yes, Rich, but she was just a reporter. i doubt that she was driving the van or operating the equipment. she was probably sitting there in the back of the van, touching up her make-up, and thinking to herself 'ok, who do i know that can manufacture some great story for me to cover, good enough that they'll bump that Kiki bitch off the anchor desk and put me there. i deserve it, dammit! i was Miss Crawford County, Missouri 1995, for chrissake!" then, suddenly--ZAPP!!!-- she's a crispie critter.

the McD's Coffee Woman is a different matter. she shouldn't have won a dime, because she did something stupid that she should have known better than to do, thus she caused her own injuries. the reporter was injured because of someone else's (the driver's or the equipment operator's) negligence or incompetence, and someone else's (the manufacturer's and employer's) negligence or shortsightedness. in addition to losing her forearm, her foreleg, and part of the remaining foot, she probably also lost her career, Miss Crawford County or not.

[update 6/02/05 - embarrassed to admit, but my denunciation of the McDonald's Coffee Woman was unjustedfied. In the few years since I'd written that, I've actually read something about the case instead of listening to repeated tales from other people]

so, i decided to go out and finish my christmas shopping today, and i pulled up the current weather map (it was current when i looked) from the Weather Channel. it showed clear skies, with the nearest precipitation well over one hundred miles away.

"cool! i should be able to get finished before anything bad gets here," i thought to myself. i take a look out the window, and the sky's overcast and it's snowing!

so much for the Weather Channel.

an experiment to discover whether the The Six Beer Theory is true.

i'm heading out early today. i have to find out what happened to Moira.

but Rich! she lost portions of limbs over this. yeah, it'd be funny if it just given her a good shock, but she's only buying a quarter of a pair of shoes now, and half a pair of gloves.

celine dion jokes are always funny.

the people in HR who do the training bring down more and more training-work for me to check. i've spent all afternoon doing this. it sucks. this work thing is getting in the way of my surf time.

Moira MacTaggert died? would someone tell me when? and Senator Kelly's dead too? was he assassinated? isn't that supposed to be what starts the Days of Future Past timeline?

speaking of Robbie Williams, although i think he's very attractive and wouldn't mind watching him on the Silver Screen, i'm just not sure he should be the Next Bond™

please, Pierce, won't you stay? i'll give you a shiny quarter if you do!

what's with all the crappy christmas programming? it's either the same old thing (which, i guess, is usually called Traditional), or it's something new that just sounds like crap, e.g.:

• All Dogs Christmas Carol --if it has Scooby Doo, Scooby Dumb, Scooby Dee, Scappy Doo, and Astro, it might be interesting.
  
• Angel of Pennsylvania Avenue --Hillary?
  
• The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas --don't most of them?
  
• Like Father, Like Santa --starring Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore?
  
• Munster's Scary Little Christmas --you know this is lame
  
• The Last Polar Bears --is this an apocalyptic film?

on the other hand, there are some shows that i'd like to see:

• The Nightmare Before Christmas --this should be a Christmas Classic
  
• A Wish For Wings That Work -- good any time of the year
  
• A Muppet Christmas Carol --the best telling of a holiday classic
  
• Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire --ok, i just want to see this because the credits list Robbie Williams first, and i want to see if it's this Robbie Williams, or just someone with the same name. if it's the latter (or, if it's animated, which it probably is), then move this one up to my Crap list.

my phone rang four times. my phone has caller ID, so i know it's the same number calling each time, and each time i answered, the person hung up. it's was really pissing me off, which is why, the 5th time it rang, i was quite rude about it.

this time though, there was a tiny, female voice on the other end: 'this is So-and-So with Telecommunications. i'm having some trouble with the line.. it's not going where i want. i'm sorry!'

i felt bad. for all of half a second. she should have told me that the first time. i wouldn't have been so irritated.


on another (but possibly related) note:

my milk tasted a little funny this morning, so i didn't drink it. that may be contributing to my irritability. that, and the fact that i came to work early. so overall, i'm just not a pleasant person today.

hooray! Jeanie did make it to work afterall! i'm so happy! but, because she has so much email to catch up on, i'll wait a bit before i start bugging her.

i disagree with Rich about this. yeah, it's expected that the microscoping masts may strike overhead powerlines, but wouldn't you also expect that those inside the van would be protected when it hit?

(and why am i still having trouble linking to your posts?)

woke up early this morning. decided to come to work. a pleasant drive in light traffic. wondered to myself, "why don't i start coming in early every morning?" because, dumbass, that means you have to get up EARLIER. that ain't gonna happen.

Pooh suffers 'psychological problems'.

armed with the knowledge of Pooh and Friend's various psychological, neurological, and sociological problems, i have been able to determine that my friends and i resemble Pooh and Co. most uncannily.

[link from Arcanum_5 on WW forums]

oh yeah... i almost forgot... mikey was watching Voyager with me last night, and he says "man, i'm starting to get into this show."

yes! maybe i won't have to feel bad when he comes over on wednesday nights.

speaking of mikey, he came over last night with a couple of days of beard growth. grr! he looked sexy! but he's not keeping it. ::sigh::

find out which member of the Scooby Gang you are most like (no, not the Freddy and Velma Scooby gang, the Buffy Scooby Gang).

i'm Willow-esque, which i can accept, except for that whole dating-a-woman thing:

Willow
We've said it before and we'll say it again: You're the coolest friend a person could have. You're smart, loyal, cool, and an awesome dresser! You're always up for helping out, are sensitive of other people's feelings, and don't' even let those nerd-like tendencies of yours get in the way of your social life. You've got the balanced-life thing down to a science. And that is so cool. We totally dig it. Our only problem with you is that sometimes you're so busy being a good friend you don't let yourself get the attention you deserve! You're a star in your own right. Take credit for it once in a while. Don't get made up like girl-next-door Reese Witherspoon. Go for the bold Lucy Liu look once in a while! Your friends won't mind - if they're as good friends to you as you are to them. It's your turn to shine!

so what does everyone think? should i try the Lucy Liu look?

Thought for the week:
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
[from the popbitch newsletter]

speaking of driving in inclement weather, i mentioned to my landlord/roommate that i don't like driving on ice and snow, and he decides to take that as an opportunity to lord his superiorness over me:

"you Oklahomans don't know how to drive on snow," he says to me as he's shoveling the snow around his stuck-in-the-snow truck. strangely, though i'm stupid, I didn't get stuck anywhere.

also, motherfucker, you're an Oklahoman too. the only places you have ever lived were:

• here in Tulsa, with your parents
  
• here in Tulsa, 3 miles from your parents (in a house they bought for you, i might add. they must have wanted you out of their house really badly. prick)

i'm irritable this this morning. because of the snow, i couldn't get my chocolate milk, and Jeanie's not at work.

i guess she's still snowed in. despite my best efforts, i was still able to make it to work today, though i was an hour late. i get really bored at work when i don't have someone to email all day long.

ho hum. Jeanie! where are you?!?

i shouldna got out of bed this morning.

Famke as the next terminator? Adrian Paul getting a new series? why hadn't i heard about this earlier?

cool! tim got to meet Sabretooth! should have popped him in the nose to see if that healing factor would kick in.

afterward, of course, you'd have been unable to write about meeting Sabretooth.

i followed the link to Tyler Mane's website, and took a look at his Projects section. i didn't know that Mr. Mane is a veteran of the musical theatre:

[Tyler Mane] drew strong reviews as the lead role of Dean Rebel in the San Diego Repertory production of a wrestling musical entitled 'Turbo Tanzi'

yes! i'm actually snowed in! i don't have to make an excuse!

should i first bitch about how cold it is and how much i hate the cold, or should i bitch about the hour long, four mile drive from work tonight.

i hate snow.

had a brief conversation with In the Closet Boy today at lunch. he was snowed in and bored today (he thought he was bored, until he talked to me. then, he discovered what boring is...). but, the guy's even unluckier because, though he's snowed in from school today, he still has to go to work.

i'm fairly sure that i'd rather go to school than to work. i'm even surer that i'd rather not have to do either when it's been snowing.

if it snows here tonight like it's supposed to, i won't be coming to work tomorrow. i'll make sure i can't make it. i will slide my car of the road if need be. i will claim that the snow is much heavier on my side of town. whatever it takes. i want another day off. for once, i want to actually call in and say, "i can't make it today. there's too much snow."

thinking more about the original X-Men series... inexplicably, they gave Wolverine an Australian accent. i know that many Americans have a hard time distinguishing between various English-language accents, like Scottish vs Irish, but there's a huge difference between Australian and Canadian (which, afaik, is where Wolverine is from). Canadians sound like us! heck, they're practically American anyway (or is it that Minnesotians and Wisconsoners are practically Canadian?). damned Hollywood.

a review of an episode of X-Men:Evolution. it sounds a bit like the original X-Men animated series, the one that only had one episode about meeting Kitty Pryde(Pryde of the X-Men... get it? Kitty Pryde... Pryde of the X-Men..hahaha), but, much more importantly, it was one of only two X-Men non-comic book anything that had Dazzler in it's regular cast. the other was the original arcade game, and no, i'm not talking about that silly X-Men vs Streetfighter game.

i loved that game. you and 5 others could play at the same time on a double screen, each player with a different character. they all had their own moves and mutant powers (they gave Colossus an energy spark power... wtf?). i was a master at the "Dazzler Light Ball Slamdunk" and the "Dazzler Cartwheel Grab-n-Throw". i could make it through all the levels, beat all the mini-bosses (like the Blob, Juggernaut, White Queen, and Mystique), then kick Magneto's ass, without using mutant powers, on a single play.

i spent many, many hours of many, many nights of my freshman year playing that game. it was the single biggest reason that i almost never made to my Russian and Political Science classes.

i miss Dazzler.

heh, i love the onion:

Christian Right Lobbies To Overturn Second Law Of Thermodynamics

this is just sad

A genetic death sentence

[link via this guy]

[oops! mutant link viahim]

mutants are so fucking cool. but it'd suck to live in the world of the X-Men and have this mutant power. the other mutants would make fun of you.

poor sick little sturtle. i've never really cared for Sesame Street, and never watched Zoom, but i do know that Zoboomafoo is on during the day, and it's a great show. i love lemurs, and the Kratt brothers, despite the fact they're dumbasses.

this freaking sucks. my friend Brian, who has been living in St Louis for almost a year now, is still winning stuff from radio stations here. i just got a call from K-Hits, asking for him, because he'd won a $300 scooter.

when he was in town last weekend for his father's funeral, he'd called the station to play one of their little games, and was entered in the drawing for that damned scooter. he'd given them my address and phone number. and he won. bitch.

looking through some of Jean's old posts, i find where she talks about night terrors, something i think i suffer from often.

that link led me to search for hypnogogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis both something i suffer from frequently.

when i was a child, i was a sleepwalkerer. i don't think i do that anymore though.

something i do still do, and often, is a hypnic jerk, a.k.a. sleep jerk or sleep start (i've also seen it called something like 'onclonic jerk' but i can't seem to find anything about that now). everything i read on hypnic jerk says it happens once a night, just before you go to sleep. it happens to me multiple times nightly, and it's usually accompanied by a short (15 or 20 seconds) nightmare-type episode, and it doesn't involve a feeling of falling or anything like that.

anyway, all of that is just a long introduction to this:

i love the word somniloquy (something else i used to do alot as a child).

oh, and before anyone says that it wasn't very nice of me to watch television on our 6 month anniversary, it wasn't my idea. mikey wanted to stay in and not leave the house (except to get soup). so it's his own fault he had to watch X-Files.

for those who keep track of such things (which i believe to be just me and mikey), Sunday marked the 6th month point in our relationship. we celebrated by watching X-Files. woo hoo!

you'd think that, after 6 months, he'd know that there are certain nights-- no, not even that-- certain shows that i watch, and i cannot be separated from the tv. exactly 5 and a half hours worth every week. he's not much into sci-fi, and that covers half of my viewing period. instead of finding something else to do, though, he sits there with me and watches it.

yeah yeah, it sounds sweet that he's watching something he doesn't like just because i want to see it, but it's not. it's torturous. i feel bad that he's watching something he doesn't like and has no interest in, so i'm distracted from the show and can't enjoy it. until he says something like "they should just cancel X-Files since David Duchovny's not on there anymore," or "they should just blow up Voyager. there's never gonna make it home."

i think he does it intentionally, just to get my hackles up and get me talking. he enjoys seeing me get all worked up about something insignificant. but it's just not nice, because then i miss something that may have been important to the show.

i think i need to start taping X-Files and Voyager, and then watching them everytime he comes over. he'd eventually tire of all the sci-fi, and maybe he'd just go to sleep whenever something good is on. or maybe he'd start coming over on the nights when i watch no television. or maybe he'd start getting into the shows, want to watch them all the time, and i'd get sick of them.

it's friggin' cold in here! i hate winter.

good lord! i now have a third reader! woo hoo! a fifty percent increase in readership! so, to anyone else who stops by here, go take a gander at In the Closet Boy and say "hi!" he's one of my daily reads, and can be a lot of fun.

for the geeks out there (and strangely, this applies to the only two people who read my blog), here's some week old Trek "news". mostly, it just seems like rumor repeated ad nauseum.

check out some of the art from Ultimate X-Men. and what do you think about the new look for Ms. Grey?

i'm such a fag for getting excited about this, but Ab Fab's coming back for another season!

[thanks to Max (i think that's the name) for the news]

i like green too.

how nice this must be for you. unfortunately, i live only 4 miles from work, and Tulsa does a fairly good job of getting its major streets clear early. so i'm here at work, one of the three people in my department to make it in today.

the good news for me is that the parking lot is about half empty. i should have much less work to do today than i normally would, not that i ever have much to do anyway.