Sorry I’m late.

I looked at the calendar on my desk at work and realized I never uploaded my page here.

This is from last Hallowe’en in our front yard. I had this really cool (‘ghoul’?) rusty looking candelabra and some bone candles (as they burn, they drip blood) along with the gravestone and a pile of plastic skeleton bones. We kept trying all these configurations of these items and just couldn’t figure out what to do with them. Finally as Munchkin was off to trick or treat, I lit the candles and put the candelabra next to the gravestone to illuminate it. When Hubby saw that, he grabbed a hand and a pile of leaves and made the vignette above. Add in some spooky music and a strobe light and we had some freaked out kiddies.

heehee

There’s too much, so here we go.

The soundtrack this week was GNO (Girls Night Out) by Miley Cyrus (or was she Hannah Montana? Maybe I’ll just call her Sybill.) I blame Carolyn…Online, talking about her girls only weekend and my hubby’s friend Tasha and her girls only weekend. I’m probably a little jealous, but the song? Has. Got. To. Go.

I won’t get into major politics but a few little statements. Starting with the election…

• The same old GOP will run us all into oblivion. We need change. That change is Obama.
• The scare tactics that Obama will raise taxes and build government larger, has anyone read his desire to revamp or remove all the programs currently running that are not working? That, in and of itself, would take care of much of the money for his other projects.
• I have never once heard McCain say anything about education.
• Sarah Palin terrifies me.
• If you think McCain would not build a larger government, you haven’t been listening carefully to him.

The economy…

• The GOP is all about government keeping their noses out of business, unless big business/banking is going under. Then it’s all about saving their asses.
• Go check out Driftglass‘ post regarding this economic meltdown.
• And the fact the bailout didn’t go through today seems a little ominous and worrisome.Irksome, the fact the GOP blamed Nancy Pelosi for partisan speech-making which caused the vote to fail. Had the democrats voted the bill down more than the republicans, I might agree. But they didn’t. Also, since when does a democrat say anything that will sway the vote of a republican? Please. There is so much finger pointing and blaming going on at this point, my farking head is spinning.

The Georgia (USA) gas situation…

• Still no gas. Anywhere. I wonder if I’ll be working from home soon.
• Where is the gas? I thought Sonny Perdue had upped the amount coming to our area starting over the weekend. If he did, he either miscalculated, or “mal-placed” this load as well.
• I still haven’t seen any other parts of the country running low on gas. Just GA, TN, NC and SC. Why are we the only area running out? Is it just me, or is there something fishy?
• The church up the road with the sign out front reading, “Keep taking my name in vain and I’ll make the gas lines longer” ? Really? I thought we so gave up the vengeful god years ago. It was my understanding god and his ilk were all about the feel good, turning the other cheek and the like. But it appears brimstone is coming back (and unfortunately not the fantastic 90′s TV show Brimstone.)

That’s it for now. I had a few more things to write, but Firefox felt it necessary to update my browser before I finished working, so I lost the last paragraph. To sum up the essence, this is my blog, my feelings and thoughts and beliefs. You may have contradictory ones to mine. Those few non-spammers who will come along and berate me will be deleted. Just sayin’.

I found the COOLEST blog site design today, at least I think it is

Ali Felski is a graphic designer in DC. You can see her design here. I may go back to the drawing board, keep a couple of the elements here, but start fresh with backgrounds, icons, etc. I can’t do the cool mobile weather idea she’s got, but I can make the sections my own.

I started working with CSS a few months ago and got hooked on the CSS Zen Garden of ideas. You really pretty much can do anything if you know how to carve everything up and make sure you label everything and utilize the labels correctly. I tried once before and it didn’t quite work. But I’m willing to give it another go. So again, I apologize if over the next few weeks and months things aren’t working correctly or get moved around. I will find a way to do exactly what I want and make it happen.

That’s a promise to myself more than anything.

I hope I’m not driving you too crazy with this site design. For the most part it will stay the same. But right now I’m trying to add some advertising to it (hopefully to supplement where we are falling short due to the questionable economy).

Please bear with me. I will make a place for everything.

I lost 45 minutes of my life yesterday. Sitting in line to get gas. >(

Our fantastic Governor, Sonny Perdue, commented a few days ago that we had “ample supply” in Georgia. Last night on the WSB-TV 11pm news he “clarified” what he meant by “ample.” He says he was taken out of context.  Really? You think we believe that? You were trying to sugar coat and make it seem like everything is okay.

Well, it isn’t.

To accuse everyone in the state of “panicking and topping off their tanks” when most of the people interviewed had gas gauges showing empty, or damn close to it, is an effing cop out. Then to say that there is gas, but it has been “mal-placed”. ?!?! Is that even a word??? Why can’t we just get some straight answers? And why is it just the southeast with this problem?

Last Friday on my way home from work I had about a half tank of gas. Because the lines at the stations snaked up the street for a  quarter mile I figured, “I’ll just wait till this weekend to get my gas.” But there wasn’t any. Lucky I live within 10 miles of where I work. I was able to make it all the way to yesterday before I HAD to get gas. And the trip in to work was a study in panic control.

Every gas station I passed had no gas. There is one station literally a block from work and I pestered them all day trying to find out when they may receive their tanker. By the time I left work, they had gas and about 75 cars. They even had two harried looking attendents in the parking lot attempting to direct us all to the 16 pumps.

Now I have my gas. And should be good for another week or so. As long as all I do for the next week is sit at home. Hopefully this will give Sonny a chance to find the “mal-placed” gas and get it to the pumps.

Mal-placed. Did they leave it in the pockets of their other pants???

The economy is in the tank. My gas tank is almost empty. Most of the gas stations are out of gas. But the president sure seems to be full of it.

So, to escape from all this terror and frustration and sheer exhaustiveness of it all, I am throwing myself into my TV shows.

And I have many.

Every Fall I make a grid, usually in Excel, of all the shows I want to watch, what night, time and channel they come on, and proceed to program them into my TiVo. (I secretly think this is one of the main reasons my hubby stays with me.) Many of this year’s premieres have been staggered. Prison Break came on 3 weeks ago. As did Bones. And Fringe. House was last week. Most of the shows start this week.  Friday Night Lights (hubby) and My Own Worst Enemy (YAY Christian Slater!!!) come in a week or two. It kind of throws everything off. Sometimes the premieres are on at completely different times or days as the shows will be aired. At least TiVo is fairly smart. It usually keeps up with all that.

I just wish it would know when the blowhard “First Idiot” was on instead of one of my shows and adjust accordingly. Hmmf.

Thoughts on the beginning of the season:

• House – Love it. Angst filled and narcissistic as usual
• Bones – Love it. Not liking the breakup
• Fringe – Interesting. Big sci-fi fan and Beantown lover so good marks
• Heroes – Fan-effing-tastic!!!! Need I say more?
• Prison Break – I really like this show, but sometimes go weeks without watching
• CSI: Miami – One of the few people who likes Caruso. Pretty active first show

I’ll talk about the other shows as I watch them. Feel free to let me know about your shows. Likes and dislikes. I like to hear other people’s takes.

For a week now it has been a little nerve-wracking around here. Our local gas stations have been running out of gas. Some of the gas stations have been out since last Friday (the 15th). This is crazy!What the hell is going on? Are other areas of the US experiencing the same issues as we are? If not, why not? If so, why haven’t I heard about it? Are we going to have “rolling gas shortages” like the heat wave rolling black outs in CA? Are GA and TN the first in a long line of those about to be inconvenienced? I suppose we’ll see.

My conspiracy theorist mind runs the course of:

• the economy has tanked
• we are running out of fuel
• what are we going to do?

I unfortunately have no answer to the final point above.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is just due to Hurricane Ike knocking out a few oil rigs, causing the fuel flow to drop to 20% for a few days.

Maybe.

Carolyn Online had a post the other day regarding inappropriate advertising. She mentioned some fairly amusing ad’s which seem to come across with the complete opposite idea from what the advertisers were trying to sell you.

I found one such ad this evening.

Do you know the David Bowie song Major Tom? Do you remember the lyrics? Let me just remind you of a couple of them:

• Here am I sitting in a tin can
• Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong

So imagine the chuckle I got watching a new commercial for the Lincoln MKS with a cover of the Major Tom song accompanying it. Check it out…

heehee

Thank the gods! The cool weather is starting to move in. Though it’s around 80 during the day, the nights have been around 60. Finally we can turn off the air conditioner and open the windows.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Followed closely by Spring (see a pattern?). Then comes Winter and Summer brings up the rear. Summer is my least favorite time of year. I know it is the best time to be able to spend time with friends and family, I’ve been know to lament the heat and humidity. Loudly. And with much vigor. As I always say, “When it’s cold you can put on as many layers as you want. When it’s hot, there’s only so much you can take off and be legal.”

Enjoy the Fall, the changing leaves, the brisk Autumn air. Before the leaves actually litter the ground and make me wish I’d never seen a tree.

Arrr, Matey! Have ye been talkin’ like a pirate t’day?

I love days like today. It gives me the perfect excuse to be my normal wacky self. The fact that my account manager is a huge pirate fan makes it all the better. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to dress like a pirate. Ah well.

Here’s an image to hold you over till next year…