S.P. Update...

 A couple of you have inquired about my cat Stink Pot, so today I thought I would give a small update on the cat and also because I am brain dead on a subject to blog about. It is hard to believe it was just August when I acquired the little mite. That little mite has grown by leaps and bounds, in fact, I am afraid if she grows that much in two months time, what size will she be in a year? I don't think they have a Jenny Craig for cats. It's not that she is really fat either, she is just big boned. Well she really isn't big boned either, but it sounds better than saying boy you are getting huge kitty.

I would like to be able to report that I have things totally under control and she now behaves and listens to my every command, but that wouldn't quite be the truth. Quite frankly she is as mean and stubborn as ever with a mind of her own. I think she secretly relishes sticking her claws into me and biting. She loves to chew.....and chew...and chew. Her favorite things to gnaw on are the paper guide on the computer printer, wicker, shoelaces, paper, and me (not necessarily in that order). My phone book is missing several listings in the top right hand corner as well as a few yellow pages...but paper is a good source of fiber isn't it?....

I know the poor kitty is probably teething and I am hoping she will grow out of this stage of chewing and biting. I did take the suggestion about using a squirt gun filled with water to try and "train" her from jumping up and scratching and biting. So far I have had some mixed results. First off I have to remember to pack my pistol with me all the time, I forget to do that a lot and so I am blaming part of the failure on my inconsistency. Once I do remember and give her a squirt from the gun she runs off and then tries to sneak around for a rear attack. That is when I whip around and point the squirt gun at her and scold her with, "I have a gun, and I will use it". One of my biggest fears is that the neighbors will stop by and be poised to knock at the door and hear me say that to the cat. I have visions of them running off to call 911 before I can explain it's not a real gun and it's the cat I want to shoot and not them.

I am happy to report though that we have been playing games and I ALMOST have her trained to fetch. I will throw a wadded up piece of paper, cellophane, or some small object and she will tear off to chase that object. She will pounce, bite, and thrust her hind legs at it, kicking as hard as she can. (She also does this when she has a hold of my arm). I will yell for her to bring it back to me so I can throw the object again. She trots back, empty-handed of course, swishes her tail, plops down and looks at me and then at the item of interest. After a few moments of this "stand off", I will go retrieve the item to throw to her again, and we will play this scenario over and over for as long as I am willing to throw and retrieve the object. It makes me wonder just who is training who in this little game. Either way it's making me tired running back and forth to appease the cat.

I am having mixed feelings on what to do with the cat. I had originally thought Stink Pot would be an outdoor cat. In fact I think she is going to be an excellent mouser, she stalks everything. The other day I brought home a bag of potatoes and left the bag sitting next to the sink on the floor. It was something new, something different and something evidently the cat didn't like. She sniffed....she swatted...she spat at the bag of potatoes. She continued to do it every time she walked by. It was the next day that I noticed a hole she had chewed in the bag. I don't know what the offending potato did, but I am sure she let that potato know who was boss.

I am hoping that as time goes on she will mend her ways and be a bit more docile or at least ease up a bit on the biting. Thankfully it is getting cooler now so I have an excuse for wearing long sleeves and it's not just to cover up the little marks left behind of her "tough love" for me. At least I think it's love,... or like,... or fondness...or it could just be a fondness for being a stink pot.

Broken...

 
I think my blog is broken. Or at least, it has seemed like it this week. Trying to post comments on blogs resulted in missing posts, missing pages, missing blogs, missing people. It's frustrating to know that it's not going to get any better. Yahoo has said they will abandon 360 in lieu of a new better platform, so what bugs there are now will stay. (I know, I know MkChippy you hate the Yahoo talk, skip this paragraph and go to the next, I swear it won't just be another rant on Yahoo,lol).It did give me food for thought when trying to post a comment to a blog, instead of their blog page loading with my comment it took me to MY page on setting up a blog. I then wondered just how secure is anything we have listed with Yahoo. I wanted to mumble under my breath that Yahoo must be another one of those things that is made in China and needs to be recalled....but then I got to thinking that might not go over well with Yahoo's CEO... Mr. Yang.... Sometimes I can put my foot in my mouth with the greatest of ease, if only everything else was that simple.

This week has seemed like a week of things broken. Yahoo, blogs, my lawnmower, and a lamp. I don't know how the lamp was broken. But there it was when I looked closer today, a big crack. I can't remember ever knocking it over, dropping it, or abusing it in any other way, but it's broke. It's not that noticeable til you look it over carefully, but I know the crack is there, and I am sure the crack will grow bigger. I am still using it though til it is of no use and beyond repair or until I get tired of my cracked and imperfect lamp.

Things do that though, they break all of the time. Case in point, a new lawnmower bought in June of this year. Last month a part broke underneath the decking....two weeks past the guarantee from the place of business it was acquired from (grrrrr)... Upon numerous phone calls to that place of business I was given another phone number to call which only lead me to their webpage on the internet. After reading and rereading the owners manual and their website, I found out the lawnmower was under warranty.....(insert happy face!)......but it must be taken to an authorized dealer which isn't listed within a 50 mile radius of me.....(lose the happy face). So I looked up the part on the web on their on-line catalog. It would be around 70 bucks including shipping. Grumble,...grumble,....grumble... I ordered the part. Figuring in the gas mileage to drive to a dealer so far away to drop it off, go back and pick it, and the additional fees that might be charged (according to their website) it was easier and I felt cheaper to buy the part.

It was a week or so ago that I got the part delivered by UPS, and not til yesterday that my kind hearted neighbor was able to replace it. When he was finished he handed over to me, part of my new part. I had to order the whole assembly in order to get the part I needed that was broken. My neighbor told me that the mower was back in perfect working order but that part of my new part was faulty. The four holes where it screwed onto the decking weren't threaded, it hadn't been tapped. Thinking more about that mower part today, I was starting to get a bit peeved. I didn't need the whole assembly but it wasn't being offered seperately in their parts catalog...I had to take what I could get...

This morning I gave them a call....After finally getting thru to the parts department I explained my problem. I was then informed that the part was not faulty at all but that they have self tapping screws that you buy for the part. I could order them thru their on-line catalog or go visit one of their dealers, (you know, the one that lives outside of my 50 mile radius) to get the special screws. I mumbled okay, all the while feeling I was already being screwed, in that I had to buy more parts for my new part to replace my broken part. We were about to have a parting of the ways when out of curiosity I asked about the wholeness of the part. In their catalog it wasn't listed, but could I just buy the part of the part that I needed. Yes I could....but that would require him to go to the warehouse to break down that part and he wasn't sounding too thrilled at the prospect. I wasn't thrilled with it either or any part of the whole deal.

I guess we have to take the stuff we don't need and sift thru til we get what we want. Sometimes all we want is just the simplest of things to life's problems. I would have preferred being able to walk right in and take what I needed off the shelf. Instead it took phone calls, web surfing, another call to find out what I needed and more depositing of funds. It's a rat race this life of ours. Little things that give us pleasure like blogging seem to be becoming more difficult and I know for some of you it hasn't been as much fun as it use to be ....but hang on. Sift thru those parts and people you enjoy and stick the rest back in the blog or box they came in. You never know when you might need the rest of it.....


*sidenote to those of you following Yahoo's product blog. I came across this webpage when googling for a picture of something broken. It's an article on Yahoo being worth more if it was broken up.... some days I just have to giggle on the irony.

** another sidenote to Judy E...I promise an update on Stinkpot coming soon...

Misty Made Me Do It...

 

After reading Misty's blog, and Mac's blog as well, I of course had to visit the link they have posted on their blogs to visit the CEO's page and leave my two cents worth...

It was an interesting read and I am sure that everyone else along with me could read between the lines, well actually every other word or line screamed....."money"....we want more money. Such is a fact of life and big business. Just encase my comment doesn't show this is what I posted:

"Thank you for your posting on what has been going on behind the scenes in Yahoo. It is obvious that what is "relevant" for Yahoo and it's stock holders is money,... bottom line. I know that Yahoo provides a service, in fact a lot of services. Those services are used by us the consumer. The views of those consumers have been voiced in the latest postings in the Yahoo 360 team blogs both here and abroad. What Yahoo fails to do is listen to those consumers. Here lies the "relevancy" of what really mattes. Profit, more advertising, or the opportunities for more advertising and businesses that tie themselves to the Yahoo network. Each small voice of ours though is the basis for consumption of that network. A lot of members of the 360 blogging community are understandably upset. Questions went unanswered for months... Issues sidestepped...promises being made of something that will enhance our Yahoo experience even more. How can promises be made of an "enchanced yahoo experience", when what we the users of 360 have already been experiencing.... such general disreguard?

"Irrelevancy: not relevant: not applicable or pertinent," .... isn't that what you really meant to say?"

I never saw Misty's comment there or one by Mac but I will go back and recheck. My own comment after being posted had a pretty yellow box proclaiming ...

"Your Comment is awaiting moderation"....

I thought my comment was rather moderate already, I didn't use any cuss words or bad language,...perhaps though they sensed a shake of my finger at them?

Sinking blog...

(trying to keep up with two blog pages, I will most likely just copy and paste the same blog on both blogs...so if you keep up with yahoo 360 it will be a repeat for you.... )

 By now most of you have been reading about the fate of Yahoo 360. Blogs have been posted, comments have been left for they Yahoo Team blog page, and some have even abandoned ship and jumped to a different blogging site.

A whole year, that is how long I have been blogging. I was finally getting into the groove of 360 and sailing along quite well til hitting a bit of a snag, well a really big kinda snag.....

I mashed into an iceberg called Yahoo.

I have been reading blogs about 360's demise, other blog sites, and a general feeling of dissatisfaction. Most comments I read viewed 360 as a spot for the more mature blogger. Other sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Mash just weren't cutting it for the aging baby boomer bloggers.

We want substance. We want blogs on us, of home, of family, of work, and of life. Simply put we want it simple. A simple blog page to write and post comments, navigate easily, add friends, photos, and still be able to add some personality to our blogs. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't learn much about someone with glittery smiley faces and quick hellos. It's the blog that you write that tells me about you. Even the simplest of entries can tell me if you like to cook, like to garden, like to parachute out of planes or if you just like a good joke. The joke appears to be on us though with the latest Yahoo blog team entry.

I find it quite interesting that an entry was made on their blog page on August 10th, and it wasn't till October 9th they posted a new blog on "360 question's".... "let's talk" in the entry title....and talk we did, so many comments, hundreds of comments. I wonder how long it took for them to read them as it was nary a week later they were posting a new entry about 360 and it's demise....Pardon me, they really didn't come out and say it but tiptoed around that direct question like a well seasoned politician. Were they on vacation between August and October? Wow, they accomplished so much in that weeks time between postings this month. Not only did they want to talk about our concerns but then had miraculously formed a whole new idea of a blogging experience that would be an improvement over 360. I don't think those team members of the UK blogging team have been doing any better. They snuck over to the American Yahoo blog team and copied their blog word for word. I would be outraged at such plagiarism. It makes you wonder, just who is on that team and how big of a team is it? Maybe there is only a handful of people behind the scenes of Yahoo. Perhaps the person who could do his best Tony Blair impersonation was given the job of being the UK Blog Team captain. Maybe it's the same for the other foreign blog teams as well. They guy who had curry for lunch could do the India blog team page, and the other guy who once ate vegemite could be the Aus/NZ blog team captain. Or maybe there is just one poor computer geek forced to make imaginary friends and blog team members as he tries to vainly blog along and appear to be more than one person. Any way you look at it, it's not leaving people with a very good sense of Yahoo and it's practices.

Many bloggers have looked for greener pastures. I went ahead and created a blog at Multiply.com. At the moment I am trying to learn the ins and outs and quite frankly the coming and going has only multiplied my headaches. I picked a simple page theme that I liked that has martini glasses on it. I might have to change it already, Bubs is worried I have become a lush over all of the blogging drama. I can assure you all I am not a big drinker if you happen to wander over to my blog page. Once I figure out how to do some customizing it will probably change. .

I am not abandoning the 360 ship though. I still log onto 360 first thing in the morning when I get on the computer. E-mail most days is a distance 2nd and with the new blog on Multiply.com it may become an even more distant third. I refuse to lose any of you. Whatever ship or blog page you will be on, I will be there, .... treading water behind you with my floaties.

Testing...testing...testing...

Pay me no attention, I am just puttering around a bit and trying to find my barings. I am blaming all of my mental confusion on Cyn for wandering over here to "Multiply" and making it hard for me to keep an eye on her. Tomorrow I will blame my mental confusion on someone else, ...(so feel free to step right up to volunteer for that spot).

I don't really have anything much to say for my first blog entry other than... "hi". I will get back to ya when I have something of more interest... til then, nap hard!

 

Entry for October 15, 2007 -Scary Blog ...

Lately there has been a lot of scary stories posted of ghosts, unexplainable happenings, and creepy things in the spirit of October and Halloween. I have been racking my brain for anything scary or any ghost sightings on my part and I keep drawing a blank. I am feeling a bit left out that I haven't been visited by a ghost, or seen any apparitions, or experienced anything hair raising to ellicit a Halloween scary story for my blog.

No ghosts, no witches, not even a stale piece of candycorn floating around to blog about. Halloween seems to have left me holding the bag....empty with nary even a Charlie Brown rock.

I thought about writing a blog on scary movies, making a poll on your favorite monster, or posting something as filler till I started seeing dead people.

Just what is scary? For each person there is a different answer. What someone might view as scary others might see as exciting...like rollercoasters, or haunted houses, or flying. Something that gives pleasure to some can strike fear in the hearts and minds of others. We all have experienced something in life that was frightening, life it's self can be scary...the alternative even scarier. The sound of a helicopter will make my heart race and give me a sick feeling. Having sat in a hospital waiting on Life Line to transport a loved one to a bigger hospital for life threatening injuries now makes me dread the sound of those whirling blades. Two o'clock phone calls in the morning scare me. The red engine light of the car, flashing on scares me. Brussel sprouts, okra, and liver scare me.

Boobs scare me.

I know, you did a double take on that comment. Scary boobs.... I've seen them.

One day last week while 360 seemed to be so slow and there wasn't very many new blog postings I went on a tour of 360. I randomly chose a friend's page and just clicked someone on their page to visit. I then clicked a friend on the front of their blog page and continued blogging in circles. Each time I tried to click on a friend listed on their front page that had a real pic up of themselves that was at least my age or older. It's scary what is out there. Oh I know we have all seen the pages with body parts and graphic photos and art work. I don't consider myself a prude in any way. The human form can be quite beautiful. Beauty is also in the eye of the beholder. I was surprised though, so many older bloggers who posted pics of themselves or more specifically, their cleavage. I know that I should give them kudos for being so comfortable and accepting of their bodies.

But I thought it was scary. The more pages I clicked on, the more it seemed the bloggers were getting older and with more cleavage showing. I was afraid I was only a click away from finding my own mother or grandmother posting a cam shot of their cleavage for the world to admire. I don't think it was the actual boobs that scared me as much as the age of the people posting the pics. Maybe I am guilty of age discrimination, a boob is a boob, and it shouldn't matter the size, or shape, or if they can be tucked in the waistband of your pants. I think what scared me most was....why? Are people that lonely, starved for any kind of human contact? Are they game playing, seeking the titillation (no pun intended) of exhibitionism? In so many ways it was like finding out June and Ward Cleaver were really nudists and left Wally and the Beaver in the dark of their alternative lifestyle.

Some don't find it scary though, in fact a lot won't. We all have different feelings on what we feel is scary. There has been a lot of talk of 360 even going by the wayside and being abandoned by Yahoo, most of us find that scary. Some fears are real, some fears are imagined, and some fears are silly.

In fact I am even a little afraid to post this blog entry. I know some won't agree with me, some will think I am nuts, some will no doubt even be a bit offended which isn't my intent at all. Everyone is different, with different thoughts and ideas, and different things they view as scary.

It's a big scary world,... just beware of the booby traps.

Entry for October 12, 2007 - Duped by a Zombie...

Thump...thump...thump.....

If you haven't noticed by now, I have lost my head. Yes that rascally Scaretaker was lurking in my mailbox this evening as I went to read my e-mail. It was with a scowl that I opened my e-mail attachment and found my pink tresses now being admired (and acquired) by Gloggy's latest creature feature. I knew, I just knew he would be snickering and snorting that New Zealand chipmunk-accented laugh of his while he calmly detached my head graphically and pasted it into the loving arms of his zombie pic.

Now normally I would think nothing of loosing my head, usually I do that quite frequently at the most inappropriate times too.... But yesterday I had a very late night chat with the zombie maker. I distinctly told him "NO"...you can't have my head, which only seemed to make him desire it more. It was with a lot of arm twisting, (and yes zombie's arms can be twisted round and round many times) that I thought we had come to a mutual agreement....be nice to Vic and let her keep her head.

Was it pure bedevilment? Was it a mean mischieveous streak? Was it the fact that zombies hate to be told no? I even at the time of the argument, was furiously Googling for a neck brace to paste on my poor avatar. I made threats, I called him stinky farts, and I told him his Scaretaker zombie ran like a girl.

I guess zombies take exception to being told they run funny. I think he already knew the stinkyfarts were a given, we all knew he smelled....zombie or no zombie.

I know it was with fiendish glee he took my head. But now is my turn to warn the Scaretaker Zombie head stealer... you are stuck with me. Yes, my head will be rolling right along behind you everywhere you go..... Chattering incessantly, singing show tunes, and generally making myself a pain in the neck...er head....

Yes you have done it now Mr. Scaretaker Zombie dude.... you have created a monster,....and it's me!

Entry for October 07, 2007 - Warts

I know I was a bit early and jumped the gun with already decorating my blog and creating a new avatar with a Halloween theme. I was worried that time would get away from me like it always seems to do. I do that a lot, lose time...and worry.

I am a worry wart.

I know most of you blogged over and thought I was going to blog about warts. It would have been a timely entry with all of the frogs and wart-nosed witches adorning a lot of blogs lately. In fact when I was a kid I had a wart once on the bottom of my foot. The cure was almost more painful then the wart it's self. Freezing it off didn't hurt nearly as badly as the doctor then poking the medicine into the freshly burned off wart with a toothpick. Thankfully I haven't had it grow back. Googling for a pic for today's blog I came across a webpage on home cures for warts. Diet seems to be a popular remedy for the prevention of warts along with rubbing them with garlic. But I digress... this blog is more about worries.

We all have them, some of us more than others. My grandmother has to be the worst case of being a worry wart that I have ever seen. I worry that I will be like her in that respect. She worries about each of her children, her grandchildren, her great grandchildren, and her great-great grandchildren. One can spend a lot of time wasted by worrying. That adage that we need to change the things we can't accept and accept the things we can not change is good in theory. I worry though I don't have the wisdom to tell the difference....and then I worry that the things we accept that we can't change is only because we give up too easily.

I worry about work, I worry about gas prices, getting behind, getting ahead, and the upcoming winter. I worry about family and friends, and changes consciously made and changes made out of circumstance. I worry that this is as good as it gets and I would prefer it to be a whole lot better. I worry about choices and if they are the right ones. I worry that there are things I haven't even considered. I worry about life passing me by, and then I worry that maybe I haven't even gotten on the merry-go-round yet and I am actually still standing in line. Thanks to Mac's blogs and the comments on his blogs this week I now worry about Minute rice, hamburger, and bar-be-que potato chips. I really used to like bar-be-que potato chips too. I worry that Suzi will start to count the number of times I have used the word "worry" in this blog....

I worry that I worry to much and get too involved. It seems lately I keep finding myself in the middle of things and I am not quite sure how I got there. I worry that when asked for advice or my opinion that when I give it .... it's not what the person was really wanting to hear. I worry if maybe I should be more quieter. Maybe I should just listen and give a non-committal type answer that keeps me as neutral as possible. I worry about lost friendships and I even worry about making new friends.

When I first joined 360, I bit the bullet and often clicked on someone's profile to ask them to be my friend. Usually I got an immediate reply. There has been a time or two that I didn't. Then I worried that those individuals weren't all that keen to be my friend. Perhaps I came across too weird, too dorky, too immature, too ..too much of something. It made me think though. Now I worry about adding new friends. Some days I boldly click and ask will you be my friend? Most days I worry and think ...no... if they want to be my friend they will ask me. I then worry they are thinking the same thing. One instance or moment in our lives can give us doubt and worry.

I have a couple of friends that I have chatted to this week on different concerns and worries. It's been an odd week or two in some respects. You worry for someone and express those worries to them and it brings a totally different outcome then you were expecting, which only brings about a different set of worries. One of my friends told me several times.....don't worry. It's easier said than done. They told me they would accept all blame for everything.....to just blame them for all the worries. So I am...

I am going to blame them for me not winning the lotto last night, I will also blame them for me forgetting to buy a ticket for that lotto drawing. I will blame them for my burnt toast, unfolded laundry, and my cat that still bites and scratches. I will blame them for sleeping in, staying up late, not eating my veggies and for rambling on this blog. It's nice not to have to worry and being able to blame them for everything. I don't know what I did to deserve their friendship. I will, though, keep them and their friendship close. No matter what the worries I will stick by them thru thick and thin, and be constantly by their side. They can't lose me or my friendship. They are stuck with me....



...maybe they should worry....