Only Nola

Little Time Away

I'm having some personal problems at home. I need to take a few days off. Hopefully no longer than that. Check back in Thursday or Friday and see if there's an update.

Sorry for the absence.

Option 1

Just a look at one of the test projects I'm working on... needless to say it's not tinkered with yet, so it's pretty much in a virgin state. Still, you can get a basic feel for it. Oh, and it's still got the template author's links on it, so don't go clicking on them... God knows where they'll take you. I'm absolving myself of responsibility on that one...

The link: Test blog

Considering the Options

So... I've been on daily duty here at Only Nola for a short time. Not sure how I think it's working out. Part of me is enjoying the bit of a boost in traffic, part of me is thinking that the quality of my posts is suffering. I'm on the fence as to whether or not this whole 'get off my lazy ass and be entertaining on a daily basis' thing is going to continue. I'll keep you posted.

Now on to the next issue...

I'm getting bored with my site again. Not to mention I'm a bit irritated with the Archives. I wanted them to list articles by title AND date, but it's only showing title, which aggravates the shit out of me. You look at some huge list of articles and have NO idea when any of them were written... which might not be a big deal but sometimes, me being the pain in the ass that I am, my titles have absolutely NOTHING to do with the content therein.

So.

We're on the 'maybe I'll just change shit all around for shits and giggles' ride again. I'm looking into WordPress or Movable Type, just to explore my options. The only thing is, I love my Cheshire Cat logo in here. I do. Suits me right down to the ground. BUT. I hate the archive glitch. I also hate that if I post a picture in one of the articles, I have to resize it just right or it totally fucks up the sidebar blog, and even then I'm going to be fucked because when you go to one of the articles in 'The Mind Boggles', any pic that is on the home blog will now be in the sidebar blog on THAT page, and the picture width screws things up so bad that the whole sidebar moves all the way to the bottom of the page. Gah. Frustrations abound. Why do you think I quit putting many images in my posts? Because MY BRAIN WAS BLEEDING!

Anyhoo. Any and all input on both the a)daily post thing, and b)format of the site, would be much appreciated. The good, the bad, and the ugly... go ahead, hit me. I can take it. And if not...

I can find out where you live.

(...)

Who DO You Think You’re Dealing With?

Today we drove down to Branson and took Connor to the hatchery, right behind the dam down at Table Rock, or whatever the hell the dam is called. Don't ask me, I'm not from here. The hatchery is fun... 8 billion fish in these concrete tanks set in the ground, all of them (the fish, not the tanks) begging for food and perfectly willing to beat the shit out of one another to get to it first. It's cheap entertainment. I'm sure there's a philosophical message in the whole thing, but I'm not going to bother to point it out. After leaving the fish to their own devices, we went back into the tourist hell of Branson to take Connor on the go-karts.

(...)

The GO-KARTS...

For the uninitiated, riding a go-kart is one of the last places to legally work out one's aggression under the guise of having a little 'good natured' (HA!) competition. Good natured... yeah, right.

First off, let me just preface this with the statement that I am, amazingly enough, a wee bit competitive. Shocked? Dumbfounded? I know, I know... I surprise myself sometimes. But yes, it's true, I do like to win. A lot. A whole lot. I like to think I'm a graceful loser, though. Then again, I also like to think that I'm not done growing and could still reach the five foot eight mark (what?, people can't get taller after 35?), so that shows you what thinking will get you.

Today we had Connor and I in one of those two seater go-karts. Two people got onto the track in front of us, a boyfriend/girlfriend duo in single seaters. Are you already getting a whiff of eau de foreboding?

Off we go, my boy and I. Zipping along, him screaming like a banshee right in my left ear. This was, of course, his response to having a good time. In short order we come up behind the two people who had gotten the head start out of the gate. I pass girly, on her right side. A dirty look ensues. I do not BUMP her, or PUSH her, so what the FUCK crawled up her ass I canNOT imagine. I start to pass her male counterpart. He, predictably enough since he has an EVIL PENIS, cuts me off, pushing me into the guardrail. I swerve to the other side, just trying to maintain. She zooms in behind him, not passing him, just hogging enough lane that I can't get around either one of them, even though my go-kart is FASTER than theirs and I should, by all rights, be able to get my happy ass AROUND them. But her 'good natured' competitive spirit, paired with him being all penis-afflicted, is making it almost impossible for me to take my rightful place... IN THE LEAD.

Notice how I said 'almost' ... nothing's impossible if one is a significantly better driver than the two fuckwits in the single seaters. HA! Do I brag? I. do. NOT.

I just kick ass, that's all.

Pretty soon, no matter their puny efforts, Connor and I are leaving them to savor the lovely taste of our bite-me flavored exhaust. Losers. Don't EVER cut me off and shove me into the railing on a go-kart track. Do I LOOK like the type to take that well? DO I? Phhhtttt. I can, generally, outdrive any nitwit on the pavement, and plus there's the fact that I'm both meaner than they are and riding an excessive (and slightly toxic) amount of hormones. The combination does NOT bode well for any assbag that decides his penis has some inherent right to the lead position. If his car was just faster than mine, or his abilities to corner so much more honed, that would be one thing... but if he's going to DRIVE like a BITCH, he's going to be SLAPPED DOWN like a BITCH.

*coughs*

Um. I think maybe I need a nap... or a sedative.

Who's coming with us next weekend?

Filler Story #1

So. I completely fucked off yesterday, due to the fact I was busy getting my facial/massage on (and just being unbearably lazy after that), and today I'm having another one of those days where I'm creativity challenged. Can't think of a damned thing to write about. So, pending the return of either my imagination or my motivation, you're now subject to...

The story of Puff the Graceless.

Now, as we all know, Puffmeister is my howling furball. He's a great cat, sweet and all, but he is missing one essential element of true catness... he has the grace of a three legged, arthritic elephant. I love him, but let's be honest.

One day, a few years ago, my husband and I were standing in the kitchen, discussing some forgettable thing or other. This was in the middle of me preparing dinner. Chicken fried steak was on the menu. I do make one hell of a chicken fried steak, if I do say so myself. Anyhoo. Jonathan and I were standing next to the kitchen counter, facing each other. Between us, on the counter in question, was a plate with flour and spices, innocently minding its own business. On the floor, prowling around and generally wanting attention that he was not receiving, was Puff. He stalked off about three feet and sat there, glaring. Which, by the way, is a pretty funny look on this particular cat. His default expression is one of abject confusion, so him trying to look angry is a bit awkward... Courtney Love in a convent awkward. Just so we're clear.

One wife and husband... one plate of flour... one determined, yet graceless, cat... are you getting a visual?

Puff, in his infinite kitty wisdom, decided that he'd show us a thing or two. Judging his distance (albeit incorrectly), he vaulted from the floor to the counter. Actually, 'vaulted' isn't the right term... 'vaulted' would imply that he actually CLEARED the counter. Sadly, this is not the case. 'Fumbled' might be a better word, because what actually happened is that Puff made a lunge for the counter and, well... encountered the plate of flour. Up close and personal. See, his front paws hit the plate, thus making it snap upright, perpendicular to the countertop. This would, obviously, put it in direct contact with, yes, you guessed it... his face. His back paws, meanwhile, were scrabbling like mad against the cabinet door, grasping for purchase in order to allow him to climb to the countertop and salvage some shred of his tattered dignity. It was a wasted effort.

This all happened really fast, of course. Remembering it is like seeing it in slow motion, but at the time it was pretty much 'cat jumps, cat does a faceplant, cat falls down, husband and wife laugh themselves into a coma'. And we did. There, on the floor, was one Peke-faced Persian, usually blue smoke in color, currently white from the neck up. Sneezing. Don't forget the sneezing. And looking mortally offended while simultaneously trying to look like he meant to do that. Followed by more sneezing. I laughed so hard I almost lost consciousness. Couldn't breathe. This, of course, only added to the pissed-offness that was enveloping my flour coated cat. They hate it when you laugh at them. And they WILL pay you back. This usually involves barfing up a hairball the size of a tennis ball right in the middle of your favorite pair of shoes.

It's a cat thing.

The Evil of the Penis

Every once in awhile I think that I'd like to be a guy for a few days. It would be like a vacation. First there's the fact that they save a lot of money on toilet paper, which is closely related to the benefit of not having to sit on scary toilets in public restrooms when they have to pee. I can't stress enough how pleased I would be to not be forced to either hover over a toilet seat, avoiding all contact, or cover it in about three layers of toilet paper before daring to plant my ass. Then there's the sex thing. A guy is 99.9% assured of having an orgasm during any sexual encounter. I just can't wrap my mind around the thought. Also, they generally, for whatever reason, are listened to without question, unlike women who are forced to explain, justify, whine and wheedle, just to get someone to accept what they're saying, even if it's something so painfully obvious as 'Hey, that big yellow ball? That's the SUN!' And there's the fact that they get to enter into any relationship at all with no requirement of making any kind of sense whatsoever. None. Zip. Zilch. NADA. I haven't the words.

Of course, there is that one pesky problem...

See, there's an evil that comes with the penis. There's nothing to be done about it. It ranges from small evil (the inability to stop and ask for directions... what the fuck IS that? Lost is so much more fun?) to the big evil (Hellooooooooooo, Osama. If that's not a penis issue, I don't know what is). It's all a question of degrees. And inbreeding.

Having a penis apparently means that one is forced, at all times, into a competition with other penises... penis's... peni? Whatever. More than one penis. A penis can, unfailingly, sense the presence of another penis. When this happens, it automatically goes into attack mode and overrides all the thinking skills of the person to which it is attached. Take traffic. A penis-afflicted person will know when it is about to be passed by another penis-afflicted person. Does the penis owner remain calm and allow the traffic to flow unhindered? It. does. NOT. A person burdened with a penis must, at all times, prevent any and all incoming peni... shit, there's that word again... from getting in the forward position on the highway. It is irrelevant to the penis that it is getting off said highway in about a quarter of a mile, or that it's driving a car that has the horsepower of a hamster exercise wheel, or that there is a busload of nuns that will be driven off a cliff if it doesn't slow down... no, come hell or high water, that other penis wearing person must be STOPPED. My vagina is puzzled by the actions of your penis...

Anyhoo. Having a penis also means that the wearer must, at all times, do the opposite of any suggested course of action, simply to prove that it can do things its own way. If its own way takes it ten times as long and costs about three times as much, well, that's okay. It will attempt to find some logic (from a parallel universe) that justifies its actions and proves that it was, when all is said and done, absolutely right. If not even the family dog agrees, well... that just proves that its thinking is too advanced for other mammals.

(...)

The owner of a penis is, at all times, also bound to avoid logical argument. When confronted with a reasonable debate, the penis goes into high alert, causing high blood pressure, shortness of breath, and uncontrollable outbursts, such as "Oh, you wish I wouldn't yell? Well, YOUR shoes are in the car!" While the opponent of the penis, in this particular argument, is busy blinking and trying to do some internal math to figure out how they got from point A to point Gibberish, the penis-afflicted person falls back on the old standby... the personal attack. A handy diversionary technique, this is a failsafe way to avoid any discussion in which the penis' standing at the top of the food chain is threatened. A bob, a weave, then a "And you've slept with HOW many men?" is ultimately effective. Like killing a mosquito with a Nuclear weapon, but effective. Whatever the argument was about before, it certainly isn't about that NOW. Might be about which hospital is closest and exactly how much pressure does one apply to stop the bleeding when a limb has been ripped off?

I think I'm much happier having girl parts.

Brain Suck

Go to the book store. Or the supermarket. Or a fast food restaurant (God help you). Pay close attention. There's something eerie that's happening there. I see it more and more as the years go by. An insidious force is at work, right under our noses. I'm not sure what the source is, but I have my suspicions. I'm sure you've all seen it. Maybe you blew it off as a bad day, imagination, perception... whatever. But no, it's real. It's pervasive. It's driving me out of my mind. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

The brain suck.

There's some interlock between the operating of a cash register and the cessation of all higher brain functions. I don't know exactly how it works, but I know how it manifests itself.

Otherwise bright and friendly people suddenly, without warning, get behind a cash register and become both a)stupid, and b)hostile. Go ahead, ASK for extra ketchup. You'll be sorry, but you can still ask. Better yet, if you REALLY want to see something entertaining, hand them two dollars and seven cents when your amount due is one dollar and eighty two cents. Do this after they've already punched in two dollars as the amount received. They almost burst into flames. They suddenly lose the ability to both count and communicate. Blank stares abound.

I went to Hardee's this morning for breakfast. Nice enough girl behind the counter (guess she was opting out of option b), but she seemed more than a little overwhelmed by the order taking process. I asked for a number 2 combo. The eyes glaze over. She stares at the keyboard in front of her and finally punches a button. She looks back up at me and says "That was a number two and what?" I force a smile and say (slowly and loudly, like she's both foreign AND deaf)"COMBO". Well, that just throws off her mojo all to hell. She sighs and does some random button pushing, finally getting the combo entered. Then she straightens up, stares for a good 15 seconds at the little screen that shows my total on it, then kind of snaps back to a state of awareness and says "Um, you want coffee with that, or...?" and just kind of trails off, looking at me all helpless, like she'd really rather I just shot her at this point. I (still smiling, people... still smiling) prompt her with a hopeful "Coke?" Okies. She takes my debit card, making sure to take a second to stare at it like it's some new form of life, and we begin to wrap things up. I just want my food, for crying out loud. The remainder of my dealings with chicky, from getting jelly for my biscuit to getting my actual biscuit itself, pretty much followed this pattern. I was just glad I got to eat.

The people who opt for option b are, while possibly less prevalent, far more aggravating to deal with. Luckily for the general population, I didn't deal with any of those this morning, so I don't have a good story to share right this second. I'm right in the middle of the PMDD rush, so getting a person with a hostile attitude would so NOT turn out well. I predict bloodshed and possibly riot gear. It's really better all the way around if I stay home one week a month. Ten days, max. Really.

Next time I have a good run-in with an option b offender, I'll make sure to let y'all know. 'Cause if you can't enjoy my pain and indignation, I haven't done my job.

Update

Don't forget to check the post I put up about an hour ago, since this one will push it down and you might miss it if you're not careful, but...

*insert drumroll here*

Looks like yours truly is getting the house. Well, Jonathan and Connor get to come, too, of course. I'm generous like that.

We have verbal confirmation of an agreeable countercountercounteroffer. Say THAT ten times fast. So, barring a problem with either the appraisal or the inspection...

We'll officially be homeowners as of February 28th.

I'll probably be a great deal more excited after the appraisal actually comes through... for the minute I'm kind of 'Oh, well... isn't that nice.' I've learned to not count any unhatched chickens.

Everyone involved seems to think the appraisal will be no problem. I hope they know what they're talking about. The inspection should be no worry at all, since the house is only two years old. I'm sure it's structurally sound. Now the current paintjob is another matter entirely. I'll be hitting Home Depot for about 8 tons of paint as soon as we sign closing papers. I mean, really? Purple? Great for the baby who currently inhabits that room, not so great for me and my computer desk. I'm thinking something in a cocoa...

God, I love home makeovers.

Yep. Homeowners. Now to start scoping out a trampoline for the back yard...

No Fun at All

Should you ever end up in a room with me with the television on, I'd suggest either taping my mouth shut or shooting yourself. Well, sure, just leaving the room is an option, too, but that's just too easy. See, I've got this thing... I can't help it. It's part of my genetic make up or something. It has to be, because I can't seem to stop myself, no matter how hard I try.

Nola... nitpicking inconsistencies and irregularities as far as the eye can see.

Yes, I'm that person who, when faced with something that would never happen, has to point it out. Take the Law and Order shows. I love those. Honest. But I'll see one of the detectives make some huge mental leap to solve the crime and, before you know it, I'm sitting there muttering 'Yeah, 'cause Karnac over there just knew that a spot on a sock always means the suspect had his collarbone broken when he was a child'. I mean, really? Who DOES that? I mean the jump, not the muttering. And we, the viewing public, are just supposed to sit there and nod and go 'oooooooooooooh, of COURSE! Why didn't we see that before?' I'll tell you why... because it MAKES. NO. FUCKING. SENSE.

Or how about when they're interrogating the suspect? Sure, WE know the guy did it. But isn't your average person smart enough to keep his/her mouth shut during an interrogation? Not that I'm for that, mind you... all about the personal accountability. But still. Your average criminal isn't going to suddenly spill his guts, earning himself a nice, fat prison term, just because some detective insulted his mother (brother, aunt, pet frog... whatever) and he can't take it anymore. If this is the caliber of criminals we have today, it's no wonder our prisons are overcrowded.

Plot holes are the bane of my existence. I just wrote an enormous paragraph on one example of a plot hole (from HELL), in a book I read, but after examining it I found that I was even boring myself, so... hellooooooooooooo, backspace. Suffice it to say that if there's a connection made between two points of a storyline, I'd prefer that actually make something resembling SENSE. A quirk of mine, I know, but what's a girl to do?

Even better is when they forget, seemingly, what they've previously written. You know... chapter 2 they amputate Tom's leg... chapter 10 Tom is line dancing. Now, I'm no Fred Astaire, but... wouldn't that require TWO legs? What?, is Tom part starfish and regenerated a limb when we weren't looking? Next he'll pop up pregnant. Just you watch.

All these things are major bugging factors, but really, what gets me the most? Rampant stupidity. I'm that chick who sits there, eating my Sugar Wafers and guzzling my tea, and canNOT let it go when I see someone do something inordinately idiotic. To use a tired example... take the chick who is home alone, hears a noise in her dark and creepy basement, and decides to investigate... while both a)half naked, and b)neglecting to turn the lights on. What the FUCK is that? Do some people just WANT to be taken out of the gene pool? Is that what that is? They should just wear a placard that says "Hi, my name is Tardo, and I'll be your victim today"... save us all the not knowing. Or, my personal fave, when someone finds the stabbed and mutiliated body of a loved one, complete with the knife still sticking out of the back. Do they step back and call 911... or even run screaming into the night, which would be up there on my list of shit to do... like NORMAL people? Heaven forfend. First, they are unable to resist the urge to reach forward and grab the aforementioned knife. 'Cause, you know, how else can the police get their prints off of it and send them to prison? Then they've got to panic, of course, after realizing the scale of their own stupidity, and leave the scene of the crime, usually making sure to leave a bloody footprint on the way out. 'Cause, you know, cops NEVER find people who flee the scene of a homicide. Now I ask you... how could I NOT point this out while it's unfolding? Sure, it makes my husband want to fit me with a muzzle, but come ON! I'm supposed to sit and say nothing?

Yeah, that'll happen.

Oh, by the way... for those of you interested in knowing, we sent back a countercounteroffer to the home owners last night. Should have a final decision by this evening at 7:00. I'll keep you informed, assuming I don't spontaneously combust by then.

Another Day, Another Ulcer

The owners finally contacted us. Their realtor faxed my realtor a counteroffer on the house. Now we have to decide if we want to take it or send them back yet another counteroffer. Put your left foot in, put your left foot out, put your... gah. I'm torn. I'm going to look at a few places today, just to see if there's anything else that we like better that's available right now. I know there's nothing that says we have to buy a house right this second. Might be smarter to keep looking for a month or two. Smarter... hence me not waiting. I want this DONE with. Like, yesterday. No, I won't buy some money pit just to get my hands on property, but I'm also not going to dick around for an indefinite period of time, waiting for that 'perfect' house. The only perfect houses are the ones we can't afford, so we're just aiming for as close as we can get.

I know I put that Maalox around here somewhere...

I will, of course, keep y'all informed as the process rolls along. Might take the camera with me today to snap pictures of any other houses we run across that tickle my fancy. An exercise in tedium for most of the reading public, but still... I'm all about the sharing.

Here's hoping that I don't burst a vein today...