Rats. Nuts. Criminy. And all sorts of other PG-rated ephithets...

My cellphone screen is broken.

I have no idea how it happened. It was in a pocket -- not a tight pocket, nor an overly loose and floppy pocket, where it would bang against things easily -- and I was indoors (by which I mean it didn't freeze). I had just posted during the Colectivo Forum, so I knew the phone was perfectly find just moments before I discovered the damage.

There is a crack in the liquid crystal display screen. (I know, right? What the frack??!?) If it weren't such an annoyance and inconvenience, I'd be completely fascinated!

The crack is beneath the thick, clear, protective cover (perhaps a type of plexiglass; it scratches easily, so it's definitely not glass) and the liquid has spread laterally to form a dark, rounded, aspen-leaf-shaped pattern towards the lower right-hand corner of the display. Again: sort of cool, if it weren't so blasted irritatingly inconvenient. Sadly, while that sounds like it may not be that bad, it in fact takes up a little over half the display.

I find this very aggravating. It doesn't affect the operations otherwise, however I can't read the display when I dial a number to call someone. I can place and receive calls, but can't see who is calling when a call comes in. I can't read the display when I open the phonebook to place a call. (Important, as it's been years since I've memorized ANY number, having had a cell phone to perform that function for me!!) I can't see whether things are properly framed or not when I take a picture. When I text, I can only see part of what I'm thumb-typing in.

Aaaaccckk! I prefer to text than to interrupt someone's day with a phone call!! I know I'd rather *GET* a text!!!! OH!! My lifestyle is COMPLETELY CRAMPED.

The net result is miserably misspelled posts with errant letters here and there.

Picky, picky, right?

I was raised better than to resign myself to permitting poor spelling, and one of my spelling and grammar teachers reads this blog. (Hi, Daddy!!)

Here's hoping my phone can be replaced very inexpensively and hopefully quickly, so all the typos that cause me grief can be eliminated.

 

Foodfetchers em rte 2 Browns s Stadium

So.

That post title.

My cellphone display is broken, and I can only see a very little bit of what is typed into my phone at a given time. I have to count clicks (it's not a QWERTY keyboard, just a simple phonepad with numbers and multiple letters sharing the keys), and as I was walking to the stadium as I typed, I lost count a couple of times.

The temptation is there to correct my work, but I think I will leave it as is. It will serve as a reminder -- a PAINFUL reminder!!! -- for me of what it's like to have a phone suddenly go out of commission.

On a sidenote, it was disappointing early in the day that this was the only picture I got to take of our day at the Browns game. My battery ran out as soon as I took and posted it. I'm not sure if that was actually related to the damaged display. In retrospect, however, it may have been a mercy I was denied my chance to take more pictures. The Browns made some really dumb plays. (Who throws to a receiver *already on the ground*???)

We did have fun, though. And it was yet another visit to Cleveland Browns Stadium during which we did not, nor were we remotely tempted to go to any concession stand.

 

How In America...???

This is gross.

I'm sad and desperately angry.

Saturday, Rick and I were winterizing the front yard when we were approached by two different Get Out the Vote pollsters. The first simply made sure we were going to vote, checked first to see if we'd already voted, and ascertained that we knew our voting location. He was also campaigning for Obama, and since we are sporting an Obama-Biden yard sign attached to our porch railing, that was pretty straight-forward.

The second pollster checked our names against the "registered voters" list she was carrying. Rick was there. A woman who hasn't lived in our house since before us is there. I'M NOT.

I'm not on the voter rolls.

There were no answers available from the poll worker.

I can vote tomorrow by provisional ballot. It will not be counted until the second count of the votes, the count which certifies the count according to the Constitution, and even then it may not count.

I am furious.

What makes it worse is that I suspect that it is because of my last name.

During the last presidential election there were a large number of voters removed from the rolls, ostensibly because they were "redundant" or "non-voting" or "believed deceased" or other lame excuses. Almost all of the names happened to be Hispanic-Latino names. One of the names removed was my husband Rick's name.

Rick is not Hispanic. Rick is not Latino. Rick is a mix -- a beautifully American mix -- of mixed European heritage on his mother's side and Filippino on his father's side. Filippino is not Hispanic or Latino. The Republic of Philippines is in Asia. If he can extract anything separately from that already honorable heritage, it would be a mix of very far-back Chinese and indigenous Island tribes.

So this year, aparently, it's MY turn.

I'm not Hispanic or Latino, either. My background is a Euro-mix, mostly British with a good dose of Swedish. But here's the thing. It shouldn't matter what a person's heritage is when covered by the curtain of the voting booth. It's supposed to be anonymous, anyway, right?

I suppose I should take comfort in the obvious fact that they didn't track me down to look at me to verify my ethnic status before eliminating me from the voting rolls. Anyone reading this who hasn't met me in person, you should know that I have strawberry blond hair, hazel eyes leaning toward green, and pinkish skin that burns severely in the sun, the sorts of traits that make strangers comment on my Irishness near St. Patrick's Day and Scottishness near Bobby Burns' Birthday or quote Braveheart to me.

Still, no one should be denied their right to vote based on their ethnic heritage. Not me. Not my husband. Not countless others that I don't know that have also been denied, that have surnames similar to mine.

Blind bureacrats desperate for power don't care about any of that. Nor do they care about justice. Because if they did, they wouldn't be tampering with the consititutional rights of citizens of this country at election time.

On the other hand, the current president and his administration have treated the Constitution like a bathmat. So there's really no big surprise there, right?

All the more reason for the current administration to be eliminated as fully as possible; so now, more than ever, I hope like screaming heck our next president will be Barack Obama. We need someone we can trust.

Until such a time as we get a trustworthy leader (it won't be John McCain, that lying, cutthroat, trash-talking jerk!!), this is not the America I know.

 

 

Brrrrrrrrr!

We had an overnight visitor. Call him "Jack".

When I let Cleopatra outside this morning, I hadn't the foresight to slip on socks before I snuggled into my slippers. It would seem, however, that my running-onto-the-porch-in-just-slippers-days may be nearing an end. See the next picture:





If this car were parked on a new car lot, one could imagine this white substance was the protective wrap that keeps the finish from scratching or succombing to the evils of acid rain.

This car is not on a new car lot.

This picture was taken in my back yard, on my driveway. That's frost.

>sigh<

That's nature. That's astronomy. That's what happens as the earth tilts away from the sun.

'K. I'll adjust.

More coffee, please!

 

Hooray!

Blogger is accepting posts from my phone again. We'll see how long it lasts THIS time. I hope it holds up at least through voting season.

I just wish it could have been sorted out in time for my dad's wedding this past weekend.

>grumblegrumblegrumble<

 

BP in Parma. F**K YOU, OPEC...

BP in Parma. F**K YOU, OPEC...
Originally uploaded by sunspotting.

This is at the corner of Broadview and Pleasant Valley, on the border of Parma and Seven Hills. Marathon and Shell, also at that intersection, had the same price.

It bugs me that we should be celebrating this price as a good deal. (And does this mean we can stop being at war now?!?) $0.79/gallon was a good deal. I'm as certain we'll never see that price again as I am that we'll never see chocolate bars the same size and price as they were when I was a kid.

JesusKali&Ishtar. When did I turn into a geezer???

 

Well, this is a kick in the teeth.

Apparently, Blogger no longer supports T-Mobile. It doesn't seem to be deliberate, so I am going on the hopes that this is a temporary glitch, but it sure does throw a serious monkey wrench in my plans for this weekend.

This is the weekend my dad is getting married, and I had hoped that, in addition to the traditional photography, I would be doing some cameraphone-and-blogging.

Getting bounced posts that tell me that my posts are no longer supported (after well over a year's time???!!!?) makes me feel hollow inside. All the more hollow, when my phone service provider gets the same bounced error message immediately following a post attempt, and cannot hide the sheer surprise for the experience.

So my posts from my father's wedding festivities will NOT be immediate or spontaneous. I'll do what I can as I can.

 

My Daily Laugh

Hmm... this one is hitting very close to home!!

 

Is Belichick in Town?

Is Belichick in Town?
Originally uploaded by sunspotting.

JesusKali&Ishtar.

It's Eric Metcalf. And he's *IN THE MIDDLE*!!!!

Oh. Phew. It's just time for the coin toss. For a bad second there, I was having very scary flashbacks to a playbook with only one play in it.

 

BERT!

BERT!
Originally uploaded by sunspotting.

She's apparently sorting printer ink and writable CDs. I don't think she's going to be any help.

I wonder what the neighbors think when they hear me use her name ephithet-like. Like I did just now.

Like I probably will again in another 20-25 minutes.

 

Words You Are No Longer Allowed to Say to Me

1. Maverick. Unless you're James Garner. (No, I won't accept it from that nutbag Aussie who thinks Jesus spoke Latin. He was wrong: Aramaic, Hebrew, and probably a smattering of Koine. Latin? Pff. Greek was the lingua franca of the day. Most of the Roman army didn't even speak Latin. What a donkey.)

2. Wall Street.

3. Main Street.

4. I 'respectfully' agree, BUT...

5. Say NO to __________________

6. Drill, Baby, Drill! (Only one exception, but that's *very* private, isn't it?)

7. Any gerund whose final 'g' has been dropped, so "ya sound like a hick who hasn't had proper schoolin', ya know???" The word "schoolin'" is an example of an offending candidate.

8. "Ya" in place of "You".





Any guesses who crawled right up my left nostril tonight??? Just call her Caribou Barbie.

I hope I never feel so moved to make such a vindictive post again. Brrrr!!! She just rubs me the wrong way, with the lies and the smarminess and the "I just want ya all to know I'm just like ya!!"-ness.

On the issue of the issues, no, I don't think she was a slam-dunk. There were many instances where she exhibited those same characteristics she showed during the Katie Couric interview. There were some disgustingly manipulative times when she redirected her answers to something that blatantly suited her strengths. My favorite example was when the question was about home mortgages and the sub-prime loan debacle. Sen. Biden answered first, and his answer was interesting; it really needed the opposing side to balance it out, to contrast. Gov. Palin simply went right into energy policy and the need to develop alternative forms of energy to decrease our dependency on foreign oil.

WHAT??? Wrong answer.

 

Yo Ho Ho! It's a Pirate's Lexicon For Me!!

Doug Savage is a very VERY funny man. CLICK to see more!!

All week it's been pirates, in honor of today being International Talk Like a Pirate Day. What -- you didn't know? Well, slap on some striped knee socks and swab the deck, yeh scurvy bilge rat!!

 

New interesting thingy! ARRRgyle Sock pattern!

Here's the amazing graph!!

And good instrux on knitting argyle, skully or otherwise!!

It's also a source of blissful distraction. I am dangerously keen on knitting socks, now, and even argyle socks, especially argyle socks with a skull, are probably not outside of my skill level. God help me. All I need is the yarn. God help us all.

 

Joss Whedon's at it again...

So on Wednesday I finished a book I picked up on Tuesday. A nice, thick adventure/suspense book: The Book of Fate. Brad Meltzner sounded familiar, I was sure I'd seen his books on other shelves.

While that's likely enough, where I've seen his name at home is on the cover of DC's The Justice League comic books. This novelist has dipped his talented toes into the exciting world of serial stories. (MORE than his toes; his heart is chasing the dream of saving Superman's house in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland.)

He's good, too.

So, (again, because I know I began the post with "so",) to my amazement, our local NPR station has a local arts and culture program every weekday at noon, and on the same Wednesday as the morning I finished The Book of Fate, who do you think they were interviewing??? That last link is the podcast of the entire Around Noon show; don't freak! The interview with Brad Meltzer is the very first thing.

Fateful, indeed.

His new book is called The Book of Lies. He recommends that you listen to Mars from Holst's suite The Planets while reading. Not that the plot demands it, but hey! If you have an author recommending a soundtrack for his work, aren't you just a little curious to see how it goes along with the book? I think that's kinda cool.

Here's something else that's cool.



I love LOVE seeing Joss Whedon not only being cited as an "Authority," but the way they credit his authority-ness. Brian K. Vaughn, too.

Now, if you need me, I'll just be getting back to searching for Tooth Fairy cash. You know, it's not just bed pillows you should look under...

 

No Exit

The race is over and we would like to go home. We'd even heed the sign, but it's hard to return when one cannot leave.

Camp Manatoc is so scenic, we didn't mind that we had to backtrack to leave!

Moblogging = NO Blogging... They won't like me when I'm angry...

Still with the missing posts! All weekend I've been posting. Pictures have appeared in Flickr, but no posts here on Blogger.

I don't know, I like my time too well to have to spend it on the phone with TMobile, but it's looking like I've got a grim date with them on Monday. :-(

I suppose that's preferrable to me continuing to get all hot and resentful.

That's when I turn all green and monosyllabic and stuff...