The Protect Our Children Act

The most horrific episode of Oprah ever aired last week. Internet predators have organized and developed handbooks and guidelines for molesting children. And by children, I mean infants. Seriously. Infants.

They have come up with, and are publishing, ideas like new uses for pacifiers. These are horrible, evil people and there is actually something we can do about it.

The police have the technology to find and track these guys, but they don't have the financial resources. Congress is voting on the Protect our Children bill this week. This bill will: Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation, mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding, and allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators. Take the time, go to Oprah.com, write your senators. You can even just cut and paste her letter. It takes no time and it has the potential to help so many people.

Thanks.

Yo ho ho!

Hey! Have you guys heard about the new pirate movie?

It's rated ARRRRRRRRR!
(Pause for uproarious laughter.)That's right. It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day. No kidding. I didn't even realize it existed until my friend LJ told me that she likes to call her dad on International Pirate Day (usually after imbibing, of course).

Hi Dad! YARRRRRR! It's International Pirate's Day, Yarrrrr! I gots me a pegleg and a bottle of rum, yo ho ho! Yarrrrrr!

Apparently these two guys were playing racquetball one day, started taunting each other with pirate phrases, and decided to create their own holiday. Not too long after they recruited Dave Barry and now all across the world people celebrate every September 19th with their best, "Ahoy mateys!" and "Shiver me timbers!" and whatnot.

Why, I'm wearing an eye patch right now. Arrr.

Damn You, Jenni.

People. There is a drug out there that is taking the lives and spare time of bloggers everywhere (besides blogging). Seriously. It's worse than crank. This is a screenshot of my Google Analytics page. I visit this page at least eight times daily. "How many people have read the blog so far today?" (two, at my last check) Bastards. Not the readers -- the developers of Google Analytics.

It's actually a great program. I can see, not only how many readers I've had, but also things like a map of the world to show me where they're all from. (I am pretty big in Canada. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but G.A. does not lie.) Recently on one of my more obsessive visits to G.A., I was looking around and stumbled onto a page that tells me how my readers get to me -- direct traffic, search engines, or referring sites.

One referring site I found was A One Cylinder Love Riot. Turns out this girl, Jenni lurves my blog. Her word, not mine. In fact, my blog is listed on her site under the heading, "Some of the Blogs I Lurve." (Here I come O! Not only do I receive hate mail, I have a fan. A real fan. Someone I don't know. Amazing!) I check out the blog and the homepage is, "overcoming fears." It's a story of how Jenni is afraid of needles but worked through it to become a blood donor. (She lurves my blog AND she's a do-gooder.)

Here's the thing. I have type O-negative blood -- the rare and extremely valuable type known for being the "universal" blood type. I can only receive type O-negative blood, but my blood can be used for anyone, no matter what type they are. I have known this for years. So, you'd think I'd be a fervent blood donor. However. I am terrified of needles. So terrified that when I went into Dr. Luckie's office for my booster vaccination when I was a sophomore in high school, I ended up in a foot race around the office with his nurse. (Dr. Luckie later blindsided me when I was screaming at the nurse that there was no way I was getting a shot.)

Then Jenni. I read her post and thought, "Jesus Christ, Susan. You are 37 years old. There has been devastation in Texas. People all over need blood and you have super blood. What is wrong with you?" So I posted on Jenni's blog and told her that I was going to donate. Then she wrote me back.

Hi Susan

Needles freak me out, too! It was pretty scary, but I'm really glad I did it. I can understand being O-negative you'd want to try even harder. I'm A- so I'm not all that in-demand *lol*.

Good luck & let me know how it goes!

So, now I have to follow through.

Pray for me.

Better yet. Pray for the nurses at the New York Blood Center.

Get Over It Already.

Democrats of the United States, stop being such pussies.

Recently, Erica and I were sitting around with some friends at our house discussing what to do with our upstairs bathroom. Since our move last November, it has remained the one spot where we couldn't make a decision on which way to go with it, decor-wise.

Wallpaper? Paint? What colors? Someone suggested chalkboard paint.

Shouldn't people be able to write on a bathroom wall?

Days later we (read: Erica) bought the paint and a box of chalk and got to work.

Now we spend an inordinate amount of time in there doodling and it's filling up nicely. We've got the requisite, "for a good time call ..." entry as well as a nice "AC/DC" tag. During the Barack Obama speech at the DNC, our friend added "Barack Around The Clock". A couple of nights ago another friend added a political note of her own: "Flush Palin!" with an arrow pointing toward the toilet bowl. I thought it was funny and clever but then it got me thinking about this Palin hysteria.

Since when have we been so intimidated by a Vice Presidential candidate? It's like McCain isn't even running anymore. All you hear about these days is this redneck who is the mayor of a town smaller than Fitzgerald. As someone pointed out recently, the entire city of Wasilla couldn't even sellout Radio City Music Hall.She's another douche bag VP Candidate. Remember Dan Quayle? He was a douche and you didn't see the media or the Democratic party running scared because he was going to get Bush elected. From what I remember, Bush was elected in spite of Quayle. Not because of him.

Now I get that Sarah has other qualities that Danny didn't. She's likable. I mean, not for me. I find her abhorrent. But pretty much everyone between LA and NYC can find something endearing about her. Hockey mom, nice legs, good hunter. And, this fact certainly frightens me as much as the next sensible voter. However, can't we play it cool?

The more we focus on her, the more apparent the fact that we're all terrified of her. (I'm talking to you, Obama.)

Now. Ain't That Some Shit?

Can we talk about this, please?

What the fuck? These are the home pages of the Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon websites. Notice a difference? Not only is the AA site better designed, more modern and more aesthetically pleasing ... it uses Flash.

The reason I discovered this atrocity, was because this past Saturday in DDP, we watched a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring James Garner, Jo Beth Williams and James Woods, as Bill W. "My Name is Bill W." is the story of Bill and Lois Wilson. Bill founded Alcoholics Anonymous after destroying almost everything he had because he was a drunk. Lois, his wife, founded Al-Anon, a group for the friends and families of drunks. I was going to write about the film for some reason, but now I can't remember what I intended to write. I was googling some information on the film and accidentally clicked on the AA link, not the Al-Anon one. And now I'm too distracted by the inequity in the different sites to recall what I wanted to write.

So. What am I going to do about this? I'm sure I can get Erica to redesign (or design for the first time) the Al-Anon site for free, we'd just have to get permission.

Dear Al-Anon,

You do amazing work. People all over the world are happier and saner as a result of going to the rooms. Yours is a great and noble program that deserves to present itself as such. And, Al-Anon. I am one of those people who has been helped. I have grown and learned so much from my meetings and I want to give back. I want to give back by offering to redesign your hideous, amateur website -- free of charge. Our members deserve to have as snazzy an online resource as those bastards who hurt us.

Sure, they're getting better and I am proud of them. But still, those of us who drained our bank accounts and cleaned up poop and vomit, deserve at least as nice a website. (And what I'm offering will be better.) The thing is, I feel that there should be an additional, unspoken step in Al-Anon, right between making a moral inventory of ourselves and admitting to ourselves, god and others all of our misdeeds.

4b. Having completed our moral inventory, we have realized that we are worthy of pretty things.

And, we are worthy of a well-designed website.

Your pal,
Susan

My god. Fucking Wal-Mart is starting to be trendy. And Wal-Mart is the devil.

Haven't we gone through enough? Do we have to suffer being shit on by the addicts' good design skills as well? We've already surrendered our childhoods and sanity. When does the hurting stop and the healing begin?