vituperation

August 28, 2003

Man. I took today and tomorrow off because of the overtime I worked on our trip to Mississippi last week. I have a five-day weekend, baybee.

I suspect I’ll spend most of it on my ass.

Amazon continues to give me fits. My book keeps hopping around on their rankings (from 1,323,351 to 9400-something back to 1,323,351 back to 9300-something to 86000-something. Currently it’s 81000 and some change), they don’t seem to be reflecting sales, and now orders are disappearing from the order list after I’ve sent them. People tell me they reviewed the book, yet no reviews show up, despite the review being posted over a week ago. I emailed them with a list of questions, but I’ve not heard back.

Hmph, I say again.

I fell in love today, with a new woman. She’s quiet, very shy, and yet responsive to my touch when she’s not hiding in the bathroom. She’s about the purtiest thing I’ve seen in a while, and I got a picture for you.

Her name is Simone.

Sorry about that, I just had to leave for a bit. Tubby brought a baby cardinal into the house, damn him, and I had to race it to the vet. He actually brought it in first yesterday afternoon, all squawking and bleeding out the beak. Tubby also managed to sprain or break one of its wings, and pull out all of its tailfeathers save one.

We put it in a box for a while, and it was mighty perky after a few minutes, hopping and screeching. So we put it back out into the yard where mom and dad could watch over it. We also closed the cat door for the night.

And then I opened the cat door just a few minutes ago, and within fifteen minutes Tubby had brought the thing back in, squealing like a little piggie. The bird, not Tubby. He just looks like a pig.

Anyway, I got the bird again, and this time I took it to the vet to see if they could either fix it or make it not suffer. They told me to leave it, because the doctor’s in surgery right now, and they’ll let me know if they can fix it or have to put it to sleep.

Are there certain things in life that unreasonably annoy you? I have a few, and one of the MOST annoying things in my book is people on cell phones. Yap yap yap, all the damn time. Yapping while they drive, yapping in the store, yapping at a restaurant. Who the hell is that important? I mean, I have a cell phone and everything, but it’s for emergencies.

After we did the cats this morning I went to Atlanta Bread for some coffee. The surfer-looking boy in front of me with his blond hair and untucked shirt and Jesus sandals was yapping on his little cell phone, like he was some big CEO. Except he was just talking. He placed the order for whatever froofy coffee drink he wanted, waited, and paid the $3.23 with his Visa. All the while he ignored the girl behind the counter and jawed on his cell phone.

I had to seriously restrain myself, because I wanted to cuff him in the back of the head and tell him to get off his damn phone and show a little common courtesy to the girl trying to take his order.

My God, when did I turn into a crotchety old man?

Oh. We’re watching Bowling for Columbine now and I haven’t had a stroke yet, believe it or not. I’m enjoying the propaganda movie so far, and I’ve only shouted at the TV once.