A Little Something That's Been Bothering Me . . .

The hubby and I finally invested in a Netflix subscription and I'm happily rewatching my way through the first season of Glee. I was struck again by something that bothers me. I'm really glad to have a popular show aimed at teens with a disabled character. It gives a sense of empowerment. However, why does it seem that all the storylines revolving around Artie seem aimed at making us feel sorry for him? It feels like being given a pat on the back with one hand and smacked in the face with the other.

I have lived my life coping with a disability. I won't lie and say that I've totally come to terms with what I've lost physically and what I still have left to lose, but I don't spend all my time moping about it either. You can't. If you spend all your life handing out invitations to your pity party, you'll feel even more isolated than you need to. I've had my fair share of breakdowns and moments of self pity. I remember one time when my long-suffering college roommate walked it and found me staring at my books on the top shelf where she had placed them in a cleaning fit. I couldn't reach them and didn't know what I was going to do so I just stood there and cried about it. It's funny now, but it felt like a very low moment then.

If the entertainment industry is going to try and give disabled teens a role model, they need to work a little harder at it. Perhaps that wasn't the intention with the character, but if you think you can put someone on screen that fits into such an obvious niche, you're a fool to think they won't be looked to for inspiration. It's hard enough to accept the life and limitations that God has given you sometimes. Do I wish that I was born "normal"? Yes. If I were given a chance at a miracle cure tomorrow would I take it? Probably not. My road hasn't been easy or smooth and probably won't be as long as those around me, but it's made me who I am today.

So my advice to the writers of Glee: Artie needs to suck it up and stop whining so much. Oh, and please find him a wheelchair his legs aren't miles too long for. That is all.

A Cord, a Cord, My Kingdom for a Cord!

Over the past month and a half or so I have been having a standoff with my laptop about power issues. I have come to a simple conclusion. The laptop hates me. Laptop cords hate me even more.

Because I am a very impatient person, I wanted a fast laptop. Because I am dreadfully addicted to World of Warcraft, I wanted a gaming computer. I have a lovely ASUS laptop. It has a huge display to show me all the pretty little pixels WoW has to offer. It's almost fast enough to please me. I'm sure that the computer actually fast enough to please me has yet to be invented.

There is a very big downfall to having a laptop with a large display and powerful video card: it eats power. After about six months of having a wonderful relationship with this powerful machine, disaster struck. The light on the power pack of the cord gave a sad little flicker and went out. I was running on battery.

The little card that displays the information about the computer at the electronics store we purchased it from (let's call them Preeminent Purchase) said that the computer had 3 hours of battery power. After some tears and a few nasty words aimed at the cord, I took a deep breath and realized that I has three hours to use the computer and find a solution. The first thing I looked at when I turned the computer on was the battery power indicator. My dreams slipped away as it proclaimed I have 1 hour of battery life. 1/3 of the amount I was promised by smiling salespeople at Preeminent Purchase. A fresh wave of tears and I shoved the laptop at the confused hubby and sent him out to Preeminent Purchase to see what they have to say about it.

Guess what they said. "Your cord is dead." Thanks, guys. I feel so much better knowing that I'm not just stupid. "Well, we can give you this $100 'universal' cord if you can find your receipt." Back home the hubby races to find the receipt.

Guess what happens next. No receipt. This laptop is a replacement to one we bought about a year and a half ago. We paid the difference between the gift card they gave us to refund the purchase price of the other one that died while still under warranty. We have the receipt for the original laptop and the packaging for the gift card. Did we save the receipt for the amount paid for the price difference? No. Can't they just look it up? No. We paid with cash from Christmas. Great.

The hubby searches on line and finds a suitable replacement. It says it will work with our model of laptop and it's only $10! We laugh in the face of Preeminent Purchase and their $100 cord. Thank you, electronics gods for bestowing this bounty on us.

The cord arrives and there is much rejoicing! Yay!

After about two weeks, the cord begins to have issues. It will still slowly refill the battery, but cannot supply power to the laptop during operation. This displeases me as it brings an end to my ability to play WoW on this computer. The hubby does some research.

Of course the new cord died. It's only a 90 watt cord. This powerful, energy eating machine requires 150 watts to satiate it. So . . . another cord is ordered. Almost $40 this time. With the hubby out of work, waiting on a class action suit before he can even get unemployment benefits (long story and I thought this one was rather short when I began, so we'll save that for another time) and us therefore surviving on my disability payments and etsy sales, this is bad for our lack of budget.

That was about a month ago. The new new cord, just a few minutes ago decided it hates me too. It will not cooperate and run this beast of a machine. I am displeased to say the least. Oh, I should also mention that the $100 "universal" cord that Preeminent Purchase wanted to sell us, as it is the only cord they carry, is also only 90 watts. Very glad that at least we didn't waste our money on that.

I'd like to tell you the moral of the story, but I don't know what it is yet. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Is It Fall Yet?

I am officially over summer. It's hot. It's sticky. It's buggy. I can't stand to go outside long enough to take pictures of new items to list in my shop. It would mean leaving my air conditioned sanctuary. Actually, the air conditioner is having some trouble battling the heat sneaking under the door.

I'm tired of heat. I'm tired of it being so bright I can barely open my eyes. I'm just tired. Heat makes me tired.

So really, can it be fall now? I'm ready to move on to a more hospitable season.

Warning- Impending Rant

I'm getting sick of people in the ad business. I'm sure it's a much harder job than all those of us sitting at home on our butts shouting "I could've come up with a better idea than that!" think it is. But, honestly, I'm tired of stupid ads, ads that don't truly reach their target audience, and ads that shoot themselves in the metaphorical foot. I have two main complaints about advertising at the moment.

1. Why are ads being aimed at me not written by people who understand me? Does anyone think that Always' current slogan "Have a happy period" was written by anyone other than a hopefully deluded man? I don't know a single woman who would consider having a "happy period." How often to you get an excuse to be bitchy to everyone? This doesn't mean that anyone of any gender should assume that a bitchy woman has reached "that time of the month." Keep those opinions to yourself, or we'll have to kill you. I just mean that all I do when I see those ads is grumble and scream at the TV rather than actually listening to the intent of the commercial. There are plenty of other commercials that fall into this category, but I can't think of them at the moment.

2. Why are all the personifications of bad things so darn cute? It started a few years ago with the absolutely huggable "Migraine" monster attacking people at restaurants and such. I took one look at that precious little thing supposedly causing all this misery and wondered "Why don't my migraines look like that? He's cute! I want a little one to cuddle!" Now it's adorable Heartburn, and the cutest of all "Hungry." My annoying Hungry is more like a rabid Cerberus and he doesn't ever offer me food, simply demands I go hunt and/or gather my own even if it means risking life and limb.

I guess, like many of us, I just sit at home and watch TV commercials (no, I didn't even watch the Super Bowl for commercials, I watched DVDs) and marvel at the fact that someone got paid for that idea, people competed to play those roles, and someone is going to make a ton of money from it in the end.

What Is Wrong With These People?!

Last night I was watching one of my favorite zombie movies and began to get frustrated with the same thing that always bothers me when I watch a zombie movie. Why is it that no one in a zombie movie ever appears to have seen a zombie movie? Or heard of a zombie? I can understand a certain amount of shock and mental shut-down, but wouldn't there come a point when you say to yourself or hapless companions "Holy crap! They're zombies!" Shouldn't some sort of knowledge kick in? I mean, it seems to me that we live in an age where few, if any, reasonable adults have never heard of the concept of a zombie.

Thankfully, today we watched a zombie movie we rented. We rented The Slaughter thinking it would be terrible (amusingly so) based on the obvious poor production quality, lack of recognizable actors, etc. I have to say, I recommend it. If you can suffer through the bad acting/writing in the first half, it gets a lot better. There are some funny lines and situations in the second half. My favorite scene involved a zombie shuffling toward his intended victim while her cohorts discussed and debated where this particular zombie fit into zombie culture so they could figure out how to defeat it. Finally! At last I get to see someone doing something more along the lines of what I'd be doing faced with the walking dead.

I'd like to see more people who seem to have even the slightest idea of what they're facing. It's just so much more realistic. At least, as realistic as cinematic walking dead ever are. If the creature villians of the story were rabid squirrels, you wouldn't have a bunch of idiots standing around trying to figure out what these furry little creatures with fuzzy tails are! They'd know they were squirrels!

So let's think about this logically:

Does the person coming after you, whether shuffling or running, have a grey-ish dead tint to their skin?

Did your friend just let out a death rattle, go slack for a moment then open his/her eyes again to reveal a glazed look?

Is someone trying to eat your brain or any other part of your body?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions: ZOMBIE! SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD!

Any questions?

How do you feel in your skin?

I'm just disgusted with the state of the attitude of the world today. I had to turn off Rachael Ray today because I was just getting so upset and depressed.

They were talking about women who'd lost a lot of weight and finally felt "like the person they always were inside." One woman retook her wedding pictures because she'd been so upset on her actual wedding day that she hadn't even invited anyone. Now that she'd lost a bunch of weight she wanted to capture the memory of herself as a beautiful bride.

That's a lovely sentiment in some ways, but the thing that upset me is that we weren't addressing the real problem. I think that losing weight and getting healthy is a great thing. My problem is that you can't say one day that people need to have self-esteem and be happy with who they are then turn around the next day and say that you can't really be happy until your skinny!

Make up your minds!

Do we need to be happy with who we are or who we want to be? I'd like to be thinner. I think I would look better thinner and I'm not exactly jumping in front of the camera now, but I'm still happy with who I am.

I'm just tired of the mixed messages. Getting healthy is great. That doesn't mean you need to be tiny. Some people are not meant to be tiny. You can't live your life waiting for the moment when everything you see in the mirror becomes everything you want to see!

So, I guess the question is, does everyone want self-esteem to be based on who you are or how you look?

Not so common

It's been said that common sense is not so common, well I believe that neither is common courtesy. I know bad manners are just about everyone's little pet peeve, but there are just certain things that bother me more than others.

There's one that's really on my mind today: People who discuss the movie they've just seen while still in the vicinity of the movie theater. It's bad enough if you're in the parking lot, but do people really need to give away surprise endings in the bathroom? I've made a rule for myself that I don't even talk about a movie if I'm eating at a restaurant in the area. Some people would say that's going a little too far, but maybe those people have never had exciting climaxes ruined before they even got to sit down! Honestly people, can't we all respect each other a little more?