I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

Ok, New York, like a lot of states in America, is in some really deep poo, right now.

Although the governor's gay marriage legislation is on top of New York's legislator's lists right now--which is a good thing, the real news, is the state's rather serious budget crisis.

Mainly, the proposed cuts in Medicaid and education. Medicaid is health care for New York's poor--from single mum's and their children to the disabled to pensioners. It's health care for those whom are too poor to qualify for private health insurance, or, for state-subsidized private health care.

The demorcatic governor says the cuts will all be "administrative," but still, many New Yorker's are very worried. This governor has such a bad track record, that the national demoratic party has publicly requested him not to run for president in 2010. Now, that's not good.

So, amid this big budget criss, what does our lovely governor propose doing? Changing license plates that go on our cars!

Every decade or so, New York changes the look of its license plates. Our official state "colours" are dark blue and gold.

The year I was born, plates were black with gold letters. In mid-60's to early 70's, license plates were dark blue with gold letters/numbers. From the mid- 70's and mid-80's, the colours were gold with dark blue letters-numbers. Then, around the time of the Statue of Libery's anniversary, we went with a plate, of white with blue letters, and a red statue of liberty...then a while ago, the state changed it yet again, to simply a white plate with blue letters.

They also introduced regional license plates. For instance, if you lived in Saratoga County, which has a rich horse racing tradition, you could get a plate with a horsehead in a horseshoe, saying that you were from Saratoga County. In my former county, you could get a mountain scene, saying you were from Warren County, etc. They even introduced sports team liccense plates, I was told. And, if that weren't enough, you could even get plates that sported the official state bird (the bluebird), and other native wildlife.

All for some fat extra fees to go into the state DMV coffers, I'm sure.

So, our "new" plates for our motor vehicles, will revert back to the 70's and early 80's colours, and be gold with blue letters--a bit more flashy than the old 70's-80's version, though, with some graphic flourishes added to it.

Which begs the question, why???

It's not like evyerone will have to rush out and buy new plates for their cars. What happens is, the new plates are phased in, gradually. As you change registration/plates in the normal fashion, you get a new plate.

I'm really not clear--and so far, no news agency has bothered to ask...how will this be helpful for New York state, right now? Will it bring in extra revenues? I don't see how that could be. Will it cost less to make the new plates? Will it cost more?

No one is asking any of these questions, but me, it seems. And I can't get a job as a journalist, so I guess I'm not going to get any answers, any time soon.

This is a bit embarrassing...cos' what it says about me, is mostly bang on. Cluck-cluck. Uh-oh, I hope Col. Sanders isn't reading this.

WHAT FARM ANIMAL ARE YOU?

You Are a Chicken

You are protective of your personal space, and you don't like it when you feel like your boundaries are being crossed.
You can get along with others, even in a big group, as long as you're able to maintain your uniqueness and individuality.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatfarmanimalareyouquiz/

I couldn't find Charlie...until I looked in my bedroom wardrobe. I have the wee cat carrier in there, that I transported flamey here in, and for reasons only his little cat mind knows, Charlie has crawled in there, and is fast asleep.

Last time I looked, he was snoring away on the bed...actually, that's how I found him, I followed the snoring. If Bonnie Prince Charlie was a husband instead of a cat, he'd probably be divorce material, just based on his snoring alone. Seriously, I've heard people that snore quieter than my ginger and white ten-pin bowling ball with fur.

He was sitting on my vacuum cleaner this morning. Maybe he wants me to hoover him, again. He actually kind of gets off on being hoovered. He's definately in need of some councilling, ha-ha.

Can't get rid of this blankity-blank cough! I don't know which is more bothersome; the cough or that uncomfortable feeling of fluid in my chest. Still, I think I'll be rid of this by the end of the month, unless I have a relapse. My sister keeps harping on me that I need antibiotics. I also need a higher income, not getting that, either.

I've stopped following the health care debate and legislation in Washington, D.C. It just makes me sicker than any illness, all this stupidity and wrangling and greed-mongering over the very literal lives of millions of women, children and men. America isn't the land of sunshine and dreams a lot of people like to pretend that it is. There's a whole nightmare of ugliness and meanness that lurking in the darkness of this country...and much of it comes from perfectly ordinary, "normal" people.

Well, I just had my blog post interrupted by a knock at the door. UPS guy. Gosh, can't resist a man in a brown uniform...if I were rich, I'd be sending stuff by UPS all the time, ha-ha. Hey, I'm an old maid, I'm not dead!

It's really sweet and thoughtful, that my friend has sent my cats a treat...and helpful to my budget, as well. I told my cats it was a prezzie from their auntie overseas...I swear, Flamey knew the box was for her, cos' she was climbing all over it, the minute I set it down. It was four boxes of gourmet tinned cat food. Flamey loves her gourmet cat food. The only thing she likes better, is cheese and popcorn.

Would you believe she and Charlie licked the plate completely clean already? They're sitting around washing their paws. Boots wouldn't wake up, so he lost out, I'm afraid. He was so zoned out, he slept through the man knocking at the door--normally, a knock at my door sends Boots running for cover. Well, he'll get some tonight, at their regular feeding time.

I'm out of fries (chips) and a couple of other necessities, so I'm going out shopping up the street. I thought about trying out the buses today, but I still have some housework that needs doing in here, and some phone calls to make, so I think I'll wait to tomorrow to take a day off.

I was tired after all the bustle of yesterday. I watched Antiques Roadshow on PBS at 8pm, then turned off the television, and hung around the computer and read an Agatha Christie book I got at the library, before turning in early. Unfortunately, about half an hour after I went to bed, I started my coughing festival again, so wound up being up until 2am, before I nodded off again. Meh, at least the cough isn't a 24 hour thing, like before, and I can sleep. Sleep's a wonderful healer.

I'll have to figure out how to get to a supermarket this weekend. Not having a car really is a pain. A 45 minute to one-hour shopping trip by car, can easily take two hours to half a day, by bus. Not fun.

I have a lead on a work at home job. It would be working for a former co-worker who started his own business, doing much the same work as I did at my last employer. A lot of my former co-workers have gone to work for him. All you need is a landline phone and high-speed internet...which I have. I'm going to check it out this week. The extra funds would be great, and, I wouldn't have to worry about commuting by bus. And, you don't have to live in the area, as I've been told that one of my co-workers also moved away and works for him.

I heard from my farm-lady friend. They're strugging with the farm. It was a bad summer for haying and other crops, as June and July were unusually cool and wet. They lost some calves at birth. Had to sell several heifers--including my lovely Paige, to help pay the feed bill. She's not working, so all they have is the farm income, and the income from her guy's job as a NY state lock tender. I hope she finds a good job, soon.

New York is doing their best to assist family farmers--agriculture is one of this state's top industries...still, from what I'd heard back in October, it's not really going to be enough, and some farmers are going to go under. For people who don't care about that, think about the extra you'll have to pay for your food, when it's got to be shipped from a longer distance...and about the higher taxes you'll pay when local businesses go under and can't pay their taxes--true, farmers get tax breaks, but they still have taxes nevertheless, not just business-related taxes, but all the same taxes as their non-farming neighbours...and, there's land taxes, as well. Farmers have hundreds of acres they have to pay taxes on.

Well, no snowfall today. It's overcast, but not cold, not by my standards, anyway. It was colder in October, than it is in November. Of course, where I was living was a good 10 degrees or more colder, than where I'm living now.

I have to be very careful with spending. I had to get some things I needed for my new place. I'm a bit nervous about spending the $50 to go to my sisters. I only get one cheque on the 3rd of each month, and there simply isn't anything else. Just like the food stamps, once it's gone, it's gone forever, there's nothing more until the next check comes on the 3rd of the next month, and the 7th (when I get food stamps). Hand-to-mouth existance, they call it, and people who don't live on a fixed income, are really clueless how hard that sort of life really is.

Save your supermarket recipts for a month, see if you could live on $200 from the 7th to the 7th! I looked it up, $200.00 equals 119.511 GBP.

Well, I'm off for a jaunt up the road to the shop. Hope you all are having a good day. Cheers.

Got three meme's in my in-box when I got back online, this is the third..and hopefully, the last, for a while.

YOUR MOMENTS MEME---GIVE DETAILS!

YOUR MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT:

Sitting on top of an Icelandic horse, on a hill, but inside an ancient volcanic crater, almost literally on top of the world, with the cleanest, purest air in all the world, blowing in my face. Wonderful!

YOUR WEIRDEST:

Actually seeing the ghost in mum's old library building (the former village school)...I thought she was taking the mickey out of me, but no, the ghost of Ada Lee was quite real, I assure you.

YOUR SCARIEST:

It's a tie between being told I had to sing the paper to turn off my mum's life support, and the day I got the pending foreclosure letter in the post, notifying me that I was about to lose my home.

YOUR CRAZIEST:

Being elected by my study group, to be a female Jerry Sringer in a presentation skit, in front of a couple of hundred students and teachers, in a foreign country I'd only been in for two weeks...and never having watched the Jerry Springer show until the night before. I pulled it off, too. Crazy, man.

YOUR MOST EMBARASSING:

One time, when my mum and sister and I were visiting my dad's cousin's wife, during the winter months, I was walking down her front steps, when I hit a patch of ice and did a complete somersault in the air, landing on my head in a pile of snow with my fat arse sticking up in the air...and my sister blurted out, "Free Willie!" And everyone laughed.

HAPPIEST MOMENT:

Graduating from college with my AA degree in 2003.

SADDEST MOMENT:

Holding mum's hand as she died and having to tell my sister over the phone, "She's gone."

MOST SERENE:

Standing in my snowshoes, in a field of fresh snow at midnight on a frigid sub-zero (F) cold Christmas eve, under a full moon, with the landscape bright with the blue light of the moon, and ice crystals floating in the air, the stars so sharp and clear you felt like you could reach up and touch them...and it so quiet, I could hear the bells of a Catholic church tolling, over half a mile away...and I cold see the christmas lights of some of the houses on the hills across the river...and it was so peaceful and magical, that words never really could describe it.

MOST ANGRY:

Something I'm not proud of and won't discuss publicly.

MOST EXCITING:

The afternoon I was told it was OK for me to sit in Dr Who's car, Bessie. Seriously, I was just...awed.

MOST BIZZARE:

The night in Egypt, when I sipped a fruity drink with an umbrella in it, danced in a conga line lead by a belly dancer, and had my picture taken with a very handsome whirling dervish.

MOST UPSETTING:

Also in Egypt, While trapped on a cruise ship on the Nile, I got a severe dressing down in public by someone I respected, due to a complaint I was not question about, or allowed to defend myself about. I was also severely ill with travler's sickness. I got off the cruise ship, only to find that neither of my parents were answering their phone, and ended up calling the local hospital back home from Luxor, only to find that both my mum and dad were in hospital, our 7 cats were stick in our caravan, without water, because it was minus 40 C/minus 40 F, and the water pipes were broken...when I requested assistance from our group leader to fly home--I was strongly discouraged against doing so...and, I never saw my dad alive again.

MOST NERVOUS:

Learning how to drive. I was a nervous wreck...ironically, I learned to love driving, later on.

MOST RELAXED;

Sailing in the Netherlands on a wooden Friesian sailboat on a lake. I was excited too, but also it was probably the most relaxing two days I'd ever had.

MOST INTENSE:

My first (and only) horse show, in winter of 1980. I was a substitute rider for the college western riding club, for the western pleasure riding class. I am very competittive, and it was one of the only times in my life, I had butterflies in my stomach. When I got on that horse, I was just so intense and focused, cos' i wanted to do really well...and I did, I placed second, and my friend placed first.

MOST APPALLING:

Isn't that like embarrassing? Or is that beyond embarrassing?

Well, it was my first proper full-length play, in front of a real audience, opening night. It was theater in the round--the stage was a raised platform on the main stage, with intimate seating in the round..we were almost literally acting right in the audience's laps. Mum wasn't well enough to go, but my dad came up to see me on opening night. I asked that he not be seated in my direct line of sight. So...what do they do? Yup, I'm acting and my mark is right square facing my dad--who was in the front row. Damn!

So, it was a scene with me and one other actor. I was a maid, he was a member of the family. He said his line, I said mine, he said his line---and I made the mistake of looking at my dad....and my mind went utterly blank. I mean, the lines were utterly gone from my head, like they'd never existed! After stammering badly for what seemed an eternity, I immediately dropped to the first line in my head...which was practically the next to last line! OMG, I was definately appalled...after the scene was over, the teenage boy gave me a severe dressing down and stormed off....while I sat in the green room, bawling my eyes out...I couldn't stop! Of course, which only made me more appalled...that and the knowledge that my elderly dad drove 50 miles to see me totally screw up.

Then the play's director came in and had a tantrum at me...the theater director (my professor) took me to her office and calmed me down. If I died that night, I think I would have thought it a blessing. You can bet that for the next couple of weeks, I didn't forget a single line again, tho'.

I haven't acted in another play, since. No. Way. I opted to run sound effects, for the other production I had to do. At least backstage, if you mess up, no one can see you!

I had an issue with my new phone, but all fixed now!

Yes, I can wait by the phone, waiting for calls that never come, but safe in the knowledge that my phone actually works, now.

I was eating a frozen pizza I cooked for dinner tonight, when I felt something hard rolling around in my mouth. I have a bad tooth, and the bulk of it broke off whilst I was eating.

It's a wee tender there, but surprisingly not too bad.

My cold is on the mend, tho' the cough will be with me for a while, I suppose. I got lots of rest this weekend, and was a regular slugabed for a couple of days. Which means of course, that I have to hustle tomorrow and clean the flat top to bottom. Not that I didn't do anything, but I confess I did keep things down to a minimum, and mostly either stayed in bed, or sat on the sofa watching tele. Tho', I did go for a couple of brief strolls, both days.

It was a gorgeous weekend here, despite the wet snow on Friday. It's warmer in my new town, than in my former location--but then, I was in the mountains there, and at a slightly higher elevation. Tonight it was more than 15 degrees fahrenheight warmer here, than from where I just moved from. Not too shabby, that.

It's supposed to be what we here in the states call an "Indian summer" for the next few days with spring-like and summer-like temperatures. November can be very much like that, in upstate New York: snow showers or frigid cold one day, summer-like temps a few days later.

As a stable hand, one week in November, I had to wear my insulated ski overalls, hat, gloves, and all the other winter accouterments on a Monday. On Monday, the horses were wearing their heavy canvas New Zealand rugs, and I was banging ice out of water buckets. By Friday, I was working in just jeans and a tee shirt, and got out of work early, cos' I didn't have to rug up the horses or deal with frozen stuff.

I went for a walk today, down the main street of my new town. There's not a lot of shops in comfortable walking distance for me, but a few more than I had availbable in my former city, certainly.

One of the shops is a gourmet burger joint. The burger joint is set up in, ironically, and old White Tower shop--a burger chain from my childhood, that made the best burgers in the US.
Unlike the old White Tower chain, whose burgers cost about 75 cents, back in the 60's and early 70's, this posh shop wants almost $7 per burger, and none of them are just ordinary burgers, oh no!

(Looks around, then whispers conspiritorialy) They're POSH, don'tcha know. (Snif.)

They've got to have all these fancy-shmancy toppings, and set atop some posh roll, no doubt. Yes, for the cost of a package of ground beef (mince), you can buy one gourmet burger.

White Tower was put out of business by McDonald's. They cooked their burgers to order, w/ fried onions. Nom-nom! Never had a better one.

You see, hamburgers are supposed to be greasy. When it comes to steaks & burgers, fat is where all the flavour is! Lean ground beef (mince) is tasteless, like cardboard. That's why posh restaurants have to jazz up their burgers all the time.

Ideally, hamburgers should be 80% lean, not 90 or 95%. Then, you don't need to add feta or asagio cheese, jalpenos, or whatever. Add just a little bit of ice water plus salt and pepper to your taste, to 80% lean ground beef (mince), gently blend it and form your patties, fry or grill it--preferably with minced or chopped onions, slap it on a toasted, grilled, steamed or plain bun, add your favourite condiments...and viola! You have the perfect hamburger.

That's another thing: Ground beef doesn't like being manhandled too much. Too much handling toughens the meat.

I prefer to cook my burgers much like the old White Tower lady used to do. I like to not only fry my burgers with onions, I like to grill the burger rolls--toast them in the pan, as well.

Sometimes I'll do a posh burger. I like BBQ sauce, sliced cheddar and breaded fried onion rings. Or, swiss cheese, lettuce, raw onion and my favourite salad dressing, such as Russian, poppyseed, bleu cheese or ranch.

Mostly, I add ketchup, mayo and fried or raw onions, to one of my homemade burgers.

Last week, at the posh supermarket, meat was really high, so I cut out the fresh beef hamburger patties. Too expesnive! Instead, I found an inexpensive replacement: Greek turkeyburgers (ground turkey patties), w/ spinanch and feta cheese added to them.

I got 2 Greek turkey patties for around $2.50, instead of 4 beef patties for approx. $6. Dunno' if I'll like Greek turkey burgers, but for the price, I'm willing to give it a go. Thought I'd try topping them with some sweet & sour poppyseed salad dressing.

As the ebony night disloves into stardust, and the stardust into transparent moonbeams, and as those moonbeams fade into the coming of the dawn....I will remember you most fondly.

America's gun culture is nothing short of diseased. It's a sickness that has spread across our culture for over 200 years. Owning a gun really isn't so much a right, as a privliedge...one that too many Americans abuse on a regular basis.

We needed guns in Colonial America for food and protection. There was little or no law enforcement, especially on the frontier and in the wilderness.

Today, everywhere, in all 50 states, we have federal, state, county, town and city law enforcement agencies. We even have, in times of dire emergency, a National Guard (militia).

Yet, gun control is a farce. The limited amount of gun johns who use their weapons as toys, ego-boosters and second penises, value their own rights, over the rights of millions of non-gun owners. They want law and order--but not laws that will impact THEM.

So, tens of thousands of innocent children, women and men die, in America every day, because small-brained, emotionally insecure white trash johhny redneck is terrified that he might have to have his metal penis cut off. And...innocent children die, needlessly, cos' the spoilt brats calling themselves American "men" think their guns are more important than a child's life.

In the state of California alone, in 2005, every 2 hours and 45 minutes, a child or teenager was killed by a gun. That's SIXTY-ONE kids under the age of 18, in one state alone, butchered by guns, EACH WEEK of 2005.

We don't need gun control. We need to neuter selfish, brain-dead, souless, cowardly American gun owners.

Think about that. Children dying before their time, of gunshot wounds, are a hundred times less important to American gun owners, than their precious weapons. And we're different from the terrorists whom value their roadside bombs that kill children more than they value human life.....how????

I want out of this sewer called America, because, and I swear this, every passing year I see less and less of a gap between those cowardly terrorists we're supposed to be fighting, and...ourselves. Whether it's guns or socialized health care, or simple parenting; we as a nation seem to care no more for our own children, than some roadside bomber in Iraq who blows up a family.

I watched a crime show tonight.

It was one of those anti-crime programmes, designed to help catch violent criminals. Yet, the American presenter, an anti-crime advocate, said of one cheap automatic weapon: "This isn't a sporting weapon, it's a killing weapon."

That is the mindset of America's gun owners. They try to justify their love of guns, by lowering the bar. A sporting weapon as opposed to a crime weapon? HORSE PUCKY.

No, jackass. ALL guns are killing weapons! That's a gun's SOLE purpose: to KILL.

A shotgun used on pheasants, can kill a man or woman or child, just as easily as a bird...or a cheaply made assault rifle.

Next time some mother's child is bleeding his or her life out on the pavement, try telling her the difference between a "sporting" gun, and a "killing" gun. Anyone who knows of a death of a child by a gun, and still is against gun control, is rubbish as a human being, and a total coward, and has no better thought-process than some roadside bomber.

I had three meme's waiting for me in my mailbox when I got back online. Here's number 2. I may have done this one in the past, I'm not sure.

1. What time is it where you are, right now?

4.51pm Eastern Standard Time USA

2. Has anyone ever told you that you have a massive ego problem?

No.

3. Do you have issues with spelling?

Lately in the last year or two, yes. Not sure why.

4. Do you think you're weird?

Yeah, sort of, I guess.

5. Do you like being weird, if you are?

Meh. I am what I am.

6. Paper or plastic?

Well, hardly anyone offers paper, any more. I prefer it though. It's sturdier than most plastic bags--I had a plastic bag break on me, before I barely left the till, at the shop the other day. And, paper is more biodegradable than plastic..and when I was a child, every autuun, mum, my sister and I, would sit at the kitchen table, and use paper supermarket bags, to make covers for our school textbooks with, to keep them nice.

7. Do secretely think that children's art is crap?

No, actually I'm rather suprised at how talented some of these children are. My artwork is crap, however.

8. Have you ever been in a bar fight?

No....well, when I was a child, playing cowboys and indians, I once beat up my friend in a pretend saloon fight, ha-ha.

9. Who would be a better president: Sarah Palin or a can of Pringles?

Oh, Pringles, hands-down. Especially if it's sweet mesquite BBQ or honey mustard flavour.

10. Meet George W. Bush or step in dog poo?

Dog poo...I can always take off my shoe and throw it at Bush.

I've spent 45% of the last three days in bed, trying to regenerate my health. Unfortunately, I have to walk to the shops and stuff, in the wet snow and raw wind, and that hasn't been helpful for my chest.

Still, I'm coping.

Unfortunately, I am a bit run-down, and the little grey cells are sort of stuck in neutral the last few days--and, i've bruised one finger somehow, and am typing with a sticking plaster on it...not easy to do.

so, don't be expecting a lot of posts from me for a while...oh, I'll get back to it soon, but I'm a bit overwhelmed and brain dysfuctional, at the moment.

There's a reason I went without television for about 4 years, and the last 24 hrs were a prime example. Yesterday, a cable channel showed the film, Thelma & Louise...twice in the same day. Today, it showed it again...at the exact same time that a different cable channel was showing Thelma & Louise. So, I'm paying $10 a month, to watch Thelma and Lousie four times in a 24 hour period. Which I suppose would be fine, if I loved the film. Unfortunately, I don't. It's OK once, but four times is a bit much.

Two other cable channels seem to air the same handful of programmes, over and over and over again. Why? Why bother in investing in a network when you have nothing but the same crap to spew out, day after day? This is why Americans are stupid. They put up with this crap. The only redeeming quality of television for me right now, is Public Broadcasting. And even some fo their programmes are crap...tho far less than the commercial channels.

I tried to watch Dancing With the Stars, but sorry, boring pap just isn't digestible to me. I'd rather read a book. Even that book I saw in the dollar shop a while back, on the history of air conditioning, would be less boring to me, than watching Dancing With the Stars! Outside of Donny Osmond, I didn't recognize a single celebrity on there, and all the banial back chatter of the hosts was making my brain start to ooze out.

Still, there was that Nova documentary Becoming Human, Antiques Roadshow, Eastenders, the film The Man in the Iron Mask (love The Three Musketeers..men and their swords, can't beat that), the running of The Breeder's Cup, and the news from the BBC, so not a total loss.

I went to the local branch of the city library, yesterday. Massive disappointment. I have never seen such a bland and uninteresting and quite frankly, bad, selection of tripe in all my born days. Is this what the locals read? God help me. I wanted an Agatha Christie mystery. There was...none. None! Tons of mystery books, and no Agatha Christie? I did find one paperback of hers, at the last....filed with the "P's." Good greif! What DO the four library people I saw in that one tiny little library branch DO with their time???

My mum had a one-room library when she retired...it was maybe a quarter of the size bigger than this branch. My mum would have a fit if books were shelved wrong! I casually mentioned that I found a Christie book among the "P" authors to the librarian...and he said...NOTHING. Not a word, not even a shrug. He had the personality of a limp dish rag.

I looked up historical fiction--the bulk of it was actually historical romances. OK. I am really getting fed up with these 'new' libraries and librarians. Romance novels are romance novels, historical or otherwise.

Historical fiction is not romance. It is drama, action, etc. Historical fiction does not generally have covers with scantilly clad well-endowed women swooning into the arms of a bare-chested male supermodel look-alike on the cover. WHEN are these STUPID librarians going to get their noses out of their asses, and figure out the difference between historical fiction and historical ROMANCE?

I'm sick of having to look through 15 or 20 romance novels, to find one actual true historical fiction book. I did manage to find a western that I'd not read in years, that I liked, the Christie book and a medevil mystery novel by an author I'd never tried before. I liked the Cadfiel books, so I'm hoping this book will be just as good as those. No Ellis Peters in the local branch library, alas. They had only one Steinbeck and one Conan Doyle, so I'm guessing they're not going to be big on popular literature. They seemed to lean more towards popular fiction and Oprah book club selections...bleh.

I'm not a snob or anything. I'll read comic books and stuff like that. But, I cannot bring myself to read something, just because it's popular, or because some celebrity or critic, or professor or whomever, says they like it. I want to read what I like, not what someone else does. I will read a lot of different stuff, but on my own terms. Basically, if the first few paragraphs of chapter one grab me, I'll read it. If not, I give it a pass. I have favourite genes, yes: historical mystery, westerns, historical fiction. Sometimes I read other stuff: sci-fi and fantasy, sometimes the classics or non-fiction, and sometimes humour and/or general novels.

Yet, there are some genres I avoid like the Biblical plague, such as Romance novels. Bleh! I'm an old maid, I don't do fluffy-wuffy puke-fest romance. In other words, I can't stand it...yet, I have to wade through fluffy novel after fluffy novel, to find an actual work of historical fiction--literature, treasure, not cheap easy-reader mindless trash.

How stupid have we gotten, when we can't even use our grey cells to differentiate between literature and a trashy romance novel? That is just too sad for words, and I despair of ever finding any real librarians left in America.

How bad is it, when one can't tell the rather significant difference between say, a Hortio Hornblower novel, and The Rescue of Princess Bambi?

Ironically, I checked out a non-fiction book while at the library, titled: Americans Are Idiots.

The local postman seems to back up this theory.

I posted my rent check on Wednesday, leaving it sticking out of the mailbox so the postman would see it. Today is Saturday, and as I got my mail, I spied a corner of white sticking out of the bottom of the box. It was my rent check--the postman did not only NOT take my outgoing post---he jammed all the incoming post for the last several days on top of it, so it was jammed down into the bottom of my mailbox--which sits high up on the wall, above my eye-level, and if I hadn't seen that corner of white, I never would have known it hadn't gone out with the post.

Angry doesn't begin to cover how I feel, and my language at this discovery was just a tad rude, I'm afraid.

That posh supermarket a friend took me to yesterday was nice, if a bit expensive. They did have a nice variety of food there...and, apprently, posh toliet paper, as well.

You see, I had to buy TP for the loo. They even had TP in pastel colours. Now, think about that. Who thinks of TP as a bathroom accessory?

Why does it need to be colour-coordinated to match the towels or the tile or walls?

What sort of woman or man looks at something meant to wipe your bottom with, and thinks, "Oh, that'll match my towels ever so nicely!"

Someone e-mailed me today that David Tennant has done--or will do--a pilot episode for an NBC televison dramedy (drama-comedy), about a Chicago lawyer (Tennant) whom advises people on how to defend themselves in court.

I don't know anything other than that, so if you want to know more, you'll have to do a Google search yourselves.