But I’ve been too tired, frustrated by the blogger format, and insanely busy to update the blog as much as I like.
I’ve also lost much of my taste for writing due to a writing assignment that is asinine, pays poorly, and is about as much fun to write as it would be to receive a high colonic.
I will try to do better now. I have set a goal for myself to post at least once a day, even if it is just my opinion on whatever news story happens to catch my eye.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080406/ap_on_en_mo/obit_heston_3
Charlton Heston dead at 84
By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press WriterSun Apr 6, 12:23 AM ET
Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84.
The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.
Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.
Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease, saying, “I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.”
With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. “I have a face that belongs in another century,” he often remarked.
The actor assumed the role of leader offscreen as well. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1950s. With age, he grew more conservative and campaigned for conservative candidates.
In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle. He delivered a jab at then-President Clinton, saying, “America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”
Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003, telling members his five years in office were “quite a ride. … I loved every minute of it.”
That same year, Heston was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. “The largeness of character that comes across the screen has also been seen throughout his life,” President Bush said at the time.
He engaged in a lengthy feud with liberal Ed Asner during the latter’s tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild. His latter-day activism almost overshadowed his achievements as an actor, which were considerable.
And if you are happy that he is dead because he was a member of the NRA and believed that the average citizen should have the right to own a gun if he or she so chooses, then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Mr. Heston was a man of personal integrity, a husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle…a lot of people loved him, and he meant a lot to all of those people. He battled prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s prior to his death. He faced his diseases with courage, strength, and the support of his loved ones.
Above all, he was a human being who had a right to his own thoughts and opinions. I may not agree with everything he ever said or did, but I will defend his right to do so.
(I could also share some choice words about the people who favor legislation for gun control who are doing a happy dance now that Mr. Heston is dead, but that is another blog for another time. It is late, I am tired, I am very pregnant, and I am too disgusted by those people who think that Mr. Heston’s death is a great and glorious thing to properly articulate my thoughts.)
Mr. Heston, I hope to shake your hand when I get there.
I start at my WAHM job today, and I’m majorly stressing out. I don’t get paid until April, which really bothers me a lot. in the meantime, I’m trying to pick up extra work to offset the cost of living while I’m waiting on that paycheck. If you feel like supporting a starving mother-to-be, feel free to drop me a donation anytime. My paypal address is rloaks79@yahoo.com.
Wish me luck!
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=152072&src=109
Fire death blamed on smoking while on oxygen
A blaze that killed a South Elgin man likely started as he smoked while using an oxygen tank to breathe, authorities said today.
Edwin C. Kudsk, 73, died from inhaling lethal levels of carbon monoxide as his living room filled with smoke and soot in the Jan. 11 fire at his home in the 600 block of Kenilworth Avenue, according to testimony at a Kane County Coroner’s inquest.
Suffering from lung cancer, diabetes and heart disease, Kudsk used a walker. Firefighters found him lying near the front door. They initially were unable to enter the home because of flames and exploding oxygen tanks inside, South Elgin police Detective Anthony Martinez said.
“It appeared he was trying to attempt to get out,” Martinez told jurors, who ruled Kudsk’s death an accident.
Kudsk’s wife, Rose, told investigators her husband had taken pain medication and planned to sleep in a reclining chair in the living room. She was in the bedroom when she awoke about 4 a.m. to screams and saw the fire.
Rose Kudsk said she couldn’t reach her husband. She tried to extinguish the flames with water from the kitchen sink and then ran outside the duplex and banged on her neighbor’s door, Martinez said.
Rose Kudsk and her neighbors escaped without injury.
Firefighters said they found no signs of faulty wiring in the home or problems with the oxygen tanks.
The blaze appeared to originate in the chair where Kudsk sat, and an ashtray full of cigarette butts was found nearby, Coroner Chuck West said, adding investigators think the man was smoking when the fire started.
Okay, let’s go over this one more time: Oxygen is a highly flammable gas. It is so flammable that there are WARNING LABELS on oxygen tanks that state that one should NEVER smoke or expose the oxygen tank to open flame. Why? Because the
I swear, we have the worst UPS delivery person ever. Because we have to buy so much merchandise online for both the store and our other jobs, we have to have it delivered to our home. Most of the time, the companies we use choose UPS, and the people that deliver our packages don’t seem to understand the concept that the things that we have delivered are actually worth money.
For example, the normal operating procedure for our UPS delivery person is to leave the package at the back door. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if the back door that is visible from the street were actually our back door. Unfortunately, we share that back door with three other units, so there’s a distinct possibility that one of the other tenants would be tempted to run off with the package. (Fortunately, we only have one psychotic neighbor, and she’s usually not around when UPS does their “deliver and dash” routine.)
I think that we may have gotten a new UPS delivery person, though, because the delivery style has changed. For the last few deliveries, the UPS delivery person sets down the package, rings the doorbell…and then runs like hell for the truck. Every time I hear the doorbell, I get to the door in time to see the UPS truck speeding away, leaving behind my package right next to my front door. I swear, the man delivers packages like he’s dropping off bags of flaming dog poo. Our most recent package was sitting at such a bizarre angle when I opened the door that I wondered whether or not he just threw the package from his truck and happened to hit the doorbell in the process.
Perhaps UPS is understaffed; however, they only ever seem to advertise for package handlers in their local shipping and receiving facility, so I think that the UPS delivery people just don’t care that much about doing a good job around here. In my home state of Missouri, the UPS delivery person actually knocked on the door or rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer and sign for the package.
On the other hand, maybe the UPS drivers are just scared that they will get robbed and/or get shot if they stay in any residential area for too long. I know that there are some places that are really bad in this village, but there haven’t been any local shootings for several months, and none of them were in my neighborhood. The worst we’ve had around my neighborhood has been domestic violence and vandalism to a couple of abandoned businesses. I realize that the problem is only going to get worse over time, but until that happens, there’s no real excuse for UPS to provide such poor service. After all, my front door is visible from the street, and there’s very little stopping someone from stealing my package if I don’t happen to be home to pick it up.
While I realize that delivering packages for UPS is a dangerous job, I still feel like there’s no excuse for putting down the package, ringing the doorbell, and running away as if there’s an explosive in the box. Many of the things that my partner and I purchase are things that we would prefer not to have stolen. Until UPS starts getting drivers that care about doing their jobs correctly and not just abandoning packages wherever they please, I think I’ll be taking my business to the post office or DHL.
Who was Gary Gygax? To some people, he was a creative genius, taking tabletop games in a previously unexplored and unused direction that changed the face of gaming and led to legendary games such as tabletop gaming’s Magic: The Gathering and video gaming’s Final Fantasy series. To others, Gygax was a monster of depravity, luring innocent Christian youth down a road of fantasy and paganism with his phenomenally popular game, Dungeons and Dragons.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0552076620080305
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
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
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.