Poor Blog

Just one more victim of my WoW obsession.

That's a sobering thought

Big Fire!

If the fire spread to the storage tanks, it would wipe out everything in a one mile radius? Hmm... that would have been exciting. Especially since the one mile radius includes my house!

You gotta be kidding me

I can't say this is a big surprise... she is quite the little go-getter.

Sarah Palin for President? Come on...

I have to admit that I am not registered with any political party. As I see it, I want to vote for the candidate that I feel is best for the job, not the political party. I know that I can't vote in the primaries, and I know if may be silly, but I just like that sense of freedom that being an independent gives me.

Now this past election, the choice wasn't extremely hard. I pretty much knew which way I was going to vote from the beginning, but I stayed true to my philosophy. I sat down, I researched the candidates, and I made my choice. Then they chose the VP candidates, and I went back over and looked at the whole package. Palin? Ye Gads!

I know she is going to spend the next 4-8 years grooming herself, but don't forget her true nature as a leader. And I'm not talking about how much her wardrobe allegedly costs, I'm talking about a documented track record from her performance in the offices that she held.

When she first became Mayor of Wasilla, one of the first things she did was approach the librarian and try to go about banning books. That's censorship based on her christian values. Just remember that there is a separation between religion and government. If you don't want to read the book, then you don't have to pick it up off the shelf. Which is exactly what she did, because when asked if she even read the books in question, she said no and she wasn't going to. When the librarian didn't remove the books, Palin took steps to try and fire the librarian. Luckily for the librarian the community rallied and spoke out against her removal, so her job was spared.

Then when the librarian went to Palin for help, her requests were ignored. What did she want? A renovated and larger library. Her library serves an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and was too small and out of date to fully serve the community. Libraries in smaller rural communities often serve as a very important community center. So instead of listening to the librarian and giving the community of 5,500 people a new library, Palin went ahead with her plans of building an NHL sized hockey rink.

So as she spends the next few years grooming herself, I just want to say:

Dear Republicans,

You can do WAY better. Please find another candidate who will serve the community as a whole, rule on the theory of "the greater good for the greater majority", someone who is compassionate and not vindictive, someone who has a cleaner track-record, and someone who doesn't have a bunch of personal agendas. I know there are a lot of people out there who would be a better candidate. Please find them.

*steps down from soap box*

Things that make you go hmmm...

I have a lot of comments I could make about this article, but I'll let you make your own.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/11/obama.gun.sales/index.html


Or maybe it's just a sign that the economy is getting better.

Dear lonely blog,

I haven't been posting much, but I really haven't had much to say. Most of my conversations have been focusing around either work or the election, which I don't feel necessary to post. Maybe now that the election is over, there will be something else to talk about.

Plus twitter cuts down on the blogging with it's instant gratification. If you can keep it to under 140 characters, it's worth a tweet!

Playing hooky

I'm home from work today. Not really sick, but not really well either. I've been fighting something off since this past weekend. So far I've just been pretty tired and feeling groggy all the time, but now it's gone into a stuffy nose and a little cough. I feel bad about calling in for something so trivial, but I think my body is begging for some rest. I'm hoping that maybe a day here will save me from getting really sick. So today will be spent on reading, knitting, napping, and thinking healthy thoughts.

Talk about a wrong turn

http://www.local10.com/news/17530705/detail.html

Where are the internets?

It depresses me a bit to see how innovative some libraries are concerning the Internet. I see libraries with amazing Wikis connecting patrons with library materials and services. I see libraries with myspace and facebook pages, making a presence for themselves where in the world where most of their patrons spend at least a few hours a week. Twitter is a fast and free way to advertise programs and events in less than 30 seconds. Not to mention the countless library blogs as well.

It just makes me wonder what opportunities we are missing out on. In a time when my library stands to loose so much, how many opportunities have we skipped past to gain recognition and the support of the community. Why are we so passively ignoring all of these opportunities and missing out on all the innovation?

How not to rob a McDonalds

Criminals are just getting smarter and smarter.


http://www.local10.com/news/17493143/detail.html?treets=mia&tml=mia_12pm&ts=T&tmi=mia_12pm_1_11000309172008

You say this happened in Miami?

How not to watch your children.
http://www.local10.com/news/17436177/detail.html?treets=mia&tml=mia_12pm&ts=T&tmi=mia_12pm_1_11000309102008

Big nest

Today they came and put down a ton of cable next to my work. When I went out for dinner, I saw this little guy sitting on top of one of the coils. He was still there almost an hour later when we came back. I wonder if he got confused and thought it was a really big nest.

Only in Miami

A 70 year old lady arrested for buying drugs

I'm crying

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

A dating site for Zombies.

silence in blog land

I've been noticing that the number of blog posts from people have been down. I wonder if Ravelry is the main culprit. If it is, then what is my excuse?

Where did it go?

The other day I came home from work and Daniel asked what was wrong with Milo. I looked down at Milo who was busy with his food bowl. I told him that he looked fine to me. Daniel said, "No, look at his face." I coaxed Milo to look at me and noticed that all the fur on one of his eyebrows was missing. I examined him a little closer and accessed that there was no bite or skin problem that might have caused it. There was no scratch either that would indicate a fight or excessive grooming. It's like his eyebrow just got plucked right out. It's just gone.

So for now, I'm calling him Baldy.

Look before you email

A few years ago when I opened my gmail account I decided to keep my username professional. I was just starting my job search and I didn't want to put something stupid like fuzzybearhugger1374 on my resumes. So to try and look professional, I chose an email address close to my real name. The problem is there are other people who have either the same, or very similar names.

Apparently there is another woman with my name that has a father named Steve. He writes very sweet emails, although a little personal in nature. Should I write him back and let him know that he sent them to the wrong Rebecca? It was nice of him to send such a cute picture of his dog. Then there is a guy named Robert who works for a bank or some kind of lender. i've gotten a lot of personal information sent for him. Some of them are regarding travel plans for business, but other involve information about people who are being foreclosed on. Not good. And the worst thing is that some of the emails come from his work account. I think he thinks he's sending them to a personal email account. At this point I feel obligated to track him down and let him know. But still, it's a good reminder on how insecure emails communication is.

Happy long weekend

This weekend was pretty fun. Being a holiday and all, it was filled with a lot more activity than a regular weekend. It pretty much started with Thursday evening. I met some friends out at a pub for great food, cider, darts, gossip, and great company. The next morning my friend asked me if I wanted to go get some breakfast. Being the 4th and all I figured a little splurge would definitely be in order. I had my first and definitely not last experience at the Original Pancake House. Everything was excellent. The food, coffee, and our waitress were all fantastic.

After breakfast I headed over to Mimi and Nate's house for a little 4th party. It wasn't anything huge, just a few friends, a bunch of yummy food, a little swimming between thunder storms, a little karaoke, some cocktails, some knitting, and lots of Melrose Place. Thanks again for having us over, Mimi.

Then the next evening I got together with a few friends. Just some card games (complete with hats), a few rounds of Scatagories, some yummy cocktails, more food, and great company.

Thanks to all my friends for a lovely weekend.

Now for a day of cleaning, and possibly going to the gym to start working off all the nibbling.

how not to serve the customer

Tonight my friend and I went to eat at the Ale House in Hollywood. Along with dinner, we ordered a pitcher of beer. When we got the bill, I noticed that we had been charged for 2 pitchers when we had only ordered (and been served) one pitcher. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

When I pointed out the mistake to the waitress, she immediately became defensive and basically accused me of lying. After a couple minutes of arguing she even said, "I'm not trying to call you a liar or anything, but I just don't know how I could have rang one up by mistake." By about this point I was livid about being accused of lying. I calmly asked her if I could speak to a manager. She then said that she would take the pitcher off, but she just didn't see how she could have made a mistake. I repeated my desire to talk it over with the manager and she mumbled that she was going to take the pitcher off, but she's trying to figure out where the mistake was made.

Several minutes later a manager came up and asked us about it. He immediately agreed to remove the extra pitcher. I have the feeling that he came over to us to try and feel us out more than anything. What should have been a 30 second correction ended up lasting over 35 minutes. After the manager came we waited another 15 minutes for the waitress to come back and I still had to ask her again for our check. She then continued to try and confront me.

You know, I understand that people in the service business probably have people try to swindle them out of paying for drinks all the time. Heck, I was a bartender for a couple of years. But come on. In the end, we were talking about a $5 pitcher of beer. I was never upset about the over-ring of $5, but it was all about being accused of lying and essentially stealing.

When it was all said and done, we ended up paying for exactly what we ordered, we left a $2 tip (which I feel was generous), and we got a 1-800 customer service hotline number which we were encouraged to call (we will be rewarded with a voucher for a free desert for our trouble). They also received an email to their corporate office, and were featured in a couple of blog posts. And I'll never be going back there... not even for my free desert.

You know that papaya tree I told you about?

My landlords came over to take care of it yesterday. Guess what they did with it....

They put it back where it was! It's standing back upright in the ground like nothing happened. They put a couple of stakes in the ground to give it a little support, but that's about it. It's kinda cool because I like the tree (especially when it gives me fresh papayas for breakfast), but I'm not too sure about parking in front of it anymore!

When's the next storm supposed to roll in?

Saved by the fence

A summer thunderstorm rolled through our are this afternoon, bringing wind gusts of around 60 m.p.h. One of the papaya trees in my front yard didn't make it. My car is really grateful that there is a fence in front of it!