After a barely-working week at Christmas, and another barely-working week at New Years, I've really been scrambling to get caught up and organized. Things are getting closer to controlled, but I'm just not quite there yet. I've got a busy afternoon ahead of me, and I'm just scratching this post out to keep the whiners from complaining about the fact that the FRIDAY Waster has been a misnomer over the holidays.
The 3 younger kids are almost all back in school now, and doing the daily winter prayer for snow. I remember a whole series of superstitions that were supposed to bring winter weather and shut down school. I don't remember if throwing ice cubes on the front lawn ever actually worked, but dammit it was worth a try. There was something else about wearing pajamas backwards or inside out, but the only thing that ever produced was a bad night's sleep and a rash from the wrong parts of the jammies rubbing on the wrong parts of the berries.
Kid1 is a different story. Just before my holiday hiatus, I was trying and trying to find out what his grades were for the fall semester. After bringing home weak grades during freshman semesters 1 & 2, his results were looking even weaker during soph 1. Halfway thru the semester, he heard the news that if he had a third strike, I wouldn't be sending another check to college.
Well, I'm not sending a check.
I don't even know how bad the grades were, actually. He wouldn't even admit any details. He simply told me that I had one less thing to worry about paying for, and that he didn't want to confess the actual GPA results.
I'm totally struggling with this whole situation. On one hand, I've busted my tail to provide him the opportunities that I never took advantage of. I don't want to yank that opportunity away. On the other hand, it's stupid for me continue to do my part (pay) while he doesn't come thru on his part of the deal (study). I use the analogy of buying lunch at a drive thru: I bought him Combo #5, super-sized, and even added an apple pie. He threw the burger out the window, so I drove back around and bought a second meal. I even drove around a third time, to the same result. I'm not buying any more cheeseburgers, until after I know he's not going to throw food out the window anymore.
So like I said a minute ago, *sigh*
On the flip side of the coin, I've got good school news, too. After way too much time invested in my basement at 2am, I finally met all requirements to get my Associates degree in CIS...with a 4.0 GPA too. I know it's only the 2-year degree, but it's my first reward after so much effort, and I'm damn proud of it. I'm looking at it like it's halftime, b/c I'm continuing on to get my Bachelors. It may be unusual to celebrate my degree with an $8 beer, a greasy bratwurst, and a stale pretzel with no salt and lots n lots of mustard, but dammit, that's how you observe halftime. All I need now is a 20 minute wait to take a leak, and I'll be ready for the second half.
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This zombie game has been showing up all over the place. I personally could do without, and intentionally didn't include it in the last Waster. It kept coming back, and I'm starting to wonder why I'm the only one that doesn't like it. (From a geek perspective, the game is amazingly efficient. But we're here to waste time, not discuss code logic.)
So simple, but so totally frustrating. Similar to boomstick, here's BOOMSHINE.
I do like ninjas. It's a repeat offender on the Waster, and totally worth it.
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Every site and every blog seems to have a "top 10 of 2008" list of some sort or another. Some lists are cool, some are funny, some make you think a bit, and some just really kinda suck monkey nads. Here is a monster list of links to all those lists.
I love Trent Reznor. He just "accidentally" posted 400Gb of NIN live footage on the interwebs, for all the world to see and play with.
Eloquence in its finest hour (since Palin): "So I think in many ways, you know, we want to have all kinds of different voices, you know, representing us, and I think what I bring to it is, you know, my experience as a mother, as a woman, as a lawyer, you know, I've been an education activist for the last six years here, and, you know, I've written seven books – two on the Constitution, two on American politics. So obviously, you know, we have different strengths and weaknesses."
- - Caroline Kennedy, in an interview with a UK newspaper
Seca found a bunch of things that make you go hmmmm...
I think Mikey has problems than he lets on...
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