Alternative Iraq's Most Wanted Cards
Check these out.
April 25, 2003
Bed & Breakfast
I'm finally caught up after being away last week and have a chance to write about the trip. It wasn't much of a trip, actually more of a chance to get away from phones and kids and responsibilities for a few days. Including lots of eating and sleeping.
I've always preferred B&Bs to hotels and after staying in many, I consider myself a good judge of them. In fact, I hope someday to put together a guide to Texas B&Bs. We stayed in Austin at Carrington's Bluff Bed and Breakfast . It was wonderful.
I would compare it to a stay at Grandma's. There are two houses, very well maintained. Decorating was a mish mash of old furniture, no fine antiques. A little shabby, but thankfully not "shabby chic". The keyword here is comfort. Everything was tasteful. Not overly cluttered by birdhouses, doilies, ruffles, tussie-mussies, or bowls of potpourri. John always complains about the frou frou in B&Bs and it was nowhere to be found here.
Phoebe, the proprietress, had foreseen her guests every need. In the bathroom there were plenty of towels, a hairdryer, great spa robes, and Caswell-Massey toiletries in a fragrance not too girly for guys. There was an iron and ironing board in the closet although I try to avoid that sort of thing. A notebook was provided of recommended restaurants and directions to each. A basket in the hall contained sundry items such as sunscreen, insect repellant, safety pins, etc. Each house had a fully equipped kitchen at the guests disposal with a fridge well stocked and constantly replenished with iced tea, lemonade, assorted sodas, St. Genevieve chardonay, and two flavors of Blue Bell ice cream. Coffee and a wide variety of teas were available as was microwavable popcorn. Every afternoon fresh cookies arrived.
We stayed in the Hermoine Lee room in the writer's cottage with our own door to the porch and deck. The house had three bedrooms, and although there were others staying there, we seldom heard them. Breakfast was a buffet served across the street at the main house. Each day was different, but there was always a meat, an egg dish, fresh fruit, toast, bagels, cereals and more. No miniscule juice glasses here, Phoebe provided us with our own carafe of orange juice. There were numerous small tables which I loved because I find repartee with strangers difficult over breakfast. One could even eat on the porch and share toast with the cardinals and squirrels. The only minus was that during the week breakfast was served between 7:30 and 8:30 due to a large number of guests there on business. We soon learned we could straggle in late and still find an abundance of hot and fresh goodies.
Did you guess that we loved the place? Hopefully, we'll get to return soon. I'll get to other things we did later and try not to be so wordy. There really weren't enough words to describe how much we enjoyed Carrington's Bluff .
April 19, 2003
Update on Playing Cards
April 13, 2003
Getaway
We're going on little trip this week. Hopefully, when we return I'll have something new to write about and some good pictures too.
April 11, 2003
Saddam on eBay
After watching the statue of Saddam brought down in Baghdad, I had to wonder, how long before bits of it were being offered on ebay? Today I read that the US military has issued a most-wanted list in the form of a deck of cards, featuring Saddam Hussein as the ace of spades along with other top figures in his toppled regime in the deck. These cards were issued to US troops to help them find and identify the senior members of the regime. Wow! Flashcards for soldiers. You gotta know those will be hot sellers on ebay.
A search for Saddam on ebay brought up 2733 items. None of these cards were there _yet_, but there were playing decks and collectible cards from Desert Storm. Most listings were for Iraqi dinar and, surprisingly, most had bids. There were the expected tee shirts and buttons. The most interesting have to be buttons featuring your chosen dog breed in a tank with the words "Lhasa Apsos (or your favorite breed) Are Coming At You Saddam!" A note in the listing states they do not sell to France or Germany. Ha! These are just bizarre. Apparently dog breed collectibles are big business on ebay because I've found nearly everything one can imagine emblazoned with Pekingese, Poodles, Scotties, etc. And selling! I'll explore that topic another day.
Back to Saddam. Of course there were the expected bumper stickers, posters, and tees featuring Calvin doing his thing. There was"Wipe Out Saddam"toilet tissue and "Dope on a Rope" soap. Mostly junk, the list goes on and on and most items have bids.
If you have a few minutes to spare, go check it out. I'm sure the playing cards will turn up soon. As for me, I'm off to make "Kittys Will Find You, Saddam" buttons. You never know, I might make millions.
April 10, 2003
Concorde To Be Retired
It's a sad day. One more little dream on my list that will never come true. I just read that British Airways and Air France, the only two airlines to operate Concorde, will take the glamorous but hugely expensive jets out of service by the end of October because of falling passenger demand and rising maintenance costs. It seems the remaining jets will end up in museums.
I remember when they were being developed and how cool it was when the first one flew with passengers on board from Paris to Rio de Janeiro in 1976. I knew that someday I would be on one. Of course, my vision at that time also included having late night suppers in Paris.
More realistically, I assumed that someday everyone would fly that way. It seemed that we would all be speeding around the globe, safely and inexpensively. However, with fare for round trip across the Atlantic at $9,300, there really weren't that many people flying. In fact, the day the end of services was announced Air France only had 12 passengers on board. Sad, huh?
So hats off to the French for designing such an elegant, sexy, and mercurial machine. And a moment of silence for it's passing.
Out My Office Window
| There was no entry yesterday because most of my time was spent on taxes. Finally, at 1:00 am Central Daylight Savings Time, they were completed. The labor was not a long one, but was quite painful.
So this morning I made a vow to stop and smell the roses. After all, that's not taxed. The roses aren't blooming yet, but the Japanese Maple out my office window is gorgeous. Later in the summer the heat will take it's toll and lightly scald the leaves, but right now it's perfect. This tree, planted March 29, 2000, was one of the first things we planted after I came here. In my mind, it sort of represents our commitment and the time we have been together. Previously I lived in New Mexico and had planted Japanese Maples twice only to see them shrivel up and die in the arid climate there. This one has thrived, growing slowly, and giving much pleasure. The photo I took this morning doesn't begin to show the many colors and the play of light and shadows it presents. It's absolutely breathtaking (I don't use that term lightly) and I wanted to share it. A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for Ever _Keats |  |
April 8, 2003
Tonight's Timekiller
Great little puzzle game. You rearrange furniture for points.
Not for the weak hearted.
OPENHOUSE
Retro
| I'm strapped for time today, so I thought I would share a few sites that have cute and unique retro stuff. The fabric below will soon be valances on my office windows. I just love it. I ordered it from RetroDepot. It came beautifully wrapped in tissue with stickers and a collectible postcard. I just can't say enough good things about this place and I can't wait to order more. Our house could easily become a Tiki palace.
Another great site is The Naughty Secretary Club. Lots of interesting things there, including neat jewelry and purses. I haven't bought anything there so I can't really recommend their store, but the merchandise looks cool. One more you might want to check out is Atomic, touted as the Essential Guide to Retro Culture, it is the website of Atomic magazine. There are articles, lists of events, and of course, you can subscribe to their magazine. One I found today is melinamade. It features retro fabric, wallpapers (the kind you put on the wall), and glassware. The price on barkcloth here is more than double what it is at RetroDepot. That's it for now. Happy "retro" shopping!  |
April 7, 2003
Taxes & Death
I've worked on the tax return most of the morning. This year I'm using TaxCut from H&R Block. Always before, or at least as long as software was available, I used Turbo Tax. I didn't want to change, but the following excerpt from John's site will explain:
January 03, 2003
Question: "How do I benefit from this approach?" Answer: "You don't."
Before you make the mistake of purchasing TurboTax this year be sure you understand that you are not buying their software, you are just "licensing" it. Intuit TurboTax Technical Support
Yup. I thought it was really neat when I got a CD case last month with the new TurboTax in it in my mailbox. I thought that somebody had finally clued into the fact that you can send a disc out for a small amount and get people to try out your product. They are especially likely to when it's something they've bought several years in a row. But I opened it up to find that the "deal" they were offering a long-time customer was worse than what I could get from going to the store. Thanks a lot Intuit.
But I made the mistake of thinking that was as far as the insult went. I was willing to forgive the attempt to gouge me and still buy the product until I found out that they've added a Microsoft Windows XP like "activation" system to the new software. So your installation is tied to a specific machine and you can't give it to anyone else or sell it after you are done using it (even if you uninstall)... So just kiss the doctrine of "first sale" goodbye. You no longer "own" the product, you merely "license" it now for just as much as you used to pay to buy it.
Whil Whim likens it to buying a book that you can only use with one lamp. Woe unto you should you change the lightbulb, break the lamp, or wish to get rid of the book but not the lamp.
All I can say now is "%&@) YOU" Intuit. I'm one long time customer who will NOT buy this years product or next years or any other years as long as this is the way you run things.
So you see, NO WAY was I going to be able to use TurboTax. I totally agreed with him, but I was concerned about importing last years return. TaxCut promises that will be no problem. Well yeah, if all you want are the names, social security numbers and list of W-2s from the previous year. Only a small part of the data from the previous return is brought in and what is is difficult to update. Maybe it's just my unfamiliarity with the software, but I had to hand delete much of the old stuff to fill in new values for this year. And on forms and such that didn't pertain to this year, I couldn't just delete them as a whole, they had to be done line by friggin' line. ARGGGHHHH. As for last year's deductions, I just had to go find the hard copy. As we tend to contribute to the same organizations year after year, it was nice in TurboTax to have all the details brought forward. The TaxCut interface is so screwy that every time you hit enter you go back to the top of the page when you should have gone to the next line. Have you guessed yet that I hate it??
I know that preparing taxes is a hair pulling undertaking and we are still waiting for some much needed schedules necessary to file so it isn't all TaxCut's fault that I'm bald. But given the choice again, I would choose TurboTax. Sitting down with a pencil might even be preferable. If you are only going to open it on one machine and you are doing only one return, opt for TurboTax.
Even if you have to do it on the sly.
April 6, 2003
Bath & Body Works Shenanigans
Yesterday the daughter and I visited Bath & Body Works. I had received a coupon in the mail offering $10 free merchandise or $10 off any purchase. The bottom of the coupon also offered $50 off any $100 dollar purchase. Wow! Half price is good, right? We decided together we could easily tote up $100 and be out only $25 each. Sounds, wonderful, huh?
B&BW has to have the most clever marketing scheme on earth. Sounds easy to gather up 100 bucks of sweet smelling goodies, but the reality is frightening. Nothing is as it seems in B&BW. A soap is marked $7, but buy three for only $15. The shampoo is $9, but pick out $20 in the aromatherapy line and it is free. Buy two, get one free. Buy one, get the second half price. You get the idea. It gets complicated!
So we have our little basket, walking around sniffing stuff, trying to get items we really want and still take advantage of the all the specials. Eventually we are in the floor, one calculating and keeping track of specials, while the other runs back and forth across the store to get the much needed items to make all the deals work. Now.... Imagine this times 5 because we aren't the only poor souls who got the damned coupon and decided to share in the booty with a friend, mother, sister, daughter, etc. All over the store, women are spreading out bottles in little groups and counting on their fingers.
I would like to say this story has a happy ending. But you see, after accounting for all the special deals and actually getting a few things we liked, we were at $109 before tax. Nine dollars is almost ten and guess what was lurking in my purse? Another coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase. For only $6 more we could have $25 more. This reasoning doesn't seem sound to me today, but yesterday, amidst others on the floor, counting and running, it made absolute sense.
This is how it went. We spent well over $80 with tax to save half of $100, much of which we didn't need in the first place. I'm so ashamed of myself. And to top it off, today when I cozied up to my husband, swinging my freshly shampooed hair, he didn't even notice the lovely sensual, stress-relieving "blue lavender palmarosa" scent.
April 4, 2003
Weekend
After this morning's rain the dug out patio addition we were going to work on this weekend is now the new reflecting pool. Tomorrow John and the youngest kiddo are going to Six Flags, but I'm begging off. The older I get, the less appeal it has for me. Don't you just hate those ludicrous Disney World commercials featuring a retired couple toasting one another with metamucil in the moonlight? "Hey honey, let's take that 10k we were saving for Hawaii and go to Disney World instead." Sure! Who the hell really wants to go there unless they have to take the kids? It's like eating at McDonald's. You pay your dues, and then you're done. I'm actually allergic to all things Disney anyway.
I need to devote some time to figuring out CSS. I'm not happy at all with the appearance of this thing. The other templates at MovableType don't do anything for me. I'm not bad with HTML, but the CSS is something I've had little experience with. So, if you should come here and things look a little strange, check back and watch them get stranger.
Friday evening. Looks like it's time to order pizza and feed the hungry masses. Hope everyone has a fun and safe night
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April 3, 2003
Austin B&B
Quickie. If anyone knows of a great B&B in Austin, or any great (not too expensive) place to stay, please let me know. We're going in a few weeks and are trying to make a decision.
Divas and war (updated 4/6)
Last night I saw the anti-war video "American Life "(download here) that Madonna pulled from release in the states. I have to start by saying that I think Madonna is truly talented and a marketing genius. Over the years, she has reinvented herself time after time, sometimes quite edgy, still remaining mainstream. So we have to ask, "Whassup?" The video has aired overseas and apparently was only held back here. It seems to me that most MTV viewers have the means to view it online and, most likely, it will soon be available at your local Blockbuster. Obviously it was created before actual fighting in Iraq began, but it manages to seem as if parts were yanked from today's headlines. Cool.
She stated that she didn't want to offend anyone. My take is, if it was aired, it definitely would offend some. (I don't know these people, but polls constantly tell me they exist.) Like the girl that says "no" and means "yes", she has managed to be naughty and not bear responsiblity. It just all seems so contrived to me. She did it. We're all seeing it and she has managed to escape retribution by disclaiming it. What a coup! Perhaps she was inspired by Michael Jackson's recent much ado about nothing. After all, any publicity is good publicity and Madonna certainly knows how to use the allure of the forbidden to her advantage.
So much truer, Natalie Maines' recent statement and the hoopla it created. Gotta love west Texas women for their candor. :) Yeah, she apologized to Dubya, she had little choice, but it was made clear how she felt. Nothing contrived or superficial there. Simple honesty followed by a conscripted acquiescence. I didn't own a Dixie Chick CD before, but I do now. You go, Natalie!!
I can't hang this up without mentioning Sheryl Crow. She seems to _try_ to reinvent herself. I've enjoyed her music but ever since she penned and sang "I bring you apples from the vine" I've not been able to take her seriously. C'mon!! Who the hell ever heard of apples on a vine? Others have argued poetic license about this, but I don't buy it.
I figured she just wasn't very bright. At this year's American Music Awards, she conclusively proved it. Showing up in an ever so tacky tee shirt with "War is not the answer" emblazoned in sequins, she offered this conjecture, "The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies" Profound, huh? Oh yeah, and coming soon, exclusively at a Starbucks near you, "Music that Matters to Her"
At least she didn't write the songs.
4/6/03 update More Madonna opinions
April 2, 2003
24
Okay, I have to do this. I planned to this morning, but felt I had to mention the Firedaemon thing. I really like 24. I don't watch much tv, and 24 is the only show on my "must see" list, so I miss it when it doesn't air and when it does, I expect a one hour thrill ride leaving me hanging in thin air until the next episode.
Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer is great, and cute too. Xander Berkeley, who played CTU Director George Mason, was fantastic this season. It's a shame he is gone. Dennis Haysbert, as President, is wonderful. Everyone does what I consider a bang up job. All but one. The one bad apple in the bunch. The shoe that stepped in doodoo. The rotten egg. Kate Warner, as played (should we call it that?) by Sarah Wynter
Since the first time we saw her skulking around her father's house before her sister's wedding, the expression on her face has not changed!! Somewhere along the way she learned to crease her forehead and do some weird Kermit the Frog thing with her mouth. It ain't pretty, folks. And it's not acting either. Finding her Father is a spy, having her sister try to kill her, sneaking into a mosque, facing torture, the look on her face is always the same. It was rumored earlier in the season that Jack Bauer might express some kind of romantic interest in her character. When he sorta/kinda did, if anything, her brow creased more tightly and her upper lip protruded a bit more. Ewwww!!
So why am I ragging on this poor woman? For one thing, she really is the weakest link on 24. Secondly, my husband, sharing my opinion of her, came in a few days ago with the latest Maxim (I hate to admit it, but yes, he subscribes. ) and slapped it down before me asking if I could believe it. Now I really don't pay much attention to the cover of Maxim other than keeping it off the top of the coffee table pile. (It is just so tacky) But he's pointing at it and I'm scanning the cover, checking the featured articles, and trying to figure out what he is so fired up about, when he points and says "Look! It's her!" It takes me a minute. After all, she is lying back and that alone smoothed some of those creases. Now I'm not saying she isn't pretty or hot or whatever the reason she is in Maxim, but the caption inside with the article is, and I quote____EVERY HOUR CAN FEEL LIKE AN ETERNITY ON FOX'S NAIL-BITINGLY TENSE SERIES 24--BUT THE STUNNING SARAH WYNTER MAKES EACH MINUTE WELL SPENT__
More aptly, it should have read: EVERY MINUTE OF SARAH WYNTER ON 24 SEEMS LIKE AN ETERNITY.