Ripoff @ MindSay

I have purchased a 'Writer's Notebook'.


We'll see if I actually use it.

I had to keep one in a class Spring of 2006, and while it was slightly lame, it was also slightly cool.  And since I don't know where THAT one went, I have purchased a new marble notebook that I can decorate to my liking and will hopefully write little tidbits and some good things in.  Kind of like here, I guess ??


On an angry, lame sidenote, IN WHAT ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE DOES A COMPOSITION NOTEBOOK (one of those marble ones you used in elementary school)  COST $3.59!?!?!?!  I don't care if it has '3 subjects' (a whopping 20 pages more than a regular 1 subj. one does)... those things are like 59 cents usually.  Argh.  Minus 10, CVS.  Minus 10.

My poor husband. We went to the doctor again yesterday ($25) to see what was wrong with him. The night before last, he showed me his tongue and it was covered in white. I said "my goodness, hun, you look like you have THRUSH!" Lo and behold I was right. He got it from the z-pack of pills ($25) that we bought him on the 27th. This time they gave him another z-pack ($39.99) and the same stuff they give babies with thrush, but in a larger quantity (nystatin:$34.95). The wonderful insurance company states that you can only get one z-pack per 20 days. That means that he is going to have to wait till the 15th to get the pills, unless we buy them at the aforementioned retail price...uh NO. The doc wasn't even completely sure about his diagnosis. He told him he had thrush *obvious* and strep throat *no evidence other than sore throat*. I said that the throat thing might be only b/c of the thrush going so far back into his mouth and not getting the other antibiotic might be a blessing in disguise.

Total bill for hubby being sick this time around (not including gas):
close to 100$, including his visit from before.

Funny how the one thing gave him another thing that had to be treated. That's why I rarely go to the doctor, same with him. 

So this phone rep from the "Southern Bridal Registry" AKA "Royal Prestige" called my fiancee Emily today to inform her that she'd won a sweepstakes, including a couple free 3 day--2 night vacation vouchers and a $500 gift certificate to some webstore.  She and I also have to go to some convention (cookware) where they're going to cook us lunch and discuss the details of said "sweepstakes."  Well she called me to tell me about all this today, and needless to say, we were both excited--because hey, we're poor and we wanted a free honeymoon.  But we took it warily, because hey--nothing is free anymore.  I mean damn... I want to give Emily a nice honeymoon--but it's not like I have access to a fortune to do so.

 

Anyway, I was being good and studying my Biology and Emily called me just to say goodnight and we mentioned the "sweepstakes" deal. I mentioned that we should check it out online... so after a few minutes I get up to Google "Southern Bridal Registry."  First thing that comes up is Scam Report.  I read all the bits... one of which is that you have to pay a $75 deposit to receive the vouchers--(it's supposed to be refunded to you at the end of your stay).  Oh, and also the $500 gift certificate does not pay for shipping and handling which I read was extremely expensive (came out to over $100).  I'm glad I read it all to begin with.  I called Emily--she'd read it too.  Scam, scam, scam... She's feels particularly misled I think--even though we didn't pay them anything (and believe me, we won't)... but ya know, they said she "won"... but we didn't win jack.  I'm really irritated at them because they got her and my hopes all up for a possibility of a honeymoon in the Bahamas...  You know, sometimes there are such things as real sweepstakes, where you actually win something... I was thinking that it could have been one of those.  But alas... skepticism wins and cynicism grows. 

 

You know, picking on young couples hoping to be newly weds soon is pretty yucky. 

I don't think we're going to waste our Saturday afternoon going to their cooking demonstration to sell their over-priced cookware.  Although, I may just decide to go and waste their time and shove it in their face that they're scammers, etc.  If I go though, I will be leaving my wallet in the car along with Em's purse.  Besides, I don't have any money that they can scam me for anyway. 

I don't particularly have any one topic that I am compelled to discuss at this time.  As a matter of fact, my intentions were to merely swing by mindsay and then head off to bed.  I had wanted to see if Hosmer had blogged, and if so, I was going to read said blog.  He hasn't, but that is not what this is about.  I swung over to my blog and realized that he had commented on my blog, stating that he gets freaked out when I blog on a regular basis.  Well let me tell you, he has every right to be.  More or less as soon as I undertook my 67th blogging comeback, the extreme cold moved into New England.  My blogging has single handedly stopped global warming.  Can you believe it?  I did it!  I fucking did it! 

 

Yet it is not any wonder why I don't blog often.  9 out 11 registered visitors of my blog in the past few months have been Hosmer.  It's nice to know I can count on one and only one person to check my mindsay space.  I feel like I am creatively equal to David Spade at this point.  I'm wondering if its the subject matter, the style, or the inconsistency.  I figure it is a mix of all three.  The lesson here is you have to leave the people wanting more, not leave the people altogether, which has become my forte as of late on this space.  I do have hope for consistency in the future. 

 

Come on people, get back on board, I'll do my best to bring some hot sauce on a consistent basis.  I realize the blogging community is out of control at this point, and the world needs another blogger like Johnston needed a Weird Al ripoff.  But I will be different!  I will not take prisoners.  There is no one safe from the cold hard facts that I will continue to bring to the light of day.  Surely there is enough crap in the state of Rhode Island to fuel my creative fires.  I maintain, and always will, that Rhode Island is a microcosm of the country as a whole.  Everything that exists in the country exists here.  You can ski, and then 10 minutes later jump into your wetsuit and surf.  The conditions for each are not ideal, but you can still do them.  Couple this with the fact that the state has an inferiority complex based on it's small stature and you have a recipe for blogging success. 

 

Here comes the heat, lets see if I can get my viewership up, and have Hosmer comprise at least less than 75%  of my readers from here on out.  A pipe dream I know.  But as Deion Sanders once said "you gotta have that dawg".  I have no clue what that guy was talking about, so I'll just blog as best I can, and you can react accordingly. 

 

I've done just about everything there is to do in business, but I still loathe bookkeeping. This time of the year is especially odious - tax season.

Every now and then though, the accounting world does come up with a good story like this one: "Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel." Ah yes, ain't capitalism grand! BushCo just loves it!!!

(update- I couldn't resist adding this): I wonder if there's a good market in smuggling cooking fuel especially in a country that is estimated to hold 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and possibly much more undiscovered oil in unexplored areas of the country. Iraq also is estimated to contain at least 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. link

And we're paying Halliburton millions to deliver fuel there?! WTF!!!!