Sleepy/retail therapy

Just veggin' out here--still behind on homework, too damned tired to work on it right now. Wednesdays are tough after I close Tuesdays then wake up early anyway. When Harry Met Sally is on TV, so I've got it on for company. I got Juno and Walk Hard the other day since they had them used at the Shopette. Should've gotten Lars and the Real Girl, too, I guess.

Bought some things today: a game for the kid's birthday (months away, but a good sale, and we only had a couple in stock), a mother's day gift, and some books and activities for the kid's flights. More importantly, I bought the D&D 4th Ed. Core Rulebook Gift Set. It's not out yet for a month, but mine is paid for and will be shipped to me directly. I can't wait!

I hope Spirit gets online soon.

Interesting stuff

Heard from him... he should hopefully have internet soon... that way I can update him on how much money I can funnel his way ;) And I have an address, so if I ever get myself motivated again, I can send him care packages and stuff.

It's international no-diet day! So, go eat something, for crying out loud!

Finally, the medical tricorder. (via) It's a phone! It's an all-purpose medical scanner! Why didn't they combine the communicators with the tricorders on Trek, anyway?

Depression

I am not sad, but I feel like I'm just going through the motions, and I just do not want to do anything. I made myself start my homework after procrastinating on Reddit all day (well--that's all day except the time I spent doing dishes, preparing meals, taking the kid to the shrink, walking to the gym, doing water aerobics, and walking home--I said I was unmotivated, not that I couldn't make myself do any of the things I need to).

Anyway, the thing is, I can keep my appointments, but I really don't want to go to work this week and I really don't want to do my schoolwork (though one class, sociology, is fascinating and the other, finance, is a piece of cake--haven't yet run into anything I haven't covered in an accounting class, and this is a 3-credit class where those were 4, so both these classes are lighter) until the last minute, which actually puts me a full week behind, to whit: I have Sundays and Mondays off, and the school week runs Sunday through Sunday. So, when I should be starting on the new week Sundays, I actually spent this Sunday doing last week's work, leaving me behind. If I stay that way, I have vacation in 2 weeks, so I will catch up, but I feel so listless.

I am trying not to dwell on having no word yet. The longer I get no word, the more likely it seems that he will have no internet access and communication will be limited to a phone call a week or so.

Ah, well; only 18 more weeks, and he'll be home.

In Which Cricket Reviews Iron Man, In Part From a Financial Point of View

WARNING

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IRON MAN AND YOU PLAN TO SEE IT, STOP READING NOW

SERIOUSLY, STOP READING

I MEAN IT

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OK, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED...



OK, I gotta say this: I saw this with WAY more sympathy for the board/shareholders than I think I was meant to have when he dropped that bomb. At the end, making weapons for the good guys without them being funneled to the terrorists might have worked out. Obie there was the problem, not the weapons themselves. They were inanimate objects that could be used for good or ill. Using them for profit may be right or wrong in your philosophy, but if you're going to severely change the direction of your company at a public announcement with no public plans for anything that will make up profits, you've got to expect people to not just be ticked off but to panic outright. In the Marvel world, Tony Stark "getting responsible" could have kicked off some serious financial consequences marketwide (remember, this is the Golden Boy of the military and of big business). Jim Cramer might be a caricature of himself (I mean in real life, but sure, in the movie, too), but he wasn't totally off base. I mean seriously, though, if you fall through into some weird hole in spacetime and end up in Tony Stark's shoes, try it this way: "I'm shutting down our weapons manufacture until I find a way to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists, but in the meantime, I have invented the perfect power source, and one hand-sized battery can now power your entire house for years at a time..." Now where do Stark Corporation's profits--and stock prices!--go?

Other than that, I can agree that this was the best of the Marvel movies so far. Robert Downey, Jr. made the role and he made the movie. Back in the day, I loved him on Ally McBeal, and believing that a person's personal life should be his own, I think drug charges are bogus in terms of prison time or job loss. I'm glad that he's now a Hollywood Golden Boy.

And Nick Fury, nice. For a second, I had almost double hearing--the "world you know nothing about" bit made me hear Laurence Fishburne talking about the Matrix. I muttered "sounds like Laurence Fishburne" and AL overheard me and thought it was him--she was very confused when I was explaining to the kid that Mace Windu was Nick Fury. How the Star Wars fan of a kid didn't recognize Samuel L. was a bit beyond me, but apparently it had something to do with his skin being darker in the Nick Fury scene? I tried to explain about movie makeup, but I don't know how much sunk in. I don't get it, though; were they setting up an Iron Man II, or a New Avengers movie with Iron Man? Might be overkill--either it ends up being "Iron Man and the New Avengers" because of the sheer presence of RD as Tony Stark, or there's one hell of an ensemble cast.

Sorry

I am, of course, much calmer now, and the only thing that still makes me a little angry is the line that you had no choice but to volunteer because someone else had too many small kids to afford for the wife to work if he was TDY. Guess what? It's part of his job just like it is yours. There are 100 other reasons you volunteered, you want to be a model NCO and make one more rank before it's time to move on, and you're a good guy. But still, that one stuck in my head and made me angry.

I don't know if you still have this bookmarked, but I will chirp to you the things I find this way while you are gone, because I don't want to fill your inbox or IM and don't even know if you will be able to get on them. I will check the AFIM for messages this week.

MH is still over here from last night... we went and played Iron Man, played Scene It and JL got completely pissed drunk (as in room spinning vomiting, but not quite as in alcoholic blackout). He's fine today, the SOB. You guys and your no hangovers. Hell, I can't get a hangover any more; I can't drink enough. 1 and my stomach lets me know I can't keep it up--I had a shot of recycled vodka (do yourself a favor and don't ask), then my stomach told me that wasn't happening--didn't get sick, just a slight raw feeling that reminded me that my body would NOT put up with this treatment--then nursed on the banana nut bread ale, which I tried to share but which no one else liked, so, more for me. It was like Guinness with a little banana nut flavor, only with banana belches instead of beer belches. Soothing to the stomach, at any rate. Anyway, after he "I won't pass out, I'll just... go to sleep"'d, the rest of us played other games in private. Will just say you'll have been sorry to miss it--you may have had more entertainment value than from the usual Saturday night game. No one else wanted to do that, and I was cool.

The ex still hasn't paid the child support a week into this month, so I had to dip into my savings acct for groceries, but I am keeping a note. When I get that back I will replenish savings and buy more groceries and finally order the new game books (they WILL be here when that game comes out!!!). Meanwhile I think I will get everyone on WLD if JL doesn't want to run the main group.

I got my week 1 homework caught up and my week 2 posts started. Am still a little behind but I am very tired and I don't feel up to much. I will get another load of laundry done (had to do extra, dog yakked on the bed since I stayed in bed until 11, damn it all--how many dogs vomit if they can't get outside to go to the bathroom fast enough? Good lord!) and the dishes, and I got all the trash out and groceries bought today. And I'm just tired.

Kuwait/Alone

So, yes, if you ever read this, I'm angry. It's only a maybe-thought, but it comes when I'm sick and swollen and was already thinking how much I'd rather be around my home and family than 6000 miles away where YOU chose to be and you are the only major positive to my being here against not seeing my family for years and THEN you drop the bomb on me that you volunteered for this. I'm not angry that you volunteered, I understand that you had no real choice, but I'm very angry that you brought me up here when TDYs are going to be a fact of life and I'm angry that you always want to move strangers into my home to "help" me but drive away the few people I can tolerate being here, crazy though they may be.

You know what other wives here do when their spouses go TDY? They pack up and go the hell home to their families. Is that an option for me? No. We can't afford for me to lose my position even if we could afford the pay cut in the mean time. I've tried to find a better job up here and there isn't one I can get. Do you know I put out several applications every couple weeks? I don't think we can even afford the plane tickets right now. What the hell am I supposed to do? Why did you volunteer us for here? You point at a beautiful moment and I do understand why that's worth it to you, but you will never be here alone, you married someone you didn't particularly like last time so you wouldn't be here alone--please understand, please think for ten minutes about what it would be like if I went away for four months and you had to manage all the things I do. Is it hard to go? Sure. Will I support you 110% while you are gone? Of course. But is it harder to stay behind than to go off to the desert, even risking getting shot at? To me it is. Given a role to choose in this situation, I would go rather than stay. And there is beauty everywhere. If you hadn't asked for here, I would have more options.

I know this is why many military spouses don't work. If I didn't, this would be easier, because I would be able to take care of the kid and the house and not feel like I would be overwhelmed and fall apart.

By the time you find this I will likely have calmed down, but you think I'm overemotional about these things--and it's just as ridiculous that you think it's psycho for someone to have feelings, or at least to emote at all. Sometimes I need to rage, and I can rage at all little the things in the world that irritate me because that's amusing, but if things really bother me I feel that you will think me irrational. What's rational about being alone with (1) a seven year old and (2) four friends, all newlywed couples with other family plans, one of whom will be very pregnant with [add'l info. deleted, I dare you to ask me whether this is still bothering me when we're alone sometime, but you won't because you don't want to deal with confrontation so I bottle everything up and let it pour out on paper or here in the blog], one of whom is trying very hard to become pregnant, and all of whom will be hormonal and uncomfortable and who do not come to game with me, after all, with my crazy schedule and all.

Snow

It's snowing like mad out there. The snow was layering up on the car as I tried to brush it off, and in the time I was doing it I had a full layer on my head. It was warm, almost 10F, so I didn't have my hood on.

OK, "warm" is relative.

I have been making an effort to journal in a notebook with an actual pen instead of blogging, not that I was entirely regular about any of my blogs.

Posting for class

Research Paper

“She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft”

December 6, 2007

“Pretty soon there’ll be more divorces than marriages!” was the dire prediction of Sharon McKendrick in The Parent Trap (Golitzin & Swift, 1961). Divorces are hard on families, and similar predictions have been made since divorce lost most of its stigma in the mid-20^th century. Divorce is bad for all parties in a family, though at least one party must feel that the continuation of the marriage is a worse proposition. There is a stereotype that women get the worst of divorce, but when large settlements and alimony are paid out, it is usually by men to women. Although there has been a change toward women paying money to ex-husbands and although both men and women suffer financially from divorce, men have traditionally been and for the most part continue to be the relative losers in our “family court” system where matters of divorce are concerned.

There is a long-held thought that men are more capable of taking care of themselves financially. That expectation means that men are often expected to continue to provide support for their ex-wives after divorce. It is usually the woman who initiates the divorce (Griffiths, 2007); men are hit multiple times financially through their ex-wives’ legal actions. Divorce is commonplace enough that it is thought by some experts that the overall expected outcome for a man getting married is negative despite that married men are happier and live longer than single men. It is a common recommendation that a man planning to marry should protect himself with a prenuptial agreement. Some experts go so far as to recommend that men never marry at all (Smith, 2007).

Divorce outcomes for fathers are even worse than for men who have not had children with their wives. They gain sole custody of their children only about ten percent of the time, compared to women gaining sole custody over half the time (Huang & Garfinkel, 2003). This is, of course, another hit to the wallet through child support requirements. Those men who try to be honorable and support their children from the beginning of divorce proceedings often manage only to find themselves at a disadvantage in the legal proceedings and wind up paying even more. Interestingly, even when custody is fully shared between the former partners, one parent (again usually the father) can be made to pay child support to the other. (White, 2007)

Child custody issues have more than a financial impact. Losing custody of one’s children increases the social and emotional impact of an already-traumatic time. There is often a perception that a non-custodial parent, which a divorced father becomes in over half of cases, is unfit or unworthy to parent his children. As an Ontario court judge put it in the case Brook v. Brook (2006), “A non-custodial parent is frequently perceived in the community as undeserving or unqualified to have custody of his or her child; and this perception is not always accurate.” Many good fathers are made to feel like “deadbeat dads” because of a system that favors mothers and expects that men are willing to step out of their children’s lives financially and emotionally.

Some would argue that most of this trauma is a result of the divorcees’ inabilities to reach a reasonable and equitable conclusion. Many people do try to reach a settlement that is fair to all parties concerned. The problem is that each party might have a different concept of what is “fair.” This leads to resentment, anger, and bitterness in even those divorces that start out amicable. As Ethan Marak (2007) puts it: “Obviously, women don't set out to be gold diggers, but divorce -- like death -- can turn otherwise good people into bloodthirsty wolves.”

References

Brook v. Brook (2006), 2006 CarswellOnt 2514 (Ont. S.C.J.)

Golitzin, G. (Associate Producer), & Swift, D. (Director). (1961). The Parent Trap [motion picture]. United States: Walt Disney Productions.

Griffiths, S. (2007, November 14). Sharon's view - A couple ahead of their time :[Echofeat Edition]. Northern Echo,p. 20. Retrieved November 27, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry database. (Document ID: 1382396211).

Huang, C. C., Han, W. J., & Garfinkel, I. (2003). Child support enforcement, joint legal custody, and parental involvement. The Social Service Review. 77(2), 255. (Document ID: 1291919241).

Marak, E. (2007). How men get screwed in divorce. Retrieved November 20, 2007, from Askmen.com Web site: http://www.askmen.com/fashion/austin_150/166_fashion_style.html

Smith, H. (2007, October 31). Ask Dr. Helen: Should men get married? Retrieved November 22, 2007, from Pajamas Media: Ask Dr. Helen Web site: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/ask_dr_helen_6.php

White, N.G. (2007, June 7). Child Support - a male perspective. New York Amsterdam News, p. 6. Retrieved November 23, 2007, from ProQuest Newsstand database.

Math

Statistics, really:

OK, I'm a math person, mostly. But I'm taking a stats class, and here are my observations:

Of the people in my house taking the stats class, one is a math genius, and one pretty much gives up on anything more complex than multiplication.

The first one does all the homework sets for fun, even though 3-4 problems in, she's got the hang of it.

The second one does no homework and gets the first one to tutor him through labs, making comments in discussion that get him by without the homework, which is not turned in (though labs are).

Once I realized that the second and third sets on the normal distribution were all variants on "find the area under the curve between these points," I stopped doing homework this week.

Screw math. I feel like poo anyway.

Most Smartest!

As a rule, I loathe reality shows. I hate them almost as much as I hate the feeling I had when I woke up to get the kids ready for school and realized my awesome automatic alarm clock had gone on DST on the old schedule, meaning they had 6 minutes to be out the door (Pop-Tarts FTW!).

Anyway, I've now become addicted to a reality show. I'm sitting here watching last night's America's Most Smartest Model. Right now I'm watching models complain about how they don't understand anything. Except sometimes, the Russian guy complains about how the others don't understand anything. Is it just a matter of feeling superior? How can I feel superior when it's just proof that pretty people can have negative IQs and still surpass my lifetime earning potential on an annual basis? It's still funny.

Aside: CAD was funny today, too, on the pain of Guitar Hero. And speaking of video games, the lack of achievements for the second player in Eternal Sonata is a pain in the ass.

Free association

Pain pain

breakthrough? breakthrough pain is a flareup through "otherwise controlled pain"

There's no breakthrough where there's no control

there's definitely a flare

I just hurt

all over

And I had an emotional break today

I feel empty and sad

I can't tell my boss I'm better than that without crying because he's not the one I need to tell didn't even write that damned review but emphasized it's a good review I can take criticism but I have issues with this criticism

I need more

more of me
more of moo-lah
more understanding from the managers of the world, the principals, the teachers

The kid was working on college algebra for fun, wtf, what kind of purgatory is first grade for a mind like that?

I feel hypomanic, scattered, and I can't sort out what i need for documentation

I want $100000, to pay all the debts and quit my job so I can homeschool and finish my degree and that's all

Tomorrow must be better

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? (Sex sells better if you're actually fertile at the moment! --At least chemically/hormonally...)

Hubby wants Ben Stein's new (ish) book, The Real Stars. Pick it up. It leans pro-military propagandist if you have issues with that.

I just read The Nine. Also, Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way. Bruce Campbell and Ron Jeremy both need to write more. Their stuff makes me LOL to the point that people start commenting on my apparent craziness. Now I'm working on The History of the Ancient World. Very good, but a rather slow read. Still, I hand-sold a copy yesterday.

You're playing with what?

Colored fonts are overdone, I know. I'm feeling weird today, though.

For adults only: Check out this "[Adult] toy or baby toy?" quiz

Cracked

A few funnies for Monday Morning:

"Internet Safety Tips"

Something about video games

This is, too

I found some wedding cakes on Reddit. Geeky stuff is awesome. Did I like that equalizer shirt?

I'm avoiding the Woot-Off because they don't ship to here anyway yet I am tempted. Woot, foul temptress!

Is it time to rethink the federal government's definition of "farm?" Or is it time to start growing a "farm" on my little piece of government property out back?

It's quiet and I just got in from work. My friend is usually up now, but she went to bed, which suggests to me that the guy she just split up with is still here. Ah, well, I'll just enjoy the quiet, and I'll go to bed in a little while.

Book pimpin'

The book I've been most excited about all summer is here! Sorry, it's not this one, though I still think you should run right out and buy a copy if you're into food blogs. No--it's Super Crunchers! If you're at all interested in how numbers will affect the future of civilization across all walks of life, you must read this book.

Other recent reads I highly recommend:
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens
Turtledove's massive alt-hist epic, which stretches from How Few Remain: A Novel of the Second War Between the States to Settling Accounts: In at the Death
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Otherwise, I'm re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire. If you haven't read it, READ IT!

There are also a couple Lord John Grey books coming soon, which I may have read as advance copies (shhhh!)

Other books I'll probably pick up soon:
Garden Spells
Three Bags Full
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand
(Seriously, if you're a reader but don't read much children's, you're missing out on a lot)
Confessor (Terry Goodkind, November. I hate the damned evangelizing. I like most of the characters when Richard leaves his ridiculous politics to himself. I have to know what happens).

Tor all the Vampire fans out there: this one's for you!

And this is for the guys

WTF?

OK, OK, enough Best Pic Ever.

I can't help but wonder if this is the solution to the transportation problems a lot of us face. If everything is an easy walk away, why do I need a car? How do they recruit for these? If one needs an accountant in about five years, please call me. Wait... this could be my dream writ large. Let's build a utopian gamer town!

I was reading Wil Wheaton's review of The Simpsons Movie. I saw that opening night (well, the midnight show the night before). I didn't have the experience Wil and some of his commenters had. Comments were generally quiet and the audience was genuinely appreciative of the movie. It was one of the most responsive audiences I've been in since I went to a Star Trek premiere at the Chinese Theater.

Of course, if you've seen the movie, you'll have an idea why Fairbanks, Alaska was the place to see it.

Learning to walk

there's a lot of press on Fatworld; I was disappointed to see that it's not out yet.

I've been reading God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything for most of the last week. Occasionally, Hitchens gets details wrong in his overeagerness to prove that most of what religion has done is bad (recent evidence that circumcision protects versus HIV is ignored in his joining the anti-circ crowd in his belief that this is an unspeakable mutilation designed to dull sexual feeling, and I have a few "overstated" notes in the margins). However, God is Not Great may be one of the most important books of our time. Read it.

AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

All my links are linked elsewhere when they're posted here, or at least most of them. If you ever stumble upon this blog, keep in mind that it's how I keep links for my husband and a few friends, not a moneymaker. My friends get annoyed if I IM/email them everything I find. Sometimes I just don't bother, or don't get online much for days or weeks. This is odd to me.

DRM--magic or physics?

Why is our government being taken over by these people?

Yeah, them.

50 things to know by 50

This looks promising

Here's an interesting article (back to those people in government!) on creationism rejecting science. The thing is that those who do reject science in this fashion also turn thinking people away from faith. I lean (Feri) Wiccan; in practice, I pray to the Father-god of my youth, who asked that we keep no other Gods before him and not bow down to idols, but not to not keep other Gods, and I pray to my grandmother for knowledge of what lies beyond. I don't want to get into a full discussion of my beliefs here, but deep down, I worship knowledge--and science is, literally, "knowledge," the knowledge of the world.

I love this picture

News to teens: your parents can do whatever they want. It's mostly not to embarrass you. You embarrass them more by your constant insistence that they're--that we're--old and out of touch. I work with sixteen-year-olds who think I'm one of the coolest people they've ever met. Hell, I wasn't even cool when I was sixteen. But with an almost-teenaged stepchild and a little guy going in to first grade, I'm a student now, and I can join any web service I like.

Um. ...What?

I keep seeing pro-choice stories.

Unemployed to-do list

I'm in pain. I'm putting off going to work, Chuck left me the crappy car and it hurts to drive right now, and I'm angry today. I'm angry because I'm in pain and there's no relief and I will be limping around on vacation. The world is ridiculous.