The Big DumpTruck

Sorry, wasn't near a keyboard most of the day. To appease Jennie, here are a few more thoughts on the subject.

Okay, here's the deal - I didn't think I was even going to this thing until about 4:30pm, and it started at 7. So my outfit was very much hobbled together. I took a too-big shirt and cut off the collar and the hem, and wore it over a tank top. Big hoop earrings, blue eye shadow (I didn't have the right stuff to do the cool eyes.) There were SO many things that I either forgot about or didn't have and didn't have time to get. Jacqui and I swore we would try to win tickets again next year, and would spend the next 365 days gathering accessories. Little things like tying a bow in your hair out of netting (tulle?), crimping (my GOD, where did all those women finding crimping irons?) ankle boots, the right kind of bracelets, etc.

We just stood there and laughed and laughed and pointed out stuff to each other the whole night. The biggest question we had about a lot of people was "did they go out and find that especially for tonight or did they have it in the back of the closet? Or a more important question, did they wear it normally? The hair was great, but there were a couple of women who you thought maybe hadn't strayed too far from that style in the past 20 years anyway.

Guys really got into it, too. Lots of Risky Business-type looks...Wayfarers, collars up. One of our favorite guys had moussed out his hair and was wearing eyeliner. Does it say more about me or about him that we both thought he looked damned good?

The prom dresses were kind of fun too, but I think the people NOT in prom dresses had more fun. Some of those dresses looked SO uncomfortable. But you know that some of them were actually taking from storage at mom's house. As Jacqui pointed out - teal was very popular in the 80s...and very popular last night.

We pretty much spent the whole night on the dance floor. That was for two reasons - one, it was really fun music to dance to, and two, in an effort to be fashionably late, she convinced me we shouldn't arrive right at 7, and by the time we got there at 8, there were no seats left at any tables. So that also means we didn't get to have any of the bowls of munchies they had put out, and by then, and no waiters came by to offer hors d'ouvres to us. They were either done by then, or only going to tables. Next time I'm not listening to her. I'll get there at 7 and have a place to hang my aching feet. Oh, and I'll have more than a bowl of cereal before I go...that Life doesn't last all that long when you are dancing for 3 hours straight.

The 80s arena rock cover band M80 was featured, and they were fantastic. I was wondering why a radio station wouldn't just play 80s tracks, but these guys were great and it was very fun to have a live band that did a fantastic job with the covers.

So I think that's most everything. It was really really fun, and I'd go again in a second. Oh, and the pictures below are the one ones that came out. I'm sorry the Delorean picture is so bad, but it was outside in the parking lot at 9:30 at night, so that's actually better than I'd hoped for. I think that was the closest I've ever been to one (I got to stick my head in it) and my only question is - who the hell wants a stainless steel car? I mean, other than that it's cool, but dude, stainless steel? (WXLO's website should have pictures posted in the next few days (I assume) of people from the prom. So I'll just send you their way when I notice them up.)

Oh, and Jacqui didn't win, but we'll get 'em next year. She did receive a lovely parting gift, and hell, it took her mind of the fact that her daughter went to a real prom last night. Are we actually that old? Yikes. We both agreed that our prom was probably more fun.

p.s. As I said to him when he and his wife were standing behind us in the bar line, as soon as I heard Eric Heinan (the morning traffic guy) was going to be attending, I decided to try to win tickets. Because he makes me laugh every morning, and I just wanted to see the face behind the voice, that's why. I can report that while he didn't look the way I expected (I had this towering blond guy in my head) he was very charming, was nice to talk to, and he and his wife both seem to be sweethearts! I'm sure she thought I was a bit psycho, but hey, we all listen to this guy every morning, we feel like we know him!

I only have a minute because I have to go to a Little League thingy, so I'll post the very few pictures I have and write more later.

Okay, this is fantastic. I'm floored by how many people had a ton of 80s crap available for dressing up.

The interesting thing is my date, my cousin Jacqui, is in the running for the celeb look-alike contest for looking the most like Pat Benatar. I can't believe how funny this all is. Wish you were here!

P.s. Someone borrowed her dad's Delorean for the night, and then couldn't figure out how to put the headlights on and was afraid to call her dad. This is a seriously amusing group of people. (I took a picture of the car but it didn't come out...)

Okay, Jennie, you can stop your weeping, I'm heading out to the prom in about 15 minutes. My cousin and I will be crashing the prom in pegged pants, slouch socks and ripped shirts. I have big hair (well, as big as I could get it with medium-hold hairspray and sort of longish bangs.) I feel like a dork and I wish I'd had time to get a proper prom dress, but getting the tickets yesterday and someone to go with this afternoon didn't leave much time. Mom ran to the Salvation Army for me, but when she started to say "80's prom" the woman cut her off and pointed to the back wall, warning that they'd been swamped all week. Unfortunately, I remain prom dress-less. But I don't care one bit, because my cousin is a riot and we'll have fun even if we overshoot the Sheraton and end up buying tires at BJs.

My men are off having a boys night out, so there's nobody here to take my picture. I'll be honest with you...I wasn't trendy back in the 80s, so it's hard for me to know what to wear. And even if I know exactly the look I want, I hardly have this stuff lying around. Actually, the funniest thing about what I'm wearing (to me) is my shoes...they are, for all intents and purposes, capezios (sp?). Remember when we all wore these damned things?

I was just on weather.com looking at the hourly forecast for tomorrow, and I feel pretty confident that the postponed "opening ceremony" for Little League will again be cancelled. By next Saturday, which I assume would be the new date, we'll have been playing games for 2 weeks. Is it really an opening ceremony at that point?

Maybe because we didn't go last year (I don't think T-Ball is included) I don't know what the big deal is. Well, I guess all the kids from each team get introduced and walk across the field. That's cool for the majors and minors, but heck, instructional league doesn't even get their team names put on the North Leominster Little League official website. So we'll have to sit there while 10 to 15 kids from each team (I believe in total there are 16 or so teams) get introduced. It'll be like watching a graduation ceremony, but maybe without the boring speeches from 18 year olds telling each other "we are the future, and we will go out and make a difference!" Ya, okay, that's cool, but can you leave pickles off the tuna sub, Brittany?

I removed the two previous posts because now I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go, and it seems silly to leave a rant there if there's not point.

So what else...um. I know there was something I was going to mention, but I'm blanking.

Look, according to the g00gle ad I just saw, eBay is branching out into food. I think I'd rather have the new than the used, though. I mean, if given a choice.

I have to figure out how to teach my son to run properly. Does that sound odd? It feels odd. He runs as if his legs are in casts. I cannot figure out exactly what he's doing wrong, other than thinking he's too stiff, that he doesn't bend his knees enough.

The reason I need to figure this out is that while he's a good hitter, twice last night he was out on first because he didn't run fast enough (he did make it to base and eventually scored a run at least once, so that's good). Just a little faster, you know? I'm not a physical trainer or a coach, so I don't know how you explain it to a kid. It's not like some kids who are sort of, well, lumbering. They just don't run fast. He could run fast, if he was doing it right. (It probably sounds more confusing than it is.)

Also, a hearty welcome to all my new MSN Search results visitors. Can I offer you some Kool-Aid? (I was going to write "Tang" cause that's such a humorous beverage, but given the search terms driving you guys here, I thought maybe you'd take that the wrong way. I tells ya, there are so many things I was going to write that I had to self-censor until MSN stops associating me with dirty search terms, just because they sound dirty.) One of them made me laugh out loud when I realized how it sounded. Maybe I'll write it in the comments so it won't be picked up by the search bots.

Oh, forgot to mention this nugget from the Sentinel:

Mazzarella [one of the lawyers, not the mayor] downplayed the severity of the fight during an interview with reporters outside the courtroom.

"I don't know why the press is here. People get their heads kicked in all the time," he said. "For some reason, everybody got excited, and the judge is excited."

Dude, are you kidding me? Are you seriously saying that people get their heads kicked in all the time? Where? In your neighborhood? Cause it doesn't happen in mine. You don't think people should be excited that this happened at a children's party center? What kind of crack are you on?

[Updated stuff at the bottom]
I won't let myself type the rant that I want to in this place, as the main purpose is to be amusing (for the most part) and I don't find anything amusing about this news story.

By now all you locals have heard about the melee down at the Chuck E. Cheese in Leominster. A woman and her husband asked a group of thugs to let them take one picture of their 11 month old daughter, after the thugs had hogged the photo machine for an hour.

The thugs let them take the picture, then started swearing at the mother, and eventually started beating her. Apparently she was in a fetal position on the floor protecting herself while her husband held their daughter and other patrons tried to break up the fight.

The three who were arrested were 21, 18 and 14. And I hope they throw the two older ones in jail and throw away the key because really, is there any hope that these sub-humans will be productive members of society in any way, shape or form if they beat a woman senseless in a Chuck E. Cheese in front of dozens of school children celebrating birthday parties, etc.? Or hell, beating up anyone for any reason, never mind something as simple as asking if someone else can use the photo booth they've been hogging for an hour. Cripes, when I was 21, I could think of several thousand places I'd rather hang out than Chuck E. Cheese. I didn't hear if either of the older winners were there with small children (which would be bad enough, but I think it's worse if they were just there to hang out) and I have no problem with C.E.C. instituting a "no thugs allowed unless accompanied by small children."

So anyway, I've blind with fury about this, mostly because I'm a mom who has taken her kid there for a birthday party, and to have some mouthy trash from Fitchburg come in and do this in front of little kids (never mind just doing it at all)...well, let's just say that I'm sure I'd start saying things that are not nice, and then maybe the committee to protect mouthy trash from Fitchburg would sue me or something.

So, girls, I hope you rot in jail for a long long time! Maybe you'll have time to think about how the world does NOT revolve around you, and that you do not have the right to do what you want when you want to whoever you want. And special note to the Leominster Police: Take this opportunity to crack down on the groups of kids who hang out in the mall entrances. Last night some charming young lady was crashed on the ground begging people for cigarettes. There is no reason for these kids to gather in the entrances blocking the doors, swearing up a storm in front of my kid. This is how all these problems start.

Huh. I guess I did rant. Sorry about that.

[Update: According to the Fitchburg Sentinel, they were there for a birthday party for a 2 year old. The aunt of the three who were arrested saw nothing, and the lawyer for the 18 year old says the mom slapped her first. Given that other witnesses say differently, lets assume she did touch her in some way...does that make it okay for others to pigpile on and kick a woman laying on the floor? No. It doesn't. Oh, and the 18 year old's prior record was for assault and Battery for "a violent incident where she bit off her aunt's finger at their home in Fitchburg last November, according to court documents." Are you kidding me? This is the innocent party? Try again, ladies.]

If you are here because you entered a search on MSN for something of questionable nature, thinking that maybe I was going to talk dirty, you are going to be sadly disappointed. This is a very family-friendly website. I have no photos of the things you are looking for.

The reason I say the search engine stinks, is that I'm guessing that I am the least-likely website to be the current number one hit for the following search terms (that I will put here as graphics so they don't trigger the search engine in the future):




Can you imagine? The number one result! Let's hope I get bumped from my perch soon. I'm feeling all gross right now.

Just off Route 16 in Mendon MA is a little (relatively) zoo called Southwick Wild Animal Farm. We (Junior, my parents and I) took a little trip there last week when the weather was just perfect for that sort of school vacation week outing.

I think I was just seeing how he handled himself in a zoo so that when my step-kids are here we can head out for the bigger Stone Zoo or Franklin Park Zoo. Or Roger Williams Park down in RI. (So kids, if you are looking at this - fear not - we'll be road tripping to one of those one weekend soon.)

Here are some pictures from our day at the zoo.

The last few pictures were taken at the Lego Store in the Solomon Pond Mall - where Junior got to help make a marketing poster out of Legos (and got a little thank you gift for helping).

"Friday, Friday
So good to me
Friday morning
It was all I hoped it would be
Oh, Friday morning
Friday morning couldn't guarantee
That Friday evening you would still
Be here with me"

Wow, that was easy. Weird Al Yankovich has been ripping people off all these years. It's easy to write a song parody!

I'm exhausted today. Our bedroom was about ten thousand degrees last night thanks to the 87 degree day, and although they said the temps would drop like a dead duck in the evening, that cold front didn't pass through until the middle of the night. So I just couldn't fall asleep at all.

Then I couldn't have coffee in the morning because I was having a fasting blood test (Oh my God, maybe the woman doing the draw needed another cup of coffee too...my whole arm was in pain) and the lab had a line about 10 people deep.

Yesterday I bribed Junior with Dairy Queen to get him to go to the Mall at Whitney Field with me. I wanted to run to JC Penny and Circuit City. Note to all stores that sell computer cables: Apparently HP has decided to move from a 6-pin firewire port to a 4-pin one. That means you have to start carrying 4 to 4 cables. Circuit City, I especially mean you, because you sold me the computer. You need to have the appropriate accessories. I bought the next to the last 4 to 4. Staples and another unnamed store didn't carry them on the shelf, but they could be ordered. That isn't good enough for me.

So anyway, the Subway sandwich shop is open again down at the mall. I think I met the manager (or the owner?) and she seemed very on top of things, and concerned about things like filth. As in, they weren't selling soda from the old machine because she was concerned that it was completely gross. Now THAT is a good manager. Big high five right there. And Auntie Anne's is open again, so my main gnoshing needs are all being met.

Today: 30 degrees cooler than yesterday. I don't think sleeping will be a problem.

Adam seems to think we were up at the crack of dawn, but unless his dawn cracks later than mine, it wasn't bad. We were at my sister's in Littleton by about 8, and left there soonafter. We did get stuck in some traffic on the back roads, and when we were about 6 cars away, they closed off the road we wanted to take to get us a bit closer to the action. This just meant we had a slightly longer walk than we wanted, but it was incredible out yesterday so the walk was amazingly pleasant. I'd say if you're going to try to be right next to the bridge, you'll have to get their early, but we opted for the other side of the river looking down (next to the Visitor's Center) and even getting there at 8:45 there was more than enough room to see everything. Plus, we were so close to the parade that at one point we had to duck to avoid being hit in the head by one of those poles that they use to hold the banners that identify the group marching.

One of the more amusing things we witnessed happened when a group marching from the Fenn School (in Concord) ended up stopping in front of us while everyone waited for some ceremony down on the Bridge to finish - 95% of them spent the whole time staring at and talking about the kids marching from a high school in Naples Florida. Specifically, their cheerleaders, pom pon girls and color squad, all of whom were dressed in the traditional short skirt "uniform". It was pretty amusing to watch them watching the girls.

For the record, we thought it was pretty cool that the Naples high school marched in the parade, even though they were the only marching band that wasn't somehow tied to Patriot's day (either by being local to Concord and Lexington, or by dressing the part. Apparently they just wanted to come up to experience history firsthand, as it were, and to actually walk across the North Bridge. So they did. How much do we take it for granted that these amazing historic places are right in our backyard?

With apologies to our British friends, here are a couple of photos of us whooping their butts in Lexington/Concord today. I will have some stills taken from the video I shot as soon as I get the right cable to hook the video camera up to the new laptop. I would just do this on the desktop, but darn it, I want to use this laptop for video editing!

So forgive the quality of these two images...I used the video camera's "capture" function to pull a low res image from the digital tape. But for now, its better than nothing. Click on the first one to open up a window for a few pictures we took with Junior's camera (my old one).





And luckily, once again, the British retreat, so we get to be the United States for yet another year.

What a great experience! Unfortunatley, I forgot to explain the story to Junior ahead of time.

More later with a few pictures.

Sheesh. People, please, if you're going to take your pants off to catch some rays, try not to do it right next to the mini golf course. I'm begging you.

Oh my good God, if you haven't ever had the seafood chowder at the Maine
Diner in Wells, Maine, what is your problem. Whole clams, big chumks of
lobster meat, scallops and shrimp. I think next time I'm just getting a
big bowl of that with their huge corn muffin and I will be a happy happy
girl.

I don't know if this will work, but here is a photo of one of the clams
in my cup of the chowder.



Oh, and here is the step-daughter chasing birds. See, I don't need to get a dog, we just let the kids go run on the beach. (Don't let the pretty picture fool you - it was 45 degrees up there...)

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Pepper Spray of Warm Humanitarianism.

What's yours?

Woo.

No? Okay.

WOO.

Junior has all next week off, and I have nothing planned for him. I'm only going to be home a couple of the days, and I'll have to work if I feel like getting paid, but still, it would be nice to have something in the queue. I think maybe we'll go bowling. Cause nothing says spring break like bowling!

I forgot to give him allergy medicine this morning. I have a feeling I am very much going to regret that mistake. I hope they don't call me later today to tell me that his face is leaking uncontrollably.

So, dear readers, lets hear your suggestions for next week. Remember, I hate huge crowds, so think twice before suggesting the Children's Museum in Boston. Or anything in Boston. It's all, like, crowded and stuff.

Two notebook reviews:

• my WilsonJones View-tab(tm) notebook (3 subject 55091) - awesome. It's way cool, because you can put pictures and stuff in the front slot to customize the cover. The covers are hard plastic so you can use it on your lap. And the paper is really thin so after you write on a page it makes that awesome crinkly sound I adore. Thumbs up. Three thumbs up.
• My HP dv4030us - Love it. Love it more now that I went to the Netgear website and downloaded the firmware upgrade for my router so that it will actually talk to the built-in wireless card. Heads up to people who buy computers with Centrino processors who are having trouble with an existing Netgear wireless network - this firmware upgrade specifically fixes problems between the two. (Remember kids, the dv4030 is the retail store flavor/configuration of the HP dv4000 line. If you got here from Google because I'm one of only two hits for hp dv4030, go back and search for "hp dv4000" and you'll have more luck.)

Oh, and my goal of trying to not load any Microsoft software on this system unless I actually need it and like it is going well. OpenOffice seems to be doing the trick (although I'm still getting used to it) and I'm getting more comfortable with Firefox. (So no IE or Office for me so far. And yes, I know I need to get the new security patch for OpenOffice.)

Over in the Wicked Good message boards, Adam posts some pictures of available Real Estate in Newstead Montegrade. I'm considering putting in a bid for the castle. I'm just not sure it's going to have enough closet space. Or a roof.

(I just don't get tired of this Newstead Montegrade stuff, I swear.)

Okay, if nobody else will say it, I will. I'm a great mom. And you know why that is? I'll tell you. It's because I'm not raising the next generation American Idol contestant. Let me explain.

When we watch the first few episodes of American Idol, we all think the same thing: on what planet do these people live that they think they have any talent at all?

I'll tell you what planet - planet Mom Thinks You Are Perfect.

Well my kid and I do not live on that planet. On the way to Little League tryouts last night, he was telling me what a great baseball player he is. And I pointed out to him that he actually isn't a great baseball player. He can hit the ball [more on that later] but his throwing and catching are horrible. And sometimes he runs like a spaz (I didn't use that term, by the way. Is that term no longer allowed in polite company? Spaz. What a great word.).

So he dialed back and said that he's pretty good, he's good at hitting, and I agreed with him. Now see, that's a kid who knows he's not perfect and therefore has some work to do to get better. If I told him he was great, he'd ask why he had to go to practice because "what's the point?" Sort of like these American Idol people. You know the ones I mean.

As for the tryout, he did about what I expected. The funny thing happened after they were done and I went to put my name down with the coordinator so that they can run a check on me to allow me out on the field. When I gave my last name and he found it on the sheet, he said "Did you teach him to hit like that?" So apparently he made an impression with his batting. Maybe they'll forgive the lousy fielding skills. Or he can grow up to be a DH. I dub thee....Little Papi!

And so it begins...a dozen or so weeks where my life revolves around Little League. Screw work, I have to get my kid to the field at an hour I'm usually driving home, because obviously somebody forgot to tell the people who run these things that not all families have a parent sitting at home just waiting to take the kids to practice and games. Many of us work - and not only that, we work out of town. I can hear the gasps.

For older kids, it's less of a problem because you can just drop them off, or have someone else do it. But these are little kids and you just can't do that yet. Too many wierdos out there, first of all. And they are still in the "Look at me, mom!" stage, where every single little thing they do requires affirmation that they are wonderful and making you proud. I'm not screwing up MY kid's head by not being there for him. It's bad enough that he has to go to aftercare because I'm not home waiting for the bus to drop him off at the end of the day. Rant for another day.

I hear we'll have two games during the week and a practice on Saturday. Thank God, because I was worried that this would only screw up my week nights. Sheesh. All I can say is that they'd better set a schedule for the same nights and times every week. If they want my kid to actually show up, it would be good to be consistent. If the game nights change every week, I'm not going to be able to get out of work for some of them. Or I'll forget. Or I'll just say "to heck with you, maybe I'd like to do laundry for a change."

Why do 7 year olds need 3 days a week for baseball, by the way?

Update: MLB.com has it streaming - I don't know if there's a copy saved on my hard drive (probably not) but I did get to see it. I don't know if you have to pay to have that access - I gave Mr. Dump a membership to Red Sox Nation so we can see it. It's only ten bucks to join, for the record.

No offense to those who didn't have somewhere to be at 2:15pm yesterday, but would it kill someone out there in TVland to replay, start to finish, the ceremonies from Fenway yesterday? I don't want to see highlights, I want the whole thing, so the emotion can build, and I can celebrate along with everyone else.

If that's not possible, did anyone out there remember to tape or Tivo it? I'll pay shipping for a copy (unless someone points out that NESN is going to show it at 4:30am on Sunday or something.)

Any of you looking to unload Sox tickets for games you can't make, I'm your gal. I want to take Junior to a game (his first!) but Fenway is pretty much sold out of anything non-bleachery.

I made a vow several years ago that I would pay the premium to never sit in the bleachers again. Of course, it would help to be able to find something other than standing room-only.

It only took me about 4 hours (or so it seemed) to get 21 strawberry plants into the ground. Well, 19 in the ground and 2 in a planter on the deck. The main problem was the general lack of a "garden" area, so that was me, digging up part of the lawn with hand tools. It was a nice little workout, anyway.

I had 4 plants left over because I literally ran out of room. Maybe if the three plants from last year hadn't started coming up (yea!) I would have had room for all of them, but nature has her own ideas. So I'm going to put the four in pots and give them to my sister, who can replant them when she has time. I need to do that tonight, but for now the plants are safely damp and in my fridge.

And yes, they are all covered with some special cloth that I bought, knowing it would be cold this week. I'm not stupid.

My father ordered strawberry plants for me, and I have to go get them and plant them today. I know, it seems early to me too, but he tells me that they only send them out when it's okay for you to plant them (based on where you live) so he wants me to hurry up and get them. Of course, that means I also have to go get strawberry fertilizer, netting, etc. etc. etc. then dig out the space for them on the side of the house. Man oh man, nothing is simple, right?

And I won't even worry about the predicted snow flurries on Monday. I'm sure young strawberry plants just love snow.

And no, Junior and I didn't win any games at mother-son Bingo at his school last night. I mean, there were people getting bingo after they only called 10 numbers. But it was cool to have a mother-son activity anyway. And everyone who went left with a book, which was actually the prize if you won...I guess the difference if you won is that everyone clapped for you and you got first pick of all the available books. Next year, we wipe the floor with the competition.

Looking for an exciting, fast-paced, exclusive vacation spot to take the whole family? Have we got a place for you!

Newstead Montegrade, the ULTRA-exclusive Massachusetts vacation spot (and when we say spot, we mean spot) with a heart of gold, is perfect for you.

Or it would be if it wasn't just some dot in the middle of Franklin Park. It's taking on a life of its own over Universal Hub. After your trip, remember to post-vacation comments, and photos!
(Here's another conversation going on about it...just wanted to keep all the links in one handy place.)

I was just reading that a woman was hit by a freight train at the Leominster Station this morning. The time was listed in the paper as 7:45am, which is just about the time the school bus picks up Junior. I just realized that as we were standing there, I heard a long engine whistle blow (I remember this because it startled me and I looked over at the neighbor's 3-year-old to guage his reaction to it.) So that must have been the train that hit her (I live within spitting distance of that station). YIKES.

Let me tell you a little something. If, heaven forbid, you've used the same laptop every day for three years, and that laptop up and dies on you, when you do get a new laptop, the thing that will make you want to slam your head against the biggest piece of cement you can find is the fact that this laptop does not contain a single ounce of the stuff you lovingly collected on your hard drive over the past three years. No bookmarks. No photos. No applications. Especially no applications. I have backups of my bookmarks and my photos (thank you Picasa! I swear to you, go download it right now from Google. I'll wait. Then click the link that asks you if you want to back up all the photos. It will tell you how many CDs or DVDs you need to do so. This is A GOOD THING. This was one thing I didn't freak about when I realized the laptop was dead. I know I had copies of all my image files.)

If you are guessing that I replaced my laptop, you'd be correct. A week of research and I decided to go with the HP dv4030. Look up the reviews for the DV4000 (the 4030 is just the retail flavor - right now you can't even get them from HP, and custom designing one will take weeks.)

Okay, so anyway, it's taking me hours to rebuild this thing. I guess there will be things I never add back. But I have to try to figure out if I have copies of some of my registration info for stuff like mailwasher. Ugh.

Google must have some ultra-double secret algorithm they use to figure out what ads to put on a page. I don't know what on the page spawned these ads, but over on the right I see the following as the headers in the Google ads:

• Prostatectomy
• Hobby Engineering
• Lego Sets
• God loves you
• BugBrain Robotics Kit.

The hell?

If God loves me, he will not allow anyone to do a prostatectomy on me (ha!) using Lego sets. Period. I had something else really super important that I wanted to add here and now I can't remember what it was. Must be my new bug brain malfunctioning.

Oh, I remember. What do Funyons taste like? Are they worth trying? Also, pork rinds...

Still no laptop. There will continue to be no laptop until I buy one, by the way. I'm just saying.

Okay, update on the burning urge to go to Disney again. One of the interesting things about Disney is that I regularly have dreams about going to the park. I have not sat down to evaluate them in any way, but I can tell you that there are times I have the same or similar dreams about the park(s), except the parks in my dreams do not resemble the real ones. Sometimes they are more like a Six-Flags type amusement park. They are the Jody version of WDW. Last night I had a dream that we were in this section of Epcot that is nothing like any other part of Epcot, except I've dreamt we have been there before, so in last night's dream I was actually saying "Let's go back to that restaurant over there!" The main focus of last night's dream was making phone calls to my family to try to convince them to meet us at this restaurant.

I had a Disney dream last week where we were first in line to go into an attraction (i.e. the park had just opened) and we were so excited (I think it was Tower of Terror)...we walked all through the queue only to walk through a doorway that put us in the middle of the park. So it wasn't an attraction at all, it was just the entrance to the park.

Last year I had a dream where we were with the whole family and there was some sort of problem with the plumbing or something and suddenly the whole park (remember, Jody Park, not what one really looks like) was flooded and we had to get the kids into boats, but my sister wouldn't leave one of the gift shops. There was a big pipe all this water was bursting out of, but I can't say for sure if it was clean water or dirty, if you catch my drift.

There isn't anything scary about these dreams, I just suspect it's my burning desire to go on vacation - specifically back to Disney. But I find it very amusing to have dreams like these over and over again.

Like I said to Mr. Dump as we turned off the television early to end our suffering, "This is good because I prefer spending the season as the underdog. I don't want to be "them". I don't want to be swaggering and cocky because we won last year. This sets the tone for the season, and then we can be the little engine that could."

Or not, but the pressure is certainly off right now.

I am also having a hard time finding people who are happy we picked up Wells. Last night didn't help, but I don't like him. I don't like him as a person, and I don't think he embodies the kind of guy who should be offered the privilege to wear a Sox uniform. I was horrified when I'd heard we picked him up. It's embarrassing to say he's on our team, not for his playing (although, last night...) but for his politics and social skills. He's a punk, and Boston fans don't cotton to punks.

Okay, cozied up on the couch, got the popcorn ready...

And UPN 38 comes out with a GRADE A FIRST CLASS intro to the season.

And once again, I have chills watching the highlights from the series from last year. Big honking goosebumps. And now that the game is on, I'm already stressed. I've got this feeling to look forward to for the next 6 months or so. Sheesh.

Day 3 without a laptop. The shakes have gotten a little more intense, and the nightsweats were the worst of my life. I woke this morning groggy and feling vaguely like someone had filled my head with fiberglass insulation.

I may have to go drown my sorrows in a pound of crispy bacon.

I hate hate hate not having my laptop. And it's all well and good to say "I'll replace it" but I don't exactly have a pile of cash just lying out on the coffee table. *sigh*

Oh, and important notice for the locals: the Tri-Town Drive-In is officially open for the 2005 season.

Okay, we can't put Terri Schiavo in this list because pulling a feeding tube means the death was kind of scheduled. But in the past few days, there are obituary notices all over the place, and then there are people who are on death's door. It is very "death-y" out there right now. Make sure you take your multi-vitamins, okay?

By the time this posts (or soon after) I'm sure we'll be able to add Pope John Paul II to this list. Yesterday in the news they were saying he wanted every possibly intervention to keep him alive, and then this morning they were saying he refused to go back to the hospital, putting his fate in God's hands. Interesting that these two news items were only a day apart. I'm with him today, though. What kind of quality of live is it to just take him to the hospital and plug him in? I'm thinking that maybe, now that he really understands it from that side, he might make some proclamation that it's okay to choose to go, to tell the family that it is actually a humane and loving thing to do. But it sounds like he's not in any shape to do that.

Frank Purdue died also, and I'm completely embarrassed to say that I didn't know he was still alive. I'm guessing I'm not alone, but still.

All this pales, however, to last night's death of my laptop computer. I am not handling it well, either. Mr. Dump says he experienced this type of death before, and it wasn't fixable. The tech guy from HP swears that if I pay $298, they will fix it and send it back to me in 6 days. I asked what happens if they can't fix it and he got kind of indignant.

Which then raises the question - do you spend $300 to fix a 3 year old computer that doesn't have the power to do any of the things you want to do with it, or do you put that 300 toward something that can? Decisions, decisions.