I recall that my oldest sister had a school project that involved putting together a family tree.

1. Conveyor bringing withers dropped frowning over side tumble.

I also recall, but she put a lot of energy into it. It also seemed to me that my mother took a great deal of interest in my sister’s genealogy project.

1. The day will come when all the gathering harbors delete the farthest known glasses of grain.
2. Holding onto: the very essence of moisture.

What I remember most was how my mother’s side of the family seemed to get the most attention. When it came to my father’s side of the family, it seemed as if nobody got real excited about it. Information about dads family of origin seemed to be kind of thin. The little bit of knowledge that I gained as a child growing up about my grandfather consisted mainly of the fact that he died when he was 48 and that the cause of death was the wrong blood type given to him at the hospital when he was there for some surgery.

1. We had gravel but more. We needed fourteen mirrored chameleons changing.
2. As an adult, there were times that I would ask my dad about his dad.
3. He just didn’t really want to talk about it I guess.

Anything that he did say was sort of passive and lacking passion. Greatness lies within several knots tied and dyed: really interesting design. Eventually, I learned that grandpa was something of a hothead. Secure the tents before the wind picks up. There was a story that was told about how my dad finally stood up to his dad one day when grandpa was about to haul off and get grandma. Evening was cloaked in darkness and their legs were useless. About the only other thing that I knew about my grandfather was that he liked cigars a lot.

1. Little of the sky actually fell but we were concerned.

For some reason or another my dad would speak fondly about how grandpa would get his cigars from a Cuban gentleman that rolled them by hand in a shop not far from where they lived in Chicago.

• Laugh-in rowing raft of time lost awash and frozen.

It’s funny how something like that would solicit a nostalgic twinge in my father. I can only speculate that dad and grandpa probably bonded around those cigars. Finally, among the incomplete rises garden slugs to render higher resolution. Only then will the survey be complete and rest be assured to those that measure. Dad himself, never to my knowledge smoked cigars.

Most of my involvement with grandma came during the holidays. A lot of the time we would go to her house for Christmas dinners and Easter dinners. By the time that I started paying attention to things grandfather had already been dead for 20 years. The straps complete the cycle for which they’ve been pulling. This we know. Since these holiday events seem to drag on for hours and hours it didn’t take long until my cousins and I would become restless. Inevitably, we would start goofing around and that invariably meant that we were going to wind up in the basement. My dad never really talked too much about his dad.

There were a lot of things about my father’s family of origin that remained an enigma.

I never really clearly understood that my grandfather had been in the Navy during world war one.

Then what you smart people ride? Praise to liver and the following dusk of covered wagons.

So it would make sense to me that my mother could have much of an opinion about grandpa.

I recall that my oldest sister had a school project that involved putting together a family tree.

Somewhat another way of remarking not fully transference – lack of better stones.

• A haiku or two – Tea bagger birther yo fool – Afraid of shadows
• Nobility bad – The thirteenth Thirteenther spoke – Our country so sad
• I lied there are more? – Excellent subject matter – Could do this all day
• G O P freaked out – Didn’t say no to drugs right? – Have to be real high
• Orange skin party fraught – In home schooling they are taught – History left out
• What could be up next? – The apocalypse I guess – Get back to work now

In conclusion I would like to assert that my familiarity and experience with capitol machinery and the supporting equipment and process controls inherent in the manufacturing environment will allow me to comfortably and effectively operate and maintain equipment employed in the membrane manufacturing process.

On Saturday, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to tens of thousands of blindingly white, patriotically obese, special needs Walmart shoppers, claiming to speak for God and urging a return to the halcyon days of religious domination of our democracy which brought America such historic hits as morally justifiable slavery, the slaughter of “heathen” Native Americans, Manifest Destiny, women as second class citizens without the right to vote, prohibition and its resulting in the explosion of organized crime and teens having lots of oral and anal sex in order to honor their Promise Rings.

As a result, as Monty Python once sang, God got quite irate. So, as He is nowadays accustomed to venting his wrath, He blogged the following and asked me to post it for Him:

GOD’S BLOG – 8-31-2010

Let me begin by saying that neither Glenn Beck nor Sarah Palin speak for me. The tip offs are, I never use chalkboards, I don’t drop the last letter of “ing” words to be folksy and lastly, I usually make sense.

Being omnipresent, I couldn’t help but watch these two and their colleagues give their speeches on Saturday at the site and on the day of my dear friend’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Though I don’t see anything wrong with the way I’ve made male dogs mark territory as their own, it is a bit off putting when people use dogs as role models for that trait (wish they copied the unconditional love and loyalty stuff instead).

What can be a little frustrating about being all-knowing is that you never get to say, “What the hell is wrong with that guy?!”, you already know. I do see all living things as my children but some days, your kids can really drive you nuts, you know what I’m talking about?

Glenn claimed that his rally was about returning honor, going back to Me and less overtly, returning power in America to White Christians. That’s like urging people to come together to build and paint a majestic cross just so you can set fire to it.

Believe me, I don’t have an inferiority complex. I’m not stomping around Heaven, upset that people aren’t ruling more countries in my name. In fact, that’s exactly what would get me upset, have you seen what happens in most countries when people declare I chose them to be the leader (my lawyers did send George Bush a Cease and Desist).

Earth is for you folks to take care of and figure out how to run. I’ve totally delegated all executive decisions to all of you, I just want to be invited to the company picnics.

Glenn Beck also urged people to sublimate themselves to me, to get on their knees and make sure their children saw them doing so. I guess the best way to do that would be to get in front of the tv and pray…though I’d guess the kids would just crane their heads around to keep killing people in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I think this could send the wrong message. First, kids may think that their parents are praying to the tv, that I am in the tv or that Tivo is God (which it is in some households).

Second, I think kids should see that strong moral beliefs are what make their parents stand up and become leaders in their own lives. Impressing subservience is like wiring a weakness into oneself or one’s kids that less principled folks than yours truly can then use to manipulate them to further unprincipled greed and lusts.

Which brings me back to Glenn Beck. He spoke of restoring honor…and did so by dishonoring one of the most honored Americans, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement he did so much for. Next time, I assume that Glenn will want to campaign on protecting endangered species by hunting them.

So, we can put aside this clearly illegitimate claim as the purpose of this rally, along with a reverence for me because love and respect and power for all races and religions is my thing. Also, despite the claims in their prospectuses and press releases, I am not a wholly owned subsidiary of FreedomWorks, Fox News or the GOP.

I just wish such wolves wouldn’t use me as their sheep’s clothing. The ironic thing is that in order to be so comfortable in using me to promote a self-serving agenda, such people would have to not believe in me (they clearly have no fear that they’ll ever have to face me for their transgressions).

So my suggestion is, the more you hear someone use me or their love of me to justify their actions and schemes that benefit themselves personally, the more of an atheist they probably are.

And BTW, some of my best friends are Atheists (I tell them that whether or not they believe in me, I believe in them and they’ll usually buy me a drink anyway, nice folks) so that’s not a bad thing but it does lend a bit of perspective to these situations.

Satan plays the same game as Glenn but as a practical joke, after a while, he always blurts out, “Just joking! I’m not really speaking for God and there is no barbecue tonight!”

Too bad Glenn doesn’t even display the decency of Satan. Still, it will be hilarious in a number of years, when Satan gets the chance to pull that on Glenn! Man, will he freak!

Had the cutest and strangest experience this morning on the way home from our walk.
It was another miserable sweaty walk this morning and there are these tiny little gnats out that we’ve never seen before.
They’re teensie-tiny black flies and they bite!
And for being so amazingly small, their bite actually causes pain!
Not bad pain, but you can feel it and it feels like a pin-prick.
Very odd.

Anyway, while on the way home we saw an elderly couple that we haven’t seen for awhile on our walks.
We’ve been walking earlier, besides being gone, except today we got a late start so saw them again and they stopped to talk.

We ran into them at the local grocer the other day, and not sure they remembered us, but I smiled and said hello and asked them if they recognized us.
I told them about us always walking our little dog in the mornings and we always wave to them.

The wife said she thought she knew who we were but her husband couldn’t remember.

He’s a real talker, and explained that he has very early onset of Alzheimer so he’s accepted that he can’t remember things very well.

He was so funny in telling us his name – Irvine with an I not an E – and it was his mother’s maiden name and it’s not an uncommon name because there’s an Irvine, California, and that has an I and not an E, too.
Very cute.

His wife is a skinny little thing and perhaps a bit younger than her husband but not by much.
She’s very animated friendly and clapped her hands and smiled broadly while thanking me for stopping to say hello in the grocery store.

So, this morning on the way home from our walk, we saw them and they were so happy to see us with our little dog and yes, now they both recognized us.
Here’s just the cutest thing and funniest part.

They pulled to the side of the road and asked if we were registered voters and we said yes, and then they asked if we would sign a petition.
They got out and while sweating our butts off and swatting at them biting teensie-tiny flies, they explained that they are working to recall one of the Pinal County councilmen for breaking all his campaign promises.

Now, if we could recall politicians for breaking their campaign promises, we’d have to recall them all, wouldn’t we?

My husband asked Irvine if the guy was a Republican and he said yes and he wants to replace him with another Republican – a Tea Party Republican because that guy lives up here and he will keep his promises.
Irvine said they need 10,000 signatures and what the hell, we signed the petition because he only had 7 signatures!

My husband made it a point that he’s all for recalling Republicans!
But they sort of ignored that, even though they did say that “they’re all crooks!”
“And if they’re not crooks when they get elected, they turn into crooks soon after”.

Irvine does talk a lot and he rambles, so you have to pay close attention but he’s a very affable person, as is his wife.
I think they are Tea Partiers, but so unlike the Tea Partiers we see on the TV or read about.
They’re not angry old white people, but they are fearful.

I think their definition of the Tea Party is not the actual Tea Party people we all know and love.

Through one of Irvine’s ramblings – and I cannot remember his wife’s name but will never forget his – but he asked us if we knew who Sylvia Brown is.

Do you know who Sylvia Brown is?

She’s a famous psychic and the only reason we know who she is is because we used to watch the Montel Williams show a few years ago and she was one of his regular guests every Wednesday and Friday, which ended up being his highest rated shows every week.

FOX yanked Montel’s show when he started his mission of seeing Bush get out of office and that’s why we watched him because he did a fairly good job of getting the truth out.

As for Sylvia Brown, well, she was fun to listen to and entertaining and I actually liked her a lot, until she went totally nuts with talking about space aliens and that there were aliens even in Montel’s audience.

She predicted that we are near the “end of times” and that the world would end in 100 years, which is a pretty safe prediction because who’ll be around to say if she was right or not about that.

She would talk crazy about some sort of second or third level creatures from deep in the earth that come out and if you’re attuned you can catch them and even see faeries that sit on flowers.
She’s really out there about things.

But I really liked her and thought her harmless because most people who seek her out were in search of solace from the grief of losing a loved one.
She always provided comfort for distraught people that were deep in grief by telling them that the person is with God and in the light of Christ and that no one ever dies alone.
People come into the world alone, but guardian angels and keepers from the other-side help people cross over upon death.

She does not believe in hell, but said hell is on earth and that the dead walk amongst us always.

She’s harmless and comforting and she always spoke about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit and said there is no such thing as the devil, but that evil lives in man and makes earth hell for the living.

I would never buy any of her books or go see her because she does tour and I would never do that as I am a skeptic, plus she charges outrages prices to see her speak.

But, she is an uplifting, spiritual person and she may very well be a scam artist, but then so are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and people pay good money to see them and Sylvia Brown brings people up and does good, whereby Palin and Beck are just plain EVIL, in my very humble opinion.

So, Irvine and his wife told us that they went to see Sylvia Brown when she was here in the valley and our first thought on that that we kept to ourselves was – these people are nuts.

Now, I have to share the story about another neighbor- the woman owns a horse named Bonita and just got divorced from her abusive, cheating husband – and she had contacted an animal psychic back east when she was struggling with the decision of whether or not to give her smaller horse, Sadie, away and whether or not Sadie wanted to leave and if Bonita wanted Sadie to leave.
She ended up giving Sadie to a friend who lives nearby due to that phone call.

And then there’s other neighbors who believe that Glenn Beck is some sort of truth-speaker and they buy his books and watch him religiously.

And then there’s yet another, who is a Democrat, but he listens to a right-wing religious radio station and he is against the SB1070 law and thinks Brewer will go to hell for it, but he can quote the bible and believes we are in the “end of times” and he likes Obama, but thinks that Obama is confused when it comes to religion, because he’s not sure if he’s a Christian or not.

Okay, so Irvine and his wife went to see Sylvia Brown and they said that if you paid more for admission that you could ask Sylvia a question.
They said that a woman asked Sylvia if Obama would win a second term.

Here’s where it gets strange.

Sylvia Brown, according to this elderly couple, said that no, Obama would not win a second term, because he will not even make it through his first term.

They said that she said that he will get a bit way through the second half of his first term, but then he would die.

The couple said that people gasped audibly throughout the auditorium and mayhem ensued with people wanting to know if he was going to suffer the same fate as JFK.

Sylvia Brown, according to this couple, said that the cause of his demise would be due to food poisoning and that would be the official reason for his death, but according to the couple, Sylvia implied that it wouldn’t be an accident.

Isn’t that strange?

It is strange, because if that’s true that Sylvia Brown predicted such a thing is that it’s not like the “end of times” prediction of 100 years, but something that she will be proven right on or wrong on within less than 2 years.

I’m stunned that she would dare to predict such a thing, since she has so very many loyal followers and she’s placing her reputation on the line with such a prediction.

And I pray that she is wrong.

And another thing, is that this is an elderly couple – grandparent-like – and first off, I could never imagine my mom or dad ever believing in Sylvia Brown – and secondly, wouldn’t you think that older people would be wiser?

I get it now that I just wrote that, as older people do seem to love FOX and all their pundits.

An elderly woman from my working days just loves Bill O’Reilly and the thing that really gets me about her, is that she continuously sends me these right-wing emails about Obama being a Muslim and about ignorant, anti-American Democrats and liberals, and I swear that I am so tempted to begin bombarding her email with emails from the left about the crazy right-wingers!

I just can’t bring myself to do that though, as it would be a waste of time and really, whenever I get her emails, I just delete them unless she writes me an actual email.
The thing about that though, is that she will write letters in her right-wing emails, so I miss out on a lot of her writings to me.

Does anyone else deal with these type of people?

Or do we really live in the Twilight Zone?

In my various meanderings around the whole of existence and parts of New Jersey, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of God, Satan and other well recognized talking heads.

It’s been my honor to share their blogs here at The Planet.

As Fate would have it (if you knew Fate as I do, you’d know how Fate always has to have things its own way or else you get the silent treatment), during my most recent hike along the Existential Trail (I didn’t run into Mark Sanford), I happened to come upon one of history’s most horrific human beings, Adolph Hitler. Well, actually it was his ghost…wearing ethereal lederhosen and a “Romney 2012″ button.

He had heard of my sharing the blogs of other famous and infamous bloggers at The Planet and, after awkwardly trying to convince me that he had come to enjoy eating at delis, asked if I would share his blog here.

So, purely in the interest of openness, free expression and shameless exploitation, here is Hitler’s Ghost’s blog:

Adolph’s Blog – 8-18-2010

If only I had a Reich Mark for every time my name is mentioned in American politics, I’d put my pals at Goldman Sachs to shame…if they had the capacity for it.

Actually, it’s been quite annoying. You spend your entire adult life demonizing other races and religions in your pursuit of consolidating power under yourself then see yourself totally ripped off by a low brow American political party. Where I am now, there’s no shortage of lawyers so I am considering my options, at a minimum, I’ve got the GOP on plagiarism and theft of trademark.

What I don’t get is that they are copying mein approach to seizing power and yet, instead of giving me credit, they fling my name as an insult at a black man who opposes what we stand for. Talk about embarrassing, George Wallace’s ghost won’t stop ragging on me and it’s getting on my nerves.

I mean, come on, either you think whipping up a nation to fear and hate minorities in a time of financial insecurity, in order to marshal a mindlessly hateful mob that will sweep you into power is cool or it’s not! You can’t adopt my strategy than use my name as a synonym for “Arschloch” on other people. And BTW, using my name and “communist” or “Marxist” on the same person? Really? Where did they get their education of history, from Texas school books?

Still, I do agree with the list of targets the GOP has been building and how they’ve been portraying them:

a. Blacks are racists who are working to turn America’s government into an African socialist society…and lop off the heads of white people along the way as a preemptive measure against the popular resurgence of polka music.

b. Gays are child molesters who want bestiality legalized and want to infect heterosexuals with The Gay. As thrice married Newt Gingrich has explained, they want to destroy marriage by first adopting it then driving it up to the country and letting it out of the car to fend for itself.

c. Latinos are all illegal immigrants, stealing jobs and white people’s tax money in the form of social services. The highly sought-after positions of Strawberry Collection Specialist, Leaf Wafting Technician and more have been greedily ripped from the hands of American workers champing at the bit to establish these careers for themselves.

d. Muslims belong to a despicable “cult” but America should be a place where there is freedom for all religions…except the ones we don’t belong to and/or are afraid of.

e. Educated and intellectual people are elitist wimps bent on destroying our country and transforming it into Communist Russia. Real leaders don’t “think” or “research” or “deliberate”, they are “Deciders” who think with their balls…or a friend’s balls if they have trouble locating their own tiny ones.

f. The weakest and most vulnerable in our society are threats to it. Lazy, unemployed workers are responsible for our economy not recovering by greedily taking a fraction of their salary from insurance they’ve paid for over the years. The poor don’t pay their fair share in taxes, instead living it up working 3 jobs or signing up for the military. The elderly with their “entitlements” are draining the government of money that could be going to give the wealthiest 1% tax cuts which, as the end of the Bush Years prove, lead to exactly the kind of booming economy Obama inherited.

Okay, am I leaving out anyone?

Add to this…so, the Reichstag is literally burned down and Republicans are rhetorically burning down the institution of government and the SCOTUS…excuse me but are my royalty checks in the mail? I thought not.

And yet, despite the current GOP being a tribute to my work, I’m the Boogy Man to whom they constantly compare their enemies. You know, you slave for your kids, give them everything they have and then one day they steal your car for a joyride with their friends, talking smack about you the whole time to announce what a jerk you are while throwing up all over your fine Corinthian leather.

It’s no fun being ahead of your time. If only I had known my philosophy would have conquered half of America’s political parties 70 years later…I might have taken Eva out of the bunker for a movie that night.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous
pasture in  California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward
him out of a cloud of dust.           

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan
sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, “If
I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will
you give me a calf?” 

Bud  looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully
grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?” 

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects
it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the
Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
         
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and
exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .
           
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image
has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL
database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his
Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.   

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech,
miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You
have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”                        

“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with
amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
                 
Then Bud says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what
your business is, will you give me back my calf?”       

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why
not?”       

“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.         

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even
though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already
knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of
equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you
don’t know a thing about how working people make a living – or about
cows, for that matter.  This is a herd of sheep. ….     

Now give me back my dog.

Just tryin’ to keep it real.  Seems to me, some days you just gotta laugh to keep from balling, ya know?

In this shocking, unedited video, Andrew Breitbart proudly announces to an audience that he was on crack cocaine during the birth of his children, is in rehab, has sexual problems, is a narcissist and in the end confesses, “I’m kind of a fraud.”

Should he be forced to resign?

Please spread this video around, the people have a right to know the truth…but send them this link anyway!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYigEUvG3Bo

Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

The day is here.  What memories do you have of this day?  Do you remember a kindness that you and your father shared?  A secret you cherished, one your siblings did not know?  An ice cream cone he bought you?  Playing catch?  Your Dad meeting your date?  The hug he gave you. Teaching you to swim, ride a bike, read a book…….?

I was my Father’s caregiver the last couple months of his life and I think it was the closest we ever were in our lives.  Since that time , Fathers Day means more to me now than when he was alive.

Share a thought with us or just post him your wishes.

I have many memories I could share but just to start his day off, here’s a one of the good ones.

Perhaps the most lasting influence my Father had on me was his involvement in the Union (first picket line at and the Democratic Party (first election at 9), and a “need” to help improve  working peoples lives.  But on to a story….

This story has to do with a gift my Father gave to me.  A gift I am quite sure he never knew he gave me.
My dads work required him to be on call all the time, we never knew when he would be working and when he would be off.  When I was in high school I was involved in sports, one of them being “Track & Field”, one of his H.S. activities.
On certain days my dad would get off work, and instead of going home (or to the bar) he would stop by either my practice or a meet.  I would be occupied in the practice, look up and just happen to see him there talking to my coaches, or if it was a meet, catch a glimpse of him cheering me on, there on top of the fourth corner.  Nothing was ever said later and I never told him how much it meant to me.  Such a little thing.  But it felt as if he was saying “I care about you- I’m proud of my son.”  I have thought about that for many years and it always gives me a warm feeling. Just that little gesture.  Unknown to anyone but me.

I know fathers Day is highly controversial and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.

As an intrepid blogger, I try to seek the truth wherever it is. Using a valuable contact of mine (a deity who shall remain unnamed at this time but has been known to share his blog here occasionally), I sought to arrange an interview with the very personification of all that is evil but unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t return my calls.

So, I had to settle for Satan.

Satan and I met at a Starbucks in Venice, California, he had an iced mocha frappacino which unfortunately evaporated as he carried it to the table, I had an iced black tea which Satan kept “mistakenly” sipping and singing the lip of the cup.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

ADLIB: Satan, thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview, I know you’ve got a lot going on right now.

SATAN: Actually, it’s kind of a slow season for me so I’ve been catching up on all of the episodes of Lost that I missed. Who woulda thought they were dead? Duh?

ADLIB: Hmm…we’ve got this ongoing economic crisis, the BP Oil spill destroying the gulf, Israel’s attack on the floatilla, North Korea threatening war, Iran pursuing nuclear weapons, climate-change-caused severe weather killing more people each year and I don’t know where to begin with Lindsey Lohan and it’s a slow season for you?

SATAN: Actually it’s been slow since George W. Bush was elected, I mean, what do I have left to do? Personally, I enjoy driving countries into unnecessary wars, destroying the rights of free people, undermining the pillars of the world economy and causing disasters that devastate the ocean, land and air…but I don’t want to look like a copycat. Good thing I’m not in a union or there would be serious trouble, seriously, you guys have totally infringed on my job description.

ADLIB: So you’re saying that The Prince of Darkness has basically lost his job too and has joined the ranks of the unemployed?

SATAN: The down side is that it never felt like work to me, you know? The up side is, I forgot how much I enjoy Oprah.

ADLIB: What this means then is that human beings are now fully responsible for the worst evils that they face.

SATAN: Well, no one forces you to eat at Applebee’s, right? Heh! Though…that’s not a bad idea to explore…

ADLIB: Just to be clear then, you had nothing to do with the BP oil spill?

SATAN: That all depends on what the definition of “having nothing to do with something” means. I will say that indirectly I have made my contributions, instilling greed in the corporate world and apathy in the public when it comes to fossil fuels. I didn’t cause the spill, I just freed people at oil companies from conscience, they did all the rest…as I knew they would. Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sing a little song about all of this.

ADLIB: I’d rather you didn’t, could we just continue our discussion?

SATAN: Right, that’s why I’m Satan, I like doing what other people want…

(At this point, there was a bright flash and when I could focus, I saw Satan was now standing in the middle of the Starbucks wearing a traditional Swiss dress with his horns in a Swiss braid. He smiled sarcastically, music swelled up from nowhere and he began to sing and prance around the Starbucks)

SATAN: (sings) Oil drops on wetlands and tarballs on beaches!
Bright shiny oil plumes and lame Hayward speeches!
Brown oily pelicans can’t use their wings,
these are a few of my favorite things!

Cream colored oceans and crisp jelly fishes!
Top Hats and and Top Kills and stunts that are wishes!
Wild geese can’t fly with the gunk on their wings,
these are a few of my favorite things!

Folks in white space suits with oil spots and splashes!
Thick tar that stays on my nose and eyelashes.
All the destruction that oil drilling brings,
these are a few of my favorite things!

When the well blows
When the Feds sting
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I just feel…so bad!!!

(I can’t recount all that accompanied this musical number but there was a chorus of dancing gay Republicans, oil company executives in a Rockette’s style kick line and mock broken oil wells spewing rhythmically like dancing fountains. A bright flash and suddenly Satan was back at our table, sipping the last of my black iced tea.)

SATAN: You should see the whole show, I get to play a Nazi too, it’s a funny in-joke, you know?

ADLIB: I…I’m naturally surprised, I didn’t know you liked to sing and dance. I always thought of Satan as, well, angry.

SATAN: You haven’t seen me before my first cup of coffee in the morning! (laughter) Seriously, ask anyone in the entertainment business, they’ll tell you who’s running things.

ADLIB: I was wondering–

(Satan’s cell phone beeps)

SATAN: Hold on…damn, I’ve got to get going now, I’m late for a FreedomWorks teleconference with Tea Party candidates. Sorry! Thanks for the iced tea! And remember, it’s always darkest before the dispersant! Hah!

A bright flash and a puff of smoke and he was gone. Then the Starbucks cashier came over and said Satan took a scone on his way out and said I’d pay. And folks wonder where corporate culture comes from.

Janet Evanovich is a writer of women’s fiction, aka romance novels, except for her ‘By the Numbers Series’, which also appeals to men, teens, adults, and the elderly.

The series is also known as the tales of Stephanie Plum, and the books’ titles are based on numbers such as: “One For the Money”, “Two For The Dough”, “Three to Get Deadly”, etc.

The 16th book of the series is slated for release June 22nd, 2010.

Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series is one of the most popular works of fiction in recent memory that has crossed the barrier of women’s fiction to a large, loyal male readership.

http://www.evanovich.com/

Ms. Evanovich has also accomplished a most treasured feat of having her Stephanie Plum come to life on the big screen next year.

In Movie Theaters: TBA, 2011 (Development)
Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson
Starring:
Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum
Jason O’Mara as Joe Morelli
Daniel Sunjata as Ranger
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Genres: Drama Crime Mystery

http://www.themovieinsider.com/m1037/one-for-the-money/

Those of us who are rabid fans of Stephanie Plum have speculated for years on the casting should it ever be made into a movie and the actors chosen are not exactly the people her fans would have chosen, but we’re willing to wait and see.

Other books made into movies, such as “An Interview With A Vampire” suffered similar complaints with the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat, but that worked out nicely and fans of the books were appeased.

Stephanie Plum is a comical character whose life is filled with crazy mishaps and humorous catastrophes once she begins the life working for her cousin Vinny as a bounty hunter.

She has a pet hamster named Rex that lives in a soup can within an aquarium, and she keeps an unloaded gun in the cookie jar on her kitchen counter.

Joe Morelli is the roguish Italian cop that she’s known all of her life and eventually becomes her on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Ranger is the dark man of mystery, always dressed in black with a sketchy background and sketchy heritage, who owns a security company Rangeman Inc. and he saves Stephanie from several hilarious and not so hilarious adventures.

Stephanie is from the ‘burgs’ of Trenton and the book is filled with a zany cast of characters, plus a dog named Bob.

There’s Grandma Morelli with her ‘evil-eye’ and Grandma Mazur who always carries a loaded gun in her pocketbook and has been known to shoot the chicken on the platter during family meals.

There’s Stephanie’s nemesis Joyce Barnhardt that boinked Stephanie’s husband on her dining room table, leading to a very short marriage and quicker divorce.

Eventually Stephanie meets and saves a prostitute Lula, who is one of the most beloved characters in the series.

I’ve always thought that Sandra Bullock would make an exceptional Stephanie Plum and Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock should be Ranger.
Alas, that is not to be, but I’m willing to keep an open mind.

I am hoping that Cloris Leachman will be cast as Grandma Morelli and Betty White as Grandma Mazur.

As for Lula, I think that one of my favorite actresses – Queen Latifah – would be prefect for the comedic part.

I started reading the Stephanie Plum books several years ago and my husband would always hear me laugh out loud. By the time I was on book 4 of the series, he had to read them to find out what was so funny and he’s been a fan ever since.
And he laughs out loud, too.

So, if you’ve never read them, I would suggest that you give them a try, and see if they’ll make you laugh out loud, too.

If you don’t know what Spanx is and are just bursting at the seams to find out, much as I’d like to stretch the truth on this, I can’t hold it in any longer.

Spanx is essentially the modern girdle, strong elastic-wear for women and now for men. Thankfully, the scientific braintrust of our nation, instead if wasting too much of their alternative energies on developing alternative energies (or how to, say, close off out of control oil wells),  have tamed botulism into a cosmetic “top kill” for wrinkles , have developed pills to give erections to older men so they have at least one dependable extremity to angrily wag at kids who play on their lawn and designed a coronary-lover’s dream sandwich with two pieces of fried chicken as “buns”.

Ah, the miracles of modern science…for consumers…never ends!

Now, as a society, we are not blind to our most urgent problems, we see them, we just prefer to deal with the symptoms first and if we have time after our Twittering and prolonged sessions of Super Mario Kart, we’ll get around to the causes. Honest!

For example, yes, we know that obesity is an epidemic, you don’t have to rub it in our faces or either of our chins, thank you very much. Do you want to hurt our feelings of self-worth and force us to console ourselves by eating a quart of Chubby Hubby tonight?    How is that helping anything?

Instead, we can address the symptom without having to reduce our cheese-stuffed crusts. We can wear girdles and look just as healthy as if we didn’t order an extra side of alfredo sauce with our Fettucini Alfredo.

And thank goodness, Spanx came out with their 21st century girdles for men now! Just because we are men, it doesn’t mean we don’t have self-image issues too. If you prick us, do we not show high cholesterol counts? If you tickle us, do we not laugh in the merry way chubby people do? If you poison us, do we not say, “Mmm…diet soda!”? And if you wrong us, shall we not overeat comfort food?

The solution to obesity is right in front of us…if only we could see over our bellies we’d be staring right at it. We don’t need to change our diets, fuck the recession, we’re still “A-mur-a-kins”, we still can have it all! All we need to do is wear Spanx and we can have it all. Women can stop asking if they look fat in this dress and men can see their own penises again, it’s a win-win! And we can all eat whatever we want because we deserve it…as Americans however, what we don’t deserve is the consequences of our actions!

Let’s keep Big Waistline out of our lives! Ending obesity is as easy as 1-2-3-pull down-harder-that’s it-no-harder- just pull the damn thing down over my belly-almost-let me breathe in-is that helping-hurry up-I can’t hold my stomach in much longer-that’s it-stop-stop-okay-it’s on-kinda feels too tight-losing consciousness-look out…

It is only by our habitually wearing clothes that are restraining, oppressive and restricting blood flow throughout our bodies that we can ever truly be free.

The Huffington Post has gone Vegas.

It has instituted a clever way to have commenters engage in what can only be seen as a form of slot machine gambling.  I noticed this  after learning HP had started some kind of  “badges” system.  I visited the site and saw a curious form of differentiation occurring amongst the commenters.  Now there were  symbols next to the individual members which served as an additional set of descriptors.  It gave the promise  of  a member becoming  something of a  Huffington Eagle Scout skilled in all sorts of communications Huffington.  As far as I could tell, if you tweeted Huffington, Face Booked Huffington, networked Huffington by smoke signal and semaphore, you could obtain a badge of some sort.  As Questinia, I saw I had a badge.  A level 1 badge of some sort.  It meant something. Although I found out what it meant in the badge identifying page, I  forgot what it means.

BUT! As I was observing the merry calvacade of HP all-stars, trolls,  data plodders, the marginalized and the up and coming, I saw my badge had been taken away! What had I done?  I reviewed my comments as tried and true Questinia and saw nothing that merited the  demerit of  badge removal.   I promptly inquired HP as to why my badge had been taken away with a modicum of feeling pathetic.   But,  as a “good girl” with my reinforcements of yore including a brief stint in Catholic school,  I responded to this virtual punishment with pique;  without explanation, I was duly given back my badge.  It was odd, but I realized they had gotten me to modify my  behavior (caring to ask what happened) by tapping into my school-girl’s deeper parochial brain. Now, I was intrigued.

A parallel phenomenon appeared to be taking hold at HP:  That of whirlwind fanning.  Members were now fanning one another in declaratives “I Fan You!”.  “Faved and Fanned!”, etc…  giving the site an air of part boy’s High School locker room high fiving after a big team win and a ceremony of title bequeathing.  It seemed partially gratuitous, as genuine appreciation, as a new form of LMAO, at times as a form of barter, as a way to give a message, as a way to get back at someone.  Even as sex.   I saw one fanner write “I am fanning you SO HARD right now!!”.  My only hope was that the person getting fanned wasn’t getting fanned in the fanny.

I thought HP was engaging in some sort of blog site social experiment while possibly driving up it’s membership and number of comments made.  Some moderator in the backroom must be earning a PhD.  So I thought of conducting a simple experiment of my own.  I began to play with socks to see how people would respond to various personae.  What came out of it was somewhat interesting.  All the socks attracted different people.  Although I tried to keep the tone of my posts similar, it was clear  that different personae attracted different people and they were duly fanned and faved.   Then, for some reason, I found myself wanting more fans.  I wanted to hit a payload of fan accolades.  I wanted to see if I could increase my odds of getting repeatedly fanned, good and proper.  I wanted an all out gang-fan. I wondered why I was feeling this way.  What became clear to me was the site is now set up as a smoky Vegas slot hall with intermittent reinforcement keeping posters more or less compulsively commenting.  Now, HP was always that way to an extent, but one couldn’t overlook the muted mid-brow frenzy of fanning, and faving and flagging.  All in the presence of croupier moderators.  But, in the olden days a fan was hard earned and was more or less disconnected from the comment timewise.

You remember intermittent reinforcement.  It’s what gets people searching for that high, it’s what keeps gamblers hoping for that big win, it’s what certain unscrupulous men use on women as “fractionation”:  That deadly and effective psycho-strategy of paying incredibly focused  attention to the objects of their desire then suddenly and without warning withdrawing.  It’s the push-pull.  It gets women into bed in a heartbeat.  It’s all based on that form of learned responses called operant conditioning.  An operant is a modifying condition which changes a behavior.  With positive reinforcement, the desired behavior is always matched with a reward, say a rat always gets the pellet.  It is an easy behavior to extinguish since the rat begins to always expect the reward and therefore becomes a bit blasé to begin with.  When the reward ceases to be forthcoming the rat goes “meh”.  The negative reinforcement schedule is essentially one where the desired behavior is reinforced and learned by averting a punishment, say an electric shock to a rat’s front privates.  These types of paradigms are continuous.  That is to say, a behavior is always met with a reward, either a positive one or a negative/averting unpleasantness one.  Each of these forms of learning are fairly easy to extinguish.  Simply uncouple the behavior and the reward and the behavior decays over time.

However, with intermittent reinforcement, there is discontinuous rewarding.  It is intermittent.  It can occur after every fifth attempt at obtaining a reward, or tenth , under certain light conditions, after different amounts of lapsed time.  The most important feature of intermittent reinforcement is that it is very difficult to extinguish.  It provides the foundation for obsession and compulsive behaviors.  Under continuous reinforced learning, the behavior to be extinguished is never given the reward. Therefore it is easy to stop.   However in intermittent reinforcement, the subject has become used to going for periods of time without a reward so they will continue to engage in it.

My goal was to make the intermittent reinforcement a more positive continuous one by making me more irresistibly fannable. One in which I would  nearly always get a fan.  For that, I had to strategize what name, avatar and type of comment I should use.  I chose a furry, cute, dysmorphically dwarfed,  creamy orange kitten with  parted red Clara Bow, blowing-kisses-lips on a baby blue blanket.  It’s name was to be a shamelessly manipulative play on pity-fuck.  I named it Pity-Fan Me.  As to type of comment,  I chose humorous, punny or sarcastic.  Sometimes abstruse and esoterically knowing.  Occasionally precious.  The name and moniker alone gave me a shower of fans.  Nearly everything I wrote was faved.  Mostly,  people commented on how cute my avi was.  I increased my odds by leaving overly serious main threads and  by repairing to posts like “Tokio Hotel Band member OD’s on Viagra”.  It worked.

I decided then to have a goal which would make the entire fanning system appear absurd all the while earning me more and more fans.  I declared to the bloggers that I wanted to accumulate more fans than Hume Skeptic.  That I wanted to initiate a “Fan Drive”.  At least I wanted to outdo Rich Misty or Thunderclap Newman.  I even went up to Hume and taunted him  by saying I was on his heels  ( I SHOULD have said fanny!)  and I had only 2, 243 more fans to go.  So…he fanned me.  To make things fair, I fanned him back.  I got a few fans from people who evidently had some hidden animosity toward  Mr. Skeptic.  Even though I obtained many fans that way, my trifecta winning moment came when I composed a poem about oil fuck-up Oynes called “Oynty Doynty”.  I got about five fans in a single swoop.  I was batting .500.  I had roughly 50 fans at 100 comments, but then lost a few for some reason when I got cocky and wrote “Hello my name is Pity-Fan Me and I am a fanaholic”.  Maybe I was hitting too close to home.  In keeping with my shamelessness,  I then shored my fan number with a reinforcement of my old socks just to pad the numbers.  So what?  I cheated.  I don’t run any NIH studies so don’t worry.  The point is, I found myself commenting more and more. When the magic seemed to be  wearing thin,  I commented more foolishly and desperately.  Saying things that Pity-fan wouldn’t write.  After eight un-fanned comments, I noticed I was on a losing streak.  Since I am by nature not an addictive person I quit while I was ahead and didn’t waste any more of my time.

And because I am also very familiar with the power of  intermittent fanning, I got bored.

Pity-Fan Me.

My bad.  I’ve gone and done it this time I simply forgot to do a music night post.

In that vane please post videos that you have not remembered in a long time.

Let’s start our with Memories from Cats.

Since the UK is the theme of the night I thought I might start out with some of my favorite scenes from British sitcom.  We might as well have some fun when the cat is away.

My favorite scene from Father Ted.

How can you talk about Britcoms without mentioning AbFab

The greatest British sketch show of all time. This scene is remarkably close to the Republic agenda as well.

From the IT Crowd the life of a computer tech.

Father Ted the church doth protest too much. “Down with this sort of thing”.

A compilation from Black Books.

Truly Shameless.

Who can forget Father Jack?  The epitome of the modern day priest.

“DRINK! FECK! GIRLS!” or BOYS!

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

There is great need for a sarcasm font.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Map Quest really needs to start their directions on the “fitted sheet” issue.  I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blu Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this – ever.

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail.  What did you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in paper bags.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or  understand a word they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front.

Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?

There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!