Can I stomach Crossroads?

I am watching Crossroads on Mtv for lack of anything else to watch and until I cannot stomach it any longer.

8:02 BS (Lucy) is dancing around in her tank top and boy underpants while singing to a Madonna song.

8:04 BS's dad just said she is the valedictorian. I don't find that believable.

8:07 BS is crying because she wasted her high school years studying. She never went to a football game, never stayed out late, etc.

8:08 BS is now mope-ing around at some party they are attending. So far in the movie BS has had 2 confrontations with nasty popular girls.

8:09 I have had all I can take. Time to flip the channel. OOOOh, oooh! I just found The Core again on Showtime! And as we know from a previous post, I do enjoy my ridiculous disaster movies.

Why I Don't Gamble

I have started posting some items for sale on eBay recently for my home business. I feel compelled to check my listings obsessively to see if I have any bids or even any hits on the pages or "watchers". I check it at least 15 times a day. This doesn't have anything to do with gambling, I just wanted to point out how obsessed I am with that.

The bidding is the "gambling" issue. I hate to lose. I hate losing while playing games and I hate losing while bidding on eBay. If I have bid on something I really want, I will sit and click reload for an hour before the auction ends, just to make sure I don't get outbid. Why, you ask, don't I just bid higher? Because I am cheap. I don't want to pay more than what I bid, but I also don't like to lose. You see my dilemma.

I've been to Vegas twice and only spent $0.05 on the slot machines. It makes me physically ill (0r could it be my severe allergy to cigarette smoke...) to put money into a machine and not get something - a gumball even- out instantly. I could never sit at one of those things and pump change into it for hours in the hope that I would get some trickle of nickels back. Those people make me sad. Anyway, with my obsessiveness on eBay, I would never allow myself to become involved in any other form of a gamble. I would have to play until I won - or more likely, until I ran us into bankruptcy.

QVC, Commercials, and Local News

A couple comments on a few TV related subjects.

I shall begin with QVC/HSN. I have never bought a thing from either channel, but I feel compelled to stop and watch every once in a while. A particular favorite product to watch (do they call them segments or shows?) is Quacker Factory - NOT because I would ever consider wearing any of the clothing offered, but because the creator of the line (Jeanne) horrifies me! She is a jovial, heavy lady - no big deal yet - who wears, every time I have ever seen her, a thick 80's style head band. Not the kind that goes over your head from ear to ear...the kind that goes over your eyebrows and around the back of your head. YIKES! And she is trying to sell me "style"? A link to a picture. I won't even go into my anti-embellishment of clothing. Do we really want bedazzled bumble bee's flying around leaving a stitch trail all over our tops?

Following the theme of creepy commercials on The Fount...
I agree with one commenter who said the Burger King "Wake up with the king" commercials are freaky. I don't know what I would do if I rolled over and cracked open an eye and saw that thing grinning at me - even if it was offering me food. One of my most hated commercials is probably local so I will recap it for you. Cable Company trashing the "dish" networks. It has this boob who had a dish but he had problems with keeping it installed. He claims the dish company told him to put the dish in a bucket of cement. "I live in an apartment, where am I going to mix cement?" Then he proceeds to build this elaborate bookshelf (in the apartment) to tie his dish onto out on his patio - which obviously didn't work, so he got cable. While I know this is a fictional incident, I feel compelled to yell at this boob every time I see the commercial. "You can build a shelving unit in your kitchen, but you can't pour some cement mix in a 5 gallon bucket and give it a stir! GIVE ME A BREAK! You are so stupid you deserve RABBIT EARS!"

And while on the subject of stupid people...ahhh, the local news. Now, I am not saying that the news personalities are stupid (right now, that will probably come in another post). It's the people they find to interview. CK and I have come up with a theory on this, which I will end this post with, but first I will explain my viewpoint. Why is it that the only people you ever see interviewed after an apartment building burns down or a car drives through a restaurant have the same features? Missing teeth, a mullet, a wife-beater T-shirt, overalls, and horrifically poor grammar (if they can string a sentence together at all!). I have lived in 4 different states in differnet parts of the US and have encountered this phenomenon in all locations (just with different regional accents). I conclude with the theory that anyone with an IQ above 75 knows better than to be interviewed by the local news and when they see the news van coming, they slowly back away into the crowd. Or better yet, they don't chase the ambulances in the first place!

A New Obsession?

Well, I hate to admit it, but I think I may have a new obsession...

Since I make dollhouse accessories for a living - or, rather, a tax deductible hobby - I decided that maybe I should try building and decorating a dollhouse, if only to display my products in a realistic setting for my website. Maybe I can write it off? I chose the Coventry Cottage for my first endeavor.

It was delivered today. Excitedly, I opened up the box and looked through the kit. It contains 12 or 13 pieces of pseudo-cut plywood, ready to be broken apart, sanded, painted, and glued. First, one must read the instructions - this is a step I often skip, usually ending in my taking apart, reading the instructions and putting back together the correct way. This time, I am following the instructions. They are a bit hairy because there are close to a billion pieces. Dollhouses are like giant puzzles. And off I go. I'm about 1/3 done and have invested about 5 hours so far.

I'll post progress report/pictures as I progress, but right now it's late, I'm tired, and I have two pretty painful hot glue gun burns (one on my right index - i.e. typing - finger and the other on my lower left wrist - exactly where my arm rests on the laptop), so I am off to bed.

Another Friday, Another Day Off

I recently cut back on my hours at my job and now have Wednesday and Friday off every week. I would like to say that I am using this time to keep my house clean and do yard work, but that is not so. Mostly, I putter on the computer, nap with the dog, or catch up on daytime tv.

Right now, the dog is in the recliner next to me with is legs straight (resting on the foot rest I put out for him) and his head resting (and hanging over) on the arm of the chair. When I reach over to pet him, his rear leg pops up for a tummy rub. Occassionally, his tail will swish and he will run in his sleep chasing one of the squirels that stand outside the glass door tormenting him while he is awake.

Why am I telling you this? No real reason. I am watching a show on Animal Planet called Growing Up Polar Bear and the orphaned polar bear featured reminds me of the dog. His (the bear's) favorite toy is a big blue plastic keg. Bookers favorite toy(s) is a plastic water bottle. When we give him the bottle he takes it an runs with joy, throwing it and kicking it for himself. The bear does the same thing with his keg.

The enclosure the polar bear is being moved to at the St-Félicien's Wild Zoo in Northern Canada is stunningly beatiful. I found an article about the bears. It has a live webcam. (woo hoo!). I've added this to my list of places I want to visit.

Show's over, Star Trek TNG starting, so I shall sign off.

For your amusement...

Experpts from a forwarded email that I got today. In accordance to my rule noted in Pet Peeves I will not follow #20 and forward the email to all my friends, but I will post these select few for you to enjoy. I took out the ones I thought were too stupid. These were the ones that made me - at minimum, smile - at times laugh out loud. Enjoy.

Title: "20 Ways to Keep Your Sanity"
1. At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don’t disguise your voice.
4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “IN”.
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
11. Specify that your drive-through order be, “to go”.
14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name.
17. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream, “I won! I won!”.
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, “run for your lives, they’re loose!”

I give people too much credit...

As I am sure I have stated somewhere on this site, I have taken on a family business recently. We (I guess "I" now, since I am the only one doing it anymore) make miniature dollhouse picture frames. I have tried to make my website as user-friendly and easy to navigate and understand as I can. I have also tried to make it ABUNDANTLY clear that what I am selling is 1/12 scale, i.e. not very big.

This weekend I had a person email me and ask if I provided the glass for the frames. I replied by saying that the frames themselves are only 1/8" deep and the inlay for the art is only 3/64". The prospective customer continued to ask questions and placed an order yesterday. Shortly after this customer placed the order they emailed back and said they just noticed that the frames were 1/12 scale, thought they were full sized frames, that explains the price, please cancel the order.

[sigh] ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! A 16 x 20 frame for $1.80 is indeed quite a bargain. It was not a problem to cancel the order. What amazes me is that I plainly stated in an email directly to the person experiencing the confusion that the product is only 1/8" deep, that is as thick as a... Nickel, and yet the prospective customer didn't pick up on the miniature part of the situation.

Enough with the rant...I spend this morning tweaking the website to make it even more obvious that my frames are tiny. I put a penny in each picture so there can't...uh, shouldn't, be any more confusion.

In case you are interested: www.dollhouseframes.com