F16’s Don’t Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People

In line at a small, independent drugstore out in the country with my son. I’d just dropped $120.00 on 3 medications and figured it would be OK to spend another .15 cents on a grape lollipop for Danny. Usually he pesters me for toys (they have a great toy section) so I figured we were getting out cheap.

Two old men in overalls and baseball hats are waiting in line. Maybe 70-75 years old. They’re both amused as Danny hands the elderly cashier his candy and blurts out

"Lady I have candy please and thank you mama will pay now."

OK, that was sort of cute-he wanted to make sure he got all the politesse out of the way so he could attack the candy.

"Hey everybody" (turns to the two men) mama painted her toenails! (Again turns to men) Does anyone here have painted toenails?"

The two old men looked at each other, shook their heads and shrugged. 

"Well my mama does!"

I could tell they were quite impressed. I don’t even want to imagine the conversation after we left.

Now we are having the strangest lightning I’ve ever seen. It is horizontal, bouncing from cloud to cloud. I’ve heard of it, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it. I’d say it is a good twenty miles from here in the direction of Lincoln. Long night ahead.

And no, I’m not going outside to take photographs. Here’s some more detail about tonight’s earlier storm.  Ignore the idiots in the comment thread.

I’m providing a link to THIS blog because bad food ideas amuse me (as any recent visitors to my cooking blog can observe). For the most part, these seem to be Japanese interpretations of western food items, rather than authentic Japanese cuisine. Somewhere, there must be a blog devoted to stupid Americans that ruin miso soup by boiling it and adding alphabet noodles. So yeah, it is amusing to look at, but I’m not about to mock the Japanese for silly food when I come from a culture that puts cheese in a spray can-a food idea that as far as I’m aware is a home-grown idea. I doubt we were reinterpreting it from the Dutch.

Apparently there’s a storm headed right for us and we’re surrounded by tornadoes. We’re getting ready to head for the storm cellar. Kearney, Nebraska got hit pretty bad tonight. Keep them in your thoughts if you can.

I hate this time of year. 

FYI.

Via

Poor Mojo 

Today’s subject for panic is youngsters playing web games. Scared yet? Well according to um…"experts", you should be. Your children can become addicted (oh, come on) to games and become reclusive freaks that grow up to become chartered accountants anti-social. Or, they’ll be just fine like everyone else that has a hobby they engage in with enthusiasm. The ones you really want to watch out for are the stamp collectors…something about the glue in those tiny mounting hinges that makes stamp collectors 300% more likely to go on a shooting rampage than say, kids who collected stickers. Except for the kids that collected the "puffy" stickers because we know what kind of bastards they grew up to be.

 Not panicking yet? OK here’s the "expert’s suggestions for being a good parent and making sure your child does not spiral down the path of no return:

"To prevent those problems, Yee said parents can take a number of steps, including:

• Requiring children to keep a gaming journal. Make a deal that for every hour they spend playing online games, they must spend an hour being physically active. "

Yeah, that’s really going to happen. Or how about:

" Educating themselves about the various online games and what makes them appealing to better relate to their children’s infatuation."

As my husband noted, this can pretty much be boiled down to, "Controling the universe is fun." I don’t know how much "educating" one really needs to arrive at that understanding. Still not scared? Me either.

I seem to remember similar fears about comic books when I was young, though to my mother’s credit she let me spend every cent I had on them without comment.  

Did you ever see the movie, The Ruling Class?  

It is probably not too far from forcing the poor into work camps, to shooting them outright. It would undoubtedly get a fair deal of popular support.

Like something out of Dickens, really.  

I posted some scary photos and the story of my utter stupidity over at the other blog. I’m finding it too difficult to post photos here.

Storm chasing isn’t my idea of fun.

If you have a weather radio, this might be a good time to check that it is plugged in and set with fresh batteries-just in case. Yikes.

I’m scaling back on posting here for a while. I’m buried under a ton of projects and frankly, I don’t have much to say. Logging on and reading "news" these days only succeeds in further causing my already sick guts to churn and who the hell needs it? I can find much better ways to spend my time than restating the obvious (we’re all screwed). In an effort to spend my time better, I took my three year old to the arcade today so he could play the driving games. Then, I taught him how to play Skee Ball. His underhand toss stinks, but we have all summer to work on it. Danny is much better at Bozo Buckets. I was somewhat disappointed they don’t have Whack-A-Mole, but they did have a similar game with a giant mallet and alligators. What do you expect when the games cost a nickel?

Do you know what’s really satisfying? Playing one of those shooting games where you have to get the zombies in the head. I never would have expected it to be that engaging-I’ve really been missing out. Anyway, the last time we went the noise seemed unbearable to me, but today I think Danny wanted to leave before I did. Who knew killing zombies could be so much fun?

Anyway, I have canning, sewing, and a garden to deal with this weekend. I’ll probably make appearances here, and there at the cooking blog, but don’t expect too much. I don’t really have anything to say that I haven’t already said in the five years I’ve been blogging. After a while, I get on my own nerves.

Now, off to make preserves and finish sewing that wedding present.

I’d try THIS instead of shampoo from a bottle. I have pretty long hair, but it isn’t subjected to haircolouring or harsh dryers, etc. I think it can withstand cider vinegar. My three year old loves the smell of cider vinegar and likes to hang out in the kitchen when I’m making chutney (which I do every Sunday and I’d be happy to share recipes if you’re interested). I’m pretty sure he’ll be delighted that Mama is dousing her head in the crucial chutney making ingredient. Mmmm, Mama chutney-head.

Let me know if it works for you. The savings is pretty major over bottled shampoo.

I want to build one of these, but I’ll actually need to find people that read print newspapers to save them for me.

Admit it, you want to build one too.

Or, perhaps not. A federal study has concluded more than 2 million US teens are depressed. Unfortunately, as you read down, they are listing casual drug use as an indicator of "depression" and the study comes from an agency with an interest in convincing people that teenagers will go off their collective rockers if they smoke dope. A few weeks ago we had a flurry of press releases similar to this one telling us that smoking marijuana causes cancer, and severe mental illness. If you’re going to define drug use as a mental illness that will tend to inflate numbers.  The assertion smells-what do you think? Do you buy it?

Oreos are at long last available in England. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t adjust them for English tastes (less sweet) but it is amusing to hear people’s reactions to them. I suppose biscuits are one of the few palatable things there are to eat in Britain (yes I know, the cuisine is improving-allegedly) and let’s face it, Oreos just plain suck since they took out the trans fats. They do-the whole mouth-feel is different. Not that I buy them but once every ten years or so-but still. The last time I bought them was late in my pregnancy with Danny. They were awful. I sent my husband to work with the package to give away in the break room. If a heavily pregnant woman won’t eat them, they must be pretty bad.