exaspera's Blog

Found this on another site.  Thought I'd share.

Obituary for
Common Sense
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend by the name of Common Sense who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such value lessons as
knowing when to come in out of the rain,
why the early bird gets the worm,
and that life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn)
and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).
His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate,
teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch,
and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student,
but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband;
churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize
that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled a bit on her lap,
and was awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust;
his wife, Discretion;
his daughter, Responsibility;
and his son, Reason.
He is survived by two stepbrothers, My Rights and Ima Whiner.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
If you still know him pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.
- Author Unknown

http://www.wfaa.com/sports/Replay-Texas-Stadium-implosion-90561859.html

Happened at 7AM Central this morning.  Kind of sad.  Lots of fond memories of games there, even the loser ones.  But I won't miss those terrible $5 cheese nachos.  They are now $9 at the new Arlington Stadium.  :b

I found this and I had to share as they almost all rung true with me. Please feel free to add your own to the list and/or share funny stories of your time in education.
1. You will find increasingly novel ways to put off revision/essays; such as counting pennies, reading all of the warning labels you can find in your kitchen, and creating pointless Facebook groups

2. You will at some point eat a pizza off of the box that you bought it in

3. Washing up is one of the biggest efforts known to man and is avoided up until, and including the point at which all leftover food on the plate has become solid and subsequently (and quite ironically), impossible to clean off

4. At school you thought you would only be happy with a mark of over 70%, but all of a sudden 41% makes you the dogs bollocks

5. First year is pretty much a gap year, and if it didn’t feel like it for you – then essentially you wasted it

6. Despite convincing yourself you will have a better work ethic, everything is still done at the last minute – regardless of assignment size

7. It seems that everyone is smarter then you... This is probably because they are

8. You will get publicly naked for reasons other than sex more times then you care to remember

9. Putting your hand up in a lecture will result in you receiving ‘stink eye’ from everyone else in the room. The closer to the end of the lecture your hand goes up – the worse the stink eye

10. The only way to save yourself from the aforementioned stink eye is to either put your hand down, or make your question so pointlessly stupid/hilarious that you just get laughed at instead

11. Sleeping becomes the most important thing in your life... Ever!

12. Naps are mandatory and lectures are planned around them

13. The best thing about halls is that no matter where you are on campus you’re never more than 5 minutes away from your bed

14. The worst thing about living in halls is that you will be woken up at stupid hours by fire alarms...

15. ...However you will now treat fire alarms as being optional, so it doesn’t matter

16. The best thing about living off campus is that you’re closer to the pub

17. The worst thing about living off campus is that just the thought of getting up to campus first thing in the morning is, in your mind, the equivalent to climbing Kilimanjaro with one leg, no eyes, and a d**key hip

18. You will have at least one person in your halls that you will just never see all year. If you don’t know who your flatmates are – then chances are it’s you...

19. You will find yourself using words which would be more at home on a cookery show; such as lush and taste

20. You will boast about how little work you do, and then lie about when you actually are working

21. You will accumulate more fancy dress items in one year then a class of 5 years olds put together

22. YouTube just got a whole lot more entertaining

23. BBC iPlayer is a god send... Even if it is mostly David Attenborough

24. Dave and Top Gear combined will probably ruin your chances of a first

25. Facebook will definitely ruin your chances of a first

26. The best way to avoid these distractions is to become a hermit, never leaving the library, and as a result render yourself anti-sociable and therefore unemployable – thus making your 3 years at University a waste of time

27. You will accumulate a large collection of road signs, and things you generally shouldn’t have – the best bit is, you won’t remember how you acquired any of them

28. A night forgotten means it was probably a night to remember!

29. If you have to ask someone ‘she/he was fit right?’ the next morning, you know something’s gone horribly wrong somewhere

30. A trip to the hospital at some point will come as standard

31. Getting drinks for free is a lost art which you will master

32. You will find that peeing in public when no one is around is one of life’s guilty pleasures

33. The art of playing hangman, squares and passing notes will be re-introduced into your life during lectures

34. Turning up to lectures hung-over will result in you not taking notes and is generally a pointless exercise...

35. ... Whereas turning up to lectures still drunk is just hilarious

36. Your liver will receive more abuse then a phone booth being attended to by a drunkard with a baseball bat

37. Sober nights out are rare, and will end in frustration that everyone else is drunk

38. You will shave parts of your body which were probably best left alone

39. Passing out in a room of drunk people is always a mistake

40. Cold, wet grass is never an ideal sleeping spot – no matter how tempting it may seem at the time

41. If you get through University without a single, drunken induced, physical scar to your name then consider yourself lucky

42. Snow days or rescheduled lectures are the next best thing to your bed!

43. You will however probably spend these cancelled lecture days in that bed

44. No matter how cold it gets, turning up the heating never seems to be the logical solution

45. Two meals a day is a worrying habit you will slip into

46. In fresher’s week, posters will become a must buy item; along with condoms, and hangers

47. Shopping lists will be ignored, and stupid amounts of money on food that you won’t eat, will be spent

48. Doodling p***s' or writing 'you're gay' on someone elses lecture notes will tickle your ribs

49. Takeaways can never be too expensive

50. You will be Facebook r***d an average of 3.89 times a day

51. You will be M**t-spinned an average of once a week

52. No matter how often if happens, someone replacing your profile picture with that of someone with a massive c**k never gets funny

53. No matter how often it happens, replacing someone else’s profile picture with that of someone with a massive c**k will never get old

54. Talking to someone on Facebook chat in the library when they’re right next to you will result in hilarity

55. There will always be someone you know in the library, and you will always distract them from work

56. The walk home after a night out is often more eventful than the actual night

57. Everyone else’s room always seems more appealing than your own

58. When drunk; bus stops and lampposts will look like your idea of a giant playground

59. You will take up something new at University... and give it up within a week

60. Taxi drivers will never thank you for drunken chit chat, no matter how interesting you think you're being

61. You will lose track of everything going on in the outside world up until the point you go back home

62. You won’t be able to tell someone what the top news story of the week was, but you will be able to tell them what the most watched video on YouTube was

63. The only time it’s okay for someone to jump the queue to a club is when you’re doing it

64. ‘An all nighter’ will be pulled at some point

65. Red bull will become a staple part of your diet, along with Strongbow

66. Staying up for 24 hours solid will seem like a good idea at the time, but will only result in you moaning about the fact that you’ve been up for 24 hours solid

67. You will find at least 5 uses for a condom

68. You will find creative ways to save money on drinks. These will progress from the simple pre-lash, drinking in the street on the way out, to concealing alcohol in places the bouncers just won’t think to look

69. You will do anything for money

70. Pennies DO actually make pounds

71. Money found in the street will immediately be spent on something you wouldn’t have bought otherwise

72. Letting things go mouldy as an experiment is never a good idea

73. The purpose of a trip home is free food, a heated house, and clean clothes. Seeing family are just a consequence of your visit

74. You will have so many ‘hilarious’ stories to tell friends back home, and they will always end with the anecdote ‘I guess you had to be there’

75. Visiting other Universities is essentially a spying mission to see how their SU, girl/guys, and strip clubs compare to yours

76. Every alleyway looks ‘r**ey’ when you’re drunk

77. You will find that m******ating is a great way to kill time

78. You will get with someone and describe it as ‘good for bantar,’ meaning you regretted it instantly

79. You should probably be working right now

80. Scratching yourself will become a hobby

81. A productive day counts as writing the title to a 2000 word essay

82. You will work out that if you write just 10 words a minute of your 3000 word essay, you can get it done in just 5 hours... You will then start that essay, 4 hours, and 59 minutes before it’s due in

83. You will take an hour break from work after every 10 words written

84. If you’ve got an appointment or lecture, you will always convince yourself that you’re going to be on time, even if it gets to the point that your appointment or lecture started 5 minutes ago...

85. You will check your emails 5 times in a minute when bored

86. Over time, the government manages to convince you that during your time at University you will catch Meningitis, Chlamydia and swine flu, when in actual fact all you will contract is a lot of debt

87. You will say on more than one occasion; ‘I miss GCSE’s’

88. Stray animals will provide you with hours of entertainment

89. One night stands are a lot harder to come by than originally thought

90. Lad points are no longer a concept, they actually exist

91. You will discover that drunk sex is better than regular sex

92. Monkeys m******ating at the zoo is as funny now as it was when you were 12

93. At least one person will take the piss out of your degree to your face... Even if it’s sociology...

94. At the end of the year you will find something in the back of your fridge which has turned green

95. International students will insist on communicating in native tongue with each other and it will confuse you. If they point at you often and look at you, then it’s safe to say they’re talking about you

96. In a hung-over/tired state, you will shout at the cleaners in your halls first thing in the morning to ‘shut the f**k up’

97. Your jeans will never see the washing machine

98. The top draw of someone’s bedside table always seems to be off limits, thus making it all the more intriguing

99. No matter how full your bin gets, you can always fit in one more thing

100. In your eyes, your University is the best, and everyone else made the wrong choiceOh Yes, I Remember

Okay.  I’m just going to go on EP to check for any messages.  Cool, some gestures!  Awww, someone in my circle sent me a gift.  Okay, I’m just going to see the answers to my latest questions.  Ooh, gotta give a ‘thumbs-up’ to some of those!  Okay, I’m just going to LOOK at the Q&A.  I AM NOT GOING TO ANSWER QUESTIONS!!

Okay, ooh there’s a really good question.  I’ll just answer one.  Is that a new person?  Gotta see their profile.  Okay, back to the questions.  Check to see the one I answered.  What fool is that?  What is their question!?  Gotta answer that, too......


Holy Cr*poli!!! What time is it?!  *sigh*

I’m still on the night time reading kick about waitperson experiences.  There are a lot of blogs out there devoted to this subject and I find the writing to be quite interesting and funny, if not a little sad.  There is one, The Bitchy Waiter, that is pretty hilarious.  He really has a way with words with his venting.  I finished reading that blog last night and clicked on The Insane Waiter(IW) link Bitchy Waiter’s(BW) page.  BW was in Manhattan,  IW is in the midwest, but the stories are very similar. 

After reading some of IW’s blogs, I clicked on the comments.  These consisted of many commiserating waitpeople, but one writer in particular stood out.  Her writing style consisted of a lot of exclamation points and capitalized words sprinkled throughout her various diatribes in which she chastised the other waitpeople’s commentaries in really negative ways.  Others tried to communicate to her in a calm manner, and they were blasted with the caps.  Someone finally commented that she was all over the Web with similar behavior and to just ignore her.

Not being able to sleep, I put on my detective hat and went into research mode.  I Googled her name and up came a bunch of stuff all equally vitriolic toward both restaurant staff and drivers on the road.  She evidently lives in Louisiana, eats out a lot at Chili’s and Outback Steakhouse and works at a Walmart, from what I could gather.  She also worked at a donut shop for several years.  It is from this experience many years ago that she derives her “professional” opinions of the restaurant industry in particular.  Evidently she enjoys, err feels that by punishing waitpeople for not reading her mind and following her self-proscribed rules for food service, that she is entitled to stiff them in order for them to learn a lesson.  Of course, she never informs them of this punishment, so evidently the lessons go unlearned, and she continues to have a terrible time at the restaurants in which she and her spouse regularly dine.  I guess the waitstaff see them coming and run, or flip coins or make a poor newby wait on them or something.  I frankly have never seen such obsessive, narcissistic ranting before like this woman’s.  And boy, can she ever type!  Long, long, eye-blurring diatribes sprinkled with capitalized random words and exclamation points that go on forever!  I finally just skimmed my curser as fast as I could to the bottom of the pages because I couldn’t take it anymore.

Finally, I landed on her MySpace page.  In this one she raved on that she loved to eat out, complain loudly to management and get free food all the time.  She also likes swinging, drinking a lot and stalking people.  Any teeny personal thought of actually maybe communicating with this woman completely evaporated at this point.  My detective hat came off, and I abandoned the research project.

So, I moseyed on over to EP.  I thought I’d share this phenomena with the rest of the gang on the Q&A with the sarcastic suggestion of maybe inviting her to join us here!  And from that entry I received an email.

Upon opening, this person angrily told me that Deep Throat was not a real person and that I was stupid. (!?!)  And that my blog was boring, had too many capitalized words and that she wished that I had never joined EP.  (???))  Thinking that she was referring to the post I had just made, I replied that it was not my blog, that I was sharing it here, and to have a nice night.  I then signed off and finally went to bed.

Upon checking in this morning I found a reply stating that it was so me who wrote that blog, that she was not stupid, I was, and to “go and knit some some socks, granny.”  I was also blocked by this writer at that point.  Well........!

So I have reported this little incident to my buddies at Q&A, along with asking if I was now part of the “EP In Crowd,” and would I now get a trophy for it.  I received many heartening replies.

The irony is that today is the due date of our first grandchild!  We’re still waiting for that special phone call.  :)

Back in the 90s when life was going through a tense stage for me I put out street lights.  I didn’t put it together for quite awhile.  Just thought it was a coincidence until one weekend when I took the van and Patrick to Dallas to see my parents.  

It was getting dark as I approached my parent’s house after the long trip from San Antonio.  Sitting at the light at an intersection, a street light right next to me went out.  Hmmmmm.  

Had an interesting weekend getting a lesson in Divorce 101 from a lawyer friend of my Dad’s while Mom took care of Patrick.  Afterward we took a spin in another one of Dad’s friend’s plane.  Patrick really liked it...until he got sick.

On the way home while passing through Austin about 10 lights on I35 went out as we drove by.  That really got my attention!  Once at home I called my friend, Cheryl, and ‘fessed up.  She told me that I was very tense with the impending divorce and that maybe that was it.   

So about once or twice a week, wherever I was, I would put out a street light.  I only counted them if they went out when my car was parallel to the light.  If it was half a block down the street, that didn’t count.  Pretty soon, once I moved to Cheryl’s house after the divorce, we would be riding in her van, and the lights would still go out when we drove by.  We had another friend, Helen, from out of town with us once.  I was in the back seat, we drove down the street and POOF, out went a light.  Cheryl looked back at me and said, “Stop it!”   Helen looked at me and said, “You do that, too?  I’ve been doing that for years!”

Another friend, Gene, found out about it and said that he was guilty of the same thing.  Then somehow the subject came up at my folk’s house, and Dad has the same thing happen to him!  

We thought it would be awfully funny if all of us got into one car and drove around town.  We could black out the entire city.

When I moved and married, the light outs continued for a few months longer.  My new husband wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but I have not done it for several years now.   I guess my vibes or what ever was causing that has calmed down.  I kind of miss it.

I was born at the wrong time.  About a minute too early.  And/or a minute too late.  It depends on the circumstances.  In photography, I am too late.  One time this in particular comes to mind was two years ago in Hilton Head.  It was our last day there.  The sky was overcast and it had been raining all morning.  We had finished packing and were headed out to the beach for one last look at the ocean before we left for home.  I had my camera with me.  As we descended the stairs to the private beach, an elderly man on a bicycle rode past the empty lifeguard stand.  A lovely shot missed.  I had to satisfy myself with a photo of the lifeguard stand alone.  Now, had I been born one minute earlier, I would have had the opportunity of a much lovelier shot.  And alas, the man never returned.

I have many more opportunities to see that I was born too early.  This circumstance comes to light most often in parking lots.  I arrive at a lot.  I wander around looking for a space and there are none available up close.  I end up parking in the boondocks.  While walking to the store I see cars leaving all of the primo spots.  A dear friend of mine always finds a great parking space.  She says she has a ‘parking fairy’ on her shoulder.  I guess she’s one of the only ones.   Another one is my ex.  Drives a big van.  Always got what he called ‘the captain’s chair.’  The space right up front.    Sometimes I rationalize this occurrence as an opportunity to find deals on shoes.  I get great deals on shoes!  I have found sample $300.00 shoes on sale for $15!  I have found lovely Faragamos in the thrift stores for $20.  So, maybe because I find such deals on cool shoes, I therefore have to walk in a lot of parking lots.  I haven’t quite decided if this is an even exchange in terms of my fate.  Like I can even decide that.

I still get mad when I miss stuff with my camera, though.

Yes, it's Spring Break this week and I hardly feel it since I only work 2 days a week anyway, but the thought of not putting make-up on Tuesday/Thursday is nice.  I was supposed to go with my Jaguar girlfriends to stay at a beach house in Port Arthur this week, but between my Mom's knee replacement and the impending arrival of our first grandchild, I have stayed home.

So I have been hooked on waitress/waiter blogs, oh, and Las Vegas cab drivers stories of what they go through at work.  I have no clue as to why this is so important to me to read, but there I am.  I couldn't put up with the crap they do for 2 minutes!  But I sure did in the 70s, and wish I had been quite a bit more caustic to some of the customers.  I'll keep reading and see where this leads to.

I sat out and read blogs in the studio for awhile while Maria cleaned.  I am working on being comfortable out there minus a cigarette.  Did okay.

Everyone is doing it, posting a blog.  I don't really want to, but I've been reading this other blog that is fascinating:

  http://waiterrant.net/ 

All about a waiters experiences in the business.  As I was in food service for a long time, I could really relate.  And I know that I would not last 10 minutes in that business today.  I would get fired for talking back, or something.

Anyway, start at the earliest blog and work your way up.  It's an amazing story, and very well-written.  Made me actually think about posting a daily blog myself about interesting train-of-thought things.

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Nah