Pieces Worth Keeping

The Beauty and the Beast first season DVD set ranks 127 on Amazon. That's only slightly under films like Cars, Star Wars II, and Da Vinci Code. This is an excellent sign - it ensures that seasons 2 and 3 will eventually be released.

I am SO excited about this!!

Posted by Gemma at 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

Here is a list of things that really, really irritate me. The worst are in red. There are certainly more, but here's a start.

1. Roads are for cars. Yes, I know - cyclists have "legal rights" and all that. Tough crap. Just because something's legal doesn't make it a good idea. Riding your bicycle at twilight on an unpainted, hilly, curvy, busy rural road is not okay.

2. There is no such word as "nucular." It's not a "dialect issue" or even a "mispronunciation." It is not a word.

3. You don't "know" that god exists. You don't "know" that god does not exist. The ONLY thing you "know" is that no one knows. Also, please do not assume when I talk about God in my life that I am talking about the Christian God. I'm not.

4. The top of a pair of pants is called a "waistband" for a reason. The waistband goes around one's waist. The waist is above the hips. If your navel is five inches over the waistband, there is something wrong. If you can't bend over without showing your crack, there is something wrong.

5. A shirt should be long enough to reach the middle of your rear when you are crouching. If you work in a job that requires lots of crouching, you need to wear a shirt that prevents me from seeing your asscrack (see also, #4) or your hideous lower back tattoo. Or worst of all, your thong.

6. You do not need to talk about weight all the time. This is for the ladies. Girls, when you are around an obese person and you don't know how they feel about their weight, don't stand around with your other friends talking about your latest diet. Don't complain that you're "fat" when you're standing beside someone who weighs a hundred pounds more than you do. Do not start a discussion with the person giving details about whatever diet you're on. Just shut up about it.

7. Put away your cell phone when entering a building with other people. It is extremely annoying to have someone walking around talking on the phone, especially when it's one of those hands-free things, so at first you're not sure if they're talking to you or to themselves.

8. If you pee on the seat, wipe it off. Seriously.

9. Clothing racks need to have space between them. Especially in plus-size clothing stores. They put the racks so close together that one can't get through without knocking clothing to the floor.

10. Parents need to stop allowing their children to be rude. And stop babying your children. You would be AMAZED at how many four-year-olds in my center still use pacifiers and diapers at home. They'd use them at school too - but we don't allow it. You'd think parents would get a clue that if they can go ten hours at the center without a diaper, they maybe can do it at home as well?

11. It's "I COULDN'T care less." "I could care less" doesn't make sense.

12. When you go shopping, don't block the aisle. Get out of the way, bitch!

13. If you make a website, don't put sky blue text on a yellow background. Or white text on a pale gray background. Or orange text on a red background. Also, do not make your site entirely based on Flash. Also, do not "optimize" your site for one browser or another (that's so 1995). Also, do not create a site that won't work on all operating systems, including OS X (you'd be surprised how many large companies do this). I will not revisit your site if you do these things.

14. Please do not break randomly into song. I hate this behavior. I'll be in a store and either a customer or employee will start singing loudly to whatever's on the radio. It also happens at work. It doesn't matter how good your voice is. I did not come to the Body Shop to listen to you do your rendition of "I Saw the Sign." (True story.)

15. Straw wrapped in paper should be easy to open. When I was a kid, you could take a McDonald's straw, tap one end on almost any surface, and the other end would break through. Voila. Not so any more. Now, fast food straws just bend or break when this is attempted. It's insane.

16. Songs and radio ads should not use siren or cell phone sound effects. I don't need to be driving along and suddenly hear the burst of a siren, only to have it be a sound effect in a rap song. Or hear an ad with a ringing phone and think it's my own. Both of those should be outlawed - I'm serious.

17. You do not need to pay with a check. This is 2007, for Christ's sake. Get a fucking debit card. I am not interested in watching Granny make Palmer proud with her perfect penmanship as she sloooooowly fills out the check.

18. You do not need to do a "price check" if the savings will be less than a dollar. Is it really so important that you not pay three cents too much for your can of string beans?

Technorati Tags: Rants

Posted by Gemma at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's been a pretty good year.

Compared to last year, this has been a really good year. One year ago tonight, I was saying goodbye to a year in which I lost one job and took another that turned out to be a nightmare. I owed tens of thousands in credit card debt.

But today, I have a job that I love, that pays well enough and that has definite possibilities for advancement. My bankruptcy went through, so my debt has been reduced greatly. I'm about to get health, vision and dental insurance that will help me take care of myself better. My life will never be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was last year.

Most importantly, I have hope. I feel like my problems are manageable. One can hardly ask for much more than that.

Happy New Year, and may all your pursuits be blessed.

Posted by Gemma at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

The joke's on me - again. I don't know why I put so much energy into fussing over our holiday get-togethers. You'd think I would have learned on Thanksgiving, but I guess not.

So this time the plan was for everyone to come over today around noon to exchange gifts. I was looking forward to it as a chance to get some photos of everyone together. But my brother's wife was working. Oh, well. At least all of the blood relatives showed, and sister-in-law would drop by later.

So the time comes to open gifts. You have to understand that I put quite a bit of money into gifts this year. Everyone got a $25 gift card. (We generally do gift cards to make things easier.) I even bought separate gift cards for each of my parents. What do I get in return? $15 from one sibling and $20 from another. And a $20 bill from my parents. Now the $15 sibling I understand, since they've got a baby on the way. The $20 sibling I can cope with too. (Although, keep in mind that they both have the income of two people, and I only have that from my one job.)

But to only get $20 from my parents? These are the people who just bought their own Christmas gifts for themselves - including a watch and crock pot for my mother and a $700 treadmill. They are not rich, but they're sure as hell not poor. I wonder if it has dawned on them yet that I gave each of them more than they collectively gave me. If they offer more, I will refuse, just for the guilt it'll give them.

To make matters worse, my mother starts handing out scrapbooking supplies to everyone, including me. Problem is, these are supplies that I gave her. Useless leftover bits. It's one thing to regift. It's another to regift back to the original giver. If I had wanted the stuff, I would have kept it. I thought it was nice of me to give those things to her rather than send them off to Goodwill. Never again.

A simple, cheap gift given in love, because you know the person will really like it, is fine. A gift card of a good amount, to a decent store, given in indifference, is also fine. Either way the recipient is made happy, which is the whole point. But you can't have it both ways. You can't be both cheap and indifferent.

Am I a bad person for feeling upset about all this? I know, I know... It's supposed to be about "family" and "togetherness." Except we can't get that right, either. Having brother-in-law tell me about how one of his grad students in the education program found a photo of him in her desk at her new job - super, so you're friends with whoever replaced me when I got canned from the only public school teaching job I've ever had... thanks for reminding me of what a failure I am. Listening to my brother and his wife bicker over nothing... yay. Watching as my mother gives my sister-in-law a gift bag containing a beloved Christmas ornament from my childhood... good times. Realizing that those frozen pizzas they bought at Walmart yesterday are intended for our holiday meal... whoopee. I feel... I feel like I've had many small hurts pile up inside me today, many small bruises accumulated.

I could let go of the gift thing very easily if we could just have a decent get-together. I could let go of the get-together thing very easily if people would just give decent gifts. But you can't have it both ways. You can't have both bad gifts and a sucky party.

So the day goes by and everyone leaves, and I am sitting on the sofa in the living room reading the Sunday comics and trying not to succumb to my misery. And in pops Mom with a gift bag for me. Contents: a stuffed something from the Dollar Store, some Dollar Store candy, and some kind of ceramic Christmas container that I saw at the Dollar Store. And I laugh aloud. Not because of the gifts, but because the giftbag itself is the same one I used to give my parents their gift earlier in the day. Thanks, Mom.

I was so determined to have a good holiday. I was so sure I'd recapture that happy excitement about Christmas that I used to have in childhood but haven't had in years.

Next year they're all getting coal.

Merry Christmas.

Technorati Tags: Personal, Rants

Posted by Gemma at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

Many things that are called "discrimination" are nothing of the kind. It is NOT discrimination against Christians when a school district refuses to teach religious ideas as fact - or even theory - in science classes. It is NOT discrimination against Christians when a government or company chooses not to favor Christianity by plastering "Merry Christmas" on its buildings. It is NOT discrimination against Christians when the people reject laws based on Christian principles. Christians should be grateful they live in a country where one religion is not permitted to control everyone, especially considering how quickly the Pagan religions are growing in comparison to the JCI ones! The separation of church and state that so angers many Christians could well become their lifeline when the tables begin to turn.

I am SO tired of hearing Christians complain about being "persecuted." (I'm not saying that is what you're doing, but I'm going to rant about it anyway.) The whole "War on Christmas" - I honestly think it's some kind of joke. Yes, 1800 years ago, you were persecuted. Not today. Today it is the rest of us that have to listen to your holiday music, swear on your holy book in court, and see your god invoked on our currency. That's hardly discrimination. If you're worried about religious rights in America, go talk to the Pagan widow who spent months in court trying to get the sacred symbol of her family's religion "approved" to be placed on her dead husband's gravestone in a military cemetary after he was killed in service to his country. Go talk to the Muslims in my state who recently had a man actually go to a butcher, purchase a pig's head, and roll it into their mosque, just for the fun of it.

I'm sure there are times in this country when some Christians are discriminated against. But Christianity, as an overarching religion, is not a major target of discrimination in the U.S.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Rants, Religion

Posted by Gemma at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

My position on God is that what you believe depends on how you want to arrive at your belief system. If you want to go on pure logic, your only choice is to be an agnostic. Neither theists nor atheists "know" whether God exists, so both are belief systems based on some kind of "feeling" or "intuition."

I personally am a philosophical agnostic - I understand and admit that we don't "know" whether there is a God. But I am also a theist at the same time - I "believe" in a higher power because of my own intuition, feelings, and what I think of as personal "evidence."

Posted by Gemma at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

Thinking about patron deities and I suddenly got this thought, like it came from Someone else, perhaps. That I haven't found one yet, or none has come to me, because I am simply not worthy.

Not that I'm bad or anything, but rather not developed enough to be of service to a deity. And that maybe I ought to look at some deities and try to figure out what qualities they appreciate and then make myself worthy. And in fact that it is my destiny to do so, as if She or He is quietly waiting for my life to catch up with my idealism.

There's more to these ideas, but I'm too tired... Next time perhaps...

Technorati Tags: Religion, Wicca

Posted by Gemma at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments