A Personal Observation – Pet peeve #1: Lack of Phone Manners

I know what you all are thinking; what is this nutcase going on about now? Well just this; when people don’t say goodbye to you before they hang up the phone. Drives. Me. Nuts! Seriously. It stems from my a**hole, ex-stepfather. He NEVER said goodbye, but had the nerve one day to chastise me for the way I started conversations.

STEP-FATHER: “Its ‘May I speak with so-in-so’, not ‘Is so-in-so there?’.

ME: *PUNCH* (note-I didn’t, but it was a fantasy of mine for years.)

I caught my mother doing it one time and immediately called her back and told her what she’d done wrong. I’ve even called Sithboy back when he was at a friend’s house and blasted him for doing it.

THEN, I got blasted on Twitter once because I said goodbye before I headed off. He sent a message saying he was un-following me because I cluttered up his stream with nonsense (or something stupid like that).

Really? Since when are manners nonsense? AND HE WAS BRITTISH!

 Okay, I’m better now…

Do We Need An Authors Code for Online Conduct?

Has it come to this? Just this past weekend I heard of another writer and their online meltdown on a forum and on Twitter. I’m not going to go into details. I think this guy has already got more attention than he deserves.

This latest disgrace has further blackened the face of self-publishing. Don’t be fooled into thinking this will pass without any ramifications. What hurts one of us, hurts us all, and self-published authors who are arrogant as this guy was, do more harm than good.

So what is the SP community supposed to do? Do we let these author’s go off and self-destruct? Do we try and compensate in some way for their public gaffe? Do we slam him/her in public as much as possible? It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, but each time we act or react to these ‘authors’, good or bad, it intensifies the already growing malice toward SP community. There are enough people out there who think all self-published authors are unprofessional. We don’t need to prove them right.

Personally, I’m for letting these people self-destruct. Attacking other writers under the guise of self-defence only makes them look more like the amateur they are. Let their own personal code of conduct bury their career. The rest of us will do just fine without them.

Facing One’s Mortality

A rather grim title for a blog post, but the events of the last few days have made me take a look at things.

Late Monday night I was at the hospital. I had heart flutters and was scared out of my mind. My grandfather died of a massive heart attack when he was fifty. That’s only six years from where I am now. My mother went health nuts around this age too. She was so afraid the same fate would happen to her, and at the time, I thought she was over-reacting. I know better now.

The doctor said I have a condition called Premature Ventricular Contraction.

http://www.medicinenet.com/premature_ventricular_contractions/article.htm

The doctor says it’s not as bad as it sounds, that it’s common, but still, it’s enough to make you wonder what the hell you were doing in your life to make your heart act like this.

Right now, I’m fine. A little worse for wear and I have some new life experiences to draw from, but I also realize that perhaps certain things in my life will have to be scaled back. Your heart and brain are two of the most important muscles in your body, and so many things can go wrong. Things may be fine now, but who’s to say that would continue without lifestyle changes.

Sometimes stubborn people need a good kick in the ass. I think I got mine Monday night.

My Quest to be Healthy.

Or at least, healthier.

One good thing about the warm weather starting early, it puts me in the mood to eat better. Cold weather makes me crave comfort food; all that process carbs and sugar. I can’t eat a salad during winter. I can’t even prepare one. Just the idea of putting one together; running veggies and stuff under cold water, eating food right out of the fridge, makes me cold. Gah, I’m getting cold just thinking about it now.

Maybe it’s the thought of tee-shirts and shorts and bathing suits that make me start eating healthier around this time of year. I’ve started doing my work-out again (I know, again), but I have to stick with it. I can do the whole hour no problem, so I bumped up the intensity with gloved hand weights. They’re so cool! Two pound weights sewn into these fingerless gloves. Found them in a box of exercise DVD’s my mom gave me. Kept the gloves, threw out the DVD’s.

I’ll use them until April, and then I’ll take them off and use three pound hand weights. I’ve also been doing the low impact version of the DVD but plan to integrate the high impact segment. Well, that’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes.

I also need to eat better. Husband brought home fruit and stuff for smoothies. I like them and the fibre from the fruit does keep me going through the afternoon. I have green tea with ginseng too. I find that helps to keep me awake and not want to nap. Plus, I get more writing done! I haven’t eaten too many processed carbs this week (my week starts on Monday). The slice of pizza Monday at lunch, a hamburger Tuesday night, and two slices of bread yesterday, but I’ve been keeping away from Sithboy’s treats. And he’s got a lot of them.

I’ve lost weight before so I know what to do to succeed, it’s just a matter of me sticking with it and not giving in to my excuses.

Time travel; would you?

I recently finished reading a time travel/alternate reality book written by a good friend of mine Marlene Dotterer.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/84342

It got me to thinking, if time travel was possible, would I do it? Would I go back in time to witness historic events? Probably, I mean who wouldn’t right? There is so much about mankind’s history that is unknown, and most of what we know is tainted by either religion or other factors. After all, ‘History is written by the victor.’

Marlene’s book brought up another question; if I did go back would I change the outcome of a disaster? Her book takes place a few years before the Titanic set sail, but controversially, she has one of her characters fall in love with someone who originally died on during that disaster. Note I said ‘originally’. She speculates that because this person did not die, he went on to not only change maritime law, but Ireland as well. I remember the bloody fighting in Ireland. Imagine all the lives that would live on, if Ireland didn’t have those brutal conflicts.

And you thought kids were picky eaters…

We raised Master Brown and Miss Molly on one certain brand of food. It’s a grocery store generic, but they like it and it’s a fur-ball formula that seems to work.  A few weeks ago they stopped making this food and Husband was left with the task of finding another good, cheap, hair-ball formula food. Well, we did find one, and the hissy-fits that ensued was ridiculous.

Miss Molly went on a hungry strike and barely ate any of it. She let us know too that she wasn’t impressed. Every time you went into the kitchen, there she was—meowing. I’ve never heard a cat meow so much in my life! Then there was the whole ‘I’m ignoring you until you get the food I like’ thing. You’d talk to her she’d meow and turn her back on you.

Master Brown ate it, but then he would sneak over and push Katza away from his bowl and eat the kitten food when I wasn’t looking, so it wasn’t like he was starving. Plus, he pestered Sithboy whenever the kid had cheese slices.

Katza, well, if you haven’t heard me complain yet about it, that cat eats anything that’s on the floor. Seriously, I’ve had to pull all kinds of crap out of that animal’s mouth. He’s even gotten into the garbage a couple times. You’d think he’d know better, plus, he was the only one who didn’t complain about the new food. Mind you, he also had the kitten food too.

Last Sunday, Husband found new food that everyone likes. Molly is back to gracing us with her presence, Brown is staying away from the kitten food (mind you, it’s all gone now), and Katza isn’t complaining either. Just to show you how satisfied everyone is, I took this pic last night.

My neck hurts just looking at Katza.

The TRAUMATIC EVENT and a PSA

How good are your teeth? I ask this because I’ve come to discover that those silver fillings led to the most traumatic even in my adult hood. Like many of you, I have fillings. We’re meant to think that once these things are in our teeth, we don’t have to worry about them again.

We could not be more wrong.

Did you know that over time, depending on the temperature in our mouth, the moisture and natural wear and tear, those same filling will expand and retract, pulling away from the tooth and causing a small gap? It’s called ‘leaking’, and when a filling leaks, you can be in big trouble.

That’s what happened to me a few years back. I knew I had a tooth with a crack in it—a molar, the dentist told me and he was going to cap it, but funds wouldn’t allow it. Then, one day I bit into something and half of that molar was gone. I later learned the filling was the problem. It became weak from leaking and allowed a cavity to form underneath it. This weakened the structure of the tooth and hence the crack.

I really didn’t think anything of it. I’d been to a couple dentist since and nothing was really recommended. Back in September I was told it should come out because of the size of the cavity. I agreed, and, at the beginning of December I had it pulled.

Result:

One hour in the chair. I was awake the whole time. Not a good thing. I now know the sound a tooth makes when it’s snapped off from the jawbone. Something I will never forget.

Two bottles of painkillers.

One bottle of antibiotics.

Half an inch of jaw bone broke off with the tooth.

A hole in my sinus cavity due to the deep root.

My whole left cheek swollen for over almost a week.

Bruising on my cheek that went from my jaw bone to the top of my throat.

I couldn’t open my mouth any wider than a slice of bread for most of December.

Check your fillings, please. I don’t want anyone else to go through this.

The Decline of the English Language?

WordPress asked the question: What slang words and phrases are overused?

This got me thinking. I was a teenager during the 80’s, and some of the things we used to say, still make me shake my head. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older now and have a teenager of my own, but when I think back to my high school day and how I used to talk with my friends, I’m amazed I’m a coherent writer.

‘Like totally’, ‘Oh mu gawd!’, ‘Gag me with a spoon!’, ‘Fer sure’,

What the hell were we saying? Two movies in particular stand out in this linguistic massacre for me; Valley Girl and the Bill and Ted movies. Now, I’m not saying these movies are bad, far from it. I loved the Bill and Ted movies, but geez, I can’t believe I used to talk like that! Seriously! I did!

To be honest, every generation has their slang. Heck, look at the 60’s for crying out loud, and the roaring 20’s had some pretty good slang as well. The next time you hear someone complain about the stupid words teenagers are using, point them in the direction of the latest Indiana Jones movie. Shia Labouf’s dialogue is ripe with slang from that era.

I think slang is meant to set apart the generations. It’s something the youth of that era can claim as their own. Teens are always trying to find a something that sets them apart from their parent; ideals and language is part of it. Not to mention it irritates the hell out of the adults, which is exactly what they’re looking for.

 So next time your teen starts spouting slang, just smile. They’re asserting their independent identities, and wonder what their children will be saying.

So, until next time, be excellent to each other. 😛

(NOTE: Teaser poster,but I have heard they’re thinking about it!)

Link Addiction.

*stands up, clears throat*

Hi, my name is Darke Conteur, and I’m a link hoarder.

At first, I didn’t think it was a problem. I’d save a couple links a week, no harm right, maybe a few more on the weekend because you know, I’d have a hard week and I just NEEDED that information. Then, I started hanging out with these people online and next thing I know, I was added more and more links to my Favourites.

I kept it hidden from my family as much as I could, but the hours I spent hiding out online gave my addiction away. My son was embarrassed that his mother had so many links in her Favourite folder, my husband just didn’t understand. I told them there was nothing to worry about. I had control over it, not the other way around.

Lately, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s true.

I find myself collecting links for things I don’t even like. My husband will come home from work and mention something interesting he heard through the day and I have to find out more, or my son will be watching some new show and I have to save the webpage. Hey, I’m doing it for them! I’m trying to be a more informed person! They might need that information one day. You never know!

They say collecting like this is a taught trait. My mother has a collection bigger than mine, and if the internet was around when my grandmother was alive, I’m pretty sure her collection would be bigger than my mothers.

I don’t need counselling, just more folders…

Question of the Week: Regrets, I’ve had a few.

WordPress asked the question; If you could go back in time and relive one day of your life, which would you choose?

I thought long and hard about this one, and I wasn’t sure what day I would pick. There are some great days in my past; fun days that I would love to re-live, not to mention a few days I’d like to do over. In the end, I chose a weekend. I know, the question says one day, but this was a special weekend. It was the last weekend I spent with my grandmother before she got really sick with Alzheimers.

I was fifteen, and didn’t need a babysitter. Not with an older step-sister home too, but my mother didn’t want either of us to be left alone (obvious reasons) so she asked my grandmother to stay with us. My grandmother would be up at the crack of dawn making breakfast, even though we didn’t get up for hours later. She made a cake that weekend, but the frosting was more like fudge. We ate it anyway. She wanted to go for a walk but didn’t know the neighbourhood so we told her to keep turning left at the corners and she’d end up back at the house. It was great and I took a picture of her before my mother took her back to the senior’s home. My step-sister and I laughed about he making sausages at 5am and the whole cake thing, but that was my grandmother. She did stuff like that.

A couple weeks later we got a phone call that she’d overdosed on time-released aspirin and was in the hospital. It was the beginning of the end. She wasn’t quite right after that. She went from being an independent senior to someone who needed constant supervision in a short period of time. She died when I was 19. A few days before the New Year.

I miss her. Maybe that’s why I took to Husbands grandmother so much. I believe that her spirit comes and visits me, but there are times when I’d just like to sit and talk to her. You know, adult to adult. I wish I’d done that while she was still with us.