Living In the World, Not on It

Some weeks of People Magazine provide fodder, some don't. This week's - dated ahead for the 20th for reasons passing understanding - has fodder. Let's see what fun things there are to comment upon: In the Mailbag section, many people wrote in and denounced Arnold Schwarzenegger for his affair with the housemaid. The overwhelming majority condemned Arnold's behaviour and elevated Maria Shriver to a goddess-like stature. Realistically, marriages fail because there were issues on both sides. Women love to denounce unfaithful men, but never seem to think that the root cause may be due to the lack of sexual contact in their marriage. Men are not wired the same as we are. I tend to think that straying husbands stray because they are still sexually active but many women cease to have an interest as time marches on. Where I do feel Arnold failed was the housekeeper. Good gods above, this is the homeliest woman on the face of the earth! Couldn't he have at least picked a...

The Bud is Back Meme Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme. Let's go!!! Today we ripped off a blogger named Fireca...

1) Today (Sept. 28) is National Ask A Stupid Question Day. What is the stupidest question you've been asked lately? (Feel free to include one of my meme questions if you so choose. I can handle it.) The stupidest question I've been asked... The Short term disability poeple asked me if I am disabled. No. I'm just seeing if you would take a request and pay me if I'm not disabled... Here's your sign! (I'm quoting Bill Engvall on that last comment, "Here's your sign!") 2) When someone says "We need to talk" to you, what is usually the first thing that runs through your mind? That the topic is not a positive one. Isn't that what runs through everyone's mind? 3) If someone rearranged your living room, what is the first thing you would look for? The remotes: the TiVO, the Samsung surround sound/DVD/Aux and HDMI 2 players, the Mac Mini, and the fireplace remote. This is a sad statement, but it is true. Then I would look for the k...

The three fastest-growing diseases in America today are diabetes, Lyme disease, and sports jerseys. Wearing a jersey used to be for kids. You be Tom Brady and I'll be Darrelle Revis. Now people with actual jobs are wearing them. At 6, it's adorable. At 36, deplorable. You can't swing your arms at an NFL game without hitting somebody in one. (A very good idea, by the way.) You say it's your way of expressing devotion to your team? I say try a hat. It doesn't make you look like an adult Trick-or-Treater.  What's your jersey dream? Someone shrieking, "Oh, my God! There's Brian Urlacher! Oh, wait. No, no. It's just Justin from purchasing."? Women in jerseys? Fine. But dude, you're really going out with another man's name on your back? Do you have no male pride? But like gluten-free beer, the jersey flood seems un-damn-able. But can we at least have some rules? Jersey Rule No. 1 : You may not wear a jersey past ...

Welcome to Mo nday Mayh em! The place where nothing matters and we can all have fun on a Monday. Every week is something different. Harriet is our host. Or hostess. Your call. Monday Mayhem: Okay, So We're Back First, let me say I was both surprised and delighted Mayhem's return. Or more succinctly put - maybe I'm amazed. 1. What is the stupidest thing you heard this weekend? What isn't? I hear so many stupid things it's tough to keep track. Oh, wait, I thought of one: a woman tried to run over another woman in Oklahoma, because she thought that person was Casey Anthony, so she tried to kill her. How charming. 2. Who should know that it is time to move on...walk away....? I don't know, walk away form what? My 21 year marriage? No. We have invested the time and work that a long-term relationship takes. Not walking away from that! 3. What's your local forecast for the week? Hot, humid. 91 degrees today, 97 tomorrow, 99 on Thursday... high humidity....

How are drivers in your community? If there anything like the drivers where I live, you have this secret wish to be a cop for a day so that you can pull over all of the bad drivers and really make them pay! If that’s how you feel, this week’s topic is for you. I found a list of the top 10 moving violations . You can use it to help you come up with ideas if you need them. Thanks for playing! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here is this week’s “ Sunday Seven ” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog (with a link here), and then comment here with a link back to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! THIS WEEK’S QUESTION : Na...

JUST when you thought it was safe: "The Duggar family continues to grow! Josh Duggar, 23, –- the eldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle –- and wife Anna, 22, welcomed their second child, Michael James, on Wednesday, TLC announced. The couple is sticking with their "M" theme, for their children's names. Little Michael James will join big sister MacKynzie, 20 months, at home. The couple's new son weighed 8 lbs., 5 oz., and arrived at 5:55 PM Tontitown, Ark., according to People, who was first to report the news. The newest Duggar is very close in age to his Aunt Josie (Jim Bob and Michelle's youngest child, who was born premature, but is now healthy), who is only 17 months old. "I think of Josie being born at only 25 weeks," Josh told the mag prior to the birth of his son, "and it makes us think about how precious life is and what a blessing each child is." The Duggars are back on TLC." And once again, the ball rolls downhill. Th...

Two decades ago Jon Bon Jovi sat with the members of his eponymous band in a basement in New Jersey. Hoping to rekindle the group's desire to make music after two grueling years on the road, he'd hung vintage posters on the wall, illuminated only by candles and blacklights. But instead of feeling inspired, Bon Jovi found himself becoming cranky and short of breath. "I'm thinking maybe this is an issue, maybe I just don't like them," Bon Jovi said in a recent interview for the FORBES Celeb 100 issue . "Until I realized that all the oxygen was sucked out of the room by the candles ... So I blew out the candles, cranked up the amplifiers, and said, 'We're going to be a rock band. If you believe in what I'm telling you, we can be the Rolling Stones.'" Sure enough, Bon Jovi is still rocking. The group earned $125 million over the past 12 months, enough to claim the No. 2 spot on FORBES' annual list of the world's hi...

A friend of mine celebrated 20 years of working in television by posting "5 Things I Learned From 20 Years in TV" - he has five parts to this. I can list five items that I learned and any Human Resources Manager will understand this. The rest of what I learned is really too much to post on a forum as easily accessible as this is. Even I recognise what NOT to say about my 15 years in the trenches... most of it is too private and too case-by-case to keep it generic. So here are the five things that I learned: 1. All employees are innocent. It doesn't matter that I had several different infractions on video; paperwork statements from six managers and 25 coworkers; it makes no difference if the offending party's hands are covered with dye that traces the missing items. They all look me in the eye and say with great confidence, " I didn't do it." Hence, they are all innocent. 2. No one has been overpaid. Now, you know that if I don't find the error, s...

Ah-ha, are you thinking PETA, the crazy terrorist group that throws paint on people wearing fur coats? No. I am not a supporter of that. I love my cats and they live in the lap of luxury, as cats do. However, I eat meat and have no intention of stopping. And since all life lives at the expense of other life... No, I'm talking about People Eating Tasty Animals. That's the PETA to which I belong. I don't care for beef particularly - I just don't like the taste and I don't feel it is healthy. But I love chicken, shrimp and veal. And I hate to tell you vegans who will eat plants without giving it a second thought, don't you think that if a plant could scream when you yank it from the ground or pull off its fruit or leaves, that it wouldn't yell? Do you think it would just sit there if it were like the apples trees in The Wizard of Oz ? No. It would pelt you with its loose apples and branches and tell you to get lost. Now, eating vegetarian for strictly health re...

This is an okay movie - I stayed away from it in the movie theatre because it looked like just another action movie. But Luis put it on and it seems interesting. I'm of two minds about Tom Cruise - he's a good actor, but not such a good person. And a scientologist - shiver... that is the living end of weirdness. The movie also has Cameron Diaz in it. She's okay, too. I like her voice work from the Shrek movies more than I like her in movies. But this movie seemed to have worked well and they had good chemistry. However, I am much more enthusiastic about this episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation than I am the movie. This episode is "Cold Blooded" and it has as the main theme a kid who was bitten by a dinosaur! This is a good episode - I loved it when it first aired and I still love it. Okay, Hodges is annoying but that is what he is like. And he makes a good foil for the rest of the staff. I suppose every show has to have its annoying, obsequious character to...

'Sarah Palin’s determined network of fans and defenders have been working overtime the past few days, since clips of her remarks about Paul Revere began hitting the airwaves and the internet. As most of us have known since middle school history classes, Paul Revere was a silversmith who gained fame for a “Midnight Ride” by horse in the overnight hours of April 18-19, 1775. The purpose of the ride was to alert John Hancock and Samuel Adams on the British Army’s movement toward Lexington, just hours before the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revere and William Dawes took two different routes to get the message delivered without being detected by the British Army. But Palin, in her trademark cutesy style, showed her blatant ignorance of history, reimagining the tale as such : “He who warned uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and...

Here is some weirdness for you! 1. I read an article in this week's People Magazine about a school in New Orleans (pronounced "nar-lins" - it really is, just wait until you go) where the student body wants paddling brought back. I saw the title and thought, "I'm sorry?" How does this happen? Apparently when the kids are late or don't do homework, now, they don't care. There is no negative reinforcement. So the kids want to have the corporal punishment back. I'm going with brainwashed. I just can't imagine anything else. If a teacher attempted to strike me, I raised my hand back. There are a gazillion things teachers can do to torture kids who aren't pulling their weight or are consistently late. I never had any liking for what my teachers did. However, they had zero rights to touch me. Yup. Brainwashed. 2. Automotive collisions. Why is it three people in two vehicles who just had a fender-bender are walking around? How stupid-- I mean, ...

...because the world is ending tomorrow. (It's after midnight, so that is chronologically correct.) I was reminded of this by my good friend Michael Christelman ("The Wonderful World of Nothing") and his post from yesterday morning. He'd planned not post his final post until the day before 21 December 2012, but then he tripped onto this nutball from Family Radio, who swears that the world will end tomorrow, 21 May. Uh-huh. Wait, there's more: he has reasons! Camping teaches that the world will end May 21 2011 using the following reasoning: According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven". Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 7...

That doesn't sound promising but there it is. I had thought for a while that I might vote for Donald Trump. But a few things I read and learned about him has made me rethink that poor decision. It seems that while he is still a million or billionaire, his properties have all turned into money pits and he is using 90% of the profit to put into other ventures. Doing stupid things with money is endemic I suppose, but that is worse when it is playing Russian Roulette with one's business finances. Last night I read how Donald began harping on President Obama's birth certificate. I was floored. He sounds like a conspiracy theorist, now. How disheartening. I'm very disappointed in you, Donald. I thought (foolishly) that you had more integrity than that. Mike Hucklebee is too scary for me. It will be a cold day in Hell before I vote for any bible-thumping maniac. These ultra-religious people all scare me - they will wade into this with the mindset of taking the separation of ch...

Now, this is justice! "As a result of being found in violation of probation , Lindsay Lohan will be collecting trash, emptying trash bins, mopping floors and cleaning windows and restrooms at the L.A. County Department of Coroner's facility. "She won't be handling any dead bodies but she'll certainly see them,” Coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter tells People of the actress, 24, who also has been ordered to complete 360 hours of service at the Downtown Women's Center, a homeless shelter located in L.A.'s Skid Row. Lohan must enroll in the two programs within a week and has a year to complete them, according to People . The actress – who previously completed a DUI morgue program following her second drunk-driving conviction 2007 – remains free on $75,000 bail (she was sentenced to 120 days behind bars Friday). The trial in her grand theft charge begins June 3. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of an additional year in jail." ...

I am on the verge of hitting the 9,000th comment, and it’s likely that someone playing this week’s set of questions might be the one to post it. How cool is that? Since yesterday was April Fools’ Day, I thought I’d post some joke-related questions. I hope you weren’t the victim of too many of them, or that if you were, you at least had a good sense of humor about it! Thanks for playing! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! 1. How many times have you forwarded a...

First, let me thank those who played last week and who took The Patrck’s Place Survey . I appreciate your input. If you haven’t taken it, please do so: it’s a short survey and it will help me continue to improve the blog and make sure it’s delivering what you want. The big news late this week that ABC is killing two of the few remaining soap operas on the air is inspiring this week’s set of questions. You don’t have to be a soap fan to play along, because the general theme is television rather than, specifically, soap operas! So grab your remotes and get ready to answer six quick questions! Thanks for playing! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a...

This has been driving me crazy now for almost two weeks and you know I can't keep stuff bottled up inside. I left out names (the ones I know, anyway) but this is the letter I just finished to the doctor through Relay Health and I am sharing it with you, my readers, friends and support. Maybe you will avoid this kind of issue. Doctor, As I have not have any reasonable amount of sleep since two Thursdays ago when I last came to the office, I may be a little tactless. Not that I am ever anything but obvious about my feelings and opinions on things, but after witnessing yet another sunrise not due to my normal early morning habits but having been up all night... well. This all began in July. I called in with a message to the prescription to please call in for Ambien. We had just switched from my old insurance carrier to a new carrier and there was no time for me to get a paper script to submit to their mail order prescription service. The order went in and was, incorrectly, filled on t...