Random Thoughts

It sure isn’t, is it.  You tell them.  And go ahead, put in a little bit of sarcasm.

…suddenly decided to raise their minimum payment from 2% to 5%.  In my case this meant that my monthly payment went from $303 to $744.  

I’ve never missed a payment, I’ve never been late…hey, I’m a model citizen.  This isn’t cz I breached any part of the agreement.

This is apparently because Chase is furious with us cardholders because, when several years ago they sent out balance transfer offers of around 3.9% fixed for life—-get this—-we had the unmitigated gall to ACCEPT! 

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Do you think Tom Cruise sat around thinking,

“Everyone in the world hates me.  They think I’m arrogant, they think I’m a religious nut, they think my whole marriage is just for show, and they just think I’m freaky pyscho insane in general.   I mean, thank God for George Bush and Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears…if it weren’t for them, every entertainment show on TV would just be thirty minutes about me.

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What the heck is with all the video games out now with Lego® people in them?  Star Wars®, Raiders of the Lost Ark®, now Batman®…

Does playing with Lego® versions of the characters instead of, I dunno…the characters, somehow make them more fun?

Seriously.  I wanna know.  If you’ve played these and they are just amazingly more fun than their non-Lego® counterparts, I want to know about it.

Not much of a post here, but I do enjoy putting the ® symbol next to things.

Sherrill’s brother Cliff and cousin Becky came down to visit us—-why I’ll never know-—over the Labor Day weekend.  Everything went fine until we started playing Scattergories.

The game started out like any other; I was playing my usual impressive game, like for the Games That Begin With F category I was coming up with things like ‘Final Fantasy Four, Five, Fourteen, and Fifteen’ (+6) , while everyone else thought up things like ‘Fun’ or ‘Fishing’.

And even when I was stuck, I managed to argue a few nonexistent answers into points.  Like for Diseases.  I had only written the letter M, but after a little fast talking I had managed to convince everyone of the existence of deadly M disease (+1), and in a concerned tone of voice encouraged everyone to ask their doctor about M vaccinations, because no one could remember the last time they’d had one.

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So I’m sitting here writing in the middle of the night and the TV’s on in the background and a commercial for Lysol comes on, in which this woman is standing in her kitchen, with a serene smiling look on her face that makes it clear that standing in her kitchen is her dream, and she is living it. 

But happiness on this scale can never last very long, and sure enough, a horrible green cartoon animated cloud suddenly appears, and the woman’s expression changes to one of confusion and disbelief.  Oh no.  A green cloud of odor is coming from the litterbox.  It winds its way around the kitchen until it spies the woman, then it moves towards her and invades her personal space, which I guess is what green odor clouds do all day. 

Sadly, noxious cartoon clouds are apparently not uncommon in the woman’s otherwise ideal world—-she reaches down to a belt clip and sprays the thick sentient cloud with Lysol and it fades away, and everything is paradisical again.  But then, another cartoon cloud, brown this time, attacks from the kitchen trash can. 

I don’t know what happens next, I’m sure that Lysol is more than capable of dealing with this other huge noxious cloud of visible odor, but I’m no longer paying attention (if I ever really was) because I notice that while all this is going on, superimposed on the scene in small white lettering is the word

Dramatization.

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Okay so we took a very short trip to Philadelphia over the weekend to visit Sherrill’s brother who was living there temporarily (sorry Philadelphia peopleses, we just didn’t have any time to do any chris86 meetings) (it’s not that I’m social phobic if that’s what you’re thinking) (actually we tried calling both of you but neither of you answered) (shrugging).

So on the way in the early afternoon we’re driving down the pale gray ribbon of Interstate 85, and we pass this beater of a car.  It’s like a 1989 Buick LeSabre…white, rust, faded paint, shredded vinyl top.  It’s being driven by a woman in her sixties, obviously in no hurry, alone, with dyed black hair and the expected handicapped placard hanging from her rear-view mirror, enjoying her below-the-speed-limit Friday excursion on the open road.

So as we pass her, being the nosy sort, I glance over, and I notice that she’s looking at the road significantly less than she’s looking down at something in her lap. While my mind tries to figure what the interesting thing in her lap could be, her right hand suddenly makes a quick jerk up from her lap and I see that she’s holding—-a knife.

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I hate it when you’re riding the elevator and you’re waiting and the doors open and you start to go out but then right in the doorway is a little cluster of people, the closest two of whom are standing with their noses two inches from the opening doors.  Because, of the whole group, not one of their thick smooth brains works quite well enough to come up with the idea that anyone else might possibly have access to this elevator. 

Then they stop short, because, gosh, they see you in the elevator.  You were not part of Their Plan, and they’re suddenly baffled at how to proceed.  Because don’t you see this is Their Elevator, by virtue of the fact that They have decided to Use it during this particular part of Their Day.  you do not Figure into Their Equation. 

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Here’s what I don’t get.

Back in the 70s, Vietnam veterans came home from war, at which point they were ostracized, ridiculed, beaten up by their fellow man for having served in the war.

DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY WERE DRAFTED.

Soldiers today who fight in the war—-everyone in the media, on television, in Hollywood, wherever, bends over backwards to make sure everyone knows they’re only criticizing the war, not the soldiers fighting the war.  “Oh no, no, no, no, the soldiers have our full support, it’s only the war we’re against.”

BUT THE SOLDIERS TODAY ARE ALL VOLUNTEER.

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So The Girlfriend went home to visit her family this weekend and told me that her aunt—-who is an artistic type, does oil paintings and drawings and such—-looked at our pictures from Italy and she thought the pictures were great and she loved them and as she looked at them she oohed and ahhed over each one and she said she wanted to see all 4300 (!) and that I had a ‘good eye for architecture and color’.

I really think I should have become a photographer.  I mean, what I’m looking for in a career is…fulfillment?  Pfft.  No.  Something that’s really easy and doesn’t take a lot of effort or thinking, or time, maybe eight or ten hours a week.  Oh and it has to pay a lot. 

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