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Welcome to MY worldIrreverent. Uncensored. Unrepentant.
October 17 What are you still doing here?I see you on those RSS Feeds! Go to my new blog at Wordpress! I've missed you!!! October 12 My new blog at WordpressI have left spaces and gone to wordpress: http://imhelendt.wordpress.com August 23 It's official, I've moved......I suppose I should feel a bit of nostalgia for this being my last Spaces post, but really I just feel relief that I won't have to fight with this software anymore. I tried Live Writer this morning, but it wasn't impressive enough to make me stay and it doesn't take care of all the problems I'm still having. Steve seems to think I'll be back, but I don't see it happening. So please, follow me to my new home at Wordpress, where I'm working on a post about why I chose Wordpress over Vox, LiveJournal, Blogger, Xanga and a host of others.
See you in my new living room!  August 22 Blog Sl ut Part III apparently missed some blog platforms. So I'm trying out LiveJournal (OMG the ads!) and Xanga. You people are going to want a summary and evaluation when this is all done and over with, aren't you....... I'm a blog sl ut now......I know, I've been threatening to do it, but after being booted out of my blog for the hundreth time, my computer acting as if it's got pianos tied to it's processor and losing my data, I've finally done it. I've gone shopping for another blog. I figure now is the right time to do it because Technorati has lost nearly all my links everytime Spaces has changed my address. All in all, I've lost about 800 links. In a year. It's fricken ridiculous. I've gotten 250,000 hits in the last year. I hear other bloggers have been making money off their blogs. I haven't made a cent off Spaces. Steve still wants me to stay loyal to Microsoft, but hey, I've put in my time and gotten nothing but a big, fat headache in return. Hey, I didn't even get nominated for Best of Spaces.
No trailer, no pink M&Ms, nothing. They've met NONE of my demads. I'm going somewhere where writing divas are appreciated. And can log in.I did discover that Typepad charges you. Why would you pay for something everyone else is giving away for free? Good business model there, Typepad. I didn't even bother with the free trial. I did sign up for a Blogger blog and a Wordpress blog. So far, Wordpress has Blogger beat, hands down. I was able to easily edit the blog and make an entry, even if I don't know how everything works yet. God, I hope SOMEBODY has a spell checker........ So I'm going to give those a try. If there's any other good blog platforms out there, let me know and I'll be happy to test drive them. In the meantime I will continue this slu tty little adventure by sleeping around with the enemies......Bear with me while I'm the local tr@mp, and let me know which one you like better.
You'll actually be able to comment on the other blogs.
Oh for God's sake. I can't even publish this because I said sl ut and tr@mp. Sigh. They let me say shit, but not sl ut. Nice. The hurtin' curtainOk, I know, I've got a demented sense of humor. In fact, I'm laughing so hard right now, I've got tears running down my face and my nose is running. It's because I came across a blog today that started me down this sick road. It was a commentary about John Karr's mullet and being the sick sort of person that I am, I had to see the mullet for myself. I think I can honestly say, it was the hugest mullet I've ever seen in my life. Then I came across rate my mullet, which by this time, had me crying I was laughing so hard. I love Wikipedia's definition of the mullet, along with other variations:
Other variations on the term include: hockey hair, the hurtin' curtain, mudflap, short-long, schvelby, desert dawg, the "No Fear," and the always popular "business in the front, party in the back." We were at a wedding in July and one of the guys had grown his hair pretty long. Another guy tried to get me to tell him he had a mullet, to which I replied "I'm sorry, strictly speaking that can not be construed as a mullet. There is no business in the front, it is far too long all over to be considered a mullet. There is certainly a party in the back, but alas, there is party all over." He was greatly dissappointed, but agreed I was right. Diagnosing a mullet is as important as ridiculing it. Alas, I leave you with mullet lovers whereby if you inspect the mullet classifications you will find the most precise definitions of the mullet along with photographs for easy identification. They have also included overall mullet danger ratings for your convenience and safety. So this is what I do for entertainment. If I've offended you, you should get a haircut. August 21 I'm mouthy that way....Sometimes I read the headlines in the news, and it propmts me to talk back. I talk back to no one in particular, usually just my computer, and it's probably a good thing that no one is in earshot. For example today's headline, Shocked Marion Jones break silence, caused me to say out loud: "What were you shocked at Marion? That they finally got you? That they finally developed a test to catch your cheating ass? Seriously, honey, what were you shocked at?" And Paris Hilton made headlines again saying "My album is so good I, like, cry." It makes me cry too, Paris, but not like you think. How about AOL technology chief, two others, fired over privacy lapse? Why don't we just fire AOL, rid the earth of it's filthy remains and call it good. Oh, good one: Hilary's 10th Time cover. Yeah, that's why I never read Time. Moving on........ The birds and the butterflies...and the bees....and the......My brother came to Seattle to visit on Saturday. It was his first time in the city and needless to say, he was fascinated by it and loved it. Surprisingly, even though he lives in LA, he found Seattle to be a little odd. We were driving to breakfast and a guy was just walking along, wearing boots and shorts, playing a flute. He quietly says "Oh nuh- uh. Would you mind turning around and making another pass back there? I gotta get this on film..." and then he leans over and pulls his zoom lens and camera out of his bag while I laughed myself to tears. As the day went on, I discovered he's actually Austin Powers with the camera.
We went to the zoo and he's photographing a butterfly when another flies up and then they start...well you know. And he starts yelling "Yes! Yes! Give it to me!" Then a third one flies up for a menage a trois while he yells "Oh MY GOD! YES!" As it turns out, there seemed to be a lot of animals at the zoo, well you know....and there he was yelling "YES! YES!" and got most of them on camera. Lucky for you, he was using an old- fashioned film camera, not digital, or you'd be looking at the birds and butterflies doing it.
Oops, too late, I've just been informed that not only is my brother a perv, but my husband is too and therefore, the aforementioned butterflies were captured digitally.
Yes, that's butterflies about to do the nasty. Sigh.
 And that's Steve and my brother giggling like adolescents at the birds doing it. Well, first he had to get in on camera. Sigh.
 Seriously, Beavis and Butthead.
After that, we went to the petting zoo part and genetics seemed to come into play.
Me: I'm not going in there.
My brother: Me neither.
Steve: It's a petting zoo with goats! What's wrong with you two?
Me: Uh, I'm wearing $129 jeans
My brother: Mine were $200.
Me: Not going in there with cloth eating goats.
Steve: You two wore those TO THE ZOO?
Me: Well, they LOOK good.....
My brother: Yeah they do.
Pant Eating Goats. Note the hungry look in their eyes. Steve shook his head and walked away muttering. And my brother and I stood outside the petting zoo with our pants intact and looking good.
All in all, I'd say it was a good day at the zoo. I won't even tell you what I saw the gorillas doing because we've already gone over our G rating for the day with the butterfly p0rn...... Defining Spaces....I know, I haven't blogged the crappiness of Spaces in a few days. But rest assured, I am still angry and bitter. I was IMing Steve the following this morning, but he still won't do anything about it. And yes, I expect him to go beat someone:
Helen: I like pushing the edit your blog button and sign in button in spaces for fun. Because they never work. Helen: you click the button and nothing ever happens Helen: it's like a game Helen: count how many times you can make the page refresh without really doing anything Helen: Maybe that's why they call it "spaces." Based on the intervals in between times you're actually able to log in August 17 Susan's PuzzleMy friend, Susan, loves to make obscure blog entries so that no one knows what she's talking about. Her latest is:
So far I've guessed sex/IUD, practice/goalie and murder/husband. Oh and I think I guessed something about trash too. Anyone else have any ideas? Items of Note.Tennis is not to be played in thong. This insightful bit of advice brought to you by the same people who brought you: Do not go running in a thong. One would hope there are no more fitness/thong lessons to be learned by me. August 16 A Laptop EulogyTo Steve's laptop, may he rest in peace........ Steve Teixeira: okay The ramifications of Harry PotterOk, maybe the Harry Potter movie wasn't a good idea. We're not a particularly spiderphobic family. Steve has a morbid fear of black widows, but other than those, he'll kill spiders with his bare hands. As for me, any spider is disgusting and I have a rule. If the spider is at eye level or below I'll kill it. Any higher, and someone else has to do it, due to the spider's propensity to drop. Oh and we found some weird, huge jumping spiders in our garage. I don't go near those. They can jump really far. Even if they're on the ground, they will jump. <shudder> But really, spiders are no more disgusting than other insects, they just bite.
So anyway, our kids aren't afraid of spiders. My oldest even plays with them in their web. But since watching the Harry Potter movie, my youngest is now freaking out about spiders. There was this tiny, white spider in our kitchen this morning and my youngest totally lost it. It was really small. Like the size of a Nerd candy. And my youngest started screaming at the top of his lungs "GET THE SPIDER! QUICK! IT'S GOING TO CLIMB ALL OVER US AND COVER OUR MOUTHS WITH IT'S WEB! HURRY! IT'S GOING TO ATTACK US!" As I went to get a napkin to smush it with, my youngest lost sight of the spider and I couldn't find it. He started screaming all over again "NOW WE CAN'T WALK ON THE FLOOR ANYMORE OR USE THE KITCHEN! IT'S GOING TO CRAWL ON OUR FEET AND THEN SPIN US IN IT'S WEB! THEY NEVER RUN OUT OF WEB MOMMY! IT WILL COVER OUR MOUTHS WITH IT'S WEB! MOMMY WE CAN'T COME IN HERE! HURRY LEAVE! IT'S ON THE FLOOR!!" I said calmly "Son, it was a tiny little spider. It can't hurt you." "NOOOOOOOOOO IT WILL COVER OUR MOUTHS!" he screamed "Son, the spider is too little to hurt anyone. Look I'm stepping all over the floor and I'll smush it." "BUT YOU HAVE BARE FEET!" he howled "DO YOU FEEL ANYTHING KINDA SQUISHY UNDER YOUR FEET? CUZ THAT MIGHT BE THE SPIDER! HURRY MOM! IT'S GOING TO SPIN IT'S WEB! I CAN'T STEP ON THE FLOOR MOMMY! YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE STEPPED ON IT!" "I stepped on something squishy, it's ok, son." I lied "The spider is gone now."
He still won't walk over there. It took him forever to calm down. Sigh. This is why my kids don't watch TV, movies or play video games. August 15 Moments frozen in timeThere are some times in a Mother's life when the most mundane things or the expression on your child's face just makes you go weak inside and you wonder how you could possibly love this child so much. I caught a few of those moments on camera when we were in Hawaii. My youngest flew a kite for the first time and the look of pure rapture on his face was priceless. Although, no matter what age you are, there is something so utterly soul satisfying about flying a kite.
I was looking at my friend, Susan's, flickr page and found a picture of her daughter Samantha that reminded me. It reminded me of those little moments that makes being a parent all worth it. She captured something I can't even qualify with words. It's sweet, serious Samantha in all her glory.
Steve said that what he learned when his grandmother was dying of cancer is that's what life is. Just a series of moments together..... Family NegotiationsThe phone rang last night and it was my father. I curse the day that he gave my oldest his cell phone number because if things aren't going my son's way, he calls his Grandpa to straighten things out and negotiate for him. The phone call went somethign like this:
Dad: Son tells me that Steve brought home an XBox 360 tonight.
Me: Yeah, so?
Dad: Son says he hasn't played it yet.
Me: Steve just got home 30 minutes ago. And you know how I feel about video games and TV.
Dad: Well what's he supposed to do? Look at it?
Me: (now annoyed and belligerent) Yes.
Dad: Well you can't just bring something like that into the house. He needs to play on it for at least a half hour.
Me: (Wondering who he thinks the parent is now) Dad, I don't let them play video games and watch TV, it makes him more hyperactive.
Dad: Well then 15 minutes three or four times a week.
Me: DAD! The most they were ever allowed to play was an hour TOTAL on the weekends only.
Dad: (Thinks he's negotiating a business deal) Ok, then 10 minutes, three times a week until school starts. And if he starts climbing the walls, then he doesn't get to play anymore.
Me: (Realizing that he really thinks he can negotiate this deal but in the end, I will prevail. And possibly rip the phone out of the wall.) I'll let him play for a little while tomorrow. August 12 Who's your Daddy?
Those lazy days of summer......As I sit here and write, I am waiting for Steve to get home after being gone a week. Him being gone a week isn't as bad in the summertime because there are no schedules for me to keep. However, that means there are endless possibilities for the children. Like the game of Monopoly that took us 3 days to finish. Seriously, I starting praying I'd land on someone's hotel just so I could die. And every time I got a reprieve I had to choke back a scream of frustration and pretend I was all excited that I narrowly avoided paying $1400 for landing on the one of the green ones. And my oldest kept calling my father (a known fast and loose player with the rules) for financial advice which I'm sure prolonged the game at least 2 days longer than it should have gone on. My sciatica thanks you, Dad.
It's been the summer of Harry Potter too. Now that I've read all the books, and my oldest is close behind me, the kids want to see all the movies. So in a bleary-eyed marathon, we watched the first two movies today. They were standing next to my bed trying to peel my eyes open this morning so they could watch it. I'm pretty sure we ate popcorn when it was still breakfast time.
Tomorrow I'm going to the gym to workout in the morning. The video store is right by the gym. This means there will be no escaping Harry Potter 3 and 4. Little does Steve know what he's in for. Popcorn for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, games that never end, and movie marathons. Oh those lazy days of summer........... August 11 AristotleI logged into Weight Watchers today and was told: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." by Aristotle. I am truly afriad. I repeatedly eat chocolate and exercise A LOT. Sigh. Well, would you look at thatAll summer long I've been complaining of airline fares. We knew we had a wedding to go to in July and all winter I was keeping an eye on flights to the Bay Area. In late spring, I checked and the fares were about $80 round trip. Two weeks later, the fares shot up to $230 round trip and stayed that way for months. They never came back down and only rose. The airlines have literally gouged us for months. I ended up not being able to get flights at that fare and we paid over $300 per ticket to the Bay Area, with so many fees, it ended up costing more than $500. The flights were full, the service bad and they didn't ever feed us. I've been pretty aggravated and angry over the raised fares. Steve paid well over $300 for his ticket to the Bay Area last Sunday. The airlines have been totally sticking it to us. And we are loyal airline travelers. September 11 never slowed us down. It's hard to root for companies that stick it to you every chance they get. And the airlines that had made larger space in the cabins by removing seats have put those seats back in and been packing in people like cattle. This morning I woke up to discover that fares had droppedby more than 30% after the terrorist attacks yesterday. This is the lowest fares have been since late spring. Imagine my delight. They're only getting what they deserve. There are some people who will continue to fly no matter what. The airlines need to figure out that sticking it to the loyal customers just pisses them off. They were caught price fixing a couple of months ago and although the fares came down by 5% to 10%, they are still guilty of price gouging. I hope this teaches them a lesson they won't soon forget. And I'm betting fares are going to be coming all the way back down in a hurry. I can't even work up some sympathy. August 10 Not so wholesome email....Since I've started blogging, I get email from men who want to meet me or chat or just send me emails and tell me I'm pretty. Aww thanks. At first it was flattering. Then after the entries where I showed cleavage, the average age of the senders of those emails dropped to between 16 and 24 years old. Suddenly I was getting tons of email from kids young enough to be my sons. That's when Steve started to get upset. I've been teasing him about it ever since. The teenagers and young uns finally gave up on me a couple of months ago because I wasn't chatting or answering their emails. It appears though that I have now attracted a totally new demographic. The Spanish speaking dudes. I'm cracking up because I am getting love letters IN SPANISH. Did you know that SEXY is the same word in Spanish and English? LOL! And it appears that I have some regulars that keep sending love letters. The Spanish language is much more beautiful than English so the emails I get are far more romantic than the ones I get in English. Someone sent me their profile for the Spanish version of Hot or Not. It's called Sexy o no. Literally, I laughed so hard I cried. So anyway, muchas gracias, Antonio y los otros, but my heart belongs to my hubby, y mi esposo es TAN SEXY! A wholesome day at the farmToday I took the kids to our local organic farm to pick some produce. We picked raspberries and blackberries, squash, purple and orange cauliflower, and cabbage. I've never tasted raspberries like this before. They were so sweet and so delicious. I cooked the vegetables and we stuffed ourselves with fruit and vegetables for dinner. The kids insisted on walking around the entire farm and asking what everything was that was growing, flowers included. Lucky for them I know my foliage! They had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back and pick out dinner again. What a great experience! On the way home, we swung by a local dairy and the kids had fresh ice cream for lunch. This is part of what I love about living here in Washington. There just aren't a lot of places where life is still as wholesome as it is here. After arriving home, we and our neighbors all gathered outside in the street to talk about our day and socialize. Life here is like it was 50 years ago. I love living here...... August 09 Spaces BlackmailI know, you're getting tired of my Spaces rage. But I just thought you should know that their new policy is to blackmail people. They put a huge banner ad at the top of my space, which I do not get paid for, and then blackmail you to remove it:
If you subscribe to premium Windows Live services, you are entitled to certain benefits on Windows Live Spaces, including the removal of advertisements on your space.
The fact is, Spaces is too crappy to pay for. And yes, Microsoft is taking a beating at my hands. The beatings will continue until the product improves. If I can find actual humans to beat, I'll do that too.
I've really gone and ruined my chances for Best of Spaces now haven't I?
Hello, my name is....BUG # 3,429,222, but you can just call me Bug. And me an my cohorts have invaded Windows Live Spaces. Usually development teams try and exterminate us before shipping a product or going live with it. In fact, at a lot of companies, they have contests and prize money for bug hunts that go on for weeks at a time. But unbeknownst to the Windows Live Spaces team, we have taken over the product, preventing people from logging in or just booting out bloggers on a whim. We really enjoy this kind of infestation. It's our favorite kind. We enjoy ticking off hoardes and hoardes of the normal blog readers so that they never come back. We kill the product and can breed in untold numbers, right?
So anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself. You'll be seeing a lot of me and my fellow bugs. Oh look, here's BUG #3,429,221, he's the one responsible for making sure no one has been able to see their stats for at least a week. And my brother, BUG #3,429,223 (we were born an hour apart, you know), he's happily running amok and making it take so long to bring up the page, that we're finding many users falling asleep. We're breeding like rabbits, around here. I've already got 6 kids, 18 grandkids and 54 great grandkids. Ohhhhh, I gotta go, I just heard about a party in Options. It sounds like they're really tearing the place up in there...... August 08 What Maryam does to me......I blame Maryam Scoble for the fact that my head is spinning and I can not make sense of anything I am reading. See it all started when I visited her space after MSN spaces changed over to the new Windows Live Spaces. You all are aware, I'm sure, that I am not happy about this at all. So I was surfing around Maryam's space after the change, hoping that she was going complain about it like I was. But not sweet Maryam, she's got her space all fancied up with all the new and exciting changes. And her husband, Robert, is singing it's praises. Robert probably EXPLAINED to Maryam how to use all the cool new features, since they're the premier blogging family. These Scobles are killing me. I have no idea what anything is and how to make my space all full of bells and whistles like Maryam's.
Maryam also sent me a request to be her friend. I'm not really sure what it meant or what it entails, but I like Maryam, so I accepted. I just hope she realizes we're not meeting for drinks every Monday in California.  For Maryam's sake, I decided to try to learn some of the new features of my space. Of course I'll be very happy when they fix some stuff and I can actually log in to look at it, but we've already been over that, right? So anyway, I tried reading about some cool new features. Like the gadgets. But it was sorta like going on a tour in a foreign country. You're know they're talking about something you're supposed to understand, but really all you hear is blah blah blah blah blah blah SPACES. BLah blah blah blah blah Gadgets blah blah blah Windows Live. What the hell is a gadget? And what happens when you put it in your space? Honestly, am I getting a new car? A DVD player? A foot bath? Hey, maybe that new can opener I've been wanting.... What? They act like I already know what they're talking about. I already signed up for a bunch of shit that I have no idea what it does. Thanks Maryam. Pretty much the only thing I signed up for now that I'm totally comfortable with is being Maryam's friend. And even with that, I'm worried it might involve a lot of travel......More food you've never heard ofI know, I know, you all tell me that you've never even heard of the foods I eat. Stan says he's never even heard of the FOOD GROUPS I eat. So I know you're all counting on me to try the newest and weirdest food I can find. I was in our local organic market buying cantamelon (a cross between honeydew and cantalope) when it was suggested I might like to try Dragonfruit. The sign said it tasted like a cross between kiwi, pear and watermelon. I must say, however, it's the weirdest looking thing I think I've ever seen.
And the weirdness doesn't stop with the outside, it's bright pink on the inside with tiny little black seeds.
It's a very foreign, strange tasting fruit. The texture is much like a watermelon. Steve thinks it tastes similar to kiwi fruit. The little seeds are weird because they aren't like rasberry or regular berry seeds. They are more crunchy, like little black sesame seeds. I have no idea where they got the pear from. Didn't taste like pear and thank God, did not have the texture of pear. I can't stand mealy pears. If the pear has the texture of a crisp apple, I can eat it, but if it's like those canned pears I used to have to eat when I was a kid, BLECK. BTW, pretty much any canned fruit or vegetable is a crime against nature <shudder>. And that's my report on more food you've never heard of. I spotted purple, green and gold broccoli at the store but it wasn't organic so I didn't buy it. I'll keep my eyes peeled and report on any further weird new finds. Happy Eatin'!
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