CafeChatNoir

Kiva.org – Loans that change lives

Rare Chinese cat captured on film.

Leona Helmsley leaves $12 million to her dog.

Moxley does not seem to have a problem with this type of estate planning.

If you’re a troll with a VERY DISTINCT writing style and you have been banned from a site and keep coming back under different pseudonyms and don’t bother to change said writing style, don’t expect people to actually believe you aren’t the same moron.

Just sayin’.

We may get our Constitution back!!!!!!!!

Alberto Gonzales Resigns

Stumbled on this today – looks like a great challenge for anyone – should get some good ideas taking this tack.

Eat Local Challenge

With the heat back, we’ve got our storms back.

Power went out, back on, cable out, half-back with audio, now getting some video.

FedEx field emptied because of the lightning – game delayed at least 20 minutes – if they let them play, hopefully there will still be a few fans around. My buddy Melissa is probably rather soaked and pissed off right now as she is at the game. (Or in the parking lot.)

The lightning has been great, but I’m glad I’m not out in it.

The dog is in the basement, the cats are simply annoyed.

Susan Dennis‘ Mom had a great saying: “You know, it just takes time to live!”

Spot on.

This has been a really good week, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I apparently need to cut sleep out of the equation or figure out a way to add more hours to the day. Hey, if Hugo Chavez can just change Venezuela’s time zone by 30 minutes, the US should be able to add 6 hours on to the day for me. For someone that supposedly does nothing at all, I seem to have a lot to do and not enough time to do it.

First, there is the market – this pays the bills and I am completely engaged from 9:30 to 4:00. (It makes my brain happy.) Then there is research after hours. Studying. Errands. Cooking. Eating. Attempting (and failing) to keep this house under control. Reading for fun. Contemplating the meaning of life. Exercise. Some quality couch potato time with the TiVo*. Baseball. (Until hockey is back.) Socializing. Spending time outdoors. The occasional road trip. Keeping up with folks on LJ, the Stockpickr forums, BT, and a near metric ton of RSS feeds**. Writing. Fighting writer’s block. Trying to figure out what the dog’s paw wave means today.***

Just doesn’t seem to be quite enough time for all that *and* sleep.

I’ve always found it interesting (and mildly frustrating) that life will manage to find a way to fill all the time that you have. Lord knows in the past year and a half, I have never once thought “I’m bored” nor have I had to actively look for something to do. It’s also a great way to find out where your priorities really lie – and looking about the house, it would seem that housework doesn’t quite make the “high priority” list.

It’s so very easy for the low priority stuff to just fall off the radar, cause I am truly a slacker at heart. Gotta unslack a little this coming week and slam a few more things in the week that have got to get done. Haircut. Cooking some real food. (I’ve been greatly lacking in ideas & inspiration the past couple weeks.) Take a flamethrower to the living room. Restock the wine rack. Laundry. OMG, laundry. Get car to dealership for recall repair.

Now, we’ll see this time next week how much of that actually gets accomplished or if sleep gets in the way.

* Guilty summer pleasures: Burn Notice, Deadliest Catch & Dirty Jobs (or pretty much anything w/Mike Rowe involved)
** 202 feeds – ranging from news, food, cooking, to comics, photography and cute overload. Probably too many, but I enjoy reading them all.
*** It changes. Constantly.

Last night I commented on the Yankees being “crushed” by the Angels, 18-9.

Well, “crushed” has been well and duly redefined by Texas today after their game with the Orioles which ended 30-3. No, that is not a misprint. Lord knows that was my first thought when I saw it.

Think very smart thoughts for my bartender buddy Wes tomorrow – he’s got an important exam and we can always use all the help we can get in these things. :)

Also, why is it that thoughts that will drive you to giggles only seem to happen when you really can’t laugh? I went up to the pub for a beer and some west coast baseball tonight to shut my brain off. I am contentedly sitting there watching the Yankees get crushed by the Angels, and I glance over at the guy to my left and all I can think is, “Dude, where is Snowy??” Had he been further down the bar, I could have burst into hysterical laughter, but nooooooooooo… Even worse when I realized that there was probably NO ONE in the place that would have had any idea what I was referring to – being the oldster sucks some days.