Fix it like a girl!

So I had an old Handspring Visor Edge laying around, pretty basic as far as PDA's are concerned, but at the amazingly low-low cost of free...who wouldn't love to shove it in their purse and go? Classic aluminum styling, (reasonably) big storage, and it meets my employers requirement for not using using any internet on the job other than theirs. Unfortunately it was deader than disco. I'd put it on the charger, reset it five-times from Sunday, but notta. It wasn't turning on. A few $20 "diagnostic" trips to the PDA repair store yielded nothing other than getting mentally undressed by the burly man at the counter (****** didn't even buy me dinner first), but no PDA love. Still I wasn't about to throw the towel in, so I risked a cool $3.82 on ePay and bought a battery. Got it in the mail yesterday and, thanks to some itty-bitty eyeglasses screwdrivers, managed to install it. Nope. Still nothing.

Grrrr!!!  

Not one to be outdone by 7oz of plastic and glass, I took it apart again. Three cans of compressed air and a half-hour later, I'd given it probably the best blow job I'd given since before getting married, but no...no dice. I took it apart again and checked everything. "beep" Huh? Are you alive there little fella? The screen was still blank, but it'd given me a small audible grunt of satisfaction, so I knew I was on the right trail. Once again I took the top off and checked all its jubbly bits. Oddly enough, it started working once it was topless. Go figure! I re-clothed it and tried it again, but once again it was squarely in dead-fish mode. For the longest time I didn't get it. I'd turned it on, touched it in all the right places, stripped it naked, and still it refused to perform. I'm reminded of my ex-boyfriend.

Performs when topless but goes limp fish when clothed, what gives? I started researching online a bit and came up with nothing...that is until I picked some heart stickers off my shirt. The whole time I'd been working on this infernal PDA, my 5-year old was sticking little heart stickers all over me. Hmmm. I took one off and used it as insolation between the exposed circuits and the backing.

Success! Naturally I wasn't sure just how many heart stickers to put on the back of my PDA, so I employed the proven girly-tech method...I used an entire sheet's worth! Up down and all over the back end and underside of the PDA. Not only did my little 6" wonder come alive and start working, but thanks to the backing securely screwed on...I'm PDA-ing in style (and now with protection too)!

I wonder if this approach would fix my car? 

Today's Positive: While I can't drop the oblitigory "I'm back" ball on the blogoverse, I can say that I'm making an effort to do so. Things have been absolute hell last few months, sadly not in a funny way.

Today's Negative: It may be a few more weeks before I'm ready to tackle the everyday grind of daily blogging again. Bear with me and, while I won't promise you won't be disappointed, I can promise I won't leave a burning bag of very stinky kitty poo on each and every one of your doorsteps...

Currently Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast) By Stephen Schwartz, Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel see related

Bad Blogging 101

Clearly my blogging rhythm seems to have been dropped as if it'd been run over by a drunken yobbo in a Ford Pinto, but when exactly did it happen? When did I become a bad blogger? I could cite excuses like the ozone layer or my children, of course, my miserable excuse for a job putting the kibosh on blog city. Its terrible, I'm actually expected to work@work! The fact of the matter is I probably could get up a few minutes early or stay up a few minutes late to surf a narly blog, but the reasons behind my lapse boils down to a simple truth; I tend to blog when I find that its convenient.

In fact, don't we all? 
 
Sure, you might try pointing out that no one else who has children complains about the lack of blog-worthy opportunities and, in fact, somehow manager to blog on a regular basis. True. You might even claim that, if the anklebiters require that much of my time, perhaps I shouldn't have had them in the first place; but I wouldn’t recommend this approach unless you want to know what it feels like to be hit in the face with a shovel. The sad truth is that even with two jobs and two children (three if you count my husband), I find the seventeen minutes of free time I get each night between or after work are best spent peeing, brushing my teeth...or anything else that my twisted and often warped mind can conceive of behind the locked doors of either my bedroom or in my master bathroom.
 
Naturally then, it comes down to both time and convenience. Sadly, despite the evidence pointing to the contrary, it seems lately that I've got neither. In the words of Prince Humperdinck, I'm swamped! Thankfully my schedule is changing soon, but in the meantime...it seems like Mojave-sucking-on-a-cactus-when-I'm-able-to-blogging. I wonder if its possible to farm my blogging needs out to a Malaysian sweat shop somewhere? Made to order blogging out of a Japanese vending machine? Perhaps I could hijack another blogger or perhaps hire a blogging subcontracter? Certainly its worth consideration. In the meantime, I leave you with these unalienable truths I've discovered:

• Sneezing and a full bladder do not play well together and never ends well.
• There is nothing that cannot be fixed without a butter knife, duct tape, or ipecac.
• Two children cannot sit on top of the refrigerator...but one evidently can.
• Finger painting is a good hobby.
• Finger painting the cat is not.
• A little girl's easy-bake oven makes the absolute best hot dogs.
• He's going to look at other boobs occasionally. Get used to it.
• Hersey's syrup and a wicked imagination goes a long way.
• The pressure from 27 flamming-hot "Suicide" wings and the dangling of your bottom over a public toliet immediately after is probably not a good combination.
• Alone time with sweets tends to make you wax philosophical: If I eat this wedge of cheesecake and no one is here to see it, did I really eat it?
• Ignorance is bliss, particularly when you find panties superglued to the fishtank.
• We are not the masters of our own destiny...or where the cat decides to vomit.
• Anyone who says chocolate is better than sex is eating chocolate laced with cocaine.
• Cynicism is great fun!
• If it looks like cake, tastes like cake and smells like cake...it's not always cake.

Today's Positive: Got out of work today and almost kissed the ground. Literally. 

Today's Negative: Got home this evening to find a boat in my back yard. No, literally a boat. Evidently some asshat was dumping an old Gilligan's Island boat, tied it to a tree in the back alley, and then drove their truck out from under it. So now I'm stuck with a crapped out 50's motorboat sitting back there that I cannot move and the city doesn't feel the need to tow off. Yahoo! I lead an interesting life.

Currently All That You Can't Leave Behind By U2 see related

Blogging without words

Today's Positive: So far today I've managed not to strangle, behead, maim, injure, rough up, scatter, smother, cover, dice, chunk, pepper, filet, feed to the piranhas, slap, scalp, twist, tease, light on fire, shave, or apply a 45-volt nipple clamp to any of my coworkers today. Now thats what I call progress!

Today's Negative: I'm trying Monday without coffee. So far, so good I'd say. 

Currently Dark Side Of The Moon By Pink Floyd see related

Saving Johnny polar bear

The keepers at the zoo go to work everyday in their shorts which, best I can figure, is good enough reason to depise them entirely. Naturally they do this both because the job of taking care of Johnny polar bear requires them to be able to move quickly should he get annoyed (or amorous), but really I suspect this all is just a prelude towards what we'll all be wearing to work soon thanks to state-propigated myth of global warming. Yes, the polar caps are melting, cartoons are too violent, and since we're all obviously making too much money; Obama will happily take your hard-earned pesos and spread the wealth to your good-for-nothing neighbors. Socialism trifecta is now officially in play.
 
...or so right-wing radio would have you believe.
 
True enough, you’d be hard-pressed to spot a Nazi searchlight anywhere outside a museum (or perhaps Al Gore's boxer shorts), but that isn't to say the mongers of planetary doom haven't drawn a dotted line connecting the so-called economic and environmental crisis with the greenness of your panties either. Now depending which of the cash-lined rabbit trails of cataclysmic doom you chose to follow, the end result always seems to end with the lot of us destitute and stranded for life on Gilligan's island while poor Johnny polar bear drowns after the polar ice caps have melted entirety.
 
Plainly then the problem here isn't global warming at all, rather we simply have too much water on our planet! Thankfully we can fix that. Rather than force-feed compact cars and low-emission porno on the good people of Earth, clearly the answer is to pump some of our water directly into space. Brilliant! Thankfully space is a short 75 miles from the surface of the Earth, so why not make a giant pipe, dip one end in the ocean and take the other end out into the void of space where of course; there is a vacuum. That means all this nasty eco-unfriendly water should be sucked up the pipe (without the need for any energy-absorbing pumps) and save us all. Not only will we happily be back to outdoor grilling of Johnny polar bear on the hood of gas-guzzling muscle cars by noon, but we'll have created beach-front property and brought fire to the common man. Lex Luthor will be so proud.

Today's Positive: Good Friday? Nah, it was the best. 

Today's Negative: Got a new boss at work. Yep, it seems lately I go through them faster than maxi pads, but this lady weirds me out. She hasn't said one word to me, but she sits there talking in Spanish all day and occasionally looking at me. I've taken to calling her Cruella Tijuana behind her back and most definitely when nobody is listening. Don't ask me why..it just made me giggle a bit.

Currently The Beautiful Letdown By Switchfoot see related

Calling in (not) sick

I've always felt that calling in "sick" sounded so limp and woolly, particularly when your ailment is a simple case of not feeling like going into the office, and yet hear I sit in front of my computer in a frumpy t-shirt and panties when I ought to be sitting all cheery at my desk; thanking my lucky stars I still have a job in this troubled economy. I have argued several times that skipping out of a perfectly good job is the portal through which all slackers must pass if they genuinely don't appreciate their job or want to know what it is that differentiates them from a toaster oven or a comfy Barcalounger.

True enough, I don't appreciate my job. Over the past six years, they've taken an otherwise decent job and turned it into a puppy mill. Surfing privileges gone.  Lunch hour curtailed. Breaks shortened. I can't even get up and go pee outside of my regularly scheduled breaks without it affecting my job performance. Yes, I totally understand that its the responsibility of any company to whip the donkey a little more in hopes of getting a little extra productivity, but must they pull away the carrot at the same time? The sad truth is they pay...somewhat decent. That and the fact don't hold a degree in anything beyond the ability to talk my way out of a wet paper bag means I find myself stuck in a job I loathe.
              
                   Clearly I need to start robbing banks (or knuckle down and go back to school).

Today's Positive: Outside of whining about something momentarily outside of my control, I am enjoying having the day off with my 3-year old. Its like a free Saturday in the middle of the week!

Today's Negative:  Ugh. Gotta go to work tomorrow. 

Currently Pleasant Dreams By Ramones see related