Media Social

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Pamela

I quit Facebook almost 2 years ago. I never miss it. One time a friend had some photos and she insisted I use Bob’s account to sign in if I wanted to see them. I was logged in about 30 seconds before I remembered why I hate it.

Another time an acquaintance that moved out of the country was in town and I would have missed her except a mutual friend made sure I knew she was around.

Otherwise, I am happily not on Facebook.

However, at Xmas family members were talking about keeping up with the kids on Facebook and they had little in-jokes concerning photos, etc.

And for 15 minutes I strongly considered reactivating my account.

“I could just login for short time once a week to see what the kids are up to.”

Except I know a short time would become an every day habit and pretty soon people who I like would start to annoy me with their photos of the coffee they just bought or their Helen Keller quotes. So I’m not doing it.

On the way home, the minute we got back into cell range, the phone started bleeping because one of my Twitter accounts was hacked and I spent 15 minutes strongly considering deleting both my accounts. Or at least my pamrentz one because I hardly ever tweet. The idea is that I can get the word out when I publish something (Why yes, there are a few things coming down the pipeline. More info when I have it.) except I have hardly any followers and most of them are other random writers I don’t know who followed me for what reason I do not know.

So I can follow them back and then get their 100 tweets a day promoting their writing? Do plumbers go on Twitter and search for other plumbers to follow and hope to get a follow-back so they can all promote their plumbing to each other? Maybe they do. I don’t spend enough time on Twitter to know.

I have a second Twitter account that is only for soccer and Timbers. If you’re not soccer or Timbers, I will not follow you back. I had a couple of non-soccer/Timbers friends in there and during the draft they were tweeting and interrupting my draft timeline which was not working for me. (I am now a person who follows a sports draft. Amazing.)

I need my Timbers twitter. That’s how I get all my breaking soccer news and tweets from the players that say things like “we have the greatest fans” which, duh. Also that’s where I announce when I’ve arrived at a match. If you feel like you’re missing out, right here.

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Meat From A Van

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Pamela

Did I mention I bought new glasses? I’m trying to give myself time to adapt but I am very sad that I’m not liking them. I’ve never taken glasses back before. I don’t know what’s going on but it seems like there’s only a tiny focused part in the middle of the lens and I have to keep moving my head around to see. This is not going to help with my neck pain. Or poor eyesight.

A fun problem to deal with after the new year.

I’m back from the holidays. I had a stupendously wonderful time. I ate and drank in heroic volumes so it was nice to go 24 hours (yesterday) and eat nothing but soup and fruit so I would be ready for a second round (starting today.)

Did I ever mention that guy who came by with the box of meat? This was actually awhile ago but I was thinking about it the other day. When I searched my archives I came up with this truck full of meat story from 2001.

I think it was the end of the summer and this guy who looked pretty rough around the edges rang the doorbell and when I opened the door he was standing in the yard next door. He hollered that he had this box of meat for me and to just hang on while he carried it over. When he arrived at my doorstep he told me that he would be putting it just inside my door.

“No you’re not,” I said.

“I’m not supposed to put it down without an overhang.”

“I didn’t even ask you to bring it over here,” I said.

He then waved over his shoulder and told me that my neighbors had already taken advantage of this incredible offer. You know what? Almost every sales person who has ever shown up at my front door and told me that my neighbor (non-specific wave over the shoulder) has already taken advantage of this incredible offer.

He had boxes of chicken and boxes of beef. The van door was open and there was no refrigeration that I could see. He also had a flier about their great company wandering neighborhoods with incredible boxes of meat.

What I wanted to say was, “If I go in the house and google ‘meat from a van,’ am I going to get a whole bunch hits that say, ‘Best offer ever’?”

But instead I told him I didn’t want any meat and to have a nice day. To save you the trouble, if you google meat from a van, you will get numerous sad tales, many from elderly people, who bought crap meat from a van and there was no way to get their money back.

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Happy Holidays 2013

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Pamela

No holiday letter this year. No holiday photo. No holiday story.

I’ve been working on another story and I didn’t want to set it aside to write something for the holidays.

I was going to do some sort of wrap up, but I’m not even up for that. There’s nothing major to wrap up.

Hope you have a wonderful time wherever you are and whatever you do. That’s what I’m going to be doing.

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I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Pamela

Remember when I said I would never go to a concert again? I told Bob, “Don’t even ask.”

I lied.

We saw that X and The Blasters were coming into town over xmas. We were both off. Bob said there were reserved seats in the balcony. So I agreed.

And it was really fun! I have seen X one other time, New Years Eve 1985.

Sometimes when I do stuff like this I get depressed like, “How did we all get so old?”

But last night it was really cool. The crowd was about 99% our age and everyone was all old and gray and fat and wearing glasses.

And we’re all still here! And we’re out getting crazy and having fun on a school night. And everybody wasn’t holding up their dumb phones to record the whole time. Yay, olds.

Since we were above we could see the crowd on the floor. You could see the memory of moshing (Did people mosh at X?) which took the form of pockets of shoving that eventually had to be broken up by security.

The bands were awesome. Phil Alvin was terrifc. His bio says he’s 60!

Exene is still a goddess. Billy Zoom was amazing. His bio says he’s 65! He looked like a character out of a Coen brothers movie. John Doe was all over the place. DJ Bonebrake was still there, too. These guys have been together forever.

Great night. I’m glad we went.

I’m going to try to muster the energy for a brief holiday wrap-up post tomorrow. But if I don’t make it, Merry Christmas. Please eat lots of Christmas cookies. The world is depending on it.

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Happy Bowl is Finished

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Pamela

I have a piece of exercise equipment that failed in exactly the way they have a lifetime guarantee that it won’t fail.

This exercise equipment has different pieces and this particular piece I could easily live without but you know, principle of the thing. I went online to see how this lifetime guarantee thing works.

They have one of those webpages that you scroll down forever and the text alternates black, red and blue and in different sizes. Lots of act now for a special offer and when you click away a window pops up asking: Are you sure you want to leave this page? I swear there’s a marketing template of this somewhere because I’ve seen the same style on a huge variety of products. The lifetime guarantee is cited numerous times.

I found a link that said it would tell me more about the lifetime guarantee and I clicked away and there it was all spelled out how the lifetime guarantee works. I didn’t even have to send my piece back, I just had to pay for shipping and they’d replace it for me. For more information on how this works, click here.

And that link took me back to the page with the first link. And I clicked until I did the circle again before I said, Wait a minute.

So there very clearly is a lifetime guarantee but how make it work for you is going to take some digging.

And I could dig. There is a phone number but how much is my time and energy worth?

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Do Not Wake the Sleeping Bear

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Pamela

I had a dream last night where I was mean to Bob and I knew I hurt his feelings but I could tell he was pretending I didn’t.

When I woke up I felt terrible and I couldn’t get back to sleep.

Finally, Bob rolled over and I could see that his eyes were open. “Are you awake?”

Him: Yes.

Me: I was mean to you in my dream. I feel so bad. I am so sorry.

Him: hmpft

He got up to go to the bathroom and then came back and scratched and cleared his throat.

Then he started telling me all about his evening and where he went and who he met and what they talked about. Then he got up again and got something in the other room to show me. This was 4 o’clock in the morning.

I figured I was forgiven and didn’t feel so bad. I rolled over.

He kept talking and talking and talking.

He’s so cute.

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The Queen of All Over Achievers

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Pamela

Look, here I am with the Portland Timbers, standing in a place that makes no sense.

HA! I posted today. Bet you didn’t think I would.

Just wanted to say that I found my bus pass! It *was* in my backpack only all tangled up with foil-wrapped wet wipes and tissues in a pocket I don’t normally use.

I also did a ton of things today, like writing and xmas shopping and working on my giant book to learn about iTunes. I’m only on page 34 and I’ve already learned a ton. I was doing pretty much everything wrong.

But now I’m tired of looking at the computer my eyeballs are two hardened lumps, perfect since I’m going to the eye doctor tomorrow.

Here is a terrific photo essay of the world in 1963. The countdown continues.

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30 Day Countdown to 50

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Pamela

I’m going to guess that this photo is from 2000 on this trip at Filmpark Babelsberg.

When I was looking for an image to use today I found a ginormous folder filled with more folders of random scanned images. Of the items that are labeled, they are called things like: “family scans” “more family scans” and “miscellaneous scans” and it goes on forever. I have no idea how I managed to hide this from myself.

I’m equally itching to start organizing and wanting to drag the whole thing to the trash.

I mentioned before I have a major birthday this year and today the final countdown begins. In the waning days of my 40’s I will be drinking hot cocoa, watching mystery shows and going to bed early. Don’t worry, I’m not going to post about it.

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There are Characters Named: Raleigh, Yancy and Stacker

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Pamela

Bob and I watched Pacific Rim last night after dinner. In terms of pure noise and destruction, it was terrific but in terms of anything else it was lacking in a big way. I couldn’t follow the story. (“Wait, so they’re underwater right now?” or Bob: “They can make these fancy robot-things but they still have regular helicopters?”) I read the wiki this morning and turns out it’s about 10 movies I’ve already seen all mashed together.

The other day I said that I’m just getting back into the habit of going to the library. I’m not sure why I stopped going. I think it was a combination of the library moving to a new location and me trying to be more diligent about reading the books I already have before running out and getting more books.

The part about the new library doesn’t make sense because the new library is gorgeous. The parking situation is slightly more challenging or at least that’s how I perceive it.

It also seemed like I could never find what I was looking for and I’ve been resistant to putting books on hold because then I’m at the mercy of when the book is available rather than when I have the time and inclination to read it. Plus then it feels one more trip I have to make.

The yoga studio recently moved close to the library so that’s my excuse to get back into it.

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Let the Spatchcocking Begin

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Pamela

I’m getting started a little later than I would have liked. But then I won’t be able to rush around and be all stressed out before dinner and who wants to miss that?

Hope everyone has a great day!

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