That lawn's not going to mow itself

The good news is, all theaters are up and (basically) running. The bad news is, I have to leave for work in a few minutes, and will be there 'til midnight.

These Bonfire entries just seem to write themselves....

More proof God hates me

Today was one of those days you want to call do-over on:
* the construction still isn't done, and we're supposed to be showing our first movie in the new theater at 1:30 tomorrow
* somebody locked the door to the "kitchen" (it had to have been a construction worker or one of the cleaners because the employees know better) where we keep our ice machine, pop syrup, etc. and because the lock is broken the only way to get in there was to have a volunteer climb through the ceiling tiles in my office and climb over and down through the ceiling in the kitchen to unlock the door from the inside (I called our locksmith as a first resort, but they couldn't get to us until tomorrow and we needed ice)
* I was supposed to go to a mall managers' meeting, but the electrician couldn't figure out how to separate the wiring for what are now two theaters that need to have lights that operate independently, and so I spent a lot of time throwing switches and saying "Did that do anything?" instead
* the company I hired to hang the burlap wall coverings decided to tell me today that they don't want to do it.

That's just a random sampling of my day. I'm pretty sure there are a few occurances for which I have suppressed the memories in order to retain my sanity.

I just had a flashback to the little old lady who kept me on the phone for 20 minutes explaining why she had to know immediately whether the theater would be ready for the 1:30 showing of The Passion on Friday. I should have told her that it depends--if God wants her to see it, the construction will be finished in time.

Evil Glenn's T Shirt Babe

Really, it's obvious:

I'm not inarticulate, I'm just drawn that way

I have to be at work in an hour, and I'm cruising the blogosphere looking for a topic I can bogart, but except for a few quizzes everything I've been reading calls for more time and insight to comment on than I have available at the moment.

Go read this guy. I found him via Frank.

This post is thought-provoking.

Speaking of Frank (whose birthday is tomorrow), he has breaking news for the Alliance....

Off to the salt mines....

The "R" word rears its ugly head--again

I can tell it's summer--babysitting season has started again.

This week our last show starts at 9:50 pm, and gets out at 11:30pm. We had thirteen hardly souls who made a late night of it. The last two arrivals bought their tickets just as the box office was preparing to close at 10:05. They were two women who had debated coming to see the show because theirs was the only car in the parking lot, and they were concerned at being the only patrons at a show that late. They neglected to take into account the eleven children under the age of thirteen whose parents dropped them off in front of the theater beginning at nine pm or who had ridden their bikes to the theater.

I don't get it. Maybe it's because I'm not a parent myself. Maybe if I had a winsome blond, blue eyed eight year-old son I would have no qualms about abandoning him with his friend in a public place where the only requirement for admission is a dollar bill. Maybe it wouldn't bother me at all to let my ten year old daughter ride her bike home from the theater at close to midnight. Maybe I would just shrug off the very real possibility that child molestors and abductors might like to see movies that appeal to kids, or could be driving around quiet neighborhoods at night on the lookout for young bicyclists.

I'm reminded of the incident last summer, when a mother picking up her little darlings after midnight complained that some young men had made suggestive remarks to her eight and ten year old daughters during a show. What did she reasonably expect me to do? Sit next to every set of unattended children? Refuse to sell tickets to teenage boys on the grounds they are male, and thus might hit on preteen girls? Refuse to sell tickets to her daughters after she had already dropped them off in front of the theater and driven away, because some teenage boys had already purchased tickets?

I've joked with my employees about instituting a "babysitting surcharge." Maybe that's what I'm going to have to do--charge $11 for every unattended child, and use the money to pay an employee to sit next to them for two hours...maybe if it came out of their pockets, parents would realize they need to take responsibility for their children. I'd have to hire a lot more employees, though...

A Picture's worth...

notGeorge Tiger has done a fantastic job with this week's Carnival of the Vanities. It may take me until the next one to read all that's on offer, but it will be worth it...

The Passion of the Movie Patron

Well, most of the customers were understanding and forgiving when we explained that construction delays had precluded our showing the movie they came to see. They accepted that we had to put our newspaper ad in a week ahead of time, and once we knew that the construction was delayed it was too late to pull it. A few responses stand out, however. One obviously irate man pounded on the box office glass when he learned we weren't going to show The Passion of the Christ; he kept asking what we were going to do for him since he'd come all this way to see a movie we didn't have. We're going to pray for you, sir. Another customer pointed to the sign we had put up--apologizing for the construction problems and stating that Starsky & Hutch would be our only movie--and suggested we put up a sign saying that we weren't showing The Passion. I guess some people are more interesed in what we aren't showing than what we are...My favorite suggestion came from a woman who wanted to know why we hadn't announced on the radio that we weren't going to be showing The Passion this week. My cashier patiently explained to her that the cost of buying air time on every radio station in the city was prohibitive, and even if we had, how could we have known when she would be listening? Interestingly, the patrons arriving for the other two movies we weren't showing didn't make a ruckus. I'll have to remember that what we're not showing matters more to some movie goers than others....

Traffic and Parrots

Sometime overnight I broke the 50K mark on site meter. Judging by past milestones, the lucky visitor was probably Silver Blue...

Elderbear took exception to my statement that

I'm so tired of the idiotarians parrotting the same nonsense we have heard from day one that my brain hurts.

Get your Fresh, Hot Cheese!

LeeAnn lives! Yay!

Somebody find me the want ads section

The owner finally admitted what we at the theater have all known for weeks--the construction would not be done yesterday. He accepted this truth AFTER booking the movies, advertising in the paper, and having us announce the schedule on our marquee, box office signs and recording. So, between 10am and 3pm Friday we went from four movies scheduled in three theaters to one movie scheduled in one theater. We hurriedly had to change the signs, recording and marquee, but there's nothing we could do about the newspaper ads which went out a week ago, and so we spent the night turning away customers who had come to see the three movies we weren't showing.

I'm a little stressed right now. I wonder if it could be because this weekend still has three days of irate customers to go?

From both sides of the horse's mouth...

I had to get up at a ridiculously early (for me) hour to let some workers into the theater, and thus had set my clock radio. For reasons unknown (doubtless operator error), it was set to radio instead of alarm, and so I woke to the soothing tones of NPR. Since I'm never up this early, I didn't know they played anything other than soporific bedtime classical or jazz; I was surprised to hear "news". Apparently Kerry gave a speech somewhere last night and they interviewed two people about it. The Independent said she was going to vote for Kerry because he would get us out of Iraq. The Democrat said he would vote for Kerry because he would take things slowly and not rush us out of Iraq like Bush is doing.

?????????????

I guess the reason that Kerry is getting away with taking both sides on every issue is that people only listen until they hear what they want to hear, then stop listening.

And the press is letting the contradictions slide. What a surprise!

I need more coffee....

A little help from my friends?

Please, somebody fisk this for me--I'm so tired of the idiotarians parrotting the same nonsense we have heard from day one that my brain hurts.

1. Mr. Bush allowed Iraq to become a distraction from the war on terrorism.

Before we invaded Iraq, it was a stable nation. Saddam provided a secular government and would not tolerate the Islamic fundamentalism that fuels al Queda—in fact, he brutally suppressed it. Don't get me wrong, he was an evil SOB, even worse than Dick Cheney! But Iraq was off-limits for al Queda activities. Saddam was well contained militarily by UN sanctions and the US enforcement of them. He posed no threat to the region, nor to the US homeland.

Now, Iraq is unstable, a “failed nation” at present, with little control of the populace. Terrorism is rampant, aimed at Iraqi collaborators and American occupiers. The US occupation of an arabic nation, an Islamic nation, fuels al Queda's recruiting. Iraq is one big training camp where live fire operations are possible. This is George W. Bush's gift to al Queda.

2. Mr. Bush lied to the American people and the world about the threat posed by Iraq.

Mr. Bush has destroyed most of the good-will that the United States received internationally after 9-11. He changed the focus from fighting terrorism (an action with broad international backing) to demonstrating that in US foreign policy, might makes right, a policy that has lost us the sympathy of many foreign nations.

3. Mr. Bush has instituted policies that destroy the freedoms of Americans.

While this may make it marginally more difficult for terrorists to operate in the homeland, al Queda can point to impacting the American way of life. They counted coup on us, not just by knocking down some buildings and killing some people (Yes, 9-11 was horrible, but let's put it in perspective: depending on which source you choose, between 1,000 and 4,000 women die each year of domestic violence, itself a form of terrorism that leaves many severely scarred who manage to physically survive it. It scars children, too. Homeland Security? Give me Dennis Kucinich's cabinet level Department of Peace that would address this problem directly), but by changing our way of life.

4. Mr. Bush has de-emphasized solving the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire

Stabilizing Israel and Palestine will remove a key recruiting point for al Queda. But, Mr. Bush chose to put less energy into solving this problem, and to focus in causing a problem in Iraq. Good for al Queda, bad for Israelis, bad for Palestinians. Bad for Americans.

5. If elected, Mr. Bush can be counted on to continue a policy of international beligerence, thus strengthening the terrorist call to action.

Mr. Bush has given no indication that he will repudiate Dick Cheney's implementation of the Plan for a New American Century, a plan of military intimidation and dominance. This belligerent behavior will serve only to isolate America and coerce cooperation from fear. But al Queda will not be coerced, it will only grow in the nooks and crannies and dark spaces of the globe. The Bush doctrine of preemption isolates us from our allies and fuels the fires of hatred that power terrorism.

# posted by Elderbear : 11:41

CD? Stephen? Tom? Harvey? Will you ride to the rescue of a damsel in distress?

Better Late Than Never...

Yes, my homework is late again! It's because, uh--the cat ate it! Yes, that's it.
Anyway, to help CNN with their next "unbiased" poll, I present an unbiased poll:

Strother Martin said it best...or maybe it was George Thoroughgood

I think one reason I've not posted much these last few days is that there's so much going on that my thoughts are as fragmented as my days. I had to work Monday night, so I didn't get to see the President's speech, and I haven't had a chance to go searching for the text on the internet.

The kids at work are convinced that Kerry is going to win in November, and it makes me heartsick to think that if they are right then all the sacrifices of our military will have been in vain--nobody can lose the peace like a liberal Democrat...

I'm tired of the media harping on the prison scandal and doing their best to show only the worst of what's happening in Iraq. I'm tired of hearing moonbats' theories about 9/11 (and the prison scandal and the beheading) being perpetuated as if they have some validity. I'm tired of the anti-Americanism of the American left.

I'm also enervated by the continual delays and problems associated with the construction at the theater. There is apparently no one co-ordinating the various efforts, and consequently the myriad teams of laborers all seem to be working at cross-purposes. I've already had to go into work on a number of occasions during my time off to let people into the theater because the individual that the owner entrusted with the keys either failed to show up or wasn't informed he was needed. Every day when I go in I find a new message from an attempted delivery during non-business hours (ours, not the delivery truck's) and have to call to re-arrange delivery; simply informing me of the delivery beforehand so that I could be there to accept it the first time has apparently not occurred to anyone, and the delivery delays cause construction delays...

This morning, on my second trip in so far today, I learned from the men installing the new screens that a 24.8' screen was ordered for the 23.9' space, and a 23.7' screen was ordered for the 22.9' space. They are going to put the screen ordered for the smaller theater into the larger theater, and will have to order a new one for the smaller theater. The owner has already booked the movies we are supposed to be showing in that theater on Friday. THIS Friday. The day-after-tomorrow Friday.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. And I need one bourbon, one scotch and one beer....

Waiter, there's a whine in my soup

This is my last "weekend" off until school starts again in August. Starting Monday I get only one whole day off a week.

I'm really tired today. Sweet dreams to me...

At least I've got my Bonfire post now!

Is it beal or is it memorex?

Topic-less today. Bleck.

What have you been up to?

In my inbox

Pepsi has a new "patriotic" can coming out with pictures of the Empire State Bldg. and the Pledge of Allegiance on them.

However, Pepsi left out two little words on the
pledge. "Under God". Pepsi said they did not want to
offend anyone.

If this is true, then we don't want to offend
anyone at the Pepsi corporate office. So, if we don't
buy any Pepsi product, they will not be offended when
they don't receive our money that has the words "In
God We Trust" on it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Dennis for pointing out in the comments that this is an urban legend! See what happens when I rush to meet a deadline (get to work on time)? I pull a USA Today...

Can you see me now?

Well, I can see my blog and recentest posts, but apparently some of my dear readers can't. Can we have a show of hands here? If you are reading this, you are close enough....

I blame that pesky "y" chromosome

God is punishing me. He send me a plague of 16 year old boys.

The 16 year old girls create great dramas full of emotional upheaval and love-hate-love relationships. The 16 year old boys break things. Expensive things, like the glass on the candy case, or the safe.

Yes, the safe. Last night one of my clerks stuck a plastic fork into the lock and broke off the tines. Since my mind does not comprehend 16 year old boy, I do not understand his motivation, although I suspect it was a combination of scientific inquiry and the general male tendency to enjoy inserting things into other things.

I fear that, like the plumber, the locksmith will need to go on retainer.

UPDATE: It only took the locksmith half an hour to remove the two plastic fork tines from the safe lock. Then he cracked her open, gave all the moving parts a quick lube, and made sure it was working smoothly before riding off into the sunset...

I haven't seen the bill yet.

Spam, spam, sausage and spam

151.38.236.25 is the IP address of some knuckle-dragger apparently from Milan, Italy.

16 spam comments from the same IP, all for the same product, but all with different email addys. Dork.

Awed postless...

I just finished reading Bill Whittle's STRENGTH.

Awesome.

Read it, there'll be a quiz later....

But I thought since I got a tax cut that makes me one of the evil rich...

So I'm supposed to be working on a 4 page (minimum) paper that's due tomorrow, which is why I'm blogging instead. Because I am annoyed. I haven't shared with you, my faithful readers, my frustration and annoyance with this current class. This is the worst class (with the worst textbook) I have ever had in my life. It's worse than my high school American Government class that was taught by the track coach (at least in that class I could amuse myself by correcting his spelling and grammatical errors on handouts and tests).

For this class, we have to write six 4-6 pages papers and one 10-14 page paper. The big paper, ok. It's these little ones that are killing me because the assignment makes no sense. It's like the instruction is to analyze Freud's representation of the conflict between the ego and the id as indicated by this statement: Marcia drives a Volkswagen.

It's kind of hard to get "Whaaaaat? to stretch to four pages.

To top it off, the completely useless, $130, gibberish-ridden text came with a "free" subscription to Business Week magazine. Oh. My. God. You know the left is entrenched in the media as well as academia when you crack open an issue of Business Week. The Cover Story this week is on the working poor. Cool! I consider myself to be "working poor"--and hey, they do too! But you would think that a magazine about "business" could at least do math, because their poster child (er, womyn) for working poverty got a job making $10/hr--"bringing her salary to $14,400 a year."

Now, it just so happens that I make $10/hour salary--when I work only 45 hours a week. Some weeks I work 50 hours, and in summer as many as 60 hours, but since I am on salary, I still get the same pay, bringing my earnings down to as little as $7.50/hour. So if their example is actually salaried, AND making $10/hour AND taking home $14,400, she is only working 28 hours per week! She's a part-time worker on salary! How COOL is that? Of course, they never SAY she works part-time, and that might be why she has no insurance or pension...but hey, I work full time, with no insurance, pension, sick days or vacation, so doesn't that make ME twice as bad off?

What they fail to mention in their loverly tribute to those of us poverty-stricken folks who make only $10/hour is that by the time the various government entities get done taking their cut of my earnings, I'm only making $7.82 an hour ($5.87/hour in summer)... That should be the cover story...

And don't forget, it's all President Bush's fault, because before his tax cuts I was taking home $7.37 an hour! Why, in summer, my take home was a whopping $5.53! How dare he let me keep more of my money!

Sigh....I'm preaching to the choir, aren't I?

Corporal Work of Mercy: Visit the Sick

It's wonderful to wake up to a full email box...until you realize that twenty of the comment notification emails you received are for comment spam. {MT blacklist rulz!}

So I cleaned up the mess the spam left, and changed Silver Blue's blogroll link, and now is the time on Sprockets when we dance to check and see how Bill's Quest for A Hundred Thousand is coming along....

Seems I was visitor #94,764 this morning. That means Bill needs 5,236 visitors in the next nine days. You're not trying, folks!!!!

Go--marvel at the wonder that is Bill. [Laughing and pointing is encouraged!]

I need one!

Scraping the bottom again...

Alliance Assignment: What would Evil Glenn name his children?

Boy: Biff Hobowacker

Girl: Sanguine Ichor

Ok, I spent all my blogging time judging. Maybe the Alliance needs a bonfire for bad assignments....

Uneasy lies the crown....

Judge not
lest
ye be judged...
except
when you
have to
because you're a judge...

Nick does this to me every time--gives us a judging deadline of a time I am imprisoned in the Technology Free Zone™ so that I have to hurry up and get my grades in before I go to work.

Sigh...the things I do for a little gratuitous linkage....

So, this week's King of Blogs competitors are off! Here's how they finished:

Challenge: [the question was "A Hollywood studio is going to make a film of your life. What's the title, who is the star, and what on earth is it all about?"]

1.Walloworld :ROFL

2.Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Calvary :LOL

3. News from the Great Beyond :giggle

4. Red Beetle Road :smirk

5. A View from the Pew :smile

Submitted Post: This was very difficult, because each was a great post in its own way.

1. News from the Great Beyond

2. Chase Me Ladies

3. A View from the Pew

4. Red Beetle Road

5. Walloworld {I think Bill's tired of being King, folks--he had better ones he could have submitted! And believe me, this one was no dog...}

I predict that, unlike last time, this first round is going to be a squeaker!

Confessions of a Before Coffee Mind

I just hate it when stuff happens before I've had my coffee.

Susie! You say, in a shocked tone, It's almost noon and you're just now getting up?

Well, yes, I reply. I work nights, remember. My workday ordinarily doesn't start until 3pm. Plus, it's my weekend. Plus I watched the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring extended version DVD last night--twice! (the second time with the Cast Audio Commentary). So it was pretty late early this morning before I embraced slumber.

So while my coffee is brewing I stagger to the computer to check my email and learn that not only have I been comment-spammed, but my blog has disappeared.

I HATE it when that happens! Especially BC!

The BC "apparent animation" mode is based largely on muscle memory. There is little or no conscious thought involved in various motions until actual coffee ingestion has occurred. Each action that occurs in merely a repetition of subconsciously memorized behavior, basic motor function with no higher mental involvement. Therefore any occurance that has not already been internalized causes a system shutdown.

Open email from Harvey: motor memory. Read

I dropped by your place this morning (9am CDT) & your 2-20-04 post was at the top of the page.

Open spam comment notification and click on blacklist link: motor memory. Failure of blacklist page to load; reload: motor memory. Failure of reload to work: system shutdown.

Pour now-brewed coffee: motor memory. Ingest said brain re-inflation liquid: motor memory. Try to get to my blog via other blogs: motor memory.

A conscious thought begins to wiggle its way out of the dessicated brain sludge....email Pixy. Another sip, and the task (though still largely motor memory) is done. Return to trying to get to my blog via a link from the Alliance. Holy Cow! It worked! Despam with blacklist! It works again!

All praise the Reverend Pixy Misa! The mere act of emailing him fixes my blog! Hurray!!!! He doesn't even need to read and respond to it! ! It's a miracle!

I wish I were as funny as LeeAnn

Well, I was going to do this week's Alliance assignment, but I'm drawing a blank. So instead I thought I'd try this trick I found at Mandarin Designs.

It's actually Harvey's fault I used this picture, since in the assignment he said

Anyway, it seems that some imprisoned terrorists were "humiliated" by prison guards, by being dragged around on leashes and forced to run around naked in handcuffs.

THAT'S not humiliation. That's just a normal night at my house.

So, the only thing I could think of to humiliate anybody was to send them to Middle School with a bad haircut and a Spongebob Squarepants lunchbox, but I think that's specifically banned by the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment....

Hopefully I'll do better on the next assignment...

New blogs that can kid

Being the Hostess of the Alliance blog and therefore the Membership Directress, I have the opportunity to check out the blogs of applicants before they make the roster. It's sort of like holding a social or mixer--one gets to meet all sorts of interesting folks before introducing them to the rest of the party.

Here are some of the newest blogs that I found amusing:

Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Calvary has the sort of humor I enjoy...

Over at Whimsy Capricious, there's plenty of capricious whimsey...

Gilly's World [motto:It's like Dennis Miller, only without the obscure Crimean War references] also manages to tickle my funnybone...

Now, to work on my Alliance assignment....

I do not like them, with a goat

Yes, it's ME--my preferences, I mean. But drat it! I hate hate hate when I click on a comments link and instead of a handy box popping up I get a new page!! EEEeewwww!!!!!!!!

I'm not talking "show comments"--I like seeing the comments displayed on the same page. What frosts my twinkies is when I want to read a blog's comments and it does the typepad thing--takes you to a whole 'nother page that you have to back out of to get to the posts again.

It was bad enough that typepad blogs did this, but now people are moving to PMachine and WordPress, which do that same horrible new page thing that typepad does, and the worst--the a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e worst is when MT blogs do it on purpose!!!!

By the way, the Survivor blog does have a lovely new decor. But I probably won't be commenting or reading the comments there anymore. Just as I seldom comment at Tiffany's or Blackfive's because it's too annoying, I won't be doing much commenting at Silver Blue's new place, either. My comment to this post would've just been "LOL" anyway.....

Just Keep Swimming...

Tiffany does a terrific job with the Bestofme Symphony this week!

One of the posts presented is an excellent analysis of what makes an American "American" at The Smallest Minority.

America is still the beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. The Land of Opportunity. As such, we are held to a high standard - one we occasionally fail. When we do, those who hate us, those who fear us, and those who simply don't understand us point to those failures and declare that our leadership is illegitimate, our freedom is false and our promise of opportunity is a trick. They say we are evil.

Thank you, Jim!

Keeping the Bonfire in business since 2003....

*opening sentence backspaced out of existance. again.*

Inspiration. n. An agency, such as a person or work of art, that moves the intellect or emotions or prompts action or invention. American Heritage Dictionary.

Muse. n. 1. A guiding spirit. 2. A source of inspiration. American Heritage Dictionary.

Yes, I'm trying to jump-start a post here, but it's not working. So, via the Cheesemistress of Quizzes (or perhaps the Quizmistress of Cheeses, it's sooooo confusing before coffee):

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And you're dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear. What Kind Of Coffee Are You? Take This Quiz :-)

Foolish consistency mines the hobgoblins

I have no idea why I seem to be under the impression that that blogosphere will fall down go boom if one day passes without my posting.

I think LeeAnn has the truth of it--I just want to see the day's date on the calender change color....