I created some games on Sporcle

Sporcle is a website with trivia games. Basically, you have to make lists, such as Countries of the World or State Capitals. A couple of the most recent games are Notable Deaths of 2011 and Thing IN People (which shows x-rays and you have to guess what they swallowed or inserted).

They also let you make your own quizzes, so I did a couple this week. You have to be a serious movie lover to get all the answers on these but I think it's fun to rack your brain a little. So try out my quizzes:

Movie List-o-rama and Movie List-o-rama 2.

I would so love to see this happen!

Robert Reich, one of my favorite political commentators, is predicting that Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton will swap places in 2012. Biden will become Secretary of State and Hillary will be on the ticket as VP. Reich says:

Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that's been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that ...

The deal would also make Clinton the obvious Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 -- offering the Democrats a shot at twelve (or more) years in the White House, something the Republicans had with Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush but which the Democrats haven't had since FDR. Twelve years gives the party in power a chance to reshape the Supreme Court as well as put an indelible stamp on America.

According to the latest Gallup poll, the duo are this year's most admired man and woman This marks the fourth consecutive win for Obama, while Clinton has been the most admired woman in each of the last 10 years. She's topped the list 16 times since 1993, exceeding the record held by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who topped the list 13 times.

That's something I can get excited about. Obama-Clinton 2012.

But I'd rather be humping on this

Happy hump day part deux. Love, Jon Bon Jovi.

Happy hump day

Designer Marc Jacobs with his current boy toy. Why would you work so hard to get your body so ripped then cover it in ugly tattoos?

But then, there's no accounting for taste.

The 12 whines of Christmas

I've got a lot of whining to do so I just made a list:

1) I didn't get my Christmas tree set up. Just didn't have the energy but I'm sad about it now. I had the box leaning against the wall in the kitchen. Lizzie has jumped on top of it and tipped it over 3 times tonight. Pretty good indicator of what would've happened if I did set the tree up.

2) My sleep cycle is backwards - I'm up all night and sleeping all day. Now I'm trying to sleep my way around the clock. That's a technique my former psychiatrist told me about. I'm supposed to go to bed 2 hrs later every day then sleep as long as I feel like sleeping. On Monday, I went to bed at 8:30 a.m. On Tuesday, at 10:30 a.m. So today, I should go to bed around 12:30. Within a week, I should be back to sleeping nights. Theoretically.

3) One of the reasons my sleep got so messed up is because it's hard for me to go to bed. That's when I miss Percy most. At night, every time I headed toward the bedroom, he would run in and jump on the bed and wait for me. That was our favorite cuddle time.

4) I feel guilty because I wrote a poem about Percy dying but I didn't write one about Jasmine. I was very attached to her when she was alive, but I think I got even more attached to Percy after she died.

5) I've developed trigger finger. It's basically a problem with the tendons in my hand that's causing intense pain in my left thumb. It locks up sometimes and I have to use my other hand to bend it, and if I bump my hand in the wrong way, it sends shooting pains through my hand and thumb. They don't know what causes it but I think in my case chemo played a role. I've had all sorts of problems with my joints and tendons and hands ever since.

6) As a result of that condition, I've developed more empathy for my mom. I had no idea how much I used my left hand, esp. my thumb, until I started having this problem. Mom has weakness in her left wrist and thumb caused by a stroke, and it's progressively gotten worse to the point where she can't do much with that hand.

7) I'm worried about Mom's health in general. A couple of weeks ago, she spilled some liquid detergent on the carpet. She wasn't able to get down on the floor to clean it up, so she called a friend to help. If she ever falls, she wouldn't be able to get up. It's getting more and more difficult for her to walk any distance because of pain in her right knee and foot. She wouldn't be able to do her own shopping if it weren't for Walmart's motorized carts.

8) I'm killing myself with carbs. I crave them all the time. Potatoes, potato chips, pasta, cereal, orange juice, chocolate. My blood sugar must be running sky high. I'm thirsty all the time and wake up every 2 hrs to pee.

9) I've got a crusty sore on my upper chest that won't heal and it looks like a couple more are developing nearby. It resembles pictures of skin cancer, and it's in an area where I got sunburned a lot when I was younger.

10) I can't keep track of what day it is. Being up all night does that to you.

11) My friend asked me to babysit on Tuesday. I had to turn him down because I'm still having problems with my neck and now I've got problems with my hand. I just couldn't handle lifting a very heavy 1 year old all day.

12) My brother wanted to give me gas money because I gave him a ride to our other brother's for Christmas, 2 hours each way. I said it wasn't necessary. He insisted and gave me $20. I said it was too much. He immediately took it back, then asked how much I thought was fair. I said $10 so that's what he gave me. When will I ever learn to shut up?

But some people didn't get the memo

A November 2008 memo from American Thinker thinker R. Stephen Bowden:

Racism in America is dead. Allegations about inequality of opportunity have been smashed. Deader than a bug on the windshield ...

Over 66 million voters waited in line to deliver the coup de grâce. Many of them were proud blacks ... Most, however, were guilty whites who queued up to the voting booth to get shed of an ugly stigma. As for the other 57 million voters, they already knew that racism was dead and decided to vote on principle. Well . . . okay . . . that last statement was tongue-in-cheek ...

So join me, please, as we collectively stab our fingers at the rotting corpse of racism and ... shout our eulogy to America's great sin: Black inferiority: DEAD! White guilt: DEAD! Race-baiting: Dead! The U.S. of KKK: Dead! The politics of victimhood: Dead!

... Barack Obama's election to the presidency has simply - but decisively - put an exclamation point on the epitaph.


Y'all just keep repeating that to yourselves. There is no racism in America. Nope. None whatsoever. No. Racism. In. America. So get that through your fuzzy little monkey brain, Mr. Obama. Pay no attention to the man on Fox News. In fact, you might want to just scroll past the next post.

That's PRESIDENT Skinny Ghetto Crackhead to you

The gay - it's destroying the very foundation of our society one marriage at a time

Minnesota state Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch was forced to resign her position because of an affair with one of her subordinates. John Medeiros, an LGBT leader, wrote an open letter to her. Excerpts below:

Dear Ms. Koch,



On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community’s successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an “illicit affair” with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife ...

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry ...

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of “adultery" ...

And finally, shame on us for thinking that marriage is a private affair, and that our marriage would have little impact on anyone’s family ... We should listen to the Minnesota Family Council when it tells us that marriage is about being public ... Never did we realize that it is exactly because of this societal agreement that the entire world is looking at you in shame and disappointment instead of minding its own business.

From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology.

Quote of the day

You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better. If the Democrats think that they didn't have a mandate—people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off. Imagine if they had a leader.

- Matt Damon on why he's sorry he campaigned for Obama.

[Dude, that's why I campaigned for Hillary. She has balls.]

I'm not sure she's helping him

Newt's former mistress is the center of his latest commercial repeating around the clock here in Iowa. It's sort of in your face - oh yeah, this is the younger woman he left his second younger woman wife for. She looks so phony and so uptight with her overdone makeup and skinny little lips pressed together. I bet she stopped going down on him after they got married - she wouldn't want to mess her hair up.

Dear diary (miscellaneous updates)

Fingers crossed, I may have found a new home for some of my finches. But it's not the first time someone swore they wanted them. The last 2 times, the prospective buyer never showed up.

Jury duty fizzled out - no trials starting this week so I didn't have to report. I'm still on call for next week but I really doubt they'll have any. I didn't think any judges would schedule a trial during holiday weeks.

Walgreens emailed that one of the prescriptions I tried to refill is out of stock. That was Sunday and they still haven't notified me it's in. I've heard that a lot of drug companies are having manufacturing problems - which I think is an excuse for manipulating the market to make the prices go up, or steering customers toward more expensive options. That's my newest conspiracy theory.

My sleep has been even more disturbed than usual. I've been going to bed around 5:00-6:00 in the morning then sleeping until 1:00 and waking up several times in between. When I saw my psychiatrist yesterday, he said he wants me to go out every day and spend at least a half hour in the sun. Apparently, he doesn't know I'm a vampire.

Lizzie has turned into a real cuddlebum. I love it except when I have other things I need to get done. Her hair is so silky and fine that it gets in my nose. She hates being brushed. I even went out and got a better brush for her. Next step is bribing her with treats.

The top picture is from March, the week I brought her home. The bottom picture is 3 weeks ago, when she didn't want me to take down the table from writers group. She still likes to sleep with her hips splayed out.

Forcing myself to look forward this week

I'm still missing Percy. Sometimes I think I got Lizzie and Megan too soon - Lizzie within a few weeks of Jasmine dying and Megan a couple months ago in anticipation of losing Percy - but I'd be going crazy without them. Last night, I eradicated Percy's cubbyhole in the closet. I picked up the sweaters he'd built his nest with, then I rearranged everything and moved my air conditioner in there. Now there's no cubby space left.

Some things I'm looking forward to this week:

• The Survivor finale tonight. Even though Ozzy's been an egotistical asshole, I kind of want him to win. Besides, he's hung. (If you don't believe me, google. There's a soft porn video out there.)

• My psychiatrist appointment. I like him.

• Jury duty. I could use an extra $30 a day. Although I seriously doubt any lawyer would leave me on a jury. And since the holidays are coming up, I kind of doubt any new trials will be starting.

• Doing some baking for Christmas at my brother's. Fudge, pumpkin bars, and maybe some cookies.

• Josh Krajcik winning X-Factor. At least he should. Watch Jar of Hearts (better than the original) and The Pretender (I want to be at that concert) but mostly At Last (I get the chills every time I hear it).

• I'm a little bit manic so I think I'll get some cleaning done.

• Submitting some poems for publication. On I'm a roll right now with poetry - my group really likes what I've been doing and they're not kiss-asses. The poem I wrote about Percy last week was a big hit. (I'm tempted to post it but I think it has a chance of getting published for real. After it gets rejected enough times, I'll post it.)

• Revising some of my old poems and hopefully writing some new ones.

The picture is Percy and Jasmine a year ago. I knew it would be their last Christmas.

My crazy, stupid love for Steve Carell

From now on, I will watch everything he's in. I haven't loved - or even liked - every movie he's been in, but the ones I do love make it worth sitting through the bad ones. They even make it worth putting up with all the Netflix fuckery.

Last night I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love and it was all 3 of those things. It was one of the most entertaining movies I've seen all year - really funny, really sad, and really real. The twist at the end was preposterous. A lot of the plot was preposterous. But it's a comedy and the acting was so good and the characters were so lovable - and real - that I didn't mind all the implausible or at least improbable entanglements. I was completely willing to suspend disbelief and didn't resent it when the most implausible twist was revealed. Sometimes it pisses me off when a movie strings me along and then does something really stupid at the end. Not this time.

Carell is such an expert at playing lovable losers that you might think he is one. But he couldn't be a true loser and portray one so well.

Another Carell movie I loved, that apparently no one else did, was Dan in Real Life. It had some similarities to this one with the crazy entanglements and characters who were real. But what do I know? Apparently I'd make a lousy film critic because I still think Larry Crowne is the best new movie I've seen all year. Yes, I love Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts that much.

Okay, I'll admit Crazy, Stupid, Love was a better movie. But it didn't have Julia.

And if anyone's looking for recommendations, here's a list of the best dramas I've seen this year:

Beautiful Boy (parents grieving after their son commits mass murder before killing himself), Win Win (Paul Giamatti as another lovable loser), Nowhere Boy (John Lennon biopic), Barney's Version (Giamatti goes LL again), Biutiful (Bardem is powerful), The Fighter (Christian Bale and Melissa Leo won Oscars), The Rabbit Hole (Kidman reminded me why I used to think she was a great actress), the Mad Men series (great in its own right but worth it just to look at Jon Hamm), and the original Prime Suspect series with Helen Mirren (you can never go wrong with Mirren).

Quote of the day

"Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills, like how to put soap on their body."

-- Jerry Sandusky's lawyer paints a visual image no one but a NAMBLA sicko wants to see

Facing my own mortality

I've always believed there's something after death, that the spirit lives on in some form. Most of the time, I believe in reincarnation. But I'm not sure.

Twelve hours ago, Percy was huddled inside my jacket purring while I was paying them to kill him and dispose of his body. Twenty-four hours ago, I was fretting over him, noting every time he drank and every time he threw up. Watching him list to the side as he walked across the dining room. Standing in the doorway in shock as I saw him squat in the litter box and strain to expel three gushes of bloody mucus from his bowels. I could see his belly cramping. That was the moment when I decided I had to do something.

When I left him this afternoon, he was huddled on the table with the vet on one side of him and the tech on the other. They were so gentle with him, and with me. I gave a brief synopsis of why I'd decided it was time and the vet reassured me. Then he asked if I wanted to stay for it. I had planned to, but in that moment I knew I couldn't. I wanted to remember Percy as he was right at that moment, purring while the tech stroked him and gazing up at me with those sad, dark gold eyes. Suddenly, I didn't want to be there to see if he got scared when they gave him the shot, the way that Carolina did fifteen years ago. I practically ran out of the place. I wish I had touched him one more time. I wish I had kissed him and called him Bubba.

Someday - probably in the not too distant future - I will get to where he was. I want somebody to give me something to help me sleep. I don't want them to tell me I won't wake up.

The zombie walks no more

When we got to the vets' parking lot, I took Percy out of the carrier and tucked him inside my jacket. He huddled down in there and he seemed almost as tiny as he was the first day I brought him home, 15 years ago. He purred and purred and stayed calm when we got inside. I kept him tucked in my jacket until the vet came into the room. I was going to stay till the end but I couldn't. He was very calm when I left him.

Now, I hope he's reunited with Jasmine.

This will be Percy's last night

He hasn't been able to keep anything down for the last couple of days. Late this afternoon, he starting acting like he just couldn't get comfortable. He'd come in the living room and lie down for a few minutes then he'd go back to the bedroom. Back and forth all night and he's walking like he's in pain. Now, he's passing diarrhea that's nothing but mucus and blood.

The other cats are nervous. They can tell something's wrong. If he's still alive when the vet's office opens in a few hours, I'm going to have him put to sleep. I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this.

Update: The appointment is scheduled for 2:20 this afternoon. I'm on my way to my own doctor's appointment and I'm hoping he'll pass quietly on his own before I get back.

We're ready for our closeup, Mr. DeMille

I was trying to take a picture of my hair - 14 months post-chemo - but Lizzie reminded me that she's the most photogenic member of the family.

Holiday blues? Seasonal affective disorder?

I always get really depressed this time of year and start dwelling on the past. Today (Sunday) was the anniversary of when my dad died. It's been 21 years. My mom called tonight. She was rambling and seemed to be down in the dumps. I have a feeling it was because of the anniversary but she never wants to be reminded of anything so I didn't ask.

Percy's in the closet again. He's walking kind of sideways, like his balance is off, and he's been throwing up a lot the last couple of days. He won't eat the hairball treats so I mixed some of the liquid hairball remedy in with his food. He ate about half of it but I don't know if it'll do any good or if that's even the problem.

Megan ate his leftovers and got diarrhea. At least, I hope that's what gave her diarrhea.

It's been more than 3 weeks since I caught this cold and it's getting worse instead of better. My temp is 1-2 degrees higher than normal but not enough to worry about. My ribs ache from coughing so much. I might call the doctor tomorrow to see if she thinks antibiotics would help.

I panicked a little bit when I checked my fasting blood sugar this morning - it was 147 which is really high for me. Then I remembered that being sick can make it go up, so I hope that's all it is. I haven't been taking very good care of myself.

In order to cheer myself up, I'm posting a recent picture of Brad. He's a handsome ray of sunshine in my otherwise dreary life.

Scum(s) of the week

If I had posted Scum of the Week last Sunday, like I intended, the winner would have been Congressman Steve King of Iowa. The offense that inspires that selection occurred at a congressional hearing where Dems were pushing for the immigration officials to take steps against racial profiling. Steve thinks racial profiling is a good thing - that's why he engaged in it himself by singling out the only immigrant on the panel and questioning why he came to the U.S. and pulled a "papers please," asking the witness for his visa.

But now a new, scummier Scum of the Week has emerged. Rick Perry - the George Wallace of the 21st Century.

Paranoid much?

Last night I was sitting at my computer and noticed how much cat hair had collected on the keyboard. I picked up an electric bill that was laying on my desk and used it to usher some of the fur from between the keys.

Then I glanced at the bill and noticed it wasn't mine, it was my neighbor's from down the hall. How did that get here? In the first place, I pay my bill online so I never actually open the envelope when it comes and this one was out of the envelope. In the second place, the amount due was way more than my normal bill because the account was about 3 months past due. In the odd event that I did actually open the bill and didn't notice it had my neighbor's name on it, I certainly would've noticed how much it was. Right?

Then I remembered that I was gone for a couple of hours on Monday and my door wouldn't be that difficult to break into and I had left my computer on and the neighbor in question is exactly the kind of guy you'd expect to break into your place. Not only does he have that lazy, glazed-eyes druggie quality about him but sheriff's deputies have knocked on his door at least once that I'm aware of. And last summer, someone spray-painted "child molester" on his car.

At that point, my paranoia was off to the races. He broke into my apartment! He accessed my computer! I have passwords saved on a lot of websites! I have passwords for my bank and credit card sites written down and not too carefully concealed! OMG!

That lasted for a good hour or so, while I googled ways to find out if your computer's been used and changed my passwords for all the sites that have any of my personal info and thought OMG! what if he installed a keystroke logger?

Then I slowed down enough to think, good god, if he was going to take the risk of breaking into my apartment, why would he waste time paying his electric bill online? Wouldn't he be better served by surfing porn? And why wouldn't he steal the $50 I left laying in plain site in the top drawer?

So now I don't really think he broke into my apartment. That doesn't mean I won't still worry about it sometimes.

Even though I do have a vague memory of getting an electric bill that seemed too high and going online to check my balance and figuring they sent the bill before they received my last payment. I may even have noticed that it was someone else's bill and debated whether or not to take it to him. That may have happened. I do have a vayyy-gue memory.

But why waste a good opportunity to milk some paranoia?

Even Percy thinks all my posts about cats are boring

I've been obsessed with cats all my life but I don't remember ever being this wrapped up in any of them. I should start a separate blog just for posts about my "kids" so people who aren't as cat crazy as I am won't stop reading this one.

I think about Percy and Lizzie and Megan all the time, to the point where it's distracting me from conversations with friends. Even when my writers' group met here this week, I kept watching my cats and worrying about them and thinking how cute they are.

Last night I went to Walmart for pet supplies and household goods. While I was browsing through the Christmas decorations, I had to restrain myself from buying stockings for each of the cats and fill them with goodies. I did get a little windup Santa for them to play with. They were a little baffled by it. Lizzie was the only one brave enough to touch it but even she didn't bat it around or try to attack it the way I expected.

My neighbor across the hall also has 3 cats. She comes over all the time. Our primary topic of conversation is all our cats, past and present. Last night, we were showing each other pictures of our dead cats.

You can click on the picture for a closeup view of what a 15 year old cat's teeth look like. It looks like he's missing some and the ones that are left are pretty grody. That's a word I haven't used since high school. Rhymes with Brody, means slightly grosser than gross.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of Lizzie and Megan on night watch. They spend a lot of time surveying the landscape from the top of the refrigerator. It's not quite the same as sitting on a hilltop in the African savanna waiting for a zebra herd to wander into the picture, but instinct is there.

Boo hoo Drew

I'm really enjoying the first season of the X-Factor USA, except for 2 things.

First, Nicole Scherzinger is a horrible mentor. It's her fault that Stacy and Leroy got voted off so soon.

Second, the stupid squabbling between the judges--I especially hate how they all seem to be picking fights with Simon, even though his critiques are usually right.

Simon did make one big mistake though, and he admitted it on last night's show after one of his contestants, Drew, got voted off. He said it was his fault because he chose another slow song for her even though all the judges had been saying they wanted to hear her do something different.

I loved Drew in the beginning. Her audition was one of my favorites, right up there with Chris Rene and Josh Krajcik (who deserves to win this thing). I started liking Drew less when she dropped her last name. I started thinking she deserved to be in the bottom 2 about the 3rd week of the competition. It seemed like she only knew how to do one thing - take a song and slow it down and warble-warble-whine. I imagined what a Drew concert would be like. Annoying. A Drew album? Borrr-ing.

Last night, I hated the way she responded when she found out she was in the bottom 4. She said she knew her fans had given her enough votes to put her through. She sounded cocky which is how she's been acting the last few weeks.

When she found out she was in the bottom 3, she started bawling. Not just a few silent tears - which is normal understandable - but rivers of tears accompanied by loud sniffles. Girl, show a little dignity. Have some respect for the audience and the other contestants. If you want to be in show business, you have to learn to deal with rejection. She acted like nobody in her whole life has ever criticized her and she always gets her own way. Even Astro, who was a total brat when he was in the bottom 2 a couple of weeks ago, maintained better composure. He also got booted last night - he had the lowest number of votes and didn't even get a chance to do the sing-off, but he took it like a professional.

When the judges voted her off, she started sobbing. Loud, drawn out, overdramatic sobs. Like a petulant child trying to make people feel sorry for her. Reminded me of a 3 year old I used to know. Then she started spouting off about Jesus and made herself out to be some kind of martyr. At that point, I was sooooo happy she lost. Good riddance.

She's only 14. Talented beyond her years but way too immature to be starting a career. Go home and grow up, Drew. Then you can win back former fans like me.

I didn't know Barbie ever dated Neil Diamond