Frog In North Georgia

Blog advertising can go too far.  Really.  It is annoying to visit what appears to be a personal blog only to discover that not one post on the front page, but three out of four appear to be paid posts.  And there is a banner ad that is unrelated to the content.  And 125×125 ads also completely irrelevant to the theme.

There’s a nice welcome to the splog (spam blog).  You can see that I surfed onto several of them today.

I’m not anti-advertising or anti-commerce. In fact, I really like targeted ads on some of the software sites that I visit.  Some of them save me a separate search for things I need anyway.  So nobody start flaming me about how advertising keeps many websites free to consumers.  I get that.  I do.  And I don’t mind people funding their blogs with relevant ads.  Turn a profit even.  Long live capitalism.

But for the love of all that is good and holy don’t insult me by asking me to refer readers to a splog filled with irrelevant crap.

If your blog is about humor; have humor ads. If you have a personal blog, general ads (but not 60 of them all unrelated).  Clearly, I’m no advertising genius.  It’s just common sense.

Obviously, I don’t make any money with entrecard.  But I do try to approve entrecards that link to sites about humor, cooking, parenting, writing - stuff that gets mentioned on this blog.  In other words, things that if you’re reading here, might be enjoyable to also read somewhere else.  Even things that never come up here, but are nicely done.  Not crap.

Ok, deep breath.  Rant off.

Tags: advertising, capitalism, common sense, consumers, content, entrecard, Money, personal blog, post, relevant ads, spam, splog, theme.

I do not like daylights saving time any more this year than the last. It is the time of year that I think you can count on nearly everyone to be late.  Including me.  Especially me.

Greenway Bridge

I lack a decent sense of time in the first place. In terms of days and years, I am amazingly inaccurate.  And a time change of an hour is plenty enough to screw me up.

Also, there is the clock in my car, which is a Mazda.  And every six months I have to figure out how to reset this clock, which is counter intuitive.

Bah.

Rant off.

On the bright side, the cell phone will sync itself with a satellite and give the correct time… for setting all the other clocks in the house.

Tags: cell phone, clocks, correct time, daylight savings time, mazda, satellite, time change.

I don’t feel sorry for alcoholics or drug addicts. I feel sorry for their families. I am intensely biased. I had an uncle and a grandfather who were alcoholics in that horrible, life-destroying way. They couldn’t work, interact on any normal level, or remain sober for any length of time.

I seldom saw my father without a drink in his hand. I like to think this is because he liked beer. He got up every day, went to work, and never embarrassed me in public. An Al-Anon member told me it’s the never-without-a-beer that makes a person an alcoholic, not whether they get to work on time. I don’t know about that. I don’t pretend to know.

Yes, I’m going to talk about drugs again, and how I just read Broken. I have thought a lot about what William Moyers says about treatment, prevention and education. I have thought even more about public policy.

I like things that work. And I don’t know that I believe the War on Drugs is working, regardless of the statistics that say there’s been a 24% decrease, blah, blah, blah. Actually, I don’t know that restructuring the War on Drugs would work.

Perhaps we should legalize drugs and tax the shit out of them, control their manufacture, their import, export and destruction. Have you ever seen anybody kill anybody else over a pack of cigarettes or a keg of beer? You know why - because they are legal.

Prohibition was a bloodbath. So is this stupid ass war on drugs. I’m not saying drugs are great and we should all try them. I’m saying kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out. Go ahead, drink until you puke your insides out. Smoke crack until you’re dead. Just don’t shoot up the package store on my street. Pay taxes and don’t drive under the influence. Good riddance, you sorry sacks of shit.

Yes, this whole concept has me a bit peeved. I am not sorry for addicts. I am sorry for their families. It isn’t cruelty. It’s self-preservation. Since I can’t see into the drug addicted brain; I can’t see the diseased synapses, or whatever brain structure it is that goes wrong. I see the constant blame of other people and events for the drug users problems. To me that is what all addicts have in common: It is always somebody else’s fault.

Pushing Back : Setting the Record Straight: Losing the War on Drugs?

Actually, we have a balanced strategy that takes very seriously a public health understanding of the disease of addiction, and that integrates that public health comprehension with effective use of the law. In fact, we’ve repeatedly asked Congress to dramatically increase funding for prevention and treatment initiatives. Unfortunately, Congress has failed to meet the Administration’s request for critical demand reduction programs.

Tags: books, Health, rant.

For the love of all that is good and holy, these small mammals must stop pooping in the house!

My child will be four years old this Fall and has been potty trained for two years. She just announced that she has pooped in her pants. wtf? Does she feel left out because the dog and cat messed?

Is this my punishment for being the large creature who is home alone this evening with the small creatures? Can’t they just pee on the other large creatures when they get home to show how much they’re missed?

Tags: family, home, Pets, rant.

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Today sucked.

I must have had a premonition. This morning I was completely unable to convince myself to wear something nice to work and instead wore very wrong pants which I keep telling myself that I will never wear to work again. They are short and unflattering, yet very comfortable. Dumpy.

DH left on time, dropping a bag into my car so I wouldn’t have to carry it down. I lamely attempted to feed Claudia before DD and I left. I don’t know why I bother. Claudia is obviously not hungry enough to focus on eating. It just annoys me and makes me late.

I finally got DD and I on the road and she whined for daddy. When we got to school she had no cubby in twos and wanted to be in Preschool with Katie. But they wanted her dropped off in twos. More whining and crying.

I arrived at work to two messages from Napoleon, dove into a nasty report and then got ambushed by my least favorite coworker Bome (Bane Of My Existence). I waited until five minutes before I was to depart to send off the report to manager and bome, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with Bome about it again until tomorrow.

The day proceeded in this fashion and by the time my approved half-day was over I had a rocking headache and tottered to my car, thankful for the cold air. Wanting to walk off the headache a bit I went by the Home Depot to pick up a drain plug.

Last time we had a blowout about the bathroom, which had the look of a crackhouse, before I hired lovely Robbie. God forbid DH make Justis clean up after himself. Justis threw out the drain plug for upstairs. So I had to get a new one. The HD guy says, do you think your child will throw away the new plug. I said, not if he wants to live.

Really, wtf kind of person thinks cleaning the hair out of the drain means you throw away the plug? Spite maybe? Asshat. I had to buy the whole assembly to replace the plug of course.

I arrive home, hear something… Justis is home. I ask did he stay home sick. He says he told me he had early release. I forgot. I am in hell.

I get the dog, let her out to do her business, am opening the mail when she shits on the carpet! This day is unbelievable.

Tonight Justis borrows the camera because he needs photos of his family for a school project, DD, DH and himself. My camera that I got for Christmas. Nice.

I feed the kid for a decade. He hates me.

What AP class does that kind of cheesy project?

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based upon what you and your skank ex-wife did with YOUR child. You know, the child you decided that I should care for but with which I would have absolutely no decision making ability.

Tags: family, rant.