The Big DumpTruck

Okay, 5000 or so words to go by midnight tomorrow. Piece of cake.

I say that, and I should also mention that a mouse kept us awake most of the night last night. I was ready to set off explosives just to destroy the thing.

If I get a trap (you know, the Tom and Jerry kind) and we catch it, I'm going to feel obligated to say "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." I know, I know, but at least I warned you.

As of this very second (if you don't count that I'm not writing, I'm updating the Dump) I have 42581 words. I have until midnight Tuesday to hit 5000. My goal for tonight, which I may or may not make, given that I'm getting a little tired and I have work tomorrow, is 44000, which would give me only 3000 per day for the next two days. Entirely do-able.

The quality of my writing has flown into the toilet in an effort to get the word count up. It's an ugly scene in my Word file. Here's a sample for you, in which I take advantage of the time-honored tradition of repeating words as often as possible.

"What the hell kind of friends do I have that they won't let me eat pie in peace? For goodness' sake, it's just pie. What is wrong with pie? If they won't let me have pie, I'm just going to have to dump them for some other friends. Some friends who can appreciate that the body needs pie, just like it needs sunshine, root beer and Durkee's fried onion rings. "

I think I've used that Title Before. It's going to have to be okay, because I'm not going to change it. I'm taking the easy way out today, as I already mentioned in the title.

Yesterday was a great day. Sorry I didn't get around to telling you about it. Not only did we squeeze in a trip to the Higgins Armory Museum (oh my God, have you been there? Unbelievable!), but we also got the train I wanted for Christmas (scaled to go around my Dept 56 Village pieces that I've been collecting for 10 years or so now) and, get this, Mr. Dump put up the outside Christmas lights. I have to tell you, that's the shocking one for the day. This is a man who isn't into Christmas a half of what I am, and putting up the lights has definitely been my job over the years. But he not only did it, he wanted to. Now I am sad to announce that I let him pick out the color because I had done it like the past 6 years or so, and this year we're stuck with white. It looks nice, but I like to put solid red or solid blue. Or mixed. We were usually the house that broke up the white monotony.

But I get to pick the colors for the tree in the house, so that's okay. And no way in heck we're putting all white lights on the tree in the house. Nope. Nosiree.

Ah, the life of a contractor. Sure, we get paid a decent hourly wage, but we get no sick days or holidays or vacation days. So I don't get paid for yesterday, and I have to work today or I won't get paid for that either.

I'm not really complaining, I'm happy to have a job to go to in the morning. But I miss my old job, where the owner of the company would wander through the building on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and tell everyone they could leave at 2:oopm, and we wouldn't have to step foot back in the building before Monday.

I will say one thing, the commute was fantastic this morning. I just have to time the drive home so I will miss all the mall-aholics heading back after a day of boosting the economy.

I'd like to take a moment to give Amazon.com half a peace sign. Now if you know me at all, you know I love Amazon. I've spent a LOT of money at Amazon over the years. At lunch today I went to their site to place an order for some toys, and was thrilled to see a couple of them were on sale for really good prices. I thought this was great, because I will not be able to go shopping Friday to take advantage of all the big sales because I have to work.

So I pile stuff up in my Amazon basket and go to check out. We're talking like $300 worth of stuff, right? Mostly toys, but at least one DVD. So what pleasant surprise is waiting for me? They've removed the free shipping options. Items that would have had free shipping a couple of days ago now do not, because they are only offering free shipping on toys that are flagged by Toys R Us. Most of the items I am buying do not have this flag. Do you know how much they want to charge me for shipping for my 12 items? Seventy Five Dollars!!!! One item, a Matchbox car set, regularly $39, was on sale for $19. Sweet! But the shipping, if you bought this and only this? Over ten dollars! Ten dollars to ship a Matchbox Set? I want it hand-delivered tomorrow for that price!

So, Amazon and Toys R Us, what I've done is found the same items on other websites for about the same price, but with free shipping on orders over a certain dollar amount (no restrictions). You just lost a three hundred dollar sale because you're trying to take advantage of parents scrambling to "help Santa" by screwing us during this festive holiday season. Thanks for nothing!

Ah, it's that time of year again. Because I don't know if I'll have time to post anything tomorrow, while I'm busy stuffing my face, I'll get my turkey day thanks out of the way ahead of time. Now I know that usually, folks running a site like this go into a long list of things they are thankful for that mirror all the other lists. I am thankful for my health, my family, for the fact that I have a home and a job. Those are the things I'm thankful for in the privacy of my own heart: you're just going to have to trust me on this.

But for you people, you get non-sentimental the official Big DumpTruck List of Thanks:

• The people at Blogger, for continuing to support and enhance this product. Without it, there's no way I'd update as often as I do. Which I'm sure is good and bad for those of you reading.
• My Sidekick 2, without which I'd develop a twitch being away from my email all day.
• People who are so concerned about me that they keep trying to tell me my wife is cheating on me, that I can increase the size of my manhood, and sell me discount drugs. Not to mention fake Rolexes and access to websites with pictures...well, let's just say pictures. Thanks, spammers! And thanks for being so worried that I wasn't getting your mail that you have started bombing the comments here on the Dump. You take time out of your busy schedule to post 25 spam messages a night, which like triples my page hit counts. That's a lot of time you're spending on a site that normally only gets 140 or so hits a day.
• Barilla Pasta. You can't overcook it!

Gosh, I could just go on and on...but I'll end with a thanks to you guys, for continuing to visit even though I have nothing of any importance to say. You are the marshmallows on my sweet potatoes!

Aw man, today was the blood drive at work, and they told me to go away. Apparently it was a bad idea to cough in front of them. Actually, I was a little nervous that if I got on the table, I'd go into my normal reclining position coughing fit. So anyway, I tried, I really did. Unfortunately, it means I didn't get one of the t-shirts they were giving out. [boo-boo face]

So one of you is going to have to go donate blood today in my place. Who will it be?

I'm getting nervous about how little time is left between now and the end of the month. I just broke the 29000 word mark, and I don't know how much more I'll be able to write tonight. Why do I put myself through this?

My cold is a little better but Mr. Dump says I gave it to him, so that's not good.

The comment spammers are back, so I'm trying to keep those edited. Hopefully none of you will comment while I'm in the middle of deleting stuff. I apologize in advance if that happens.

Oh, and we had Junior's teacher meeting tonight. He's doing very well - is in the advanced groups for both Reading and Math. But he's a talker. Now anyone who has ever met this child is just nodding his or her head. Yup. My sister had the best experience with his talking. She rode all the way home from North Conway NH with him the van with her kids, and her kids fell asleep and Junior didn't stop talking the whole way. I was in a different car, and when we arrived at her house, she looked at me with wild eyes and asked (out of his earshot) "Does he ever shut up?" Heh heh heh. Welcome to my world.

I'm up to 27333 words. Not nearly as many as I meant to write over the weekend. I blame this cold-thing. My God, it just clings to you and you can't shake it loose. Just sick enough that doing normal stuff like grocery shopping wipes you out for hours, but not sick enough that you take to your bed for the day. I didn't have the energy to do too much, even though I wanted to. And the cough, it continues. Crab, moan and complain. I know, I know, there are people who have it far worse than me. I do know that, and I'm embarrassed to have taken up valuable air with my meager complaints.

It's the season of the Giving Tree, by the way. You know, where you can select the name of a child and "make Christmas" for them. I usually do this, but this year at work the deadline is a week from Friday, and I'm just not going to have my shopping money lined up by then. So I don't think I'm going to commit to a specific child here at work. On the other hand, I do want to help out, so my other option is to donate gifts to a general collection box. And in this box you can also include items for adults, household appliances, toiletries, and other things so sorely needed by those struggling to get by. I am a big believer in this kind of collection - for several years at my old job I ran a toiletry drive every year. So I do think this is probably what I'm going to donate this year. I am also going to look to my own community instead of the one where I work (no offense, but home is home) and will be gathering items for Ginny's Helping Hand food pantry on Mechanic Street. (I had a URL for her but it doesn't seem to be working. I'll keep trying.)

Okay, now that the DVD drive is working, it was time to go through all the video I shot down at DisneyWorld last month. Man, there was a lot of footage, but now that I'm done with it all, I can't help but smack myself for the stuff I *didn't* tape. I mean, what is my malfunction? Why would I be taping and then stop all of a sudden? Why do I not have more footage of us on rides? I think I was too worried about getting still photos, and there was at least a day if not more that I left all the video camera stuff behind because I just couldn't handle carrying two cameras around. But there's still not excuse for me not getting shots of us on the monorail (duh, we were wearing t-shirts that said "Monorail Breakfast Club" one day), or more of the hotel. Hindsight is 20/20, and every time we go on vacation I get a little better, but still, would it kill me to just shoot a ton of extra stuff so that I can have more to choose from when editing it all together? Grrrr.

I just feel the need to give a shout-out to the live chat support line at Dell. They fixed me right up with a solution to my DVD burner problem and voila, I can now burn DVDs again! Woo Hoo! Now I only have 2 and a half hours of Florida tape to organize, edit and burn. That should take me forever.

Tonight I learned that the very first food eaten by people was popcorn.

[Johnny Carson Voice] "I did not know that."

He swears up and down that this is what his teacher told them today. The other day he came home and told me that Veterans Day was the day that we thanked all the people who fought the war with Columbus. Or something involving Columbus. I tried to explain that veterans are people who fought in wars, or even people who joined the military when there wasn't a war, but he couldn't shake that Columbus thing.

Either he's only half listening in school, or his teacher is doing this on purpose to screw him up. I think I'm going to go with the former, because I know they had a Native American come in and do a presentation today and I'm wondering if somehow the whole corn being a dietary staple that they introduced to the Europeans came up, and was somehow mistranslated in Junior's head. It does make you realize you can't take everything the kid says at face value. My best example of this, ever, was the time his old babysitter came up to me and said, "Junior says that daddy wears black lipstick." She had a look on her face that said "please tell me there's some not-so-obvious explanation for this." And I had to put on my Junior Thinking Cap and I realized that yes, Mr. Dump went through a phase where he was practically ingesting Chap-Stik, the ones with the black wrapper. And Junior turned that into black lip stick. Easy mistake. But the whole thing still makes me laugh.

I've got a cold. I was in denial for days, but I'm going to have to just face facts. When your coughing keeps you awake, you have time to think about it. I know it could be allergies, there is always that chance, but my cube-neighbor had a similar illness about a week ago, and right now I'm feeling kind of achy, and the symptoms seem to be not allergy-ish.

I am working from home today because I had someone coming to the house, and now I'm thinking this was pure luck because now I can take a nap to make up for some of the time I lost last night. I hate coughing. I hate that it keeps me up, and that it can keep others up. And trying to not cough makes it all worse. Ugh.

Oh, so now that the crabbing part of this post is over, it's sixty freaking degrees outside! I'm going to put on a halter top and some daisy dukes and just go out by the cement pond to relax!*




*Oh, don't worry. I don't own either article of clothing, and I've got a plastic pool, but no cement pond.

I told Junior he needed to get working on his list for Santa. I have a good idea of the things that have been catching his eye the past few months, but he does still get to write his own list. He immediately grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and said we needed to watch some "good commercials". Oy. I can just see him creating a list of just the things that happened to be advertised within a certain narrow window of time. He does understand I have veto power. As in, he can ask for Matchbox sets, but not Hot Wheels sets. I've talked about this before. Matchbox sets are build to last. I think you can stand on them and they won't break. You can pick them up and move them and nothing falls off. Hot Wheels sets are exercises in frustration. Once you finally get it all put together, you can't breath on it or it will fall apart. And I think they have less play value. But I'll be darned if I'm going to buy a race set that leaks goo all over everything, or another where every time you go around a dinosaur attacks and you have to put the set back together. Nope. No way.

I think I have him convinced on the Matchbox Rocket park. He loves amusement parks. He loves car sets. A match made in heaven!

I'm not too sure how I feel about the big Sears-Kmart merger. I don't think I like it. I like Sears, I really do. And I like them more now that I can buy Lands End clothing there. Big bonus.

I don't like Kmart. I used to - I actually grew up a 9 minute walk from the one at Twin City Mall. (Yes, 9 minutes. I used to work at Victory in high school and knew exactly how long it took to get there. I have added a bit of time to get across streets, etc.)

But at some point, all the Kmarts seem to go down the Ames road. Trashy junk. The one at Twin City was a filthy mess. The aisles were always a wreck, the shelves were bare. I think they decided to appeal to a decidedly downscale market, if you catch my drift. Now I'm told the store got a new manager who really cleaned the place up, but it's just so not the Kmart of my youth. I can't explain it. It has a kind of a "dark" feel, but I can't explain what I mean by that. It's a harsh feeling. I don't get that vibe from other stores, so maybe they need to change their lighting or something so it's less harsh. Or make the whole store more airey, somehow.

So what I'm saying is I think Sears is going to watch their reputation go in the crapper, unless they keep the two completely distinct. That's my opinion and I'm sticking with it.

I'm already tired of winter, and it isn't even winter yet. I have a picture on my desk of Cinderella's Castle in the background and all the Red Sox balloons in the foreground, and it is depressing the hell out of me. I guess that's a sign of an excellent vacation. I can't think of anything I would have changed, if you can believe it. Well, I think maybe I would have tried to be better about writing in my journal, but that's not really vacation-specific.

Man, was it only three weeks ago that we were having breakfast in Norway with the Princesses? I could go for some of those cheesy potatoes right about now. And some sunshine.

*sigh*

It's the Nanowrimo halfway point. Technically, I should have 25000 words written by the end of the day. In reality, because of my mess-ups early in the month, I'm writing more each day, but won't hit 25000 for another 2 days (and I'll still be on schedule for the end of the month). Unless I can find 6000 words in me today. If I couldn't do it on the weekend, when I wasn't working, I doubt I'll be able to do it when I am working. This is just a guess.

And what is it about JC Penny that makes me buy stuff I didn't go in to buy? We went there Saturday to buy some new pillows for when the kids come up. They'd been stuck with some of our older ones (because they don't sleep here every night) and after keeping them down in the basement on the futon, they were smelling a little musty. So I said we'd throw out all the old pillows and replace them, and store them upstairs when the kids aren't here so they won't get musty again. They sleep downstairs in the finished basement, on the futon, and we can't seem to keep it from getting a teeny bit musty down there. Not wet, but you know.

You are supposed to replace pillow annually for allergies anyway. Not that I do, but this reminds me off Dana, my college roommate, who couldn't sleep without the pillow she'd had for most of her life. It was a pretty beat up thing. An allergist would have probably dropped dead at the sight of it. I wonder if she still has that thing? Or if her kids now have their own pillows. Hey, DanaMarie, if you're reading this, give me a holler!

It got sunny and warmer today, and everything seems to be melting nicely, if not slowly. Mr. Snowman (see below) was sort of listing to one side.

Junior: Mom, I went to check the snowman and he was all melty.
Me: Well, I'm not surprised.
Junior: Ya, so I [and at this point, I expected him to tell me that he started working to shore up the droopy bits, because this is the kid who cried when the little bug-like creatures in the video game Pikmen were eaten by bigger bug-like creatures. So he's going to try to save Frosty, right?] smashed it with my foot.

I think I went into shock. Sure, every other six year old boy on the planet (and plenty of the girls) would have done that. But not mine! And yet, Frosty is no more. What have you done with my child! I blame public schools.

(Oh, that reminds me. I got a letter in the mail today from the assistant principal, telling me that Junior has excessive absences, and if he's going to be out he needs to bring a note with him. Um, ya, so what did y'all do with the note that I sent in with him two days prior to him being out, just in case the teacher forgot the conversation I'd had with her two weeks earlier? Huh? Do you people talk to each other at all? Did you check out his made up school work and the vacation journal he wrote? Huh? )

Sheesh.

Ugh, still behind. I crossed the 14000 mark last night (barely) and I have to write 6-8000 today to catch up to where I should be. I'd be happy to do four today.

I am actually planning to pack up the laptop and head over to Barnes and Noble for 3:30. In the Nano forums I set up an informal gathering for the local folks. I figure worst case, I'll get an hour in a different environment, and snag some fancy hot cocoa to boot. I'll try to avoid the cheesecake.

Junior has been bugging me for over a week for a book, so Mr. Dump will meet me there after they get back from the movies (he's taking my step-kids to see The Incredibles because they hadn't seen it yet) and I'll offer them each a book. It's so funny...if he asked for a toy, I'd say no. But a book? How can I refuse?

Here's the evidence that Frosty the Snowman was here!

My mom gave Junior this kit with wooden pieces to turn a pumpkin into acat, bat or witch. We used it to make a cat.

When I got home just now, I noticed one of our furry friends had decapitated the cat to get a snack. This struck me as hugely funny...

I've got a picture of all of us in Florida on my desk, and it's helping me deal with the fact that we may get half a foot of snow today. (That sounds worse than six inches, doesn't it? Half a foot! Call out the sled dogs!)

Suddenly, looking at the sleds the other day at Target doesn't seem to be quite so bizarre, does it?

The tooth is out! Junior ended up yanking the thing out himself!

Why yes, I am one of those loser moms who gets sad when my child hits a major milestone. Wasn't that tooth just coming in?

Nothing to report here. Junior got new boots (mom picked them up) so that if we do get accumulating snow tomorrow the way they're predicting, he'll be all set. Not that I'm voting for snow, but you know darned well that if it did and he didn't have boots, he'd find a way to go outside barefoot.

The tooth is still hanging in there. I can't believe it hasn't fallen out, you have to see this thing.

I broke the 11000 mark this evening. I'm still behind a bit. I think that technically I'm supposed to be closer to 17k, but I just took the balance of what is remaining and divided it by the number of days remaining. I suppose maybe I could catch up the extra 6k over the weekend, but I don't want to sprain something.

While I type this Mr. Dump is attempting to rip out one of Junior's teeth. In a good way. That thing is flapping back and forth so loosely that neither of us can figure out how it's still attached. Unfortunately, the tooth that's supposed to be pushing it up and out is coming in behind that one, which makes me cringe because he had such lovely, straight baby teeth, and the first grown up tooth is already messed up. Braces. I mean, I love the look of a kid with braces, I really do. My step-kids have them, and I think they look cute on them. I had them. Mr. Dump had them. My sister had them. Was it too much to ask for Junior to have perfect teeth? I guess so.

Time to make another dentist appointment. They said to call when the first big tooth started coming in, and this would be it, eh?

Anyone from Leominster know why Kidzworld on Central Street is closed? Junior loved that place, and I don't want to tell him it's gone.

He has a winter birthday, now that's one less place he can have a party, and I think that stinks.

So Acton has a mountain lion. You know, soon, all the other towns are going to want them. Boxboro will sulk at being overlooked by said mountain lion, and Littleton will have a town meeting to get a prop 2.5 override for the purchase of a mountain lion.

My sister actually lives in Littleton, very close to the Acton border, so this one actually hits a little too close to home. And we have Westford readers here at the Dump, so they should keep an eye out as well.

I knew no good would come of Donelans carrying CougarSnax in the pet aisle.

I am such an idiot! I am banging my head against the wall. Tell me, why do I not have the brains to know better than to write over my Nano file when I forgot to upload yesterday's changed file to my server as a backup? I lost the almost 2000 words I wrote last night. I am beside myself, because I'm already behind, and I don't want to have to recreate those 2000 words. Oh God, I'm so pissed! And you just know that it was all brilliant, of course.

As soon as I did it, I knew what I'd done. ARRRRRGH!

At my house, we just can't fight the season any more. Last night, a dusting of snow was declared a victory in the Mom vs. Junior discussion about why it was too early in the year for snow. So what DVD did he choose to watch after dinner? How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

This actually makes me happy, I have to tell you. I am the Christmas person in my family. I am the one who wants to start watching the holiday specials during Thanksgiving breakfast. Junior is carrying the torch for me, and as such, we now outnumber Mr. Dump.

It might be time to throw in my "it feels like a Christmas movie to me, even if it technically isn't", Little Women (the new version, not the old one, even though the old ones are good. I just love the new one with Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder. Yup, I think I'll put that one on top of the DVD player today.

p.s. Nano Novel is at 8249. Not where I should be, but not too bad.

I had to search out the hats and mittens for this morning. Man oh man, what a difference from yesterday! I also realized that I need to get Junior his annual pair of winter boots. I know he won't fit in the old ones, which I thought I bought big enough. I'm a fool, really.

Well, looking at the forecast for the rest of the week, I guess I can only say "at least it isn't snowing."

I bought egg nog today.

I also got my DVD copy of the Muppet Christmas Carol in the mail from Amazon (to replace my worn out VHS version) and am on pins and needles waiting for the Elf DVD to be released on the 1th. My cd player is poised to spin the Elf soundtrack I bought last year...

I won't watch the movies just yet, but the egg nog's days are numbered.

p.s. Behind on the Nanonovel, I'm at about 5300 words, I should have twice that. *sigh*

If you live in Massachusetts and you are reading this on Sunday afternoon, back away from the computer and go outside. Thank you.

Okay, two Nano Novel snippets. I warned you!

"I want people. I would be happy with just a person. Well, one person if that person was a real go-getter. I don't want a slacker lackey for my person. I would have to trade up for a new person. And that would also mean it was my responsibility to let the bad person go. I'm no good at firing people. Would I have to give slacker lackey a written warning first? "Become a go-getter or you're out." What if the warning made him start to screw up the stuff he was doing because he knew that there was no way he could transform himself into the person I needed him to be. Can you see how ugly all of this is getting, and it is not even reality? My God, I'm just better off being a loner nobody. It's just easier."

and


"…and I told her that I wasn't feeling well but she made me come in anyway. And I told her that I might have some kind of eye infection but she didn't want to hear it and she said as long as I washed my hands a lot and used some of the Purell antibacterial stuff, I would be able to work and not infect anyone else. So it's on her head if the whole department breaks out in some freaky eye infection."

I've got 3184 words so far. That's not enough. I think if you spread it out evenly, you're supposed to write 1666 words per day. So I'm now three days worth of words behind. Yea me!

At least I have something written. And it flows. There's a hint of a plot, even. Whoda thunk?

It's still not too late to join in - plenty of people are way behind on their word counts.

Hello, Thursday!

Stopping to get my regularly scheduled blood work (I'm anemic and hypothyroid, doncha know) only set me back about 30 minutes today, just because the commute was so much better. Leaving late has its advantages. I could have shaved that down a little if I had gone a more direct route and avoided two elementry schools and some kind of medical emergency that required an ambulance to partially block the road.

Other than the blood lady doing a really horrid job and making my whole arm ache, so far, so good!

p.s. Dear Spammers: I don't want an imitation Rolex. Really. I want a real one. Or a Movado. Something with lots of diamonds. Real diamonds. Oh, and I'd buy it in a real store, not from someone who sends me spam emails. Thanks so much.

Well, that's that. And let me tell you this. When the poop starts to hit the fan this time around, El Presidente won't be able to blame it on the previous administration. Now they'll have to take responsibility for unemployment, rising gas prices, etc. This will be a new thing for W, who lived by the rule "the buck stops anywhere but here".

Americans are in for 4 more years of this administration doing whatever the hell it wants, whenever it wants. They answer to no one. If you object, you are called a traitor. We aren't allowed to ask the tough questions - the man won't hold any press conferences. He surrounds himself with only people who agree with him. This isn't a president "for the people". This is a president who is only looking out for his own interests, and that is just the most depressing thing of all.

Enough about politics, I'm sure some readers are all ready to yell at me for it anyway.

If Bush wins Ohio and the election, I will have lost faith in America. Apparently it doesn't matter if the smirking frat boy LIED to the country over and over again...he still gets your votes.

I'm disgusted. You are handing him four more years to put us deeper in the hole internationally and monetarily, while his buddies all benefit left and right.

Thanks for nothing.

Look, I voted over 6 hours ago. I'm ready to find out who won. Sheesh!

Don't forget to vote. Don't say that you don't need to because your vote won't count. Remember Florida in 2000, okay? We still fill in the little circles with Sharpie markers in Leominster. No number two pencils for us, when we vote, we commit! No erasing! This is permanent!

On to other things...

I'm way behind on my Nano Novel already. I shouldn't have signed up, I know. I have two other things (an article for allearsnet.com and my formal journal) I'm trying to get written. There aren't enough hours in the day.

I still have to edit all the movies I took down in Florida. A friend of mine says that not being able to record video to DVD is actually standard - it just doesn't work right. So do I try a new drive or not? I have burned them in the past, which is what makes me think it's a hardware problem.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is three weeks from today. Oy.

I have comment spammers. Again. I can't do anything about it until I get home. My only advice in the universe is please don't ever ever ever buy anything from people like this. They are slime. They think nothing of filling an innocent site with their stupid advertising, using up my disk quota at my server, annoying my users, etc. If you buy something from arsewipes who spam comments or send spam e-mail, you are encouraging them to continue. You are making their evil business practices a success. Do you really think it's a good idea to buy counterfeit watches via spam e-mail?

I'll try to remember to clean this up ASAP, but I'm sure they'll be back.

p.s. I hope I don't die from eating tainted Halloween candy from home or at work. I really do need to get a vote in for Kerry tomorrow, and being dead would make that difficult. This isn't Chicago, you know!

I hate when vacation ends...