[Author's note 2016: the following got posted as June 15, 2006, but it is an obvious mistake. It stays here as today's post until I can figure out where it is supposed to be. That could be never. Is never good for you?
Millie-Belle, the highly trained guard animal with a 40-word vocabulary is shown here relaxing at the Panera last Sunday. She does not know how good she will have it in a few hours. I never did get a reply from that “News United” place looking for writers, but I think there is something funny going on over there anyway. While they may be legit, they are not the Internet “free press” they claim to be. Their concept is to have a local “reporter” in every town and city. It seems that writing ability is a distant second to them doing a totally intrusive and exhaustive check into your background and credit records. I wish them luck, but wonder why they are so adamant about profiles.
I can’t move. Neither can Wallace or Eric. If anything in the fridge could move, it wouldn’t either. We’re calling it Thanksgiving in August. I believe I could now cook such a meal again though it won’t be soon. We are stuffed past the gills. Peggy was over shopping or cooking since noon. We found time for some crib games in between, including a three-handed game where I got skunked. No photographs were taken today.
The turkey was 12 pounds, I peeled 5 pounds of potatoes. It was the whole nine yards with dressing, cranberries, even cucumber in sour cream with dill. Wallace and Peggy get along great and she went over her plans to use us as templates for her blog. I went over and got Eric. He could not stay; his cat is infirm. All told, Peggy was here eight hours and this place now has the planned leftovers for another week.
We sampled the wine from Hungary. It is much like wine I tasted out of the bottle when I was young and experimental. I’m no judge of quality but it certainly had a quality about it. I guess the terminology is “full-bodied”. Judy M. used to drink wine like that on occasion. Now, my judge of women is superb and she was also full-bodied. Chianti, I believe, was her brand. She drank it with pizza at the Prairie Dog Inn on 17th SW. This is like this Chianti but no dry taste to it whatsoever.
This occupied the entire day, except for a short time in the shop this morning. The unlock codes have arrived and I’ve got the entire day tomorrow slated just for the setup. The DSL service here may be a problem, it seems Bellsouth is going back on its word that if we put up a deposit, they would not require a credit card. When I tried to hold them to their original words, they kept pre-texting me. “Well, if you don’t know the name of the person you talked to . . .” Knowing that nobody there will give you their names. As usual, I will use the experience I have to teach them a lesson in civility, but only anonymously and after the service is connected. You never win by successfully pulling rank on me.
It is past 9:00 P.M. and we are just able to slowly shuffle around. I have not gone back for seconds in years. Millie-Belle is in paradise--what with a yard and free turkey. We discovered we had a nice dining room table once we threw out the plastic tablecloths [that were there when we moved in]. This is the first Thursday I’ve been home in a long time. There are good movies on TV. I like the commercials, too. Don’t you love the company that sells Vodka coolers in what looks like a six-pack, and then advises you to “drink responsibly”. I’m not going anywhere near that bathroom scale until after work tomorrow.
Who notices that scruffy look that dark-haired men in the 20-30 age-span are going for these days? You know, the one that, unless they are particularly rugged and handsome to start with, makes them look like they just got off a triple shift at the coal mine. I did some channel surfing and I can’t figure out if they are copying TV or the other way around. There is a show of talented musicians called “Bowfire” and all the men have that same shave and haircut. Maybe I just notice because that was the supreme nerd thing when I was growing up.
The TV movie was “Witness” with Harrison Ford back when he could act. I like such movies with such a novel theme that you suspect it must really have happened that way. While I’m no fan of fundamentalism, I do appreciate the theme that American crime fighting has become corrupt right up to the top levels, and that there are alternative groups of people whose system is just as good if not better. Remember when computers were supposed to make our lives easier?
Without going into detail, I had a classic exchange with AT&T about DSL service. It is plain the phone company has learned people can be blackmailed using credit reports. So they want enough information about you to make sure they can trash your credit. My strategy is the opposite, when something goes wrong, they know nothing. When you connect phone service, they are extending credit because you can run up long distance calls. But we did not order phone service, only DSL at a fixed monthly rate, and we put up a two-month deposit. Therefore no way am I telling them my credit card number, or birth date, or anything they can use against me. It is simply wise policy. We get the service next Tuesday.
Don’t forget the last time I had a non-published number, AT&T put all my personal information on the Internet and it is still there against my will. They’ve denied it, but there was an insignificant yet intentional spelling error in the private data I gave them. AT&T are also liars. In case that surprises anyone.
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