Or, how to shop at a department store this week without later being stalked and killed in the parking lot by a disgruntled stock girl.

Anybody sick of Christmas yet? ::raises hand stridently::

Well, it's now two days after Thanksgiving, or as I like to call it "the day you can get the same deals everyone got yesterday, except maybe not in the color you wanted". Honestly, as I was going through fixing the sale signs at Macy's today, I was pretty sure some of the stuff was on even more of a discount today. I don't know, I set the Friday sale on Wednesday so my memory may be fuzzy.

My latest thing is Star Trek fan films. A while ago I read an article in my then-local paper about a woman involved in Phase II, which is the one that has actual sets in a warehouse somewhere in Albany, and which is endorsed by the Roddenberry family. And had D.C. Fontana write for them. Never mind all the guest stars. Yikes. And I totally am holding on to my dream of someday dragging my ass up for their filming week and helping out... hey, I know how to use a hammer. And a sewing needle, although let me tell you, I am way more accurate with a hammer.

Anyway, I've lately blasted my way through Hidden Frontier and now I'm working on the Helena Chronicles (a spinoff of HF). But I really, really, really want to make my own now. One big huge problem... no money. Another huge problem... no friends who are into Star Trek. Well, that's not true. I have two friends in Florida who are Trek fans. But Florida does not help me whilst I am stuck up here in the hinterlands.

I do intend to move to Florida eventually, probably by climbing into my parents' moving van when they decide to retire/leave the snow behind. But in the meantime, I'm trying to think of immediate solutions. And ones that don't require me to make new friends, because really, I just don't have the wherewithal to do that. That's why I blog, instead of going out and having a life.

I've been busy getting my ducks in a row lately (the primary ducks being my work/money situation) so I haven't had a lot of time to think about anything else. Hopefully that will change soon. I actually had the wherewithal to come up with a rather insane recipe last night, although I haven't tried making it yet.

I'm a little grouchy at the moment, because I had been working on a blog post (stupidly not saving my draft, since I rarely have problems) and one of the tabs I was doing research in decided to get one of those pop-up viruses. No, goddamn it, I do not want to open your evil .exe file. I want to do my research, write my blog, and move on to cleaning my bathroom before my mother gets here.

So, Oh. Em. Gee. I got up around 7 this morning (being lazy, I usually try to get up at 6 on Saturdays, which is sleeping in for me because I'm usually up at 4 for work) and looked outside and said, "That dew on my car windshield seems... white." A quick glance at the yard and porch roof confirmed it was... FROST.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo!

Not me personally -- I speak of the book by Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887. I read it when I was a kid, probably middle school when I was going through my socialist reading period (no, seriously... I also read 1984 and the Communist Manifesto, although Animal Farm came later as required high school reading.) It was really more of an utopian/dystopian phase, but looking back (ha) at all of that reading, I find that generally, the books I was reading all had some kind of socialist government, be it within the U.S. or another country, or world-wide. It entertains me to no end that socialism/communism/whatever is consistently seen as either the cure to everything, or a huge disaster waiting to happen.

Of course, now the "experiment" has ended almost everywhere except China (which, really, is just a capitalist oligarchy at this point) and Cuba (cult of personality, but with a better health and gay rights record than the U.S.). Since nobody wanted to install an actual democracy or even a representative government along with the communism, which I think is pretty crucial to the concept, it was pretty much a failure. Even as a kid I recognized that you had to remember people are people, not sheep, and even sheep don't like to fall in line.

Life (and therefore my bitches) is composed of things great and small. And sometimes it's the small things, like a grain of sand in your sneaker while on a 3-mile walk, that are most irritating. So, some small things that have been bothering me lately... they come from TV commercials, of course!

1. Amica Insurance customer: "There was a lot of anxiety after my accident." There was indeed, and it was just floating around in the air, wasn't it? You didn't have anxiety, but there was a lot of anxiety. Yup. Look, Mister, I know you don't want to admit to being anxious or to having any other "weak", non-manly emotion, but for anxiety to exist, an actual person has to have it. Stop using the passive voice (see, that's weak too!) and own your anxiety. Heck, Amica apparently took it away pretty quickly, so y'know, it was transitory, nothing to be ashamed of. Weak English skills? You should totally be ashamed of that.

I'm finding, as I get older, my interest in politics is shifting from big-picture stuff like world peace to slightly-smaller-picture things that affect me in my every day life, like health care. I've been without health insurance for about a year now, and I really don't like it.

I may have previously mentioned here that I have a family history of heart issues -- heart attacks, strokes, angina, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, that kind of thing. I personally have high cholesterol and angina, and it has gotten worse since I've been off Lipitor (about ten months, since I had purchased a 3-month supply just prior to moving and losing my insurance). I sense that my blood pressure is getting worse, as well, although I haven't been to Walmart to use the blood pressure machine because, frankly, I'm terrified to find out. The main reason I think my BP is getting higher is because I have a shitty minimum wage job that annoys the fuck out of me five days a week and gives me nightmares seven nights a week. However, the shitty minimum wage job may eventually result in health insurance, so I'm not giving it up just yet.

I would love dearly to go back to being unemployed, or better, concentrating on growing my web design business. Being self-employed is definitely my ideal, since I have this problem with having other people tell me what to do. A client I can always turn down, but the person that signs the paychecks (or verifies my payroll hours), not so much. Unfortunately, my web design business does not offer health insurance. Costs too much. My previous foray into self-insurance cost around $300 a month. When you only make $800 a month (not enough to cover rent, other expenses, and student loan payments) that's really not affordable. Are ya hearing me, overpaid Congresspersons?

How malleable are kids? How much can one single event affect a kid?

I used to be a kid. Most of my memories are of stuff like getting donuts at the bakery down the street on Saturday mornings with Dad, or going to church (ugh), or other things that happened pretty frequently, like school. And the persistent brainwashing that comes with going to school: I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing patriotic songs, recite the Preamble to the Constitution; I know my times tables and can spell just about any word up to three or four syllables. That's not intelligence, it's memorization, and you can do it too!

Things I don't have a personal memory of, despite them definitely having happened: The Challenger blowing up. The Berlin Wall coming down. Cutting my own bangs (I mean before high school, I remember doing it while I was in high school, but my mother is talking about when I was like 5 or 6). George H.W. Bush doing some kind of telecast into the schools in 1991 to tell us to stay off drugs and stay in school.

Nope, definitely don't remember that last one! I certainly don't remember anyone putting up a fuss about a president telling kids to behave themselves. Ah, but 1991 was a different time. Fewer fucking psychos and reactionaries and idiot breeders.