Late again, as usual

Oh, well, such is life. Hell with trying to "keep up with the Jones'", I have enough trouble keeping up with myself. Not to worry, I'll just stumble along and do what I want, so that works for me.

Interesting day. I'm sort of in the middle of sorting through all the movies we have. Of course, my wife is doing the most sorting, I am just sort of checking them off against the list from the database. Yes, we have a database of all the movies we have. After all, it's the easiest way to keep track of over 2000 movies. Yes, over two thousand. Most are VHS, but we are getting there with collecting DVD's, too.

I figured I would spend a few minutes and write up something to put in my blog.

My son is sitting (laying) on the couch and whining about us watching a movie all together. He is of the mind that when you say "maybe" or "possibly", he is to take it that it means "yes". Gets interesting, at times. Then again, if you flat out say "no", he tends to do everything except hyper-ventilate. Oh, he's nothing like he was a couple of years ago, but seeing as how he is now 12 years old, he can, on occasion, deal with the word "no". I guess we are to blame, since we do have a nasty tendency to tell him "later" and not carry through with it. Of course, I have the fun habit of asking him if I can start acting like he does. That produces the most amazing look of disgruntlement. It should be put on the bulletin board at the post office to be used as a guide for having the "look of being disgruntled". (I still wonder what the hell a look of being "gruntled" would be. Can anyone enlighten me, please?)

Okay, it's now late and I am going to go to bed.

Missed again

Crap, I missed another day of my attempt to post each and every single day. Guess that blows my status completely out of the water. Honestly, it's not like I give a really hard crap about it, though. Heh.

Okay, yesterday was kind of explainable. We got up early so that my wife, sister(step) and nephew(step) could go to their doctor appointments (one after the other, so it was nice) and I stayed home with my son, while they were gone. I was copying files to CD, so I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing all that much, until they got home. Then we went to my mother-in-laws house and were going to take some of her grandkids to the pool with our kids. Of course, the weather was kinda flaky, so we never actually got to go into the water, so what with running back and forth (the phone at the pool was either monopolized by one of the teenagers working there or it was broke, take a guess which one I think it was) it was suddenly 7:00 pm by the time we got home.

This morning, we got up about 9:30 and wound up watching Hellboy on DVD. Pretty entertaining, even if I have never read the comic. Then, my wife and sister(step) left and went to my mother-in-laws house. Oh, they took my nephew(step) but left my son here with me. He's whining about going to the pool, but the weather outside is kinda flaky, again, so we are planning on taking the kids to the pool tomorrow. Maybe I can make myself post, sometime, tomorrow, so I can work on my "blogger status." Heh.

Okay, I'm still copying things to CD, so I am stopping here and finishing that up. Hope you are having a decent day/evening/night/whatever.

Today's meandering

Oh, shit! I missed a day of posting! Does that mean that I am no longer a "good" blogger? Or just someone who is not as concerned about posting as much as humanly possible (as some bloggers are)? Heh.

I love to read. Mainly, I love to read Science Fiction. If I had to pick a favorite writer, I would have to say that Robert Heinlein is the best. I don't stop to say that any particular writer is not any good, as I have a tendency to read first and decide after I have finished the story. One thing I have to comment on is that I tend to draw the line when they (Science Fiction writers) cross the line into fantasy. Some writers have tried to combine the two, Fantasy and Science Fiction), and it tends to result in mostly mediocre returns; most with outstandingly crappy results. Oh, there are probably some out there, that I haven't read, that are really very good, I just haven't found them, yet.

In my opinion there is one writer who seems to stand head and shoulders above other writers when it comes to trying to combine Fantasy and Science Fiction, with results that are head and shoulders above the rest in terms of being really sucky. That writer is Stephen King. I don't know. It seems to come out as either sucky fantasy or testicular-cancer inducing fiction. Either way, I have never been able to get more than about 6 pages into any of his books. "Jim is blah, blah, blah, Harry did blah blah blah, but don't really expect to see them much, even though I spent twenty pages giving them background that will never show up again, but Susan did blah blah blah, while over at the shack in the swamp someone is given an important description that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, as such." Actually, I did manage to get halfway through "The Stand", but the movie, sucky-ass as it was, was miles and miles better than the book. At least, to me it was. Sorry if I upset any King fans, but what I have just written is my opinion and, good, bad or indifferent, it is just as important and valuable as your opinion is.

I realized that I made a comment about not knowing if anyone is reading this or not. Makes me wonder. I guess I will have to do some looking around Blogger and see if there is a way to see how many folks are stopping by to check this crap out. Can't hurt. It's not like I am a blog-whore anyway. Wait. Does blog-whore mean that I want people to read my blog or that I read other people's blogs? Maybe I'll do some reading and find out, since I don't think anyone reading this will actually stoop to making a comment. Oh! Sorry Zero Boss! Not meaning to add you into that. Heh. Just a slip.

Okay, I have helped the maintenance guy fix the ceiling fan in the "computer room" and my wife is now taking a nap. Since I have only been up, myself, for a couple of hours, I think I will just do some surfing and see what I can see.

Does this mean that I am required to post again, as soon as humanly possible, in order to be put into the same category as the "good bloggers"? Feh, hell with that, I'll post when I damn well want to, blogger status be damned.

Later.

Today's blathering

Well, I said that I will try to play catch-up with my posts, and here it is.

I grew up in Arkansas. (Oh, shut up.) We lived just outside of a small town. (Oh, shut up!) We weren't the richest folks around, but we most definitely weren't the poorest. We made do and that's saying something when you live in a small town in Arkansas. (Will you stop?!?) When I was big enough I actually made my own money by picking peaches. I was one of the lucky ones - I could wear just about anything, since the "peach fuzz" never seemed to bother me. All about me, people were wearing long-sleeved shirts in August, while I was in shorts, tennis shoes and short-sleeved shirts. Of course, it also helped that I was half-monkey and managed to be the one who climbed into the trees for peaches that others couldn't quite get to.

Oh. Hell. No.

No, I think I have changed my mind.

Since it seems that few, if any, are reading this, I will talk about what the hell I want to. If I want to whine, I will fucking whine and that's all there is to it. If no one wants to read my whines, that's fine, at least I am WRITING and that's my main point.

I. Will. WRITE.

Period.

Hmmm.....

I read the other day where a lady who does publishing work is being scammed by way of someone using her name to spam folks about using her services. That really sucks. I mean, it's bad enough that there are all those low-life, scum-sucking, totally useless shits doing spamming and stealing identities. Now, it's getting so anyone with an honest outlook is prey to them. I don't have a URL (yet), but I honestly expect that some slime-bag will use it to send out spam or even attempt to steal my identity. That's the sad part, when you want to hope for the best, yet are forced to accept that some scuzzey, hopeless, shit-brain will steal anything that's not locked down and password protected. I can only hope, that when it happens to me, that the low-life scum-gurgler at least gives me a "reach-around" when he/she/it screws me. That way, I won't feel too bad when I use the legal system to give her/him/it a "dirty sanchez". Heh. (I won't link to Wikipedia to give you the definitions to those two items, but you can have fun looking them up all by your lonesome, eh?)

Okay, what else?

Trying to keep it flowing, here, if you are wondering. That's one of my main problems - flow. I have so much running through my head that it's hard to slow it down enough to get it onto the page. I have a really nasty habit of not being able to keep a thought flowing. I get one idea going along really well and then, screech, vroom, it's off and running in a completely different direction. I am trying to type this and I keep thinking of how I need to make a trip to the Social Security office today. I have a feeling that they are going to try to send my money to a bank where I have closed the account, so I have to check that out. My wife and sister(step) are currently at the local college, getting my sister(step) set up for fall classes. So, when they get back, I will make that trip to the S.S. office.

Ah, yes. When I am out and about, I also have to stop by the cable tv place and get another booklet about how the remote control works. My old tv bit the big one and we went out an bought a new one the other night. I did try to call the cable folks, but the codes they gave me to set up the remote didn't work, so I figure asking them for a booklet shouldn't get their knickers in too much of a knot. I keep having this semi-idea of getting one of those remote control watches, but with my luck, the damned thing will blow my arm off when I try to program it. I have a habit of trying to make things like that do a bit more than they are really supposed to do. Kind of like how I have one computer that has been reformatted at least 5 times in the last three months. Heh. I have found out a few things about Windows XP that aren't common knowledge, that's for sure.

Okay, that's it for today. I will see if I can come back tomorrow with more blathering bullshit to bore the bejeebers out of the poor schmucks how have the bad luck to read this crap. Heh, heh, heh.

More meandering

Okay, since my life is/has been so boring the last few days, I guess I can tell an anecdote about growing up. Maybe not. Then again...

All right, I'll just talk about the last few days.

Nothing much has happened. We all went up to my Mother-in-laws house the other day and had what my wife called a "picnic with mom" afternoon. We has some leftover pizza from the evening before and we took that, and some flavored bottled water (I didn't drink any - universe forbid if I drank something other than pure Pepsi!), up to her place and ate. Oh, and drank, too. (Just water and Pepsi, no booze.) Of course my wife did happen to have an ulterior motive. Turned out that that was the day her brother was to bring over ten bags of ready-mix cement. I didn't know about that, until just before we left the house to go to mom's.

I did what I could, when it came to helping unload those suckers, but I felt like slime since I couldn't help the way I really wanted to. Being medically unfit for all but the most basic of chores really sucks. Hell, I'm lucky if I can vacuum one room without wanting to lay down and scream for an hour or so. But, without consideration to my medical condition (in another word, "stupidly"), I helped move some of those bags of cement. Needless to say, methadone was my closest and dearest friend for that evening. So much so, that I even got constipated and didn't poop for three days. Such fun.

Shit, I just realized that most of my posts seem to be me whining about my condition. Well, I think that will change with my next post. I am going to relate to pleasant things if it frigging kills me. Nobody likes a whiner and I seem to spend most of my time doing that. Okay, okay, I will do whatever I can to stop that shit and move on.

Hmmmmm.....

Maybe I will talk about my childhood. Can't be any worse than some of what I have read on other blogs. I mean, if someone can talk about how they are such a dick tease and get tons of comments, can I do less? Wait. Did that come out right? Hell with it, I can say it if I want to. Still... Something just doesn't seem right, here. Oh. I see. Shit. Nevermind.

At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I post more than quite a few of the blogs I have read. Though I do post a hell of a lot less than most that I do read. Maybe I'll get off my ass and try to play catch up with them. Can't hurt and maybe it'll start my creative juices to flowing a bit better and I can get back into my writing. Beats going out to moms every day, just for something to do, maybe. Hopefully?

That's enough blathering for now.

Today?

Hmmmm....

Just sitting around, playing on the computer and checking out some files I have had downloaded for quite a while. Even attempted to listen to an old radio show I found and downloaded. Oh, it's legal, I made damn sure of that, I can tell you. Then I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to post here. Exciting life, eh?

Anyway.

My wife and sister(step) are out and about, getting an ID (non-driver for my sister(step)) and other diverse and sundry things. They are supposed to go to my mother-in-laws house and get her so she can do some shopping, then bring her over here for a while. I have to admit, my MIL is most definitely not the "stereotypical" MIL. She's 82 years old and will not hesitate to speak her mind. She says that she has "paid her dues" and if someone doesn't like what she has to say, they can damn well just not listen to her.

I remember, when she was in Tacoma, Washington, for our wedding and her and my wife had gone to some store to get postcards. They were looking for some assistance and my MIL found someone and yelled across the store, "Glenda, I found a man!" Now, she's been divorced for umpteen years, so this was pretty funny and Glenda basically lost it. My MIL got this weird look on her face when she realized what she had said, and then, to top it off, she said, "Oh, I'm not gong to keep him. Gee, man!" She was only about 78 or so when this happened, but it was still funny as hell. Then again, when it comes to the people who may be reading this, it's probably just another "yawner". Especially considering what some other folks write in their blogs.

I was looking for some nails to hang another knife on my wall, but I haven't yet gone into the basement to look. My fault for shoving all the nails into a toolbox and putting it in the trunk of the car, I guess. Maybe after I get done here I will take a look. Oh, yes, I have several knives and swords on the wall, just above my computer. Actually, I only have two real swords and about ten knives. There is one "walking stick" knife/sword that I tend to count on its own. My most recent purchase was in Alamagordo, New Mexico, when I bought a decorated knife that is even decorated on the blade. That's the one I was looking for nails for. Since it's the "prettiest" one, it's going to be the one closest to the computer/desk. I have one large almost machete that has no sheath which has a tendency to jump off the wall. That's one that Glenda says she is going to make me a sheath for. With all the beads, leather and stuff she has to work with, I can just imagine how great it will be!

The temps here have been brutal the last few days, so I haven't been out to mow the yard like I should have. I finished one side about a week ago when the mower went kaput (again!!) and now the yard is "lopsided". Sometime in the next few days, I plan on getting out and doing the entire thing, so it won't be lopsided and it'll look much better. We still run the sprinkler in the afternoons, so it's getting enough water to keep it from turning brown, like so many others around here have done. I'm still hesitant about walking out there barefoot, because there are plants growing that are called "bullheads". They have a thorny seed pod that has two "horns" on it that can easily puncture the tire of a bicycle, so you can just well imagine what it can do to a bare foot! I think I have gotten most of them, but why take the chance? Especially as how they are some fast growing bastards!

Well, that's enough for today, back to doing whatever. Maybe do some dishes and look for some nails, I guess.

Just some stuff

Well, I've finally gotten a bit of good news. Seems that the Social Security Administration has decided to agree with the Veterans Administration on my status and has approved my disability status.

I started this "goat-rope" over two years ago and it had to actually go to a federal judge before they decided that they would go along with the VA. The VA decided, about three years ago, that I was "unemployable" due to my medical and mental condition. The mental may get better (at least, I hope it does!) but the medical will only get worse. When you have a disk that is disintegrating, it makes quite a lot of things difficult, if not downright impossible, to do. As I have said before, the drugs may make it tolerable, but they won't make the disk better or the pain/status go away. Just mask it, a bit, that's all.

It's weird, but this has made me both happy and sad. Happy in that they have finally determined that my condition is not all that great. Sad in that they have finally determined that my condition is not all that great. I don't enjoy this, by any stretch of the imagination. Truth is that I would much rather be working and supporting my family than getting "assistance". I have tried, honestly I have. But when medical and mental problems become so great that hard work and mental alertness take a back seat to pain and depression, holding a job is next to impossible. Oh, I try to do a bit of computer consulting, but I most definitely pick and choose what I do and what I don't. I don't want to make a commitment and not be able to carry it out. That is what really sucks, because I have ALWAYS taken "giving my word" as more binding than the most convoluted contract ever written.

Anyway, I'll take this the best that I can and toodle along as best I can. That's about all I can do, to be honest. And honesty is my "stock in trade".

More ramblings

Hoo boy, it's been a busy couple of days! First, I get word that one of my sisters-in-law has died and I take time to go to her funeral. The weird thing is that she died two days before my sons birthday and the funeral was the day after. Talk about a fun few days. Whew!

At least now things should start to settle down a bit. My wife and I have to reconsider our return to Tacoma, Washington, since not only will the kids be in school in September, but my (step)sister will be going to college classes, as well. So, it looks like the trip will have to be sometime in late August. The main goodie about that is that the trip will take place after the "summer moves" that tend to drive up the prices of rental trucks, thus a bit less cost in the rental of the moving truck. At least I hope so - I haven't checked the prices recently. Guess I should do that, huh? Well, I just did and it looks like it will be around $1000.00 for the truck. Of course, with gas prices the way they are, I'll probably spend that much for gas, too. Damn lying, thieving, lying, greedy, lying oil companies.

Anyway, I had to make another trip to Pueblo today, to take my nephew(step) to the wart doctor, again. Things are going good and it looks like only one more trip to finish up killing off his warts. Poor kid had them all over his heels and the doctor was really concerned about getting them all. But this doctor seems to know his stuff a bit better than the other he has been to, since the ones he has killed have not returned, as they did with the other doctors. I mean, c'mon, how hard can it be to learn how to use liquid nitrogen to "burn" off warts the "proper" way so that they won't return? Well, it took three doctors to find one who has read the manual/procedures on how to do it, I can attest to that.

Let's see, what else?

No problems with the trip to Alamagordo, New Mexico. We stopped at the Wal-mart before we left and picked up a cooler, some Pepsi, bottled Green Tea and ice, before we left the city. With the blazer we were driving, it was pretty cool to have the cooler in the back seat so that Glenda could just reach back and grab whatever we wanted out of the cooler. Oh, and we added some leftover pizza from my sons birthday party, too.

It's kind of funny, but Glenda and I have gotten to where we drive places and don't even turn on the radio in the car. Either just talking about whatever or just a companionable silence works for us. Oh, I still turn on the radio, on occasion, when I am driving by myself, but that's still not all that often. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that it's more to do with how much of the "current" music is not all that good to me, than anything else. I'm happy when I can find an "oldies" station and I usually set the first channel selector to that and/or just leave the radio set on that station. I don't know if Glenda does the same thing, I haven't asked her. Maybe I should, just for snits and griggles.


That's enough for now. Maybe more later.