Inflation

My 401k people send me a bi weekly pamphlet on how my retirement earings will look 20-30 years from now. The most recent and menacing attempt to get me to invest more featured (a strangely psychic) turkey sandwich (which I had actually had for lunch that day) and a feature about it's current cost vs. it's cost -- in say 2030. It's estimated with a 3% inflation a year that the average American Lunch..now clocking in at $7.32 will be around $14.97 by the time OEF's humble readers are in their mid-life crisis.

I can remember when $4 could get you lunch, and that was NOT that long ago.

Hold on, it's gonna be rough...

I was already having a bad week at my job. And then ......this.

The best way to react to someone stealing your purse on the beach is probably not by twirling about in one place like Jennifer Love Hewett in “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” It’s probably also not a good idea to pull hair yelling “my money, my money” in frantic moanful tones. It’s definitley reached a critical mass when you sorta slump into a pile of goo on the sand and wait for the ocean to rinse your cardless, phone-less, key-less, cash-less lump out to sea.

So last Thursday, me, my mom, my aunt, Tiesha and LJ -- headed out to the beach for some walkin, some beach hot dogs (which taste like iguana) and to enjoy my mom’s sweet view from the hotel room 423 at the illustrious HoJo. I had to work the entire day, so I leave directly from my job, pick up friend and son and speed off to the ocean front to meet the fam. Feeling strangely angry from long day of work (and not being able to get off work early) I opt to not change out of work clothes and instead just grab a pair of flip flops and roll with it. We get down to the beach and in the two minutes it took me to change from regular shoes to flops, my purse gets stolen.

This to add to my list of things I wish I had the foresight to have avoided like say: the ride up to Barnes and Nobles last Memorial day where the drunk driver totalled my rental car, the garden hose in Clifton, where right before I went across I decided to run in a full-on race-track sprint, the few moments where I went home and someone stole all my cds, the midnight “frisking” I got when returning from an impromptu Birthday dinner and now I give you ocean-front thievery where I sit down my shoulder bag for two minutes, and look back to find nothing.

I am fortunate though, the VA Beach PD searched every trash can on the beach and sometime around midnight in a port-a-potty off 19th street, they found my bag with cards, keys, and phones included. However, a considerable amount of cash and watch lighter.

I guess what bothers me the most (outside the actual theft) about the whole situation is that your identity depends on 3 things: license, social security card, and birth certificate. If any combination of the triad falls into enemy hands - it can become extremely difficult to prove you are you. So friends, I advise you to have some sorta sheet with all your numbers (and photocopies), saved somewhere safe (preferably/possibly locked).

The VA Beach Police slightly restored my faith in the law enforcement agencies that evening. The police seem to believe that the volume of people calling the cell phones (both mine and T’s) at 8:30 might have scared the thieves into stealing just the cash and tossing the rest. They actually “looked” for my purse and recovered it. Which I damn near thought was gone forever. So special thanks to them. I was really hoping they would CSI my purse and get fingerprints, but unfortunately the cost of the procedure was more than what I lost. I guess there would have had to have been blood or the Hope Diamond in it to merit that kind of attention.

Carry exactly what you need. No more, no less. I’m going back to the beach in a few weeks, with the same bag, to the same spot.. except this time I may load that purse up with a few different things. Any ideas? Wink.

Vernacular Vacations

I was going to write some long blog about the past month, but I thought I'd show some pictures instead.
I know, I know - flickr.
Anyways the past month I've: went to D.C., went to class reunion, went to the zoo, went to Harborfest, and had two mini vacations - one of which resulted in my new flower garden! But the best part is that my flowers have somehow survived my black thumb of death and the scourge of 100+ degree temperatures. Go flowers! Next project is converting my weed garden (aka) my ENTIRE backyard to actual green grass. Wish me luck!

A little PSA from Baby the Mighty.

Once a year the OEF team requires a month-long hiatus from the blog.. Last year it was July - August..this year May to June.
It's not that there's nothing interesting going on, it's that there's ALOT going on. More OEF shenanigans soon, I promisssssss..

chicken fingies

I read this article today about how chicken fingers/nuggets have become the scourge of the average american kid diet.

It reminded me of being eight years old and hating vegetable soup so much. My mom wouldn't let me leave the table until I ate my whole bowl. I distinctly remember, as the 7 o'clock hour crept past, frequently excusing myself to the bathroom with fist-fulls of soup to flush down the toilet.

Also on the enemies list were (and still are, natch) beef stew, anything slathered in gravy, the classic frozen peas n' carrots mix, cooked carrots in general, mushrooms, onions, and brown potatoes.

I hate cooked carrots, but at least I know why. Without struggle, there is no progress & all that.

lolCats

Apparently there's a phenomenon going on out there on the interwebs called lolCats .

From what I understand they're just pictures of cats with silly or absurd captions alluding to the cats' (or other animals) intentions or desires with amusing misspellings.


Good for a larf.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

Meme Cats

LOLcats2

(Links ganked from the Wikipedia entry on LOLcats.)

Georgia Rule (the only rule is it must be random)

I was going to write a long review of a pretty crappy movie I saw recently (Georgia Rule) but I decided it wasn't worth an actual review with plot and stuff, well because there wasn't much of a plot. I'll just say that Lindsay Lohan played herself, a bratty and promiscuous (let's face it, I really mean obnoxious and slutty) young lady (well, not so much a lady as sexual organs with legs) named Rachel, Felicity Huffman played her alcoholic momma, and Jane Fonda played her rather stern, but confused, gramma. I say confused because throughout the movie she made people put soap in their mouths when they took the "Lord's name in vain," but 5 minutes after being reunited with Lindsay, I mean Rachel, after 13 years, she tells her granddaughter to "go fuck yourself." Doesn't add up, unless Gramma is a little senile.

Randomness ensued.

Um, let's see. The village idiot falls in love with Lindsay, I mean Rachel, and wants to marry her after she gives him a BJ. He makes her go with him to tell his girlfriend, which wastes at least ten minutes of the movie. Wow, we get it, Lindsay, I mean Rachel, is hot stuff.

So Lindsay, I mean Rachel, gets into a fight with a 12 year old boy, who gets a boner while rolling around with her in the grass. Pointless part of the movie, unless it is supposed to show just how hot Lindsay, I mean Rachel, is supposed to be. Like it takes much for a 12 year old boy.

Also, Lindsay, I mean Rachel, is dressed in the ugliest clothes they could find, like denim booty shorts rolled up and white patent leather platform sandals. And tight, low cut tank tops. Is this girl from Sunset Blvd. or San Francisco? Again, we get it (pounded into our heads), Lindsay, I mean Rachel, is the hottest thing to hit Idaho since, well, the sun.

She likes poetry, which I guess is supposed to soften her character, but that is lame, lame, lame.

All of a sudden, the plot-that-never-was thickens! Lindsay, I mean Rachel, in a kind of battle- of-who-has-the-saddest-life with the town doctor (he lost his wife and son in a car accident) blurts out that her stepfather(played by Cary Elwes; let's call him Wesley, shall we?) started sleeping with her at the age of 12. Tough call on the winner of that battle.

The rest of the movie pretty much consists of the village idiot, the doctor, the senile gramma, and drunken momma trying to figure out if she was lying about the whole thing. I guess we were supposed to be figuring it out as well, but I didn't care. I knew we would be force-fed the truth eventually.

(Oh yeah, there is a tiny subplot about how Lindsay, I mean Rachel, was supposed to go to Vassar, but she fucked-up the paperwork. Big surprise. Even bigger surprise: Lindsay, I mean Rachel, who has been a druggie (she smoked crank, according to momma) and a general loser since the age 14, would be accepted into Vasser, who by their own account, is "very selective." Biggest surprise of all: that she would be accepted last minute; don't they have a wait list at that school?)

We meet the Ferrari-driving stepfather, who of course denies the whole thing. Oh yeah, gramma decides it would be best for Lindsay, I mean Rachel, to stay at the doctor's apartment. She tries to sneak into his bed and have sex with him. I think it was just an excuse to dress her in lingerie. At this point, I'm not sure if they are trying to convince us that she views everything as sexual because she was abused, or if we are supposed to sympathize with her step-Wesley, like maybe she came onto him, like she seems to come on to everybody, from the village idiot to the town doctor. I wouldn't think that about a 12 year old, but some people might.

Then Lindsay, I mean Rachel, tells momma that she was lying, secretly blackmails Wesley with the threat that a friend had hid in her closet and videotaped him and that if her mom ever finds out the truth she will take him to court for $10 million, and then sends momma on back to San Fran with Wes. Hubbinawah??? She wants her mom's happiness over justice? Seems kind of gross to let your mom live with a child molester, but that's not for me to say.

On the way home, momma asks where Wes's beloved Ferrari is. He offhandedly tells her that he left it in Idaho and that L, I mean R, can have it. This leads to momma's realization that L, I mean R, was telling the truth. She gets out, Wes yells at her that L, I mean R, came onto him (gross!) and that they will never be able to prove anything, and momma starts walking back toward Idaho.

All of a sudden, the village idiot's truck pulls up, carrying said idiot, senile gramma, the doctor, and L, I mean R; except they made her sit in the truck bed with the village idiot's much smarter dog, which I think is hilarious. She jumps out and runs to her momma, throwing her arms around her.

The end. I don't recommend this movie.

Well, look at that. The review ended up being long anyways.

Weekend PSA

So I like to run, it has it's advantages. But it has it's pitfalls as well. Leslie vs. the ditch, Leslie vs. the water hose, Leslie vs. the cars that run the stopsign, Leslie vs. the green snake (aiyeeee), and (my personal fav) Leslie vs. the heckling kids waiting to get on the school bus at o'dark thirty.

Whatever your outdoor adventure of choice is, you can never be sure just what's waiting for you around the corner. Soo check out this funny video. I'm just waiting to run through one of these.

This Week in "Not for Nothing" (TWiNN): The Death of Jerry Falwell

Not for nothing, but I can't help but not be the least bit sad over the passing of Jerry Falwell.





That guy was a dick. Here's hoping he's on that big waterslide to hell.

Back Amongst the (Sorta) Productive

I hounded Leslie endlessly to finish this piece for me, stemming from a cellphone conversation some months back, as I was driving home from yet another job interview; and I'm just now getting around to using it.

Anyway, there was some kind of discussion about how she had me listed in her cellphone as "Pony" (a fairly innocuous nickname we call eachother), and how once when riding in the car with her cousin, her cousin was bewildered that a Pony was calling her on the phone.

We laughed (probably too long) about the thought of her cousin imagining an actual pony making a phone call, and then somehow the conversation morphed into a pony going on a job interview. And the idea of a pony in a business suit apprehensive about an interview at a glue factory just about summed up my job hunt that has mercifully come to an end.

After too many crappy interviews to recount, I finally got a job, and started work about two months ago. I'm very happy to say that I'm no longer working in a "terrestrial" radio station---and can now loudly advocate Sirius Satellite Radio to everyone in the land. No, I don't work for Sirius Satellite Radio either. I just like it a whole lot.

Anyway, I now work in a hospital, but not in any sort of medical capacity, and that's about as specific I'd like to get about my actual position.

But I can say that it's been an adjustment, working in a hospital. I couldn't help but feeling eerily similar to when I showed up at college. There's an overwhelming sense of "they", that there's some shadowy consortium working the knobs & switches behind the curtain that makes this whole place run. There's also a department, vice president, director, manager, supervisor, and then finally regular staffers for just about everything. And, most like college, it's not entirely out-of-the-ordinary to look up from your desk and see someone passing by in not much more than their underwear and socks.