http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0552076620080305

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) – The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish.”

It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month’s local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

“It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me,” he said.

(Reporting by Claude Canellas, Writing by Andrew Dobbie; editing by Sami Aboudi)

So, how is he going to punish someone for dying? Publicly beating the corpse? Jail time? Cremation?

In all seriousness, he’d probably fine the family of the deceased or some other nonsense. Unless the deceased was murdered, it’s not as if anyone has any control over when a person dies.

France brought the world cuisine, revolutions, guillotines, existentialism…and now, punishment beyond the grave…

This ought to be interesting. Let’s see if M. Mayor can enforce his new edict.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN0736682420080307

Hey, tanks a lot!

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian tank crashed through a villager’s house after the crew stopped to buy more vodka at a nearby shop.

Footage from a mobile phone camera showed the tank hitting a corner of the house and a laughing, and apparently drunk, driver awkwardly trying to clamber aboard with two bottles of vodka.

“Get him out of the tank,” screamed a woman in the village in the Urals.

The army promised Friday to pay compensation and said the tank must have been broken and fallen behind a column heading to a test site for exercises. Earlier it said the vehicle slid on melting ice.

“Of course, there were violations but the crew acted in good faith to catch up with its unit,” said Colonel Konstantin Lazutkin, spokesman for Russia’s Volga-Urals Military District.

“Thank God, they didn’t shoot,” the house owner said on the video.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

The Russian Army: Doing nothing to diffuse stereotypes about Russians since…ever, really.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUST4228820080222

“Girl” at Japan school was 39-year-old man

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man was arrested for trespassing this week after turning up at a high school dressed in a girl’s uniform and a long wig, local police said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Tetsunori Nanpei told police he had bought the uniform over the Internet and put it on to take a stroll near the school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, the daily Asahi Shimbun said.

When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers, the paper said.

They also screamed, forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank, the paper said.

Police confirmed the arrest of the man in school uniform and wig but declined to give further details.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Apparently, Happosai is alive and well in Japan. I’m sure he would have stolen some bras and panties, given half the chance.

Who was this guy, anyway? A random otaku? A guy who likes his girls young and magical?

Anyway, good luck, Sailor Midlife Crisis. From what I understand of Japan, the schools don’t take too kindly to baka hentai scaring their schoolgirls.

I’m sneezing my head off, I feel feverish, and I feel like I want to vomit. Eating breakfast is a challenge.

Also, Steve seems to think it’s just a matter of time before I get laid off from my current job, sales or no sales. Fortunately, it looks like some of these WAHs I’ve applied for actually want me, so I need to get it together and get hired.

I seem to be handling rejection better now, but that hardly seems like a consolation.

More later.

We actually had people here at the store on Friday and Saturday, and we’ve done better than what we expected, but not as good as we hoped. I’m still looking for something at home, especially since it looks like I’ll probably not make it past this next week no matter how hard I work or how much enthusiasm I show for what I am selling.

I really need to get in to see a doctor, but I am hesitant to go to the ER. Part of it is because I don’t want to seem like the raging hypochondriac that I am, and part of it is because I am terrified that there is actually something wrong. I have no idea what is “normal” at this stage of pregnancy, and I am under a ton of stress. I am so tired, and I sometimes get dizzy and have headaches when I work, but I attribute that to the crappy equipment that we have at my workplace.

In that vein, I can understand people being pissed off at being called by a telemarketer, but people need to understand that telemarketers have no choice about who they call. If you really want to hate someone for calling you at home, hate the client company that forces telemarketers to call you. If the client company has you on their list of people that they can call, then they will call you with offers. If you would just listen, you might hear that some of these offers are actually pretty decent. In addition, the client typically has telemarketers call so that they can test out new products on the customer base that they already have. Most of these products are released to the general public after their telemarketing runs, if the client determines that there’s a sufficient interest in the product or service.

Sure, it’s annoying to some people, but at the same time, you get to hear about something new that is usually pretty cool or free for a set amount of time so that you can check it out for yourself at no risk and no money out of your pocket, and then you call to let the client know what you think and decide whether or not you’d like to keep the product or service. Sometimes it’s a great value, and sometimes it’s not, but either way, the client gets to find out what appeals to the public and what doesn’t.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens next. I kind of want to get a phone line at the house so that I have something for inbound calling opportunities, but I don’t know how much they’ll charge. For now, I’m working on my applications for writing jobs at home. I think that those would work out best for me and the baby.

Today really sucked. Not only did I fail at work, but I twisted my ankle on my way home from the store.

The only highlights of today were the promise of Yu Gi Oh! kids in tomorrow and Sunday and the fact that I sold about $30 in merchandise today, including some stock we’d just gotten in this afternoon.

In addition, I had no idea that Braxton-Hicks contractions were supposed to hurt. Since I have IC and IBS, I guess it’s par for the course.

Either way, I’m going to lay down and pretend that tomorrow will be better than any other day.

Illinois/Indiana/Chicago Metro Area doctors piss me off.

Condescending clerks piss me off.

Winter can go fuck itself. No really, it can.

“Pro” Magic players piss me off, as do Yu Gi Oh! players.

Do you want to know why?

Really?

Well, here you go:

The doctor I was supposed to see on Saturday won’t see me because I am too far along for her to take on as a new patient. I am now tearing my hair out because I have spent the last few weeks trying to get in to see some doctor, any fucking doctor, and I only have time to call and look after 4pm because I cannot use my phone between 7:50-3pm on weekdays, and until I get home or to the store, I can’t comfortably call people to find out whether they can see me, much less WHEN they can see me.

Yeah, I should have anticipated being unemployed and chosen a doctor that DID accept Medicaid. My former OBGYN won’t, and I can’t afford to pay him. I hate the idea of using the ER as my PCP, but since I can do it for free as a medicaid patient and I can’t get in to see a regular doctor, I don’t see how I really have a choice.

When I called to let the clerk at medicaid know what was going on, she kept on admonishing me for not seeing a doctor sooner. I saw a doctor in November, then got fired right before Christmas. I’m not fucking stupid; I just had no time to get to a doctor, between holidays and jobs. Yes, I am VERY aware that I need to see a doctor. No, I have no idea how women gave birth without having a doctor hold their hands through the entire pregnancy. I know, I know, I KNOW! I am not some fucking ignorant cunt who opened her legs for some random guy and found herself smuggling a watermelon eight months later.

It continues to fucking snow and be ice fucking cold. Even with layers on, I was completely numb by the time I got to the store. I am so sick of winter that I could just spit. It has been a hard, cold winter, and it doesn’t look like there’s any relief in sight.

The winter may explain why we’ve had a hard time getting people to come to the store, but I think it’s more than that. I think Bob is driving people away from the store, and he only shows up every once in a while to mock us. Thanks to the poor turnout, we will most likely be closing the store soon. I am not happy about this at all, but there’s not a whole hell of a lot that I can do. I can’t even take out another loan.

Anyway, it feels like everything has been the opposite of help. I’m getting better at my job, but I’m so fucking discouraged that I could just scream. I’m going to have to hope that WAH comes through, so that I can make better money. If people would actually WORK with me here, it would make life much easier. My coach is cheering me on, but if I don’t don’t graduate, she’ll have no choice but to let me go.

I am so scared right now. My baby will be here in a matter of weeks, and I’ve got to find a way to make enough money to support all of us. I really don’t want to shell out for daycare, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find a space where I can work at home without lots of outside noise. It’s annoying, but it’s a fact of life. I’ve also got to somehow pull the money for a headset out of my butt, but I may have help with that.

And no, I don’t mean help with pulling money out of my butt. I’m looking at grants to keep the store running, but I’ve never applied for a grant before, so I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off. It’s not enough for me to be a female businessowner–I have to be able to prove to people that I’m smart enough and competent enough to use this money to make the store into something remarkable.

Anyway, I cry every time I think about putting my little one into daycare, and then I cry when I think about us not having enough money to survive, much less keep the gaming store open. While I have no objection to moving to Missouri so that my family could at least give us a home while we get back on our feet, I do object to the idea of failing anyone.

Hell, maybe the stress will kill me, and then it won’t be my problem anymore.

Speaking of stress, I’m trying very hard to get into the doctor, and a lot of people are bitching at me because I haven’t been there since November. Well, excuse the fuck out of me for not having insurance and not being able to afford it until I got on Medicaid. Also, excuse the fuck out of me for working at a place where I cannot USE a phone from 7:50am-3pm. For some reason, the people to whom I need to speak to even get a fucking appointment aren’t available after 3pm. In that time, I only get ONE fifteen minute break (more like ten minutes), and I have to take that time to eat and use the bathroom. I also CANNOT miss work for any reason for another few weeks, or else I will be fired. That’s why they call it probation. Unless and until the doctor puts me on bedrest, I CANNOT afford to lose this job. At least if I have to part ways with the job for health reasons, people will look at it more kindly than they would if I committed some sort of workplace violation that got me fired. Yes, the one and only time I was fired, it was completely unjustified and unfair, but there wasn’t a whole fucking lot I could do about it. My family needs to eat, and until my blogs, freelance writing, store, freelance editing/proofreading and artwork take off, I have very little choice but to bust my ass each day, even if it kills me.

More than anything, I think that the stress is affecting me. Every symptom I’m having seems a thousand times worse when I am stressed. I have trouble eating on days when I have to work (more often than not, I start having dry heaves, if not outright puking). After work, I can eat just fine, when I am not too tired to eat.

Besides the job, I have people who insist that my partner is abusive, which isn’t really true. Sure, sometimes he flies off the handle and says things that he doesn’t mean, but I do the same damned thing when I am under stress. When I get angry enough, I can be quite cruel. I just happen to have a longer fuse than most people, and I usually cry when I’m angry or frustrated.

Why do I cry instead of raging? It’s quite simple: as long as I care about you, what you have to say, and what you think, the things that you say to make me angry will make me cry, because I refuse to direct my anger at you. When I do finally get to a point where I don’t cry, and instead I vent my anger, beware: it means that I’ve stopped giving a damn about what you think. In extremely rare cases, it may even mean that I’ve stopped giving a damn about YOU. I’ve been to that point before, but it rarely lasts…I’m just not cut out to not care about people.

Anyway, if anything should happen with the job, I’ll see about getting assistance for food and whatnot while I attempt to find a better job and try to get work I can do at home while raising the baby.

Meanwhile, some of my designs are on CafePress at www.cafepress.com/lichslair. The interface is frustrating, but if it helps me sell products online, I’ll do whatever it takes.

And so, time to work on other stuff. I’m too depressed to keep on thinking about this.

Please stop kicking me in the bladder, especially when I am at work and cannot get up to use the bathroom. I am glad that you are kicking, but I do have other internal organs which aren’t quite as sensitive, so please kick them instead.

Love Always,

Mom

If you are making a right turn, use your damned turn signals! Pedestrians and other drivers aren’t mind-readers.

Thank you and have a nice day.