sob sob smile

l42 and Sanzo Pose
Originally uploaded by theCallowQueen.

A photo from theCallowQueen's archives in memory of her dear friend lizalou42 who will be leaving next month to teach English in Japan.

Much love!

merry presents day

So this weekend I went with the girls to Pier 1 Import's outlet center in Independence. I bought a lot of stuff really cheap, which is good. I came home with three bulging bags that I plopped down on my bed.

I looked around my bedroom and felt overwhelmed. Stuff. Ugh. So much stuff. And these three bags do nothing but add to it. Sure, most of the items I bought at Pier 1 are giftable. But as I put them away in my now overflowing gift box, I was wondering if it was possible not to have a life that is stuff-centered.

Yesterday, I went through my closet and cleaned out a drawer. I threw out a bag-full of stuff. Three bags in. One bag out. I'm not exactly winning the battle here.

Maybe it's the holidays that is magnifying my frustration. I hate the perversion of Christmas into Present day. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Present Day are Crazy Shopping Season. Yet, I do it. Over lunch I'll probably be over at Micro Center trying to find the perfect present for my dad.

December is a busy month. There are social gatherings, sure. But it feels like to much time is spent shopping for others instead of being with others.

That's it. Next year, I'm crocheting scarves for all of you. Merry Present Day.

red eyed

I have a bottle of Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages sitting on the edge of my desk. It's a good inexpensive wine, by the way.

My co-workers walk by, eyeing it greedily.

I fend them off.

This baby is mine. And I will protect it, so I have something to give my fellow movie-watchers tonight.

It is a bit mean of me, I suppose, to taunt them, but I couldn't leave the bottle in the car to freeze. And, frankly, I do enjoy taunting.

snow day

I woke at 7. It was one of those full-bodied, I-was-sleeping-soundly-and-rudely-awakened-by-my-alarm. I got up. Stumbled to the kitchen. Ate a brownie and peered out the window. My car sat coldly under a thick layer of white. The lot hadn't been cleared. But cars were smoothly gliding down Antioch.

I decided to call work's emergency weather line. My managing editor had told me the day before that in the many years she's worked here (13-plus would be my guess) that they'd only closed the office a few times due to snow. But, hoping for a bit of luck, I dialed the number.

Shocked at what I heard, I repeated the message.

The office was closed! And I, being so sure that I'd be trudging into work the next day, had not brought anything home to work on. I was free for a day! I went back to bed.

I heard those poor, miserable work-bound souls scraping off their cars under my bedroom window. I put in my earplugs and went back to sleep.

I rolled over. The bright sun reflecting off the white snow put so much light in my room that it pierced through my eyelids, waking me from my luxurious sleep. I put on a sleeping mask and rolled over.

At 11 a.m., I decided I needed to roll my lazy @ss out of bed. But it was wonderful. Just wonderful.

I lounged on the couch and watched a marathon of "America's Next Top Model." (Yes, I'm admitting to it. If I'm going to waste time, I want to really waste time. Oh, I miss those days of watching marathons of old "Real Worlds.") I was semi-productive. I did label and stamp the newsletter to mail out today.

Then, around 2 p.m., it was time to face the world. I took the broom and my keys and went out to tackle my snow-iced car. Before I could open the car door, I needed to get rid of the snow on the roof of the car that would fall onto my driver's seat. I loved the feeling of the snow as I pushed it off. It was soft, dry snow, which is the best kind. It moves when asked and requires little scraping. I got into it. Then I realized I wasn't holding my keys.

I searched the snow and saw no evidence of them. Shite. I had an appointment in 20 minutes. I began sweeping the snow around my car. Nothing. I retraced my steps, sweeping. Nothing. Shite. Shite. Shite. I was nearing full panic mode. I swept deeper and deeper into the snow. Finally, I found them deep down in compacted snow. Whew! And I even was able to make it to my appointment on time (OK, a minute late--but that's on time for me).

That evening I bumped the heater up an extra notch (thanks, roomie, for not getting mad), and snuggled under a blanket with my boy to watch "The Apprentice" (and enjoy delivered Wheat State pizza). I'm really torn this season. I like both Randal and Rebecca. Randal was my favorite by a smidge, but after last night's episode, I'm leaning a little more toward Rebecca. I think The Donald should hire them both.

be safe kids

The roads are horrible today (and the drivers are worse). So drive safely, because I love you and I don't want you to die. (And because I'd miss out on receiving Christmas presents if you did meet a snowy demise.)

Take care!

if i were a coder

I wouldn't have spent this last hour (and perhaps a bit more) trying to adapt this code. I added the ability to create a link from my blog to others (in case someone ever chose to use the function). And then I decided I'd like it to have the same show-hide function that my comments have.

So I went back to the original hack I applied to the comments and tried to do the same for the backlinks. I was so proud of myself. It worked--or so I thought until I actually republished my blog. It seems to work on the first post on my main blog page and on each individual blog entry page. But it's not working on the older entries on my main blog page. Harrumph!

Hey, I've got a boyfriend who's a programmer. Hey, kcprogrammer, help? You'll earn major usefulness points ;)

thecallowqueen in slate

Breathe, girl. Remember to breathe.

I was checking to see the pages people came from to get to my blog this past week. Ten of them had come from the same place and it wasn't from a friend's blog. (Thanks to my friends, by the way, for providing those useful links!)

So, I went to this site that had funneled potential new readers my way. My jaw dropped. One of my comments from my last "news bites" post was used in Slate's "Today's Blogs" for Dec. 1.

It's not a big mention, and it's toward the end. But, oh my, I can't believe it. I felt famous for a good minute on this one.

You can read the article and search for theCallowQueen here.

Addendum: theCallowQueen also found that Newsweek used an excerpt from a past "news bite" commenting on it's article about "The best 100 schools in America." You can see the mention here. And here's the original post.

christmas rock the house

Loud music came flooding out of my boss' office earlier this week. It sounded like he was having a Christmas rave in his office. Here's what I heard and what he was watching: http://media.engadget.com/videos/lights.wmv (Windows Media Player required to view).

He was all excited about it and wants to do the same thing to his house next year.

He says that the guy who set this up has each section of lights on a different switch and he had to program it switch by switch. It must have taken him forever. The song is quite long. I wonder what the neighbors must think of him.

news bites

NICK-JESSICA SPLIT: The pair who went from middling pop singers to A-list celebrities through the TV show "Newlyweds" about their life as a couple, said in a statement on Wednesday they were separating after three years of marriage. (Source: CNN)

COMMENTARY: Yet another failed Hollywood marriage. Anyone surprised? Oh, and there are rumors that she’s pregnant with either Nick’s or Bam’s baby. Spicy! >rolls eyes< And did anybody notice that I went to CNN for this news bite? Good, old, trusty CNN.

TAFF PLEADS GUILTY: In court Monday, Taff admitted for the first time that he knew he was wrong in using the campaign dollars for a home mortgage loan at the time he made the loan application. … In August 2004, Taff narrowly lost the Republican nomination in the Kansas 3rd Congressional District to Kris Kobach, a law professor. Kobach lost in November to U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat. Two years earlier, when Taff was the GOP candidate against Moore, Taff came closer than any other contender had come to upsetting Moore. (Source: Kansas City Star)

COMMENTARY: OK, this Taff thing is small potatoes compared with the fraud problems coming to light in the higher echelons of the Republican Party. Whatever. This is here. My mom wanted me to vote for Taff. Ha! She also wanted me to vote for Kobach. Ha! Three cheers for Dennis Moore!

HE FOUGHT THE LAW--AND THE LAW WON: The life of Nguyen Tuong Van ends today. … On December 12, 2002, Nguyen Tuong Van, then 22, was caught at Singapore airport with 396.2 grams of heroin strapped to his body and hidden in his bag. He was headed for Melbourne hoping the drug deal would settle his brother's debts. … Now, 396.2 grams of heroin is a lot, given you only need to be holding 15 grams in Singapore to get the death penalty. … 396.2 grams. That translates into about 26,000 fisted forearms. That's a lot of wrecked lives. …

In an endeavour to save his life, the media, deathpenalty opponents and Nguyen supporters have played on the image of "little boy lost" to recast Nguyen's public persona from convicted drug trafficker to a condemned young man -- a fallen angel with a kind heart and a lot to live for who made the tiny mistake of trying to pass through sovereign Singaporean territory with half a kilogram of smack under his shirt. … Those defending Nguyen have dusted off stock arguments against the death penalty, the favourite being how "statistics show it doesn't act as a deterrent". This sounds like logical argument, but isn't. (Source: The Age. Read the full article here.)

COMMENTARY: This was third from the top on Google News. Part of me is like, “Hello! It’s Singapore. What was he thinking? If you can’t buy chewing gum because they’re afraid of you mucking up their sidewalks, why would you think they’d be okie dokie with you transporting heroine?" The sympathetic part of me is like, “The death penalty? That’s really harsh--the ultimate harsh.”

It reminds me of Star Trek: The Next Generation when they visit a new world and Wesley unknowingly goes into a restricted zone. The one punisment served for every crime: death. So Picard has to do all of this moral-legal wrangling to save the boy and not break the Prime Directive. And, so I don’t seem like a complete geek, my first thought wasn’t of Star Trek, it was of that American kid who was caned for spray-painting cars in Singapore. America was in an outrage then. What would be the media coverage if it were an American this time and not an Australian?

crap class

I'm in my InDesign training right now. The class is a total disappointment. I think I know more about InDesign than the instructor. She can't get her computer to work. She can't get her program to work. She continually runs off topic. She goes way too slowly considering there are only four people in the class. It's a train wreck. The previous class I took here at New Horizons was much better.

And for this I went into work on Sunday.

Ugh.