Defragmenting

Mondays can stink even when you stay at home. This morning I got up, made my tea and trudged back up the stairs, eager to create a new post, take a look at the news and answer some email. I didn't sleep restfully last night, and in fact, had one of those dream/nightmares that you keep trying to make sense of all day long. I knew my computer would come through for me though - filling my mind with tons of other stuff and setting me back on track.

Instead, I found myself face to face with a monster. It won't allow me into any of my Word documents - or assorted other files. Marvelous. This has really set the tone for today. I'm looking into some possible fixes, one of which was to defrag the existing data. While that's being done, I'm able (lucky for me) to use Ed's laptop to update my blog. I thought to myself "Good post topic" as I watched the defrag graph do its thing.

Here are some of the brain-bytes (fragments) that have surfaced in my head recently:

> I don't understand why hospitals and funeral homes bother to advertise on TV. It's not like anyone watching will suddenly nudge their companion and say "Hey, we had no other plans today, let's head over to (insert hospital or funeral home name) and kill some time."

Do you know how much television advertising costs? Do they really think they might go out of business if they don't promote their organization? Do you realize we eventually end up absorbing at least a small percentage of the cost involved for this stupidity?

If they were offering a huge sale ... now that would merit advertising. Imagine this - "Buy one wake, get one free" or "Two bypass surgeries for the price of one; bring a friend."

> It bugs me when people use acronyms then add the last word on at the end. A couple of examples would be "E.R. room" or "IRS service." While I've never used either of those, I have caught myself saying "ATM machine" and it annoys the daylights out of me.

>I wasn't always the good little doobie I am today. When I first got my driver's license, my friends and I would pick a frigidly cold day, drive up to a group of folks waiting at a bus stop and tell them they ought to start walking because the bus broke down several blocks back. The best part would be seeing them midway between stops, swearing up a storm as the bus whizzed past them.

> I also made my share of prank phone calls back in the day. We'd look up the name "Whitehead" in the telephone white pages, dial the residence and ask for Mr. Blackhead ... then quickly add "Oh sorry, wrong pimple."

Ordering pizza and taxi cabs to show up at random people's houses was fun too ... though it was always much better when you kept it in the neighborhood so that you could actually watch and laugh as they pulled up to the house.

Caller ID has really put the kibosh on this sort of child's play.

> I don't understand what's so attractive about cruises. Isn't it kind of like saying, "I'm going to drop thousands of dollars so I can do all of the same shit I can do on land while I risk nausea and/or drowning at the same time!"

And let's not forget about those nifty accommodations. If you paid that much money and showed up at a resort to discover that the room you'll be occupying for seven days is about eight foot by eight foot, you'd be all OVER the hotel staff.

>I hope when I die, people don't say I was the nicest person in the world, or that when I walked into a room - the whole place lit up. That would just lump me together with every single other person who has already died. Or, am I the only one who is a little tired of hearing those two lines at funerals?

> Speaking of death ... I get really annoyed when people react differently to the tragic or untimely death of a nun, priest or popular celebrity than they would to the tragic or untimely death of the average human being.

Case in point: Someone in the employee lounge reads aloud a newspaper clipping about a fatal accident on the highway the day before. Everyone seems eager for details, but when the speaker announces that there were two nuns amongst the dead ... trust me, at least ONE loser will gasp with horror and say, "Oh my God ... there were NUNS?"

Oh, because the story wasn't tragic enough when it was just a few everyday civilians?

> Ed has solved the mystery of the Easter egg business for me. It dates back very long ago to when early Catholics fasted for Lent ... so long ago in fact, that they not only abstained from meats, they also abstained from eggs and sweets too. To avoid temptation, one family member would go about "hiding" all the eggs around the property. Needless to say, this made for quite the abundance of unused eggs and sweets, so on Easter Sunday, they would celebrate using as many of these food items as possible. The coloring came into play so that they would be easier to find and wouldn't be left out to rot. This also explains the big meat meal and the baskets filled with candy. Thank you, Ed.

> I don't think handicapped drivers should ever be permitted to use one of the regular parking spots. There should be a huge fine for this. Okay, I'm kidding. Or am I?

> I have recently been asked by a couple of bloggers if there is anything I haven't done. My standard answer for this remains, "Why yes, but strangely enough I don't have any interest in writing about those things."

> Some people still have reservations about self-publication. Pulling just a couple of names from a long list of "surely you've heard of" people who initially self-published ... Mark Twain, TS Eliot and that H.D.Thoreau dude each assumed that his early work wasn't worthy of submission to an established publishing house. It was from these self-published works that they attained further recognition.


"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination." Albert Einstein

("Except when said computer dies a sudden death. But then, at least it wasn't a nun" WH)