Death Is For Old People

Another thing I like about the print edition of The Desert Sun is the obituaries are printed in a larger font than the rest of the newsprint. I suppose that makes it easier to read for the bifocal set.

Anonymous

The print edition of The Desert Sun reports in the Community Calendar the following:

Debtors Anonymous meeting,

Mondays except on bank holidays.

5:30pm at U.S. Bank

Isn't that something something like a Tax Evaders Anonymous hosted by the IRS?

Officials barely address naked officer questions

Guess we better keep the noise down to a minimum or we could end up with a naked policeman in our pool.

Flotsam At Night

Palm Desert

Apps

I have this credit at the app store - woo hoo! So far, I have:

• Facebook
• Jared
• Angry Birds
• My Very First App
• iBooks
• Scrabble
• Sudoku

Some of these were free but the point is, I am very well entertained.

Hearty

I received a coupon for Hearty Sausage Crumbles which look pretty disgusting. They actually look better on the Jimmy Dean website than they do in the coupon. In the promo I received, the product looks disturbingly like dog food. In fact, I thought it was dog food until I read the copy.

I think they might want to consider a new campaign.

NaNoWriMo

I'm on a quest to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1666 and two-thirds words per day, if you would like the math on that, although I don't know what qualifies as a two-thirds w .

But just to make things interesting and to add a little challenge (not to mention true Avoidance fashion), I've scheduled a vacation for the first week of November. Now, this could be a good thing, or a very distracting thing. We'll find out.

I will have a laptop with me, however I will have to share it. And, we are sharing accommodations with two other couples which makes sneaking off to one's Happy Place (Creative Corner, whatever) a little less subtle.

I did purchase a new spiral bound notebook - if I can only remember where I put it - so I have a backup for the laptop dilemma and which I can use to draft story ideas and characters poolside where I might have much inspiration to draw from.

I'll try to keep you posted on my progress at Once Upon A Time with weekly word totals, perhaps.

Or, I will go am completely insane.

To Do

As if you needed to ask, never - ever - post your To Do List anywhere. What was I thinking?

I've added another page entitled "What's Sayin'" and I'm pretty much bored with it already. I did see a spike in ratings using key words such as Brangelina and Jessica Simpson but is it really worth it? Isn't it a bit like selling out? It wouldn't be so bad if there was some actual selling going on here but there isn't so, again, what was the point again?

I did have another entry I was going to add about Britney Spears but I can just save myself the trouble by dropping her name right here. Done.

Added comments. Done.

Added a Story Ideas page. Done. See Once Upon A Time.

Don't Get Me Started

I have a habit of sticking it to banks whenever possible. It's not only legal, it's at their own suggestion. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but when they offer me $100 to open an account - well, I take their offer. It's free money! I open the account, stand on my head, and wait. When I qualify for their offer and they pay me, I have a nice steak dinner and move on. I got my iPod Touch this way, thank you very much.

But they - the banks - have the last laugh, I guess. What's really frustrating is I know I'm not the only one. I can't imagine what it's like for the poor guy who gets jacked around every day. And it happens, I have no doubt.

I had a $3 ATM fee the last time I used my card. This was the first, only, and last time I've used this debit card to extract cash and it was issued by the same bank that issued my Touch. Which is to say we don't have a long and mutually satisfying relationship. Those fees piss me off but at least the machine gave me notice and the opportunity to back out if I didn't agree to highway robbery. (Usually, in such circumstances I withdraw about a year's worth of cash to minimize the fee's effect on a percentage basis and make future withdrawals from beneath my mattress instead.) What really hacked me off is when I got my monthly statement there was an additional $2 for using an ATM not belonging to the issuing bank. What? $5 to get my own money from a non-interest bearing account? You should be paying me!

The bank, when I called them, disagreed and told me to have a nice day.

Okay, so $5 isn't so bad. Especially if you want to throw the Touch into the mix. But how's this one? A credit card company just took a very large sum of money from me by mistake. This was one of those deals where they offered me credit for a year for 0% interest if I would please roll over the balance of another card. I've done this before so sure, I love free money. When the year was up I got two more similar offers for another year. One from a different credit card company and one from the very same credit card company.

So I call my credit card company and say, why don't you just extend your current offer and we can both have a very nice day. Nope. We don't value your existing business. Only the business we have not yet attained. Fine, I said, I will have a very nice day with this other credit card company and so paid off the entire balance by rolling it to Other Credit Card Company.

After I paid off the balance - and confirmed said balance was paid - I changed the monthly payment plan on this card to Pay In Full which is my usual arrangement. I received in writing that my payment plan had changed and that my balance was zero. So the next due day how much do you think they took from my checking account? Zero? Nope, they took the entire balance again. How much was it? Mucho dinero is how much it was! Times two!

So now I have this massive credit on my credit card and my checking account is drained. Completely. If that's not crazy enough, I checked the balance the day it happened and called the credit card company right away. I was told the electronic blips were all in place to make the transaction as of midnight that night. Great! Just reverse the blips and we're good, right? It hasn't happened, right?

I can't remember what they told me but no, it wasn't that easy. They would get a supervisor on it right away - yada yada - and it would take two or three business days - yada yada - but as a special thank you they will give me extra miles on all future purchases. Are you kidding me? How about just giving me back my freaking money?!

Today is three business days later and guess what? No money. Called them back and said WTF? So, sorry it's really two or three days from today this will happen. Not two or three days from when they stole my money. Get this! They couldn't return money they stole until the stolen money cleared the bank! Now that it has, they can give it back.

Have a nice day.

Click.

If It's Going To Happen It's Got To Happen Before Noon

But of course it never does. I don't get up until the sun does. (Why, exactly, should I?) But by the time I have my coffee and a shower, it's lunchtime and nothing's been accomplished.

I want to make a few changes to Chocolate Chip Mint:

• I'd like to post here more often. Does thinking about it count?
• I'm thinking of changing the Home tab to "What's Doin'" and adding a "What's Sayin'" page. (Or, "Cheap Talk" or "Who Cares?") The general idea of the new page is to see if I can spike my ratings from two to maybe four by mentioning Brangelina as often as possible.
• NaNoWriMo is around the corner so I'm thinking about story ideas and how to write 50,000 words in a month.
• I want to add a Comments area to my Photos page and any others I might add.
• Thinking about adding a Story Ideas page. I have two cooking right now and another I'm saving, maybe, for November. A story I started earlier entitled "Now & Then" (mostly because I like the title) has fizzled out for the time being. I've started another and am trying to write 1,000 words per day - which for the three days I've been writing, I've managed to do. This is what I usually do during nap time which is the current time here so that's what I'm supposed to be doing right now.

There's only an hour left of nap time and 1,000 words to write. Probably should get on that....

And I would, too, except my computer seems to be napping, too.... I think my nephew has hijacked my router so I can't even write! (Keeping my Work in Progress in Google Docs for the time being.) I guess it's pen and paper for me today which is cool. I like retro.

Because I Can

Blogging from Starbucks....

Pop

If one has to sew on the same button over and over, the issue may not be the button but the belly it tries to contain.

Finally

It took me all morning but I'm connected to the internet and am posting from my new iPod Touch which finally arrived yesterday. Getting acqUainted with this touch screen keyboard, as you can see. It'll take days before I figure out what this puppy can do. Meanwhile, looks like I'm late for work.

Tiny Tank

Having the world's smallest bladder, it seems to me anyway, I have made an extensive study of public restrooms. There are those of the industrial variety that reminds one, oddly, of the workplace cubical. A row of uniform boxes for doing one's duty.

But some establishments have a restroom where only one person goes at a time. It's these types that confound me .

I would think it would occur to someone that, generally speaking, a woman is rarely empty handed. If not a simple phone, she carries a purse. Sometimes, shopping bags, or even a diaper bag in one arm and a baby in the other. Does it not occur to the architect that she will need to put these items down? I don't know how you guys do it, but functions performed in this location will require the use of her hands, is that not correct?

A hook on the door, at the very least, would be appreciated as one DOES NOT want to put one's ANYTHING on the floor of a public toilet. Please. What really galls me is the coffee shop, of all places, that locks its restroom door to all but its customers. One must ask for a key for the privilege of recycling the shoppe's wares which, it turns out, THEY KEEP ON A HOOK. Only to find there is no similar accoutrement in the bathroom for same said key. Is this not irony at its finest?

Maybe I should invent the Universal Over-The-Door Purse Hook for situations like these. Or a portable luggage rack of sorts. For the Super Woman in you, there's the Crossbow Launched Grapnel Hook one can shoot into the ceiling of the restroom or restaurant - or wherever one likes - to affix a pulley to hoist one's necessary Day Luggage.

Perhaps I'm getting carried away.

Maybe Depends. Maybe that's the way to go.

Thought You Might Like This

(You know who you are....)

Priceless

Don't you love it when technology sites can't keep up with technology? I'm trying to read an article on PC.mag entitled Windows 7: The Top 10 Hidden Features but the site's all hinky and that little blue circle just keeps going round and round.....

So as I'm waiting for the Number 4 Hidden Feature, I'm writing this. And as I'm writing this, the Fourth item finally loads....

When your system's acting flaky and you're trying to figure out what's going on, the Reliability Monitor may help.

I can't wait to see what Number 5 is.

And On It Goes

Do you ever buy one of those value packs of meat? The kind you have to repackage and freeze because you can't possible eat it all in one sitting? I always open the package with my hands because, at the time, it seems easier.

It's usually right after I've touched raw meat that I realize that the meat's destination is unknown. I haven't put out plastic wrap or I've retrieved a Ziploc from it's drawer only to find that it's zipped tight and I can't put anything in it.

Naturally, I need to wash my hands before I can remedy the situation only to find out the soap is in need of refilling....

Really? Does it have to be so complicated?

10-01-10

It's a binary thing.

BMWHEE

I've been looking for a new car. Really, a used one, but new to me. I've become the primary caregiver to Lil' C Dot and while it's not illegal to drive him around in a two-seater convertible, it's probably not real safe either. I got the Z when I got out of the child rearing business and now I'm suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly) back in it. I need a bigger car.

The problem is it's the time of year when convertibles are hard to sell. The weather is cooler and we are seeing less sunshine and more rain. But it's also the time of year that is still peppered with occasional sunny days, reminders of the Summer we didn't get this year. Either way, it's not been easy to let go of my Z.

Today is one of those sunny Fall days. So I dropped the top and drove amid the smell of newly fallen leaves, and the drone of leaf blowers as I passed landscaper after landscaper on my way to work. My Z is fun to drive. Not fast, she's nimble and quick, and makes me want to put both hands in the air as if I'm riding a roller coaster, just for the fun of it. And I would, too, except the drivers behind me get nervous when I do that.

All that, and Elton John was on the radio singing, "Don't let sun go down on me..." Doesn't get much better than that.