permalinks! It's the second April 12th entry...

Here's my compilation of the Top Ten Taglines for Air America from the Alliance of Free Blogs:

10 Air America: Actors With Faces For Radio
9 Air America: Where washed up comedians get a second chance.
8 Air America: We think Al Franken is funny, I swear.
7 Air America: The Few. The Proud. The Totally Insane.
6 Air America! We must be smart! We have the hip little smart person glasses!
5 Air America: Like Air Jordan...but less sporty.
4 "Air America: Goofy looking, yet unprofessional."
3 Think of us as the audio version of the Democratic Underground.
2 Almost as unbiased as Dan Rather.
and the #1 tagline : Air America: Did We Mention We Hate Bush?

Well, that was unexpected...

Goodness!! Here I am with my first real day off since April 1st, and in screwing around with my template I managed to screw up my template....sheesh! Anyway, if you happened to stop by during mid-crisis, I apologize. All better now, and with a very happy pink! (Though it wasn't the pink that caused the meltdown, it was actually my attempt to add the Givens/Peacock logo to my sidebar that messed everthing up. But I finally got it up and linked to Trey--whew!)

Time for a nap. Wake me if anything interesting happens....

Wake the neighbors, call the kids

...the Bonfire is up and ready for the marshmallows!

Tofu and sandals and love beads, oh my!

This week's Alliance assignment is to come up with a tagline for Air America.

Air America: Because we never have any original ideas of our own

Air America! Because Bush lied (about something, we're sure of it!!!!)

Air America--Earth First! Fire Bush! Water...hmm....

Air America--we're on the radio because we look like idiots...

Mommy, what's a FReeper?

Apparently I'm one. Interesting how holding the opinion that Rice may not have lied in her testimony makes one a "Right-wing political activist"....

I know, I know, I should probably just drop the whole thing, since it takes two to tango, but I really don't "get" what her deal is. This comment

Hey Roxanne!

What's up with the trolls?

Posted by: sam | April 9, 2004 10:40 AM

and this one

I think you should turn over their IPs to the IG. Taxpayers are paying them to work, not to troll the Internet at work, looking for blogs to spray their mindless blathering with.

Posted by: jesus | April 11, 2004 04:46 PM

in response to comments such as this

Neither.

Posted by: Wind Rider | April 9, 2004 10:11 AM

and this

Roxanne - it's a matter of perspective, in that regard. And focus. I lived it, they (and the public) were removed from it.

It just wasn't real. And they really couldn't envision it in a true sense. And that was true for senior leaders of all political stripes. They couldn't envision it because they simply didn't want to, and if they did - knew that acting on that information would be political suicide.

So they did what every American (and European, for that matter 'democratic government' (not the party, but the political process) does - bury their heads in the sand and deny the reality until it hits them in the butt.

It's the nature of the beast. And the beast is us, the people, because we don't want to be inconvenienced by shadow threats that rarely truely manifest themselves until they do, in fact, materialize. So we always give the initiative to the other guy in that respect, as happened to Roosevelt with Pearl Harbor. The two events have parallels - in retrospect it was obvious, but it never is that obvious in real-time. I know, I spent 24 years of my life in the business, it's always easier to write the after-action report than it is to write the manual for prevention.

So, I can believe Dr. Rice isn't baldfaced lying. I have no doubt she was putting as pretty a face on it as she could, but I don't believe she was outright lying through her teeth. And I would give that same consideration to members of the Clinton administration (which, in a purely technical sense of the term, I was, as all military officers are officially appointees of the President, and my promotions were confirmed by the senate - though subsequent changes in the law have reduced the grades the Senate must confirm). But now I'm just chewing up bandwidth, so I'll shut up. 8^)

Posted by: John of Argghhh! | April 9, 2004 11:04 AM

seem to indicate that her readers have a serious problem dealing with opposing opinions. Roxanne, to her credit, responded very civilly to John's remarks, and and hasn't deleted his comments or trackback (as she has mine). However, only a few posts on she laments the advent of "FReepers" to her blog.

Since I am the one who pointed the way for the plague of FReepers, I guess I must be one as well. And since I am apparently representative of this group, it's only fair to let me define it:

A FReeper is of the opinion that states should be able to make their own laws regarding marriage, abortion, gun-ownership, speed limits, pornography and drinking ages without Federal coercion or retribution.

A FReeper believes that what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is no business of the government.

A FReeper does not call a person a liar based on hearsay or difference of opinion.

A FReeper believes that most people are inherently good, although some are poorly educated and a few are innately evil (although whether the latter is due to nature or nurture is as yet unproven).

A FReeper thinks that the right to dissent is the cornerstone of freedom.

If holding the above beliefs, as I do, is a bad thing, well, so be it...I've been called worse things than a "FReeper" in my life, after all--and it's kind of cool to find out that voting for Republicans slightly more often than voting for Democrats is "Right-wing political activism"...

If it's Monday, this must be my blog

The Bestofme Symphony is up at Blogo Slovo (soon to be appearing as a Munuvian rather than a Bogsplotian), and Pixy needs your trash for the Bonfire...

Another reasoned argument from the left...

Roxanne's friend "sam" has ridden in on his white charger to rescue her from the clutches of the evil VRWC (in the person of yours truly).

Let's see what sam, IP address 208.59.120.163, with the wonderfully creative fake email address of eatmebitch@yahoo.com, has to say in the comments to this post:

Zieg Hiel you goose-steppin' Nazis. As far I as I know, we still live in America and have the right to question the authority of our leaders (and no thanks to people like you who blindly follow, unless it's Bill Clinton --- and by the way, it's soooooooo passe to spell Clinton with a "K"). If you don't understand this, perhaps you could read some John Mill.

sam apparently didn't read this post, where I tried to help him understand the difference between disagreement and trolling, otherwise he'd realize that he's the troll here...

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny missed my house this year. I don't know if it was because I forgot to hang up my stocking, or if I drank took much green beer, but at least I didn't get coal in my shoes.... of course, now I have to find a child to mug so I can get some of those speckled malted milk eggs. We sell Whoppers™ at the theater, but they're just not the same. Easter candy is so much better than Halloween candy, maybe because you didn't have to work for it. No, that's not it. Halloween=peanut butter kisses, Easter=Peeps. Halloween=microscopic size servings of everyday candy, Easter=Cadbury eggs, chocolate rabbits, jelly beans. Easter candy kicks Halloween candy's butt bigtime.

I think I'm going to have to stop at the drugstore on my way into work today and see if the Easter candy is on clearance yet...

Catching up

I've been falling behind on my blogosphere obligations lately, especially Alliance Assignments and massive link love. Fortunately, once I survive today and tomorrow things should be a little more normal.

By the way, I'm sorry Roxanne took my posts as a personal attack and deleted my comments and trackbacks. [Note to "sam": Just because someone disagrees with you, that does not make them a troll! Disagreement;Troll]

Anyway, back on topic--blogosphere obligations. To wit: KoB tournament

My responses to their responses:

CHALLENGE QUESTION:Is your blog therapy for you or does it exist as an on-going op-ed piece for you to express your views to the world, and why?
DGCI:Good analysis #3
Walloworld: Great post, but it quit just as it was getting interesting! Forgot the "why?" part of the question, but gets massive style points. #2
Debra Galant: Terrific answer!!! #1
Generation Why? Succinct and to the point. #4

My opinion of their opinions:

SUBMITTED POST:
DGCI:Awesome post!!!!!! #1
Walloworld:Good post. #3
Debra Galant: Cute post. #4
Generation Why? Terrific post! #2

Now to catch up on my blog reading...

But how does that make you feel?

Kerry Poll
Is he....?
·Indecisive
·A hypocrite

Vote below.

Is this...?
a) commentary
b) debatable fact
c) both

According to Roxanne, the answer is "c," "both."

She commented

Just a thought ...You might try debating the facts instead of name-calling. If you think my opinion is wrong, why not try and convince me otherwise?

When I emailed her saying

Roxanne, when you present some facts to debate, please let me know.

her reply was

Yawn.

Now that I've had my coffee I realize my mistake--I fell into the liberal fallacy that facts are debatable. Facts are not debatable; only opinions and conclusions are debatable.

Oh, and if someone can point out where I called Roxanne names I'd be grateful. Thanks.

Some days the stupidity makes me fear for the world as we know it

This is something I stumbled across that made me both outraged and appalled. Where do I start? Or do I just file under "What is wrong with people????" and hope whatever it is isn't contagious...

Doing a Happy Dance

Well, after a short nap I arose refreshed and tackled my final paper. The almost-final draft is printing now for final proof-reading after it has fermented a bit. Whew! Another class closer to my M.S.! Yay! My next one starts April 26th, so I have about two weeks of carefree freedom. Yay! again. The kids go back to school on Monday, so we'll go back to our regular 4pm opening time until summer recess. Yay! thrice. If I didn't have to be to work "early" (11am) tomorrow, I would have a beer to celebrate...

Connections

I read this post, which reminded me of this post, and while I was looking for it I stumbled across this post, which reminded me of this post, where there are some comments that made me think of this post.

I'd elaborate, but between work and school I'm beat. Plus I just found out I was mistaken on the due date for my Final Paper--it's due tomorrow, not Friday as I thought. Drat.

But first, a nap....

In which I elaborate on a prior post

I'm supposed to be working on my take-home final exam before I head into work tonight, but the Bartender's comment to this post got me to thinking. We need a common lexicon of some kind to indicate what would be obvious clues in verbal speech that the person communicating is using hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, or other forms of attempted humor.

While I wrote:

Last night's assortment of leftover children numbered seven, but as these were all high-school-aged I mercilessly kicked them out into the cold to wait for their rides. Today is another 11am to midnight for me, after all, and a girl's got to get her beauty sleep...

I was attempting to make light of the fact that what I do for a living can be very scary for an unarmed woman in an urban environment. Wait--"urban" has connotations in these days of PC speech. So let me explain that I live in a city with a metropolitan area that numbers over a quarter of a million people. And when you get that many people together in an area, some of them are bound to be bad not necessarily of the highest moral fiber and rectitude. Furthermore, groups of young men who run in packs (whether they are gang members or all on the same high school football team) have been known to misbehave on occasion. So when seven young men in the sixteen-to-nineteen years of age range come to see a movie sans girlfriends, even though it's a movie about hockey so it's very possible that the girlfriends begged off, I am going to be on a higher state of alert for my safety than I would be around a group of seven high school girls sans boyfriends at a chick flick.

Don't get me wrong. I love men. But the sad fact of our society is that some men are not gentlemen. Some are even robbers and rapists. And some robbers and rapists are seventeen years old.

So, had Sunday night's group of "children" been female, or even included any females, I would have waited in the lobby providing free baby-sitting services just as I did on Saturday night. But because I was alone, in a large, unlit building at midnight, surrounded by businesses that had closed hours earlier (if they had even opened on Sunday) I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the lobby doors locked behind seven teenaged males who were the last patrons to leave, and I got the hell out of there.

Maybe next time I'll put quotation marks on "children"....

Full Moon and Blogroll Maintenance

I don't know whether work disasters really only happen when we are busy enough for them to inconvenience us, or if it only seems that way. I do know, however, that there was a full moon yesterday, and I'm happily willing to blame its pernicious influence for the fact that our popcorn popper broke again.

New popper=$4,000.00
Jerry-rigged repairs that will last at most a few months but with my luck will probably only last a few days=$40.00

Guess which one the owner will choose?

In other news, thanks to The Munuvian Underground World Domination Tour Spring 2004 Membership Drive quite a few of my links are or shortly will be outdated. Chill. I'll get to it.

Some times there's no time to have time: The Musical

Last night's assortment of leftover children numbered seven, but as these were all high-school-aged I mercilessly kicked them out into the cold to wait for their rides. Today is another 11am to midnight for me, after all, and a girl's got to get her beauty sleep...

At least I started my day with a good laugh...today's In My World really needed a soundtrack, though.

Sometimes, between movies, I am struck with insights of great moment. Just last night it occurred to me that when the facts don't support your thesis, you can "interpret" the facts until they do. I'm pretty sure Reuters does this already, however, so there may not be any commercial application to my discovery....

Oh, and I want to remark at length on this post of Johnny's some time after Spring Break is over and I go back to working my normal 50 hours a week, so somebody remind me if I forget...

Next time I may just call for pizza

Spring Break is indeed upon us, as evinced by the eight children, ranging in age from 5 to 12, who wreaked havoc in my lobby from 11:15 until after midnight last night while waiting for a ride home. Even though it was past time for me to leave, I let them wait inside because it was snowing and most of them didn't have coats.

Rather than repeat my diatribe against irresponsible parents, maybe I should just change the name of the theater to Dollar Babysitting...

A Moment of Silence

Rescue operations have been completed, and the site has been restored to an eerie duplication of the original. Those unaware of the incident remain in ignorance of the surprisingly small death toll. Those who participated in the triage will be forever changed.

A listing of the lost:

1 Sqwigglies
1 Whoppers
2 Raisinettes
1 Goobers
2 Kit Kat Bites
1 Mike 'n Ike Original Fruits
4 Kit Kat Big Kat Bars

There was, tragically, a high proportion of chocolate-related casualties which cannot be explained by shelf position alone, and conspiracy theories have already started to arise. One rescue worker was even overheard to complain bitterly that there were no Sour Patch Kids among the victims...

Junior Wiz?

Well, I think just about everybody now knows how Glenn Reynolds spent April Fool's Day--Shame on you, Glenn! Sneaking into the nursery and pretending to be Kevin's baby! Oh, the humanity!

Any port in a teacup

As many of you probably know, Harvey spent some time in the Navy. That's why I thought of him when I read this at Frank's

Every so often, yell "Emergency Deep", run into the kitchen, and sweep all pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor. Then, yell at your wife for not having the place "stowed for sea".

Put on the headphones from your stereo (don't plug them in). Go and stand in front of your stove. Say (to nobody in particular) "Stove manned and ready". Stand there for 3 or 4 hours. Say (once again to nobody in particular) "Stove secured". Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.

Ok, Harvey wasn't on a submarine, but still, he WAS a sailor, which is why he's never surprised when a new blog child shows up on his doorstep...

Everyone please welcome Harvey's latest indiscretion protégé, Johnny-Oh.

Anger, relief, dispair, rage no bloodshed

My paper's done (good riddance!) and submitted with half an hour to spare. Considering that I've still got a lingering cough and body aches, and just found out that one of my 16 year olds fell into one of the candy cabinets and shattered the glass tonight (he's fine--no blood, just damaged candy)--and it wasn't an April Fool's joke, damn it!--so I have to go buy a piece of plate glass before we open tomorrow, I'm happy to just be done with the darned thing, especially since Spring Break starts tomorrow--oh, joy! 11am to midnight! My favorite!

Well, my dear Pixy Misa is hosting the Bonfire next week--at least I have something worthy of the flames now....

Grumpy Old Woman

I'm really, really glad it's my day off today. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and crotchety, but the thought of having to deal with my high school-age employees' attempts at humor in the form of April Fool's jokes without firing them is horrifying. Thank God that's Ass. Man.'s problem today. I just hope they confine their hijinks to each other and leave the customers out of it.

Maybe it's me--I don't find most "practical" jokes funny. I'm also not a huge fan of injury humor (aka slapstick). Not that I'm lily-white in the April Fool's joke department. I confess I did have a hand in stealing a friend's dorm room door and hiding it in the girl's shower room when I was in college. But hey, we put his closet door on his room! Of course, it was four inches narrower and we had to put it on upside down, so it looked like he left his door ajar from down the hall, but at least we didn't leave his room completely open to mauraders...

I miss college.