Happy Halloween!

Q: Why was the skeleton afraid to cross the road?

A: He didn't have the guts!


Q: What do you get when you take the insides out of a hot dog?

A: A Hollow-weenie!

Old New Workbench

Yesterday I turned my old ladder, which was replaced by the spiral staircase, into a workbench.

Night Shift

I'm working the night shift this week. Getting up at 3AM to be at work by 4.

It only makes me laugh

I had a 401K with my company before I moved down here. I rolled it over to a CD when I left. I was watching it, and in a few short years it grew from $32k to almost 100k. I was waiting for it to hit a hundred.
Then George Bush got elected (George Bush getting elected, NOT Sept 11, 2001) and it dropped back down to almost 32. Almost the same as I started with.
Then over the years it slowly grew back to almost $80k.
Now it's going to drop again, surely less than I started with.
Funny, a mason jar buried in the back yard would have yielded more than my IRA.

Sunny Saturday

It's Saturday, first sunny day it seems like in weeks.

Nautel FM V5

For the past three days, I've been being trained on the Nautel FM V5 transmitter. We installed it a couple of months ago, but the purchase price included training, so the factory rep came down here and went through each module and greatly increased my knowledge. I have an older Nautel too, a Nautel FM5.
Our competition has Harris Transmitters in my same transmitter room and I tell you, they're real pieces of shit. Nautel is going to kick their asses in the future.

This training is also partly why I've been a little slack on my posting this week.

Relationship Deterioration

The relationship between Ditto and Sheba is deteriorating. Ditto is less and less willing to put up with her shit.
A common scenario is Ditto walking through the house, fast, with Sheba on his tail. She just bugs him and bugs him like she wants to play all the time. If we pay any attention to Ditto, she comes and gets between us and Ditto.
We give them both a treat, Sheba eats hers fast, then tries to get his.
That's what happened last night, and Ditto wouldn't have any of it.
They got into a fight--for real. It's becoming more and more common.
I was breaking them up and Sheba hit me on the wrist. It's the first time I've ever been bitten and it drew blood.
Sheba seems to be non-trainable. She thinks she has to do what she is told only when she wants to. She just acts deaf when it suits her. Or, as another example, I teach her not to jump up on me, but the minute we have guests, she jumps up on them. I teach her 'no jumping', and she thinks jumping is OK, just not on me. She can't get the point.
I want to get rid of her but the OI Girl wants to keep her, so we'll keep her. Part of me wants to keep her too.
She is just so constantly annoying to me and Ditto. She won't let anybody rest.
For a week we've been keeping her in the kennel in the daytime. She should be getting out of the kennel, not just going in. Proof of worsening behavior.

I don't know what to say. It's not like teaching her to sit or something, it's teaching her to exist minute to minute without pissing everybody off.

Sheba The Werewolf

I have this bench/lounge bed that I made for outside out of old scaffolding. It is the only thing that Sheba regularly chews. Day before yesterday I came home and found more missing chunks and Sheba acting guilty. I put her if front of the damage, showed her the wood chunks and told her NO! With a whack on the ass.
I know she knows, because she acts guilty and she won't come because she knows what I want to talk to her about.
Yesterday afternoon I came home and it was worse than ever. She had chewed that bench from end to end. Maybe she thinks I'm telling her to chew more?
Yesterday afternoon I got the kennel from downstairs.
I had my doubts the OI Girl could get Sheba in there before she went to worrk.

She said Sheba walked right in.

Maybe she's like someone who know they will become a werewolf when the moon gets full, "Lock me up so I won't chew the bench!"

My name is Mud

I picked some equipment for our new studios. The manufacturer said it would work like I wanted it to. The parts supply guy said it would work too. I got it and now it can't work. The same guy who told me it would work now says it can't.
I can blame them but in the end, it's my fault.

BreakTime!

This morning I was exhausted before I even left the house. Sheba is a pig. Give them both treats, She'll eat hers, then go for Dittos. Ditto won't have any of it, this morning they got into a real dogfight, bigtime. The OI Girl was still sleeping, she woke up. Not a nice wake up.
I felt like stopping on the way to work, just to take a break!

Defect discovered

I love the movie, 'The Incredibles'. I own the DVD and watch it not infrequently.
Saturday, I discovered a defect in the movie. Here's the problem, Syndrome didn't know Mr. Incredible was married to Elastigirl, or that they had kids. He expressed surprise at discovering this when he caught them on his island. Then he sends his robot to destroy the town, gets knocked out, and the Incredibles save the day. So, he wakes up and goes and takes Jack Jack hostage. My question is, how did he know about Jack Jack?
I am very disappoited to realize this defect in the plot. Marring my image of perfection.

On the other hand, Galaxy Quest truly is an absolutely perfect movie!

I had a good weekend, I bought a weed whacker, an whacked the whole yard. It sure doesn't look new anymore!
I didn't pick up any rocks. That'll be this afternoon, if I can.
I'm stressed to be back at work. I feel like I have more to do, and am getting less done than normal.
I have a TON of work to do.

Free weekend!

The OI Girl is going to the Brac this weekend, I have the weekend to take care of the dawgs. I'll probably take them to the beach, weedwhack, and pick up rocks.
whooooo hooooooo!

Yom Kippur

Today is Yom Kippur. I was going to go to Services last night, but didn't. Now I'm plagued with guilt. There's services again today, but I wasn't planning on going, but I feel guilty about not participating at all.
I think this is the first year there have been services here.

Overloadedly

Don't know what to post today. Monday, it seemed like I had a bad attitude, yesterday, it seemed better, today it seems cruddy again. I'd rather not be at work, and not so overloadedly busy.

You know what else? It occurred to me last night that I'd never even heard of either presidential candidate till they started running.

Dog Report

I haven't mentioned the dawgs in a while. Sheba is doing better, her personality has come out a lot since she was an outdoor dog, tied to a tree all day, with minimal human contact.
She's mostly house trained, she still pees because she's so happy when we get home. But it's just a little teeny puddle. She almost doesn't jump up on you anymore, but she thinks it only means me, you have to tell her "No Jumping!" yourself.

She's a little shit. She comes and sits on your feet when you're trying to put your shoes on, push her away, and she'll dramatically fall over and lay there, belly up, looking at you with a grin on her face and her huge pink tongue hanging out of her mouth. She does things she knows she's not supposed to do. She ate part of a spiny prickly plant you wouldn't think she'd eat. She admitted guilt by refusing to come when called about it. She knows I know she knew better when she did it. You tell her to stay and she can slither like a snake to try and sneak away anyway. She's very jealous, and if you pet Ditto, she'll try to get in between you and him.

Ditto is still the same old sage, perfect gentleman. Almost. He peed on the porch the other day, didn't even try to hide it, I heard running water, looked over and WTF!! I think he thought it was allowed, or he thought Sheba would be blamed. I doubt he'll do it again.
Above is a pic the OI Girl took.

Monday

I'm back at work on a Monday after a mostly rainy weekend. It was sunny yesterday afternoon and I put my boots out to dry and then last night it rained and got them all wet again. Sunday during the sunny spell I picked up more rocks from the yard. I feel like a crazy person picking up rocks, and I feel like I'm making no progress, but when I stop and look from farther away I can tell there's less rocks. Plus the rocks are getting smaller and smaller, which is another sign of progress.
But there's sections I haven't even raked yet, and the weeds are growing tall again. I went to buy a weed whacker last weekend (not yesterdays weekend) but everyone was out of them. Maybe this week.
I got a message from the phone co saying my phone will be cut off if I don't pay the bill. Funny, I paid it online, 26 Sep 2008, gotta get that sorted today as well.

Friday Pisst

I WAS going to copy Graven Images post called 'God Save the Queen' because the Queen of England could do a hellova better job of running the USA than any president in the past 20 years, maybe longer. Please go read it!

Instead I want to ask about this bailout thing that's going on. How's that going to work? Lets see, a lot of the US is running on credit cards, people can't pay their bills, and not paying mortgages, so the banks are going out of business because they're not receiving their money. So the government is going to pass out $700 billion dollars to who? the banks? Why? So the banks can pay their operating costs and stay in business? How is the money going to help the people? Is the bank going to issue more credit cards? Plus, the banks're getting $700 Billion from the government, they'll still go after the people who owe them money. Will they get double money? Or will they forgive debt?

Suppose I pay my bills, I don't have a big debt. But I'm scrimping and saving while my neighbor is spending like crazy, maxxing out one credit card after the other, not earning enough to afford all the stuff he keeps on buying. Pouring his entire paychecks back to these irresponsible lenders with their astronomical interest rates, and not paying his mortgage. Will he be forgiven his debt, and get to keep all his stuff he charged? While I get to keep on making payments? If so, I shoulda been doing the same thing. Every day I got a pre-approved credit card in the mail!

When I lived in the US, I was paying a good solid 30% of my income on taxes. It seemed like very time I got a pay raise, I moved to a higher tax bracket and my paycheck got smaller. When tax time came, I owed every penny I could lay my hands on.

It seems like everything in the US is geared to fuck you over. It costs 25 cents to put air in your bicycle tires now! Buy a car, no payments for two years! Furniture! We tripled the price so we could halve it for you! I was eating beans and rice, the cheapest food I could find, working two jobs, while someone not working at all is eating steaks, driving a BMW and using food stamps. My damn money. When I was a kid, one person could work and support a family, then some of my friends Moms started working too, how weird. Then MY Mom stared working! Now, it I think everyone is working and not making ends meet. (Or not working at all, and doing fine.) And it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Since the Euro was introduced, the US dollar has done nothing but go down down down. I hate to say it, but I think it's because the black market doesn't need the US dollar anymore.

Again there is nobody worthwhile running for president. The guy with the ex beauty queen vice president will probably win, because the US likes electing movie stars. It's become a popularity contest. The mentality seems to be 'I wanna find out who's gonna win, so I can vote for the winner!' Long time ago there were good candidates, then, I used to have to vote against somebody, now there's nobody even running so I don't bother

This bailout is just prolonging the inevitable, the only way is to get the individuals out of debt and teach them to live within their means and quit handing out money. I thought the US used to have gold to match every dollar they print, but now I think they just print money and hand it out.

I'm not saying everyone is like this, but that's how the whole country looks to the world.

Living outside the US, I have learned that the US economy has always been bad for most of my life, even when it's supposedly good.

Thursday

Not much to post about today, Thursday, cloudy, probably going to rain. At work I have to run some cables, and I have some unfinished jobs to try and get done.