Have You Seen Me?

Those of you that are faithful readers of TWIT have learned quite a few tidbits of trivia about Yours Truly.  You know I watch All My Children every day, and you know I will not tolerate carrots and red cabbage in my salads.  Today, I'll let you in on another little secret about me:  I lose things.  I don't like to admit it, but yes, it's true; I lose things. Frequently.  My Dad says it's because I have too much stuff; he's probably right. 

The current lost item is my beloved Foster Grant sunglasses.  They have sentimental value to me.  I bought them 2 years ago with a gift card I'd received for my birthday.  Plus I took them with me on the Divas Las Vegas trip, the trip to St. Louis for my graduate school graduation, and on last year's trip to Nashville and managed not to lose them in another state. 

When I lose something that can be replaced, after a day or two of searching, I'll go out and just buy another one to replace it. This means that the day or two after I get the new item, I'll find the old one.  This is true for about 99% of the things I lose.  Yesterday morning on the way to church, I stopped at the drugstore and got a new pair of Foster Grants, quasi-identical to the ones I lost.  So if the theory holds true, I should find the lost pair in a day or two. 

If you've seen the missing sunglasses (pictured above) and have any information as to their whereabouts, please contact me at puddinprp@aol.com. There is a reward offered.  

Link Of The Week

Everybody likes to get greeting cards - I know I do.  Simply put, it means that someone was thinking of you.  With the internet we can send e-cards any time of the day or night - no more trips to the store to pick out a card. Granted, some of our friends and family have not crossed the Digital Divide and we still have to send them regular cards,  but our peeps that have internet access can get e-cards from us all the time.

When I got my computer and AOL service in 1998, there were tons of free e-card sites to choose from.  Blue Mountain was the most popular.  You could find cards for every occasion and best of all, it was free.  Not any more.  Blue Mountain and most of the other once-free e-card sites are now subscription-only.  Pooh on that.  When Blue Mountain started charging, I scoured the web and found a free alternative:  www.123greetings.com.  They have a huge selection of e-cards for every occasion you can think of.  They also have cards for every holiday, too.  Their homepage has a list of every holiday for the month -  from Christmas to Ground Hog Day to Chocolate Lovers Day.  They also have e-cards for religious holidays for almost every faith and denomination.  Like I said earlier, best of all, the site is free.

Name The New Compound Visitor

Even though we had a few flakes of snow on Friday morning, warmer temperatures and sunshine visited us today.  We also had another visitor, pictured above.  The adorable Husky puppy has been visiting The Compound for the past few days.  He's very friendly, and is cute as can be.  He's not wearing any tag so we don't know who he belongs to.  So naturally when we gave Rocky his daily animal crackers today, we gave the Uknown Puppy some, too.  We haven't gone so far as to leave a bowl with food for this stray, but we'll be neighborly and share Rocky's treats with him as long as he's around.

At first I thought it was a girl and was calling the puppy "Tammy", after the First Lady Of Country Music, Miss Tammy Wynette.  Then for some strange reason, Mom started calling the puppy "Sparkle."  Dad quickly corrected us and said it was in deed a boy.  We're stumped - we don't know what to call the puppy.  That's where I need your help.  I'm asking you, my faithful readers, to please submit a name for us to call the Unknown Puppy.  I will give you a couple of days, and on Wednesday, I will announce the winner.  I'm sorry, but I don't have a prize to give for this contest; you'll just get the satisfaction of knowing that I picked your name as the winner.  I'm looking forward to your suggestions. 

Bizarre Items In Our Garage

1.  Michigan J. Frog driver (golf club) cover
2.  jar of animal crackers
3.  box of Roger Miller and Glen Campbell albums
4.  grocery bag full of white mismatched socks
5.  plastic double-edged hatchet (just a toy, not the real thing)
6.  1960's Coke machine (still works great)
7.  Aggrivation game from the 1970's (still has all of it's game pieces)
8.  Budweiser glass from the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta
9.  case of Tropicana red grapefruit juice
10. big red foam rubber #1 finger (purchased at a U of L football game 5 years ago)

Get Well Soon, Pope John Paul II

Get well soon, Pope John Paul II.  The Catholic church really needs you and your guidance more than ever.  You're in our thoughts and prayers. 

File Under: WTF? Part II

Some friends invited me to dinner last night at a very popular local fish joint, Mike Linnig's. It's located just a couple of miles from my home, right on the banks of the Ohio River.  It's been around for over 70 years.  People drive from all over the county, and even from surrounding counties, just to get their fish.  The atmosphere is very cool, too.  In warmer weather, you can eat outside on the picnic tables, enjoying a cold beverage while you wait for your fish.  They even have a humongous tent set up at the Kentucky State Fair each year, selling their fish. I can't say this enough: Mike's is truly famous for it's fish. 

We were at our table and had just placed our order (we all ordered fish, even the three and a half year old with us) when I saw a couple walk in and sit down at the table across from us.  We were chatting at our table, when I saw the waiter come over to take the couple's order.  The husband ordered a cheeseburger and the wife ordered a steak sandwich.  I almost fell out of my chair.  This was Golden Corral revisited.  Going to a renowned fish place and getting beef made as much sense as the people going to Golden Corral and getting grilled cheese sandwiches.  This couple even called the waiter back a few minutes later, reminding him that they ordered both the cheeseburger and the steak sandwich well done.  I guess they're e-coli conscious. 

I was ranting and raving about this to a friend last night over the phone, and she reasoned "Well, maybe they don't like fish."  Well, maybe they don't.  But there's dozens of places within a 5 mile radius of Mike Linnig's where they could have gone that specialize in steaks and burgers.  It just doesn't make sense. 
 

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

During my 42 years of living, I've had the priviledge of meeting quite a few celebrities.  I guess I was destined to meet the stars - for my 9th birthday, our friends Alice and Ed gave me a very impressive red, white and blue autograph book.  I still have it today, tucked away in my fireproof safety box.  There's only a few blank pages left, one of which is reserved for when I meet Susan Lucci. 

The first celebrity autograph that I got was from country music legend Lynn Anderson.  The year was 1973.  Mom, Dad, Grandpa and I were at the rodeo held during the state fair.  Back in the day, this rodeo was the big thing - it was always held during the fair, and they always had a major country music star as entertainment.  This year, it was Miss "Rose Garden" herself, Lynn Anderson.  At this point in her career, she was a big star.  She'd won a Grammy for "Rose Garden",  and I'd already worn out 2 copies of the 45 from playing it so much. 

Lynn Anderson was not only a big country star, she was also a championship horsewoman. So it was only fitting that she appear at the rodeo and ride out on horseback.  From our seats, we could see her in her aqua-colored cowgirl outfit, standing bedside her horse as she was waiting to ride out.  Grandpa took me over to where she was, and I bravely called her name and asked if I could have her autograph.  As she as signing my book, I snapped a picture with my very cool 126 camera.  She handed me back my prized book, and then asked if I'd like to get my picture taken on her horse.  I could not breathe. Grandpa was the photographer, and while helped me reach the stirrups, I climbed onto the beautiful chestnut mare.  She stood there beside the horse and we all smiled as Grandpa took the picture.  My first encounter with a celebrity will always have a special place in my memory.

Just as stars in the sky fade and sometimes fall, so do these stars.  Unfortunately, when a star falls, they fall hard.  I read last night that a few weeks ago, Lynn Anderson was arrested for shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD from a grocery store.  To make matters worse, she punched the police officer as they were putting her in the squad car.  As if this wasn't bad enough, a couple of weeks before the shoplifting incident, Lynn Anderson was arrested for DUI after police found her passed out in her car on the shoulder of a highway. 

I feel sorry for my one-time idol, Lynn Anderson.  This kinda bothers me.  As for the DUI, she's not the only person that has driven while under the influence; she just happened to get caught.  I'm not condoning driving while you're intoxicated - that's senseless.  There's cabs, buses, limos, and friends and family to haul you home when you shouldn't drive. I'm pretty sure she probably has driven before after she's had a few drinks, so it's not like she got caught doing something that she'd never done before, like murdering her husband or robbing a convenient store at gunpoint.  The DUI arrest really didn't get too much of a reaction from me.  But her shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD at the grocery store was the part that really bothered me.  A country star, with a room full of prestigious awards and gold records, has stooped to shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD. Maybe I would have taken this better had she shoplifted a 3 carat diamond ring.

File Under: WTF?

This weekend, I went to Golden Corral with some friends for supper.  While there, I witnessed a strange occurance: approximately one out of every three people that I passed by going to/from the buffet tables had grilled cheese sandwiches on their plates. 

There was fried chicken, chicken breast tenders, pork loin, roast beef, fish and even steak on the buffet, and these people had their plates piled high with grilled cheese sandwiches.  The people were even waiting in line for grilled cheese sandwiches.  The grill cook couldn't make them fast enough.  It made no sense to me.  This was an all-you-can-eat buffet and people were eating grilled cheese sandwiches - something they could have at home any day of the week.  It's not like you have a huge salad bar at your home, nor have fried chicken every day - these people were passing up those delicacies for a grilled cheese sandwich. 

I thought about this while I was filling my plate and making my salad. The first thing that occurred to me was "Maybe they're all trying to find another Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich so they can put it on eBay."

Once back at my table, I continued to see people coming back to their seats with plates laden down with grilled cheese sandwiches.  I mentioned this oddity to my dining companions, one of whom spoke right up and said "Duhhhh - this is Lent - maybe they're Catholic and can't eat meat."  I immediately replied "Duhhhh - look at the calendar.  This is Saturday - Catholics don't eat meat on FRIDAYS during Lent."  Not one to be outdone, he said "Well, maybe they're Catholic and gave up meat on Saturdays for Lent."  My other dining companion put his two cents worth in and said "Oh, I don't think that's legal.  I think when Catholics give up something for Lent, it's got to be something for the entire time of Lent, not just something they give up for one day a week.  They're already giving up meat on Fridays - I can't believe they would give up meat for 2 days in a row." Silence fell over the table.  I just shook my head and started eating my fried chicken. 

Farewell, John Raitt

I was sad to read this morning that musical great John Raitt had died.  John was 88.  His death was due to complications from pneumonia.  It's equally sad that most people knew him only as guitar great Bonnie Raitt's father.  In his later years, John was overshadowed by his daughter's fame.  He once said "She used to be known as John Raitt's daughter; now I'm known as onnie Raitt's father."

John Raitt was best known for his starring role in Roger and Hammerstein's "Carousel."  I love the old musicals, and this has always been one of my favorites.  In 1944, Raitt had been invited to New York to audition for the starring role of Curly in "Oklahoma!".  He rushed to the theater for his audition with Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein. He said he hadn't sung in a few days, so he warmed up with Figaro's aria from "The Barber of Seville" and then sang all of Curly's songs from the musical.  He said when he finished singing, there was dead silence in the theater.  He said he thought he'd sang great, and asked them what was wrong.  They said that his voice wasn't the problem; the problem was he was too tall for Curly.  He reasoned with them "I'm a tall man. Why can't Curly be tall?"  He was hired.  After his run in "Oklahoma!" ended, he took the lead role in "Carousel."  He also crossed over into film, co-starring with Doris Day in "The Pajama Game."

I know some of you might not know this interesting Puddin trivia factoid, but I love the old musicals.  "Carousel", "Music Man", "Guys and Dolls" and "Oklahoma!" are my favorites. And I actually knew who John Raitt was long before I knew who his daughter was.    Not only did I love to hear him sing, he also had very pretty hair.

Our prayers and sympathies go out to Bonnie and the rest of the Raitt family. 

Link Of The Week

I love a good sense of humor and witty sarcasm. That's really the reason I started TWIT - I felt my sense of humor and sarcastic wit was too great to be kept to myself, and needed to be shared with the world wide web.  Some of the fan letters I've received say that my sense of humor, wit and sarcasm is why they read TWIT every day.  What a compliment.  While I graciously take compliments, I'm first to compliment others on a job well done. 

I'd liek to give props to my new friend KG.  He's the son of  friend/co-worker, and after reading his writings for the past few years, I felt like we'd already met.  OK.  We didn't meet-meet, but we did meet through an exchange of emails.  KG used to write a weekly essay/story/sordid tale in LEO newspaper titled Brain Farts.  That gig ended two years ago, leaving KG's faithful readers brain fartless.  Not to fear.  KG just opened a website that includes all of his previously published Brain Farts, as well as new Brain Farts.  I urge you to visit www.brainfartsonline.com and check him out.

Brain Farts has received the TWIT seal of approval.

Technical Difficulties. . . Please Stand By

The gremlins are at it again with AOL.  For the past 2 days, I've gotten reports from you, my faithful readers, saying that when you try to leave a comment you get an ugly error message that says "The owner of this journal has blocked you from adding comments."  Hog wash. I even got the same error myself when I added a comment last night.  I just notified AOL about this and they've assured me the glitch will be fixed.  So please PLEASE don't think that I'm blocking any of you - you know how much I enjoy reading your comments. 

Thank you for your continued support of TWIT.

Farewell, Sammi Smith

I was sad to read that 70s country star Sammi Smith died last week.  She was only 61.  Sammi was singing professionally at clubs in southern California when she was only 12 years old, and was married three years later (just like country mega star Loretta Lynn). 

I'm sure her name is foreign to most of my faithful readers.  But she was a trendsetter, and was considered part of Waylon and Willie's outlaw movement of the early 70s.  She pushed the envelope and recorded songs other women [and some men] singers thought were too controversial.  The biggest hit of her career is was a song written by Kris Kristofferson, "Help Me Make It Through The Night."   It won her a Grammy Award for best country performance by a female, and won the Grammy for Kristofferson for song of the year.  It will forever be on my list of top ten country songs of all time.  You heard such an emotion and feeling in her voice when she sang this song - something that you don't hear it many singers today;  Trisha Yearwood, Linda Ronstadt and the late Patsy Cline are the only ones that come to mind. When Sammi sang "I don't want to be alone, help me make it through the night" you felt her pain. 

We'll miss you, Sammi.  But you definitely left a legacy in country music.

 

Take the ribbon from my hair
Shake it loose and let it fall
Layin' soft against your skin
Like the shadow on the wall

Come and lay down by ma side
Till the early mornin' light
All I'm takin' is your time
Help me make it through the night

I don't care what's right or wrong
'n' I won't try to understand
Let the devil take tomorrow
Lord, tonight I need a friend

Yesterday is dead and gone
And tomorrow's out of sight
And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

I don't want to be alone
Help me make it through the night

Cliffhanger Friday

All of my faithful readers know how much I love "All My Children."  My love for the soaps goes back to watching "Days Of Our Lives" and "Search For Tomorrow" with my Grandma.  I loved the drama and enjoyed watching all of the beautiful people.  I liken our company to a soap opera.  Unfortunately, there's not many of the beautiful people hear, but there is no shortage of drama.  There's another similarity between soap operas and our company: cliffhanger Friday. 

On the daily soaps, the big cliffhanger of the week generally happens at the end of Friday's episode.  Then we have to wait all weekend to see what will happen to Erica and the gang.  It's not much different here.  It's a proven, documented fact that most of the drama that occurs here at ZCO happens on a Friday afternoon, usually late in the day, after the plant has gone home, and after most managers and/or anyone who has authority to make decisions has left early.  This especially holds true for my department, since we work closely with the plant and the plant supervisors.  It's not uncommon for us to find out at 4:10 on a Friday afternoon that a truck shipment of parts wasn't delivered as promised and would not be here until Monday afternoon.  It's a cliffhanger all weekend, wondering if they will send the night shift workers home on Sunday night or ask for volunteers from Monday morning's day shift to go home because they can't run the lines without the delayed parts.  So we those involved in this drama wait and wonder all weekend what will happen Monday, re: will we get ripped for making a bad call. 

Today, I'm involved in my own Cliffhanger Friday.  My boss is on vacation next week, so we'll be taking up her slack next week.  I'll be doing my regular work plus her daily work.  I'm not ashamed to say I'm dreading next week.  We've told her how much her time off makes us appreciate all of the seemingly little things she does for us.  Next week, we'll be answering her many many calls from the plant supervisors and office managers, as well as taking care of all of the problems that she normally would handle.  So on my own Cliffhanger Friday, I'd much rather be waiting to get a jury's verdict about my guilt or innocence or be waiting to hear DNA results like on AMC this week.

Puddin vs. Rumpke, Part 2

Flash back to late summer 2004: 
The battle between me and Rumpke Waste Removal was raging.  For those that don't remember, let me give a quick recap.  Every Thursday morning between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., Rumpke Waste Removal comes to the little store two houses down from us here at The Compound and empties the store's dumpster.  Dumpster Man is not very quiet when he empties the dumpster; we are all awaken by the sounds similar to the Shock and Awe phase of the Iraqi war.  I fully understand that there's really no quiet way to e empty one of those big metal dumpsters, but does he really have to do it at 3 in the morning when everybody is trying to sleep?

Flash forward to today: 
At 2:30 this morning, our house, and all of the inhabitants in the houses on each side of us, was roused from our sleep when Dumpster man banged the dumpster into the truck six times.  Yes, six times.  Once is sufficient to wake us all up, but there must have been a banana peel or something stuck in the bottom of the dumpster to make him bang it six times.  I was on the verge of running down the street in my pajamas and yelling at Dumpster Man "If it takes you six tries to empty the dumpster into your truck, maybe you should look for another job or at least go back for more training." 

As soon as I got to work, I started calling Rumpke.  According to my meticulously kept phone records, today is the 12th time I've called them in about a year's time.  Of course, the route manager that I need to speak with is never in.  Once again, as it was with the other 11 times I've called, I got his voice mail and left a message.  But today, it was a different message. Today, there was attitude to my tone of voice.  Before I started my well rehearsed message, I said to myself  "How would Erica Kane handle this?"  Not having millions of dollars to buy the company, I would just have to use the Erica tone-of-voice.  It must have worked because today the route manager actually called me back.  He listened to my speech and then he said he would personally speak to that driver and make sure he comes no earlier than 7:00 on Thursday mornings.  He even gave me the number of his direct line, and asked me to call him next Thursday morning to report how thing were.  I'll keep you posted. 

Happy Refrigerator Day

We love celebrating holidays at work.  If it's a major government-recognized holiday, we get a day off.  As an added bonus, on the first work day after a big holiday, there's usually some holiday leftovers in the lunchroom for all to share.  There's another holiday we celebrate here at ZCO - in fact, we celebrate it once every 3 months: Refrigerator Day.

For those of you unfamiliar with Refrigerator Day, let me explain.  It's celebrated four times a year - in February, May, August, and November - during the middle of the month.  Refrigerator Day is the day we get our quarterly retirement fund statements.  The name was given to this event years ago when a manager who was handing out the statements to their employees said "you can hang hang this on your refrigerator door."  To quote a co-worker this morning, "It's too depressing to put it up where I can see it everyday.  I usually throw it in a file foler in my closet.  Retirement is so far away for me, that the numbers don't mean anything."  Well put.

The way the stock market has been post 9/11, it truly has been depressing to look at our statements and think "Wow - this is my future?"  But with the recent revival, the quarterly report we received yesterday was the first one in a few years that didn't turn our stomachs.  Our retirement fund gained almost as much in just the fourth quarter last year than it did for the entire year of 2004.  While we were happy with the figures, there was a downside - when the statements are passed out, we have to endure an unpleasantry:  anyone within 10 years of retirement has to let you know that they're "close" to retiring.  It was one afternoon you didn't want to go to the lunchroom for the afternoon break; alot of people just kept to themselves when they got their statement. 

In A Perfect Paperless Society

When our company started using Outlook for email back in 1996, everybody thought it would be the biggest timesaver there was.  Even though the company was quite archaic, we were taking our first steps in crossing the Digital Divide.  People were hesitant to use it at first, IT people played up the advantages of becoming a Paperless Society.  Email was supposed to make paper go away; there would be not mre stacks of correspondance to shuffle through and clutter up our desks - just emails to send, read and delete. In a perfect world, that's how it would/should be.  Not at our company.  People here do read and respond to their emails, but they also print them out.  But not only do thy print them out, they leave the printed copies at the printer and never pick them up. 

You can go to the printer that I use any time of the day and find a stack of printed emails a quarter inch thick in the tray beside the printer.  Scattered among the printed emails are countless recipes, Mapquest directions and online coupons that someone just HAD to print out, and yet never picked them up.  You're probably thinking "Dang, Puddin.  Don't be so hardcore - maybe they picked them up after you were at the printer."  Au contraire.  The majority of the printed emails et al are usually a week old.  I thought this was an isolated incident that only occurred on the printer that I use, but after consulting with a few co-workers here, the problem is wide-spread.

There is a bright side to all of this waste,  however. Whenever you go to the printer and look in the tray for your printout, on occasion you will stumble across some top secret information that [once again] someone printed out but forgot to pick up.  You can find some very interesting inside information this way.  Before you condemn me once again, for the record let me say that it's not like I go to the printer with the intent of just looking through the tray for confidential information; usually, my printouts somehow get put on the bottom of the stack. I could print something, immediately get up from my desk and walk down the hall to get my printout, and in the 60 seconds that has lapsed, someone else has already taken my printout and stuck in the tray with a dozen other printouts on top of it.   I should feel lucky, though. At least we have a trayby the printer I use; the other printers down here don't have that luxury.  On one of the printers in our engineering department, some one takes the printouts and lays them all out on an empty desk. 

Valentines Greetings To My Faithful Readers

It's not my intentions of overlooking someone or making any of you feel slighted, but I've just got to give a public thank you to a few of my faithful readers today. 

I'd like to give a big shout out to my friends in the Accounting department here at ZCO.  Not only did they give me Moose Track ice cream this afternoon, they are some of my most faithful readers.  The departments here on the first floor don't celebrate holidays and other occasions like they do upstairs, and the Accounting department always has candy and other snacks sitting out in their department for us to grab when we are passing through.  Plus, they invite us up for snacks at their pitch-in dinners, too.  You all rock. 

Thanks for taking the time every day to read TWIT. 

Things I Love

1.  my BMW
2.  Pancho and Pedro (my miniature donkeys)
3.  artichoke hearts
4.  my music, movie, and tv memorabilia
5.  Insight broadband
6.  steaks cooked medium rare
7.  eBay
8.  staying home on a Saturday night and doing nothing
9.  going to concerts, escpecially having front row seats
10. being able to type 100 words a minute

Link Of The Week

What's in a name?  "Carla" is not a very popular name.  It's not like Brittany or Heather in terms of popularity, but I like it.  My parents chose my name because I was originally supposed to be named Carl Jr. after my father, but playing the chromosone cards they were dealt, my parents had to compromise a bit but still named me after my father. 

You can see how popular your name has been.  Just go to http://www.birthdayalarm.com/NamePopularity.jsp?MID=964 and enter your first name and you'll see where your name ranked in previous years.  For instance, "Carla" ranked 82 out of the top 1000 names chosen for babies in the 60's.

 

 

Happy Anniversary, Red Wing Shoes

Now that's a really big shoe. Nuff said.

It's Just @#$%& Bread

A few years ago, urban sprawl invaded our south end of the county.  When MSD (Metropolitan Sewer District) installed sewers all along Dixie Highway (the main road in this area) restaurants started popping up overnight it seemed.  O'Charley's, Logan's Steakhouse and Texas Roadhouse are a few of the most popular places that opened.  Besides having great food and reasonable prices, these restaurants share another common denominator: free dinner rolls.

I'm not a naive person, and not alot surprises me any more.  But this blows my mind: you're talking about restaurants and say "Texas Roadhouse is good", and the response you will get is 'I love Texas Roadhouse.  They have the best rolls."  Ohhhhkay.  I always want to respond with "Oh, I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear.  We're talking about a STEAK place, not a bakery."  But come on -- they're just rolls. 

The part that irritates me the most is that these restaurants always bring you the bread before your meal, and we just shove it in like we haven't eaten in a month.  A couple of the restaurants make it worse by giving flavored butter with the rolls.  We pay a good chunk of change for a steak or other entree, and we waste our appetite by bingeing on bread before the meal arrives.  We get filled up on bread while waiting on a $20 steak to arrive.  Our steak finally arrives, and we don't finish it because we're too full of bread.  So now we've spent $20 on a steak and didn't eat it all because we wasted our appetite on FREE bread.  It's not like they brought us free shrimp; they brought BREAD.  You're probably thinking "Puddin, you can always take the rest of your steak home."  That's crazy.  A hot steak [hopefully] right off of the grill is ten times better than a reheated steak.  I'm not paying $20 to eat half a steak and eat the other half reheated. 

Logans and Texas Roadhouse make it even worse -- they have buckets of free peanuts on every table.  So those that don't particularly like the bread can gorge themselves with the free peanuts.  It's the same way with Mexican restaurants.  We gorge ourselves on the free chips and salsa and when our piping hot meal that we paid for arrives, we're too full to eat it.  They should bring you the bread (and peanuts and chips and salsa) after the meal.  Then you would be able to eat and enjoy the meal that you paid for. But this is never the case.

The next time there's a lull in a conversation you're having, start talking about a steakhouse, and say "They have the best ribeye" and see for yourself.  Trust me - someone WILL say "They have the best bread."

Lettuce Fix You A Salad

I love a good salad.  In this case, my definition of "good" would be a salad without celery, radishes, cucumbers, carrots and red cabbage.  In other words, I don't like many vegetables on my salad; tomatoes, onions and a few pieces of green pepper are about it for veggie salad ingredients.  Of course, I'll pile on mushrooms, cheese and chopped egg if available.  But I'm just not keen on alot of veggies in my salad.  When I eat out, I'll usually order a Caesar salad so I don't have to spend 10 minutes picking out the stuff I don't like.  In all honesty, I order the Caesar salad just so I won't embarrass my dining companions by digging  vegetables out of my plate. 

When dining with someone not easily annoyed, I'll ask the server if the salads are prepackaged.  I this case, "prepackaged" means the lettuce comes with the aggrivating pieces of carrots and red cabbage and they're so small you'll need surgical tweezers to dig them out.  A few restaurants actually still make their salads from scratch, and they'll make a salad for me without the carrots and cabbage if I ask.  I keep a mental list of such restaurants so I know when and when not to ask about the prepackaged salads; heaven forbid I get a PAT confused when they're taking my order.

Sometimes, I have no choice but to order the salad with the dreaded carrots and red cabbage -- I don't like many other vegetables other than green beans, so a salad is one of the few veggie side dishes I'll eat.  When I get carry-out from one of the steak places or fish places, I'll get the prepackaged salad because I'm able to pick out the carrots and red cabbage from the safety of my own home.  It drives my Dad crazy to see me pick out the stuff, but if I 've paid for the meal, he'll let it go unnoticed. 

Don't Give Away Cookies Or You'll Get Sued

Girls sued for delivering cookies

DURANGO, Colorado (AP) -- Two teenage girls who surprised their neighbors with homemade cookies late one night were ordered to pay nearly $900 in medical bills for a woman who says she was so startled that she had to go to the hospital.

Judge Doug Walker declined Thursday to award punitive damages, saying he did not believe the girls acted maliciously.

Taylor Ostergaard, 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, 18, baked the chocolate chip and sugar cookies one night last July. They made packages with a half-dozen cookies each and added large red or pink construction-paper hearts that carried the message, "Have a great night."  The notes were signed with their first initials: "Love, The T and L Club."  Then they set off to make their deliveries.

Wanita Renea Young, 49, said she was at her rural home south of Durango around 10:30 p.m. when she said saw "shadowy figures" outside the house banging repeatedly on her door.  She yelled, "Who's there?" but no one answered, and the figures ran away.  Frightened, she spent the night at her sister's home, then went to the hospital the next morning because she was still shaking and had an upset stomach.

The teenagers' families offered to pay Young's medical bills, but she declined and sued, saying their apologies were not sincere and were not offered in person.  The girls declined comment after the ruling. Taylor's mother said the girl "cried and cried." "She felt she was being punished for doing something nice," Jill Ostergaard said.

Young said the teenagers showed "very poor judgment"  "The victory wasn't sweet," Young said. "I'm not gloating about it. I just hope the girls learned a lesson."

The teens said they did not answer when the woman called out because they wanted the treats to be a surprise.

 

People are pretty quick to criticize teenagers when they get in trouble, and after dealing with PATs in the retail area, I'm usually the first to diss them.  But here we have two teenage girls who decided to stay home, instead of going out to a dance where the is always the possibility of trouble, and bake cookies to give to their neighbors.  And now some old biddy sues the poor girls. I bet she probably scours the aisles in stores for the "caution: wet floor" signsjust so she can fake a fall and try to sue thestore.  I'd even bet her old man has jumped on the lawsuit bandwagon and sued the poor girls saying that his wife can't perform her wifely duties as a result of the anxiety attack brought on by the plate of cookies. 

Another article in the Durango Herald said that the other eight sets of neighbors that received plates of cookies were just delighted that the girls thought enough of them to stay home on a Friday night and bake cookies for them.  They all said that Taylor and Lindsey were good girls.  I'm sure they are.   

The article in the Herald also said that Taylor's father had taken out a restraining order against Young's husband, ordering him to stop making harassing phone calls to them.  Now correct me if I'm wrong - but doesn't something seem a bit odd, here?  This woman and her husband are home, she hears a knock at the door and answers it and doesn't see anyone there, yet she's scared to death and doesn't stay there with her HUSBAND WHO IS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HIS WIFE and instead goes to her sister's for the night? 

I think it's a safe bet that the Young family won't be getting any baked goods from their neighbors for a long, long time. 

Tag - You're It

My family is a Hanes underwear family, mainly because my Mom is leading the boycott against Fruit of the Loom.  She and Dad were union members during their years at Brown and Williamson, so my family has always been supportive of other unions.  Out of solidarity, we've not shopped at stores where striking union employees were picketing, and recently, we've not bought products from companies who close their U.S. factories and relocate to some third world country where they can hire cheap labor.  Fruit of the Loom did just this.  They closed their Bowling Green, KY factory and opened a sweat shop, I mean, factory, in Mexico.  A few thousand people lost their jobs.  So that's why my family doesn't buy Fruit of the Loom products.  I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Hanes has foreign factories, too, but my Mother hasn't found about it yet.  This concludes our lesson on the evils of NAFTA.

My family has been buying Hanes and Hanes Her Way products for over ten years. No matter what time fo the year you need to buy a new pack of underwear, at least one of the major discount stores will have them on sale any given week of the year.  Over a year ago, Hanes went tagless and had Jackie Chan and Michael Jordan appear in the commercials for their tagless t-shirts and underwear. Even though Hanes makes high quality products that they sell at reasonable prices, I have one bone to pick with them -- they discriminate against the women.  The men's products were all tagless, but the women's still had the tags in them.  It's not like they annoyed me so much that cut out the tags each time I bought a Hanes t-shirt at a concert or got a new pack of Hanes Her Way underwear, but it was the point -- if the men's products were tagless, then by Ned the women's should be tagless, too. 

Favorite Super Bowl Commercials

1. Verizon - chimpanzees talking on bananas chattering "Can you hear me now?" and shaking their heads "yes".  An oldie but a goodie. 

2. Careerbuilder.com - monkeying around.  Monkeys are funny an any commercial.  The monkeys wearing shirts and ties were a scream.  Each of the three commecials had a star:  the first commercial showed one monkey sitting on the copier copying his butt, the second commercial has one of the monkeys putting whoopee cushions in everyones chairs at the table during a meeting, and the third was the one that we could all relate to - the boss monkey was bending over while another monkey was kissing his ass.  These get my vote as my favorite new Super Bowl commercials.

3. MBNA - Gladys Knight playing rugby.  She gets the ball, scores and sings wearing a red beaded gown.  This just struck me as hilarious, I guess because she's probably the most unlikely person to be in a rugby game.  I laughed for 5 minutes over this. 

4. Budweiser - the animals want in.  An elephant, giraffe, goats, and other animals are waiting outside of the Clydesdale stables. Since they let the donkey be a part of the team, they want in, too.  The closing shot is a pig running down the road with white furry things on this legs, resembling the white hair on the Clydesdales legs.  Once again, almost any commercial with animals in it will be funny, especially if the animals talk. 

5. Lays potato chips - Hammer time.  After some kids lose their baseball over the neighbors fence, they throw a bag of Lays over. The neighbor starts throwing things back like the ball, Scruffy the lost dog, and their dad's old '72 Impala. Then they throw MC Hammer, complete with his big pants, over the fence. The kids threw Hammer back as he says "Hey! You can't touch this." Good job, kids

6. Bud Light - Cedric the designated driver. Cedric is in a crowded dance club and someone yells across the room at him and asks if he wants a Bud Light.  Of course the guy can't hear him.  Cedric says no and mouths "I'm the designated driver" as he is acts like his hands are on the steering wheel.  The dancers see this and they all start making the driving motion, too.  Not one of the better Bud Light Cedric commericials, but I thought it was the funniest Bud Light commercial of the game.

7. Diet Pepsi - Staying Alive. Any commercial that plays disco music gets my vote.  The hottie guy is drinking a Diet Pepsi as he's strutting down the street a la John Travolta while the Bee Gees are singing "Staying Alive."  His admirers include Cindy Crawford and Carson from "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy."  I had to explain to my parents who Carson was, and for the record, Cindy Crawford is 39 years old. 

8. McDonalds - Famous french fry. This was a satire mocking the infamous Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich hoopla a few months ago.  A guy gets a french fry that looks like Abraham Lincoln. He puts it on Ebay and sells it to a Japanese businessman. The guy also has a chicken tender that looks like Benjamin Franklin, but his pregnant wife grabs it out of his hand and eats it. So go to McDonald's and you might get some food that looks like a dead famous person.

9. Ameriquest - Costly mistake.  A guy is in a convenience store talking to someone on his cell phone with the hands-free ear piece and microphone.  He tells them they're getting robbed on their mortage. The clerks think they're getting robbed and spray him with pepper spray, hit him with a baseball bat, and use a taser on him. 

10. Verizon - V Cast.  Now you can get broadband video on your cellphone.  They showed a tiny Kid Rock getting out of a limo as a full-size Pamela Anderson look-alike is waiting for him on the red carpet. The funniest was a tiny Deion Sanders holding up a huge diamond and gold necklace to his posse saying "Is this bling too big?" 

Most annoying Super Bowl Commercials
Cialis - Just your basic erectile-dysfunction commercial. Nothing out of the ordinary. But one question comes to our mind. We get Paul McCartney for the halftime show in order to avoid another Nipplegate, but Cialis is still allowed to warn about the dangers of four-hour erections?''

Pepsi - Music under the cap.  Every time someone opened a bottle of Pepsi a loud annoying song would play. Over and over and over.  Pepsi could do much better for a Super Bowl commercial. 

Way To Go Pats!!!

Way to go, Pats!! TWIT would like to congratule the New England Patriots on their outstanding Super Bowl win last night.  In case you haven't read the papers, listened to the radio, nor watched TV, the Pats beat the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21.  This was the Pats' third Super Bowl win in four years.  I'm glad to hear the reporters and commentators now using the term "dynasty" when they refer to the Patriots. Until a few years ago, they were a sleeper team - a team not many people paid attention to (unless you live in the New England states).

I was happy to see such a close game - I didn't want to see either team run away with the game and win 49-0.  And thank goodness there was only one coach's challenge in last night's game, unlike the last playoff game two weeks ago.  In the game between the Pats and the Steelers, it seemed like ever other play was a coach's challenge.  And the bummer part was they didn't have new commercials to show during the referee's reviewing of the play. 

TWIT would like to give a special shout out to Deion Branch for being named the MVP of last night's game.  He deserved it.  In a week filled with nothing but talk about Philadelphia's Terrell Owens, Deion made them all sit up and take notice last night.  We're very proud of our Louisville boy - I fondly remember many an evening or afteroon sitting in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium watching Deion play.  Little did we know that his years of being a Cardinal would get him on the path to being Super Bowl MVP. 

Link Of The Week

Since I'm in such a good mood today, I'm giving you, my faithful readers, a double dose of the Link of the Week.  I had already planned to include the first one, but I just stumbled upon the second one when I signed onto AOL this afternoon and it was too good to wait till next week. 

In case you've been out of the country for a few weeks and read no newspapers nor watched any TV, today is Super Bowl Sunday.  In a few hours, the New England Patriots [hopefully] will pummel the Philadelphia Eagles into the ground.  If you're like me and most of my friends and family, the commercials they play during the Super Bowl are truly the most entertaining part of the whole event (not withstanding last year's infamous wardrobe malfunction).  My favorites are the Budweiser and Bud Light commercials, especially the ones with Cedric the Entertainer.  In case you're partying too much tonight and miss them, later tonight or tomorrow you can go to the official Super Bowl website, www.superbowl.com, and watch the commercials.  Last year at work, the Monday after Super Bowl was a busy day for Internet Explorer, as most of us were watching the commercials throughout the day.  Shhhh.  Don't tell our bosses. 

Your bonus Link Of The Week made me honestly laugh out loud.  It's  simply 7 pictures of babies and the celebrities that they look like.  It's a scream. The picture of the baby that looks like Toby McGuire is the funniest.  http://parenting.aol.com/parenting/onlyonaol/0,19766,1022270_1020515_1,00.html

Big Valley Days

Today was an awesome day.  I got to veg out and sit on the couch all morning and watch tv.  I was able to catch a Big Valley marathon on the Hallmark Channel.  I was in heaven. When I was a kid, my favorite tv show was Big Valley.  I would watch it every week.  The Barkley family was the 60's version of the Ewings.  They had everything in their big western mansion.  The coolest thing to me was the fact that the Barkley women wore pants. How cool was that?  Even as a little kid, I guessed that they had so much money and power, that nobody dared reprimand the women for wearing pants. 

When I was a kid, we had a horse, and the kids next door had ponies.  When we would ride together, we would play Big Valley.  Our horse was the biggest, so I got to play mother Victoria Barkley.  The other kids just had ponies, so they got to be the Barkley kids (Audra, Heath, Nick or Jarred).  We had a ball. 

When the weather was bad and we couldn't get out to ride our horses, I would play Big Valley indoors.  I would get my big red stuffed animal dog, and tie a rope around its neck, and would sit it in front of one of the end tables.  I would carefully take all of the books and things off of the table, and the climb on top of it and in an instant, it would be magically transformed into a stagecoach.  I would get some of my dolls and sit them on the table with me and they would be the Barkley kids.  I would sit there on top of the table for hours, just playing by myself.  Mom and Grandma didn't seem to mind that I had stuffed animals and doll in the family room - as long as I was guiet and not getting into any trouble, they were cool with it.

The flood of memories came back to me this afternoon when I was watching Big Valley.  I started thinking about the kids next door, and where they are in their lives right now.  Between the three of them, they collectively have 10 kids, 3 grandkids, and have been through 6 marriages.  But I just kept thinking of all of the fun we had when we rode our horses and played Big Valley.  Nothing else mattered back then. Our parents knew we would be safe, and didn't have to worry about us getting into too much trouble. The only place we rode was in our fenced in fields, so it wasn't like we could go too far.  Our parents didn't worry about someone abducting us from our own yards, nor did they worry about someone selling us drugs or anything.  All we had to do was make sure we were back to the barns before supper time.  If things were only that simple today.

I'm NOT A Bleachorexic

Ever since the first time I saw Farrah Fawcett on TV, I've always wanted pearl-white teeth.  This is very ironic, given the fact that until two years ago I was petrified to go to the dentist.  I've always brushed and flossed like I should, and other than not going to the dentist on a regular basis, I practiced good oral hygiene.  It's not like I had black teeth or anything - I just wanted whiter teeth. 

When Topol (the smoker's toothpaste) came out, I tried a few tubes.  If it could make nicotine-stained teeth white again, then surely it would make my teeth look like I'd painted them with White-Out correction fluid.  But I couldn't see any difference.  I didn't smoke, and I blamed it on being a coffee drinker.  But I loved my coffee too much to give it up, so I kept on trying all of new whitening toothpastes as soon as they came out.  Friends would reassure me that my teeth were fine.  But I wanted them white.  When the Crest Whitening strips came out on the market, I think I was the first person in Louisville to buy a box.  Still no luck.  By now, you're probably thinking "Wow, her teeth must really be dingey."  But in all honesty, they're not; they're just not as white as I would like them. 

I started watching "Extreme Makeovers" and became envious of the people that were getting those expensive Da Vinci porcelin veneers on their teeth.  I could have gotten them, too, but I would have had to sell my BMW, all of my guitars, and start selling my eggs to a fertility clinic to get the $12,000 for a full set.  My luck changed in November.  I had finished all of my dental work, and my teeth were in great shape.  So I asked my dentist about getting them "professionally" whitened.  He said they could take care of it there at the dental school.  I was elated.  I couldn't wait to get my whitening kit and be on my way to a dazzling smile. I hardly slept the night before my appointment, I was so excited.  They gave me the dental tray, which is nothing but clear plastic covers that are fitted to my teeth.  I put them on over my teeth to make sure they fit, and when I looked in the mirror and smiled, you really couldn't tell I had anything on over my teeth.  All I do is put a tiny drop of the whitening paste in each tooth of the tray and wear the trays for an hour each day.  It's that simple.   I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago so they could see how the treatment was going, and when he held up a fake tooth that was the color of my teeth when we started the treatment, you could actually tell a difference!  Finally, something worked. 

I had just gotten in bed last night when a friend called and told me to turn the TV to ABC - she said there was a news story coming up that I needed to watch.  She's a real comedienne. The title of the story was "Bleachorexics Risk Much For White Smile."  The dentists interviewed for this story called the whitening junkies "bleachorexics" - people wanting a whiteness that no amount of bleaching will ever produce.  One woman on the story used the tray like I have, and instead of using it an hour a day like the dentists recommend, she was using it for 4 or 5 hours a day, and sometimes leaving it in overnight.  Her gums started to turn purple.  I'm happy to report that while I did try almost every whitening product that came out over the past 10 years, I do not consider myself a bleachorexic.  I use my whitening tray one hour a day faithfully.  I watch the clock closely and take it out as soon as 60 minutes have passed.  So you'll never see me with purple gums; you'll just see me with a whiter smile. 

As If The War In Iraq Isn't Bad Enough...

I'm sure all Americans watching the evening news Monday night gasped in horror when sketchy details were released saying that a U.S. soldier had been kidnapped by Iraqi militants and was being held hostage. The news even showed a photo of a young soldier dressed in desert fatigues with his hands behind his back, sitting in front of a banner with Arabic writing on it as a rifle is pointed at his head.  We were all relieved the next day when military officials confirmed that no U.S. soldiers were missing in Iraq.  But that joy turned to disbelief and anger when the military went on to say that the captured soldier in the photo was a G.I. Joe doll and that the picture was a hoax.

The photograph was posted on the web site of Jihadi Battalion, an Iraqi militant group, along with a statement that said they were holding other soldiers hostage.  At first glance, the picture looks authentic.  But when you lok at the picture of the doll in its packaging, you can see they're they same "person."  The doll manufacturer said it was their "Cody" action figure, and that these dolls were sold in at U.S. military bases in Kuwait. 

There's not much I will say about this hoax other than it's sick and twisted.  But then again, this hoax was staged in the same region where the nineteen 9/11 terrorist hijackers came from so I guess it's par for the course. 

Breaking AMC News

I have sad news for all of you AMC watchers - Eden Riegel is leaving the soap at the end of the month.  There is no official word concerning what will happen to her character Bianca.  The AMC writers are good, but I think they've exhausted their supply of crises for Pine Valley's beloved Bianca.  Here's some of the things that's happened to Bianca since Riegel took over the role of Bianca in 2000:

*Became anorexic and went to rehab
*Came out to her mother Erica Kane (as a lesbian, not as a debutante) and was rejected by her
*Saw her first girlfriend shot to death
*Raped by the evil Michael Cambias
*Became pregnant as a result of the rape
*Murdered Michael Cambias and repressed it while everyone else in Pine Valley covered for her  and said that they killed him
*Helped her sister Kendall fake pregnancy, saying that she was the woman pregnant by Michael Cambias
*Watched anxiously as her sister Kendall perjured herself, saying that she was the one that killed Michael Cambias
*Finally remembered she killed Michael Cambias in self defense when her sister's fake pregnancy  was exposed in the courtroom during her murder trial
*Delivered baby Miranda, only to have the baby switched with Babe and J.R.'s baby, and was told  that Miranda died in a hospital transport helicopter crash
*Almost died from the birth and was in the hospital for weeks
*Her girlfriend went back to her native Poland while she was still in the hospital
*Dumped by her girlfriend via a phone call from Poland on Thanksgiving Day
*Finally found out that Miranda was still alive, after being deceived by her friend Babe
*Pushed off a balcony during an argument with J.R., when he refused to believe his baby was  really Miranda
*In a coma the week before Christmas
*Came out of the coma just as the doctors and family were discussing the possibility of putting  her on a ventilator, and saw her mother Erica holding her baby Miranda in front of her
*Became even wealthier when Miranda received half of the Cambias billion dollar fortune as a  Cambias heir

File Under: WTF?

I always watch "Good Morning, America" while I'm getting ready for work; there's just something about Diane Sawyer that makes me trust her.  Sure, she's a hometown girl from here in Louisville, and that's a valid reason that we all should like her, but her demeanor and the way she carries herself makes me really trust her. If I develop some uncurable, fatal disease, Diane Sawyer is the one I want telling me I have 2 days to live.  This morning on GMA, she made a comment that made me like her even more than I already do: after Cynthia McFadden gave her report on the Michael Jackson trial jury selection, Diane said to Charlie Gibson "What is up with those armbands?" I would have given her high-five if I'd been there with her in the ABC studios.

Just about every picture I've seen of Michael Jackson going to or from the courtroom or jail shows him wearing a big wide armband, the size of the ones that MPs wear.  Even the artists' drawings from inside the courtroom show the armbands. There's never any symbols or letters or numbers on his armbands; they're just plain, colored armbands.  Yesterday, he had on a dark yellow armband with his white suit.  I've seen him wearing white, black, and red armbands, too. 

The only thing I can think of is maybe this is his version of the current trend of wearing the different colored rubber wristbands - like the yellow LiveStrong bands, or the pink ones for breast cancer, or the red ones for AIDS awareness.  Maybe his armbands mean "I had an album that sold more copies than any album in the history of recorded music and now look at me."